Jose Ferrer – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “Ship of Fools” (1965)

Stanley Kramer was on a roll, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World – an outlier in his portfolio of serious pictures – his biggest-ever hit. Although United Artists, where the director had made his last four pictures, was initially in the frame for Katharine Anne Porter’s 1962 best seller Ship of Fools, the project ended up at Columbia which Kramer had last partnered on The Caine Mutiny in 1951. While the asking price was $450,000 plus a percentage, Kramer secured the rights for $375,000 although he chipped in $25,000 towards the book’s advertising campaign.

Kramer envisioned a character-driven film that would make up for the lack of action. He shifted the timescale to 1933 from 1931 to bring greater overtones of the Hitler threat. “Although we never mention him in the picture,” said Kramer, “his ascendancy is an ever-present factor.” Since there were no seagoing liners available to take over, the movie was shot entirely on the soundstage. “We filmed a ship’s ocean voyage without a ship and without an ocean.” He ransacked old footage for establishing shots of the ship, usually seen in the distance. Decks, staterooms and dining areas were constructed in the studio.

The kind of muted color he would have preferred was not available and since “the theme was just too foreboding for full color” he decided to film in black and white. Shooting in black and white wasn’t yet redundant. Of 27 features going in front of the cameras in 1964, six (including The Disorderly Orderly and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte) were made in monochrome – down from ten out of 24 the year before.

A thoughtful epic was always going to have trouble finding stars especially as current wisdom was that the industry only had at its disposal 22 genuine box office stars “thinly sprinkled” through the 43 pictures currently in production. While the movie’s marketeers boasted of an all-star cast, the reality was that while overall the actors had “combined heft” they were “minus any individual box office behemoth.”

Spencer Tracy, whom Kramer initially envisioned for the role of the ship’s doctor and who had starred in the director’s last three pictures, would have added definite marquee allure, but he was unavailable due to illness. Greer Garson and Jane Fonda also fell by the wayside.

And unusually, Kramer insisted that many of those actors were not American. Vivien Leigh was born in India, Simone Signoret – who had just quit Zorba the Greek (1964) – was German and Oskar Werner Austrian. Jose Ferrer (who had won the Oscar in Kramer’s production of Cyrano de Bergerac, 1950) hailed from Puerto Rico, Jose Greco from Italy, Charles Korvin from Hungary, Lila Skalia from Austria and Alf Kjellin from Sweden. Signoret and Skala had Jewish ancestry.

His biggest casting coup was luring double Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh (The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, 1961) out of retirement. But that was a double-edged sword. In real-life she led a tortured existence. Her marriage to Laurence Olivier was over and she had only appeared in two films since A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She suffered from mental illness and tuberculosis. “Happiness or even contentment” eluded her and in that respect she was ideal for the role. “I’m sure she realized that, in the picture, she was playing something like her own life yet she never, by word of gesture, betrayed any such recognition.” She was another gamble, the reason her dance card was so empty down to directors despairing of getting a performance out of her.

Kramer flew to Germany to persuade Oskar Werner to take on the role intended for Spencer Tracy. At the time Werner, while familiar to European audiences and the American arthouse set through Jules and Jim (1962),was a relative unknown and a casting gamble. On set he proved obstinate. For one scene where he was instructed to enter camera right he did the opposite. When the direction was repeated, he stood his ground, insisting he preferred that view of his face. Despite the cost of reversing the set-up Kramer was forced to concede. Despite these trials, Kramer got along with Werner better than the actors. “They just couldn’t stand him.” Notwithstanding such difficulties Kramer later signed him for another film, but the actor died before shooting began.

James MacArthur (The Truth about Spring, 1964) was mooted for a role as was Sabine Sun (The Sicilian Clan, 1969). The most unlikely prospect was German comedian Heinz Ruhmann who was cast as Lowenthal. The Screen Actors Guild complained when Kramer hired five Spaniards instead of Americans for bit parts paying union scale of $350 a week, but their complaints were ignored.

Kramer admitted the ingénue roles played by George Segal (The Bridge at Remagen, 1968) and Elizabeth Ashley (The Third Day, 1965) were too much of a cliché. “As in most pictures,” observed Kramer, “older actors not only had more stature but they were also better armed by the writers. There was no way Segal and Ashley could compete with Werner and Signoret.”

The film cost $3.9 million. Filming began on June 22, 1964. It was initially a long shot for roadshow release but since Columbia was already committed to the more expensive Lord Jim and there were already 15 others lined up from other studios, Columbia nixed the two-a-day release in favour of continuous program.

Boosted by book sales – it was the number one hardback bestseller of 1962 and had sold millions in paperback – the movie carved out a more commercial niche than had been anticipated. Positive reviews helped. It opened to a “mighty” $88,000 in New York breaking records at the 1,003-seat Victoria and the 561-seat Sutton arthouse.

