The Last Valley (film)

The novel was published in 1960.[4] The New York Times called it "oddly compelling".[5] The Chicago Tribune called it "a strange and memorable book."[6]

In July 1967 it was announced that James Clavell, then enjoying success with the release of the film To Sir With Love and the book Tai-Pan, would adapt the book into a screenplay and direct a film adaptation for the Mirisch Corporation.[7]

In November 1968 it was announced Clavell would make the film for ABC Pictures.[8] The head of ABC was Martin Baum who was Clavell's agent and who had helped put together To Sir, with Love.[9]

Clavell was going to make the film after The Great Siege, a story of the Siege of Malta, which he was going to do after Where's Jack? (1967). He ended up not making Great Siege.[10] Before making The Last Valley he said he would write another book afterwards "to see if I've still got it."[11] (This would become Shogun.)

Omar Sharif was the first star to sign. By June 1969 Michael Caine had also signed on. At one stage the film was going to be called Somewhere in the Mountains There is a Last Valley. It had the biggest budget of any picture made to that point by ABC Pictures.[12] Caine was paid $750,000, Sharif $600,000.[13] At one stage the film was going to be called Somewhere in the Mountains There is a Last Valley or A Last Valley.

Clavell cast much of the supporting cast from British rep companies.[14]

Filming started 25 August 1969 in Austria.[15]

The film was mostly shot in Tyrol, Austria (Trins and Gschnitz and the Gschnitztal Valley). Actor Martin Miller collapsed and died on the set before shooting of the first scene commenced.[16]

Caine played a German. He later said, "I thought that the obvious trap was to play a German like a man trying to do a German accent; so I decided to play my character like a German trying to speak perfect English. I hired dialect records and listened to them non-stop for a few days. Then I put it out of my mind and tried to speak good English but with a German’s basic speech pattern."[17]

It was the first film for Brian Blessed who recalled it "was a happy experience for everyone involved. The director and his management were inordinately kind to us, doing everything in their power to make us comfortable."[18]

In October 1970 Clavell said he had been working on the film for three years. "I imagine that if I'd come along with the project six months later, it wouldn't have been made at all. By then the financial rot had set in." (A proposed film of his novel Tai Pan had been cancelled due to its cost.)[19]

Caine later claimed " I knew pretty well as soon as we finished filming that it wasn’t going to work at the box office."[20] The film was one of the most popular movies at the British box office in 1971.[21] However, it was an expensive failure overall. It earned rentals of $380,000 in North America and $900,000 in other countries; after deducting distribution costs it recorded an overall loss of $7,185,000.[1]

Caine later wrote in his memoirs, "I liked this film very much but it was not a success, due mainly I think to problems of timing. We were in the midst of the Vietnam War, and here was a story about the Hundred Year War in Germany, set in the Middle Ages."[22]

The Monthly Film Bulletin called it "unexpectedly terse, elegant and intelligent."[23]

Variety said it was "disappointing" and "faces an uphill battle" at the box office.[24] The Evening Standard called it "an excellent advertisement for the Tyrolean Tourist Board."[25]

With its setting in the Thirty Years' War, it covered a period never previously depicted on film (apart from 1933's Queen Christina). In this light, George MacDonald Fraser wrote in 1988, "The plot left me bewildered - in fact the whole bloody business is probably an excellent microcosm of the Thirty Years' War, with no clear picture of what is happening and half the cast ending up dead to no purpose. To that extent, it must be rated a successful film. ... As a drama, The Last Valley is not remarkable; as a reminder of what happened in Central Europe, 1618-48, and shaped the future of Germany, it reads an interesting lesson." Fraser says of the stars, "Michael Caine ... gives one of his best performances as the hard-bitten mercenary captain, nicely complemented by Omar Sharif as the personification of reason."[26]