I'm not going to list everyone, but there's at least ten A-list movie stars, not to mention tons of recognisable character actors and TV show stars in the supporting cast.
Can anyone think of a starrier film?
Clinton/Kaine 2016
Judgment at Nuremberg
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057193/
Oink! Oink!🐖
The Great Escape had a lot, but The Longest Day did too.
shareThere may be some equally all-star casts, but what makes this movie somewhat unique is that many of these guys were at or near the very peak of their stardom at the time of release (O'Neal, Caan, Gould, and especially Caine, Connery, Redford, and Hackman). Most movies of this sort fill out the cast with stars a bit past their prime. There were very few venerable old-timers aside from Olivier and Bogarde.
shareTrue Romance and Sin City both have a ton of big names in them as well.
shareThere may be some equally all-star casts, but what makes this movie somewhat unique is that many of these guys were at or near the very peak of their stardom at the time of release (O'Neal, Caan, Gould, and especially Caine, Connery, Redford, and Hackman). Most movies of this sort fill out the cast with stars a bit past their prime. There were very few venerable old-timers aside from Olivier and Bogarde.
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I agree with this assessment. These stars were A list at the time...though came the 80s, O'Neal, Caan and Gould would rapidly fall off the list.
Sean Connery was ALWAYS A list. He's the biggest star in "Murder on the Orient Express," but in that one he had no other star of equal current magnitude to play against (Albert Finney was "prestige" and Michael York was temporarily hot, but for folks like Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall, and Anthony Perkins, their major star days were behind them.)
But here's Connery in THIS movie AND its got Redford and O'Neal....and Caine perhaps leading the British "names" along with his Sleuth co-star Olivier.
As a "numbers" game, A Bridge Too Far beat Judgment at Nuremberg (Tracy, Lancaster, Widmark, Dietrich, Clift, Garland).
Meanwhile, a Mad Mad World only had one major MOVIE star in it: Spencer Tracy. The rest were comedians almost exclusively from television: Milton Berle and Sid Caesar had been the biggest TV stars of the 50s, but were now "fading fast." Phil Silvers "Bilko" show was in the same league -- but he'd soon be replaced by Don Rickles as an insult comedian. Its Jonathan Winters movie to steal, but he never became a movie star. One other star in it -- Mickey Rooney -- HAD been bigger than Spencer Tracy( and co-starred with him as a "kid") but...no more.
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How the West Was Won and The Longest Day come close. How the West Was Won split into anthology segments -- one stars Jimmy Stewart, one stars John Wayne, one stars Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark, one stars Gregory Peck and Robert Preston. Debbie Reynolds and George Peppard were "spread out" among all the stories as relatives and "anchors" for the big stars -- but none of the big stars stays on screen for very long.
Which brings us to The Longest Day. Very much the "match" for A Bridge Too Far, with one "super big star" (John Wayne) in a short part, and noteable stars like Robert Mitchum and Henry Fonda along. And Richard Burton. Sean Connery's there, too -- but early on, and "starting out." (Hey, Sean Connery's in THREE of the competitors.)
Which brings us back to "A Bridge Too Far." The "John Wayne megastar in a short part" role in A Bridge Too Far is: Robert Redford. Here's why:
Screenwriter William Goldman tells us that to sell the movie in foreign markets, one of two male stars had to be hired for a big cameo: Robert Redford or Steve McQueen. "A Bridge Too Far" screenwriter Goldman knew Redford(he wrote several Redford movies, including Butch Cassidy and All the President's Men.)
"A Bridge Too Far" Director Richard Attenborough knew Steve McQueen from acting with him in The Great Escape and The Sand Pebbles.
Evidently, it was a see-saw battle between Redford and McQueen to win that part -- and Redford said a definitive "yes" first. (Redford was paid more for a few days work than anybody else in the movie.) You will note that it takes a long time for Redford to be in the movie -- you have to wait for him. And he is in arguably the biggest episode in the movie.
So this IS the starriest movie. One highly paid superstar -- Redford -- and THEN Connery and Hackman and Caine and the rest.
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But this is yet another movie where the stars do "short parts." They are intercut here, rather than laid "one after the other" as in How the West Was Won, but they are still short parts(and Redford doesn't stick around.)
I suppose for the opportunity to see big stars working together -- The Towering Inferno is the biggest -- Newman and McQueen. But this: McQueen shows up about 40 minutes in (you wait for HIM), and McQueen and Newman only share the screen three times. The rest of the time they are on the phone to each other.
True Romance and Sin City both have a ton of big names in them as well.
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When we shift to "modern day" all star casts -- say, from the 90's on -- its pretty slim pickings. Because modern day stars cost a LOT to hire. I recall that somebody wanted to hire "merely" TV comedians for a "Mad Mad World"-like comedy called "Rat Race" -- and even "merely" TV comedians were too expensive.
True Romance and Sin City don't have marquee stars like A Bridge Too Far did -- they have great, interesting actors(in Sin City, Mickey Rourke leads 'em all), but the only marquee star in Sin City is Bruce Willis(ever one to "fade" and then comeback) and True Romance? Brad Pitt wasn't a big star yet; James Gandolfini wasn't a star at all yet; Chris Walken and Dennis Hopper were "character guy greats."
A good case could be made for Ocean's Twelve, because when Ocean's Eleven was made, Matt Damon wasn't a really big star yet, but after The Bourne Identity when he came back for Twelve -- he WAS. So you had Clooney AND Pitt(now both big stars) AND Damon(now finally a big star) AND Julia Roberts(a big star for a long time) AND Catherine Zeta-Jones(now Oscared from Chicago) AND Bruce Willis(in a cameo as himself)...pretty much interacting with each other and not doing sequential cameos. Ocean's Thirteen lost Julia and Catherine but gained Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin.
And for all of that ...I still go with "A Bridge Too Far" as the starriest cast.
But what irony: everybody expected "A Bridge Too Far" to be an unstoppable blockbuster but it came out around the same time in May 1977 as Star Wars(with NO stars except Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing) and...the rest is history. "A Bridge Too Far" turned out to be too much of a downer, anyway.
Mars Attacks
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