Behind the Scenes – Page 5 – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “The Terrornauts” (1967)

Unless you’re a sci-fi buff of a certain vintage, you probably haven’t heard of Murray Leinster who wrote The Wailing Asteroid on which The Terrornauts is based. Which is a shame because he was one of the giants of science fiction of the golden age. Time magazine called him The Dean of Science Fiction.

For a contemporary audience his name is of considerable significance because he invented the concept of the multiverse. In those days it was called a parallel universe or an alternate history but it amounted to the same thing. And he did so nearly a century ago – in 1934 in fact.

He was second only to H.G. Wells in originating science fiction concepts. He was the first, for example, to imagine meeting an alien culture that was as advanced as our own. He explored themes of mutual distrust, mutual assured destruction, and aliens as superior beings. He also invented the idea of the Internet and man-eating plants.

In The Wailing Asteroid, Leinster draws upon many of the ideas he was first to promulgate.

We have alien encounter. We have the fear that as a consequence terror might be brought back to Earth. We have a species that has evolved far beyond human experience.

We have the same kind of instant absorption of knowledge that occurs through the Internet. The little blocks that our hero finds might as well be called Miniature Googles.

You could also argue that what the space explorers discover is akin to The Sentinel that features in 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968. And you could also view the asteroid as a life-affirming alternative to the hovering destructive Death Star of Star Wars filmed a decade later.

The Terrornauts is a rarity because only a handful of Leinster books were ever filmed. But he was very important to the movies in another way, at the forefront of an invention – front projection – that changed the way movies were made in the 1960s.

At this point, production entity Amicus was as well known for its sci fi output as its horror thanks to Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks Invasion Earth 2015 A.D (1966).

So when Embassy Pictures knocked on the door and offered a flat fee of around half a million dollars for a science fiction double bill, Amicus was delighted. Hammer sold its horror pictures as double bills, a complete program more attractive to an exhibitor and more lucrative for a producer than half a program.

Amicus contracted to make The Terronauts and They Came from Beyond Space. They weren’t big enough to have stars under contract, nor the first port of call should a director or star have a pet project that required funding.

Their modus operandi was to trawl through the hundreds of novels published every year, either in pre-publication galley form, or when printed. Max Rosenberg claimed to read 500 books a year. “The basic job of a producer,” explained his partner Milton Subotsky, “is to find properties.” That was how they came across The Wailing Asteroid.

It was occasionally part of the deal in Hollywood that when a studio bought a best-seller, the author was given the opportunity to write the screenplay. But that wasn’t the case here.

Instead, Amicus turned to another science fiction author. John Brunner was as prolific as Leinster. Brunner got the gig because he mixed in the same social circles as Subotsky. Mostly, he wrote conventional space opera and it was only after his experience on The Terrornauts that he acquired a bigger name in science fiction, after winning a Hugo Award in 1969.

The first casualty was the title. The Wailing Asteroid was not as catchy as The Terrornauts. And Brunner had no qualms about scrapping most of the original narrative. He telescoped the time frame. The action in the book takes place over several months, not a couple of days. The book involves multiple countries. Leinster’s novel was set in the United States, but Brunner made the characters British and added the comedy – no tea lady or accountant in the original. And there’s no humor either. He changed the hero’s occupation from design engineer to scientist, and dumped the incipient hesitant romance between Joe and Sandy. But he brings in the notion of scientists hunting for intelligent life in space.

Nor does Leinster’s book involve little green men, robots or human sacrifice. That’s all Brunner’s doing. He turns what was really a concept novel, an exploration of ideas more akin to 2001: A space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes. Brunner shifts it from what if to alien abduction.

Budget shaped the picture. The first four reels are slow and full of dialog because dialog can be shot much quicker and more cheaply than action. Low budgets didn’t bother Amicus. “I defy any other picture making company,” proclaimed Rosenberg, “to turn out that sort of picture with the budget we are under.” He added, “We make pictures for a price and I think we’re better at it than anybody else.”

Amicus had something of a stock company, Freddie Francis, for example, the in-house director, had helmed four pictures, the same number as Peter Cushing headlined. Christopher Lee starred in two, Robert Bloch contributed four scripts and Elizabeth Lutyens scored two pictures. But only Lutyens was retained here.

Amicus handed The Terrornauts to veterans, the majority involved were over 50 years of age. Cinematographer Geoffrey Faithful was 74, author Murray Leinster 71, supporting actor Max Adrian 64, special effects guru Les Bowie 64, director Montgomery Tully 63, composer Elizabeth Lutyens 61.

It would prove the last hurrah for female lead Zena Marshall, Montgomery Tully would bow out later that year after Battle Beneath the Earth and Geoffrey Faithful would only make another two pictures.

The Terrornauts and They Came from Beyond Space were not filmed in October-December 1966 as has been widely reported. Instead, production took place earlier in the year. According to British trade magazine Kine Weekly’s Shooting Now section, The Terrornauts was first to go before the cameras at Twickenham Studios, on June 13 1966 and still featured on its production chart on August 3. Filming on They Came from Beyond Space in the second last week of September continued also at Twickenham until the week of November 3.

Though to some observers the amount spent on The Terrornauts was very little, in fact the £87,000 budget was nearly double the amount spent on City of the Dead and slightly more than The Skull. Admittedly, there were special effects to consider but to offset that the stars came cheaper than the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

For a time it looked as if Embassy expected The Terrornauts to prove the more popular picture. It ran a one-page advertisement in trade newspaper Variety for The Terrornauts in April 1967 claiming it would be available to rent the following month. The image of Zena Marshall being held down by aliens was accompanied by the tagline – “the virgin sacrifice to the gods of a ghastly galaxy” They didn’t run any adverts for They Came from Beyond Space.

I’m sorry to have to tell you this is a condensed version of the audio commentary by me that accompanies the spanking new DVD released by Vinegar Syndrome – I’m sure you’ll forgive me another small plug – and it’s on special offer.

Behind the Scenes: “Diamond Head” (1962)

Charlton Heston was as hot as they come. He was coming off what would prove one of the biggest pictures of all time – and tucked away an Oscar as well – with Ben-Hur (1959) and followed it up with another hit El Cid (1961). He had no shortage of offers. He had pulled out of The Comancheros (1961), part of proposed three-picture deal with Twentieth Century Fox but with an unknown director rather than veteran Michael Curtiz who later helmed it with John Wayne. He had turned down Let’s Make Love (1960) with Marilyn Monroe and a remake of Beau Geste to co-star Dean Martin and Tony Curtis.

He entered into discussions with Nicholas Ray to film the bestseller The Tribe That Lost Its Head (never made) and The Road of the Snail (never made), rejected William the Conqueror (never made) and Cromwell (1970). He was turned down in turn by Otto Preminger for Advise and Consent (1961). “Zanuck’s man called from Paris,” he notes, “they have a new role for me in The Longest Day (1962).” That was another false lead.

In due course he signed up for Easter Dinner for producer Melville Shavelson (Cast a Giant Shadow, 1966) released as The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962). By this point he was being pursued by Samuel Bronston. “I had no idea how determined Sam was to have me follow El Cid with another film for him.” Bronston eventually got his wish. “No sooner had I turned down The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) than they shoved it back a year on their schedule and began work on 55 Days at Peking (1963), converting the enormous and half-built set representing Rome into an equally enormous and even more beautiful set representing Peking.”

