Going Global
New Hollywood was, above all else, a confluence of disparate stimuli: a response to the situation on the ground in the entertainment industry in the mid-to-late-1960s; the sociological ramifications of the “Generation Gap” so keenly felt by the maturing Baby Boomers; the growing artistic significance of the auteur theory in intellectual discourse; and the direct influences of avant-garde filmmaking movements in other countries, most notably the Nouvelle Vague in France (a country which had always been a trendsetter in motion pictures, dating from the invention of the medium itself in the late-nineteenth century). It was therefore natural for the emerging movement to become a product of its time – a period of profound social tumult, followed by an illusory peace and prosperity, which in turn soon collapsed as a result of the precarious geopolitical situation. But New Hollywood limped on through the 1970s, partly as a result of inertia and partly because the cohort of directors which had emerged from the shiny new film schools were (after a fashion, in some cases) producing major hits – Jaws was a smash for Universal, and Journey of the Force was even bigger for Paramount. This came at a time when many studios were rather desperate for hits, and many directors (other than George Lucas) requested nothing more than greater creative freedom going ahead. However, it soon became apparent that the degree of creative freedom sought by directors directly correlated with the size of their budgets.
Francis Ford Coppola, one of the leading lights of the New Hollywood movement, had already gone bust in the early-1970s, before he was forced to capitulate to the studio in the making of The Godfather – a smash success, though it did not win Best Picture (losing to the cynical, sophisticated musical Cabaret). The Godfather Part II followed (and also lost Best Picture, to the neo-noir Chinatown, though Coppola at least won for Best Director), but after that, Coppola’s schedule seemed remarkably clear. He had initially intended to adapt Heart of Darkness before letting the writer of the planned screenplay, John Milius, handle the project himself. He then moved on to one of his dream projects, a biopic of the enterprising automotive engineer Preston Tucker, though he had an ambition far beyond the traditional constraints of that hoary genre. In fact, he had planned to follow Godfather with his Tucker biopic before he was distracted by Heart of Darkness. [1] Perhaps the extra time he had to incubate his idea might have endeared him overly much to certain concepts which he (or anyone else) might have otherwise rejected in the more sober, collaborative conditions of formal Hollywood brainstorming. Marlon Brando was given the lead role of Tucker, despite being a decade too old for the part, and (as it was later discovered) grossly overweight. [2] Paramount, which had produced the Godfather films, balked at the budget demands. So Coppola looked around for a new partner for his idea, and he did find it – or so he had thought.
Outside of Hollywood, the Transamerica Corporation had commenced operations in the insurance sector, where it had enjoyed considerable success. This would provide it with the wealth it needed to expand into a conglomerate. Yet by 1981, Transamerica was in trouble; the ambitions the life insurance company-cum-conglomerate had for being the next Gulf+Western had been for naught; all their years of hard work had yielded only illusory rewards. As a result of this came one of the biggest surprises in Tinseltown.
This was brought about through the doings of one of Transamerica’s subsidiaries, the venerable United Artists (UA) movie studio. Originally founded in 1919 by the popular movie stars Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford, as well as the film director D.W. Griffith [3], as a means of distributing their own films without relying on the major studios, it had since diversified its assets, which had grown to include a music label, a radio station in Philadelphia, and television stations in both Puerto Rico and Cleveland. United Artists had always been one of the smaller studios, which had driven the company to take pronounced creative (and financial) risks in order to attract audiences. However, throughout its existence, United Artists was never consistently successful in doing so. But that which had kept them down in the Golden Age – the absence of a dedicated distributor – meant that they were not at all hampered by the court-ordered “divorce” spurred by the Miracle Decision in the early-1950s, and from then on United Artists enjoyed a particularly fertile period, with their film properties (and their accompanying soundtracks, available through the studio’s recording division) enjoying unprecedented success. No better example of this synergy could be found than the James Bond franchise, which launched in 1962 and in which they eventually purchased an ownership stake (which had a cumulative effect upon the return on their investment). Although the Bond-mania of the 1960s had faded, 007 had seen longevity unrivaled in any film property of the post-serial era. Eleven instalments had been produced by 1980, with a twelfth on the way. [4] On the other hand, their television division had a spotty record, with The Troubleshooters, The Outer Limits (an influence on the development of Star Trek), and the iconic (for better or for worse) Gilligan's Island counting amongst their few successes. [5] As was the case with many of the other studios, United Artists Television largely focused on syndicating its film library, including many of the pre-1950s Warner Bros. films and their Popeye cartoons. United Artists did not escape from the emerging era of conglomeration, and Transamerica bought them out in 1967 – the year after Gulf+Western had purchased Paramount. Apparently, Transamerica had been rumoured to have been interested in acquiring Desilu, but Lucille Ball turned them down, claiming that “I wouldn’t sell to Charlie Bluhdorn – and he offered me a lot more than you did.” That Transamerica had wanted to purchase Desilu was not altogether surprising, considering what endeavours they – and their successors – would later attempt under the United Artists umbrella.
When Transamerica took over UA, they created a new logo which had the then-Transamerica T.
