You might think director George Seaton wearing his screenwriter’s hat had his work cut out adapting Arthur Hailey’s 500-page tome for a lean two-hour picture. But Hailey’s book was anything but lean and the fat was easily trimmed away. The author had little idea of dramatic tension and there’s a clear example here that what plays in a novel won’t at all work on screen.
Had Seaton slavishly followed the Hailey template the tension-filled climax of the bomb exploding on the plane and the pilot having to land the stricken plane on an icebound runway would have been interrupted by numb-boring back-and-forth between airport executives and people complaining about planes flying overhead disrupting their lives and the author holding forth on the future of air travel.
A huge chunk of the book is politics one way or another and with the exception of a brief tussle between airport boss Burt Lancaster and his bosses that focuses, unlike the book, on Lancaster’s attempts to keep the runway open, Seaton chucks out all that stuff about townspeople, literally, on the march. Audiences won’t be much interested either in much of what Hailey, in investigative fashion, turns up about cargo loading and the problems facing shoe-shiners and skims over the question of why airports permit insurance agents to so freely operate in an airport, making a healthy living (from which the airport takes a cut) from selling fear to travelers.
It’s interesting, as always, to see what, apart from the obvious as I’ve outlined, a screenwriter doesn’t believe essential. So in the movie Dean Martin’s beef with Burt Lancaster is over the airport’s supposed inefficiency in keeping the runways clear in the face of a snowstorm. But in the book that’s the least of Martin’s concerns, since he’s taken umbrage at this dialing up of the fear factor by selling insurance policies to people about to board a plane.
When you see all those guys and all that heavy-duty equipment trying to clear a path for the airplane grounded in the snow, you think what the heck’s the problem, it’s only a big mound of snow. In the book, the real problem is explained. The plane isn’t stuck in the snow – it’s stuck in the mud underneath the snow, so actually the ground staff have to dig it out of a pretty big hole.
Hailey also takes a detour with the George Kennedy troubleshooter. Instead of getting a police escort to the airport he takes time out to sort out a traffic tangle, demonstrating, for the reader, his unique set of skills, which, sensibly, Seaton reckons will be amply shown when he is doing his job on the runway.
Fourth time unlucky – the series runs out of runway.
There’s a subplot that Seaton eliminates. As well as having a troublesome brother-in-law in Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster has a troublesome brother, so burned out by his job as an air traffic controller that he’s on the verge of committing suicide. But again, Seaton reckons there’s enough going on without over-egging the pudding.
Seaton really comes into his own on the emotional front, having a better notion than Hailey of how to heighten emotion. So there’s no mention that the apparently childless Dean Martin had a previous child from a previous affair – the baby was adopted (a policy airlines encouraged to get stewardesses back to the front line as soon as possible) so the question remains – does he want to be a father? Seaton also brings forward his idea about an abortion. In the book, Burt Lancaster and Jean Seberg have not consummated their affair, but Seaton makes it implicit in the film that they have. Also Hailey reveals from the start that Lancaster’s wife is already playing away from home but Seaton holds that knowledge back so there’s an emotional twist in the film.
What Seaton adds is just as demonstrative of the screenwriter’s skill. Not in the book: the nun, the priest, the bolshie passenger and the know-it-all teenager. These are Seaton inventions. Seaton also builds up Lancaster’s wife as coming from a wealthy family rather than being a failed actress. And he brings to the fore the women who are the casualties of male weakness, Dean Martin’s wife discovering his girlfriend is pregnant, the bomber’s wife realizing what he has done, Lancaster’s wife confronting him.
Although Hailey spends acres of print going on about the problems low-flying planes cause he doesn’t actually show their impact. Seaton cuts right to the chase, opening with a scene of plates and stuff crashing to the floor in a house as a plane flies overhead. And in scenes of the snowplows sending snow wafting through the air the director in Seaton turns what Hailey described as a “conga line” into a ballet
One other element – in the book the Burt Lancaster character has a limp. Movie heroes don’t limp.
Ross Hunter had been a big wheel in the production business for the best part of two decades, shepherding home hits like Midnight Lace (1960), remakes of universal weepies like Back St (1961) and Madame X (1966), play adaptations such as The Chalk Garden (1964), the Tammy movie series and Julie Andrews musical Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). He was as close to a sure thing as you could get. Even so, Airport, with a $10 million budget, was the biggest gamble of his career.
He paid $350,000 upfront plus another $100,000 in add-ons for the rights to the runaway Arthur Hailey bestseller. Initially, Hunter was targeting the roadshow audience, filming in 70mm, the first time Universal had employed Todd-AO.
Dean Martin, who had made Texas Across the River (1966) and Rough Night in Jericho (1968) for Universal, was first to sign up for his usual fee plus a percentage. Martin was at a career peak, carried along effortlessly at the box office by the Matt Helm quartet and targeted for westerns.
Hunter was pitching a movie with four major stars in Oscar-winner Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry, 1960), Dean Martin, Jean Seberg (Paint Your Wagon, 1969) and Oscar-winner George Kennedy (Guns of The Magnificent Seven, a1969) and another half-dozen names of varying marquee appeal that included British actress Jacqueline Bisset (Bullitt, 1968), and mature stars in Van Heflin (Once a Thief, 1965), Lloyd Nolan (The Double Man, 1967), Barry Nelson (The Borgia Stick, 1967), TV Perry Mason’s Barbara Hale and Oscar-winner Helen Hayes (Anastasia, 1956).
The picture came at a fortuitous time for Burt Lancaster. A trio of more challenging movies – The Swimmer (1968), Castle Keep (1969) and The Gypsy Moths (1969) – had flopped, so his marquee value was in question, especially at his going rate of £750,000 (plus a percentage). Doubts had set in with The Gypsy Moths, with MGM dithering over the opening date, switching it originally from summer to Xmas and then back again but happy to censor the picture to meet the approval of the Radio City Music Hall where it premiered.
And while he was still clearly in demand in 1968-1969, he had lost out the starring role in Patton (1970) with James Stewart in the Karl Malden role, which would have coupled commercial success with critical approbation. The shooting of Valdez Is Coming (1971) was postponed for a year. Originally it had been set for a January 1969 start date with Sydney Pollack directing. Face in the Dust, a Dino De Laurentiis production, never saw the light of day.
And although Lancaster later described Airport as “the biggest piece of junk ever made” (luckily he didn’t live to see Anora or Mercy), the disaster blockbuster put his career back on track. It was quite a change of pace for him, too. He wasn’t in every scene and at times he had to take whatever Dean Martin’s character threw at him. But what he brought to the picture was his natural electricity, the tension of never knowing what he was going to do. But Airport barely merits a page in Kate Buford’s biography.
Double Oscar-winner George Seaton was set the dual task of condensing Arthur Hailey’s 500-page novel into a lean two-hour movie which he would direct. In a directing career spanning a quarter of a century, Seaton was well-used to handling big stars of the caliber of William Holden (three pictures including The Counterfeit Traitor, 1962), Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly (The Country Girl, 1953) Kirk Douglas (The Hook, 1962), Montgomery Clift (The Big Lift, 1950) and Clark Gable and Doris Day (Teacher’s Pet, 1958),
Jean Seberg, under investigation by the FBI, had revived an ailing career with Paint Your Wagon (1969). Producer Ross Hunter initially preferred Angie Dickinson (Jessica, 1962) or Stella Stevens (Rage, 1966) for the role of Lancaster’s screen lover, but had to go along with Universal with whom Seberg had a two-picture “pay-or-play” deal (she got paid whether she made a picture or not). However, she was considered a marquee name in the international market, especially France where she had remained a cult figure after Breathless (1960).