But that meant delay while the massive Bronston machine kicked into gear. In the meatime Heston was “attracted a bit by the opening pages” of Diamond Head with Columbia. “A good part in an overwritten and melodramatic script,” he observed, concluding, “If it’s treated with great care, it might work out all right.”

The project moved along apace. A couple of weeks after receiving the script in December 1961, he was in London meeting director Guy Green (Light in the Piazza, 1962) and producer Jerry Bresler, “an amiable man” though Sam Peckinpah might beg to differ after his experiences on Major Dundee, 1965. “He seems a very intelligent fellow,” Green observed, but queried, “how could a man refer with pride to the fact he had made a film called Gidget Goes Hawaiian?”

George Chakiris (hot after West Side Story, 1961) was already fixed as second male lead and Yvette Mimieux (Light in the Piazza) was being chased for female lead. She wasn’t available but Heston wasn’t keen on second choice Carroll Baker. Luckily, it turned out Mimieux could do the picture. “On the basis of what we saw in Light in the Piazza, she’s ideal for the part.”

But Heston reckoned the script needed work. He was also disgruntled with the costumes for Diamond Head, complaining, “Why is it designers like to costumes instead of clothes? It’s a grievous fault in a period film, but there’s no excuse in a modern story.”

By March, a few months after committing to the picture, he was out in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, though the trip itself was not without incident, Heston “sick enough to call a doctor.” They were met with unseasonal rain. They were assured this was very unusual. But it wasn’t. In consequence, the first day’s filming was scrapped, filling the actor with the conviction “the whole project was doomed.” It was another three days before filming commenced – the shoot was plagued with rain.

While Heston was impressed enough with the director (“Guy Green works carefully and thoughtfully”) he was distracted by the lighting.

“Those brutes and reflectors loom larger in my mind…One of the banes of my career has been acting in exterior locations with arc lights and reflectors focused in my eyes, which are very light sensitive. (Dark-eyed actors have an unfair advantage, I’ve always felt.) Most people have no idea of the dimensions of this problem. They always ask you how you can remember the lines…they should wonder instead how you can concentrate on the scene when your every nerve is straining simply to keep your eyes open.” Negotiation with the cinematographer ameliorated the situation.

Similarly, Heston found the director responsive to his concerns. For a key scene with Mimieux, he believed “we can both do better” and taking this on board the director agreed on a reshoot the next day. “I have to project Howland’s need to be loved, though he conceals it. You can’t play this, of course, but it has to be in the scene, in the whole film, if we’re going to bring it off.”

As well as a multitude of media – Hawaii at this stage still a rare location, public interest boosted by the publication of James Michener’s Hawaii in 1958, and to a lesser extent, Diamond Head, a more modest bestseller. Swelling the ranks of visitors to the set was John Ford, obliquely sounding Heston out for an unspecified film, possibly Young Cassidy (1965).

Another issue proved to be the horse-riding. While Heston was an accomplished rider, others were not. “Anxious horse-riding…makes for anxious acting.” Even so, Heston found his mount “harder to handle than I figured.”

Heston’s last day of work was May 18. “I waited round most of the day to do one piddling shot from the dream. No dialog, just my face looming up out of the fog. It’s hard to tell what I think now except that I’m still high on Green. He may have made a film that rises above the melodramatic qualities of the script. He didn’t push me as hard as I should be pushed, but he gave me a lot all the same.”

It was October before Heston viewed the completed picture. His verdict: “Diamond Head looks very slick, smooth, not terribly real, and as though there might be some money in it.” Ever the critic, he added, “I have acted better.”

I’ve mentioned in other Blogs the part played by foreign markets in a star’s appeal – Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson both owed their breakthroughs to foreign box office. Turns out that Heston was in the same league, though an established name when first discovering the size of his fan club abroad.

“My films did invariably well in the Far East and throughout Southeast Asia. Films that flopped elsewhere did fairly well, those that were hits elsewhere did incredibly. The fact that this pattern has continued unchanged accounts in no small degree for my continued viability in films.” Apparently, this was because he represented the Confucius virtues of responsibility , justice, courage and moderation. As if to emphasize his overseas appeal, Diamond Head opened first in Japan, in December 1962.

SOURCES: Charlton Heston, The Actor’s Life, Journals 1956-1978 (Penguin, 1980).

Behind the Scenes: “The Silencers” (1966)

Producer Irving Allen remains best known as the fella who turned down James Bond. While partnered with Cubby Broccoli in Warwick Films, he decided the Ian Fleming books were not big screen material. Their production shingle, based in Britain, had turned out movies like The Red Beret (1953) with Alan Ladd and Fire Down Below (1957) pairing Robert Mitchum and Rita Hayworth. Divorced from Broccoli, Allen headed down the big-budget historical adventure route but neither The Long Ships (1964) spearheaded by Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier nor Omar Sharif as Genghis Khan (1965) hit the box office target.

Luckily, Allen had already made an investment in espionage, owning the rights to the hard-edged Matt Helm novels, knocked out at the rate of one or two a year since 1960 by Donald Hamilton whose most notable brush with Hollywood was selling the rights to his novel The Big Country (1958) filmed by William Wyler with a top-class cast. The Matt Helm series was praised by the top thriller critic of the era, Anthony Boucher, who noted that Hamilton brought “sordid truth” to the espionage genre and “the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett.”

Having optioned the books, Allen persuaded Columbia to buy the rights to eight, with the notion of setting up a direct rival to James Bond, that idea given an extra fillip when the Sean Connery series which had appeared on an annual basis skipped 1966. Initially, Allen planned to make films that followed the novel’s serious approach to espionage, intending to cast a marquee name like Paul Newman (The Prize, 1963) – who ironically proved major competition for the first offering through Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain (1966) – or conversely a relative unknown such as Mike Connors (Harlow, 1965).

To hook Dean Martin, Allen had to make him a partner, resulting in the actor making more dough out of a spy film than Sean Connery did from Bond. Martin was something of a Hollywood enigma. Audiences who flocked to the Rat Pack outings tended to disdain his stand-alone efforts such as Toys in the Attic (1963) and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) and if he was a current household name that owed much more to his recording and television career.

But Allen shifted the emphasis away from straight adaptation to tongue-in-cheek, setting up the series initially as gentle parody rather than out-and-out spoof though as the movies progressed they fell more into the latter category.

Playing to Martin’s strengths of urbane charm and effortless style, as well as his reputation as a lothario, and accommodating his age (he was 48) by ensuring his character was brought out of retirement, and with comedy writer Herbert Baker brought in at Dean Martin’s behest to beef up Oscar Saul’s script, and by surrounding him with more heavyweight damsels than the Bonds, the series was good to go. Baker had written early Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis vehicles like Jumping Jacks (1952) and Scared Stiff (1953). The script drew upon two Hamilton novels, Death of a Citizen (the first in the series) and The Silencers (the fourth). The idea of Helm being married was dropped to allow him the same sexual license as James Bond.

Stella Stevens and Daliah Lavi were unusual choices for the leading ladies of a spy picture, their proven marquee appeal considerably in excess of that of Ursula Andress (Dr No, 1962), Honor Blackman (Goldfinger, 1964) and Claudine Auger (Thunderball, 1965), that trio of movies opening Hollywood doors for the actresses rather than as with Stevens and Lavi already being welcome attractions. Lavi had starred in The Demon (1963) and Lord Jim (1965) while Stella Stevens had been female lead in The Nutty Professor (1963) and Advance to the Rear (1964). The Slaygirls, however, a direct imitation of the Bond Girls, also owed something to Playboy’s Playmates.

