Stanley Donen

Stanley Donen ( ; April 13, 1924 – February 21, 2019) was an American film director and choreographer whose most celebrated works are '' On the Town,'' (1949) and ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), both of which he co-directed with Gene Kelly. His other films include ''Royal Wedding'' (1951), ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' (1954), ''It's Always Fair Weather'' (1955), ''Funny Face'' (1957), '' Indiscreet'' (1958), and ''Charade'' (1963).

Donen began his career in the chorus line on Broadway for director George Abbott, where he befriended Kelly. From 1943, he worked in Hollywood as a choreographer before collaborating with Kelly. After ''On the Town'', Donen worked as a contract director for MGM under producer Arthur Freed producing critically well-received box-office hits. Donen and Kelly co-directed the musical ''Singin' in the Rain'', released in April 1952, which has appeared on lists of the best films ever made. Donen's relationship with Kelly deteriorated during their final collaboration ''It's Always Fair Weather'' (1955). He then broke his contract with MGM to become an independent producer in 1957. He continued making films throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s that were often financial successes that gained positive attention. His film output became less frequent in the early 1980s, and he briefly returned to the stage as a director in the 1990s and again in 2002.

Donen is credited with having made the transition of Hollywood musical films from realistic backstage dramas to a more integrated art form in which the songs were a natural continuation of the story. Before Donen and Kelly made their films, musicals – such as the extravagant and stylized work of Busby Berkeley – were often set in a Broadway stage environment where the musical numbers were part of a stage show. Donen and Kelly's films created a more cinematic form and included dances that could only be achieved in the film medium. Donen stated that what he was doing was a "direct continuation from the Astaire – Rogers musicals ... which in turn came from René Clair and from Lubitsch ... What ''we'' did was not geared towards realism but towards the unreal."

Donen is highly respected by film historians, but his career is often compared to Kelly's, and there is debate over who deserves more credit for their collaborations. Their relationship was complicated, both professionally and personally, but Donen's films as a solo director are generally better regarded by critics than Kelly's. French film critic Jean-Pierre Coursodon has said that Donen's contribution to the evolution of the Hollywood musical "outshines anybody else's, including Vincente Minnelli's". David Quinlan called him "the King of the Hollywood musicals". In 1998, Martin Scorsese presented one with the Honorary Academy Award at the 70th Academy Awards. Other honorary awards include the Career Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival in 2004. Donen married five times and had three children. Film director and comedian Elaine May was his partner from 1999 until his death in 2019. He was the last surviving notable director of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Early life and stage career

Stanley Donen was born on April 13, 1924, in Columbia, South Carolina, to Mordecai Moses Donen, a dress-shop manager, and Helen (Cohen), the daughter of a jewelry salesman. His younger sister Carla Donen Davis was born in August 1937. Born to Jewish parents, Donen became an atheist in his youth. Donen described his childhood as lonely and unhappy as one of the few Jews in Columbia, and he was occasionally bullied by anti-semitic classmates at school. To help cope with his isolation, Donen spent much of his youth in local movie theaters and was especially fond of Westerns, comedies and thrillers. The film that had the strongest impact on him was the 1933 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical ''Flying Down to Rio''. Donen said that he "must have seen the picture thirty or forty times. I was transported into some sort of fantasy world where everything seemed to be happy, comfortable, easy and supported. A sense of well-being filled me." He shot and screened home movies with an 8 mm camera and projector that his father bought for him.

Inspired by Astaire, Donen took dance lessons in Columbia and performed at the local Town Theater. His family often traveled to New York City during summer vacations where he saw Broadway musicals and furthered his dance lessons. One of his early instructors in New York was Ned Wayburn, who taught eleven-year-old Astaire in 1910. After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen, Donen attended the University of South Carolina for one summer semester, studying psychology. Encouraged by his mother, he moved to New York City to pursue dancing on stage in the fall of 1940. After two auditions he was cast as a chorus dancer in the original Broadway production of Rodgers and Hart's '' Pal Joey'', directed by the legendary George Abbott. The titular Pal Joey was played by the young up-and-comer Gene Kelly, who became a Broadway star in the role.

