Clockwork Arrangements

 

I was definitely among the astonished when in April of this year, Warner Bros. announced they were launching a new specialty division, described by Deadline to be focused on “lower cost films, targeting digital natives and Gen Z audiences...with both independently made and acquired projects, as well as new films developed in-house for global theatrical release.” And not just because at that time, as now, the very existence of WB was teetering on the whims of both its Machiavellian CEO David Zaslav, and an impending loveless marriage with the Ellison family. As a student and obsessive about studio histories, I was also aware that WB was at best, a serial monogamist with independent film divisions, if not an outright Bluebeard.

 

The choice to name this new division Clockwork, in an obvious homage to one of the most singular, controversial, and monstrously successful “independent” films WB ever released, Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, was a manoeuvre that even at this moment I still can’t decide demonstrated extreme confidence or arrogance. But it certainly did its job in that it started me thinking about what a significant film CLOCKWORK ORANGE has been and continues to be in WB history. And seeing how one of the first announcements to come from Clockwork, which I explored in an earlier post, was the long-desired restoration of Ken Russell’s equally controversial but much less successful THE DEVILS, I think it’s a good time to delve into the theatrical history of the sibling film that made this return from limbo possible.

From its acquisition by the Hyman family’s Seven Arts Productions in 1967, to when Kinney Leisure Services, the nondescript conglomerate that bought them out in turn, decided to acknowledge culture as their prime product by renaming themselves Warner Communications in 1971, WB’s mindset for new films could be described the way smarmy studio chief Griffin Mill would lay out in Robert Altman’s THE PLAYER: “Political doesn't scare me. Radical political scares me. Political political scares me.” And thus came an initial run of, shall we say, politely politically radical films: BONNIE & CLYDE, PETULIA, THE SERGEANT, THE WILD BUNCH, THE LEARNING TREE, THE RAIN PEOPLE, WOODSTOCK.

If any production seemed on the verge of being too radical or political, WB employed a shadow division, Claridge Pictures, to release it to theatres. Initially, they started with sexy foreign pickups, notably Pietro Germi’s Cannes Grand Prix winner THE BIRDS THE BEES AND THE ITALIANS with Virna Lisi. They seemed poised to branch into youth rebellion – Boxoffice magazine announced Will Zens’ HELL ON WHEELS and William Grefe’s THE WILD REBELS as forthcoming releases – but those were ultimately sloughed off to legendary exploitation outfit Crown International Pictures.

The most famous and notorious Claridge subterfuge releases were Jack Cardiff’s vibe adventure THE GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE with Marianne Faithfull, which received an X rating, and Mark Rydell’s adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s lesbian drama THE FOX with Anne Heywood and Sandy Dennis, which did not get an official MPAA rating until 1973, as it was released before their first G-M-R-X designations, but for its ambiguous years got locally-administered X or R ratings depending on which market it was playing in.

Which speaks to the peculiar double standard in place at the studio then: that the WB shield (or at least the WB-7A shield) could stand in font of a film depicting life-threatening abortion (PETULIA) but not life-affirming libertine travel (MOTORCYCLE), that a self-homophobic suicide risk in THE SERGEANT is acceptable but two contented lesbians in THE FOX is beyond the pale.

By 1969, WB gave up hiding behind shadow divisions to release controversial features, because, well, the movies were too prestigious. Luchino Visconti’s THE DAMNED, Sidney Lumet’s adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play LAST OF THE MOBILE HOT SHOTS, Nicolas Roeg & Donald Cammell’s PERFOMANCE, Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS, and Bill Gunn’s STOP!, all received X ratings and all were, for the most part left alone. (Gunn’s STOP! notoriously did not get a proper theatrical release, but this was due to matters unrelated to the X rating it was given upon submission to the MPAA.) Reviews for them varied like any other offbeat studio film could expect, and none of them were poised to do blockbuster business, so whatever they drew in box revenue was likely considered par for the course.