Other cast members had some distinction, Victor Buono Oscar-nominated for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) and James Gregory acclaimed for his role in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Both had worked previously with Martin, Gregory on The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and Buono on 4 for Texas (1963) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964).

Martin also called upon President Lyndon B. Johnson’s personal shirtmaker Sy Devore, previously personal clothier to Martin and Lewis, to come up with his stylish attire.

Budgeted at just under $4 million, The Silencers began shooting on 12 July 1965, the 12-week schedule (ending 16 September) taking in locations like Carsbad Caverns, White Sands, El Paso and Juarez with the car chases filmed in Santa Fe and Phoenix, Arizona. Columbia’s backlot was deemed too small for interiors, and two of Desilu’s largest soundstages were joined together to make Big O’s underground HQ.

Director Phil Karlson (The Secret Ways, 1961) and the producer didn’t see eye-to-eye. Despite ostensibly aiming for a comedy, Allen wanted Karlson to adopt the style of the more serious The Ipcress File (1965) and shoot “through chandeliers, under tables.” It turned out that movie’s director Sidney J. Furie had relied on Karlson for most of his cinematic flourishes.

Like Sinatra, Martin preferred one take. “Dean was always great to work with,” recalled James Gregory, “because he never took himself seriously…Dean was always relaxed – if it doesn’t work do it over, but for heaven’s sake you oughta not need more than that one or two times to get it right.”

Despite the easy-going atmosphere, there were casualties. Buono was out of action for four days after slipping while climbing a wall, foot in an unseen cast for the rest of his time on the picture. Supporting actor Arthur O’Connell’s face was sliced open during an explosion. He completed the scene with the bandage covering the wound hidden under a turtleneck sweater. Stunt man Tom Hennessey lost three front teeth. There was a bill of several thousand dollars to cover an unexpected explosion on set, combustible dust igniting after one of the grenades went off on the Big O set.

Astonishingly the movie came in $500,000 under budget and $1 million was recouped from television sales. Columbia was so taken with the end result that prior to its release two sequels were announced.

The Slaygirls featured prominently in promotional activities in the U.S. with six sent overseas to hustle up interest. As well as a movie tie-in paperback and album, merchandising included toy guns from Crescent Toys and Louis Marx. Martin wasn’t available for the Chicago world premiere (he was shooting Texas Across the River, 1966) on 16 February 1966. The movie was gangbusters from the start, clocking up $7.35 million in U.S. rentals (the studio’s cut of the box office), enough for 85^th spot (by my exclusive count) on the list of the top earning films of the decade.

SOURCES: Brian Hannan, The Magnificent ‘60s, The 100 Most Popular Films of a Revolutionary Decade (McFarland, 2022); Bruce Scivally, Booze, Bullets and Broads, Behind the Scenes with Dean Martin’s Matt Helm Films of the 1960s (Henry Gray, 2013); William Schoell, Martini Man: The Life of Dean Martin (Cooper Square Press, 2003); Cinema Retro Movie Classics Issue No 9: Matt Helm’s Back in Town.

Behind the Scenes: Sunday Programming – A Reissue Phenomenon

I deserve a slap on the wrist. I wrote an enormous book (250,000 words including notes) on the history of movie reissues, revivals, encore premieres, call them what you will, and I didn’t know there was, at least in Britain, a constant source of reissue on a weekly basis, namely the “Sunday Cinema” program.

In Britain in the 1960s, movies ran from Monday to Saturday (Mon-Wed/Thu-Sat if a split week) not the current system of Friday to Thursday. So it made little sense to tag on a Sunday as the last day of a run unless the cinema was involved in roadshow presentation. On Sundays, cinemas, if they opened at all, tended to show older movies, revivals of horror pictures or ones with a sensationalist slant.

Sunday showings were a contentious issue anyway. According to the Sunday Entertainment Act of 1932, cinemas could only show movies on Sundays subject to certain conditions. The first of which was that cinema owners had to agree to give over a certain percentage of their takings to charity. And not even a charity of their choice, but one chosen by the local authority. Secondly, they could not, should they wish, show movies all day, or from the usual starting point of between 1pm and 2pm, in case that got in the way of children attending Sunday School. Though, theoretically, cinemas could open from 4pm, most cinemas restricted showings to one full program in the evening. Lastly, should enough of the local populace object to Sunday opening, that could put a stop to the process.

On the other hand, there was one advantage to Sunday opening. Operators paid a flat fee for movies, not a percentage of receipts as they did for the rest of the week. That made it a lot easier to work out costs and potential profits, i.e. whether it was worthwhile opening at all.

With the downturn in cinema attendances in part triggered by the availability of movies on television – in Britain there was a five-year restriction but few pictures except for Bond films and certain roadshows and big hits could resist the temptation of the extra cash that television could bring – cinemas were annoyed at still having to give money to charity and by the end of the decade the government nullified that condition.

There was a ready supply of older movies available on a non-percentage basis. Programs invariably comprised double bills, though often the complete program ran well under three hours.

I did a survey of suburban cinemas in my home town of Glasgow, Scotland, over three separate months – January, June and October – in 1969 and found that certain films were in constant circulation through the year.

Hammer’s The Gorgon (1964) starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Barbara Shelley was shown variously with thriller Recoil (1953), occult The Devil’s Hand (1961) and sci fi 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957). But The Devil’s Hand was also the support for several bookings of horror portmanteau Twice Told Tales (1963) with Vincent Price and Recoil I found supporting The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964).

Blood beasts were on the rampage. You could choose from Roger Corman’s Night of the Bloodbeast (1958) supporting Cage of Doom (aka Terror from the Year 5000, 1958) or Revenge of the Bloodbeast plus peplum/horror mash-up Goliath and the Vampires (1961). Edgar Allan Poe was represented by The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), all the main feature, all headlining Vincent Price. City of the Dead (1960) went out variously with Screaming Skull (1958) and Cage of Doom

Other popular items included Italian occult item Sexy Party (aka Death on the Fourposter, 1964) coupled with Search for Venus and British exploitationer Beat Girl (1961) doubled up with sci fi Unearthly Stranger (1965)

It wasn’t all horror and sci fi. Gangsters occasionally put in an appearance – The Bonnie Parker Story (1958) on a killing spree with Charles Bronson as Machine Gun Kelly (1958). Westerns were rare but there was room for James Stewart in The Far Country (1954) teamed with Louis L’Amour’s Taggart (1964) and Robert Wagner in White Feather (1955) paired with exploitationer The Young Sinners (aka High School Big Shot, 1959). Just as out of place were the ultra daring, but censor-permissible, Nudes of the World (1962), espionage picture Death Is a Woman (1966) and Alan Ladd in Hell Below Zero (1954).

But what horror or sci fi aficionado could resist Invasion of the Hell Creatures (aka Invasion of the Saucer Men, 1957) and She Demons of the Swamp (aka Attack of the Giant Leeches, 1959)? Or The Brain Machine (1955) coupled with Strangler of the Swamp (1945)? Or A Bucket of Blood (1959)/ The Evil Force (aka 4D Man, 1959)?

Despite her proven marquee pull Claudia Cardinale in French-made Swords of Blood (aka Cartouche, 1962) played second fiddle to, variously, Italian-made Perseus vs the Monster (aka Perseus the Invincible, 1963) and The Exterminators (aka Coplan FX 18, 1965).

You could catch up with – or enjoy again – such fare as The Brain Eaters (1958), The Day the World Ended (1955), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Deborah Kerr in The Innocents (1961), Joan Fontaine in The Witches (1966), Jack the Ripper (1959), The Sorcerers (1967) with Boris Karloff and Barbara Shelley as Cat Girl (1957).

