Far grittier than I expected for a portrayal of one of America’s greatest, if flawed, western heroes. Far darker, with a two-fisted take on the endemic corruption at the highest level that fuelled the Indian Wars. Revisionism with a punch. And bold enough to turn Cinerama tropes on their head.
We should deal with the last first because that reveals the extent of the bitterness that seeps through a biopic in which a soldier’s great skills are put to unwarranted use. You may recall that from its earliest days, Cinerama relied on thrills of a specific nature, one that like 3D put viewers in the driver’s seat, only to scare the pants off them. You were always racing towards danger, whether that be down the rapids in How the West Was Won (1962) or downhill along twisting roads in The Battle of the Bulge (1965). There always seemed a runaway train to hand. Whatever, it was just a thrill ride, occupants escaping unhurt.
Not so here. The men on the runaway wagon have been tied to it. It careens downhill all right, at one point from an upside down point-of-view, but it ends up over the cliff, no escape for the men. A soldier rides a log river to escape Native Americans. He manages that but is killed on dry land by an arrow all the same. A runaway train falls into a burning bridge. The normal thrills, then, with a realistic edge.
The reward for the great hero, Custer (Robert Shaw), gallant leader of sixty dashing cavalry charges during the Civil War, is a commission with the 7th Cavalry in the Dakotas on a mission described by General Sheridan (Lawrence Tierney) as “plain robbery,” the blatant theft of land from Native Americans.
That’s virtually the first scene, a brutal analysis on the American West, greedy land-guzzling settlers requiring protection, a soldier in obeying orders tacitly agreeing to wage an unholy crusade, not a justified war against slavery.
And Custer doesn’t inherit your John Ford cavalry unit, where every drunk has redeeming features, if only to provide some comedy. His second-in-command, Major Reno (Ty Hardin) is an alcoholic, nearly an entire battalion of malingerers on sick parade. Although later spouting chivalrous nonsense about hating machines, it’s the cannon Custer brings to bear on the enemy that provides initial victory, permitting the boast that 255 men conquered the Cheyenne nation. But, of course, such triumphalism proves premature, the Cheyenne and Sioux taking revenge on defenceless towns.
Custer is presented with ambivalence, but granted something of a free pass given his intolerance of alcohol, antipathy to the war and whistleblowing that points the finger at government officials and corrupt businessmen. On the other hand he is the chief marketeer of his own image, vainglorious, not least in his determination to win the Battle of the Little Big Horn on his own, arriving a day ahead of other assigned forces.
He is both ruthless and comforting. Instead of upbraiding a mutinous soldier for stealing water during a trip over the desert, he tells him to wait till sundown when his thirst will be quenched. But, despite repeated broken treaties, he lacks sympathy for Native American chief Dull Knife (Kieron Moore) for failing to comprehend that a superior power will always win. There’s a bit too much crammed into a relatively short running time. A Russian appears to point out that the United States is negotiating to buy Alaska. Railroads enter the equation and an early version of a tank. An anonymous prospector has gold teeth because he likes “the taste of gold.” Robert Ryan makes a cameo appearance as a deserter.
All that is redundant when the venality confronting Custer is dealt with in one brilliant scene when gold prospectors start digging up the fort in the hope of finding the precious mineral.
I’m no expert on the historical accuracy but by and large whether this portrayal of the life and times of General Custer is actually true it certainly rings true.
British actor Robert Shaw (Battle of the Bulge), with his mean shifty eyes and trademark tight-lipped side-of-the-mouth delivery, doesn’t quite bring enough shade to the characterisation, but possibly that’s the fault of the screenplay, which has cast him, outside of the final calamitous engagement, as even more heroic in the political arena than on the battlefield. As his wife, Mary Ure (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) appears only fitfully and has little to do. Lawrence Tierney (Reservoir Dogs, 1992) is excellent as the self-serving Sheridan. Just like the later Cinerama epic Krakatoa East of Java (1968) this suffers from lack of recognizable stars.
Director Robert Siodmak (The Crimson Pirate, 1952) creates a literate, revisionist, western that ensures intelligence is not swamped by action. Bernard Gordon (Krakatoa East of Java) and Julian Zimet (Circus World/The Magnificent Showman, 1964) are credited with the screenplay.
A worthy attempt to use a legend to explore the greater issues of the day.
After pulling double worthy duty with Empire of Light and Till as the starting points for my Monday multiplex triple bill it was something of a welcome relief to finish with an unpretentious pretty serviceable actioner that traded on Taken, The Equalizer and The Mechanic.
Ex-con Cuda (Antonio Banderas) has taken up his old job of debt collector/enforcer for bisexual mob boss Estelle (Kate Bosworth). Through happenstance he acquires streetfighter protégé Stray (Mojean Aria). Cuda’s daughter won’t speak to him so he’s partial to coming to the aid of homeless 15-year-old Billie (Zolee Griggs). To get her off the streets he puts her up in a motel. But, of course, no good deed goes un-punished and the motel manager arranges for her kidnap by Freddie (2 Chainz), a rising gangster who threatens Estelle’s dominance.
Meanwhile, Stray falls for dancer/hooker Lexus (Alexis Ren) who works for Estelle and may well be her main squeeze, though the consensuality of that relationship may be in question.
There’s none of the pavement-pounding hard-core detective work or even nascent skill undertaken by the likes of Taken’s Bryan Mills before Cuda tracks down Billie’s whereabouts and it doesn’t take long for the various strands to coalesce, resulting in a variety of fights and shootings. Given it’s a perky 90-minutes long, there’s very little time for subplots anyway or to find deeper meaning. That’s not to say there aren’t patches of clever dialog – Estelle compares the blood in her veins to that of the marauders in ocean depths whose blood has evolved to be extremely able to withstand parts of the sea where the sun never shines. (She says it a bit neater than that).
