with a couple of solid efforts amid some clinkers, the winners
being The Bad Seed (1956) and No Time for Sergeants (1958).
Le Roy worked steadily into the 1960s, making such films
as The Devil at 4 O’Clock (1961) and Gypsy (1962). His last
film was Moment to Moment (1966), after which he retired.
Le Roy, who was once married to Doris Warner, daugh-
ter of Harry M. Warner, one of the Warner brothers, clearly
had the career advantage of family connections. He nonethe-
less made his opportunities count. In recognition of his
achievements, the Motion Picture Academy honored him
with the Irving Thalberg Award in 1975.
Levine, Joseph E. (1905–1987) A producer and
showman who was among the last of the great independents
during the conglomeratization of the movie business. As a
producer and distributor he brought nearly 500 films to
American movie screens. Ironically, the films with which his
name has become associated tend to be either serious and art-
ful or pure, unadulterated shlock.
Levine, who came from a poor Boston family, dropped out
of school at the age of 14 and slowly built a small nest egg,
which he invested in a Connecticut movie theater in 1938. In
the 1940s, he enlarged his holdings and began to build a small
theater empire in New England. Soon thereafter, he bought
the American rights to a number of foreign films and began to
distribute them in the art-house circuit. In that fashion, he
introduced American audiences to such movies as Open City
(1945), Paisan (1946), and The Bicycle Thief (1948).
He made his mark as a promoter/distributor when he
bought the American rights to the Japanese monster film
Godzilla (1956) for $12,000 and turned it into a “monster”
hit. But that was nothing compared to his success in import-
ing cheaply and then promoting expensively the Italian
“muscle movie” Hercules (1959) with Steve Reeves, turning it
into a huge money-maker by pioneering the use of satura-
tion booking.
Not long after, he was responsible for the American
releases of such popular imports as Divorce, Italian Style
(1961), 8 1/2 (1963), and Romeo and Juliet (1968). He
acquired roughly 150 films from Italy and France alone for
distribution in the United States, 11 of them starring Sophia
Loren, whom he thereby helped to become a star in America.
Levine also produced many of his films, and he was often
adventurous. For instance, he gave both
MIKE NICHOLS
and
MEL BROOKS
their first chance to direct with The Graduate
(1967) and The Producers (1967), respectively. After The Grad-
uate became a huge hit, Levine sold his company, Embassy
Pictures, to the Avco Corporation, forming Avco Embassy in
1968 and becoming the new firm’s CEO. Avco Embassy was
successful under his tutelage, with films such as Carnal
Knowledge (1971), A Touch of Class (1972), and The Day of the
Dolphin (1973), but Levine chafed at having to answer to oth-
ers and resigned in 1974, establishing a new independent
company, Joseph E. Levine Presents. He was successful
again, presenting foreign-made films such as The Night Porter
(1974) and producing such controversial films as . . . And Jus-
tice for All (1979).
Levinson, Barry (1932– ) A gifted writer-director,
Levinson has blossomed in the 1980s with an impressive
streak of energetic, intelligent, and idiosyncratic films. As of
this writing he has directed only six movies, but they have
been of such high quality that Levinson seems to have clearly
established himself as a major American director.
Raised in Baltimore, Levinson did his earlier writing for
TV. In the late 1970s, however, he began to pen the screen-
plays for such films as First Love (1977), . . . And Justice for All
(1979), and Inside Moves (1981). With a growing reputation as
a screenwriter, Levinson opted to direct his own screenplay
for Diner (1982), a story that was close to his heart. The
movie was a nostalgic coming-of-age tale of a group of
friends who hang out together at a local Baltimore diner. The
film was the sleeper hit of the year, launching the acting
careers of Mickey Rourke, Steve Guttenberg, and Kevin
Bacon, as well as the directorial career of Levinson.
After directing an intimate low-budget movie with no
stars, Levinson next found himself hired to direct
ROBERT
REDFORD
in the big-budget adaptation of Bernard Mala-
mud’s novel The Natural (1984), which he pulled off with
considerable aplomb. It is regarded by many as one of the
best baseball movies ever made, capturing a childlike view of
the myth and grandeur of sports heroism.
He faltered with Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), his only
stumble of the 1980s, and then scored with three substantial
hits, Tin Men (1987), a blue-collar comedy of manners; Good
Morning, Vietnam (1987), one of the biggest commercial
blockbusters of its year; and Rain Man (1988), for which
Levinson won an Academy Award for Best Director. He was,
in fact, the fourth director of Rain Man, the three previous
directors having quit the project in frustration. In collabora-
tion with
DUSTIN HOFFMAN
, who fought to make the movie
for several years, Rain Man became a surprise commercial hit
as well as a highly regarded critical success.
Into the 1990s Levinson continued to balance the serious
and the personal against commercial pictures that helped to
sustain his bankability. His judgment, though usually sound,
is not infallible. In 2001, for example, he seriously misfired by
directing An Everlasting Piece, which seemed to trivialize the
“troubles” in Northern Ireland by telling the story of two
barbers out to monopolize the toupee business. Two years
before that, however, he made one of his best Baltimore
films, Liberty Heights (1999), an affecting film concerning a
Jewish family adjusting to life in the suburbs.
It’s a familiar pattern for Levinson. In 1991 he made
Bugsy, with Warren Beatty playing the gangster Benjamin
“Bugsy” Siegel and Ben Kingsley playing Meyer Lansky,
Siegel’s partner in crime and accountant. It was nominated for
10 Academy Awards and won two of them. It also won the
Golden Globe for Best Picture. This film was followed by Toys
(1992), an eccentric mistake starring
ROBIN WILLIAMS
and
Joan Cusack and a commercial failure. In 1994 Jimmy Holly-
wood failed at the box office, grossing less than $4 million.
Levinson also experimented with television during the
1990s, creating the critically acclaimed Homicide: Life in the
Streets, set in Levinson’s native Baltimore and arguably the
best police series of the decade. But the director also kept
LEVINE, JOSEPH E.
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