{"id":17183,"date":"2021-09-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=17183"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:14:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:14:04","slug":"scotching-the-snake-polanski-python-and-playboy-productions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/scotching-the-snake-polanski-python-and-playboy-productions\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotching the Snake: Polanski, Python, and Playboy Productions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Decades before Howard Stern anointed himself the \u201cKing of All Media,\u201d Playboy Enterprises mogul Hugh Hefner took a run at the title as the swinging Sixties gave way to the permissive Seventies. In addition to its publishing arm, Playboy had a string of successful clubs and casinos, and had made inroads on the small screen with the Hefner-hosted talk show Playboy After Dark<\/em>. One area it hadn\u2019t ventured into, though, was the darkened theater, but that would change in 1971 with the release of two features that sought to expand the Playboy brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the surface, Roman Polanski\u2019s Macbeth<\/em> and Monty Python\u2019s And Now for Something Completely Different<\/em> couldn\u2019t be more dissimilar. One is a Shakespearean tragedy shot on location and at Shepperton Studios over six months and at great expense. (The final cost varies based on the source, but the generally agreed-upon figure is in the ballpark of $2.5 million.) The other is a comedy filmed on a budget of 80,000 pounds at a converted dairy in just five weeks. Where one was intended to launch Playboy Productions as a high-minded purveyor of prestige films by world-class directors, the other was designed to break a British comedy troupe into the US market. Talk about your best laid plans\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe selection of Roman Polanski\u2019s <\/strong>Macbeth<\/em><\/strong> as the first Playboy Production is quite unexpected, I\u2019m sure, in many quarters, and that\u2019s one of the reasons we chose it. Because we didn\u2019t want to do something that people were expecting.\u201d \u2013Hugh Hefner in <\/strong>Polanski Meets Macbeth<\/em><\/strong>, 1971<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point man for Playboy\u2019s entr\u00e9e into the film world was Victor Lownes, who managed the London Playboy Club and was a close confidante of Polanski\u2019s. (He was even with the director the night Sharon Tate was murdered.) When Polanski decided to try his hand at adapting Macbeth<\/em> (in collaboration with theater critic Kenneth Tynan) and no Hollywood studio would back him, Lownes convinced Hefner to put up the money. That amounted to something of a blank check for the perfectionist Pole, who quickly went overschedule \u2013 the shoot was originally supposed to last 10-12 weeks \u2013 and over-budget. Macbeth<\/em> is one case where the money is up on the screen, however, since Polanski insisted on period-appropriate props, costumes, and settings, plus battle scenes featuring hundreds of extras. He even came up with his own fake-blood formula when he was dissatisfied with the one provided by the effects technicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s indicative of Polanski\u2019s hands-on approach and attention to detail. As anyone who has seen Polanski\u2019s Macbeth<\/em> can attest, the blood is paramount since he makes literal lines such as \u201cNever shake thy gory locks at me,\u201d and \u201cIt will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood.\u201d With its shocking tableaus of King Duncan\u2019s dismembered grooms and Macduff\u2019s slain children, the film came under fire for Polanski\u2019s supposed exploitation of his personal tragedy, as well as his decision to film Lady Macbeth sleepwalking in the nude. Any publicity these controversies generated, however, failed to draw audiences to the film beyond its premiere engagement at the Playboy Theater in New York City, where it opened on December 20, 1971. Near the end of Polanski Meets Macbeth<\/em>, Hefner says going over-budget \u201cwill be a worthwhile investment.\u201d He probably didn\u2019t feel the same way after the box-office receipts came in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found it dragged heavily and parts of it were downright dull. But my judgement is probably coloured by seeing most of it before \u2013 several times. I still feel sad that we didn\u2019t write more original material.\u201d \u2013Michael Palin\u2019s diary, March 5, 1971<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as he brought Polanski to Playboy, Victor Lownes was instrumental in enticing the Python team into repurposing 90 minutes of material from the first two series of their Flying Circus<\/em> for the cinema. His request for a flashy executive producer credit rankled animator Terry Gilliam, though, who declined to make one for him. (Accordingly, the title card crudely inserted into the opening was done by someone else.) That was but one of several disagreements Lownes had with the Pythons about the content of their own film since he insisted on a \u201cgreatest hits\u201d approach to selecting material and demanded they cut out Michael Palin\u2019s Ken Shabby character completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of these and other decisions, And Now for Something Completely Different<\/em> feels somewhat warmed over, with sketches that had previously worked like gangbusters falling flat. Sometimes this is the result of director Ian MacNaughton\u2019s choice of dramatic camera angles and distracting camera moves (e.g. setting \u201cNudge Nudge\u201d in a working pub with lots of extras and the camera slowly creeping around Eric Idle and Terry Jones trying to replicate the timing of their original studio performance). Tellingly, the sketches that come off best (\u201cHell\u2019s Grannies,\u201d \u201cThe Funniest Joke in the World,\u201d \u201cUpper Class Twit of the Year\u201d) are the ones conceived as films from the start, along with Gilliam\u2019s animations, which greatly benefit from being re-shot in 35mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having been sold to the Pythons as a product for the American market, And Now for Something Completely Different<\/em>\u2019s UK release (on September 28, 1971) occasioned some ironic comments about how \u201cdifferent\u201d it really was. And when it did show up stateside the following year, the film lost money due to poor marketing, inspiring the troupe to retain more control over their next film. Curiously, when Monty Python and the Holy Grail<\/em> emerged three years later, it seemed to take its cues from Polanski\u2019s Macbeth,<\/em> since it\u2019s just as muddy, bloody, and gory. (A thin line separates Macbeth\u2019s graphic beheading and the Black Knight\u2019s dismemberment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Polanski, his immediate follow-up was the kind of kind of titillating sex comedy audiences probably expected from Playboy in the first place. 1972\u2019s X-rated What?<\/em> (released in the US as Diary of Forbidden Dreams<\/em> and shorn of 20 minutes) was even more of a flop than Macbeth<\/em>, though, much to producer Carlo Ponti\u2019s chagrin. Meanwhile, having shot its wad, Playboy Productions limped along with a slate of TV movies, capping off the decade with the 1979 special Playboy\u2019s Roller Disco & Pajama Party<\/em>. Enough said. \"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifty years ago, Hugh Hefner tried to extend his Playboy empire into film production. It did not go quite as planned. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":17185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-17183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22175,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17183\/revisions\/22175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}