I am a published author of books about film - over a dozen to my name, the latest being "When Women Ruled Hollywood." As the title of the blog suggests, this is a site devoted to movies of the 1960s but since I go to the movies twice a week - an old-fashioned double-bill of my own choosing - I might occasionally slip in a review of a contemporary picture.
Heard the latest trend at the water cooler?. It’s not, have you seen House of Guinness (2025) / Monster (2025) / Black Rabbit (2025) / Frauds (2025)? But when did you stop watching House of Guinness / Monster / Black Rabbit / Frauds? When streamers show such contempt for audiences is it any wonder the audiences retaliate with the only weapon in their arsenal – switching off?
It’s not as if House of Guinness is treading a fine line between Downton Abbey and Succession. Any fine line is purely in the imagination of the makers of the Irish saga. There’s no fine line to be found. Downton Abbey is a traditional historical drama focusing on characters and relationships with an occasional nod to the outside world, Succession is a ramped-up business drama focusing on vicious characters and bitter relationships on which the outside world rarely intrudes. There’s no hybrid possible. You just can’t merge them.
Am I going to keep watching House of Guinness because some critic says it picks up in the third episode? It’s not a historical tale in the grand tradition of country houses, quarrels and bonking, but actually some post-modernist number where characters do what, historically, they otherwise wouldn’t. The women wouldn’t swear in company, didn’t even attend funerals in those days and the Dublin populace did not bombard the funeral carriage of the most distinguished person in the country with tomatoes not even when rallied by rebellious forces.
The Crown began this ridiculous idea that you just fictionalize the factual because you can. The resultant controversy is good for column inches and clickbait but nothing else. I stopped watching that after the second series.
There has to be enough in the Ed Gein story without a mother straight out of Carrie (1976) and a bad guy with a squeaky accent majoring on Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S. I gave up on Monster and House of Guinness after one episode. I didn’t get past two episodes of Black Rabbit, wondering why it required more episodes before these ineptly-drawn characters got their comeuppance.
But Frauds takes the biscuit. This only works if you fall for the idea that security cameras never work in Spain and that a criminal who has been locked up for a decade and must be way behind in her knowledge of such can still tell at a glance whether they are working or not. And that the Spanish are so hard-up that they can only manage a padlock to deter thieves from a bullring. Or that the most famous bullfighter’s outfit in the history of bullfighting will equally be bereft of even the simplest of security measures that a thief can walk off with it undisturbed.
Laughable is the tone set here early on. Stands to reason that if you can smuggle a gun into prison you can smuggle a gun out and that if you can have sex with male wardens you will have everyone in the palm of your hand especially if you plan to steal a major piece of art. Try getting your head round the notion that the prison authorities would hand over on compassionate grounds an inmate dying of cancer to her best pal who hasn’t visited her once while she’s been inside. It wouldn’t surprise me if the cancer is faked, if you can smuggle in a gun etc then surely you can bribe a doctor or two.
Frauds aims at Thelma and Louise country and fails. Hubris is the major flaw in House of Guinness, Black Rabbit and Monster, the idea that showrunners know best and that studio executives had better give them their head otherwise they’ll slope off to another studio which will accede to their demands.
But then studio heads appear to have little idea of what will attract an audience. There’s nothing new in that, otherwise Hollywood wouldn’t be littered with a back catalog of flops and stinkers. What happened to audience research that The Smashing Machine (2025) was expecting an opening weekend of $15 million only to come up $9 million short and my guess is that they took the Oscar promotional route because the movie was such a mess there was little choice.
Television studios can spend millions pumping up a new release so that it gains some initial audience traction but underestimate the audience and your viewing figures will tumble.
Must-see for collectors of cinematic curios. A treatise on entitlement, bullfighting, Picasso, the impact of celebrity on everyday lives and the hermaphroditic qualities of snails? Or an innovative piece of moviemaking through its use of a jigsaw split-screen, an audacious reimagining of the painter’s work, documentary and animation. Or despite the involvement of top talent like Albert Finney (Tom Jones, 1963), Yvette Mimieux (Dark of the Sun, 1968), composer Michel Legrand (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) and writer Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451, 1966), rightly consigned to the vault and never given a cinema release.
George (Albert Finney), a disenchanted San Francisco architect who designs warehouses, and wife Alice (Yvette Mimieux) take a holiday in France to rekindle his love of Picasso and set out to find and – in in a severe case of early onset entitlement – talk to the legendary painter. So they fly to Paris, take the train to Cannes and cycle around. Romance, it has to be said, in that idyllic countryside is the last thing on his mind, although George does pluck a guitar and sing a love song on a riverbank and they do dally in the sea. And he is far from a stuffed shirt, in one scene stealing a boy’s balloon to prevent the kid hogging a telescope.
Not even Barbra Streisand singing the title track provided the movie with any momentum.
There are barely ten lines of meaningful dialog, though Alice’s frustration at her husband’s obsession is soon obvious. The best sequences are the reimagining of Picasso paintings as animation. Picasso broke down the world, so we are told, and represented it as his own so by this token it seems pretty fair to do the same to the artist’s work. In the best scene George turns toreador (not sure the budget ran to stuntmen) facing up to a real bull. But there is plenty Picasso to make up, including a candlelit walk along the “Dream Tunnel” displaying the artist’s War and Peace murals, a lecture on the painter’s ceramics and his self-identification with death in the bull ring.
And there is a twist at the end, as the couple on a beach do not loiter long enough to see a man resembling the famed artist make Picasso-like drawings on the sand. But mostly it’s a story about American entitlement, that a painter should not shut himself off from the world in order to prevent the world stopping him getting on with painting. When George, denied entrance or even acknowledgement of his bell-ringing, stands at the gate to the Picasso villa, it is almost as he is the one imprisoned by his need for celebrity. Half a century on, the need for ordinary lives to be validated by contact with celebrities has become an insane part of life. The fact that the impossible mission ends in defeat (“everything is still the same”) lends a tone of irony.
Work out in your own mind what resemblence the guy who appears briefly at the end bears to Picasso.