Abbott cast Donen in the chorus of his next Broadway show '' Best Foot Forward''. He became the show's assistant stage manager, and Kelly asked him to be his assistant choreographer. Eventually Donen was fired from ''Best Foot Forward'', but in 1942 was the stage manager and assistant choreographer for Abbott's next show ''Beat the Band''. In 1946, Donen briefly returned to Broadway to help choreograph dance numbers for '' Call Me Mister''.

Film career

1943–1949: Hollywood choreographer

In 1943 Arthur Freed, the successful producer of musical films at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, bought the film rights to ''Best Foot Forward'' and made a film version starring Lucille Ball and William Gaxton. Donen moved to Hollywood to audition for the film and signed a one-year contract with MGM. Donen appeared as a chorus dancer and was made assistant choreographer by Charles Walters. At MGM Donen renewed his friendship with Kelly, who was now a supporting actor in musicals. When Kelly was loaned to Columbia Pictures for a film, he was offered the chance to choreograph his own dance numbers and asked Donen to assist. Kelly stated: "Stanley needed a job. I needed someone to count for the cameraman, someone who knew the steps and could explain what I was going to do so the shot was set up correctly." Donen accepted and choreographed three dance sequences with Kelly in ''Cover Girl'' (1944). Donen came up with the idea for the "Alter Ego" dance sequence where Kelly's reflection jumps out of a shop window and dances with him. Director Charles Vidor insisted that the idea would never work, so Donen and Kelly directed the scene themselves and Donen spent over a year editing it. The film made Kelly a movie star and is considered by many film critics to be an important and innovative musical. Donen signed a one-year contract with Columbia and choreographed several films there, but returned to MGM the following year when Kelly wanted assistance on his next film.

In 1944 Donen and Kelly choreographed the musical ''Anchors Aweigh'', released in 1945 and starring Kelly and Frank Sinatra. The film is best known for its groundbreaking scene in which Kelly dances with Jerry the Mouse from the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons. This would be the first time in feature-film history that hand-drawn animation would be blended with live-action footage. The animation was supervised by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and is credited to the MGM animation producer Fred Quimby, but the idea for the scene was Donen's. Donen and Kelly originally wanted to use either Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck for the sequence and met with Walt Disney to discuss the project; Disney was working on a similar idea in ''The Three Caballeros'' (1944) and was unwilling to license one of his characters to MGM. The duo spent two months shooting Kelly dancing and Donen spent a year perfecting the scene frame by frame. According to Barbera "the net result at the preview of ''Anchors Away'' that I went to, blew the audience away."

While Kelly completed his service in the U.S. Naval Air Service as a photographer from 1944 to 1946, Donen did uncredited worked as a choreographer on musical films. Of this period Donen said, "I practiced my craft, working with music, track and photography. I often directed the sequences. I always tried to have an original idea about how to do musical sequences." Donen stated that he was excused from military service as 4-F due to his high blood pressure. When Kelly returned to civilian life, he and Donen directed and choreographed Kelly's dance scenes in '' Living in a Big Way'' (1947). They then began work on an original story about two baseball players in the early 20th century who spend their off-season as vaudevillian song and dance men. This film would eventually become ''Take Me Out to the Ball Game'' (1949). Kelly and Donen hoped to co-direct the film, but Freed hired Busby Berkeley instead, and they only directed Kelly's dance numbers. The film starred Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin.

1949: ''On the Town''

After the success of ''Take Me Out to the Ball Game'', Freed gave Donen and Kelly the chance to direct '' On the Town'', which was released in 1949. The film was an adaptation of the Betty Comden and Adolph Green Broadway musical about sailors on leave in New York City and was the first musical to feature location-filming. Donen and Kelly wanted to shoot the entire film in New York, but Freed would only allow them to spend one week away from the studio.

