It all began with a comic book.

As is common knowledge to fans of the medium, said comic book was commissioned by
DC Comics, and was intended to feature pre-existing characters, acquired from Charlton
Comics; but writer Alan Moore and illustrator David Gibbons took that kernel of an idea,
and expanded it into a story that would redefine the superhero genre… Throughout 1986
and 1987, Watchmen was published as a limited series. A tale of alternative history, it
explored what the latter part of the 20th century might have actually looked like had
masked vigilantes existed in America. A groundbreaking deconstruction of the superhero
story, it portrayed the “heroes” as deeply flawed, morally ambiguous, and in some cases
just plain unlikable. Together with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, published
around the same time, it ushered in a new era of “dark and gritty” comics (which was not
what author Alan Moore had intended, and was indeed something that he would come to
bemoan). Given its popularity and acclaim, there were naturally those who wanted to
ride on the success of Watchmen. 

Needless to say, the inevitable film adaptation had a storied production history. [1] In
August 1986 (one month prior to the publication of the first issue), producer Lawrence
Gordon acquired the film rights to Watchmen for 20th Century Fox, with producer Joel
Silver [2] assigned to work on the film. Fox asked author Alan Moore to write a
screenplay based on his story, but after Moore declined, the studio enlisted screenwriter
Sam Hamm, who was also responsible for the script for Tim Burton’s Batman. On
September 9, 1988, Hamm turned in his first draft, but said that condensing a 338-page,
nine-panel-a-page comic book into a 128-page script was "arduous". He took the liberty
of re-writing Watchmen's complicated ending into a "more manageable" conclusion
involving an assassination and a time paradox. 

However, the studio wasn’t seriously invested in producing a film based on the graphic
novel, at least not to begin with. In fact, 20th Century Fox nearly put the film into
turnaround in 1991. [4] The reasons for this are unclear, but it appears that executives
didn’t believe such a dark and cynical movie - which would in essence be a repudiation of
the American Dream - could be successful in an environment which saw many Americans
feeling more optimistic about their place in the world (this being the year of the Soviet
Union's ultimate collapse, and of the overwhelming military victory against Saddam
Hussein’s Iraqi forces during the Gulf War). It didn’t help that the screenplay called for a
film that would almost certainly net a “hard” R-rating, unprecedented for a superhero
movie. With budget projections being at least $100 million [5], Fox probably felt that that
the money could be more safely invested into other projects. In short, it wasn’t a priority
for the studio. [6]

However, the results of an election down south late in the year would not only affect the
course of American history, but the course of Watchmen’s troubled production…

First voting round, October 19, 1991, Louisiana Gubernatorial election:

Edwin Edwards (D)-34%
David Duke (R)-32%
Buddy Roemer (R)(incumbent)-27%

Louisiana elections at the time worked under a system that was known as the jungle
primary, wherein multiple candidates (usually including multiple candidates from each
party, as well as third party and independent candidates) compete in the first round of
voting. As no candidate had received an absolute majority of the vote, and run-off
election was scheduled for November 17, 1991…

Campaign For the Run-Off

First came the shock. In an upset, sitting Governor Buddy Roemer failed to qualify for a
run-off election. Many blamed this, among other blunders, on a poorly-handled party
switch from Democrat to Republican. The governorship was now to be fought over by
Edwin Edwards, former Governor of Louisiana who was widely believed to be extremely
corrupt... and David Duke, a member of the state legislature and white supremacist
activist with neo-Nazi tendencies who few before the election had thought would be a
strong contender.

In the beginning, Edwards received a groundswell of support- few people actually wanted
to see a former Grand Wizard of the KKK as governor. Buddy Roemer and even President
George Bush endorsed Edwards, a Democrat, over Duke, the ostensible Republican. A
slogan that emerged accurately captured the sentiment of many Louisiana citizens- "Vote
for crook- it’s important".

However, just a week before the election, a bombshell derailed the Edwards campaign.
An audio recording surfaced of the former governor after he learned of the preliminary
election results. In it, he laughed and said something to effect that the election was over
now. He then went on to make a disparaging remark about Roemer, and several more
disparaging remarks about who he felt would be Duke's major voting demographic-
"dumb crackers", among other more obscene names. One of his aides, who was never
identified, posed a sarcastic question to his boss, implying more people would feel
comfortable with a "crook" as Governor than a racist. Edwards just laughed. [7]

The effect was three-fold: it alienated Governor Roemer, who withdrew his endorsement
of Edwards (but was still careful to not endorse Duke), offended thousands of so-called
"crackers", who would be voting in the election, and, perhaps most importantly, the
laugh Edwards made to the joke posed about his record as being corrupt implied that the
former Governor accepted that fact.

Duke capitalized on this by portraying Edwards as an enemy of the normal, working class
white majority (Edwards had, in fact, come from a modest background himself). Many
moderates who would have gutted out voting for Edwards, even after nearly being
indicted by US Attorney John Volz several years earlier, now decided to sit out the
election in disgust. 

Edwards decided not to address the incident until two days before the election, confident
the whole time he would still be elected. He backpedaled on November 15, trying to put
some of his comments in context. For instance, he stated that he had laughed merely at
the idea he was a crook, because he considered it "preposterous". By that point,
however, it was probably too late. Duke was riding on a wave of populist support, with
many of his supporters not even racist, just disgusted at the corruption in Baton Rouge
and using Duke to protest vote.

Final round results, November 17, 1991, Louisiana gubernatorial election:

David Duke-52% 
Edwin Edwards-48%

David Duke will be inaugurated as Governor of the State of Louisiana on January 13,
1992. 

Aftermath

DOWN WITH DUKE

DOWN WITH THE KLAN

AMERICA, OR SOUTH AFRICA?

These were some of the signs used in demonstrations on November 19, 1991, two days
after the election. A huge, predominantly African-American crowd of people marched
down the Center Business Square in New Orleans, ending at Lafayette Square, right at
the foot of the statue of the French war hero. The organization was organized by the
local NAACP and other civil rights groups.

They were also joined by representatives of the sizable Jewish community in New
Orleans. The rabbi from the Congregation Beth Israel gave a very well received speech
comparing the rise of Duke to the rise of Hitler some 60 years before.

All went fairly well until 3:16 P.M., when three white men in their twenties, hair cropped
into a buzz cut and dressed in pseudo-paramilitary outfits, stepped out of their parked
car and began firing on the crowd with automatic weapons. Over sixty people died, not
counting one policeman and two of the three attackers in the ensuing firefight. The man
was found to be a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and a proud supporter of Duke,
who was out to help his favored politician "get his agenda done".

That's when the rioting began. Thousands of blacks all over the city began to start mass
protests in the streets, in sharp contrast to the more organized demonstration earlier in
the day. When police tried to calm the situation down, they were often attacked. A
nervous policeman shot and killed a 14 year old boy. Many police were shot at and
attacked in retaliation. Businesses were looted and destroyed, particularly in the worse
off neighborhoods of the city. Millions of dollars in property damage were lost and nearly
one hundred people died over the course of the next few days.

But it wasn't just in New Orleans. Egged on by television footage of the destruction,
similar disturbances were soon being seen in certain parts of other big cities, especially
New York City and Los Angeles. New York was still recovering from the Crown Heights
riots that had taken place in August, and race relations in Los Angeles had been tense for
months after footage surfaced of Rodney King, a black man, being viciously beaten by
white police officers. The events in Louisiana had caused all of this to boil over. 

In many ways, the issue of racism, a topic not spoken about often in the 1980's, had
reared its ugly head again for the 1990's. Americans at home across the country were
shocked to see the great cities of the United States explode in ways not seen since at
least the 1960's. Children were being exposed to graphic videos of the violence on
television, from a line of police firing into a crowd of protesters in New Orleans to a
young Indian-American filmmaker named M. Night Shyamalan being beaten to death by
rioters in New York.

It was only after several days that the situation stabilized. President George Bush and
civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, among others, appeared on national television,
pleading that the rioters return home (notably, Bill Cosby tried to convince people to stop
rioting in the streets and watch the new episode of The Cosby Show on November 21st,
“Olivia Comes Out of the Closet”) [8]. By November 28th most the rioting nationwide had
finally subsided. The final body count total was over 400 dead and tens of thousands
injured, and nearly $5 billion dollars in property damage.

The aftermath of the election was huge in the coming weeks, months, and years. In the
morning hours of November 18th, after it was confirmed that Duke had indeed won the
race, the stock market (which had been increasing its value strongly throughout the
year), took a mild nosedive, which was not helped by the severe civil disturbances in the
following days. It eventually made up for its losses, however, and the Dow Jones ended
at 2844.09 for the year, under expectations. [9]

The political ramifications were huge. Dialogue about the continued inequality between
African-Americans and white Americans in many aspects of socio-economic life was
brought to the forefront of political discussion. Affirmative action began to be viewed
positively by more and more Americans as a way to “bridge the gap”. Other efforts were
taken by government officials on this front. After on onslaught of pressure by civil rights
groups, Georgia Governor Zell Miller commuted Troy Davis, a black man sentenced to
death for the murder of a police officer whose conviction was based on heavily
circumstantial evidence, to life in prison without the possibility of parole (future Georgia
Governor Allen Buckley, a libertarian-leaning Republican, would successfully pressure the
courts to start a new trial for Davis because of new evidence discovered, where he was
exonerated). In 1992, the LAPD officers accused of assaulting Rodney King in Los were
convicted (but only given comparatively mild sentences). Also in California, several
tentative plans to legislate against the ability of illegal immigrants to have access to
public education and health care lost traction and died. [10]

The election of Duke also caused unprecedented levels of political involvement among
African-Americans, and a spike in elected officials from the black community. Notably,
Carol Mosely Braun and Cynthia McKinney, two liberal, feminist African-Americans, were
elected to the United States Senate from Illinois and the House of Representatives from
Georgia, respectively, in 1992, and former football and movie star Fred Williamson was
elected Governor of Indiana in 1996 on a populist Democratic platform. 

It was inevitable that the Republicans were hurt in the polls by Duke’s election, as he
was elected as a Republican (though as recently as 1988, he had run in the Democratic
primaries to be President of the United States). The efforts of the national party to
disassociate themselves with Duke only invited the Governor to insist more and more
forcefully that he was a true representative of the GOP electorate. This caused a
substantial drop in the polls for President Bush, who mere months before was enjoying
record levels of popularity for his handling of the Gulf War. This, combined with the
economy, created a new air of vulnerability for the President late in the year, causing
several high-profile Democrats to jump into the race for their party’s nomination in 1992,
including West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller and New York Governor Mario Cuomo, the
eventual nominee. It also opened room for a strong independent run on the part of
billionaire Ross Perot.

Most of all, the election of Duke, and the ensuing riots, killed much of the optimism
America had been feeling in the early 1990’s, replacing it with doubt and cynicism.
Problems that had been glossed over earlier in the year, such as poverty, crime, and
drug use, all on the rise, were suddenly the focus of the fixation of many Americans. It
didn’t help that was a recession going on. All of a sudden, Americans felt just a little
more gloomy.

And this was unexpectedly the change in attitudes that Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver
needed to get a gloomy screenplay produced…

Pre-Production on Watchmen Begins

In December 1991, Silver made one final pitch to executives at 20th Century Fox with
regards to the Watchmen project. Using the argument that Americans would now be
receptive to what he referred to as “a deconstruction of the American Dream” due to the
recent political, social, and economic turmoil, he was able to convince them not only to
abort the turnaround, but to finally commence with pre-production. They were given a
tentative budget of $100 million with which they could finally get started on the project.

Before a director was chosen, Silver made it his goal to get one particular actor on board:
Arnold Schwarzenegger. As Silver had produced his star
vehicles Commando and Predator, the men were already well acquainted. Convinced that
the Austrian would make a perfect Dr. Manhattan, he arranged a lunch date with the
actor in February, 1992 to pitch the role to him. After the story had been thoroughly
explained to Schwarzenegger, he was intrigued by the possibilities, going home and
reading the comic book in preparation for making negotiations. In the end, Arnold agreed
to the project, on one condition: he wanted to play Ozymandias, not Dr. Manhattan. For
one thing, he identified with Adrian Veidt’s character more, as both were immigrants;
and he was uncomfortable with the idea of being represented by a glowing blue
computer-generated character for over 90% of his screentime. Silver accepted this
counter-proposal, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was the first to join the cast of Watchmen.
(This decision would become controversial for a variety of reasons: some purist fans of
the comic books argued that Veidt was supposed to be more slender and agile than
Schwarzenegger; Gordon, on the other hand, was annoyed for the far more concrete
reason that Ozymandias didn’t have as much screentime as the most of the other
characters, but Arnold would still be paid a hefty $12 million for the role.)

Meanwhile, after re-reading the comic, Gordon decided that he was unsatisfied with Sam
Hamm’s screenplay. “It’s fine, but it’s not really Watchmen,” he reportedly said. He
quickly and quietly shopped for a new writer (in both cases because he was afraid that
the studio would be angered if they knew the project they were going ahead with was not
at all close to the one they had approved). He stumbled across Joss Whedon, a relative
newcomer to the world of screenwriting, whose biggest accomplishment was writing the
film Buffy The Vampire Slayer - due out in July - but who, by many accounts, was very
talented. After hiring him in early January, ostensibly as a script doctor, Gordon told him
that he wanted an entirely new screenplay, closer to the original comic, by mid-March.
After reading the comic, Whedon burned through several drafts, all of which dissatisfied
him, he finally produced what he felt to be a worthy script in late February after, as he
put it, “typing while reading the comic in my lap, before going back in to add stuff and
cut more stuff out. Confusion reduction, I call it”. Most notably, many of the plots
involving the minor characters were substantially reduced, or even in some cases cut
altogether.

In the meantime, Gordon was also on a search for directors. Negotiations were in place
with Sam Raimi (Darkman, The Evil Dead series), John McTiernan (Predator), Roland
Emmerich (Universal Soldier), and others, but neither Gordon nor Silver was satisfied.
Their project would involve unprecedented levels of special effects, and they wanted an
established and experienced director to tackle the project. However, Ridley Scott had
already turned them down, along with Paul Verhoeven. They were almost ready to
reluctantly offer the director's chair to Raimi when, in early March (the day after Whedon
turned in his final copy of the screenplay), Arnold Schwarzenegger called Silver and told
them that he had a potential director.

James Cameron had already worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger twice before, on the
two Terminator movies, and had planned yet another collaboration (tentative plans were
for a remake the 1991 French comedy film La Totale!) [11]. However, Schwarzenegger
had been sharing information with Cameron on the project, and the more he had heard
of it, the more interested he became. When he asked if they had a director on board,
Schwarzenegger told him that there was no one yet; he joked that it was it was a shame
they didn’t have him, because they would absolutely need a director who “knew
computer effects”. This got Cameron to thinking. 

After going to a comic shop and flipping through Watchmen, Cameron was intrigued by
how well the comic seemed to reflect on times in America. “It really was very zeitgeist-
y”, the director said. “What with all the urban violence, the corruption, the ongoing
spectacle that was the (1992) Democrat primaries, …(it) was interesting”. After a couple
days of mulling it over, Cameron asked Schwarzenegger to contact the producers. Of
course he had demands: he wanted to have final control over the screenplay and power
to change it, and he would choose the rest of the cast and crew going forward. However,
these steep demands concealed his own aspirations: Cameron really wanted to
direct Watchmen because, as he put it: “this could be the biggest bomb ever or the best
superhero movie of all. And I think it was an appealing prospect to make the best
superhero movie ever.” Negotiations went smoothly; Gordon and Silver were ready to
give Cameron just about anything, because he was the high-profile director they had
been searching for, and 20th Century Fox was more than happy with the arrangement,
because all of the director’s prior films had been with their studio. 

Thus, on March 20th, 1992, James Cameron signed on to direct a feature film adaptation
of the Watchmen graphic novel series. The cast would be filled out by the end of the
summer, as negotiations had already begun with several other actors for the other parts.
Filming was scheduled to begin early in the next year (to accommodate
Schwarzenegger's schedule), with the end product slated for a release in Summer,
1994...

Filling Out the Cast

With James Cameron now confirmed as the director and Arnold Schwarzenegger on
board to play Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, the race was on to find actors to portray the rest
of the superheroes. The studio soon caught whiff of the fact, however, that
Schwarzenegger’s screentime would not be quite as substantial as originally hoped, so
they requested that Cameron and the producers find at least one other high-profile actor
to star in the film.

Negotiations and auditions were largely over by the end of August, and the cast filled out
as follows:

Kurt Russell as Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II- Action star Kurt Russell was secured to
star as mild-mannered Dan Dreiberg, who in the universe of Watchmen was the second
man to assume the mantle of Nite Owl, a “superhero with owl-themed gadgets”. Joel
Silver was inspired to approach Russell after reading a scribbled-in note on Sam Hamm’s
iteration of the screenplay that said “DREIBERG=KURT RUSSELL?” (it had been rumored
that the actor had been considered for the titular role in 1989’s Batman, which Hamm
had also penned) [1]. Russell was initially skeptical of joining the production, because he
was afraid it would just be a “Schwarzenegger movie”, therefore negating his own role
(though he held nothing against the Austrian actor personally). However, after learning
that Schwarzenegger had willingly consigned himself to a (relatively) small role, and it
indeed would be a true ensemble production, he decided to accept (with a $6 million
salary). For the role, Russell extensively worked out to gain a “superhero physique” for
the flashback scenes, then gained eight pounds in fat and added glasses to portray a
“superhero in decline” for the film’s “present” [2]. 

By accepting the role of Dan Dreiberg in Watchmen, however, Kurt Russell had to turn
down a role in a science fiction movie director Roland Emmerich (who had been briefly
considered as a candidate to direct Watchmen) and writer Dean Devlin were pitching,
tentatively titled “Stargate” [3]. The decision had to be made due to scheduling
concerns. Frustrated, the writer/director duo would have to look for another actor for
their lead…

Bruce Campbell as Edward Blake/The Comedian- Initially, Joel Silver wanted

another action movie superstar, such as Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone to play the
“smooth-talking but utterly ruthless and amoral character that Blake was”. However,
because Arnold Schwarzenegger was already on board, other big-name actors were in
negotiations, and James Cameron was directing, Gordon and Silver privately agreed to
look elsewhere to prevent a clash of personalities (there were also budgetary concerns
with adding more big-name actors and providing them their salaries). Michael Keaton
was briefly considered before he turned down their offer. Bruce Campbell only came on
board due to a complicated series of events. When Gordon was discussing with potential
director Sam Raimi on what actors he saw in each of the roles, Raimi stated he didn’t
know how he would fit it in, but he would “love to give my buddy Bruce (Campbell) a
spot” (Raimi and Campbell had collaborated on The Evil Dead series). Though Raimi was
ultimately not chosen as the director, Gordon did promise him he would at least let the
actor audition, though the producer had no initial intention of putting a “B-actor” in the
movie. Things changed, however, when Campbell did give his audition on July 18th, with
Gordon, Silver, and Cameron present. Silver and Gordon were impressed by the actor’s
performance, agreeing that Campbell came off as sufficiently “cool” and “badass” for the
role. Cameron did not object, and eventually accepted to the casting, admitting that “he
(Campbell) is the best option we have”. For the majority of his scenes, the actor had to
endure several hours in the makeup room to simulate advanced age, but it was generally
agreed later on that Campbell gave one of the most memorable performances
in Watchmen.

Sharon Stone as Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre II- Sharon Stone, of Total

Recall and Basic Instinct fame, was cast in the role of Silk Spectre, the only active female
superhero in the film. For her performance, she worked out several hours a day to get
herself toned “almost to the point of not even being sexy and just really, really huge”,
she would later point out, before Cameron told her such a routine was not necessary.
Also, her hair color was changed to brunette for filming. Notably, she was the only actor
with a major role in Watchmen who did not read the graphic novel in preparation for
production.

Brent Spiner as Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan: Initially, James Cameron wanted

either Jeff Goldblum or Gary Oldman for the role of the glowing blue, god-like superhero,
but neither actor accepted the role. Eventually, Brent Spiner, known for his starring role
as the android Data on television’s Star Trek: The Next Generation, due to his experience
in portraying a character devoid of emotion. However, only a couple scenes with Spiner’s
character were actually filmed physically with the actor. Instead, his likeness was used
loosely for a computer-generated character, a character which he provided the voice for
(see Special Effects for more details). 

Mark Hamill as Walter Kovacs/Rorschach: Mark Hamill, the Star Wars actor who

many regarded as past his prime, was a surprise addition to the cast. An avid comic book
fan, he managed to secure an audition, before which James Cameron reportedly asked,
“So, is he going to act like the Joker?” (a reference to the fact that Hamill voiced The
Joker in the animated Batman television series, which Cameron must have noticed when
glancing at the actor’s resume). However, Hamill’s audition was so strong- and
menacing- that he left an impression on the filmmaker. After a week of negotiations,
Hamill was cast as the menacing, possibly insane but very principled vigilante Rorschach.
In fact, Joel Silver tentatively suggested that they the studio not announce in advance
who was portraying Rorschach, so that when’s he’s unmasked, the audience at the
premiere would find out to their shock that they’d been watching “Luke Skywalker” the
whole time (Cameron ultimately nixed this suggestion). However, Hamill was widely
touted by critics (even those who overall didn’t enjoy the film) as having given perhaps
the best performance of his career.

In supporting roles, Charlton Heston was cast as Hollis Mason/Nite Owl (the first
rendition) [4], Andreas Katsulas as Moloch the Mystic/Edgar Jacobi, and Kathleen Quinlan
as Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre.

Fear, Loathing, and A Giant Sucking Sound on the Campaign Trail ‘92

On the Democratic side, it was a close race in the primaries, and by the time they were
over, no candidate had received a majority of the delegates. New York Governor Mario
Cuomo, former California Governor Jerry Brown, West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller,
and former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas each had more than one hundred
delegates to their name. Cuomo had a narrow plurality, but Brown wasn’t too far behind,
and could take the nomination if he got the support of some other candidates. In secret
negotiations, Cuomo managed to sway Tsongas over to his camp (before that point, the
former Senator had been leaning towards Brown). The deal was made public, and Cuomo
became the de facto Democratic nominee. From the conversation, however, Tsongas
took this gesture as meaning he would be the running mate.

However, at the Democratic National Convention in New York City, Cuomo made a
surprise pick for the party’s Vice Presidential candidate: Bill Clinton, the Governor of
Arkansas who had made a putative bid for the Democratic nomination before dropping
out due to a poor performance in the New Hampshire primary. Cuomo, a strong liberal,
did this as an attempt to get moderates and Southerners interested in the ticket.
Tsongas, however, was furious. He stormed out of the convention then and flew back to
his home in Massachusetts. Phone calls from Cuomo himself, insisting that he was
terribly sorry if Tsongas has misinterpreted what he said in the negotiations, and offering
cabinet positions, went unanswered. In fact, a phone call from Tsongas to a certain
Texan billionaire was made…

On July 21st, 1992, independent candidate for President Ross Perot [5] announced, on a
joint stage in Boston, that he would be selecting Paul Tsongas as his running mate (the
current person with that position on the ticket, Vice Admiral James Stockdale, had been
meant as a placeholder, and he knew that). It made sense, both men were fiscally
conservative but more socially liberal (Tsongas had once joked, “If anyone thinks the
words ‘efficiency’ and ‘government’ belong in the same sentence, we have counseling
available”). Perot also liked having him under his wing because having a former
Democratic politician dispelled the notion that his campaign was merely one for
disaffected Republicans.

Speaking of the Republicans, President Bush was in a tough spot. The economy was in a
recession, and the GOP had been strongly hurt by David Duke being elected Governor in
Louisiana (any hope of that issue going away, however, was shattered when Pat
Buchanan gave an unexpectedly strong performance in the Republican primaries, even
winning the New Hampshire contest by a slim margin over an incumbent President [6].
Though Buchanan maintained he was not racist, many asserted that he was “Duke
without the white hood”). 

However, Bush easily won the nomination once his reelection team was shaken out of its
complacency. Still, even after Buchanan was knocked out, Vice President Dan Quayle still
kept accidentally hurting his President’s reelection chances. Quayle was positively a gaffe
machine, and after he called Cuomo’s running mate Bill Clinton an “Arkansas Governor in
the style of Orval Faubus” in late July, it led to a huge backlash. Bush quietly pulled
Quayle aside for a meeting and told him he would be replaced on the ticket come the
August Convention in Houston. Quayle gracefully accepted this, and campaigned for the
Republican ticket in the general election.

Now Bush needed to find someone to replace Quayle. After Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and hero of the Gulf War Colin Powell declined the offer, as did his Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney [7], the President finally found an acceptable option. William Weld,
elected in 1990, was a popular governor in Massachusetts. He, like most relevant
politicians in that state, was very socially liberal, which Bush thought would offset any
moderates turned off from the Republicans by Duke and Buchanan, yet he could reassure
his base by pointing out that Weld was a strong fiscal conservative. The President also
hoped that perhaps with Massachusetts’ Governor on the ticket, he could win that heavily
Democratic state due to vote-splitting. This led to mixed reactions from conservative
Republicans. At the convention, Weld gave a speech proclaiming "I believe the
government should stay out of your wallet, and out of your bedroom"[8], which received
a negative reaction from the more conservative members of the GOP (but made him a
darling of libertarian activists). By contrast, it was Pat Buchanan’s keynote address which
got the gathering labeled by some in the press “The Hate-Fest in Houston”.

The campaign was a three-way slugfest. The Cuomo campaign tried to portray Bush’s
supporters as right-wing radicals, while Bush decried Cuomo as an extreme leftist and
insinuated he had socialist tendencies. Perot essentially repeated the same thing about
both sides, trying to portray himself as a friend of ordinary Americans tired of politics as
usual, while the major party campaigns tried to portray Perot as a nonfactor. There was
another third party campaign of note, that of Bo Gritz representing the Populist Party. A
far-right activist who also happened to be a highly-decorated Vietnam veteran, Gritz
railed against all the candidates of being “tools of the New World Order”, who were trying
to establish a “Satanic-Marxist dictatorship” in the United States. He also openly that
America was a “Christian nation”, railed against foreign aid and the Federal Reserve, and
even received the endorsement of David Duke (though Gritz reputed it, saying that
fighting alongside Americans of all colors in Vietnam made him abhor racism).
Surprisingly, Gritz received some substantial support from certain conservatives,
especially out in the western United States, who perhaps felt alienated by Weld’s speech
and Bush’s efforts to appeal to moderates. 

It was generally agreed that Ross Perot had done the best in the debates, being able to
play Cuomo and Bush against each other while trying to appeal to “Middle America”.
Perot also effectively pitched his protectionist views, saying the proposed “North
American Free Trade Agreement” would be a “disaster”, and if ratified that Americans
would soon hear “a giant sucking sound” of jobs going to Mexico. By contrast, most
thought the Vice Presidential debate was a toss-up, with Clinton doing a good job by
distinguishing himself from the two “Massachusetts moderates” [9] on stage, however,
he fumbled trying to portray Tsongas as “petulant” and “a sore loser”. 

Election Night

It was very close leading up to November 3rd, 1992, with a roughly even three-way split
in the polls. In fact, it wasn’t until 6:00 AM the next morning that anyone could call it. In
New England, Ross Perot succeeded in winning Maine very narrowly over Cuomo, while
Bush took New Hampshire by a similarly small margin. The Democrats, however, swept
the rest of New England, including Massachusetts, the home state of both William Weld
and Paul Tsongas (all three major tickets ended up within two points of each other).

However, Mario Cuomo scored big by winning several Northern industrial states such as
Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which the Republicans had won in the past
several elections. Bush was only able to hold onto New Jersey by less than a percentage
point. On the flip-side, Cuomo was disappointed to learn that having a charismatic,
young Southern politician on the ticket did not substantially reverse the gains the GOP
had made in that region in recent years. Outside of Arkansas, where Clinton was
Governor, and Louisiana, which was experiencing a backlash against Republicans
because of Duke, George Bush won the entirety of the Old Confederacy.
Out west, Perot had his best showing, winning Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah,
and Wyoming. Outside of this, George Bush won all of the rest of the Western states,
except for New Mexico, which was a Cuomo win. This region was also where Gritz had his
best performances, winning 10% of the vote in his home state of Utah, allowing Perot to
defeat Bush by a close margin. However, the deciding factor was the states on the Pacific
coast: all of them went for the Democrats, including California, a Republican-leaning
state on the national level.

With that, Cuomo won the election.

The popular vote percentage was as follows:

Mario Cuomo/William Jefferson Clinton (Democrat) - 33.7%

George H.W. Bush/William Weld (Republican) - 32.1%
H. Ross Perot/Paul Tsongas (Independent) - 30.2%
Bo Gritz/Cy Minett (Populist) - 2.9%
Other- 1.1%

Elections for the 102nd United States Congress also took place. Freshman Senators
included Bruce Herschensohn (R-CA), Dick Lamm (D-CO), Bob Barr (R-GA), Carol
Mosely Braun(D-IL), and Russ Feingold (D-WI). Notable freshman Democrat
Representatives included Alabama's George Wallace, Jr. (son of the notorious Alabama
Governor George Wallace), who would become a leading conservative Democrat in the
House, along with fellow freshman Walter B. Jones of North Carolina. On the opposite
side of the political spectrum, the controversial Cynthia McKinney was elected in
Georgia, becoming the first African-American woman to represent that state in the
House. On the Republican side, newcomers included California's Maureen Reagan,
daughter of former President Ronald Reagan and Maryland's Alan Keyes, a former
Reagan Administration diplomat who was talked out of taking on incumbent Barbara
Mikulski in the Senate race to instead run for the House. In an interesting
development, Dean Barkley, a Ross Perot-backed Independence Party candidate in
Minnesota was also narrowly elected to Congress, joining Vermont's Bernie Sanders as
one of the two non-major party registrants in the House (and unlike Sanders, who
caucused with the Democrats, Barkley would not join either caucus on principle, limiting
his own efficacy).

Elections for the 102nd United States Congress also took place. Freshman Senators
included Bruce Herschensohn (R-CA) [10], Dick Lamm (D-CO), Bob Barr (R-GA), Carol
Mosely Braun (D-IL), and Russ Feingold (D-WI). Notable freshman Representatives
included Alabama Democrat George Wallace, Jr. (son of the notorious Alabama Governor
George Wallace), who would become a leading conservative Democrat in the House,
California Republican Maureen Reagan, daughter of former President Ronald Reagan, and
Maryland Republican Alan Keyes, a former Reagan Administration diplomat who was
talked out of taking on incumbent Barbara Mikulski in the Senate race in Maryland and
instead challenging Steny Hoyer for his seat.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Reacts to Spiner’s Role

When Brent Spiner signed on to play Doctor Manhattan in James Cameron’s Watchmen,

there was a mixed reaction in the cast and crew of The Next Generation. Most on the
show, especially the cast, were happy for him. “He’s got a shot now, a real shot at the
big time” Michael Dorn (Worf) commented. However, some on the writing and production
side were more reserved. Filming for episodes of the seventh and last season of the
series partly conflicted with the filming of Watchmen (from March to July), and though
most of Spiner’s role would be consist of his voice acting, the shooting of his live action
scenes were scheduled near the end of production- meaning that Spiner missing the
shooting of several episodes would be unavoidable. Attempts were made to change this,
though in the end it was more of a priority for Cameron to protect Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s (Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias) and Kurt Russell’s (Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl)
schedules. As many of the scripts for the episodes in the early part of the seasoning were
nearing completion, it would be difficult to get rework the plots of many episodes the
subtract Data. Showrunner Jeri Taylor, The Next Generations’ show runner, insisted that
they needed a character similar to Data to fill out the androids’ role in the episodes in
question. It was staff writer Brannon Braga who came up the winning idea.

The last episode of Season 6, “Descent, Part I” (a Data-centric story, where he confronts
once again his “evil twin” Lore), would feature the Borg as the main villains. The Borg
was a collective of cyborgs coming from many different races, including humans, whose
members had no individuality. The primary goal of the Borg was to go throughout the
cosmos “assimilating” other races, their cultures, and their technologies into the greater
collective. Braga’s conceit was that, in the course of the episode, a subplot would emerge
where Doctor Crusher (Gates McFadden) would try to isolate an individual Borg and
“cure” it of its connection to the collective. This “drone” would then be featured in the
next couple of episodes trying to regain its individuality and experience human emotions
[1]. As Data was absent in the first several episodes (his absence was explained by him
being requested by Starfleet to tour other ships in the armada, making sure they were
prepared to resist a Borg assault), the drone’s great knowledge of science (gotten from
his leftover databank) would make him invaluable to the crew in these matters. Casting
went out for a young white male to portray the Borg “Vosima” (an anagram of Asimov,
the famed science fiction writer. As Braga would put it, “Yeah, I know, it was sorta silly.
Sue me, the clock was ticking.”)

