Spencer Tracy – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “One-Eyed Jacks” (1961)

A three-hour western epic directed by Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968), written by Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, 1969) and The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling and starring Spencer Tracy (Judgement at Nuremberg, 1961) and Marlon Brando. What’s not to like? That all of these major players, with the exception of Brando, had nothing to do with the final product was par for the course for a movie that didn’t reach cinema screens until two years after shooting was completed.

Marlon Brando was riding high when the project was first mooted in 1956. The box office and critical sensation of the 1950s, four Oscar nominations in successive years, winner for On the Waterfront (1954), his price was rising by the minute. And he had ambitions to take control of his career, set up his own production shingle, a trend that was beginning to gather pace.

He established Pennebaker (named after his mother) Productions in 1957 with ex-marketeer Walter Seltzer, producer of 711 Ocean Drive (1950), and George Glass, a former partner in Stanley Kramer’s independent production company. Paramount agreed to back the company. A western, A Burst of Vermilion, was intended as the company’s first offering. Soon there were five movies on the schedule including The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones by Charles Neider.

Brando had paid $150,000 for the rights to the book and a script by Sam Peckinpah. The original title was changed to Guns Up. It was going to mark the debut of the new Pennebaker outfit ahead of other projected movies like Shake Hands with the Devil to star James Cagney and Anthony Perkins (he didn’t make it to the final cast), The Raging Man and Ride, Comancheros (no relation to The Comancheros, 1961) and C’Est La Vie to be filmed in Paris.

Paramount paid through the nose, committing to an unprecedented deal. The studio would fund the entire cost of Guns Up and as well as $150,000 upfront Brando would receive 100 per cent of the profits, Paramount relying on its 27% of the gross as a distribution fee to turn a profit. Stanley Kubrick, riding high after Paths of Glory (1957), was hired to direct. While the studio preferred Spencer Tracy as co-star, Brando wanted old buddy Karl Malden who had co-starred with Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront, winning an Oscar for the former and a nomination for the latter.

And in part to reflect the Asian community in Monterey, location of the main section of the film, he also wanted current squeeze France Nuyen (A Girl Named Tamiko, 1962) to play his lover in the film, but Kubrick was aghast and instead cast Mexican debutante Pina Pellicer (Rogelia, 1962). There were roles for Katy Jurado (Barabbas, 1962) and recognizable western types like Ben Johnson (The Undefeated, 1969), Slim Pickens (Firecreek, 1968) and Elisha Cook Jr (The Great Bank Robbery, 1969).

Shooting was set for June 1958, then it shifted to September and then November. To Brando’s shock, Kubrick pulled out two weeks before production was due to begin, citing pre-production on Lolita (which, ironically, didn’t go ahead for a couple of years). To salvage the situation, Brando decided to direct. He wasn’t the first actor to go down this route, especially if you count Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Orson Welles as actors first and foremost. Laurence Olivier helmed Henry V (1944) and three others, Jose Ferrer The Cockleshell Heroes (1955), hoofer Gene Kelly Singin’ in the Rain (1951) and Charles Laughton Night of the Hunter, 1955. So he was in good company.

Cameras turned on December 2, 1958. It was an auspicious era for westerns, a total of 41 had appeared that year. Although budgeted for three months, it took six months to shoot in locations like Sonora in Mexico and Monterey in California (where the film was set) as well as Pfeiffer Beach on the Big Sur and the Warner Ranch.

Although prior to shooting commencing the title had changed to One-Eyed Jacks, scoring and editing were well in hand and Paramount announced it as one of its 17 pictures set for 1959 release. In the end Shake Hands with the Devil beat it to the punch as Pennebaker’s initial release, in 1959. But it didn’t favor so well, skipping the more lucrative but riskier Broadway first run in favour of hitting the circuits.

Meanwhile, Brando was angling for a three-hour running time. The budget kept increasing. The original $2m budget had doubled. Eventually, Paramount acknowledged it had cost $5 million though other estimates put it closer to $6 million.

Part of the problem in readying it for release was Brando’s other commitments. He was still a working actor and could hardly resist the offer of a record-setting one million bucks to star in The Fugitive Kind (1960). Even so, the bigger problem was not time, but experience and a first-time director being unable to make up his mind, having shot a colossal amount of footage and having tremendous difficulty trimming it down to workable length. Paramount still had it on the release agenda in 1960. It was going to be a “special release,” which most people took, especially given the running time, to be roadshow.

But by December 1960, the studio had waited long enough and just before Xmas the studio took over the editing and after editing out around 40 minutes from Brando’s three hour cut, Paramount scheduled it for a world premiere in New York in March 20, 1961, in a kind of semi-roadshow – moviegoers could buy in advance but the tickets did not come with reserved seats, which was the whole point of roadshow. Nor were prices hiked, which was gave roadshow its prestige.

