Should have been a darned-easy sell. After all, Marlon Brando had made global headlines after becoming the first actor to be paid a million bucks for a movie, his fee for The Fugitive Kind outstripping by $250,000 the previous record jointly held by John Wayne and William Holden (see Note below) for The Horse Soldiers (1959). And there was no suggestion – as indeed there is not even now – that audiences held against the stars the wealth their talents accrued.
“The Most Explosive Star Combination of the Year” was how this was generally sold, on the back of the Oscars held by each of the principals, Brando, Italian Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward and the Pulitzer Prize awarded to playwright Tennessee Williams, himself also a two-time Oscar nominee as well as his work providing Oscar wins and nominations by the bucket load for actors and directors.
“Something about the way he looked at a woman, something about the way he handled a guitar” were other notable taglines and marketeers tried to convince the public “the screen is struck by lightning.” And if that was not enough – “their fire…their fever…their desire” was expected to do the trick.
Publicists encouraged exhibitors to make full use of Brando’s accoutrements from the movie, namely his snakeskin jacket, Rolex and Kay Guitar, which in one scene he actually played. Suggestions included auctioning a guitar for charity and running a talent contest. Brando was a reasonably accomplished player, specializing in perennials like “Shenandoah” and “Streets of Laredo.”
How to make a snakeskin jacket was another angle. The Rolex watch his character wore presented opportunities for marketing tie-ups with jewellery stores. No marketing stone was left unturned to the extent of the Necchi sewing machine, seen in the movie, being offered as a prize in a national competition. Novo Greetings Cards were also seen in passing in Lady Torrance’s store and this company was backing the movie.
Unusually, Signet was using the movie tie-in approach to sell a play, the paperback comprising the source material Orpheus Descending, which included an eight-page spread of stills from the picture. Williams’ position as the most popular playwright of his generation – his only rival Arthur Miller had less success in Hollywood – brought potential access to libraries, book clubs and schools. Military bases around the world were targeted through marketing material emphasizing Joanne Woodward.
It would certainly have helped if the movie had been able to set a new fashion trend for the wearing of snakeskin jackets. Or revive a trend that had last occurred in the 1930s, “quite a craze” for shoes, bags, hats and belts. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” said United Artists costume designer Frank Thompson, “if Brando wearing this jacket starts the whole thing again.”
Thompson had quite a task making two identical jackets – in case one was damaged during filming. First of all, he had to locate skins that were found in Mississippi. The choice came down to rattler or python. Opting for python, Thompson went through 200 skins before he found three that matched. “Looking for two snakeskins that match identically is like looking for two fingerprints that are exactly the same.”
The film was based on Battle of Angels, written by Williams in 1939, his first full-length work professionally staged (in Boston). He “never quit working on this one…it never went into the trunk, it always stayed on the work bench.” Rewriting about 75% of the play, it was reprised as Orpheus Descending on Broadway in 1957. Although Williams had Brando and Magnani (star of the film version of The Rose Tattoo, 1955) in mind for the stage play, it went ahead instead with Cliff Robertson and Maureen Stapleton. Williams had written The Rose Tattoo for Magnani but again it was Maureen Stapleton who won the role on stage.
Williams had outstanding success in writing roles that were in tune with Oscar sensibilities. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) won Oscars for Vivien Leigh, Kim Stanley and Karl Malden with Brando nominated. Anna Magnani won for The Rose Tattoo and Marisa Pavan was nominated. Other nominations included Carroll Baker and Mildred Dunnock for Baby Doll (1956), Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Katharine Hepburn and Taylor for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).
Despite its Mississippi location and except for external establishing shots, The Fugitive Kind was shot in the Bronx. Director Sidney Lumet was a notably New York kinda guy, having filmed his first three movies – Twelve Angry Men (1957), Stage Struck (1958) and That Kind of Woman (1959) – in the city.
He argued, “Hollywood’s great attractions have been the technicians and the shooting facilities, With care, men of comparable talent can be found in New York. As for facilities, a sound stage is a sound stage wherever it is. I concede that in California they’re larger and more elaborate, but the same results can be produced elsewhere. And the fabulous back-lots, which counted so heavily in the past, seem to be outmoded today by the sophisticated eye of the audience. You can’t shoot on studio streets and pretend any more. It has to be real.”
NOTE – William Holden pocketed around $3 million in the end as his percentage share of the gross –not the more contentious net – of Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) so he was the decade’s biggest winner until Richard Burton made more on a similar deal from Where Eagles Dare (1968).
Director Blake Edwards shouldn’t have been anywhere near Wild Rovers in November 1970 when filming of the western kicked off in Arizona. He should have been making a musical – his second successive one following Darling Lili (1970).
Versatility had become something of a watchword for Edwards who had segued apparently effortlessly from the gentle romance of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) to thriller Experiment in Terror/Grip of Fear (1962) to alcoholic drama Days of Wine and Roses (1962) to wild comedy The Pink Panther (1963) to slapstick The Great Race (1965) – in 70mm roadshow no less – to the satirical WhatDid You Do in the War, Daddy (1966). So Hollywood wasn’t enormously surprised when he decided it was time he tackled a musical, Darling Lili, especially when it starred “sure thing” Julie Andrews.
And before the figures for Darling Lili came in, and everyone thought they were onto a winner, small surprise that he was in the front line to direct She Loves Me, the movie adaptation of a 1963 Broadway musical that was the second musical reincarnation – the first being The Good Old Summertime (1949) with Judy Garland – of romantic comedy The Shop around the Corner (1940) starring James Stewart.
But in 1969 – before Darling Lili slumped at the box office – a takeover of MGM by Kirk Kerkorian was imminent and in anticipation of some drastic action studio executives canned its three biggest projects, Fred Zinnemann’s Man’s Fate, the $10m She Loves Me – also to star Julie Andrews (now Edwards’ wife) – and the $12m-$15m Tai Pan. Edwards sued for $4.6 million.
Edwards had other fish to fry – his company Cinema Video Communications had purchased the latest Harold Robbins’ novel The Betsy plus The Peacemaker, the first novel by war historian Cornelius Ryan (The Longest Day). Edwards had plans to film Svengali with Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews and Kingsley Amis’s novel The Green Man with Richard Burton.
Despite having informed MGM that he would not accept any substitute for She Loves Me, he capitulated when the studio agreed to back his pet project, a buddy western with a serious theme, Wild Rovers. Paul Newman was initially sounded out with the younger character looking a good fit for Michael Witney, expected to be the breakout star of Darling Lili.
William Holden was picky about his projects. He complained that most scripts he received were “aimed at exploitation or titillation.” Though he had not had a hit since the start of the previous decade with The World of Suzie Wong (1960), his global investments had paid off and he was happier spending seven months of the year on his 1,260-acre ranch in Kenya. He was impressed enough with the Blake Edwards script for Wild Rovers and, possibly optimistic about its commercial prospects, to defer part of his salary against a percentage of the gross (he had made a fortune from his percentage on Bridge on the River Kwai). Apart from Wild Rovers, the only movie which had caught his attention was The Revengers co-starring Mary Ure (after it was delayed due to his illness, she pulled out).
Even so, MGM held Edwards on a tight rein financially. While trying to extricate itself from a sticky corner, it had no wish to find itself in the kind of lack of budgetary restraint that had afflicted Darling Lili. And to some extent, Edwards had to prove he was more fiscally responsible. The budget for the below-the-line cast was restricted to $1.5 million. There was considerable physical commitment to the project from the two stars, training for six weeks so the scene taming the wild horse could be completed without stunt men.
MGM had high hopes for the western, backing it with a substantial promotion campaign. In the trades there were three-page ads and a separate advert paying homage to the studio’s “writer cats.” The studio had weathered the Kerkorian storm and the massive write-offs at the end of the previous decade. The mood was buoyant. The first quarter of 1971, bolstered by an unexpectedly good showing by Ryan’s Daughter (1970). While not hitting the highs of Doctor Zhivago (1965) it had done much better than the industry predicted, especially after being savaged by critics. It looked as if MGM had turned a corner. In the first three months of 1971 the studio made $2.5 million profit and was confident that summer offerings Shaft, The Last Run and Wild Rovers would maintain the good run.
