Brian Hannan

Walk, Don’t Run (1966) ***

Stars rarely get to choose when they want to retire. Usually, the phone stops ringing, or they slide down the credits until no one can remember who they once were, or they end up in terrible international co-productions, or like Tyrone Power (Solomon and Sheba) they die on the job or, like Spencer Tracy, because of it.

Cary Grant, on the other hand, went out at the top, or near enough, after a string of box office winners, including this one, throughout the Sixties. If you are more generally familiar with Grant through Hitchcock thrillers or Charade, you might have forgotten his comedy expertise. He was a master of the double take and the startled expression – and he needs that here in what is sometimes a pretty funny farce.

The set-up is peculiar. Grant is a businessman landing in Tokyo two days before the 1964 Olympic Games with nowhere to stay and ends up sleeping on the couch of Samantha Eggar and later sharing his room with Jim Hutton, an athlete equally lacking in the forward planning department. (Excluding the Olympics, of course, the film has a similar concept to The More the Merrier, 1943).

There’s no great plot and no great need for one. Grant’s main purpose is to play Cupid to Hutton and Eggar and steer her stuffy fiancé out of their way. But it says a lot for Grant’s talent that not much plot is required. He is just so deft, whether he is playing top dog or being beaten at his own game by a rather resilient Hutton.

Eggar is Doris Day-lite, but Hutton is a revelation, not the dour dog of later The Hellfighters (1968) and The Green Berets (1968), but showing true comedic talent, especially in quick-fire verbal duels with Grant. There is only a wee bit of stereotype, overmuch bowing mainly and a Russian shot-putter, but some other Japanese customs are more interesting, yellow flags to cross the road, for example.

There are a couple of brilliant visual gags, one involving trousers, another with Grant getting locked out of the apartment, and a terrific payoff in a Japanese restaurant. Except for thrillers, Grant did not need great directors, he knew comedy inside out and here the accomplished Charles Walters (High Society, 1956) has the sense to let him get on with it.

Grant was 62 when the film appeared so quite rightly delegates romance to Hutton, which is a shame because his (non-romantic) interaction with the pernickety Eggar (she and fiance equally matched in this department) carries all the Grant romantic hallmarks. Instead, he ensures that romance between Hutton and Eggar runs its true course, which while that is satisfying enough, is a bit like removing John Wayne from the final shootout in a western. Oh, and there is a reason for the Olympic Games setting.

Coming Soon – August 1960

Four smaller pictures took Broadway by surprise, each recording record-breaking openings.

The most obviously commercial was crime drama Portrait in Black starring Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn. Turner’s box office throughout the 1950s had been inconsistent but audiences had responded to the previous year’s weepie Imitation of Life. However, co-star Anthony Quinn, despite two Best Supporting Actor Oscars, was still generally classified as a leading male rather than outright star. The movie had premiered in Chicago to startling results and emulated that in Cleveland. So the industry was not entirely surprised when the movie broke the opening day record at the 1,642-seat Palace and the weekly record at the 550-seat arthouse the Trans-Lux 85^th Street.

Nature’s Paradise could not have provided a more polar opposite. The British-made nudie went down the old-fashioned “grind” route – first showing at 8.45am, final showing at 2am – to break the record at the 390-seat World arthouse. And at equally opposite ends of the spectrum was Disney’s real-life documentary Jungle Cat which took apart the record at the 592-seat Normandie, also an arthouse.

Of the four openers, the one for whom an arthouse was the most likely home was another British feature, Jack Cardiff’s adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers starring Trevor Howard and Wendy Hiller. This broke the one-day record three days in a row at the 590-seat Beekman, despite a tepid review by Bosley Crowther, regarded as the nation’s premier critic. However, the Lady Chatterley’s Lover court case meant that to some extent the film was critic-proof. Its unexpected publicity boost brought in the audiences.

There was also surprising audience support for British star Dirk Bogarde’s Hollywood debut Song without End, a biopic of composer Franz Liszt, which opened in New York’s biggest cinema, the 6,200-seat Radio City Music Hall. (Although MGM had part-financed the actor’s previous endeavor The Angel Wore Red, that was an Italian picture.) Director Charles Vidor died during shooting and George Cukor took over. French actress Capucine also made her Hollywood debut.

