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Posted: |
Dec 14, 2018 - 1:19 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, “John Singer” (Alan Arkin) is a deaf mute who works as a silverware engraver in a small southern town. When his only companion, a retarded mute, “Spiros Antonapoulos” (Chuck McCann, in his onscreen feature film debut), is committed to a mental institution, Singer moves to another town in order to be near his friend. He finds work there and rents a room in the home of "Mr. and Mrs. Kelly" (Biff McGuire and Laurinda Barrett), who are having financial difficulties as a result of Mr. Kelly's recent hip injury. Because the Kellys' 14-year-old daughter, "Mick" (Sondra Locke), resents having to give up her room to him, Singer makes a few tentative efforts to win her friendship.
Young Sondra Locke from Shelbyville, TN drove to Birmingham, AL, for a casting call and was then taken to New York City for a final audition. Actress Bonnie Bedelia confided to the 8 October 1967 Los Angeles Times that “they decided I was too old” when she auditioned for the same part as Locke. As it turned out, Bedelia was four years younger than Locke, who had lied about her age in order to more appropriately portray the fourteen-year-old tomboy.
When the film was being made in 1967, Locke was 23 years old, but an international press release said she was 17. The Nashville newspaper The Tennessean called her out on the lie right away, but it took decades for other publications to catch on. At the time of the movie's 1968 premiere, Locke claimed to be 21 but was in fact 24. Laurinda Barrett, who played Locke's mother was in reality only twelve and a half years older.
Former Warner contractee Andrew Duggan narrates the trailer for the film, and Sondra Locke reads some passages from the original novel not found in the movie. Sondra Locke received as Oscar nomination as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She lost to Ruth Gordon for ROSEMARY'S BABY.
Robert Ellis Miller directed this adaptation of Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel. Dave Grusin’s score for the 1968 film was released on a Warner Bros. LP. Film Score Monthly released an expanded version of the soundtrack in 2009.
Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke in THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER
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Posted: |
Dec 14, 2018 - 1:56 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In COVER ME BABE, Robert Forster plays "Tony Hall," a film student at a Los Angeles university, and Sondra Locke is "Melisse," the star of his film. Tony's overriding desire is to win a Hollywood contract.
Director Noel Black described making this film as a series of compromises made in order to please 20th Century Fox. Black originally planned to cast a young, unknown Al Pacino as Tony, but this was just one of the things he had to forsake. Black also disagreed with the ethical issues about film-making brought up in the script, and wanted to change them, but couldn't.
Sondra Locke made the film as part of a $150,000 three-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. She was compensated for the other two films, which were never made. Fred Karlin's score for the film did not get a release.
Sondra Locke in COVER ME BABE
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Posted: |
Dec 14, 2018 - 4:48 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In 1971's WILLARD, a social misfit (Bruce Davison) uses his only friends, his pet rats, to exact revenge on his tormentors, which include his boss (Ernest Borgnine). Sondra Locke played his boss's secretary "Joan." Fearing for his job security, Willard is suspicious of Joan, although she is attracted to the lonely young man.
Bruce Davison and Sondra Locke were dating in real life at the time the movie was made in 1970. They were never together publicly as a couple because Locke was married to sculptor Gordon Leigh Anderson at the time.
Locke later stated in court papers that the marriage was never consummated and described her relationship with Anderson (reputedly a gay man) as "tantamount to sister and brother." Locke, testifying under oath to a jury, said that her husband had been "her closest childhood friend" when they married, and she described their relationship as his being "more like a sister to me."
WILLARD was the first theatrical production from Bing Crosby Productions (BCP) since its purchase by Cox Broadcasting in 1968. By 1971, Bing Crosby was no longer associated with BCP, which had produced a number of pictures during the 1940s and 1950s.
Daniel Mann directed the film, which has an unreleased score by Alex North. According to Ernest Borgnine, the producers offered him a choice of a higher salary or a percentage of the box office. Borgnine chose the higher salary. WILLARD became one of the biggest box-office hits of 1971, grossing well over twelve million dollars in the first four months of its release.
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Posted: |
Dec 15, 2018 - 12:37 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Following the moderate success of his first directorial venture (1970’s MONTE WALSH), former cinematographer William A. Fraker was signed by Columbia Pictures to direct one of the company’s major projects for 1971. Under the working title of “Autumn Child,” Fraker and producer Howard Jaffe assembled a cast starring Robert Shaw, Sally Kellerman, and Mary Ure. Also appearing, in just her fourth film, was Sondra Locke. Robert Shaw and Mary Ure were married in real life at the time, and the film ultimately marked Ure’s final feature film appearance before her death in 1975. Despite playing mother and daughter, Mary Ure was only 11 years older than Sondra Locke, who was almost twice her character's age.
