“Under scrutiny, the rumours fall apart”: the 1994 flop Warren Beatty insisted he didn’t direct
Unlike physical prowess, which tends to plateau between about the ages of 25 and 35, there is some argument about when people reach their creative peak.
Musicians seem to tend to do their best work in their 20s, when they’re full of energy and ambition. Film directors often produce their masterpieces early on, like Spielberg with Jaws, but Warren Beatty was 41 when he first got behind the camera.
It was on the 1978 sports comedy Heaven Can Wait, and to say Beatty did a pretty good job at the first time of asking would be like saying James Corden could do with working on his people skills a bit. The film, about a young quarterback who gets taken up to the pearly gates by mistake before having a chance to achieve what he should have done, was a monumental success, making $100million at the box office on a budget of just $6m and landing nine Oscar nominations, including a ‘Best Director’ nod for Beatty at the first time of asking.
But he was no stranger to the Academy Awards at that point, having made his name as one of America’s best actors thanks to films like the brilliantly gritty, early New Hollywood effort Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 and Hal Ashby’s controversial Shampoo in 1975, the sex comedy starring Julie Andrews and Goldie Hawn.
Beatty didn’t direct a lot of films after Heaven Can Wait, but when he did helm a movie, he made it count. The epic period drama Reds followed in 1981 with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, and again Beatty was rewarded with staggering success in awards season, picking up 12 Oscar nominations and this time going one better and winning ‘Best Director’.
It would be almost a decade before Beatty directed another movie, 1990’s notorious, cartoonish Dick Tracy, featuring a frankly ludicrous cast including Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan and Madonna, and although reviews were mixed, it still scooped seven Oscar nods and made a huge box office profit.
Then, a few years later, came a film that he didn’t direct, although everyone thought he did. The movie was 1994’s Love Affair, starring Beatty opposite his wife Annette Bening, and it was directed by Glen Gordon Caron, who was known for TV at the time, like Bruce Willis’ Moonlighting.
Because Beatty was such a force in movies and was also acting as a producer, it was decided within the industry that he was the one calling the shots, leading Caron to have to issue a denial in the press, saying, “I’m the director of this film. Under scrutiny, the rumors fall apart”.
But Beatty was the star, and the co-writer too, and in an unusual move, he was also handed ‘final cut’ in the edit, something that would usually be in the remit of the director. Beatty, for his part, would only say, “Love Affair is a picture that I like very much, made by the collaboration of extremely gifted people. I’m happy with it, and the director is happy with it. I don’t see the point in elaborating”.
In the end, the film, which also featured screen legend Katharine Hepburn in her final appearance, wasn’t really worth all the back and forth. A remake of the romantic drama of the same name from 1939, it made a catastrophic loss of around $42m at the box office.
