box office – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “The Green Berets” (1968)

As if John Wayne hadn’t endured enough directing The Alamo (1960), he took on an even weightier task with this Vietnam War picture which, from the start, was likely to receive a critical roasting given the actor’s well-known stance on the conflict and his anti-Communist views that dated back to the McCarthy Era of the 1950s. Wayne had enjoyed a charmed life at the box office with three successive hit westerns, Henry Hathaway’s The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) with Dean Martin, Burt Kennedy’s The War Wagon (1967) co-starring Kirk Douglas, and best of all from a critical and commercial standpoint Howard Hawks El Dorado (1967) pairing Robert Mitchum. Outside of box office grosses, Wayne’s movies tended to be more profitable than his box office rivals because they were generally more inexpensive to make.

Columbia had been the first to recognize the potential of the book by Robin Moore and purchased the rights pre-publication in 1965 long before antipathy to the war reached its peak. A screenplay was commissioned from George Goodman who had served in the Special Forces the previous decade and was to to return to Vietnam on a research mission. But the studio couldn’t turn out a script that met the approval of the U.S. Army. Independent producer David Wolper (The Devil’s Brigade, 1968) was next to throw the dice but he couldn’t find the financing.

In 1966 Wayne took a trip to Vietnam and was impressed by what he saw. He bought the rights to the non-fiction book by Robin Moore (who also wrote The French Connection) for $35,000 plus a five per cent profit share. While the movie veered away in many places from the book, the honey trap and kidnapping of the general came from that source, although, ironically, that episode was entirely fictitious, originating in the mind of Robin Moore.

Universal originally agreed to back The Green Berets with filming scheduled for early 1967 but when it pulled out the project shifted to Warner Bros. And as if the director hadn’t learned his lesson from The Alamo, it was originally greenlit for a budget of $5.1 million, an amount that would prove signally inappropriate as the final count was $7 million. Wayne turned down the leading role in The Dirty Dozen (1967) to concentrate on this project. Wayne’s character was based on real-life Finnish Larry Thorne who had joined the Special Forces in Vietnam in 1963 and was reported missing in action in 1965 (his body was recovered four decades later).

As well as John Wayne, the movie was a platform for rising stars like Jim Hutton (Walk, Don’t Run, 1966), David Janssen (Warning Shot, 1967) and Luke Askew (Easy Rider, 1969) who replaced Bruce Dern. Howard Keel, who had appeared in The War Wagon, turned down a role.

Wayne holstered his normal $750,000 fee for acting plus $120,000 for directing. But it turned out The Alamo had taught him one important lesson – not to shoulder too much of the responsibility – and Ray Kellogg for the modest sum of $40,000 was brought in as co-director. It was produced by Wayne’s production company, Batjac, now run by his son Michael. But neither Wayne nor Kellogg proved up to the task and concerned the movie was falling behind schedule and over budget the studio drafted in veteran director Mervyn Leroy – current remuneration $200,000 plus a percentage – whose over 40 years in the business ranged from gangster machine-gun fest Little Caesar (1931) to his most recent offering the Hitchcock-lite Moment to Moment (1966).

But exactly what LeRoy contributed over the next six months was open to question. Some reports had him directing all the scenes involving the star; others took the view that primarily he played the role of consultant, on set to offer advice. Even with his presence, the movie came in 18 days over schedule – 25 per cent longer than planned. Unlike the later Apocalypse Now (1979), it didn’t go anywhere near South-East Asia so the location didn’t add any of Coppola’s lush atmosphere, though the almost constant rain in Georgia, while a bugbear for the actors, helped authenticity.

It was filmed instead on five acres of Government land around Fort Benning, Georgia, hence pine forests rather than tropical trees. President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Department of Defense offered full cooperation. But that was only after the producers complied with Army stipulations regarding the screenplay. James Lee Barratt’s script was altered to show the Vietnamese involved in defending the camp and the kidnapped was switched from being over the border. Also axed, though this time by the studio, was Wayne’s wish for a romantic element – the studio preferred more action. Sheree North (Madigan, 1968) was offered the role of Wayne’s wife but she also turned it down on political grounds. Vera Miles (The Hellfighters, 1968) was cast but she was edited out prior to release.

The Army provided UH-1 Huey helicopters, the Air Force chipped in with C-130 Hercules transports, A-1 Skyraiders and the AC-47 Puff the Magic Dragon gunship and also the airplane that utilized the skyhook system. Actors and extras were kitted out in the correct jungle fatigues and uniforms. Making a cameo appearance was Col Welch, commander of the Army Airborne School at Ft Benning. The sequence of soldiers doing drill was actually airborne recruits.

The attack on the camp is based on the Battle of Nam Dong in 1964 when the defenders saw off a much bigger enemy unit.

This set was built on a hill inside Fort Benning. The authentic detail included barbed wire trenches and punji sticks plus the use of mortar fire. While the camp was destroyed during filming the other villages were later used for training exercises. .

The pressure told on the Duke physically – he lost 15lb. But the oppressive heat and weather of that location – it was mostly shot in summer 1967 – was nothing compared to the reviews. It was slated by the critics with Wayne’s age for an active commander called into question, never mind the parachuting, the gung-ho heroics and the dalliance in an upmarket nightclub.

“In terms of Wayne’s directorial career,” wrote his biographer Scott Eyman, “The Alamo has many defenders, The Green Berets has none.” That assessment, of course, would be to ignore the moviegoers around the world who bought tickets and put the picture into reasonable profit.

Wayne was clear in his own mind about the kind of movie – “about good against bad” – he was making and accommodated neither gray areas nor took note of current attitudes to the war as exemplified by nationwide demonstrations. Co-stars David Janssen, Jim Hutton and George Takei were opposed to the war. Takei, a regular on the Star Trek series, missed a third of the episodes on the second season; his lines were written to suit the character of Chekov, who went on to have a bigger role in the television series. Composer Elmer Bernstein turned down the gig as it went against his political beliefs. “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” heard over the opening credits was not composed for the film, having been released two years earlier.

Most critics hated it – “Truly monstrous ineptitude” (New York Times); “cliché-ridden throwback” (Hollywood Reporter); “immoral” (Glamour). Even those reviews that were mixed still came down hard: “rip-roaring Vietnam battle story…but certainly not an intellectual piece” (Motion Picture Exhibitor). Not that Wayne was too concerned. At the more vital place of judgement – the box office – it took in $9.5 million in rentals (what’s returned to the studios once cinemas have taken their cut) – $8.7 million on original release and a bit more in reissue – in the U.S. alone plus a good chunk overseas.

It was virtually impossible to examine a movie like this without taking a political stance. Other movies covering the same topic were allowed greater latitude regarding authenticity, audiences and critics like appearing to accept that creating watchable drama often took precedence over the facts. Both The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now, considered the best of this sub-genre, clearly ventured away from strict reality. With over half a century distancing the contemporary viewer from those inflammatory times, it’s worth noting that it still divides critics. Or, rather, critics and the general public take opposing views.

Although Rotten Tomatoes deems it “an exciting war film”, the critics voting on that platform gave it a lowly 23 per cent favourable report compared to a generally positive 61 per cent from the ordinary viewer. That contrasts, for example, with a more even split for the likes of Exodus (1960) – 63 per cent from critics and 69 per cent from audiences. However, The Green Berets attracts twice as much interest, collaring 9,000 votes compared to just 4,300 for Exodus.

After this, Wayne’s fee went up to a flat million bucks a picture. “He wasn’t a guarantee of success,” explained his son Michael, “he was a guarantee against failure.” At this point in his career, he was gold-plated. Where other stars in his commercial league suffered the occasional box office lapse – Paul Newman’s career in the 1960s, for example, was riddled with flops like The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968) – he did not. Especially with a global following, his pictures never lost money.

SOURCES: Michael Munn, John Wayne, The Man Behind the Myth, Robson, 2004; Scott Eyman, John Wayne, The Life and Legend, Simon and Schuster, 2014; Brian Hannan, The Magnificent 60s, The 100 Top Films at the Box Office, McFarland, 2023; Robin Moore, Introduction, The Green Berets, 1999 edition, Skyhorse Publishing; Laurence H. Suid, Guts and Glory, University of Lexington Press, 2002; The Making of The Green Berets, 2020; Review, Hollywood Reporter, June 17, 1968; Review, Motion Picture Exhibitor, June 19, 1968; Renata Adler, “The Absolute End of the ‘Romance of War’”, New York Times, June 30, 1968; Glamour, October 1968; “Big Rental Pictures of 1968,” Variety, January 8, 1969.