That week produced the film's opening number "New York, New York". Away from both studio interference and sound stage constrictions, Donen and cinematographer Harold Rosson shot a scene on the streets of New York City that pioneered many cinematic techniques that would be adopted by the French New Wave a decade later. These techniques included spatial jump cuts, 360-degree pans, hidden cameras, abrupt changes of screen direction and non-professional actors. Donen's biographer Joseph A. Casper stated that the scene avoids being gratuitous or amateurish, while still "developing plot, describing the setting while conveying its galvanizing atmosphere and manic mood, introducing and delineating character." Casper also said: "Today the film is regarded as a turning point: the first bona fide musical that moved dance, as well as the musical genre, out of the theater and captured it ''with'' and ''for'' film rather than ''on'' film; the first to make the city an important character; and the first to abandon the chorus."

''On the Town'' starred Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin as three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York whose romantic pursuits lead them to Ann Miller, Betty Garrett and Vera-Ellen. The film was a success both financially and critically and won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture while screenwriters Comden and Green won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical. Like Orson Welles, Donen made his directorial debut at 25. Donen stated that Kelly was "responsible for most of the dance movements. I was behind the camera in the dramatic and musical sequences." Kelly believed that he and Donen "were a good team. I thought we complemented each other very well" he said.

1949–1952: MGM contract director

After the success of ''On the Town'', Donen signed a seven-year contract with MGM as a director. His next two films were for Freed, but were made without Kelly's participation. After being replaced as director on ''Pagan Love Song'' over personal differences with star Esther Williams, Donen was given the chance to direct his boyhood idol Fred Astaire.

''Royal Wedding'' (1951) starred Astaire and Jane Powell as a brother-sister American dancing team performing in England during the royal wedding of Elizabeth and Philip in 1947. Judy Garland was originally cast in the lead role, but was fired for absenteeism due to illness and was ultimately replaced by Powell. In the film, Powell's love affair with a wealthy Englishman (Peter Lawford) threatens to ruin the brother-sister act, while Astaire finds his own romance with another dancer ( Sarah Churchill). The film is loosely based on Astaire's real-life career with his sister and early dancing partner, Adele Astaire, who retired after marrying an English lord in 1932 and includes one of Astaire's best remembered dance sequences, the "You're All the World to Me" number where he appears to defy gravity by dancing first on the walls and then on the ceiling. The shot was achieved by building the set inside a steel-reinforced rotating cylindrical chamber, with the camera attached to the cylinder. Both Astaire and the film's lyricist Alan Jay Lerner claimed that they thought of the idea. The film included music by Lerner and Burton Lane and was released in March 1951.

Next, Donen made ''Love Is Better Than Ever'', which was not released until March 1952. The film stars Larry Parks as a streetwise show business agent who is compelled to marry an innocent young dance teacher (Elizabeth Taylor). Donen and Kelly appear in cameo roles. The reason for the film's delayed release (by over a year) was Parks's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee and his eventual admission of his former membership in the Communist Party, and for naming others participants. The film was unsuccessful at the box-office.

1952: ''Singin' in the Rain''

Donen teamed again with Kelly -- who was at the height of his fame after the release of ''An American in Paris'' (1951). He then re-teamed with Kelly to make ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), which would become one of the most highly praised films of all time. The film was produced by Freed, written by Comden and Green, photographed by Harold Rosson and starred Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charisse.

Donen, along with Kelly, were brought in by Freed (who also hired Comden and Green to write a script) to make a musical using old songs that he and composer Nacio Herb Brown wrote in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Comden and Green decided to write a story inspired by the time period in which the songs were written, and satirized Hollywood's transition from silent films to "talkies" in the late 1920s. Comden, Green and Donen interviewed everyone at MGM who was in Hollywood during that period, poking fun at both the first movie musicals and the technical difficulties with early sound films. This included characters loosely based on Freed and Berkeley and a scene that references silent film star John Gilbert. Donen and Kelly also made use of MGM's large collection of sets, props, costumes and outdated equipment from the 1920s.

In the film, Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Hagen) are two silent film stars in Hollywood whose careers are threatened by the invention of "talkies". With help from his best friend Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) and love interest Kathy Selden (Reynolds), Lockwood saves his career by turning his latest film into a musical. Filming was harmonious, but Donen thought Kelly's "Broadway Melody" ballet sequence was too long. The "Singin' in the Rain" musical number took several months to choreograph, and Donen and Kelly found it necessary to dig holes in the cement to create puddles in the street.