The period which followed Transamerica’s acquisition of United Artists was not without its growing pains. New ownership always equated to new ideas, even when they were radical departures from what had been in place before. The studio had frequent clashes with executives at Transamerica; one frequent complaint was that United Artists released an exceptionally large volume of movies which had been rated “X” by the MPAA, usually for the high degree of sexuality present therein. Although all of the studios released “X”-rated films to some degree, and these pictures tended to do well with adult audiences, Transamerica preferred to focus on more “family-friendly” fare. [6] It had repeatedly demanded that the logo and byline “A Transamerica Company” be struck from such prints, and United Artists just as often refused to do so. The conglomerate had even contemplated re-branding, replacing UA with “Transamerica Films” and spinning off the music and television divisions, but the continued success of United Artists Records stayed their hand. Meanwhile, the handful of broadcast stations purchased by the corporation – most notably WUAB-TV, the leading independent station in Cleveland, which they had hoped to develop into a superstation to rival Ted Turner’s WTBS in Atlanta – were also successful, and a ready market for the product provided by the other divisions. (WUAB-TV filled hour upon hour of Saturday mornings with Popeye cartoons, hoping to recreate the immense popularity garnered by the Looney Tunes starting in the 1950s.) [7]
The impasse between Transamerica and United Artists would finally come to a head with the production of Francis Ford Coppola’s biopic of Preston Tucker. [8] Having finally found his partner – and his source of financing – in United Artists, Coppola, the pioneering New Hollywood auteur, an Academy-award winner, and the director of two proven box-office and critical successes already regarded as being among the greatest films ever made (and the best not to win Best Picture, other than Citizen Kane) – succumbed to his rapidly-inflating ego and became, to put it delicately, rather difficult. Coppola’s perfectionism and exacting aesthetic standards resulted in virtually the entire film being filmed on lavishly-constructed soundstages, eschewing the affordability of location shots in favour of absolute control over what was being filmed. Not surprisingly, production costs very rapidly began to escalate. In fact, the ludicrously-detailed backdrops and sets were – on more than one occasion – rebuilt from the ground up (despite having originally been constructed to Coppola’s own precise specifications) because they didn’t “look right” once they had been realized. In addition, the sets were so large that they filled almost the entire studio space, leading to their popular nickname of “fire traps”. [9] Coppola’s precise attention to detail did not merely encompass what he shot, but also how he shot, demanding multiple takes until he was satisfied, leading to the popular claim that he exposed one million feet of film stock in the making of the picture. [10] The film was also a musical, with original score and songs composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green – United Artists had hoped to sell the soundtrack on their label, noting the tremendous success enjoyed by the Greased Lightning soundtrack LP. [11] This necessitated further costs, for the intricate choreography, and the extended rehearsal time. Marlon Brando, the lead actor, was dubbed – but only after the studio went to the expense of recording all of his vocals for the soundtrack, in order to save face. Brando also did not bother to study the mannerisms or even the life history of Tucker, instead choosing to use his “Method” to realize his character. Preston Tucker’s real-life children and grandchildren were involved in every aspect of production, frequently clashing with Coppola (particularly with regards to Brando’s portrayal). [12] Pre-production continually delayed the start of filming, which resulted in further raises to the salaries of the key cast and crew members to keep their schedules clear; principal photography, once it had finally commenced, lagged immediately. After one week of filming, the crew was six days behind schedule. During post-production, studio executives balked at the nearly five-hour length of the workprint that Coppola had assembled – his rough cut was little better, at three-and-a-half hours long (even the most epic of musicals, such as The Sound of Music, rarely topped three hours in length). [13] Even after trimming the length considerably down, to under three hours, the film was critically lambasted and largely ignored by audiences – starting with its disastrous première in Chicago. The film became the largest box-office bomb in history, in terms of the paltry grosses when stacked against the massively inflated budget: costs had ballooned to $40 million, but the film generated revenues of only $3 million, for a 92.5% loss. [14] After a one-week run, the film was pulled from wide release, and United Artists was ruined. As a result, the studio declared bankruptcy, and this was the final straw for Transamerica. The conglomerate bowed to the demands of its stakeholders and withdrew from the motion picture industry altogether and put United Artists and all of its associated properties up for sale.
In the face of a major global recession, interest was tepid, until an unlikely buyer came onto the scene, one noted for his persistence and willingness to take risks. When Israel Asper, the owner of Canwest Global Broadcasting, made his offer, he was positioning himself to join a long list of Canadians who had left their home and native land for the bright lights of Hollywood: among them had been the actress Mary Pickford, an original investor in United Artists; the film moguls Louis B. Mayer (the third letter in MGM); and the Warner Brothers. The efforts Asper had made to expand the Global Television Network were paying dividends, thanks in large part to their flagship show, SCTV. However, he had a problem. Thanks to the Canadian Content policies, or CanCon for short, which had been mandated by the federal government, Asper had difficulty finding programming for his growing network – despite the noble (and perhaps overly naive) intentions of legislators, it was American programming, as opposed to Canadian (or even Commonwealth) programming – with exceptions, such as Doctor Who – that continued to draw Canadian audiences to their television sets. This was a fact of simple economics – the American market was large and robust enough that any shows which failed to attract an audience could have their costs written off by the networks and studios, who had counterbalancing successes elsewhere. By contrast, the Canadian market was small and even if homegrown programming was popular, it would have great difficulty recouping the costs of the vast majority of (unprofitable) network offerings, because it was much cheaper to simply schedule already-produced American series than to invest in an almost-certain loss. Hence, despite the Canadian programming in its schedule – often cheaply produced, or not under direct threat by American competition, such as local programming, children’s shows, game shows, newsmagazines, and sketch comedy – Global had conversely built its success on American programming, especially dramatic series. [15] Asper needed a way to ensure that he would maintain the schedule he knew his audiences demanded, while staying on the right side of Canadian law.
United Artists was Asper’s ticket to maintaining Global’s success, and further improving its position relative to rivals CTV and the CBC. Owning an American motion picture and television studio would allow Asper to produce his own programming at the same level as the American production companies. He could produce “Canadian” programming which fulfilled CanCon regulations, but were essentially American shows which just happened to be filmed in Canada with a mostly-Canadian cast and crew – as minute a proportion as Canwest could get away with – that would easily have ready buyers in the American market; this took advantage of a loophole in the CRTC regulations that supporters of CanCon simply did not anticipate. [16] As with his Canadian acquisitions, Asper saw value in United Artists’ broadcasting presence, despite its relatively small size compared to that of its competitors; there would definitely be room for him to expand his television network in the United States. On all counts, United Artists was the perfect solution to Canwest’s woes. His marketing skills enabled him to assemble a consortium of Canadian investors, including some of the wealthiest families in the country (most notably the Toronto-based Thomson family), to back his proposal – Canwest had a 50.1% stake in the consortium which bid for United Artists.
