The Carey Treatment

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The Carey Treatment
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBlake Edwards
Screenplay byJames P. Bonner
(pseudonym for
Harriet Frank Jr.
Irving Ravetch)
Based onA Case of Need
1968 novel
by Jeffery Hudson (pseudonym for Michael Crichton)
Produced byWilliam Belasco
StarringJames Coburn
Jennifer O'Neill
Pat Hingle
CinematographyFrank Stanley
Edited byRalph E. Winters
Music byRoy Budd
Production
company
Geoffrey Productions
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • March 29, 1972 (1972-03-29)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Carey Treatment is a 1972 American crime thriller film directed by Blake Edwards and starring James Coburn, Jennifer O'Neill, Dan O'Herlihy and Pat Hingle. The film was based on the 1968 novel A Case of Need credited to Jeffery Hudson, a pseudonym for Michael Crichton. Like Darling Lili and Wild Rovers before this, The Carey Treatment was heavily edited without help from Edwards by the studio into a running time of one hour and 41 minutes; these edits were later satirized in his 1981 black comedy S.O.B..[1][2]

Plot

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Dr. Peter Carey is a pathologist who moves to Boston, where he starts working in a hospital. He soon meets Georgia Hightower, with whom he falls in love. Karen Randall, daughter of the hospital's Chief Doctor, becomes pregnant and is brought to the emergency ward after an illegal abortion. She dies there, and Dr. David Tao, a brilliant surgeon and friend of Carey, is arrested and accused of being responsible for the illegal abortion. Carey does not believe his friend to be guilty and starts investigating on his own, despite strong opposition by the police and the doctors around the hospital's chief.

Cast

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Production

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Development

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Film rights were bought in August 1968 by A&M Productions, the production company of Herb Alpert. They said filming would take place the following year in Boston.[3] In October Perry Leff signed Wendell Mayes to a two-picture contract to write and produce, the first of which was to be A Case of Need.[4][5][6]

Film rights were then picked up by MGM. In March 1971 it was announced Bill Belasco was producing and Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch were working on a script.[7]

In June Blake Edwards signed to direct.[8] This was considered surprising because Edwards had clashed with MGM's chief executive, James Aubrey, during the making of The Wild Rovers. Edwards' wife Julie Andrews later wrote "for reasons I can only guess at, Blake took the bait. Perhaps there was some compulsion on his part to make things right, or perhaps he simply wanted to finally win out against the man who had caused him such pain."[9]

Aubrey promised Edwards he would finance The Green Man, a project of Edwards' to star Julie Andrews.

The cast included Aubrey's daughter Skye,

Shooting

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Filming started in September 1971 under the title A Case of Need.[10] It was a difficult shoot with Edwards claiming Aubrey cut his schedule and refused to let Edwards rewrite the script. Edwards left the film after completing it.[11]

Edwards launched a breach of contract suit against MGM and president James T. Aubrey for their post production tampering of the film.[12] Edwards:

The whole experience was, in terms of filmmaking, extraordinarily destructive. The temper and tantrums from my producer, William Belasco, were such that he insulted me in front of the cast and crew and offered to bet me $1,000 that I'd never work in Hollywood again if I didn't do everything his and Aubrey's way. They told me that they didn't want quality, just a viewable film. The crew felt so bad about the way I was treated that they gave me a party – and usually it's the other way round. I know I've been guilty of excuses but my God what do you have to do to pay your dues? I made Wild Rovers for MGM and kept quiet when they recut it. But this time I couldn't take it. I played fair. They didn't.[11]

Coburn later said "You know, I don’t mind that film. I liked my work on it. There again the studio (MGM) fucked it up. They cut ten days out of the schedule. They pulled the plug on us early. It’s too bad. We did shoot the film on location in Boston though."[13]

Reception

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Critical response

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The Carey Treatment received mostly mixed to negative reviews from critics.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 60% based on 5 reviews, with an average score or 5.20/10.[14]

Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, was amused by The Carey Treatment but wrote, "...I don't think we have to take this too seriously, for The Carey Treatment, like so many respectable private-eye movies, is sustained almost entirely by irrelevancies."[15]

Roger Ebert wrote, "The problem is in the script. There are long, sterile patches of dialog during which nothing at all is communicated. These are no doubt important in order to convey the essential meaninglessness of life, but how can a director make them interesting? Edwards tries."[16]

The Los Angeles Times called it "Edwards' best movie in years" and Coburn's "best role since moving up from supporting player to star."[17]

Variety said it was "written, directed, timed, paced and cast like a feature-for-tv... a serviceable release... Jennifer O'Neill... graces with her beauty plots to which she has absolutely no integral contribution."[18]

Accolades

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Edgar Allan Poe Awards

  • 1973: Nominated, 'Best Motion Picture'

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Brown, Peter H. (June 28, 1981). "Julie Andrews: Bye, Mary Poppins, here's a thoroughly modern movie star Julie Andrews changes image from 'Mary Poppins' to 'S.O.B.'". Chicago Tribune. p. k1.
  2. ^ Kehr, Dave (Feb 15, 2004). "Anatomy of a Blake Edwards Splat". New York Times. p. MT26.
  3. ^ Martin, Betty (Aug 9, 1968). "'Case of Need' on A&M Slate". Los Angeles Times. p. e12.
  4. ^ Martin, Betty (Oct 1, 1968). "Irene Pappas Signs Contract". Los Angeles Times. p. c14.
  5. ^ Judith Martin (28 Feb 1969). "Dropping the Scalpel: Film Notes Columbia Frowns Speeds the Turnover Refuge From Roles". The Washington Post and Times-Herald. p. B12. Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsers by selecting the Enter buttonHide highlighting.
  6. ^ A. H. WEILER (July 6, 1969). "No Gap Like the Generation Gap". New York Times. p. D11.
  7. ^ A. H. WEILER (Mar 21, 1971). "Our 'Boy' Barbra: Our 'Boy' Barbra". New York Times. p. D13.
  8. ^ Martin, Betty (June 23, 1971). "Comeback for Ida Lupino". Los Angeles Times. p. e7.
  9. ^ Andrews, Julie (202). Home work : a memoir of my Hollywood years. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 167.
  10. ^ "MGM Slates Busy Month in September". Los Angeles Times. Aug 27, 1971. p. d11.
  11. ^ a b Warga, Wayne. (Dec 26, 1971). "What's Going On in the Lion's Den at MGM?: What's Going On". Los Angeles Times. p. q1.
  12. ^ Servi, Vera. (Dec 20, 1971). "To Viet Nam with Hope". Chicago Tribune. p. b20.
  13. ^ Goldman, Lowell (Spring 1991). "James Coburn Seven and Seven Is". Psychotronic Video. No. 9. p. 24.
  14. ^ "The Carey Treatment". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  15. ^ "the-screen--breezy-james-coburn-in---carey-treatment". nytimes.com. 1972-03-30. Retrieved 24 October 2024.
  16. ^ The Carey Treatment Movie Review (1972) | Roger Ebert
  17. ^ Thomas, Kevin (7 April 1972). "Pathologist as private eye". The Los Angeles Times. p. 15 Part 4.
  18. ^ "The Carey Treatment". Variety's film reviews. 1983. p. 211.
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