And there’s no time wasted on sentimentality either. Neither Cuda’s ex-wife or daughter want anything to do with him and thank goodness we’re spared a scene of him emerging from jail with nobody to greet him. The movie touches on the most venal aspects of modern crime, paedophilia, webcam pornography, kidnap, sexual violence, and of course Freddie bemoans the fact that Estelle is so old-fashioned she wants her tribute paid in cash not cryptocurrency.
It’s straight down to brass tacks, Cuda not seeing the betrayal coming. Thanks for bringing me fresh blood, Cuda, says Estelle, would you like one bullet or two with your retiral package. The only element that seems contrived at the time, that the battered and bloodied Stray can fix Cuda’s broken down car, actually turns into a decent plot point. And where Bryan Mills seems to be living on Lazarus-time, here it’s clear that the ageing Cuda is not going survive these endless beatings and shootings, so if there’s going to be a sequel it will be on the head of Stray.
I had half-expected Antonio Banderas (Uncharted, 2022) to sleepwalk through this kind of good guy-tough guy role but in fact his mostly soft-voiced portrayal is very effective, and his occasional stupidity lends considerable depth to the character. Kate Bosworth (Barbarian, 2022) has been undergoing a transition of late and is very convincing as a smooth, if distinctly evil, bisexual gangster.
I’ve never heard of Mojean Aria though if I’d kept my ear closer to the ground I might have ascertained he was a Heath Ledger Scholarship recipient. He had a small role in the misconceived Reminiscence (2021) and took the lead in the arthouse Kapo (2022). Judging on his performance here, I’d say he is one to look out for. He has definite screen presence, action smarts and can act a bit too.
And just to show my ignorance I was unaware that Alexis Ren is one of the biggest influencers in the world. This is her second movie and she doesn’t really have much of a part beyond compromised girlfriend. Zolee Griggs (Archenemy, 2020) is another newcomer. But you remember that old Raymond Chandler saying that when the plot sags have a man come through the door with a gun. Well, here, there’s a different twist – it’s a woman, in fact both these women turn up trumps when it comes to rescuing the guys.
This is the directing debut of Aussie commercials wiz Richard Hughes and, thankfully, there’s none of the flashiness than would have drowned a tight picture like this. He keeps to the script by W. Peter Iliff who’s been out of the game for some time but who you may remember for Point Break (both versions), Patriot Games (1992), Varsity Blues (movie and TV series) and Under Suspicion (2000).
Undemanding action fare, for sure, but still it delivers on what it promises. It doesn’t have a wide enough release or a big enough marketing budget to even qualify as a sleeper but I reckon it will keep most people satisfied. I had thought this might be DTV but that’s not so. Although it’s not been released in the States it’s had a wide cinema release in Europe. However, this looks like it’s already on DVD but been thrown into cinemas to coincide with the launch of Puss in Boots.
Exhibitors measured a movie’s commercial potential in large part by the size and shape of the Pressbook. There was a correlation between a studio’s marketing budget and box office expectation.
This was the era of the 16-page A3 (twice size of a sheet of A4 paper) Pressbook/Campaign Manual that would contain what a cinema manager required to make the most of the picture through newspaper exploitation. This included snippets that would be passed on as nuggets for the editor of the entertainment section – incidents that occurred on set, details of location, hitherto unknown facts about the stars, interesting quotes – and for the newspaper’s non-editorial section that came in the form of a series of different advertisements, six or seven not unusual.
These adverts were core to what you might see in your local newspaper. The cinema manager simply cut out the preferred size of advert – they were offered a huge range of sizes that often took up to half the Pressbook – and handed that in to the newspaper which duly, with cinema name attached, used it to make up the printed ad.
The point of the A3 Pressbook was to accommodate ads that size (11.7 x 16.5 inches / 297 x 420mm) and encourage the cinema manager to consider paying for such a hefty space in a newspaper. Beginning with the giant size indicated studio confidence, which, it hoped, the cinema manager would match. Of course, should he or she not, then there was a wealth of smaller-sized ads – which might themselves start at roughly A4 (8.3 x 11.7 inches / 210 x 297mm) that the cinema manager might feel more appropriate to the picture house’s marketing budget.
The various ads accommodated a number of different taglines and images, so that a cinema manager could choose the best one for targeting their specific audience – most commonly, for example. an action picture might be sold on the love interest.
The Sorcerers was released in the U.S. by Allied Artists. Once a big name, producing Friendly Persuasion in 1956, it had now fallen on harder times and largely reverting to its Monogram origins except for a financial boost from the unexpected success of the French-made A Man and a Woman (1966). Whatever imapct that had on Allied’s coffers did not translate into expenditure on the Pressbook for The Sorcerers. Cinema mangers would not have been filled with any great confidence. In size and in the advertisement material it did not shout box office winner.
This is an ad from the British campaign which showed more originality than in the U.S.
The Pressbook was 8-pages A4, of which more than half was advertisements, one full-page A4. But there was only, effectively, one ad, though presented over five pages in twelve different sizes, from the aforementioned A4 down to what would be little more than a slug, one inch running the width of one newspaper column (about two inches).
Boris Karloff’s brooding features, intercut with a man knifing a woman, dominate the advert. There is a tagline: “He turns them on…he turns them off…to live…love…die or KILL!” At the foot of the ad is a montage of young things, dancing, kissing, a girl in backless dress the height of the titillation portrayed. The rest of the near-dozen adverts are all exactly the same, with, as the adverts grow smaller, bits of the main ad dropped out.
The problem with marketing any film starring Boris Karloff was the actor himself. Although a legendary name in movies thanks to Frankenstein, that career-making role had been three decades before and anyone who had seen it in the 1960s had done so on television where it was shorn of a lot of its power. Karloff had only intermittently popped up in horror movies during the 1960s, most recently in Die, Monster, Die (1965).
Director Michael reeves (left) with Tony Tenser of Tigon and Karloff.
Karloff was not, to put it mildly, a major marquee attraction. And part of the reason was his determination not to be typecast. So, in the 1940s and 1950s he was more likely to be seen on stage, in Arsenic and Old Lace or The Lark, for example, or on television. He only made eight movies during the 1950s.
