Christopher Plummer – The Magnificent 60s

The Battle of Britain (1969) *****

Fabulous aerial sequences countered by grim reality. Like The Longest Day (1962) and Battle of the Bulge (1965) even-handedly doesn’t treat the Germans as the evil enemy, but unlike those films victory is somewhat obscure, no rattling of spears as in Zulu (1964) to announce opposition departure, just clear skies indicating an absence of foe. Anyone going into this – persuaded by Dunkirk (2017) that this retreat was a triumph – and with little knowledge that after Hitler had overrun Europe invasion was imminent might be surprised to discover that this was a campaign lasting over three months rather than one conclusive battle.

That’s to the benefit of the movie, allowing it space to breathe, for characters to develop, rather than everything crammed in pell-mell. Given the situation changed from day-to-day, the one constant, which we’re scarcely allowed to forget, is that the British are heavily outnumbered in the sky. It’s a war of attrition. The Germans can lose hundreds of planes, the British nary a one.

But it’s far from gung-ho, the British coming in for criticism for their unpreparedness, surprised when the Germans bomb airfields, even more astonished when the opponent starts dropping bombs on London. Perhaps, given the relatively short running time for an epic – 46 minutes shorter than The Longest Day, 35 minutes down on Battle of the Bulge – it might have been better to avoid slipping in a section on the impact of the Blitz on Londoners, though that is counteracted by panic in Berlin when that city is also bombed.

But, by and large, it’s an engrossing tale. And bold, too, in the version I saw no subtitles for German dialog, leaving audience reliant on facial and body expressions. To slow down the action, I guess, and add some class, several scenes involve people walking down long corridors.

All the salient points are covered, pilots thrown into battle with barely a few hours experience of flying a Spitfire, the lack of pilots, in-fighting at the top, checkers moved across the board at mission control indicating German aerial advance, the inability of getting aircraft up quick enough or repaired quick enough. Above all, the reality of death is shown in astonishing detail; once the pilot was shot or the airplane destabilized, there was almost no escape, fire enveloped anyone inside, hatches failed to open, planes burst into flame or crashed into the sea. And it was the same death, regardless of nationality. And there were no scenes of callous Germans shooting down a British pilot parachuting to safety.

The aerial sequences are quite astonishing. I’ve seen this on big screen and small, but even on a small screen, the camerawork is quite extraordinary, even getting this number of workable planes in the air must have been some feat, then flying in formation and peeling off in attack. It is kind of hard from time to time to work out who is shooting at who since the planes are all the same grey color and only distinguished when the camera is close enough to identify them by RAF roundel or Nazi swastika. But the overall effect is a sense of sorrow rather than triumphalism, young lives of any nationality brought to a brutal close. There is no scene, as in Battle of the Bulge, of the over-zealous Nazi, the singing that made them appear such an implacable foe. Here, there’s no need to play up implacable. Unless they abandon the fight, the Germans, courtesy of superior numbers, will inevitably win. All the British can do is stave off defeat for as long as possible.

The all-star cast is only an all-star cast if you’re British. Without a Hollywood star in the vein of John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and Henry Fonda, and in the absence of British superstars like Sean Connery and Peter O’Toole, it’s an all-star cast by default. The biggest name, Michael Caine (Deadfall, 1968), has one of the smallest parts. But the equality of the cast works in its favor, there’s none of the rubbernecking that got in the way of The Longest Day.

Christopher Plummer (The High Commissioner/Nobody Runs Forever, 1968) has the biggest role as a squadron leader determined to force his wife out of the front line working on the airfields and into a safer position. But the best acting comes from Laurence Olivier as the dry Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding who has no truck with interfering politicians. Accused of inflating figures of German casualties he replies that if he is wrong the Germans will be in London in a week.

But it’s a close-run thing between him and Susannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969) as the aforesaid wife with a growing streak of independence and Ian McShane (The Pleasure Girls, 1965) as a lowly pilot called upon to express grief more than most. There’s certainly a sense of solidarity among the cast, no show-boating from the usual scene-stealing culprits like Trevor Howard (Von Ryan’s Express, 1965) and Robert Shaw (Battle of the Bulge) whose normal determination to bristle at the slightest opportunity is dropped for the good of the cause.

The great and the good appeared to be happy with the slightest role just to take part. The roll-call includes Ralph Richardson (Khartoum, 1966), Michael Redgrave (The Hill, 1965), Kenneth More (Dark of the Sun/The Mercenaries, 1968) and a hatful more.

Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger, 1964) directs with some distinction, his biggest achievement to concentrate on fact rather than flag-waving, no better demonstrated than by my realization that the stirring theme tune that I remembered so well by Ron Goodwin (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) does not make an appearance until the very end. The screenplay by James Kennaway (Tunes of Glory, 1960), Wilfred Greatorex (The High Commissioner) and, in his only movie work, Derek Dempster, displays more finesse than you might expect.

Almost documentary in tone, a classic.

Behind the Scenes: Access All Areas at Twentieth Century Fox

No one would have invited journalist John Gregory Dunne to observe the inner workings of Twentieth Century Fox in 1967 had they know how badly the project was going to backfire. The studio was enjoying a commercial peak, The Sound of Music (1965) continuing to set records, the public turning out in droves for the critically-lambasted Valley of the Dolls (1967). Fattening up studio coffers were Von Ryan’s Express (1965), The Blue Max (1966) and spy franchise Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967). By the time Dunne’s book, The Studio, was published however, in 1969, the studio was in financial meltdown.

