Bruce Scivally is the author of Dracula FAQ: All That’s Left to Know about the Count from Transylvania (Backbeat, 2015). His other books include Booze, Bullets & Broads: The Story of Matt Helm, Superspy of the Mad Men Era (Henry Gray, 2013), Billion Dollar Batman: A History of the Caped Crusader on Film, Radio and Television from 10¢ Comic Book to Global Icon (Henry Gray, 2011), Superman on Film, Television, Radio & Broadway (McFarland, 2006), and (with John Cork) of James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002). As well, he has written and produced numerous documentaries and featurettes that have appeared as supplemental material on LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc, including several of the Charlie Chan, James Bond, and Pink Panther releases. He is Vice President of New Dimension Media of Chicago, Illinois.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think Bram Stoker’s Dracula should be remembered on its 25th anniversary?

Bruce Scivally: Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a game changer. It was unlike any Dracula film that had come before, and established a tone and style that redefined cinematic vampires. Screenwriter James V. Hart returned to Stoker’s original novel for inspiration, but at the same time borrowed ideas from Dan Curtis’ 1973 TV movie (also titled Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and the vampire novels of Anne Rice. From Curtis (and teleplay writer Richard Matheson), he borrowed the idea that Mina is a reincarnation of Dracula’s lost love from centuries before. From Anne Rice, he borrowed the notion that the vampire doesn’t merely turn into a bat, but rather transforms into a monstrous human — bat hybrid, like the winged demons from Gustave Dore’s illustrations for Dante’s Inferno (just Google “The Inferno, Canto 22 – Gustave Dore”). Add to that costume designer Eiko Ishioka’s inspirations — Dracula’s Samurai-inspired red armor, his scarlet silk kimono, his sunglasses, not to mention Mina’s gowns and Lucy’s white lace ruffled burial gown, and a score by Wojciech Kilar that goes from pulse-pounding martial music to lush romanticism, and the use of old-fashioned in-camera effects, and the entire film seems at once outmoded and futuristic. In its way, it was the first Steampunk film, and every vampire movie since has been influenced by its style. 

Coate: What did you think of the film when you (first) saw it?

Scivally: Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of those films that I disliked on first viewing, but have come to appreciate over time, which is an indication of how much it was ahead of its time. Coppola’s operatic approach to the material — rather than the more traditionally Gothic take of the Universal and Hammer horror films, or the 1979 Dracula starring Frank Langella (still my personal favorite) — was more than a fresh approach; it was absolutely revolutionary. Knowing more now about the backstory of the film and the intent of the filmmakers, I can appreciate it for its out-of-the-box thinking; at the time, I was too entrenched in the tried-and-true vampire formula to get it.

Coate: In what way was Francis Coppola an ideal choice to direct Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and where does the film rank among his body of work?

Scivally: Coppola was ideal to direct Bram Stoker’s Dracula because it was one of his favorite novels — he used to read it to his young charges when he worked at a summer camp in his youth — but he was enough of an iconoclast to think way outside the box instead of falling into the tried-and-true vampire/horror movie tropes. It’s not his greatest film — how can you top The Godfather, The Conversation or Apocalypse Now? — but it came after a string of films that were box-office disappointments: Gardens of Stone, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, and the lamentable Godfather III. Coppola could have made a straightforward horror film out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but he didn’t; he made something fresh and exciting, not just another scary movie but rather a Coppola film, and a pretty extraordinary one, at that.

Coate: Is Bram Stoker’s Dracula a significant (horror) film in any way?

Scivally: Bram Stoker’s Dracula is significant in the way that The Exorcist and The Shining were significant, in showing that a horror story can be worthy of an A-list cast and production values, and that a truly imaginative filmmaker can take even a story as hoary as Dracula and give it a new lustre.

Coate: They’ve been making Dracula movies since about as long as they’ve been making movies. What is it about the character and concept that storytellers find so alluring?

Scivally: Dracula was written at the end of the Victorian era, which we think of as a buttoned-down, sexually repressed time. Yet the novel seethes with sexuality and sexual symbolism (even the vampire’s bite is, after all, a penetration), which makes it feel very modern today. In addition, there’s a theme of fear of foreign invaders (sound familiar?) and a breaking down of the old status quo (Make Britain Great Again!); even Mina is a representation of what was then called "the new woman," i.e., an independent woman who would work in an office, like her husband, rather than merely stay home and take care of the children, so it can also be seen as a tale of female empowerment. These ideas are just as relevant now as they were when the book was published in 1897. In addition, vampires and movies are a perfect match. Movies, with their visual trickery, can show vampires transforming into bats, wolves and mist. And even the very notion of cinema itself is vampiric, capturing the essence of performers who then remain ever youthful, never aging, and who, in this digital age, can be summoned up anytime to haunt us anew with their ghostly presence.

Coate: In what way was Gary Oldman a memorable or effective Dracula? And what did you think of the other key performances in the film? Do they elevate or hinder the quality of the film?

Scivally: One of the earliest films I remember seeing is the 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, which was pretty scary to me when I was five years old. In my teens, I discovered Christopher Lee’s more feral interpretation of the character in the Hammer horror films, and enjoyed Jack Palance’s take in the aforementioned Dan Curtis TV movie. My favorite version of the story remains the 1979 Dracula scripted by W.D. Richter, with Frank Langella — fresh off reviving the character on Broadway — creating a more sensual, Byronic vampire. In a way, Gary Oldman combines all of those earlier performances into one. He has an even thicker accent than Lugosi, exhibits the savage fierceness of Lee and Palance, and is even more Byronic than Langella. I don’t think there has ever been an actor before or since who portrayed such a wide range of emotions as Dracula. Oldman’s performance is a highlight of the film, and Winona Ryder is quite good in a role that she hoped would present her as a more adult actor after a string of emo teen roles. And then there’s Keanu Reeves... I like Keanu Reeves. I think he’s a good actor, and I think he’s terrific in the recent John Wick films. But in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Reeves seems woefully out of place. His poor on-again, off-again English accent is distracting, and his discomfort in the role manifests itself in a performance so wooden it nearly puts a lethal stake through the heart of the film. Coppola cast Reeves because he wanted a hot, young actor to play Jonathan Harker; ‘tis a pity he didn’t choose a hot, young British actor, like, say, Rupert Graves. Then the film might have been damn near perfect.

Coate: How does Coppola’s Dracula film compare to past and more recent interpretations?

Scivally: Coppola’s version of Dracula is one of the most lush ever committed to film, and it’s an interpretation of the story that stresses romance over horror even more so than the Palance or Langella versions. It’s the film to see if you want an emotionally overwrought, visually sumptuous feast. In musical terms, Lugosi’s film is a concerto, Langella’s a ballet, and Coppola’s is grand opera. And I think it’s significant that in that sentence, I’ve identified the first two examples by their actors, and the third by its director. The film may as well have been officially titled Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, because it so unmistakably bears the stamp of its director.

Coate: What is the legacy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula?

Scivally: As mentioned before, the legacy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is that it created a host of new vampire film tropes, like retractable fangs, vampires turning into literal bat-men, and a Steampunk aesthetic. It also created a renewed interest in Bram Stoker’s literary creation, so that the following decades have seen more Dracula movies, a Dracula TV series, and a gentle spoofing of Coppola’s Dracula in both The Simpsons and the New Zealand mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows. In short, Coppola pumped new blood into the vampire film.

Coate: Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your thoughts about Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the occasion of its 25th anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy American Zoetrope, Columbia Pictures, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, Osiris Films, Sony Pictures.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Batman Returns, one of the most anticipated sequels ever made, opened in theaters twenty-five years ago this week.

For the occasion The Bits features a compilation of statistics, trivia and box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context; passages from vintage film reviews; a reference/historical listing of the film’s digital sound presentations; and, finally, an interview segment with a trio of comicbook/superhero movie authorities and film historians.

BATMAN RETURNS NUMBER$

• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies during opening weekend
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (calendar year)
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (summer)
• 1 = Rank among top-earning films of Warner Bros.’ 1992 slate
• 2 = Number of Academy Award nominations
• 3 = Number of weeks nation’s top-grossing movie (weeks 1-3)
• 3 = Box-office rank among movies directed by Tim Burton (adjusted for inflation)
• 3 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (legacy)
• 4 = Number of months between theatrical release and home-video release
• 5 = Box-office rank among movies in the Batman franchise (adjusted for inflation)
• 6 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (worldwide; legacy)
• 11 = Number of days to gross $100 million
• 11 = Number of digital sound presentations
• 26 = Rank on all-time list of top box-office earners at close of original release
• 2,644 = Number of opening-week engagements

• $24.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (VHS)
• $39.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (LaserDisc)
• $17,279 = Opening-weekend per-screen average
• $45.7 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross*
• $47.7 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross* (3-day weekend + 6/18 sneaks)
• $80.0 million = Production cost
• $83.2 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
• $100.1 million = Box-office rental (domestic)
• $104.0 million = Box-office gross (international)
• $139.4 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $162.8 million = Box-office gross (domestic)
• $174.5 million = Box-office rental (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $181.2 million = Box-office gross (international, adjusted for inflation)
• $266.8 million = Box-office gross (worldwide)
• $283.8 million = Box-office gross (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $465.1 million = Box-office gross (worldwide, adjusted for inflation)

*established new industry record

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“This Batman soars! A funny, gorgeous improvement on the original.” — Richard Corliss, Time

“It is a common theory that when you have a hero, like James Bond, Superman or Batman, in a continuing series, it’s the villain that gives each movie its flavor. Batman had the Joker, played Jack Nicholson, to lend it energy, but the Penguin is a curiously meager and depressing creature; I pitied him, but did not fear him or find him funny. The genius of Danny DeVito is all but swallowed up in the paraphernalia of the role. Batman Returns is odd and sad, but not exhilarating.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Batman Returns has wonderful, scary music (by Elfman, no Prince this time) and a wonderful, scary look — courtesy of cinematographer Stefan Czapsky (Vampire’s Kiss, Edward Scissorhands) and production designer Bo Welch, carrying on in the style of the late Anton Furst, who designed the first Batman). The performances are generally good, not just Keaton’s but also that of Michelle Pfeiffer, who is shockingly feline in her skin-tight black-leather suit (with whip accessory) and who manages to find a measure of plausibility in the bizarre Catwoman.” — Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel

“No matter how Batman Returns performs at the box office, I doubt that Burton will make a third installment. He seems to have thrown all his ideas into this one, including touches from his other movies: the sympathetic, handicapped monster from Edward Scissorhands, the comic demons from Beetlejuice and the freak show comedy from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.” — Bob Fenster, (Phoenix) Arizona Republic

“For Hollywood, summer is increasingly the season of the big-budget gamble. Batman Returns may be the surest box office bet of the year, but when you get past the saturation merchandising to the movie itself, it’s hard not to notice there’s no Joker in the deck this time.” — Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Burton loses a few points for including egotistical references to his other films, ranging from ice sculptures that are dead ringers for the surrealistic hedges in Edward Scissorhands to dialogue borrowed from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. When Michelle Pfeiffer says, ‘That’s my name, don’t wear it out,’ it’s too much.” — Jeff Strickler, (Minneapolis) Star Tribune

“Faster and funnier than the first. Explosively entertaining.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“A visual marvel.” — David Ansen, Newsweek

“Darker, louder and more confusing than a cheap carnival fun house, Batman Returns is an assault on the eyes and ears, not to mention the intelligence.” — Joe Pollack, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“On all counts, Batman Returns is a monster. Follow-up to the sixth-highest-grossing film of all time has the same dark allure that drew audiences in three years ago. But many non-fans of the initial outing will find this sequel superior in several respects, meaning that Tim Burton’s latest exercise in fabulist dementia should receive even stronger across-the-board acceptance than the original. Warner Bros.’ reported $80 million-plus investment will be an afterthought in the wake of the [box office] cascade, which should approach the $250 million neighborhood of the first pic domestically.” — Variety

“Batman Returns, the most eagerly awaited and aggressively hyped film of the summer, is, for better or worse, very much the product of director Tim Burton’s morose imagination. His dark, melancholy vision is undeniably something to see, but it is a claustrophobic conception, not an expansive one, oppressive rather than exhilarating, and it strangles almost all the enjoyment out of this movie without half trying. The result is a cheerless, brooding but always visually inventive film, more or less what you might expect if Ingmar Bergman had directed The Addams Family.” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“This time the richness of the Batman movie is not in its production design — indeed, designer Bo Welch is a toy shop window decorator compared with the late, great Anton Furst — but rather in Burton’s and screenwriter Daniel Waters’ Freudian view of adult human behavior. If all this makes Batman Returns seem overly serious, well, that’s an overstatement. But it should be a pleasure for non-adolescents to encounter a comic-book action picture in which the characters are more important than their gadgets.” — Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“Tim Burton has wisely switched gears, reinventing the mood and manner of Batman so fearlessly that he steps out of his own film’s murky shadow. Mr. Burton’s new Batman Returns is as sprightly as its predecessor was sluggish, and it succeeds in banishing much of the dourness and tedium that made the first film such an ordeal. Indeed, allowing for a ceiling on viewers’ interest as to just what can transpire between cartoon characters like Batman and the Penguin, Batman Returns is often an unexpectedly droll creation. It stands as evidence that movie properties, like this story’s enchantingly mixed-up Catwoman, really can have multiple lives.” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Now comes the sequel with a trio of masked schizophrenics who each seem to be in a separate movie when they’re not at each other’s throats. It’s a film more cartoonish and less apocalyptic than the original, revving with spectacle, energy and chaos, but rarely very funny, startling or provocative. At best, Batman Returns manages to be fitfully offbeat and quirky but only in ways we’ve seen before in Tim Burton movies.” — Judy Gerstel, Detroit Free Press

“Hampered by weak pacing, nonexistent story structure and routine action sequences, Burton and screenwriter Daniel Waters have emphasized a surprising degree of dark, kinky humor that nicely counters the film’s box-office mayhem. Waters has an annoying tendency towards gutter-minded punchlines (he cowrote The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and Hudson Hawk), but his knack for quirky dialogue yields a few memorable gems that must be heard to be appreciated.” — Jeff Shannon, The Seattle Times

“Batman Returns is all icing and no cake. The picture won’t disappoint anyone looking for film making on a grand scale. Batman Returns is as big as movies get in 1992 and represents the efforts of hundreds of talented people working in set and costume design, special effects and inventive gadgetry. It also features four big stars and a number of famous faces, all of them turning in good performances. Yet for all the movie’s richness and dazzle, for all that money dripping off the screen, Batman Returns is a gorgeous failure — flashy, intermittently appealing but, in the end, a big mess. Batman Returns lacks a coherent story. It lacks a point of view and a focus. And so everything suffers, even the art direction.” — Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

THE DIGITAL SOUND ENGAGEMENTS

Batman Returns was the first motion picture released in Dolby Stereo Digital* (aka Dolby SR-D, AC-3, Dolby Digital), and the first batch of theaters to install the system and present the movie in the format are identified below.

The theaters screening the Dolby Stereo Digital presentation of Batman Returns were arguably the best in which to experience the movie and the only way at the time to faithfully hear the movie’s discrete multichannel audio mix and with incredible sonic clarity. The channel layout for Dolby’s digital audio format was: three discrete screen channels + two discrete surround channels + low-frequency enhancement. (The balance of the 2,000+ domestic prints of Batman Returns were a combination of Dolby SR and Dolby A four-channel matrix-encoded, limited bandwidth formats.)

*Prior to the release of Batman Returns in June 1992, there were un-promoted Dolby Stereo Digital test screenings of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (released December 1991) and Newsies (April 1992).

So, for historical reference, the first-run North American theaters that screened the digital sound version of Batman Returns were….

CALIFORNIA

• Lakewood — Pacific’s Lakewood Center 4-plex
• Los Angeles — Mann’s Chinese Triplex [THX]
• Los Angeles — Mann’s Village [THX]
• Newport Beach — Edwards’ Newport Triplex
• Orange — Syufy’s Century Cinedome 11-plex
• San Francisco — UA’s Coronet

NEW YORK

• New York — Loews’ Village 7-plex [THX]
• New York — UA’s Criterion 7-plex
• New York — UA’s Gemini Twin

TEXAS

• Dallas — General Cinema’s Northpark West Twin [THX]

WASHINGTON

• Bellevue — Act III’s Crossroads 8-plex [THX]

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THE Q&A

Jeff Bond is the author of Danse Macabre: 25 Years of Danny Elfman and Tim Burton (included in The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box, Warner Bros., 2011). He also wrote The Music of Star Trek (Lone Eagle, 1999) and (with Joe Fordham) Planet of the Apes: The Evolution of the Legendary Franchise (Titan, 2014) and The Art of Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline (forthcoming from Titan). Jeff is the former editor of Geek magazine, covered film music for The Hollywood Reporter for ten years, and has contributed liner notes to numerous CD soundtrack releases. He also has portrayed Dr. McCoy on the Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II Internet series.

Scott Mendelson is a box office analyst and film critic for Forbes magazine. He has also written for Film Threat, The Huffington Post and Salon.

Bruce Scivally is the author of Billion Dollar Batman: A History of the Caped Crusader on Film, Radio and Television from 10¢ Comic Book to Global Icon (Henry Gray, 2011). His other books include Dracula FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Count from Transylvania (Backbeat, 2015), Superman on Film, Television, Radio & Broadway (McFarland, 2006) and (with John Cork) James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002). As well, he has written and produced numerous documentaries and featurettes that have appeared as supplemental material on LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc, including several of the Charlie Chan, James Bond, and Pink Panther releases. He is Vice President of New Dimension Media in Chicago, Illinois.

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Batman Returns be remembered on its 25th anniversary?

Jeff Bond: Both Burton’s Batman films are pivotal both to lay the foundations for the serious, psychologically complex superhero movies we see today, and as the illustration of Tim Burton as an utterly unique artist who was given the reigns to Warner Bros.’ and DC’s priceless comic book superheroes. He was allowed to take these iconic characters, who for years had been marketed as toys and coloring books and comic books generating millions and millions of dollars, and potentially risk destroying all of that as a revenue stream and cultural artifact by reinterpreting them through his totally idiosyncratic vision — and it worked.

Scott Mendelson: It remains something of a pop-culture anomaly. It was a financially successful summer release nonetheless remembered for its poor audience reception and lightning-fast box office downfall. The film was the first modern quick-kill blockbuster, in that it was so anticipated and opened so well (a record $47 million opening weekend) that it ended up making a ton of money even though most folks didn’t care much for it…. It some ways, it is the best live-action Batman movie, offering insanely original imagery and deeply weird characters amid a Grimm fairy tale reimagining of the Batman mythos that nonetheless is relatively faithful to the late-1980s/early-1990s comic book era. It is a fine example of going against the source material in the service of a better movie, or at least in the service of the specific character drama that a filmmaker is trying to tell.

Bruce Scivally: In 1989, after a decade of false starts, Batman opened to become one of the hottest movie tickets of the summer. Unlike 1978’s Superman, which established the template for big-budget “A” list superhero movies — and was practically the only “A” list superhero franchise for the next decade — Batman showed that there was room in the superhero universe for a darker conception of what a hero could be. But the first film was such a phenomenon that it raised a crucial question — was its success just a fluke, a combination of good timing, savvy marketing and superstar casting (Jack Nicholson, who played the Joker, was at the height of his fame)? Or was it a sustainable franchise, whose success could be repeated? Warner Bros. gambled on the latter, and backed the production of a sequel, under the guidance of the same director (Tim Burton), the same producers (including Michael Uslan, the originator of the project who fought tremendous odds to bring a Batman to the screen that wasn’t Day-Glo campy like the 1960s TV series), and the same star (Michael Keaton, whose career shift from manic comedy roles to brooding loner parts was helped greatly by Batman’s success). It was a calculated gamble that paid off; Batman Returns, like its predecessor, became a bona-fide box-office blockbuster.

Coate: What did you think of Batman Returns? Can you recall your reaction to the first time you saw it?

Bond: My reaction was complicated — I really loved Burton’s original Batman, and I do remember being truly impressed by just what an auteur’s vision Batman Returns was. But for my taste it almost went all the way over into self-indulgence, where the action movie roots got swamped by almost a celebration of victimhood and outsiders — basically everyone from Batman to Catwoman to the Penguin is a wounded, brooding social outcast, which is what Burton understood best, and that all got kind of lugubrious for me and sucked the fun out of it. A lot of the action in Batman was driven by the second unit director Peter MacDonald, and I think I missed his touch on the second one. But I appreciate it more today, especially for Walken’s and Michelle Pfeiffer’s performances.

Mendelson: I loved it when I was 12 and I still love it. It’s kind of an art house blockbuster, where if it wasn’t based on known characters it probably would have been hailed as an indie arthouse masterpiece of sorts. It’s deeply weird, often painful in its character melodrama and absolutely rooted more in character than plot or long-form storytelling. And, sad to say, but Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is every bit as “groundbreaking” a major female character in a mega-blockbuster as she was twenty-five years ago.

Scivally: I had felt that the first Batman film was a triumph of marketing over movie-making (for me, its plot rambles and often makes little sense). Batman Returns was more tightly scripted, but it began the formula of multiple villains in each film. If you count Max Shreck (named for the actor who starred in the 1922 horror film Nosferatu), there were three villains in Batman Returns, as opposed to one in the first film. The more villains you have, the less screen time you have to devote to each one and to their conflicts with Batman. More importantly, the more villains you have, the less time you have to devote to your hero. This contributed to Michael Keaton leaving the series; with Batman Returns, he felt that he was a guest star in his own film series (indeed, in the film’s first half hour, Keaton is on screen for only about five minutes). The reason for the glut of villains has more to do with the marketing team than with the creative team; Warner Bros. began to look at the Batman films as elaborate toy ads — the more villains there were in the film, the more different kinds of toys they could sell. At the same time, it firmly established the film series as a kind of counterpart to the TV series, in that both featured high-profile name actors as villains.

Coate: In what way is Batman Returns significant within the superhero/comicbook genre?

Bond: It’s the first auteur superhero movie. On Batman, I think Tim Burton was given an unusual freedom of expression, but he was still under the reigns of Warner Bros. and I think there were some important decisions that were not necessarily left to him. I think they brought Peter MacDonald in to make sure they were getting a slam-bang action movie. Then once they had an incredible hit with Batman and Burton made Edward Scissorhands, which was a totally personal film and still a huge hit, I think the execs at Warners realized that you just let Tim Burton alone and let him make a Tim Burton movie and people will see it in droves. So there is so much strangeness in Batman Returns — opening it with the journey of that little floating cradle holding the Penguin, and ending it with an attack on Gotham by an army of rocket-armed live penguins, and all sorts of other stuff — it’s an insane movie and probably one of the most insane blockbuster movies ever made.

Mendelson: The overall lesson of Batman Returns, in terms of its reception, was that these big movies, even the ones that were PG-13 and arguably aimed at older kids/adults, were going to be viewed by very young kids. After Batman Returns, we saw a slight neutering of genuinely adult content (sex and violence) in popcorn blockbuster movies of this nature. It led to the PG-13 slowly but surely being turned into a glorified PG, before Lord of the Rings sent everything in the other direction where any number of PG-13 movies are basically R-rated movies edited “just so” for that kid-friendly rating…. But even today, twenty-five years later, you’d never see anything as weird or kinky or outright sexual in a comic book superhero movie as you did with Batman Returns. Even something like Logan is basically a standard western with R-rated violence, and Deadpool is a bawdy action comedy that mostly plays nice with its audience and characters.

Scivally: Like its predecessor, Batman Returns is significant for its tone and the portrayal of its main character. National Periodical Publications/DC Comics had considered ceasing publication of the comic books due to low sales until the TV series premiered and made the character one of the “3 B’s” of the 1960s — the Beatles, Bond, and Batman. Although the TV series accurately captured the tone of the comic books of that era, many fans who came of age in the 1970s — when the comic books took a more serious, adult tone and approached the character more seriously — hated the campy depiction of their hero. Michael Uslan made it his mission to bring a vision of Batman to the big screen that would be more in keeping with the 1970s conception, and found it nearly impossible to overcome the deeply ingrained perception of Batman as a “silly” comic book. It helped that by the time Batman was released in 1989, comic books had become “graphic novels” with a readership of young adults rather than young kids, and writer Frank Miller had reinvented Batman with a critically-acclaimed 1986 graphic novel masterpiece, The Dark Knight Returns. After the disappointing box-office returns of two campy Superman movies and a Supergirl film, Batman and Batman Returns began the evolution of superhero movies into darker tales made, like the first two Superman films, primarily for adults, not children.

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Coate: In what way is Batman Returns significant as a sequel?

Bond: Again, it was the way Warner Bros. empowered Tim Burton just to make the movie he wanted and not worry about how this was serving the franchise or setting up other movies (in fact there was talk of moving forward with more Keaton/Burton Batman movies but eventually you had Joel Schumacher, who was like the opposite of Tim Burton, take over). It set the precedent for giving these franchise films to up and coming, creative directors to see what kind of energy they’d bring to it — but no one has ever brought the kind of personal vision to a comic book film that Burton did.

Mendelson: Batman Returns sticks out today as a sequel that is both a part of its franchise (it acknowledges the events of Batman) and utterly its own separate thing. It is not remotely concerned with the next sequel nor any kind of world-building beyond the story being told in its 126-minute running time. It was also notable in terms of a sequel being a full-on work of auteurism as opposed to a more “half studio/half filmmaker” original franchise starter. Think Transformers 2, Batman & Robin, The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2.

Scivally: The initial Superman film showed that a comic book movie could be made like an “A” list film and draw an adult audience; the first Batman film showed that the public would buy a version of Batman that was darker than the Adam West TV version. The second film proved that the success of the first Batman film was repeatable, establishing it as a viable franchise.

Coate: Where do you think Batman Returns ranks among director Tim Burton’s body of work?

Bond: It was confirmation that Burton could do blockbusters, make them his way, and have them be huge hits. He’s probably the strangest director that Hollywood has ever consistently given millions of dollars to make movies and given him almost absolute freedom to do so, and I think that’s wonderful. After years of Tim Burton movies you do get people making fun of their conventions but there is no one else who makes movies like him — he is a genre unto himself and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Mendelson: I think it’s Tim Burton’s second best movie behind Ed Wood. It’s a deeply personal work inside a comic book superhero sequel and I think its “controversy” broke him for a while. But it just took a while for the kids who grew up on Beetlejuice and Pee-wee to grow up to be adults and the new generation of film critics/media for him to get his due as more than just a great art director.

Scivally: I can’t answer this question in good faith, because I have not seen all of Tim Burton’s films. I wouldn’t rank it among his best works (that honor goes to Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Big Eyes), but it’s not among his worst, either. It’s middling. It definitely has the unique look of a Burton film, existing in a studio-bound universe all its own (it’s an odd world: a mostly black, decrepit Gotham, overrun with giant-sized Fascist statuary, angled rooftops with an abundance of smoke-belching exhaust pipes, and people running about dressed like it’s the 1940s instead of the 1990s; production designer Bo Welch conceived it as a city that was “huge, dehumanizing and falling in on itself”), it moves at a good pace and has fine performances, and is more tightly-plotted than the rather sloppy Batman film that preceded it, but for me it’s undone by having the Penguin be Shreck’s stooge rather than a criminal mastermind in his own right, and Batman not really having much to do.

Coate: How effective or memorable a villain was Danny DeVito’s The Penguin?

Bond: To my thinking DeVito’s performance, and the way it was guided by Burton, is the biggest miscalculation in the movie, because he is so unpleasant, creepy and scary that his scenes kind of suck the fun out of the movie. Contrast that with Christopher Walken’s scenes, which are arguably the most fun parts of the movie. Walken manages to be an unpredictable, effective villain, but he’s also hilarious, and this is a movie with attacking penguins, so you’d think it would be a little more fun. But the other side of the coin is that it’s part of the journey toward the darker superhero movies of today like The Dark Knight or even Logan. People forget that the only previous comic book movies were the Superman films, which were bright and funny and charming, and no one had seen a blockbuster comic book movie that was dark and gothic before. So maybe you couldn’t have Heath Ledger’s Joker without Danny DeVito’s Penguin.

Mendelson: It’s a terrific piece of movie star acting, utterly fearless and yet oddly sympathetic. He relishes creating a three-dimensional baddie that actually acts like an adult (sexual kinks and all).

Scivally: DeVito’s Penguin is a truly horrible and disgusting creature, with his white face, beak nose, claw hands, black eyes, sharp grey teeth, and scraggly hair. And in almost every scene there’s something drooling over his chin — raw fish, blood, black bile. But he’s not the real villain of the piece. That honor goes to Max Shreck, played by Christopher Walken. Max (the second time Walken played a villain named Max in a major franchise, after being Max Zorin in 1985’s 007 film A View to a Kill) is a wealthy businessman with political influence whose public beneficence hides sinister intentions. The Penguin, meanwhile, is an attention-starved, lecherous walking id longing to be accepted and praised. The idea that anyone like Shreck, or the Penguin, could ever fool the public enough to attain high political office is absurd. Right?

Coate: How effective or memorable a villain was Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman?

Bond: You can make a pretty good argument that Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was the best ever done — her introduction is a bravura sequence and her chemistry with Michael Keaton is electrifying and outrageously ups the ante on the old Adam West/Julie Newmar interaction from the 1966 show, which was groundbreaking on its own. The Pfeiffer Catwoman I think was a pivotal piece of proto-feminism in showing her origin as really a reaction to the sexist, condescending treatment of Christopher Walken’s character, so she becomes less a villain than an antihero who’s out there kicking ass for women all over, and even taking her rage out on another woman who she sees as acting too much the victim during a wave of street crime. Between Burton’s staging, the cinematography and her costume design, she might be the first convincing female comic book superhero character in the movies.

Mendelson: I’m not going to say she should have won the Oscar that year, because I’m a big Marisa Tomei fan, but Pfeiffer should darn well have at least been nominated for her richly introspective bit of villainy. It’s not only a wonderful melodramatic performance but a sharp bit of ahead-of-its-time satire that pokes brutal fun at the now in-vogue “strong female character” trope.

Scivally: Michelle Pfeiffer was an outstanding Catwoman. Like Penguin, she was — at least while clad in black leather — a walking id, while her Selina Kyle persona developed from being mousy at the beginning to more bold by the end, as her Catwoman-self allowed her to claim and embrace her inner feminine power. She’s just as schizophrenic and mentally unbalanced as Bruce Wayne/Batman. And the actress (a last-minute replacement for Annette Bening, who became pregnant prior to the commencement of filming) certainly committed herself to her role — the bird that flies out of her mouth was done for real, not with special effects.

Coate: What is the legacy of Batman Returns?

Bond: Both Burton’s Batman films are pivotal both to lay the foundations for the serious, psychologically complex superhero movies we see today, and as the illustration of Tim Burton as an utterly unique artist who was given the reigns to Warner Bros.’ and DC’s priceless comic book superheroes.

Mendelson: As I wrote back in September: This gorgeous, haunting and unexpectedly moving comic book superhero sequel was an arthouse horror story using the protection of the most famous “branded” material in the world. It somewhat backfired on audiences and critics, who didn’t care for gore and sexuality in their kid-targeted superhero story. But the film stands tall today as an uncommonly personal and challenging blockbuster…. Part “faithful” adaptation of the late-80s/early-90s Batman comics, part “Batman as a fairy tale,” this deliciously macabre action comedy is still one of the all-time great comic book adaptations. It also operates as a metaphor for the main character, with each of the three villains (Danny De Vito’s bitter abandoned orphan, Michelle Pfeiffer’s righteously crazed murderous vigilante and Christopher Walken’s heartlessly evil corporate tycoon) represented a “what-if” worst case scenario path that our hero could have taken…. And yeah, I loved it in 1992, was befuddled by the reception (I always found Batman to be far more violent) and was saddened when it led to the de-fanging of the PG-13 for a while. But it’s still one of the great comic book superhero movies of all time and stands alongside Mission: Impossible and Terminator 2 as one of the big “really for adults” tentpole blockbusters of the mid-1990s.

Scivally: The film is more tightly scripted than its predecessor, with a theme of rejection and acceptance; it begins with the ultimate rejection, as the Cobblepots throw their deformed baby into a river, and continues with Penguin’s desire for acceptance leading him to run for Mayor. In addition, there’s Selena Kyle, a wallflower who appears to have been rejected by men all her life, culminating with her boss, Max Shreck, pushing her out of a high window (an extreme rejection), and being reborn as the overtly sexual Catwoman. And Batman faces rejection from the citizens of Gotham when the Penguin makes it look as though he’s killed the city’s Ice Princess and run down its citizens in a Penguin-controlled Batmobile — and ultimately, he’s rejected by Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Batman Returns isn’t so much a superhero film as it is a dreamlike vision — or nightmare vision — of a city where the sun never shines, and the superheroes and supervillains are deeply psychologically scarred outsiders looking for their place in a society that rejects them, a theme that Burton often revisits in his best films. It is chock-full of the kind of bizarrely outré imagery typical of Burton’s imagination, but that imagination tends to bend in a morbid direction, which is what ultimately spelled the end of Burton’s reign as Batman director — kids whose parents took them to the film because it was promoted with McDonald’s Happy Meals were frightened by its dark themes, so Warner Bros. quietly pushed Burton aside and brought in a director who would be more willing to play ball with the studio and make the films more kid-friendly, leading to the neon, hyper-kinetic Batman films of Joel Schumacher.

Coate: Thank you — Jeff, Scott and Bruce — for sharing your thoughts on Batman Returns on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its release.

--END--

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Warner Bros., Warner Home Video.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Widescreen Review. All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

SPECIAL THANKS

Don Beelik, Kathryn Devine, Bobby Henderson, Brad Miller, and to the San Francisco Public Library and Washington State Library.

IN MEMORIAM

Bob Kane (Batman creator), 1915-1998
Stuart Lancaster (“Penguin’s Doctor”), 1920-2000
Rick Zumwalt (“Tattooed Strongman”), 1951-2003
Vincent Schiavelli (“Organ Grinder”), 1948-2005
Pat Hingle (“Commissioner Gordon”), 1924-2009
Michael Gough (“Alfred”), 1916-2011
Marion Dougherty (Casting), 1923-2011
Jan Hooks (“Jen”), 1957-2014

-Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

The Next Generation, which ran seven seasons and noteworthy to home theater enthusiasts for its highly-regarded Blu-ray release (reviewed here), premiered thirty years ago this autumn, and similar to our other Star Trek retrospectives (here, here and here), The Bits for the occasion has assembled a Q&A with an esteemed group of Treksperts who examine the best episodes and offer commentary on the show’s appeal, influence and legacy.

The participants (in alphabetical order)….

Mark A. Altman is the co-author of the two-volume The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek (St. Martin’s Press, 2016).

Robert Meyer Burnett is the co-producer of the Value Added Material found on the Star Trek: The Next Generation Blu-ray Disc season sets.

Zaki Hasan is a contributor writer of Outside In Makes It So: 174 New Perspectives on 174 Star Trek TNG Stories by 174 Writers (edited by Robert Smith, ATB Publishing, 2017).

Larry Nemecek is the author of The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion (Pocket, 1992; updated in 1995 and 2003).

Denise and Michael Okuda are the authors of The Star Trek Encyclopedia (Pocket, 1994; Revised and Expanded Edition, HarperCollins, 2016).

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way do you think Star Trek: The Next Generation should be remembered on its 30th anniversary?

Mark A. Altman: Other than the occasional Star Trek feature, Star Trek was less a part of the tapestry of our popular culture back in 1987 than now, not to mention the thought of an intellectual property being resurrected like Star Trek was virtually unheard of at the time. If you weren’t there, it’s hard to imagine the palpable fervor fans had over the return of Star Trek to TV, although even then the naysayers said if you don’t have Kirk and Spock, you don’t have me. I think the show is ultimately remembered extremely fondly. For a lot of fans who grew up on the series, this is their Star Trek. And it was groundbreaking in many ways. Ultimately, TNG is probably the least divisive show of all of them. Most Star Trek fans enjoy the show and a lot of that has to with the casting. Patrick Stewart is simply brilliant as Picard and anchored the show, but the entire ensemble is beloved and infused their often thinly written characters with a lot of depth even when it wasn’t always on the page.

Robert Meyer Burnett: TNG, after an admittedly rocky beginning, both in front of and behind the camera, eventually reinvented a pop-culture phenomena and carried it back into the cultural zeitgeist, evolving and then far surpassing the cultural reach of the original. Unlike previous television series, the show concluded at the height of its international popularity, directly leading into the cast’s first feature film, Generations, an unprecedented achievement. The television landscape never saw anything remotely like it before... or arguably since. TNG also carried an enormous appeal for women, not only because of the addition of the female leads Crusher and Troi, but also because the series consistently stressed the value of communication and interpersonal relationships rather than fisticuffs and charging in where angels fear to tread, so closely associated with The Original Series. Most importantly, this kinder, gentler Star Trek completely broke free of the now weathered Trekkie stereotype, instead planting a flag right smack dab in the middle of mainstream culture, a culture being rapidly transformed by the information age and its Genesis Device of the home computer. The Next Generation was absolutely the first great television program of the modern information age.

Zaki Hasan: It’s the little sequel that could. No one had any faith in its long-term prospects, but without it the Star Trek franchise would have gone into drydock once Captain Kirk and Co. turned in their retirement papers. As a syndicated spin-off arriving in an era littered with similar such ventures (anyone remember The New Leave it to Beaver or The New Adam-12?), Star Trek: The Next Generation shouldn’t have worked, yet the fact that it not only survived but thrived is a testament to both the ironclad premise of the original show, but also all the ways the new one was specifically engineered to stand apart from it. Few are the sequels/spin-offs that can claim a fanbase that’s just as devoted and beloved as that of the “mothership,” but The Next Generation managed it, and then some.

Larry Nemecek: As the Star Trek that not only proved The Original Series was no fluke, but that the Roddenberry Vision was still relevant and financially viable, reflecting a goodness in ordinary viewers… and as the “comeback kid” to a “failed” little show that became the biggest success story in TV history as well as a cultural landmark — perhaps the biggest in modern history, when all is said and done. And as the event that truly broke open the potential of the Star Trek universe.

Denise Okuda: There’s a whole generation of fans for whom Star Trek: The Next Generation was their gateway into Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future, just as the original series was to me. To those fans, TNG will always be very special.

Michael Okuda: Star Trek: The Next Generation marked not only the rebirth of Star Trek, but it helped open the doors for a whole genre of science fiction television, from Babylon 5, to X-Files, to Quantum Leap, to Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica, and even Firefly. I think there’s a whole generation of science fiction fans to whom TNG was the gateway.

Gene Roddenberry’s new spinoff was a bold, radical departure from his beloved original series, I was incredibly lucky to have been hired by Roddenberry, Bob Justman, and Herman Zimmerman to help create a new starship for the show. As a life-long fan, it was a dream come true. Still, I was more than a little wary of Roddenberry’s insistence that the new ship be a radical departure from Kirk’s vessel.

Thirty years later, it’s clear the Great Bird of the Galaxy was right: The new show needed a new ship and a new crew to blaze its own trail. I’m proud to have been part of the team at Paramount Pictures that launched Star Trek: The Next Generation on seven magical years of adventure into the final frontier.

Coate: What did you think of The Next Generation upon your first viewing?

Altman: I so wanted to love it and as flawed as Farpoint was, I saw potential despite the fact that it was not very good. Obviously, there are great moments and you could see the seed of an intriguing series, but it hadn’t really come together in the premiere. What was more dispiriting was the second episode, The Naked Now, which is just atrocious and paved the way for a series of clunkers that really left people questioning whether this series would ever amount to anything. There’s no question in my mind had TNG not debuted in first run syndication and was owned by Paramount, any network would have cancelled it after 13 episodes. I was in college at the time and we huddled around a 19” television to watch it and I remember all being somewhat underwhelmed. Strangely enough, the following week I flew out to Los Angeles and visited the set of Too Short a Season to write about it as a journalist, which was the first of many visits to the set. I was genuinely intrigued on that visit by how much the cast really did seem to like each other and saw glimmers of possibilities for the fledgling series. The best thing about it was John DeLancie as Q and that was a thinly veiled Trelane substitute at best.

Burnett: I’d already been a life-long Trekker. In fact, I was so fanatical, I’d even skipped out of college and hopped on a plane from Seattle in November of ’86 to see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in Los Angeles, because my great friend Taylor White had tickets to see it in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Theater on Wilshire Blvd. By September of ’87, the beginning of TNG’s first season, I was a junior in college at Evergreen State. There, I hosted what I still believe to be the Washington State Premiere of the series. TNG debuted three days earlier in the Los Angeles market than in my neck of the woods, so I had Taylor Fed-Ex me a VHS tape of Farpoint. I daisy-chained a bank of TVs to a VCR in the bottom of Evergreen’s A-Dorm, printed flyers and posted them all around campus, and wound up having a huge turnout to watch the series premiere. For the next 24 hours, people just kept coming in and rewinding the tape, watching it over and over again. I think I watched it about five or six times, taking in every detail, and I’m quite sure half the campus had seen it before I finally reclaimed my tape.

Upon first viewing, I actually loved it. While it did seem stilted, alien, and of course nothing was familiar, and it strangely seemed even older than TOS, yet somehow, it still seemed very, very Star Trek to me. I tuned in with a religious fervor week after week. It was obvious from the first episode Patrick Stewart was perfect as Picard, completely reinventing what I’d come to understand as the quintessential starship captain. Data also obviously really worked, but not much else initially did. Farpoint was certainly no The Man Trap. However, that first season does have some gems, including The Big Goodbye, 11001001, Coming of Age, Heart of Glory, and the absolute guilty pleasure of Conspiracy, which has an incredible first half and a very, very enjoyably pulpy second.

Hasan: My first viewing was at a friend’s house in fall of ’87, watching a handful of minutes from Encounter at Farpoint on VHS, all without even the slightest indication that a new Star Trek was even in the offing. I was seven at the time and living abroad, but had nonetheless become accustomed to Original Series reruns and the first four movies. As such, the notion of a totally different Enterprise commanded by a bald British guy was a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Needless to say, I didn’t make it very far that first viewing. In fact, it wasn’t until the first season was in reruns the following summer that my brother, five years older and ultimate arbiter of my pop culture tastes, said it was okay and gave me the go-ahead. The first episode I saw the whole way through was Datalore, and from there to the end, I was a capital-F Fan.

Nemecek: Thinking that the “80 years ahead” timeframe was a great way to preserve TOS without a reboot…thinking it was definitely a pilot, even if it felt a bit “creaky” at times but celebrating each success of character, plot and audience attraction.

D. Okuda: To be honest, I was a little disappointed with Encounter at Farpoint. On the other hand, I knew that Gene Roddenberry was at the helm, and that he had an excellent team, so I was pretty sure it would find its own footing.

M. Okuda: When you work on a TV show or movie, your perspective is quite different from watching something as a member of the audience. For me, I was immensely proud to be part of the team bringing Roddenberry’s new vision to life. At the same time, nearly anyone who works in production will tell you that when you look at your own work, it’s really hard to see beyond the flaws, beyond the things you wish you could have done.

Coate: In what way was Star Trek: The Next Generation significant?

Altman:  I don’t think TNG is as significant in the annals of television as The Original Series which was incredibly groundbreaking and a monumental achievement in television. TNG really built on the template of what TOS had established. That said, it was significant in a few ways; first, featuring a bald, older man as its series lead and introducing the world to Patrick Stewart. Yes, he’d been in Dune, Excalibur, I, Claudius and Lifeforce and a bunch of other films and theater, but he really emerges as a potent leading man through this series. Also, the distribution channel is significant. Through first run syndication, which became a viable distribution medium for a variety of shows through the 90s, was a very lucrative and successful distribution channel for the studio and later Warner Bros. It was a way to exploit niche shows and make a huge amount of money from them. It wasn’t until all the channel groups started to get absorbed by the weblets like UPN and WB later on that it wasn’t really a viable model anymore. The other way it’s significant is it gave us so many important showrunners who were minted here ranging from the brilliant Ronald Moore to Brannon Braga to Rene Echevarria to Naren Shankar and many others who’ve gone off and created or run many others significant genre series. It also did a remarkable job of exploring Klingon culture and, of course, The Borg are a significant contribution to the Trek mythology as well.

Burnett: If nothing else, TNG proved the creative spark need not die after the birth of one television phenomenon. As Patrick Stewart himself will tell you, no one really believed TNG would ever work. It began as a crazy experiment in a new television business model, the one-hour syndicated drama, and eventually led to twenty-five seasons of beloved television which continue to inspire worldwide audiences over a quarter century later. If that’s not a success story to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

Hasan: First and foremost, its success on the small screen proved Roddenberry was several decades ahead of his time back when The Original Series limped and gasped its way to three seasons on NBC. In terms of the overall franchise, it’s most important for how it de-coupled the Trek brand from its original stars and made it truly a “universe” that could stretch far into the future while withstanding several different variations on the premise.

Nemecek: TNG’s biggest gift to all of Trek, to all of pop culture…is to show that not only can you catch lightning in a bottle again, you can do it even better — and with an even better bottle!

Meaning, as world-affecting as The Original Series was with all its aspirational memes, archetypes and world-building magnetism…The Next Generation — an off-network sequel that was a huge gamble financially as well as conceptually — magnified everything great about original Star Trek and magnified it to a whole new level. Star Trek was no longer just about a hero crew on one starship in one future time window: TNG opened up Roddenberry’s universe and vision to encompass an entire timeline, across centuries forward from and backwards to us, and even alternate timelines to those.

TNG showed just how huge the Star Trek “sandbox” could be, with all kinds of nooks and crannies yet to play in — even parallel “levels” — all carrying the same connected look, feel and philosophy as a mirror on our own times. A futuristic, optimistic, respectful take on whatever the world of today needed to hear... to get to the world of tomorrow. Again, carrying all the success seeds of TOS — but just sown across a much bigger field of vision.

TNG also made rationality, intellectualism and science problem-solving in the real world cool — if that was even possible to do after Spock, it took it via Data and Geordi and Picard himself to a whole new level: that talk, not fighting, could unlock peace through understanding, sometimes in surprising (Darmok, Microbrain, Borg liberation) ways.

D. Okuda: Star Trek: TNG was the first major syndicated hour-long science fiction series. It proved that you can do science fiction outside the major networks, thereby creating a whole new pipeline for imaginative programming. It was also the first show of its kind to have a real budget, so it really could compete against network fare.

M. Okuda: TNG was the first major science fiction series to take advantage of the then-cutting edge technologies of motion-control miniature photography and digital video compositing. This made it possible for the show to have far more visual effects than had been possible with the original series, which was dependent on traditional photochemical optical effects, and thereby greatly increased the visual scope of the series.

Coate: Which are the standout episodes (or seasons) of The Next Generation?

Altman: I still think the third season is the best season of all of them. It took some risks that didn’t always pay off, but Michael Piller really forged the show’s identity that season. As far as best episodes there are a couple that I still love such that aren’t the usual suspects. Best of Both Worlds always shows up at the top of these lists like City on the Edge of Forever does for TOS, and deservedly so, but I think there some smaller, less well known episodes that number among my favorites including first season’s 11001001 and third season’s The Survivors. In a way I prefer Q Who to Best of Both Worlds and I adore Family, Tapestry, Lower Decks, Who Watches the Watchers, The Drumhead, Yesterday’s Enterprise, and the finale, All Good Things (even though it was really hampered by all the excessive technobabble Michael Piller insisted on when it should have really stayed focused on character which is what Ron and Brannon correctly wanted).

Burnett: In my mind Season Three remains the most important season of TNG’s run. The significance of Michael Piller’s arrival cannot be undersold. Without it, TNG might never have survived its third season, much less gone on to change the face of the television business forever by proving the viability of the hour-long syndicated dramatic series. Piller’s greatest contribution to Trek, mandating stories originated with the characters first, instead of some outside force, alien or otherwise, marked a huge sea-change in modern Trek storytelling. As Ira Behr says in our Resistance is Futile doc, upon his arrival, even Season Three had already gone “into the toilet,” with the writing staff, after Piller’s arrival. Still in the midst of the tumultuous aftermath of both the revolving door of the first two seasons and the writers’ strike, somehow, Piller weathered the storm and led the writers to craft an incredibly strong season of television, with some fantastic episodes. The standouts included Who Watches the Watchers, The Survivors, The Enemy, The Defector, The Hunted, Yesterday’s Enterprise, The Offspring, Sins of the Father, Sarek and the defining Best of Both Worlds (Part I). Ron Moore also showed up in Season Three, making his first professional sale with The Bonding, and going on in the season to define both the Romulans, with The Defector and beginning the evolution of not only Worf’s character, but the entire Klingon Empire, with Sins of the Father. Sarek also marked the first moment in the series when Rick Berman finally allowed TNG to overtly acknowledge TOS, paving the way for Leonard Nimoy’s triumphant return as Spock for Star Trek’s 25th Anniversary in Season Five’s two-part Unification.

Hasan: The Measure of a Man, Who Watches the Watchers, The Inner Light, Q Who, and The Drumhead are the episodes that spring to mind when I think of the absolute best that The Next Generation was capable of. A compelling question about the human condition that’s addressed in a thoughtful way that only science fiction can really achieve, ably assisted by standout performances from the leads.

Nemecek: The third season is the turnaround, thanks to Michael Piller, who “saved” the franchise from mediocrity and unleashed the family feel on top of the science and adventure. TNG boomed after Season Three, key multi-flavored eps like Sins of the Father, The Offspring, Captain’s Holiday, Sarek, especially Yesterday’s Enterprise — and the iconic summer-long cliffhanger that exploded in popularity, The Best of Both Worlds.

Beyond that, The Inner Light won a Hugo for its decidedly un-spacey exploration of the inner self, The Measure of a Man and Chain of Command took on civil rights and torture, and Darmok may well be the best sci-fi take on communication among us, ever. Q shows like Tapestry and Qpid are just fun, too, as well as illuminating about life choices. For our times, The Drumhead and The Wounded and The Pegasus…maybe even The Game.

D. Okuda: The Inner Light, The Offspring. Wonderful character-driven pieces, each with an intriguing science fiction premise. I’d have to say that TNG’s breakout year was the third season, when Michael Piller took the reins. Gene Roddenberry set the show into motion, but it was Michael Piller who figured out how to make it work on a regular basis.

M. Okuda: Measure of a Man, Yesterday’s Enterprise, All Good Things.

Coate: Flipping around the previous question, which episodes were the worst? And did the series ever jump the shark?

Altman: It’s a toss-up between the embarrassing Night Terrors and the utterly dreadful Masks unlike something like The Royale which I find absurdly enjoyable much like Spock’s Brain despite both being atrocious.

Burnett: Season Seven’s Sub Rosa and Masks are frequently cited as some of the series’ worst, but I’d maintain there’s a lot to love in both of those episodes, with lush production values, some stellar acting from our principals, and premises which can only be considered absolutely bonkers. The production staff must’ve been shaking their heads each day of principal photography. In my Season Seven Blu-ray doc, Brent Spiner relates the story of how he begged not to do Masks right after he fronted Thine Own Self, another massive Data episode... as he was simply too exhausted to do what was required of him. The producers said no. But the results of his free-form acting, playing multiple characters, make for some truly compelling viewing, if not for the reasons fans usually tune into Trek. The HD restorations alone, showcasing the top-notch production values, make both episodes highly watchable.

No [the series never jumped the shark, but] I’d say those resoundingly mediocre episodes, with flawed premises and lackluster execution, are TNG’s greatest offenders. Season One contained some obvious and egregious episodes, like Justice, and the borderline racist but interestingly matriarchal Code of Honor, but nothing comes close to the truly wretched Home Soil, which not only had perhaps the worst matte painting of the entire series, but also the infamous line “Ugly Bags of Mostly Water,” a reference to humans, which should’ve never made it out of a word processor, much less to air. Other episodes I detest include Season Two’s unfunny comedy episode The Outrageous Okona, treating humor in the most rudimentary of fashions; Season Four’s Night Terrors, with Deanna Troi floating in a Spirograph etching; Season Six’s Realm of Fear, with a truly stupid and nonsensical new transporter wrinkle; and Season Seven’s Dark Page, which could’ve been a potentially devastating look at how the loss of a child can forever affect a mother, but instead shows us Mrs. Troi going nuts over the retconned death of Deanna’s older sister.

Hasan: Angel One, Shades of Grey, Sub Rosa, Night Terrors, and Masks are what I immediately think of as TNG at its worst. Goofy premises, chintzy effects, and an overreliance on impenetrable technobabble are all culpable in making these the dregs.

