World War II: The Musical!

Excerpt from Time Overgrows: The Fall of Soviet Censorship during the Frunze Regime,Natalie Hershlag, University of America Press Harvard, 2003

[…] After the wartime disruption, American theatre shows began making their comeback in the USSR. Shows like Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun, Lerner and Lowe’s Brigadoon , and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, Oil and Silver Fleece would debut in the country alongside Truman Plan aid. In fact, Molotov would attend the Soviet premier of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Bolshoi in 1951. Despite their popularity in the country, many correspondents wondered if such grand shows were in line with Marxism-Leninist principles. Indeed, Andrei Chblosky*, the Russian-born theatre critic for Pravda’s Metropolis bureau, wondered in a 1952 column why they were importing Cole Porter shows to developing nations, and not the reemerging Proletkult theatre that had recently reemerged both in the United Republics and Soviet Union.

Despite these concerns, the imported shows were inarguably inoffensive in terms of their content, focused on old school Americana settings, mostly pre-revolution, and apolitical plots that leaned on said Americana. The exoticism to Soviet audiences, especially in Central Asia where many tours were set up, was part of the appeal, and helped promote good feelings towards Americans during the Truman plan era.

Ironically, however, the ones who would break this trend were Rodgers and Hammerstein, whose shows, both before and during their prolific partnership, were focused on pre-revolutionary American history, especially the turn of the century. The aforementioned Carousel(an adaptation of Fenerec Molnar’s Lilliom set in 1873 Maine), Oil (adapted from Upton Sinclair’s novel of the same name) and Silver Fleece(based on WEB du Bois’ 1911 novel) all fit the Americana feeling superficially, even if the actual plots tended to be much darker and somber than the bright settings suggested.

In 1949, however, for their newest show, they decided to embrace the present, and told a very contemporary musical. Based on James Michener’s 1947 novel of the same name, Siberia , with a grandeur its name invokes, was both modern and explicitly political. Set in early 1941, the musical told the story of Esther, a young black farmer from the rural South who joined the Amazon Brigades and is awaiting deployment to the European front. There, she meets Vladimir, a Russo-Mongolian lumberjack and single father with 9 children. The two begin a romance, despite the pressures of war, and bigotry within both their circles. Himself biracial, Vladimir deals with many of his rural compatriots being distrustful of the African American Esther, while the more “urbane” crowd and her fellow soldier feeling that Vladimir is too “backwards” and “provincial.” The musical would be a hit, with some of its songs (“Some Enchanted Evening”, “There Is Nothing Like A Dame”, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair”, “You Have To Be Carefully Taught”) becoming jazz standards. In 1954, Fred Zinneman would direct the film adaptation, starring Dorothy Dandridge and Yul Brynner in the title roles.

However, when the film version reached the USSR in early 1955, there was uproar amongst more conservatives sectors of society. They viewed the bigotry displayed by the Russian characters as portraying their country in a negative light, especially since much of this bigotry is expressed by Russian characters. They also lambasted what they viewed as consistently negative portrayals of Russian characters, including a scene where Esther is sexually harassed by a gaggle of Soviet soldiers or the portrayal of gay American soldiers.

More controversially, they also found the play too explicit and sexualized in its portrayal of the early war period. Notably, the song ""I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” features explicit nudity in line with the growing liberalization of American films in the 1940’s and 50’s. The song “There is Nothing Like A Dame” also featured several scenes of male nudity. Pravda accused the film of pushing “American style sexual debauchery” and “horrid stereotypes about Russians” upon the populace.

Indeed, when the film played in the small town of Bogatovo, near the Polish border, two VKP(b) politicians in the Kaliningrad Oblast lambasted the showing, claiming that there was a hidden “American homosexual agenda” within the film, and called for its ban. Indeed, several localities did ban the film alongside other American imports. Hammerstein himself responded in a letter to the Daily Worker “I don’t see how they could’ve perceived such a message in the feature. I would ask what exactly they felt was so debaucherous and state why they felt this was a priority to examine.”

