The company was formed in 1955 and produced a handful of major motion pictures during its span, including Mister Cory, Sweet Smell of Success, The Vikings, The Defiant Ones, and Taras Bulba.
[2][5] Curtis' Universal-International Pictures contract was set to expire five months later, in September 1955, and so the couple immediately began looking into forming their independent film production company, hoping for the freedom of choosing their own starring vehicles.
[1][7] The original deal, however, granted Universal-International Pictures a first-pick privilege on any property Curtis wished to make outside of his contract, which meant that if the studio liked the story, it would have to be made in-house.
[12] In early August 1955, before Curtis left for Europe, Curtleigh Productions announced that it had purchased its first property: a high-budget adult Western written by Blake Edwards titled Massacre.
[13][14][15] In mid-September 1955, Curtleigh Productions acquired the filming rights to Leo Rosten's short story Cory, a yarn concerning a gambler and his rise in high society, which had earlier been published in Cosmopolitan magazine.
[16][17] Curtis, who was planning to star in the picture, immediately assigned Edwards to develop the screenplay and offered the job of directing it to British director Carol Reed, with whom he was filming Trapeze in France.
In January 1956, Curtleigh Productions acquired Paul Gallico's 1953 novel The Foolish Immortals, after Leigh had read the serialized version in The Saturday Evening Post.
[32][33] The story had originally been published in Cosmopolitan as a novelette under the title Tell Me About It Tomorrow, which Hecht-Lancaster Productions optioned in 1955 as part of a multi-picture financing and distribution deal with United Artists.
[35][36] One was to be Cry Tough, a film noir about the corruption of the garment union trade by the Brooklyn Jewish mob, based on a novel by Irving Shulman and to be co-produced by William Schorr.
[52] In February 1957, Curtleigh Productions announced that it would make a bullfighting story about a famous matador who trains his son (set to inherit his father's title after his passing), and in the process cures his fear of bulls.
[53] The property had originally been written by Jameson Brewer under the title The Wound, as a teleplay for General Electric Theater; Curtis first became interested in the project when he was offered to play the role in the television episode.
[67] The drama, which had been made for television on Columbia Broadcasting System's program Studio One, revolved around a father and son team of lawyers defending a man accused on murder, and was to star Curtis.
[71] The Vikings began shooting using Technirama cameras and Technicolor film on June 20, 1957, on location near the Finnafjorden fjords in Norway, then in Brittany, France, and finally interior scenes at Bavaria Filmkunst in Geiselgasteig, Germany.
[81] In late 1957, Curtis was offered to play one of the leads in Stanley Kramer's new film The Long Road, an original drama written by Harold Jacob Smith and Nedrick Young about two convicts who escape from a chain gang.
[92][89] The film then premiered in Los Angeles on June 19, 1958, at the Fox-Wilshire Theater; this movie house, too, was decorated with Norse-theme articles for a cost of $4,000, followed by an after-party for over 200 guests, Hollywood celebrities and members of the press.
In late May 1958, Curtleigh Productions announced that Curtis would star in A Most Contagious Game, a suspense-crime-thriller about a magazine reporter who goes undercover as a gangster to research the underworld but ends up becoming a mob leader himself.
[97] The filming rights to Samuel Grafton's novel had first been purchased by Victor Saville's Parklane Pictures in 1955, which produced a television movie for Studio One,[98] then were picked up by Bryna Productions in January 1956.
[99][100] Douglas, Lancaster and Leslie Nielsen had all been tied to the project over the years and Bryna Productions commissioned Grafton, and then Sydney Boehm to write the screenplay.
[125][127] Although Curtis was to star in the film, vocalist Alan Dale was scheduled to overdub the singing[128] and Gary Crosby was cast to portray his father Bing, one of Columbo's friends.
[134] Duke and his lawyer Paul Pearlin immediately filed a Superior Court lawsuit against Desmond and Winkler, claiming $450,000 in damages for conspiring with others in preventing the film from being made.
[135] Curtis and Robinson had already found a replacement property to develop, in case The Russ Columbo Story did not work out, and in early October 1959 announced that The Juggler would be filmed for Ford Startime.
[137][138] The sixteenth century story recounts a homeless juggler who is attacked by a mob in the streets of Paris, France and seeks refuge in a monastery; he is treated for his wounds but loses one of his arms, ultimately finding humbleness.
[138][139][140] Curtleigh Productions kept the same team of people under contract to develop the new story: Stefano adapted the teleplay, Mulligan was to direct and co-produce the picture and Curtis would star in the title role.
[142][131] The film co-starred Nehemiah Persoff and Patricia Medina, with a supporting cast including Bert Freed, Elisha Cook, Jr., Charles Morton and Heather Ames.
[146] After completing The Young Juggler, Curtleigh Productions announced that it was interested in developing a television series that explored progressive jazz music and modern art.
[148][149] After signing with the Screen Actors Guild, in early March 1960, Curtleigh Productions announced that its next project would be Draw Sabres, an original Western comedy about two brothers in the United States Cavalry who fight Apache Indians and start a war of their own over a blonde.
[162] Instead of accepting a flat fee as an actor for his role in Taras Bulba, Curtis negotiated a deal in which Curtleigh Productions would co-produce and receive 15% of the film's profits.
[159] In mid-August 1961, Curtleigh Productions announced that Marion Hargrove was scripting a film titled 40 Pounds of Trouble, adapted from Damon Runyon's novelette Little Miss Marker about a gambler who dies and leaves his daughter in the hands of the casino's manager.
[174][175] Before leaving for location shooting on Taras Bulba, Curtleigh Productions announced in early September 1961 that author Ray Russell had been secured to write an original screenplay titled Exit 41.
[193] The couple held a press announcement on March 17, 1962 admitting that they had been having difficulty for several years and that shortly after returning from Argentina, Curtis had moved out from their Beverly Hills, California home.