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~;'" '";, '~'re ;~",.f American Film. The American Film Institute reaches out in a new form to people with an interest in film and tele­vision or. as The New Yorker might phrase it. to those with 'more than a routine interest.'

We intend to be lively and informative. to treat the entire range of our subject, and to confront the moving image for what it is-oneofthe most pervasive influences in contemporary life . Most of us made our first contact with film as entertainment. Later for many or us it became a profession, and now for all of us it is a force which is never far from the center of our lives. The moving image faces us via television in the liv­ing room (and bedroom, guestroom, playroom), in theaters. in schools. and factories, by cable. cassette , video­disk, Super 8. 16, 35. and 70. It is all over the place , and it affects educa­tion, politics, manners, morals. and the economy.

The editors of American Film will ex­plore all aspects offilm and television. They are expected to roam through the highways and byways of communica­tions, and ever underthe surface will be root questions on the role offilm and television in American life.

There has certainly never been a force to compare with film and television. and there has never been a magazine quite like this one. In these pages thoughtful writers will explore the past, the present, and the future of the moving picture. its associated art and technology.

American Film is an extension of the original mandate of The American Film Institute which was established to advance the arts offilm and televi­sion. Their limitless potential for art, entertainment, and education, and the ever-widening public interest in these fields cause us to launch this project with high hopes.

George Stevens. Jr. Director The American Film Institute

DirKtor. TlwAlWrkulfllmlllJlhllCt GeOf'JC Stevens . Jr .

loud fII TI'UItHI Chllrman . Charhon Heston

Ellecuti"e Committee Chairman . Richard Brandt

Treasurer, John Macy

Betic Adam~ Moelon f'i.clureand Tde"ision Executive

ShanaAleunder Wnter

"Maya A",elou Wnler 'D,reclor

Ted A)bley C~Chairman orthe Board Warner Bros Inc.

RIChard Brandt President. Tran'J<Lu .. Corponllion

"David Bro"'n PanMund o.rC'('tor The 7..anucklBrownCompany

JoanGanlCoonC'y President. Chlldren' s Ttlc .... slOfl Workshop

Barry Ddler Chairman onhe Board Paramount Pictures Corporation

'"Raymond Ficklin, Professorand Film Scholar

EmanutlGcrvd WarncrCommunications . lnc

Mark Goodson Qood$On·Todman ProductIOns

John Hancock Film DirectOl'"

Deane F. Johnson Putner. O·Melveny.t. Myers

LaTry Jordan Independent Filmmaker

M.,,,in Josephson Chairman. International Creati"e Manap:ment

Fay Kan,n Wnlet

John KOI'1y Indepudenl Filmmaker

"DavJd Mallery Dtrec;lf;lfofSll.idte! National Assotialion of Independent School,

Waller Mlmch tn officio) Pruldenl Acadcmyof Moeion Picture Ar15 &: ScielKn

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Georle Sle"ens. Jr tuofficiol

Gordon Stulbcr, Mitchell . Silberbcrs& Knupp

CltelyTyson AClren

Jlck Va!enl1 PreSIdent MOIlon P,cture Au.ociation of America

"R~nWI&ner Director of Graduatt Cintma SIIKhe, TheOhioStalt University

Paul Ziffren Partner. ZllTren &. Ziffrcn

'PuhhcallonsCommlt!cc

October 1975

Volume I . Number I

Editor: Hollis Alpert Sellior Editor: Stephen Zito West Coast Editor: James Powers Educatioll Editor: Samuel L. Grogg. Jr. Art Direclioll: John Beveridge Editor. Dialogue 011 Film: Rochelle Reed AFt MI'11Iber N",,'s: Mel Konecoff Assistant Ediror: Victoria Vcnker Editorial Assistallt.' Antonio Che masi Advertising Repr('S(' IIrati"l': Nancy Wells Membership Secrelary: Winifred Rabbitt SlafI Diana Eisas. Janelle Jones .

Dale Newson

Cover photograph by Stanley Tretick.

American Film : Journal o/the Film and T(' /e visioll Arts is published ten times a yea r by The American Film Institute . Signed articles he re in do not necessaril y reflect official Instit ute policy. Copyright © 1975 byThe American Film Ins titute . All rights, including reproduction by photographic or electronic processes and tra nslation into ot her languages, reserved by the publisher in the Un ited States, Great Britain , Mexico. and all countries participating in the Internat ional Copyright Conven tion. Editorial. pub­lishing. a nd advertising offices: The American Film Ins titute . ThcJohn F, Kennedy Ce nter for the Performing Arts. Washingt on. D.C. 20566. Printed in the United States of America. Yearly subsc ription-$ 15 per ycar-i ncludes membership in The American Fi lm Ins titute.

The American Film Ins titute is a n in­dependent. no n-profit o rgan izat ion serv­ing the public inte re st. established in 1967 by the National Endowment for the Arts to advance the arts offi lm and television in America. The Institute preserves films. operates an advanced conservato ry for filmmak ers. gives assistance to new American filmmakers through gran ls a nd intcrnships. prov ides guidance to film teachers and ed ucators. publishes til m books. periodicals and reference works. supports basic research. and operates a national film repertory ex hibition program .

Contents

NoClue 9 Or Learning to Write for the Movies Larry Mc Murtry

Hollywood and the Newsroom 14 Each Has Glamorized the Ot her Deac Rosse ll

NewsThat's Fit to Film 20 Park Row Was Not the Place This Director Knew Samuel Fuller

Filming It Like It Was 25 Watergate Goes Hollywood Harry Clein

Volleyball , Square Dancing, and Cinema 27 New England's Busy Film Study Ce nter Patrick McGilliga n

The Black Years of Dalton Trumbo 30 He Wrote Much More Than We Knew Bruce Cook

Silence: The Unique Experience 55 Silent Comedy Reconsidered Walter Kerr

TV: The End ofthe Beginning 60 The Prospects Before Us

The Apotheosis of Bruce Lee 67 From Kung Fu to Cult Figure

Dialogue on Film 37 David Brown and Richard Zanuck.

Charles Champl in

Kenneth Turan

The Greystone Seminar-a continuing se ries of discussions between AF I Fellows a nd prom inen t filmmakers.

Focus on Educalion 2 Where Do Film Teachers Come From?

Festival Report 4 Garbo in Berlin

Lost and Found: The BioI 71

Member News 73

Explorations 78 On Hester Street The Partic ipatory Film

Books 75 Americaand Mov ie Myth s Bogart and Bacall Directors of the Seventies Blacks in American Film

Periodicals 87

Samuel L. Grogg. Jr.

David Robinson

Anthony Slide

Mel Konecoff

Joan a nd Raphael Silver Tom Gunning

Arthur Schlesinger. Jr . Alex Ward Antonio Chemasi Thomas Cripps

J o urna l of the Filmand Television Arts

.,. I

Sam L. Grogg, J r.

One Midwest uni vers ity professor expl a ins it this way." 1 was teaching full time in the Engli sh de pa rtment. Courses in composition and litera­ture. I was a lso tryi ng despe ra te ly to fini sh my doc toral di sse rta ti on on Herma n Me lville. My rece iving te n­ure de pe nd ed o n co mpl eting t he de­gree.

" I couldn 't keep up with the c lass preparations. though. and time was running out. T he local public li brary had a great collec ti on of feature fi lms-heavy in fi lmed ve rs ions of novels a nd plays. When I cou ld n 't get it togethe r for class. rd run down a nd c hec k o ut a film .

" The stude nt s loved the mov ies. I ma naged to fini sh the disse n ation . a nd I do n ' t think r ve ta ught a lite ra­ture co urse since. O nl y fi lm . First in tha t same English de pa rtme nt. now here. Some other teachers from other department s and I form ed a depart­ment of cinema studies about four years ago.

The story is not .as unusual as it probably shoul d be. Most teac he rs of film have similar (lccidnllal origins. In the mid- a nd la te-sixt ies. film leaching was . for many. a result and matt er of pedagogical improv isation. Says the professor. " The stude nt s were demanding co urses more rele­vant to their life experience. M ovies and telev ision we re. and are . a maj or part of that expe rience. M ost of li S

who bega n teac hing fi lm played it by ear using what we had lea rned from Ollr (rai ning in other di sc iplines.

" The transition was n' t too dif­ficult. M ov ies we re a part of our eve ryday life. too. We just b ro ught th e m int o the classroo m a nd classed-up the name to cine ma. T hat sound s prelly illegitimate. I know. but. let's face it. we learned by doing. It took time to build knowledge a nd credent ia ls in fil m after having spe nt all that time in graduate school stud y­ing somet hing else."

Those early days of fi lm teac hing we re ri fe with battl es over the intro­ducti on of cinema studies into the traditional uni ve rsit y programs. O f

2

Where do Film Teachers Come From?

course. by the 1960s. so me majo r in­st ituti ons had long s ince bee n in­volved in the teac hing of film : Uni ­vers it y of Southe rn Cali fo rni a. New York Uni ve rs it y . The O hi o State Universit y. Te mple U ni ve rsit y. e t a l. But fo r most colleges a nd uni ve r­sItI es. mov ies re ma in ed we ll ­o ut side the academic do ma in . O nl y maverick teachers using guerrilla tac­tics ma naged 10 smuggle film courses into the curriculum .

Em """ ,,"''' .",,;., "' ,,,,. reptit iously in departm ent s of drama. art . Engli sh . journ alis m . a nd soc iol­ogy. T he scalle red fo rays pic ked up a quick momentum . Courses in film drew st udent s. and departm e nt budge ts a re based on s tud ent e nro ll­ment. M ore student s mea nt more mo ney. Eve n th e staun ches t trad iti onali st had lilli e c ha nce of with sta nd in g the we ig ht o f the economic argument .

In 1969. a pproximately 220 col­leges and universiti es offered courses

in film . Thi s year. co urses in the mo­tion picture art s are being offered at over 800 colleges and uni versities thro ugho ut the United S ta tes. Eve n the guerri ll a pedagogues mu st be a bit shaken at the sudden turn of event s. The baili e fo r the legitimacy of film stud y became an almost too easy vic­tory. and now that the revolution is fairl y over the victors are obv iollsly pe rpl exed as to wha t to do with thei r spo il s.

Te n years ago thi s mo nth . in the midst of the curricul um warfare. the Dartmo uth College Confere nce on Fil m Stu dy asse mbled a g ro up of pi onee ring film teac he rs a nd scho la rs for four days of lectures and presen­tations on the 1I ·lIar. wily. and 1101\' of cinema stu dy in higher education.

T he most me morable mo me nt s o f that conference in volved film criti c Pau line K ae l 's attac k on th e paralyz­ing threat academia posed to mov ies. Film education was so new at the time that li tt le more than un substan­tia ted predic tio ns as to what it might involve cou ld be di sc usse d . A con­temporary account reported : "The sell ing was magnifi ce nt. but the fo r­mal prese nt ations set a new record fo r confe re nce dullness." Dull o r no t. th e repo rt co nc lud e d : "Everyone le ft Ha nover agree ing that it is imperative that another con­fere nce be held '. . as soon as possible.- . .

It see ms that the soonest possible da te fo r a co mparabl e ge t- togeth er was this past summer when G erald Mast a nd Marsha ll Cohen. profes­sors of c ine ma a nd phil osoph y re­spec ti ve ly a t Ric hmo nd College­C it y Uni vers it y o f New Yo rk . con­vened at the C U N Y G raduate Ce nte r (with a gra nt from the National En­dow me nt fort he Hum anities) a g roup of about 200 fi lm educato rs a nd sc ho­la rs. The topi c o f disc uss io n: .. Film a nd the Uni ve rs it y."

In a way the CU NY Co nfe rence smacked of a ga thering of war bud ­dies to swap sto ries of o ld tim es. It was that. But it was also a fi ve-day capsulatio n of abo ut everything that

is right and much that is wrong with film educati on.

Professor Mast. in hi s o pening re· marks . corroborated the stories of the accident al birth of most film teac hers. The conferees had fill ed o ut qu es ti o nn aires rega rdin g th e ir academic backgrounds pri or to regis­tering for the eve nt. Mast sum­mari zed tha t a majorit y of those at­tending had never taken a single co urse in film .

Perhaps a thi rd of the gro up. at the outside. co ul d boast of any ex ten­sive, formal academic work in film . The bulk of those asse mbled we re. by training. teachers and scholars of hi s­to ry. a nthro po logy. literature. sociology. dra ma. philosop hy. and other di sciplines. Yet a ll curre ntl y are teac hing so me facet of the motion pi cture art s and sc iences. and most have publi shed in the fi e ld . It seems that film teac he rs co me from almost anywhere but fro m a bac kgro und in film stu dy.

Roughl y speaking. the re arc abo ut 100 times as many slUde nt s curre ntl y pursuing deg rees in the moving image a rt s than the re are teac hers who hold degrees in the sa me di sc ipline ... A gap ex ists betwee n us and our stu­dent s." said M ast in a polit e under­statemen!. "" We have to find ways of ta lking ac ross that ga p."

edu ca tio n IS fill ed wi th ""ga ps."" At the earlier Dartmouth Conference. Pau line K ae l men­tioned. with less alarm than those at the CUN Y meeting. the fi e ld' s occa­sionalla pses.

" W e don't have to worry much if it' s a lilli e di sorde rl y."" said Kae l of teaching film. " in thi s field gaps of knowledge are not criminal negli­ge nce as they might be for a doctor ."

One se nses. though. that the se ri­o usness of the offense has inc reased over the years. The CUNY Confe r­ence gave vo ice to rea l and ac ti ve concern over what M ast onl y half­jokingly labe led the "" iI/ di sc ipline"" of film .

Arthur Knigh!. film c riti c and Uni­ve rsit y o f So uthe r n Califo rni a c inema professor. spok e a rdentl y to the group on th e need for ""accredit a-

tion "" of film sc hool s and film teachers . . , A system ha~ to be de­vised '" he urged .

The di sorde rl y nalUre offilm slUd y and of the deve lopment of film teachers and scholars no longer is lightl y accept ed . Most of those a t the CUN Y gathe ring agreed tha t a good dose o f " pro fe ss io nali sm " I S

urge ntly needed . There were a few who s till c lung to

the somewhat raucou s ways of the pas!. but they were clearl y in the mino rit y. Leo Braud y of Columbia Uni versity co mplimented film 's abil ­it y to break down the traditi ona l bar­riers between the academic di sci­plines. He ex ulted in the fac t tha t film study had made fo r thi s coming to­ge the r of such a he te roge neo us gro up . If the admi xture of academic expertise ev idenced by th ose teach­ing mov ies be illegitimate. then. said Braud y, " We must prese rve that il ­legitimacy'"

But Braudy ' s re mark s were lost in a steady incantation of " profes­sional" stand ards and methods. He fo und himself in the awkward pos i­ti on of being misunderstood and hav­ing 10 ex pla in that he didn ' t mean "" il­legi timate" in the se nse of "" slipshod or mediocre" but in a " noncon se rva­ti ve. interdi sciplinary . and free ly humani sti c se nse."

The confe rence had long Since moved fro m Braud y's protests and onto the presentati on of lectures on "v isual literacy. structurali sm in the cm e ma. a nd th e se miol ogi ca l analysis offilm .· ·

The semiologists were Ollt in force at the CUN Y mee!. So much so tha!. while critic A ndrew Sarri s posed a good-humored indiffe rence to what he call ed a "se minar pageant " during the conference . he has since pub­li shed a long a rti c le on hi s adama nt stand aga in st " the new film criti ­cism ." T o Sarri s. the wave of se miological criticism see ms to fulfill Pauline Kae l" s ea rli e r fea rs o f paralys is infused into film critic ism by academic sc hemati zation . ,, ' n­deed '" Sarri s writes. "some of my best fri end s a re se miologists . but when they begin drawing chart s with such headings as sign and signal. index and ico n. system and syntag m. I begin groaning under the enormous we ig ht o f th e me thodol og ic al machinery ."

Arthur Kni ght also wrot e at so me length of hi s experie nces at the CUN Y conference. He . 100 . is wor­ried over the semiological bent of the meeting and the dangers he fee ls are in vo lved in th e subs tituti on of method fo r apprecia tio n in film slUd y. But Kni ght's major c ritic ism of the meeting focused on the see m­ing inabilit y of the participant s to clea rl y ex press th e mse lves. "" Perhaps people who teac h film . and are immersed in the moving image. shoul dn' t be req uired to read papers that require so me mastery of the written-and spo ken-word ." he chided .

N ot much has changed over the years s ince the Da rtmo uth Confer­ence. C riti cs are still di stressed at the inclinations of academia to codify and structure film stud y. no one has yet figured out a way to stud y c ine ma that the heteroge neous c ro wd of film teachers ca n begin to live w ith. and such ta lks and proceedings a re still. large ly, dull.

What conferences on film educa­tion mu st remember is the acc id ental origin of most film teachers. The anecdote of the Midwest professor is a fairl y valid fac t of film education life. The call fo r a coo l sense of pro­fess ionali sm to descend upon cinema stud y is. a t leas!. premature. at mos l. imposs ibl e.

With 30.000 s tud ent s currentl y pursuing deg rees at th e un de r­graduate and graduate level in some face t of film a nd/o r video and thousa nd s more electing occasional courses in the fi e ld . the thought that somehow film teac hers a nd sc holars can quickl y return to an academic normalcy is pa te ntl y na ive. The film stud y ru sh is at full tilt and there is simpl y no way to scllie o n a single c ritica l method ology . a single set of standard s of pedagogy. or a single sc hedul e of basic requirement s for

-'degrees in cinema. For no w. film conferences will of

necessit y suffer from dullness and probabl y continu e to upset film c ri ­ti cs. Perhaps in another ten years we will kno w more of wha t we a re ta lk­ingabo u!.

3

Berlin

David Robi nson

Garbo in Retrospect

Incredibl y. the Berlin Fcs lival"s ret · ru~ pt: ~ (i v\: of the entire film career o f Greta Garbo (o nl y one fi lm. Sjostrom's Th e /) il'ill(' \VOIII (/I/, wm. mi ss ing) and the Gold Meda l awarded he r . in ahsentia natura ll y. hy the Inte rnat io nal Commit · tce fur the Propagat io n of Art and Litera­ture through the C inema. l:c lebnll cd the fifti e th a nni versa ry. a lmost 10 the day. of her arriva l in the United Slales.

Inc red ibly. because she see ms to ex is t quile oUhidc time. Unlike other sta rs. her beaut y remained in its esse ntials un­c hanged through the 20 yea rs of he r film eHrecr. from her debut in a commerc ia l a t the ;.Igc of 16. to her las t sc reen appear­'1Ilce. in TII 'u-Faced WOl1lll1/ in 1941: a nd Ihe YC;'lfS ., incc ha ve in no \\ay dimini shed the r<ldiance of he r ~creen prese nce. Dee pe r than the beaut y a nd the presence. the perfo rmances t h e rn ~e l ves ,Ire un ­to uc hed by time . The most st riking re ve­lation o f the Berlin re tros pec ti ve is that Garbo ' s ~ il ent performances survive in­!<tc l. com ple te. unda ted as perhaps the work of no o the r silent film actor docs . Garbo. a ~ arti s t. a s 'Ic tress. ;:IS pre sence. docs not be lo ng to the past or to nosta lgia. Ga rbo i:, .

H"ld Metro-Gold wyn-Maye r a ny rea l sense of \\ hat thql we re buying w he n LOlli, B. Mayer. on'l shl)pping s pree for E uro pea n talen t . ~ i g ned up the direc tor a nd s!;lr ofGm lli Berlin): 's SlI!-!lI? Ac tress LO lli ~e Brooks. a " ha rp-eyed witness o f the times. dism i sse~ a~ " the most ridicll ­IOll ~ of all Garbo myth~" the legend that the company only ~ ig n ed he r in o rde r to ge t S till e r : "i n 1925. an y time a n untri ed ac tre s~ got Illore th (l n 5300 a wee k the ~ tudio \Va, rea ll y yearning fo r he r. And no bod y ,ee J11 ~ to reme mber how. aft e r he r ar riv.d . Maye r kept Ga rbo in iso lati on

4

in New York fo r thrce mo nths trying un­successfull y to force he r to substitute a new cont nlc t fo r the Berlin agreeme nt which could no t hold up in American court s.

A unique a nd fo rgo ll en interview whic h a ppeared in the firs t issue of M o d e Magal. ill(' proves that the co mpan y pub­lici ty me n we re neverthe le ss at a to ta l loss as to how to se ll the ne w star. The best they had bee n able to corne up with wa s " They ca ll he r the Norma Sheare r of Swede n." T he interviewe r ca ught Ga rbo at the Commodore Hotel. recovering from mal dl' ma. struggling to ac­cl ima ti ze herse lf to a sweJte ring Jul y New York . a nd tr ying to find so me thi ng to wear. s ince shc had brought o nl y wi nte r clo thes. Sti ll e r had to translate. a nd ex­pla ined he origi na ll y had cast her fo r Go.Yla Berling because she looked the pari a nd because her "q ua li ty of grace W,IS ve ry marked" a nd " he got the impression that s he had something in the head." Garbo herself revealed that she admired G lo ria

Swa nso n . want ed to pla y "silke n pa ri s." Cl nd had ,In inc lina tion for' ' funn y act­mg.

"She is qui te ta ll . s le nde r. L ight brown ha ir . worn s ho n . Eyes no t gray nor green but so me thing of bo th . s kin of pale a l(lbaster. lovely ha nds sle nderne ss with that c urio us ly po ten t s uggestio n of s tre ngt h that sometimes acco mpanies beaut iful fragilit y. This muc h we know

. no 1110 re . The inte rviewe r . in fact. did no t do too

badl y. eve n in her guess that " Miss Garbo is nol the inge nue type. bU I we Illny be wrong."

Holl ywood . indeed. W.IS not in need of inge nues: beGlu ~e (to quo te Lo uise Broo ks ag<.lin) "i t was ... the glo rio us year w hen Will H;IY:-' h' ld kill ed censor­ship in a ll but fi ve s t a l e~ . Of these New York was Ihe o nl y one tha t mattered - mea ning ew York C it y w here Ha ys thoughtfull y had se t up the N,lt io na l 8 0'.ln.l o f Re view. 'opposed 10 lega l ce n­so rship ,Ind in fa vo r of the const ruc t ive

method o f selec ting the belle r pic ture s.' whic h h;:ld a lready put a p(lssing mark on the produce rs' tes t runs with adult pi c­tures of sexual re'lli s m." AI this c ruc ial moment Mayer hild found in Garbo. "a sex ua l sy mbo l beyo nd hi s imagining. He re was it face as pure ly beautiful ,IS Mic haelangelo's Mary o f the Pieta. ye t gJowi ng wi t h passio n . The suffering of he r soul was s ll c h tha t the American public would fo rgive all 39 o f he r affa irs in TIll' Torrl'l11 . At las t. ma rriilge- t he obstade stand ing be twee n sex a nd pl eas ure - could be do ne away wi lh!"

Seeing the sile nt film s all togethe r it is inconceivable that a legend grew u p of a cold ,lIld sex less beaut y. Garbo broug ht to the America n screen a sexua li ty far mo re mature ,Ind po te nt tha n it had ever known before. The sa llcy flirt ation o f C lara Bow and the de monstr'ltive. s uhry pass io ns o f Po la egri look like sc hoo lgirl a ntics when yO ll sec Garbo make love o n the screen . It is no t j ust the ope n­mout hed kbs in Fit'S" and '''(' D(' \'il (s till a stoni shing in it s ra pac it y): Ihe way in love scenes she see ms to nbando n and to o ITe r he rse lf tota ll y. while at the same time w;:lnting 10 devour he r p<.lrtner : o r the breat h-stoppi ng mo ment (in Fh' sll alltl 111(' D(' I'il agai n) where s he kneels a t the co mmunio n mil beside the man s he has no right to lo ve . ~In d turns bac k the c ha lice so that he r lips ma y touc h the s pot where a d ro ple t o f wine is s till s lithe ring down fro m the touc h of hi s mouth : o r the firs t encounter in a hox ,It the o pera in TII(' M ysl eriolls Lady. w he re she ,lIld Conrad Nagel convey the ero ti c exc it e ment. the radiations of two to ta l ~t rangers making in it ia l sexual cont act.

Muc h mo re signi licn ntl y. the Garbo film s c hanged the ero ti c role of woman in Al1ler i c~ln film s. Ho ll ywood fi lms of the twe nties with erotic the mes s how a sur­prising consis tenc y of fo rm : Inva ri abl y it is the wurnan who is ado ring . devoted . faithful. sacri fi cing: the ma n w ho philanders Cl nd a llows himself to be dis ­t racted and seduced b y The Wrong Gir l. The he ro ine may cu unte r b y asse rting he rse lf. by ado pting ' mudern ' manners o r morals. or by he rself aroll s ing jealollsy thro ugh nirting with o the r men . But in the id ea l Holl ywood sc heme of things. lo ve tr iumphs. the man re pent s. the g irl re­sume s he r former domestic s ta tio n. o rde r is re s to red .

The Garbo canon. fro m he r fir s t Arncrie;:ln film . The 1orrl'l11. turned thi s sc heme o f things ins ide o ut. Ga rbo is. a l­mo "t in vmiably. The Wrong G irl. In prac­ticall y everyone of her s ilent film s there is in the background a dull . good. loyal woma n who wo uld no rmall y be the hero ine. a nd w ho in the end captures the ma n . Ic'lvi ng Garbo abanJoned. be­trayed . condemned to face a lo ne w ha t­ever fa te may bring he r.

The Torn' IIt, adapted frum i.l nove l by Vicenlc BlI.ISCO Ibillicz. Ihen a l Ihe peak uf his f .. s hinn in fash io n-conscious Ho l­lywood. is the prolOlype of ,I form Iha l wo uld be ec hoed even in Camille and COllquc'Sf. Garbo is Leo nora. the da ugh­ter of puor but respectable Spa ni sh peas­an ts. S ince chi ld huud she and Do n Rafael. :-.un of Ihe local landowner. h<1 ve been in love. but Rafael's mother has plans for a rich marriage. a nd turns Leonora' ~ famil y out of their humble home . Leonora leave:-. the vill .. tge , When s he returns several yc;.trs later she has be­cume:.t great opera st;u , Again the names of passion :.tre kind led between them, and Rafael's mother separates Ihem. Rafael Slays wi th hi ... lillie bride and s m ... lI-town life . When they meet once again after many years Leonunt remains as beautiful ;mel fa sc inating as ever. wh ile he is a stout a nd middle-aged pett y polilician. It is too laiC fo r bUl h of them: Each is committed to a se parate unh ,-Ippi ness.

The esscn tial point of lhe story, wh ich is to be repealed ma ny li mes. is that the small. se lfi sh love of the wea k man is al­together unequal to the giga ntic. a ll ­givi ng p<lss io n of (he WOman. apoleon. in COI/{IIU'sr acknuwledges thi s inequal­ity : " You gave greally. . for so litlle." Thu ~ the man will be di ve rted in the end by a ~tern parent 0 he 7orn' lIl. Camil/(' ): by the timidity ofbourgeoi" respectabilit y whe n fa ced with a \\oman's past (ROnlal/Cl' . /mpirati()I1): by \\orldly am­bition (7/1(' rc' mptr('.\ .\ . 7 he Pail/tl' d Vd/ . COIU/IU' St): and by a lack uf trust (A

WO/l/OII IIf AD·airs). True . so met imes the f<lte wh ich sepantte:-. them is somet hi ng bigge r and uu tside themselves (AliI/a K ar('llilw, Mata flari . (juc' ell ChristiI/o. Nillotch/';'a). True, abu. tha i luve can

triumph occasionall y. doom be e luded. and the end be happy .

Even so. in a Garbo film, the woman remains a lwa ys and inevi tabl y the stronger c haracter. G~trbo is not always so aggress ive ly dom ina nt as in Maro flori (" I am Mata Hari . I am myown master.") or in l llspiratioll . where it is s he who a p­proaches the young Robert Montgo mery at a party (' . Did you come with ,1 lady?" ). takes him home to her apartment. and the next morning brings him nowers. (This is the film. too. in whic h s he a nswers hi s question abou t who she is wi th " I' mjus t a nice young woman. I 01 too yuung and not too nice") . The woma n mllst s llf­fer for her devouring love, however. and in Ihe end it is she who must have Ihe strength 10 make whateve r sacrifice is necessary. and to walk away to wh,Hcve r destiny co mmands.

Although it wou ld be rilsh 10 see <lny de ­libera te femini st trac t in thi s . it is not without significan ce that the great major­it y of her film s were wri ll cn by women - <1 fact no tabl e eve n at a ti me when so many of Hollywood's be s t writers we re women. In turn. Garbo writers inc luded Dorothy Farnum, Lorna Moon , Ghld ys U nger. B e~s Meredyt h , J u:-.ep hin e Lovett, Frances Ma riun . Wanda Tuchock (working in collabunuion with Zelda Sear~ and Edith Fitzgerald on Susal/ L eI/OX). Salk,1 Viertel. Clemence Dane. a nd Zoe Akins . A number of mille scenarists. inc luding Wi lder (Ind Bracketl and S. N . Behrm'lIl . worked o n the sOllnd films: but un ly three of the silent film~ were written b y men. and these arc a llull ­Iypical. In Wild Orchitis and Th e Kiss, bot h scripted by H<1 ns Kra ly. Garbo is a married wormln and ack nowledges the nurms of Holl ywood domest ic murality.

, 'D(' c'pc' r I h(lll I hl' /Jeauty (111(1 the !Jrc'SC'II("(' . tIlt' per!ormal1("(' j· thems(' /t 'c's (Ire IU/{ollchn/ by (iml' . . ,

Fksh (lml thl' D(' I'iI . ad"pted by Be njamin Glazer from Sudermann, is the on ly film in whic h Garbo is less than no ble in her love and eve n re veills oll t-'lI1 d-Ollt sex ual duplici ty. Eve n then he r death is more atonement than puni shment : Rus hing to avert a duel be tween the two life· long friend s whose infa tu at ion fo r he r has ma{le ene mies. she fall s through the ice .. t the ve ry mumen t whe n the two me n rec ­ognize that their bro the rl y love is a higher cause than carnal passion .

Despite the exceptions, and even tak­ing into accou nt the s pecial glow and gloss that MG M lavished on them. there is someth ing ent ire ly <Ii stincliv(.' ahout Garbo's film~: and through everyone of them the Garbu image it self stays con­stant. providing it li ving center even to the most unworthy vehicles: (illd which sur­vive s, even whe n the fi lm it self seems to have cru mbled .l\V,IY .Iround her. The mys tery isj ll st how th is shy and rec lusive woman. who see ms to have had so li ttle real passio n for her work . who disdained the studi o organiZations and public it y mac hinery. cuu ld so <lssuredl y do minate Ihe work in which she appe<lred .

Allowing for the shyness and the need for frequent rests (pa rt o f her thrilling fragi lity was due to anemia) s he seems to h<lve been easy 10 wurk wit h, conscien­tiolls and coopef'<lI ive. Bob Tho mas (in Tlwlb(' r;t) gives an ingenious explanation of the constant c haracter of her film s: " During I he filming of Th e T {}rrelll, (William) Daniels marveled at the case with which he cuuld photograph her. She had no 'guod side': ei ther h'll f of her fa ce W .. IS read il y photogr;'lphable. Nor {lid s hc require spec ia llighling. as some actresses did to heighten their beauty . Garbo cu uld look love ly in ca ndlelight . Suc h fac ulties al lowed directurs freedom o f movement withou t co ncern fur cumbersu me light­ing. He nce her perfOrl11 .. IIKes had un ique mobilit y." T he photogeny, the beauty, the prese nce we re at o nce:t gift tu the di ­rector and a duminating factor. Maybe if Garbo cOllld be viewed clinic,t ll y s he might appear too lall. tou broad in the shoulder:-.. \\ ilh large feel. .1 lopi ng walk. a depr~~ ~cd stoop. Yet it is possible only 10 sec the 1110:-.t beautiful and graceful and radiant and poignan t creature that ever had ib existcnce 011 the ~c reell. The beaut y of the face. is timele ss and nilw­less.

It is inc rc;l:-.ingly clear in relrospectjust how ex traord inary a n actress she was. her rules:-.o comple tely li ving that it is im-

5

po~~jblc , a~ \\·ell a~ irrc le va nl. to see where intel ligence ended and inst inct and sensibility took over. He r quality is mos t <Ippa rent in the sil e nt fi lms: and perhaps no o ther <lctre s~ eve r made the silent film so comple te and s uffi cie nt a medium . Her ra nge wa ... wide: and though one's moSt vivid memor ies a r~ al\\ays of her mo­me nb of traged y and a nguis h. the myth (pe rpe tuated by the Nillolchka public it y. "Garbo lallgh ... ~ ") of the melanc ho ly a nd un~ miling \\oman i., the s illiest of a ll the It-ge n(t .... Her gaiety \\ hen .,he i ... in the full glo ry of love i ... abamloned <I nti ex ult a nt : she laugh". hl.'au nung b"lck. wi th he r e n­tire body.

No ot he r ., il ent <lctre s~ wa~ so expres­~ive in re vea ling rapid changes of emotion a nti mood. \\ hic h pa ...... over her eyes and brow~ like ~hado\\., o f cloud s. Perhaps the greate.,t ... ingle .,ce ne in all the fi lms is the climax of A Womall of Aff(/irs. Sick <Ind de liri o ll ~ in the hospil<l!. s he has s poken on ly of the lo ver \\ ho has aba n­doned her fo r ,mother woma n. In re­sponse III he r appea l ~. he visi ts he r in the hospi tal Hnd hring~ Oo \\e rs. When the no weI' ... arc re moved fro m the roo m. she gctli ou t of bl.'d stagge ring in ... ea rch of the m . C lutching them to her in an em­brace oft e rrifyi ng pa.,.,ion .... he looh over thelll to ... ee th l.' man. Jo hn G il berl. stand ­ing there. At fir,t ... hl.' , u ppo~e~ that he has cOllle fin 'lll y 10 give him ... e lf. But then he r bl.'\\ ildered eyl.'~ loo k farther and see hi~ wi fe. \\ hom ,he doc ... not al fir,, 1 recog­nize : " Who i, Iha t gi rl. and \\ hy docs she ., t;l re ,It 1111.'?" Her eye, a nd mind begi n to clear : Ihe 1I111ler,tanding of the situatio n r ll~ h e~ upo n ht: r. and the mome nt of SHC­

rilke come, \\ hen ~ he di.,claims her love anll return., the man to the patient wife. Eve ry ~ h ifl of e motio n . every nua nce and ne\\ thought i,apparent.

The ex traord inary ..;t: ns uuu s ness of he r tOliC h as the hon),. nicke ring hand s caress the no\\'er~ i ~ no l e~ ... remarkable than the mo l'\:! cl.'lehraled ... c(" nl.' in QUl' t' lI Chri.\·­til/tl whl.'n .,hl.' \\'llk ., around the room in \\ hich ~ he ha' 'pe nt the night wi th G il ­ben. fin gering e.lCh ohjec t like a blind m;'111 commi ll ing the place to memory. He r ha nd s had ah\a y., thi, \\ay o f linger­ing. on a ta ble. a duur. the ~houlders of a Il)ver. o r Ihe f' lce of her c hild in Lm·C'. in \\ hi c h again. the fl.' roc it y o f her maternal love i~ po:-.itively frig llle ning. Feeling was tran ... la ted into se nse. Two among the cllun tl es~ Garbo moment s arc the first ~educ li o n in A WOlll a l/ (~/'Ajr(lirs in w hi ch her hand fa ll " over Ih l.' eJ ge of the couc h .

6

and the ring slides o fTth e thin fi nger to roll on the ground : and in Th e M ysfer ious Lady w hen s he en ters Conrad age l' s railway com pa rtme nt. now hi s deadl y enemy . As she en ters. he r b lack gloved hand hides the lower part of the face. then it slowly slides away to reveal the bru t'l!. ha rd se t of her mouth .

"Garbo ta lks!" was the sensation of 1929. In a sense she hardl y needed word s. Not on ly is her silence tota ll y ex press ive in it se lf. bU I she had a way of making you hear her vo ice. eve n be fo re the vo ice was known . Afterwards yo u feel cCrI<lin thai yo u ht'llrd he r say in A WOlllll1l olA llairs, as Iris Marc h.jusl befo re ~h e drives rec k­lessly ofT to death in her His p<tno Sui za: "You have taken from me the o ne gra­c ious thing I ever did ." The end o f Th e T(' mplf(' n i~ a lso 111<lgic<11. As so o ften . she t ra n sform~ melodrama into traged y. The m;'lI1. years la ter. mee ts Ihe wonwn w hose true love he had rejected through misundersl<lnding a nd for the si.Jke o f his career. S he is shabby. ho llow-eyed. a lit ­tl e d ru nk. She seems no t to recognize him tho ugh she le ts him buy her (I drink . He ,Is ks if she cannot remembe r him and s he rep lies, " I h,lve known so nHlIl y me n." He insis ts. bu t a ll that s he will repeal. as he sadl y walks away frol11 the wo man he has ru ined . is " I have known so man y men .

H aVing arri ved in In, withollt a wort! of Englis h. by 1930 Garbo could m;;lke o ft en the weakes t texts seem me morable. She cou ld instill depths o f mea ning . of tragedy. of dignity into the mos t banal line s: and after hav ing heard her s peak the m, the y ec ho in the memory like poetry. In ROII/al/c'e , " Thank yo u for ha ving loved me ." In Inspiratioll. when someo ne tell s her callously. " Thai boy

Garbo in Maw Hari - ill dill~ill~ dC'COI/I' lt' ~OIl'II slrt' .. malluKl' s 10 appear prac f ical/," 11lI/.. t' c/ . . ,

isn ' t so imp0rla nt"-" Ollly my /ife' . No one could do mo re with a single word . like the " Where ?" w hich s he echoes in emll/IIl'Sf whe n Na po leon . ha ving an­no unced th ;'11 he wi ll marry so ml.'o ne e lse. asks her " Where will yo u go?"

Garbo is lege ndary: but so man y of the legend s arc fal se and diminis hing. For in­stance. that s hc was sex less. She was s lim a nd ta ll. ce rtainl y by the standmds o f the bouncy little ingenues of t925: bU I ~he has a si nuolls, sensllOus shape that is often stunningly se t off by the dre~ses Ad ri<lIl des igned fo r her . In Mala Hari (in whic h s he eve n wriggles her bottom) s he man ­ages to appear prac ti cally nakcd-in the words of Mistingue tt . 'plus que nue' -as s he s it s before a mirror in CI cli nging a nd decolle te gown . In Th e M ysl n io fl s LlIdy there is a sccne of qu ite s hatteri ng ero ti ­cism where ..; he clas ps o nc hand 10 her breast : and Co nrad agel firmly c loses his own hand over it. Thro ughout the s il ­e nt film s at least the rc is a n a pprec iatio n o f he r sex ualit y so cons istent as to sug­gest that she. o r so meo ne c lose to her. guided he r directors in the ir li se o f these qUiJlitics.

Anot he r lege nd . pc rh •• ps I<-.id to resl by the Be rlin retros pective. i ~ tha t her sile nt film s we re a fo rgettable prel iminClr ), to her re<11 c~lre er in the sOllnd pe riod: thaI. for instance. L OI '(' was a roug h . inade­qua te s ke tc h fo r the fini shed AIIIIlI

K ar t' llil/a . Garbo'., Cl rt .. Ind m'lgic ne ver faltered: but often in the sOllnd films s he was so dec ked a ro und wi th hi storical ac­cessory that il was so metimes easy to s ymp~lIhizc wi t h Graham Greene: .. A great aClress. . bu t w ha t dull. po mpo us film s the y make for he r. " In he r s il e nt film s art a nd magic arc seen in the ir pur­it y. Ed mund Goulding 'S L OI'e is f"wltless. and pared to the bone a s it is. a more ,w­thentic readi ng of Tolstoy than Clarence Brown's so untl vers ion . to be see n if o nl y for the sce nes wi th the child . a nd for the ending- app'lren tl y c hanged a t the time for American (ludil.'nces. but shown intact in Be r lin -with the brilliant mi s e­en-scene of the r<l il way sta tion with it s stcam a nd dazz ling light s.

When the mist s of legend have been di s pe rsed . the ultimate mystery w ill s till remain . o f a n actrcss who seemed able to ex pose a nd 10 fix o n film forever. the se­c ret sofa soul.

David Robinson is film c rit ic for Th e L o,,­do" Tim es and the a utho r of HollY II'ood ill fhl' TII't'lItil's .

20th Cer\turu-Fox COr\gratulates

GEORGE CUKOR Or\ the completior\

of prir\cipal photographu of

The first Soviet -Americar\ co-productior\

is currer\tlu beir\g completed

ir\ LOr\dor\ for Easter release.

Leaving Cheyenne became Lovin' Molly , lVith Blythe Danner and TOllY PerkillS.

Larry McMurtry

Or Learning to Write for the Movies

If o ne we re to make a misery graph of Ho ll ywood, sc reenwriters wou ld mark high on the curve. Above them o ne would have to put second-line produce rs , pa rtic ul a rl y those educated in the East (it may well be that (III second-line prod ucers we re ed ucated in the East), a nd poss ibl y certain pub li c­it y peo ple:just be low the m wou ld come c ine matog­raphers. a group that has shown an increasing capac it y for morbidit y and neurosis since they sto pped be ing pl a in cameramen. But. in te r ms of stead y . work aday . yea r- in -year-out doloro lls ness. the writers have no near rival s. Their gloo m ma y no t be as aC LIte as that o f a d irector w hose most re­ce nt p ictu re has just fl o pped . but it is morc cons is­tent.

For decades, write rs have drifted a ro und Hol­lywood more o r less lik e unloved wives. The peo­ple the y work fo r would usua ll y be just as glad to be rid o f the m , but ca n' t quite think ofa way 10 ge t by witho ul the ir se rvices. Ho ll ywood memoirs are clolled with accou nt s o f the abuses a nd inju s tices writ ers feel have been v isited upon them: rCeJd col­lec ti ve ly . these books give o ne the se nse that. fo r eve ryone in volved. the profe ss io n itse lf was a kind of unfOri ll na te accident-o ne tha t so me how be­ca me a hab it. In a n id eal world . di rectors wou ld sc ript the ir o wn movies. a nd a number o f the grea te st di rec tors have s how n the idea l to be poss i­b le by do ingj ust th at.

O f the ma ny c raft s necessary to the ma king o f Illoti o n pi c tures. tha t of the sc ree nwriter is ea sil y the mos t ha phazard. the most impressio ni s tic. and the most vuln erable. Screenwriting. so far . has no ra tio na le. no theory. a nd . a t best. a n indiffere nt. pedest rian c raft-litera ture. Worse. it offe rs yo ung c raftsmen no easil y access ible mea ns of a ppren­ticeship : instead o f training a n indige nous body o f s killed craft s men to writ e it s scree nplays. the mov ie indu stry has trad itiona ll y preferred to loo k outside itse lf. usua ll y to novelists. fo r w ha tever w riting it needs do ne .

The dubio ll s assumpti o n thi s procedure rests upo n is that sc ree nwriting is a n a rl . w hic h the refore

need s to employ imaginati ve a rti sts. ra ther tha n a c raft. whic h co uld be expec ted to re ly upo n the dis­c ipline a nd the trained skill of gift ed a rti sa ns. U n­fOrlu natel y (it seems to me ) nove li sts have lent the mse lves read il y . e ve n eagerl y. to thi s qu ite pos­s ib ly fa ll ac ious a ss umpt io n. Most noveli sts. I be­lieve, harbo r the secret be lief that they ca n eas il y toss off sc ree nplays . n.lthe r as most s port s fa ns be­lie ve the mse lves to be potential ath letes . Unlike a rmchai r at hl e tes. howeve r . armc hair scree nwrit ­ers. if they have so me inde pendent lit era ry reputa­tio n. a re o ften a llowed to professio na li ze their fanta sy-which fo r the mos t part they do fl o under­ingly.