Finney’s box office status at this point in his career allowed him to retain his thick Lancashire accent – Sean Connery managed that trick for his entire career. As in Two for the Road (1967) he does a trademark Bogart impression and eats with his mouth open. And he is game enough to stand in a bull ring with a raging bull. Yvette Mimieux is scandalously underused, insights into her thoughts conveyed by lonely walks through night-time streets, although she is the only one to fully appreciate art when she comes across a blind painter (Peter Madden). The best part goes to Luis Miguel Dominguin playing himself, a bullfighter and renowned friend of Picasso. In the incongruity stakes little can match Graham Stark (The Plank, 1967) as a French postman.
As you might have guessed this had a somewhat complicated production. Three directors were involved: Robert Sallin, Serge Bourguignon and Wes Herchendsohn. It was the only directorial chore for Sallin, better known as the producer of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). It brought a temporary halt to the career of Oscar-nominated director Bourguignon (Sundays and Cybele, 1962) whose previous film was Two Weeks in September starring Brigitte Bardot. Herchendsohn was primarily an animation layout artist/supervisor credited with episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974).
There is some stunning cinematography from Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance, 1972) and a superb score by Michel Legrand. This was the beginning and end of the movie career of Edwin Boyd who shared screenwriting credit with Bradbury. And it was the beginning and the end of the movie as a viable film for general release, Warner Brothers promptly shelved it.
In the hands of a French or Spanish arthouse moviemaker, with a tale of protagonists going nowhere, this might have gained more critical traction. It’s hardly going to fall into the highly-commended category, but in fact from the present-day perspective says a lot about celebrity obsession and entitlement. Despite the oddities – perhaps because of them – I was never bored.
Limp ending to a fine series. Torpedoed by too many oddities. Leslie Philips returns in the top-billed role, but he’s not playing the suave Dr Gaston Grimsdyke of the previous iteration, but instead a more hapless version of Dr Paul Burke, the character he played a decade before in Doctor in Love (1960).
Confused? You will be. It’s clearly set up for James Robertson Justice to play two characters, a la Sinners (2025), his usual Sir Lancelot Spratt and his presumably identical brother, ship’s captain George Spratt. But Justice fell ill and the naval part was taken by Robert Morley, of similar bombastic ilk, but in diction more long-winded and fluffy and lacking the bite of the surgeon.
In the last two episodes I’d seen there had been an obnoxious salt-of-the-earth character who turned out to be surprisingly artistic. Here, we have to settle for the nouveau riche Pools-winner (a gambling game of the era) who is channeling his inner Sidney James, all leer and not much else. And if you want proof that it’s never a good idea to hire a television personality merely because he has a large following, look no further than Simon Dee.
Several notions will not endear themselves to the contemporary audience – the cross-dressing, the cliché gays, and the Englishman in brownface playing an Indian. That’s not to mention the pratfalls and endless falling into swimming pools.
There’s even less of a plot than in the last outing. Dr Burke (Leslie Philips) accidentally stows away on a cruise ship after pursuing model girlfriend Ophelia (Angela Scoular) who’s working there. He also comes up against actor Basil Beauchamp (Simon Dee), an old school bete noire, who plays a doctor in a television soap.
Dr Burke is hounded by the ship’s Master-at-Arms (Freddie Jones) so occasionally it lurches into farce. And there’s any number of sexy debutantes either desperate to climb into bed with the TV star or hook the gambler.
If it had settled on one tone – slapstick, sex comedy or farce – it might well have worked even in the face of the poor script. Cor blimey, there’s even some fleeting nudity from Ophelia and Leslie Philips and a striptease that’s way out of place for what was originally a much gentler comedy than the Carry Ons. In terms of style it’s all over the place and not a single member of the cast is appealing enough to rescue it.
Had Leslie Philips been in traditional “ding-dong” comfort zone it might have passed muster but here he’s just the butt of all the jokes without generating an ounce of sympathy. Robert Morley (Some Girls Do, 1969) isn’t a patch on James Robertson Justice. Angela Scoular (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969) seems off-key, Freddie Jones (Otley, 1969) as if he’s in a different picture while the constantly leering Harry Secombe (Oliver! 1968) belongs in a Carry On. Graham Stark (The Picasso Summer, 1969) is deplorable as the Indian waiter Satterjee.
The only person to rise above their station is Joan Sims (Doctor in Clover, 1966) who makes a cameo appearance as a Russian nurse. In bit parts you might spot Yutte Stensgaard (Zeta One, 1969) and Janet Mahoney in her debut.
Directed as usual by Ralph Thomas. Script by Jack Davies based on a Richard Gordon bestseller.
After this, the series was reimagined for television and returned to its gentle comedy roots.
Ding dong! All change. Out go the dithering twerps and in comes the seductive lothario. Dirk Bogarde after one last charge and no longer the country’s top attraction at the box office has departed for the more receptive arthouse climes of King and Country (1964), Darling (1965) and Accident (1966). In his place, at St Swithins, has come Dr Gaston Grimsdyke (Leslie Phillips) who imbues the character with trademark seductive purr.
With Gaston able to be upfront in his intentions, there is less reliance on the innuendo that suffocated rival Carry On series, and seemed to cover all manner of male deficiencies, most obviously the ability to pursue a girl in the normal acceptable manner. The exceptionally slight narrative is more a series of sketches and falls back on slapstick, some of which is hilarious – two doctors covering everyone in foam – and others less so (how many times can you fall fully clothed into a swimming pool?).
The patients line up to fill any gaps, headed in the main by “I-know-my-rights” walking medical encyclopedia Tarquin Wendover (Arthur Haynes) who despite his rough exterior reveals a penchant for ballet, and Russian ballet dancer Tatiana Rubikov (Fenella Fielding) determined to attract the male gaze.
Now there are two medics to put everyone in their place, Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) and starchy Matron Sweet (Joan Sims) who revels in handing out a ticking off and takes on Spratt over what might be deemed these days a support animal in the shape of a parrot – and wins. At least she wins round one. But then her steely resolve crumbles as she believes she is secretly being wooed by Spratt.
But in the days when ageing male Hollywood idols were being teamed up, with nary a concern about the obvious age gap, with women half their age, and the likes of James Bond and Alfie never had to countenance rejection, it’s quite amazing that this piece of froth takes a more realistic approach. The main storyline revolves around the 35-year-old Gaston being knocked back by the 20-year-old French physiotherapist Jeannine (Elizabeth Ercy) who, for plot reasons, appears almost constantly in a swimsuit.