The role went to then-unknown Edward Norton, who excelled at his New York audition.
Norton’s innate acting chops established Vosima as one of the most complex and
compelling characters on The Next Generation, and he quickly became a fan favorite. His
tenure on the show was so well-received that his role did not diminish greatly when
Spiner was able to return in the latter part of the season (in fact, some of the best
scenes of the show’s seventh season were Data and Vosima working together. As one
critic put it, “perfect deadpan”). Studios noticed the appealing young actor, and Norton
started getting a lot of movie offers, enough to turn down supporting roles in Deep Space
Nine and Voyager (though he did have a substantial role in Star Trek Generations and a
cameo in Star Trek: Regeneration [2]). Edward Norton would become one of the
breakout stars of the 1990’s, and win two Academy Awards within the next ten years.

STAN LUNDINE BECOMES GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK

Associated Press, December 20th, 1992

ALBANY- Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundine has become the 53rd Governor of the state
of New York. Lundine assumed the office when Mario Cuomo vacated his gubernatorial
duties in preparation to be inaugurated as the next President of the United States next
month…

CALIFORNIA SENATOR HERSHCENSOHN RESIGNS

Associated Press, September 17th, 1993

LOS ANGELES- Republican Senator Bruce Herschensohn, who had narrowly defeated
Barbara Boxer last year, has announced his resignations from his office less than a year
into his term, amid allegations that he had been frequenting strip clubs in Hollywood…

CONGRESSMAN TOM CAMPBELL TO BECOME NEW SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA

Associated Press, October 2nd, 1993

SACRAMENTO- Governor Pete Wilson has announced his choice to replace Bruce
Herschensohn as United States Senator: Thomas Campbell, the former Representative
from California’s 12th district… [3]

Stargate Finds Another Lead

With their first choice, Kurt Russell, unavailable due to his casting in Watchmen, director
Roland Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin needed another actor to portray their lead
character, Colonel Jack O’Neil. After Harrison Ford declined the role, they decided to
reluctantly look at the leads in television shows. Eventually, however, they found
someone they liked enough to offer an audition. Well, Emmerich liked him; Devlin was
unsure, offering “He’s not really O’Neil…”- to which the director replied “So put another
“L” in his last name. I like the guy” [4].

MacGyver had ended in 1992, and lead Richard Dean Anderson was looking for other
roles. He accepted the chance to audition, and immediately impressed the
writing/directing duo. Anderson was likable and funny in his audition, even when he was
reading the more serious scenes. This was a fay-cry from how the character was written,
but even the more skeptical Devlin. “He may not have been Jack”, the writer conceded,
“but he sure as hell was a character. He's a great tension breaker”. Devlin rewrote parts
of the script to change Jack O’Neil from a cold, brooding character to more humorous and
sarcastic, to help accommodate Anderson and how he wanted to portray the role. [5]
"The great part about it, though, was that the guy (Anderson) is really a great actor",
Emmerich said. "Such a good actor that we didn't have to change the script that much:
he could still be a more sad, tragic character, and his sense of humor was more a coping
mechanism. Anderson really does convey that." 
As Emmerich said to the studio executives, “He may not be a big star. But we think we’ve
found the guy who can give us a hit.”

Major Cabinet of the Cuomo Administration

President of the United States: Mario Matthew Cuomo (52nd Governor of New York,

1983-1992, previously Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State of New York)

Vice President of the United States: William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (40th and 42nd
Governor of Arkansas, 1977-1981 and 1983-1992, previously Attorney General of
Arkansas)

Secretary of State: Daniel Patrick Moynihan (United States Senator from New York,

1977-1993, previously the 12th US Ambassador to the United Nations and the 10th US
Ambassador to India)

Secretary of the Treasury: Paul Krugman (Prominent New Keynesian economist, 1991

winner of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal)

Secretary of Defense: Sam Nunn (United States Senator from Georgia, 1972-1993)

Attorney General: Stephen L. Carter (Professor at Yale Law School, Yale University)

Appointments as a Result of Cabinet Selections:

Georgia: Governor Zell Miller, after considering Georgia Secretary of State Max Cleland
and State Representative Roy Barnes, decided to assign Sam Nunn’s vacant Senate seat
to five-term Congressman George “Buddy” Darden. This sparked some controversy with
liberals, as Buddy Darden was considered a conservative Democrat. As per state laws,
the new Senator would not be subject to a special election and would serve in
Washington until at least January 3rd, 1997.

New York: Stan Lundine, who had himself succeeded Mario Cuomo as Governor when
the latter became President, appointed former Congressman and Mayor of New York City
Ed Koch to fill out the rest of Dan Moynihan’s term. This was a move made to gain
bipartisan support, as Koch had demonstrated heavy cross-party appeal as Mayor (in the
1981 race he was nominated by both the Democrats and Republicans). The new Senator
easily won a special election to defend his seat in late 1993, and promised that, if elected
to a full term in the 1994 midterms, he would retire after that term.

Filming on Watchmen Begins

Principal photography for Watchmen began in early March, 1993. Initially, James

Cameron had hoped to shoot every seen on location (or, at least, as close to on location
as possible- filming in Antarctica would have been prohibitively time consuming and
expensive, and filming on Mars would be outside even Cameron’s reach for the moment).
However, after he had finished scouting locations in New Mexico and California to double
as the Red Planet, the director was left unsatisfied. He wanted a location “suitably alien”
to portray Mars. Finally, Cameron suggested the day before filming in New York (the first
location) that sets be built in Pinewood Studios in the UK to simulate not only Vietnam
and Antarctica, but Mars as well. This inflated the film’s budget by $15 million, but the
studio still acquiesced. 

A variety of locations in the Big Apple were used for Watchmen. Special permission was
given to use certain buildings in the Rockefeller Center to convey Veidt’s corporate
headquarters, while the creative use of several square blocks in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Brooklyn, were dressed to portray the “underworld” of the comics (in fact, astute viewers
could tell that many of the same spots were also used in the shooting of Spike Lee’s Do
The Right Thing several years earlier). 

Trouble brewed regarding the filming of the riot scene. Cameron had planned to hire
several hundred locals as extras for filming the social unrest that, in the universe of
Watchmen, would lead to the passage of the “Keene Act” in 1977, which banned
costumed vigilantism. When Mayor David Dinkins heard this, he grew worried, and
requested a meeting with the director. Dinkins' concerns were that the use of some many
local New Yorkers as extras in the filming of the riots could “get out of hand”, as only two
years before two serious bouts of civil disturbance had rocked the city. Cameron was
deeply offended by the insinuation that his production could “cause a fuckin’ riot”, but he
(perhaps surprisingly, knowing the director) agreed. Casting calls for extras were told to
cut their numbers by several hundred to several dozen. The new plan was to use these
individuals for the rioters near the front of the crowd, in addition to stunt actors would
actually take part in the fight scenes with Russell’s and Campbell’s character, while their
numbers would be digitally augmented. The effect was to give a relatively small crowd of
characters more depth, with the real actors being used to give the impression that the
crowd was larger than it really was. [1] More on special effects later.

The only other bump in the NYC shoot was during the filming of the flashback scene
where Rorschach (Mark Hamill) commits his first murder, that of a man (played by actor
Scott Wilson) that butchered a small girl and fed the remains to his dogs. A run-down,
abandoned house in Brooklyn was purchased by the production company to serve as the
location. The scene called for the house to be set on fire as part of the deathtrap for
Wilson’s character. However, there was a malfunction in the pyrotechnics department,
and a real, uncontrolled fire that threatened to engulf nearby buildings was soon ablaze.
The Fire Department was quickly called, but not before Mark Hamill, still in full costume,
came out to stare in horror at the fire. Cameron was also present and, impressed by the
visuals, he grabbed the nearest cameras and started rolling. He particularly liked the
intensity of the stare Hamill was giving the conflagration. “And right there, Mark’s back
the me, the fire blazing in front of him”, Cameron later recalled, “that was the panel in
the comic. That was it. That was it. No amount of reshooting the panel under controlled
conditions could come anywhere near the same effect. When I later caught up with the
guy who started the fire, I gave him a big hug.” Luckily, firemen showed up to the scene
before there were any injuries or any major damage to other buildings.

After filming in America wrapped up in America, it was off to Pinewood Studios in Britain.
Nearly all of the non-New York scenes were filmed either on or near the studios. For
instance, the Vietnam battle sequence was shot in the Beckton Gas Works on the Isle of
Dogs near London, where, coincidentally (or maybe not), part of Stanley Kubrick’s Full
Metal Jacket was filmed in the late 1980’s [2].
Antarctica and Mars each required complicated sets, along with the enhancement of
computer imagery. Though Brent Spiner was to be “present” in most of his scenes
(Doctor Manhattan would be “portrayed” by a digitally-rendered model, which was voiced
by Spiner), the actor was present during the filming of all of his character’s scenes, as
Cameron required him to be the stand-in for Doctor Manhattan as well, so the other
actors could play off of him. One day, after goading from costar Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Spiner pranked the director by showing up to the shooting of the Mars scenes in full Data
costume and makeup. Cameron thought this was hilarious, and let the filming commence
as normal (it’s not like it mattered, as no one would see it in the final product). Footage
of “Data Manhattan” would later become an “Easter Egg” on the first DVD release
of Watchmen.

After several months of mostly smooth sailing, shooting on Watchmen would end in the
middle of July. Now came the fun part: post-production.

Stargate’s Casting Problems Sorted Out

MGM executives were skeptical of the plan to cast Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel
O’Neil. However, after seeing footage of his audition, they relented. Still, the question
remained as to who would be the “star power” to pull in the audiences. Director Roland
Emmerich tried to object, saying the spectacle of Stargate would be enough on its own to
get people interested. It was his producer Mario Kassar who pulled him aside and said
“Look, if you really believed that line of bullshit, then why were you trying so hard to get
Kurt (Russell) on board in the beginning?”

Emmerich and Devlin badly wanted James Spader, of Pretty in Pink and Sex, Lies, and
Videotape fame, for the role of the eccentric Dr. Daniel Jackson, who discovers the code
to unlocking the titular Stargate. However, the studio was more interested in Jeff
Goldblum, who after the success of The Fly and Jurassic Park was at the height of his
career. Eventually, the director relented, not wanting to risk keeping Spader and having
to take part in another lengthy search for their lead military man. With that, Goldblum
joined the cast as Daniel Jackson.

Due to delays, though, the actress originally signed on to play Sha’re, Mili Avital, had to
drop out. Frustrated, they now had to find another actress, and quick. It was Angelina
Jolie, daughter of actor Jon Voight and a newcomer to the film world, who was quickly
hired to fill in the role of Jackson’s love interest.

Finally, with filming delayed several times, Stargate had a cast and was ready to start
filming.

Late 1993 Political Events

-As aforementioned, conservative Republican Senator Bruce Herschensohn of California

resigned due to a stripper scandal. Libertarian Republican Tom Campbell was picked to
replace him, and he now has to face a special election in 1994, where Barbara Boxer
wants a second go at it…

-In late August of 1993, Cuomo managed to get liberal Constitutional scholar Laurence
Tribe confirmed as Byron White’s successor on the Supreme Court. It was very close,
though, with several prominent Republicans threatening to “bork” the Harvard professor
as hard as they could (a reference to the ill-fated appointment of conservative Robert
Bork to the highest court in the land under Ronald Reagan, which has not been forgotten
by the GOP). Some of the rhetoric thrown around has alarmed the average American as
to the political stratification going on in Washington…

-The Brady Act passed, and Cuomo’s “legislative signature”, the National Healthcare Act,
is well on its way to seeing the light of day. This has led to huge conservative backlash
(Congressman Alan Keyes called it “a stepping stone to communist dictatorship”), and
opinion polls are starting to favor a Republican surge in the 1994 midterms…

-Several important state elections took place in 1993. George Allen became Governor in
Virginia, as did Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey, but the big one was the recall
drive in Louisiana against David Duke. States laws allow for ballot initiatives of this
variety, which a huge bipartisan majority of the legislature was eager to support.
Technically, no reason had to be given for a recall, but the reasons were clear: Duke was
a disgrace to the state. He used to gubernatorial bully pulpit to spew hateful rhetoric
against Jews, blacks, homosexuals, and others he disliked. None of the legislation he
proposed, even on matters unrelated to race, were accepted by the legislature. The final
straw, though, was when Duke invited several far-right leaders from across the globe,
including the British National Party’s John Tyndall, Afrikaner separatist Eugene
Terre’Blanche, and members of Germany’s National Democratic Party to a “White
Leadership Forum” in early 1993. 

Two ballot initiatives were to be voted in in November, 1993 for Louisianans. The first
was for the question of whether Duke should be recalled, and who should replace him.
The second was whether the “jungle primary”, or open primary, system in Louisiana
should be replaced by a more standard method of voting, similar to the rest of the United
States, where a party had to nominate a candidate beforehand and there was no “instant
run-off”. An overwhelming majority of Louisianans agreed that Duke should be removed
(66% to 34%), and more narrowly agreed to end their unique method of election (51.5%
to 48.5%), which many blamed for giving David Duke the chance to be elected. Most
surprising, though, was who got a narrow plurality of votes to become the new
Governor…

Both Edwin Edwards and Buddy Roemer were on the ballot, but the “unity candidate” was
W. Fox McKeithen, a former state representative and current Louisiana Secretary of
State. Though he was a Republican, he was a Democrat until 1989 and the son of a
popular former Governor, John McKeithen. The younger McKeithen would be inaugurated
the next January with his father present, ready to face the new year…

Dreams from My Father

Barack H. Obama was doing well for himself. A professor at the prestigious University of
Chicago Law School, a civil rights attorney, a community organizer who had helped in
project to register hundreds of thousands of African-Americans to vote ahead of the
pivotal 1992 election (with the recent examples of Evan Mecham in Arizona and David
Duke in Louisiana, ensuring black political equality was becoming more and more a
priority for civil rights groups), the young Obama was building quite a name for himself
in Illinois. His story was so interesting, he had been offered the opportunity to write a
book about his life and experiences.

In fact, in the wake of the return of racial politics in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s,
what with the election of David Duke in Louisiana, the issue of affirmative action hitting
the headline news, the Rodney King debacle, the aftermath of the Crown Heights and
November riots, there was actually a huge demand in the media for stories related to
African-Americans and their historical plight. As copies of The Autobiography of Malcolm
X and other books of a similar nature flew off the shelves throughout 1992, Hollywood
began to take notice.

One big example of this added attention to black-oriented stories in the film industry was
the success of the Spike Lee’s Malcolm X at the 65th Academy Awards. Denzel
Washington would take home the gold for his portrayal of the titular character [1], while
Spike Lee and Arnold Pearl would win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay [2]. The
movie was further nominated for Best Director for Spike Lee and Best Picture [3]. Many
contended that the film was only this successful because of political reasons and for the
widely-held belief that Lee was snubbed for the paucity of nominations his
masterpiece Do The Right Thing had a few years before. It should be noted that Malcolm
X was by far the more financially successful of the two films, raking in nearly $100
million in the domestic box office [4].

Many studios were also on the hunt for scripts that dealt with race relations and minority
issues. Actor Richard Dreyfuss was able to sell Universal a screenplay he and author
Harry Turtledove were working on under the working title "The Two Georges", an
alternate history epic set in a modern North America where the American Revolution had
been avoided, on the promise that the parallel universe’s critique on modern American
politics and race relations was a timely introspective, and on the promise that the film
would prominently feature an alternate Martin Luther King, Jr. as Governor-General of
North America. [5] Another prominent actor, Danny Glover, also successfully pitched an
idea of a biopic of Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture to Warner Bros. [6] More
darkly, screenwriter David McKenna began working on a screenplay for a film about neo-
Nazi gangs in Venice Beach, which eventually evolved into American History X, one of the
most controversial and critically divisive movies of the decade.

Lo and behold, it was during this time that, after acquiring unfinished portions of
Obama’s memoir from Times Books, which was set to publish the final product, that
Universal Studios sent a galley proof to legendary director Norman Jewison (who had
actually been set to direct Malcolm X before Spike Lee came aboard) to gauge his
interest in directing a theatrical adaptation of the young man’s interesting life, under the
working title “Dreams from My Father”…

Watchmen Design

During preproduction, Joss Whedon had opined in his screenwriting notes that the film’s
setting and portrayal of New York should be “dirty, rainy, crime-y (sic)…broken down,
overpopulated… (in a) style reminiscent of (Paul) Verhoeven’s RoboCop”. James
Cameron, however, had a different understanding. “…I mean, the guy (Alan Moore)
obviously had the kind of ‘retro-future’ sensibilities in mind when writing, the future
everyone saw coming from the 1950’s. Yeah, there was crime, that kind of stuff in the
graphic novel, but nothing that struck me as too overdone, and besides, the whole
RoboCop trope with the explosive crime and everything was getting pretty overdone
recently… Therefore, I wanted the kind of guy who could convey in the character design
and scene design that would convey the future of superhero-world, not our world.” With
David Gibbons unwilling to participate (though he, unlike Alan Moore, have the project
his blessing), the director had to look elsewhere. Fortunately, Cameron was able to nab a
concept artist with exactly the right kind of experience and sensibilities for the job.

This wasn’t Curt Swan’s first job in an Alan Moore-related project. The veteran comic
book artist, famed for his countless renditions of Superman during DC’s Silver Age, had
done the penciling for Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” in 1986, a
work which stood out in part to the very nostalgic artwork. Cameron commissioned Swan
to sketch designs for all the major characters, as well as his concepts for scenery. The
artist accepted, in part because of financial necessity (he had not planned well for
retirement, and was rumored to have a drinking problem). Swan’s designs were very at
once both futuristic and very evocative of the 1950’s [1], accurately reflecting the
director’s vision of an alternate Atomic Age future. This sort of production design, with
“Andy Griffith” costumes [2] and sets, made for a stark contrast with the graphic violence
and sexuality and other dark themes rampant in the film.

The other production designer involved in the film, H.R. Giger, had only one real
responsibility, though arguably it was the most important of all: the Squid. Early on in
the production, Cameron made the decision that he wanted to change the climax
somewhat. In the comic, Adrian Veidt’s genetically-engineered monster is teleported to
New York City, where it dies on arrival- killing millions with it, though, with a burst of
psychic energy. However, Cameron held that “it would be such a letdown, a real letdown-
not to mention a waste of my production crew- to design this huge monster- then
basically have him die in two seconds. No. This Squid’s going on a giant monster
rampage.” He envisioned a three to four minute scene where the monster “trashes” New
York, before finally being brought down with by the United States military. Giger, who
had previously created the titular creature in the Alien film series, which Cameron
contributed to, was tasked with creating “the most disturbing giant monster ever”. The
Swiss artist’s final design drew more inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos
than the actual comic book, but the creature was still definitely Squid-like in nature.
Giger’s one other contribution was the design for Bubastis, Ozymandias’ pet, a
genetically-engineered lynx. Since the technology was lacking at the time to realistically
render a hairy creature, Giger’s design called for the beast to be bald, with smooth, dark
purple skin. The Squid was eventually realized on screen through computer effects, while
Bubastis was a mixture of CGI and animatronics.

The art design for Watchmen was considered one of its strongest points, with critic Harry
Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News later commenting that “…it’s really, even more than some
of the acting, even more than the story, what turned it from your run-of-the-mill kickass
action flick to an absolute fucking genius masterpiece.” Curt Swan and H.R. Giger, as the
principle production designers, would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art
Direction for their work, which was especially notable for Swan, as it was his first real job
in the film industry. He would die two years after the film debuted.

It was now up to Stan Winston and his team of special effects wizards to put this all to
the screen.
Watchmen Visual Effects

Many modern audiences are surprised to find out just how few of the special effects
in Watchmen were actually realized by a computer. Stan Winston proved once again after
his success working on Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park that his practical
effects would arguably outshine anything digitally created for the better part of a decade
after the release of Watchmen. For instance, all of the “gore” shots (for instance, the
death of Rorschach, the crime bosses, and Vietcong via Doctor Manhattan’s particle
disintegration powers) were actually the work of full-sized animatronic puppets of the
characters created by Winston. Said creations would burst via remote control order,
spurting fake blood in the process [1]. He also designed several animatronic models for
the creature Bubastis. The puppet’s appearance and movements were so effective that it
was used in almost all shots of the mutated lynx (the exception being short sequences of
Bubastis in stride). Winston’s makeup department also contributed in more mundane
ways, such as the simulation of wounds and the artificial aging of the actors.[2]

However, Watchmen is primarily remembered today, at least from a technical standpoint,

for its groundbreaking use of computer effects. The movie was released toward the end
of the period in the early 1990’s where computer effects could sufficiently “wow”
audiences, being compared with Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Jurassic Park,
and Forrest Gump in that regard [3]. ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) was hired to work
on the CGI. Many of the same animators from Jurassic Park, such as Mark Dippe and
Steve Williams, were tasked with developing the Squid, given their experience with
creature effects. Compared with the dinosaur animation for JP, the Squid was both easier
and harder to make: easier, because the intentionally alien design of the monster
allowed for more artistic license in portraying it as a real animal, and harder because
there was no animatronic model to fall back on for practical shots.

However, the real challenge wasn’t the Squid- it was only on screen for approximately
four minutes [4]. No, it was Doctor Manhattan’s rendering that would truly
put Watchmen in the history books. The glowing blue superman would be the first major
character in any major film production to be portrayed completely by a CGI character.
[5] As aforementioned, aside from providing his voice for the character, actor Brent
Spiner was asked to double as a stand-in for scenes where Doctor Manhattan was
present and interacting with other characters, to make it easier for the other actors to
play it off of him. However, problems immediately surfaced in post-production. It was
initially envisioned that the character would be put on screen in a fashion similar to how
he appeared in the graphic novel: a perfectly-sculpted male body, the Olympian ideal,
which glowed a radiant blue and had a face which resembled Spiner’s. A male model was
hired for animators to base their design off of, and Cameron had already decided he was
going to use strategic filming to avoid showing any genitalia. However, ILM technicians
found themselves stuck. “It was impossible, really impossible”, one commented. “Well,
that’s unfair, we could have done it, I guess, maybe, if we were given a couple years and
way more money in the effects budget than we had. We could make it, sure, even
animate a ten-minute sequence with it… but over 90 minutes of the guy on screen? We
couldn’t… couldn’t do it. Tech wasn’t there.” So, ILM told James Cameron that they would
either be forced to cut the character’s screen time substantially to allow them to allow
the product to live up to the director’s vision, or they would have to simplify the design
to allow easier rendering. After what was reportedly a tough decision, Cameron offered a
compromise. The final design, which would be used for most of the Doctor Manhattan’s
scenes, would resemble a blue, somewhat more anatomically detailed version of the T-
1000 in its “natural” form in T2, with smooth skin and face that resembled Spiner’s.
However, in the chronologically earlier scenes, such as the flashbacks to the superman’s
creation and his participation in the Vietnam War, the model was significantly more
detailed, closer to the director’s vision. The implication was that as time went on and Dr.
Osterman lost more of his humanity, his appearance became less and less “human” and
more alien, underscoring his growing sense of detachment (and by the film’s present
time, his genitals disappeared entirely). The effect worked surprisingly well. Although the
“uncanny valley” phenomena was definitely in play, it suited Spiner’s character, which
was only complimented by his robotic, though faintly emotional voice acting.

Also aforementioned was the fact that, out of necessity, the film revolutionized the use of
digital augmentation of crowd sizes [6], which was primarily used in the riot sequences.
However, aside from what was already mentioned, most of the effects in Watchmen were
practical in nature. The crystalline formation Doctor Manhattan creates of Mars, Veidt’s
lair in Antarctica, and the cityscape of New York that gets destroyed by the Squid were
all designed by 4-Ward Production, who had previously worked with Cameron on T2 by
making a scale model of Los Angeles for the scene where the city was destroyed by a
nuclear weapon. Two models were created for Nite Owl's flying machine, nicknamed
"Archie": a full-scale replica which included an interior, and a smaller version used for
scenes of flight. Computer effects were only used for bluescreening. For the Vietnam
battle, real tanks and helicopters were used after a deal with the United States military
and, after flirting with the idea of digitally-created explosions, Cameron decided real ones
“looked cooler anyhow”. 

Critics agree that the film’s special effects are effective even to this day. They were so
well-received at the time that they netted Stan Winston and several ILM technicians an
Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The revolutionary use of CGI characters led to an explosion
in the number of them in the ensuing years, including the Brainiac in Superman:
Universe and the alien K’Rarj in Starship Troopers, both of which debuted in 1997.

Watchmen Final Budget Projections

Initially, Watchmen was greenlit with a budget of $100 million. However, certain factors
caused the budget to inflate substantially. Cameron’s decision to replace some of the
location shooting with more complicated sets may have made filming easier and faster,
but it certainly didn’t make it cheaper. In fact, as aforementioned, it raised the cost of
the production by $15 million. Unexpected problems in the rendering of Doctor
Manhattan would also increase the CGI budget by nearly $7 million. All in all, unforeseen
ancillary expenses in addition to all of this would bring the budget of Watchmen closer to
$130 million than $100 million, making it, unadjusted for inflation, the most expensive
film ever put produced up to that point. 

...

Music and Marketing for Watchmen

Originally, James Cameron had intended on working with prolific movie composer Brad
Fiedel, who had previously worked with on the Terminator series, to create the score
for Watchmen. However, Fiedel surprisingly refused, suggesting Philip Glass as a better
fit for the material. His contention was that the heavily minimalist influences in Glass’
work were a better fit for the chronic tone of much of the film, especially with regards to
Doctor Manhattan and his relation to time and fate [1]. Cameron was initially taken
aback by such a move on Fiedel’s part, and skeptical from what he knew about Glass that
the composer would sign on. “’I can't shake the idea that no matter how good the script
is, no matter how good the production values are, no matter how timely the message
and complicated the moral dilemma... I can't shake the idea that Glass would score for
what's, at its most basic level, an action movie based on a comic book. He seems too
highbrow’”, Cameron said when relating then the story later. “Then Brad smiled and said
“Hey man, the guy scored fucking Candyman. You can get him”. Glass would indeed sign
on.

However, it was estimated by producer Joel Silver that maybe a little less than half of all
the music onscreen would be credited to whoever the film’s composer would be. The idea
was, to help make the film relatable as a cultural touchstone and a dark parody of the
20th century, lots of popular music would be used. Many songs from the past several
decades would be used in the soundtrack, with the “ending point” being the 1980’s. In
the end, the rights were bought to fourteen different songs, though only twelve of them
would make it to the screen (the unused tracks, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded
House and “Sugar, Sugar” [1] by the Archies, would be included on the Music of
Watchmen CD). Some critics would actually complain about the overuse of the popular
songs in the soundtrack, saying they were distracting in some parts. Roger Ebert would
opine in an otherwise positive review that he found the score by Glass more interesting
anyway. However, the placing of “Where Is My Mind?” by The Pixies over the ending with
Seymour at The New Frontiersman possibly deciding the fate of the world, leading into
the credits, was regarded as a strong decision, creating one of the most iconic single
movie scenes of the 1990’s.

In fact, another song was essentially created for Watchmen. The Smashing Pumpkins, an
indie band, were asked to make a song to play over Rorschach’s opening monologue and
the opening credits. The product, “End of the Beginning” [3], was a weird combination of
metal and electronica influences, which was unusual among the band’s discography at
the time. When released as a single in March of 1994, it did surprisingly well, reaching a
peak position of #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. A music video was released the next
month, directed by fledgling Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, portrayed a fed-up
urban, blue collar worker (Ron Perlman), fed up with the violence and degradation on the
news, donning his own custom leather mask and engaging in acts of vigilantism,
interspersed with clips of the Smashing Pumpkins playing at a seedy, smoke-filled club.
The video ended with Perlman’s character being shot from behind, then falling down
slowly… revealing his killer as The Comedian from Watchmen, as portrayed by Bruce
Campbell. An advertisement for Watchmen followed its initial broadcast. The video
became controversial, as the much-watched MTV premiere of “End of the Beginning” was
criticized by moral guardians as extremely violent, and many liberal activists claimed the
video endorsed vigilantism. However, the debate created much buzz for Watchmen,
slated to come out on July 1st, 1994. 

The music video and early release of the single, of course, were just one part of the
marketing campaign for the film. The first teaser actually appeared at the premiere of
Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park one June 11, 1993. However, as filming had not yet
completed, it was a very simple trailer- some narration from Rorschach on a black
screen, interspersed with very short, almost subliminal clips from the film, with Philip
Glass’ “Prophecies" playing in the background.. Also thrown into the mix was, in bolded
white letters, the text “From Director James Cameron- Based on the Graphic Novel by
Alan Moore and David Gibbons- Arnold Schwarzenegger- Kurt Russell- Sharon Stone-
WATCHMEN- Summer 1994”. A more complete trailer was ready by the winter of 1993,
but for what it was, the original teaser was very effective. It was so confusing, it got
people asking questions- leading them to the comic for answers [4]. DC would note that
sales of the graphic novel spiked throughout 1993 and 1994.

Which led to the question of secrecy on the project. Studio executives wanted everything
to be previewed for the trailers to be released in early 1994. This included the actor
playing Rorschach, Mark Hamill, and the appearance of the Squid. While Cameron
allowed Mark Hamill’s identity to be known prior to Watchmen’s release, he was adamant
that the Squid not appear. He knew that the comic was becoming more popular, so more
people would be aware of the nature of the climax, but he wanted the revamped design
of the giant monster to be a surprise, along with its rampage in New York. Cameron
eventually won out on this matter.

As the film was geared for a mature audience, no toys would be produced in the wake of
its original release. However, Capcom did develop a beat ‘em up game based
on Watchmen for the Sega Genesis video game console, which was released in July of
1994 to a mixed reaction. Marketing was accomplished in other, more unique ways.
Posters were made for each of the main characters, with the Rorschach poster in
particular, featuring the masked vigilante walking out of the shadows with a huge smear
of blood across his chest, with the words "This city fears me. I have seen it's true face,
becoming very popular on it's own in the mid-1990's, especially on college campuses.
Blood-stained smiley pins became ubiquitous in comic shops. In many theaters, the
poster for the film was simply a paper replica of the Doomsday Clock from the graphic
novel behind glass. Each day closer to Watchmen's premiere, it was moved just a smidge
closer to midnight. However, the biggest tie-in ploy was DC reaching out to Moore and
Gibbons to write more comics set in the Watchmen universe, which led to a surprising
eventual outcome.

All of the signs going into July 1st were good, and the studio was optimistic
about Watchmen’s prospects…

Watchmen’s Release

Watchmen finally hit theaters on July 1st, 1994- incidentally, exactly three years after
the premiere (but not the wide theatrical release) of Terminator 2: Judgment Day,
Cameron’s last picture. Well, perhaps it wasn’t incidental. The July 4th weekend was, and
remains, a very lucrative time to debut a movie. Fox’s multi-million dollar marketing
campaign had been in full swing by then, and the summer of 1994 was popularly
described in the press of “The Summer of Watchmen” [1]. In late June, one small comic
shop owner in Manhattan described the scene outside his store and among his clientele.
“We had people packing in my shop, flustered people, asking me what
this Watchmen shit was all about. (I) Pointed them to the (Watchmen) rack. In the week
or two leading up to the premiere, thing had to be reloaded like three times a day. The
streets outside my store, and there was an RPG (role-playing game) joint right in front of
my place, so yeah, was littered with posters. (It) Was like a scene outta the comic,
y’know, right after the Squid hit… Yeah, some of my more regular regulars saw The
Crow like five times just to see the five-minute trailer.”

Opening weekend box office was $59 million dollars, or, to again compare to T2, nearly
$5 million more than the opening weekend of Cameron’s last directorial effort. It
especially did well in the lucrative 18-35 male demographic, who made up nearly 60% of
the audience. Competitors for the same weekend premiere, including Baby’s Day
Out, Blown Away, and fellow superhero flick The Shadow were absolutely swamped, and
all would continue to do poorly throughout what remained of their run. [2] Going into the
second weekend, though, would be the big challenge, because the competition had
upped the ante.

