Sean Connery – Page 3 – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes – “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968)

Richard Burton was first choice. Sean Connery second. Jack Lemmon a distinct possibility. A suave Frenchman such as Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, 1960) was briefly entertained. Brigitte Bardot a certainty for the female lead. Thoughts of entertaining Steve McQueen for the male lead were so far beyond left field as to have entered the outer limits. He played down’n’dirty working characters clad in nothing more sophisticated than denim. Faye Dunaway’s screen persona – violent slutty bitch – was the opposite of the character depicted.

Producer Walter Mirisch was well versed than most about McQueen, having hired him for The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). But when Burton rejected the part, “we determined to try to interest Sean Connery in the role.” The Scottish actor was receptive to any movies that would instantly take him away from the typecasting of the James Bond series. Lunch at the Regency Hotel was followed by further conversation “for most of a Saturday afternoon.”

But to no avail. “We were crestfallen when we failed to convince Sean Connery,” who was, after all, the biggest star in the world, and looked immaculate in a suit.

Even Steve McQueen acknowledged he was an odd choice. He told a film school class in January 1967 that he was a “limited actor, I mean my range isn’t very great.” But after the possibility of crowning his acting career with Oscar glory for The Sand Pebbles (1966) had faded and with motor racing epic Day of the Champion in cold storage but with a six-picture with Warner brothers promising a hefty $700,000 per, he had the pick of projects.

Maybe too many came his way, over 100 in a few months. He took a meeting with Twentieth Century Fox over a proposal to star with Audrey Hepburn in Two for the Road (1967). He was mooted, along with Paul Newman, for In Cold Blood (1967) and was wooed by John Huston for The Kremlin Letter (not made till 1970).

Eventually, director Norman Jewison, who had worked with McQueen on The Cincinnati Kid (1965), another change to the actor’s screen persona, after much badgering, agreed to let him see the script. “Norman and I both felt that Steve was completely wrong to play Thomas Crown,” commented Mirisch, especially over the demand that “he should to wear a necktie on the screen.”

Although Jewison and McQueen shared the same agency, William Morris, the notion of the actor being tapped up for the role didn’t come from there. McQueen heard about it from a friend Steve Ferry who had seen the screenplay. Jewison came straight to the point when he took a telephone call from McQueen: “If it’s Thomas Crown, forget it. You’re not right. I love you and respect you as an actor. But I’ll never tell you lies. You can’t have the part.”

Jewison went further, listing the actor’s shortcomings, explaining McQueen was prone to “looking down at the ground or squinting up into the sun…What’s going to happen when you have to look people in the eye?” Only after three hours on the director’s back lawn did Jewison’s obstinacy relent. “The more he talked, the more I saw him as Thomas Crown. Now we had the problem of turning him physically into Thomas Crown.”

“He’s a rebel like me,” surmised McQueen, “Sure, a high society rebel, but my kinda cat.” Jewison kept telling him he “wasn’t right for it.” It was “unlike anything Steve had ever done” and casting him still seemed a risk. McQueen was aware of the damage miscasting could do to this career. “I don’t have any illusions on that score…If people laugh at me, my ass is gone.”

McQueen explained his enthusiasm for the role. “I had thought of changing my screen image for more than a year. I felt it was time to get past those tough upright types. When Norman showed me the Crown part I grabbed it.”

It was an odd movie from the beginning, not churned out by a seasoned professional. An experienced Hollywood type would never have considered writing a heist picture where the mastermind was a slick millionaire with a string of successful businesses behind him, who, rather than being a professional criminal, was drawn to crime from sheer boredom.

Alan R. Trustman was a legal eagle, partner at the law firm of Nutter, McClennen and Fish. “I had never written a line, except for law briefs. One Sunday afternoon I got bored watching TV and suddenly, for no apparent reason, I thought it would be fun to write a screen story…in two months The Crown Caper was done.” But it was nothing like the polished movie that ended up on screen. “It had a lot of dialogue, a lot of description and a lot of prose,” recalled Mirisch, and at thirty pages long was more of a treatment than a script. “But it had a great germ of an idea.”

Mirisch was an early advocate of Faye Dunaway, having seen her on stage in a play, Hogan’s Goat (1965), recognized her potential and “always had in mind that, one day, a role would come along.”

Mirisch had McQueen on some sort of a financial string. Their multiple-picture deal with him dated back to The Magnificent Seven (1960), at a time when he was a rising rather than established star. In the way of such pacts, initial remuneration was pretty low, rising with each successive picture, and relying on the actor having become, somehow, a success.

“His agent and manager made a big fuss about the nominal salary provided for in our second option. To settle the argument,” stated Mirisch, “I agreed to pay him the salary called for in the third option as well as to cancel that last option. I recognized that we really should be paying him more than the price stipulated in the option. Also I felt that trying to enforce the third option would be difficult if not impossible.”

If Walter Mirisch thought he was getting a bargain, it wasn’t much of one. McQueen still pulled in $650,000 plus $1,000 a week living expenses and a ton of perks – including it later transpired the dune buggy (worth about $50,000 at today’s prices), all the tailor-made suits, and the shoes and a swag-bag of props. The actor called on his Beverley Hills tailor Ron Postal to deck him out in $400 suits (over $3,500 now), had his hair transformed by celebrity stylist Jay Sebring (later murdered along with his girlfriend Sharon Tate by the Manson gang) and learned to play polo “until his hands literally bled.”

Dunaway, by contrast, with Bonnie and Clyde (1967) in the bank and wanted by every studio in town, was paid a larger salary (though McQueen made up for it by his profit share). Out of the $4.3 million budget around a third was spent on the salaries of the two principals.

Dunaway proved terrific casting for another reason. She was as tough, single-minded and independent as the character she played. She had an inner strength McQueen’s previous leading ladies and contemporary amours lacked. In person “she threw him off-balance” and she “did the same thing on camera” which provided the anchor of their relationship. She was far from the typical Hollywood “love interest.”

Mirisch’s pact with Jewison had proved wildly successful, among the best financial deals the company had ever achieved, the hot box office of The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) exceeded by In the Heat of the Night (1967). Jewison rehired many of the crew from his previous picture, including two budding directors, cinematographer Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool, 1969) and editor Hal Ashby (Shampoo, 1975).

Aside from the sensational screen charisma of the leading actors, the screenplay’s originality was enhanced by a huge step forward in the use of technology, the innovative split-screen process, executed by visual designer Pablo Ferro, who had devised the credit sequence for The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.

Multiple image was used in three principal area – to introduce six characters and establish their relationship during the initial robbery, for the polo game, and in the final caper. The polo game employed “not only out-of-focus and soft effect panels but also at some point involved over fifty separate panels on the screen simultaneously,” said Jewison. For the second robbery “the amount of film used in relationship to the amount of screen time was probably in the ratio of four-to-one.”

In other words, not only was it incredibly stylish, but it vastly compressed screen time, reducing the running length by fifteen or twenty minutes, ensuring that the audiences concentrated on the evolving relationship between McQueen and Dunaway.

McQueen could ride, of course, what Hollywood star, with westerns in high demand, could not. “But he hated horses and he hated polo, but he wasn’t about to give up.” Thanks to his dedication, he proved a worthy competitor. Jewison only believed in McQueen once he witnessed him in action playing polo. “That’s when I realized how much he was giving for the film. Polo was symbolic of all the reasons why he wanted to play Thomas Crown.” The snobs at the club might sneer but they could not ignore “his sensational back hand.”

