Behind the Scenes – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “Two for the Seesaw” (1962)

Had already cost a bundle before one foot of film was shot. Mini-major Mirisch Bros, flush from the commercial success of West Side Story (1961), had forked out $600,000 (plus a percentage) for the screen rights to the Broadway hit by William Gibson. (this was $250,000 more than West Side Story fetched). Between another $500,000 (plus percentage) for star Elizabeth Taylor and likely $250,000 for Gregory Peck, the producers were already well over a million bucks out of pocket.

The play had run for nearly two years on Broadway, earning a $570,000 profit, a remarkable sum in those days, and also set records for a touring production. It marked the Broadway debut of both Anne Bancroft, who won a Tony, and writer William Gibson. They re-teamed for The Miracle Worker both on Broadway and in the 1962 film.

Over-runs on Cleopatra (1963) put paid to Taylor’s involvement, Peck pulled out, temporarily replaced by Paul Newman. Producer Walter Mirisch presumably didn’t think Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft who’d played the parts on stage had sufficient marquee heft, nor was he keen on Broadway director Arthur Penn, and instead pursued Shirley MacLaine who he’s turned into a star thanks to The Apartment (1960) with Robert Mitchum stepping in for Newman (leaving him free to make the first of his iconic pictures, The Hustler, 1961) Robert Wise, director of West Side Story and looking for a less onerous gig, signed on to direct.

Despite being filmed on a 60-day schedule, the bulk of it on a sound stage, the budget had rocketed to $3 million, around half of which went on the main players and the screen rights.

Mitchum wasn’t too keen on the role, believing himself miscast from the outset. The lighter touch of James Garner, also considered for the role, might have worked better. Mitchum had turned down the movie twice, suggesting Mirisch would be better off with William Holden or Glenn Ford, for whom repression was a given.

MacLaine was on a roll, signed to a four-picture deal with Mirisch. She was given not one but two roles previously advertised with huge fanfare to have starred Elizabeth Taylor. As well as Two for the Seesaw, Taylor had been primed for Irma La Douce. The Taylor deal came unstuck in part due to her illness but also was attributed to her insistence that a role be found for her husband Eddie Fisher.

Wise and Mitchum had worked together earlier in their careers, in western Blood on the Moon (1948). And, no, this wasn’t the director hankering after working again with the actor. Noted Wise, “It was one of the few times I went on to a picture where the cast was already set. I don’t think Mitchum was quite right for the part. He was more believable in rougher, outdoor kinds of stuff.”

When they met at rehearsal, MacLaine was already a fan. Seventeen years younger than her co-star, she’d seen all his films, and was thrilled at working with one of her screen heroes. She was amazed at his photographic memory. He never had a problem with his lines. They certainly seemed to be getting on remarkably well for. Recalled Wise, “they got to ribbing and making jokes and making us all laugh so that the biggest problem we had was getting the two of them to settle down and get into the scene.” Added the director, “I had to have a closed set for a while. It was kind of embarrassed over what they were saying to each other. It was pretty spicy kidding, pretty ribald.2

Mitchum, apt to spout poetry, was revelation as a person far removed from his tough guy screen image. He was popular on set, very down to earth, mingling with all the crew and other actors. There was no entourage just a secretary bringing in lunch – and no hard liquor – for everyone.

What was going on between Mitchum and MacLaine was not obvious to everyone. Assistant director Jerome Siegel thought their light-heartedness was just a way of keeping tensions low on the set. “They were very subtle about it. You never saw anything where you could be sure there was a romance going on. but it didn’t surprise me when I did hear about it.” Needless to say, both actors were married at the time.

When Frank Sinatra and writer Malachy McCourt popped in to the set, Mitchum embarked on a drinking session that temporarily halted production, at least for the day. Wise infuriated his stars by using a stopwatch to time a kiss, one that was maybe going on too long with a pair of enamored characters. In his defense, Wise was just wary of the existing screen censorship, during which an overlong kiss would draw censure.

Wise had opened up the play with scenes set on Brooklyn Bridge and other parts accompanied by music suggesting the character was downcast. There’s a clever use of the split screen when the pair are on the telephone to each other.

The movie did well enough in first run New York and other big cities where the play had been performed but response outside those key sites and in the babes was muted. Most critics blamed the miscasting and Wise’s heavy direction.

SOURCES: Lee Server, Robert Mitchum, Baby I Don’t Cry (Faber and Faber, 2001); J.R. Jordan, Robert Wise, The Motion Pictures (BearManor, 2020); “Two Broadway Play Buys,” Variety, July 23, 1958; “Seasaw Earned $570,000 Profit,” Variety, November 4, 1959; “Shirley MacLaine’s Creamy roles,” Variety, October 26, 1960; “Two for Seesaw Budget at $3-Mil,” Variety, February 14, 1962.

Behind the Scenes: Sidney Lumet (“The Offence”, 1973) Talks Movies

There are plenty books about directors but remarkably few that explain with any coherence exactly what it is they do. Until now, the best book I’ve read upon the subject was by Edward Dmytryk, Oscar-nominated for Crossfire (1947) and shepherding home such triumphs as The Caine Mutiny (1954), Raintree County (1957), The Young Lions (1958) and more obviously commercial fare such as The Carpetbaggers (1964) and Mirage (1965). His book On Screen Directing covers every aspect, often with diagrams and instructions, of movie making.

Sidney Lumet takes a similar nuts-and-bolts approach in Making Movies. In turn, he focuses on the script, acting, camerawork, art direction, costumes, the actual shooting, dealing with rushes, editing, sound, and a vital element in the process that you’ve probably never heard of – the answer print.

Lumet has a heck of a portfolio. Five times Oscar-nominated, from debut 12 Angry Men (1957), through The Hill (1965), The Group (1966) and The Appointment (1969) and picking up the pace with The Anderson Tapes (1971), The Offence (1973), Serpico (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1975), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), Equus (1977) and running through Prince of the City (1981), The Verdict (1982) and Family Business (1989) all the way up to Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007).

The actual physical process begins in the rehearsal room, a “grungy” space in a big city. Key members of the production team will be present. The unit publicist will make a nuisance of themselves. Directors beware a star who arrives with an entourage. Sean Connery, with whom Lumet, made five pictures, arrives alone, bounds “up the steps two at a time, rapidly shakes hands all round, then plops himself down at a table, opens his script and starts studying.” Paul Newman couldn’t be more different. He “treads slowly up the stairs, the weight of the world on his shoulders, puts drops in his eyes, and makes a bad joke.”

