Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1962)

INDUSTRY PROFILE Bronston Makes Films in the DeMille Tradition By FRANK LEYENDECKER MADRID — When Paramount Pictm-es and Samuel Bronston Productions entered into an agi’eement late in August for the release of Bronston’s forthcoming circus epic, Barney Balaban. Paramount president, mentioned that his company had more experience than any other in the handling of "big" pictures through its long association with the late Cecil B. DeMille. The mention of DeMille suggested to many industry leaders that Bronston is the most likely to inherit the mantle of the great DeMille, whose latter screen career was devoted to the production of multi-million dollar epics, some of them Biblical, like “King of Kings,” “The Sign of the Cross,” “Samson and Delilah” and his crowming achievement, “The Ten Commandments,” others in the adventm'e spectacle vein, including “The Greatest Show on Earth,” “Reap the Wild Wind” and “Unconquered,” to mention just a few. All of these, except the silent pictures, were in color and contained a host of top-flight stars, supported by important featured players — big pictures in every sense of the word. Prior to starting his independent Bronston Productions Company in 1959, Samuel Bronston devoted his early motion picture career to the production of serious dramatic films such as “Martin Eden” and “A Walk in the Sun.” He started his independent Bronston Productions to make “John Paul Jones,” an American sea epic in Technicolor. This had Bette Davis, Robert Stack, Charles Coburn, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Macdonald Carey in the leads. Distributed by Warner Bros., the picture was not a boxoffice success. But, the following year, Bronston went to Spain and, with the aid of American dii’ector Nicholas Ray, made a 70mm Super Technirama production of “King of Kings,” which had the American Jeffrey Hunter in the title role and a cast including Robert Ryan, Hurd Hatfield, Rip Torn, Harry Guardino and Rita Gam from Hollywood, plus Ireland’s Siobhan McKenna, Sweden’s Viveca Lindfors and Spain’s Carmen Sevilla. About midway in production, MGM entered the scene and Bronston completed the film, which was released as a two-aday film in 1961 in all key cities. The picture has been a great boxoffice success, more so in its later subsequent bookings and abroad, and promises to be among the screen’s big money-makers. Like all of DeMille’s costume epics, Bronston’s pictures exert a tremendous appeal to the action-minded moviegoers, in the U. S. and, to a greater extent, abroad. And they have great reissue value. This is true to an even greater extent with Bronston’s current release, “El Cid,” also filmed in Spain with American director Anthony Mann and another star cast headed by Hollywood’s Charlton Heston, Italy’s Sophia Loren and Raf Vallone, and Herbert Lorn, Genevieve Page, John Fraser and Gary Raymond from England, this one in Super Technirama and Technicolor. Being distributed by Allied Artists, “El Cid” has played only 800 out of an eventual 25,000 worldwide situations and in 29 countries out of 60 outside the U. S. and Canada and Bronston expects the picture to wind up “among the five top-grossing pictures of all time,” according to Milton Goldstein, his foreign sales manager. The present estimate is for a $30,000,000$40,000,000 global gross for “El Cid.” On August 1, 1962, Bronston, director Nicholas Ray, and stars Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and David Niven, dedicated the largest sound stage in Europe (190x110 feet) to appear in the opening scenes of “55 Days in Peking,” Bronston’s latest production in Super Technirama-70 and Technicolor, which Allied Ai-tists will also distribute in the U. S., Canada, Japan and the Near East. The new stage is part of the Chamartin Studios in Madrid, which also houses Bronston’s production and executive headquarters. Also in Spain, 16 miles outside of Madrid, Bronston has erected the city of Peking set, which in size, realism and perfection of detail surpasses any set ever built by DeMille. Bronston’s Peking covers 250 acres and was designed by his production designers Veniero Colasanti and John Moore after weeks of research in museums in London, Paris and Rome. More than 240,000,000 board feet of lumber was required to cover the scaffolding. During a visit to Madrid in September, this reporter walked through a reproduction of such buildings as the Temple of Heaven, the Mont Blanc Hotel, the Hong Kong Bank, various memorial arches and 11 legation buildings and the walled enclosure inside the city in which the Imperial Palace stands, all of these completely furnished with furniture, art objects and various wares for the many outside market places — one gets the feeling of being transported back to the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the century. In addition to Heston, Niven and Miss Gardner, the cast of “55 Days at Peking” includes Flora Robson, who plays the dowager empress, a role offered to Katharine Hepburn and even Greta Garbo; Harry Andrews, Leo Genn, Robert Helpmann and Elizabeth Sellars, who journeyed from Britain, and Kurt Kasznar, John Ireland and Paul Lukas, who came to Spain from the U. S. The principal shooting will be completed early in November and Bronston expects to have the picture ready for twoa-day release around Easter of 1963. In line with his expanding activities. Producer Samuel Bronston (left) looks over the artists’ model for the reconstruction of the city of Peking at his Madrid headquarters, with Nicholas Ray, (right), director of “55 Days at Peking,” and Veniero Colasanti and John Moore, art directors for the film, which will be released by Allied Artists. The photo at the right shows a beheading scene in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion, as it was being filmed on the huge reproduction of Peking in 1900 at Las Matas, 16 miles outside Madrid. 8 BOXOFFICE :: October 22, 1962