Already deemed “Brando’s Folly” and coming in the wake of The Alamo (1960), the John Wayne-directed epic which had flopped in roadshow, commercial hopes were not high. In part, because production had been so long ago it had skipped under the journalistic radar which was concentrating on skewering The Alamo and the equally troubled The Misfits (1961). So it didn’t come trailing disaster. Still, it seemed more likely, audiences would not take to the odd tale which didn’t fit so easily into the western genre. Plus Brando’s previous effort The Fugitive Kind had been his first outright flop.

Turned out, though, Brando still was a major attraction. It snaffled a “huge” $81,000 in its opener at the 4,820-seat Capitol in New York. There was a “smasheroo” $21,000 in Detroit, a “big” $14,000 in Buffalo, a “hotsy” $15,000 in Cincinnati. “Giant” was the preferred adjective, covering $60,000 in Chicago, $32,000 in Philadelphia and $15,000 in Boston.

Rentals (what studios make after cinemas have taken their share of the gross) amounted to a very decent $4.3 million, enough to rank seventeenth for the year. And whereas those figures were considered decent enough, it did “substantially better abroad.”

So, more than likely, against all the self-destructive odds, it earned a profit.

SOURCES: Stefan Kanfer, Somebody, The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando (Faber & Faber, 2008); “Glass, Seltzer in Brando Co Berths,” Variety, April 17, 1957, p22; “Chatter, Hollywood,” Variety, May 22, 1957, p62; “Marlon Brando Guns Up for Paramount,” Variety, April 30, 1958, p22; “Chatter, Paris,” Variety, July 30, 1958, p126; “Brando Gets 100% of Film Profit!”, Variety, August 6, 1958, p1; “Briefs from Lots,” Variety, September 24, 1958, p15; “Marlon Brando’s Own,” Variety, November 26, 1958, p5; “Shake Hands First with Circuits,” Variety, May 6, 1959, p4; “Brando’s Ugly American,” Variety, July 1, 1959, p3; “Par 17 Pix Set for Release,” Variety, July 15, 1959, p5; “Par Division Eyes Upcoming Product,” Variety, November 25, 1959, p22; “Doubt or Delay re Brando’s Jacks,” Variety, August 10, 1960, p3; “Brando Jacks Editing,” Variety, December 21, 1960, p7; Advert, Variety, January 6, 1960, p32; Box Office Figures, Variety, April 5-Jul 24, 1961; “Hoss Operas in O’Seas Gallop,” Variety, August 23, 1961, p16; “1961 Rentals and Potential,” Variety, January 10, 1962, p13.

Inherit the Wind (1961) ****

As timely as ever with America seemingly always on the brink of dictating what freedoms people can enjoy. At the time the target was the oppression engndered by McCarthysim, rather than the more basic tale of whether State law could forbid its citizens to talk about evolution. It was set almost a century ago, based on a real-life case, and even now fundamentalists reject Darwin’s theories. Setting aside the context, the principle contested is still the same – not just free speech but the right to be different. You could even argue that scientists and fundamentalists are all agreed these days, that out of nothing came the universe, whether created by a Deity or someone operating a contraption called the Big Bang.

Setting aside the various arguments for and against Darwin’s theory, what we have, nonetheless, is an acting highpoint, a fabulous courtroom battle, of the kind adored by audiences, full of objections sustained, attorneys being warned by the judge, inadmissible evidence, smart remarks and witty rejoinders. This all takes place in a sweltering courtroom, temperature so high that the judge agrees to depart from court procedure and permit the verbal duellists to shed their jackets.

Given further depth because the antagonists, Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) and Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March), were once the best of pals, political allies, on the same side in the latter’s failed bid for the Presidency, and willing to accept the other’s personal foibles. Probably the first legal drama to accept that outside the courtroom the participants could be friends.

Luckily, most of it isn’t long speeches, but sharp comebacks, plus the detours, twists and turns that come about from concentrating more on the court than on any surrounding action, though there is forbidden romance, pastor’s daughter Rachel (Donna Anderson) defying her father over her love for the accused, schoolteacher Bertram (Dick York) whose teaching is in conflict with the Bible.

The most outraged denizens of the town get into a right tizzy, marches, religious songs, protest, but that’s leavened by commercial interests, a bank manager worrying that the town being ridiculed by those cleverer folks back east will harm his business, hoteliers, sideshow operators licking their lips at the financial bounty of reporters and gawkers descending on the town.

This is as you’d like to see Spencer Tracy, not the silent judge of Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), personality reined in by the weight of his decisions and the need to do right by those accused of even the most heinous of crimes, but the exuberant character, confident, up for battle, able to fend off any criticism and come back to any witticism at his expense with stinging repartee.

Fredric March, too, has a ball with a loudmouth character, convinced of his infallibility (except of course in terms of the Presidential Race), apt to stuff his face at dinner, but still with an intellectual thrust capable of parrying anything Tracy can throw at him. Tucked somewhere in between is weaselly reporter E.K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly) whose newspaper has hired Drummond to defend Bertram in the hope of filling the front pages for days with the Trial of the Century (taking the prize from Leopold and Loeb the year before – both cases in real-life handled by Clarence Darrow).

