Brian Hannan

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) *****

A mighty cast headed by John Wayne (True Grit, 1969), James Stewart (Shenandoah, 1965), Lee Marvin (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) and Vera Miles (Pyscho, 1960) with support from Edmond O’Brien (Seven Days in May, 1964) Woody Strode (The Professionals, 1966), Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) and Lee Van Cleef (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1967) do justice to John Ford’s tightly-structured hymn to liberty and equality and reflection on the end of the Wild West. So tight is the picture that despite a love triangle there are no love scenes and no verbal protestations of love.

The thematic depth is astonishing: civilization’s erosion of lawlessness, big business vs. ordinary people and a democracy where “people are the boss.” Throw in a villain with a penchant for whipping and a lack of the standard brawls that often marred the director’s work and you have a western that snaps at the heels of Stagecoach (1939), Fort Apache (1948) and The Searchers (1956).

The story is told in flashback after Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and wife Hallie (Vera Miles) turn up unexpectedly in the town of Shinbone for the funeral of a nobody, Tom Donovan (John Wayne), so poor the undertaker has filched his boots and gun belt to pay for the barest of bare coffins. Intrigued by his arrival, newspapermen descend, and Stoddard explains why he has returned.

Now we are in flashback as, arriving on stagecoach, novice lawyer Ransom is attacked, beaten and whipped by outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). He is found by horse-trader Donovan (John Wayne) and taken to a local boarding- house-cum-restaurant where Hallie (Vera Miles) tends his wounds. With a young man’s full quotient of principle, Stoddard is astonished to discover that local marshal Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) has ducked out of responsibility for apprehending Valance on the dubious grounds that it is outside his jurisdiction and that Valance has so mean a reputation he has the town scared witless. When Valance turns up, he humiliates Stoddard and only Donovan stands up to him, rescuing an ungrateful Ransom, who detests violence and any threat of it.

Stoddard soon turns principle into action, setting up his shingle in the local newspaper office run by Dutton Peabody (Edmond O’Brien) and on learning that Hallie is illiterate establishing a school for all ages. In the background is politics, but the push for statehood is inhibited by big ranchers who employ Valance to intimidate. Despite his aversion to violence and insistence that due legal process will eliminate the law of the gun, Stoddard practices shooting. When Donovan gives him a lesson and, to point out his unsuitability to confront such a mean character as Valance, covers him in paint, Stoddard floors him with a punch.

That principle I mentioned has something in common with Rio Bravo (1959) – Howard Hawks’ riposte to High Noon (1952) – in that Stoddard, determined to fight his own battles, refuses to ask for help when targeted by Valance. The inevitable showdown is extraordinary, not least because it takes place at night and Ford, a la Rashomon (1951), tells it twice from different points of view.

Precisely because it retains focus throughout with no extraneous scenes, as was occasionally John Ford’s wont, the direction is superb. As in The Searchers, to suggest emotional state-of-mind, the director uses imagery relating to doors. This time the humor is not so broad and limited primarily to one incident. Both main male characters suffer reversals, in the case of Stoddard it is physical but in the instance of Donovan it is emotional. Either way, action is character. In the romantic stakes, they are equals, dancing around their true feelings.

Upfront there is one storyline, the upholding of law and order whether against an individual such as Valance or against the attempts of big business to thwart democracy. But underneath is a subtly told romance. Donovan and Stoddard are allies but in terms of Hallie they are rivals. Neither has an ounce of sense when it comes to women. Neither actually protests their love for Hallie. Although Donovan brings her cactus roses and is, unknown to her, building an extension to his house to accommodate what he hopes is his future bride, his idea of romance is to mutter, in patronizing manner, the old saw of “you look pretty when you’re angry.” He would have been wiser to have taken note of her spunk, because she can more than direct if need be.

Stoddard isn’t much better. Despite her growing feelings towards him being obvious to the audience, he assumes she prefers Donovan. Action drives the love element, the need to save or destroy.

All three principals are superb. This may seem like a typical Wayne performance, a dominant figure, comfortable with a gun and his abilities, but awkward in matters of the heart. But he shows as great depth as in The Searchers and the despair etched on his face at the possibility of losing Hallie eats into his soul. Stewart combines the man-of-the-people he essayed for Frank Capra with some of the toughness he showed in the Anthony Mann series of westerns. Vera Miles tempers genuine anger with tenderness and practicality. Unlike many Ford heroines she is not a trophy wife, but a worker, mostly seen running a kitchen. Lee Marvin cuts a sadistic figure, with an arrogance that sets him above the law, his tongue as sharp as his whip.

As well as Woody Strode, Strother Martin, Edmond O’Brien and Lee Van Cleef, you will spot various members of the John Ford stock company including Andy Devine (Two Rode Together, 1961) as the cowardly gluttonous marshal, John Carradine (Stagecoach), John Qualen (The Searchers) as the restaurant owner and Jeanette Nolan (Two Rode Together) as his wife.

Written by James Warner Bellah (X-15, 1961), Willis Goldbeck (Sergeant Rutledge, 1960) and Dorothy M. Johnson (A Man Called Horse, 1970).

SPOILER ALERT

Despite its five-star status, I am dubious about the famous “print the legend” conclusion and for two reasons. You could subtitle this picture The Good, the Bad and the Politician. In the first place, what Stoddart tells the newspapermen in the flashbacks is in fact a confession. He did not kill Liberty Valance. Donovan did. By this point in his life Stoddart has served two terms as a Senator, three terms as a governor and been the American Ambassador to Britain. And yet his career is based on bare-faced fraud. He took the glory for an action he did not commit. That is a huge scoop in anybody’s book. And I just can’t imagine a newspaperman turning a blind eye to it.

The second element is that Stoddart does not show the slightest sign of remorse. He built his entire career on this violent action, the antithesis of his supposed stance on the process of law. He takes all the plaudits and fails to acknowledge Donovan, except when it’s too late, and Donovan has died a pauper, his rootless life perhaps engendered as a result of losing Hallie. Hallie’s character, too, is besmirched. She chose Stoddart precisely because he was a man of principle who risked his life to tackle – and kill – Donovan. Those two elements are indistinguishable. Had she known Stoddart had failed and was only saved by the action of Donovan it is questionable whether she would have chosen the lawyer.

There are a couple of other quibbles, not so much about the picture itself, but about other quibblers, commonly known as critics. Alfred Hitchcock famously came under fire for the use of back projection, not just in Marnie (1964) but other later films. That spotlight never appeared to be turned on the at-the-time more famous John Ford. The train sequence at the end of the film uses back projection and the ambush at the beginning is so obviously a set.

Don’t let these put you off, however, this is one very fine western indeed.

