The production of Broken English (1981) turned into a quiet but bitter backstage war that left the film effectively strangled. Michie Gleason was making her directorial debut when producer Bert Schneider — a prominent figure who had the clout to push into independent features — began exerting heavy-handed influence. Schneider insisted that his wife, Greta Ronningen, be cast in the film and repeatedly pressured Gleason to add more explicit sexual material. What began as creative friction escalated into an outright power struggle over casting and tone, with the director fighting to preserve her vision and the producer demanding alterations that served his interests.
The clash widened when Lorimar, the production company responsible for distribution, declined to release the completed picture, bluntly citing that the film was "not sexually explicit enough." Schneider responded by taking Lorimar to court; he ultimately won a successful lawsuit against the company. But the legal victory was pyrrhic. The litigation did not translate into a commercial life for the picture — Broken English never received a general release and has been seen only at festival screenings — and the fight marked the end of Schneider's career as a producer. The episode left a legacy of bruised reputations and a cautionary tale about how behind-the-scenes feuds, nepotism, and distributor demands can doom a film irrespective of its artistic merits. The picture also endures as a curious footnote in film lore as the only screen appearance by Oona O'Neill, further heightening the sense of lost opportunity around a work shelved after a very public creative confrontation.