Those were the days.

Shameless Double Plug: Go On, Pre-Order Now

As a result of writing this Blog, I’ve come to the attention of the venerated Los Angeles-based Vinegar Syndrome outfit, specialists in revamped special editions of longlost DVDs, mostly of the cult variety. So I was recently called upon to head into the recording studio and deliver an audio commentary on The Terrornauts (1967), an Amicus production that was funded, somewhat unusually, by Joseph E. Levine, producer of Zulu (1964) and about to become a gazillionaire with The Graduate (1967).

He had commissioned Amicus to bring him a sci-fi double bill, with They Came from Beyond Space (1967) intended as the main feature. This was the program that went out in the United States. But much of the reason for The Terrornauts’ entry into cult territory was that it went A.W.O.L elsewhere, the other picture in Britain going out as the support to a bigger Hollywood-style feature, and so The Terrornauts was effectively left on the shelf.

Where it would have remained except for one of those flukes of the business.

Following the lack of any sightings of The Terrornauts on British cinema screens, star Simon Oates’s career took a dive, and he ended up in a succession of guest appearances on television series.

But then, as luck would have it, one of the earliest television ecological thrillers Doomwatch (1972) put him back in the limelight and, cashing in on that success, The Terrornauts saw the light of day.

Or so the story of revival miracle went.

In fact, I discovered this wasn’t the case at all. The Terrornauts had appeared on movie screens the previous year as support to Flight of the Doves (1971). But that was a flop and pretty much the movie disappeared. And as is the way with movies that vanish for no apparent reason, a groundswell grew.

The result of which is this splendid 4K offering, with yours truly as a bonus feature.

I plugged my forthcoming book King of the Action Thriller, Films from the Mind of Alistair MacLean, due to be published later this year by McFarland, a month or so back. At the time I said it was available for pre-order. Turns out it wasn’t at the time. But it is now.

So what are you waiting for?

My Blogs on Alistair MacLean have proved among the most popular I’ve ever done, so there’s clearly a demand for more. In fact, it was once again, thanks to the Blog, and someone else reading it, that I embarked on the book in the first place.

I’d be remiss in all the flurry of shameless plugs not to mention my audio commentary for Henry Hathaway’s Dean Martin-Robert Mitchum mystery western Five Card Stud (1968) also from Vinegar Syndrome.

See below for ordering links.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/

King of the Action Thriller

Behind the Scenes: “Negatives” (1968)

Hard to see what persuaded Hollywood major Paramount to invest in this obscure picture in the first place, although the studio wasn’t in the hole for the full amount, sharing the budget 50/50 with the British Government-financed National Film Finance Fund. Part of the explanation was that the studio had hitched its wagon to a slate of supposedly-cheaper European productions, investing in a record eight pictures. This would turn into a disaster, only If…(1968), more of a critical hit, and perhaps Monte Carlo or Bust (1969) emerging with any commercial kudos.

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Once Upon a Time in the West (1969), The Assassination Bureau (1969) and Where’s Jack? (1969) all bombed at the U.S. ticket wickets.

U.S. Producer Judd Bernard had finessed his profits from unexpected hit Point Blank (1967) into a series of risky arthouse-led movies including revisionist western Blue (1968), Fade In (1968) and Negatives. He was the latest in a long line of Yanks, following the likes of Cubby Broccoli and Elliott Kastner, who believed it was easier to make pictures in Britain than Hollywood.

His latest protégé Peter Medak had arrived in Britain after the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, finding work as a trainee with Associated British, moving through the stills, projection and camera departments before switching his interest to direction, working as a second unit director on The VIPs (1963), Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Fathom (1967). The screenplay had been written by Peter Everett based on his 1961 novel and Roger Lowry. Filming began in March 1968 with location work in London and studio work at Shepperton.

Shooting was uneventful. The drama only began when Paramount glimpsed the footage. The studio was already in the financial mire and would post stupendous losses the following year. Paramount refused to find the movie a release slot, as it also did with another NFFF project Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969).

Bernard did the unthinkable and bought out the Paramount share, selling it on to U.S. arthouse operation Walter Reade which had expanded, though its Continental arm, into distribution. Although rumor has it that Reade took advantage of the unexpected box office success of Women in Love, starring Glenda Jackson in an Oscar-winning role, that wasn’t true of the American release. Negatives received its world premiere in October 1968 New York, at the Festival arthouse, more than a year before Women in Love went into initial release.

Reade was particularly gung-ho about the prospects for Negatives, taking out a full-page ad in Variety. The company took the unprecedented step of organizing previews simultaneously in three New York cinemas. The nudity produced some publicity.

Rolling the movie out across the country included a “showcase” stint in New York. While reviews were largely unfavourable, the public, perhaps intrigued by the erotic elements, were not put off. Box office was positive in the main, a “bright” $14,500 opener in New York at the Festival – plus another $185,000 from two weeks on 18 theaters in the showcase release – a “perky” $6,000 in Chicago, “wham” $10,000 in Washington DC, “beefy” $3,000 in San Francisco, “big” $4,000 in Baltimore, “boffo” $3,500 in Denver and “strong” $6,000 in Philadelphia with only Minneapolis moviegoers rejecting it out of hand. (While these grosses are relatively small, bear in mind they come from smaller-capacity arthouses.)

In the UK, the distributors did wait until the box office and Oscar glow surrounding Women in Love provided a marquee shot in the arm. But there was no London West End run. The European premiere took place in the tiny Essoldo arthouse in London in April 1970.

Anyone who struggled to make sense of the picture wouldn’t have found many answers from Bernard. A journalist seeking an explanation of the title was told, “If you find out, let me know.” In more general terms, Bernard explained: “I wouldn’t describe it as kinky but I dare say a lot of people will see it that way. To me it’s just an entertainment, a fantasy in which people love to dress up. It’s an extension of childhood where one of the most popular games was dressing up. People are going into a very open period of behavior patterns, primarily due to a tremendous youthquake. A lot of people are delving into behavior patterns and what makes people do things and it’s not as abhorrent possibly as it was fifteen years ago. Censorship is becoming less rigid with the result you can explore better. People don’t care especially about nudity in films any more – that’s the publicity man’s or the press I think.

“If you go up and down Kings Road you see people with gear-type outfits and it think it’s not just a desire to be trendy and with-it but to escape. Everybody has a desire to have a masquerade from their everyday existence, people are looking to escape. A lot of people don’t want to see their next door neighbors, they want to see a fantasy

“You could be very pompous and say it’s about three negative people or that she’s a photographer. I don’t know, but it’s a good title.”

Bernard continued to invest in British films – next up Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End (1970). He reunited with Glenda Jackson for The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978). By then Jackson, now a double Oscar-winner, was well on the way to becoming a national treasure. Peter Medak signed up with Peter O’Toole for Figures in a Landscape, but that went elsewhere, with another director and star, leaving Medak and O’Toole to hook up for The Ruling Class. Peter McEnery spanned commercial (The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, 1970) and arthouse (Entertaining Mr Sloane, 1970) but both flopped and his career never recovered. Nor did the venture in arthouse do much for Diane Cilento, best remembered for a bit part in cult picture The Wicker Man (1973).

Quite whether Bernard succeeded in his gamble in taking back his picture from Paramount is hard to establish, but at least he had the courage of his convictions.

