Uncategorized – Page 5 – The Magnificent 60s

Jessica (1962) ***

Roman Holiday (1953), Three Coins in a Fountain (1956) and Boy on a Dolphin (1956) had set a high bar for Hollywood romances set in Italy. Since Jean Negulesco had directed the last two, he was expected to sprinkle box office magic on this slight tale of young American midwife Jessica Brown Visconti (Angie Dickinson) adrift in a rustic village in Sicily.

She’s the kind of beauty who’s going to raise male temperatures except Jessica, having been widowed on her wedding day, is not romantically inclined. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop the entire male population becoming so entranced that their wives become so enraged that led by Maria (Agnes Moorehead) they embark on a sex strike, assuming that without any pregnancies (contraception being frowned upon in a Catholic domain) to deal with Jessica will become redundant and go away. And that so annoys Jessica, who is doing a good job as a midwife, that she turns on the flirting to get back at her female tormentors. Luckily, there’s a reclusive landowner (Gabriele Ferzetti) who happens to be a widower, although romance takes a while to stir. There’s also a priest (Maurice Chevalier), in part acting as narrator, who turns to song every now and then.

So it’s a surprise that this unlikely concoction works at all. It’s charming in the obvious ways, the lush scenery, a traditional wedding, gentle comedy. But it’s a decade too late in taking an innocent view of sex. There’s no crudeness, of course; it doesn’t fall victim to the 1960s need to sexualize in an obvious manner. And not every husband is continuously ogling Jessica so Nunzia (Sylva Koscina) and young bride Nicolina (Danielle De Metz) are in the awkward situation of potentially betraying the sisterhood.

But in resolving the central issue the story develops too many subplots and introduces too many characters, often leaving Jessica rather redundant in terms of the plot, with not much to do, especially when her prospective suitor is absent for a long period going fishing.

Angie Dickinson is delightful as the Vespa-riding innocent turned mischievous. However, in some way though this seemed a backward step for Dickinson, a rising star in the Lana Turner/Elizabeth Taylor mold after being John Wayne’s squeeze in Rio Bravo (1959) and Frank Sinatra’s estranged wife in Ocean’s Eleven (1960) and after a meaty supporting role in A Fever in the Blood (1961) elevated to top billing in The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961). It seemed like Hollywood could not make up its mind whether it wanted her to be like Gidget or be given free rein to express her sexuality.

A charmer like Maurice Chevalier (A Breath of Scandal, 1960) was ideal for what was in effect a whimsical part. The singing probably met audience expectation. Perhaps like Sean Connery’s perennial Scottish accent, nobody ever asked Chevalier to drop his pronounced French accent even to play an Italian. But the picture is whimsical enough without him.

There’s a surprisingly strong supporting cast in four-time Oscar nominee Agnes Moorehead (Pollyanna, 1960), Gabriele Ferzetti (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1969) and French actor (and sometime writer-director) Noel-Noel. Yugoslavian Sylva Koscina (Deadlier Than the Male, 1967), Frenchwoman Kerima (Outcast of the Islands, 1951) and Danielle De Metz (The Scorpio Letters, 1967) all make a splash. Screenplay by Edith Sommer (This Property Is Condemned, 1966) from the bestseller by Flora Sandstrom.

Terrific turn from Angie Dickinson.

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

The Rock (1996) *****

Amazingly, there was no 25^th anniversary razzamatazz for this pulsating piledriver of an action movie, a stone cold classic. Instead of the standard breaking out of Alcatraz, a brilliant reversal sees a crack military team of U.S. Navy SEALS trying to break in to stop maniac martinet General Hummel (Ed Harris) devastating San Francisco with stolen missiles containing nerve gas. Notwithstanding his iconic turn as James Bond and Oscar acclaim for The Untouchables (1987), this is surely one of Sean Connery’s best, if not boldest, performance, the calm at the heart of the storm, exuding a riveting screen persona. No other star of his calibre would have allowed themselves to be seen at the start with such a lack of dignity, not just shackled but with dirty exceedingly long hair.

Not only is it a brilliant entrance but such is director Michael Bay’s mastery of his material that he makes audiences wait 25 minutes for it while he sets up the terror that awaits the city from a rain of terrifying gas, Hummel as a ruthless legendary officer with a point to prove and allows Nicolas Cage to break out of his initial geek. Backed by a classic battering ram of a score by Hans Zimmer and Nick Glennie-Smith and an outstanding battalion of supporting players, Bay never lets up the high-pitch tension, finding his stylistic way with slo-mo, helicopters swaying in the sky and brutal stand-offs.

Former British spy John Mason (Connery), the only man alive who has broken out of Alcatraz, is released from prison to lead the break-in, Hummel holding hostages as well as his weaponry. Never has a star done so much with so little, using a coin to discover his nemesis FBI director Womack (John Spencer) and with nothing more than a piece of string engineering his own escape from a San Francisco hotel that leads to a riveting car chase ending in wanton destruction and a touching scene reuniting Mason with a long-lost daughter (Clare Forlani). That such a cracking movie bothers with emotional hooks – academic FBI chemical expert Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) also has his girlfriend in harm’s way – shows the screenwriter’s skill in bringing greater character depth. Except for his daughter, Mason would have made another escape from Alcatraz at the first opportunity.

