Classics That Might Have Been: 25 Unmade Films (Part Two)

Kaleidoscope: Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock liked to be innovative. After watching Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Hitchcock felt America was far behind the Italians in film technique. He asked the novelist Howard Fast to create a treatment about a deformed, gay serial killer. Hitchcock story-boarded a series of shots with over 450 camera positions and shot an hour’s worth of experimental test shots. However, MCA/Universal was disturbed and put-off by the script and the story board images and immediately cancelled the project.

The Marx Brothers at the United Nations: In the 1950's, the aging Marx Brothers were set to reunite for another film. Groucho, Chico and Harpo were set to play a gang of thieves who, while fleeing the police, end up in the UN, where they are mistaken for important dignitaries. The joke was that the thieves fit so well in the world of politics that no one realizes they are phonies. The death of elder brother Chico ended the project.

Megalopolis: Francis Ford Coppola dreamed up one of the most ambitious and unusual movies ever planned. It was an epic vision of New York City in the near future, where a brilliant city planner has turned New York into a massive metropolis which is the center of global economics and culture. The planner even displays the power to stop time itself at will. However, he is also threatened by numerous adversaries, including government agencies, organized crime and corrupt businessmen. The movie never happened because the amount of money required to properly create its epic scope would be prohibitive, since Hollywood doesn’t like to take chances on films this unusual.

Napoleon: Stanley Kubrick has made many classic films, and his planned Napoleon film was a project that he had wanted to do for years. The movie, which he started production on in 1968, was to be an epic three-and-a half hour extravaganza about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. United Artist was unwilling to fund the entire project because they didn't think people would sit through a 3-plus hour bio-pic. Kubrick almost got money from some Europeans investors (it was going to be filmed in France and Italy) but he was ruined by competition from the film Waterloo, with Rod Steiger, which was being filmed nearby at the same time and was courting the same investors. The investors decided to put their money into the cheaper film and so Kubrick couldn't fund his own version.

The Navarone Trilogy-Part 3: The classic war film, the Guns of Navarone--starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn--was a huge hit in 1961. Director J. Lee Thompson had planned for a trilogy of stories—all based on the Navarone book series—featuring the Peck, Niven and Quinn characters of Malory, Miller and Andrea. He had hoped to start work on the second film by 1964 but it was difficult for huge stars like Peck, Niven and Quinn to coordinate their work schedules with Thompson's own busy schedule. Several years passed and the sequel was delayed. By 1970, both Niven and Peck agreed that they were now too old to portray their characters (the sequel was supposed to take place only a year after the first film) and so the trilogy was abandoned. In 1978, director Guy Hamilton picked up the thread of the franchise and finally filmed the sequel Force 10 from Navarone, with Robert Shaw and Edward Fox as Malory and Miller. (Quinn’s character was omitted from the script.) Harrison Ford co-starred. The film ended on a cliff-hanger, which was to set up the finale of the Navarone trilogy. However, Force 10 from Navarone was a box-office flop and plans for the third Navarone film were dropped.

The Road to the Fountain of Youth: Comedian Bob Hope and singer/actor Bing Crosby had made their successful "Road" series, consisting of seven films between 1940 and 1962. The Road comedies were very popular. The two remained close friends afterward, and in the late 1970s, the duo decided to make a reunion "Road" film. This one was to be called “The Road to the Fountain of Youth.” The story would begin with the aged Hope and Crosby as the main characters, until they find the fountain of youth and become young again (after which, younger actors would play the same characters as young men.) The death of Bing Crosby in 1977 ended the project.