After the box office fallouts of recent years, it looked as though the entire industry was on the verge of bouncing back. Released by other studios around the same time as Wild Rovers were the likes of Klute, The Anderson Tapes, Summer of ’42, Willard, and Carnal Knowledge
The reviews weren’t promising. Variety tabbed it “uneven”, only one of the top five New York critics gave it a favorable review. An opportunity to gain some critical headway was spurned when the studio pulled the movie from the annual Atlanta Film Festival in favor of an appearance by the two stars on the Dick Cavett Show.
The version released ran 110 minutes. There was no critical outcry at the film being savagely edited by the studio – nobody cared sufficiently about the picture to be up in arms about it.
Worse, the marketing campaign was widely derided. The image of William Holden and Ryan O’Neal astride the same horse, the youngster grinning, leaning into the older man’s back, gave off, unintentionally, homo-erotic undertones. Audience dismissal of the advert only became clear to MGM at the end of the movie’s first six days at the first run Grauman’s Chinese in Los Angeles which registered less than $20,000 at the box office. Shocked at the low result, MGM “scrapped its entire pre-release and opening campaign” shifting the emphasis from the “man-to-man image” to “guns, horses and adventure” suggesting an old-fashioned shoot-em-‘up.
The new advertisement was accompanied by anonymous quotes, comparing Holden and O’Neal to Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy – though as Variety acidly noted, without identifying which was which – and describing the shootout as “so electrifying your impulse is…to run for cover.” Phantom quotes had been used before by Avco Embassy for De Sica’s war drama Sunflower (1970) starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. But while Hollywood was fond of editing reviews to find an often-misleading quote, studios generally drew the line at making them up.
The New York release in a trio of first run houses coincided with the showcase outing of Love Story (1970). That movie had played for months in first run and this was the first time it was generally available. Love Story, the hit of the decade so far, would open in 80 suburban cinemas on the same day in June, 1971, as Wild Rovers. In the era before “Barbieheimer”, there was still an expectation of cross-over, that the fans of a new star coming good like Ryan O’Neal would automatically seek out his latest picture. And it may have been that the advertising campaign was specifically designed to ensure his fans did not go to the western expecting another romantic drama.
They weren’t tempted at all. Love Story cleaned up – a gross of $1.25 million from 80 outlets and another $750,000 the following week. Compared to that, Wild Rovers scarcely got out of the gate – a “less than roaring” $20,600 from the three. At the 1,096-seat Astor it was on a par with the fourth week of Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) which had just completed its run there.
There was a little solace elsewhere. Its $15,000 in Baltimore was deemed “tall” and $12,500 in Boston “slick” but more reflective of the general interest was a “dim” $65,000 from eight theaters in Detroit, a “mild” $7,500 in Denver and “moderate” $8,500 in Minneapolis. By the end of the year it had amassed $1.8 million in rentals, languishing in 59th place.
MGM took a different tack in Europe. It wasn’t unusual for movies released in 35mm in America to be shown in 70mm roadshow in Europe – The Dirty Dozen (1967), Where Eagles Dare (1968) and The Wild Bunch (1969) enjoyed up to a year in roadshow before fanning out into general release, getting two substantial bites of the commercial apple. The latter two had done better abroad than at home, in large part due to the roadshow release which turned a movie into an event rather than a routine outing. So MGM sent Wild Rovers out in roadshow. At 110 minutes, even puffed out with a 15-minute interval, it was a mighty slim offering for roadshow.
In London, half the critics came out against it, but only a quarter were favorable, the others having “no opinion.” The consensus was that it would “not survive the rough critical handling.” It opened on October 21, 1971, at the ABC2 in London’s West End. And lasted two weeks, whipped off the screen after generating an opening week of $6,200 and a sophomore of $4,100, replaced by The Last Run starring George C. Scott, another flop. MGM persevered with the roadshow. It played for five weeks at the Coliseum in my home town of Glasgow.
In the U.S. it shifted quickly to television, part of the CBS program, finishing a lowly 85th for the year in the tabulations of the movies attracting the biggest television audiences.
SOURCES: “Metro’s Loves Me As A Substitute for Former Say It With Music,” Variety, August 6, 1969, p3; Army Archerd, “Hollywood Sound Track,” Variety, October 20, 1970, p6; Army Archerd, “Hollywood Cross Cuts,” Variety, August 5, 1970, p23; “Holden Pushes for Conservation,” Variety, August 12, 1970, p25; Army Archerd, “Hollywood Sound Track,” Variety, November 4, 1970, p20; “Hollywood Production Pulse,” Variety, November 18, 1970, p54; Advert, Box Office, March 28, 1971, p3-5; “Profitable Quarter for MGM,” Kine Weekly, April 24, 1971, p3; Advert, Variety, May 17, 1971, p23-25; Advert, Variety, May 19, 1971, p12; Review, Variety, June 23, 1971, p20; “Col Delivers Atlanta Festival,” Variety, June 23, 1971, p6; “New York Critics,” Variety, June 30, 1971, p7; “Metro Scraps Rovers Campaign,” Variety, June 30, 1971, p27; “London Critics,” Variety, November 17, 1971, p62; “Big Rental Films of 1971,” Variety, January 5, 1972, p9. Box office figures from Variety June 30-August 18, 1971, and November 10-17, 1971.
You could come away from the Pressbook/Exhibitors Manual wondering if some of the actors were in the wrong profession, given the number of accomplished pilots on the roster. James Franciscus held a commercial license for multi-engine planes and had logged three thousand flying hours in three years. Gene Hackman not only had a private flying license but was in the process of building his own biplane.
Producer Mike Frankovich had flown with the US Air Force during World War Two, clocking up 7,000 hours flying time and ending up a colonel. Technical expert George Smith had ejected at 6,000 feet from a plane flying at 800 mph.
Another less well-known fact, Natalie Wood (who was appearing in producer Mike Frankovich’s Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, 1969) was fluent in Russian and was brought in to translate for a showing of the movie to visiting Russian spacemen. Nancy Kovack, by the way, was equally talented, speaking Persian and other languages.
As much as the main function of the Pressbook was to provide exhibitors with a range of adverts in every conceivable size that they could cut out and take along to their local newspaper, its secondary function was to provide cinema owners with promotional ideas and to provide snippets and articles that could be passed on to a local friendly reporter. But pickings were slim for jouranlists. Not surprisingly, Gregory Peck didn’t have much say, since whatever he did have to say he’d said already as promotion work for the two other features preceding Marooned this year. And nobody’s spilling the beans on the special effects.
Due to the bulkiness of their space suits, the three actors playing astronauts couldn’t sit down between takes and instead the production employed “the slanted boards usually leaned against by elaborately-gowned female stars to protect their costumes.” (You learn something new about the business every day!). Never mind the bulkiness, the actors spent a chunk of their time in the air and the one day James Franciscus expected to meet acting hero Gregory Peck (they had no scenes together) it proved impossible as when the star visited the capsule set Franciscus was 60 ft in the air.
Richard Crenna got a better response from his young son, who had little concept of what an actor did. But after seeing his dad floating around in space high above him, he reckoned his father was actually a hero
For such a male-oriented picture, Columbia made a big play for the female audience. “The Ladies Love Marooned,” boasted one advert in the 16-page A2 Pressbook/Campaign Manual aimed at exhibitors. Pulling on quotes from critics nobody had really heard of, it managed to present the notion that the picture was as exciting, fascinating, “ingeniously-devised,” and suspenseful for women as much as men, at the same time as focusing on the feminine aspects of the movie – “Lee Grant is a knockout.”
The Pressbook itself allocated editorial space to the three female stars. For Lee Grant the slant was that her talent had been recognized by a host of awards – Emmy, Obie, Best Actress at Cannes plus an Oscar nomination (she would later win an Oscar for Shampoo, 1975). But you have to wonder how an actress would respond to be called, in print, “an egg-head with sex” as was the case with Nancy Kovack. In between turning out such pictures as Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966) and this, Kovack had been resident in Iran where she made Diamond 33 (1967) and Night of the Angels (1968). By comparison, Mariette Hartley got off lightly, thanks to her Shakespearian training.
A separate 4-page A2 insert promoted the three Oscar nominations for cinematography, sound and visual effects. “Nominated for 3 Academy Awards,” was the slug accompanying the ads. Never mind the reviews from female critics, much bigger space was devoted here to a rave review form Rex Reed, one of the most famous critics of the day (and star, if that’s the right word, of Myra Breckenridge, 1970), who claimed Marooned was “as exciting, spirited and suspenseful as any spy movie or any cops-and-robbers movie ever made.”