What appears a mission impossible becomes a mission impossible too far when Hummel’s men slaughter the military invasion leaving the unlikely duo of Mason and Goodspeed to save the city – and their own lives – when the equally ruthless rescue operation bosses determine it’s better to completely liquidate Alcatraz rather than risk the missiles being fired.

And without Cage as the mild-mannerd scientist stepping up to the action plate, this would be a different picture, over-dominated by Connery. Cage delivers a multi-layered performance, from the emphatic strum of a guitar string to his flickering fingers and the brilliant delivery of the humdrum line “in the name of Zeus’s butthole.” He shifts from fearful geek who has left his gun behind to determinedly hunting down Mason in a car chase and then finding a true action mojo on the rock.

Given this top-notch performance, it’s proof of Connery’s star power that he easily steals the picture. Suspicious, clever, ruthless, soft-hearted when it matters, he mentors Goodspeed, though not always gently, “losers always whine about their best, winners go home and f*** the prom queen.”

Odd as it might be to say about a Michael Bay picture, this is layered too. From the conflict between Mason and Womack, the nuanced performance by the essentially honorable Hummel, brilliant character development – like Hilts in The Great Escape Mason the loner eventually persuaded to help the general cause – the transition of Goodspeed from goofy oddball to savior, speedy edits, some cracking images, a script dipped in paranoia (references to Roswell, the Kennedy assassination, black ops and secret military slush funds) and a stack of one-liners. All this delivered in passing as this high-speed train of an action blockbuster thunders along the line.

The whole enterprise is bolstered by a top-notch supporting cast led by the Mason-hating John Spencer (stepping up from a supporting role in L.A. Law, 1990-1996), David Morse (The Green Mile, 1999), eternal heavy William Forsythe (J. Edgar Hoover in The Man in the High Castle, 2018-2019) getting the chance to lighten his load, Michael Biehn (Aliens, 1986), John C. McGinley (Any Given Sunday, 1999) and Bokeem Woodbine (Queen and Slim, 2019). Two young actresses show tremendous promise – Clare Forlani capitalised on this break with Meet Joe Black (1998) but it proved less of a Hollywood calling card for Vanessa Marcil (Goodspeed’s fiancé), her best work coming in television (Las Vegas, 2003-2008).

It was also Michael Bay’s calling card to enter the high-octane world of big-budget blockbusters like Armageddon (1998). While his career had as many ups as downs, this is unquestionably his action masterpiece, a no-holds-barred non-stop adrenaline spike.

Deadlier than the Male (1967) ****

For a movie intended to set up a series character in the vein of James Bond, it was ironic that it was the women who stole the show, not just from their tendency to turn up in bikinis but for their outrageous villainy. Irma (Elke Sommer) and Penelope (Sylva Koscina) are the seductive assassins in the hire of Carl Petersen (Nigel Green) who has designs on an Arab oil empire. On her own Irma dispatches mogul Henry Keller (Dervis Ward) then the pair – emerging from the sea like a pair of latter-day Ursula Andresses – harpoon his colleague Wyngarde (John Stone).

Soon Hugh Drummond (Richard Johnson), investigating the death of Stone, becomes a target and that sets him off, with nephew Robert (Steve Carlson) in tow, to the Mediterranean and the yacht of oil-rich King Fedra (Zia Mohyeddin) where, of course, the girls lie in wait.

Dispensing with the gadgets – except for one item employed by the villainesses – and gimmicks of Bond, but retaining the quips, this is a fun ride with a more down-to-earth leading man – like the early Bonds – smarter girls, a more old-fashioned mystery, hefty thug Chang (Milton Reid) in the Oddjob mold, a castle doubling as the villain’s lair, a suave master criminal, some detective work, and a super scene involving giant robotic chess men.

The bickering between Irma and Penelope, not just a tad sadistic but a kleptomaniac especially as far as her partner is concerned, coupled with their overweening confidence, makes them much more human than any Bond Girl and the character traits explored have a pay-off at the climax. Equally interesting are the mind games, Drummond vs. Peterson but also Drummond vs. Irma. And that the female baddies see it as points on their scoreboard to seduce Drummond rather than the other way round.

Drummond is every bit as capable a seducer as Bond and equally ruthless, stripping one suspect naked. Petersen is also a clever character, faking his own death and running a very smooth operation, and certainly his recruitment techniques are second to none.

Some ideas were certainly ahead of their time, the chess men are the equivalent of a modern computer game while the human bomb has, unfortunately, entered the modern lexicon and there are enough female serial killers around to prevent anyone believing they are always (to use a sexist phrase) the gentle sex. However, in the middle 1960s, the concept that women would be partial to murder and torture not to mention repeatedly seducing males went so much against the grain of the male authority figures that the British censor slapped an X-certificate on the movie.

