The director Michael Caine threatened to knock out on set: “I’ll fucking deck him”
Everyone loves a good workplace dust-up; there’s nothing quite like ducking down behind your computer screen and mouthing ‘oh my god’ at a trusted colleague while two people rant and point fingers at each other in one of those meeting rooms with big glass windows. It happens in every field of work, including movies, and including legendary stars like Michael Caine.
Granted, when it comes to disagreements on set between A-list actors and directors, the result is less likely to be a meeting with HR, a Microsoft training video on office behaviour and a tiresome email ‘reminding you of your responsibilities’, but there are still issues that need to be sorted out, especially when dealing with a director as fiery as Otto Preminger. Luckily, when it came to starring in one of his films, Caine was ‘East End London’ enough to settle things easily.
In the late 1960s, Caine was the absolute guv’nor, the straight-talking, bespectacled, lived through the blitz, six-foot-two star of movies like Zulu, The Ipcress File, and, later, Get Carter. Even if he weren’t a talented thesp, he was not someone you would mess with unless you were particularly stupid. Preminger, meanwhile, in the other corner, was an Austrian director with a notorious temper that would leave crew members and actors trembling.
But the man who was nicknamed ‘Otto the Monster’ was also undeniably incredibly talented; his courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder starring James Stewart is probably the finest example of the genre of all time, plus over a 20-year period he directed an amazing 14 Oscar-nominated films, including a Best Director nod for his very first film, Laura in 1944.
Preminger was coming toward the end of his career when he and Caine were put together on a film called Hurry Sundown, a 1967 drama starring Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway in her first-ever film role. Preminger, who was sufficiently threatening to have once played a Nazi prison camp commander in Billy Wilder’s fantastic Stalag 17, was soon up to his old tricks, but Caine stood in his way.
He recalled the experience of filming the movie for Time Out in 1992, saying, “Otto was nice to me on Hurry Sundown, but I didn’t like how nasty he was to everyone else. He was particularly nasty to Faye Dunaway and I pulled him up on it. My attitude was if he says anything to me I’ll fucking deck him.’”
Luckily, things didn’t come to that, especially as Preminger was 62 by that point and would have likely put up about as much resistance as a sponge cake. Dunaway, meanwhile, was so angry at her treatment from the director that she sued to be released from a contract to make four more films with him and described him as “awful”.
Hurry Sundown was also no great shakes at the box office, despite Preminger’s initial belief that the epic book adaptation filmed in the Deep South of America could be another Gone With The Wind. Reviews were poor to mixed, and the film struggled to break even.
Now retired at 92, Caine made what looks to be his last film in 2023 in The Great Escaper, a care home drama with the late Glenda Jackson, which won him considerable acclaim and was a hit with critics.
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