Few stars were as willing to trade their glamorous screen persona for a decent role as Elizabeth Taylor, here eschewing the trademark hip swivel, low cut dresses and elegant costumes for a clumping walk, frumpy look and eating with her mouth full. After a chance meeting on top of a bus with rich waif Cenci (Mia Farrow) middle-aged prostitute Leonora (Elizabeth Taylor) swaps a dingy bedsit for life in a massive mansion, cupboards stuffed full of furs, all her needs met. Cenci seeks a mother; Leonora, whose daughter drowned aged ten, seeks a child substitute.
Soon Leonora is prisoner to a fantasist, her own identity swamped by Cenci’s needs, accepting the role of “mummy” as the price of a life of luxury until she learns that what appears so freely given can be as easily taken away. This cloistered life is creepy. Cenci has rape fantasies. To a pair of interfering and thieving aunts, Leonora pretends to be Cenci’s dead mother’s cousin.
The fantasy conjured is threatened by the presence of Cenci’s poet stepfather Albert (Robert Mitchum) who intends to become the girl’s legal guardian. He talks like a child molester, “the extraordinary purity of my longings,” but given the depth of Cenci’s fantasies Leonora initially discounts inappropriate behavior on his part especially when Cenci wishes to become inappropriate with her. If Leonora stands in Albert’s way it is only to have the girl – and her wealth – to herself.
A psychological drama that appears more like a stage play in structure, skirting around core issues in favor of later revelation, and in essence making a good effort at dealing with behavioral problems which would find greater currency today – inherited mental illness, PTSD, low self-esteem, abuse, and incest. Though the last area is hard to specify, on the basis that, technically, Albert is a stepfather rather than a father, underage sex would appear to be more likely.
In an era when permissiveness virtually ensured audience shock, director Joseph Losey makes a decent stab at presenting the impact of sex on the vulnerable, despite her apparent steely exterior Leonora damaged by life as a sex worker, Cenci pretending to be younger as if that can sustain her innocence, not realizing how appealing that would be to a predator.
At once hypnotic and impenetrable, this is director Joseph Losey (The Servant, 1964) at his best, a story that by its subject matter must remain obscure, a mother-daughter relationship that should be twisted but reveals nothing but tenderness, ending for a time the torment of the emotionally unfulfilled, but when bonds appear to be strengthened they are fragmenting. However, the film is let down by the script and the somewhat grand guignol setting. Losey is wonderful at times with nothing to say just a prowling camera, only two lines of dialog exchanged in the first 15 minutes. You would certainly file it under “eclectic.”
The two main performances are electric. This is Taylor at her powerhouse best, her profession not glamorized as in Butterfield 8 (1968) and no male to bring to heel, and her last scene with Cenci is extremely touching. This was a bold role, too, for Mia Farrow after the success of Rosemary’s Baby (1967) turned her into a box office star. She brings believability to a difficult role, especially as she is far from the spoiled child one might expect.
Robert Mitchum fans must have received the fright of their life to see their hero not just with uncomely beard but portraying a sinister character, not an out-and-out villain which would have been acceptable, but fast forward a couple of years and you can see evidence here of the kind of portrayal he would evince in Ryan’s Daughter (1970). Look out for Peggy Ashcroft (The Nun’s Story, 1959) in a smaller role, her first film in nearly a decade.
Check out the “Behind the Scenes” article for this film.
Had things run according to the original plan, we could have seen Frank Sinatra return to a Communist country for the first time since The Manchurian Candidate (1962). But if you had wanted to write a script about the guy who wrote The Chairman, you couldn’t have invented a more interesting character than Samuel Richard Solomonick. He was one of those guy who held every job under the sun before reinventing himself as an anticommunist going by the name of Jay Richard Kennedy and subsequently entering the fields of real estate, radio and brokerage, then landing a gig managing Harry Belafonte and writing the screenplay for I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955).
By the time he ended up as an executive at Sinatra Enterprises he had a couple of ideas to sell. Forming Jade Productions in 1966 with director Richard Quine (How To Murder Your Wife, 1965), the pair hooked Sinatra’s interest in two projects, Follow the Runner (which would have co-starred Sammy Davis Jr) and The Chairman plus William Holden eyeing the lead in The Wordlings about the population explosion.
That’s Gregory Peck trapped on the wrong side of the Russian border with Chinese soldiers closing in.
Sinatra was known for falling out with directors, shunting Mark Robson off The Detective (1968), so whether Quine would have lasted the pace is anybody’s guess. After success with Tony Rome (1967), Twentieth Century Fox briefly toyed with the prospect of pairing Sinatra and new wife Mia Farrow in The Chairman. Originally scheduled to begin shooting on January 1967, that later shifted to early 1968. The notion that the movie also had parts for Spencer Tracy and Yul Brynner was one of those puff pieces that some journalists swallowed.
Despite some enticing projects – he was first name down to direct Catch 22, after Columbia had spent $150,000 buying the novel, and to helm the screen translation of Broadway hit The Owl and the Pussycat – Richard Quine’s career teetered after the flop of Hotel (1967). Making no headway with Sinatra he made instead another flop, Oh Dad Poor Dad (1967) and was effectively put on furlough for three years after failing to finance a movie to star Alex Guinness and Lee Radziwill.
Quine exited The Chairman in May 1967 when former PR bigwig Arthur P. Jacobs took over the production and with Sinatra in absentia turned to British director J. Lee Thompson who had helmed the producer’s debut picture What a Way to Go (1964). And that proved a lucky break for Thompson who had yet to match the success of The Guns of Navarone (1961).