On a hubris high was studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck, who a few years before had saved Fox from bankruptcy. Dunne (later a screenwriter, most notably of A Star Is Born, 1976) had carte blanche to sit in on all sorts of meetings. The studio was going for broke with big-budget musicals, $18 million on Doctor Dolittle starring Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady, 1964) , $12 million for Star! with Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music), both actors considered bankers for their previous work in musicals. There was even $4.5 million allocated to The Boston Strangler which lacked any star commitment.

There were actually two Zanucks. Father Darryl and whizz-kid son Richard who was in charge of production and with whom Dunne had most of his dealings. Dunne observed first-hand how the younger Zanuck whittled down director Martin Ritt’s salary from $350,000 to $200,000 by threat of legal action.

Script problems had pushed back production on The Boston Strangler, a first attempt by English playwright Terence Rattigan (The VIPs, 1963) rejected and the project now in the hands of Edward Anhalt (Becket, 1964). And it lacked a star.

Robert Shaw was one possibility. He was being paid $300,000 for a picture that would never be made, The Nine Tiger Man, to be directed by George Cukor, deemed too expensive at $7.2 million. Zanuck could save money if Shaw accepted The Boston Strangler as an alternative. He didn’t. Or another, cheaper, project A Severed Head. He didn’t. Instead, Zanuck dumped A Severed Head (released by Columbia in 1971).

Christopher Plummer also walked away without doing any work. When Rex Harrison quit Doctor Dolittle, Plummer (The Sound of Music) signed up as his replacement for $300,000, Harrison said he hadn’t meant to quit. That wasn’t the only issue Harrison caused. He refused to pre-record his numbers and then mouth the lyrics to a playback. The Harrison, more expensive, method was to be recorded live. As if producer Arthur P. Jacobs (Planet of the Apes, 1968) hadn’t already been through the mill. Alan Jay Lerner (My Fair Lady) was contracted to do the music. But after 15 months: nada. Jacobs turned to Leslie Bricusse. The budget had risen by 50 per cent, from $12 million to $18 million.

It was hoped the 50-plus companies involving in licensing and contributing $12 million in overall marketing spend would bring in the public. Over 300 items would be sold on the back of the picture, resulting in 45,000 displays in retail stores. This was a picture you couldn’t miss. Expecting a soundtrack bonanza, the initial print run was set at half a million copies – bigger than that for The Sound of Music. Jacobs was perturbed to learn he would have to pay for window space – retailers paid with free copies.

Legendary producer Joe Pasternak was making his 100^th movie The Sweet Ride. One of his concerns was that Jacqueline Bisset’s bikini didn’t look tight enough. “It looked baggy in the rushes,” complained Pasternak. Bisset countered, “It fits when it’s dry. It just got a terrible pounding when I was in the water.” She mentions the scene where it got such a pounding in fact that the sea whipped the top off. She reckons that crossing her arms to protect her modesty prevented her tugging the pants on tighter. Once that picture was finished so was Pasternak – he never made another picture.

Another legendary producer Pandro S. Berman was trying to interest English directors John Schlesinger or Lindsay Anderson in Justine (directed by George Cukor in 1969) and on that basis wanted to hire a writer Laurence Marcus (Petulia, 1968) to rewrite the existing Ivan Moffat script in order to entice them. Zanuck’s take: he expected a director to make script changes but couldn’t see the point of altering a script to suit a director you didn’t know would be interested. Nonetheless, Marcus got signed.

All the time agents and directors were pitching movies. Agent Phil Gersh pushed a comedy version of Candy – screenplay by English writing duo Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (it ends up minus the Englishmen at Cinerama Releasing). Veteran director Henry Koster’s idea for a musical was nixed. As was the original trailer for Tony Rome, Zanuck hating the voice-over.

On Deadfall (1968), the Michael Caine heist movie directed by Bryan Forbes, actress Giovanni Ralli was having trouble with her English and her contract prevented her being dubbed. It would mean the actress having to lip-synch in post-production. The solution – “tell her she’s got 500 loops and when she hears that maybe she’ll get discouraged and let someone else dub her.” The studio had come up with 14 alternative titles to The Magus (1968) including Seduced by Fate and The Goddess and the Demon.

Fred Zinnemann was priming a $10 million western about Custer. He thought he might save $3 million by shooting in Mexico. The picture was to have no big stars. The only actor who could pull it off was John Wayne and he hated Custer. So Zinnemann planned to go with big names in cameo roles and Toshiro Mifune as Crazy Horse. That picture, too, would be dumped.

Also in the wings, Hello, Dolly! which would get made and Tom Swift, which would be canned despite advance work on building his aeroship, which would not. Nor would another Berman project John Brown’s Body.

Apart from insights into the way movies are made, marketed and released, Dunne’s book captures the extraordinary Hollywood mix – cynicism and greed coupled with fervor and bone-headed optimism.