Behind the Scenes: United Artists’ Mea Culpa: Why Flops Flopped, 1969-1971, Part Three

Box office hits like Never on Sunday (1960), La Dolce Vita (1960), Zorba the Greek (1964), A Man and a Woman (1966) and Z (1969) gave Hollywood the wrong idea. Studios believed they could take advantage of the cheaper costs of shooting in Europe, set up alliances with critically acclaimed French, Italian, Greek, German and Swedish directors as well as several top overseas marquee names, and create a pipeline of product to fill out release schedules with pictures that were as acceptable to neighborhood cinemas as to arthouses.

The reliance of United Artists on this source was as much to blame for the box office crisis it endured as the other films covered in the first two articles in this series. In many cases, the studio gave directors their head, not reining them in on budgets, allowing several final cut, and assuming that critics and awards at festivals like Cannes, Berlin and Venice would do the job of selling the product to the domestic market.

On the basis of Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski winning the Golden Bear at Berlin for Le Depart / The Departure (1967) starring Jean-Luc Godard protege Jean-Pierre Leaud – and its subsequent arthouse success – UA bequeathed him big-budget The Adventures of Gerard (1970), set during the Napoleonic War, based on a book by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, and headlined by rising British star Peter McEnery (Negatives, 1968) and established Italian import Claudia Cardinale (The Professionals, 1966) and a supporting cast including Jack Hawkins and Eli Wallach.

“The picture turned out to be one of the worst disasters in the history of the company,” the company directors told the shareholders. “It was the result of reliance on one of the new fashionable foreign film directors. The picture was beset by problems due to the unprofessional excesses…indulged in by the director.” The outcome was a movie that could not be reshaped into a “more acceptable form” and that ending up occupying “a limbo area between adventure and farce.” Prospects were so poor, the studio doubted if it would even recoup marketing and advertising costs never mind any of the production costs.

Theoretically, Burn! / Quiemada (1969) should have fared better. At least it had a proper star in Marlon Brando, even though his marquee value was being questioned. This had been placed in the hands of Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo whose The Battle of Algiers (1966) had been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The studio had hoped to “combine interesting message with entertainment values.” However, personality conflict between director and star saw the picture to go “way over budget.” Prospects remained dim because “despite all efforts to persuade the director to reduce it to realistic length,” it was deemed overlong and “badly cut.” It fell between the stools of the arthouse audience who would have appreciated the message and the action audience who would have welcomed the more commercial elements. It was marked down for “a substantial loss.”

On the strength of a nomination for the Palme D’Or at Cannes for The Shop on Main Street (1965), the studio backed a project by its Hungarian director Jan Kadar. The Angel Levine (1970) attracted investment because the director had achieved “a certain cult,” the recording career of star Harry Belafonte had reached new heights, and the story was supposed to have a special appeal to ethnic groups. “Everything went wrong. The direction and performance came out slow and leaden. The story…didn’t work.” The picture was over budget and overlong. “The director could not be persuaded to make the necessary cuts” resulting in expectation of another “substantial loss.”

Italian director Elio Petri had enjoyed cult success with the offbeat sci fi The 10^th Victim (1965) starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. For A Quiet Place in the Country (1968) he had lined up top British Oscar-nominated actress Vanessa Redgrave and rising Italian star Franco Nero who had played lovers in Camelot (1967). It was greenlit at a time when the studio believed there was a wider market among discriminating audiences for foreign films previously restricted to arthouses. But it had become clear that films in this category faced “inevitable loss.”

You probably haven’t heard of That Splendid November (1969), greenlit to “fulfill a pay-or-play commitment to Italian star Gina Lollobrigida” (Strange Bedfellows, 1965). While targeting the European market, it was hoped it would do additional business in America. It didn’t. Once again, the director (Mauro Bolognini) was allowed too much leeway. He had not been “persuaded to make the changes that would improve its chances” while the studio discovered that La Lollo had lost her marquee luster.

However, United Artists had also committed to potential “breakout” pictures, foreign movies aimed at American arthouses. The bulk of the overseas pictures that had thrived in the U.S. had done so via the arthouse circuit after being favorably reviewed by critics. These were considered relatively low-cost and low-risk investments. But, as events proved, these were as big a gamble as more high-budget projects.

Red, White and Zero / The White Bus (1967) proved “an utter failure” despite the presence of three top British directors, Lindsay Anderson (This Sporting Life, 1963), Oscar-winner Tony Richardson (Tom Jones, 1963) and Peter Brook. Although made for the arthouse market, these proved fewer in number than anticipated when the film was greenlit.

A French heist film entitled Score “would not be made today,” admitted the UA executives. Hoping to capitalize on the caper genre, the studio discovered no one was interested. Three French pictures, Philippe de Broca’s Give Her the Moon (1970) starring Philippe Noiret, The American and Lent in the Month of March (1968), were written off due to the softening of the arthouse market, as was Yugoslavian number It Rains in My village (1968) starring Annie Girardot. French/Brazilian Pour Un Amour Lointain (1968), “one of the poorer foreign pictures,” had such dismal prospects it was denied U.S. distribution. German picture Gentlemen in White Vests (1970) lacked appeal even its home market.

SOURCE: “Comments supplementing notes to Balance Sheet and Statement of Operations of United Artists Corporation for 1970,” United Artists Archive, Box 1 Folder 12 (Wisconsin Center for Theater and Film Research).

Behind the Scenes: “The Nightcomers” (1972)

Marlon Brando’s box office cachet had crashed. He hadn’t made a picture in two years following the flop of Queimada/Burn (1969) which had followed his debilitating box office trend of most of the decade. While his stock remained high enough to headline such big budget numbers as The Chase (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), thereafter confidence in his marquee value tumbled. Apart from Queimada, he had only been signed up for Night of the Following Day (1968), another loser.

But that last picture had brought him into the orbit of independent producer Elliott Kastner (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) who had been a friend of director Hubert Cornfield (Pressure Point, 1962) when they had both worked as agents at MCA. “Although he was crazy,” recalled Kastner, “I loved his writing and his drive.” Kastner was a fan of Cornfield’s earlier movies especially as they had been delivered on short time schedules. “I wanted to do something with Marlon Brando and he wrote Night of the Following Day.”

Brando still had clout in Hollywood. His three-picture deal with Universal obliged the studio to pony up for any (financially viable) projects he put to them. Kastner was delighted to hop over from his base in London to the French location and although the movie continued the actor’s poor reception at the box office, the producer enjoyed the experience.

Brando wasn’t averse to the “resting” that most actors endure, stints of unemployment between gigs. So when the actor approached Kastner to work with him again, it took the producer by surprise. “Marlon wanted to do a film,” said Kastner, “which was unusual for Marlon because he hides from work. He wanted to do a film in Europe and he loved staying at my house in the country. I talked to (Brando’s agent) Jay Kanter (who later became Kastner’s business partner) about it and we gave him a screenplay called The Nightcomers…that Michael Winner wanted to direct.”

Kastner had liked Winner’s output and was equally attracted to the fact that he also worked fast. Winner was contemptuous of directors who shot too much footage, especially “coverage”, filming a scene from too many different angles. But he was also a very fast editor. He took an editing caravan with him on location, and after the day’s filming ended at 6pm he spent the next two hours watching rushes and another two hours after that editing. His editor Freddie Wilson said,” His speed of decision in the cutting room saves a great deal of time and money.”

Winner had been sitting on the screenplay by Michael Hastings for some time. “No one was rushing to finance it,” remembered Winner, until Brando showed an interest. Winner arranged to meet the actor at his “modest Japanese-style house” in Los Angeles. However, insurance proved a sticking point following payouts for Quiemada.

“On a personal level,” recollected Kastner, “I thought he (Winner) was a bully with waiters. He was really nasty to people beneath him. I didn’t have much (personal) respect for him but he was very amusing.”

Due to scheduling conflict Vanessa Redgrave (Blow-Up, 1966) turned down the role of Miss Jessel. Winner also offered the part to Britt Ekland (The Double Man, 1967) provided she could bring some financing to the project. In the end, remembered Kastner, “Michael wanted to cast this girl with this big bust who was a halfway decent actor.” Neither Redgrave nor Ekland could compare in the bust measurement department to Stephanie Beacham, so clearly chest size was not a priority.

