Famed erotic director Radley Metzger will make a very rare in person appearance at the Walter Reade Theater of NYC's Lincoln Center, Manhattan, NY to present and give a Q&A regarding the screening of his 1978 film, THE CAT AND THE CANARY for September 4, 2009 at 7:00PM.
is this his only high-profile legit non-erotica film? (and why?)
shareUnfortunately yes, since despite the all star cast and location filming in England,the film was not well distributed at the time of it's release 1978 and Metzger's reputation as a softcore sex film director preceded him with the film critics at the time when they negatively reviewed the film and Metzger was forced to go back doing sexploitations films with his last films,THE TALE OF TIFFANY LUST in 1980 and THE PRINCESS & THE CALLGIRL in 1982 which was his last film,before he finally retired from making films.
shareReading about his innate-talent as a director, I wonder what the obstacle was in approaching filmaking with higher ambitions from the beginning. Was he talented,yet insecure?
shareMy guess is that Metzger had already decided early in his filmmaking career that he wanted to do erotic films like other European filmmakers like Roger Vadim (BARBARELLA) and Mac Alberg(I A WOMAN) since his film distribution company Audubon Films was already distributing erotic softcore European films of the 1950's and 1960's in the US.It was the same decision that other talented sexploitation directors like Russ Meyer and Joe Sarno took,even though they had innate talents as film directors like Metzger had but their preference to specialize in erotic films also typecast them before Hollywood even though Metzger as well as Russ Meyer did mainstream Hollywood films for major Hollywood studios like THE SEVEN MINUTES & BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS for 20th Century Fox.Remember that film directors like the late Gary Graver did mainstream TV work and B movies for Hollywood was also famous under his alias of Robert McCallum when he directed XXX films in the 1970's and even Academy Award director Francis Ford Coppola started his career doing stag films in the early 1960's under a false name,which he never admitted until he was already very famous and he felt confident enough to appear in person at the 1985 Adult Film Awards to receive a adult film pioneer award.
shareI knew Gary Graver had directed some soft-core films, but not hard core(though imdb has both his DP/director films in one catagory) Along with Coppola, look at Oliver Stone's humble beginnings.
With C & C, you mentioned that the biz learned of Metzger's soft-core history after the release. I was wondering if the producer(and stars) knew when he was hired, and didn't care. Metzger must had been so proud to be directing C & C and feeling like his career was taking a new direction,and entering the big time. Sounds like he could have been one the greats.
Yes,you are totally correct.At the Walter Reade Screening of THE CAT AND THE CANARY last year,I met in person both Radley Metzger and the film's producer Richard Gordon who is the brother of Alex Gordon who wrote and produced such B movie classics like THE SHE CREATURE,VOODOO WOMAN and other films for AIP.I asked both Metzger and Gordon that very same question regarding if the production knew of Metzger's infamous erotic film reputation and Gordon said that he and the other producer did know of Matzger's fame as a softcore erotic filmmmaker,but what really mattered to them was that Metzger was a real film stylist and the right man at that time to make their film. But according to Gordon,the US distributor didn't have much faith in the film for being a remake of an old 1930's thriller classic that might not be relevant for today's(1978) movie audience. The same thing happened to Hammer Film's remake of Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES with Elliot Gould, Cybil Shepard and Angela Lansbury that came out in the same year of 1978 and was a complete comericial and artistic box office failure that caused the final nail in the coffin of the economically ailing Hammer Studios.