As you might expect, the bulk of the promotional ideas were science-based. Exhibitors were told to target the country’s 2,500 science clubs, the armed forces, the industries that supported the space program and, of course, schools and colleges. Tie-ins had been achieved with 4,500 A&P stores, Jane Parker Donuts, and Philco-Ford dealers.
From a contemporary marketing standpoint, the surprising tie-in was with Omega watches, tagged “the first watch on the moon,” the company’s Speedmaster brand not just worn by the astronauts who did land on the moon in July 1969 but seen in the picture on the wrists of Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, Gene Hackman and James Franciscus. Over 4,000 dealers were backing the movie.
Model kit manufacturer Revell was offering space suits as prizes in a competition. It distributed more than 42,000 standees and posters and printed five million entry forms. Bantam books was promoting the original novel by Martin Caidin. That exhibitors would be eager to equip a staff member with an astronaut’s garb and have him/her parade through the streets went without saying. Using lift-off sound effects in a cinema lobby was another idea or turning the entire lobby into a space set.
Rather disconcertingly, the marketing bigwigs thought it would be a clever idea to propose a discussion program on radio or local television on the subject of what would happen if spacemen were marooned, a rather tetchy subject when that became reality.
Unusually, but not surprisingly, the posters stuck with the one tag line: “Three marooned astronauts. And only 55 minutes left to rescue them. While the whole world watches and waits…” and buttressed by some thumbs-up quotes from the likes of reviewers from the New York Times, Redbook, Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Herald Examiner. In fact, the advertising department took such a shine to Charles Champlin of the LA Times that they cut up his review and stuck snippets of it in three separate ads.
You’ll have seen from the variety of adverts I’ve used to support the review and the Behind the Scenes article earlier in the Blog, that there was a wider range, initially, of adverts, some showing the capsule stuck out in the middle of space. By the time it came to printing this Pressbook, the one for the picture’s general release, all of those were jettisoned in favor of the insipid “thumbs-up” poster with faces to the foreground and the launch in the background, attendant quotes and the “3 Academy award Nominations” slug.
As demonstrated in Madison Avenue (1961), the “big build-up” was code for inflicting on an unsuspecting public an unlikely candidate for acclaim. Of course, for decades, Hollywood hacks had been bombarding fan magazines, weeklies, glossy monthlies and dailies with beefcake and cheesecake photos of promising new talent. But the hook was that these actors were shortly appearing, albeit in a bit part, in a few months’ time in a forthcoming movie.
Modelling was another device to attract the attention necessary to generate a screen career. Sometimes, these (predominantly female) models would be making their first throw of the dice, hoping that some producer in an idle moment might catch a glimpse. Or, they could be women who made a living from selling such snaps to such media.
But, usually, it was one thing or the other: gratis photos handed out by grateful studio marketing teams or photos that an editor paid for in the hope they would increase circulation (in the days when there was no such thing as a giveaway magazine). La Welch appears to have fallen into the latter category.
But it was a heck of a long-term build-up given that with the exception of the virtually unseen Swingin’ Summer (1965), in which she has a bit part, Raquel Welch did not appear in a movie until September 1966. By that point, modelling a skintight number in Fantastic Voyage – it was December before that iconic fur bikini in One Million Years B.C. set male hearts pumping – it seems that magazine editors the world over were prone to giving her space in the years prior covering 1964-1966 when she was effectively an unknown.
Esquire splash.
Which would go some way to explaining why by the time her first movies hit the screen she was already a familiar face (and body, it has to be said) to many (and not exclusively male) in the audience. The promotional push was supplied by Twentieth Century Fox which had signed her to a five-picture contract, making her, perhaps in their own words, one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood.
But deals with studios for new talent were ten a penny, no guarantee the studio would keep its side of the bargain, nor that the contract would run to term, nor that the actress would be handed anything but bit parts. Still, it probably cost relatively little to start pumping out promotional photos with “new rising talent” as the lure. Magazines seemed happy to accept on face value that she was a rising star even though there was no proof that she had the talent to match.
Life magazine proved something of a stepping stone. She was featured in a bikini in its Oct 2, 1964, issue. But you could just as easily have caught her in a leopard-skin dress draped across a cocktail stool, one of several cheesecake pictures taken to promote the starlet. Parade magazine, in Britain, something of a lower-grade male magazine, far removed from the likes of the glossier Playboy, was among the first to take the bait, in December 1964 (see above) handing the young potential star its front cover. (Her surname was misspelled as Welsh – and her Christian name was misspelled as Rachel when she featured again in March 13, 1965.)
Five of the 10 chosen Deb Stars of Tomorrow. See if you can spot our gal.
But the real boost came at the end of December 1964. That month she was one of ten potential female stars featured in the Dec 27 issue of New York Journal-American under the title “TV’s Magic Wand Taps Girls As Stars of Tomorrow.” She had been chosen to appear on ABC TV’s “Debs Stars of 1965” programme. This show claimed an 85 per cent success rate in picking potential stars, with Kim Novak, Tuesday Weld and Yvette Mimieux among previous winners.*
In April 1965, the distinctly more upmarket – and not male-appealing – McCalls in the U.S. came calling, but that front cover dispensed with the sexy look, presenting her wearing spectacles. By September 1965, the Fox marketeers had been hard at work and won for her – a full year before Fantastic Voyage opened – the front cover and an inside spread in the British edition of movie fan magazine Photoplay. The next month brought another iconic photograph, the “nude” spread in U.S. upmarket monthly Esquire, accompanied by a full-page interview that treated her as the next big thing, again on the word of Fox, nobody having as yet seen so much as an inch of the footage of the sci-fi picture.
The same month in trademark bikini she was on the front cover of U.S. Camera and Travel magazine (surname again misspelled), photographed by Don Ornitz and described as “a rising young actress with many screen and TV credits to her name” without specifying that in fact these were mostly uncredited or in bit parts. Also during 1965 she featured in Turkish magazine SES and Portuguese magazine Plateia.
But there was also the grind. She advertised Wate-On slimming in Screen Stories in 1965, was the cover model for True Love in September 1965 while for Midnight magazine – and surely this was a story dreamed up by a publicity hound – her front cover picture was accompanied by the heading “Adultery Can Save Your Marriage” and inside she was quoted as saying “A Wife Should Let Her Husband Cheat.”
The big build-up went into overdrive in 1966. She modelled bikinis in two more front covers in Parade (all name errors corrected) in January and July. Australians preferred a more demure – or at least non-bikini – look. In Australian Post (June front cover) she was photographed wearing a “dress of ten thousand beads” from her unnamed next picture (neither Fantastic Voyage nor One Million Years B.C. obviously). There was a slinky pink number for the Australian edition of Photoplay (August, front cover and full-page photo inside) and a quote “I think its important for a girl to exploit her physical attractions – but with restraint.”
She also graced Hungarian magazine Filmvilag and Showtime, both in August. Perhaps the most prescient feature ran in Woman’s Mirror in April 1966. For once she was not granted the cover, but featured on a two-page spread inside under the heading “A Star Nobody Has Seen But Everybody Is Looking For.”
Most of her figure was hidden on the front cover of Pageant (July). SES had something of a scoop in its April edition with some behind-the-scenes photos of Welch in her fur bikini for One Million Years B.C. and she made the cover of German magazine Bunte (June).
Exactly how busy and successful Welch – and her promoters – had been could be gauged from the photo that appeared in the Aug 26, 1966, issue of Life, in which she was pictured in front of a wall of over 40 of front covers she had adorned in the previous two years. Pictorial proof that she was in demand and that magazine editors, long before the public had the chance to witness her screen performance, could recognize a certain kind of charisma. (She was featured in Life again in Dec 1966, in a bikini, but seen sideways, bent over and with her hair in pigtails – and on the cover of its Spanish edition on Nov 21.)
And there was another kind of accolade coming her way in Britain. She was chosen as the first cover model for the first issue of men’s magazine Mayfair in August 1966, the same month as she was positioned in the same prominent spot on Adam, another men’s magazine, and in the more sedate British magazine Weekend, in which she was promoting Fantastic Voyage.