I don't recall tha t I ha rbo red this fant asy w he n I first began to write fi c ti o n : but I was leo to it qui ckl y enough . a nd have purs ued it abo ut as fl o underi ngly as anyone we ll co uld . through a script writing ca reer tha t hit :-. been so me thing less tha n pe rfe rvid . My ex pe riences have co nvinced me tha t beh ind every bad mo vie the re is a bad sc ript: a lso. tha t behind most good movies the re is a bad sc ript. ove r w hi c h so me resource ful direclO r has won a v ic tor y; fin a ll y. that in the des k dra we rs an d studi o file s o f Ho ll ywood there arc thousands of unp rod uced bad scr ipt s. mo re l1um e rou :-. than toad s during the rain o f toads. a nd no t muc h more c ine matic. I a m co nvi nced that the princi pa l reason fo r thi s proliferatio n of junk is that. of tho hundreds o f people e mployed to writ e movie sc ri pts. a ll but a s ma ll ha ndful are in reality sc reenwriter s 1II1l11(/1Il' - peo ple w ho ha ve neithe r the intrinsic gift s nor the ex trins ic tra ining necessary tn thejons they have bee n se t to do . I have bee n led to thi :-. conv ic ti o n by the hapha zard. not In say c haotic na ­ture of my own far from co mple te ed ucati o n as a sc ree nw riter-an edu cation. or misedll ca lion. pe r­haps s ulTic ie ntl y typi ca l tll be wort h desc ribing here.

I enco unt ered my fir st sc ree nw riter . though no t my fir st sc ript. in Arm s trong Co unl y. Texas. in the s pring o f 1962. The sc ree nwriter's name.: was Har­riet Fra nk . a nd no t long aftc r J met her J e ncou n· te red m y seco nd. he r writing part nc r and hus band. Irv ing Ra ve tc h . Harr iet wore a large hat and s hrouded he rse lf. se nsibl y e no ug h . in a grea t m£ln y ve il s a nd banda nas-the spring hreeze in Arm ­s trong Cou nt y is a pt to be sand y. Irv ing shro uded himself most ly in a loo k of g loom. The y were there with Paul Newman. Ma rtin Ritl. and somet hing like six sco re o thers. attempting to turn my sli ght. inno­cen t first novel. H o rs (' mal/ . P(I .\·s By. into the mov ie I1l1d . Thi s they (Iccom pli shed with no assis­ta nce fro m me . I was u n the set pure ly as a guest . I saw a copy or two o f w ha t I pres lImed was the sc ript. but the copies were clut c hed tig htl y in the

9

hand s of functi onaries. and I was never abl e to ge t close e no ugh eve n to peek inside. In fact. I quickl y rea li zed that my hosts didn't reall y wa nt me to read the sc ript. The y saw me as the Author. not as the al­toget her timid yo ung man I ac tua ll y was; I believe they felt th at if I read the script I wo uld ine vitab ly fee l tha t they were mutilating my book. I might be­co me upset. or even start to berate them . Thi s was unlike ly. since I had mo re or less mutila ted the book myse lf. before I publi shed it - in any case. I wa tc hed three da ys of filmin g a nd learn ed abso­lutely nothing about sc ript writing or fi lmmak ing. exce pt tha t the latt e r could be tediou s.

Though I lea rned nothing technical fro m the ex­pe rie nce of Hll d. I d id lea rn so mething psyc hic. a nd that was that movie makers frequentl y. if not en­demica ll y. fee l inferior to. and thus nervous and ill- at-ease with . pe opl e they believe to be " rea l" writ ers. Thi s wou ld see m to be a psychic constant . and it ce rt ainl y has its effect upon screenwriting . M y problem in lea rning to write sc ript s has not bee n th at I have bee n bu ll ied a nd bludgeoned by in­sensit ive prod uce rs: the proble m has been that I co uld find no one-or almost no one-who would presume to instruct me in the basics of the craft: and I belie ve that. nowadays at least. thi s is a CO In ­

mon experi ence fo r noveli sts turned sc reenwriters

manqlle. They are pre sumed to be too gifted to need training; in conse quence they never ge t train­ing . and . more through ignorance than inabilit y. turn out amateuri sh sc reenplays.

A couple of years aft er Hlld. I was called to Hol­lywood to di sc uss a pro pert y with Ala n Pa kula. the n a producer. Th e property was a book called Spa»'n of Evil . a popular hi story of Mi ssissippi out­lawry by Pa ul I. Wellma n. There were cha pters on vari ous prominent outl aws. one of whom-an arc h- vill a in na med J o hn Murre ll-inte re s ted Pakula . The chapter about him . however. was onl y II page s lo ng. The problem. clea rl y. was one of ex­pansion. I experienced my first story conference. whi ch consisted mostl y of Pa kula pac ing the noo r and atte mpting to dea l bot h with o ur mythical movie about the Na tchez Trace and the very real production of Inside Daisy C lover. which was tak­ing place somewhere in the cave rn s of Warner Bros .. just be hind us.

A s always. in story conferences. I sa t on a couch sipping Dr. Pepper. my im agination a stu bborn bl a nk , Unfortunat e ly. my imaginati on doesn't re­all y wo rk unl ess a typew rit e r is sitting directly in front of me- I a m all but incapable of conce iving stories abstractl y: Stories are what show lip on the page once yo u start hitting the key s. Wa tc hing

Pa ul Newman , Hud- the author learned that filmmakin g could be tedious.

Pa kul a pace . and reading a nd re reading the II -page cha pte r ge nerated nothing in me. but fo r so me reason he dec ided to gamble and se nt me home to H ouston to write a trea tment. Everyone ass umed I knew what a treatme nt was. but I didn ·t. My ge n­era l impress ion was tha t I was supposed to sort of b low up the II - page c ha pte r 10 so meth ing lik e nove l-le ng th . so I pro mptl y whipped o ut a 350- page trea tme nt - to th e a maze me nt a nd gratitud e of a ll . 1 might say.

As luc k would have it. though . j ust abo ut the time I fini shed my treatme nt. Pa kul a had a n " idea" about Sptllnl oIE,·il . Thi s was my fi rst experience of the a rr iva l o f what in Holl ywood is known as a n " idea. " I have since seen many movie makers have " ideas ' - it is a c harming thing 10 watc h. T he de­light these "ideas" occasion. whe n they fin a ll y a p­pear. approxi mates what an ardent 89-year-old love r might fee l upon di scovering that he has a n e recti on. Unfo rtunat e ly. the pro mi se of these "ideas" (l ik e that of no t a few erections) is so me­thing that is o ft e n apprec iated onl y by the posses­sor. I don ' t re me mber now wha t Pa ku la's" id ea" was. but it resu lt ed in my tac king a hasty ISO-page "synops is" o nto my 350 pages of trea tme nt. aft e r whic h 500 p ages devoted la rge ly to swa mp c hases. tavern brawls. and slave revolt s disappeared foreve r in to Burbh nk . I thought I had done a color­ful job . but I still had neve r so mu c h as see n a n ac­llIal sc ree nplay.

This was the more amazing because al thi s very time I was the author of one of the most frequent ly-script ed books of our era, i.e .. my sec­ond nove l. L eal'illK Cheyn1f1e. It was pu rc hased in 1964 by Wa rners. who inte nded to film it. ca ll it C id. a nd re lease it before America could forget HI/d. So mething like seve n sc rip ts e nsued . one of the m do ne by Robe rt Altma n. a no ther of the m nursed a long fo r yea rs by Do n Siegel. In s idi ous ly unfilmi c. the book resisted all but the most foolha rdy e ffo rt s 10 drag it ont o ce ll ul o id . unt il. in 1974. it fin a ll y succ um bed to the a bunda ntl y foo lha rdy e ffo rt s o f S te ph e n J . Friedma n a nd Sid­ney L umet and appeared as L(win' M o//y. I saw onl y the last o f these ma ny sc ript s.

Fina ll y. tho ugh. in a booksho p on Ho ll ywood Bo ul evard . I lVas able to purc hase (for $40) a xe roxed copy of the script o f HI/d. a nd go t to see wha t o ne of the things loo ked like. Sho rtl y the re­aft er. my education took a grea t leap forwa rd when Peter Bogdanov ich hired me to co llaborate with him on the sc ree nplay of my third nove l. The Last Pic lllre Shol\' . At thi s point I was still so ignorant of film mec ha ni cs tha t 1 suppose d the onl y way to get fro m one scene to the nex t was by means of a cut.

M y initia l step-sheet for Th e Last Pic tllre S hol\' offered t he direc tor an unbroken sequence of quick cut s. Pe ter and hi s the n-wife . Poll y Pla ll . were wild ly a mu sed by thi s: the wa ll s o f the ir modest bunga low in V an Nuys veritably shook from their laught e r. Unfortuna te ly . in the ir h ila rit y. they fo r­got to explain to me what the other modes of transi­tion were. and to thi s day mos t of the technica l in ­format ion I possess about the making of mov ies has bee n pi cked up thro ugh eave sdropping at lu ncheon conversati ons in va rious studio co mmissari es.

Wit h Pe te r. I ex pe ri e nced sto ry confe re nces of an inten sit y tha t might fairl y be ca ll ed migraine­inducing. At the o ld Columbia Studios on Gower Street. my blank , typewrit erless imCiginCi ti on was co nfro nted fo r up to e ight ho urs a t a stre tc h by hi s impass ive Serbia n stare. For long stretches of the morning and the aflernoon. no so und wo uld be hea rd exce pt the sipping of Dr. Peppe r (me) and the c runc hi ng of tooth pic ks (Pete r). Eve ntu all y . Se r­bian impassivit y won. D es perate with boredom. desirous only of esca pe, I wo uld gasp out " ideas." In the process of rejecting the m. Pete r wo ul d fre­que ntl y cau se the m to multiply int o lillie bead-like sequ ences of actions. We wo uld then play these beads bac k and fort h through ou r fi nge rs for se vc ral hours. unti l so me of them. much smoothed. wu ul d beco me sce nes.

. on a locati on-scouting trip 10 T exas . I drove happil y ac ross the familiar pl ains, listening to Peter and Poll y argue about what the charac ters in my book wo uld or wo uld not , mi ght or might not do. A wed as I was (a nd am ) by their cinematic knowledgeabi li ty. I nonethe less no ticed that thei r disc uss ions of moti vati on esse ntiall y we re dia­gra mmati c. Bo th of the m had bee n too stunned by their fi rs t visit to the deso lation th at is A rcher C it y (where the mov ie was shot) to be lieve that rea l peo pl e co uld eve r have li ved the re. They accepted the town. but only as a kind of ex tension of my im­agination. and while they had a noti on of how tee nage rs growing up the re in 1953 might have be­haved. it was large ly a literary noti on. For the first time I felt that a nove list might. after all . be of so me use in the creation of a mov ie sc ri pt , if onl y as the guardian of va lid motiva tion.

I be lieve. to thi s day. tha t the c rea tion of acc u­rately motivated charac ters is apt to be the most import ant co ntribution a nove li st-scree nwrit er ca n

11

12

Jeff Bridges. Timothy BOlloms . T he Las t Picture Show." Nove list as Ruardian of motivlltion .'·

make to a movie scri pt. D irectors. after all. have the ir budge ts. the ir sho ts a nd the ir staging. the ir crews. their ac tors. their over· hanging pasts and looming futu res. their egos and their fant as ies-a ll to nurt ure. Their focus is apt to slide right over moti va tion. T hen too. they have their own despera· tions: They have to keep a great many things hap· pen ing sim ultaneously. As read il y as any audience. they come to be seduced by thei r own fa ntas ies. and to see them as esse ntiall y congruent wi th huma n rea lities. T ha nk s to their de rvishlike busy­ness. a nd the ge nera l indiffe re nce of e verybod y else. a high perce ntage (95 perce nt. say) of Ameri · can mov ies are at best spott ily moti vated . M any otherwise creditabl e effort s are pre mi sed upon ab· surdly suspec t eve nts. A rece nt for insta nce wo uld be Blume in Lo \·e. in which. in order to get the movie go ing. we a re as ked to be lieve that a hip Los A ngeles divorce lawye r. who deal s with the cir· cumstances and consequences of infidelity every day. wou ld still take hi s secreta ry home to hi s own marri age bed 10 sleep with her.

In such a case. as in many another . the direc tor seems to have e lec ted to let the pace of the film ca rry the a udi e nce pas t the improbabil ity. ra ther than insisting that hi s writ er prov ide a more credit­able stratagem. In other instances. the cru cial imp

probabilit y may make its appearance so late on in the plo t that the direc tor can (ofte n safely) ass ume that the audience will not bother to unslispend their di sbe lief. An exa mple of thi s might be Chil/a/owl/ . in which we are slyly asked to belie ve that a power­ful and prominent tycoo n has allowed hi s own daughte r to bea r a c hild by him . Simple incest o ne can easil y acce pt. but it would be a rare robber ba ron who wo uld have failed to abo rt suc h a preg­nancy. and speedily.

In a large se nse. the lac k of good sc reenwriting merely reflects the industry's ambiva lence towa rd a trade whic h is tho ught to be so mething less tha n an art and something more than a craft. There ex· ists today a small nuc le us of tho roughl y profes­sional sc reenwrit ers who seem to be able to derive crea ti ve sa ti sfac ti on and se lf- respect f rom cript writ ing alone. though how many of these

writers are rea ll y nascent directors remain s to be seen. In any case. one is talking here of the creme de 1(1 creme. The vast bulk of the industry's writing chores are still di vided betwee n smartasse d amateurs (the novelists) and dull ·witted hacks: In othe r wo rd s. betwee n people who a re given little chance to trea t sc reenwriting as other than a joke. and the peons of the system. who ca n only trea t it as ajob. The studios show the mse lves to be desperate for good sc ri pts-they always have bee n-yet in rega rd to writing they have been both improv ident a nd. fin all y. dumb . They fa il to treat the ir many lit erary import s as the amateurs they are. paying them ex travagant ly to wo rk at a craft of whi ch they know not eve n the rudime nt s. whil e on the o ther h'.II1d withholding bot h training and stimulus fro m the tho usands of em ine ntl y (and c hea pl y) t ra inable stude nt s who knock on the ir doo rs. In effect they have tried to att ract writ ers by squeezing them into the guest-bedroo ms of the sta r syste m. a nd in so doing have squandered vast sums of money on de· cidcdly spec ious wo rk-work which ca n claim for it self neither the resonance of art northe di st inction of sound craft s ma nship .

It is a pit y. but. I be lieve. more often an amu si ng tha n a tragic pi ty. Traged y may be th e mode ap­propriate to the late neglect of ce rt a in great di rec­tors. or the ea rl y blight of a few great stars. but -Fit zge rald . West. et al. no t to the co ntra ry-light comed y is the prope r mode in whi ch to co nsid er the writer ·s ro le in Holl ywood . In tha t mode. ho pe­full y . I will co ntinu e to cons id er it nex t month . Ii

Larry Mc Murtry. novelist a nd sc reen write r. wi ll write regul arl y fo r Americal/ Film . Pa rt II of No Clue: Or Learning to Writ e Jor the Movies will appear in the No ve mber issue.

Columbia Pictures wishes to congratulate

JAN KADAR

on his appointment as Filmmaker-in-Residence at the

American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies

for the 1975-76

academic year.

JAN KADAR'S latest film, LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME, premieres in October in New York City.

14

"Every ne wspaper man is a potential filmmaker." writ es Sam Fu ll er. a nd from the ear li es t days of mo­tio n pi ct ure s.journa li sts found a home in the wo rld offi lm: J. Stuart Blackton. Va n Dyke Brooke. a nd George D. Baker at Vitagraph: Travers Vale at Biograph : loi s Weber at Uni versal: George Brackett Seit z at Pat he Exc hange: F. Ric hard Jones at K eystone. These were the forer unners of what wo uld beco me a constant stream of news­hound s turned fi lmmakers. from John Eme rson a nd Alan Dwa n to Ben Hecht a nd J ohn Huston . Yet the people who mo ved from the o ne med ium to the other are only representatives of a more co m­prehensive symbiosis which occurred between America's two great populi st inst itut ion s. the fo urth estate and the seventh a rt .

Newspapers in Americ a have always reflected the pragmatism and the factuali ty inheren t in America n culture. A s M ax Lernercommented . th ey a re "not orie nted toward inner life . bu t toward an Ollt wa rd one in whi ch al most anything can hap­pen to give a decisive turn to life." America n newspapers. among the amalgam of comics. house hold tip s. perso nalit y gossip . and advice to the lovelo rn. have hi stori call y bee n recorders of events without conte xts. printing the facts as dis­crete and separable entities di stinct from ca uses a nd ph iloso phi es. Priding the mselve s o n ne utra lit y a'1d objectivity. A meric an newspapers are a chang­ing dail y diet of what happe ned as divorced from the why. As one newspaperman put it yea rs ago.

Deac Rossell

and the Newsroom

" What is hot stuf'ftoday is shelf paper tomorrow." Amer ican movies were-and are. gloriously-a

part of thi s pragma tic. fac tual c ultu re. F rom the be­ginning. film s reflec ted the penc hant fordoillg. which is basic to America. Fi lms were about active people: makers. move rs. sha kers . Eve n at their most frivolou s. in a vision of high soc iet y . or at their most se rious. in subcultural criti cism . film s conce ntrated on what people we re doing: Witness the intricate soc ial dance of Grand HOlel or the ele mental leadership of l ee Marv in in The Wild aile. It was fi l ms of accompli shment that most ex­cited a nd engaged Ame ri ca n au die nces. And the gen resofaccompli shment. whe re the indi vidu al tri umph s or the group succeeds . became the uniquely Amer ican genres: crim e pictures. west­ern s. spy stories. Carl Th. Dre ye r in Ame rica is un­imaginable. Ju st as it is unimagi nable th at C iti: C'1l Kalle co uld be a nything but a n American fi lm. or that Th e Bi,.,h ofa Natio n or Pa llon co uld have come to life in France or Sweden.

It was because news papers va lu e acco mpli sh­ment a bove all e lse that. fr om the ear li es t days of the cinema. movie makers-a number of them formerjournali sts- turned to newspaper themes. stori es. and dev ices. Primiti ve fi~m s used news­paper subjeclsjust because th ey we re there. as they used train stat ions and firem en. Delh·erif/ [.: Nell's papers ( 1903) simpl y shows a group of news­boys wa iting for. a nd late r surro unding. the deli v­ery truck bringing the m the la test ed iti on of the

Lew A yres, the battered columnist in Okay America. is aptly nicknamed Ego: Ih e paralle / lVilh Walter Win chell was intentional.

paper. Chaplin 's Makillg A Livillg ( 1914) is set in a newspa per bac kground onl y as a device. as is Lionel Barrymore' s POlVer oJlh, Press ( 19 14). where a reporte r ultimatel y returns a stolen legacy a nd clears a falsel y acc used worker of the theft. Even the illite rate a nd uneducated moviegoers. the majorit y of the early film a udience . knew the job of a reporter was to get a scoo p ( Makillg a Livillg). o r to carryon a case closed by the authorities( Power oJlhe Press).

By the 1920s it was recognized that the news­pa per film a llowed a range of story possibilities much more vigorous and fl exible than any ot her fi lm ge nre . Because the new spape rma n was per­ceived as onl y interested in factsor in beating co m­petit ors. a nd everyone knew this. a ny further moti­vation or character building in the picture wa s un­necessary , There are films about reporters catching crooks (Th e PassiOllale Pilgrilll . Inl a nd Midllighl Secrels. 1924) : repo rt ers exposing the decadence of high soc ie ty (S a {ollie oj I he T ellelllellls. 1925); and repo rte rs brea king political machine s (Whal a Nighl . 1928).

In the news pa per film s of the twe nties any kind of story can be hung around a ce ntral reporter character. A re po rter has mobilit y. has motivation to find out the truth . a nd has friends in a ll corners of soc iety. The reporteri son the "inside" and knows what the public does not know a bout po we r struc­tures a nd pub lic figure s. And ye t the re porter is human. and has the same kinds of love s . hates.

prejudices. romances, and acco mpli shments as others. According to the legend . the reporter works 24 ho urs a day, finding information in unlikel y places from unlikel y people a t unlikel y times. In many ways. ajournali st is a ce nter of power . backed by a publica tion . a nd sought out by persons of a ll types because he ca n give them publicity or information or fix somet hing up a mong his regular contac ts at c it y ha ll or the precinct ho use.

What remains unquest io ned throughout the twenties is the integrity of ne wsmen . Overa ll. there is a naivete abo ut t he film s. an un wi llingness to deal wi th the possib le abuse s of re portorial privi lege. The genre is ne utra l. us ing the backgrounds a nd the nexibilit y of the repo rter as a pl ot device. In fo rme r news man Monta Be ll' s fi lm Mall . WOlllall alld Sill (1927). for exampl e. there is no defined attit ude to­wardjournalism or toward soc ial issues. With Jeanne Eagles gi ving a callous. brittle performance as the jaded mi stress ofa publi she r. simultaneously sought by a young reporter. thi s exqui sitel y di­rected a nd performed film ends with a curiously amoral twist : Eagles renounces her perjured tes­timony that condemned the reporter. even tho ugh he had in fact murdered the publi sher.

The com ing of sound gave newspaper til ms tele­graphic dialogue punctuated onl y by a wisecrac k . No Preston Sturges comedy or John Ford western played fa ste r tha n the se early news paper film s. where the id ylli c and se ntimental were inad mi ssi­ble. The pictures we re . in part . based on real- life

Above:' 'Newpaper films senn to have died of/with slowly declining papers ... " Jack Webb·s-30-. o lleoj' the last .

Above: Gene Evans is fh e emba ffled editor in Sam Fuller' s Park Row.

Top Right: Big News. GreKory La Cava's 1929 Talkie Jea IIIred Robert Armstrong.

Right: Kirk DOllghlSill Ace in the Ho le.

16

characters whose exploits were nothing if not dramatic. The model for the scheming Walter Burns in The Frollt Page (1931) was Walter Howie. a fanatical Chicago editor for whom Hecht once re­fused to work. "being incapable of such treachery as he proposed." Loui s Weit ze nkorn based hi s play Five Star Filial-turned by director Mervyn LeRoy into a film expose' of the pre ss destroying innocent lives-on hi s own experience s at the New York Graphic. Lloyd Bacon' s Picture Snatcher was based on a sca ndal in whi ch a Nell' York Daily News photographer using a hidden camera took a picture of the execut ion of Ruth Snyder. Okay America. Blessed Event. Is My Face Red. and Love is a Racket (a ll 1932) were on ly the beginning ofa cycle offilms based on the meteoric ca reerofWal­ter Winchell. These films and man y ot hers brought an unredeemed cy nicism. staccato dialogue , the snap-brim hat. and t he punchy wisecrack ilTe vocCl­bly to the ne wspape r film. The y a lso brought the full realizat ion that a reporter wou ld do a nything to get a story-denigrate the institution of marriage (Th e Front Page). break the l"w(Libeled Ladv). or wink at a double suic ide that build s circulat ion (Fi"e Star Filial). The film s of Merv yn Le Ro y sup­port hi s belief that the early 1930s were Holl y­wood's "bra vest era." a time when " expose film s were the rule."

Fro m the mid-I920s through the 1930s. the newspaper film is one of only two genres speci fi­ca ll y dealing with urban America. It is with the gangster and the newshound. both vertically mobile through society. the one wit h hi s pre ss pass . the ot her hi s gun. where motion pictures inter­sec ted an American society changing from a rural culture to an urban one. The anonymo us cit y. wit h it s quick pace, concent rati on of c iti zens. oppor­tunities for vast wealth and fame is the battlefield for the big storie s and for the big c riminals who somet imes produce the sto ries. Onl y in the c it y co uld the intensely restle ss . finger-popping Lee Tracy become an overn ight success. In Blessed Evellf he wields viciolls ly random.life-or-death in­fluence over men and women plucked from obscu­rit y for hi s daily column . O nl y in the c it y is life so va lueless . change so quick. success so enjoya ble. Graft. co rrupti on, money. circul ation. po litician s. entertainers. risks and re wa rds. all are so much bigger in the c it y. And thejournalist always see ks the bigger accompli shment .

News paper film s put on the cloak of the c it y. Flippant dialogue . breezy informality. a nd brutal insensiti vit y to love and law alike became the genre's strong suit. .. Boy . I sure am a hee l! " says Lee Tracy in Blessed Event as he blithely breaks a pro mi se not to reveal a confide nce when his co l­umn needs an extra zinger. For the mantle of the cit y, wi th it s get-ahead-go-ahead scramble. gave to both gangsters and newsmen t he inflex ible con vic­tion that they were above common moralit y. '-rm the guy who made Broadway famoll s. ·· boasts Ricardo Cortez in the Winchell-derived film I.' My Face Red . Modesty ha s no place in these film s. No

love goes unrequit ed. no gossip unre ported . no law unbroke n ifit sta nd s in the wa y of a story.

In the s izzling pace of Th e Frollt Page there is hardly a pause fort he suic id e of Moll y Molloy. a nd the legal qu esti on in re port e r Jo hnson and edito r Burns hiding a mu rderer a bout to be ha nged (and two ree ls earli e r guilt y of a second shooting) is turned as ide witho ut a blink . The q uestion see ms sill y: N ot because it isa pre mi se of the story , but because hiding Ea rl Willi a ms until he can be a n Ex­clusive is so natural. so much a part of the audience's easy ass umptions about working re porte rs. As Be n Hec ht wrote in hi s a ut obi og­ra ph y, A Child of the Celli " ry: .. A good news pa pe rma n . of my day, was to be known by the fac t that he was asha med of be ing a nything e lse. He scorned offers of double wages in o the r fi e ld s. He sneered at all the hon­o rs life held o the r tha n the one to whic h he as­pired . w hic h wasa simpl e one. He drea med of d ying in ha rness. a cas ual fi gure full of a nony­mo us power ; a nd free. For the newspaperma n . the mos t harri ed of employees. more bedeviled by duti es tha n a country doctor , more blindl y subservient to hi s editor than a M arine private to hi s ca pt ain . co nside red him se lf. somewhat loon­il y, to ha ve no boss . to be witho ut supe rio rs a nd a creature always on hi s own."

M ov ie reporters. not too di stant from their workaday real-life models. we re shrewd . resource­ful , bri sk . unse ntime nt al. a nd res tl ess.

The Long-Liberated Newswoman

But the ir actions now could renect ge nuine ques­ti ons a bout the excesses a nd accompli shment s of the pre ss in a free societ y. If the reporter ke pt fa ith with hi s edito r a nd with societ y, he would still per­fo rm some s ingleha nded feat at whic h officia ldo m had fa iled: In Murder Mall (1 935) , Spe ncerTracy's editor acc urately charact eri zes him as a " crazy. cy nical, drunk e n bum ," ye t Tracy ma nage s to sol ve crimes before the po lice can . If the reporte r bro ke fa ith with hi s profession a nd hi s pu blic. he beca me a re pre se nta ti ve of tha t ugli est Ame rica n who spea ks fro m a positi on of pri v ilege witho ut poss ibilit y o f reprimand : In Okay A merica Lew Ayres is the columni st who grows bigge r tha n hi s publishe r o r hi s public , a nd eve n tries to ma ke a deal with the Preside nt ; a ptl y hi s ni c kna me is Ego.

Certa inl y the ne w c ritical sta nce ta ke n by ma ny newspaper films meant that the reporter was no longer o bliga ted to pe rfo rm a good deed in the e nd . Issue s of jo urna li sm 's ow n excesses we re ra ised in ma ny film s with the result that the ge nre took o n a ne w ma turit y, a nd filmm aker a nd a udi e nce alike had a choice : To view the press as the gua rdia ns of public morality o r as a corrupt institution it se lf. twisting bo th fac ts a nd huma n li ves to o bta in a morc sensational story.

In Max Lerne r's words. the re po rter was " imaginative as to means. but no t as toend s or se n­s ibilities, inbred no t so mu ch with a curi osit y a bo ut ideas a nd valu e as with a res tle ss de sire to know what 's going on and what' s new. possessed of a n

Unique in A meri c3 !1 movies was the attitude of news paper film s toward wome n . Asea rl yas 19 11. in Edi son's The Reform Candida/(~, a wo man reporter exposed a corrupt polit ical admini strat ion. The 19 16 serial Perils of 0 11 I' Girl Reporters used a pair of wo me n to deal with a series of underworld melodra mas as they fo il ed c rooks . ex posed th e un ­derworld, and ca pt ured co unter­feit ers. By the 1920s. nelVspa pe ring was firml y established as a ge nre where wo me n cou ld ta ke the lead­ing ro les. the ac ti ve a nd successful pa rt s. as we ll as me n. Bebe Da ni els is the wo man report er who finds happiness with Scoo p Morga n in Ho t News, and Ph ylli s H ave r saves he r beau fro mjai l in Th e Office Sca ll dal. Whe re wo me n had bee n typi call y the love o bjec t. o r the dramat ic and emotional catalys t be-

twee n ma le leads in most film s, he re she co uld have ajob. move inde­pe nde ntl y through soc iety. be a leader. All witho ut necessaril y e n­da nge ring her fe mininit y o r be ing typed as ma n-l ess.

in the eyes of bo th Holl ywood a nd the public. The conventi on of the wo man re po rt er had moved beyond strictl y news pa pe r film s like Mo nta Be ll 's Griffithia n stud y of offi ce passions in the cit y roo m. Man, Woman and S in, or Edward Suthe rl a nd 's What a N ight! whe re an ent erpri sing wo man not once but tw ice rescues the evidence prov ing a ga ngster is running c it y ha ll . Througho ut the 1930s maj or ac tresses seeking roles with more independ ence , with a career back­ground , or with more than romantic moti vations sudde nl y beca me newspaperwo men: Joan C rawford (Dallce Fools Dallce, 193 1), Lo re tta Y oung(Platillllm Blollde, 193 1), Virgini a Bruce (Mll rder Mall , 1935) . Katharine Hepburn (A Womall R ebels. 1936), Bett e Davis (Frollt Page Womall , 1935).

Whe n Rosalind Russe ll burs t int o the office of he r edit o r , Ca ry G ra nt . in Howard Hawks's His Girl Fri­day . she was ta ngoing down a we ll -worn pathway. Cha nging Hild y John so n to a wo ma n in this re ma ke of Th e Frollt Page is still a key move fo r Haw ks: It produces a vividl y be lieva ble t wo-ste p rela­tionship of professiona li sm and e motio na li sm betwee n the pro­tagoni sts. And Ru ssell , with he r mannish pin-stripe suit s and viva­ciously ca nt ankerous performance, adds a s ignifi cant dime ns ion to the film . Yet by 1940. wo man re port ers we re co mmonplace and a pproved

17

18

Rhonda Fleming, Jam es Craig in Lang's While the City Sleeps.

intrusive qualit y which readily disregards privacy and exploits human tragedies as sacrifi ces for the Moloch of the paper." owhere is this sacrifice for the pape r more ev ident than in one of the last great newspaper films. former journalist Billy Wilder's Ace inlhe Hole (also known as The Big Carnival, 1951). Kirk Douglas gives a n extraordi nary per­formance as a down-a nd-out refugee from b ig ci ty pa pers now working in the boondocks. When a mine accident traps a worker in an isolated cross­roads. he gets the story he need s to leave the one­ho rse pa pe r that is hi s reportorial legacy after years of drinking a nd deba uc hing. Takingcommand of the resc ue operations while retaining exc lu sive control of the news. Douglas o rde rs the most roundabout and elaborate resc ue sc heme in an at­tempt to let the story build na ti onall y. Mea nwhile he becomes involved wit h the victim's sordid wife and encourages a full scale carnival of souveni r vendors to entertain a crowd of human vultures who noc k 10 Ihe Si le in a frenzy of c heerful morbid­ity. Wilder has mixed in Ihe lasl faclOr. hidden in Ihe thirties: T he voyeuris lic public thai se nd s circu­lali on skyrocketing when reporters print ye llow news and scandal s. And in a fil m packed with blunl d ialogue a nd moral decadence . he ind ic ls all pa rties.

Through the 1950s. film s us ing the nex ibilit y of Ihe newspa pe r fram ework s lowl y de clined . The gla mour was going oul of the profession . and movie ma kers se nsed it. T he news paper film be­came more and more a genre devoted to spec ial cases. as in Phil Karl son's rUllish. bleak Phenix Cil,v Slory ( 1955). Three years earlier former c rime re porter and newspaper romantic Sam Full er reached into his own pocket to make Park Roll'. This forceful ode to fiercely indepe ndent jour­na li sm. set in 1883 . isacondensed hi storyofl he emergence ofl he modern newspaper coupl ed wilh a plea for a genuinely free press. Fuller's Ph ineas Milc he ll is Ihe e pilo me of the ac ti vist doer. Fired from hi s pa per. Mitchell (Ge ne Evans) starts hi s own . Faced wilh a crew of blackgua rds from a co mpelilo r . he fights the m off. Whe n a reporte r

come s bac k and begins explaining a s tory. Milc hell c rack s: "Don ' t tell me aboul it. wrile it."

In recent years , there has been lilli e develop­ment in the ge nre . Jack Webb. in a n unusually warm a nd intriguing film. -30- ( 1959), lried 10 de­scribe the co mmuna l te nsion that run s through a cily room during Ihe laut hours before a big slory is re solved . but he fai led to find the appropria le visual eq ui valents that could convey a n intere sti ng and a typica l script. Newspaper film s see m 10 have died off with the s lo wly dec lining ne wspapers. In Ihe late 1960s David Ja nsse n specia lized seve ra l times in the role of a misguided if we ll -inte ntioned reporl­er who literall y could not make up hi s mind about Ihe story happe ning in fron t of hi s eyes. In film s like Shoes of the Fishermall and Th e Gree" Berets, Janssen became a symbol ofa wea k and co nfused press . By this time. the snap was out of the brim .

A part of the decline in newspaper film s comes from Ihe end of the symbiosis bel ween Ihe Iwo great media. Yellhe re la ti onsh ip bel wee n news­papers and movies went deeper than any particul ar ge nre of film s. Ma ny of the besl ne ws paper films were created as fondly biller remin isce nces oflost youth by men graduated from the wo rld of news­w riting to sc reenwriting . Beyond thi s movement of personn el from fronl page to front title s was a n in­lerloc king depende nce that lasled unlillhe 1950s. If the mo vie men were fasc inated by news pa pers for the spec ial place of the prcss in Amer ican soc iely a nd forthe idea ls whic h theyespo used. lhen Ihe press was eq ua ll y fa sc in ated by the gcnuine gla mour of the Hollywood lifesty le. the public acco lades and private lu xuries whi ch movie men co mmanded . Films were sold Ih rough newspapers-nolj usl thro ugh adverti s ing. but through Ihe increasing demands of a n eager public for copy: Siories about the li ves of lhe Slars. the backgrou nd to produc­ti ons. lhe eve nl sof life in Holl ywood . thean­nouncement ofa new film by a favorile performer. At the sa me time. movie advert isi ng. as it does today. brought in the top dollar rale in Ihe paper. Publi cit y men were sec ure in the knowledge Ihal any pro moti ona l stunt or ca mpaign . from the Pa nthe r Woma n on. wou ld recc ive full cove rage on a nd off the movie pages. MOli on pi ctures needed that ex pos ure no less tha n news pa pe rs need ed the adverti sing a nd Ihe readershi p it c rea lcd . Thi s mUlua ll y non-competitive re lat ionship . bringinga public 10 the theale rs a nd a reade rsh ip 10 Ihe pa pers (a nd late r 10 general-ci rc ulation magazines like Look and Life) was a special part ne rshi p Ihallhe movies never ac hieved with any other mass medium . T he sure dec line in the space avail able for movies in big city papers. w here newsprint is at a premium and competi tion now rare ly ex ists , paral­leled c ha nges in the movies Ihemse lves. Whal was once an accelerating and ex hil arating partnershi p has become. at the age of70 or so. a habilual and de sui lOry marriage. a Deac Rosse ll is F ilm Coordinator at the Mu se um of Fine Arts in Bosto n .

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American Film Institute Guide to College Cou rses in Film and Television 1975-6 edition. Revised

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4 A Tribute to Mary Pickfo rd

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7 From Reverence to Rape : The Treatment of Women in the Movies . Molly Haskell

8 Val Lewton : The Real ity of Ter(or. Joel E. Siegel

9 Dic tionary 0 1 Films. Georges Sadoul

10 Dictionary of Film Makers . Georges Sadoul

11 Adventures with D. W. Gr iff ith . Karl Brown

12 MovieJournal. Jonas Mekas

13 The Magic Faclory-How MGM MadeAnAmerican in Paris

14 Ameri can Film Criticism. Stanley Kauffmann and Bruce HenstelJ

15 Hollywood . Garso n Kanin

16 Harold lloyd . The Shapeof Laughter. Richard Schickel

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19 Film 73/74 . ed. Jay Cocks. David Denby

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21 Humphrey Bogart . (see rev iew in this issue) Nathaniel Benchley

22 Lorentz On Film . Pare Lorentz

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"The man raped a dog? Get a statement from the dog and I'll run t he story."

"The Pope on the take? Get a statement from the Pope and I'll finance the film."

Samuel Fu ll er

20

THAT'S FIT TO

Weaned on Park Ro w. tea med with reporter Rh ea Gore (J ohn Huston ' s mother) on my first double-suicide. I mad e the e ve ntua l trans iti o n fro m ne ws pa pe rma n to filmmak e r a s the na tura l lea p fro m dUlllm y ma ke up 10 fa c ial m a kc up .

Page O ne and th e Sc ree n a re bed­Ina te s . Wo rking in the mo rg ue a nd shool ing a mov ie tr igger constant vi­sion s . A he adline ha s the impa c t o f a head s hot . pu lp and rawstoc k fi g ht linage a nd footage. a news lead is the opening or a film .

8 po inl Go ud y. Widc sc ree n. pic a ga uge . Illo vieola - rcpo rt c r a nd film direct or spill blood onlhc sa me e mo­ti o na l battl e fi e ld o f what is fit to prin t and what is fit to film . The r/lO lt n lll l/fJ! a nd thou l1//(s l not pe ndulu lll sw ings fro m b lac k-a nd- w hit e fnc t s to T ec hnic o lo r fan c ie s .

The news pa pe r rea l and mov ie imagi na ry s ha ring blood s ta ined sc is ­sors . g lue. proofs . ce me nt . s pli ce r. wo rk print g ive tw in binh to the bat ­tle c ry o f rew rit e . re ma ke. re tak e. redub a nd ma ture s with the p ress a nd proj ec tion mac hine .

Peddling the Worc('.)'t(' r Te/q.?ra Hl , Bo sto ll P o st , B oston A lIl eri(,(lII in

A bo l'e : SlerlillX H o l/olI 'ay, Ad vice 10 Ihe Love lo rn ,

RiRhl: The Fro nl Page. a /a Bill,' Wilder ( 1974 )- Ih ir<l.llllll "('I"s io l/ of the t ll '(, lIt i es play.

V\' o rcestel' was my ti rs t co ntac t wit h newspa pcrs. To e\\ Yo rk a t II. peddli ng pape rs al 11 al Ihe 1251h Street Fe rry. lnthose days nc\\ sboys bought pape rs from thc C irc ula t io n Department. A love affair started wit h the N('II' York t:"{,lIill g Jourl/al. 238 Will iam Sl reel. oil Park Row. " co lumn a way frol11 the Bo\\ e ry. across fro m the Newsboys' Ho mc sponso red by AI Sm ilh. O ne-eyed . ha lf-deaf To m Fole y. fo rcma n of the .Journal's Press Roo m. opc ned up Wo nderla nd. showed me presscs in ac ti on, Lin o types s inging in Co mpos­ing. and fin all y gold ilself: The Ci lY Roo m on the sevent h 11 001".

The sho uts of "Copy, bllY ~ " wi th yo ung me n in la t..: tee ns ru nning. ma king "books. " shooling copy through pne uma tic tubes was elec­Ir irying . Th e hell \lil h pedd li ng newspa pers. Working on unc became 3n obsessio n . Working on t he J ournal.

.. Lie." Managing Ed ito r Josep h V. Mu lca hy sa id . " Tell 'em Yllu' rc 14 to get wo rking pa pc rs. The n I'll put yo u on as a co py bo y."

Running co py on the J o url/al, per­so na l copy j um pe r for Art hu r Bris-

ba ne. head copy boy (a nd (I /I !.,' co py boy) o n the Nell ' York EI'(>nil/g Graphic . po licc repo rt e r o n the Crapill c , the J ourl1al, the Sail Die}.!o Sun, journeyman re porter on da ilics. wee klies. biwee kl ie s th ro ugho ut the country slowly s truc tured a stockpil c of characte rs, eve nt s, a nd conflict ing emotions wit ho ut thoug ht of mak ing £lfilm.

First bru sh with Holl ywood was whe n Mctro-Gold wyn- Ma yer's offe r or 55 .000 (10 Ilc li onize a soluli on 10

my by lined unsolved double- murd e r) was sp urned beca use the City o f lew York o ffe red 525.000 fo r a fac lu a l so luti o n na ming na mes. The murd e rs a re still unso lved . Th e cor pses we re wea lth y. white-bearded . mi se rl y oc ­toge ne ria n Edward Rid lcy a nd hi s ma le secre tary. My lead was Who killed S(l1/fa Clau.\·? beca use Ridley loved fo rec los ing mortgages o n Chri st mas. () regret turning down Iha l S5.000. One day Who Kill"d S(lI1I(I Claus:) will be my fi lm co n­tri but ion of a case of mu rder that de­fies so luti on ye t ma int a in s suspe nse IOlhce mpl y e nd .

The q uesli on " Where do yo u ge l ideas fo r film s?" isn' t ha rd to an swe r.

Covering a n exec uti on . . Told by a ma n who hacked hi s family totk a th with a meat cleaver o n a Hu dso n Ri ve r ba rge tha t hc \\<-1:-. ~orry if he hurt the m . . Liste ning to a leaper'..; sex proble m o n a 30- font k dg(.· b..:for~ he sq uashed a luc kless pa sserb y like agnat ... Extracting t h ~ ide nti tyo f a blo nde nude wi th pa resis mo unt ing a wate r hyd ra nt s inging the Sia l' Span­gled Ba nn er because her name \\ as Fra nces Key . . Wa tc hing repo rt ers re fu se to he lp swing the ta il of Lind y's pla ne at Tete rboro Airfi eld in Je rsey beca use they rese nt ed hi s reply to a ll the ir ques ti ons wi th I s there anything d .H' you waW to ask :J

Brea king Jea nne Eagles' dea th b y di scove r ing her co r p:-.(.· tn Ca mphell' s Funera l Par lor Pos­ing fo r a Graphic cOll1po~it.: of French n ycrs Nungesse r a nd Co li in the ir wrecked pla ne in the ill -fated All anlic hop onl y 10 barne my mol he r who j u!'!t co uldn ' t und e rsta nd if the pho tographcr was tha t close \\ hy the n ye rs \\eren' t saved Acc olll­pan ying a roo kic cop from the 14t h Prec inct o n a rout ine co mpla int tu stum ble o ve r a sla in hlH.l y in a subte r· ra nea n offi ce. . Successfull y in te r-

2 1

view ing J . P. Morga n o nly to watc h my copy destroyed by the C ity Edi tor because he kn ew J. P. never grant ed int erviews Hired. fired. reh ired by the Great Ge ne Fowler in the span of fi ve hours while ass igned to a n Ad miral' s speec h that eru pted miles away in a Bowery bum 's bru tal mur­der near L um Fang's restaunmt in C hina tow n Phoning bl ow-by­blow from a H arl em cigar store dur­ing a race riol . . Using Sunday edi­tions as bedsheets a nd bla nkets rid­ing the rods with Depression dis­pl aced persons. . Ta king foo tba ths with hoboes in tro ughs of conde mned milk . Drawing ant i-cha in mark et cartoons for a Rochester wee kl y while its Ed ito r and Pu bl isher ran for Governor of M innesota to collect seven votes. . Sketching whores in San Francisco wh il e coveri ng the Ge nera l Strike as soldi e rs shot strik­ers in fro nt of the Ferry Buildi ng .

Every newspaperman has sLl ch a Hell box to d raw fro m.

E very new spaperman is a potential film ma ke r.

All he o r s he has to do is to tra ns­fe r rea l emotion to ree l emoti on and sprinkle with imagi nat ion.