On July 6th, Forrest Gump, a dramedy directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom
Hanks, Robin Wright, and Gary Sinise was released. It revolved around the tale of a
mentally challenged Southern man (Hanks), who inadvertently inserts himself into most
of the major historical events of the latter part of the 20th century. Its sympathetic lead
character was probably meant as a focal point for all the experiences of the Baby Boomer
generation as a whole. In fact, the similar premises of Forrest
Gump and Watchmen would actually strike critics as fitting: both were about fictional
characters making their own implicit commentaries on the 20th century. Indeed, it’s
fairly common to hear Watchmen referred to as a “darker Gump” or Forrest Gump as “a
more light-hearted Watchmen”. However, long-term academic musings were not the top
priorities of studio execs. Everyone waited in bated breath to see if Watchmen would be
competitive its second weekend, against real competition.

And it did. The superhero extravaganza pulled in $30 million in its second weekend, or a
less than 50% drop from its first weekend. While Gump pulled in a respectable $22
million [3] that weekend to generally positive reviews, a second-place showing in its first
weekend would hobble its performance throughout the rest of the year. The other two
films debuting that weekend, Angels in the Outfield and Spanking the Monkey were
crushed by the competition.

Though the common misconception in the controversy surrounding the notorious 67th
Academy Award controversy was that Watchmen had crushed Forrest Gump in the box
office by comparison, a quick internet check would reveal that Gump actually out-
grossed Watchmen in the international box office by nearly $100 million by the end of
both of their theatrical runs. This is because Watchmen performed incredibly strongly in
its first few weeks, mainly the month of July, before tapering off, while Forrest Gump was
the metaphorical “little engine that could” doing consistently well enough for a prolonged
period of time throughout the year, making up for time lost at the beginning. As it
stands, though, Watchmen would become the movie that defined the summer of 1994, at
once both dark social commentary, and spectacular popcorn fare. That is, in the opinion
of some critics…

Watchmen’s Box Office [4]

Domestic: $256,958,954
Foreign: $219,308,749
Total: $476,267,703

ritical Reaction to Watchmen

To the surprise of many, Watchmen not only did very well at the box office, but received
substantially positive critical reaction. Rotten Tomatoes, a critical aggregate site which
debuted in 1999, retroactively gave the film an 87% rating, marking it as “Certified
Fresh”. Particular praise was singled out for the movie’s action, special effects,
supporting performances, and nostalgia factor.

Roger Ebert gave the film four stars (out of a possible four, by definition the best he can
possibly give). Ebert started his review saying, “When I was viewing Watchmen, I was
constantly on the wait for the illusion to crack. Cameron’s directing, the acting, the
story… these were all far too good, far too complicated to be a superhero movie. I was on
guard for the smile, the breaking of the fourth wall, something that would ruin the whole
experience. And it didn’t happen. Watchmen takes itself dead seriously. And that’s, oddly
enough, what makes it so enjoyable”. Peter Travers, Richard Corliss, and Owen
Gleiberman expressed similar opinions.

While all of the performances were considered at least adequate, much attention was
given to the acting chops Bruce Campbell, Brent Spiner, and especially Mark Hamill
displayed. Travers noted, “…it’s kind of funny to see the three box office stars get utterly
and completely upstaged by the three nobodies”…” don’t get me wrong, they
(Schwarzenegger, Russell, Stone) weren’t bad, not at all. But take a look at Bruce
Campbell, best known until now for the ultra-gory Evil Dead B-movies. The man is a
maniac, and a murderous maniac at that… but there’s something about him that makes
you like him. Maybe it’s his ultimate mental breakdown, but for most audiences, I think
it’s because Campbell is so cool the theater gets noticeably colder”. “Campbell does seem
to have charisma is spades, doesn’t he?” Gene Siskel wrote in his review. Critics also
enjoyed Spiner’s cold detachment, though many conceded it was often hard to tell where
the actor ended and the special effects began [1]. But, again, particular praise was
heaped on Mark Hamill, whose terrifying showing was credited for reviving his career,
which had remained essentially dormant throughout the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
Legendary Star Wars director George Lucasprobably put it best- “Mark’s superhero
vigilante was creepy, horrifying, sad, touching, and kind funny, actually, all at the same
time. This is movie acting at its best. This was the reason I entrusted Luke Skywalker to
him nearly twenty years ago”.

The special effects were considered, for lack of a better word, revolutionary. In fact, the
scene showing the birth of Doctor Manhattan is often included as the one of most
memorable and poignant movie moments of all time, and not just because it was
emotionally touching, but because many audiences were stunned at the time at how
much computer effects could actually convey [2]. Doctor Manhattan’s rendering was
considered a triumph in general, as it was the first time a character had been realized in
a movie as a completely digital character, which would lead to many attempts to copy
the effect in the ensuing years. Stan Winston’s practical effects were warmly received, as
always, and the Squid was generally considered on par with one of the dinosaurs
from Jurassic Park.
Though most critics enjoyed it and audiences loved it, most negative reviews centered
around the film’s plot. Jonathan Rosenbaum sneered, “Besides the fact that there is
absolutely no pacing to be found in Watchmen, there’s no consistency to the storytelling
either. At one point it’s a somber family drama, the next it’s the third Batman film, and
the next it’s a giant monster feature. Sometimes it’s trying to show the future envisioned
by the 50’s, and the very next frame it wants to revisit the famous events of the 60’s and
70’s, as if our heroes were Forrest Gump in tights.””…It’s as if Cameron grabbed the
script and had the special effects halfway finished before he even tried to see if it would
make any sense”. 

Generally, though, it was considered a really good movie. Better than Forrest Gump, at
least according to the critical consensus. Would the Oscars agree? Traditionally, they
didn’t. No film based on a comic book, much less a superhero story, had ever been
nominated for any sort of “major” Oscar. Joel Silver, however, was determined to change
history. He convinced Fox in late 1994 to pony up a massive “for your consideration”
campaign tailored for Academy voters, focusing particularly on the performances of Mark
Hamill and Bruce Campbell, and on Cameron’s direction. A brutal competition arose
between the thematically similar Watchmen and Forrest Gump, with the two camps
resorting to extremely petty name-calling (for instance, Tom Hanks’ portrayal of Forrest
being called “demeaning to the mentally challenged”, and Watchmen bashed on the
contention that “comic books are a low art-form”) [3]. When the nominations were
announced in early 1995, however…

Major Oscar Nominations (listed in alphabetical order by film or person's name, where

applicable)

Best Picture:
Forrest Gump
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Overture
Pulp Fiction
The Shawshank Redemption

Best Director:
James Cameron- Watchmen
Krzysztof Kieślowski- Three Colors: Red
Quentin Tarantino- Natural Born Killers
Quentin Tarantino- Pulp Fiction
Robert Zemeckis- Forrest Gump

Best Actress:
Jessica Lange- Blue Sky
Juliette Lewis- Natural Born Killers
Miranda Richardson- Tom & Viv
Winona Ryder- Little Women
Susan Sarandon-The Client

Best Actor: 
Don Cheadle- Overture
Tom Hanks- Forrest Gump
Woody Harrelson- Natural Born Killers
Nigel Hawthorne- The Madness of King George
John Travolta- Pulp Fiction

Best Supporting Actress:

Rosemary Harris- Tom & Viv
Helen Mirren- The Madness of King George
Robin Wright Penn- Forrest Gump
Uma Thurman- Pulp Fiction
Dianne Wiest- Bullets Over Broadway

Best Supporting Actor:

Morgan Freeman- The Shawshank Redemption
Mark Hamill- Watchmen
Samuel L. Jackson- Pulp Fiction
Martin Landau- Ed Wood
Gary Sinise- Forrest Gump

The 67th Academy Awards are broadcast on Monday, March 25th, 1994, and will be
hosted by comedian Jay Leno…

The Jerry Springer Show, History

The Jerry Springer Show, a day-time talk show, debuted on September 30, 1991,
starring the titular former Cincinnati mayor . Initially, Springer was distributed by
Multimedia Entertainment, later going to the former Universal and then to Studios USA
CTTD also distributed to the series. It was conceived as an issues-oriented and political
talk show, a longer version of the commentary for which Springer had gained local fame
as a reporter and anchor, and for its first season, was even taped at Springer's former
station, WLWT in Cincinnati. Guests early on included future Senator Oliver North and
civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, and the topics included homelessness and gun politics,
as well as the social effects of rock music, featuring shock rock stars like GG Allin, El
Duce from The Mentors and GWAR as guests.

Originally seen in only the four markets where Multimedia owned TV stations, it was
somewhat different than today's version of the show. The set for the show has had two
major changes over the years. When the show first started in 1991, it was very basic
with white walls, in an effort to capture the feel of fellow talk show Donahue. Springer’s
haircut and glasses even seeming to make him look like Phil Donahue. The general look
of this set was carried over when the show first moved to Chicago in September 1992,
with an unpolished, open air look and bright colored shapes. 

At the program was moved to the NBC owned-and-operated channels in 1992, however,
ratings were slack. By early 1994, Multimedia was threating to pull the plug on The Jerry
Springer Show. Two competing camps emerged in the production team. The first was
represented by producer Peter Dominick, who suggested a drastic revamp of the
program, touching more controversial and taboo topics and allowing working class
Americans to take to the stage to deal with their problems. Such a lowbrow pitch was
considered by executive producer Burt Dubrow “vulgar”, who instead advocated “staying
the course” with the program’s original intent. However, though Dubrow disagreed with
the main thrust of Dominick’s proposed changes, he recognized that some shock value
was going to have to be added to maintain audience attention. The question on
everyone’s mind in the early months of 1994, of course, was what was exactly needed to
achieve this. By May, Dubrow had found the answer.

In a moment ranked up with the Frost-Nixon interviews in terms of importance, ousted

Louisiana Governor David Duke agreed to appear on Jerry Springer’s television program.
This would be his first interview since the recall, and to this day Duke has never
specifically stated why he accepted the offer to appear on the show. What is clear,
though, is that it became a seminal moment in American television history. Well over 70
million Americans [1] tuned in for the broadcast on April 11th, 1994- a record for a
daytime talk show. The telecast itself was rather predictable: a smiling Duke walked onto
the stage to a deep chorus of boos and jeers, while Springer himself tried to remain
somewhat dispassionate in his questioning of the former Governor. Duke, however,
pushed his rhetoric so hard that the disgusted host walked out of the interview (though
many in the media allege the walkout was a preplanned act to garner media attention, as
the lengthy interview was five minutes from completion anyway). The Klansmen came
out of The Jerry Springer Show much the same as he came in- a reviled, fringe specimen
of American politics. The real change, though, was for the program he appeared on. Burt
Dubrow was vindicated in his strategy, whilst the rebellious Peter Dominick had to
concede to Dubrow that his plan had worked. Jerry Springer’s talk show was now a direct
competitor to The Oprah Winfrey Show- at least in the short term. The trick was to see if
the formula worked long term.

Though later accounts would suggest a bitter falling-out between the Dubrow camp and
the Dominick camp, in actuality that was not the case. Peter Dominick maintains a
cordial relationship with his superior to this day, and for the remainder of his tenure on
The Jerry Springer Show’s production team actively worked to incorporate his more
populist ideas into the political format of the show. For instance, while it was Dubrow
who got the standard staple of small-fry Nazis, Communists, conspiracy theorists and
militia activists on the show for the next couple months, it was Dominick who repeated
the success of the Duke appearance by arranging for an interview with Lenora Fulani on
the Monday before the historic 1994 midterm elections. Fulani, a far-left political activist
who had run for President before on the New Alliance Party ticket, had narrowly beaten
out the more centrist incumbent, Stan Lundine, in the New York gubernatorial Democrat
primary. Lundine was unpopular among the more liberal elements of the New York
Democrat primary, who either sat out the primary or protest-voted for Fulani- who
narrowly won the contest. Though polls showed her severely lagging behind Republican-
Conservative nominee Norman F. Lent [2], but the race had gained national attention
due to Fulani’s narrow win in the primary and her extremely liberal views. Seeing the
popularity of The Jerry Springer Show, she agreed to appear on the program if treated
fairly (i.e. no walkout), believing that it could make a difference in her polling numbers.
While she still lost the gubernatorial election in a landslide, the interview pulled in a cool
60 million+ audience share for the network. The Jerry Springer Show had arrived.

Over the next decade, Jerry Springer’s television spectacular became a beloved staple in
American political discourse. There was no real bias to speak of on the show; Springer
was only interested in ratings, and he’d accept anyone on his program (one common joke
among the politically savvy in the United States was that The Jerry Springer Show was
the fulfillment of the Fairness Doctrine). Several right-wing talk show hosts such as
Michael Savage and Alex Jones became regulars on the show, while more lighthearted
pundits such as Al Franken and Arianna Huffington (who’s transition from conservative to
liberal became quite clear throughout the show’s run). Ross Perot appeared quite often
during the 1996 and 1998 election cycles to pitch both his second presidential bid and
the budding Reform Party, and many attribute the (relative) success of that party to The
Jerry Springer Show. If any one label could correctly define the program, Peter Dominick
found it: “a populist free-for-all”. After Ross Perot showed that the media exposure on
the show could reap huge benefits, and Tom Campbell showed up in 1998 to help his
reelection bid, many mainstream politicians were clamoring to appear. Often times
conspiracy theorists and militia defenders would appear on the same stage as a three-
term Senator or other important political insider. Charles Krauthammer succinctly stated,
“What The Jerry Springer Show did, was it made the fringe in America acceptable.”

Eventually, Peter Dominick was able to produce a television show in his own vision-
“giving ordinary Joes a chance to share their story”- to huge success. Showdown with
William Shatnerdebuted in primetime on NBC in the fall, 1996 season.

1994 Midterms- The Republican Revolution

United States House elections

In a net gain of 59 seats, the Republicans under the leadership of Newt Gingrich take
the House of Representatives, the first time the Republicans had taken the House in forty
years. The defection of conservative Democrat Congressman George Wallace Jr., of
Alabama, adds to the GOP’s numbers. Conservatives cite dissatisfaction with liberal
policies that President Mario Cuomo had enacted, such as universal healthcare and
strong gun control legislation, whilst liberal pundits blame relatively low voter turnout.
Whatever the reason, it would prove a major stumbling block for Cuomo's agenda.

Specific races of interest include the Washington 5th, where incumbent Speaker of the
House Tom Foley loses his seat, the California 46th, where incumbent Bob Dornan
narrowly loses renomination to the more moderate Loretta Sanchez due to
controversial statements he had made about illegal immigrants [3], but narrowly wins
reelection anyway on the American Independent Party line (he would rejoin the
Republican caucus in the House, however), and the Texas 14th, where former
Congressman and 1988 Libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul returns to Congress
as a Republican by defeating incumbent Democrat Greg Laughlin. 

United States Senate elections

Arizona: Incumbent Democrat Dennis Concini retired. Barry Goldwater Jr., son of

conservative icon Barry Goldwater, was drafted by both conservative activists and
libertarian-minded Republicans such as William Weld and Tom Campbell to run for the
open seat. Goldwater defeated Democratic Congressman Sam Coppersmith in a
landslide.

California: Representative Maureen Reagan [4], daughter of President Ronald Reagan,

managed to beat more the more moderate Congressman Michael Huffington in the
Republican primary (Huffington would later go on to become the House Majority Leader).
After the primary election, she heavily campaigned on both her hawkish foreign policy
views and fiscal conservatism, while maintaining that she was more “inclusive” on social
issues, such as being pro-choice. She narrowly defeated incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

California (special): Popular incumbent Tom Campbell wins by a comfortable margin.

Connecticut: Incumbent Joe Lieberman is reelected.

Delaware: Incumbent William Roth is reelected.

Florida: Incumbent Connie Mack III is reelected.

Hawaii: Incumbent Daniel Akaka is reelected.

Indiana: Incumbent Richard Lugar is reelected.

Maine: Incumbent George Mitchell retires. Republican Congresswoman Olympia

Snowe is elected over Democrat Congressman Thomas Andrews.

Maryland: Incumbent Paul Sarbanes is reelected.

Massachusetts: In the most expensive and closely watched race of the night, Bain
Capital executive Mitt Romney defeats incumbent Ted Kennedy by the narrowest of
margins. Kennedy had been particularly vulnerable that year, as, among other simmering
scandals, this would be the first election since William Kennedy Smith's trial in Florida.
Kennedy's attempt to attack Romney on several controversial former practices of the
Church of Latter-Day Saints, such as barring blacks from the priesthood, backfired.
Pundits cite the support Paul Tsongas in the race gave toward Romney, who publically
stated that the Republican was “far closer” to his beliefs than Kennedy, as a major factor
in the Republican gain. Tsongas was perceived as still being angry with the Cuomo
Administration over the now-infamous "VP snub" back in 1992, and had himself
considered running as an independent in the race. [5]

Michigan: Incumbent Donald Riegle, Jr. retired. Republican Spencer

Abraham defeats Bob Carr for the seat.

Minnesota: Incumbent David Durenberger retired, and fellow Republican Rod Grams is

elected to succeed him.

Mississippi: Incumbent Trent Lott is reelected.

Missouri: Incumbent John Danforth retired. Former Governor John Ashcroft defeats

Congressman Alan Wheat for the seat.

Montana: Incumbent Conrad Burn is reelected.

Nebraska: Incumbent Bob Kerrey is reelected.

Nevada: Incumbent Richard H. Bryan is reelected.

New Jersey: Speaker of the State Assembly Chuck Haytaian defeats incumbent Frank

Lautenberg.

New Mexico: Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Colin R. McMillan, known for his
role in the Gulf War, defeats incumbent Jeff Bingaman.

New York: Incumbent Ed Koch is reelected in a very close race over Republican State
Senator George Pataki.

North Dakota: Incumbent Kent Conrad is reelected.

Ohio: Incumbent Howard Metzenbaum retires. Republican Bernadine Healy succeeds

him.

Pennsylvania: In a surprising come-from-behind win, Congressman Rick

Santorum defeats incumbent Harris Wofford.

Rhode Island: Incumbent John Chafee is reelected.

Tennessee: Incumbent Jim Sasser is defeated by conservative actor and former

Watergate attorney Fred Thompson.

Texas: Incumbent Lloyd Bentsen is reelected in a surprisingly close race over

Republican challenger Kay Bailey Hutchinson [6]. After the results came in, Bentsen
promises to retire at the end of his fifth term.

Utah: Incumbent Orrin Hatch is reelected.

Vermont: Incumbent Jim Jeffords is reelected.

Virginia: In a tight three-way race, Colonel Oliver North defeats incumbent Chuck

Robb and independent J. Marshall Coleman.

Washington: Incumbent Slade Gorton is reelected.

West Virginia: Incumbent Robert Byrd is reelected.

Wisconsin: Incumbent Herb Kohl is reelected.

Wyoming: Incumbent Malcolm Wallop retires, while fellow Republican Craig

Thomas succeeds him.

United States gubernatorial elections

The Republican Party also make broad gains in the number of State Houses they hold.
Incumbents Jim Edgar, Pete Wilson, and John Engler win reelection in the important
states of Illinois, California, and Michigan, respectively, while sitting Massachusetts
Governor and 1992 Republican Vice Presidential candidate William Weld won reelection
in a landslide with nearly 75% of the vote [7]. GOP gains include Texas and Florida,
where George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, both sons of former President George H.W.
Bush, defeat incumbent Democrats Ann Richards and Lawton Chiles, respectively.
Former Conservative Party Congressman Norman F. Lent wins the New York
gubernatorial race over Democrat nominee Lenora Fulani in a landslide, with significant
support from moderate Democrats. Two other surprise pick-ups for the Republicans
include the New Mexico and Maryland races, won by businessman Gary Johnson and
Republican Liberty Caucus co-founder Michael Steele, respectively. Harry Browne,
a New York Times #1 bestselling author and free-market advocate who is popular with
libertarians, hard money proponents, and survivalists is also elected Governor of
Tennessee as a Republican.

Still, it isn't a complete loss for Democrats. In the conservative Deep South, where the
Republicans had hoped to make gains, Georgia Governor Zell Miller and Alabama
Governor Jim Folsom, Jr. both win reelection. But perhaps most surprising are the two
gubernatorial races won by non-major party candidates: independent Angus King wins
the race in Maine, whilst A Connecticut Party's Eunice Groark, the sitting Lieutenant
Governor of Connecticut, wins her own term as Governor to succeed Lowell P. Weicker,
Jr.

Newsday article, Friday, March 24th, 1994- Excerpt

SPIKE LEE BLASTS OSCARS FOR OVERTURE DIRECTOR SNUB

As much a maker of headlines for his bold declarations as his feature films, Hollywood
director Spike Lee, famous for Do The Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, and Malcolm X, is
gearing up for another sparring match with his colleagues in the movie industry. The
reason? Danny Glover's lack of an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for his
work on the historical epic Overture last year.

"Some of these studio heads want to, you know, try to ignore the real achievement
of Overture. Sure, they'll put it up for Best Picture, and sure, they'll give Cheadle the
nod", a reference to star Don Cheadle, who portrayed Haitian revolutionary Toussaint
Louverture in the movie, "but the real achievement was Danny Glover. The man's first
try behind the camera [1], and he makes the best war movie since Patton."

Overture, released last November to considerable critical and commercial success, details
the success of the Haitian War of Independence through the eyes of her founding leader,
Toussaint Louverture (the title was taken from the English version of the revolutionary's
last name). Made on a $20 million budget with a virtually unknown cast, the film's
success surprised even director and producer Danny Glover. "This was just supposed to
be a personal thing- a vanity project", the Lethal Weapon star mused with a faint smile.
"It was supposed to be sort of a metaphor for all the difficulties blacks in America have
gone through in history and still to this day. That general audiences would take to it as
well as they did, I was just shocked, honestly."

However, it is Glover who Lee contends deserves recognition on Oscar night. "I wouldn't
even be offended if Tarantino hadn't been nominated twice. Twice. Think about that, and
you can even forget Overture for a minute. That's one other director who got completely
shafted because Tarantino's the "new thing" right now, so of course Hollywood wants to
spoil him." He went on to criticize Quentin Tarantino, who had been nominated for Best
Director for both Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction, the latter of which is also being
considered for Best Picture, for the excessive use of racial slurs in his movies. 
"What does he want? To be made an honorary black man?" [2], Lee continued. A similar
controversy arose several years ago when Clint Eastwood's western Unforgiven beat
out Malcolm Xfor Best Picture...

Excerpt from Harry Knowles, posted from his account on various newsgroups throughout
in Internet in early 1995

BOYCOTT THE OSCARS!!!!

Fellow fans, the Oscars being held this year ARE A COMPLETE AND UTTER FARCE!!!

The Academy of film arts and sciences (sic) has made the worse decision in its when
selecting the movies as its best picture nomines (sic). Quentin Trantinos (sic) films are
good, Overture and Four Weddings and a funeral are both fine… BUT FOREST GUMP
OVER FUCKING WATCHMEN!!??!?!? (sic)

Fellow fans, Watchmen was the BEST FUCKING SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER PUT ON
CELULLOID, outtstripping (sic) classics such as 1978s SUPERMAN and 1989s BATMAN. 

James Cameron PERFECTLY mixed the KICKASS action and scope he demonstrated
before in the TERMINATOR movies and ALIENS with the greatest and most deep plot of
any movie to come out last year, if not this DECADE so far. The sfx RIVALS- nay, it is
BETTER- than JURASSIC PARK (also a good film, to be sure), and the acting is
PHENOMINAL. Seeing ARNOLD SCHWARZENAGGER kick serious ass on screen alongside
Ash from EVIL DEAD and my childhood icon MARK HAMILL (aka LUKE MOTHERFUCKING
GODDAMN SKYWALKER) is the coolest thing ever. Seriously.

Whereas Forrest Gump? UTTER AND PURE BULLSHIT. Its plot is the exact same as
WATCHMEN, just instead of superheroes they have a handicapped descendant of the KKK
[1]. See, the reason they picked FG over WATCHMEN was because it was the sweeter,
less daring film. Gump goes throughout the decades of the baby boomers and learns only
good and nice things, whereas WATCHMEN goes through the same time period and
CHALLENGES the very idea of the AMERICAN DREAM, and is perfect commentary for the
times we are going through today. Its exactly like a couple of years back, when the
Academy picked DRIVING MISS DAISY for best picture and didnt even nominate the
MASTERPIECE DO THE RIGHT THING. The latter movie talked about the same message
of race in a far superior way to the former, but did it in a far more controversal (sic) way.
The Academy got scared. And lo and behold, which of those two turned out to be RIGHT?

And the critics agree with me! I’ve compiled COUNTLESS reviews from newspapers and
magazine articles, and as a whole THE CRITICS THINK WATCHMEN IS BETTER THAN
GUMP. So what gives?

This goes into a deeper problem with the Oscars. They are AFRAID to give the BEST
PICTURE award to movies PEOPLE ACTUALLY SEE. Its like when Annie hall beat STAR
WARS, when Chariots of Fire beat INDIANA JONES, and Gandhi beat ET. Now, they are
not even NOMINATING the BEST, most DEEP popcorn flick in years!?!?!???!! 
Yes, I recognize James Cameron a nod for best director (which he won’t win) and Mark
Hamill is up for supporting actor. But the damage is done: the Oscars are BROKEN. 

My fellow fans, fans of movies, movies THE PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIKE, we shall fight the
fuck back! DON’T TUNE IN TO THE OSCARS WHEN THEY SHOW UP ON TV. DO NOT FEED
THE BEAST. Only then, when their ratings are reduced to NOTHING, will the Academy
decide to return to the days of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and BEN-HUR, when THE
PEOPLES WILL was taken into account when selecting the nominees.

I repeat, BOYCOTT THE OSCARS!!!!!!!!

Harry Knowles was not the only person angry about the lack of a Best Picture nomination
for Watchmen. All over the country thousands of people, from comic book fans to movie
buffs to respectable film critics protested the decision. It was noted, as aforementioned,
that the inclusion of Forrest Gump, which had a similar setting to Watchmen but was
critically not quite as well received (and far less dark), was a major point of contention.
Indeed, Knowles was also not the only person to bring up comparisons to the Driving
Miss Daisy/Do The Right Thing controversy that had wracked the 62nd Academy Awards. 

What began as a campaign started on the nascent Internet expanded in surprising ways-
a testament to the power of the world wide web even in its early years. J. Michael
Straczynski, creator of the popular science fiction television series Babylon 5 and an avid
comic book fan paid for a full-page in Variety magazine featuring a mildly-edited panel
from the original graphic novel. In it, the vigilante Rorschach stares down upon New York
City, with a caption reading “A deserving motion picture was snubbed last night. And
nobody cares. Nobody cares but me.” (20th Century Fox, DC Comics, and Alan Moore all
declined to take legal action against Straczynski or Variety even though he had not
technically asked for permission in using material from the comic.) Famous actors
including Tom Cruise and John Cusack, both fans of Watchmen, also spoke out publically
against the slight. But perhaps most (in)famously, on March 26th, the night before the
awards ceremony, Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis’ home was toilet-papered. The
words “Never Compromise. Not Even in the Face of Armageddon” were also spray-
painted onto the windshield of his car (the perpetrators were never identified,
though Watchmen actor Bruce Campbell would jokingly “admit” to doing it at the
ceremony). 

It was the relatively low ratings for the actual telecast of the 67th Academy Awards that
drove the point home the furthest. Only 41.3 million people tuned in the show [2]- the
lowest since the 62nd Oscars night, when Driving Miss Daisy won. Though some in the
media blamed the poor performance given by host Jay Leno, the ceremony’s producer
Gilbert Cates admitted that “movies fans didn’t watch it because movie fans were
displeased”. Though the Academy would never state an official reason, it was widely
believed that the Watchmen snub was the primary reason behind expanding the number
of Best Picture nominees from five to ten, effective the next year.

For Knowles’ part, after learning how to communicate his ideas a bit more artfully, he
became very successful after starting his own website, Ain’t It Cool News, in 1996,
focusing on gossip and reviews surrounding action and genre films.

March 27th, 1995- Oscar Night

“Showtime,” Leno whispered to no one in particular as he made a final adjustment to his

bowtie. He braced himself as the curtains started to rise, and the somewhat unusually
deep female voice announced his arrival.

“Ladies and Gentleman, your host for the 67th Annual Academy Awards, JAY LENO!”

To the roaring applause of thousands of attendees, The Tonight Show host made his way
onto the stage of the Shriner Auditorium. All of the Hollywood stars were in the house
tonight, and Leno was determined to make this the most memorable Oscars Night to
date.

“Thank you, thank you! Boy, what a crowd!”, Leno began as the applause died down.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy, all the billions of people watching this around the
globe, welcome to the 67th Annual Oscars ceremony! Guess this isn’t the right venue for
the Aristocrats joke, huh?”

And everything went downhill from there.

Notable Oscar Wins

-Best Documentary Feature

It was a tough decision in the minds of many about who should win the
award. Backlash would be the logically timely choice [1]. It discussed the return of race
baiting as a political tactic in the early 1990’s in the wake of rioting and affirmative
action, prominently featuring David Duke, Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Jr., Jesse
Helms, and other Southern politicians, as well as the 1988 presidential campaign of
George Bush (including the infamous “Willie Horton” ad). The lawsuit Wallace and Helms
filed against the producers for being presented in the same vein as Duke and Maddox
only served to raise the film’s profile, increasing its chances. Of course, the more well-
acclaimed Hoop Dreams, sharing the aspirations of several inner-city African-American
high students hoping to become basketball players, also looked like it had a serious
chance of taking home the hardware. Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, about the titular
artist, and That Wacky Redhead [2], a lighthearted look at the life of actress/producer
Lucille Ball, were both considered fine films but lacked the media machines the other
three documentaries had surrounding them.

In spite of the competition, no one was really angry when Crumb won. Terry Zwigoff’s
masterful look into the story of underground comic artist R. Crumb was a work of art in-
and-of itself, and it had the backing of powerful producers David Lynch and Lynch
O’Donnell to boot. However, what pushed it over the top was probably the
success Watchmen and The Crow had enjoyed the previous year had increased
mainstream attention for non-mainstream comics (“Stuff without guys and gals in
spandex”, Zwigoff himself would assert), and Crumb’s art was anything but mainstream.
The consensus was that this was very much a well-deserved award.

-Best Visual Effects

No contest. Though Stargate impressed some with what it could do with a relatively small

budget, and the ability of the SFX team on Forrest Gump to seamlessly incorporate Gump
into historical archive footage could not compete with Watchmen. When the ILM wizards
had created Doctor Manhattan, they created the first completely computer generated
main character in a motion picture, showing just what this new form of special effects
could accomplish, and illuminating the shape of things to come.

-Best Original Screenplay

A win for Pulp Fiction writers Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary (who were also up as a
duo for Natural Born Killers in that same category).

-Best Costume Design

I’m sorry, but did you think the superhero movie with the most fancy spandex ever
wouldn’t win? Silly you.

A win for Watchmen and head costume designer Marlene Stewart.

-Best Supporting Actor

This category had won a great deal of media speculation beforehand. Breaking the
tradition of having an actor/actress of the opposite sex present the award for an acting
category, Harrison Ford was selected to present this one. As Mark Hamill, his Star
Wars co-star was up for the award, this was considered a strong indication that Hamill
was going to win it. However, this ended up not being the case. Samuel L. Jackson won
the award for his portrayal of Jules in Pulp Fiction (and endured the ensuing controversy
when he used the “F-word” multiple times in his acceptance speech).

-Best Supporting Actress

Helen Mirren wins for The Madness of King George.

-Best Actor

Nigel Hawthorne wins for the title role in The Madness of King George.

-Best Actress

Jessica Lange wins for Blue Sky.

-Best Director

In a completely unsurprising occurrence, Quentin Tarantino, who had been nominated for
both Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers, wins for the former.
-Best Picture

The big kahuna. Overture, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction,
and The Shawshank Redemption were all up. However, the early front runner, Forrest
Gump, was suffering. The extremely negative “For Your Consideration” campaign
between that film and Watchmen before the awards season had really hurt Forrest
Gump, and it had been greatly weakened as a result. Many Academy voters who had
been disappointed at the lack of a Watchmen nomination in this category thus voted for
it in the lesser categories, and Watchmen practically swept the technical awards. And
because of the bad blood, being for Watchmen meant being against Forrest Gump, which
ended up not winning a single award.

Pulp Fiction, on the other hand, really was the natural pick. If James Cameron had
enjoyed “The Summer of Watchmen”, well, it couldn’t hold up to “The Year of Tarantino”.
The directors two successful films had made him very popular, and even then his style
was being hailed as innovative. 
And lo, producer Lawrence Bender won for Pulp Fiction.