In a bid to make himself more appealing, Gaston embarks on a series of rejuvenating activities and treatments, planning to inject himself with a serum which, as you might he expect, he manages to inject into Spratt with hilarious consequence. He then turns to a “mood-enhancing” gas but that rebounds on him when he finds himself instead falling for the matron. As a subplot he is rival with his cousin Miles Grimsdyke (John Fraser) for a plum job – and is passed over, ironically, because he looks too young.
British audiences were taken by the twists to the formula and turned it into one of the top 15 films of the year at the box office. And I can certainly see its continued appeal. The days of the inept romantic are over. This is the permissive sixties after all. And while Gaston is rejected by Jeannine his flirtatious moves are welcomed by the equally seductive Nurse Bancroft (Shirley Anne Field), though since she is already engaged flirtation is as far as she’ll go and Gaston is disinclined to pursue the matter once he notices the size of her future husband.
There’s even a daring, for its time, sequence involving male hands mistakenly caressing each other, with their owners enjoying such fondling before they realize their error.
Leslie Phillips (The Fast Lady, 1962) is in his element – and he has a far better command of comedy than Dirk Bogarde – and a delight especially as his constant amour is constantly curbed. Despite third billing Shirley Anne Field (Kings of the Sun, 1963) has little more than an extended cameo even though she shines in what little she has to do. James Robertson Justice (Mayerling, 1969) remains the grumpy heart of the picture though Carry On regular Joan Sims runs him close. Elizabeth Ercy (The Sorcerers, 1967) has the delightful job of putting Gaston in his romantic place. Suzan Farmer (633 Squadron, 1964) puts in a brief appearance as do a host of British television names including Arthur Haynes (The Arthur Haynes Show, 1957, 1966), Terry Scott (Hugh and I, 1962-1967) and Alfie Bass (Bootsie and Snudge, 1960-1963)
Directed, once again, by series regular Ralph Thomas, taking a break from more serious efforts like The High Bright Sun (1965). Written by Jack Davies (Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, 1965) from the Richard Gordon bestseller.
Surprisingly hardnosed for a British crime thriller. Surprisingly stylish and when the sting in the tail comes, it’s an emotional one, adding a deeper level to one of the main characters. In most crime picture – wherever they originate, Britain, Hollywood, France, Italy – the detectives may well complain to their colleagues about their superiors but they never take them on head-to-head and again and again. For that element alone, this is well worth watching.
The opening has you hooked, way head of its time, you would be more likely to see this type of approach in a picture from a top-name director, Alfred Hitchcock for example. A man, Marlowe (Robert Shaw) enters a derelict detached house carrying three parcels. He climbs a flight of stairs. With a key he opens a locked door. It might be a bedsit it’s so scarcely furnished except for the child’s bed. He sits down at the table, empties out two bottles of milk and some food. He opens a long parcel wrapped in paper and takes out a stuffed toy. He flips it over on its stomach, cuts open its back, pulls out the stuffing and from his last parcel removes a small bomb which he places in the empty space.
(At this point I have to explain that the toy is a gollywog, an innocent enough toy at the time but which has different connotations now, so is rarely mentioned, but this particular type of toy has a bearing on the plot, so forgive me if I make further mention of it.)
Next time we see him he’s wearing a chauffer’s uniform, picking up a small boy, Jonathan, (Piers Bishop) to take to school. Only, as you’ll have gathered, he has another destination in mind, but takes care not to frighten the child, to keep him distracted to the extent of the child thinking there’s nothing untoward as he is taken upstairs. He’s delighted with the toy, and not, at this point, too worried to be left alone.
Meanwhile, at the boy’s house, nanny Mrs Robinson (Helen Cherry) receives a telephone call from the school asking where the boy is. Just as the perplexed widowed father Anthony Chester (Alec Clunes) is given the news, Marlowe, now dressed in a suit, and carrying a Gladstone bag, appears at the door. Anthony greets him by name.
In the study Marlowe explains he has kidnapped the son, requires £50,000 in ransom, has planted a bomb set to go off the next morning at ten o’clock (hence the title), but will only release details of the child’s whereabouts once he is out of the country. Chester, a millionaire, has no qualms about paying up. Marlow is as cool as a cucumber. He has come up with the perfect crime. He will get off scot-free, become instantly rich and no one will come to any harm.
Except the nanny is listening at the door and dials 999. The local cops call in Scotland Yard. Assistant Commissioner Bewley (Alan Wheatley) assigns the case to Detective Inspector Parnell (John Gregson) quickly revealed as a tough nut, threatening to turn a suspect in a jewel robbery loose so that his pals will think he’s squealed and exact vengeance.
By the time, he reaches the house, Chester has gone off to withdraw the cash from the bank. Inside, Parnell confronts Marlowe. And so begins a game of cat-and-mouse. Marlowe holds firm, believing that the cop will give in to save the child, Parnell searches for a psychological weakness in the criminal’s makeup that he can use to crack him. Each convinced of their own mental strength in a battle with an innocent life at stake.
Chester returns with the money and is furious to discover the cop. When Parnell refuses to play along with handing over the cash to the kidnapper, Chester pulls out his ace, the old boys network, calling up Bewley, asking for Parnell to be removed from the case. Bewley, happy to do a favor for a wealthy pal, agrees. But Parnell refuses to go.
Bewley goes in person to confront his insubordinate officer. Still, Parnell refuses to budge, verbally attacking his smug superior, threatening to go to the newspapers.
While the pair are arguing, Chester loses his rag, physically attacking Marlowe. In the struggle, Marlowe falls back, hits his head and falls unconscious. Bewley, who has reluctantly agreed to let Parnell continue, now responds with spiteful glee. The cop will carry the can if the child dies.
Chester, meanwhile, is calling in the top medical experts to save Marlowe, money no object. But Parnell can’t afford to wait and enlarges the inquiry, putting out a public appeal, Marlowe’s face on the front page of the evening newspaper. But every other investigation can’t be halted just for this case, so Parnell is frustrated when various beat cops, originally going door-to-door, are pulled off onto other case.
Meanwhile, we already know Jonathan has worked out something is wrong, But the window is sealed with steel mesh and the door is locked and eventually he goes to sleep cuddling the deadly toy.