Where’s Jack (1969) ***

Prison escapees tend to conform to a certain type. Think Charles Bronson and Steve McQueen (The Great Escape, 1969), Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) and Clint Eastwood (Escape from Alcatraz, 1979). Admittedly, Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, 1994) doesn’t fit the bill, but he’s got brains instead of brawn. But he’s not twinkle-eyed or twinkle-toed or diminutive like British hoofer Tommy Steele (Half a Sixpence, 1967) who’s not helped here by being up against a distinctively tough screen character in the shape of Stanley Baker (Zulu, 1964).

Served up as an antidote to the tomfoolery and sexuality of Tom Jones (1963), more interested in the seamier side of Ye Olde England, it ignores the more interesting tale of criminal corruption and hypocrisy of Jonathan Wild (Stanley Baker), the Thief-Taker, in favor of young thief Jack Sheppard (Tommy Steele) who proves his nemesis.

Wild was the ultimate hypocrite, not just stewed in the corruption of the times but taking advantage of it, and not so much poacher-turned-gamekeeper but gamekeeper who had not entirely abandoned his previous profession. Wild, a notorious thief, managed to set himself up as London’s top lawman, keeping other thieves in line and handing over a certain number to the hangman. He had another sideline. He sold back stolen goods to burglarized owners. Most of this was condoned by the authorities who believed that it took a thief to catch a thief.

Wild enrages Sheppard, apprentice locksmith to trade, by reneging on a deal to free Sheppard’s criminal brother. Sheppard sets out to teach the antique godfather a lesson, breaking into his warehouse and stealing the contents.

Wild has him arrested on a variety of occasions, but each time Sheppard breaks out from prisons that had the reputation of the later Alcatraz, in one instance through a sewer, in another via a chimney, turning himself into a local hero in the process. Sheppard’s main trade is not so much burglary as highwayman and further annoying Wild by bringing such criminal solicitation to the streets of posh London, from which it had, by decree of Wild, been outlawed.

In so doing, Sheppard encounters Lady Darlington (Sue Lloyd), so taken with our scamp that had this been Tom Jones there would have been some rollicking in the hay (or the Mayfair equivalent). Instead, she bets her Scottish estate that he will escape from his latest incarceration.

Sheppard has the hots for barmaid Bess (Fiona Lewis) but this not being Tom Jones we don’t go much beyond cleavage. The sub-plot involving Lady Darlington, which I’m guessing forms part of the Jack Sheppard legend (since he was a real-life character), takes up valuable time which could have been spent either developing the romance or on the escapes, which don’t generate the necessary tension, or filling out the crook’s character.

Narrative-wise there’s more at stake for Wild, not just being led a merry dance by Sheppard and losing respect (the crime of crimes against a criminal mastermind) but also by potentially damaging his cosy relationship with the authorities, led by snippy Lord Chancellor (Alan Badel) who is on the other side of the Lady Darlington wager.

Fair amount of rubbish being tossed out of windows, unruly tavern occupants, poverty and homelessness abounding, and general but unspecified bawdiness, in fact a truer perspective of the times, doesn’t compensate for the lack of compelling narrative.

On paper, this should have amounted to a lot more. Mostly, it goes askew from miscasting. Tommy Steele is outshone without much difficulty by Stanley Baker and it’s asking a lot of an audience to accept that a cheeky chappie can outwit the exceptionally clever tough guy. It’s Baker who makes the most of his scenes, either lording it over his gangs, using cruelty to keep them in line, or fearing that he might be toppled from his lofty position and end up either back in the gutter or at the end of a noose.

There’s a bit of complicated jiggery-pokery relating to the effect your weight has on how long you can dangle on the end of a rope. Hangmen in those days did not follow scientific principles and provide some kind of weighting handicap as occurred later to prevent unnecessary suffering and make death as swift as possible.

Anyway, our Jack, being a skinny little runt (and this plot-point key to the climax ensuring the part required a skinny little runt rather than someone hewn from the normal tough guy runt) doesn’t die from the hanging, escaping the fury of Wild and (so legend has it) managing to escape to the colonies.

Put a Michael Caine (The Ipcress File, 1965) in the leading role or Richard Harris (Major Dundee, 1965) or even a Nicol Williamson (The Reckoning, 1970) and you would have quite a different movie, a more believable protagonist. Even Peter O’Toole (Night of the Generals, 1966), while devoid of muscle, would suggest the brains to outwit his opponent.

In the face of the mop-haired pop singers and raucous rock stars, Tommy Steele had reinvented himself from 1950s teen idol into Broadway musical star with Half a Sixpence and then viewed as a squeaky-clean alternative to the more louche movie star turned up in harmless offerings like Disney’s The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola’s non-grandiose Finian’s Rainbow (1968).

Oddly enough, it was to escape such typecasting that he took on what was perceived as a much tougher role only to discover he lacked the acting cojones to pull it off. Baker, Badel (Bitter Harvest, 1963) and Lloyd (Corruption, 1968) beat him hands down.

Director James Clavell was riding high after To Sir, with Love (1967) as was producer-star Stanley Baker after Robbery (1967) and screenwriters David and Rafe Newhouse following Point Blank (1967). This brought them down to earth.

More Artful Dodger than Get Carter.

Behind the Scenes: “Doctor Zhivago” (1965)

That Italian producer Carlo Ponti owned the rights to Boris Pasternak’s worldwide bestseller – beating out a bid by Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick – made it easier for David Lean to sever links with Sam Spiegel, producer of his two previous Oscar-winning blockbusters, Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Ponti lined up a deal with MGM who not only gave Lean carte blanche but the biggest ever salary handed to a director plus a generous profit share. Max von Sydow (The Quiller Memorandum, 1966) was Lean’s first suggestion for the leading role while MGM wanted Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) and Ponti was keen on Burt Lancaster (The Train, 1964).

Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia), fearing another exhaustive shoot, reportedly turned it down. Michael Caine (The Ipcress File, 1965) read for it. Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia), all set to play the smaller role of Pasha, stepped in. Marlon Brando (The Chase, 1966) and James Mason (North by Northwest, 1959) were considered for Komatovsky – the former not replying to Lean’s offer, the laterr dropping out after accepting the role – before that went to Rod Steiger (The Pawnbroker, 1964).

*Front cover for the roadshow launch in the UK in 1966.*

Jeanne Moreau (Viva Maria, 1965), Jane Fonda (Barbarella, 1968, who turned it down, then, recanted, by which time it was too late) Yvette Mimieux (Dark of the Sun, 1968), Sarah Miles (Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter, 1970), and, inevitably Ponti’s wife Sophia Loren (dismissed as “too tall” by Lean), were in the running for Lara until, on the recmmendation of John Ford who had directed Julie Christie in Young Cassidy (1965), the part went to the British actress. Audrey Hepburn (Charade, 1963) was Lean’s choice for Tonya until he was bowled over by the screen test by Geraldine Chaplin, the waif-like daughter of Charlie Chaplin, who, in the run-up to release, received the bulk of the advance publicity. Contrary to received wisdom, this was not her debut, she played opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in Lovely Summer Morning (1965).