There had been some kind of horror comeback in 1963 with The Raven, The Terror, Black Sabbath and The Comedy of Terrors, but since then movie appearances had been sparse. And, of course, for an actor of his age, there was nothing new to say, although perhaps just to remind people that he had been born William Henry Pratt in England.
None of the other performers were remotely well-known. Ian Ogilvy had supporting roles in She Beast (1966) and Stranger in the House / Cop-Out (1967). Elizabeth Ercy had small parts in Doctor in Clover / Carnaby M.D. (1966) and Fathom (1967). Each was given an one-eighth page biography. Despite directing She Beast, Michael Reeves wasn’t mentioned at all.
The company you keep. Tigon’s line-up for 1967.
So you get the distinct impression from the Pressbook that it’s Karloff or nothing and since the actor, as noted, was hardly a major player, nobody was going to much trouble to sell the picture.
The Pressbooks I’ve presented in previous features in the Blog have all had considerably more going for them, but this was the downside of the movie business. When there wasn’t much to sell, the distributor wasn’t going to waste his money trying to achieve the impossible.
The Pressbook, printed in 1967, did not appear to achieve any success. The movie did not win a single first run or showcase booking in any of the major cities whose box office was reported by Variety magazine. However, in July 1968, the film was awarded the Grand Prix at the Trieste Sci Fi Festival, with Elizabeth Ercy named Best Actress. That did not appear to brighten the movie’s prospects.
But in 1969, it turned up at the bottom of two horror triple bills. In Boston in first run at the Center it grossed $7,000 (Variety, February 19, 1969, p8) supporting Island of the Doomed (1967) and Castle of Evil (1966). In Los Angeles in a Karloff triple, it was topped in the billing by The Comedy of Terrors and The Raven, earning a decent $110,000 from 12 houses. (Variety, April 30, 1969, p8), it was top-billed in first run in Chicago taking in a “neat” $5,500 at the Monroe (Variety, October 15, 1969, p8).
But it’s possible these few bookings and doubtless others on the drive-in circuits and in smaller towns might still have helped turn a profit on the picture since it only cost $210,000 to make in the first place.
Two stars in impeccable form, an intriguing tale of betrayal and redemption, and a sharp reminder that Britain was once a conquered nation. Given the original play was written by a Frenchman, Jean Anouilh, I wondered how much of the experience of France being occupied by Germany during World War Two informed the work.
Becket (Richard Burton) is dabbed a collaborator for having anything to do with King Henry II (Peter O’Toole), not just in his gainful employ and rising to positions of enormous power, but in accepting his friendship being viewed as a traitor to his countryman. England then, 100 years after the invasion of William the Conqueror, was divided into Normans, who ruled, and Saxons, the indigenous population, who obeyed. The only source of rebellion was through the Catholic Church which could claim, in its prime allegiance to God, to place religion above ruler.
Initially, it’s the story of two unprincipled men, who drink and lust to their heart’s content, until Henry, misreading his friend’s personality, appoints him Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important religious leader in the country, assuming that Becket would continue in his hypocritical ways and bring the clergy to heel. Unfortunately, in taking on the position, Becket takes to heart everything it stands for and instead of extending his power Henry finds it challenged.
It’s classic narrative, fast friends turned bitter enemies, the American Civil War in a nutshell. The more Becket sticks to his guns, the more his life is imperilled. Since the story is based on historical actuality, anyone who saw it at the time would be aware of the famous outcome, but the teaching of history and English history at that, either having fallen in abeyance or being given the revisionist treatment, viewers coming at afresh will be surprised at the political and moral twists and turns.
Nor is it of the “thee” and “thou” school of historical drama. The language is modernised, it is filled with humor, and spiced through with irony. Caught in a downpour during a hunt and sheltering, wet and bedraggled, in a peasant hut in a wood, Becket explains to the king that anyone who dared light him a fire would be hanged for taking precious wood out of the forest, a law laid down by Henry to make more money from his forests.
Likeable though Henry is, full of energy and fun, he is also sly and mean. On the basis of what’s mine is yours, he passes on a peasant lass to Becket, but in demanding the favour returned insists that Becket allow him to have sex with his fiancee, who promptly commits suicide rather than submit.
Henry wheedles as much as he demands, needing to keep his nobles in line if they are to fund his lifestyle and wars. There is always the tricky business of making alliances with untrustworthy rivals. This almost a template for Game of Thrones, the business of ruling as much about the velvet glove as the iron fist, negotiation and concession as important as outright demonstrations of strength.
Even when in an inferior position, there is always diplomatic recourse. The French king (John Gielgud), deliberately keeping waiting a British contingent, explains that the delay will allow them time to be measured for some fashionable French clothing. Now that is a barb served in silk.
It’s possibly as big a surprise to Becket, as indulgent in drinking and whoring as the king, to discover that he has principles. The clergy was known for abusing its power and, despite taking a vow of poverty, living high on the hog. So he stuns both his fellow priests and bishops as much as the king when he gives away all his possessions to fulfil that basic vow. There’s almost an element of naivety. Having played the game so far, suddenly he refuses, to the consternation of everyone in power.
For a time it becomes a battle of wills and that eternal question of who is more important, the invisible God or the human king, and Becket to some extent becomes a pawn.
And it’s brilliantly acted. In his first role since coming to global attention with Lawrence of Arabia (1964) Peter O’Toole creates a more down-to-earth conniving ruthless character. Richard Burton (Cleopatra, 1963), trying to prove he can attract an audience without the help of Elizabeth Taylor, matches him every step of the way. The fiery oratory is replaced by introspection.
Director Peter Glenville (The Comedians, 1967) resists the temptation to open up the stage play, which he also helmed on Broadway (where it won the Tony for Best Play), and for a historical picture set in warring times it’s surprisingly lacking in battles. But it’s easily one of the best historical pictures ever made and it’s a travesty that the Oscar for Best Actor went to neither O’Toole nor Burton, both nominated who split the vote, but to Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady. John Gielgud (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968) was a whimsical quirky delight, so different to his normal screen persona.