Kastner reckoned Brando “would bring plenty of poetry” to the project. It was remarkably cheap even for a star of Brando’s fading attraction. The budget was $686,000, of which Kastner received $50,000 as a producer’s fee plus 30% of the profits. Winner deferred his fee, only paid if the movie made money. At that point, Kastner was leading the way in finding funding outside the studio system. Funding for When Eight Bells Toll (1970), for example, was entirely sourced from an American businessman. For The Nightcomers, Kastner located investment of $100,000 from a company called Film & General Investments. Universal was involved through its contract with Brando – paying him his $300,000 salary for this picture to count as the final one on his contract, but declined to distribute the picture. For another producer, this might have been enough to kill off the project, but not for Kastner, who, following his current practice, intending to sell the completed film to a distributor.

As far as Kastner was concerned the movie went into immediate profit. Joe Levine of mini major Avco Embassy, still riding high after the success of The Graduate (1967) and The Lion in Winter (1968), ponied up $1 million for the worldwide rights plus a share of the profits. But Avco also limited its exposure, selling a 40% share to businessman Sigmond Summer for $1 million. (Judging from later legal documents, Universal retained some financial interest in the picture).

Brando had decided Quint was Irish. To learn the dialect, Brando and Winner got together with a group of Irishmen in the back room of a pub, one whom became the actor’s dialog coach on location.

The six-week shoot, on locations in Cambridgeshire, Britain, with Sawston Hall doubling as the mansion, began in January 1971. There was another reason for the speed of the shoot. Winner had contracted with United Artists to make Chato’s Land (1972) and there was no time to spare between the movies. Over 100 actresses auditioned for the role of the female orphan. Winner, seeking “someone over 18 who looked 11,” selected Verna Harvey (she also won a role in Chato’s Land).

Although Winner had gone to some expense to set up a private dining room for the star at Sawston Hall, Brando preferred to eat with the crew. According to Winner, despite Brando’s fearsome reputation, he knew all his lines, immensely patient with his young inexperienced co-stars, concerned about the crew, and, as importantly, arrived on time and even watched rushes, a rarity among the profession. Brando used earplugs to prevent distraction from extraneous noise. During the shoot Francis Ford Coppola flew over to spend time discussing the script of The Godfather with Brando.

Brando initially refused to have stills taken of him during the sex scene and only gave in after considerable persuasion, though he kept his wellington boots on. He wanted to leave the drunk soliloquy to the end of shooting. Though he was actually drunk after consuming a lot of Scotch, “he remembered his lines immaculately…(and) also matched his hand movements and body movements, which is very important in movies,” explained Winner, “because if you have to cut different bits of film together if the body or hands or arms are in a different position you’re in trouble.”

Jerry Fielding didn’t record his score until July during a three-day session with an orchestra of 80 at Cine Tele Sounds Studio. Despite his editing prowess, Winner realized his final version didn’t work. “The first cut was too fast. For a moody period film I’d just messed up. I put back seven minutes (of footage) and spent another three weeks getting it right.”

Thanks to its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival alongside the likes of Sunday, Bloody, Sunday (1971), it was touted, perhaps unwisely, as an arthouse picture, rather than majoring on the sex and violence. While Variety tabbed it a “grippingly atmospheric thriller,” only two out of the five most influential New York critics gave it the thumbs-up.

A distribution deal was not struck till the end of 1971. Rather than potentially riding along in the slipstream of The Godfather (1972), which was already attracting huge hype, Avco decided that it was better to come out before the Mafia picture than risk being swamped in its wake. But there was confidence in the project. “Joe Levine thought the film was so brilliant we didn’t have to wait for The Godfather,” related Winner.

It launched first in America, opening in February 1972 – beating The Godfather to the punch by a month – at the 430-seat Baronet arthouse in New York. The opening week of $20,700 was rated “nice” and held well for the second week before plummeting to $11,000 in the third week. It was yanked after six weeks.

By the time it spread out into the rest of the country, The Godfather rollercoaster was well into it stride, but the early release had not particularly gathered any pace and in the aftermath of the Coppola movie it was certainly buried. It opened to $6,500 in Boston compared to The Godfather’s second week of $140,000. There was a “scant” $39,000 from 13 houses in Los Angeles, a “modest” $4,000 in Louisville though $5,000 in San Francisco was rated “brisk” and the same amount in Washington “snappy.

Initially, at least, Britain appeared more propitious. It opened in key West End venue the 1,400-seat Leicester Square Theatre to a “loud” $24,700 and though it dropped $10,100 in the second week, the third and fourth weeks improved on the second. Eight weeks into its West End run, when it was still pulling down $13,300, The Godfather put it to the sword with a record-breaking $191,000 from five West End houses. After that pummelling, The Nightcomers managed only three further weeks.

In fact, the movie did surprisingly well, especially overseas. Total rentals came to $1.69 million, a clear million-dollar profit on the negative cost. While less than half a million came from the U.S., and only $160,000 from Britain, the overseas market kicked in the bulk of revenue – $986,000 – possibly because it was released after The Godfather (1972) rather than, as in the UK and the US, before. In the run-up to and in the wake of The Missouri Breaks (1976), it was included in Brando perspectives at the Museum of Fine Arts, where it was presented as a “novel film…lost in the shadow of The Godfather,” and Carnegie Hall. But an attempt at commercial reissue proved disastrous – a “weak” $1200 in Pittsburgh.

Except from a financial perspective, Kastner wasn’t especially impressed, calling it “grim, boring, contemptuous of story, oblique.” Viewers, including me, beg to disagree.

SOURCES: Elliott Kastner’s Unpublished Memoirs, courtesy of Dillon Kastner; Elliott Kastner Archive, courtesy of Dillon Kastner; Michael Winner, Winner Takes All, (Robson Books, 2004); “Production Review,” Kine Weekly, January 23, 1971, p10; “Not So Young,” Kine Weekly, May 22, 1971, p16;“Jerry Fielding,” Kine Weekly, July 17, 1971, p10; “Michael Winner,” Kine Weekly, August 13, 1971, p10; “Nightcomers to Avemb,” Variety, January, 19,1972, p5; “New York Critics,” Variety, February 23, 1972, p35; “Picture Grosses”, Variety, 1972: February 23-April 26, June 7-14; July 19- Sep 27; “Broadway,” Box Office, February 9, 1976, pE2; “Museum of Fine Arts,” Box Office, October 18.

Behind the Scenes: “One-Eyed Jacks” (1961)

A three-hour western epic directed by Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968), written by Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, 1969) and The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling and starring Spencer Tracy (Judgement at Nuremberg, 1961) and Marlon Brando. What’s not to like? That all of these major players, with the exception of Brando, had nothing to do with the final product was par for the course for a movie that didn’t reach cinema screens until two years after shooting was completed.

Marlon Brando was riding high when the project was first mooted in 1956. The box office and critical sensation of the 1950s, four Oscar nominations in successive years, winner for On the Waterfront (1954), his price was rising by the minute. And he had ambitions to take control of his career, set up his own production shingle, a trend that was beginning to gather pace.

He established Pennebaker (named after his mother) Productions in 1957 with ex-marketeer Walter Seltzer, producer of 711 Ocean Drive (1950), and George Glass, a former partner in Stanley Kramer’s independent production company. Paramount agreed to back the company. A western, A Burst of Vermilion, was intended as the company’s first offering. Soon there were five movies on the schedule including The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones by Charles Neider.

Brando had paid $150,000 for the rights to the book and a script by Sam Peckinpah. The original title was changed to Guns Up. It was going to mark the debut of the new Pennebaker outfit ahead of other projected movies like Shake Hands with the Devil to star James Cagney and Anthony Perkins (he didn’t make it to the final cast), The Raging Man and Ride, Comancheros (no relation to The Comancheros, 1961) and C’Est La Vie to be filmed in Paris.

Paramount paid through the nose, committing to an unprecedented deal. The studio would fund the entire cost of Guns Up and as well as $150,000 upfront Brando would receive 100 per cent of the profits, Paramount relying on its 27% of the gross as a distribution fee to turn a profit. Stanley Kubrick, riding high after Paths of Glory (1957), was hired to direct. While the studio preferred Spencer Tracy as co-star, Brando wanted old buddy Karl Malden who had co-starred with Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront, winning an Oscar for the former and a nomination for the latter.