Harry Morgan (The Flim-Flam Man/One Born Every Minute, 1967) plays the snipppy judge trying to maintain order while Claude Akins (Claudelle Inglish, 1961) the hellfire preacher. With so many interesting characters on parade, there’s never a dull moment, especially with each actor trying to wring every ounce of drama and/or pathos from their part.

Director Stanley Kramer (Judgment at Nuremberg) looks as if early on he made up his mind to give the actors their sway. There’s no reining in, even in the early scenes, with the populace up in arms and carrying very professionally-made signs and banners (no handwritten scrawls here, no sirree). And once Tracy and March hit their stride, it’s all an audience can do to sit back and admire. Sentiments expressed will still strike a chord, but, mostly it’s a testament to two great actors at the top of their game.

If you only remember March from the likes of The Condemned of Altona (1962) or Seven Days in May (1964) you should know he was a huge marquee attaction in his day, double Oscar-winner (and three nominations besides), as at home in swashbucklers like The Buccaneer (1938) as drama and comedies, leading man who could more than hold his own against top female stars – Greta Garbo (Anna Karenina, 1935), Katharine Hepburn (Mary of Scotland, 1936), Merle Oberon (Dark Angel, 1935) and Janet Gaynor (A Star Is Born, 1937).

Written by Nedrick Young (The Train, 1964) and Harold Jacob Smith (The McMasters, 1970) from the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.

A terrific watch.

The Devil at 4 O’Clock (1961) ***

You took on Spencer Tracy (Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961) at your peril. Not even the best efforts of a volcano can wrest the screen from him. And certainly Frank Sinatra (The Detective, 1968) is put in the shade. And if you wanted to work with Tracy you had to cede, no matter how high-flying your career might be, top billing. Both names are above the title and if they were actually equally ranked they would appear in alphabetical order. And it wasn’t until a later disaster picture, The Towering Inferno (1974), that someone solved the tricky problem of designating equal billing by having Paul Newman’s name first on the left of the poster, but Steve McQueen’s name higher on the right.

Anyway, theoretically, nobody should be bothering much who is in a disaster picture when, again theoretically, the audience has come to gawk at the special effects – exceptional for the time but looking tame now. But Hollywood had learned from experience – and the same rules would apply in the disaster boom of the 1970s – that there was no point spending all that money on effects if there was not enough interest in the characters leading up to the disaster element, and also learned you needed stars to attract audiences in the first place.

*In the tradition of…previous Columbia hits.* *Contractual billing agreements referred to the placing of names not faces on the poster , so Columbia could stick Sinatra in the center and*
*there was nothing Tracy could do about it.*

So this scenario has old whisky priest Fr Doonan (Spencer Tracy) getting ready to leave a Pacific island, replaced by the younger Fr Perrau (Kerwin Matthews), while three convicts, led by Harry (Frank Sinatra), on the way to long prison stretches elsewhere make an unexpected pit stop. The rule is that Fr Doonan can make use of any prison labor so he hives them up the mountain to fix the hospital housing lepers that the authorities wish to keep a secret in case it scares off the tourists. Naturally, it’s not long before Harry is making a romantic pitch for blind nurse (Barbara Luna) but that takes second place to hatching an escape plan.

Running away is only foiled when the volcano begins erupting and as the island authorities begin the evacuation it’s up to the priest and the convicts – Harry’s romantic instinct overcoming reluctance – to fetch the kids in the leper colony. Fr Doonan could have come straight from Boys Town (1938), the kind of two-fisted man of the cloth who tells it like it is, has no compunction about upsetting anyone who gets in his way, but with right on his side generally wins the day. The Governor (Alexander Scourby) isn’t viewed as a bad guy so much by refusing to acknowledge the lepers – especially as by that time the disease was not contagious, priest and hospital workers haven’t caught it, though begging the question why young kids still did – as by allowing brutal treatment of the prisoners, sticking three overnight in suffocating heat in a hole in the ground intended for one.

Narrative edge is added by the obstracizing of the lepers – at the time people contracting various illnesses would be treated as lepers and anyone with a serious mental condition stuck away out of sight. But the characters don’t occupy the moral twilight of the later disaster pictures, where the unscrupulous were often offered redemption. Here, the best we’ve got is a rehabilitated sex worker acting as hospital matron and the convicts agreeing to help out.

Kind of suffers from not enough scenes between the priest and Harry, they almost occupy separate narrative threads, but then Frank Sinatra’s got enough on his plate to avoid looking creepy when making advances on a woman who can’t see him. In fact, there’s a serious scene-stealer, another convict Marcel (Gregoire Aslan), getting in the way, his jovial devil-may-care attitude lifting the gloom.

