Curtain Up (54 page)

In the end, much to Miller's chagrin, Ober was brought in to assist with brokering the sale of the film rights. Miller's lieutenant, George Banyai, complained to Saunders that Ober was ‘slow, old-fashioned and thinks $100,000 is a lot of money'.
⁷⁴
Saunders replied to Banyai, ‘I do so regret that after my friendly association with the Gilbert Miller office this slight feeling of acrimony has crept in.'
⁷⁵
Shortly afterwards Saunders wrote to Robert Lewis, the play's director, ‘When I am told that Miller is the best of American managements to deal with, I wonder what the others are like';
⁷⁶
this elicited the response,
‘Please don't even repeat such nonsense that Miller is the best of the American managers. He has been for years among all intelligent people a laughing stock. I have told you of some good American managers and there are a few more. Probably the same percentage as in England or elsewhere.'
⁷⁷

The Hollywood press followed the convoluted negotiations for the film sale with interest, and substantial figures from $250,000 to $450,000 were talked about. Warner Brothers, United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Columbia and MGM were all at the table at some point, and the labyrinthine and sometimes acrimonious film negotiations fill several files on both sides of the Atlantic. At the end of 1955 Miller, with some partners, eventually paid $325,000 (reported in the UK as £116,000
⁷⁸
) to exercise his matching right and outbid Louis B. Mayer, who had reached a widely reported deal with Ober for $300,000.
⁷⁹
Miller immediately sold the rights on to American film producer Edward Small for $435,000.
⁸⁰
The sale to Miller was thus not quite the unqualified triumph reported by Cork to his client and trumpeted by Saunders in the British press. In any event, the eventual 1957 film was produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr and Edward Small, and released by United Artists. The film's opening credits billed
Witness for the Prosecution
as ‘Agatha Christie's international stage success' and its cast included Charles Laughton as Robarts, a singing Marlene Dietrich as Christine (Broadway audiences had sniggered at the name Romaine, believing it meant ‘lettuce') and Tyrone Power as Vole (in his last role before his death in 1958 at the age of forty-four). It also featured popular Irish actress Una O'Connor repeating her Broadway success in the role of housekeeper Janet Mackenzie, and Laughton's wife, Elsa Lanchester, in a part written in especially for her. Francis L. Sullivan, who had become an American citizen after the Broadway opening, had died in New York the previous year, aged fifty-three. He had written to Saunders expressing his hope that he would be cast in the film, and the final irony of his career was that, having won a Tony award for his role in the play, he was posthumously and conclusively upstaged by Charles Laughton.

Agatha had taken the precaution of organising in advance of the film sale for its proceeds to be gifted to Rosalind as part of Edmund Cork's ongoing tax avoidance strategy (not tax ‘evading', as stated in Laura Thompson's biography of Christie, I am happy to assure readers). Rosalind wrote to Cork, ‘I am content to leave it to you to do your best with Gilbert Miller but hope you will fix something with him soon – 300,000 dollars will suit me.'
⁸¹
The letter is dated simply ‘July 12th'. You would think that for a missive of such import it might have been appropriate to make a note of the year (1955). But like mother, like daughter.

It was not until
Witness for the Prosecution
was installed on Broadway that Cork felt it safe to experiment with American licensing for the relatively low-key
The Mousetrap
. There was some excitement when Jack Benny's agent asked to see a script at the end of 1954: ‘The idea appears to be outrageous at first,' wrote Cork to Ober, ‘but I am inclined to think this is just the sort of gimmick that is necessary to put this play over in America.'
⁸²
Quite which role in
The Mousetrap
the sixty-year-old comedian was considering is unclear but, perhaps fortunately for all concerned, the idea went no further.

On 3 May 1955 Cork wrote to Rosalind:

The Mousetrap has passed its thousandth performance in London [which it had celebrated on 22 April] and as from yesterday the cast has been completely changed, with the exception of Patric Doonan [who had replaced Attenborough] and we are hoping that it will go on for some time at the Ambassadors, and that this will be followed by a long tour with the London company . . . Whether this is a play that will stand up to Broadway is very doubtful indeed. Half a dozen American managements have been interested, but finally decided that it was too ‘small' a play for them. However, we are embarking on rather an interesting experiment, which will show how the Americans react to it. We have made arrangements for one of the best of the summer theatres –
the Arena Theatre in Washington DC – to put it on for a season of eight weeks. This will probably not bring in more than about a thousand dollars in cash, but it will give us a chance of judging how God's Own People like it. If it clicks, then on to Broadway in the autumn.
⁸³

