Creative Casting Winners

Before I get to the main topic, please note the new photo feature to the right, Book of the Week. Young Lila will be making the choices without my assistance (except to open the barrister cases), so expect some very youthful, non-crime oriented titles to appear occasionally. But for her first choice, she opted for the aptly named SMALL CRIMES, by Dave Zeltserman. Click here for Corey's review of this terrific noir novel.

Now, then. A couple, three days back I posted a survey asking readers to cast (with limited choices) their favorite crime fic characters. I'm probably alone in this, but I found the results fascinating.

The first character I asked readers to cast was Harry Bosch, and because Harry is such an enormously popular figure I reckoned that the question would produce the most varied results among all the characters. Wrong!

Readers agreed more on who should play Harry than on any other question. When asked to choose between Andy Garcia, Johnny Depp, Sam Elliott, Tony Shahloub, and Humphrey Bogart, a whopping 75% of the responses identified SAM ELLIOTT as the actor they'd  like to see portray Harry.

I have to say, Mr. Elliott has aged well. And he has the gravitas as well as the acting chops to make me believe he could do justice to Hieronymous. I also have to confess that Sam was a last minute addition to the list, replacing Adam Sandler. Am I prescient or what?

As for who should be the next Miss Marple, the choices were: Shirley MacLaine, Whoopi Goldberg, Octavia Spencer, Lucy Liu, and Jane Fonda. Shirley took 42% of the vote, not enough that she should be talking to her agent about the role.

Exactly half of the voters thought that Sean Connery was the Bond actor who would make the best Perry Mason. Pierce Brosnan was the next closest with 30%. Maybe I should have added George Lazenby to the list? Nah, I didn't think so.

Viola Davis took half the votes to play Mma Precious Ramotswe, with S. Epatha Merkerson taking the rest but for one lone dissenting voice who opted for -- ready? -- Kathy Bates.

Robert Downey, Jr., got support from 42% of the voters in a race to play Lew Archer. The remaining votes were split fairly evenly between Edward James Olmos, Javier Bardem, Heath Ledger, and Will Smith. And ditto for Denzel Washington; he took 42% on the quest to cast Spenser, with Jamie Bamber, George Clooney, and Giancarlo Esposito getting the remaining 58%. And note please that Brad Pitt got zero, that's ZERO votes.

The most divisive vote came down to who should play Charlie Chan, and the field included women. I was more than a little surprised that the lovely Gong Li (pictured above) got only one vote, while Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, and John Lone all tied for second place, falling one vote shy of Chow Yun Fat for the win.

Me, I can't see Leonardo Di Caprio as Sam Spade but apparently half of the voters could. Narrowly coming in second was Robert Downey, Jr. Eddie Murphy picked up a couple of votes, but Ioan Gruffudd and Antonio Banderas were shut out.

And to play Jack Reacher, nearly 60% of the votes were cast for Hugh Jackman. Pierce Brosnan got the big goose egg in this category, but hey, at least Nicole Kidman got a couple of votes to take the role from Tom Cruise!

Gee, I had fun with this! Maybe we'll do it again sometime.