Curtain Up (53 page)

Witness for the Prosecution
opened at Broadway's Henry Miller's Theatre on 16 December 1954 and the reception was every bit as good as it had been in London. Two days later, a clearly ecstatic Patricia Jessel wrote to Peter Saunders:

The first night reception was simply tremendous – as good as our London first night. My dressing room overflowed with flowers and cables before the show and with enthusiastic people after the show. Later, having sent a cable to George [her husband], I went over to join some people at Sardi's and Peter, it was New Haven all over again. The entire restaurant applauded!! I couldn't believe my ears! All sorts of people kept coming up to say nice things, and it was altogether wonderful. And Peter, don't think that I have forgotten where all this began because I haven't, and I shall always be grateful.

Father Miller [i.e. Gilbert Miller] now calls me Pat, he kisses me(!), and last night he brought in the proof of the new ad. for my approval. A large picture of me and a smaller one of Larry [Sullivan] – and lots of quotes from the reviews, most of which say lovely things about me. Heaven! I'm a very spoilt brat! I'm an ecstatically happy girl! . . . Don't look now but Jessel's a star! Get her!!
⁵⁷

The hugely successful American radio entrepreneur Donald Flamm, a friend of Saunders – though he had distinguished himself by turning down investment in both
The Mousetrap
and
Witness for the Prosecution
, much to both his own and Saunders' amusement – cabled him in London at 2 a.m. with news of the show's reception and wrote the next morning to say:

Your holiday season should be very happy indeed! The audience last night was wildly enthusiastic. Cheers for Sullivan and Jessel and many curtain calls. When Jessel made her grand entrance at Sardis after the opening everyone in the restaurant applauded her – the kind of an ovation that is usually reserved only for our theatrical ‘greats' when they do something quite outstanding. That should give you an idea . . . Aren't you going to come over and take some bows? After all you are the original producer and this is your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cash in on the avalanche of
personal publicity that is yours for the asking. And in this business modesty does not pay off; on the contrary, publicity sells tickets at the box office!
⁵⁸

On the face of it, Flamm was perhaps an unlikely ally, being a leading light of the American Anti-Defamation League which, in 1947, had taken Christie's American publishers Dodd, Mead & Co. to task for allegedly anti-semitic references in the novel of
The Hollow
.

Miller's own postbag from the great and the good of New York confirms the production's sensational reception, and the audience's response was echoed by the press. In a three-column rave the
New York Times
wrote:

In the murder mystery the British are the expert technicians. Frederick Knott's
Dial M for Murder
played the game according to the rules for 552 performances in this city. And now Agatha Christie's
Witness for the Prosecution
has skipped across the Atlantic to establish a career of its own. The rules of crime fiction are so exacting that they are known best to postgraduate students in the field. But
Dial M for Murder
and
Witness for the Prosecution
have one thing in common; they are frankly make-believe. You enjoy them all the more because you know that they are not real. In the last scene Miss Christie switches everything around so swiftly and decisively that the curtain falls on a sensational climax . . . good mystery plays are acted as if they were masterpieces of dramatic art. That is a traditional part of the game. In this respect
Witness for the Prosecution
is above reproach . . . Francis L. Sullivan . . . gives a grandiloquent performance with an undertone of humour. Imperiously realistic on the surface, he has his tongue in his cheek . . . by the breadth of his playing he represents the true spirit of the murder mystery. It's a game. In the twists of the plot and the expertness of the playing,
Witness for the Prosecution
is one of the best.
⁵⁹

Peter Saunders' new friend, Walter Kerr of the
Herald Tribune
, agreed:

