3/2/23
Newsletter #263
The Crack of Dawn
Walter Mirisch died Feb. 24, 2023, at the age of 101. Walter, with his brother, Marvin, and his half-brother, Harold, owned and ran the Mirisch Corporation, one of the most successful independent production companies in the history of Hollywood. The Mirisch Corp. produced three films that won the Oscar for Best Picture: The Apartment (1960), West Side Story (1961), and In the Heat of the Night (1967). From 1957 to 1983 the Mirisch Corp. produced 68 films for United Artists, many of them good, and many of them successful. Walter Mirisch had that rarest of qualities, almost unheard of in Hollywood, called “good taste.” The Mirisch Corp. tried to make good movies, and was willing to put there money on filmmakers that they respected, then leave them alone. And the formula kept working.
Walter and his brothers were the children of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Hungary (just like me) and grew up in the Bronx. Walter managed to put himself through Harvard by the age of twenty-two, then went to work for one of the lowest-budget studios in Hollywood, Monogram Pictures, where he quickly began producing successful movies, including the hit film series, Bomba, the Jungle Boy. Mirisch convinced Monogram to go into B+ and A-movies. In 1951 they started a division called Allied Artists with 29-year-old Walter Mirisch running it. Allied Artists was a good company that just kept improving, culminating in two of my favorite movies: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and William Wyler’s brilliant, Friendly Persuasion (1956), as well as the lesser, though successful, Billy Wilder film, Love in the Afternoon (1957).
In 1957 Walter and his brothers formed the Mirisch Corporation, signed a deal with the struggling old Hollywood “studio,” United Artists, and in the next decade Mirisch became the best, most successful independent production company in Hollywood. Mirisch’s success was a major part of United Artist’s comeback under its new owners, Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin, who bought the company in 1951.
Krim and Benjamin also had that ridiculously unique quality of good taste. The first thing they did was set up a distribution deal with Sam Spiegel and release his newest film, the African Queen (1951), which was an enormous success. Then they released the independently-produced film, High Noon (1952), which was also a hit. Tip-toing into production, UA signed with Burt Lancaster’s company and produced the cheapest Best Picture of all-time, Marty (1955).
Enter Walter Mirisch, who had bigger dreams than Krim and Benjamin, and UA became the coolest, freest “studio” (they didn’t actually own any studio space) throughout the 1960s and ‘70s. UA was the place where if you could figure out how to get your film financed and produced – like with European money – they would release it. This caused UA to immediately score huge by signing distribution deals with Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to release the James Bond movies, starting with Dr. No (1963), and still going. UA also released the Pink Panther movies, which they’ve tried to revive a half dozen times, and will soon try again.
United Artists became the company that would make or release the films that the real Hollywood studios, the ones with stages, wouldn’t make. When Midnight Cowboy was released in 1969 it was rated X. UA released it and it won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz put together One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), which UA released and won another Best Picture. The same happened with Rocky (1976), yet another Best Picture winner (and the second-cheapest Best Picture). Although we must all now spit when saying his name, that’s where Woody Allen made all of his best movies, including yet another Best Picture for UA, Annie Hall (1977). Just by the way, United Artists is the only company to make three Oscar-winning Best Pictures in a row.
Nothing this good can last in Hollywood. The corporate owners of UA, the Transamerica Corporation, wanted changes, and got them. In 1978 Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin left and formed their own company, Orion Pictures. Transamerica didn’t need assholes with “good taste,” what the fuck was that anyway? They had all the franchises, and they weren’t stupid, they were smart, they could make pictures as good as anyone else. 1979 was United Artists’ best year ever, with: Rocky II, Manhattan, Moonraker, and The Black Stallion. Making movies was easy. So, UA hired last year’s Oscar winner, Michael Cimino, said, “You can have all the money we’ve got,” and he happily spent it all and delivered, Heaven’s Gate (1980), which bombed as few films have bombed, and lost it all.
Since UA never had sound stages, and big international companies began busily buying and selling all of the Hollywood movie studios, United Artists still exists as a holding company for the rights of James Bond, the Pink Panther, and Rocky. It and the remains of MGM were both purchased by Kirk Kerkorian, and mushed into an entity called MGM/UA.
But back in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, under the tutelage of Krim and Benjamin, with Walter Mirisch and company aboard, regularly hitting them out of the park, United Artists was the place to be. A lot of really good movies came through there.
And I didn’t even mention the formation of UA, which is yet another story.
I think there’s a bit of light in the sky. Me and the actual crack of dawn are syncing back up.
Good on ya.