Shakespearian actor Richard Johnson was at one time an MGM contract player, but his only previous top-billed outing was the Italian-made The Witch (1966) but he certainly made a splash with this character, investing it with a great deal more gravitas than Derek Flint or Matt Helm. The Teutonic Elke Sommer (The Venetian Affair, 1966) is brilliant as one half of the assassin tag-team with a batch of one-liners for every occasion. Sylva Koscina (A Lovely Way To Die, 1968), nose always put out of joint, almost steals the show. Nigel Green (Tobruk, 1967), while his usual sardonic self, has the playfulness of the rich and powerful.

Steve Carlsen, in his movie debut, doesn’t make much of an impact in a largely lame role. Zia Mohyeddin has a more interesting role as the oil kingpin wanting to help his people. As you can expect in a spy picture there are a host of beautiful women – Suzanna Leigh (The Lost Continent, 1968) a defector, Virginia North, also making her debut, Justine Lord (Night after Night after Night, 1969), and Didi Sydow in her only screen appearance.

The light comedy experience of director Ralph Thomas (Doctor in Distress, 1963) comes in very handy, as his sense of comic timing is excellent, but, perhaps learning from his previous brush with espionage in Hot Enough for June / Agent 8¾ (1964) brings a bigger punch to the action scenes. And it’s a bold ploy to start with an action sequence revolving around Irma and Penelope rather than our star man.

The screenplay was a team effort – Jimmy Sangster (The Devil-Ship Pirates, 1964), taking a break from Hammer duties, David D. Osborn (Maroc 7, 1967) and Liz Charles-Williams, making her screen debut – all involved. This was familiar territory for composer Malcolm Lockyer (Five Golden Men, 1967). British pop act The Walker Brothers had a hit with the theme tune.

This is more fun than camp, not a send-up of the genre like Derek Flint and Matt Helm, but a spy picture with a believable leading men and excellent villains. But the plot is more centered on filthy lucre rather than global control and there is a genuine understanding of how businesses work – takeovers, mergers, dirty dealings – though small wonder Petersen would like to be shot of pedantic boardroom nuisances like Bridgenorth (Leonard Rossiter) – wouldn’t we all?

Bulldog Drummond was an international crime-buster invented by “Sapper,” the pen-name of H.C. McNeile. Bulldog Drummond had been a Hollywood mainstay for over four decades, the twenty-plus pictures attracting stars like Ronald Colman (Bulldog Drummond, 1929, and Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back, 1934), Ray Milland (Bulldog Drummond Escapes, 1937), Walter Pidgeon (Calling Bulldog Drummond, 1951) and a young Ralph Richardson (The Return of Bulldog Drummond, 1934). But the notion, in the Swinging Sixties, of tagging any leading man by the moniker of ‘Bulldog’ did not seem like a good idea, so the character underwent wholesale reinvention, and his nickname is never mentioned.

The title comes from a line in a poem by Rudyard Kipling, The Female of the Species. That was the original title of the film and also of a Sapper book.

The Brutalist (2025) *** – Seen at the Cinema

The third act of this heavily-favored Oscar contender is so demented I half-expected Mark Wahlberg from Flight Risk (2025) to come charging in through the woodwork. So, spoiler alert and all that jazz, I’m going to tell you what all the critics, determined to shove this into Oscar pole position, have kept hidden.

The dramatic climax, if that’s the right word, is a male rape. Our hero Laszlo (Adrien Brody), by this point a bit addled what with his alcoholism and heroin addiction, on a trip to the marble quarries, while extremely addled, is raped by multi-millionaire patron Van Buren (Guy Pearce), previosuly inclined towards the philosophical and intellectual rather than showing any hint of apparent violent or for that matter homosexual tendencies.

This rape sets Laszlo off an inexplicable series of tirades against all and sundry which puzzles said all and sundry until his crippled wife Erzsebet (Felicity Jones), until now in a wheelchair and equally inexplicably now on her feet, albeit with the help of a walking frame, turns up at a Van Buren dinner party to point the finger. At which point, understandably, the money is pulled from the architectural marvel being built, though not before we see, in another inexplicable sequence, its one genuine marvel, the way light from outside lights up a cross on the altar.

Just to round everything off, just when the movie is headed, what with said millionaire pulling the plug, for one of those sad endings when said architect is left high and dry and the building set to be an unfinished folly and Laszlo possibly heading for a mental institution or the breadline, genius unrecognized, we are presented with a coda, and with a swish of the directorial magic wand, it turns out that instead Laszlo went on to have a magnificent career, so much so a major exhibition is launched in his lifetime.

So, what was a pretty engrossing drama, with, for probably the first time on celluloid, an understanding of what goes on in the mind of a genius builder given the same credence as the evolution of an artist of the painting or music variety (witness the recent A Complete Unknown), turns, with several fell swoops, into an oddity, one which critics are desperately trying to salvage to position it, as I mentioned, as not only the Oscar favorite but as a contemporary version of Citizen Kane.