And in part to reflect the Asian community in Monterey, location of the main section of the film, he also wanted current squeeze France Nuyen (A Girl Named Tamiko, 1962) to play his lover in the film, but Kubrick was aghast and instead cast Mexican debutante Pina Pellicer (Rogelia, 1962). There were roles for Katy Jurado (Barabbas, 1962) and recognizable western types like Ben Johnson (The Undefeated, 1969), Slim Pickens (Firecreek, 1968) and Elisha Cook Jr (The Great Bank Robbery, 1969).

Shooting was set for June 1958, then it shifted to September and then November. To Brando’s shock, Kubrick pulled out two weeks before production was due to begin, citing pre-production on Lolita (which, ironically, didn’t go ahead for a couple of years). To salvage the situation, Brando decided to direct. He wasn’t the first actor to go down this route, especially if you count Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Orson Welles as actors first and foremost. Laurence Olivier helmed Henry V (1944) and three others, Jose Ferrer The Cockleshell Heroes (1955), hoofer Gene Kelly Singin’ in the Rain (1951) and Charles Laughton Night of the Hunter, 1955. So he was in good company.

Cameras turned on December 2, 1958. It was an auspicious era for westerns, a total of 41 had appeared that year. Although budgeted for three months, it took six months to shoot in locations like Sonora in Mexico and Monterey in California (where the film was set) as well as Pfeiffer Beach on the Big Sur and the Warner Ranch.

Although prior to shooting commencing the title had changed to One-Eyed Jacks, scoring and editing were well in hand and Paramount announced it as one of its 17 pictures set for 1959 release. In the end Shake Hands with the Devil beat it to the punch as Pennebaker’s initial release, in 1959. But it didn’t favor so well, skipping the more lucrative but riskier Broadway first run in favour of hitting the circuits.

Meanwhile, Brando was angling for a three-hour running time. The budget kept increasing. The original $2m budget had doubled. Eventually, Paramount acknowledged it had cost $5 million though other estimates put it closer to $6 million.

Part of the problem in readying it for release was Brando’s other commitments. He was still a working actor and could hardly resist the offer of a record-setting one million bucks to star in The Fugitive Kind (1960). Even so, the bigger problem was not time, but experience and a first-time director being unable to make up his mind, having shot a colossal amount of footage and having tremendous difficulty trimming it down to workable length. Paramount still had it on the release agenda in 1960. It was going to be a “special release,” which most people took, especially given the running time, to be roadshow.

But by December 1960, the studio had waited long enough and just before Xmas the studio took over the editing and after editing out around 40 minutes from Brando’s three hour cut, Paramount scheduled it for a world premiere in New York in March 20, 1961, in a kind of semi-roadshow – moviegoers could buy in advance but the tickets did not come with reserved seats, which was the whole point of roadshow. Nor were prices hiked, which was gave roadshow its prestige.

Already deemed “Brando’s Folly” and coming in the wake of The Alamo (1960), the John Wayne-directed epic which had flopped in roadshow, commercial hopes were not high. In part, because production had been so long ago it had skipped under the journalistic radar which was concentrating on skewering The Alamo and the equally troubled The Misfits (1961). So it didn’t come trailing disaster. Still, it seemed more likely, audiences would not take to the odd tale which didn’t fit so easily into the western genre. Plus Brando’s previous effort The Fugitive Kind had been his first outright flop.

Turned out, though, Brando still was a major attraction. It snaffled a “huge” $81,000 in its opener at the 4,820-seat Capitol in New York. There was a “smasheroo” $21,000 in Detroit, a “big” $14,000 in Buffalo, a “hotsy” $15,000 in Cincinnati. “Giant” was the preferred adjective, covering $60,000 in Chicago, $32,000 in Philadelphia and $15,000 in Boston.

Rentals (what studios make after cinemas have taken their share of the gross) amounted to a very decent $4.3 million, enough to rank seventeenth for the year. And whereas those figures were considered decent enough, it did “substantially better abroad.”

So, more than likely, against all the self-destructive odds, it earned a profit.

SOURCES: Stefan Kanfer, Somebody, The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando (Faber & Faber, 2008); “Glass, Seltzer in Brando Co Berths,” Variety, April 17, 1957, p22; “Chatter, Hollywood,” Variety, May 22, 1957, p62; “Marlon Brando Guns Up for Paramount,” Variety, April 30, 1958, p22; “Chatter, Paris,” Variety, July 30, 1958, p126; “Brando Gets 100% of Film Profit!”, Variety, August 6, 1958, p1; “Briefs from Lots,” Variety, September 24, 1958, p15; “Marlon Brando’s Own,” Variety, November 26, 1958, p5; “Shake Hands First with Circuits,” Variety, May 6, 1959, p4; “Brando’s Ugly American,” Variety, July 1, 1959, p3; “Par 17 Pix Set for Release,” Variety, July 15, 1959, p5; “Par Division Eyes Upcoming Product,” Variety, November 25, 1959, p22; “Doubt or Delay re Brando’s Jacks,” Variety, August 10, 1960, p3; “Brando Jacks Editing,” Variety, December 21, 1960, p7; Advert, Variety, January 6, 1960, p32; Box Office Figures, Variety, April 5-Jul 24, 1961; “Hoss Operas in O’Seas Gallop,” Variety, August 23, 1961, p16; “1961 Rentals and Potential,” Variety, January 10, 1962, p13.

Behind the Scenes: “The Chairman / The Most Dangerous Man in the World” (1969)

Had things run according to the original plan, we could have seen Frank Sinatra return to a Communist country for the first time since The Manchurian Candidate (1962). But if you had wanted to write a script about the guy who wrote The Chairman, you couldn’t have invented a more interesting character than Samuel Richard Solomonick. He was one of those guy who held every job under the sun before reinventing himself as an anticommunist going by the name of Jay Richard Kennedy and subsequently entering the fields of real estate, radio and brokerage, then landing a gig managing Harry Belafonte and writing the screenplay for I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955).

By the time he ended up as an executive at Sinatra Enterprises he had a couple of ideas to sell. Forming Jade Productions in 1966 with director Richard Quine (How To Murder Your Wife, 1965), the pair hooked Sinatra’s interest in two projects, Follow the Runner (which would have co-starred Sammy Davis Jr) and The Chairman plus William Holden eyeing the lead in The Wordlings about the population explosion.

*That’s Gregory Peck trapped on the wrong side of the Russian border with Chinese soldiers closing in.*

Sinatra was known for falling out with directors, shunting Mark Robson off The Detective (1968), so whether Quine would have lasted the pace is anybody’s guess. After success with Tony Rome (1967), Twentieth Century Fox briefly toyed with the prospect of pairing Sinatra and new wife Mia Farrow in The Chairman. Originally scheduled to begin shooting on January 1967, that later shifted to early 1968. The notion that the movie also had parts for Spencer Tracy and Yul Brynner was one of those puff pieces that some journalists swallowed.

Despite some enticing projects – he was first name down to direct Catch 22, after Columbia had spent $150,000 buying the novel, and to helm the screen translation of Broadway hit The Owl and the Pussycat – Richard Quine’s career teetered after the flop of Hotel (1967). Making no headway with Sinatra he made instead another flop, Oh Dad Poor Dad (1967) and was effectively put on furlough for three years after failing to finance a movie to star Alex Guinness and Lee Radziwill.

Quine exited The Chairman in May 1967 when former PR bigwig Arthur P. Jacobs took over the production and with Sinatra in absentia turned to British director J. Lee Thompson who had helmed the producer’s debut picture What a Way to Go (1964). And that proved a lucky break for Thompson who had yet to match the success of The Guns of Navarone (1961).

After successive flops – Return from the Ashes (1965) and Eye of the Devil (1966) – Thompson had plenty projects on the boil including a musical remake of Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) with a score by Richard Rodgers and Peter Ustinov playing the lead. Also on his slate was High Citadel based on the Desmond Bagley bestseller; The Harp That Once for Columbia; an adaptation of James Clavell bestseller Tai Pan; a sequel to The Guns of Navarone called After Navarone that would reunite the director with star Gregory Peck and writer-producer Carl Foreman; and Planet of the Apes (1968) to which he and Jacobs held the rights.