D. Okuda: The Most Toys and Masks. But no, I don’t think the show ever jumped the shark, especially because I think All Good Things is probably the strongest finale to any of the Star Trek series.

M. Okuda: Code of Honor, also Emergence. And Sub Rosa. I’m sure each of those sounded like good ideas in the story meeting, but by the time they ended up on film, not so much.

Coate: If you could name only one, which episode of TNG is your favorite?

Altman: The Orville. That’s a little joke... extremely little, Ensign. All kidding aside, I think The Orville is a delightful homage to TNG and really shows what an impact TNG has had on popular culture and, obviously, Seth MacFarlane who adores the show.

Burnett: My first inclination, to go with an obvious favorite, such as Inner Light, Yesterday’s Enterprise or Best of Both Worlds, bores even myself. I’d look to Chain of Command, Parts I and II as probably not only my favorite TNG story, but a prime example of Star Trek firing on all cylinders. A war story with obvious allegorical underpinnings to our current world situation, made even more prescient over the years with the global war on terror, Chain of Command remains not only compelling drama and great science fiction, but also a terrific actor’s showcase. The unforgettable scenes between Picard and David Warner’s Gul Madred are some of the best acting in the series, made even more compelling knowing Patrick Stewart was already a massive fan of Warner’s, calling his Hamlet one of the best Stewart had ever seen. Watching those two characters doing nothing more than sit in chairs across from one another remains one of the high points of the entire seven year run of the series. Then we get Ronnie Cox’s Captain Jellico, one of the best Starfleet Captains ever seen outside of a series lead, and his ongoing conflict with Riker. One of the only times we’ve seen a principal cast member so obviously in the wrong. Crusher participates in a dangerous, paramilitary away mission and Data is once again clad in a red Command tunic. Finally, unlike so many TNG A and B stories which keep interrupting each other, the threads of Chain of Command all come together to weave a taught tapestry of outstanding television, even thirty years later.

Hasan: Like so many others, The Best of Both Worlds is the episode that got me fully off the fence and convinced me that, yes, The Next Generation did indeed deserve to have a seat at the table right alongside its illustrious predecessor. Twenty-seven years later, the cliffhanger ending for Part One remains exactly as shocking and heart-wrenching as it was when it first aired.

Nemecek: Oh boy. I used to always say Yesterday’s Enterprise, but that may be tied to its status as a personal landmark for me — when I knew the series had arrived. Maybe it’s even Cause and Effect now, or The Chase. I hate picking all-time faves of anything.

D. Okuda: The Inner Light.

M. Okuda: Measure of a Man.

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Coate: Do you believe the show’s first episode, Encounter at Farpoint, served as an effective gateway episode? If not, which episode do you think works best as an introduction to the series?

Altman: Probably The Corbomite Maneuver [from The Original Series]. That’s all of Star Trek in one package, everything you need to know about it in one episode. That said, if you want to explore TNG, start with The Ensigns of Command [from Season Three] and go from there through Season Three. If you like that, keep going. If you don’t, try Deep Space Nine.

Burnett: The best introduction to the series, especially for modern audiences, is probably Season Two’s Measure of a Man. Still what I consider an almost “prototype” TNG episode, it’s the first of the series I’d consider a true classic, if not Top Ten, episode. Preferably the extended version from the Season Two Blu-rays. A fantastically well-written story by Melinda Snodgrass, with a still-compelling storyline illustrating Trek at its very finest, with a compelling science fiction premise and a great dilemma for three of the principal characters to face. There’s also two great guest characters in Commander Bruce Maddox and Captain Phillipa Louvois.

Hasan: This may sound contrary to my answer earlier, but I actually do think Farpoint is a decent jump-on point for the show. It’s clearly the first adventure, meaning we’re likely to grade it on a curve, and it sets up the characters and their world, while also leaves lots of room for the characters to grow. I certainly don’t think it’s perfect, but as an intro to the Next Generation era of Trek, it works just fine.

Nemecek: Gateway to a Trek fan, a sci-fi fan generally, or a complete mundane viewer? For all its faults, I might just stick with Farpoint. Either that, or The Measure of a Man. Or even Family.

D. Okuda: I think it would be The Best of Both Worlds: Part I because it has everything for which TNG is known. A great story, strong character conflict, action, and a fascinating s-f premise. And, of course, that powerful cliffhanger.

M. Okuda: Farpoint was a good first episode/pilot in that it nailed down a lot of the basic concepts for the show, but I don’t think it was a great introduction. Both Worlds is a good choice, as is Tin Man and Cause and Effect.

Coate: Where do you think TNG ranks among the numerous Trek shows?

Altman: It’d be hard to argue that the series is more iconic than the original, it’s not, but it’s certainly the most well-known Trek show with the most well-known Trek characters other than Kirk, Spock and McCoy. That said, even though I think Deep Space Nine is probably the better show, it certainly has to be considered the second best Star Trek series next to the original and the most enmeshed in popular culture. At the time, it was clearly the first of the Trek shows to really appeal to families. You saw that at all the conventions where suddenly you were seeing kids and families for the first time and not just college kids and older. The biggest problem with TNG is in many ways it’s the most dated due to its static camerawork and dental office scores and so much that seemed so futuristic at the time has already been outrun by reality. The fact that TOS was far more stylized also helps make it more timeless than TNG which also is cursed in some episodes with a lethargic pacing that’s particularly in evidence when watched with commercials.

Burnett: Aside from The Original Series, it’s easily the most important of the entire Trek franchise, but it’s only my third favorite series behind TOS and DS9.

Hasan: For me The Original Series always goes first simply by virtue of it having blazed the trail that all others followed. But of the subsequent series, I’d place The Next Generation after Deep Space Nine, which I think is the best of the spin-offs and was in many ways a truer reflection of the ethos and worldview of the original. But just to be clear, that’s not to diminish in any way the remarkable sweep and scope of what TNG accomplished. It broadened the canvas and created room for all those other spin-offs to play.

Nemecek: Whew. It had #1 status for so long, competing with TOS as its prime generation faded; now DS9 makes a case as viewing habits shift. It’s definitely affected the most viewers and fans at the moment. As a champion of intellectualism and rationality, I think its power has faded somewhat after 9/11 and rawer storylines of DS9 and Enterprise “felt” more viscerally satisfying... but in the crazed anti-intellectualism of our times now I think TNG should reassert its prominence. They used to mock Picard for having staff meetings versus’ Kirk’s action! cowboy diplomacy — but we see the folly in the latter, too, now.

D. Okuda: Second to The Original Series.

M. Okuda: Yes. We both grew up with The Original Series, so will always be first in our hearts.

Coate: Where do you think Picard ranks among the Trek captains?

Altman: A strong second to Captain James Tiberius Kirk with Captain Sisko and Lorca a close third. Stewart is brilliant in the role and Picard is an engaging and cerebral captain, but there’s only one Captain Kirk.

Burnett: Second only to James T. Kirk.

Hasan: Similar to my answer above, I have to place James T. Kirk at the top of my list, but Jean-Luc goes right underneath. Picard is very much the “perfected man,” representing the fulfillment of Roddenberry’s utopian ideal, and as such is a role model worth emulating. Calm under pressure, always ready with wise words, he’s both who we’d want to serve under and who we’d want to become.

D. Okuda: Second to Kirk.

M. Okuda: Yup.

Coate: Favorite TNG character?

Altman: McCoy? That’s not quite the answer you were looking for. Jonathan Frakes is my favorite person from the show who I’ve worked with as a director on The Librarians and think the world of and I do like Riker, but I’d have to say character-wise, it’d probably be Ensign Ro. Worf would be one of my favorites... on Deep Space Nine. Worst is Tasha Yar’s Roman doppelganger, Sela, because it was such a contrived and goofy conceit. I’d add Data was a wonderful character as well.

Burnett: I really love Worf. The character went from being almost an afterthought, added to TNG’s pilot very late in the game, to one of the series most richly-drawn characters, beginning with Season Two’s The Emissary and Season Three’s Sins of the Father and reaching out past TNG all the way to the series finale of Deep Space Nine. I’m sure not even Gene Roddenberry himself would’ve believed it. Even Michael Dorn’s somewhat limited range as an actor really served the character, eventually leading to some of the most compelling relationships in Trek history, especially those Worf had with both incarnations of Dax.

Hasan: While the good captain is my favorite, I have a soft spot for Commander Riker as well. You can’t help but relate to the guy who realizes how lucky he is to be on the Enterprise, and doesn’t want to take any promotion that’ll take him off that ship. After all, that’s where all the cool stuff happens!

D. Okuda: I think we’d probably both go with Picard.

M. Okuda: Just as Kirk was in many ways the ideal of a leader of the 1960s, a la John F. Kennedy, Picard reflected the notion that the world of the 1980s was more complicated, more nuanced, and it required a strong, thoughtful leader whose first instinct was diplomacy.

Coate: What is the legacy of Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Altman: I think it will remain a beloved sci-fi series for many years to come and, for many, define what Star Trek is to them. It fulfilled Star Trek’s mission which was to deliver a series built on tolerance, acceptance and, for the most part, a liberal, optimistic view of the future. In the age of Trump, storytelling like this continues to be welcome and wholeheartedly embraced. It definitely reflects the era it was made, that of George HW Bush and his “thousand points of light” much the way that the original Star Trek is a product of John F. Kennedy’s “New Frontier” ethos.

Burnett: Without TNG, Star Trek would’ve probably ended with The Undiscovered Country in 1991 until the inevitable reboot, which probably would’ve looked very much like J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek ’09. Instead, Roddenberry was allowed to come back and not simply recreate, but continue to evolve and expand the Trek universe, updating it and making it relevant to brand-new audiences of the late ’80s. Twenty-five seasons of Trek followed, continuing to allow the universe to grow, and most importantly, birth all kinds of vibrant new talent which has propagated throughout the television landscape, even thirty years later. Trek veterans continue to create some of the most compelling programming of the modern era, everything from Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica and Outlander, on which Ira Behr serves as Co-Executive Producer, to Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, Rene Echevarria’s upcoming Carnival Row and Brannon Braga’s current work on The Orville. Trek actors such as Jonathan Frakes and Roxann Dawson have vibrant television directing careers, and even the latest Trek incarnation boldly goes into the streaming space on CBS All Access. None of this would’ve been possible without the resounding success of TNG.

Hasan: I call The Next Generation “competence porn.” And what I mean by that is that it’s all about the thrill of watching a group of seasoned professionals who get along with each other, who will encounter and solve a problem inside of forty-five minutes. There’s something delightful and refreshing about that, especially in a day and age where it’s increasingly easy to wonder if we’ll ever work past our differences with each other, much less with people from other worlds.

By working so hard to stand apart from the original — not just in terms of aesthetic and technology, but also the worldview it advanced — Star Trek: The Next Generation was even more gauzy-eyed about mankind’s perfectibility than the original. At the time — and especially as the creative braintrust moved into the spin-offs — that utopianism was viewed as a drama-killer, but with three decades of hindsight what it’s also done is give us all a template for how to act and how to be. How to view oneself and how to view others. How to go boldly through this world.

Nemecek: The show that elevated optimism with rationality as the way of the future, the show that showed outside-the-box media business models could work without being a slave to The Establishment, the show that showed If You Build It They Will Come long enough for you to build an even stronger v2 a couple years in…if media bosses have patience and faith. It also made bald sexy, showed the “hive mind” as dangerous, fleshed out Klingons — in peace as allies! — along with newer mindless Borg and fascist Cardassians, and offered a speeded-up future look that saw the TOS communicator and raised it with the personal “PADD” tablet, planetary “datasets” and uplinks, and holography VR/AR potential in every living room.

D. Okuda: Star Trek: TNG’s legacy is a generation of families who shared these amazing adventures together every week, and in the process, were inspired by Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a better tomorrow.

M. Okuda: Star Trek: TNG represented the rebirth of Star Trek. The original series cast movies were wonderful opportunities to revisit our old friends, but I think most fans knew that the original cast would never return to weekly television. With Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gene Roddenberry proved that you can do Star Trek without Kirk and Spock and McCoy, that the dream of humanity reaching for the stars could be shared in many different ways, with many different characters, telling many different stories. And I think that all of us who love Star Trek are so much richer for it.

Coate: Thank you — Mark, Robert, Zaki, Larry, Denise and Michael — for participating and for sharing your thoughts about Star Trek: The Next Generation on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy CBS Studios Inc, Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Television. Star Trek is a registered trademark of CBS Studios Inc.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

THE GRADUATE NUMBER$

• 0 = Number of sequels
• 1= Box-office rank among films directed by Mike Nichols (adjusted for inflation)
• 1= Box-office rank among films starring Dustin Hoffman (adjusted for inflation)
• 1 = Number of Academy Awards
• 1 = Rank among Embassy’s all-time top-earning movies at close of original run
• 1 = Rank among top-earning films of 1967 (legacy)
• 2 = Rank among top-earning movies of the 1960s
• 3 = Peak all-time box-office chart position*
• 7 = Number of Academy Award nominations*
• 22 = Rank on current list of all-time top-grossing films (adjusted for inflation)
• 34 = Number of theaters showing movie during opening week
• 50 = Number of years Embassy’s top-earning film*
• 58 = Number of weeks of longest-running engagement*

• $3.0 million = Production cost
• $22.2 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $43.1 million = Box-office rental* (original release)
• $49.3 million = Box-office rental* (original + re-releases)
• $349.3 million = Box-office rental* (adjusted for inflation)
• $104.9 million = Box-office gross*
• $743.5 million = Box-office gross* (adjusted for inflation)

*Embassy/Avco Embassy Pictures record

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“Funny, outrageous, and touching, The Graduate is a sophisticated film that puts Mr. Nichols and his associates on a level with any of the best satirists working abroad today…. A picture you’ll have to see — and maybe see twice to savor all its sharp satiric wit and cinematic treats.” — Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

“Mike Nichols has made the freshest, funniest and most touching film of the year.” — Hollis Alpert, Saturday Review

“A milestone in American film history!” — Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

“[The Graduate] starts out to satirize the alienated spirit of modern youth, does so with uncommon brilliance for its first hour, but ends up selling out to the very spirit its creators intended to make fun of…. It’s a shame — they were halfway to something wonderful when they skidded on a patch of greasy kid stuff.” — Richard Schickel, Life

“Maybe director Mike Nichols can do no wrong. He now has bridged the generation gap in a brilliant second film called The Graduate. Younger moviegoers (but not too young) are virtually certain to rally around it because of its sympathetic understanding. Older generations should be equally happy with it for its enlightenment, for how its recall of how it is to be young.” — Harry MacArthur, The Washington Star

“Dustin Hoffman, known to many Boston theater goers for his excellent work in local little theaters, has become a star with his first feature-sized screen role. His performance in the title role is extraordinary.” — Alta Maloney, The Boston Herald

“The Graduate stands at the head of its class.” — Playboy

“All that is new about Generation Gap is the phrase itself. And in spite of the enthusiasm for it among the young, it seems to me The Graduate only makes a few exaggerated points about familiar facts of life and then slides off into the kind of frantic nonsense Mack Sennett would have made if he had had the money.” — David Brinkley, Ladies’ Home Journal

“The young market, particularly, will dig this Embassy (overseas, United Artists) release and older audiences also will be amused. Strong [box office] prospects are likely in initial exclusive bookings, as a setup for a hotsy general playoff” — A.D. Murphy, Variety

“The Graduate is rousing its young audiences to post-picture applause for creators who cannot hear it, although they undoubtedly would appreciate the gesture in absentia.” — James Meade, The San Diego Union

“Katharine Ross is beautiful, talented, surely this year’s Julie Christie!” — Liz Smith, Cosmopolitan

“Not so much rock as rock bottom [referring to Paul Simon’s lyrics].” — John Simon, New Leader

“How could you convince [moviegoers] that a movie that sells innocence is a very commercial piece of work when they’re so clearly in the market to buy innocence?” — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

“One of the year’s 10 best.” — Joseph Morgenstern, Newsweek

“The Graduate is a showy, gimmicky, ostentatious movie — and if it weren’t, it would be much less interesting and entertaining. Nichols’ visual approach to each scene is so unusual that it draws attention to itself, and this becomes part of the fun of watching the film.” — John Hartl, The Seattle Times

“[Y]oung people are falling for the film along with the old people, because it satisfies their most infantile fantasies of alienation and purity in a hostile world, their most simplistic notions of the generation gap, and their mushiest daydreams about the saving power of love.” — Stephen Farber and Estelle Changas, Film Quarterly

“A dazzling comedy. Mike Nichols is a brilliant, imaginative and free-wheeling movie director. The Graduate confirms not simply that he is a master of comedy, but that he is a master of the motion picture form.” — Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

“Chalk up another winner for Mike Nichols. The director earns his Ph.D in the rousing comedy, The Graduate. Hoffman is the best leading man to turn up since Jack Lemmon and Miss Ross is a good actress with the kind of fresh expressive face that sends artists rushing to their canvases. Nichols has given us one of the best comedies of the year and has taken his place among the genuinely gifted directors of our time.” — Ernest Schier, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin

“The acting, editing, and photography are all exemplary. The backgrounds include Berkeley, the Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco Zoo as well as Southern California. Many of the sight gags and lines are bright, and Nichols uses the score to comment ironically and compassionately.” — P.K., San Francisco Chronicle

“The Graduate, the funniest American comedy of the year, is inspired by the free spirit which the young British directors have brought into their movies. It is funny, not because of sight gags and punch lines and other tired rubbish, but because it has a point of view. That is to say, it is against something. Comedy is naturally subversive, no matter what Doris Day thinks.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

THE ORIGINAL THEATRICAL ENGAGEMENTS

The invitational world premiere screening of The Graduate was held December 20th, 1967, at the Coronet in New York.

The reference list in this section of the article highlights Embassy’s distribution strategy of opening The Graduate in only a handful of carefully selected markets, primarily in small- and medium-sized venues to guide sellouts, long lines and, ultimately, long-running engagements. The film’s release widened gradually beginning in February 1968. (The subsequent bookings, along with any second-run, re-release and international bookings, have not been cited in this work.)

The listing offers a snapshot of the important initial weeks of the film’s release. And, as a bonus, the engagement duration figures have been provided for some of the entries so as to provide a sense of how popular the film proved to be. Note the duration figures which, despite multiple screenings per day, rival those of the popular limited-screening roadshow releases during the same era.

Opening date YYYY-MM-DD … City — Cinema (engagement duration in weeks)

• 1967-12-21 … Los Angeles — Four Star (51)
• 1967-12-21 … New York — 57th St. Lincoln Art (45)
• 1967-12-21 … New York — Coronet (51)

• 1967-12-22 … Baltimore (Pikesville) — Pikes (28)
• 1967-12-22 … Baltimore (Towson) — York Road (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Boston — Paris (30)
• 1967-12-22 … Chicago — Carnegie (26)
• 1967-12-22 … Chicago — Loop (25)
• 1967-12-22 … Cincinnati — Grand (23)
• 1967-12-22 … Dayton — Ames
• 1967-12-22 … Denver — Esquire (52)
• 1967-12-22 … Detroit — Vogue
• 1967-12-22 … Detroit (Ferndale) — Radio City (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Detroit (Redford) — Redford
• 1967-12-22 … Miami — Mayfair (19)
• 1967-12-22 … Miami (Coral Gables) — Miracle (18)
• 1967-12-22 … Miami (North Miami Beach) — 163rd Street (18)
• 1967-12-22 … Milwaukee — Esquire (29)
• 1967-12-22 … Milwaukee — Times Fine Arts (32)
• 1967-12-22 … Minneapolis — World (57)
• 1967-12-22 … Philadelphia — Eric Rittenhouse Square (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Philadelphia (Wynnewood) — Eric Wynnewood (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Rochester — Studio 2 (44)
• 1967-12-22 … Sacramento — Alhambra
• 1967-12-22 … Salt Lake City — South East (32)
• 1967-12-22 … San Diego (La Mesa) — Cinema Grossmont (30)
• 1967-12-22 … San Francisco — Metro (46)
• 1967-12-22 … San Jose (Santa Clara) — Cinema 150 (40)
• 1967-12-22 … Seattle — Town (52)
• 1967-12-22 … Trenton — Lincoln (14)
• 1967-12-22 … Washington — Cinema (58)

• 1967-12-23 … Miami (Miami Beach) — Normandy (29)

• 1967-12-25 … Dallas — Northpark Twin (27)

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THE Q&A

Beverly Gray is the author of Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How ‘The Graduate’ Became the Touchstone of a Generation (Algonquin, 2017). Her other books include Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon…and Beyond (Thomas Nelson, 2003) and Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking (Renaissance, 2000), which was re-published in 2013 under the alternate title Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers—An Updated Authorized Life. Gray’s writings have also appeared in numerous periodicals and newspapers including The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times and MovieMaker.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think The Graduate should be remembered on its 50th anniversary?

Beverly Gray: The Graduate should be remembered as a small independent film that transformed the style and content of Hollywood movies while also embedding itself deep in the American consciousness. It captures the mindset of young adults in the late 1960s, but has proven to have a surprising universality as well.

Coate: What was the objective with your book Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How ’The Graduate’ Became the Touchstone of a Generation?

Gray: Today verbal and visual references to The Graduate continue to abound. My goal was to delve into the unexpected appeal of this small film in its own era and then explain how and why it’s still very much with us in the twenty-first century.

Coate: Can you recall the first time you saw The Graduate?

Gray: When I first saw The Graduate early in 1968, I was a senior at UCLA, newly returned from a year of study abroad. Back in the home of my loving but somewhat controlling parents, I was suddenly (after a year of independence) feeling pressured to live up to their expectations about my future. The early scenes in The Graduate captured precisely the way I felt.

Coate: In what way is The Graduate a significant motion picture?

Gray: The Graduate is beautifully shot and acted, going far beyond most Hollywood movies of its era in adopting fresh aesthetic ideas from Europe and elsewhere. And it expresses, with remarkable candor, the mentality of the huge Baby Boom generation that was coming into its own in 1967-1968.

Coate: How does the film compare to Charles Webb’s book?

Gray: Many of the most vivid episodes in the film (like Benjamin Braddock wearing a SCUBA suit in the bottom of his parents’ pool and Ben seated on a city bus with someone else’s bride) can be found in Webb’s novel. And much of Webb’s dialogue appears too. But the makers of The Graduate felt that Webb’s Benjamin was “a whiny pain in the fanny,” whose rebellion against his parents and their world wasn’t truly motivated, nor was it appealing. One quality that director Mike Nichols found in Dustin Hoffman was a sweetness and innocence that helped to justify Benjamin’s misbehavior and ensure that the audience was on his side.

Coate: In what way was Dustin Hoffman a memorable Benjamin Braddock?

Gray: I’ve mentioned Hoffman’s appeal in the role of Benjamin Braddock: he was lovably hapless, and young audiences found it easy to identify with him. But his casting also went a long way toward transforming Hollywood. In the late 1960s, romantic leading men were still expected to be tall and handsome WASP-types. Robert Redford, then a rising young actor, was considered by many to be the “right” kind of person for this role. In choosing the short, dark, and obviously ethnic Hoffman to play Benjamin Braddock, director Mike Nichols was very much going against common wisdom. But Hoffman’s casting led to an influx of clearly Jewish young actors (Elliott Gould, Richard Benjamin, Richard Dreyfuss, Charles Grodin) as well as other “ethnics” like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in leading roles. Hollywood has never been the same since.

Coate: In what way was Anne Bancroft a memorable Mrs. Robinson?

Gray: When she was cast as Mrs. Robinson, Anne Bancroft had already won an Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. She played leads in other admired films, but had been shut out of funny and glamorous roles. The Graduate captured her beauty as well as her wit, but there’s also an underlying sadness to her characterization that makes her far more than a villainess. Generations of women have seen in her performance a hint of the anguish that can be part of domestic life when marriage becomes an obligation rather than a freely made choice.

Coate: In what way was Mike Nichols an ideal choice to direct The Graduate, and where does the film rank among his body of work?

Gray: I don’t claim to have seen all of Mike Nichols’ film (and stage) work, but he was an enormously talented director who never repeated himself, one who experimented with many styles and genres. The Graduate, made at the very start of his movie career, was the work of a still-young man having fun playing with the tools of modern cinema. The resulting film has been described as “show-offy,” but its exuberance is hard to beat.

Coate: What is the legacy of The Graduate?

Gray: For many who saw The Graduate back in the day, it is a time capsule preserving their youthful hopes and fears at a pivotal moment in American life. Beyond appealing to Baby Boomers’ sense of nostalgia, The Graduate gave us new aesthetic ideas which went on to help transform today’s Hollywood.

Coate: Thank you, Beverly, for sharing your thoughts on The Graduate on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its release.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Avco Embassy Pictures, Embassy Pictures, MGM Home Entertainment, StudioCanal, United Artists Corporation, The Voyager Company/The Criterion Collection.

SOURCES/REFERENCES:

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Billboard, Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

SPECIAL THANKS:

Don Beelik, Raymond Caple, Beverly Gray, John Hazelton, Mark Lensenmayer, Stan Malone, and an extra special thank-you to all of the librarians who helped with this project.

IN MEMORIAM:

• Marion Lorne (“Miss DeWitte”), 1883-1968
• George Nogle (Camera Operator), 1898-1977
• Richard Borland (Grip), 1909-1983
• Robert Surtees (Director of Photography), 1906-1985
• Walter Brooke (“Mr. McGuire”), 1914-1986
• Murray Hamilton (“Mr. Robinson”), 1923-1986
• Joseph E. Levine (Presenter/Embassy Pictures founder), 1905-1987
• Harry Maret (Makeup), 1917-1989
• George R. Nelson (Set Decorator), 1927-1992
• Meta Rebner (Script Supervisor), 1907-1994
• Calder Willingham (Screenwriter), 1922-1995
• Sydney Guilaroff (Hair Styles), 1907-1997
• Bob Wyman (Assistant Editor), 1931-1998
• Norman Fell (“Mr. McCleery”), 1924-1998
• Patricia Zipprodt (Costume Designer), 1925-1999
• Sam O’Steen (Editor), 1923-2000
• Eddra Gale (“Woman on Bus”), 1921-2001
• Richard Sylbert (Production Designer), 1928-2002
• Jack Solomon (Sound), 1913-2002
• Anne Bancroft (“Mrs. Robinson”), 1931-2005
• Alice Ghostley (“Mrs. Singleman”), 1923-2007
• Mike Nichols (Director), 1931-2014
• Elizabeth Wilson (“Mrs. Braddock”), 1921-2015
• Joel Schiller (Assistant Production Designer), 1930-2017

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

The participants (in alphabetical order)…

Neil S. Bulk is a music editor and soundtrack producer. He co-produced Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection and has been involved with over 150 other CD soundtrack/original score releases including Titanic, Total Recall, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and a 3-CD collection of music from the 1970s Wonder Woman television show. He recently produced with composer David Arnold, the newly expanded 2-CD release of Die Another Day for La-La Land Records.

Robert A. Caplen is an attorney and the author of Shaken & Stirred: The Feminism of James Bond (Xlibris, 2010).

John Cork is the author (with Collin Stutz) of James Bond Encyclopedia (DK, 2007) and (with Bruce Scivally) of James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002) and (with Maryam d’Abo) Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond (Abrams, 2003). He is the president of Cloverland, a multi-media production company, producing documentaries and value added material for movies on DVD and Blu-ray, including material for many of the James Bond and Pink Panther titles as well as Chariots of Fire and The Hustler. Cork also wrote the screenplay to The Long Walk Home (1990), starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek. He wrote and directed the feature documentary You Belong to Me: Sex, Race and Murder on the Suwannee River for producers Jude Hagin and Hillary Saltzman (daughter of original Bond producer, Harry Saltzman). He has recently contributed articles on the literary history of James Bond for ianfleming.com and The Book Collector.

Lisa Funnell is the author (with Klaus Dodds) of The Geographies, Genders, and Geopolitics of James Bond (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and editor of For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond (Wallflower, 2015). She is Assistant Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies Program and Affiliate Faculty, Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma. Her other books include Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star (State University of New York, 2014), (with Man-Fung Yip) American and Chinese-Language Cinemas: Examining Cultural Flows (Routledge, 2015) and (with Philippa Gates) Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian Exchange (Routledge, 2012).

Lee Pfeiffer is the author (with Dave Worrall) of The Essential Bond: The Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (Boxtree, 1998/Harper Collins, 1999) and (with Philip Lisa) The Incredible World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of James Bond (Citadel, 1992) and The Films of Sean Connery (Citadel, 2001). Lee was a producer on the Goldfinger and Thunderball Special Edition LaserDisc sets and is the founder (with Dave Worrall) and Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Retro magazine, which celebrates films of the 1960s and 1970s and is “the Essential Guide to Cult and Classic Movies.”

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

And now that the participants have been introduced, might I suggest preparing a martini (shaken, not stirred, of course) and cueing up the soundtrack album to Die Another Day, and then enjoy the conversation with these James Bond authorities.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way is Die Another Day worthy of celebration on its 15th anniversary?

Neil S. Bulk: Die Another Day was the twentieth Bond film released in forty years and it represents a culmination of the entire series to that point and it marks the end of an era. The Bond films followed a formula established in the 60s and after this film the series was rebooted and hasn’t quite gotten back to that formula yet. Die Another Day diverged from the formula a little (for instance the opening gun barrel, a series mainstay, was tweaked to include a bullet, and the opening credits advanced the narrative) but for the most part it followed a pattern that the series was known for and incredibly successful using. For that reason, Die Another Day is an indispensable part of the Bond canon and it could be why we’re still talking about it fifteen years later.

Robert Caplen: Given current events on the Korean peninsula, it is fitting that we are revisiting Die Another Day now. As farcical as the film’s plot may have seemed fifteen years ago with an Icarus satellite designed to sweep across the DMZ, it offers a tame alternative to the real threat that emanates from Pyongyang today.

Unfortunately, we have no real-life North Korean General Moon, who at least advocated (albeit unsuccessfully) for pragmatism and the prevention of nuclear war. Instead, we face the specter of a North Korean ICBM striking anywhere in the world. For better or worse, Die Another Day is relevant once again, an unlikely beneficiary of the greatest nuclear threat since the end of the Cold War. But even in the absence of a current North Korean threat, Pierce Brosnan’s final mission as 007 deserves renewed focus and attention. As the final film before the Daniel Craig reboot, Die Another Day represented the end of certain stylistic elements that pervaded the films for years. It also served as the first film in what I term the “Revisionist Bond Girl Era.”

John Cork: Die Another Day marked the end of the Pierce Brosnan era, which isn’t necessarily something to celebrate. I enjoyed Brosnan as Bond. The film marked a strange turning point for the series, and it seemed to encapsulate the best and worst of the 1990s Bond. It was a big, brash, and in many ways, incoherent spectacle. At the time, Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli thought audiences wanted a movie in the vein of The Spy Who Loved Me. It felt like the mood of 1977 (the year TSWLM and Star Wars were released). The Phantom Menace had been released during the summer before The World Is Not Enough, and Attack of the Clones was scheduled to be released during the summer before Die Another Day. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone had dominated the box office the previous year, and the second Potter film was due to be released during 2002. These films were being made in the UK with many Bond alumni. Over at Sony, there was tremendous heat on Spider-man, also due in 2002. In short, CGI-laden fantasy and spectacle were back. The lesson of their huge success was simple: dream big and make it pretty in post-production. This was clearly the direction that the studio thought was right for Bond.

Unfortunately, this was not the style that came naturally for the creative team working on the film. Like trying to get Eminem to record a country music album, Lee Tamahori, Purvis and Wade, and Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli found themselves making a film that I believe none of them truly knew how to embrace. Cubby Broccoli, Christopher Wood, Tom Mankiewicz (who worked uncredited on Spy), Richard Maibaum, and Lewis Gilbert could dance a beautiful waltz with the absurd. They could grill up a Bond story with extra-cheese and make it taste like caviar.

The weak link in the chain turned out to be Lee Tamahori who made a brilliant film in his native New Zealand about the Maori population, Once Were Warriors (1994). Tamahori is an immensely talented, intelligent, but quirky filmmaker (with, admittedly, some personal issues that came up after Die Another Day). He turned out not to have an ear for the softer edge performances need in a Bond film. In scenes where subtlety was needed, he directed talented actors to go bigger and brasher. Too many lines are yelled. Fun double-entendres fall like bricks onto glass (Jinx’s line about Bond’s “big bang theory” comes to mind). He makes big mistakes. For example, the film opens with Bond surfing on a monster wave. That was done for real. Then, later, a CGI Bond again surfs (or kite-surfs to be exact) on a CGI wave during a CGI icefall into the ocean. CGI Bond didn’t look great, but since the filmmakers had gone to great lengths to show us Bond surfing some of the largest real waves in the world in the same film, it looked horrible. The right director knows one of those two scenes needs to go.

So what is there to celebrate? Those cars sliding across the ice give us an incredibly cool chase scene. John Cleese as Q makes me wish I could have seen him in half-a-dozen more Bond films. The “can you catch it” references to the glorious legacy of the Bond films (and novels) makes the film a fantastic puzzle for 007 buffs. Only Bond could pull off a hovercraft chase through a minefield. We have swordplay, amazing sets, brutal fights, and, occasional flashes of brilliance. And, of course, a great David Arnold score which, on this anniversary, is now being re-released as a deluxe double CD set by La-La Land records with tons of music never before available. That alone is completely worthy of celebration.

Lisa Funnell: Die Another Day marks the 40th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise. The film was highly referential of previous Bond films from an homage to the first Bond Girl Honey Ryder in Dr. No (1962), to the use of diamonds to create a “sun gun” like in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), to the showcasing of previous spy gadgets like the jet pack in Thunderball (1965) and the crocodile submarine in Octopussy (1983). It offers an interesting reflection on the series before the franchise moves into a different direction narratively, thematically, and stylistically.

Lee Pfeiffer: The film is primarily notable only because it marked Pierce Brosnan’s final Bond film after a very successful seven year run. There’s not too much else to recommend about it. The movie is generally regarded as a misfire among most hardcore Bond enthusiasts, though there is no denying the general public came out in droves for it and it grossed over a half billion dollars.

Coate: Can you describe what it was like seeing Die Another Day for the first time?

Bulk: Complete excitement. I’m always excited when a new Bond movie comes out. For Die Another Day, I was excited when they announced the start of filming (on Good Morning America here in the US). I was excited when I saw the first teaser (in front of Attack of the Clones). And, of course, I was excited on opening day when I got to see it. My recollection is that I saw it four times on its initial release.

Caplen: I saw Die Another Day in theaters the day after its US release. I recall being excited to watch another Pierce Brosnan installment and hopeful that some of the gimmicks from The World Is Not Enough (i.e. Renard’s traveling bullet that made him impervious to pain, the annual frequency of Christmas) would be toned down. The title sequence stood out to me as arguably the most graphic (and disturbing) in the franchise. I also recall disappointment in the poor CGI quality, though I quickly forgave producers when the Vanquish went incognito.

Cork: I was in deep at the time. I was in the midst of the publicity tour for the official 40th Anniversary 007 book, James Bond: The Legacy, which I had co-authored with Bruce Scivally. I was doing a minor task for the Special Edition DVD release, writing a trivia track for the film. I had visited the set, been in Eon’s offices during production, talked with key members of the production team. Just before I saw the film for the first time, I had been invited to co-author Bond Girls Are Forever with the wonderful Maryam d’Abo. I was living, eating, drinking Bond pretty much 24/7.

I saw the film for the first time at the premiere at the Royal Albert Hall, which was a glorious affair. There is really nothing like it. The party was held across the street in a massive tent. I spent a lot of time with Guy Hamilton, who only a few recognized. He didn’t much care for the film, but I took him around and introduced him to a lot of the more recent generations of the Bond family, and he so enjoyed meeting them, and they loved meeting him.

At the time, I was oddly disassociated with the movie. I couldn’t rationally judge it. I was having this amazing experience that only existed because this film existed. Yet, 9/11 had happened just over a year earlier. A long, ugly war was coming, and I very honestly wondered how Bond would adapt to this strange conflict which was brewing. Something told me that this big film which was giving me such great experiences was not the right tone for the moment.

Funnell: Honestly, I had mixed feelings about the film then and still do now. There are some elements that I enjoy [see comments above] and others that I find problematic [see comments below]. I remember thinking, where do we go from here?

Pfeiffer: I was invited by the producers to the Royal Premiere in London. It was the first time a movie was ever shown at the Royal Albert Hall. The venue wasn’t equipped to do so and the studio spent a fortune putting in the proper equipment and technical aspects just for this single showing. The release of the film marked the 40th anniversary of the Bond film franchise so there was quite a lot of hoopla that went with the publicity campaign. Queen Elizabeth was in attendance and her arrival was broadcast by closed circuit on the big screen so you could watch her go through the customary greeting with the cast and key crew members. Producer Michael Wilson introduced to her each person in turn. When she entered the auditorium it was to fanfare played by her royal guardsmen. Topping things off was the presence on stage of previous Bond actors Roger Moore, George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton. Only Sean Connery couldn’t be induced to attend. The Albert Hall premiere was spectacular. Only the British can seem to pull off the kind of old world, spectacular movie premieres any more. The film set a precedent in one regard, as other Bond premieres have been held there since. The producer’s party afterward was also surrealistic in its grandeur with props from the ice palace set imported to serve as set designs for the venue and servers carrying around trays of seemingly limitless champagne, a hallmark of every Bond after-party.

Coate: In what way was Toby Stephens’ Gustav Graves (or Will Yun Lee’s Colonel Tan-Sun Moon) a memorable villain?

Bulk: He’s effective because he’s a physical match to Bond, which he tells us is by design. This makes him more of a menace than the usual megalomaniac in a Bond film. Typically Bond villains have a menacing henchman to deal with Bond, but Gustav Graves gets into several fights with Bond, and while Bond defeats him every time (maybe he’s not that effective after all) it’s always a pretty close fight.

Caplen: Gustav Graves is another clever iteration of the Janus-like villain that defined the Pierce Brosnan era. Whereas the theme of treachery is primarily ideological or political in GoldenEye (Alec Travelyan’s Cossack betrayal of MI6), Tomorrow Never Dies (Elliot Carver’s seemingly impartial news conglomerate that, in fact, manipulates the global affairs it covers to Carver’s advantage), and The World Is Not Enough (Elektra King’s betrayal of M to exact revenge for her father’s death), Colonel Moon takes it to the next level by literally altering his identity and transforming into the Anglo Graves. The permeation of this theme is not surprising given the strong influence of writer Bruce Feirstein, who wrote or co-wrote GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World Is Not Enough. In the latter film, Feirstein collaborated with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who both took over the reins for Die Another Day and added their own twist to the Janus theme.

Graves/Moon is the epitome of Janus, torn between two worlds: West against East; “civilized” (fencing) against rogue (arms smuggler); creation (the vast wealth of the Graves Foundation) against destruction (annihilating South Korea). And yet, he is not very memorable, especially when compared to his diamond-deformed henchman Zao.

Cork: It is funny, but Gustav Graves becomes yet another attempt to put Hugo Drax from the novel Moonraker in a film. In the novel, Drax is a badly wounded German soldier in World War II whose command of English allows him to take on a false British identity, become a wealthy industrialist and build a rocket to destroy London. This had been Michael France’s inspiration for the Alec Trevelyan in GoldenEye, so a lot of Graves and his plot felt strangely familiar. This was the third film out of the previous four to have its plot turn on a satellite, and the sun-ray was an intentional nod, of course, to Diamonds Are Forever. All this undercuts Graves. Additionally, the fascinating subtext of a character literally changing his race (something Bond does in You Only Live Twice) gets brushed aside. Watching the manic Graves quickly becomes exhausting. Additionally, Richard Branson who somewhat inspired the grinning showmanship of Graves (and who shows up as an extra in the next Bond film) is such a likable fellow that the performance quickly veers into caricature. For this I blame Tamahori, who seemed to be directing with commands of “bigger, faster, louder, wilder!” Toby Stephens is a fine actor, and I feel that with the right director, he could have delivered a menacing, tortured, nuanced performance. I can see Graves with a smooth, understated delivery that only briefly reveals the tension and anger lurking beneath his calculating mask. But that wasn’t the performance that ended up on screen.

Funnell: I have mixed feelings about the villain and particularly his racial transformation. While it provides an unexpected “a-ha” moment, it perpetuates role stratification based on race/ethnicity that is (still) all too common in Hollywood and has been historically employed in the James Bond franchise. Will Yun Lee’s Tan-Sun Moon would have the first Asian arch-villain in a James Bond film since Dr. No who was played by Len Wiseman depicted through the racist convention of yellowface. But once again, the Asian villain is being “modified” in some way and this is deeply troubling.

Pfeiffer: Unfortunately, the film is memorable in mostly the wrong ways. The story starts off promisingly but devolves into confusion and absurdities. Having said that, the first half hour is pretty good — and I must say that Brosnan is in top form. Also, the fencing sequence, which was partially filmed in London’s legendary Reform Club, is one of the best action scenes in any Bond movie. If only the rest of the film held up as well. 

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Coate: In what way was Halle Berry’s Jinx a memorable Bond Girl?

Bulk: Casting Halle Berry in the role of Jinx Johnson (“Jinx Jordan” on the soundtrack album!) was a big deal because she was already an established movie star and then in the middle of production she won an Oscar for Best Actress further adding to her cachet. The Bond series never had an actress of her caliber in the female leading role.

As a character, she was meant to be the female equivalent of Bond, something that the media always plays up as a big deal, but has been happening pretty regularly in the series since 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. I found Michelle Yeoh’s character of Wai-Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies more successful and interesting than Jinx, who doesn’t get to do much in this movie. Bond winds up having to save her quite a few times, so I’m not sure how effective the character is. Her memorable moments are based more on her physical attributes than for anything her character has to do in the movie.

Caplen: Die Another Day celebrated forty years of James Bond films, and the movie incorporates many tributes to Bond’s earlier missions. The character of Jinx is no exception. She is, in essence, an amalgam of previous Bond Girls over the years.

The obvious correlation is to Honey Ryder (Dr. No). After all, Jinx is introduced to audiences in the same way as her 1962 counterpart: Bond (this time using binoculars) accidentally discovers Jinx emerging from the ocean in an Ursula Andress-styled bikini replete with a knife affixed to her waist.

Jinx, however, is not hunting for seashells. Instead, like Dr. Holly Goodhead (Moonraker), Jinx is employed by an American intelligence agency (Jinx with the NSA) and is on her own mission to extract information from Zao. She and Bond cross paths as they pursue the same target (Moonraker). After spending the night with Bond, Jinx borrows from Teresa di Vicenzo’s playbook and leaves him sleeping alone (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service).

And that is when things go south for Jinx. Like Honey Ryder, Jinx repeatedly finds herself in similar predicaments that require Bond to rescue her, first from a laser that is about to slice off her head (Goldfinger) and then from drowning as the structures around her collapse (Dr. No, The Spy Who Loved Me). Fortunately, Jinx can pilot a plane (like Pussy Galore and Dr. Holly Godhead), but she is forced to survive her own “cat fight” against Miranda Frost (like the gypsy scene in From Russia with Love) before striking a fatal blow to her adversary (like Domino Derval in Thunderball).

Jinx is therefore the perfect Bond Girl to inaugurate the “Revisionist Bond Girl Era.” Her character is built entirely upon the strengths and weaknesses of many of her predecessors. As such, Jinx is memorable for what she represents.

Cork: Jinx is beautiful and fine, although I felt terribly underdeveloped in the film. Purvis and Wade wrote a spin-off script for her that delves much deeper into her character. It didn’t get made, alas.

But I want to talk about Miranda Frost. She steals this movie. Rosamund Pike rises above the snarls, barking and gnashing of teeth that dominates too much of the acting in this film. She imbues her character with just the right elements, and my only knock on her is that I wish she’d been in much, much more of the film. None of that is to diminish Halle Berry’s talents. I just never felt like Jinx had anywhere to go. If they made a Miranda Frost film, I’d be first in line to see it. I mean, she could have survived, right?

Funnell: Jinx Johnson is memorable for her introduction. She is spied by Bond emerging from the sea in a bikini and this scene is an homage to introduction of quintessential Bond Girl Honey Ryder in Dr. No. Die Another Day marks the 40th anniversary of the James Bond series and the action-oriented nature of Johnson highlights the increasing physical empowerment and narrative importance of women in the franchise and especially in the Brosnan era. Although Berry is the first women of color to play the central Bond Girl in a James Bond film, her characterization is not without problems. She is oversexed in ways that white Bond Girls (like Honey Ryder) are not and her depiction arguably taps into cinematic/cultural stereotypes for black women (see the essays by Travis Wagner and Charles Burnetts in For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond [2015]).

Pfeiffer: If memory serves me Halle Berry was the first woman of color to become Bond’s lover since Grace Jones in A View to a Kill in 1985. The lady who broke the glass ceiling in this regard was Gloria Hendry in Live and Let Die in 1973. The producers had to be very happy they cast Berry because before the movie was released, she won the Best Actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball — and it never hurts to have an Oscar winner associated with a Bond movie. Berry certainly fit the bill not only in terms of acting ability but also for the memorable scene in which she comes out of the surf in a bikini, one of several intended homages to previous Bond movies, in this case Ursula Andress in Dr. No. The pity is that the role of Jinx as a street savvy, wise-cracking heroine seemed out of place in a Bond movie. There were plans to give her a series of her own but MGM never carried through with them.

Coate: Where do you think Die Another Day ranks among the James Bond movie series?

Bulk: I tend not to rank the Bond films. I’m not even sure which one is my favorite. I tend to prefer the more grounded Bond films, like Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Licence to Kill and 2006’s Casino Royale. Die Another Day isn’t my favorite, but if one of the local theaters here in L.A. plays it, I’ll probably be the first person to buy a ticket to see it.

Caplen: Die Another Day is darker than its Pierce Brosnan predecessors. While Emilio Largo intimates in Thunderball that he will torture Domino by the strategic, scientific application of heat and cold, we never see him victimize her on film. But the title sequence of Die Another Day allows us to witness, in graphic detail, the extent to which Bond is subjected to these acts, which are accompanied by the venomous stings of scorpions.

I think that Die Another Day is the weakest of the Brosnan films. Compared to other actors’ finales as Bond, Die Another Day does not outshine Diamonds Are Forever, Licence to Kill, or even A View to a Kill. While Die Another Day may present greater excitement and pace than A View to a Kill, I am of the view that the strength of Casino Royale has impacted Die Another Day to a greater degree than The Living Daylights has affected A View to a Kill. While some may affirmatively desire to forget A View to a Kill, Die Another Day is easily susceptible to being simply forgotten.

Cork: Twenty-third out of twenty-six (including the ’67 Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again).

Funnell: It is not in my top 10. It is not the worst Bond film but certainly not the best.

Pfeiffer: I’d lump Die Another Day above only The Man with the Golden Gun. The special effects were disappointing and the film became more absurd as it went along. It was clogged with too many villains and a plot line that meandered. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I suspect no one was very satisfied with the end result. I always thought it was a pity that Brosnan’s reign as Bond had to end on a down note.

Coate: What is the legacy of Die Another Day?

Bulk: The current Bond films are a direct result of Die Another Day. The series tends to reset itself after getting a little outlandish. You Only Live Twice, which involves rockets being stolen in space to escalate World War III, was followed by the down to Earth On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Moonraker, a film that literally sends Bond into outer space, was followed by the more grounded spy thriller, For Your Eyes Only. And Die Another Day, which involves the villain using a space-based weapon ultimately controlled by a robot suit, was followed up with Casino Royale, a more realistic take on Bond and that’s the path the series has been on ever since, although SPECTRE was a little out there. Maybe the next one will take a back to basics approach. I can’t wait to find out!

Caplen: Die Another Day seemed to conclude the Pierce Brosnan era with a question mark, rather than an exclamation point. After completing his final mission, Brosnan quipped that the franchise was “on [its] last legs, and it was not until 2006 that Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale reached theaters. Die Another Day ultimately marked a significant turning point for the franchise, which has taken a more serious tone and accentuates Bond’s relationships (particularly with Dame Judi Dench’s M). It is likely that such an introspective reexamination was not possible with Brosnan, who brought to the role a boyish playfulness that, itself, was a stark departure from Timothy Dalton’s approach.

Cork: The legacy is a completely new direction for 007. Eon walked down that road and found it wasn’t the kind of film they wanted to be making. With the end of the McClory/Sony lawsuits in 2000, Eon could tackle Casino Royale, and they wanted to do that in the right way. That meant jettisoning Brosnan, casting Craig, and rebuilding 007 from the pages of Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel. It was an important step. Die Another Day made good money, delivered on spectacle, but didn’t resonate.

What is interesting to me is that although Die Another Day and Casino Royale are so different, many of the seeds of Casino were sewn in Die Another Day. Michael Wilson had long been interested in the funding of conflict in places like Afghanistan, Bosnia and Africa, and both DAD and Casino begin with scenes dealing with the funding of distant conflicts and illicit arms trade. Brosnan, whom I think is a fine actor, delivers a grouchy, angry performance as Bond that presages the tone written for Craig (who pulls this off brilliantly). When Purvis and Wade worked on the Jinx stand-alone script, they explored her origin story, which helped them look for ways to explore Bond’s origins in Casino Royale. Both films feature Bond’s heart stopping, villains who are well-known, but whose origins are a mystery to British Intelligence. Both films feature major sequences in collapsing buildings that are sinking into water that end with the “drowning” of the lead female character. So there is lots of weird overlap.

Because of all the work I was doing on Bond-related projects at the time, Die Another Day represents a fantastic time in my life. I just wish I liked the movie a bit better.

Funnell: Die Another Day is a turning point for the Bond film franchise. The film contains a notable amount of (obvious) CGI and draws into question if audiences will accept James Bond as a digital hero. James Bond is known for getting out of tricky situations and performing some pretty amazing feats but what happens when the action physically impossible/improbable? Die Another Day pushes Bond to the digital limit (if not over it) and created a turning point in the series as the following films feature the more gritty and physically grounded physical performances of Daniel Craig.

Pfeiffer: The legacy of the film is an important one. As I said previously, I don’t think too many people involved with the movie were enthused with the final cut. That inspired producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to make drastic changes to the franchise, which was in danger of getting stale. Michael had long wanted to shake up the Bond formula by reinventing the films and making them more believable by bringing back the elements of Ian Fleming’s novels. They took a huge gamble on doing so by hiring Daniel Craig and launching the first “real” film version of Casino Royale (assuming one discounts the fun but zany 1967 spoof version). The gamble paid off handsomely and the rest is history. The Bond franchise has been reinvigorated for a new generation. So in that respect, Die Another Day’s legacy is that it paved the way for far superior films.

Coate: Thank you — Neil, Robert, John, Lisa, and Lee — for participating and sharing your thoughts about Die Another Day on the occasion of its 15th anniversary. The James Bond historian roundtable discussion will return in Remembering “Tomorrow Never Dies” on its 20th Anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Eon Productions Limited, Danjaq LLC, MGM Home Entertainment, United Artists Corporation.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

It’s now The Bits’ turn to recognize the film and for the occasion we’ve reached out to pop culture historian Caseen Gaines, who discusses the film’s virtues, shortcomings and influence.

Caseen Gaines is the author of The Dark Crystal: The Ultimate Visual History (Insight Editions, 2017). He is a high school English teacher and co-founder of the Hackensack Theatre Company. His other books include We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (2015, Plume), A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic (2013, ECW Press), and Inside Pee-wee’s Playhouse: The Untold, Unauthorized, and Unpredictable Story of a Pop Phenomenon (2011, ECW Press). He has also written for The A.V. Club, Decider, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think The Dark Crystal should be remembered on its 35th anniversary?

Caseen Gaines: Jim Henson is an undeniable genius, and he would regularly cite The Dark Crystal as the film he was most proud of. That is almost reason enough to revisit the film in its anniversary year. The film has the amazing distinction of being one of a very few films entirely starring puppets. There are no human characters in the film whatsoever. It’s an amazing achievement.

Coate: What was the objective with your new book?

Gaines: The Dark Crystal: The Ultimate Visual History really looks to shine a light on the film, which I really consider to be Jim Henson’s creative masterpiece, and all of the amazing artists like Brian Froud, Frank Oz, and Gary Kurtz, who collaborated alongside him to make the film a reality. For fans of Jim Henson who are not as familiar with the film, it’s a wonderful introduction and the book will catch you up to speed on 35 years of history. For those who are die-hards, there are exclusive images, production notes, never-before-seen stories, and fresh interviews that will add even more to your love for the movie.