SOURCES: “Negatives Explores Youthquake,” Kine Weekly, March 23, 1968, p19; “Par’s O’Seas Film Peaks with Eight,” Variety, April 10, 1968, p3; “Judd Bernard Repurchases Negatives,” Box Office, September 9, 1968, p10; “Bernard Negatives Shuffle: Par to Reads,” Variety, September 11, 1968, p25; Advert, Variety, September 25, 1968, p25; “Reade’s Triple Sneak,” Variety, October 9, 1968, p5. Box office figures from Variety “Picture Grosses” – October 23, November 6, November 13, December 4, December 11, December 18 (all 1968), March 5 and June 4 (both 1969).

Behind the Scenes: “Sinful Davey” (1969)

The first sign of a movie in trouble is the elongated gap between production and release. This picture took two years. Filmed in summer 1967, but not released till May 1969, this proved a disaster for all concerned, a colossal flop.

It should have been anything but. Director John Huston was Hollywood royalty, for over two decades a top-ranked director, hits like The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1952), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), The Night of the Iguana (1964) and The Bible in the Beginning (1966) were interwoven with cult numbers like Beat the Devil (1953) and The Misfits (1960). Huston was a double Oscar-winner with 10 nominations besides (including one for acting, in The Cardinal, 1963)

Producer Walter Mirisch was no slouch himself, credits including The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), Hawaii (1966) and In the Heat of the Night (1967) which would win him the Oscar. The independent production outfit celebrated its tenth anniversary with its biggest-ever slate, five pictures going in front of the cameras. As well as the Huston venture, Mirisch lined up The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Inspector Clouseau (1968), Peter Sellers in The Party (1968) and low-budget war picture Attack on the Iron Coast. So the prospect of a movie about a Scottish rebel flouting British authority, penned by James R. Webb, Oscar-winner for How the West Was Won (1962), seemed dandy.

That it was to be filmed on location fitted in with the director’s lifestyle. An Irish citizen, he had been resident there for several years after falling in love with the country following a visit in 1951. However, Huston was a ready-made exile, one of a flood of actors and directors taking advantage, much to the fury of the Hollywood guilds, of a U.S. Government tax loophole originally intended to spur employment in the Middle East oil industry. He’d been only too delighted to skip out of America to make The African Queen, Beat the Devil, Moulin Rouge (1952), Moby Dick (1956) and others. In fact, he was able to exploit another loophole, as in Ireland he paid no taxes at all.

Ireland was his bolthole and he was disinclined to leave. In an earlier Blog I’d recounted how Arthur Miller, writing the screenplay for The Misfits, had to fly to Ireland to work with Huston.

“When I make a picture,” averred Huston, “it’s because I believe the story is worth telling…with a tendency to choose stories whose point is the irony of man’s pursuit of an impossibly elusive goal.” The narrative here was of a thief who expected to follow in his father’s footsteps to the extent of ending up on the gallows. Huston perceived it as “a light-hearted romp…an altogether delightful affair.”

That it was not welcomed by the critics he put down to interference by producer Walter Mirisch who “ruined” it after the director had delivered his final cut. He accused the producer of “giving full sway to his creative impulses,” by tacking on a voice-over and turning the straightforward narrative into a story told in flashback by the simple expedient of switching a scene from the end to the beginning.

Mirisch, of course, had a different take. Huston’s cut was a massive disappointment for Mirisch. He had previous both with Huston and Webb, even when their work together had not proved successful at the box office. With Huston, as a producer for Allied Artists and Moulin, Mirisch had paired on Moulin Rouge and Moby Dick, even though escalating costs on the latter nearly bankrupted Moulin. Despite that experience, since then the producer had been chasing the director for over a decade. With Webb it was Kings of the Sun (1962), also a financial failure.

Webb proposed a “Scottish period romance about a lovable rascal” called The Sinful Adventures of Davey Haggart. Huston demanded the film, despite its Scottish setting, be shot in Ireland (a good chunk of Braveheart was filmed in Ireland). The movie benefitted from Eady money, a tax loophole courtesy of the British Government, and Mirisch pronounced himself “delighted to get a world-class director.”

Huston was in messianic form. He saw the movie as a promotional tool to help set up the Irish film industry. Although such films as The Blue Max (1966) had been filmed at Ardmore Studios, and Huston shot parts of The Bible and Casino Royale (1967) in the country there was no generic industry as such. With the help of the Irish Government, Huston argued “a market could be built for Irish films.” With 81 speaking roles for Irish actors, Huston felt the picture would put Ireland on the map

Mirisch flew to London to work with the director on preparation and casting. They had a major fall-out over casting Huston’s daughter Angelica (A Walk with Love and Death, 1969) as the female lead. Mirisch argued, “Her appearance was rather more Italian than Scottish and in stature she towered over John Hurt.” Huston agreed to do a test with Angelica and Hurt, which proved Mirisch’s point. “I’ve always regretted having put John into the position of having to tell his daughter she wasn’t going to get the role,” said Mirisch. John Hurt, aged 26, was hired on the basis of his stint in A Man for All Seasons (1966).

A Scottish village was built in Ireland. Mirisch appeared satisfied with progress although a John Barry score was rejected as too serious and replaced with “a lighter score” by Ken Thorne. However, previews were disastrous. Huston both refused to attend previews and to re-cut the film, despite United Artists, the distributor and prime funder of the Mirisch Bros operation, “insisting we must try and help the picture play better.” As far as Huston was concerned, “the picture was to his liking and he wasn’t going to be influenced by the preview audiences.” In fact, his opposition to a recut owed much to his experience on The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958), re-edited against his wishes.

So Mirisch took it upon himself to try and save the picture, supervising re-editing, and while previews “improved considerably” the Scottish accents “bothered the audience” and the finished item – either version – “wasn’t as entertaining as it needed to be” while he counted the casting of John Hurt a failure.

Marketeers worked overtime to come up with an outlandish premise for the British premiere – title now contracted to just Sinful Davey – asking guests to arrive in “sinful costumes.” Contestants vied for a £100 prize, the winner dressed in a black bikini “swathed in chain.” For some reason, the marketing department had managed a tie-up with Raleigh bicycles.

Having spent over $3 million on the movie, even Mirisch must have been staggered by the box office. The box office never recovered from an “unbelievably pathetic” $13,000 gross in its opening week at 16 New York cinemas. It only collected a total of $300,000 in U.S. rentals (what studios retain once cinemas have taken their cut) and another $200,000 abroad. So a loss of over $2.5 million.

SOURCES: John Huston, An Open Book (Columbus Books, 1988), p336-337; Walter Mirisch, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) p90, 278-281; “Mirisch Marks 10^th Anniversary with Record Line-Up,” Kine Weekly, March 18, 1967, p27; “Davey Invites That Sinful Urge,” Kine Weekly, May 17, 1969, p22; “Huston Blueprint for Irish Film Industry,” Kine Weekly, July 15, 1967, p14; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, June 11, 1969, p10; “Mirisch Second 20-Picture Deal,” United Artists Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research.

Behind the Scenes: Selling The Million-Dollar Marlon Brando – “The Fugitive Kind” (1960) Pressbook

Should have been a darned-easy sell. After all, Marlon Brando had made global headlines after becoming the first actor to be paid a million bucks for a movie, his fee for The Fugitive Kind outstripping by $250,000 the previous record jointly held by John Wayne and William Holden (see Note below) for The Horse Soldiers (1959). And there was no suggestion – as indeed there is not even now – that audiences held against the stars the wealth their talents accrued.