The book cover.
After successive flops – Return from the Ashes (1965) and Eye of the Devil (1966) – Thompson had plenty projects on the boil including a musical remake of Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) with a score by Richard Rodgers and Peter Ustinov playing the lead. Also on his slate was High Citadel based on the Desmond Bagley bestseller; The Harp That Once for Columbia; an adaptation of James Clavell bestseller Tai Pan; a sequel to The Guns of Navarone called After Navarone that would reunite the director with star Gregory Peck and writer-producer Carl Foreman; and Planet of the Apes (1968) to which he and Jacobs held the rights.
While none of these projects – except Planet of the Apes and minus Thompson – came to fruition, the Navarone connection would lead to Mackenna’s Gold for Foreman. In the meantime he had helmed a modest drama, Before Winter Comes (1968) starring Broadway star Topol. When Arthur P. Jacobs greenlit The Chairman, he hired Thompson who looked no further than Peck, connection re-established via the Navarone sequel. They were a four-time pairing – Cape Fear (1962) and Mackenna’s Gold and The Guns of Navarone. Peck was a controversial choice from the Twentieth Century Fox perpsective given he had broken a contract with the studio in 1960 to star in Let’s Make Love. But Jacobs smoothed ruffled studio feathers and paid his star $500,000 plus a percentage. With Jacobs on hands-on duty with Planet of the Apes (1968) – Mort Abrahams oversaw the production of The Chairman and immediately engaged in a budget dispute with the director. Jacobs had initially stipulated $4 million, Thompson believed he required another million. They didn’t quite split the difference, Fox had the film come in at $4.9 million.
Thompson recognized the problems of the script, pointing out that “the hardest thing for Americans about the film’s concept is accepting that China has some competent scientists.” Rather ingenuously, he averred that the movie would have “no political overtones,” while Abrahams retorted that it might have “some political overtones.” It would been obvious to anyone that a picture featuring Mao was bound to have political repercussions, his Little Red Book a massive bestseller on the campus, an album cut of recitations from the book and Edward Albee in 1968 premiering a play called Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.
Denied access to China, the production team spent four months “reading everything we could get our hands on.” At one point they considered dropping the scene featuring Chairman Mao and lengthening the sequence relating to Peck’s arrival in Hong Kong. In any case, different versions of the Hong Kong environs were shot, some with nude shots of girls in a house of pleasure.
The British Colonial Office in Hong Kong blocked filming there after fears of riots due to the production daring to portray Mao Tse-Tung on screen. Taiwan substituted for China although the locals there were also incensed, so much so they burned an effigy of Peck. Wales, funnily enough, was another location as was London University. Filming began on August 28 and finished on December 3.
Although it might appear that Ben Maddow (The Way West, 1967) wrote his script based on Jay Richard Kennedy’s novel, in fact the novel appeared after the screenplay with Kennedy writing the novelizaton, and it’s more likely that what Maddow adapted was the original Kennedy screenplay. Interestingly enough, around this time Maddow had first crack at the Edward Naughton western novel that became McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971).
It wasn’t the first time Variety got a prediction wrong: “powerful box office attaction” fell far short of the actual results. This proved an annus miserabilis for Gregory Peck. In fact, he had four films, not three, released in 1969. By release date The Stalking Moon technically belonged to the previous year, but it only played a handful of cinemas in 1968, its general release taking place in 1969.
Despite pocketing a total of over $2 million, Peck’s marquee value was in clear decline. Of the Peck quartet, Marooned did best, placing 33rd on the annual box office chart, with $4.1 million. Mackenna’s Gold (31st) took $3.1 million in rentals (the amount returned from the gross once a cinema has taken its cut), The Stalking Moon (38th) on $2.6 million, and The Chairman (41st) with $2.5 million.
SOURCES: Gary Fishgall, Gregory Peck (Scribners, 2002) p267; James Caplan, Sinatra: The Chairman, (Doubleday, 2015), p724; “7 from 7 Arts,” Variety, March 3, 1965, p4; “Richard Quine,” Variety, July 7, 1965, p20; “Return of Advances,” Variety, October 6, 1965, p7; “Form Jade Prods,” Variety, December 15, 1965, p4; “J Lee Thompson Nearly Finished on 13,” Variety, February 2, 1966, p28; “Catch As Catch 22 Can,” Variety, February 23, 1966, p4; “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Musical Henry VIII,” Variety, Mar 16, 1966, p1; “Inside Stuff – Pictures,” Variety, March 30, 1966, p22; “Lee Thompson Busily Blueprints His Musical Version of Henry VIII,” Variety, April 27, 1966, p17; “Jay Kennedy Script,” Variety, July 6, 1966, p5; “After Navarone,” Variety, April 19, 1967, p14; “Scripting Red Chinese,” Variety, May 21, 1967, p4; “”Personality Chemistry,” Variety, May 24, 1967, p4; New York Soundtrack,” Variety, Sep 20, 1967, p27; “Pat Hall Noel to Col,” Variety, December 27, 1967, p5; “N.Y. Indie Label Grooves Chairman Mao’s Thoughts,” Variety, April 10, 1968, p56; “Man About Town,” Variety, July 17, 1968, p68; “Jas Clavell to Roll Siege,” Variety, August 21, 1968, p7; “Thompson Wraps Up,” Variety, August 28, 1968, p29; “New York Soundtrack,” Variety, October 23, 1968, p18; “British Bar Fox’s Chairman,” Variety, December 4, 1968, p17; Big Rental Films of 1969,” Variety, January 7, 1970, p15; “Big Rental Films of 1970,” Variety, January 6, 1971, p11.