While none of these projects – except Planet of the Apes and minus Thompson – came to fruition, the Navarone connection would lead to Mackenna’s Gold for Foreman. In the meantime he had helmed a modest drama, Before Winter Comes (1968) starring Broadway star Topol. When Arthur P. Jacobs greenlit The Chairman, he hired Thompson who looked no further than Peck, connection re-established via the Navarone sequel. They were a four-time pairing – Cape Fear (1962) and Mackenna’s Gold and The Guns of Navarone. Peck was a controversial choice from the Twentieth Century Fox perpsective given he had broken a contract with the studio in 1960 to star in Let’s Make Love. But Jacobs smoothed ruffled studio feathers and paid his star $500,000 plus a percentage. With Jacobs on hands-on duty with Planet of the Apes (1968) – Mort Abrahams oversaw the production of The Chairman and immediately engaged in a budget dispute with the director. Jacobs had initially stipulated $4 million, Thompson believed he required another million. They didn’t quite split the difference, Fox had the film come in at $4.9 million.

Thompson recognized the problems of the script, pointing out that “the hardest thing for Americans about the film’s concept is accepting that China has some competent scientists.” Rather ingenuously, he averred that the movie would have “no political overtones,” while Abrahams retorted that it might have “some political overtones.” It would been obvious to anyone that a picture featuring Mao was bound to have political repercussions, his Little Red Book a massive bestseller on the campus, an album cut of recitations from the book and Edward Albee in 1968 premiering a play called Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.

Denied access to China, the production team spent four months “reading everything we could get our hands on.” At one point they considered dropping the scene featuring Chairman Mao and lengthening the sequence relating to Peck’s arrival in Hong Kong. In any case, different versions of the Hong Kong environs were shot, some with nude shots of girls in a house of pleasure.

The British Colonial Office in Hong Kong blocked filming there after fears of riots due to the production daring to portray Mao Tse-Tung on screen. Taiwan substituted for China although the locals there were also incensed, so much so they burned an effigy of Peck. Wales, funnily enough, was another location as was London University. Filming began on August 28 and finished on December 3.

Although it might appear that Ben Maddow (The Way West, 1967) wrote his script based on Jay Richard Kennedy’s novel, in fact the novel appeared after the screenplay with Kennedy writing the novelizaton, and it’s more likely that what Maddow adapted was the original Kennedy screenplay. Interestingly enough, around this time Maddow had first crack at the Edward Naughton western novel that became McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971).

It wasn’t the first time Variety got a prediction wrong: “powerful box office attaction” fell far short of the actual results. This proved an annus miserabilis for Gregory Peck. In fact, he had four films, not three, released in 1969. By release date The Stalking Moon technically belonged to the previous year, but it only played a handful of cinemas in 1968, its general release taking place in 1969.

Despite pocketing a total of over $2 million, Peck’s marquee value was in clear decline. Of the Peck quartet, Marooned did best, placing 33^rd on the annual box office chart, with $4.1 million. Mackenna’s Gold (31^st) took $3.1 million in rentals (the amount returned from the gross once a cinema has taken its cut), The Stalking Moon (38^th) on $2.6 million, and The Chairman (41^st) with $2.5 million.

SOURCES: Gary Fishgall, Gregory Peck (Scribners, 2002) p267; James Caplan, Sinatra: The Chairman, (Doubleday, 2015), p724; “7 from 7 Arts,” Variety, March 3, 1965, p4; “Richard Quine,” Variety, July 7, 1965, p20; “Return of Advances,” Variety, October 6, 1965, p7; “Form Jade Prods,” Variety, December 15, 1965, p4; “J Lee Thompson Nearly Finished on 13,” Variety, February 2, 1966, p28; “Catch As Catch 22 Can,” Variety, February 23, 1966, p4; “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Musical Henry VIII,” Variety, Mar 16, 1966, p1; “Inside Stuff – Pictures,” Variety, March 30, 1966, p22; “Lee Thompson Busily Blueprints His Musical Version of Henry VIII,” Variety, April 27, 1966, p17; “Jay Kennedy Script,” Variety, July 6, 1966, p5; “After Navarone,” Variety, April 19, 1967, p14; “Scripting Red Chinese,” Variety, May 21, 1967, p4; “”Personality Chemistry,” Variety, May 24, 1967, p4; New York Soundtrack,” Variety, Sep 20, 1967, p27; “Pat Hall Noel to Col,” Variety, December 27, 1967, p5; “N.Y. Indie Label Grooves Chairman Mao’s Thoughts,” Variety, April 10, 1968, p56; “Man About Town,” Variety, July 17, 1968, p68; “Jas Clavell to Roll Siege,” Variety, August 21, 1968, p7; “Thompson Wraps Up,” Variety, August 28, 1968, p29; “New York Soundtrack,” Variety, October 23, 1968, p18; “British Bar Fox’s Chairman,” Variety, December 4, 1968, p17; Big Rental Films of 1969,” Variety, January 7, 1970, p15; “Big Rental Films of 1970,” Variety, January 6, 1971, p11.

Behind the Scenes: The Box Office Bump

Ancillary – the famed “long tail” – has all but disappeared. Used to be movie studios could count on up to 90 per cent of a picture’s overall earnings coming after it had completed its initial run in the cinemas. Until streaming cut off ancillary at the pass, that long tail consisted of an extraordinary number of revenue streams. Once a film was out of the cinemas, and assuming it wasn’t going to return in a steady reissue pattern like the James Bond or Disney movies or blockbusters such as Star Wars, its ancillary journey would begin with VHS/DVD (of which there were several sub-streams), then television (again, sub-divided into network, cable, syndication, and specialist operations like Turner) and then you could still be talking remake. Plus, you could bunch up an entire library of old pictures and sell them on again. The beauty of the system was that when movies hit whatever ancillary segment, there was rarely any such thing as an outright buy. Movies were leased. That meant every three or four years they could be sold all over again.

The forerunner of ancillary was network television. Television had begun mopping up old movies by the bucketload in the 1950s, and in such quantities that the attraction of old movies on the small screen prevented audiences seeking out new movies on the big screen and in part accounted for the steady decline of the moviegoing habit. By the 1960s, networks were beginning to fork out big bucks for individual pictures – Cleopatra (1963) going for several million.

By the 1970s, the income from a television showing of a movie could exceed what it had made at the cinema. For United Artists, in the period 1970-1972 (this covers the dates films were made not when released), television sales, calculated on an overall annual basis, brought in at least an extra 24 per cent on top of revenue from cinema release. That figure came from 1970, but in 1971 that shot up to 38 per cent and the following year dipped slightly to 37 per cent. And that was just for the United States. Although other countries tended to pay a lot less for movies, they still paid something and in total might bring in half as much again.

The ancillary gold mine had started to pay off big time. In the 1960s, the amounts networks ponied up for television rights depended very much on initial box office, the assumption being there was some obvious correlation between the numbers who would go to see a particular movie at the cinema and the size of the subsequent television audience. And while it was true the biggest cinematic blockbusters tended to attract the biggest television audiences, it was soon equally clear that television audiences were as segmented as much as cinema ones and therefore the amounts paid by networks for individual movies began to show sharp divergence.

There was no doubting that James Bond ruled the television roost as far as UA was concerned in 1970-1972. Diamonds Are Forever and Live and Let Die, regardless of U.S. box office – the former earning $20 million in rentals (the studio’s share of the box office), the latter $16.2 million – were each sold to American television for the same, princely, sum of $5.2 million, by far and away the most any movie pulled in.

Not far behind was Fiddler on the Roof which netted $5.12 million. But here’s the kicker – the musical earned more than both Bonds put together, a colossal $37 million in rentals. but in terms of attracting a television audience was considered a weaker proposition than both. But musicals were believed to be somehting of a golden goose for television, otherwise how to acocunt for Tom Sawyer which cost networks $2.76 million. Comparatively speaking, that made no logical sense because it had only taken in $5 million in rentals. But family-friendly fare was so rare it had networks duking it out for the rights. A third musical Man of La Mancha went to television for $1.7 million having racked up just$3.7 million at the cinema.

