Behind the Scenes: Hollywood Bloodbath, 200 Movies Shelved or Scrapped

I’ve covered quite a few films now with top stars – The Appointment (1969), The Picasso Summer (1969), The Extraordinary Seaman (1969) – denied cinematic release but I didn’t realize just how endemic the problem was. The bloodbath that followed the financial collapse of major studios at the end of the 1960s you could perhaps understand but, with exhibitors crying out for new movies at a time when supply had stalled, I was astonished to discover that over 120 movies had been shelved in the U.S. long before studios felt the pinch at the end of the decade.

Once the squeeze began to bite, studios threw away over a hundred projects in which they had already invested upwards of $20 million in screenplays, fees for principals and extensive pre-production. Movies for which advertising campaigns and posters had already been designed – such as Avco Embassy’s A Small Town in Germany based on the John Le Carre bestseller were closed down.

It’s always hard to get a grip on what studios have already spent on movies that continue to miss out on actually entering production. But it was estimated that over three decades MGM and another producer had shelled out over $750,000 in a vain effort to bring to the screen the Mildred Cramm bestseller Forever, published in 1940.

As the 1970s beckoned, nobody knew what worked any more. The situation was similar to now. For comic books and multiverses, read roadshows. Audiences had fallen out of love with big-budget all-star-cast pictures that relied on audiences stumping up for increased ticket prices to view movies in 70mm in initial run – equivalent to the IMAX uptick these days. But they hadn’t particularly fallen in love with what studios thought might be adequate replacements.

While box office went some way to pointing out where the industry had catastrophically got it wrong, it didn’t quite explain why so many movies were deemed unfit for cinematic screening in the U.S. even after they might have been given a release (such as American-funded European films) in their country of origin. A PhD student called Norman Kagan (who later published a book on Stanley Kubrick) uncovered a list of 127 movies that had been shelved by American studios.

As well as The Picasso Summer headlined by Albert Finney (Two for the Road, 1967) and The Extraordinary Seaman toplining Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967) and David Niven (The Impossible Years (1968), Kagan discovered a whole raft of films that had fallen foul of the U.S. distributor that in previous decades would have easily been double bill fodder. These included: Burt Reynolds in Fade In (1968), Ray Milland in Hostile Witness (1968), Anthony Quinn in The Rover (1967), Rita Hayworth in Sons of Satan (1968), Claudia Cardinale in The Adventures of Gerard (1970), Marcello Mastroianni and Rita Tushingham in Diamonds for Breakfast (1968), Geraldine Chaplin in I Killed Rasputin (1967) and Stephen Boyd and Gina Lollobrigida in Imperial Venus (1962).

The list went on – Ann-Margret in Criminal Symphony/Criminal Affair (1968), Jean Seberg in The Road to Corinth (1967), Ginger Rogers in The Confession (1964), Richard Widmark in A Talent for Loving (1969), and Catherine Deneuve in French Mistress/Manon 70 (1968). And on – there were over 100 other pictures that never saw the light of day in an American cinema – and  proved just how fragile the marquee value of top stars who at one time or another had solidified their box office status with a string of hits.

You could add to that list a bunch denied release by Warner Brothers such as Sophie’s Place/Crooks and Coronets (1969) starring Telly Savalas, Hammer sci fi Moon Zero Two (1969), Crescendo (1970) with Stefanie Powers, Rabbit Run (1970) starring James Caan and The All-American Boy (1969) with Jon Voigt, all of which, like The Appointment, were first screened in America on television. Some movies, initially apparently as tough a sell, like Performance (1970), gained cinematic exposure.

In 1969 the studios collectively made losses of over $100 million. MGM, the worst-hit, $35.3 million in red, went into meltdown, closing down prestigious projects like Man’s Fate to be directed by Fred Zinnemann (A Man for All Seasons, 1966) and Martin Ransohoff’s production of Tai-Pan with Patrick McGoohan in the lead which between them had budgets approaching $20 million, including $8 million spent on pre-production. Also dropped was She Loves Me to star Julie Andrews and directed by Blake Edwards.