Disconcerted by being considered unwanted, her natural nervousness increased until Hunter made a point of convincing her that he was “genuinely happy” at her involvement.
She wasn’t the only person to be considered second best. For the part of the elderly stowaway, six-time Oscar nominee Thelma Ritter (Boeing, Boeing, 1965) and Jean Arthur, who hadn’t appeared in a movie since Shane (1953), had been wooed before Hunter settled on Helen Hayes.
For Seberg, it was the biggest pay cheque of her career – $150,000 plus use of a studio car and $1,000 a week expenses for the 16-week schedule, but she lost out on a percentage. She was billed third. High-flying her career might be, but personally she was struggling, her marriage to Romain Gary in trouble and under pressure to help raise funding for the Black Panther movement. She was receiving calls in the middle of the night. “Many nights she’d be so frightened, she’d come and sleep on the couch at my home,” recalled Hunter, “there’s no doubt it was an extremely difficult period for her.”
Helen Hayes reminded Seberg of her grandmother, to whom the stowaway’s exploits would have appealed. As a teenager, Seberg had idolized Hayes. Dean Martin pushed for Petula Clark (Goodbye, Mr Chips, 1969) for the Jacqueline Bisset role and Stella Stevens (Rage, 1966), as well as being considered for the Seberg part, was also in the frame.
Virtually all the bit parts were played by Universal’s contract players. For Airport, the studio rounded up thirty-two of them. Patty Paulsen, who played stewardess Joan, was a genuine stewardess for American Airlines before she won the role on the strength of winning a beauty contest. It was veteran Van Heflin’s final picture, and also for composer Alfred Newman. George Kennedy would reprise his role through three other pictures in the series – though he turned down Airplane! (1980).
Location filming at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport began in January minus director George Seaton who had come down with pneumonia. Henry Hathaway stepped in, at no cost, to cover. The producer had headed to Minnesota for the snow, but there was none around, and the production team had to import tons of fake stuff made out of whitened sawdust. Filming took place at night in plunging temperatures. Despite wearing face masks, cast and crew suffered and the freezing conditions slowed down the shoot.
Hunter hired a $7.5 million Boeing 707 for $18,000 a day. For studio work in Los Angeles Hunter brought in a damaged Boeing. Ironically, Dean Martin had a fear of flying and travelled to the location by railway. Ditto Maureen Stapleton.
Seberg’s outfits, including calfskin sable-lined coats designed by Edith Head, cost $2,000 apiece, though Seberg was less keen on the airport uniform. With Seberg’s hometown less than a five-hour drive away she was able to head home during breaks in filming.
John Findlater, who played a ticket checker in the film, remembered Seberg as “frail and lonely…very shy…she had a very hard time of it.” It took four days to film the scene where Helen Hayes explains the art of the stowaway and feels the brunt of the wrath of Burt Lancaster and Seberg. Delays always niggled Lancaster, for whom they smacked of unprofessionalism. To raise her spirits, Seaton improvised little comedy skits.
Seberg befriended Maureen Stapleton, playing the bomber’s wife. Seberg was “impressed” that Stapleton could cry on cue and the minute the scene was over be laughing.
In the end Hunter gave up the idea of a prestigious roadshow run, settling instead for a premiere opening at the Radio City Music Hall and first run houses across the country. There had been no shortage of pre-publicity. Any time an airplane hijack hit the headlines or a snowstorm shut down airports or an airplane skidded off the runway, editors were happy to insert a mention of the picture.
And there was an abundance of airports and travel companies willing to sign up for cooperative promotions, helped along by the fact that Edith Head had designed the “Airport Look” launched not just with male and female fashions but a range of travel accessories. A beauty queen competition “International Air Girl” managed to hook a 45-minute television slot in Britain.
Opening at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, a couple of weeks in advance of the national roll-out, Airport plundered a record $235,000, topping that in its second week, and scooping up $1 million before the end of the month. It was gangbusters everywhere, opening in prestigious first run locations, with nary a showcase/multiple run in sight. “Wham” was the description beloved of the Variety box office headline writers, the word preceding its $80,000 opening week tally in Chicago, $28,000 in San Francisco, and $25,000 in Louisville. “Smash” was also brought into play for its $40,000 in Baltimore and $33,000 in Philadelphia. The subject matter allowed the sub-editors who wrote the headlines some license, so it was a “sonic” $40,000 in Boston and a “stratospheric” $45,000 in Detroit. And it had legs. Week-by-week fall-offs were slight. It was still taking in $25,000 in the 24th week in Detroit, for example.
By year’s end it was easily the top film of the year with $37 million in rentals, way ahead of Mash on $22 million and Patton $1 million further back. And it kept going, adding another $8 million the following year as it was dragged back into the major cities for multiple showings (seven in New York) in multiple engagements.
Business was not so robust abroad. Though Airport managed a six-week run at the Odeon Leicester Square, where it received a Royal Premiere on April 22, 1970, its opening week’s figures were down on both the final week of its predecessor at the London West End cinema, Anne of the Thousand Days, and its successor Cromwell and the film didn’t make the Annual British Top Ten. But in Australia it led the field, though its returns were one-third down on the previous year’s Paint You Wagon and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
For its television premiere on ABC in 1973, the network demanded a record $140,000 per minute for advertising. Outside of Gone with the Wind, it earned the highest rating of any movie from 1961 to 1977.
But it also set up an industry. Sequels were the name of the game. And though Airport ’75 (1974) headlining Charlton Heston and Airport ’77 (1977) starring Jack Lemmon were cut-price operations, they were huge successes at the box office, the former hauling in $25.8 million in rentals, the latter $16.2 million. A fourth venture, The Concorde…Airport ’79 (1979) with Alain Delon, flopped and put an end to the series.
SOURCES: Garry McGee, Jean Seberg, Breathless, 2018, p167-171; Kate Buford, Burt Lancaster, An American Life (Aurum Press, 2008) p264-265; “Cast Patton & Bradley,” Variety, September 20, 1967, p13; “Airport Film Deal,” Variety, May 29, 1968, p60; “Steiner at Goldwyn Plant,” Variety, July 24, 1968, p7; “Dean Martin First to Sign for U’s Airport,” Box Office, August 5, 1968, pK4; “Hollywood Happenings,” Box Office, January 6, 1969, pW2; “Airport Will Be U’s First Feature in Todd-AO,” Box Office, January 13, 1969, p12; “Seaton’s Temp Sub at U: H. Hathaway,” Variety, January 22, 1969, p7; “Airport Sequence Follows Real Event,” Box Office, January 27, 1969, pNC3; “17 Inches Snow Brings North East Business To Complete Standstill,” Box Office, February 17, 1969, pE1;“Ross Hunter’s Roadshow,” Box Office, April 28, 1969, pK2; “De Laurentiis Slates 3 Aussie Locationers,” Variety, September 24, 1969, p18; “Put Back Moths Scenes Cut Solely for Radio City,” Variety, October 22, 1969, p5; “Airport Smacks $1-Mil,” Variety, April 1, 1970, p4; “Airport Contest on TV,” Kine Weekly, April 18, 1970, p18; “Big Rental Films of 1970,” Variety, January 6, 1971, p11; “Encore Hits,” Variety, June 16, 1970, p5; “ABC Flying 140G Per Minute for Airport,” Variety, June 27, 1973, p14; “Hit Movies on TV Since ’61,” Variety, Sep 21, 1977, p70; “All-Time Film Rental Champs,” Variety, May 12, 1982, p5. U.S. weekly box office figures – Variety, March-April 1970; U.K. weekly box office figures, Kine Weekly, April-July 1970.
