The Betsy is a 1978

1978 in film

The year 1978 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 1 - Bob Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara, a documentary of the "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour premieres in Los Angeles, California....

 film made by the Harold Robbins International Company and released by Allied Artists. It was directed by Daniel Petrie

Daniel Petrie

Daniel Mannix Petrie was a Canadian television and movie director.Petrie was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Mary Anne and William Mark Petrie, a soft-drink manufacturer. He moved to the United States in 1945...

 and produced by Robert R. Weston and Emanuel L. Wolf with Jack Grossberg as associate producer. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 was by William Bast

William Bast

William Bast is an American screenwriter and author currently living in Los Angeles. In addition to writing scripts for motion pictures and television, he is the author of two biographies of the screen actor James Dean.-Early life:...

 and Walter Bernstein

Walter Bernstein

Walter Bernstein is an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.-Early life:...

, adapted from the novel of the same title by Harold Robbins

Harold Robbins

Harold Robbins was one of the best-selling American authors of all time. During his career, he wrote over 25 best-sellers, selling over 750 million copies in 32 languages....

. The novelist considered The Betsy as the "best movie adaptation of any of his works."

The film stars Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

, Robert Duvall

Robert Duvall

Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....

, Katharine Ross

Katharine Ross

Katharine Juliet Ross is an American film and stage actress. Trained at the San Francisco Workshop, she is perhaps best known for her role as Elaine Robinson in the 1967 film The Graduate, opposite Dustin Hoffman, which won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and her role...

, Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....

, Jane Alexander

Jane Alexander

Jane Alexander is an American actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Although perhaps best known for playing the female lead in The Great White Hope on both stage and screen, Alexander has played a wide array of roles in both theater and film and has committed...

, Joseph Wiseman

Joseph Wiseman

Joseph Wiseman was a Canadian theater and film actor, best known for starring as the titular antagonist of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, his role as Manny Weisbord on Crime Story, and his career on Broadway...

, Kathleen Beller

Kathleen Beller

Kathleen Beller is an actress. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Promises in the Dark...

, Edward Herrmann

Edward Herrmann

Edward Kirk Herrmann is a U.S. television and film actor. He is best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of Franklin D...

, Paul Ryan Rudd

Paul Ryan Rudd

Paul Ryan Rudd was an American actor, director, and a professor. He appeared as the title character in a 1976 production of Shakespeare's Henry V, opposite Meryl Streep as his love interest...

, and Lesley-Anne Down

Lesley-Anne Down

Lesley-Anne Down is a British film and television actress, former model and singer.Down achieved fame as Georgina Worsley in the ITV drama series Upstairs, Downstairs...

.

The Betsy features music composed by John Barry

John Barry (composer)

John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987...

. It was filmed at Rosecliff

Rosecliff

Rosecliff, built 1898-1902, is one of the Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, now open to the public as a museum.The house has also been known as the Herman Oelrichs House or the J. Edgar Monroe House....

 mansion in Newport Rhode Island.

Plot

A fading family-owned automobile manufacturer and its owners pin their hopes for a return to profitability on a new model named for the great-granddaughter of the firm's founder.

The aging Loren Hardeman remains the titular head of a Detroit automotive conglomerate. (An obvious parallel exists between this fictional character and that of Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...

.) His grandson, Loren III, now runs the company as president, but has diversified into other fields and is concerned that the auto division is not as lucrative as it once was and might even need to be eliminated.

A young auto racer, Angelo Perino, has been secretly commissioned to develop a ground-breaking, fuel-efficient car. He juggles romantic relationships with a British royal, Lady Bobby Ayres, and the young Betsy, who is about to turn 21 and inherit a fortune, including the new car her great-grandfather is naming in her honor.

Loren III bitterly despises Hardeman senior, who once carried on an affair with Loren's mother. The older Hardeman is not the man he used to be, but neither is he ready to step aside forever.

Cast

• Laurence Olivier
  Laurence Olivier
  Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
  
   as Loren Hardeman
• Tommy Lee Jones
  Tommy Lee Jones
  Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....
  
   as Angelo Perino
• Robert Duvall
  Robert Duvall
  Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
  
   as Loren III
• Katharine Ross
  Katharine Ross
  Katharine Juliet Ross is an American film and stage actress. Trained at the San Francisco Workshop, she is perhaps best known for her role as Elaine Robinson in the 1967 film The Graduate, opposite Dustin Hoffman, which won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and her role...
  
   as Sally Hardeman
• Jane Alexander
  Jane Alexander
  Jane Alexander is an American actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Although perhaps best known for playing the female lead in The Great White Hope on both stage and screen, Alexander has played a wide array of roles in both theater and film and has committed...
  
   as Alicia Hardeman
• Lesley-Anne Down
  Lesley-Anne Down
  Lesley-Anne Down is a British film and television actress, former model and singer.Down achieved fame as Georgina Worsley in the ITV drama series Upstairs, Downstairs...
  
   as Lady Ayres
• Kathleen Beller
  Kathleen Beller
  Kathleen Beller is an actress. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Promises in the Dark...
  
   as Betsy
• Joseph Wiseman
  Joseph Wiseman
  Joseph Wiseman was a Canadian theater and film actor, best known for starring as the titular antagonist of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, his role as Manny Weisbord on Crime Story, and his career on Broadway...
  
   as Jake Weinstein
• Edward Herrmann
  Edward Herrmann
  Edward Kirk Herrmann is a U.S. television and film actor. He is best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of Franklin D...
  
   as Dan Weyman

Production

Assembly-plant footage was filmed at the American Motors

American Motors

American Motors Corporation was an American automobile company formed by the 1954 merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company. At the time, it was the largest corporate merger in U.S. history.George W...

 (AMC) Kenosha, Wisconsin

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Kenosha is a city and the county seat of Kenosha County in the State of Wisconsin in United States. With a population of 99,218 as of May 2011, Kenosha is the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Kenosha is also the fourth-largest city on the western shore of Lake Michigan, following Chicago,...

 facility. It shows 1978 Gremlin

AMC Gremlin

The AMC Gremlin is a two-door subcompact car produced in the United States and Canada by the American Motors Corporation between 1970 and 1978. AMC reduced its development and manufacturing costs by adapting a shortened Hornet platform with a Kammback-type tail...

, Pacer

AMC Pacer

The AMC Pacer is a two-door compact automobile produced in the United States by the American Motors Corporation between 1975 and 1980.Its initial design idea was started in 1971. The car's unusual rounded shape with massive glass area greatly contrasted with the three-box architecture with "square,...

, and Concord

AMC Concord

The AMC Concord is a compact car produced by the American Motors Corporation for the 1978 through 1983 model years. The Concord replaced the AMC Hornet and to some extent the mid-size AMC Matador, discontinued after 1978 in a market moving to downsized automobiles...

 models being built and painted.

The titular car is a slightly modified Lancia Beta

Lancia Beta

The Lancia Beta is a car produced by Lancia. It was the first new model introduced by Lancia after it had been taken over by Fiat in 1969.-Berlina:...

Coupe.