McQueen had never used the English saddle, a prerequisite for polo. He trained at the Myopia hunt club from morning till night until he mastered the art of riding using his knees not his arms (essential to be kept as free as possible to swing the mallet) as well as becoming such a “proficient player” he received a standing ovation from the members.

The F.B.I. refused to cooperate. Rejecting a request to film in its Boston office, the crime buster operation complained about what it perceived as “an outrageous portrayal of the Bureau” especially as the film ended with Thomas Crown outwitting the organization.

McQueen turned up for shooting as if he had swallowed the Method. “Call me Tommy,” he told the crew. But there was limited time to knock the character into shape, the actor having only signed up for a week of pre-production.

The twelve-week shoot was marred for McQueen by “some letters of a threatening nature that he had received.” That meant posting a security guard on his rented house to ensure the safety of his children. “It preyed on his mind a great deal during the shooting,” said Mirisch.

According to Jewison, McQueen’s security concerns evolved into paranoia, itself driven by his drug-taking. As well as a 24-hour security detail and surveillance on the front of his house, he demanded the same facility for the back of his house which between him and the Atlantic Ocean consisted only of a private beach. “Who the hell did he think was going to get in from there?” mused the director. Off-screen McQueen never exhibited his on-screen confidence. Jewison observed, “He was tortured.”

Filming was, as Jewison put it, best described as “bittersweet.” Producer Robert Relyea recalled “refereeing” a few incidents between actor and director. McQueen’s unease or the eternal power battle between director and actor resulted in one opportunity missed. For the dune buggy scene, said Jewison, “we had everything lined up for a scene on the beach at Magic Hour just as the sun was going down. Beautiful… conditions were perfect, everyone was ready except Thomas Crown Esq who was out in the surf in his dune buggy not answering his radio.”

Oddly enough, McQueen objected to the director speaking to him snippily when the actor returned and after that their relationship wasn’t the same, McQueen nibbling away at the director’s confidence, objecting to scenes or lines, until Jewison at one point ended up in tears. McQueen became a consummate actor, expressing emotion with the slightest lift of an eyebrow, or tightening a facial muscle, because “he couldn’t get his tongue around a lot of words.”

The producer was delighted to return to Boston, the movie’s main location, because he had attended college there a quarter of a century previously. Locations used included Old Copp’s Hill Cemetery, the Boston commons, the Little Italy outdoor markets, Anthony’s Pier 4 restaurant, and the sand dunes near Crane’s Beach and Provincetown. The St James Ballroom of the Jordan Marsh mansion provided the setting for the ballroom while the chess game was shot at the Goldwyn Studio. The initial bank robbery was filmed using hidden cameras at the National Shawmut Bank.

For the chess game “ we were hoping to get inspired moments that could give us more than dialog could.” Inspiration didn’t stop there, the fashionable outfits adorning Dunaway helped enormously and, of course, the movie hit pay dirt with the Oscar-winning theme song, “The Windmills of Your Mind” composed by Michel Legrand with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, a huge success in the global singles charts.

The original title of The Crown Caper was changed for a time to Thomas Crown and Company before setting finally on The Thomas Crown Affair.

Although initially criticized as being primary style over substance, and now recognized as a work of inspired genius, one of the few times when everything falls into place on a movie, according to Mirisch, it was more “an exhibition of style…we hoped to dazzle the audience with the multiple panels and the chess game, the photography and the music.”

It proved a smash at the box office, rentals of $6.25 million in the U.S, nearly matched by $5 million abroad.

SOURCES: Walter Mirisch, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) p265-270; Penina Spiegel, Steve McQueen, The Untold Story of the Bad Boy of Hollywood (Collins, 1968) p201-209; Christopher Sandford, McQueen, The Biography (HarperCollins Entertainment, 2002) p196-198, 202-206.

Behind the Scenes – “Play Dirty” (1969)

Hungarian Andre de Toth’s somewhat cavalier career had become ultra-cavalier during the 1960s. Best known for westerns such as Ramrod (1947) with Joel McCrea, Springfield Rifle (1952) starring Gary Cooper and The Indian Fighter (1955) headlined by Kirk Douglas plus House of Wax (1953), he was not, you might have imagined, riding high in the critical stakes. Hollywood considered him a journeyman. Esteemed French magazine Cahiers du Cinema, which had championed Hitchcock in the face of mainstream indifference, believed otherwise and interviewed him for a 1967 issue.

He might have been the name of everyone’s lips for more hard-won commercial reasons had attempts in the late 1950s come to fruition of filming the Ian Fleming portfolio beginning with Dr No. Instead, he was deemed a spent force and during the ensuing decade limited to only four films: Man on a String (1960) and the Italian-funded Morgan The Pirate (1960), The Mongols (1961) and Gold for the Caesars (1963).

The Fleming enterprise had put him into the orbit of Harry Saltzman which led to a producing gig on Billion Dollar Brain (1966). Saltzman was also involved in The Deadly Patrol – the basis of Play Dirty – with French director Rene Clement (Rider on the Rain, 1970). According to de Toth, Saltzman wanted to elevate himself in movie circles. He “looked down on the Bond pictures” and wanted to make more serious movies.

And the pair clashed on style. “Genteel Rene wanted to make ‘a poetry of war.’ Harry wanted blazing guns and roaring tanks.” Saltzman feared Clement’s version “was going to be some kind of art movie.”

Play Dirty was originally set to be shot in Israel – even though insurance was impossible – as a favor to Arthur Krim, head honcho at United Artists which was providing the finance. In the end filming was switched to Spain, even though neither Saltzman nor Clement was familiar with the terrain of Almeria, and the reality fell far short of the Lawrence of Arabia landscape both envisaged.

De Toth, by now part of the Saltzman entourage, was again assigned production duties with a new script to be written by de Toth, John McGrath (Billion Dollar Brain) and Melvyn Bragg (Isadora, 1968) as long as the credits made room for Lotte Colin, Saltzman’s mother-in-law. Shuttling pages to Saltzman, de Toth had little conviction the revised screenplay was being passed on to the Frenchman.

Michael Caine, already contractually committed, was keen to make a movie “good, bad or indifferent” with Clement. Richard Harris, on a salary of £150,000, pulled out of the role of Capt Leach after script rewrites eliminated four of his major scenes. “I wasn’t going to play second fiddle to Caine,” raged Harris. (Nigel Davenport, originally in a supporting role, was upgraded to take his place). Caine didn’t like the script. But it was either go ahead or Saltzman lose out on all the money already spent. Sets were built with still no guarantee from Clement that he would actually turn up.

The inducement of receiving the final chunk of his salary, payable on completion of the picture, did the trick. At first Clement appeared fully committed, altering the script, and “observant and meticulous about details.” But soon mere tinkering escalated into demanding to “revamp the set, find new locations maybe in North Africa; in short, shoot another film.” When de Toth turned up on set, Clement vanished. Then the director went sick but refused to admit a doctor to his hotel room. A three-day enforced hiatus ended after De Toth was subjected to a barrage of abuse down the telephone by Saltzman and then instructed to get on the set and start shooting.

