BLAKE EDWARDS’ 10 (1979)
I can’t recall how many times I’ve seen 10. But in the last week, I’ve watched it for the first time in two new ways: on laserdisc and in its TV-safe alternate version from a 1987 airing on Chicago television. I suspect that in both instances, I used the formats an excuse to marvel at the film’s elegant atmosphere all over again. And because Blake Edwards makes me laugh more than any other filmmaker.
10 opens with a surprise birthday party for its lead character, a wildly celebrated composer named George Webber (Dudley Moore). A quiet get-together has been covertly arranged by his girlfriend, a popular singer/actor named Samantha Taylor (Julie Andrews). Carefully escorted around in the dark by a servant with a lit candle under the notion that the power has gone out, Webber is instead mock-shocked to find a close-knit group of friends leaping forth to share cake and a song. As the event wanes down, we are privy to a private exchange between Webber and Taylor, just after they’ve warbled through a plaintive number at the piano. In hushed, playful tones, Webber declares his distaste of such public celebrations. Then, somber words and mutual ribbing about their ages (he’s turned 42, she 38). The lighting is soft and elegant. The conversation is a touch morose. Plus, Webber previously mentioned to the servant that it’s as if “somebody’s died.” It’s here where it hits you: The pervasively melancholic mood could be likened to a funeral. And then you remember that before the opening credits with Edwards’ customary employment of music by Henry Mancini. Before this scene, we have read the following on-screen text: “This Film is Dedicated with Love and Respect to Dick Crockett.” So, in a sense, it is exactly that.
Who was Richard DeHart “Dick” Crockett?
Well, obviously, 10 was his last picture. There’s been some debate as to whether his cause of death was due to a heart attack or suicide. On Star Trek, he was William Shatner’s stunt double and a Klingon. Instead of listing the credits, you just need to think of any hour-long series from the 1960s, and chances are Crockett put in a hard day’s work for a paycheque: The Untouchables, Batman, Get Smart, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. But most significantly for our purposes, he was friends with Blake Edwards - at least since 1948 and Panhandle, a film directed by Lesley Selander and co-written/co-produced by Edwards. Edwards and Crockett appear on screen together - Edwards as chief heavy Floyd Schofield, and the latter as Elliott Crockett. Throughout the years, Edwards consistently hired Crockett, a trusted friend, and collaborator who could fill bit parts, stunt work, and second unit direction on picturesque movies like Darling Lili (1970) and Wild Rovers (1971). Crockett featured in much of the Pink Panther series and served as Peter Sellers’ stunt double. In Home Work, Julie Andrews’ 2019 memoir, she references Crockett as being “very protective” of Edwards.
This brings us to 10 - something of a creative breakthrough and financial success for a director fast becoming known as the guy who could crank out Pink Panther movies and nothing but. The release would open up a new avenue for a filmmaker stuck in a rut. At last, the personal projects he wanted to undertake could gain lucrative financing and attract exciting performers. But bittersweetly, it serves as a farewell to this old friend. It’s fitting, then, that it's such a reflective, downcast comedy - a comedy about virility and acceptance and strong but maybe antiquated moralities and incomprehension towards a generation that has emerged after your own. It’s the ultimate in midlife crisis as a slapstick comedy with humor alleviating the agony of existence.
Dudley Moore’s resurgence - at least concerning box office returns in North America - came about after playing charmingly drunk in 10 (1979) and a slurry, whining billionaire alcoholic (with trashy taste) in Arthur (Steve Gordon, 1981). But it’s the small supporting part in Foul Play (Colin Higgins, 1978) as a would-be womanizer that paved the way for the more ostentatious and zany display George Webber offers at his neighbor’s orgy.
George has been caught red-handed by Samantha. He cavorts around with the naked women frequenting the pad of a free-love neighbor played by Don Calfa. (At least they’re naked in the theatrical cut - in the television airing, they’re wearing bikini bottoms and tops. And here, one of the women flanking George Webber is played by Denise Crosby, then married to Blake Edwards’s son Geoffrey.) Samantha uses the roving telescope to follow Webber’s naked body as he dashes for cover. The audience is led to believe that Webber’s intoxicated state - he’s spaced out on painkillers following an emergency dentist appointment - has caused such improprieties in his staying faithful to Samantha. But in one of the original drafts of the script, Webber calls on a prostitute following Samantha’s dejection over his usage of the word “broad.” The prostitute - Lisa Woo - is canny, street smart, and an Asian American. She tells George that she always receives a call from him after his long-term relationships turn sour. There’s a fade-out - we conclude the two have sex. But this is not in the pattern of behavior for George Webber - the very point of 10, seems to be, that “screwing for screwing’s sake” is not in his wheelhouse. Webber may be a hypocrite - but this persona is much more in line for Zachary Hutton in 10 2 - also known as 11 (in script form), or in its complete, released form: Skin Deep (1989).