Miss Christie is gloriously in her element. That element – the whodunit with a corpse, a chief suspect, and a thundering surprise at the thrill finish – isn't regarded as one of the higher reaches of literature at the moment and most purveyors of simple-minded theatrical excitement feel called upon to dress their humble puzzles in various more worthy guises . . . Miss Christie is unembarrassed by her materials. She loves them, without apology . . . the plotting is beautifully deceptive; the tug and pull as our sympathies switch from one suspect to another is infinitely adroit. Everything is ingeniously prepared for, everything is meticulously laid before our eyes, and – a miracle in this day of weary formulas – everything is astonishing at eleven o'clock. Because Miss Christie takes her limited craft seriously, because she is perfectly at home in all its devious corridors, because she is superbly equipped to engage in a battle of wits and win it, this guessing-game at the Henry Miller is a perfect sample of its kind. Director Robert Lewis has caught the head-on, do-it-straight spirit of his author and succeeded in staging a crowded, crackling, tight-reined performance that is superior to the long-running London original. He has brought Patricia Jessel over – after two years in the part – to give dignity and unfaltering tension to the role of a wife whose testimony will either save or destroy her accused husband. Just how good Miss Jessel is cannot be suggested without giving away half of the plot . . .
⁶⁰

Despite a couple of doubters, it appears that the highbrow Broadway critics lambasted by Saunders in his correspondence with Kerr were prepared on this occasion to let their hair down and engage with the piece on its own terms. ‘The most delightful mystery-murder-melodrama in years. In
Witness for the Prosecution
Agatha Christie has given us something wonderful,' said the
New York Post
.
⁶¹
‘The new Agatha Christie thriller is a major Broadway hit. The solution is a humdinger,' said
Life
.
⁶²
‘Expert Agatha Christie has fetched us a finely conducted English courtroom trial and then, when all is over, overturned it with not one shattering twist, but three,' said
Time
;
⁶³
I count four, but they definitely stuck with the London ending. In a review headlined ‘Christie Mystery 100% entertainment', the
World-Telegram and Sun
remarked that ‘For sheer, unadulterated entertainment there is nothing around town to equal
Witness for the Prosecution
. Surely Agatha Christie is responsible for more mystery stories and plays than anyone else alive. This time she has surpassed even herself for ingenuity and excitement . . . It is grand, tingling fun.'
⁶⁴
And the
Daily News
gifted the production's publicist, the legendary Richard Maney, the headline ‘Murder Will Sell Out'.
⁶⁵

Neither Christie nor Saunders had been able to attend the Broadway premiere of
Witness for the Prosecution
, as they were busy preparing for their next West End production,
Spider's Web
, though Saunders had managed to get to New Haven for the opening of its pre-Broadway tour. There was still unfinished business with the Shuberts relating to their licence for
The Hollow
which Saunders hoped he could resolve on his visit to America, and he was keen to meet with Harold Ober's lawyers Howard Reinheimer and Irving Cohen to discuss this. Edmund Cork wrote a formal letter for Ober to use when presenting Saunders to third parties: ‘This will introduce Peter Saunders who, as you know, is coming to New York in connection with the production of
Witness for the Prosecution
. Peter Saunders has become about the most successful independent theatre manager here, and is very important to us as he presents all the Christie plays, but it is more to the point that he is a very good friend, and I would appreciate anything you can do for him while he is in America.'
⁶⁶

In the covering note to Ober accompanying the letter of introduction, Cork reminds him that Saunders has had
The Mousetrap
running for two years and
Witness for the Prosecution
for almost a year. He comments that business on the
Spider's Web
tour is indicative that it will be the ‘biggest success of the three' and that Saunders' production of William
Douglas Home's
The Manor at Northstead
is also playing to ‘packed houses'. Delightfully, and veraciously, Cork adds that ‘Peter is a man of great integrity but he is much less easy-going than most theatrical people, and I should think it quite possible that his relations with American managers will need a little lubrication.' Although Cork's word of warning was not without justification, Saunders appears to have charmed the Americans: ‘I find Peter Saunders a very attractive man and he spoke very warmly of you,' wrote Ober to Cork.
⁶⁷
There is a marvellous picture of Saunders taken on this visit, standing next to a large car outside the Shubert Theatre in New Haven and looking every inch the successful impresario. Although the Shuberts no longer owned the New Haven theatre that bore their name, it is ironic that Saunders, having switched allegiance to Miller, found himself standing under signage that advertised it.