Behind the Scenes: “The Ipcress File” (1965)

Producer Joseph E. Levine (The Graduate, 1967) would be cancelled these days for his treatment of Michael Caine back in 1964. Levine had stumped up (along with Paramount) the $1.7 million budget for what was assumed to be the actor’s breakout picture, Zulu (1964), and signed him up to a seven-year contract. Caine would receive $75,000 – his fee for Zulu had been just $10,000 – in his first year, with increments every following year.* But before the film was released Levine rescinded the contract on the basis that Caine “looked like a queer on screen.”

While Zulu was a box office smash in Britain, in the United States it was a big flop despite the marketing dollars thrown at it by Levine. And nobody needed a younger version of the British stiff- upper-lip. And despite the buzz before the film opened, producers were not clamouring at Caine’s door, the only options on the table a small part in a television production of Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) and the leading role in The Other Man (1964), a television drama about Britain succumbing to the Nazis in 1940.

That is, until Bond producer Harry Saltzman summoned him to his table in a restaurant and in a conversation that lasted all of two minutes offered him The Ipcress File and a seven-year contract. Aged 32 at this point, Caine was mature enough to be ranked a proper rising star, the casualty rate among the twenty-somethings accorded that status alarmingly high mostly due to their screen immaturity.

However, Saltzman owed his involvement in the picture to another chance meeting. He had been in the United Artists offices in New York when hair product entrepreneur Charles D. Kasher arrived to pitch Len Deighton’s novel The Ipcress File as a potential movie. Saltzman was looking for an alternative to James Bond that would appeal to international audiences with the emphasis on low-cost. He put together the picture on a budget of only $460,000. But the project looked dead in the water when original Hollywood backers Columbia pulled out shorlty before shooting was due to star. Universal saved the day.

Hammer director Jimmy Sangster recommended Canadian director Sidney J. Furie (Wonderful Life/Swingers’ Paradise, 1964) who had just turned down A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and just signed up to do indie horror movie Devil Doll (1964) before managing to ease himself out of that contract.

Caine was far from first choice. Christopher Plummer had chosen The Sound of Music (1965) instead and Richard Harris, a bigger name in Hollywood after MGM roadshow Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and a critical success after This Sporting Life (1963) turned it down in favour of Sam Peckinpah western Major Dundee (1965). In a bid to give the character the ordinariness he required Harry H. Corbett (Rattle of a Simple Man, 1964) was also considered. Caine had been sharing a flat with Terence Stamp (The Collector, 1963) but when Stamp decamped to America moved in with composer John Barry and was thus the first to hear the music Barry had dreamed up for Goldfinger (1964).

Aware how easily contracts could be dissolved Caine “stuck to him (Saltzman) like a drowning man to a straw.” Thus, he was present when discussions arose over naming the spy – anonymous in the book which was written in the first person. It was decided the character should have a dull name. “Harry” was chosen before everyone present realized the producer might just take offence. However, Saltzman’s real first name was Herschel, so he laughed it off.

Saltzman also came up with idea of the character wearing glasses to make him look more ordinary. Caine was short-sighted in real life and always wore glasses and Saltzman noticed how comfortable he was with them, knowing how to handle them properly, unlike clear-sighted actors given spectacles for roles without having any idea what to do with them. It was surprising how fragile the spectacles were, though, Caine getting through the allocated three pairs and new supplies having to be commandeered. Saltzman took the ordinariness too far, suggesting a duel with supermarket trolleys as one of the big fight scenes.

Even though Furie had never met Caine, he disliked him, having come across the actor and his friend Terence Stamp at the White Elephant Club in London. “I’d see Terence Stamp always there with this other blonde guy who wore glasses,” recollected Furie, “and they were rather chummy and always had these pretty girls at their table, and they were always laughing. And I sort of hated him at the time. Sometimes, I would get a bit drunk and tell whomever I was with, ‘I want to punch that guy in the face.’ I guess I was jealous.”

Joan Collins, completely out of favour in Hollywood and with no roles since The Road to Hong Kong (1962), auditioned – as did the unknown Carol White (Poor Cow, 1967) – for the part of Jean that went to Sue Lyons, in her first featured role. Otherwise, the main roles went to established British character actors including Nigel Green (Zulu), Gordon Jackson (The Great Escape, 1963) and Guy Doleman (Thunderball, 1965)

Interestingly, laughable though it is now, a character who cooked was considered to be gay, even though Palmer clearly used his cooking skills for female seduction. Unfortunately, no great cook himself, Caine was unable to crack two eggs with one hand and the movie used the hands of author Len Deighton, so excellent a cook he had written a cookbook. That explains why the hands that picked up the eggs on screen had blond hairs but the hands that cracked them had black hairs. The cooking scene remained the cause of macho concern, with one U.S. studio executive demanding the scene be re-shot with the woman cooking the meal.

Director Sidney J. Furie (Wonderful Life/Swingers’ Paradise, 1964) hated the script and demonstrated his loathing by gathering cast and crew together on the first morning of filming and burning the script on the studio floor. While sticking to the basis of the screenplay, characters were encouraged to improvise. The poor script – Kasher had called it “garbage” – was the reason for introducing this kind of style, the script being rewritten as production proceeded.