*And you can forget all the hoo-hah about Vistavision.*
*In an ordinary theater this makes not the slightest difference.*

These aren’t the only inconsistencies. Completely broke, living in a single room, at the end of the 1940s, after our Holocaust refugee has become an American immigrant, he manages to scrape enough money together to hire/buy a movie projector and hire/buy a porno flick. And I’m still getting my head round the building of a “community” endeavor, part-funded by the community, being constructed on a remote hill several miles away from the community it is meant to serve. Not to mention, Laszlo being able to afford a packet of smokes while queuing at a soup kitchen and while raging against the machine that a young child is left without even a slice of bread doesn’t go and buy a loaf of bread for the starving child instead of a packet of cigarettes for himself. And if you’ve ever met anyone who has a fabulous library, the last thing they want is the books hidden away, even from the dangerous sun, and even to allow an architectural genius an architectural flourish.

Certainly, director Brady Corbett (Vox Lux, 2018) wants to have his cake and eat it, so as well as Holocaust references, we are shown grinding American poverty before getting back on track to tell the story of artistic genius and the financial obstacles, considerably more in the building business than painting or writing a tune, it must overcome.

So why everyone is trying to position this as the Oscar fave is because despite these deficiencies, the first two-thirds of the picture present a very absorbing and ambitious drama. While you’re scarcely going to find a scene that genuinely sticks in the mind, if we are putting Corbet in the Scorsese, Nolan, Scott, Spielberg category, the overall effect is certainly effective and the look distinctive. And while the male rape is going to divide audiences, there is an unusual stack of sexuality elsewhere – his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivolo) is overly affectionate even given the overly expressive male camaraderie of European countries and likes to sashay around in an apron. On landing in the U.S., one of Laszlo’s first acts is to hook up with a hooker, and there’s a distinct frisson of sexuality in the Attila household, while the crippled wife finds the sex act alleviates her pain.

What brings this alive and gives it substantial heft are the three male performances. Adrien Brody, proof that one Oscar win (for The Pianist) doesn’t open as many doors in Hollywood as you’d expect, is immense, given a wide panorama of feelings to play with, completely engaging and more important, believable, all the way through. But Guy Pearce has equally drifted in a tsunami of supporting roles or top-billing in small pictures and he is superb as the restrained businessman finding expression through closeness to art. And Alessandro Nivolo (Amsterdam, 2022), also somewhat in need of acting redemption, has a brilliant turn as the sinuous cousin.

I didn’t find this as bum-numbing (even while sitting in the worst seats in the world – at least a quarter of a century old by my count, yeah that old – in my local arthouse) as I expected – the first time I looked at my watch there was only 25 minutes left to go. It wasn’t the length that made me antsy but the drive into off-piste territory in the third act, as if Corbet had no idea how to finish the picture.

Despite my reservations, and there are, as you can see, many, this is worth seeing, though maybe you might want to skip out at the conveniently-placed intermission.

Behind the Scenes: Go, Fanzine, Go – Prior to the Blog Came the Newsletter

Having just watched The Black Hole (1979) and digging around my voluminous stacks of movie memorabilia in the hope of finding something relevant I chanced upon this gem from 1979 – the first issue of Science Fiction Media News, a 12-page staple-bound A4 fanzine produced by Martin Hatfield who hailed from Oxford, England. In the days before the Internet and the ubiquitous Blog, movie fans who didn’t have access to the trade press like Variety or Box Office or Screen International would find very lean pickings in the national media who were less keen than they are now on devoting space to details of forthcoming pictures. It was left to chaps like Martin to do the digging. If you were a member of the British Science Fiction Association you got this for free, otherwise it would set you back a princely 25p.

So what was the gen in 1979? The hot news was that Dino De Laurentiis had picked up the rights to Dune for $1 million. He planned a three-hour epic. Screenplay was being written by Frank Herbert who postponed completing the fourth book in the saga to take on the job. Pink Floyd, previously assigned the music score, were out as was Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead.

With the success of the likes of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Hollywood knee deep in a new sci fi cycle, there weren’t enough SFX experts to go round, so budgets were mushrooming. Warner Brothers had to add another $1.5 million to the cost of Meteor and push back the release date by four months. Paramount’s Star Trek was worse hit, the effects budget quintupling from $4 million to a reported $20 million.

If you remember Mike Oldfield for “Tubular Bells,” you might not know that he supplied the music for The Space Movie directed by Tony Palmer. That there’s nothing new in Hollywood is attested by the fact that this newsletter was plugging Nosferatu starring Klaus Kinski while Hollywood spent a good part of the latter end of 2024 hyping, in counter-programming to top all counter-programming, the Robert Eggers version due out at Xmas.

