Awful Movies That Weren’t Saved By A Great Cast

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Many producers assume that a big budget cast is all it takes to ensure a movie’s box office success, and squander the bulk of their budget trying to get the big names involved in their latest spectacle. Never mind the script, we have Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Naomi Watts on board. Sometimes the A-List stars can’t save a real stinker. In fact, you seriously wonder why a major star picked a role that must have looked doomed even from the script reading stage. Jealousy and vanity play a part. Many stars want to get on board a movie because others have already signed up and they are often guaranteed a fee even if the film is a box-office flop. Others see any film work as just another day at the office and if a film has exotic location work or a chance to do romantic clinching and even nude scenes with a glamorous co-star, then what the Hell. It becomes a bit of work followed by an expenses paid holiday. They don’t care if it’s Hamlet or King Kong V Lassie 4 – This Time It’s Personal. A job’s a job and money is money. Of course, it is the fans and the audience (the chumps who ultimately pay the wages) who can be left feeling cheated by the completed movie. Their hero ends up surrounded by planks of wood, or even ends up delivering lines as if he or she doesn’t care. The stars take the money and run. The fans realize they ought to have seen that other movie they thought about instead. Hollywood couldn’t care less. Here is a movie where an impressive looking cast couldn’t possibly save the the project they signed up to from a critical mauling. The Greatest Story Ever Told A more apt title might have been The Greatest Travesty Ever Made, or The Greatest Story Ever Told Really Badly. It’s like watching a Biblical movie made as a joke by atheists. This was one of the biggest budget religious epics ever, and essentially an over-long A-List school nativity story. For once it wasn’t just a case of the big names being caught up in bad movie making but the very use of leading Hollywood names that destroyed the movie’s credibility. Jesus was one of the few characters well cast, with Max Von Sydow making his first non-Swedish movie giving the God in human form figure a sufficiently alien, different feel. Other cast members mostly just get to react in awe and wonder if he so much as walks by them. The big name casting simply reduced audiences to star-spotting and wondering who might pop up next. David McCallum was Judas, strangely throwing himself in a fire pit rather than hanging himself after his betrayal of his Lord as the Bible suggests. Charlton Heston was no stranger to sword & Sandal roles so his casting as John The Baptist might be forgiven one day. Roddy McDowall and Shelley Winters are just there, but one legendary fleeting cameo really stands out as one of the most laughable instants in Hollywood history. A lone Roman Centurion watches Jesus die on the cross and drawls in pure unmistakable Texan drawl “Truly this man was the son of God,” and audiences erupt in disbelief and laughter as they realize that they just watched John Wayne. He is on screen for about six seconds. The whole movie had the look and feel of a western. The gathering of the twelve Apostles is similar to the rounding up of The Magnificent Seven. Filming was not done in the Holy Land but Nevada, Death Valley and the California used in many John Ford backdrops. It’s a wonder Wayne never got to shoot someone. Director/writer George Stevens, (trying to add his name in with John, Mark, Matthew & Luke) went grossly over budget, and tried to present the movie in a four hour print, which was eventually chopped to various shorter cuts ranging from 2 hours 17 minutes to 3 hours and 30 minutes. Only Python’s Life Of Brian is funnier than this biblical balderdash. Youtube – John Wayne’s notorious cameo from the movie Arthur Chappell