Yet he knew that the steps of acquiring the studio would be a difficult process, and Transamerica had obvious reservations about whether he was the “right” person to purchase United Artists – even though the board of directors would be perfectly happy to divest themselves of “that troublesome studio”. Regardless, Asper remained persistent. He remembered how in 1974, the original owners of what would become his flagship Winnipeg station – then known as KCND-TV – had balked at his then-radical idea of transferring the station to Manitoba from its original city of licence in Pembina, North Dakota. An unending series of flights to and from Houston to confer with KCND’s owners finally allowed the transfer to take place; so it would be in this case as well, with Asper becoming a regular visitor to the famed Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco to meet with the board and persuade them to sell their studio. In addition, he also travelled to Hollywood, to ingratiate himself with the UA management.
Essentially, Asper made Transamerica and offer they couldn’t refuse. He would buy United Artists – lock, stock, and barrel – for $350 million. Building upon a previous offer, made to the original owners of United Artists back in 1951, Asper offered to exercise control of United Artists for five years, and if the studio became profitable, he would have the option to assume permanent ownership of the company. [17] However, the most valuable promise he made was not to Transamerica, but to the people at United Artists itself. He promised to give the studio as much creative freedom as they wanted in making their films. Unlike Transamerica, he would wear the “X” rating with pride. After all, he wanted to have quality content on his Global Television Network. But he insisted that budgets be carefully monitored and controlled; there would not be another Tucker under his watch.
Once the media on both sides of the 49th parallel caught wind of the acquisition, their reactions varied widely. In Canada, the news made headlines, with whole sections covering the transaction from different perspectives (business, finance, life, entertainment, and – of course – the editorial pages). In fact, considering the media reaction, it came as something of a surprise that “Izzy”, as he was universally known, was not chosen as the Canadian Newsmaker of the Year, however much talk of the United Artists buyout overshadowed what many observers considered other, far more important stories. In the United States, however, apart from trade journals – including Variety (who dubbed it “the sale of the century”) – the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles and San Francisco media (most prominently the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, respectively) coverage was comparatively scant. This made a great deal of sense – for Canada, the purchase of a Golden Age film studio by a Canadian conglomerate was the “new foothold in Hollywood”, but for the Americans, UA had been just one studio among many. More ink was likely devoted to the coverage of the purchase of RKO by Desilu Productions back in 1958, even by the industry press (taking umbrage at upstart, one-time B-listers who had risen to the top in an equally upstart industry, then attempting to muscle their way into the establishment). On American television, ironically enough, the news was relegated to the entertainment section of most local newscasts (though every UA-owned station, unsurprisingly, covered the acquisition in considerable detail). During the run-up to the purchase, however, negotiations hit a minor snag with regards to UA’s broadcasting operations – the two television stations and the radio station in Philadelphia (plus a long-standing construction permit for a station in Houston). Although anti-trust regulations with regards to corporate ownership of broadcasters had been loosened under the Reagan administration, foreign ownership restrictions on media outlets remained firmly in place. A cap on direct foreign investment into broadcast stations, originally set at 25%, had risen only to 50%, less one share. [18] This seeming speedbump nearly threatened to derail Asper’s purchase, and it was undoubtedly the primary criticism from the American media perspective – sensationalism and nativism, after all, often went hand-in-hand. Canadian reporters observed the situation trying rather desperately not to gloat – those in the culturally protectionist Dominion were glad to see the proverbial shoe on the other foot. Asper did his best to silence them as he devised an extraordinary solution: United Artists’ broadcasting operations would be spun off into a separate company, retaining the United Artists Broadcasting name, and Canwest would own the maximum 50% – less one share – the local business communities in the respective markets would collectively own the remainder. This was deemed an acceptable solution by all sides, and was integrated into the deal.
However improbable it might have seemed, Israel Asper and Canwest Global Broadcasting cleared every roadblock to achieve their purchase of United Artists. Although Canwest was forced to adapt to their new, American-based division, day-to-day operations continued apace. Due to his unyielding loyalty to the province of his birth, Manitoba, Asper chose to maintain his headquarters in Winnipeg; he resisted calls to move to either Toronto (home to the flagship station of the Global Television Network) or Los Angeles (home of the United Artists studio). The bookkeeping and financial reporting at UA, and in all its divisions (including United Artists Broadcasting) would be revised in order to comply with Canadian tax laws, which strictly prohibited the “creative accounting” which was rife in Hollywood; this made United Artists the first studio to voluntary change their accounting standards after the Trial of the Century. Asper, aware of the good press this would bring Canwest, invited the “rogue accountant”, C.A. Baxter, to his studio to accept his commendations. Naturally, this did not earn Asper any friends in Tinseltown, though it would remain to be seen if this would matter in the long run. A more immediate focus for Canwest, meanwhile, was expanding Global into new markets; the third-largest network in Canada still had huge gaps in coverage throughout the Dominion. But for all of Asper’s trying, United Artists would change Canwest, as a company, and as a brand. It was no longer just another conglomerate which managed a television network and acted as a holding company for its owned-and-operated stations. Overnight, it became one of the major media companies in Canada – and in North America…
The new United Artists logo, incorporating the Canwest Global stylized “G”; otherwise it was a straight lift from the previous logo.
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[1] Coppola purchased the rights to Preston Tucker’s life story in 1976, IOTL and ITTL. Although he is involved with the production of Heart of Darkness IOTL (winning Best Picture as Producer and notably succeeding where the two Godfather films had failed), the production of what became Apocalypse Now IOTL was a much longer, more arduous process, and Tucker was shelved for ten years, before finally being released in 1988.
