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Posted: |
Dec 31, 2017 - 1:22 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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GRACE QUIGLEY got its start in 1972 when writer A. Martin Zweiback tossed his thirty-page treatment over the fence of film director George Cukor’s home. Coincidentally, actress Katharine Hepburn was staying there while recuperating from hip surgery, and fell in love with the story. Hepburn contacted Zweiback herself to express interest, and subsequently bought his script.
Hepburn tried for ten years to get backing from both major and independent studios but cited the film’s subject matter as having been an obstacle. Reportedly, Lee Marvin and Steve McQueen were in contention to co-star, and Sam Peckinpah, Anthony Harvey, and writer Zweiback all showed interest in directing. Columbia Pictures agreed to make the picture in 1979, but released the property when they could not land a “major” male lead actor. Eventually, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus optioned the project for their production company, the Cannon Group.
Cannon allowed Katharine Hepburn to choose her own director, and she upheld an earlier promise to Anthony Harvey to let him direct her next picture. Harvey had directed Hepburn in her Academy Award winning role in THE LION IN WINTER (1968). Producer Menahem Golan was reportedly not pleased with Hepburn’s choice, but she was adamant that Harvey direct. Zweiback graciously stepped down from directing the picture in order to grant Hepburn’s wishes, on condition that he and his wife, Adrienne Zweiback, be kept on as executive producers and allowed to remain on set during production. However, Anthony Harvey is rumored to have threatened to quit if the couple appeared on set, and they were not seen during the film’s production.
Principal photography began on 19 September 1983 in New York. A nine-week production was scheduled, and Katharine Hepburn, Nick Nolte, and Anthony Harvey had agreed to work below their usual rates in order to get the $5 million picture made.
A night-shoot in Harlem, NY, was interrupted when hoodlums threw eggs and tin cans onto the closed set, and local police advised filmmakers to leave. All five boroughs of New York City were utilized in filming, and locations included the Willowbrook Hospital on Staten Island, the Transit Museum in Brooklyn, and Empire Studios in Long Island City, Queens. Katharine Hepburn performed her own stunts, including riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by Nick Nolte.
A gala premiere, under the title THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION OF GRACE QUIGLEY, was held at the Cannes Film Festival on 14 May 1984. After its debut, Menahem Golan suggested the picture be re-edited, causing a melee with Hepburn and director Harvey, who had already made several prior edits per Golan’s request. Golan said that he wanted thirty minutes shaved off of the running time, insisting it come in at ninety-minutes. Cannon retained final cut after honoring the Director’s Guild of America contract to grant Harvey two attempts to re-edit the picture. Despite the trouble, an early 1985 release date was anticipated.
Hepburn and Harvey rewrote new beginning and end scenes, and returned to New York to film them. Filming on the new sequences was completed on 20 February 1985. Referring to the film under its new, shortened title GRACE QUIGLEY, the 16 May 1985 Hollywood Reporter announced that the picture would premiere the following day in New York City. However, no plans were set for a Los Angeles opening.
The movie was contentious to many critics and audiences upon its original theatrical release because of its black comedy and humorous, light-hearted treatment of the serious and controversial subject matter of voluntary euthanasia of aged and elderly people.
After poor reviews from its New York release, Cannon Group decided to let screenwriter A. Martin Zweiback re-edit the film to reflect his original vision. Zweiback’s version was scheduled to be released in Los Angeles under the title, THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION OF GRACE QUIGLEY.
Zweiback was unhappy over Cannon’s lack of support for his version, reporting that only a small advertisement appeared in one newspaper the day the film was released, with no additional advertising over the two weeks the picture played at the Goldwyn Pavilion. During its Los Angeles run, the theater was being picketed by the Projectionists Union, which largely prevented Zweiback’s version from being seen by AMPAS members. Although the director’s version of the film had already been released on videocassette, the 14 January 1986 Los Angeles Herald Examiner announced that Zweiback was funding several additional theatrical screenings on his own in the Los Angeles area.
Critical response to the screenwriter’s cut was overwhelmingly positive, and reportedly presented a vastly different tone than Harvey’s version. Film critic Leonard Maltin deemed Harvey’s version “abysmal...bland and tasteless,” and praised Zweiback’s film as being “touching” and “funny.” According to the 7 June 1985 Hollywood Reporter film review, Katharine Hepburn “refused to see either version,” but ceaselessly supported director Anthony Harvey.
Despite receiving critical praise as the superior film, A. Martin Zweiback’s version has rarely been seen since. In one instance, when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley proclaimed 19 March 1987 “Screenwriter’s Day,” he noted that THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION OF GRACE QUIGLEY was the first film in Hollywood history to have a “screenwriter’s version.” The film was screened as the headlining event at AFI’s “Salute to Screenwriter’s Day” on 19 March.
Nearly two decades later, Zweiback’s film would be screened again at the Hawaii International Film Festival on 24 October 2005, with a personal introduction by A. Martin Zweiback. After Katharine Hepburn’s death in 2003, Zweiback approached Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which had acquired both versions of the film after purchasing the Cannon Group. Former MGM president Chris McGurk told Zweiback that a revival of his cut “might be possible.” However, the reissue met a stalemate when MGM was bought by a “consortium of investors” headed by Sony. To date, THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION OF GRACE QUIGLEY has yet to be reissued theatrically or made available on home video. Anthony Harvey’s director’s cut, titled GRACE QUIGLEY is the only version to be released on home video.
John Addison’s score for the film was released by Quartet in 2011.
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