Steve McQueen had little trouble identifying with this role. He was the Hollywood contender, trying to knock current kingpin Paul Newman off his perch, and in Norman Jewison’s tense, often heart-stopping, drama he has the ideal vehicle. For the most part this is a winner-take-all face-off, as much a showdown as any western shootout, in darkened rooms under the harsh light of a New Orleans poker table between a rising star always referred to as The Kid (Steve McQueen) and the unofficial world champion, the urbane cigar-smoking Lancey Howard (Edward G. Robinson).
Broadened out in the initial stages to include scenic diversions – the Mississippi at dawn, a cockfight, some jazz – plus romance and intrigue, this is essentially pure sport, a game of stares, where bluff holds the ace and women exist on the perimeter only to fill in the time before the next hyped-up encounter. There’s no trophy to be won, not even glory, just the right to call yourself “the man.” The Kid feels the pressure of punching above his weight, Lancey of getting old.
Farmer’s daughter and arty-wannabe Christian (Tuesday Weld) is the Kid’s main squeeze until she gets between him and his game. When she takes off, he makes do with Melba (Ann-Margret), girlfriend of dealer Shooter (Karl Malden) somewhat preoccupied with giving the Kid more than a helping hand to satisfy the vengeful Slade (Rip Torn), a rich businessman.
Although it finally comes down to a confrontation between the Kid and Lancey, subordinate characters like sweating poker player Pig (Jack Weston) and stand-in dealer Ladyfingers (Joan Blondell) help dissipate the tension. But in fact anything that occurs only seems to increase the tension as it comes down to the one big final hand.
This is McQueen (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) in transition, from the loner in The Great Escape (1963) to an actor exuding charisma and on top of his acting game. While on the face of it little more than a sporting lug, the Kid is an appealing character, engaging with a little shoeshine boy, winning over Christian’s truculent parents with what appears a card trick but is actually a demonstration of the phenomenal memory necessary to excel in his chosen field. There’s a winsome child in there among the macho persona. The poker face that McQueen developed would become one of his acting traits over the years.
Edward G. Robinson (Seven Thieves, 1960) gives a rounded performance as the reigning poker champ accepting emotional loss as the price for all his financial gains. Tuesday Weld is an appealing waif. Karl Malden (Pollyanna, 1960) essays another tormented soul and Rip Torn (Sol Madrid, 1968) a sleazy one. Also look out for a host of great character actors including Jack Weston (Mirage, 1965), Oscar nominee Joan Blondell (Advance to the Rear, 1964) and Jeff Corey (Once a Thief, 1965) plus composer and bandleader Cab Calloway.
Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966), all eye-shadow and cleavage, is in her best man-eater form. But, thankfully, there is more to her character than that. It is unclear whether she simply latches on to a potential winner or is pimped out by Shooter, but just hooking up with him makes her interesting, since looks are far from his attraction. Her ruthlessness is spelled out in simple fashion. She is determined to win, even at solitaire and she slams the wrong pieces into a jigsaw just for the satisfaction of making it look complete. You can sense depth in this character which the film does not have time to fully explore.
Although often compared to The Hustler (1962), and in many eyes considered both its inferior and a crude rip-off, this is in some respects a greater achievement. At least in The Hustler, there actually was action, players moving around a pool table, clacking balls racing across the surface. Poker is all about stillness. Any gesture could give away your thoughts. Unlike any other sport, poker requires silence. There is no roaring crowd, just people slotted round the room, some with vested interest if only through a wager, some wanting to say they were there when a champion was toppled.
So the ability to maintain audience interest with two guys just staring at each other, interspersed with minimal dialog, takes some skill. Building that to a crescendo of sheer tension is incredible.
The first four pictures of Canadian director Norman Jewison (Send Me No Flowers, 1964) did not hint at the dramatic chops, confidence, composure and understanding of pacing, especially as he was a last-minute replacement for Sam Peckinpah, to pull this off. That he does so with style demonstrated a keen and versatile talent that would come to the boil in his next three films: The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).
The former blacklisted Ring Lardner Jr. (Tracy-Hepburn comedy Woman of the Year, 1942) was credited with his first screenplay since The Forbidden Street in 1949 and he shared the chore with another iconic figure, Terry Southern (Dr Strangelove, 1964), basing their work on the original novel by Richard Jessup. Mention should be made of a terrific score by Lao Schifrin.
Gripping.
Check out the Blog for both a Behind the Scenes article on this film and a Book into Film article.
Vanity project. Two words to strike fear into the heart of a studio executive. Generally means a star has got the worthy itch. Determined to attach himself to a movie of Shakespearian proportions. Something with literary heft. Wants to break clean away from the persona that made him a star.
Experienced studio honcho, scenting red ink a mile off, rejects the proposal, or agrees to it on the condition said star first makes two, maybe even three, of the studio’s more straightforward movies. (Warner Bros had Steve McQueen on a six-picture contract). On the other hand, out there, in the Hollywood hinterland, there’s always some less well-known producer willing to pony up an enormous fee as the price of making his name. Or, in this case, a nascent mini-major, the kind that thinks it will become an ”instant major” should it sign a contract with the biggest name on the planet after the rip-roaring box office of Bullitt (1968). Step forward Cinema Center, the movie arm of CBS television, desperate to make a Hollywood splash.
