Word: curtiz
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Perseus; 20th Century-Fox) is only a medium-sized religious picture; there are plenty of horses and a couple of cheetahs but no elephants. Still. Producer Plato Skouras took pains to please Papa Spyros. To tell the story of St. Francis, he took color cameras, cast and Director Michael Curtiz to Assisi...
After spending three months searching the world for an Assisi-like setting for earlier scenes of the film, Director Michael Curtiz settled on Assisi, and it proved a happy choice. When Curtiz complained that the authentically medieval town hall did not look old enough, the village submitted to a 20th Century-Fox makeup job. When he called for extras, there were hundreds of volunteers, including both Communists, who profess special regard for St. Francis, and members of the local Franciscans. The monks also gave Producer Plato Skouras, son of Spyros, free use of their archives and buildings-including the exquisitely...
...Curtiz was also briefly hampered by a gentle jurisdictional dispute between the two Franciscan orders in Assisi-the brown-cloaked Friars Minor and the black-clothed Conventuals-over the color of the saint's robe. But Skouras' Vatican-connected authority happily ruled that Bradford (A Certain Smile) Dillman, as Francis, should wear grey...
Ironically, Francis of Assisi was roughest of all on the animals. While Curtiz eliminated the sermon to the birds as "too corny," Dillman was still required to bless a menagerie ranging from dogs to ducks. And in the closing minutes of the film-shot in Rome on golden sand previously hallowed by Ben-Hur's chariot tracks -the director decided to foreshadow Francis' death by depicting a raven on a desolate limb. Explained a Curtiz assistant: "We had three ravens in Assisi; one died of cold, and another flew the coop. Some body shut a car door...