Ober was less convinced that Washington was a potential stepping-stone to Broadway, advising Cork that ‘it is my experience that it is difficult to tell from a summer production whether a play will be a Broadway success.'
⁸⁴
He had, however, heard good things about the 247-seat Arena Stage from his son and from F. Scott Fitzgerald's daughter, Frances, both of whom lived in Washington, and he spoke highly to Cork of Zelda Fichandler, ‘who seems a very intelligent woman and whose small theatre in Washington is successful'.
⁸⁵
Co-founded by Fichandler five years previously in a converted former burlesque and movie house, Arena Stage was one of America's first not-for-profit theatres and a pioneer of the regional theatre movement. Perhaps most interestingly,
The Mousetrap
, like all its productions, was to be performed in the round, which must have presented the set designer with some challenges.

And so it was that the American premiere of
The Mousetrap
took place in Washington DC on 17 May 1955, directed by Zelda Fichandler. Ober was right: the outcome in Washington was a happy one, but it did not propel the play to Broadway. The
Washington Post and Times Herald
reviewed it favourably: ‘Arena, I suspect, has a major hit in this take-you-out-of-yourself evening.'
⁸⁶
On 15 June, Cork wrote to Rosalind, ‘The Mousetrap does well at Washington. The house is sold out every night and they would like to run it all summer. I don't think there is any reason why they should not. There doesn't seem to be any interest in a Broadway production so far, the general idea being that it would be rather an anti-climax to Witness for the Prosecution if it were done on Broadway. However, I don't think there is any doubt that it will do very well with amateurs, and bring in a lot of money for Mathew.'
⁸⁷
Ironically, Arena Stage, which moved to larger premises after
the run of
The Mousetrap
, would in future years become a major supplier of productions for Broadway.

Witness for the Prosecution
closed on Broadway on 30 June 1956, but it was not until 5 November 1960 that
The Mousetrap
finally received its New York premiere at the Maidman Playhouse, ‘off Broadway's finest theatre' according to a profile of its young producer, Robert Feldstein, in the
New York Journal-American
three weeks before it opened.
⁸⁸
In the article, Feldstein claimed to have been in negotiation for the rights for a year and a half and that the production had broken all off-Broadway records for advance sales. He also confidently predicted a run of ‘four years'. He was certainly an energetic promoter, feeding amusing stories to the press and providing audiences with forms on which they were encouraged to indicate who they thought the murderer was before the start of the second act.

The New York reviews were not raves, but neither were they as damning as those for
Hidden Horizon
. They praised the acting, direction and set and, whilst finding some flaws in the script, seemed generally happy to enter into the spirit of the piece despite it lacking the high drama of
Ten Little Indians
and
Witness for the Prosecution
. ‘It is a paradox of the London theatre that, although Agatha Christie's
The Mousetrap
is not her best play it is her most successful,' observed the
New York Times
, adding that ‘it is not exactly a blood-curdling experience. One murder does take place on the stage, and another impends through most of the evening. But it is the Christie skill and polish in throwing you off the scent that keeps the entertainment going' and concluding, ‘
The Mousetrap
will not exactly shake you up, but neither will it let you down.'
⁸⁹
The
Morning Telegraph
was less supportive, describing the play as a ‘mild little mystery charade' and remarking that ‘Agatha Christie has written excellent mystery thrillers for the stage such as
Witness for the Prosecution
and
Ten Little Indians
. The latest detective story is not in the same class. It is not even up to grade C Christie, which is too low on the scale even for off-Broadway, where you have to be more thrilling, more stimulating than the Broadway fat cats to attract audiences.'
⁹⁰

On 10 November, Cork wrote to Christie, ‘I enclose the New York Times review of The Mousetrap. The reception has not been quite as good as I hoped it might be, but the Ober office think it has a chance of a fair run. These off-Broadway productions, although they can be remunerative, are on a small scale and do not interfere with other rights. I see I wrote fully about the pros and cons on the 13th of July, and I am sorry to find now that you are rather against it.'
⁹¹
The production moved to the off-Broadway Greenwich Mews Theatre on 15 February and completed a total of 192 performances.
The Mousetrap
never played Broadway, and the best that can be said of its New York premiere is ‘no harm done'.

It seems, however, that the 1960 production was not technically the play's New York premiere. A typewritten flyer archived in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts advertises
The Mousetrap
for the ‘First Time in New York!' for four performances from 5 to 7 December 1957 at 263 West 86th Street.
⁹²
This is the address of the West End Theatre, a small community theatre on the second floor of the Methodist Church of St Paul and St Andrew. The production was directed by Franklyn Lenthall, a notable collector of theatrical artefacts who in the same year purchased the Boothbay Playhouse in Maine. Whatever the status of the Lenthall Players, they were presumably presenting the play under an amateur licence. But in doing so they made theatrical history.