The Superhero Craze: Part I

One of the most important cinematic developments in cinema of the 1990’s was the so-
called “Superhero Craze”. Coined by none other than famed graphic novelist Alan Moore
(who used the term derisively), this referred to a time in the mid-to-late part of the
1990’s in which films based on comic books, particularly superhero comic books, were
extremely popular at the box office. It is generally agreed by film historians that the first
year of the “craze” was 1994, with the final year being 2001. In that time, no fewer that
eleven movies based on superhero comic books achieved international blockbuster status
(or, having made more than $400,000,000 at the combined domestic and foreign box
office). Some argued that it was a creation of the times; that the huge crime wave of the
late 1980’s and early 1990’s and accompanying social and economic tensions had created
an atmosphere conducive for vigilante fiction (indeed, one of the most acclaimed- and
controversial- films of the 1990’s, Michael Mann’s Hero, would consciously tread the line
between vigilante drama and superhero flick). This, of course, ignores the fact that the
wave was mostly over by the mid-1990’s, though former Secretary of Human Resources
Steven Levitt and former Secretary of Culture John Landis both subscribe to the theory,
with Landis arguing that “the violent crime and riots created a huge mark on the
collective American psyche, which was then solved by catharsis through film” [1]. The
more standard explanation requires something of a history lesson.

The first modern superhero movie is widely agreed to be 1978’s Superman. However,

despite the success of that movie and the film franchise it began, very few other
unrelated comic book movies were produced in its immediate wake. Some film scholars
have tried to retroactively place the beginning of the fad in 1989, with the release of Tim
Burton’s Batman. But like Superman, the success of Burton’s adaptation would not be the
immediate start of a wider trend. The only successful comic book movies released in the
early 1990’s were Batman Returns, the sequel to Batman and Dick Tracy, a passion
project on the part of Warren Beatty. The reason 1994 is usually chosen as the beginning
of the “craze” is due to the double-success of James Cameron’s Watchmen and Alex
Proyas’ The Crow. On its own, Watchmen had become the highest grossing superhero
movie of all time at that point, as well as the most critically acclaimed. Taking the two
films together, well over three-quarters of a billion dollars were netted. While the
Superman and Batman movies had been successful because they were based on popular
culture icons, making it a relatively safe investment, Watchmen and The Crow were two
films centered around relatively little-known comic book characters (at least at the time
of their release), with hard-R ratings to boot. Because of this, the same sort of
executives who had rejected Sam Raimi’s proposal for a movie based on Marvel’s Thor
were now fighting over the rights to practically every comic book in existence.

First on the plate were the sequels. Brandon Lee and Alex Proyas were signed to a sequel
to The Crow, slated for release in 1996. Watchmen was a considerably more complicated
case, however. James Cameron was unwilling to do a sequel, at least in the near future,
looking for a more lighthearted project to work on. Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver had
made a gentleman’s agreement with Alan Moore that they would not pursue another film
set in the Watchmen universe until he had published the prequels that DC Comics had
convinced him to do, tentatively titled Minutemen, telling the story of the predecessors to
the main characters in Watchmen with World War II as a backdrop. Moore, who was at
best ambivalent about film adaptations of his works, consciously set out to write, in his
words “the most shocking, complicated, unfilmable wretch of a book ever - as a
challenge, more or less, to Hollywood”. Needless to say, any follow-up to the Watchmen
movie would be a ways off. In addition, the newfound profitability of the superhero genre
convinced Disney to go ahead with a sequel to 1991’s The Rocketeer, this time with a
better marketing strategy and a director other than Joe Johnston at the helm.

And then there was Batman. Contrary to popular belief, the decision to make the third
installment of Tim Burton’s trilogy “darker and grittier” was not due to the success
of Watchmen. Warner Bros. had decided that the reason Batman Returns wasn’t more
successful was because it was too “fantastic and kid-friendly” [1], especially in the
environment. Tim Burton had already refused to direct the third one, opting instead to
produce and work on the script, which was based fairly closely on Frank Miller’s The Dark
Knight Returns. The titled was shortened at the studios request to The Dark Knight, to
avoid confusion with Batman Returns. The first order of business was to find a new
director, and Burton had just the person in mind…

Meanwhile, all across Hollywood, studios were ramping up preproduction efforts on any
superhero-related properties they owned, or could get ahold of. It wouldn’t be long
before Robert Zemeckis had decided he needed to make his own superhero movie, and
his path soon crossed with Clerks writer/director Kevin Smith. And legendary producer
Jerry Bruckheimer, upon seeing Watchmen in a special early screening, would soon hatch
one of the most ambitious plans in film history…

Of course, despite the name of the craze, not all comic book movies that came out at the
time were centered around superheroes. Some critics contend that the best comic book
movies of the 1990’s were based on “non-standard” graphic novels. Notable examples
included Sergeant Rock, Grimjack, and Men in Black, among many others. 

Still, the “Superhero Craze” had a great impact on American cinema, which would soon
be felt in other types of blockbusters as well...
The Cast of The Dark Knight

The big question on the mind of every Hollywood insider (and comic book fan)
throughout 1993 and 1994 was, “Will Michael Keaton return as Bruce Wayne?” Despite
the financial success of the Batman film series, the actor was actually giving mixed
messages to producers and reporters alike when asked the question. Keaton did not want
to be “married” to the franchise for the rest of his acting career, and wanted to pursue
more interesting roles while he still had it left in him. Reportedly, he wanted to see a
screenplay that gave the Caped Crusader a bit more limelight. In the words of one
production insider “Let's face it, the Batman movies are about who's playing the villains
— and there's Michael stuck in a rubber suit.” [1] Even when it became clear that Tim
Burton was being “kicked upstairs” in regards to the next film and that Sam Raimi would
be handed the director’s chair, it would be months before a definitive decision was
announced. As a contingency plan for Keaton not returning, several actors were
considered to replace him, including Bruce Willis, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Michael Madsen.

However, despite being mum with the public in early 1994 regarding his role in The Dark
Knight, Keaton had been in talks with both Sam Raimi and Tim Burton regarding the
story. He was impressed by the plot of The Dark Knight Returns, seeing it as an
interesting development of the Batman character. Despite the loss of Burton as director,
with Raimi he felt a sense of continuity with the rest of the series, feeling that he could
give a satisfactory conclusion to the trilogy. On July 1st, 1994, Michael Keaton officially
announced that he would be joining the cast of The Dark Knight. (Incidentally, this was
the same day as the release of James Cameron’s Watchmen, which is generally credited
with starting “The Superhero Craze” of the 90’s. Keaton maintains to this day that he
hadn’t seen Watchmen until later on, and that it did not affect his decision to don the
Batsuit for another bout.)

By this time, preproduction had begun in earnest, and the rest of the cast was being
filled out. The first major role to be filled that of Harvey Dent/Two-Face, the Gotham
District Attorney-turned-schizophrenic and scarred supervillain who made all of his
decisions based on the flip of a coin. In the story of the comic, his face was repaired by
plastic surgery (the procedure was actually paid for by Bruce Wayne), only to forever
erase his “good” personality, becoming a ruthless and amoral criminal known as “the
Face”. Though Billy Dee Williams had been cast in the role of Harvey Dent for Batman,
Raimi used it the role as an opportunity to cast a good friend of his: Evil Dead star Bruce
Campbell (when questioned on the consistency problems of casting two different actors
for the same role in a film series, Campbell replied “Hey, they gave Harvey a new face-
why couldn’t it have been mine?”) After the critical and commercial success
of Watchmen, which Campbell had also starred in as the vigilante The Comedian, this
casting came became of subject of heavy attention in the entertainment industry, and is
generally thought to have increased anticipation for the film. It also did much to raise
Campbell’s own profile, allowing his transition from B-movie actor to A-lister.

Prior to Keaton’s entry, most of the cast was in place. Michael Gough and Pat Hingle
returned as Alfred Pennyworth and Commissioner Gordon, respectively. The role of Ellen
Yindel, who over the course of the comic replaces the aforementioned James Gordon as
Commissioner and is initially suspicious of “the Batman’s motives”, became a minor point
of contention between Raimi and the studio during the screenwriting process. Unlike the
last two films, the screenplay carried no female love interest for Bruce Wayne, and studio
heads wanted to see Yindel reworked into this. Both Raimi and Burton balked at this
prospect, with the latter commenting “…it was not what we were aiming for.” It was only
when Michael Keaton told the studio in the summer that he wanted Yindel “…played like
(the) comic or I’m out”, that they acquiesced. Mad About You actress Helen Hunt was
cast. For the leader of the street gang coalition plaguing Gotham City (replacing “the
Mutants” gang in the comic, which Raimi felt was unrealistic and distracting), Burton
fought for and landed Marlon Wayans in the part. Wayans had been promised the role of
Robin in the third Batman film after his character was deleted at the last minute from the
script of Batman Returns, but since Robin was not a male in this version, he was given
another role (to combat any unfortunate implications from casting an African-American
as a gang leader, the decision was made to make the gang as multiracial as possible). In
the role of Oliver Green/Green Arrow, who leads a life of rebellion against the oppressive
government after they banned superheroes, little-known television actor Jonathan
Goldsmith was cast. And as Carrie Kelly, the young girl who fills the role of Robin for
Bruce Wayne so many years after Jason Todd, the original, was killed, a then-unknown
13 year-old named Kirsten Dunst was cast.

Still, even after the casting of the protagonist, two controversies in the casting were still
unsolved (and needed to be solved fast if Raimi hoped to start filming in August). The
first was that of the Joker. In the continuity of the Batman film franchise, he had been
unambiguously killed at the end of the first movie. While that was not an especially big
problem in-and-of itself (they don’t call it “comic book deaths” for nothing), the main
issue was the actor who portrayed him in Batman: Jack Nicholson. Generally agreed to
be one of the best actors working, he was also one of the most expensive. He had only
agreed to do the first movie for a huge sum of money (eventually ending up in the range
of $60 million, unadjusted), and with a more epic scale (and bigger budget) for The Dark
Knight, Burton was hesitant to even call Nicholson up. When he did, he balked: the actor
wouldn’t do it for any less than $100 million. However, when told he wouldn’t be cast,
Nicholson was graceful, and even suggested a possible solution to the problem after he
was told the synopsis. In his idea, Jason Todd really wasn’t killed, but Batman thought he
was. Instead, he was captured by the Joker prior to the events of
1989’s Batman (nevermind the continuity problems, Jack was on a role) and tortured by
him incessantly until a sort of “super-Stockholm syndrome” took place, and Jason Todd,
the former Robin, became the next Joker! [2] This would be revealed to Bruce Wayne
during the final Joker/Batman fight as a twist. Burton and Raimi liked the idea so much
that they called up Frank Miller to see if he accepted the change to his idea, and he
agreed enthusiastically (half-jokingly suggesting that Nicholson should be given a
screenwriting credit for coming up with the idea). Since this version of the Joker was
supposed to be far more menacing and psychopathic than anything audiences had seen
on screen before, they needed an actor who could instill a real sense of dread. For Raimi,
the choice had become obvious: Ralph Fiennes, who had acquitted himself as a thespian
capable of portraying pure evil in the part of Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth in Schindler’s
List. Fiennes signed on shortly after Keaton did.

The final issue was that of who would portray Superman. Here, everyone was in
agreement. The studio, Burton, and Raimi all badly wanted Christopher Reeve, who had
made his name portraying the Man of Steel for the highly lucrative Superman film series.
The screenwriting team had been especially adamant in this regard, feeling that
Superman’s reveal would have more meaning f he was being played by the actor that
audiences had become accustomed to in the part. However, Reeve was less than ecstatic
about taking the role again. He had been badly typecast as Clark Kent, and his acting
career outside of the franchise had suffered for it (though to be fair, this could also be
attributed to his habit of turning down many roles). He thought the media circus that
would ensue as a result of his casting would hamper any efforts to find other, more
serious work. However, Bruce Campbell made an interesting suggestion to Raimi. He
mentioned that during the production of Watchmen, when Mark Hamill was cast as the
vigilante Rorschach, it had been suggested by producer Joel Silver that the studio not
announce who was portraying the role beforehand, so that the audience would be
shocked by the reveal of the actor. While the idea was ultimately not used Campbell
“figured it would work better here”. This way, Reeve would be spared the media attention
during the filming and post-production process, and his role would ultimately be more of
an “Easter egg.” When Reeve heard the suggestion, he was intrigued, and liked the
nature of the reveal. The script was in his opinion much better than anything the
Superman series had produced lately, and would give the character a bit of closure. In
the end, Christopher Reeve agreed to take the part, on the condition that his salary
would match that of Michael Keaton’s ($10 million). 

With that, the main cast of The Dark Knight was finally filled out. Filming could now
commence.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the comic book industry…

Jerry Bruckheimer liked what he saw. A lot, in fact. 

His industry connections had told him Watchmen was good, but now that he was seeing
it… this was a game changer. What James Cameron had done, he’d done well, and
Bruckheimer knew the movie was going to be successful. And you don’t become a
hotshot producer in Hollywood without quickly figuring out that when a movie is going to
be very successful, the other studios are going to try to replicate that success. Like
sharks attracted to the scent of blood in the water. Soon, the film rights to comic book
were going to be an extremely hot commodity.

Bruckheimer had to work fast. He was able to see a rough cut of Watchmen a couple
weeks early, but it took a long time for these kinds of negotiations to work in Tinseltown.
Fortunately, the producer knew exactly what he wanted, and where to find the tools to
make it happen. He was beginning a stint producing movies for Disney (mostly through
subsidiaries like Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures- his kinds of productions
rarely lent themselves to a Disney brand logo). Their assets were rather wanting when it
came to superheroes, however. No matter- they’d be inundated with Caped Crusaders by
the time he was through.

The goal was to acquire the rights to as many recognizable comic book characters in as
short a time span as possible. Bruckheimer knew he could forget about trying for the DC
Comics heroes, as Warner Bros. jealously guarded those assets (and besides, he knew
they were making another Batman movie at that time, and was also hearing isolated
rumors of something big involving Superman over the horizon). No, Bruckheimer was
crossing into virgin territory here. He was planning on bringing the Marvel Comics
universe to life on the screen. It seemed like a natural choice-the Hulk and Spider-Man
and all the rest of the gang were beloved icons of American pop culture, yet no one had
really tried to bring them alive on the screen. 
Bruckheimer sat down with both Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Marvel Entertainment
Group owner Ronald Perelman and explained his vision. He saw Disney producing a
“mega-franchise” of superhero movies featuring the characters in Marvel Comics
(released through the Touchstone banner, of course- the failure of The Rocketeer was too
recent a memory to do otherwise), at first functioning mostly independent of one another
(with cameos and such to make it obvious that the movies are set in the same canon as
one another), and slowly becoming more and more interconnected. His reasoning was
that this would make fans more emotionally invested in the movies, as they particularly
enjoyed stories featuring more than one of their favorite heroes (though they couldn’t, in
his opinion, release something like “Spider-Man Meets Wolverine” in the beginning- to
Bruckheimer, “that would be like eating your dessert before your appetizer”). He pointed
out The Dark Knights Returns as an example of this (“Batman Meets Superman”), and
noted that the next Batman movie would be based on that graphic novel.

Both Eisner and Perelman were skeptical, the latter particularly so. He was concerned
that it would be unwise to keep “all of Marvel’s eggs in one basket” regarding the film
rights. Still, he did notice that Bruckheimer actually seemed very eager about getting
these superhero movies on the screen, and noted that no one else currently holding the
rights to any major Marvel property seemed to be getting anywhere in regards to getting
a film on screen. Perelman eventually gave his blessing to go ahead with the project.
Upon hearing about this, Eisner agreed to bankroll Bruckheimer’s projects.

The first order of business was getting a hold of the rights to producer all of these
movies. The following superheroes were among the ones Disney was able to acquire in
1994…

Spider-Man: Carolco Pictures owned the rights to this character, but currently there
were no real efforts to produce a film based on the character [1]. Seeing Spidey as a
low-priority asset, it didn’t take much prodding (or a particularly high dollar amount) to
sell this one to Disney.

The Hulk: Then owned by Marvel Studios, though Universal was deep in negotiations to
produce a film based on the character. It took Perelman’s lobbying to derail these
negotiations and allow Disney to step in, filling the void (these would create bad blood
between Bruckheimer and Universal, which would later come back to haunt the
producer).

The X-Men: Marvel had recently tried developing a movie based on this superhero team
with Carolco Pictures and Columbia, to no avail with either. Apparently, 20th Century Fox
was interested in the rights at the time, impressed by the animated X-Men television
series, but again Bruckheimer seemed to have the upper hand in these negotiations.

Iron Man: Owned by Universal Pictures at the time. Unlike the last two, this acquisition
a relatively clean affair, as no one else was interested in the property at the time. [2]

Thor: Another simple affair. The rights belonged to Marvel Studios at the time, and
Disney (ie, Bruckheimer) was the only one interested. (Interestingly enough, The Dark
Knight director Sam Raimi had pitched the concept of a Thor movie to 20th Century Fox
in 1990, but they “didn’t get it.”)
Unfortunately for Bruckheimer, not all of the main characters were available at the
moment. Attempts to purchase Captain America brought a lawsuit from comic book
legend Joe Simon regarding who actually owned the copyrights, which would not be
settled until 1998 [3]. The story surrounding The Fantastic Four was an even more sordid
affair. Constantin Film was in danger of losing the film rights to the characters in 1992,
so they produced an ultra-low budget movie not intended for release in order to hold the
rights (allowing the cast and crew to believe that it was a legitimate project). Marvel
began a lawsuit against Constantin, alleging the deal was for the option was only good if
the film was released in theaters in some aspect, and that since that had not intended to
do that with the production, the rights should legally revert to Marvel Studios. This legal
battle would prevent a big-budget Fantastic Four picture from being produced for some
time.

Still, Bruckheimer was mostly successful in obtaining the rights to the various characters
of the Marvel universe. With Disney’s arsenal behind him, he would now attempt one of
the most ambitious projects in film history…

February 24th, 2013

Meryl Streep cleared her throat

"...and the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to... After Watchmen!"

There was a second, one sharp second where no one made a sound. No one. James
Cameron remembered having one thought in that tortuously second, that if a pin was
dropped in the back of the theater, the whole place would have heard (and even in that
tense second he knew how cliche that sounded). Mark Hamill wondered if all of the
hundred-million-plus people viewing at home were as stunned as he was right then.

Then the applause hit. Waves and waves of thunderous applause. To producers James
Cameron, Joel Silver, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as they walked up on the stage, it was
the most glorious applause applause they had heard in their entire lives. This was the
first Oscar win for all three, even Cameron. And oh God, Cameron savored every last
step as he walked up that stage, right up to grab his gold. He'd be damned if he wasn't
snubbed for his Tsutomu Yamaguchi biopic back in '98, and he'd be goddamned if he
wasn't snubbed for the Best Director statue earlier that night (fuck you Florian Henckel
von Donnersmarck!)... but this made it all worth the trouble. He finally got the
recognition he deserved. Finally.

He even said as much when it was his turn to give the speech, though all three men were
aware enough to keep their remarks mercifully short after the long, tense night. "After all
these years, this feels so, so good!", Cameron exclaimed.

Schwarzenegger only uttered a single sentence. "To the Academy, to the cast and crew
of this wonderful picture, to the wonderful audiences across the world, and to this
country and the crazy, wonderful American Dream - danke schoen." 

Joel Silver said the most of the three, thanking his family, friends, the studio, you know,
the usual suspects.

But perhaps the man who felt the most... emotional about this whole affair (if in his own
eccentric and intensely private way) was Alan Moore, the author of this whole fucking
affair, really. He surprised the comic book world by agreeing to attend the Oscars that
year. Moore wouldn't admit as much to anyone, but he was oddly proud to have been
responsible for the whole thing. And he got it. It was pretty obvious that the After
Watchmen movie was starting a "New Superhero Craze", which was fitting
since Watchmen started the first one. 

Recently, Moore found himself thinking a lot recently, thinking of all the things that had
happened because of him and David Gibbons getting together and working on this crazy
little project. It all started with a comic book...

Come and Take Them : The Legacy of the Battle of

Thermopylae in Modern Culture
Literary Arts Review of Harvard, Nov. 2012

Nowadays, French literature scholars are still dazzled by the choice of Gustave Flaubert
for his very last novel. In the first place, it seems to have nothing in common with the
bitter irony of Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education. In fact, The Three
Hundreds seems to form a perfect diptych with Salammbô, sharing the Mediterranean
setting and the epic and antic background. Flaubert had considered, just after
finishing Salaambô, a novel focused on the battle of Thermopylae. In the last years of his
life, he paid a visit to the site of the battle in Greece and came back to the study of
Herodotus. Needless to say, The Three Hundreds raised considerable enthusiasm when it
was published after Flaubert’s death, in 1881. The writer who despised honors, the army
and the bourgeois society would have been utterly disgusted : the epic touch carried by
the novel was what the vengeful Third Republic needed to culturally entertain its
population, and it was soon a compulsory reading for French schoolboys. In the era of
jingoism and colonialism, the sacrifice of the Spartans standing alone against the two
million Persians made the novel known throughout the world.

Because Flaubert’s novel is everything but patriotic and chauvinistic. In hindsight, the
modern reader will see that the Greeks, and the Spartans particularly, are far from being
the champions of democracy : they are corrupted, drawn against each other, and each
city want to take advantage of the Persian invasion to rise to prominence. The Persian
Empire, in comparison, is a hard place to live, but almost heavenly compared to Sparta,
where it is pointed out that such a militaristic system could never last forever. The ideas
of valor, duty, courage and honor are pointed as ridiculous, through the characters of
Eurytus, who foolishly runs back to the battle while he had been sent back to the city, or
the suicide of Pantites, who arrived too late on the battlefield. Aristodemus, who
managed to survive to the battle after being returned to home by King Leonidas, is
blamed by the Spartan crowd ; and Ephialtes, the traitor, is presented as a reasonable
man. All the pompous catchphrases of the novel, from « Tonight, we celebrate our dinner
in the Hades » to « Then, we shall fight in the shades » are nearly ridiculous when
compared to the serious of the Persian army. All the reasonable actions are made by the
other Greeks or even the helots. However, true humanity seems to be achieved when
nothing else can be done, and when sacrifice is the only way : that’s the true morality
and message of Flaubert’s The Three Hundreds.

Since the invention of cinema, the adaptation of Flaubert’s masterpiece, one of the best
known French modern novels, has been awaited. A two-minutes silent film, Leonidas’
Farewell to Sparta, was made in 1902 ; however, having two millions three hundred
(counting Greeks and Persians) actors running half naked and fighting for hours before a
camera rebuked many film directors. Intolerance’s financial failure convinced David Wark
Griffith that historical epics in costumes were doomed. A script by Thea Von Harbou was
found in her personal archives : it was during the early Nazi era, and The Three
Hundreds was turned into a fervent Nazi fresco, filled with sexual innuendos. Sacha
Guitry, for some time in the 1930s, talked with Jean Gabin of an adaptation, and even
went to spot filming locations in the Algerian desert, but all plans were quickly
abandoned due to the beginning of the Secodn World War. Orson Welles also considered
filming The Three Hundreds, but executive meddling when he filmed The Magnificent
Ambersons dissuaded him forever.

At the time of Welles’ rebuttal, movie producers in Hollywood finally went to the idea of
an adaptation. In 1942, people needed a strong, inspirational story to motivate them
against the enemy : and the success of Sergeant York the previous year convinced them
in this idea. The Three Hundreds was proposed, as the story of the Western civilization
standing, ready to sacrifice themselves against the Barbarian hosts. The Three Hundred
Spartans, Best Movie Academy Award in 1942, or better known as the «
American Alexander Nevsky », remains one of William Wyler’s best movies, served with
an all-star cast : Errol Flynn as King Leonidas flanked by his leutnants Appollo and
Diakenes, played respectively by William Holden and Ronald Reagan, Betty Grable as
Queen Gorgo, Fredric March as Xerxes and Peter Lorre as Ephialtes. Of course, the
Hollywood classic made great liberties with the original novel : for instance, the
historically naked warriors are shown with wool antic clothes, as the Hays Code was
reigning at the time. While the Spartans are shown as the champions of democracy, the
Persians are shown as monstruous and barbarian, which is totally contrary to the novel.
Nevertheless, The Three Hundred Spartans remains one of the best sword-and-sandals
ever, and a truely dramatic movie, filmed in Iowa.

The postwar period didn’t wanted to deal with a remake of the Hollywood classic, so the
battle of Thermopylae was forgotten a bit : the idea of a heroic sacrifice against all odds
can be seen as a narrative device in many movies of the era, westerns and war movies
all alike. As cultural pieces inspired by Flaubert’s novel, we have Nikos
Kanzantzakis’ Reflections on The Three Hundreds; a propaganda movie commissionned
by the Greek dictatorship and a low-key Italian sword-and-sandal starring Richard
Harrison and, interestingly enough, a then-unknown Clint Eastwood as a Spartan extra
who was waiting for the making of A Fistful of Dollars. But undertaking Flaubert’s novel
literally, which was until lesser known than the Hollywood classic, didn’t come until 1995
and Paul Verhoeven’s ambition.

Paul Verhoeven’s Hot Gates is by far the most faithful movie ever to the original book,
being even filmed on location in Greece (with other scenes filmed in Italy or Spain),
thanks to comic book author Frank Miller’s script. Its depiction of violence and graphic
sex (both heterosexual and homosexual) was heartily contested at the time and impeded
the movie from being nominated to any Academy Award, but it was all the same. It even
became an issue during the 1996 US presidential election, when Pat Buchanan said that a
Dutch director had obliterated the values of honor and patriotism displayed in the movie.
But yet, it is true : the Spartans were violent and xenophobic slaveowners, and Persians
weren’t monsters. Jeremy Irons makes miracles in playing the megalomaniac Xerxes, so
is Daniel Day-Lewis as the glory-obssessed Leonidas, Edward Norton as Aristodemus and
Linda Hamilton as Queen Gorgo, all served with John Williams’ epic soundtrack.

Verhoeven’s movie reinitiated interest into Flaubert’s novel which was, along with
historians’ advice, the main inspiration for the BBC TV series’ The Persian Wars. The
Battle of Thermopylae concludes the second season : the first one had been reserved for
Marathon, and the third and last for the Battle of Platea. The two-episode finale earned
many awards to its actors, Christopher Eccleston (Leonidas) and Benedict Cumberbatch
(Xerxes).

François Truffaut was sitting in his office by this afternoon of 1965, looking at this movie
script that had been left for days on his desk. It was coming straight from California,
from this young and good-looking actor, of whom he could not remember the name.

The guy had been promising him the director’s seat for months, almost years now. The
script had good points, he had been working on it. It had something of a Zeitgeist feeling
in it, centering on two revolted youths. These boys in the US and in Europe, with all the
free love, anti-Vietnam War and counter-culture, they would surely love it. But the
naboobs in Hollywood, less. « Jean-Luc told me, the New Wave will never reach them ».
The bastards were despising Alfred Hitchcock, they had been constantly restraining Orson
Welles, John Ford, Howard Hawks. Fuck, they even exiled Charlie Chaplin, just because
he had been a little pink. What a pity : so much potential, all wasted because of
marketing’s law. These producers could never understand the charm of the thriller, of the
B movie, while he, Truffaut, had honored with Shoot the Piano Player. 

He could say the same thing, too. Universal Studios had been taking him as a pawn on
the European market, accepting to produce Fahrenheit 451. He had been looking for
years for the actors that would help him, for funding, for all. He had wished for years to
adapt Bradbury’s novel, but the constraints of producing had deprived Truffaut from all
its energy. « Goddamn », he thought, « this young Yankee actor is ready to produce all
by himself this movie, relying on the gross. He had balls, that was great. The only thing
he needed was a director and a studio to produce him. » Hell, even Jean-Luc had
managed to make the first French science fiction movie before him, with Alphaville.

Well, maybe he could tell Universal Studios to postpone a little bit the filming
of Fahrenheit 451. He had been doing this for years, so, for a few months more… It was
time to shake a little bit the things in Hollywood : he, Trauffaut, had been by far the
most successful New Wave director, and his name would bring some comfort to this
actor’s project. These Hollywood guys were about to see comin’ the Little Froggie !

Bonnie and Clyde (1967), by François Truffaut

« This here’s Bonnie Parker, and I’m Clyde Barrow. We rob banks. »
Clyde Barrow

Warren Beatty couldn’t believe it when he received news that Truffaut had accepted to
direct Bonnie and Clyde. After an ultimate snub from Jean-Luc Godard [1], Beatty had
desperately been trying to convince producers, who were definitely worried by the story’s
graphic and abundant violence, which was far from being marketable and would bring the
discontent of the Motion Picture Association of America [2]. But with such a big name as
Truffaut’s, everything changed. Beatty immediately offered to Truffaut a month-long trip
to California in order to discuss the movie.

Upon his arrival in Hollywood, what astounded Beatty was the extremely poor English of
François Truffaut, which made him think of how terrible their mutual understanding
would be during the filming [3]. Nevertheless, Beatty took Truffaut to the Universal City
Studios offices : these ones had been waiting the filming of Fahrenheit 451 for years,
that was postponed indefinitely [4]. Learning that they could still have the privilege of
producing the first American movie from the famed French New Wave director, they
accepted to fund Bonnie and Clyde as well, on the condition that they could have a right
of inspection on Fahrenheit. Lewis M. Allen, the latter’s film producer, took back his role
on Bonnie and Clyde ; however, the chiefs at Universal were aware of the controversial
script, and accepted that Warren Beatty take helm as producer with 20% of the gross
instead of the habitual fee ; such an agreement had already been discussed by Beatty
with Warner Bros [5].

Truffaut took advantage of his Californian trip to meet the Hollywood society and to pay a
visit to his friend Alfred Hitchcock ; he was far from being impressed by the Hollywood
star system. Nevertheless, he would meet during these receptions Paul Newman, who
accepted to take on the role of Montag in Fahrenheit 451 (and who would have a cameo
in Mel Gibson’s 1999 remake) [6]. He reached an agreement with Beatty, who had by
then decided that he would have the title role : Truffaut would respect the script but
would have complete artistic licence, a right to bring his own team members and an
inspection to the casting ; Beatty instead would have to recruit the cast and to spot the
locations. Truffaut went back to France, corresponding with Beatty, in order to start the
filming in August 1966 [7].

Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons had been on the cast since the beginning. Warren
Beatty, for the role of Bonnie Parker, that had just been vacated by her sister Shirley
MacLaine, had wanted Jane Fonda, Sue Lyon or Natalie Wood [8]. Wood had Truffaut’s
nod but was suffering of mental exhaustion at the time. It was Truffaut who suggested
him the one who got the part : Jean Seberg. Beatty had already worked with her in 1964
on Lilith, that was a critical success and that he enjoyed ; having the female actress of
Godard’s Breathless starring on this new movie would further reinforce the status
of Bonnie and Clyde as the « movie that imported French New Wave into America ». By
the way, being both fluent in French and English, Seberg would be a very valuable
interpreter between the main actor and the film director. Seberg immediately agreed and
joined the cast. 

Truffaut, after he had managed to bring on Godard’s director of photography Raoul

Coutard, also persuaded Beatty to let him cast his Jules and Jim’s German actor and
friend, Oskar Werner, in the mute yet pivotal role of Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who
finally caught and took down Bonnie and Clyde [9].

Then something funny happened. Truffaut insisted on the shockwave the film would have
in the ever-protesting youth, by showing these two young gangsters defying all authority
: it needed a strong youthful actor to help identification. That would be C. W. Moss, the
fictional driver and crime partner to Bonnie and Clyde. Warren Beatty had been
considering his friend Jack Nicholson for the part when Allen came with an unexpected
name : Bob Dylan. The famous folk singer had narrowly escaped a motorcycle accident
on July, 29 [10] and, after the very bad reception of his rock about-turn, had expressed
his desire to explore new horizons. Hollywood offered it to him, and Bob Dylan accepted,
as he was very interested in the story of Bonnie and Clyde, and also wrote the opening
song to this movie, The Ballad of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, that would become a
major hit. The future Nobel Laureate of Literature [11] was the last one to enter the cast
(along with a young Gene Wilder [12]) and the filming began in Dallas, Texas, on August
1966.