But first, of course, came the script. In the best screenplays, “character and story were one and the same. I think inevitability is the key,” the idea that, without removing the element of surprise, the film will end up where the character’s actions insist.

Stars can ruin scripts. On The Verdict initial star Robert Redford’s insistence on changing the main character from a deadbeat drunk into someone more sympathetic had cost the studio a million dollars in scripts and rewrites before he exited the project and Paul Newman, perfectly happy to play an alcoholic, took his place.

Naturally, Lumet has beefs with critics and nowhere is that more heated than on their opposite definitions of style. Since critics don’t really know much about cinematic style, they’ll plump for the most obvious, something deriving from costume or period setting or some fancy camera gimmick. Lumet recalls no critic mentioning style in reference to Prince of the City, a movie he deems one of his most stylistic. Akira Kurosawa noticed it and talked to Lumet about it in some detail.

Lumet views stars as courageous. Called upon to reveal parts of themselves, or their bodies, it’s a never-ending series of demands on their skill-set. On the other hand, they can set out to test the director and make his life a misery. Like everyone else, he confesses to not knowing what makes a star, certainly appearance counts, but more often it’s more mysterious, some alchemy that jumps off the screen. But stars are well rewardd, as we know, but their perks can add substantially to the bottom line. In the 1990s one major star was getting an extra $320,000 in extras, which, in effect, cost the studio four times as much when taking into account how the box office take is broken down.

“Most actors have their best take early.” By Take 4 they’re given their best. But if something’s gone wrong, a faulty camera or light or someone coughing at the wrong time and they have to go again, actors are “emptied” and it can take several more takes to find the vital “refill.” Perseverance isn’t much fun when it takes 34 takes, as on The Fugitive Kind (1960), for Marlon Brando to get it right.

Camera tricks. At the end of 12 Angry Man, the camera was positioned higher and the lens wider. “The intention was to literally give us air, to let us finally breathe, after two increasingly confined hours.” Backlighting is “one of the oldest” devices used to make people look more beautiful. In The Hill, wide angle lenses were used to give the idea of character distortion. On The Deadly Affair (1967) “preflashing” made the backgrounds drab. The documentary feel of Dog Day Afternoon was enhanced by handheld cameras. Chiaroscuro achieved the “old” look of The Verdict.

When the movie starts shooting “the call sheet is our bible. If it’s not on the call sheet, we don’t need it.” But everything you do need, including actors, is itemized on the call sheet for each scene.

The answer print is the last element in the process. Before that can be created, the director calls in the guy from Technicolor. His job title is “timer.” In a darkened room, he watches the movie, relying on a counter beneath the screen. Reel by reel, he makes notes. “This shot is too dark, that too light, this too yellow, that too red,” and so on. Contrast, too, comes under the microscope. “Every scene, every shot, every foot of film is analysed.”

The Technicolor guy heads back to Technicolor where he sits in front of a machine called a “Hazeltine,” a computerized color analyser. “He feeds the negative into the machine and sees a positive image of the picture on a TV screen. Since electronic color is quite different from chemical color, his judgement is crucial.” He can vary the color balance or lighten or darken the image. Just as in photography, the positive stock moves into the chemical bath and the positive print emerges – the answer print.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. The director is looking for the lab to achieve the effects he requires. John Schlesinger had 13 attempts to get it right on Midnight Cowboy (1969).

The last job is to marry the sound track – known as the magnetic track – to the answer print.

That’s not the end of the story. The movie will be screened to a test audience and a report on dozens of points of detail produced. Maybe that will necessitate change – edits, a reshoot.

Then we get to see it without an idea of the effort it took to create.

SOURCE: Sidney Lumet, Making Movies, was published by Bloomsbury about 30 years ago. You should get a copy online easily enough.

Behind the Scenes: “The Offence” (1973)

“Vanity project” – two words to strike terror into the heart of a Hollywood studio boss. It meant some star or director had you over a barrel. In return for them condescending to make a movie for you, they expected you to fork out for a movie you knew would never make a dime. But, in this case, as far as United Artists was concerned, it was worth the risk if it that meant getting the Bondwagon back on track after the disappointing box office of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). It was a (relatively) small price to pay to get Sean Connery signing on for Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

There was still a financial downside. In the Connery deal, United Artists agreed to stump up two million bucks for two pictures. The actor would cost nothing, so that might be considered a bonus, Connery relying on the back end to recoup his fee and share of profits. But the movie would still need marketing and advertising, which might add up to another half a million dollars per picture.

Worse, this was what was known in the business as a “put picture.” According to director Sidney Lumet that meant the studio “had nothing to say about it. A budget was picked – and in this instance it was $1 million – and then whatever Sean wanted to do with that million he could do. They would have no approval of script, director, cast, what-have-you and that’s how The Offence happened.”

Connery wasn’t the first actor to think he knew better than the studio or who fancied backing his own judgement. That particular line went back to the silent days of Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin and later included the likes of John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck and Doris Day.

Connery planned to adapt a play by John Hopkins called This Story of Yours. He’d met Hopkins on Thunderball (1965) for which Hopkins had written the screenplay. UA might have been more interested had the play had been a whopping success in London’s West End and Broadway. But its London run was restricted to a few weeks at the Royal Court Theatre in 1968, so more arty than the general hit play.

Connery’s second choice for a “put picture” was an adaptation of Macbeth in which he would make his directorial debut.

“There was never a moment’s discussion,” noted Lumet, about how this would play with Connery’s global fanbase. “Sean knew exactly what he was getting into, shut his eyes and dived off the board without checking if there was any water in the pool.”

The budget was trimmed further following changes to the dollar-sterling exchange rate and Connery had only $900,000 to play with. But actually this wasn’t such a bad deal. Apart from three pictures, UA had limited budgetary exposure to $1.5 million for the rest of its slate. And Connery was flush, sitting on an estimated $6 million from his share of the proceeds of Diamonds Are Forever, his record fee of $1.2 million augmented by his 12.5 per cent share of $45 million in rentals.

Sidney Lumet, who had directed Connery in The Hill (1965) and The Anderson Tapes (1971) signed up. Ian Bannen, also from The Hill, took the main supporting role and Trevor Howard (The Long Duel, 1967), with just nine minutes screen time, added marquee lure. Lumet managed to bring the film in ahead of schedule, completing the film in just 28 days of shooting following a couple of weeks of rehearsal. The writer was on the set every day.