[2] Brando was considered for Tucker (45 years old when the film is set, and who died at age 53) during the 1970s pre-production period, but was both too old and too far out of the studios’ favour by the time production began in the mid-1980s: the role was cast with Jeff Bridges (who was actually too young for the part, ironically enough).
[3] And the former Secretary of the Treasury (and future U.S. Senator from California) William Gibbs McAdoo, son-in-law to President Woodrow Wilson, as the silent partner – despite having an equal share in United Artists, owning 20% of the company’s stock alongside each of the four actual united artists.
[4] The James Bond franchise had also produced 11 films by 1980 IOTL; neither reckoning includes the “unofficial” 1967 spoof film of Casino Royale.
[5] Gilligan’s Island was officially “revived” during the late-1970s revival TV-movie/miniseries fad (which, ITTL, also produced Star Trek: The Next Voyage) IOTL as well as ITTL – the Rescue from Gilligan’s Island two-parter aired in 1978 (which, yes, ends with them stranded on the same island after having been rescued), followed by The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island in 1979 (which doubled as an attempted backdoor pilot for a Love Boat ripoff, of all things). Perhaps the most notorious of the Gilligan movies, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island, aired in 1981 (yes, ITTL too).
[6] Recall that, ITTL, the “X”-rating was trademarked by the MPAA in 1972 and was able to maintain serious cachet as an “adults only” rating. Pornography (along with, later, obscene “video nasty” exploitation films) were not rated by the MPAA and only appeared in… “specialty” theatres (and, later, on home video), but were sometimes advertised as “rated A” (for adults only), “rated N” (for naughty, nudity, or not rated), or “rated U” (for unrated). At least one wag would refer to such films as being “in the ANUs”, an exceedingly lowbrow (and, fortunately, quite obscure) joke which was nonetheless wholly appropriate for their standard content.
[7] Over time IOTL, United Artists sold off much of their music and broadcasting operations. For example, “Rikavisión”, the Puerto Rican TV station in the United Artists Broadcasting portfolio, is now owned by Univisión, and is branded “Tele-Isla”; its affiliate in Mayagüez (on Puerto Rico’s west coast) is also an affiliate of Univisión. Likewise, United Artists Records was eventually absorbed by EMI.
[8] Tucker has the dubious distinction of being to TTL what Heaven’s Gate was to OTL – the single, wretched monument to the New Hollywood way of doing things that capsized it and everything it stood for. Why does such a film come into being ITTL? Because Heaven’s Gate was only the worst of a bad lot. See also: The Last Movie; New York, New York; At Long Last Love; Coppola’s own One From the Heart; etc., etc. It was basically inevitable that creative freedom would be taken to its logical extreme in such a degree.
[9] Coppola turned the same trick in OTL with his 1982 film One from the Heart, which involved re-creating modern-day Las Vegas on sound stages, including a set recreating McCarran Airport and the centrepiece set recreating the Strip… instead of actually flying out (or even driving – it’s just four hours away) to Las Vegas. At least late-1940s Chicago was a time and a place rather divorced from late-1970s Hollywood.
[10] One million feet of film stock were exposed for Apocalypse Now IOTL.
[11] IOTL, Coppola’s original plan for the Preston Tucker biopic did indeed include musical numbers. This probably didn’t happen because he (and every studio in Hollywood) had been burned by his musical One from the Heart, leaving us instead with the 1988 film we all love and enjoy.
[12] Preston Tucker’s children and grandchildren were involved as well with the 1988 film IOTL, where Coppola was keen to be as historically accurate as possible, to the point where Jeff Bridges imitated Preston’s mannerisms. The children even allowed Bridges to wear their (grand)father’s cuff links and ring – they notably did not extend this courtesy to Brando ITTL (one of Tucker’s grandchildren was overheard to rather callously remark that “It wouldn’t fit him!”).
[13] For comparison, the workprint of Apocalypse Now was 289 minutes, before he edited it down to 202 minutes (which was released in 2001 as Apocalypse Now Redux) – executives demanded the 153-minute cut released to theatres in 1978.
[14] Although Apocalypse Now (with a budget of $31.5 million) grossed $79 million domestically upon its release (good for fourth place in the year 1979), One From The Heart (with a budget of $26 million) grossed less than a million dollars. Tucker does better than that, but that’s still not nearly enough to save it – or United Artists.
[15] Recall that the original Global station in Toronto, ON, had driven itself into bankruptcy because it had an all-CanCon schedule, and it had to include American programming in its schedule in order to remain viable – making it no different from its rivals, primarily CTV (the CBC, though it is known at present for airing exclusively Canadian programming, did in fact air American series with some regularity prior to the mid-1990s, but never in as high a volume as the privately-owned networks did.)
[16] One of the earliest and most famous examples of this loophole abuse was Night Heat, which is rather notoriously set in a city which straddles the 49th parallel – any laws or customs which were exclusive to Canada or the United States were omitted. Considering that Night Heat was a police procedural, that took some doing. Other examples, spanning through the ages, include Forever Knight, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and all the Stargate series.
[17] In 1951, two freelance producers approached the remaining owners of United Artists (it was down to just Pickford and Chaplin by this point), with a similar proposal. Pickford was amenable, but Chaplin was initially opposed, changing his mind only when he ran afoul of the US government.
[18] This increase never happened IOTL – foreign owners are still restricted to the 25% share, even to the present day.
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This update was co-written with Dan1988, so my thanks to him for taking the time and effort to help me weave these disparate plot elements together! Thanks also, as usual, to e of pi for assisting with the editing. I hope all of you enjoyed the Heaven’s Gate of TTL, everyone – a musical about a man who invented a car. Perhaps not the most bizarre topic for such a genre (the Newsboys Strike of 1899 is still the reigning champ, at least IOTL), but certainly a prime contender for the title. Fun fact: many of the anecdotes regarding the production of Tucker are borrowed from real-life films. Bear that in mind: live by the auteur theory, die by the auteur theory.