But she would soon be forever associated with the fur bikini, posters of which were soon plastered over the walls of teenage boys. The fur bikini more than anything else broke the mold in the presentation of a new star, and luckily for Welch, the ground work had been done courtesy of the long-range big build-up.
*The other nine Deb Stars of Tomorrow were Barbara Parkins (Valley of the Dolls, 1967), Mary Ann Mobley (Istanbul Express, 1968), Margaret Mason (no movies but some television), Wendy Stuart (couple of bit parts), Beverley Washburn (Pit Stop, 1969), Tracy McHale (nothing), Laurie Sibbald ( a few television episodes), Janet Landgard (The Swimmer, 1968) and Donna Loren (a few television episodes). No prizes for guessing who won that particular Deb Star competition.
Until a technological invention first used in Once a Thief (1965) it was impossible to shoot “day for night” without it appearing very obvious. So when director Vincente Minnelli aimed for as much verisimilitude as possible for the Rome-set drama it meant half the shoot took place at night. “Minnelli could sleep easily during the day,” recalled star Kirk Douglas (The Arrangement, 1969), “sometimes till six o’clock in the evening, but I couldn’t so there were three unpleasant weeks of night shooting and not much sleep.”
But the movie suffered, Douglas later complained, by studio interference at the editing stage. When the movie fell foul of the Production Code, change of MGM management vetoed the more salacious aspects of the movie – the worst aspects of “La Dolce Vita” including a sequence in a nightclub where guests watched an unseen sexual act. Fifteen minutes were cut including a scene that showed Cyd Charisse’s character in a more sympathetic light. In an ironic reflection of the film’s narrative, Minnelli played no part in the editing, not due to production deadlines as in the movie, but out of choice.
The actual producer John Houseman – producer of Douglas starrers The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Lust for Life (1956) though later best known as an actor in Rollerball (1975) etc – backed out of any tussle with MGM head honcho Joseph Vogel. Douglas implored Vogel and editor Margaret Booth, to no avail. Consequently, in Douglas’s opinion, the film was “emasculated.” He argued MGM had turned an “adult” picture into a “family” film. Quite how this could be squared with marketing that promised a “shocking intimate view of Rome’s international film set” (see below) was not mentioned.
Following the commercial and artistic success of Spartacus (1960), Douglas was at the peak of his career, though his last three pictures had been flops. After nabbing an Oscar for Gigi (1959), Minnelli also enjoyed a career high, and although best known for musicals like Meet Me in St Louis (1944) and An American in Paris (1951) was equally adept at drama like The Bad and the Beautiful, Lust for Life (1956) and Some Came Running (1958). But he, too, was running empty, his last three serious films – Home from the Hill (1960), All the Fine Young Cannibals (1961) and big-budget roadshow The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) coming up short at the box office.
Douglas earned $500,000 and a percentage of the profits (though none were forthcoming – it made a loss of $3 million) and top-billing. Although co-star Edward G. Robinson (Seven Thieves, 1960) appeared above the title, Douglas refused to accord female lead Cyd Charisse (Maroc 7, 1967), on one-tenth of his salary, that concession.
Douglas recalled that he build up his acting skills through wrestling. A college wrestling champ, he barnstormed across the country in a carnival, playing the cocky person reputedly from the audience who challenged the giant resident wrestler. “My job was to make the audience think he was going to murder me,” Douglas told the Pressbook/Campaign Manual. “And the way to do this was by expressions on my face. To yell out in pain would seem cowardly. But I learned a hundred and one ways of showing it through use of my eyes and the muscles in my face.”
The actor escaped serious injury when lightning, preceding one of the worst thunderstorms in a decade, struck a 200-year-old clock on the top of the church in Santa Maria Square. Four huge iron numerals were torn off and crashed to the ground, one grazing Douglas’s head.
In fact, the movie’s authenticity owed much to being filmed on the streets of Rome rather than reconstructed on the studio lot. In particular, scenes utilizing the Via Veneto, two long blocks of sidewalk cafes where the movie industry socialized, created a realistic atmosphere, especially when a hundred or so of the extra employed were actually people who would naturally populate the location. So, for example, when the script called for an opera star among the extras, casting director Guidarino Guidi used Bostonian Ann English, an opera singer studying in Rome. Among those sitting in the background at café tables were a promising young painter, a poet and a librettist.
George Hamilton (Act One, 1963), who had worked in Home from the Hill and just finished Light in the Piazza (1962) also shot in Rome, reckoned he couldn’t have been more miscast given his role called for a “funky James-Dean type.” He got the role through the influence of Betty Spiegel, wife of producer Sam, and her friend Denise Gigante, the director’s current girlfriend (later wife). Hamilton drove around in a red Ferrari costing $18,000 (ten times that at today’s prices) and, as he put it, “Italians knew how to worship” Hollywood stars.
Hamilton reckoned part of the problem of the film was that Minnelli was so “besotted with Denise that he had lost his vision.” Jumping to the defence of Cyd Charisse against a tirade from journalist Oriana Fallaci at the Venice Film Festival won Hamilton, unexpectedly, the cover of Paris-Match.
Daliah Lavi owed her career break to Douglas. As a nine-year-old in Hiffa, Israel, she struck up a friendship with the actor when he was filming The Juggler there in 1952. The actor and other stars attended her birthday party, Douglas presenting her with a ballet dress. Later a dancer and then an actress, this was her Hollywood debut. Erich von Stroheim Jr, making his movie acting debut, had his head shaved to make him appear more like his famed director father. Originally employed as an assistant director on the picture, Minnelli decided he would make a good Ravinski, the “fast-talking press agent.”
Chauvinism reared its ugly head, especially when women had to apologise for being on the receiving end. “What goes on in the minds of beautiful women when they get slapped for the cameras?” mused the editor of the Pressbook/Campaign Manual. Rossano Schiaffino’s response regarding being whacked on the behind by Douglas: “He hits hard so charmingly I didn’t mind standing up for a day of two.”
The actress proved tougher than many of her colleagues. She turned down the offer of a double for a scene in which she jumped into a lake. That might not have been such an undertaking had the sequence been shot in the hot Italian sunshine at the height of summer. But the MGM studio tank on Lot 3 was a different – and much colder – proposition. “She shrugged off her stunt with the remark that heated pools are unknown where she comes from.”
Irwin Shaw, author of the best-selling source novel, wasn’t too upset at the way the movie turned out. “An author who wants complete control of his work on the screen is in something of a cleft stick,” he observed. “He can either go into production himself, which is often neither possible nor desirable, or he can refuse to sell his work to the movies. Minor deviations in screen conception don’t send me reeling back a stricken man. I think I’m sufficiently realistic to know that even in the most enlightened films there must be some compromise if they are to be a success. What does matter very strongly to me is that the theme of the novel…should come over on the screen.”
Music trivia: Kirk Douglas was the first big Hollywood star to perform “The Twist” on screen and the song “Don’t Blame Me” was reprised from The Bad and the Beautiful, sung here sung by Leslie Uggams and in the older film by Peggy King.
French designer Pierre Balmain created the dresses, allowing a marketing campaign to be built around those stores which supplied his clothes. TWA, which flew directly to Rome, was suggested to cinema owners as an ideal tie-in. Not only did New American Library issue a new movie tie-in paperback/soft cover but cinemas were encouraged to build a campaign around a director, many of whose films would be well-known to audiences. The marketeers also had material to tie in with stores retailing music, women’s sportswear, menswear, men’s sweaters, beauty and hair styling.
The 16-page A3 Pressbook/Campaign Manual offered a selection of advertisements and taglines. The key advert tagline ran “Another town…another kind of love…one he couldn’t resist…the other he couldn’t escape.” But there were alternatives: “Only in Rome could this story be filmed/Every town has women like Carlotta and Veronica and the kind of man they both want!/From Irwin Shaw’s great best seller.”
Or you could opt for: “Irwin Shaw’s shocking intimate view of Rome’s international film set. The world only sees the glamor. This is the drama behind it!.” Or: “Only in Rome could this story happen. Only in Rome could this story be filmed!”
SOURCES: Kirk Douglas, The Ragman’s Son (Simon and Schuster paperback, 2010) p342-344; George Hamilton, Don’t Mind If I Do (JR Book hardback 2009)pp 155-159; Pressbook/ Campaign Manual, Two Weeks in Another Town (MGM).
