THE QUARTER
McQueen and Marlon Brando. Coppola has confirmed, however, that Fred Roos and Garv Frederlckson will be the co-producers; Vittorio Storaro, the cameraman; Dean Tavoularis, the p ro d u c tio n d e sig n e r; and Dick McWhorter, the unit manager — all familiar names from The Godfather un it. In a surprise announcement which conflicts with attitudes expressed in his recent Cinema Paoers interview. Coppola has stated that Apocalypse Now will go out via a major, United Ar tists, in the U.S. and Canada. Coppola had earlier suggested that the film, which is being handled by various in dependents on the foreign market, would be handled in the U.S. by his own distribution outfit, Coppola Cinema 7 — a partnership with Don Rugoff’s Cinema 5. Recently, the New York-based Cinema 5 announced that it had ex perienced its most successful year for some time, no doubt due to such successes as Monty Python and the
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL closing night performance October 12,1975 ■8 : 3 0 pm
Holy Grail, Scenes from a Marriage, Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny and 7 Beauties. The last two are by the
current rage of New York, Lina Wertmuller. Coppola is credited with having brought Ms. Wertmuller’s films to the attention of Rugoff, since, as part of the Cinema 7 deal when Coppola bought 130,000 shares of Cinema 5 stock in August 1974 at a reduced rate, he must bring to Rugoff’s attention a list of films the distributor should acquire. Now that Cinema 5 is back on its feet, it also appears the takeover bid — by William Forman, president ofCineroma Inc. — which has been ongoing for some 18 months, has finally been fought off.
ALL TIME TOPPERS Variety’s updated, all-time "Box o ffic e C ha m p s” has ju s t been published, and below are listed the top 10 . Jaw s ...................... $US102,650,000 The Godfather...... $US 85,747,184 The Sound of M u sic .................$US 78,400,000 Gone With The W ind ...................$US 74,236,000 The Sting .............. $US 72,100,000 The Exorcist..........$US 71,715,000 Towering Inferno . .$US 55,000,000 Love S to ry ............$US 50,000,000 The Graduate .......$US 49,978,000 Doctor Zhivago __ $US 46,232,000
All figures represent total film hire and are for the U.S. and Canadian markets only. (For approximate world gross, double the relevant figures.) Of the above titles, only Gone With The Wind (1939) is more than 10 years old.
FELLINI THROWS A TANTRUM Everyone knows that Federico Fellini has been trying to do a film version of Casanova for about as long as Bergman has been attempting The Merry Widow — which is a decade at least. Fellini finally got his way last year when Italian producer and associate of United Artist’s PEA Rome operation, Alberto Grimaldi, riding high on the success of Last Tango and the Pasolini triology, pooled his cash with advances from Titanus (Italy) and Nippon Herald (Japan) to set Casanova in motion. Fellini cast Donald Sutherland in the title role and on the strength of this, Universal made a negative pick-up deal with Grimaldi for an unspecified sum for U.S. and Canadian rights. The film has been plagued with trou ble since filming began. First, the amazing negative highjack from Technicolor in Rome needed much reshooting. (See the last issue of Cinema Papers). Then illness, strikes and money crises hit the production. Fellini then did a prima donna on
counterculture’s past — the film ver sion of Hair. Production of this rock musical is set for late 1976. After the financial and critical dis aster of Zardoz, John Boorman is to direct the sequel of The Exorcist, The Heretic: Exorcist II. John Voigt is to star alongside Linda Blair whose littlegirl image is quickly disappearing — not surprisingly given a recent televi sion drama where she was raped with a broom handle. If the Devil is to be given a revival, so then is the Lives of a Bengal Lancer. Mark Robson’s film, however, is not a remake of the 1935 Gary Cooper vehicle, it will be largely based on the recent novel by Berkeley Mather. Peter Yates is to direct The Deep from the novel by Jaws author, Peter Benchley. First, however, Yates is to film Mother, Jugs and Speed from a screenplay by Tom Mankiewicz. It will star Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel. After the extraordinary success of his Chinatown and Shampoo scripts, Robert Towne is writing Tarzan and the Apes. He promises the film will be ex tre m e ly fa ith fu l to Edgar Rice Burroughs. Two French directors are planning films in the U.S. — Alain Resnais with Providence, and Louis Malle with a film on the jazz scene in New Orleans. David Mercer, who scripted Losey’s version of The Doll’s House, is writing the screenplay for Resnais. Sergio Leone is also hopeful of shooting in the U.S. soon, with his long promised Once Upon a Time There Was America. Klaus Kinski, from Herzog’s Aguirre,
FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT’S
TH E STO R Y OF ADELE H. the loneliness of a passion starring
ISABELLE ADJANI Isabelle Adjani on the poster for Francois Truffaut’s Histoire D’Adele H. Pocket Money, Truffaut’s latest film on childhood, has just opened in Paris. It is described by its director as being “somewhere between Les Quatre Cents Coups and Les Baisers Voles.