Readers were also kept abreast of forthcoming movies like The Shape of Things to Come headlined by Jack Palance and Carol Lynley, Roger Corman’s Deathsport, Robert Altman’s Quintet starring Paul Newman, Don Coscarelli’s low-budget Phantasm and Disney’s The Spaceman and King Arthur. Given the evil genius in Moonraker planned to use a space station to destroy Earth’s inhabitants, this was also classified as science fiction (although Mr Hatfield points out “the space content of this film is being pushed as science fact rather than science fiction”).

Films reviewed include Foes starring MacDonald Carey (“may be worth a look just to see how far SF…has NOT progressed since 1950”); David Lynch’s Eraserhead (“the most original horror story to come along for years”), Nosferatu (“tantalizing”) and Quintet (“eminently watchable”). Also reviewed was Ken Campbell’s stage adaptation of radio serial The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

As ever, not all projects made it onto the screen. Paramount was scheduled to make Interview with the Vampire, but the Anne Rice novel took another 15 years to reach the screen and then through Warner Bros. British company Brent Walker planned to follow up The Stud (1978) and Quadrophenia (1979) with a contemporary vampire picture, Dracula Rocks, alas never made. Pop group The Osmonds were setting up to make a $6 million disaster movie Spaceport. Whatever happened to The Experiment based on the novel by James Clark? Or for that matter Bikers in Outer Space. Fancied seeing Vincent Price in Romance in the Jugular Vein? Too bad, it’s been cancelled. In other news, the novelization of Star Wars sold 896,000 copies in the UK, possibly a record for a novel in the genre.

Behind the Scenes: Mirisch Bros at the Box Office 1965-1969

Sinful Davey (1969) was a rare black spot during the second half of the 1960s for acclaimed independent production outfit Mirisch Brothers. With a loss of $2.57 million – counting domestic and foreign rentals – it was only beaten in the red ink stakes by Blake Edwards war comedy (always a dangerous combination) What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) starring James Coburn which lost $2.75 million.

But otherwise this was a banner period for the mini-studio which made a profit of $36.1 million on an expenditure of $69.4 million. Except for the Blake Edwards, its biggest gambles turned out winners or at least scraped by into the black. Hawaii (1966) with Julie Andrews and Max von Sydow, budgeted at $13.9 million, produced $4.9 million profit and the all-star Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) steered clear of disaster, if only just, with a profit of $890,000 on its $5.51 million budget.

That Mirisch came racing home in triumph was largely down to a pair of less conspicuous projects. Getting by on the third-lowest budget of the period, the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night (1967) transcended its miserly budget of $2 million to carve out a $16 million notch on the box office rentals bedpost. Norman Jewison Cold War comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) pulled in nearly $8 million profit on a $3.9 million budget. Romantic heist thriller The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), pairing Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, with double the budget of In the Heat of the Night, scored just shy of $7 million profit.

The sequel Return of the Seven (1966), with Yul Brynner leading a new team of gunslingers, shot up $3.62 million profit on a paltry budget of $1.78 million. A second Blake Edwards comedy The Party (1968), with Peter Sellers, made a profit of $1.5 million on a $3 million.

With only four out of 18 movies registering as official flops, the rest of the pack broke even or better. There would be some sighs of relief that John Sturges 70mm western The Hallelujah Trail (1965) starring Burt Lancaster and Lee Remick, limped home with $385,000 in the black after an expenditure of $7.15 million. Sturges did better with the lower-budgeted The Satan Bug, based on the Alistair MacLean bestseller. Making do with a budget of $1.78 million, it was profitable to the tune of $822,000. Billy Wilder’s The Fortune Cooke (1966) with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, made $900,000 on a $3.7 million budget.

Two of the smallest-budgeted items – Return from the Ashes (1965) with Maximilian Schell and Samantha Eggar and Suzanne Pleshette melodrama A Rage to Live (1965) both brought in around $180,000 profit on budgets of $1.56 million and $1.32 million, respectively. The two other outright flops were Fitzwilly/Fitzwilly Strikes Back (1967) starring Dick van Dyke and another John Sturges western Hour of the Gun (1967) with James Garner and Jason Robards heading back to the OK Corral – $300,000 loss for the former ($2.9 million budget) and $600,000 for the latter ($3 million budget). Scraping home, literally by the skin of its box office teeth was the adaptation of Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1967) which managed a whole $5,000 profit on a $3.7 million budget.

However, Hollywood had become accustomed to downgrading foreign box office expectations, a caution borne out by the proportionately poor overseas response to the likes of Hawaii which only managed $2.8 million on foreign rentals. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming made four times as much in rentals in the U.S. compared to abroad, In the Heat of the Night’s domestic contribution was double that of foreign.

On the other hand, foreign was the major reason Return of the Seven did so well. It pulled in $3.9 million in rentals overseas – the fourth biggest result of the period – compared to a disappointing $1.5 million at home. Similarly, Hour of the Gun would have been an even greater flop after the domestic market delivered only $900,000 in rentals, allowing redemption of a sort with $2.4 million abroad. Even The Hallelujah Trail had foreign audiences to thank for $4.5 million compared to $3 million at home. The Satan Bug did twice as much business away from home as in the U.S.

