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NEXT STORY

The Wild Party: Problematic black and white

RELATED STORIES

The Wild Party: Sneak previews
Walter Lassally Film-maker
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Yes, poor Perry King, who plays the boy that Raquel's supposed to be madly in love with. At the peak of her being difficult, she wouldn't even look at him. So there's this poor boy trying to play his scene and Raquel won't even look at him. It's very sad. And then she changed... it all changed again. During post-production... oh yes, she walked off and then she said to James, 'You must apologise, I'll come back if you apologise'. And she came back and they arranged this public apology in front of everybody, which the sound recordist recorded, so that exists somewhere. That whole tape exists, where James says, 'Listen everybody, just come a moment and listen. If I offended... Raquel, if offended you in any way yesterday, I am sincerely sorry, and I apologise unreservedly', or something, it was all written down, what he had to say. Then Raquel said, 'I accept your apology', and just shook hands and the whole thing took off again.

But it wasn't... but that wasn't the end of it. She continued to be difficult and then she changed sides completely. At the end of the film when the film was finished and being edited, then she... the producers tried to take the film away from James and re-edit it and then Raquel changed sides and said, 'If you do that I won't do any publicity for you'. But it was re-edited and it was shown in London in its re-edited version, and they made a complete hash of it, and of course, it died after one week. Of course, in many cases, when that happens, when they re-edit a film to make it more commercial, it doesn't do anything of the kind. Then, of course, there's the question of sneak previews, which I don't think that film underwent, actually. But on a later Merchant Ivory film I shall talk about sneak previews, because they were absolutely disastrous. And they're something the Hollywood people believe in like it was the bible. Absolutely extraordinary.

Born in Germany, cinematographer Walter Lassally (1926-2017) was best known for his Oscar-winning work on 'Zorba the Greek'. He was greatly respected in the film industry for his ability to take the best of his work in one area and apply it to another, from mainstream to international art films to documentary. He was associated with the Free Cinema movement in the 1950s, and the British New Wave in the early 1960s. In 1987 he published his autobiography called 'Itinerant Cameraman'.

Listeners: Peter Bowen

Peter Bowen is a Canadian who came to Europe to study and never got round to heading back home. He did his undergraduate work at Carleton University (in Biology) in Ottawa, and then did graduate work at the University of Western Ontario (in Zoology). After completing his doctorate at Oxford (in the Department of Zoology), followed with a year of postdoc at the University of London, he moved to the University's newly-established Audio-Visual Centre (under the direction of Michael Clarke) where he spent four years in production (of primarily science programs) and began to teach film. In 1974 Bowden became Director of the new Audio-Visual Centre at the University of Warwick, which was then in the process of introducing film studies into the curriculum and where his interest in the academic study of film was promoted and encouraged by scholars such as Victor Perkins, Robin Wood, and Richard Dyer. In 1983, his partner and he moved to Greece, and the following year he began to teach for the University of Maryland (European Division), for which he has taught (and continues to teach) biology and film courses in Crete, Bosnia, and the Middle East.

Tags: The Wild Party, Merchant Ivory, Perry King, Raquel Welch

Duration: 1 minute, 54 seconds

Date story recorded: June 2004

Date story went live: 24 January 2008