T his does not incl ude critics. A newspaperman report s what hap­pe ned, in wardl y boiling with emo­tions that mu st remain personal. A critic out wa rdl y report s what hap­pe ned . writing what he liked or d idn ' t like about the ha ppe ning. Every story va ries. A critic generall y pl ay s the sa me tu ne on his typewriter. A few have made it in film s. Pete r Bog­danov ich stands out as one of that rare breed but he was more tha n a cri­tic. He ana lyzed fil ms the way a re­po rt er ana lyzes e moti ons . He li fted himse lf out of the well of observe r to c reator. My onl y newspa pe r fil m Park Row was 1886 vintage because a pass ion for that stree t made the film a must. D runk on stories of newspaper Goliaths befo re my time. ha nging arou nd Doc Pe rry's pha rm acy in The World building where once Pul itzer pic ked up hi s medi c ine. working where once those Goli aths worked . walked. ate . dra nk. drea med. fo ught. la ughed . a nd we pt gave me se lfi sh ejacu lations when shoot ing the fi lm on the stage re plica of th ose pa per­a nd -in k cobblesto nes .

Over the years, there have been oth er newspaper film s . So me of th e m

good . Five Star Fillal by Loui s We it ­zenkorn was based on Emile Gauv­reau. Ed it o r of the Graphic. Ga uv­rea u gave Winchell hi s brea k . A lso on tha t pink tab lo id were Jerry Wald ( radio ed it or), Norman K ra sna (d rama c rit ic). Arti e A ue rbac h (photogra phe r) who beca me funny­ma n Mr. Kitze l o n the Jac k Be nn y Show. and J ohn Hus ton (re porte r).

We it ze nk o rn ca me fr o m The World to repl ace Gauvreau who went to the Mirror to ha unt Winc he ll who loathed him. The cha nging of the Czars wa s macabre. Gauvreau's ex it wit h a twisted foot. W eitzenkorn 's ent rance with a twisted <:tr m. A ban­don ing Pulit ze r to hit po rnogra phic bott om on Be rn a rd Mac fadde n ' s Graphic. We it ze nkorn struck play­wright platin um: Gauvreau' s exc iting caree r .

Five Star Filial's editor was fac­tual. Gau vreau did upd ig an old mur­der. promi se d lurid reve lation, re­vea ling the exonerated murderess ' real name, terrifi ed her. Result : the se lf-destru ction of the wo man and her hu sband. My ro le in that Bull dog bouill abaisse was to season it with fac ts on the son of the suicides. In the

Abol'e: Girl Friday Rlllh DOlilielly ill Blessed Even t.

Left: 111 Five Star Final Robinsoll always washed "hi hands alfer a dista steful story.

film it is the daughter . Ga uvrea u al­ways was hed hi s hand s afte r a dis­tasteful story. So docs Edwa rd G. Rob inson in the film directed by Mervyn Lc Roy.

Y ears later. when writing Gangs of Neu' York . it was ironic ( 0 rll n into W eit ze nkorn who was writing a movie sc ript ca lled K illg vf the Nell'sboys.

Seeing Th e FrOI/f Page play on opening night wi th Kermit Jacdiker of the Nell' York Daily Nel\'s moved li S beca use in Lee Tracy we saw what we we re not bu t wou ld like to be. It was thrilling. Afl el" the cLirtain came clown it was bac k to the Press Room (a plumber's shop by day) ac ross fro m the 47 th Street Poli ce Sta ti on a nd to the story of a grap pl ing hook tha t fin a ll y bro ught up the body of a fi ve-year-old boy from the garbage in the Hud son . T he beads of wate r on the eyelashes o f the dead boy made me think of the beads of sweat on the brow of the un fo rtunate ba stard th at was hidden in the de sk in Th e Frolll PaRe.

The re is a ta lc that when Howard Hughes dec ided to film Tlte Frolll Pa~e he sa id "Get the man who's

playing Hild y Jo hn son on the stage." Pat O ' Bri en was doing the role in Chi cago. Hughes sen t for him believ­ing he was se nding for Lee Tracy . True or not. it' s a good story and Lewi s Mil esto ne who did a c racker­jack job direc ting the film is the ma n who can confirm or de ny the ta le.

H is Girl Friday was a superb sex­swi tch of Th e Fro llt Page with breat htak ing machi neg un te mpo. Afte r World Wa r II the film became more personal to me because of Howard Hawks. My nove l Tit " Dark Page (pure ly a psyc hological stud y of an editor who co mmand s a cit y-wide search for him se lf aft er murdering the wife he dese rted 20 yea rs ago) was writt e n before World Wa r II. The first draft was left with my mother who notified me in Nort h Af­rica in the vic init y of K asserine Pass that she spent the advance for the book she sold to publishers Due ll. Sloa n a nd Pearce. A ha rdcover of the boo k caught up wit h me in Fra nce near SI. La. a Ho ll ywood offe r missed me in M ons, Belgium . and in Germany's HUrlgc n Fore st word was rece ived that Howa rd Hawks bought the book fo r Boga rt a nd Rob inso n for

$ 15.000. He sold it to Columbia. It was filmed as Scalldal Slteet with Broderic k C rawfo rd . That film is not my book.

Bill y Wild er's The Big C{//"IIi\"{/1 is th e closes t portraya l ye t of a so nofab it ch ne ws paperman. 0 pun ches pull ed.

A news pa per-lik e a c hurc h . whore house . DAR mee ting. politica l conve ntion. American Legion Hall. KKK ga the rin g. sy nagogue. publi c library-is a li ving character replated hourl y with highl y c ha rged con­troversial nuance s in every man and wo man on the pa per .

To make a real newspaper film is as difficult as to ma ke a rea l wa r film. The ce nsor is nol the onl y ba rrie r. Peopl e who buy tickets and wal k int o a peacock temple to crac k popcorn in soft chairs have been doped over the yea rs what wa r is like on the sc ree n. They have been doped ove r th e years what a newspaper is like on the sc re e n.

Doped. duped . de lud ed - the y

A/}O\'e: Deadline USA :maflagill g editor BOKarr breaks open the fro lll page.

Left: R llsse /l (II/(/ Grallt ill H all'ks' s Hi s Gir l Friday .

23

Pm 0 ' Brit' ll Ill' s:Jec /s jiallCl' e M ary Brian ill /m'or (~ra hig s / ory. /'1 elljou (' s:gs him Oil ill /H iles/oll l''s Th e Fro nt Page

know what to expec t a nd will no t ac ­ce pt a war film \\ ith indiffere nce to atroci ties. \\ ith cu m ba t ve teran sac­rific ing \\e tn o:-.('~ in a mine fi e ld . with the enjuyme nt o f de huma ni za ti o n . \\ it h the gall of b rass refe rring to head less bodies as ,\tty Boys w hile in the S;t(.' k "j th \\ o men in the rea r. with d is to rt ed battle re ports tu g rab votes. ma ke Inot. \\ avc fl ags. se ll a rm s. deal ove r bu rned <l nd b loated co rpses in the b lac k ma rk e t.

Peo ple \\ ill not acce pt a newspape l' fi lm \\ ith po litica l a troc iti es a nd wel l-pla nned and pa id- fo r c ha rac te r

assass ina ti o ns where na mes are ac­c ura te. they will no t acce pt the c un ­ning o flh e Des k blindfo ld ing a repo r­te r thro ugh a fog beca use he's o n the verge o f ex pos ing a Pres id e nt . hurt a n ad ve rti ser. j a il a Feder(:l l Judge. d is­robe a Vice Squ ad . They will no t ac­cepl Ihe F BI involved in blackmai l because the FB I is the a udie nce c rac king po pcorn . They w ill no t ac­ce pl publi s he rs in Ihe n wilh po lili­cia ns. publi she rs who ring with ba nk­e rs, pro fi ti ng with big busine ss . run­ning me ani ng less O p- E d lell e r s aga in s t fin a nc ia l bac ke rs.

Pas t film s have d Cil1t w ith fi c tio na l ex poses. O ne day film s willu se lidllg lI a mes 111 ex pos ure.

100 yea rs ago Washingto n po liti ­c ia ns wouldn't give news pa pe r int e r­v iews unl ess they were pai d . T oday they pay g hosts ( 0 ma nufac ture the ir aut ob iogra phi es fo r a movie sa le. T hose a Ui o hiographies neve r give damaging fac ts. ntilthe turn o f the 181h ce nlury Ihe Se na le coni ro ll ed ncwspa pe r ex poses. th unde rin g "Secrecy is (he e ne my u f de n'lOc­racy!"

T oday news papers. som e ne ws ­pa pers. publ is h Se na tu rial sec re ts

tha t sho uld be see n o n the sc ree n. Tri a l by news pa pe r is still with us. All the news tha t was unfit ( 0 print.

a ll the scc nes tha t we re unfit to s hoo l. woul d ma ke o ne he ll o f a news paper film . It wo uld have fac ts. legitimate c ha rac te rs, humo r. s hoc k , ac tio n. It would e nt e rta in a nd revea l. It wo uld have (he la nguage ofn cwspa pe r ty pe spo ke n wilh fl es h . II wo uld show Ihe pass io n o f the print ed wo rd ta ke o n in sta nt intimacy o n fi lm . It wo uld go beyond Ihe Bible .l he ne ws pa per. Ihe stage. It wo uld make word s jump to life in s hoc king c lose ups . Fro m GUl e nberg 10 G riffilh il wo uld Ira ns­fe r fro m type to sc ree n a n acc ura te. sha tt e ring e mo ti o n o f move me nt see n wi th eyes, hea rd with ears . a nd never forgott e n with t he b rain .

The Irue slO ry o f J . Edgar Hoove r a nd Ihe FB I would ma ke a he ll o f a movie loday. Nol Ihe year 2000. BUI loday.

To ma ke suc h a newspa pe r film I wo uld g ive m y rig hl Lin o l y pe. Pe rha ps o ne da y ... soo n. . tI

Sa mue l Fu lle r is the write r-direc to r o f Park ROil ', a fi lm abu ut earl y New York jo urnali s m.

On IWO ","ndslagc>-II and 4-al Ihe Burbank SlUdiu .." 30,000 ~qua rt! fecI arc given over 10 it replica of the fifth num newsroom u fTh(' Wm "j".':roll Post. A lan Pakula. the direc tor of th e: fil m vc r-; io n o f A ll the Prl' Ji(/el/( s M e'II, had \\an tcd to use the actua l news roo m . but the Post's cdilor:-. frcll cd lh<ll this would in lt!rferc with the papc( !\ day- Io-da y opcrations. Thu s. S450.000 wa!\ added for tht: CO Il­

struct ion oran addi tional ,\ct to the film' s al read y (op-he a vy hudget .

Some o rthe co~t wa" du e 10 Pa kula a nd (Icsigne r George J c nkin!\' i ll ~ i !'llt.:ncc u n exacti tude. Je nkin ... , fir :)! orall. had eve ry desk u f the ,IcIlIa1 nc\\!\ro01l1 photo­graphed . a nd documented a!\ In wha t it contained . $('''C I1I ), -I\\u c,lri o ns of Ict­tcr!'>. palllphi cb. and paper .... we re cul­lec ted from reporter,' de,k,. ')h ipped to Ca lifornia .• Ind placed .. trat eg icall y o n the co un terpa rt, . One· hu nd reu -<J nd-fift y des k .. we rc ub tained and pai llled th~ Pm!' .\ '1 hade .. of red . g reen. <1I1e1 hlue . More than a to n of book ... inc luding 1972 Co ngress ional :.. taff d irectori e ... vlllullles

of the U.S. budge t. and va riou ~ Congre,· "io nal re pons. were <ll so used to d ecorate H se t that will , how more rea li s ti ca ll y the workings uf a major news paper than any o the r film cver made.

" By givi ng them :..0 muc h:' Jenkins expla ined , " 1 'hoped I'd be e ncourag.ing themto use il. "

A trained eye might ha ve di sco ve red cert ain diffe rences be twee n th e Burbank a nd the Washington new ~ roo l11 s. Paku la had :"ol11e modificatill n ~ made. based on the s ize a nd limit a tion ~ o f the sou nd stage. " But the .. ct.' hc said . ""as Ill)t modified to make il ea:.. icr to photograph . It \\as the o ther W'IY around: I wanted to pu ~ h myself in to ~o llitio n ~ dealing. w ith rea lit y ...

Whe n the real editor of the Pm!, Ben Bradlee, v is it ed the 'il' l o ne day. he whi 'i­tIed hi s amazement. Twen ty- fi ve actors. including Robert Redford . Dus tin Hoff· man. a nd J a~un Robards, a long \\ il h twent y- four extras. we re at work in Ihe mode rn . b lindingly whit e ne wsroom . '·U nhe lieva bl e.·' Bn ldke murmured.

PROGRESS REPORT: All the President's Men

Verisimilitude A New Formula

Harry Clei n

mea ning quite the rever .. e . He the n \\ent on to gue .. :.. correc tl y that the .. ce ne bei ng shot wa~ occurring a t 10:30 o f a Sa tu rday mo rnin g..

To ge t the :..al11e realistic Ino k for the backgmllnd action. a .. econd a:..~ i ~la ll t di ­rector. C harl ~ .. Ziarko. \\(1:" .. e nt to Washington for te n da y~ to oh ... erv ... •. Wa .. it d iffere nt in 1972, he wanted to kno\\ . There were 'i li ght dilrcren L'e~, a nd he note d the m . Fur aclion purpo ... c ... he re­po rted bal.:k. the ne\\ ~room \\ a~ about " as e xc iting a .. an in .. unlnl' l.· o ffi L'e." and might look a lnlll .. t too d ull o n fi lm . The actor:.. \\ ere g iven flwre to do . mnved it bit more qu ic kl y than the y might have in rea l life. Ziarko di .. cllvcred, during hi .. time in Washington, that .. urp ri .. ing ly fe\\ people smoked in the ne\\ .. room. He noted the numbe r of tho .. e who \\o re g la ~"e:... the rilcia l mix of emplo~'ee ... a nd the dille r­e nce!) in dre .. , bd \\ el:n report er ... e d ito r'), and copy aide ... All thi , \\ ill be mirmred in the film .

To help in the n.:crealion of the at mu­sphe re in \\ hi l.." h Rohcrt Wond ward a nd

25

Carl Berns tein worked as they tracked down the eve r-widening Watergate story, Roy Aarons, the Post's West Coast cor­res ponde nt. coached princ ipals a nd ex­t ras in proper journa li st ic jargon for the ir ad-libs, these pi cked up on a n eighHrack recording sys tem for j udic io us inc lusion in the fina l du bbing, Aaro ns' instruc tion sess io ns included the handling of sources over the phone, and what the Post's re­porters would be do ing at different times of the day. Each da y of the shooting a Pak ula assis ta nt tacked up the Post's front a nd ed ito ri al pages corresponding to the [972 dates of the sce nes bei ng s hot. Some of the ad- li bbed dialogue ca me from comment s on the sto ri es carried .

"Phone sequences."' Pakula sa id, "are the esse nce of the film. What I'm try ing for is to get the sense of the subjective ex­pe rience as Woodward a nd Bernstein discove r the s to ry. The te lepho ne is the means thro ugh w hich they reach out fo r the sto ry. So, I keep trying to ho ld to their point o f view . If I we re to suddenly cut to another perso n a t the ot he r end, I'd be breaking the sense of tha t subjec ti ve ex­pe ri ence.

"Nuw. in those phone conve rsa tio ns, the repo rte rs are ta lking to dise mbod ied voices. It would poss ibl y be more vis ua l to show who they' re talking to. but my fee li ng is tha t forcing the a udience to be on j us t the ir side gives LI S a greater sense of bei ng wit h them, of showing wha t the experie nce was [ike. of feeling the fru stra­t ion and diffi cult y of d ealing wi th some­one who want s to hang lip on YOll.·'

Wh y so much a tt e ntio n to so man y mini sc ule de tail s? " It was the lillie ob­jec ts that literall y brought down the mos t powerful men in the wo rld." Pak ula sa id .

26

' 'I' m usi ng the camera as the reporte rs' eyes: thus the detai l has to be exac t : the ca mera sees what they see."

Redfo rd said: "This is the mos t ove r­researc hed projec t anyone could do. and there's ,I great danger of it s becoming over-complicated. I had to discaHI mos t of my notes and just go wi th the esse nce of what I gathered from them-exce pt when something perta ined to a specific incident tha t we had to ge t accu rate."

To wha t extent is Redfo rd in vo lved in the fi lm . beyond hi s role as Woodward? Caught in a n off-moment, Redford ex­plained : " I must hi:\ve s pent more than a hundre d hours with Woodward in Wa s hington. most ly fo llowing hi m arou nd duri ng his normal course o f wurk ­ing , For ins tance. I sa t next to hi m while he made phone call s as he and Be rn stein we re run ning down some stuff on C harles Colso n . "

Thi s mea ns, of course. that Redford was e ngaged in the project long before Woodward and Bernstein had written All /hl' Presiden!"s M l'lI. To go back to the beginnings. he was u n a whi stl e-stop promotional to ur fo r The Candidatl' in 1972 when the Wa te rga te cv\!nt s began breaking. Several gen uine Washi ngton journalists were on the tnlin. and it wa s cynica ll y sugges ted by some tha t N ixon was probabl y in vo lved. a notion that out­raged Redford more tha n the repo rters. Later, as Woodward and Bernstei n began to uncover the cove r-up , he came across a pic ture of the two a nd fOllnd himself fa sci na ted with the odd coupli ng they represent ed. He looked them up. sllg­ges ted a film of the ir s to ry, and when ap­prised of the factlhe y wou ld be wri ting a book about it. made the fir st film o tTer. for

whic h Warner Bros. prov ided the fina n­c ia l baCking.

"They were still ri ght in the heat of their story when 1 was wit h them," Red­ford sa id. "and during much of the time I was observing them. I learned wha t a good reporter docs. and I hope that ge ts into my portra ya l o f Woodward ." He gave hi s own prescript ion for profes­sionalism in re porting : " He doesn't ac­ce pt a nything the way it is , t rusts no thing to be what it appears to be, take s nothi ng on face value. a nd that' s only for s ta rters. Then he' s go t to develop a tec hnique for bui lding questi ons that will get to the point. and learn methods o f ex tracting answers withou t it a ppeari ng that he's do ing so."

While the credit s won't say so. there is li lli e questio n that Redford is the true prod ucer of the film. Indeed, the pro­ducer t itl e goes to Walter Coblenz. who worked wi th Redfo rd on Thl' Downhill R acer and Till' Candida/l' . but he is the " line" producer. the exec llti ve rei ns be ing in Redfo rd 's hand s. ''I'm not in­te res ted in a producer c redit. " Redford said , "and I' d rat her it go to my compa ny, Wi ldwood." But. if he is the real pro­ducer. what d id he do, bes ides being the first to propose the film ? He hired Cob­lenz. for o ne thing, he obtained William Go ld man as the sc ree n w rite r , fo r anothcr. And he brought in Dusti n Hoff­man as hi s co-s tar. The d irector. Alan Pak ula, came last. instead o f. as is often the case. firs t. And it was Pakula who brought wit h him photographer Gordon Wi lli s, a nd des igner Jenk ins. " By and large. though," as someone put it on the se t. "it' s Bob' s baby. "

.. As pa rt of ou r research." Redford re­called, "we had a meeting wi th the editors and wri te rs of Thl' Bostol/ G/obl' , te lli ng the m that what we were a ft e r was to s how the news paper bu siness as it was. They were inte re sted. but cuncerned and ne rvous, They agreed there ought to be a xood movie about the fie ld, but there had never been one befo re. Till' Frollt PaXl' was not on ly o lltdated . they felt. but the y tho ught eve n for it s time it was hyped up. Would we be doing the same? Well. whi le we're not making a mov ie excl usively fo r the news paper profess ion, we're trying to show it like it is. wa rt s and a ll. It '~ a ncw formula, it hasn't been tried before. and we can o nl y hope thai it wo rks. "

Harr y Cle in is wr iting a book on the film ­ing of All th e Pf(' !)'idl,,,t"s Ml' l1.

R l ' {Jort er .\· (lnd t'di tors ill COII/Ut' IICf:

Robl'f"/ R l't/ford, JosO// /?oh(lrds . Jack Wardell, Oils /iII Hojjilloll.

/~"

Volleyball, Square Dancing and Cinema

Patrick McGilligan

The U ni ve rsity Film Study Cen ter is one of th e newe st. and mo st vigoro ll s. film s tud y opera tions in thi s country - and (j we ico llle addit ion to the nati o n 's arc hives. It is located in Camb ridge. Mas· sac husc lt s. which gi ves it another charm. too. since Boston is notori ously i nhospitab le when it comes (0 prov id ing ve nt for it s seriolls film stud ent s (for example. there is no re liab le cinema bookshop or thea ler devo ted s tri ct ly to scree ning film-as-art in the Huharca),

Founded in 1968, and grown by leaps in i ts short seven- year ex iste nce. the UFSC is a conso rtium or 12 membe r college s in New England. designed. in the words of Exec utive Directo r Pete r Feinstei n. "to improve the level of stud y of fi lm in thi s cO lln -

New England's Multi-Purpose Film Study Center

try. and 10 prov ide film se r vices for ew Eng­land." T he mea sure of its wort h ca n be see n ea sily by the var ie ty of it s ac tivit ies : Ma int e na nce n f a grow ing film archive and a large film li b ra r y : o ngo­ing resea rc h an d publicat io n of lilm-re lated materi­al s : regula r s y mpo s ia a nd se min ars de voted to med ia s tudy: a nd an intens ive. annLlal s ummer seminar in fi lm. vid eo. a nd photograph y .

The ac tual headq uClrters is nonde sc ript. a lmo st ramshackk. wit h <I n old -s hue feel t ha t belie s it s sc hola rl y purpose. It is located on a s ide s treet ,It the Ma ssa c hu sett s In s titut e of Tct:hnllillgy, in a second -floor o ffi ce that is decorated at t he e ntra nce with a s ket c h of F red As tai rc lea pi ng ballcticall y in to the a ir. F ilm women. a lo ca l group which pool s

27

2X

Learning by doing at the Un il'ersity Film Study Cell ter Summer Institute.

eq uipme nt and ex pertise for wo men filmmaker s. shares an adjace nt office. The severa l rooms in­c lude a c lull ered li b rary. a n ever-cha nging rag-tag bu lletin board. and a sma ll 16mm view ing room ope n to the pu bli c dail y . The a ir is friend ly but seri­ou s. and the gra ndest hope of the present s taff is to stumble upon a blank c hec k a nd to purc ha se a new building with the money.

It ·s the th ird ho me for the nomad ic UFSC whi c h was located firs t at Harva rd's Fogg Mu se um and later at Bra ndei s Uni versity. In the begin ning the re \\ere on ly eig ht member co lleges. eac h agree in g to cuntribu te 51.500 an nua ll y to fund a reso urce ce nler. the id ea be ing. in Fe in stein's \\o rd s. " to pool funds. buy film s. and have a ju int film arc­hi ve.' Toda y the member ins titutions. eac h of whi c h nominates a tru stee to the UFSC governing hoard. are Bosto n University. Brown Univers it y. Dartmo uth . Hamps hire. Harvard. MIT. Univers it y of Bridgeport. Univers ity of Ma ssac hu se lls at Am he rst. Universit y of Massac huse tt s at Boston. We l lc.::~ l ey. We sleya n . a nd Ya le. Founda ti on grants-espec ia ll y fro m the Nat iona l Endow me nt fur the Art s a nd the Lo ui s B. Ma yer Fo undation - havt: e nabled UFS C to ex pand beyond it s origi­nal concept o f a simple a rc hi ve- library. a nd to evolve into a vi ta l lea rning ce nter co nce rn ed wit h cur ricu lum de sign. program deve lopme nt. ami basic resea rc h.

The Film Informatiun Office of the UFSC - establi shed und e r a three- year g ra nt from the Maye r Foundation in 1972 and a gra nt from the Na· tiona I Endo\\ ment-is the ma in arte ry of the cen ter. and it has grown s in ce it s incepti on. " It is. simply. a place." expla ins Feinstein, "whe re peo­ple who a re us ing film can come for information." T\\ufull-time peo ple staff the Fil m In furmation or­lil'c. and th ey a re ava il ab le to answer Iilm-re la teJ ques ti o ns by te lephon e o r mail o r- if necessary

- to trave l to the membe r colleges. T hey also ellit and publish a bimonthl y newslette r {c ircu lation 4.0(0)-s rna ll but val uab le-with suc h items as book re views. fi lm ographi es . ca le nda r notices. and o the r film a nno unce ment s. The Film Info rmation Office rece nt ly has taken the pl unge into pub lica­tion. with a SOO-copy printi ng of Harvard Luce Pro­fesso r of Film Vlada Petrie' s close-realling of D. W. G riffith ·s 19 10 Biograph filmA CUrlin ill Wheal.

Educators. s tudents. and film buffs are given furth er expos ure to trends lind ideas in film by the sy mposia a nd se mina rs sponsored reg ularly by the U FSC. Nea rl y 200 peo pl e we re turned away from session s in the latest program. " Th e Future ofS pe­c ia l Effects a nd Animation." held at Boston's Mu se um of Fine Art s in the fa ll o f 1974. Gue st lec­tu re rs inc lud ed C huck Jones. award-winning animato r a nd creator of The Roadrunn er. who held a capacity c rowd rapt with his" History of Anima­tion": Dr. Ca rl C hiarenza on s till photography: Robert Breer and Pat O'Ne il on a nima tion in the independent cinema: Jo hn \Vhitney on com­puterized film tec hn iq ues: Ed Emshwill er on the re­latio nship between spec ia l effects in film a nd video: Isaac Asimov on the future of the a udio-visual en­viro nment : a nd Linwood Dunn. former head of the RK O spec ial e ffec ts department. who e nt e rtained an ove rn ow crowd with c lips fro m movies a nd hi s ex pert exp la nations abou t bac k-project ion a nd matt e wo rk. Like man y U FSC eve nt s. the part ic i­pant s inc lud ed educato rs. arc hi vists. and li ­b raria ns . besides the usua l represe nt a ti on from stu ­de nt s an d buffs.

Th e se mina r t:o ll cept is extended. int ens ified. d i­vers ifi ed. a nd acc redit ed for UFSC's spec ial sum­mer ins titute for film study. now in it s fifth year. It is he ld on the 500-p lus acres of Hamps hire College. a li ber<:ll <:IriS co llege in rural wes te rn Mas­sac hu se lt s. Th is year's facult y inc luded George Bluestone. Ell Ems hwiller. Ho lli s Frampton. Roger Greenspu n. Stan Lawder. Ric hard Leacuc k. and Jonas Mekas. (l iong with many o the rs.

Nearly 100 people (the num be r kee ps growing) gather at Ham pshire fo r three weeks. to li ve and breathe the a rt of filmma king for 24 hours daily. lea rning suc h dive rse things as optica l printing. video theor y. sc ree nwr iting o r cr itica l writing (a typi ca ll y feve ri sh co urse. ta ught by G ree nspuil. whic h req uire s submi ssion of a dail y theme paper). Tuition is $300. exc ludin g roo m and board: roughl y 30 scholarships a re awa rd ed a nnuall y.

" It' s grow n to be the '\ ingle largest ac ti vit y uf the s tud y ce nter." ex pla ined Feins te in . " The idea is to prov id e a rea ll y in te nsive inst itut e with firs t-class people across the line. It 's co mmitted to the idea of film as art. It' s a real imme rsio n into film . It' s to­tall y encompass ing. You ca nno t be li eve {he leve l a t whic h they ge t int o fil ms. The idea is to offer a level o f study that st ud e nt s don't ha ve access to d uring the year. Most coll eges don't have co urses of such qua lit y. a nd it wo uld be phe nu me nal if a fa cu lt y of the qua lity we bring together was ever drcl\\n to­gethe r a t one sc hoo l. Mos tl y. we teac h film. vid eo.

a nd phot og raph y. but we a re a lways tr yi ng to add other forms - ma ybe. in the near future. electronic mus ic. Ava nt-gard e mu s ic-peo ple s uc h a s J o hn Cage-has had a treme ndo us influe nce o n film. "

The s umme r ins t itute (which is le,:lVe ned b y n ig htl y vo llcyba ll ga mcs, sqllare danc ing, and pic­ni cs) a ttrac lS i:l b road cross-sec ti o n o f peop le from

e\\ E ngla nd, and cO llntr y-wide , Of the 175 s tll ­denls in the s llll1mer o f IY74. 103 perso ns had some pre v i()lI ~ media study. es tima ted in stitute director Gisela Hoe lel. a nd the average age o f the e nro ll ees was :! 8.

The nc west s ide line project o f the U FSC is t he Ce nte r Sc reen Film Soc ie ty. a n ex hibiti o n program that assoc iated wilh t he Ce nle r about o ne year ago . " It' s a program'" expla ined Fe instein . "to ex hibit independe ntl y-mad e film s in the Bosto n a rea. to deve lo p an aud ie nce for noncommercia l film s. to foc us atte nt ion o n loca l filmrn(1kers. a nd to develop an a lt erna tive to the comme rcia l ci nema."

Unde r the d irec tio n of Barry Levine-who. a t Fei ns tei n' s beque sl. rece ntl y departed with an ope n-e nd ed ai rplane ti cket. in orde r to scour the co untr ys id e for new. ind epende nt films-the Ce nt e r Screen Film Soc ie ty has mOllnted s llc h programs. in it s one-year term. as " Mu sic O n Film " (inc luding the pre stigio us loca l premiere o f Jud y Collins a nd J ill Godrnil ow·s Alltol1ia ). a se ries o n screen a nimati o n . and periodic scree nings of wo rk s b y local filmm ake rs. The film soc ie ty is s trapped by it s need fo r a permanent t heate r­sc reenings ha ve thus fa r fl oa ted aro un d town-but the program prese nt ly is a ttrac ting a s tro ng and loya l audie nce.

L as t. bll t noticast.the U FSC maintain s and o pe rates a valuable tilm s tud y collec ti o n a nd arc ­hi ves . numbering c u rrently ove r 500 title s. w hic h a rc ava il able for privat e viewing on a wa lk- in basis. and for loan to member sc hools for a nom ina l fcc . " It's the ~ex i e~ tth ing we do '" admitted Feins tein. " People hear aboll t it a nd say. ·O h . wow, a lot of films.' Blit film is n ' t like that. The re is no thing sex­ier about a fi lm a rc h ive than a book a rc hi ve." Th e co ll ection. ce rtainl y t he larges l in New England. inc lud es foreign and d o mcsti c featur es. documen ­ta rks . tele vis ion material. s ho rt subjec ts . and in ­de pendent films-ranging from classics 10 genuine rariti es. plu :-. \\ ha t ma y we ll be the la rgesl s ingle colkc ti o n of Jerry Le wis film s ex tant in thi s coun ­try. The latte r category is owed to t he la rge sse o f Joseph H , Ha ze n o f cw York C it y, a former Ho l­lywood produ cer (once part nered wit h Hal Wall is ). who has donated ove r 100 feature fi lms to t he U FS C.

" The id ea o f the archive'" ex plained Feinstein. "was that th e me mbe r sc hools \\olild usc film s on the ir cam pu s and save so me mone y. hut mon ey from the Endow me nt made it possible fo r a nybod y in the country 10 see fi lms here ." It is re markabl y

easy to arrange a sc reening-j ust sa unter in o fT the s treet. no c redentia ls necessary. Me mber sc hools can re se rve ce rtain print s fo r fi lm classes a nd. ac­co rd ing to Feins tein . " keep (hem for a period o f time . It pe rm its the m to ac tua ll y loo k at t he films. and the s tud e nt s ca n comc over he re a nd look a t the m aga in a nd again - at a co ns iderable ~av ing !'l. of course ...

The ce nter is admittedl y ha mpe red by its la ck of a fu ll -time a rc hi vis t il nd the lu xury of a Stecnbeck mac hine. but th ose a rc ho les which will be filled so meda y. Pre se ntl y. the ce nter ma nages to pu r­c ha se some film s eve ry year-"cverything we ho ld, we ho ld lega ll y : we don't hold a nyt hi ng that 's pira ted or hot o r duped o r q uest ionable " - and has show n a prai seworth y fa cil it y. in it s seve n years. for b uilding a large and co:-. tl y collectio n from . lit er­a ll y, nothing,

Muc h of the FSC' s bounding progress is due to the leadership o f Pe te r Feinstein. 31. \\ ho hccame the lhird exec utive direc lo r of the ce ntt.!r in 1972. a year w he n the U FSC bega n to expand its programs d ramatically. S ince the n . the numbe r of s taff me m­bers has ri sen from two full -time employee s to nine staffe rs. Feinstein is a ! e\\ York nal ive. wit h a backgrou nd in journali sm . He fou nd ed Film Forum in Ne\\ York. ,111<.1 then ele c ted to tak c o n the c hal­lenge o f bu ilding the U FSC. " I like to start things. start the m o r build them." he mused rece ntl y. a s he sat in his M IT office and di sc ll ssed the film stud y ce nte r. He is perso nable. aggre ss ive and b lunt -with a low opin ion of fi lm s tud y on thi s nation' s ca mpuse s . and a private preferen ce for indepen­d e nt. noncumm~rcial c ine ma.

The future. howeve r . is not e ntirdy bright. Th t.! U FSC still ha ~ t.!normOLis problems of access. o f making it s ex is te nce kno\\ n throughout New Eng­land. and. fundin g. a s everyw here e lse. i!'l a !'Ie vert.! prob lem, Over 50 pe rce nt or the fi nanc ing of U FSC is se lf-generated fr o m fee s Clnd tuit io ns . but about o ne- fourth is from public foundation s and tht.! re ­maining o ne- fo urth must come fro l11 pri va tc sources. Those lan cr so urces arc dry ing up in th~ post- ! ixo n econom y :-. llImp- at prec ise ly the time w he n the U FS C wo uld lik e to e ,xpand rathe r than tread wa ter.

.. I' d lik e to have a real nice bu ilding - that' s m y d ream'" said F~instein . " Tha t 's w hat I sec a s the mos t impo rtant que slion fo r the study ct: nte r. Vic s ho uld have a thea te r. There isn 't any theater in Boston d evoted t~) :-. crt.!cning films as an a rt form. you know. and in a ci t y the s iz t.! of Bo~ton. yo u ra the r expec t to ha ve :-.o mc.:thing. If the s tud y ce nt e r ca n sta bi lize it selr '-and here. Feinstein paused a nd dre wa mean ingfu l breat h- " I sec. in it s future. a range of services. A b ig arch ive : lots o f li tt le sc ree ning rooms : a big library. We wan t to publ ish uu r u\vn books: we \\anl to have a perma n t.! nt the­a te r : and we arc movi ng into video \\ith a ve n­gea nce. Tha t ' s a b ig mo ve \\e ha ve to mak c r ig ht away'" II

Patric k McG ill igan write s fo r Th e' Bos((}1/ Glohe.

29

.10

The Black Years of Dalton Trumbo The Oscar Came Late

19 Years Late, to be Exact, and Robert Rich is Dead

Bruce Cook

Oscar nigh!. 1956. De bo ra h Ke rr ta kes the card f ro m the o pe ned enve lo pe a nd a nn o un ces in a lo ud . clea r voice t hat the winn er " for the Best M otion Pi c lLlr~ Sto ry is . . Ro bert Ric h !"

The sac red mo me n!. A ppl a use . J esse Las k y. Jr. . the n Vice Pres id ent of the Sc ree n W rit e rs G uild. jumps up . b ustl es dow n the a is le to the s tage a nd acce pt s the awa rd on bc halfofRich. whom he re­fers to as" my good friend ." because Rich was at hi s wife's bedside. and she was about lO give bi rth to the irfirst ba by. Mo re a ppl a use . a nd he s trides o ff the stage. s ta tue tte in ha nd.

Lasky la te r admitted in hi s acco unt o f the epi sode in hi s book. W/w lc l'er Happened 10 /-lui· Iy wood ? tha t he rea ll y had no idea w ho Robe rt Rich was. But the name so unded familiar. and it see med ( 0 him that an ofTicc r ofthe G uild rea ll y o ught to know the me mbe rs. so. . Las ky's good friend he was. And as far as Rich be ing at hi s wife's bed sid e. tha t was w ha t La sk y had bee n to ld. It a ll see med quite routine to him at the lime.

The next d ay. howeve r . whe n they had had the c ha nce to c hec k the G uild fil es. it wa s fo und that there was no Robert Rich li sted in th em. H e wa s not a membe r a nd neve r had bee n . No body rea ll y had any idea who he was or how he could be reac hed- not even the King Brothers w ho had p roduced The Bra l'e Olle. the film fo r whi c h Robe rt Rich hadjust won the Academy Awa rd, H ad he re ­all y bee n at a hospital wa iting for hi s wife to give b irth ' Somebod y had ca ll ed the aft e rnoon o f the ce re mo n y a nd had sa id so. Just on the o ut s ide c hance they mig ht loca te him tha t way. they put a tea m to wo rk telephoning the obstetrics wards of eve ry hos pital in Los A nge les Count y to inquire if the re we re a Mrs. Robe rt Ric h registe red . a luck .

It wa sn' t long be fore the news magazines picked up the story and report ed thi s rather sti cky situa­ti o n. The n t hey did a fo llow-up whe n rumors bega n to fl y a rou nd Ho ll ywood tha t Robe rt Ri ch was re­all y j ust a pseudonym- one of the many- used by Da lt on Tru mbo. who had bee n blac kli sted nine years before w hen he had appeared as an un­friendly witness before the H ouse Committ ee on U n-A meri ca n Ac ti vi ti es, Eventuall y T rumbo pu b­licl y ac knowledged that it was so-he had wri tte n The 8 r(l I 'C' One, H e did th is more than any thing to hel p the King Brothe rs fe nd off the three p lagia ris m suits that had been filed aga inst them w hen Robert Rich's ident it y still was uncstabli shed.

By now, of course, it isa ve ryolcl story-one we ll known to ever y connoisseur o f b lack lis t lore and to man y amatc urs as we ll. Ye t no ma tter how grea t it s val ue as anecdote, those w ho tell it seldom real ize what an impo rt ant part the episode pla yed in

Do/toil Trum bo,foca/figure of the Hollywood blacklist. " Th ey made him WI (~ffer he cOlildn' f refilse.

the long proce ss of brea king t he blac klis t. But Da l­ton T ru mbo knows: . ' I t wa s that Robert Rich thing that gave me the key. You see. a ll the pre ss came to me . and I dealt wi th them in such a way that they kn e\1"I blood y weill had written it. But I would sug­gest that maybe it was Mike Wilson* . and the y would call Mike and ask him . and he would say 110,

it wa sn't him . And they wou ld come back to me . and I' d suggest t hey tr y so mebod y else - anot her blackli sted w riter like myse lf who was working on the black market. I had a whole li st of them beca use we kcp t inclosc tollch.lt we nton and on and on. I just wanted the pre ss to understand what an ex ten­sive thing th is movie black mark et wa s. A nd in the mid st of thi s . I sudd e nl y rea li zed that a ll the

* Scree nwriter Michae l Wil son had won an Academ y Award for A Place ill fhe 51111 the yea r he was blac k­li sted. and wa s act ive on the movie black market.

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j ourna li sts-or most of them-were sympathe ti c to me. and how eager the y we re to have the blackli st exp loded. There had been a ce rta in c ha nge in the atmosphere. and then it became possible."

T he Robe rt Rich affa ir thu s ma rked the hegin ­ning of the end oft he blackli st. The followi ng year Pierre BOllile won the Acade m y Awa rd fo r the marve lousjob he had donc ada pt ing hi s own nove l. Tlte Bridge Oil th e R h'er K,, ·(/i. for the scree n. A mong insiders the award provoked onl y laughter. for the truth wa s that Boul le hardl y spok e. muc h less wrotc, Engli sh (and. incidentall y . did nol w rit e for film s before or afle r ). The sc r ipt was actuall y th e wo rk of two black l isted writers-Carl Fore man and Trumbo's friend. Michae l Wi lson. T wo years after that. the award for Best Origi nal Scree npla y we nt to the team of athan E. Douglas and Haro ld Jacob Smith forTlte D(/i(ll/f Olles. Yes. Vi rginia. there is a Harold Jacoh Smit h. bu t Nathan E. DOllg-

3 I

The a\\ ard pro­voked la ughte r . for Boullc hardly spoke. much less wrote. English .

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las. it tu r ned o ut. was the b lac kli sted ac to r­turned- w rit e r cd rick Young. A nd so it we nt.

C racks were ap pearing in the wa ll that Ho l­lywood had thro wn up to protec t the Ame rica n pub lic aga in st the s ubvers io n o f the motion picture ind uslr y by Ihe blac kli sled un -A merica ns. And they were a ppeClr ing w it h s uch ro utine freq ue ncy tha t it rea ll y ca me a s no s urpri se w hen. in 1960. the ram pa rt was breac hed c lean ly fo r the fir st time by none o ther tha n Da lto n Trumbo. O tt o Pre minge r put Trumbo's name lip o n t he sc ree n for the wo rk he had do ne o n Exodus. giving him full sc ree nplay c red it. the firs t he had rece ived since 1947. w he n it a ll began. Aim osl s im ulla neous ly. Kirk Do uglas a nno unced Trumbo as aut hor of the sc reenplay of Spart(fc ils. w hi c h wasj ust about to be relea sed. T wo majo r c redit s in a s ingle year. With them . the b iac ki is l had bee n broke n effecl ive ly-a llhough il wo uld. o f co urse. be years ye t before the po liti ca l bac kgro und of a writ e r-or a director . o r a n ac to r-wou ld play no part in w hethe r he was h ired a nd give n credit. And it was true. too. tha t ma ny of the 2:'0 o r more in the moti o n pic ture indu sl ry w ho had bee n blac kli sled wo ul d never find Ihe ir wa y back Ihro ugh Ihe ho le Trumbo had PUI in Ihe wall.

Vie wed fro m a ny a ngle. Dalto n Trumbo is the foca l figu re. Go bac k to the period. trace the lab yrinthine ways o f the blackli st. and it' s him you kee p bu mpi ng i nt o in the corrido rs . He was t he re at the begin n ing. wo rki ng fo r Met ro-Gold wy n-Maye r as the highe st paid scree nw riter in Ho ll ywood . whe n he was s ubpoe naed to a ppem' before the HOll se Co mmittee on Un-American Ac ti viti e s a nd beca me o ne o f the Ho ll ywood T e n. Duri ng the b lac kli st per iod. he wro te. o n hi s own offh a nd guess ... about 35"' screenpla ys a nd o rigi na l sc ree n sto ries o n the movie b lack marke t. (T he o nl y li s t he ha s e ve r dra wn lip goes hig her: All the way lip 10

4) . ) Over a sco re of them eve ntu a ll y saw prod uc­tion. But o f them a ll . no ne was mo re impo rtant to Trum bo. a nd to the brea kingof the blac kli s t. than 7 he Bra\'e Olle. the little movie he wrote fo r the King Brothe rs. w hi c h wo n a n Acade my Awaru fo r the mys te ri ous Robe rt Ric h .

lere rea ll y IVas a Robe n Ric h . He IVas an ac­cou nta nt w ho hap pe ned to be a nep hew o f the King brothe rs. That sa id. I feel almos t ob liged to affi r m that the Kingbro thers. Maurice. Fra nk .and Her­man (bo rn Kozin ski ) reall y ex ist-not because the y a rc so obsc ure but bec au se they have been inacti ve as inde pende nt produce rs long e no ugh (ha ving di ­ve rs ified into the ho te l busine ss ) that they have be­co me s hadowy. almost legendar y fi gures nft he o ld Ho ll ywood. a mong the la st ma ste rs o f B-pi c ture pro du c ti on .

Trum bo lik ed the m and found . perha ps to hi s s urp ri se. that he had a lot in co mm o n wi th the m . Duri ng the yea rs he was st ruggling to become a wri­ter. a nd at the Same time support hi s mot he r and

two s iste rs . the King b ro the rs were struggling 100:

" Maury. lheo ide sl o ne . lo ugh l asa pug." says Trumbo . "And Ihal e nab led Frank 10 gellhro ugh Fra nklin Hig h Sc hool in Highl a nd Pa rk . H ymie was Ihe yo ungeSi. and he gOllhro ugh hig h sc hool. 100.

The fa l he r had died . The boys had 10 ma ke il o n the ir own . a nd they did it boot legging a nd in the rac ke ls." (Trum bo a lso had done a bil ofbooll eg­ging. bUllh al is anolhe r slory e nli re ly.)

