Who would you cast in a Mercury Life of Christ?

[Terry]

This is just for excrements and guffaws:


Agnes Moorhead as the Virgin Mary

Walter Huston as Joseph

John Huston as the angel Gabriel

Paul Stewart, Richard Wilson, and Tim Holt as the Three Wise Men

Orson Welles (in a false nose) as Jesus Christ

Jack Carter as John the Baptist

Everett Sloane as Judas Iscariot

Joseph Cotten as Saint Matthew

Frank Readick as Saint Luke

Edward G. Robinson as Saint Paul

Dolores Del Rio as Mary Magdalene

Gus Schilling as Lazarus

John Houseman as Lucifer

George Colouris as Pontius Pilate

Eustace Wyatt as King Herod

Jack Moss as Barabbas

Glenn Anders as the Roman in charge of the crucifixion

[Jeff Wilson]

Glenn Anders as the Roman would be classic. "I heard you were gonna rise from the dead, fella!" Might damage the tone of the picture, though. Welles would be better served as head of the Pharisees or Pilate. It would have made for an interesting film no question.

[Harvey Chartrand]

My money is on Erskine Sanford as Pontius Pilate!
Of the Mercury players, only Sanford could display the dizzy confusion of the sputtering Roman Governor as he tries to make up his mind what to do, who to please and how to get the whole mess off his plate...

As Christ, I would bring in an outsider and cast Cary Grant in the role, just so he could say, when delivered to the Roman centurions by his treacherous disciple: "Judas, Judas, Judas!"

[Terry]

It's funny how well I can visualize Anders and Grant saying such things.

Geez, I forgot about Erskine...and Edgar Barrier as well. Still, there's lots of disciples left to cast.

[Le Chiffre]

Here's Welles on another Life of Christ picture he was involved with-

PB: There's this funny story about KING OF KINGS, that the reason you didn't get any billing on it...

OW: No, I was insistent that my name shouldn't be mentioned because it was so bad. They paid me $25,000 to narrate it and my condition was that my name not be used. It was such a bad picture. I said I will not be associated with anything as bad as this. I'll take the money but don't use my name.

PB: There isn't really that much narration in the picture anyway.

OW: Well, there was originally. Oh, much more. I had to, you know, it was about three hours, and that's alot for me to narrate. But you can do it usually.

PB: The story I heard was that you said they had to give you either first billing or no billing.

OW: Oh, c'mon...