So, effectively, Lean was launching MGM’s biggest-ever productions with a cast headed by unknowns, Sharif’s marquee value not up to the mark, every film he had been in since Lawrence of Arabia had flopped and he had never received top billing – and would not here either.

Initially, Lean considered shooting in 70mm in black-and-white but 70mm equipment was deemed too cumbersome and monochrome too risky for such a big film so it was made in 35mm with the intention of blowing it up to the larger format for roadshow release. Ponti reckoned the movie could be made in the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia for $5 million. After switching to the eventual location, Spain, with some sequences filmed in Finland, it cost much more, over $11 million.

The shoot lasted 33 weeks but the production actually took two years and involved 800 craftsmen in three countries. . Original cinematographer Nicolas Roeg dropped out after “creative differences”, replaced by Freddie Young (Lawrence iof Arabia), adding two weeks to the schedule to reshoot Roeg’s scenes.

*And for the general release three years later.*

Much of what appeared on the screen was illusion. The Red Army charged across an apparently frozen lake at the height of summer, the lake itself non-existent, just a field covered in cement with sheet iron topped with thousands of tons of crushed white marble ironed out by steamrollers so when the horses slid it looked realistic. To complete the picture, a rowing boat was moored at the edge.

Other effects combined direcotrial genius with practicality. Prior to the scne featuring a huge field of daffodils, Lean had filmed three minutes of Zhivago and Lara against a freezing background, everything sprayed gray to remove any hint of color so that the sudden appearance of of the golden flowers cast a spell of spring. To prevent the flowers – 4,000 of them imported from the Netherlands – blooming too early, they had been dug up and put in pots to control their growth and replanted when required. To make snow glisten in another scene, cellophane was spread over wintry bushes and trees.

The sleighs had little wheels fitted to the runners, icicles were made from polystyrene, the balalaika was created by the props team and the interior of the Ice Palace made from cellophane crushed into thousands of creases, paraffin wax and salicylic acid powder creating fantastic shapes. The floor was fashioned from a layer of soap flakes. The train journey went through Spain and in places where there were no railroad tracks, these were built.

Moscow, ten acres of it, rebuilt on a Spanish lot, took 18 months to construct and included 800 yards of cobbled street, the Kremlin, trolley cars and 60 houses and shops. Pasha’s armored train was an authentic replica. Even with the props trickery, Lean wanted to capture the different seasons so that was partly responsible for the long schedule. Sharif has his eyes taped back and his hairline shaved and straightened.

The aftermath of the dragoon charge down the steeets of Moscow was seen through the eyes of Zhivago – Lean’s advice to the actor was to imagine the moment before orgasm – and it was just as well it worked because Lean had filmed no alternative.

The film intially struggled to attract public attention despite a $3 million publicity budget. Lean was not as marketable as Hitchcock or DeMille. The female leads were unknown, Darling (1965) not yet setting the box office buzzing except in arthouses. Sharif, as I mentioned, had not yet capitalized on Lawrence of Arabia.

“Lara’s Theme” was not yet in the shops – the soundtrack album sold 600,000 copies in a year becoming MGM’s biggest soundtrack seller – and designer Phyllis Dalton’s furs were a long way from setting a fashion trend. Advance sales for the roadshow openings were poor, only $200,000 compared with $60,000 for Exodus (1961) and $500,000 for Cleopatra (1963). There was even speculation that the Capitol in New York where the film premiered had massaged the opening week’s figures. However, this kind of trickery would have been anathema in the industry, telling the truth about receipts to Variety every week considered the right thing to do, even if they fell short of expectation.

Historical epics had been long out of fashion. Lord Jim (1965) and The Agony and the Ecstasy, also roadshow numbers, were among the year’s box office casualties while a completely different type of movie, bouncy musical The Sound of Music (1965), was cleaning up. It didn’t help that Doctor Zhivago opened at the same time as Thunderball, the fourth Bond, which surpassed expectations with collosal initial box office. Nor did reviewers help. While Variety hailed its “soaring dramatic intensity” and the New York Daily News called it a “haunting emotion-charged drama,” the more influential New York Times slammed its “painfully slow-going and inevitable tedium” and it was condemned by the New York Herald Tribune as a “soap opera.”

In fact, if audiences had been slow to latch on, that was only during the first week, for soon it turned into a phenomenon, ending the decade as the $38.2 million in rentals. Lifetime rentals topped $60 million.

SOURCES: Kevin Brownlow, David Lean (Faber and Faber, 1996); Eddie Fowlie, David Lean’s Dedicated Maniac (Austin & Macauley, 2010); Pressbook for Doctor Zhivago; “Metro Plots Two Features for Geraldine Chaplin,” Variety, February 24, 1965, p5; “Zhivago LP Soars Over 6000,000 Units,” Variety, August 17, 1966, 43; “All-Time Champs,” Variety, 1993.

Doctor Zhivago (1965) ***** – Seen at the Cinema in 70mm – Bradford Widescreen Weekend

“Showmanship” isn’t a word likely to crop up in critical appraisals of David Lean’s magnificent Russian romance. Few people in any audience would have an idea of its meaning. But when you see Doctor Zhivago given the full roadshow treatment with overture and entr’acte and in a theater where curtains come into play and a good chunk of the audience comprises industry professionals – projectionists, exhibitors and the like – it takes on a certain significance.

Generally speaking, “showmanship” related to the efforts of the exhibitor to sell a picture to a local audience in an enterprising manner. It’s not about posters or adverts. It’s about, in this instance, tying up a fashion show with a department store or having a sleigh sitting outside the cinema on opening night or running a competition where the prize is Russian fur.

But there was another element to showmanship and that was what was under consideration for the 70mm screening at the Bradford Widescreen Festival. You’re probably unaware that studios were incredibly dictatorial when it came to the presentation aspects of roadshows. Not only were musical cues expected to be rigidly adhered to, but projectionists were supposed to open the curtains at a specific point and progressively dim the lights at other pre-set moments.

The opening of the second half of this picture was considered a highlight – if not the highlight of all roadshows – of the movie. For when the movie recommences, we are in a tunnel and stay there until the train emerges at the other side. If such a thing exists it’s a roadshow coup de theatre, a director who’s not just taken immense pains over the most infinite of details but worked out to the last second where the first half of the movie should end and, more importantly here, how the second half should begin.