As ever, the main audience concern is who lives and who dies and here the makers throw a curveball and you could interpret the ending as both triumphant and downbeat. The special effects are still pretty good – sensational for the time if truth be told – especially for the pre-CGI era, but the earthquake aspects come in ahead of the rolling lava, which no matter which way you cut it always resembles slow thick soup, although the explosion, done for real using tons of TNT, makes a mark. Technically, the makers pull a fast one in ignoring the tidal wave that follows an eruption, thus allowing most of the islanders to escape by sea.

It being the jungle there’s always a tricky bridge to navigate – Indiana Jones encountered a similar trope decades later – but there’s no snakes or big beasts to cause a narrative diversion. Whatever it is about Spencer Tracy’s screen presence that allows him to inhabit characters with such ease he brings in spades to the priest. Sinatra looks as though he’s learning a thing or two because his Harry bears some similarities in the the down-at-heel unkempt appearance and the lack of scene stealing.

In case you’re wondering, the “four o’clock” of the title is a deadline but appears too late in the picture to create the required tension. Hollywood veteran Mervyn LeRoy (Moment to Moment, 1966) is at helm. Screenplay by Liam O’Brian (The Great Imposter, 1960), in his last movie, from the bestseller by Max Catto (Seven Thieves, 1960).

Worth it for Tracy and Sinatra and Aslan and to see how they managed sfx in ye olden days.

Behind the Scenes: “Judgement at Nuremberg” (1961)

Laurence Olivier could have played a Nazi long before his celebrated villainous turn in Marathon Man (1976). He was producer-director Stanley Kramer’s first choice to play Chief Judge Dr Ernst Janning. He turned the role down in favor of getting married to actress Joan Plowright. Kramer had already decided an all-star cast was required to attract an audience for the grim picture.

The screenplay was an extended version of Abby Mann’s teleplay that had screened on the ABC in 1959. Although Marty (1955) had transitioned with box office and critical success from television to cinemas, that boom was long over.

United Artists, with whom Kramer had a multi-picture deal, were not keen. “I did what looked like a compromise to them, but what I had been planning to do anyway. I promised to fill the cast with stars of such magnitude that their presence would almost guarantee the film wouldn’t lose money.”

There were a couple of other obstacles to overcome. A stage version of the teleplay was being planned for London and Paris and Kramer had to take out an injunction against a documentary with a similar title, Verdict at Nuremberg.

Kramer was known as an issues-driven director, his debut Not As a Stranger (1955) tackling the medical profession, The Defiant Ones (1958) racism and in On the Beach (1959) nuclear war. Along with Otto Preminger, he was viewed as a director of “worthy” pictures, not always a recommendation in the eyes of the critics, but as long as the movies made money and attracted Oscar interest likely to remain attractive to studios. Kramer was just about the only producer (High Noon, 1952, and The Caine Mutiny, 1954, on his calling card) who made a successful career-long transition to direction.

With the exception of Olivier, replaced with Oscar-winner Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry, 1960) – not incidentally second choice either, the director preferring to have used a German actor – Kramer hired all his first choices. Spencer Tracy, in fact, was the first recruit. After working with him on Inherit the Wind (1960), Kramer got it into his head when considering a picture to ask himself what part there might be for Tracy.

The actor provided “A depth and candor that would make people notice.” Maximilian Schell (Topkapi, 1964) reprised the role he had essayed on television, a man “living in a complicated gray zone.”

Kramer had a reputation for hiring singers and dancers – Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra – for dramatic roles and he continued in that vein by hiring Judy Garland. It was a difficult decision. He theorized that “the very disorders that made it difficult to work with her fitted perfectly with the role.”

You could have said the same of Montgomery Clift (Freud, 1962), “reduced almost the level of the unsound person he was portraying.” Given the actor’s problems remembering lines, Kramer allowed Clift to basically ad lib, when attacked on the witness stand permitted to reach “for a word in the script” that appeared the correct emotional response to “convey the confusion in the character’s mind.” While Clift did not often adhere to the script, whatever he said worked well enough. Rarely has a director been so sympathetic to a troubled actor. “He needed someone to be terribly kind,” said Kramer, “someone who would consistently bolster his confidence and tell him he was wonderful.

Marlene Dietrich, who had firsthand experience of Nazi Germany at first hand, having fled the country, actually knew the general whose wife she was portraying, which helped to “deepen my understanding of the emotions of Hitler’s victims,” conceded Kramer. Opening up about her experiences and fears allowed Kramer to extend the scope of the character.

While the courtroom where the original trial had taken place was not available for hire – it was in current use – Kramer was permitted to measure and photograph the room to reconstruct it on a soundstage. Only 15 pr cent of the movie was shot in Germany.

The experience of filming Inherit the Wind, another courtroom drama, taught Kramer the need to have fluid camerawork since talk and gesture tends to be static. “I learned to move the camera often to achieve a sense of movement for the viewer.”

Abby Mann was required to open up the teleplay, move the action outside the courtroom – scenes in the judge’s accommodation, on the derelict streets, in restaurants – and avoid cinematic claustrophobia and making it a “pious sermon.” “In my opinion,” argued Kramer, “Judgment at Nuremberg conveys a moral not always honoured, then or now, in the world of politics.”