And then, on December 19, 1971, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Toronto, WB released that film which would be an outright sensation, a game-changer, a perennial, and an instant classic. Though there was plenty of scrutiny in advance due to awareness of the book’s violent content as well as the X-rating, WB presented it with pride and prestige. As the old Klingon proverb goes, You can’t kick Kubrick to Claridge.

I wish I knew that light-bulb moment when John Calley and company knew they had a hit on their hands. Was it was the delivery of the perfect one-sheet with art by Philip Castle and layout by Bill Gold? The strobe-crazy trailer created by Pablo Ferro? The outrage-bait reviews from Pauline Kael (“pornographic”), Smith Hempstone (“depravity”), and John Simon (“one of the 10 Worst”)? Or was it when the first limited Christmas engagements earned an initial $26 million, and after its national opening on February 2, 1972, proceeded to almost double that amount, all against its thrifty (by Kubrickian standards) $1.3 million budget.

This should have opened the door to a larger wave of daring X-rated fare from the studio that brought you THE JAZZ SINGER (Mel Brooks voice: "No offense!"). Instead, it effectively slammed shut every gate on Barham, Olive, and Riverside for any future movies entering theatres with one. Besides the mothballed STOP!, the Ernest Lehrman-directed adaptation of Philip Roth’s PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT, which had been expected to be come out with an X, was recut to an R-level edit before release. CLOCKWORK ORANGE would be the last X-rated movie WB would support.

In fairness, it was likely due to increased hostility from several major cities to any and all films carrying the rating. Dallas theatres initially refused to book the film since all the local press and television stations would not take advertising for X product. Detroit allowed the film to open, but The Detroit News also banned its advertising, and the Grosse Pointe Film Council, who four years earlier had successfully banned WB’s THE FOX from screening, did not prevent CLOCKWORK from opening, but used it as their basis to propose legislation to ban all such films in the future. And in Cincinnati, one faced the schizophrenia of The Post freely advertising CLOCKWORK in a drive-in combo with THE FOX, sold as an X, while The Enquirer would only advertise “A BIG HIT” playing with THE FOX, sold with an R.

 

Moreover, even before matters came to a head, WB understood that broadening an audience to teens with disposable income was never a bad idea. On May 6, WB (not Claridge) started circulating a new R-rated cut of THE GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE, now retitled NAKED UNDER LEATHER. And to end confusion over ratings casually applied to THE FOX, WB removed several minutes and successfully got it a PG rating, though theatres still used the old campaign suggesting adults-only attendance and using the Claridge pseudonym. (The version available on MOD-DVD from Warner Archive is the original full Lukewarm Lesbian Action edit)

Between the news coverage of the advertising bans and moral crusades about the stylized violence, Kubrick, who had already reluctantly sat for several interviews to explain his intentions, announced that he had made slight cuts to two scenes, and that after October, CLOCKWORK would be withdrawn for 60 days, then reissued beginning in December 1972 with an R rating. While most people looked upon this as good news, syndicated entertainment columnist Jack O’Brian wrote in Sept ‘72, “[it’s] simply an uncourageous play to lure the kids barred from X-flicks. What happened to all of Stanley Kubrick’s brave words about never compromising his raunchy principles when it first emerged from under the dirty rock? This sort of sick flick really deserves an RX.”

Cutting CLOCKWORK to an R practically gave WB a mulligan on the national release, as it worked its way again through the country in 1973, this time contentedly crowing about “the millions that were not allowed to see it until now!” And with the recut rerated versions of THE DEVILS and THE FOX also available to those earlier forbidden towns, the three films became a sort of cult movie polycule, playing in some combination in drive-ins and second run houses through the year.

CLOCKWORK henceforth behaved as a self-winding watch that always declared it was time to make money. While plenty of the stronger WB films of the early 70s were enjoying healthy repertory business, as The Jazz Singer declared, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” In late 1974, teaser ads came out warning that bookings were being cancelled and the film would be going on moratorium.