Am sure the pitch wasn’t: “comedy about a thief and a sex worker.” More likely the plus point was William Faulkner, America’s most famous living writer (along with John Steinbeck), winner of the biggest award in literature, the Nobel Prize, whose short story provided the source material. Faulkner also, as it happened, had a decent movie pedigree having adapted Bogart-Bacall vehicles To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946) while an adaptation of his short stories into The Long, Hot Summer (1958) hit the box office jackpot.
Admittedly, The Sound and the Fury (1959) and Sanctuary (1961) had been less successful, but Fox had also turned The Long, Hot Summer into a television series that ran for two seasons, so the author’s name would be fresh in the audience mind.
It’s always a worry when an actor changes his hair style. Means he’s going method or “acting.” Here, Boon (Steve McQueen) sports a bushy blond barnet. And spends most of the time in “aw shucks” mode, whirl-winding his arms, contorting his features, doing most of the things a decent director would have told any other actor to cut it out. It would take a lot more acting talent than Steve McQueen, pushing 40, can tap into to successfully convince as a guy in his 20s
At least, he’s acting enough to allow himself to be covered head-to-toe in mud, something a major star would generally avoid. The comedy is as broad as you can get and director Mark Rydell (The Fox, 1967) shows little aptitude for it, not least in knowing when to stop milking a scene.
Biggest problem is that Boon, in narrative terms, is not the star, merely the conduit. The story actually concerns 11-year-old Lucius (Mitch Vogel) growing up, as he’s lured into a scheme hatched by Boon to borrow his employer’s spanking new automobile (this is 1909, by the way) and head off for the local whorehouse. Along the way, the child becomes a jockey riding a race Boon must win.
Sex worker Corrie (Sharon Farrell) has the other major story strand and the biggest element here is the relationship between herself and the boy. When he brings out her mothering instincts, she is ashamed of her profession and she plans to quit. The boy sees a naked woman for the first time – a painting, not in person – loses his worship of Boon and doesn’t “quit” as if he’s in a hard-tack B picture.
Pretty much glossed over is the rape. You can’t have rape in a comedy, can you? But for various reasons Boon and his black buddy Ned (Rupert Crosse) and the ladies from the whorehouse have ended up in jail. Price of freedom is Corrie having sex with corrupt cop Butch (Clifton James). Corrie has the best scene, the look of humiliation on her face, when released from the cell to be raped by the cop. And this was a film sold as “a lark.”
And, of all things, Boon is purportedly in love with Corrie, but not so much that he doesn’t plan on having sex with one of the other girls, given he visits the whorehouse three times a week and Corrie, in a bit of a tizz, has turned him down.
Small wonder this has never been the subject of an anniversary revival. Hard to see how the attitudes reflected here would connect with the contemporary audience. Scarcely believable that McQueen could get himself involved, even for the privilege of being linked, at some remove, with William Faulkner.
Chances are what originated from the Faulkner pen as a more somber coming-of-age tale was altered by screenwriters Irving Ravetch (doubling up as producer) and Harriet Frank Jr (The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, 1960) to fit in with McQueen’s ambitions. The star had not wanted to make Bullitt, having an aversion to cops, and this looks like his attempt to make up for it.
Actually, it did well at the box office, Rupert Crosse and composer John Williams nominated for Oscars and McQueen and Mitch Vogel for Golden Globes.
A different McQueen, to be sure, but the subject matter is objectionable and the comedy is forced.
The “Behind the Scenes” articles have become increasingly popular in the Blog. As regular readers will know I am fascinated about the problems incurred in making certain movies. Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of this category is that every now and there is out of nowhere massive interest in the making of a particular movie and it shoots up the all-time tree. Most of the material has come from my own digging, and sources are always quoted at the end of each article, but occasionally I have turned to books written on the subject of the making of a specific film.
As with the All-Time Top Movies section, the top 20 comprises the choices of my readers. Alistair MacLean still exerts an influence, which is reassuring because my next book is about the films made from his books.
While Waterloo remains firmly out in front there are some interesting new entries such as The Cincinnati Kid, The Appointment, Mackenna’s Gold, The Train, The Sons of Katie Elder and The Trouble with Angels while Man’s Favorite Sport has made a steady climb upwards.
(1)Waterloo(1970). No doubting the effect of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon in racketing up interest in this famous flop.
(2) Ice Station Zebra(1968). A complete cast overhaul and ground-breaking special effects are at the core of this filming of an Alistair MacLean tale.
(3)In Harm’s Way(1965). Otto Preminger black-and-white epic about Pearl Harbor and after.
(7) The Guns of Navarone (1961). Alistair MacLean again, setting up the template for the men-on-a-mission war picture with an all-star cast and enough production jeopardy to qualify for a movie of its own.
(6)The Satan Bug(1965). The problems facing director John Sturges in adapting the Alistair MacLean pandemic classic for the big screen.
(9) Man’s Favorite Sport (1964). Howard Hawks back in the gender wars with Rock Hudson and Paul Prentiss squaring off.
