Word: mirisch
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West Side Story (Mirisch: United Artists), when it opened on Broadway in 1957, was greeted as "a major achievement of the American musical theater," a successful attempt to create a new theatrical form: a musical play in which the element of dance mattered more perhaps than either the music or the play-a choreoperetta. Now, with the help of full color, stereophonic sound, and a wider-than-widescreen process called Panavision 70, the play has been transformed into a supercolossal $5,000,000 cinemusical. Unhappily, the film shares a serious flaw in the essential conception of the show; both...
...name is Mirisch, and hardly anyone has heard of it except the Bank of America. The Mirisch Co., Inc. was formed in 1957 by three brothers who were anxious to leave their salaried executive positions at Allied Artists and join the "indie" wave. In less than four years they have grossed $43 million, achieving the fiscal stature of a major studio, and even a partial list of their credits is enough to make M-G-M wish its initials could be changed...
After buying the best material they can find, the Mirisch brothers hire the best directors in Hollywood, then give them artistic control over their films, plus part ownership of the negatives. This has attracted such major directorial names as Billy Wilder, William Wyler and Fred Zinnemann, all of whom are currently at work on Mirisch films. Since, as independents, the brothers operate with a negligible overhead (5% v. Columbia's 22½%, lowest overhead of a major studio), there is plenty of money for directors and stars alike. Even other independents shy from the pace of the three...
Shook a Little. The central Mirisch is Harold, 54, a quietly tailored man who wears black-rimmed glasses and cannot contain himself at cocktail parties: he weaves in and out among the stars, offering them half a million here, half a million there, while his brothers Marvin, 43, and Walter, 39, eat fingernail canapes. At home almost every night, Harold watches motion pictures projected through openings in his living-room wall (when not in use, the little windows are covered with reproductions of masterpieces...
Suitably enough, a big part of the Mirisch brothers' original fortune came from one of the world's largest popcorn concessions, which is owned by the Mirisches and operated in 850 theaters and driveins around the country, under the control of still another brother, Irving, 57. Sons of a New York tailor, the Mirisches all worked in the movie business from their teens on, starting as office boys and ushers, rising to be bookers. theater managers, producers (Brother Walter put out a dozen of the Bomba. the Jungle Boy films). When they decided to go independent, they "shook...