And UA hadn’t skimped on promotion either. Some of the 154 journos attending a junket for Man of La Mancha were shipped to London to cover The Offence.

Exteriors were shot in and around Bracknell in Berkshire in March and April 1972, making use of the Point Royal flats – the background made enough of an impression for a PhD student to use it for a thesis on the “brutalism” of modern architecture” – with interiors at Twickenham. The town’s library doubled as the film’s police station for exteriors.

The title was changed to Something Like The Truth – artwork was devised for this – and only switched to the “much more impactive” The Offence a month before the movie opened.

All Connery’s Bond hits had opened at big London West End theaters. So although this might have fared better in a smaller house, or a West End cinema known for more discretionary fare such as the Odeon Haymarket or a genuine arthouse like the Curzon, UA slotted it into the 1,993-seat Odeon Leicester Square in January 1974.

In opening week it took $17,900, a few hundred dollars short of the seventh week of the movie it replaced, Charles Bronson thriller The Mechanic, so “disappointing” was an understatement. According to a later article by Variety’s Peter Debruge, it only lasted four days. But it didn’t. It ran for five weeks. Week two brought in $13,700, the third stanza $10,200 and then $8,900 and a final sally of $7,300. But nothing like his Bond box office.

It transferred to the 139-seat Cinecenta – where it might more sensibly have opened and where demand would surely have outstripped supply and led to a lengthy run. In fact, the second week there improved on the first, $2,400 compared to $2,200. And it shifted over to the equally tiny Centa Cinema where its second week sat at $2,400. The Odeon chain gave it a circuit release, backed by a reissue of western Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971) starring James Garner.

The London figures resulted in a distinct lack of interest in the U.S. Not even Connery’s success as James Bond could induce any notable theater to take it on. U.S. reviews didn’t help. Among the New York critics, six were negative and only two positive. However, Women’s Wear Daily commented on the “beautiful acting by Sean Connery” and the Independentl Film Journal noted, “He is so much more right for this than any glossier star would be that he has an unbeatable advantage.”

Peter Debruge reckoned the poor London box office stalled its opening Stateside for a year. That wasn’t true either. Although it was slow out of the gate. It had received an “R” certificate in December 1974, which generally indicated an opening one month or so further on. Instead, the opening was delayed until 11 May 1973 at the 546-seat Festival in New York, by which point Connery was again in the news, having replaced Burt Reynolds on Zardoz.

Again according to Debruge, the distributor “buried it in a bad house” in New York. That wasn’t true either. The Festival, a Walter Reade arthouse, was the ideal location for a difficult movie that needed to find its feet. Success there could lead to a long run. The movie it replaced, Ten from Your Show of Shows, an equally odd proposition being a compilation of sketches from a 1950s TV show, was coming to the end of a 10-week run.

The first five days at the Festival hauled in $9,500 but neither the second nor third week figures were reported, which meant they were dire. That three-week run was the limit of its American release, as far as I could detect after researching the pages of Variety. It may well have turned up somewhere on the drive-in circuit or as a support. Judging from available posters, it was released at least in Germany, Finland, Australia, Belgium and Spain

Apparently, it turned a profit after nine years but my guess that would take a considerable amount of sales to television to get anywhere near recouping the investment. United Artists reneged on its deal to make another “put picture” with Connery, though likely there was a loophole in the contract that facilitated that. Interestingly enough, that might not have prevented Connery going down the directorial route. He was slated to direct and star in The Drooping W, based on a Leo Marks script, for Twentieth Century Fox.

Both Sidney Lumet and Christopher Nolan, possibly attracted by the complex flashback structure, both asserted it was Connery’s best work.

SOURCES: “About UA Financing,” Variety, May 19, 1971; “Connery Truth 1^st of 2 for UA,” Variety, May 29, 1972; “Lumet Brings In UA’s Truth Ahead of Sked,” Variety, May 31, 1971; “UA Backed Mancha,” Variety, June 28, 1972; “Connery May Earn $6-Mil,” Variety, July 19, 1972; “R for Offence,” Variety, December 27, 1972; “Sean Connery Film Retitled,” Box Office, January 8, 1973; “Review,” Women’s Wear Daily, May 14, 1973; “Connery into Zardoz,” Variety, May 16, 1973; “N.Y. Critics Opinion,” Variety, May 23, 1973; “Review,” Independent Film Journal, May 28, 1973; “Fox Out-Races Hounds of TV,” Variety, September 19, 1973; Peter Debruge, “Helmers Tap into Charisma and Wigs,” Variety, June 7, 2006. Box office figures: Variety 1973, Jan 24-March 14 and May 16-30.

Behind the Scenes: British Renaissance?

On a whim I looked up the box office of British-made The Magic Faraway Tree, assuming it was the usual sort of British dud we’ve become accustomed to. To my surprise it’s cast a spell to the tune of $23 million worldwide including $10 million in the UK and it’s still to open in most markets. And it got me thinking if perhaps British cinema was on the up and up.

We’ve been here before – too many times. From Colin Welland, Chariots of Fire Oscar unabashedly raised aloft declaring in 1982 that “The British Are Coming,” to every unlikely box office success from Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) to Paddington (2014) being acclaimed as a sign that British cinema is not just on the mend but bouncing back to greater heights.

It’s true that Britain has spawned one of the few contemporary directors to carry genuine box office cachet in Christopher Nolas while Ridley Scott occasionally still strikes commercial gold – Gladiator II (2024) made some dough but it was a long way from The Martian (2015) ballpark. And we can shout about action heroes like Daniel Craig, Jason Statham and Gerard Butler and claim Irishman Liam Neeson as our own. Two out of three Spidermen – Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield – have a British connection.

Throw in Daniel Day-Lewis, Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman, Helen Mirren, Olivia Colman and Eddie Redmayne and we’re not short of actors dining at the very top Oscar table.

But getting them all to interact together for the good of British cinema seems an impossible task. By and large the country seems to be in the business of spawning false dawns. The list of flops is immeasurably long.

However, few would argue that in the past year or so British cinema has been enjoying something of a renaissance at the box office.

Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi knocked up $241 million worldwide (UK contributing $33 million). Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, with Renee Zellweger in retread, clocked up $140 million (and that’s without a U.S. release) including $62 million from the UK., Chloe Zhao’s Oscar-nominated Hamnet starring an Oscar-winning Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal was good for $106 million (UK – $25 million).