Conversely, networks weren’t remotely interested in films with a sex theme, no matter how well they had done at the box office. Last Tango in Paris had harnessed a colossal $16 million in rentals but was worth only $120,000 (yes, that’s right, $120,000) to any television station willing to show it (heavily cut of course). It didn’t even matter if you took a comedic approach to sex. Woody Allen’s Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex hauled in $8.2 million at the cinema but only $130,000 from television. But maybe Woody Allen was the problem. Bananas, with a highly-profitable $3.3 million at the box office, could only manage less than half a million from television, the comedian perhaps considered an acquired taste which not enough of the public had acquired.

But television, rather than being viewed as the perennial enemy, was often seen as salvation for under-performing movies, maybe not recouping the entire negative costs but going some way to stem the flow of red ink. And perhaps the more interesting statistics relate to those pictures which earned more from television than they did in their entire U.S. cinema run.

Michael Winner espionage thriller Scorpio headlined by Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon notched up $1.35 million at the cinema but $1.56 million from television. Similarly, Robert Altman’s critically-acclaimed The Long Goodbye with Elliott Gould as the iconic private eye picked up a mere $1 million at the U.S. cinema compared to $1.51 million from a network. Another private eye caper, Hickey and Boggs, teaming Robert Culp (who also directed) and Bill Cosby from a Walter Hill script, had snapped up just $900,000 from cinemas but $1.2 million from television. Cops and Robbers hoisted $1.32 million in small screen larceny as against $1.2 million elsewhere.

Westerns The Magnificent Seven Ride, the fourth in the series, and Ted Kotcheff’s Billy Two Hats starring Gregory Peck and with a script from Scotsman Alan Sharp, both did better financially from television than cinema. The former’s small screen take was $1.16 million compared to $750,000 from the cinema, the latter $1.15 million compared to $440,000. But for The Hunting Party with a top-line cast of Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen and Oliver Reed it went the other way, the $460,000 from television going hardly any way to offset the paltry $800,000 from cinemas.

It’s possible that star power, and weighted towards veterans, counted more in television. As well as Scorpio, Lancaster westerns Valdez Is Coming and Lawman tucked away $1.47 million and $1.5 million, respectively, from their television outings.

SOURCE: “Results of Distribution of Released Pictures (by production year),” MCHC 82, Box 1, Folder 8, The United Artists Archive, University of Wisconsin.

Behind the Scenes: Biggest Films in Australia 1960-1969

Information about how films performed outside the United States in the 1960s was incredibly difficult to obtain. Foreign or worldwide grosses were not reported in any consistent fashion – if at all – during that decade. Even the box office I’ve been able to report on previously, i.e. United Artists, just listed foreign as one all-encompassing entity, not breaking it down by country. So, when the opportunity does arise, it’s fascinating to observe how audiences in different countries react to what comes down the line.

Probably it will come as no surprise to discover that the top film of the 1960s in Australia was The Sound of Music. The musical brought in $4.4 million in rentals (the amount returned to studios once cinemas have taken their cut of the gross). It was the number one film, by a considerable margin, in the United States as well. Astonishingly, given the population differential (12.5 million Aussie inhabitants by 1970 vs 203 million in the US) the rentals were, proportionately, on a par, the movie hauling in $72 million in rentals on home territory.

Second place in Australia went to David Lean blockbuster Doctor Zhivago (#3 in the U.S.) with $2.6 million followed by My Fair Lady (#7 Stateside) on $2 million, in both instances, pro rata, bettering their U.S. box office.

The biggest surprise of the decade was the performance of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (#39 Stateside) which rocked up in fourth place with $1.7 million. You could probably say the same for the next picture on the list, Lee Marvin-Clint-Eastwood-Jean Seberg musical Paint Your Wagon, which struggled at the US box office. Australia rentals hooked $1.44 million.

Australians proved largely impervious to the flood of westerns that had struck pay dirt at the U.S box office. Big Stateside hitters like How the West Was Won (#12), True Grit (#47), Cat Ballou (#62), The Professionals (#69), The Alamo (#73) and Shenandoah (#77) don’t feature on this list. The exception was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (#28) which raced to $1.31 million and placed seventh Down Under.

Whether humor would travel was difficult to predict. As well as Those Magnificent Men, comedies ranking better in Australia than in the U.S. were: It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (#18 Stateside) which took sixth spot here on $1.3 million; Tom Jones (#23) 10^th here with $1.06 million; The Great Race (#54) 16^th here on $884,000; and Irma La Douce (#43) 20^th here with $832,000.

But The Graduate, the second-best performing movie in the U.S., failed to emulate that success, coming in 12^th here with $1.02 million. Likewise, comedies that were massive in the U.S. made less of an impact, neither The Odd Couple (#14 Stateside) nor The Love Bug (#22^nd) making this list.

Aussies were as appreciative as U.S. audiences of Sidney Poitier’s breakthrough duo Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (#10) whose $1.08 million secured ninth position here and To Sir, With Love (#19) which took 11^th spot on $1.05 million.

There was comparatively less interest in the spy genre that swamped American cinemas during the decade. James Bond was not the bonanza it was Stateside. Thunderball, ranked 8^th in the U.S., Goldfinger ranked 11^th, and You Only Live Twice ranked 20^th were, 21^st , 22^nd and 30th, respectively here, and not commanding, proportionately, anything like similar rentals.

With $1 million in the kitty, Oliver! outranked both West Side Story ($902,000) and Camelot ($833,000) whereas in the U.S. the situation had been reversed. Here, respectively, they snapped up 13^th, 15^th and 19^th spots whereas in America it had gone 55^th, 17^th and 45^th.

Three outliers which had not made the U.S. Top 100 performed far better in Australia: Battle of Britain with $776,000 tallied up 23^rd spot, Born Free with $721,000 homed in on 26^th spot and The Great Escape shot up $543,000 for 32^nd. Some other movies in the American Top 100 did considerably better in Australia. Lawrence of Arabia (#28) tracked to 8^th spot in Australia with $1.1 million. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Hatari!, joint 92^nd in the U.S rankings, topped out at 29^th and 33^rd, respectively, in the Aussie version.

Controversy didn’t fly so well. Of pictures that fell into that category, the best results came from Midnight Cowboy. It was ranked 52^nd in the U.S. rentals race but clocked up $846,000 in Australia to land 18^th place. Conversely, The Dirty Dozen, 16^th in the U.S., only managed 28^th. But other movies laden with sex, drugs, profanity or violence proved to have less appeal. Bonnie and Clyde (#13 Stateside), Valley of the Dolls (#14), The Carpetbaggers (#26), Rosemary’s Baby (#28), Planet of the Apes (#28) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (#37) failed to make the cut.

SOURCES: “All-Time Aussie Rental Champs,” Variety, May 5, 1982, p54; Brian Hannan, The Magnificent 60s, The 100 Most Popular Films of a Revolutionary Decade (McFarland, 2022).

Behind the Scenes: “The Wicker Man” (1973) at the Box Office

Cult films don’t come any bigger than The Wicker Man (1973). Regarded as a box office flop in Britain at the time of initial release, it struggled to gain any traction in the U.S., only managing a truncated release there towards the end of the decade. However, closer examination of the box office reveals a different story and suggests both that distributor British Lion was rather harsh in declaring it a box office disaster and that more careful handling on the delayed U.S. release could have produced better results.

In the U.K., it was denied a stand-alone release and went out as the second feature to the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Don’t Look Now (1973) directed with some style by Nicolas Roeg and starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, and which has, assuredly, stood the test of time. Several weeks after Don’t Look Now launched as a solo feature on October 1973 at the prestigious Odeon Leicester Square in London’s West End it shifted in December to the less prestigious Metropole where it was coupled with The Wicker Man.

It’s my considered opinion that the reason the double bill managed such a long run – around five months – in the West End, moving between various cinemas, was, in substantial part, due to The Wicker Man. It had been released with virtually no fanfare and relied on word-of-mouth to attract an audience and I think it was the beginnings of that cult recognition that resulted in the double bill playing as long.

Given Don’t Look Now was a verified box office hit as a solo feature, it made little sense to couple it with an unfavored second feature since at this point the double bill was losing ground at cinemas. A single bill meant more performances, especially on the vital weekends, and therefore the potential for greater box office.

One of the elements that backed the notion that The Wicker Man was more important to the double bill than the distributors cared to acknowledge was that the fall-off week-by-week was minimal. The double bill played on in London’s West End long after it had completed a circuit run on the Odeon chain, suggesting that its attraction was perhaps due to the unexpected pulling power of The Wicker Man.

