Fox Run Productions Inc.
Many new films had their premieres this week across the decades, with a handful of more than memorable entries. One 1925 film employed the entire bison population of Yellowstone for one scene. A 1935 film was the precursor to the ‘aviation disaster’ genre. 1945 had two films that garnered Oscar attention, both based on popular works of literature. A 1955 film brought a stage musical to the big screen, while a 1965 film was made by combining two already existing films. 1975 saw a well-regarded director (and a big name star) stumble over their own feet in a movie musical bomb, while a 1985 film reunited two co-stars from a John Waters film. 1995 had two more literary adaptations that ended up disappointing the authors and audiences, 2005 had a sequel that did not match the success of the original, and 2015 brought a famous Canadian director to the US for the first time. Scroll down to see all of the films released this week and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.
1925
- February 27 – The Mansion of Aching Hearts (USA, B.P. Schulberg Productions)
- February 28 – The Boomerang (USA, B.P. Schulberg Productions)
- March – Enticement (USA, Thomas H. Ince Corporation)
- March – The Girl on the Stairs (USA, Peninsula Studios)
- March 1 – Jimmie’s Millions (USA, Carlos Productions)
- March 1 – New Toys (USA, Inspiration Pictures)
- March 1 – Romance and Rustlers (USA, Arrow Film Corporation)
- March 1 – The Mad Whirl (USA, Universal-Jewel)
- March 1 – The Taming of the West (USA, Universal Pictures)
- March 1 – The Thundering Herd (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
- March 2 – Beyond the Border (USA, Hunt Stromberg Productions)
- March 2 – The Crimson Runner (USA, Hunt Stromberg Productions)
Lost films: The Mansion of Aching Hearts, Enticement, New Toys
Status unknown: The Boomerang, The Girl on the Stairs, Jimmie’s Millions, Romance and Rustlers, The Mad Whirl, The Taming of the West, The Thundering Herd, Beyond the Border
The Boomerang was based on a Broadway play of the same title by Winchell Smith and Victor Mapes, which was later adapted for the 1929 film The Love Doctor.
The Thundering Herd was based on Zane Grey’s 1925 novel of the same name. Lists of Shoshone and Arapaho individuals who appeared in the film are held in the U.S. National Archives. Gary Cooper appears in a small uncredited role. Filming locations included Yellowstone National Park, the Sierra Nevada mountains, and Calabasas, California. The entire bison population of Yellowstone, some 2,000 individuals, was rounded up for use in the stampede scene. The film was remade with sound in 1933 under the same title, with stars Noah Beery, Sr. and Raymond Hatton reprising their roles.
A complete copy of The Crimson Runner is located in the collection of Lobster Films in Paris.
1935
- February 27 – The Great Hotel Murder (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
- February 27 – The Lad (UK, Julius Hagen Productions)
- February 28 – Death Flies East (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- March – A Little Bit of Bluff (UK, George Smith Productions)
- March – Dandy Dick (UK, British International Pictures)
- March – Inside the Room (UK, Julius Hagen Productions)
- March – Key to Harmony (UK, British & Dominions Film Corporation)
- March – Oh, What a Night (UK, British Sound Film Productions)
- March – Say It with Diamonds (UK, Redd Davis Productions)
- March – That’s My Uncle (UK, Julius Hagen Productions)
- March – Three Witnesses (UK, Julius Hagen Productions)
- March – Variety (UK, John Argyle Productions)
- March – Who’s Your Father (UK, St. George’s Pictures)
- March 1 – Captain Hurricane (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)
- March 1 – Five Bad Men (USA, Sunset Productions)
- March 1 – Mutiny Ahead (USA, Larry Darmour Productions)
- March 1 – Rocky Mountain Mystery (USA, Paramount Pictures)
- March 1 – Vanessa: Her Love Story (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- March 2 – Living on Velvet (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)
- March 3 – One New York Night (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- March 4 – Transient Lady (USA, Universal Pictures)
- March 5 – I’ve Been Around (USA, Universal Pictures)
No known US theatrical release dates: The Lad, A Little Bit of Bluff, Dandy Dick, Inside the Room, Key to Harmony, Oh, What a Night, Say It with Diamonds, That’s My Uncle, Three Witnesses, Variety, Who’s Your Father. All but The Lad were produced as ‘quota quickies’ to help support the then faltering British film industry.
The Great Hotel Murder was one of a series of films starring Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen as friendly rivals, dating back to 1926’s What Price Glory? The film is based on Recipe for Murder, a 1934 story by Vincent Starrett. The Lad is based on a novel by Edgar Wallace. Death Flies East was an early ‘aviation disaster’ movie.