Yep, you hand the promotional department the problem of selling a movie about undertakers and see what they come up with. The tagline “the motion picture with someone to offend everyone” is unlikely to attract the unwary and leaves you only with an audience that enjoys seeing sacred cows slaughtered, which might minimize appeal. Coupled with a montage of outlandish scenes and characters, the main advert had its work cut out to attract anyone.
Just as well, then, the marketing department had some apparent plums up its sleeve. Even more than weddings, funerals are associated with flowers. So, top of “the ticket-selling ideas” was suggesting to cinema owners either to stick a wreath at the front door or get a florist to spell out the title in a lobby display.
If that didn’t work, go for broke and stick a tombstone (easily constructed from plywood or papier mache, apparently) in the lobby. (The Fall of the House of Usher had gone one better, promising a free casket to anyone who dropped ad of fright.) Better still, lay down grass on the pavement outside to achieve a lawn effect.
And if that doesn’t get the media buzzing, why not just hire a hearse. That could sit outside the theater or tour the locality with banners slung along the sides. If the local newspaper was willing, you could arrange to have the print delivered by hearse, photographer on hand to record proceedings.
“Since The Loved One spoofs the undertaking business, most morticians aren’t too happy with the picture. This can be twisted to advantage to get you a newspaper story,” proclaims the Pressbook. Basically, the notion is that undertakers will respond to a reporter nosing around and that somehow that will permit mention in the resulting article of the movie. Another idea is to invite undertakers to the opening night on the assumption that no one will turn up and that somehow that, too, will make a newspaper story.
A simpler alternative was just to hire a model and have her parade around town dressed in white like a mortician and passing out flowers.
Just in case nobody had noted the off-beat nature of the picture, cinema managers were encouraged to browbeat local journalists into spelling this out and putting the movie into the same bracket as Dr Strangelove (1964), What’s New, Pussycat? (1965) and, of course, Tom Jones (1963).
Oddly enough, the movie received a favourable press – or at least a word or two which could be culled from reviews to make it appear so. Thus, one advert was able to rustle up quotes from the New York Times, Cue magazine, Herald Tribune, Holiday magazine, Life and Saturday Review.
Basically, there was as little meat on the advertising bones as in the genuine narrative to the picture itself. There was only one tagline and all the adverts, covering three-quarters of the 12-page A3 Pressbook, were variations on the one ad.
Outside of the cameo appearances, the male and female leads were relative newcomers, both starring in Quick, Before It Melts (1964). Courtesy of his long-running role on Broadway hit How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Morse was marginally the bigger marquee name.
For a comedy, it was a potentially lethal role for Morse. “There was one scene in which a toy rocket blew up in my face and another in which I was dragged 40 feet by an automobile. I came close to being asphyxiated after doing a 60-minute stint in an air-tight embalming room.”
“Fate has been kind to me so far,” averred Comer. “But it didn’t all happen overnight, you know. Actually, I don’t think the quickie successes mean very much. You can be belle of the ball one day and a has-been the next.
“When I decided to go into this business, I made up my mind about one thing. I wouldn’t go into it unprepared. I got the groundwork in workshop plays at the Pasadena Playhouse and I concentrated on acting to the exclusion of everything else. I never even got to see what Hollywood actually looked like.”
After the success of Tom Jones, director Tony Richardson was given carte blanche. He filmed in 21 locations including the California freeway (as yet unopened), pet cemeteries and Beverly Hills mansions (the ground floor of Dohney marble chateau) and never in the studio. “I feel constricted working anywhere but in the real locales,” he told the Pressbook. “There are inconveniences in working outside a studio but I don’t mind them.”
His quest for realism extended to make-up. For example, he vetoed applying make-up to Jonathan Winters’ hand so that it matched his tanned face. Other attempts at verisimilitude saw lights taped to ceilings and sound equipment strapped to plumbing. Substitutes were found for equipment deemed too bulky or sensitive for location filming.
Future Warner Bros boss John Calley, here working as co-producer, explained some of the problems encountered. “Normally, when a piece of equipment is to be used or something needs to be constructed in Hollywood, it is only a matter of dialling the proper studio telephone extension. But under the Richardson plan every bit of equipment, every prop, every item of construction had to be individually contracted. There is no question that this is the most difficult way to make a picture, but it is the only way Richardson will work.”
The one element that every movie requires – advance publicity – was denied Elmer Gantry. Shooting took place on a closed set with all visitors carefully screened. Only six actors were given access to a complete screenplay while a general synopsis was denied distributors and cinema owners.
Over 30 years after publication of the source novel by Sinclair Lewis, its contents were considered so volatile and contentious that, rather than be pre-judged by the industry on expectations of what the movie may contain, director Richard Brooks took to issuing baffling statements such as describing Elmer Gantry as “The All-American Boy.”
Even the 12-page A3 Pressbook/Campaign Book, the prime source of marketing contact between studio and theater owner, was niggardly in the extreme. Narrative detail was limited to “the story of a spellbinding evangelist” rather anything approaching a synopsis.
Stuck with how to woo an audience in advance, United Artists fell back on a teaser campaign comprising six separate ads. The sequence was as follows: “Elmer Gantry Is Coming!” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming!” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! starring Burt Lancaster”/ “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! Starring Jean Simmons” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons”. The last advert was coupled with a quote from the New York Times with the final salvo the same ad repeated but with a different quote from the New York Post.
The New York campaign – in those days a movie might take a few months to spread out from initial opening locale to other cities allowing promotional ideas that worked in one area to be publicized – relied on the first two teasers. But they went out in saturation – in railroad stations, subways, buses and race tracks with additional displays on poles, stilts and drums.
The major print advertising onslaught was led by two bold large-sized adverts intended to run facing each other on the same page. “Bless Him! Tens of thousands of believers shouted his praises!” was accompanied by the iconic illustration, Bible in hand, of Burt Lancaster. “Damn Him! Three women damned his soul” showed Lancaster grappling with Jean Simmons with Shirley Jones and Patti Paige in the background in more revealing clothing. But these two elements could also be fitted into the one ad, as shown above.
There were nearly a dozen full-size advertisements with a range of taglines. In all Lancaster is shown in the same pose with the Bible while Simmons is presented clutching a Bible and gazing heavenward. Shirley Jones appears in even skimpier outfits.
As was standard at the time, taglines could stand on their own or mix and match. Snippets for other ads were edited from this main ad: “Nobel Prize Winner Sinclair Lewis’ Bold Novel Of Passion And Damnation Bursts Full-Life Across The Screen! If there was a dollar to be made – Gantry would make it…If there was a soul to save -Gantry would save it…”
“Sinner! Elmer Gantry Wants You!” ran another ad backed up by “Are you ready, sinner? He wants you to know all about heaven…but not about his whiskey and his women!” Other adverts were fashioned from taglines like: “You’re all sinners…you’ll all burn in Hell! Tell ‘em Gantry…save ‘em from sin…lead ‘em to salvation…tell ‘em about everything…but not about your whiskey and your women!” Or included: “From the book that shook a nation with its sledgehammer theme…from a Nobel Prize-winning author…comes the raging story of a man who used the Holy Bible and broke every rule in it!”
Rarely have so many exclamation marks been employed in so short a space, but equally, rarely has a marketing team encapsulated so vividly a movie with a difficult subject matter, all tease and no substance.
Out-with the usual marketing routes, the marketing team were able to take advantage of various ancillary promotional opportunities. Dell organized a massive paperback book tie-in in thousands of bookstores and newsstands, Burt Lancaster dominating the front cover with Simmons and Jones pictured on the back. Music retailers also played their part, United Artists Records launching the Andre Previn soundtrack album while Mercury released an album of revival tuness sung by Patti Paige, who made her movie debut in the film. With record sales exceeding 35 million, Paige’s host of fan clubs were a natural target for contact and if there was none in the local vicinity cinema managers were encouraged to start one by the simple device of setting up “a giant postcard in the lobby” and inviting fans to attach their signatures.
Department stores were called upon to run 1920s Fashion Shows.
Anniversaries, so important today, helped out. It was 30 years since Sinclair Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize, the first American author so recognized, and 1960 was the 75th anniversary of his birth. But the promoters also played upon the book’s initial controversy, hoping to re-ignite the debate as a promotional tool.