Agatha herself never saw one of her plays performed on Broadway. She visited New York in 1956, after
Witness for the Prosecution
had closed, when accompanying Max to America to collect a gold medal that he had been awarded by the University of Pennsylvania. They also took the opportunity to go to Hollywood, where at least she was able to see
Witness for the Prosecution
being filmed. This was the first time Agatha had been to America since the Grand Tour with Archie in 1922 and she greatly enjoyed the experience. She was to go once more, ten years later, again accompanying Max who was giving a lecture tour, and on this occasion taking the opportunity to visit her American paternal grandfather's grave in New York's Greenwood cemetery.

Amongst Gilbert Miller's papers from this period is a letter from John Gielgud dated 26 November 1953. It reads,

Dear Gilbert,

Thank you so much for thinking of me on the first night at the Haymarket. The warmth of the audience and their enthusiastic reception was touching and thrilling, as you can imagine, and I have never been more aware of the kindness and love that has surrounded me at this time.

As ever, John
¹

Gielgud had just opened in in N.C. Hunter's
A Day by the Sea
at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket for Tennent Productions, playing alongside Ralph Richardson, Lewis Casson and Sybil Thorndike. This was his first West End appearance since his arrest and fine the previous month for soliciting an undercover police officer in a public lavatory, and Miller had been amongst the numerous members of the theatrical community to send their good wishes at what was clearly a very difficult time for him.

As it turned out, though,
A Day by the Sea
was about to become the centre of media attention for a very different reason than the sexual proclivities of one of its stars. Growing resentment amongst theatre producers about the monopolistic tendencies of the Tennent empire had led Labour MP Woodrow
Wyatt to undertake a detailed investigation of its activities. Binkie Beaumont's skilful operation of an entertainments tax-exempt, non-profit distributing theatre production company (Tennent Productions Ltd) in tandem with his commercial company (H.M. Tennent Ltd) had enabled him to create a seemingly unassailable position of dominance in West End theatre. But now Wyatt was gathering evidence to support the tabling of a bill in Parliament. Specifically designed to put an end to Beaumont's exploitation of the exemption from the tax on ticket sales offered to non-profit distributing companies, the Theatrical Companies Bill was introduced by Wyatt as a Private Members' Bill under the ‘ten minute rule' on Wednesday 10 March 1954, using the example of
A Day by the Sea
to demonstrate how Tennent Productions Ltd was saving around £500 in ticket sales tax a week, but was paying H.M. Tennent Ltd £40 per week to manage the production. Wyatt maintained that the commercial company's entire £10,000 profit for the year was accountable to its charging of management fees to the non-commercial company, and the bill itself was designed to prevent commercial and non-profit distributing companies from sharing directors and staff, as Tennents' did, and from working in tandem in this way. Wyatt concluded, ‘What Mr Beaumont is very cleverly and skilfully doing is using the concession which was intended for another purpose to build himself up as the greatest theatrical impresario in London and operating what is nothing less than a capitalist monopoly.'
²

By the early 1950s, the Tennent empire was indeed exhibiting all the characteristics of a monopoly, and paranoia and rumour had begun to spread amongst Beaumont's rivals. It was alleged not only that Beaumont was operating a blacklist but that performers were frightened to accept contracts with other managements (even, in some recorded instances, at higher wages) lest they were subsequently refused work by Tennents. Many actors appeared to be under permanent contract to ‘the Firm' and several West End theatres, including the prestigious Theatre Royal Haymarket, were seemingly on permanent rental to him. It was the clever and perfectly legal
way in which Beaumont had operated the companies in tandem that had enabled him to reach a position of dominance, and it was less the direct financial question of management fees that was the significant factor than the huge negotiating power which the additional company gave him, combined with the sheer quantity of work it enabled him to produce. It was as if while H.M. Tennent Ltd provided a decent living for all concerned, Tennent Productions Ltd simply soaked up all the remaining plays, theatres and actors and thus denied a living to other managements. Yet, because his rivals had quite simply failed to spot a business opportunity, the anti-Tennent arguments would always be hampered by the fact that they did smack somewhat of sour grapes.

