Misplaced Pages

#958041

28-520: The Warner Bros.-Seven Arts release was filmed at the Europa Studios in Sundbyberg , Stockholms län , just outside central Stockholm . Set in a rural Russian house, the plot focuses on the romantic and artistic conflicts among an eclectic group of characters. Fading leading lady Irina Arkadina has come to visit her brother Sorin, a retired civil servant in ailing health, with her lover,

56-608: A Golden Eye was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on October 13, 1967. The film received mixed reviews, with much publicity going towards the film's aggressively mature themes and content for the era. The film is often cited as an example of the weakening of the Hays Code due to its approval. Set at a U.S. Army post in the South in the late 1940s, the film tells of six central characters: Major Weldon Penderton and his wife, Leonora; Lieutenant Colonel Morris Langdon and his wife Alison;

84-633: A Golden Eye (film) Reflections in a Golden Eye is a 1967 American drama film directed by John Huston and based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Carson McCullers . The film stars Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando as an unhappily married couple on a US Army base in Georgia during the 1940s. Brian Keith , Julie Harris , Robert Forster , and Zorro David were featured in major supporting roles. The film deals with elements of repressed sexuality — both homosexual and heterosexual — as well as mental illness, voyeurism, and murder. Reflections in

112-444: A gold filter, with only certain shades of reds (such as a rose) or greens not appearing in or approaching tints or shades of gold. This effect is a reference to Anacleto the houseboy's drawing of a peacock in whose large, golden eye the world is a reflection. As this version puzzled audiences, it was withdrawn within one week of release and replaced with a version processed in normal Technicolor. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: "Since

140-556: A heart attack before production began. The role subsequently went to Brando after both Richard Burton and Lee Marvin turned it down. Some of the film was shot in New York City and on Long Island, where Huston was permitted to use the former Mitchel Field , then in use by Nassau Community College . Many of the interiors and some of the exteriors were filmed in Italy. The film was originally released with all scenes tinted with

168-423: A new holding company, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic , under the direction of Mo Ostin and Joe Smith. The head of production was Kenneth Hyman , son of Seven Arts co-founder Eliot Hyman . The first film of production and distribution was Reflections in a Golden Eye . Cool Hand Luke was the final film produced by Warner Bros. Pictures before and after changing its name. On July 4, 1969, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts

196-513: A result of the variety of styles, the movie turns into a series of individual confrontations that seem as isolated as specialty acts. Without the single dominating influence that should have been provided by Lumet, the play is fragmented beyond repair." Time observed, "The paralyzing problem with this film version of Chekhov's first major play is that it is far too dramatic . . . Any traces of wit have been pretty well destroyed by Lumet's lumbering technique. The actors perform as if they were all on

224-406: A sanatorium, telling Leonora and Penderton that Alison was going insane. Alison is angry with her husband, and dies of a heart attack soon after he leaves. Anacleto disappears soon after her death. One night, Penderton looks out his window and sees Williams outside the house. He thinks Williams is coming to see him, but watches the younger man enter his wife Leonora's room instead. Penderton turns on

252-492: Is the film's extraordinary photographic technique." Roger Ebert observed that the film was released without the usual publicity, despite its stellar cast and director: "Was the movie so wretchedly bad that Warner Bros. decided to keep it a secret? Or could it be, perhaps, that it was too good?" Ebert praised the production but noted that some audience members reacted to the film's emotional moments with guffaws and nervous laughter. John Simon wrote: "Yet for all its fidelity to

280-648: The Time Out London Film Guide , it is "basically an actors' film . . . sometimes dull and almost always unsatisfactory, despite excellent performances." Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, Inc. was an American entertainment company active from 1967 until 1969. Seven Arts Productions acquired Jack L. Warner 's controlling interest in Warner Bros. Pictures for $ 32 million in November 1966. The merger between

308-498: The original , John Huston's film, with a script by Champman Mortimer and Gladys Hill, is a pedestrian, crass, and uninvolving to the point of repellance." The film received a score of 55% on Rotten Tomatoes from 22 reviews. The film opened at number one at the US box office. The author of the novel, Carson McCullers , died a fortnight before the premiere. Still photographs of Brando in character as Major Penderton were used later by

SECTION 10

#1732794474959

336-519: The Langdons' flamboyant houseboy Anacleto; and Private L.G. (Ellgee) Williams. The film captures their failures, obsessions, and their suppressed desires. Former army brat Leonora is devoted to her horse Firebird, and her role as a wife. However, she cares little of her husband Weldon, a repressed gay man prone to rage and tantrums. Leonora is secretly conducting an affair with their neighbor, Lt. Colonel Langdon. Alison Langdon mutilated herself after

364-456: The death of their baby three years prior; she has since been depressed and withdrawn. Her only bonds now are with her effeminate Filipino houseboy Anacleto, and Capt. Murray Weincheck, a cultured and sensitive soldier. Pvt. Williams is introduced as being gentle and sympathetic to all of the horses in the stable. One day, Major Penderton assigns Williams to clear some foliage at his private officer's quarters instead of his usual duty of maintaining

392-480: The extent of Firebird's injuries, Leonora interrupts her party and repeatedly strikes her husband in the face with her riding crop in front of the guests. Following the party, Penderton becomes infatuated with Williams and starts to follow him around the camp. Alison sees Williams leaving Leonora's room again, and goes over to "expose" them. However, Williams leaves the room before she can, causing her to snap and declare her intent to leave Langdon. Langdon commits her to

