Harry Potter: Wishful Thinking

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Sir Ralph Richardson: He was Dumbledore before we knew who Dumbledore was.

Five seconds of thinknig while doing crunches at the YMCA this morning launched an epic flight of fancy.

I was ruminating on the latest immense success for the Harry Potter film cycle, kind of wondering what Michael Tabb thinks because he loves the movies and really does not enjoy Sir Michael Gambon as Dumbledore, when I suddenly thought, Dumbledore is sort of like Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, especially when Harry is so close to Luke Skywalker.

Then I corrected myself, but suddenly a new thought entered my mind. Star Wars came out in 1977. What if Guinness could have played Dumbledore back then? What if J.K. Rowling wrote the books twenty-five years earlier and the British film industry had made the movies between 1977 and 1984, one film a year?

Imagine a Potterverse with real locations in the U.K. and practical, classic-Lucas-and-Ghostbusters effects. And if the let's-cast-everybody-in-England mentality was still there...my mind was really racing now. Imagine the talent who could have made the Potters in that era!

What follows is my dream line-up for an imagined 1977-1984 Harry Potter film cycle (again, one film a year with Deathly Hallows split in two). And believe me, I'm tempted to go back and read all the books again RIGHT NOW so I can imagine them playing out this way.

I'm a geek, I know.

DIRECTORS: Peter Yates for the first two, Sir Richard Attenborough for the last three, and for the middle, experimental/transitional ones, take your pick: John Boorman, Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman, Ken Russell.

WRITERS: Either Robert Bolt or Christopher Hampton could have kept the Rowling atmosphere and storytelling while knowing exactly how to adapt and what could go.

MUSIC: John Williams was in his prime...but I'd go with John Barry, halfway between the "007 inensity" and the "Oscar-winning epic lushness" stages of his career.

CAST

Harry, Ron, Hermione, et al: unknowns, just like now (These were always roles to MAKE you famous, not for the famous. Same principle Milos Forman used when he cast F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce in Amadeus.)

Albus Dumbledore: Sir Ralph Richardson (The grandfatherly bearing, the very good-natured wit, and the steeliness which lets you play Pinter...he always should have been Dumbledore.)

Minerva McGonagall: Glenda Jackson (She already looks like a cat.)

Severus Snape: Richard Burton (Okay, I'm prejudiced, since he IS my favorite film actor of all time, but he was younger than Alan Rickman...and imagine those deep, poetic, Welsh tones giving life to Snape both venomous and tender.)

Lord Voldemort: Anthony Hopkins

Sirius Black: Sean Connery

Remus Lupin: Michael Caine

Mad-Eye Moody: Nicol Williamson (Remember, he was Merlin in Boorman's Excalibur, and anyone who ever saw his eyes at their most intense knows EXACTLY what I mean.)

Rubeus Hagrid: Oliver Reed

Horace Slughorn: Lord Laurence Olivier

Nymphadora Tonks: Jenny Agutter

Aberforth Dumbledore: Sir John Gielguld

Mr. Ollivander: Sir Alec Guinness (had to keep him in there, and it would have been just before Star Wars)

Lucius Malfoy: Edward Fox

Narcissa Malfoy: Maggie Smith

Bellatrix Lestrange: Helen Mirren (the younger, amazingly even sexier Helen)

Gilderoy Lockhart: Peter O'Toole (Imagine that! :))

Cornelius Fudge: James Mason (the drawl...so perfect for a politician)

Dolores Umbridge: Vanessa Redgrave (She would have been in her mid-forties and ready to send up Margaret Thatcher.)

Vernon Dursley: John Cleese

Petunia Dursley: Prunella Scales (bringing back the Fawltys)

George Weasley: Donald Pleasance (He could play the timid bureaucrat and get bullied by stronger people.)

Molly Weasley: Patricia Routledge (again, almost perfect casting)

Peter Pettigrew: David Jason

Xenophilius Lovegood: Christopher Plummer (the storytelling voice)

Armando Dippet: Sir Michael Hordern

Tom Riddle: Daniel Day-Lewis

Argus Filch: Sir John Mills

Rufus Scrimgeour: Trevor Howard

Quirinus Quirrell: Peter Sellers

Rita Skeeter: Julie Christie (She married a journalist!)

Sybill Trelawney: Judi Dench

James Potter: Jeremy Irons

Lily Potter: Meryl Streep (with good accent)

I spent forty minutes making this list...and I'm not calling it wasted time :)