Woefully underrated. Remove the weight of expectation and you’re left with a bittersweet romance. This just wasn’t what critics anticipated from stars Dustin Hoffman, coming off the back of Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Mia Farrow, previous film the coruscating Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and certainly it seemed there was resentment at the audacity of British director Peter Yates attempting to switch from his action roots, best shown in Bullitt (1968). Worse, that Yates was trying to introduce a New Wave vibe.
In the end-up it’s sweet, but getting there is a prickly affair and it’s precisely this unique approach that creates its appeal. Where the standard set-up comprises meet-cute, break-up, back together, for the most part this looks as if actual romance, as opposed to sex, will never get off the ground, the pair smothered by doubt expressed in internal monologue.
Whereas, in The Fixer (1969), for example, hearing a character speak of their feelings outside of dialogue almost torpedoes the picture, here it works a treat, because it’s dealt with as if it was dialogue of the unspoken variety. Past experience that forces both characters to make suppositions about the other’s intent creates a very amusing and essentially true barrier to progress.
Back in the day, at the dawn of the singles generation, the idea of two young people hooking up for one-night stands filled the moral majority with shock, not just that widespread use of the Pill in avoiding pregnancy invoked promiscuity, but that random encounters immediately ended up in the bedroom rather than the becoming the start of a wooing (and discovery) process. These days, of course, Tinder and other such social media inventions, create umpteen opportunities for attraction to translate into instant sex.
But it doesn’t reduce the type of anxieties that are so well addressed here.
You can start with the basic morning-after notion of “how do I get rid of her?” all the way through to assuming such easy attitudes to sex on either side would destroy an ongoing relationship, and along the way dipping into such minefields as how to get to know another person, does he/she even like me or would they fall into bed with the first person to ask them, are they even as attractive in the cold light of day than when perceptions are muddied by alcohol and excitement, and, of course, the ultimate, was performance up to scratch.
The Carlton was one of the smaller London West End cinemas and often used for prestigious openings to create the hold-overs that would build audience awareness and, such as here with box office increasing week-on-week, encourage cinema bookings.
This takes the unusual route of being peppered with flashback while the pair engage in spikier dialogue than you would find in the standard Hepburn-Tracy Hudson-Day romcom. And often what they say is the opposite of what they feel. Setting off in several directions at once – back a year or so, taking in the activity of the previous night and ploughing through the current day – could be off-putting but I found it worked a treat.
Anal retentive domesticated furniture designer John (Dustin Hoffman) hooks up in a singles bar with untidy politically-motivated sometime-actress Mary (Mia Farrow). His first reaction on waking up is to explore the apartment (rather large for New York), wonder when his wife will return, and think of all the deceptions he could pull. His first reaction borders on pure fear: she’s already planning to move in.
That neither has a genuine idea of the other person’s feeling provides the movie’s dynamic and the entire movie consists of them adjusting their expectations against a very contemporary backdrop of protests, politics, cinema verite and sex. Though primarily non-sexist and quite gender-equal, she isn’t looking to become a kept woman, for example, it does touch upon the notion that an easily-available woman is not far short of a whore, whereas, naturally, a promiscuous male is entitled to a free pass.
Her last relationship was with a married man (Michael Tolan), but she dropped him once he started talking about divorcing his wife. For John, girlfriend Ruth (Sunny Griffin) dramatically upped the stakes, arriving at his apartment with luggage, items of furniture and a rampant dog, enforcing on John responsibilities he did not want. Unusually, for the era, he is not politically involved and can cook, both of which attributes/skills we discover are the result of a mother so committed to politics that she neglected her children, never stocked her fridge and left her children to fend for themselves.
Each could press the nuclear button at any time. They’re attractive singles so more sex is just round the corner, going their separate ways the easier option, building a relationship far more difficult.
Dustin Hoffman shakes off a lot of the tics that were already showing and would inhibit later performances in a character far removed in sexual confidence from The Graduate (1967), but in some ways still touchingly naïve, and delivers a very believable performance. That it doesn’t fall into the usual Tracy-Hepburn battle of the sexes with witty put-downs owes much to the highly-nuanced performance of Mia Farrow who isn’t, as you might expect, in the least fragile and expresses her independence and challenges his views in a non-aggressive fashion.
Completely ignored by the Oscars, technically it won plaudits from Bafta, bracketed with Midnight Cowboy for Dustin Hoffman picking up the Best Actor Award, and with Rosemary’s Baby and Secret Ceremony for Mia Farrow in being nominated for Best Actress – such arcane rules later changed.
In small parts look out for Cleavon Little (Blazing Saddles, 1974), Tyne Daly (Cagney and Lacey TV series 1981-1988), Don Siegel’s son Kristoffer Tabori (Journey through Rosebud, 1972) and Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck, 1987). John Mortimer (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) wrote the screenplay from the Mervyn Jones bestseller.
Cinematically and narratively refreshing, manages to be entertaining and thoughtful at the same time.
As is by now traditional (well, it’s the second full year) this isn’t my choice of the top films of the year, but yours, my loyal readers. This is a chart of the films viewed the most times over full calendar year of January 2022 – December 2022.
