The infamous Oysters & Snails scene
As our sister page would indicate, we in Clan Murphy love to cast movies in our heads. Which means we also get a kick out of egregious examples of miscasting, which is what this list is all about.
In case you haven’t guessed, the list gets its title from a line spoken by Tony Curtis in Stanley Kubrick’s (otherwise) classic 1960 film Spartacus. In one of Hollywood’s unintentionally funniest examples of miscasting, Curtis was hired to play a highly educated Greek slave responsible (until he ran away) for the education of his master’s children.
The already pretentious-sounding line (“…the children of my master to whom I taught the classics,”) was made all the sillier by virtue of Curtis’ pronounced (and somewhat thuggish-sounding) Bronx accent, rendering “the classics” into “de classics.” That it was spoken to the great Shakespearean Laurence Olivier, of all people, who possessed one of the greatest stage voices ever, only heightens the fun. One cannot help but imagine Lord Larry having a very hard time indeed keeping a straight face.
We haven’t been able to find a vid clip of the scene yet–Bucket’s on the case!—but we hope to procure one soon. In the meantime, here are our posts on this sublime subject:
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