(4)Battle of the Bulge (1965). There were going to be two versions, so the race was on to get this one to the public first.
(5) Cast a Giant Shadow (1965). Producer Melville Shavelson wrote a book about his experiences and this and other material relating the arduous task of bringing the Kirk Douglas-starrer to the screen are told here.
(10) The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968). Cult classic starring Marianne Faithful and Alain Delon had a rocky road to release, especially in the U.S. where the censor was not happy.
(8) Sink the Bismarck! (1962). Documentary-style British WW2 classic with Kenneth More with the stiffest of stiff-upper-lips.
(11). Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Richard Fleischer dispenses with the all-star cast in favor of even-handed verisimilitude.
(New Entry) The Cincinnati Kid (1965). Once Sam Peckinpah was fired from the poker epic, Norman Jewison took over. Steve McQueen, Ann-Margret and Edward G. Robinson are top-billed.
(New Entry) The Trouble with Angels (1966). Hayley Mills causes trouble at a convent school where Rosalind Russell tries to rein her in.
(13). The Bridge at Remagen (1969). John Guillerman WW2 classic with George Segal and Robert Vaughn
(17). The Collector (1963). William Wyler’s creepy adaptation of John Fowles’ creepy bestseller with Terence Stamp and Samatha Eggar.
(New Entry) The Train (1964). Another director fired, this time Arthur Penn, with John Frankenheimer taking over in this cat-and-mouse WW2 struggle between Burt Lancaster and Paul Schofield.
(New Entry) The Appointment (1969). Sidney Lumet has his hands tied in Italian drama with Omar Sharif and Anouk Aimee.
(20) The Way West (1967). Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum face off in pioneer western.
(New entry) Mackenna’s Gold (1969). Producer Carl Foreman has his work cut out bringing home western Cinerama epic starring Gregory Peck and Omar Sharif.
(New entry) The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). Long-gestating Henry Hathaway western with John Wayne and Dean Martin as brawling brothers.
Nothing to live on but dreams and, in those days, no social media to bail them out. Spare sad lives in Small Town U.S.A. told with an occasional grand guignol touch. Look elsewhere for the laconic loner of Steve McQueen legend, to, for example, The Cincinnati Kid, out the same year.
This has the feel of a vanity project, the actor’s Solar outfit taking a production credit, as if the star felt he wouldn’t properly be recognized as an actor unless he had a ton of lines to chew through. And he might be right to feel aggrieved, wildly contrasting roles from Daniel Day-Lewis in movies that opened the same day in New York two decades later had critics reaching for the superlatives.
By my reckoning, this was the last year, save for occasional outliers like In Cold Blood (1967), when studios accepted the hi-falutin’ notion that filming in black-and-white added artistic luster regardless of the damage it might do to a picture’s commercial prospects. The mono approach is taken to extremes from time to time, the contrast so sharp it might have emanated from the Ingmar Bergman school of cinematography. And given the desultory lives picked over, this might have fared better with subtitles, the kind of foreign picture that arthouse audiences fawned over.
Prison parolee Henry (Steve McQueen), entitlement hormone running amok, has got it into his head that if only he had the funds to reach Hollywood or Nashville (either would do) his singing and song-writing talent would be recognised. This puts wife Georgette (Lee Remick), newly arrived with small daughter, in the position of going out to work to keep the family, altering her domestic situation from independent single mother to wife in thrall to waster husband.
She’s supposedly no dupe either, rejecting the kindness of strangers, as if aware it usually comes with strings attached. It’s a given that any time a child enters a romantic equation you can be sure the narrative will turn on parenthood and responsibility. And that’s pretty much all the story there is.
You can guess from the outset that while Henry’s singing might set a few female hearts zinging, it’s not likely to win him a contract. So the question is, really, whether Henry can settle down and not be so swift to resort to his knife when confronted with a messy situation.
It’s marred by a couple of truly terrible scenes, a poorly-choreographed fight and a really odd sequence that has Henry declaiming with his back to a tableau of motley characters with the contrast at its sharpest. And in what looks like nothing more than an old haunted house.
It’s well-meaning enough and for the most part McQueen dispenses with the tough-guy attitude, but he doesn’t really offer enough in its place. It’s the kind of role that could easily have been delivered as effectively by any number of actors with nothing approaching his star quality. And that’s a shame because he really is trying – though it’s the trying that gets in the way, you keep on waiting for the real Steve McQueen to turn up.
If director Robert Mulligan (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) hadn’t been so determined to paint it in downbeat arthouse tones, the actor might have felt free enough to come up with a genuinely original turn. Though I accept it’s a bit unfair to complain about McQueen attempting something different, there’s no real excuse for him creating the worst singer ever to hit the screen.
You might also note, by the way that whereas McQueen takes pole position on the poster, in the screen credits Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) is top-billed. Remick is better than McQueen because she has a deeper well of emotions and wider range of characterizations to choose from. You never feel she is acting to save her career or hope that Oscar voters might nod in her direction.