Thundering entertainment from an era when they made movies to appeal to audiences and not to placate the overweening ego of over-entitled directors. I first saw this in 1970 when it was selected as one of three films (the others being Cromwell and The Virgin and the Gypsy) to open the new Odeon triplex in Glasgow, and, thanks to my own in-built movie snobbery, haven’t seen it since. So this was a revelation.
Let’s start with the running time. Made now this would be an overblown 150 minutes (at least) stuffed full of extraneous scenes. But let’s start with the opening. The screen is dark. Yes, absolutely dark. What? Is this some kind of arthouse venture? And it remains dark for about 20 seconds though by now sound has been added, a general hubbub of commotion. Are you sure this isn’t arthouse? Had this been directed by Scorsese or Coppola (who, in fact, used a similar device to open The Godfather, 1972) critics would have picked it up.
John Frankenheimer for Grand Prix (1966) and Norman Jewison for The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) were praised for their use of the split screen, another aspect ignored here by critics. Yet split screen is not only impressively utilized, but, on occasion, it has a humorous quality, as the screen not only splits in two but accommodates other shapes in between or round about. Did anyone mention the use of the wipe? A cinematic technique scarcely employed in the mainstream since Seven Samurai (1954).
Several narrative plates regarding relationships spin in the air while the movie sharpens focus to concentrate on resolving three major incidents involving airplanes. The first is shifting a jet stuck in the snow during a huge snowstorm and blocking off one entire runway. The airport is already under pressure, what with the storm curtailing other flights and forcing others to dive for cover. Then we have a bomber, planning to wreck the plane mid-ocean to claim on the insurance, but when his plan goes awry and he blows out the toilet of the plane, the crew have to bring it down, safety jeopardized by the jet stuck on the ground.
You always know how disaster pictures are going to end, maybe the only guesswork concerns who will actually survive, and it’s an incredible credit to this movie that I felt the tension constantly rippling through me as we hit the various climactic episodes.
On the ground airport manager Mel (Burt Lancaster) is trying to shift the stuck aircraft while dealing with irate wife Cindy (Dana Wynter) and keeping on track his illicit relationship with PR manager Tanya (Jean Seberg). This is on top of a) wrangling with an airport executive who refuses to expand the airport to meet overwhelming demand and whose only reaction to impending crisis is to close the airport down, b) dealing with local citizens furious that plans are rattling their houses, and c) taking flak from brother-in-law and ace pilot Vernon (Dean Martin).
Up in the air Vernon has his work cut out coming to terms with the pregnancy of girlfriend Gwen (Jacqueline Bisset) – always having used his marriage as an excuse not to get emotionally involved with his string of girlfriends – and with a 70-year-old stowaway Ada (Helen Hayes) and bomber D.O. Guerrero (Van Heflin) and then bringing in the stricken plane.
We’re tossed a few red herrings on the passenger manifest. Spot a nun and a priest in a disaster picture and you’re generally in for cliché overload. Here, instead, they are used for humor, the nun taking a swig of whisky under pressure and the priest whacking a belligerent passenger. And the charming Ada is on land given very sympathetic treatment given the thousands of dollars she’s conned out of airlines over the years, but that’s only to set her up for some harsh treatment on board.
There’s an unexpected twist with the bomber. For a few minutes it looks like the crew are going to win the day but then calamity strikes. Meanwhile, on the ground troubleshooter Joe (George Kennedy), huge cigar constantly in place in the mouth, has taken charge of shifting the stuck plane and in the end has to take drastic action.
And in little telling snippets director George Seaton plays fair with the wives who lose out, Mrs Guerrero (Maureen Stapleton) and Mrs Demerest (Barbara Hale) while allowing Mrs Bakersfield to deliver a come-uppance to her errant husband – she’s been playing away too.
The decision to pack this full of more genuine stars than you ever got in a roadshow – mostly the cast list was padded out with newcomers or stars past their best (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962) – reversed this with genuine stars in supporting roles and newcomers in the leading roles) Both Oscar-winning Burt Lancaster (The Professionals, 1966) and Dean Martin after the Matt Helm series and a bunch of westerns were genuine top-notch marquee names. Jean Seberg had just hit a career box office high with Paint your Wagon (1969). After Bullitt (1968) Jacqueline Bisset’s star was on the rise. Oscar-winner George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) was top-billed in Guns of The Magnificent Seven (1969).
And there was a heck of a strong supporting cast: Van Heflin (Once a Thief, 1965), Dana Wynter (Sink the Bismarck!, 1960), Barbara Hale (Perry Mason series, 1957-1966). Oscar-winner Helen Hayes (she won in 1932) and Maureen Stapleton (Bye, Bye, Birdie, 1963) proved the pick, the former here winning a second Oscar, the latter nominated. Apart from Van Heflin, Seaton had gone for character actors rather than stars – Wynter hadn’t made a movie in a decade, for Stapleton it was seven years, for Hayes 14 years and Hale one film in over a decade.
You’d be laughed out of town these days if (outside of sci-fi) you tried to saddle a star with chunks of exposition or technical detail, but here the force of the screen personalities of Lancaster, Martin and Kennedy makes you hang on their every word.
They didn’t have prizes in those days for ensemble acting, but if they had this would surely be in contention, as director George Seaton, in his capacity as screenwriter, ensures that no one is left out and even if it’s only with a look we learn everything we need to know about a character’s emotional life.
Given this was – to use Christopher Nolan’s favorite phrase – “shot in camera” this is a terrific technical achievement in terms of the airplane action especially the stuck plane trying to hirple it way out of trouble.
Director George Seaton (36 Hours, 1964) took ill during production and exterior sequences were filmed by Henry Hathaway (True Grit, 1969). A mention, too, for the driving score by Alfred Newman, in his last screen assignment. It was nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture.
You’d wonder why anyone would want to make a film about this calamitous military disaster, the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. Yet, such subjects have always attracted Hollywood, especially if some kind of triumph can be snatched from defeat – Dunkirk (1958 and 2017) – or some charismatic figure of the order of General Custer is involved – They Died With Their Boots On (1941), Custer of the West (1967). Or you can make something mythical such as The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) and with the assistance of the screen presence of Errol Flynn tilt it towards glory or you can take the same subject (the 1968 version) and make merry with satire should you wish to poke fun at the British Empire.