Of course, when I talk about profit that’s only in reference to rentals compared to budget. Other costs have to be added in before movie is considered a genuine success. That’s best exemplified by earlier Mirisch picture The Great Escape (1963). Budgeted at $3.75 million, it brought in global rentals of $11 million but only made $326,000 in final profit. Some Like It Hot (1959) amassed rentals of $12.9 million on a $2.8 million budget. Profit? Just $487,000.

Who’d be a movie producer?

.SOURCE: “Mirisch First 20-Picture Deal” and “Mirisch Second 20-Picture Deal,” United Artists Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research.

The Russia House (1990) ****

The amateur spy – the innocent caught up in espionage malarkey – had scarcely graced the screen for a couple of decades, Hot Enough for June/Agent 8¾ (1964) or Masquerade (1965) possibly the highpoints of that subgenre. That it turns up at all is probably due to spymaster John le Carre’s Cold War comfort zone evaporating following glasnost and perestroika in Russia in the late 1980s. Of course, the West didn’t entirely trust the Soviets to reform, and had no intention of pensioning off its battalions of secret agents.

The plotline is largely irrelevant here, acting more as a MacGuffin than anything else, because audiences will have long forgotten what was sacred to the West three decades ago. And the picture is devoid of the usual car chase and there’s not even the kind of foot-race that became de rigeur to prove our ageing superstars could still physically hack it – Clint Eastwood in In the Line of Fire (1993) or Liam Neeson in Taken (2008).

So what we’re left with is probably what le Carre was hoping for in the first place – a character study. It may have passed your notice that among the highest ranks of the superstars only Sean Connery could match Tom Hanks in actually changing his appearance – different hairstyle, different beard (yep, you didn’t think that could define character, did you) – to depict character. Of course, nobody was expecting Stallone or Schwarzenegger to alter their look; Harrison Ford got a buzzcut once; but Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, even going further back to James Stewart, Gary Cooper, their hairstyle remained untouched, and until Connery made it part of his persona Hollywood believed that moustaches were box office disaster.

Barley (Sean Connery) is an upmarket publisher whose business is on the slide, so much so that he doesn’t attend an annual book fair in Moscow. So when Russian single mother Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer) turns up looking for him, she ends up handing a manuscript to Penguin’s representative who, naturally, turns it over to MI6.

Takes a while what with interrogation and flashback to work out why Barley has been selected. Unwittingly, on a previous sojourn to Russia, he had made the acquaintance, over a drunken dinner, with Dante (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who turns out to be Katya’s long-ago first love and, more importantly, a nuclear scientist with secrets to sell or give away. Barley is hooked into returning to Russia to gain the confidence of both Katya and Dante and provide access to secrets the British Secret Service and their Yank counterparts desire.

That it doesn’t go the way the high-ups want is because Barley is a “decent human being” and when he realizes he has compromised Katya, and endangered the lives of her two young children, he turns traitor and trades their safety for secrets.

Given the plot and counter-plot thesis, and the various axes that need to be ground over nuclear weapons accumulation and inherent corruption, this cinematic enterprise could have proved way too unwieldy for a contemporary audience. Instead, the very fact that much of the background is now meaningless clears the way for the movie to stand on its own two feet, as yet another wonderful character study in the largely unheralded Sean Connery (The Hill, 1965) portfolio. And with Michelle Pfeiffer turning in a Golden Globe-winning performance, the movie hinges more on the characters than the espionage.

There’s a fabulous scene where the initial narrative is just turned on its head. You’re already thinking MI6 must be hard put to be even thinking of employing Barley, given he’s a bit of a boozer, the kind of guy who knocks one whisky straight down before sipping the next. Katya, attempting to establish his bona fides and suspicious that he’s actually a spy, asks him, “Are you alone?” Meaning, has he come alone, is he acting independently?

Barley takes a different meaning from the question. “Never been more alone,” he replies, barely concealing the despair in his eyes. “I let people down,” he confesses at another point.

His life is headed in all the wrong directions. He’s fluffed too many lines and no guarantee he’s even capable of looking for redemption. And Katya’s way too wary. He’s like an enthusiastic schoolboy when he falls in love with her. When he dives in for a kiss, she tilts her head so he can only kiss her cheek in the Russian fashion.

His romancing comes unstuck when instead of responding to his ardor she recounts her experiences with Dante. It’s her scene and yet Connery steals it with his slow-burn despair. Her wariness shows in her face. The purported new freedoms her country promotes mean little more than citizens can more freely complain.

While you might not go along with his self-deprecating description of himself as a “large unmade bed” – his physical grace always going to make this unlikely – nonetheless he is a shambles of a man. Even Connery can’t make fashionable the duffel coat, his perennial outfit of choice, an item of clothing that to generations epitomized the unfashionable, a garment worn by those who couldn’t care less about their appearance.