Marlowe shows no sign of recovery and dies. Bewley ups the stakes against Parnell. A beat cop looks at the outside of the house in question but walks away. Parnell gets a tip-off that leads him to a nightclub called the Gollywog Club and encounters Marlowe’s parents who run the place. Their name is Maddow. They haven’t seen their son in several months and while they accept he’s a criminal, the mother reminisces about what a loving boy he was.
Eventually, Parnell finds the estate agent who rented the property to Marlowe. By now they have just five minutes to get to the property.
They arrive a few minutes after the deadline.
But Jonathan has inadvertently saved his own skin, and ironically the plan has backfired because of Marlowe’s insistence on hiding the bomb in a stuffed toy of sentimental value rather than secreting it in a cupboard or somewhere the child would not have looked, and even if he found it wouldn’t know what it was.
After waking up Jonathan has washed his face and hands and decides the toy could do with a bit of tidying up the same so dunks it in a sink full of water, thus nullifying the bomb.
Parnell goes home, welcomed by wife and – child the same age as Jonathan.
So, yes, much of the tale is par for the course, several twists to up the tension, but Parnell’s duels with his boss put this on a different level, and the realisation at the end that he has managed to set aside the feelings for his own child. And it’s also elevated by the direction of veteran Lance Comfort (Devils of Darkness, 1965) who takes time out – in an era when such features were usually cut to the bone – to add atmosphere. The first and last scenes are outstanding for different reasons and the two verbal duels make for a fascinating movie.
Stronger cast than most in this budget category – John Gregson (Faces in the Dark, 1960) and Robert Shaw (Jaws, 1975) bring cool steel to the affair.
Though little-know, Tomorrow at Ten has been acclaimed as one of the top 15 British crime pictures made between 1945 and 1970 and I wholeheartedly agree.
Producer Elliott Kastner had been angling to make a picture with close friend Warren Beatty for several years and already two highly-touted projects had bitten the dust – Honeybear, I Love You with a screenplay by Charles Eastman and Boys and Girls Together adapted from the William Goldman bestseller with Joseph Losey (Accident, 1966) lined up as director and filming set to begin in May 1965. Beatty was also first choice for comedy The Bobo (later filmed with Peter Sellers) when Kastner was trying to get that off the ground in 1965,
Like Carl Foreman (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) before him, Kastner had moved to London in a bid to find his production feet, setting up an office there in 1964, and living in a suite in the five-star Connaught Hotel for 14 months. He had commissioned a screenplay from Bob and Jane Carrington (Wait until Dark, 1967), their first work for the movies. Despite his close relationship with Beatty, he eyed up Frank Sinatra for the leading role of Barney Lincoln in Kaleidoscope. He cold called the actor at Goldwyn Studios. Sinatra operated out of a bungalow there and, while working an agent for MCA, Kastner knew his way around the locale, meeting up with the likes of Marilyn Monroe, William Holden, Gregory Peck, Billy Wilder and John Huston.
Elliott Kastner, second from right, managed to snag Raquel Welch for the world premiere.
Sinatra liked the screenplay. His only concern was how to fit into proceedings a shot of his Lear jet (which presumably he would hire out to the production). “The main thing yet to be done to the script,” he instructed the writers, “is to insert one Lear jet.” He suggested ways this could achieved – seen in the title sequence or flying the main character to France.
A bigger immediate problem was that Sinatra didn’t have an agent and his deals were made by his lawyer Mickey Rudin. With Sinatra potentially on board, Warner Bros was keen to back the picture. With his partner Jerry Gershwin, Kastner visited Rudin in his office at Gang, Tyre, Rudin and Brown in Los Angeles. But the meeting didn’t go as planned – nor followed the usual Hollywood pattern. Instead of the star being signed up by the producers, Rudin wanted it to go the other way around, the producer surrendering the property.
Kastner complained to the attorney, “It’s our project. We own it and the way you’re placing this negotiation is that you will agree to what fees and what points we want and it’s your picture and we work for you.” Despite Gershwin’s protests, Kastner ended the meeting.
Oddly enough that suited Kastner. He planned to replace Sinatra with Warren Beatty. Which was a pretty odd calculation given Beatty’s last five pictures – The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961), All Fall Down (1962), Lilith (1964), Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965) and Promise Her Anything (1965) – had all been flops. “The vicissitudes of the industry are the same now as they were then,” explained Kastner, “if you are a movie star you can stay a movie star as long as you don’t have four flops in a row. Nobody really wanted Warren, including my partner who hated him.”
Jack Warner was of the opinion that nobody turned down Frank Sinatra and that Kastner should find a way to make a deal. When Kastner refused, Warner relented because he liked the script and because Kastner agreed to give the female lead to Sandra Dee (Come September, 1963) who had been groomed by Universal to take over from Doris Day who had flown the studio nest. Dee’s contract came with some unusual provisos – hotel accommodation for her mother and the son Dodd from her marriage to Bobby Darin. The $525 per week, additional to her salary, that Dee expected for incidentals was par for the courser, but not another $300 per week for her mother
But what really appealed to Jack Warner was the innovative deal. Kastner had invented what would be known as the “negative pick-up.” As long as Warner agreed on a set budget, he wouldn’t have to stump up a dime until the movie was finished. An incredulous Jack Warner asked, “You mean I don’t have to give you any money until you deliver the picture to me?”
Which meant Kastner, who had nothing like that amount of money to hand, had to find the finance. Using Warner’s agreement as collateral, he persuaded the United California Bank to lend him $1.6 million. The only proviso was that Kastner find a completion guarantor. Kastner turned to Film Finance in London and won its approval.
In fact, Beatty was not the only actor under consideration. Also on Kastner’s short list were bigger stars of the caliber of Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry, 1960), Steve McQueen (The Great Escape, 1963), Sean Connery (Woman of Straw, 1964), Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962) and Paul Newman (The Hustler, 1961). For the female lead, the producer was eyeing up Jane Fonda (Cat Ballou, 1965), Julie Christie (Doctor Zhivago, 1965), Brigitte Bardot (Contempt, 1963) or Tuesday Weld (The Cincinnati Kid, 1965).
The likes of Yul Brynner (The Magnificent Seven, 1960), Rod Steiger (The Pawnbroker, 1964), Jack Hawkins (Masquerade, 1965) and Kenneth More (Sink the Bismark!, 1962) were suggested for main supporting roles. Megging duties could have fallen to Brian G. Hutton (The Wild Seed, 1965), Bryan Forbes (King Rat, 1965), Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night, 1964), Clive Donner (What’s New, Pussycat?, 1965) or Karel Reisz (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1960).