There was a “socko” $25,000 in Chicago, “giant” $23,000 in Philadelphia, “sock” $14,000 in Baltimore, “strong” $13,000 in St Louis, “lively” $12,000 in Detroit, “stout” 12,000 in San Francisco, “sturdy” $11,000 in Pittsburgh, and “slick” $10,000 in Columbus, Ohio. The only first run location where it toiled was Denver where it merited a merely “okay” opening of $8,000.

There was a sense of Columbia letting it run as long as possible in first run in the hope of garnering Oscars to boost its subsequent runs. But the studio was the beneficiary three times over from the Oscars – with Cat Ballou, Ship of Fools and William Wyler’s The Collector in contention for various awards.

The studio had the clever idea of pairing Ship of Fools in reissue with Cat Ballou, for which Marvin had won the Oscar, and although not the star of Ship of Fools the teaming suggested it was a Marvin double bill. In Los Angeles the double bill hoisted $135,000 from 21 houses followed by $121,000 from 28. But in Cleveland Ship of Fools went out first with The Collector and then Cat Ballou. A mix-and-match strategy also saw Ship of Fools double up with, variously, A Patch of Blue, Darling and The Pawnbroker.

The final tally was difficult to compute. In its 1965 end-of-year rankings Variety reckoned it had only pulled in $900,000 in rentals but it was good for $3.5 million in the longer term, a realistic target once you counted in the $1.3 million in rentals generated by the combination with Cat Ballou.

SOURCES: Stanley Kramer with Thomas F. Coffey, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, A Life in Hollywood (Aurum Press, 1997) pp203-212; “New York Sound Track,” Variety, May 2, 1962, p4; “375G for Fools Novel,” Variety, May 2, 1962, p5; “Publisher’s Big Break,” Variety, May 23, 1962, p4; “Kramer to Produce Ship of Fools for Columbia,” Box Office, June 18, 1962, p9; “Abby Mann to Script Ship of Fools,” Box Office, November 1962, pSE4; “Top German Comic,” Variety, April 15, 1964, p23; “Simone Signoret Exits Zorba,” Variety, April 22, 1964, p11; “Control of Space,” Variety, May 6, 1964, p4; “Five Spaniards on Ship of Fools Irks SAG,” Variety, June 3, 1964, p5;“To Speed MacArthur for Ship of Fools,” Variety, June 10, 1964, p17; “27 Features Shoot in Color, Only Six in Monochrome,” Variety, August 5, 1964, p3; “Perennial Quiz,” Variety, September 2, 1964, p1; “15, Maybe 17, Pix for Roadshowing,” Variety, October 28, 1964, p22; “Too Many Roadshows,” Variety, August 2, 1965, p5. Box office figures, Variety September-November 1965, “Big Rental Pictures of 1965,” Variety, January5, 1966, p6.

Ship of Fools (1965) ****

Too easily dismissed as soap opera masquerading as a movie making a serious point, this is redeemed and, in some respects, elevated by the performances. If anything, the two political aspects are underdone. The heavy air that hangs over proceedings given the German passengers are heading back to Nazi Germany at the start of Hitler’s reign in 1933 with no idea of the outcome is only there in the audience’s mind. That the racism is underplayed is in part due to the fact that those victimized, a Jew and a disabled man, refuse to act as victims and indeed bond.

The other political aspect, of Spaniards being deported from Cuba for economic reasons, would have more resonance today. But they, too, are heading for consequence and the Spanish Civil War which would break out a few years later. Director Stanley Kramer was noted, indeed often ridiculed, for tackling weighty subjects in movies like The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) and Inherit the Wind (1961). That was tempered somewhat when he went off-piste for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and although that’s generally remembered for its hilarity what’s often overlooked is the director’s dexterity in handling a busload of characters and narratives, his pacing and his understanding of character.

Deduct the comedy and you have a similar approach here, the meshing of various narrative arcs while allowing character to flourish so the general smorgasbord of, if I’m allowed such an obvious notion, ships passing in the night is what gives this more heft. And the fact that the audiences knows more than the characters about what the future holds permits the director just to concentrate of character interaction.

Unusually, for a historical movie of the period, it’s the females who dominate and have the best storylines. The ship is so full that upscale single passengers who might otherwise have the choice of dining alone are thrown together thus divorcee Mary Treadwell (Vivien Leigh) shares a table with former baseball player Bill Tenny (Lee Marvin).

Their paths unexpectedly cross in unusual fashion. Both are seeking love, though in reality Tenny is happy to settle – and pay for – sex. Mary finds Captain Thiele (Charles Korvin) ignoring her subtle advances while in turn she dismisses the lieutenant. When a drunken Tenny without warning bursts into her cabin, she responds with ardor until she realizes he thinks she’s a prostitute.