Coate: Can you recall the first time you saw The Dark Crystal?

Gaines: I have to admit, I didn’t see the film all the way through until I was an adult, and when I did, I was blown away by the ambition and spectacle of it all. My real first experience with the film was seeing clips of it in a Jim Henson documentary that used to air on Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel when I was younger. I thought the film looked very dark, no pun intended, and a bit scary. Even though I hadn’t seen it all the way through, the look of the characters and aesthetic of the film really stuck with me. On some level, I was always fascinated by it.

Coate: Is The Dark Crystal significant in any way?

Gaines: Besides the reasons I already mentioned, The Dark Crystal is really significant as a time capsule of a film industry that no longer exists. It took Jim Henson a very long time to get the film funded, and then made. The film was incredibly risky for a studio to take a gamble on and for him at that stage in his career. Not to mention, all the effects are practical and done without computers. The sheer magnitude of the project, which was based on an original story, seems impossible to replicate with the way the industry works today. There are tons of sequels for a reason — they’re safe bets!

Coate: Should The Dark Crystal have been more popular/successful?

Gaines: That’s hard to answer. I think it was certainly more deserving of success, but I think it fell short of expectations for a number of reasons. The film was released just a few months after E.T., which was a major international phenomenon. Perhaps more importantly, when Jim Henson’s name is attached to a project, people immediately think of The Muppets — and the characters in The Dark Crystal were far from The Muppets. It just didn’t catch on in its initial theatrical run.

Coate: In what way were Jim Henson and Frank Oz an ideal choice to direct The Dark Crystal?

Gaines: Jim Henson and Frank Oz are both creative geniuses, and The Dark Crystal is better because of their partnership, along with the collaboration of so many other talented artists like Brian Froud, Gary Kurtz, and more. As Frank Oz often says, the film is credited to both of them, but it really was Jim’s baby.

Coate: Would you like to see a sequel or additional adventures?

Gaines: Personally, I’m conflicted. I like that The Dark Crystal stands alone as a film. There’s something magical about this fully realized world that only exists in this one iteration, at least on the big screen. I am very interested in the Netflix prequel series, which is due out in 2019, I believe. I like the idea of expanding the universe in other mediums, but for some reason, I like the idea of there being only one movie.

Coate: How would you describe The Dark Crystal to someone who has never seen it?

Gaines: Everyone in the world is familiar with Jim Henson’s work, but so many have yet to see the project he’s most proud of. For that reason alone, The Dark Crystal is worth a watch.

Coate: What is the legacy of The Dark Crystal?

Gaines: The Dark Crystal reflects that rare moment in cinematic history where brilliant filmmakers were allowed to take a risk on works that they were proud of, even if it took a long time to realize and was costly to produce. Effects were done practically and computers could not be used as an easy way out. When you look at the credits of those who worked on The Dark Crystal, it’s a truly impressive group of people who assembled in London and New York for several years to create this unique film. The movie is the ultimate reminder to me about how powerful something can be when people come together around a common goal. That was true about the making of the film, which is fitting, since it really points to the central message of the movie.

Coate: Thank you, Caseen, for sharing your thoughts about The Dark Crystal on the occasion of its 35th anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Associated Film, Buena Vista Home Video, Henson Associates, ITC Entertainment, Jim Henson Video, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Thorn EMI Video, Universal Pictures.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

The participants for this segment are (in alphabetical order)….

Robert A. Caplen is an attorney and the author of Shaken & Stirred: The Feminism of James Bond (Xlibris, 2010).

John Cork is the author (with Collin Stutz) of James Bond Encyclopedia (DK, 2007) and (with Bruce Scivally) of James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002) and (with Maryam d’Abo) Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond (Abrams, 2003). He is the president of Cloverland, a multi-media production company, producing documentaries and value added material for movies on DVD and Blu-ray, including material for many of the James Bond and Pink Panther titles as well as Chariots of Fire and The Hustler. Cork also wrote the screenplay to The Long Walk Home (1990), starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek. He wrote and directed the feature documentary You Belong to Me: Sex, Race and Murder on the Suwannee River for producers Jude Hagin and Hillary Saltzman (daughter of original Bond producer, Harry Saltzman). He has recently contributed articles on the literary history of James Bond for ianfleming.com and The Book Collector.

Lisa Funnell is the author (with Klaus Dodds) of The Geographies, Genders, and Geopolitics of James Bond (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and editor of For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond (Wallflower, 2015). She is Assistant Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies Program and Affiliate Faculty, Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma. Her other books include Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star (State University of New York, 2014), (with Man-Fung Yip) American and Chinese-Language Cinemas: Examining Cultural Flows (Routledge, 2015), and (with Philippa Gates) Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian Exchange (Routledge, 2012).

Mark O’Connell is a punditeer, the grandson of Bond producer Cubby Broccoli’s chauffeur, and the author of Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan (Splendid Books, 2012). His next book, Watching Skies: Star Wars, Spielberg and Us, will be published in May 2018.

Lee Pfeiffer is the author (with Dave Worrall) of The Essential Bond: The Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (Boxtree, 1998/Harper Collins, 1999) and (with Philip Lisa) The Incredible World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of James Bond (Citadel, 1992) and The Films of Sean Connery (Citadel, 2001). Lee was a producer on the Goldfinger and Thunderball Special Edition LaserDisc sets and is the founder (with Dave Worrall) and Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Retro magazine, which celebrates films of the 1960s and 1970s and is “the Essential Guide to Cult and Classic Movies.”

The interviews were conducted separately and edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

And now that the participants have been introduced, might I suggest preparing a martini (shaken, not stirred, of course) and cueing up the soundtrack album to Tomorrow Never Dies, and then enjoy the conversation with these James Bond authorities.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way is Tomorrow Never Dies worthy of celebration on its 20th anniversary?

Robert Caplen: In our current era of “fake news,” Tomorrow Never Dies seems more relevant than ever. Released in 1997 with the Internet in its infancy, Tomorrow Never Dies addressed issues with which we grapple today: manipulation and dishonesty in journalism, cyberterrorism, and the threat of nuclear war. Tomorrow Never Dies was overshadowed by the success of Titanic, but it is arguably Pierce Brosnan’s second best performance as James Bond (after GoldenEye).

John Cork: Tomorrow Never Dies is my favorite of the Pierce Brosnan Bond films. I think it’s Brosnan’s best performance as Bond. It is his most relaxed, his most confident. He moves with a fluidity in the film that seemed perfect for 007.

The film was a nightmare production on many levels. It is no secret that the director, Roger Spottiswoode, and the producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, did not get along during production. That’s always unfortunate. Having worked closely with Barbara and Michael, I felt for them. On the other hand, a friend started dating Roger during the production, and just before the film opened in the U.S., I joined my friend and Roger for dinner. It was fascinating to hear his experiences in that kind of casual setting. Regardless of why the communication and trust broke down, you could tell it was a very stressful experience for all involved. Pierce Brosnan had his battles on the set, too. He and Terri Hatcher had a well-publicized row when he bit her lip during the shooting of their intimate scene. He likely felt embarrassed by her response, but the result was a very mean-spirited piece on Hatcher on American television portraying her as a diva on the set. For various reasons, the script always seemed to be in flux, which frustrated actors and crew. Yet, I found the resulting film beautifully edited, filled with Bondian touches, some fantastic dialogue thanks to Bruce Feirstein’s scripting, two great songs, and a David Arnold score that gets my blood racing every time.

Lisa Funnell: Released in 1997, Tomorrow Never Dies reflects the fact that the world in which Bond is operating has changed geopolitically. First, the film highlights the porous nature of national borders (particularly after the fall of the Soviet Union) where alliances and allegiances are less clear. This is emphasized in the pre-credit sequence with the description of the weapons being sold at the “terrorist supermarket,” many of which have national descriptors: “Chinese longmark SCUD, a Panther A-658 attack helicopter, American rifles, Chilean mines and German explosives. Fun for the whole family.” Second, the film does the imaginative work of culture by (re)envisioning a new relationship between Britain and China after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong. Bond works in concert with a Chinese agent, Wai Lin, and the pair take down a threat to the global order. Through this cooperative relationship, Britain via Bond remains a key player in East Asia even as the actual influence of the UK is waning in the region.

Mark O’Connell: I am struggling to pinpoint a Bond film which has never been more prescient twenty years on than Tomorrow Never Dies. Broadcast rights, fake news, rising tensions in Chinese territories, a Britain being told it is no longer the empirical player it once was, younger trophy wives, spun headlines, shoe-horning news into political ammo, a villain obsessed with ratings, media mogul cohorts of the Prime Minister, a villain obsessed with one-sided rallies, arms deals on Russian soil, loathsome press secretaries, talk of corrupt MPs, dubious bankers, an America still reeling from Vietnam and a bit of racist bigotry on the part of the villain — two decades on Tomorrow Never Dies is less a Bond movie, and more of lean, stylish, mature, yet inadvertent prophecy on a post-Obama, post-fact world. It’s also a markedly solid caper of a Bond film and warrants any celebration for that alone.

Lee Pfeiffer: It was Pierce Brosnan’s second Bond film and was essential in proving that his success in GoldenEye wasn’t a flash-in-the-pan. Every Bond actor seems to get better and more assured in the role the longer he plays it. Brosnan’s performance in TND follows that pattern. The role of Bond fit him like a glove. He had been a popular choice for the part when Roger Moore left the series but, as we all know, Brosnan couldn’t take the role at the last minute because NBC decided to renew his TV series Remington Steele. They thought they could have the actor who plays James Bond appearing every week in their TV series. All they achieved was depriving Brosnan of the role, as Timothy Dalton was signed. Brosnan later admitted, however, that it was a blessing in disguise. By the time Bond did arrive at his doorstep, he was more mature physically and more refined as an actor.

Coate: Can you describe what it was like seeing Tomorrow Never Dies for the first time?

Caplen: I enjoyed the film when I watched it the first time. The title sequence initially struck me as odd with suspended female silhouettes randomly floating and looking like insects, but the remaining visuals were fantastic and a prelude to an exciting plot. I really enjoyed Tomorrow Never Dies and thought Pierce Brosnan made James Bond his own.

Cork: I saw the film numerous times before the Los Angeles premiere at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I believe the first time was when MGM held a big pre-release screening in Westwood and Eon Productions gave me ten tickets. I invited a good group of friends. My favorite moment was as I was entering the theater from the lobby, James Coburn was walking in. When he was right beside me, I turned to one of my friends and so Coburn could hear it said, “Derek Flint could always kick James Bond’s ass.” Coburn smiled, nodded and went on to his seat.

Funnell: In the early 2000s, I was writing my MA thesis on the Bond Girl. I was doing a quantitative content analysis of all the James Bond films and exploring various facets of the archetype. This was the first time I saw Tomorrow Never Dies and I was so captivated by the dynamic performance of Michelle Yeoh as Wai Lin that I stopped taking notes. I had to re-watch the film in order to complete my analysis (oh darn!). This film and especially the performance of Yeoh had a strong impact on me. It inspired me to research and write my first book Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star. Thus, my first viewing of Tomorrow Never Dies set me down a research path that has helped to shape and define my academic career! So the film occupies a special place in my heart!

O’Connell: I saw it on opening night, having returned earlier from university to continue the family traditions of seeing a new Bond together. From the white dots onwards, this was clearly a Bond movie that wanted to sprint from the starting blocks. It reminds of The Empire Strikes Back where everything and everyone is on the run. What immediately struck was just how frenzied and fast-lane it all was. The opening half hour is a slick unraveling of potentially convoluted events — but in using that initial surveillance room as a narrative crossroads for all the non-Bond elements vying for political and story attention, the film cuts off twenty minutes of exposition and quickly emerges as one of the tightest 007 movies (helmed by Sam Peckinpah’s 70s editor Roger Spottiswoode helps I imagine).

Pfeiffer: I saw the film at a press screening in London then went to the gala premiere that night at the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square. I had not been as enamored with GoldenEye as most people, though I like it more today. I felt that TND started out as a vast improvement over that film but unfortunately fell apart in the second half of the film when it drops a compelling story line in favor of spectacular action scenes.

Coate: In what way was Jonathan Pryce’s Elliot Carver a memorable/effective villain?

Caplen: Elliot Carver is two decades ahead of his time: a cold, calculating, manipulative, so-called journalist in charge of a large media conglomerate that carefully controls the dissemination of (false and manufactured) information. Today we would call Carver the editor-in-chief of a “fake news” network. Carver’s journalistic proclivities are accompanied by a wild fanaticism grounded in extortion (of individuals, including the American president, and governments). In an era that predated social media, Carver’s diabolical use of media is scary. Information is Carver’s weapon of mass destruction. Yet, he is no Auric Goldfinger or Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Cork: I love Jonathan Pryce as an actor. When I was working with Eon before GoldenEye, there was a discussion about whether it would be appropriate to bring back Desmond Llewelyn as Q. Of course it was. Desmond was a great asset to the first three Brosnan Bond films. But I had suggested Pryce as a potential replacement.

The character of Elliot Carver went through so many iterations, with his motivations ranging from originally wanting to destroy Hong Kong to desiring cable news rights in China. He was part Citizen Kane and part Robert Maxwell and part Rupert Murdoch. His original name, Elliot Harmsway, was a bit too close to Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere, who had died in 1978. Why would anyone care? Well, Esmond Harmsworth was the prior husband of Ian Fleming’s wife Ann, and his son still ran the Daily Mail at the time (it is now controlled by his grandson).

Pryce plays Carver with unbridled, malevolent joy. “There’s no news like bad news” is a good line gloriously delivered. I love the scene where he’s creating headlines. “The Empire Strikes Back” is just so perfect. But Pryce gets the line of dialogue that for me is the single best line of dialogue in the Bond series, one that I quote often, one that other screenwriters have asked me if they could steal. That line is: “The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” That’s a Bruce Feirstein line, and I’m glad I don’t have to pay him a dime every time I use it!

Carver’s weak spot is that his goals seem so out of whack to the lengths he goes to achieve them. At some point the audience is left wondering, wait, this is all for satellite rights in China? He also has the problem of “movie keyboard syndrome” where he is typing with one hand on a keyboard as he wanders around the scene. Don’t watch that closely while trying to swallow a mouthful of milk. He also suffered from a weak death scene. I love Bond’s line, but the moment onscreen does not work well, and on paper, it did.

Funnell: Jonathan Pryce delivers a compelling portrayal of a power hungry villain who delights in his ability to influence the thoughts and actions of the leaders of major world powers. But as a writer myself, what I envy the most about Elliot Carver is his ability to type on his keyboard with one hand without making any typos and without looking down at the keys. This is a truly remarkable skill that would serve him well in the era of smartphones!

O’Connell: Pryce certainly makes the best of a potentially hammy foe. He totally sells the Blofeldian machinations of possibly the first SPECTRE-framed villain since Sir Hugo Drax and 1979’s Moonraker. The importance of nearly being Ernst is all there in how the audience comes to his world. We don’t first see him on the racecourse, opera, chemical plant or auction house. He is stood alone facing banks of screens, monitors, buttons and mayhem. How that production motif by designer Allan Cameron unfurls and frames the villain of this film greatly aids Jonathan Pryce who was familiar with eating up a Broadway and West End stage or two. Conversely, there are some curious beats to Carver — not least his awkward predilection for blatant racism (his karate-chop tirade against Michelle Yeoh’s Wai Lin always jars). Yet, Pryce’s Carver has arguably one of the best lines of any character in any Bond film — “The distance between sanity and genius is measured only by success”. It is a mantra for the Bond movie juggernaut itself and great testament to writer Bruce Feirstein. Ultimately for this Bond writer the strength of the plotting and the contemporary machinations of Carver’s scheme props up the villain more than perhaps the performance.

Pfeiffer: Despite my criticisms of the film, I always felt Pryce — along with Vincent Schiavelli — proved to be two excellent villains in the style of the old Bond baddies. The villains were getting smaller-than-life and Pryce at least had some grandeur to his persona and his schemes.

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Coate: In what way was Michelle Yeoh’s Wai Lin a memorable/effective Bond Girl?

Caplen: Wai Lin is a unique complement for James Bond. A Chinese spy trained in the martial arts, Wai Lin is much more skillful, strong, and assertive than Ling, another Chinese agent who made a brief appearance in You Only Live Twice. In effect, Wai Lin is a 1990s equivalent of Anya Amasova or Dr. Holly Goodhead, both of whom are assigned to the same case and must ultimately work together with James Bond to complete the mission.

Wai Lin successfully outmaneuvers Bond on several occasions, notably her gravity defying escape from assault and handcuffing Bond to the outdoor shower, and rejects his romantic overtures. Despite her mental acumen and athletic abilities (unlike the school girls in The Man With The Golden Gun who make one brief appearance, Wai Lin’s martial arts skills are prominently featured and recurring), Wai Lin is ultimately a Bond Girl. As such, Bond, not Wai Lin, is tasked with disposing of the villains and successfully completing the mission (with Wai Lin’s assistance, of course), while Wai Lin must be rescued. Here, Mr. Stamper’s preferred death method for Wai Lin is drowning (reminiscent of Dr. No, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and The Spy Who Loved Me). For all of Wai Lin’s independence and empowering attributes, though, she ultimately owes her life to Bond, who literally breathes new life into her while underwater. For those efforts, Wai Lin finally succumbs to Bond’s physical desires, ensuring that the gender paradigm within James Bond’s universe is progressive-lite.

Cork: Michelle Yeoh is a force of nature. While Eon considered a Jinx spinoff film, my vote would have been for a Wai Lin film. She is a joy to watch.

Funnell: Michelle Yeoh plays the strongest and most physically capable Bond Girl in the series. Not only does Wai Lin outfight and outshine Bond in all of the scenes that they share, but Yeoh performed her own stunts and even brought in her own stunt team from Hong Kong. Moreover, she is presented as being a co-hero to Bond and even a superior agent. This is achieved in two ways. First, she is not overtly sexualized and fetishized on screen even though the Bond Girl is a predetermined sexualized role. While sex and sexuality tend to bolster male heroism (serving as visual signifiers of heteronormative masculinity), these images typically work to diminish the heroic competency of action women (as it renders then passive objects of the male gaze). Lin remains focused on the mission at hand while Bond seems eager for a sexual distraction. Second, she is presented as a superspy with her own stash of Q-like gadgets. It is Bond and not Lin who is set up as the butt of a series of gags in which he accidentally sets off a number of devices. In the end, it is Lin and not Bond who is shown to be the superior spy. This might be one reason why she only appears in half of the film so as to not overshadow the title hero. This is, after all, a James Bond film.

O’Connell: She was the first woman for a while who was given that “she’s Bond’s equal” badge who actually deserved it. Yes, Wai Lin still needs rescuing by Bond more than once, but holding her own is clearly no problem for one of 80s Asian Cinema’s biggest names. Yeoh is more effective because she is allowed to be older, and have a momentum to her character that is already three scenes down the line when we meet her. And she is gifted that great fun moment when she is escaping Carver’s Hamburg printing house by using her inner Emma Peel, a piton wrist shooting thin and a slick leather catsuit. Yeoh always has great screen grace and dignity. It was maybe Tomorrow Never Dies that allowed her to share that with the movie world. And she is one of the few Bond actresses whose career shifted a gear after her time with 007 ended. From Bond actress to Star Trek captain is much deserved (with both productions boasting Wrath of Khan’s Nicholas Meyer on less publicized screenplay input duties).

Pfeiffer: The film was cutting edge in terms of presenting Wai Lin as a female kick-ass action hero long before this was deemed to be popular. For decades, female action heroes were considered to be the kiss of death to movie audiences but the Bond films help break that glass ceiling and pave the way for today’s current crop of action-oriented heroines.

Coate: Where do you think Tomorrow Never Dies ranks among the James Bond movie series?

Caplen: I think Tomorrow Never Dies is Pierce Brosnan’s second strongest James Bond film. That said, I believe it cannot compare to several pre-1997 films or Casino Royale, Skyfall, and SPECTRE.

Cork: For me, it ranks #10, which is pretty high among fans. That’s just above GoldenEye on my list.

Funnell: I might be in the minority here but I really like Tomorrow Never Dies. It is not in my top 5 but certainly ranks in my top 10. This is primarily due to the performance of Michelle Yeoh who is utterly captivating on screen. The depiction of strong and capable women enhance Bond films. This is where the last two Craig era films — Skyfall and SPECTRE — fall short for me.

O’Connell: For this Bond writer it is easily Pierce Brosnan’s best turn as 007 in easily his best 007 movie. GoldenEye shook off the cobwebs of Bond’s enforced six-year sabbatical. But Tomorrow Never Dies is where he really settles into the role and the swagger of it. Despite the strange bitey kissing thing he has going on more than once, he totally commands the screen. The audience is glad when he is there amidst the arms bazaar. The audience is glad he wanders into the heated exchanges with a flash of a Carver newspaper and an “it might be too late for that.” There is a great beat of Bond checking the strength of a glass ash-tray whilst being beaten up in a sound proofed recording studio in Hamburg. It is one of the defining tics of Brosnan’s time in the role. The pace of the movie is worth noting too. Twenty years on, and having caught it again recently, this a sleek, fast Bond movie that rarely drags. Spottiswoode certainly knew how to condense the tropes to keep the film — rather than perhaps the franchise — moving. Despite a purportedly hard shoot, Spottiswoode and his editors on this one deserve better credit for that.

Pfeiffer: Certainly not in the top ranks but there are enough good and impressive elements to it to make it rise above the lesser entries in the series. The film benefits from a good score and two good songs over the opening and closing credits. There are other compensating factors but the film’s second half diminishes noticeably in terms of plot and for me that seriously mitigates the potential that the first half of the movie promises.

Coate: What is the legacy of Tomorrow Never Dies?

Caplen: Tomorrow Never Dies firmly implanted Pierce Brosnan in the role of James Bond. GoldenEye was a hard act to follow, but the 1997 installment offered enough realism to complement the fantasy that rendered Tomorrow Never Dies a tremendous success.

Cork: The film showed that GoldenEye was not a fluke, that Bond was not only back, but beloved. It came out a few months after Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, which in its own way helped introduce a new generation to James Bond. Just as importantly, it came out four months after the launch of the GoldenEye 007 video game, a game that had tremendous influence on the video game market, and primed the pump for more Bond mania.

Also, at the time, a lot of artists were incorporating music from Bond films into their own compositions. The Sneaker Pimps had a huge hit with Six Underground, which sampled music from the Goldfinger score. One of the biggest albums of 1997 was Portishead’s self-titled album, and their sound was a loving homage to John Barry and the spy film sound. And that brings us to David Arnold. Although John Barry had been unofficially announced as the composer a year before the film was released, when negotiations broke down the filmmakers turned to David Arnold. At the time David Arnold was creating a James Bond tribute album with the spectacular Propellerheads version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Arnold’s score is not only a trip down memory lane for Bond soundtrack lovers, with numerous hat-tips to prior Bond film scores, but it is a brilliant score on its own. While many dismiss the title track by Sheryl Crow, I love it. And Arnold’s swipe at a title song, which was retitled Surrender just lifts up the entire ending. He knocks it out of the park. Nor should we forget Moby’s version of the James Bond Theme. I’m not sure David Arnold much liked it, but it made 007 feel absolutely of the moment. Music is such a vital part of the legacy of James Bond, and Tomorrow Never Dies, for me, defines the entire decade of the 90s for the Bond sound. I listen to that score as often as many of the 60s Bond scores.

Watching Tomorrow Never Dies today, the cynical view of the press is deeply reflected in the attacks on the media by folks like Donald Trump with his cries of “fake news,” (a term he co-opted from the name given to the Russian government’s effort to generate completely fake news to influence elections not only in the U.S., but throughout Europe). Those on the political left see diligent efforts to re-shape our reality by outlets like Fox News and Breitbart and through sub-rosa efforts by Vladimir Putin. Those on the political right believe the press has always had a Liberal tilt, and regularly attack outlets like CNN and MSNBC. If I were teaching a course on the public perception of journalism, I would show Tomorrow Never Dies along with films like All the President’s Men, Spotlight, and The Post. It’s not that the film explores public cynicism toward the press in depth, but it plays into all our greatest concerns that we are being played by media barons with some agenda. I can think of no other film that does this so seamlessly and with such casual bitterness.

Most Bond films exploit our fear of criminal organizations or morally corrupt moguls bent on world domination. Tomorrow Never Dies is the only Bond film to make one of the West’s most cherished freedoms — the press — its target. It is unique in that. And, with the massive (and unfortunate) increase in distrust of the press over the past 20 years, it is also somewhat prescient.

Funnell: Tomorrow Never Dies explores the impact that a media mogul and his various “news” outputs can have on social consciousness and political decision-making. This remains an important issue 20 years later given the rise of bias and punditry in mainstream corporate news media with an emphasis on clicks/clickbait (rather than, say, accuracy and objectivity). It offers a warning of the ways in which those in positions of power can select, distort, and promote stories/narratives that fit their viewpoint of the world and financial objectives.

O’Connell: As the millennium approached, Bond ‘97 heralded a new era for 007 movie making. David Arnold came on board with what is his best Bond score (a close tie with Casino Royale). The film proves that Bond has many templates. But here it is one of utter contemporary steel. Tomorrow Never Dies operates in a coyly-constructed world of grey Europe cities, curbside newsstands, yellowing Tomorrow logos suggesting a history to the brand, dull high street car rental units, neon midnight parties in laser show hangars, and a cacophony of naval personnel and panic — these all lend a current nature to the piece rather than the classical Europe motifs of other Bond movies. The whole film also has a constant silvery palette — almost suggesting a sci-fi mentality without taking Bond into space. The media mogul backdrop was a natural fit for a Bond villain (and the Robert Maxwell “suicide at sea” press release idea from M was delicious at the time). The film also kept a grip of its multiple characters and sub-villains with slick aplomb. It could be argued the side figures of Brosnan’s subsequent Bond outings had less focus and usage than the fun and brilliantly pitched likes of Dr. Kaufman, Admiral Roebuck and Paris Carver here.

There is often one Bond film that is the definitive adventure of its decade. Goldfinger in the Sixties, The Spy Who Loved Me for the Seventies, and A View to a Kill for the Eighties all receive differing fan responses, but physically they are the films where their decades infiltrate everything about them. Tomorrow Never Dies — released at the height of Brit Pop, with musical contributions from Moby, The Propellerheads, Sheryl Crow and KD Lang, the end of British empire with the ‘97 handover of Hong Kong and the first marked use of cell phone technology in a Bond film — is easily the Nineties equivalent. That it is also about clickbait, fake news, media “likes” and ratings before some of those terms were even coined suggests Q gave Bond a crystal ball along with that BMW.

Pfeiffer: I don’t think TND has shown the staying power that most of the other Bond movies have. It isn’t widely discussed nowadays but that shouldn’t diminish the fact that it was a major hit at the time of its release, even though it was directly competing against Titanic. I suppose its major importance was in cementing Pierce Brosnan as the James Bond of that time period — a responsibility he fulfilled very successfully.

Coate: Thank you — Robert, John, Lisa, Mark, and Lee — for participating and sharing your thoughts about Tomorrow Never Dies on the occasion of its 20th anniversary.The James Bond roundtable discussion will return in Remembering “Casino Royale” on its 50th Anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Eon Productions Limited, Danjaq LLC, MGM Home Entertainment, United Artists Corporation.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

THE ROADSHOW ENGAGEMENTS

What follows, for historical record and nostalgia, is a chronological reference listing of the North American first run “hard ticket” roadshow engagements of Camelot. These were special long-running, showcase presentations in major cities prior to the film being exhibited as a general release, and they featured advanced admission pricing, reserved seating, an overture/intermission/entr’acte/exit music, and an average of only ten scheduled screenings per week. Souvenir program booklet were sold, as well.

Out of the hundreds of films released during 1967, Camelot was among only eight that were given deluxe roadshow treatment.

Many of the roadshow presentations of Camelot were, as the promotional material proudly boasted, presented in “breathtaking 70mm” (which were blown up from anamorphic 35mm) and offered a superior projection and sound experience. All of the film’s roadshow presentations are believed to have been presented with stereophonic sound (4-track for 35mm and 6-track for 70mm).

Note that this is not a complete listing. Instead, the primary objective was to focus on the top markets in North America and also provide as sprinkling of secondary market entries to give a sense of the types of locales involved in the roadshow release. Also understand the engagements cited here represent only a fraction of the thousands of total bookings throughout the many cycles of distribution over the course of the film’s release. As well, this work does not include any general, international or re-release engagements. The duration of the cited engagements (measured in weeks) is provided for some of the entries to give the reader a sense of the movie’s popularity.

The film’s anniversary offers an opportunity to namedrop some famous and once-glorious cinemas, to provide some nostalgia for those who saw the film during this phase of its original release, and to reflect on how the film industry has evolved the manner in which event and prestige films are exhibited.

Opening date YYYY-MM-DD … City — Cinema (duration in weeks)

• 1967-10-25 … New York, NY — Warner (34)
• 1967-10-27 … Chicago, IL — Bismarck (47)
• 1967-10-30 … Boston, MA — Music Hall (benefit premiere only)

• 1967-11-01 … Boston, MA — Saxon (32)
• 1967-11-01 … Detroit, MI — United Artists (32)
• 1967-11-01 … Los Angeles, CA — Cinerama Dome (51)
• 1967-11-01 … San Francisco, CA — Coronet (39)
• 1967-11-02 … Edmonton, AB — Varscona (18) [35mm]
• 1967-11-02 … Montreal, QC — Westmount (15)
• 1967-11-02 … Vancouver, BC — Stanley (18)
• 1967-11-02 … Winnipeg, MB — Gaiety (18) [35mm]
• 1967-11-07 … Cleveland, OH — Colony (20)
• 1967-11-07 … Miami (Miami Beach), FL — Lincoln (33)
• 1967-11-08 … Cincinnati, OH — Kenwood (25)
• 1967-11-08 … Dallas, TX — Inwood (23)
• 1967-11-08 … Honolulu, HI — Kuhio (21)
• 1967-11-08 … Houston, TX — Alabama
• 1967-11-08 … Minneapolis, MN — Academy (49)
• 1967-11-08 … Oklahoma City, OK — Tower (24)
• 1967-11-08 … Pittsburgh, PA — Squirrel Hill (24)
• 1967-11-08 … Washington, DC — Warner (31)
• 1967-11-09 … Philadelphia, PA — Stanley (33)
• 1967-11-14 … Kansas City, MO — Capri (36)
• 1967-11-14 … Seattle, WA — Music Box (25)
• 1967-11-15 … Atlanta, GA — Martin Cinerama (28)
• 1967-11-15 … Omaha, NE — Cooper 70 (21)
• 1967-11-15 … Ottawa, ON — Nelson (14)
• 1967-11-15 … Portland, OR — Paramount (29)
• 1967-11-16 … New Orleans, LA — Saenger-Orleans (18)
• 1967-11-22 … St. Petersburg, FL — Center (27)
• 1967-11-22 … San Antonio, TX — Wonder (16)

• 1967-12-20 … Albany, NY — Madison (12+)
• 1967-12-20 … Baltimore, MD — New (18)
• 1967-12-20 … Hartford (Wethersfield), CT — Cine Webb (18)
• 1967-12-20 … Milwaukee, WI — Towne (31)
• 1967-12-20 … Rochester, NY — Waring (19) [35mm]
• 1967-12-20 … St. Louis (Richmond Heights), MO — Esquire (23)
• 1967-12-20 … Syracuse, NY — Eckel (14)
• 1967-12-20 … Toronto, ON — University (22)
• 1967-12-21 … Buffalo, NY — Teck (15)
• 1967-12-21 … Calgary, AB — Chinook (13)
• 1967-12-21 … Indianapolis, IN — Circle (23)
• 1967-12-21 … Phoenix (Scottsdale), AZ — Camelback Mall (23) [35mm]
• 1967-12-21 … Providence, RI — Elmwood
• 1967-12-21 … San Diego, CA — Cinerama (41)
• 1967-12-21 … Tucson, AZ — El Dorado (13) [35mm]
• 1967-12-22 … Charlotte, NC — Park Terrace
• 1967-12-22 … Columbus, OH — Cinestage
• 1967-12-22 … Des Moines, IA — Ingersoll (23) [35mm]
• 1967-12-22 … Memphis, TN — Paramount (13)
• 1967-12-22 … Portland, ME — Empire [35mm]

• 1968-01-10 … Las Vegas, NV — Cinerama (9)
• 1968-01-17 … Springfield (West Springfield), MA — Showcase 3 (15)
• 1968-01-26 … Palm Beach (West Palm Beach), FL — Florida (7) [35mm]
• 1968-01-31 … Louisville, KY — Showcase 2 (14) [35mm]

• 1968-02-07 … Dayton (Trotwood), OH — Salem Mall (12+)
• 1968-02-07 … Fresno, CA — Hardy [35mm]
• 1968-02-07 … Newark (Upper Montclair), NJ — Bellevue (20)
• 1968-02-07 … Norfolk, VA — Lee [35mm]
• 1968-02-07 … Wichita, KS — Uptown (14)
• 1968-02-14 … Denver, CO — Aladdin (40)
• 1968-02-14 … Harrisburg, PA — Eric
• 1968-02-14 … Richmond, VA — Willow Lawn (19)
• 1968-02-14 … Salt Lake City, UT — Centre (40)
• 1968-02-27 … Toledo, OH — Showcase 3 (16)

• 1968-03-13 … El Paso, TX — Pershing (7) [35mm]

• 1968-04-03 … Akron, OH — Village (15) [35mm]
• 1968-04-03 … Asbury Park, NJ — St. James (12)
• 1968-04-03 … Green Bay, WI — West (21) [35mm]
• 1968-04-03 … Lawrence, MA — Showcase 2 (11)
• 1968-04-03 … Madison, WI — Hilldale (18) [35mm]
• 1968-04-03 … Oakland, CA — Grand Lake (16) [35mm]
• 1968-04-10 … Binghamton, NY — Capri (11)
• 1968-04-10 … Palm Springs, CA — Camelot (6)
• 1968-04-11 … Lubbock, TX — Cinema West (7) [35mm]
• 1968-04-12 … Cedar Rapids, IA — Times 70 (10)
• 1968-04-12 … Dubuque, IA — Strand (11) [35mm]
• 1968-04-17 … New Haven, CT — Whalley (23)
• 1968-04-?? … Atlantic City, NJ — ?

• 1968-05-28 … San Jose, CA — Century 23 (34)
• 1968-05-31 … Orlando, FL — Beacham (10)

• 1968-06-07 … Evansville, IN — Ross (8) [35mm]
• 1968-06-12 … Colorado Springs, CO — Cinema 70 (6)
• 1968-06-12 … Greenville, SC — Astro (8)
• 1968-06-12 … Raleigh, NC — Colony (10) [35mm]
• 1968-06-12 … Shreveport, LA — Strand (6) [35mm]
• 1968-06-13 … Nashville, TN — Green Hills (12) [35mm]
• 1968-06-18 … Sacramento, CA — Century 22 (26)
• 1968-06-19 … Albuquerque, NM — Lobo (12) [35mm]
• 1968-06-19 … Austin, TX — Americana (8)
• 1968-06-19 … Lynbrook, NY — Lynbrook
• 1968-06-19 … Reading, PA — Shillington (12) [35mm]
• 1968-06-26 … Burlington, VT — State (8) [35mm]
• 1968-06-26 … Reno, NV — Century 21 (7)
• 1968-06-27 … Greensboro, NC — Terrace (7)
• 1968-06-27 … Youngstown, OH — Paramount (13)
• 1968-06-28 … Columbia, SC — Richland Mall (7)
• 1968-06-28 … Springfield, IL — Frisina (5) [35mm]
• 1968-06-?? … Birmingham, AL — Ritz

• 1968-07-03 … Monterey, CA — Cinema 70 (15)
• 1968-07-03 … Pensacola, FL — Rex (5) [35mm]
• 1968-07-03 … Winston-Salem, NC — Winston [35mm]
• 1968-07-18 … Corpus Christi, TX — Deux Cine (6) [35mm]
• 1968-07-19 … Jacksonville, FL — Center (6) [35mm]

• 1968-08-07 … Durham, NC — Center
• 1968-08-14 … Amarillo, TX — Esquire (6) [35mm]
• 1968-08-14 … Montgomery, AL — Capri (6) [35mm]
• 1968-08-21 … Spartanburg, SC — Palmetto (4) [35mm]

• 1968-09-11 … Pleasant Hill, CA — Century 21 (9)

• 1968-11-21 … Odessa, TX — Grandview (4) [35mm]

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THE Q&A

Matthew Kennedy is a writer, film historian, and anthropologist living in Oakland. He is the author of Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s (Oxford University Press, 2014), Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes (University Press of Mississippi, 2007), Edmund Goulding’s Dark Victory: Hollywood’s Genius Bad Boy (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), and Marie Dressler: A Biography (McFarland, 1999). His articles have appeared in the program books of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival. He is film and book critic for the respected Bright Lights Film Journal and has hosted retrospectives based on his books at the Pacific Film Archive, UCLA Film Archive, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think Camelot should be remembered on its 50th anniversary?

Matthew Kennedy: If for no other reason, Camelot should be remembered as a kind of elegy for musical films, and political idealism and innocence as reflected in the Kennedy presidency. Soon after Kennedy’s assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy told a reporter that her husband often listened to the Camelot Broadway album, and loved the lyric:

Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot.

The screen version was released in 1967, four years after his death, but it was made with an awareness of that association. A vague idealism for a just and even utopian society courses through the film, informed by the Kennedy connection.

Coate: What is your opinion of Camelot and when did you first see it?

Kennedy: Camelot is a prime example of the problem with Hollywood “wisdom” in the late 1960s. Since My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music were such colossal hits, it only stands to reason that another big budgeted adaptation of a recent Broadway musical would perform similarly at the box office. But it didn’t happen as Jack Warner envisioned. Camelot, its story dominated by a tale of infidelity, doesn’t have the widespread appeal of Lady or Music. It’s long and miscast, though intermittently scrumptious to the eyes and ears. I find Camelot interesting in light of its timing — showing up in the marketplace in 1967 alongside The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. It seriously lacked the “hip” factor of those films. It’s so clear in retrospect they led the way toward new styles of popular filmmaking in America, while Camelot represented the beginning of the end for the big splashy musicals.

I don’t remember when I first saw Camelot. It came out when I was ten, and I didn’t become alert to new movies for another few years. I probably saw it in the then decaying art deco Cascade Theater of my hometown of Redding, California.

Coate: Is Camelot significant in any way?

Kennedy: Camelot is significant in several ways. It represents the first big budget musical produced for the screen after the quick succession of blockbusters Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music convinced Hollywood that musicals were hot commodities and guaranteed money makers. Camelot disabused Hollywood of that notion, and became a red flag as other studios had already committed enormous resources to other expensive musicals.

It’s one of the last in a long line of Broadway-to-Hollywood musical adaptations before the film musical genre went into a deep and protracted decline.

Camelot appeared when society and film were changing at head-spinning speed. It was dated before it premiered. It stands in graphic contrast to Cool Hand Luke, The Graduate, In Cold Blood, and Bonnie and Clyde, all released in 1967. It’s clear in retrospect that Camelot began the extinction process of old school Broadway musicals extravagantly transferred to the screen.

Coate: How does the film compare to the Lerner-Loewe stage production?

Kennedy: A number of major changes were made in adapting the 1960 Broadway production. The film went on location to Spain and opened up the stage version considerably. The sets and costumes are an extreme reimagining from the original’s more traditional approach to mythic royalty. Designer John Truscott went crazy with an early hippie aesthetic mixed with Hammer film darkness and Doctor Zhivago winter freeze as needed.

The film’s casting prioritized movie stardom over musical talent. The original Broadway cast starred Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet. Two out of three were highly trained singers, with Burton perfecting the talk-singing technique that worked so well for Rex Harrison in the stage and screen version of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady. For Camelot, neither Richard Harris as Arthur, nor Vanessa Redgrave as Guenevere, nor Franco Nero as Lancelot were musically accomplished. Harris had a short-lived recording career after Camelot, but he’s most remembered as an actor.

Coate: Which are the standout songs in Camelot?

Kennedy: The score is probably the film’s strongest asset, boosted by lush orchestral arrangements. The Prelude and Overture are stirring on the big screen as they promise a grandiose entertainment. The aching love songs If Ever I Would Leave You and I Loved You Once in Silence are effective, and Guenevere has a cinematic urgency to it as it builds dramatic tension. C’est Moi gives background to Lancelot’s outsized ego, which sets up his audacious seduction of the queen. But the sentiments in other songs don’t age well. What Do the Simple Folk Do? offer condescending suppositions by the 1% (to borrow contemporary argot) on how everybody else lives. The lyrics of Then You May Take Me to the Fair, despite the benign title, are just plain gruesome.

Coate: In what way was Richard Harris a memorable or effective King Arthur?

Kennedy: Richard Harris brought a well-suited regality to King Arthur. There’s a quality of inner strength to him that comes over well. He talk-sings in the manner of Rex Harrison and Richard Burton in the original stage version, though with more commitment to melody. These men had impeccable diction and wonderful mellifluous tones, so they could get away with speaking through their songs rather than hitting the notes. Harris’ acting is uneven, though, at times evoking a sibilant Marlon Brando in close-up.

Coate: In what way was Vanessa Redgrave a memorable or effective Guenevere?

Kennedy: Redgrave’s acting is exquisite, especially with Nero. She captures Guenevere’s romantic and erotic conflicts beautifully. Her sex appeal was a priority in casting her over Julie Andrews, who was too busy to film Camelot anyway. But Redgrave comes up short vocally. Her voice isn’t bad, but it lacks the training and support necessary to convey the powerful and diverse emotions going on with her character.

Coate: In what way was Joshua Logan an ideal choice to direct the film version of Camelot, and where does the film rank among his body of work?

Kennedy: Logan would seem to be a strong, if not an ideal, choice for Camelot. He directed Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific, and Fanny on Broadway, then transferred the latter two to screen. He enjoyed success in Hollywood directing Picnic, Bus Stop, and Sayonara, but he goes badly astray with Camelot. This was Jack Warner’s swan song, and he threw an enormous $12 million at it. Logan didn’t know what to do with all that money. His prolific close-ups grow annoying over the too-long three-hour running time. The Round Table, despite a huge and expensive build set, is a giant anti-climax. I find Picnic, Bus Stop, Sayonara, and Fanny all more re-watchable than Camelot. Two years after Camelot, Paramount released the Logan directed musical Paint Your Wagon, famously starring a singing Clint Eastwood. It is a great big hot mess of a movie, more chaotic and boisterous than Camelot.

Coate: Where do you think Camelot ranks among 1960s era roadshow musicals?

Kennedy: As I explored in my book Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s, that era saw the exhaustion of big budget limited opening reserved-seat musical film extravaganzas. Financially, Camelot was a failure. Variety reported a $12.3 million [rental] on its initial run. That’s a respectable sum for the time, and would have been profitable had expenses been anywhere near the 1967 average. Doctor Dolittle, Star!, Paint Your Wagon, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and Darling Lili were bigger flops. Far more successful than Camelot were West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Oliver! and Funny Girl. Artistically, I’d put Camelot where it sits financially. It’s more meritorious than the other box office disappointments, but hardly equal to the most acclaimed and popular musical titles of the decade.

Coate: What is the legacy of Camelot?

Kennedy: Camelot endures as a prime example of a once viable but now obsolete filmmaking and marketing strategy. It’s a stunning reminder of how much has changed, both in the film industry and in society. There’s a pleasure in seeing so much opulence on the screen and realizing it was made by sweat, lumber, and paint, and not in someone’s software program. That commitment to grand picture making doesn’t exist anymore. It’s hard to imagine a straight-faced remake of Camelot these days — Monty Python’s Spamalot took care of that. In a way, the legacy of Camelot is that there is no legacy. There’s no obvious through-line from it to 21st century film musicals. It’s the near end of something, not the beginning.

Coate: Thank you, Matthew, for sharing your thoughts about Camelot on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Robert Morrow collection, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Home Video.

SPECIAL THANKS

Jim Barg, Raymond Caple, Thomas Hauerslev, Matthew Kennedy, Bill Kretzel, Ronald A. Lee, Mark Lensenmayer, Stan Malone, Robert Morrow, Jim Perry, Joel Weide, Vince Young, and an extra special thank-you to all of the librarians who helped with this project.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.  All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

The participants for this segment are (in alphabetical order)….

Jon Burlingame is the author of The Music of James Bond (Oxford University Press, 2012). He also authored Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks (Watson-Guptill, 2000) and TV’s Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes from Dragnet to Friends (Schirmer, 1996). He writes regularly for the entertainment industry trade Variety and has also been published in The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He started writing about spy music for the 1970s fanzine File Forty and has since produced seven CDs of original music from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. for the Film Score Monthly label. His website is www.jonburlingame.com.

John Cork is featured on the Casino Royale Blu-ray Disc audio commentary track and is the author (with Collin Stutz) of James Bond Encyclopedia (DK, 2007) and (with Bruce Scivally) James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002) and (with Maryam d’Abo) Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond (Abrams, 2003). He is the president of Cloverland, a multi-media production company, producing documentaries and supplemental material for movies on DVD and Blu-ray, including material for Chariots of Fire, The Hustler, and several James Bond and Pink Panther titles. Cork also wrote the screenplay to The Long Walk Home (1990), starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek. He wrote and directed the feature documentary You Belong to Me: Sex, Race and Murder on the Suwannee River for producers Jude Hagin and Hillary Saltzman (daughter of original Bond producer, Harry Saltzman). He has recently contributed articles on the literary history of James Bond for ianfleming.com and The Book Collector.

Lee Pfeiffer is the author (with Dave Worrall) of The Essential Bond: The Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (Boxtree, 1998/Harper Collins, 1999) and (with Philip Lisa) The Incredible World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of James Bond (Citadel, 1992) and The Films of Sean Connery (Citadel, 2001). Lee was a producer on the Goldfinger and Thunderball Special Edition LaserDisc sets and is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Retro magazine, which celebrates films of the 1960s and 1970s and is “the Essential Guide to Cult and Classic Movies.”

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

And now that the participants have been introduced, might I suggest preparing a martini (shaken, not stirred, of course) and cueing up the soundtrack album to Casino Royale, and then enjoy the conversation with these James Bond authorities.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): Should Casino Royale be considered a James Bond movie?

Jon Burlingame: Yes, but with an asterisk! Fleming had long ago sold the rights to his first novel, and those rights eventually fell to agent-turned-producer Charles K. Feldman. With the enormous success of the Broccoli-Saltzman “official” 007 films, Feldman went the spoof route and tried to send up the Connery films with an all-star, big-budget, pull-out-all-the-stops movie that would make its own splash at the box-office.

Aside from the 1954 Casino Royale done for CBS television, there had been no film adaptation of the first James Bond adventure and so, yes, we need to consider this as a Bond film. Of sorts.

John Cork: Casino Royale is what happens when you make a James Bond movie without James Bond. In 1967, as any billboard or newspaper ad would tell you, “Sean Connery is James Bond.” Here is this producer, Charles K. Feldman, who has ended up with the rights to one James Bond film. He can’t get Sean Connery. He can’t make the deal he wants with Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and he’s just had a hit with a film that made absolutely no sense, What’s New, Pussycat? He decides that if he can’t get Sean Connery, he’ll make the What’s New Pussycat? of James Bond movies. Woody Allen wrote that what Charlie Feldman was “really trying to do is eliminate the Bond pictures forever.” So, in a lot of ways, one can argue that it isn’t a “James Bond” movie. It certainly misses much of the cinematic trademarks of Bond as well as the iconography. There is no gunbarrel opening, no James Bond Theme, no “James Bond will return…” at the end. And the plot itself does not focus on the character of James Bond. In fact, the film intentionally confounds the very notion of there being any single character named James Bond that the audience can follow. Even more audacious, and often overlooked, this is a film where the villain’s plot to destroy the world accidentally works. Spoiler alert: James Bond dies in the end!

On the other hand, the film has all the right ingredients. There are beautiful women, fantastic sets, more genuine Ian Fleming content from the novel than in You Only Live Twice (which is not actually saying much at all), an amazing score, action and daring-do, and jokes that would later end up in other “real” James Bond films. Watched back-to-back with Moonraker, A View to a Kill, or Die Another Day, Casino Royale ‘67 fairs pretty well.

It is also a film that holds such an amazing place in the history of James Bond that it should not be discounted or ignored.

Lee Pfeiffer: Casino Royale should not be considered to be a “James Bond” movie except in the legal sense. It is ostensibly derived from elements of Ian Fleming’s novel but those elements are few and far between. Nevertheless, the screen rights to the book, which was Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, had an erratic history. Initially, Fleming sold the rights for virtually nothing so that the novel could be adapted to a one-hour live television drama. It was broadcast in 1954 on CBS in America as part of the Climax! Mystery Theater program that presented a different story with a different cast every week. Barry Nelson was cast as Bond and is referred to in one scene as “Card Sense Jimmy Bond.” That makes a Bond purist cringe today but as Nelson once told me, the character was virtually unknown and thus, the absurdity of casting an American with a crew cut didn’t strike anyone as abnormal — nor did the attempt to portray him as a Bogart-like American tough guy. The show was an admirable attempt to follow Fleming’s plot but was hampered by a meager production budget and the fact that it was telecast live meant there were no exterior shots — it all had to be presented on sound stages. The program had no impact and Bond lingered for years until producer Charles K. Feldman obtained the screen rights. By the early 1960s producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman formed a partnership that gave them the screen rights to every other Fleming Bond novel — and United Artists’ production head David Picker agreed to distribute the films.

Feldman hadn’t seen the potential in Bond until the UA series became a blockbuster. He approached Broccoli and Saltzman with a proposition to film Casino Royale starring Sean Connery — but Broccoli and Saltzman weren’t interested. They had just had to take on Kevin McClory as a third-wheel producer on Thunderball because he controlled the screen rights, which was part of a complex legal settlement between McClory and Fleming that compromised the rights Broccoli and Saltzman thought they had obtained outright. They didn’t want another partner on the next film, which turned out to be You Only Live Twice. Feldman had a valuable property but felt he couldn’t compete with the makers of the Connery Bond films so he went in another direction. Having recently produced the hit, mod comedy What’s New Pussycat?, he turned Casino Royale into a similarly-themed big budget, star-packed madcap spoof. Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress and Woody Allen all reunited from the Pussycat team but this time the results were not as favorable. Feldman had four directors (including the esteemed John Huston) shooting simultaneously in different British studios — though none of them consulted each other. The script was written on the fly and the budget soared out of control. In the midst of it all, Feldman fired Peter Sellers before he could shoot his scenes for the climax of the movie. The filming was utter chaos.

Coate: How do you think Casino Royale should be remembered on its 50th anniversary?

Burlingame: As a product of its time. Today, fifty years later, I am able to enjoy it for what it is. An incomprehensible mess, of course, but with so many amusing asides along the way. For every cringe-worthy moment involving Woody Allen or Peter Sellers, there are compensations: I love Orson Welles as Le Chiffre, who came in and did it as a lark (probably to make enough money to invest in his next film); and Joanna Pettet as the love child of Bond and Mata Hari — well, even if you shake your head at the concept you must admit she is spectacular in the part.

There is, however, one unassailable, brilliant, contribution, and that is Burt Bacharach’s score. I had the pleasure of reviewing Bacharach’s original sketches and orchestrations while I was writing my book five years ago. As terrible as the film is, Bacharach’s score is a work of genius. He knew precisely what to do despite the madness, and even if you only consider The Look of Love (his romantic theme for Peter Sellers and Ursula Andress, with its incredible Hal David lyrics and unforgettable Dusty Springfield vocal), well, that was worth the entire effort. Even Leslie Bricusse, who won the best-song Oscar that year for Talk to the Animals from Doctor Dolittle, later admitted that he thinks The Look of Love (also nominated) should have won because it’s “ten times better” than what he wrote.

Cork: I think Casino Royale should be celebrated. The film is a classic, a monument to everything that was right and everything that was wrong with cinema in the mid-1960s. It is baffling, audacious, a pop-art masterpiece as much as any Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein work, at times brilliantly funny, and yet completely infuriating. It was a huge middle finger to its intended audience. On one hand, it is the Star Wars Holiday Special of James Bond films. On the other, it is a movie whose brilliance could not be seen by many Bond fans until they saw so much of it re-digested through the eyes of Mike Myers and Jay Roach in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. It is a James Bond film produced by a man who had grown to hate James Bond. And he recruits some of the most talented names in cinema to make this film: Woody Allen, Orson Welles, John Huston are some of the greatest filmmakers ever, and they all contributed their creative talents. Woody Allen is brilliant in the film. So is Welles.