The movie makes more sense once you understand it really belongs to the 1950s – the Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962) Broadway play on which it is based was staged in 1954. The movie fatally switches focus from Georgette to Henry before working out which actor was likely to best convey the happiness drought on which the work depends. There’s more than enough sadness to go round but it just seems solidified from the outset. No great harm – that may well be the truth of it – but it prevents the movie taking off, stuck as it is in recycling Henry’s weary past. Don Murray (The Viking Queen, 1967) makes a good fist of a widowed sheriff.
Worth a look to see McQueen tackling something different. You decide whether he succeeds or fails.
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.
Employs Hitchcock’s trick of having you rooting for the bad guy. The caper picture remade. Steve McQueen (Nevada Smith, 1966) reinvented. Faye Dunaway (The Extraordinary Seaman, 1969) making the most stunning entrance this side of Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962). The technological dream of the split screen. Film noir filmed in bright sunshine with a femme fatale on the right side, only just, of the law.
Takes the insurance agent of Psycho (1960) and switches the gender. Nabs the Hitchcock crown (Notorious, 1942) for the longest screen kiss. Steals from Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, 1957) the title of best chess scene.
Female sleuth at a time when I don’t think the idea of a female detective crossed anyone’s minds in Hollywood. And one so sexy, stylish and uber-confident that she attracts not one sexist remark. Not dumb enough either like Lila in Psycho to walk into a trap.
And, incredibly, given wealth has been a movie trope since day one, luxuriates in a lifestyle – gliders, dune buggies, polo – never seen before. Not just a mesmerising song (“The Windmills of Your Mind”) but an absolutely outstanding score from Michel Legrand (Play Dirty, 1968). Almost works as a visual greatest hits collection, one memorable scene after another, a cat-and-mouse scenario, twists aplenty and smart, smart dialog.
Ignores back story and dark hidden secrets. Dispenses with the usual robbery cliches of planning the heist and the robbers irritating the hell out of each other. Theft here is carried out with mathematical precision, the crew members never meeting, mastermind Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) hidden from view at initial interview behind a bank of blinding lights. But the investigation is clever, too, donkey work – tracking everyone who flew to Geneva (where the stolen cash is banked) – coupled with instinct, insurance agent Vicki (Faye Dunaway) choosing Crown as the most likely criminal from his photograph, and a piece of inspiration, offering a huge reward for anyone noticing their spouse had been in Boston on the day of the robbery and been behaving oddly.
Crown is a fabulous invention, savvy businessman, bursting with competitive instinct, unable to prevent himself crowing, his opening line – “you overpaid” – puncturing the triumph of businessmen who believed they bettered him in a deal. But he’s bored, riches and all the toys that brings including sexy girlfriend Gwen (Astrid Heeren) not enough, and he seeks to test himself against the law.
But he’s always testing himself, regardless of how high or how low the stakes. He’s the kind of guy who just bets for the thrill. The only reversal in the whole movie is a golf match where he employs the old sucker punch, double-or-quits routine, to be able to repeat an unexpectedly successful shot. When he loses spouts another brilliant line, “What else can we do on Sunday?”
But he’s up against as steely a competitor. Has any character ever delivered such an immortal line with such panache – “I’m immoral” – as Vicki who has no qualms about invading Crown’s house on a flimsy pretext or kidnapping the son of one of the gang. “You won that round,” she tells Crown after bringing gang member Erwin (Jack Weston) in for questioning and stationing him in the same room as Crown, hoping to elicit recognition.
You’d hardly be surprised to discover she’s more than capable of using her body as a weapon, but you’d be hard put to work out who is seducing who. For both, part of the attraction must be danger, being up close (and very personal) with your rival. It wouldn’t take much to imagine this is a reversal, that Vicki is being hunted, that in the throes of romance she will give away too much. Or that the arrogant Crown believes he can have his cake and eat it. He doesn’t need the money, he can give it back, avoid arrest and sail off into the sunset with a woman his match in style and intellect.
If there’s one flaw in the spellbinding narrative, it’s here. We all know insurance exists outside the law. Retrieving money for clients is the sole aim, justice not on the agenda. No bank chief executive wants to suffer the embarrassment of being hauled into a courtroom to explain just how fallible their security systems are. Hand back the money, bury the publicity and all’s well. I’m not entirely sure why Vicki had to seek the approval of detective Eddy (Paul Burke), leading the police side of the investigation, when she could as easily have bypassed him and picked up her ten per cent of the money as reward and sailed off into the sunset.
Unless, of course, it’s not a flaw. And that for Vicki, as resolute a competitor as Crown, she requires official recognition of victory and to prove her superiority over the criminal by allowing him to be set free, giving her if you like the upper hand in the relationship.
Director Norman Jewison was on a box office roll after turning conspiracy upside down with The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), and exploring racism with In the Heat of the Night (1967). Where most critics prefer directors who reveal thematic consistency, Jewison seemed to be headed every which way – although in the cat-and-mouse stakes you could look at The Cincinnati Kid (1965) – with elan his ace in the hole.
And if you ever sat in a movie theater and thought you could do better than the drivel you were watching, then screenwriter Alan R. Trustman would be your patron saint. A lawyer by profession, he wrote The Thomas Crown Affair in a couple of weeks and, hardly surprising, given its audacity, it found its way to an agent. He went on to write Bullitt (1969), Lady Ice (1973) – almost a remake of Thomas Crown – and The Next Man (1974) for Sean Connery.