La Condesa (Simone Signoret) is a civil rights activist who finds a fellow traveler in Dr Schumann (Oskar Werner). Although, initially, she mines him to feed her opiate addiction, it’s soon apparent they are falling in love, although that doesn’t end well. Not much ends well in the romance department, Jenny (Elizabeth Ashley), while initially supportive of artist David (George Segal), soon realizes that his art will take dominance in their relationship.

The older Rieber (Jose Ferrer), with the most pronounced Nazi sympathies, has taken up with younger blonde Lizzi (Christiane Schmidtmer), among whose physical attractions is that she’s a great table tennis player, until she discovers he’s married.

Flamenco dancer Elsa (Gila Golan) is pimped out by her father Pepe (Jose Greco). Social exclusion leads Jew Lowenthal to bond with Glocken who suffers from dwarfism and when German World War One hero Freytag is forced to join them that permits most of the discussion about the state of Germany.

Otherwise, the fact that a mastiff is permitted to sit at table is more to do with aristocratic entitlement than any other social condition.

For once, Kramer is more interested in character than scoring points. So what might have been heavy going turns into an acting class. To accommodate its portfolio of ageing superstars Hollywood had returned to the subgenre of movies about ageing beauties. Double Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh’s previous outing The Roman Spring of Mr Stone (1961) belonged in that category but this latest reincarnation was a class above, a truly tender examination of loss. However, it was Simone Signoret (The Deadly Affair, 1967) who was Oscar nominated.

Michael Dunn (Justine, 1969) and Oskar Werner (Interlude, 1968) were nominated and while Lee Marvin (Point Blank, 1967) and George Segal (The Bridge at Remagen, 1968) were overlooked the latter two clearly scored points judging by their future acceptance in the Hollywood hierarchy, Marvin in particular alerting the industry to untapped talent, a point made more emphatically in his next picture Cat Ballou for which he won Best Actor. Ship of Fools missed out to The Sound of Music for Best Film. Nominated for eight awards it picked up two, ernest Laszlo for Cinematogrpahy and Robert clatworthy and Joseph Kish foir Art Direction

You might also spot Alf Kjellin (Ice Station Zebra, 1968), Barbara Luna (Firecreek, 1968) and Gila Golan (The Valley of Gwangi, 1969).

Even without the political overhang, this holds together as Grand Hotel on the high seas with Stanley Kramer in his element employing compelling characters to flesh out an interesting narrative. Written by Abby Mann (Judgement at Nuremberg) from the Katherine Anne Porter bestseller.

While the politics add a contemporary veneer, watch it for the acting.

Nine Hours to Rama (1963) **

Double Oscar nominee Mark Robson was a highly respected commercially successful director with hits like Peyton Place (1957) and From the Terrace (1960) behind him and The Prize (1963) and Von Ryan’s Express (1965) still to come. So what went wrong here, in this tale of the assassination of Ghandi, especially as he had successfully negotiated foreign climes in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)?

You could start with the Indian equivalent of “blackface.” Apart from Ghandi himself all the major roles are played by white actors. Even cutting back on his trademark plumminess, the sight (and sound) of Robert Morley trying to talk the Indian leader out of exposing himself to possible assassination would just be hilarious if it wasn’t such a cringingly bad misstep.

Sure, Hollywood struggled to find anyone in Bollywood who had the box office marquee or critical kudos to provide the necessary confidence for Twentieth Century Fox (a problem that hasn’t really gone away – witness Gandhi and Passage to India). But rising star Horst Buchholz, in the leading role of assassin Godse, was nobody’s idea of the kind of actor with the credentials of a Ben Kingsley or Alec Guinness who might make a decent stab at playing an Indian.

And it’s a bizarre narrative mixture, dragnet film noir hunt led by Supt Das (Jose Ferrer) for a potential assassin (done so well in Day of the Jackal, for example), biopic of the assassin, and providing sufficient room for Ghandi to spread his principles of love and peace as well as plenty of scenes of tourist India.

And even with all these deficiencies it might still have worked except that, in the modern idiom of altering characters, times and places for dramatic effect, this pretty much ignores the known facts about the assassin’s life and in its place presents a barmy mishmash of thwarted ambition and romance.

Set in 1948 after India gained independence from the British and during ongoing violence that followed Partition, the dividing of the country on religious grounds into India and Pakistan, we find Ghandi being blamed for everything that has gone wrong, even though he was never the country’s prime minister and disavowed political office.

According to this version, against his father’s wishes and at a very inconvenient time (he is about to enter an arranged marriage), Godse attempts to fulfil a lifelong ambition to become a soldier but is rejected on the grounds that as a Brahmin he will find it difficult to take orders. He becomes involved with a right-wing organization one of whose stated aims is to take down Ghandi.