The month’s other openers were All the Young Men starring Alan Ladd and Sidney Poitier; Frank Sinatra and the “Rat Pack” in crime caper Ocean’s 11; and sci-fi The Time Machine with Rod Taylor.

Horror maestro William Castle used the “Illusion-O” gimmick to plug 13 Ghosts. Moviegoers required a device similar to 3D glasses to spot the ghosts.

Julien Duvivier’s Marie Octobre was the only foreign film hitting New York during the month. Danielle Darrieux starred in a drama about former resistance members uncovering a traitor in their midst.

SOURCES: Variety 1960 – Aug 3, Aug 10, Aug 17, Aug 24, Aug 31.

Pollyanna (1960) ***

This Walt Disney version discarded much of Eleanor H. Porter’s original best seller not to mention a great deal of the tear-jerking section that played to superstar Mary Pickford’s strengths in the silent 1920 adaptation. Pickford was in her late 20s at the time and a movie mogul to boot (having launched United Artists) so had a depth of emotion Hayley Mills (aged 13 during filming) could not hope to match.

The screenplay is a good lesson in how to retain the essential element of a story – a positive-thinking orphan alleviates the gloom in an embittered town – while providing more for adult audiences. Disney assembled an awesome cast with three Oscar-winners – Jane Wyman (Best Actress, Johnny Belinda, 1948), Karl Malden (Best Supporting Actor, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1952) and Donald Crisp (Best Supporting Actor, How Green Was My Valley, 1942) – plus four-time nominee Agnes Moorehead and Adolph Menjou.

Despite no Oscar recognition Nancy Olsen had been leading lady to the likes of Bing Crosby, John Wayne and William Holden. In effect, parents would be very familiar with the stellar supporting cast. Unusually for a kid’s picture, Wyman, Malden and Crisp each are given a reflective moment to prove they are doing more than taking an easy salary cheque.

At least in Hollywood terms (Mills made her debut the year before in the British Tiger Bay, 1959) Pollyanna falls into the a-star-is-born category. The actress acquits herself well, with her expressive face, while hearing the emotion she packs into the word “gorgeous” is word admission alone. With a healthy subplot about a town in thrall to matriarch Wyman, the weight of the movie does not fall on Mills’ shoulders alone and fire-and-brimstone preacher Malden and faded spinster Wyman are particularly good; Malden especially allocated more screen time than would be normal in a movie aimed at kids.

I have never read the book nor (to my shame) seen the Pickford version, so I came to the movie with low expectations, anticipating a lazy, maudlin effort. So I was quite surprised to discover how much I enjoyed it and was shocked by the final piece of action which turned the movie on its head. Sure, it relies on the feelgood factor but there is some decent stuff here – Pollyanna’s determination to find goodness in every event and every person takes her into some strange avenues – the rainbow playing on the walls, the “good parts” of the Bible – that these days makes for an entertaining matinee.

What the Exhibitor Said

The only view the public in the 1960s ever heard was that of the movie critics. Generally more concerned with the bottom line than plaudits (unless those translated into box office), studios could harvest their own opinion about a movie’s worth through reported box office figures. Exhibitors were caught in the middle – being told by critics how good a movie was and by reports in Variety and other trade magazines how well it was doing on initial release.

But how a movie performed in first run often bore no resemblance to receipts in fifth or sixth or tenth or eleventh run, in small towns or places where the population barely topped the thousand-mark. So weekly trade paper Box Office magazine gave exhibitors a voice, allowing them to sound off about an under-performing picture or praise one that still had some juice left by the time it reached their location.

You will see from the titles mentioned below just how long it took for some movies to complete their runs. You can also see the conditions under which theater owners worked – some films only played two days or had their box office nullified by weather.

Reports below are from the March 30, 1964, issue of Box Office and I would assume exhibitors had played the films a few weeks prior to this date.

Hud (released May 1963), drama starring Paul Newman. “Business above average but no one seemed pleased in what they paid for.” – Ken Christianson, Roxy Theatre, Washburn (pop 913), North Dakota. Played Sunday and Monday. He also screened historical epic Taras Bulba (December 1962) starring Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis on a Sunday and Monday and commented: “Excellent, entertaining, interesting story but below average at box office. Just too many of this type.”

