Bringing plays to the populace

Producer Ely Landau’s American Film Theatre was a noble experiment -- to produce and distribute feature films adapted directly from plays that would screen about once a month in movie theaters on a subscription basis. But distribution difficulties, ticket snafus, soaring expenses and angry movie studios lead to AFT’s demise in 1975, after two years and 14 films that featured such heavyweight stars as Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Lee Marvin, Glenda Jackson and Fredric March.

Occasionally, these movies have shown up at festivals. And battered and edited prints have popped up on television. But thanks to the rising popularity of DVD, the American Film Theatre’s productions have a new life. Last month, Kino on Video released a box set of four titles and another box set arrives in July. And beginning Saturday at the Leo S. Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Treasures From the American Film Theatre” will screen on Saturdays through the end of the month.

The festival kicks off with Edward Albee’s drama, “A Delicate Balance” (1973), starring Hepburn, Scofield and Lee Remick and directed by Tony Richardson; and Jean Genet’s “The Maids” (1974), starring Glenda Jackson and Susannah York and directed by Christopher Miles.

On May 24, director Arthur Hiller will introduce his film, “The Man in the Glass Booth” (1975), the only AFT production to receive general release, and Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming” (1973) with Cyril Cusack and Ian Holm and directed by Peter Hall.

The retrospective concludes May 31 with Eugene O’Neill’s landmark “The Iceman Cometh” (1973), with Marvin, March and Robert Ryan in the performance of his life. The late director John Frankenheimer considered the ensemble piece one of his greatest creative experiences.

Landau’s widow, Edie, is thrilled that these films have finally seen the light of day after three decades. “They just laid dormant for such a long time,” says Landau, who was partner and executive vice president of AFT. After the end of AFT, the pictures were sold to one company which was later sold to Lorimar which was later sold to Warner Bros.

“These pictures represented such a little pebble on Warner Bros.’ vast beach of films,” says Landau. “They just really didn’t have the time or inclination to promote them.”

After Warners’ rights expired and returned to Landau, she discovered the films were in serious disrepair and needed restoration. “It has been a major task because Warner Bros. couldn’t even find where half the stuff was. It was a tough job. We are still searching for soundtracks. We are still trying to piece together various components because they just lay there for 30 years,” she says.

American Film Theatre is an outgrowth of two previous endeavors by the Landaus. From 1959 to ‘61, they produced 66 “Play of the Week” works for television including Sidney Lumet’s adaptation of “The Iceman Cometh” with Jason Robards and a 23-year-old Robert Redford. And then in 1970, they convinced 500 movie theaters across the country to simultaneously screen, on one night only, their four-hour documentary on Martin Luther King, “Martin: A Filmed Record ... Montgomery to Memphis.” The screening was a rousing success and the Landaus raised a couple million dollars for the Martin Luther King Special Fund.

AFT is a marriage between “Play of the Week” and the distribution pattern of “Martin.” Under the AFT plan, films would screen at theaters just on Mondays and Tuesdays for two performances; subscribers could expect a new play generally every month.

The Landaus teamed up on their ambitious project with American Express. “We needed some financing,” Landau says. “Not only did they have deep pockets, we thought at that time they had the computer wherewithal. That is the big error that occurred. The people they hired [to service the tickets] did a terrible job. There was a massive screw-up with computers and tickets that’s hard to even conceive of today. Theaters were oversold and theaters were undersold. We had a theater in New York where the tickets had never gone out and the theater was totally empty.”

The Landaus had the rights to O’Neill’s plays after the success of the TV version of “Iceman,” so they decided to do that as the first of 14 films. Some of the plays they acquired from studios.

“ ‘The Homecoming’ was owned by MGM for years. ‘Rhinoceros’ had been owned by U.A. Even though the studios had bought them, the likelihood they would actually be made was unlikely,” Landau says.

“[The Landaus] picked what they thought would be thought-provoking and have some emotional effect on the audience,” says director Hiller. “But they weren’t the kind of plays the studios felt would make commercial films.”

With projects in hand, the Landaus then approached directors. Once signed on, the couple then worked with the director on casting. In one instance, recalls Hiller, the Landaus wanted Donald Pleasance, who received a Tony nomination in 1969 for “The Man in the Glass Booth,” to reprise his role as a Jewish industrial tycoon accused by Israeli secret agents of being a Nazi war criminal. But, says Hiller, “I and Eddie Anhalt, who wrote the screenplay, felt on stage the play is intellectual game-playing. I felt on screen you needed more emotion. That’s why I wanted Max Schell because I felt I would get passion and humor too.”

Hiller’s instincts were right. Schell received an Oscar nomination for best actor. Though Robert Shaw of “Jaws” fame had written the “Man in the Glass Booth” play, his name is not listed on the credits. Hiller says Shaw didn’t like his emotional approach to the material. “Then he saw the movie and phoned producer Mort Abrams and said he wanted his name back on the credits because he loved it. But it was too late.”

Edie Landau acknowledges that the AFT years were rough ones. Major studios weren’t happy that the AFT films were “interrupting” the engagement of their films and so the studios told the theaters to cease showing the AFT films.

“Our theaters began canceling. We actually had a lawsuit going and then [the studios] backed off,” she says.

Because of high expenses, AFT did not make money.

“I think we had close to 600 theaters the first year,” Landau says. “That is a lot of prints, so we divided the country into thirds and we bicycled the shows. The whole distribution pattern became very, very difficult.

“Even though the films were low budget, the advertising, promotion, the print costs, the fulfillment costs were astronomical. It wasn’t a practical thing. We got really tired. We were battling windmills.”

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‘Treasures’

What: “Treasures From the American Film Theatre”

Where: Leo S. Bing Theater, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd.

When: Saturday, and May 24 and 31; 7:30 p.m.

Price: $8 general; $6 for museum and AFI members, seniors (62 and older) and students with valid I.D.

Contact: (323) 857-6060