Although Warren Beatty had failed to capitalize on the early promise of Splendor in the Grass (1961) he wasn’t short of interesting offers including Youngblood Hawke from the Howard Wouk bestseller, John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter adapted from the Carson McCullers novel – all films that were ultimately made but minus Beatty. He turned down Is Paris Burning? (1965) and walked away from What’s New, Pussycat? (1965), a massive hit. “All this talk about Beatty being difficult, refusing scripts etc is nonsense,” averred producer Charles K. Feldman, “I think he’s smart.”
Beatty had his own idea what he wanted to do and set up Tatira Productions to avoid “studio dictatorship” and interference. First project was Mickey One, a co-production with Arthur Penn, a $1 million flop. He claimed he had projects lined up involving screenwriters Elaine May – longer-term she wrote Ishtar (1987), a monumental flop – and Budd Schulberg but nothing resulted from that arrangement.
So in some respects the future of Beatty’s career appeared to depend on Kaleidoscope. However, once the deal was done and the papers signed, Beatty agitated to replace Sandra Dee with Susannah York (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965), whom Kastner had originally suggested. “Now I had to double cross my partner, double cross Jack Warner and double cross Sandra Dee. All of which I did.” Kastner settled with Dee for $50,000, paid out of his own pocket.
Initial budget was set at $1.65 million – though this increased to $1.8 million – and for guaranteeing the production Film Finance charged $21,906 payable within 14 days of the first day of shooting. Beatty received $100,000 plus 5% of the gross.
Kastner handed directing duties to Jack Smight who had just made Harper for him. Smight was on roll, having set up a production company. With writer James Lee, he owned the rights to Rabbit, Run and American Dream by Norman Mailer. He had a five-picture deal with WB and was hoping to pair William Holden and Julie Christie in TheLonely Side of the River.
The cast was filled out with British dependables like Clive Revill (The Double Man, 1967) and Eric Porter (The Lost Continent, 1968) and model Pattie Boyd, future wife of Eric Clapton and George Harrison, in a bit part. Beatty was “totally professional” although Kastner noted “he turned out to be a piece of shit later on.” Future director Peter Medak (Negatives, 1968) acted as associate producer.
Shooting “went fairly smoothly” at Pinewood and on location in Monte Carlo and Eze in the South of France and despite one day of reshoots on the Corniche thanks to cloudy weather the picture came in ahead of schedule and only slightly over budget.
Only when it came to the financial reckoning with Jack Warner was Kastner’s astuteness obvious. He and Gershwin took home $500,000 – around a third of the total budget. In essence the movie had cost around $1.3 million. So whether the movie was a hit or not (it wasn’t – rentals came to little more than $1 million) – and that would depend to a large extent on the amount Warner spent on advertising and promotion – Kastner walked away with a fortune.
SOURCES: Elliott Kastner Memoir, courtesy of Dillon Kastner; Elliott Kastner Archives, courtesy of Dillon Kastner; “Elliott Kastner’s Partner on Honeybear Is Warren Beatty,” Variety, January 23, 1963, p4; “New York Sound Track,” Variety, February 6, 1963, p7; Youngstein Sets Novel,” Variety, December 11, 1963, p5; “Dilemmas Already They Got,” Variety, June 24, 194, p13; Warren Beatty Firm Aim,” Variety, February 10, 1965, p3; “Warren Beatty Partner and Star of Goldman Tale Via Elliott Kastner,” Variety, March 31, 1965, p7; “Radical Kastner-Gershwin Policy: Get Scripts in Shape Way Ahead,” Variety, May 19, 1965, p19; “Clement Launches Is Paris Burning?”, Variety, July 21, 1965, p5; “Feldman Sees Beatty Director,” Variety, November 10, 1965, p15; “Landau-Unger On-The-Making,” Variety, November 17, 1965, p3; “Smight Starts Preparation of Kaleidoscope,” Variety, November 24, p4.
Amazing the tension that emanates from the turn of a card. Or, more correctly, waiting for one. Only problem is we’re two-third through the movie before high-stakes poker begins – the pot nudging £250,00 (close on a cool £5 million now). Mostly, the earlier tension derives from not knowing what the hell is going on in this enjoyable thriller made at the height of the Swinging Sixties as playboy gambler Barney (Warren Beatty), a walking Carnaby St model driving an Aston Martin DB5, tilts the odds dramatically in his favor.
Barney is a gambler but the problem with gambling is the odds. They can be against you too much. So Barney decides to turn himself into a burglar, the kind that can clamber over rooftops, abseil between buildings, and break into – a printing business called Kaleidoscope. This just happens to print the playing cards supplied to all the major European casinos. So Barney does a little doctoring of the master printing plates. Bingo, the odds are a bit more even now that he knows what cards are coming out of the shoe – he plays chemin de fer (as it is known in posh casinos, pontoon or 21 to you and me).
While cleaning up he bumps again into fashion designer Angel (Susannah York) – their original meet-cute taking place in a traffic jam – who he dated once in London. Unbeknownst to him, she is on a scouting mission, looking to snare the kind of high-rolling gambler who can take on and completely fleece the drugs kingpin Harry (Eric Porter) being pursued by cop Manny (Clive Revill), her father who, rather than waste so much time collecting the required evidence to put the villain behind bars, decides it would easier done by making him broke. Unable to pay his debts, some other villain would put him out of business in the traditional cemented-boot fashion.
It takes a while for the movie to line up all its ducks in a row, mainly by holding on to the information the audience requires. But the audience is privy to details of the way Manny works that Barney is not. Even for ruthless villains, Manny has a peculiar calling card, one that would make any gambler think twice about entering his lair. Of course, it doesn’t take long for Manny to rumble Barney’s game so the stakes are much higher than the charming gambler imagines.
Throw in as much fashion as London was capable of generating at this time, the burgeoning romance, some exotic European locations, a castle with a moat, and the usual tourist guide stuff of red buses, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, pubs and Tower Bridge and you have all the ingredients of an easy on the eye thriller.
