Perhaps the most diplomatic way to approach the shambling dinosaur-like movies of the Sixties is with a clear understanding that the industry that produced them had frankly gone mad. Hollywood, ever the spendthrifts at the time took the proverbial ball and ran with it. The bankers would foresee these seeds of destruction and despite all admonitions, Hollywood continued throwing caution the wind's way and now were in the red.
The logic of producing so-called 'supermovies' (the term blockbuster surfaced in 1975) of shelling a million and a half dollars out over thin slapstick comedies, in particular - Blake Edwards' The Great Race (1965) at Warner's, was threefold. Big movies at big ticket prices might earn substantial monies and earn them quick. Sometimes the theory did prove successful; for instance, MGM stayed afloat in the Sixties largely on the behalf of the high earnings of David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965) and the reissue profits from Gone With The Wind (1939). Big movies at steep ticket prices with deals that made cinemas send back a high proportion of their take would probably bring back a big cash flow, thus staving off problems with the banks - at least there would be money passing through which with a little moxie and creative accounting could be represented as a real business asset. And big movies were all but guaranteed to have international appeal with their bloody wartime action, broad comedy, cavalcades of stars, their senses of glamour and the good life.
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| MGM would be singing lira's theme with the saving grace success of Doctor Zhivago (1965) |
Other more general factors pushed the studios toward making blockbuster movies. It was simpler to borrow money for a relatively accessible and explainable project than for smaller more complex stories which entailed plots that bankers might not have been able to comprehend; it was easier to borrow to take another big gamble than to find the cash to service existing debt. The studios, to stay credible, had to continue borrowing - and the big movies were often just the easiest way to facilitate that.
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| The Great Race was a great financial burden to the tune of the $12 million variety. |
During this period, Hollywood, for the time in all its history, was drawing more than half of its income from outside America. Hollywood felt it was essential to create a universal product, grandiose pictures that were sure to attract and whet the appetite of audiences the world over; a crafty if not avaricious agenda.
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| Gross, but no cigar - Cleopatra (1963) was surprisingly a profit-sore - (Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor) |
Their international character was partly a question of markets and partly a matter of production costs. The moguls had seen labor costs in California rise at an alarming rate and they felt they could drive a much harder bargain outside of the States. They could also know use the movie subsidies in more than one country This logic would lead to such films as Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Cleopatra (1963); by the following year it was lying fourth in the list of America's all-time grossing movies and it was still nowhere near turning a pence of profit - an international glossy and good old fashioned money-spinning disaster.
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| Is it a newsreel or is it Memorex? The Longest Day (1962) |
The success of the aptly titled Around the World in 80 Days (1956) produced by Mike Todd helped convince Hollywood not only did big movies mean big business, but that speculation on a grand scale resulted in accumulation of an even grander one. When the movie premiered - Todd's checks were bouncing in fantastic fashion. Much of United Artists' investment went to settle payrolls on which Todd was on the brink of defaulting. Once released however, the movie coined proper money. Its production costs were in the range of $6 million, nearly twice that of the original budget - it is difficult, more with Todd than with other contemporaneous producers to be exact. Fortunately by the year 1968, that aforementioned $6 million had earned United Artists $23 million in American rentals and $18 million dollars revenue from the rest of the world.
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| Zanuck took them for a ride with 1964's The Yellow Rolls Royce |
Producer Darryl F. Zanuck, making his black-and-white The Longest Day (1962), was asked by his staff : how the public would know the movie wasn't just a newsreel. 'We'll have a star' he exclaimed, and went on to assure 'in every reel.' Routine products such as The V.I.P.s (1963) and The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964) both impressively crafted and sluggish efforts by Anthony Asquith that belied the high intelligence of his Orders to Kill (1958) were among the top ten movies of their respective years when they appeared in America and were sold solely as a result of their star-studded casts. The formula itself owes much to the earlier MGM vehicles such as Grand Hotel (1932) and George Cukor's flawless comedy of manners Dinner at Eight (1933), but with this twist, stars were now no longer required to act, but were introduced into a film like a bright rainbow over a quicksand marsh.
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| Doctor Zhivago surely had a cure for the ailing MGM. |
High budgets and production values made commercial sense only for the times they were entrusted to a director that held epic themes in high esteem. One such director was David Lean. His 1957 war entry The Bridge on the River Kwai was a roaring success, both in critical and commercial terms. The film was shot on difficult locations, with the centrally important bridge structure built simply to be blown up and demolished - and a train hauled across jungle terrain for its starring role. At the time such devices seemed extravagant, and yet the total production cost was barely $3 million, the film was ultimately sold to American television in 1966 for the bargain price of $2 million after its highly profitable career in cinemas.
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| Perspicacity and Sundance. |
Lean's triumph, though there is ample room for debate about its quality - was Doctor Zhivago, shot entirely on location in Spain at an approximate $15 million. The film's resounding success was the salvation of MGM during its most difficult years.