Wilh Ihee nd o fPro hibili o n .l he Kingbro lhers got illi o mo ti o n p ic ture produc tion - fir st for PR C during the late thirties a nd subse quentl y fo r Mo nog ra m . In 1945 al Mo nogram.l hey madel he ve ry s uccessful Oil/iI/ge l'. Budgeted a l S 193 .000. with Law re nce T ie rney. Edmund Lowe. a nd Anne Jeffreys. and direcled by Max Nossec k. Oil/iI/gel' broughl in ove r $4 milli o n wo rld wide. Wilh Iha l hil under Ihe ir be ll. Ihey dec ided 10 go inJ epe nd e nl. T he ir fir st film was The GlIngster, re leased in 1947: it featured Bar ry Su ll iva n and Akim Tam iroffand had ils momeni s btll fa il ed 10 ma ke mo ney for the m . King Bro the rs Produc tio ns was in the ma rke t fo r a new sc ri pt whe n the c razine ss in Wa shingto n ca ughll he ir eye. The brOlhe rs nOled Ihe qualil y o f the ta le nt tha t had been ha ul ed before the Ho use Co mmittee on U n-A merica n Ac ti viti es. hea rd wit h int e res t the ta lk a mo ng produ ce rs o f a po li t ica l black li st. and drew so me s hrewd conclu s ion s.

The King bro lhe rs approac hed Dall o n Tru mbo Ihe d a y he relurned ho me 10 Bever ly Hills fromlhe hea rings in Wa shingto n . " There was no big dea l to il. " sa ys Frank Kin g. "Wejus l had a s ho n budget to make a pic ture a nd saw thi sas a n o ppo rtunit y to ge t a fin e w rit er to work for LI S who we could not ot he rwise afford."

A nd po lili cs? " Polil ics didn'l e nl er inlO il "I a ll. " says King. sOlll e s lig ht a nn oya nce ev ide nt in his voice . " What Cll11an' s poli t ics we re wa s not Ollr

conce rn , I gue ss he spoke hi s mind befo re Con ­gress. and tha t was a ll right with LIS. But we ne ve r d isc ussed th a t at a ll . We werej us l int e rested in ma k ing pi c tures ."

For his part. Trumbo rea li zed tha t he was as of the n une mpl oyable a s far as the major stud ios we re conce rn ed . a nd that he wo ul d ha ve to fi ght fo r eve ry ce nt that re mained to be pa id to him o n hi s lue rali ve MG M conlraC I (S75.000 pe r pi c lUre) . .. Bro ke as a ba nkrupt' s bastard " was ho w he de­sc ribed himse lf. He faced te rrific lega l ex pe nses fu r the a ppea l o f the Co nt e mpt of Co ngress c ita ti o n that he had rece ived wilh the l)therso fthe Ho l­lywood Ten . a nd the definit e poss ibili ty ofa yea r in j a il. s hou ld Ihe a ppea l fa il. The mod esl dea l offe red him by King Brol he rs Produ cli o ns - S3.750 10 be pa id him ove r the pe ri od o r a yea r a nd a half - loo ked good 10 himl he n. T hey had mad e hi m a n offer he was in no pos iti on to re fu se. He shook hands with the m o n the dea l. and he s ta rt ed to work o n GIIII Crfl~Y the nex t da y.

Edlt'ard G. Robinson. Margaret O' Brien . in O ur Vines Have Tender Grapes. Trumbo ' s lasl. pre-blacklist.

"We just hada short budget and saw this as an opportunit), to get a fine writer to work for us. "

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Trumbo, howeve r, wa nt s it unde rstood that he does not fee l he was ta ken ad vantage of by Maury, Fra nk, and Herm<:ln King, nor by the ot hers who em pl oyed him at c ut rate so n the movie black mar­ket . The King Brothers paid him what the y could alToI'd ... A lot o f independent s never paid more tha n that. " he says. " When I and othe rs plum ­meted in valu e. we naturall y fou nd ourselves in thi s new market, a nd na tu ra ll y the se independent pro­d uce rs a va il ed themselves o f o ur se r vices beca use they felt that forthi s money the y could get better wo rk . So there was n't rea ll y thi s brutal ex ploitatio n of black market write rs t hat has some tim e s bee n re­ferred to."

GUll era:.\', Trumbo' s fir st projec t for King Brothers Producti ons. was re leased in 1950. while he was still se rving hi s term inja il for contempt of Co ngress. He never saw the film . Mill ard Kaufma n a llowed him the lise of hi s na me o n it. a nd it has ne ve r been eve n in fo rma ll y credi ted to Trumbo. As brDught to t he sc reen by direc tor Joseph L ew is. thi s ta leof a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde had the sort of int e nsit y a nd e ne rgy that c ha rac te ri zed Lewis' best B-mov ie wo rk . As the gu n-c ra zy COll­

pie who go on a ho ldup spree. John Dall and Peggy Cum mins imply the psychopathology of their roles without ove rstat ing . It is, in sho rt. a prett y good pi c ture, and it is so in la rge part beca use directo r a nd cast had a pre tt y good sc ript to wo rk with . Even when wo rking quickl y £lnd a t £I c ut -ra te. T rum bo gave them their money's wo rth . He had to. He was lighting now for every job he got.

He sold hi s house in Beverly H i ll s and retreated to his ranc h up in the mo unt a in s of Ventura Co unty, the Lazy-T . There he bega n writing on the cu mpul s ive day-and-n ight sc hedul e which he main­ta ined a ll through the black li st pe riod . He gave time, whi c h he la te r ca me to reg ret. to the writing of a pla y , Th e BigJ,:e .\·! Thil'fin TOII ·II. He bro ugh t it through tryo ut run s in Bosto n il nd ew Haven, with the uSlIal franti c rew rit es. a nd the n saw it fo ld on Broad way J3 nights afte r it s March 30. 1949 openi ng. Mi xed rev iews. A bitte r di sa ppointme nt.

The fa il ure of the play, on which he had worked su ha rd and banked so hea vil y, se nt him bac k to the typew riter , detcrmined to work onl y on bl ac k ma r­ket project s that he could be sure would pa y off. Gcorge Willn er. a n agcn t who wo uld him se lf later be black li stcd, ca me tu Trum bo's ai d. He used hi s l'ontac ts tu se ll a n original sc ree n stury for him. aga in unde r Millard Kaufm a n' S na me , and a lth ough it so ld , it was never produced. Willner mad e d is­ncet inqu iries a mo ng su me oft he larger ind e pen ­de nt producers, and work began to tri ckle Trumbo' s way. Th e fi rst job he lined up forTrumbo was one that SlI bseq uentl y fe II through - an fl S­

s ignment to do a sc ree npla y fo r the co median Da nn y Ka ye from an o rigina l sto ry, FlIin 'iell', USA . It never got much beyond the talking. outlin-j ng . what -d o-yo u-t hi nk -of-t hese-first -few-page s s tage because of the comedi<lI1's wis h to wo rk as c lose ly as poss ibl e with hi s \vri ter. a nd Trumbo's co ntrary wi sh to work on hi s own in a remo te

mountain hideaway nearly a 100 miles from Los Ange les. Whe n Ka ye tried to reac h him on sho rt notic e a nd fo und Trumbo didn't eve n have a te le­pho ne. that more or less e nd ed their assoc iation.

But with Willner wo rkin g on hi s beha lf (a t no lit ­tl e profess ional ri sk to hi mself. by the way). Trumbo found that the Lazy-T suited hi s purpose very well. He was a we ll -kn own fi gure in Ho l­l ywood. H is comings and goi ngs cou ld eas il y be obse rved the re by the v igilante s who saw to the e n­fo rcement of the blackli st. He was not allowed wit hin I he gates o f a ny studi o in Ho ll ywood, and restaurant mee tings we re far too public. Ifhe were to have a te le phone, he was sure it would be tapped . No. Trumbo preferred the inconvenience of th e La zy-T for the pri vacy it ga ve him . When mee tings were abso lut e ly necessary, they we re a r­ranged in o ff-hours on ne utral gro und , at the ho me s a nd offi ces o f fri e nd s out side bu s ine ss di stri c t loca­t ions. Di sc re ti on-eve n sec recy-was necessa ry .

When the Supreme COLIn declined to rev iew the Con tempt of Congress citat ions handed out to the Te n , it beca me clea r that pri so n was where the y a ll

Gun C razy. wi,h Peggy C umm ins alld Joh" Dall . released while Trum bo was serl'ing his 0\\"1/ term in ja il.

"ere headed . Trum bo wrote three screenplays in the time remaining. all or them good and all orthem prod uced . Bctween June 1949 andJune 19S0.with $40.000 wo rth o f debts . a w ife a nd three c hildre n to support . and prospects or no inco me whatever ror the year h~ would be in j ail. he did The Prol\·ler. ror \v hidl h i~ frie nd Hugo Butl er lent hi s name; He Rail All the Wa.'·. Jo hn Garfi e ld' s last film . a lso c red it ed 10 Butler and on which But ler did so me rewrit ing while Trumbo was in prison : and Call ·boy. adapted rrom Frank Harris' probabl y spurious memoir. Reminiscences ofA1y LIfe as a Cowhoy. On the lat­te r . Ed mund Nort h rece ived full c red it aft e r he had done a po li s h jobon the sc ript whic h Trumho had wrilt en. Hugo Butl er. again rronting ror T rumbo. was to have shared credit. as determ ined by the Guild. However. by the time COh·ba.\' was released . in 1957. the Writ e rs G uild had e nte red intoan ag ree ment with the produce rs whereby the name or any po lit ica l undesirabl e co uld s impl y be re moved fro m the sc ree n . A nd by that time. tho ugh Butler never had appeared berore the Co mmitt ee . he had been nClmed in testim ony and had been errec ti ve ly

black listed. Hi s na me ca me o ff the fi lm : Trumbo's was ne ver on it. "North isa pleasa nt enough man with good feelings." says Trumbo ... He la ter a nd pri vately expressed to Hugo hi s repugnance at re ­ce iving sole scree nplay credit in thi s ras hi on . . The credit was a good one becau se the reviews we re good . And thi s is a n excellent exa mple of why no reco rd o f c redit s betwee n 1947a nd 1960 can be considered even remotely acc urate."

Trumbo work ed right down to the wire. H av ing po lis hed off the last o f these sc ree npla ys. and with three weeks remain ing berore he was to report to the Distri ct or Columbia Jail ror transport ation to federal pri son. he sat down and wrote three sc reen stories. each around a 100 pages in length . George Willn er was abl e to sell o ne o ft he m . titl ed Th e Burcher Bird . alt hough it was never produced . It brought T rumbu money when he needed it mos t.

I r!o n, It wasj us t so muc h 10sttim e. as fa r as Trumbo was conce rned. I t could have been some­thing more. for while he wns in the Federa l Correc­tionallnstituti on at As hland. Kentucky. he began a novel (it would ha ve bee n hi s fifth ). a nd by the t ime he was rel eased. he had 150 manusc ript pages co m­pleted . Blit he was released to t he sa me cru shi ng mo ney worries he had left be hind him the year be­rore. The nove l wo uld have to wa it unt il he had fini shed a black marke t job or two and had some cas h in hand . And in fac !. it was never co mpletecl .

He turned to t he King Bro thers aga in. G un Cra:.y had bee n releascd . had done we ll. and so they we re more than willing to do business with him . The mov ic that ca me Ollt of thei r nc.=w dea l. Carllil 'a/ Story. was writt en by T rumbo. wi th credit eve nt u­all y go ing to a mythica l Ma rce l Kl a ube r. T he T eutoni c name was chose n a couple of yea rs la ter beca use the rilm \\ as shot in Germany by direc tor K urt Neumann and it seemed morcapprop ria te. The picture rea tu red Steve Cochran and A nne Bax ­te r and. although budge ted close to Ih c.= bone. as we re all the King Brothers productions. it \\ as a good-looking film . and it made a substantial profit ror thcm when it was released in 1954 . Trum bo's script. with it s echoes or Li/io l1l . was tight er and more I it erate I han G fill Cra : .\'.

At that timc H ugo Butl er was down in Baja California . literall y hiding out from a subpoena by the House Committ ee on U n-A merica n Ac ti vi t ics. Whil e there he had done so me work for a produce r in Me xico C it y and had bee n ass ured there wo uld be mo re. The Butlers pro posed tha tt he Tru mbus move with them down to M ex ico C it y where ex­penses wo uld onl y be a rrac tion o f wha t they we re in Calirornia. Trumbo had dec id ed by thi ..; time that he co uld no t hope to ho ld o n to the Lazy-T muc h longer-and so it was settled . He put the ranch lip ror sa le. and the two rami li es met in Sa n Diego and began the lo ngjourney to Me ,xico C ity.

There was quite a col ony estab li shed there by the

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"The clerk at the Imperial found out his tenants, who he thought were Hollywood big shots, were just lepers in disguise. ,.

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time they arri ved. Screenwriter Jo hn Bright re­calls: " I was the first person to la nd in Mexico C it y. At the time I got there. o nl y Gordon Kahn was a ro und . and he was in C ue rnavaca. I registered in the Impe ri al Hotel down there. and one by one they all ca me. and eve rybod y o n the blackl ist . I swea r. passed through the Impe ria l Hotel. Wh y . at one time.140fthe 16apart me nt s inthe placewe reoc­c upied by black li stees. I remember the Engli sh­la nguage paper down there. Th e Mexico City Nell ·s. got wind that we were there a nd fan a s to ry o n us. who we we re. a nd so on. So when the news broke. the c lerk at the Imperial found out a ll hi s tena nt s. who he thought we re Holl ywood bigsho ts. were just Ie pers in d isgu ise ...

In the long run. the move to Mexico proved to be a mi stake. True e nough. th e cost ofliving was less there . but Trumbo s ucc um bed to temptat io n and set himse lf a nd hi s fa mil y up in g rande r c ircum­stance s t ha n at the Lazy-T -hacienda. se rvant s. the wo rk s. Always more or less pronigate with money. he ass umed that ass ignme nt s wo uld ro ll in to keep the m in the style to whi ch they were fast beco ming acc us to med-but they didn·t. Exce pt for one job fo r a Mex ica n producer. whi ch he and Hugo But ler shared. the re was no work for him from loca l movie sources. He had time-far more of it than he wo uld have liked-to get to know the cou ntry. A nd during those long day s in whi c h bot h of them were idle. Butler began to intere st him. un ­ex pected ly. in bullfighting.

.l ea n But ler. hi s widow . remembers: " Hugo to ld him that he cou ldn ' t defend it (b ullfighting) on moral gro und s but that he thought it was s till some­thing beautiful. And Trumbo had to ad mit the re was so me thing to that. a ll right. . The first time they went. I think. they saw a bad kill a nd that a l­mus t se nt him away for good. But Hugo got him to come back a couple of mo re time s. and the n the y got to see the indu/to, whic h is prell y ra re. We had read about it but hadn ' t see n one. That. of co urse, mad e quite a n impression o n Trumbo."

It mad e suc h an impression. in fact. that he now had the idea for a sto ry that he had been sea rc hing foreve r since he ca me down to Mex ico. The illdullO (li tera ll y. the " show of swee tne ss") is a ve rdict of c leme ncy pronounced by the c rowd at the bullfight upo n a bu ll that has fought with great brave ry. The me mbers of the crowd signal to the matado r that the bull' s li fe is to be spa red by waving the ir ha ndk erc hie fs v igoro usly. It is quite a sight. a nd Trumbo knew once he had see n it that it wo uld make a marvelou s c limac tic scene fo r a motion pi c­ture. He bega n researching the project. readi ng whateve r book s he co uld find in Engli sh on the sub­ject, a nd ask ing quest ions of those who kn ew so me­thing about bullfighting a nd the raising offi ghting bull s.

Before long. he was ready to talk about the proj­ec t. He we nt -whe re e lse co uld he go with it ?-to the King Brothers. He madea trip fro m Mex ico C ity to Los Angel es in May 1952 to ta ke ca re of matters t hal had to do mostl y with pay ment s due

the Int e rna l Revenue Service and th e sa le of the Lazy-T . But wh il e there. he visited the King Brothe rs ' o ffi ces and sat down wit h Ma ury a nd Fra nk a nd o rall y outlined the story he had in mind of the bull that co mport s himself so we ll in the ring that he is gra nt ed a repri eve from the usua l death sentence in the fo rm of a n iI/till/to. The bull ha s bee n a lmost the pe t ofa young Mex ica n boyan the ranc h where he was rai sed - hence the title und er whic h it was offe red to the King Bro thers . " The Bo y a nd the Bull. ··

Ma ury a nd Frank knew a good thing whe n they heard it , and so they to ld him to go ahead and write the sc reen pl ay. He did . fini shing it just befo re hi s return to Ho ll ywood. where he moved back to get "close r to t he til." The King brothers found him a house in Highla nd Park. whe re they had grown up . and there he worked through seve n more yearsof the black li st. Th ere he was living whe n hi s a lte r ego . Ro bert Ric h. won the Acade my Award for The Brave One. Trumbo' s sto ry of the boy and the bu ll. And there he was s till whe n the black li st was broken in 1960.

D ssolve. Here we are yea rs later in Trumbo's home-hi s offi ce, hi s den , Look aro und . It isa magnifice nt room. The re are in it ca ri catures by Pete r Ustinov a nd John Hu ston : pho tographs by Trumbo 's wife . Cleo : a library of about a thou sa nd books : copies o f every sc ree npl ay that he is proud e nough to kee p : hi s pre-Co lumbia n art co ll ec ti on , a souven ir of Mex ico C it y: but now here - look as you will -can you see a ny sign of that Oscar awa rd ed to Robert Ri c h for The Bral 'e Olle.

" Whe re is it ?" I <:Isk. "Whe re is what?" . 'The Oscar. The one you won with the phoney

na me, .. I don 't ha ve it." he says. " It was neve r give n to

me. " We ll. co uldn 't yo ujust claim it ?" I ask.

"Everybody knows it's yo urs." "What everybody knows isn't good e nough." he

says with a sigh ... You don ' t c laim an Oscar. It ' s give n to yo u . And so far they have n' t see n fit to give that one to me,"

But now at las t they have. In a kind of co ll ec ti ve and sy mbolic act of contriti on. the offi cers and board of gove rnors of the Academ y of Motion Pic­ture Art sand Sc iences on May 5,1975. awa rded re plica num ber 1665 of the "copyright ed s tatuett e. commonl y kn ow n as 'Oscar,' as an Awa rd for the Moti on Pic ture Story-The Bra "1' 0111' ( 1956)."

It ha s Da lto n Trumbo' s nam e o n it . Tha t makes it o ffi c ia l. I guess yo u ca n say it 's a ll over now. tI

Bruce Cook wri tes for The N miolla J Obsen 'er and Saturday Rel'ielt". Hi s defi nitive biograph y of Dalton Trumbo will be publ ished in 1976.

An inquiry into the arts and crafts of filmmaking through interview semi­nars between Fellows andprominent filmmakers held at Greystone, under the auspices of The American Film Institllte's Center f or Advanced Film Studies. The educational series, di­rected by James Powers, has ap­peared f requently since 1972, and now continues as a regular section of American Film.

Messrs. Brown and Zanuck form an ex­ecutive production team, now operating out of Universal Studios, that has had signal success in fashioning films of high entertainment quality and blockbuster box-office returns. Their association began at 20th Century-Fox, where under the aegis of Darryl F. Zanuck, Brown was the head of the studio' s story department. When, in 1965, the elder Zanuck lifted himself to the chairman­ship of the board , hisson , Richard, as­sumed the production reins, and Brown became his chief associate. With The Sound of Music providing a continuing cash flow, Zanuck and Brown put into production such hits as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, M*A os oH , and Panon. In June 1969, Zanuck became president of Fox, and Brown execu-tive vice-president. The financial structure of Fox, along with that of other studios, began to shake in the

late sixties and early seventies. Zanuck and Brown resigned their high positions in 1971 and were almost at once signed as a producing entity for Warner Bros. , an association that lasted less than a year. Moving on to Universal, Zanuck and Brown put into production The Sting, a super-hit that might otherwise have gone to Warner's, had they stayed. With Jaws, they have, probably, their biggest hit of all. At the timeofthis talk with AFI Fellows at Greystone , in Hollywood, they were not yet aware of the commotion that would be caused by their Great White Shark.

Richard Za/l/lck

Do vid Brown

37

Zariuck: One question we're asked wherever we go is "What is a producer?" It seems that the role of the producer today, and often in the past, has been overlooked and forgotten. When you think of the great founders of the studios, for instance, they were producers . Brown: The producer is first of all the man with the dream. Sometimes he is part promoter, but if he is a true producer he not only finds the property, but he also works endlessly on all versions of the script. In our case, Mr. Zanuck and I (with the writer and di­rector) find no area of the film too mundane to be­come involved in . After years of being generals and having run production companies-Dick as presi­dent of 20th Century-Fox, I as executive vice­president, and both of us as senior executives at Warner Bros. -we learned to be generalists. We 've had an opportunity to get into the guts of a film; and we very much oppose the notion that all producers are money men, that producers are basi­cally promoters. We're not defensive about that; it just doesn't happen to be the case with us.

Question: But in what way does the producer affect the film itself-its style, for instance?

Brown: The producer , we believe, can make a dis­tinct contribution to filmmaking. For example, be­fore the filming of Jaws, Steven Spielberg and the two of us had a very thorough discussion about the style of photography that would be employed. We wanted a straightforward conventional style. We did not want what was done brilliantly and appro­priately by Vilmos Zsigmond in The Sligar/and Ex­press. This was a different kind of story . We had the sea. We had the special effects. Our director agreed and there was no difficulty. But it's an exam­ple of how the tone, the taste, the backing of a director's choices for cameraman, art director, all the keys-everything and everyone-must be sec­onded by the producers. If we differ, we're not afraid to make our differences known .

Question: Specifically , what is your role?

Brown: First of all , we select the subject. Then, with a writer of our choice , we frequently develop it into screenplay form without a director. Obvi­ously , we prefer to do it with a director , but that isn' t always possible. Of course, we never tell a di­rector how to direct. We would replace a director if we had to do that. We select a director for what we believe a director can do for a film. And we operate , we hope , as effective buffers. We take the punish­ment if we ' re over budget, if we're over schedule.

38

Susan Backlinie,jirst victim of the Great White Shark in Jaws.

.--

We keep our director and our cast in protective cus­tody. Zanuck: Let's take JalVs as an example. David and I both received the book manuscript along with a rew other people in the business. It was right off Peter Benchley 's typewriter. We read it im­mediately because we had advance word that it was something special. Independently , as we were reading it, we both decided that it was highly com­mercial. Within 24 hours , we were well into negoti­ations, and we found ourselves in the middle of a fierce bidding contest. We did everything. We got down on bended knee. We made a lot of promises.

Question: What kind of promises?

"It took 13 men just to operate the shark behind a big console. "

Zanuck: We tried to sell Benchley through his agent, since we didn't know Peter at that time, that we were the best men to make the picture . That's all we could do because the other people had as much money and financial resources as we did. It was a question of who was going to make the better picture, and we convinced him that it was us . We worked with Peter on a first-draft screenplay , and after that was completed, we selected Steven as the director. He came in to work with us and Benchley on a second-draft screenplay. Then we started to tackle the really enormous physical problems of putting this on the screen. We had to interview end­less special effects people who worked for Disney, both here and in Florida. But it was like building

Apollo One because it had literally never been done before. We're talking about a 25-foot shark, no animation, no miniatures, that has to do all kinds of wild things. The shark had to look real, otherwise the movie wouldn 't have worked . It had to do ev­erything, including at the end jump out of the water and into the boat.

Our job while the screenwriting was going along was the building of this monster. The question was always in front of us: Would this thing work? Also we were fighting a start date. We had to get on Martha's Vineyard by a certain date, so that we could get in and out before the tourists came and rates tripled. As it turned out, we were there before the tourists, we were there during the tourist sea­son, and we said goodbye to the tourists. A lot of them spent a very fine summer playing extras in the picture. We spent five months on the island shoot­ing, and everything eventually did work. It took 13 men just to operate the shark behind a big console . We fought weather , we fought the sea, we fought the tide-Brown: We fought electron ics .

Question: Since you collaborate on a project. do you have different points of view on what would make a good picture?

Brown: Frequently. And each of us has a veto . Mostly we talk it out. We go through a period of discarding a project and co ming back to it and dis­carding it-that kind of decision-making. What we refer to as "the big yes" comes infrequently. It came onJaws and it came on The Sling. and , in our executive careers, on Butch Cassidy and the SUIl­

dallce Kid, which we read and acquired overnight. M*A ' S *H was an unqualified big yes . PatlOIl was not a big yes. PatlOIl was a very slow yes. Zanuck: It took 20 years to happen. Brown: It was a long yes with many "nos" in be­tween.

Question: But is there anyone particular element that you immediately go for?

Brown: Entertainment. Entertainment. We're very poor at doing genre films for the sole purpose of making money. We discovered that we make them too good and too expensive. Sometimes you can make those pictures too good. So we try to select subjects with distinction. And, believe it or not, we do want to make distinguished films. We want to contribute to film literature. This is so met hing that's not often realized about producers who have a good commercial track record. When we were at

Roy Scheider alld Robert Shaw (Jaws) as the shark takes the bait.

the Cannes Film Fest ival last year with The Sugar­lalld Express, a press conference was called and then abruptly cancell ed because it was discovered it was to be a press conference for producers . They never hold press conferences for producers , only for directors. So we met with the press separatel y. In Europe, more frequently the producer is only a money man, an entrepreneu r. This isn't true of all European producers, obvious ly, but that's the im­pression the press has.

Question: What influences you in your choice of a director for a particular film?

Brown: In the case of Jaws, we knew that Jaws

could be effecti vely directed , a nd maybe more economicall y directed , by an engineer-t ype d irec­tor. And there are many highly respected ones , many that we' ve worked with . But we were shoot­ing for something higher and that reall y costs. We were looking fo r a film a well as a movie. That's why we se lected Spielberg. At first Steve n Spi el­berg was reluctant to take on Jalt's because he rec­ogni zed it wo uld be primaril y a commercial movie and not necessaril y a di stingui shed film . We cOn­vinced him , Dick and I, and I think he now realizes he did make a film as well as a movie . Not that he doesn't respect the big co mmercial movie and re­gard it as a necessary part of his career.

Question: How about the casting of the actors and actresses? I ass ume that's somet hing that you have a veto over.

Zanuck: We certainl y don' t veto di rectors on cast­ing. I mean that wo uld be a form of suicide because you don' t want to have your director directing peo­ple that he thinks are wrong fort he part. We' re very much invo lved in the cast ing, obviously, and we work ve ry closely in casting with the director , try­ing to co me up with choices we can all get excited abo ut. Most of our innuence with di rectors is in the early stages of wri ting the screenplay. We' re fi rm believers that the d irector is in cha rge on the set. And while we' re around , we don't hover over his shoulder . We don' t di cuss set-ups or anything of that natu re.

Question : Do you allow your director to have total authorit y over editing?

Zanuck: The studi o in most cases has the final cut. We don' t have it as producers, nor does the direc­tor have it. In very rare cases, the directo r has the fin al cut , but he has to bring the film in within a cer­tain length , and it' s got to get a certain rating. But we have never . as executi ves or as producers. re­ally exercised the producer's privilege on the direc­tor, which can eve n be countermanded late r by the studio. He cuts the picture. We work closely with him afte r he has presented his first cut. If there are discrepancies and di ffe rences of opinion, they are nushed out in previews .

Question: Most of your work, then, is in pre­production and post-production?

Brown: Yes , but , actually, there's no day that one of us-or more freq uentl y both of us- are not on the set or on the locati on. We conduct our other

42

business wherever we' re shooting. It might be Martha's Vineyard , as it was for five months las t year. That became our headquarters. We were there and we were totally aware of what we nt on. We made suggestions and tried to solve problems without interfering with the director ' s work .

Question: Do you fi nd yourself having to act as mediator between the writer and the director if they get into a hassle?

Brown: Yes. Zanuck: In addition, we have to think of ourselves as buffers. We like to protect the d irector fro m the fina ncial innuences that come to bear at times on a production that really shouldn ' t innuence or worry or concern him while he's in the middle of making a picture.

Question: Could you give us examples of ways in which you have protected directors?

Zanuck: There's always a struggle during the

course of a movie, unless you're under budget , which is unfortunately rare. You' re either hovering around the budget , or so mething has dri ven the budget up a bit. There are pressures that bear on you , and rightl y so . It 's a money problem. It 's not our money, it's not the director' s money, it's not the actors ' money; you' re out there so meplace using somebody else's money. We sign our names to the budget and agree to bring it in at a certain price. When that price starts escalating, whi ch often happens, pressures are applied. !fyo u' re a di­rector who has a strong producer , that producer can act as a buffe r. Otherwise, scenes may be ripped out of the script , all sort s of things can hap­pen. I think most directors feel, when they get into a project with us , one of the things we offer is pro­tection . Brown: During M OA °s oH , Dick was head of the studio and I wa the second man, but we functioned as executi ve producers on all films. I think it 's in­teresting to see how many creati ve decisions are made by the producer and the studio. In thi s case Ingo Preminger was the producer, and the decision

Director S teven Spielberg (ce nter) confers with producers Browll alld Zanuck .

was made not to go to Korea , but to shoot it on a ranch in Malibu . I think it turned out to be a so und artistic decision. A film like that , somewhat larger than life , needed the stylized fee ling of an unrealis­tic setting. Nothing was shot out side Southern California . Zanuck: I remember arguing with Altman . He fi ­nall y had agreed to shoot it at the Fox Ranch, at least the major portion of the picture , instead of going to Korea . But he was holding out to go to Japan fo r the one golf course scene. I had a little leverage because I was president of the company, and we decided to go across the street from Fox to a public golf course, and dress up a few people to look like Japanese woman caddies . It worked fine .

Question: You said earlier you don' t allow directors to get invo lved in the financial side of the fi lm . But suppose that the director' s going over budget.

Brown: I didn ' t mean to gi ve the impression that the di rector is not involved in the financial side of the film . He is more involved than anyone because shoot ing time is the prime costl y ingredient. But once a budget has been agreed upon , a schedule has bee n laid out and everything has bee n approved, and there are overpowering reasons for going over budget or over schedule, we exercise our authority cautiously. We try to keep the morale of the com­pany up . We try to evaluate what is waste and what is not waste. But we have no hesitation in telling the di rector that he's doing a sequence which wi ll never be used. And if he insists, I suppose we would have to say , " We can' t let yo u do it." But the relationship between the director and the pro­ducer is so delicate and so importa nt that you try to win hi s approval through logic and persuasion. He comes to you with his problems. He will value your opinion and support if you can draw a fine line be­tween your responsibility to your backers and your responsibility to your director and the film . It ' s so tough to be a director that he needs all the help he can get.

Question: When you' re dealing as executi ve pro­ducers, and you have other produ cers in the layer betwee n you and the filming, how much do you fol­low day-to-day acti vities?

Zanuck: Sometimes as executive producers we get more involved with the producti on, if that 's possi­ble, than if we were line producers. We ometimes have to unrave l a lot of things . If the producer is in­experienced , we tend to get more in volved. If we're dealing wit h an experienced producer, we step back.

43

M" A "S"H-Ilobody laughed.

Question: If you haven't worked it out with the people beforehand , isn't this a potential area of conflict?

Zanuck: There are always a lot of conflicts going on in making a picture anyway. You play it day by day. I doubt that you can ever sit down at the beginning ofa picture and say, "You do this and I'll do this." Brown: Usually a producer who accepts an execu­tive producer requires something from him-either the ability to get the film made, or the ability to deal with the distributor , which is the same thing, or perhaps creative support, or filmmaking knowl­edge . We believed in The Sugar/lIlld Express . In that case we were personal producers . It had been a Universal project, and it was not getting made. We lent whatever credibility or influence we had to­ward getting it made. Sometimes a producer can have a property and say, "Since I don't seem to be able to get anywhere with this , maybe Zanuck and Brown can get it through ."

Question: Did you decide to pick up The SlIgar/lIlld Express because you liked the property or Spiel­berg? I ask because he was a young director who had never done a feature .

Zanuck: We'd met Spielberg at Fox briefly . He'd brought a project over there he had co-authored and very much wanted to direct. As it turned out, he didn ' t direct it , and we left Fox. But while ac­quiring the property , we talked extensively about another project of his , TheSllgar/alld Express. I was very impressed by him, especially after seeing his little short. But what swung it was our love for the screenplay that Barwood and Robbins wrote. Brown: But the film was Steve's idea. Zanuck: Steve's idea. And it was a combination of

45

our belief in the property, the story. and our belief in Steve that swung us. Later, we made a deal with Universal. We presented the project to them, eve n though they had already put it on turn-around . They permitted us to make it.

Question: What do you do when you get halfway through somethi ng like Jaws and sudden ly the weather is terrible , you' re having difficulties, and your budget's tripled ?

Brown: Pray and press on . We even considered suspending production to gat her our strength and return in the fall. However. experience told us al­ways to press on. At no time did they ask, "What are you doing with that fish?" or "Shoot it in Grif­fith Park Lake" -if there is a lake in Griffith Park. Jaws is an example of studio TfUSt. It is an example of what producers can do with their much battered credibilit y. There were times, I'm sure, when they thought we were in sane. and there were times when we thought we were , too. But we were determi ned to get everything on sc ree n that was in that book. When we bought the right s to the book and reread it. we thought we were crazy. We said to eac h o ther ... How do we do it? How do you get that shark to do those things? How do you get a man to be swallowed by a shark?" When we asked the production wizards. " How do we do it ?" they said, " We don't know." Zanuck: Then we asked the special effects wizards, and they didn't know e ither. Finally we found a re­tired wizard from Di ney.

Question: Do yo u go overt he script as you're shoot­ing and cut seq uences in order to keep from going over budget?

Zanuck: No. We time pictures as we re making them. and if we 're running over, we examine what has n' t been shot to see what's absolutel y neces­sary. We do that kind of cutting on every picture. That went on with Jaws . But we don ' t cut se­quencesjust for financial reasons. Brown: In fact in Jaws we ac tuall y embellished. Mr. Spie lberg found new things for ou r shark to do that they we re never designed to do. With the wizardry that we had on hand, we redesigned as the chall enge grew. We always try to preserve fl ex ibil­ity for the director. We don ' t say, "Well , why didn't you tell us back in Universal City that you wanted a double left turn?" Zanuck: As the challenge grew, the budget grew. Brown: There are two ways to make a movie . One is to have a sc ript, as Alfred Hitchcock always has ,

46

in which every frame of the movie is indicated. The other way is the collaborative process where you have a good script but yo u try to make it better by tak ing advantage of the realities and opportuni ties of the locat ion. In the case of Jaws, we told Peter Benchley to write a scree nplay based on the book: " Just do the book. The book' s fine." He promptl y did, but later he looked at hi s novel as though he were a screenwriter and not the author of it. Soon we all realized there were certai n flaws in the novel from a dramatic standpoint and changes had to be made. The changes conti nued well into Martha's Vineyard, wit h contributi ons by co-writer Carl Gottleib, and the actors themselves. For example, Robert Shaw, who is no mean writer , contributed some marvelous stuff. The point is that the script can either be a work in progress. or a script fro ze n at the beginning of principal photography wit h the writer off somewhere doing another movie. One is not better than the ot her; much depends on the di­rector. Hitchcock told us at a recent luncheon that he would no more improvise during shooti ng than the conductor of the New York Philharmonic would improvise while conducting. He believes the time to improv ise is whe n yo u' re working wit h paper- not film.

Question: In taking the extra time to do Jaws right, were you concerned at all wit h clauses in your con­tract that might penalize you financi all y?

Zanuck: One is always concerned whe n going over budget. We we re concerned about our credibility as producers when Jaws began to rise in cost. We don't have any penalty clause in ou r contract, but we can always be removed, literall y removed. The studio can always send a wi re saying, "We're not going to ship any more fi lm" or " We're goi ng to take the ca meras away" or " Make the rest of the picture on the back lot. "

Question: Most of the pi ctures that you ' ve men­tioned , wi th the exception of M' A ' soH a nd Jaws. have been originals. Do you prefer working with an original screenpl ay rather than an adaptation?

Brown: We deal in very specific terms. We con­sider whatever will ma ke the basis ofa film-it may on ly be an idea. Obviously anyone would like to ha ve a fini shed screenplay because that puts you light yea rs down the road. We saw the script of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and paid the then-highest price in the hi story of the industry for it. We had an idea of how it could be cast. The ma­terial had already been uccessfully realized in

The Sugarland Express-{left to right) William Atherton , Goldie Hawn, and Michael Sacks.

screenplay form. and that 's worth a good deal of money in itself. Put another way, we pay no atten­tion to the parentage , just to the child.

Question: While you were at Fox you made Pretty Poison, Noel Black 's first film. Yet it didn ' t see m to really launch him. Does a " first" film pose spe­cial problems?

Zanuck: I loved Pretty Poison , I loved the sc ript -and I thought Noel did a terrific job wit h it. It was also a favorite of the critics. The distribut ion de­partment , soon after its release, declared it a total failure . Then several sensational reviews came in. We re-released the film, but unfortunately , the re­sults were not much better. Responding to your question about first films, I can only answer it gen­erall y. You just have to go by your gut reaction. When I judge a project-a script, a book, a play-I have no rules . I just go on whether Ilike it or not. I don't try to analyze it in terms of what the public is going to think abo ut it a year-and-a-half down the road. I don ' t try to make that judgment and I don't

47

think anyone's smart enough to do it. Brown: One function of the producer is to get the studio to do all the things that the director claims is never done for the obscure film or the first film or the film that's failing. In the case of Prelly Poison everything was done : ln the case of Tile Sligar/alld Express (which may yet turn a profit) Universal gave us and Steven S pielbe rg-cart~ blanche in de­veloping advert ising and avoiding that studio look. Our early ads were ou r own-Spielberg himself shot one of them. But ou r ca mpaigns didn't work. They failed mi serably. In New York City we learned that any ad with a gun is anathema to the East Side public. On Broadway , however, you have to show lots of guns.

To this day, Universal is experimenting with new cam paigns. Far from giving up on the film , they've tried to find ways of making it succeed. So the work of a young and new director is not necessaril y short-changed. Because Steven Spielberg is in­valuable to us and to Universal Studios where he's under contract, his films get top atte ntion. As to finding hit material, I think yo u have to have a fl air for what's popular. Nobody can teach it , I'm afraid. The primitive showmen of Hollywood who frequently came from other businesses and some of whom could barely speak English knew precisely what interested people, what involved an audience. You know it or you don' t. It isn' t enough to make a good picture. When people come to us and say, "Thi s' ll make a good picture ," we say , "That's not

48

good enough." A good picture is not enough at a time when television commands so much attention.

Question: According to the credits for Tile Stillg, it was a George Roy Hill film , a Tony Bill film , and a Zanuck/Brown film. How was the production re­sponsibi lit y di vided up ?

Zanuck: It too k some refereeing. Basically The Sting came about through a relat ionship that David and I had with Tony Bill and Michael and Julia Phil­lips at Warner Bros . when we were there as execu­ti ves . They had produced an unsuccessful pi cture call ed S teelyard Bilies. But the relat ionship had been good on the production , and shortl y after we left Warners , they came to us and said , " We have what we think is a very good screenplay. But we' re a little shaky afte r Steelyard Blues. It did n' t turn out as we had hoped. The two of you treated us nicely at Warner Bros ., and we wonder if you'd give us some guidance." That's how we got into it. We moved on to Uni versal with an overall deal for our services, and presented Tile Stillg as one of our projects. Then , in associat ion with Tony and the Phillipses we put together the director and the cast. But they were loo king for help , and whether there would have been a picture otherwise is hard tosay.

Question: Some of the films that you've produced have not made money-Willie Dynamite, The Girl From Petrol'ka, The Black Willdmill . Why?

The Sting-"A George Roy Hill film , a Tony Bill film , and a Z{mucklBrown film . . . "

Zanuck: We believed in each one of those pictures . And we worked harder in so me cases than on The Sting. But the nature of the business is such that the odd s of making everything work and come together are aga inst you. It 's like drilling for oil. Brown: They reflect a different philosophy than we have now at a more mature stage in our careers as producers. At that time , the huge so-called block­busters had not surfaced since the disastrous six­ties. We thought we weren't smart enough to pick hits just by making one picture a year, or picking the big one . So we decided to make a horror film , the snake pi cture which got terrific reviews, but it was about one year too late . The kung fu films had already begun to take over the horror market. Our black film was the sa me. We were too late. We were very proud of Willie Dynamite which Gilbert Moses directed with a distinguished cast , but our subject was dated. Everybody we showed the script of Th e Black Windmill to acce pted the role. Each film was created for a reason. What we hadn' t anticipated was the gradu al attrition of public in­terest in non-event films.

Question: None of them were over about $1.5 mil­lion were they?

Brown: They were rather inexpensive.

Question: You took a shotgun approach?

Brown: Exactly. A shotgun a pproach with very good ammunition. We weren't j ust crap shooting. These fi lms took a lot out of us. We 're very proud of them. Some of them have many devotees . Many people felt The Black Windmill was quite a brilliant film , and the snake fil m is a favo rite of many peo­ple. The Girl From Petrovka we had origi nall y de­signed as a film to be made in the Soviet Uni on. That was the excitement of it. We were finall y kicked from one country to another right back to the back lot. We were in Yugoslavia. We were all over Europe . In a single ten-day peri od , I thin k we visited five coutries. Zanuck: No , I think it was ten countries in fi ve days. Brown: But the subj ect was dated, and it was based on a Cold War concept t hat was al read y gone . Goldie Hawn went to Moscow, a great deal of work was spent on it , people believed in it , but , again , the cycle was gone . Zanuck: It' s easy to look back and see where you went wrong. And it's also j ust as mystifying to us to see a pictu re like The Sting, which we're tremen­dously proud of, do that historic business . We'd be

the first ones to admit to you that it 's extraordinary.

Question: I loved Th e Black Windmill . But I never saw much publicity for it.

Brown: Well , I'm responsible for the abominable tit le which Don Siegel fought and which Mr. Zanuck acquiesced to without a struggle, since things were going badl y anyway. But I have a theory about Th e Black Windmill, and that is that I've never known a film dealing with a kidnapping subject orthe abuse of children to do well. I think of this now. but I don' t know why I didn ' t think of it then. I think most peopl e don' t want to go out and see a chi ld being tortured . I also fee l that one of the mistakes producers make is to be intimidated by the willingness of the director or the star to become involved . If we've learned anything as producers and executi ve producers. it' s to seek Ollr own counsel. That a major star or a major star-director is excited about something should not override one's own judgment .

Question: If you were just beginning now, and you didn ' t have a track record , what would you do dif­ferentl y in initiating a project?

Zanuck: You' ve got to reach the literary people, you've got to get the material. Also , if yo u don' t have any kind of a record , you' re on very thin ice. Brown: I'll give you an example. Tony Bill heard David Ward , who wrote Th e Sting, talk abo ut hi s con project. He got David to put agreat deal of it on cassettes. Then he, as I unde rstand it. got together wi th Julia and Michael Phillips and they fin anced the writing of the cript that became The Sting. That didn' t ta ke big money at the start. The point is that the material that made the world 's thi rd largest grossing film did not come as the res ult of a high­priced auction at a New York li te rary agency or in Hollywood from Freddie Fields. It was di scovered by Tony Bill , a yo ung actor. who saw so mething in it and steered it to the right peo ple . People have walked into drugstores and picked up pape rbacks which became John Wayne westerns.

But money isn' t the a nswe r-otherwise every studio in town wou ld be makinga fo rtune. Money is good when you have judgment. The main thing to do is to get to know writers, peopl e who can write a scree nplay. Try to avoid what can be do ne even halfas well on telev ision or has no reall y co mmand­ing theme. Television is the great adver a ry. Even if yo u get a studio to back a nice li tt le fi lm or even a nice big fil m that can be done just as effectively on television, no one will go and see it at a theater.

49

Question: Suppose I'm a writer and I have a script , where do I go from there?

Zanuck: You have to associate yo urself so mehow with people who do get in side the st udio gates. Ste­ven Spielberg literally used to climb over the studio gates-I mean that-until the guards were so ac­customed to see ing him on the lot that they thought he was working there. But the thing you have to do is expose your material to people who have some kind of muscle with the studio or wi th financing ar­rangements.

Question: Do you recommend going through an age nt or goi ng right to a producer? What are the pros a nd cons of each approach?

Brown: The prod ucer probably wo n't read it unless he knows the agent, and that isn't because he's a terrible fellow. But it 's just impossible to deal with the fl ow of material that co mes in even from the es­tablished age nt s. The hardest thing to do is get an agent, because it 's very cost ly to be a c lient. Get­ting an agent is the first break-t hrough.