New Hollywood was, above all else, a confluence of disparate stimuli: a response to the situation on the ground in the entertainment industry in the mid-to-late-1960s; the sociological ramifications of the “Generation Gap” so keenly felt by the maturing Baby Boomers; the growing artistic significance of the auteur theory in intellectual discourse; and the direct influences of avant-garde filmmaking movements in other countries, most notably the Nouvelle Vague in France (a country which had always been a trendsetter in motion pictures, dating from the invention of the medium itself in the late-nineteenth century). It was therefore natural for the emerging movement to become a product of its time – a period of profound social tumult, followed by an illusory peace and prosperity, which in turn soon collapsed as a result of the precarious geopolitical situation. But New Hollywood limped on through the 1970s, partly as a result of inertia and partly because the cohort of directors which had emerged from the shiny new film schools were (after a fashion, in some cases) producing major hits – Jaws was a smash for Universal, and Journey of the Force was even bigger for Paramount. This came at a time when many studios were rather desperate for hits, and many directors (other than George Lucas) requested nothing more than greater creative freedom going ahead. However, it soon became apparent that the degree of creative freedom sought by directors directly correlated with the size of their budgets.
Francis Ford Coppola, one of the leading lights of the New Hollywood movement, had already gone bust in the early-1970s, before he was forced to capitulate to the studio in the making of The Godfather – a smash success, though it did not win Best Picture (losing to the cynical, sophisticated musical Cabaret). The Godfather Part II followed (and also lost Best Picture, to the neo-noir Chinatown, though Coppola at least won for Best Director), but after that, Coppola’s schedule seemed remarkably clear. He had initially intended to adapt Heart of Darkness before letting the writer of the planned screenplay, John Milius, handle the project himself. He then moved on to one of his dream projects, a biopic of the enterprising automotive engineer Preston Tucker, though he had an ambition far beyond the traditional constraints of that hoary genre. In fact, he had planned to follow Godfather with his Tucker biopic before he was distracted by Heart of Darkness. [1] Perhaps the extra time he had to incubate his idea might have endeared him overly much to certain concepts which he (or anyone else) might have otherwise rejected in the more sober, collaborative conditions of formal Hollywood brainstorming. Marlon Brando was given the lead role of Tucker, despite being a decade too old for the part, and (as it was later discovered) grossly overweight. [2] Paramount, which had produced the Godfather films, balked at the budget demands. So Coppola looked around for a new partner for his idea, and he did find it – or so he had thought.
Outside of Hollywood, the Transamerica Corporation had commenced operations in the insurance sector, where it had enjoyed considerable success. This would provide it with the wealth it needed to expand into a conglomerate. Yet by 1981, Transamerica was in trouble; the ambitions the life insurance company-cum-conglomerate had for being the next Gulf+Western had been for naught; all their years of hard work had yielded only illusory rewards. As a result of this came one of the biggest surprises in Tinseltown.
This was brought about through the doings of one of Transamerica’s subsidiaries, the venerable United Artists (UA) movie studio. Originally founded in 1919 by the popular movie stars Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford, as well as the film director D.W. Griffith [3], as a means of distributing their own films without relying on the major studios, it had since diversified its assets, which had grown to include a music label, a radio station in Philadelphia, and television stations in both Puerto Rico and Cleveland. United Artists had always been one of the smaller studios, which had driven the company to take pronounced creative (and financial) risks in order to attract audiences. However, throughout its existence, United Artists was never consistently successful in doing so. But that which had kept them down in the Golden Age – the absence of a dedicated distributor – meant that they were not at all hampered by the court-ordered “divorce” spurred by the Miracle Decision in the early-1950s, and from then on United Artists enjoyed a particularly fertile period, with their film properties (and their accompanying soundtracks, available through the studio’s recording division) enjoying unprecedented success. No better example of this synergy could be found than the James Bond franchise, which launched in 1962 and in which they eventually purchased an ownership stake (which had a cumulative effect upon the return on their investment). Although the Bond-mania of the 1960s had faded, 007 had seen longevity unrivaled in any film property of the post-serial era. Eleven instalments had been produced by 1980, with a twelfth on the way. [4] On the other hand, their television division had a spotty record, with The Troubleshooters, The Outer Limits (an influence on the development of Star Trek), and the iconic (for better or for worse) Gilligan's Island counting amongst their few successes. [5] As was the case with many of the other studios, United Artists Television largely focused on syndicating its film library, including many of the pre-1950s Warner Bros. films and their Popeye cartoons. United Artists did not escape from the emerging era of conglomeration, and Transamerica bought them out in 1967 – the year after Gulf+Western had purchased Paramount. Apparently, Transamerica had been rumoured to have been interested in acquiring Desilu, but Lucille Ball turned them down, claiming that “I wouldn’t sell to Charlie Bluhdorn – and he offered me a lot more than you did.” That Transamerica had wanted to purchase Desilu was not altogether surprising, considering what endeavours they – and their successors – would later attempt under the United Artists umbrella.
When Transamerica took over UA, they created a new logo which had the then-Transamerica T.