This backlash was part of a growing rift between the old guard and the new generation over American exports. Many of the former felt that, while American aid was appreciated, new forms of media brought over by American soldiers and experts were challenging social mores and the more conservative Soviet culture of the time. Others felt that it was showing different ways of cultural revolution.

Siberia would be a significant sticking point, given its World Revolutionary War setting, which was undergoing mythologizing in the USSR. The portrayal of Soviet (and to a lesser extent, American) soldiers as fundamentally flawed and human was contrary to the idea of the Red Army being full only of the most forward thinking soldiers.

For its part, the GUKF [The Chief Directorate of the Film and Photo Industry] would avoid the controversy, and allowed the film to continue distribution in the country. Following the controversy around Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955 (described in Chapter 3), Siberia would in fact be part of the first batch of films that would receive Eisenstein code ratings in the USSR. It would get an “A” [For adult audiences]

Excerpts from “Episode 78: When A Failed Actor Made Two Terrible World War II Musicals” from the podcast “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, A Podcast About the Weirdest Bad Ideas of All Time”, hosted by Ira Eban for the PBS Podcasting Network, uploaded August 8th, 2021*

[Host Ira Eban has been discussing the early life of the subject, actor turned West End Producer Don John prior to the excerpt]

Ira Eban: So, it’s 1968. The Warner-Columbia merger has basically killed the old Havanawood system, with major studios either relocating to Europe or just flat shutting down. Don senses that he won’t have much of a career in movies in Cuba anymore. In fact, you could argue the MacArthurist delusions of having this Second Republic type economy just completely collapsing. Kennedy is just refitting the entire economy to suit the needs of the island nation, cutting government grants and trying to build native Cubano business. A lot of the initial White owned businessmen are starting to look outwards, including Don’s dad. So, he sends Don over to West Germany to acquire some new real estate. While in Europe, Don decides that it’s time to pursue his ambition. His dad is too distracted by his mini-war with the Kennedy administration over the aforementioned discrimination lawsuit, and is caught up in Kennedy’s war on the mob. Don quickly makes the deals in Germany, and tells his dad that he’s staying in Germany

DON JOHN INTERVIEW WITH DAILY MAIL TV, 2011: So I signed the deals, he gets his land in Germany, and he stops paying attention. I figured, y’know, Europe was where the movies were being made, and I wanted to be a movie star, an actor. I tell dad I would head up the new Euro land deals, and I go to South Italy to show him some progress there, give him more land, so he doesn’t look at what else I’m doing. He never knows that I’m also going to South Rome, going to these auditions. I started going by Don John around that time. I figured, Europe, Don Juan (laughs).

One of these auditions in South Rome would get him spotted by this French producer, Robert Dorfmann, who thinks Don, being an Americuban, would be perfect for the role in a spaghetti western he is producing called Gringo’s Luck. It’s directed by Sergio Corbucci, and it’s about this cowboy, the Gringo, played by Christopher Plummer, who protects this town from an evil banker, played by Sean Connery, who wants to take over the town and demolish it for a railroad, and a group of outlaws he hires. Don plays one of the banker’s assistants:

[Clip from Gringo’s Luck(1968):

The Gringo (Christopher Plummer): And what of the town?

Alastair McDowell (Sean Connery): Well, I’ll let my assistant, Mr. Corrigan explain.

Danny Corrigan (Don John): Well, I’m sure that your people will get some mighty fine sums from this train deal. We might be able to even relocate them.

The Gringo: To where?

Danny Corrigan: Perhaps some places in California might be able to accommodate some of your people. I assume we can send some of your best over there.]

Don’s character is shot in the chest in the climatic battle for the film because he doesn’t know how to ride horse.