Furie recalled, “All day there were two writers writing our scenes for the next day…We knew where we had to get to because Harry Saltzman, the producer, had ordered the set for the climax built, so we were stuck with it.” If the pages didn’t turn up, Furie found ways to instigate delay, getting the cameramen spending an inordinate amount of time lighting a scene. Furie sipped whisky in his Scotch all day, not enough to be inebriated but “it would help me go with my gut.” The full complement of writers involved in the script were James Doran and W. H. Canaway plus uncredited contributions from Lukas Heller (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) , Lionel Davidson (source author for Agent 8 ¾, 1964) , Ken Hughes (The Trials of Oscar Wilde, 1960) and Johanna Harwood (Dr No, 1962).

Furie’s style on The Ipcress File was very distinctive – “scenes where you had someone’s shoulder blocking the screen and you could only see three quarters of the screen…If you try to use the screen the way a painter uses a canvas, somehow it’s not considered acceptable.”

Furie and Saltzman did not get on, the producer loathing what he saw as the director’s stylistic excesses and was convinced he required editor Peter Hunt to rescue the project once shooting was complete. For his part, Furie’s definition of producers was “the people who tried to wreck the movie.” Explained the director, “I was very depressed always when we started shooting, thinking that it was going to be really lousy and I didn’t know what to do, so I told myself I would come up with a style of shooting that is different. I put shoulders across the screen, I shot up at things, I shot down, just to make it different, to give it ambiance. It was done out of insecurity.”

At one point the director quit the set, resulting in a chase through London with the producer’s Rolls Royce in pursuit of the London bus on which the director had escaped. However, Furie conceded, “The movie would not have gotten made without him (Saltzman) and his devotion to seeing it through, considering the problems with Universal, no matter how much I fought with him during the making of it.

To Saltzman’s astonishment when Peter Hunt arrived and examined the dailies he told the producer “this is the most brilliant footage I’ve ever seen” In order to convince the producer that it was all going to work, Hunt edited together the sequence where, with a marching band in the background, Nigel Green marches in step to the tempo followed by “dialogue between Green and Guy Doleman, carefully intercut with their closed umbrellas stepping with them in motion…Once I assured him (Saltzman) it would be a good film, he started getting confident.”

While British critics lauded the picture, its reception Stateside was mixed, “though the public weighed in heavily with its money” – Variety noting not just that it was “short on thrills,” over-stylised, and could do with being a “a trifle more lively,” the overall verdict being that it was “so soft-pedalled that the audience will be screaming for more kicks” of the Bond kind.

*NOTE: In his autobiography Caine stated his $75,000 annual salary would double every year. That doesn’t sound right. A second year of $150,000 and even a third of $300,000 might be acceptable for a rising star. But if you were looking at $600,000 for his fourth year and $1.2 million for his fifth up to $4.8 million for the final year, that would make him by the end of the decade easily the highest-paid star in Hollywood. Caine would need to be working like a Trojan, four or five films a year, to come anywhere close to earning such sums and his movies would all have to be big hits. Of course, to cover his costs, Levine could farm him out to other studios, but even so, it was a disproportionate amount for any actor to earn. Even John Wayne and Steve McQueen would not pull in such a salary by 1971.

SOURCES: Daniel J. Kremer, Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films (University of Kentucky Press, 2015), p74-84; Michael Caine, What’s It All About? (Arrow Books, 1993) p189-190, 195-210; Michael Caine, The Elephant to Hollywood (Hodder and Stoughton, 2010), p85-90; Paul Rowlands, Interview with Sidney J. Furie, Money into Light website, 2017.

Lock Up Your Daughters (1969) **

Worth seeing for all the wrong reasons prime example being Christopher Plummer with a false nose and almost unrecognisable as an eighteenth century periwigged English dandy in a pure squalor of a coastal town. The best reason is the very realistic background, all mud, missing teeth, drunkenness, cockfighting, poverty, debtors strung up in baskets – not the usual bucolic image of Olde England. But everything gets bogged down in an indecipherable plot. Robert Altman mastered the multi-character narrative in such gems as Nashville (1975) but here debut director Peter Coe most demonstrably did not.

This started life as a modestly successful London West End stage musical and probably for budgetary reasons the songs were discarded. All that’s left is plot. And plot and plot. All to do with sex as it happens. Husbands exist only to be cuckolded. Cleavage is obligatory for women. Young women lusting after sex have been brought up in contradictory fashion to view it as dirty. And no eighteenth century tale is complete without a regimen of long-lost daughters and sons.

It starts promisingly enough in early morning with a town crier (Arthur Mullard) filling us in on the predilections and problems of various prominent citizens, most notably Lord Foppington (Christopher Plummer), the foppest of the fops, gearing up for an arranged marriage to Hoyden (Vanessa Howard). As a virgin not wanting to come to his wedding night bereft of the necessary skills, he employs strumpet Nell (Georgia Brown) to bring him up to speed.

Meanwhile, it’s “lock up your daughters” time as a ship’s crew, at sea for ten months, given two days leave, start charging through the town, fondling and kissing any woman of any age who happens to stand still for a moment. Among this randy bunch are Ramble (Ian Bannen), Shaftoe (Tom Bell) and Lusty (Jim Dale). Ramble is given the eye by married Lady Eager (Fenella Fielding), Shaftoe takes a fancy to Hilaret (Susannah York) while old flame Nell is targeted by Lusty (Jim Dale). Mrs Squeezum (Glynis Johns) seeks sex anywhere and there’s maid Cloris (Elaine Taylor) also seeking physical fulfilment.

