Nobody sets out to make a bad movie. Why would they? Not only is it a colossal waste of money but it will remain on the permanent record of everyone associated with it. Still, there are factors that no one can control and sometimes an actor makes a movie with the best intentions that the critics hate, audiences avoid like the plague or conflicts during production doom it to failure. Here are 15 well documented examples including Marlon Brando (A Countess from Hong Kong), Shelley Winters (Knickerbocker Holiday), Richard Widmark (Slattery’s Hurricane), Beverly Garland (Swamp Women and Stark Fear), Bruce Dern (The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant), Ava Gardner (The Bible…In the Beginning), Christopher Plummer (The Royal Hunt of the Sun), Ida Lupino (The Hard Way), Tony Curtis (Son of Ali Baba), Sally Kellerman (Reform School Girl), Ernest Borgnine (The Devil’s Rain), Raquel Welch (Myra Breckinridge), Warren Oates (Chandler), Joan Shawlee (Prehistoric Women) and Vincent Price (Green Hell).
Continue readingTag Archives: The Royal Hunt of the Sun
Christopher Plummer: The Von Trapp Who Didn’t Want to Sing
In interviews over the years Christopher Plummer would often jokingly refer to The Sound of Music as “The Sound of Mucus” or “S&M” but one can easily understand why he’d rather talk about almost any other film or theater production in his career because that 1965 blockbuster film was really a showcase for Julia Andrews. Plummer’s role as Captain Von Trapp was, in his own words, “very much a cardboard figure, humourless and one-dimensional.” Even though screenwriter Ernest Lehman collaborated with Plummer on improving the part, Captain Von Trapp was not destined to be one of the actor’s favorite roles. And having to sing was another drawback for him. As he confessed in his memoirs, he was “untrained as a singer. To stay on a long-sustained note was, for me, akin to a drunk trying to walk the straight white line…” Continue reading