1945
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- February 27 – The Crime Doctor’s Courage (USA, Larry Darmour Productions)
- February 28 – Sheriff of Cimarron (USA, Republic Pictures)
- March – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (USA, Twentieth Century Fox)
- March 2 – Fashion Model (USA, Lindsley Parsons Productions)
- March 2 – Hotel Berlin (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)
- March 3 – It’s a Pleasure (USA, Universal International Pictures)
- March 3 – The Picture of Dorian Gray (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was the debut of Elia Kazan as a dramatic film director. The film is based on the 1943 novel of the same name by Betty Smith. A full soundstage at 20th Century Fox was taken up with a four-story replica of a tenement house. It included elevators that enabled the camera to pan up and down the flights of stairs in some scenes. The tree used in the film survived the heat of the Klieg lights and was re-planted on the studio lot after filming completed. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning two — the Academy Juvenile Award (Peggy Ann Garner) and Best Supporting Actor (James Dunn) — and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2010.
Characters in Hotel Berlin talk ominously about Dachau and Birkenau, although German concentration camps were just a rumor at the time of the film’s production. The movie was released one month before the camps were liberated and exposed to the world. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s son Elliott married actress Faye Emerson during production, which resulted in Emerson getting top billing, switching places with Andrea King.
The Picture of Dorian Gray based on Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel of the same name. The portrait seen at the beginning of the film depicting a youthful Dorian was painted by Henrique Medina. After being sold originally in 1970 as part of an MGM studio auction, the painting has been sold two more times, the last in 2015 at a Christie’s auction. It is believed to be in a private collection. The macabre rendering of Gray was painted by Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, who painted and altered the picture while the movie was being made to allow it to represent the development of Dorian’s character. It is now part of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The black-and-white film contains four color inserts in three-strip Technicolor of the Dorian Gray portrait, two of the youthful painting and two of the degenerate painting. The film was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Angela Lansbury (in her third film), winning for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. Lansbury was also nominated and won the Golden Globe for Supporting Actress.
1955
- February 27 – Murder Is My Beat (USA, Masthead Productions)
- March – One Jump Ahead (UK, Kenilworth Film Productions)
- March – Where There’s a Will (UK, George Maynard Productions)
- March 1 – Crashout (USA, Standard Productions)
- March 1 – Smoke Signal (USA, Universal International Pictures)
- March 1 – Untamed (USA, Twentieth Century Fox)
- March 3 – Big House, U.S.A. (USA, Bel-Air Productions)
- March 4 – Hit the Deck (USA< Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
One Jump Ahead and Where There’s a Will have no US theatrical release dates.
Hit the Deck is based on the 1927 stage musical of the same name – which was itself based on the hit 1922 play Shore Leave by Hubert Osborne – and was shot in CinemaScope. While featuring the same songs from the stage musical, the plot is different. RKO had originally bought the rights to the show, then sold them to MGM. The musical numbers in the film were staged by Hermes Pan, better known as Fred Astaire’s choreographer.
1965
- February 25 – Young Cassidy (UK, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- February 28 – Face of the Screaming Werewolf (USA, Jerry Warren Productions Inc.)
- March 1 – War Party (USA, Steve Productions)
- March 5 – The Rounders (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
Young Cassidy was released in the US on March 22, 1965. The film is based on the autobiography of Seán O’Casey, but the name was changed to John Cassidy for the film. O’Casey approved the script and the choice of Rod Taylor as the lead, who took over after Sean Connery had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Goldfinger. Richard Harris had been attached to the role before Connery. John Ford began directing the film but fell ill two weeks into production and was replaced with Jack Cardiff. O’Casey died shortly before production on the film was completed.
Face of the Screaming Werewolf was created by low budget filmmaker Jerry Warren by combining two unrelated Mexican horror films, La Casa del Terror (1960), and La Momia Azteca (1957), with the addition of original footage shot by Warren.
1975
Copa del Oro
- February 26 – Boss Nigger (USA, JACS Films)
- March 1 – At Long Last Love (USA, Copa del Oro)
- March 5 – Man Friday (USA, Keep Films, Ltd.)
Boss Nigger is also known as The Boss and The Black Bounty Killer. A 2008 DVD release is simply titled Boss.
At Long Last Love is a jukebox musical featuring 18 songs by Cole Porter. All of the musical sequences were performed live by the cast. Fox rushed the film’s release, only allowing for two test screenings before its Radio City Music Hall premiere. Despite a few positive reviews, most were horrendous and the film was labeled one of the worst of all time. Director Peter Bogdanovich even took out newspaper ads apologizing for the film. The film was originally titled Quadrille, with its story equally divided between the four main characters. The original cast was announced with Cybill Shepherd (Bogdanovich’s girlfriend at the time), Madeline Kahn, Ryan O’Neal and Bogdanovich himself, but the director replaced himself with Elliott Gould. Both Gould and O’Neal later dropped out, and Bogdanovich claimed he was ‘talked into’ casting Burt Reynolds, who wanted to try a musical. For the second male lead he cast Duilio Del Prete, with whom he had just worked on Daisy Miller, thinking he would be a big star. Bogdanovich resisted shooting the film in black-and-white, but had it art directed as ‘black-and-white in color’. As none of the leads were accomplished singers or dancers, especially Reynolds, the decision to film the musical numbers live resulted in a lot of delays during production. Also adding to the difficulties was that the cast had to perform the numbers in one take, dealing with an inefficient playback system to hear the instrumentals. After the scathing reviews, Bogdanovich saw how the film should have been edited, and Fox allowed him to do so, resulting in all future screenings and broadcasts of the film being the new edit, much different than the version that opened at Radio City. Bogdanovich dismissed the film as a painful memory for many years, but saw it again when he was told it was on Netflix in 2011. He watched it and liked what he saw, but it was not his cut of the film. A studio editor had secretly assembled another cut which resembled the shooting script and first preview cut, which was quietly substituted as the default version as early as 1979. Bogdanovich graciously acknowledged Jim Blakely’s work, but he died before anyone learned what he had done. After seeing the Blakely edit, Bogdanovich contacted Fox to make some refinements, inserting 90-seconds of restored footage, with the studio releasing the new edit on Blu-ray in 2013, generating more positive reviews than the original theatrical version received.