The latter could easily have been the starting point for Zulu Dawn, a prequel to the majestic Zulu (1964). However, although the Brits were outthought, out-maneuvered and outnumbered, the errors made on the battlefield were generally not through hubris or commanders competing for glory. And you would have to assume that no matter what the British Army could do, in terms of size it was minute compared to the Zulus, and even armed with rifles and artillery was hardly going to withstand a sustained attack.
So it’s fairly solid stuff, buoyed up by decent performances, though Burt Lancaster playing an Irishman seems tacked on to increase marquee appeal. The final shot of the eyes of Peter O’Toole would easily stand in the annals of war pictures as one of the best testaments to the horror of defeat and impending humiliation.
There is certainly some unsavory business at the start as British commander Lord Chelmsford (Peter O’Toole) and diplomat Sir Henry Bartle Frere (John Mills) unwittingly poke the lion of Zulu King Cetawayo whose rising strength they perceive as a threat to the British colonies in the southern regions of Africa. Chelmsford makes the mistake of invading Zululand.
Hoping to pin down the enemy to the traditional pitched battle on territory that would give him an advantage, he finds he’s chasing ghosts. They can’t locate the Zulus until the enemy wants to be found. And in an echo of the later Lawrence of Arabia, Cetawayo does the impossible and leads his troops on what was considered an unlikely line of attack.
The British strategy of lining up troops in two lines and shooting alternately certainly reduces the oncoming force, but four times the amount of firepower would still have had trouble preventing the onslaught. Critically, in search of more favorable ground, Chelmsford splits his forces, but, again, even had the British been one unit, it would have made little difference.
I’m not sure how true is the portrayal of the officious quartermaster Bloomfield (Peter Vaughn) who, even in the heat of battle, demands soldiers form an orderly queue to receive a supply of bullets, and that may just be a potshot at overbearing bureaucracy.
The narrative flits from various characters, dashing cavalry types like Col Durnford (Burt Lancaster) and Lt Vereker (Simon Ward), commanders Chelmsford and Col Pulleine (Denholm Elliott), those representing different points of view such as Col Hamilton-Brown (Nigel Davenport) and Col Crealock (Michael Jayston), and lowly grunts in the form of Colour Sergeant Williams (Bob Hoskins) and Boy Pullen (Phil Daniels).
There’s certainly a sense of the higher-ups still enjoying the pleasures of life, wine served at dinner, plated service, but the lesser ranks still have largely an easy time of it, when they are not marching spending most of the time in idleness. It’s a very civil environment. Commands aren’t barked out. “I say, would you mind…” is the tone.
But it’s the marching that’s the killer. The heat’s not as bad as in Crimea and there’s no disease decimating the ranks but they still have to do a lot of walking on uneven terrain. There’s enough difference of opinion at all levels of the Army to keep tensions high.
And there’s more of a focus on the brutality of war – Lt Vereker laments the death of a Zulu child, you can easily be killed by your own troops and truth is viciously beaten out captives (who, as it happens, have been sent to become captives and mislead the Brits.) I was wondering if audiences had come to expect a scene with native girls dancing half-naked, as had occurred in the sequel, and the censor turned a blind eye to.
Peter O’Toole (The Lion in Winter, 1968) has the best role, especially when he counts the cost of defeat. Burt Lancaster (Valdez Is Coming, 1971) offers some star power but little else and the rest of the cast is virtually a roll-call of Who’s Who in British acting.
Luckily, the picture is more than even-handed and while not pillorying the Army and the Establishment in the manner of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) plays fair with the circumstances and exalts Zulu victory as much as British defeat.
Directed by Douglas Hickox (Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, 1968) with perhaps overmuch concentration on marching. Zulu director Cy Endfield had shot his bolt by this point and wasn’t invited back except in the capacity of screenwriter along with Anthony Storey making his movie debut.
Much better than I expected.
If you fancy checking out how it compares to Zulu (1964), you can check out my review on the Blog.
For the first four decades of the Hollywood business, success in markets other than domestic was random. Many countries restricted the number of U.S. films that could be shown, others like Britain prevented American studios for a long time taking out of the country money earned at the box office. There was always the chance it could be less profitable if a dominant foreign cinema chain or distributor demanded a larger slice of the box office. In addition, some genres that worked in America stiffed abroad – musicals and comedies found it hard to translate.
Except in extremely sporadic fashion, foreign box office was not reported in the trade media until the 1990s. So there was no such thing as worldwide grosses available on any real scale. These days for many films overseas receipts bring in more than domestic – Zootropolis a current example with around 70 per cent of takings coming from abroad – but that was virtually never the case until the arrival of the James Bond pictures, which acquired a genuine global brand, in the 1960s.
However, the United Artists archives held by the University of Wisconsin provide some fascinating insights into the growing power of the foreign box office in the 1950s. Movies released into the foreign market would make a percentage of their domestic take. But that varied enormously. Even the star-studded Around the World in 80 Days (1956), the second-biggest blockbuster of the year Stateside, with a colossal $16 million in domestic rentals took in less than a quarter of that abroad, just $3.9 million.
For some films, the percentage was better. Controversial William Holden drama The Moon Is Blue (1953) notched up $1.3 million abroad compared to $3.5 million at home. War picture Beachhead (1954) starring Tony Curtis bundled up $1 million overseas as against $1.4 million in domestic. The Barefoot Contessa (1954), boasting Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner, added $2.2 million in foreign coin to its domestic tally of $3.25 million.
Richard Burton as Alexander the Great proved the breakthrough, domestic’s $2.5 million matched by the exact same amount abroad. Robert Mitchum in Foreign Intrigue (1956) went one further, reversing the usual situation, foreign of $1.14 million ahead of domestic’s $1 million.
But the UA star with the biggest consistent pull overseas was Burt Lancaster. Robert Aldrich’s Apache (1954) knocked up $1.75 million abroad compared to $3.25 million at home. Vera Cruz, (1954) also directed by Aldrich and coupling Lancaster with Gary Cooper, hit a home run – the $3.94 million abroad being just short of the $4.5 million at home. The actor’s first venture into directing The Kentuckian (1955) kept up the pace with $1.97 million overseas versus $2.6 million at home.
While these were all action pictures, it was acrobatic drama Trapeze (1956), with Lancaster and Tony Curtis fighting over Italian sex symbol Gina Lollobrigida, that made Hollywood wake up. In the U.S, it came third on the annual box office charts with $7.5 million in rentals. If that took the industry by surprise that was nothing compared to foreign where the movie racked up $7.4 million.
Lancaster remained potent. Submarine war picture Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), co-starring Clark Gable, did virtually as well abroad as at home – $2.42 million overseas compared to $2.5 million at home.
Perhaps learning from the experience of Trapeze, UA went for broke with historical actioner The Vikings (1958) starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. Domestic of $7 million, enough for fifth place in the annual box office league, was beaten by an overseas count of $7.34 million.
For the first time it appeared that Hollywood could count on overseas to swell the box office in sizeable fashion, thus allowing studios to invest more, especially in historical movies with an action angle, thus opening the door for the spate of 1960s roadshows. Such results also cemented star salaries. If a Burt Lancaster picture could make the same again abroad as at home that put him in a new category of dependable stars and allowed studios to gamble on increasing his salary.
