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Hitchcock Wanted To Cast Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint

posted 20 years ago by ecarle
5 replies | jump to latest

Evidently seeking to duplicate the success of "North by Northwest," Hitchcock sought Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint for the roles played by Newman and Andrews in the film. Grant said "no," and Universal indeed wanted Hitchcock to use really big stars for both the male and female leads, and Andrews was "hotter" than Saint thanks to "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music."

Personally, I'm glad that Grant and Saint didn't do this film, for though it is not bad, it is not as good as "North by Northwest."

Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were an interesting pair for the roles -- and the last big stars to ever agree to work in a Hitchcock picture.

[–] nATHAN81 19 years ago

Cary was already looking too wrinkly by NBNW no way could he have done this .

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[–] ecarle 19 years ago

Grant decided as much himself. He was offered three thrillers for 1966: "Torn Curtain" (Paul Newman took the role), "Gambit" (Michael Caine took the role) and "Arabesque" (Gregory Peck took the role.) Grant himself personally chose a movie called "Walk, Don't Run" to make -- in which he played matchmaker to a young couple. Then he retired.

[–] marxist_princess 16 years ago

I am a big fan of Julie Andrews, but I think in this movie, it should have been Eva-Marie Saint. From what I've seen of her, Saint had quite an understated style of acting for the time, and I wonder if this would have been a better fit with Newman's acting in the film. Andrews' acting isn't melodramatic in the film... and it's certainly not bad... actually it's very hard to put your finger on just what it is, because I think she is a very good actor, especially in the way she uses her eyes. At the least though, I think there is a nasty clash between Andrews' more stylized, sing-songy form of innotation (a bit like Audrey Hepburn) and Newman's disaffected mumbling. It is like they are two different types of actors from two different genres.

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] murray_johnc 16 years ago

Torn Curtain was certainly problematic for Hitch, many critics blamed the script, but the problem could have been more to do with the casting. Paul Newman and Julie Andrews both demanded a paycheck of 1 million to take the starring roles - waay over the top and Hitch was annoyed (after all, a few years earlier Janet Liegh had starred in his most lucrative film "Psycho" for just $30,000). Julie Andrews's other acting committments squeezed Hitch into a very tight shooting timeline when he was still far from happy with the script. Another actress with a more flexible schedule could have allowed Hitch more time to get script rewrites he needed. Paul Newman's big ego didn't help matters either. In retrospect, when CG and EMS passed up the roles and then PN and JA presented him with problems, I feel that Hitch should have kept his options open and continued looking for suitable leads while his team of writers ironed out the glitches in the script.