Jessica(1962). Angie Dickinson plays a young widow who turns so many heads in a small Italian town that their wives seek revenge. The film had debuted at No 30 in the previous year’s chart so showed remarkable staying power.
Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Sergio Leone’s masterpiece now acclaimed as the greatest western ever made. Top class cast – Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and Jason Robards – and one of the greatest scores ever written courtesy of Ennio Morricone.
The Swinger (1966). Ann-Margret sparkles as author reinventing herself by writing a sex novel.
Fraulein Doktor (1969). Suzy Kendall as German spy outwitting the British during World War One.
Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness? (1969). Fellini-esque musical with abundant nudity as writer-director-star Anthony Newley tries to unravel the meaning of life.
Father Stu (2022). Under-rated biopic with Mark Wahlberg as unlikely priest.
Blonde(2022). Andrew Dominik’s controversial reimagining of the life of Marilyn Monroe with Ana de Armas
For a Few Dollars More(1965).Sergio Leone re-teams with Clint Eastwood in the second in the spaghetti western trilogy with Lee Van Cleef as a rival bounty hunter.
A Place for Lovers(1968). Faye Dunaway and Marcello Mastroianni in Vittorio De Sica doomed romance.
Fade In(1968). Burt Reynolds disowned this romance filmed against the backdrop of making the Terence Stamp western Blue but it’s better than he thinks.
The Secret Ways (1961). Richard Widmark in spy thriller set in Hungary during the Cold War and adapted from the Alistair MacLean novel. Senta Berger has a small role. Top film for 2021, so demonstrating the ongoing popularity of films based on the author’s works.
The Sisters (1969). Complicated menage a trois that borders on the semi-incestuous starring Nathalie Delon and Susan Strasberg.
Pharoah (1966). Epic Polish picture about political shenanigans in ancient Egypt. Another film with legs – it was No 3 in the 2021 annual chart.
Water Gate Bridge / Battle at Lake Changjin II (2022). Another epic, non-stop action from the Chinese point-of-view in a sequel to one of the most famous battles of the Korean War.
Harlow (1965). Carroll Baker as the blonde bombshell who rocketed to fame in 1930s Hollywood.
Baby Love (1969). Morality tale as orphaned Linda Hayden tries to fit into an upper-class London household.
Moment to Moment (1966). Hitchockian thriller set in the South of France with adulterous Jean Seberg suspected of killing her lover.
Secret Ceremony (1968). Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum in atmospheric Joseph Losey drama.
Lady in Cement (1969). Gangster’s moll Raquel Welch steals the show in Frank Sinatra’s second outing as private eye Tony Rome.
Subterfuge (1968). Suzanna Leigh steals the show as a sadistic henchwoman trying to prevent Gene Barry uncovering a mole in M.I.5.
P.J. / New Face in Hell (1967). George Peppard taken to the cleaners as down-on-his luck private eye.
The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl (1968). Cult French movie starring Daniele Gaubert as a sexy cat burglar. This was No 6 last year.
The Gray Man (2022). Spectacular Netflix misfire with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans as rival assassins and Ana de Armas adding some spice.
The Brotherhood (1968). Martin Ritt Mafia drama sees siblings Kirk Douglas and Alex Cord falling out.
Some Girls Do (1969). Richard Johnson returns as Bulldog Drummond battling archvillains Daliah Lavi and Beba Loncar.
Pressure Point (1962). Prison psychiatrist Sidney Poitier treats racist patient Bobby Darin. Very unusual imagery.
The Double Man (1967). C.I.A. operative Yul Brynner battles Russian espionage in Switzerland with Britt Ekland providing the glamor.
Operation Mincemeat (2022). Re-telling of “The Man Who Never Was” World War Two plot that duped Hitler over Sicilian invasion plans.
Orgy for the Dead (1965). Bizarre cult horror tale where most of the female characters appear to be auditioning for a nudie film.
Texas Across the River (1966). Alain Delon acts against type in Dean Martin comedy western.
Belongs to the “serious spy” genre that exposed the nitty-gritty espionage business, often more concerned with the impact of the job on the spy than on the mission on which they have been sent. The biggest successes came early on – The Spy Who Came in from The Cold (1965), The Ipcress File (1965) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966). A Dandy in Aspic is one of the latest in the series of sad spies and like The Defector (1966) it’s more of a character study than an action picture. The tone is set with the credits, a puppet dangling to the point of being tormented, on a string.
The character in question is Eberlin (Laurence Harvey), a spy who wants to quit and go home. He knows only too well what happens to the burnt-out case, one of his colleagues is a drug addict. Only in this case home is Russia. But the feedback he receives is that nobody back home wants him to quit. His British bosses send him to go to Berlin to assassinate a dangerous Russian spy called Krasnevin. The only problem is, Eberlin is Krasnevin and so begins a game of bluff and double bluff while he fails to uncover the supposed foreign assassin his ruthless British unwanted colleague Gatiss (Tom Courtenay) is helping him locate.
Thrown into the mix is a girl, Caroline (Mia Farrow) a casual pick-up, a photographer he met in London who turned up in Berlin. Happenstance? Perhaps. But there is no such thing for a suspicious spy and to tell the truth even the moviegoer will treat her as just too good to be true even though she is a delightful personality and beautiful to boot. The fact that Eberlin has a girlfriend Miss Vogler (Barbara Murray) doesn’t seem to bother him, spies, as you will know by now, discarding women like old shoes.