According to Peter Saunders:

Two people went to see Woodrow Wyatt, MP for Birmingham Aston. One was a producer, the late Bill Linnit, the other a major international star whose name I am still pledged not to reveal. They started a train of thought in Wyatt's mind that led him to make long and exhaustive enquiries . . . He said he had had many representations from people of every sort and description in the theatrical industry – actors and actresses, producers, managers, etc – not only in London but up and down the country, all of whom (with very few exceptions) were strongly in favour of the bill. The exceptions, said Mr Wyatt, were employees or associates of one or other of the Tennent companies.
³

There was a problem, though:

Wyatt said that almost invariably those who had made representations in favour of the bill had said, ‘Please do not use my name, because if you do, and it becomes known that I have made representations to you about this matter, I shall be banned by the Tennent organisation either from acting or from carrying on my business in the theatrical profession.'

In the months between the bill's first reading on 10 March and its second on 24 June, Tennents mounted a media and parliamentary lobbying campaign of ruthless efficiency, oiled when necessary by free theatre tickets. This carefully orchestrated campaign is documented in the Tennent business papers, which were unaccountably ‘missing' for two decades before being anonymously donated to the V&A's theatre collection in 2011.
⁴
Tennents' biggest coup was to enlist the services of another Labour MP, Sydney Silverman, to fight their cause. Silverman, who was to be a key player in the abolition of capital punishment, had opposed the bill's first reading, although he does not appear to have had a proper grasp of the issues at stake; and it is clear from Hansard's report of the 24 June debate that few Members of Parliament actually did. Hampered by the anonymity of his informants and by his parliamentary colleagues' seeming inability to understand the complexities of Beaumont's business model, Wyatt's bill was eventually ‘talked out'.
⁵

The Conservatives had returned to power under Churchill in 1951 and, as an overtly anti-capitalist measure tabled by a Labour MP, the Theatrical Companies Bill would doubtless not have stood much of a chance in any case, but despite its failure it is important not to underestimate the legacy of extreme bad feeling, betrayal and mistrust that Wyatt's evidence-gathering created within the theatrical community. Although the industry rapidly closed ranks to limit the damage, and the events surrounding the Theatrical Companies Bill are rarely referred to these days, it is clear that, in some quarters at least, the scars took a long time to heal. Typical of this is director Frith Banbury's claim that Wyatt, in questioning him, had referred to allegations by
Mousetrap
director Peter Cotes that Beaumont only employed homosexuals. Banbury, himself a homosexual who worked for Beaumont, claims to have put Wyatt right on this. His interview with Wyatt was reported by Banbury to Charles Duff, author of
The Lost Summer – The Heyday of West End Theatre
, who duly referred to it in his book.
⁶
According to Duff, Banbury later flatly denied telling
him that Wyatt had mentioned Cotes by name. ‘Nothing I have ever done in my life caused me as much anxiety as the short “West End 1950s” section of The Lost Summer,' Duff wrote to me, when I was carrying out research on Wyatt's bill several years ago.
⁷

It is clear from Peter Saunders' autobiography that he was, in many respects, Beaumont's nemesis, and that it was his championing of populist theatre, as represented by Agatha Christie, that put him in a position of strength in this respect. In 1995, Lord Wyatt, whose political affinities had changed markedly in the intervening years, and who had himself dabbled in playwriting, refused to talk with me about his bill but suggested that ‘the best person to enquire about my role in bringing the manipulation of the entertainment tax laws in the 1940s–50s to the public's attention is Peter Saunders, the impresario. You could tell him that I suggested you write to him. His address is . . .'
⁸
Saunders, though, also refused to discuss the matter, and simply referred me to his book.
⁹
Peter Cotes, who believed himself to have been blacklisted by Beaumont, wrote to me a few years later that ‘the less I have to say about Mr Beaumont and what you term his creation of a theatrical monopoly through his manipulation of the Entertainment Tax laws, the better.'
¹⁰
He eventually agreed to answer a questionnaire, but died a few weeks later, before I could get it to him. As for the ‘major international star' whose name Saunders pledged not to reveal, we will never know.

One major international star with whom Saunders was delighted to advertise his association in 1954 was Margaret Lockwood. RADA-trained Lockwood had become Britain's most popular and highly paid screen actress in the 1940s, appearing in a number of thrillers that included
Doctor Syn
(1937),
The Lady Vanishes
(1938),
Night Train to Munich
(1940),
The Man in Grey
(1943),
The Wicked Lady
(1945),
Bedelia
(1946),
Highly Dangerous
(1950) and
Trent's Last Case
(1952). On stage, Lockwood had starred in tours of
Pygmalion
and
Private Lives
but had not appeared in the West End (other than two Christmas
seasons as Peter Pan) since working as a young graduate in the 1930s. In September 1953, aged thirty-seven and finding herself near the end of a film contract, Lockwood and her agent Herbert de Leon had decided that it was time for her to embark upon a change of direction and to launch herself as a West End star.