420-418: The film and the re-color-timed reissued version. The film received mixed reviews at the time of its release. Variety called it a "pretentious melodrama" but praised Keith's "superb" performance as the "rationalizing and insensitive middle-class hypocrite." Time described it as a "gallery of grotesques," with the poetry of the novel missing from the film. Its critic wrote: "All that remains praiseworthy

448-449: The film was photographed in full color and the 'fading' was done in post-production, most of the video versions have simply restored the color. That's not what Huston intended, and the thing to do is to use your color adjustment to fade the color to almost but not quite b&w. Does it work? That's for you to decide." A 2020 two-disc Blu-ray release of the film by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment features both Huston's intended version of

476-443: The horse. As Penderton stands mute in the woods, Williams brings the horse back to the stable to tend its wounds. Instead of attending the party, Alison stays home with her friend, Capt. Murray Weincheck. She is distraught to hear that Weincheck is being harassed out of the army by his superiors. Penderton returns to the house during the party, where Leonora discovers what has happened from her maid Susie and Penderton. Upon discovering

504-687: The horses and stables. Upon meeting Leonora, Williams becomes enamored with her. That night, while the Pendertons and Langdons have a card game, Williams spies on them. He witnesses an argument between Leonora and Penderton, in which Leonora taunts Penderton and strips naked in front of him. From then on, Williams begins to spy on the couple. He eventually breaks into the house and watches Leonora sleep at night, unbeknownst to Penderton as they have separate bedrooms. As he continues this practice, Williams starts to go through Leonora's belongings, especially her lingerie and perfume. Alison witnesses Williams leaving

532-480: The light to find Williams kneeling beside the bed watching his wife sleep and shoots him dead. The film ends with the camera wildly veering back and forth among the dead body, the screaming Leonora, and Penderton. The opening line of the novel and the film is restated: "There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed." Taylor accepted the part on the condition that Montgomery Clift would be cast as well. However, Clift died on July 23, 1966, of

560-411: The movie had shot itself — though not quite fatally". Canby also mischaracterized the camera work, saying "Lumet's way with this adaptation by Moura Budberg is implacably straightforward. It plows ahead, scene by scene, act by act, in which there always is first an establishing long shot and then cuts to individual actors as they act and react. This kind of Secret Storm technique inevitably flattens out

588-510: The nuances and the pauses that give depth to the tangled personal relationships. It also makes too literal the boredom and quiet despair that should hang over the Chekovian characters like an unseen mist. Most of the performances are excellent, but all of the actors seem to be on their own . . . Miss Signoret is simply miscast, if only because of her Frenchness. Her speech rhythms are so jarring that it's often impossible to understand her . . . As

SECTION 20

#1732794474959

616-453: The party. Aware of her husband's affair and fed up with it, Alison tells Anacleto her plans to divorce him. On the night of Leonora's party, Penderton takes Firebird and rides wildly into the woods, passing the naked Williams at high speed. Penderton falls off, catching his foot in the stirrup, and is dragged for a distance. In a fit of uncontrollable rage, he viciously beats the horse and begins to sob. Williams appears, still naked, and takes

644-445: The room one night, and questions Leonora about it, but she dismisses it as her imagination. One day while riding, Langdon, Leonora and Penderton see Williams riding nude and bareback on one of the military horses. Penderton is critical of this to Leonora but his secret interest in the free-spirited Williams is clear. Meanwhile, Leonora tries to harass Alison into attending her party, and manipulates her into providing Anacleto to serve at

672-581: The successful hack writer Trigorin. Her son, brooding experimental playwright Konstantin Treplev, adores the ingenue Nina, who in turn is mesmerized by Trigorin. Their interactions slowly provoke the moral and spiritual disintegration of each of them and ultimately lead to tragedy. In his review in The New York Times , Vincent Canby described the film as "so uneven in style, mood and performance that there are times when you could swear that

700-444: The two companies was completed by July 15, 1967, and the combined company was named Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. The acquisition included Warner Bros. Records (which was renamed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Records), and Reprise Records . Later that same year, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts purchased Atlantic Records . Those record labels were combined in 1971 with two other acquisitions ( Elektra Records and its sister label Nonesuch Records ) in

728-508: The verge of a nervous breakdown . . . Lumet moves his camera incessantly to give the illusion of action, but uses fadeouts to duplicate the curtain falling at the end of an act . . . Most disturbing of all, [he] and cinematographer Gerry Fisher have shot the whole film in softly gauzed pastel colors, thereby reducing Chekhov's intricate dramatic tapestry to the sleazy cheapness of a picture postcard." Variety called it "a sensitive, well-made and abstractly interesting period pic." According to

756-707: Was acquired by Kinney National Company , and, in August that year, Ted Ashley became the chairman of the film studio. On December 16, 1969, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was rebranded as Warner Bros. Inc. The final film to be released under the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts name was Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed , which was released in February 1970. The studio's next film, Woodstock , which was released in March,

784-457: Was credited as a Warner Bros. production, and this credit would be applied to all other productions from the studio afterward with Warner Bros. reestablished as a major film studio. In September 1971, due to a financial scandal in its parking lot operation business, Kinney National spun off its non-entertainment assets as National Kinney Corporation , and changed its name to Warner Communications Inc. on February 10, 1972. Reflections in

#958041