If a noose is closing in, it’s a strange one, and feels more like it’s coming from the East rather than the West. He is blocked from taking a trip to East Berlin. Cops are tipped off when he makes contact with someone who could get him over/through the Wall. His Eastern masters seem willing to pay good money to find out the identity of Krasnevin.
It’s all twisted and complex and all sorts of strange characters come out of the woodwork. For no reason at all one sequence is set at a Grand Prix race, one of the drivers paid to cause a distraction to allow someone to be shot. Like The Defector, this is a movie that unravels backwards. Once you get to the end it makes a lot more sense. If you were asked to choose, on the basis of the characters presented, whether the Russians or British had more principles you would be hard put to decide.
Laurence Harvey (The Running Man, 1963) is one of the few actors with the vicious fragility to carry this off. He is coming apart at the seams. He can hold onto his good looks far longer than his mental stability. His rare acts of violence seem petulance. And since we are never allowed inside his head, since he cannot confess his feelings to Caroline, he cannot explain what it’s like to be abandoned by your native country, cast aside like an old lover. It’s left to the audience to work this out for themselves, that a true patriot risking his life for his country is refused sanctuary.
He’s doomed and soon he knows it, nowhere left to run, the sense that the trap is closing and perhaps the few hours spent with Caroline are like a condemned man’s final wishes.
Filmed in bleak London and Berlin, the setting reflects the character’s mindset. There’s a bit too much fancy cinematography and sound effects, but otherwise it’s solid entry into the “more real than reality” subgenre. Director Anthony Mann (The Heroes of Telemark, 1965) died during the making of the film, Laurence Harvey taking the helm for the last two weeks of shooting and post-production so it’s possible this is not quite the film Mann had in mind.
You can see here elements of the documentary style Mann developed in The Heroes of Telemark and it’s possible that when it came to the editing director Harvey accorded himself more prominence than Mann might have, leaving a complex tale more difficult to follow than necessary.
Harvey is very good in the role of the ruthless narcissist, Mia Farrow – she followed this with Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – with a creditable English accent is excellent as the lover though Tom Courtenay (Operation Crossbow, 1965) seems miscast. Excellent support is provided by Lionel Stander (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968), Harry Andrews (Danger Route, 1967) and Per Oscarsson (Who Saw Him Die?. 1968). Look out for comedian Peter Cook (Bedazzled, 1967) as an unlikely lothario, Barbara Murray (television series The Power Game, 1965-1969) and Calvin Lockhart (Dark of the Sun, 1968).
I was probably as surprised as anyone to discover that far from being a flop, Secret Ceremony was in fact a hit, taking $3 million in rentals in the U.S., ranking among the Top 20 foreign movies at the French box office, and hitting the target in Italy, Germany and Australia. Yet, outside of France, it was universally derided by the critics.
Joseph Losey (The Servant, 1964) held the unusual position of being a cult director working in Britain. He was the “object of a vociferous cult….his following grown in scope and size with each new film” and, conversely, as his popularity among the arthouse fraternity increased, he attracted more critical ire. Courting popularity by entering the spy genre with Modesty Blaise (1966) and linking up with the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton box office colossus for Boom! (1967) seemed to go against the critical grain. Losey ascribed the critical coruscation Boom! received as less to do with the merits of the film itself than “people using the opportunity to launch personal attacks on the Burtons.”
Boom! had been packaged John Heyman, who coupled acting as agent for Burton and Taylor with being the producer, not necessarily a good combination. Universal was convinced it had “Virginia Woolf in color,” a reference to the previous enormous hit, although the box office told a different story. Jay Kanter, Universal’s London production chief who greenlit the project, commented: “When the Burtons were involved a lot of my judgement was colored by the magnitude of the star she (Taylor) was considered to be.”
So it was something of a surprise to find Losey and Taylor teaming up again for Secret Ceremony. Of course, it may have been the money, Taylor at this point still holding out for a million-dollar purse. Heyman said, “We were regarded as whizz-kids just for making two consecutive films with Elizabeth Taylor and bringing them in under budget.”
Losey’s world reflects a “highly selective form of naturalism.” Except for Accident (1966), from Sleeping Tiger (1954) through to Secret Ceremony, Losey worked with the same design consultant/production designer Richard MacDonald whom the director treated as a sounding board, to “test (ideas) and reject them in the telling.” This is a director for whom “patterned exoticism is extraordinarily precise.” A more important collaborator had been playwright Harold Pinter who had fashioned The Servant (1963) and Accident, bringing to both films his distinctive ear for dialogue. He was hardly required for Boom! whose screenwriter was the even more famous playwright Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951) and for Secret Ceremony Losey went elsewhere for his screenwriter.
Losey was among the string of American talent who taken refuge in Britain in the wake of the anti-Communist hysteria of the late 1940s/early 1950s – others included producer Carl Foreman (The Guns of Navarone, 1961), and directors Cy Enfield (Sands of the Kalahari, 1966) and Edward Dmytryk (Mirage, 1965). By the time of Secret Ceremony, Losey had been working in Britain for nearly a quarter of a century and established himself as a director of distinctive vision, a critical fave in his adopted homeland, wildly appreciated by the French, with an occasional box office home run.
But although regarded as a British film-maker, Losey made Secret Ceremony – and Boom! for that matter – exclusively with Hollywood money, the budget 100 per cent supplied by Universal, that studio having decided that anything coming out of Britain would appeal to younger audiences. There was an untapped pool of talent available in British television who could be hired for substantially less than their U.S. counterparts. In three years Universal’s London production unit, headed by Jay Kanter, spent $30 million on a dozen projects. The biggest budget was allocated to Boom! with $3.9 million followed by $3.5 million to The Countess from Hong Kong (1967) starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. The Night of the Following Day (1968) cost $1.5 million as did Fahrenheit 451 (1967) and Three into Two Won’t Go (1968). Secret Ceremony came in at $2.45 million.