With the bulk of the Pressbook given over to advertising and promotional ideas, barely little more than a single page was devoted to the stars, but even then there was little of the usual soft-focus puff pieces. The kind of journalistic nuggets that might help an editor fill a vacant space were limited. All we learned of Burt Lancaster, who had worked with Richard Brooks before on Brute Force (1947), was that – as if this was a mark of respect – he agreed to read the screenplay twice. Of Jean Simmons it was pointed out she had played an evangelist in Guys and Dolls (1955) but the Pressbook erroneously states that she played a nun in Black Narcissus (1947); in fact, she was a beggar girl. Arthur Kennedy is mentioned in relation to his Oscar nominations.
Shirley Jones was the most likely to attract column inches as a result of explaining how she made the transition from more demure roles in Oklahoma (1955) and April Love (1957). “It feels just fine – now,” she told the Pressbook interviewer. “At first, well, I really don’t wear much except what you see. A slip, these shoes with the green frills, and slinky black silk wrap-around that’s transparent.
“Usually, I walk into a movie set wearing my bustle and petticoats and some of the boys turn round as I go by and say, ‘Hiya, Shirl.’ But when I walked in dressed like this the fellows all just turned round and didn’t say anything. They never turned round like that before. Well, not really. It did take some getting used to after provoking the big brother reactions for so long.
“But I guess every girl dreams of being a conversation stopper some day. This is my chance. Of course, I am embarrassed sometimes…or maybe it’s inhibited.”
Brooks rewrote the script eight times before “he felt he had captured the essence” of Gantry. Most of the scenes were filmed on sound stages or adapted from an assortment of 1920s vintage streets from the backlots of other studios. The tabernacle was constructed out of an ice skating rink on a beach pier in Santa Monica.
Art director Edward Carerre spent $6,500 erecting and furnishing a genuine evangelist tent rented from Canvas Specialty. It was slightly trimmed to fit onto two combined sound stages on the Columbia lot. A total of 400 benches each measuring eight- or ten-feet were constructed by studio carpenters to provide seating for 1,000 – the tent accommodated another 2,000 standing. The stage required 500lb of imported sawdust and banners 30ft long were specially made to incorporate Biblical quotations. Where most movies required a maximum of 15-20 sets, Elmer Gantry boasted 62.
The climactic scene, conflagration in a tent, took five days to film. Soaking the set in kerosene would not supply the instant flash of flame the director demanded. So, instead, he turned to old film footage, including some frames from It Happened One Night (1934). “We’re burning film to make film,” quipped Brooks.
Without a James Bond to guarantee a winner, major studio United Artists invested so wisely in production in 1968 that it virtually doubled its investment. From 30 films costing a total of $60 million, the studio hit the target with rentals of $115 million.
This was in large part due to a relative newcomer, a certain Clint Eastwood. UA’s share of the costs of the final film in the Sergio Leone trilogy The Good, The Bad and the Ugly had amounted to just $972,000 and that bought it the distribution rights to most of Europe, the US and the rest of the world. The picture was a hit Stateside with $5.2 million in rentals (the studio share of box office gross once the cinema had taken its cut) and it took in another $5 million at the global ticket wickets. The grand total of $10.2 million was ten times the cost, and this was before Easy Rider the following year made cost-to-profit ratio a significant measure of success.
But UA had also forked out $1.67 million to make Eastwood’s first American western, Hang ‘Em High directed by Ted Post with Inger Stevens as the female lead. That racked up just over $6 million in the domestic market with another $3 million overseas, totalling $9.04 million.
But whereas those in the know, based on returns for the first two spaghetti westerns, could have predicted a solid audience response to the Clint Eastwood duo, that was hardly the case for a low-budget comedy with two stars whose movie careers had largely derailed.
Although a major star on television thanks to I Love Lucy, and a considerable power in television production – her company Desilu produced Mission Impossible, Star Trek and The Untouchables – Lucille Ball was a spent force in the movies. She hadn’t made a picture in five years – Critic’s Choice (1963) flopped – and only two in the last decade. While still in demand, Henry Fonda was more likely to play second lead – to Richard Widmark in Madigan (1968) or James Stewart in Firecreek (1968) – or a supporting role in a big budget film and on those rare occasions when he was top-billed, Welcome to Hard Times (1967), the movie flopped.
Yours, Mine and Ours was based on a non-fiction best-seller, a melding of gigantic proportions of two families, totalling a dozen children. The comic opportunities were obvious to writer-director Melville Shavelson, back on home ground after Israeli war epic Cast a Giant Shadow (1966). A feel-good comedy without any sex was what Disney did, not a studio known for breaking boundaries. If nobody expected much, even if Ball could drag in her television fans, Hollywood had forgotten about the forgotten audiences, the older generation left out in the cold by the spate of movies mainlining on sex and violence. It proved the ideal antidote to the previous year’s The Graduate.
Made for just $1.7 million (plus $455,000 deferred, payable only if the movie went into the black) it was outrageously successful, knocking up $13 million in global rentals. Foreign audiences were less taken but by then nobody cared for it had scored over $11 million in rentals in the U.S, placing ninth in the annual box office league.
Although it cost considerably more – $4.3 million – UA pulled out another plum with Steve McQueen-Faye Dunaway romantic thriller The Thomas Crown Affair which ransacked the global box office to the tune of $11.2 million in rentals.
Whereas, excepting the latter, all these had been low-budget gambles, UA took an almighty risk with musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the closest it came to James Bond given they shared the same author in Ian Fleming. Dick Van Dyke was in Mary Poppins form, but co-star Shirley Anne Howe was no Julie Andrews. The budget was a whopping $11.9 million, more than double the cost of its next most expensive production, The Charge of the Light Brigade. It just about sneaked home, earning rentals of $14.8 million. While, technically, the studio’s biggest hit at the box office, in terms of profit it lagged way behind.
Another risky venture was war film The Devil’s Brigade starring an out-of-favor William Holden who hadn’t had a hit since the start of the decade. Budgeted at $4.7 million there were some anxious moments at UA HQ when the domestic tally was just $3.85 million but audiences overseas were more welcoming and, in the end, the global tally of $8.6 million made it a certified hit.
The $3 million spent, respectively, on comedy The Party starring Peter Sellers and western The Scalphunters with Burt Lancaster also hit the profit lode, the former with a global pot of $4.5 million, the latter $4.75 million.
There was also shrewd investment in overseas films. Beatles animated feature Yellow Submarine torpedoed $3.6 million on a budget of $1.1 million. British coming of age sex drama Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush cost just $602,000 but pulled in $2.5 million. A couple of French arties hit home runs. Claude Lelouche’s Vivre Pour Vivre with Yves Montand and Candice Bergen racked up $4.4 million but cost only $561,000 and Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black brought in rentals of just over $2 million on a budget of $747,000.
Out of 30 films, 17 ended up in profit, which was a pretty good result for an industry that was about to hit the financial buffers from overspending. With budgets averaging just $2 million the studio reduced the risk factor. While UA had built a successful business in the 1950s and 1960s by paying top dollar to stars, ceding control and financing vanity projects, now it was less inclined to gamble on unproven marquee value. Only Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Burt Lancaster, Peter Sellers and William Holden had the kind of box office track record that would have studios lining up to match their fees.
SOURCE: “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended December 28, 1968,” United Artists Files, University of Wisconsin.
What a potential cinematic coup. Upstanding Gary Cooper (High Noon, 1952) a villain? That’s the entire premise and a bold one at that.
Businessman George (Gary Cooper) is the key witness in the trial of alcoholic colleague Donald Heath (Ray McAnally) on charges of murder and theft of £60,000. But after Heath is convicted, George’s wife Martha (Deborah Kerr) begins to suspect the wrong man has been found guilty. Her husband has suddenly come into a large sum of money from, he claims, playing the stock market and at the trial’s conclusion is accosted by a stranger, Jeremy Clay (Eric Portman).
The “red danger warning flashing light.”
Several years a later blackmail letter comes to light, increasing Martha’s doubts. After all this time, George can’t quite lay his hands on the documents regarding his stock market claims. He is spotted in London when he should be abroad.