It’s a movie that relies on star power but Beatty and York deliver. That is, if you don’t need Beatty to do much more than be Beatty, all teeth and charm. At this point in his career Beatty looked as if his career was fast approaching its end. The box office success of Splendor in the Grass (1961) had been followed by a string of flops, romantic dramas and comedies that should have had audiences queuing up plus an occasional wild card like Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965), the biggest flop of all. He does make an engaging crook, and he never loses his screen charisma here, but there ain’t quite the right number of twists that moviegoers weaned on the likes of Topkapi (1964) had come to expect.
Hollywood had been doing its best to position Susannah York as a top box office attraction and she had snagged the female lead in The 7th Dawn (1964) opposite William Holden and Stanley Baker in Sands of the Kalahari (1965) but she was recovering from the colossal flop of Scruggs (1965) by ‘poet of the cinema’ David Hart. Kaleidoscope offered the kind of role York could do with her eyes closed. So while the screen pair were not exactly sleep-walking it was not the kind of story that was going to create sparks.
Character actor Clive Revill (Fathom, 1967) and Eric Portman (The Pumpkin Eater, 1964) take more leeway with their roles, the latter almost chewing he scenery, the former content with just chewing his lips. Look out for Jane Birkin (Blow-Up, 1966) and British television stalwarts Yootha Joyce, George Sewell and John Junkin.
The title would have been more enigmatic, original meaning of images twisted out of shape, had it not also applied, straightforwardly, to the card-making company. Giving Harry the surname of Dominion seems overkill.
Director Jack Smight (No Way to Treat a Lady, 1969) came to this after twisty private eye picture Harper/The Moving Target (1966), a big hit starring Paul Newman. This is too lightweight a feature to command such interest, but he does keep the story rolling along and it’s an effortless watch and it has a certain offbeat quality. The screenplay was fashioned by Robert Harrington and Jane-Howard Harrington, making their movie debut, who also co-wrote Wait until Dark (1967). It was also the debut for Winkast Productions, the Jerry Gershwin-Elliott Kastner production team who went on to make Where Eagles Dare (1968).
Classic themes of hope, resilience and redemption influence director Andrew V. McLaglen’s follow-up to Shenandoah (1965). Add in a battle against widespread misogyny, thieves falling out, a brilliant stampede and a forlorn hunt that has echoes in the decade-old The Searchers. But other more serious issues are explored. At the film’s core is the question of how a nation built on innovation refuses to countenance change, in other words a country where hierarchy (inevitably male) has begun to impose its preference and how those who suggest alternatives must not just buckle to that collective will but admit they are wrong, a problem that in the half century since the film was made has not gone away.
Widow Martha (Maureen O’Hara) and daughter Hilary (Juliet Mills) bring to auction her white-face Hereford bull, a British institution, the first of its kind to be imported (for breeding purposes, you understand) to America where hardy longhorn cattle are the dominant species. Despite being insulted for her temerity in challenging the existing order, Martha is astonished to receive a winning bid of $2,000, only to realize this comes with conditions attached, the buyer assuming his largesse will also win her, a sharp elbow to the ribs dissuading him of this notion.
Determined to see the bull delivered to the Texan ranch, Martha decides to accompany the animal on its journey. Wrangler Sam (James Stewart), hired to transport it instead plans to steal it and to keep the dupe sweet until the time is ripe encourages her to develop romantic ideas towards him. When another cowboy, Simons (Jack Elam), with eyes on the same four-legged prize causes confrontation the game is up, though Sam sees the trip through.
Rancher Bowen (Brian Keith) belittles the Hereford bull although viewing Martha as a better proposition, but the only way to discover whether the beast can survive in the territory is to let it loose on the open range where it was likely to encounter blizzards (not so rare in Texas as you might think). Once the bull is set free, the movie shifts onto a question of endurance, not just of the animal, but of the mindset of Martha and Sam. Her faith in her insane idea is tested to the limit and, almost in compensation, a woman needing security/protection et al, she comes to appreciate the attentions of a less wild Bowen.
Both central characters have much to lose and much to face up to. Martha, in accepting she was wrong and letting Bowen into her life, will almost certainly be surrendering her independence (she can still be feisty but that’s not the same thing). It’s a testament to her acting that you can see that faith wilting. Sam, a conniving thief whichever way you cut it (although the storyline gives him something of a free pass), has to face up to the fact that he was planning to con a woman out of the precious possession on which her precarious future was built.
The scenes between Martha and Sam are superb, especially when he is grooming what he thinks will be an easy dupe. Sam, in a purgatory of his own making, almost certainly an outcast were the truth more widely broadcast, attempts to expiate his guilt.
James Stewart and Maureen O’Hara had worked together in Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) and there is no denying their screen chemistry. But there’s an innocence that O’Hara rarely displays, the woman in love suppressing those emotions not denying them as perhaps in The Quiet Man (1952). She’s both independent and, if the right man comes along, happy to accept his protection (from the male predators of the West), while at the same time keeping him on the right track and sorting out his world of misshapen priorities. There are some brilliant scenes where something else is going on story-wise and O’Hara is internalizing some deeper emotion entirely. It’s an acting coup for an actress like Maureen O’Hara who would never give up to convey so well a character on the verge of surrender.
This is one of James Stewart’s best roles, far removed from the principled hero of Shenandoah (1965) and returning him closer to the shifty character of Vertigo (1958) adept at self-justification. In the scene where he is found out by O’Hara he is outstanding. It’s not a given that the character will find a way to turn things round and his efforts to redeem himself make the latter part of the picture emotionally involving, especially as this is countered by O’Hara’s own internal battle.
It’s worth pointing out that although the narrative mainly concerns the two main characters, the background is filled with ruthlessness. Not only does Sam feel no compunction about stealing a bull worth $2,000, we first encounter Bowen’s son Jamie (Don Galloway) when he is making off with a herd of his father’s longhorns. The cattle barons use their wealth to “buy” a classy woman and cheat cowboys. And there is further murder along the way.
I was going to mark this picture down for the comedy which seems to amount to endless brawls but I wondered if modern audiences, reared on the never-ending fistfights and wanton destruction that usually indicated the finale of a superhero picture, would accept it quite happily, perhaps even welcome it. While Brian Keith (The Deadly Companions, 1961) stands accused not only of one of the worst Scottish accents committed to the screen – and these days of cultural appropriation – that does not take away from a character who, behind the beard, transitions from loathsome father to something more approaching humanity, in other words wild man who realizes the benefits of civilization.