So the couple of hundred in the audience were watching to see if the projectionist would cock it up. Luckily, he didn’t. I was expecting the audience to burst into applause, but they didn’t do that either.

I hadn’t seen this picture in well over a quarter of century, once the director’s reputation, outside of Lawrence of Arabia (1962), had declined in the face of a critical onslaught that declared him the wrong kind of auteur, the one who wastes his power on frivolities. As far as the auteur theory went, it wasn’t a good idea for a director to drift outside set lines.

And this was one who’d moved from movies featuring a flawed hero struck down by circumstance as with Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia, to one who’s major flaw was falling in love. What’s more, in Doctor Zhivago and its critically reviled successor Ryan’s Daughter (1970) he was focusing far more on women than ever before.

Lean was the type of director who visually went all-in. You want jungle, you’ll get masses of it in Bridge on the River Kwai, acres of sand dunes in Lawrence of Arabia, ice-covered panorama in Doctor Zhivago and the pounding Atlantic Ocean in Ryan’s Daughter.

And, boy, especially in 70mm, does it work here. The whiteness of the land is as implacable as the situation our hero finds himself in.

I was surprised how cleverly constructed the film was in terms of the romance. Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara (Julie Christie) are kept apart for substantial periods of screen time. Even when they do fall in love, working side by side in medical tents during the First World War, you don’t see it, or at least not that moment so beloved of the romanticists.

In fact, it would have been better if he had disdained her, given she was the mistress of loathsome businessman Komarovsky (Rod Steiger) and attempted murderess and wife of vicious Bolshevik leader Pasha (Tom Courtenay) to boot. In any case, he’s in love with Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin).

That Zhivago is tossed here and there by the consequences of the Russian Revolution serves the movie’s purpose of keeping him even further apart from Lara. For good measure, his half-brother, the secret policeman Yevgraf (Alec Guiness) turns up from time to time to keep the narrative on track.

Zhivago moves from rich society to a somewhat rebellious proletariat and finally settles down as a poet in an icebound wilderness. But, except for a couple of sequences, David Lean avoids the sweeping action of Lawrence of Arabia, and in fact the most notable scene, the charge of the horsemen down the streets of Moscow, is dealt with discreetly, its impact most viewed through the eyes of the watching Zhivago.

Lean took an enormous risk in imposing two virtual unknowns on MGM for the leads. Theoretically, Sharif was a star but had done nothing to bolster his marquee credentials following Lawrence of Arabia, ending up in a series of duds that did not envisage him as the Egyptian equivalent of the Latin lover. It took Lean to see the power in those brown eyes. And to put his faith in Julie Christie, who had even less in her locker (she made Darling, 1965, after this).

There is very dependable work all round, Rod Steiger (The Pawnbroker, 1964) overplaying, Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia) underplaying, Tom Courtenay (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968) doing both.

But the movie belongs to the principals and to Lean and on seeing again after all these years and with the benefit of 70mm, it now sits very close to the peak of the director’s achievements. Screenplay by Robert Bolt (Lawrence of Arabia) and memorable score from Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia).

Not just sumptuous, but tough, hard-edged, and doesn’t let the audience a moment to breath.

Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) ***

Must have seemed a good idea at the time. A switcheroo from The Apartment (1960), where Jack Lemmon is the sap caught in middle of illicit affairs, to setting him up as the ace seducer with a string of girls at his beck and call. Except this won’t wash for contemporary audiences given that, effectively, he’s a sexual predator (seducer if you want to be nice about it), peeping tom (no way to dress that up) and eavesdropper (could have taught a class in The Conversation, 1974). He lets out plush apartments to beautiful girls who either pay no rent or very low rents in return for favors granted.

He uses his own key to let himself into apartments and he’s got a telescope at the ready although that’s hardly required since all the ladies leave windows and doors open permitting him to gawk whenever he wishes.

Luckily, he’s not the mainstay of the tale. Nope, that’s breaking down another barrier, and very cleverly for the times. At this time, sex on the screen was usually the result of illegitimate affairs, involving at least one husband or wife, or it was a sex worker by any other name (Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8, 1960, expects presents in lieu of cash). The idea of living in sin, as it used to be called, i.e. cohabiting without a marriage licence, was not generally on the cards.

So the deal here, to get round the snippy censor, was that Robin (Carol Lynley) and Dave (Dean Jones) set up home together to test out their compatibility but without sex entering the equation, him sleeping in a separate bed. Their apartment is let out by Hogan (Jack Lemmon), the predatory landlord. He has just been dumped by Robin’s aunt Irene (Edie Adams), hence the vacancy, and believes it’s two beautiful women moving in, not a couple. So his plan to offer two damsels a romantic meal with candles and violins (these play automatically) and a roaring fire (also electronic) falls apart.

That doesn’t prevent him from using his own key to enter the apartment at inappropriate moments and continuing his ardent wooing while trying to get rid of Dave or cause the kind of ruckus that’s going to cause the boyfriend to quit, leaving the coast clear.

Luckily, which gives the movie some acceptable life of its own, the dodgy landlord aspect takes second place to the lust vs logic argument that’s intrinsic to the idea of marriage. The couple spend most of the time arguing, and the movie is quite specific, much more than you might expect, on the ways in which a lusty young fellow can keep his ardor in check.

It’s based on a stage play, of the farce kind, so it relies on misunderstandings and misalignments and finds various ways of getting various combinations of the trio (and occasionally a quartet when Irene returns) in the room at the same time. There’s the usual problems when exchanges get heated.

Lurking in the background are married housekeeper Dorkus (Imogene Coca) and handyman Murphy (Paul Lynde), at opposite ends of the approval scale, the man even creepier than his employer.

Previously, I hadn’t found Jack Lemmon’s schtick so wearing, but his acting style is so frenetic you wonder how it ever found expression except in madcap comedy. It’s not just that his jaw constantly drops, but his eyebrows go up at the same time, and he might even be chucking in that trademark cackle. He toned it down for Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and jacked it up for The Great Race (1965) and somehow anything in between doesn’t quite work unless he’s got Billy Wilder on his tail.

But there are several pluses here. Carolyn Lynley (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) proves an adept comedienne and Dean Jones was clearly in rehearsal for his later Disney pictures like The Love Bug (1967). Imogene Coca had been a legendary television staple, with her own show in the 1950s. There are fleeting glimpses of Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk, 1977-1982) and Variety columnist Army Archerd and James Darren (The Guns of Navarone, 1961), who died recently, sings the title song, and has a more robust voice than I had assumed for a pop singer.

David Swift (The Interns, 1962) directed and co-wrote the script with Lawrence Roman (The Swinger, 1966) from the latter’s Broadway hit.

A film of two halves. You can only cringe at the attitudes on display but enjoy the pre-marital ding-dongs between the couple.