Bye, Bye Birdie (June 1963), musical starring Janet Leigh and Dick Van Dyke. “If you want a small town natural, play Birdie…Bad weather killed the box office.” – W. S. Funk, Kingstree Drive-In Theatre, Kingstree (pop 2,500), South Carolina.

The Haunting (August 1963), horror starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom. “It is doing all right. The advertising material is so good for a change that I’m not worried about this one.” – Jim Fraser, Auditorium Theatre, Red Wing (pop 12,500), Minnesota. Played Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Nine Hours to Rama (April 1963), drama starring Horst Buchholz. “This picture was definitely a dud in my town. Might have been better as part of a double bill had it had less running time.” – Joseph Machetta, Emerson Theatre, Brush (pop 3,621 in 1960 Census), Colorado. Played Tuesday and Wednesday. The theater also showed the double bill of war drama The Young and the Brave (August 1963) starring Rory Calhoun and William Bendix with the older George Pal sci-fi Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961) and Machetta commented: “The combination was rewarding at the box office. I would suggest trying it as the combination provides interest to most ages.” Played this duo Thursday and Friday.

A Gathering of Eagles (June 1963), drama starring Rock Hudson and Rod Taylor. “A good picture but one of Rock Hudson’s poorest grosses. Airplane pictures don’t set the world on fire for me anymore.” – Terry Axley, New Theatre, England (pop 2,136), Arkansas. Played Sunday and Monday.

Donovans’s Reef (June 1963) with John Wayne and Lee Marvin. “A wonderful family comedy in color and drew a big turnout. John Wayne did a wonderful job and is a big favorite here.” – Leonard J. Leise. Roxy Theatre, Randolph (pop 1,029), Nebraska. Played Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

If you ever attended any of these theaters or know of them or were even in the audience for the pictures mentioned, please get in touch.

The Woman Who Beat Hollywood

Outside of her brace of Oscars, Olivia de Havilland’s biggest achievement was in forcing studios to pay actors who did not want to work. She wasn’t the first person to take on the studios as I discovered when researching my book When Women Ruled Hollywood. Bette Davis, Myrna Loy and Hedy Lamarr preceded her.

De Havilland owed the studio several months on her contract since she had failed to fulfill its terms by refusing to work and was put on suspension. She took the view that the suspension should form part of her contract. The law agreed.

De Havilland was without doubt a great actress – her Oscars for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949) plus nominations for Gone with the Wind (1939), Hold Back the Dawn (1941) and my favorite The Snake Pit (1948) attest to that.

But without Errol Flynn at her side she was never a big star. Her only big hit once she left the Warner Brothers comfort zone was medical drama Not as a Stranger (1955) which had strong co-stars in Frank Sinatra and Robert Mitchum. Once she won her freedom she was only seen 15 pictures in 20 years. Both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis made 50 per cent more.

She enjoyed one of the great screen partnerships with Errol Flynn in swashbucklers like Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and westerns Dodge City (1939) and They Died with their Boots On (1941). Despite her protestations to the contrary, Warner Brothers looked after their ingenue and developed her talent. Versatility was key to remaining a star – the public soon grew tired of a star confined to single genre – and she appeared in westerns, drama, comedies.

Her main problem was her age. She was only 19 when Captain Blood appeared. She was competing with the more mature Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, eight and twelve years older, respectively, for the best parts the studio had to offer. Warner Brothers was also willing to let her go out on loan, her first two nominations were for work at other studios, MGM and Paramount. Since most of the top male actors were much older, it would be hard for her to be accepted by audiences as their equal in a romance or drama.

That she won her case against the studio was as much to do with politics as anything else. The idea that an actor should enjoy more freedom in the workplace than a miner or a nurse was patently preposterous. However, the government was involved in aggressive action against Hollywood that would result in the break-up of the studio system and make hundreds of actors, who depended on contracts, freelancers whether they liked it or not.