Of course, the whole purpose of the narrative is to thwart true and illicit love, husbands and fathers returning at inconvenient times. And had the storyline stuck to the tried-and-tested formula devised very successfully for Tom Jones (1963) and The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) it might well have worked. But the instinct to make meaningful comment by way of satire takes the story in very unlikely directions, an extended court scene with a barmy judge the worst of such excesses, though a food fight comes close.

It’s meant to play as a farce, the men climbing (literally) in and out of bedrooms, the town’s apparently only ladder put to continuous use. But what would work on stage sadly falls down here, and not just because the occasional song might have come as light relief. There is an element of the female confusion over sex, natural instinct going against education, and so ill-informed that at the slightest chaste kiss they are likely to cry rape, but that’s as close as the movie gets to anything that makes sense. A movie that needed a sense of pace just becomes one scene tumbling into another.

Christopher Plummer (Nobody Runs Forever/The High Commissioner, 1968) makes by far his worst screen choice. He’s so concealed in his clothing that movement is inhibited and most of his acting relies on overworked eyeballs. Susannah York (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) is pretty much lost in the shuffle. Ian Bannen (Penelope, 1966) is the pick, largely because he is required not to play villain, grump or idiot, and his Scottish charm and confidence works very well. Tom Bell (The Long Day’s Dying, 1967) is not cut out for comedy whereas Jim Dale (Carry On Doctor, 1967) who very much is does not get enough.

The movie wastes the talents of a terrific supporting cast headed by former British box office queen Glynis Johns (The Chapman Report, 1962) plus Roy Dotrice (A Twist of Sand, 1968), Vanessa Howard (Some Girls Do, 1969), Elaine Taylor (Casino Royale, 1967), Roy Kinnear (The Three Musketeers, 1973), Kathleen Harrison (Operation Snafu, 1961), Fenella Fielding (Arrivedeci, Baby, 1966) and singer Georgia Brown (A Study in Terror, 1965).

Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (Billy Liar, 1963) wrote the screenplay based on, as well as the original musical, a number of sources drawn from the works of Henry Fielding (author of Tom Jones) and John Vanbrugh. Peter Coe never directed another movie.

Hard to find so Ebay will be the best bet.

Nobody Runs Forever (1968) / The High Commissioner ****

Character-driven intelligent thriller ripe for re-evaluation. And not just because it stands out from the decade’s genre limitations, neither hero threatened by mysterious forces in the vein of Charade (1963) or Mirage (1965) nor, although espionage elements are involved, fitting into the ubiquitous spy category. Instead, it loads mystery upon mystery and leaves you guessing right to the end.

And a deluge of mystery would not work – even with the London high-life gloss of cocktail parties, casinos and the Royal Box at Wimbledon – were it not for the believable characters. Rough Aussie Outback cop Scobie Malone (Rod Taylor) is despatched to London at the behest of New South Wales prime minister (Leo McKern) to bring home Australian High Commissioner Sir James Quentin (Christopher Plummer) to face a charge of murder.

*Probably a better title than either “Nobody Runs Forever”*
*or “The High Commissioner.”*

Unlike most cop pictures, Malone is not sent to investigate a case, he is merely muscle. While he may have his doubts about the evidence against Quentin, suspected of murdering his first wife, he resists all attempts to re-open the case. Arriving in the middle of a peace conference hosted by the principled Quentin, he agrees to investigate security leaks from Australia House and along the way turns into an impromptu bodyguard when Quentin’s life is endangered. But Quentin’s wife Sheila (Lilli Palmer) and secretary Lisa (Camilla Sparv) are not taken in by the deception and so Malone himself forms part of the mystery.

With a preference for cold beer to expensive champagne, you might expect Malone to be a bull in a china shop. Instead, dressed for the part by the solicitous Quentin, Malone fits easily into high society, taking time out from his duties for a dalliance with the elegant Madame Chalon (Daliah Lavi). The background is not the gloss but the passion the Quentins still feel for each other, she willing to do anything (literally) to save her husband, he losing the thread of an important speech when worried about his wife.

While there is no shortage of suspects for all nefarious activities, red herrings abound and cleverly you are left to make up your own mind, rather than fingers being ostentatiously pointed. There is some delicious comedy between Malone and Quentin’s uptight butler (Clive Revill), enough punch-ups, chases and clever tricks to keep the movie more than ticking along but at its core are the relationships. Malone’s growing respect for Quentin does not overrule duty, Lisa’s evident love for Quentin cannot be taken the obvious further step, Sheila’s overwhelming need to safeguard her husband sends her into duplicitous action.

The politics are surprisingly contemporary, attempts to alleviate hunger and prevent war, and while there was much demonstration during the decade in favor of world peace, this is the only picture I can think of where a politician’s main aim is not self-aggrandisement, greed or corruption. There are some twists on audience expectation – the dinner-jacketed Malone in the casino does not strike a James Bond pose and start to play, he is seduced rather than seducer, and remains a working man throughout.

