Educational Media Reviews Online

Casting By begins with director Martin Scorsese saying “More than 90% of directing a picture is the right casting” and then shows Scorsese accepting his directing Oscar for The Departed (2006) and thanking his casting director Ellen Lewis and the cast of the film for its success. After watching Casting By, you realize just how important casting directors are, and how different some of the most successful movies would be if casting directors’ suggestions had been ignored.

When the Hollywood studio system was in its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, casting was a by-the-book process. Studios had large numbers of actors under contract, and films were cast from lists of these contract players. The casting process was done by body type or personality, and little creativity was employed in matching role with actor. As television came in and the studio system declined, casting directors became more important and the art of casting was born.

Marion Dougherty was at the forefront of this movement, and this documentary focuses on her and the people she helped get acting jobs. Dougherty was working as a department store window dresser when a college friend got her a job as assistant casting director for Kraft Television Theatre in 1949. Using her intuition that an actor was right for the role, Dougherty’s casting on this show and subsequent television programs and movies helped start the careers of some of the most famous and successful actors of the last 60 years, including Warren Beatty, James Dean, Robert Duvall, Dustin Hoffmann, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, and Christopher Walken. We get to see clips of these actors and others in their early roles. It’s particularly fun to see the actors who didn’t start out so well. Warren Beatty used a mumbled diction (in an attempt to emulate Marlon Brando) that made him almost impossible to understand, and Jon Voight’s performance in a Naked City episode was so bad, Voigt said, “I got almost physically sick watching it.”

Despite the increasing importance of casting directors, they often did not receive any mention in a show’s or movie’s credits. If they did, it was buried among many other names on the screen. Lynn Stalmaster, whose intuitive approach to casting in Hollywood was similar to Dougherty’s in New York, was the first casting director to receive a credit that stood out on its own, for The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968.

The issue of credits shows the politics and jealousies that can occur in moviemaking. The casting director cannot be called “casting director” in the credits. Instead, the credit has to read “casting by.” The Director’s Guild of America was behind this, objecting to the use of the word “director” in the credit, even though credits for director of photography and art director are common. Former DGA president Taylor Hackford tries to justify this thinking by saying in the documentary that a director such as himself is the ultimate person responsible for casting and so casting people shouldn’t have the director name in their credit.

Perhaps Hackford feels content with every role cast in every one of his movies, but the documentary shows other directors and producers admitting their initial casting instincts were wrong and the casting director was right. Marion Dougherty wanted to cast Jon Voight as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969), but the producer and director wanted Michael Sarrazin. It was only when Sarrazin was not available for a few weeks that they reconsidered using Voight. Voight went on to the first of several Oscar nominations and Midnight Cowboy won the Oscar for Best Picture. Would the success have happened with Michael Sarrazin in the role?

And Lethal Weapon (1987) director Richard Donner admitted he initially resisted Dougherty’s suggestion to cast Danny Glover in the movie because the part he would play was not specifically written for a black actor. The pairing of Glover with Mel Gibson made the film a huge hit, and it spawned three sequels. Donner gives Dougherty the credit for looking beyond what was written on the page and casting the best actor for the part regardless of race.

As a tribute to Dougherty and casting directors in general, an effort was made in 1991 to get the Academy Awards Board of Governors to give Dougherty an Oscar for her lifetime achievements. (Casting director is the only job in a movie that receives a solo credit but does not compete in an Oscar category.) Some of the biggest names in acting, plus noted directors and producers, supported the campaign with letters to the Academy. The Board of Governors decided not to approve the special Oscar, saying it’s impossible to determine how much of a film’s success is due to the work of the casting director alone. It’s suspected pressure from some directors torpedoed the campaign.

Dougherty died in 2011. Casting directors still don’t have an Oscar category (although they do at the Emmys.) At least this documentary serves as recognition of Marion Dougherty’s legacy, and gives respect and appreciation to a job that for too long has been lacking in it. Casting By is highly recommended for school, public, and academic libraries.