However, she certainly made great use of her freedom, as the unwed mother in To Each His Own, confined to a mental asylum in The Snake Pit and forced to choose between money and happiness in William Wyler’s The Heiress.

After a three-year hiatus, she returned with another strong performance in the adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel (1952). But by the end of the decade she had lost her star status, demoted to leading lady, below Alan Ladd in the billing for in The Proud Rebel (1958) and Dirk Bogarde in Libel (1959). After the reissue of Gone with the Wind in 1961, her career briefly revived – with romantic drama Light in the Piazza (1962) and powerful performances as the woman terrorized by thugs in Lady in a Cage (1964) and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).

Thereafter, there were occasional supporting roles and television parts. Her last movie was The Fifth Musketeer (1979).

Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) ****

There could not be a more contemporary picture. As an examination of the problems of assimilating different cultures it is hard to beat. As an assessment of the difficulties of the transition of power it is faultless.

In Gladiator Ridley Scott, taking a few liberties with the known facts, re-imagined the circumstances discussed here of the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the ascension to power of his son Commodus. Along the way, Scott stole a few of Anthony Mann’s visual ideas, snow falling on the battlefield, for example, and at the end the phalanx of guards, shields up, blocking in Commodus and the dethroned military chieftain (Stephen Boyd here, Russell Crowe in Gladiator) for their gladiatorial climax.

British advertisement for the film about to go on general release after a spell in the more expensive West End. The “normal prices” slogan was very commonly found on movies as they headed towards the more normal kind of cinema. in addition, by the time it was rest go into wider release the critics had delivered their verdicts and these could be tagged onto any advertising.

The title does not refer to an invasion of Rome by vast armies of barbarians but the internal corruption which signals the end of the empire. Audiences, taught Latin and Roman history as a matter of course at school around the time the film was released, would be more familiar with the subject matter, but hardly prepared for the spectacle.

Every extra in the known world must have been employed for several scenes, cities bursting with inhabitants, armies sprawling over vast tracts of land. One standout is the extraordinary chariot clash between the two protagonists, not in the confines of an amphitheatre a la Ben Hur, but on wild terrain, along narrow cliff roads, wheels tipping over the edge, down ravines and forest. The other is the soundless gladiatorial fight, not a whisper of music until there is a victor.

And there should be mention of the torture of James Mason, very well done. There is political intrigue, quite a clever way of poisoning an enemy, and plenty argument over the issue of accommodating different cultures, traditional punishment versus the novel notion of extending the hand of friendship and granting automatic citizenship.

The relatively short-lived “Show Time” fan magazine was launched in Britain as Odeon’s answer to the highly successful “ABC Film Review.” Both magazines were only sold inside cinemas but it was common for cinemagoers to purchase copies without necessarily going into to see a picture. This magazine ceased publication by the end of the decade. This was the launch issue in Janaury 1964.

Loyalty is also tested – is treason a form of loyalty? And how much does loyalty depend solely on payment? Proof is given of how integrating cultures can work, an idea that seems alien to Romans accustomed to beating subjects into submission. In some respects the drama takes second place to the discussion.

Christopher Plummer is the deranged Commodus who embraces and disdains in turn his friend Livius (Stephen Boyd). Sophia Loren, as Commodus’ sister (no incestuous suggestions here), is in love with Boyd and though married off to Armenian king Omar Sharif she manages to spend little time with her husband.

If approached as a political film rather than a traditional epic it has a lot to offer. If you want just battles and thwarted romance then a lot less. The mixture of both strikes a good balance. While there are arguments that it is too long, it could actually do with another twenty minutes or so to iron out narrative inconsistencies.

In the News: July 1960

ADVANCE BOOKING REACHES NEW HEIGHTS

When these days you casually book your movie tickets online for a screening a week or a month ahead, you might not be aware it was not always so easy to book in advance. Sixty years ago it was a rarity. You had to wait in line outside the theater like everybody else.

The emergence of the roadshow at the tail end of the 1950s changed all that. Then you could book by mail (snail mail not email), filling out a booking form with your choice of seating and date and send it off with a check or money order to the theater and wait for tickets to come back a week later. Advance bookings quickly become a measure of how well a roadshow would perform.