Out of 12 Oscar nominations, it won only for screenplay, by Edward Anhalt (The Satan Bug, 1965).
Does what historical movies so rarely accomplish: thoughtful, stylish, brilliantly structured with superb acting and direction.
It was a gamble all round. Reputations could be made or seriously dented. Male lead Don Murray had been trying to get Hollywood to pay serious attention since nabbing an Oscar nomination for Bus Stop a decade before. Female lead Inger Stevens had been a wannabe for just as long, named as a “youngster to watch” in the mid-1950s alongside the likes of Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Anthony Perkins who had all more than made the grade. Director David Lowell Rich had only one feature, Madame X (1966), a remake of the 1930s classic, to his name. Studio Universal was not so much risking its financial shirt as its prestige.
For all four were embarking on a new kind of enterprise – the made-for-television movie. That notion in itself had been born out of crisis. If exhibitors were claiming that with the mid-60s production crisis there weren’t enough movies to go round, the situation was worse for the television networks which had begun to rely heavily on movies to fill out their programs.
Television had “drained the vaults of Hollywood studios” by using up “the ready supply of motion pictures faster than a grind house.” With too few new motion pictures coming down the pipeline the networks, facing being drawn into a costly rights battle, might welcome a new source of product as easily as they could be exploited by someone savvy enough to come up with a new idea.
In theory, the mini-genre that would become known as “made-for-television” had begun a few years before with Don Siegel’s The Killers (1964), but that had been considered too violent for television and released in cinemas instead. So, although in one sense it was a success it was also deemed a failure since it showed the difficulty of trying to make original movies for television. Instead, anything made-for-television would have to find a format that fitted tighter parameters. See How They Run (1964), also from Universal and starring John Forsythe (The Trouble with Harry, 1955) and rising European star Senta Berger (The Secret Ways, 1961), proved a better template.
Although considered one of the biggest studios in Hollywood at the start of the decade, what with Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Alfred Hitchcock on the payroll and willing to spend $12 million on a roadshow like Spartacus (1961), Universal had since pulled in its financial horns, balking at splashing out on bestsellers and Broadway material. But it perceived the television movie drought as a gap to be exploited, believing that a modestly-budgeted picture would make a decent profit from a network showing (and repeat showing), syndication and overseas theatrical sale.
Quality was the watchword. This would not be like the “quickly-made ersatz segments of a TV series…not going backwards in time to make cheapies.” Originally entitled “Project 120” and based in New York, the movies, “something of a stepchild” to the main film-making operation, would run 97-100 minutes allowing space within a two-hour time frame for advertisements.
While still not in the big bucks book market, which in themselves tended to require a major star to guarantee a return on heavy literary investment, Universal hired William Darrid to find less expensive works, beginning with snapping up the novel House of Cards for $70,000. That proved too expensive for television and ended up as a movie. Darrid believed it simpler and less risky to find original screenplays such as The Borgia Stick, embarking on an “intensive program to purchase…original stories for screen production.”
Universal had another aim – to develop a television segment, a movie series if you like – rather than a one-off, creating an identifiable programmer that could last a season and attract sponsors and advertisers to a recognised brand. There were nine films on the original slate and they would be sold under the generic title of “World Premiere.”
But to make a host of smaller films in a relatively short space of time, Universal needed to find talent that could be marketed to a television audience. Established movie stars were out of the question and in any case such talent would consider it below their dignity. There was no shortage of television stars but this was seen as an opportunity to showcase talent, rising stars and actors who already had some movie marquee value.
Breaking out of television into Hollywood was virtually impossible. But it had always been that way. Stars emerging from the small screen like James Garner (Maverick) or Steve McQueen (Wanted: Dead or Alive ) were few and far between. Clint Eastwood (Rawhide) had to reinvent himself in Italy. “A television star rarely makes a successful transition to pictures,” was the general observation.
Even Gene Barry, with Bat Masterson (1958-1961) and Burke’s Law (1963-1966) behind him, had to head for Europe and Maroc 7 (1967) to catch an even break, something denied him in television where the profit shares he had in both series had amounted to little once sharp practice and high production costs were taken into account.
For Inger Stevens and Barry Nelson it was a potential step up. For Don Murray a definite step down. As mentioned, Swedish-born Stevens had been a genuine ingenue, but despite nabbing the leading female billing opposite Rod Steiger in Cry Terror! (1958) and Harry Belafonte in The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959), her career didn’t take off and she ended up a television regular, guest star in series like The Aquanauts and Route 66. But in 1963, despite an initial flaying by critics, she was top-billed in half-hour television comedy series The Farmer’s Daughter. It ran four seasons, and 101 episodes later she was a better known quantity, enough to be able to front a documentary about her homeland.
On the face of it, she was not an obvious fit for The Borgia Stick unless you were simply looking someone whose glamor might add a sad touch to a character who was nothing more than a pawn in a sordid business. The idea of such a beautiful woman going from fashionable housewife to tawdry hooker would be enough to tug at audience heartstrings whether or not she could supply a deeper emotional pull.
Don Murray was so quickly disenchanted with Hollywood that he turned producer on The Hoodlum Priest (1961) but that gamble didn’t pay off and he was relegated to top-billing in small pictures like Escape from East Berlin (1962) and biopic One Man’s Way (1964). There was a hint of potential redemption when Universal, reviewing the footage for The Plainsman (1966) originally intended to form part of the initial “World Premiere” made-for-tv strand, gave it a cinematic release.
But that didn’t hit the ground running either and he stepped into The Borgia Stick as a makeweight while he attempted to advance his career his own way, once again back in the producer’s seat, with the independent Tale of the Cock, whose title alone caused an earthquake at the offices of the Production Code (the industry censor).
With budgets so tight, Universal often hired moonlighting Broadway actors who were generally free during the day – Barry Nelson, currently starring in Cactus Flower with Lauren Bacall, was one such, with Fritz Weaver, Marc Connelly (better known as a playwright) and Sudie Bond (making her movie debut) drawn from the stage.