The filming didn’t went well : scheduled to last for two months, it would finally end on
December, due to Truffaut’s very precise methods. Due to the strong media promotion
by Universal, passerbys would frequently come on location, some of them finally being
recruited as extras. François Truffaut disliked the Texan weather and had stormy
relations with Warren Beatty, that could only be eased by Jean Seberg’s bilingual
mediation : he would at some times enter his tent and continue working on his script
for Stolen Kisses [13], leaving Coutard to work. Truffaut first disliked the use of graphic
violence in the film but finally left them, feeling it would help the impact of the movie,
coupling them with a pulsating editing and shifts of tone that would give to the movie its
particular New Wave taste. Truffaut also insisted on the costumes, giving them more of a
30s style than Beatty initially wanted.

While on his iconoclastic deconstruction work, François Truffaut stressed the sexual
themescontained in the original script : he finally focused on the idea that the Parker-
Barrow-Moss band had to be a ménage-à-trois, showing Clyde Barrow as a bisexual but
also an impotent. It was also a small nod to Jules and Jim. He worked heavily with
Robert Towne to insert sexual innuendos in the dialog, and added ambiguous shots. For
example, in the iconic bed scene where Clyde shows his gun to comfort his manhood and
Bonnie suggestively strokes the weapon, he can later see Moss take the revolver and
wash it off with his bare hands. Seberg and Dylan were very amused by these implied
tensions, but Beatty was extremely uncomfortable about them, saying that the MPAA
would react. [14] Finally the filming was complete : Beatty swore that he would never
work again with a foreign director, while Truffaut was eager to direct Fahrenheit 451 so
he could stop making English-speaking movies abroad.

Nevertheless, Bonnie and Clyde was scheduled to become a true cinematographic hit.

The publicity made by Universal Studios caused the last two survivors of the Barrow
Gang, Blanche Barrow and W. D. Jones, to attempt to sue Warren Beatty along with
Universal Studios, but they were finally pleased by the final product [15]. However, the
MPAA soon learnt about the inflammatory movies : in order to be released into theaters,
the « bisexual innuendos » scenes had to be cut off, and the final, bloody scene of
Bonnie and Clyde’s death had to be remade into black and white. The scenes as they
were imagined were later available in subsequent releases after the end of the Hays
Code.

Screened out of competition at the 1967 Cannes Festival, Bonnie and Clyde won

considerable critical acclaim, praising Truffaut’s unexpected « Hollywood turn » and the
unique style of cinematography provided by Truffaut and Coutard, while expressing
concern about the supposed glorification of violence provided by the movie. Yet the
crowds loved it : Bonnie and Clydewould gross 83 millions of dollars worldwide, 55 in the
United States only, from its premiere on June, 25 1967 [16]. It also gained a cult
following, with thousands of youths sporting the 30s style of the movie, taking its
message of sexual freedom and defiance of authority, one year roughly before the 1968
protests.

The film would gain ten nominations at the 40th Academy Awards : Best Picture, Best
Director for François Truffaut, Best Original Screenplay for David Newman and Robert
Benton, Best Actor for Warren Beatty, Best Actress for Jean Seberg, Best Supporting
Actor for Gene Hackman, Best Supporting Actress for Estelle Parsons, Best Costume
Design for Theodora Van Runkle, Best CInematography for Raoul Coutard and Best
Original Song for The Ballad… by Bob Dylan. It went back with three : Best SUpporting
Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Original Song. [17]

If this movie was for sure a major hit on the wide screen, few people back then knew
that they had witnessed a revolution.

The Graduate (1967), by Mike Nichols

« You’re trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson, aren’t you ? »

Benjamin Braddock

Mike Nichols was a happy man, yet he was growing worried. This film adaptation was
doing well : his first choice to play the old seductive woman, 1958 Academy Award
winner Susan Hayward, had happily accepted the part, adding further renewal to her
controversial roles [1]. But the choice of the young and naive man was more difficult, as
auditions went by [2]. He already had refused Robert Redford for the part, and Nichols
was now pressuring the TV studios in letting them release Burt Ward, who was
committed to the campy Batman TV series.

When Nichols looked back on his papers. There was a little something. This 25-years-old
youth from Illinois, quite handsome. He was a complete unknown : he had just begun to
do small talking parts in some low-budget westerns. Yet, his inexperience, and his stress
when he auditioned along with Hayward was quite well : if Nichols could work with that,
he could easily pass for Benjamin Braddock’s bumbling forays into the world of sexuality,
instead of an average stage fright. Plus, this little guy had nailed the part, and the
screenplay put it, he was actually half the age of Susan Hayward, like between Benjamin
and Mrs. Robinson. That was well : convincing the studio that it would be worth the bet
would be difficult, but he decided that Nichols decided he couldn’t do the film without this
man.

A few days later, Harrison Ford learnt that he was to play Benjamin Braddock in The
Graduate [3].

The casting didn’t went as softly : the producers were worried about such a controversial
subject, that could eventually fail to attract the audiences, as they were relying on
Nichols’ reputation as the new Orson Welles, after Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? They
agreed to let the unknown Harrison J. Ford [4] if Nichols agreed to cast more prestigious
actors for the lesser parts. Nichols agreed, on the condition that in order to bring balance
to the other couple, he could cast someone unknown as Elaine Robinson, and that he
could still hire Simon and Garfunkel to record the music. That was granted.

With that, Robert Mitchum and Anne Bancroft signed to play Benjamin’s parents, while
Marlon Brando enjoyed a very little cameo as Mr. Robinson. The part of Mr. McGuire, the
guest at the Braddocks’ party who tries to convince Benjamin to launch into plastics, was
played by future President Ronald Reagan, who had just been inaugurated as Governor
of California, in his last filmed role ; Reagan had been first considered for Mr. Braddock’s
role, and would point humourously to this last screen appearence, most notably during a
visit of a plastic engineering plant in Maine. For Elaine Robinson, Nichols settled on
actress Carol Lynley, also 25, then a rising star. [5]

This was the role of his life for Harrison Ford, who couldn’t believe his luck. In later
interviews, he would say he felt like he was transported into a roller coaster running on
lightspeed. He who was a self-taught actor, recruited by sheer luck at Columbia Pictures
after he went to California in 1964 for a radio job, he said working with legends such as
Nichols, Hayward, Mitchum and Bancroft was a real luck and a real acting school. His
intimidation by the presence of Susan Hayward could well be confused with sexual
inexperience on film. As he grew more confident during filming, it also went well with the
Benjamin growing into adulthood, after the relation with Mrs. Robinson : Ford’s self-
confidence, along with his handsomeness, went well with Benjamin’s recently acquired
manhood. Robert Mitchum would improvise most of his lines, playing Mr. Braddock as a
true humourous character, while he developed a close friendship with Harrison Ford. He
also began a romance with recently divorced Carol Lynley on the set, thus cementing
further the concept of « life imititating art ». Nichols was quite pleased by these
developments, feeling that it would serve the movie : by the way, almost all actors had
the age the characters had in the script. [6]

Against all odds, The Graduate was a major success, in spite of its particularly scandalous
plot : the Americans welcomed again these kind of movies, five years after Stanley
Kubrick’s Lolita. Grossing more than 100 millions of dollars on the box-office, won the
critics’ acclaim, it immediately went to the status of cult film, and propelled Harrison Ford
as a household name. As it won the BAFTA Award For Best Film, The Graduate won eight
Academy Awards nomination, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and
Actress ; Ford was of course astounded by his nomination, even if some claimed it was
helped by his highly publicized romance with Carol Lynley than by his actual
performance. [7] In the end, The Graduate won Best Picture, with Best Supporting Actor
going to Robert Mitchum for his role as Mr. Braddock, while Susan Hayward won her
second Academy Award for Best Actress, entering into the legend of Hollywood. [8]. She
would act a bit more in very few movies, before being diagnosed with brain cancer, a
disease that would lead to her demise in 1972.

While an ancient star burnt her last lights before going off, a new had just arose :
Harrison Ford was now among the most asked for actors in Hollywood. And his career
would lead him into both the greatest and lowest ends…

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1967), by Lewis Gilbert

« There’s no hurry, you see. We have all the time in the world. »

James Bond
The producers of the Bond series were first worried that the adaptation of Thunderball’
sequel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, would include snowy locations, as the novel
would take place in Switzerland. Fortunately, Albert Broccoli, after a winter trip to
Switzerland, found out that the landscape would be very suitable anyway for filming, and
greenlit the project : the Swiss scenes would be shot in the end, in the 1966-1967
winter, with beginning scheduled in July and focused on the scenes before and after
Switzerland. [1] Their second concern was Sean Connery’s reluctance to adorn again the
Bond role, as he feared to be typecasted for once and for all : a pay raise finally settled
Connery’s concerns, as the producers pointed out that the death of Bond’s wife could
work out as the « retirement » for Sean Connery’s James Bond, being replaced by
another agent, endorsing the cover identity, James Bond becoming not a person, but a
codename. [2]

After Harold Jack Bloom [3] ended his screenplay, director Lewis Gilbert, who had finally
accepted the job, found out that it would become the longest Bond ever, lasting 140
minutes [4]. Gilbert accepted the deal anyway, as he felt that the script was great and
that the Switzerland scenery would provide room for epicness ; he also centered on the
romance between James Bond and Tracy di Vicenzo, in order to rise tension for the
bittersweet finale.

Then came the problem of the casting : Sean Connery had decided to enter for his last
role, but other parts had to be provided. First, the question of Blofeld was the most
important : he had been a mere shadow in the previous movies, but now, he was
scheduled to appear, his presence being one of the keys to the plot. Several TV series
actors were approached : a first try with Czech well-known playwright Jan Werich would
turn badly, as the bearded comedic actor turned out to look like a Santa Claus ; quite
unsuitable for a genius of crime [5]. Donald Pleasence was eventually approached after,
but he had already committed himself to Roman Polanski’s Fearless Vampire Killers as
Professor Abronsius. [6] 

But Pleasence proposed another actor to play Ernst Stavro Blofeld : Peter Cushing. The
horror actor was then committed to Hammer’s Frankenstein series, an occupation that
left him plenty of free time, and his attempt in good-natured characters had proved ill-
fated, playing in Doctor Who movies adaptations. Cushing, with his cold eyes and his thin
face, proved quite suited to portray Bond’s nemesis. Cushing refused to change his
physical appearence (that was already enough), instead faking a limp in order to look
less dangerous to the unaware spectator, clipping his earlobes and adorning a grey
Nehru jacket along with military boots, giving him something of a military style. [7] A
body double was used for Blofeld’s more physical scenes in the film.

After the Bond villain, came the Bond girl. To play the Corsican suicidal countess, the
producers first approached French stars such as Catherine Deneuve or Brigitte Bardot ;
after Diana Rigg refused in order to focus on The Avengers, they would finally settle on a
young American actress, that had made her widescreen debut in Eye of The Devil,
alongside David Niven and Donald Pleasence, where she had acquired considerable acting
experience and was noticed by some movie-goers. She was by then a figure of the
Londonian nightlife, partying while waiting for the next opportunity. For the red-haired
woman, playing the James Bond girl, for one of the biggest audiences of the world, was
an offer she couldn’t miss. That’s how Sharon Tate was signed to play Tracy di Vicenzo.
[8]

Spanish actor Francisco Rabal, who was also filming Bunuel’s Belle de Jour at the time,
was signed to play Unione Corse leader Marc-Ange Draco, as Tate’s young age would
allow it. German actress Ilse Steppat was scheduled to play Blofeld’s henchwoman Irma
Bunt. [9] On his part, John Barry found it difficult to have a title song that would include
the full title of OHMSS : so he decided to stick with James Bond’s words when Tracy is
murdered, « We Have All The Time In The World », that was sung by renowned jazzman
Louis Armstrong. [10]

Filming took place from July 1966 to March 1967, in London’s Pinewood Studios,
Switzerland and French Riviera. All things went smoothly, in spite of the rising
disappointment of one Sean Connery, who was weary to retire at long least from the role
that had made him famous. The particular focus on the romance with Tracy would work
out, with Sean Connery’s acting skills and Sharon Tate’s « cuteness » working in for
both. The end scene, when Blofeld himself, dressed as an average passerby, appears and
shoots himself with a sniper rifle on Bond’s car, would remain as one of the most iconic
scenes of popular cinema, well served by Cushing’s intimadating appearence.

As expected, OHMSS grossed 111 millions worldwide and gathered positive reviews,

praising Cushing’s portrayal, and effectively making Sharon Tate a rising star in
entertainment. Nowadays, critics still rank OHMSS as one of the best Bond films. [11]
But the heads at Eon productions were now all on their next battle : finding the next
Bond in time for the next installment, You Only Live Twice…

Cool Hand Luke (1967), by Arthur Penn

« What we’ve got here…Is failure to communicate. »

The Captain

Jack Lemmon had been disappointed by Paul Newman’s refusal of the title role in this
new script, Cool Hand Luke. Newman felt already busy in 1966 with the filming
of Hombre and wanted to prepare to Fahrenheit 451, Truffaut having convinced him to
participate to the movie as the main character, Montag. [1] Without this big name,
Lemmon decided to stick with his original plan : still refuse the title role, but produce the
movie instead [2] but playing a little role in the film ; in order to bring more attention to
the script, he settled for the prison Captain’s role, feeling that going for a negative role
would be suitable for his already long career. As a result, he proposed to his pal Walter
Matthau a very small role, that of the Sheriff who takes away Luke in the end. [3]

With substantial roles nailed, just in order to show Lemmon’s commitment to the movie
and attract would-be producers, remained the question of the two most important roles :
that of Luke himself and his friend, Dragline. For Dragline, Donn Pearce accepted to
rewrite the role from an old convict to a younger yet still smart detainee, as Lemmon was
considering Robert Redford. The young actor had become the favorite of all Hollywood
after his performances in Inside Daisy Clover and Barefoot in the Park, but he was
struggling to avoid being typecasted as the handsome blond male. [4] The harsh, sweaty
script for Cool Hand Luke was perfect for him, as he would show himself as a physical
actor and commit himself as a cynical and tough character. 

In the same ways, Doris Day, who was quite disappointed of having refused Mike Nichols’
proposal of the first role in The Graduate, and struggling with her « girl next door »
image that wasn’t fitting the times anymore and made her career on the down side,
decided to accept the role of Luke’s mother. Her screentime was abbreviated, in order to
concentrate on the main action, yet Day was really pushed by her husband to accept a
substantial role. [5]

If a young and rather good-looking actor was chosen as Luke’ sidekick, and a famous
actress to play his mother, it was because an actor considered before for the role had
been recontacted.

Telly Savalas had made little roles in heavy productions in the Sixties, but his
performance as the religious and sadistic convict Archer Maggott in Robert Aldrich’s The
Dirty Dozen had established him as an actor to follow : this new unexpected exposure led
the producers to confirm him as the main character of Cool Hand Luke, as they felt that
the budget had been greatly reduced by the absence of Paul Newman, and that the
mention of Jack Lemmon as producer would lead the spectators into the theaters. As
director, they finally settled on Arthur Penn, who had been hailed for The Miracle
Worker and had worked with Robert Redford on The Chase : Penn felt that this prison
story, about the tale of a man who stands alone against the whole system, caught
the zeitgeist of this particular era. He brought on French New Wave’s film techniques, in
the limits that the producers would accept, of course.

The filming went quite smoothly, under the hard sun of Florida : the relations between
the actors were excellent, with the main actors or the numerous extras playing prison
convicts who would ultimately prove very famous, such as Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean
Stanton and Jack Nicholson. [5] Interestingly enough, the Savalas-Redford worked very
well. At first sight, the producers were reluctant, feeling that a bald main actor would
never have enough charisma to carry the movie. But with the sun reflecting on his scalp,
Savalas would give the character an intense strength, giving him the prestance of
someone who has seen it all, but still dispalying a cockiness that would not be awaited
from such a tough-looking guy. As of Redford, his youth actually worked out well with the
role : when he is hostile to Luke in the beginning, he looks like the unexperienced young
wolf who finally went to rule the convict population and wants to control the newcomer
too ; but then it turns to genuine admiration to the ever defying Cool Hand Luke. [6]

The film upon release was critically acclaimed, far from the bulk of prison films thanks to
the intelligent script, the skills of Arthur Penn’s directing and the performance of Telly
Savalas and Robert Redford : Savalas enjoyed a new fame while Redford finally managed
to convert his career. As of Doris Day, even if her interpretation was noticed by critics,
her personal problems quickly made her to the front page of gossip newspapers. With 14
million dollars made at the American box-office, it was a medium success, but still an
excellent gross thanks to the reduced budget of this movie. [7] The movie also made a
breakthrough in the Academy Awards, garthering four nominations, including Best Actor
and Best Supporting Actor, yet failing to gain any.

Planet of the Apes (1968), by J. Lee Thompson

« Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape ! »
George Thomas [1]

Planet of the Apes was a very complex case for Hollywood producers : the Pierre Boulle
novel described a technologically-advanced ape society living on Earth, replacing the
human society. With the props and sets, they feared it would cost way too much ; the
novel’s ending was to change, as the monkey planet located near Betelgeuse became
Earth itself, yet depopulated by humans. [2] A test scene had to be filmed, starring
Charlton Heston, then committed to act as the protagonist, veteran actor Edward G.
Robinson, and young beginners James Brolin and Linda Harrison, all wearing their
extensive ape make-up. Fox Studios were very enthusiastic about it, but it took six
months more and the box office success of The Fantastic Voyage before the project was
greenlit. [3] British director J. Lee Thompson, famous for The Guns of
Navarone and Cape Fear, was ready to begin pre-production and casting. Yet he had
other problems. [4]

First, Charlton Heston decided to withdraw from the project, getting interested in other
projects and feeling weak. [5] Fortunately, Marlon Brando had been contracted as a
back-up actor for be the protagonist : although feeling very uncorfortable with the idea of
filming a science-fiction movie with people dressed as apes, the once successful actor’s
career was in the doldrums by 1968, seeing only a small part in The Graduate. Brando
then accepted the job, with the producers’ approval, as it brought such a big name…And
leaving Thompson with the difficult task of working with Marlon Brando. [6]

With such developments, Thompson could further implement his choices. His first
attempts were at enforcing his own idea of the ape society : as the novel and the original
script put it, the ape society would be at a XXth century standard, with the apes sporting
guns and steel machetes, specific leather and skin suits, living in developed cities and
using motorized vehicles. Yet, the post-apocalyptic scenery would be preserved, with the
apes failing to retain modern devices such as television and building machines, with the
humans being used as slaves for servicing and hard tasks. Thompson insisted that these
sets wouldn’t be so specialized, and that the ape make-up could be less expensive by
having the actors wearing more modern suits. [7] The casting then followed, with
experienced actor Roddy McDowall as the comprehnsive Cornelius (who was re-written as
a collaborator to Zira, instead of her fiancé), James Brolin as the young Lucius, Edward
G. Robinson retaining his role as Dr. Zaius after his screentime was reduced to avoid he
bore his make up for too long [8], veteran actor Maurice Evans and Lost In Spacestar
Jonathan Harris as members of the Assembly that judge the astronaut [9], and Ursula
Andress as the mute human slave Nova, after she obtained that the female humans in
the film wouldn’t be bare-breasted. [10] Yet Thompson’s best achievement wasn’t here.

Even if Ingrid Bergman had managed to return in Hollywood with Anastasia in 1956,

many were still blaming her for her affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. On the
same way, she was looking for a way to shake down her Hitchcock cold beauty screen
image. This was the main reason that led her to accept the part of compassionate
scientist Zira. [11] With the addition of Bergman, the studios were happy to endorse the
project and to let Thomspon build the elaborate modern sets ; Peter Biskind would
eventually call Planet of the Apes « the last movie of the Old Hollywood era », as it
starred altogether Brando, Bergman and Robinson.

The filming, that took place during the summer 1967 in Arizona, was exhausting for
many. First for the actors in make up, including Edward G. Robinson who passed out
many times after filming his scenes. J. Lee Thompson, after Robinson’s death in 1973,
reportedly blame himself for having taken his toll on Robinson’s life. [12] Yet, J. Lee
Thompson’s relations were strained with Marlon Brando, who acted like a prima donna on
the set, openly despising the script and the actors he was working with. Brando would
ad-lib most of his scenes, and stay away from other performers while they rested in their
ape-suits. Most notably, he refused to sport the loincloth, forcing the costume
department to design a leather suit designed for the slaves ; a suit Ursula Andress’
character didn’t wear. However, Brando had some sort of respect to Ingrid Bergman, who
rose to fame far before Marlon Brando, and the film came to an end. [13] Bergman and
Robinson would be noticed for their own study of simian body language, trying to
incorporate it into their performances. Even if Thompson wanted the scenes where Nova
was revealed to be pregnant with Thomas’ child to be incorporated into the film, Brando
repeatedly refused, as he didn’t wanted to give room for a sequel. [14] That’s why
Thompson finally made the « It was Earth all along » ending among all climaxes
proposed by the script, ending with Marlon Brando lamenting before the torch-bearing
arm of the Statue of Liberty. [15]

As expected, Planet of the Apes was a box office success, with many critics praising its
setting, and the return of Marlon Brando and Ingrid Bergman to higher fame, along with
the rise of James Brolin and of a young extra having a speaking role as an ape, one Jack
Nicholson. However, no actor was nominated in the 41st Academy Awards, making J. Lee
Thompson joke that « they didn’t notice the apes were human actors. » The past
outcasting of Ingrid Bergman was also invoked. [16] Making more than 30 millions of
dollars at the box office, it earned two Academy Awards, one for Best Music to Jerry
Goldsmith, and a special one for best make up to John Chambers, an Academy Award for
make up not having been delivered since 1964 and The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, that William
Tuttle received. [17]

Now plans were already set for a sequel, even if Marlon Brando and Ingrid Bergman were
unlikely to return…

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968), by Sergio Leone

« I saw three of these dusters a short time ago, they were waiting for a train. Inside the
dusters, there were three men. Inside the men, there were three bullets. »
Harmonica

“Never again.” Prior to Once Upon A Time In The West, that was the answer of Sergio
Leone to anyone who asked him to produce another western after his Dollars trilogy. The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly had been the ultimate epic according to him, he had said
everything he wanted to say. He was now after an adaptation of The Hoods, the
autobiographical novel of one Harry Grey, about Jewish gangsters in New York. [1] It was
not until a very particular offer came from Paramount: they offered him another western,
with the man Leone always dreamed of directing with: Henry Fonda himself. [2] Sergio
Leone asked to two young Italien film critics, Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci, to
draft a first scenario to what would become Once Upon A Time In The West, when…Henry
Fonda relented, refusing the part. Leone flew to the United States to meet Fonda, who
announced the Italian director he had just accepted a part into Akira Kurosawa’s
American movie. [3]

Now Leone was preparing a movie in Hollywood, and he hadn’t his bait anymore. He was
on the verge of renouncing when an idea sparked to Dario Argento’s mind. The prospect
of Sergio Leone in casting Henry Fonda as a villain was to shock the audience: it would
happen in his introductory scene, the man who had just shot a running child was
revealed to be Henry Fonda, the archetypal good guy in American Westerns. [4] So why
not casting another Hollywood good guy?

Prior to Once Upon A Time, Sergio Leone had been proposed a movie by United Artists,
that would star Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson and Charlton Heston. He returned to the U.S.
once more to propose these three American heroes. Kirk Douglas was the one who
agreed to play Frank: not only that he shared “the innocent blue eyes” Sergio Leone liked
in Henry Fonda, but he was wondering about his career. Still disappointed by the loss of
his Oscar-bait role of Vincent Van Gogh in Lust For Life eleven years ago, Kirk Douglas
looked after a renewal of his career. He had played “sons of bitches” in his early film
roles, but now the audience was remembering him as Ned Land, Doc Holliday, Spartacus
or Colonel Jiggs Casey. So why not playing a full-fledged villain in a western, a genre he
already knew from Gunfight in O.K. Corral? He gladfully accepted and offered his help to
the Italian director. When he arrived in Italy, he was sporting a thick mustache, that
Leone ordered to be shaved, as he wanted the actor to be recognizable. [5]

For further casting, Sergio Leone went on the Italian market, in order to rentabilize
producing costs: after all, the whole set for the town of Flagstone cost more than the
whole budget for A Fistful of Dollars. French actress Françoise Dorléac, better known as
Catherine Deneuve’s sister and for his roles in Philippe de Broca’s L’Homme de Rio and
Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-Sac was cast as Jill McBain. [6] Looking after a career breakout,
out of her sister’ shadow, she nevertheless almost quit the movie when she learnt her
introduction scene would consist of her being filmed under her dress, showing she didn’t
wore any undergarment. [7] A fellow Frenchman, Robert Hossein, also joined the cast as
the railroad tycoon Morton. [8] For the role of the Man With The Harmonica, Leone had
to bear the refusals of Clint Eastwood and James Coburn, when he cast British actor
Terence Stamp, then working in Italy for Federico Fellini. His performance would give an
even more ghastly appearance to Harmonica, to the point many film historians applauded
his performance as the personification of “Fate” in the western. [9]

Further changes to the casting would happen. In order to shout out that he was done
with westerns, Sergio Leone repeatedly asked to his The Good, The Bad and The Ugly trio
to play the three train station gunfighters that would get killed by Harmonica in the
beginning, in order to fulfill the cycle once and for all. Clint Eastwood, who didn’t wanted
to play villains, had to be convinced by Kirk Douglas himself to make the part. [10] Clint
Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef would have one of the most handsomely paid
cameos of the era, just starring for the first fifteen minutes of the film. Later, Jason
Robards, who had been cast as Cheyenne, was fired when he showed up completely
drunk at the first days of shooting, unable to recite his lines. [11] He was hastily replaced
by James Coburn. Leone always dreamed of the actor… who only accepted after getting a
large salary. [12]

Filmed in Spain, in the Cinecitta studios in Rome and in the Monument Valley in
Utah, Once Upon A Time would be a whole new start in Sergio Leone’s filming. His
movies had been characterized by a fast pace, along with tongue-in-cheek humor; Once
Upon A Time was slower (as it was evidenced by the clear cuts made during editing) and
very grim in fact: each character except for Jill dies, as they are unable to cope with the
changing world. It’s even the case with the supernatural Harmonica, killed in a
magnificent shootout with two bounty hunters played by Jack Elam and Woody Strode.
[13]

In spite of the investments, Once Upon A Time was a flop at American box-office, most

certainly due to the extensive cuts during editing; with the restoration of the movie in
the 90s, Once Upon A Time would gain its place as a masterpiece in western and
American cinema. Even if the interest in the career of Kirk Douglas was resurrected,
Sergio Leone would soon find a chance to direct his own gangster movie…

Charlie (1968), by Franklin J. Schaffner

« They say, Charlie, that true love is letting go. »

Alice Kinnian

Cliff Robertson, since he had purchased the rights to Daniel Keyes’ science-fiction
novel Flowers for Algernon [1], was desperately looking for a producer. This story of a
retarded man who becomes intelligent and self-aware thanks to a scientific treatment,
only to become amoral, disgusted by his own behavior and eventually regressing
intellectually, wasn’t so Hollywood fuel. Adapting the novel was also difficult, given its
structure: all narrated through the point of view of the hero, Charlie Gordon, with his
grammar and spelling ameliorating as his intelligence grew bigger. Robertson had lost
30,000 dollars to William Goldman for a first draft of a screenplay, and he was now in
talks with screenwriter Richard Matheson [2]. But now Cliff Robertson had a new plan to
promote his movie.

With the new fame of The Graduate star and newcomer Harrison Ford, all Hollywood
gossipers were expecting his next move. Some spoke of him starring in an action movie
with Steve McQueen, others of French director Jacques Demy proposing him a role in his
next musical, set in Los Angeles [3]. For now, his relation with his Graduate co-star Carol
Lynley was already making the headlines. Robertson saw the opportunity: he could
capitalize on the notoriety of the young actor, giving him an Oscar-bait role of a retarded
man. He would graciously elope, taking the supporting role of Dr. Nemur, one of the
scientists involved in Charlie Gordon’s treatment, and becoming co-producer, giving of
his own money to help funding the film. The young Ford liked Matheson’s script and
announced in a press conference that Charlie (the movie’s name) would be his next role.

United Artists, eager to work with the new sensation, quickly helped Cliff Robertson. The
great studio’s backing was determinant into convincing the great movie composer Alex
North (who was then working with Stanley Kubrick [4]) and convincing another media
sensation, Julie Christie, to star in the movie as Alice Kinnian, Charlie’s psychologist and
love interest. Kim Hunter, of Streetcar Named Desire fame, joined the cast as Dr. Anna
Straus. Franklin J. Schaffner, a rising film director, was picked to film the movie, which
began filming in December 1967.

Cliff Robertson, as holder of the film’s rights and supporting actor (his performance as
Dr. Nemur would earn him an Academy Award nomination [5]), acted as some sort of
executive producer on the set, sometimes overpassing Schaffner’s decisions, to the
outrage of the director. Meanwhile, while Ford was always eager to learn more about
acting, still fresh from his good experience with Susan Hayward, had much to do with the
prima donna behavior of Julie Christie [6] who, after filming under the orders of David
Lean and John Schlesinger, was not easy with acting in a Hollywood movie. She was then
more attached to her high-profile relation to Warren Beatty.

Plus, the Matheson script was very demanding. Rythmed by the voice-over of Charlie
Gordon, first in a childish vocabulary when he is retarded, then in common or often
stilted language, his relation with Alice puts the stress on sexual innuendos, with Alice
maintaining a cold distance between the two of them, in a master and servant style.
When Charlie wants to marry her before he finally regresses into his past status, Alice
refuses. [7] In the middle of his life of perdition, rythmed by montage sequences, Charlie
goes to his childhood’s neighbourhood, where he has a face-to-face with his alcoholic and
dementia-torn widowed mother, played by Jo Van Fleet, already seen in a similar role
in East of Eden. [8] The movie ends with Charlie in a child playground, being looked after
by Alice Kinnian, as in the beginning.

Charlie was an instant hit, crushing all competition, becoming the 13th highest-grossing
film of 1968 [9]. It cemented Harrison Ford’s place as a rising star, consecrated Julie
Christie’s arrival on the American scene, and laid out perspectives to a sequel, much to
the pleasure of Cliff Robertson. [10] Earning seven Academy Award nominations,
including for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actors, it finally came out with one, for
Julie Christie, shared with The Lion In Winter’ star Katherine Hepburn, who had narrowly
lost to Susan Hayward the previous year. Richard Matheson was more lucky in Britain,
where he won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay.

Harrison Ford had failed for the second time to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.
His determination wasn’t foiled at all, and he was eager to return to the studios… 

Runaway Train (1968), by Akira Kurosawa

« I'm at war with the world and everybody in it. »

Manny Manheim

At 56, Akira Kurosawa was looking forward to a new life. His exclusive contract with Toho
Studios had come to an end in 1966, and his reputation now established abroad, far from
Japan, he could now travel and undertake new experiences. The appeal of Hollywood was
too much for the Japanese filmmaker, who crossed the Pacific.

His first American project would take its inspiration from a Life Magazine article, about a
train that went loose in upstate New York. Called Boso Kikansha on Kurosawa’s desk, he
would finally achieve a coherent translation by late 1966. [1] Embassy Pictures, who
hoped to capitalize on Kurosawa’s name, now had their movie, Kurosawa’s first color. [2]
The filming of Runaway Train would take place during the Autumn of 1967, in Wisconsin.

Accompanied by his frequent Japanese collaborators, Kurosawa was assisted by American

filmmakers and a translator. [3] Hollywood actors were in turn eager to work with the
famed Japanese director: Henry Fonda pulled out of the production of the Sergio Leone
western to work with Kurosawa. He refused to play the railwayman in order to play the
leading role, wanting to play an antihero. [4] Lee Marvin, who was familiar with Japanese
culture from his WWII experience, also joined the cast, along with William Daniels and
Tony Curtis. Academy Award-nominated thespian Peter Falk also joined, just after his
failure to get the role on an incoming TV series, Columbo, by Lee J. Cobb. [5] A then-
unknown Jack Nicholson, on the verge of retiring from business, also took the role of the
second escaped convict in an audition; Kurosawa was reported to have been fascinated
by the wicked stare of Nicholson, that reminded him of his stock actor Toshiro Mifune.
Nicholson had got to the auditions on the advice of his friend Peter Fonda, son to the
main actor. [6] 

The pitch of Runaway Train is simple. Two convicts, Manny Mannheim, a tough wife
murderer (Fonda) [7] and a dim-witted sex offender (Nicholson), manage to escape their
jail in Wisconsin by boarding a freight train. [8] The lead engineer falls off the train while
taking a curve too fast, leaving the two convicts alone on a brakeless train with a lone
and goofy hostler, John Barstow (Falk). [9] Desperate attempts are made to stop the
train, as its road will collide against a derailed locomotive in the middle of a city. [10]
The authorities, from cautious railway executive Peter Finch (Daniels) to sadistic prison
warden Ranken (Curtis), try all to stop the runaway train, even sending two locomotives
to chase it. Meanwhile, relations between the three men aboard the train prove uneasy.
Ranken finally takes on the train by plane, has a very violent fight with Manny, that
breaks his arm. Finally overpowering Ranken, Manny decides to sacrifice himself by
separating the lead engine from the rest of the train, sending him and Ranken falling off
a cliff, where the runaway has been driven. 