So in summer 1960 United Artists were cock-a-hoop in reporting that Exodus, not due out for another six months, had racked up a record $700,000 advance. At first this cash just rolled around in the bank accounts of the designated theater, but in the 1970s studios realized that it was in large part their money and that was when they started demanding upfront guarantees.

STILLS GO UPMARKET

A new trend in stills photography took root. Studios began hiring world-famous snappers. Heading up the trend, United Artists sent nine photographers from international agency Magnum Photos to Reno, Nevada, to provide atmospheric pictures during the shooting of John Huston’s The Misfits. The big names included Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Inge Morath. They were paid substantial amounts, far more than regular stills photographers. The best known earned $5,000 a week. This was an investment in a name since the idea was that top-class magazines would be more likely to feature a photographic spread on a movie should the pictures come with the cachet of a recognised name. It proved a genius marketing idea. Top magazines took the bait. As an offshoot, and attracting another sizable slice of publicity, the work went on display at Loew’s Capitol movie house in New York as a prelude to presentation in other first run houses.

IN OTHER NEWS

Charlie Chaplin was omitted from the Hollywood Walk of Fame…The premature death at the age of 51 of Twentieth Century Fox head of production Buddy Adler opened the door for the return of Darryl F. Zanuck, thus paving the way a few years later for the legendary producer to save the studio when it almost went bust thanks to gigantic overruns on Cleopatra… Studios considered pulling back on newspaper advertising when they discovered not only were some newspapers censoring movie ads but around 35 per cent of them refused to run reviews…In the first push in what would turn out to be a long-term marketing campaign for The Greatest Story Ever Told director George Stevens hired an international head of public relations and shortly after issued an advertisement that will forever be a blot on the copybook of John Wayne, who was the first star to be signed.

Sources: Variety – Jul 6, July 13, Jul 20, Jul 27, 1960; “Photographic Exhibition for The Misfits,” Box Office Showmandiser section, Jan 16, 1961, 10.

Day of the Triffids (1963)****

Pandemic means pandemonium and these are by far the best scenes in the adaptation of John Wyndham’s famed sci-fi novel. Virtually everyone in the world is struck blind by the fierce brightness emitted from a bombardment of meteorites.

When passengers on a plane realize their pilot is blind, the panic is breathtaking. Ditto a train crashing into a station. While those with sight intact such as a busload of convicts can terrorize the blind, forcing them to submit to sexual overtures. On top of that are terrific scenes of deserted cities – very familiar to us all during the current pandemic – and of those unable to see trying to walk hands outstretched or attach themselves to anyone still blessed with sight.

One of the standouts is patient Howard Keel, saved from seeing the dazzling light display because his eyes were bandaged, walking through a deserted and trashed hospital. And perhaps Jurassic Park found useful the scene where the plants test an electrified fence.

And on top of that, of course, are the unstoppable monstrous man-eating plants whose growth has been triggered by the comets. Steven Spielberg over a decade later showed how to maintain tension by showing a terrifying predator in small doses and indicating its presence through musical cues and especially, when your monster ain’t quite up to scratch, keeping it hidden for as long as possible.

Interestingly, this film uses sound cues, specific noises attributable to the creatures, though the plants are shown too soon and too often but, in terms of special effects, not at all bad for their time and the low budget. And the sheer normality of the locations works very well – a caretaker having his sandwich, hard-boiled egg and flask of coffee the first victim. Some deft humor undercuts the terror. “Once you’ve tasted this coffee of mine,” remarks a character, ”you’ll know nothing worse can happen.”

Leading the battle against the monsters are sailor Howard Keel, ironically recovering from an eye operation, hotel proprietor Nicole Maurey and in an isolated location alcoholic scientist Kieron Moore and his wife Janette Scott. Keel and Maurey are initially intent on mere escape, but in the end have to fight.

But once again a film like this shows how much more powerful is imagination. We can imagine being blind and walking in a vacuum with the vulnerability and helplessness that fear entails. As the present pandemic has shown, the unknown is terrifying and fear of the unknown even worse.