“It was a strange way to get the directorial assignment,” noted de Toth. “I would have been a hypocrite to deny I wasn’t happy. I had wanted to do a story like Play Dirty since I had wallowed in the blood of futility in Poland.” But that combat experience came in handy. “I had learned in Poland how to crawl under barbed wire with fishhooks dangling on it and if you were caught and the tin cans rattled you had no chance to start your last prayer.” De Toth’s acquaintance with the realities of war inform the film. Location manager Andrew Birkin, brother of actress Jane Birkin, described de Toth as “more of a sergeant-major and he made the picture that way which was probably the right way to do it.”

“Michael Caine was probably more disappointed than I and I understood him and his resentment of the film. He felt uncomfortable, insecure, in the film without Clement, which made his portrayal in Play Dirty so remarkable, considered by many one of his very best…My respect for his professionalism grew as we drilled.”

Unexpectedly in the desert, rain came to the aid of the already hard-pressed production. The downpour turned the sand into a flower garden. Shooting was postponed for two weeks allowing the cast and crew to bond and iron out the script.

Since the beginning of the decade Almeria, decidedly smaller than it usually appeared, was a an in-demand location, favored by King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1962), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Cleopatra (1963) and, following the success of A Fistful of Dollars (1964) hugely popular for westerns. The local authorities had regulations in place regarding usage, limiting employing of the sand dunes made famous by Lawrence of Arabia. “You got them for two weeks because another picture was coming in.” Even so, competing movies often got in each other’s way.

Michael Caine recalled that one scene requiring German tanks to advance over the desert sands were “confronted round one of the dunes by a horde of American Indians in full battle cry in pursuit of a nineteenth-century stagecoach” for the western Shalako (1968). The noise of the tanks made the horses rear up, throwing off their riders, and the war picture production was delayed while all evidence of the western, including, of course, mounds of horseshit, were cleared away.

Caine remembered the experience more for the opportunity to meet Brigitte Bardot, the female lead on Shalako. One afternoon his peace was disturbed by the arrival of Bardot who uttered the immortal words, “I have been looking for you everywhere.” Caine leapt to his feet, knocking over a table of drinks.” Caine’s assumption that the French sex goddess had her eyes on him was wide of the mark. Instead, it was Bardot’s assistant, Gloria who was keen to make Caine’s acquaintance, the actor falling far short of Bardot’s taste in men, extremely young and very dark.

Despite disgruntlement about not working with Clement and over the picture in general, there was a happy ending for Caine. For his 35^th birthday present, Saltzman presented him with an envlope containing his contract torn up into small pieces.” From being beholden to Saltzman, albeit his salary on a seven-year contract signed in 1965 was incrementally increased on an annual basis – the fee for The Ipcress File was just £6,000), Caine was now a free man.

Lotte Colin hated the end result and tried convincing Saltzman to shelve it – unlikely given the millions involved and the commitment to a distributor and not least because Caine’s name attached guaranteed audience interest . But she did succeed in removing elements of the Michel Legrand score. And she did replace de Toth on the screenplay credits.

Play Dirty disappointed at the U.S, box office bringing in a miserly $650,000 in rentals (the amount returned to studios once cinemas have taken their cut of the gorss). It did better overseas with $2 million in rentals. but since it cost $3 million it incurred a loss.

“Play Dirty” managed to offset some of its losses by being a regular on the reissue scene – though it would probably have been hired for a fixed fee rather than a percentage. It later showed up as the support to “Beach of the War Gods” (1973).

This proved to be de Toth’s last directorial assignment. But it might not have been. The bosses of new production shingle National General were ardent pacifists and wooed de Toth. Offered the choice of producing or directing western El Condor (1970) he chose the latter.

Nowadays de Toth is best described as a director’s director, an “unsung hero,” by the likes of Martin Scorsese who confesses to being “fascinated” by the “underlying anger and determination” that often makes the director’s movies “very disturbing.”

“Take Play Dirty for instance,” he observes. “The characters have no redeeming social value; they don’t think, they just act. They have a job to do and they’re going to do it. The nihilism, the pragmatism – it’s at least unsettling. Disguise becomes a way to survive that brings doom at the end.”

SOURCES: Andre de Toth, Fragments: Portraits from the Inside (Faber and Faber, 1996) p390-391, 399, 416,433-447; Michael Caine, What’s It All About? (Century, 1992) p247, 256; Michael Caine, From Elephant to Hollywood, The Autobiography ( Hodder and Stoughton, 2010) p142-144; Robert Sellers, When Harry Met Cubby, The Story of the James Bond Producers (The History Press, 2019) p182-184; De Toth on de Toth (Faber and Faber, 1997) p151, 158; “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries, Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended January 3, 1970” (University of Wisconsin).

Behind the Scenes: “Shalako” (1968)

If you ever wondered just how a producer earns his crust, the convoluted process to make Shalako would provide a test case. British publicist turned producer Euan Lloyd had little on his calling card to gain entry to Hollywood, not even with the stars in tow for the project. Having worked for several years as a production assistant with Warwick Films, the British-based outfit headed by Cubby Broccoli and Irving Allen, he transitioned to associate producer on The Secret Ways (1961) but didn’t earn the moniker of producer until he pulled together an all-star cast for The Poppy Is Also A Flower (1966). Although released theatrically in Europe it was in reality a made-for-television number and screened as such in the United States.

So, actually, he was very much a neophyte producer. But early in his career he had become fast friends with Alan Ladd (Shane, 1953) and since they shared a love of westerns the actor had put him in touch with bestselling western author Louis L’Amour who was so taken with the Englishman’s enthusiasm he granted him a free option on any one of his un-filmed novels. Lloyd chose Shalako. “I could identify with that subject as it’s about a bunch of Europeans on safari in the West,” said Lloyd. (In fact, though as yet unfilmed, it was not as though nobody had tried. A report in Box Office magazine dated August 19, 1963, stated that Richard Carr was working on a screenplay for producer George Golitsin set for Universal).

*No connection to Shalako but little excuse necessary to showcase BB’s figure apparently.*

On the production side, it would give him the excuse he required to put together a cast of non-Americans, stars from different nationalities who could open the distribution doors to significant European countries like France and Germany. His original starring pair were Henry Fonda (Firecreek, 1968) and Senta Berger, whom he knew from The Secret Ways and The Poppy Is Also A Flower. “Privately, she was the antithesis of the character she played in The Secret Ways…she came to mind as a very likely countess.”

He recruited Edward Dymytrk (Mirage, 1965), having got to know the director, a fugitive from the Communist witch hunt in the U.S., on the set of the British-made So Well Remembered (1947). Dmytryk had worked with Fonda on Warlock (1959). While appreciating Lloyd’s interest and keen to work again with Dmytryk, Fonda warned that he was not a strong enough marquee name to get the project off the ground.

To cover his back and using the names of his two stars and director, Lloyd set about pulling together finance from European sources. Although such co-productions were becoming more common, Lloyd must have set some kind of record by pre-selling the movie, in the end, to 36 different bodies. But still it wasn’t enough. Without an American partner, the movie was no-go. Fonda proved the sticking point and in 1967 Lloyd decided to go for broke with a bigger cast (Fonda was pretty gracious about being dumped, “I did warn you,” he said).

Sean Connery was not even initially on the list of proposed stars until Louis L’Amour alerted Lloyd to the length of the queues to see the latest Bond blockbuster (quite how a producer didn’t know that might be considered a mystery). Connery was incommunicado, filming a documentary in Scotland, but Lloyd managed to get in touch and seven weeks later he had what he believed, based on the Bond box office, was the biggest star in the world.

