Mr. Floppy 03.08.08: Inchon

Posted by Peter Bielik on 03.08.2008

Laurence Olivier's finest hour.

Last week's movie was a fairly new one, so I think it's time to once again enrich the flop knowledge of you, dear readers with something a bit older.

Actually, I wanted to write about this particular film a long time ago, but it somehow slipped my mind (I should take less drugs probably). This movie is very gratifying to write about, because it's production (especially the minds behind it) are quite interresting to say the very least (the reason why it was decided to make this film is especially tasty). At least for me and you can decide for yourself by reading how exactly it went down.



Year of the cock-up: 1982

Budget: $46,000,000

Domestic gross: $5,200,986

Foreign gross: N/A

Worldwide gross: N/A


I think it's pretty safe to state right at the start that this movie isn't probably what you would call a "well-known piece". Maybe I'm wrong, but when I first read about it, I had absolutely no idea what it was all about.
The plot is quite easy to say just by looking at the title. If you know your history, you know that The Battle of Inchon was a very important point in The Korean War, as the allied forces (USA, Great Britain) were finally able to significantly push back the North Korean army. So the topic isn't bad at all, plus it once again proposes the opportunity to make a big heroic movie showing the strength and bravery of ol' USA. This movie however was doomed right from the word "go". All you have to do to understand this is look at the person behind this film--- Sun Myung Moon.

In case you've never heard about this guy before, here's some background information. Sun Myung Moon is the leader of the Unification Church which he founded on May 1, 1954, in Seoul, South Korea. The Unification Church is considered a new religious movement. The core teachings of the Unification Church are contained in Moon's book, Divine Principle, the bulk of which Moon says was a revelation, and which Unificationists consider scripture along with the Christian Bible. Unification beliefs draw from the Bible as well as Asian traditions, and include a universal God; the creation of a literal Kingdom of Heaven on earth; the universal salvation of all people, good and evil as well as living and dead; that Jesus did not come to die; and that the second coming of Christ is a man born in Korea in the early 20th century. This Messiah is believed by Unificationists to be Sun Myung Moon. Yup, Moon is a messiah to these people. This just serves as a proof that scientologists aren't the only crazy and dangerous people on Earth. A case could be made for almost every religion on this planet, but let's not get too deep into this and continue with happenings surrounding this week's inductee.

Because the Unification Church turned out to be a huge money-maker, Moon himself had a LOT of cash at his disposal. You ask yourself how does a demagogic church leader decide to become a film producer? Well, I have an official version at my disposal (official meaning Moon's) and to say it is ridiculous is quite an understatement. This is how it supposedly started-- one day, Sun Myung Moon began crying and could not stop. To raise his spirits he took a trip to the movie theatre and the crying stopped. He saw this as a sign from God and resolved to make his own motion picture. I think there is absolutely nothing I can write here that would somewhat underscore the idiocy of this.
So Moon remembered the UN forces landing at Inchon, and how the mastermind behind the landings, General Douglas MacArthur, must have been inspired by God. And therein, the production began.
The movie was co-financed by a Japanese businessman Matsusaburo Sakaguchi. The cost was to be split more or less down the middle, with Sakaguchi putting up half the money, and Sun Myung Moon covering the rest from his personal fortune. Even though they both expected the movie to be very expensive, they didn't expect to make the most expensive movie at the time.

First the duo had to choose a director. Somehow, they decided that Terence Young was their man. Young was already a veteran at that time (being born in 1915) and the only films of his that are of any significance in history are his trio of James Bond movies (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball). The lead role of General Douglas MacArthur was given to Laurence Olivier. Olivier was to be paid one million dollars for his work. When the original production ran over schedule however, Olivier insisted on being paid his "bonus salary" in weekly cash payments, delivered to him as briefcases full of money, flown to the location by helicopter. Pretty unusual stuff, but Olivier probably wasn't complaining.
Of course, every big movie needs a sexy woman somewhere so Jacqueline Bisset was cast and paid 1,8 million dollars (even more than Olivier, plus this same amount went to director Terence Young's account) to run around a war-stricken Korea in bikinis and save little orphans (played by the members of Unification Church's children's dance troupe The Little Angels).

The production was filled with many problems. Every single order on the set had to be given out in four languages (Korean, Japanese, English and Italian) and the crew also suffered from a plethora of tropical diseases. Because of the exotic shooting location, weather also wasn't exactly on the filmmakers' side. The recreation of the Inchon lighthouse was destroyed by a typhoon and had to be rebuilt at a huge cost.
The fun continued with the beach landings at Inchon, which had to be redone after an assistant director accidentally sent the ships in the wrong direction. This faux-pas ended up costing $2 million.
And as a final thing worth mentioning-- the final shots of Macarthur greeting crowds in a limousine were redone three times. The first time, the footage was rejected because there weren't enough people in the crowd. The scene was re-shot in Korea at an expense of $1 million, but this time the shots of the crowds and the limo didn't match. The third time, the crew rented a studio in Dublin and put the limo against a rear projection of the crowds. Total cost for this three-minute segment: over $3 million.

The film's final budget was estimated to be about $45 million, which was a ridiculous sum for the time. The entire shooting process lasted for 3 years, so Moon and his co-producer had to be quite happy when it was over. Ecstatic and happy about spreading his religious message to millions of people worldwide, Moon arranged for the film to be released at the prestigious Cannes film festival.
At Cannes, the original 140-minute version was virtually booed off the screen. After this reaction, many desperate re-cuts took place, but at that point, it was already too late. A massive publicity campaign was launched, to no avail. Aside from the atrocious reviews, audiences were afraid that the film was being used as part of a drive by the Unification Church to recruit new members.

Inchon earned only $5,200,986 at the box office, which officially makes it one of the biggest flops ever. The movie was a downright embarrassment on all fronts and remained a black spot on Laurence Olivier's resume for the entire remainder of his career. To his credit though, Olivier openly admitted he participated in this movie only because of the money involved.

If you wish to see this movie, you're going to have a hard time finding it, because it was never officially released on neither VHS, nor DVD and the plans for the foreseeable future don't aim at changing this fact.





The award this week goes to the person behind the movie-- Sun Myung Moon. This religious lunatic was obviously convinced he is going to lure many a new sheep to his already big heard, but thankfully failed miserably. Just like John Travolta burned himself years later with Battlefield Earth, Inchon also serves as a proof that mixing crazy ideology with film is often an express ticket to a big-time flop (of course, there are exceptions to this— Mel Gibson with his Passion of the Christ).
Unfortunately it didn't stop Moon's activities and it also meant no significant harm to his monetary status.

So since Inchon was Reverend Sun Myung Moon's vehicle, I hereby award him the award Mr. Floppy.



Laurence Olivier's career didn't suffer all that bad as I've previously written however, as immediately after this film, he received a lucrative offer for a series of Kodak commercials. And let's be honest here- Kodak commercials are just the right place for veteran Shakespere theatre actors.

As a sidenote-- you have to remember one important thing about having fun-- it is only possible when you're drunk.

- Peter