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Ed, from the best documentation we had, Legrand recorded his score in Culver City. Williams's recorded his only a week later -- the replacement was that rushed. We put this in the liner notes.
Lukas
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Posted: |
Aug 9, 2010 - 10:51 PM
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By: |
Ed Nassour
(Member)
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The movie's a turkey? Say it ain't so! I recently picked it up on sale from the Warner Archive print on demand service but haven't watched it yet ...
Well, compared to today's abysmal crud, it's a masterpiece!
All kidding aside, it's OK. I'm jaded because of my involvement.
I tried to watch it when Encore's Western Channel ran it. I couldn't look at more than a few minutes before switching it off.
I saw several movies made at MGM during Aubrey's reign as either being ruined by his tampering or bad to begin with because he purposely green-lighted bad scripts.
Just as Aubrey was hired by Kirk Kirkorian in 1969, Fred Zinnemann's project, "Man's Fate" was cancelled. Zinnemann had put a lot of effort into developing it. Aubrey shelved it just a week before it was to begin principle photography. The reason given was it was too costly. The real reason was the genuine possibility it would have been a successful film. Zinneman never did get it made, but he went on to direct "The Day of the Jackal" for Universal which was both a critical as well as financial hit.
One day we had to run "Cat Dancing" for Aubrey. The film's director Dick Sarafian was barred from the lot. Aubrey walked into the big theater on the MGM lot and right before we started he asked the film editor if he had tossed out one of the reels as ordered. That was a trick Aubrey came up with to ensure a movie would bomb. He'd randomly have a reel removed thus confusing the audience.
As I remember it, no reel was removed. He looked at the film and when it finished he smiled saying "ship the piece of s--- just as is" and left.
The one film Aubrey left alone was David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter." I also worked on that one. Lean was very powerful. No one fooled with him. But I suspect Aubrey having read the script realized the movie would bomb so he left it alone.
After we ran the 70mm answer print for Lean, he thanks all of us and left. Just as the door to the theater closed, one of the color timers said, "That's the worst pile of crap I've ever seen."
The film was a mess. It was miscast with both Sarah Miles and Robert Mitchum looking like they'd rather have been anywhere than working on that film. Trevor Howard spent most of the time in an Irish pub getting sloshed. But the film was gorgeous to look at. To this day I've never seen better photography using 65mm. It was so sharp and grain free that at times it appeared as if I was looking through a window at real life.
The score by Jarre was dreadful. Sometimes it sounded like circus music. But since the whole movie looked as is Bozo the Clown had made it, I guess it was appropriate.
One thing Lean and cinematographer Freddie Young came up with was using a 'clear screen' in front of the lens when filming the huge waves breaking on the Irish coastline. The clear screen had been developed to mount outside the windows on the bridge of a ship. A circular piece of glass rotated rapidly tossing off the sea spray.
Here it is being used by Lean mounted in front of the lens of the Super Panavision camera:
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