Part of the attraction for Connery of course was that for the first time he was receiving a salary ($1.2 million in total) commensurate with his box office. But it turned out as far as Hollywood was concerned, Connery had been taken in by his own publicity, studios pointing out that his non-Bond movies, Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965) and A Fine Madness (1966) had not approached his Bond box office.

Nor was Brigitte Bardot a golden name on the U.S. cinema scene. Until the mid-decade reissue of La Dolce Vita (1960), her first starring role And God Created Woman (1956) held the record for the biggest imported movie. But since them, except for Viva Maria (1966), her movies had been relegated to arthouses, hardly worth risking for a $400,000 salary – she was in Variety’s list of Top Ten Overpriced Stars.

Three major studios rejected the movie. Assuming all the majors would take the same view that “Connery will never make it away from Bond,” Lloyd targeted a mini-major, the kind of neophyte outfit that might pony up to get a big name on its forthcoming schedule, a way of proving it could play with the big boys. ABC, an offshoot of the television network, was hooked, paying $1.4 million for the privilege.

Trevor Howard, Karl Malden, Claire Bloom and Ingrid Pitt was all considered for roles. Even without them, as well as Bardot, the movie, in terms of credits, had the look of one of those all-star epics so beloved in the 1960s: Jack Hawkins (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962), Stephen Boyd whom Lloyd knew from being associate producer on Genghis Khan (1965) and German star Peter van Eyck (Station Six Sahara, 1963). And if Bardot wasn’t enough to get journalist tongues wagging, Connery would also be reunited with Honor Blackman from Goldfinger (1964). The cast also included Woody Strode (The Professionals, 1966), famed 1940s western star Don ‘Red’ Barry (The Adventures of Red Ryder, 1940) and English comedian Eric Sykes (The Plank, 1967).

Mexico was first choice of location until the devalued peso rendered it too expensive. Almeria in Spain, location of choice of many a spaghetti western, was the alternative. The biggest problem pre-shooting was that, to get into character, Connery had decided to grow a Mexican moustache, presumably not aware that moustaches were verboten for stars after The Gunfighter (1950) sank at the box office reputedly because Gregory Peck wore one. In the end, without the subject becoming a thorny issue, Connery shaved it off. He spent two weeks learning to ride under the tuition of Bob Simmons, a stunt arranger on the Bond pictures, so he could, indeed, sit as tall in the saddle as the great western stars. “He was a very proficient horseman by the time we started,” commented co-star Eric Sykes, “He looked as if he had been riding all his life.”

Meanwhile, Jack Hawkins (Masquerade, 1965) had undergone an operation for throat cancer and though he could speak his words were accompanied by a kind of belch and the voice for which he was so famous had disappeared. By coincidence Lloyd heard what he thought was Hawkins voicing a beer commercial. The distinctive tones belonged to Charles Gray (The Devil Rides Out, 1968) and he re-voiced Hawkins’ lines.

Despite Connery’s assertions to the contrary – his famous quote “she’s all girl but…all on the outside” was viewed as a detractory statement – Lloyd insisted it was a happy set. “I had absolutely no trouble from the cast during shooting and Sean and Brigitte performed perfectly and in harmony. Eddie Dmytryk was a man who knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it. The co-stars liked him enormously.”

Other sources paint a different picture, pointing to tension between Connery and Bardot over who was the bigger star, between Bardot and former lover Boyd, and between Connery and Dmytryk over the script. According to Eric Sykes, sitting beside Connery in between takes, the actor “would tear half a page or even a whole page of dialog out of his script…He was editing his part as he went along, apparently without reference to the director…One scene in particular with him and Brigitte Bardot, a long scene where they were sitting around a pool….it went on and on for about eight minutes…Sean’s editing turned it not a slick two- or three-minute scene…Eddie (Dmytryk) did not challenge it because when he saw what Sean had done he knew it was right.”

A big success in UK and Europe, it was a flop in the U.S. where ABC recorded a $1.2 million loss, but since every area was sold separately it is doubtful this shortfall would need to be repaid by the producer so counting the income from other sources it would have gone into profit. Incidentally, Connery was pictured wearing a moustache when the movie had its premiere and he was actually one of the few major stars who regularly wore a moustache in pictures and there are those who attribute his career longevity to cultivating a beard while still in his prime.

SOURCES: John Parker, Sean Connery, 1930-2020, The Definitive Biography (Bonnier Books, 2020) p171-176; Mac Mcsharry and Terry Hine, “The Way West,” Cinema Retro, Issue #2 May 2005, p38-42.

Shalako (1968) ***

It’s a gripping and unusual opening. The jangling noise of metal beating upon metal. A trapped mountain lion surrounded by a posse of unkempt men. The beast driven into a killing zone. The camera ends up on a classy blonde in a top hat, Irina (Brigitte Bardot), drawing a bead on the animal. But as she shoots so does rugged cowboy Bosky (Stephen Boyd) and you can be sure his aim is more deadly. It wouldn’t do to have an upper-class European lady to be mauled to death by a vicious creature just because her ego got the better of her.

Except that’s not the opening. Instead, that’s sacrificed for a dumb theme tune and a few minutes over the credits watching titular hero Shalako (Sean Connery) doing what exactly? Nothing exciting that for sure. We see him riding I guess to prove he can sit as tall in the saddle as the stars of the genre like Alan Ladd, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, as if nobody expected James Bond to be able to complete such a transition. There’s a bit of waking up, more riding, drinking from a dirty stream, and more riding while composer Jim Dale struggles to find lyrics that rhyme with Shalako.

There’s a bit more exposition before Shalako does anything meaningful. We are introduced to a fistful of Europeans on a hunting party complete with butler (Eric Sykes) and guzzling champagne and escorted by a bunch of mean-looking cowboys looking on in envy though I doubt any would acquire a taste for champagne.

Then the real action starts. A bit’s been missed out explaining just why Irina took off on her own with just one man as escort to continue hunting and nobody thought fit to warn her this was Apache country. We know she’s in trouble because her escort is just about dead and Apaches are gathering. Enter Shalako to save the day. The first piece of dialogue between the most handsome man in the world and the screen’s most beautiful woman, a movie made just so Connery, at his Bond peak, and Bardot, in her most expensive picture, could strike sparks off each other, is hardly something to treasure. It’s almost priceless for its mundanity. “You all right?” grunts Shalako. “Yes,” replies the breathless heroine.

But trust the British to bring that epitome of British moviemaking, the class war, to that most democratic of movie species, the western. It’s ironic that in the country where freedom is a given – slavery long since abolished in the period this movie was set – members of the hunting party are fettered. Irina is little more than bait. You might as well have staked her out, hoping to snare German aristocrat von Hallstatt (Peter van Eyck). Marriage would cure the financial woes of her debt-ridden sister Lady Daggett (Honor Blackman) and husband Sir Charles (Jack Jawkins). Von Hallstatt doesn’t believe in making romantic overtures, it would be, like so many aristocratic marriages, a contract of convenience; he acquires beauty, she gets wealth.

To complicate matters Lady Daggett has a roving eye which has settled on Bosky, and to complicate matters even further, nobody should be firing rifles, even if only for sport, in Apache territory. It’s not long before the Apaches take umbrage and launch an attack. And it takes even less time for Bosky and his buddies to take off, leaving their charges poorly defended in a makeshift fort.