Working with a script by Edward Hume and Lewis John Carlino, based on the novel Go To Thy Deathbed by Stanton Forbes, Fraker began production on what was then called “Labyrinth” in late January 1971. The film concerned a beautiful girl (Locke) who becomes the crucial link in a chain of violence and murder. (Writer Carlino would later write and direct THE GREAT SANTINI in 1980.) Famed cinematographer Laslo Kovacs shot the feature. Production continued through late March 1971, without any apparent issues.
But the film had severe post-production problems, with extensive editing and re-editing. At one point, this Psycho-type shocker was shelved by Columbia. Finally, after nearly 2 years had elapsed since completion of principal photography, a drastically shortened version (cut from 95 minutes to 89 minutes, apparently to qualify for a PG rating) and now titled A REFLECTION OF FEAR, opened in San Francisco in November 1972. When it finally arrived in New York on 9 February 1973, it was given a quick unpublicized playoff on double bills.
Despite the high caliber of its cast, the few critics who saw the film unanimously panned its lack of suspense. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Paine Knickerbocker found the script to be “badly flawed,” adding that “Director Fraker does not appear to be in control.” Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times found the film to be “a tedious, excruciatingly slow exercise in morbidity.” And Variety’s “Rino” called A REFLECTION OF FEAR a “stale, yawn-producing psychodrama” that “doesn’t work.” The New York critics were no kinder. The New York Times’ Roger Greenspun called it “ponderous” and a “failure.” And Cue’s William Wolf saw “a star cast wasting their talents” in a “chiller” ruined by “a boring script” and “pretentious direction.”
Fred Myrow's score has not had a release.
Mary Ure and Sondra Locke in A REFLECTION OF FEAR
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Posted: |
Dec 15, 2018 - 1:16 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Writer-director Michael Barry’s inspiration for the screenplay for THE SECOND COMING OF SUZANNE came from the song “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen. A peculiar experimental film set in late-1960s San Francisco, it concerns "Suzanne" (Sondra Locke), who gets crucified in a film-within-a-film which receives much of the screen time. Suzanne is meant to be a Christ figure, and the story focuses on her use as a doomed symbol for the beliefs of Manson-like filmmaker "Logan" (Jared Martin). Richard Dreyfuss and Paul Sand are among the cast of this offbeat, grungy little film which deserves points for originality if nothing else.
The budget was $2.4 million, raised in small increments from individual investors, including Michael Barry’s movie star father, Gene Barry, who contributed $30,000 and also took an acting role in the film. Barry negotiated deferred payment deals with Cinemobile, for equipment, and Consolidated Film Industries (CFI), for laboratory and optical services.
Six studios passed on acquiring distribution rights due to the film’s controversial depiction of Jesus Christ as a female, and the negative was nearly auctioned off by CFI due to an outstanding $140,000 debt, but the film was saved at the last minute when Far Eastern distribution rights were sold to Nippon Herald for $100,000. The filmmakers were considering a limited “four wall” theatrical release, but still hoping that a U. S. distributor would pick up the project. However, there is no record of any commercial distribution of the film.
The film screened in Toronto, Canada, at the Stratford International Film Festival, and at the San Francisco Film Festival on 20 October 1974. THE SECOND COMING OF SUZANNE won prizes for best photography, editing, and “first-feature direction” at the Atlanta Film Festival. Don Caverhill's score has not had a release.
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Posted: |
Dec 15, 2018 - 2:07 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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in THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, a Missouri farmer (Clint Eastwood) joins a Confederate guerrilla unit and winds up on the run from the Union soldiers who murdered his family. In his travels, Josey arrives in a bustling Texas town. There, he encounters "Grandma Sarah" (Paula Trueman), a verbose older woman, and her granddaughter, "Laura Lee" (Sondra Locke). As was usual for Locke, she was playing a character younger than herself. The character of Laura Lee is 22 years old in the novel. Sondra Locke was 31 when she played Laura and 32 at the time of the film's release.