Rod Taylor (Dark of the Sun, 1968) and Christopher Plummer (Fall of the Roman Empire, 1964) are terrific sparring partners, red-blooded male versus ice-cool character, their jousts verbal rather than physical. The rugged Taylor turns on the charm when necessary, a throwback to his character in Fate Is the Hunter (1964). Thoughts of his wife soften Plummer’s instinctive icy edge. Lilli Palmer (The Counterfeit Traitor) is superb as yet another vulnerable woman, on the surface in total control, but underneath quivering with the fear of loss. Two graduates of the Matt Helm school are given meatier roles, Daliah Lavi (The Silencers, 1966), as seductress-in-chief is a far cry from her stunning roles in The Demon (1963) and The Whip and the Body (1963) – and it still feels a shame to me that she was so ill-served in the way of roles by Hollywood. Camilla Sparv (Murderers Row, 1966) has a more low-key role.

Clive Revill (The Double Man, 1967) has another scene-stealing part and look out for Calvin Lockhart (Dark of the Sun), Burt Kwouk (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) and, shorn of his blond locks, an unrecognizable Derren Nesbit (The Naked Runner, 1967) and in his final role Hollywood legend Franchot Tone (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935).

Ralph Thomas (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) directs with minimum fuss, always focused on character, although there is a sly plug for Deadlier than the Male in terms of a cinema poster. (Speaking of posters, I couldn’t help notice this interesting advert at an airport for a VC10 promoted as “10derness.”) Wilfred Greatorex (The Battle of Britain, 1969) made his screenplay debut, adapting the bestseller by Jon (The Sundowners) Cleary. This may not be quite a true four-star picture but it is a grade above three-star.

CATCH-UP: Rod Taylor films reviewed in the blog so far are Seven Seas to Calais (1962), Fate Is the Hunter (1964), The Liquidator (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Hotel (1967) and Dark of the Sun (1968).

Behind the Scenes: “Waterloo” (1970)

As dramatic a box office flop as this movie scarcely deserves a book as superb.

In quite extraordinary detail, author Simon Lewis discusses every aspect of the making of the film, from initial set-up to release, by way of analysis of dozens of separate scenes through to rarely discussed elements like the editing and mixing, and even the myth of the missing longer version and the importance of wooden boxes (as illustrated by the front cover). It might have helped the movie’s commercial chances, and not put too much of a dent in the ultimately massive budget of $26.1 million, if producer Dino De Laurentiis has snagged original dream team of Richard Burton (Napoleon) and Peter O’Toole (Wellington), both of whom carried much greater box office marquee than Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer.

Burton was never really a possibility but by 1968 O’Toole was “practically set” although turning it down because he thought it would flop. John Huston, who had just completed The Bible (1966) for De Laurentiis, was original choice for director and got so far as being involved in the screenplay being written by H.A.L Craig (Anzio, 1968). When he dropped out, Gilles Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers, 1966) was briefly in the frame. However, a six-hour version of War and Peace (1965) put Sergei Bondarchuk in pole position.

Requiring thousands of properly trained and preferably “celluloid-seasoned” troops to carry out disciplined manoeuvres rather than extras, De Laurentiis was in negotiation with Turkey, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria before plumping for Russia, whose production arm Mosfilm pumped in $8 million (later rising in line with budget increases). Paramount and Columbia contributed a combined $7 million with worldwide rights selling for a total of $25 million. Once filming began, Paramount chiefs Charles Bludhorn and Robert Evans, watching elements of shooting, were so taken with what they saw they wished they had invested more. Evans was reportedly “enthralled by hours of film material.” Craig’s screenplay was augmented by the director and Vittorio Bonicelli as well as uncredited contributions by Jean Anouilh (Becket, 1964), Samuel Marx and Edward O. Marsh, not to mention additions by the two main actors. Steiger pocketed $385,000, Plummer $300,000, Craig $121,000 but Anouilh only $21,000. Gordon Highlanders pipers and drummers picked up £7 a day.

Lewis is at his best when forensically examining particular scenes, for example, the Duchess of Richmond Ball which used 4,000 candles inserted into candelabras, the slightest draught causing these to melt and drip wax on performers, a carpet used to get camera shots from a very low level.

Steiger played Napoleon almost as a dead man walking, having got hold of a copy of the French Emperor’s autopsy which revealed advanced cirrhosis and gonorrhoea. Steiger and Bondarchuk met the night before to iron out ideas for the following day but Steiger was not above forcing the director’s hand by in one instance the actor removing his trousers to ensure he could only be shot in close-up. Orson Welles matched Steiger in trickery. Only hired for two days, Welles extended his employment by insisting on doing his own make-up which of course was never up to scratch and required amendment. And in terms of movie trickery, Steiger was required to sit on a wooden box on his horse to ensure he could be kept in focus. Jack Hawkins dispensed with the horse altogether – he was either atop a box or on top of stilts, as he was unsteady on an animal.

In the absence of CGI of the kind Ridley Scott could employ for his battle scenes, the real soldiers were occasionally augmented by mannequins. Five thousand were made, two real soldiers at either end of a row held eight mannequins in place by the use of a single wooden plank which “allowed all regiments to march forward.” Among the many wonderful candid pictures in this lavishly illustrated tome – 200 photographs, many never seen before – is one of three girls staring at the mannequins as well as photos of Steiger and Hawkins on their boxes.