The period which followed Transamerica’s acquisition of United Artists was not without its growing pains. New ownership always equated to new ideas, even when they were radical departures from what had been in place before. The studio had frequent clashes with executives at Transamerica; one frequent complaint was that United Artists released an exceptionally large volume of movies which had been rated “X” by the MPAA, usually for the high degree of sexuality present therein. Although all of the studios released “X”-rated films to some degree, and these pictures tended to do well with adult audiences, Transamerica preferred to focus on more “family-friendly” fare. [6] It had repeatedly demanded that the logo and byline “A Transamerica Company” be struck from such prints, and United Artists just as often refused to do so. The conglomerate had even contemplated re-branding, replacing UA with “Transamerica Films” and spinning off the music and television divisions, but the continued success of United Artists Records stayed their hand. Meanwhile, the handful of broadcast stations purchased by the corporation – most notably WUAB-TV, the leading independent station in Cleveland, which they had hoped to develop into a superstation to rival Ted Turner’s WTBS in Atlanta – were also successful, and a ready market for the product provided by the other divisions. (WUAB-TV filled hour upon hour of Saturday mornings with Popeye cartoons, hoping to recreate the immense popularity garnered by the Looney Tunes starting in the 1950s.) [7]
The impasse between Transamerica and United Artists would finally come to a head with the production of Francis Ford Coppola’s biopic of Preston Tucker. [8] Having finally found his partner – and his source of financing – in United Artists, Coppola, the pioneering New Hollywood auteur, an Academy-award winner, and the director of two proven box-office and critical successes already regarded as being among the greatest films ever made (and the best not to win Best Picture, other than Citizen Kane) – succumbed to his rapidly-inflating ego and became, to put it delicately, rather difficult. Coppola’s perfectionism and exacting aesthetic standards resulted in virtually the entire film being filmed on lavishly-constructed soundstages, eschewing the affordability of location shots in favour of absolute control over what was being filmed. Not surprisingly, production costs very rapidly began to escalate. In fact, the ludicrously-detailed backdrops and sets were – on more than one occasion – rebuilt from the ground up (despite having originally been constructed to Coppola’s own precise specifications) because they didn’t “look right” once they had been realized. In addition, the sets were so large that they filled almost the entire studio space, leading to their popular nickname of “fire traps”. [9] Coppola’s precise attention to detail did not merely encompass what he shot, but also how he shot, demanding multiple takes until he was satisfied, leading to the popular claim that he exposed one million feet of film stock in the making of the picture. [10] The film was also a musical, with original score and songs composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green – United Artists had hoped to sell the soundtrack on their label, noting the tremendous success enjoyed by the Greased Lightning soundtrack LP. [11] This necessitated further costs, for the intricate choreography, and the extended rehearsal time. Marlon Brando, the lead actor, was dubbed – but only after the studio went to the expense of recording all of his vocals for the soundtrack, in order to save face. Brando also did not bother to study the mannerisms or even the life history of Tucker, instead choosing to use his “Method” to realize his character. Preston Tucker’s real-life children and grandchildren were involved in every aspect of production, frequently clashing with Coppola (particularly with regards to Brando’s portrayal). [12] Pre-production continually delayed the start of filming, which resulted in further raises to the salaries of the key cast and crew members to keep their schedules clear; principal photography, once it had finally commenced, lagged immediately. After one week of filming, the crew was six days behind schedule. During post-production, studio executives balked at the nearly five-hour length of the workprint that Coppola had assembled – his rough cut was little better, at three-and-a-half hours long (even the most epic of musicals, such as The Sound of Music, rarely topped three hours in length). [13] Even after trimming the length considerably down, to under three hours, the film was critically lambasted and largely ignored by audiences – starting with its disastrous première in Chicago. The film became the largest box-office bomb in history, in terms of the paltry grosses when stacked against the massively inflated budget: costs had ballooned to $40 million, but the film generated revenues of only $3 million, for a 92.5% loss. [14] After a one-week run, the film was pulled from wide release, and United Artists was ruined. As a result, the studio declared bankruptcy, and this was the final straw for Transamerica. The conglomerate bowed to the demands of its stakeholders and withdrew from the motion picture industry altogether and put United Artists and all of its associated properties up for sale.
In the face of a major global recession, interest was tepid, until an unlikely buyer came onto the scene, one noted for his persistence and willingness to take risks. When Israel Asper, the owner of Canwest Global Broadcasting, made his offer, he was positioning himself to join a long list of Canadians who had left their home and native land for the bright lights of Hollywood: among them had been the actress Mary Pickford, an original investor in United Artists; the film moguls Louis B. Mayer (the third letter in MGM); and the Warner Brothers. The efforts Asper had made to expand the Global Television Network were paying dividends, thanks in large part to their flagship show, SCTV. However, he had a problem. Thanks to the Canadian Content policies, or CanCon for short, which had been mandated by the federal government, Asper had difficulty finding programming for his growing network – despite the noble (and perhaps overly naive) intentions of legislators, it was American programming, as opposed to Canadian (or even Commonwealth) programming – with exceptions, such as Doctor Who – that continued to draw Canadian audiences to their television sets. This was a fact of simple economics – the American market was large and robust enough that any shows which failed to attract an audience could have their costs written off by the networks and studios, who had counterbalancing successes elsewhere. By contrast, the Canadian market was small and even if homegrown programming was popular, it would have great difficulty recouping the costs of the vast majority of (unprofitable) network offerings, because it was much cheaper to simply schedule already-produced American series than to invest in an almost-certain loss. Hence, despite the Canadian programming in its schedule – often cheaply produced, or not under direct threat by American competition, such as local programming, children’s shows, game shows, newsmagazines, and sketch comedy – Global had conversely built its success on American programming, especially dramatic series. [15] Asper needed a way to ensure that he would maintain the schedule he knew his audiences demanded, while staying on the right side of Canadian law.
United Artists was Asper’s ticket to maintaining Global’s success, and further improving its position relative to rivals CTV and the CBC. Owning an American motion picture and television studio would allow Asper to produce his own programming at the same level as the American production companies. He could produce “Canadian” programming which fulfilled CanCon regulations, but were essentially American shows which just happened to be filmed in Canada with a mostly-Canadian cast and crew – as minute a proportion as Canwest could get away with – that would easily have ready buyers in the American market; this took advantage of a loophole in the CRTC regulations that supporters of CanCon simply did not anticipate. [16] As with his Canadian acquisitions, Asper saw value in United Artists’ broadcasting presence, despite its relatively small size compared to that of its competitors; there would definitely be room for him to expand his television network in the United States. On all counts, United Artists was the perfect solution to Canwest’s woes. His marketing skills enabled him to assemble a consortium of Canadian investors, including some of the wealthiest families in the country (most notably the Toronto-based Thomson family), to back his proposal – Canwest had a 50.1% stake in the consortium which bid for United Artists.