It’s actually not that hard to attempt to do so and the film conveniently misses out the fact that Godse had previously been fond guilty twice of trying to kill Ghandi, only being spared prison by his target’s clemency. Instead of that grimly ironic touch, we are fed a hotchpotch. It’s hardly surprising that the film skips the potential gender conflict inherent in Godse, since for superstitious reasons he was initially brought up as a girl, including having his nose pierced in the female fashion. And for “dramatic purposes” his father is a priest rather than the postal worker of real life.

He falls in love with a married woman (Valeri Gearon) and is violent to a prostitute Sheila (Diane Baker) who rips him off. Theoretically, Ghandi would not have fallen to this assassin’s bullet if Mrs Gearon had done the decent thing and run off with Godse.

Or if Gandhi had accepted the presence of an armed bodyguard, but the spiritual leader, pacifist to the end, was also a fatalist, and at approaching 80 certainly had cause, should he indulge in such pride, to believe he had made a difference.

Nobody comes out of this well.

State Fair (1962) ***

Ann-Margret lights up this corny-as-they-come musical. A car-racing sub-plot is about the only attempt to update it from the previous version in 1945. But if you like a love story, you’ve got three, that is if you include Blueboy the pig’s amorous advances. The remake avoids the edginess that had been introduced to movie musicals by West Side Story (1961) and settles for family-friendly and lightweight.

But there is something very American about the Frakes, a family of farmers. They all want to be winners at the annual state fair, parents Abel (Tom Ewell) and Melissa (Alice Faye) desperate to come home with trophies, she for her mincemeat, he with his pig. Son Wayne (Pat Boone) is also intent on victory, in a car race. Daughter Margy (Pamela Tiffin) would be happy with a bit of romance.

Wayne is very taken by showgirl Emily (Ann-Margret) while commentator Jerry (Bobby Darin) has eyes for Margy. The romances are not quite as innocent as you’d expect. Emily makes it clear she’s had other men, making her in Wayne’s eyes “a bad girl,” and that anything that happens at a state fair stays at a state fair, while she goes merrily on her way to her next conquest. Jerry is considerably less open with Margy, happy to string her along until he gets his chance at the big time.

Blueboy, who snorts like billy-o on seeing a female pig in the next stall, has to do all his courting behind bars.

This is more of a musical than the original. Oscar Hammerstein II now deceased, Richard Rodgers adds four more songs on his own, so there’s a bit more mooning and prancing about.

Although “It Might as Well Be Spring” was viewed as the standout song, the standout performance belonged to Ann-Margret who adds spectacular zip, showing off her figure is a series of dance moves on stage leading a male ensemble.

Oddly enough, of all the prospective competition winners, Wayne is the only loser. But that’s out of choice as he rams into a rival to drive him off the track and prevent him winning. Equally oddly, in this context, that’s seen as something of a victory, putting a bully in his place. The racing sequence, and thankfully minus any song, is a highlight.

The humor, deriving mostly from the parents, is slightly labored. Blueboy is let down by the script which doesn’t permit him to build up enough personality to make the audience root for him. But the sequence where three judges taste the alcohol-enhanced mincemeat works well. While at the outset the parents appear merely there as filler, they eventually come into their own in a demonstration of mature love.

*Ann-Margret brings a touch of Vegas to the state fair.*

Quite what made director Jose Ferrer (Return to Peyton Place, 1961) – an Oscar-winning actor – think he was cut out for a musical is anybody’s guess since, in the first place, this would only be his seventh picture in 11 years and, in the second place, he had no experience in this line. There are too many scenes just of the fair, a souped-up job that was more like an outdoor exhibition than a mom-and-pop local affair. While he lacks the flair of the big time Hollywood directors of musicals, for most of the songs he just points the camera and lets the actor get on with it, the dramatic scenes working reasonably well.

But since only Ann-Margret is called upon to show any real angst he’s quite limited in opening up the movie’s emotional appeal.

Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966), changing from natural brunette to flame-haired, steals the picture by far, not just on stage but revealing the screen persona that would take her to the top. Pamela Tiffin (The Pleasure Seekers, 1964, where she played second fiddle to Ann-Margret) is left in the shadows by Ann-Margret’s sizzling performance. Pat Boone (The Main Attraction, 1962) and Bobby Darin were better known as crooners which tends to mean they’re better with songs than dialogue, as is the case here, though Darin was excellent in the non-musical Pressure Point (1962).

Former top Fox star Alice Faye (In Old Chicago, 1938), making a comeback after 17 years, has little to do but frown and Tom Ewell (Tender Is the Night, 1962) has little to do but gurn and moon over his pig.

But, hey, it’s a musical and different rules apply. Fairly passable entertainment with some decent songs and the added bonus of Ann-Margret.