Philip Kaufman started to direct the film but was replaced by Clint Eastwood on 24 October 1975, a controversial move which prompted the Director's Guild to institute a ban on any current cast or crew member replacing the director on a film - a rule which has ever since been titled the "Eastwood rule." According to biographer Marc Eliot, part of the acrimony between Eastwood and Kaufman was a result of both men asking female lead Sondra Locke out to dinner on the same night. Several members of the cast and crew were unhappy with Eastwood and felt that Kaufman had done a lot of the work that Eastwood later took credit for. According to them, it was Kaufman who had chosen the locations, the costumes, and who had cast Chief Dan George, after seeing him in LITTLE BIG MAN (1970).
In her 1997 memoir The Good, the Bad & the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey, Sondra Locke writes intimately about how Clint Eastwood capped off their first date, on 7 October 1975: "Once at my door, all that was necessary was another look at each other. There was no conversation, no maneuvering, it was all as natural as if it were happening for the thousandth time, but as exciting as any first time could be. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me gently, delicately. Then lifting me up, like some knight bearing his maiden, he carried me across the room to the bed. Physically I thought he was the most gorgeous man I had ever seen - his heroic face, his tall, lithe, muscular body. And in spite of his size and power, he was a gentle, affectionate, thoughtful, and yet intensely ardent lover. I thought of nothing except the moment. There was nothing in his past I wanted to know about, and nothing I wanted to tell, and certainly nothing I wanted to address about any future reality.
We made love that night, not once, but several times. It was truly magic. Together, it seemed that, though we were two bodies, two hearts . . . in perfect accord we were one."
Later, Locke was taken aback when Eastwood shaved off the full beard he grew for the film: "I had grown so accustomed to Josey, had actually fallen in love with Josey, and now Clint had stripped Josey away. For perhaps thirty seconds there was a slight awkwardness between us, as if we had not met. But then it passed, and the perfect and easy fit between us was powerfully recaptured."
Sondra Locke in THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
The Wahweap Lodge in Page, Arizona is where Eastwood and Locke consummated their relationship on the second day of principal photography. When production moved to Oroville, California in November 1975, Eastwood and Locke stayed at an unremarkable hotel. On Thanksgiving night, post-coital, Eastwood suddenly and unexpectedly leapt out of bed, threw open the hotel room door, and standing stark naked for the world, shouted "Sveeeeeeeeeetie! I love you-u-u-u-u."
Jerry Fielding's score for the 1976 film was released on a Warner Bros. LP. Screen Archives Entertainment released an expanded version of the score on CD in 1994 using the composer's tapes. Although the film opened to tepid critical reception, it grossed $31.8 million.
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Posted: |
Dec 15, 2018 - 11:58 AM
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By: |
filmusicnow
(Member)
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In THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, “John Singer” (Alan Arkin) is a deaf mute who works as a silverware engraver in a small southern town. When his only companion, a retarded mute, “Spiros Antonapoulos” (Chuck McCann, in his onscreen feature film debut), is committed to a mental institution, Singer moves to another town in order to be near his friend. He finds work there and rents a room in the home of "Mr. and Mrs. Kelly" (Biff McGuire and Laurinda Barrett), who are having financial difficulties as a result of Mr. Kelly's recent hip injury. Because the Kellys' 14-year-old daughter, "Mick" (Sondra Locke), resents having to give up her room to him, Singer makes a few tentative efforts to win her friendship.
Young Sondra Locke from Shelbyville, TN drove to Birmingham, AL, for a casting call and was then taken to New York City for a final audition. Actress Bonnie Bedelia confided to the 8 October 1967 Los Angeles Times that “they decided I was too old” when she auditioned for the same part as Locke. As it turned out, Bedelia was four years younger than Locke, who had lied about her age in order to more appropriately portray the fourteen-year-old tomboy.
When the film was being made in 1967, Locke was 23 years old, but an international press release said she was 17. The Nashville newspaper The Tennessean called her out on the lie right away, but it took decades for other publications to catch on. At the time of the movie's 1968 premiere, Locke claimed to be 21 but was in fact 24. Laurinda Barrett, who played Locke's mother was in reality only twelve and a half years older.
Former Warner contractee Andrew Duggan narrates the trailer for the film, and Sondra Locke reads some passages from the original novel not found in the movie. Sondra Locke received as Oscar nomination as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She lost to Ruth Gordon for ROSEMARY'S BABY.
Robert Ellis Miller directed this adaptation of Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel. Dave Grusin’s score for the 1968 film was released on a Warner Bros. LP. Film Score Monthly released an expanded version of the soundtrack in 2009.
Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke in THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER
Outstanding feature film, with a great score by Grusin.