The filming took place in upstate New York for three months, from October to December
1967. The filming conditions in snow proved to be harsh for the actors, most notably the
aging Henry Fonda, here cast in a very rare antihero performance. Tony Curtis was
almost wounded during the very violent fight scene against Fonda’s character. The New
York railroad authorities gave their support to the movie, on the condition that their
name and logo weren’t showed. [11] The unpredictability of Kurosawa’s methods also
dazzled the producers and the actors, mostly for his attention to detail. [12] Uneasy with
the director taking so much importance on the set, the producers relented, knowing that
Kurosawa’s name would bit an Oscar bait, and that the presence of French director
Francois Truffaut on Bonnie and Clyde had set a precedent.

Renowned for his gorgeous scenery and the talent of its performers, Runaway
Train opened to rave reviews on October 1968. The promotion was assured by Henry
Fonda and William Daniels, as Kurosawa, uneasy with the English language, was back to
Japan to work on other projects. If the action-themed plot managed to draw audiences,
critics applauded the idea of a Japanese director entering American filmmaking and
producing such a script, even if it was seen as “absurd” at some points. [13] Runaway
Train would earn seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best
Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor for Henry Fonda and Best Supporting Actor for Jack
Nicholson, making the new media sensation; as some journalists put it, “the new
Harrison Ford with a bad guy face”. Henry Fonda won his first Academy Award for Best
Actor there, thanking Kurosawa to have cast him in a role against type, and Best Art
Direction for Kurosawa’s collaborators. [14]

Meanwhile, Akira Kurosawa could undertake his American trilogy…

Story of O (1968), by Henri-Georges Clouzot

« You have found happiness in slavery. »

Sir Stephen

On one hand, you had Henri-Georges Clouzot, one of the masters of French cinema, the
director to The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques, who would inspire filmmakers for
years and even centuries. Alas, his career was in the doldrums due to the critics of the
French New Wave and the true hell that the filming of Inferno (L’Enfer), that he had to
cancel in 1964. [1] On the other hand, we had Histoire d’O, a erotic and sadomasochistic
novel written by literary critic Dominique Aury, under the guise of Pauline Reage, made
as a love letter to world renowned critic Jean Paulhan. Story of O, as it was known
abroad, had shell shocked a still very prudish French society in 1954, with its story of a
woman compelling to all humiliations in order to compel to her lover’s orders and desires.
[2]

The one wanted to adapt the other to the big screen, among other projects. [3] When
she heard about that, Jean Paulhan managed to convince Dominique Aury to lend the
rights to Clouzot. “I told you women were unable to write erotic novels; we will see if we
can make erotic movies.”, said Paulhan. [4] Producers who had approached Clouzot for
another script finally settled on Story of O, hoping the book’s inflammable reputation
would reward them.

In order to pass through the harsh censorship of France (it was a few months after the
May 1968 demonstrations), Clouzot had to work heavily on the script. The most crude
scenes were removed, including that of the piercing, replaced by that of the branding,
[5] the Roissy scenes were more subjective, and nudity remained scarce and never full
frontal. Even if the final movie remains moist by moments, it’s hard to find it
pornographic, some would call it an artsy schlock. But it was a true scandal by 1968
standards.

Clouzot had difficulty recruiting his comedians. Thepsian Laurent Terzieff, already
committed to his last project, had already signed on the very blurred role of O’s lover,
René. Christopher Lee, the famous Dracula from Hammer Films’ works, was also cast as
Sir Stephen, the English aristocrat to whom O is offered. Lee, even if he was somehow
revulsed by roles in adult movies [6], was eager to work with Clouzot and to endeavour
into French cinema, helped by his near-perfect French. As for O, after the refusals from
Brigitte Fossey, Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac or Charlotte Rampling, Clouzot
finally recruited a British newcomer, Jane Birkin. Her only role so far had been that of the
topless model in Antonioni’s Blow Up; freshly installed in France and divorced from John
Barry (who agreed to sign the film’s music), the slim model was recruited due to her
commitment and readiness. As of her heavily accented French, Clouzot said that her part
wasn’t made of highly memorable lines. [7]

To this day, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Story of O still divides the historians. Even if Birkin,
Terzieff and Lee’s careers weren’t damaged (after all, they had done not a lot of things,
or too much in the case of Lee, to see this movie sink it all), it effectively ended Clouzot’s
career. It was his last theatrically released movie, and he would plagued with debt and
criticism until his death in 1977. [8] Even if it was a public success, even with the harsh
censorship opposed to this movie, that was heavily cut and forbidden to minors aged less
than 18, critics were very harsh at the time. The movie was booed when screened at the
Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. Even nowadays, some find that Clouzot was at the dead
end of his career: even if the images remain gorgeous, it’s pretty hard to believe that
such a filmmaker had wasted all his talent into this bondage and sadomasochistic tale.
Others hail the genius in such a bold adaptation: the praise of the New Hollywood
directors to Clouzot helped to the renewal of this movie, in an uncut version, in the
1970s. It would influence Stanley Kubrick in his project for a mainstream pornographic
movie, but that’s another story…

Hell in the Pacific (1968), by Richard Donner

« Oh, for a second I thought you were a Jap. »

The American Pilot

Hell In The Pacific had a scenario that was able to hold on a little footnote and was a very
reduced remake of the 1965 Sinatra movie None But The Brave, but it was viewed by its
producers as a double bait. Yet it failed. The first target was British director John
Boorman, who had just been noticed for Point Blank, but who finally decided against it, to
direct a film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead ; a disappointed Lee
Marvin decided to leave the project. [1] The second target was Akira Kurosawa’s favorite
actor, Toshiro Mifune, made famous by Rashomon and Yojimbo. Even if Mifune was ready
to undertake a career in the western world, that began two years before in the John
Frankenheimer movie Grand Prix, he finally claimed that his poor knowledge of English
made him unable to act in an American movie. In fact, many think that it was his new
grudge against Kurosawa, who was then filming Runaway Train, that decided him against
this turn. [2]

As such, even if the script was left without a famous director and famous actors, the
producers nevertheless decided to have it produced, yet on a much reduced budget, for
instance moving the set from the Palau islands to Hawaii. In the absence of a much wider
script than « an American and a Japanese are stranded together in a desert island during
the Pacific War », there was most room for changing it during filming. In lack of a better
candidate, the studio finally settled on Richard Donner, a director who had made his
debut seven years ago and had not been given any work on the silver screen, doing
instead work for television. [3]

For actors, young ones were finally cast. Burt Reynolds, a second-hand TV and Spaghetti
Western actor, who had just been noticed for his resemblance with Marlon Brando, was
cast as the American pilot. [4] For the Japanese actor, a little trick was made by casting
a Japanese American actor, who had never been to Japan : a then-unknown George
Takei, who was then committed to the science fiction TV show Star Trek. [5] In order to
blur a bit the inconsistency of a Japanese American actor, Takei asked his parents to
teach him a few words of Japanese in order to add flavour to the filming, and a small line
where Takei’s character reveals that he lived for some time as a child in California, before
moving back to the motherland.
The filming on Kauai Island in the Hawaii archipelago, that lasted for four months, was
quiet and really entertaining for the whole team. Donner was too happy to gain at long
least a new movie contract, and the scarceness of the scenario left him with some sort of
creative liberty, allowing him to build a rewriting of the story of Robinson Crusoe, where
everything finally falls apart due to the war and cultural differences. [6] A sense of
tragedy is added when the two men spot a passing cruiser, that respond by bombing the
island and killing them on the spot. [7] Reynolds and Takei, two struggling actors who
were trying to make their way through television, built on a solid friendship that would
last in Hollywood. No matter what can be said about the range of their acting skills by
then, they still managed to solely carry an in camera movie. [8]

When it came out on December 1968 on limited release, Hell In The Pacific not only
managed to repay his much reduced budget, but to make it triple. The studios had taken
new confidence into Richard Donner, and Burt Reynolds and George Takei proved that
they were able to make it to a bigger screen. Although largely unnoticed by critics at the
time of its release, quickly fading into obscurity, Hell In The Pacific is now considered as
a cult movie, both for its unlikely style, the presence of its actors that later propelled to
fame and his rather humanist message on war and different cultures. [9]

The Good, the Bad and the Movies :

2001 : A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick. Starring Keir Dullea as David Bowman,

Gary Lockwood as Frank Poole, William Sylvester as Heywood Floyd, Douglas Rain as HAL
9000. Kubrick’s preparedness makes it impossible to butterflies to change the production
of 2001, yet they help the movie winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, as
IOTL. 

The Producers, by Mel Brooks. Starring Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, Gene Wilder as
Leo Bloom, Dick Shawn as Lorenzo St. DuBois and Dustin Hoffman as Franz
Liebkind. Nothing is changed from OTL, except Dustin Hoffman steals the show as the
Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind, going so far as to win the Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor. He is established as a prime comedy actor.

Oliver !, by Lewis Gilbert. Starring Peter Sellers as Fagin, Mark Lester as Oliver, Shani
Wallis as Nancy, Michael Caine as Bill Sikes. Lewis Gilbert, thanks to the production of On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service, managed to undertake the production of Oliver !,
convincing Peter Sellers to play Fagin in the process. Still a popular success and
nominated in many categories for the Academy Awards, it only wins one, for Best
Original Song Score.

Bullitt, by Richard Fleischer. Starring Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt, Katharine Ross

as Cathy, Richard Burton as Walter Chalmers. Peter Yates is unable to work on the
movie, so McQueen recruits Fleischer instead. The director’s great talent and the editing
of the car chase make the movie all the more enjoyable, earning Bullitt two Academy
Awards, for Sound Mixing and Film Editing.

The Boston Strangler, by John Frankenheimer. Starring Robert Redford as Albert

DeSalvo, Charlton Heston as John S. Bottomly, George Kennedy as Phil Di
Natale. Nothing to say about the differences from OTL movie, except Robert Redford
continues his descent into bad guy roles after Cool Hand Luke.
The Thomas Crown Affair, by Norman Jewison. Starring Sean Connery as Thomas
Crown, and Natalie Wood as Vicki Anderson. Except for the main actors, nothing is
changed from the original movie, which still wins the Academy Award for Best Original
Song with Windmills of Your Mind. The movie is viewed as more commercial by critics,
benifiting from the cast presence of Sean Connery in his first post-James Bond role.

Barbarella, by Roger Vadim. Starring Faye Dunaway as Barbarella. Jane Fonda is not

so desperate as to make this extravagant picture ITTL ; it’s Faye Dunaway,
without Bonnie and Clyde, who is. The overall result is still over the top and cult material,
but it has… interesting consequences on Dunaway’s career.

The Diamond Story (1969), by Sam Peckinpah

« If they move, kill’em! »

Fred Priest

The official story of The Diamond Story tells that Warner Bros., still raging about losing
the script of William Goldman for The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, were set about
developing an adventure story, a vehicle for Lee Marvin. To write and direct it was Sam
Peckinpah, a talented forty-years-old director yet alcoholic, that had made Charlton
Heston’s Major Dundee a living hell due to his very bad temper and persistent delays.
Peckinpah had redeemed himself in the eyes of the studio with High Noon, and had to
take this project into fruition. He managed to do so with The Diamond Story, but a
controversy has emerged. According to his biographer Marshall Fine, Peckinpah had
stumbled during his writing process on a script called The Wild Bunch, written by a
stuntman, Roy Sickner. It described the picaresque story on an aging group of outlaws,
wreaking havoc throughout revolutionary Mexico. Details of the script resembled
heavily The Diamond Story; according to Fine, Peckinpah actually plagiarized The Wild
Bunch, incorporating it into his drafts of The Diamond Story, taking sole credit. Roy
Sickner died into total obscurity in 2001, and the issue was never raised during
Peckinpah’s lifetime. Even if the plagiarism theory is not widely followed by now, no one
can contest the upheaval The Diamond Story became. [1]
One of the wishes of Sam Peckinpah was to make a movie “so people can know how it
feels to be shot.” But his main idea was to make a movie that would take notice and
notify of the end of the western era, where John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda
were saving the day, always shaven, clean and rescuing widows and orphans within the
bounds of the law. Peckinpah felt that Sergio Leone had made such a statement
with Once Upon A Time In The West, but that it didn’t went very far; what he needed
was the book end, the end of innocence in a Western. Inspired with the premise of The
Diamond Story, about a botched diamond heist, and the ongoing Biafra War, Peckinpah
had the idea of making an “Africastern”. Instead of setting it in the last days of the
Frontier, it would take place in modern day, on the Black Continent. Removing the past
and the landscapes from the western genre, while taking all its tropes, it would show that
on a realistic setting (the modern day), the values convoyed there would appear
increasingly violent, in the same unknown and hostile that the Far West was to the 19th
century man, and that Africa continues to be. [2]
Set in the early 1960s, The Diamond Story followed the picaresque adventures of the
gang of Fred Priest, composed of white South African deserters who became outlaws
after suffering harsh treatment during the Border Wars. A covert attack on a Rhodesian
mining city, wearing their military uniforms, turns into a bloodshed when they are set up
by mercenaries led by Duke Coetzee, a former comrade of Priest in the South African
army, who had been recruited by the South African government to stop Priest’s
evildoings. Priest and a few survivors flee throughout Africa with the diamonds they
managed to rob, only to land into an African country torn by civil war, led by sadistic and
crazy dictator N’Jala. Becoming mercenaries on the service of N’Jala against the rebel
factions, the Priest gang hopes to gain access to a boat bound to South America, where
they can enjoy exile; after managing a major victory on the rebels and fending off
Coetzee’s mercenaries, they are forced to give up their African contact, Mamadou, after
he is revealed as a rebel who joined the Priest gang as a fixer in order to approach N’Jala
and assassinate him. Realizing that President N’Jala set them up by stealing their
diamonds, and that Mamadou is being tortured to death, they storm the presidential
palace, all dying after setting the city ablaze. Duke Coetzee only arrives to collect the
bullet-ridden corpses, and flees with a survivor, Billy Wilkes, after realizing he has no
hope left and will be executed for war crimes once he returns to South Africa. [3]

Lee Marvin was at first very enthusiastic about this prospect of an iconoclastic western,
but he pulled out after being offered a larger pay deal on Paint Your Wagon. [4]
Peckinpah was then bound at casting a major western figure to portray outlaw Fred
Priest, in order to overturn the codes of western. Charlton Heston, who had worked with
Peckinpah on Major Dundee, refused to hear about the script; his other co-star, Richard
Harris, agreed however to portray Duke Coetzee, who gives them chase. [5] James
Stewart and Gregory Peck were uneasy with the very grim script and its portrayal of
violence; Robert Mitchum and William Holden were interested, but were concerned with
filming in Africa for long months. It seemed that former Wayne comrade Richard Boone
was about to accept when a more popular name accepted the role: Burt Lancaster. After
starring in From Here To Eternity and Gunfight in O. K. Corral, Lancaster had lost his
status in Hollywood, after his European endeavours where he showed his acting skills by
working under the directions of Visconti in The Leopard.With his reputation established,
seeing his archrivals acting in mainstream movies, such as Marlon Brando in Planet of the
Apes and playing against type, like Kirk Douglas in Once Upon A Time In The West, he
decided to give his chance to the little-known Peckinpah. The addition of the great name
to the distribution comforted producers. [6] In addition to the big names of Lancaster and
Harris, lesser-known ones joined the cast: western regular Richard Jaeckel was cast as
Priest’s second-in-command, Alan Kerner [7], while Warren Oates, a frequent
collaborator of Peckinpah, returned as Kyle Goose. [8] As of the African actors, Peckinpah
insisted on having African Americans, in order to add more diversity to an American
cinema that just came out of the civil rights struggle, and to tone down the undertones
that a story set in Africa, with white protagonists, could have. As such, Priest’s gang had
a colored member, even if they were South African deserters: it was intended so in order
to avoid to portray apartheid as a good thing, and to show that the gang, with their old-
fashioned morals, were color-blind. Only the slimy mercenaries of Coetzee are portrayed
as vile and brutal racists. [9] So the African crew members were mostly portrayed by film
neophytes. Their associate, Billy Wilkes, the only to survive, was portrayed by Broadway
actor Ron O’Neal. [10] Mamadou, the African rebel who joins them, is portrayed by
professional football player Fred Williamson. [11] Shakespearean stage actor Moses
Gunn, with his authority, became the ruthless dictator N’Jala in his own film debut. [12]
But even before the cast was assembled, the production was looking for a location. With
a war-torn continent like Africa, finding a place stable enough to host a whole American
production, without having to bring too much material due to the costs, was difficult. Past
Belgian Congo was coming out of a civil war [13], South Africa was offended by its anti-
Apartheid message and its mixed cast, highly religious Ethiopia by its portrayal of
violence. There was even an idea to change the setting to North Africa, with French
legionaries instead of mercenaries, in order to have it filmed in Morocco. But the prospect
came from a very little country: Senegal. Independent since 1960, this little French-
speaking country was one of the most stable true democracies in Africa. It had
experienced an excellent development, thanks to French interests in the region during
the colonial era. Its president, Leopold Sedar Senghor, a former minister of the French
Republic, was an authentic poet, critically acclaimed and one of the leaders of the
Negritude literary movement. And more over, it had a cinematographic industry,
enhanced by the success, in 1966, of novelist-director Ousmane Sembène’s La Noire
de… When he was contacted by Warner Bros. in hosting the filming, President Senghor
saw the opportunity of having a big American production filmed in Senegal, showing it as
a stable country and prompting investors. He had plans of making Dakar the “African
Hollywood”. He gave his agreement, under the condition that he could make some
revisions to the script to avoid a bad portrayal of natives, and that Warner Bros. would
film other movies in Senegal. He gave access to a lot of facilities throughout the country,
ordering army personnel to protect the sets and to serve as extras. The reception of Burt
Lancaster in the presidential palace in Dakar was a massive propaganda success for
Senegal… Even if an allegedly drunk Sam Peckinpah had to be kept in check, far from the
cameras. [14]

The Diamond Story was filmed from November 1968 to March 1969, in order to avoid the
warmest months of the tropical country, or the rains’ season; it was split between Dakar,
figuring as the capital of dictator N’Jala, and the gorgeous landscapes of the Casamance
forests, in the south of the country, and the savannah of the central country, north of the
Gambia river. Flanked with native extras, serving them under governmental orders, the
actors, crewmen and producers had to deal with the intense heat, the mosquitoes
(Richard Harris, for example, fell sick three times during filming), the local food and long
distance from America. Without telephone, far from their homeland, many were
unhappy. But fellow countrymen kept flowing: they were journalists. The Diamond Story
interested people in the United States for many reasons. In order of treatment in the
press, they were: the comeback of Burt Lancaster; the unusual choice of Africa for
filming a movie; the depiction of violence, which still sparked a debate since Bonnie and
Clyde; and the drunken, heated rages of director Sam Peckinpah. His outbursts during
filming became legendary: at one occasion, he even pulled a real gun, firing into a wall at
the surprise and fear of his crew and shouting: “That’s the guns effects I want!” [15]
Even if Peckinpah had to be congratulated for his film innovations, such as his “Last
Walk” improvised on spot, Burt Lancaster and Richard Harris, citing an incident where
Peckinpah hired real prostitutes as extras, just to say that “he had made Warner Bros.
pay for whores” [16], wanted to have him fired on spot and replaced by another director.
Some said that the demand failed to reach California due to the distance; others that
Peckinpah was too good for the publicity made by the film.

And it worked: The Diamond Story, promoted as a story of violence and rage, premiered
in July 1969 and became an instant hit and the eleventh top-grossing movie of the year,
with fifteen millions of profits, a large deal for Warner Bros. that wouldn’t have given a
damn about the drunken director. [18] The rather conservative Academy failed to
acknowledge The Diamond Story’s valor as an anti-western, and it earned only three
Oscar nominations and won one, for the outstanding editing work of Lou Lombardo. [19]

But if The Diamond Story cast a lasting shadow over film industry, it was not for its
violence that greatly influenced the cinema of the 1970s, for its incredible editing or its
removal of all western tropes (John Wayne would famously claim that “The Diamond
Story had ended western once and for all”), but for its setting in Africa. In 1969, after the
civil rights struggle, the public had enough of stereotypical bad and mean colored people
in the movies; they wanted black heroes, even if they were a joke as their racially
prejudiced predecessors. By showing mad African dictators and violent rebels, The
Diamond Story had set a precedent, far from Sam Peckinpah’s aims and awareness. It
was the occasion for movies on a low budget, in exotic landscapes far from the ones that
everyone had seen in John Wayne films, just for the settings of adventure movies and
revisionist westerns, and without the restrictions of the American law. Thus began a new
era of American cinema in Africa, where renowned actors and directors drove to the
continent for their huge projects. The Golden Age of Dakar, the African American
Renewal had begun; but many would know it as… Africasploitation. [20]

Downhill Racer (1969), by Roman Polanski

« How fast must a man go to get from where he’s at? »

Tagline for the movie

Since Knife In The Water, Repulsion, Cul de Sac and The Fearless Vampire

Killers, everyone in Hollywood had the same question on their minds: when would Roman
Polanski make his debut in America? Robert Evans, the head of production at Paramount,
already credited with the successes of Barefoot in the Park, had already set his mind: he
would produce Polanski’s first US movie. If he had to wait for a year before pursuing
other projects, he had a very interesting script on his desk, a horror movie whose
atmosphere was close to Polanski’s early films. Its name was Rosemary’s Baby. But in
order to hook the French Polish director into America, Evans decided to play on his well
known taste for skiing, so he sent him the script to the sports flick Downhill Racer, along
with Rosemary’s Baby, hoping Polanski would read both and decide in favor
of Rosemary’s. But something weird happened: while en route to Europe, the mail
containing Rosemary’s Baby was unexplicably lost above the Atlantic, never delivered. So
Evans was very surprised when Polanski phoned him from Europe, very enthusiastic
about making a skiing movie. The rest is history: Roman Polanski would make Downhill
Racer, while Rosemary’s Baby would be made a year later by Mike Nichols. [1] Downhill
Racer, the story of a stubborn yet gifted skier who is ready to anything to win a Gold
Medal in the Winter Olympics, wasn’t exactly an Oscar-bait. But Robert Evans hadn’t the
hearts to convince Polanski, already on his way to California, to turn down the
perspective of a sports movie. It didn’t helped that Roman Polanski proved very
enthusiastic about his first Hollywood film, experimenting new grounds after his very
grim projects. His plans for embarked cameras on the skiers, for a gripping finale and a
more tragic rewrite convinced Evans; even if he rebuked, but finally caved in on a filming
focused in Switzerland, that Polanski appreciated. [2] But the name of Polanski coming to
Hollywood made great expectations, that were even increased tenfold when Warren
Beatty joined the project in the main role of Dave Chappelet, beating Robert Redford,
Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford. [3] Beatty, who continually boasted about him being
able to bring Francois Truffaut in America for Bonnie and Clyde, couldn’t skip the chance
to participate to the arrival of the renowned Polish director. His good looks pleased
Polanski, who had something in mind for the role. Investments poured in with Beatty’s
involvement. Jack Nicholson, another ski buff who won the director’s friendship, won the
part of Chappelet’s rival Johnny Creech, veteran actor Van Heflin joined as US Olympic
team coach Eugene Claire, and startlet Janet Margolin as the love interest, Carole Stahl.
In Los Angeles, while filming locations were scouted in Switzerland (that proved to be the
ones used in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), Polanski brought his Polish fellow
countrymen and collaborators Krzusztof Komeda and Adam Holender [4] and began to
work on the script. (And begin a relationship with Janet Margolin [5]…). Downhill Racer’s
revised script put the stress on the epic, but also on the troubled personality of Dave
Chappelet [6]. As most Polanski characters, Dave Chappelet is a social misfit. He is too
self-absorbed to display emotions: his love relationship with Carole Stahl has no interest
to him, and his interactions with his father, who doesn’t understand him, are close to
nothing. His drive to participate and win are his only way to live, and coach Eugene
Claire, even if he understands that, doesn’t want him to burn on the tracks, establishing
some sort of father-son relation. As it is evidenced in the last shot in the movie, where a
gold-medalled Chappelet sports a thousand-yard stare, as if he was thinking “What
now?”

Filming went very smoothly in the Swiss mountains, much to the pleasure of Robert
Evans, who was delighted with the technique of Polanski; Warren Beatty made his best,
even if he preferred stuntmen to perform the skiing scenes [7] and felt uncomfortable
with playing, after Clyde Barrow, another self-absorbed tough all-American guy,
something that would explain later his decision not to go into directing. [8] The excellent
quality of the skiing scenes in the Swiss mountains convinced the Academy to give the
Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects to Downhill Racer, even though they were filmed
naturally, without special effects.

It was the only Academy Award that the Polanski debut would take home, in spite of the
eight nominations it received, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. The
success went in the critics, with Roger Ebert dubbing it “one of the best movies of the
1960s”, and grossing over 35 millions of dollars worldwide, making it the fourth top
grossing film of 1969. [9] It cemented Roman Polanski’ status of a director, and remains
a cult movie, quoted as one of the few really good movies about sports. Now Roman
Polanski had plenty of options to pursue his American career…

Man’s Fate (1969), by Fred Zinnemann

« One can only know its own fate. »

Professor Gisors

What could impede Fred Zinnemann’s career as late as 1969? The man was a true maker
of Academy Award nominations back then: High Noon, From Here To Eternity, A Man For
All Seasons were definitely everlasting masterpieces. With his succession of successes
and, let’s face it, deep flops, nothing could impede the Austrian American director to
endeavour into his next project: the adaptation of Man’s Fate, the most renowned novel
of French author André Malraux, about the 1927 failed communist uprising in Shanghai,
during the Chinese Civil War. He had a great backer, MGM, its producer since 1944. He
had a great script, by Chinese British novelist Han Suyin, who had penned A Many-
Splendoured Thing. He had great locations, in Malaysia and Singapore, in order to
represent the outskirts of Shanghai, while interior scenes would be filmed in London. He
had great costumes. He had a great cast: Ingmar Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and
Liv Ullman had signed in, joined by British legends David Niven and Peter Finch; rising
stars Richard Chamberlain and Michael Lonsdale also joined in. What could happen before
filming began on February, 24 1969? [1]

Serving as some sort of response to the rising interest in Africa, and with the great
attention yield to Red China after the cooling of US-Soviet relations following the election
of Ronald Reagan to the presidency, Man’s Fate couldn’t give justice to the very complex
and canvassed novel of Malraux, himself an adventurer at the time. Relying very much
on internal monologues, the plot was more focused on the preparation of the communist
revolt by Kyoshi Gisors (Richard Chamberlain) [2] and its subsequent failure. The parts
of May Gisors (Ullman), his wife, and of Baron de Clappique (Niven) were expanded in
order to give a female love interest and a more comical counterpoint. The role of
assassin Chen (Lonsdale) was reduced, although Professor Gisors (Finch), Kyo’s father,
served merely as a behind the scenes advisor. Under Zinnemann’s helm, the filming
proved to be very smooth, marked by a great cooperation between the actors, all
encompassing the tragedy contained in this historical novel. In terms of cinematographic
history, some critics would call Man’s Fate one of the last movies in yellowface
(although Gandhi also qualifies [3]), as it would take lots of makeup to make believe that
Richard Chamberlain was of mixed Japanese-French heritage, while Michael Lonsdale was
a Chinese proletarian assassin. [4] In other terms, after the realistic and modern
settings, or the intimist plots of Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate or The Diamond
Story, Man’s Fate allowed to the historical epic to gain a new traction. Although very
classical in appearance, the movie proved to be an update in the genre. High Noon, by
the same director, already had a progressive streak, criticizing Maccarthyism; now, this
was a Hollywood movie portraying communists as heroes.

The public gave a warm welcome to the epic, much to the pleasure of art lovers (and of
MGM, which was saved from bankruptcy): the movie became fourth top-grossing movie,
and received applauses in many festivals throughout the worlds, from Cannes to Venice,
even if the most rewarding critic was from André Malraux, former Minister of Culture of
France, who said “he didn’t felt betrayed by the Hollywood picture, and that it would
open it to new generations.” [5] Nominated for many Academy Awards, including Best
Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, Man’s Fate would win two (Best Supporting Actor
for David Niven and Best Adapted Screenplay), having to deal with the bulldozer that The
Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy was. Man’s Fate reopened a wide interest in China, and
would remain one of the good movies of 1969.

Fahrenheit 451 (1969), by François Truffaut

« Fahrenheit Four-Five-One is the temperature at which book paper catches fire and
starts to burn. »

Guy Montag

To say that the adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s anticipation novel, Fahrenheit 451, was a
development hell is an euphemism; speaking of hell when it deals with the mass
incineration of books. Francois Truffaut has begun to work on the adaptation in 1962,
passing through four screenwriters, dozens of crew and cast replacements. His will to
make the first French science fiction movie was broken by Jean-Luc Godard making his
bizarre Alphaville in 1965; and Warren Beatty’s offer to direct Bonnie and Clyde in 1966
delayed the project even further. It took the passion of producer Lewis M. Allen to
convince Universal Pictures to continue to support the French New Wave director; during
his American venture, Truffaut had managed to recruit Paul Newman as the protagonist,
fireman Guy Montag, bringing further steam to the project. [1] Very interested in New
Wave cinema with his own directing attempts, beginning with Rachel, Rachel in 1968, he
was eager to work with Truffaut, becoming the uncredited co-executive producer
to Fahrenheit 451, and refusing proposals such as roles in Cool Hand Luke or The
Sundance Kid, that would have pitted him against his rival, Steve McQueen. [2]

In three years, things further changed on the pre-production of Fahrenheit 451. Raoul

Coutard, who was expected to become cinematographer on this New Wave movie, left to
pursue an American career after his Academy Award for Bonnie and Clyde, leading to him
being replaced by a former collaborator of David Lean, Nicolas Roeg. [3] Julie Christie
also broke his contract to cross the Atlantic and work on Charlie: Truffaut and Allen’s idea
to have her play the dual roles of Guy’s dissatisfied wife Linda and young reader Clarisse
was dropped. [4] Instead, New Wave fellow traveller and Truffaut’s actress on Bonnie
and Clyde, Jean Seberg, was cast as Linda Montag, while Swinging London rising icon
Sharon Tate received the role of Clarisse. Sterling Hayden, who had not starred in any
movie since Dr. Strangelove, agreed to star in the movie, just to pay his bills, according
to him. [5] Truffaut was pleased with the prospect of having Sterling Hayden as the
Firemen’s Captain, as his towering 6 feet 5 inches would allow a true ascendant on Paul
Newman’s character. [6] Hitchcock regular composer Bernard Hermann also balked out
from the process during filming, convincing Truffaut’s friend Karlheinz Stockhausen to
return for the score. [7] These prospects were not enough to trigger Truffaut’s interest
into filming. His logbook, published in the Cahiers du Cinéma magazine after the movie
came out, evidences that the lengthy pre-production and the English set had turned off
Truffaut, who wanted to conclude filming as soon as possible. However, the experience of
making Bonnie and Clyde two years before made him more comfortable with English. He
also enjoyed an intense working relationship with Paul Newman, who complied with the
minimalistic vision of the future as viewed by Truffaut, and to portray Montag as a brute
who discovers the book, not heroic at all. [8]

Even if it was not a complete blunder, Fahrenheit 451 failed to repay its budget, in

Europe as in America, and divided the critics, among them Ray Bradbury himself, who
later said he thought this adaptation to be quite faithful indeed. Truffaut swore that he
would never work in a foreign environment again, and he made his work; even if he later
enjoyed a great relation with Paul Newman, he convinced him not to campaign in favor of
the movie for the Academy Awards nor the Golden Globes. It was only nominated for the
Golden Bear in the Berlin Film Festival, and so it was. The novel would nevertheless win a
new traction in 1999, with the Mel Gibson-produced 1999 remake… [9]

Frenzy (1969), by Alfred Hitchcock

« I can’t stand men who paw every girl they meet. » 

Willie Cooper

He had turned cinema upside down forever with Psycho, but by 1969, Alfred Hitchcock’s
career was the shadow of its former self. The failure of Marnie in 1964, in spite of the
presence of Sean Connery, was confirmed two years later by Torn Curtain, that even Paul
Newman didn’t manage to pull up. Hitchcock was getting desperate to renew with
success : he was beginning to work on another spying story, coming from a novel [1],
but he had his mind set on another project : Kaleidoscope. Michelangelo
Antonioni’s Blow-Up would produce a change of heart in Hitchcock. Its frame construction
and its portrayal of the Swinging London, all with an unpredecented nudity (of Jane
Birkin, now of Story of O’s fame) and bright colors, unseen before in movies. It
captivated Hitch, who had always pursued creativity in filmmaking; as such, he had been
impressed by John Cassavetes’ Faces and its improvisations. Plus, it was far from the
abstraction and neo-realism of earlier Antoninoni movies: so an established director could
reinvent himself.