In its accounts, British Lion wrote off a $470,000 loss against The Wicker Man. But that seems like an accounting trick. The distributor had a choice in how it allocated the box office. A supporting feature could expect to receive little more than a flat fee as its share of the box office if it was deemed a B-feature. A genuine double bill – and bear in mind that horror maestro Christopher Lee was a box office attraction in Britain – would split the proceeds. That British Lion opted to treat it as a second feature, allowing it to maneuver the box office against the picture. Otherwise, given its low budget, it would certainly have turned a profit. The loss seems even more baffling when you take into account that it was sold to 17 countries.

In any case, since nobody else has tracked The Wicker Man’s actual performance in the UK and the U.S., I thought it might be interesting to do so.

UK (LONDON WEST END) BOX OFFICE 1973-1974

Don’t Look Now/The Wicker Man

Metropole (1,394 seats)

December 19 1973: – $5,300 (Variety deemed this “anaemic”)

December 26 1973: – $4,700

January 2 1974: – $4,900

January 9 1974: – $13,200

January 16 1974: – $9,700 (“very good”)

January 23 1974: – $8,700 (“fine”)

January 30 1974: – $7,700

Odeon Kensington (1,883 seats)

January 16 1974: – $16,800 (“boff”)

January 23 1974: – $13,700 (“robust”)

January 30 1974: – $10,900 (“fancy”)

February 6 1974: – $10,800

February 13 1974: – $9,300 (“stylish”)

February 20 1974: – $6,100

Odeon Haymarket (600 seats)

February 20 1974: – $6,000

February 27 1974: – $8,300

March 6 1974: – $7,700

March 13 1974: – $6,800

March 20 1974: – $7,400

March 27 1974: – $7,100

April 3 1974: – $6,900

April 10, 1974: – $5,700

Cincenta 3 (150 seats)

April 24 1974: – $2,600 (“nice”)

Cinecenta 2 (150 seats)

May 1 1974: – $2,700

It was pretty much unheard of in London’s West for a programme to move around five cinemas, and, with the exception of Cinecenta, running for so long at each venue with a low drop-off week-by-week (steeper falls would have seen runs more speedily terminated). And when it came to the U.S. release, half a decade later, as you can see, much to everyone’s surprise, The Wicker Man on its own delivered both some notable opening figures and lengthy runs.

US BOX OFFICE 1977-1981

The Wicker Man only

Although being rated “R” by the U.S. censor in April 1974 and being reviewed by Variety in May 15 1974, The Wicker Man failed to gain any release in the U.S. even though one-time partner Don’t Look Now was widely distributed. The Wicker Man received a promotional fillip after winning top prize at the Fantastic Festival in 1974 but it wasn’t enough to boost its Stateside distribution prospects. Both National General and New World had considered taking it on but ultimately passed. It ended up at Warner Brothers which stuck it in the vault after a disastrous test at drive-ins in Atlanta and San Diego.

Box Office magazine gave it a favourable review in 1978, calling it a “lost horror classic” and noting that director Robin Hardy had made “an impressive debut.” The version its reviewer saw was cut from the original 102 minutes to 87 minutes. But the version seen by The Hollywood Reporter in 1979 was the restored version and its reviewer reckoned that the “dark intagibles” of its mangled release made it ideal fodder for a “cult audience.” By now PR had kicked in and it received the accolade of a front-page story in The Hollywood Reporter, calling it “reborn” and making play of the problems encountered along the way.

But apart from the Minneapolis misadventure in 1977, it wasn’t until 1979 that it made any release headway. Most of the bookings were in arthouse cinemas. But what is noticeable is length of runs and comparatively small week-by-week drop-offs.

Minneapolis: World (461 seats)

October 5 1977: – $2,000 (“poor”)

San Francisco: Lumiere (300 seats)

January 24, 1979: – $19,000 “boffo”

January 31, 1979: – $15,500

February 7 1979: – $13,000

February 14 1979: – $11,000

February 21 1979: – $10,600

February 28 1979: – $7,000

March 7 1979: – $5,700

March 14 1979: – Not known

March 21 1979: – $5,900

Los Angeles: Los Feliz Westland 1 (763 seats)

March 21 1979: – $19,500

March 28 1979: – $13,500

April 4 1979: – $11,000 (“not bad”)

April 11 1979: – $9,500 (“tidy”)

April 18 1979: – $4,000

April 25 1979: – $4,000

May 2 1979: – $3,100

Los Angeles: showcase release in four other theaters

March 21 1979: – $26,000

March 28 1979: – $18,000 (“pretty”)

Seattle: Crest (700 seats)

April 4 1979: – $7,100

April 11 1979: – $6,700

April 18 1979: – $6,300

April 25 1979: – $4,700

May 2 1979: – $3,300

New York: Paramount (533 seats)

April 2 1980: – $21,000

April 9 1980: – $9,000 (transit strike ruined second and subsequent weeks)

April 16 1980: – $4,400

April 23 1980: – $4,000

Boston: Orson Welles II ( 200 seats)

April 23 1980: – $15,000 (“house record”)

April 30 1980: – $14,000 (“lusty”)

May 7 1980: – $8,800

May 14 1980: – $8,700

May 21 1980: – $7,600

May 28 1980: – $6,200

June 4 1980: – $4,200

June 11 1980: – $5,200

June 18 1980: – $3,200

June 25 1980: – $3,300

Washington: Cerberus II (150 seats)

December 3 1980: – $7,500

December 10 1980: – $5,500

Kansas City: Fine Arts (560 seats)

January 21 1981:– $3,200

Kansas City: Watts Mill (250 seats)

February 11 198l: – $2,500

Miami: showcase release in four cinemas

April 1 1981: – $3,700 (“remote”)

Cleveland:

April 1981: shown as part of the Cleveland International Film Festival

Pittsburgh: Arcade (775 seats)

May 20 1981: – $5,000 (“stout”)

According to an advert in Box Office magazine placed by distributor Abraxas in October 1979, The Wicker Man had already grossed $500,000 on the U.S. west coast. counting it the 1980 and 1981 releases, more than likley it passed the $1 million gross. Whether any of these receipts found their way to British Lion is questionable, so the U.S. box office would have done little to remove the idea it was a flop, but, in fact, counting all the results together, it must have done enough overall to turn a healthy profit.

I should point out that the dates above refer simply to the dates when the box office was reported in “Variety” magazine and not to the actual date when the film was shown. Typically, “Variety” would report box office in the week after a film was shown but this could still be up to 14-17 days after. The actual week 1 / week 2 / week 3 stuff is completley accurate even if the dates might appear misleading.

NOTE/PLEA/WHATEVER: Collecting these figures took a huge amount of work so if you want to pass on this information to others, please acknowledge the source.

SOURCES: Variety, dates as shown; “Coming Releases,” Box Office, September 30, 1974, pA6; Review, Box Office, January 9, 1978, pA9; “Wicker Man Reborn Thanks to Persistent Young Distribs,” The Hollywood Reporter, February 15, 1979, p3; Review, The Hollywood Reporter, February 20, 1979, p3; Advert, Box Office, October 1979, 1979, p16; “Wicker Man Gets Proper Release After 6 Years,” The Hollywood Reporter, April 3, 1980, p1; “Strike Dents N.Y. Box Office,” Box Office, April 14, 1980, p7.

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Behind the Scenes: The 20th Century Fox Box Office, Part One – U.S. Rentals

While I was aware that Hollywood had faced financial catastrophe at the beginning and end of the 1960s, I wasn’t so familiar with just how hard it proved for the studios to actually make a buck. If hadn’t been for the bounty of The Sound of Music (1965) and to a lesser extent Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), a studio as big as Twentieth Century Fox would have posted an overall loss for the decade.

Sure, audiences were in decline and production stultified but there was a fair chance those obstacles could have been overcome through the combination of roadshow, the reinvigoration of the dormant spy genre via James Bond and his imitators, the onset of more liberal material – i.e. sex and violence – thanks to changes to the Production Code and the decade-end “youthquake.”

From 1960-1969, according to the Aubrey Solomon digest of releases, which was my main source for this article, Twentieth Century Fox invested $434 million in 107 movies at an average cost of $4 million. Overall rentals – the amount returned to studios once cinemas had taken their cut of the gross – amounted to $478 million. A total profit of $44 million for the decade was probably, given the various crises, not a bad return. But once you removed The Sound of Music’s $83 million rentals bonanza from the equation, the result was less convincing.

