Film history is littered with proposed projects that seemed tantalizing in concept, but somehow never found their way before the cameras. But were these aborted efforts destined to succeed? Seriously, would Stanley Kubrick\u2019s proposed biopic of Napoleon or Alejandro Jodorowsky\u2019s \u201cDune\u201d been instant classics? I think that some vigorous debates could be enjoyed on whether or not we should be fortunate those works never got made.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For my two-cent deposit, I would like to offer a list of 10 intriguing films that were bandied about at one time as potential shoo-ins for box-office glory, but ultimately never found their way before the camera.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Little King\u201d (early 1930s).<\/strong> Cartoonist Otto Soglow struck comic strip gold with \u201cThe Little King,\u201d a droll offering that presented a regal but often befuddled silent monarch in unlikely regal circumstances. The character first appeared in newspapers in 1930 and was the subject of a brief series of animated shorts by the Van Beuren Studios. Filmmaker Marshall Neilan envisioned a film version of the strip starring Buster Keaton, whose transition from silent to sound films was somewhat haphazard \u2013 Neilan envisioned Solgow\u2019s pantomime strips serving Keaton\u2019s stone-faced persona well. Alas, nothing ever came of this plan.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pickwick Papers\u201d (early 1940s).<\/strong> When Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood, one of his proposed projects was a film version of Charles Dickens\u2019 \u201cThe Pickwick Papers\u201d starring W.C. Fields. This seemed like an unbeatable combination \u2013 Welles helmed a memorable adaptation for his radio show and Fields scored a cinematic personal best as Micawber in the 1935 MGM version of \u201cDavid Copperfield.\u201d Unfortunately, Welles and Fields were at different studios when the project was first proposed in 1940 and then both were considered unemployable when the subject was raised again in 1943. Fields\u2019 death in 1946 effectively ended any idea of a film.<\/p>\n \u201cHuckleberry Finn\u201d (early 1950s).<\/strong> MGM had grand hopes for its musical version of the Mark Twain classic, with an original score by Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane, direction by Vincente Minnelli and Gene Kelly and Danny Kaye as the comic villains the Duke and the Dauphin. The film was in pre-production when the plug was abruptly pulled. Several different versions were given for its cancellation, including scheduling problems with the gathered talent and concerns by civil rights groups over how the film handled the thorny racial aspects of the story. The film was put on indefinite hold and never revisited.<\/p>\n \u201cAlice Adams\u201d (mid-1950s).<\/strong> Judy Garland played the title role in a 1950 radio adaptation of Booth Tarkington\u2019s novel, which was made into a classic 1935 film starring Katharine Hepburn. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II heard the broadcast and were convinced they should team with Garland on a musical version of the work, which could either be adapted for Broadway or for the screen. RKO Pictures owned the rights to the property, but the studio\u2019s financial difficulties coupled with the box office disappointment of Garland\u2019s 1954 comeback vehicle \u201cA Star is Born\u201d ensured the film would not be made.<\/p>\n \u201cMacbeth\u201d (late 1950s). <\/strong>Laurence Olivier had scored artistic triumphs in his Shakespearean films \u201cHenry V\u201d (1944), \u201cHamlet\u201d (1948) and \u201cRichard III\u201d (1955). Olivier wanted to go one further with the Scottish Play, in which he would direct himself as the homicidal Thane of Cawdor and his then-wife Vivien Leigh as Lady Macbeth. The regal couple starred in a well-considered stage version of “Macbeth” for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but the financial failure of \u201cRichard III\u201d in its U.S. release spooked off would-be investors, and Leigh\u2019s poor health created further delays that eventually forced the project to be shelved.<\/p>\n \u201cLady Sings the Blues\u201d (late 1950s).<\/strong> Billie Holiday\u2019s 1956 autobiography offered a frank and harsh consideration of a life that saw a surplus amount of pain \u2013 sexual abuse, drug addiction, racism and incarceration \u2013 as well as artistic triumphs. Dorothy Dandridge was coming off her Oscar-nominated career peak in \u201cCarmen Jones\u201d and was proposed as the star of a biopic on Holiday\u2019s life. Although films based on the lives of troubled singers was a mini-rage in the late 1950s \u2013 \u201cLove Me Or Leave Me,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll Cry Tomorrow,\u201d \u201cThe Helen Morgan Story\u201d and \u201cThe Joker is Wild\u201d were among the top films of this genre \u2013 Holiday\u2019s life experience was too difficult to adapt in a film industry still governed by onerous censorship, and the project would not be filmed until the 1972 production starring Diana Ross.