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Posted: |
Dec 15, 2018 - 3:32 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In the 1977 thriller DEATH GAME, two young girls (Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp) come to the home of a businessman (Seymour Cassel) whose family is away on his birthday. They seduce him and afterwards they tie him up, torture him, and trash his house.
A rewrite of the original script was done by frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator Jo Heims, when the project was briefly set up at Eastwood's production company Malpaso, which attracted Sondra Locke to appear in the film. However, the finished film contained none of Heims' changes, and she was not credited for her work.
According to Sondra Locke, the movie was originally supposed to have a more sinister and darker tone, but when the original director was replaced shortly after filming started, the new director had a different idea of what the movie should look like. This caused serious clashes on the set throughout the whole shoot between the cast and crew and the new director. The crew believed that he didn't understand the story, which caused him to often be absent-minded during the shoot. Tensions remained high during the shoot, and the cast and crew, led by the cinematographer, took every opportunity to convince the director to let them do their own thing.
Seymour Cassel was especially angry at the way the new director was doing things. The two had nasty arguments often and, by the end of filming, Cassel almost punched the director in the face. After this incident, Cassel decided to quit the film, since his scenes were already completed. After production wrapped, he refused to come back to re-record some lines, so his character was entirely re-dubbed. Eventually, due to the toxic atmosphere on the set, no one was particularly pleased with the way the movie turned out. The fact that the movie became a cult hit surprised Locke, since she continued to dislike it, which is the main reason why she agreed to co-produce a remake some years later.
Peter Traynor is the credited director for the film. Jimmie Haskell's score has not had a release.
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Always found it odd the Locke is the victim of gang rape ( or attemted rape) in three films Clint directed - OJW, GAUNTLET, SUDDEN IMPACT.
Not making any assumptions or conclusion.
Brm
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WALES got good reviews iirc.
Didn't Orson Welles publicly praise it ?
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It was a given, in the Seventies, that NYT would slag off any new Eastwood film.
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Posted: |
Dec 15, 2018 - 11:51 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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A hard-working but mediocre cop (Clint Eastwood) is assigned to escort a prostitute (Sondra Locke) into custody from Las Vegas to Phoenix, so that she can testify in a mob trial. But a lot of people are literally betting that they won't make it into town alive, in 1977's THE GAUNTLET. This was the second film that Locke made with Clint Eastwood, and is the only Eastwood film in which Locke receives above-the-title billing.
Late one night when the cast and crew were filming in downtown Phoenix, some locals were watching. Among them was a tiny man about 3 feet tall, who obviously had severe birth defects. Sondra Locke looked at him scrambling with difficulty trying to get a good view of them as they set up a shot. Locke felt enormous compassion and said to Eastwood, "Did you see that little man over there? Do you think we could give him a job, make him an extra or something? I bet he'd be so excited." "Don't look at him" came Clint's reply, "don't make eye contact."
Eastwood and Locke stayed at the Jockey Club during filming. The doors to the closets in their room were typical slide-and-fold doors, and Clint's closet door was sticking. He let go with language Locke had never heard before and in the blink of an eye he had punched his entire fist right through the door, then looked sheepishly at her and began to snicker. Later at dinner someone who could read palms insisted on reading Clint's. The reader looked deeply into Clint's palm and said, "You are a very tranquil man." Eastwood and Locke glanced at each other; the back of his hand was still bleeding.
Sondra Locke in THE GAUNTLET
Although Eastwood and Locke had already been living together for two years, it wasn't until after THE GAUNTLET came out that public rumors of an off-screen romance began. Both were married to other people at the time: Eastwood since 1953 to Margaret Neville, who he reportedly was never in love with or even attracted to; Locke since 1967 to Gordon Anderson, who would later testify in court that the marriage was never consummated. Prior to their becoming an item, and during their respective marriages, Eastwood and Locke had been in several long-term but unpublicized relationships. In Eastwood's case, some of those relationships included children that have never been acknowledged in the press.
Toward the end of the movie, the protagonists fantasize about their future, and plan on starting a family. In real life, Sondra Locke and Clint Eastwood did not want kids. She had two abortions for him, and although Eastwood has sired at least eight children in various affairs over the decades, only one of those children (the daughter he fathered at age 66 with his second wife) actually lived with him.
When Locke's husband Gordon Anderson and his then-boyfriend John came to visit her and Eastwood in Phoenix during production, Eastwood told them how to find some local gay bar there - although Anderson had never had any interest in them.