Stark Fear (1962) ***

Unless you were unfortunate enough to get mix up in an international conspiracy, or your wealth induced a husband towards your murder – or a la Gaslight towards your insanity – or had taken a shower in strange motel, a wife in American movies was unlikely to live in fear of a sadistic spouse. Wife-beating aka wife-battering had never been high on the Hollywood agenda as an appropriate subject matter, so this picture not only stands out for the period but also strikes a contemporary spark. While many marital dramas of the 1960s have quickly become outdated, this has not.

Opening with an audacious cut from a woman’s eyes seen in a car’s rear-view mirror to her face in a photograph being pelted, being smashed to pieces. Ellen (Beverly Garland) has committed the grievous sin not just of going out to work but of taking up the post of secretary to oil executive Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey), a previous rival of husband Gerry (Skip Homeier). But Gerry’s income had unexpectedly tumbled and the couple, married just three years, need her money. He pours a drink over the terrified woman’s head, demands a divorce and promptly disappears.

Her search for him takes her to Quehada, pop. 976, a rundown town she had never heard of and whose existence her husband made no mention despite the fact it was where he grew up. Her husband’s sleazy friend Harvey takes her to the grave of Gerry’s mother (also called Ellen) where he rapes and beats her while, unbeknownst to her, her husband watches.

Back at the office, she begins to fall for Cliff, but Gerry, even though he no longer wants her, sets out to destroy the budding romance.

Following the classic pattern of course Ellen blames herself for making Gerry unhappy and for getting raped. Her guilt fuels her husband’s sadistic streak. She is unsure whether the threat of divorce is just the most cruel taunt her husband can imagine or for real, which would be just as bad, given her low-self-esteem.

Once she realizes Gerry had an unhappy childhood and is mother-fixated, it makes it even harder for her to abandon him, regardless of the mental and physical torment he inflicts and despite the entreaties of social worker friend Ruth (Hannah Stone). Ruth, too, however, represents an alternative equally fearful future, the now-single woman who regrets separating too quickly from her husband and has no man in her life or none who come up to scratch.

This is not a picture where men come out well. Gerry is a fiend in a suit. On the way to Quehada she is groped by other men who clearly feel it is their right. Harvey has a history of just taking what he wants. Even the relatively gentle Cliff appears to have an underlying reason for taking an interest in her.

In a world and a time where marriage meant not just financial security, but a safe haven from all the other men who would like as not press themselves upon the opposite sex at any opportunity, and not necessarily with any delicacy, director Ned Hockman presents life as a succession of traps for women. And we know now that not much has changed, and that for women fear is a constant.

Hockman directs with some singularity. He uses black-and-white not quite in the film noir manner of shadows and shafts of light but sets the subject of any night scene in a pool of light with darkness all around, which makes for some striking images. A couple of unusual backdrops include Commanche tribal dancing and a chase in a jukebox museum help place this a couple of notches above the usual B-picture.

Beverly Garland was a 1950s B-picture sci-fi and horror scream queen in movies such as It Conquered the World (1956), Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956) and Not of This Earth (1957) so fear was something of a default. Here, she adds something else, desolation at the position she finds herself in, confusion that her marriage is in tatters, hunting for a solution that never emerges, and unable to summon up the anger that might free herself. Hannah Stone has an intriguing role, encouraging her friend to leave her husband, knowing that being single again is not all it is cracked up to be. Unusually for a minor character in this kind of picture, primarily there to shore up the star, she enjoys a spot of lifestyle reversal.

Heart-breaking.

Dangerous Charter (1962) *** – Widescreen Experiment

Strong contender for cult status especially when post-production murder and sexploitation are thrown into the pot. A vanity picture but one with serious underlying purpose. Sole venture from director Robert Gottschalk, who doubled up as writer and producer. So, all-out auteur. This popped out by pure coincidence while I was in the middle of my annual widescreen/ 70mm/ Cinerama binge and thus pricked my interest.

And if you know your widescreen, the name of Robert Gottschalk will not be far from your lips. Because he invented Panavision. It’s still in use but in the roadshow era it was one of the contributing factors to directors heading for the biggest widescreen they could get. MGM properly introduced it with the 65mm Raintree County (1957) and then more strikingly, in terms of box office, with Ultra Panavision 70 for Ben-Hur (1959).

Ultra Panavision was used for sections of How the West Was Won (1962) and completely on Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and Battle of the Bulge (1965) and it was revived by Quentin Tarantino for The Hateful Eight (2015). Super Panavision 70 was more regularly employed as was 35mm Panavision

Dangerous Charter had two aims. Firstly, to showcase the advantages of Panavision, hence the lax pace, the striking images of a yacht moving in a variety of directions across the water, often with sunset behind, the kind of awesome shot that might be favored by the likes of David Lean. Secondly, Gottschalk wanted to get into the production business, aiming initially at six movies a year, including a 70mm effort called Owyhee to be filmed in Hawaii in the summer of 1959.

Ben-Hur did the job of showcasing the process for him, so the production unit fell by the wayside and Dangerous Charter, made over a few weeks in 1958, sat on the shelf for four years after an initial attempt at distribution by Filmserve Distribution Corp fell apart, and as a result now conveniently falls into my purlieu.

So really, it’s a late 1950s movie masquerading as an early 1960s one, after it was picked up as a cheap support vehicle by the nascent Crown International.

It’s a shame Gottschalk didn’t quite have the same technical mastery of other elements of movie making as he did over camera and lenses. But in its favor, the movie is short, has a terrific villain, springs more twists than you might expect and certainly showcases his widescreen invention.

Three down-on-their-luck fishermen come across a deserted drifting yacht, the Medusa, with one corpse on board. The cops give it to them in lieu of a salvage fee, intending to use, in a cute sense of irony, the fishermen as “bait” to try and hook whoever was responsible for its abandonment.

The trio are only too happy to accept the gift. Aspiring skipper Marty McMahon (Chris Warfield) is in love with daughter June (Sally Fraser) of the captain, Kick (Chick Chandler), and there’s a chirpy deckhand Joe (Wright King). Pretty soon a money-no-object charter appears in the shape of Dick Kane (Richard Foote) and for $10,000 they agree to take him to La Paz on a 10-day return trip and pick up a passenger Monet (Peter Forster). June boards as cook.

Ongoing friction between Marty and June – he refuses to marry her until he can properly earn a living – spills over into some modest canoodling between the girl and the guitar-playing Dick, a stolen kiss as far as it gets before she warns him off.

Monet turns out to be quite a character. Plummy-voiced, white-suited, charming, friendly, think a slick Robert Wagner (Banning, 1967), accommodating and even entertaining. In short order, however, the Medusa is hijacked. And not for the valuable boat but for its even more valuable cargo of drugs.