The film is a hit, and Don’s profile is raised. He spent the next couple years sort of meandering between West Germany, South Italy, Spain, and the FBU, just taking whatever large roles he could get. Most of these were poverty row movies of the period, Mambo movies, Eurospy, Spaghetti westerns. Usually, he is a supporting character, an outlaw with whatever big bad was fighting with Franco Nero or he would be a communist American working for whatever dastardly branch of Section 1 was trying to destroy Europe that day. This is an example from 1971’s Agent 38 in Rio , where he plays an American agent torturing the James Bond-like French agent Fabien Garnier, played by Jean-Paul Belmundo, at the American embassy in Brazil, trying to get information from him. Garnier is held above a tank of hyper-pressurized water that will drown him

[Clip from Agent 38 in Rio(1971):

Commander Gorsky (Don John): The microfilm

Fabien Garnier (Jean-Paul Belmundo): The what?

Commander Gorsky: You know what I’m asking for, Comrade Garnier. The microfilm with our agents. You retrieved it from one of our agents in Sao Paulo.

Fabien Garnier: I can’t possibly know what you are referring to.

Commander Gorsky: Very well. I wish it didn’t have to come to this.]

The scene ends with him getting dunked in the tank and drowning

[Clip of Don John getting dunked in the tank and drowning]

In 1972, Don finally relocated to London to manage his father’s newly acquired European territories. Again, his father is too distracted, this time by a failed campaign for the National Party nomination for President (won that year by Luis Posada Carilles, who would go on to win three terms in office), to notice Don isn’t really doing a whole lot other than signing deals for land.

DON JOHN INTERVIEW WITH DAILY MAIL TV, 2011: It was very strange, he was so focused on this presidential run, I would send him telegrams about these deals, and I wasn’t even sure he read them. Honestly, I didn’t even know half of what I was actually purchasing. Probably some bad land deals there, I dunno. I had this beautiful apartment in Chelsea, though, just gorgeous.

Don gets a slightly higher profile in 1973 when he stars in My American Cousin. He plays Richard, the American cousin of a Liverpool dock worker Jerry Hamlin, played by Bob Hoskins. Richard is an exchange student studying in Britain, and lives with Hamlin. They have these wacky cultural exchanges, like here, when Hoskins catches the cousin sunbathing on the roof.

[Clip from My American Cousin Series 1, Episode 1:

Jerry Hamlin (Bob Hoskins): Why are you naked?

Richard Hamlin (Don Juan): Just sunbathing.

Jerry Hamlin: On the roof?

Richard Hamlin: That’s how it’s done.

Jerry Hamlin: NAKED?

Richard Hamlin: How else to get such a thorough tan.]

For his part, Hoskins didn’t look fondly on the experience of working with Don.

BOB HOSKINS INTERVIEW WITH MARK KERMODE, 2008: Unpleasant, snotty. He would just walk in all proud, all high and mighty. He would berate the tailor if his costumes didn’t fit. He’d throw tantrums if he didn’t have any scenes. I was glad that show never went past the first series, I couldn’t stand the son of the bitch.

Yeah, just one season in 1973, but that same year, he would actually have his biggest success as a film actor: starring opposite Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man. Don stars as Sergeant Neil Howie, a Canadian-born British police officer investigating the disappearance of a young girl on an isolated Scottish island, and finding that a strange cult dominates the island.

[Clip from The Wicker Man(1973):

Sergeant Howie (Don John): What religion can they possibly be learning jumping over bonfires?

Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee): Parthenogenesis.

Sergeant Howie: What?

Lord Summerisle: Literally, as Miss Rose would doubtless say in her assiduous way, reproduction without sexual union.

Sergeant Howie: Oh, what is this? You’ve got fake biology, fake religion. Have these children even heard of Jesus?

Lord Summerisle: Himself the son of a virgin, impregnated, I believe, by a ghost…][1]

At the end of the movie, Howie is placed in the titular Wicker Man and sacrificed.

This would be the height of his brief career as a regular in Hammer Horror and disaster movies. Like his role as Johnny Alucard in Dracula 1972 AD, also opposite Christopher Lee.

