Nicholas Ray – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “Diamond Head” (1962)

Charlton Heston was as hot as they come. He was coming off what would prove one of the biggest pictures of all time – and tucked away an Oscar as well – with Ben-Hur (1959) and followed it up with another hit El Cid (1961). He had no shortage of offers. He had pulled out of The Comancheros (1961), part of proposed three-picture deal with Twentieth Century Fox but with an unknown director rather than veteran Michael Curtiz who later helmed it with John Wayne. He had turned down Let’s Make Love (1960) with Marilyn Monroe and a remake of Beau Geste to co-star Dean Martin and Tony Curtis.

He entered into discussions with Nicholas Ray to film the bestseller The Tribe That Lost Its Head (never made) and The Road of the Snail (never made), rejected William the Conqueror (never made) and Cromwell (1970). He was turned down in turn by Otto Preminger for Advise and Consent (1961). “Zanuck’s man called from Paris,” he notes, “they have a new role for me in The Longest Day (1962).” That was another false lead.

In due course he signed up for Easter Dinner for producer Melville Shavelson (Cast a Giant Shadow, 1966) released as The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962). By this point he was being pursued by Samuel Bronston. “I had no idea how determined Sam was to have me follow El Cid with another film for him.” Bronston eventually got his wish. “No sooner had I turned down The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) than they shoved it back a year on their schedule and began work on 55 Days at Peking (1963), converting the enormous and half-built set representing Rome into an equally enormous and even more beautiful set representing Peking.”

But that meant delay while the massive Bronston machine kicked into gear. In the meatime Heston was “attracted a bit by the opening pages” of Diamond Head with Columbia. “A good part in an overwritten and melodramatic script,” he observed, concluding, “If it’s treated with great care, it might work out all right.”

The project moved along apace. A couple of weeks after receiving the script in December 1961, he was in London meeting director Guy Green (Light in the Piazza, 1962) and producer Jerry Bresler, “an amiable man” though Sam Peckinpah might beg to differ after his experiences on Major Dundee, 1965. “He seems a very intelligent fellow,” Green observed, but queried, “how could a man refer with pride to the fact he had made a film called Gidget Goes Hawaiian?”

George Chakiris (hot after West Side Story, 1961) was already fixed as second male lead and Yvette Mimieux (Light in the Piazza) was being chased for female lead. She wasn’t available but Heston wasn’t keen on second choice Carroll Baker. Luckily, it turned out Mimieux could do the picture. “On the basis of what we saw in Light in the Piazza, she’s ideal for the part.”

But Heston reckoned the script needed work. He was also disgruntled with the costumes for Diamond Head, complaining, “Why is it designers like to costumes instead of clothes? It’s a grievous fault in a period film, but there’s no excuse in a modern story.”

By March, a few months after committing to the picture, he was out in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, though the trip itself was not without incident, Heston “sick enough to call a doctor.” They were met with unseasonal rain. They were assured this was very unusual. But it wasn’t. In consequence, the first day’s filming was scrapped, filling the actor with the conviction “the whole project was doomed.” It was another three days before filming commenced – the shoot was plagued with rain.

While Heston was impressed enough with the director (“Guy Green works carefully and thoughtfully”) he was distracted by the lighting.

“Those brutes and reflectors loom larger in my mind…One of the banes of my career has been acting in exterior locations with arc lights and reflectors focused in my eyes, which are very light sensitive. (Dark-eyed actors have an unfair advantage, I’ve always felt.) Most people have no idea of the dimensions of this problem. They always ask you how you can remember the lines…they should wonder instead how you can concentrate on the scene when your every nerve is straining simply to keep your eyes open.” Negotiation with the cinematographer ameliorated the situation.

Similarly, Heston found the director responsive to his concerns. For a key scene with Mimieux, he believed “we can both do better” and taking this on board the director agreed on a reshoot the next day. “I have to project Howland’s need to be loved, though he conceals it. You can’t play this, of course, but it has to be in the scene, in the whole film, if we’re going to bring it off.”

As well as a multitude of media – Hawaii at this stage still a rare location, public interest boosted by the publication of James Michener’s Hawaii in 1958, and to a lesser extent, Diamond Head, a more modest bestseller. Swelling the ranks of visitors to the set was John Ford, obliquely sounding Heston out for an unspecified film, possibly Young Cassidy (1965).

Another issue proved to be the horse-riding. While Heston was an accomplished rider, others were not. “Anxious horse-riding…makes for anxious acting.” Even so, Heston found his mount “harder to handle than I figured.”