The best fun crime movie since Hitchcock paired Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief (1955) and never bettered since.
Most observers don’t have a clue why some films are made in preference to others, or even of which movies have sat in turnaround hell for years. When I was researching my book The Making of The Magnificent Seven I came across some priceless material that gave some clues regarding the process. An “Inter-Office Memorandum” dated February 3, 1966, provided an insight into how independent producers Mirisch, then allied to studio United Artists, set about giving the thumbs up or thumbs down.
The memo referred to a meeting held at the Beverley Hills Hotel on January 29-30, 1966, attended by the three Mirisch Brothers – Harold, Marvin and the recently-deceased Walter – as well as UA head honcho Arthur Krim, Herb Jaffe and David Picker. On the agenda: Inspector Clouseau, Sherlock Holmes, The Mutiny of Madame Yes, The Egyptologists,Garden of Cucumbers, Wind on Fire, High Citadel, Saddle and Ride, The Narrow Sea, The Great Japanese Train Robbery, Lydia, In the Heat of the Night, The Cruel Eagle, How To Succeed in Business, and Death, Where Is Thy Sting-a-Ling.
Separately, the group examined commitments to various talents including John Sturges, Norman Jewison, Bryan Forbes and Billy Wilder.
Top of the agenda was Inspector Clouseau, a sequel to the successful Pink Panther series, from which Peter Sellers had withdrawn. The budget was set at $3 million including $466,000 for director and star. Alan Arkin was not yet a lock, UA reserving its opinion on Arkin’s marquee’s credentials until it saw how The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), in which he was the star, performed at the box office. Should it bomb, second choice was Zero Mostel. Jonathan Winters, viewed as a “questionable choice,” was also in the running. Clive Donner was the preferred director. If he passed, next up was Guy Hamilton. (In the end both rejected the offer and it was released in 1968 with Bud Yorkin at the helm.)
Two projects on the table were mooted as vehicles for Steve McQueen. The first, Wind of Fire, was intended as “immediately following Sturges’ racing picture.”(This was Day of the Champion but a legal battle with MGM would derail this and McQueen was five years away from releasing Le Mans). Wind of Fire, to be directed by Norman Jewison, suffered from an incomplete script which restricted discussion. John Wayne had shown an interest but UA “was not really interested in Wayne,” possibly as a result of the fall-out from The Alamo (1960). The second McQueen project was the thriller Lydia based on the book by E.V Cunningham (the pseudonym of Howard Fast of Spartacus fame). Here, the script was complete and in the actor’s hands. Doris Day had been touted for female lead but Mirisch had nixed her involvement. When dealing with any major star, greenlighting a picture depended on schedules not clashing. (In the end neither project saw the light of day.)
Mirisch was also juggling two properties to star Dick Van Dyke. The Great Japanese Train Robbery was due to commence filming in June 1966, although that meant cooperation from Columbia and Disney who had first call at that point on the actor; Disney had excused him, Columbia had not. Virna Lisi, the intended female lead, was dunped for demanding too much money, $300,000 her current asking price. In her place were suggested Claudine Auger, Catherine Deneuve, Stefania Sandrelli or Luciana Paluzzi. Although the budget was approved at around £3.3 million, the movie never went ahead.
Garden of Cucumbers with Van Dyke, though minus a female lead, was already scheduled to start shooting in August-September 1966. Proposed director, in order of preference, was Norman Jewison, Arthur Hiller or Elliott Silverstein. This project did make it over the line though the title, changed to Fitzwilly, was helmed by Delbert Mann and co-starred Barbara Feldon in her biggest role to date.
A budget of $1.89 million had been set for High Citadel, based on the Desmond Bagley thriller. UA was locked into a pay-or-play deal, which meant star James Garner would receive his salary whether or not the picture was made. However, there was a get-out clause. The studio could use Garner for another picture as long as it slotted into the same timeframe. The other options were Saddle and Ride and The Narrow Sea. Of these Mirisch preferred the former, UA the latter. But there was a directorial issue with The Narrow Sea. Mirisch had a moral commitment though not a legal contract with producer Robert Relyea to make this his directorial debut and UA didn’t want him. (In the event neither film was made.)
There were budget issues on How To Succeed in Business. UA had given the go-ahead on the basis that it would cost no more than $3.25 million but the budget had since soared by over half a million. To meet the May 1 start date, the budget had to be trimmed back to the original amout. (This was presumably done, since the movie appeared the following year). In the Heat of the Night was in the early stages of development, the production company still to see the Stirling Silliphant script, but at this stage no objections were raised. Fred Zinnemann was being considered as the director of The Cruel Eagle by Frederick E. Smith, author of 633 Squadron. (It was never greenlit).