That Charlie Chaplin proved a better draw overseas than in the U.S. was largely by default. The actor-producer-director had fallen foul of American politics with the result that his latest release Limelight (1952) flopped. Abroad it was a different story and Limelight hit a tremendous $5.1 million. With the U.S. reissue market also showing resistance to Chaplin oldies, it was left to overseas audiences to show what cinemas were missing as Modern Times (1936) racked up $2.1 million and The Gold Rush (1925) $1.25 million. For comparison the reissue of Red River (1948) pulled in just $19,000 overseas.
Other notable leaders in the overseas market included: Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion (1957) with $3.17 million ($5.9 million domestic); Billy Wilder’s Agatha Christie adaptation Witness for the Prosecution starring Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich on $2.81 million ($3.75 million domestic); and Love in the Afternoon (1957) with $2.7 million ($2 million domestic) starring Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn.
Also making a noise overseas were: Stanley Kramer medical drama Not As a Stranger (1955) toplining Olivia De Havilland, Frank Sinatra and Robert Mitchum on a $2 million haul ($7.1 million domestic): Sinatra again in Otto Preminger’s study of addiction The Man with the Golden Arm (1953) on $1.87 million ($4.35 million domestic); Sinatra in war picture Kings Go Forth (1958) on $1.83 million ($2.8 million domestic) and Kirk Douglas as The Indian Fighter (1955) with $1.84 million ($2.45 million domestic).
Bob Hope went against the grain when his overseas tally for Paris Holiday (1958) at $1.8 million bested the $1.5 million of domestic while John Wayne and Sophia Loren’s foreign engagements for Legend of the Lot (1957) counted as a disappointment with just $1.66 million compared to $2.2million domestic.
Low-budget Oscar-winner Marty (1955), produced by Burt Lancaster’s company, was as big a surprise abroad as at home, sprinting to $1.43 million ($2 million domestic). Others worth noting included: Bandido! starring Robert Mitchum on $1.42 million overseas ($1.65 million domestic); David Lean’s romantic drama Summertime (1955) with Katharine Hepburn on $1.3 million ($2 million domestic); Anthony Mann’s Korean War venture Men in War (1957) on $1.26 million ($1.5 million domestic); and Clark Gable in The King and Four Queens (1956) hauling in $1.24 million ($2.5 million domestic).
Olivia De Havilland as The Ambassador’s Daughter (1956) tabbed $1.1 million overseas ($1.5 million domestic) and Gary Cooper in Mark Robson’s Return to Paradise (1953) tallied $1.1 million ($1.8 million domestic). Slow burners numbered Dale Robertson in Sitting Bull (1954) with $1.1 million ($1.5 million domestic) and Stanley Kubrick’s anti-war picture Paths of Glory (1957) with Kirk Douglas shooting up $1 million ($1.2 million domestic).
SOURCE: “Foreign Distribution Gross Estimates,” United Artists Archives, Box 1, Folder 8, University of Wisconsin. Note that in this case “gross” means “gross rentals” not “box office gross.”
It took three attempts by different producers before Birdman of Alcatraz finally hit the screens. After the novel by Thomas E. Gaddis was published in 1955, Ingo Preminger, brother of director Otto Preminger, a year later was first to throw his hat in the ring – on behalf of director Joshua Logan.
Logan was on a roll, Oscar-nominated for Picnic (1955) starring William Holden and lining up Marilyn Monroe for Bus Stop (1956). Explained Preminger, “I knew Joshua Logan was looking for something off the beaten path for a personal project…(and found) exactly what he was looking for in the controversial novel.” Given Ingo’s track record – he wouldn’t produce his first film until Mash (1970), admittedly a smash – it was small wonder he didn’t make it to first base.
Twentieth Century Fox, under the aegis of Buddy Adler, had the movie on its schedule until abruptly dropping the project in 1958 when he failed to secure the cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In fact, the Feds actively opposed the production, feeling the oxygen of publicity for the prisoner was undeserved.
Next up was accomplished independent producer Harold Hecht, who had formed a partnership with Burt Lancaster – Apache (1954), Trapeze (1956), The Unforgiven (1960). He was no more successful with the prisoner authorities – denied permission to shoot in Alcatraz or Leavenworth. But at least with Lancaster on board, he had a marketable commodity. Although he had a close relationship with United Artists, Birdman of Alcatraz was initially set up at Columbia and while shot on that studio’s backlot it was released through UA as a part of a 46-film three-year production package promising to be “as diverse, offbeat and box office” as previous offerings.
Lancaster had abandoned the actioners which had made his name and moved on to more challenging pictures. These days you’d call it virtue-signalling as he took on subjects as varied as evangelism (Elmer Gantry, 1960), juvenile delinquency (The Young Savages, 1961) and the Holocaust (Judgement at Nuremberg, 1961).
Neophyte Stuart Millar was brought in as director. He had set up in partnership with former agent Lawrence Turman (The Graduate, 1967) with a deal to make six movies in three years. His tenure at the helm didn’t last long and eventually he moved sideways to take on the role of producer. (He didn’t land a directing gig for another decade).
Though Lancaster had his eye on Jules Dassin (Never on Sunday, 1960), next in line was Charles Crichton (The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951) but he didn’t last long either. A decidedly odd choice, he fell foul of Lancaster’s impatience and was quickly replaced by John Frankenheimer (Seconds, 1966), one the new breed of directors emerging from live television, and who had made his debut on The Young Savages. Frankenheimer, going through a divorce, was reluctant to set foot in Los Angeles, and was lured there on another pretext by the actor who announced that, having just seen a cut of Young Savages, he was ideal for Birdman.
Not only was Frankenheimer he intent on revolutionizing the movie business, but he had the notion that he could reinvent television. After the demise of television’s Playhouse 90, he planned to set up a “creative stock company” of his former television colleagues and make two-hour programs for the small screen with the aim of helping “the medium out of its degradation.” He expected to win the backing of the likes of Arthur Penn, George Roy Hill, Delbert Mann, Ralph Nelson, Robert Mulligan and Sidney Lumet, who would all become major figures in Hollywood, as well as significant writers like Rod Serling and Horton Foote.
More pertinently to the project at hand, he intended to transition from mere director (i.e. gun for hire) to producer (in charge of his own career) and learn to function at “the business end of production” and to that extent was seeking overseas finance and lining up a $1 million adaptation of William Styron’s 1951 novel Lie Down in Darkness (never made) and Flowers of Hiroshima (never made). “Frankenheimer meant a new voice just at the time Lancaster needed it.”
Lancaster embarked on the picture as a campaign to free Stroud, who by now had served 40 years of a 50-year sentence in solitary confinement (a record). Obsessive by nature, the actor excelled himself, immersing himself in a study of Stroud’s books, letters, coverage of the case and penal law. Despite the enormity of the obstacles, Lancaster thought the movie and its attendant publicity would persuade the authorities to release the prisoner. Nor was Stroud much help. “Stroud will not kowtow,” said Lancaster, “He will not make polite amends for what he has done.” He was impressed by the fact that “Stroud took a miserable unnatural existence and yet made it a meaningful thing.”
While the actor saw Stroud as rehabilitated through his ornithology, the Feds begged to differ, viewing him as a double murderer who was a danger to society. Lancaster turned down other more lucrative work – though still managing to squeeze in a $750,000 payday for Judgement at Nuremberg – in order to “tinker and groom this very uncommercial” picture.