The world best-loved bear in his third iteration, Paddington in Peru, socked away $211 million (UK – $49 million) – a mere $1million behind Oscar-winner One Battle after Another.

Danny Boyle’s horror sequel 28 Years Later raced past $151 million including $21 million from the UK. The promised last hurrah, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, snapped up $103 million (UK – $24 million). Riz Ahmed as Hamlet took home $78 million.

That’s over $1 billion right there in global box office receipts.

In addition, blowing in under the radar have been unsung commercial successes like I Swear, already considered an Oscar contender for next year, with $11 million worldwide. Although threequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple disappointed it still stole away with $58 million. Except for truth being stranger than fiction The Salt Path wouldn’t have stalled at $21 million.

And let’s not forget Nolan’s next blockbuster The Odyssey with an all-star cast including Tom Holland is steaming home in the summer with Ridley Scott’s latest sci fi epic The Dog Stars due shortly after.

It’s worth noting that both Fennell and Zhao appear to have hit the current zeitgeist of female-friendly pictures. Although you could argue Wuthering Heights comes with an inbuilt IP, no movie version has been a commercial hit in over 80 years since the Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in William Wyler’s 1939 version. Commercially, Hamnet is within touching distance of the most recent of that genre, The Drama and Reminders of Him, while Wuthering Heights has taken in three times as much as either.

No doubt Emerald Fennell can now write her own ticket. If British cinema is on the brink of a renaissance, much depends on what she does next.

Behind the Scenes: The Trade Magazines in the 1960s – Part Two – “Box Office”

Where the weekly Variety devoted maybe a quarter of its pages in the 1960s to the film industry, the weekly U.S. trade magazine Box Office (it didn’t also run a daily) wrote about nothing but. And not just what we term the “film business” – the making and marketing of films – but also the business of running a cinema with all the detail that entails.

In 1920, aged just 18, Ben Shlyen founded The Reel Journal in Kansas City and changed the title in 1933 to Box Office. Where the front cover of Variety showed you how diverse it was going to be, the front cover of Box Office revealed that it had only one focus. Its covers didn’t feature industry news. Instead it was devoted to significant figures on the exhibition side or to photos of new cinemas or a still from a new film. It operated nine regional offices and one section of the magazine was changed every week to incorporate news from each of those regions.

*First page of the 4-page bound insert for “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”*

Rather than its news pages driving the industry, it was its editorials. It took a stance on anything affecting the business, censorship, product shortages, exhibitor initiatives, studio flaws and new technological developments.

It had two distinct advantages over Variety in that it was printed on glossy paper and could incorporate full-color inserts which were generally printed on even heavier stock and glossier paper. Sometimes the easiest way for a smaller distributor to get their message across to the exhibitor was to stick a complete Pressbook/Campaign Manual in the middle of an issue – the issue of March 3, 1967 contained 16-page full-color Pressbook for The Devil’s 8 complete with double-page ad.

Box Office was divided into several sections. News came, of course, at the start but as much as it contained information on new movies and studio goings-on, it might also report on a new pension plan for cinema managers or sales taxes or investment in new cinemas (a record $120 million went into new construction in 1967). A page called “Hollywood Report” updated readers on new films and casting.

The regional section would comprise as much as eight or twelve pages. The section known as “C” for example had columns devoted to Kansas City and Chicago with other articles reporting on Denver, Omaha, Massachusetts and so on.

The magazine took a markedly different approach to reporting box office than Variety. Instead of concentrating on gross, the magazine ran a “Boxoffice Barometer” which showed how movies performed in relation to a cinema’s weekly average. This was done in terms of percentages. With the figure of 100 being the norm, After the Fox, for example, was rated as 450 in Cincinnati but only 90 in San Francisco. This helped exhibitors in various towns work out which result most reflected their business.

Another important section was “Showmanship” which celebrated the marketing ideas and stunts dreamed up by exhibitors and studios. These often featured window displays in stores, special marquees or lobbies and tie-ins with media or radio. Its review pages also carried hints on marketing. And there was a weekly chart showing all the films currently available from all studios, major and minor. And once a fortnight exhibitors could let rip over the quality and/or success/failure of films in its “Exhibitor Has His Say” feature.

But it also focused on the nuts and bolts of running a cinema in its “The Modern Theatre” section. This might include articles on new cinemas or major refurbishments; provide tips for projectionists on depth of focus and how to oil projectors; come up with new ideas on concession sales or how to make bigger profits from popcorn; how to plan a drive-in theatre, how new income tax rules could affect your business; and information of the latest pieces of equipment.

Box Office magazine wasn’t as readily available to laymen such as myself. I don’t recall it being available in newsagents in central London. I’m not sure if at that point in its development it was interested in the foreign market. So I was first introduced to the magazine from buying various issues on memorabilia auction sites.

*Second page of a 4-page bound insert for “A Man for All Seasons.”*

It was the bound inserts that had me hooked. Where posters in the 1960s were printed on paper and Pressbooks were printed on glossier stock, the inserts were phenomenal and unique. You wouldn’t find these appearing in a normal ad campaign in ordinary newspapers. While mostly they were four pages long, I have some in my collection that top 16 pages.

There were two bound inserts in the issue of January 16, 1967. The first for Thoroughly Modern Millie was at least 400 gsm – four times the thickness of ordinary copier paper – full color and glossy as all get out. This was clearly specifically designed for the magazine and promoted the movie’s world premiere on March 22 at the Criterion in New York.

*First page of a double-page spread using spot colour.*

The other was for A Man for All Seasons, also four pages and also in full color. While the paper stock was as heavy, the design was more stylish, printed on card, the kind you used to get on businesses that wanted to impress you with the quality of their stationery. Pre-dating that year’s Oscars, the advert promoted the film being awarded the New York Film Critics Award and that the film was playing “exclusive reserved seat engagements” in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto.

Most ordinary adverts were in black-and-white or spot color and often promoted movies you or I have never heard of but were doing good business somewhere. However, as if to demonstrate the overall quality of the product, it also carried a full-color advertisement for Kodak’s Eastman Color System with a photo that involved various shades of color in an intricate format.

Because of the inserts I have more cherished copies of this magazine than I do of Variety.

It is still going today as Box Office Pro.