And that score! Ah, that Bacharach score is some of the most wonderful music ever written for a film. This American Life used to use needle drops from Casino Royale all the time. The Look of Love still raises goosebumps for me every time I hear it. This is a song that charted three times! The single version by Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ‘66 charts in 1968 after they performed it at the Oscars. Isaac Hayes does a fantastically trippy version in 1970, and Diana Krall charts with it on the Adult Contemporary charts in 2001! The original sung by Dusty Springfield, and produced by Phil Ramone, is worshiped by music professionals. The song itself is in the Grammy Hall of Fame. It is one of my favorite scores of all time.

The film is brilliantly shot. Jack Hildyard, who had shot Bridge on the River Kwai for David Lean was the main man behind the camera. He had just come off the similarly insane Modesty Blaise, setting the bar for marrying studio style and Pop Art sensibilities. But Hildyard was supplemented with another cinematographer who had a huge influence on Casino Royale, and that was Nicholas Roeg. So many of the brilliant shots in the film belong to Roeg, including the claustrophobic close-ups and surreal sequences.

The fantastic supporting actors provide amazing moments of comedy. As does Peter Sellers and so many other members of the cast.

It is much better to watch this film as if one were watching a couple of episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Don’t expect it to make sense. Don’t expect to care about any of the characters. Just roll with it. Watch the film for what it is: a celebration and parody of popular culture in the year 1967.

Pfeiffer: The film was often loathed by Bond fans because they felt it represented a waste of a great Fleming novel. However, MGM and Eon Productions obtained all screen rights to the novel — and Feldman’s film version — in the 1990s, leaving them free to make a “real” version of the book. That marked Daniel Craig’s debut as Bond in 2006 and the movie was met with international acclaim. Since then, I’ve noticed that people have taken a more benign view of the spoof version of Casino Royale.

Cinema Retro covered the making of the movie exhaustively way back in issue #6 and in researching the article, I remembered the things I liked most about it. There is a superb score and title theme by Burt Bacharach and some of the best production design work in any film of the period. Much of it is also very funny thanks to the inspired cast and some uncredited jokes by Woody Allen. So for my taste, there is much to love about the movie even if I’m in a distinct minority. My co-publisher Dave Worrall loathes it. It makes for some fun arguments if we’re sitting around a pub.  

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Coate: Can you describe what it was like seeing Casino Royale for the first time? 

Burlingame: Oh, Lord, I was appalled. It must have been on television in the ‘70s, because I certainly didn’t see it in the theaters at the time of its release. Yes, there is an all-star cast that includes David Niven, Sellers, Woody Allen, Orson Welles, Deborah Kerr and Andress; but with six directors and something like ten screenwriters (three credited, most not), it was like passing a multi-car wreck on the freeway — terrible, but you couldn’t look away. I watched and thought to myself, how can anyone not be embarrassed by this disaster?

Cork: My aunt Lois took me to see Casino Royale at the drive-in in Montgomery, Alabama, in the summer of 1967. I was five years old. It’s likely I fell asleep in the car watching the film. I actually remember seeing the trailer for the film (again with my aunt) at some movie prior to that, and I recall shots from the end of the film in the trailer, but not from seeing it at the drive-in. My main memory of seeing the film that time was thinking, even at the age of five, that Deborah Kerr swinging around on the drain pipes was not nearly as funny as the filmmakers must have thought it would be. That opinion still holds. But the remote control car chase that followed? I loved that and still do! The very next day, my aunt drove us out to a local record store where she bought the soundtrack. When I became a James Bond fan, she let me have it, and I still have it to this day.

Pfeiffer: I saw it at the grand old Stanley Theatre in Jersey City, New Jersey, where I grew up. I was ten years old and went to see it with my parents. I was already a big Bond fan but was too young to realize that this film would seem to preclude a serious version of the story ever being brought to the screen. I remember liking it very much and going to see it several times, a not uncommon experience for a kid in an era where a children’s ticket cost fifty cents. I still have my original vinyl soundtrack that I played quite a bit.

Coate: Where do you think Casino Royale ranks among the James Bond movie series?

Burlingame: I have wrestled with this for years, especially when writing my book. When the issue arose about whether to include Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again, the two unofficial Bond releases, I quickly came to the conclusion that Bond fans would be curious about both even if they were not considered canon by 007 fans. And when Eon declined to cooperate with my book that made it even easier to include them.

That being said, I have to say I’d rank the ‘67 Casino Royale at the very bottom of all Bond films. If you’re a Fleming fan you can easily do without it. Especially considering the 2006 version with Daniel Craig, which certainly ranks among the greatest Bond films ever.

Cork: In 2012, my son and I watched all the Bond film in order and ranked them. That’s five years ago, but I’m going with them. Everyone can clutch their pearls, but I rank the 1967 Casino Royale at number nine. Here’s why: I enjoy the film. In many ways it is a big stinking mess. But I had a friend who has now passed away, James Burkart Jr. He and I would watch the film together late at night and laugh ourselves silly. He could quote dialogue and I would quote other bits and parts of the film became shorthand for us. “We stand, we bid! We no stand, we no bid!” “My goodness this is strong shampoo.” So I greatly enjoy the film. Even the ending, which for years, I winced at, found a way into my heart.

Terry Southern, who had poked fun at Bond in his script for The Loved One and who was just about to help make Easy Rider a phenomenon, was brought in as one of an innumerable list of writers, and the absurd fight at the end was his doing. He had already written a version of that scene before, a scene where everyone fights for no reason as the world comes to an end. That was the pie fight in Dr. Strangelove, a scene cut out at the last minute. The chaotic ending of Casino Royale is a version of that scene where idiotic comedic violence takes place as the seconds tick down to the end of everything. Watching it again and thinking of Woody Allen as Slim Pickens working to release the bomb, and the fight in the casino as the pie fight in the war room, always makes me smile.

Pfeiffer: It doesn’t rank anywhere in the Bond series. It stands alone in its own universe. It simply can’t be compared to any other movie in the series, although I’d still rather watch it than a couple of the weakest “real” Bonds.

Coate: What is the legacy of Casino Royale?

Burlingame: That’s a difficult question. I’m tempted to use that wildly overused phrase, “it is what it is” — meaning, it’s a one-of-a-kind movie that can’t really be considered a Bond film in the classic sense, yet it is based (however loosely) on the Fleming novel. And it is from the ‘60s, when we were all so immersed in spy movies; this was just one more, although a departure from what we may have expected or even wanted.

I come back to the Burt Bacharach angle: His score is a masterpiece, a remarkable work considering what inspired it. I remember finding the LP in the 1970s and then learning, many years later, that it was considered the apex of audiophile recordings, one of the greatest-sounding albums ever recorded (The New York Times even extolled its sonic merits in a 1991 story). And as much as I love Burt’s Casino Royale theme with its Herb Alpert trumpet against those equally brilliant Richard Williams titles (I find something new every time I watch them!), the Look of Love song is so great that it’s worth everything you have to sit through to hear it.

Cork: Did you ever laugh at the Austin Powers films? They wouldn’t exist without Casino Royale. Did you ever slow dance to The Look of Love? Casino Royale is part of some strange continuum that stretches from Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon through to Walkabout, Annie Hall, Midnight in Paris and the Harry Potter films. Stuart Craig who did such amazing work bringing the Harry Potter universe to life as the production designer on those films worked on Casino Royale. There is probably no film before or since that gathered so much talent in front of and behind the cameras. It is completely absurdist, devoid of a plot, but for me it is a joy to watch.

Pfeiffer: When the film opened in 1967, it grossed quite a bit of money but the soaring production costs compromised any chance of major profits. Feldman had a nervous breakdown from making it and retired from the industry. The film’s prospects were also compromised by the release of You Only Live Twice shortly thereafter. Both films probably ended up cannibalizing each other’s grosses but the Connery movie was much better received for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, Casino has grown in stature. Its greatest legacy is that Mike Myers is a major fan of the movie and I doubt Austin Powers would exist if it wasn’t for Casino Royale. The first Powers movie took so much of its inspiration from the Feldman production. The movie also inspired Woody Allen to take control of his film career. Having witnessed the chaos and waste of money on the Casino production, he became determined to have total say over all of his future movies. So the debacle of the film helped bring us an American comedy genius’s best movies.

Casino Royale is finally getting some much-deserved respect in recent years. I went this summer to see a big screen presentation of it at The Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of a John Huston festival and was surprised at how well-attended it was and how receptive the audience was to the gags. Huston himself disowned the movie but it seems there are still plenty of us who are willing to embrace it. If nothing else, everyone agrees that Bacharach score is great.

Coate: Thank you — Jon, John, and Lee — for participating and sharing your thoughts about Casino Royale on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

The James Bond roundtable discussion will return in Remembering “Octopussy” on its 35th Anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, Danjaq LLC, Famous Artists Productions, MGM Home Entertainment, United Artists Corporation.

SPECIAL THANKS

John Hazelton

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Dwayne Epstein is the author of Lee Marvin: Point Blank (Schaffner Press, 2013) and member of the BSOL (Bastard Sons of Lee Marvin). He is also the author of a number of young adult biographies covering such public figures as Hillary Clinton, Will Ferrell, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Sandler, Hilary Swank, and Denzel Washington for Lucent Books’ People in the News series and the multiple biography Lawman of the Old West for Lucent’s History Makers series. Epstein also contributed to Bill Krohn’s Hitchcock at Work (2003) and Joe Dante and the Gremlins of Hollywood (1999). He has also written for Filmfax Magazine and Cahiers du Cinema and is currently writing “a logical follow-up to” Lee Marvin: Point Blank.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think Point Blank should be remembered on its 50th anniversary?

Dwayne Epstein: In remembering the importance of any groundbreaking film, it’s necessary to always put it in its proper historical context. In the case of Point Blank, 1967 was a year in which many long-held cultural taboos were shattered in mainstream films thanks to the end of the studio system and old production code. By 1967 both style and subject matter were constantly being challenged on a regular basis throughout the year (Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, The Dirty Dozen) and riding the crest of those taboo-breaking films was Point Blank.

Coate: Can you recall the first time you saw Point Blank and what is your opinion of the film?

Epstein: I first saw the film in its entirety at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) at a special screening with some friends and it featured a Q&A with its costar, Angie Dickinson. I didn’t particularly care for it at first, having seen it cut up on TV the first time. However, like many great films, it has grown on me in time to become one of my personal favorites. There are too many reasons to go into as to why it’s grown on me. Suffice it to say, with all great works, more great things are discovered upon each viewing of this multi-layered classic, making continued viewing a new discovery each time.

Coate: Is Point Blank a significant motion picture in any way?

Epstein: The highly stylized film boasts many technological advancements, as well as some of the most memorable images of its kind. The reverberating sound of Marvin’s heels echoing through the airport during the opening, or the juxtaposing of a brutal fistfight during a hip, soul music riff still pack a significant wallop. Although it is not widely known, Point Blank is also the first film to mic all the actors individually during a scene, thereby incorporating a greater sense of intimacy.

Here’s an anecdotal example of the film’s lasting significance. One of the film’s most iconic images of both violence and sexual power, as recalled by Boorman, was a collaborative effort: “It was Lee’s idea to shoot into the empty bed of the wife who had betrayed him. We were using blanks which give no recoil, so, Lee faked it, his arm whipping back a foot or more with each shot. It suggested the enormous power of the thing more than anything else could. Later, when we were filming on Alcatraz, we got some live ammunition and fired the big Magnum for real. There was no recoil at all. Lee grinned at me. ’Our way sure beats the real thing,’ he said.”

The production was also the first ever shot with extensive sequences on the then recently decommissioned prison of Alcatraz. The difficult task of obtaining permission to shoot on “The Rock” was secured by promising government officials that the film would not glorify crime. Once that was accomplished, the filmmakers took over the decaying prison, shooting long into the night. One shot included a love scene between Marvin and actress Sharon Acker in what had been the cell of Al Capone. At one point, the production almost lost a script girl who slipped on an oil-slick barge into San Francisco Bay’s choppy waters.

Coate: In what way was John Boorman an ideal choice to direct Point Blank, and where do you think the film ranks among his body of work?

Epstein: First and foremost, the entire project was Boorman’s idea. He approached actor Lee Marvin about it when Marvin was filming The Dirty Dozen in England. Once Marvin agreed, the project moved ahead as Boorman envisioned it. The British director has since carved a career out of exploring and juxtaposing man’s relationship and conflict with his primal self, most prominently with his classic 1972 film Deliverance. In my opinion, Deliverance ranks only slightly ahead of Point Blank in the director’s impressive canon of work, both different genres with the very similar themes mentioned herein.

Coate: Can you discuss Lee Marvin’s performance? In what way was he ideal for the role of Walker?

Epstein: At the time of the film’s production, the actor’s marriage was on the rocks while he was in a tumultuous relationship with then girlfriend, Michele Triola. “I saw Point Blank about a year ago and I was absolutely shocked,” he said in 1985. “I had forgotten how rough a film it was. That was a troubled time for me in my personal relationship so I used an awful lot of that while making the picture.” Rarely has art imitated life so creatively.

Coate: Can you discuss Angie Dickinson’s performance? In what way was she ideal for the role of Chris?

Epstein: She fit the part first and foremost based on her look which was in perfect unison with the time. She is also an underrated actress who played the role subtly falling for Lee Marvin’s Walker following her sister’s death. Despite Lee Marvin not having many leading ladies, he worked most with Dickinson and with good reason. Their chemistry was palpable.

It was Dickinson who made a pointed observation when Point Blank was screened at LACMA: “It’s been taken to task for its violence but if you notice, Lee’s character never really kills anyone, except for a car and a bed. He really is a catalyst for violence, not a perpetrator.” Her observations gives credence to those film buffs who argue that Marvin’s character is actually the Angel of Death. As with most great films, the strange concept of the film is open to the audiences’ own imagination.

Coate: Where does Point Blank rank among the noir/crime genre?

Epstein: I would rank it extremely high as its influence is still very much in evidence. It’s interesting that it received tepid reviews when it first came out but it has since gone on to garner cult film status. At the time of its release, most critics dismissed it but some, such as Newsweek, wrote: “It hits like a slug from the .38 Lee Marvin uses as extension of his fist. It is highly moral violence with compelling photography.” Point Blank has since gone on to attain justifiable cult status. The highly stylized camera work, coupled with Marvin’s raw performance has made it, in the words of film historian Leonard Maltin, “A taut thriller ignored in 1967 but now regarded as one of the top films of the mid-sixties.”

Many of the films made since have been directly influenced by it, such as Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs in 1992 and Pulp Fiction two years later. There were also more obvious examples, such as Mel Gibson’s 1999 remake Payback and Jason Statham’s Parker (2013).

Coate: What is the legacy of Point Blank?

Epstein: It was and remains what it was when first released: The first art house action film.

For more information concerning the film’s production and lasting impact, consult my book, Lee Marvin: Point Blank for even greater insight into what made it such a haunting cinematic achievement worthy of its inclusion into the National Registry of Films in 2016.

Coate: Thank you, Dwayne, for sharing your thoughts about Point Blank on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Home Video, Winkler Films.

SPECIAL THANKS

David Smith

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

The film turned out to be one of the most popular movies of 1968 and, with an assist that same year from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, helped to mainstream the often marginalized science fiction genre. (And contrary to claims in some film history books, Planet of the Apes and 2001 did not get released on the same date. Sigh…)

Anyway, for the occasion, The Bits features a Q&A with a trio of film historians, who discuss the film’s virtues, influence, and modern-day relevance.

The participants are (in alphabetical order)….

Jeff Bond is the author (with Joe Fordham) of Planet of the Apes: The Evolution of the Legend (Titan, 2014). His other books include The World of the Orville (Titan, 2018), The Art of Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline (Titan, 2017), Danse Macabre: 25 Years of Danny Elfman and Tim Burton (included in The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box, Warner Bros., 2011) and The Music of Star Trek (Lone Eagle, 1999). Jeff is the editor of Geek magazine, covered film music for The Hollywood Reporter for ten years, and has contributed liner notes to numerous CD soundtrack releases.

John Cork wrote and directed the documentary short Taking the Shot: The Films of 20th Century Fox (2010). He is the author (with Collin Stutz) of James Bond Encyclopedia (DK, 2007) and (with Bruce Scivally) James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002) and (with Maryam d’Abo) Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond (Abrams, 2003). He is the president of Cloverland, a multi-media production company. Cork also wrote the screenplay to The Long Walk Home(1990), starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek. He has recently contributed introductions to new hardback editions of three of the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels: Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, and Goldfinger.

Lee Pfeiffer is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Retro magazine, which celebrates films of the 1960s and 1970s and is “the Essential Guide to Cult and Classic Movies.” He is the author of several books including (with Dave Worrall) 40-Year Evolution: Planet of the Apes (included in the 2008 40th anniversary Blu-ray release) and The Essential Bond: The Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (Boxtree, 1998/Harper Collins, 1999) and (with Philip Lisa) The Incredible World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of James Bond (Citadel, 1992).

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think Planet of the Apes should be remembered on its 50th anniversary?

Jeff Bond: It’s still basically an iconic brand given the three recent movies. And when you look back at 1968, Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey were really the first American science fiction “A” movies — movies that were artistic successes, big budget, major productions that were about ideas. And Planet of the Apes created the first high-profile science fiction movie franchise that lay the groundwork for Star Wars and many other movies.

John Cork: Planet of the Apes is one of the most significant science fiction films ever made. It should be remembered as a high-water mark of American studio films of the era. It played during the spring of 1968, and in part because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in early April, the dark satire and the underlying counter-culture message resonated forcefully with audiences. It also played in theaters simultaneously in some markets with 2001: A Space Odyssey, a much more hopeful and amorphous film, marking the year of their release as a zenith for science fiction in cinema. And, quite simply, it should be remembered for one of the greatest movie endings in the history of cinema.

Lee Pfeiffer: It’s hard to overstate the influence of Planet of the Apes on the sci-fi film genre. Until then, sci-fi didn’t get much respect, but the one-two punch of that film followed by Kubrick’s mind-blowing 2001 would cause critics and audiences to reevaluate the genre as something more than hapless earthlings trying to repel creatures with ray guns. There had been some “intelligent” sci-fi films prior to this, of course, but even the best often had hokey elements to them. The original version of The Thing and Forbidden Planet are generally cited as milestone films in the genre, and given the time period in which they were made, they were indeed major leaps forward in terms of gaining respectability for sci-fi movies. However, as beloved as these films are, certain elements creak with age and have not withstood the test of time the way the original Planet of the Apes has. There is nothing dated about it at all. It retains all of its emotional power and the social messaging seems as timely now as it did in 1968, which is actually a sad commentary on the world today.

Coate: Do you remember when you first saw the movie?

Bond: I saw it on television when I was in 5th or 6th grade and it was a big event, and I quickly caught up on all the films as they aired on television — I finally saw the original movie in a theater in college. As a kid, I think we were just crazy for the idea of gorillas riding on horseback shooting rifles. It was just a bizarre, amazing world with these talking, unforgettable simian characters. As I got older I became more and more entertained by the politics and ideas behind it.

Cork: I saw it in 1968. I believe it was in the summer because my Aunt Lois took me to see the film at a local drive-in. I was six years old. I was immediately captivated. We stopped by a convenience store on the way home and she got me a pack of the bubble-gum cards. My friend Grayson and I immediately began collecting them. The basic story was so simple, so clear that we could understand it, and understand the meaning of the ending. There are lots of films that one loves when one is six, but that don’t hold up years later. Planet of the Apes holds up brilliantly.

Pfeiffer: I saw it at age 11 with my father when it first opened at the Stanley Theatre movie palace in Jersey City, New Jersey. I think that the very concept made everyone skeptical that the premise of the movie would be anything other than ridiculous, though the advance TV spots did look intriguing. I primarily wanted to go because I was a major Charlton Heston fan. In those days, there wasn’t much major “buzz” on forthcoming films unless they were the subject of scandalous news stories like Cleopatra (Burton and Taylor plus a ballooning budget), Mutiny on the Bounty (Brando taking the hit for the film’s skyrocketing costs) and The Alamo (a murder on the set and political concerns about the script). Today, the word is out on most movies for better or worse before it even wraps. But in 1968, Planet of the Apes was a mystery to the average movie-goer. The enthusiasm that greeted the film in those first few days spread rapidly, bolstered by the kind of great reviews sci-fi movies rarely enjoyed. It suddenly became a “must-see” phenomenon.

Coate: In what way is Planet of the Apes a significant film?

Bond: It was groundbreaking in its makeup effects — this was the first time what was essentially an entire alien, inhuman race of creatures had been created and put on film before and an entire civilization had been imagined, designed and made convincing on film. It was an idea that was immediately classic — you had distinctive, excellent actors bringing these simian characters to life and making them immediately memorable, and you had Charlton Heston as this iconic stand-in for all the best and worst in humanity, and one of the great shock endings in movie history. Plus a brilliant score by Jerry Goldsmith that is still one of the greatest, most experimental achievements in movie music.

Cork: Planet of the Apes works so well because of its brilliant use of irony, its pointed exposure of hypocrisy, its willingness to play every joke and absurdity completely straight. Few films can work both as straight science fiction and as mocking social satire. Planet of the Apes does both very well. It is without equal in this. It is a film that speaks to so much: the battle between science and religion, the racial unrest in America, the hubris of man.

The original film has these absolutely absurd problems with its premise. A bit of a spoiler here, but what astronaut would think that some random planet would have a breathable atmosphere, water, temperate climate, humans, Earth flora, horses, apes, and the exact same spoken and written language? The key moment comes when Taylor is wounded and captured. He looks over and sees gorilla hunters standing, smiling for a photo with dead human bodies at their feet. The camera is vintage 1800s technology. Period photos like this can be found with white men posing with the bodies of any number of indigenous peoples, or with escaped slaves, or lynching images. But this particular image had even more recent precedents: the shocking images of the French troops posing with the bodies of dead Algerians a decade earlier. That moment is the moment when you first hear the apes speak English, and it is so filled with meaning that most viewers instinctively understand that this film has something to say. And it is also significant that the first word an ape speaks is, “smile.”

This is a film that tells viewers that we are going to see our world reflected back at us through this thin premise of a planet ruled by apes, but the way the film reflects our world back is always chilling, always surprising, always thought-provoking.

Pfeiffer: The sheer intelligence of the screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling set it apart from most sci-fi movies. They had the benefit of working from an inspiring source novel by Pierre Boulle, who had written the book that The Bridge on the River Kwai had been based on. The screenplay provided old-fashioned cliffhanger thrills with wry social commentary, often in a humorous way. The film was released in 1968 amid the most contentious events America had experienced since the Civil War. The civil rights movement was in high gear, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated within a few months of each other. President Johnson, beleaguered by the growing anti-Vietnam War protests announced to a shocked nation he would not run for a second term. The Democratic Party had devolved into pure chaos and resulted in the nationally televised riots that defined their convention in Chicago that summer and allowed Richard Nixon to rise from the political graveyard and gain the presidency. We all know how that would end. Planet of the Apes was a finished film before any of these events occurred yet it seemed positively prescient by the time it opened. Suddenly a movie depicted white males as an oppressed minority, powerless to stop social injustice by rulers who had on blinders. There were also pleas to humanity about the insanity of nuclear war. It was pretty heavy stuff to contend with, but it spoke poignantly to people during that fateful year.

Aside from its social significance, Planet of the Apes was simply great filmmaking. The makeup by John Chambers was so incredibly good that he was awarded a special Oscar because the makeup category wasn’t in existence at the time. Chambers revolutionized the industry through his amazing achievement, even though it did cause one “casualty”: Edward G. Robinson had originally been cast as Dr. Zaius, but he had a severe reaction the makeup and had to drop out. He was replaced, of course, by the equally impressive Maurice Evans who gave the screen performance of his life. (Heston and Robinson would ironically work together a few years later on another cautionary futuristic tale, Soylent Green, which was Robinson’s final film.) I can’t fail to mention the innovative musical score by Jerry Goldsmith, who was simply a contract composer at the time, assigned by Fox to whatever film they instructed him to work on. He was a real asset to the studio during these years and his offbeat, chilling score for Planet of the Apes earned him an Oscar nomination.

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Coate: In what way was Franklin Schaffner an ideal choice to direct Planet of the Apes, and where does the film rank among his body of work?

Bond: I think Patton and Planet of the Apes are Schaffner’s best films — in fact, I think Pauline Kael said she thought Planet of the Apes was a better-directed film than Patton, which won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar. Schaffner was a very intelligent director and he was at home dealing with politics and ideas — he’d made a great political thriller, The Best Man, before Planet of the Apes.

Cork: Schaffner is a tremendously under-rated director. All of his films have merit, but Planet of the Apes, Patton, Nicholas and Alexandra, Papillon, Islands in the Stream, and The Boys from Brazil are all great films. I rank Planet of the Apes and Patton as his two greatest films. I was fortunate enough to meet him once. As a student at USC, my friend Jeff Burr let me know that Schaffner was going to talk to a class he was taking after a screening of Islands in the Stream. It was a small group, and Schaffner humored all our questions. He struck me as a humble man, but he really was fascinated by the role of the individual in the sweep of history.

I think he was greatly affected by his own life, having been born to missionaries in Japan, seeing the rise of a brutal form of imperialism there, fighting in World War II, and seeing the Cold War, the push-back against Civil Rights and McCarthyism rise up here. He never directed for The Twilight Zone, but he worked on many Rod Serling projects in the mid-50s. He was deeply affected by the death of JFK, whom he really saw as a beacon of hope for the nation.

He was the perfect director for Planet of the Apes because he didn’t make many films about heroes and villains. He made films about people. He knew how to make us root for Taylor, but see how his arrogance (and our own) will need to be thrown back in his face.

But it is important to cite three other vital contributors to Planet of the Apes. The first is Pierre Boulle who wrote the novel, and wrote the novel The Bridge over the River Kwai that was adapted into David Lean’s classic film. His premise and vision cannot be undervalued. The second is Rod Serling. Planet of the Apes in many ways is the ultimate Twilight Zone episode. Serling penned the ending of the film, which is reminiscent of many classic Twilight Zone episodes. Finally, there is Michael Wilson, a brilliant, formerly blacklisted writer who did the final rewrites on the script. A lot of the indignation that lies just below the surface of the film can be credited to him.

Pfeiffer: Blake Edwards had supposedly been considered to be the director. Can you imagine? Fortunately, the producer, Arthur P. Jacobs listened to Charlton Heston, who had made a good film called The War Lord with Schaffner a few years before. He was brought on board as director and proved to be the perfect choice. Schaffner knew how to find the perfect balance between suspense and humor, without ever overdoing the latter. It would have been so easy for the film to have slid into satire just to get a few cheap laughs but Schaffner’s direction avoided this. The movie certainly ranks with Patton as his greatest film achievements, though they are pointless to compare for obvious reasons. Let’s just say that they demonstrate the diverse body of work Schaffner was capable of excelling in. He was underrated. I think his career was hurt by the expense failure of Nicholas and Alexandra. He did manage to make the occasional high profile hit such as Papillon and The Boys from Brazil. And Islands in the Stream is a wonderful film, but for the most part, he never got the high profile projects he deserved.

Coate: How do the 1970s sequels and the recent remakes and reboots compare to the original movie?

Bond: The first three sequels I think all have their strengths. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is just a fun adventure with the crazy twist of the bomb-worshipping mutants. Escape from the Planet of the Apes is really amazing because it is a fish out of water comedy that ends with murder and infanticide, and it’s a tonal shift that is inevitable as we see the character played by Eric Braeden realize very quickly that Zira and Cornelius, these lovable chimpanzee characters, are really an existential threat to human civilization, and he’s absolutely right. He takes on one of the most shocking acts of villainy you’ll ever see in a movie, but given the circumstances, from his perspective he’s completely right and completely justified. And then Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, with its allegory to the Watts Riots, is one of the most politically daring science fiction movies ever made. After that, Battle for the Planet of the Apes and the Tim Burton movie from 2001 are really much less ambitious adventures, and the three reboots are very clever, groundbreaking technical achievements that function by making you really believe in the simians as flesh and blood characters — it’s a more subtle approach that doesn’t wear its politics on its sleeve quite so much but still says a lot about empathy and humanity’s responsibility for the world we live in.

Cork: I love Paul Dehn who wrote on many of the 1970s sequels, but they are pale shadows compared to the original. Beneath the Planet of the Apes borders on dreadful, although it is worth seeing for the last few minutes, which borrows (or steals) from Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr. Strangelove and the 1967 Casino Royale! The addition of Paul Frees, the voice of The Haunted Mansion, brings something less than the appropriate solemnity to the situation.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is quite delightful until the ending. If you want to make a small child cry, show them Escape. Sure, we’re all happy Caesar lives, but things do not end well. The Shape of Water owes much to this film.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes feels like a TV movie, and its retcon sequel, Battle for the Planet of the Apes should be avoided at all costs.

I loved the TV series when it came out and watched numerous episodes of the animated series, but I haven’t seen them since.

Tim Burton’s remake falls flat for me with the middle becoming particularly muddled. There is something very wrong about unironically putting Mark Wahlberg, a man convicted of attempted murder for a racist attack, in the Planet of the Apes universe.

The current series…hmmm. I liked the first one. Watching CGI gorillas magically get on horses without crushing them got old fast. Someone simply ran out of ideas for War for the Planet of the Apes. I have seen The Great Escape, Stalag 17 and The Ten Commandments. They are all better films. All would have been forgiven if the snow soldiers at the end had pulled off their masks to reveal that they were also apes. Somewhere, they lost the thread of what made Planet of the Apes so great. For me, I want to go back to sharing those Planet of the Apes comic books at summer camp, looking at those bubble gum cards, sitting at the drive-in with my aunt and feeling that sense of wonder that only the first film brings.

Pfeiffer: No one thought there could be a sequel to Planet of the Apes and Charlton Heston refused to be part of it. But Fox was in deep financial trouble at the time and studio boss Richard Zanuck imposed upon him to make Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Heston grudgingly did so because he felt obligated to Zanuck for championing the first movie when other studios turned it down. Heston agreed to give Fox one week of his time and no more. His appearances are vital to the first sequel, even though they cast James Franciscus as a Heston-look-a-like. By the way, Heston always maintained that he never saw Beneath but insisted that the world be destroyed in it so there could be no further sequels. Little did he realize that Hollywood screenwriters can accomplish anything when profits are at stake. The film was a major hit but the following sequels, though clever and good in their ways, were a case of diminishing returns. By the time Battle of the Planet of the Apes was released, the budgets had been cut to TV movie levels and the series would end until the reboots decades later. The newer films benefit from being able to stand on their own for a younger generation without being compared to the originals. They also benefit from today’s technology which has helped launch a rebooted series that has been quite successful.

Coate: What is the legacy of Planet of the Apes?

Bond: I think this is very simple as far as what the 1968 movie was trying to say. In that movie you have a religious majority suppressing ideas, suppressing science and exercising rampant, violent racism against another intelligent species. Now look at the situation we’re in today where we have a President openly dismissing science, stripping scientific information off of government websites and stripping funding from programs to advance scientific research and technology that might help us keep this planet habitable for billions of people. We literally have a movement that is declaring that the Earth is flat. All of that would have likely been laughed at if presented in 1968 during the space race when American policy was all about advancing science, technology and knowledge. Add to that the movements of nationalism and racism that are completely out front today. So the original Planet of the Apes I think is actually even more relevant now than it was in 1968.

Cork: I wish I could say that it was a film that unleashed a great torrent of brilliant Swiftian satire, or that its release did what Sammy Davis Jr. hoped it would do — make a real impact on race relations in America. This is the film that made Franklin J. Schaffner one of the hottest directors in Hollywood. It became a justification for studios to greenlight a handful of mediocre, dark, fatalistic science fiction films for a few years. Charlton Heston, who in Apes is basically playing the same arrogant character that he played in The Naked Jungle in 1954, plays the same type again in The Omega Man, three years later, once again living in a world turned upside down. I think the real legacy is very similar to The Twilight Zone. Both inspired millions of viewers to think about the world a little differently. For those who didn’t feel challenged to think, the film is still great entertainment. For those the film touched, they became a bit more aware of the hypocrisy, ignorance, hubris, and irony that so defines our world.

Pfeiffer: It’s a landmark in the science fiction film genre that paved the way for so many other intelligent, highly compelling sci-fi films. It’s impossible to know how many filmmakers it influenced and still continues to influence. I should also mention that Charlton Heston’s son, Fraser, himself a talented director, once asked me what I thought his father’s best performance was. I think he was surprised when I said Planet of the Apes. It took a great deal of skill for Heston to dominate a film populated by other actors in ape masks and he did so magnificently. He’s also a bit of a bastard, not very likable at all, which went against the astronaut-as-hero scenario. I think that’s also part of the film’s legacy in that it afforded a Hollywood legend one of his greatest roles.

Coate: Thank you — Jeff, John, and Lee — for sharing your thoughts about Planet of the Apes on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy APJAC Productions, 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

SPECIAL THANKS

John Hazelton

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Vincent Pereira is a life-long lover of film who worked for many years with Kevin Smith’s View Askew Productions, starting with Smith’s iconic indie classic Clerks. In 1997, Pereira wrote, directed and edited his own independent feature film, A Better Place, which played on the film festival circuit for several years before being released as a special-edition DVD by Synapse Films in 2001. A huge fan of Dario Argento, Synapse Films enlisted Pereira’s help in the remastering and restoration of Suspiria’s original 4-channel English-language sound mix for Synapse’s exclusive cinematographer-approved 4K restoration of the film, now available as a 3-disc limited-edition Blu-ray Steelbook release, and also available for pre-order in both double- and single-disc standard Blu-ray editions and a single-disc DVD.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think Suspiria should be remembered on its 40th anniversary?

Vincent Pereira: As a true work of cinematic art. Horror movies are often overlooked or seen as being “less than” other genres, but Suspiria truly is a work of art. Visually and sonically, it’s a beautiful piece of cinema, aside from being a great horror film.

Coate: Can you recall the first time you saw Suspiria and what is your opinion of the film?

Pereira: I had read a lot about Suspiria long before I ever got to see it. I was a young horror movie fan in the 1980s, and I had this idea in my head of “the perfect horror movie” but I’d never seen it. The closest horror film to the “Holy Grail” in my head that I’d seen was John Carpenter’s Halloween (which I later found out was heavily influenced by Argento). Then, Fangoria magazine did a two-part interview with Dario Argento and his then-partner Daria Nicolodi in 1983, and the second part of the interview went into quite a bit of detail about Suspiria. Reading the description of Suspiria, it sounded like it truly was that “perfect horror movie” I had imagined in my mind. But way back then, Suspiria was not available on home video. The first time I saw any scenes from Suspiria was when I watched the Dario Argento’s World of Horror documentary, which included several clips from the film as well as behind-the-scenes footage, and that only made me more eager to see the full film! I was finally able to see Suspiria around 1987 via a VHS tape that was copied from the pan-and-scan Japanese LaserDisc. I later bought the letterboxed Image Entertainment LaserDisc in the early 1990s, the first time I was able to see Suspiria in its full widescreen glory.

The funny thing is, when I first watched Suspiria, I liked it — especially individual scenes and set pieces — but didn’t love it. I liked several of Argento’s other movies more. But I kept coming back to Suspiria. It’s an endlessly re-watchable film for me, and I came to “know” it very well. In 1991, I was able to actually see it projected in 35mm via the censored U.S. release, and the film came alive to me seeing it that way that it never came across like on home video. Projected on a big screen, even the “boring” scenes suddenly came alive thanks to the amazing sets, art direction, cinematography and use of color. The more I watch it, the more I appreciate it as a true work of art.

Coate: Is Suspiria a significant (horror) film in any way?

Pereira: It is, in many ways. The Goblin music score has become a classic and has inspired many other scores (i.e. Halloween). The extended horror set pieces are amazing and have become classics, in particular the justifiably famous opening double-murder sequence. The set design, art direction and cinematography are gorgeous. The 4-channel stereo surround mix gives many modern movie sound mixes a run for their money.

Coate: In what way was Dario Argento an ideal choice to direct Suspiria, and where does the film rank among his body of work?

Pereira: It’s his most famous film, and with good reason. There simply doesn’t exist another horror movie that looks or sounds like Suspiria. Dario had an idea for a look and sound to this film and ran with it, and the results speak for themselves. He was at the right time in his career to be able to take the chances he did with Suspiria and collaborating with his partner and co-writer Daria Nicolodi, and they created something special and timeless.

Coate: Is it necessary to recognize Suspiria as a part of a trilogy in order to enjoy it?

Pereira: Suspiria works as a stand-alone film. Argento didn’t really establish the “mythology” until the second film, Inferno (1980). They are both great works of art in the horror genre in my opinion. Mother of Tears — the final film in the trilogy that finally surfaced in 2007 — connects directly with both Suspiria and Inferno, but doesn’t live up to either of them artistically. It’s trashy fun in its own way, but not at all on par with either Suspiria or Inferno.

Coate: How would you describe Suspiria to someone who has never seen it?

Pereira: Suspiria is a multicolored fairy-tale that’s collided head-on (and at full-speed) with a fever-dream lucid nightmare.

Coate: Can you discuss the film’s audio? How does the new audio mix compare to the original mix?

Pereira: There is no “new audio mix” on the Synapse Blu-ray, but rather a meticulous remastering and restoration of the original 4-channel discrete English-language mix, which has never been heard outside of select premiere original 35mm prints from 1977. For this release, Synapse was determined to include the original 4.0 theatrical sound mix. The owners of the film in Italy did not have the elements, but [Synapse Films President] Don May is a great detective as well as an incredible lover of film, and after considerable effort he was able to track down almost-pristine 35mm magnetic elements for the uncut version of Suspiria in Los Angeles. These were 35mm magnetic “stems” (separate dialogue, music, and effects tracks) for the 4-channel original English mix. Don, his amazing audio engineer here in Michigan, Spencer Hall, and myself worked with these stems to remaster and restore the original 4-channel discrete L-C-R-S (Left-Center-Right-Surround) mix for the Synapse Blu-ray. We did not remix the film; rather, our goal was to restore and remaster the original discrete 4-channel mix. Synapse wanted to present the barely-heard original 4-channel discrete magnetic mix from 1977 in the highest quality possible, and I think they have succeeded in spades. All the original 35mm magnetic elements were transferred at 96kHz/24-bit resolution, and the remastering and audio restoration was done at the same 96/24 high-resolution and has been presented on the Blu-ray in 96/24 as well, in the original 4.0 configuration.

Coate: What audio was featured on the previous home video releases of this film?

Pereira: The earliest home video versions of Suspiria had 2-channel stereo mixdowns of the 4-channel discrete L-C-R-S original 35mm English-language sound mix. Suspiria was mixed and originally released in premiere theaters in 4-channel discrete magnetic sound. There was no home video format to support 4-channel discrete in the 80s/90s, so a 2-channel stereo mixdown was made from the 4-track original. There was an early CX-analog stereo Japanese LaserDisc from the mid-1980s, and the much more widely-known Image Entertainment LaserDisc from the early 1990s. Both of these contained 2-channel stereo mixdowns of the 4-channel original.

In 2001, Anchor Bay in collaboration with Blue Underground released a DVD version of Suspiria which included a top-to-bottom 6.1 remix from original audio stems. Unfortunately, said remix had a lot problems. Music cues, dialogue, and effects were missing, and many sound effects and music cues were at improper sound levels, to boot, and to make matters worse, the original mix was not included as a viewing option.

Several Blu-ray versions of Suspiria have been issued over the years, both based on a 2007 HD master, and a 2016 4K remaster commissioned by the rights holder, Videa, in Italy. The sound on all of those Blu-rays has either been a variation on the flawed Anchor Bay/Blue Underground remix, or based on the Image Entertainment 2-channel mixdown of the 4-track original, either presented as 2-channel, or reprocessed to a “faux” 5.1 track.

Unlike all of these other versions, the Synapse Films release presents the actual, original 4.0 channel configuration, remastered and restored in 96/24 resolution from original 4-channel L-C-R-S 35mm DME (Dialogue/Music/Effects) stems. This is the first time the actual 4-channel original mix has been presented on home video, and literally the first time it’s been heard outside of select cinemas that were lucky enough to get 4-track mag prints back in 1977. There is simply no other version of Suspiria that can compare in terms of audio to what Synapse Films has restored here.

Coate: How does the new Synapse Blu-ray release differ from prior releases?

Pereira: See [my answers to your two previous questions] regarding the audio. Regarding the image: Don May reached out to Suspiria’s cinematographer Luciano Tovoli. Tovoli was ecstatic to be asked to be involved (he was shut out of a concurrent European restoration), and he and Don and Don’s colorist David Block went back-and-forth for several months making adjustments and changes, until Tovoli was finally completely happy and signed off on the Synapse 4K restoration. Tovoli even insisted on the Synapse 4K restoration being screened in Spain where he was speaking. The Synapse version of Suspiria is the only one that Luciano Tovoli, the original cinematographer who designed the unique look of the film, has personally supervised and approves.

Coate: I understand a remake is currently in production. Any thoughts?

Pereira: Unlike a lot of people, I’m not immediately against remakes, even of films I love. If the remake is good or bad, the original film still exists. In the case of Suspiria, the remake is being made by the well-respected and now Academy-award nominated director (for Call Me By Your Name), Luca Guadagnino. He has said in interviews that as a young teenager, the original Suspiria profoundly affected him, and that his film is not a remake per se, but rather inspired by the original film and his love of it. I’m actually very much looking forward to seeing what he has to say with his new film interpretation, and what he has done with his inspiration from Argento’s original masterpiece.

Coate: What is the legacy of Suspiria?

Pereira: Suspiria is not just a “horror film”; it’s a work or cinematic art that has influenced countless other filmmakers. It transcends genre. It works beautifully not just as a “mere horror film,” but also works as a profound work of visual and aural art.

Coate: Thank you, Vincent, for sharing your thoughts about Suspiria on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Anchor Bay Entertainment, International Classics, Seda Spettacoli, Synapse Films, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Smokey and the Bandit, the directorial debut of former stuntman Hal Needham, opened 40 years ago this month, and for the occasion The Bits features a compilation of statistics, trivia and box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context; passages from vintage film reviews; a reference/historical listing of the film’s first-run theatrical engagements; and, finally, an interview segment with 1970s film authority Lee Pfeiffer.

BANDIT NUMBER$

• 1 = Box-office rank among films in the Bandit series
• 1 = Box-office rank among films directed by Hal Needham
• 1 = Box-office rank among films starring Burt Reynolds (adjusted for inflation)
• 1 = Number of Academy Award nominations
• 1 = Number of opening-week engagements
• 1 = Number of weeks North America’s top-grossing movie (week #2)
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies during first weekend of “wide” release
• 2 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1977 (calendar year)
• 2 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1977 (summer season)
• 3 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1977 (legacy)
• 3 = Rank among Universal’s all-time top-earning movies at close of original run
• 6 = Number of sequels, remakes and spin-offs
• 8 = Rank on all-time list of top box-office earners at close of original release
• 12 = Rank among top-earning movies of the 1970s
• 27 = Number of weeks of longest-running engagement
• 36 = Number of months between theatrical release and home-video release
• 71 = Rank on current list of all-time top-grossing films (adjusted for inflation)
• 386 = Number of opening-week engagements (Week #2; first week “wide”)

• $29.95 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (videodiscs)
• $79.95 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (Beta & VHS)
• $1.7 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (3-day; May 27-29)
• $2.3 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (4-day holiday; May 27-30)
• $4.3 million = Production cost
• $9.4 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
• $17.4 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $61.1 million = Box-office rental (domestic)
• $126.7 million = Box-office gross (domestic)
• $198.5 million = Box-office gross (domestic; entire Bandit series)
• $246.4 million = Box-office rental (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $511.4 million = Box-office gross (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $721.6 million = Box-office gross (domestic; entire Bandit series; adjusted for inflation)

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“Smokey and the Bandit is a good summer saturation comedy entry starring Burt Reynolds as a bootlegger-for-kicks who, with Jerry Reed and Sally Field, outwit zealous sheriff Jackie Gleason…. [S]tunt coordinator Hal Needham’s directorial debut is promising. The Universal release should perform well in fast playoff, and be a serviceable dual bill partner thereafter.” — A.D. Murphy, Variety

“Smokey and the Bandit tries hard to be a Good Ole Movie and sometimes succeeds. Burt Reynolds, with high-pitched laugh and constant good spirits, plays the trucking hero; and if his style is too practiced to be called casual, it at least fits the mood of the picture. [I]t’s basically a B movie, but with fancy wrappings. It’s also a reverse snob. It takes genuine pride in its lack of pretentions and wallows in its mediocrity.” — Philip Wuntch, The Dallas Morning News

“Smokey and the Bandit is for everybody who is crazy about Burt Reynolds, crazy about cars, crazy about car chases, crazy about CB radio.” — Gene Shalit, The Today Show

“[Smokey and the Bandit] is the kind [of movie] you enjoy when you don’t mind staying awake but are too tired to think. It is not unmitigated good fun even at its own level of internally combusted slapstick. Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed are pleasant to be around, and Sally Field turns the extraordinary feat of being wistfully sweet, sympathetic and funny in a part you’d have said was left on the doorstep in a blizzard. Jackie Gleason, stuck as the story’s buffoon-villain, a sorghumland sheriff with the wit and charm of a stalled steamroller, gets lines that fall on the far side of whatever divides witty irascibility from loud nastiness.” — Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

“Jaunty fun.” — Richard Schickel, Time

“Smokey and the Bandit is an hour and a half and maybe two dozen wrecked police cars long. Most of its dialogue consists of braying into CB microphones about ‘go-go juice’ and courses of action being ‘negatory.’ For those with no passion for mumbling cryptic southernisms at strangers, the film is sheer purgatory.” — Desmond Ryan, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Reynolds is tough because he can drive fast. Reynolds is sweet because he smiles. For my money, Reynolds and his cracker act are as phony as a three-dollar bill. The man reeks of Las Vegas, from his dapper moustache to his turquoise jewelry, and all his CB lingo (‘Hey there, good buddy’) can’t disguise the fact that he looks like he belongs behind a roulette wheel.” — David Rosenbaum, The Boston Herald American

“Smokey and the Bandit is the latest Good Ol’ Movie from Burt Reynolds, who does this sort of thing better than anyone else (even if he doesn’t always convince us that it should be done at all). It’s basically a chase movie, and chases have been the staple of the movies, almost since they were invented. Chases used to be mostly on foot or horseback; now they’re in cars. The American movie going public seems to be ready for at least one big one a year.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Gleason’s performance as Sheriff Justice is one of the corniest jobs of overacting I’ve sat through in years.” — Clyde Gilmour, Toronto Star

“Sally Field is kooky and appealing as the runaway bride. And there’s such a noticeable chemistry between her and Reynolds you wonder what went on between the two when the cameras weren’t rolling.” — Charles Brock, The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union

“Smokey and the Bandit combines the public’s infatuation for car chases with the current Citizen Band radio fad. Practically the entire film, in fact, is one long car chase. It’s raucous, raunchy and infantile. But the fact that the movie is also contemporary, slapstick and jiving with current CB jargon will make it attractive to those in the mood for a fast-paced comedy adventure. For me, it was a crashing bore.” — Donna Chernin, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

“With Mr. Reynolds playing it cool and Mr. Gleason doing his burns and investing the film with a certain raunchy humor, the rest is up to the vehicles. And they don’t do anything that hasn’t been seen before.” — Lawrence Van Gelder, The New York Times

“Pure idiocy.” — Gannett News Service

“It has considerably less charm than W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, another Reynolds ‘Southern’ that made it big only in the South, and its comedy formula and techniques are so crude and slapdash that it’s less like a typical ‘Southern’ than a particularly obnoxious Disney chase comedy — this time with abusive anti-cop and toilet jokes…. Take out the outhouse humor and the CB radio gadgetry, replace Gleason with Don Knotts, Reynolds with Dean Jones and Field with Suzanne Pleshette, and you’ve got Herbie Rides Again.” — John Hartl, The Seattle Times

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THE ORIGINAL ENGAGEMENTS

Listed here for historical reference and nostalgia for those who saw Smokey and the Bandit early in its release are the theaters in which the movie opened during its first two weeks of release.

A distribution/exhibition overview: Smokey and the Bandit initially opened exclusively at the fabled Radio City Music Hall in New York City, opening there on May 19th, 1977, in what could be described as an out-of-place, pre-release booking. A week later on the 27th, Universal opened the movie in a massive “regional saturation” release throughout the South and Southwest. This portion of the launch booked theaters in towns of all sizes but was restricted to thirteen states and was designed to capitalize on the Southern theme and setting of the movie and star Burt Reynolds’ popularity in that region. That, and the fact Universal believed the movie would have performed poorly nationwide if it didn’t generate positive word of mouth from the early playdates. (Additional Southern openings, primarily in small towns, continued throughout June and early July of ’77.)

In what was a fairly slow rollout nationally, the major markets in the rest of North America finally started to play the movie during July ’77. These aren’t included in the reference listing below, but to illustrate the rollout, some of the major market openings included: July 15th (Boston), July 22nd (Toronto, New York City expansion), July 29th (Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Louisville, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, St. Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington DC), August 12th (Detroit) and August 19th (Seattle).