Writer Guy Trosper (One Eyed Jacks, 1961) was hired to make the character, within a realistic framework, as appealing as possible.
The film was budgeted at $2.65 million though that included some of the losses incurred on The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and The Bachelor Party (1957) It proved a major collaboration between actor and director. “We blocked scenes,” explained Frankenheimer, “We decided to do the whole business of building the birdcage, of finding the first bird, of working with the birds – everything.” The movie was made in sequence to aid the ageing of the character. Lancaster didn’t wear a bald cap. His head was shaved halfway to the back and each gray and white hair was added individually
Lancaster spent two weeks rehearsing with 2,000 canaries imported from Japan as well as sparrows, until he could persuade the birds to hop onto his hand and peck at birdseed. To assist the recalcitrant birds, feathers were clipped so they couldn’t fly away. The method of achieving the scenes where the birds got sick and dropped from their perches was achieved by pouring lighter fuel down their throats.
The original cut ran four-and-a-half hours. The first half of the picture was rewritten and reshot. Editing would last another three months. Prior to release, Lancaster began his campaign to win Stroud a release, touring the country, addressing groups and journalists. He walked out of a television interview with Mike Wallace. Issues arose about Stroud’s homosexuality and the public opposition to Lancaster’s campaign soon derailed it.
United Artists planned an experimental release for the movie. Instead of going down the tried-and-tested route of the movie opening in big cinemas in big cities and working its way down stage by stage to the fleapits, A wanted to open the picture in as many houses as possible in new York in what it dubbed a “Premiere Showcase” (I’ve written about this elsewhere).
In one of those quirks that trade journalists pick up, it was noted that there was an ornithological cycle – on the path to release or in production were Bye, Bye, Birdie, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Sweet Bird of Youth, The Birds and Birdman of Alcatraz. The movie managed to see the inside of a jailhouse but only for a screening at Wayne County Jail in Detroit. Relations with the prison authorities otherwise remained frosty – Stroud was denied gifts and cards sent to him by stars and crew of the film.
Simultaneous with screenings at the 1094-seat Astor on Broadway and the 550-seat Trans-Lux 85th arthouse, UA opened the movie in eight other New York theaters (a process known then as daydating). The haul was $490,000 over three weeks. Stage two was an immediate moveover to 54 houses which locked up $196,000 in five days. Elsewhere it attracted the type of business expected of a prestige drama, not a prison movie as such. It finished the year with $2.2 million in rentals (the studio share of the box office gross) – enough for 27th spot on the annual chart – though observers reckoned it might be good for another $1 million or so once the effect of the ~Oscars (it was nominated for four and Lancaster was named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival) kicked in.
It was successful overseas, ranked 25th of all the movies released in Italy over a two-year period. (Interestingly, in the same list poorer performer at the domestic box office The Notorious Landlady and The Counterfeit Traitor came eighth and 13th respectively, It was televised in October 1964.
SOURCES: Kate Buford, Burt Lancaster, An American Life, (Aurum,2008) pp 207-210; “Clips from Lots,” Variety, June 13, 1956, p24; “Banks Read Titles,” Variety, June 20, 956, p13; “Feds Veto Alcatraz,” Variety, October 19, 12958, p3; “Stuart Millar,” Variety, October 12, 1960, p17; “New York Sound Track,” Variety, November 23, 1960, p4; “Feds Not Helpful,” Variety, December 7, 1960, p19; “Cruel and Unusual Punishment,” Variety, February 15, 1961, p2; “Playhouse 90 Alumni Band Together,” Variety, March 8, 1961, p25; “If Changes in UA Plans Due,” Variety, October 18, 1971, p7; “To Be Creative Not Enough,” Variety, February 11, 1962, p11; “Homosexual Question Raised at Birdman Feed,” Variety, May 2, 1962, p2; “Audubon Influence,” Variety, May 2, 1965, p3; “Birdman Jail Screening,” Variety, July 4, 1962, p64; “Frankenheimer Thinks Out Loud,” Variety, July 18, 1962, p13; “Premiere Showcase,” Variety, August 22, 1962, p7; “Big Rental Pictures of 1962,” Variety, January 9, 1963, p13.
It always helps a prison picture if your character has been wrongfully convicted (The Shawshank Redemption, 1994) or is incarcerated through an unfortunately set of circumstances including self-destructive tendencies (Cool Hand Luke, 1967). Whatever the case, the malevolence of the wardens or the emergence of his own engaging personality will ensure that your character is sprinkled with enough sympathy to transform into our hero.
But that’s not the case here and it takes a strong chunk of bravura acting from Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry, 1960) to pull this off.
Oddly, this works in the main not because it’s your typical prison picture with endless confrontations with guards and preventing your dignity being sliced and diced by a ton of humiliating actions. Walt Disney couldn’t have done a better job of hooking the audience with its nature true-life approach. I guarantee you will be chuckling to watch a newborn chick trying to shuck off the top half of its egg.
Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster), a pimp, was certainly no innocent, a two-time killer, who only escapes execution through the efforts of his mother (Thelma Ritter) in persuading U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to commute his sentence. However, there is an evil Catch-22 which infuriated prison governor Harvey Shoemaker (Karl Malden) invokes. While awaiting sentence, and assuming execution is inevitable because he murdered a prison guard in front of hundreds of witnesses, the local judge has decreed that Stroud should be kept in solitary confinement.
Shoemaker, nettled by Stroud’s defiance, interprets that as being able to keep the prisoner in solitary confinement for the rest of his term – which amounts, as it happens, to 40 years. None of this bugs Stroud that much. He’s averse to human companionship, as likely to bully a cellmate and cause ructions elsewhere, and certainly not ever going to give in to the prison system with its endless rules.
The marketeers have taken some liberties with the title. But Alcatraz is certainly a bigger lure to moviegoers than Leavenworth. By the time Stroud reaches Alcatraz he’s devoid of birds. All the breeding activity takes place in Leavenworth.
And while there are aspects of Stroud’s character you will never warm to, he’s got us hooked the minute he embarks on the bird breeding, in part because it’s the antithesis of his character to be so humane, and in part because the dedication involved in painstakingly building cages or other toys (a little wooden chariot a bird is taught to drive) from nothing but wooden boxes with rudimentary tools he has fashioned himself is wondrous to behold. That section of the movie is just enthralling.
Although he’s rescued a chick from a broken nest that lands in the prisoner courtyard during a storm, it takes him a while to cotton on that the bird needs fed, which he does with his version of a toothpick. He coaxes the frightened bird to fly and eventually starts breeding the damn things, persuading a new governor to allow him to buy birdseed and encourages his hobby, so much so that after extensive study Stroud becomes a noted ornithologist with a couple of publications to his name. His case became widely known after a bird researcher Stella Johnson (Betty Field) publicizes his activities and eventually marries him.
But when he’s shifted to Alcatraz, he encounters Shoemaker who forbids the birds. So Stroud starts to write a history of the U.S. penal system. Despite being prone to violence, he is instrumental in ending a prisoner uprising. He is never released, despite various petitions.