Kramer had a particular method of pre-production. He built all his sets six weeks before filming began. As part of that process, he sat down with his cinematographer and went through the script scene by scene working out the lighting and camera positions. Then he called in the actors and took them through the sets and roughly his shooting thought-process, taking on board any queries and suggestions. Film like this “sort of demanded it be shot in sequence with a single camera,” explained cinematographer Ernest Laszlo (Fantastic Voyage, 1966).

The 360-degree turning of the camera was not as revolutionary as you might imagine – although, according to critics, Michelangelo Antonioni invented it for The Passenger (1975). Laszlo had done if before on The Hitler Gang (1944) for director John Farrow. But this was infinitely more complicated set-up with the revolving camera in constant use to allow Kramer the required fluidity.

“I used two key lights,” said Laszlo. “Shooting this I used one and then as we went round I used the other.” It wasn’t as simple as it sounds, the lights needed to be positioned with mathematical precision so the audience wasn’t aware of any change in the lighting.

“The circling camera saved us photographically,” said Kramer, preventing the picture from seeming “slow and cerebral.” As smooth as it appears on screen it was cumbersome. The entire crew involved had to carry cables and equipment round in a circle. But it permitted Kramer to pick up the judges without cutting to them.

Kramer also used the camera to achieve another transition. As the picture began, German actors spoke in German (with translators offscreen) to show the trial was mostly in German. But for the movie to work, the dialog needed to be in English. “We started the transition scene with Schell addressing the court in German. Laszlo’s camera zoomed in on him, then turned elsewhere, then turned again to Schell so that we were able to switch his speech from German to English in perfect cadence as the camera came in on him the second time. His English picked up from his German so naturally you could almost let it pass without noticing.”

Kramer conceded there might, in fact, be “too much camera movement.” But that was in part dictated by a “very authentic situation, a long courtroom, very wide, and the spacing between the original attorney’s box and the witness box was at least forty feet. That’s a long distance if your try to photograph it.” Also, it wasn’t like a normal Hollywood or American trial, where the lawyers can prowl in front of judge and jury. Here, the attorneys could not move from their box.

“Unless you want to play ping-pong in the cutting room, you have to move the camera…I felt trapped by these three positions – the judges, the attorneys and the witnesses in that big spread. So, the forty feet was compressed to twenty-eight feet. We had to put a lot of light on the far figures to hold the forms in focus,” resulting in the actors “perspiring a lot during these shots.”

The movie, rolled out as a roadshow, did better than expected, the all-star cast proving a major draw, global box office netting a healthy profit. Schell won the Oscar as did Abby Mann, Kramer was nominated in his dual capacity as producer and director.

SOURCES: Stanley Kramer, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: Life in Hollywood (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997) p179-197; Donald Spoto, Stanley Kramer Film Maker (Samuel French, 1990)p230-233; “An AFI Seminar with Ernest Laszlo, American Cinematographer, January 1976, p52; “Judgment at Nuremberg Still Slated for Legit,” Box Office, February 3, 1960, p6; “Kramer Gets Injunction,” Box Office, December 11, 1961, p14.

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Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) ****

Stanley Kramer never caught a decent academic/critical break. Subject matter worthy, execution poor, was the overall consensus. But Judgement at Nuremberg, with its long tracking shots, sometimes turning 360 degrees around a character, should have changed all that. But the kind of critics who would have appreciated such bravura technique weren’t around at the time and even when Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975) appeared nobody thought to reference Kramer, believing this was a new cinematic invention by the esteemed Italian maestro.

So, Judgement at Nuremberg is remembered, if at all, for the subject matter and elevated by the performances rather than the director’s input. Most people misremember what the movie’s about. The main concern here isn’t the war criminal, the men personally involved in running the ghettos. Instead, it’s about those behind the scenes who could, theoretically, have prevented the camps flourishing, or at least challenged their opening.

Those on trial were freedom fighters of a different sort. As judges, the top tier of the legal system, their job was not just to uphold law and order and individual freedoms, but to take government to task for illegal action. It’s a basic tenet of the democratic world that governments cannot act in autocratic fashion but work within public accord.

Should the legal guardians find fault with government activity, their job is to take the ruling body to task – the European Court of Human Rights was set up with exactly that principal in mind, and various British and American law agencies have over time called a halt or questioned government proposals.

Some of the judges were clearly ill-fit for the task, lick-spittle jobsworths, desperate to hold onto rank and privilege, many sharing the same anti-semitic views as Hitler. But the Allied forces, being democratic, have to proceed along proper lines, taking potential criminals to court and allowing them legal defence.

So the main target is Dr Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), German’s pre-eminent legal force, a quiet, dignified man, who refuses to fawn or react to the charges. On the attack is prosecutor Col Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark). Acting for the defence is the wily, emotional, Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) who is not above comparing the Holocaust to the Americans dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima, indiscriminate terror brought on innocent civilians the result of both actions. He also brings to the court’s attention the distasteful theories that once held sway in high American legal circles as promulgated by Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Supreme Court judge, whose views on eugenics aimed at withholding procreation rights from the mentally handicapped.

