MovieChat Forums > Knock on Any Door (1949) Discussion > Sal Mineo as Nick?

Sal Mineo as Nick?

posted 13 years ago by claudenorth
5 replies | jump to latest

If this film had been made ten years later, Sal Mineo would have been perfect in the role of Nick.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Maybe, and he was a very good actor (better than John Derek), but this was exactly the kind of role Mineo always got offered -- the troubled, doomed youth -- which ended up limiting his career. He certainly wouldn't have needed yet another such part.

Besides, if the film had been made ten years later, you wouldn't have had Humphrey Bogart available to star, since he died in 1957. Much better to have had Bogie in an unusual role than Mineo in just another of the same kind of part he played far too often.

[–] willjohn 13 years ago

Too short.

[–] robertmarcl 13 years ago

But Sal wouldn't appear on the screen until 1955! However, his own mother did fear he would have been typecast in those JD roles. I am reading Sal at the moment and there were a lot of JD roles that he wanted to pursue, but his mother thought that he would have been typecast for those parts forever. Funny that he didn't want to take part for the Native American role in Disney's Tonka because he thought it was really not believable, but his own mother insisted that he expands other characters and that's what he did. Especially as Gene Krupa.

[–] mdami75602 13 years ago

I think John Derek looks very much like Sal Mineo and that this thread is very appropriate.

[–] gngral23 13 years ago

I was thinking the very same thing when I saw this movie yesterday! The resemblance is uncanny!