[Clip from Dracula 1972 AD(1972):

Johnny Alucard (Don John): Dig the music, kids!]

Before he dies in a shower.

Or opposite Leslie Nielsen in the science fiction disaster thriller The Gemini Protocol.

[Clip from The Gemini Protocol(1974):

Commander Harlan (Leslie Nielsen): Mission Control, what is going on?

Flight Director John Franklin (Don John): The satellite tore through the module. You’ve lost your fuel.

Commander Harlan: Meaning what?

Flight Director: Meaning you are going to have to navigate around the moon to get to the next point.]

This was actually one of the few roles where he doesn’t die by the end. In fact, that’s something that frustrated Don.

DON JOHN IN EBC INTERVIEW, c. 1998: That’s what I kept doing in the movies. Dying. In horror, I died, sci-fi, I died, disaster, I would be the first to die! Wicker Man, they put me in that giant statue. I would be strangled by a mummy or bitten by a vampire or some guy would shoot me or an avalanche would land on me. It was ridiculous.

However, Don also found some success on the opposite end of the spectrum. His second best known role was as a sleazy Cuban publisher of the porn magazine… Sleeze named Sanford Johnson in Centerfold , a crime thriller set in the modeling agency.

[Clip from Centerfold(1974):

Sanford Johnson (Don John): This girl. This girl is going to put Sleeze on the map]

Don also worked a few times with Kodak International, a major film studio in Britain. He would be the lead in James Ivory’s The Wild Party.

[…]

[Ira Eban has finished explaining the 1975 bombing of the National Party headquarters by the communist aligned Cuba Libre Party. Don’s father would be one of the 13 victims killed by the bombings, targeted at allies of the Carilles regime. Don finally returns to Cuba to bury his father, before returning with a sizable portion of his estate.]

So, Don finally doesn’t really need to hide his activities anymore. He sold off whatever real estate he had purchased for his father, and incorporated Don John Productions. With roles drying up and Don’s dissatisfaction with the roles being offered, Don decides to put his money to good use.

DON JOHN INTERVIEW IN THE DOCUMENTARY “VOICES OF THE WEST END”, 2003: I was tired of the film roles I was being offered, I was tired of getting shot all the times, so when I received my inheritance after my father’s death in that terrible terrorist attack, I used it to fund my passion: the stage.

His first musical was a mostly forgettable riff on the Scarlet Pimpernel. However, while at a party networking, he is introduced to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Those two basically dominate the West End at this time. They were, after all, the team that gave the world Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ, Superstar , which would dominate both sides of the Atlantic for quite some time.

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER INTERVIEW AT BABOONS! FILM PREMIERE, 2017: We started talking and I told Don that Tim and I were working on a new concept album, about Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian actress who worked in Integralist propaganda. He immediately cuts me a check right then and there to turn the concept album into a musical.

That show would be, of course, Carmen , about the Brazilian actress, her life, her work in Brazilian and Cuban films, and especially her controversial collaboration with the Salgado regime. Don would see massive returns as Carmen becomes an international success. The song “Never Forget Me, Brasilia!” became every glee kid’s favorite solo. [Patti LuPone sings that song in the background]. In 1978, Don produces a film version with MGM directed by Rosario Zargoza*, starring Elaine Page reprising her star turn as Carmen.

[…]

In 1978, Don was recently married (this was his first marriage, he is currently on marriage number 5), and he is at the bookstore.

DON JOHN INTERVIEW AT “BABOONS!” FILM PREMIERE, 2017: I was looking for a book for my newborn son to read, and I come across this funny little book called “Scruffy”.

