Canadian Film Digest (Mar 1973)

The Canadian Film Digest It was 1:30 or so on a Friday afternoon, but the only way Michael Caine could tell the time was by the fact that he had just had lunch. He walked into the room, his beautiful new wife said hello and then excused herself, and, puffing on the small, thin cigars he constantly smokes, Caine sat in a chair by the window. Looking down from the twentieth floor suite, Toronto stretched below. But to Caine any city was the same: he was on a full promotional tour for Sleuth, and even though Toronto meant three days instead of one, the buildings, people and times were becoming a mass of events, indistinct. He remarked after he had left that he loved the city, but you could have the weather. Sleuth, of course, has brought Caine an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He co-stars with Laurence Olivier, also nominated, and was directed by Joseph Mankewicz. ‘‘I didn’t even watch the rushes, I trusted Joe so much. Of course I didn’t watch rushes for Hurry Sundown, and look at that mess. I trusted Otto Preminger completely too. This time it worked, though. “Joe has just what I look for in a director: taste. By taste I mean choosing which take to print. The director, after all, is your first critic. What he prints is his estimation of whether you’re good. “Tt’s really only when I’m producing that I watch the rushes. Of course then I watch Celebrating Warner Bros. 50th Anniversary \\y RAN ONCAL JACQUELINE BISSET WARREN OATES drive ‘em Ww JANE FONDA « DONALD SUTHERLAND ¢ PETER BOYLE lf you cant beat ‘em... crazy! MARCH 1973 Oscar Nominee Michael Caine looks at His Career Caine only recently started producing, when he made Get Carter and Pulp. An experienced producer, Michael Clinger, co-produced. Caine has very specific reasons for doing it. “You produce when either nobody’s offering you anything, or you have something which you think should be made. Fortunately I’m in the second category, but neither picture was commercially successful anyway, so producing isn’t the answer either. “TI knew Get Carter had a definite market, and I knew it was good. Unfortunately we made it for MGM. It got good reviews in New York, and had its world premiere at thirty-two driveins on the same bill as Dirty Dingus McGee. “‘Not even the reviews helped. It seems that no-one at MGM reads or buys newspapers. We were shocked, we never expected it; people have said ‘Why didn’t you make sure?’ but you don’t say that. It’s like coming to the Hyatt House and finding the water off — you didn’t make sure because you never expected it to be any other way but on. “But then MGM _ is’ famous for misdemeanors. In the movie business your first mistake is to think you’re dealing with intelligent people. It’s usually your second and third mistake too. It’s already been made into a black film, called Hit Man. ’ When told that the two movies had played as a double bill, Caine commented, ‘“‘It must be very confusing for the audience. They must think they’re running the negative.” Caine pointed to the TV set which features pay TV movies. ‘‘That’s the future. Movies in your own home on a fifty inch screen. That way distributors and exhibitors can’t steal as much. Now they steal wholeheartedly, with no sense of guilt or any desire to hide it.”’ Which brings Caine around to other disasters. Deadfall and The Magus were contract films. They called him up, the weather was good, and he did the parts. ‘‘We had to tak them seriously or we’d get bored.” : Another not-so-fond memory was Kidnapped. ‘Everyone said make a film for kids, so I agreed. Then everyone backed out at the last minute, leaving me with getting no wages. The only reason I finished the picture was because it was getting near Christmas and I wanted the crew to get paid. — “T never got a cent for it. It’s not a serious film — the results are serious: I have a family to support. And they got away with it because I didn’t do anything. First, the time involved was v STEELYARD BLUES” A BILL/ PHILLIPS Production Co-Starring GARRY GOODROW HOWARD HESSEMAN JOHN SAVAGE «+ Written by DAVID S. WARD Executive producer DONALD SUTHERLAND Produced by TONY BILL and MICHAEL & JULIA PHILLIPS Directed by ALAN MYERSON + TECHNICOLOR® ORGBELL SOUND TRACK A: Bua OM WARNER BROS BLCORDS SAFECRACKER OF THE YEAR THe THe MO CANE TO DINNER A BUD YORKIN-NORMAN LEAR Production Screenplay by WALTER HILL > Produced and Directed by BUD YORKIN Nuse by HENRY MANCINI Color by DeLuxe® THEME FROM THE THOEF @HO CARE “2 DeeER BY HIWRY MANOINI ON RCA RECORDS Onrginal Sound Track Album on Warner Bros. Records Page 11 too great, as was the expense; and if you win it all goes to taxes. But I also just said go away. Losing the money is worth it so that I never have to speak to those involved again. I can ignore them in the street and they know why. “I’m a born pessimist anyway. Overall the movie business is better than ever. The greatest thing about it is that it collapsed. A lot of holes were opened up for a lot of people to crawl through who never would have gotten in. And you don’t have to be a relative of Louis B. Mayer. “But there are remnants. For Papillon, between stars and rights and filming and script, the cost is about twelve million dollars. Which really means fifteen. So when they can’t recoup the necessary forty million, another producer will sink into oblivion, and that’s one less for me to work for. You can’t get that money back. ; “Stars are gone. Sheilah Graham once asked me, ‘Where are the stars like Gable, who we remember so well?’ Of course you remember him, for eight great pictures. Never mind the other hundred that were bad. There were studios then to mollycoddle actors. Not so now. “As an actor I like to take chances. But sometimes my timing is bad. I did Too Late The Hero when the Vietnam war was all over the TV newsreels. When you can see the pornography of death on TV, you want the pornography of sex in the movies. People really dying on TV means you want people really making it in the movies. That’s when the sex explosion started. “Dying is a more intimate act, I think. Animals go off to die alone; I have lots of birds in my garden, and they do that. ‘Violence in the movies is always artificial. It’s done to others, and you know it’s fake. Peckinpah thought the violence in Straw Dogs was real, and that mistake doomed the movie. The violence there is for the benefit of the audience. “But nudity is real. It’s actually you there. I won’t appear nude in a movie. “But now I’m ina movie that is the best I’ve . done, so I’m concentrating on that. It’s not obvious box-office. It was hard to make but everyone involved was first rate. Mankewicz is a director who follows characters, just as the script does. Most young directors today are more interested in machines called cameras and gadgets called lenses. They haven’t got a clue what to do with actors and dialogue. “You need actors, not personalities, on the screen. And the films must follow characters. You go with Alfie and meet a lot of interesting women with him. All my pictures are like that, except a couple. And if you look at any successful film, chances are it is like that, too.”’ So now, with a second Oscar nomination — his first was for Alfie — Caine is in a secure position. The future combines two things: projects and level of success. “T can either make a picture that will top Sleuth, or I can make one that won’t even try. I’ll probably do the latter and make an adventure, for fun. There aren’t that many good scripts around anyway. “I want to be in the position of my co-star in Sleuth. He asked for me. So did Elizabeth Taylor for X, Y, and Zee. I want to be able to decide who will appear with me; I want first crack at scripts. “So far all I know is that I’ve made a couple where I knew who I wanted out.’’ A Warner Communications Company The deadliest gold hunt S as . I SS WS a ANNMARGRET eee ee _ eee A Batjac Production-Ben Johnson-Christopher George-Bobby Vinton Jerry Gatlin and Ricardo Montalban pccuces ty MICHAEL WAYNE Wotten and Ovectew by BURT KENNEOY Mumc by, DOMINIC FRONTIERE PANAVISION® TECHNICOLOR®