Robert Ryan in a Snowbound Comfort Western
A Titling Contest For Day Of The Outlaw (1959)
Here was '59 fret re titles: Howard Hughes filed
protest over Day Of The Outlaw infringing his The Outlaw (from over a decade
earlier!), and independent producing Security Pictures didn't want their pic
confused with Day Of The Gun, lately registered by Darryl Zanuck. Such
squabbles were non-stop for a 50's industry at constant re-cap of Days, Guns,
and Outlaws; trouble was satisfying patronage that theirs wasn't one seen before.
Put yourself in a '59 public's place: wouldn't Day Of The Outlaw seem like a show
already looked at, on (by then) TV if not in a theatre? Robert Ryan may have
figured so; he was in talks by 12/58 to sell his interest in just-completed
Day Of The Outlaw for $250K. Ryan and co-star Burl Ives were each in for a
piece of the pic, Security's Outlaw budget set at $1.1 million, according to
Variety. Snowy location would be in Oregon,
this a best asset by far to the finished work by director Andre De Toth and
camera chief Russell Harlan. Day is a tense at times western, well above
late-50's average, and in stark black-and-white. De Toth said interferers tried
to make him shoot in color --- thank heaven they failed --- but there was
consequence: $484K in domestic rentals, $450K foreign, the two combined failing
to reach what was spent on the negative. Cruel truth by then was a public's
demand for color, and never mind aesthetics (drive-in operators in particular
decried B/W --- it didn't show up as well on outdoor screens).
Yes, exhibitor comment in the mid-'50s was decidedly negative about black-and-white features, particularly B pictures and westerns. "Another black and white for TV," one moviehouse owner would repeatedly groan. The general tone was "The people can't get color and widescreen at home. How do the studios expect us to compete with television if we don't have color?"
ReplyDeleteWithin a decade the industry seemed afraid of black-and-white. Credit Walter Shenson and Mel Brooks for sticking to their guns when studios pressured them to make A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, respectively, in color.