Kaleidoscope
original film poster by Bob Peak
Directed byJack Smight
Written byRobert Carrington
Jane-Howard Hammerstein
Produced byJerry Gershwin
Elliott Kastner
StarringWarren Beatty
Susannah York
Clive Revill
CinematographyChristopher Challis
Edited byJohn Jympson
Music byStanley Myers
Production
company
Winkast Film Productions
Distributed byWarner-Pathé Distributors (UK)
Warner Bros. Pictures (US)
Release dates
  • July 1966 (1966-07) (UK)
  • September 22, 1966 (1966-09-22) (USA)
Running time
103 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£482,109[1]

Kaleidoscope is a 1966 British comedy crime film starring Warren Beatty and Susannah York.[2]

The film had its world premiere on 8 September 1966 at the Warner Theatre in the West End of London.

Plot

After leaving his lover Angel McGinnis behind in London, rich playboy Barney Lincoln breaks into a playing card manufacturer in Geneva to mark the cards, and then proceeds to break the bank at major European casinos.

Barney meets up with Angel again in Monte Carlo, where he wins a great deal of money, but her suspicions after he left England caused her to consult her father, a detective from Scotland Yard. He blackmails Barney into helping him catch a drug smuggler named Harry Dominion, who owns a casino and also has a weakness for high stakes poker.

Cast

Production

It was the third film Jack Smight directed for Warners. Smight called the script "terrific... a little hard to believe, but nevertheless a jolly fun premise laced with great humor."[3]

He says producer Elliot Kastner cast Sandra Dee as the female lead mostly because Warren Beatty wanted to sleep with her. Smight said, "Though I had worked with Sandra in my first film...and had regard for her, I couldn’t conceive of her playing a role of the British girl that the script called for...So much for the producer’s wanting to protect the integrity of a fine screenplay."[3]

During preproduction in France, Kastner admitted he did not want Dee in the film. Smight asked Jack Warner if he could have Susannah York and Warner agreed; Dee was paid off.[3]

Smight says Beatty was undisciplined during filming. They would rehearse scenes but then "just as we were about to roll the camera, Warren would ask if he could try something different from what we had earlier settled upon. I wanted to be flexible in the event that what he wanted to do was better than what we had planned. Inevitably it wasn't."[3]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the film was released on Warner Bros. WS-1633. It was given a short but warm review by Cash Box in the October 22, 1966 issue with the magazine picking the tracks "Angel's Theme" and "Dominion's Deal" as the better efforts.[4]

One night Stanley Myers and Barry Fantoni were at the Chi Chi club discussing the need for a song to match the intense switched on vibe of the movie. A group called Romeo Z came on stage and caused the ceiling to shake. This was actually the club's resident group. In six or seven seconds they knew they had what they wanted and some time later the group was at the recording session.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 360
  2. ↑ Variety film review; 7 September 1966, p. 6
  3. 1 2 3 4 Myers, JP (8 March 2018). "This is the story of Director Jack Smight's life in entertainment written by himself".
  4. ↑ Cash Box, October 22, 1966 - Page 38 ALBUM REVIEWS, POP BEST BETS
  5. ↑ Kaleidoscope THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK ALBUM (Amazon) - Back cover notes by Stanley Myers
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