(Incidentally, the use of the telescope reminded me of another picture I watched shortly before: Strangler in the Swamp, a 1946 PRC quickie horror film co-starring… Blake Edwards. It’s probably but a mere coincidence but an interesting correlation.)
The role of George Webber gave Moore a part that launched a steady stream of tepid 1980s comedies that - other than Arthur - didn’t really connect with audiences. Moore owed the good luck to George Segal, who was cast up until the last minute. In a later twist of fate, Moore would be replaced by Segal in Barbara Streisand’s The Prince of Tides (1991).
Occasionally in 10, such as the extended conversations with big-hearted and barrel-chested bartender Donald (Brian Dennehy), there’s a semblance of the charming cosmopolitan vibe typical of the light-hearted comedies from Blake Edwards in the 1950s. Here, Edwards isn’t lurching towards the next gag but instead languorously providing a voice to his characters’ philosophical quandaries. Others criticize these generous moments as a form of square sermonizing - such as the memorable analogy in which George Webber bemoans in his inebriated state how generations henceforth will be forced to declare ‘their’ song as The Beatles’ Why Don’t We Do It In The Road. As the screenplay was written in the early 1970s, it’s easy to imagine that Edwards held onto the line since The White Album was considered new.
In a sense, Dudley Moore is playing Blake Edwards. Or, a version of Edwards. Just as the singer Samantha Taylor is clearly based on Julie Andrews - the “beautiful English broad with the incomparable soprano and promiscuous vocabulary,” as Edwards put it in his 2004 honorary Oscar speech. Notice the use of ‘broad’ - it conjures up memories of that bedside George/Samantha debate over its supposed derogatory etymology. Their relationship brings up questions that are not answered but speculated: Samantha has a child, but it’s clearly not George’s. How long have they been together? It’s clearly a latter-in-life relationship for the pair following mutual starter marriages.
This brings us to Robert Webber. Webber portrays Hugh, George’s homosexual songwriting partner. Webber’s love life is strictly calibrated to casual affairs with younger men, in which Hugh provides luxuriously - he’s a keeper of men. (Peter Donat occupies the same space in Skin Deep, but this time he has a caring boyfriend in Bullitt’s Don Gordon.)
Webber’s Hugh can psychoanalyze Webber “better than most” - and better than his own psychoanalyst. When we cut away from George and his sojourn in Mexico, it’s to Samantha and Hugh at a beach, his old reliables considering his recent troubling behavior. Hugh can pinpoint Webber’s issues clearly for Samantha - Webber is merely embarrassed at having pursued the unattainable and gotten caught. But once the mood passes, he’ll return to Samantha seeking forgiveness. And in the end, Hugh is right.
Bo Derek as the Girl on the One-Sheet
It seems if 10 is remembered today, it’s for the fashionable Bo Derek. Her sleek figure features on all promotional posters, whether it’s an actual picture or in animated form. Her distinctive braids have been referred to as The Bo Derek. She became an emblematic late seventies sex symbol to match Farrah Fawcett and that best-selling poster. She is the girl whom George Webber glimpses on her wedding day and grows obsessed with. But when given a chance, he finds her liberated sexuality to be an unmitigated turn-off. It’s back into the arms of Samantha and predictability.
Edwards sketches in these obscene fantasies - Bo Derek, on the beach, ready to be ravished. For her, lovemaking is a casual buzz as opposed to the meaningfulness George Webber has imbued in the act. It’s a perverse point-of-view to follow in 1979 - a decade since the free-love ‘60s and permissive ‘70s. But then again, Blake Edwards was always resolutely retro and, it could be argued, “unhip.”
Blake Edwards tells the story - the impetus - of 10 on Dinah Shore. He got the idea while riding his automobile in Los Angeles and happened upon a “What If” scenario. He looked outside of his driver’s side window and saw the silhouette of what he imagined to be a great beauty. Then, he was off to the races. In reality, she turned out to be unattractive.
Edwards’ filmography is fleshed out with variations. The opening of Skin Deep follows one train of thought, while Switch (1991) pivots the same opening scene into a divine direction. 10 is about a faithful songwriter going through a bout of male menopause, Skin Deep tracks a poorly behaved alcoholic with significant mental issues. Post-1979 Blake Edwards is a perfect amalgam of elaborate physical humor with intimate self-analyzing.
As Zachary Hutton (John Ritter) cathartically realizes in Skin Deep, God is a gag writer. But so was Blake Edwards.