Question: How do yo u start evaluat ing material? You couldn 't deal with all the screenplays that I'm su re you get unsolicited.

Brown: We don't take them unsolic ited. We have to know the source. They have to be se nt to us. The legal depart ments in the st ud ios learned years ago that, unl ike publi shers. they were not immune to a ll sorts of lawsuits. You can send a book to Double­day, and they'lI read it. But yo u can't send a script to a stud io unl ess yo u know the recipient.

Question: What are yo ur att itudes on previews? Do you believe in changing a film after a preview?

Zanuck: I' ve had many different thoughts on pre­views because we have gone to over 200 previews altogether. I used to think that previews were vit al. But now I think that previews for certain kinds of pictures are vital and not for othe rs. I think it's dangerous to release a drama witho ut a prev iew . Jaws. which we prev iewed in Dallas and in Long Beach. in fact didn't need to be previewed. I think you can feel the way a picture is going as it 's play­ing. and you can feel restlessness. I watch heads more than anyt hing. I can tell a great deal by seeing if people are fidgety a nd moving around or gett ing up to go get a Coke. Brown: I find previews very important in giving friendly pe rsuas ion to your distributor to back the

50

Diana Sands and Roscoe Orman in Willie Dynamite-the downfall of a New York pimp .

film a ll the way. Obviously there are things that can be done to the film if the preview audience te lls you you're in trouble. Generally you can ' t change the course of history too much, but you can improve the film . If you have a fortunate preview, as we had with Jaws and as we had wit h The Sting, all the wheels will start turning just a little faster. The af­firmati on of a public showing, where people begin to cheer, gives heart to everybody , and the adver­tising budgets take off just a little . Zanuck: I remember we were having a sales con­vention at Foxjust at the time M ' A ' s oH was com­pleted. The studio wanted to show the picture to the sales convention , about 250 persons. I was very much against it , but it took place, and it was a disas­trous screening. There wasn ' t any laughter. Fortu­nately, we had set a preview for the following Fri­day at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, and I asked so me of the key people who had come out for the convention to come up to San Francisco. I said , "I'm positive the film is going to work with an audi­ence." But they had made up their minds and had set out on a pattern of distribution and adverti sing. Not until the Warfield preview, where the audience tore the place apart , did they reali ze what they had with that film . I don't think internal screenings are very accurate. Brown: I remember seeing the sales people come up to you r office with very glum looks . Having been through the film in so many versions, we were even disappointed when we ran it for ourselves. It was not until we saw the film with an audie nce that we knew it played brilliantly . The preview is a big morale factor and a big business factor. But some of the most successful previews do not re liably indi­cate who will go to see the movie. They will mea­sure what that particular audience thinks of that film . Zanuck: The onl y time I can remember hav ing a terrible preview-it wasn't a good picture-was for Va lley of the Dolls. We'd gotten helpless laughter in our most dramatic scenes. After the preview, we held a wake in the manager's office. We were all slas hing our wri sts or abo ut to, and the picture turned out to be a hit. But the reverse can happen, and happens frequently, where you have a sensa­tional preview , a ll the cards are great. the audie nce is cheeri ng, and everybody is opening champagne: The picture goes out and dies. It happened with Star! Hello, Dolly as a stage show had done $40 mil­lion box office gross in the United States. We had tremendous internal showings among the execu­tives. Everybody was certain that this was going to be our Sound of Music. We thought the picture was great. It had Barbra Streisand , Walter Matthau-it

worked beautifully. We took it to Phoenix for pre­views. To o ur astonishment , despite announce­ments on the air that Hello, Dolly was to be shown, there was half a house. We became desperate. We got on the public address system and we were beg­ging people to come to the theater. We should've known then we were in trouble. In Dallas where we previewed Jaws , there were perhaps 2,000 people standing in a hail storm. They were waiting in line three hours before show time to see The Towering Iliferno first, in order to insure that they would get to see Jaws. We had to schedule a second preview at II o'clock to keep the crowds content. Certain previews will tell you if the film has charisma for the movie-goingpublic.

Question: How do you decide where to preview?

Zanuck: There have been many instances where people have previewed with the wrong film in the wrong place at the wrong time. [think that one of the prime concerns is what type of picture is play­ing in the theater. That's more important than where you go. You obviously don ' t want a lot of people who've come to see John Wayne suddenly see Jack Lemmon or a comedy. They' re not the au­dience you're looking for.

Question: How do you feel about publicity during a production? An example is The Great Gatsby .

Brown: Our theory is that you can' t create public­ity from unpublicizable gush. In the case of Jaws , as you know , we had the world's press arriving at Martha's Vineyard. Seventy personalities , among them Walter Cronkite , John Chancellor, Mike Wal­lace , and Dick Cavett , stood on the set just to see what was going on. Time, Paris Match, German television came in by every boat and plane. The real problem is what to do when shooting ends -<luring that year or nine-month period between the end of photography and the release of the film. Zanuck: Production publicity has to be based on a

solid foundation. For Gatsby it was talking about the Gatsby-izing of wardrobe a nd the "Gatsby look," ratherthan what was going on in the picture. [think that can backfire. I' m not saying it did in this case, but you can overdo publicity about a lot of superficial thi·ngs. Brown: We keep the publicity going after the shooting stops. We have no publicity man operat­ing for Zanuck/Brown. We have the facilitie s of the MCNUniversal world wide publicity and advertis­ing departments, but we also believe in personal approaches to the press. We don't work through in­termediaries. We don't ho ld press conferences with P.R. men monitoring our interviews.

Question: For Jaws a tremendous amount of money was spent on a very short, but intense , na­tional campaign. Who made that decision and what control did you have?

Zanuck: It was ajoint decision between David and me and Uni versal, which had final say, obvious ly, since they ' re the distributors. Jaws has gotten a massive release in about 500 theaters with a very in­tensive television campaign , probably the biggest, [ would say, of a ll time. The deals Universal has made are extraordinary. The sho rtest deal in any theater is nine weeks .

Question: Was this campaign yo ur idea o r Universal's?

Brown: No, it was devised by Universal and it's revolutionary. The old idea was to take a class film, which we hope Jaws is as well as a mass film , and open it first in New York , probably at an East Sid e house, then in Westwood , and then let the media percolate to the peasants of the world the word that it 's a great hit. The Godfather broke that pattern because of the demand to see it. When Paramount released The Godjillher, it released it simulta­neously in many houses that previously had never played anything but single exclusive engagements.

51

It has become apparent to dist ributors today that they can get their money back faste r and satisfy the demand to see a film by adopting a broader release pattern . When yo u have a film like JalVs, why make audiences wait six month s or a year? Wh y make them stand in line with no hope of getting in ? !f you have enough seats for a film , you can probabl y do as well as or better tha n the old exclusive engage­ment pattern . The S lillg, even though we had Paul New ma n and Robert Redfo rd and Geo rge Roy Hill , still opened more slowly. We had to get word of mouth out to the public. And we didn 't want to take the chance of having it overexposed too soon unt il it started to build.

Question: Do you find a great deal of d ifference geographicall y in how a pi cture is going to be re­cei ved? Does that affect your promo ti on?

Brown: We had th e opportunit y to see The Slillg in 20 countri es a ll over the world and in many cit ies here. The audience's reaction was ide ntical in every ci ty. Adverti sing is frequentl y keyed to a Los Angeles-New York exclusive engageme nt , and another campaign deve loped for wider engage­ment s . There are also backup campaigns fo r pic­tures that open slowly. But! haven 't fo und geog­raph y to be any proble m, except with subject mat­terthat simpl y was not comprehens ible to the coun­try. Of cou rse, there are certain phe nome nal re­gio nal hits- Wa lkillg Tall, fo r exampl e, the kind of picture that builds great waves in the So uth and So uth west.

Question: I' ve been told that one of the majors is extremely reluctant to make a film overseas unless the scri pt is absolutely dynamite . Do yo u s hare thi s re luctance abo ut shooting overseas? Are you wor­ried about being labeled a runaway prod ucti on?

Zanuck: No. I thin k we ' re well past that. I haven' t heard of any stu dio with that kind of approach. But we li ke to make pictures where they take place -where the locale works fo r you. And that' s why we chose Martha's Vineyard. which had never been on the scree n before , for Jaws . If the story takes place overseas, all things being practical, we 'd like to shoot it right where it takes place . Brown: T he test is are you using the overseas loca­tion as a counterfe it location for an A merican west­ern . or are yo u trying to do a film in a location for economic reasons onl y? That's runaway produc­tion. But if yo u reall y have to shoot in Scotland, and there ' s no other place that you' ve surveyed that wi ll do , yo u have a reason to go.

52

Zanuck: Getting back to The Slillg . That would have been a runaway production if we'd shot it in Chicago. It was set in Chicago , but, in fact , the pic­ture was made entirely on the backlot of Universal, with the exception of three or four days' work in Chicago for some of the interior work , the train sta­tion , and such.

Question: You touched briefly on the international aspects of the movie business . Does the publicit y approach fo r a fi lm change for overseas?

Zanuck: It depends on the pic ture . For The Slillg, for example, the campaign was consistent around the world. The campaign on Ja lVs has been pretty consistent from a vi sual standpoint. The Suga rland Express used a different campaign, stressing more the action of the cars and the road . But we' ve got the whole world out there , and as producers we so metimes find ourselves thinking domesticall y and forgetting the huge markets of Japan and Europe . They' re tremendously important.

Question: Has there been any a ttempt at thi s point to open the market in Red China?

Brown: I'm not qualified to answer that question. I'm sure the Motion Pic ture Association or the overseas branch of it under Jack Valenti would love to open Red China , just as the Sov iet Uni on has been repeatedly a pproached . Many films have been sent to the Soviet Union. I remember years ago a t 20th Century-Fox the film the Sov ie t Union wanted at that time was The Grapeso[ Wralh . Zanuck: They wouldn ' t take TheSollnd o[Mlisic . Brown: They would never take the films which portrayed any side of the United Sta tes they didn 't want to see . But if we could open Red China to American films, it would be an enormous boost to the film industry. The problem with non-English­language films is that we rarely can reciprocate in patronage . India produces more films than Hol­lywood , and yet Indian films are so unappealing in thi s country that trade barriers are frequentl y raised . A hit English-speaking film with lots o f ac­tion is popular the world over, whether sub-titled or dubbed. But the national film , even the French and Ita lian film , has a demonstrabl y limited audience. I wish that were not so. Of course today the national films dominate the countries from which they spring, unli ke the days when the American fi lm dominated the world . It is a rare fi lm li ke The Sl ing, for instance, that achieves the number one position in France . I'd love to get our films into Red China. ! think they'd go for The Slillg .

HIS CIA CODE NAME IS CONDOR. IN THE NEXT SEVENTY-TWO HOURS ALMOST EVERYONE HE TRUSTS

WILL

DINO DE lAUAENTIIS PRESENTS

ROBERT REDFORD/ FAYE DUNAWAY CLIFF ROBERTSON / MAX VON SYDOW

IN A STANLEY SCHNEIDER PRODUCTION

A SYDNEY POLLACK FILM

'.0 ~ ... JOH N HOUSEMAN / MuSICBv DAVID GRUS INleaSEOON !HE NOYEl Sl l D"YSO~ THE CO NDOR 8y JAMES GRADY:'" ...•• IRI _ "!!'.::,,"~ ... , .,. I '''".,,'''' LORENZO SEMPLE. JR. '.0 DAVID RAYFIEL/ .. ooucw" STANLEY SCHNEIDER Jf?~i ... . .. .... I)IIIECTEO BY SYDNEY POLLACK I PANAVISION"' / TECHNICOlOR* I A PARAMOUNT RelEASE "- - -.

NOW PLAYING MAJOR CITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY!

Copyright <D 1975 by Walt er K err

54

Lloyd Hamilton, ill rhe si/em A Self-Made Failure . " Impertinently offered improbabilities."

®fiil@IID~@~ The Unique Experience

Sil e nt film is a dead fo rm as La ti n is a dead la nguage. Ne ithe r co rrespo nd s to O Uf day-la-day patt e rns of see ing o r hearing. Neither is cu rrent coin . ne ithe r is goi ng to playa prufit a bl e part in that part of our li ves tha t is changing and growing. Ne il her has a [uture as we have futu res that a rc e te rnall y pres­e nt to us. d ic ta ting most of w hat we do and think and perm i t ourselves to feel . We arc shul off f ro m one another : While we a l e li ving li ves these things arc in li mbo. Ghosts again . on the dou­ble.

Bu t th is can be discovered to have it s own spec ia l pleasure. the re is a re­ward to be had for the sac rific ial kill ­ing. T he virtue o f a dead fo rm is tha t it can be see n whole. 0 contemporary film or nove l or pil inting-lcl alone a piece of mu sic-can be known in thi s way. in it s ulti mate fu lln ess. with a ll bound ari es drawn a nd the bo undaries filled . Wha t is conte mpo ra ry with our· se lves . sha ring o ur li ving. is still fluid . unfini s hed . working it s way toward a destina ti o n tha t ca nno t ye t be de· sc ribed o r even imagin ed. No ma tt e r how delight ful . Ollr co nte mpo ra ry e x­pc ric nces are a ll ste ps in the da rk . ex· plo ra to ry a d va nces witho ut-as ye t

Silent Comedy Reconsidered

-definiti o n . No man ca n say w here a bs trac t exp ress io nis m o r (he theale r o r mll sic o f c ha nce o r t he c urre nt mo· tio n pic tu re will l.: nd. With the e nd un · know n . no o ne pieccof work in it s prog ress can be a ss igned a prec ise ro le in that progress. Judg me nts-eve n respo nses-mu st be te mpo rary. te nta­li ve. in part inhibit ed. Whe re is it going? Wa it a nd see. Wha t va lue can be assigned thi s pa rtic ul ar s tep in the dark ? So meone will say. so meti me.

A dead fo rm. by its termi nat io n. re· laxes inhi b itio n. The re it a ll is. begin · ning. middl e. a nd e nd. inspiration a nd ac hieve ment. known limi tat io n a nd co mpe nsa tio n. f£l lse-s tar ts and s ide· trac k sa nd s uccessful defi a fl ees. A closed boo k. yes. But w ith the las t page w rill e n. nOll1ladd e ningly mi ss ing just as we have grow n int e rested in lh..: stor y. Co uld t he fo rm ha vc grown . ch(1 ngcd . lIn earthed unrea li zed impli · ca tion s. ifit hadn' t died Of bee n ki ll ed ? The qu esti o n docs no l concern us: Spec ula ti o n is irre le va nl beca use we ho ld in o ur ha nd s a/ail accolJlpli. The fo rm 's bOll nda ries a re visi b le. es t <lb· li shed. perma n~ nt nu\\. B~ in g. t:s tah· li s hed. they free li S to pl a y ins ide them. awa re o f w he re we are the who le time:

Walter Kerr

55

the sa ti sfa c tion is like the sati sfaction. and the fre edo m. c hildren feel when it has been made c lea r to them p rec ise ly where Ihe ir bo undarie s are. Thi s k ind of pleasu re. lik e thi s kind offreedom. is o f cou rse o nl y one k ind. and not the kind we requ ire w he n we are bu sy gel­ling o n with a li I' unfin ished work. But it is rea l nonethel ess . whi c h is w hy man y men have alway s reli s hed pl ay­ing in s id e the com pleted world s of Latin and Greek. A completed world can be seen more c learl y. possessed more absolutel y . exp lored less fear­fully. perhaps loved more di sinterest ­ed ly . I n coming 10 a n e nd. silent fil m did becom e an ab:-.o lute. w hic h mean s that it can be absolutely kn own . That ca n be-as ind eed il mu s t be - happi ne ss e nough .

What do we see as we loo k bac k now w ith a detac hm e nt that ca nn ot be s ub­ve rted? We sec that all silent film. seriou s or com ic. was 1~\I1tasy - fant asy of a hithe rto unkn own . pa rt I Y acc ide nt a l. h ighl y origi nal. peculiarl y li te ral kind. I a m not s pea k­ing now of the subjective fanta s ies that it did ind eed e ngender in a good man y wi II i ng hea rt s . of t he rapt u res o f ma­trons pers uad ed that it was the m Valentino he ld in hi s arm s . oflhe wis h­fulfillment boys and me n found in im agining t he msel ves a s lithe a s Fair­bank s and a s s ua vely pers ua sive as Ro nal d Colman. When I was thirtee n I made friend s with a projectioni st in our town: he ofte n let me co rne up into the booth whil e he was showing o r eve n clltt ing film. C utting was ne cessa ry because our 10\\ n.l ike Illan y to wns then. had a ce nso r: The ce nsor would view the film in the mo rning. o rde r de­let ion s . and the projectioni st wo uld "purify" th e film be fore the fir s t after­noon run. Th e c ut fi lm was neve r re­storeo tothe print s. w hic h in pa rt ac­counts for the aston ishingl y mutilated form in w hi c h man y film s-copied from prints rather than the va nished negativcs-survive toda y. Co nce ive o f the co nd it ion ofa print aft er the ce n­sors ofa hundred towns had had thei r say ~ The exc ised film we nt into the wasteha s ket. frolll which. with the projec tion ist" s gen ial co nni vance. I wa s free 10 retrieve it. After aw hile. in a nice littl e pile a t ho me. I had what mlls t unqu esti o na bl y have been the most ex te ns ive co ll ec tion of s hot s of Vilma BClnk y 's decoll e tage ex isti ng a nyw herc in America. I had a tiny Ke ystone hand-c ranked proj ec tor.

56

Lloyd Hamilton lI'ith Bea trice Lillie in A re You T he re? ., Work superior to thai of do zens of other amiable clowns . . ,

too, of course. I know w hat it is to f::ln ­ta size.

Ce rta inl y film s e nco uraged thi s so rt o f pri va te rha psod y. oft e n eno ugh de­libera te ly: Ho ll ywood was n ' t co n­sta ntl y called a " drea m fac to ry" for no th ing . And sile nce provided a be tte r wo mb fo r it than sou nd does: The still a udit o rium grazed o nl y by mu s ic. the fo rtunate wo rdless ness o f the Ta l­madges a nd the n Garbos who could no t ta lk bac k when sec re tl y a p­proac hed . o r ma ke diffic ult ve rbal de­mand s upo n th e drea me r . It was easier to"" Milt o n S ill s o r Agne s Ay res in the c ircu msta nce s .

But thi s sort o f subjec ti ve fa ntas iz-i ng is a nat ura l te nd e ncy o f all ti l m , whethe r sil en t o r so und . The Fre nc h film critic And re Belli n ha s made the point tha t film - rat he r tha n the stage-is the medium with w hic h we ident ify. Wc do so because there is no thing else we can do. There is no pe rfo rmer p rese nll o us in the nes h, as the re is o n thc stage. no o nc we ca n c ha lle nge. int erru pt. catc h in a human flaw: the fi gure on a screen i!'! already so remote from us that \\ c sca rce ly da re doubt him. Beca use the ac to r we see m to be watc hing is a lread y o f Ti n Africa making yet a not her film . quite o ul of ea rs hoL \~e can not con tend with him as we cons t!lnt ly co ntent! with an actoron the stag~. be liev ing, d isbe li ev­ing. wi t hdrawing a nd assent ing fro m mo me nt to mo men t. se nding lip signal s o f o ur prese nt pleas Li re or d i spleas u re by o ur applause. o ur s ile nce. o ur rest­less ness . ou r vc ry hreathing. In IiIms. w ith the ac to r absen t and o nl y his shado w remai ning. there is nol hing fo r a n a udie nce to do but attac h it se lf firml y to the phamom a nd go fo r the rid e. This is a simplification o f M. Baz in 's a rgume nt . w hi ch is a mos t coge nt o ne. but eve n it s o lltlines s ug­gest the uni q ue e mbrace. the pro-fou nd I y o ne-s idcll III fllchm ellf. t ha l grow s up in t he mind o f the SpeC lC:l tor for I he attractive blltun respo n s i v~ fi g­lIrc o n a screcn. Perversel y. we care more for the actor beca use he can ca re not hi ng for us: he doe sn'l k now li S .

is n ' t aware thai wc a re the re . In stead o f becoming companions or even combata nt s . as we do in the legitimate thea ter. we hecome fa ithfu l dogs . a nd foll ow adoringly at heel.

Bu!. tho ugh s ile nce aided a nd abe t­ted s uc h id e ntification in ce rtain obvi­ous ways. this kind offa ntasiz ing is reall ya property offi lm as suc h . a nd so

Harold Lloyd , Dick S utherlalld alld Mildred Davis ill A Sailor-M ade Ma n.

" Firs t spreading o[l1'ings . ..

Doug/as Fairbanks cheerJlllly dlleled a doze" opponents ill th e 1920 epic . The Mark o f Zorro.

I wasjust in time to see Ha ro ld L1oyd 's fir st tent a-ti ve sp read ing o f hi s agile wings beyond short com­edies in a fo rt y-minute' . feature .. ca lled A Sailo/"­Made A1an. just in time to sec Do uglas Fa irbanks begin hi s cos tum e film s by c heerfull y dueling a doze n o ppo ne nt s w hile sitting cross-legged o n a table in Th e /\1ark o[Zorro. just in time to wa tc h cave ma n Bus ter Keato n drag his mate by the hair across a prehi slo ric s kyline inhis fir st feature. Three AJ:es. Th o ugh I had bee n. and remained a n avid reade r . it waso n Saturday aftern oons tha t the mirro r of the wo rld o pened up a nd let me through. If Fai rbanks wasa ge ni e loosed to s pirit him se lf o nt o c hu rc h-tops . high a mo ng the miss io n bell s. the clowns we re no less magica l: Outsize. omnipotent c rea tures e merged from so me Druidical fo rest to cast s pe ll s on a pliable uni ve rse. If. in The N(II '­igator. Keato n s low ly e merged fro m the wa ter a t ocean 's edge e ncaged in the mo ns trous he lmet a nd inn ated body o f a dee p- sea diver to see m a n a ve nging god to the hundreds o f cannibal s w ho had ca ptured hi s girl. it was no happenstance o f pl ot­ting. Gods is what they wc rc . 1110re than men.

Walt er Kerr . Th" Sil,,"t ClOII" II S

57

ha s s urvived into so und . Ma rl e ne Die tri c h. light ed by Sternbe rg a nd mov ing thro ugh hi s myriad gauzes . became a c ult-object a lmost a s read ily as Garbo had do ne ear li er. though all of M iss Diet ri ch' s succe sse s were in ta lking fil ms . Th e special q ualit y o f sile nt-film fa nt asy re sted o n a no the r. muc h firmer. base.

It was fan ta sy objec tive ly. ab­strac tl y . o f the e sse nce. bred in the bone. T he fa nta sy was no t in the view­e rs heads but in the film . loc ked the re. the ne ce ssa ry result of the di verse and in fac t contrad ictory c le me nt s that had co me toget he r to create it . Co ns ider how casuall y t he c le me nt s o f built -in fant a sy pl ay ac ross the sc reen - work­ing mino r miracle s in pass ing- a nd how na tura ll y the y a re acce pted in a co mmonpl ace sho rt co med y of the 19205. Ll oyd Ham ilt on ' s M Vl'e A/VI/g . I havc called Mr. Ha milt on 's co med y co mmo npl ace . tho ugh it is no t quit e that : muc h of Mr. Ha milt on' s work was supe ri or to that o f doze ns of ot her amiable c lown s who never quit e made the jump int o fea ture film s. But a more o r less reg ula ti on sho rt comed y. one of thousa nd s made in the decade as sup­port fo r fea ture film s . ma y serve belt er tha n a n importa nt one to he lp us sec clea rl y what wa s s impl y ta ke n for g ranted .

I n M o ,'" A/o l/g. Mr. Ha milt o n is hav ing an exceedingly diffi c ult tim e tryingto ti e hi ss hoe lace . He is on a pu blic stree t . a nd yo u know how tha t is . Whe re do you put foo t whil e yo u do it? Mr. Hamilto n-a pl umpi sh ma n with dainty finge rs . a waddle \valk . a nd a pa ncake ha t se t ho ri zu n ta ll y on the prim . doughy moo n of hi s face -se izes eve ry reasona bl e opportunit y.

He s pi es a woode n box but the box colla pses a t t he touc h of hi s foo t. The re is a n a shca n a head. Ha ste ning towa rd it and with hi s toe poised fo r the li f t . he is forced to he sit a te brien y and po litely while seve ral pa sse rsby c ross hi s pat h. T he mo me nt t he y a re go ne . he re sume s hi s fo rwa rd rh ythm o nl y to sec the a shca n ho isted away fro m him , in to the air. A pkkup ma n is e mpt ying it.

Mov ing a long . as bot h the titl e and an o mniprese nt puli ce ma n a re co n-

sta ntl y urging him to do . he beco mes a bit more de sperate. An e lderly frock­coated ge ntle man is be nt nea rl y do ubl e a tte mpting to re move a bit of mud from a wo ma n's shoe. Mr. Ha milt on pro mptl y places hi s foot o n the ge ntle man 's bac kside. more o r less doubling the image like ac roba ts as­ce ndingo ne a no the r . o nl y to have the ge ntl e ma n turn o n him , naturall y. vio­le ntl y.

Fortunately .just alo ng the c urb the re sta nd s a wate rwagon , its rear whee l ex posed . in viting. a nd of suit­abl e height. Going to it with so me dig­nit y. Mr. Ha milton begins hi s o pe ra­tion onl y to rece ive the full spray of the wagon, whi c h is o f course ins ta ntl y turned on .

Without furth er ado. Mr. Ha mil to n marc he s direc tl y into the ce nt er o f the stree t a nd ha il s a stree tcar. The street­car stops . Mr . Ha milto n put s hi s foot on the streetcar's runningboard a nd tie s hi s shoelace. He the n wave s the stree tcar awa y.

I a m dee pl y e na mo red of that stree t­car. no t to me nti on the use to whi c h it is put. For. in thi s tin y fragm ent o f film . a ll of the e ssenti a l ingredie nt s o f sil e nt film co medy a re full y pre se nt. The stree tcar is a real streetca r. It moves. And it moves witho ut a sound .

Eac h of the se ingredie nt s is vit a ll y impon an t . Befo re trying to sa y why . let me co rnpl ete the reco rd ofMr. H (jJnilt on ' s d iffic ull da y.

He is hungry a nd needs " job. O ut ­side a n e mpl oyme nt offi ce the re is a s ign sa ying tha t ten peo ple are wa nt ed . Ni ne <He in line. Mr. Hamill on jo in s the line. Th e n. direc tl y be hind him . a ppears a wa iflik e yu ung lad y. ha lfin tears bu t very sweet. A natura l no ble· ma n. Mr. Ha mill on surre nd ers hi s pl ace to he r and acce pt s e leve nth posi­tio n. As he ar ri ve s a t the doo r. the dour is s la mmed in hi s face, whi c h is wha t we ex pec t . But hc rece ive s a mos t e n­gi1gi ng. a nd I wo uld sa y utt c rl y heart­less . gesture of thank-you from the girl thro ugh the wi ndow,

S till hungry . he pa sse s a resta ura nt a nd is able to see. thro ugh th e pl a tc glass . a wealth y c usto me r putting down a go urm et ' s mea l. \Vhil e he is sta nding I here, yea rning, a wa it e r fru m th e resta uran t lea ves by the street doo r carrying a full dinne r o n a tra y. The ta ke-out orde r is ba la nced un the wai te r' s fl a t pa lm al exac tl y Mr. Ha mil to n 's head -he ight . We see the wait er pa ss Mr . Hamill on so c lose ly

tha t the tray s lides impe rce pti bly ont o the top of Mr. Ha milton ' s head. whe re it re ma in s as the wa it er va ni she s fro m view. Mr. Ha mill on co ntinu e s to yea rn , no t knowing what t reas ure s c row n him. The t ra y is re trieved be­fo re he ca n di scove r a nd ta ke ad va n­tage of hi s good fort un e .

udged alo ng once aga in by the po lice man who see ms to be hi s gua rd ­ia n devil. he re turn s to hi s roo ming ho use . A milk bottl e sta nd s o ut sidc a ne ighbor' s door. As he reac he s fo r it, it is ta ke n in . In hi s roo m. hi s landl ady sta nd s read y to e vic t him , Q ut he goes. ta king hi s bed a nd his trunk with him - t he re is a rid e down a stairwa y o n t he bed he re - to do what he can to ma ke a ho me fo r him se lf on the s treet s. He se ttl e s fo r lodgings unde r a s lo re­awning. ope ning hi s tr unk to ha ng a pic ture, lI si ng one large h<:i t a s a shade fo r the lamppos t : a sma llc r one stu c k on a stic k fo r a n a shtra y. Th e a lar m c loc k is wo und a nd placed on a fi re­plug. a nd Mr. Ha milt on snugg le s int o bed unde r the aw ning. It begins to ra in . It ra in s ha rd e nough to fillih e a wning like a ca nva s tu b a nd the n to ove rflo w it . dumping so me ga llons of wate r dow n ont o Mr. Ha millo n ' s b id e-a­wee . La te r. the ra in turn s to snow a nd a new in ve nti ve ne ss will be requi red.

Now at fir st s ight the style of the lit ­tl e film . the in spiratio n fo r Ihi s la st se·

Hamiltoll achiel'ed stardom through t lt'o -reeli' f'S such as The Vagra nt .

quence. and even some of its particular sig ht-gags. may see m c lose ly related to-even ident ical with-a seq uence that Fred and Adele Asta ire once per­formed in a P.G. Wodeho use-G uy Bol­ton Broadway musical. T he Astaires also we re evic ted. The y a lso se t up light housekeeping on the street. A pi c­ture was hung. the coffee percobtor was plugged into lamppost and hy­drant. And it d id begin to rain. The y danced in the rain.

Y et t here is a wo rld of difference be­tween the two. Both. to be sure . arc fantasie s. T hey are impertinent ly of­fe red improbabi lit ie s whi ch are pe r­fect ly willing. with a wi nk. to become imposs ibilit ies. It is not rea ll y possible to cook by stree t lamp. at least not in the time a ll otted . It is not rea ll y poss i­ble for a man to support a fu ll tra y o n hi s head wit hollt knowing that sUIlI('rhillK is t here. The underl ying as­sumpt ion of both is that they are not to be belie ved. They offer fa lse worlds to be entered . as one wou ld en ter a con­spiracy. Enter . and you wi ll see how much fun it is.

But stage fantasy and fi lm fantasy arc rad icall y d ifferent things. Stage fa nt asy . so to speak. is fanta sy all of a piece. Everyt hing is fa lse at once. making for an easy consistency. The backdrop is fa lse : T he room ing house from whi ch the Astaires arc ev icted is

onl y. a nd plain ly. paint. The props a re false: no re(j l street lamps. no rea l fi re­plugs. The st ree t is fal se: It is s impl y the stage noor: in a moment it wi ll be a ball room. The ra in is fal se: It is created by a pinwheel of light and not eve n by a thin sheet of water carried offin a trough: though the stage ca n in fact perform thi s last trick. it wou ld not have done so in thi s case lest the danc­e rs s lip o n the overs pray. The whole brightly co lo red. brill ia nt I y and a rbi­traril y lighted environment in which the Astaires wo rked was ca nd idl y un­rea l to begin wit h: the perfo rmers are surrounded. bounded. by artifice. It is not so difficult to smile and be have preposterously. to do unrea l things in an enchantingly art ifica l way. in a uni­ve rse ready-made for the prank.

But film ? The stree ts are rea l. the streetcars are real. the trashcans. the trays. the water-wagons and the water in them are all rea l. Wh e n the camera­man ca ll ed "Cut !"-ifhe did a nything so convent ional-once the awn ing had split a nd the deluge been loosed upon Mr. H ami lton . Mr. H amilton wasw('1.

Fi lm was. to begin with . fa ct. not fancy. That was it s fi rst appeal. For a lo ng time it was its o nly appeal. To the e nd of it s day s it will neve r escape the consequences. or the obligations. of being permanently bound to fac t. of being indebted to it for it s excitement

Hamilton in a thirties short. With sound came his decline.

and dependent upon it for it s integrity. A cardboard stree tcar wo uld not have done. Th e ca rdboa rd train on whi ch Jack Oakie ani ve s to Illeet C harl ie Chaplin in Tlte Grear Dictator is read­il y detectable. and it spoils what wo uld otherwise have been an ext remely funn y seque ncc. Our steady expec ta­ti on of the camera is that it will give us actual it y. not art ifice.

How muc h more difficult and un­like ly fo r it. then. to have a rri ved at even so simple a fantastic impro visa­ti on as the briefA1o\' (-' Atollg. That a medium co mmitted to actuality should have embroiled it se lf in fanta sy at a ll - putting pe rfec tl y real objec ts to slic h ve ry odd uses-was not to ha ve been loo ked for. That it sho ul d have made fa ntasy it s principal prod uct for so mething like twent y-s ix yea rs is now. even in re trospec t . asto ni shing. For so strange a thing to ha ve hap­pe neel. film wo ul d have had to invent- by hook or crook or happens tance-fantasy of an <:Ibso­lutely unprecedented kind. unrelated to anyt hing the stage had done before it. indifferent eve n to t hc met hods of Aeso p or of Swift. Th at is what it did do. It in ve nt ed a fantas y o ffa ct. n Thi s articl e is adapted from Tlt e Sile1lf ClOI\'IIS by Wal ter Kerr.to be publ ished la te rthi s year by Alfred A. Knopf. Inc.

The End ofthe

Beginning

Rod Perry (l nd Cife ly TysolI : The Autobiogra ph y o f Mi ss Ja ne Pittma n-"tl l1l1ll l' \ 'flS ; \'(J

look althe rea lil ies of black history ill America.

Charles C hamplin

In the mid<.lI c of the 1 970~ it is hard to imagine how we cou ld be: mo re thoro ugh ly televis io n-satu ra ted tha n we arc. Slali:-.ti..:s compi led by the au tho rita­t ive trad e p ub licat io n . B roadcasting magaz ine. re­veal ed I ha l al l he e nd o f 1974 1 he re we re 11 2 million telev isio n se ts in II :-'C in 6X.) mill ion Unit ed Sta tes households. In nt her word s. television is watched in 97 perce lll ura ll A l11 l!ri ca n ho mes (exc luding Alaska a nd Hawa ii). T he ot her 3 perce n l still slar­ing a l the ir rad ios see ms to be an ir reduc ible minimu m: it did 1101 c hange from the p rev io ll s year.

\Vhi lc survey sa rn pli ngs are sus pect. the A. C. N ie l"cn organizat io n ' s es timate is that in the aver· age hou ~ehold in 197-t te levision was watc hed fo r six ho u rs and forty· nine m in utes a day. In the cou r~e ofa \\ ec k televis io n reached some thing li ke 87 pc rct.: nt o f eve ryone in t he co un try beyo nd the age of:-.evcn lec n (and a vcry large s lice of those unde r ~cvcn l cc n as we ll). Ad ve rti se rs spe nt more tha n 53.5 bi llio n trying 10 reac h the te lev isio n a ud i· e nce. wh ic h work s o ut to about S5 1 for eve ry ho ust.: hu ld . w hic h wo rk s o ut In a lo t o f do ll a rs.

Fro m its s ta nd ing sta l'l in 1954 . c o lor te lev isio n inc hed a lo ng un t il it s b ig brea kt hroug h in 1964 . w he n 1.7 milli o n se ts we re so ld. Th e fo llowing yea r 3 millio n se ts we re sold . a ye ar lat er :; milli o n . a nd the ycaraft e rthat6.3 milli on. By now the re a re more I han ·n m ill ion co lo r set s in use.

BUl lht.: most ~ i g ni fi ca nl new sta ti slic (and the o ne.! showing I he ~ t cc pcs t c limb) is the numbe r o f home ".:kvi~ i on ~cls now linked tocable systems. T he late:"1 e~tima l e by B mac/cas l in,!.! magazine ea rly in 1975\\<1.., 11 pcrccnt-o r 8.:! m ill ion ho use ho lds. an i llc rca~l' urmor-et ha n 2 mi ll ion homes in on ly a year. By I Y~O. 60 pe rce nl o f Ame rica n ho use ho ld s are expecled 10 be cab le- linked.

Wha t t he cable d e live ry syste ms mea n for te levi· sinn as a medium is divers it y-a d e li vera nce 1'1'0 111

the Iyra nn y of bo x· ca r num bers th a t spe ll s uccess

60

o r fa ilure fo r ne t work progra ming . or ind eed fo r a ll co mmerc ia l progra ming. Cable hoo kups have a l· ready mea nt new a udie nces a nd new life fo r ma ny o f the U HF sta tio ns. w hose sig na ls witho ut c able a re diffic ult 10 rece ive. Cable has bee n par ti c ula rl y be nefi c ia l to educ ationa l s ta tions (s uc h as KCET -Channe l 28 - lhe Pu b lic Broadcasl ing o ul ­le i in Los Ange le s) Irapped in Ihe U HF g he ll o a nd unable 10 b uy Ihei r way o nl o I he V H F d ia l. KCET is now ho me·d c li ve red by mo re tha n tift y differe nt cable sys tc ms ove r a fa r wid e r a rea tha n a V H F sig na l covers in Los Ange les a nd no lo nger has a ny real need to try for a VH F c han ne l a llocati o n . Si nce the las t VH F sta ti on to co me o nto the ma rke t in Southe rn Califo rni a was be ing o ffered at S 15mi l· li o n . it is good that t he s ta tio n is no t p ressed to go 10 VH F: il s li m ile d fund s wou ld be be llers penl o n im prov ing ils fac iliti es and programi ng.

Crea ting aud ie nces for U H F s ta tions is o nl y o ne fun c lio n o flh e cable sysle ms. (They bega n . in Pe nn sy lva ni a. as co mmun il y a nt e nnas to prov id e s tro nge r signa ls in tow ns w he re rece pt io n was bloc ked o r impa ired . The re a rc now ne arl y 5.000 cable sys tems in the United S tates. more tha n900 in Pe nn sy lva nia . a nd nearl y 1.000 in Ca lifo rnia, )

Cab le 's o riginal fun c ti o n has bee n ex pa nded . In ad di li o n 10 s uppl ying siro ng s ig na ls o n I he VH F c hanne ls a nd fo r most U HF c ha nn e ls . so me cable syste ms have begun o ffe ring the ir own (as ye t q uit e limiled ) progra ming. A few o lhe rs . like T he la Cable in Los Ange les. offer fir s t· run movies unc ut a nd un· int erru pted . o n a specia l c han nel fo r an addi t io na l mo nlhl y fee laboul S7 in Los A nge les). II is inevil a­b le Iha l l he sysle ms will ullima le ly offe r no nloc,,1 co mme rc ia l c han ne ls a mi sa te ll ite s howings o r new mov ies---incl uding mov ies mad e espec ia ll y for cable·syste m vicwing in the sa mc way Ihey are now mad e es pec ia ll y fo r ne twork vic wi ng. The tec hno l· ogy a lread y cxis ts b y w hic h <l single cab le hoo k· up

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Left: Imoge1l(j Coca . Sid Caesar. ill a Your S how of Shows ske lch . " A s­tollishillR comedic richness."

cou ld ca rry nearl y e ight y signa ls into a subsc ri ber's livi ng roo m. Th e uses thal ha ve bee n proj ec ted (or prophe sied) in clude the de li ve ry of te legra ms. ma il . and eve n t he da il y newspaper. The equipment be ing ins ta ll ed by ma ny cable system s ha s room for thirt y input s o r option s . a lth ough not a ll o f these a rc yet in use.

h is clear tha t the di vers ifi cation of the te levis io n experie nce has hardl y begun . It a lso seems c lear that I he quantitati ve growl h of Ie levis io n has sure ly peaked . The num ber of two- and three-set ho use­ho lds will edge upward (re vealing. ifnothingel se. that the trade-in valu e of o ld se ts is so inco nsequen ­tia l that onc might as we ll hangon to them ). But the latitudinal o utreac h of tc levisio n has gone about as far as it can go. Wt.: are also near sa turation ----ce rtainl y we a rc ncar to being saturated by the mi x oftelevi!'!ion <I ' it has bee n until now. Proofi s found in t ht: inc rt.:a~ ing in stabi li ty ofnel wo rk pro­g ram in g. the !'! udde n deat hs a nd qu ic k reshufflings of scrie s. I he e vt:r- l11 o re -nerVO ll S a ll e mpt s to keep the in teres t o ran audic nce whose att ent ion spa n is e ve r- ..; horte ni ng.

Lik e the mo vies in 1946. telev ision has see mi ngly rt:ac hed the c nd o rit ..; begi nnings . If the motion pic­lure wa s a toy that grew up. so is te levision . but televi"ion. the li ving room toy . grew evc n faste r. In fa ct. (c le vi ~ion in it !'! quartcr of a cent ury (ro ughl y) has gone through most of the sa me stage s it took the l1lovie 'i t hree-quarter~ of a ce nt ury (rough I y) to cover. Popular novel! y: first ex pl o ra tory fora ys int o ,eriou~ program ing: growth of mass pac kaging fora rnas'i audience: ma turity wi thin the mass sys­Ie m: d i vt:rs ificat io n i 11 10 a ppeal s to bo t h mass a n(1 minorit y audiel1t:e~: Telev is ion has mo ved so fa !'! 1 tha t ib r~lation !'! h iptot heatricall1lotion pictures ha s been c ha nging con sta nt Iy.

In the begi nning it !'!eemed that the mo vies' best rec ipe for surviva l was to do what te lev ision cou ld nol do ,I!'! we ll . o r do a t a ll -wide r sc ree ns. b igger !'! pec tac k .... higg~ r ~ tar s . It qui c kl y ca me to mean ha rder I hernt: ~. ha rde r language. more e xplic it sex and violence. a nd . much more subtl y. a view of the \\ orld in \\ hich t he re was irony a nd a mbiguit y. po­etic inju sti ce a~ we ll as virtu e t rium phant . Let tele­vis ion . tht: nc\\ mass-e ntertai nment medium. bt: all thing~ to all pt:ople. Eve ryma n at his le isure .

And "0 \\ ith those !'Ipec ification s te lev ision had begun . \Vo uld a nyone like to haza rd a glless as to who won the fir ... t Emmy Award as Most O ut stand­ing Te l t:v i ~ i o n Pc r~onalit y? The yea r was 194R. if Iha l he lp'. It doe,n·t. She was Shirley Dinsdal e . a pupPdecr \\ ho se c haracte r wa~ ca ll ed Ju d y Splin­ter!'!. In the da y!'! before thccuaxia l ca bl e link ed the East and West Coasts. the E111 mys we re stri c tl y a

Los Ange les affa ir. The mos l popular telev ision show, in those first awa rd s . was" Mike Stoke y' s Pa nt omime Q ui z."

Those were th e novelty da ys . whe n te lev isio n no uri shed in sa loo ns in th e sa me way as carl y mo vies we re often sa nd wic hed bet wee n the sou­bre tt e a nd the trained rats o n va ude vill e bi ll s. And if the mo vies soon found D. W. G riffith . television fou nd li ve drama a nd a new ge ne ral ion ofwrit e rs a nd directo rs to ma ke it happen - Reginald Rose a nd Padd y C ha yevsky. De lben Ma nn . John Frank­e nheime r. a nd ma ny more . In a b ri ef. beautifu l Oowering in the mid-fifties before the numbers ga me took ove r. the drama tic a nth ology (" live fro m Ncw York") was a stap le of te lcv ision : . . Robert Montgom ery Presen ts." .. Studi o O ne." the ··U.S. S lee l Hour.·· " Produ cers' Showcase'" .. Mat inee Th ea tre" (with i nc rediblc daily drama) . "Ford Sta r Jubil ee." .. Kra ft Te lev is ion T he­a te r. " and the ambit ious" Pl ay ho use 90."

Dra ma was nol the hal f o f it. ofc ou rsc. a nd th ere we re AI istair Cooke' s li tera te a nd wi de- ranging " O mni bus." the Fred Astaire spec ia ls with Ba rri e Chase. thc no t-yc t-s urpa ssed varie tics of Mill on Berle. Ed Wynn. Perry Co mo. Dinah Shore . and Stevc Allen. and the astonis hing co medi c ri c hness (lft he Sid Caesa r- Imogene Coca "Your Show o f Shows" (whic h was done li ve. despite the formida­ble e ha llenge s of it s beautifu ll y timed a nd oft e n very ph ysical ske tc hes).