Scruffy by Paul Gallico was a 1962 comedy novel based on the legend that if the barbary macaques were to disappear from Gibraltar, British rule would also end. During World War II, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery both sent orders to maintain the barbary macaque population on Gibraltar by any means necessary. The story is about two of the military personnel on the island, Major Bailey and Gunner Lovejoy, who are charged with getting this one trouble-making, incorrigible macaque, Scruffy, to mate with a female Amelia. Of course, things get complicated when word of the legends gets out to the Spanish fasicst, who proceed to produce propaganda about how Gibraltar will fall soon to the fascists. The novel is fine, light entertainment, but Don sees an opportunity. He thinks this could be something greater. Something that was bound to change the West End. Don soon goes to his own typewriter, and begins detailing his vision. He brings this to Lloyd Webber.

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER INTERVIEW IN DOCUMENTARY “THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK”, 2005: So, Don just explains all of this, his book for a new musical he wants me to write music for, and it was an intriguing enough idea for a musical. However, we weren’t going to have a billion monkeys on the stage. Especially given what the play was about. Don had a solution, though. He asks me: Have you seen those “Planet of the Apes” movies?

Yes, in order to portray the macaques, all the the monkey characters, including Scruffy and Amelia, would played by actors wearing monkey costumes. They would be dancing around in these weird looking monkey costumes, with prosthetics and everything.

[Clip of the actors performing a song in the costume]

The make-up was very impressive, especially since they were able to get the costume designers from Planet of the Apes , but the actors hated wearing it, especially since they would have to wear the makeup for the entire day in addition to having to perform with them on. The entire time. It also caused disruptions on stage.

There was also the subject matter. Now, Gallico’s book was more children’s oriented, but Don’s book was much more adult in its treatment of the subject matter. Sex is a primary theme of the play, in fact, and most of the songs are about sex, whether it’s the romance between Major Bailey and his wife, or more often, the monkeys singing about how sex they want to have. There’s also this iconic moment.

[Clip of monkey actors gyrating and air humping]

Yeah, for whatever reason, the monkeys dance very sexually. It doesn’t get to the levels of a Broadway production, and it’s kept PG, but that’s the overwhelming theme of much of the musical.

The play has the Nazis as villains instead of the Falangists. It’s rumored Lloyd Webber made this change to appease the estate of Francisco Franco, a writer and former fascist officer, in order to secure the rights to Four Siblings , which Don and Andrew produced the musical version of in 1992.

They also decided to change the name from Scruffy to Baboons!, which was strange given these are macaques and not baboons. Don apparently felt the name conveyed exactly what the play was going to give you. He wasn’t wrong.

Despite the strangeness of monkeys doing sensual dances and singing about sex, the play actually works as a fun comedy, with a lot of hijinks. Field Marshal Montgomery actually makes an appearance, and sings a song telling Bailey and Lovejoy about the importance of the island in this time of war, and they need to make sure the monkeys are breeding and the population remains.

It’s overall a fun show, which is why it was a big hit on the West End after its release in 1981 and was brought to Broadway in 1996. Even though critics rightfully criticized the weird horny lyrics, the gyrating monkeys, and the odd sense of patriotism it tries to instill. Lloyd Webber was satisfied and moved on to his next project, an adaptation of a 1911 novel that we all probably know by now.

Don, however, felt emboldened. After all, a show with a book and lyrics by him was a great hit, and he was given as much publicity as the great Andrew Lloyd Webber. This gave Don enough confidence to take his Baboons money and put it towards a new passion project.

On a trip home to Cuba a few years earlier, he had heard the story of James Gurkle*, a soldier in the Latin American front, a scion of a wealthy family, who sent his love Jennifer Burnstein* home letters, including poems and songs he had composed. He would be captured by the Integralists, and killed in a POW camp in 1943.

Don was so inspired by the story, he bought the rights to the book of Gurkle’s poetry from his estate, and began writing a screenplay based on it. A musical in fact. He would receive help from Lloyd Webber, who contributed two songs, as well as the Tornados[2] and Elton John, who would score the rest of the film.

