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A chronology and list of
events in Cassavetes' early career, 1957-1959. To access a chronology
and list of events covering the last ten years of Cassavetes' life and
the seventeen years following his death, click
here.
1929
- 1956 / 1957
- 1959 / 1960
-1962 / 1963
-1968
Shadows and Johnny Staccato: 1957-1959 |
- In the fall of 1955, JC meets Burt
Lane (a graduate of Gena Rowlands' AADA class and father of actress
Diane Lane), and they re-establish the relationship. Lane is
about to give up acting.
- In early 1956, they rent a room on
an upper floor of the Variety Arts Building at 225 W 45th St
and invite friends to read. They move to a vacant room on the
ground floor for around $800 a month. This amateur adventure
takes the official name of "The Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop." Classes
are held a few nights a week and divided based on the experience
(Cassavetes took the advanced students). They charge two dollars
a head. This workshop, where Hug Hurd, Tony Ray and Lelia Goldoni
were students, developed the roots of Shadows.
- The Workshop is very contrasted with
the Actor's Studio. JC refused to enter the Studio, but when
he became famous, they invited him for an audition. He decided
to go with Lane and they improvise along the way. Strasberg is
impressed by the piece and doesn't recognize the prank.
- In January 1957, JC makes a special
Sunday session at the Workshop and invites some students to join
him. He describes a scene in details and the actors have to imagine
and improvise (the scene is the post-coital sequence between
Tony and Lelia and Hugh).
- They think of turning the improvisation
into a movie. All he needs are $7500 and a cameraman.
- The cameraman turns to be Erick Kollmar.
To get the money he pays visit to Jean Shepard's Night People,
declaring that if people want a movie about people they have
to pay for it. And so they do - $2500 in cash and checks.
- The movie is not intended for public
distribution so the cast & crew are not paid for the job.
- The shooting lasts more than ten
weeks, from the end of February until May of 1957.
- The relationship with Lane becomes
tense because JC didn't include Lane in the project and once
the movie began, the school is practically taken over by the
troupe.
- JC has a deadline: in the spring
of 1957 he has to play in Saddle the Wind and Virgin
Island.
- By the beginning of May the shooting
is finished. Editing starts. It takes more than 18 months. The
problems run from too much footage to edit, to the poor quality
of much of the sound and to wide inexperience.
- JC's first choice for the soundtrack
is Miles Davis, but he is turned down after his contract with
Columbia Records. He then asked Charles Mingus, but after the
first session he composes only two minutes of music. To finish
the score JC asks Shafi.
- In February of 1958, JC's brother
Nick dies.
- The movie is finished and ready to
screen in late November 1958. It costed $25,000.
- Premiere at Paris Theater in New
York.
- The movie needed some reshoots, and
JC did them in the spring of 1959. He re-edited in the summer
of 1959, leaving only twenty-five minutes of the original footage.
- The new version (35mm) is shown on
November 11th, 1958, at 7:15 and 9:30 P.M. at Amos Vogel's program "The
Cinema of Improvisation." It is a success. Except for Jonas
Mekas (who was very happy with the first release). Ben Carruthers
and Erik Kollmar advocate Mekas' complaints.
- JC is goes through a difficult time:
he is broke and has to borrow money everywhere. GR is pregnant
and can't work, and he's never at home. To pay the debts (and
to finish the re-editing of Shadows - because the offer
comes eight months before the finish of it) he accepts an offer
to direct and star in a TV series, Johnny Staccato.
- Nicholas David Rowlands Cassavetes
was born on May 21, 1959, just before going to Hollywood to start
the six months shooting of Staccato.
- The pilot, "The Naked Truth",
airs on NBC on a Thursday evening, the 10th of September 1959.
It's not a success, with either the public or the critics.
- JC directs five episodes and co-writes
one. He begins to be unhappy with the program, mostly because
the "politically correctness" imposes rules he doesn't
like. Some letters arrive at the studio complaining about specific
episodes and the references to religion and sex. When an episode
about drug addiction is held, it's the last straw.
- JC begins a series of attacks and
forces the production to break his contract. Johnny Staccato ends
on March 24 1960 after 27 of the scheduled 39 episodes.
- JC waits for a distributor for Shadows,
but after the fuss about the two versions and the cut and thrust
on The Village Voice, nobody comes. Nobody wants to deal with
a "difficult" actor after the Johnny Staccato brouhaha.
- JC goes to Dublin to shoot a trash
called The Webster Boy. The movie is no history, but the writer
is Ted Allan. This friendship will last until JC's death. Another
good outcome will be a distributor for Shadows. At the
Vogel's show there was the San Francisco Film Festival programmer
and writer for Film Quarterly, Albert Johnson. He loved Shadows and
wrote a great review.
- After The Webster Boy, JC and Seymour
Cassel go to London to discover that Shadows is the
talk of the town (thanks greatly to Johnson). Shadows is
shown at The Beat, Square and Cool Festival. It is a smash.
- JC takes Jo Lustig as his British
agent and, after the success of Shadows at the Venice
Film Festival (August 25, 1960 - where it won the Critic Award),
Lustig has a deal with British Lion (UK distribution) and Europa
Films (Scandinavian distribution). It is shown for the first
time at Academy Cinema in the West End on October 14, 1960, and
it grosses $11,000 in the first week (and stays there for six
months). The major magazine and newspapers have good reviews
and the major film magazine, Sight&Sound, dedicates a special
in its Autumn/Winter 1960/1961 and Winter 1961 issues.
- With the $28.000 from the distribution
deal, the big money from the UK showing and the 70-30 split in
favor of the production, JC is able to recover more than half
of the expenses (and debt).
- On November 15, JC signs a US distribution
with British Lion. The American release is greatly disappointed,
with two only significant bookings in march 1961, even if the
releases is timed with the buzz surrounding JC and his first
Hollywood movie, Too Late Blues.
- With Shadows JC gains more
or less $40,000.
- Hollywood takes note and it'll soon
dial JC's number.
|
1929
- 1956 / 1957
- 1959 / 1960
-1962 / 1963
-1968
A chronology and list of
events in Cassavetes' early career, 1963-1968. To access a chronology
and list of events covering the last ten years of Cassavetes' life and
the seventeen years following his death, click
here.
This
is only the "To Print" page. To go to the regular page of Ray Carney's www.Cassavetes.com on which this text appears, click
here, or close this window if you accessed the "To Print"
page from the regular page. Once you have brought up the regular page,
you may use the menus to reach all of the other pages on the site. |