main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph When Good Directors Go Wrong: ?The Wiz? (1978) - Sidney Lumet

Discussion in 'Archive: The Amphitheatre' started by Nevermind, Jul 22, 2011.

  1. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996) - John Frankenheimer

    "Not the first bad film John Frankenheimer ever made (the man had far too long and diverse a career for that), ?The Island of Dr. Moreau? is probably the worst bad film John Frankenheimer ever made. If the near-legendary tales are true, the shoot was miserable from the get go, and that it should result in such a miserable experience for the audience is probably only fitting. It?s muddled, tonally erratic, and by turns high-falutin? in attempting to provoke religious, ethical and even existential debate, and downright silly as a bunch of dog-men find machine guns and stuff explodes for no reason. Disastrous onscreen, it was pandemonium offscreen: Frankenheimer himself was a last-minute replacement for Richard Stanley who was fired after four days? shooting, having worked on the project for four years; rewritten script pages were turned in minutes before scenes were shot, and Val Kilmer was going through a messy divorce and demanded a change of role with Rob Morrow. Who subsequently walked off the set, to be replaced by David Thewlis. Who hated working on it so much he vowed never to watch the finished product. So why did everyone put themselves through this? For most of the talent involved, the answer was the same ?to work with Marlon Brando.? Brando, himself grieving from the suicide of his daughter and having his lines piped into his ear via a radio transmitter, gives a performance so pantomimed that it might prove the lowest of the film?s many low points, were it not for Kilmer. Ah, Kilmer: all baffling line readings and inappropriate emotional reactions, the nadir is reached when Val?s Dr. Montgomery replaces Dr. Moreau, giving Kilmer the opportunity to "do" his Brando. Perhaps Frankenheimer, director of true classics like ?The Train? and ?The Manchurian Candidate? can?t wholly be blamed for phoning it in, in an effort to speedily put the whole thing behind him, but he still needs to take at least partial responsibility for the resulting fiasco: as ill-starred as the production clearly was all along, sometimes remarkable work can be borne from chaos, witness ?Apocalypse Now,? or just about any Herzog film. ?The Island of Dr. Moreau? however, was not one of those times. Oh the horror, indeed."

    Sometimes *everything* goes wrong...
     
  2. JohnWesleyDowney

    JohnWesleyDowney Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2004


    Some of the stories from the set of Dr. Moreau are a director's worst nightmare. Frankheimer was forced to work with not one, but two of the most difficult, arrogant actors in the history of film and they were on their worst behavior. There was a story in Premiere magazine that Kilmer put out a cigarette on a crew member's face which nearly led to a crew rebellion. This is one of those projects, like Jaws, which was so troubled that I'm amazed the director didn't commit suicide during the shoot.

     
  3. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    From Wiki:

    "Once shooting resumed, however, the problems did not dissipate. New pages were turned in only a few days before they were shot. Frankenheimer and Kilmer had an argument on-set, which reportedly got so heated, Frankenheimer stated afterwards, "I don't like Val Kilmer, I don't like his work ethic, and I don't want to be associated with him ever again".[3] Because of this, there were two famous phrases Frankenheimer was quoted as saying to the press in reference to Val Kilmer. The first was, "There are two things I will never ever do in my whole life. The first is that I will never climb Mt. Everest. The second is that I will never work with Val Kilmer ever again." The second, more tongue-in-cheek phrase was, "Will Rogers never met Val Kilmer." Frankenheimer also reportedly clashed with Brando and the studio, as they were concerned with the direction he was taking the film.

    According to Thewlis, "we all had different ideas of where it should go. I even ended up improvising some of the main scenes with Marlon." Thewlis went on to rewrite his character personally. The constant rewrites also got to Brando's nerve and having no motivation to keep rehearsing new lines, he was equipped with a small radio receiver. Thewlis recollects: "[Marlon would] be in the middle of a scene and suddenly he'd be picking up police messages and would repeat, 'There's a robbery at Woolworths.'" Even Brando clashed with Kilmer who didn't make any new friends with his continuously erratic behavior. According to Film Threat magazine, Brando pointed out to him: "You're confusing your talents with the size of your paycheck".

    Kilmer has stated that the time filming on-set was "crazy." He was served with divorce papers from his then-wife Joanne Whalley, Brando was dealing with the suicide of his daughter Cheyenne, as well as the implications of a French nuclear test near the atoll he owned. Upon completion of Kilmer's final scene, Frankenheimer said to the crew "Now get that ******* off my set".