And, here were the May 27th openings of Smokey and the Bandit…

ALABAMA

• Albertville — Mall Twin
• Anniston — Cheaha
• Auburn — Tiger
• Birmingham — Eastwood Mall Twin
• Birmingham — Five Points West Twin
• Cullman — Martin Twin
• Decatur — Gateway Twin
• Dothan — Northside 4-plex
• Enterprise — College
• Fort Payne — DeKalb
• Gadsden — Agricola
• Huntsville — Alabama
• Mobile — Village 4-plex
• Montgomery — Martin Twin
• Muscle Shoals — Cinema Twin
• Phenix City — Phenix Twin
• Scottsboro — Holiday
• Selma — Cahaba Twin
• Tuscaloosa — Capri

ARKANSAS

• Benton — Twin
• Blytheville — Malco Twin
• El Dorado — El Dorado Triplex
• Fayetteville — Malco Twin
• Fort Smith — Phoenix Village Twin
• Hot Springs — Malco Twin
• Jacksonville — Flick Twin
• Jonesboro — Plaza Twin
• Little Rock — Cinema City 4-plex
• Little Rock — Four 4-plex
• Marianna — Gene Boggs Twin
• Pine Bluff — Broadmoor Twin
• Russellville — Picwood Twin
• West Helena — Gene Boggs Twin

FLORIDA

• Altamonte Springs — Altamonte Mall Twin
• Arcadia — Arcadia Twin
• Bartow — Bartow Mall
• Boca Raton — Boca Mall 6-plex
• Bradenton — Bayshore Twin
• Bradenton — Skyway Drive-In
• Brandon — Brandon Twin
• Brooksville — Brooksville Twin
• Clearwater — Carib
• Coral Gables — Riviera Twin
• Dania Beach — Hi Way Drive-In
• Daytona Beach — Bellair Plaza Twin
• Daytona Beach — Sunshine Mall Twin
• Delray Beach — Delray Drive-In
• Englewood — Palm Plaza Twin
• Fort Lauderdale — Sunrise Twin
• Fort Myers — Edison Mall
• Fort Pierce — Village Twin
• Fort Walton Beach — Palm
• Gainesville — Royal Park 4-plex
• Hallandale Beach — Diplomat Mall Twin
• Hollywood — Plaza Twin
• Jacksonville — Cedar Hills
• Jacksonville — Expressway Mall Twin
• Jacksonville — Main Street Drive-In
• Jacksonville — Northside Twin
• Jacksonville — Southside Drive-In
• Jacksonville — Village Twin
• Key West — Cinema Twin
• Lake City — Cinema 90 Twin
• Lakeland — Polk
• Lauderdale Lakes — Lakes 6-plex
• Leesburg — Vista
• Margate — Margate Twin
• Melbourne — NASA
• Merritt Island — Merritt Twin
• Miami — Concord Twin
• Miami — Coral Way Drive-In
• Miami — Cutler Ridge Twin
• Miami — Miami Drive-In
• Miami — Omni 6-plex
• Miami — Thunderbird Twin
• Miami Beach — Surf
• Naples — Gulfgate
• Neptune Beach — Neptune
• New Port Richey — Southgate Twin
• North Miami Beach — 170th Street Twin
• North Miami Beach — Golden Glades Drive-In
• North Palm Beach — Twin City Twin
• Ocala — Springs Twin
• Okeechobee — Braham
• Orlando — Colonial Drive-In
• Orlando — Orange Ave. Drive-In
• Orlando — Parkwood Twin
• Ormond Beach — Nova Drive-In
• Palm Springs — Dolphin
• Panama City — Florida Triplex
• Pensacola — Westwood 4-plex
• Pinellas Park — Pinellas Square Triplex
• Plant City — Plant Mall Twin
• Port Charlotte — Promenades Twin
• St. Augustine — Plaza Twin
• St. Petersburg — Crossroads Twin
• St. Petersburg — Mustang Drive-In
• Sanford — Sanford Plaza Twin
• Sarasota — South Trail
• Sebring — Southgate
• Stuart — Mayfair
• Tallahassee — Capitol Drive-In
• Tallahassee — Tallahassee Mall Twin
• Tampa — Eastlake Square Triplex
• Tampa — Hillsboro Drive-In
• Tampa — Horizon Park 4-plex
• Tampa — Twin Bays 4-plex
• Tampa — Varsity 6-plex
• Titusville — Miracle City Twin
• Venice — Jacaranda Plaza Twin
• Vero Beach — Plaza
• West Palm Beach — Palm Beach Mall 4-plex
• Winter Haven — Continental
• Winter Park — Park Twin

GEORGIA

• Albany — Martin
• Athens — Beechwood Twin
• Atlanta — Northlake Triplex
• Atlanta — Tara Twin
• Augusta — Daniel Village Twin
• Brunswick — Lanier Twin
• Carrollton — Village
• Chamblee — Northeast Expressway Drive-In
• Columbus — Columbus Square Twin
• Covington — Newton
• Dalton — Capri
• Decatur — Glenwood Drive-In
• Decatur — South Dekalb Twin
• Dublin — Martin
• Fayetteville — Fayette
• Fort Oglethorpe — Southgate Twin
• Gainesville — Sherwood
• Griffin — Parkwood Triplex
• Hinesville — Brice Twin
• Jonesboro — Arrowhead Triplex
• LaGrange — LaGrange
• Mableton — Mableton Twin
• Macon — Westgate Triplex
• Marietta — Town & Country Twin
• Milledgeville — Martin
• Moultrie — Colquitt
• Newnan — Alamo
• Rome — Village
• Savannah — Cinema Centre Triplex
• Statesboro — Georgia
• Thomasville — Ritz
• Tifton — Tift
• Valdosta — Cinema Twin
• Vidalia — Brice
• Warner Robins — Rama
• Waycross — Mall Twin

KENTUCKY

• Bowling Green — Martin
• Franklin — Martin
• Hopkinsville — 31 West Drive-In
• Murray — Cheri Triplex

LOUISIANA

• Alexandria — Don
• Baton Rouge — Broadmoor Twin
• Baton Rouge — North Park Twin
• Bogalusa — Trackside Twin
• Hammond — Ritz
• Houma — Southland Twin
• Monroe — Plaza
• Morgan City — Lake Twin
• New Orleans — Joy
• New Orleans — Plaza 4-plex
• Opelousas — Vista Village Twin
• Ruston — Village
• Shreveport — St. Vincent 6-plex
• Shreveport — Southpark Twin
• Slidell — Tammany Mall Twin

MISSISSIPPI

• Biloxi — Edgewater Plaza 4-plex
• Clarksdale — Showcase
• Cleveland — Cinema Twin
• Columbus — Malco Twin
• Greenville — Plaza
• Greenwood — Highland Park Twin
• Gulfport — Hardy Court Twin
• Hattiesburg — Avanti
• Jackson — DeVille
• Laurel — Northside Twin
• McComb — Twin
• Meridian — 8th Street
• Natchez — Tracetown Twin
• Oxford — Ritz
• Pascagoula — Towne
• Starkville — Cinema 12 Twin
• Tupelo — Malco Twin
• Vicksburg — Battlefield Twin

NEW MEXICO

• Albuquerque — Fox Winrock
• Clovis — Hilltop Twin
• Gallup — Aztec Twin
• Santa Fe — The Movies! Twin
• Silver City — Gila

NORTH CAROLINA

• Asheboro — Cinema Twin
• Asheville — Dreamland Drive-In
• Asheville — Merrimon Twin
• Boone — Chalet Twin
• Burlington — Park
• Chapel Hill — Carolina Twin
• Charlotte — Charlottetown Mall Triplex
• Charlotte — Eastland Mall Triplex
• Clinton — Cinema
• Concord — Carolina Mall Triplex
• Dunn — Plaza Twin
• Durham — Northgate Twin
• Elizabeth City — Carolina
• Fayetteville — Cross Creek Mall Triplex
• Gastonia — Diane Drive-In
• Goldsboro — Center
• Greensboro — Carolina Circle 6-plex
• Greensboro — Quaker Twin
• Greenville — Pitt
• Havelock — Cinema
• Henderson — Embassy
• Hendersonville — Carolina Twin
• Hickory — Thunderbird Drive-In
• High Point — Twin
• Jacksonville — Northwoods
• Kinston — Mall
• Laurinburg — Gibson
• Lenoir — Cinema Triplex
• Lincolnton — Century
• Lumberton — Cinema Triplex
• Morehead City — Cinema Twin
• Morganton — Studio Twin
• Mount Airy — Mayberry
• Nags Head — Colony House
• New Bern — Cinema
• Raleigh — Mission Valley Twin
• Roanoke Rapids — Cinema
• Rocky Mount — Cardinal Twin
• Salisbury — Center
• Sanford — Cinema Twin
• Shelby — Flick
• Southern Pines — Town & Country Twin
• Statesville — Newtowne
• Washington — Cinema Twin
• Wilmington — Oleander Twin
• Wilkesboro — College Park
• Wilson — Starlite Drive-In
• Winston-Salem — Haines Mall 4-plex

OKLAHOMA

• Ada — Gemini Twin
• Alva — Rialto
• Bartlesville — Eastland Twin
• Enid — Video Twin
• Guymon — Suburban
• Lawton — Vaska
• McAlester — Cinema 69 Twin
• Muskogee — Muskogee Twin
• Norman — Heisman 4-plex
• Oklahoma City — 14 Flags Drive-In
• Oklahoma City — French Market Twin
• Oklahoma City — Reding 4-plex
• Pryor — Allred
• Sapulpa — Creek Hills
• Shawnee — Hornbeck Twin
• Stillwater — Aggie
• Tulsa — Boman Twin
• Weatherford — Vesta
• Woodward — Lakeside

SOUTH CAROLINA

• Aiken — Mark I
• Anderson — Osteen Twin
• Charleston — Ashley Plaza Twin
• Chester — Cinema Twin
• Clemson — Clemson
• Columbia — Miracle
• Conway — Holiday
• Easley — Colony Twin
• Florence — Crown
• Greenville — Tower
• Greenwood — Auto Drive-In
• Greer — Cinema Triplex
• Hartsville — Cinema
• Lancaster — Crown
• North Charleston — Charles Towne Square Twin
• Orangeburg — Camelot Twin
• Rock Hill — Cinema
• Spartanburg — Pinewood Twin
• Sumter — Wesmark Plaza Twin
• Union — Duncan

TENNESSEE

• Bristol — Holiday
• Chattanooga — Northgate Triplex
• Clarksville — Martin Twin
• Cleveland — Cinema Twin
• Columbia — Polk
• Cookeville — Princess
• Dyersburg — Martin Twin
• Gatlinburg — Gatlinburg
• Goodletsville — Rivergate Mall Twin
• Jackson — Paramount
• Johnson City — Mall
• Kingsport — Martin
• Knoxville — Cedar Bluff Twin
• Knoxville — Studio One
• Madisonville — Martin
• Maryville — Druid Hill Drive-In
• McMinnville — Park
• Memphis — Plaza Twin
• Memphis — Raleigh Springs Mall Twin
• Memphis — Whitehaven Twin
• Morristown — Princess
• Murfreesboro — Martin Twin
• Nashville — Martin
• Oak Ridge — Grove

TEXAS

• Abilene — Westgate Twin
• Alice — Sage
• Alvin — Town Plaza Twin
• Amarillo — Western Square Twin
• Arlington — Six Flags Mall Twin
• Austin — Highland Mall Twin
• Baytown — Brunson Twin
• Beaumont — Gateway Twin
• Big Spring — R/70
• Brownfield — Regal Twin
• Brownwood — Commerce Square Twin
• Brownsville — North Park Plaza Twin
• Bryan — Manor East Triplex
• Conroe — North Hills
• Copperas Cove — Cinema 76
• Corpus Christi — Cine 4-plex
• Corsicana — Cinema Twin
• Dallas — Esquire
• Dallas — Valley View Twin
• Del Rio — Rita Twin
• Denton — Fine Arts
• Dumas — Evelyn
• El Paso — Cielo Vista Mall Triplex
• Fort Worth — Wedgwood Twin
• Galveston — Galvez Plaza Triplex
• Gatesville — Town & Country Drive-In
• Greenville — Rolling Hills Twin
• Harker Heights — Showplace Triplex
• Harlingen — Morgan Plaza Twin
• Houston — Alabama
• Houston — Almeda 9-plex
• Houston — Champions Village Twin
• Houston — Gaylynn Triplex
• Houston — Greenspoint 5-plex
• Houston — Northwest 4-plex
• Houston — Woodlake Triplex
• Huntsville — Cinema Triplex
• Hurst — Belaire Twin
• Irving — Irving Mall Twin
• Kerrville — Plaza
• Killeen — Plaza
• Kingsville — Texas
• Lake Jackson — Lake Twin
• Laredo — Cinema Twin
• Lewisville — Cinema Twin
• Longview — Cargill Triplex
• Lubbock — Showplace 4-plex
• Lufkin — Cinema Twin
• Marshall — Cinema Twin
• McAllen — Cinema Twin
• Mesquite — Town East Twin
• Midland — Cinema 1
• Nacogdoches — Stephen F. Austin Center
• New Braunfels — Cinema Twin
• Odessa — Grandview
• Orange — Brown Twin
• Paris — Cinema Twin
• Port Arthur — Village Triplex
• Richmond — Lamar
• San Angelo — Sherwood Twin
• San Antonio — North Star Mall Twin
• San Antonio — South Park Mall 4-plex
• San Marcos — Holiday
• Seguin — Palace Twin
• Sherman — Cinema Twin
• Snyder — Cinema Twin
• Sugar Land — Palms
• Temple — Arcadia
• Texarkana — Cinema City Triplex
• Texas City — Tradewinds Twin
• Tyler — Cinema Twin
• Victoria — Playhouse 4-plex
• Waco — Cinema Twin
• Wichita Falls — Wichita

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THE Q&A

Lee Pfeiffer is the Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Retro magazine, which celebrates films of the 1960s and 1970s and is “the Essential Guide to Cult and Classic Movies.” He is the author (with Philip Lisa) of The Incredible World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of James Bond (Citadel, 1992) and The Films of Sean Connery (Citadel, 2001), and (with Dave Worrall) The Essential Bond: The Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (Boxtree, 1998/Harper Collins, 1999). He also wrote (with Michael Lewis) The Films of Harrison Ford (Citadel, 2002) and (with Dave Worrall) The Great Fox War Movies (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2006).

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Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Smokey and the Bandit be remembered on its 40th anniversary?

Lee Pfeiffer: The film spoke to a certain demographic — people who lived in rural America — in a way that Hollywood productions of the era rarely succeeded in doing. There was a time when studios courted this market specifically by churning out low-budget action movies, Westerns, comedies and exploitation films but as audiences became more demanding in their tastes, public sentiment switched to glossier productions. Indeed, as far back as 1935, Variety ran a famous headline “Hix Nix Stix Pix,” meaning that films that were specifically targeted for rural audiences were being ignored in favor of big movies with big stars. The success of Smokey reawakened studio interest in producing films targeted to people who didn’t live in major urban areas. It was a film that boasted big stars and good production values. Rural audiences felt the movie spoke to them in a way that wasn’t condescending or insulting in the manner that previous attempts to reach their wallets were. Burt Reynolds was riding high at the time. Along with Clint Eastwood, he was arguably the biggest star in the world so the movie’s success didn’t surprise anyone. What did surprise studios was the extent to which it was embraced by rural audiences. The movie played seemingly forever in some theaters in the south and the heartland. It proved to Hollywood that there was plenty of profit movies that spoke to folks who still saw first run movies in drive-in theaters.

Coate: What do you think of Smokey and the Bandit? Can you recall your reaction to the first time you saw it?

Pfeiffer: I think I saw it back in college when I went to a screening to review the film for the campus newspaper. I didn’t like it very much then and probably wouldn’t care for it very much now, though I’ll confess I haven’t seen it in many years. I always liked the work of Burt Reynolds and Sally Field and Jackie Gleason is one of my idols. But I just couldn’t relate to the humor the way some people did. I think it’s really a matter of demographics, specifically where you live. I’m a big city person who grew up with New York City just across the river, so Manhattan was my “playground,” if you will — and still is. Thus, I always related more to Woody Allen comedies than the kind of humor presented in Smokey and the Bandit. That’s not meant to be a knock on the film. I once wrote a book about classic movies and I think I included Smokey in it. My editor was aghast but left it in because I argued that, for the purposes of that specific book, I defined “classic” as any film that had a highly enduring legacy in regard to its intended audience. Smokey wasn’t made to please people who frequent cafes on the East Side of Manhattan. It was made for audiences who could relate to the kinds of eccentric characters you find in small town America in much the same way that Scorsese is able to do the same with characters you find in urban settings. I respect Smokey for its durability. People who loved it back in the day still love it today.

Coate: What did Smokey and the Bandit contribute to 1970s Cinema?

Pfeiffer: The film proved that not every major hit had to be a mega-budget blockbuster. Even by 1977, studios were becoming increasingly reliant on spectacle and special effects. That year alone saw the release of three major hits that relied heavily on technology: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Spy Who Loved Me — all fine movies but ones that continued to convince studios that bigger was always better. Smokey reminded them that a film on a fairly modest budget with popular stars could still draw big audiences. Don’t forget there was no cable TV in those days and home video was just in its infancy. The average person could only see a favorite movie again by going to a theater. Smokey played for many weeks, packing in audiences — and then would be revived by popular demand in small town theaters. That type of pattern doesn’t happen today. Even if a movie is a blockbuster, it generally clears out of theaters quickly so the studio can capitalize on the home video and cable sales.

Coate: Where do you think Smokey and the Bandit ranks among director Hal Needham’s body of work?

Pfeiffer: Well, Needham’s “body of work” is pretty thin as director. He was one of the very top stuntmen and stunt coordinators in the business and that is his real legacy. He gravitated to directing because he had worked on so many films he probably felt he could direct one in his sleep. He was also a personal friend of Burt Reynolds and had worked as a second unit director on some of his earlier films. Reynolds’ clout got him the directing gig on Smokey and Needham came through for the studio. However, his career as a director was largely linked to Reynolds’ popularity. They went on to make one good movie together — Hooper — and a couple of dogs that still made a lot of money: The Cannonball Run and Smokey and the Bandit II. He made a couple of other films without Reynolds but they are largely forgotten. He and Reynolds reunited in 1984 for Cannonball Run II but the bloom was already off the rose and the movie didn’t perform very well. Within a couple of years, Needham wasn’t directing any major films. However, it should be acknowledged that the man knew his limitations and stayed within his comfort zone. His films generally contained elaborate stunts and car chases, which were challenges he knew he could always rise to. The fact that we are still talking about Smokey and the Bandit forty years later is probably the greatest testament to his talents.

Coate: Where do you think Smokey and the Bandit ranks among Burt Reynolds’, Sally Field’s and Jackie Gleason’s bodies of work?

Pfeiffer: That’s a pretty subjective question because, in terms of popularity, it probably represents the pinnacle of Burt Reynolds’ career. However, it also laid the groundwork for his rather rapid demise in terms of his box office appeal. As Reynolds himself acknowledged, he began to rely too much on the low-hanging fruit of good ol’ boy country comedies. Clint Eastwood did two such films, co-starring with an orangutan and they were both hits — but he knew when to walk away from the genre. Reynolds didn’t. When he turned down the role that won Jack Nicholson an Oscar for Terms of Endearment in order to do Stroker Ace with Hal Needham, his career was irreparably damaged. In terms of Reynolds’ achievement as a personality, Smokey was a triumph for him because it epitomized how audiences wanted to see him — as the over-sexed, towel-snapping prankster and man of action. In terms of Reynolds’ “serious” efforts, however, I think his star-making dramatic performance in Deliverance is his most impressive work.

For Sally Field, who was romantically involved with Reynolds at the time, this was nothing more than a fun outing. She always had a talent for light comedy and had become a star on the sitcoms Gidget and The Flying Nun, so this was probably nothing more than a pleasant paid holiday for her.

For Jackie Gleason the film was more important. He was one of the most iconic of American comedy stars but his legacy was in danger of being overlooked by younger audiences who only knew him as Ralph Kramden from the eternal comedy series The Honeymooners. Gleason stole the show as Sheriff Buford T. Justice and found a whole new audience, proving he still had his mojo. It was the biggest hit of his career, even if the character was, shall we say “inspired” (aka “ripped off”) from the almost identical Sheriff J.W. Pepper played by Clifton James a few years earlier in the James Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. Gleason was also an outstanding dramatic actor but he rarely got a chance to show off these talents. For the best dramatic work of his career, just watch him as pool hustler Minnesota Fats in the 1961 film The Hustler. He’s only on screen for a limited time yet he got an Oscar nomination. He was also outstanding as a corrupt boxing manager in the big screen version of Requiem for a Heavyweight. However, he will always be immortalized for The Honeymooners. Even kids today seem to be familiar with the show and sixty years later, it’s still being shown on Saturday nights on New York television.

Coate: What is the legacy of Smokey and the Bandit?

Pfeiffer: Smokey proved to studios that there was still “gold in them thar hills,” to coin the old phrase, when it came to appealing to rural audiences which had often been neglected especially in the era in which the Western movie genre went into a decline. It also boasted something that is lacking today: genuine star power. There are very few real movie stars left today. By that I don’t mean recognizable names or people who command big salaries. “Stars” were people whose movies would generate profits simply by their presence in them. Back in 1977, Reynolds, Field and Gleason were very popular screen presences and represented movie stars in the classic sense of the term. It’s hard to think of many stars today — people who draw in big audiences regardless of the genre of film and perhaps in spite of bad reviews. Smokey also represented a time in which families felt comfortable going to movies together and not having to cringe at the elements of sex and violence. Smokey never went beyond some naughty jokes and double-entendres and the violence was cartoon-like because no one ever got hurt. I still can’t say I’m a fan of the movie but for the reasons I’ve outlined in this [interview], I have a lot of respect for it.

Coate: Thank you, Lee, for participating and for sharing your thoughts on Smokey and the Bandit on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.

--END--

All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Rastar, Universal Pictures, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and film reviews, and trade reports published in the periodicals Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

SPECIAL THANKS

Al Alvarez, Nancy Arn, Kim Averette, Laura Baas, Don Beelik, Kevin Blinn, Louis Bornwasser, Laura Calderone, Margaret Carter, Kevin Chatham, Tom Cole, Saundra R. Cropps, Robert Cruthirds, Laura Fazekas, Jesse Gibson, Khalilah Y. Hayes, Mike Heenan, Beatheia Jackson, Sarah Kenyon, Joanne Lammers, Ronald A. Lee, Mark Lensenmayer, Karin Lindemann, Stan Malone, Michael Mitchell, Sana Moulder, Vivian R. Osborne, Stuart Parks II, Lee Pfeiffer, Roxanne Puder, Dalton Royer, Cliff Stephenson, John Stewart, Sean Sutcliffe, and to all of the librarians who helped with the research for this project, and to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library and Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study.

IN MEMORIAM

Bill Justis (Music), 1926-1982
Jackie Gleason (“Sheriff Buford T. Justice”), 1916-1987
Angelo Ross (Editor), 1911-1989
James Lee Barrett (Screenwriter), 1929-1989
Walter Hannemann (Editor), 1912-2001
Anthony Magro (Sound Editor), 1923-2004
Pat McCormick (“Big Enos”), 1927-2005
Macon McCalman (“Mr. B”), 1932-2005
Jerry Reed (“Cledus”; Music), 1937-2008
Hal Needham (Director), 1931-2013
Ray West (Sound), 1925-2016

-Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Poltergeist, one of the most popular horror films ever made, opened in theaters 35 years ago this week, and for the occasion The Bits features a compilation of statistics, trivia and box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context; passages from vintage film reviews; a reference/historical listing of the film’s premium-format presentations; and, finally, an interview segment with film music and Spielberg authority Mike Matessino.

POLTERGEIST NUMBER$

• 0 = Number of weeks nation’s top-grossing movie
• 1 = Box-office rank among films in the Poltergeist series
• 1 = Rank among top-earning horror films of 1982
• 2 = Rank on list of top-earning films of MGM/UA’s 1982 slate
• 3 = Number of Academy Award nominations
• 3 = Rank among top-earning movies during opening weekend
• 4 = Number of sequels, remakes and spin-offs
• 5 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (summer)
• 6 = Number of months between theatrical release and home-video release
• 8 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (calendar year)
• 28 = Number of weeks of longest-running engagement
• 37 = Number of 70mm prints
• 62 = Rank on all-time list of top box-office earners at close of original release
• 890 = Number of opening-week engagements

• $34.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (videodiscs)
• $79.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (VHS and Beta)
• $7,749 = Opening-weekend per-screen average
• $6.9 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross
• $10.7 million = Production cost
• $17.5 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
• $27.1 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $36.2 million = Box-office rental (domestic; as of 12/31/82)
• $37.7 million = Box-office rental (domestic; as of 12/31/83)
• $38.2 million = Box-office rental (domestic; legacy)
• $45.1 million = Box-office gross (international)
• $76.6 million = Box-office gross (domestic)
• $96.8 million = Box-office rental (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $114.3 million = Box-office gross (international, adjusted for inflation)
• $121.7 million = Box-office gross (worldwide)
• $194.1 million = Box-office gross (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $308.4 million = Box-office gross (worldwide, adjusted for inflation)

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“This is the movie The Amityville Horror dreamed of being.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“[I]t is a pleasure to see a horror movie that does not base its entertainment on obscene fantasies about killing defenseless women.” — Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer

“There is no moviemaker anywhere who can wrest so much fun out of the commonplace — the toys, gimmicks, hardware and habits of contemporary America. Spielberg is simply a wizard at mirroring us and our manifold junk in brilliant satirical flourishes.” — Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle

“If ever a protest might be made of a PG rating, this would be the film.” — Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times

“Aside from a deliciously frightening locking of a door and a surprising tug on a mother’s dress, the new terror film Poltergeist is without terror, thrills or entertainment value. In fact, the last half of the picture is a bunch of silly mumbo jumbo that combines the worst elements of The Exorcist and the pseudoscientific laugh riot, Beyond and Back.” — Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“Poltergeist is like a thoroughly enjoyable nightmare, one that you know that you can always wake up from, and one in which, at the end, no one has permanently been damaged. It’s also witty in a fashion that Alfred Hitchcock might have appreciated. Offhand, I can’t think of many other directors who could raise goose bumps by playing The Star-Spangled Banner behind a film’s opening credits.” — Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“A superior, spectacular ghost story.” — Charles Michener, Newsweek

“Poltergeist is a nice, civilized monster movie for anyone who giggled with terror at The Exorcist. It is true the film has something of an identity problem; often it seems unable to make up its mind whether it’s trying to scare the bejesus out of you or simply make you laugh. But then, perhaps this is due to the fact that the direction is shared by Tobe Hooper, who made the bloodspattered Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), who thinks of outer space as populated by colonies of Peter Pans.” — Gina Mallet, Toronto Star

“Honest thrills and spine-snapping chills.” — Richard Corliss, Time

“Poltergeist provides a sharp and canny mixture of cerebral chills and raw, visceral thrills. Few other horror films have managed to merge the psychological and the literal with such harmonious results.” — Philip Wuntch, The Dallas Morning News

“[Poltergeist] is a dazzling, laser fun house of a film where the ride is too much fun to be anything scary.” — Jack Mathews, Detroit Free Press

“Poltergeist, the first salvo from what may be remembered as Steven Spielberg Summer, has arrived and the results are oddly uneven. In terms of simple, flat-out, roof-rattling fright, Poltergeist gives full value. In terms of story, however, simple is indeed the word, and dumb might be a better one.” — Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times

“Poltergeist is a walloping ghost story, as fun and entertaining to watch as it often is frightening. It has all the ingredients of a summer hit for Steven Spielberg who ran away with box office dollars last summer with Raiders of the Lost Ark and seems certain to do it again with this film as well as the upcoming E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.” — Carol Olten, The San Diego Union

“[Poltergeist] is a much more exciting experience in stereo and 70mm.” — Ted Mahar, The (Portland) Oregonian

“The slam-bang technical professionalism of Poltergeist is exhilarating. This is classically seamless Hollywood moviemaking evolved to its highest state.” — Scott Sublett, The Washington Times

“Poltergeist reawakens childhood fears. For a couple of hours, it is a roller-coaster ride of thrills, chills and shivers. Spielberg says Poltergeist is his revenge on television. It may be just a splendidly crafted thriller, and it certainly could never happen in real life. But I, for one, am turning off the TV tonight before I go to sleep. Maybe even when I first get home.” — Donna Chernin, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

“It’s an absolutely irresistible good time. Poltergeist is intelligent, witty, and it will scare the bejeesus out of you. It even offers a moral to all unscrupulous real estate developers — but I can’t tell you anymore than that or I’ll spoil the story.” — Ellen Pfeifer, The Boston Herald

“Poltergeist could have been a more frightening movie, with more chilling after-effects, but that’s not what Spielberg and Hooper had in mind. They clearly wanted the kind of horror movie you could take your kids or your parents to see, and they’ve succeeded.” — John Hartl, The Seattle Times

“Poltergeist is the best ghost story I’ve ever seen. That’s the sort of sweeping statement I normally avoid, but there’s no need for quibbling this time. Steven Spielberg’s new production is unadultered good fun — as scary, happy and harmless as a roller coaster ride.” — George Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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THE 70MM ENGAGEMENTS

Event and prestige movies (and instances to appease a filmmaker’s ego) on occasion are given a deluxe release in addition to a standard release. This section of the article includes a reference/historical listing of the first-run 70mm Six-Track Dolby Stereo premium-format presentations of Poltergeist in the United States and Canada. These were arguably the best theaters in which to experience Poltergeist and the only way at the time to faithfully hear the movie’s discrete multichannel audio mix.

Only about five percent of Poltergeist’s initial print run was in the 70mm format, which was significantly more expensive and more time- and labor-intensive to manufacture compared with conventional 35mm prints. And of the 100+ new movies released during 1982, Poltergeist was among only eighteen to have 70mm prints prepared for selected engagements.

The film’s 70mm prints of Poltergeist were blown up from anamorphic 35mm photography and were intended to be projected in a 2.20:1 aspect ratio. The noise-reduction and signal-processing format for the prints was Dolby “A,” and the soundtrack was Format 42 (i.e. three discrete screen channels + one discrete surround channel + “baby boom” low-frequency enhancement).

A trailer for My Favorite Year circulated with the Poltergeist prints and which the distributor recommended be screened with the presentation.

The listing includes the 70mm engagements of Poltergeist that commenced June 4th, 1982*. Not included in this work are the moveover, second run, revival and international engagements (or any of the movie’s countless standard 35mm engagements). And to provide a sense of the movie’s appeal, the duration of the engagements, measured in weeks, has been included in parenthesis for some of the entries.

*Prior to release there was a sneak preview screening on May 21st at the Century Plaza in Los Angeles and invitational previews on May 21st at the Samuel Goldwyn in Beverly Hills, May 26th at the MGM Studios in Culver City and June 3rd at the Cinerama in New York. The film’s official premiere was held June 3rd at the Egyptian in Seattle as a part of the Seattle Film Festival.

So, for historical reference and nostalgia, the first-run North American theaters that screened the 70mm version of Poltergeist were….

ALBERTA

• Calgary — Famous Players’ Palliser Square Twin (15)
• Edmonton — Famous Players’ Westmount Twin (15)

BRITISH COLUMBIA

• Vancouver — Famous Players’ Stanley (17)

CALIFORNIA

• Costa Mesa — Edwards’ South Coast Plaza Triplex (7)
• Los Angeles (Century City) — Plitt’s Century Plaza Twin (10)
• Los Angeles (Hollywood) — SRO’s Paramount (7)
• Sacramento — Syufy’s Capitol Twin
• San Diego — Mann’s Valley Circle (27)
• San Francisco — Plitt’s Northpoint (7)
• San Jose — Syufy’s Century 24 Twin

DELAWARE

• Claymont — SamEric’s Eric Tri-State Mall 4-plex (12)

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

• Washington — Circle’s Embassy Circle (10)

ILLINOIS

• Chicago — Center’s McClurg Court (5)
• Chicago — Plitt’s State Lake (5)
• Northbrook — Center’s Edens Twin (6)

KENTUCKY

• Louisville — Redstone’s Showcase 9-plex (28)

MANITOBA

• Winnipeg — Famous Players’ Northstar Twin (15)

MASSACHUSETTS

• Boston — Sack’s Cinema 57 Twin (11)

NEW JERSEY

• Paramus — RKO Century’s Route 17 Twin (10)
• Pennsauken — SamEric’s Eric Triplex (15)
• Totowa — UA’s Cinema 46 Triplex (6)

NEW YORK

• Greece — Jo-Mor’s Stoneridge Twin (13)
• New York — RKO Century’s Cinerama Twin (9)
• Valley Stream — RKO Century’s Green Acres (11)

ONTARIO

• Toronto — Famous Players’ Cumberland 4-plex (18) [La Reserve]
• Toronto — Famous Players’ Eglinton (24)

OREGON

• Portland — Luxury Theatres’ Fox (27)

PENNSYLVANIA

• Feasterville — SamEric’s Eric Twin (11)
• King of Prussia — SamEric’s Eric King Twin (11)
• Philadelphia — SamEric’s Eric’s Place (15)

QUEBEC

• Montreal — United’s York (10)

TEXAS

• Dallas — Loews’ Park Central 4-plex (9)
• Houston — Loews’ Southpoint 5-plex

WASHINGTON

• Seattle — SRO’s Town (10)

Note that some of the presentations included in this listing were presented in 35mm during the latter weeks of engagement due to print damage and the distributor’s unwillingness to supply a 70mm replacement print or because the booking was moved to a smaller, 35mm-only auditorium within a multiplex. As well, the reverse may have been true in some cases whereas a booking began with a 35mm print because the lab was unable to complete the 70mm print order in time for an opening-day delivery or the exhibitor negotiated a mid-run switch to 70mm. In these cases, the 35mm portion of the engagement has been included in the duration figure.

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THE Q&A

Mike Matessino is an accomplished music producer, mixer, editor, mastering engineer and film music historian and has been associated with dozens of CD soundtrack projects. His Jerry Goldsmith-scored CD projects include The Sand Pebbles, Alien and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Spielberg/Goldsmith projects include Poltergeist, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Gremlins and Innerspace. Other Spielberg/Amblin CD projects include Jaws, 1941, The Goonies, Back to the Future, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Non-Spielberg, non-Goldsmith CD projects include Star Wars, Superman and Home Alone. As well, he was the Restoration Supervisor for The Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and directed behind-the-scenes documentaries on The Sound of Music, Alien, The Last Starfighter, and John Carpenter’s The Thing, which have been included as added value material on some of those films’ LaserDisc, DVD and/or Blu-ray releases.

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Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Poltergeist be remembered on its 35th anniversary?

Mike Matessino: Find a little suburban pub and order a white lady, of course! Poltergeist is a classic and sits alongside all of the other genre films that were released in the summer of 1982, which is widely recognized as an amazing year for movies. There have been sequels and remakes but in this case the original stands on its own and is still just a great, solid movie in every respect.

Coate: What did you think of Poltergeist? Can you recall your reaction to the first time you saw it? Is your opinion of the movie the same today as it was upon first viewing?

Matessino: I loved it when I first saw and still do. But I have to discuss E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial to put it in proper context, because I had the interesting experience of seeing E.T. first, at a Memorial Day weekend preview.

That remains one of the most astounding experiences I ever had at a movie theater. I went in thinking it might be a sweet and low-key little family film that I would see once or twice, but as it played it became clear that there was a power and a resonance to it that was palpable. I was already a great admirer of Steven Spielberg, especially Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and so I could see how E.T. took some of the ideas from that film and focused them down to a very personal level, and it felt almost like a sequel to me. There were some very profound ideas about family, childhood and matters of the heart that come through probably more powerfully than the filmmakers realized they would. Everything seemed completely real, and by the time the movie reached its climax there was a feeling of transcending the cinema medium. You could feel it in the audience. They screamed when the bikes took off and applauded extensively at the start of and again at the end of the credits. But then we all went back into a world that had little collective awareness of this movie.

I went back to school on Tuesday and started talking about it, wearing the pin that had been handed out that said ”I saw E.T.” and I remember a girl I liked asking me what E.T. was. When I said it’s the new Spielberg film, she said, ”You mean Poltergeist?” So that illustrates how little advance hype there was back then. But being a reader of Starlog I knew about every movie coming that summer and the next Friday, the 4th, both Poltergeist and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan opened. Since you have an interest in movie theaters, Mike, I can add that the logistical problem here was that Poltergeist had opened at more off-the-beaten-path locations, one of which was bike-able but in the opposite direction of where Star Trek opened, so it was not going to work to see both in one day. I ended up seeing Star Trek II on Friday and Poltergeist Saturday. Star Trek II opened at my beloved Movieland in Yonkers, which had been like a second home since it opened in late 1977 and which recently became Alamo Drafthouse. Close Encounters was one of the movies that opened when the theater did and it was the only place in Westchester County to see it in Dolby Stereo. On that same screen I first saw Alien, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the E.T. preview (and it played at this theater until December), so I tend to think of the place as my ”mother church.” I think Star Trek II was in the second largest house that opening day (as Raiders had been, but then later moved to the big theater). I really loved Trek II and still do, but then as now I like Star Trek: The Motion Picture more for a variety of reasons. That’s a different topic, of course. Anyway, I saw Poltergeist the next day in Bronxville at the same theater where I’d first seen Jaws. Unfortunately, in 1980 this great neighborhood theater was split into a triplex. But the point of all of this is that Poltergeist immediately struck me as a companion piece to E.T. Here again was very realistic setting, one similar to E.T. (but not as exact as some people think) and I could see how Steven Spielberg had again taken some of the ideas and imagery of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and had re-focused them into a very tight and compelling ghost story. After E.T. opened the following week a lot of articles began appearing about the ”summer of Spielberg” and discussion about the two films as they related to each other. Both films grew out of early attempts at a Close Encounters sequel, so they have some common DNA. And I’m not the first one to group them with Close Encounters as Spielberg’s ”suburban trilogy.” In a way, Poltergeist is a nexus that connects Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. together, so when I look at it today I find it’s still a powerful movie on its own but carries all those connections with it. In a way I’m sorry that Poltergeist didn’t open later in the summer than it did, because I was so blown away by E.T. that I kept going to that (and of course it was easier to get to). I would have seen Poltergeist more if it had appeared later.

I did get to see it in 70mm in New York City on a pretty spectacular day that started with a double feature retrospective of Jaws and Close Encounters, followed by E.T. (also in 70mm), followed by Poltergeist. It was one hell of a summer that also had re-issues of Raiders and Star Wars. Poltergeist eventually came to Movieland in October when it was recirculated for Halloween, and then there was a re-issue the following spring right before Return of the Jedi opened. So I was able to see it multiple times and it was always satisfying.

Coate: In what way is Poltergeist significant among the horror genre?

Matessino: Poltergeist, of course, dispensed with the creaky old mansion settings for ghost stories and was set in a 5-year old house in a modern suburban development. This carries with it a lot of subtext because old mansions are usually either inherited or they get so dilapidated that they only attract people who are misfits in some way. The vibe of Cuesta Verde in Poltergeist, on the other hand, is that average people have worked hard to afford to buy a home here, away from the city and crime in order to raise families in a safe environment. So there is a sense that you are in total control of something that you’ve worked hard to possess. To have that subverted by a ghostly presence therefore resonates on a different level than if it’s in an old mansion where you are more apt to feel powerless against the age and history of the place. There is nothing outwardly creepy about the Poltergeist house. Even in movies like The Exorcist, the townhouse in Georgetown is photographed to look ominous at times. The next thing Poltergeist does is bring science into it to investigate the manifestations rather than just having a séance or something. Interestingly I think one of the first times that was done was in The Legend of Hell House, written by Richard Matheson and based on his novel. He had also written the Twilight Zone episode Little Girl Lost, which was an inspiration for Poltergeist. Matheson had also written Duel and then went on to work again with Spielberg on the Twilight Zone movie, so there is a through-line there as well. Poltergeist then goes a step further. Where it could have just been all jump scares and visual effects from that point, it instead introduces discussion of the metaphysical and the spiritual. By the time the psychic medium character, Tangina, comes into it and delivers her monologue, you feel really invested and it goes beyond the story at hand. You find yourself contemplating the whole idea of the spirt realm and the existence of ghosts, which is extremely ambitious for a genre that has so often just given us 90 minutes of people doing stupid things sprinkled with ”boo!” moments and gore. Those things are there in Poltergeist, but they are restrained in order that the Grand Guignol finale actually feels like a climax. So to summarize, Poltergeist has a lot of social commentary and can spark discussion about other subjects. It sets a pretty high bar as a horror movie.

Coate: What is your take on the “Who directed Poltergeist?” issue?

Matessino: My take is that Spielberg, along with Kathy Kennedy and Frank Marshall, had just set up Amblin Entertainment and Poltergeist was going to be the production that established a template for what movies the company was going to make and how. The movie doesn’t say ”Amblin” on it but if you look at the novelization you’ll find it has a 1981 Amblin Enterprises copyright (the first official Amblin production was actually Continental Divide that same year). Amblin was located at MGM at the time, which is where Poltergeist interiors were filmed, so it was easy for Spielberg to oversee. He had come up with the story, and done a rewrite of the screenplay, worked with the storyboard artist to plot out the camera angles, and then, at the back end, supervised the post production including the editing (which was done by his own usual editor, Michael Kahn, who did not do E.T.), the visual effects and the scoring. So right there you have a variety of factors that would make it impossible for the film to not exude Spielberg’s creative influence. Tobe Hooper certainly directed principal photography, but his job was to make the movie Spielberg wanted. The problem was that Steven was very excited by the movie and his enthusiasm can reach a level where it just takes over a room or a set. Hooper also departed the project after he delivered his cut in October 1981, so there was a long way to go between then and the release of the picture. Some missteps certainly happened with the trailers and some of the press about it, but at the end of the day that was all smoothed over. I liken the situation to Gone With the Wind, which to this day we think of as David Selznick’s film and not Victor Fleming’s, and The Thing From Another World, which we think of as Howard Hawks’ movie and not Christian Nyby’s. There was clearly a creative partnership between Spielberg and Hooper, and if you look at Hooper’s other films you can recognize his imprint on Poltergeist, but the odds were stacked against him for the finished movie avoiding a tangible Spielberg vibe. The fact that it opened a week before E.T., along with the connections to Close Encounters I mentioned, only adds to that feeling.

Coate: Some viewers might find Jerry Goldsmith’s musical score out of place given Spielberg’s longtime collaboration with John Williams. Can you discuss Goldsmith’s contribution to the film and where you think his Poltergeist score ranks among his body of work?

Matessino: Poltergeist is a perfectly scored movie. There is not one single note that is out of place. For me it’s right up there with my other favorite, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which is a score that, in places, is a second cousin to Poltergeist. Jerry recorded some cues and sections for Poltergeist that were not used, and while they work great on the expanded soundtrack album, each decision made for the movie was the correct one. The early part of the film feels completely realistic, so that when the music comes back with the ”They’re here!” scene, you feel that the score is the voice of the spirits. There are a few sequences to particularly note Jerry’s genius. The first is in The Jewelry, which plays under the family’s attempt to contact the vanished Carol Anne for the parapsychologists. Visually we basically see people just standing around a room, but Jerry finds the ache in Diane’s heart and Carol Anne’s fear and takes you through an array of emotions. It’s pretty incredible. Then later we get the astonishing 15 minutes of music that covers Carol Anne’s rescue. The aforementioned monologue delivered by Tangina is remarkably scored, again allowing you to cast your mind beyond the story to a lot of bigger ideas. After that we get an unbroken four-minute shot that is little more than four people standing in a hallway. But Jerry seems to score the chaos of what’s going on where Carol Anne is, allowing us to imagine it without having it shown to us. It’s also incredible how there are moments of beauty in the score that accompany some terrifying situations. So then when the horrific cues for the finale come in, he’s able to cut loose and deliver some very scary music. There is a longing lullaby at the heart of this score, of course, which plays into the feeling of safety and security that one should feel as a child in the film’s suburban setting. This had been attempted before in scores like Sybil by Leonard Rosenman and The Amityville Horror by Lalo Schifrin, but it was the perfect approach for Poltergeist. Had E.T. not come out the same year, I think Poltergeist would have earned Jerry his second Oscar, which he richly deserved. The performance of the score is also great. It was mostly players from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I should also point out that it’s entirely acoustic. There are no electronics at all, which Jerry began to use much more extensively right after this. There are a lot of electronics in Poltergeist II, which has a very different sound.

Coate: What are your thoughts on the Poltergeist sequels and recent remake? How do they compare to the original?

Matessino: I think the sequels and remake were approached with a genuine interest in doing something with the material, but because Spielberg was not involved with them they went in a different direction and the distinctive tone is absent. One thing I don’t particularly like is that the first sequel really completely changed the story and explained the spirits and the “beast” by introducing the fanatical preacher character. Not that this is an inherently bad story idea, but I don’t like it when I encounter casual viewers who apply this to the first film, because that’s simply not what’s happening in it. If you look at it, it’s clear that the spirits are those whose headstones were removed and are in a state of limbo because new homes have been built on that land and families are living there. The beast is a supernatural entity holding these lost souls at bay and snatching Carol Anne to do so. I appreciate some things in Poltergeist III technically because it was all done with practical effects and it didn’t try to capture the feel of the first film, but I find it hard to watch knowing that Heather O’Rourke was already not doing well when it was made. By that time we were also getting so many horror series with multiple sequels that it felt like an attempt was being made to capitalize on a recognized title. The remake attempted some interesting things, although adding in the Fright Night element didn’t quite work for me, and it’s an interesting experiment in the way the remake of The Omen was, but the original film is just much more than a horror film — it captures a moment in American culture of the early ‘80s that really gives you something to think about. I don’t know that it’s really possible to capture that again. As I said earlier, the original stands on its own as completely solid and totally satisfying experience.

Coate: What is the legacy of Poltergeist?

Matessino: Poltergeist broke ghost story tropes with its modern suburban setting and will always be known for doing so. It was an essential project in the creation of Steven Spielberg’s company, Amblin Entertainment, and it’s also indispensable when it comes to examining Spielberg’s body of work because it was a very personal project for him. It sets the bar very high for its genre, offering top production values, visual effects that still hold up and includes elements of social commentary and metaphysical contemplation that remain relevant and timeless. It’s a perfect example of a project that can never be duplicated and never be repeated, except by viewers going back for another trip into the light.

Coate: Thank you, Mike, for sharing your thoughts on Poltergeist on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of its release.

--END--

All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy MGM/UA, MGM Home Entertainment, Warner Home Video.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

SPECIAL THANKS

Don Beelik, Bobby Henderson, Bill Kretzel, Monty Marin, Mike Matessino, J. Thomas, Vince Young, and to all of the librarians who assisted with the research for this project.

IN MEMORIAM

Dominique Dunne (“Dana Freeling”), 1959-1982
Heather O’Rourke (“Carol Anne Freeling”), 1975-1988
Beatrice Straight (“Dr. Lesh”), 1914-2001
Jerry Goldsmith (Music), 1929-2004
Lou Perry (“Pugsley”), 1941-2009
Zelda Rubinstein (“Tangina Barrons”), 1933-2010
Robert Broyles (“Pool Worker #1”), 1933-2011
Bill Varney (Re-recording Mixer), 1934-2011
Clair Leucart (“Bulldozer Driver”), 1936-2011

-Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Predator, one of the most popular action movies of the 1980s, opened in theaters 30 years ago this week, and for the occasion The Bits features a compilation of statistics, trivia and box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context; passages from vintage film reviews; a reference/historical listing of the film’s premium-format 70mm presentations; and, finally, an interview segment with action movie and John McTiernan authority Eric Lichtenfeld.

PREDATOR NUMBER$

• 1 = Box-office rank among films in the Predator franchise (adjusted for inflation)
• 1 = Number of Academy Award nominations
• 1 = Number of weeks North America’s top-grossing movie (week #1)
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies during opening weekend
• 1 = Rank on list of top-earning films of 20th Century Fox’s 1987 slate
• 3 = Number of 70mm prints
• 4 = Box-office rank among films directed by John McTiernan (adjusted for inflation)
• 5 = Number of sequels, spinoffs and reboots
• 5 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1987 (summer)
• 7 = Number of months between theatrical release and home video release
• 8 = Rank among top-earning R-rated films of 1987
• 9 = Box-office rank among films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (adjusted for inflation)
• 12 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1987 (calendar year)
• 1,623 = Number of opening-week engagements

• $39.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (LaserDisc)
• $79.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (VHS and Beta)
• $7,413 = Opening-weekend per-screen average
• $12.1 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross
• $15.0 million = Production cost
• $25.9 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
• $32.3 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $38.2 million = Box-office rental (domestic)
• $38.5 million = Box-office gross (international)
• $59.7 million = Box-office gross (domestic)
• $82.2 million = Box-office rental (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $82.9 million = Box-office gross (international, adjusted for inflation)
• $98.3 million = Box-office gross (worldwide)
• $128.6 million = Box-office gross (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $211.5 million = Box-office gross (worldwide, adjusted for inflation)

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“Powerful! A top action film.” — David Elliott, The San Diego Union

“A knock-your-socks-off thriller!” — Scott Cain, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Predator begins like Rambo and ends like Alien, and in today’s Hollywood, that’s creativity.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Predator is an ominous high-tech Stone-Age mixture — ominous because the production is high tech and the script, and its values and mentality, are Stone Age. It’s in the bare-bones action-adventure mode that producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon used in The Warriors and The Driver, chic action-fables where nothing impedes the streamlined flow — neither logic, originality nor a single naturalistic moment. Sometimes the form works, but in Predator, they’ve hit nada. There’s a difference between Walter Hill’s minimalism and vacuity — which is what we get from Jim and John Thomas’ screenplay. It’s arguably one of the emptiest, feeblest, most derivative scripts ever made as a major studio movie. There’s no need to do a Mad magazine parody of this; it’s already on the screen.” — Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times

“As Mr. Schwarzenegger demonstrated in The Terminator, he is much better at playing such creatures than at wrangling with them, though in this film he does the latter. The last part of the film concentrates on man-to-monster battles through the jungle. Care to guess who wins?” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“There are some really obnoxious things about Predator, but the bottom line is that it is a fast-paced, skillfully structured, exciting, extremely violent and bloody piece of totally mindless entertainment.” — Harper Barnes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“It’s what you’d expect from director John McTiernan, who made his debut last year with a quirky, imaginative horror film called Nomads, though it isn’t all you might hope for. McTiernan never seems in complete control of the wildly disparate elements he has assembled, and the movie doesn’t settle into one groove long enough to establish a firm hold on the audience. It’s a promise more than an accomplishment.” — Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune

“When Schwarzenegger first established himself in Conan the Barbarian, he earned a secure place in the Bad Dialogue Hall of Fame by explaining that he liked to kill his enemies for the joy of listening to ‘ze lamentation of zeir vimen.’ He also proved himself able to ignore the lamentations of the critics, and his self-assurance has improved with his command of English. And his study of the screen personality of Clint Eastwood has obviously been assiduous.” — Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer

“[Predator is a] movie for those who find it entertaining to watch virtually the entire cast of a movie eliminated, one by one. In this ineffective, bloody spoof of machismo, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the head of an elite military unit that finds itself scurrying for survival in hostile jungle terrain while being stalked by a super-efficient alien hunter. It’s Platoon and Aliens fused with a Miller beer commercial.” — Elvis Mitchell, Detroit Free Press

“John McTiernan’s pedestrian direction emphasizes pyrotechnics, blood, gore and a singular determination to avoid fleshing out his characters. Schwarzenegger’s men are allowed one distinguishing characteristic each: one guy chews tobacco; another is an Indian into mysticism; another wears glasses and tells bad jokes and another guy is as bald as a billiard ball. They all die, just like the movie.” — Roxanne T. Mueller, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

“Putting Arnold Schwarzenegger in the middle of a movie that combines Rambo and Aliens sounds like a great idea. But unfortunately, Predator, which combines horror film effects and war movie action, is not as good as the films it apes.” — James Verniere, The Boston Herald

“Rambo Meets Alien in the Jungle might have been a better title for this predictable and very silly action film. When the creature finally takes its uncamouflaged form, it’s just another hulking, slimy monster with, you guessed it, green blood. Thirteen-year-old boys might find him scary, but otherwise the predator is a totally unreal, unconvincing and unworthy opponent…. Even Schwarzenegger is below par in this barbequed turkey, Predator is for the birds.” — Marylynn Uricchio, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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THE 70MM ENGAGEMENTS

Event and prestige movies (and instances to appease a filmmaker’s ego) on occasion are given a deluxe release in addition to a standard release. This section of the article includes a reference/historical listing of the first-run 70mm Six-Track Dolby Stereo premium-format presentations of Predator in the United States and Canada. These were arguably the best theaters in which to experience Predator and the only way at the time to faithfully hear the movie’s discrete multichannel audio mix and Golden Reel Award-winning Sound Editing.

Of the 200+ new movies released during 1987, Predator was among only seventeen to have 70mm prints prepared for selected engagements. Less than one percent of Predator’s initial print run was in the 70mm format, which were significantly more expensive and more time- and labor-intensive to manufacture compared with conventional 35mm prints.

The film’s 70mm prints of Predator were blown up from spherical 35mm photography and printed in a pillarboxed 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The noise-reduction and signal-processing format for the prints was Dolby “A,” and the soundtrack was Format 42 (three discrete screen channels + one discrete surround channel + “baby boom” low-frequency enhancement).

Trailers for The Pick-up Artist and Revenge of the Nerds II circulated with the Predator prints and which the distributor recommended be screened with the presentation.

For the release of Predator, 20th Century Fox employed the services of Lucasfilm’s Theater Alignment Program (TAP) to evaluate and approve the theaters selected to book a 70mm print.

The listing below includes the 70mm engagements of Predator that commenced June 12th, 1987. Not included are the moveover, second run, revival and international engagements (or any of the movie’s countless standard 35mm engagements).

So, for historical reference and nostalgia, the first-run North American theaters that screened the 70mm version of Predator were….

CALIFORNIA

• Los Angeles (Hollywood) — UA’s Egyptian Triplex
• Los Angeles (Westwood Village) — General Cinema’s Avco Center Triplex [THX]

NEW YORK

• New York (Manhattan) — Trans-Lux’s Gotham

THE Q&A

Eric Lichtenfeld is an action movie and John McTiernan authority and writer of the book Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie (Wesleyan, 2007). He has taught or spoken about film at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Cinematheque, Loyola Marymount University, UCLA, Wesleyan University, and the Harvard School of Law. Eric has also contributed supplemental material for several DVD and Blu-ray releases, including Speed, Die Hard and the subject of this interview, Predator.

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Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Predator be remembered on its 30th anniversary?

Eric Lichtenfeld: You could point to the fact that it’s so well-loved, even all these years later. You could also point how it introduced a movie icon and launched an intellectual property that has remained strong even though none of the creature’s later on-screen appearances have been very successful creatively or commercially.