Making movies in Britain – in order to take advantage of the tax advantages of the Eady Plan – was central to the Mirisch strategy. While Inspector Clouseau, Death, Where Is Thy Sting-a-Ling, and The Mutiny of Madame Yes– budgets totalling around the $10 million mark – were already committed to the Eady Scheme, Mirisch was also seeking backing to set up a low-budget unit in Britain to maximize the government’s largesse. Budgets per picture would be limited to $1 million or less. In the memo they were described as “disciplined” or “service” pictures to be “produced in color.” In essence that meant basic programmers that could be sold to drive-ins and cinemas with a high movie turnover, on a rental basis if they topped the bill, for a flat fee if they were supports. This would have the added benefit, for those houses whose customers demanded a double bill, of being able to offer a program where all the revenue would end up in the Mirisch pocket.
Half breed Max Sand (Steve McQueen) has little truck with the notion that revenge is a dish best served cold. But he’s too young and raw, far from Lee Marvin’s callous killer in Point Blank (1969), to properly avenge the slaughter of his family by three outlaws.
This is a coming-of-age tale with a distinct difference. Max’s development includes, apart from initiation into sex of course, learning to read and write so he can make sense of signposts in order to track down the murderers and receiving tuition from gunsmith Jonas Cord (Brian Keith) so that he can at least loose off some shots without doing himself damage. Vengeance burns so deep that he even stages a bumbled robbery so he can be sent to the prison where the second of his targets is incarcerated. Now that’s dedication for you. And along the way he learns the most important lesson of all, how to live, and not destroy himself through vengeance.
Even so, all Cord’s tuition counts for nought when Max needs a knife to dispatch his first victim Coe (Martin Landau). And he’s not yet so slick with a weapon to avoid serious injury himself. Kiowa saloon girl Neesa (Janet Margolin) nurses him back to health at her tribe’s camp. They become lovers but he rejects the wisdom of the elders and the opportunity to make a life with her.
Unfortunately, Bowdre (Arthur Kennedy) is a jailbird. And worse, held prisoner in a swamp. Probably the worst bank robbery ever committed sends Nevada there. Max enrols another woman, Cajun Pilar (Suzanne Pleshette) working in nearby rice fields – fraternisation between the jailbirds and these women permitted – to steal a boat to help him and Bowdre escape. Bowdre gets his and this time it’s Pilar who is the collateral damage.
A genuine outlaw now, Max has no trouble joining a band of robbers headed by Fitch (Karl Malden), the final prey. By now calling himself Nevada Smith, Max’s plans are thrown into confusion when it becomes apparent Fitch is aware of his true identity. A surprise ending is on the cards whichever way you cut it, and especially thrilling since it occurs during a well-planned gold bullion robbery.
It’s a film of two parts but divided into three if you like, the unusual swamp setting fitting in between two sections of more straightforward western. Though in the hands of director Henry Hathaway (True Grit, 1969), there is little that’s so straightforward given his mastery of the widescreen and his hallmark extreme long shot. He’s capable of moving from the extreme violence of the vicious murder and rape of Max’s mother to the son’s discovery of the bodies shown just through Max’s physical reaction. And there’s some irony at play, too: gold triggers slaughter and climax; mental dereliction not as feared as its physical counterpart.
Although Hathaway was a true veteran, he was not best known for westerns in the manner of John Ford, more at home with film noir (Kiss of Death, 1947), war (The Desert Fox, 1951) and big-budget pictures like Niagara (1954) with Marilyn Monroe and Legend of the Lost (1957) teaming John Wayne and Sophia Loren. In a 30-year career he had only made three westerns of note – The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), Rawhide (1951) and Garden of Evil (1954). So it was something of a surprise that in the 1960s over half his output was in the western genre. And unlike Ford and Howard Hawks who stuck to the formula of action within a defined community, Hathaway tended towards films of adventure, where the main character, often of a somewhat shady disposition, wandered far and wide.
Steve McQueen (The Cincinnati Kid, 1965) carries the picture with some aplomb, moving deftly from the wet-behind-the-ears youngster to a clever and calculated killer and still retaining enough humanity to enjoy a romantic dalliance. There’s enough action here to satisfy McQueen’s fans spoiled by The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963) and for those who had come to appreciate his acting plenty to enjoy. This and The Cincinnati Kid, where perforce as a poker player, he had to do a great deal of brooding, solidified his screen persona, a star you can’t keep your eyes off, wondering what on earth is going on in his mind. As much as he’s playing a character finding his feet, this is McQueen at very nearly the top of his game.
Brian Keith (The Rare Breed, 1966) is the pick of the support, adding a little softness to his usual more hard-nosed screen characters. The villains – Karl Malden (The Cincinnati Kid), Martin Landau (The Hallelujah Trail, 1965) and Arthur Kennedy (Claudelle Inglish, 1961) – are all good in their own different ways, and in the hands of excellent actors, easily differentiated. Suzanne Pleshette (Fate is the Hunter, 1964) shines in a too-brief role.
The sterling supporting cast includes Janet Margolin (Bus Riley’s Back in Town, 1965), Pat Hingle (Sol Madrid, 1968) and Raf Vallone (The Secret Invasion, 1964). John Michael Hayes (Harlow, 1965) fashioned the screenplay from The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins.
