MovieChat Forums > A Guy Named Joe (1944) Discussion > Great Movie, but 'Always' is better.

Great Movie, but 'Always' is better.

posted 15 years ago by tootsie55
5 replies | jump to latest

Spencer Tracy (Pete) was 43 when he made this movie; Irene Dunne, 45, plays Dorinda and both are too old for their roles. I think actors in their late 20s or early 30s would have been more believable in the movie's WWII setting. Tracy and Dunne are very good together, but they don't have the sizzle that Dreyfuss and Hunter do in "Always".

What was the director of "A Guy Named Joe" thinking when a 27-year-old Van Johnson (18 years younger than Dunne) was cast as Ted, Dorinda's love interest after Pete is out of the picture? I like the story (even though there's a little too much war-time propaganda in it), BUT it's just TOO WEIRD watching a woman who looks 45 paired with a man who is clearly much, much younger. Dunne and Johnson can't overcome the miscasting.

I think the remake (different storyline) is just as good and the casting is perfect. In "Always", Richard Dreyfuss plays Pete who is probably 10-12 years older than Holly Hunter's Dorinda. Dreyfuss is magnetic in his role and you can feel the chemistry between he and Hunter. The actor cast as Ted (very cute) is closer to Dorinda's age, and they are great together as well. Women love guys that can make them laugh. Spielberg got the age differences and the romance right. Watch Pete's ghost dance with Dorinda at her house after her date with Ted. Love it!

[–] geode 15 years ago

Spencer Tracy (Pete) was 43 when he made this movie; Irene Dunne, 45, plays Dorinda and both are too old for their roles. I think actors in their late 20s or early 30s would have been more believable in the movie's WWII setting. Tracy and Dunne are very good together, but they don't have the sizzle that Dreyfuss and Hunter do in "Always".

What was the director of "A Guy Named Joe" thinking when a 27-year-old Van Johnson (18 years younger than Dunne) was cast as Ted, Dorinda's love interest after Pete is out of the picture? I like the story (even though there's a little too much war-time propaganda in it), BUT it's just TOO WEIRD watching a woman who looks 45 paired with a man who is clearly much, much younger. Dunne and Johnson can't overcome the miscasting.

I think the remake (different storyline) is just as good and the casting is perfect. In "Always", Richard Dreyfuss plays Pete who is probably 10-12 years older than Holly Hunter's Dorinda. Dreyfuss is magnetic in his role and you can feel the chemistry between he and Hunter. The actor cast as Ted (very cute) is closer to Dorinda's age, and they are great together as well. Women love guys that can make them laugh. Spielberg got the age differences and the romance right. Watch Pete's ghost dance with Dorinda at her house after her date with Ted. Love it!

It was called star power, and that is why the original is better cast than the remake. In fact everything is better about the original in my opinion. My main gripe with the newer one is that in a fantasy where everything is already stretched to the limit in terms of the "willing suspension of disbelief" we have a major plot flaw that makes it impossible to accept. With very, very rare exceptions trees don't shoot back. That makes the Dreyfuss character simply a reckless fool and his death in vain, unlike the part as played by Tracy.

I agree with what audiences said when the sorry remake was released. The few who saw it declared a better title would have been "Never"...which is what should have been the answer about whether or not to green light the redo.

Irene Dunne may have been in her 40's but she sure didn't look it. Van Johnson does not look much, much younger, they look roughly the same age. You are focussed way too much on stats on paper vesus the way things look in the film.

Oh Lord, you gave them eyes but they cannot see...

[–] rivergirl17 14 years ago

You can't be serious that Johnson and Dunne look about the same age. He looks like her son. Ms Dunne was still beautiful, but looked every day of 45.

That said, it is still a far better movie than Always. That was tragic casting...There was zero chemistry between Hunter and Dreyfus, who has no charisma at all. I couldn't have cared less about them.

[–] JackDaniels-theJackMormon 10 years ago

You can't be serious that Johnson and Dunne look about the same age. He looks like her son. Ms Dunne was still beautiful, but looked every day of 45.

That said, it is still a far better movie than Always. That was tragic casting...There was zero chemistry between Hunter and Dreyfus, who has no charisma at all. I couldn't have cared less about them.

Quite frankly I never thought about that age difference when I watched the film. She looked great for somebody that was 45 and sure came across as younger to me. I don't personally know any 45 year old women that look anywhere near that young.

I will take the fifth

[–] puirt-a-beul 9 years ago

You can't be serious that Johnson and Dunne look about the same age. He looks like her son. Ms Dunne was still beautiful, but looked every day of 45.

I have to agree, rivergirl, without meaning an ounce of disrespect to the magical Irene Dunne. The scene where Dorinda where Ted first meets her and tries his lines on her, I really was expecting her to say she was far too old for him, because that's how they looked, side by side at the table.

For most of the rest of the film, her screen presence and charisma carried her through (and Victor Fleming's flattering soft focus for every shot she was in certainly did her favours), but that one shot of them side by side at the tble really shows up the casting mismatch. But they both give great performances (and Van Johnson was a bit of a dish in his day as well). For me, though, Spencer Tracy steals the film -- it was a surprisingly sensitive performance from him.

That said, it is still a far better movie than Always. That was tragic casting...There was zero chemistry between Hunter and Dreyfus, who has no charisma at all. I couldn't have cared less about them.

Yeah, again I agree. I've always loved Holly Hunter, and it's a long time since I've seen Always (I'm really not a Spielberg fan), but I do remember feeling that the film was not that great and that Dreyfus was pretty much a charm-free zone. In fact, I don't actually understand the Dreyfus appeal generally -- to me, he'll always be the pudsy one from American Graffiti in every role he plays, and to my mind his single best performance has been as the boorish Player in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. (Oh, and at the risk of killing any tiny glimmer of credibility I might still have, I don't much warm to Audrey Hepburn either.)

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] Starman (412) 5 years ago

The age gap of the film is exactly one of the reasons why the film is so beautiful, it makes you feel that love has no boundaries, relationships with huge age gap are very often the most beautiful and deepest in life, because in those cases t signifies how much love goes far beyond the body or culture between those people, it goes for the eternity of the soul. And that's what this film has emphasized in my eyes as well. Fleming knew what he was doing. Spielberg's version was much more safe and conventional, not just by avoiding the age gap, which I find quite important aspect of the story, but because when it was made, in the 80's, when fantasy films like this, Made In Heaven or Ghost were much more common, in 1943 it was strikingly unique.