To me, though, it’s mostly about the filmmaking. I often say that Predator is an oddly touching movie — and I don’t mean “touching” in terms of the character relationships, or how Mac mourns Blaine, or any of those things. Watching the film is a moving experience for me because the filmmakers took so much care — more than they needed to. The movie is brutal, but it’s elegantly made. And it’s not even the action (though that’s done perfectly well). It’s all the suspense, the atmosphere. It’s how patiently John McTiernan and his collaborators ratchet up the tension. It’s how thoughtful the sound design is — and even more, how quiet it is, especially for a major action movie. It’s the camera movements and compositions, the editing, the soundtrack — all in service of a premise that, let’s as face it, is as goofy as it is mythic. And that’s why I’m moved when I watch it. Because when I do, I see filmmakers using the language of moviemaking so well simply because they didn’t know how not to.

Given the star power and the concept, I believe that Predator would have been just as successful even if it had been only half as well-made. So that’s a big part of why it should be celebrated. (It’s also why the movie should be restored, since the DVD and Blu-ray don’t accurately reflect how the movie actually looked or do justice to it.)

Plus, without Predator, we wouldn’t have the iconic creature. We wouldn’t have had McTiernan’s Die Hard or The Hunt for Red October. And “If it bleeds, we can kill it” would never have been a thing.

Coate: What did you think of Predator? Can you recall your reaction to the first time you saw it?

Lichtenfeld: I first saw it on home video, after having heard so much about it. I was a young adolescent male and thought it was great in exactly the way you would expect a young adolescent male to think it was great. It wasn’t until later, when I came to know anything about film and filmmaking that I saw how truly good it is, too.

Coate: How is Predator significant as an action movie?

Lichtenfeld: Judging just from the concept, Predator should have been the quintessential 1980s action film, and nothing more: a B-movie on steroids. And yes, it’s violent, gory, and macho. But even taking that into account — and the fact that it features Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his ‘80s-ness — Predator is much more elegant than it has any business being. So to me, it always comes back to the craftsmanship. Predator proved that more could be done with an action movie than what people — whether critics or fans — expected of it.

Predator is also one of the movies that put action movie tropes in a fantastical context. It fused action, science fiction, and visual effects in a way that helped lay the foundation for what we saw during the CGI revolution of the ‘90s. And from that, action blockbusters evolved into the form we usually see today (without all the not-so-family-friendly gore and violence, of course).

Coate: Where do you think Predator ranks among director John McTiernan’s body of work?

Lichtenfeld: In the upper echelon, but not at the level of Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October. That’s not to take anything from Predator; it’s just that it’s much more linear and has fewer moving pieces. It’s less complex. Instead of cutting among multiple characters and character groupings in multiple places, most of Predator features our guys essentially moving in a straight line, stopping, and moving in a straight line again, deeper and deeper into the jungle. So in that sense, it’s probably the simplest of McTiernan’s movies. But it’s also where we see McTiernan playing with ideas and techniques that will be so important in many of his other, even better movies.

It’s an amazing accomplishment for a director’s first studio film — especially given the conditions under which it was made.

Coate: Where do you think Predator ranks among star Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body of work?

Lichtenfeld: It’s close to the top if not the very top. I’m sure lots of people would give the latter distinction to the Terminator movies he made with James Cameron (and they’d have a strong case), but what distinguishes Predator is that it’s the first movie where Schwarzenegger softens in front of the camera. Until then, his performances were stiff, angular, all persona. He’s more natural in Predator. Even afraid. Personally, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that McTiernan was the director of the movie where Schwarzenegger turned that corner. Just take the last shot of him, as the helicopter flies away and his eyes drift to the jungle canopy far below. It’s consistent with moments from Die Hard, Red October, and even The Thomas Crown Affair, where a leading character nears the end of the movie utterly exhausted or even smashed.

Coate: What are your thoughts on the Predator sequels and spin-offs? How do they compare to the original?

Lichtenfeld: I never saw the second Alien vs. Predator or Predators. (Though I did once watch a commercial for Predators with McTiernan in a bar, and that was pretty surreal.) But from what I’ve seen, there’s no comparing any of the sequels or spin-offs to the first. In fact, they’re so far apart, I wonder if there’s any point in trying to. This could be the lens I see it through — or I could just be out of touch — but are any of the sequels or spin-offs really loved? Are they quoted? Does anyone break into a smile when they’re channel surfing and see that one of the Alien vs. Predator movies are on? And it’s strange, because it’s not as if they simply made a string of sequels: Predator 2, 3, 4, and 5. They did try to do some different things. And yet, at least to me, they’ve never really felt like anything more than franchise maintenance. The original, on the other hand, took the most basic, stock elements available, and combined them into something memorable.

Coate: What is the legacy of Predator?

Lichtenfeld: A big part of the legacy of Predator is obviously the Predator. Stan Winston’s creation belongs in the pantheon of movie monsters. Another part is the franchise the movie spawned — and I don’t just mean the movies and spin-offs, but also the comic books and video games. They’re what really sustained and furthered the franchise for the fourteen years between Predator 2 and Alien vs. Predator. As I detailed in my book, that period saw at least eight original publications from Dark Horse Comics and six games on multiple platforms. So the franchise hasn’t had a significant hit at the box-office since 1987, and yet the property endures. In other words, it bleeds, but they can’t kill it. And that reflects the impact of original movie.

But even if there hadn’t been sequels and spin-offs (and licensed comics, graphic novels, video games and toys), I like to think that Predator would still have a legacy. It’s a well-loved film, even a ritualized one. Even if you set aside the iconic imagery, our pop-culture is studded with the movie’s one-liners and other bits of dialogue alone. Hell, Jesse Ventura used one for the title of a political treatise! In the end, though, Predator’s legacy may be as simple and straightforward as the movie is on the surface: very well-made and still very well-loved. That may not be a complex thought, but I think any filmmaker whose work could be described that way thirty years after it was released would have reason to be proud.

Coate: Thank you, Eric, for sharing your thoughts on Predator on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its release.

--END--

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Amercent Films, American Entertainment Partners, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

SPECIAL THANKS

Don Beelik, Eric Lichtenfeld and Brian Walters.

IN MEMORIAM

Kevin Peter Hall (“The Predator”), 1955-1991
Don Bassman (Re-recording Mixer), 1927-1993
Richard Shorr (Sound Effects Editor), 1942-2001
John Vallone (Production Designer), 1953-2004
Stan Winston (Creature Creator), 1946-2008
R.G. Armstrong (“Gen. Phillips”), 1917-2012

-Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

The participants (in alphabetical order)…

John Cork is the author (with Collin Stutz) of James Bond Encyclopedia (DK, 2007) and (with Bruce Scivally) James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002) and (with Maryam d’Abo) Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond (Abrams, 2003). He is the president of Cloverland, a multi-media production company, producing documentaries and supplemental material for movies on DVD and Blu-ray, including material for Chariots of Fire, The Hustler, and many of the James Bond and Pink Panther titles. Cork also wrote the screenplay to The Long Walk Home (1990), starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek. He wrote and directed the feature documentary You Belong to Me: Sex, Race and Murder on the Suwannee River for producers Jude Hagin and Hillary Saltzman (daughter of original Bond producer, Harry Saltzman). He has recently contributed articles on the literary history of James Bond for ianfleming.com and The Book Collector.

Bill Desowitz is the author of James Bond Unmasked (Spies, 2012) and crafts editor at IndieWire.

Lee Pfeiffer is the author (with Philip Lisa) of The Incredible World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of James Bond (Citadel, 1992) and The Films of Sean Connery (Citadel, 2001), and (with Dave Worrall) The Essential Bond: The Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (Boxtree, 1998/Harper Collins, 1999). He also wrote (with Michael Lewis) The Films of Harrison Ford (Citadel, 2002) and (with Dave Worrall) The Great Fox War Movies (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2006). Lee was a producer on the Goldfinger and Thunderball Special Edition LaserDisc sets and is the founder (with Dave Worrall) and Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Retro magazine, which celebrates films of the 1960s and 1970s and is “the Essential Guide to Cult and Classic Movies.”

Bruce Scivally is the author (with John Cork) of James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002). He has also written Superman on Film, Television, Radio & Broadway (McFarland, 2006), Billion Dollar Batman: A History of the Caped Crusader on Film, Radio and Television from 10¢ Comic Book to Global Icon (Henry Gray, 2011), and Dracula FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Count from Transylvania (Backbeat, 2015). As well, he has written and produced numerous documentaries and featurettes that have appeared as supplemental material on LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc, including several of the Charlie Chan, James Bond, and Pink Panther releases. He is Vice President of New Dimension Media in Chicago, Illinois.

Matt Sherman is the author of James Bond’s Cuisine: 007’s Every Last Meal (CreateSpace, 2014). He is considered a top “Bondologist” and has led dozens of 007 fan and memorabilia events featuring appearances by over 120 actors, authors, film technicians and real world intelligence officers (spies!). He has contributed to Chicago Tribune, The Daily Mail, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Parade, Time and Time Europe. His website is bondfanevents.com.

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

And now that the participants have been introduced, might I suggest preparing a martini (shaken, not stirred, of course) and cueing up the soundtrack album to You Only Live Twice, and then enjoy the conversation with these James Bond authorities.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way is You Only Live Twice worthy of celebration on its 50th anniversary?

John Cork: You Only Live Twice is simply an utterly insane movie, released in a year filled with insane movies. The film makes little sense, but then again neither did Charles Feldman’s Casino Royale, The President’s Analyst, The Ambushers, In Like Flint, The Happiest Millionaire, or Point Blank…. There is a delightfulness to insanity. I think of the Apple ad: “Here’s to the crazy ones.” It makes no sense that a secret agent would go tooling around in a bright yellow gyrocopter, certainly not buzzing fishing villages, but who cannot love Little Nellie? Possibly the least efficient way to deal with a car filled with assassins would be to lift them off the road with a giant electro-magnet dangled from a helicopter. Of the eight thousand ways to kill Bond, dribbling poison down a string must rank almost as low as staging the crash of an expensive private plane. But each attempt to kill anyone in the film has a Road Runner cartoon-like absurdity. And the film embraces that absurdity. Here’s to hollowed-out volcanoes, well-armed gyrocopters, abseiling ninjas, and operating rooms staffed with bikini-clad technicians.

Bill Desowitz: There are two important aspects worthy of celebrating You Only Live Twice: It marked the first official appearance of nemesis Blofeld (Donald Pleasence), leader of SPECTRE, and the first farewell of Sean Connery as Bond. Also, the combination of exotic Tokyo and venturing into outer space were new to the franchise. In addition, Ken Adam’s lavish volcano lair was the crowning design achievement of the Connery era, Little Nellie was a clever variation on the Aston Martin, Freddie Young’s cinematography was stunning, and John Barry’s score was beautiful…. However, the final result (directed by franchise newcomer Lewis Gilbert) was a missed opportunity. Because they had to push back the making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, they were not able to make the so-called “Blofeld Trilogy” in order. As a result, it robbed Bond of his emotionally dramatic arc. The Ian Fleming source material was abandoned for the first time and Roald Dahl’s script ended up being an action-driven, Dr. No-like reworking. However, the death-rebirth theme was an interesting one.

Lee Pfeiffer: You Only Live Twice remains one of the most popular and enduring Bond films. It is probably the most spectacular in terms of locations and production design, even though it must also be said it’s the first Bond movie that completely ignored Ian Fleming’s source novel in place of a modern, hi-tech plot. It’s also the first Bond script that went off totally into the realm of the fantastic. The central plots of Dr. No, Goldfinger and Thunderball were certainly far-fetched but they remained in the realm of the conceivably possible. With Twice, however, the idea of a villain who resides with a private army and a personal version of NASA inside a hollowed-out Japanese volcano required a suspension of any pretense of logic. I often wondered just how these SPECTRE employees report to work in the volcano. Do they punch time clocks? How do they get home from this tiny island after their shifts are over? What transportation do they use to get there? It always reminded me of a similar situation in The Man from U.N.C.L.E TV series wherein we were to presume that hundreds of agents report for work through the doorway of an innocuous neighborhood dry cleaners. With Twice, the whole premise is absurd but the film is so slickly made and moves so rapidly that the absurdities don’t interfere with the enjoyment of watching the movie — in fact, they probably enhance it.

Bruce Scivally: You Only Live Twice is a benchmark film in the 007 series, for two reasons: (1) it was the first not to be scripted by Richard Maibaum or shot by Ted Moore, and (2) it marked what appeared to be the end of Sean Connery’s five-movie run as Bond. But it’s the first point — the absence of Richard Maibaum — that makes this film unique…. You Only Live Twice was scripted by Roald Dahl, the Danish author of fantasy, macabre and children’s tales best known for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Big Friendly Giant. Dahl had known Ian Fleming, and even used an idea of Fleming’s as the basis for a short story (with Fleming’s permission). But by the time he was approached to adapt You Only Live Twice, Fleming was dead, and the 007 producers, having decided to film Fleming’s “Blofeld trilogy” of Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and You Only Live Twice out of order, chose to eschew Fleming’s plotline and create a more fanciful and fantastic story. Dahl was just the man to deliver it…. In fact, Dahl’s script is so fantastic and fanciful that it seems totally out of step with the first two Bond films, which were more grounded in reality, and a great leap ahead from the 3rd and 4th, which were more tongue-in-cheek. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and posit a wacky fan theory: the film You Only Live Twice is 007’s drug-induced dream…. Remember: at the end of Thunderball, Bond had been yanked up out of the ocean by a Skyhook. What if, say, Domino panicked, and in his efforts to calm her, Bond slipped through the hoop and fell back into the ocean, where his super-fit spy body survived the plunge, but just barely, leaving him unconscious and in a coma? In hospital, Bond is given medications that cause him to have a mad dream, where he has become so well-known and targeted by his enemies that the only way to evade them is to fake his death. He resurrects in a submarine, where M’s office is inexplicably, but conveniently, located, and is told that this is “the big one” — the mission that will absolutely decide the fate of the free world, and he’s the only man who can accomplish it. He proceeds to Tokyo, where he falls down a chocolate factory-type chute into the abode of a Japanese man who is kind of a combination of both Bond and M, and is introduced to a society where all the women are young, pretty, bikini-clad and “sexiful,” and live only to please their men, the kind of place he’d like to retire to. He narrowly escapes death in a crashing plane, vanquishes big enemy helicopters with his nimble gyrocopter, adopts a ridiculously unconvincing Japanese disguise, and trudges up a mountain where — once he reaches the top — day suddenly becomes night, ninja clothing magically appears beneath his Ama fisherman’s garb, and suction cups strong enough to support his weight appear out of nowhere. He climbs down into a fantastic hole filled with fox-like tunnels, until he’s captured and finally comes face-to-face with his mortal enemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, a man that up to this point he has never met, but whom he imagines as a bald, scarred-face reptile of a man in a Mao suit, with a henchman who is a big unfriendly giant. Of course, Bond overcomes his enemy and gets the girl...and after the fade out of this dream, 007 awakens back in a more grounded reality, only to find that the fall into the ocean has altered his features and inexplicably changed his accent from Scottish to Australian. And this explains why he doesn’t recognize Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Matt Sherman: You Only Live Twice is a spectacle worthy of a big screen. The monumental Ken Adam volcano set is…monumental. The theme tune and soundtrack are lushly orchestrated and cinematographer Freddie Young added some of the most attractive filmic technique of all the Bonds, making Twice a pretty film to watch. As a time capsule, 1967 is when audiences would pack houses to watch Sean Connery read a phone book aloud for two hours. But what they saw was a blockbuster grander in scale than even Thunderball, the previous lavish Bond film.

Coate: Can you describe what it was like seeing You Only Live Twice for the first time?

Cork: I saw You Only Live Twice for the first time on November 2, 1975, its broadcast premiere on ABC. By that time, I had probably read the plot summary so many times in John Brosnan’s James Bond in the Cinema, I could all but storyboard the movie. I was just about to turn 14, had read all the Bond novels at least twice, and for me at that age, 007 could do no wrong. I was unfazed by bad matting of stock volcano footage, sub-par model work, ineptly switched footage of Soyuz and Gemini launches and plot holes the size of the Milky Way…. The first time I saw it on the big screen was at the NuArt in Los Angeles in September 1980. At that point, I found other things to love: Sean Connery’s deadpan delivery (“I like ships, and I used to be a sailor”), Blofeld’s cat completely freaking out when the explosions go off, and the amazing fight between Connery and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s grandfather (Peter Fanene Maivia) in Osato’s office. Everyone needs a sofa that can be used to batter one’s opponent!

Desowitz: I saw it in the fall of ’67 at one of the local West [San Fernando] Valley theaters. As a kid, I enjoyed it. We finally met Blofeld and it was fast-moving fun. I also liked the TV promo special, which also served as a wonderful tease for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Pfeiffer: The release strategy for the early Bond movies tended to be the industry norm: big movies would play first exclusively in a few theaters in big cities for a number of weeks before they would sent to local neighborhood theaters. I grew up in Jersey City, which is a stone’s throw across the Hudson River from Times Square. I was nine years old when it opened. My dad was a big Bond fan and I wanted to see the film ASAP so he took me to the Astor, I believe, to see it on Times Square. For many weeks, every time we had gone through the area, I was being teased by that now famous gigantic billboard for the movie that hovered over Times Square. The artwork was stunning and exciting and I couldn’t wait to see it. The movie didn’t disappoint. I loved it then and love it now. Of course, when we got home, I was kind of a “big man on campus” because I had seen the film before anyone else. Naturally, when it opened at the Loew’s in our neighborhood some weeks later, I went with the whole gang to see it numerous times. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it over the decades but I never tire of it. Curiously, it didn’t do as well as the preceding film, Thunderball, although it certainly achieved blockbuster status. I think the overwhelming number of spy films and TV series had whetted the public appetite by 1967. Not helping matters was the fact that that big budget spoof version of Casino Royale was still in theaters competing with Twice.

Scivally: I first saw You Only Live Twice on television, and because of its episodic construction, it’s one of the Bond films that seemed almost improved rather than damaged by ABC’s frequent commercial breaks. It wasn’t until about 1981, after I’d moved to Los Angeles, when I saw it on a theater screen and could get the full effect of its extravagance. And extravagant it is, with 1960s Japan spectacularly rendered by cinematographer Freddie Young, who had previously shot David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago.

Sherman: I first caught a showing at home on television. I found the Asian locations and the wild action hypnotic. When Bond slides beneath the Tokyo streets to board Japanese Secret Service head Tiger Tanaka’s private train, wow!

Coate: In what way was Donald Pleasence’s Blofeld a memorable villain?

Cork: Blofeld has so little to do in You Only Live Twice. He kills more underlings and business partners than good guys. Do you realize how much money he could have made by just selling tourist tickets to his rocket base? Yet, everyone remembers the scar, the Mao jacket, and the bald head. It is all about first impressions, and Blofeld’s introduction is brilliant…. Donald Pleasence was a wonderfully skilled actor. He worked with Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman before (Killers of Kilimanjaro for Broccoli and Look Back in Anger for Saltzman), and got the part when the first choice, the talented but completely miscast Jan Werich, was summarily fired from the role. His work as “The Dark Hermit” (Satan) in The Greatest Story Ever Told secured him the part. It’s iconic. You ask any Bond fan to describe Blofeld, they describe Pleasence from You Only Live Twice. Sure, part of that is the scar, but Pleasence made that scar come to life. He’s brilliant as Blofeld.

Desowitz: This was the first crack at Blofeld. He looked and acted more menacing and it’s interesting how his iconic look became so influential, both in Austin Powers and SPECTRE. I’ve since found it interesting that Charles Gray’s droll Henderson, the MI6 contact, would’ve been more spot-on as Blofeld than Gray’s over the top turn in Diamonds.

Pfeiffer: Donald Pleasence’s appearance in Twice as Blofeld is one of the most iconic introductions of a screen villain ever. Until then, the character’s face was unseen in the previous Bond movies. Originally a little-known actor named Jan Werich had been hired for the part. He actually shot some scenes before he was replaced by Pleasence, ostensibly because he became ill, though I always suspected that he didn’t have the right approach to the character. Pleasence is so good as Blofeld that you lose sight of the fact that he is on screen for a very limited amount of time. Peter Hunt, the long-time editor of the Bond films, once told me that he was brought back to help oversee the editing process on the movie, that he loathed working with the footage of Pleasence because that he didn’t walk in a menacing manner but, rather, “minced” about. Hunt tried to minimize any footage of Pleasence on his feet for that reason. Not having seen what was cut, I can only say that what emerges of the Pleasence footage is the stuff of Bondian legend. In fact, Mike Myers was so impressed that he based the character of Dr. Evil on him.

Scivally: Pleasance was a last-minute replacement for Jan Werich, who was originally cast as Blofeld but was considered not to be menacing enough. While Pleasance is very slight in stature (painfully obvious when he’s standing next to Sean Connery’s 007), he did convey cool, calculating menace. This was just two years after he’d played Satan in The Greatest Story Ever Told, and four years after starring as the notorious murderer Dr. Crippen, so he was well-versed in playing darker characters. To me, his Blofeld is the most reptilian and snake-like, perhaps because Pleasance seems to be almost hissing his lines.

Sherman: Pleasence had to live up to Ian Fleming’s painstaking, calculating Blofeld. Ice in his veins, Blofeld puts aside sex, relationships and the lives of anyone blocking his illicit empire. Which actor had the book Blofeld’s penetrating, deep black eyes surrounded by white irises, staring out from a muscular body weighing 240 pounds? Pleasence, the first fully realized screen Blofeld, is memorable for sneering as the world rages and his lair burns. And after three underfed glimpses of the villain in the earlier Bonds, Pleasence, wearing a horrific facial scar, also appears haunting, skin-crawling. People still think of Pleasence’s Blofeld when they think about Bond villains. There have been thousands of skits and cartoons in the past 50 years featuring his scarred megalomaniac stroking a cat. A virtuoso actor, Pleasence’s silken tones match Fleming’s description of Blofeld’s “soft, resonant, and very beautifully modulated voice.” But Pleasence remains seated for much of his appearance, as he stood 5’7’’ only. Connery stands seven-inches-plus taller and far broader.

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Coate: In what way was Mie Hama’s Kissy Suzuki a memorable Bond Girl?

Cork: Which one is Kissy again? I’m sorry, that sounds mean. When Bruce Scivally and I were working on various projects together, figuring out which studio glamor shots showed Mie Hama and which showed Akiko Wakabayashi was always a challenge. Mie Hama is lovely and talented. Neither Roald Dahl nor Lewis Gilbert seemed to see the women in Bond films as little more than ornamentation, so it is no surprise that Hama’s role feels generic. Like any heterosexual male, I could look at her lovely face for days and be happy.

Desowitz: She’s memorable for her soft beauty and the way she disarms Bond. Also, the fake marriage anticipates the real thing in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Pfeiffer: Mie Hama’s experience on the film was a challenging one. She was originally going to play the role of the ill-fated Aki but due to complicating factors, it was decided that she should be cast as Kissy Suzuki, the young female agent who “marries” Bond when he goes undercover as a Japanese fisherman. (Perhaps the element of the script that represents an even more fantastic plot device than the villain capturing space craft.) The role of Aki went to Akiko Wakabayashi, who, in turn, had been expected to play Kissy. Like many of the early Bond actresses, their voices were dubbed. Mie has gone on to become an enduring celebrity in Japan. She acquitted herself well and looked great in that white bikini- although her character’s name is not mentioned once on screen.

Scivally: I actually think Akiko Wakabayashi’s Aki is more memorable than Mie Hama’s Kissy Suzuki. Both are terribly underdeveloped characters, but Aki at least has a semblance of an arc, ending with her tragic death (although, given Bond and Tanaka’s reactions, her demise seems to trouble them about as much as a hangnail). Kissy comes on the scene as Bond’s pretend bride (in a beautifully filmed reveal), brushes off his attempts at lovemaking until they’ve trudged halfway up a volcano, joins the fight inside the villain’s lair and ends up with in a raft kissing Bond (I guess she had to live up to her name). But while she does exhibit a certain degree of spunk, there’s just not a lot of personality there.

Sherman: Hama does great work, styling Kissy as delicate, feminine, almost angelic. Yet she shows us that Kissy is also a highly competent agent who is unafraid of battle. Her sweet chemistry with 007 begins as they hold a fake Japanese wedding to throw the bad guys off their trail. These scenes are richly appointed and capture Fleming’s technique of having us live vicariously through Bond, savoring exotic experiences.

Coate: Where do you think You Only Live Twice ranks among the James Bond movie series?

Cork: Okay, here is where things get messy. Over the years, my taste for You Only Live Twice has waned dramatically. The last two times I watched it, I was completely aware of how much I felt the film was a dreadful mess. All the things for which I made apologies when I was a teenager now seem painful. Worse, the script, despite having some moments of amusing dialog, fails to pull me into any kind of story, and I say that with great love for Roald Dahl as a writer (just don’t judge him by his children’s novel, the unworthy sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator). So, ranking them a few years back at my son’s insistence, I ranked it 16th. If you think that’s harsh, it came in 21st for him.

Desowitz: I would rank it fourth among the Connery films and maybe 13th overall.

Pfeiffer: I would rank Twice among the top half-dozen Bond movies. Roald Dahl’s script is wild and has a patchwork element to it but the production values are top-notch. No action sequence in modern screen history matches the battle inside the volcano and Ken Adam’s production design is a work of genius. Incredibly, he was not nominated for an Oscar, but the people who designed the living room set for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were. It was one of the great injustices in Academy history. For that matter the production design of the spoof version of Casino Royale should have also been nominated the same year. The movie also boasts a magnificent and timeless score by John Barry and a great theme song sung by Nancy Sinatra. A lot of people said that by this point Sean Connery looked bored on screen because he was chomping at the bit to get out of the Bond role. But looking at the film today, it’s possible that the character of Bond is less interesting simply because he is eclipsed by all the grandeur and gadgetry. In any event, I feel the film showcases Connery at his best and he gets good support from an inspired supporting cast including Karin Dor, Tetsuro Tanba and the usual supporting actors.

Scivally: For me, it’s in the lower half of the Top 10. It’s not the best of the series, but it has its moments. For instance, the slow pull-out helicopter shot of the rooftop fight at Kobe Docks is genius; it’s the total antithesis of how a fight scene is “supposed” to be shot, and yet it works beautifully. Plus the locations are gorgeous, John Barry’s music is perfection, and Ken Adam’s sets are a marvel.

Sherman: The old Bond guard ranks Twice fairly high, especially those who are avid Sean Connery fans. Twice is not one of Connery’s strongest 007 performances, but the audience savors Bond suspending disbelief as he saunters through a volcano’s giant rocket launch pad, a helicopter carrying a giant magnet to plunge cars into the ocean, and other inspired nonsense. Each Bond film grew in budget and scope before Twice was hugely indulgent. Twice looks great but some grit is lacking as prior villains had real menace but Twice’s henchmen are merely cool, distant. And in previous films, Bond is a dark, brooding hero facing death with less camp. But visiting Himeji castle for a good ninja fight and to shoot an exploding cigarette and a gyrojet rocket gun adds “thumbs up” to this Bond review.

Coate: What is the legacy of You Only Live Twice?

Cork: You Only Live Twice is the film that almost destroyed 007. Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were at each other’s throats. As is often the case with partners, Cubby felt Harry wasn’t pulling his weight (Saltzman, to be fair, was producing a full slate of non-Bond films). Saltzman felt that every time he tried to assert himself, Cubby would block him. This continued on You Only Live Twice with Cubby soon taking over the creative reigns from Harry, firing Harry’s choice for a screenwriter (Harold Jack Bloom, replaced by Dahl), hiring Lewis Gilbert, participating in the location recce for Japan and trying his best to limit Saltzman’s involvement. The two men were barely speaking at various points, and both took on ambitious solo projects immediately after…. Sean Connery, who woke up in 1966 to find that Dean Martin and James Coburn were both making more acting in James Bond spoofs than he was making playing James Bond, entered into tense negotiations before shooting began. He wanted to be a full-partner with Cubby and Harry. He wanted Terrence Young back directing. Instead, he was told that he was replaceable. It is no surprise that he sometimes seems as though he is sleepwalking through the scenes. Of course, Sean Connery sleepwalking as James Bond is still remarkably entertaining…. Further battles occurred with Peter Hunt, who felt that he had been promised the director’s chair after supervising the completion of Thunderball (Terrence Young walked off the picture after principal photography when confronted over his massive hotel bill for the Bahamas shoot). Hunt was eventually enticed to direct the second unit, and after some unsavory studio backstabbing of Lewis Gilbert’s editor, Thelma Connell, he took over editing the film as well…. When the smoke cleared, a lot of folks were unhappy with each other. Cubby felt he had made a big, audience-pleasing film. Harry didn’t like the parody aspects and missed the harder edge of the novels. As a result, Harry convinced Cubby and United Artists to take Bond back to his literary roots…. The film itself is lovely to look at, with lavish cinematography by Freddie Young, a score to die for by John Barry, a great title song (I always enjoy the single version produced by Lee Hazelwood), and one of the greatest sets in motion picture history: Ken Adam’s volcano rocket base…. The legacy of You Only Live Twice in many ways is that it was a film where the sum of the parts was far greater than the whole. Beautifully shot, beautifully scored, amazing sets, lovely women, great action, fantastic gadgets, yet one wonders where James Bond fits in to it all. Twice proved you could make a successful Bond film with very little Bond in the mix, and in that, it set a dangerous precedent.

Desowitz: Again, introduction of Blofeld, Connery’s first farewell, the first Bond set in the Far East, the first using outer space, and the first that explores the theme of death and rebirth. And Adam’s volcano lair remains an impressive set.

Pfeiffer: The legacy of Twice is that it remains one of the most popular Bond films, not with critics, but with the public. Whatever the flaws are with the script, it’s a magnificent production and it was all achieved in the era before CGI. The film retains a very contemporary look and doesn’t appear dated. It’s far more impressive than most of the action movies made today…. I’ll take the opportunity to make a cheap plug for our magazine, Cinema Retro, which is putting out an issue later this year that commemorates the film’s legacy and includes Mie Hama’s personal photos from the set.

Scivally: Everything in You Only Live Twice is bigger — the villain’s lair (Blofeld no longer operates from a mere yacht, but instead from inside an inactive volcano), the villain’s threat (not content with simply attaining a Lektor decoding device, SPECTRE is now appropriating entire rocket capsules), and James Bond’s waistline (though still trim, he’s a little paunchier than in the first four films). This is the film where Bond enters the realm of full on, dreamlike fantasy, where the rules of the real world just don’t apply. Also, You Only Live Twice had a lot of new blood in the creative ranks — scriptwriter Roald Dahl, cinematographer Freddie Young, editor Thelma O’Connell, and director Lewis Gilbert (who returned a decade later to direct The Spy Who Loved Me — a film whose plot seems to be wholly lifted from You Only Live Twice, except with a submarine-eating ship instead of a space capsule-eating rocket — and then returned to space with the even more loopily over-the-top Moonraker). As such, it showed that the franchise was robust enough to survive some turnover in the ranks — though the biggest test of that premise came with the departure of Sean Connery.

Sherman: The first four Bonds — namely, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball — adhere to Ian Fleming’s plots. You Only Live Twice was cut from whole cloth by screenwriter Roald Dahl. Dahl, known worldwide for his Charlie, Matilda and Danny sophisticated children’s novels and his wonderful short stories featuring shocking endings, added humor and panache. Dahl’s Bond is cool and says few words, mostly snappy punchlines, while other characters give exposition. Dahl’s playful language (remember his “scrumdiddlyumptious”?) has Bond deduce a homograph clue that “LOX” could be a fish dish or else a rocket fuel component. And in the same scene, Bond says “very convenient . . . very competent” as his two punchlines, while Tiger Tanaka’s punchline is that Bond is “exceptionally [very] cultivated.” So Twice has the legacy of a playful, rhythmic script but with no relation to the vivid original novel with its castle of death and assisted suicide plot (not right for 1967’s audience but could be a fascinating movie now). You Only Live Twice reminds us of when Bond and his many imitators dominated the world’s movie and TV screens.

Coate: Thank you — John, Bill, Lee, Bruce and Matt — for participating and sharing your thoughts about You Only Live Twice on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

The James Bond roundtable discussion will return in Remembering “The Spy Who Loved Me” on its 40th Anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, CBS-Fox Home Video, EON Productions Limited, Danjaq LLC, MGM Home Entertainment, United Artists Corporation.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Batman Returns, one of the most anticipated sequels ever made, opened in theaters twenty-five years ago this week.

For the occasion The Bits features a compilation of statistics, trivia and box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context; passages from vintage film reviews; a reference/historical listing of the film’s digital sound presentations; and, finally, an interview segment with a trio of comicbook/superhero movie authorities and film historians.

BATMAN RETURNS NUMBER$

• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies during opening weekend
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (calendar year)
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (summer)
• 1 = Rank among top-earning films of Warner Bros.’ 1992 slate
• 2 = Number of Academy Award nominations
• 3 = Number of weeks nation’s top-grossing movie (weeks 1-3)
• 3 = Box-office rank among movies directed by Tim Burton (adjusted for inflation)
• 3 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (legacy)
• 4 = Number of months between theatrical release and home-video release
• 5 = Box-office rank among movies in the Batman franchise (adjusted for inflation)
• 6 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1992 (worldwide; legacy)
• 11 = Number of days to gross $100 million
• 11 = Number of digital sound presentations
• 26 = Rank on all-time list of top box-office earners at close of original release
• 2,644 = Number of opening-week engagements

• $24.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (VHS)
• $39.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (LaserDisc)
• $17,279 = Opening-weekend per-screen average
• $45.7 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross*
• $47.7 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross* (3-day weekend + 6/18 sneaks)
• $80.0 million = Production cost
• $83.2 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
• $100.1 million = Box-office rental (domestic)
• $104.0 million = Box-office gross (international)
• $139.4 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $162.8 million = Box-office gross (domestic)
• $174.5 million = Box-office rental (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $181.2 million = Box-office gross (international, adjusted for inflation)
• $266.8 million = Box-office gross (worldwide)
• $283.8 million = Box-office gross (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
• $465.1 million = Box-office gross (worldwide, adjusted for inflation)

*established new industry record

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“This Batman soars! A funny, gorgeous improvement on the original.” — Richard Corliss, Time

“It is a common theory that when you have a hero, like James Bond, Superman or Batman, in a continuing series, it’s the villain that gives each movie its flavor. Batman had the Joker, played Jack Nicholson, to lend it energy, but the Penguin is a curiously meager and depressing creature; I pitied him, but did not fear him or find him funny. The genius of Danny DeVito is all but swallowed up in the paraphernalia of the role. Batman Returns is odd and sad, but not exhilarating.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Batman Returns has wonderful, scary music (by Elfman, no Prince this time) and a wonderful, scary look — courtesy of cinematographer Stefan Czapsky (Vampire’s Kiss, Edward Scissorhands) and production designer Bo Welch, carrying on in the style of the late Anton Furst, who designed the first Batman). The performances are generally good, not just Keaton’s but also that of Michelle Pfeiffer, who is shockingly feline in her skin-tight black-leather suit (with whip accessory) and who manages to find a measure of plausibility in the bizarre Catwoman.” — Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel

“No matter how Batman Returns performs at the box office, I doubt that Burton will make a third installment. He seems to have thrown all his ideas into this one, including touches from his other movies: the sympathetic, handicapped monster from Edward Scissorhands, the comic demons from Beetlejuice and the freak show comedy from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.” — Bob Fenster, (Phoenix) Arizona Republic

“For Hollywood, summer is increasingly the season of the big-budget gamble. Batman Returns may be the surest box office bet of the year, but when you get past the saturation merchandising to the movie itself, it’s hard not to notice there’s no Joker in the deck this time.” — Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Burton loses a few points for including egotistical references to his other films, ranging from ice sculptures that are dead ringers for the surrealistic hedges in Edward Scissorhands to dialogue borrowed from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. When Michelle Pfeiffer says, ‘That’s my name, don’t wear it out,’ it’s too much.” — Jeff Strickler, (Minneapolis) Star Tribune

“Faster and funnier than the first. Explosively entertaining.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“A visual marvel.” — David Ansen, Newsweek

“Darker, louder and more confusing than a cheap carnival fun house, Batman Returns is an assault on the eyes and ears, not to mention the intelligence.” — Joe Pollack, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“On all counts, Batman Returns is a monster. Follow-up to the sixth-highest-grossing film of all time has the same dark allure that drew audiences in three years ago. But many non-fans of the initial outing will find this sequel superior in several respects, meaning that Tim Burton’s latest exercise in fabulist dementia should receive even stronger across-the-board acceptance than the original. Warner Bros.’ reported $80 million-plus investment will be an afterthought in the wake of the [box office] cascade, which should approach the $250 million neighborhood of the first pic domestically.” — Variety

“Batman Returns, the most eagerly awaited and aggressively hyped film of the summer, is, for better or worse, very much the product of director Tim Burton’s morose imagination. His dark, melancholy vision is undeniably something to see, but it is a claustrophobic conception, not an expansive one, oppressive rather than exhilarating, and it strangles almost all the enjoyment out of this movie without half trying. The result is a cheerless, brooding but always visually inventive film, more or less what you might expect if Ingmar Bergman had directed The Addams Family.” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“This time the richness of the Batman movie is not in its production design — indeed, designer Bo Welch is a toy shop window decorator compared with the late, great Anton Furst — but rather in Burton’s and screenwriter Daniel Waters’ Freudian view of adult human behavior. If all this makes Batman Returns seem overly serious, well, that’s an overstatement. But it should be a pleasure for non-adolescents to encounter a comic-book action picture in which the characters are more important than their gadgets.” — Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“Tim Burton has wisely switched gears, reinventing the mood and manner of Batman so fearlessly that he steps out of his own film’s murky shadow. Mr. Burton’s new Batman Returns is as sprightly as its predecessor was sluggish, and it succeeds in banishing much of the dourness and tedium that made the first film such an ordeal. Indeed, allowing for a ceiling on viewers’ interest as to just what can transpire between cartoon characters like Batman and the Penguin, Batman Returns is often an unexpectedly droll creation. It stands as evidence that movie properties, like this story’s enchantingly mixed-up Catwoman, really can have multiple lives.” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Now comes the sequel with a trio of masked schizophrenics who each seem to be in a separate movie when they’re not at each other’s throats. It’s a film more cartoonish and less apocalyptic than the original, revving with spectacle, energy and chaos, but rarely very funny, startling or provocative. At best, Batman Returns manages to be fitfully offbeat and quirky but only in ways we’ve seen before in Tim Burton movies.” — Judy Gerstel, Detroit Free Press

“Hampered by weak pacing, nonexistent story structure and routine action sequences, Burton and screenwriter Daniel Waters have emphasized a surprising degree of dark, kinky humor that nicely counters the film’s box-office mayhem. Waters has an annoying tendency towards gutter-minded punchlines (he cowrote The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and Hudson Hawk), but his knack for quirky dialogue yields a few memorable gems that must be heard to be appreciated.” — Jeff Shannon, The Seattle Times

“Batman Returns is all icing and no cake. The picture won’t disappoint anyone looking for film making on a grand scale. Batman Returns is as big as movies get in 1992 and represents the efforts of hundreds of talented people working in set and costume design, special effects and inventive gadgetry. It also features four big stars and a number of famous faces, all of them turning in good performances. Yet for all the movie’s richness and dazzle, for all that money dripping off the screen, Batman Returns is a gorgeous failure — flashy, intermittently appealing but, in the end, a big mess. Batman Returns lacks a coherent story. It lacks a point of view and a focus. And so everything suffers, even the art direction.” — Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

THE DIGITAL SOUND ENGAGEMENTS

Batman Returns was the first motion picture released in Dolby Stereo Digital* (aka Dolby SR-D, AC-3, Dolby Digital), and the first batch of theaters to install the system and present the movie in the format are identified below.

The theaters screening the Dolby Stereo Digital presentation of Batman Returns were arguably the best in which to experience the movie and the only way at the time to faithfully hear the movie’s discrete multichannel audio mix and with incredible sonic clarity. The channel layout for Dolby’s digital audio format was: three discrete screen channels + two discrete surround channels + low-frequency enhancement. (The balance of the 2,000+ domestic prints of Batman Returns were a combination of Dolby SR and Dolby A four-channel matrix-encoded, limited bandwidth formats.)

*Prior to the release of Batman Returns in June 1992, there were un-promoted Dolby Stereo Digital test screenings of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (released December 1991) and Newsies (April 1992).

So, for historical reference, the first-run North American theaters that screened the digital sound version of Batman Returns were….

CALIFORNIA

• Lakewood — Pacific’s Lakewood Center 4-plex
• Los Angeles — Mann’s Chinese Triplex [THX]
• Los Angeles — Mann’s Village [THX]
• Newport Beach — Edwards’ Newport Triplex
• Orange — Syufy’s Century Cinedome 11-plex
• San Francisco — UA’s Coronet

NEW YORK

• New York — Loews’ Village 7-plex [THX]
• New York — UA’s Criterion 7-plex
• New York — UA’s Gemini Twin

TEXAS

• Dallas — General Cinema’s Northpark West Twin [THX]

WASHINGTON

• Bellevue — Act III’s Crossroads 8-plex [THX]

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THE Q&A

Jeff Bond is the author of Danse Macabre: 25 Years of Danny Elfman and Tim Burton (included in The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box, Warner Bros., 2011). He also wrote The Music of Star Trek (Lone Eagle, 1999) and (with Joe Fordham) Planet of the Apes: The Evolution of the Legendary Franchise (Titan, 2014) and The Art of Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline (forthcoming from Titan). Jeff is the former editor of Geek magazine, covered film music for The Hollywood Reporter for ten years, and has contributed liner notes to numerous CD soundtrack releases. He also has portrayed Dr. McCoy on the Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II Internet series.

Scott Mendelson is a box office analyst and film critic for Forbes magazine. He has also written for Film Threat, The Huffington Post and Salon.

Bruce Scivally is the author of Billion Dollar Batman: A History of the Caped Crusader on Film, Radio and Television from 10¢ Comic Book to Global Icon (Henry Gray, 2011). His other books include Dracula FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Count from Transylvania (Backbeat, 2015), Superman on Film, Television, Radio & Broadway (McFarland, 2006) and (with John Cork) James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002). As well, he has written and produced numerous documentaries and featurettes that have appeared as supplemental material on LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc, including several of the Charlie Chan, James Bond, and Pink Panther releases. He is Vice President of New Dimension Media in Chicago, Illinois.

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Batman Returns be remembered on its 25th anniversary?

Jeff Bond: Both Burton’s Batman films are pivotal both to lay the foundations for the serious, psychologically complex superhero movies we see today, and as the illustration of Tim Burton as an utterly unique artist who was given the reigns to Warner Bros.’ and DC’s priceless comic book superheroes. He was allowed to take these iconic characters, who for years had been marketed as toys and coloring books and comic books generating millions and millions of dollars, and potentially risk destroying all of that as a revenue stream and cultural artifact by reinterpreting them through his totally idiosyncratic vision — and it worked.

Scott Mendelson: It remains something of a pop-culture anomaly. It was a financially successful summer release nonetheless remembered for its poor audience reception and lightning-fast box office downfall. The film was the first modern quick-kill blockbuster, in that it was so anticipated and opened so well (a record $47 million opening weekend) that it ended up making a ton of money even though most folks didn’t care much for it…. It some ways, it is the best live-action Batman movie, offering insanely original imagery and deeply weird characters amid a Grimm fairy tale reimagining of the Batman mythos that nonetheless is relatively faithful to the late-1980s/early-1990s comic book era. It is a fine example of going against the source material in the service of a better movie, or at least in the service of the specific character drama that a filmmaker is trying to tell.

Bruce Scivally: In 1989, after a decade of false starts, Batman opened to become one of the hottest movie tickets of the summer. Unlike 1978’s Superman, which established the template for big-budget “A” list superhero movies — and was practically the only “A” list superhero franchise for the next decade — Batman showed that there was room in the superhero universe for a darker conception of what a hero could be. But the first film was such a phenomenon that it raised a crucial question — was its success just a fluke, a combination of good timing, savvy marketing and superstar casting (Jack Nicholson, who played the Joker, was at the height of his fame)? Or was it a sustainable franchise, whose success could be repeated? Warner Bros. gambled on the latter, and backed the production of a sequel, under the guidance of the same director (Tim Burton), the same producers (including Michael Uslan, the originator of the project who fought tremendous odds to bring a Batman to the screen that wasn’t Day-Glo campy like the 1960s TV series), and the same star (Michael Keaton, whose career shift from manic comedy roles to brooding loner parts was helped greatly by Batman’s success). It was a calculated gamble that paid off; Batman Returns, like its predecessor, became a bona-fide box-office blockbuster.

Coate: What did you think of Batman Returns? Can you recall your reaction to the first time you saw it?

Bond: My reaction was complicated — I really loved Burton’s original Batman, and I do remember being truly impressed by just what an auteur’s vision Batman Returns was. But for my taste it almost went all the way over into self-indulgence, where the action movie roots got swamped by almost a celebration of victimhood and outsiders — basically everyone from Batman to Catwoman to the Penguin is a wounded, brooding social outcast, which is what Burton understood best, and that all got kind of lugubrious for me and sucked the fun out of it. A lot of the action in Batman was driven by the second unit director Peter MacDonald, and I think I missed his touch on the second one. But I appreciate it more today, especially for Walken’s and Michelle Pfeiffer’s performances.

Mendelson: I loved it when I was 12 and I still love it. It’s kind of an art house blockbuster, where if it wasn’t based on known characters it probably would have been hailed as an indie arthouse masterpiece of sorts. It’s deeply weird, often painful in its character melodrama and absolutely rooted more in character than plot or long-form storytelling. And, sad to say, but Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is every bit as “groundbreaking” a major female character in a mega-blockbuster as she was twenty-five years ago.

Scivally: I had felt that the first Batman film was a triumph of marketing over movie-making (for me, its plot rambles and often makes little sense). Batman Returns was more tightly scripted, but it began the formula of multiple villains in each film. If you count Max Shreck (named for the actor who starred in the 1922 horror film Nosferatu), there were three villains in Batman Returns, as opposed to one in the first film. The more villains you have, the less screen time you have to devote to each one and to their conflicts with Batman. More importantly, the more villains you have, the less time you have to devote to your hero. This contributed to Michael Keaton leaving the series; with Batman Returns, he felt that he was a guest star in his own film series (indeed, in the film’s first half hour, Keaton is on screen for only about five minutes). The reason for the glut of villains has more to do with the marketing team than with the creative team; Warner Bros. began to look at the Batman films as elaborate toy ads — the more villains there were in the film, the more different kinds of toys they could sell. At the same time, it firmly established the film series as a kind of counterpart to the TV series, in that both featured high-profile name actors as villains.

Coate: In what way is Batman Returns significant within the superhero/comicbook genre?

Bond: It’s the first auteur superhero movie. On Batman, I think Tim Burton was given an unusual freedom of expression, but he was still under the reigns of Warner Bros. and I think there were some important decisions that were not necessarily left to him. I think they brought Peter MacDonald in to make sure they were getting a slam-bang action movie. Then once they had an incredible hit with Batman and Burton made Edward Scissorhands, which was a totally personal film and still a huge hit, I think the execs at Warners realized that you just let Tim Burton alone and let him make a Tim Burton movie and people will see it in droves. So there is so much strangeness in Batman Returns — opening it with the journey of that little floating cradle holding the Penguin, and ending it with an attack on Gotham by an army of rocket-armed live penguins, and all sorts of other stuff — it’s an insane movie and probably one of the most insane blockbuster movies ever made.

Mendelson: The overall lesson of Batman Returns, in terms of its reception, was that these big movies, even the ones that were PG-13 and arguably aimed at older kids/adults, were going to be viewed by very young kids. After Batman Returns, we saw a slight neutering of genuinely adult content (sex and violence) in popcorn blockbuster movies of this nature. It led to the PG-13 slowly but surely being turned into a glorified PG, before Lord of the Rings sent everything in the other direction where any number of PG-13 movies are basically R-rated movies edited “just so” for that kid-friendly rating…. But even today, twenty-five years later, you’d never see anything as weird or kinky or outright sexual in a comic book superhero movie as you did with Batman Returns. Even something like Logan is basically a standard western with R-rated violence, and Deadpool is a bawdy action comedy that mostly plays nice with its audience and characters.

Scivally: Like its predecessor, Batman Returns is significant for its tone and the portrayal of its main character. National Periodical Publications/DC Comics had considered ceasing publication of the comic books due to low sales until the TV series premiered and made the character one of the “3 B’s” of the 1960s — the Beatles, Bond, and Batman. Although the TV series accurately captured the tone of the comic books of that era, many fans who came of age in the 1970s — when the comic books took a more serious, adult tone and approached the character more seriously — hated the campy depiction of their hero. Michael Uslan made it his mission to bring a vision of Batman to the big screen that would be more in keeping with the 1970s conception, and found it nearly impossible to overcome the deeply ingrained perception of Batman as a “silly” comic book. It helped that by the time Batman was released in 1989, comic books had become “graphic novels” with a readership of young adults rather than young kids, and writer Frank Miller had reinvented Batman with a critically-acclaimed 1986 graphic novel masterpiece, The Dark Knight Returns. After the disappointing box-office returns of two campy Superman movies and a Supergirl film, Batman and Batman Returns began the evolution of superhero movies into darker tales made, like the first two Superman films, primarily for adults, not children.

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Coate: In what way is Batman Returns significant as a sequel?

Bond: Again, it was the way Warner Bros. empowered Tim Burton just to make the movie he wanted and not worry about how this was serving the franchise or setting up other movies (in fact there was talk of moving forward with more Keaton/Burton Batman movies but eventually you had Joel Schumacher, who was like the opposite of Tim Burton, take over). It set the precedent for giving these franchise films to up and coming, creative directors to see what kind of energy they’d bring to it — but no one has ever brought the kind of personal vision to a comic book film that Burton did.

Mendelson: Batman Returns sticks out today as a sequel that is both a part of its franchise (it acknowledges the events of Batman) and utterly its own separate thing. It is not remotely concerned with the next sequel nor any kind of world-building beyond the story being told in its 126-minute running time. It was also notable in terms of a sequel being a full-on work of auteurism as opposed to a more “half studio/half filmmaker” original franchise starter. Think Transformers 2, Batman & Robin, The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2.

Scivally: The initial Superman film showed that a comic book movie could be made like an “A” list film and draw an adult audience; the first Batman film showed that the public would buy a version of Batman that was darker than the Adam West TV version. The second film proved that the success of the first Batman film was repeatable, establishing it as a viable franchise.

Coate: Where do you think Batman Returns ranks among director Tim Burton’s body of work?

Bond: It was confirmation that Burton could do blockbusters, make them his way, and have them be huge hits. He’s probably the strangest director that Hollywood has ever consistently given millions of dollars to make movies and given him almost absolute freedom to do so, and I think that’s wonderful. After years of Tim Burton movies you do get people making fun of their conventions but there is no one else who makes movies like him — he is a genre unto himself and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Mendelson: I think it’s Tim Burton’s second best movie behind Ed Wood. It’s a deeply personal work inside a comic book superhero sequel and I think its “controversy” broke him for a while. But it just took a while for the kids who grew up on Beetlejuice and Pee-wee to grow up to be adults and the new generation of film critics/media for him to get his due as more than just a great art director.

Scivally: I can’t answer this question in good faith, because I have not seen all of Tim Burton’s films. I wouldn’t rank it among his best works (that honor goes to Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Big Eyes), but it’s not among his worst, either. It’s middling. It definitely has the unique look of a Burton film, existing in a studio-bound universe all its own (it’s an odd world: a mostly black, decrepit Gotham, overrun with giant-sized Fascist statuary, angled rooftops with an abundance of smoke-belching exhaust pipes, and people running about dressed like it’s the 1940s instead of the 1990s; production designer Bo Welch conceived it as a city that was “huge, dehumanizing and falling in on itself”), it moves at a good pace and has fine performances, and is more tightly-plotted than the rather sloppy Batman film that preceded it, but for me it’s undone by having the Penguin be Shreck’s stooge rather than a criminal mastermind in his own right, and Batman not really having much to do.

Coate: How effective or memorable a villain was Danny DeVito’s The Penguin?

Bond: To my thinking DeVito’s performance, and the way it was guided by Burton, is the biggest miscalculation in the movie, because he is so unpleasant, creepy and scary that his scenes kind of suck the fun out of the movie. Contrast that with Christopher Walken’s scenes, which are arguably the most fun parts of the movie. Walken manages to be an unpredictable, effective villain, but he’s also hilarious, and this is a movie with attacking penguins, so you’d think it would be a little more fun. But the other side of the coin is that it’s part of the journey toward the darker superhero movies of today like The Dark Knight or even Logan. People forget that the only previous comic book movies were the Superman films, which were bright and funny and charming, and no one had seen a blockbuster comic book movie that was dark and gothic before. So maybe you couldn’t have Heath Ledger’s Joker without Danny DeVito’s Penguin.