Behind the Scenes: The Trade Magazines in the 1960s – Part One – “Variety”

Perhaps the most famous logo in the history of newspapers. Unusually, I had a very slight connection to the magazine. When I was a journalist I worked for Reed Business Publishing which took over Variety in 1987 through its U.S. subsidiary Cahners and much later a colleague of mine Neil Stiles took over as publisher. When I lived in London, I’d make a detour on the way home once a week to pick up a copy of the weekly edition from a newsagent in Charing Cross Road or failing that in Old Compton St. So I’ve been familiar with the magazine for around 40 years. A decade or so back when I was a bit flush I treated myself to an annual subscription to its archive and trawled all the way back to its beginnings in 1905. Anyone who’s read any of my books will see how often I use the magazine for reference.

Obviously, movies weren’t on the editorial agenda when Sime Silverman founded the publication – the iconic logo hasn’t changed much in a century. As the title said, it covered everything within the entertainment industry and when movies grew in importance they acquired their own section with its own front page inside.

*The strapline above the logo shows just how wide a market “Variety” tapped into.*

From the outset, Variety targeted those actively involved in the business and as the movie section expanded that meant movie executives, financiers, actors and directors. I’ve no idea how Silverman managed to persuade stage theatres to allow him to publish their weekly takes, but when that included cinemas, the idea of box office as news was born.

*Generations of film scholars were grateful for a magazine that focused on the bottom line of the rentals rather than the glossier grossses which tended to be misleading in terms of profit.*

Initially it was a weekly magazine, but then set up a smaller daily magazine headquartered in Hollywood which primarily reported on movie news. The two eventually ran side by the side, the weekly being the one that ended up at my London newsagent.

Variety was exceptionally unusual for a magazine in that it invented its own language known as “slanguage.” For example, “boffo” and “whammo” related to box office (often truncated to B.O.) that was on the big side; when someone was fired or quit a job they “ankled;” while “Cincinnati” was reduced to “Cincy.” “Hix” would “nix” the “pix” meaning people in the countryside didn’t go much for whatever movies had turned up locally. Projects were “greenlit.” A “hardtop” was an indoor movie theater while an “ozoner” referred to a drive-in. If you “inked a deal” it meant you signed up for something.

*Articles tended to be long and sometimes ran over to another page.*

It wasn’t very much bothered with the exhibitor side of the business though it was initially most useful to that sector for not just reviewing every picture released but passing judgement on its box office prospects. This saved cinemas, which might require eight or ten movies in a given week, from having to spend so much time in a screening theatre.

But it was very catholic in its coverage. If you look just above the logo on the front page I’ve reproduced from 1967 you’ll notice it sets out quite a substantial stall of interest – films, video (in those days that meant television not VHS), TV films (as opposed to movies made for the cinema), radio, music and stage. So, virtually, the entire field of entertainment. It also had a healthy section on books.

And it made a point of not favoring one particular element of the business. So on its front page, you’d find stories on each of the sectors it covered. However, by the 1960s, the front section of the magazine was devoted to movies and Variety was delighted to trumpet box office figures in news stories rather than just leaving it to the studios to highlight through adverts. Except that the magazine was exceptionally large in terms of page size, it wasn’t a great advertising vehicle. There was no color available unlike some of its competitors. The printing was more grainy than glossy.

However, it did become the market leader in box office figures. In the 1960s it published the weekly box office returns for hundreds of cinemas in the largest cities in the country, adding its own editorial comments on the performances of various films. (This also allowed cinemas further down the food chain to temper or raise expectations).Its headlines in this section often generated excitement, the oxygen any industry needed. When the blockbuster business began in the 1970s it was Variety that led the way in box office reporting, causing other mainstream media to follow suit.

And it was via Variety that studios started pitching their movies for Oscars, taking out advert after advert proclaiming the glories of a particular movie, triggering the marketing tsunami that occurs now in the run-up to the ceremony.

Weekly box was registered as gross, i.e. what the movie took in at each cinema. But Variety had another trump card to play. Once a year, it contacted the studios to ask them to provide not the cumulative gross for each release but the rental, i.e. the amount of dough returned to the studio after the cinema had taken its cut. That provided a more realistic basis for assessing how movies had actually performed in relation to their budgets.

And reporting in general was not PR-driven. Variety was as likely to lambast the industry or its stars for under-performing as much as for setting box office records. It reported on downturns as much as upturns. It saw in advance when and where trouble was looming. You got the impression that the journalists understood the business rather than writing about it as star-struck hacks.

In future years, when Variety became an intrinsic part of the Cannes Film Festival, its issue devoted to that event could top 300 pages, a good chunk of it filled with adverts from smaller companies promoting films seeking a distributor or punting films that had yet to be made. Often, these ads were nothing more than bait-and-switch, promising pictures with bankable stars that were little more than dreams in the imagination of a minor executive.

But the magazine had one significant flaw. In effect, entirely unintentionally because I said it stated it content plans upfront, it was pulling a fast one. When you picked up your copy, it felt like you were in for a hefty read. The weekly edition could often span 100 pages. But if you were in the film industry less than a quarter of the content would be relevant to you, the rest was devoted to the other areas shown on the masthead.

The magazine is still in business today although with the online element more prominent.

Behind the Scenes: Box Office Report, London March 2 1968

It’s impossible to imagine these days the impact of the roadshow. Yes, we’ve got Imax and the premium pricing that goes with it, and yes advance bookings can be awesome – witness Oppenheimer (2023) and the upcoming Dune: Part Three which has sold out signs up eight months in advance. But by 1960s standards these – in terms of length of run – couldn’t hold a candle to roadshow.

Take this week in London’s West End – The Sound of Music at the 1,712-seat Dominion cinema was coming up for its third full year (152 weeks and counting). David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago at the 1330-seat Empire was “rock steady” at £7,781 in its 95^th week. Because few people were just turning up on the off chance at the door, box office, thanks to advance booking, tended to hold steady.

Fred Zinnemann’s Oscar-winning A Man for All Seasons reported a “substantial gain” in its 45^th week to £4,754 at the 600-seat Odeon Haymarket; musical Camelot starring Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave in its 14^th week at the 1,565-seat Warner increased to £6,904 over the previous week and British crooner Tommy Steele in musical Half a Sixpence went up to a “smash” £10,434 in its ninth outing at the 1,350 Astoria. Julie Andrews as Thoroughly Modern Millie at the 735-seat Odeon St Martin’s Lane was also on the up – to £6,675 in the 19^th week and Julie Christie in Far From the Madding Crowd “advanced” to £4,984 at the 1,394 Metropole. Holding steady were Robert Shaw as Custer of the West, presented at the 1,127 Casino Cinerama, racking up a total of £6,561, and Joseph Strick’s controversial censor-baiting Ulysses with £1,991 in its 38^th week at the 556-seat Academy arthouse .

