a fine cast in this movie

with some great character actors.

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I once(as ecarle) opined that "Charade" (1963) had, arguably, "the best cast in a thriller," what with Cary Grant paired with Audrey Hepburn in their only screen pairing, and future stars Walter Matthau, James Coburn, and George Kennedy in support.

I was countered with this one. I suppose that Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas give Grant and Hepburn competition as a couple...of stars. With Oscar winner Fredric March as the US President(a role first offered to Spencer Tracy; March sometimes took Tracy's castoffs, as when Tracy quite The Desperate Hours with Humphrey Bogart over billing.

Ava Gardner -- beginning her blowsy, puffy too-old-for-the-role era -- nonetheless trails her own stardom.

As for the character men: Edmond O'Brien and Martin Balsam were billed together on the same title card; O'Brien over Balsam(O'Brien had an Oscar of his own from 1954; Balsam would get HIS Oscar in 1965.) Seeing them in their first scene together, Balsam looks more suave, trim and "put together"(albeit bald); O'Brien has the seedy, shambling look of his hard drinking Southern Senator character(and O'Brien got an Oscar nom for THIS role, too.) This was literally between his drunken newspaperman in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) and his burnt out old man in "The Wild Bunch." O"Brien never really cleaned up too good -- but he was honorable in all three roles.

Andrew Duggan as the real tall, ultimately heroic "Mutt" Henderson is a trivia answer to a Tarantino movie -- he played patriarch Murdoch Lancer on the "Lancer" TV series -- unseen in the "Lancer" scenes being shot in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but always talked about.

And I rather liked goofy-faced Jack Mullaney in his brief scenes as a young Navy man gossiping too much for his own good with Kirk Douglas -- Mullaney was a sitcom comedy guy, an Elvis sidekick -- oddly at odds with the seriousness of this movie, but fun on his own.

CONT