It was a partic ula r ric hness. not to be sus tained . Mo re and more in lh \;! ea rl y s ixties. televis ion be­came a se ri es busincss-""The Defc nders." "Be n Casey'" ·· Dr. Kildare'" " The Naked C it y .. · "G un smoke ." .. Bonanza." .. Haze l. " " Th e Dic k

RighI: l oall Slaley. Dick Vall Dyke. Mary Tyler Moore. ill episode o/The Dick Van Dyke S how.

Va n Dyke Show." "C he ye nne." "The Be ve rl y Hill b ill ies. " The range was frum thl! abysma l to the s ub li me. t he extre mes linked o nl y by a shared week-la-week predi c tabili t y .

I n the mid -s ixt ies. there was not even yet the prom ise of the effect ive a lt e rna tive that public te le ­vision has slow ly and precariou sly become. What was s till ca ll ed educatio na l tele visio n wa s wo rth y . sole mn. a nd d ull . The ca rl y nonc o mme rc ia l s ta-t io ns cl ung to life by fulfi ll i ng cont racts wit h the publ ic sc hools. ai ring daytime classroom material s.

Mea nw hile ... Bo na nza" was cos ting 5200.000 a n e pisod e in 1966. was be ing syndi cated in e ig ht lan­guages to sixt y count ri es. and had a weekl y audi­e nce e s t imated at 350 mi lli o n viewe rs. Tele vision. like radio. in it s firs t years ha d a fa ir a mo unt o f fift een-minu te programing. then shifted to the half-hour mini mum wit h a growing number of hour-long and ninety-minute shows, Two- hour programs. of which there were none in 1957 . consti ­tuted a fift h of ne two rk sc hcdu ling b y 1968.

The lesson of the huge ra tings earned by movies on telev ision waS not losl on netwo rk executi ves. {The Bridge 011 Ilu' Ri \'(.' r K lI 'ai was wat ched by an audience of60 million on its first telev ision airi ng.) The first mov ies specifica ll y made for te levision we re prod tlced in 1965. and. in t he decade si nce . several hund red have been made. fulfi lli ng Sam Go ld wy n' s prophecy oft he mid-forties.

Mov ies fo r telev ision have in the best and worst senses become the B-mov ies o f our t ime. T hey are made with ruthless efficiency. on budgets that rarel y exceed $ I mill ion and offen considerabl y less . on shoot ing schedules twice and even three time s faster than for a theat ri cal feature of the same lengt h, They arc a te st ing ground for ne w talent. They provide welco l11 e wo rk foro ld ta le nt. Th ey are heav ier on pl ot than character izat ion. and the plot convenientl y breaks int oas many acts as there are co mmercial breaks. They are shol with the smaller sc ree n in mind . revealed in the number of close-ups and medi um-distance sho ts.

L ike the movies which used to se rve as the bot­tOI11 ha lf of d ouble features. t he bes t o f the mo vies made for te lev ision have very posi ti ve qualiti es, T hey have energy and pacc and a lac k of pre ten­sian. Emotion s run strong and c lear (ifnol pu re) : endings are deci si ve and along the way there is like l y to ha ve bee n ple nty o f a t mos phe re.

Some of these fi lms have been shown in th eate rs abroad. and slI ccessfull y .Duel . a we ll-made truck-chase thrill er starring Dennis Weaver . is said to have grossed same t hing l ike 57 mill ion overseas-and was made for less than 5500.000.

A few televison mov ies have bee n shown in

theaters in t hi s country. but wit hOllt success. Even Brian '.\' SOllg. a very popular se nt imental melo­drama starring James Caan as a doomed pro­football pl aye r in a story drawn from li fe. fai led at the box offi ce. a ltho ugh it was offe red at a re du ced price. and in Chicago. which was the maj or sell ing forthe story . Obv io ll sly a mov ie which has bee n presented free in the l iving ruom must have a spe­cial claim on the att entiuns o f the audience be fore people w ill go out and spend money to sec it agai n. II happens. although no t on a major scale. w ith class ic mov ies tha t ha ve been shown on televis ion. Ind eed . the frequ e nt TV appea ra nces ofCil i~(, 1/ Kalle. Casablal/("{/. and o ther imperi sha ble film favorit es seem to have stimu lated rather than di­mini shed interest in seeing t hem in theate rs- in al lea st relati vely fu ll -length ve rsions . a nd blissfull y free of i nterru pl ions fo r used-car commcrc ial s,

But to see even a superi or mov ie made for televi­sion under theatrical cond iti ons is an oddl y revea l­ing ex perience. It suffers from en largement. as if a speci fi c densit y that was qui te adequate for the twe nt y-one-inc h sc reen had gone pa le and watery. li ke bad soup. T he intimacy evaporates and the emot ional i ntensit y t hi os like ri si ng smoke. I n B rial/ 's Song the hrusque a ff ec t ion bet wee n Caa n and hi s closest footba ll pal . understated and touch­ingon the small sc ree n. looked corn y and ovcr­statcd in the theater.

Bu t it worked in the medium for which it was made. and that is all that rea ll y mat terecl. The point remains that tele vision movies and thea tri cal movies arc no t th e sa me. T here remains a crucial difference in what. for want ofa more prec ise term, mig ht be called the ir s pec ifi c gra v it y.

63

Tele visio n has not (or not ye t) been a proving g ro und for future film sta rs. It has provided them with work. however. anu Rober! Redfo rd . un­kno wn and un starred. s hows up in reru nsof ··The Untouc hables'· as a sneering baby-faced killer in one episode . But hi s ca reer was launched by Ba "l~/iJ()/ i ll III(' Pa r k. o n Broad wa y. Sid Caesar" s e f­fort s in the mov ies have. through no lac k of hi s own ta le nt. bee n embarrassme nt s to everyone w ho know~ how deepl y gifted he is. Ric hard Chamber­lain has by now asserted himse lf as a star ac tor in film s. Ye t after hi s boyish fame as Dr . Kildare he in a rea l se nse ~t a rted all o ve r again. do ing stage work in repertory in E ngland and co ming int o the mov ies a ~ the ex pe rie nced and ver~a til e perfo rme r he is. rat he r t han a~ a television perso nage.

he failure of t ra nsfere nce works both ways. a nd Jame s Stewart is one film sta r w ho ha s co me to :-.ad and s udd e n termin ation o n tele v isio n. as have Shirley Mac La ine.: a nd Ton y Curti s. a mongo lhe rs .

\-Vha t all thi ... prove~ i") not quite c lear. but I think it is t hat in ~ pit e of t hc fa ct t hat te levision and the mo vie ... are hot h v is ual mediums the y arc di vided more than thc y are.: united by the co mm o n la nguagc ofv i ... ual image'! ... Di vided as we a re by a co mmo n language." George Be rnard Shaw sa id o f the En­gli s h and the Americans-the large public screen and the .; mall pri va te sc ree n arc s imilarly di vided . It i ... a mi ... c hi e.: f to pre:-.umc that t hey are identical - to pre.: ... umc . for ex ampl e. tha t theat e rs have no future bcca use the re arc movies o n televi sio n a nd ma y bc more yct.

Not on ly are the two form s di stinc t. but the re la­lion shipbetween the m is always in c hange . By now. it i ... no lunger Iru c Ihat Ihe mo vies· rec ipe for s urviva l i ... totlo w hat tcle vis ion can·, do a s wel l or do al a ll . and it i:-. no longer true I hal le lev is ion is exclu:-.i vcl y Eve ryman at hi s lei s ure .

for th cir pa rI. the mo vie s. hav ing had a briefbllt frequentl y impre:-.~ i ve flirtati o n with social reali s m . arc qui ck ly retrca ling to the sa fet y of' ·p ure·· e nter­tainmcnt. sleek a nd untroublingescapi st offeri ng:-. of\\ hi c h TlteSlin,!.! b the fo unding model. The movie ... a rc not \\ rung. cit her. howeve r muc h the y Illay di'lappoint admirers \\ ho a rc eage r to sec t he medium do ... lHl1cthing more than ta p dance. But wi t h t he.: real \\ o rld I'll rn i ... hed wa ll to wa ll w i th e x­al"e rbalions and p:-.yc hi c pain -wit h problem s o f e Ilergy . e.:1ll ploy me nt. recess ion. inflat io n. confron ­tation .; in the Mid dlc East a nd Sou lheas t Asia . and

a loss o f confid e nce everywhere-it is no wo nder that the c us tomers se t fort h to be di ve rted . if they set forth at a ll.

For its part. te levision find s t ha t di version is not quite enoug h. A diet of sodas Illa y sa ti sfy most o f the cu s tomers, but no t a vocal minorit y of pri va te c iti ze ns . legisla to rs . and governme nt adm ini s­trators w ho ha ve not fo rgotte n ewto n Min ow's denun cia ti on of te levi sion as a c ultural was te land - and w ho have not seen a ny effe c ti ve reclamati on projec t c hange the mediulll s ince.

So. amongst the Kojaks. televi sion in the middl e seventie s has occas iona ll y fo und its voice fo r ex­pressing soc ial truth in dramat ic te rms. Tom Gries· The Mig ralllJ , ba sed o n a n earl y sho rt s lory by Te nnessee \\lilliams a nd starring C lo ris Leac hm an as the ga unt and wiry matriarc h of an itinerant b rood of c rop pi ckers. was as s tro ngly a ngry in it~ way as The Grap('.\· (~r Wra th. II was perhaps ali i he more e ffec ti ve beca use it fou nd explo itati o n and ha nd-Io- mo u th e x iste nces ina period of nat ional a f­flu e nce. no t depression. The sto ry a nd it s treat­me nt were compass io nate bu t unse ntimcntal. a nd if it s young protago ni s t finall y e scaped t hc e ndl ess tra p of the migra ti ons. it was o nl y to fa ce the tri a ls ofa diffe re nt sort as a n uns killed labo rer in a cold c it y. YOLI could no t imagi nc I he film s ucceeding at the mOl io n-pi c ture box o ffi ce (a lthough it was ve ry we ll received a t the Cannes Fe stival in 1974 a nd has been cons ide red for re lease in Euro pe ). But. pro­duced on a rigorous budge t. it worked within the economi cs of tele vision .

The A fllohiog rap"y (~r l\1 iss ./011(' Pillmall. sc ripted by Trac y Kee na n Wynn a nd di rec ted by Joh n Korty. had as it s ce nt er a tou r de force per­fo rmance by C ice ly T yson covering an age s pan of e ig ht y years o r more. It al so built to a c lima x of un­aba shed sent ime nlal melodra ma. but along the way ill ooked unevas ive ly at the rea li lie s of b lack his­tory in Ame rica. and it did not sa y that all those woes were be hind us.

More contro versial than c it he r . because we a rc still very upt ight abou t treating sex ·eriulls ly. was T"al Ce r/aill 5 umme r, a careful but co u rageous drama about a teenage bu y who discovers during a holida y visit that hi s di vorced father is a ho mosex­ual. There were calm. c ivili zed performances by Ha l Holbroo k and Scot! Jacoby as father a nd so n and by Martin S hee n as the father's new partne r. The y ga ve the production and story by Ric ha rd Levin son and William Link a quie t a nd in fa c t a l­most unemotional dignit y. The program proved that important but exploitable materia l cou ld be handl ed though t full y a nd none xploit i vel y.

'1'''1' l\1issil<'.\· (~rO("lOh(' ,. was the best o fa rela-

ti ve ly new te lev ision form whi ch it s ma kers called the doe u-elrama - hi sto ry as d ocume nta ry~ like dra ma . fast ~ moving . a nd with so me ee ril y acc urate impersonati ons of John Ke nnedy. Dea n Ac heson . a nd o the r publi c figures.

Notthe least o f the forces making fo r c ha nge in commerc ial tel ev ision is t hat the re no \v is a n a lt e r~ nat ive to measure it aga inst. Although publi c t e l e ~ vis ion re ma in s a n unde rfina nced di sta nt co usin . it has. aft er ma ny a tria l . e me rged as a fourth net work with it s sha re of ve ry pa lpable hit s.

Ironicall y. it too k a Briti sh import to ma ke public te levisi o n a via ble alte rna tive a nd redee m it fron) it s sta ndard fa re of two fi gure s ta lking to eac h o th er over a pro p coffee table. The BBes " Fo rsyte Sag'" proved to be the aud ic ting de light he re that it ha s bee n everywhere else in the world . It brought new viewe rs a nd new con tributio ns to the s ta tions a nd se rved as a lu re fo r the o the r progra ms pu bli c te lev ision had to offer. The res ult i ng var ie t y was re~ fres hing. including Juli a C hild . the dazzling .. Sesame Stree t" (modeled in it s so phi sti cati on and rapid pace aft e r " Laugh- In"). whic h surveys indi­ca te kids watc hed a ll the time. the oft e n out spoke n works o n .. Holl ywood Te lev is io n Theater ." a nd a surpris ingly wide asso rtme nt of mu sic. dra ma. and c lass ic film s fro m the ~ il e nt e ra to the prese nt.

Pu bli c te levision may be healthie r if it stays unde r so me fina ncia l st ra in . As in mos t e l eemosy~ nary ins titution s. a I itll e pros pe rit y goes a lo ng wa y toward bureauc racy. a nd public te lev ision fi ght s be st with it s hack to the wall. whe re inge nuit y is it s prime resource. But the a ntipath y of the Ixon Admini st ra ti on media bait e rs . fea ring a fourth net­work beca use they a lread y we re having e nough trouble wi th the th ree co mmercial ne twork s. c rea ted a bi t too muc h fin a nc ial stra in fo r pu blic te levision and le ft a te mporary mark in the sc arc it y of pu blic-eve nt s progra ming. Thu s PBS stati ons

That Ce rt a in Summer-"Carejid hUl cOllrageoll .\ . ..

mu st have had a dee p feelin g of sati sfac tio n in pre­se nting their viewe rs with every damaging word of the Waterga te hearings.

The dynamic te nsion in the Unit ed States be­tween public and comm e rcial te lev is ion is Da vid vs. Goliath . and David' s s ling needs re pairs . Al­though it is a lops id ed e ncount e r. it is mo re int e rest­ing and producti ve tha n it use d to be. If we a rc luc ky. public te le vis ion will re mind us more effec­ti vely a ll alo ng the way of jus t wha t te lev is ion ca n a nd ought to do. Co mme rc ia l te lev is ion . whose cla ims of ope rating in the pu blic int e res t are co ming under sharper sc rutin y than they once did. will be ha rder put to ignore public te lev is ion 's example.

T he birth of te lev ision ga ve the mov ies a ne w birth offreed o m as well . e nabling t he movies to ad­dre ss differe nt a udie nces a nd 10 deve lo p the full a nd va ri ous possibilities of the fo rm .

Tele vision faces no revolutionary new tcc hn o l ~ ogy . but the cable sys te ms will undo ubtedl y have the same li berating effect on the l11edilll11thattci e­vis ion had on the mo vies . free in g it to deve lop all of it s possibilities. en abling it to se rve the minoritie s within the mass. If the new da y was pa inful for the o ld-line major studios. t e l evision '~ I1 \!W day will bl.: pai nful fo r the three major co mme rcia l networks. They alread y are sha ring t he audie nce no t on ly wit h ind e pe nde nt co mme rc ial stati ons but inc reasi ng.ly with public-TV stati ons a nd with the cabl e c ha n­ne ls and th e ir mo vies-for-pa y. Eve ntu all y the y will ha ve to compe te with additi onal al ternati ves a s yet undreamed of. The networks will not be dethroned a s the princ ipa l carrie rs ofcl mass medium . but tha t medium will eve ntua ll y offe r as wid e a n a rray of c hoices as the mov ies do now. n Thi s art ic le is ada pt ed from Tlte F licks. or WIUl l (,I'C' r Becallle (!fAl/{iY Hard.,' by Charles C ha mplin to be pu bli shed the e nd o f thi s month by Woll stonec raft .

The Apotheosis of

An Actor Dies; A Posthumous Industry is Born

Kenneth Turan

e was the Hero with a Thousa nd Names: Th e Fist that S hook the Wo rld . th e Fas test Fist in the East. the L ittle Dragon. the KingofKun g Fu . the Ma n with the Go ld en Punch . know n to wo nderstruc k ad mirers as. a nd I

q uo te . the GaJil eo. the Da Vinci. the Nij insky. the Edi son . eve n the E instein . of the ma rtia l arts. He was a lso the 1958 C ha C ha Kingof Ho ng Ko ng. a for mer C hinese wa ite r in Seau le. and 4F Army re­jec t who took less than two yea rs to bounce fro m re lat ive obsc urit y to a status as the ho tt est prope rt y in world c ine ma. ca pable o f as king a mi llion doll a rs a pic ture. before hi s shock ing deat h at age 32 under enigma! ic c irc umsta nces e nd ed th ings alm ost be­fore they'd begun. It is t he very stuff o fl ege nd s. and whe re Bruce Lee is conce rned. the legend s arc attac hed to do ll a r signs of a ve ry large s ize.

In t he littl e more tha n two years si nce his deat h. Bruce L ee has inspired a post humous industry of surpri sing strength and vari ety. His four released film s have g rossed nearl y $50 milli o n . a nd hi s last o ne. Ell l er l11 e Dragol/, has. a lo ng wit h My Fair Lady a nd The Exorcist, beco me o ne of Wa rne r Bros,' a ll -ti me overseas mo ney ma kers. so big tha t Warners is working on a g lossy biopic called The Life alld Legelld ojBru("l' L(J() fo r whic h it con­d ucted aud iti ons in Holl ywood. Chicago. New York. London. a nd Hong Ko ng o n a scale remi nis­cent of Otto Pre minge r' s a nnoin ting Jean Sebe rg to play Joa n of A rc. A nd thi s doesn' t begin to doj us-

tice to the ot her good ie s . the t-s hirt s. the swea t­s hirts, the poste rs . "The Ba ll ad o f Bruce Lee." sung by hi s b rothe r Robert . plu s a n unbelievably tacky qui ckie film b iogra ph y The Dragoll Dies Hard. w hic h c laim s that Bruce go t hi s ma rtial start w he n so me toughs tried to muscle in o n hi s Washington Post route.

And o f course. the re are the pa perbac k book s a nd me mo rial a lbums. more tha n ha lf a dozen a t last count. capped offb y Brtlee Lee: Th e Mall Gll/v I Kn ew. By His WI/e. Linda Lee. whe rein we lea rn that the great ma n was addic ted to. of a ll things. sh redde d w heat : . . He o ft e n used to wa ke me up a t two o'c loc k in the mo rning." Mrs. Lee write s. "and ask me to go downs ta irs a nd prepa re him a bowl of sh redded wheat ." Not since James Dea n d ied in the c ras h o f hi s sil ver-grey Po rsc he a nd the c ultme is ters turned Ollt songs and a rti cles li ke " jimmy Dean's Firs t C hri stmas in Heave n" a nd " Jame s Dean F ight s Back Fro m T he Grave." has a ny Ho ll ywood star received thi s kind o f se nd-off to the gates o f Va lha lla .

U nfo rtunate ly. in the ir rush to immo rta li ze Lee a nd give a de ma nding publi c mo re a nd mo re to read about ' ' the most exc iting lege nd o f o ur time." Bruce Lee's varyi ng biographers have had a lo t of tro uble agreei ng o n the ir facts. Was the na me o f his first film . made whe n he was a c hild ac to r in Hong Ko ng, Birth aJa Mall. Th e Birth aJMalikilid. o r The Begilllling of a Boy? Wa s hi s he ight 5-foot-4. 5-foot-7. 5-foot- 8. o r . as the major it y of obse rve rs.

" I loved Bruce Lee as ifhe were part of my family and would have gladly taken his place in death ."

- le it er to Black Belt magazine

67

inc luding hi s wife. cla im . exact ly 5-foot-7v,0 When he died. was he buried in the dark blu e suit he wore in The Chilies£' COIlI1f!Clioll. or the one he wore in EllIeI' Th e Dragon ?

The contradict ions are almost end less. a nd a re not he lped by the legiti matel y confu sing aspects of his caree r . Hi s first f il m. originall y titl ed Th e Big Boss, W(1S re leased in the United States as Fists of Fury whi ch meant that hi s second film. origi nall y called Fisl ofFill'.". had to be re leased in the U. S. as The Chinese COl/ flecrion. His third fi lm. Wayoftlte Dragon -se lf-wr itten a nd d irec ted a nd feat uring a f igh t to the death in the Ro ma n Col iseum-was reti­tled Re/urn of rile Drago/1, since it was released in the U.S. after hi s fourth film EllieI' Th e Oragoll. St ill a nother film . Call1e<!/Dealh. for which he had shot footage of him se lftaki ng o n 7-foot-plu s bas­ketba ll star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. a former pupil. was incomplete at the time of hi s own death.

Yet a ll thi s co nfu s io n s houldn' t get in the way o f the more intr iguing aspects of Bruce Lee madness. Numbcr one. diffi cult as it is 10 bel ie ve in th is time of med ia manipulat io n. the cu lt that follow s hi s name is a genuine popular phenomenon. Unlike the case of Linda Love lace. fo r instance. w ho achieved stardom on t he bas is of a small flood of articles in the trendy press. Bruce Lee has hardl y been writ­te n about at all by the major opini on-mak ing magaz ines. His last appeara nce. in fact. was in an Esquire article w hich came out the month he died. iron ica ll y subtitled .. ' Is not Warner Bros. anc ient and wise? Is not Bruce L ee yo ung and coming up 1 ~lst 7" The book s and magaz ines w hich celebrate him are to be found primar ily on newss tands and drugstore racks. not psychiat ri sts' cofTee tables. and his followe rs burn wi th a fervor that is largely se lf-ge ne ra ted. T he seco nd po int. whi ch may be even harder to be lieve. is that Bruce Lee actua ll y dese rves all thi s adu lat ion. H e was Ihat good. and a brief peek at hi s life and hi s tec hnique reveals more than enough reasons for the apothe osis Ihat has taken place.

ruce Lee was born in San Francisco on November 27.1940. the son ofa tour­ing Cant onese opera cum va udev ill e star. H isC hinese name was Lee Yuen K am. and apparent ly a hospital nurse . for reasons hi story does not revea l was

the first tocall hi m Bruce. His pa rents returned to thei r ho me in H ong K ong w hen he was only three months old . and bet wee n t he ages of six and eigh­tee n yea rs he was the A ndy Hardy of the H ong K ong film industry. mak ing 20 film s under the name of L ee Siu Loong. the Litt le Dragon. H e was also something of a dragon in rea l life . eami ng a reputat ion as a street fighting pun k . so much so that. in 1 95~. hi s r a rentssh ipped him back to the Unitcd Sta tes w it h o rde rs to pull him se lf toge the r.

68

In America Bruce ended up in Seattle. w here he entered the Uni ve rsit y of Washington and co n­tinued the fa natical abso rpti on w ith Oriental sel f­de fe nse whi ch had first gr ipped him in Ho ng Kong. w here he studi ed under a master w ith the unli ke l y name of Yip Man. He began develo ping a new. pe r­sona l met hod o f se lf-defe nse. w hi c h he eventua ll y ca lled Jee t Kun e Do. or the Wa y of the Int ercepting Fist , a direct. reali stic tho ugh ec lectic. meth od w hose essence Bruce desc ribed as "using no way as the way: Effi cie ncy is anything Ihat scores." He took the best points f rom trad iti onal Oriental schoo ls w hile scorning submissive devot ion to any pa rticular one. Be lt s. he liked to say. we re use ful . 'onl y to ho ld your pant s up."

O ne of the odd meet ings that seemed to mark Bruce Lee 's life occurred in 1964. Rece ntly mar­ried to a qll iet. middle-A merican girl named Linda Emery. he gave an ex hi bit ion at a mart ial art s tOll r­nament in Long Beach . Californ ia. and was ob­served and admi red by hai rdresser Jay Sebring. (later one of the vict ims in the Sharon Tate murders and a prototype for t he hairdre sser in W arre n Beatt y's Shall/poo). Sebring menti oned Lees name while cutting t he hair of TV produce r Willi am Dozier. w ho. after see ing home mov ies of L ee in act ion. ended up signing him for the role of Kato in the 1966 ABC-TV se ries. Th e Greell Hornel . Ever the iro ni c put-down arti st. L ee liked to SCly he got the ro le because " I was the only Chinaman in a ll Ca lifo rni a w ho could pronou nce Britt Re id ."

Now ca me a period that seemed intense ly to frus­trate Bruce Lee because he was on the verge of sta rdom but still no ciga r. He appea red in 30 episodes of Til e Green Hornet. had an epi sode of Lon~Slreet wri tt en around him. made guest ap­pearances in B/ol1die and Ironsides. and though he was turned do\\' n for the lead in TV ' sKIIng Fu se ri es. a ro le he badly wa nt ed . in 1968 made a s pec­tacular . if b rief. film debut as kung fu kill e r Wins­low Wo ng in the Ray mond C ha ndler-based Mar/owe. Man y oft hese part s came as a result of the pri vate lessons (at upwards 01' $250 an hour) he gave to numerous H oll ywood figures. Some stu ­dents la ter beca me hi s fri ends a nd s till late r hi s pallbea re rs : people li ke James Cob urn . Steve Mc­Queen. James Garner. Roman Polanski-w ho al­leged ly Oew in fro m Swit zerland for o ne lesson -and screenwriter Stirling Silliphan l . who has bee n quoted as say ing. " In my w hole life. no man. no wo man. was eve r as exc iting as Bruce L ee."

In mi d-197 1. the e ru pt io n bega n. Bruce had re­turned to H ong K ongand . afte r turning down what he considered a degrading afTe r from Run Run Shaw. the Ha rry Cohn of O ri e ntal c ine ma. he signed to do hi s fi rs t fi lm in t he new ly popu lar kung fu or chop soc ke y genre . wilh another Sha w ref· ugee. Ray mo nd Chow of Golden Ha rves t F ilm s. That fi lm. Th e Bill Boss IFislsojFun-. had a budget o f under $ 1 00.000. incl ud ing Lee' s $7.500 sa lary. but it proved surpri singly popular at the H ong Ko ng box o ffi ce . easil y o utgrossing the prev io us loca l champ. Th e Soulld (~rMflsic. Lee' s other

U Maybe he lived more in tense ly than any human being can live. Or maybe he died for the sa me reaso n James Dean die, They had taken too much of the Ore and the god, were jealous."

- fo lk singe r Phi lOc hs

" The magazine you put out abo Bruce Lee is a Ii He is not dead. I will not belic\'c it. "

- le tt e r to Black Bell magaZine

-

Lee lIIade his Americ(l lljilm deblll (IS kUllg.lil killer Will s/oil' Wong ill Marlowe . /-Iere he (ls lo llishes J ames Carller.

Bruce Lee is a secre t agent ill E nler I he Drago n. But he has lim e fo r a martial art J /Ollrllaml'llf. and 1l'iI1S, nat IIrally,

Depending on whom ) 'OU ask, Relurll oflhe Dragon is eithe r Bru('(> Lees vcr)' worst film or easily his best. IndispulabIJ' . il is Ihe only o ne he bolh '\Tole a nd di­rected, and it co ntains perh~lps his best single fight scene and lots ofthc aw-shucks person .. llit )' that makes him so attracth'c.

R elllrll is set in Rome. apparcntl)' because Bruce felt like spending some timc there. He pla)'s Tang, a bumpkin from Hong Kong who is shipped 011'10 Rome to help C hen , a winsome famil y friend. keep control of her C hinese restaura nt . on whi('h certain local ga ngste rs ha ve n isI covetous eyes.

At first f..· \'c ryo ne is very disappointed in the awk­ward Tang, as he gels lost in the airport and keeps asking C hen where the bat hroom is whenever she sta r ts to get fri endl)' . But when the ga ng of toughs at­tacks the restaurant. Tang demolishes them Ii<'ket)'­split , restoring his good name and so 4:1ggravating T he Boss that he brings in outside help .

T he help turns out to be Kucla (C huck Norris), a massi\'e Ame rican kara te champion . the type who wa lks Ihrough walls inslead of doors. lnlheir fi ghllo Ihe fini sh , inexplicably lora led in Ihe Roman Col­ise um , Kuda gels in Ihe firsl few lirks. bUllhen Tang, e\'c r the eciccti<'. confuses him b)' ~oing into an imita­tion Ali shume. After crippling Kuda. Tang oO'ers to let himli\'e because he issuch a wor thy opponent, but Kuda kee ps on going and it is with the greates t reluc­ta ncc that Tange le~ant l y snaps his neck . The end.

69

three film s followed qui ckl y to eve r-wide ning ac ­c la im . all c omp le ted within two yea rs a nd c ulminat­ing in the a mbiti o us E ll l er the Dragon , hi s firs t a nd onl y glossy Ho ll ywood pro duc ti o n tha t cost the enorm ous-for th e genre-sum of three-quarte rs o f a milli o n do ll a rs. The n . just as Ell l er was a bo ut to be re leased. Bruce Lee prov ided the pe rfec t cappe r for hi s life wi th hi s wild ly untime ly. a lm ost to ta ll y inex pl icable d eath .

• t ha ppe ned o n Jul y 30 . 1973. in the Ho ng Ko ng a pa rtm e nt of ac tress Be tt y Tin g Pei , where. so th e offi cia l sto ry goes. Bruce we nt to di scuss a ro le for her in one of hi s upcom­ing film s. He co mpl a ined o r a headac he. was give n a presc ription pain kill e r ca lled

Equ agesic . we nt int o t he bedroo m to res1. coul d no t be wa ke ned . a nd was ru s hed to a hospit a l whe re hed ied a t II :30 p.m . He had two fu ne ra ls. a n o rgias ti c o ne in Ho ng Ko ng w he re 20-30 .000 people showed up and wreaked va ri ous typesof havoc. a nd a qui et se r vice near Seattle w he re. with J a mes C oburn a nd S teve McQu ee n a mo ng the pa ll bea r­e rs. he was b uri ed to the musicof " My Way" and " Th e I mposs ibl e Drea m ." The co ro ne r 's ve rdic t was " d eath b y misadventu re." the tec hnical term ac ute cerebra l ede ma. o r the buildu p o f fluid in t he brai n proba bl y cau sed by hy pe rse nsiti vit y to e it he r Equ ages ic o r Dol oxc ne . a drug he had used fo r a bac k injury. o r per ha ps for some th ing e ntire ly dif­fe re nt. All I hey knew fo r s ure. o ne d oc lo r d ra ma ti ­ca ll y sa id. was that " hi s b ra in was swoll e n like a s po nge. "

To hi s swa rm s o ffan s . for t he most p hys icall y fit ma n in t he worl d s udde nl y to d ie fro m sa me t hi ng tha t cou ld neve r be ex pl a ined full y obv io us ly wo uldn 't d o. As hi s wife brea thl ess ly p ut it. "t ha I a ma n o f Bruce's astoni shing vir ilit y. v it a lit y. e ne rgy. a nd shee r ph ysica l fitn ess s ho uld sudd e nl y bla nk o ut like a snuffed ca ndle?-perha ps peo pl e ca nnol be bl amed for spec ul a ting. " So the rumo rs. wha t a na l he r e mo ti o na l bi og ra ph y ca ll s " th e sor­d id s pec ula ti o n a nd intrigue su rro unding Lee's las t ho urs." bega n . Tha t he died fro m hi s odd die t o f rClW beef. eggs. a nd milk . fro m hi s s pec ia l hig h pro­te in d ri nk . fr o m his occasio na l habi t o f drinking beef bl ood. Tha t he had numero us mi st resses-if he d id . w ri tes Lin da Lee. "I knew not hing a bo ut it " -and died fro mm <lss ive sexua l ove rexe rti o n . Th a t he di ed because he was too hea lth y. too fit. And w he n hi s co ffin ar r ived in Sea ttle s lightl y da m­aged by the trip 1'1' 0 111 Hong Ko ng. it rev ived a C hinese be lie f t ha t Bruce Lee's so ul wa s not res t­ing we ll . t hat pe rhaps he had me t with fo ul pl ay at t he ha nd s of m ys te ri o us fo lk who were upse t at hi s po pul a ri z ing a nd Weste rni z ing o f prev io us ly sec re t d octrin es. Me nti o n was da rkl y mad e o f sec ret he rb po iso ns t ha t sto utl y res is ted a ut o ps ies. a nd o f

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som ething ca lled " the vibra ting ha nd " b y whi c h a prac titioner could to uch a man and ca use him to die m ys teri o usly two years later. Linda Lee vainl y tried to quell the hubbub b y iss uing a s ta tement say­ing she " held no o ne pe rson . or gro up of pe rsons. respon sible fo r hi s d eath ." And so o n int o the night.

A death tha t dra matic is b o und to s ta rt a sec t going. butthe reason s for th e dura bi li t y a nd breadth of Bruce Le e ' s pos thumo us cele brit y a re rooted dee per . s tar ting in the man' s c uri o usly bifurca ted pe rso na lit y . a ju xta positi o n of qua li ties hi s fa ns found un co ntroll a bl y a ttracti ve. and a pe r­so na lit y that b y tu rns was and was not vis ibl e in his fi lms .

O ve r a nd ove r aga in . though they don ' tlike to admit i1. Lee's ma n y biog raphe rs ca me bac k to the sa me conc lu sio ns: Pe rsonall y he was cock s ure . imme nsel y ego ti s ti ca l. a hothead with a fierce te mpe r. Even his wife admit s in he r hagiogra ph y . .. Bruce was no pl aste r sainI. " For reasons that a n a ma teur psyc ho logis t could proba b ly fi gure o u1. he pu shed him self with an inten sit y tha t was a lmos t awful. constantl y . mani acall y tra ining in hi s spec ia ll y-equipped g ym. doing e ndle ss thumb pus hups. eve n . o ne bi og raphe r says . ha ving the swea t gland s re moved from under hi s a rmpit s so he would look bett e r . He was a lwa ys o n . a lways fana t­ica l a bo ut s uccess a nd pe rfecti o n . Hi s personalit y a liena ted as ma ny people as it a ttrac ted . a nd to­ward s the e nd. beset. hi s bi ograph e rs would ha ve li S be li eve . b y a mali c io us pre ss . studio lac keys . a nd mo ney me n who didn ' t wa nt to give him hi s due . he ke pt plugging away a t hi s film project s . dr iven b y a s tra nge se nse of mi ssio n that neve r le ft him.

Oddl y e no ugh. thi s qu a lit y of Bru ce L ee's shows to ad va nt age in hi s film s. w he re it evol ves as a te r­ribl y appealing vit a lit y and life fo rce. So metimes. he goes a bit ove r the ed ge - "the loo k o n hi s face as he c ru s hes Oharra ' s he ad ." one fan magaz ine ac­cura te ly noted o f a sce ne fro m ElI ter the Drago n , " is more a nima l than human" -but in ge ne ra l he kee ps himse lf unde r intense control. so that watc h­ing Lee o n sc ree n is the sheerest j oy . Hi s d eath­d ea ling ph ys ical move me nts-the fl ying ki cks. the leaps. th e qui cke r-th a n-the-eye ha nds-are s trik­ing . graceful. a nd e ffec ti ve. alm os t ba lle tic. and he has a sc ree n p rese nce and cha ri sma tha t a lmost have to be see n to be be lieved .

A nd. in a n importa nt ad d itio n . Lee proj ec ts qu a l­ities tha t no t everyone not ed in him as a pe rson : He a ppea rs as re fres hing . yo uthful. in v igo ra t ing. with a n ingratia ting g rin and a to ta ll y unex pec ted boy ish pe rso na lit y . It is thi s pi xie qualit y . coupled with hi s boggling . d ead ly p h ys ical a bi li ties . that ma ke him . des pite t he ami a ble dross of low-grad e ex plo ita tion film s tha t ge ne ra ll y surround ed him .j ust about ir­res istible. He is bad but not evil. the fi e rce killing mac hi ne with a heart of pure st gold. a nd . as the ad s fo r R eturn afthe DraRo fl sa id . .. Boy do we need him now." Ii

Ke nne th Tura n is a s ta fT write r fo r Potom ac MaRa~il1 e o f Tir e W(ls /tinglOl1 Post.

Anthony Slide

From the Archives Emerges A Forgotten Woman Director

Lois Weber a lways has remained a shadowy figure in film hi story. She has been the subject oflittle , if any , intensive research. and her importance as a woman di rec tor has bee n eclipsed by the attention give n in rece nt years to Doroth y Arzner. When she began direc ting in 1907. Lois Weber brought to the cinema an intell igence and a commitment that was rare among filmm akers. Virtua lly all her produc­tions concerned themse lves with soc ia l problems and moral qu estions. Amo ng the topics she treated were religious hypocri sy (Th e Hypocrites . 19 14), abortion (Wh ere A re My Childrell ?, 19 16), Chri s­tian Sc ience (Je"'e l, 19 15, and A Chapter ill Her Life, 1923), and capita l puni shment (Th e People 1'5.

Johll Doe. 19 16 ). Vi sually. Lois Weber' s film s offe r little out of the

ordina ry. Fo r he r. the story line. always he r ow n work , was all-importa nt. Generally. such stories pre sented simpl e themes. but Weber was not above using shoc k tac tics. such as a totall y nude woman in Th e Hypocrites. to drive her point home. And fo r all the ir simplic it y. the stories conta in a wealth o f de tail. A pair of shoes in one of her producti ons COUld-and did in the case of Shoes (19 16)-take on great significance. She would never make a film in which she did not have abso lute fa ith ; a long with G riffith , Lois Weber was one of the cinema's first totally committed filmm akers.

Weber began he r film career in a position which wo uld then have been unusual for a man, let a lone a woman , tha t of di rec tor of talking sound-a n-di sc pic tures for the Gaumont Company. Fro m Gau­mont, she went to Rex, which eventua lly beca me part of the Uni ve rsal o rgani zation , for whom she was to be leading direc tor until 191 7. So mething of the esteem in which she was held a t Uni versal may be gauged by the fac t tha t Carl Laemmle gave her carte blanche to choose her ow n film sub­jec ts. write the script s, and pi ck her own players.

Restoring

lrllll~ 1131IJDl

Cla ire Will dsor u'asa Lois Weber discovery.

7 1

She was eve n e lec ted Mayo r of Uni ve rsal Cit y , In the summer of 19 17, Lois Weber formed he r

own company with a studio on Santa M onica Bo uleva rd, Th e re. she prod uced half-a-d ozen films. whi ch she proudl y proc laimed were made the way she wa nted to make them. including. appar­entl y. shooting the films in seque nce,

Three of Lo is Weber' s independ ent productions, Too Wise Wir es. What' s Worth While ? and Th e Blo t , a ll re leased in 192 1, a re preserved in The A merica n Film Institute's coll ec tion. The latter is a di stincti ve exa mpl e of Weber' s best work : s ta r­ring Cla ire Wind so r. it co ncern s it self with the very unglamorous subjec t of "gentee l" pove rt y amo ng sc hoo lteac he rs and c le rgy men , .. Men are onl y boys grown ta ll . ,. co mm ent s Lois Weber as she in­trod uces the prin ci pa ls in Th e Blot; the underpa id coll ege professor (Philip Hubba rd) and one ofhi s unrul y, wealth y s tudent s (Loui s Calhe rn), The simple plot of the film conce rns the professor' s famil y's fi ght to stave off th e threat of povert y , the equa ll y humili ating threa t of cha rit y , and the daughte r 's (Cla ire Windsor) ge ntl e wooing by the s tudent. the wealth y ne ighbor 's so n , and the im­poveri shed clergyman.

Weber hand les her subject in a simple, ye t se nsi­tive manner. and with her typi cal concern for de­ta il. Unlike most othe r produ ction s of the period which wo uld end with the he ro and he roine in a love cl inch . Weber end s Th e Blot wi th a close-up of the heroine. staring after the clergyman she has appar­entl y rejec ted in favor of the wealth y college s tu­dent. The viewer is left w ith a fee ling of uncertaint y as to the future of the young protago ni s ts of the s tory,

Prese rvation of Tile BIOI in vo lved a length y pro­cess of restoration. From various sources. ar­chi vists we re able to obta in 40 pe rce nt of the pi c­ture in the form of the original negati ve. plu s two inco mplete ni trate print s. A rchi vist Robert G ill was responsible for viewing all the material . and pain stakingly pulting together a co mplete version. wherever possible using the original negati ve. and when nece ssary taking as littl e as one shot from one of the print s to co mpl ete a scene , When a co mplete ve rsion was fin all y asse mbled . a 35mm acetate fine grain was made fro m the original negati ve . and a 35 mm ace tate negati ve was made of porti ons of the print. A further negat ive was struck from the fine grain : the two negatives we re spl iced toge ther. and a fi nal project ion print was made.

Was a ll thi s wo rkjustified? Pe rhaps not. if o ne we re to go o nl y by co nt empora ry o pin ion of the film , Phorvphn' thought th e film " rathe r tire­some." a nd Th" Blot 's dow n-t o-ea rth s tory. the

72

Genteel poverty takes its 1011-(lIZ uncerta in future fa ces Weber' s young pro tagonis ts.

c limax of which was the theft of a neighbor' s chick­en by the professor 's wife (played by the talented stage actress. Margare t Mc Wade). irritat ed most critics .

Today, ho we ver . the film is receiving bo th a tten­tion and acclaim . It was recentl y enthusiasticall y applauded by film fe sti val audience s in Nashvill e and Chicago, With the othe r Weber producti ons at the Library of Congress-False Colors ( 1914), It' s N o Laughillg Matt er ( 19 14) , SlIlIshille Molly (1 9 15 ), Wh ere Are My Childrell ? ( 19 16). a nd A Chapter ill Her Life ( 1923)-Th e Blot offers the op­portunit y to reevaluate the career of one of America' s most neglected but influ ential ea rl y wo man direc tors. L ois Weber. a Anthony Slide , Assoc iate Archi vist of The Ameri­can Film Ins titut e. is author of the forthcoming book. Early Woman Directors.

a6 member news a

Czechingln

In 1965 the Czech filmmaker Jan Kadar rose to international attention with a power­ful film. Th e Shop on Main Street. The film, dealing with a small town caught up in the Nazi pogrom of the Jews. was widely praised , won an Academy Award for best foreign film, and foc used attention on the c inema of East Europe. It also focused atten­tion on the cinema of Kadar , who in a long-lasting collaboration with the screenwriter Elmar Klos ha s turned o ut a number of notable film s: Kidnapped

Welcome Aboard

I n I Knoll' Why the Caged Bird Sings. thc black writ e r Maya Angelou cmotionall y de­scribed a high sc hool grad uation in Arkansas with a ll the v iv idness ofa filmmaker: Du sty roads. butte r­ye llow d resses. suffocating a ud itorium. ha ughty white speakers . The book was written in 1969 a nd wo n criti cal prai se. Since then realit y ha s ca ught up wit h metaphor: Maya Angelou turned to filmmak ­ing, he r book is being turned into a feature film , and thi s summe r she was one of six national figures clccted to A Fl' s Board of Trustees , as announced by board chairman , Charlton He ston.

The othe rs: Mark Goodson , a television produce r and direc­

tor , who c reated-with William S. Todman-such durable ga me shows as "To Tell the Truth." "The Price Is Right." "Password." and the classic

Guide for the Perplexed

The fifth edit ion of AFl' sGuide to College Courses in Film and Television is o ut , a nd it confirms-if co nfirmation is needed-t hat film and TV studies are booming on campuses . Survey­ing almos t 800 sc hools. the Guide report s that at least 30.000 students-and probably a lot more­are pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees in film and te levision.

A newsletter from the Public Information Office on the Institute and its activities and programs.

(1952), The Defendant (1964) , Adrift , and Th e Angel Levine (both 1969).

This fall Kadar-whose current film is Lies My Father Told Me-is Filmmaker-in-Residence at AFI' s Ce nter for Advanced Film Studies. In the time-honored tradition of writ ers-in-residence , Kada r is mee ting with Directing Fellows, discus­sing their projects , a nd offering hi s counsel. He s also conducting the Center's Directing Workshop. Kadar. who is 57. was himself a film student in pre-World War II days-at the famed Bratislava Film School in Czechoslovakia.

"What's My Line')" Fay Kanin, best known for her screen and televi­

sion writing. Her made-far-TV film . Tell Me Where It Hurts, won an Emmy Award , and her sc reenplay for Tea cher's Per was nominated for an Academy Award.