The film was a hit when it was released in April 1952, earning over $7.6 million. Kelly's ''An American in Paris'' had been a surprise Best Picture winner at the Oscars in March, and MGM decided to re-release it. ''Singin' in the Rain'' got pulled from many theaters to showcase the earlier film, preventing it from making further profits. ''Singin' in the Rain'' was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Hagen and Best Original Score. Donald O'Connor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and Comden and Green once again won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical. Initially the film received only moderate reviews from critics such as Bosley Crowther and did not begin to receive widespread acclaim until the late 1960s. One of its earliest supporters was critic Pauline Kael, who said that it "is perhaps the most enjoyable of all movie musicals – just about the best Hollywood musical of all time." It was re-released in 1975 to critical and popular success.

1952–1955: Further success and break with MGM

Now established as a successful film director, Donen continued his solo career at MGM with ''Fearless Fagan'' (1952). Based on a true story, the film stars Carleton Carpenter as a GI who brings his tame lion with him when he joins the army. Donen's musical '' Give a Girl a Break'' (1953) stars Debbie Reynolds, Marge Champion and Helen Wood as three aspiring dancers competing for the lead in a new Broadway musical. Bob Fosse, Gower Champion and Kurt Kasznar also appear, with music by Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin. The "Give a Girl a Break" dance between Reynolds and Fosse was choreographed backwards and then played in reverse to create the illusion that the two are surrounded by hundreds of balloons that instantly appear at the touch of their fingers. Shooting the film became a bitter experience for Donen due to a major on-set fight over the film's choreography between Fosse and Gower Champion. The film was not well reviewed upon release, but its reputation has grown over time.

Donen solidified his solo career and scored another hit with the musical ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' (1954). Based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, the film's music is by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and choreography by Michael Kidd. Jane Powell plays Milly, an 1850s frontierswoman who marries Adam (Howard Keel) only hours after meeting him. When she returns with Adam to his log cabin in the Oregon backwoods, Milly discovers that her husband's six brothers are uncivilized and oafish. She makes it her mission to domesticate them and, upon Milly's sarcastic suggestion, the brothers kidnap six women from a neighboring town to marry them. The film was shot in the new CinemaScope format and is remembered for its dance sequences, particularly the "barn raising scene" in which architecture and construction become acrobatic ballet steps. ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' was one of the highest-grossing films of 1954 and appeared on many critics' 10 Best Films lists. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture), which it won. Its success was a surprise to MGM, which invested more money in two other musicals: ''Rose Marie'' and ''Brigadoon'', starring Kelly. ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' was more profitable than either of the other films, as well as ''On the Town'' and ''Singin' in the Rain'', and its success was a major turning point for Donen's career. The film was later criticized by novelist Francine Prose, who described it as anti-woman, calling it "one of the most repulsive movies about men and women that has ever been made" and a musical about rape.

'' Deep in My Heart'' (1954), is Donen's biographical film concerning Sigmund Romberg, the Hungarian-born American operetta composer. Starring José Ferrer, the film included cameos by many MGM contract actors, including the only screen pairing of Gene Kelly and his brother Fred. Although it received mediocre reviews, Romberg's status helped make the film a hit.

Donen's third and final directorial collaboration with Kelly was ''It's Always Fair Weather'' (1955), another musical. It was produced by Freed, written by Comden and Green and the score was by André Previn. It starred Kelly, Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Michael Kidd, and Dolores Gray. Originally envisioned as a sequel to ''On the Town'', Kelly, Dailey and Kidd play three ex-GIs who reunite 10 years after World War II and discover that none of their lives have turned out how they had expected. Kelly approached Donen with the project and at first Donen was reluctant due to his own success. Their friendship deteriorated during production and Donen noted, "the atmosphere from day one was very tense and nobody was speaking to anybody." He called it a "one hundred percent nightmare" which was a "struggle from beginning to end". This time, MGM refused to allow the co-directors to shoot on location in New York. ''It's Always Fair Weather'' was moderately profitable, but not as successful as their previous two films. It was Donen's last film with Kelly or Freed. After its completion he fulfilled his MGM contract agreement by working with other studios. His last project for MGM was completing the final four days of shooting on '' Kismet'' in July 1955 for director Vincente Minnelli.

