Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, August 10, 1966, s. 1, p. 24, c. 3:
TOWER TICKER
by Herb Lyon
" . . . . Shrewd Alfred Hitchcock is up with the year's No. 1 "put on" flicker, via his latest thriller, "Torn Curtain," opening Fri. at the Chicago theater. The plot is more outlandish than any James Bond romp, but from the opening razzle-dazzle [criticized] in-bed scenes with co-stars Julie [Mary Poppins??] Andrews and Paul Newman, to the cornball finish, it's simply red-hot at all box offices. [Hitch, with rare insight, senses public timing like nobody.]
__________________________________
Yes, he did have insight, too bad it was wasted on this story . . . I do believe Miss Andrews made a bad mistake taking this film, and especially in doing the opening scene with Newman----obliterating her public image . . . to no good really . . .
It is hell trying to figure out the "real" grosses on movies like Torn Curtain -- but Hitchcock biographer Pat McGilligan contends that it made LESS than "Marnie" before it...with much more expensive stars in it.
I've also read, however, that "Torn Curtain" opened strong(it was given wide release, no flagships) on the Newman/Andrews/Hitchcock names...but word of mouth killed it quick.
Expectations were ridiculously high for Torn Curtain...Newman, Andrews, Hitchcock and damn..it was "Hitchcock's 50th Film!"(so they said.)
The resultant flop was simply devastating to Hitchocck's career. No more stars. Ever dwindling budgets. Hot screenwriters turning him down right and left(he lucked into the hot Anthony Shaffer for Frenzy, but had to fall back on old pals Samuel Taylor and Ernest Lehman for Topaz and Family Plot, respectively.)
In New York in 1966, a major studio film would open exclusively i n1-2 Manhattan theaters for typically 1-3 months before going wide through the metropotian area. For example, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened in June and was still exclusive into August. The exception was for cheapie exploitation films (such as the Batman feature that summer) which would ope nwide and usually disappear within a week or two.
However, Torn Curtain opened exclusively as per the norm, but went wide the very next week, a sure sign of trouble. I invited my father to go with me and he said "can't be any good, it didn't have a run".
The exception was for cheapie exploitation films (such as the Batman feature that summer) which would ope nwide and usually disappear within a week or two.
However, Torn Curtain opened exclusively as per the norm, but went wide the very next week, a sure sign of trouble. I invited my father to go with me and he said "can't be any good, it didn't have a run".
---
Interesting. And certainly true about "Batman" that summer.
I saw "Torn Curtain" on release in Southern California as a kid. Years later, I checked the theater ads for it on newspaper microfiche(as I did for all Hitchocck movies from The Birds on, mainly to double-check WHERE I saw these films) and found that in Southern California...it went "wide" from the get-go. No flagship engagements. This may have been some weeks after New York.
From my readings, I might add that The Birds, Marnie and Torn Curtain "opened wide" but...Topaz got a flagship LA/New York run in 1969(for Oscar qualifications it never got, though Hitchcock did manage a "Best Director" award from the National Board of Review for the film) and Frenzy got about a monthlong June-July 1972 flagship(at the Cinerama Dome, now the ArcLight, in LA, where I first saw it, and New York), then a "roll out" to a few more theaters, and then went wide in August.
Family Plot went out wide on Easter week, 1976.
---
Jaws was supposedly the first "hundreds of screens same Friday release" but indeed many cheapies(particularly in summer went out that way.) So did Jerry Lewis pictures, and, alas, more than a few Hitchcock pictures.