Despite Francis L. Sullivan's excellent reviews, and his long and chatty ‘letters home' to Saunders (in which he urged Saunders to cast him in the rumoured film of
Witness for the Prosecution
, and to look out for work for his actress niece),
⁶⁸
the management seem to have been keen to dispense with their troublesome male star at the earliest opportunity. They were clearly intending to replace him as soon as his contract expired at the end of June 1955, and as early as February Saunders was writing to Banyai, ‘The part of Sir Wilfred Robarts must be played by an unusual personality, and not just a good actor. I don't have to tell you, too, how important the girl is – although curiously enough Robarts is at least as important . . . If Mr Miller liked the idea, I would urge you to sign him [David Horne] up now, and I think you could get him more cheaply than Sullivan, especially if you could give his wife a non-speaking part at a nominal salary.'
⁶⁹
However, events were about to secure Sullivan's position in the role.

In 1955 the Broadway production of
Witness for the Prosecution
scooped a number of prestigious awards. At the ninth annual Tony Awards in March, Francis L. Sullivan and Patricia Jessel were honoured as Best Featured Actor and Best
Featured Actress in a Play; this was an extraordinary achievement for the two British performers, although it rather makes one wonder what the judges considered the
leading
male and female roles in the play to be. In April, Christie herself received the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers Guild of America for
Witness for the Prosecution
, and the following month the play won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play, keeping good company with the Best Play, Tennessee Williams'
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
. All of this, of course, put a premium on the performances of Sullivan and Jessel, and in the end both of their contracts were extended until the end of the Broadway run, after which they headlined Miller's tour of the play to major US cities including Chicago and Los Angeles. Sullivan was even awarded a six-week holiday and a salary of $1,000 per week as part of his new deal.
⁷⁰

Witness for the Prosecution
played for 645 performances on Broadway and, as in London, the production was a huge financial success as well as a critical one. I have been unable to locate accounts (in fact, Saunders frequently criticised Miller for failing to supply detailed accounting), but it is noted in correspondence between the producers that at its height the Broadway production, which ran for almost two years, was averaging well over $4,000 profit per week ($1,000 of which went to Saunders), with Christie's royalties worth over $2,000 per week.
⁷¹

In my view it can be no coincidence that Christie's two big Broadway successes were also the subjects of two of the most successful films of her work, René Clair's
And Then There Were None
(1945) and Billy Wilder's
Witness for the Prosecution
(1957). But if negotiations over film rights with the Shuberts had seemed tortuous, then these were to pale into insignificance when it came to dealing with Gilbert Miller on the subject; ‘I have never known such hell!' Cork wrote to Ober in September 1955.
⁷²
Not only did Miller initially maintain that the previous licensing of television rights to the short story in the USA might compromise the sale of film rights but, when the time came, Saunders and Cork proved unable to agree with him on a timetable for such a sale. The English producer and agent were
all for securing an immediate sale off the back of the Broadway reviews, but the more experienced Miller wanted to protect his Broadway revenues and in any case felt that the longer the show ran in New York the higher the price they would be able to command; and there were certainly plenty of bidders. Contractually, it was up to Saunders when to sell the film rights and for how much (Saunders would receive 30 per cent of the price and Miller 20 per cent); but it was discovered that the small print of the American Dramatists Guild Minimum Basic Agreement had given Miller himself the right to match any offer made by a third party. Suspicion thus grew in the English camp that Miller had a vested interest in keeping the price as low as possible and was doing his best to jeopardise a lucrative sale.

In using the Dramatists Guild Agreement as the basis for the deal with Miller for
Witness for the Prosecution
, Cork and Saunders had been unaware that it included certain ‘Supplemental Provisions' which they appear not to have had a copy of. Miller's ‘matching right' was part of these provisions and, according to Ober, would have been deleted as a matter of course had his office had sight of it. Ironically, therefore, it was Cork and Saunders' maladroit attempt to apply the Agreement that had created the problem. Ober's weary admonition of Cork in March 1955 was once more by way of closing the stable door: ‘I hope that in future neither you nor Peter Saunders will sign a contract with an American manager or picture company without having it gone through by an American lawyer or agent, preferably by both.'
⁷³