My brother and I both felt Dagny was too feminine. She needed to have a harder, more angular face, and the woman who played her had a round, feminine face with eyes too open and wide. But she did okay. Reardon was very good.
There’s a famous sketch of Rand by the artist “Ilona” that appears on the back of the old Signet paper-packs of her books. There are times when the actress playing Dagny looked like that sketch. Possibly her resemblance to that sketch figured in her casting. Myself, I always thought that Dagny was Rand’s idealized self.
I wonder of the actor playing Hank might not have been selected for a resemblance to Frank O’Connor (Rand’s husband) since he looks nothing like the description of Reardon from the books?