Robert Mitchum and Joseph Losey went way back to a time in Hollywood when both were working their way up the RKO ladder. As well as Losey, Mitchum had been friends with many who would fall foul of the blacklist including screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, Dmytryk and Howard Koch (Casablanca, 1942). When Mitchum’s dalliance with drugs brought him a jail sentence, Losey visited him and brought him chilli from a famed restaurant.
Mitchum was recommended for the role in Secret Ceremony by Roddy McDowell, a friend of Taylor, who had been working with the actor on Henry Hathaway western Five Card Stud (1968). Mitchum received the job offer while on holiday in Mexico. For two weeks’ work he would earn $150,000. The role itself was scarcely onerous, drawing on aspects of the loathsome character he had created for Night of the Hunter (1955), but it did require an English accent of some kind and to his amusement Mitchum found himself on the telephone, like a salesman listing available product, going through the variety of accents he bring to the part.
Whether it was almost having to sell himself to the director or some previous incident, Mitchum and Losey did not resume their friendship. In fact, their relationship was the polar opposite. “He was very unpleasant,” recalled the director, “it was extremely hard for me to work with him.” Losey never found the source of Mitchum’s contempt. “In some curious way I must have made some mistake with him; I don’t know what it was.” Even attempts to recall Mitchum’s collaboration with Charles Laughton on Night of the Hunter failed to break the ice. Losey believed that Mitchum played tough to mask “an intense sense of failure.”
Mitchum wasn’t above sneaking away from the set. On one occasion taking himself off to visit old friend Robert Parrish, he knocked back some tequila and complained about the movie. On the Holland section of the shoot, Mitchum got into a food fight with a hotel diner. In the end, Losey was so disturbed by Mitchum that he was grateful when he departed as per contract despite the fact that some scenes had not been shot, including, according to the actor, the bathtub sequence, which would have accentuated the incest theme rather than the hint of lesbianism. Mitchum’s epitaph to the movie was that he talked Mia Farrow out of True Grit (1969) claiming Hathaway was a terror to work with.
The bath scene turned out to be the cause of some marital anguish. The set was cleared for its shooting of the scene after Taylor froze on emerging from her dressing room to see so many people gathered. But this was hardly Taylor at her beautiful best as she had been gaining weight. Even so Losey filmed her at times as though she was the grand Hollywood star with hair framing her face and the camera glimpsing her cleavage, but at other times her weight was a source of determining her character, when she eats with her mouth full and belches.
Halfway through filming Taylor was afflicted by severe physical pain and she was rushed to hospital for a hysterectomy, an operation that lasted over three and a half hours. Complications followed the surgery and she was given drugs that caused her to hallucinate. Writing in his diaries, Richard Burton noted: “This is the first time I’ve seen a loved one in screaming agony for two days, hallucinated by drugs, sometimes knowing who I was and sometimes not, a virago one minute, an angel the next.” She went from commanding him to leave the room to crying out for him to return. Sometimes she believed she was on board their yacht, other times that a film was playing on the switched-off television set.
The loss of her uterus may have affected her performance since in the film she plays a mother who has lost a child and in reality was a woman who had lost the ability to have another child.
The film exacerbated the tensions in the Burton-Taylor marriage. It was usually Taylor who was the one who had to keep a watchful eye on her partner in case he strayed. In this case, ironically, it was Burton who exhibited the jealous streak. The way Losey had whispered in the actress’s ear to build up her confidence during the bath scene while getting rid of extraneous crew found its way back to Burton who misinterpreted the action as intimacy. “My wife and Joe Losey are having a professional love affair,” he claimed. He spent a lot more time than usual on the set of his wife’s film. He even offered to take on the Mitchum role.
Losey had long been fascinated by a strange-looking house in West Kensington, London, and managed to hire it for the shoot. Debenham House in Addison Road, between Holland Park Avenue and High St Kensington, is one of a handful of truly Gothic London buildings. The church used was in Little Venice, St Mary Magdalene in Rowington Close, also in London, and the antique shop was located at the corner of St Stephen’s Mews and Westbourne Green. When the production shifted to Holland it was to the coastal town of Noordwjik with use made of the Grand Hotel there.
By the time the film opened, Taylor found herself in the middle of a storm over foul language (“gutter talk” in Variety parlance) for which she was seen as the “chief exponent.” It was an ironic position for Taylor to find herself in given her expletive-ridden performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) had not only been critically acclaimed and a huge box office hit but seen as helping to break down the censorship barriers. However, it appeared that the “urination expression” and a word that was prefixed by “bull” were beyond the pale and Variety proclaimed that it was “evidently assumed that if a star of her (Taylor’s) magnitude can be gotten to speak the words, everyone else – actors, actresses, distributors, exhibitors and the public – will be accustomed to strong lingo in pix.” It was hardly coincidence that on the same day that this article was the leading story on the trade paper’s front page that inside six out of seven New York critics gave Secret Ceremony a drubbing, the exception being Renata Adler of the New York Times who called it Losey’s “best film in years.”
