Unmade Films By Great Directors: What Could Have Been?

NYTimes Feb. 1, !970 by A.H.Weiler:
THE SEARCHERS
“Lawrence P. Fraiberg, an Off Broadway producer and former TV executive, is also joining the ranks of the movie producers. He will make his debut for Avco Embassy with “A Time of Predators,” based on a first novel by Joe Gores. “Rod Serling has just about completed the script,” he said the other day. “It’s about the brutal assault by a gang of guys on the wife of a college professor, and the professors subsequent search for the criminals. We hope to film it before the end of the year on the West Coast.”

Fraiberg also plans to produce a movie version of “Outer Dark,” a 1968 novel by Cormac McCarthy. A Gothic tale set in the rural South, it tells of a woman’s search for her stolen, incestuous son. Stacy Keach, according to Fraiberg, is “the discoverer of the project. He brought the novel to me several months ago and I be came just as enthusiastic about it as he was. Now he’s writing the script.” Will there be a role in the film for Keach? Maybe yes, maybe no. It might be pointed out, however, that one of the leading roles is that of a young man searching for the woman who is searching for her son.”

NYTimes April 25, 1971 by A.H.Weiler:
MIGHTY STACY AT BAT
“EVERYBODY’S doing it Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Maximilian Schell, Jack Nicholson, Elaine May, Barbara Loden, Clint Eastwood, Alan Arkin, Ossie Davis, Jack Lerornon. Doing what? Becoming directors. And if these distinguished actors can move to the other side of the camera, why shouldn’t Stacy Keach? Well, that’s just what he is doing. Recently, a short which Keach directed, wrote and starred in was shown on TV’s “The American Dream Machine.” It was called “The Repeater” and it dealt with the plight of prisoners, Now he is ready to make his directorial debut on a feature length film — an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel, “Outer Dark.” Keach has already written the screenplay.

“’Outer Dark’ is a gothic horror story set in Appalachia,” said Keach, who is currently starring in the Off Broadway revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” “It’s about brother and sister who have an incestuous relationship. The girl has a baby, who is then stolen from her, and much of the film will be involved with her search for her child, and her brother’s search for her.”

Will there be a part in the film for actor Keach? “No,” he said tentatively, and then added, “But my actor’s vanity will probably get the best of me and I may appear in it in a very small role.””

NYTimes Nov. 12, 1972 by A.H.Weiler:
Movies
BUSY STACY
“Most brilliant actors are content to be brilliant actors, but not Stacy Keach. The highly acclaimed star of “Fat City” also dreams of becoming a brilliant writer and a brilliant director. Getting off to what we trust will be a brilliant beginning, he has co‐written—with John Parsons—”Goodnight, Mike,” a drama in which he stars as a district attorney who goes especially rough on narcotics offenders and draft evaders. Parsons directed the film, which will be released by Praxis and Palmyra Films.

Keach has also collaborated with Michael Thomas on an adaptation of “Outer Dark,” Cormac McCarthy’s gothic horror story about the bizarre relationship between a brother and sister. And the versatile fellow will make his directorial debut on that one.

But first he’s off to London for the movie version. of John Osborne’s “Luther,” which also stars Hugh Griffith, Patrick Magee, Robert Stephens and Alan Badel. Guy Greene will direct the Edward Anhalt adaptation for release by Ely Landau’s American Film Theatre. And Reach also promises to bring his “Hamlet,” performed last season in Central Park, to Broadway.

Well, he’s got to do something with his spare time.”

Other publications around that time said the film was to be titled CULLA AND RINTHY. And David Carradine was either cast or being considered for Culla. I have a file of clippings but not accessible at the moment. I can’t remember if they mentioned an actress to play Rinthy.

And here is Stacy Keach’s own take on his filmic attempt in his autobiography “ALL IN ALL: AN ACTOR’S LIFE ON AND OFF THE STAGE from 2013:

“I devoted more time to writing a screenplay I hoped to direct based on OUTER DARK, the second novel by a young writer named Cormac McCarthy. I loved McCarthy’s characters and his sense of suspense, but it was foolhardy to think someone would finance a gothic horror story set in Appalachia that starts with incest then moves on to murder and cannibalism. Even after I rewrote Cormac’s ending to make it more tolerable, it was relentlessly dark that no one wanted to produce it.”

Hal Ashby’s Gothic Western Passion Project, ‘The Hawkline Monster,’ Finally In Development Once Again

Sadly, the life of famed editor-turned-director Hal Ashby was cut short in 1988, well before his time. Unfortunately, that meant that the film industry never fully got to see what the filmmaker would have been capable of in the years that would follow. However, his legacy will apparently live on, as one of his passion projects that never saw the light of day might finally make its way to the big screen, with the film “The Hawkline Monster.”

According to THR, the film rights to the novel “The Hawkline Monster,” from author Richard Brautigan, have been purchased by New Regency, the production studio that is coming off the almost-billion-dollar success of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The novel is described as a “Gothic Western” that follows the story of a young woman that hires two gunmen to kill a monster that lives in ice caves below the basement of a house owned by Miss Hawkline.

As mentioned, “The Hawkline Monster” is a film that has been in various stages of development for decades, most famously with Ashby aboard to direct it back in 1975. At the time, Ashby, who is the Oscar-nominated director best known for films like “Harold and Maude,” “Shampoo,” “Coming Home,” and “Being There,” had his heart set on actors Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman as the two gunslingers. At another point down the line, Ashby was also looking at Jeff and Beau Bridges as the two leads.

Eventually, with Ashby’s death, the film development stalled, but was once again picked up by filmmaker Tim Burton. This time, Burton went back to Nicholson and wanted him to star alongside none other than Clint Eastwood. As you can surmise from this news, the film was never produced, and the rights lingered in a complicated legal mess with the estates of Ashby and the author Brautigan.

Now, with that sweet, sweet ‘Rhapsody’ cash, New Regency has finally secured the rights and is looking to bring this storied film to the big screen, for real this time. Clearly, with the names that were attached during its previous development, “The Hawkline Monster” is a film that should attract some stars and hopefully, will live up to the legacy of Ashby.

theplaylist.net/hal-ashby-hawkline-monster-new-regency-20190607/