De Leon had masterminded Lockwood's career from the outset. Having started in the business as a professional singer, he was widely regarded as the biggest and most important of the ‘one man' agencies. With a client list that included Greer Garson, Anna Neagle, Wilfrid Hyde White, Dora Bryan, Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Patricia Hayes and Jean Kent, de Leon was famous for his unorthodox methods; he never asked his clients to sign a contract with him and they were free to leave if and when they wanted to. He had seen Lockwood performing in her end-of-term RADA showcase in 1934 and, amazed that she didn't receive an award, offered to represent her on the spot. When he died forty-five years later he was still representing her and they still didn't have a contract.

In Margaret Lockwood's autobiography, which tells the story of her life up to the mid-1950s, she recalls that it was her agent who, aware of her ‘passion for Agatha Christie', suggested asking Christie to write a play for her to star in. De Leon, a friend of Peter Saunders, talked to ‘the skilful young theatrical manager who was already presenting two of Mrs Christie's plays in London, who accepted the idea enthusiastically . . . Mrs Christie travelled to London from her Devonshire home, and the four of us lunched together. I was charmed to meet my favourite authoress at last . . . She willingly entertained the idea of writing a play for me, and only six weeks later we had a message from her that she had already decided upon the plot and expected the whole work to be completed in two or three months.'
¹¹
Witness for the Prosecution
had not yet opened when the lunch at the Mirabelle took place, so Lockwood's choice of Christie pre-dated its phenomenal success and would have been based largely on the reputation of
The Mousetrap
. Coincidentally, the following August Lockwood and
her daughter were to find themselves holidaying in the South of France in the same hotel as Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim. Attenborough had just completed his extended run in
The Mousetrap
and Lockwood was about to start rehearsals for
Spider's Web
.

Christie remembers of her first meeting with Lockwood that she ‘said at once that she didn't want to continue being sinister and melodramatic, that she had done a good many films lately in which she had been the “wicked lady”. She wanted to play comedy. I think she was right, because she has an enormous flair for comedy, as well as being able to be dramatic. She is a very good actress, and has that perfect timing which enables her to give lines their true weight.'
¹²
This was the first time that Christie had consciously written a star role since she had created Canon Pennefather for Francis L. Sullivan, and I have no doubt that her willingness to do so on this occasion was motivated by the fact that it was for a woman, and one whose company she enjoyed and whose talent she admired. Lockwood and Christie were clearly kindred spirits; in an interview with
Reynolds News
in January 1954, Lockwood remarked that ‘Agatha has the gift of doing what all women want to do, but only men have the chance. She achieves something. Men climb Everest, race fast cars, invent atom bombs, fight wars, become famous surgeons and man lifeboats. In her heart every woman, too, would like to do these things. But all we can do is dream. It is all we can do. It's a man's world. The only consolation I get is that Agatha kills off a few of you.'
¹³
The admiration was mutual and, astonishingly, Christie even agreed to appear with Lockwood in a series of highly staged publicity photographs, which feature Herbert de Leon as ‘the corpse'.

The role she created for Lockwood, Clarissa, notably shares a name with Agatha's mother (Clarissa was also both Agatha's and Rosalind's middle name), although early notes for the play indicate that the character might originally have been called Laura. We get no description of Clarissa in Christie's stage directions (doubtless a diplomatic move on her part), although we know that, according to another character, her husband
is ‘years older' than her at ‘about forty' and that she has a twelve-year-old stepdaughter. The dreamy but resourceful wife of a Foreign Office official, Clarissa is given to fantasising about a world of high drama and adventure: ‘Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do? Or supposing a woman were to be shown in here one day and told me that she and Henry had been secretly married in Constantinople, and that our marriage was bigamous, what should I say to her? Or supposing I had to choose between betraying my country and seeing Henry shot before my very eyes?'
¹⁴
It is as though
The Mousetrap
's Mollie Ralston were dreaming of leading the life of
Chimneys
' Virginia Revel. Inevitably a body does turn up (before vanishing again), and we end up in a scenario that has many of the complexities and much of the lightness of touch of
Chimneys
, as well as similarly bubbling dialogue; there is even a subtext of international diplomacy and a reference to the fictional Balkan state of Herzoslovakia, last heard of in
Chimneys
.