    Wasn't it Larry Gelbert who once said, "If Hitler's still alive, I hope he's out of town with a musical"?

    Or on a movie with Kilmer and Brando.
     
  4. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    "Krull" (1983) - Peter Yates

    "In a directorial career spanning four decades, Peter Yates, who died in January of this year, tackled a host of genres, turning out iconic classics in some (the "Bullitt" car chase is still a breathtaking touchstone, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is a gritty near-masterpiece) and forgettable, sometimes disposable efforts in others. But in a filmography notable for troughs as well as peaks, 1983's "Krull" still stands out as an oddity, not just because of its genre -- it was the director's only foray into sci-fi/ fantasy (far more the latter than the former), but also because of the atypical amateurishness of the film's direction. Other entries in Yates's catalogue might have suffered script or plotting problems, but they were always competently put together, but here, aside from one successful sequence featuring a crystal spider and a cool, Lady of Shalott vibe, even basic timing goes out the window, cross cutting is botched and ineffective, and stakes are never properly felt, let alone upped. Notwithstanding some praiseworthy elements, (James Horner seems to be scoring a much better film, and some of the set design is truly spectacular) its paper-thin plotting and underdrawn characterization make watching the film a slog, unless it's part of some sort of drinking game. The supporting cast featuring Robbie Coltrane, Liam Neeson and Mark Fowler off "Eastenders," (as well as, Francesca Annis and Freddie Jones two fine actors who would reteam for another film on this list, "Dune") do what they can to offset the bland leads, but, as one of a glut of "Star Wars" me-toos that studios rushed out around this time, "Krull" has none of the magic that makes its progenitor so endlessly adored, and not even enough camp value to be classed as silly fun. Neither good, nor so bad it's good, it seems "Krull" is just bad enough to be plain bad. And then the director follows it up the same year with "The Dresser" a richly-drawn character study that earned Best Picture, Director and Screenplay nods as well as Best Actor noms for both its leads. Go figure."
     
  5. CloneUncleOwen

    CloneUncleOwen Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2009
    Krull... KRull... KRULL!!!!!!



    For this of you before your time....

    KRULL flash cards were shown on screen for almost two years prior to release in theaters.I-)

    Audiences would say, "When the hell is this film going to be shown?"

    (High School time lapse seed germinating videos)

    Then...

    Audience reaction upon the release... well...:rolleyes:

    Have you ever tried to throw-up, laugh and talk at the same time?

    Moral: Never try to hype a screen release that should have gone direct to video.
    (Uh.... even if you didn't have direct to video distribution...)

    [face_thinking]

    Err,, even when there wasn't that much video...

     
  6. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Well, there's another one for the Amp Line of the Week thread. [face_laugh]

    I'm pleased that the write-up mentioned the score because I was actually coming in to do so myself.
     
  7. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Krull stinks for sure, but it's no worse than a lot of these other 80s fantasies that people seem never to have grown out of. In fact, I'd watch Krull again before I ever return to The Dark Crystal, since it at least has Freddie Jones in Full Ham Mode (he's even worse in Firefox, though), and the likes of Neeson and Alun Armstrong.

    In fact, I'd say that something like Willow isn't that much more memorable than it. But it's probably only notable due to the fact that Yates did both his nadir and his masterpiece in the same year! Can't think of anyone else who has done that.
     
  8. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    ?New York, New York? (1977) - Martin Scorsese

    "It is no great surprise that many of the directors on this list came of age career-wise during the 1970s 'auteur is king' period of Hollywood. "New York, New York" comes off the back of a hit for Scorsese ("Taxi Driver"), who was starting to feel pigeon-holed by his trademark 'gritty realism,' so to test his creative boundaries he made a 2-hour-plus musical with Robert De Niro as a jazz saxophone player. The shooting period was not a great time for Scorsese personally; he was splitting with his second, and very pregnant, wife and had begun an affair with his lead actress, Liza Minnelli. It was meant to be a tribute to the faux glitz of the '40s and '50s, and Minnelli?s doe-eyed, cherub-cheeked tribute to her mother, Judy Garland, is as subtle as a rock. Minnelli and De Niro are cast as a romantic couple, and their relationship woes take up much of the time between songs, but the only thing worse than watching Minnelli and De Niro pretend to be in love is watching them trying to improvise dialogue between the script's potholes -- and running at a long 155 minutes (for the 1981 recut, with added footage) there are quite a few. Scorsese and De Niro can?t escape what they are comfortable with and arguably best at, so De Niro keeps playing a half-assed Jake La Motta and Scorsese lets him. What could be seen as efforts to subvert the Old Hollywood musical genre just make it fall in on itself. Despite all the talent, Scorsese?s first big-budget picture was a resounding flop, financially and critically. Perhaps the only saving grace was De Niro got in some extra character practice for his next film with Scorsese, and Liza Minnelli got a great song to add to her repertoire."