Break-even might have appeared a good result given the doomsayers predicting complete collapse but it says a lot for the vagaries of the business that only 42 pictures – about 40 per cent of the movies greenlit – generated a profit. You will be familiar with the big loss-makers of course: Cleopatra (1963) $16 million in the red on initial U.S. release (though most of that clawed back from overseas rentals, reissue and television sale), calamitous musical Doctor Dolittle (1967 – only $6 million in domestic rentals) and Star! (1968 – only $4 million).

You might wonder what possessed the studio to invest $7.87 million in George Cukor’s Justine (1969). When original director Joseph Strick threw in the towel you might have imagined the studio would do the same given the stars – Dirk Bogarde, Anouk Aimee and Michael York – were hardly standout box office figures. Loss on the U.S. rentals was $5.67 million. Staircase (1969) at least had a stellar cast – Richard Burton fresh from worldwide hit Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Rex Harrison whose Oscar-winning success in My Fair Lady (1964) appeared to grant him box office immunity. But U.S. audiences only returned $1.85 million in rentals from a budget of $6.37 million.

*Iconic fashion accessories sported by Audrey Hepburn couldn’t save*
*“Two for the Road”*

Another star-laden vehicle – the Paris-set caper picture How To Steal a Million (1966) teaming Audrey Hepburn (My Fair Lady) and Peter O’Toole (Becket, 1964) – came unstuck, losing $2.08 million on a budget of $6.48 million. Hepburn was at fault again the following year, losing, oddly enough, exactly the same amount for Two for the Road with Albert Finney (Tom Jones, 1963) directed by Stanley Donen (Charade, 1963) out of a budget of $5.48 million.

Other casualties were: William Holden in The Lion (1962, $3 million loss), biopic Tender Is the Night (1962 – $2.65 million), George C. Scott as The Flim-Flam Man / One Born Every Minute (1967, also $2.65 million), Nine Hours to Rama (1963, $2.61 million), Doris Day spy comedy Caprice (1966, $2.59 million), Gregory Peck in Cold War thriller The Chairman / The Most Dangerous Man in the World (1969, $2.41 million), James Stewart in desert drama The Flight of the Phoenix (1965 – $2.33 million) and James Coburn and Lee Remick in Hard Contract (1969 – $2.32 million).

Even John Wayne stiffed. Civil War western The Undefeated (1969), on a budget of $7.1 million only brought in $4.5 million in rentals. Charlton Heston/Rex Harrison roadshow The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), on a similar budget, lost more – $3.17 million. Michael Caine/Anthony Quinn drama The Magus (1968) barely brought in $1 million from a $3.77 million budget.

Unexpected winners included Valley of the Dolls (1967 – $15.31 million profit), Planet of the Apes (1968 – $9.2 million), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965 – $7.5 million), The Boston Strangler (1968 – $3.9 million), Our Man Flint (1966 – $3.87 million) – though only $1.2 million in the black for sequel In Like Flint (1967) – and The Blue Max (1966 – $3.4 million).

Frank Sinatra proved a safe bet. The Detective (1968) turned a profit at the U.S. ticket wickets of just over £2 million and Von Ryan’s Express (1965) just under that figure although Tony Rome (1967) registered a small loss. Raquel Welch just about squeaked home – $1 million profit for Bandolero (1968), $380,000 profit for Fantastic Voyage (1966) balanced out by $420,000 loss for 100 Rifles (1969).

Of course, there was always the possibility that foreign revenues would save the day. And although occasionally the likes of United Artists’ The Magnificent Seven (1960) on initial release had earned considerably more in the overseas market than in the U.S., that was, unfortunately, rarely the case. There was no guarantee that certain genres – comedies, musicals – would travel. Hollywood studios generally received a smaller percentage from movies released abroad while facing increases in distribution costs.

Overseas business was viewed as icing on the cake rather than an essential element of the box office. There was also the problem that foreign cinema owners could check out U.S. box office figures in advance – unlike now there was no instant global release system – and should a movie falter on its U.S. debut would assume they were going to be renting a flop, therefore reduce marketing back-up and renegotiate terms.

SOURCE: Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox, A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Press, 2002) pp 228-231, 252-256.

Behind the Scenes: Top of the Flops, United Artists 1965-1969, Global Box Office – Part Two

United Artists took an unholy bath on George Stevens’ all-star The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), shouldering a colossal loss of $9.1 million in global rentals (not gross), one of the biggest financial disasters of the decade. In second place, by a long margin, was Blake Edwards’ anti-war comedy What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966). The presence of James Coburn at a career-high thanks to the Flint spy pictures couldn’t prevent this ending up $2.75 million in the red.

Another all-star prestige war movie, though this time set in the Crimea, Tony Richardson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) ran it close, registering a deficit of $2.59 million. This was not the first time the studio’s faith in Richardson proved unfounded. He had lost $1.17 million on Sailor from Gibralter (1967) and another $1 million Mademoiselle (1966), both starring French actress Jeanne Moreau, cited in divorce proceedings brought by his wife Vanessa Redgrave.

History was also unkind to John Huston, coming unstuck with romp Sinful Davey (1969), also set in Britain, and starring newcomer John Hurt. With only $250,000 in rentals in the U.S. market it dropped a total of $2.4 million. Richard Lester was also well off the mark with anti-nuke comedy The Bedsitting Room (1969) which imploded to the tune of $1.42 million.

Although Dick Van Dyke justified his fee for the studio’s Chitty,Chitty Bang Bang, his marquee status proved decidedly unjustified in two other pictures. Some Kind of Nut (1969) lost $1.36 million while Fitzwilly (1967) was $312,000 short of break-even.

British star Michael Caine also fell into the questionable category. Billion Dollar Brain (1968), his third outing as spy Harry Palmer, proved a dud, $1.18 million down while Second World War picture Play Dirty (1968) lost out at the box office wickets to the tune of $350,000.

Others in the million-dollar-loser class were: The Honey Pot (1967) despite the presence of Rex Harrison and Cliff Robertson; Alan Arkin’s ill-fated attempt to emulate Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau (1968); Jules Dassin’s 10.30pm Summer (1966); and A Twist of Sand (1967) with Richard Johnson and Honor Blackman. And Peter Sellers himself misjudged the material for After the Fox (1966) for it came home $432,000 short of the target.

The Witches (1967) failed to coast home on the back of new sensation Clint Eastwood in the cast plus an all-star directing team including Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasolino and lost $880,000.

World War Two pictures proved too often problematic in registering global appeal. Michael Winner’s Hannibal Brooks (1969) starring Oliver Reed shed $650,000, John Guillermin’s The Bridge at Remagen (1969) was on the downside of $526,000, Richard Lester’s How I Won the War (1967) was $257,000 shy of budget and even low-budget numbers that were expected to at least break even failed to do so, The 1,000 Plane Raid (1969) missing out by $316,000 and Submarine X-1 starring James Caan by $156,000.

The notion that westerns had universal appeal turned out to be a dodgy proposition for some products. Whereas foreign made a distinctive impact in the box office for a film like Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) it did not always play out that way. Though John Sturges’ Hour of the Gun (1967) toplining James Garner and Jason Robards did better aboard than at home that still wasn’t enough to offset losses of $627,000. Overseas rentals matched domestic for Young Billy Young (1969) starring Robert Mitchum but that still kept it out in the cold with another half a million needed to get over the line.

You would think minimal budgets would be a guarantee against outright failure, but too often promise remained unfulfilled. Charlotte Rampling and Sam Waterston were touted as rising talents when cast in Three (1969). The budget was a miserly $355,000. Yet it still lost $305,000, generating rentals of just $25,000 both at home and abroad. Bryan Forbes’ The Whisperers (1967), with Edith Evans winning an Oscar nomination, lost $180,000 on a budget of just under $400,000. The Russian version of Hamlet (1966) dropped $55,000 on a $75,000 budget. Don’t Worry We’ll Think of a Title (1966) starring Morey Amsterdam only earned back $50,000 on its $181,000 cost.

Some movies came pretty close to break-even – another $16,000 would have seen Danger Route (1968) also with Richard Johnson reach the magic mark, American football drama Number One (1969) with Charlton Heston required another $40,000.

SOURCE: “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969,” United Artists Files, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, University of Wisconsin.