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The 1960s 69 Cleopatra Shuts Down Fox The $42 million Cleopatra had bankrupted Fox. The California studio was shut down for the first time in its history. Normally, when you make a film for a major studio, the budget of your picture contains an “overhead” fee, usually 10 or 15 percent. Spread out across the multiple yearly productions, this overhead cost plus the distribution fees pays for the actual operations of the studio. Since Fox was shooting only Cleopatra and nothing else, the entire worldwide expense of running the company was added to the film’s budget. If two Fox employees went out to lunch in, say, Paris, the cost of that meal was charged to Cleopatra. This meant that the announced budget was perceived as not only unforgivably profligate, but obscene. Darryl Zanuck had taken the studio back from its former head, the dotty, incompetent Spyro Skouras. He began his own Night of the Long Knives. In a totally meaningless gesture, he fired Walter Wanger. Dad ran the rough cut of the film in Paris. It lasted more than seven hours. When the lights came up there was a silence, following which Zanuck said, “That Antony’s a weak man.” “Yes, he is, Darryl,” came Dad’s reply. “If any woman did that to me, I’d kick her right in the balls.” “The picture’s not about you, Darryl.” Even though they’d made Oscar-winning films together in the past, the irresistible force was now meeting the immovable object. Zanuck insisted on one film, and at less than four hours. Dad refused. He wasn’t about to leave all that hard work and sweat on the cutting room floor, especially since he knew it contained all of the best character scenes that truly fleshed out the principal roles. What Zanuck wanted would now be an exercise in simply stringing together an abbreviated story so it made sense to the audience. Dad would have none of it. Zanuck fired him. Dad was stunned. There were a few additional scenes that had to be shot for the shortened film to make narrative sense. Zanuck would get another director. When news of the situation leaked out, the Fox Board of Directors, led by William Wyler, threatened to resign unless Dad was allowed to finish his film. The principal actors suddenly “weren’t sure” they’d be available to return. Dad was rehired. He’d decided that if someone was going to mutilate his film, it might as well be him. From his point of view, Zanuck had a logical point to make by insisting on one film instead of two. The real potential box office gold lay in the Taylor-Burton relationship. The whole world was waiting to see them on the screen together. Richard appeared for only approximately ten minutes in My Life as a Mankiewicz 70 the first half. If they released a Caesar and Cleopatra first, what would happen if Richard and Elizabeth broke up before Antony and Cleopatra came out? What if they went back to their respective spouses? Who’d want to see them then? Fox would suffer a tremendous financial loss from which it might never recover. What was that line from The Barefoot Contessa again? “Gentlemen, it’s a wonderful art we’re doing business in.” The opening of Cleopatra in New York was broadcast on The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson was in his studio. Bert Parks interviewed the celebrities as they poured in. Dad arrived, suffering in silence. He knew that because of the notoriety of everything that had gone on, most critics had already written their reviews. Bert Parks intercepted him: “And here’s Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the multiple Oscar-winning director. Mr. Mankiewicz, I hear we’re in for a truly magnificent film tonight.” Dad stared, then said, “You must know something I don’t.” Parks blinked. “Ah . . . exactly how long did it take you to make this film?” Dad: “I can’t remember ever having been on anything else.” He walked past a totally nonplussed Parks. Carson and the studio audience exploded with laughter. Johnny told me later it was one of his favorite moments ever in the decades he did The Tonight Show. He always included it on his anniversary broadcasts. The film received mixed reviews, though oddly enough, a total rave from Bosley Crowther in the New York Times. Years later, it finally broke even on the books as a result of television sales. In the nineties...

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