Franklin Schaffner. the director of Palloll. wh ich won the Academy Award for best film in 1970. He has also directed Plallet of the Apes. Nicholas and Alexandra. and Papilloll.

Jack Valenti , the pres ide nt of the Motion Picture Assoc iation o f America. He was in strumental in devising the new movie rating system.

Dr. Robert W. Wagner , the director of graduate studies in photography and cine ma a t O hio State University, He is also editorial vice-pre sident of the Uni versi ty Film Associat ion.

Trustees se rve six-year terms , with elections held every two years.

The Guide-t hi s year with a striking blue cover-lists eac h sc hool 's courses, degree re­quire ments , faculties, sc ho la rships. and facilitie s. and summarie s of the acade mic approaches. The new edi tion ha s so me thing new: A se lec ted li st of foreign co ll eges a nd uni versi ties that offer film and TV cou rses .

The Guide is avai lable from Americall Film , Book Se rvice. John F. Kennedy Center for the Per­forming Arts. Washington , D.C. 20566.

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Congratulations!

Ralph Andrews is the rroducerofa successful string of game shows on television. Amo ng them a re "Celebrity Sweepstakes," "The New You Don't Say," " It' s Your Bet ," and " It Takes Two." Thi s year Andrews ventured in a new direction: He established two an nual sc holar­shipsat the AFl's Cente r for Advanced Film Studies-for women o nl y.

Andrews said he hoped the sc holarships-for first-year s tudents and wort h $2 ,750 each- will "aid in bringing wo men into equal status with men in the entertainment area, where they have been held back much too long."

The firs t recipients, announced by Martin Man-

Reaching Out

Three AF I film programs-" Archi­va l Treas ures." " Astaire-Rogers," " The Art of the Holl ywood Cameraman" - will tour the cou n­try ne xt year. The film packages are part of AFI Theater's Outreach Program. developed with the a id of gran ts from Exxon Corporat ion and the Na­tional Endow me nt forthe Art s.

Tour stops include : III the East: New York Bleecker Street Theater.

in associat ion with New York U ni versi ty; Boston Mu seum of Fi ne Art s: and the Wad sworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Grants Increased

The AFI will award S300,000 in grants to independent filmmakers thi s fiscal year. That's an inc rease ofS I 00,000 ove r last year-an inc rease mad e poss ible by funding from the Nat ional En­dowment for th e A rts.

The gra nt s , ranging from $500 up to S I 0,000, arc

The American Film Institute

ulis, Director, AFI-West: Molly A. Joseph, a Tem­ple University graduate who wi ll concentrate in art direction, and Donna M. Mungen, a Howard Uni­ve rsit y graduate who will study directing. They started their studies this fa ll.

The two women were selected by a panel consist­ingof Jean de Vivier Brown , the president of American Women in Radio and Television; Nina Foch. the actre ss a nd drama instructor ; Tichi Wil­kerson Miles , publisher and editor-i n-chief of The Hollywood Reporter; and Antonio Vellani , as­sociate dean of the Center.

The schola rships are avai lable for graduating col­lege seniors in program s on film. communications, or theater.

SOllth: Loyola Uni versity in New Orleans and the Houston Museum afFi ne Arts. in association wit h Rice Universit y.

Midwest: Chicago Art Institute and the Min­neapoli s Walker Arts Cen te r.

West: Berkeley Pacific Film Archive . Ot he r film programs planned for Outreach: New

films from the USSR, Canada, Egypt , Argentina, and Iran . They'll go on tour afte r the y're sc reened at the AFI Theater in Washington , D.C.

Outreach is undert he direction of Michael Webb , the Theater' s programming manager. Places equ ipped to ex hibit 35mm prints may apply to share in the program.

awarded to both student filmmakers and profes­sionals. Since 1967, whe n the grants program was started , 15 1 filmmakers have shared more than $ 1 million.

Information on the AFllndependent Filmmaker Gra nts Program is avai lab le from Ms. Jan Haag, AFf Center for Advanced Film Studies, 50 1 Doheny Road , Beverly Hill s, California , 9021 O.

Washington George Stevens . Jr.. Din'Clor; Richard Carlton. Deputy Director: Adrian Borne­man. Ass;s/ol/f to rll t' Director: Bruce Ncincr. Con tro/h'r; Richan.l Jones. Chili A CCO II" t a lit: H 011 i s A I pert. Direct or oflY a­lioll(/I Puhlinlf iollJ,' Dan Rose. Archi\'ist:

Th e Americal/ Film Institut{' COlaloK: Mel Konecoff. Public Information Offlu'r:

Program: A nne Sc hlosser, Lihrarian , Charles K. Feldman Library: Roman Hajnbcrg, Produ ction Mal/aga: Antonio Vellani, Chairman . Senior Faculty: N ina Foch. Senior Faculty: J an Kadar . Filmmaker-ill-Rl'sitfeIlCl': Howard Sc hwartz. Cin ematographer: John Bloch. W illiam Fad iman. Lois Peyser. Wrilc'rs Workshop : Nancy Peter. Registrar.

Lawrence Karr. Moliol/ Picture A rchh'ist: Mich~lel Webb, Film Pmf.?rWlImillf.? Mall­ager: LaITY Klei n, A FI Thealer SIIPC'I'­\';sor: Richa rd Krafsur. t..'Xl'CUlh'C' Editor,

74

Sam Grogg. J r., Educatioll Liaison : W inifred Rabbit!, MC)lIlhership S('Cfetory: Ina G insburg. Chairman . Fail S oJAFI.

Los Angeles Martin Manulis. Director , AFI-We.H: Da vid Lunney. G(' I/eral Managn,' James Powers. Din'ctor ofC ellter Publi('(lIitms: Jan Haag. fI(lac/. 11U/c'pnuJellt Filmmaker

Hollywood and the Collective Myth

OnAmerica in th e Movies

Arthur Schles inger, Jr .

'

hi s book I is <t n aSHl te <Ind absorbi ng meditation on the American movies by a C'llllbridgc man \\ ho is no\\ professor of E ngli~h and com para­

ti ve literature a l Columbia. Mic hael Wood's thcsb. ir o ne ma y attempt a bald s ummary of a subt le and cnmplcx argu­ment. is that Ho ll y\\ ood mo vie:--. from the end of the 1930:- III the begi nn ing of the 1960s (from. sa y. GOlle \Vir" 111(' Wind to Cleu/}(lIm) <.:o n ... tilli lcd a \\orld in the sense that the nove ls o f Bal zac const illHcd a world-a sys te m of va lues. beliefs. <I n(1 preoccupa tiu ll !'> wit h int e r­c hangeable plots. aclOrs. a nd emot io ns and a prevailing ,tyk and lune. Ho l­lywood in thc'ic )'can., Wood \\ rile :-.. ,' rented a mythology. marked above all by a cenain styl i7ed and c harming ex­cess, "simulta neoll"I)' hammed l1P and just rig ht "-the kind uf exce,,:-. sug­gested by the book ' " "ubtitk. the rema rk m .. de by T yro ne Po\\er in -, II(' Marl.. of Zorro w hen remi nd..:d that he i" sc heduled to light a (Iuel that ve ry aner­noon . Thi s mythu lugical \\orld. Wood cont inues. had "an uhl ique b ut un­bro ke n connection 10 the hi s turical world." Some people made fihm, and o the r:-. we nt to sce thelll because thc film s 'It once pluded and soot hed ~x­posed ne r ve!\. "A major function of popu lar movic!\ i!\ 10 a vo id faci ng the bogeys they raise.. . Thc y permit U::. to look without looking al thi ng!\ \\e ca n neit her face fuJl y nor en tire ly di savO\\,

. [allowing theml a quick m:t!\ked pas­sage across our con!\Clou::.ne::.!\.

Thc Ho ll ywood film thu" can be !\ee n ,IS a tex t for a kind of soc ial hi::.tory­"t he s tudy of \\ hat might be ,'ailed the b(lck of the American mind . or pcrhaps the hack ofccrwin "tate" of that mind .' With thi s prcmi"c Wood underlakc!\ a

lAml'l'icfI il/ IlIc' /H OI 'it ',\: Or "Soma Mario. I f Ilad Slippnl \/y Hill(/" by Mic hae l Wood. New York : Ba!'>ic Books. 206 pp .. Illustra ted. S 10.

reexami na t ion of I he popula r film s of t he fon ies and fi ftie s, s pot lighting s uc h re­curre nt themes as lo ne lincss a nd com­m uni ty, succcss and fai lure . the beaut i­ful woman as s irc n a nd the beautiful woman as innocent. the mus ical o f con­fiden cc and the musica l of doubt. t hc ambiguity of rea lil y in the thriller a nd the fanta s tical ion of reali ty in the epic. The mythology. as hc sees it . came 10 a n end in the s ix ties: Ho ll ywood W,IS s till a place but " no longcr a s tyle and a world a nd a nat io nal monument ."

Wood' s approac h 10 these mailers is remini scent o f D. H . I.aw r..: nce in hi s Studies ill Clus.\·ic Americull Litl'mtlll"{'. " The A me rica ns. ,. La wrence wrole, "refuse everyt hing expli cit and alway s put up a doub le meaning. They reve l in subterfuge." Duplic ity - the contras t be­tween what the art is t p re te nd !\ to say and what he is rea ll y sayi ng-i ~ eve rything: "Never trust the artist. Tnl,,1 the talc '" Thi s approach worked very \\ c ll indeed for Lawrence . The film. hO\\ cvef'. i'i a col ­lec ti ve prod uct. I 0 malleI". fro m Wood' !\

viewpoint: Sublim in ;.tI ho pes a nd a nx­ieties affect eve ryone anyway, Yet thc co ll ec ti ve c ha rac te r o f the f ilm -colleclive in it s creiltion. co llec ti ve in it s recept io n- does complica te the pro­cess of a na lys is.

Obviously i:I good dea l c an be dedu ced about a soc ie ty from it s nove ls. But can a soc iet y be dcduced fro m it s movies? There \\" I S. o f cour~e. S iegfried KrClc<luer' s formidable allempl lo show in From CuliJ,:lIl'i to Hitler how t he German film s of the twentie s foretold I :l7 i!'>m . Yet I remember Frilz Lnng once expressi ng to me hi s inc redulit y in rending. w h .. t hc regarded as a triumph of h indsight. Wood is \\ell <t\\are o f the question this ap­proac h r<l ise::.-ofthe way the prcsent re­vises O ul' perception s of the past. In Picl1ic. for e xamplc. ,. th is America. I his place thai -;eemed -;0 p.lsto ra l o n earl ie r vie wings of the film. take s on t he qua lit y of inci pie nt nigh t ma rc. No t bec<t ll sc the direl.:to r. Jos hua Logan, " hOI the mov ie as nightmare. and not becau ::.e a nyone Sit W it as ni ght mare in 1 ~55 or Illllg a ft er: but be­ca use now . in the mid-!\eve ntie!\. t he li ne ­alllents o f nightmare stand o ut in di s turb­ingcl:uit y.··

The assumption of du plicity i::. indis­puw ble. BUI the applicat ion of this as­sumption lead" quick ly into iI he,lds- J­\\ in -wi ls-yoll- Io!\c "illl<ltion. Interpreta­tions become rever"iblc. dep-.;nding on w hat happened I;HCr. Were th..: scvcntie::.

In Pic nic pastoral America " takes 011

I Ill' qual it.\' ofi ncipie lit 1/ iy lit mart' . "

75

tranqui l and benign. Picnic wo uld s till have see med a pasto ra l. The re sult. in the end. is ine scap~l b l y s ubjec t i ve and im pres­sionis ti c. So. in America ill the Mm·ies. Wood' s definition of the g rea t mythic age of Ho ll ywood ( 1939- 1963) see ms essen­tia ll ya res ponse to hi s own season of in­ve te rate mov iegoi ng. Was there no moral uni verse of Holl y\\ ood before GOllt' Witll tht, Wind? Did it all come to an e nd in the ea rl y six ti ~~"! "Wh,t( died in the sixties." Wood \\r it ~3. \\as the habit of mOI·it'going. the ~on o f c ultura l compul ­sion that took ~'o u to the cine ma fait hfull y onc .... ' ~lr t \\ icc eve ry \\ eek. w hateve r was pla ying." b that re,dl y ~O·.) Perhaps it was so for Wood: hut one has the impress ion that. a~ television became a bo r~. the six­tie ~ ~<I\\ prec ise ly a /"(' I'intl oflhe ha bi t o f Illoviegoing .

One \\onders. 100. (thOlil the point of the s t atistic~ WOOlI cite" about the ho ld of Amer ican fi lms in u the r countries. In the fifti es. h~ td ls u". Holly\\ood movie" oc­c upied 70 percenlof the avai lable produc­tion t ime in the Un ited Kingdom. 85 per­cenl in Ire land. 65 percent in It aly. 60 percent in 1\'k xico. Docs Ihi ~ impl y that the subliminal meani ngs abollt Amer ica Wood derj ve~ from the I-I ol ly\\ood pro­duc t also explain .... olllething about the Un it ed King.do m . Ireland. It a ly. a nd M ~x i co '?

I ask the .... e que"t i on~ \\ ithout knowing the an~\\cr~. The only poinl is that d u­plic it y an:dys i-.; i~ it"clf a\\ full y dupli c i­to us. Sti ll the fa c t of duplicit y renwins: and in the hand~ nfa ca reful a nd se ns it ive anal }'!'.1 the method may ,Ic hieve il ­lu m ina ting rc~u l h. Wnod i ~ indeed sllc h an ana lyst. He loves mov ies: he knows the te rritory: he \\ ritl.: s exceed ing.l y wel l: he is (· ivi li/ed. \\ill y. a nd ove rno\\i ng \\ith "harp in .... ighh: a nd he recogn ize~. eve n \\hi le !>lIccum hing to them. the pcr ib of reading the pre!:'ie nt hack into the pa:-.1. AIIIl'ric(/ ill rll(' H OI'ie's is a most in­teresting and e njoY<lb le book. But medi­tation i ~ an art rnrm th,.t s hould be re­served to the 111O .... t allL'llti ve (l nd sC l"upul­OU" llb .... erve r .....

Arthur Sc hl esi nger. J r .. historian a nd a u­thor. is Schwe it zer Professor of Hu man it ies at CUNY.

76

He Always Knew His Lines

On Two Bogart Books

Alex Ward

I t' s been nea rl y 20 yea rs since hi s de<.lth <.Ind s t ill t he fa scina tio n wit h Bogart co ntinu es. T wo new boo k s . H umphYl'Y Bog(lrt i by at hanie l

Benchle y and Bogart & B(I('(l111 by Joe H yams. have now co me along. a nd whil e neit her makes muc h o f a contri b utio n to the Bogie O(' /II ·rt' in scholarl y te rms . Benc hley ' s is an e rudit e. urbane. a nd immensely readable work . More a profile tha n a biography . /-I lImphn'y Bog(lr! is light. breezy. and gossi py. There is a te mptation to ca ll it super fi cia l as we ll . a l­tho ugh the portra it of Bogart that finall y emerges could hardl y be more comple te.

In real life Bogart was a n e ni gma. as di s tant from hi s s wagge ring. to ugh-guy sc reen image <IS Andover. w he re he we nt 10 prep sc hool. is from Beve rl y Hill s . He came fro m a well-to-do New York fami ly-hi s mother was a no ted magaz ine ill ustrator. hi s fat her a s uccess ful physicia n- a nd hi s form a tive years we re com fortable and unclulle red.

Unlike so ma ny o t her Holl ywood stars of hi s era. w hose ambit ion to reach the

If/ umphrt'y Bog(lrt by al ha nicl Be nc hl ey. Basion: L illIe. Brown and Compan y. t43 pp .. Illus trale<.i. 5 15.

2Bogarl & 8 (1(" (//1 by Joe Hya ms. New Yu rk : Davi d Mc Kay Cum pany. In c .. 245 pp .. 11ll1 :-.-1!"(Iled,59 .95 .

to p wa s fueled by a desire to escape im ­poveris hme nt. Bogart fe ll into <'lc ting a l­mos t by accident. and we nt a long wit h it a t the o ulse t as a lark. Hi s ca reer we ll might ha ve fl o unde red in a quag mire o f second leads in II series of hap less. roma ntic Broad way product ions had not The Pl't rijied Fore ... t and the role of Duke Ma ntee corne a long in 1935. The play and Bogart we re e normo us s uccesses. Hi s portrayal o f Man te e was s uc h an e m bodime nt o f ev il that audience s wrig­gled uncomfortably in the ir scat s a t the sight of him. " When Humph rey walke(1 onstage as Duke Mantee." w rit es Ben­c hley. "t he re was a st ir in the a udience. an a udi ble intake of brea th . He was a crimina l. ." Boga rt fo llowed Th l' Pl'1-I"Ijil'd Forest wes t a nd repea ted hi s s uc ­cess in the film . For yeCJ rs afte rward he fo und himseift ypecasl a s Duke Man tee. and suffered with the pe rso na thro ugh a spate o f movies consid erably worse than Th e Pt'tdfit' d For(,.'I1. It wasn't unt il 1941 and NiX" Sit' rnl. in whic h he pl ayed a no the r bad guy. but a sympathetic bad guy. that he was able to s hake t he image.

Bogart 's abi lit y to e ndure awful fil ms W~l S bolste red by hi s firm con vic tion that ac ting was a c raft that can o nl y be pe r· rec ted by hard a nd constant work : his c redo was that a ny ro le was better tha n no ro le a t a ll . Undoub tedl y he suffe red . but he did so qui et ly <l nd pati e ntl y. In front of the cameras he was the picture o f profe s­siona li s m. He wns never la te for s hooting and a lways knew hi s li nes. And he ex­pec ted the same of o the rs.

Hi s persona l life was so mething else. It W,tS. until he married Lauren Bacall in his

A j1a shba ck to th l' Paris past of BOKOr! and B er l-UfI(/11 hefurt' tim(' I,'ellt by ill Casablanca.

mid·fo rties. a mess. He had three un· happy ma rriages . drank 100 muc h a nd. des pite hi s gen tl e upbringing. ga ined a reputation as a fight · pic ker, bar·baiter. and loud· mo uthed tro uble mak e r. In hi s defense. Bogart 's needling see med pro· yo ked m o re by im pishness tha n meanness-hi s taunt s rarel y, if eve r . led to vio lcrH.:e. "It' s an a n." Bogie was s up· posed to have sa id about hi s tro ublema k· ing. "You do it s itti ng dow n wilh glasses on. <lnd bring it ju s t to t he point where he's going to s lug YO ll , the n yo u s top. It ·s knowing w here to s top th ... t' s t he main th ing." Neve rtheless he was eyed by many a s a te r ror .

Boga rt' s depo rtmen t was a pu zz le to his friend s. Be nchJcy inc luded. Despite copio us t rips to the altar and countl e ss confro ntations in bms. Be nc hle y pic tures h im a s a man who be lieved in. a nd lived by. a s tringent Illoral code. He di sdai ned the use o f profanity i:lround women a nd never c hea te d o n hi s wives (and , indeed. says the a uthor. his firs t three marriages we re committe d primaril y ou t o f a sense o f duty). With hi s fri ends. he was faithful a nd generous to a fault.

Hi s ma rriage to Bacall ccllmed him down considerabl y. For t he fir s t time . Be nc h ley writes . Bogart was marr ied to someone he was trul y in love with . By coinc ide nce his careel" was al so pea king a t the sa me tim..:. H ..: had proven h imself a n e ffec ti ve ro ma nt ic lead ' l S we ll as a to ugh guy. and ro les of all sort s were open ing up to him . He Clit down on hi s drinking.md o n his needling. t hough f rom time to time he still fo und the urges ir· res is tab le.

Benc hley's port rail of Bogart is a n 'Id· m ir ing and unders tanding o ne. but it manages to be r ..:ma rkabl y ca ndid nonethele ss. Th ere is none o f the thro ug h·t he·ke yhole b it c hiness of Gar· son Kanin 's Tro cy a nd /-Il'p lmrn. o r the o pelHllouthed awe of A.E. Ho tc hne r 's Papa H l' l1linKlI"llY. two books with whic h it stands comparison. H umphrey BO[:(lrt is ca rri ed o rf with st y le and grace. qua l· ities it s s ubject gre,lt ly adm ir..:d.

Joe Hya ms' 8 UKlIrt & BlInt/l. o n the o ther hand. begs the question. wh y? T he romance of thi s pair . whic h Bench ley adro itl y put s into proper pers pect ive. doesn 't rate a blH)k o f it s own . es pecia ll y whe n it cont a in s se ntences like. " The fu se of a midlifc mari tal explosion was the re. It o n ly re mai ned for so meone to come ,ilo ng a nd light it. ·· Bogie and Bacall ma y have s izz led o n the sc reen. but at horne the y we re j us t folk s. One is Ic ft with t he feeling that somew here out the re Bogi:lri is c huckl ing to himself and s hak ing hi s head over th is o ne.

Alex Ward is a free· lance write r o n film and te lev ision.

Self Exploration in the Seventies

On Taylor's Directors and Directions

Antonio Chemasi

d o hn Ru sse ll Ta ylo r ca ll s hi s lates t book ' a " provisional report from the front." Bul. like hi s esse nti al Cilll' nw Eve. Cil1(' I1U1 E(lr (1964).

the book is about as prov is ional a s. sa y . Mo unt Rushmo re. Taylor's precise. cool prose has the detached pe rs pec ti ve tha t g ives Briti sh film writing the look o f per· ma ne nce. Ye t T ay lo r 's note of c au tion is a pt : T he book is a celebration offi lm . bu t it' s a lso a d isquiet ing portent o f the direc· l ion film is ta king.

In e ig ht essays. Taylor examines the e nt ire output of e ig ht c urren t directors -all of t hem in m id·career and. as he say~ of one . "funct io ning a l full power.·· A ll arc promine nt : Stanley Kubri c k. Satyaj it Ray. Lindsay Anderson . Pie r Pao lo Paso· li n i . Claude C habro l. Miklos Jancso . Dusa n Makavejev: one is not o nl y pro mi . nen l but a surprise-Andy W<lrhol. (Taylo r 's deadpan s t yle mo ves unruffied thro ug h th e funhou se sexua lit y in Warho l 's film s.)

Faced with suc h a di s pari t y o f s t yle s and ta le nt s. Taylo r wisel y igno re s th..: tempta tio n to find any thing in CO l11mol1. Ins tead. with a t horoughness th <l t is sometimes nu mbing (he eve n s urveys three ea rl y fi lms Anderson nlClde for a conveyor·be lt faclO ry). Ta y lo r moves from firs t fi lm to la tes t . synopsiz ing p lot s. searc hing ou t the matic thread s . spOiling s ty li s ti c lin ks-unconcerned jf he fi nds llo ne. For exa mple. he doesn 't find a ny in Kubri c k.

What Tay lor does find in Kubri c k. in pe rha ps the mos t illuminat ing essay in t he book. is a " c inema tic int e lligence" a t the service o f ,I "great popu larizer ." (To T,ly lo r th is is a noble r unde rtaking than to a no the r c riti c. P' llJline Kae l. ) K ubric k 's

' D iN.' cfon af/d Dirl'ctio".\" : Cilll' IIW for fIll '

St' I'Cllfit'J by John Ru sse ll Taylor . New Yll rk: Hilt and Wang . 327 pp .. $ I 1.95. pa pe r. $5.95.

s kill. best de mons trated in A Clockwork Orallgl' . lies in ",Idapting t he "ltes t tec h· niques to the ta sk o f communi C<lIing co mplicated ideas to t he la rges t poss ible a udie nce." T ay lor. cool to 1001. find s in it proof o f Kubri c k 's c u ltural pe rce pti ve. ness. Conditio ned by televis io n. audi· ences in the six tie s underwe nt a shift in se nsib ili t ies: A readi ness to abandon plo t a nd to accept "(1 s llccess io n o f pure ly v is ua l and largely non·vcrbal ex per iences in the cinema witho ut q uest ion o f putting up int e ll ec tua l barriers." Ta ylo r be li e ves 1001 was the firs t important co mmercia l film toexploit Ihi sshifl.

T ay lor is less sa ti sfying o n Pasolin i. w hom h..: ca ll s a n "i ncom parable" mythmaker. The ri ght not e is s t ruck:

lik e the A ncient Marine r. he ho lds us wi th hi s g litt e r ing eye. a nd even if we res is t or posit ive ly re se nt the story he is telling us. we s till ha ve to s it there e n· t hra lle d and hea r it o ut.·· But what makes Pasolin i e nt hrall ing in s uc h differe nt fi lms a s Tlte Cmpl'i AccordiflK /0 Sf . IH(llt lt l' II·. Medell. a nd Thl' O('{" llllll'WII - th e quirk y beauly o f hi s fa ces. the me smeriz ing I<lb· leau x. the lyri cal spontane ity of emo· tions. the con tem plati ve pac ing-Ta ylo r mos tl y passes owr.

Lindsay Ande r:-.on·:-. ambiguity. a s in ~r. Ta ylo r re ve rent ly accepb as a s ign of g race. c a lli ng AnderSll n "one o f t he wo rld 's re lati vel y fe\\ true fi lm c re (ltnrs. ·· Suc h apparent puffe ry is rarc fnr T ay lor. and h..: is a t hi s bes t with hi s ca reful. info rl1l('d <lIla lys is of the gritty rea lism in J !ti.\ Sporting L(ft, .

Si mi larl y. hi s de tailed ex pos ition of Satyajit Ray's A pu trilogy. de mollst rat· ing t he maste rl y weavi ng of the mes a nd symbols. is a s reward ing a s ;In yth ing in the book. But he partic ul;lrl y foc uses on Ra y's auSlere ind iv iduali s lll - hi s refusal to be pig,,:o llho lcd. to follow the limes. .. He makes fi lms in hi s own fashion ." Ta ylo r says. app ro vingly repeating it in o ne way or anolher in e ve ry e ssa y. until it bel'ome s an arti s ti c imper;lti vc: " I see the a rti s t 's ba ilie as be ing primar il y to keep him self 10 himself. to ignore (and be al· lowed to ignore) wh.1I i ~ going o n around him . to e .xp lore hi s own pe rsona lit y a nd preocc upa t ion s with a minimum o f out· s ide int e rfere nce." Yes and no.

If the ,Irti s t is a Sat Y<lj it Ray or a Pier P"o lo Pastl lini. self·exploralions have the ir di vidends: The ir film s embrace the wo rld . the y s peak to all of us.

Contin ll l' d Oil page 85

77

On Hester Street

Joan Micklin Silver and Raphael Silver

I . Th e Writer-Direc/or A 10\\ -budget period f ilm on an ethni c subject. Dialec t. Yid di s h . a nd s ubti­tles. Bl ac k-a nd -w h ite photograph y. Thi s is Hesler Street. t he story of young Ru ss ia n-Jew ish immigra nt s to the Lo we r East S id e or New York in tht: I S90s. the firs t feature film whi c h I bOlh wrote a nd d irec ted.

Perhaps it \I'(I.\' slightl y demented to hreak so man y com rnerc ia lt a bous -;i mil It a neousl y m y fi r:-. I t ime aroLind . But eve ry prac titi ont:r uft he fil m a rt knows tha t a filmm aker has full control over his product un ly when he is at th e very bottom or the vcry lOp . Resting snugl y Il ea r the bu it om. I decided I might as we ll ta ke ad va ntage o f m y freedom by making a film o n a s ubject I ca red about (bu th m y pare nts we re Ru ss ian-Jewis h imm igra nt s. a nd m y father. in pa rtic ul a r. had vivid . if night mari sh . mcmoric s o f t he c ross i ng

f) il'~ctol' Si/I'er al/(I ('{Im eramall Vall Sickle Oil Greellll'ich Vii/axe locatiol/ .Ii 1/' Hester Street.

7X

in s tee rage, Ellis Island, a nd the pa in ­ful adj us tme nt s to the "go lde n Am erica") . a nd b y ma king it in a man­ner w hi c h I fe lt s uited the material.

Thi s freedom seemed es pecia ll y prec io us to me beca use o nce upon a time I wasa Ho ll ywood scree n write r. As we a ll know. the sc ree nwriter has no control ove rt he fini shed product. hi s te rm of e mplo y me nt , or a nyt hing e lse. After watc hing m y origi na l sc ree npla y Limbo tra nsfor med into a toad by its Ho ll ywood direc tor,1 began direc ting, in Me l Brookss ex­qui s it e phra se. " in self-defen se." Several sho rt film s a nd numerou s rib­bons, sta tues a nd Best Short li s t s later. I ass umed I co uld get a feature le ngth w riting/directing assignmc nt . After a ll . I co uld c reate m y own mate rial. I had proved tha t I could s hoot fast a nd c heap ... wha t mo re did t he y want? A sex c ha nge . it wo uld see m . si nce "women directors () rej ust o ne mo rc proble m we do n' t need ." as o ne studi o exec utive was frank enough to te ll me.

T he shocki ngly sho rt li s t o f Ameri­ca n wo men directors whose feature film s have played in mov ie thea ters to a p()ying public te ll s us not that wo me n don ' t know how, b ut tha t they don't get the c hance. Mine came beca use my hus ba nd, Ra ph ae l Si lve r. was a ble to ra ise the money so I could m()ke a n in ­de pendent low-bud get fea ture. H ester Street.

He.'ltrr Str~e t is base d o n Yek/. a s to ry writt e n in the IR90s by Abraham Ca ha n. him self a Ru ss ia n-Jewis h im­migra nt to the Lowe r East Side. Ca ha n was a repo rt e r a nd late r the editor of the g reat Yiddi s h la nguage ncws paper. TheJ~ll ' ish Daily FOI'II 'al'd, In Yckl he c reated two ex tre mely interest ing men: J ()ke. an illiterate sewing mac hi ne Lothario . (lnd Berns tei n. hi s s hy. sc holarly boarde r , He a lsu

c reated three rounded a nd intriguing wo me n: Gitl. Ja ke's bewildered yo ung wife: Ma mie. hi s ambit io us gir lfrie nd: and Mrs. Kavars k y, G itl' s s uppo rti ve if mi sguided neighbor. (Note: three reasonabl y interest ing wo me n ro les a nd none of them a c utie pie. a hooker. o r o ne affl ic ted wit h a fat a l disease.)

The sc reenpla y was w ritt e n in s ix wee ks. Despite the a ttenda nt s truggles a nd strai ns, I was hi gh o n the knowl­edge th a t my mate ri a l wouldn ' t be di s­to n ed later to accommodate the fan­tasies and fal se marke ting not ions of a no the r director. I could c rea te strong . s pirited. funn y. eve n mea n wo me n. and no o ne could de ma nd rew rites un the gro und s that they were " too bitc hy." 1 cou ld crea te a s hy . uncer­ta in ma n. as I did w ith Be rns tein. a nd no o ne co uld say. "No balls. the audi­ence wo n't like him ," A heady bu s i­ness. writing for yo urse lf!

We began pre-produ c ti o n in the Slimmer o f 1973. Because so muc h o f our small b udget had to be se t aside for period se ts. pro ps. a nd costumes. Ray dec id ed to make a no n-uni o n film . The un io ns soo n info rmed him o the rwise. We signed with NABET, SAG. Loca l 829. WGA. and. a ft er a T ea ms ter rep­rese lli at i ve dro ve Ray around the b loc k in hi s (the Teamste r 's) Cadill ac, we also s ig ned with the Team sters.

Mea nw hil e. with the help o f casting director Jay Wo lf. I was busy readi ng actors. Si nce we could i.lfford to pay uni o n sca le a nd no mo re to any me mbe r of the cast (o r crew. for that ma tt e r). it see med po intl ess to submit the sc ript to "name s" or eve n . odio ll s word . "se mi-names," New York pro­vides o ne of the mos t gorgeous pools o f ac ting ta lent a nywhe re in the wo rld . But co uld we find firs t-rate actors who wou ld also work fo r sca le? Happi ly. ex perienced a nd gifted ac to rs lik e S teven Keat s . Caro l Kane. and Dori s Robe rt s, a mong o the rs, loved the ma­teria l a nd we re willing to bypass bette r pay ing jobs for Hester Stree t , For si mpli c it y's sake. we d ecided on a l­phabe tical billing . Since the re was no thing to be negotiat ed. ne ithe r sal­a ry nor bi lling. we soon sig ned 22 ac-

to rs for the spea king ro les. most of whom we re immediatel y put to work with our Yiddi sh and dialec t coach. Mi c hae l Gorrin. (O nl y one of our prin­c ipals had spoke n Yiddi sh before Hesler Slreel. none of the featured playe rs. a nd o nl y a few o f the bit players.)

Short ly before filmin g began. o ne of the principal ac tors dropped out . For a film as tightl y bud geted as ours. th is was a near di saster . We co uldn ' ( 2lfford the lu xury of postponing the shoot. It was too late to hi re a non- Yiddish­speaking actor and coac h him. W e solved the proble m by casting a Yiddish-speaking non-ac tor. Mel Howard . who is presen tl y head of grad uate film stud ies at NY. Me l un­dcrstood the charac ter of Bernstei n. once a promising sc holar in the ol d co untry. now an embitt ered sweat­shop wo rke r . a nd he had spoken Yid­di sh asa c hil d . Whe ther he co uld bring the character to life on sc reen re­mained to be seen. As it turned QlI l. in­formed opini on has it that he doc s.

With a 34-day shooting sc hedu le . half on sets and half on locat ions aro und New Yo rk C it y. the filming it­self we nt along in the usual manner. Which is to say. we had weather prob­lems. personal squabbles. union pres­sures.lab troubles. a nd always . a l­ways. mone y prob lems. " 'f you wCl nt to be an Ame rica n. you gott a hUrl ." So says Mrs. Kava rsky as she laces the gree nho rn G itl in to a tight co rset meant to enco urage the fas hi onable

ho urglass fi gure of the day. We ll. if you want to make a period film o n a low budget, you also gotta hurt . Tho ugh we we re to goover Ra y's es­tim ated budge t of $365.000 by just one percent. it took not only ca reful man­agement. but end le ss penn ypinching. begging . borrowing. a nd haggling.

Altho ugh it is custo mary and se nsi­ble to shoot exteriors fir st. wi t h the op­tion of mov ing onto the se t if it rains. we couldn 't affo rd to kee p Ollr so und stage for the ex tra s ix days of ex te rio r shoot ing . In stead . we completed the work on the sound stage and then moved o ut side to shoot the s treet scenes. A da y of cain wo uld have wiped us o ut. Mirac ulo usly. it didn't ra in . Our yo ung product ion des igne r . Stewart Wurt ze l . managed to create a teeming ghetto street of the I 890s (we used Mort o n Street in Greenwic h Vil­lage. hiring many of it s resident s as ex­tras) on a budget which a more experi ­e nced designe r might have cons ide red laughable. (Later a ll of us we re toad­mire the superb Old New Yo rk street sce nes in Cadjillher II . whic h produ c­tion spen t more on it s stree t scenes than we had in o ur entire budget.)

I in sis ted on a crane fort he film 's final scene in wh ich the ca mera was to trac k wi th the main charac ters. pulling up and away and losi ng them in the crowd befo re the fin a l fadeout. In­sisted. that is. until we learned how much it wou ld cost to rent £1 crane and hire the additi ona l pe rsonn e l needed to o pe ra te it. As with so man y o ther

Caro l Kall e (lnd M el Howard 0 11 " (1

teemiflK Khello street of the 1890s . ..

things. it was beyond our budge t. Our d irecto r of pho tograph y. Ke n Van Sick le. de vised a kind off llllx cra ne shot. positioning the ca mera on a ba l­cony . panning w ith charac te rs. and at the sa me time slowly zoo ming out and letting them di sappea r und er the frame. So it we nt during the en tire shoo t. as it mu st on every low-budget feature. finding ine xpen sive ways to get our effec ts. lettinga part sta nd for the who le. as in Ollr Elli s Isla nd se­qllence. hand-holding the track ing shots. and so on.

At the e nd of the shoot . we had 120.000 feet of3 5mm film in the can. It took film editor K atherine Wenning a nd me ma ny mon t hs before we had a cut to sc reen for cast. crew. friend s. and re lati ves. a number of whom. par­ticularl y Elia Kazan and Ralph Rose nblum. offe red sugges ti ons whi c h we then inco rporat ed into our final cu I. Co mpose r Willi a m Bolcol11 sco red the film . ada pting t he mu sic o f Herbert E. Clarke. a famed bandma ster and cor­netti st of the period . In November 1974 we had our final a nswe r print. a nd Hester Street was read y to be mar­keted.

J oan Micklil1 Sill'l''-

II. The Producer From a bus iness point of view. the toughe s t pa rt of ind epe nde nt filmm a k­ing is not financing the film or manag­ing the problems during production . tho ugh these a re ha rd enough. but find­ing the proper way to distribute the fi lm o nce it is fini shed. The c ho ices are three: through the major studios: through the sma lle r. ind epe ndent dis­tri butors: or through your own sweat . which is to say. going the whole hog a nd di stri buting the film you rse lf.

Every indepe ndent film maker ho pes hi s film will be pi ckcd up by a major

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because onl y the majors pay hard ca sh for the pri v il ege. We we re no different. Eager to recoup o ur in ves to rs' a nd o ur own mo nie s as soon as possi ble. I con­trac ted with the Willia m Morris Age ncy fo r a pe ri od of seve ral mont hs with the hope that the film would be qui ckl y s hown to ea ch o f the majors and eve ntua ll y sold to o ne o f them .

I soo n di scove red that t he coordin a­tion pro blem s betwee n a n East Coast and a We st Coast o ffice o r a ta lent age ncy a re ex tre mely co mplica ted. The Eas t Coas t o lTice had "found " the film a nd was hi gh on it. Th e West Coa st o ffi ce. hav ing bee n d e ni ed the " di scovery." was less en thu s ias ti c. S ince most of the major studios a re headquart ered in Los Angele s . the lim ­it ed pu sh by t he Ca lifo rn ia o ffice d e­layed muc h of the se lling effo rt a nd c reated a situat io n w he re wee ks we nt b y with o ut a nyone seeing t he fil m.

Fo r exa mple . I wo uld be to ld that ar­ra nge me nt s had been made fo r" Mr . X" of o ne oft he majo rs to sc reen the fi 1m . and it wou Id be unfa i r (un wi se) to s ho p the fill11 e lsewhe re whil e Mr . X was loo k ing a t it . I had a lways thought loo king at Hesla Siree t too k 9 1 m in­ut es. Not so. Wha t with unex pec ted trips to E urope. sc hedule connic ts . a nd missed screen ings. it ca n take foreve r. Exec uti ve turnove r be ing hab itu a l in t he ind ust ry. Mr . X ac tu a ll y los t hi sjob before he ever got arou nd to scree ning HeSler StreN.

When t he a rra nge me nt w ith t he Wil ­liam Mo rris Agency ended. I dec id ed to take ove r the marketing effo rt s m y­se lf. By thi s time the s ma ller ind e pe n­dent di s tri b ut o rs . s ll c h as C ine ma 5. were scree ning the film . Altho ugh man y ofthe l11 liked it . t hey te nd ed to see it as an e thn ic. Jewish Market! nos talgia mov ie a nd there fore a tough se ll. Joan and I be lieved tha t Hester St reet cou ld reach and move a muc h b roader a udience. b ut we needed so me so rl of validation beyo nd o ur own say -so .

It ca me w he n I-/ esler Slreet was in­vit ed to the USA Film Festi val in Da l­las in Ma rc h 1975. T he fes ti va l is he ld o n the ca mpu s of So LIth e rn Methodi st

80

U ni ve rsit y before la rge ly yo ung a nd non-Jewish a udiences. These a udi ­ences gave H eSler Street every thing s hort of a s tanding ovation. and sev­e ral reviewe rs called it " the s urprise hit" of the festiv a l. Our ho pes soa red.

Sho rtl y the reafter we we re in vited to show the film at the Criti cs ' Week at t he Cannes Film Fe stival. w hic h turned out to be anothe r majo r s te p forward in t he ma rketing o f the film . Since Ca nne s is the mos t wid e ly at­tended film fe sti val in the wo rld. we had applied _ tho ugh with limit ed ex­pecta ti ons. since friend s in the indus­try had told us that the acce pt a nce was highl y politi cal a nd witho ut people ove r there to _. help.·- the re was littl e c ha nce. St ill . though we did no thing more tha n fill ou t the ap plicat io n a nd mail a print of the film to Pari s . Hester Streel was selected. O nce agai n it re­ceived e xcell e nt reviews and st rong popula r s upport. In additi o n. I was able to make a numbe r o ffore ign sa les (German y_ Fra nce_ Grea t Brit a in _ Bel ­gium ). recouping a significa nt portion o f the film -s cost from the advances.

B,,,"" "',", ""CC, "' ""'''"' at Ca nnes. ma n y America n di s-tributors dec ided to ta ke a not he r loo k at H eSler Stree t . Most o f the majo rs loo ked aga in an d "passed" aga in . conc lud ing that des pit e the exce ll e nt rev ie ws . the wa rm a udie nce recept ion. and the g rowing wo rd o fm oll th , the film was s till "t oo s pec ia l. " O ne major offered to di str ibute with no cash " up fro nt. " Se ve ra l s ma lle rdi stribut ors were now defin itely in tereste d . a nd three mad e firm offers. But no ne co uld affo rd cash payme nt s . a nd o n exa mi­na tio n I fo und that mos t o f the ir trac k records were e rrati c a nd the ir finan ces shak y. The pros pec ts o f re turning in­ves to r mo nies see med clo ud y.

The solutio n seemed to be a " tax s he lt e r" ' dea l in whi ch a produce r se ll s the di s tr ibuti on right s to a n in ves t ing g ro up w hi ch takes over the fin a nc ia l ri sks o rlhe film in return fo r ce rt a in ta x

be nefit s. T hese tax deal s are predi ­cated o n firm distribution agreements. so II110ved to c lose with the best a nd mos t solve nt of the s malle rdi s­tributo rs w ho had o ffered us a pro­posall tho ught was workable. If I co uld put toge the r that pro posal and the tax s helt er dea l. I would be a bl e (a lo ng with foreign sa les to da te ) to recoup a lmost the e ntire cos t o f the film.

The di stribut or agreed to ad vance a fa ir a mo unt o f cas h to lau nc h the film. but hi s final proposa l didn't pe rmit us to have any say in t he pro mo ti o n o r prese ntatio n of the fi lm . --Take a lo ng tr ip ." he ad vised us. In additi o n . the " standard " procedu re for s plitting grosses betwee n distributor and pro ­ducer is heavi ly we ig ht ed in the di stributor 's fa vo r. These pe rcentages we re no t negotiable. a nd I could no t face giv ing up so muc h fo r so littl e.

By now m y ins t inc ts told me that the only way H eSler Street would ge t proper di s tri buti o n wa s to d o it myse lf. thus co mple ting the cyc le of in de pe n­d e nt filmm a king. I was e ncouraged by the ex pe rience o f Jo hn Cassavete s. who had been pri va tel y and pro fitabl y d is tributingA Woman Uncler Th e / Ilfluellce. The majors had passed on thi s fj] mju s t a s the y had H e.\"f er S (reet. finding it "too spec ial. " The s mall e r independent di stribut o rs we re will ing . but o n a basis w hic h Cassavete s fou nd undesirable . ju st a s I had with o ur film.

Cassavetes is reput ed to have sa id of the va ri ous di s tr ibut o rs. la rge a nd s ma ll. majo r a nd minor. " These gu ys a rc going to fo rce me to make a m illi on do llars.·- Whil e I a m no t ready to say the sa me of Hester S lree(. I a m co nfi ­d e nt tha t Hester S treet will be properly pre se nt ed to t he publ ic a nd t ha t it s d is­tri b uti o n will be well ma naged.

The pros war n tha t we a re "out o f o ur mind s" to di stribute the film ou r­selves. but then tha t" s w ha t they said w he n we dec id ed to make H ester Stree t in the fir s t place. . a period film on a n e t hni c s ubjec t . . d ia lect. Yiddi s h a nd subtitl es. . blac k-a nd­w hit e phot ograp hy.

R ap /w eI Sill 'e,.

The Participatory Film

Tom Gunning

When the Lumiere brothers fir s t pro­jected their til m. Th e Arri nil of (I Train at tlte Station. the audience is sa id to have ru shed to the ex it s in fear. Suc h powerfu l participation in a film image is so lo st to us today that we are like ly tu doubtthe aut he ntic ity of th is s tory. Howe ver. in thi s ex traordi na ry re­s ponse to a projected image lies an es­se ntial co ncern of ava nt-garde film ­ma king: The re lation between an a udi ­e nce a nd the film it watc hes.