    Okay, guys. Musicals *look* easy. They're not. They take experience, timing, musicality, ability, practice, talent, the proper sensibility. Just because you love them, doesn't mean you can make them. Just ask Hitchcock, Bogdanovich, Coppola and...Scorsese.
     
  9. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Add Lumet to that list. He does a whole musical sequence ("Ease on Down the Road," the best song in The Wiz)... from the back. And another sequence is just a bizarre close-up of Lena Horne in a sparkly, gaudy thing.

    To Scorsese's credit, at least New York, New York puts more realistic characters into the aesthetic of the musical. De Niro's character in particular is quite unpleasant, so I think the film has value in so far as it's still very much a Scorsese film. I think Minnelli is better here than she was in Cabaret, too. It has value since it is genuinely a filmmaker's point of view on a given genre, but that doesn't make it particularly deep. (Then again, few musicals are.)
     
  10. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    I've seen this movie, and it just lays there. Misfire!

    Realistic characters in the context of a musical, sure. But...not people we don't care about and don't want to spend 155 minutes with. And Minnelli *isn't* better than she was in "Cabaret" at all (at the very best of times, and in nearly every movie, she's way, way too camp, which was rather easier to take when she was younger). Fosse traded in obviousness, but he knew the genre, and could make it work.

    All these great directors think: I'm a better director than Charles Walters! Well, not in this genre. And Charles Walters had a whole cadre of producers and musicians at his back at MGM.

    Of course, there's always an exception. "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" which was directed by Howard Hawks, is a damn good effort.
     
  11. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Another one to add to the list of people who can't do musicals: Zinnenmann. Oklahoma! is downright embarassing.

    I'm amazed that I haven't seen any of the Walters films yet (I want to see Lili for some reason), but of people who were renowned for their musicals... I just can't stand Vincente Minnelli's. They all just irk me so, with perhaps An American in Paris being the only one I can tolerate.

    The only people I think who have strung together two high-quality musicals that I've seen are George Cukor and Robert Wise. I can't think of anyone else. Take it or leave it.

    I tolerated Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, so perhaps Donen counts. Funny Face stinks to high heaven, though.

    Unless we want to chuck in the Disney films as well, in which case I'd go with Clements/Musker and Trousdale/Wise in a heartbeat. And of course the old folks like Geronimi and Reitherman et al. I think they count because you can certainly do an animated musical wrong as well.
     
  12. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    "Damn Yankees" (which was directed by Donen) is just plain awful.

    And Walters had bad moments, too: "Annie, Get Your Gun" is also very bad, mainly because 1) it's insufficiently adapted; and 2) he needed to beat Betty Hutton with a baseball bat to stop her from mugging outrageously, and didn't.

    George Sidney was another who did several MGM musicals. "Kiss Me Kate" is too long, but there's some great numbers, plus Fosse (as a dancer) and Carol Haney.

    Minnelli is either/or. I liked "Meet Me in St. Louis" and "The Band Wagon" but "An American in Paris" is irritating (mainly because of Gene Kelly) and "Yolanda and the Thief" and "The Pirate" are both misfires (the former a really dire one)

    I liked "Silk Stockings" which was directed by Rouben Mamouliman (sp?). He's done some others--"Porgy and Bess" wasn't too good, but the early Paramounts with Chevalier are pretty amusing, though there isn't much dancing.
     
  13. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    I thought that Preminger did the bulk of Porgy and Bess. I'm interested to see it, although I think that Preminger's earlier musical, Carmen Jones doesn't function all that well.

    One name I can add to the pile of people who did multiple quality musicals that I forgot is Mark Sandrich. Not so much Holiday Inn (which is OK and certainly better than Curtiz' quasi-remake in the 50s - add Curtiz to the pile who couldn't do it) but The Gay Divorcee and Top Hat. I think those are great fun, but then Sandrich kinda cheats by involving the likes of Eric Blore and Edward Everett Horton, both of whom could make anything entertaining.
     
  14. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    Oh, yes; you're right, I've got them confused. "Carmen Jones" was the one I've seen--it wasn't very good, except you didn't really notice because Dorothy Dandridge was so jaw-droppingly beautiful.
     