He quickly thought of a shelved project, a prequel to his 1943 psychological

thriller Shadow of a Doubt, where the heroine is forced to live with her uncle, a merry
widows killer who looks pleasant and well-looking to everyone else. Now he fueled it with
the crimes of British serial killers John George Haigh, Neville Heath and John Christie, in
order to return to the horrific angst of his British period. It was Heath, known for the
gruesome rape and killing of two women in 1946, that inspired him (as he had in the
1950s, with his unproduced scriptNo Bail For The Judge); he commissioned his friend
Benn Levy, with whom he had worked with in his early career. 

Hitchcock’s ambition was to make the Psycho to the counter-culture era. It would portray
the most unbearable violence ever seen on screen (“It will teach Truffaut a thing or two”,
he said, alluding to the onscreen violence of Bonnie and Clyde), telling the story of a gay
bodybuilder, living by his castrating mother, who turns out to be a rapist, a murderer and
a necrophiliac, chasing women in the 60s New York City. It would be made with hand-
held camera work, a first-person viewpoint and natural lighting. [2] “If you think you will
be able to find someone foolish enough to produce such a script, and to draw the ire of
the entire censorship and industry, well, when you are deeply mistaken, my dear.” said
Alma Reville to his husband.

“That is what they said about Psycho. The world will see I am not finished yet.”

And then, a miracle happened: Universal Studios agreed to fund the movie. [3]

Even if Francois Truffaut was reported to have disliked Kaleidoscope’s script (the film’s
working title [4]), Hitchcock had to thank him indirectly. The persistent delays
of Fahrenheit 451 convinced Universal that Truffaut was maybe not the best director for
their European debut; so they decided to go on a safe bet: Hitch himself, in spite of his
rather terrible links to the studios. Plus, the much-publicized filming of The Diamond
Story in Africa and the reported violence of the script decided them that it was time,
shortly after the dismissal of the Hays Code, to feature more violence in the pictures. The
plot and the main character, nevertheless, were still disliked by the studios.

-Alright, but make it with a budget of under one million dollars [5]. All research needed
for your creative visions will be at your expense. Erase the necrophilia and homosexuality
from the script. Hire unknown actors, except for the main character: take Michael
Caine, said the memo.

If Hitchcock had won the approval of the studios, he had to convince an actor to play a
sadistic rapist and a serial killer.

Even more Michael Caine. Surrounded with the success of Icpress, and with the
speculation around the successor of Sean Connery as James Bond, Caine was England’s
rising star, and the American studios were eager to recruit him. Nevertheless, Caine
refused to read the script further, calling it “disgusting” and not wanting to be associated
with the part. [6] Other suggestions, such as Blow-Up’s David Hemmings or Once Upon A
Time In The West’s Terence Stamp, were unavailable at that time, the former due to his
tractations with Stanley Kubrick. [7]

Hitchcock decided to recruit a celebrity not in the main character role, but as the major
female one; so it went to Faye Dunaway, an American actress who had lived for some
time in Europe, achieving some fame in the B-movie Barbarella, eager for an American
comeback and to work with Hitchcock. Gene Hackman, who had been cast as Mike Brady
in the seminal TV show The Brady Bunch, went as the elder NYPD detective. [8]As of the
main character, Hitch was about to turn to public auditions, something he disliked, when
he happened to see, in New York, a representation of the play The Lion In Winter, in
Broadway. There, he was captivated by the young actor portraying King Phillip of France.
His blue cold eyes, his skinny appearance, his nervousness and tense portrayal seemed
to fit what he had in mind for the serial killer. Afterwards, Hitchcock arranged a meeting
with the 26-years-old struggling actor, who had not even starred in a film feature yet,
and couldn’t believe that Hitchcock saw in him the likes of Anthony Perkins in Psycho. He
accepted, feeling very interested with the script and story.

“He is not built as I expected, Hitchcock told Alma, but this young lad, this Christopher
Walken, seems quite adequate for the role of the psychopath.” [9] Scouting of filming
locations resumed in late 1968, ready for filming during the year 1969 in the state of
New York, both in the Big Apple and upstate, near Rochester. During pre-production,
most of Hitchcock ‘s efforts were put into driving his aesthetic ideas into reality. He had
previously dispatched numerous photographers throughout Britain and the United States,
to have an overview of how Kaleidoscope/Frenzy’s look would turn on film, with natural
light and bright colors. [10] Satisfied with the results, Hitchcock managed to recruit
rising British cinematographers Jack Hildyard and John Alcott [11] and managed to
obtain, through personal contacts and with his reputation (and in a public image op-ed)
Zeiss super-fast lenses developed by the NASA for camera footage on the Moon, and
making Hitchcock able to work with natural lighting. [12] However, his efforts for hand-
held cameras and were broken: he had not enough money left and no way to make a
stabilizer efficient enough. [13] So instead of the whole story unveiling through the eyes
of the antihero, the script was changed to a story focused on his person and told from his
point of view. Subjective camera shots were to be used when the protagonist was in a
state of excitement (sexual arousal, urge to kill), such as focusing on the girls’ breasts,
eyes or lips when he was seducing and raping them, or using shaky and subjective
camera shots during the chase scenes. “I gain five pounds of muscle on Frenzy’
set” became a popular catchphrase among cameramen.

The plot itself followed its (anti)hero Willie Cooper (Walken), a socially ankward, broad
and gentle New Yorker. 

We see him walking at night in the streets of Brooklyn, looking lost, when he hears a
woman crying for help. There, he rescues one Caroline Varley (Christine Noonan [14]),
who is being molested by a drunk (Al Pacino in his first movie role [15]). Cooper
manages to kick off the evil-doer, reassures and sympathizes with Caroline, a struggling
artist, taking a drink with her, exchanging phone numbers. During the whole date, Willie
Cooper looks a bit ankward, even rough at moments. He then returns at his mother’s
apartment, where he lives, since he has been decommissioned from his military service
in Vietnam. [16] Left in unemployment since he returned, he drinks heavily and is
rejected by his mother (Elizabeth Wilson [17]), who alludes to his “indecent tastes”
(implying Cooper is homosexual). [18] Later, Willie takes Caroline in upstate New York,
having a picnic at a waterfall, near Rochester. After flirting, Willie and Caroline start to
kiss, but when Willie starts to fondle her, she begs him to stop. Frustrated and driven to
rage, he rapes and strangles her to death. Recomposing himself only a few minutes later,
he panics and dumps her naked body in the lake.

Early research for Frenzy

Even if the death of Caroline Varley is reported in a first time, Willie Cooper is not
worried and sees nothing in the media that could implicate him. After his murder, he
seems to be more confident in himself: he shouts back at his mother, and when he goes
out, he doesn’t look stressed at all. Yet, he doesn’t have the urge to go into romantic
flirts anymore; his true arousal comes now from killing. Meeting Patti Landis, an office
secretary, (Brenda Vaccaro [19]) at a party, after she had an argument with her
boyfriend, he lures her on the docks, where he tries to attack her. She takes refuge on a
mothballed ship tied up to the dock, and after a lengthy and thrilling chase, Willie finally
catches her, indulging in another rape and strangling.

Now chaos reigns in New York City. The New York Strangler, as it is called in the media,
becomes a sensation, and everyone turns suspicious; except for Willie’s mother, who
nevertheless becomes obsessed with the case. NYPD Detective Stanford (Gene
Hackman), at a TV show, describes the killer’s profile, that doesn’t fit with Willie Cooper’s
(it is implied during that scene that Patti Landis’ body was raped after she was killed),
but the advice turns Willie angry. Later, in the street, he sees policemen arresting the
drunken man who had molested Caroline earlier in the film, as a parallel has been drawn
between the two cases, and believing he was the perpetrator. After a heated argument
with his mother, Willie goes on another chase. There he meets an art student called
Barbara Milligan (Faye Dunaway), who sympathizes with him, even getting maternal,
much to the delight and surprise of Willie, who becomes truly aroused. Luring her into a
decaying factory, he proceeds to have sex with Barbara. But after she gets naked, he
finds a police badge concealed in her clothes. Now revealed to be an undercover police
officer, Barbara runs to safety, while Detective Stanford and her colleagues assault the
factory, trying to stop Willie. Chased until he reaches the top of the factory, told by
Stanford to surrender, Willie decides to take his own life, jumping from the roof and
falling to his death. [20]

The most disturbing in Frenzy was its protagonist : hard to ignore this serial rapist, as all
camera shots and sequences were focused on him. The worst with Willie Cooper, it’s that
you were bound to love him. As disgusting and despicable he was, he was still pathetic,
with his ankwardness around girls, his castrating mother and his traumatisms from
Vietnam. Christopher Walken, in his film debut, was an expert at portraying a serial killer
as a weakling, not confident enough in himself, yet terribly charming and even lovable…
Until he killed. Hitchcock commentators, never oblivious of his misogynism, could write at
great length at the negative portrayal of women in Frenzy, shown as frivolous succubi
who taunt weak men, only to push them away at the first occasion; it goes from the
extremely rude Mrs. Cooper to the sexually aggressive Caroline Varley, and with the
hidden cop, ready to prostitute herself to stop the murderer, played by Faye Dunaway.
Extremely dark, yet not focused on good and evil, as the film refused to condemn Willie’s
actions, amplificating the disturbing content. 

Needless to say, Hitch achieved his quest for public affluence, as Frenzy was struck with
a tremendous scandal. Many politicians, in Europe and in America all alike, called for the
reinstatement of the Hays Code just to forbid Frenzy, which they dubbed a sick, youth-
destroying and perverse movie, dwelling into pornography and violence just to attain
moviegoers. Movie critics and studio executives thought that the director
of Rebecca and Marnie just went insane: even if the rape scenes were heavily edited for
theatrical release, it was still rated X for its psychological violence and full frontal nudity.
[21] Christopher Walken and Faye Dunaway enjoyed instant fame, although with a
nefarious image. The public outrage with Frenzy, relayed by First Lady Nancy Reagan’s
comments, turned silent the awe at Hildyard and Alcott’s incredible use of natural light
and hand-held filming, an artistic prowess that would have a legacy. The police also
called for censorship, fearing that the intense content of Frenzy would trigger copycat
murders; for an entire decade, each time a serial rapist or a strangler was spotted on US
territory, the press would nickname it "The Frenzy Killer" or "The Willie Cooper imitator".
[22]

And, attracted by scandal and the cocktail of sex and violence, Frenzy became a public
success, attaining the tenth highest-grossing movie of 1969, grossing 24 millions of
dollars in the United States only, and being also a success worldwide. [23] Nevertheless,
the Academy, both in America and in Britain, refused to consider Hitchcock, with the
Academy Awards only acknowledging the technical creativity of Frenzy with an Academy
Award for Best Cinematography. Hitchcock commented that Christopher Walken’s
performance should have guaranteed him the Academy Award for Best Actor, yet he was
happy: Universal Studios was happy, and he had become again a creative and bankable
director.

Frenzy was a milestone in the aestheticization of violence in cinema: Paul Verhoeven,

Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, Abel Ferrara, Martin Scorcese, Sylvester Stallone,
Clint Eastwood, Alexandre Aja, Tony Scott and Gene Hackman himself would encense it
as one of the movies that influenced them most in their directing style. The haunting
music of the chase scenes of Maurice Jarre became a milestone in modern culture. And
some even forget to name Psycho among Hitchcock’s best movies: his real horror
movie, Frenzy, comes always to mind.

The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy (1969), by Sydney Pollack

« Kid, the next time I say “Let’s go someplace like Bolivia”, let’s go someplace like
Bolivia. »
Butch Cassidy

If a director has to have a nightmare in Hollywood, it’s having to deal with its main
actor’s ego. And what can be worse than this? Having to work with Steve McQueen. On a
movie where he teams up with someone else. That’s Steve. [1] George Roy Hill learned
to know it: he was fired from the set of The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy early, in
early days of filming in Mexico. Steve McQueen disliked his manners on set. [2] The
studios didn’t relented: they had put everything they had on William Goldman’s script.
[3] Sydney Pollack, later known at that time, was recruited instead. Because McQueen
liked him. That’s Steve.

Casting Butch Cassidy was hard as well: they had to change the script in order to give
The Sundance Kid a bigger role, playing as the muscles to Butch’s brains. [4] He refused
Harrison Ford (“He knows how to play stressed virgins, because he can’t act”), Jack
Nicholson (“How could he play a hero with such a maniac face?”), Paul Newman (“Hell
no!”), Marlon Brando (“Only monkeys managed to deal with his ego”), Gary Lockwood
(“No one stretches from science-fiction to western”), Warren Beatty (“I want an actor,
not a model”) and Jack Lemmon (“This is a comedy, but no so much”): it finally went to
an unknown, TV actor Robert Wagner. [5] And a good-looking girl for the love interest,
Tuesday Weld; and a renowned actor for the arms smuggler Percy Garris, Ernest
Borgnine. That’s Steve. The filming was interrupted by outbursts of anger of Steve
McQueen and Moctezuma’s revenge, the euphemistic name given to diarrhea occurring in
Mexico, due to Mexican food. It didn’t impeded Steve McQueen from making his own
stunts, even the jump from the waterfall. That’s Steve.

It became the first best-selling movie of 1969, grossing more than 100 millions of dollars
in the US only, and a tremendous eleven nominations for the Academy Awards, winning a
record seven, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Score,
and Best Actor for Steve McQueen, but the star wasn’t there. That’s Steve.

Because the man had became totally paranoid after what happened to his friends
Candice Bergen and Terry Melcher, in Los Angeles, where they were found slaughetered
by a group of maniacs, known as the Manson Family. [6] The man of 1969, the new king
of Hollywood, the best paid actor in the world, the winner of the Academy Award was
now sheltered in his house, and carrying a gun each time he went out, when he was
surrounded by an army of bodyguards. And it didn’t prevented him from hitting the
bottle.

That’s Steve.

You Only Live Twice (1969), by Brian G. Hutton

 « You only live twice, Mr. Bond. »
Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Above all, the preparation of a new installment in the James Bond series was somehow
different in 1968, as it meant the quest for a new Agent 007.

As Sean Connery enjoyed a post-Bond career with his leading role in The Thomas Crown
Affair, plans to convince him to reverse his decision faltered immediately. [1] Albert
Broccoli and his minions had to acknowledge that, at the contrary of most
announcements, “Sean Connery wasn’t James Bond anymore”. After early plans were
made with recruiting American Batman star Adam West [2] or Dutchman Hans De Vries,
it was decided that the most famous fictional hero that Britain had in the world ought to
be an Englishman. Timothy Dalton, noticed for his role as Philip II of France in The Lion
In Winter, was considered, but he insisted that he was only 22 and had already signed on
to John Boorman’s Guildenstern and Rosencrantz Are Dead. The runners-up finally were
Terence Stamp, Michael Caine John Richardson and Jeremy Brett. Terence Stamp wanted
to take the series into a darker tone, which displeased the producers; Michael Caine
feared to be typecasted, having enjoyed his breakthrough with The Ipcress File; John
Richardson had only One Million Years B.C. as a major credit, and Jeremy Brett had only
television works on his resume, besides My Fair Lady. Nevertheless, said one of the
producers, “one of them had this classy look that had made Sean Connery’s fame, all
underlined by this unknown and almost sadistic violence that characterized Bond.” In
early 1968, Jeremy Brett finally signed to become the next 007. [3] With a Bond recast,
the series’ screenwriter, Richard Maibaum, was left to a dubious choice: if the next film
was to be You Only Live Twice, that begins with an alcoholic Bond, left broken by the
killing of his wife and thirsty with vengeance, how to convince the audience that Sean
Connery in the previous film and Jeremy Brett were the same people? [4] It was
ultimately decided to follow the novel, and to show signs of James Bond’s grief and
depression, but not to mention explicitly his wife. Instead of his state of depression, the
pre-credits introduction would see Bond botching an assignment and lets a sniper
disguised as a cellist escape, is inspired by Ian Fleming’ short novel The Living
Daylights. [5] The final script had James Bond sent to Japan on a secondary assignment,
and have the mission of assassinating Guntram Shatterhand, a drug trafficker and
religious guru, that is revealed to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The second half of the movie
would consist of James Bond single-handedly raiding Blofeld’s castle, located on a
Japanese volcano, and killing him in an epic swordfight, with Blofeld in samurai attire.
The idea of an amnesiac James Bond, living as a Japanese fisher and going to the Soviet
Union, was dropped from the script. [6]

If James Bond had to be replaced, the producers wanted to have the villain return. Peter
Cushing had been lauded for his portrayal of the evil mastermind Blofeld in OHMSS, so
they tried to convince Cushing to return to the Bond franchise, even if his contract was
only made for one movie. Cushing persistently refused, claiming that he was bound to his
contract with Hammer studios, that continued to draft him into
countless Frankenstein flicks. The truth is that the filming of On Her Majesty’s Secret
Service had been exhausting to him, and that he didn’t wanted to travel to Japan for the
filming. After Christopher Lee and Charles Gray rebuked the filmmakers, the studios
finally hired French Swiss actor Howard Vernon. Born to an American mother and fluent
in an accentless English, Vernon had accessed to fame for his portrayal of a Francophile
and pacifist German officer in Jean-Pierre Melville’s debut Le Silence de la Mer. Since
then, Vernon had compromised himself in Spanish and French Z-movies directed by
Jesus Franco. Delighted with the prospect to play a Bond villain and to take a leave from
nudies and slasher movies, Howard Vernon gave his sinister looks to the archvillain. [7]
Ilse Steppat returned in her last film role as Blofeld’s henchwoman and lover, Irma Bunt:
she would die of a heart attack during post production. [8] The Japanese Toho Studios,
contracted by Eon Productions, gave the Japanese actors for the movie that was, for the
first time ever, to be set in one country only: Japan. Japanese stock actresses Mie Hama
and Akiko Wakabayashi were cast as the James Bond girls, the first as Aki, who dies
early in the movie, and the second as Kissy Suzuski, Bond’s love interest who saves his
life after Blofeld’s lair has collapsed, and is also hinted to be pregnant with James’ child.
[9] Australian actor Rod Taylor, of Time Machine and The Birds’ fame, joined the cast as
Australian agent Dikko Henderson, who introduces 007 to Japanese lifestyle and later
partners with him; ironically, Taylor had been proposed the role of James Bond by the
time of Dr. No, before Sean Connery was found. [10] But the more prestigious
screenname came from Japan: Akira Kurosawa’s creature, Toshiro Mifune, agreed to be
cast as the head of Japanese secret services, the very nationalistic and adventurous Tiger
Tanaka. His very high salary and his receiving top billing for his Western debut helped to
convince Mifune; some said that, still in his grudge against Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro
Mifune wanted to start his European career with a bang, after the critical
success Runaway Train enjoyed the year after. Toshiro Mifune insisted to recite his
English lines phonetically, but he was always dubbed in post production. [11]

For director, the producers were confused. They had been dissatisfied with Peter Hunt’s
overly long, albeit successful, Bond movie (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), Terence
Young (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball) had other commitments, Guy
Hamilton was busy with the making of Battle of Britain. Lewis Gilbert, once contacted
for OHMSS, had obtained lasting fame with Oliver! and rebuked the filmmakers’ offers.
[12] The producers finally decided to go with another breakthrough: casting an American
director. Even if it seemed an heresy to Bond fans, Brian G. Hutton, known for a few
Hollywood flicks, was taken as a yes man by Eon Productions. For the anecdote, Hutton
had been contacted to make Where Eagles Dare; actor Richard Attenborough finally
landed the part, in his directorial debut. His bad relations with Richard Burton and Clint
Eastwood on set convinced Attenborough that his war movie venture would be the last
time he went behind the camera. [13] Directors of photography Freddie Young and
Michael Reed were added to the show, respectively for the Japanese and the studio
settings. John Barry returned to the franchise, persuading Aretha Franklin to perform the
theme song. Her deep voice added to the melancholy of the whole filming. [14]

Filming began in Japan in October 1968, in Tokyo, Kyoto and Kyushu island, the latter
one for Blofeld’s castle built on a volcano and the fisher’s village, where James Bond is
trained into masquerading as a Japanese fisherman. Even if everything went well, the
language barrier and filming conditions proved to be grueling, convincing the producers
to resume filming in Pinewood studios, most particularly for the opening scene and the
grueling interiors of Blofeld’s lair, all in a very Japanese daimyo fashion. But the most
particular came from the new Bond, Jeremy Brett. Dedicated to his work, Brett tried to
put all his efforts into portraying the most accurate Bond that could be done. Even if his
wife’s death is not addressed, his James Bond seems to have been broken by it: both
gloomy and dangerous, he proves as ruthless as Sean Connery could be in Dr. No, killing
without hesitating. His methods proved to be very close to those of the amoral and ninja-
like Tiger Tanaka; he patiently folds into the Japanese culture, in order to better trap his
worst enemy, Blofeld. That’s how Jeremy Brett insisted into doing his own stunts,
learning martial arts such as kung fu to defeat Blofeld’s henchmen in his Garden of
Death, set with countless traps. Brett nearly died when the autogyro James Bond uses to
climb Blofeld’s castles and defeat his helicopters, the Little Nellie, crashed during takes.
Director Brian G. Hutton convinced him to let a trained aviator do the Little Nellie
passage. Jeremy Brett then broke three of his ribs during the final sword fight against
Blofeld (portrayed not by the aged Howard Vernon, but a Japanese stuntman in full
samurai attire), after a bad fall. He nevertheless completed the sequence, to the crew’s
disapproval. [15] That a James Bond was a box office success wasn’t great sorcery: as
always, You Only Live Twice was the ninth top grossing film of 1969 [16], throughout the
world. The success that was not as predictable was the critical one, more over the new
James Bond, Jeremy Brett. The critics mostly followed, even if they complained that
Brian G. Hutton’s action-packed filming didn’t carried the same magic that his British
counterparts, and that the exoticism related to the Bond movies didn’t played out, being
centered on Japan only. The public was also unsettled by the darkening of the James
Bond series, made evident by the tragic end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and
proven more by James Bond’s drive for revenge. Jeremy Brett was applauded for his
tragic portrayal, managing to stay a classy killing machine and, furthermore, to stand the
challenge of taking the role from Sean Connery.

Jeremy Brett had a three-film contract, and he had already plans for the next
installment: The Man With The Golden Gun…

The Magnificent Movies

The Loners, by Dennis Hopper. Starring Peter Fonda as Captain America, Dennis

Hopper as Billy and Rip Torn as George Hanson. Nothing is much different from the OTL
film, excepts it retains its original title, and as Jack Nicholson already became a star on
his own right, Rip Torn manages to land the role of George Hanson, avoiding further
brawl with Dennis Hopper. Hopper and Fonda make a major media sensation on the
Croisette when the two ragged hippies win the Palme d’Or in the Cannes Film Festival for
their road trip movie, that still has the same success. 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by John Boorman. Starring Christopher
Plummer as Rosencrantz, Terence Stamp as Guildenstern, Peter O’Toole as the Lead
Player, Timothy Dalton as Prince Hamlet, Laurence Olivier as King Polonius. John
Boorman remained in Britain to make this adaptation of Tom Stoppard’s existentialist
play, and he was right ! Starring two old thespians (Peter O’Toole as the Lead Player, and
Laurence Olivier as King Polonius) and three rising stars (Christopher Plummer and
Terence Stamp as the two messengers, and Timothy Dalton as Hamlet), the movie
establishes John Boorman as a major director, wins the Golden Bear in Berlin and earns
Plummer a Golden Globe for Best Actor. The studios soon turn to Boorman for a major
book adaptation…

True Grit, by George Roy Hill. Starring Charles Bronson as Rooster Cogburn, Mia
Farrow as Mattie Ross, Burt Reynolds as La Boeuf, Gary Lockwood as Lucky Ned
Pepper. John Wayne, too occupied with helping his friend Ronald Reagan at winning the
Presidency in 1968, can not land the role of Rooster Cogburn : it’s Charles Branson who
manages to make a career rebound with the role of the eyepatch-wielding sheriff. Mia
Farrow is cast as she is not worried by George Roy Hill’s acting methods, based on her
fame as Frank Sinatra’s wife (who divorces her as she resumes her acting career, as
IOTL for Rosemary’s Baby), and young Hollywood stars Burt Reynolds and Gary
Lockwood use True Grit as a vehicle. Even if it’s a box office success, the somewhat
classic western is snubbed by critics, who suscribe to The Sundance Kid and The
Diamond Story instead. Mia Farrow nevertheless wins the Academy Award for Best
Actress.

The Illustrated Man, by John Frankenheimer. Starring Harrison Ford as Carl, Sondra

Locke as Felicia. The first setback in Harrison Ford’s rising stardom : making a foray into
science fiction in this Ray Bradbury adaptation, the movie is still a blunder ITTL and
shows that Harrison Ford’s name is not enough to score big at the box office. Having
refused The Sundance Kid to do this movie also dazzles the young Harrison Ford.

Hello, Dolly !, by Stuart Rosenberg. Starring Doris Day as Dolly Levi, Sandy Duncan
as Minnie Fay, Gregory Peck as Horace Vandergelder, Ann-Margret as Irene
Molloy. Stuart Rosenberg undertakes Hello, Dolly ! under Gene Kelly producing : it’s a
major success, allowing Doris Day to thwart her finance problems and to Gregory Peck to
had another success to his deeds. It wins the Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and
Best Score, while Rosenberg and Doris Day wins the Golden Globes for Best Director and
Best Actress respectively.

Model Shop, by Jacques Demy. Starring Harrison Ford as George Matthews, Anouk

Aimée as Lola. Ford, in the same time, makes his venture into musicals, under the
patronage of none other than Jacques Demy, in his Los Angeles experience. If Harrison
Ford gets a much publicized affair with Anouk Aimée, Model Shop is a better success
ITTL, riding on Ford’s popularity, but still is one of the lesser turns of Demy’s
filmography.

Just in passing : in 1969, some moviegoers could notice the film debut of one Martin
Scorcese, with Honeymoon Killers, and others in a strange black comedy by film student
Penelope Spheeris, Uncle Tom’s Fairy Tales, making the debut of a comedian called
Richard Pryor.

The responses to this are obviously what you’d expect - half “but of course, he’s a
Russian spy” and half “lol MSM smears”. For me, I’m unsure what impact these attempts
had, but it’s obvious Putin will be indulging in this and obvious why - confusion and
destabilising. The fact the Russian Embassy issued tweets backing the Tories is
illustrative of his tactics and goals here. Kept diplomatic channels open while attempting

to make western elections as confused and divisive as possible. Cf Trump or Brexit. And
while Corbsceptics like myself may think Putin would be extremely comfortable with JC in
No 10, don’t think for a moment if the situation had been reversed, the embassy
wouldn’t have been cuddling up to a Labour government while these accounts were

amplifying the opposition. Because that’s our future now, until we find some way to deal
with it. Putin playing the diplomatic games while practicing cyber-warfare (to how much
utility, again, we can be unsure - but his aim is definitely to muddy the waters).
The collapse of the old order in the West provoked a collapse in confidence in
‘professional politicians’. It was a boo phrase as reliable as ‘heretic’ in the medieval
church. A speaker wishing to endear himself or herself to the audience only had to say
that the country was sick to the back teeth of them to earn a round of applause.

On a material level, there were rational reasons for the loathing. We do not say often
enough that Western societies have failed their peoples. The average Briton or American
has not had a pay rise for over a decade. Growth rates in Britain appear to have taken a
permanent knock, and that is before Brexit. Any people can put up with suffering if they
know it is a temporary measure. Give them austerity without end and permanent wage
cuts and they will revolt.

As important as the economics is the psychology behind the revulsion. Even in the good
times, there was always something inhuman about professional politicians. They were too
calculating and too cold; they had one eye over their shoulder and the other assessing
the odds. You never got a straight look from them – or a straight answer. The triumphs
of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn, and their counterparts in Hungary and
Poland were the triumphs of authentic amateurs over yesterday’s phoney men. At least
that is what they wanted you to believe.

Amateur politicians now rule us. And as ought to be clear, they are a disaster. Politics
may not be a profession with entrance exams and formal qualifications, but statecraft
remains a skill politicians must master if their country is not to suffer. For instance, a
professional politician would not go on holiday to Israel and hold secret bilateral meetings
with the prime minister and his subordinates without telling the Foreign Office. The
British government, like every other government, has its foreign policy. It’s not Priti
Patel’s place to invent a foreign policy of her own, to reveal dissension or make promises
on Britain’s behalf that cannot be kept.

By rights, the Foreign Secretary should be furious. Unfortunately for us, the Foreign
Secretary is Boris Johnson. He understands that class-ridden Britain grants a special
dispensation to faux-aristocratic eccentrics, who can quote Tacitus and the Beano in the
same sentence. If he were working class, Johnson would never get away with his
Wodehousian poses. Indeed, he would never have had the self-confidence to think of
trying to get away with it. His act – and everyone who knows or has studied Johnson
says that the Foreign Secretary is the most calculating political actor of our time – is
based on a cool understanding of the double-standards that lie deep in our culture. He
cannot control his tongue; he does not bother with detail. If he were in nearly every
middle- or working-class job, he would be fired. As it is, he is a Foreign Secretary, who
places British citizens in danger through his incontinent blabbering.

Supporters of Brexit and Trump on the one side and Corbyn on the other have this much
in common: they all believe that they are the enemies of ‘the elite’. In one sense they
are right. They would not be in control of the US, UK and Britain’s official opposition if the
Anglo-American elites had not failed us so badly.

But now they are failing in turn, it is important to know how to fight them. To my mind, it
is no good countering Johnson, Farage and Trump by saying ‘yah boo and sucks but they
are rich elitists too’, as so many on the left do. Equally, it is no use thinking you can
defeat Corbyn by pointing out that he and so many of his lieutenants are the children of
privilege, as so many on the right do.

From the Gracchi onwards, radical change has happened only when the ruling class
splits. If you doubt me, consider that since the 1960s there were electoral gains to be
made by mobilising anti-immigrant sentiment. The mainstream parties were sensibly
wary of playing to nativist fears too blatantly until, first Farage, and then Gove, Johnson
and the other Brexiteers, decided that the race card was the card that could win them a
referendum. The masses, or at least the 52 per cent, had the elite leadership and elite
approval they always need, and acted accordingly.

Equally, old-time socialist religion has always won the loudest cheers in the Labour
conferences. But with all Labour’s leaders since 1983 saying they would not have the
money for social democracy if they scared off private enterprise, the members’ visceral
instincts never overwhelmed the party. Now they have a leader who promises them that
socialism without tears is possible, they can let their feeling run riot.

Charges of hypocrisy get you nowhere in these circumstances. For if their supporters
sincerely believe that Brexit or socialism in one country are feasible political projects,
they won’t care that Johnson went to Eton or Seumas Milne went to Winchester. Rather
than waste time, it is better to stick to the best democratic line of attack and hold them
to account.

Much though many on the right do not want to admit it, they are the elite now: the
people in power who are running Britain and America. Right-wingers can, if they must,
deplore liberal elites in the arts or Hollywood, but the elites that matter, the elites which
stand above all others in the Anglo-American world, are the supporters of Brexit and
Trump.

To put it another way, the men and women who clawed their way to the top by
denouncing the political class are the new political class. Ours is a time of proudly
amateur political leaders, and look at the mess they are leaving us. After the dismal
displays of Patel and Johnson, perhaps the ‘next big thing’ will be the return of
professional politicians. They may not have answers to your problems. But then the
professional surgeon who operates on you may not cure your sickness. That’s no reason
to prefer a quack instead.