Mendelson: It’s a terrific piece of movie star acting, utterly fearless and yet oddly sympathetic. He relishes creating a three-dimensional baddie that actually acts like an adult (sexual kinks and all).

Scivally: DeVito’s Penguin is a truly horrible and disgusting creature, with his white face, beak nose, claw hands, black eyes, sharp grey teeth, and scraggly hair. And in almost every scene there’s something drooling over his chin — raw fish, blood, black bile. But he’s not the real villain of the piece. That honor goes to Max Shreck, played by Christopher Walken. Max (the second time Walken played a villain named Max in a major franchise, after being Max Zorin in 1985’s 007 film A View to a Kill) is a wealthy businessman with political influence whose public beneficence hides sinister intentions. The Penguin, meanwhile, is an attention-starved, lecherous walking id longing to be accepted and praised. The idea that anyone like Shreck, or the Penguin, could ever fool the public enough to attain high political office is absurd. Right?

Coate: How effective or memorable a villain was Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman?

Bond: You can make a pretty good argument that Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was the best ever done — her introduction is a bravura sequence and her chemistry with Michael Keaton is electrifying and outrageously ups the ante on the old Adam West/Julie Newmar interaction from the 1966 show, which was groundbreaking on its own. The Pfeiffer Catwoman I think was a pivotal piece of proto-feminism in showing her origin as really a reaction to the sexist, condescending treatment of Christopher Walken’s character, so she becomes less a villain than an antihero who’s out there kicking ass for women all over, and even taking her rage out on another woman who she sees as acting too much the victim during a wave of street crime. Between Burton’s staging, the cinematography and her costume design, she might be the first convincing female comic book superhero character in the movies.

Mendelson: I’m not going to say she should have won the Oscar that year, because I’m a big Marisa Tomei fan, but Pfeiffer should darn well have at least been nominated for her richly introspective bit of villainy. It’s not only a wonderful melodramatic performance but a sharp bit of ahead-of-its-time satire that pokes brutal fun at the now in-vogue “strong female character” trope.

Scivally: Michelle Pfeiffer was an outstanding Catwoman. Like Penguin, she was — at least while clad in black leather — a walking id, while her Selina Kyle persona developed from being mousy at the beginning to more bold by the end, as her Catwoman-self allowed her to claim and embrace her inner feminine power. She’s just as schizophrenic and mentally unbalanced as Bruce Wayne/Batman. And the actress (a last-minute replacement for Annette Bening, who became pregnant prior to the commencement of filming) certainly committed herself to her role — the bird that flies out of her mouth was done for real, not with special effects.

Coate: What is the legacy of Batman Returns?

Bond: Both Burton’s Batman films are pivotal both to lay the foundations for the serious, psychologically complex superhero movies we see today, and as the illustration of Tim Burton as an utterly unique artist who was given the reigns to Warner Bros.’ and DC’s priceless comic book superheroes.

Mendelson: As I wrote back in September: This gorgeous, haunting and unexpectedly moving comic book superhero sequel was an arthouse horror story using the protection of the most famous “branded” material in the world. It somewhat backfired on audiences and critics, who didn’t care for gore and sexuality in their kid-targeted superhero story. But the film stands tall today as an uncommonly personal and challenging blockbuster…. Part “faithful” adaptation of the late-80s/early-90s Batman comics, part “Batman as a fairy tale,” this deliciously macabre action comedy is still one of the all-time great comic book adaptations. It also operates as a metaphor for the main character, with each of the three villains (Danny De Vito’s bitter abandoned orphan, Michelle Pfeiffer’s righteously crazed murderous vigilante and Christopher Walken’s heartlessly evil corporate tycoon) represented a “what-if” worst case scenario path that our hero could have taken…. And yeah, I loved it in 1992, was befuddled by the reception (I always found Batman to be far more violent) and was saddened when it led to the de-fanging of the PG-13 for a while. But it’s still one of the great comic book superhero movies of all time and stands alongside Mission: Impossible and Terminator 2 as one of the big “really for adults” tentpole blockbusters of the mid-1990s.

Scivally: The film is more tightly scripted than its predecessor, with a theme of rejection and acceptance; it begins with the ultimate rejection, as the Cobblepots throw their deformed baby into a river, and continues with Penguin’s desire for acceptance leading him to run for Mayor. In addition, there’s Selena Kyle, a wallflower who appears to have been rejected by men all her life, culminating with her boss, Max Shreck, pushing her out of a high window (an extreme rejection), and being reborn as the overtly sexual Catwoman. And Batman faces rejection from the citizens of Gotham when the Penguin makes it look as though he’s killed the city’s Ice Princess and run down its citizens in a Penguin-controlled Batmobile — and ultimately, he’s rejected by Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Batman Returns isn’t so much a superhero film as it is a dreamlike vision — or nightmare vision — of a city where the sun never shines, and the superheroes and supervillains are deeply psychologically scarred outsiders looking for their place in a society that rejects them, a theme that Burton often revisits in his best films. It is chock-full of the kind of bizarrely outré imagery typical of Burton’s imagination, but that imagination tends to bend in a morbid direction, which is what ultimately spelled the end of Burton’s reign as Batman director — kids whose parents took them to the film because it was promoted with McDonald’s Happy Meals were frightened by its dark themes, so Warner Bros. quietly pushed Burton aside and brought in a director who would be more willing to play ball with the studio and make the films more kid-friendly, leading to the neon, hyper-kinetic Batman films of Joel Schumacher.

Coate: Thank you — Jeff, Scott and Bruce — for sharing your thoughts on Batman Returns on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its release.

--END--

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Warner Bros., Warner Home Video.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Widescreen Review. All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

SPECIAL THANKS

Don Beelik, Kathryn Devine, Bobby Henderson, Brad Miller, and to the San Francisco Public Library and Washington State Library.

IN MEMORIAM

Bob Kane (Batman creator), 1915-1998
Stuart Lancaster (“Penguin’s Doctor”), 1920-2000
Rick Zumwalt (“Tattooed Strongman”), 1951-2003
Vincent Schiavelli (“Organ Grinder”), 1948-2005
Pat Hingle (“Commissioner Gordon”), 1924-2009
Michael Gough (“Alfred”), 1916-2011
Marion Dougherty (Casting), 1923-2011
Jan Hooks (“Jen”), 1957-2014

-Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Blade Runner, one of the most influential films ever made, opened in theaters 35 years ago this week.

For the occasion The Bits features a compilation of statistics, trivia and box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context; passages from vintage film reviews; a reference/historical listing of the film’s premium-format presentations; and, finally, an interview segment with a trio of film historians and documentarians who discuss the virtues, shortcomings and influence of Blade Runner.

BLADE RUNNER NUMBER$

• 0 = Number of weeks nation’s top-grossing movie
• 1 = Number of sequels
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies of The Ladd Company’s 1982 slate
• 2 = Number of Academy Award nominations
• 2 = Rank among top-earning movies during opening weekend
• 4 = Rank among top-earning movies of Warner Bros.’ 1982 slate
• 4 = Rank among top-earning science-fiction films of 1982
• 9 = Number of months between theatrical release and home-video release
• 11 = Number of 70mm prints
• 13 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (summer)
• 14 = Rank among top-earning R-rated films of 1982
• 16 = Number of weeks of longest-running engagement
• 25 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (rental; calendar year)
• 27 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (gross; legacy)
• 1,295 = Number of opening-week engagements

• $29.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (videodiscs)
• $79.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (VHS and Beta)
• $4,749 = Opening-weekend per-screen average
• $1.5 million = Box-office gross (2007 Final Cut re-release)
• $3.7 million = Box-office gross (1992 Director’s Cut re-release)
• $6.2 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross
• $14.5 million = Box-office rental (domestic)
• $15.7 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
• $27.6 million = Box-office gross (1982 original release)
• $28.0 million = Production cost
• $32.9 million = Box-office gross (1982 + 1992 + 2007)
• $36.8 million = Box-office rental (adjusted for inflation)
• $71.0 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $78.2 million = Box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“The most astonishing look at the future ever put on film.” — California Magazine

“Blade Runner may be the wrong picture at the wrong time. Steven Spielberg has convinced us that extra-terrestrial creatures can be a boy’s best friend, and Star Trek II has us feeling optimistic about the future again. Science-fiction, in short, has never appeared rosier. So here comes Blade Runner, the gloomiest glimpse of things to come since A Clockwork Orange, and with none of the scalding humor that helped make that Stanley Kubrick classic watchable.” — George Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Director Ridley Scott and his entire creative cadre have made an extraordinary-looking film that combines film noir and science fiction to probe a world where you can no longer tell who’s human any more. Every detail of the film’s environment is so seductively, splendidly and distractingly designed that it feels emperor’s new clothes-ish to point out that there is embarrassingly little else to the film.” — Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times

“Blade Runner is like science fiction pornography — all sensation and no heart.” — Pat Berman, The State (Columbia, SC)

“In the rush to view the future, Scott forgot that movies are not, contrary to the industry’s fondest hopes, made of stainless steel special effects, but of screenplays. There is no screenplay in Blade Runner, merely an idea extracted from the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? that is buffered with a great deal of pretentious nonsense, and the sort of dialogue Mickey Spillane on a bad day would toss into the waste basket. “ — Ron Base, Toronto Star

“The scope and brilliance of Blade Runner’s vision is the good news. The bad news is that Blade Runner’s story is absolutely hopeless, a confusing tower of babble that has great gaps of logic, abysmal structure and cardboard characters… In an attempt to explain things, a voice-over narration by Deckard, a la Sam Spade, has been added, but Ford reads it as if he had just been handed the lines; he sounds flat, unconvincing. And while the explanation helps on a few items, it still cannot fill the many holes.” — Phil Kloer, The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union

“Hauer, who was a superb villain in the little-seen Nighthawks, again makes a charismatic menace, spewing hatred and bitterness that boil hotter with successive scenes. His final conflict with Ford is a test of human — and inhuman — endurance.” — Philip Wuntch, The Dallas Morning News

“Blade Runner is a handsome and imaginatively designed film. Indeed, so much care has been lavished on this bizarre and very convincing vision of urban America in 2019 that what the film looks like has taken precedence over what happens in it. This proves a great pity since Blade Runner is crammed with interesting and adult ideas and brims with the potential to be a truly memorable film.” — Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Scott is a master of production design, of imagining other worlds of the future (Alien) and the past (The Duellists). He seems more concerned with creating his film worlds than populating them with plausible characters, and that’s the trouble this time. Blade Runner is a stunningly interesting visual achievement, but a failure as a story.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Blade Runner is a triumphant blending of human drama and science fiction. It may not be a summer blockbuster — it won’t satisfy the young audience it needs for that — but it’s going to end up one of the summer’s, and maybe the year’s, best movies.” — Jack Mathews, Detroit Free Press

“Ridley Scott’s reported $30 million picture is a stylistically dazzling film noir set in November 2019 in a brilliantly imagined Los Angeles marked by both technological wonders and horrendous squalor.” — Variety

“Blade Runner, a grim sci-fi adventure set in the near future, looks terrific but is empty at its core. What’s missing? For starters, how about a story.” — Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“If anybody comes around with a test to detect humanoids, maybe Ridley Scott and his associates should hide.” — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

“[W]hat really irked me about Blade Runner was its seemingly tacked-on, totally superfluous, ‘Feel Good’ ending. After a depressing couple of hours at the movies, it’s even more depressing to see a director succumb to a last minute fear of being too depressing.” — Terry Kelleher, Miami Herald

“Science-fiction devotees may find Blade Runner a wonderfully meticulous movie and marvel at the comprehensiveness of its vision. Even those without a taste for gadgetry cannot fail to appreciate the degree of effort that has gone into constructing a film so ambitious and idiosyncratic. The special effects are by Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer, and they are superb. So is Laurence G. Paull’s production design. But Blade Runner is a film that special effects could have easily run away with, and run away with it they have.” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Directed by Ridley Scott, the Britisher who scored with Alien, the movie is too choked up with baroque space fantasy and heavy metal sci-fi, and it clunks along like the Incredible Hulk.” — Carol Olten, The San Diego Union

“For a movie so ingenious that movie fans really ought to see it, Blade Runner has a lot of problems. Alas, Harrison Ford is one. He’s a great Han Solo and an even better Indiana Jones. But he has a hard time pulling his weight in serious material like Force 10 from Navarone and Hanover Street. His narration is never quite right, and he sometimes seems ill at ease in his role. It could be that, like Cary Grant and Burt Reynolds, he needs to stick to material with some built-in lightness. Deckard is and should be a humorless character, but Ford seems not quite to know how to handle that.” — Ted Mahar, The (Portland) Oregonian

“In Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott stints on character development as though Harrison Ford were a star like Bogart, and the result is an underdeveloped hero. Screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples give Ford plenty of tough/sensitive film noir hero lines to speak, but they come off as camp rather than homage.” — Scott Sublett, The Washington Times

“Although Blade Runner is captivating from a visual and clinical standpoint, it left me cold emotionally. Who should I root for, the replicants or the calculating humans who created them? Still, Blade Runner is the sort of picture that grows more fascinating after the fact, upon reflection. It deserves points for ingenuity and painting a stark picture of a future world where science has spun out of control. But while it is intriguing, Blade Runner is so bizarre that you may just have to live in the year 2019 to be able to appreciate it fully.” — Donna Chernin, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

“Blade Runner misses a beat now and then, and it often fails to capitalize on its strongest points. But it’s the sort of offbeat, challenging science-fiction movie that develops cult followings.” — John Hartl, The Seattle Times

THE 70MM ENGAGEMENTS

Event and prestige movies (and instances to appease a filmmaker’s ego) on occasion are given a deluxe release in addition to a standard release. This section of the article includes a reference/historical listing of the first-run 70mm Six-Track Dolby Stereo premium-format presentations of Blade Runner in the United States and Canada. These were arguably the best cinemas in which to experience Blade Runner and the only way at the time to faithfully hear the movie’s discrete multichannel audio mix.

Of the 100+ new movies released during 1982, Blade Runner was among eighteen to have 70mm prints prepared for selected engagements. Only about a dozen of Blade Runner’s initial print run was in the deluxe 70mm format, which were significantly more expensive and more time- and labor-intensive to manufacture compared with conventional 35mm prints. Blade Runner was the second of four films by Ridley Scott to be released in the United States with 70mm prints.

The 70mm prints of Blade Runner were sourced from a mixture of blown up anamorphic 35mm principal photography and 65mm-originated visual effects and were intended to be projected in a 2.20:1 aspect ratio. The noise-reduction and signal-processing format for the prints was Dolby “A,” and the soundtrack was Dolby processor setting Format 42 (i.e. three discrete screen channels + one discrete surround channel + “baby boom” low-frequency enhancement).

Trailers for The World According to Garp and Night Shift circulated with the Blade Runner prints and which the distributor recommended be screened with the presentation.

The listing includes the 70mm engagements of Blade Runner that commenced June 25th, 1982*. Not included in this work are the moveover, second run, revival and international engagements (or any of the movie’s countless standard 35mm engagements).

*Prior to release there was a sneak preview test screening of a work-in-progress cut of the film on March 5th at the Continental in Denver and on March 6th at the Northpark in Dallas. A revised cut was previewed on May 8th at the Cinema 21 in San Diego. Additionally, in college towns during late May there was a series of National College Preview screenings. An invitational preview of the finished film was held June 18th at the Samuel Goldwyn in Beverly Hills.

So, for historical reference and nostalgia, the first-run North American theaters that screened the 70mm version of Blade Runner were….

CALIFORNIA

• Corte Madera — Marin’s Cinema
• Los Angeles — Mann’s Bruin
• Los Angeles — Mann’s Hollywood
• Pasadena — SRO’s Hastings
• San Francisco — UA’s Coronet
• San Jose — Syufy’s Century 22 Triplex

COLORADO

• Denver — Commonwealth’s Cooper Twin

ILLINOIS

• Chicago — Plitt’s Esquire

NEW YORK

• New York — Cinema 5’s Murray Hill
• New York — Moss’ Criterion Center 6-plex

WASHINGTON

• Seattle — SRO’s Cinerama

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THE Q&A

Chris Barsanti is the author of The Sci-Fi Movie Guide: The Universe of Film from Alien to Zardoz (Visible Ink; 2014). His other books include Filmology: A Movie-a-Day Guide (Adams Media; 2010), Handy New York City Answer Book (Visible Ink; 2017), and (with Brian Cogan and Jeff Massey) Monty Python FAQ: All That’s Left to Know about Spam, Grails, Spam, Nudging, Bruces, and Spam (Applause; 2017). He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, Online Film Critics Society and New York Film Critics Online, and has written for Film Journal International, Film Threat and The Hollywood Reporter.

Charles de Lauzirika produced the Blade Runner: The Final Cut restoration and is the producer-director of Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner, the exhaustive documentary feature included in the package of value added material on the Blade Runner: The Final Cut DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases. Charles is an acclaimed film documentarian and DVD/Blu-ray producer with over 100 credits, including, in addition to Blade Runner, such essential and award-winning home video box sets as Twin Peaks, Prometheus and the Alien Anthology, along with many other releases including Top Gun, Kingdom of Heaven, and The Martian. He also produced the Star Wars: Launch Bay featurette which debuted at the Disney Parks in 2015. His feature directorial debut, Crave, starring Ron Perlman, was released in 2013, and won multiple awards at festivals around the world.

Paul M. Sammon is the author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner (HarperPrism; 1996; and updated in 2007 and 2017). His other books include The Making of Starship Troopers (Berkley; 1997), Ridley Scott: The Making of His Movies (Close-Up Series; Da Capo; 1999), Alien: The Illustrated Screenplay (Orion; 2000), Aliens: The Illustrated Screenplay (Orion; 2001) and Conan the Phenomenon (Dark Horse; 2013). He has also written for American Cinematographer, Cinefex, Empire and the Los Angeles Times.

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Blade Runner be remembered on its 35th anniversary?

Chris Barsanti: The word “visionary” gets thrown around a lot but I think it can be fairly attached to Blade Runner. It’s hard to remember in this day and age of non-stop spectacle filmmaking, what an incredible achievement it was in terms of its special effects and mood, which was arguably as influential on filmmakers as Metropolis and Things to Come. So I would say that it deserves to be remembered as a visionary spectacle that foresaw first a way to make the future look not just bleak in the manner of 1970s science fiction (think Soylent Green) but seductively corrupted, and also how our current filmmakers would mix and match genres (in this case, film noir and science fiction).

Charles de Lauzirika: Even after decades of imitators, bigger budgets and more advanced technology, Blade Runner still stands high as a groundbreaking, unparalleled masterpiece.

Paul M. Sammon: Thirty-five years after its (failed) initial release, I’d like to think that Blade Runner will be remembered as one of the best and most influential science-fiction films of the 20th century — and the 21st.

Coate: What did you think of Blade Runner? Can you recall your reaction to the first time you saw it?

Barsanti: I was probably more impressed with Blade Runner as a teenager than today; it has the kind of overarching grandiloquence that appeals to the adolescent mind. But despite its plot deficiencies, it still exerts a strong pull. I’m always interested in watching it again, which is something I cannot say for nearly any other movie, particularly one directed by Ridley Scott.

Lauzirika: I saw it on opening day at the Mann Hollywood and like many people, I was probably expecting something more along the lines of escapist popcorn entertainment. But also like many people, I left the theater grappling with a far more challenging and deeper artistic experience. But that’s the great thing about Blade Runner after all these years is that it has never stopped luring me into that dark, complicated world. I always get something new out of it.

Sammon: I had been fortunate enough throughout 1981-82 to see various rough cuts and pre-release versions of Blade Runner; therefore, I was the least objective viewer in the theater when I finally witnessed the Theatrical Cut, complete with its uneven narration and tone deaf happy ending, on Blade Runner’s opening day of June 25, 1982. I’d also previously seen a slightly different version during the San Diego sneak preview in May 1982, and had disliked what I considered to be its superfluous, poorly written voiceovers and inappropriate Ride-Into-the-Sunset back then. So I was hoping that those two elements might at least be dropped from the theatrical cut. They were not, and I was. Disappointed, that is. Also, in a certain sense, I guess that by having seen so much of the film prior to its official release, you could say that I was a little burnt out. Especially by the time I ultimately sat down to watch Blade Runner with an opening day audience.

I much more enjoyed being allowed to witness the physical filming, which stimulated my tactile senses along with my visual and auditory ones. Anyone who was on that Ridleyville backlot will remember what an immersive experience it was. The smoke, the endless detailing, the neon, the never-ending swirling rain bars; you literally felt as if you were in Los Angeles circa 2019. It smelled that way too.

Having said all this, it was obvious, even while peering through my haze of Blade Runner exhaustion, that Ridley Scott and Hampton Fancher and Vangelis and everyone else in Blade Runner’s cast and crew had created something utterly unlike anything else in theaters during the summer of 1982. Frankly, Blade Runner was a visual wipeout. Watching Blade Runner during its initial run on a big screen was like being swept away by a pictorial tsunami. And my opinion of the film has actually improved over the decades. Because as I’ve said many, many times, there is more to Blade Runner than meets the eye. Much more.

Pauline Kael, in her dismissive New Yorker review, complained that Blade Runner was all subtext and no text. I can agree with half of that statement, since so many changes were going on during production on both the narrative and the visual level that certain plot strands were ultimately either muddled or lost. But I have to absolutely disagree with Kael on Blade Runner’s subtexts. In my little opinion, it’s exactly those subtexts — such as what it means to be human, how we lead our lives in the face of certain extinction, and whether we as a species will ever acknowledge and reverse the slow suffocation of our environment — which rewards the curious viewer. Blade Runner is also a uniquely hypnotic film. No matter how many times I watch it, by the time Pris walks up to the Bradbury Building and Vangelis’ Blade Runner Blues starts playing, I realize, once again, that I’ve been totally sucked in.

Coate: In what way is Blade Runner significant?

Barsanti: It was possibly the best movie up to that time in terms of creating a living, breathing future world. The way in which it mixed elements of contemporary culture with fragments of the past and predictions about where things were going is now the template for nearly all future-set movies.

Lauzirika: It’s fully, indelibly defined a dystopian vision of tomorrow that all futuristic films after it have been, and will be, compared against. For me, there are three distinct cinematic futures that simply haven’t been topped in terms of world building: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, David Lynch’s Dune and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.

Sammon: It’s been influential on a number of levels. In terms of its hyper-detailing and teeming lived in look, a production design that mixes the old and the new with the familiar and the strange, a graphic sensibility that stands the sophisticated, slightly tongue-in-cheek comic book drawings of Mobius right alongside the realistically engineered extrapolations of visual futurist Syd Mead — well, what you’re left with is a film that’s influenced countless succeeding motion pictures. As well as rock videos, costume designs, even real-world objects like signage and architecture. Furthermore, Blade Runner pointedly touched on themes like overpopulation, mankind’s harm to the natural world, the ethical dimensions of cloning, homelessness, and a whole clutch of other concerns that weren’t exactly on the American radar at the beginning of the Reagan era. All of those themes are still relevant today. So Blade Runner has a pulsing, living life well beyond a movie theater or a home video entertainment center.

Coate: Where does Blade Runner rank among director Ridley Scott’s body of work?

Barsanti: Number one, with a bullet. Nothing else comes close.

Lauzirika: It should come as no surprise that in my opinion, it’s number one.

Sammon: Ranking Blade Runner in Ridley’s canon is a little difficult. Alien seems to have had a broader pop-cultural influence, More people have certainly seen Alien than Blade Runner. And the then-unusual manner in which Alien takes it’s not exactly novel admixture of horror and science-fiction seriously, and weds that to semi realistic characters with near documentary-like performances, and then cocoons its hybrid story line and its somewhat superficial but still believable fictional people within what at the time was a meticulously considered alternate universe, one that pulled in all these different graphic factors while still playing fair with the time-honored rules of cinematic horror and science-fiction and suspense… this was all pretty amazing stuff back in 1979.

On the other hand, I’ve always considered Alien kind of a dry run for Blade Runner. In the way that Blade Runner raises the imagining of Alien’s fictional universe by a whole order of magnitude, while simultaneously crafting a deeper, more challenging set of characters, story elements and emotions. I mean, Alien is essentially a thrill ride, punctuated by some pretty primal, nasty, body-horror elements like the chest burster and the face hugger. But Blade Runner has greater texture, resonance and depth. So I guess purely in terms of weight, Blade Runner tips the scales. I’d put it at number one. Then again, I’m completely prejudiced. That’s why I wrote a book like Future Noir!

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Coate: How effective or memorable a hero was Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard and where do you think that performance ranks among his body of work?

Barsanti: Hard to answer, because it’s difficult to compare Blade Runner with, say, Raiders of the Lost Ark or Frantic. In his top five, for sure.

Lauzirika: I actually don’t agree he’s the hero. He’s a killer, a sleaze, and kind of a coward, but he’s on a journey of self-discovery, no matter what you think about his origins. I will say that I think Ford’s performance is far better and nuanced than he gets credit for. Deckard isn’t the most traditionally likable character, but I am intrigued by him throughout the film. I think it’s certainly one of his very best performances.

Sammon: Part of Ridley Scott’s stated intent right at the beginning of pre-production was a to present a densely reasoned speculation on what a future metropolis might look 40 years ahead of 1982, then to tie that future to the stock elements of 1940s film noir. For example, film noir’s elements have always included a femme fatale, like Rachel, who usually brings down an antihero with serious character defects, like Deckard. Harrison’s not a classic hero in this film. At least not initially. He’s a classic antihero.

Ford once told me he considered Deckard to be damaged goods. That shows up in his performance and in the way the character is written. Deckard is isolated, cruel, possibly alcoholic, and emotionally closed off. Ever notice how much he drinks in the film? That’s another standard film noir trait. Deckard has no compunctions about shooting a woman in the back, either, and that ain’t very heroic. I think that’s one of the reasons Blade Runner failed upon its initial release. People went into theaters thinking there were going to see the cheerful insolence of another Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but instead were confronted with a dark, seedy, morose burnout. What’s always been fascinating to me is to watch how Ford manages to come up with the body language and little bits of business that suggests just how flawed Deckard is. He really does give a complex, intelligent, sensitive performance. I think it’s one of Ford’s best. Although Harrison and Ridley clashed so often while they were making the film, particularly over this whole argument of whether or not Deckard was a replicant, that I’m sure Harrison still really hasn’t gained the necessary objectivity to see what a career defining performance Deckard really is.

Coate: How effective or memorable a villain was Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty and where do you think that performance ranks among his body of work?

Lauzirika: I also don’t agree with you that Batty’s the villain. He’s simply trying to survive and protect his family against the cruel system that created them and now wants them dead. That’s heroic to me. But I think it’s fair to say that Hauer steals the movie, capped by his “tears in rain” speech. No small feat with such a tremendous cast. And it’s certainly a high point in his career.

Sammon: I’m not sure Roy Batty ever was the villain of Blade Runner — I think Eldon Tyrell, who plays God with what in effect are superior humans, is really the heavy of the piece. Having said that, Batty is a fascinating guy, and Rutger really rings an amazing number of notes on that character. Roy is childlike, amusing, intelligent, playful, and dangerous. Very dangerous. That’s what I think is finally so unsettling about Roy; he’s really still a kid. An immensely strong seriously intelligent kid who’s been thrust into a world he doesn’t understand. So he’s constantly trying to tweak his reactions to this complicated new reality. And sometimes Roy goes a little too far. By crushing skulls, and letting elderly Chinese scientist freeze to death, and so on and so forth. Yet he is also very charismatic and physically attractive. It’s his unpredictability that really creeps me out, though-you never know how Roy is going to react.

I think that Rutger would be the first person to agree that Roy Batty is his defining performance…at least in terms of worldwide recognition. Rutger’s a very good actor, you know. He’s done great work in a number of different motion pictures, like Olmi’s The Legend of the Holy Drinker. But most people haven’t seen that, and more people remember him from Blade Runner. But I’m pretty sure Rutger is good with that.

Coate: Can you compare and contrast the numerous cuts of Blade Runner? Which version is your favorite?

Barsanti: While the Director’s and Final cuts are probably overall the better movies, I will admit an occasional preference for the original release. No, Scott didn’t want to add in Ford’s narration and the lack of it in the later cuts brings a spooky, ghostly quality to the imagery that isn’t there in the original. But the narration’s hard-boiled tone is actually quite effective at setting the noir mood that Scott was going for, and so doesn’t deserve to be totally discounted. That being said, the tacked-on ending in the original where they escape into the mountains was a monumental misstep.

Lauzirika: Obviously, The Final Cut is my favorite version. For the most part, it represents the best of all the other versions and it finally gave Ridley Scott the chance to make the final polish he wasn’t able to before. There are about 100 picture and edit differences in The Final Cut as compared to the other ones, to say nothing about the new sound mix. But I do have a fondness for the other versions as well, especially the Workprint.

Sammon: Depending on how you approach it, there are anywhere between five to eight versions of Blade Runner floating around out there. Not to mention the numerous Blade Runner fan edits on the Internet, like the White Dragon Cut. I could write a book about Blade Runner’s different versions — and I have! So let me point anyone who’s interested in hearing a more detailed response to your question towards Future Noir.

But in terms of rank, starting from the bottom up, I’d say that the Theatrical Cut is my least favorite version. That’s the one with the voiceover and the bogus happy ending. Then moving up a notch I’d say, The International Cut, which retains the voiceover and happy ending but has a bit more violence and character moments than the theatrical cut. I’d follow that with the Directors Cut, which came out in the early 1990s and dropped the voiceover and the happy ending, but most critically put back in a crucial moment that had been edited out of the theatrical and international cuts.

The Director’s Cut includes a daydream Deckard has while he’s a little drunk and noodling at his piano. He imagines a unicorn galloping in slow-motion through a beautiful forest. Which of course is an image of purity and poetry and beauty, and completely at odds with the dirty, overcrowded, sordid world he lives in. It’s also an image that later ties into the tinfoil unicorn origami sculpture that Gaff leaves for Deckard at the end of the film. That tinfoil unicorn in the Director’s Cut indicates that Gaff knows Deckard’s secret daydreams; since replicants have been buffered with artificial memories, the fact that Gaff knows Deckard’s innermost thoughts strongly suggests that Deckard might be a replicant. However, the unicorn daydream isn’t in the Theatrical or International cuts. So the tinfoil unicorn in those versions that gaff leaves could be interpreted to simply mean that gaff is saying, Hey, man, I was here at your apartment, and I looked around and I realize you have feelings for this thing that looks like a woman called Rachel, so I’ve let her live.

In other words, in the theatrical and international cuts Deckard is probably human. But in the Director’s Cut and Final Cut he might be a replicant. Anyway, my second favorite version of Blade Runner is the Workprint. That’s the work in progress that was screened at the sneak previews in Denver and Dallas audiences in March 1982. The Workprint has bits and pieces of things that still haven’t shown up in any other version, and it also, since it’s not properly color timed or had a final sound mix, is a lot grittier than any other version. For many years the workprint was my favorite shade of Blade Runner. But now I have to say that number one slot has been taken over by the Final Cut.

The Final Cut really is the Blade Runner that Ridley Scott always wanted. It doesn’t have the narration, it doesn’t have the bogus happy ending, it does have the unicorn daydream, and it also incorporates a little cool extra footage that was previously only seen in the Workprint. The Final Cut really is a marvelous restoration of a classic motion picture. And it was overseen by true blue Blade Runner fan Charles de Lauzirika, who did a man’s job of cleaning up and re-editing the film. Lauzirika also produced and directed Dangerous Days, the definitive 3 ½ hour making of documentary on Blade Runner. Bravo, Charlie!

Coate: Do you have any thoughts on the upcoming sequel?

Barsanti: Eager to see it, of course, and glad that Denis Villeneuve, one of the greatest living directors, is handling it, since I don’t think Scott would be able to find that same magic again. But in the end, I almost wish it wasn’t happening. I would rather that studios were looking for ways to make more movies with the same daring and imagination as the original Blade Runner, not just producing more sequels and remakes.

Lauzirika: Lots. But for now, as I’d say with any film, I just hope it’s good. It has a lot to live up to.

Sammon: My biggest concern, which I’m sure I share with many, is that it’s hard to recapture lightning in a bottle. We’ve all been burned by so many bad sequels. Happily, from what I’ve been able to see so far, and given the level of talent and commitment and fidelity to the original involved, in addition to the fact that Ridley is one of the producers, that Hampton Fancher is one of the screenplay writers, that Harrison is back as Rick, that the excellent British cinematographer Roger Deakins has shot Blade Runner 2049, and that the truly talented French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, who hops from genre to genre with butterfly feet yet retains a steely, sober gaze, is at the helm of this sequel. Well, given all that, the lights look green at this point. We’ll see. But I can tell you from an insider’s perspective that this was not a sequel done for purely avaricious reasons. There were a lot of hardcore Blade Runner fans involved with Blade Runner 2049, both in front of and behind the camera. I’m rootin’ for ‘em!

Coate: What is the legacy of Blade Runner?

Barsanti: It deserves to be remembered as a visionary spectacle that foresaw first a way to make the future look not just bleak in the manner of 1970s science-fiction but seductively corrupted, and also how our current filmmakers would mix and match genres.

Lauzirika: It’s a film that redefined how we see the future and its intoxicating level of detail and design will probably never be matched in that particular way. After all, when you’re trying to describe something you’ve seen in real life, like cities or weather or pretty much anything visual, and you say, “It was just like Blade Runner,” people know exactly what you mean.

Sammon: Blade Runner remains an intelligent, complex, moving science-fiction film married to real-world concerns, deep drama, complex personalities, and thoughtful subtexts. All of which still strolls hand-in-hand with one of the most astonishingly detailed cinematic worlds ever created for a motion picture. You can’t beat a legacy like that.

Coate: Thank you — Chris, Charles and Paul — for sharing your thoughts on Blade Runner on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of its release.

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IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy The Blade Runner Partnership, The Criterion Collection, Embassy Home Entertainment, The Ladd Company, Warner Bros., Warner Home Video.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, and the book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner (Paul M. Sammon; Harper Prism; 1996). All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

SPECIAL THANKS

Don Beelik, Bobby Henderson, Bill Kretzel, Monty Marin, and Cliff Stephenson.

IN MEMORIAM

• Philip K. Dick (novel), 1928-1982
• Robert Okazaki (“Howie Lee”), 1902-1985
• Kimiko Hiroshige (“Cambodian Lady”), 1912-1989
• Jordan Cronenweth (Director of Photography), 1935-1996
• Brion James (“Leon Kowalski”), 1945-1999
• Hy Pyke (“Taffey Lewis”), 1935-2006
• Gerry Humphreys (Chief Dubbing Mixer), 1931-2006
• Paul Prischman (Final Cut Associate Producer), 1967-2009
• Morgan Paull (“Holden”), 1944-2012
• Bud Alper (Sound Mixer), 1930-2012
• Sir Run Run Shaw (Executive Producer), 1907-2014
• Bud Yorkin (Executive Producer), 1926-2015
• Jerry Perenchio (Executive Producer), 1930-2017

-Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

Tron, which also featured Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan and Barnard Hughes, opened in theaters 35 years ago this week. For the occasion The Bits features a compilation of statistics, trivia and box-office data that places the movie’s performance in context; passages from vintage film reviews; a reference/historical listing of the film’s 70mm presentations; and, finally, an interview segment with The Making of Tron author William Kallay, who discuss the virtues, shortcomings and influence of Tron.

TRON NUMBER$

• 0 = Number of weeks nation’s top-grossing movie
• 1 = Number of sequels
• 1 = Rank among top-earning movies of Disney’s 1982 slate
• 2 = Number of Academy Award nominations
• 2 = Rank among top-earning movies during opening weekend
• 3 = Rank among top-earning science-fiction films of 1982
• 5 = Number of months between theatrical release and home-video release
• 10 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (summer)
• 22 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (gross; legacy)
• 23 = Rank among top-earning movies of 1982 (rental; calendar year)
• 23 = Number of weeks of longest-running engagement
• 43 = Number of 70mm prints
• 1,091 = Number of opening-week engagements

• $29.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (videodiscs)
• $79.98 = Suggested retail price of initial home video release (VHS and Beta)
• $4,364 = Opening-weekend per-screen average
• $4.8 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross
• $12.2 million = Opening-weekend box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
• $15.2 million = Box-office rental (as of 12/31/82)
• $17.0 million = Production cost
• $33.0 million = Box-office gross
• $38.5 million = Box-office rental (adjusted for inflation)
• $43.1 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $83.7 million = Box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“Tron is 90 minutes of eye-popping originality, a computer-age Alice in Wonderland, and a thing of wonder.” — John Hartl, The Seattle Times

“Tron is with it, meaning it is in step with the times. It’s as up to date as the latest video game, whereas recent Disney pictures seemed to believe that today’s youngsters were still playing marbles and lagging baseball cards.” — Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“The lavish Walt Disney production[’s] technological wizardry isn’t accompanied by any of the old-fashioned virtues — plot, drama, clarity and emotion — for which other Disney movies, or other films of any kind, are best remembered. It is beautiful — spectacularly so, at times — but dumb. Computer fans may very well love it, because Tron is a nonstop parade of stunning computer graphics, accompanied by a barrage of scientific-sounding jargon. Though it’s certainly very impressive, it may not be the film for you if you haven’t played Atari today.” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Where was it written that to accommodate an outburst of new effects, no matter how revolutionary, we agreed to give up character, subtlety, a well-told story, clearly understood action and even — heaven help us — humor? Where?” — Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times

“When Tron concerns its little pointed head about anything, it fusses over the sacrifice of humanity to technology. Of course that is precisely what has happened to the movie. Tron does not, with a single exception, look as though it was touched by human hands. The exception is Jeff Bridges, who may be the most adventuresome and underrated actor in movies today, and who manages to imbue Tron with what small glimmer of humanity it possesses.” — Ron Base, Toronto Star

“Tron has changed my life. It blew my mind right into the digital decade. Tron is not only an eye-opener in every sense of the word, but a film that does that rare thing: opens up the imagination and mind to the future.” — Judy Stone, San Francisco Chronicle

“Dazzle aside, Tron doesn’t compute…. Walt Disney’s $18 million fantasy adventure about a war between computer programmers and the despot master control program they created is worth seeing. But only for that reason.” — Jack Mathews, Detroit Free Press

“Despite what some critics across the nation are saying, Tron is not a horrible film. It does suffer, however, from the same problem that Blade Runner, The Thing and Firefox have: weak story development, and even weaker character development. This is the first live-action feature film directed by Steven Lisberger, who has done a feature-length cartoon and some television, but he hasn’t a grasp on the human side of his film. As a result, Tron’s people take a back seat to its special effects.” — Christopher Hicks, (Salt Lake City) Deseret News

“This is an almost wholly technological movie. Although it’s populated by actors who are engaging (Bridges, Cindy Morgan) or sinister (Warner), it is not really a movie about human nature. Like Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back, but much more so, this movie is a machine to dazzle and delight us. It is not a human-interest adventure in any generally accepted way. That’s all right, of course. It’s brilliant at what it does, and in a technical way maybe it’s breaking ground for a generation of movies in which computer-generated universes will be background for mind-generated stories about emotion-generated personalities. All things are possible.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Tron gets an ‘A’ for ingenuity. The summer’s most unconventional film, it is also a milestone for Walt Disney Productions. At long last, the giant has awakened to traverse the decades. Coonskin caps were yesterday’s heritage; the computer is today’s.” — Pat H. Broeske, The (Santa Ana) Register

“Dazzling disaster…. Gorgeous, pioneering special effects cannot overcome the script’s emotional vacuum and the slack acting by some of Bridges’ co-stars.” — Michael Maza, (Phoenix) Arizona Republic

“Walt Disney Studios, the same factory that for years specialized in realizing the most whimsical and human expressions of man’s imagination, has joined the automaton parade with a film that glamorizes and endorses the video game craze that has overwhelmed America.” — Scott Sublett, The Washington Times

“Tron is loaded with visual delights but falls way short of the mark in story and viewer involvement. Screenwriter-director Steven Lisberger has adequately marshaled a huge force of technicians to deliver the dazzle, but even kids (and specifically computer game freaks) will have a difficult time getting hooked on the situations.” — Variety

“Tron is as innovative as the Disney breakthroughs in animation that produced the classics that still make money for the studio. Walt Disney never forgot the importance of plot and of making the audience care about the characters. Lisberger has a great deal of talent, but Tron would have profited from remembering such basics.” — Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Now I have seen a lot of boring, expensive wastes of time and talent in my life (especially in the last few years, as movies have begun to come apart at the seam and stop making sense), but Tron is the biggest waste of everything known to man that I have ever encountered.” — Rex Reed, syndicated columnist

“[I]t is hard to see how a film so original in conception and execution (and so firmly tied to the electronic preoccupations of its adolescent target audience) can fail.” — Richard Schickel, Time

“Tron succeeds in expanding the parameters of animation and in presenting something totally new on the screen. For that alone, the affable Tron can’t be faulted.” — Marylynn Uricchio, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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THE 70MM ENGAGEMENTS

Event and prestige movies (and instances to appease a filmmaker’s ego) on occasion are given a deluxe release in addition to a standard release. This section of the article includes a reference/historical listing of the first-run 70mm Six-Track Dolby Stereo premium-format presentations of Tron in the United States and Canada. These were arguably the best cinemas in which to have experienced Tron and the only way to have faithfully seen the movie’s large-format cinematography or heard the movie’s discrete multichannel audio mix.

Of the 100+ new movies released during 1982, Tron was among eighteen to have 70mm prints prepared for selected engagements and the only one to have been originated in 70mm (65mm). Only about five percent of Tron’s initial print run was in the deluxe 70mm format, which were significantly more expensive and more time- and labor-intensive to manufacture compared with conventional 35mm prints but offered superior image and audio quality.

The 70mm prints of Tron were intended to be projected in a 2.20:1 aspect ratio. The noise-reduction and signal-processing format for the prints was Dolby “A,” and the soundtrack was Dolby processor setting Format 42 (i.e. three discrete screen channels + one discrete surround channel + “baby boom” low-frequency enhancement).

An EPCOT promo and a trailer for Tex circulated with the Tron prints and which the distributor recommended be screened with the presentation.

The listing begins with the North American 70mm engagements of Tron that commenced July 9th, 1982, and then extends to include many of the film’s subsequent 70mm engagements (i.e. late openings, moveovers, re-release and revival) but does not include any pre-release screenings, international, or any of the movie’s countless standard 35mm engagements.

The duration of the engagements, measured in weeks, has been included for some entries in parenthesis following the cinema name.

Note that some of the presentations included in this listing were presented in 35mm during the latter weeks of engagement due to print damage and the distributor’s unwillingness to supply a 70mm replacement print or because the booking was moved to a smaller, 35mm-only auditorium within a multiplex. In these cases, the 35mm portion of the engagement has been included in the duration figure.

So, for historical reference and nostalgia, the first-run North American theaters that screened the 70mm version of Tron were…

ALBERTA

• Calgary — Famous Players’ Chinook (10)
• Edmonton — Famous Players’ Londonderry Twin (10)

ARIZONA

• Tucson — TM’s El Con 6-plex (12)

BRITISH COLUMBIA

• Vancouver — Famous Players’ Denman Place (10)

CALIFORNIA

• El Cajon — UA’s Parkway Plaza Triplex (4)
• Los Angeles — Mann’s Chinese Triplex (3)
• Montclair — SRO’s Montclair Triplex (12)
• Orange — Syufy’s Cinedome 6-plex (11)
• Sacramento — Syufy’s Century 6-plex
• San Diego — Pacific’s La Jolla Village 4-plex (6)
• San Diego — UA’s Glasshouse 6-plex (19)
• San Jose — Syufy’s Century 24 Twin

ILLINOIS

• Bloomingdale — Plitt’s Stratford Square 4-plex (5)
• Chicago — Center’s McClurg Court (5)
• Chicago Ridge — Chicago Ridge Mall Triplex (6)
• Hillside — M&R’s Hillside Square 4-plex (2)
• Northbrook — Center’s Edens Twin (5)

LOUISIANA

• Gretna — Cobb’s Westside Twin (7)

MARYLAND

• Catonsville — Einbinder & Brehm’s Westview 6-plex (6)

MICHIGAN

• Grosse Pointe Woods — Nicholas George’s Woods Twin (4)
• Livonia — Suburban Detroit’s Terrace Twin (4)
• Southfield — Suburban Detroit’s Northland Twin (3)

NEVADA

• Las Vegas — Syufy’s Cinedome 6-plex
• Reno — Syufy’s Century 6-plex (5)

NEW JERSEY

• Cedar Grove — Cinema 23 (5)
• Paramus — RKO Century’s Route Four 7-plex (5)

NEW YORK

• New York — Loews’ State Twin (5)
• White Plains — UA’s Cinema (5)
• Woodbury — UA’s Cinema 150 (6)

OHIO

• Springdale — Mid States’ Tri-County 5-plex (7)

ONTARIO

• Toronto — Famous Players’ Hollywood Twin (11)

OREGON

• Portland — Moyer’s Bagdad Triplex (9)
• Portland — Moyer’s Rose Moyer 6-plex (23) [w/“Star Trek II” from Week #6]

PENNSYLVANIA

• Pittsburgh — Cinemette’s Warner (3)

TEXAS

• Dallas — Inwood Twin (6)
• San Antonio — Santikos’ Northwest 10-plex

WISCONSIN

• Greenfield — Marcus’ Spring Mall Triplex

ADDITIONAL / SUBSEQUENT 70MM ENGAGEMENTS & SCREENINGS

• 1982-07-16 … Los Angeles, CA — Mann’s Village (4)
• 1982-07-22 … Sainte-Foy, QC — Cinemas Unis’ Canadien (8)
• 1982-07-23 … Montreal, QC — United’s Claremont (11)
• 1982-07-23 … Philadelphia, PA — Budco’s Regency Twin (5)
• 1982-07-30 … Los Angeles, CA — Mann’s Vogue (2)
• 1982-07-30 … Winnipeg, MB — Famous Players’ Metropolitan (9)
• 1982-08-13 … Detroit, MI — Madison (1)
• 1982-08-13 … Honolulu, HI — Royal’s Royal (4)
• 1982-08-13 … Los Angeles, CA — Plitt’s Century Plaza Twin (9)
• 1982-08-20 … Cleveland, OH — Colony (2)
• 1982-09-03 … Chicago, IL — Center’s McClurg Court (1)
• 1982-09-03 … Cleveland, OH — Variety (2)
• 1982-09-03 … Northbrook, IL — Center’s Edens Twin (1)
• 1982-09-17 … Burnaby, BC — Famous Players’ Lougheed Mall Triplex (2)
• 1982-09-17 … Edmonton, AB — Famous Players’ Garneau (1)
• 1982-10-08 … Boston, MA — Sack’s Charles Triplex (2)
• 1982-10-08 … Henrietta, NY — Loews’ Towne Twin (4)
• 1982-10-08 … Towson, MD — Rappaport’s Hillendale Twin (1)
• 1982-10-15 … Cincinnati, OH — Mid States’ Carousel Twin (3)
• 1982-10-15 … Portland, OR — Luxury Theatres’ Music Box (3)
• 1982-10-15 … Salt Lake City, UT — Plitt’s Regency (3)
• 1982-10-15 … San Francisco, CA — Plitt’s Northpoint (1)
• 1982-10-15 … Washington, DC — Circle’s Uptown (2)
• 1982-10-22 … Atlanta, GA — Plitt’s Phipps Plaza Triplex
• 1982-10-22 … Los Angeles, CA — Mann’s Hollywood (1)
• 1982-10-22 … Los Angeles, CA — Mann’s National (1)
• 1982-10-22 … Renton, WA — MCR’s Roxy (3) [w/“Capricorn One”]
• 1982-10-29 … Los Angeles, CA — Mann’s Hollywood (1) [w/“Superman II”]
• 1982-11-05 … Brooklyn Center, MN — Plitt’s Brookdale (2)
• 1982-11-05 … Montreal, QC — Odeon’s Place du Canada (1)
• 1982-11-19 … Tucson, AZ — Plitt’s El Dorado Twin (2)
• 1982-11-24 … Colorado Springs, CO — Commonwealth’s Ute 70 (2)
• 1982-11-24 … Seattle, WA — SRO’s Music Box (2)
• 1982-11-26 … Lynnwood, WA — SRO’s Grand Cinemas Alderwood 5-plex (3)
• 1982-12-17 … Los Angeles, CA — Mann’s Valley West 6-plex (1)

• 1983-01-28 … Orange, CA — Syufy’s City Center Twin (1) [w/“Star Trek II”]
• 1983-03-02 … Toronto, ON — Cinesphere (5 days) [70mm fest]
• 1983-04-15 … San Francisco, CA — Blumenfeld’s Regency II
• 1983-05-13 … Dearborn, MI — UA’s The Movies at Fairlane 10-plex (2)
• 1983-05-13 … Troy, MI — UA’s The Movies at Oakland 5-plex (2)
• 1983-05-20 … Livonia, MI — Nicholas George’s Mai Kai (1)
• 1983-05-20 … San Diego, CA — Pacific’s Cinerama (1)
• 1983-05-20 … Southfield, MI — Nicholas George’s Americana 4-plex (1)
• 1983-05-20 … Southgate, MI — Nicholas George’s Southgate Triplex (1)
• 1983-07-15 … Montreal, QC — Odeon’s Champlain Twin (5) [Version Francaise]
• 1983-09-23 … Montreal, QC — United’s Claremont (1)
• 1983-12-21 … Toronto, ON — Cinesphere (4 days) [70mm fest]

• 1984-03-04 … Cleveland, OH — Variety
• 1984-05-11 … Toronto, ON — Odeon’s Hyland Twin (1)
• 1984-05-11 … Vancouver, BC — Odeon’s Park (2)

• 1985-09-06 … Cleveland, OH — Colony [fest; midnight]

• 1999-05-14 … Los Angeles, CA — Pacific’s El Capitan (1) [THX]
• 1999-10-23 … Long Beach, CA — CSULB’s Carpenter Center [Wide Screen fest]

• 2004-05-06 … Los Angeles, CA — Pacific’s El Capitan (2) [THX]
• 2004-06-06 … Los Angeles, CA — Directors Guild

• 2006-06-07 … Beverly Hills, CA — AMPAS’ Samuel Goldwyn [Movie Magic series]
• 2006-08-19 … San Francisco, CA — Castro [midnight]

• 2007-06-17 … Santa Monica, CA — American Cinematheque’s Aero [w/“Star Trek II”]
• 2007-08-24 … Austin, TX — Paramount (2 days) [70mm fest]

• 2008-02-24 … Seattle, WA — Cinerama [70mm fest]
• 2008-02-26 … Seattle, WA — Cinerama [70mm fest]
• 2008-03-02 … Seattle, WA — Cinerama [70mm fest]
• 2008-03-04 … Seattle, WA — Cinerama [70mm fest]
• 2008-07-04 … San Francisco, CA — Castro [70mm fest]

• 2011-03-05 … Los Angeles, CA — American Cinematheque’s Aero
• 2011-06-04 … San Francisco, CA — Castro [70mm fest]
• 2011-07-01 … Los Angeles, CA — American Cinematheque’s Egyptian [Blu-ray substitution]
• 2011-07-01 … Silver Spring, MD — AFI Silver (4 days) [70mm fest]
• 2011-10-09 … Seattle, WA — Cinerama [70mm fest]

• 2012-03-17 … Los Angeles, CA — American Cinematheque’s Egyptian
• 2012-08-31 … Silver Spring, MD — AFI Silver (4 days) [70mm fest]
• 2012-12-29 … New York, NY — Film Society Lincoln Center (2 days)

• 2014-06-08 … Los Angeles, CA — American Cinematheque’s Aero
• 2014-07-19 … Chicago, IL — Music Box [70mm fest]

• 2015-03-17 … Toronto, ON — TIFF Bell Lightbox
• 2015-03-18 … Toronto, ON — TIFF Bell Lightbox [replaced damaged “The Black Hole”]
• 2015-04-03 … Toronto, ON — TIFF Bell Lightbox (2 days)
• 2015-08-14 … New York, NY — MOMI’s Sumner M. Redstone (3 days) [70mm fest]
• 2015-08-28 … Columbus, OH — Wexner Center for the Arts (2 days)

• 2016-06-11 … Tucson, AZ — The Loft (2 days)
• 2016-09-09 … Seattle, WA — Cinerama [70mm fest]
• 2016-09-18 … Somerville, MA — Somerville [70mm fest]

• 2017-04-07 … Portland, OR — Hollywood [70mm series]
• 2017-06-16 … Los Angeles, CA — American Cinematheque’s Egyptian [70mm series]
• 2017-06-24 … Los Angeles, CA — American Cinematheque’s Egyptian [70mm series]

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THE Q&A

William Kallay is the author of The Making of Tron: How Tron Changed Visual Effects and Disney Forever (2011). He is the co-founder of FromScriptToDVD.com, where he has written about film technology, interviewed filmmakers, and reviewed countless DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. Green Tea, Kallay’s 2004 short film, won the Outstanding Writing Commendation Award from the 48 Hour Film Festival in Los Angeles. He has also written for Go (the official magazine for AirTran Airways) and Widescreen Review.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Tron be remembered on its 35th anniversary?