These days new films expect to show a steady or marked decrease after opening, so the idea of movies improving their box office late in a run might come as a surprise to seasoned observers.

Arthouses often enjoyed long runs. The double bill of Claude Lelouche’s Oscar-winner (Best Foreign Film) A Man and a Woman and Agnes Varda’s Le Bonheur at the 544-seat Berkely was in its 32nd week. Luis Bunuel’s Belle de Jour at the 546-seat Curzon registered its 15^th week. Sexploitation also tended to do well at the smaller West End houses – 15th week for Massacre for an Orgy at the 252-seat Cameo Moulin, 11^th for Seventeen/Sex Quartet at the 486-seat Continentale, ninth for Her Private Hell at the 399-seat Cameo Royal.

Among the non-roadshow pictures Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn-Sidney Poitier drama Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was “having a great run” at the 1,750-seat Leicester Sq Theatre with £8,734 in the third week. At the same stage of its run Paul Newman World War Two comedy The Secret War of Harry Frigg was not faring so well at the 1,994-seat Odeon Leicester Sq, “drifting” to £5,856. Lee Marvin in John Boorman’s existential thriller Point Blank had another good week – its ninth – with £1,615 at the 412-seat Ritz while Rod Taylor heading up The Mercenaries “eased” to £5,920 at the 1,186-seat Pavilion.

In its second week surfing bonanza Endless Summer “continued to shine with a handsome” £1,868 at the 660-seat Cameo Victoria while Disney’s The Jungle Book, after 14 weeks, continued to climb to £2,850 at the 556-seat Studio One. While Up the Junction with Suzy Kendall “continued to make a weighty return” with £3,433 in its fourth week at the 595-seat Rialto, Carol White as Poor Cow “moved lower” to £1,217 in its seventh week at the 414-seat Prince Charles. George Peppard as The New Face in Hell enjoyed a “very good” £3,414 in its first four days at the 1,159-seat Carlton.

In the London suburbs both Rank and ABC operated a two-tier general release system with films opening one week in North London and the next week in South London. In the north, ABC reported that Bette Davis chiller The Anniversary had “figures in the upper bracket” while the double bill of espionage endeavor Assignment K with Stephen Boyd and Camilla Sparv teamed with Eli Wallach as The Tiger Makes Out were “just about average.” South of the river, Valley of the Dolls was in a “strong position” in Rank cinemas while Smashing Time with Rita Tushingham “homed in on the right side of par.”

However, the long-runners had an adverse effect on the release cycle. With some of the major roadshow houses out of commission thanks to very extensive and still profitable runs, newcomers often jockeyed for position. Disney musical The Happiest Millionaire starring Tommy Steele had to wait five months after its New York premiere to find a berth in London’s West End. Given it had opened at the biggest cinema in the whole of the USA, smashing records at the 6,000-seat Radio City Music Hall, it was something of a comedown to find the only cinema available was one of London West End’s smallest, the 600-seat Odeon Haymarket where it was scheduled to launch on April 4. Disney softened the blow by pointing out that Mary Poppins had enjoyed a successful run there.

Other new movies due out included David Niven demonic thriller Eye of the Devil opening at the Ritz on March 3 and Burt Lancaster in western The Scalphunters at the Pavilion two weeks later.

SOURCE: Bill Altria, “Box Office Business,” Kine Weekly, March 2, 1968, p10.

Behind the Scenes: Coppola, Lucas, Speielberg, “The Last Kings of Hollywood”

There’s no connection between Robert Wise, Mike Nichols and David Lean, responsible for the three biggest movies of the 1960s, respectively The Sound of Music (1965), The Graduate (1967) and Doctor Zhivago (1965). No ostensible link these days between uber directors James Cameron and Christopher Nolan. Yet the three directorial gods of the 1970s – makers of the three biggest films of that decade namely The Godfather (1972), Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) – lived out of each other’s pockets for a considerable period, relied on each other for support, encouragement and even finance, and while aiming to create a new path for the independent director ended up inventing the blockbuster which, ironically, made directors even more dependent on studios.

Paul Fischer’s new book The Last Kings of Hollywood, The Battle for the Soul of American Cinema delves into the background that saw Francis Ford Coppola bankroll George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas work together, examining the ruptures, fallouts and lingering resentments that fueled their incredible rise.

All three were the hot kids in the cinematic sense. Coppola and Lucas were held up to generations of film school students for what they had achieved in film school, Spielberg’s juvenile attempts at movie making were incredibly accomplished.

Coppola was “something of a legend” after studying at Hofstra University in New York, “he’d won awards for his directing and all but remodeled the college’s entire drama department after himself. At UCLA film school he’d made all the best films” and then skipped out without graduating to work on Roger Corman pictures, learning by work rather than by attending lectures. Lucas’s student film THX 1138 was hailed as the best student film ever made. As a sophomore in high school, Spielberg made his calling card, Firelight.

Coppola was the visionary entrepreneur, persuading Warner Brothers to cough up the best part of $7 million for the director to set up his own independent operation American Zoetrope in San Francisco, distant from the prying and interfering eyes of Hollywood. All he had to show for the dough for the feature film version of THX 1138 (1971), which was a flop.

At USC, Lucas befriended John Milius and encouraged him to adapt Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness into a Vietnam film that became Apocalypse Now and originally was being written for Lucas to direct. Lucas and Coppola fell out when the latter took over the film, even after Lucas had made a deal with Columbia. Screenwriter Robert Towne watched four hours of dailies from The Godfather and not only told the beleaguered director “this is without question the best footage I’ve ever seen” but suggested the film needed another scene between Brando and Pacino, the one where the father tells the son “Barzini will move against you first.”

After American Graffiti (1973) was rejected by United Artists, Universal was interested but only if Coppola lent his name to it. After The Godfather, Coppola could have afford to finance it himself – the budget was only $777,000. But his wife Eleanor didn’t like the script so he passed and lost out on a fortune. Harrison Ford, who legend says was making a living as a carpenter, was actually doing better dealing dope.

Coppola had an affair with his babysitter Melissa Matheson, who turned into a screenwriter though after the failure of The Black Stallion (1979) had given up until Spielberg approached her to write E.T. (1982), having rejected John Sayles original script except for two ideas, the tip of the alien’s finger glowing and the notion of the alien left behind.