It takes way too long to sort out all these plot machinations and get to the meat of the story which is finding a way of putting Connery and Bardot together and when they are not the movie trundles along without much in the way of screen sparks. It could have done with an entirely different scenario. Something akin to Soldier Blue (1970) would have worked a treat, with roles reversed of course back to the traditional of experienced male tending the inexperienced female as they battle through enemy territory.

You needed to get this pair together – and quick – for the movie to find any steam at all. As it is, it’s somewhat laborious. While the action sequences are well done and Shalako scores in the western lore department, you wouldn’t have thought a mountaineering subplot could have produced so few thrills, its only purpose, plot-wise, to ensure that von Hallstatt acquires some credibility (he’s the mountaineer) and that the group can reach a plateau whose main attraction, as lovers of westerns will already be aware, is a pool where in the great Hollywood tradition a woman can disport herself half-naked. Shalako, in sneaking up on her, comes across like a bit of a peeping tom.

Sean Connery (The Hill, 1965) is convincing enough as a cowboy. He certainly doesn’t look out of place on a horse but it takes far too long for the expected romance to begin. Brigitte Bardot (Viva Maria!, 1965) is better than you might expect as a sharpshooter, but not quite in the fiery class of a Claudia Cardinale (The Professionals, 1966) or even Maureen O’Hara (The Rare Breed, 1965) and she’s not really given the dialog necessary to fully establish the independence of her character.

Director Edward Dmytryk (Mirage, 1965) does his best with an overly-complicated script and some cumbersome set-pieces and it would have worked far better if a few characters and reams of sub-plot had been chucked aside to bring the stars together quicker. While Connery does the riding and shooting well enough he lacks the grizzled lived-in face of his famed western predecessors and I get a sense of him trying too hard. And, as I said, it wouldn’t have taken much to pep up Bardot.

Having complained about the subsidiary characters, they are all well-drawn. Stephen Boyd (The Big Gamble, 1961) makes on helluva mean cowboy, Honor Blackman (Moment to Moment, 1966) is excellent as a predatory female. Aristocratic pair Peter van Eyck (Station Six Sahara, 1963) and Jack Hawkins (Masquerade, 1965) are the kind of actors who can denote fallen status with facial expression rather than requiring lumps of dialog. But Eric Sykes (The Plank, 1967) is really a British in-joke.

James Griffith and screenwriting partner Hal Hopper had previously worked on Russ Meyer epics like Lorna (1965). The original story came from a novel by Louis L’Amour (Catlow, 1971).

Out-with his guise as James Bond, Connery – excepting Robin and Marian (1976) and Cuba (1979) – was not one of the screen’s great lovers so this would have been the perfect chance to hone those particular credentials. But like the entire picture this was a missed opportunity. When the best scene is the brutal suffocation of Honor Blackman and not the two stars canoodling, you can see the target was missed by miles.

Behind the Scenes: When “Worldwide” Didn’t Exist – Global Box Office Part One

Box office fans, excited no doubt at how Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), is charging up the all-time charts, might be surprised to discover that the concept of “worldwide” box office figures didn’t exist in the 1960s. Although foreign markets had proved important to Hollywood since the 1940s, there was no accepted way of measuring their impact.

Box office results in certain countries – Italy, France, Brazil, Australia etc – were reported only on an occasional basis and were never considered front page news. Global box office figures were more likely to appear courtesy of one of the profit participants. Star William Holden’s share of Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and producer Sam Spiegel’s earnings on Doctor Zhivago (1965), for example, were widely reported. Or a studio might want to defray rising investor discontent by pointing how well a Stateside flop such as The Magnificent Seven (1960) had performed overseas.

But these were one-offs and it was impossible to get a handle on the worldwide results for an entire year of Hollywood output. The kind of global box office reporting we take for granted did not appear until the 1990s and often even then, for many pictures, it was only as a year-end figure.

However, during my digging into hordes of records for my book The Making of “The Magnificent Seven” I came upon a tranche of reports on foreign box office figures relating to United Artists for the years 1965 to 1969. And they make for fascinating reading, not least to discover which Stateside hits did poorly abroad and, conversely, what flops in the domestic market made up for it in foreign countries.

Volume of production at UA more than doubled over the period, from 17 pictures in 1965 to 38 in 1969, but the average budget came down from $3.68 million per movie to $2.14 million.

You won’t be surprised to learn that James Bond pretty much reigned supreme, taking three of the top four spots. But you might be taken aback to discover just how profitable this series was – over $100 million in rentals (the studio share of box office once cinemas have taken their cut) for three movies mentioned here – more than four times what they cost to make, and that would not take into account the colossal revenues accruing from merchandising.

The 1965-1969 worldwide winner by some margin was Thunderball (1965), clocking up $48 million in worldwide rentals. In second place was You Only Live Twice (1967) on $36 million. but the prospect of a cosy one-two-three was nipped in the bud by Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy (1969) on $26 million with On her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969,) hampered by losing the services of Sean Connery, settling for fourth after pulling in $23 million.

Fifth spot went to big-budget roadshow Hawaii (1966) starring Julie Andrews and Max von Sydow which sank $18.8 million worldwide followed by Norman Jewison’s low-budget crime story In the Heat of the Night (1967) on $16 million helped by Sidney Poitier at a box office peak and Rod Steiger, courtesy of an Oscar, at a career one. Placing seventh was big-budget all-star British World War Two epic The Battle of Britain (1969) which soared, largely on foreign grosses, to $15.5 million. Next, on $14.8 million, came roadshow musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) starring Dick Van Dyke.

Biggest surprise of the year was the performance of family melding comedy Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) with out-of-favor stars Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda which closed in on $13 million. Rounding out the Top Ten was George Stevens’ Biblical roadshow The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). However, its global figures of $12.1 million were a disappointment given its budget topped $21.2 million.

Just behind, on $12 million worldwide, setting another comedic hot pace, was Clive Donner’s What’s New Pussycat (1965). Despite having no roadshow credentials it boasted an all-star cast consisting of Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress, Romy Scheider and Paula Prentiss. Comedy also accounted for twelfth – the unfancied, though timely, Norman Jewison effort The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) starring Alan Arkin and Eva Marie Saint which coasted in with $11.8 million.

Thirteenth was Steve McQueen-Faye Dunaway romantic thriller The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) directed with considerable elan also by Norman Jewison. That flew in with $11.25 million, a cool million ahead of the second picture, Help!, by British pop sensation The Beatles.

Fifteenth place went to the final picture in the Sergio Leone trilogy The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968) starring Clint Eastwood which crested $10.2 million. John Frankenheimer’s World War Two thriller The Train (1965) with Burt Lancaster trying to outfox Paul Schofield tracked $9.75 million. But, as if to emphasize Clint Eastwood’s growing box office power, his first American western Hang ‘Em High came next on $9 million worldwide.

Second World War mission picture The Devil’s Brigade (1968) starring William Holden and Cliff Robertson in a Dirty Dozen-style knock-off paraded $8.6 million for eighteenth position. Comedy filled out the final two places in the Top 20. Jack Lemmon scored a suprise hit in Richard Quine’s How To Murder Your Wife (1965). Co-starring Virna Lisi and Englishman Terry-Thomas it romped away with $8.4 million. Although The Graduate (1967) had been a massive global success, United Artists only held the rights to certain territories but that was enough to pull in $7.7 million worldwide.

There wasn’t actually an informal Top 20 reported by United Artists over this five-year period. I’ve concocted it out of the reports below.