The embargo was mercifully short. Beginning in February 1975, in the previously embattled state of Michigan, CLOCKWORK made a first-run return with a new ad campaign. And then from June to September, WB bundled it with John Boorman’s DELIVERANCE in a nationwide combo program declaring them “THE TWO MOST CONTROVERSIAL FILMS OF OUR TIME!” perhaps betting that at some point, summer moviegoers would get sold out of or get tired of JAWS.

Starting in December 1975, Kubrick’s next film, BARRY LYNDON, slowly expanded across America. Meeting even more divided reviews, and proving to be even more audience unfriendly than his previous hits, the film was performing not nearly as well as its predecessor.

So in September 1976, to give it a rub with skeptical moviegoers, WB made a gentleman’s agreement with MGM to package 2001, CLOCKWORK and LYNDON into a 3-week “Stanley Kubrick Festival,” with one movie playing clean each week, and yet another new abstract ad campaign for CLOCKWORK. The strategy had the unintended result of more venues rebooking CLOCKWORK after the festival promotion ended.

For the first half of the decade, prolonged theatrical exposure for the film was WB’s best and only hope to continue earning on it, and earny well they did. After all, home video was not yet a practical option. And the brass knew there was no way they could, say, ever sell the movie to network television. Even if they were craven enough to consider trying radical editing on it, in the manner where they took 25 minutes out of Visconti’s THE DAMNED and sold it to “THE CBS LATE MOVIE” on February 28, 1972 (curiously enough, when CLOCKWORK was in its X run), Kubrick, the all-hands-on-deck iconoclast, would never allow it.

So it was a welcome bonus when cable television became a viable alternate market, and Home Box Office, decades before it would become a sibling unit in the Warner portfolio, premiered CLOCKWORK on their channel in December 1977.

However, there was still residual resistance to this plan. Atlanta-based Cox Cable, at the time servicing half a million subscribers with HBO and other channels, intervened and informed all their customers that they would be blacking out all planned airings of the film, declaring it too violent and decadent to carry, despite HBO being a premium subscription channel. One of the Cox markets denied the premiere airings was Rutland, Vermont, the same city where WB first tested CLOCKWORK and THE DEVILS as a double feature.

The second windfall for WB commenced in November 1979 when, after 20^th Century and Paramount had earlier entered the home video market, WCI Home Video (later simplified to Warner Home Video) joined the movement, issuing 19 titles, all but four of them being movies from 1967-onward. Shortly after, in June 1980, CLOCKWORK emerged as tape #31.

After cable and physical media availability, most studios would have ended attempting any further theatrical exploitation beyond low-key repertory screenings. But WB still saw the possibilities for big screen bounty with CLOCKWORK, mounting a first-run reissue in 1982 that lasted from February to September in a smattering of markets – San Francisco, Phoenix, Northhampton, San Antonio, and Los Angeles – with another fresh campaign involving new artwork and touting “10 Major Awards including the Hugo for science fiction”. It’s not lost on this viewer that the timing meshes nicely with the releases of BLADE RUNNER and THE ROAD WARRIOR, soon to become cult film darlings of their own.

And the rest viddies by itself. Thousands of midnight screenings. Multiple DVD and Blu releases. An obligatory knockoff dorm room poster in every college. And an exhausted Malcolm McDowell signing too many autographs.

With this kind of odds-defying stamina and longevity, it’s understandable why the decampees from Neon would name their new Warner Bros. imprint Clockwork. It has the yarbles to signal to all that unlike Claridge, Fine Line, and Warner Independent, this company intends to go for the long haul, rebound against establishment fuds and old money, and constantly strike a chord with adventurous moviegoers. That they’re enterprising, aggressive, outgoing, young, bold, vicious. Let’s hope they make the most of it.

But, if Clockwork shuts down, for whoever is in charge of WB and makes that awful choice, it'll be their own torture. I hope to God it'll torture them to madness.