Tuesday 27 March 2012

That is illogical, Mr Baggins

Okay so I just missed his birthday (sorry, Leonard) but I did notice, whilst encountering once again The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, that from 1968 to 1973, there was a campaign to get a live action Lord of the Rings movie underway and fans were keen to see Mr Nimoy as Aragorn.

Not the actor that immediately leaps to mind for such a role. You can imagine William Shatner in the part (all too easily, I'm afraid) but Nimoy? Hmm...takes a bit of doing. Anybody got any other suggestions for 1960s actors to fill the shoes of the Fellowship?

10 comments:

  1. Laurence Olivier as Elrond.
    Orson Welles as Sauron.
    Dudley Moore as Frodo.

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  2. Hehehe...love the Frodo suggestion. And perhaps Julie Christie as Galadriel?

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  3. Richard Burton as Denethor
    Richard Harris as Gandalf
    James Coburn as Boromir
    Jack Palance as Saruman
    Toshiro Mifune as Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth
    Fess Parker as Faramir
    Andy Griffith as Tom Bombadil
    Alright, getting silly...

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  4. Being completely silly ... I always pictured Sean Connery as kind of a 60s beefcake version of Gandalf. Y'know, calling Galdriel "Pooshey Galore-driel" and all that. OK, maybe not! lol

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  5. We're filming this one in the UK:

    Tom Baker as Frodo

    Dennis Waterman as Sam
    Jon Pertwee as Merry
    Neil McCarthy as Pippin

    Brian Blessed as Gimli
    David Warner as Legolas

    John Phillip Law as Aragorn
    John Thaw as Boromir

    Gandalf would be soooo hard to choose:

    William Hartnell, Geoffrey Bayldon, John Le Mesurier, or Peter Cushing?

    Casting Peter Cushing as Gandalf could allow a great confrontation with:

    Christopher Lee as Saruman, or John Laurie, maybe Le Mesurier?

    Diana Rigg as Arwen
    Honor Blackman as Galadriel

    Marty Feldman as Gollum Perhaps Don Knotts?
    (I'd have liked Peter Lorre, but he was dead before '68...)

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    Replies
    1. They're taking the hobbits to Carnaby Street

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    2. For a second, I thought of Ken Loach, not Russell:

      Hobbit Come Home

      Gwai

      The Ringkeeper

      Route Orodruin

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  6. @Biopunk - Marty Feldman as Gollum!!! Hahahaha, that is gold! Andy Serkis, stand outside.

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  7. Nimoy as Aragorn? Not that crazy, particularly in the 1960s when people were still working out what Lord of the Rings was all about. After all, Aragorn is a direct descendent of Elrond's brother, and presumably the line of Numenorean kings retains a large dose of Elvishness - tall, long lived, etc. And we could imagine Nimoy playing Elrond, and/or his brother, so...

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