The Western Billy Two Hats hit theaters in 1974. It starred Gregory Peck and Jack Warden, two Hollywood legends, alongside Desi Arnaz Jr., son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who was in a relationship at the time with superstar actress and singer Liza Minnelli. But none of this helped. The movie remained a marginal and forgettable cinematic foray, but it does serve as a piece of fascinating history – a brief episode during which Hollywood attempted to bask in the glow of the Holy Land.
As befitting a classic western, Billy Two Hats tells the story of two highway robbers (Peck and Arnaz Jr.) who are fleeing a tough and determined sheriff played by Warden, after one of their robberies leads to a murder. Arnaz Jr. plays Billy Two Hats, a young man who never got to know his Native-American mother nor his white father. He is treated as a kind of adopted-son by his older partner in crime Arch Deans, a roughhewn Scottish thief played by Peck.
The film depicts their escape, including Deans’ wounding by the sheriff and an attempted robbery by four Natives who take pity on the wounded Deans and his young friend Billy, as the latter speaks to them in their language and identifies as one of them. And of course, there’s a love interest – a forbidden romance between the handsome, soft-spoken Billy and the beautiful Esther, a mail-order bride married to an abusive husband.
Underneath the standard Western plot devices and the requisite gunfights is a film that examines racism and the humiliating treatment meted out to Native Americans.
Despite its star-studded cast, Hollywood production levels, and even its message of tolerance, the movie was a flop – with critics and at the box office.
We would not be paying any attention to this film had it not been dubbed the “The First Matzah Western.” To understand exactly what that means, we need to go back to late October, 1972. Yaakov Gross, a reporter for Al Hamishmar, an Israeli newspaper, wrote at the time: “At a celebratory press conference at the HaSharon hotel, you could find a ‘Who’s Who’ of the Israeli film industry. They had all come to welcome the producers of the film Billy Two Hats starring Gregory Peck.”
Yes, Billy Two Hats was filmed entirely in Israel, despite the plot taking place in the deserts of the American frontier in the 19th century. It remains one of the few films made in Israel with no actual plot connection to the region itself.
Just as Westerns produced in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s were called “Spaghetti Westerns”, Billy Two Hats ended up being the first Western filmed in Israel, with plenty of locals taking part in the production. Naturally enough, it was called the first “Matzah Western.”
The film’s production took two months and involved an extensive Israeli staff, including two actors: Zeev Berlinsky and Nathan Cogan. Berlinsky was an experienced theater and film actor who was among the founders of the Cameri and Sambation theaters. On set, Berlinsky told reporter Baruch Meiri: “I was killed dozens of times by Gregory Peck. It was an unusual pleasure to be killed by this great actor.”
Peck’s double was also Israeli. Gadi Katz was hired at first to be a local guide for the production and didn’t even dream of actually taking part in the film, but due to his clear physical similarity to the star of the movie, he was immediately chosen to be Peck’s double. This didn’t surprise him at all: “When I was in the United States, where I met my wife, a few girls stopped me and asked for an autograph,” he told Maariv reporter Baruch Meiri.
Aside from the leading actors, who were major Hollywood stars at the time, one of the world’s most famous celebrities also arrived in Israel to support her partner, who was acting in the film. Liza Minnelli, star of the Oscar-winning 1972 film Cabaret, came to spend time with her young fiancé, Desi Arnaz Jr.
But how and why did the powers that be in Hollywood decide to film an American Western in Israel of all places?
Ever since motion pictures were invented, the Land of Israel – then still Ottoman Palestine – had been a major destination for filmmakers. One of the first films by the Lumière Brothers from 1897 depicted the landscapes of the Holy Land, according to movie critic and screenwriter Yair Raveh.
During the first decade of the State of Israel’s existence, the country’s tiny movie industry tried to take its first steps like many other newly independent countries. In 1955, the film Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer was made as a joint Israeli-British project. The turning point came with the film Exodus, filmed in Israel in 1959.
The movie, starring Paul Newman, was released in 1960, telling the story of the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel. It was based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Leon Uris. Exodus was filmed in Israel: “It was the first time that the tiny Israeli film industry here was involved in the professionalism of a Hollywood production, rather than the propaganda films that were common back then,” Raveh explained.