As referee we have Dan Heywood (Spencer Tracy), the American chief judge, who didn’t want the job and was way down the pecking order of those best qualified. And he’s a bit of a detective on the side, trying to discover how much ordinary people – such as the flirtatious Mrs Bertholdt, widow of an executed German general, as well as the housekeeper and butler looking after him in some style – knew about the atrocities as they were taking place.

In the background is an Allied command not wishing to stir up any more controversy, conscious of the rising power of the Communist bloc, seeing West Germany as a bulwark against Stalin, concerned that forcing the country’s inhabitants to wallow in the past will turn their political minds towards the east rather than the west.

In due course, a variety of witnesses are called, testifying to ill-treatment under the German government including the backward Rudolph Pedersen (Montgomery Clift) and Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland).

What makes this so different is that innocence or guilt is not what’s under scrutiny, but reason. Why did such high-minded legal experts like Dr Janning give in to Hitler. And when? And do they recognise their role in providing Hitler with credence to continue with his massacre of the Jews?

Individual conscience and, conversely, collective guilt, might have been the driving force then but they are more than relevant today when actions in war come under even greater scrutiny and politicians are held to account. Perhaps, it’s ironic how little judgement was passed in the end on those convicted in these trials. Nobody was hanged, nobody received even a life sentence. In fact, by the time the movie was released, all were free men.

Stanely Kramer, the Scorsese or Nolan of his era regarding running time (it clocks in a just shy of three hours), does a superb job with his even-handed approach. While his technical skills were perhaps under-appreciated, he certainly knows how to command an audience’s attention and draws terrific performances from his actors.

Maximilian Schell, who won the Oscar, is perceived as the standout, but for me the highpoints were Burt Lancaster (The Swimmer, 1968) and Montgomery Clift (Freud, 1962). Abby Mann’s (The Detective, 1968) screenplay was an expanded version of his teleplay of two years before.

Has more than enough humanity to keep you riveted.

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Behind the Scenes – “The Cincinnati Kid” (1965)

As you can see from the advertisement above, this was originally intended to be quite a different film, directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Spencer Tracy in the role of ageing poker champ Lancey. The director had just come off one troubled shoot, Major Dundee (1965), and was seeking Hollywood redemption. Two-time Oscar winner Tracy was also hoping to revive his career. Except for what amounted to little more than a extended cameo on It’s A Mad, Mad,, Mad, Mad World (1963) he had not worked since Judgement at Nuremberg (1961). Also initially on board in a small role was Sharon Tate (Valley of the Dolls, 1967)

This was also a big gamble for industry outsider Martin Ransohoff who had moved to the forefront of independent production after The Americanization of Emily (1964) with Julie Andrews and James Garner and The Sandpiper (1965) starring current top-billed royalty Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He had wheeled and dealed with top studios – MGM, Columbia and United Artists – desperate for quality product. He was planning the biggest movie of his career having purchased the rights to the Alistair MacLean bestseller Ice Station Zebra. Ransohoff was a marketing innovator and long before Robert Evans pumped tens of thousands of Paramount dollars into advertising the book of Love Story (1970) to ensure it rode high on the bestseller charts and thus increased public awareness, Ransohoff had pulled off the same trick for Richard Jessup’s novel The Cincinnati Kid.

Tracy was first to quit, infuriated that he was denied script approval. Essentially, he wanted his role beefed up. But Ransohoff “would not expand his role in any way” and angered at the prospect of playing second fiddle to McQueen the actor walked out, to be replaced by a star with considerably less marquee appeal, Edward G. Robinson.

At least Tracy was able to depart with head held high. Peckinpah was ignominiously fired after shooting had begun. The intemperate director had already locked horns with the producer over a story which had now taken the efforts of four screenwriters – Oscar-winner Paddy Chayefsky (The Americanization of Emily), Oscar-winner Ring Lardner Jr. (Woman of the Year, 1943), Oscar nominee Terry Southern (Dr Strangelove, 1964) and newcomer Charles Eastman (Little Fauss and Big Halsy, 1970) – to knock the book into a workable screenplay without the extra bother of Peckinpah adding his own scenes.

Trade newspaper Variety reported: “Peckinpah’s problems stemmed from his filming of a nude scene that wasn’t in the script but which the director wrote on his own. Last Friday (November 4, 1964) he reportedly excused the featured cast and began to lense the nudie scene using an extra from the cast.” Whether this was indeed Sharon Tate, of whom Peckinpah was reported to have filmed in a flimsy shirt without a bra so that her nipples were showing, is unclear. And although there is an undertone of sex in the actual picture, as delivered by Ann-Margret, it was considerably more discreet.