Heston’s last day of work was May 18. “I waited round most of the day to do one piddling shot from the dream. No dialog, just my face looming up out of the fog. It’s hard to tell what I think now except that I’m still high on Green. He may have made a film that rises above the melodramatic qualities of the script. He didn’t push me as hard as I should be pushed, but he gave me a lot all the same.”

It was October before Heston viewed the completed picture. His verdict: “Diamond Head looks very slick, smooth, not terribly real, and as though there might be some money in it.” Ever the critic, he added, “I have acted better.”

I’ve mentioned in other Blogs the part played by foreign markets in a star’s appeal – Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson both owed their breakthroughs to foreign box office. Turns out that Heston was in the same league, though an established name when first discovering the size of his fan club abroad.

“My films did invariably well in the Far East and throughout Southeast Asia. Films that flopped elsewhere did fairly well, those that were hits elsewhere did incredibly. The fact that this pattern has continued unchanged accounts in no small degree for my continued viability in films.” Apparently, this was because he represented the Confucius virtues of responsibility , justice, courage and moderation. As if to emphasize his overseas appeal, Diamond Head opened first in Japan, in December 1962.

SOURCES: Charlton Heston, The Actor’s Life, Journals 1956-1978 (Penguin, 1980).

55 Days at Peking (1963) ***

Imperialism is hard to stomach these days but at the start of the twentieth century it was rampant and not restricted to the main culprit, the British. China was Imperialism Central, round about a dozen nations including the USA and Russia claiming control of sections of the country or its produce. So they had all set up diplomatic shop in Peking. And the film begins with an early morning roll call of national anthems before this domination by outside interests is shattered by rebellion.

Just as hard to stomach, of course, was the movie mainstream notion in those days that all rebellions must perforce be put down regardless of how put-upon the peasant classes were. Audiences had to rally round people in other circumstances they would naturally hate. So one of the problems of 55 Days at Peking is to cast the rebels (known as Boxers) and the complicit Chinese government in a bad light while ensuring that those under siege are not seen as cast-iron saints. There’s no getting round the fact that the rebels are shown as prone to butchery and slaughter while the Chinese rulers are considered ineffective and traitorous.

So it’s left to the likes of Major Mark Lewis (Charlton Heston) heading up the U.S. Marines stationed in the city to bring some balance to proceedings. “Don’t get the idea you’re better than these people because they can’t speak English,” he expounds. British Consul Sir David Robertson (David Niven) tries to keep this particular league of nations onside while negotiating with one hand tied behind his back – “we must play this game by Chinese rules” – with the Chinese Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi (Flora Robson) while knowingly endangering his wife Lady Sarah (Elizabeth Sellars) and two children. Unscrupulous Russian baroness Natalie Ivanoff (Ava Gardner) exhibits little loyalty to her home country.

The picture is one-part action, one-part politics and one-part domesticity, if you include in the last section the major’s romance with the baroness, the consul’s guilt when his son is wounded in an attack and Lewis’s conflict over a young native girl fathered by one of his own men who is then killed. Two of the best scenes are these men coping with parental obligation, Sir Arthur managing a wounded son, Lewis finding it impossible to offer succor to the child.

The action is extremely well-handled. The siege goes on longer than expected when the expected troops fail to arrive, tension rising as casualties mount and supplies fall low. As with the best battle pictures, clever maneuvers save the day. Two sections are outstanding. The first has Lewis marshalling artillery to prevent the Chinese gaining the high ground. The second is a daring raid – Sir Arthur’s idea, actually – through the city’s sewers to the enemy’s ammunition dump. Personal heroism is limited – Lewis volunteers to go 70 miles through enemy territory to get help but has to turn back when his men are wounded or killed.

There’s a fair bit of stiff upper lip but while Lewis, in familiar chest-baring mode, has the baroness to distract him, Sir Arthur is both clever, constantly having to outwit the opposition and hold the other diplomats together, and humane, drawn into desperation at the prospect of his comatose son dying without ever having visited England. The baroness moves from seducer to sly traitorous devil to angel of mercy, wapping glamorous outfits for a nurse’s uniform, at the same time as changing her outlook from selfish to unselfish.

Charlton Heston (Diamond Head, 1962), David Niven (Eye of the Devil, 1966) and Ava Gardner (The Angel Wore Red, 1960) acquit themselves well as does Flora Robson (Eye of the Devil) in a thankless role. In supporting roles are John Ireland (The Swiss Conspiracy, 1976), Harry Andrews (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968) and Leo Genn (Ten Little Indians, 1965).