Before the film came out, director Eastwood predicted that Sondra Locke would win an Academy Award for her performance. Locke wasn't even nominated. Jerry Fielding's score was released on a Warner Bros. LP. It was re-issued on CD by Warners France in 2001 and by Perseverance in 2012. The $5.5 million film grossed $26.4 million at the box office.
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Posted: |
Dec 16, 2018 - 12:49 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Clint Eastwood stated that he accepted the role of “Philo Beddoe” in 1978's EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE against the wishes of his attorney, manager, and producing partner. Eastwood hoped that the lighter, [PG] fare would help him reach a larger audience, including children. The film was a tale of San Fernando Valley trucker turned prize-fighter Philo Beddoe and his pet orangutan Clyde. One night after a successful bout, Philo and his friend and promoter "Orville Boggs" (Geoffrey Lewis) celebrate at The Palomino Club, a local honky-tonk bar where Philo is awestruck by singer "Lynn Halsey-Taylor" (Sondra Locke).
This was the third film co-starring Eastwood and Locke. The film was also Sondra Locke's singing debut. She has a duet with Phil Everly on the song "Don't Say You Don't Love Me No More," and solos on "I Seek The Night." A soundtrack LP was released by Elektra Records in December 1978, accompanied by “the most extensive ever music-film promotion on radio.” As part of the promotion, Warner Bros. brought 110 deejays to Dallas, to preview the film and its soundtrack album. Both of Sondra Locke's songs appear on the soundtrack album, along with nine other songs and seven minutes of Steve Dorff's score. The soundtrack LP has not been re-issued on CD.
Locke learned that she was pregnant just as production was wrapping up. Locke had her IUD removed some years prior because Clint Eastwood complained the IUD was uncomfortable for him, and the couple had been practicing the rhythm method. Locke reluctantly agreed to an abortion, "a hard and painful decision" in her words. When she became pregnant again in 1979, Clint voiced concerns for her health and suggested sterilization. "I think it would be the best thing for our life together. Aren't I enough for you?", Locke's autobiography quotes Eastwood as saying. Then she began to cry. "Funny how it never even crossed my mind to ask HIM to have surgery." She underwent a second abortion and subsequent tubal ligation at UCLA Medical Center. To console her, Eastwood sold the Sherman Oaks bungalow where they had resided and bought a dream house in Bel Air. "This home would be my baby," wrote Locke. Although they remained together another decade (towards the end of which Clint sired someone else's two children, unbeknownst to Locke), from her perspective their relationship never fully recovered from the abortions.
James Fargo directed the film, for which various sources cited the budget as being between $3.5 and $5 million, with an additional $6 million spent on prints and advertising according to Variety. The film was a box-office success despite mixed critical reception. A 24 January 1979 Variety article announced that EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE was Clint Eastwood’s most successful picture to date after its fourth week of release, with a domestic box-office gross of more than $40 million. A July 1986 brief in Films & Filming noted that the film remained Eastwood’s most profitable picture to the time, having earned $87 million worldwide.
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I hope you're not taking info from Pat Mcgilligan' s slanderous bio of Clint.
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Posted: |
Dec 16, 2018 - 1:18 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In BRONCO BILLY, Clint Eastwood plays "'Bronco' Billy McCoy," an idealistic, modern-day cowboy who struggles to keep his Wild West show afloat in the face of hard luck and waning interest. At one tour stop, as Billy buys permits at the town courthouse, he encounters "Antoinette Lily" (Sondra Locke). The glamorous blonde explains to her male companion, "John Arlington" (Geoffrey Lewis), that they must get their marriage license before her thirtieth birthday or she will be denied her multi-million dollar inheritance. When Arlington later deserts her, taking her purse and limousine, Lily reluctantly joins Billy's troupe.
Although it was originally reported that Eastwood’s Malpaso Productions was producing the film, the Hollywood Reporter later noted that Eastwood’s partner of ten years, Robert Daley, and his company, Robert Daley Productions, was taking over for Malpaso. It was explained that the partners formed Robert Daley Productions because Malpaso was entangled in pending legal disputes surrounding Eastwood’s divorce from Maggie Johnson.
Clint Eastwood would kick Sondra Locke under the table when she couldn't work up tears for her crying scene in a bar. That was the extent of his direction. BRONCO BILLY was Locke's fourth film with Eastwood, and reportedly her favorite.
BRONCO BILLY cost $4.25 million to produce and another $3 million for prints and advertising. The film grossed $24 million. The Elektra soundtrack LP for the 1980 film had six country songs and four score tracks by Steve Dorff. It has not been re-issued on CD.
Sondra Locke in BRONCO BILLY
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