Something Wicked This Way Comes

 

A year or so ago, I acquired the soundtrack from SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by French composer Georges Delerue (1925-1992). While I was aware that Disney’s 1983 adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic dark fantasy novel had a long and difficult road to the screen, I was not aware that they tossed out Delerue’s eerie score and replaced it with one done by James Horner (who only had six weeks to get it done).

 

Back in the early 80’s, Disney was attempting to make more mature, yet commercial films, along with their live action/animated films for kids and through their Buena Vista arm (a division not associated with kids films at this period) hired Jack Clayton (1921-1995), a British born director who was known for 1959’s ROOM AT THE TOP, the spooky 1961 film THE INNOCENTS, 1964’s THE PUMPKIN EATER, and 1967’s widely praised, but a failure at the box office, OUR MOTHER’S HOUSE, to make the film.

 

Known as a meticulous director, one who took on more unusual topics and spent significant time filming, the commercial failure OUR MOTHER’S HOUSE seemly prevented Clayton from helming another film until 1974’s Robert Redford led THE GREAT GATSBY, which while moderately successful commercially, it garnered mixed reviews.

 

But by the early 80’s, nearly recovered from a stroke he had in 1977, he and Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) reconnected after nearly two decades when producer Peter Douglas (son of Kirk) brought the project to him and sold it to Disney. SOMETHING WICKED has already had a long road to screen, starting with the original short-story written in 1948. Nearly a decade later, Bradbury created a 70-page film treatment that he brought to, of all people, Gene Kelly. While Kelly was impressed and wanted to helm the film, he could not raise the capital needed to make it. Eventually, Bradbury took the treatment and expanded the tale into what became the 1962 novel.

 

But the film version would have an even rougher road ahead. Bradbury wrote the script from his novel, but during production, Clayton brought in British writer John Moritmer (who did work on THE INNOCENTS, but is more famous for his RUMPOLE novels) for uncredited rewrite of the screenplay. This caused some obvious conflicts between them, as Clayton was making a dark thriller, returning to the themes he had explored before -the supernatural, and the exposure of children to evil and Bradbury and Disney seemly wanted something else.

 

After seeing Clayton’s cut, the studio found fault with a lot of it –the length, the pacing, the fact that it was not family friendly, which they viewed as meaning not “commercial.” While today reshoots are more common, back in day it was not so. Still Disney decided to delay the production for nearly a year and spent a reported $5 million on new scenes and new visual effects. While they shot the film between late September to December 1981, new sequences were done (via a new director) in late 1982 and early 1983. One was the spider sequence, and it’s very clear the two boys had grown significantly in a year. Deleted was a very early-effort CGI effect that opened the film, one that showed Dark's Carnival arriving in the town and magically unfolding itself into place -this sequence was covered in great detail in 1982 edition of Cinefantastique magazine. Another Clayton sequence that was removed featured a giant disembodied hand that reached into the boys' room and tried to grab them – this was deleted by the studio on the grounds that the mechanical effect was not realistic enough.

 

Despite the additional money for the reshoots, when it came to editing the film, Argyle Nelson, Jr was let go and assistant editor Barry Gordon was promoted to replace him (both were credited on screen, though). With new marching orders from the studio, Gordon was instructed to re-edit the film to make it less frightening and thus more commercial. Bradbury was also brought back to write some narration that helped clarify the story. Also kicked the curb was Delerue’s score, which Disney rejected as being “too dark”. Given only six weeks, James Horner was brought in to create a less scary and, again, a more commercial score. And while fine for the time, Horner’s take was mostly re-cues and variations on themes he had already did on Star Trek II and Battle Beyond the Stars.

 

Georges Deleue’s score remained hidden in the Disney vaults until 2011, when the studio gave rare permission to the French Universal label to issue 30 minutes of excerpts from the original 63 minutes of studio recordings. Finally, in 2015 the label Intrada was able to release the entire score on CD, which also included alternative cues and other source music totally over 75 minutes.

 

In the end, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES remains somewhat of a missed opportunity. Perhaps Jack Clayton was too cerebral, too much of an auteur of director for Disney, who even today remains somewhat conflicted on producing films for a mature audience, and keeps a close reign on its directors. Also, while Ray Bradbury’s tale featured kids, it was not a kids book. It was a tale of dark fantasy for adults who remembered their youths in a certain way, especially at the time of year when the Autumn People came.

 

While blame could be pointed at both Clayton and Disney, the tinkering the studio did to make a more commercial film perhaps doomed it at the box office, as it made only about $8 million on its $20 million budget. But it’s rare for a film with a troubled production history to connect to an audience, as they are generally seeing two visions of the same film made by two different groups of people.

 

The House of Mouse still holds the film rights and is open to remaking the film, but not much has happened since 2014 when it was announced writer Seth Grahame-Smith was scripting a much more faithful-to-the-source-material version.

 

Perhaps we could see a new version on Disney+ somewhere down the line, but I’m curious if Clayton’s original cut remains in the vaults of the studio in Burbank? It might be fun to see how he fully saw this tale.