Pressbook: Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960)

Studios did not always trust movie theater managers to glance at the Pressbooks posted out to them, one of the initial functions of such marketing manuals being to tempt said managers into booking the film in the first place. So studios occasionally chose a more direct route of getting in a manager’s face and would lump the whole Pressbook into an American trade magazine. Sword of Sherwood Forest took this route.

The film was a very speedy attempt by British studio Hammer to cash in on the popularity of The Adventures of Robin Hood television series, especially by hiring its star Richard Greene. It was a bit of an uphill struggle, movie swashbucklers long out of fashion. In fact, it was only the British television industry that kept the genre alive, in the second half of the 1950s pumping out such series as The Buccaneeers, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, Sword of Freedom and The Adventures of William Tell. The 30-minute Robin Hood series ran in Britain on ITV in 1955-1959 and was picked up by CBS in 1958

This Presbook was a fold-out, the initial A4 sheets pulling out to form a giant A2 sheet. Hammer was relying on the fact that by the time the movie appeared in America, the series was being shown on various television stations. Some of the marketing ideas were straightforward enough such as utilizing toy stores that would likely have swords and archery sets among its inventory and it would be easy enough to sent a promotional girl or man down a main street decked out in tights and leather jerkin.

But it was a bit of a long shot to expect a theater manager in a small town to host a fencing tournament. The stars were little help – Richard Greene had virtually no marquee value not having made a picture in five years until his television success prompted Cold War thriller Beyond the Curtain (1960) but that was British-made with little American penetration. The public might be more familiar with bad guy Peter Cushing after his interpretation of Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) and horror pictures The Brides of Dracula (1960) and The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).

There might have been some mileage out of newcomer Sarah Branch as Maid Marian but she did not feature at all in the Pressbook. The marketeers appeared to be relying solely on the popularity of the Robin Hood legend and perhaps audience familiarity with old Errol Flynn pictures that popped up with regularity on television channels because, unusually for a piece of material that was meant to sell a picture to theater managers, this made remarkably little impact as a marketing tool beyond the fact that it was unavoidable in the middle of a weekly trade magazine.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=sword+of+sherwood+forest&i=dvd&crid=248S7I355ZP5O&sprefix=sword+of+sherwood+forest%2Caps%2C148&ref=nb_sb_ss_ac-a-p_1_24

Station Six Sahara (1963) ***

David Lean spent months in Jordan capturing his vision of the desert for Lawrence of Arabia. Seth Holt was granted no such luxury, a few weeks at Shepperton Studios in England to make this British-German co-production.

It is a surprisingly tight and effective drama made on a low budget excepting whatever fee induced Hollywood star Carroll Baker to join. Five men trapped on an oil pipeline maintenance unit drive each other to distraction. Loud Scot Ian Bannen constantly needles stiff upper-class Denholm Elliott while overbearing German boss Peter Van Eyck cheats at poker. The arrival of steely-eyed German Hansjorg Felmy alters the status quo as he refuses in his own quiet way to knuckle down to authority.

There is a wonderful psychological battle going on between Bannen and Elliott. Extremely envious of the number of letters Elliott receives, Bannen offers a month’s pay for just one. When the offer is accepted, Elliott cannot stop fretting about what he might have given away and what secrets it revealed about himself.

The arrival of Carroll Baker upsets the equilibrium further as the men attempt to win her affections. While apparently promiscuous, she is steelier than the lot of them, and tensions climb high when she begins to spread around her favors. Interestingly, she does no wooing but waits for men to come to her.

Given the budget restraints, or possibly because of them, it is surprisingly well directed. Two scenes stand out in directorial terms. In one featuring Bannen and Elliott, the Scot is only partly visible behind a piece of furniture but his dialogue continues even when out of sight. In the other, one of Baker’s suitors finds her door locked and as she is about to reply a hand appears (not in aggressive fashion) to cover her mouth, indicating she already has chosen her bedmate. Naturally, this can only lead to a grim end.

The cast of male unknowns are uniformly good but Baker steals the show as you would expect. Given the times, there was no nudity, but the overt sexuality certainly skirted the bounds of what passed as decency and Baker is alluring however little or much she wears. But her sexuality takes second place to her individuality. Her independence will not be surrendered to a man. Despite the budget restrictions it stands up very well.