Show Business: The Brain In Spain

MOVIE PRODUCERS In his own inner eye, Producer Samuel Bronston sees himself as a kind of extraspectacular Cecil B. De Mille. He is earnestly trying to promote that notion, splash by splash. And he seems to be succeeding.

In order to understand this basic drive, it is not necessary to go back to his youth as a Russian emigre flute player educated at the Sorbonne, or to indicate that he is a stocky fellow with Napoleonic tendencies. It is only necessary to say that he is an opportunist, with an eye that sharpened slowly. He was nearly 50 when he saw his chance to be a new De Mille. He had drifted around as a salesman for M-G-M in France, a producer for Columbia Pictures in Hollywood, a photographer of art treasures in Rome, and a lecturer in

South America. Then in 1957, traveling through Spain, he learned that many U.S. corporations have money frozen in Spanish banks—and that the Spanish government permits these blocked funds to be reinvested in Spain.

Jesus & Janizaries. A bulb lighted up in his epic brain. Movies filmed in Spain could earn fluid money for their backers elsewhere in the world. Appealing to several American corporations that had plenty of cold pesetas, he said he wanted to film the story of John Paul Jones.

When they agreed, he hired Bette Davis, Robert Stack and Thomas Mitchell, and spent $4,000,000 overall. John Paul Jones, released in 1959, was not a great success, but it did make enough money to persuade Bronston’s sponsors to give him another try.

This time Bronston wanted to film the life of Jesus. He borrowed his new title—King of Kings—from De Mille, who had made his own King of Kings in 1927. To play Christ, he borrowed Actor Jeffrey Hunter (The Great Locomotive Chase) from the ranks of the unemployed. The picture won mixed notices but was a box-office success. It set Bronston up for the big grab. When he began picture No. 3, he had $10 million in capital support.

There had been rumblings from the Pardo that Bronston’s heroes were not Spanish. So, to smooth his position in Iberia and to dazzle the world at large, he poured the $10 million and every additional cent he could muster into a biography of Spain’s national hero, El Cid Campeador. He hired Charlton Ben-Heston and Sophia Loren. He acquired thousands of extras from the Spanish army. He erected cities, opened rivers, and reproduced 11th century Spain.Money meant nothing. By now, he had Pierre du Pont and a titanic Manhattan bank standing behind him like attentive janizaries.

Rome Refallen. He has followed El Cid with 55 Days at Peking (TIME, Sept. 14). An $800,000 Peking rose out of the rainless plains northwest of Madrid only to be razed by fire at the picture’s climax, with Ava Gardner and Charlton Ming-Heston caught in the fumes. Now he is filming The Fall of the Roman Empire (Sophia Loren, James Mason, Alec Guinness), and next he will re-create The Circus, Paris 1900 and The French Revolution.

The Spaniards have been grumbling again. Only Chinese Spaniards could find work in Peking. Bronston appeased the nation with touching short subjects. While filming Peking, he made a moving documentary about Franco’s war memorial at the Valley of the Fallen. Last month he brought out a second documentary bone — this one about a Mallorcan friar who founded numerous California missions. Chief Justice Earl Warren generously contributed his presence to the Mallorcan premiere.

Then Bronston followed that up with an announcement that he will soon be filming the life of Cervantes, with a script by the Spanish Ambassador to Paraguay. Bronston’s status is so high in Madrid at the moment that he could probably make a picture there called Remember the Maine.

Cordell & Old Hulls. Surveying his vast sets for The Fall of the Roman Empire, vaster eight times over than the sets of Cleopatra, he suddenly becomes Cordell Bronston. “This moving picture,” he says, “which covers less than two decades of history 18 centuries old, will be particularly significant and meaningful today when our greatest leaders seek to revive the Pax Romana in a disorderly world.” “Bronston’s simplicity and naivete are amazing,” says Actor James Mason, “and he comes through it all with great success. He’s like a little boy who never doubts his daydreams will come true.” He has the Midas touch. For John Paul Jones, he bought two proud vessels in Genoa that promptly ran aground on the Spanish coast, unseaworthy and unsalvageable. He had been taken by the crafty Genoese. But he has since rented the relics to other film companies in search of fresh shipwrecks (Billy Budd, Damn the Defiant), not only recovering his entire investment but also making a fat profit. Even his blunders pay 12½%.