Candy

Candy (1968)

She's only faithful to the book.

A high school girl encounters a variety of kookie characters and humorous sexual situations while searching for the meaning of life.

Date of release
1968-12-17
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (85)
Runtime
2h 4m
Genres
Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Director
Christian Marquand

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $16.4M
  • Budget: $3M
  • Earned 5.5× its budget
  • Based on: Candy

Candy is a 1968 sex farce film directed by Christian Marquand from a screenplay by Buck Henry, based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. The film satirizes pornographic stories through the adventures of its naïve heroine, Candy Christian, played by Ewa Aulin. It stars Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, James Coburn, John Huston, Walter Matthau and Ringo Starr. Popular figures such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Anita Pallenberg, Florinda Bolkan, Marilù Tolo, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Umberto Orsini and Enrico Maria Salerno also appear in cameo roles.

Production

The novel Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg was a best seller. According to Southern, the original plan was for David Picker to produce and Frank Perry to direct with Hayley Mills to play Candy Christian. However, Mills' father, John Mills refused to give permission. Then film rights came into the hands of actor Christian Marquand.

Southern said Marquand "disappointed me by casting a Swedish girl Ewa Aulin for the lead role, which was uniquely American and midwestern. He thought this would make Candy's appeal more universal. That's when I withdrew from the film." Marquand arranged for Buck Henry to write the script.

The stars were paid $50,000 a week with Burton, Brando, Ringo Starr and James Coburn getting a percentage of the profits. Coburn said, "That film could have been a lot more funny. Unfortunately, the director's timing was of a European nature. The jokes were always a beat behind. They were often a beat off. When you do comedy, you've got to be fast. I think [star] Ewa Aulin only did two films after Candy.

Regarding the scene where Grindl attempts to seduce Candy, production manager Gray Frederickson said that Brando tried to have actual sex with Aulin on camera. Southern later observed, "The film version of Candy is proof positive of everything rotten you ever heard about major studio production. They are absolutely compelled to botch everything original to the extent that it is no longer even vaguely recognizable."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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