The “god-awful” movie Paul Newman begged his fans not to watch
Actor Paul Newman was one of the greatest film performers the big screen has ever known. He famously played in great cinematic works such as The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Color of Money, the latter of which he was gifted the Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’.
Newman landed his big break in 1954, a time when he performed in Victor Saville’s historical epic drama The Silver Chalice. Newman played a Greek artist who is commissioned to dip the cup of Christ in silver and adorn it with the faces of Jesus and his followers. Despite drawing admiration from some circles, Newman later disavowed the film claiming it to be beyond awful.
Newman was so ashamed of the film that in 1963, when a Los Angeles TV channel had scheduled to show it for several nights running, he took out a number of newspaper adverts begging people not to tune in and watch it. He wrote: “Paul Newman apologises every night this week—Channel 9”. However, the adverts appeared to have the opposite desired effect, and the channel got better ratings than expected.
In the book Paul Newman: A Life, Newman said of The Silver Chalice, “I was horrified and traumatised when I saw the film. I was sure my acting career had begun and ended with the same picture. It was god-awful. It’s kind of a distinction to say I was in the worst film to be made in the entirety of the 1950s.”
Strong words indeed, and the iconic actor followed up in 1994 with another quote in New York magazine. He said: “That I survived that picture is a testament to something. All I had in that movie were those short cocktail dresses. Nero [Jacques Aubuchon] got to wear all the long stuff with the beads. My legs aren’t exactly my best feature.”
Despite Newman’s best efforts to distance himself from the film and what he perceived to be its low quality, other people seemed to enjoy it. For instance, Newman was nominated for ‘Most Promising Male Newcomer’ at the Golden Globes that year, and the film itself was given nods for ‘Best Cinematography’ and ‘Best Score’ at the Academy Awards.
Even Martin Scorsese once claimed that The Silver Chalice is something of a guilty pleasure, even if he admitted that it is indeed a “bad picture” that lacks authenticity. He said: “The Silver Chalice is one of the reasons I hired Boris Leven to design New York, New York. Giant and The Silver Chalice: any man who could design those two films… that’s it, I had to have him.”
Scorsese continued: “The Silver Chalice, which is a bad picture, has no authenticity. It’s purely theatrical, and this is mainly due to the sets. They’re clean and clear; it’s almost like another life, another world. We don’t know what ancient Rome was like, so why not take the attitude Fellini had with Satyricon: make it science fiction in reverse? The Silver Chalice came close to that fifteen years earlier.”
