Those statuettes signified in one way how highly Hollywood valued Mankiewicz during the two decades after World War II. A more telling way, perhaps, came when “Cleopatra’’ (1963) went drastically over budget. How drastically? Adjusted for inflation, it remains the most expensive movie ever made. The director turned to by 20th Century Fox to rescue “Cleopatra’’ was Mankiewicz. The man was an artist? Fine, big deal. More important, so far as the industry was concerned, Joe was a pro.
That was then, though. Ask any movie lover to play free-association with the name Mankiewicz, and chances are it’s Herman, Joe’s older brother and the coauthor of “Citizen Kane,’’ who’ll get cited. What happened? The best way to answer that question, and certainly the most entertaining, would be to see as much as possible of “The Complete Joseph L. Mankiewicz.’’ The retrospective, which runs at the Harvard Film Archive through Aug. 29, kicks off Friday with “Somewhere in the Night’’ (1946). “All About Eve’’ follows on Saturday.
There are some very well-known titles among the 20 films to be screened. Besides “Eve,’’ “Letter,’’ and “Cleopatra,’’ they include “Julius Caesar,’’ with Marlon Brando as Marc Antony (1953); “The Barefoot Contessa,’’ with Ava Gardner at her most gorgeous (1954); “Guys and Dolls,’’ with Brando and Frank Sinatra (1955); the Tennessee Williams play “Suddenly, Last Summer,’’ adapted by Gore Vidal (1959); and “Sleuth,’’ starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine (1972).
Comedy, historical epic, theater adaptations, both classic and contemporary; even a musical. Add to the list literary adaptations (“The Late George Apley,’’ 1947, and “The Quiet American,’’ 1957), a social-issue drama (“No Way Out,’’ with Sidney Poitier making his screen debut, 1950), and a western (“There Was a Crooked Man,’’ 1970, with a script by Robert Benton and David Newman, who wrote “Bonnie and Clyde’’). Range like that has never been easy to find in Hollywood.