The screenplay is the Gurkle story, from his origins as the son of a wealthy Oregon timber dynasty, to him having to flee the Revolution as a teenager, before becoming a Cuban socialite, falling before finally signing up for the army, and being captured by the Integralists. Interspersed are the songs, which faithfully adapt the poems and songs that the real Gurkle had written.

With these musical connections, Don was able to get the involvement of Kodak International, who were looking for a solid historical picture. Don and Kodak co-financed the film. However, after cycling through directors and actors to star, Don decided there was only one person who could possibly do both.

[Clip of Don singing “My Heart Belongs Elsewhere”]
Yes, Don decided he would star in the film as Jimmy Gurkle. And he might as well direct since he’s producing, writing, and starring in the film. Jenny would be played by Joanna Lumley. Donald Pleasance would be his disapproving timber mogul father, John Hurt was a British correspondent on the Latin American front who befriends Gurkle, and Alfred Molina would play the soldier who killed Gurkle.

With all of that, they would shoot many of the earlier scenes in the FBU, including the south of France to emulate Oregon and the Oregon coast. Afterwards, they moved production to Bogota to replicate 1930’s Cuba. Those filmings went relatively smoothly. However, Trump is very… clear in his vision of what the film should be. He insists on period accurate materials. When filming in Lyon, he was upset that one of the crew left their modern music player on the ground, and chewed out the crew member in front of everyone. He also kept doing takes. Making various takes, which would sometimes eat up an entire day. Still, he kept it under budget, and delivered on time.

When they got to the last portion, within the jungles of Venezuela, that’s when the trouble really began:

ALFRED MOLINA INTERVIEW WITH MARK KERMODE, c. 2004: So, we get there, we are able to squeeze some of the scenes out of it, and then this giant rainstorm comes in. And Don John says, “I’m from Cuba, these things don’t last very long.” Well, it ended up lasting a week! So, we are just stuck in Caracas, just waiting for our location to open up. Nice room service, though.

Don doesn’t let this get to him, and he is tweaking the script as he sits in the hotel lobby. When the storm finally cleared, they were able to continue filming. The Venezuelan government had given gracious help to the production, even providing military equipment to serve for the war scenes. However, bare in mind, this was a time when the governments of Venezuela and Brazil (and to a lesser extent, Colombia) were battling the armed Marxist group the International Bolivarian Liberation Front (FILB), who were fighting with Centroamerican support for the overthrow of the remaining capitalist governments in South America. FILB saw these tanks and planes out in the jungle and didn’t hesitate to blow them up.

ALFRED MOLINA INTERVIEW WITH MARK KERMODE, c. 2004: So these terrorists blew up our equipment, and we gotta wait until the Venezuelan government sends new ones. That’s another week of waiting.

Don’s perfectionism soon goes into overdrive. He would order all trees cut down, he sends people to Rio to find authentic Integralist flags, he writes and adds in scenes the day of. On top of all this, he insisted on luxury treatment, including a personal chef and a hot tub. All of this, by the way, costs Kodak money. A lot of money. The budget sours, and the filmings drags on and on through 1982 into 1983, forcing the studio into pushing the release date.
There are also various rumors that have started that I was not able to verify. In the Mark Kermode interview I cited, Alfred Molina made this accusation.

ALFRED MOLINA INTERVIEW WITH MARK KERMODE, c. 2004: You know, I was in these scenes with these people who Don told us were struggling actors from Brazil. Most of them didn’t speak English, so we never really talked. However, one day, I actually met an extra who could speak English, and we talked for a bit. He said he was actually a fugitive from Brazilian justice. He claimed to be part of a group called the Popular Integralist Front. [KERMODE: What?] I know, I’m wondering, did they hire actual Integralists for this?

I should note Don John has denied that he intentionally hired terrorists to play enemy forces.

Anyway, all this happens, the film goes through an excruciating shoot, but it’s finally finished by late 1983. Don really goes in on promotion. He does this big tour of the Franco-British Union and Cuba, claiming that he had brought back the movie musical and the epic war film.

