Escape Artist: The Life and Films of John Sturges

11. Seven the Hard Way

11 Seven the Hard Way I n September 1957, as the major studios awoke to the verities of the Television Age, the Mirisch brothers—Harold, Marvin, and Walter—announced the formation of a different kind of production company, one that would ultimately spark the director-as-auteur movement of the 1960s. Operating out of the Samuel Goldwyn Studio and underwritten by United Artists, the prime objective of The Mirisch Company was to attract the best directors in town by promising them more control over the tools of production and an opportunity to share financially in the fruits of their labors. “It came down to personal relationships,” said Walter Mirisch, the youngest of the brothers. “Who did you want to work with? Who did you want to spend time with? Who did you want to talk to about your pictures?” The Mirisches wanted to go into business with the legends and near-legends: Billy Wilder, John Ford, William Wyler, Michael Curtiz, John Huston, Fred Zinnemann, Robert Wise, and John Sturges. Over the next seven years, Sturges would direct six pictures in partnership with the brothers, starting with The Magnificent Seven and including By Love Possessed, The Great Escape,The HallelujahTrail,The Satan Bug, and Hour of the Gun, his grim revisionist take on the Earps and the aftermath of O.K. Corral. Later, Blake Edwards and Norman Jewison joined the company. Jewison, who directed In the Heat of the Night for the 188 Mirisches, recalled, “Once you agreed on a budget, the brothers offered artistic freedom, creative freedom; they were totally director-oriented.” Walter Mirisch put it more succinctly: “We provided a buffer for the director against the interference of studio people.” The brothers’ roles were clearly delineated: Harold, the eldest and president of the company, brokered the deals with UA and oversaw distribution , exhibition, and advertising. “He was the real go-for-broke fellow—a gambler spirit,” said Sturges. “Harold was the king, the brains of the outfit,” added Jewison. Walter provided the creative input: he approved projects and, depending on the situation, indulged or rode herd on the director. Marvin was responsible for the daily operation of the office, which was a model of efficiency, expanding and contracting with each new production. During West Side Story and The Great Escape, the office was a hive of activity. Between movies, it shrank to a core staff— production manager, business-affairs coordinator, accountants. Shortly before Easy Rider and the dawn of the New Hollywood, what Peter Biskind and others have designated the “directors’ decade,” the Mirisches laid the groundwork by doing something that, at the time, seemed almost seditious. They spent money on the actual productions, rather than on padded pre-production costs. Further, by making those who spent the money—the directors—full partners, they ensured that budgets would not be inflated. It was textbook capitalism. (Vanity productions such as The Hallelujah Trail and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes would prove costly exceptions.) Since United Artists did not operate a backlot or hold contracts on between-assignment artists, it was more liquid and better able to withstand the growing competition from television. Stanley Kramer and Otto Preminger found a home at the upstart studio, run by Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin. “I made an unprecedented contract with UA for The Moon Is Blue,” said Preminger, who would also make The Man with the Golden Arm and Exodus at UA. “I demanded and received complete autonomy and the right to the final cut. . . . I had at last the freedom I had always wished for.” The Mirisches had a similar dream of creative autonomy, for themselves as well as their directors. They struck a deal with UA whereby they would package the talent and UA would guarantee the loans, pay Seven the Hard Way 189 1 their salaries, and handle distribution in exchange for a 5 percent overhead charge and a third of the box office. Their goal was to produce four films a year. “UA, in effect, financed our pictures,” said Walter Mirisch. “We had an arrangement for very minimal overhead, actual overhead, rather than a percentage of the cost of the picture. In those days, the major studios were charging [independents] 30 to 40 percent of the cost of a picture as an overhead charge. This had to be recouped before the participant would get his share of the profit...