Yet he knew that the steps of acquiring the studio would be a difficult process, and Transamerica had obvious reservations about whether he was the “right” person to purchase United Artists – even though the board of directors would be perfectly happy to divest themselves of “that troublesome studio”. Regardless, Asper remained persistent. He remembered how in 1974, the original owners of what would become his flagship Winnipeg station – then known as KCND-TV – had balked at his then-radical idea of transferring the station to Manitoba from its original city of licence in Pembina, North Dakota. An unending series of flights to and from Houston to confer with KCND’s owners finally allowed the transfer to take place; so it would be in this case as well, with Asper becoming a regular visitor to the famed Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco to meet with the board and persuade them to sell their studio. In addition, he also travelled to Hollywood, to ingratiate himself with the UA management.
Essentially, Asper made Transamerica and offer they couldn’t refuse. He would buy United Artists – lock, stock, and barrel – for $350 million. Building upon a previous offer, made to the original owners of United Artists back in 1951, Asper offered to exercise control of United Artists for five years, and if the studio became profitable, he would have the option to assume permanent ownership of the company. [17] However, the most valuable promise he made was not to Transamerica, but to the people at United Artists itself. He promised to give the studio as much creative freedom as they wanted in making their films. Unlike Transamerica, he would wear the “X” rating with pride. After all, he wanted to have quality content on his Global Television Network. But he insisted that budgets be carefully monitored and controlled; there would not be another Tucker under his watch.
Once the media on both sides of the 49th parallel caught wind of the acquisition, their reactions varied widely. In Canada, the news made headlines, with whole sections covering the transaction from different perspectives (business, finance, life, entertainment, and – of course – the editorial pages). In fact, considering the media reaction, it came as something of a surprise that “Izzy”, as he was universally known, was not chosen as the Canadian Newsmaker of the Year, however much talk of the United Artists buyout overshadowed what many observers considered other, far more important stories. In the United States, however, apart from trade journals – including Variety (who dubbed it “the sale of the century”) – the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles and San Francisco media (most prominently the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, respectively) coverage was comparatively scant. This made a great deal of sense – for Canada, the purchase of a Golden Age film studio by a Canadian conglomerate was the “new foothold in Hollywood”, but for the Americans, UA had been just one studio among many. More ink was likely devoted to the coverage of the purchase of RKO by Desilu Productions back in 1958, even by the industry press (taking umbrage at upstart, one-time B-listers who had risen to the top in an equally upstart industry, then attempting to muscle their way into the establishment). On American television, ironically enough, the news was relegated to the entertainment section of most local newscasts (though every UA-owned station, unsurprisingly, covered the acquisition in considerable detail). During the run-up to the purchase, however, negotiations hit a minor snag with regards to UA’s broadcasting operations – the two television stations and the radio station in Philadelphia (plus a long-standing construction permit for a station in Houston). Although anti-trust regulations with regards to corporate ownership of broadcasters had been loosened under the Reagan administration, foreign ownership restrictions on media outlets remained firmly in place. A cap on direct foreign investment into broadcast stations, originally set at 25%, had risen only to 50%, less one share. [18] This seeming speedbump nearly threatened to derail Asper’s purchase, and it was undoubtedly the primary criticism from the American media perspective – sensationalism and nativism, after all, often went hand-in-hand. Canadian reporters observed the situation trying rather desperately not to gloat – those in the culturally protectionist Dominion were glad to see the proverbial shoe on the other foot. Asper did his best to silence them as he devised an extraordinary solution: United Artists’ broadcasting operations would be spun off into a separate company, retaining the United Artists Broadcasting name, and Canwest would own the maximum 50% – less one share – the local business communities in the respective markets would collectively own the remainder. This was deemed an acceptable solution by all sides, and was integrated into the deal.
However improbable it might have seemed, Israel Asper and Canwest Global Broadcasting cleared every roadblock to achieve their purchase of United Artists. Although Canwest was forced to adapt to their new, American-based division, day-to-day operations continued apace. Due to his unyielding loyalty to the province of his birth, Manitoba, Asper chose to maintain his headquarters in Winnipeg; he resisted calls to move to either Toronto (home to the flagship station of the Global Television Network) or Los Angeles (home of the United Artists studio). The bookkeeping and financial reporting at UA, and in all its divisions (including United Artists Broadcasting) would be revised in order to comply with Canadian tax laws, which strictly prohibited the “creative accounting” which was rife in Hollywood; this made United Artists the first studio to voluntary change their accounting standards after the Trial of the Century. Asper, aware of the good press this would bring Canwest, invited the “rogue accountant”, C.A. Baxter, to his studio to accept his commendations. Naturally, this did not earn Asper any friends in Tinseltown, though it would remain to be seen if this would matter in the long run. A more immediate focus for Canwest, meanwhile, was expanding Global into new markets; the third-largest network in Canada still had huge gaps in coverage throughout the Dominion. But for all of Asper’s trying, United Artists would change Canwest, as a company, and as a brand. It was no longer just another conglomerate which managed a television network and acted as a holding company for its owned-and-operated stations. Overnight, it became one of the major media companies in Canada – and in North America…
The new United Artists logo, incorporating the Canwest Global stylized “G”; otherwise it was a straight lift from the previous logo.
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[1] Coppola purchased the rights to Preston Tucker’s life story in 1976, IOTL and ITTL. Although he is involved with the production of Heart of Darkness IOTL (winning Best Picture as Producer and notably succeeding where the two Godfather films had failed), the production of what became Apocalypse Now IOTL was a much longer, more arduous process, and Tucker was shelved for ten years, before finally being released in 1988.
