My knowledge of acting talent from the silver screen days is limited. But I do really dig this idea of what would a film would mean if it were in a different era?
Like
Fight Club. I think if it were set at the turn of the century, it would probably be close to
Battleship Potemkin. When you think of the political unrest between the very rich and the very poor, I think
Battleship distilled into film that general sense of unrest the way
Fight Club distilled into film how the ideal middle-class existence is really boring, even insanity inducing. Both films had the same result: men revolting.
In the reverse scenario, a film I'd love to see done today is
Treasure of the Sierra Madre. With all of prerequisite post-WWII gags and the ethnocentric portrayal of Mexicans stripped out, I think the guts of that flick make a great story about relationships falling apart the closer people get to having what they've always wanted.