Martha is so convinced something is wrong that she writes a cheque to Heath’s wife (Diane Cilento) not realizing how shady this would look if the case was revisited. Alarming incidents mount up – her husband’s razor, an invitation to walk along a clifftop. Much of the pressure is self-generated. She has put so much faith in her husband that she would be destroyed if he was guilty, so he must be innocent. Except she can’t quite get rid of the nagging voice.
For his part, George behaves so oddly, being caught out in lies about his whereabouts, and except, conversely, on his insistence that for the sake of their love she must trust him, he does little to shake the doubts especially when Clay pops up again reasserting his misgivings. Since there is no sign of a police investigation, Martha is solely responsible for creating the tension. And, with her out of the way, life might be a lot easier all-round.
The much-vaunted “final 13 minutes” – as promoted in the poster – certainly justifies the tension but outside of whatever’s going on in Martha’s head much of that has been created by bursts of melodramatic music, sudden close-ups and continued emphasis on her point-of-view.
This was Gary Cooper’s final film and it wasn’t the kind of triumphant send-off achieved by Clark Gable (The Misfits, 1961) or Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967). It might even have been a surprise choice, audiences more accustomed to find him in westerns – add Vera Cruz (1954) and Friendly Persuasion (1957) to his star turns in that genre. But although he had made nine westerns in the previous decade, he also starred in six non-westerns, including a politician-businessman in Ten North Frederick (1958), and wasn’t averse to playing less than straitlaced characters.
That grim determination that become a hallmark when upholding law and order easily transitioned into just grim determination against whatever threatened his well-being. Of course, the whole enterprise relies on sleight-of-hand but that’s par for the course.
Deborah Kerr had ended the 1950s as a strong-minded female but now seemed to be hell-bent on exploring her fragility and this role seems a direct line to characters played in The Innocents (1961), The Chalk Garden (1964) and TheNight of the Iguana (1965).
Audiences were used, by now, to being told when they could enter a theatre. Remember, this was in the glory days of the continuous performance when customers could take their seats at any time during a screening not, as now, before the picture started. You might think it odd that people were barred from entry during the final 13 minutes, as if anyone would consider this a good time to enter, but it was very common for people to take their seats at any odd time. Just in case people didn’t have watches to hand, cinemas were instructed to install a red light and have it flashing in the lobby to prevent interlopers entering. Alfred Hitchcock, of course, invented this clever marketing ploy of annoying the customers for Psycho (1960) but it was still going on as late as Return from the Ashes (1965).
Not Cooper’s greatest film but a decent two-hander that might have worked better if there had been more of a sense of gaslighting Kerr. That it works at all is down to the actors, not a bad achievement when you consider the director was asking the audience to go completely against type in accepting Cooper as a potential killer.
British director Michael Anderson (The Quiller Memorandum, 1966) had the sense to ignore the attractions of tourist London and concentrate on suspense. Joseph Stefano (Psycho) based the screenplay on a novel by Max Ehrlich.
It’s only according to film historians and movies like Babylon (2022) that the transition to sound in 1927 was instantaneous. Maybe from a contorted academic perspective, but not for audiences and not for exhibitors. That The Jazz Singer (1927) proved momentous required not one revolution, but two. For it was responsible for nothing less than the beginnings of the wide release.
There had been sporadic attempts at day-dating, day-and-date, simultaneous openings, saturation bookings, whatever you wanted to call it, from 1913 to 1920. You might find an occasional picture released all at once into 20 houses in New York, but more likely it was a picture that showed up on two or three screens in Detroit, San Francisco or St Louis. In 1921 there were 300 day-and-date bookings for Chaplin’s The Kid with 70 prints allocated to New York and 40 to Chicago. But wide release remained rare.
In 1924 in Cleveland 65 nabes signed up to day-date Let Not Man Put Asunder and First National attempted to interest 100 theaters in day-dating Lilies of the Field. In 1927 MGM promoted Greta Garbo-John Gilbert in Love as opening, without specific dates, in “approximately” 100 theaters while Fox claimed 90 had signed up for Colleen Moore in Her Wild Oat (1927).
However, “simultaneous” was widely open to interpretation, not necessarily meaning day-dating. The kind of release system we know today remained rare and sporadic. Wide release did not take off because there was no reason for it to do so.
While The Jazz Singer single-handedly thrust Warner Brothers into the higher echelons of the industry, it did not herald a tidal wave of talkies. Despite its success, the jury was still out – was it a gimmick or a revolution? Without the complications of sound, movies were a $1.5 billion ($25 billion today) business and the idea that theater owners would cotton on to the potential of sound and rush to become “wired” was soon demolished. Predictions of 350 sound installations by the end of 1927 proved wildly optimistic, less than 100 theaters obliging.
Exhibitor antipathy could be laid in large part at the studio door. Owners had to pay the cost of changing to sound – plus a weekly royalty to Vitaphone of 10 cents per seat – with no guarantee that the trend would last or, more importantly, that it would iron out existing inequalities. Studios and exhibitors were at war. Exhibitor anger against studios was demonstrated by the volume of complaints to the 32 Film Boards of Trade, over 23,000 in 1925-26 – more than one for every theater in existence – wrongs righted to the tune of $4.6 million in damages.
The studios had their own complaints against exhibitors: of the $650 million paid by the public for theater tickets in 1926, only $185 million found its way into their coffers as rentals, around 28 per cent of the gross, remarkably low by modern standards. With profit margins on film production hovering around 15 per cent, studios, preparing to invest $159 million in movies in the 1927-1928 season, could be forgiven for believing they were taking all the risk, with exhibitors hiving off so much profit they could afford more – $250 million – in theater construction.
Exhibition was a sore point for studios since they had so little share of it. By the end of 1926, they owned around five percent of the total. Neither studio-owned chains nor independent circuits had anything approaching a monopoly, or even a dominant share, most being regional-based rather than nationwide. The biggest theaters were the most important. Super-theaters on Broadway and big city downtown areas could charge $2.20 admission compared to the national average of 28-35 cents. In 1927, 68 of these behemoths generated a total of $47 million ($790 million in today’s figures), the 5,450-seat Capitol in New York alone nabbing $2.7 million ($45 million).
The traditional method of releasing silent features depended on, effectively, withholding them. Each sector of exhibition obediently waited its turn while competition for new pictures between rival exhibitors served to stoke bids. The release system was littered with gaps of up to three weeks clearance, during which movies did not play at all as they worked their way down the ladder, this being the accepted method to ensure that the public still flocked to the more expensive houses rather than holding off till they turned up in a cheaper nabe, the waiting theaters prohibited from even advertising in advance such forthcoming attractions in local newspapers.
Studios also used hits as a way of enticing theater owners to commit to annual contracts. In theory, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles would get the biggest movies first. In reality, because big hits were allowed to run as long as first run theaters wanted them, it was virtually impossible to arrange the simultaneous release, on any scale, of a new feature. The long runs were permitted in part because of the grosses that could be achieved and in part because the amount of money taken in first run was the measure by which rental rates were set for further down the line.
A movie that ran for months at top prices (“a $2 hit”) in New York would attract higher rental prices in smaller cities than one lasting a week or two. Some runs were exceptional: The Big Parade (1925) and Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ (1925) ran on Broadway for a year, Mare Nostrum (1926) and The Scarlet Letter (1926) for seven months, The Merry Widow (1925) for six months and La Boheme (1926) for four months.
Even had studios desired it, length of run, dictated by different exhibitor circumstances and public reaction in various cities, conspired to make simultaneous first run openings well nigh impossible. Fifteen cities constituted the peak of movie first run box office in 1926: Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco and Washington.
But it proved impossible throughout that year for a single picture to complete a run in all of these cities. The Big Parade opened in New York, Los Angeles and Washington on the same day, January 2, but in no other city in this list that year, its simultaneous opening therefore limited to just 20 per cent of first run in these major cities. Ben Hur also opened on January 2 in New York but did not reach Philadelphia, its only other port of call that year, until June. Aloma of the Seven Seas managed 80 per cent penetration, but it was a lengthy enterprise, beginning on May 22 in New York and ending on November 20 in Washington. The Sea Beast opened in only six cities within a four-month period.
So it was entirely feasible that, following the combined restraints imposed by both exhibitors and studios, The Jazz Singer may have taken as long as any of these features to traverse the country and still, within year of its premiere, not been seen in all the major cities. In the first few post-premiere months, only three of the key fifteen cities showed it.
