Scope Samples #4

 

Wide Worlds: China vs. Us, Raindrops Fall on Westerns, and Eastwood Deals in Dynamite

THE SAND PEBBLES (1966) --- Was there roadshow fatigue by the mid-sixties? At least for Fox, there seemed more losing than winning, The Sound of Music a historic exception, though for every one of that, there were two like The Bible or The Agony and the Ecstasy, plus barely-eecking-profit Cleopatra which needed a network sale to get even. Hits when they had them saw less spent or content the public could better enjoy, The Blue Max completed for $6.2 million, with Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machine fun-for-whole-families event to which they willingly bought hard tickets for a row-full. The Sand Pebbles was released at the end of 1966 to run mostly through 1967. Negative cost was $12.1 million and because of that, even worldwide rentals of $17. 3 million would not offset nearly two million ultimately lost. 70mm prints of The Sand Pebbles were blown-up from 35mm. We could wonder if our Blu-Rays look sharper than what 1966-67 experienced. None of 70mm presentations happened in North Carolina. Closest we got was evidently Greenville, SC for 9/28/67 which was non-roadshow, but in 70mm, albeit enlarged. Values otherwise are judged by digital access which I assume preserve integrity of sound (six-channel stereo) and picture, if not improving upon them. China conflict during the late twenties is addressed. We must care much about the characters to last these three hours, sailor Steve McQueen to my mind supplying what there is of that, opposition to him Communist hordes that win in the end and call to question our being in Orient water at all. Slap at US Vietnam policy was or wasn’t noted by reviews, point perhaps better put had the picture finished shorter. The Sand Pebbles is best watched to catch vibes of roadshow-going and what the sixties saw for biggest picture-making. Question is how many three-hour blocks would we set aside for a show we know for flawed, degree of that a matter of private opinion. Seems certain you’d not seat company down for The Sand Pebbles lest they tag you for boredom they may experience.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) --- Something about Paul Newman on his bicycle to accompany of "Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head" turned me distinctly off Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Seeing and being transformed by The Wild Bunch but months distant also entered the equation, westerns having touched a level I’d not care to sit below again. There were other doubters re the song, Newman from what I understand, plus writer William Goldman (fearing “terminal cutes”). He had set a record for revenue earned off a “spec script,” Butch Cassidy the stuff of fierce bidding by studios who each saw potential in it. My own attitude came of movie fatigue overall, at least ones new and in theatres, malaise the outcome of a year reviewing for a local paper and recognition that too little was worth effort of attending. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had also whiff of the trendy, that song plus humor to warn of another Support Your Local Sherriff. Some fifteen year olds, it seems, can not be pleased. Lenoir-Rhyne’s Program Department invited me to book campus shows my senior year after three annums I competed with them. Asked to work with a “committee,” I called a first meeting, chucked further ones, and picked my own preferences, all from the Classic Era minus sops to cool complaint that I ignored “new” product. American Graffiti ($400 rental … I could have got five or six pre-49 Warners for that), Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (surprisingly low from UA/16, which was why I chose it), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid from Films, Inc., them sending a cropped to flat-from-scope print that perhaps no one noticed and I barely did from not having seen the picture before and not yet enough of a purist to make an issue of it. Butch was passable, still my idea of “too recent” which took in much of what even was made in the fifties. Collegians were lucky I didn’t lay Judith of Bethulia on them.

Watch Out ... Here Comes Bill Field's Server Nemesis from Never Give a Sucker ...

Now thanks to widescreen Blu-Ray comes Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at perhaps a point where I can finally enjoy pleasure it offers. No need wondering what made it so popular at the time, or since. Writing, performances, direction, all crackerjack. Butch Cassidy plays modern like Bonnie and Clyde and Bullitt (at least for me). Was this the first “buddy” western? We could argue Vera Cruz sort of was, and maybe comedy-westerns like The Rounders that predated Butch. Neither aspired to hep like Butch and Sundance however. Robert Redford said later that this was the picture that really put him across. You can tell this 1870’s character will own the 1970’s. Most good parts began with a long list of casting possibilities. Newman was set from the start to be Butch, but Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, or Warren Beatty for Sundance? McQueen I could envision, except how could he conceal one-up he'd have come at Newman with? (remember the beating Yul Brynner took) Brando was too old, too fussy, seeming washed up besides by 1969. Beatty I think would have been too self-conscious and intent on taking control. There was always something odd about his screen countenance, and frankly about Beatty himself. I keep seeing him swallowed up by that fur coat in Altman's half-arse western. Redford told of being passed over for another show because he wasn’t a big enough name, this right after he finished playing Sundance, but before it was released. Imagine egg on some producer’s face. Question I’d have asked Newman, Redford, others, had I ever got the chance: Did any speak to or notice Jody Gilbert, who had a blink-and-you’ll miss-her moment during one of the train robberies? Jody had long before joined immortals when she was the waitress who parried with W.C. Fields in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. There had been mostly bits since, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid her first (and as it turned out, last) screen part since Houdini in 1953. HUAC trouble saw her out. Good thing I never crewed for movies, at least movies from the sixties or seventies, for it would have been never-stopping birddog after veterans in support, even extra, ranks.

TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA (1970) --- Don Siegel devotes a chapter in his book to this. Seems to me Sister Sara suffered for its title, some of Eastwood’s army deserting because it did not sound like what they’d enjoy from him. The story and an initial script was by Budd Boetticher, who was not invited to direct. He hadn’t held such post for some time, had his Mexico travails to overcome, and maybe Universal was afraid to take a chance with him. Siegel said he was embarrassed to take the job for knowing how Boetticher should have led, but latter assured it was OK, even though in final analysis Universal passed up his screenplay in favor of one by Albert Maltz. Plot was ideal for Eastwood, his best American western so far and perhaps a best homeground for this star in that genre. Toward Sigma placement comes “Hogan” as single-minded seeker after pay for arranging strikes against French fighters opposing Juaristas, him indifferent of fate for either side, just wanting cash he’s been promised to deliver dynamite plus lethal expertise. A reason Sigmas function well for films is fact they are goal oriented and will let nothing interfere in movement toward fulfilling the mission. Movies are like that too, few of us wanting distractions, comedic or romantic, to slow pace toward opposing sides having it out. That Hogan is slowed by “Sister Sara” (Shirley MacLaine) is leavened by Siegel flair with action and use he makes with outdoors. MacLaine must be subdued to affect her subterfuge and that’s doing the audience a favor. She and Eastwood got along “despite him being a Republican,” she said. Of American westerns with Eastwood, this came closest to his Man With No Name portfolio from the Leone films, and being Siegel, there always will be cult interest. Scope plus a score by Ennio Morricone links Sara closer to Euro spirit of Good, Bad, Dollars etc. I don’t hear a lot said about Two Mules for Sister Sara, and wonder why, as in why not?