1956–1959: director and independent producer

Donen's next film was at Paramount Pictures for producer Roger Edens. ''Funny Face'' (1957) contains four of the original George and Ira Gershwin songs from the otherwise unrelated 1927 Broadway musical of the same name that had starred Fred Astaire. Loosely based on the life of fashion photographer Richard Avedon, who was also the visual consultant and designed the opening title sequence for the film, it was written by Leonard Gershe and included additional music by Gershe and Edens. Donen and Edens began pre-production at MGM, but had difficulty juggling Astaire and Audrey Hepburn's Paramount contracts, the Warner Brothers-owned rights to the Gershwin music that they wanted and their own MGM contracts. Eventually a deal was reached that both released Donen from his MGM contract and allowed him to make his next two films at Paramount and Warner Brothers respectively. Astaire plays an aging fashion photographer who discovers the intellectual bohemian Hepburn at a used bookstore in Greenwich Village and turns her into his new model while falling in love with her in Paris. Donen, Avedon and cinematographer Ray June collaborated to give the film an abstract, smokey look that resembled the fashion photography of the period despite protests by Paramount, which had recently invested in the sharp VistaVision film format. ''Funny Face'' was screened in competition at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival and received good reviews from critics like Bosley Crowther. ''Sight & Sound'', in contrast, accused it of being anti-intellectual.

While in pre-production on ''Funny Face'', Donen received a letter from his old boss George Abbott inviting him to make a film version of Abbott's stage hit ''The Pajama Game'' at Warner Brothers. As part of the deal to secure the Warner-owned Gershwin music he wanted for ''Funny Face'', Donen accepted the offer and he and Abbott co-directed the film version. ''The Pajama Game'' (1957) stars Doris Day and John Raitt, with music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and choreography by Bob Fosse. Raitt plays a plant supervisor at a nightwear factory who is in constant disputes with the plant's union organizer (Day), until they end up falling in love. Donen described his working relationship with Abbott as relaxed, stating that " bbott wouldplay tennis, come watch on the set for an hour, then watch the rushes, then go home." It was only a modest financial success, but Jean-Luc Godard praised it and declared "Donen is surely the master of the movie musical. ''The Pajama Game'' exists to prove it."

Donen's next film was '' Kiss Them for Me'' (also 1957). He was personally asked by Cary Grant to direct and began developing it while still under contract at MGM. With a plot that strongly resembles ''On the Town'', the film features Grant, Ray Walston and Larry Blyden as three navy officers on leave in San Francisco in 1944. Unlike ''On the Town'', ''Kiss Them for Me'' is a dark comedy that contrasts the officers' selfless heroism with their self-absorbed hedonism while on leave. The film received mostly poor reviews.

After three films released in 1957, Donen became an independent producer and director. He had reluctantly agreed to direct ''Kiss Them for Me'' on condition that 20th Century Fox buy out his remaining contract with MGM. Now free from contractual obligations, he formed Grandon Productions with Grant and signed a distribution deal through Warner Brothers. Donen would self-produce nearly all of his films for the rest of his career, sometimes under the name "Stanley Donen Productions". Donen and Grant inaugurated their company with '' Indiscreet'' (1958), based on a play by Norman Krasna and starring Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Because of Bergman's schedule, the film was shot on location in London. Bergman plays a famous and reclusive actress who falls in love with the supposedly married playboy-diplomat Grant. When Bergman discovers that he has been lying about having a wife, she concocts a charade with another man in order to win Grant's full affection. A scene in the film involves Donen's clever circumvention of the strict Production Code. In the scene, Grant is in Paris while Bergman is still in London and the two exchange pillow talk over the phone. Donen used a split screen of the two stars with synchronized movements to make it appear as though they were in the same bed together. The film was a financial and critical success, and Donen was compared to such directors as Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor.