This was the third of maverick producer Samuel Bronston’s big-budget epics after King of Kings (1961) and El Cid (1961) with a script as usual from Philip Yordan – sharing the credit with Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets, 1949) and Bernard Gordon (Custer of the West, 1967) – and directed by Nicholas Ray (King of Kings) who also had assistance from Guy Green (Diamond Head).and Andrew Marton (Africa: Texas Style, 1967)

All in all it is a decent film and does not get bogged down in politics and the characters do come alive but at the back of your mind you can’t help thinking this is the wrong mindset, in retrospect, for the basis of a picture.

55 Days at Peking (1963) ***

Imperialism is hard to stomach these days but at the start of the twentieth century it was rampant and as shown in this picture not just restricted to the main culprit, the British. China was Imperialism Central, round about a dozen nations including the USA and Russia claiming control of sections of the country or its produce. So they had all set up diplomatic shop in Peking. And the film begins with an early morning roll call of national anthems before this domination by outside interests in shattered by rebellion.

Producer Samuel Bronston built his Peking set on a 250-acre site at a ranch 16 miles from Madrid, Spain, near the foot of the Sierra Guadarrama mountains. To ensure authenticity, a canal was enlarged to supply 15,000 gallons of water a day from a specially-prepared reservoir holding half a million gallons. Over 1.3 million feet of tubular steel – all the scaffolding available in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia – was used in the set construction.

So it’s left to the likes of Charlton Heston as the leader of U.S. Marines stationed in the city to bring some balance to proceedings. “Don’t get the idea you’re better than these people because they can’t speak English,” he expounds. David Niven plays the British Consul trying to keep this particular league of nations onside while negotiating with one hand tied behind his back – “we must play this game by Chinese rules” – with the Chinese Dowager Empress (Flora Robson) while knowingly endangering his wife (Scottish actress Elizabeth Sellars, a one-time big British star) and two children. Ava Gardner is an unscrupulous Russian baroness with little loyalty to her home country.

To ensure journalists provided authentic coverage of the siege, press materials included a copy of the detailed map printed in the Saturday October 13, 1900, edition of British daily newspaper “The Times” and its account of the action. Producer Samuel Bronston claimed that some of the costumes worn by Flora Robson in her role as the Dowager Empress were actual ones worn by the empress and purchased from an Italian family who had connections in the Italian embassy during the siege.

The picture is one-part action, one-part politics and one-part domesticity, if you include in the last section Heston’s romance with Gardner, Niven’s guilt when his son is wounded in an attack and Heston’s conflict over a young native girl (Lynne Sue Moon) fathered by one of his own men who is then killed. Two of the best scenes are these men coping with parental obligation, Niven coping with a wounded son, Heston finding it impossible to offer succour to the child.

The action is extremely well-handled. The siege goes on longer than expected when the expected troops fail to arrive, tension rising as casualties mount and supplies fall low. As with the best battle pictures, clever maneuvers save the day. Two sections are outstanding. The first has Heston marshalling artillery to prevent the Chinese gaining the high ground. The second is a daring raid – Niven’s idea, actually – through the city’s sewers on the enemy’s ammunition dump. Personal heroism is limited – Heston volunteers to go 70 miles through enemy territory to get help but has to turn back when his men are wounded or killed.

The film was not released in 70mm roadshow in the United States as originally planned but like “El Cid” went straight into general release in a 35mm version. but it was seen in 70mm in Europe. Among suggested promotional activities were a “guess-the-flag” competition since 11 nations were involved. The tie-ins included a Corgi paperback, the original soundtrack by Dmitri Tiomkin and four singles – Andy Williams singing the theme song “So Little Time,” The Brothers Four with “55 Days at Peking” (also recorded by Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen) and Tommy Riley with “Peking Theme.”

There’s a fair bit of stiff upper lip but while Heston, in familiar chest-baring mode, has Gardner to distract him, Niven is both clever, constantly having to outwit the opposition and hold the other diplomats together, and humane, drawn into desperation at the prospect of his comatose son dying without ever having visited England. Gardner moves from seducer to sly traitorous devil to angel of mercy, shifting out of her beautiful outfits and glamorous hats to don a nurse’s uniform, at the same time as shifting her outlook from selfish to unselfish. All three stars acquit themselves well as does Flora Robson in a thankless role.

This was the third of maverick producer Samuel Bronston’s big-budget epics after King of Kings (1961) and El Cid (1961) with a script as usual from Philip Yordan and directed by Nicholas Ray.

Many of the films from the 1960s are to be found free of charge on TCM and Sony Movies and the British Talking Pictures as well as mainstream television channels. This one I noticed is available on YouTube at the point where I was reviewing it. But if this film is not available through these routes, then here is the link to the DVD and/or streaming service.