The thugs threaten to hold June, by now decked out in a fetching pink swimsuit, hostage and there’s not much the boatmen can do to counter the threat. Their radio has been disabled by Dick who turns out to be a junkie. Marty tries a clever trick, flying the boat’s flag upside down, the nautical sign of distress, but that attempt to garner local attention is nipped in the bud. Monet has planted a bomb on board so there’s a ticking-clock countdown and a zinger of a climax when Dick, furious at being tortured via cold turkey by Monet, takes his revenge in a superb suicide by ramming their speedboat into the bigger boat, killing both.

Mostly, it’s juiced up by long shots of the boat on the water, which, while selling the process, rips the heart out of any tension. But towards the end it picks up the pace. The upside-down flag idea is scuppered when other fishermen assume they’ve just made a mistake and point this out within the hearing of Monet.

Marty has to scream at the other terrified screaming crewmen to shut up because the only way he can locate the bomb is by its give-away ticking. And when the bomb explodes harmlessly over the side and Monet decides to turn round and bump off the witnesses the old-fashioned way it’s Dick who twists the wheel towards doom.

There’s no great acting, but Peter Forster does a convncing job of an unusually civilized gangster and June Fraser attracts the eye. Chris Warfield, with little claim to fame as a television and support actor in pictures, later turned to direction under the pseudonym Billy Thornberg in the sexploitation vein, Teenage Seductress (1975) and Sheer Panties (1979) among his lurid portfolio. This proved a movie swansong for June Fraser, otherwise a bit player. You might remember Robert Forster from Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) but not much else.

Robert Gottschalk went back to turning Panavision into a hugely successful company before being murdered by his lover at aged 64.

The Defector (1966) ***

How often does a government hoodwink a morally upright citizen into deceitful action for the cause of the greater good? In this case physicist Professor James Bower (Montgomery Clift) doesn’t need a great deal of urging because what’s at stake are Russian space race secrets and the man selling them is a Russian scientist he knows from translating his books. It’s apparent from the outset that in setting out to make contact in East Germany, he is walking into a trap. It’s moody, and drab in the vein of The Quiller Memorandum (1966), shot in soulless German streets, and of course it is the final performance, after a four-year screen absence, of a frail-looking Clift, an iconic Hollywood star for nearly two decades.

But genres can be confusing. Although tagged as a spy picture it’s not really a spy film. It’s a character study. In fact, two character studies. And when you get to the end and realise the sacrifice made in order not to compromise principle, it turns into quite a different movie, one with considerably more depth than you might have imagined.

Bower is a rather adept amateur spy, neatly dodging being followed, and capable of nipping between two moving trams to evade pursuit. His instructions lead him to asking for a particular prescription and being sent in apparent haphazard fashion to an intended meeting with Dr Salter, his contact. Instead he is led to Counselor Peter Heinzmann (Hardy Kruger).

His hotel room is not merely bugged but fitted with electronic instruments to prevent sleep and distort his mind. Meanwhile Heinzmann is engaged in a hawk-vs.-dove battle with Orlovsky (David Opotashu) to determine whose methods, the latter preferring torture and brainwashing, would prove the more successful in forcing Bower to betray the whereabouts of the would-be defector. And there is also a doctor’s receptionist Frieda (Macha Meril), with whom romance so obviously beckons your natural moviegoer instinct is to regard her as lure rather than friend.

It’s a chess game, Bower a pawn, with the net growing tighter, imprisoned in more ways than one, being groomed for defection himself. Although there is double cross, triple cross, murder and an excellent chase, and a final unexpected, very human, twist, it’s far from your typical spy thriller, in general subtle in tone except for the nightmarish hotel scenes. Heinzmann is also a pawn, fighting a system that sees degradation as its most potent weapon and even while a danger to Bower displays humanity.

Quite what the set was like is anybody’s guess given than not only was Clift dead by the time of the film’s release but that Belgian director Raoul Levy (Hail,Mafia, 1965) – better known as the producer of many Brigitte Bardot films and now helming only his second film – had committed suicide.

If ever there was proof of star power, this is it. Even when the film is meandering and the plot at times impenetrable, Clift exerts an almost hypnotic hold on the viewer. Despite his clear infirmity, the intensity of expression that enraptured audiences from films as disparate as Red River (1948), From Here to Eternity (1953) and The Misfits (1961) has not vanished. Since many scenes are just meetings that scarcely progress the story, it is quite a feat to keep audiences interested. Far from his greatest performance, he still displays screen presence.

He is helped along by Hardy Kruger (Flight of the Phoenix, 1965) in one of his more measured performances, both sharing the knowledge that in doing good for their country they are betraying themselves. David Opatashu (Guns of Darkness, 1962) is excellent as his quietly ruthless superior and there should be mention of Karl Lieffen as the constantly complaining Major. Even as a dowdy East German, Macha Meril (Une Femme Mariee, 1964) still captivates. Serge Gainsbourg contributed the music.

Lafayette (1966) ***- Seen at the Cinema in 70mm – Bradford Widescreen Weekend

We are so accustomed to Hollywood rewriting every other country’s history it comes as a something of a surprise when they get a taste of their own medicine. And in such elaborate style. At the time this was by some distance France’s most expensive movie, a roadshow production made in Super Technirama 70, the widescreen technology favored by productions as diverse as Walt Disney’s animated The Sleeping Beauty (1959), Biblical epic Solomon and Sheba (1960), British drama The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), Samuel Bronston’s El Cid (1961) and Zulu (1964).

I wouldn’t have known from this picture how important a figure Lafayette was in French history. On a couple of forays to Paris I had placed no significance on shopping at the retail metropolis known as Galeries Lafayette. However, it turns out he was a major player in the French Revolution and helped to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man. But I wouldn’t have learned anything about his later career as this picture concentrates on his early life.

This long-lost restored picture was the official highlight of this year’s Bradford Widescreen Festival, mostly I assume because until the restoration it hadn’t been seen anywhere for half a century and because Bradford of all places is a sucker for restoration and its audience often includes more than a smattering of ex-industry professionals who can comment on its technical proficiency.

Although released in France in 1962 it didn’t cross the Atlantic or the English Channel until a few years later, but only for short selective engagements, during a period when there were was no shortage of roadshow material what with Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World still hogging Cinerama screens and My Fair Lady (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965) embarking on extensive runs.

This turned up in London in 1965 at the Casino Cinerama where How the West Was Won had played for over two years and it was also shown in Liverpool and enjoyed a couple of weeks in my home town of Glasgow at the Coliseum.