[2] Brando was considered for Tucker (45 years old when the film is set, and who died at age 53) during the 1970s pre-production period, but was both too old and too far out of the studios’ favour by the time production began in the mid-1980s: the role was cast with Jeff Bridges (who was actually too young for the part, ironically enough).
[3] And the former Secretary of the Treasury (and future U.S. Senator from California) William Gibbs McAdoo, son-in-law to President Woodrow Wilson, as the silent partner – despite having an equal share in United Artists, owning 20% of the company’s stock alongside each of the four actual united artists.
[4] The James Bond franchise had also produced 11 films by 1980 IOTL; neither reckoning includes the “unofficial” 1967 spoof film of Casino Royale.
[5] Gilligan’s Island was officially “revived” during the late-1970s revival TV-movie/miniseries fad (which, ITTL, also produced Star Trek: The Next Voyage) IOTL as well as ITTL – the Rescue from Gilligan’s Island two-parter aired in 1978 (which, yes, ends with them stranded on the same island after having been rescued), followed by The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island in 1979 (which doubled as an attempted backdoor pilot for a Love Boat ripoff, of all things). Perhaps the most notorious of the Gilligan movies, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island, aired in 1981 (yes, ITTL too).
[6] Recall that, ITTL, the “X”-rating was trademarked by the MPAA in 1972 and was able to maintain serious cachet as an “adults only” rating. Pornography (along with, later, obscene “video nasty” exploitation films) were not rated by the MPAA and only appeared in… “specialty” theatres (and, later, on home video), but were sometimes advertised as “rated A” (for adults only), “rated N” (for naughty, nudity, or not rated), or “rated U” (for unrated). At least one wag would refer to such films as being “in the ANUs”, an exceedingly lowbrow (and, fortunately, quite obscure) joke which was nonetheless wholly appropriate for their standard content.
[7] Over time IOTL, United Artists sold off much of their music and broadcasting operations. For example, “Rikavisión”, the Puerto Rican TV station in the United Artists Broadcasting portfolio, is now owned by Univisión, and is branded “Tele-Isla”; its affiliate in Mayagüez (on Puerto Rico’s west coast) is also an affiliate of Univisión. Likewise, United Artists Records was eventually absorbed by EMI.
[8] Tucker has the dubious distinction of being to TTL what Heaven’s Gate was to OTL – the single, wretched monument to the New Hollywood way of doing things that capsized it and everything it stood for. Why does such a film come into being ITTL? Because Heaven’s Gate was only the worst of a bad lot. See also: The Last Movie; New York, New York; At Long Last Love; Coppola’s own One From the Heart; etc., etc. It was basically inevitable that creative freedom would be taken to its logical extreme in such a degree.
[9] Coppola turned the same trick in OTL with his 1982 film One from the Heart, which involved re-creating modern-day Las Vegas on sound stages, including a set recreating McCarran Airport and the centrepiece set recreating the Strip… instead of actually flying out (or even driving – it’s just four hours away) to Las Vegas. At least late-1940s Chicago was a time and a place rather divorced from late-1970s Hollywood.
[10] One million feet of film stock were exposed for Apocalypse Now IOTL.
[11] IOTL, Coppola’s original plan for the Preston Tucker biopic did indeed include musical numbers. This probably didn’t happen because he (and every studio in Hollywood) had been burned by his musical One from the Heart, leaving us instead with the 1988 film we all love and enjoy.
[12] Preston Tucker’s children and grandchildren were involved as well with the 1988 film IOTL, where Coppola was keen to be as historically accurate as possible, to the point where Jeff Bridges imitated Preston’s mannerisms. The children even allowed Bridges to wear their (grand)father’s cuff links and ring – they notably did not extend this courtesy to Brando ITTL (one of Tucker’s grandchildren was overheard to rather callously remark that “It wouldn’t fit him!”).
[13] For comparison, the workprint of Apocalypse Now was 289 minutes, before he edited it down to 202 minutes (which was released in 2001 as Apocalypse Now Redux) – executives demanded the 153-minute cut released to theatres in 1978.
[14] Although Apocalypse Now (with a budget of $31.5 million) grossed $79 million domestically upon its release (good for fourth place in the year 1979), One From The Heart (with a budget of $26 million) grossed less than a million dollars. Tucker does better than that, but that’s still not nearly enough to save it – or United Artists.
[15] Recall that the original Global station in Toronto, ON, had driven itself into bankruptcy because it had an all-CanCon schedule, and it had to include American programming in its schedule in order to remain viable – making it no different from its rivals, primarily CTV (the CBC, though it is known at present for airing exclusively Canadian programming, did in fact air American series with some regularity prior to the mid-1990s, but never in as high a volume as the privately-owned networks did.)
[16] One of the earliest and most famous examples of this loophole abuse was Night Heat, which is rather notoriously set in a city which straddles the 49th parallel – any laws or customs which were exclusive to Canada or the United States were omitted. Considering that Night Heat was a police procedural, that took some doing. Other examples, spanning through the ages, include Forever Knight, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and all the Stargate series.
[17] In 1951, two freelance producers approached the remaining owners of United Artists (it was down to just Pickford and Chaplin by this point), with a similar proposal. Pickford was amenable, but Chaplin was initially opposed, changing his mind only when he ran afoul of the US government.
[18] This increase never happened IOTL – foreign owners are still restricted to the 25% share, even to the present day.
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This update was co-written with Dan1988, so my thanks to him for taking the time and effort to help me weave these disparate plot elements together! Thanks also, as usual, to e of pi for assisting with the editing. I hope all of you enjoyed the Heaven’s Gate of TTL, everyone – a musical about a man who invented a car. Perhaps not the most bizarre topic for such a genre (the Newsboys Strike of 1899 is still the reigning champ, at least IOTL), but certainly a prime contender for the title. Fun fact: many of the anecdotes regarding the production of Tucker are borrowed from real-life films. Bear that in mind: live by the auteur theory, die by the auteur theory.
