1956 – Robert Rossen – 3 An epic only in that it covers the life of one of the greatest men in history, Alexander the Great grinds away at a glacial pace. The legendary Greek conqueror of the fourth century B.C. apparently had time to kill. Alexander (Richard Burton) is a product of a bizarre upbringing—or to draw a modern-day parallel—a dsyfunctional royal family. His …
1963 – Elia Kazan – Writer/director Elia Kazan's personal favorite among his films, this movie is probably best described as an acquired taste (or perhaps a taste that is worth acquiring). Beautifully photographed in black and white by Haskell Wexler, the film features some fascinating moments but suffers from a meandering structure. The plot, set in 1896 and based on …
1963 – Joseph L. Mankiewicz – Two and a half years in the making, the most expensively made movie to date (1963), this is the picture that nearly bankrupted Fox studios while creating international headlines. Unfortunately, the story, either on-screen or off, has no fairy-tale ending. Taylor commanded the unheard-of sum of one million dollars to make the film, and then a grave illne…
1956 – Dick Powell – John Wayne, playing twelfth-century cowboy warlord Genghis Khan, rides down with his men from the mountains, waylays a passing caravan, and in one sweeping gesture rips the virginally white dress off Princess Bortai (Susan Hayward). The Duke claims this Tartar woman as his bride, as the first half of the film becomes a primitive marriage manual. Alone with her i…
1984 – David Lynch – Adapted from Frank Herbert's classic science fiction novel, David Lynch's film version of Dune suffers from weaknesses common to movies based on long and complex literary works. Dune is a vast, sprawling epic that tells the story of young Paul Atreides, a messiah-like hero who represents a new step in the evolution of mankind and who develops a spe…
1924 – Erich von Stroheim – “I consider that I have made only one real picture in my life and nobody ever saw that,” director Erich von Stroheim said. “The poor, mangled, mutilated remains were shown as Greed.” The director of this film earned the nickname “the man you love to hate” for his appearances as screen villains, but the description…
1980 – Michael Cimino – The film that helped sink United Artists and one of the most infamous financial fiascos in movie history, Heaven's Gate explores the American Dream in a manner similar to Cimino's lauded The Deer Hunter and raises the interesting question: Is it as bad as the critics say? Made for some $40 million, the film was originally budgeted for &#x…
1991 – Steven Spielberg – Even though critics called Hook a failure, audiences of all ages embraced it, and director Steven Spielberg made a profit on his tremendously expensive sequel to the tale of Peter Pan. Featuring the very talented Dustin Hoffman as the Captain, the dignified but spirited Maggie Smith as Granny Wendy, and the irrepressible Robin Williams as Peter, the movie i…
1987 – Elaine May – Woof Notwithstanding the blind camel that steals the movie, Ishtar is an epic flop presented as an over-sized $40 million updating of the classic Hope/Crosby road misadventures. Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman play third-rate singer/songwriters who meet and form an act. Singularly terrible, together they really stink, leading to a problem wit…
1937 – Frank Capra – 3 Frank Capra's pacifist parable from James Hilton's novel drops a planeload of Westerners fleeing a revolution in China into a snowy Tibetan valley. They trek over mountainous trails to Shangri-La, an idyllic society that lives by a philosophy of moderation. After the dramatic opening scenes, the film settles into a more leisurely pace in which the…
1997 – Kevin Costner – The Postman doesn't always deliver, but it often maintains a level of interest in both its uncertain first half and its more unified finale. Set in the parched, post-apocalyptic world of 2013, the film features Kevin Costner as an unnamed character who trudges through the wasteland with his mule Bill. Stopping at small communities, he recites speeches f…
1970 – Billy Wilder – During the six months it took to shoot this film, the idea of the road show as a way of showcasing movies had fallen into disfavor in Hollywood. In the earlier 1960s, this road-show format had been ideal for epic films: it publicized the movie as an event, included an intermission (“to give your kidneys a break,” as Billy Wilder joked to writer To…
1968 – Robert Wise – 3 The attempt to reteam the producer, director, and star of The Sound of Music three years later resulted in probably the biggest box-office flop any of them ever had. Star! seems to be a musical film-biography of Gertrude Lawrence, a British stage performer of the 1920s and 1930s. On the surface, the film charts the milestones of Lawrence's life. Starting…
1995 – Kevin Reynolds – Plagued by a troubled shoot, an escalating budget, and creative differences between star and director, Waterworld became one of Hollywood's most expensive films—and one of its biggest disappointments in years. Still, were it not for the exaggerated sense of “failure” resulting from the widely reported stories of the production�…
The preceding chapter, as well as a few entries in other chapters, discusses some films that might be called “unjust failures,” or “noble failures,” or even, to take the phrase that interviewer Leslie Megahey used in his conversation with Orson Welles, “flawed masterpieces.” Films like Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons, von Stroheim's Greed, …