One of the best movies of the 70s is not available to stream and is out of print on DVD. If you’re lucky enough to live in New York or Los Angeles, there’s a chance you might be able to catch a repertory screening of Elaine May’s 1972 5/5 stone cold masterpiece The Heartbreak Kid. If you don’t live in one of those two cities, you're out of luck for legal means to see it. The reason is that the rights are owned by Bristol Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical company, and they aren’t interested in relinquishing the rights. How did this happen and could it happen again?
Bristol Meyer Squibb’s primary product is an anticoagulant used to treat blood clots, so how do they also have the rights to this Elaine May/Charles Grodin/Neil Simon classic? If you follow entertainment or business news you’ll know that companies love to merge. It provides the exiting CEOs a huge pay day and consolidates power so the current CEOs can wield propaganda machines the likes of which the world has never seen, and while we may be reaching new levels of monopolies and consolidation, vertical integration has always been a part of Hollywood. I remember watching old movies and being slightly confused that The Godfather was being released by Gulf and Western. Wasn’t that a gas company?
I was confusing Gulf and Western with Gulf Oil, but the reality was just as weird. Gulf and Western was one of those companies, like The Umbrella Corporation, that seems to have their sticky little fingers in everything. Their purview included agriculture, apparel, building products, financial services, home and consumer products, natural resources, publishing and somehow also making Serpico.
Conglomeration was all the rage of the 1960s and 70s. Interest rates were low, leveraged buyouts were easy, and everyone craved synergy. MCA took over Universal which made at least some sense since MCA was a music and talent company. Other mergers included Kinney National, a business of Funeral Homes, Parking facilities and maintenance firms acquiring Warner Bros, Transamerica ran United Artists, RKO was bought from Howard Hughes by a tire company(!), MGM became a “primarily a hotel company” according to then owner Kirk Kerkorian, and Columbia and Fox were acquired by Coca-Cola and Newscorp respectively. From 1962 -1982 all of the major studios had been acquired by some non-movie company.
With all the money that was there to be made from mergers and acquisitions how could a New Jersey pharmaceutical company NOT get in the mix? Being in the movie business is cool! You might be able to meet a hot actress like Cybil Shepherd! In 1972 Bristol-Meyers (before another merger added the “Squibb”) announced the formation of Palomar Pictures International only to exit the film business two years later. BMS didn’t sell Palomar Pictures however, it simply shut it down all together, sending it into the lockbox and taking with it the rights to The Heartbreak Kid. “In 2021 it reiterated that it had no plans to sell the rights. As a result, The Heartbreak Kid has not been restored, and is not available on any streaming platforms.”1
The Heartbreak Kid was written by Neil Simon, Directed by Elaine May, stars Charles Grodin, Cybil Shepard, and was nominated for two Oscars. It feels very prescient to watch as so much of the comedy of the last twenty odd years contains the same cringe comedy pioneered by May and Simon in this movie. Although it came out in the 70s, it does not feel dated in the way many 70s comedies do, or even in the way many Neil Simon plays/scripts do (I’m looking at you Barefoot in the Park and The Out of Towners). Much of the reason it still works today is the iconic Charles Grodin. He is a unique comic presence that makes him timeless and inoculates this film to the aging other comedies suffer. There’s never been an actor or comedian like him, before or since. He’s so good that when you watch a movie like Midnight Run you can feel R,obert De Niro aping his delivery in certain scenes. What makes a psychotic movie like Clifford work is the straight man work by Grodin.
What makes Grodin’s performance in The Heartbreak Kid ascend to the stratosphere is the direction of Elaine May. May is one of THE comedy geniuses of the 20th century. She pioneered improv comedy with Mike Nichols in the 50s & 60s at The Compass Players, the predecessor to Second City (alongside Del Close, founder of the Improv Olympic and godfather of UCB). It’s fair to say you can draw a straight line from May to any current cast member on SNL. May wrote some of the best comedies of all time including Cinema Sicko favorite, The Birdcage, and for years was one of the most sought after script-doctors in Hollywood providing uncredited rewrites to films such as Tootsie, Reds, and Labyrinth. She’s the GOAT is what I’m trying to say here. The great tragedy of her (hugely successful and legendary) career is that she only got to direct 4 films - A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky, and the film that probably ensured she’d never direct again, Ishtar. Ishtar was the go-to punching bag for years when you wanted a shorthand for over-budget flop, so much so that Kevin Costner’s Waterworld was dubbed “Fish-tar.” Like Waterworld and other mega flops, Ishtar has been reclaimed by certain segments of the internet film community. It remains unseen by the Sickos so I cannot speak to it’s quality, but knowing Elaine May I would hazard that much of it’s reputation is unearned.
I am loath to give away too much of the plot of The Heartbreak Kid as the surprises are part of what makes it so great, but the basic premise is would you throw your life away for this woman?
The more things change the more they stay the same. Paramount Pictures became Gulf and Western became Paramount Communications became Viacom became ViacomCBS became Paramount Global became Paramount Skydance and now they are acquiring Warner Brothers and becoming a massive behemoth of IP. Tech companies like Apple and Amazon own studios and conglomeration doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon as long as the Trump Administration controls the Justice Dept. Whether or not this is good for the movies remains to be seen, but I think it will not be.
The instance of a film completely disappearing like The Heartbreak Kid is certainly a rare one, and in the wild west of illegal streaming or youtube you can find a link to watch this, but it is a devastating shame that it hasn’t been bought, licensed or restored. My guess is that it just got lost in the cracks of Bristol-Meyers Squibb or Someone over there knows they have an asset and eventually they will want to capitalize on it. I just hope Criterion or some other boutique blu-ray label can restore and scan one of the existing 35mm prints before they become too damaged and a part of this film is lost forever.
A MOVIE I LIKED:
Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching
Speaking of movies only available on youtube, Listers is one of the most delightful documentaries I’ve seen in a long time and it’s available for free on youtube. Don’t worry if you have no interest in bird watching, Listers is one of those films that doesn’t demand you find the subject interesting, but entices you to love it by the end anyway. I found myself wondering if I should go buy binoculars, get on E-Brid and start listing birds.
The film follows two stoner brothers, who have never done any bird watching before, diving in headfirst and trying to have themselves a Big Year. It’s a hilarious and oddly moving look at humanity and our relationship to those creatures who we so often ignore.
The film is availble for free on YouTube.
4/5
Happy Watching,
Matt