The Waterloo battlefield had one of the biggest sets ever built. A total of 17,000 soldiers, mostly from Siberia and including 2,000 cavalry, lived in a tented city a mile away. Steiger noted: “It would have taken assistant directors three days to put untrained men, mere extras, into position. When they broke for lunch it would be another three days to arrange them again. These guys are superb.” Real soldiers working with their actual commanders was the difference between waste and superb. Having a general in charge of the troops often created issues. Bondarchuk would select the horses he wanted based on the effect he wished to achieve with the light, demands often obstructed by the commander if it meant the chosen horses had not been properly fed. “I will order soldiers – but how do I order animals?” was the dry comment from the army chief. .

Although the battlefield was primarily authentic – mud for one scene created by pumping two days’ worth of water into the soil before cavalry churned up the area – there were occasions when filming conformed to the Hollywood norm. “The use of fiery explosions had been cinematic shorthand for battle scenes long before Waterloo” when in reality these would be minimal. “Most ammunition that was fired comprised large iron balls and so low was its speed it was possible to watch their progress.”

The famous charge of the Scots Greys was described thus in the script: “they came straight into camera – like centaurs in their magnificence.” The sight of 350 Arabian mounts travelling at breakneck speed was captured by use of a specially constructed railway powered by a diesel locomotive. Five cameras were sited in different positions on the train. The famous slow-motion effect – possibly the most exhilarating moment in the picture – was achieved by over-cranking the camera at 100 frames per second which slowed down what you saw by a factor of four.

Perhaps the best reveal regarding movie trickery was the moon above Wellington as he rode past the carnage. It comprised “special silver paper for front projection – 3M – like shark skin. You put one light on it and it reflects ten times brighter.” The moon was shown as one quarter less than full since the effect of a full moon would be harder to carry off. “Blue ink made some spots as moon craters.” The fake moon was suspended with one wire on top and two left and right to prevent it from moving, then one light was projected onto it.

Lewis rebuts the myth of the missing longer version. He reckons this probably came about because over 300,000 feet of film – 55 hours – was shot and the first rough cut was five hours long. The final cut was 133 minutes – not much longer than if you had worked out the length by counting the pages of the screenplay – and release cuts varied because, for example, the British censors cut out 28 seconds of horse falls and the ending includes 50 seconds of music over the credits. It was never shown with the intermission which was de rigeur at the time for longer roadshows and would have, artificially, inflated the running time. There was some confusion over the final print because a novelisation by Frederick E. Smith included some scenes that didn’t make it into the final print, and Smith’s book, written of necessity before the film appeared, would have used as its main reference tool the screenplay. But Lewis spends a whole chapter explaining why a longer cut never existed.

The world premiere was held on 26 October 1970 in London where the movie released as a roadshow (i.e. separate performances) was a huge success. It ran for a few weeks short of an entire year in the London West End, breaking box office records at the Odeon Leicester Square and the Metropole where it opened on December 3^rd, 1970, before shifting to the Columbia on June 17, 1971, and then a final week at the Odeon Kensington from September 30 1971. But audience appeal in the United States was at the other end of the spectrum. It went from a strong opening week of $25,436 at the Criterion in New York to just $1,775 in its fourth week, and nationwide racked up only $1.4 million in rentals (the studio share of the box office). It was derided in France in part because the film was about the defeat of a legend and the French could not come to terms with the idea that it was directed by a Russian.

Where most “making of” books concentrate on the stars and the director, Lewis goes into fantastic detail about all aspects of the production, the chapter on editing and mixing an education in itself. There’s a chapter on how historically accurate the film actually was. The author was helped by the discovery of a diary kept during production by actor Richard Heffer who played the small part Mercer. But Lewis also managed to make contact with Dino De Laurentiis’s daughters, Raffaella and Veronica, and around two dozen people connected with the film in some way, and clearly examined every scrap of information available on the picture. The Notes are another mine of information.

Even if the film is not at the top of your must-watch list, this book should go to the top of your must-read list.

Waterloo, The Making of An Epic, The Spectacular Behind-the-Scenes Story of a Movie Colossus by Simon Lewis is published by Bear Manor Media, 534 pages, illustrated (B&W), Hardback, Paperback & Ebook, ISBN 978-1-62933-832-3 .

Advance Buzz – The Phenomenon Created in the 1960s

In 1964, Twentieth Century Fox created a new way of selling pictures by inventing the advance buzz.

Of course, movies had always had some kind of pre-launch push but mostly on a small-scale via gossip columnists, who, while they had some influence, did not actually receive much space in a newspaper. Fox set out to change all that and put movies on the front pages and gain big feature spreads inside, an event that only usually occurred through unwanted scandal (Cleopatra, for example), death or a photo of a big female star.

Fox revamped the press junket – at that time primarily used as a vehicle to announce a movie premiere – and turned it into a method of creating advance publicity and expanding awareness on new pictures long before they reached the screen. And did so with enormous style, transporting over 100 American journalists to Europe to watch the production of three major big-budget roadshows.