SOURCE: “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended 1965;” “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended 1966;” “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended 1967;” “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended 1968;” “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended 1969,” United Artists Files, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, University of Wisconsin.

On the Fiddle / Operation Snafu (1961) ***

Unassuming but undeniably charming British World War Two comedy denied U.S. release until four years later when a savvy distributor jumped on the James Bond bandwagon. Primarily of interest these days for the opportunity to see a pre-Bond Sean Connery (Dr No, 1962) in action its merit chiefly lies in ploughing the same furrow, though with a great deal less pomposity and self-consciousness, as the later The Americanization of Emily (1964), of the coward backing into heroism.

Horace Pope (Alfred Lynch) is a scam merchant who only dodges prison by enlisting. Assigned to the RAF he teams up with Pedlar Pascoe (Sean Connery) and they embark on a series of schemes designed to keep them as far away from the front line as possible. It’s hardly an equal partnership, Pope dreams up the fiddles while Pascoe just falls in with them. It’s not dumb and dumber but a collaboration that goes no further back in the annals of movies than brain and brawn.

*Needless to say, the movie lacks the the damsels in bikinis which were a prerequisite of the Bond pictures. Sean Connery takes top billing Stateside where he was originally behind Lynch.*

It’s certainly a cynical number, reflecting the boredom experienced by many of the Armed Forces backroom staff, the administrators whose inefficiency turns them into easy dupes, and the determination of soldiers to take advantage of every opportunity to bend the rules. It takes the unusual position of presenting the ordinary soldier as smart and every officer as a numbskull, an approach that would only have been possible 15 years after the war ended and in marked contrast to the determined heroism of other British war films – such intrepid stiff-upper-lip behavior a hallmark of the British version of the genre.

First stop is to run an operation issuing leave passes – for a price – and the sheer effrontery exhibited by Pope is a joy to behold. Next up is selling stolen meat on the black market.

While Pedlar is the wide-eyed camp follower, and more likely to forever sit on the sidelines, cheerful but shy, and only a few pratfalls away from being a bumbling idiot, they do make a good team. Being sent to France is more of a heaven-sent opportunity to increase their bankrolls than a hazardous wartime mission as Pope sells rations to the French. Eventually, of course, their various scams are rumbled and they are forced into battle.

*The only thing better than one pre-Bond Connery picture is two.*

The movie switches a bit more deftly into serious mode than the aforementioned The Americanization of Emily mostly because these are actual soldiers trained to be soldiers rather than an officer who landed a cushy number and whose main effort is to avoid combat. War is presented as horrific rather than comedy and it must have been the same experience for an ordinary soldier at the time, after months of inactivity suddenly thrust into the cauldron.

The picture moves at a brisk pace and is continually amusing if not particularly laugh-out-loud. You’ve probably seen most of the set-ups before but they are reinvented with an appealing freshness and briskness As a bonus there’s reams of British character actors and comedians – plus token American Alan King (who would appear in Connery starrer The Anderson Tapes, 1971) – along the way. The term “snafu” in case you’re interested, has a similar meaning to the “fubar” of Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Alfred Lynch (The Hill, 1965) doesn’t milk the Cockney patter overmuch and he’s got a greater international screen appeal than the likes of the more English Sid James (Carry On films) or Norman Wisdom. Think a shiftier Sgt Bilko, if the Phil Silvers creation could be any more untrustworthy.

Connery’s performance is well worth a watch as a prelude to what was to come once his roles were tailor-made. He is an effortless scene-stealer, gifted in expressing emotion through his eyes, and although verbally Lynch dominates it’s difficult to take your eyes off Connery.

The roll-call of character actors includes Cecil Parker (A Study in Terror, 1965), Stanley Holloway (My Fair Lady, 1964), John Le Mesurier (The Moon-Spinners, 1964), Graham Stark (The Wrong Box, 1966) and Victor Maddern (The Lost Continent, 1968).

Cyril Frankel (The Trygon Factor, 1966) comfortably cobbles this together from a screenplay by Harold Buchman (The Lawyer, 1970, and who had ironically enough penned the picture Snafu in 1945) based on the novel Stop at a Winner by R.F. Delderfield.

When the box office supremacy of the Bond pictures was underscored by the reissue of the Dr No/From Russia with Love double bill in 1965, distributors, as had been their wont, racked the vaults for anything featuring Connery that could be re-sold to a willing public.

While there is a readily available DVD, this turns up on a regular basis, in Britain at least, on television.

Riding the Bond Reissue Bandwagon

The 60^th Anniversary celebration of the James Bond phenomenon in British cinemas that has been running for a few months now sent me back to examine the extent of the James Bond Reissue Double Bill.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, the Dr No (1962)/From Russia with Love (1963) revival in 1965 kicked off the biggest-ever demand for a screen character, one of whom the public never seemed to grow tired, certainly for the next decade until the first of the series were sold to television. Prior to United Artists’ approach with the Bonds, unless a picture had Oscar-driven box office power it would not even be considered for revival for around seven years, considered a generation in audience terms.

In Britain, the movies were guaranteed circuit releases on the Odeon chain. However, contrary to the approach in the United States, the movies were not thrown back into circulation right away and it wasn’t until three years later that the next double bill – Goldfinger (1964)/Thunderball (1965) – put in an appearance. But thereafter, there was no stopping the Bond bandwagon. In 1969 You Only Live Twice (1967) went out with either From Russia with Love or Dr No (cinemas could choose their preferred pairing).

In 1970, United Artists took a break from the Sean Connery reissue business by concentrating on the studio’s other big male star Clint Eastwood, doubling up For A Few Dollars More (1965) with A Fistful of Dollars (1964). But by 1971 it experimented with playing Connery and Eastwood together, first pairing You Only Live Twice/A Fistful of Dollars and later the same year Goldfinger/For a Few Dollars More. But in 1972 the studio reverted to type with Thunderball/Dr No and the following year Diamonds Are Forever (1971)/From Russia with Love.

In 1974 it was You Only Live Twice/Thunderball and few months later Dr No/Goldfinger. Come 1975 it was time for two of the later offerings to enter the revival business – Live and Let Die (1973) and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) followed at the end of the year by The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and Live and Let Die. The next year brought a programme change – Diamonds Are Forever teamed up with new Bond Roger Moore in the non-Bond adventure Gold (1974).

In 1977, for the first time in nearly a decade the Bond reissue was absent from British cinemas although the following year saw a re-teaming of Live and let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. But that pretty much spelled the end of the annual James Bond double bill, television by now too quickly eating up new product.

The British approach was almost conservative compared to the way the Bond revivals were handled in the US. After the sensational performance of Dr No/From Russia with Love in 1965 U.S. exhibitors had to wait only a year for Goldfinger/Dr No. United Artists showed little restraint, following a policy of “play them till they drop,” and launching the Connery/Eastwood combo in 1968 with You Only Live Twice/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967) plus a straightforward Connery item Thunderball/From Russia with Love the same year followed by Goldfinger/Dr No in 1969.

In the U.S. the year of the missing Bond reissue was 1970. But in 1971 United Artists reissued two Bond dualers six months apart. First out was Thunderball/You Only Live Twice and then Dr No/From Russia with Love. Ahead of the television premiere of Goldfinger in September 1972, UA brought back Goldfinger/From Russia with Love and then the triple bill (“Spend a Night with James Bond!”) of Goldinger/Dr No/From Russia with Love plus a double bill of Thunderball/You Only Live Twice, the last program incidentally knocking up a colossal gross of $122,000 – equivalent to $853,000 now – from 14 houses in New York in its opening week.