Donen briefly returned to the musical genre with '' Damn Yankees!'' (also 1958), based on George Abbott's Broadway hit. He again co-directed with Abbott in the same hands-off collaboration as their first film. Like ''The Pajama Game'' the film includes music by Adler and Ross and choreography by Fosse. It starred Tab Hunter, Gwen Verdon, and Ray Walston. ''Damn Yankees!'' is an adaptation of the Faust legend about a fan of the Washington Senators who would sell his soul to give the losing team a good hitter. Walston plays the Brooks Brothers-attired Devil who grants the fan his wish and transforms him into the muscular young hitter Joe Hardy (Hunter). Donen was able to shoot three real Senator–Yankee games on location with seven hidden cameras. The low-budget film was a moderate financial success and received good reviews. It was also Donen's last musical film until ''The Little Prince'' (1974).

1960–1969: United Kingdom

After ''Indiscreet'' Donen made England his home until the early 1970s. Musicals' waning popularity caused Donen to focus on comedy films. He observed that his "London base afforded me the advantage of being away from the Hollywood rat race. Just going your own way in spite of whatever anyone else is doing or in spite of what you've done already was satisfying. I also had the advantage of the European influence: their way of looking at life, of making movies." While in the UK in the early 1960s, Donen was praised as an early influence on the then-emerging British New Wave film movement.

In the late 1950s, Donen signed a non-exclusive, three-film deal with Columbia Pictures. His first film under this contract was ''Once More, with Feeling!'' (1960). Adapted by Harry Kurnitz from his own stage play, the film was shot in Paris and starred Yul Brynner as a tyrannical orchestra conductor whose mistress ( Kay Kendall) grows tired of his tantrums and plots to marry him in order to quickly divorce him for his money. Kendall was terminally ill with leukemia during the shoot and died before its release. The film was not successful financially or critically.

Donen quickly re-teamed with Brynner and Kurnitz for the film '' Surprise Package'' (also 1960). In this film Brynner plays an American gangster who is deported to the Greek island of Rhodes. Mitzi Gaynor plays the "surprise package" who is sent to the island to appease Brynner, and Noël Coward plays the King of Rhodes whom Brynner plots to dethrone. The film was not a financial success, and Donen stated that it was made because he "desperately needed money for personal reasons." These were the only two films that Donen completed for his Columbia contract. The studio cancelled the deal after their poor box-office returns, and Donen was unable to produce the projects that he was pursuing at that time: playwright Robert Bolt's '' A Man for All Seasons'' and ''A Patch of Blue'', both of which became successful films for other directors.

Grandon Productions produced Donen's next film: ''The Grass Is Greener'', released through Universal Pictures in December 1960. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr play the earl and countess of a large estate in England who are forced to permit guided tours of their mansion in order to help their financial problems. Robert Mitchum plays an American oil tycoon who falls in love with Kerr and Jean Simmons plays an eccentric American heiress who is Grant's former girlfriend. The film was a financial disappointment in the United States, but was successful in England where the original stage version had been a West End hit.

One of Donen's most praised films was ''Charade'' (1963), starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass. Donen said that he had "always wanted to make a movie like one of my favorites, Hitchcock's ''North by Northwest''" and the film has been referred to as "the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made." ''Charade'' was produced by Stanley Donen Productions, released through Universal and adapted by Peter Stone from his own novel. Reggie Lampert (Hepburn) discovers that her husband has been murdered and (at least) three sinister men are all searching for the $250,000 in gold that he had hidden somewhere. Peter Joshua (Grant) befriends Reggie and helps her fight off the three thugs while the two begin to fall in love. The film was released in December 1963, only two weeks after the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, and the word "assassinate" had to be redubbed twice. It was Donen's most financially successful film and influenced a number of romantic comedy-thrillers released in the years following it. Film critic Judith Crist called it a "stylish and amusing melodrama", and Pauline Kael said it had "a freshness and spirit that makes tunlike the films of any other country" and was "probably the best American film of 963. It was remade as '' The Truth About Charlie'' (2002), directed by Jonathan Demme.