Cecil B. DeMille of all people had invented the movie press junket – for the world premiere of his swashbuckler The Buccaneer in 1938. At a time when world premieres were confined to New York and Los Angeles, Hollywood had begun experimenting on a small scale with different locales for a first showing – whaling picture I Conquer the Sea (1936) was unveiled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, The Petrified Forest (1936) in St Louis and Sutter’s Gold (1936) in Sacramento. But these were all local affairs, the selected city putting on a big show for local dignitaries but the media were drawn only from the immediate surrounding area with stories syndicated to bigger newspapers.

When he selected New Orleans for his world premiere, DeMille, as skilled in marketing as he was in direction, hired a deluxe train to bring journalists from the top newspapers and magazines down from New York and Chicago. The train had a special compartment kitted out with typewriters, telephones, radio, Dictaphones and even stenographers to “relay hot news as it happens.”

All expenses – accommodation, meals, alcohol and various other sundries – for an entire week were picked up by Paramount. Three radio stations made daily broadcasts and the journalists filed news stories and features about the stars and the city, and, most important of all, reviews of the film they were privileged to be the first to see. The city went to extraordinary trouble, proclaiming a local holiday, organizing parades, enlisting the help of local organizations to ensure there was some event worth reporting every day. Local retailers, hoteliers and restaurateurs made a fortune as hundreds of thousands of people piled in to see the stars and witness the festivities.

The press junket was born.

In the following years, world premieres were held all over America either in locations where the movie was filmed or places linked with a star or character. These varied from major metropolises like Detroit (Disputed Passage, 1939), Houston (Man of Conquest, 1939), Memphis (Dr Erlich’s Magic Bullet, 1940) and Philadelphia (Intermezzo, 1939) to smaller locales like Littleton, New Hampshire (The Great Lie, 1941) and South Bend, Indiana (Knute Rockne, All American, 1940).

But by the 1960s, the world premiere idea had been done to death. There was scarcely a town, city or venue that had not been the subject of premiere marketing.

So in 1964 with an unprecedented three roadshow pictures in production Twentieth Century Fox upped the press junket ante by flying a fleet of 110 journalists on a specially chartered Boeing 707 to Europe to watch filming on actual locations in Britain, Austria and Italy.

Over 40 cities were represented by reporters and included representatives of the New York Post, Los Angeles Times, UPI, Detroit Free Press, Kansas City Star, Boston Globe and the Seattle Times as well as The Mike Wallace Show (television) and NBC Radio and magazines as diverse as McCalls, Cue and Newsweek.

At the reconstructed Booker Airport in Britain, journalists watched stunts for Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965) and interviewed stars like Sarah Miles, Terry-Thomas and Robert Morley. Each journalist had a photograph taken as a personal souvenir alongside a replica of a 1910 Antoinette airplane specially built for the film, but undoubtedly many such photographs found their way into the newspapers and magazines.

When the media cavalcade shifted to Austria they were treated to a massive banquet at Schloss Klessheim in Salzburg where The Sound of Music (1965) was being filmed. Julie Andrews was interviewed with her feet on a table and the reporters watched choreographer Marc Breaux rehearsing the “I Have Confidence” number (the music had been recorded in Hollywood and then played back synchronized to the action). Andrews and co-star Christopher Plummer were interviewed at Frohnburg Castle.

Italy – where The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) was being shot – was the final destination. The visitors were conveyed up the perilous Carrera Mountains to the 4,700 ft Monte Altimissino to watch a scene being filmed in a quarry usually closed to visitors of a 200-ton block of marble being cut. Director Carol Reed, producer Darryl F. Zanuck and star Charlton Heston were on hand to welcome them. Rex Harrison (playing the Pope) was interviewed outside a restaurant in Rome that bore the Pontiff’s name

Even before the journalists returned from the seven-day trip, they were sending stories back – over $8,000 (worth about $70,000 today) was spent on cable fees and nearly one million words had been written. Many of the journalists had never been to Europe before and took full advantage of the opportunity. Newspaper and magazines would not permit journalists to spend such a length of time away from the office without expecting a substantial bounty in the shape of news stories – the trip itself received extensive coverage.

Feature editors were deluged with stories and interviews that ran in the main sections of the newspaper and in weekend supplements, shifting the coverage of movies away from the entertainment sections. In addition, to justify their time away, stories ran in the food, travel and fashion sections.

It was an unprecedented publicity bonanza for films that were still a full year away from release, creating a tsunami of public interest. For the first time a studio had created movie awareness on its own terms. While movies filmed in Europe had often received coverage based on reports by journalists living in that continent, this was rather cursory, had always appeared piecemeal in American newspapers, largely depended on an editor’s decision about reader interest in a particular star, and, more importantly, such stories usually coincided with the film’s launch rather than well in advance.

This huge media onslaught whetted public appetites well in advance. In addition, there were enough articles left over to be used up when the movies actually did open.

The trade press also widely reported on the event and Box Office magazine ran a 12-page feature one month later. In its evaluation of the junket, the studio concluded that it was the “most advanced type of industrial marketing.”

SOURCES: Brian Hannan, In Theaters Everywhere: A History of the Hollywood Wide Release 1913-2017, p32-36 (McFarland Publishing, 2019); “That Was the Week That Was…Fantastic,” Box Office, Jul 6, 1964, p10-21.