Other figures like Martin Scorsese and Brian DePalma are brought into the compelling narrative that touches upon every major creative player of the era. Many of the gang were present for the first showing of Star Wars, in Lucas’s plush screening room – Spielberg, Milius, DePalma, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck who’d written American Graffiti, Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins who’d written The Sugarland Express (1974). Scorsese had an excuse not to attend perhaps out of fear of “hating the film and having to break George’s heart.” The communal response was not what Lucas expected.

“The silence afterward made George uneasy.” DePalma was the most vocal, not just making fun of the movie but of its essential ingredients such as the concept of The Force and the stormtroopers. But his tirade did spur Lucas into introducing the film with the same kind of text that used to crawl up the screen at the start of a Flash Gordon episode. Spielberg was encouraging, but not in public, only after taking Lucas aside.

As well as the special effects making the film and conjuring up a script that worked, Star Wars triggered huge rows between Lucas and his wife Marcia over the editing. This is probably the first book about the making of the movies where time is spent on editing, and its importance to the finished film. “Marcia shaped scenes around the characters’ emotions…George, on the other hand, was motivated by a mixture of cerebral logic and a subject sense of rhythm.”

Fischer covers the making of every important film in the early careers of the trio plus Scorsese and DePalma and a few others in a way that’s totally absorbing by mixing together the behind-the-scenes information and technical aspects with gossip about their love lives, drug habits and creative development. We get Spielberg laughing out loud when he first hears John Williams’ idea for the score of Jaws, that Coppola hid his affair with Matheson for a decade, how Spielberg turned his original ideas for what eventually became E.T. into Poltergeist (1982), whose idea it was to add the climactic twist to Carrie (1976), how Kathleen Kennedy became a dominant producer in a misogynistic business, at the Oscars we see The Godfather producer Robert Evans and Coppola standing side by side “hating each other’s guts.”

While you may have read dozens of articles or books about all movies like The Godfather, Jaws, Taxi Driver (1976), Carrie, Star Wars and Apocalypse Now (1979), what they lack is context. These movies did not appear out of nowhere. As well as camaraderie there was creative rivalry, peer pressure and its partner peer acceptance. Although everyone made big bucks, money was never the driving force. Film was. They ate and slept movies and all they wanted to do was make another, better, one.

The only part of Fischer’s argument I disagree with is the notion that somehow these directors were bucking the system when, in fact, in displacing the old system they replaced it with a new one that didn’t necessarily mean a better one. The blockbuster, the idea of the summer “tent-pole” grew out of not just what profits these movies made but set up the concept of sequels – two for The Godfather, three for Jaws, four for Raiders of the Lost Ark, ten for Star Wars, not to mention side hustles like computer games and television series. While Lucas has cashed in his lucrative chips, Coppola and Spielberg are still making movies.

It’s a long time since I’ve enjoyed a book as much.

The Last Kings of Hollywood, The Battle for the Soul of American Cinema by Paul Fischer is out now, from Faber & Faber in the U.K. and Celador in the U.S.

Behind the Scenes: The Mirisch Meltdown

Independent production company Mirisch had enjoyed spectacular success in the 1960s both at the box office and the Oscars. Commercial successes included The Magnificent Seven (1960) and sequels, The Apartment (1960), West Side Story (1961), The Great Escape (1963), Hawaii (1966) despite its huge budget, and In the Heat of the Night (1967). Walter, who did the legwork on the production side – his brothers Harold and Marvin were more backroom boys – picked up the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night and two other films he was involved in won Best Picture. Their films were solely distributed through United Artists, with whom they had a profitable relationship for most of the decade. But cracks were beginning to show in the 1970s and in the final reckoning after a meltdown at the box office Mirisch and UA went their separate ways in 1974. Harold had died in 1968 and Marvin pulled back, leaving Walter to go it alone with Universal, with some success – Midway (1976) and Same Time, Next Year (1978).

The demise of the original Mirisch came as their business was spiralling out of control. With a total loss of $32.6 million covering 13 films made for United Artists between 1966 and 1972, it was small wonder it spelled the end of the road for the independent company. Norman Jewison musical Fiddler on the Roof, an adaptation of the Broadway hit, was one of only three movies to end up in the black, clocking up $6.8 million profit. Return of the Seven (1966) starring Yul Brynner earned a meager $37,000 in profit from cinema exhibition and its overall profitability of $588,000 depended on $1.6 million from sales to television. The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972) with Lee Van Cleef only made a small profit of $236,000 thanks to television and even counting in sales to the small screen Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) didn’t reach that benchmark.

Television played a significant role in keeping losses down to $32.6 million. Fiddler on the Roof went to television for $3 million, The Hawaiians / Master of the Island (1970) starring Charlton Heston, a sequel to Hawaii, and They Call Me Mister Tibbs for $1.3 million and The Organization $1.1 million, respectively, the latter two films relying on Sidney Poitier reprising his role from In the Heat of the Night.

Various deductions, not always obvious to outsiders, come off the top of rentals and television sales. First there are the distribution fees paid to United Artists, then marketing costs, finance, and profit shares – Brynner and Poitier were on percentages as was Jewison (on a whopping 20 per cent), and these were often paid out against overall rentals rather than actual profits.

In an alarming shift from the glory days of the 1960s, Mirisch presided over some out-and-out disasters. Jewison’s rites-of-passage Gaily, Gaily / Chicago, Chicago (1969) starring newcomer Beau Bridges (The Fabulous Baker Boys, 1989) in his first top-billed role and Greek Oscar nominee Melina Mercouri (Topkapi, 1964) went completely down the tubes, racking up a colossal $10.3 million loss. The Hawaiians / Master of the Islands directed by Tom Gries (Will Penny, 1968) wasn’t far behind – $8.3 million in the red.

The Billy Wilder (The Apartment) touch couldn’t save The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) starring Robert Stephens (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1969) from plummeting to a $7.5 million deficit. George Peppard western Cannon for Cordoba (1970) co-starring Giovanni Ralli (Deadfall, 1968) haemorrhaged $3.1 million. Heist comedy Some Kind of Nut (1969), directed by the renowned triple Oscar nominee Garson Kanin (Where It’s At, 1969) and toplining Dick Van Dyke (Divorce American Style, 1967) and Angie Dickinson (Jessica, 1962) faced a shortfall of $3 million.