American avant-garde filmm a ke rs ha ve a lways tr ied to transform I he a u­dience as much as to revolut ioni ze the film medium . The firs t generation of avant-garde filmm<1kers after World War II turned to the dream and the un­co nscio Ll s. But int he seve nt ies. film ­ma kers like George Landow a nd Ho l­lis F ra mpt o n ha ve begun to explore ways of he ighten ing the audience s se lf-co nscious ness. Instead ofn lms of revery. the y produce fiI ms of analys is. Their films beco me not communal dreams but group les ts.

P. Adams Sitney, in hi s mo nume ntal his to ry of the American ava nl-garde film, Visionary Film ,L ca ll s the m par­tic ipatory films . The y ac tive ly in vo lve t he audience, address ing it d irec t ly, a nd lay down I he rul es for a ga me be­twee n aud ie nce and 111m . The audi e nce it se lf. Frampto n says, mus l c reate th e core o f the se film s: to wa tc h I he m pa s­sive ly o nl y leads to boredom . Thi s mea ns learni ng a ne w way to watc h film . S ince these film s co nt ain no nar­ra live, one can ' ( project o neself int o a fi c tio nal wo rld . No r ca n one become enraptured by a lyrica l st rea n"t o f vis ua l images as in so me ava nt -ga rd e fi lms. T o wa tc h a participatory fi lm is 10 be re minded aga in a nd aga in tha t one is s itting in a theater watc hing a sc ree n n:nt!c ting vis ual info rmation .

In hi s witt y fo ur-a nd -a- ha lfminute

film, Institutional Quality. George La ndow illu s trates the a pproac hes of the pa rticipa to ry film . T he film ope ns with a n image ofa li ving room. The on ly move me nt is the ro ll ing ba nds o f sta tic o n a TV se t. An intimi dat ing fe ma le voice a nnounces, " Th is is a te st . There is a picture on yo ur desk. ,. The voice addresses us direc tl y. im­mediately individual iz ing the a udi­ence . T he threat ofa te st brings a type of awareness q uit e contrary 10 " nor­mal" film viewing.

We realize we a ren 't rea ll y go ing to be te sted . ye t we are so tra ined 10 re­spo nd to invi sib le voices (like t he re­cordings o f te le pho ne opera tors threa te ning to "aut omat ica ll y inter­rupt" o ur ca lls if mo re co ins aren ' ( de­posit ed ) that a tes t- tak ing aware ne ss is a ro used in us. In a spirit of pla y . we fo l­low it through . Butthe wo rd s. " There is a pictu re o n your de s k . "add a new e le ment. S ince we a re no t pres umab ly in a classroom, the s ta te me nt make s us awa re of o ur true p hys ical SlilTOlllld­ings. The picture we see is nol o n o ur de s k b ut on the sc reen. Thi s is wha t makes Landow's film so inlriguing. We not o nl y part ic ipate in lak ing a te st . we a lso he lp to destroy it b y recogni z­ing it s abs urdit y.

The tex t mo nitor te ll s us. " Turn on the te le visio n . Put a numbe r three o n w ha t yo u would (ouch ." An enorl11Ou~

ha nd fill s the sc ree n a nd dra ws a three o n the te levision. We, of co urse . ca n ' t re s po nd to the mon it or's in stru ct io ns. The gigantic ha nd {which does fo ll ow them)jolt s us o ut o f the imagined test situa ti o n a nd b<Jck int o a n awareness o f bei ng a n audie nce watc hi ng a film . The film co ntinues to in vo ke a nd bur­lesq ue its te st. While the monit o r co n­tinues to int o ne di rections on the sound track. Landow introduces a pa rody of a film on how to thread and o pe rate an 8mm projec tor. He re La ndow ex plores a no t he r type o f film w hi ch direc tl y addresses it s audience , the instructio na l film . Aga in , he de­stro ys it. If someone ca n ' t thread a projec to r . how co uld he wat ch a film w hic h s hows how it is do ne?

In La nd ow's Remedial Rem/illf,! COI1l{Jr(>hensio/1, we see a shot of Landow himself j ogging in fron t ofa film of a man running throug h a wood s. Thi s image in vo lvesa do uble recog ni ­ti o n . Firs t we see that Ihe backgrou nd La ndow appears to be rtlnning I hro ugh is o nlya prujec ted image . The n wc rea li ze t ha t Landow is a lso o nl y a pro­jected image on a sc ree n we a rc watc h­ing. It is this kind of spira ling definition a nd redefin iti o n o ffilm image s tha t La ndo w pursues in hi s film s .

Thc image of La ndow running has pr inted ac ross it. " Thi s is a film about you ." The same image la tc r appears

" ••. (I Jpir(l /ill f,! defillilion lind r('(/efillilioll (~f:rilm imaf,!l's .. . ,

81

wi th the inscription. "Not about it s maker. ·· ac ross it. Certainl y th e p<l r­ticipatory fil m is in so me way a fi lm about "you," the audience wa tching it . Bu t how is it "Not about it s maker" ' - particularly when we are see ing him on the scree n?The fi lm's insc ripti on itse lfi s fraught with co n­tradicti on. and part of the game that Landow in vites us to pl ay wil h hi s fil ms involve!'! doubting and questi on­ing their own pronou nceme nt s. The subtlet y of Landow' s approach is that whether he lI ses a test or di rectl y ad­dresse!'! the audience to geJ in their par­tic ipati on. he never truly co nt ro ls their viewing of the fi lm . Rather. he ca lls into qu esti un the process of film­viewing it se lf. and invites us to explore it s Cl mbigu it ie s.

A long "il h La ndow. Ho lli s Fram pt un has made the pa rti cipatory film fl exib le and surpri si ng. Frampton is one ofthc most prulific and dynamic figures to have emerged in the Ameri­ca n ava nt -garde in the last ten years. I hesi tate to cla~sify his \\ ark under any one catego ry. but certai nl y Zonzs Lemma and Nostalxia arc fi lms w hi ch illu st rate the pl easures and co mplex­it iesof a participatory fi lm .

Zanls Lemma is based on the most uni versa l cxa mple ofrote lea rning. the alph abe t. for most of us our first formal ex perience ufl ea rning. Fr<:l lllpton ex­plores bot h the po tcntials and the limi ­tations of t he alphabe t as a way of or­gani zing I he wo rld . It s possib ilit ies be­come apparent in the way it organi zes thi s fil m and gives us a fa miliar form in w hi ch we all Cel n pa rt ic ipate. It s limi ta­tions also become ev ident as we rea li ze Ihal lhe imagesof lhe film go beyo nd Ihe a lphabe lica l sl ruc lUre. T he al phabet game we play inZol'lH Lemma is onl y an entrance into the film .

T he film begi ns wilh blac k leade r. W e hear a voice read couplets (" I n Ada ms fall /We s inned a ll. ") fro m Th e

82

Bay State Reader . a M assachu se tt s <1 1-ph abel prime r fro m a round 1800 . Afr er thi s image lcss rea ding. Frampton runs Ih rough Ihe a lpha be t in bloc k lelle rs . T hen co mes the firsl of over a 100 pre­se nta tio ns of wo rd s begi nning with eac h ofl he lelle rs from A 10 Z. The words are ge ne rally fo und o bjec ls in nalU ra l surround ings: wo rd s on bill­boards. lettering on windows. gra ffiti , labels on o bjecls. a nd so on . Each word appears on the sc ree n fa r one second .

Several ga mes fo r Ihe a udie nce be­co me possible. First we recogni ze the alphabelical o rde r oflhe wo rds a nd a n­lic ipale the nex lle ll e r. (Bul si nce Th e Bay State Reader Ll ses th e Roman al­ph abel . whic h combines J wilh I a nd U with V . ra ther than the more familiar 26-letter one. we have to correc t Ollr expec tati ons at point s.) T he ac tual reading of the word s also becomes a game fo r I he a udi e nce. Since I he word s appear in natural surroundings. they function as thi ngs as we ll as word s. Our perce ption oft hem as wo rds. and then as things in a three­dimensional world . nips back and fOrlh fo r Ihe one second Ihey a ppea r . In several images t he word is obscure. Sometimes onl y repea ted viewi ngs will reveal a wo rd mas ked benea th a shadow.

o F rampton already has a co mplex game going on in hi s first 24-second run -Ihro ugh Ih e a lphabe l. BUI o n Ih e fiflh run-Ih ro ugh he inl roduces a whole new film game. Wh ere we ha ve been see ing wo rds beginning wit h X . a jerk y. I re m bli ng shol of a fire a ppea rs in stead . Thi s fire image co ntinues to fililh e X s lo l in all subsequenl run­Ih roughs. T wo Irips Ih ro llgh I he a l­phabel laler . Ihe Z se l o f wo rds is re­pl aced by a sho t of ocea n waves. In Ihe nex l seve n a lpha bel cycles Q. K. and Y are dro pped (repl aced res pec li vely by imagesof a c himney smo king. a Irac king shol ofa fi eld ofl a ll weed s. and a man painting a room).

O ne begin s 10 ex pec llha l gradua ll y all the word s a re going 10 be re placed by images (a nd. in fa cl. alt he end of Ihe fi lm Ihey are). As we ru n Ihrough

this mi xed se ries of word s and images. the repea ted images co me to stand for Ihe words Ihe y re place. Fire beco mes X. Ihe ocea n beco mes Z. We also realize that the series of wo rd s appear­ing in each letter pos ition are them­se lves in alphabetical ord er . For in­stance. when the word "after" ap­pea rs in I he A s lo l in o ne run-Ihrough . the nex t run-through gives us the word "age." a nd Ihe nex l "agency. " so eac h wo rd Ihal a ppea rs in Ihe A posi­tion is in alphabe ti ca l order. When the A word s reach "awning." we know Ihe se ries is nea rl y co mplele. In Ihe nex t run -through. the A words are re­placed by the inmge of a man turning the pages of a book. Thu s. we ca n an­ticipate when words are goi ng to be re­placed by images.

A s the wo rds are repl aced. we begin 10 ex pec llhe bu il d ing up of a tradit io nal lyri cal avant -ga rde film. a ser ies of images inl errel aled by rh yl hm or visual form . However. our overrid­ing awa re ness oflh e a lpha bel fo rm preve nt s us from see ing the film simply as a visual poe m. Even when only a few words remain . we still ment all y run through the alphabet as we watch the images. A t so me point we recog­ni ze Ihe arbit ra ry nalUre of aliI hi s. Wh y has a girl in a swing beco me Ihe le ll er L or bea ns be ing po ured inl o a ja r become the letter ? H owever. the wit oflh e film lies in o ur recognizing Ihi s abs urdil y o nl y by playing Ihe game 10

Ihe e nd . T he fi na l sec li on of the film . wilh il s lo ng sIal ic shol of a snow-fill ed land sca pe . seem s to hint at a way of experiencing the world di vorced from Ihe ca legori zing a lphabel ga me we havej ust see n destroy it self.

A nother Frampt on film . Nostalgia. is Ihe firsl pa ri of his magnum o pus. Hapax LeRomella . a three-hour film . Even thi s single sec tion isone of Frampton's most ambitious films. a kind of pa rl ic ipa lory a ut obiogra ph y. We sec a se ries of phologra phs ,a ke n by Fra mplOn placed o n Ihe burne r o fa stove. The burner is turned on. and s lowly eac h ph otograph c rumples. bu rns. a nd lurn s 10 blac k ash . On the sound trac k we hear a voice describing

th e photographs and the circum· stances under which they we re take n. The na rration form s so me thing of a n artist's autobiography as see n through hi s a rt wo rk s. The tone is one of nos· talgia . a se nse of the loss embodi ed in the pa st . beaut ifull y re prese nted by the tran sfo rmation from representa­ti ve image to dark chemica l ash.

Ie pa rtici pation of the a udie nce he re is re lati ve ly simpl e. but esse nti al. The fir st descri ption is hea rd ove r a photograph of a room offil ing cabinet s. The desc ripti on doe sn't ma tch thi s photogra ph at all but de­scribes the nex t one we see. a portrait of a man peering through an ornate pic­ture frame. The fil In co nt in ues thi s way: We hear a de sc ripti on of a photo­graph we are abou t to see. and we see a photograph we a lread y have hea rd de­sc ribed . T his s tagge red re lati on be­twee n sound and image has a double effec t. It ex presses so mething of the nostalgia of destroy ing o ld photo­graphs and remini sc ing about them. Whil e we watc h these image s of the past burn , we must reca ll the descrip­ti on of the.m from our pwn (admitted ly immediate) pa st . disal lowing any di­rect emoti onal in volve ment. The bit· terswee t narrat ion about each photo· graph is not direct ly prese nt ed with it s image. We have to match them. and thi s leaves a breat hing space. Th e im· med iacy of nostalgia is medi ated by our participat ion. The so undtrack it · se lf seems to in volve thi s mi xture of di· rec t in volve ment and distance. T he touc hing a necdote s of Frampton' s life are read (i n the first pe rson) not by Frampton himse lf. but by the film­ma ke r Mic hae l S now.

This ga me of ani icipating the nex t photogra ph a nd recalling the last de­scri pt ion proceeds calml y until the last sec ti on of the film . Th e fina l descrip­ti on (though we do n' t realize it is) tell s about Frampton's gradual abandon· me nt of still photograph y. He de-

scribes a photogra ph he too k whose co mposition was ruined when a tru ck suddenl y in truded into the fra me. On printing the negati ve, Frampton noticed a detai l in the truck's rear view mirro r. He e nlarged tha t section of the print. The film 's narration continues:

" T he grain of the film a ll but oblit ­erates the features of the image. It is obsc ure. By an y possible rec koning it is hopelessly a mbiguous.

Nevertheless, what I believe I see recorded in that speck offilm fill s me with such fear , such utter dread and loathing, that I th ink I shall neve r dare to ma ke a nother photograph again .

H ere it is! Look at it ! Do yo u see what I see ?"

Consistent with the rules of thi s film . the image we are told to loo k a t is never shown. Thi s, of co urse. is the mo me nt found in ma ny part ic ipatory film s whe re we can no longer fo llow the rules. and we are jolt ed into an aware· ness of the arbitrary nature afoul' pa r· ticipation. Yet the final spoken co m· mand see ms to go be yo nd thi s con­cern. H ere we reach the ce ntral iss ue

for the partic ipatory film: Ex ploring the relati on bet wee n the film audience. th e fi lm o n the sc reen. a nd the film­make r. " Do yo u see what I see?" must be the prime question be hind all film ­making. D. W. Griffith him se lfra ised it when he desc ribed hi s filmmaking: " My task is to ma ke yo u see." The pa rticipatory film as explored by Landow and F rampton is a new and rad ica l way to ask th is questi on.

Tom Gunning teac hes film at Brook lyn Coll ege a nd is writing hi s d isse rtat ion o n D. W. Griffith 's Biograph film s.

A tracking "hot oj ajield oJtall weeds rep/aces the fell er K .

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Louis Malle 's Viva Maria .

Kennedy Center Washington DC

Paul Robeson in The Emperor Jones.

OCTOBER Louis Malle The leading French director in person at the Theate r (October 4) and a retrospective of his films, including Les Amants, Le Feu Follet, Phantom India and Lacombe, Lucien .

Blacks in American Films Ongoing film-lecture series in which scholars discuss the cont ribution of black artists to the American cinema.

Canadian Film Festival Major new French- and English­speaking films presented as part of the Canadian Festival of the Arts.

Independent American Filmmakers New and classic films, presented and discussed by their makers.

Salyajil Ray A tribute to India 's lead ing film­maker, to be launched by Mr. Ray, and including several American premieres.

For fu rther information call the AFI Theater Box Office: 202-785-4600, daily noon-4:00 pm ; 5:15-9 :00 pm. Info rmation on films showi ng at the Theater from Bob Leverone; call 202-833-9300, or write the AFI (Regional Services), Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. 20566.

Books COlltinued/rom page' 77

But if the arti st is a Claude C habrol. the imperative of self-exploration turns into a presc ript ion for a he rmetic art. a di­minishingoffi lm 's range, About C habro1. Taylor is fo rced to concede: .. H is wo rld is so s mall and limited: he deals with the same si tuation over a nd over again. from slightly difTerent :.I ngles. His obses­sions a re thorough ly pri va te a nd per­sonal. a nd he has pursued them fro m film to film with a conce ntra t ion and ded ic,l­tion seldom matched e lsewhere in mod­ern cine ma." Notice the he ro ic to ne mitigati ng the concession .

A hermetic 'Irli st. of course. can lap a pub lic taste. Warhol did wi th the loopy dem imonde o f hi s film s. But freakiness as a life-s tyle is a lr e;:ldy turning quaint . a nd Warhol now h<ls moved o n 10 become the Mel Broo ks of go re. W<lrhol's earlier preoccupations took herme ti c .. 1ft 10 a new leve l: He peopled hi s film s not with characters hUI with li ves, Tay lo r insists that Warhol a nd hi s p,lrtner Paul Morris ­sey are "sub limely unpalronizing" o f their fre aky superstars: " The y acce pt thdl ·~ tar~· ab~u l utel y o n their own terms: the stars are what ever the y wa nt to be, wha tever they think they are. and tha t is that. " From direc to rs do ing the ir ow n thing 10 Si al'S doing their own thing. But whe n a performa nce approaches mental pa th ology Ta ylor see ms unce rt ai n : " Mario Mo ntez do ing a pa thc tic would­be provoc;.lt ive drag act see ms like a compuls ive :.!C ting o ut of i.I private f(l n­tasy . "

Wo rd s like private. eso te ric. <lnd hermetil: occ ur again a nd aga in in Din' ('tors lIIId D in'c lio l/ .\'. T ay lo r 's "Film s for the Seventies" desc ribes worlds diminished. constr ic ted in spirit. They are far re moved from the wor lds on film cc le brated in Cilll'l"a Eyt' . Cillema Ear-th e cxp<lnsive and e mbra c in g world s o f Fellini . Godard, Bergman . and TruffauL In Ihi s se nse. Taylo r brings back a bleak repon fro m the front.

Lucia L VIlII Most'.\' . sullry lIig"lcb~b pn/orml'r ill ' :he Scar of Shame. c. 1927. A . ' ra('e" movil, cr('(lfl'djor black audiences, a 11(111111 i/n' ­cellll), neglecled by critin'.

85

Fresh Light on Racial Themes

On Blacks in American Film

Thomas Cripps

American hi story imposes a formula upon it s s tude nts tha t goes some­thing li ke thi s: The enlight­ened ide a ls o f th e Founding Fathers minus the nation 's fai lures

to move towa rd socia l j ustice equals Progress, Movie histo ry . a t least as it re­lates to Afro-A mericans. follows a similar mod e tha t was first defined by Engli s h­man Pete r No bl e's we ll -meaning . na ive. li be ral trac t. The Negro in Films . whe n it appeared just after Wo rld War II . Despit e it s wea knesses. the book has lo ng served as a nagging indic tmen t of American ra­c ia l a rrangement s as re flec ted on the screen-even now a quarter of a cenlu ry late r in the form of a reprint in <I se ries of cine ma class ics.

Until recent ly. no histo ria n has c hal · lenged oble's o rigi n<l l conce pt o f c inema depictions o f race: no fresh hi stor-

'From Samba to S upersp(ule: The Black Expe' rh' I/Cl' ill MOlioll Pictlln's by Daniel J . Leab. Bosto n : Ho ugh ton Mimin . 320 pp .. lllustra ted .$ 15. Black Films allli Film-Makers: A ('0111-

prt,hl' II s i\'e AlllholoRyJrom Stn('o type 10 S uper/I('ro edited by LindsHY Patterson . New York: Dodd . Mead . & Co mpan y. 400 pp . Ill ustrated. $ 12.50.

icaltheory has replaced it s s imple vision : a nd no new litmus tes t of the meri ts o fra­c ial themes in movies has appeared, A fe w recent blac k essays prov id e (I di ve r­sion fro m the mod el by igno ring the first 40 years o f film hi story. focusing in stead o n the highl y compressed recent yea rs of the blac k revolutio n that fo llowed the New Deal and Wo rld War II. <1 nd thereby finding black voices . forces deep in the nuances a nd turn s o f phrase of Ho l­lywood products, But the progress of bl<lck images fro m stereotype to he roic figure remai ns the main sys tem of stud y­ing blacks in film . unaffec ted by theories o f a uteuri s m . formalism. o r struc­tura li s m,

The two boo ks' here unde r considera­tio n . eac h for its own reasons. a re the best o f Ihe recent crop o f revisionists of Noble's pioneering work . Like Ihe ir prc­decessors eHch of the vo lu mes traces the progre ss o f blac k ci ne ma illlilgcry " rrom Sa mbo t o S upe r s pade" or fr o m " Stercot ype to Superhero." At the top of their form . they break the formu la to s how that no t every s tep from Ra stus to S haft may be progressive: the y correc t a nd a mplify oble: and the y illumina te the rel a ti o nship between popular cultu re and the ge neral American soc ial cond i­tio n.

Like all an tho logies. Black Films alld Film-Makers suffe rs from the prej udices or edito rial selec tio n . the gaps be twee n his a utho rs ' inte res ts, and the obvious age of so me of the pieces. But more tha n any other book. PHtl e rson' s ca tc hes the a mbiguit y and the confli ct s urro unding the hi story of blacks o n film . His cho ice of sources o nl y lacks for mass c ircuhllio n magazines like P"otoplay and fo r the black press in whic h is re vea led the sa ti s­f:'K tio ns and rese ntments the ir readers derived fro m S tepin Fetc hit and the other

black trad it io nal is ts of the 1930s. Patter­son is a j udicio us co mpi ler who leavens hi s work wit h a d emand for blac k movies o f the future with "tec hnic(11 perfectio n. so lid charac te riz<ltion and a coherent story." a ltho ugh he is unf<l iri y im pat ie nt with o lder fi gures lik e Fetch it a nd Hallie Mc Dan iel who m he insists "grew even more obnox io us and ou trngeoll s wit h eac h film appeara nce.·'

Stude nt s of black cine ma owe Patter­son their than ks fur mak ing ava ilable ,I fi ne collec tion of fug itive pieces. Law­rence Reddick's art icle in the Journal of Nq!ro Edllcatio/l ( 1944) was a bluepri nt for blac k wa rti me pressure on Ho l­lywood. The black debat e over the di­lem ma o f br inging black folk -v~lIu es to the sc reen a t the risk of Hully\\uod explo it a­tion in I/alldujah .' and /-I t'art s iI/ Oixie appears in the el us ive a rt icle s by Sterli ng Brown. Alain Loc ke . Robert Bcnchley (in Opportllnity), Floyd Co vi ngton. and o thers. Jame~ A send io'~ and William Harrison' s nearly 10"" ... k c t c he~ of a ll ­black " race movic" productio n arc e spe­cia ll y we lcome, it!'> is Albert Jo hnson ' s neglected wurk in Film QUUl"ll'rly. If Pat ­te rson di smi sses the earl ies t s ilent blac k film work. he make!'> up fo r it with hi s own sharp-edged essay!\ on the mo(lern enl a long wi th a ~e le c tion o f biting c ri ti c i ~m of " blax pluitat ion" pic tures,

Dan iel Leab' s From Sam/}/) to Supn­,\pade carrie s the reade r ove r the sa me ground as Palt erson'~ book but wi th the added ad va ntage of the hi sto ria n ' s con­trol over his m'lt erial. More tha n <Ill y o f the rece nt \~ ri lers o n black c inema. Leilb uses the discip line of the traditional hi s­to rian who. in additio n to v i e \~ ing film s. is willing to turn the l eavt:~ of pr intcd a nd manuscr ipt S() lIr<.:e~ in purs uit of the forces that im pinge upon film his to ry. While avoi ding a bro(ld ly conceived rev i­sio n of earlier \~ riters. he cor rt:CIS man y errors. fill s gaps in knowledge, (Ind c hro ni cles thc progre ss o f ra c ia l stereotypes fro m Southern roots to mod­ern t imes.

In the primiti ve begi nn ings of c inema. Leab asse rt s. black ro les seem to run the ga mut o nl y " fro m A to B": anti a ll the way to the G re,1I De press ion the blac k prese nce on t he sc reen appears 10 be main ly "the sa mt: old dross . ,. Putting aside the question of hi sto ri c,*, accu r,lCY, suc h a historica l mode l tends to blur fr<lgile. subt le. s porad ic deviat ions from no rms. In order to dist ill the be st of blac k c reati vit y. Leab focuses on the arca ne.

86

the pri va te, the mythic. as though to say a nything blac k tha t is crea ted. if it is ava ilab le to whi tes or financed b y them . cannot be t rul y black . Unfo rtunat e ly . thi s view mini mizes ambigui ty a nd va riety in favor of a narrow concept o f black cul­ture. espec ia ll y in a med ium li ke film that ha s been so manip ulated by whi te econo mic forces.

If we see the period 1890 thro ugh 19 15 as a ll of a pi ece. for exa mple. then we can'( tr ul y measure the overwhelming emotiona l impact of the C ivil War semicentennial o n the na tio n and it s film s. T he nat io nal alt itude toward the C ivil War shifted from mute avo ida nce of waving the bloody shirt by reviv ing the o ld heroic ta les to a celebratio n o f int e r­sec tio nal harmony charac terized by Pres­ident Taft·s add ress to the joi nt e ncamp­me nt s of Un io n a nd Confede rate veterans a t Petersburg ballie fi e id in 1909. :-{u n­dreds of C ivil War movies were produc ed du ri ng eac h year of the se micentenn ial. and the image of the loyal slave a nd fa m­ily retainer (howeve r ste reo typed) br ieny crea ted a positive presence fo r blac ks in American film s.

In simi la r fa shio n. later on in the 1920s the reader may miss the importa nce of Uncle Tom's Cabin , /-I alh' luja lz.' and N t'MIS ill Dixie to ma ny blac k c ritics who percei ved them as d eviat io ns tha t prom­ised a bette r future by dea ling with blac k life and by providing major parts for blac k ac tors. St ill later. the movies ins pired by the soc ial conscio ll s ness s tirred by the Depress io n. the libe ral internationalism stimui<lIed by Wo rld 'War II. a nd the ho peful li beral pro mi se he ld o ut b y the postwar "message mov ie" era. arc a ll sce n by Leab as min imal alta inme nts o r hypocri ti c<JI c harades on the pari of avaric ious white studios. The res ult ac­cord ing to Leab is that. thro ugho ut the history o f AfrO-Ame rican s on the Hol­lywood screen (and in di sa ppoi ntingly brief co mpass. the foreig n screcn). blac ks a re madc to seem to ta ll y the puppet s of white men.

Leab's be st wo rk is in bringi ng forth in li ve ly re lief the work o f " race movie" make rs who we re segrega ted from white Holl ywood.

For decades mov ies creilt ed by black s (o r at least fo r black a udie nces) have bee n negl ecte d by crit ics. The se "race mov ies" formed o ne of the onl y canons of black cinema in the wo rld. Us ing the ra re ly studied George P. Jo hnso n Collec­t io n. Jo hn son· s own oral tes timony, a nd

the urban blac k press. Leab brings to life the los t ac hieveme nt s o f the Lincoln Mo­tio n Pic ture Com pan y. Oscar Mic he<lux. Bill Fos ter. the Colored Players. a nd o ther " race movie" producers.

I n trea ting off- sc reen deve lopment s the methodological problem in From Sambo toSupnspade persists . If blacks see m so irred eemab ly d o minat cd by w hit e bus iness me n. how ca n we properl y eva luate t hei r political t,K ti cs in thei r own be half? The rclease of Til e Birth of a Na­tiol/ in 19 15. for example. prov ided the occasion for hammering the NAAC P in to a cohe sive national bod y. an eve nt o nl y thinl y o utlined by Leab. Ot he r examples of militant blac k press ure on the mot io n picture indu stry were the inte rnal debate ovcr. and NAAC P tactics 1O\\'<lrd. Tilt' NiKRN in 1916. the respo nse 10 the de­c line o f " race mo vies" during the Depression , and the a ttempt to politicize Holl ywood during World War II . A close r stud y o f black ta c ti cs would ha ve sharp­ened the blac k defin itio n o f posi t ive blac k sc ree n images: C hange s in image cou ld then be seen as victories or defeats against the statu s q uo rather than a smooth progress io n of stereotypes. Thus . a celebrat io n of So uthern va lu es like COli(' lI"ith the Wind in 1939 might also have been see n as (\ partial accorn mo(liI­tio n to blac k o pinion.

Leab sees few c hange s as the result of blac k activ it y or even presencc. If "by the 1950s the film indu stry had cons ider­ably muted the coarser. more unattrac­ti ve images o f the black '" the n the shin was probably in response to dat a implic it in trade pa per guesses that .. Mo re Adult Pi x Key to Top Coin ." ra the r than t race­ab le to blac k ac ti on. Eve n gcn uine black a lt a in ment like the wa rtime Tlte N('KW SoldiN appears a s more the creat io n of white Fnll1k C lpra than blac k C II·lton Moss.

Not until the chapte r o n "bla xplo ita­tion· ' mo vies of rece nt yea rs does hi s book b ring int o s harp focu s <l sense of continuing black con nic t and debate wit h Holl ywood values . Neve rthele ss , Le<lb 's book. like Patte rson' s, remains the best of its genre - honest . careful. tempera te, and ma king good li se of neg lec ted pri · mary so urces.

Thomas Cripps is Professor of History at Mo rga n State College and a utho r o f a fo rthco ming book o n blac ks in American film .

"Jerry Lewis's Films: No Laughing Malter?" by Jean-Pierre Coursodon. Film Comml' III . July-August 1975.

A Fre nc h crit ic who once com pared Jerry Lewis to Robe rt Bresson and Jcan-Luc Godard takes a second look and decides he has second thought s. Lewi s, though now at a c rea ti ve standstill , is still em au­teur . Coursodon .ugues. but Ihe film s - like 111e Pal sy, Till' Nlltf.\' IJf'(~rl'.5sur. and Wll ich Way 10 the FI'OIII ? -arc con­trived and. wurse. not ve ry funn y. The problem: Lewis 's sophistication as a filmma ker gets in the way of the come­dian. "Comedy is probably the la st ge nre left today in whic h a filmmak e r ca n' l get along on style alone, and Le wis is ce r­tain ly no exce ption,"

'Genre : Populism and Social Realism " by Ray mond Durgnal. Fi/III Commell1. Jul y-A ugus t 1975.

A thoughtful in ves tigat ion oflhat slippery term . ge nre-Durgmll dClIlonstr.lles how Citizell Kalil' ca n fi t into a do ze n categories-and in particul;u the ge nre of populi st film s. Durgnat pro vidc li numer­ous examples of films that cd chrat e the common people.

'The Art of the Producer: Jerome Hellman" by Andrew C . Bobro\\. Filmmakers Nl'u'sletter. July 1975.

The produce r of Day of the LO('IIS1 is in­terviewed on the fine-and largely unpublicized-art of producing. Of hi s re­lationship with director John Schlesinger: " He doesn't interfe re with the admini s­tration. o rga ni za tion. and running of the

compa ny a nd my word is law. And what happens on the se t I don't interfere with and John's word is law." But he mourns the crea ti ve impote nce of the producer: Once all the hiring is done . "your o ppor­tunit y to really control what you've c reated o r have a significant vo ice in is a void and your function is esse ntiall y mao nipulative . ..

"John Ford: A Reassessment" by Mic hae l De mpsey. Film Quarlt'Tly. Su mmer 1975.

" The myth of John Ford's grea t arti stry badl y needs a c hallenge." With that. Demps ey la un c hes an unre le nt ing pole mic . calling Ford a "folk art ist" whose "America is basica ll y a c hild 's fantasy preserved in the aspic of his hori­zon shots a nd scenic vistas." Dempsey acknowledges tha t in "some of the later film s. Ford ex presses pain and confusion over c hange s in hi s Amer ic"l: but for Ihe most part he e ndorses-oft en co mp\;.l­cenll y-every officia l piet y. religious. socia l. a nd politica l. " Spec ifi ca ll y. De mpsey find s Ford bound to rac ial stereotypes-" Both Griffith and Furd lac ked the im,lginmion to transcend thc racia l stereotypes of the ir periods": a sexist vie wpoint -"The vast majo rity of Ford 's women are . IS mired in ste reotypes as his non-whi tes": and a mucho ideal - for Ford " manliness implicit ly mea ns fighting . ye lling. drinking. " Dempsey ag rees that Ford was "arti stica ll y ambi­tiolls," but at hi s worst. " he is a n e mu· tional vulgarian who lays on his ideas a nd fee lings like a bu tTet suppe r ."

" Ingrid from Lorraine to Stromboli : Analyzing the Publil"s Perception of a Film Star" by James Da mico. T/1I.' Journal of PO(Jular Film . Spri ng 1975.

A study orthe maki ng and unmaking ofa star's image. Da mico argues that the ex­traordinary outc ry that gree ted Ingrid Bergman's aITair with Robertu Rossellini was the result of pub lic di sa ppointment with the la pse of her movie image. Her c,lreflill y prepared image. e nginee red by producer Dav id O. Se lznic k. stressed her na tural. unaffec ted . spiritual side . The image-making. D<lm ico asse rt s. led the public "10 rat ionali ze away the specifi­ca ll y sexual c haracter of the I<lrge st pro­portion of her role s a nd . eve n more essen­tiall y. the almost to tall y sex ual nature of

her sc ree n perso na ." With the afTair. " the now wrathful public rose up in an ef­fo rt to pull down what it saw as a se lf­proclai med fal se idol."

" The Ar t oflhe Interview." (M ore). Jul y 1975.

Mike Wallace. the pe rsis tent int erviewer of C BS 's "60 Minutes." during a sy m­posium on the interview: "The single most interesting thing that you C,tn do in television. I find. is 10 ask a good question a nd then let the a nswer hang there for two or three or four seconds as though you're expecting more. YOll know what. they ge t a little bit e mbarrassed and give you more .

"Film Com glomerate Blo(kbusters" by Joseph D . Phillips. Journal ofe ommllllic(lIiol1. Spring 1975.

Despite the a ntitru st decisions that shoo k lip the giants of the mo vie industry in the late forties. Phillips a rgues. inde pende nt film prod ucers aren't too indepe ndent. He quotes Roge r Le wis. who produced Th l' Pall'lIbrokt, ,, : "When you are dealing wi th a nywhe re from a mill ion to eight million dollars of so mebody e lse's money and the money is being put lip by businessmen. the pressures to modify. alter. and co mpromise a re bou nd to be e normOll S, a nd the y are ve ry hard to wi ths tand . Even when (he produce r has the ~llIth o rit y on paper to make all the de­cisions himself.· · And he quotes a trade journal report: " It isn ' l ge nera lly rea li zed that most of the film s produced indepen­de ntl y not on ly re ly on the di stribut ion facilities of the big companie s. but a lso COllnt on them for their financ ing." The return of blockbuster films. Phillips says. with their huge budgets and huge box of­fice receipt s also means increas ing dom i­nance of the major fi lm co mpanies-and a n increasingly homogeni zed product .

"Swifly Lazar" by Barry Siegel. W" the Wome,,'s Wear Daily Supplement. Jul y 25. 1975.

A loving pro fil e of the co lo rful. 68-year-old literar y agent in Beve rl y Hill s who in 15 yea rs has sold $ 100 million worth of literary properties to publishers Hnd movie studios. Lauren Baca ll has called him a figm ent of so meone 's imagi­nat ion. and a competit or ca ll s him a rasca l

87

but "(1 well- liked rascal. ThaI's how he get s away with it." H i~ rasca lit y includes selli ng propertie ~ he doesn 't represe nt. gett ing huge advances wit h inve nt ive sum maries of books he hasn 't read. and corner ing studio heads in unlikel y pi<lces (Jack Warner's mo ment of trut h ca me in a shower stall). His c lient s have included Ernest Hemingway. Noel Coward. Orson Welles. :.t nd Art Buc hwald. but hi s latest coup is spec tac uicH t've n fo r Lazar: Ric hard Nixon's memoirs-sold for two <I nd one-half million dollars. Lazar. who purslle~ the good life with an ex-model wife. a Roll s Royce. '-I cac he of modern art. ,:tIlel interna tional hobnobbing. is philo~ophic;:11 ;Ibou! hi~ exploit s. even abollt hi s heigh t ()-fnot-3): "Being short me<.tnS yo u ca n a llr .. lct tall and s hort gir ls-it 'sjust the medium ones w ho are a problem .' .

.• MO\'ies for a Small Screen" by Jo hn Ru sse ll T 'Wlor. Sighr lIlId

Soul/d. Spring 197).

T;lylor argue~ that no di ~t in c tion rea ll y exis ts bet\\cen film ~ for the scree n and film s fur television-and the di stinct ions that arc made :He based o n unexplored assumption ~: e.g. th'lt Ct)llstant c lose-ups a rc exclll~ively fur one medium. th.H TV movies need frequent jolt-. or gimmicks and thrill s. In fact. T"lylor says. TV mo vies arc "ex'lclly the equivalent of the B-featurcs that u,ed tu be chu rned o ul for cinel11<'l!'> . . Technically there i ... really nu diffe re nce." He \\ orrie~ that TV film s .. lre ~ hO\\ ing . ·sign ... of a terrib le urge to­ward intellectual res pect abi lit y." Hi s ad­vice: " Whe re cO l11rnerc ia li"m h,.\!'> been bli s~. ' t i ~ roil y to \\ant cla!\s."

" Renoi r Re· Viewed " by Bill Sil11on. U niver~ity Film Stud)1 Center Ne\\~letter. June 1975.

Jea n Renoir · ... thinie ... film~. Simon al'­glle~. are ~imilar 10 Impress io ni ... t painting ... -inc luding thu!'>e o f hb father. Augu~te: Renoir: " I am ~lIggesting that the ba ... il..· eleme nt-. of Renoir· ... ,tyle in the thirtie~ tilm ~ can be ... cen almost as the pUlling into motion of the cumpositiona l c harac teri ~ ti c ... of Illuch impressioni~! pain ting," Specifically. Simon refers 10

s il11ilari ti e~ in "t he \\ay that ch'lrac ter :-. arc e ngaged in different a<:t iuns in differ­ent arca:-. of the: ~pace." in the provisio nal framing . and in com po ... itilln.., that em-

88

phasize both depth and lateral s pace . Rull' s of/he Gall/£" S imon believes. is the best example.

T he June Newsle tter also inc ludes a " highl y se lec tive" film ography on circlls themes : 14fi lms . an nota ted .

"Gett ing Into PBS" by ick DeMartino. Tdt'Visiolls. Augus t·September 1975.

Because PBS "will opt for bland ness over controversy any day ," independent tele vis ion producers don ' t have it easy, DeMartino asscrts. He cites the "dif· fi cult " limeJ o hn Reill y hadge uinga I ew York airing for hi s Tht, Irish Tapl'.\'. an advocacy documentary on North I rc1and . Reilly. who directs Global Village. a pro­ducing group. is now proposing a "video o p-ed pagc" where "well-crafted. de­ve lo ped arguments can be presented." He sees it as a way fo r independen ts 10

make inroads into public TV .

" Some Structura l Approaches to Cinema: A Suney of Models" by David A. Coo k . Cilwma Jounwl. Spring 1975.

A difficult s tud y ofrecentlheories on the ci ne ma : v idi ~ tic ana lys is. auteur­structura lism. a nd cinesem i o tic~. All three. Cook !\Iilte~. suggest " radi<':'lll y broader theoreti c<l l horizons for the c inema th'l n had been dream! of in the firs t 70 years uf the mediu Ill' S c xistencc ... The theuric:-. examine c inema le~s from its con nect iu ll to the tr<lditiomll 'I rl S than to its ~peci al me<: hanical nature. w hich le 'ld~Cook to ~ay: " I amthefirs t toadmit that the mClhudulogiesexarni ned he re are profoundl y anti-humanistic in their as­s ll mpt ium. . . But perhaps an u ve rlo,)d of huma ni s m is preci~c l y what has keplll s from co rning tll term" wit h the fi lmic art thus fa r.··

" The Return of MO\'ie," M OI'il' , Spring 1975 .

Tu nl<lrk ib re turn tu publication. the Briti ~h Mode rll n~ a 25-p'lge ~Ylllpu~ ium on reccnt c hangc~ in American film s and on the role .... Inl! Illcthud~ of film cri ti c ism . The partici panb include Ian Ca meron . V.F. Pe rkin ~. an(1 Robin Wuud. Like all good ... y rnposia. thi~ one prodllce~ some li ve ly excha nge~ and ends in disarray.

t ; I!!l~{1'1! I!Ul l!! In November

Walter Ke r r : Who Was Harry Lallgdon ? (A reasse ssmenl of lhe silenl clown)

Elisabet h Weis: Fami/\' Portrait s (Film ·makers explore Iheir rools)

Bruce Cook: The Canadian Explusion (Our neighbor compeles fo r the au­dience)

Michael Pointe r : Holmes Lh 'es! (A nd so docs his smarl er bro ther)

Alex Wa rd : Th e Sellill!! of the C (llldidlltes (How they usc f il m and TV)

Thomas Wiener: The R ise (Ill" Fall uIthe R ock Film (Has the long cycle ended?)

Larry McMurtry: No C/ae: Pan II (More on lea rn ing to write for the mov ie s)

And books, educa tion , feslivals, and Ihe t'ontinuing 16-page section , Dialogue 0 11 Film .

PholoCredits: Anthology Fi lm Archi ve:-.: The Boll o n ~ Trading Corporat ion: Broadcasl;"/( M aNtlzilll': CBS Television Network. Photo Division: Cincmabi lia : Columbia Pictures In­dust ric!'>. Inc.: Samuel Fuller: Leonard Mahin: Metro-Goldwyn·Mayc r: Lucia Lynn Moses: Museum orFinc Arts. Boston : The Muscum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive: Paramount Pictures Corporation: Screen Gems. Inc.: Joan Silver: Anthony Slide: Dalton Trumbo: United Arli"I"Curporation: Universal Pictures: University Film Study Center: Warner Bros.

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Please enroll me today asa National Member of The American Film Institute. I have enclosed my check for$15.00. or you may bill me at the address below. Among the many benefits I will receive is American Film , published ten times a year.

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Just detach and drop in mail . or send to : The American Film Institute . John F. Kennedy Center for the Performi ng Arts. Washington. D.C. 20566

Give a Gift of National Membership­in The American Film Institute!

Please enroll the following people as National Members of the AFI . at $15.00 each. And begin their subsc ript ions toAmerican Film today!

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Just detach and drop in mail or send to : The American Film Institute, John F. Kennedy Center forthe Performing Arts. Washington . D.C. 20566.

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At Long Last

American Film Includes Each Month, __

A Lively and Continuing Exploration of the Film Arts ...

~ou can receive every issue of

American Film - ten yearly-by becoming a national member of TheAmerican Film Inst itute. Your

membership aids in fu rtheri ng the work of the Institute: preserving the heritage and advancing the arts of fi lm and television in America. In addition to the magazine , your benefits include substant ial d iscounts on recently pub· lished books in the film fie ld : discounts on admission to the AFI Theater in the Kennedy Cen ter, Washington , D.C., one of America 's foremost cinema-

Dialogue on Film- a 16-page pu ll-out section featur ing interviews with major ind ustry figures. Film Festivals-in·depth reports on what's happening in cinema . from Los Angeles to Moscow. Focus on Education- how our schools are nurturing the growth of our twen­t ieth century art form . Explorations-much-needed exam i­nations of independent fi lmmakers and their works. Books-reviews. critiques. and ex-

theques; discounts on admission to the f ilm prog rams o f the Los Angeles Coun ty Museum ; when you visit Los Angeles, a guided tour of the beautiful Greystone mansion whereAFl' s con­servatory is housed , and . in Washing­ton a tour of the J. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ; substantial discounts on such AFI publicat ions as its Catalog of Featu re Films, and Guide to Col lege Courses in Fi lm ; and , attest· ing to all th is. a membership card that allows you to take advantage of other benefits p lanned for the future.

cerpts of current pub lishing ventures on the film world .

These features, along with informa· tive articles by well-known con­tr ibutors and striking photograph s add up to a serious, highly readable, and entertaining magazine on our fi lm com­munityand industry.

Take time now (using the attached card) to join your fe l low film parti sans asa member of The American Film Institute. And begin receiving your is­sues of American Film .