Connoisseurs of Connery’s hair and beard will notice a certain rumpled element compared to the stylish beard he wore in Rising Sun (1993) or the confident full version of The Hunt for Red October (1990).

Outside of the Connery-Pfieffer axis, although the narrative stumbles in accommodating their manoeuvring, the movie boasts a phalanx of interesting supporting actors, some fallen from the marquee heights like Roy Scheider (Jaws, 1975) and James Fox (Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967), others who would make their mark in television like John Mahoney (Frasier, 1993-2004), Martin Clunes (Men Behaving Badly, 1992-2014), David Threlfall (Shameless, 2004-2013) and Michael Kitchen (Foyle’s War, 2002-2015) and topped up with a wild-eyed indulgent performance from director Ken Russell (Billion Dollar Brain, 1967).

Rather devoid of screenwriter Tom Stoppard’s (Shakespeare in Love, 1998) trademark humor except in a couple of aural jokes about odd sounds emanating from hidden microphones. The first movie to be filmed in Russia after glasnost so a bit more authentic location work than usual. To his credit director Fred Schepisi (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, 1978) allows Connery and Pfeiffer full rein rather than getting bogged down in the inescapable politics and office backstabbing.

Watch it for Connery and Pfeiffer.

Be warned: I feel a Connery binge coming on.

Behind the Scenes: Mirisch Bros at the Box Office 1960-1964

The Mirisch Brothers, the first of what would be called the “mini-majors,” ushered in a Hollywood production revolution in the 1950s and 1960s by not just paying over-the-odds for top directors and actors – $750,000 apiece for John Wayne and William Holden for The Horse Soldiers (1959) plus $250,000 for John Ford, for example – but giving them far greater freedom in the choice of scripts, control of pictures and a bigger share of the profits. This approach went down very well with the talent, less so with rival studios who complained their approach was driving up costs at a time when Hollywood was on the brink of collapse with major studios teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as audiences plummeted.

Walter Mirisch was the name best known to moviegoers since he worked as producer on the company’s output. Harold Mirisch was best known to the studios since he was the guy who set up the deals and found the funding. Marvin Miriasch was the backroom boy who ensured the whole process kept ticking over.

Mirisch had secured a deal with United Artists to supply a series of pictures, the first contract calling for 20 movies. Generally, the company was lauded by the trade press as innovative thinkers producing a stream of noteworthy movies such as Some Like it Hot (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963) and Irma La Douce (1963) .As independent producers they had more than their fair share of Oscar successes.

But like every player in Hollywood, they employed sleight of hand, convincing the media that they were highly successful operators when the reality was exactly the opposite. The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, part of the University of Wisconsin, holds a vast archive relating to United Artists. Within that archive, I was able to source the materials that cast an alternative light on the Mirisch Brothers’ initial foray into the Hollywood big-time.

The figures revealed that the first 20 pictures – including Some Like it Hot, The Great Escape and Irma La Douce – in the Mirisch-United Artists deal racked up a cumulative $8 million loss.

In fact, one of the factors driving down the company’s potential profitability was the amount of money it gave away in profit-share. In addition, the bigger profits were often to be found in distribution and exhibition. For a start, about 50% of box office revenue found its way into the exhibitor’s pockets. From what was left over, another big chunk went to the distributor, in this case United Artists, and once profit-participants had been paid off, there was sometimes remarkably little finding its way back to the Mirisch Brothers’ coffers.

For example, Some Like it Hot, which according to these figures generated a total of $12.9 million in domestic and foreign rentals* (i.e. what’s left after exhibitors have taken their share), racked up less than half a million dollars in profit for the Mirisch Brothers. The Magnificent Seven earned three times as much overseas as in the U.S. so though viewed as a flop at home it ended up with $321,000 in the bank. The Great Escape brought in a profit of $326,000 on total rentals of $11 million while Irma La Douce topped that with $440,000. The Apartment (1960) delivered Mirisch’s biggest profit of $1.09 million.

But those were the only films – out of the 20 launched in Mirisch’s first few years of operation – to turn a profit. The other 15 all hit the buffers. That was not a good ratio at all. That three-quarters of the Mirisch picks turned into losers was hardly cause for celebration.

Some of the losses were stratospheric for the time. The Children’s Hour (1961), with Audrey Hepburn picking up a colossal upfront fee, was in the red to the tune of $2.7 million. The loss on The Horse Soldiers amounted to $1.8 million with Billy Wilder’s ill-fated One, Two, Three suffering a $1.5 million loss with Toys in the Attic turning into a $1.2 million liability. Stolen Hours with Susan Hayward added nearly $1 million to the company’s overall debt. Even Elvis Presley, at that point a guaranteed box office draw, offered no respite – the loss on Kid Galahad above $430,000 and that of Follow That Dream $195,000.