William Kallay: Tron should be remembered as a very daring, risky adventure on the part of a few young visionaries and artists. They believed that by using computers for animation and visual effects, they could change moviemaking. There had not been a movie like it before. The characters, or “Programs,” actually lived inside of a computerized world. This film ultimately changed how we see and experience movies, television, and even music videos. Pixar, in my humble opinion, was heavily influenced by John Lasseter seeing the famous Light Cycle sequence in Tron. It is important to note that when Tron was made, the very idea of computers, let alone computerized animation and visual effects, was still extremely new.

Coate: What did you think of Tron? Can you recall your reaction to the first time you saw it?

Kallay: My parents and I lived in Anaheim Hills, a suburb in Orange County, California. At the time, if you wanted to go see a movie, you had the choice of the really small and dingy AMC Orange Mall 6, or the very classy Cinedome in Orange. Cinedome was truly cool because it had dome theaters with giant curved screens, stadium seating and a lot of 70mm presentations, all for a very reasonable admission price.

Video games were totally my world in my late teens. I spent countless hours on my Atari 2600. The graphics were crude, and don’t even get me started on the home version of Pac-Man. Yet being a lonely teenage kid, video games were an escape for me. The arcade was the one place where I found my identity and could actually “be cool” because I was a good video game player.

When Tron opened, I was intrigued. A video game movie? I was also a Disney buff and I knew this movie was something completely revolutionary from them. Bear in mind that Disney of 1982 was much different from Disney today. Tron was a huge risk for the studio. They were not seen as a hip studio and most of the movies they made were cookie cutter Disney family films.

My parents drove with me down to Cinedome on a hot July day. My dad gave me my allowance of a princely $15.00. My parents went to another theater in the complex to see, no kidding, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and I went to see Tron in 70mm Six-Track Dolby Stereo.

Sitting in the rocking theater seat inside the big dome, the curtains parted and Buena Vista Distribution in computerized-looking letters appeared. This was something different from Disney. Suddenly, and very loudly, Tron formed on the screen and the Tron logo flew onto the screen and I was immersed into that opening Light Cycle sequence. I was hooked!

Then the plot started to unfold. There was quite a bit of computer talk and words. There was talk between the old way of computers to the new way of computers. I wanted to see more Light Cycles. Where’s Jeff Bridges? What the heck is ROM and RAM memory? Why do I not understand this computer lingo? Why am I drawn to these spectacular visuals unfolding before my eyes?

Tron ended just as my parents came out of their movie. My dad asked, “How was Tron?” I stood there and said, “I’m not sure. It was cool, but I was confused.” The film made an impact on me, but I was not sure what to make of it. There was something extra special about this film to me and I was unable to articulate its impact on me.

A side note, later that year, my buddy and I rented Tron on VHS. I remember telling him about a hilarious joke with Sark (played by David Warner) on a giant map. Wait for it. Wait for it.... “Where’s Pac-Man!?” I yelled. That was probably my first lesson in aspect ratios and how the ingenious gag of Pac-Mac was cut out of the frame for home video.

Coate: In what way is Tron significant?

Kallay: Tron opened the doors for filmmakers to create films in a digital landscape. Animation and visual effects were largely done by human hands and very expensive tools like the Multiplane Camera (Disney), VistaVision cameras (used by ILM for years), plastic models, stop-motion characters (think of the original King Kong), and cel animation. The makers of Tron felt that using computers would offer more freedom from manually building models, painting fantastic landscapes or animating by hand. Working in the digital world could eventually create animation and visual effects that were never possible before.

It is also one of the most visually stunning films I have ever seen. The artistic brainpower behind Tron was incredible: Syd Mead, Jean “Moebius” Giraud, John Norton, Harrison Ellenshaw, Richard W. Taylor II, and many others.

Coate: Why do you think Tron was unsuccessful in its original release?

Kallay: Tron made around $33 million (roughly $84 million today) in its original release, which for the time was decent. It just did not make the kind of money that some of the higher profile releases like E.T. and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan did. The summer of 1982 was an amazingly strong period for film, both critically and economically. There were scary films like Poltergeist and The Thing. Blade Runner, though in its original release, was a considered a box office disappointment. It was eventually seen as a classic. Rocky III made a ton of money and looked like it might be the year’s biggest hit until E.T. came to Earth. Tron had a lot of competition.

One would think that Tron would have cleaned up at the box office because it was a movie about video games. The film had a big star in Jeff Bridges. Bruce Boxleitner was well known as a television actor. Cindy Morgan was Lacey Underall in Caddyshack (1980) for heaven’s sake! David Warner was hot after starring in the cult hit, Time Bandits (1981). The film had groundbreaking computer animation and visual effects. There was an arcade video game tie-in in arcades across the country. Kids and teens lined up to play the game. The film had a stellar line up of visual effects geniuses and designers.

The film fell short at the box office for a few reasons, in my opinion. Not everyone back in 1982 was versed in, or even used, computers. Disney had to fight for theaters to show the film. It was a huge summer for 70mm prints and many of the early summer movies with those prints were still playing in big auditoriums. Audiences that summer were into emotional movies like E.T., Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Rocky III, whereas Tron initially comes off cold. As a teenage video game guru back then, I wanted to see more video game action, though I now love the story concepts that Tron presents.

The crazy thing is that Tron eventually made money on the original arcade game, the home video release, the home video game, DVDs and Blu-rays, and nostalgia. In 1999, Disney struck a new 70mm print and it has been in circulation ever since in revival theaters (though I am not sure if Disney has re-struck a new print since then). New audiences discovered Tron on the big movie screen where it is meant to be seen. Disney approved a sequel, a cartoon series, and the Tron Light Cycle Power Run roller coaster in Shanghai has been a hugely popular attraction. I am no math wizard, but the Tron property has feasibly made nearly $1 billion for Disney by now. Not bad for a box office “flop.”

Coate: In what way was it beneficial for Tron to have been photographed and, in some theaters, presented in the 70mm format?

Kallay: Technology of merging live actors like Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, David Warner and Dan Shor into a computerized environment did not exist in 1981 when Tron was filmed. The great visual effects artists and animation gurus needed to “fake” the actors in the Electronic World. It has been awhile since I have gone over my book and notes, but I believe that director Steven Lisberger and cinematographer Bruce Logan, ASC ultimately decided to shoot Tron in 65mm due to the need to blow up each Electronic World frame to Kodaliths (large film cels). They could maintain high picture quality that way.

If they had shot the film in 35mm, the Kodaliths would have had tons of large film grain throughout the picture. Disney balked at the slightly extra expense of shooting in 65mm, but they finally realized going this route was the smart decision. Using Kodaliths was the only way in which to make the live action “computerized.”

When Tron was released in theaters, 70mm had been undergoing a revival. That summer of 1982, which is regarded by film fans as one of the greatest ever, had a huge number of 70mm blow-up prints struck for theatrical exhibition. Tron just so happened to be filmed in 65mm and some VistaVision.

Coate: Do you think the Academy was justified in not nominating Tron in the category of Best Visual Effects?

Kallay: Absolutely not. The Academy voters were in love with E.T. That year there was Poltergeist and Blade Runner in the mix for an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. Tron should have been included in that very honorable group of films. Not that I am against E.T., but Tron was truly a groundbreaker. To this day, my good friend Richard W. Taylor II (co-visual effects supervisor of Tron) still thinks he and his amazing crew were robbed. I agree.

The mindset of visual effects artists, especially back then, was not into using computers. Computers were very rarely used for film work. Computers were the devil’s work. Effects should not be automated! The idea that a computer would do “almost all of the work” in visual effects was scary, though we now know that computers need people. It took several years, but computer animation and visual effects are used by hundreds of artists on one film today. Tron only had a few computer animators and they were divided by four different outside companies.

Coate: In what way was Steven Lisberger an ideal choice to direct Tron and where does the film rank among his body of work?

Kallay: Tron was Steven’s creation when he opened a studio in Venice Beach, California. He was the ideal choice to bring his vision to the big screen. His studio was a showcase for some of the most amazingly brilliant artists to come from the early 80s. There are some disagreements among some of the artists I interviewed on the creation of Tron, but Steven’s influence and vision is truly spread across this film. This was not an easy sell to the major studios back then. Steven is very persuasive and knows his vision.

Steven did an exceptional job on Tron. He did not have any feature film experience except for Animalympics (1980). Tron was a huge undertaking with new computer technology, a big movie star like Jeff Bridges, and an eclectic crew of super artists like Bill Kroyer, Jerry Rees and Darrell Rooney. Did I, as a fan and viewer, have some issues with the storyline? Sure. Yet in hindsight, there are some very intriguing ideas that I delve into in my book.

I have always wanted to see more films from Steven because I truly believe he is incredibly talented and a great guy. In my opinion, Tron is Steven’s best work. It has stood the test of time and he should be proud of his work. He did a couple of features soon after Tron. There was Hot Pursuit (1987) and then Slipstream (1989). I watched Hot Pursuit and felt it did not have the same vision and “guts” that Tron had, but John Cusack helped make the film enjoyable. I once found a DVD of Slipstream at a store and regrettably did not buy it. So I cannot judge Steven’s work on that film.

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Coate: How effective or memorable a hero was Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn and where do you think that performance ranks among his body of work?

Kallay: How can you go wrong with Jeff Bridges? He can read the ingredients off of a can of bargain chili and I would listen to him. Kevin Flynn is Jeff Bridges. I had the golden opportunity to talk to Jeff and he was the most gracious person. What you see in Flynn is Jeff’s own fun and genuine personality. The character of “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski (1998) is like Flynn but off the charts. I always loved the character of Flynn because he was a cool video game guy who happened to own an arcade. To a teenager back in 1982, this was a guy who I wanted to be. And by the way, the scene in Flynn’s Arcade when Flynn loses his temper is totally based on Steven Lisberger’s occasional rants on the Tron set.

Coate: How effective or memorable a villain was David Warner’s Ed Dillinger/Sark and where do you think that performance ranks among his body of work?

Kallay: Let me put it this way. One of the earliest VHS rentals I ever got was Time Bandits (1981). The movie freaked me out because David Warner could look at you and you would imagine he would destroy you! As Dillinger/Sark, Warner owned that role as the cold corporate executive bent on taking over the world with computer technology, while he ate up the scenery in the Electronic World as Sark. I think it is his most memorable performance. My regret with the book is that I could not get in touch with Mr. Warner for an interview.

Coate: What was the objective with your Tron book?

Kallay: Years ago, I was a freelance writer who simply loved movies and the craft of making movies. I was a film school graduate, but honestly, never was able to break into the Hollywood filmmaking industry. When I was writing for a home theater magazine, it gave me a great opportunity to somewhat get into the “biz.” Because I was a member of the press, I gained access to most of the major movie studios, red carpet premieres, and award shows. Having that access allowed me to meet some of my heroes from the film business.

One of my heroes was Harrison Ellenshaw. Since I was such a Disney fanatic, his name and his father’s name were very familiar to me as a young film buff. I knew that Peter Ellenshaw had been one of Walt Disney’s go-to guys and just having 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954) and Mary Poppins (1964) on his resume alone simply did not give Peter enough praise for his work as a matte painter and visual effects icon.

With Harrison, I knew of his name on the credits for The Black Hole (1979), Tron (1982), and for heaven’s sake, Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The dude had some street cred! One evening I was attending a panel discussion at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I honestly do not recall the theme, but after the discussion, I sheepishly approached Harrison and asked him if he would be willing to talk about his work in large format and 65mm cinematography. He said sure and asked me for my card or email address.

A few weeks passed and I had not heard from him. Of course, even as a young adult, I was bummed. Then suddenly he emailed me! Harrison Ellenshaw? I have to say that the fan factor, that “geek” factor, does not subside even in adulthood. He graciously answered my technical film questions.

Harrison was totally kind to me and answered tons of questions about his work in visual effects, the people he worked with, and his own experience on Tron. Going back to my first viewings of Tron, I cannot say that the film won me over. But by the time I met and befriended Harrison, I had a newfound respect for the how the film was made.

This got me thinking. Why not write a book about the making of Tron? Granted, Disney released a stunning LaserDisc which went into the making of the film. I, being completely naive, thought I would tackle this massive subject in book form.

When it came down to the objective of writing about Tron, I was more intrigued by the people who made it, their ideas, their artistry, and their feelings about making the film. Audiences, not to their fault, sometimes forget that filmmaking is an intensive process. It involves imagination, creativity, clashing egos, studio budgets, and sometimes not knowing how a film will turn out. Tron had all of this and more. Little did I know, it would take me six years to track down as many people as I could, and tons of rejection from publishers.

Coate: What are your thoughts on Tron: Legacy? How does it compare to the original?

Kallay: I had huge hopes for Tron: Legacy. The announcement came as a total surprise to me and many of the artists I interviewed for my book. I was happy to see Steven Lisberger as a producer on the film. Knowing and being friends with many people who worked on the original film, I had hoped they would somehow be involved, but they were not.

I went to a special screening at the Academy. As I sat there, I was amongst some of the original Tron artists like Syd Mead. I hoped that the new director, Joseph Kosinski, would expand on the original ideas of Tron and fill in gaps in the original storyline. I hoped that there would be more action with newer CGI effects.

As the film unfolded, there were some pretty cool action scenes, especially in the arena Light Cycle race. I thought the lifeblood of Legacy was Jeff Bridges as Flynn dealing with his son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund) and Olivia Wilde was great as Quorra. As a whole, I felt that the film could have been so much more. I was moved by the scenes of Flynn trying to reconcile with his son Sam, but that to me was not the character and motivation of Flynn. He was an independent dude! Even in his middle aged years, I thought that Flynn would be a responsible father but also fun. It would have been cool to see Flynn and Sam racing Light Cycles across the Grid, for example.

Comparing Legacy to the original is difficult for me. Tron, was a brilliant attempt to immerse audiences into a world they had never seen before. It was a uniquely brave film.

Legacy to me falls into that trap that so many movies and TV shows do today: focusing on the parent/child relationship or a missing or dead parent. I understood why this was done, but I do not go see a Tron movie to see father/son bonding. I go to a Tron film to see Flynn being a smart ass, Tron being Mr. Hero, and Programs fighting in Deadly Disc battles.

Tron: Legacy is not a bad or poorly made film. I just felt it could have filled in the missing pieces of Tron and made itself unique. Kosinski shows his ability to direct and I think he really showed his directorial chops later with Oblivion (2013).

Coate: What is the legacy of Tron?

Kallay: Tron has made a huge impact on visual effects, animated kid flicks, or short homemade films on YouTube. Without the amazing cast and crew of Tron, we would not see digital characters like Anna & Elsa, Woody & Buzz Lightyear or Shrek. We would not see CGI effects in Jurassic Park (1993) or hundreds of visual effects in every Marvel or DC film. A teenager can now do spectacular visual effects on their laptop with inexpensive software that was unheard of in 1982. Tron created, just by using computer effects and human ingenuity, a multi-billion visual effects industry. Even the concept of a video game tie-in was largely due to Tron.

Disney also changed. The studio is now a powerhouse not only as a studio, but as a gigantic corporation. If Tron was such a big flop, why did Disney make a sequel in 2010 and open a roller coaster in Shanghai Disneyland? Tron continues to make money for Disney.

Thanks to the inventive makers of Tron, they created their own legacy that remains 35 years later.

Coate: Thank you, Bill, for sharing your thoughts on Tron on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of its release.

--END--

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy Buena Vista Distribution, Buena Vista Home Video, Celluloid Chicago, Lisberger/Kushner Productions, Walt Disney Home Video, Walt Disney Productions.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Billboard, Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety; and the book The Making of Tron: How Tron Changed Visual Effects and Disney Forever (William Kallay; 2011). All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

SPECIAL THANKS

Don Beelik, Celluloid Chicago, Diane Donham, Bobby Henderson, William Kallay, Sarah Kenyon, Steve Kraus, Bill Kretzel, Mark Lensenmayer, Stan Malone, Monty Marin, John Stewart, Sean Weitzel, Chicago’s Music Box Theatre, and to all of the librarians who helped with the research for this project.

IN MEMORIAM

• Al Roelofs (Art Director), 1906-1990
• Robert Abel (Systems Supervisor), 1937-2001
• Elois Jensson (Costume Designer), 1922-2004
• Robert J. Schiffer (Make-up Supervisor), 1916-2005
• Richard ‘Dr.’ Baily (Systems Programmer), 1953-2006
• Bill Kovacs (Systems Programmer), 1948-2006
• Barnard Hughes (“Dr. Walter Gibbs”/“Dumont”), 1915-2006
• Bob Minkler (Re-recording Mixer), 1937-2015
• John B. Mansbridge (Art Director), 1917-2016

-Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

The participants (in alphabetical order)…

Jon Burlingame is the author of The Music of James Bond (Oxford University Press, 2012). He also authored Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks (Watson-Guptill, 2000) and TV’s Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes from Dragnet to Friends (Schirmer, 1996). He writes regularly for the entertainment industry trade Variety and has also been published in The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He started writing about spy music for the 1970s fanzine File Forty and has since produced seven CDs of original music from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. for the Film Score Monthly label. His website is www.jonburlingame.com.

John Cork is the author (with Collin Stutz) of James Bond Encyclopedia (DK, 2007) and (with Bruce Scivally) James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002) and (with Maryam d’Abo) Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond (Abrams, 2003). He is the president of Cloverland, a multi-media production company, producing documentaries and supplemental material for movies on DVD and Blu-ray, including material for Chariots of Fire, The Hustler, and many of the James Bond and Pink Panther titles. Cork also wrote the screenplay to The Long Walk Home (1990), starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek. He wrote and directed the feature documentary You Belong to Me: Sex, Race and Murder on the Suwannee River for producers Jude Hagin and Hillary Saltzman (daughter of original Bond producer, Harry Saltzman). He has recently contributed articles on the literary history of James Bond for ianfleming.com and The Book Collector.

Mark O’Connell is a punditeer, the grandson of Bond producer Cubby Broccoli’s chauffeur, and the author of Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan (Splendid Books, 2012). His next book will be published this autumn.

Lee Pfeiffer is the author (with Dave Worrall) of The Essential Bond: The Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (Boxtree, 1998/Harper Collins, 1999) and (with Philip Lisa) of The Incredible World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of James Bond (Citadel, 1992). He also wrote The Films of Sean Connery (Citadel, 2001) and (with Michael Lewis) The Films of Harrison Ford (Citadel, 2002). Lee was a producer on the Goldfinger and Thunderball Special Edition LaserDisc sets and is the founder (with Dave Worrall) and Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Retro magazine, which celebrates films of the 1960s and 1970s and is “the Essential Guide to Cult and Classic Movies.”

Bruce Scivally is the author (with John Cork) of James Bond: The Legacy (Abrams, 2002). His other books include Superman on Film, Television, Radio & Broadway (McFarland, 2006), Billion Dollar Batman: A History of the Caped Crusader on Film, Radio and Television from 10¢ Comic Book to Global Icon (Henry Gray, 2011), Booze, Bullets & Broads: The Story of Matt Helm, Superspy of the Mad Men Era (Henry Gray, 2013) and Dracula FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Count from Transylvania (Backbeat, 2015). As well, he has written and produced numerous documentaries and featurettes that have appeared as supplemental material on LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc, including several of the Charlie Chan, James Bond, and Pink Panther releases. He is Vice President of New Dimension Media in Chicago, Illinois.

The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.

And now that the participants have been introduced, might I suggest preparing a martini (shaken, not stirred, of course) and cueing up the soundtrack album to The Spy Who Loved Me, and then enjoy the conversation with these James Bond authorities.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way is The Spy Who Loved Me worthy of celebration on its 40th anniversary?

Jon Burlingame: This was the third of the Roger Moore Bonds, and in my view the best-realized of the three. Much at the time was made of the “equal status” of Moore’s 007 and Barbara Bach’s Anya, his Soviet counterpart. And while they inevitably ended up in bed together, they were very much spy-versus-spy on an equivalent footing for much of the film. Even Bob Peak’s brilliant key art placed Anya and Bond back-to-back, with Anya on the left, strongly implying that this was not just a “Bond girl” but a woman who could be 007’s match.

The plot was an improvement — a supertanker swallowing nuclear submarines, not a voodoo blaxploitation story or a paid assassin trying to kill Bond — and demanded a gigantic new stage, conceived by production designer Ken Adam to contain his larger-than-life ideas. Pinewood’s new 007 Stage was the result, and it was showcased in dynamite fashion in the film. And, for me as Bond’s resident music historian, it’s hugely important for the song Nobody Does It Better, which reached Number Two on the charts, won an Oscar nomination and became one of the most iconic songs in the history of the Bond franchise.

This was the first of the Bond films to be produced solely by Albert R. Broccoli, following the departure of his longtime partner Harry Saltzman. And it was the first Bond movie to use the title but no characters or storyline from the original novel (although the films had been getting farther and farther away from Ian Fleming’s plotlines anyway).

John Cork: The Spy Who Loved Me was a celebration the moment it premiered. It’s not so much a movie or a story as it is a wondrous tour through the exotic, sexy, dangerous, and beautiful world of Roger Moore’s 007. Just as Goldfinger, the third Connery film, was a celebration of what made Sean Connery’s Bond so appealing, The Spy Who Loved Me, the third Moore film, is a celebration of everything that makes Roger Moore a great James Bond. From the snowy peaks to the ocean depths, from the ancient pyramids to the modern nuclear submarines, the mix is just right. Amazingly, it was a film born out of complete and utter chaos. This is a film that works because of the key ingredient that makes the James Bond films so fantastic: collaboration. There are the obvious names that contributed so much. Let’s start with Ken Adam. Of all his sets, the Liparus interior is the greatest. I remember the sounds of audience members gasping when the lights blasted on. But all the sets are just so perfect. The title song is iconic, Carly Simon’s voice sends chills down my spine every time I hear it. Marvin Hamlish’s score is perfect for the film. John Glenn and his crew, working with Rick Sylvester captured the greatest stunt in film history in a shot that has every viewer holding their breath. Second Unit Director Ernie Day did masterful work. The helicopter/Lotus chase was his. Derek Meddings did his best model work for Spy. How good? They originally had permission to shoot a real Shell tanker for free, but the insurance was still too expensive. They still invited the folks from Shell to the premiere, and they wanted to know what company loaned them a supertanker for filming. They didn’t know it was a model! Willy Bogner was back shooting the skiing. That great shot going under the ice bridge still works. Lamar Boren was back with the underwater unit in the Bahamas. But there were other names few are likely to know. Robin Browne, an amazing cameraman with a brilliant eye shot so much of the effects work. Gordon MacCallum did the mix, and no Bond film has ever sounded better.

Mark O’Connell: Bond ‘77 totally warrants celebration. Of course, the sad and recent passing of Roger Moore and the rapid fire tribute screenings of this film which were held across the land have put it under a timely spotlight again. Fate celebrated this film before film fans could, but either way — when most Bond fans of any standing have to pick a Roger Moore Bond film this is the one. It doesn’t have to be everyone’s favorite but the audiences know this was the one that re-ignited the onscreen Bond juggernaut and it is often the Roger Moore Bond film.

Lee Pfeiffer: The Spy Who Loved Me was a very significant film in the Bond canon. After The Man with the Golden Gun was released in 1974, producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman saw their partnership break up when Saltzman had to divest his shares of the Bond series in order to pay off mounting personal debt. There was bad will because he never offered Cubby an opportunity to buy his shares and own the franchise outright. Instead, he sold his half of the Bond series directly to United Artists, thus tying Cubby to the studio as his new partner. This made the acrimonious relationship between Cubby and Harry even worse. Not helping matters was the fact that The Man with the Golden Gun — Roger Moore’s second screen outing as 007 — did not perform as well as expected at the box office. The film’s emphasis on slapstick humor combined with the worst script of the series led some to wonder if the Bond films were in danger of going out of style. Cubby realized he had to make a bold move to bring Bond back in dramatic fashion. Instead of rushing into production, he painstakingly made plans to adapt The Spy Who Loved Me for the screen. It would be two-and-a-half years before the film would hit theaters — a rather lengthy gap in those days. Fleming had detested his own source novel, which was a bizarre, stagnant tale set mostly in enclosed rooms and lacking the larger-than-life villains and locations his books were known for. Thus, Fleming insisted in his contract with the producers that only the title could be used for a future film, not any of the novel’s elements. Cubby seemed to realize he had one more shot to make the Bond franchise reinvigorated — and to prove he could do so without Harry Saltzman. United Artists pulled out all the stops and granted the film the biggest budget of the series to date. The film enjoyed unusually strong reviews and became a box office sensation, allowing Roger Moore to prove that he was indeed a successful Bond in his own right.

Bruce Scivally: The Spy Who Loved Me is the film in which Roger Moore really came into his own as James Bond. Moore’s previous 007 director, Guy Hamilton, tried to balance his natural gift for witty bon mots with an edge of Connery-esque toughness (like slapping Andrea Anders and threatening to break her arm in The Man with the Golden Gun). Lewis Gilbert, on the other hand, simply let Moore be Moore, a kind of Cary Grant-lite who looked great in a tux, and didn’t seem to be taking any of the proceedings very seriously, letting us all in on the joke and giving us permission to simply enjoy it and go along for the ride. As a result, Moore recast 007 in his image — a Bond more suave and debonair than Sean Connery’s, less feral and threatening than Connery’s, but still able to make audiences believe that a tricked-out car could do incredible things at the push of a button. Two films later, Moore would again reinvent the character, returning to a slightly tougher portrayal, but after The Spy Who Loved Me his Bond would always have a twinkle in his eye that seemed to say, “Yes, it’s outlandish, but go with it. Have fun. I am.” And yes, even on first viewing, I recognized that the plot of The Spy Who Loved Me was basically a retread of Lewis Gilbert’s earlier Bond opus, You Only Live Twice, except Spy had more action and less travelogue — and a 007 who actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

Coate: Can you describe what it was like seeing The Spy Who Loved Me for the first time?

Burlingame: I vividly remember thrilling to the pre-credit sequence, with composer Marvin Hamlisch’s ultra-modern, synth-laden, Bond Theme adaptation for the spectacular stunt, as Bond skis off the side of the mountain. The music stops (for a full 20 seconds!) and then bursts into the screaming-brass Bond Theme midsection as 007’s Union Jack-adorned parachute opens. Then, of course, we cut to the opening titles and our first exposure to Carly Simon singing Nobody Does It Better — again, one of the great all-time Bond themes.

I rarely use the word “awesome” (I’m way out of that demographic) but I remember thinking Ken Adam’s production designs on this film were awesome. From Stromberg’s giant sea fortress Atlantis to the car/submarine Lotus Esprit, everything was eye-popping. The locations — from Egypt to Sardinia — were stunning in Claude Renoir’s cinematography, and while Hamlisch’s score isn’t to everyone’s taste, it was certainly a fresh take on Bond music at the time; and Paul Buckmaster’s Mujaba Club music was pretty hip in 1977.

Cork: I was 15. My grandfather had set me up with a summer trip to Europe in 1977. I knew The Spy Who Loved Me was coming out, and I even found Eon Productions’ address and mailed them asking how to get premiere tickets. They sent me the brochure and would have sold me tickets, but the tour wasn’t going to be in London on 7/7/77, the premiere date. About 10 days later I arrived, and that night, I went to the Odeon Leicester Square, bought tickets to both the evening show and the late show. I had never been in a movie theater like the Odeon. I had never heard surround sound before. I remember jumping when I heard explosions behind me in the cinema! It was one of the greatest film-going experiences of my life. Little can describe the way that audience reacted. I remember walking down Piccadilly toward Hyde Park in the middle of the night after having seen the film twice, the banners for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee handing from light posts, the streets all but empty, replaying the film in my mind.

O’Connell: I caught it on an ailing VHS copy found by chance in the bottom of a bargain basement bin being suffocated by a Pink Panther or two and what Emmanuelle film had come out to rent that month. It was a bit like finally getting that landmark Beatles album where you already loved a lot of the tracks but hadn’t experienced them in their context. The parachute jump, the Lotus dive, the Studio 54 wet-bike arrival, Gogol and his phone-call day-wear, Stromberg, the risqué blue titles not hiding everything of a flesh-based nature and some of the killer lines were already part of the Greatest Hits of Bond movies. I knew what a lot of the heralded ingredients were. But now I could see them in the way the Eon chefs wanted.

Pfeiffer: I was in college and had just come back from a whirlwind tour around Europe and Africa for a month. I was happy that my return to America coincided with the opening of the film. I saw it in a New Jersey theater where they had a Lotus Esprit on display, though I’m still not sure if it was the one seen in the film. Like most Bond fans, I breathed a sigh of relief. After Golden Gun, Bond finally had his mojo back.

Scivally: I earned my driver’s license in the spring of 1977, so this was the first James Bond film that I saw in a theater. By then, I’d been introduced to 007 through the telecasts of the films on ABC-TV, and loved them. It’s hard to appreciate the impact those movies had in the 1960s and 70s, when they were the apotheosis of action films, with eye-popping stunts and exotic locations, and featuring some of the most fetching beauties in cinema. The Spy Who Loved Me had all that, and something different — the humor that had always been an undertone of the films became an overtone with The Spy Who Loved Me, a change that befit Roger Moore. From the eye-popping pre-credits ski stunt to Bond “keeping the British end up,” this 007 fired on all cylinders from start to finish. As a 16-year-old, I absolutely loved it; as a 56-year-old, the 16-year-old in me still revels in it.

Coate: In what way was Curt Jurgens’ Karl Stromberg a memorable villain?

Burlingame: Jurgens was a formidable screen presence, in the aftermath of his performances as German officers in The Enemy Below, The Longest Day and Battle of Britain, so he brought a gravitas to Stromberg that was different than the distinguished, elitist tone of Christopher Lee (in The Man With the Golden Gun) and the ruthless, mostly disgusted attitude of Yaphet Kotto (in Live and Let Die).

Cork: Jurgens is a great actor, and I love that Stromberg is a “brain” villain, elegant, evil, far from the physical threat to Bond, yet, somehow more dangerous for it. A good “brain” villain will have you on what you think is the President’s jet, or sitting down at his dinner table because he’s clearly defenseless. Jurgens knows how to appear larger-than-life in every shot, and that made him perfect for those amazing Ken Adam sets.

Of course, we have to mention Richard Kiel. Second best henchman of the series behind Oddjob. Lewis Gilbert’s cameraman, Claude Renoir, knew how to photograph Kiel and really work shots to have fun with his height and size. That was missing in Moonraker. Renoir gets grief because his eyes were slowly failing during shooting, but he was very important to the visuals of Spy. Watch his films and he knows where to place the camera to help tell the story.

Okay, time for absurd Curt Jurgens trivia! He holds the distinction (as best as I can tell) of appearing in more films with other Bond villain actors than any other Bond villain actor! He’s in movies with Robert Shaw, Walter Gotell (a villain in From Russia with Love), Gert Frobe, Luciana Paluzzi, Telly Savalas, Steven Berkoff, Orson Welles (yes, I count the 1967 Casino Royale), and, wait for it, Christoph Waltz. He’s also in movies with the top names in 60s spy culture: Sean Connery, Richard Burton (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), James Coburn, Robert Culp, Peter Graves, and even almost-Bond, John Gavin!

O’Connell: He certainly works two of the mainstays of Bond villainy — being sat at a table or standing menacingly with both hands behind your back. Curt Jurgens is a fascinating European actor who doesn’t struggle at conveying duplicitous charm. Yet for me Stromberg is one of the more passive, less beguiling Bond adversaries. The villainy of the character is achieved via other means — particularly Ken Adam’s pointed production design suggesting the wealth and vision, but also the loneliness of the man as well as the spider web of villainy is summed up by that black, hulking arachnid of a base, Atlantis. The real villainy of The Spy Who Loved Me is achieved by the trail of sub-villains. The might and dangerous intentions of Stromberg are not conveyed through Jurgens, but rather Jaws, Naomi and the gang passing on that story baton of a microfilm. I always suggest that a good Bond foe is merely Bond himself gone wrong. Michael Lonsdale’s Drax in the following Moonraker does that societal one-upmanship and powerplay with more of a delicious, ruthless streak. It is also not clear why a life under the sea is so endearing to Stromberg. And Bond gets no real confrontation with the villain here. Shooting under a table over a light lunch of salad leaves is not the same as being inflated by air, set on fire or sucked out into space.

Pfeiffer: Curt Jurgens was an exceptionally good actor, internationally respected. He had known Cubby, who respected his talents. The knock against Jurgens at the time was that he was a bit old and too sedate to pose a significant menace to Bond, but I always defended his presence in the film. Even if the role of Stromberg was somewhat under-written, his scenes opposite Roger Moore are very enjoyable. Stromberg isn’t one of the more memorable, world-class villains, but Jurgens’ presence in a Bond movie is quite satisfying.

Scivally: Best known for playing military commanders and barons, Curt Jurgens had an imperial presence, but he played Stromberg with a dignified, regal reserve that seemed out of step with the rest of the film’s performances, making him seem dull by comparison. Rather than an out-sized megalomaniac taking great glee in his villainy, Jurgens seemed more like a corporate bureaucrat who, if he weren’t going to kill Bond, would sell him shares in Atlantis. In previous 007 films, the henchman was often colorful, but never more so than the villain; in Spy, Jurgens’ Stromberg is totally upstaged by Jaws, a steel-toothed killer who is initially terrifying but becomes increasingly comedic as the film progresses, somehow managing to be both menacing and endearing at the same time. When Jaws plops into the shark tank, we want him to bite that shark and live to terrorize 007 again; by contrast, when Oddjob was electrocuted, we were relieved that the seemingly indestructible strongman was finally stone cold dead.

Coate: In what way was Barbara Bach’s Anya Amasova a memorable Bond Girl?

Burlingame: And that’s the point: She was a Bond Girl but not a Bond Girl. Anya was a highly trained, highly capable and thoroughly untrustworthy (shades of Putin!) KGB agent. She and 007 must join forces but remain wary of one another. As an actress, Barbara Bach was no Diana Rigg or Eva Green, but in that era the look and the style was pretty important. I daresay this is her best-remembered film (she made Caveman and married Ringo Starr in 1981).

Cork: There is a strange silkiness to Bach’s Anya that really fits the film. I love her in the movie, but, and this is going to sound so, so wrong, if late in the movie her face got hit and a faceplate fell off revealing Stepford Wife robot workings inside, I would have thought, “Oh, of course she was a robot! It all makes sense now!” That sing-song voice, those weird little delays before she reacts to dialogue, think about it the next time you watch the film. There is an undeniable fembot quality. That moment when she bumps into Bond wandering around the columns of Luxor and spins around in karate mode, sees it’s Bond, then drop out of that program and into the next, watch that. That is not an actress playing a Russian spy. That’s an actress brilliantly playing a robot playing a Russian spy. Whatever you want to think, that performance works like gangbusters. It is perfect for the film.

O’Connell: The role of Amasova is key as it heralds a new era of more equal-minded Bond women. All intents and purposes clearly were to really challenge 007 and his professional world and for the most part, Bach’s icy cold and very still performance works. She certainly made an impact on a lot of male Bond fans at the time, and it wasn’t just the Lotus Esprit’s buttons she knew how to press. Anya also affords Moore one of his starkest, least expected beats of Bond and that is when he is faced with the murder of Amasova’s lover. His line about being a spy and on a job is brilliantly and pointedly delivered and reminds that Moore’s Bond always had a serious core in the role.

Pfeiffer: Barbara Bach was one of the most stunning beauties to ever grace a Bond movie. Her acting skills were somewhat limited, to put it charitably, but she represented the key ingredients of a Bond heroine: courageous, resourceful and intelligent. There is a myth in some quarters that Bond women were all gorgeous airheads, but for the most part, this was not the case. They were very independent, quick thinking characters who were able to contribute mightily to thwarting the villains’ capers. It’s safe to say that Bond needed them as much as they needed Bond. Bach made such an eye-popping appearance, especially in the provocative outfits she wore in the film, that I recall John Simon, the ordinarily grumpy film critic for New York Magazine, salivating over her in his review as though he was a teenage boy ogling his teacher.

Scivally: While Barbara Bach would never give Meryl Streep a run for her money as a dramatic actress, her acting chops were adequate enough for The Spy Who Loved Me, and with her doe eyes and pouty lips, she was quite a looker, with a smashing figure, which is about all Bond movies of the period required of their leading ladies. The character was memorable for the series making its first nod to 70s feminism by attempting to portray a female equivalent to Bond — though Anya still needs 007 to rescue her from Stromberg in the end. She’s a character I’d like to have seen return; it should have been her and not General Gogol coming to collect the ATAC at the end of For Your Eyes Only, or sharing a hot tub with Bond in A View to a Kill.

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Coate: Where do you think The Spy Who Loved Me ranks among the James Bond movie series?

Burlingame: I would rank it fairly high among the Moore Bonds — not as great as For Your Eyes Only but more watchable than A View to a Kill and Moonraker. I am not the biggest fan of the more jokey Moore installments but I know that, for fans who didn’t grow up with the Connery films, these are seminal Bond experiences. As the films changed with the times, and action became more intense, it’s easy to rank some of the Dalton, Brosnan and Craig films more highly than the Moores. But they were products of the 1970s and ‘80s, and in their time, pretty darned impressive action-adventure films. It’s always important to remember that.

Cork: Recently a pack of big James Bond fans gathered and did an hours-long assessment of all the Bond movies, recorded the audio and put it up on YouTube. I’m just sick enough to listen to the whole thing. These are all really smart folks whose opinions I respect. They ranked all the films individually, then averaged out the results. The Spy Who Loved Me topped their list. Better than Goldfinger, Majesty’s, Casino Royale, Skyfall, From Russia with Love in their assessment. That’s how great this film is. I don’t rank it at the top. When I ranked them with my son in 2012, we both ranked Spy 8th, which sounds low, but it’s not. There are nine Bond films on that list that I think are just magnificent, and Spy is one that I love without apologies.

O’Connell: It is one of the Bond entries which the non-fan enjoys and remembers. And for that alone it holds great merit as the wider, less Bond savvy spectators are key to the box office, global fondness and ultimate momentum for the series. Having recently seen the film again on the big screen, it still holds up well. For a film that has such a large cast of locations, countries, hotel lobbies, receptionists, barbed visitations and methods of transport, the success of the project is found in how gorgeously effortless all these factors are stitched together. Lewis Gilbert was already the master of Big Bond, but here the skill is how the whole piece doesn’t ski off that Austrian mountain without a parachute. It has massive ambitions but still zips along. For that alone it is a vital Bond film.

Pfeiffer: Most people consider the film to be the high water mark of the Moore era and it’s understandable why people feel that way. The movie has sweep and spectacle and some wonderful exotic locations. I would rank it in the middle of the pack in terms of the overall series. I’ll admit that I’ve always rather favored Octopussy, but that’s a minority opinion to be sure. The biggest gripe about The Spy Who Loved Me is the rather unimaginative screenplay. The dialogue is good, but the film is basically a remake of You Only Live Twice, with the action set in the ocean instead of in space.

Scivally: For me, The Spy Who Loved Me is my favorite of the Roger Moore 007 films, and I’d put it at the bottom of the top 5. And a great deal of the enjoyment for me — besides the fact that it is perhaps the most tightly-plotted of the Moore films — is Moore himself. He looked his best in this film, and no other 007 actor is as facile with a quip as Moore, with the possible exception of Sean Connery who, after all, began the practice (though I’d argue that a tough guy spouting witty quips goes back at least as far as Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca; his Rick Blaine is almost a template for Bond, albeit a burned-out one, and one comfortable enough in his masculinity to actually be vulnerable and shed tears for a lost love).

Coate: In light of the recent passing of Sir Roger Moore, what do you believe was Moore’s greatest contribution to film/TV in general and to the James Bond series in particular?

Burlingame: I’d have to say his portrayal of Simon Templar in The Saint. Lots of actors have played the character, from George Sanders to Val Kilmer, but no one ever inhabited Templar quite so well, or frankly made him more popular. I’m very partial to Moore’s role as Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders, but it’s really The Saint that will be his most lasting accomplishment as an actor. Had he been initially cast as 007 instead of Sean Connery we might be looking at this from an entirely different perspective, but coming after Connery and providing a lighter and very different take on James Bond, I really don’t see that as bigger or better than his work as Templar over six impressive seasons in the 1960s.

Cork: I firmly believe that Roger Moore’s greatest contribution to entertainment is his performance in The Spy Who Loved Me. He was born to act with Marvin Hamlish’s flirtatious score. Someday he had to walk among Egyptian ruins in a tuxedo in a film. I really don’t know that another actor could pull off the “give me the keys” scene. Only Roger Moore could make you believe that his character would be unperturbed by Jaws ripping off the roof of the van. He had a special talent for carrying off that kind of absurdity without winking to the audience. But he could also carrying off the popping of his tie loose, sending Sandor to his death. There is a gracefulness to the way Moore moves in this film that matches the elegance of the tone of the movie. Nothing is more boring than watching a character descend a staircase, but watching Moore do it in Cairo is like watching a ballet dancer. There are other moments in other films that define Roger Moore — The Fiction-Makers, for example, is his best work as The Saint. His introduction in The Wild Geese shows he knows how to hold a mediocre scene together with solid, restrained acting. But I so love him as the world’s greatest detective in Sherlock Holmes in New York. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Roger to record his audio commentaries for his Bonds, and I count that as four days where he brought a lot of joy to some grueling work. Nobody did it better. Goodbye, Mr. Moore. Well, let’s say, “au revoir.” I have a hopeful feeling we’ll be meeting again sometime.

O’Connell: The reason we have Bond films today is because of Roger Moore. He took on the role at a time in cinematic history where a tailored chap with a gun from England was not where the audiences for The Godfather, Chinatown and The Last Picture Show were. When Moore took the role in 1972 he was the third change of 007 in as many films. Yet, he endeared audiences to his Bond. He didn’t mock the role, he didn’t take it for granted. He knew less was more and that rather than the absurdities of Bond’s world at that time he pricked the criticisms of it with a warmth, charm and care for the role. He didn’t wholly take his Bond from the current movie zeitgeist and in doing so made it more appealing. He then steered the series from the parting of the waves of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, via the box office might and dominance of Jaws, Star Wars, the rise of Reaganite American cinema, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Beverly Hills Cop. That wasn’t just because of the character of James Bond. That was because of Roger Moore himself.

Pfeiffer: Roger was that rarity in today’s film industry: an old world, genuine gentleman. He knew that he represented a dying breed of British actor, namely the type that could play sophisticated roles and extol and cherish the English language. They rarely write roles for those kinds of actors anymore. It’s doubtful even Cary Grant would find employment in today’s film industry. Roger had the most wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor. He once told me that if a person can laugh at themselves it kind of takes the wind out of the sails of others who want to criticize you. He truly believed no one should take themselves so seriously that they couldn’t laugh at their own flaws. It’s a good life lesson for everyone, including certain prominent political figures who have no ability to admit flaws. He felt that although he never got rave reviews for any of his performances, he was never completely crucified, either, because even critics found it hard not to like his persona.

Roger said that the personality traits he established in playing in The Saint seemed to work for him and that he essentially channeled those same qualities into most of his other characters, including Bond. When I once asked him what his best screen performance was, he replied “None!” After pressuring him a bit, he conceded that the little-seen 1970 movie The Man Who Haunted Himself was the performance he was most proud of because it allowed him to play a rather off-beat character. He was actually a good dramatic actor, as evidenced by his work in films like Shout at the Devil, Gold, The Wild Geese and The Sea Wolves, all of which show him in top form. Roger achieved what many people thought was impossible: being as successful as Sean Connery was in the role of Bond. He made the character his own and never imitated his predecessor. I last saw Roger a couple of years ago in Bath. He and his assistant Gareth Owen had developed a stage production in which Roger would simply chat about his career and take questions from the audience. It gave him a whole new aspect of his life and he was grateful for all the sold out theaters, which proved he still was very popular. His legacy, however, is his tireless work for UNICEF, for which he was Goodwill Ambassador for a number of years. There are countless people alive today thanks to his efforts and I know that was the career achievement he was most proud of.

Scivally: To me, Roger Moore is the Cary Grant of the latter half of the 20th century. The Bristol-born Archie Leach reinvented himself as suave, debonair Cary Grant in 1930s screwball comedies and Hitchcock suspense films much the same way Cockney Londoner Roger Moore adopted a more refined British accent to become the embodiment of British sophistication first on TV as the Saint and later in film as 007. Both were capable actors given limited opportunities because their good looks and the mores of the time typed them as leading men. But both were also humble and self-deprecating; you had a sense they would be enjoyable and entertaining companions to hang out with. Having established himself as a kind of James Bond-like character on TV’s The Saint, Moore was probably the only actor who could so effortlessly take over the role of 007 from Sean Connery. And as the Bond films veered away from the Fleming source material and became more comedic in the 1970s — a move that likely kept the series alive in the changing counter-culture climate — Moore fit the tenor of the times beautifully. It has been my experience that while men generally prefer Sean Connery as Bond, women have great affection for Moore’s 007, a Bond with a lighter touch and a twinkle in his eye that signaled he didn’t really take it all very seriously, but he was having a hell of a good time doing it.

Coate: What is the legacy of The Spy Who Loved Me?

Burlingame: First, it successfully upgraded the previously subordinate Bond Girl to co-starring status, no small feat in a world that (as originally conceived by Ian Fleming) largely viewed women as sex objects. Second, it kept the outlandish plots going, this time with Stromberg’s nonsensical notion that an undersea civilization would succeed a devastating nuclear war; we love all those insane criminal plots. Third, it introduced Walter Gotell as Soviet General Gogol and Geoffrey Keen as the Minister of Defense while retaining Bond regulars M, Q and Moneypenny, thus adding new supporting characters while keeping the old standby favorites. Fourth, it added a hip soundtrack with a top-selling song, demonstrating that, in terms of music, Bond could still be fresh in its musical approach. It certainly convinced me that the Roger Moore Bonds, while very different from the Connery Bonds, had value all their own and could propel 007 well into the future.

Cork: The first is the Legacy of Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli. This is the film where he became not just a producer of the Bond films, but the producer. The battle for the future of James Bond had really gotten ugly after Harry Saltzman needed to withdraw from Danjaq, the holding company that held the rights to make James Bond films. Cubby was very angry, feeling that Harry had endangered the future of Danjaq through other business dealings. Cubby and Harry also both had the right to sell out, but only to someone of whom the other partner approved. Harry kept finding potential buyers, and Cubby wouldn’t approve of them, which was his right. Some have said that Cubby wanted to force Harry to sell to him for a very low price. Whether that was the case or not, Harry went to United Artists and struck a deal with them. This was a very savvy move on Harry’s part because Cubby could not say he couldn’t work with UA because he was already working with UA. Initially, this worked out very well for Cubby. He was able to get UA to basically double the budget of The Man with the Golden Gun, and he even struck a deal where UA paid for the building of the 007 Stage for the Liparus set, but Cubby ended up owning the physical soundstage building. He’s the one who had to guide the script through a skillion drafts, deal with an attempt to derail the film by Kevin McClory because early drafts had a new iteration of SPECTRE in it. At one point, he had Tom Mankiewicz come to his house, and they took many of the drafts and finally built a story. But there is another great legacy with Spy, and that’s Michael G. Wilson. He became very involved with working with the writers on Spy. He’s the one who pitched the skiing/base jump opening. But he did something more. He pushed for there to be a real emotional storyline in the Bond films. He understood the need for real tension between Bond and Anya, and that little thread works incredibly well in the film. The creative team that makes The Spy Who Loved Me, that family in some form or another is deeply involved in the Bond films until the end of the 1980s, and for some, well beyond. There is also a legacy of Lewis Gilbert, a man who started as a child actor in England, who has done some just wonderful smaller films. But Gilbert knew how to mount a massive production. He knew how to get shots that told the story. He understood visual filmmaking. I remember seeing The Adventurers when I was a kid, and Seventh Dawn when I was a teenager. These are big movies. They would be a series on HBO now, but he’s a very under-rated director. Some folks knock Spy for copying so many story elements from Gilbert’s previous Bond film, You Only Live Twice, but this film corrects so many weaknesses of that film for me. The legacy of The Spy Who Loved Me is that it said to the world that James Bond knew how to adapt, to thrill audiences and entertain on a grand scale even 15 years and ten films on from Dr. No. It was true then, and it is true today, nobody does it better.

O’Connell: That the Bond films continue to this very day. The film represented a possible make-or-break moment for Cubby Broccoli. With his director Lewis Gilbert, writer Christopher Wood, new scoring from Marvin Hamlisch, a new car that finally enabled Moore to have his own DB5 icon in the guise of the Lotus and the production intent as masterminded by Oscar nominated Ken Adam — The Spy Who Loved Me could be seen as the greatest illustration of that Eon Productions commitment to the project, audience, local film production and entertainment. The resulting 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios alone resulted in renewed production opportunities and bookings for British filmmaking at a time when such business was beginning to dip. This was a film that held its own in a year that included Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The 1977 context also helped inadvertently seal James Bond’s role in British culture. It was a Jubilee year, politicians and Prime Ministers visited the set, the BBC ran an epic Open University (public home education access and programming) series dissecting the whole production and of course that Union Jack moment struck a global cord that was echoed in the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games. In an era of the rise of the American blockbuster, Roger Moore and Eon Productions proved a story about a chap from England could hold its own and buoy up the future fortunes of all Bond films that followed.

Pfeiffer: The film, more so than the other Moore movies, is probably the most evergreen in terms of the opinion of fans. Not hurting matters was the durability of the title song, Nobody Does It Better, which has become a romantic standard. It still irks me that when the song was nominated for an Oscar, it lost to the saccharine You Light Up My Life. Like most Bond movies, it has aged well. The sets are still spectacularly impressive, thanks to the late, great Sir Ken Adam, and the action sequences hold up very well indeed. The introduction of Richard Kiel as Jaws was also an inspiration and helped elevate his career so substantially that he returned in Moonraker. The film was a mess in his its pre-production stages with seemingly half of the film industry contributing ideas (John Landis and Stanley Kubrick among them). Thus, the patchy screenplay is somewhat understandable, but it holds up well as a first-rate Bond entry.

Scivally: Having first been introduced to Bond through the films of Sean Connery, my initial reaction to Spy was that it was a “Batman Bond,” which is to say, it approaches the hero with the same lightness and sense of camp as the 1966-68 Batman TV series. Unlike From Russia with Love, which exists in a universe of heightened reality, The Spy Who Loved Me is utter fantasy, like Goldfinger on steroids. But it works. After the rather scaled-down Live and Let Die and the hastily-produced The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me returned James Bond to big-budget, wide-screen elegance and opulence. None of Moore’s subsequent Bond films would ever again get the mix quite so right. For the Roger Moore era of 007, The Spy Who Loved Me truly was the biggest, the best, Bond — and beyond. From first frame to last, it is consistently entertaining, living up to the memorable line from its theme song: “Nobody does it better.”

Coate: Thank you — Jon, John, Mark, Lee and Bruce — for participating and sharing your thoughts about The Spy Who Loved Me on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.

The James Bond roundtable discussion will return in Remembering “The Living Daylights” on its 30th Anniversary.

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, CBS-Fox Home Video, Eon Productions Limited, Danjaq LLC, MGM Home Entertainment, United Artists Corporation.

SPECIAL THANKS

John Hazelton.

- Michael Coate

Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link. (You can also follow Michael on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)