Even producer Heyman had his doubts about the material. “It should have been the story of two people who need and trust each other,” he said, “until one leans on the other a little bit more than she should. Unfortunately, the kind of sympathy which Losey shows for people in real life was absent from the relationship which is what I think made it unacceptable.” He summed up, “A cold picture.” (This has the taint of someone trying to work out why the film was a critical failure because otherwise I think Heyman got it exactly right for the movie I saw I did not view as cold nor unacceptable.)
And neither, strangely enough, did the public. Although making a poor showing in Britain, it was not a box office disaster. That was averted by astute marketing, the potency of the stars and a public who, not for the first time, ignored the critics. The movie broke records when it opened at the New York arthouse pair, the Sutton and the New Embassy, and further afield in cities like Dallas. Arthouse success would have been anticipated but nobody would have expected that when it went wide in New York the second week improved upon the first. As well as a decent showing in the States, it hit the ground running around the world, and “ought to be credited” as one of Universal’s “most successful pictures from either domestic or foreign source.” In the French box office rankings, it placed above The Detective (1968) and Hang ‘Em High (1968) and just below The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). Acclaimed by that country’s critics, the Academie du Cinema named it best foreign film with Taylor and Farrow taking the gongs for best foreign actresses.
When Universal sold the movie to television for $1.25 million, a fee which certainly provided the picture with a decent extra profit margin, fourteen minutes were cut out and replaced by a 500 lines of extra dialog and a filmed discussion of the psychological issues raised, prompting Losey to demand his name be removed, claiming it “exactly reversed the meaning an intention of my film.”
SOURCES: Lee Server, Robert Mitchum, Baby I Don’t Care, (Faber and Faber, 2001) p169, 232, 509-512; Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger, Furious Love, (JR Books, 2011)p240, 242-243,2; Alexander Walker, Hollywood England, (Orion Books, 2005) p200, 345, 354-257; “Screen: Secret Ceremony,” New York Times, October 26, 1968; “Joseph Losey Following Has Grown,” Box Office, October 28, 1968, pE1; “No End to Gutter Talk,” Variety, October 30, 1968, p1; “N.Y. Critics This Week: Ouch,” Variety, October 30, 1968, p12; “Secret Ceremony Sets House Mark at Sutton, New Embassy,” Box Office, November 4, 1968, pE2; “Secret Ceremony Setting New Records in Dallas,” Box Office, January 13, 1969, pSW1; “This Week’s N.Y. Showcases,” Variety, February 5, 1969, p9; “Jay Kanter,” Variety, February 26, 1969, p78; “Kanter No Martyr,” Variety, March 19, 1969, p26; “Ceremony, Z Nab Kudos,” Variety, May 7, 1969, p107; “French Filmgoing,” Variety, January 28, 1970, P27; “Paris First Runs,” Variety, April 29, 1970, p76; “Losey Wants His Credit Blipped from Vidversion of U’s Secret Ceremony,” Variety, September 16, 1970, p70; “All-Time Film Rental Champs,” Variety, October 15, 1990, pM184.
Dream Team Number One: Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. This was of course a good 30 years before the movie actually got made. The Horace McCoy novel was purchased in 1935 by MGM as a big-budget project teaming Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. This was despite Variety proclaiming it was “not screen material.” The premature death of Harlow put paid to the idea. Next, actor Wallace Ford (Freaks, 1932) bought it with Broadway in mind. A production was scheduled to open in 1939, but never did.
Dream Team Number Two: Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe. When the comedian purchased the rights in the early 1950s he intended Marilyn Monroe to play the leading female. Although she was a mere starlet Chaplin had form in building up newcomers. Author McCoy had by that point become an accomplished screenwriter with over 30 credits including Gentleman Jim (1942), film noir Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) and The Lusty Men (1952) That concept fell by the wayside when Chaplin was effectively banished from America while launching Limelight (1951) in Britain.
It was another 14 years before interest in the novel was revived by screenwriter James Poe, who purchased the rights from the McCoy estate. Although most famous within the trade for being accused of fraudulent behaviour in relation to his screenplay for Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Despite an Oscar for the film he was sued for $250,000. However, he had a sterling body of work including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Sanctuary (1960), Lilies of the Field (1963), The Bedford Incident (1965) and Riot (1969) and two other Oscar nominations.
In 1965 he had signed a multi-picture writer-director deal with Columbia. He was either going to make his directorial on The Gambler or They Shoot Horses, Don’t They. It turned out to be the latter. Failing to get the movie off the ground with Columbia or under his own steam, he turned to new studio Palomar, which was a production entity set up by the ABC television network, which bought over his rights as well as his script but kept Poe on as director.
Dream Team Number Three: Faye Dunaway. Yep, one big star, not two. Poe’s screenplay, while not eliminating the male lead, spun on a female star. Dunaway, hot after Bonnie and Clyde (1967), was offered $600,000 to play the role. Mia Farrow was also in contention, for $500,000. The only problem was, the budget could not remotely stretch to that. As helmed by Poe, it was to cost no more than $900,000. The film was scheduled to begin shooting in spring 1968 but a month later the start date shifted to June.
Two relative newcomers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler were brought in as producers to move the project along. Later they would be responsible for such classics as Rocky (1976), The Raging Bull (1980), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and The Irishman (2018), but at this point they had just three pictures under their belt, although that included Point Blank (1967), Their first task: persuade Poe to rewrite the script. They felt the third act needed work with restructuring elsewhere to make the pay-off work.