So while there’s no happy ending it’s an absorbing picture. Burt Lancaster is at the top of his form, winning another Oscar nomination. Telly Savalas (Crooks and Coronets, 1969), playing another prisoner, was also nominated. Karl Malden (One Eyed Jacks, 1961) is an excellent foil and any time Thelma Ritter (A New Kind of Love, 1963) pops up she steals the show.
While it’s on the long side for a prison picture and lacks the epic quality that the 150-minute running time would suggest, director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) takes an almost documentary approach to his subject. You might call it an intimate epic. Screenplay by Guy Trosper (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965) from the book by Thomas E. Gaddis.
If ever a film deserves reassessment, this is it. This western, marketed as a vehicle for Burt Lancaster in the wake of hugely successful The Professionals (1966), sees the star playing cussed trapper Joe Bass trying to retrieve furs stolen first by Native Americans and then by outlaws. That the serious race issues tackled here were dressed up in very broad comedy and typical western action ensured it missed out on the kind of recognition that critics would assign a straightforward drama and lost its rightful place as a pivotal picture of the decade.
In theory, a somewhat unusual Burt Lancaster western. In reality something else entirely. For large chunks of the movie Lancaster is absent as the story follows the fortunes of Black slave Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis) as he achieves not just freedom but genuine equality. Joseph is introduced as a slave of the Kiowa, left behind when the Indians steal Joe Bass’s furs. In compensation for his loss, Bass plans to sell Lee in the slave market in St Louis and in the meantime enrols him to help recover his furs.
However, a band of outlaws, specializing in collecting Native American scalps (hence the title) and selling them at $25 a time, get to the furs first as a by-product of a raid on the Kiowas. In pursuit with Bass, Lee falls into a river at the outlaw encampment and becomes the slave of Jim Howie (Telly Savalas) who also aims to sell him. Lee plans to escape until discovering Howie’s large troop is headed for Mexico where the slave would automatically become free. With clever talk, beauty-treatment skills and knowledge of astrology and ecology, Lee insinuates himself into the wagon of Howie’s paramour Kate (Shelley Winters).
With Bass still in pursuit, there are several excellent action scenes as the outnumbered trapper seeks to outwit Howie who turns out to be just as devious. But the main question is not whether Bass will recover his stolen property but which side will Lee pick. Will he act as spy to help Bass get back his furs or will he disown Bass and remain with the murderous genocidal gang who could provide a prospct of freedom? Either in the company of Bass or Howie, he is constantly reminded of his status, taking a beating from one of Howie’s thugs, Bass refusing to share his whisky because he views him not just as a slave who “picked his master” but as a coward refusing to fight back when attacked and beaten up.
The film comes to a very surprising ending but by that time through his own actions Lee is accepted as an equal by Bass and the issue of slavery dissolved. In effect, it is a tale of self-determination. Lee effects liberty by taking advantage of situations and standing up for his own cause.
Lee is one of the most interesting characters to appear on the western scene for a long time. Exactly where he acquired his education is unclear and equally hazy are how – and from where – he escaped and how he ended up as slave of the Commanches before they traded him to the Kiowa. However he came to be in the thick of the story, his tale is by far the most original. But he’s not the only original. The fearless Bass was an early ecological warrior with an intimate understanding of living off the wild, not in normal genre fashion of killing anything that moves, but in knowing how to find sustenance from plants. That in itself would endear him to modern lovers of alternative lifestyles.
Normally the derogatory term “scalphunters” would be reference to Native Americans, but here it is American Americans who exploit this market. Despite being the leader of a vicious bunch, Howie turns out to be a bit of a romantic and Kate a bit more interested in the world than your average female sidekick.
Director Sydney Pollack (The Slender Thread, 1965) does a marvelous job not just in fulfilling action expectations and taking widescreen advantage of the locations but in allowing Lee to take center stage when, technically, according to the credits, Ossie Davis was only the fourth most important member of the cast. Burt Lancaster was approaching an acting peak, following this with The Swimmer (1968) and Castle Keep (1969), happy to take risks on all three pictures, especially here where for most of the movie he is outwitted and ends up in a mud bath.
Both Telly Savalas (Sol Madrid, 1968) and Shelley Winters (A House Is Not a Home, 1964) rein in their normal more exuberant personas. Savalas, in particular, cleaves closer to his straightforward work in The Slender Thread than the over-the-top performance of The Dirty Dozen (1967). Winters, usually feisty, is here more winsome and vulnerable, apt to be taken in by sweet-talking men.
But Ossie Davis (The Hill, 1965) is the standout, his repartee spot-on. It is a hugely rounded performance, one minute wheedling, the next sly, boldness and cowardice blood brothers, and while his brainpower gives him the advantage over all the others he is only too aware that such superiority counts for nothing while he remains a slave.
It’s dialog rich and it’s a shame it wasn’t a big hit for that would have surely triggered a sequel – especially in the wake of the following year’s buddy-movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – because the banter between Lee and Bass is priceless. For the dialog thank the original screenplay by future convicted gun-runner William W. Norton (Brannigan, 1975), father of director Bill Norton (Cisco Pike, 1971).
Elmore Leonard novels were catnip to the movies. From The Tall T (1957) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957) a shelf load of his books have been filmed by Hollywood – some of them (3:10 to Yuma, 52 Pick Up,The Big Bounce, Get Shorty) twice. What he brings to the table is a lean story and an interesting lead character, whether in the western – Hombre (1967), Joe Kidd (1972) – or crime division such as Mr Majestyk (1974) or Get Shorty (1995).
What you probably don’t realize is that pulp fiction (books that made their debut in paperback) were generally short, limited to 50,000-60,000 words rather than the 120,000-150,000 blockbuster “airport” novels, published first in hardcover, that dominated the bestseller lists. The shorter novel led to a leaner narrative, less characters, little in the way of subplot and information drop.
Valdez Is Coming made a speedy transition from paperback (published by Fawcett in the US in 1970, though it did achieve a hardcover edition in the UK) to movie (United Artists release 1971) and it’s interesting to see what changes, if any were made by screenwriters Roland Kibbee (The Appaloosa, 1966) and David Rayfiel (Castle Keep, 1969). You could literally transpose Leonard’s dialog and it would easily stand up in a movie. So the basic, very simple, plot is retained.
Mexican sheriff Valdez (Burt Lancaster in the film) gets it into his head that the mistaken killing of an African American requires monetary compensation and determines that cattle baron Frank Tanner whose mistake led to the killing should be the one to cough up. Tanner sees is differently, sends Valdez packing and when the sheriff returns a second time to plead his case exacts brutal punishment in the form a rudimentary crucifixion.
This triggers a personality change in Valdez. He reverts from being the subservient suit-wearing lawman to the feared sharpshooter who previously hunted down Apaches.
So one of the alterations in the book to film is this transition. In the book we know from the outset he has kept buried his older self in order not to attract attention and to live a peaceful life. That is verbalized via internal monologue and a scene with brothel keeper Inez, who is absent from the film. In the movie his past is visualized, as he pulls out from under his bed a hidden armory and a photo of his previous self.
In the film he is introduced riding shotgun on a stagecoach. He works part-time as a “constable” rather than a sheriff. In the book riding shotgun is the bigger job, keeping the peace requiring little of his time.