But the bonanza came to an end when television ponied up $17.5 million – equivalent to $126 million today – for the first seven pictures in the series. And this was before residuals kicked in from VHS, television resale and syndication, DVD, cable and streaming. Even when the MCU can guarantee billion-dollar revenues from many of its movies it’s doubtful if any one of its blockbusters made as much money as the best of the Bonds in their lifetime, much of that extra revenue coming from the way the revivals proved the enduring popularity of the series.

SOURCES: Allen Eyles, Odeon Cinemas 2: From J. Arthur Rank to the Multiplex (Cinema Theatre Association, 2005) p211-220; Brian Hannan, Coming Back to a Theater Near You (McFarland, 2016) p147-151, 175-177, 227.

All-Time Top 40

I started this Blog two years ago this month and to my astonished delight it is now read in over 120 countries. I am now well past over 500 reviews. So I thought you might be interested to know which of these reviews has attracted the most attention. This isn’t my choice of the top films in the Blog, but yours, my loyal readers. The chart covers the films viewed the most times since the Blog began, from June 1, 2020 to May 31, 2022.

The Secret Ways (1961). Richard Widmark exudes menace in this adaptation of an early Alistair MacLean spy thriller set in Hungary during the Cold War. Senta Berger has a small role.
Jessica (1962). Innocently gorgeous widow Angie Dickinson finds her looks turn so many male heads in a small Italian town that the female population seeks revenge.
Ocean’s 11 (1960). The Rat Pack makes its debut – Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. et al plan an audacious Las Vegas robbery.
Pharoah (1966). Priests battle kings in Polish epic set in ancient Egypt. Fabulous to look at and thoughtful.
Fraulein Doktor (1969). Suzy Kendall in the best role of her career as a sexy German spy in World War One.
The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl (1968). Cult French movie starring Daniele Gaubert as a sexy cat burglar.
The Swinger (1966). Ann-Margret struts her stuff as a magazine journalist trying to persuade Tony Franciosca she is as sexy as the character she has written about.
It’s Not All Rock’n’Roll (2020). Ageing rocker Dave Doughman aims to mix a career with being a father in this fascinating documentary
A Place for Lovers (1969). Faye Dunaway and Marcello Mastroianni in doomed love affair directed by Vittorio De Sica.
The Venetian Affair (1966). Robert Vaughn hits his acting stride as a former CIA operative turned journalist investigating suicide bombings in Venice. Great supporting cast includes Elke Sommer and Boris Karloff.
Moment to Moment (1966). Hitchcockian-style thriller with Jean Seberg caught up in murder plot in the French Riviera. Also features Honor Blackman.
4 for Texas (1963). Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin face off in a Robert Aldrich western featuring Ursula Andress and Anita Ekberg with Charles Bronson in a smaller part.
Age of Consent (1969). Helen Mirren stars as the nubile muse of jaded painter James Mason returning to his Australian roots.
The Double Man (1967). Yul Brynner chases his doppelganger in the Swiss Alps with Britt Ekland adding a touch of glamour.
Subterfuge (1968). C.I.A. operative Gene Barry hunts an M.I.5 mole in London. Intrigue all round with Joan Collins supplying the romance and a scene-stealing Suzanna Leigh as a villain.
A House Is Not a Home (1965). Biopic of notorious madam Polly Adler (played by Shelley Winters) who rubbed shoulders with the cream of Prohibition gangsters.
Can Heironymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness? (1969). Off-the-wall musical directed by star Anthony Newley that has to be seen to be believed. Joan Collins pops up.
Pressure Point (1962). Prison psychiatrist Sidney Poitier must help racist Nazi Bobby Darin.
Deadlier than the Male (1967). Richard Johnson as Bulldog Drummond is led a merry dance by spear-gun-toting Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina in outlandish thriller.
Valley of Gwangi (1969). Special effects genius Ray Harryhausen the star here as James Franciscus and Gila Golen encounter prehistoric monsters in a forbidden valley.
The Naked Runner (1967). With his son held hostage, Frank Sinatra is forced to carry out an assassination in East Germany.
Orgy of the Dead (1965). Bearing the Ed Wood imprint, mad monster mash-up with the naked dead.
Once a Thief (1965). Ann-Margret is a revelation in crime drama with ex-con Alain Delon coerced into a robbery despite trying to go straight. Supporting cast boasts Jack Palance, Van Heflin and Jeff Corey.
The Sicilian Clan (1969). Stunning caper with thief Alain Delon and Mafia chief Jean Gabin teaming up for audacious jewel heist with cop Lino Ventura on their trail. French thriller directed by Henri Verneuil. Great score by Ennio Morricone.
Dark of the Sun / The Mercenaries (1968). More diamonds at stake as Rod Taylor leads a gang of mercenaries into war-torn Congo. Jim Brown, Yvette Mimieux and Kenneth More co-star. Based on the Wilbur Smith bestseller
Stiletto (1969). Mafia hitman Alex Cord pursued by tough cop Patrick O’Neal. Britt Ekland as the treacherous girlfriend heads a supporting cast including Roy Scheider, Barbara McNair and Joseph Wiseman.
Maroc 7 (1967). Yet more jewel skullduggery with Gene Barry infiltrating a gang of thieves in Morocco who use the cover of a fashion shoot. Top female cast comprises Elsa Martinelli, Cyd Charisse, Tracy Reed and Alexandra Stewart.
The Rock (1996). Former inmate Sean Connery breaks into Alcatraz with Nicolas Cage to prevent mad general Ed Harris blowing up San Francisco. Michael Bay over-the-top thriller with blistering pace.
The Swimmer (1968). Burt Lancaster’s life falls apart as he swims pool-by-pool across the county. Superlative performance.
Hour of the Gun (1967). James Garner as a ruthless Wyatt Earp and Jason Robards as Doc Holliday in John Sturges’ realistic re-telling of events after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Fade In (1968). Long-lost modern western with Burt Reynolds serenading low-level movie executive Barbara Loden whose company is actually filming Terence Stamp picture Blue.
Dr Syn Alias the Scarecrow (1963). The British movie version of Disney American television mini-series sees Patrick McGoohan as a Robin Hood-type character assisting local smugglers.
P.J./New Face in Hell (1968). Private eye George Peppard is duped by shady millionaire Raymond Burr and mistress Gayle Hunnicutt in murder mystery.
Sol Madrid/The Heroin Gang (1968). In his second top-billed role David MacCallum drags hooker Stella Stevens to Mexico to capture drugs kingpin Telly Savalas.
A Twist of Sand (1968). Diamonds again. Smugglers Richard Johnson and Jeremy Kemp hunt long-lost jewels in Africa. Honor Blackman is along for the voyage.
Genghis Khan (1965). Omar Sharif plays the legendary warlord who unites warring Mongol tribes. Stellar cast includes Stephen Boyd, James Mason, Francoise Dorleac, Eli Wallach, Telly Savalas and Robert Morley.
Interlude (1968). Bittersweet romance between famed conductor Oskar Wener and young reporter Barbara Ferris.
Woman of Straw (1964). Sean Connery tangles with Gina Lollobrigida in lurid tale of murder and inheritance.
Bedtime Story (1964). Marlon Brando and David Niven are rival seducers on the Riviera targeting wealthy women.
Sisters (1969). Intrigue, adultery and incest haunt Nathalie Delon and Susan Strasberg as they try to recapture the innocence of the past.