Beau Bridges was also the luckless star of Hal Ashby’s debut The Landlord (1970) which went down to the tune of $2.5 million. School drama Halls of Anger (1970) starring Calvin Lockhart (Cotton Comes to Harlem, 1970) as a tough teacher was $1.8 million in the red. Jacqueline Bisset (Bullitt, 1968) in her first top-billed role in The First Time (1969) wasn’t a big enough attraction to prevent this tumbling into a $973,000 quagmire.

Even Sidney Poitier at the peak of his fame was no hedge against box office calamity. They Call Me Mister Tibbs was $1 million below breakeven and The Organization $500,000.

It didn’t help the Mirisch bottom line that it had invested $5.1 million in projects that were never made, although half of this was accounted by The Bells of Hell Go Ding-A-Ling-A-Ling, a Gregory Peck (Mackenna’s Gold, 1969) starrer directed by David Miller (Lonely Are the Brave, 1962) that was abandoned in 1966 in the face of extreme weather conditions with $2.7 million already spent. The studio has also lavished $1.2 million on I Do, I Do without a single foot of film shot. John Sturges spent $267,000 unsuccessfully trying to put together The Yards of Essendorf in 1969 that would have, variously, starred Steve McQueen or Warren Beatty (plus Ursula Andress and Jean-Paul Belmondo) in another World War Two venture. Sturges also wasted $68,000 on Richard Sahib to feature Spencer Tracy and Alec Guinness and $15,000 on The Artful Dodger, a sequel to The Great Escape.

Other projects sucking the well dry with nothing to show for it were Bandoola with an elephant as an unlikely World War Two hero to be filmed in Pakistan ($208,000 spent), Chinese Detective Story ($82,000) aka The Dragon Master with George Peppard lined up, The Egyptologist ($140,000), The Judgment of Corey ($185,000) with director Peter Yates (Bullitt), The Mutiny of Madame Yes ($110,000) with Ronald Neame (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) attached, Nothing to Lose ($92,000) to be helmed by Franklin Schaffner (Planet of the Apes, 1968), Andrew V. McLaglen (Bandolero! 1968) signed up for Warhorse ($39,000) and Snatch ($239,000).

The poor run continued into 1972 when Billy Wilder’s Avanti (1972) with Jack Lemmon, while not in the dire financial straits of the famous sleuth, still dropped $1.8 million.

SOURCE: William Bernstein, “United Artists Office Rushgram,” July 16 1973 (United Artists Archive, Wisconsin University.)

Behind the Scenes: “Gray Lady Down” (1978)

Producer Walter Mirisch could have afforded to rest on his laurels – he’d won the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night and been responsible for classics like The Magnificent Seven (1960) – and three sequels – and The Great Escape (1963). The 1970s had proved tougher, resulting initially in a string of pot boilers before hitting a home run with Mr Majestyk (1974) with Charles Bronson and knocking the ball out of the box office park with war picture Battle of Midway (1976), the former pulling in $20 million in rentals on a $2 million budget, the latter $50 million in rentals on a $7 million budget.

He had parted company with United Artists after nearly two decades in partnership and tied up a five-year deal with Universal. With Midway under his belt, he was the go-to producer for pictures on a naval theme. He had been sent a screenplay by James Whittaker about a submarine stranded at the bottom of the ocean. However, it turned out there was already a novel on the same subject, Event 1000 by David Lavallee, which result in various negotiations to determine the screenwriter credit, especially after playwright Howard Sackler (The Great White Hope, 1970) had completed a rewrite.

Charlton Heston, on a box office roll after Airport 1975 (1974), Earthquake (1974), Battle of Midway and Two Minute Warning (1976), was the obvious choice for the lead. But Mirisch had originally contemplated teaming Heston with Sidney Poitier (In the Heat of the Night). “He’s now backing away” from the idea, noted Heston in his diary in February 1976, “though I’m not sure why, save the cost of having us both in the film.” Heston was in strong demand, and turned down The Omen (1976) and The Pack (1977).

The film was slow coming together, “not much progress on the script…casting still slow” and there was the possibility of further delay to “mull” over the project. No director had been assigned by the end of February 1976. Following the Battle of Midway, the U.S. Navy was only too delighted to be involved. As well as following a disaster picture template, the movie was also tech heavy, featuring up-to-date ideas on rescue at sea.

The interior of the submarine, the main set, was constructed on a gimbal so that it could be tilted to achieve the effect of the sailors being thrown about as the sub sunk to the bottom and rolled over on a deep sea trench. Howard Anderson oversaw special effects work with models in a 44ft deep water tank which was filmed at CBS. Exteriors were shot at Universal with some work aboard a Navy escort vessel. Some material was also repurposed from Ice Station Zebra (1978).

To soak up the atmosphere of a real nuclear sub, Heston spent the day on USS Gurnard under the Pacific off San Diego. “I got a lot of useful little stuff,” commented Heston, “about the look and sound of submarine officers at work…the kind of thing nobody could tell you.” The sub contained a “vast array” of disparate and complex technology. “It was a very strange feeling to spend hours charging about under the ocean running mock torpedo attacks on surface vessels.” The experience also included drills for fire and flooding.

As shooting approached, Mirisch still had not done a deal for second lead Stacy Keach (Fat City, 1972). He was, however, “anxious” to recruit Ronny Cox (Deliverance, 1972). Ned Beatty, also form that film, came on board. David Carradine (Bound for Glory, 1976) and future Superman Christopher Reeve were added. Michael O’Keefe (The Great Santini, 1979) also made his movie debut.

Filming began on September 11, 1976. “I had very little to do,” noted Heston, “which was just as well, breaking in on a new film.” He played his only scene with Keach, “the tag of the picture and a key scene.” British director David Greene (Sebastian, 1968) was applauded for being as meticulous as William Wyler. More importantly, “he gives the actors a great deal and I find myself stimulated by almost all the suggestions he makes,” commented Heston. At one point, Greene decided to reshoot a major scene, bringing back offstage actors Heston thought he could do without. On the minus side, “he runs a rather loose ship.” Of his own contribution, the actor said, “I became preoccupied with giving an efficient performance rather than a creative one. The pressures I feel to be a consummate professional make me focus on getting it right.”

Filmed on a budget of just $5.25 million, it proved a huge hit, pulling in $19 million in rentals.

SOURCES: Walter Mirisch, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) p339-341; Charlton Heston, The Actor’s Life (Penguin, 1980) pp464-481.