In fact, the broad comedy serves to obscure a film full of brilliant, cutting, funny lines, generally delivered in scathing tones by the woman. O’Hara to Stewart: “You may bulldog a steer but you can’t bulldog me.” Stewart to O’Hara: “Can I help you with that” and her response “No, they’re clean and I’d like to keep them that way.” And that’s not forgetting the sight of the cowboys whistling British national anthem “God Save the Queen” in order to bring the bull to heel.
I forgot to mention the romantic subplot involving Hilary – in case you were wondering what role she had in all this – and Bowen’s estranged son, Jamie. Juliet Mills (Avanti!, 1970), older sister of child star Hayley, is excellent as the sassy daughter of a feisty woman, Don Galloway (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) less of a stand-out in his debut, in part because he has to subsume his rage against his father.
Jack Elam (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968) is good as always and you will spot in smaller parts Ben Johnson (The Undefeated, 1969), Harry Carey Jr. (The Undefeated), Barbara Werle (Krakatoa, East of Java, 1968) and David Brian (Castle of Evil, 1966). John Williams, masquerading as Johnny Williams, wrote the score.
Setting the comedy aside, this is a more intimate film from director Andrew V. McLaglen compared to the widescreen glory of The Undefeated and the intensity of Shenandoah and for that reason tends to be underrated. There are some wonderful images, not least Sam carrying the injured Jamie in the style of Michelangelo’s La Pieta – an idea stolen by Oliver Stone for Platoon (1986) – but mostly McLaglen concentrates on the actors.
I’m sorry to have to break this to you but it’s a sob story. Top fighter loses in his bid to become world champion – in fact, he doesn’t come close. Sure, he recovers from addiction but his love life takes a beating because like any other careerist he’s too focused on job and the girlfriend is an unwelcome distraction.
Apart from that it’s a paean. But to the unknowns, the pioneers in a sport now worth billions. Admittedly, the rules keep changing so it’s hard to keep track – and our hero has joined the Japanese version of the UFC so he’s not even a god of the UFC – but basically the sport seems to consist of hauling your opponent to the canvas and then beating the daylights out of him until he taps out.
And we’re also into another risky trope – the movie equivalent of the comedian who wants to play Hamlet. We’ve had various iterations over the last few years (Demi Moore in The Substance, 2024, Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl, 2024) and here we’re served up global megastar Dwayne Johnson (Black Adam, 2022) with hair, a thin thatch on top, eyebrows and belatedly a little goatee.
And sure he’s light years away from his normal screen persona – as though that’s doesn’t take acting and is merely an extension of his WWE persona The Rock – and his Mark Kerr is certainly an interesting character, determined not to be riddled with doubts, keeping emotions at a distance and becoming addicted to painkillers. But there’s just not enough narrative for a gripping story. I’d never heard of Mark Kerr and I’ve never heard of the Japanese version of the UFC and director Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems, 2019) makes it hard for me to care.
A whole raft of supporting characters shuffle in and out, introduced only by an unseen commentator, whose voice strangely never rises to any peak of excitement and who comes across like he’s delivering a movie voiceover rather than being integral to the plot. So there’s a whole bunch of fights featuring characters who you’ve never heard of appearing for a minute or so.
The better story concerns Mark’s buddy, Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader), a family man and making a comeback.
But really this can’t make up its mind what approach to take – the blood and thunder a la Raging Bull (1980), the behind-the-scenes work a la Rocky (1975), or exploring a relationship set on edge by vulnerabilities, girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt), all cleavage and tight trousers, a walking touch-paper, oozing volatility. Mark Kerr was a former wrestler who transitioned into this sport, but there’s little attempt to explore the background in the way of The Iron Claw (2023).
Sometimes the wrong kind of hype can kill off a picture’s commercial prospects. Judging by the dismal opening weekend, the star’s built-in audience has opted out of a movie that features Johnson in a potentially Oscar-winning performance while the arthouse bunch, which would normally steer clear of any Johnson vehicle, has shown little interest in finding out whether he can act. Perhaps, more critically, the burgeoning UFC audience, preferring the overt to the subtle, has turned its nose up.
And the ironic thing is, yes, this would be an interesting performance, whoever played the character, because Mark Kerr isn’t your normal sportsman. But apart from his obvious emotional reticence revealed in scenes with his girlfriend, too much of his character is revealed in interviews with journalists rather than through the drama.
I don’t know where the dough went on this one. It cost $50 million but mostly takes place on confined sets. We are told that Mark Kerr fights in front of thousands of people but you barely see about fifty and way in the background.
Small wonder that Bus Riley’s Back in Town found scant appreciation on producer’s Elliott Kastner’s dance card. He preferred to have people believe that his career began with box office smash Harper / The Moving Target (1966) rather than the two flops – Kaleidoscope (1966) and Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965) – that preceded it. As his son Dillon Kastner pointed out: “He always preferred to forget his first film. He liked to think his first film was Harper so he never put that title (Bus Riley) on his list of credits for investors.”
After jockeying in the Hollywood trenches for three years, Kastner should have been delighted to finally get his name on a picture after so many potential movies had slipped through his grasp. But he had good reason to want to forget the experience of working on Bus Riley. It sat on the shelf for a year and, minus the involvement of the producer, was “butchered” by the studio.
By the time the movie appeared it was the latest in a long line of failed attempts by former agent Elliott Kastner to get onto the Hollywood starting grid. He had previously been involved in a pair to star Warren Beatty – Honeybear, I Love You with a screenplay by Charles Eastman and Boys and Girls Together adapted from the William Goldman bestseller with Joseph Losey (Accident, 1966) lined up as director. Also on his scorecard were 1963 William Inge play Natural Affection, Tropic of Cancer from the controversial Henry Miller novel and The Crows of Edwina Hill. At the time of the Bus Riley opening, he had acquired a further seven properties.
Bus Riley was never intended as a major picture, the budget limited to $550,000 – at a time when a decent-sized budget was well over $1 million. Shot in Spring 1964, and in post-production in July, release was delayed until Universal re-edited it and added new scenes because Ann-Margret had achieved surprising movie stardom between her recruitment and the film’s completion. Along with Raquel Welch, she became one of the most glamorous stars of the decade and in building up her own career Welch clearly followed the Ann-Margret template of taking on a bucket of roles and signing deals with competing studios.