Grimaldi who closed the production down on December 18 last year, after discovering that the film was 25 per cent over budget, with only 60 per cent in the can. F e llin i re to rte d by demanding retractions from Grimaldi, and blaming the latter's censorship problems with Tango and Salo as clouding his judgment. Or maybe Fellini and Grimaldi simply wanted a Christmas break from the spiralling monster. In any event, in a joint statement on January 28, Fellini and Grimaldi an nounced a reconciliation of sorts — a new production supervisor and a reasonable time schedule to get the production started agin. Filming is now due to be completed by early May. Universal's only comment over the production hiatus was that, as they had no financial involvement in the produc tion until completion, they were in no jeopardy.
AFTER THE HONEYMOON The Australian Film Commission began operation in May 1975; 10 months later its honeymoon with the in dustry seems over. But marriage always has its difficulties, and in this case there are rumours of nepotism cir culating already. Unfortunately, it seems that charges of “outside interest” are an inheritance of the mini-scandal which surrounded the demise of Tom Stacey and the AFDC. And within weeks of the AFC’s inauguration, there was a flurry of con troversy within and without the AFC surrounding full-time Commissioner Pat Condon and his interests in David Frost’s Paradine company. Pat Condon resigned subsequently.
More recently, attention has focussed on the personal interests of some part time Commissioners. Anthony Buckley Productions Pty. Ltd. recently received $250,000 for its film Caddie, plus an additional amount when the film went over budget. Anthony Buckley is a part time Commissioner. Attention has also been drawn to the outside interests of other part-time Commissioners, Jill Robb and Graham Burke. Robb is a distribution consultant for the SAFC and is currently in line to take over as its head. Burke is manag ing director of Village, Roadshow and deputy chairman of Hexagon. Many observers claim that it is im perative, for the development of the Australian Film industry, that the Com mission be regarded as a neutral and independent organization, whose sole interest is the development of a viable and successful film industry. It is unfor tunate, but perhaps inevitable, that with the increasing competition for the AFC’s limited funds, rumours and ac cusations should abound. However, given this situation, it is regarded by many as regrettable that appointments should be made which are vulnerable to criticism and on the grounds that the appointees have in terests in companies or organizations that are recipients are AFC monies.
FOREIGN PRODUCTION NEWS Elliot Kastner and Lester Persky are to co-produce Sidney Lumet’s film of Equus — Peter Shaffer’s stage hit. Budget is estimated at $4 million. Persky and Kastner are also financing Milos Forman’s second dip into the
and Gerard Depardieu are to star. Probably the most prolific of British directors, Dick Lester, is presently shooting The Ritz at Twickenham. The principal leads are Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller and Kaye Ballard. At the rival Shepperton, Blake Edwards is busy with his The Pink Panther Strikes Again. Harry Waxman is the Director of Photography and Peter Sellers the lead. Three more sequels are planned . . . After co-producing Nagisa Oshima’s erotic Corrida in Paris, Anatole Dauman is in Germany co-producing Volker Schloendorff’s Le Coup de Grace. The film is set in Lithuania in the 1920s, during the Communist con quest. Two fa m o us n o v e lis ts have forthcoming films based on their work: Colette and Robin Maugham. Christine Gouze Renal is to do six one-hour video shows of the former’s Claudine stories, while David Vaughan is to produce Maugham’s The Sign. Isabelle Adjani, the extraordinary actress from T ru ffa u t’s H istoire D’Adele H, is presently acting in Roman Polanski’s new film, The Tenant. The screenplay is by Polanski and long time associate, Gerald Brach. Bergman, who is in hospital after suf fering a nervous breakdown, has two films lined up — but not the Merry Widow. One is his joint venture with Federico Fellini, Love, and the other, the RAI-TV co-production with Sir Lew Grade, The Passion of Christ. John Cassavettes’ latest film, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, is now in release in the U.S., as is the highly praised new Paul Mazursky film, Next Stop Greenwich V illage. M artin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver with Robert de Niro and Cybil Shepard, is also causing much comment. Penthouse publisher, Bob Guiccone, after dabbling financially in Chinatown, The Longest Yard and Day of the Locust, is to float his own production of Caligula. Malcolm McDowell is to star, and the screenplay is by novelist Gore Vidal. The director is still to be chosen, though Lina Wertmuller is a likely can didate. British Lion has involvement in four major U.S. productions at present: Peter Bogdanovich’s Nickelodeon; Nicholas Roeg’s Last Shot; The Man Who Came to Play; and Roeg’s recently completed Man Who Fell to Earth, with David Bowie and Rip Torn. Cinema Papers, March-April — 297