Conservatism would be an admirable idea if only its adherents followed it. Fear of
change, or at least a wariness about its capacity to lead to unintended suffering, is by no
means an irrational emotion. If your society is just about managing, to coin a phrase, it
is not reactionary to worry that meddling could take it from bad to worse.

Even those of us who have never voted Conservative can see the wisdom in the
conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott’s description of politics:

‘Men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor
for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep
afloat on an even keel.’

Even now if you read the remarkably self-congratulatory Tory press, conservatives still
talk as if they are cautious and sensible men and women who know there is much to fear
when you lose your even keel. Consider how frightened of a trip across the bottomless
sea modern Britain should make them.

A scan of the horizon should take in the first far-left leader in the Labour party’s history
doing well enough in the polls, and ready to take power if the government collapses. As
Labour has no viable economic policy that can begin to please its supporters, it is
reasonable to imagine it will degenerate into a vicious and paranoid government that
delights in lashing out at real and imagined enemies once in power. You only have to look
at Labour in opposition or the Trump movement in America, which so resembles it, to
guess what is to come.

Meanwhile this government is doing its best to lose. It is so decrepit, the only humane
course appears to find a High Court judge willing to grant it the right to die. Writers for
the Spectator might rage against Theresa May’s lack of imagination, and her failure to
follow this bold course or that new initiative. They ought to consider the possibility that
this government’s enterprise would be hopeless even if she had a majority. As we
warned you at the time, the big lie of Brexit was not that it would deliver £350 million a
week to the NHS – staggering though that lie was. Whether it was Michael Gove and
Boris Johnson promising there would be ‘change to the Irish border’ or David Davis once
again demonstrating the unbearable lightness of his being by breezily predicting we could
bypass Brussels and ‘strike a deal’ with  Berlin, the big lie was that Brexit would be easy
and then we could move on.

Who knows, the Tory right might even have believed it. As it is, this government can do
nothing else apart from Brexit, and can’t even do that well. Britain faces problems which
would challenge any administration: health care for the elderly, a housing crisis, the end
of the era of cheap money, and the collapse in productivity. Not one of these is
addressed, let alone tackled, by Brexit. Instead, by pushing us into economic stagnation
Brexit will make all of them harder to solve.

Consider how angry people are and how much angrier they might become. Britain’s
households are in the middle of what is projected to be a 17-year pay squeeze, with
earnings not set to return to their 2008 levels until 2025. As the Resolution Foundation
doggedly demonstrates, pay growth and economic growth bear a scant relation to each
other. Even when we are close to full employment, labour is so weak and capital is so
powerful, workers can no longer takeadvantage of a sellers’ market. Before the crisis
unemployment below 5 per cent was associated with pay growth of 4 to 5 per cent.
Today we have unemployment near 4 per cent, but pay growth refuses to rise above 3
per cent.

People can put up with falling real wages and cuts in public services as long as there is
hope for a better future. But when stagnation becomes a war without end – all there is
and all there can be – they start to crack. It is too simplistic to blame Nigel Farage, the
Brexit vote or the rise of Corbyn on economic distress, but, come now, you can’t pretend
it doesn’t matter when nothing improves for the majority of the population even though
we officially got out of the Great Recession at the end of 2009.

We have yet to come to terms with what happens when interest rates rise and the
‘emergency measures’ of quantitative easing and cheap money comes to an end – an
emergency that has lasted nigh on a decade. No one knows how the British state will
cope when the next recession comes. It can’t slash interest rates when they are already
so low. And Brexit will make trading our way out of trouble all the harder.
I am not a Tory and don’t get into panics about reds under beds and pre-revolutionary
situations but Conservatives are meant to be paranoid: it’s what keeps them on their
toes. Instead of worrying about the future they would rather tear each other apart over
equally unworkable post-EU customs schemes, than compromise, or address pressing
problems to try to win over a few wavering voters to their bleeding cause.

I am writing this before the local election results, which will doubtless be analysed in
terms of how each of the parties fare. But party labels are trivialities when set against
the changes Britain is going through. Conservatives whether of the large and small ‘c’
variety should look at them and worry about them. Yet so blinded are they by Brexit,
they cannot see that the boat is low in the water and no one would have the right to be
surprised if it capsized.

Few noticed in 2015 when Seumas Milne excused the tyranny that held East Germany in
its power from the Soviet Invasion in 1945 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Nearly
every page reeked of a sly attempt to sweeten dictatorship and cover up the murder it
inevitably brings. It was greeted with deserved indifference.

As for Milne, two-years ago he was just another columnist in a newspaper industry that is
stuffed with them. He provided a niche service on the Guardian by catering for a corner
of the market that yearned to hear defences of 20th century Soviet Communism and
21stcentury Islamo-Fascism at the same time and for the same reasons. Now Milne is
Jeremy Corbyn’s Executive Director of Strategy and Communications. There is a faint
chance he could be the most influential adviser in a Corbyn government, if Labour wins
power. He won’t go back to obscurity, if Labour loses, however. Milne will fight to ensure
that the modern version of the Hitler-Stalin pact, the alliance of the red and the black,
continues to control the opposition.

To stay on the Stalin side of the alliance, two years ago the publishers of Stasi State or
Socialist Paradise asked Milne to provide a foreword. He was pleased to oblige. The book
was ‘sober and balanced,’ he enthused. The authors, John Green and Bruni de la Motte,
showed ‘great merit’.

Regrettably, East Germany was home to the Stasi, but was that really so bad? The
authors Milne cheered for made a few concessions. They accepted the Stasi arrested
Germans for activities ‘that were legal in the West’. Their throats cleared, they then
spluttered out excuses for the surveillance state. East Germany’s punishments for dissent
were ‘mild,’ they claimed. It flouted democratic norms but that is ‘in the nature of all
security services’. Indeed not only was the Stasi just like ‘all security services’ it
was better than other security services. For the authors assured us, the ‘Stasi was not a
corrupt force in the sense that the British police were recently shown to be’.

Milne agreed. Communist East Germany had been demonised by Angela Merkel’s
reunited Germany, he said. It had made denouncing the Stasi state a ‘loyalty test for
modern Germans’. Milne saw through the charade. Merkel and other defenders of the
West want us to forget that the communists delivered ‘social and women’s equality well
ahead of its times, and greater freedom in the workplace than most employees enjoy in
today’s Germany’.
The fight against propaganda requires a tireless defence of the historical record.
Propagandists like Milne prosper because they know that most cannot be bothered to
track down every omission and nail every half-truth. Tiring and tiresome though it may
be, let us insist that East Germany did not allow ‘greater freedom in the workplace than
most employees enjoy today’. It banned free trade unions. It so controlled workers, that
they revolted. As Milne must know, the East Berlin workers’ uprising of 1953 against the
Soviet-backed state inspired the only lines of Bertolt Brecht to have passed into modern
culture:

After the uprising of the 17th of June

The Secretary of the Writers’ Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

As for the Stasi and its ‘mild’ punishments, there are dozens of genuine histories in
English as well as German, all of which raise the same possibility: East Germans could
have been the most spied on and snitched on people on earth. The German communists
did not kill as many as the German fascists. But John O. Koehler in his history of the
Stasi nevertheless makes a revealing comparison. The Gestapo had 40,000 officers
spying on a united Nazi Germany of 80 million people: one state-employed spy for 2,000
people. The Stasi had 102,000 controlling a population of 17 million: one state-employed
spy for every 166 East Germans. Add in the informers the state recruited – friends,
workmates, neighbours and even children – and East Germany had one spy for every 66
citizens.

Their punishments were not ‘mild’. Millions escaped to the West before the communists
built a wall to imprison their own people. (What kind of ‘ahead-of-its-time’ country does
that, Milne could have profitably asked.) Once the wall was up, 825 Germans were killed
trying to escape, and post-communist investigators have documented 4,444 actual and
attempted killings of opponents by the East German state and 40,000 sentences for
political offences.

I have my criticisms of Britain’s police and Germany’s protection of workers’ rights. But
to say that the Stasi was less corrupt and that workplace protections in East Germany
were superior is to engage in propaganda which is either filthy or ignorant or both.

You have to be in your 40s to remember the Soviet Union. The young voters who say
they will back Corbyn this week do not know or care about the battles of the last century.
Why should they dive into the past and understand what it means to defend communist
terror? But Corbyn and the post-communists around him clearly do care. Milne rushed to
praise a worthless apologia because Soviet communism matters to the Labour leadership.
Milne is explicit. He says it is ‘crucial’ that the Labour party he and his friends lead and
other social movements learn ‘the lessons of both the successes and failures’ of the Stasi
state.
I don’t believe that Milne will be in Downing Street on Friday, but who knows? If the far
left continues to control the opposition, however, Brecht’s question after the 1953
workers’ uprising should be asked again, but this time without the sarcasm: Would it not
be easier to dissolve the Labour party and elect another one?

You can see divisions hardening in Britain, like rigor mortis spreading through a corpse.
Joints are stiffening everywhere you look. If you doubt me, turn your eyes to the right
and notice how politicians and commentators speak as if they are reading from a script,
which allows no debate or argument about detail.

No Brexiter says, for instance, they support Britain leaving the EU, but think we should
stay in the customs union to protect the hard-won peace in Ireland. In theory, there are
dozens of different ways of leaving. In practice, everyone on the right wants the same
Brexit, even though with the clock ticking, now is the time when argument is needed
more than ever.

No right-wing equivalent of the Vatican or Central Committee of the Chinese Communist

Party gives out the approved dogma. The crowd chants in unison – apparently of its own
volition.

The British establishment was once described as ‘a committee that never meets’. It’s an
umimprovable description of how conformism works in a country where party lines are
spread by nods and winks rather than proclamations. There’s no list of prohibited
thoughts or banned books. Peer pressure, which social media has amplified a thousand
times, and groupthink ensure you know the party line without needing to be told.

Anyone watching Labour must have noticed that criticisms of the far left, which were
everywhere a year ago, have vanished. Labour’s relatively good performance in the 2017
general election explains much of the silence. Doubtless, it quietened the worst type of
Labour MP, who only ever had practical objections to the far left. When their argument
that it couldn’t win fell apart, they could not turn to the more powerful point that
it shouldn’t win. Their imaginative failure does not excuse the rest of us. If Corbyn or a
successor from the far left is likely to be prime minister, it is more important to make the
case against them now than in 2015 or 2016. But as on the Brexit right, argument has
stopped just when it is most needed.

Once again, there is no coercion. The left wing establishment’s version of the committee
that never meets does not have to call an unprecedented emergency session. Leftists
know the score and will follow it. They don’t need a conductor to prompt them. Hugo
Rifkind wrote recently about ‘a swelling roster of unmentionables’. There was no point in
arguing about Brexit, Scotland, Trump, gender, antisemitism, immigration, or Islam with
friends and family when argument only brought bitterness.

Because our work is political, journalists feel the change more than most. Colleagues I
have spoken to agree with me that some editors – and I emphasise some editors so
that other editors don’t go off in a huff – have shifted in the past year. Conservatives
among them bristle when writers criticise any aspect of right-wing ideology, however
small and repugnant it may be. Editors on left wing news sites mimic them. It’s not that
you can’t get pieces published in their pages. But you must fight for them, and even the
most thick-skinned among us can’t help but notice that a certain coolness – nay, iciness
– descends as the committee that never meets delivers pointed hints that it would be
better for all concerned if you shut up.

Extremists benefit when ideologies have to be brought whole or not at all. Criticism of,
say, Brexit fanatics and anti-Muslim bigots on the right, or Leninists and anti-Semites on
the left is no longer house cleaning but treasonable talk that aids the hated enemy.

You can make a case that the web has encouraged groupthink by keeping people in silos
and never exposing them to contrary views. Cass Sunstein’s deservedly
influential experiment showed how, when you put US Republicans together in one place
and US Democrats in another, they became more intolerant and less sceptical.

Given the material circumstances of the West you can add that division is to be expected.
Only innocents believed that the consensus of the late 20th century could survive the
shocks that have battered it. Mass immigration, with the certainty of more to come as
the population of the poor world explodes, had to produce a nativist backlash. Whether
you condemn it or praise it, it’s inevitable. The failure of Western economies to deliver
prosperity to the majority of working and middle-class people is an event of equal
significance. In Britain and America, pay rises have become gifts your parents knew. As I
write, the Resolution Foundation is publishing research that shows real average earnings
are still £15 a week below their 2008 peak – and going backwards. No population will
stay content with a status quo that has failed them for so long.

Changes in technology, migration patterns and the economy, do not fully explain the
conformism that has descended on public life, however. More than any other western
country Britain has moved on to the next stage when the backlash against the status quo
propels extremists to power in both government and opposition.

I wonder if Conservative realise how loathed they are. First they gave us seven years of
austerity, which deliberately targeted the working poor. Now, we have a Brexit in which
everyone from Theresa May downwards refused to take account of the views of nearly
half the country. As predicted, Brexit is pushing up inflation and causing the fall in real
wages mentioned above. As it harms livelihoods, it wrecks the Conservative’s reputation
for economic competence. If Tories now say Corbyn is a fanatic, the reply comes back:
‘that’s rich coming from you’.

In these circumstances, it may be intellectually and morally indefensible to follow the

doomed Alexander Kerensky and cry ‘no enemies to the left’. Psychologically, though, it
makes sense.

Meanwhile the right faces Corbyn, a man whose life has been a grim parade of love-ins
with men of violence who mean us only harm. The consequences are startling to watch.
Conservative MPs, who know that Brexit is a betrayal of the national interest, always pull
back when I ask if they will vote against it in the Commons. No, they say. They cannot
do anything that might help Labour gain power. When the crunch comes, they will be
silent.

As will so many others. On left and right, wherever you look, the committee that never
meets has never enjoyed such power.
Russia does much worse than suppressing dissident opinion and manufacturing fake
news. Putin has aided and abetted the vast crimes against humanity in Syria. The terror
sent refugees flooding into the EU, and their presence helped produce Brexit and the rise
of a pan-European far right: a double victory for the Kremlin, when you look at how
‘patriotic’ parties put Russia’s interests before their countries’ interests from France to
the Balkans.

Sanctions and the vast corruption Putin organises and profits from has produced
vast poverty. It’s to be expected but should not be forgotten. Also worth recalling are the
murders of opponents, the harassment of opposition parties, the anti-gay laws, and the
endorsement of wife beating. All that and the invasion of Ukraine too.

But for the record, and as the record is fabricated in Russia, we have to write it down
elsewhere, here is how free speech stands in Russia today.

Once there was space for criticism of the kleptocrats in niche publications and online. As
long as opponents did not reach a mass audience, Putin left them alone. But the street
protests in Moscow in 2011 had two consequences. Putin followed the old dictatorial
policy of distracting the populace with foreign wars, and sent Russian troops into Syria
and Ukraine. As a result, the Paris-based Reporters without Borders press freedom index
ranked Russia 152nd out of 180 countries in 2014.

You can see why. The state controls TV either directly or through compliant media
organisations. Spies monitor the internet. Earlier this week a man who broke into the
station’s studios beat Tatyana Felgenhauer, deputy editor of the Ekho Moskvy radio.
Doctors put her into an induced coma. What might be the motive? Well, Russian state TV
denounced the station as an agent of a foreign power, which took funding from US-
affiliated NGOs to undermine Russia by ‘trading in informational weapons’. Specifically,
the regime’s propagandists accused Felgenhauer of supporting Alexei Navalny, the
opposition leader who is attempting to run against Vladimir Putin in next year’s
presidential election, despite being barred.

Russia is in a ‘fight between the television and the fridge,’ as Moscow intellectuals now
say.  The propagandists blare out stories of Russia’s renewed imperial greatness hoping
that in this year, the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution no less, the masses
won’t notice that the fridge is bare.

In these circumstances, it is grotesque to hear Afshin Rattansi, the public face of Russia
Today (RT) in London, say that attacks on the propaganda network are an attack on free
speech. As well as debasing the language of freedom by pimping it out for his
paymasters, he invites on every fanatic in Britain to spread conspiracy theories. They
come partly because of the money – RT’s production company offers
£500 appearance fees, about ten times the going rate at the BBC. But they come too
because RT is the only station where anti-Western and anti-EU politicians from left and
right are given a free pass if their ramblings support the aims of Russian foreign policy.
RT imposes only one condition: they never tear into the big boss back home. To my
knowledge, the only reporter to break it is the American writer James Kirchick, who let
rip with a magnificent diatribe. (‘I don’t how as a journalist you can go to sleep at night
seeing what happens to journalists in Russia,’ he said as he limbered up.) RT didn’t invite
him back.
But if you look at the media in the West rather than back in the old USSR, RT has a
point. Ofcom, which is meant to regulate broadcasters, is duty bound to ensure

News, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy and presented with due
impartiality.

Who believes in such fuddy-duddy talk now? Ofcom rules are from the lost world of the
20th century. They made sense when the BBC was the only broadcaster, or the airwaves
could support only a handful of national networks in the US. Fairness demanded that
legislators insist on impartiality. Now the internet can support an unlimited number of
broadcasters. Why shouldn’t they have the same freedom to be as partial or impartial as
the press?

Leaving all other considerations aside, the same organisation can shift between the
unregulated and regulated in seconds. When the Spectator makes a podcast, we are a
radio station. When we put the same thoughts on the printed page, we are a newspaper.
What’s the difference when it’s all the one?

Ofcom seems to think the game is up. It has reprimanded RT but it still gives it a licence
to broadcast in Britain as if Putin’s hacks maintained the same editorial standards as ITN
or BBC News. Perhaps Ofcom regulators are the only people on the planet who think the
channel operates with due impartiality and accuracy. But I suspect they are just giving in
to technology and quietly waiving rules, which are as relevant to modern broadcasting as
the horse and cart is to modern transport.

I can make a moral and practical case for preserving the broadcasting laws. They are a
part of our traditions – the way we do things here. They do not impose an onerous
requirement: merely an insistence that one part of the marketplace of ideas should sell a
different variety of produce. I accept, however, that the original justification for the
restrictions on free speech went decades ago.

But here is what makes me almost as angry as the oppression in Russia. If we are to tear
up the rules, that should be our decision. They should not go because Ofcom lacks the
self-confidence to do its job, or Rupert Murdoch wants a British version of Fox News.
They certainly should not be rewritten because the cap-doffing propagandists of a
repressive and murderous state want to please their paymasters in Moscow.

Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters announce themselves to be the leftist of the left: a
band of brothers, who have saved the Labour Party from neo-liberalism and neo-
conservatism. Yet they happily align with the most right-wing imperialist power in the
neighbourhood.

All around Corbyn, questions about Russian influence in the US election and the Brexit
referendum are exploding. Instead of using the opposition front bench to investigate and
denounce, Corbyn and McDonnell show no interest in fighting the right at home or
abroad. They prefer instead to join a queue that includes Donald Trump, Nigel Farage
and Marine Le Pen and wait in line to plant damp kisses on Vladimir Putin’s firm
hand. Asked to comment on Theresa May’s belated decision to stand up to a hostile
foreign power. Corbyn’s spokesman said:
‘I think we need to see more evidence of what’s being talked about. Jeremy has made
clear on a number of occasions that we need to see an attempt through dialogue to
ratchet down tensions with Russia’.

Leftists are always keen to denounce sell-outs. ‘The left looks for traitors, the right looks
for converts,’ as I used to say. If Corbyn endorsed Donald Trump, even the cultists in
Momentum would object. Yet he appears to endorse Trump’s friend and there is no
questioning on the left about where Corbyn is taking Labour – and indeed who he is
bringing along with him. Backbenchers such as Ben Bradshaw and Chris Bryant ask hard
questions about Russian influence, while Labour’s front bench looks the other way. Many
liberals and leftists are appalled by Corbyn’s silence on Brexit, they should notice that his
silence on Putin matches it.

Moving on, Alex Salmond is a former leader of the Scottish National Party. Now he has
swapped Scottish nationalism for Russian nationalism and serves the Kremlin as a minor
celebrity on its English-language station. Nigel Farage and Arron Banks have built their
whole careers on the claim they are British patriots. Yet as Banks recounts in his memoir
of the referendum campaign, The Bad Boys of Brexit, (as if he and Farage looked like
rockstars rather than portly Rotarians):

‘(We were introduced to the) First Secretary of the (Russian) Embassy – in other words,
the KGB’s man in London…we hit it off from the word go…Our host wanted the inside
track on the Brexit campaign.’

The trivial mingles with the profound when you examine the motives of the Russophiles.
There’s nothing more to say about Alex Salmond than that he is a vain old man, who
cannot accept his day is done. He will seize the hand of any country that will make him
feel important again. Many of the talking heads on Russia Today share the same urge.
Watch it and you see half-forgotten or never-known men preening themselves with
delight that Russia has found it in its interests to give them a platform.

Meanwhile, the Leninist left has simply switched its enthusiasm from the communist
Soviet Union to crony capitalist Russia. Seumas Milne could well have been the Corbyn
spokesman briefing reporters that Labour leadership did not want any trouble with Putin.
He has paid homage to the new Tsar at a Black Sea resort, and warned of the dangers of
‘demonising’ him. If you still have to ask why the Labour left indulges a friend of Trump
and Farage, a persecutor of gays and an imperial conqueror of sovereign nations, then
you have failed to grasp its cynicism and intellectual emptiness. 

Russia is a great disruptive power. It wants to reverse the post-Cold war settlement that
stripped the Soviet empire of most of its possessions. Like Stalin and Catherine the
Great, and indeed most aggressive leaders in history, it is always looking for openings.
The breakup of Britain and Spain would weaken Western Europe, so it supports Scottish
and Catalonian independence. A Trump presidency would not even pretend to be
interested in Putin’s abuse of human rights in Russia and Ukraine, so Russia or its agent
Julian Assange hacked the Clinton campaign’s emails. Brexit weakens the European
Union, and we are learning more daily about Russian support for the leave cause. Prime
minister Corbyn would weaken NATO, indeed given Corbyn’s promotion of British
communists and his long association with the Morning Star, he would want to leave
NATO. Naturally, Russia wants to promote Corbyn and vice versa.
Outside the US, where the exploitation of Facebook and hacking of the Clinton campaign
may have swung the 2016 presidential election, no one can yet argue that Russian
intervention has decided Western nation’s fates. But it has been ever present. And it is
time that we talked more about why outsiders admire Russia and what their admiration
says about them.

You might begin by noticing that the right and the far right see it as a white conservative
power implacably opposed to liberalism. Beyond its residual attachment to the birthplace
of Marxist-Leninism, the far left sees echoes of itself in Russia’s hatred of the West.

A few years ago, you could dismiss Putin’s supporters as cranks and creeps. Who’s
laughing at them now? They are still cranky and creepy, no doubt about it, but their
cranky and creepy causes have won. Trump is president of the United States. Corbyn
leads the British Labour party. Britain has left the European Union. The future – our
future – belongs to the allies of a corrupt, aggressive, mendacious and murderous state.

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman is in Britain, and the argument
over the next few days is as predictable as a wet bank holiday. The left will point to the
immorality of Saudi Arabia oppressing its own population and killing Yemeni civilians
with, on occasion, arms made in Britain. The right will say that is rich coming from a
movement led by Jeremy Corbyn, the supposed supporter of women’s, gay and trade
union rights, who has taken the money and appeared on the propaganda channels of
Iran, a country that oppresses all three and much else besides.

No one should yawn, however. Familiarity breeds ignorance as well as contempt. It blinds
us to the reality that the old world where universal human rights were valued is no
longer the world we inhabit. Today hardly anyone left or right believes in them. Human
rights are simply truncheons to beat one’s opponents with.

Try a thought experiment. Suppose a faction in the Saudi royal family were to seize
power and declare it was no longer interested in Western support. A revolution in Saudi
policy is not as inconceivable as it seems. Erdogan’s Turkey is a member of Nato, but its
de facto dictator has decided his interests are best suited by cutting deals with Russia.

Don’t think for a moment that the loudest voices on the left would continue to care about
the repression of women and the Shia minority, the religious police, and the monarchical
tyranny if Saudi policy changed. I am not sure they care now. I was at a demonstration
outside the Saudi embassy in London a few weeks ago in defence of Raif Badawi, the
blogger sentenced to 1000 lashes for ‘insulting’ Islam. No recognisable supporter of
Jeremy Corbyn was there. In their place were representatives of English PEN, Reporters
Without Borders and other boringly consistent liberals who condemn oppression whether
the oppressors are pro-Western or anti-Western.

Meanwhile all the arguments we now hear from Conservatives on the lines that Saudi
Arabia is not such a bad place really and, say what you like about it, at least it’s heading
in the right direction, would stop. They would stop, even if the recent gains in the
position of Saudi women continued. For, like the left, the dominant voices on the right
are not interested in the lives of living, breathing Saudis. They care only about the West’s
strategic position and the chance to make money.
The world is dominated by leaders who do not give a damn for human rights. Far from
becoming more liberal communist China is becoming ever more dictatorial, and Russia
ever more gangsterish. Trump is tearing up post 1945 Western order, and across Europe
in Hungary, Poland and now Italy misnamed ‘populist’ governments have not the
smallest interest in universal principles. On the contrary, they are rebelling agains the
notion that any principle should protect migrants and refugees.

Britain is no exception. On the right, Brexit means that what little pressure the
government exerted will have to be sacrificed. In their desperation to cut any kind of
trade deal, the Conservatives will barely mention oppression. If you look at the praise the
Chinese Communist press gave Theresa May for ‘sidestepping’ human rights, you can see
the retreat is already underway. An isolated Britain will have to ‘sidestep’ and tiptoe
much more in future as it realises how small its place in the world it has become.

On the reverse side of the same debased coin, delineating Jeremy Corbyn’s hypocrisy
would challenge a modern Dickens. But for all his pious preaching he is an authentic
representative of the modern left. Labour has nothing worth saying about the atrocities
in Syria or Iranian attempts to overthrow their theocratic masters because the left, or at
least the dominant voices on it, simply does not believe that oppression by anti-Western
regimes is worth fighting.

Human rights like Britpop and Friends are looking like a passing fad of the millennial
West. I don’t mean to say that human rights are western: it’s that type of relativist
thinking that has moved our times into such a squalid place. It’s just that, as events
have turned out, without the support of a solid body of Western governments behind
them human rights cannot stay on the international agenda. Governments, including
Western governments, no longer even have to pretend to think about them.

Looking back, the insistence that Western governments should be expected to support
global justice was always strange. Ex-colonial powers that had looted most of the planet
became unwilling moral arbiters because of unique historical circumstances, whose
moment has long passed.

The fight against fascism and communism meant that however badly the West behaved,
its enemies were worse. The struggle also dictated that the West used moral arguments
as weapons, and despite the long list of military juntas and dictators it supported in
Africa, Asia and South America, governments had to live by what they promised to a
small degree. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union left America, and by extension the
West, as the sole superpower with the apparent freedom to promote democracy
everywhere.

The standard form of foreign policy debate from 1989 until 2016 was conducted in the
language of Western hypocrisy. How can the West be called moral after Abu Ghraib? And
so on. I’m sure you can recite the script in your sleep, and I am not saying that was not
truth in the lines only that they were repeated too often and with too much vehemence.

For now we have an American president for whom there is no West and no universal
order. Every day he makes it clear that he will tear up the post-1945 settlement which
gave Westerners what little moral purpose they had. Say what you like about Trump or
Putin or Xi or Erdogan or Orban but there is nothing hypocritical about them. They are
what we said we wanted: authentic leaders who do not try to bamboozle us with fake
moral postures.
We are relearning the truth of the old saying that hypocrisy is the compliment that vice
pays virtue. Denounce it by all means, but remember that when governments and
individuals no longer feel they need to pretend, no longer think anyone will care if they
seem to be virtuous, what you get is what you see around you.

Here is a message Russian propagandists are sending to Western commentators. It is

from Yuliia Popova of REN-TV (which was once an independent Russian station but sold
its soul long ago) to David Allen Green of the Financial Times.

Hello David,

My name is Juliia Popova. I represent Russian state TV channel. Would appreciate it if

Matt Singh or any other political analist [sic] could give us a short comment on the
matter of the following. We will be happy to know why the British government tries to
blame Russian government for the attempted murder of ex-Russian spy, why is it
happening right now when even USA on behalf of White House press secretary Sarah
Sanders says that so far there is no evidence to accuse Russia of that. The interview
wouldn’t take much time, usually it is 5-10 min via Skype. We need it today,

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Yuliia Popova

Naturally, David being a man of principle refused to have anything to do with the
propagandists of his country’s – and so many other countries’ – enemies. But that is the
only natural thing about the events of the past week. At any point in the 20 century it
would have been impossible to imagine a US president obfuscating about what looks like
a Russian attack on British soil. Even after Trump’s election, if you had predicted he
would side with Putin against Britain, you would have been dismissed as a scaremonger.

I read and listen to Politico, National Public Radio and other ‘respectable’ US outlets. For
almost two years its journalists tried to reassure themselves as much as anyone else that
Trump would ‘pivot’ – that is move away from the half-mad rhetoric of the campaign
towards sensible policy positions. His rants were just froth for his supporters, they
maintained.  He did not really mean them.

It turns out that he meant every word.

They said that sensible Republican ‘grown-ups’ would guide America, while the
president’s role would be merely ornamental. Yesterday, Rex Tillerson, an undeniably
grown-up secretary of state backed  Britain rather than giving aid and comfort to Russia.
This morning Trump fired him by tweet.

I also heard eminent Washington commentators saying the Russian scandal would not
implicate Trump, even though the evidence of the president’s behaviour screams that
Putin has a hold over him. (This, I accept may just be the admiration and envy dictatorial
goons share for each other’s thuggery, but that motive is dangerous enough on its own.)

At the best of times, Britain would find it hard to cope with the resurgence of Russian
enmity. William Hague wrote well in the Telegraph  about how Russia had shattered post-
Cold War illusions. Neo-cons and many liberals assumed the march of democracy was
inevitable, and Russia would become freer and hence less menacing with time.
Isolationists in either their Little England, far left or America First variety assumed we
could safely ignore Russia now the Berlin Wall was down and concentrate on our own
grievances. Everyone refused to see what was in front of their eyes.

Can it really be true that the Russians are equipping themselves to snap our undersea
cables on which all our communications and finances depend? Afraid so. Are they actually
positioning themselves to hack into our vital national security infrastructure and disrupt
it? Looks like it. Can they possibly maintain Soviet levels of espionage and covert activity
in free European societies? You bet. Are they flying aggressive sorties to test our air
defences. Yup. And surely they are not developing new chemicals and deadly poisons as
well? Of course they are.

Yet Russian aggression is just the start of our problems.  We have to cope not only with
Putin, not only with a White House apparently cheering on the wrong side, but with the
decision of the Brexit referendum to tear up our alliance with our EU allies.

To date, the arguments about Brexit have fitted far too snugly into the culture war
disputes with which vast numbers of people have wasted vast amounts of time since the
Cold War ended. Supporters of Brexit dismiss their opponents as ivory tower elitists who
hate the white working class and refuse to accept a democratic result. Opponents dismiss
the anti-Europeans as fools duped by the ‘leave’ campaign’s propaganda, nostalgics and
outright racists. So it has gone on for years. No event is too novel and shocking that it
cannot be fitted onto the old worn tracks of what passes for debate in this country.

On the face of it, the international crisis appears to help my side. It cannot be said often
enough that this is a terrible time to be leaving the EU, and Article 50 should be
withdrawn and only be submitted again when we know where we are. Russia is on the
march. America, who we have relied upon since 1941, is under the leadership of a
giddyingly unstable president who thinks he owes us nothing. China is moving back
towards a quasi-Maoist dictatorship.

If withdrawing Article 50 is too much for supporters of Leave to take, however, then at
least they should consider doing everything possible to avoid worsening tensions with our
neighbours. By my reckoning that would mean a generous deal on the Irish border and
for EU migrants in the UK, and continued membership of European agencies regardless of
whether it breaks some theological principle that no institution Britain is involved with
can have the European Court of Justice as its court of final appeal.

The above sounds pleasing to my ears and the ears of supposedly elite liberals. But the
corollary may be less pleasant to the liberal-left. We will have to spend much more on
defence, intelligence and cyber-security; give away scarce funds, which might have
helped the hard-pressed public services my tribe supports.

As I said, the old culture-war modes of thinking do not fit with our present predicament.
It is neither left wing nor right wing, elitist nor populist to observe that Britain now looks
a small and lonely country, which does not know which way to turn.