Strangely enough, Ransohoff was no stranger to the benefits of nudity in his pictures and had fought a losing battle with the all-powerful MPAA, the industry ruling body in matters of censorship, to have nude scenes included in The Americanization of Emily. The nude statue of Elizabeth Taylor in The Sandpiper was permitted, however, and Ransohoff sent hundreds of miniature statues out to influencers as a gift.

Peckinpah did not have final cut so Ransohoff could easily have excised any nude scenes from the finished movie. What was considerably more alarming was that Peckinpah was shooting in black-and-white. Later, Ransohoff would contend that he was outraged by this notion but he surely must have signed off on it at the outset. Whatever the reasons, and some believed fisticuffs were involved, Peckinpah was sacked, leaving a $750,000 hole in the budget.

Production closed for over a month while Ransohoff scrambled for a new director. McQueen was pay-or-play, so if the film was cancelled, the actor was due his entire fee. McQueen had signed on for a fee of $200,000 – or $350,000 depending on who you believe – and $30,000 a week in overtime plus 25 per cent of the profit and a host of extras. McQueen had been initially lined up for a Ranoshoff remake of Boys Town to co-star James Garner, but that proved little more than a publicity flyer.

Replacement Norman Jewison had no reputation for hard-line drama – more at home with light comedy such as Send Me No Flowers (1964) – but was available and more likely to toe the Ransohoff line. However, initially he demurred. It was against the rules of the Directors Guild to step in in such a manner and Jewison required reassurance that Peckinpah was indeed out of the picture, and the film had been shut down, before accepting the job. Theoretically, Jewison received more control of the final cut than Peckinpah. His contract called for him to be in sole charge of the completed picture until after the third public preview. If it wasn’t working by that point, Ransohoff had the right to take over. Jewison exerted control in other ways, denying actors a chance to look at the rushes

Theoretically, McQueen had conceded top billing to Spencer Tracy, but that was not reflected in the artwork MGM put out – the illustration at the top of the Blog appeared in the trade press prior to production. To keep McQueen sweet during the layoff, Ransohoff handed him $25,000 to play the tables in Vegas. Edward G. Robinson had the same worries as Spencer Tracy, fearing his part would be cut to build up the star. In reality, McQueen welcomed going head-to-head with an older star, a situation he had not experienced since The Magnificent Seven (1960) with Yul Brynner.

But if the male stars, under the confident direction of Jewison, gave no trouble, that was not the case with the female contingent. Tuesday Weld came with a heap of personal issues related to becoming, as a child model, the family breadwinner at an early age – nervous breakdown at nine, alcoholic at ten, suicide attempt at twelve. She had never quite achieved stardom, in part as a result of turning down roles like Lolita (1962)

Ann-Margret was the opposite. She could earn nearly as much as McQueen – her fee at some studios was $250,000. However, Twentieth Century Fox was holding her to an earlier four-picture deal which paid a miserly $25,000 per movie, forcing her to lose out on a $150,000 payday in Europe for The 10^th Victim (1965) with Marcello Mastroianni – known at the time as The Seventh Victim, Ursula Andress her replacement – in order to take up a contracted role in the remake of Stagecoach (1966). Her over-sexed screen persona had caused playwright William Inge to remove his name from Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965).

One of the hottest young stars in the business, she intended to stay that way, and her portrayal of Melba in The Cincinnati Kid pretty much fitted in with audience expectation. She was in such demand that she was under contract to make a total of 17 pictures for five separate studios plus Frank Sinatra’s independent production company. Her deals were with Universal (six pictures), Fox (four), MGM (three), Columbia (three) and United Artists (one). But after dropping out of Marriage on the Rocks (1965) with Sinatra her output for the rest of the decade comprised one movie apiece for Paramount, MGM, Fox and Columbia and four independent pictures in Italy.

MGM spent big bucks promoting the picture and, in particular, the Ann-Margret connection. The studio had put a marker down on Thanksgiving 1965 for the launch date, but was marketing the movie more than six months ahead, the kind of exposure that was normally only allotted to roadshow features.

SOURCES: Christopher Sandford, McQueen: The Biography, Harper Collins paperback (2002) pages 165, 170-176; Penina Spiegel, Steve McQueen: The Untold Story of a Bad Boy in Hollywood, Collins, 1986, p162, 169-173; “Ransohoff To Start Five Films in 6-Month Period,” Box Office, June 17, 1963, p27; “Marty Ransohoff To Seek Code Changes,” Box Office, November 25, 1963, p6; “Ann-Margret Into The Cash Splash,” Variety, July 22, 1964, p5; advert, Box Office, October 9, 1964, p9; “More Cincinnati Kid Books,” Box Office, October 24, 1964, pW-5; “Refuse Spencer Tracy Xincy Kid Script Okay So Actor Takes Powder,” Variety, November 11, 1964, p24; “Jewison Replacement for Sam Peckinpah,” Variety, December 9, 1964, p24; Advert, Variety, March 10, 1965, p80; “Fear Ann-Margret Going Wrongo In Her Screen Image,” Variety, March 24, 1965, p5; “Fox Holds Ann-Margret To Stagecoach, Denying Her For Mastroianni,” Variety, April 14, 1965, 4; Advert, Variety, May 19, 1965, p20.