In-house producer Richard Lewis, who handled The Borgia Stick, took a different approach to writers and directors. He saw them, especially the writers, as “necessary” collaborators, not as mere employees to be replaced at whim. Writers were on hand during production rather than banished from the studio floor. “It’s a lot better to have him (the writer) around if a line of dialog has to be switched than let anyone else tamper with his work which was excellent enough originally for us to do it.”
The way The Borgia Stick was acquired was typical of the operation. Lewis kept in touch with most of the literary agents, finding out what kind of work their clients were considering, almost looking for a pitch. A.J. Russell’s agent thought his client had come up with “a good story.” Lewis arranged a meeting with the author and “that’s how it (The Borgia Stick) started.” Russell was a television veteran, credits going back to 1950, so this represented a major opportunity. “I gained identity as a writer with a show such as this,” explained Russell, “which is impossible to get in a regular series. The script is wholly mine…it’s something that belongs to me.”
At a time when most directors were freelance or struck non-exclusive short-term deals with studios, David Lowell Rich was an anomaly. He was a contract director, having signed a six-year deal with Universal, replacing Norman Jewison. It was a very old-fashioned deal, harking back to the Hollywood “golden age” when actors and directors were hired for seven-year stints. They worked on whatever the studio saw fit or could be loaned out to other studios if need be. That scenario would not have suited an Otto Preminger or a John Sturges. But for a television director not in the league of Martin Ritt or John Frankenheimer, whose television work had provided Hollywood calling cards, it was a big step up. “At the time Universal offered me a pact I thought it the best thing to happen and a wonderful opportunity and I still do.”
And small wonder. He, too, was a television regular, starting out in the business in 1950, and eventually entrusted with episodes of Wagon Train, Peter Gunn, Route 66, The Twilight Zone and Dr Kildare. Earlier attempts at a movie career had disintegrated after the likes of No Time to Be Young (1957) and Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959) featuring The Three Stooges stiffed at the box office.
So the prospect of regular work at Universal as the in-house director, potentially handed prestige projects if predecessor Norman Jewison’s career was anything to go by, was too big an opportunity to ignore. He was only too happy to make what he was told to make. But he was far from just a hired hand. He was considered “a New York director” with a distinctive style, revealing the Big Apple as “a surfaced, multi-layered, steely place.”
As if the made-for-television arm was a mini-studio, Universal did not, as one might expect, make one picture and wait for industry reaction before embarking on another. It started off with a complete slate, and before the nine movies in the first wave had even been televised – The Name of the Game launched the “World Premiere” format on November 26, 1966 – a second tranche, including The Borgia Stick, was already underway.
Initially, the picture was due to start shooting in New York on a five-week schedule in July 1966, but that shifted to August with production complete by early October. According to the critics The Borgia Stick exceeded expectations. Variety called it “an achievement,” and considered A.J. Russell an “exceptional story-teller” and the bold decision to shoot on location in New York working to “striking advantage.” The public tended to agree. It was ranked third among the first tranche in the ratings battle according to Nielsen.
More importantly, when up against all the Hollywood movies screened on television that year, it came in at number eight when measured by “total audience appeal” beaten only by major motion pictures making their network premieres such as The Robe (1953), Lilies of the Field (1963) with Sidney Poitier’s Oscar-winning performance, Doris Day comedy Move Over Darling (1963), The Longest Hundred Miles (another made-for-tv film), Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and Marlon Brando in The Young Lions (1958) – screened over two nights it counted as two entries. Perhaps more vital, when the results were broken down by demographics, The Borgia Stick took pole position in both the 18-34 age ground and the 35-49 and was “generally considered to be the best made-for-tver to date.”
The Borgia Stick was sold to some television networks – the BBC screened it in Britain on September 9, 1969 – around the world but the Mafia theme made it a straightforward sell for cinema distribution in other areas where it went out under titles such as FBI vs Gangsters, Murder Syndicate or Gangster Syndicate.
The Borgia Stick proved to be the ace in the pack for Inger Stevens. She was snapped up immediately for the movies and over the next three years was leading lady to Clint Eastwood (Hang ‘Em High, 1968), Dean Martin (5 Card Stud, 1968), Henry Fonda (Firecreek, 1968), George Peppard (House of Cards, 1968) and Anthony Quinn (A Dream of Kings, 1969). But she had mental health issues, probably exacerbated by being forced to keep secret her marriage in 1961 to black musician Ike Jones in case it adversely affected her career, and in 1970 she committed suicide.
Don Murray’s Tale of the Cock (1966) sat on the shelf for three years before being released, minus a censor rating, as These Childish Things to neither critical acclaim nor box office interest. David Lowell Rich made three feature films on the trot – Rosie! (1967) with Rosalind Russell and Sandra Dee, Kirk Douglas/Sylva Koscina thriller A Lovely Way to Die (1968) and Eye of the Cat (1969) before subsiding back into television only emerging for an occasional movie like That Man Bolt (1974) starring Fred Williamson and The Concorde…Airport ’79 (1979). A.J. Russell also achieved breakout success, going on to write A Lovely Way to Die (1968) and Stiletto (1969).
Made-for-television movies became a regular feature of network programming and from time to time threw up a genuine success – Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971), Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) starring Robert De Niro and The Jericho Mile (1979) with Peter Strauss among the most notable. And you could argue that the genre is currently booming on streaming giants like Netflix and Apple, making movies to win audience share and expand their subscription base.
