Behind the Scenes: United Artists’ Mea Cupa, Why Flops Flopped, 1969-1971 – Part Two

The United Artists strategy was to forge alliances with directors. The studio tended not to finance one-off projects, instead focusing on building long-term relationships. In part, this was a safeguard. Cross-collateralizing eliminated some of the risk between balancing out profit and loss. So a director could not waltz off with profits from a hit leaving the studio to pick up the losses from a flop. Ongoing agreements with major movie makers included Oscar-winners Billy Wilder, Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger plus Woody Allen, John Boorman and Robert Downey. In making such deals, the studio ceded substantial profit percentages and, as importantly for the directors, final cut.

Its relationship with Billy Wilder, for example, went back over a decade.  The mishits of One, Two, Three (1961) and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) were more than offset by the income from Some Like it Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), Irma La Douce (1963) and to a lesser extent The Fortune Cookie/Meet Whiplash Willie (1966). Wilder’s cherished Sherlock Holmes project had been on the UA schedule for years. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) starring Robert Stephens, hardly a marquee name, stretched the relationship to the limit. “In order to recreate the Sherlock Holmes era,” the UA board explained to shareholders, “the picture cost far in excess of its worth. Since Billy Wilder has absolute control of what he makes, we were unable to make the desired cuts in the film in order to improve it. We have a film that is roughly three times more expensive than it is worth. Substantial loss is…inevitable.”

The studio had reached a new commercial high in the market for adult-oriented critically acclaimed pictures with Midnight Cowboy (1969), which won Oscars for Best Picture and for director John Schlesinger. Following the company’s normal arrangement, it put up the money for his follow-up Sunday, Bloody, Sunday (1971) starring Oscar-winner Glenda Jackson. But that proved a misstep. The film went $600,000 over budget and UA attributed its poor performance to a “very slow-paced film” coupled with “an extremely low-key” narrative plus “Schlinger’s reluctance to cut the film adequately.”

Directorial final cut also proved an obstacle to Ned Kelly (1970). Backing Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones (1963) had proved a masterstroke, opening up a financial goldmine and showering the picture with critical acclaim and four Oscars including Best Film and Best Director. The fact that Richardson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) had flopped did little to discourage the studio’s faith in him. In addition, the casting of Mick Jagger (“A big personality for the younger audience”) prove misplaced. Again, the director clashed with the studio. Again, the “very slow pace” was an issue. As was directorial control. UA conceded: “We have not been able to persuade him to make the cuts to improve the film.”

Part of the reason for Ned Kelly’s failure was that, with Mick Jagger in the title role, the target audience was the young. But the stream of youth oriented movies, triggered by the success of Easy Rider (1969) was a bubble that burst too soon. UA had invested in two pictures about “the contemporary drug scene.” I’m not sure The Heir was ever released. It had been subject to production delays and “because we don’t have the right to final cut, we can’t get the director to pick up the pace of the storyline.” As a result of the studio’s experience on that picture, approval of a second film on a drugs theme, Born to Win (1971), was held up until the budget was whittled down to $850,000 – and that was a picture that had the advantage of proven star in George Segal (The Owl and the Pussycat, 1970), a completion guarantee and cross-collateralization with another movie.

British director John Boorman was also riding high after Point Blank (1967) and although a reunion with star Lee Marvin for Hell in the Pacific (1968) didn’t come close to matching the thriller’s success, he was “the type of director picture companies were gravitating to in 1969” especially as he had “ a very special  reputation with campus film groups and youth oriented film makers.” UA considered him a great catch. “He was considered one of the voices of a new wave of picture making – daring, innovative, imaginative.” However, the project he sold to the studio, Leo the Last (1970), in retrospect, “could justify a cost of only a few hundred thousand dollars” rather than the extra hundreds of thousands the director spent “trying to achieve his own ideas of perfection.” Once again, attempted intervention was foiled – “by contract he could not be overruled.”

The verdict passed on Woody Allen after the studio had greenlit Bananas (1971) was: “Today we would veto any Woody Allen film at this cost.” Here was another example of the studio backing a nascent talent. This had been given the go-ahead before results were in on the first picture Allen had made (Take the Money and Run, 1969) for another company.

And in retrospect the studio could find no justification for some of the moves it greenlit. The verdict on Norman Lear’s Cold Turkey (1971), which ran $1 million over budget, was brutal: “An overpriced film with a has-been personality (Dick Van Dyke)…a minor American comedy with no overseas value.”

Equally has-been was Rosalind Russell, star of Mrs Pollifax-Spy (1971), “a victim of the reduced potential for old-time star films.” UA had anticipated a “zany, tongue-in-cheek adventure comedy.” What it got was “a run-of-the-mill old-fashioned piece of work…totally unacceptable to younger audiences and too dull for the older audiences.”

Timing was the problem with Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970). “What was expected to be provocative material for the new modern film audience of 1968-1969…emerged as a film…of limited interest to the audience of 1970.” While the studio admitted “it was the type of film we intend to continue to make”, that came with the proviso that it could only be realized “at a quarter of the cost.”

Another piece of provocative material that failed to find an audience was Robert Downey’s Pound (1970), described as “a roll of the dice.” Downey had broken out of the indie mold with the satirical Putney Swope (1969). “When this film was programmed, we had every reason to believe that even with a less successful result, this director could reach a personal following type of audience large enough to justify this cost. However, by the time the picture came out, avant garde audiences of this nature had become more selective and increasingly fewer in number.” Again, the verdict pulled no punches: “The picture has little value – domestic or foreign.”

“A daring film on a provocative theme” appeared the main attraction of Pieces of Dreams (1970). It was certainly daring – a disillusioned priest has sex with a social worker. Rising stars Robert Forster (The Stalking Moon, 1968) and model Lauren Hutton (Little Fauss and Big Halsy, 1970) lacked the marquee appeal to save it.  “By the time it came out it was no longer considered daring. “Thought-provoking” but not “dramatic or sensational” enough was the consensus.

The Way We Live Now (1970) is best remembered, if at all, for the debut of Linda Blair (The Exorcist, 1973). It proved “another fatality of the unhappy rush in 1969 to make a so-called “now” picture…At its modest cost it seemed a valid investment at the time. Today it would not be made at any cost.”

SOURCE: “Comments supplementing notes to Balance Sheet and Statement of Operations of United Artists Corporation for 1970,” United Artists Archive, Box 1 Folder 12 (Wisconsin Center for Theater and Film Research).