“The Most Explosive Star Combination of the Year” was how this was generally sold, on the back of the Oscars held by each of the principals, Brando, Italian Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward and the Pulitzer Prize awarded to playwright Tennessee Williams, himself also a two-time Oscar nominee as well as his work providing Oscar wins and nominations by the bucket load for actors and directors.

“Something about the way he looked at a woman, something about the way he handled a guitar” were other notable taglines and marketeers tried to convince the public “the screen is struck by lightning.” And if that was not enough – “their fire…their fever…their desire” was expected to do the trick.

Publicists encouraged exhibitors to make full use of Brando’s accoutrements from the movie, namely his snakeskin jacket, Rolex and Kay Guitar, which in one scene he actually played. Suggestions included auctioning a guitar for charity and running a talent contest. Brando was a reasonably accomplished player, specializing in perennials like “Shenandoah” and “Streets of Laredo.”

How to make a snakeskin jacket was another angle. The Rolex watch his character wore presented opportunities for marketing tie-ups with jewellery stores. No marketing stone was left unturned to the extent of the Necchi sewing machine, seen in the movie, being offered as a prize in a national competition. Novo Greetings Cards were also seen in passing in Lady Torrance’s store and this company was backing the movie.

Unusually, Signet was using the movie tie-in approach to sell a play, the paperback comprising the source material Orpheus Descending, which included an eight-page spread of stills from the picture. Williams’ position as the most popular playwright of his generation – his only rival Arthur Miller had less success in Hollywood – brought potential access to libraries, book clubs and schools. Military bases around the world were targeted through marketing material emphasizing Joanne Woodward.

It would certainly have helped if the movie had been able to set a new fashion trend for the wearing of snakeskin jackets. Or revive a trend that had last occurred in the 1930s, “quite a craze” for shoes, bags, hats and belts. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” said United Artists costume designer Frank Thompson, “if Brando wearing this jacket starts the whole thing again.”

Thompson had quite a task making two identical jackets – in case one was damaged during filming. First of all, he had to locate skins that were found in Mississippi. The choice came down to rattler or python. Opting for python, Thompson went through 200 skins before he found three that matched. “Looking for two snakeskins that match identically is like looking for two fingerprints that are exactly the same.”

The film was based on Battle of Angels, written by Williams in 1939, his first full-length work professionally staged (in Boston). He “never quit working on this one…it never went into the trunk, it always stayed on the work bench.” Rewriting about 75% of the play, it was reprised as Orpheus Descending on Broadway in 1957. Although Williams had Brando and Magnani (star of the film version of The Rose Tattoo, 1955) in mind for the stage play, it went ahead instead with Cliff Robertson and Maureen Stapleton. Williams had written The Rose Tattoo for Magnani but again it was Maureen Stapleton who won the role on stage.

Williams had outstanding success in writing roles that were in tune with Oscar sensibilities. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) won Oscars for Vivien Leigh, Kim Stanley and Karl Malden with Brando nominated. Anna Magnani won for The Rose Tattoo and Marisa Pavan was nominated. Other nominations included Carroll Baker and Mildred Dunnock for Baby Doll (1956), Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Katharine Hepburn and Taylor for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).

Despite its Mississippi location and except for external establishing shots, The Fugitive Kind was shot in the Bronx. Director Sidney Lumet was a notably New York kinda guy, having filmed his first three movies – Twelve Angry Men (1957), Stage Struck (1958) and That Kind of Woman (1959) – in the city.

He argued, “Hollywood’s great attractions have been the technicians and the shooting facilities, With care, men of comparable talent can be found in New York. As for facilities, a sound stage is a sound stage wherever it is. I concede that in California they’re larger and more elaborate, but the same results can be produced elsewhere. And the fabulous back-lots, which counted so heavily in the past, seem to be outmoded today by the sophisticated eye of the audience. You can’t shoot on studio streets and pretend any more. It has to be real.”

NOTE – William Holden pocketed around $3 million in the end as his percentage share of the gross –not the more contentious net – of Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) so he was the decade’s biggest winner until Richard Burton made more on a similar deal from Where Eagles Dare (1968).

Behind the Scenes: “Wild Rovers” (1971)

Director Blake Edwards shouldn’t have been anywhere near Wild Rovers in November 1970 when filming of the western kicked off in Arizona. He should have been making a musical – his second successive one following Darling Lili (1970).

Versatility had become something of a watchword for Edwards who had segued apparently effortlessly from the gentle romance of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) to thriller Experiment in Terror/Grip of Fear (1962) to alcoholic drama Days of Wine and Roses (1962) to wild comedy The Pink Panther (1963) to slapstick The Great Race (1965) – in 70mm roadshow no less – to the satirical What Did You Do in the War, Daddy (1966). So Hollywood wasn’t enormously surprised when he decided it was time he tackled a musical, Darling Lili, especially when it starred “sure thing” Julie Andrews.

And before the figures for Darling Lili came in, and everyone thought they were onto a winner, small surprise that he was in the front line to direct She Loves Me, the movie adaptation of a 1963 Broadway musical that was the second musical reincarnation – the first being The Good Old Summertime (1949) with Judy Garland – of romantic comedy The Shop around the Corner (1940) starring James Stewart.

But in 1969 – before Darling Lili slumped at the box office – a takeover of MGM by Kirk Kerkorian was imminent and in anticipation of some drastic action studio executives canned its three biggest projects, Fred Zinnemann’s Man’s Fate, the $10m She Loves Me – also to star Julie Andrews (now Edwards’ wife) – and the $12m-$15m Tai Pan. Edwards sued for $4.6 million.

Edwards had other fish to fry – his company Cinema Video Communications had purchased the latest Harold Robbins’ novel The Betsy plus The Peacemaker, the first novel by war historian Cornelius Ryan (The Longest Day). Edwards had plans to film Svengali with Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews and Kingsley Amis’s novel The Green Man with Richard Burton.

Despite having informed MGM that he would not accept any substitute for She Loves Me, he capitulated when the studio agreed to back his pet project, a buddy western with a serious theme, Wild Rovers. Paul Newman was initially sounded out with the younger character looking a good fit for Michael Witney, expected to be the breakout star of Darling Lili.

William Holden was picky about his projects. He complained that most scripts he received were “aimed at exploitation or titillation.” Though he had not had a hit since the start of the previous decade with The World of Suzie Wong (1960), his global investments had paid off and he was happier spending seven months of the year on his 1,260-acre ranch in Kenya. He was impressed enough with the Blake Edwards script for Wild Rovers and, possibly optimistic about its commercial prospects, to defer part of his salary against a percentage of the gross (he had made a fortune from his percentage on Bridge on the River Kwai). Apart from Wild Rovers, the only movie which had caught his attention was The Revengers co-starring Mary Ure (after it was delayed due to his illness, she pulled out).

Even so, MGM held Edwards on a tight rein financially. While trying to extricate itself from a sticky corner, it had no wish to find itself in the kind of lack of budgetary restraint that had afflicted Darling Lili. And to some extent, Edwards had to prove he was more fiscally responsible. The budget for the below-the-line cast was restricted to $1.5 million. There was considerable physical commitment to the project from the two stars, training for six weeks so the scene taming the wild horse could be completed without stunt men.