SOURCES: “Youngsters With Star Potential,” Variety, July 24, 1957, p13; “Competitive Spirit Moves MCA (& U),” Variety, May 4, 1966, p3; “Wm Darrid Is MCA’s Literary Head,” Box Office, May 23, 1966, pE6; “Gotham Draws More Film Prod,” Variety, July 6, 1966, p1; “Broadway,” Box Office, August 29, 1966, pE4; “Universal Sets 11 Features For NBC-TV,” Box Office, September 5, 1966, pE4; “Broadway,” Box Office, October 3, 1966, pE4; “U and Metro Favor Features Made-For-TV,” Variety, October 19, 1966, p4; “Gene Barry Seeks To Prove A TV Star Can Make It Theatrically,” Variety, October 19, 1966, p4; “First U’s Film Made-For-TV Due Nov 26,” Box Office, November 21, 1966, p20; “Review,” Variety, March 1, 1967, p31; “NBC’s Ersatz Pix Hottest Package,” Variety, April 26, 1967, p165; “Last Season’s Most Appealing Pix,” Variety, July 5, 1967, p18; Stuart Byron, “Economics Can Work Out Okay For House Director – D.L. Rich,” Variety, July 5, 1967, p18; “U’s Premiere Status In TV,” Variety, August 16, 1967, p33; “Survivors, U-Pix Bought by BBC,” Variety, September 10, 1969, p59; “15 New MOTW Titles Packaged for O’Seas,” Variety, August 26, 1970, p39.
Happily married after five years Tom Harrison (Don Murray) turns to wife Eve (Inger Stevens) and asks: “Who are you?” No, we’re not tumbling down some existential rabbit hole. Reiterating his love for her, he continues, “Don’t you want to know who I am?”
They’re living an effective lie, nice house in the suburbs, Tom catching the train every morning with neighbor Hal (Barry Nelson), joshing with Hal’s youngest son about the giraffe that took the elephant’s seat one morning, Eve a contented housewife, cocktails and sex at the ready, charity work to occupy her idle day.
Since nobody knew what money-laundering was in the 1960s and any mention of Borgia took audience minds in a historical direction it was best to play safe in the title department.
They work for The Company aka The Mob. Nothing nasty though. He’s not in the drugs/enforcement/prostitution departments. He’s a money launderer. He goes round the country opening accounts in obscure banks and helping deposit Mafia cash as a means of buying other companies. “It’s not illegitimate, but it’s legal,” he’s informed.
This isn’t the Mafia that Coppola and Scorsese would later invest with grandeur, it’s closer to the faceless corporation of Point Blank (1967) but taking the business aspect to a higher level. There’s computerisation for a start, personnel files appear as a printout, and some hefty degree of organisation required to keep tabs of the $100 million-plus that enters legitimate business each year. And you would think they were spies, everyone uses code names, “Borgia Stick” being Tom’s, telephones have particular numbers, even conversation is some kind of code.
Trouble is, what was supposed to be an arrangement with benefits has turned into true love, and Tom wants to find a way out, live a different life, have kids. Eve backs off from that kind of commitment. But eventually the decision is taken out of their hands. A guy called Prentice (Ralph Waite) comes snooping around, claiming he knew Tom as Andy Mitchell from Toledo.
“Murder Syndicate” in one country translated into “Gangster Syndicate” in another, no mention of the FBI.
Cover potentially blown, Tom’s boss Anderson (Fritz Weaver) plans to give him a new life – his employers are not “unfeeling monsters” after all – pack him off to Rio with $83,000 to get him started. But only Tom. Eve is sent back to her old life, to prove she can be trusted, the life she was trying to keep from her husband. She is put to work in a clip joint.
Of course, it doesn’t work out that way and there are about a dozen twists before we reach an unexpected climax, especially given the opening scene which I won’t disclose.
Although The Godfather is seen as the high point of humanising the Mafia, in that picture Michael’s constant concealment from his wife of his true life means it avoids the real drama of the situation. Here, that drama is the crux. A clever big boss would try to avoid a marital mismatch. The wrong kind of love match can endanger the Family – just look at Meghan and Harry – and it’s a pretty clever device to splice two souls rescued from potential prison and a more sordid life, give them life’s trappings, assured that a woman who has sold herself to so many different men might be grateful just to be assigned a single one, and that a man who otherwise might have been a dull banker could receive, almost as an “extra,” a glamorous wife.
That they might have feelings for each other may well have been calculated into the equation. What would that matter? Surely, it would only benefit the relationship. Every manager knows that an employee with a happy home life is one less problem to worry about.
As long as company loyalty remained uppermost. Eve reminds Tom he’s no less guilty in helping the company get rid of tainted money than the guys on the ground who made it in the first place. Quite why Tom has a stab of conscience and hasn’t the smarts to work out that gangsters can be happily married is never made clear. However, once he sets rolling the particular ball of quitting the Mafia, it can only end in trouble.
Director David Lowell Rich (A Lovely Way To Die, 1968) does an exemplary job, spinning emotion and angst, humanising a couple we should really despise, and every now and then throwing in a corker of a twist. Unlike the experience of Lee Marvin in Point Blank, the employers are shown to be far from rigid, with an apparent touching regard for their employees.
Rich even manages to slip in a couple of scenes that provide greater insight. One of Tom’s co-workers talks like any successful salesman about the pressure of hitting his targets. And he fears the effect of computerisation, that it could make the Mafia vulnerable to Government investigation (rather than, as would later transpire, harnessing it to massive financial effect). And there’s a little nugget about how 200 businesses who controlled the entire U.S. economy in 1932 held the country to ransom for a year by refusing to accede to the wishes of President Roosevelt.
Inger Stevens (Firecreek, 1968) is the pick here, by turn confident, vulnerable, loving, hating, and with a terrific scene as she tries to control her emotions when tossed back into bargain basement of prostitution. Don Murray (The Viking Queen, 1967) spent his entire career trying to live up to the promise shown in Bus Stop (1956), for which he was Oscar-nominated, without quite getting the roles consistently enough that he deserved. But he is pretty convincing here.
This was television regular Barry Nelson’s first movie role in a decade. Fritz Weaver (The Maltese Bippy, 1969) is good as the boss whose game face is “understanding” and you might spot John Randolph (Seconds, 1966). George Benson wrote the songs for the nightclub sequence.