Books by Brian Hannan – “Paisley at the Pictures, The Sequel, 1951”

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book about cinemagoing in 1950 in my local town of Paisley in Scotland which at that time had eight cinemas screening over 1200 movies a year to the 93,000 inhabitants. Six of the theaters were first run and two second-run. A standard program consisted of main feature, supporting feature, newsreel and cartoon and in two cinemas a serial.

*Jane Wyman in Hitchcock’s Stage Fright*.

I got so engrossed in my research for this book that I went back to the source a second time and examined what happened in pictures houses for the following year. This treasure trove of cinematic memories turned into a bigger book with double the number of illustrations and also included a section on reminiscences and a look back to when the two biggest cinemas in the town had opened in the 1930s.

Anyone who was born outside the capital cities of their countries and a few other major cities besides will know that way into the 1970s there was a food chain in operation for movie distribution. Although the reference books and Imdb will show movies as having been made, for example, in 1951, most cinemas would not get to screen them that year. In Paisley, for example, only 11.5 per cent of the movies made in 1951 appeared in the town during the same year. More people went to the movies in those days than now – two or three times a week was not uncommon.

The biggest films of 1951 in Paisley included musical Annie Get Your Gun, marital comedy Father of the Bride with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor, Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger in MGM blockbuster King Solomon’s Mines, Gregory Peck as Captain Horatio Hornblower, John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in John Ford western Rio Grande and Greer Garson in sequel The Miniver Story.

Also topping the popularity league were Mario Lanza in biopic The Great Caruso, British war film Odette starring Anna Neagle, Alfred Hitchcock thriller Stage Fright with Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich, Anglophile Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in thriller State Secret, David Niven musical Happy-Go-Lovely (filmed in Edinburgh), Cecil B. DeMille Biblical epic Samson and Delilah, John Garfield in The Breaking Point – a surprisingly speedy remake of To Have and Have Not – and comedy duo Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in At War with the Army.

The year’s number one star in Paisley was Jane Wyman – judged on how many days her pictures played in the town. In second spot came John Wayne. Joan Bennett was third. Glenn Ford and Virginia Mayo rounded out the top five. Cowboy star Gene Autry topped the B-movie brigade.

Among the serials show were Batman and Robin, The Purple Monster Strikes, Atom Man vs. Superman, King of the Rocket Men, The Adventures of Sir Galahad, Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars, The Monster and the Ape, Pirates of the High Seas and The Daughter of Don Q.

Walk, Don’t Run (1966) ***

Stars rarely get to choose when they want to retire. Usually, the phone stops ringing, or they slide down the credits until no one can remember who they once were, or they end up in terrible international co-productions, or like Tyrone Power (Solomon and Sheba) they die on the job or, like Spencer Tracy, because of it.

Cary Grant, on the other hand, went out at the top, or near enough, after a string of box office winners, including this one, throughout the Sixties. If you are more generally familiar with Grant through Hitchcock thrillers or Charade, you might have forgotten his comedy expertise. He was a master of the double take and the startled expression – and he needs that here in what is sometimes a pretty funny farce.

The set-up is peculiar. Grant is a businessman landing in Tokyo two days before the 1964 Olympic Games with nowhere to stay and ends up sleeping on the couch of Samantha Eggar and later sharing his room with Jim Hutton, an athlete equally lacking in the forward planning department. (Excluding the Olympics, of course, the film has a similar concept to The More the Merrier, 1943).

There’s no great plot and no great need for one. Grant’s main purpose is to play Cupid to Hutton and Eggar and steer her stuffy fiancé out of their way. But it says a lot for Grant’s talent that not much plot is required. He is just so deft, whether he is playing top dog or being beaten at his own game by a rather resilient Hutton.

Eggar is Doris Day-lite, but Hutton is a revelation, not the dour dog of later The Hellfighters (1968) and The Green Berets (1968), but showing true comedic talent, especially in quick-fire verbal duels with Grant. There is only a wee bit of stereotype, overmuch bowing mainly and a Russian shot-putter, but some other Japanese customs are more interesting, yellow flags to cross the road, for example.

There are a couple of brilliant visual gags, one involving trousers, another with Grant getting locked out of the apartment, and a terrific payoff in a Japanese restaurant. Except for thrillers, Grant did not need great directors, he knew comedy inside out and here the accomplished Charles Walters (High Society, 1956) has the sense to let him get on with it.

Grant was 62 when the film appeared so quite rightly delegates romance to Hutton, which is a shame because his (non-romantic) interaction with the pernickety Eggar (she and fiance equally matched in this department) carries all the Grant romantic hallmarks. Instead, he ensures that romance between Hutton and Eggar runs its true course, which while that is satisfying enough, is a bit like removing John Wayne from the final shootout in a western. Oh, and there is a reason for the Olympic Games setting.