The filming of Exodus gave birth to the Zionist dream of founding a film industry in Israel which would allow for cheaper productions than in America, though the local potential went beyond matters of finance: “Israel offers a very great variety of landscapes in a very small area: deserts, snowy mountains, ancient and historic structures,” Raveh explained. Peck agreed with him, as he explained to the press during the filming of Billy Two Hats: “Eilat is a wonderful place for the film industry. There is a combination here of Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, and California. Who could ask for more?”.
Peck was not just flattering his Israeli hosts. After the filming, he visited the country dozens of times and even filmed additional movies here. In fact, a documentary telling the story of the filming of Billy Two Hats, meant to attract more production companies to the Holy Land, was narrated by Peck himself. Peck’s children also came to Israel and his daughter, director and producer Cecilia Peck even directed Brave Miss World, which documents the story of Linor Abargil and her publicized fight for justice after her rape.
But let’s get back to the 1960s for a moment. At the time, perhaps due to Exodus or Israel’s own military and cultural achievements, the Jewish state itself was often seen as a sort of inspirational miracle, and this popularity extended to Hollywood as well. With plenty of Jewish producers playing major roles in the American film industry, that popularity was hardly a surprise.
Over the next two decades, many other international films were also filmed in Israel. A few could easily have been filmed in plenty of other locations (such as The Big Red One), but the majority of these movies had an actual plot connection to Israel itself, like The Ambassador or Jesus Christ Superstar. During the filming of the latter, Norman Jewison, the film’s director and producer, discovered Israel’s potential as a desert setting. It was exactly what he needed for another film he would end up producing – Billy Two Hats.
In 1966, just as Hollywood interest in the Holy Land was on the rise, a film entrepreneur named Alex Hacohen received permission to establish a large Wild West style film set near Eilat, resembling an actual town. The project was a failure. In its five years of existence, just three films were made there, and it usually looked as abandoned as many an Old West ghost town.
In 1971, the set burned down in a fire, with Hacohen racking up large debts due to the failed venture. The Naveh Ilan studios established near Jerusalem by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were also planned to attract big name productions from overseas, but without much success.
If you visited Eilat in the 1980s, you could have your picture taken next to the “Texas Ranch” guillotine. “Texas Ranch” was another film set established in the area, which ended up becoming a tourist attraction before closing down and later being converted into a water park.
“In the 1980s, [film producers] Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus brought many Hollywood productions here. Brooke Shields’ Sahara, Stallone’s Over the Top, and Chuck Norris’ Delta Force,” Raveh said. “Most of the movies were not particularly high quality but they were very successful and brought a lot of money into the country. Golan and Globus were very successful in Hollywood with [their company] Cannon during those years.”
But here is where our story ends, more or less. The intifada that broke out in the late 1980s and all that came after brought the saga of Hollywood movies in Israel to an end: “The high costs of production, which certainly increased after the inflation of the mid-eighties, combined with the security situation, made Israel an unattractive destination. Insurance companies simply refused to insure the actors. Today we’re in a situation where even movies whose plots occur in Israel are filmed abroad. In Steven Spielberg’s Munich, for instance, scenes ostensibly taking place in Jerusalem were filmed in Malta.”
In 2000, a tiny hope once again emerged with the arrival of a major production to Israel, featuring none other than Brad Pitt. Excitement in Israel was at its peak, but just then the second intifada broke out. Pitt’s arrival was cancelled due to insurance companies refusing to cover him.
Despite the efforts of various dreamers, Israel never managed to establish itself as a satellite of the American film industry.
Still, in addition to the local Hebrew and Arabic film industry which has seen its share of successes, Israel also has a whole other film industry many are not aware of: “Quite a few Christian films are made in the country which provide a lot of work for the industry in Israel,” Raveh explained. “These are not widely known films, and they go direct to home distribution or are distributed via religious platforms.”
In any case, we can always take comfort in the fact that there was once such a thing as a Matzah Western, and thanks to the National Library of Israel’s online catalog we can enjoy hundreds of behind-the-scenes photos from the filming of Billy Two Hats, taken by photographer Aliza Auerbach.