If you’ve never heard of this, it’ll be because David Lowell Rich is a very under-rated director and because it started life as a made-for-television movie in the heyday of that particular notion, but, as was often the norm with such projects, was released as a movie abroad under the alternative title.
Terrific little film, well worth a look. Way ahead of its time regarding money-laundering, sexual business arrangements (Homeland, 2011-2020), the pressures of working for the Mafia (The Sopranos, 1999-2007) and quitting that organization (Stiletto, 1969). You can catch it on YouTube but be warned this was filmed on video so the quality ain’t great.
I should point out before we go any further there’s a Raquel Welch connection. Husband Patrick Curtis was a producer and La Welch is down as an assistant producer, at a time when the pair were setting up their own production company Curtwel. Hard to see where Raquel would have fitted in but wouldn’t it have been sensational to have her as the devious mastermind?
The concept is better than the execution. There is an inconvenient truth about science. Successful experiments often require guinea pigs. Brain-washing was one such scientific notion, generally seen as an invention of those dastardly Communists a la The Manchurian Candidate (1962) although The Mind Benders (1963) suggested it was as common in the British halls of academe. As indicated by the title here brain washing could be termed modern-day witchcraft.
But where government scientists could hide behind the greater good, personal advantage is the notion here. And it did make me wonder how many scientists took vicarious pleasure in seeing guinea pigs doing their bidding, enjoying the power to inflict change on the potentially unwilling.
Professor Monserrat (Boris Karloff) and wife Estelle (Catherine Lacey) have invented a machine that through hypnotism can alter a subject’s mind in the longer term, make them prone to acts of savagery. Their chosen target is young man-about-town Mike (Ian Ogilvy). Bored with gorgeous girlfriend Nicole (Elizabeth Ercy) and ripe for adventure he is despatched on an orgy of violence, rape and murder.
What makes this potentially fascinating is that while the Professor draws back from the experiment, Estelle wants to continue. The sadistic female was coming into her own during this decade, Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina as a deadly tag-team in Deadlier than the Male (1967), Suzanna Leigh in Subterfuge (1968), but these were sidekicks, pawns in the control of devious men.
Estelle wins a battle of wills against her husband and his weak opposition fails to deter her from authorizing ever more despicable acts, as if she is unleashing her own pent-up aggression. Not only can she control her husband but she is in command of the virile young Mike. Sensibly, the film stops short of setting her up as a James Bond-style megalomaniac, but there is something more infernal in committing these acts from a small run-down apartment rather than some underground space-age cavern.
Turning Boris Karloff into a bad guy tripped up by conscience is a neat casting trick. But making him prey to his initially subservient wife is a masterstroke. Her violence is gender-neutral, as happy to force Mike into battering a work colleague as attempting to rape a young woman.
And there is also a sense of the old taking revenge on the young. The old have been left behind in a Swinging London awash with discos and barely-existing morals. Why shouldn’t old people tap into base desire, and better still, not have to lift a finger, their victim carrying the can for every deed.
It’s stone cold creepy. And would been a much tighter – and scarier – picture if director Michael Reeves (Witchfinder General, 1968) had not wasted so much time with the dull youngsters, complete with pop groups performing in a nightclub. Ian Ogilvy (Witchfinder General) doesn’t bring much to the party, no more than your standard good-looking young fellow.
Boris Karloff (The Crimson Cult, 1968) is much better value especially when excitement at his new discovery wears off and he realizes he is playing second fiddle to his wife. For once, there’s nothing inherently evil in him. But Catherine Lacey (The Servant, 1963) is easily the pick, delivering a well-judged performance, assisting her husband in his endeavors until the time is right to take over. You might spot Susan George (The Straw Dogs, 1971) and Sally Sheridan, both a Fu Manchu and Bond girl. Tom Baker (Witchfinder General) co-wrote the script with Reeves.
Provides more to ponder than actually appears on the screen.
One of these films with bits missing. Where you are fated to fail to join the dots the director didn’t put there in the first place. Or so it seems. But when you work it all back from the end appears to make some kind of sense.
But that’s only while you are of a mind, given the directorial credentials, to stick it in the cult category rather than the direct-to-video vault where its companions might be any erotic thriller featuring Shannon Tweed. And that might be appropriate in another way because this was such a flop on initial release, despite David Lynch’s reputation courtesy of Blue Velvet (19860 and Twin Peaks, that it owes much of its current cult status to rediscovery on DVD.
Mysterious message, mysterious video, mysterious man (Robert Blake) resembling Lindsay Kemp from The Wicker Man (1973). What connects jazz saxophonist Fred (Bill Pullman) and garage mechanic Pete (Balthazar Getty) except the women in their lives, brunette and blonde, respectively, and the fact that the former’s high-pitched music gives the latter a headache.
In fact, sorry to spoil it for you, though you’ve no doubt already seen this, this is really a story told, however opaquely, from the perspective of blonde/brunette Alice/Renee (Patricia Arquette), a commodity du jour looking for a dupe du jour. Because it’s, don’t you know, about a young woman lured into debauchery, forced to strip at gunpoint for gangster Mr Eddy (Robert Loggia), act in porno and become his squeeze, and naturally looking for a way out. Enter Pete, an easy enough snare, just turn up at his garage looking blonde and sexy. Not that Pete in any way resembles the introspective jealous Fred, Pete can make out in the backs of cars with other willing women like Sheila (Natasha Gregson Warner).
Into Fred’s dull life – he doesn’t seem that excited by being an avant garde jazzman and his sexy wife has given up on sitting adoringly in nightclubs gazing at her idol – comes the mysterious trilogy. “Dick Laurent is dead” is the mysterious message. The video contains footage of their apartment, with some footage shot when they were asleep. The mysterious man, unless he’s a ventriloquist, has the mysterious ability to be two places at once and then just turn up, like a subconscious, out of the blue.
That’s not the only switcheroo. At times Fred turns into Pete. And the two women turn up in the same photograph. And nobody seems much alive except when it comes to villainy. The gangster has a neat method of teaching tailgaters the error of their ways and likes his goodies (women) to unwrap themselves in the presence of others.