While the American alliance with France during the final stages of the War of Independence was critical to turning the tide against the British I suspect the exploits of the titular character (Michel Le Royen), an aristocratic stripling of 19 years of age, have become somewhat embellished in Hollywood Errol Flynn style.

The movie also ignores the irony that the principles of freedom and independence from regal rule spouted by many of the main characters came back to bite them several years later when the French Revolution sought to separate the brains of the aristocrats from their bodies. The French Emperor helped fund the American Revolution, assuming notions of independence were fine for foreign countries rising up against the British, a particular thorn in the French side at that point.

There’s also a considerable tinge of entitlement and for all its democratic principles the nascent new nation bowing down to the aristocratic breeding of the Frenchman and giving this inexperienced soldier the title of Major-General and putting him in charge of their least-disciplined troops, the irregular starving militia.

Never mind his age, he can hardly speak English and his aristocracy is hardly going to endear himself to his raw troops. And you can hardly ignore the ironic entitlement that when all other wounded men are left to look after themselves, our hero is carted off to George Washington’s (Howard St John) palatial servant-heavy mansion.

Still, according to this story and presumably the legend the young commander did indeed snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, in one engagement when his men were racing away in ignominious retreat he seized the torn American flag and inspired his men to return to battle and victory.

For a near three-hour picture it’s short on military action, though presumably that’s in the interests of historical accuracy so that means wading through countless scenes of politics both in France and America. In his home country he’s treated as something of a traitor for embarking on his own private war against the British. In America Congress is always on the back of George Washington, refusing him the funds and help he needs, insisting such would be in ample supply should he win a battle, the future President retorting back that victory would be guaranteed should he be given funds.

The absence of military set pieces is in part in recognition of the strategy endorsed by Washington, of avoiding a pitched battle with a superior enemy in favor of a guerilla war of attrition. There are more scenes of thousands of extras marching than of them engaging in any meaningful activity, though I’m assuming that could have been a budgetary restriction.

Whether’s it’s true or not there’s some clever stuff on the French political scene, the Emperor Louis XVI (Albert Remy) prone to taking advice from his wife Marie Antoinette (Liselotte Pulver) whose ear is being bent by La Fayette’s wife (Pascale Audret) but the self-serving attitudes on both sides will be recognizable to everyone.

There’s a stab at an all-star cast, Jack Hawkins (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962) as the British commander Cornwallis though the director – or perhaps the star himself given his idiosyncratic ways – has rendered Orson Welles as American ambassador Benjamin Franklin virtually unrecognizable, even his noted diction smothered.

The torch of freedom never had a more handsome advocate than in the hands of Michel Le Royer but it’s virtually a one-note performance though admittedly nobody expected much more from Errol Flynn.

Directed by Jean Dreville (Queen Margot, 1954).

Behind the Scenes: The Great 1980s Hitchcock Revival

There was a contract makeweight that studios occasionally ceded, something they viewed as a form of vanity from their opposite number across the negotiating table. That was to be given the copyright to your own films seven years after initial release. Studios didn’t believe the concession was worth much than a few dollars to add to a star or director’s pension, otherwise they wouldn’t have allowed it in the first place. In the 1950s, with remarkably few exceptions, a film was done and dusted on initial release. Should there be any more juice remaining, that would be mopped up by a judicious reissue before the seven-year deadline was up.

Once the studio system collapsed in the late 1940s and long-term contracts became devoid, studios battled each other to win over stars and directors with a proven track record. In his negotiations, Alfred Hitchcock asked for, and received, the copyright for five of the pictures that would later prove to be the ones that formed the cornerstone of his revived critical reputation.

In 1981, restoration, thanks to Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927), had become big business. But optimism only lasted as long as it took for Warner Brothers to lose a sizeable sum on a restoration of A Star Is Born (1954)

Fortunately, another reissue poster boy was waiting in the wings. Universal, its classic division now headed by Jim Katz, looking for a follow-up to Napoleon, was in the right place at the right time. Legend has it that Hitchcock movies had gone missing from the circuits. While that was the case regarding the Paramount quartet to which he owned or shared copyright – Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and The Trouble with Harry (1955) – it was not true of the rest of his portfolio.

Critical acclaim for the director had grown faster in Europe than America, one measure of his standing being The 39 Steps (1935) chosen to close the annual Venice Film Festival in 1968.[i] The 39 Steps received a new lease of life in the U.S. in the 1970s as the result of an unusual stimulus. In 1971 PBS television kicked off the year with a five-month weekly series of classic foreign films, including this Hitchcock. Viewers were soon persuaded that there was nothing like seeing old movies on the big screen and following the broadcast the film was reissued in Washington, Pittsburgh and Dayton, in a double bill with The Lady Vanishes (1938), and on its own in Cleveland. [ii]

While exposure in small-capacity arthouses limited earnings, it burnished Hitchcock’s artistic reputation. Both The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps continued to entertain new generations of movie lovers and remained popular on repertory programs, for example, in New York and Boston, while The Lady Vanishes, nearly forty years late, made its debut in Japan along with Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Young and Innocent (1937) aka The Girl Was Young.[iii] Remakes of The 39 Steps (1978) starring Robert Powell, best known for the television mini-series Jesus Of Nazareth, and The Lady Vanishes (1980) with Elliott Gould and Cybill Shepherd only served to remind critics of the vastly superior originals.

After Hitchcock’s death in 1980, Universal bought up the Paramount package and in 1983 reissued four of them plus Warner Brothers’ Rope (1948) with new prints and advertising campaigns. Apart from The Trouble with Harry, none could complain of having been undersold or particularly neglected. But they did fit into the “lost classic” category because they were impossible to see, all withdrawn by Hitchcock from the theatrical market for decades, Rear Window, for example, last seen in 1962.

The films would be released in the following sequence – Rear Window, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Trouble With Harry and Rope – targeting small-to-medium first run theaters, which could support a lengthier engagement (seven to ten weeks) without feeling the commercial strain, rather than arthouses. Universal was bullish, demanding new film terms. The advertising campaign was uniform, Hitchcock’s name more prominent than any individual star. Drawing on the MGM Fabulous Four and Chaplin retrospectives, theaters were expected to commit to showing the films one after the other, achieving, in effect, a Hitchcock Festival lasting up to twenty or thirty weeks. No director aside from Chaplin had been honored in this fashion. Retrospectives of John Ford, Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks or William Wyler had been confined to arthouses or museums, individual films shown for one performance, not weeks at a time.

