Better actors to play Huston

No offense, Rainbird, but you're wrong on both accounts (neither of which appear to be your own original ideas).

First, when you say Eastwood is not playing Huston but is playing Wilson, I wonder if you're being sarcastic, whether you watched the same movie that I did and/or whether you even know about the book this film was based on. Surely you must know that the author of the book, Peter Viertel, was one of the uncredited writers of the screenplay for "The African Queen" and that this film was a very thinly disguised account of his experiences working with the film's director, John Huston, while making the film on location in Africa. Even Mr. Viertel's character here is named Pete Verrill. Regardless of whether Eastwood calls him John Wilson or John Huston, it's obvious who he is playing. Now, I'm a huge Eastwood fan and have never disliked any of his films. The problem here is that Eastwood decided instead of having characters in his film, he made them Caricatures of the Huston, Hepburn and Bogie. If Eastwood wanted to do a purely fictional version of the book and/or persons involved, he could have done so without making these less than complimentary caricatures. If he wanted to play John "Wilson" then he should have played John Wilson and not tried so hard to do his best imitation of John Huston, which I think was terrible and failed miserably.

It's not that Eastwood isn't a good actor, and I think most people including myself think he is. It's just that instead of hiring an actor who actually COULD do an imitation of John Huston (as well as having him made up to at least resemble Huston), since THAT is the real person portrayed in the film, it seems Eastwood's ego got in the way and he refused to cast anyone else in the lead but himself. I see this as the main problem with the film. I have never seen or read any interviews with Eastwood where he discusses this film, but I am very curious to know how he feels about it today, nearly 20 years later, and whether he would now admit that it was a bad choice on his part.


"Agreed, and I think once you get over the fact that it's not a Huston imitation there's a lot to enjoy and admire in Eastwood's performance,..."

Wrong again. The simply fact is that the way Eastwood does this picture, it is darn near impossible to "get over the fact that it's not a Huston imitation." HELLO?! That's exactly what it is!! I DO admire EASTWOOD'S performance in the scenes that you mention, however. They are very well written. Unfortunately, I got the feeling that I was watching "Dirty Harry" in some scenes, especially the one is which he tells off the anti-Semitic character. Bottom line is that Eastwood is not and was not in 1990 an impressionist and he should have never tried to be in this film. If he wanted to make this a caricature of Huston, perhaps he should have hired Robin Williams. If you want to portray John Huston in a film, regardless of what you may choose to call him, at least get an actor who can give a good performance AS John Huston; don't call him "Wilson" then clearly play Huston. Remember "a rose by any other name...." Only in this case, the smell is not so sweet.