Fantasy casting

[betweensunandmoon]

In a properly faithful movie adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel, either Leslie Howard or Errol Flynn would be my dream Raoul. (Little things like being dead for over half a century are not going to stand in the way of my Raoul-fangirling!)

Just a bit of Raoul-related wishful thinking...

Comments

[igenlode]

Hmm... Flynn? No.

The -- serious -- suggestion that he and Bette Davis could be loaned from Warner Brothers to play Ashley and Scarlett in "Gone With the Wind" would have been interesting; I think Ashley was within his capabilities, given what I've seen of his more sensitive acting roles, and it would have been an intriguing performance, whereas Rhett would simply have been typecasting. But I cannot see him playing the very young and vulnerable Leroux-Raoul. It would have been worse than Norman Kerry, who plays the part as a sort of Flynn-esque dashing officer...

Leslie Howard I can't really see doing it either: he just doesn't do immature characters (while Flynn does, to an extent, but not that sort of immature). His best roles are the ones where he plays quiet, intelligent, self-possessed Englishmen, and none of those apply to Raoul at all. (Well, he's not stupid -- he sits down from time to time and applies his intelligence to the situation, when he thinks of it -- but he does tend to act on emotional impulse.)
Leslie Howard playing Raoul would be worse than his Romeo :-p

My dream Raoul-casting would have been Lars Hanson ("The Wind", "The Scarlet Letter", "Flesh and the Devil"): see https://igenlode.dreamwidth.org/48196.html