“Initially,” explained Jim Katz, “we’ll attract people who saw the films when they (first) came out but we’re counting on them to spread the word to the younger generation.” The studio viewed it as “an example of preservation and restoration that can also make money.” A commercial retrospective focused around one director appealed because Universal had other candidates, namely Preston Sturges and Douglas Sirk, who could benefit from a similar approach. The marketing employed a clever mixture of the artistic and commercial, where possible the individual films launched at film festivals, Rear Window leading the way by re-premiering at the New York Film Festival on September 30, 1983, beginning its New York engagement at four cinemas before rolling out in fifteen cities during October.[iv]

The results were spectacular. Rear Window’s opening week in New York commanded $120,000 (equivalent to $400,000 today) running neck-and-neck with other big-budget films of the day, and taking $150,000 in one cinema in Chicago over four weeks. More importantly, when widened out to non-arthouses the movie held its own, with $130,000 from 27 in New York. By the end of November, the nationwide haul was $2.1 million and by the end of the year $3.8 million. Records were broken in Washington, Vancouver, San Francisco and Portland.

While Rear Window had been a big hit in its day, Vertigo had fallen some way short and there were question marks over whether the James Stewart-Kim Novak combination could match the James Stewart-Grace Kelly. While not hitting Rear Window peaks, Vertigo did better than expected, opening with $91,000 from four cinemas in New York, $50,000 in four cinemas in Los Angeles, $35,000 in San Francisco and $19,000 in Philadelphia. In America, the marketing strategy did not quite work out, the films, especially the last two in the series, better in arthouses than first run, but the Hitchcock Festival concept proved a winner. The next year, the reissues were themselves reissued, a double bill of Rear Window/Vertigo chalking up $14,200 in its first week in New York and Rear Window continuing to play the arthouses well into 1985.[v]

On its U.S. reissue Rear Window earned $4 million in rentals, Vertigo $2.5 million, The Man Who Knew Too Much $1 million, The Trouble With Harry $750,000 and Rope nearly $600,000.[vi] In addition, North By Northwest (1959) entered the equation.[vii] By the time the quintet had played out, for patrons suffering withdrawal symptoms, a Hitchcock Film Festival, all the films crammed into one week, rolled out among arthouses in 1985, whipping up nearly $250,000 in five weeks.[viii]

As important, in terms of legacy and commercial fulfillment, was the impact on ancillary markets. Priced at $59.98, the videocassette of Rear Window was quickly certified gold, meaning sales of fifty thousand copies, adding another $3 million in gross revenue. In due course, the entire quintet appeared on video followed by thirteen other Hitchcocks on a special video promotion.[ix] Screenings of rarer Hitchcocks were welcomed with delight and the precursor to theatrical or video release.[x] The five Hitchcock oldies were the most important reissues of the 1980s because, although an event, they were more accessible to the general filmgoer than the silent classics or Hollywood’s string of hard-done-by quasi-classics. Crucially, commercially they fitted in perfectly to the new dynamic, huge sums in theatrical followed by big ancillary sales. Hitchcock demonstrated that the reissue machine need never run dry if properly oiled and maintained through each new technological cycle or anniversary. In 1996 Vertigo underwent more rigorous restoration and a 70mm version, after its presentation at the New York Film Festival, exhibited astounding commercial appeal – $148,000 from two cinemas in eight days and $800,000 from just eight cinemas in four weeks – and while the reissue was not on the scale of the 1983 revival the grand tally (gross, not rental) was $1.86 million (cueing a further ancillary round) and followed by the restoration of Rear Window which collected another $1.57 million (gross, not rental) in 2000. [xi]

SOURCES: Brian Hannan, Coming Back to a Theater near You, A History of the Hollywood Reissue 1914-2014 (McFarland, 2016) pp425-429.

[i] Brian Hannan, Hitchcock at the Box Office (Glasgow: Baroliant Press, 2104). This formed part of a retrospective of the director’s early films ending with The 39 Steps. Festival director Luigi Chiarini commented: “It seems fitting that young directors and film authors should learn from a great master of cinema.” But the homage was dropped after a festival boycott by U.S. producers. When it ran the next year, the closing film became The Lady Vanishes.

[ii] Hannan, Hitchcock at the Box Office. In 1971 The 39 Steps/The Lady Vanishes took $4,000 at the 150-seat Outer Circle Two ($1.75-$2.75) in Washington; in Cleveland The 39 Steps at the 448-seat World East ($2.50) grossed $3,600 while The Lady Vanishes at stablemate 448-seat World West ($2.50) took $2,100. In 1972, the double bill grossed $2,300 at the 500-seat Guild ($2.50) in Pittsburgh and at the 1,000-seat Cinema East in Dayton, Ohio, clocked up $2,900 and $1,000. In 1973 it was reissued in Paris and also made $3,200 at the 455-seat Severance ($2.50) in Cleveland. Source: “Picture Grosses,” Variety.

[iii] Hannan, Hitchcock at the Box Office. In 1975, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes were shown on a split week programme (i.e. one shown on three days and the other one four) at the 900-seat New Yorker Theater ($2-$3.50) in New York and made $4,200. The following year at Boston’s 150-seat Orson Welles II ($1.50-$3) the films were shown as a double bill for $4,800. (The week before, a double bill of the original The Man Who Knew Too Much and Young and Innocent had taken $4,900.) In Japan, The Lady Vanishes on a double bill with Casablanca notched up $14,500 in Tokyo, the fourth week of $9,000 an improvement on the $8,300 of the third. Source: “Picture Grosses,” Variety.

[iv] “Out of Circulation Hitchcock Pix to Be Released by UI Classics,” Variety, August 29, 1983, 3.

[v] Hannan, Hitchcock at the Box Office.

[vi] “Big Rental Films of 1983,” Variety, January 11, 1984, 11; “Big Rental Films of 1984,” Variety, January 16, 1984, 16.

[vii] Brian Hannan, Darkness Visible: Hitchcock’s Greatest Film, Glasgow: Baroliant Press, 2014). North by Northwest ran for six weeks in a tiny 199-seat theatre in Washington with weekly takings of up to $11,000, as well as Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. In Chicago it was on a double bill with Dial M For Murder and in Boston with Fritz Lang’s Fury. Overall, it had added another $800,000 in grosses since its last major reissue in 1966. Source: “Picture Grosses,” Variety.

[viii] Hannan, Darkness Visible. In Boston the Hitchcock Festival took $7,400 in its first week and $10,000 in its second. In Washington second week revenues outgrossed the first, jumping to $18,000 from $13,700. Source: “Picture Grosses,” Variety.

[ix] “Majors Gold and Platinum Titles Led by Warner,” Variety, January 13, 1984, X). Cashing in on the reissues, Universal had sent Psycho out on video.

[x] In Los Angeles a forty-six-film retrospective in Los Angeles saw rare screenings of his first film The Pleasure Garden (1925) as well as the 3D version of Dial M For Murder (1954).

[xi] Hannan, Darkness Visible. North By Northwest (1959) also received the restoration treatment, but was largely ignored by the public.