So a movie that was a sensation in New York remained a New York sensation only. There was nothing immediate, as film scholars have suggested, as regards the rest of the nation’s audiences and exhibitors.
However, Warner Brothers, using the prospect of immediate payback to entice theater owners to install sound, broke with tradition and unleashed an unprecedented release onslaught.
In so doing, the studio invented the modern wide release.
In March 1928 The Jazz Singer opened simultaneously in 235 theaters natonwide. But that was not all that was revolutionary. For a start, exhibitors had to contract to pay a percentage of the receipts, on a sliding scale from week one, rather than a flat rental. Secondly, the studio dictated the length of run, rather than the exhibitor, Warner Brothers demanding a minimum eight-week run. Thirdly, the studio expanded the initial day-and-date idea into second- and third-run bookings, triggering a series of simultaneous multiple releases in the nabes. After first runs were completed, large numbers of nabes took part in wider day-dating programs, in Philadelphia, for example, after twelve weeks in first run, twenty other houses throughout the city lined up for simultaneous wide release, a situation repeated across the country. Fourthly, those theaters way down the release chain that normally played a split week had to commit to a full weeks.
In one fell swoop, Warner Brothers challenged the existing order. Multiple release meant that studios would no longer be held to ransom by giant picture houses determining not just when a major movie played but, unintentionally perhaps, the restrictions that followed in its wake. By dictating minimum length of run, Warner Brothers took back control of “exclusive” engagements. Clearance stipulated that the theater at the top of the release hierarchy had exclusive rights to exhibition and could hold onto the movie for as long as it wished. Obviously, studios were not averse to this as the biggest theaters attracted the biggest audiences. But if a movie was a sensation, the studio could not cash in on media attention by yanking it from downtown and sending it out wider while public interest was at a peak.
With The Jazz Singer, Warner Brothers guaranteed exclusivity, but on its terms. A big city first run theater had to cede control over length of run in order to show the picture. On the other hand theaters all over America would have access to new movies in a way that, heretofore, had been virtually forbidden. The arrival of sound spurred studios to shorten release patterns and widen openings in order to reassure those installing the new equipment that it was going to be worthwhile and, also, that they would not have to wait ages to receive a return on their investment.
Simultaneous opening became the way forward both in first run and in nabes, the size of saturation varying enormously from those who topped The Jazz Singer theater count to those who came nowhere near, and not just for sound. In fact, The Jazz Singer saturation record barely lasted a month, beaten by new silent comedy Speedy starring Harold Lloyd at Easter in 250 theaters nationwide.
The main limitation to simultaneous opening was the shortage of prints. Studios and independents produced 800 pictures a year and the average life of a print was 59 showings (around 100 working days). Typically, an ordinary feature would require 150, increasing to 200-250 for studio “specials,” roadshows receiving 300-plus (although this included prints for overseas), so, annually, a studio might have upwards of 7,500 prints of new films in circulation. With prints costing 4 cents per foot, around $280 for a seven-reel movie, Hollywood’s annual expenditure was in the millions.
Sound necessitated an increase in prints. Availability rather than restricted access was key, so studios were forced to place sound pictures in those houses which could play them, and that incurred a faster play-off than before. But since relatively few cinemas were wired, movies appeared in silent and sound versions. For Two Lovers (1928) starring Ronald Colman only 55 of the 320 prints were specified as sound, a similar ratio for DeMille’s King of King.
By now, whether exhibitors were complicit or not, studios were committed to sound, having set aside $5 million for sound stages, although, in cautious contradiction, leasing equipment rather than buying it. For the 1928-1929 season Paramount scheduled up to 50 movies with synchronized sound, Warner Brothers 30, of which five (Lights of New York, The Desert Song, The Terror, Conquest and Home Towners) would be all-talkie, First National 31, and Universal nine. MGM and Columbia were slower to respond, MGM’s first talkie White Shadows in the South Seas not available till late summer 1928, Columbia’s talkie debut The Lone Wolf’s Daughter not ready until the following year
By summer 1928 only 400 theaters had switched to sound – barely four percent of the total – hardly suggesting a revolution had taken hold. In some areas, the availability of sound was negligible or non-existent, only five wired theaters in West Virginia, four in South Carolina, three in Maine, Utah and Nebraska, two in Louisiana, one in Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming, but none at all in New Hampshire or Nevada.
Theaters which had managed the conversion encountered a dearth of new sound product. In an era when most theaters got through up to two hundred features a year, the bulk of what was on offer sound-wise was dominated by shorts comprising comic and dramatic monologues and dialogues or featuring bands, orchestras, and operatic or semi-operatic numbers. Talkie feature production was less straightforward than silent, considerable gaps between movies. It took Warner Brothers six months after Lights of New York to bring out another all-talking picture, The Terror, which hit Broadway as a two-a-day roadshow on August 15, 1928.
The slow uptake from exhibitors was not just due to natural caution but fear about making the wrong choice. There was a baffling array of equipment to assist in the conversion to sound, ten versions of what were termed “sound picture devices” and nearly as many “synchronization devices.” Installation cost was substantial, $2,500 for a 2,000-seater for Qualitone, for example ‘Uncertainty, unrest, indecision’ choked the business. Cities like Memphis, Minnesota and Omaha and entire areas like the northwest and the Cornbelt simply refused to countenance sound.
The impact on the existing inventory was catastrophic. Exhibitors stopped renting new films, in what amounted to a “buying strike” in 1928 especially of companies which only made silents. The boycott affected all films and continued through 1929 as exhibitors were “now wary of signing up for product too far in advance lest revolutionary developments are in store again.’
With booking paralysis threatening the industry, studios took coherent action. Warner Brothers focused on increased accessibility; ‘day-dating with Broadway’ became an integral element of Warner Brothers launches. In order to rouse theaters from their torpor, Hollywood took the unusual step of creating a generic campaign, promoting talkies to the public. ‘How to focus the attention of the public,’ was a tall order when there was ‘no precedent to fall back on.’
Studios realized theaters would be more susceptible to public pressure and in August 1928 Paramount promoted the concept of sound through “the greatest advertising campaign in the history of pictures” to the 100 million readers of 695 newspapers in 413 cities while a month later Warner Brothers launched a million-dollar advertising campaign promoting sound via 125 daily newspapers.
During 1929 other studios followed the Warner Brothers example of day-dating with Broadway and to find a way round the Broadway logjams, new movies were launched away from New York, Fox, for example, opening Sunnyside Up starring the popular duo of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell in Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis and Milwaukee long before it reached New York. United Artists’ Trespasser starring Gloria Swanson only found its way to New York after a string of bookings including Buffalo, Omaha, Atlanta, Detroit and Cincinnati. Paramount “pre-released” Close Harmony (‘Hear Charles Buddy Rogers and Nancy Carroll Sing and the Whole Cast Talk!’) in five cities, but not Chicago and New York.
Exasperated by exhibitor inertia regarding sound, which had threatened to throttle the burgeoning technology, and wishing a bigger share of the overall pie, studios had also embarked on a theater-buying spree, acquiring both first run theaters and chains of nabes, the “Big Six” studios now in control of 3,800 houses.
But in 1929 Warner Brothers remained king of the wide release, setting a new simultaneous multiple release opening record, the 558 theaters involved in the launch of Queen of the Night Clubs ‘on or about March 16’ more than doubling the previous high-water mark. And it charged ahead with unprecedented numbers of simultaneous openings to satisfy demand (5,000 houses wired by August, 43 per cent using Vitaphone), maintain its position as the market leader in sound, build market share, drive up its stock price, and to capitalize on profits from the exhibition sector now that the company had invested more in that field.
But it had taken a full two years since The Jazz Singer for the industry to reach a turning point. The schedules for 1929-1930 revealed that for the first time the production of talkies outweighed that of silents, 504 vs. 403. Such volumes would more than satisfy the needs of the average theater.
So, yes, the slowest recorded revolution in history. And it took another revolution in wide release to make it possible.
SOURCE: Brian Hannan, In Theaters Everywhere, A History of the Hollywood Wide Release, 1913-2017 (McFarland, 2019) p11-21. There are over 100 references for these pages so I’m not going to print them all here. You can get them in the book if you so desire.
The Magnificent 60s 