He's at it again!
HOLLYWOOD - This is a make-or-break year for Malcolm McDowell, and he's got plenty of ammunition for the battle. Already signed to start another film shortly - this one for producer Bob Evans - he has five - count 'em, five movies coming out this year alone. The first, Britannia Hospital, has already won rave reviews in New York, L.A. and Toronto, reuniting him with his favorite director, Lindsay Anderson. The second. Blue Thunder, is currently raking in box office dollars across North America after a sensational opening earlier this year in, of all places, West Germany. The third. Cross Creek, reunites him on screen with his actress wife Mary Steenburgen and was selected as a U.S. entry for competition at the just wrapped Cannes Film Festival. The fourth. Flip Out (Get Crazy - Alex), casts him in his first singing role - as a rock star, no less. And the fifth. Arthur The Legend, a CBS TV movie, casts him as Camelot's ruler in the twilight of his life. McDowell is cautiously optimistic about his chances but is hoping for a hat trick of hits.
Artistic success
"Britannia Hospital is my artistic success." he
says cheerfully. "I'm hoping Blue Thunder will be my big commercial
success, to get some bucks in the bank."
He needs them, he says, to pay for the 57-acre ranch he's
just purchased in Ojai, California. He and Mary and 16-month-old Lilly Amanda
will live in a ranch house designed by Walter Herndon, art director to Cross
Creek director Martin Ritt, and it's a knockout - but expensive.
McDowell is quick to point out that he only did a cameo role
in Cross Creek, as a favor to Mary. And he was concerned that he might jinx Mary
and Marty's chances at Cannes if he attended the festival with them.
"I haven't had a win at Cannes since if...." he
reminds me. "Lindsay (Anderson) and I went back with O Lucky Man!, and we
took Britannia Hospital to them last year, but we came out empty-handed."
Did he expect Blue Thunder to be a hit?
"It smelled like one, but who knows? They told me Cat
People was going to be a monster hit, but it was a very sophisticated horror
movie. It did great in the big cities but it was too sophisticated for the
sticks, the small towns; they expect a horror movie to be Friday The l3th."
He shakes his head, mystified.
"A few years ago," he says, "I did a picture I
loved called Time After Time, and the people who saw it loved it. We had a big
opening in Toronto at the Festival of Festivals - huge - and they gave us a
fabulous reception. Great city, Toronto - Mary and I love it there. Great
restaurants, great people. Anyway, the studio hired
these so-called 'experts' to tell them how to market the film. And these silly
asses took a poll to determine a 'recognition' factor. And more people
recognized Jack The Ripper, which was David Warner's role in the movie, than H.
G. Wells, who I played in the movie. Hardly anyone recognized the name H. G.
Wells, in fact.
"So they decided to go with a campaign that stressed
Jack The Ripper, which was all well and good except that people didn't want to
see another movie about Jack The Ripper, and they stayed away in droves."
He shrugs.
"I've got a big piece of that film, but I haven't seen a
penny, and I probably never will," he adds with a sigh. "However, I
did meet my wife making that movie, so I don't really mind."
He thinks Cross Creek is an admirable film, and that Mary is
fabulous in it. "But then I'm biased." Flip Out could be fun. he says,
"if they ever stop changing the title. Last week it was called Get Crazy.
This week it's Flip Out. It'll be hard to live that one down."
Is Flip Out aimed at a specific audience? "At
nine-year-old idiots, I think." He quite likes Arthur The Legend, though,
even though he didn't like making it all that much.
"It was a co-production," he explains,
"between CBS and Yadran Films of Yugoslavia - What a merry crowd they were!
I shouldn't think I'll be going back to Yugoslavia for a holiday for a while -
the greasy food really got to me.
"But it is very beautiful over there," he adds
hastily. After all, he may have to go back there someday, greasy food or not, to
shoot another movie.
He realizes he's still best known for his work in Stanley
Kubrick's controversial Clockwork Orange, and he's learned to live with it. He
doesn't see Kubrick, "but then no one does. He's isolated himself even
further now - He has his ivory tower and he lives in it." He pauses.
"We're not friends. But I have a soft spot for the old bastard,
actually."
Films like Time Alter Time could have changed all that, but
didn't. And in Blue Thunder he plays second fiddle to the hardware like everyone
else.
"I only worked 17 days on the whole film, in fact. I
used to sit in my hot tub and wonder what scenes they were shooting at the
studio."
He plays Roy Scheider's nemesis - "a nasty piece of
business, and I played him that way. Because the piece won't work unless you
have a truly villainous villain." And he hated every minute of the
helicopter flying sequences.
Exhausting work
"It was exhausting work, and very unpleasant - I'd do
a shot, go to my trailer and throw up, then go out and do another shot. I was
supposed to be this butch pilot." he says with self-deprecating grin,
"and they had to retake one scene where I thought we were going to buy it
for sure, smash right into the building, and you could hear me crying no! No!
NO! right on the soundtrack."
He is, by his own admission, much happier on the ground - on
a sound stage or a real stage. Two seasons ago he won Broadway huzzahs in a
revival of Look Back In Anger: now he's
considering a return to the Great White Way in The Beastly Beatitudes of
Balthazar B. "but only if Lindsay will come over from England to
direct."
In the meantime he'll ponder his role in Tin Soldiers, in
which he'll play another rock singer.
"Imagine, here I am going into my forties, suddenly
playing rock singers" he says with a wry smile, "And I've got 10 songs
to do in this one! Actually, it's a rather nice script, because the fellow is on
his downward spiral, and he meets this boy, a son he never knew he had,
and..."
Malcolm McDowell is at it again.
© Toronto Sun 1983
This transcription and format 2001-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net