Although Hollywood had been prone to sequels – Father’s Little Dividend (1951) following Father of the Bride (1950), Return to Peyton Place (1961), Return of the Seven (1966) etc – there had been no perceived market for prequels, so this was something of a first, Alan Ladd having essayed an older and considerably more sophisticated Nevada Smith in the 1964 film of Harold Robbins bestseller.
Trade magazine Variety’s innovative weekly Top 50 based on grosses that had begun in April 1969 changed the way exhibitors regarded box office. Instead of waiting till the appearance of the magazine’s year-end round-up which was limited to around the top 100 movies, cinema owners now got a week-by-week snapshot of how new movies were playing. All box office figures had previously concentrated on the big movies of the day – the roadshows and pictures with big stars – that opened at the first run city center houses that were easier for Variety to track. The switch to a computerized system made it more feasible to examine the takings from hundreds of cinemas not necessarily showing the big movies sucking up all the publicity oxygen.
An examination of the films hitting the coveted number one position in the weekly chart illuminated the changes in the business. For a start, to reach number one a movie had to be showing on over 30 cinemas, but this could rise to 100-plus, and began to show the benefits of the wider first run release. This was also really the beginning of the per-screen average. High figures could be achieved by recruiting a large number of screens but exhibitors could easily disseminate the information and decide whether the number of screens massaged the figures or showed how successful a film really was. And this was the start of another promotional ploy, the business of a movie holding onto to the top spot for a second, third or even fourth week, proof a movie had “legs.”
The Year’s weekly Top Ten performers make interesting reading. The biggest figures posted in any one week during 1969 were for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service which hauled in a massive $1.22 million (equivalent to $9.6 million today) from 99 screens – a $12,323 screen average. This was followed by Goodbye, Columbus with $935,000 from 65 screens, a higher screen average of $14,384. Next came The Love Bug with $724,000 from 76 houses ($9,526 average). Another week of Goodbye, Columbus shouldered $681,000 from 60 ($11,350).
The Love Bug had a further two weeks at the top, pinching $658,000 from 117 ($5,623) and $633,000 from 44 ($14,386). Seventh-best week was taken by The Killing of Sister George with $621,000 from 70 ($8,871). Snatching eighth spot was Fanny Hill with $625,000 from 49 ($12,755). Ninth was Krakatoa, East of Java with $621,000 from 68 ($9,132). Last place in the top ten went to I Am Curious, Yellow with $594,000 from 52 ($11,423).
From the exhibitor perspective there were two notable points. The first was the per-screen average. Secondly, cinema bookers could not fail to notice not only that two of the top ten in weekly gross and three of the top five films in terms of screen averages went to sexploitation pictures.
It was soon abundantly clear that producers could sell their pictures to sometimes doubting exhibitors by the simple process, not so much of bombarding them with adverts and Pressbooks extolling a film’s potential, but of getting a movie into sufficient theatres for the box office figures to tell their own story.
Although the other big films expected to top the weekly chart did achieve that aim – among them True Grit (twice), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (also twice), Ice Station Zebra, Easy Rider (three times), Midnight Cowboy, Oliver! and Paint Your Wagon – there were as many unfancied movies perching atop the weekly pile.
Apart from the sexploitation films and The Killing of Sister George, others holding down the number one spot for a week were British star Carol White in Mark Robson thriller Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting ($544,000 from 71), What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice ($540,000 from 48), Gordon Parks’ bittersweet drama The Learning Tree ($401,000 from 49), Stella Stevens and Shelley Winters in horror film The Mad Room ($283,000 from 38) and reissues Bonnie and Clyde/Bullitt ($546,000 from 81) and The Longest Day ($501,000 from 76).
Distributors of low-budget pictures used to have to take ads out in the trades to prove to potential customers that their movies were pulling in decent business. Now they had better proof, from the most important source of all, Variety, whose box office figures were scanned by every cinema manager in the country. Once a week without a distributor putting a hand in their advertising pocket there was all the promotional evidence they needed.
This was the second sea change in the way cinema owners perceived the business, the first being the opening up of the collection of box office figures through Variety’s annual report on upwards of 1,000 titles. To have figures at your finger tips for the price of a subscription to a newspaper was a game changer.
But there was yet another game changer to come.
SOURCES: The Top 50 Grossers chart appearing weekly in Variety from April to December 1969.
Blame Robert Wise for falling behind on The Sand Pebbles (1966), otherwise John Sturges would have pressed ahead with Steve McQueen pet project Day of the Champion (later resurrected as Le Mans, 1970, though minus Sturges). Needing another hit after the consecutive box office failures of The Satan Bug (1965) and The Hallelujah Trail (1965), Sturges fell back on an equally favoured project, The Law and Tombstone, a revisionist and darker look at the Wyatt Earp legend, with “a few liberties taken so it doesn’t become a documentary.” Despite the failings of the last two films, Mirisch had just re-signed Sturges, expanding his current deal from two to four pictures.
“It seemed like a first-rate idea,” recalled producer Walter Mirisch, who had worked with Sturges on The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). In his memoir he said, “If there was still a market for Western pictures, John Sturges was certainly the ideal director to test it.” (Mirisch’s memory is a bit hazy here regarding the commercial prospects for westerns – 1966 had seen box office success for El Dorado, Nevada Smith, The Professionals and The Rare Breed while 1967 would usher in The War Wagon and Hombre among others). The initial idea was to re-team Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas from Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, to which this was a sequel, but Paramount, which had made the original picture, nixed the notion.