Selling James Bond: Part Two – Pressbook for “Thunderball” (1965)

Wooing the audience was no longer required after Goldfinger (1964) had broken the box office bank. Thunderball, claimed producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, was “the hottest merchandise campaign you have ever handled” as the first four pages of the Pressbook went to show. No longer was there a retailer free-for-all with companies which had nothing to do with endorsements jumping on the Bondwagon.

The potential for promotional tie-in was so high that retailers and manufacturers were willing to spend a fortune to become involved and, in so doing, provide a massive spread of free advertising. Colgate had an entire line of toiletries for men including after shave, shaving lotion, deodorant, and talcum powder, each item branded with the 007 logo with Colgate investing in a massive advertising campaign aimed not just as men but the women who buy for men.

Shoe-wear manufacturer Endicott Johnson set up a nationwide contest through the Montgomery Ward chain of stores. Customers were invited to participate in a free sweepstake and store managers were encouraged to become active in promoting Thunderball at sales points throughout their shops.

Toy manufactuer A.C. Gilbert had devised a James Bond 007 Road Race which would be promoted in the biggest marketing campaign in Sears Roebuck history to 60 million homes. The catalog would feature a five-page spread. “Beatles fans will be reached through a TV buy that Sears has made advertising the Road Race on ABC-TV’s Beatles Cartoon Show.” Adlers Slacks was the exclusive licensee for James Bond 007 Boys Slacks – with two hidden pockets. Revere Knitting Mills was promoting four sweaters “as worn by James Bond.”

Other licensed products included The Official James Bond Secret Agent 007 Shooting Attache Case, Harry Diamond sports shorts with the Bond logo, Allison tee-shirts and sweat shorts, bubble gum and trading cards from the Philadelphia Chewing Gum Corp, and a walkie-talkie set from Gabriel. In addition, Weldon was selling “007 Pyjamas – Go to Bed Dressed to Kill,” Voit manufactured underwater equipment, Spatz advertised its trenchcoats in Playboy, Trimount clothing range included items for men and boys, and Milton Bradley had four board games and six jigsaw puzzles.

So for the first time in history, exhibitors had to do nothing to attract customers, no zany attention-grabbing gimmicks required, because the massive cross-promotional campaign devised by the producers ensured that potential moviegoers could hardly go anywhere without coming across something alerting customers to the movie.

All this was in addition to the normal standard promotional tools such as original soundtrack album and paperback movie tie-in. Tom Jones had released a single and six other artists had brought out instrumental singles and albums. Trade magazine Cash Box noted that the Bond name signified “something big in the worlds of film and music…many labels have themed LPs after the valuable James Bond Agent 007 image.” Signet had brought out the movie tie-in paperback with artwork on front and back covers.

The bulk of the Pressbook was taken up with advertising and information about the licensed products leaving just three pages for the editorial section. By now of course Sean Connery was a big box office star so he received considerable coverage, explaining that he had been chosen for Dr No as a result of a London newspaper poll. There was space too for the movie’s playgirls – former Miss France Claudine Auger, villainess Luciana Paluzzi best known to American audiences through the Five Fingers television series, Molly Peters and a return for Martine Beswick who had appeared in From Russia with Love.

Not surprisingly, the Aston Martin DB5, which had caused a sensation in Goldfinger, also returned. The customised version cost $45,000 (worth $400,000 today), compared to the usual price of $13,000, and came complete with twin Browning machine guns, tire slashers, revolving number plates, radar screen, ejector seat, and retractable bullet proof shields.

Selling James Bond – Pressbook for “From Russia with Love” (1963)

United Artists had two concepts in mind when it came to marketing the second in the James Bond series From Russia with Love (1963). The first, and quite audacious notion, was to tell anyone who hadn’t seen Dr No (1962) much they had missed. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman reckoned 69 million moviegoers across the world had seen Dr No, but America only accounted for a small fraction of that total. So their mission was to ensure that American audiences did not miss out again on the “throbbing world of hot-blooded excitement.”

To target that marketplace, the adverts were more like a relaunch, not a sequel, and the taglines began with “Meet James Bond, Secret Agent 007.” And then, “For those unlucky few who missed Dr No…You are unprepared for the sophisticated mayhem and polished lovemaking. The James Bond bug has not bitten you. But take heart! There is still time to jump on the Bond bandwagon with the second James Bond adventure From Russia with Love. See it and we guarantee – you will be hooked for good.” The final exhortation: “Don’t you think it’s time you met secret agent 007?”

But of course James Bond already had some kind of fan club in the States. “James Bond Is Back!” screamed the alternative advertisements. For both, however, the emphasis was on the new. “His incredible new women! His new incredible enemies! His new incredible adventures!”

“Target: the unkillable James Bond 007. Blast him! Seduce him! Bomb him! Strangle him!” The tone of the adverts suggested something entirely new. While heroes in thrillers could expect to face danger at every turn, and while a romance might sweeten the pot, there would not be a selection of alluring scantily-attired women. “For those who saw Dr No, consider yourself fortunate. Now you are prepared for the further fantastic adventures of that master of intrigue and women, secret agent 007 James Bond, join him in his new thriller From Russia with Love.”

To whet the appetite of local newspapermen there was a host of snippets. Oxford University had organized an 007 Society whose members included three lords and the heir to one of the the country’s largest department stores. While James Bond never uses a Windsor knot in his ties, Sean Connery does. Ian Fleming’s Bond novels had sold 30 million copies including six million of From Russia with Love. Four Istanbul mosques featured in the new film as well as an underground cistern a millennium old.

Beauty queens were always a good bet for coverage – Miss Universe runner-up Daniela Bianchi won the role of James Bond’s girlfriend after a screen test and former Miss Israel Aliza Gur and former Miss Jamaica Martine Beswick played the fighting gypsy girls. Lotte Lenya was married to Kurt Weill who, with Berthold Brecht, wrote The Threepenny Opera. Sean Connery was fitted out by his own Savile Row tailor Anthony Sinclair and during filming got through ten customized shirts, eight suits, two top coats and a dress suit.

Highly sought-after these days in the memorabilia market are the door panels – measuring 20 inches x 60 inches – which exhibitors would stick to lobby doors but which could also be utilized as displays in stores. Signet brought out a movie tie-in paperback which came with its own promotional material. As there were already other books in the series, booksellers would be inclined to set up a Bond display. As well as the John Barry original soundtrack album, other artists recording material from the film included Matt Monro, Jackie Gleason, Kenny Ball, Al Caiola and Si Zetner, all creating promotional tools.

“Bondmanship” was the overall name given to lifestyle items worn by Bond or which he might wear so tie-ups with fashion stores and retailers were encouraged “no direct endorsement is necessary.” So, for example, restaurants were encouraged to offer “ a menu good enough for James Bond.” It didn’t matter that Bond did not wear a manufacturer’s shoes, ties or suits in the film, just that he might wear them if they were of sufficient quality.

The marketeers came up with a simple stunt: send a set of keys to a newspaper, turn up the next day with a dispatch box handcuffed to your wrist, open it and find inside various promotional items. Or the keys don’t open the case and you need to send for a locksmith. Either way it was important to have a photographer to hand.