Warner Brothers, facing a $25 million loss, called time on 50 projects including Andrej Wajda’s Hollywood debut Heart of Darkness, William Dozier’s The Well of Loneliness, Edward Dmytryk’s Act of Anger, Nunnally Johnson’s The Frontiersman, God Save the Mark based on the Donald Westlake bestseller, Sentries based on the Evan Hunter thriller and Paradise from the Edna O’Brien story. Two Samuel Peckinpah movies were axed – North to Yesterday and Diamond Story. Mervyn LeRoy saw his pair – musical 13 Clocks based on the James Thurber bestseller and Downstairs at Ramsay’s – go the same way.

Also culled – Bryan Forbes’s Napoleon and Josephine, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Shakespeare biopic The Bawdy Bard and Bud Yorkin’s Hubba Hubba. Some later resurfaced but with different principals – Martin Ritt no longer attached to The Man Who Would Be King (1975) nor Sidney Lumet to 99 and 44% Dead (1974). WB was ruthless and also called time on Francis Coppola ventures Santa Rita and Vesuvius, Stuart Rosenberg’s Julie in Love, Elia Kazan’s Puerto Rico Story, and on adaptations of Robert Heinlein sci fi classic Stranger in a Strange Land, William Faulkner’s Wild Palms and Edna O’Brien’s August Is a Wicked Month as well as a movie based on Crosby and Nash’s song Wooden Ships. Universal scrapped 15 movies whose screenplays or book rights had been purchased just months bore.

Good Times, Bad Times, dead in the water in 1968, was reactivated two years later. Despite strenuous efforts and Elliot Gould and Kim Darby on A Glimpse of Tiger replaced by Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal plus Peter Bogdanovich at the helm that one failed to pass muster  though the last-named trio later collaborated on What’s Up, Doc? (1972).

As well as A Small Town in Germany, Avco Embassy curtailed development of The Inheritors from the Harold Robbins bestseller, Willie –  a biopic of Somerset Maugham – Little Me from the Neil Simon musical and When the Lion Feeds from the Wilbur Smith novel. In Britain, ABPC scratched A Question of Innocence starring Roger Moore and Feathers of Death directed by Richard Attenborough.

Some of the shelved films were released abroad – Crooks and Coronets, Diamonds for Breakfast, Moon Zero Two and Crescendo finding cinema distribution in the U.K. – but as we have seen from MGM executives dismissing foreign interest in The Appointment there was clearly a two-tier system at work with Hollywood determining that countries abroad had lower standards than the U.S. Equally, Hollywood studios argued that if a film didn’t deliver in a test run in a big city it was “pointless to chase additional bookings beyond the initial engagement and sometimes unwise to open at all.”

PREVIOUSLY REVIEWED IN THE BLOG: What it says about the Blog or my ability to find old lost films I don’t know but the following films have been reviewed in the Blog: The Appointment, The Picasso Summer, Fade In, The Extraordinary Seaman, Hostile Witness, Criminal Symphony/Criminal Affair. And I will endeavour to chase up more.

SOURCES: Advert, Kine Weekly, Dec 21, 1968, “Deferred Film Deals of W7,” Variety, July 23, 1969, p5; “Projects Scratched at Warners,” Variety, October 22, 1969, p6; “Ransohoff Lacks Word on Tai Pan,” Variety, October 29, 1969, p4; “Red Sunset on Write-Downs,” Variety, November 26, 1969, p3; “Universal Bathes in Youth Fountain,” Variety, December 10, 1969, p3; “WB’s 29-To-Come,” Variety, January 14, 1970, p7; “Unsalvageable Cupboard Item,” Variety, August 19, 1970, p3; “ABPC Suspends,” Variety, October 21, 1970, p25; “Picker on Flop Loss-Cutting,” Variety, August 26, 1970, p3; “Glimpse of Tiger Buried 2d Time,” Variety, May 12, 1971, p4; “In Shortage Era, 127 Lost Features, Unsellable Edsels of Celluldoi Mart,” Variety, December 22, 1971, p21; “TV-Bearish WB Cupboard,” Variety, May 29, 1972, p3.