But Poe, believing his position was sacrosanct, refused to discuss a rewrite. He refused to discuss anything, period, treating the producers as his assistants rather than people with some power within the studio. According to Irwin Winkler, “Poe seemed unaware of the of the normal process of preparation, even though he’d been around movie sets for decades.”
Realising that getting a star on their budget was impossible, Chartoff and Winkler changed tack and talked to good actors, but even then few were interested. A less dramatic star than Jane Fonda you could not imagine, her resume filled with light comedies, French films that utilised her sexuality or the extravaganza that went by the name of Barbarella (1968). But the pregnant Fonda was keen on change. The film was delayed until after she had given birth. Michael Sarrazin should have been out of the equation. John Schlesinger had lined him up for the Jon Voigt role in Midnight Cowboy (1969) but Universal, to whom he was under contract, asked too much to send him out on loan.
With no sign of the rewrites, the producers became antsy about the director. However, they showed their true mettle as producers, convincing Palomar there was no way the original budget would cover the ballroom set, huge number of extras, live orchestra and salaries. It would need to at least triple.
In a picture of one predicament following another, there was one crisis the producers had not foreseen. They were going to be fired. Apart from anything else, they were only executives on the picture with any experience, it being not only Poe’s first movie but that of Chartoff and Winkler’s superiors at the studio. The outcome – the guy who had told the pair they were being fired was shown the door instead.
Susannah York was cast after the producers saw a sneak of The Killing of Sister George (1969) at the Robert Aldrich studios. She had committed to Peter O’Toole vehicle Country Dance/Brotherly Love (1970), written by her cousin James Kennaway (Tunes of Glory, 1960). After too many delays on They Shoot Horses she planned to pull out in favour of the other film. Although Sally Kellerman (Mash, 1970) was set as a last-minute replacement, the issue was resolved by asking MGM to delay the start on the rival picture.
Believing Poe was in no position to helm such a big-budget picture enterprise, Chartoff and Winkler began the process of removing him only for Jane Fonda to dig her heels in. She changed her mind after witnessing first-hand Poe’s directorial skills – or lack of them – when she took part in a screen test for Bonnie Bedelia. Winkler recollected, “On the set Jane asked Poe questions about the blocking of the scene, why she moves in one direction rather than another, why in front of a sofa rather than behind it etc. He couldn’t answer her questions and told her to talk to the cameraman.” Exit Poe.
In terms of a replacement, Chartoff and Winkler set their sights of Sydney Pollack (The Scalphunters, 1968) with whom they had previous dealings, and William Friedkin, then being hailed for The Homecoming (1968) – luckily The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968) had yet to be released. But studio executives had a third director in mind, Jack Smight (No Way to Treat a Lady, 1968). Friedkin should have been in pole position, having only received $75,000 for The Homecoming. His agent, sensing an opportunity, demanded $200,000. Jack Smight’s agent also got greedy and wanted $250,000. Pollack’s agent was happy with the $150,000 on offer.
When Poe was eased out, filming was announced as beginning on February 17, 1969, the budget having now increased to $3.2 million – including $400,000 for extras. However, acoustic issues – seawater had eaten away the bottom of the pier – prevented use of the old Aragon ballroom in Santa Monica. That set was constructed on the Warner lot.
Pollack then turned it down. He had reservations about the script, which had still never been rewritten. When Robert E. Thompson, a television writer but “a Horace McCoy expert,” was mooted, Pollack changed his mind. The new script contained the “flash forward” scenes that prepared audiences for the shock ending. However, the new scenes and delays in starting increased the budget which now ballooned to $4.7 million.
It turned out the director was the best actor of all. “I was impressed with Sydney Pollack’s ease on the set,” recalled Irwin Winkler. “He never seemed to be working hard and yet was able to get marvelous performances out of the actors. Everybody in the company adored him.” Asked by Winkler how he remained so calm dealing with the actors and all the extras and the complicated camera set-ups, he replied, “it was really quite easy.” That same afternoon he collapsed on set and was diagnosed with “nervousness.”
The studio, the stars, the producers, all seemed confident about the picture. All they had to do was convince the audience. But at the first preview in San Francisco the audience roared with laugher at the climactic scene. That shocked the studio to the core until the producers were able to reassure the head honchos that the “fast forwards” would smooth over that problem. Which they did.
It was nominated for nine Oscars – Best Director, Best Screenplay, nods for Jane Fonda, Gig Young and Susannah York among others. Only Gig Young won.
SOURCES: Irwin Winkler, A Life in Movies, (Abrams Press, New York, 2019) p34-47; “Tough Stuff,” Variety, August 7, 1935, p59; “Ford Buys for B’Way,” Variety, September 11, 1939, p42; “Dance Marathon Reprise,” Variety, August 3, 1966, p24; “IT&T In No Way Slowing Down Theatrical Feature Program of ABC,” Variety, January 10, 1968, p4; “Crowded Slate for Palomar,” Variety, February 28, 1968, p18; “Bob Evans Chips-Service To Writers As Stars At Paramount,” Variety, May 1, 1969, p19; “Jane Fonda Gets Top Role in Palomar’s Horses,” Box Office, July 22, 1968, pW1; “Palomar Horses on W7 Space,” Variety, October 23, 1968, p3; “Jan 6 Filming Date for They Shoot Horses,” Box Office, December 16, 1968, pW5; “Cheery Side of Delay on Horses,” Variety, January 15, 1969, p21; “Winkler Wants Films With Social Comment,” Box Office, January 19, 1970, pW1.
The Magnificent 60s 