<\/p>\n \u201cA Day at the United Nations\u201d (early 1960s).<\/strong> Billy Wilder raised the prospect of reuniting the Marx Brothers for their first on-screen romp since \u201cLove Happy.\u201d The combination seemed too good to believe \u2013 the zany siblings would turn the Cold War political environment into a balmy funhouse as they ran amok in the center of global diplomacy. Unfortunately, the teaming of Wilder and the Marxes came too late \u2013 the wacky siblings were already too elderly and frail for the old-style knockabout that Wilder envisioned and Chico Marx\u2019s death in 1961 forever ended the plans for a Marx Brother reunion.<\/p>\n \u201cUp Against It\u201d (1967). <\/strong>British playwright Joe Orton gained notoriety with his dark comedies \u201cThe Visitors,\u201d \u201cEntertaining Mr. Sloane\u201d and \u201cLoot,\u201d and he sought to expand into screenwriting with a project envisioned for the Beatles. The Fab Four\u2019s manager, Brian Epstein, rejected the screenplay and Orton would later revise the work \u2013 the original version created for the Beatles is considered lost, but the revision offers an outrageous romp with cross-dressing, prison and warfare, which seemed very far removed from the jollity of \u201cA Hard Day\u2019s Night\u201d and \u201cHelp!\u201d Richard Lester, who directed the Beatles\u2019 first two films, Richard Lester scheduled a meeting with Orton to discuss filming options on \u201cUp Against It,\u201d but before the meeting Orton was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell, who committed suicide after killing Orton.<\/p>\n \u201cMan\u2019s Fate\u201d (1969)<\/strong>. After winning the Academy Award for \u201cA Man for All Seasons,\u201d director Fred Zinnemann opted to follow-up with a big screen adaptation of Andre Malraux\u2019 novel \u201cMan\u2019s Fate.\u201d With a cast including David Niven, Peter Finch and Liv Ullmann (in her English language debut) and locations set up in Singapore and Malaysia, Zinnemann was in the midst of rehearsal in anticipation of filming when news came that MGM, the producing studio, was cancelling the film due to cost overruns and internal financial problems. Even though no one was going to be paid, Zinnemann and his cast and crew continued their rehearsals for an additional three days until they did a dry run of the entire screenplay \u2013 all with the knowledge that none of this would ever show up on the screen. Film history is littered with proposed projects that seemed tantalizing in concept, but somehow never found their way before the cameras. But were these aborted efforts destined to succeed? Seriously, would Stanley Kubrick\u2019s proposed biopic of Napoleon or Alejandro Jodorowsky\u2019s \u201cDune\u201d been instant classics? I think that some vigorous debates could be enjoyed on whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":35570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1369],"tags":[2771,2735,2776,277,2772,1396,2780,2774,2007,2599,2777,1477,2775,2778,968,1051,2682,2779,2773,1655],"class_list":["post-35569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retro-cinema","tag-buster-keaton","tag-danny-kaye","tag-david-niven","tag-denzel-washington","tag-dorothy-dandridge","tag-fred-zinnemann","tag-gene-kelly","tag-joe-orton","tag-judy-garland","tag-laurence-olivier","tag-liv-ullmann","tag-orson-welles","tag-peter-finch","tag-richard-lester","tag-spike-lee","tag-the-beatles","tag-unmade-films","tag-vincente-minnelli","tag-vivien-leigh","tag-w-c-fields"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35572,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35569\/revisions\/35572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\u201cJackie Robinson\u201d (1996).<\/strong> Spike Lee wrote five drafts of a screenplay based on \u201cI Never Had It Made,\u201d the autobiography of Brooklyn Dodgers legend Jackie Robinson. Lee pitched the project to Denzel Washington, who starred in Lee\u2019s \u201cMalcolm X,\u201d but he turned down the part by insisting he was too old for the role. Robinson\u2019s life story would be told in the 2013 film \u201c42\u201d starring Chadwick Boseman, while Lee would share his unproduced script on his Instagram page in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"