MGM had high hopes for the western, backing it with a substantial promotion campaign. In the trades there were three-page ads and a separate advert paying homage to the studio’s “writer cats.” The studio had weathered the Kerkorian storm and the massive write-offs at the end of the previous decade. The mood was buoyant. The first quarter of 1971, bolstered by an unexpectedly good showing by Ryan’s Daughter (1970). While not hitting the highs of Doctor Zhivago (1965) it had done much better than the industry predicted, especially after being savaged by critics. It looked as if MGM had turned a corner. In the first three months of 1971 the studio made $2.5 million profit and was confident that summer offerings Shaft, The Last Run and Wild Rovers would maintain the good run.

After the box office fallouts of recent years, it looked as though the entire industry was on the verge of bouncing back. Released by other studios around the same time as Wild Rovers were the likes of Klute, The Anderson Tapes, Summer of ’42, Willard, and Carnal Knowledge

The reviews weren’t promising. Variety tabbed it “uneven”, only one of the top five New York critics gave it a favorable review. An opportunity to gain some critical headway was spurned when the studio pulled the movie from the annual Atlanta Film Festival in favor of an appearance by the two stars on the Dick Cavett Show.

The version released ran 110 minutes. There was no critical outcry at the film being savagely edited by the studio – nobody cared sufficiently about the picture to be up in arms about it.

Worse, the marketing campaign was widely derided. The image of William Holden and Ryan O’Neal astride the same horse, the youngster grinning, leaning into the older man’s back, gave off, unintentionally, homo-erotic undertones. Audience dismissal of the advert only became clear to MGM at the end of the movie’s first six days at the first run Grauman’s Chinese in Los Angeles which registered less than $20,000 at the box office. Shocked at the low result, MGM “scrapped its entire pre-release and opening campaign” shifting the emphasis from the “man-to-man image” to “guns, horses and adventure” suggesting an old-fashioned shoot-em-‘up.

The new advertisement was accompanied by anonymous quotes, comparing Holden and O’Neal to Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy – though as Variety acidly noted, without identifying which was which – and describing the shootout as “so electrifying your impulse is…to run for cover.” Phantom quotes had been used before by Avco Embassy for De Sica’s war drama Sunflower (1970) starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. But while Hollywood was fond of editing reviews to find an often-misleading quote, studios generally drew the line at making them up.

The New York release in a trio of first run houses coincided with the showcase outing of Love Story (1970). That movie had played for months in first run and this was the first time it was generally available. Love Story, the hit of the decade so far, would open in 80 suburban cinemas on the same day in June, 1971, as Wild Rovers. In the era before “Barbieheimer”, there was still an expectation of cross-over, that the fans of a new star coming good like Ryan O’Neal would automatically seek out his latest picture. And it may have been that the advertising campaign was specifically designed to ensure his fans did not go to the western expecting another romantic drama.

They weren’t tempted at all. Love Story cleaned up – a gross of $1.25 million from 80 outlets and another $750,000 the following week. Compared to that, Wild Rovers scarcely got out of the gate – a “less than roaring” $20,600 from the three. At the 1,096-seat Astor it was on a par with the fourth week of Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) which had just completed its run there.

There was a little solace elsewhere. Its $15,000 in Baltimore was deemed “tall” and $12,500 in Boston “slick” but more reflective of the general interest was a “dim” $65,000 from eight theaters in Detroit, a “mild” $7,500 in Denver and “moderate” $8,500 in Minneapolis. By the end of the year it had amassed $1.8 million in rentals, languishing in 59^th place.

MGM took a different tack in Europe. It wasn’t unusual for movies released in 35mm in America to be shown in 70mm roadshow in Europe – The Dirty Dozen (1967), Where Eagles Dare (1968) and The Wild Bunch (1969) enjoyed up to a year in roadshow before fanning out into general release, getting two substantial bites of the commercial apple. The latter two had done better abroad than at home, in large part due to the roadshow release which turned a movie into an event rather than a routine outing. So MGM sent Wild Rovers out in roadshow. At 110 minutes, even puffed out with a 15-minute interval, it was a mighty slim offering for roadshow.

In London, half the critics came out against it, but only a quarter were favorable, the others having “no opinion.” The consensus was that it would “not survive the rough critical handling.” It opened on October 21, 1971, at the ABC2 in London’s West End. And lasted two weeks, whipped off the screen after generating an opening week of $6,200 and a sophomore of $4,100, replaced by The Last Run starring George C. Scott, another flop. MGM persevered with the roadshow. It played for five weeks at the Coliseum in my home town of Glasgow.

In the U.S. it shifted quickly to television, part of the CBS program, finishing a lowly 85^th for the year in the tabulations of the movies attracting the biggest television audiences.

SOURCES: “Metro’s Loves Me As A Substitute for Former Say It With Music,” Variety, August 6, 1969, p3; Army Archerd, “Hollywood Sound Track,” Variety, October 20, 1970, p6; Army Archerd, “Hollywood Cross Cuts,” Variety, August 5, 1970, p23; “Holden Pushes for Conservation,” Variety, August 12, 1970, p25; Army Archerd, “Hollywood Sound Track,” Variety, November 4, 1970, p20; “Hollywood Production Pulse,” Variety, November 18, 1970, p54; Advert, Box Office, March 28, 1971, p3-5; “Profitable Quarter for MGM,” Kine Weekly, April 24, 1971, p3; Advert, Variety, May 17, 1971, p23-25; Advert, Variety, May 19, 1971, p12; Review, Variety, June 23, 1971, p20; “Col Delivers Atlanta Festival,” Variety, June 23, 1971, p6; “New York Critics,” Variety, June 30, 1971, p7; “Metro Scraps Rovers Campaign,” Variety, June 30, 1971, p27; “London Critics,” Variety, November 17, 1971, p62; “Big Rental Films of 1971,” Variety, January 5, 1972, p9. Box office figures from Variety June 30-August 18, 1971, and November 10-17, 1971.

Behind the Scenes: “Toys in the Attic” (1963)

Producer Harold Mirisch purchased the rights to the 1960 Broadway hit play by Lilliam Hellman as a way of hooking William Wyler. He had originally signed up the director in the mid-1950s when his Paramount contract came to an end. This was before the Mirisch Brothers was an independent production entity and later responsible for films like The Apartment (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961) and The Great Escape (1963). At that point Mirisch worked for Allied, the upmarket offshoot of B-picture outfit Monogram. Allied backed Wyler’s Oscar-nominated western Friendly Persuasion (1956).

In 1960 Wyler was the most celebrated Hollywood director of the era, not just with three Oscars and ten nominations, but riding as high as anyone ever had after the monumental critical and commercial success of Ben-Hur (1959). He had his pick of the projects and had shown “great eagerness” to do Toys in the Attic. He was friends with the playwright Lillian Hellman and had filmed These Three (1936) from her stage play The Children’s Hour and The Little Foxes (1941) from her original screenplay.

But Wyler decided instead to opt for a remake of The Children’s Hour (1961), assuming that changes in public perceptions would permit him to bring to the fore the lesbian elements kept hidden in his previous adaptation, but, critically, it was a Mirisch production.

In his absence, the Mirisch Bros decided to stick with Toys in the Attic, possibly to bolster their attempt to be seen as a purveyor of serious pictures and hence a contender for Oscars, which would solidify their reputation, as would soon be the case. After consultations with distribution and funding partner, United Artists, “it was decided that…since we had considerable investment in (Toys in the Attic)… we should try and put together a film,” explained Walter Mirisch.

Next in line for directorial consideration was Richard Brooks who had acquired a reputation for adapting literary properties after The Brothers Karamazov (1958), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Elmer Gantry (1960). Initially, Brooks “had been so insistent and enthusiastic” about becoming involved. However, he, too, rejected the opportunity. He, too, after Oscar and commercial success, was riding high. “It was not because he did not wish to work with the Mirisches because he would be delighted to make a picture for them…but he felt it would be wrong for his career to do a film so similar in mood and background as the one he was working on, Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).”

