Written, produced and directed by the married filmmakers Andrew and Virginia Stone, and distributed by MGM, the picture didn't make much of a splash with audiences or critics, and it opened in New York on a bizarre double bill with the Italian sword-and-sandal epic Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (1963). The New York Times declared, "Mr. Stone, who obviously meant it all to be inventive and comical, rarely succeeds in being unusual or laugh-provoking." Variety found the film to be "neither comedy nor melodrama... Pic has good thesping, nice directorial touches, three sexy looking femmes, and massive sets and locations plus some comedy. But this never quite jells. Result is that four splendid portrayals by Lionel Jeffries, representing a virtual tour de force, likely won't be seen by many in the U.S."
Director Andrew L. Stone was an independent director, producer and writer who often collaborated with his wife Virginia, a producer and talented editor. He is generally remembered for naturalistic urban thrillers and '50s films noirs, and his best-known films include Stormy Weather (1943) (from his studio days), The Steel Trap (1952), Julie (1956), Cry Terror! (1958), The Decks Ran Red (1958) and The Last Voyage (1960). Stone did not believe in what he considered the wastefulness of studio shooting; he detested back-projection, process shots and dialogue looping, preferring to shoot on location with natural lighting and sound. "I insist on naturalistic lighting," he once said, "not the sort where a room is uniformly lit by enormous lights in gantries. If a guy moves, the whole lot needs realigning -- it takes hours, and the result is lousy."
The Secret of My Success, as a tongue-in-cheek comedy, may be something of an aberration among Stone's work, but he still applied his usual working methods, shooting on breathtaking locations in Portugal and England. This included work in and around Blenheim Palace, a magnificent country house in Oxfordshire famous as Winston Churchill's birthplace and which has been used in such other films as Barry Lyndon (1975), Greystoke (1984), Hamlet (1996), Entrapment (1999), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and The Young Victoria (2009). The Secret of My Success, however, appears to have been the first feature to shoot there.
Stone also rented the entire village of Lacock, England, for one week, filming all over the town as well as at beautiful Lacock Abbey, which has recently also been used for scenes in at least two Harry Potter movies. Stone paid to eliminate all the TV antennas marring the village skyline, in favor of one community aerial out of camera sight. "If you can't beat television," Stone told a reporter, "at least you can keep it out of your picture."
Producer: Andrew L. Stone, Virginia L. Stone
Director: Andrew L. Stone
Screenplay: Andrew L. Stone
Cinematography: Davis Boulton
Film Editing: Noreen Ackland
Cast: Shirley Jones (Marigold Marado), Stella Stevens (Violet Lawson), Honor Blackman (Lily, Baroness von Lukenberg), James Booth (Arthur Tate), Lionel Jeffries (Insp. Hobart/Baron von Lukenberg/The Earl of Aldershot/President Esteda), Richard Vernon (Lord Hetherby), Amy Dalby (Mrs. Tate), David Davenport, Peadar Lamb, Ann Lancaster (Angela Pringle).
C-100m. Letterboxed.
by Jeremy Arnold