  15. JohnWesleyDowney

    JohnWesleyDowney Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2004
    Tim Burton did a decent job with Sweeney Todd, he didn't just film the stage version, he made numerous
    cinematic adjustments. Plus, Sondheim was smart, his contract made sure he was heavily involved behind
    the scenes - but only in a musical capacity. He was never on set during the filming but he had a lot to
    do with the score, rehearsed all the singing, and smartly placed his long-time orchestrator and conductor
    in charge of much of the recording of the playback. I think everyone benefited. It was a nice balance
    between a very skilled, cinematic visual artist, while retaining Sondheim in the areas where he is a master.

    Nevermind's point is well-made. As a movie genre, musicals are a unique animal, and it takes someone who
    is either on their toes, or has a natural affinity for it, or at least someone who will LISTEN to someone's
    advice on how to handle it.
     
  16. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Burton, like Cukor, plays to his strengths - their best musical numbers would be "Pretty Women" for Burton, and both "The Street Where You Live" and "The Man that Got Away" for Cukor. The key thing is they don't go "Hey, it's a musical, let's go all Busby Berkeley here!" they keep it contained and approach it as they would any other scene in a non-musical, because the source material isn't all that far removed from what they would normally be making films about. Much of "The Street Where You Live" is just a low angle of the dubbed Jeremy Brett, but the impact is maximal because the music itself is and should be the focus. The shot choices and editing prevent it from being a festival of "just people in rooms singing for no good reason" like LeRoy's Gypsy.

    I guess that Lumet tried the same approach as he normally would as well, the problem is that the stuff on screen is inherently fantastical and gaudy, while his treatment of it is grounded and as a result, dull. Maybe he just needed a break from getting Peter Firth to shove pokers through horses eyes, I dunno.
     
  17. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    That's how Hawks managed it, apparently. He got the choreographer to do the dances, the musicians to do the scoring, and so forth, and did the main directing himself. Luckily the film's theme matched his own notions (he liked strong female figures) and though he couldn't cope with Monroe's basic air-headedness, he and Monroe both got on very well with Jane Russell, and they communicated through her.

    George Stevens managed a very decent Rogers/Astaire musical, too.

    But one thing they have to ask themselves: if it's not in your general wheelhouse, shouldn't it be left to someone who knows musicals? (Though who that is these days, I wouldn't know.)

    Re: "Sweeney Todd" I classed it as opera...

     
  18. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    I like directors who try their hand at everything. And... I dunno, a lot of musicals by "musical directors," while successful, are kinda vacuous.
     
  19. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    Know thyself. Hitchcock tried screwball comedy ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith"), musicals ("Waltzes from Vienna"), drama ("Juno and the Paycock"), black comedy ("The Trouble with Harry") and costumers ("Jamaica Inn"), all of which sucketh.

    Of course, Hawks could direct anything, and did.

    It depends, and you are not required to keep trying new things if the payback continues to be minimal.
     
  20. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    No, but I appreciate that Hitchcock was adventurous and at least tried to do those films, even if they all wound up failing (well, I don't know that The Trouble with Harry is a total failure).

    I think Lumet is a particularly interesting case, in that there were projects that were very much within his wheelhouse, and pretty much any other project he took on was more about refining his technique and experimenting. Even something like Family Business and, yeah, The Wiz has a technique to it, even if it doesn't come off at all.

    As long as one of these "departures" doesn't destroy someone's career (epics seem to be the greater death knell than musicals: see Joe Mankiewicz, Hugh Hudson, John Madden, Michael Cimino - FFC would be the greatest victim of a misfiring musical, I think), I think there's value to them in retrospect, purely from an academic point of view.

    Scorsese, for instance, kept pushing himself away from the gritty, violent films he'd made his name in, and after New York, New York came up with two great black comedies, possibly the best film about Christ ever made, a superb costume drama, and now he's made a much lauded (supposed) children's film. At least he can say that he's tried a musical though; Spielberg could do one, but all we've got is the (awesome) opeining to Temple of Doom.
     
  21. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    It *is* a good sequence, but there's a pretty good one in "New York, New York", too.

    I give you "Springtime for Hitler" in the original "The Producers"...

    I might agree re: Spielberg, except for "1941". Genre comedy just plain defeated him that time, and a musical might do the same. Like Hitchcock, there is a lot of humour in his work, but Hitchcock could not do a straight comedy and perhaps Spielberg can't, either. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is poor, and I've tried three times to get through "Harry" and no luck at all.

