Ever since capturing 20th Century-Fox from the cold grip of Wall Street last summer, President Darryl F. Zanuck had been holed up in his Manhattan bunker, coldly sniping at Cleopatra. Then, armed with the excellent argument that any unfinished movie that has cost its studio $35 million must be a scandal, Zanuck moved into Paris for close combat with Writer-Director Joseph Mankiewicz. Last week the generalissimo took careful aim, picked Mankiewicz off, and flew home with Cleopatra under his arm. Having made a career of making others dance to his martial music, he was scarcely prepared for the rebellion that followed.
"No self-respecting picturemaker would ever want to work for your company," Old Friend Billy Wilder wired. "The sooner the bulldozers raze your studio, the better it will be for the industry." Elizabeth Taylor, ailing in Paris with a throat infection, managed to whisper "disgraceful, degrading, particularly humiliating. Mr. Mankiewicz took over when
Cleopatra was rubbish—and he made something out of it."
Said the wounded Mankiewicz: "I showed him the first half of the picture. 'Joe,' he said, 'it is beautifully written, beautifully acted, and beautifully directed.' Then he wrote to me to say 'Your services are terminated.' The actors are almost more upset than I am. They gave three goddam good performances and, badly cut, they'll be ruined. In my film, the background remains background, but Mr. Zanuck is already yelling about bigger battles. That's the kind of background he likes."
With that, Zanuck launched his counterattack. "Remember," he proclaimed, "I'm a practical picturemaker, not a fool. I have done my duty to my corporation and—yes—to myself." Mankiewicz, he said, was fired because he demanded full control over Cleopatra, a right Zanuck feels must be reserved for himself. Worse, Mankiewicz wasted vast amounts of money—$7,500,000 by Zanuck's reckoning: Richard Burton worked only one of the first 17 weeks he spent in Rome; Roddy McDowall was called to the set only once in four months; sets were built at hurry-up costs, then left idle for months. And Mankiewicz, Zanuck said, had been expensive, too: in 20 months, he had earned $1,760,000 and been given $60,000 more for personal expenses. "Maybe Joe has changed," Zanuck observed sadly. "After a year and a half directing Cleopatra, Caesar and Antony, some of the tinsel may have rubbed off."
As for Cleopatra, Zanuck said, the key scenes are fine but the continuity and, in some places, the photography are disappointing. A "more or less drastic" editing is needed before it can be released in mid-May. "I can't afford the luxury of more talk," Zanuck says. "Interest on the $35 million the picture has consumed amounts to $7,000 a day. Completing work on it will cost a couple million more." Then, assuring all who would listen that Mankiewicz is still welcome "for debates and conversations about what I do to the film," Zanuck retreated to the consolations of feeling misunderstood. "An executive cannot expect love," he said. "Never."