In fact, it was probably more to do with his financial demands. He wanted $400,000 a picture, which was extremely high at the time, plus “a drawing account of $2,000 a week” (i.e. payment in advance of an actual production). While Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Elmer Gantry had been box office hits, they were nothing like Ben-Hur. And Brooks already had other pictures in mind. He had purchased a book called Goodbye My Son – never filmed – and was already revving up for Lord Jim (1965) funded by Columbia.

Walter Mirisch eventually settled on television director George Roy Hill (Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967). This would have been his debut except preparations for the movie dragged on and in between Hill helmed Period of Adjustment (1962), an adaptation of another play, this time by Tennessee Williams. He would later direct Hawaii (1966) for Mirisch.

The play had been a significant hit, running for just over a year on Broadway at the Hudson Theater, and making $129,000 profit on a $125,000 investment, though it incurred a loss of $48,000 on a subsequent tour. Hellman did pretty well out of it too. She received ten per cent of the gross and twenty per cent of the profit – a total of around $36,000 – exceptionally good going for a playwright, especially when other monies would be forthcoming from movie rights and foreign and amateur runs. Director Arthur Penn’s share of gross and profit came to over $10,000 in addition to a $5,000 fee.

Turning a play or musical into a movie came with one inbuilt problem. It was inevitably subject to delay. No movie could go into production until the play had exhausted its theatrical (as in stage-play) possibilities. In this case, that meant 58 weeks in the original run and then another 20 weeks once it hit the road. Any contract with a significant movie player would have to include the possibility that in the meantime star or director would have lined up other projects while awaiting the green light on this one, and that in itself could cause further hold-ups.

Hill was in greater demand than Mirisch anticipated, juggling four separate projects – Period of Adjustment, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for MGM (never made), and the $2.5 million A Bullet for Charlemagne starring Sidney Poitier (not made) as well as Toys in the Attic.

Jason Robards, star of the play, was the obvious contender for the movie role. But he lacked box office cachet, so he was bypassed in favor of Dean Martin, “an attractive motion-picture figure.” However, in the time it took the movie version of the play to reach the public, Robards was potentially a screen star. He had bought himself out his stage contract after 37 weeks – paying $3,950 for the privilege – having been offered second billing on By Love Possessed (1961) opposite Lana Turner, and in Twentieth Century Fox’s ambitious mounting of Tender Is the Night (1962) opposite Jennifer Jones. While Robards would never become as big a star as Dean Martin, he was the superior actor, later adding two Oscars and one nomination to his name.

In addition to being much better known to cinema audiences than Robards, “we felt he (Martin) would bring humor to it” – Martin having originally made a splash as part of the Martin-Lewis comedy team of the 1950s – “as well as an audience that might expand the normal constituency of that type of film.” Trade magazine Box Office agreed with the decision, viewing Martin as a “good choice for the haunted show-off.”

The play’s other stars – Oscar nominee (and later winner) Maureen Stapleton (The Fugitive Kind, 1960) – and Irene Worth (Seven Seas to Calais, 1962) – were ignored in favor of Geraldine Page, who incidentally scored an Oscar nomination in Summer and Smoke, and Wendy Hiller (Sons and Lovers, 1960), who already had an Oscar. Shooting began on September 16, 1962. Hill tried to “inject more suspense, more action, more melodrama into the movie version,” without cheapening the material. He was convinced the hiring of Martin was inspired, and would prove a personal turning point, as he gives “the best dramatic job of his career.”

Titles didn’t matter so much on Broadway, plays sold on the name of the writer or the star. Mirisch feared Toys in the Attic would either mean nothing to a general audience ignorant of the picture’s origins or be considered so obscure as to serve to confuse them. So, they planned to rename it Fever Street or “some sensational substitute.” Hill was furious, pointing out the “violence of his feelings” to this title. He complained that “others will assume that it is an exploitation title…a cheap gimmick to get people into the theater (cinema) … automatically puts the picture in a low budget quickie picture category that might be appropriate for 42^nd St all-night houses or a second feature at Loews 86 St.”

Hill felt changing the title would demonstrate that Mirisch was “ashamed to have bought the play Toys in the Attic, have no faith in the picture, are resorting to panic tactics to get some money out.” And that Fever Street would have the opposite effect, and “keep people away in droves.” His impassioned plea worked, and the original title remained.

While backing down on the title, Mirisch veered towards the exploitative in the main poster which showed Dean Martin slugging Yvette Mimieux.

However, United Artists remained in two minds about the release policy. Despite the prestige of being chosen for the San Sebastian Festival, United Artists opted to open it in New York as part of a “showcase” run. That was a relativelynew distribution notion, a version of regional wide release. It would eventually be refined to allow several weeks in prestigious first run venues first, but inclusion in this release pattern meant first run was simultaneous with an opening in – in this case – another 20 New York neighbourhood cinemas. Had UA had more faith in the project, it might have benefitted from an opening just in first run. The $55,000 first week from two first run houses on Broadway was judged a “wow” result by Variety. First run in other major cities suggested a prestige title – “very stout” $15,000 in Boston, a “sock” $14,000 in Washington D.C., “neat” $14,000 in Buffalo, while it was “bright” in Kansas City ($8,000), Los Angeles ($10,000) and Chicago ($18,000).

Hill’s concerns about United Artists’ ability to sell the picture were mirrored in the result. “It did not turn out well,” concluded Walter Mirich, “It’s a grim story. It was not well reviewed and was not financially successful.” Part of the reason for its failure, he argued, was that it “probably appeared at the end of a cycle” of American Broadway adaptations of heavy Tennessee Williams dramas.

While the movie came in $70,000 below the $2.1 million budget, the savings were put down to the fact that it was filmed in black-and-white rather than color, as had been originally envisioned. The box office followed a common, but disturbing, trajectory, a big hit in the big cities, mostly ignored elsewhere. But it was not as bad as all that. Mirisch tallied the domestic box office as $1.7 million with another $900,000 from the overseas box office. By its estimation, once marketing costs were considered, it was facing a loss of $183,000. But that was before television revenue entered the equation and that should have at the very least, made up the difference. There were various pickings later on, too, picked up by CPI under the “Best of Broadway” label in 1981.

SOURCES: Walter Mirisch, I Thought we Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin press, 2008) p157-159. Leon Goldberg, “Office Rushgram: Final Cost on Toys in the Attic, May 13, 1964, United Artists Files, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research; “Mirisch Pictures Box Office Figures,” UA Files; Letter,” George Roy Hill to Walter Mirisch, March 15, 1963, UA Files; “Lillian Hellman Could Mop Up if Toys Clicks,” Variety, February 4, 1960, p103; “Toys Exit,” Variety, January 18, 1961, p72; “George Roy Hill To Direct Toys for Mirisch Co,” Box Office, January 22, 1962, pE8; “Hollywood Report,” Box Office, February 22, 1962, p16; “George Roy Hill Announces First Film on UA Deal,” Box Office, March 19, 1962, p16; “Bloomgarden Had Varied Fortune,” Variety, August 29, 1962, p49; “Toys in Attic Chosen for San Sebastian Festival,” Box Office, June 10, 1963, pE8; “Premiere Showcase,” Variety, July 31, 1963, p22. Box office figures from Variety issues dated August 7, August 14, August 21, September 4, September 11 and October 23.