All the main incidents – initial rebuff by Tanner, the shooting of bullets around Valdez, the crucifixion, the kidnapping of Tanner’s wife Gay (Susan Clark), the involvement of wannabe gunslinger RL Davies (Richard Jordan), the picking off one-by-one of Tanner’s men and the final stand-off (a Mexican stand-off if ever there was one) – come straight from Elmore Leonard.
But the screenwriters make some critical changes. In the film the kidnapping is accidental, Gay snatched as a hostage as Valdez escapes from a gunfight at Tanner’s house. In the book, there’s no shoot-out at the house, Valdez kidnaps Gay in order to have something to trade with.
In the film it’s – rather surprisingly given his role so far – the weaselly gunman Davies who cuts Valdez free of the bonds of the crucifix. But that’s a considerable simplification from the book. For quite a long time in the book, Valdez believes that Gay cut him loose. And until Davies challenges that assertion, she lets Valdez believe it was her.
For the biggest change is the screenwriters’ decision to eliminate the Valdez-Gay romance. After being captured, in the book she makes overtures to him, whether initially out of survival instinct is unclear, and they make love and he begins to fall for her. We learn why she killed her husband – domestic abuse. Also that Tanner is a convicted felon and that he is a gunrunner supplying arms to Mexican rebels.
So by the time we come to the end there’s more riding on it in the book. Tanner is left isolated not just by his gang boss backing off but by his lover siding with Valdez.
One other point, I noted that in the film the guy called El Segundo (Barton Hayman) was referred to as “the segundo” (in lower case letters) in the book. So I looked it up. Literally, “Segundo” means “number two” which made sense either way.
I’ve been so used to comparing blockbuster novels with their movie adaptation and trying to work what they kept in – and why – that it never occurred to me that one of the reasons so many pulp fiction books were purchased by the movies was because screenwriters had to tussle with less plot and fewer characters.
If you’ve never read any Elmore Leonard this is as good a place as any to start.
Five-star review for a long-forgotten much-maligned western? Let me explain. Let me start with one of the most stunning cinematic images I have ever seen that in the hands of a better director would be considered one of the greatest ever devised. The titular Valdez (Burt Lancaster) appears on the top of a hill arms stretched out back contorted under the weight of a crucifix strapped to his back. Another director, more conscious of the image potential, would probably have had him straighten up at that point and positioned the camera for a close-up so the image could be captured against the sky. Even so, it’s an extraordinary image for a director, Edwin Sherin, making his debut.
But that’s not the only one. We’re familiar with the innocent man being forced to dance as the area around his feet is peppered with bullets from a sadistic gunslinger. Here, the victim of gunman Davis (Richard Jordan) is an old Native American woman. As she walks from a hut to collect water, he assails her with a barrage of shots. Does she dance? Does she dickey! She doesn’t even pause. As though she’s used to worse.
The movie opens with another stunning image. Valdez, a local Arizona Territory constable (presumably a less important title than sheriff though he wears the badge), takes time out from riding shotgun to watch a bunch of young bucks blast away at a target. Which appears to be the hut I mentioned. Takes a while for an explanation to be forthcoming. Said hut houses a fugitive from justice.
There’s another startling image when Valdez is used as target practice by the thugs employed by local bigwig Tanner (Jon Cypher). As if he was the equivalent to the target girl in a knife-throwing act, every space around his body is hit by a bullet.
And that’s before we come to the audacious freeze frame ending which, theoretically at least, leaves matters unresolved.
There’s also a post-modern post-whatever feel to this which should very much appeal to the contemporary audience. Very little is explained. Valdez has anglicized his Christian name of Roberto to Bob. He can’t get rid of his Mexican accent but he talks so softly that mostly you don’t notice. From his later demeanor, it’s quite clear that earlier on he is making a huge effort to fit in, not stand out, in a town dominated by white Americans.
But we also never find out why Tanner is hunting a man. He’s responsible for putting the man in the hut under siege. And although that turns out to be case of mistaken identity, we never find out who Tanner is chasing or why.
Tanner’s live-in girlfriend Gay (Susan Clark), a widow, has murdered her husband and we never find out why either. But she’s not the only unusual character. The gunslinger Davies is a misfit, finding out the hard way that intemperance and impulsiveness are not the way to make friends, and even Tanner has little time for a gunslinger too handy with a gun, but despite the callous exterior he has a softer side. And while that softer side turns out to be lucky at one point for Valdez, the lawman still doesn’t trust the capricious youngster.
The tale, such as it is, is one of principle. Valdez has been tricked into killing the man in the hut. Given the man proved innocent, Valdez thinks it right his widow, the Native American victim of the target practice, should receive some compensation. A hundred dollars seems a small price to pay. But Tanner is insulted at the very thought. In his eyes, the dead man was a no-account African American.
When Valdez insists, he is trussed up in the makeshift crucifix and left to make a humiliating walk home. That’s when he reverts, shuffles off his disguise as a soft-spoken relatively harmless lawman in a town where the most he will be called upon to do is ride occasional shotgun and jail an occasional drunk.
It’s vague too – you’d have to be well up on western lore to know the significance of the photograph he keeps under his bed – regarding his past. But hidden under the bed is what was known as a buffalo gun, a long-range rifle, manufactured by Sharps (hence the term “sharpshooter”) and suddenly he’s a different, more threatening, person, kitted out in his old cavalry uniform, hat brim upturned.
He interrupts Tanner and Gay making love to demand his hundred dollars. He only takes Gay hostage to make his escape, minus the cash, and then kidnaps her to provide him with something to trade. Unlike in The Hunting Party (1971), the weapon doesn’t magically ease his path. He doesn’t just take pot-shots from a distance. He spends most of the time rushing up and down hills, using boulders as cover. He can’t afford to use the gun since that would pinpoint his position. So he’s got to knock out Tanner’s advance scouts in other ways.
Meanwhile, Gay, who initially sympathized with Valdez, is less keen on him once she’s a victim, and spends most of her time trying to escape. In due course, Valdez’s marksmanship reduces the pursuing force by eleven.
He just about escapes but in a spectacular piece of stunt work involving horses colliding and people being thrown from the saddle, he is surrounded. Chief thug El Segundo (Barton Heyman) realizes that he and Valdez have something in common. Valdez wasn’t a buffalo hunter at all, but a stalker of Apaches, the enemy of El Segundo.
So El Segundo pulls back his men leaving Tanner to face up to Valdez alone. Or perhaps pay up the hundred dollars. We never find out because the image is frozen on the screen as the camera pulls back.
Edwin Scherin was rewarded for his boldness by only being allowed to make one more movie (My Old Man’s Place, 1971). This was the first of Burt Lancaster’s western trilogy that encompassed Michael Winner’s Lawman (1971) and Robert Aldrich’s Ulzana’s Raid (1972), completing his move into more of the flawed character he first essayed in The Swimmer (1969). Susan Clark (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) makes the most of a role that permits her to switch from sympathetic to hard-nosed. Richard Jordan (Chato’s Land, 1972) has a peach of a part as the swithering gunman desperate for attention. Screenplay by Roland Kibbee (The Appaloosa, 1966) and David Rayfiel (Castle Keep, 1969) based on the novel by Elmore Leonard (Mr Majestyk, 1974).
So, sure, justified vengeance but exceptionally well done.
The Magnificent 60s 