    I thought "Chicago" was very good, but Marshall then had a misfire in "Nine" (great cast, too). I didn't see it, so I don't know whether it was bad or not.
     
  22. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    ?One From The Heart? (1982) - Francis Ford Coppola

    "Francis Ford Coppola was part of the crop of American filmmakers (among them George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma) dubbed "the movie brats" ? filmmakers who, while going through the motions of film school, had been pretty much raised on movies themselves. Which may help explain why "One from the Heart," an extravagantly ill-fated musical, feels less like an honest-to-god experience and more like a lecture on the Hollywood musicals of old. Everything about the movie feels garish and unfortunate ? from its Las Vegas setting (which led to a nearly complete fabrication of the Strip, which adds to its removed-from-reality gauziness) to its bizarre cast (Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Natassja Kinski and Raul Julia ? what?), to its score, which was mostly composed of songs written by Tom Waits and? Crystal Gayle. The film is handsomely produced and sumptuously photographed (by Vittorio Storaro), but dramatically bankrupt and weirdly removed. Critics and audiences ignored it, and despite its endurance as a nearly forgotten cult oddity (it came out on DVD only a few years ago), it stands as one of the true blights on Coppola's career, with nary a memorable scene or hummable song. At one point he stated that most of the movies he made throughout the 1980s and 1990s, regrettable studio misfires like "The Godfather Part III" and "Jack," were made to repay debts incurred during "One from the Heart"'s production. It also stands as possibly the least interesting musical made by the movie brats ? De Palma's "Phantom of the Paradise" and Martin Scorsese's "New York, New York," for all their faults, arguably best the disappointing "One From The Heart."

    Coppola managed to fail directing a traditional musical ("Finian's Rainbow") and a non-traditional one ("One From the Heart").

    Non-traditionals musicals don't think good songs are necessary and it's not necessary for your cast to be able to sing or dance (yes it *is*, dammit!) either. (See also "Moulin Rogue.")

    Whether this is arrogance or ignorance or both, I don't know. Yes, Francis, I know your Dad is a musician. That doesn't mean you know what you are doing.
     
  23. JohnWesleyDowney

    JohnWesleyDowney Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2004


    I remember reading somewhere that with all the high tech goodies on that shoot, Coppola would sit in some video
    truck away from the set and give the actors direction over a loud speaker, totally removed from them physically.

    The actors HATED that.

    The part of the directing job that involves guiding the actors is at times very personal, and it's all about trust
    and the interplay of personalities. When the actors can't even SEE you, let alone look you in the eye, that's
    not good.
     
  24. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    It's an empty vessel, but I can't hate a film that is shot so damn beautifully.

    The concept of building a musical around humdrum, ordinary folks is where it's most fundamentally broken. The Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia characters are good fun, as intended.
     
  25. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    "Pirates" (1986) - Roman Polanski

    "You might think you know the trajectory of Polanski?s career, but you need to take a closer look to fully understand the head-scratching, self-destructive follow-up choices he made, which make his filmography read like 'masterpiece, disaster, hit, disaster...' etc. While "Rosemary's Baby" is a horror classic, the filmmaker followed that up with the terribly uneven "Macbeth" and the outre, absurdist comedy "What?". Then came ?Chinatown,? showing him arguably at the peak of his powers, which was followed by the awesome, but totally gonzo psychological freak-out, ?The Tenant.? The drama ?Tess? would put Polanski back in the graces of critics and the Oscars, but then he would wait nearly seven years for his what is probably his most egregious plot-losing venture, ?Pirates.? If one is looking for the textbook definition on how not to make a swashbuckling adventure picture, this is it. Perhaps the film?s biggest mistake is the cast. Watching Johnny Depp?s charming fey pirate in the ?Caribbean? movies, even the bad ones, grossly underlines how miscast in the lead Walter Matthau is. The rest of the ensemble -- Frenchman Cris Campion, Charlotte Lewis, Olu Jacobs and Damien Thomas are a charisma-free motley crew. Shot on location in Tunisia, using a full-sized pirate vessel constructed for the production, the picture was a massive financial and critical failure and deservedly so. While Polanski-ites will enjoy some of its loopy charms and questionable choices -- two comical rape sequences are beyond bad taste -- the picture is incontestably inert, though Philippe Sarde?s score must be applauded for masking its moorless tempo with a small pulse. The picture reportedly cost $40 million at the time and grossed around $1.65 million in return. It?s never been on DVD in the U.S. and there?s never been a remotely plausible argument to remedy that situation."

    Never seen this, and it seems I should be glad of it.