The image for the Japanese poster was taken from the initial shootout at the O.K. Corral that opened the picture.
James Garner came on board in the main because he still owed Mirisch, marking a decade in the business, a picture. He had originally worked for Mirisch in The Children’s Hour (1961). He was hired for “not much,” a straight salary, but credited Mirisch with kick-starting his career after his battle with Warner Brothers. Mirisch had also funded By Love Possessed (1962) in which Sturges had directed Jason Robards, “a brilliant actor though one with problems” (something of an understatement).
There was some surprise in Hollywood when Sturges returned to Mexico after the difficulties – censorship, threats to boycott the film, union issues – he had encountered shooting The Magnificent Seven there. Having vowed “never to make another picture” in that country, “one of the reasons we’re back here is because they’ve eased up on regulations.” Having expected to import most of the cast from Hollywood, the producers were delighted that “six of the ten other featured parts” went to Mexicans, as a result of extensive auditions. Although Lucien Ballard (The Wild Bunch, 1969) remained director of cinematography, a Mexican camera crew was hired with Jorge Stahl in charge.
James Garner takes the stand in court defending himself against allegations of murder.
Shooting began on November 9, 1966, at Torreon, “a quiet little agricultural town with a single hotel and bar,” where a fake town had been built at a cost of $100,000. Filming shifted to Churusbusco Studios in Mexico City on December 20 and four weeks later production wrapped after exteriors at a hacienda near San Miguel de Allende for the face-off with Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan in the film).
James Garner (The Great Escape, 1963) was keen to be reunited with Sturges. “I was happy to play the character,” reminisced Garner, “because John always knew what he was doing. He would take five, six, seven factions in a story and bring them together.” Garner saw Earp as “a guy taken with his own power, who nobody could defy.”
Jason Robards, as Doc Holliday, with a well-known wild side, was difficult to manage. Assistant directors were dispatched every morning to find out where, bar or brothel, the actor had ended up the night before. Sturges rounded on him when Robards turned up at lunch for a scheduled 8am start. He was perfect after that. Unusually, Sturges would invite the cast to watch the dailies. Producers Mirisch were not happy with the title which was eventually changed to Hour of the Gun.
“My mistake,” rued Sturges, “was that I thought people would be fascinated by the real story about the quarrel between the Earps and the Clantons. You didn’t just shoot people, there were trials, lawyers, citizens’ committees…I got preview cards that said of all the stories told about Earp and Holliday this was the dullest. They (the audience) considered them fictional characters. They couldn’t have cared less that that’s the way it really was.”
As Variety pointed out in its review: “Probing too deeply into the character of folk heroes reveals them to be fallible human beings – which they are of course – but to mass audiences …such exposition is unsettling.”
Edward Anhalt’s screenplay was based on this book published in the late 1950s.
There were clearly reservations about the project. Mirisch announced it was “ready for release” at the end of March 1967 but it did not see the light of day for another seven months. Although the film was budgeted at just over $3 million – $1 million more than In the Heat of the Night (1967), another Mirisch project – and received tremendous support from the industry-wide “Fall Film Fair” promotional campaign (“commended…for excellence in entertainment”) it was a huge flop in the U.S. bringing in a miserable $900,000 in rentals (the amount studios receive once the cinemas have taken their share of the gross). It did better abroad with $1.5 million but the total was nowhere near enough to recoup the costs.
“Also playing a large role in the reaction to the picture was the continued loss of interest by audiences in Western pictures,” said Mirisch. “I was again guilty of thinking that this trend would reverse and that Westerns, led by a hit picture, would return to favour stronger than ever. I was wrong. As a new generation arose, their interest in westers had been satiated, probably by television, and they now embraced the so-called Easy Rider era of movie-making.”
This is another piece of faulty memory. The year after the release of Hour of the Gun commercial success was enjoyed by Bandolero!, Hang ‘Em High and The Scalphunters to name a few and Will Penny and The Stalking Moon, both revisionist westerns, won critical favour. And, apologies for harping on about it, but, as I showed in my book The Gunslingers of ’69, that year proved a box office bonanza for westerns despite Easy Rider.
SOURCES: Glenn Lovell, Escape Artist (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) p257-262; Walter Mirisch, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), p259-260; United Artists Archive, Appendix II, University of Wisconsin; “Mirisch, Sturges Revamp Pact for Two More Films,” Box Office, July 25, 1966, W-1; “James Garner Moves from Actor To Future Producer Status,” Variety, October 5, 1966, 5; “Director John E. Sturges Returns to Mexico for Law and Tombstone,” Box Office, November 7, 1966, pW-2; “Mirisch Schedules Five Major Films,” Box Office, March 13, 1967, p10; “Film Title Changes,” Box Office, April 24, 1967, p18; Advert, Box Office, Aug 28, 1967, p4-5; Review, Variety, October 4, 1967, p16.
The Magnificent 60s 