DON JOHN INTERVIEW WITH ABC NEWS[3], c. 1984: We haven’t had films like In the Jungle or Sao Paulo in a very, very long time. I want to bring those films back. We need patriotism at this time. It feels like we don’t have the kind of films that inspire and lift your spirits anymore. I feel that Songs from the Front will be that sort of film.

The film is released on July 4th, 1984, and uh, well…

[Clip from Songs from the Front (1984):

Horace Bloomington (John Hurt): What was that?

Jimmy Gurkle (Don John): What?

Horace Bloomington: That dance you were doing, what was that?

[Spanish guitars begin playing]

Jimmy Gurkle (singing): “So you want to mambo…”]

Yeah, the film is pretty bad. By any measure of the imagination. Don John delivers a decent performance, but he just can’t sing very well, and he basically sings all of the songs. Every actor looks exhausted, and their dialogue is very poorly written.

[Clip from Songs from the Front(1984):

Jennifer Burnstein (Joanna Lumley): So, do you treat all the girls the same?

Jimmy Gurkle (Don John): Only the pretty ones.]
The story is generic, and very, very saccharine. Perhaps worst of all, it is extremely racist.

[Clip from Songs from the Front (1984):

Pedro Sanchez (Manuel Ortega*): Now to get some good tacos, with nice churros!]

That is actually supposed to be a Brazilian Integralist character, but tacos and churros are Mexican. Yeah, and that’s the least egregious line a Latin American character says.

Critics at the time agreed. The film was lambasted by the press. Something Don John blamed the film’s failure in the box office on.

DON JOHN INTERVIEW FOR DOCUMENTARY “THE KODAK STORY”, 2010: The press destroyed the film. Just annihilated it, and that ruined any chance of it becoming a success. I don’t know what their problem was, but it was very nasty and unkind, and it tanked the movie.

The film was not only a bomb in the FBU, but in Cuba, during the midst of the Integralist-Jamaica scandal, the film was dead on sight, especially with its antiquated portrayal of Cubanos.

Don John ends up bearing the brunt of the costs, as does Kodak. Kodak sues Don, since he had apparently caused the production costs to skyrockets which augmented its box office failure. The resulting lawsuit and counter-lawsuit (Don claims Kodak was not responsive to various calls to delay and return home) essentially destroys both parties by the time it was settled in 1985. Kodak would be sold to Maggie Pie that year, and Don would declare bankruptcy.

Don would eventually make a comeback from this failure. He returned to acting, playing roles in shows such as Starlog 5 and The Coventry Murders , before several acclaimed guest appearances on The Rowan Atkinson Show. He’s also a fixture on Hughes-Welch, where he would make several appearances on various news shows. He would even have his own weekly talk show, The Don John Hour between 1989 and 2005. He would use the proceeds from this to fund a new production company, Trump Card, in 1990. Trump Card would produce Baron Lloyd Webber’s Four Siblings in 1992, marking Don’s comeback on the West End. That’s mostly what he’s been up to since.

But we’re here to talk about two bad WW2 musicals, so let’s fast forward to 2016, when Don John makes a stunning announcement:

[Trailer for Baboons!(2017) plays]

Yes, Baboons was finally becoming a movie. Trump Card was going to be a producer, and Guy Ritchie was to direct. It assembled an all-star cast: Idris Elba, Daniel Craig, James Corden, Emily Watson, Shah Rukh Khan. All here in modern motion capture to tell the story of Barbary Macaques fucking a lot.
[Scene from Baboons!(2017) plays, where a close-up reveals a motion captured James Corden as Scruffy airhumping directly into the camera]

So, Don John would have the distinction being involved with two of the worst films ever made.

[1] Pure laziness on my part, but just taken from the OTL film: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070917/quotes/
[2] Better known as the Bee Gees OTL
[3] Formed in 1958 after the partial privatization of the state owned television and radio broadcaster “National Broadcasting Service” *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation