Джозеф Левайн: Американский кинопродюсер и новатор маркетинга

American film producer
the film producer

Joseph Edward Levine (September 9, 1905 – July 31, 1987) was an American film distributor, financier, and producer. At the time of his death, it was said he was involved in one or another capacity with 497 films. Levine was responsible for the U. S. releases of Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, Attila and Hercules, which helped revolutionize U. S. film marketing, and was founder and president of Embassy Pictures. Levine's biggest hit was director Mike Nichols' 1967 The Graduate, a blockbuster hit that was considered, then and now, a watershed film that inaugurated the New Hollywood and made Dustin Hoffman a superstar. At the time of its release, The Graduate became one of the Top Ten All Time Box Office hits. With the great success of the film, Levine sold his company to the conglomerate Avco, though he continued on as the CEO of the renamed Avco Embassy film production division. Other films he produced and/or financed by Levine included Two Women, Contempt, The 10th Victim, Marriage Italian Style, The Lion in Winter, The Producers, Carnal Knowledge and The Night Porter. After leaving Avco Embassy, he became an independent again, producing A Bridge Too Far.

Levine was born in a slum in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 9, 1905. The youngest of six children of a Russian Jewish immigrant tailor, Joe did whatever work he could to help support his mother, a widow who had remarried only to have her second husband abandon her. This led Joe (in his later years) to tell an interviewer that he had known (in his words) "not one happy day" growing up. At 14 years of age he was hired for full time work in a dress factory and left school, never to re enroll. In the 1920s, in partnership with two of his older brothers, Joe opened a basement dress shop, whose stock the Levine brothers obtained on consignment. He had multiple other jobs and operated the Cafe Wonderbar in Boston's Back Bay during this period and during the early and mid 1930s. One of Levine's most unusual successes was Body Beautiful, a sex hygiene film which he saw drawing a line of prospective ticket buyers who were braving a snowstorm to that end. He later remembered buying it to show in his theaters because "it made me sick." He was also a representative for Burstyn Mayer distributing Italian films such as Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) and Paisà (1946), and Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948). Levine discovered that double features with the same cast members or similar titles brought in higher box office revenues; this led him to present two films together because they had similar titles. In the 1960s he built two cinemas on 57th Street in New York City – the Lincoln Art Theatre and the Festival Theatre. Following the deal, Levine paid Harold Robbins $900,000 for the rights to three books which were filmed – The Carpetbaggers (1964), Where Love Has Gone (1964) and Nevada Smith (1966). Carroll Baker, a contract player for Paramount Pictures, appeared as a hedonistic widow in The Carpetbaggers, which was a huge hit. Levine made her his personal protege, promoting her career, which led the talented actress to being denigrated as Levine's "blonde bomb sell" (a play on "bombshell") as he attempted to reshape her image. Baker had shot a nude scene for The Carpetbaggers that was not in the US release, but which received wide spread publicity. A 1964 New York Times article quote Baker defending her appearing in the nude. Speaking of her character, Baker said:

“She is alone in front of her dressing table. She has just stepped out of the bath and she is the kind of character to whom it would not occur to put on a robe. Doing the scene in the nude was my idea and I think it was a mistake not to show it.”

Levine cast Baker in the potboiler Sylvia, in which she had a nude scene. He then cast her in the role of Hollywood's original blonde bombshell Jean Harlow in the biopic Harlow (1965). Sylvia received poor reviews and did nothing at the box office while Harlow, also a critical failure and facing a rival Harlow movie starring Carol Lynley, flopped despite significant pre publicity. The Harlow publicity campaign even had Baker featured in an advertisement for Foster Grant sunglasses in LIFE Magazine with stills from the movie. Relations between Baker and Levine had broke down. In a 1965 interview, Baker sardonically commented: "I'll say this about Joe Levine: I admire his taste in leading ladies", which led the press to suspect a rift between the actress and producer. Baker sued Levine in 1966 over her contract with Paramount Pictures, and was ultimately fired by Paramount and had her paychecks from Harlow frozen amid the contentious legal dispute. Baker went hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt, though eventually she awarded $1 million in compensation). The Lion in Winter (1968), Levine's favorite of his films, won an Academy Award for Katharine Hepburn. Directed and choreographed by Herbert Ross, the musical began previews at the Broadhurst Theatre on February 1, 1965, and opened (and closed) on February 6 after seven previews and one performance, becoming one of the biggest flops in Broadway history.

Levine became famous in the industry for his massive advertising campaigns, starting with Hercules in 1959. Levine had hired Terry Turner, who had been a former RKO Pictures exploitation expert of the late 1920s and 1930s, where he had exploited King Kong amongst other films. Levine's and Turner's exploitation campaigns were designed to appeal both to the general public and to the film industry and exhibitors.

In 1964, Levine received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in recognition of his lifetime achievement in motion pictures.

"You can fool all of the people if the advertising is right."