So you might be wondering with such a poor ratio of hits to flops why the Mirisch Brothers managed to stay in the game. Well, before the final figures were in on the contract to deliver the first 20 pictures, United Artists were already committed to a further 20 movies, some of which were already in production. But there were two other elements acting in Mirisch’s favor. The first was that exhibitors were desperate for new movies, the industry only beginning by 1963 to turn a financial corner, and it was expected that Mirisch would have learned from its mistakes and stop underwriting expensive pictures (which turned out to be untrue).

But second, and more importantly, the Mirisch losses did not impact so badly on United Artists. That studio made the bulk of its revenue from distribution. Even if a picture was a flop, UA’s 30% distribution fee was based on the gross, so a movie that maybe ended up as an overall financial flop could still generate enough revenue to keep UA happy.

Also, UA, now seeing record profits from the likes of its investment in Tom Jones (1963) and on the brink of a James Bond bonanza could afford to carry its production partner. So Mirisch kept on pretending it was a huge success and the trade press kept on believing it.

*These figures do not including television sale or future reissues. But initial television sales in the early 1960s averaged about half a million dollars for successful movies. What television would pay was based on the original domestic gross (i.e. perceived popularity). Only a couple of pictures, most notably The Magnificent Seven, significantly added to their initial release income through reissue. So it is extremely unlikely that the Mirisch Brothers would have gone into profit on those first 20 pictures through reissues and television sales in the 1960s, and doubtful if they would have even halved the losses.

SOURCE: “Mirisch Pictures First 20 Picture Deal,” Appendix II, United Artists Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

Behind the Scenes: All-Time Top 20

You might be surprised to learn that many of the “Behind the Scenes” articles that feature in the Blog have become more popular than some of the reviews. As regular readers will know I am fascinated by problems incurred in making movies. Most of the material has come from my own digging, and sources are always quoted at the end of each article. Alistair MacLean still exerts fascination – three films in the Top Ten. Last year’s positions in brackets.

(1) Waterloo (1970). No doubting the effect of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon in increasing interest in this famous flop that had Rod Steiger’s French emperor squaring off against Christopher Plummer.
(9) Man’s Favorite Sport (1964). Howard Hawks back in the gender wars with Rock Hudson being taken down a peg by Paula Prentiss.
(3) In Harm’s Way (1965). Otto Preminger takes off the gloves to expose problems in the American military around Pearl Harbor.
(7) The Guns of Navarone (1961). The ultimate template for the men-on-a-mission war picture with an all-star cast and enough jeopardy to qualify for a movie of its own.
(2) Ice Station Zebra (1968). A complete cast overhaul and ground-breaking special effects are at the core of this filming of another Alistair MacLean tale.
(4) Battle of the Bulge (1965). There were going to be two versions, so the race was on to get this one to the public first.
(6) The Satan Bug (1965). The problems facing director John Sturges in adapting the Alistair MacLean pandemic classic for the big screen.
(5) Cast a Giant Shadow (1965). Producer Melville Shavelson wrote a book about his experiences and this and other material relating the arduous task of bringing the Kirk Douglas-starrer to the screen are told here.
(10) The Girl on a Motorcycle / Naked under Leather (1968). Cult classic starring Marianne Faithful and Alain Delon had a rocky road to release, especially in the U.S. where the censor was not happy.
(New Entry) The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). First envisioned nearly a decade before, Henry Hathaway western finally hit the screen with John Wayne and Dean Martin.
(11). Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Richard Fleischer dispenses with the all-star cast in favor of even-handed verisimilitude.
(New entry) Mackenna’s Gold (1969). Tortuous route to the screen for Carl Foreman-produced roadshow western, filmed in 70mm Cinerama, with an all-star cast including Omar Sharif, Gregory Peck and Telly Savalas.
(8) Sink the Bismarck! (1960). Documentary-style British World War Two classic with Kenneth More exhibiting the stiffest of stiff-upper-lips.
(13). The Bridge at Remagen (1969). British director John Guillerman hits trouble filming World War Two picture starring George Segal and Robert Vaughn.
(New entry) The Trouble with Angels (1966). Less than angelic Hayley Mills sparring with convent boss Rosalind Russell. Directed by one-time star Ida Lupino.
(New entry) For a Few Dollars More (1965). Sergio Leone sequel to first spaghetti western brings in Lee van Cleef to pair with Clint Eastwood.
(New entry) How The West Was Won (1962). First non-travelog Cinerama picture, all-star cast and all-star team of directors tackling multi-generational western and all sorts of logistical problems.
(New entry) Bandolero! (1968). Director Andrew V. McLaglen teams up with James Stewart, Dean Martin and Raquel Welch to fight Mexican bandits.
(New Entry) The Train (1964). John Frankenheimer replaced Arthur Penn in the directorial chair to steer home unusual over-budget World War Two picture with Burt Lancaster trying to steal art treasures from under the nose of German Paul Schofield.
(17) The Collector (1963). William Wyler’s creepy adaptation of John Fowles’ creepy bestseller with Terence Stamp and Samatha Eggar.