Donen made another Hitchcock-inspired film with ''Arabesque'' (1966), starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. The film was written by Julian Mitchell and Stanley Price, with an uncredited rewrite by Peter Stone. Peck plays an American professor at Oxford University who is an expert in ancient hieroglyphics. He is approached by a Middle Eastern prime minister to investigate an organization that is attempting to assassinate him and uses hieroglyphic codes to communicate. The investigation leads Peck to one mystery after another, often involving the prime minister's mysterious mistress (Loren). The film was Donen's second consecutive hit.

Donen made '' Two for the Road'' (1967), starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney with Eleanor Bron, William Daniels, and Jacqueline Bisset in supporting roles. The film was conceived by Donen and written by novelist Frederic Raphael, who was nominated for an Academy Award. It has been called one of Donen's most personal films, "with glints of passion never disclosed before", and "a veritable textbook on film editing." The film's complicated and non-linear story is about the 12-year relationship between Hepburn and Finney over the course of four separate (but interwoven) road trips that they take together throughout the years in the south of France. It was moderately successful at the box-office while the critical reception was extremely mixed. Bosley Crowther called the film "just another version of commercial American trash." It is also the film that Donen said he was most frequently asked about by film students.

While living in England, Donen became an admirer of the British stage revue '' Beyond the Fringe'' and wished to work with two of the show's participants, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. The resulting film was '' Bedazzled'' (1967), an updated version of the Faust legend. It was written by Cook with music by Moore, and also starred Eleanor Bron and Raquel Welch. Moore plays a lonely young man whose unrequited love of his co-worker (Bron) drives him to attempt suicide. Just then the devil (Cook) appears and offers him seven wishes in exchange for his soul. The film's fun-loving association with the Swinging London of the 1960s divided critics, but Roger Ebert called its satire "barbed and contemporary ... dry and understated", and overall, a "magnificently photographed, intelligent, very funny film." On the other hand, ''Time'' magazine called it the feeblest of all known variations on the Faust theme. The film was a hit and was especially popular among American college students. Donen considered it a favorite among his own films and called it "a very personal film in that I said a great deal about what I think is important in life." It was remade as '' Bedazzled'' (2000) by director Harold Ramis.

'' Staircase'' (1969) is Donen's adaptation of the autobiographical stage play by Charles Dyer with music by Dudley Moore. Rex Harrison and Richard Burton star as a middle-aged gay couple who run a London barber shop and live together in a "bad marriage". The film was shot in Paris for tax purposes and was not a financial success. It received poor reviews upon release, but was re-evaluated by film critic Armond White in 2007. He called the film "a rare Hollywood movie to depict gay experience with wisdom, humor and warmth", and "a lost treasure".

1970–2003: Later works

After Donen's marriage to Adelle Beatty ended, he moved back to Hollywood in 1970. Producer Robert Evans asked Donen to direct an adaptation of the beloved children's book ''The Little Prince'' first published in 1943. Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe wrote the music and screenplay and filming was done on location in Tunisia. ''The Little Prince'' (1974) stars Steven Warner in the title role, with Richard Kiley, Bob Fosse, Gene Wilder and Donna McKechnie. It was Donen's first musical film since ''Damn Yankees!'' Although it contained very little dancing, Fosse choreographed his own dance scenes as the snake. Lerner stated that Donen "took it upon himself to change every tempo, delete musical phrases at will and distort the intention of every song until the entire score was unrecognizable". It was released in 1974 and was a financial disaster.

Donen's next film was ''Lucky Lady'' (1975), starring Liza Minnelli, Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds. Minnelli plays a Prohibition era bootlegger who smuggles alcohol from Mexico to California with the help of Hackman and Reynolds, who both compete for her affection. Donen stated that he "really cared about he filmand gave three years of my life to it ... I think it's a very good movie." It went over budget and was unsuccessful at the box office. Most critics were unenthusiastic; however, Jay Cocks

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