1985
- March 1 – A Private Function (USA, HandMade Films)
- March 1 – Certain Fury (USA, Prize Productions)
- March 1 – Dance with a Stranger (UK, First Film Company)
- March 1 – Lust in the Dust (USA, Fox Run Productions Inc.)
- March 1 – Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (USA, The Cannon Group)
- March 1 – The Sure Thing (USA, Monument Pictures)
- March 2 – Ghoulies (UK, Ghoulies Productions)
A Private Function first opened in the UK on November 9, 1984. Dance with a Stranger was released in the US on August 9, 1985. Ghoulies had a limited US theatrical release on January 18, 1985.
The title Lust in the Dust was taken from the nickname given to King Vidor’s 1946 film Duel in the Sun. John Waters was asked to direct, as the film starred his Polyester leads Divine and Tab Hunter, but he refused because he didn’t write the script. Waters regular Edith Massey was also cast as Big Ed, but died shortly after her screen test. The role went to Nedra Volz. Director Paul Bartel was uneasy about casting Massey for fear that it would look too much like a Waters film without Waters. The role of Marguerita, played by Lainie Kazan, was originally set for Chita Rivera. In the original script, Rosie (Divine) was to die but the filmmakers changed their minds during production.
1995
- March 3 – Hideaway (USA, S/Q Productions)
- March 3 – Man of the House (USA, All Girl Productions)
- March 3 – Roommates (USA, Polygram Filmed Entertainment)
- March 3 – The Mangler (USA, Distant Horizon)
Author Dean Koontz was so dissatisfied with Hideaway that he asked for his name to be removed from the credits. He would only allow a film adaptation of Phantoms to be made if he had final approval of the film.
Man of the House was written under the title Cheer Up. Roommates was filmed on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The aging of Peter Falk’s character was created with prosthetic make-up, taking four hours to apply, earning an Academy Award nomination.
The Mangler is based upon the Stephen King 1972 short story of the same name, which appeared in his 1978 inaugural short story collection Night Shift. Actor Jim Cummings, known for voicing Disney characters like Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Darkwing Duck, provided the vocals for the titular machine because he wanted to work with Tobe Hooper. He later felt the strain on his throat and the quality of the film was not worth the effort, but was amused to see his name misspelled in the credits as Tim Cummings so no one would know that he’d been involved.
2005
- March 3 – The Illustrated Family Doctor (AUS, Pod Film)
- March 4 – Be Cool (USA, Jersey Films)
- March 4 – The Jacket (USA, Mandalay Pictures)
- March 4 – The Pacifier (USA, Walt Disney Pictures)
The Illustrated Family Doctor has no known US theatrical release date.
Be Cool is based on Elmore Leonard’s 1999 novel, which was the sequel to Leonard’s 1990 novel Get Shorty. The film is the sequel to the 1995 adaptation of Get Shorty. The Jacket is partly based on the 1915 Jack London novel The Star Rover, published in the United Kingdom as The Jacket.
2015
Prospero Pictures
- February 27 – A Dark Reflection (UK, Fact Not Fiction Films)
- February 27 – Everly (USA, limited, Crime Scene Pictures)
- February 27 – Focus (USA, Zaftig Films)
- February 27 – Maps to the Stars (USA, Prospero Pictures)
- February 27 – The Lazarus Effect (USA/Canada, Blumhouse Productions)
A Dark Reflection, also known as Flight 313: The Conspiracy, was released in the US on December 13, 2016. Everly was first released online in the US on January 23, 2015. Maps to the Stars was first released in France on May 21, 2014.
Kate Hudson was originally to star in Everly, but dropped out and was replaced with Salma Hayek.
Maps to the Stars was the second collaboration between director David Cronenberg and actor Robert Pattinson following Cosmopolis. It was the first Cronenberg film to be shot in the US, using outdoor locations in Los Angeles that Cronenberg could not recreate in Toronto, his home base and where the majority of the film was shot. Viggo Mortensen and Rachel Weisz were originally cast but left due to scheduling issues, replaced with John Cusack and Julianne Moore. Moore bleached her hair blonde for the role. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.