After making just three movies – A Pocketful of Miracles (1962), State Fair (1962) and Bye, Bye Birdie (1963) – Ann-Margret shot into the fast lane, contracted for three movies with MGM at an average $200,000 per plus an average 12% of the profit, substantial sums for a neophyte. On top of that she had four far less remunerative pictures for Twentieth Century Fox, three for Columbia, Marriage on the Rocks with Frank Sinatra and a couple of others. By the time Bus Riley finally appeared, she had expanded her appeal through Viva Las Vegas (1964) opposite Elvis and top-billed roles in Kitten with a Whip (1964) and The Pleasure Seekers (1964).
Universal also had another property to protect. Michael Parks was one of small contingent of novice actors in whom the studio had invested considerable sums, using them in television roles before placing them in major movies. Others in this group – at a time when most studios had abandoned the idea of developing new talent – included Katharine Ross and Tom Simcox who both appeared in Shenandoah (1965), James Farentino (The War Lord, 1965), Don Galloway (The Rare Breed, 1965), Doug McClure (The Lively Set, 1964) and Robert Fuller and Jocelyn Lane in Incident at Phantom Hill (1965).
However, the introduction of Parks had not gone to plan. He was set to make his debut in The Wild Seed (1965) – originally titled Daffy and going through several other titles besides – but that was also delayed until after Bus Riley, riding on Ann-Margret’s coat-tails, offered greater potential. Kastner had been instrumental in the casting of Parks – whom he tabbed as “a wonderful up-and-coming actor” – in The Wild Seed.
Also making their movie debuts in Bus Riley were Kim Darby (True Grit, 1969) and Canadian director Harvey Hart (Dark Intruder, 1965), an established television name. Hart joined David Lowell Rich and Jack Smight as the next generation of television directors making the transition. Universal was on a roll, in 1964 greenlighting 25 pictures, double the number of productions in any year since 1957.
Falling just behind Tennessee Williams league in terms of marquee clout, playwright William Inge had won an Oscar for Splendor in the Grass (1961) and been responsible for a string of hits including Come Back Little Sheba (1952) – Oscar for Shirley Booth – the Oscar-nominated Picnic (1955) starring William Holden and Kim Novak and Bus Stop (1956) with Marilyn Monroe.
Kastner had persuaded him to turn his little-known 1958 one-act play All Kinds of People into a movie-length screenplay. Inge was initially keen to work on a low-budget picture, anticipating “more freedom with an abbreviated budget.” He asserted, “You don’t have the front office calling you up all the time.” Since the movie was not initially envisaged as a star vehicle for Ann-Margret (and, in fact, she plays the supporting role) he saw it as a “way of breaking up that old Hollywood method of selling pictures before they were made” on the back of a big star and hefty promotional budget.
Unfortunately for him, once Universal realized they had, after all, a star vehicle, the studio concluded that her image was more important than the “dramatic impact” of the film. “When we signed Ann-Margret she wasn’t a big star but in six months she was and Universal became very frightened of her public image. They wanted a more refined image.”
Kastner and Inge were elbowed aside as Universal ordered a rewrite and reshoots. Inge took his name off the picture. The credited screenwriter Walter Gage did not exist, he was created to get round a Writer’s Guild dictat that no movie could be shown without a writer’s name on the credits.
Despite her supposed growing power, Ann-Margret had little say in preventing the changes either. She expressed her disappointment to Gordon Gow of Films and Filming: “You should have seen the film we shot originally. William Inge’s screenplay…had been so wonderful. So brutally honest, And the woman, Laurel, as he wrote her, was mean and he made that very sad. But the studio at the time didn’t want me to have that image for the young people of America. They thought it was too brutal a portrayal. They wanted me to re-do five key scenes. And those scenes completely changed the story. There were two of these scenes that I just refused to do. The other three I did, but I was upset and angry.”
Film historian James Robert Parish refuted Ann-Margret’s recollection of events. He claimed the changes were made at her insistence because she wanted to be the focal point of the narrative rather than Bus Riley (Michael Parks).
Harvey Hart reckoned Universal got cold feet after the audience attending a sneak preview made “idiotic” comments on the questionnaire. Recalled Kastner, “I had nothing but heavy fiddling and interference from Universal.” Even so, given it was his debut production, he wasn’t likely to disown then and didn’t follow Inge in removing his name.
Despite the changes, the movie received a cool reception at the box office. It turned in opening weeks of a “modest” $7,000 in Columbus, “slow” $9,000 in Boston, “modest” $9,000 in Washington, “lightweight” $10,000 at the 1642-seat Palace in New York, “mild” $4,000 in Provident, “so-so” $4,000 in Portland, “not so good” $7,000 in Pittsburgh, “okay” $7,000 in Philadelphia, and $98,000 from 22 houses in Los Angeles with the only upticks being a “good” $7,000 in Cincinnati and a “fast” $7,000 in Minneapolis. The movie didn’t register in Variety’s Annual Box Office Chart which meant it earned less than $1 million in U.S. rentals and was listed as a flop.
SOURCES: Elliott Kastner Memoir, courtesy of Dillon Kastner; “Elliott Kastner’s Partner on Honeybear Is Warren Beatty,” Variety, January 23, 1963, p4; “Elliott Kastner Will Helm Crows for U,” Variety, May 1, 1963, p21; “Escalating Actress,” Variety, May 22, 1963, page 4; “Raid Canadian Director,” Variety, March 4, 1964, p24; “Inge Thinks Writer Contentment May Lie in Creative Scope of Cheaper Pix,” Variety, May 6, 1964, p2; “Ann-Margret Into the Cash Splash,” Variety, July 22, 1964, p5; “Universal Puts 9 Novices Into Pix,” Variety, March 3, 1965, p25; “ A Collective Byline,” Variety, March 17, 1965, p2; “U Stable of Promising Thespians,” Variety, March 17, 9965, p2; “Fear Ann-Margret Going Wrongo in Her Screen Image,” Variety, March 24, 1965, p5; “Radical Kastner-Gershwin Policy: Get Scripts in Shape Way Ahead,” Variety, May 19, 1965, p19; “Warren Beatty Partner and Star of Goldman Tale Via Elliott Kastner,” March 31, 1965, p7; “Picture Grosses,” Variety – March-May 1965.
The Magnificent 60s 