And it’s a nightmare of sorts, hallucinatory, or at least the characters exist on a surreal landscape. The audience never quite knows where it is. Instead of the usual twists of the thriller genre, this has mind-bending twists. It may make sense, I tried to make sense of it, but I’m not sure that’s necessary and it may even be folly, the whole idea I guess being to go with the flow and just enjoy what the director puts in front of us.
The forced strip sits uneasily in these times, though the beating up of the tail-gater always geta a great audience response, as if of course gangster violence has the imprimatur of Martin Scorsese, and in the world of a lost woman seeking a way out any man, no matter how innocent (Pete refuses loan of a porno video), is there to be used.
David Lynch is one of the few directors of the last 30/40 years to be considered a true auteur, his movies full of strange exotic images, and characters who would not exist outside his imagination, and it was quite rewarding to see that he has at least garnered an audience for I saw this in the largest cinema in a triple-screen arthouse and it had attracted a sizeable audience.
Peak enjoyment for the head-scratching fraternity, red meat for arthouse hounds, it certainly has the Lynch trademarks in camerawork and music and the parcelling up of the illicit into digestible fragments.
The “Behind the Scenes” articles have become increasingly popular in the Blog. This used to go out under the more generic title of “Other Stuff” but now, whoopee, is a category of its own. As regular readers will know I am fascinated about the problems incurred in making certain movies. In many instances, a “Behind the Scenes” story was backed up by another article on how the book was adapted into a movie or how the film was released. In the Blog, these stories run one after the other, but in the book I wrote I put them all together to make access easier.
Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of this category is that every now and there is out of nowhere massive interest in the making of a particular movie and it shoots up the all-time tree. Most of the material has come from my own digging, and sources are always quoted at the end of each article, but occasionally I have turned to books written on the subject of the making of a specific film.
(5) The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968). Cult classic starring Marianne Faithful and Alain Delon had a rocky road to release, especially in the U.S. where the censor was not happy.
(3) The Satan Bug (1965). The problems facing director John Sturges in adapting the Alistair MacLean pandemic classic for the big screen. One of four Alistair MacLean titles in the top 20.
(1) The Guns of Navarone (1961). The ultimate template for the men-on-a-mission war picture with an all-star cast and enough jeopardy to qualify for a movie of its own.
(NE) Waterloo(1970). Massive flop but intriguing reading, based on a book on the subject.
(NE) Ice Station Zebra(1968). A complete cast overhaul and ground-breaking special effects are at the core of this tale.
(NE) Cast a Giant Shadow (1965). Producer Melville Shavelson wrote a book about his experiences and this and other material relating the arduous task of bringing the Kirk Douglas-starrer to the screen are related here.
(2) Spartacus(1961).Not so much about the making of theStanley Kubrick epic, but about the rival Yul Brynner version.
(NE) Secret Ceremony(1969). Quite how director Joseph Losey persuaded uber glam-queen Elizabeth Taylor to go dowdy in this creepy drama.
(NE) Cincinnati Kid(1965). Sam Peckinpah sacked as director, nudity controversy, Sharon Tate and Steve McQueen, what a combination.
(NE) The Ipcress File (1965). The other iconic 1960s spy picture that brought Michael Caine fame.
(NE) In Harm’s Way (1965). Otto Preminger black-and-white epic about Pearl Harbor and after.
(19) Genghis Khan (1965). A venture into epic European filmmaking with an all-star cast led by Omar Sharif.
(NE) The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968). Raquel Welch, release delay controversy.
(NE) Battle of the Bulge (1965). There were going to be two versions, so the race was on to get this one to the public first.
(NE) Valley of the Dolls (1968). Sensational story behind the sensational adaptation of the sensational bestseller.
(NE) The Secret Ways (1961). A family affair – star Richard Widmark was producer and sometime director, his wife wrote the script. Not necessarily what author Alistair MacLean intended.
(NE) The Wicker Man (1973). Cult film and its release problems.
(NE) The Birds (1963). The most controversial film Alfred Hitchcock ever made.
(NE) Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). How Sergio Leone put together what is now acclaimed as the greatest western ever made.
(NE) Hour of the Gun (1967). Complicated story behind the re-telling of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
No, you’re not seeing double. Jessica starring Angie Dickinson was not only the top-viewed film of last year but has also racked up the most views since the Blog began in June 2020. Even a late rush of views for Once Upon a Time in the West could not prevent it taking the prize.
Given that the number of hits for the blog has quadrupled over the previous year, you might expect to see an entirely new Top 40. But that’s not been the case. And some films have shown remarkable staying power with a few stars featuring more than once. This covers films viewed since the launch of the Blog.
The figures in brackets represent the previous year’s position and NE means New Entry.
(30) Jessica(1962). Runaway winner with Angie Dickinson as a young widow incurring the wrath of wives in a small Italian town.
(NE) Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Hot on the heels of the number one film this Sergio Leone masterpiece has been the fastest-grower of the year.
(1) The Secret Ways (1961). Alistair MacLean appears a perennial favorite in the Blog and this early adaptation sees Richard Widmark trapped in Hungary during the Cold War.
(NE) The Swinger (1966). First of two Ann-Margret movies entering the all-time chart – sex comedy that manages a sprinkling of innocence.
(NE) Fraulein Doktor (1969). Surprise entry for under-rated Suzy Kendall German spy in World War One.
(2) Oceans 11. Frank Sinatra heads the Rat Pack line-up, first of four of his movies in the chart.
(3) Pharoah (1966). A genuine find. Polish epic set in Egypt continues to accrue followers.
(6) The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl (1968). Daniele Gaubert as a sexy cat burglar.
(NE) Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness? (1969). Self-indulgent oddity from singer Anthony Newley.
(7) Moment to Moment (1966). Unfairly forgotten twisty Jean Seberg thriller set in the South of France.
(NE) Father Stu (2022). Box office flop that was hit in the Blog.
The Magnificent 60s 