Celebrating Films of the 1960s & 1970s - Interviews

MEL BROOKS: EXCLUSIVE CINEMA RETRO INTERVIEW

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:03:00 -0500

MEL BROOKS: COMEDY AS THE CURRENCY OF FRIENDSHIP

By Eddy Friedfeld

(Photo copyright Steven R. Stack)

Mel Brooks is profiled in a superb American Masters documentary entitled Mel Brooks: Make a Noise, which premieres nationally on PBS stations on May 20^th. One of 14 EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) winners, he has earned more major awards than any other living entertainer, and shows few signs of slowing down. With new interviews with Brooks, his friends and colleagues, including Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Cloris Leachman, Joan Rivers, Tracey Ullman, Rob Reiner, and his close friend, with whom he created The 2000 Year Old Man, Carl Reiner. A DVD with bonus material will be available Tuesday, May 21 from Shout Factory.

"When they called me to say I had been chosen as the next 'American Master,' I thought they said I was chosen to be the next Dutch Master. So I figured what the hell, at least I'll get a box of cigars. When I realized my mistake I was both elated and a little disappointed at losing the cigars," Brooks said.

The comprehensive film takes viewers from Brooks’ early years as Melvin Kaminsky in the Catskills (“I became a drummer because I wanted to make a noise,” Brooks said. “I could have been a floutist, but there was not enough noise”), to his work with Sid Caesar (“that SOB held me back because of his Promethean talent”), to finding his own voice. He knew he had something, he didn’t know how to peddle it, ultimately realizing that his “job was to spot the insane and the bizarre in the commonplace.”

The documentary has a unique and a decidedly different feel. “You get a view of the participants being seen on monitors,” said filmmaker Robert Trachtenberg. “I'm a photographer by trade so I usually shoot my documentaries in studios to achieve a consistent look (and be able to get more people interviewed per day). Because Mel is a filmmaker, I thought it was appropriate to show the milieu - the edges of the set, the monitors, etc. I didn't want the interviews to exist in a vacuum, and I flat out refuse to have a vase of flowers or a lamp behind someone's head.”

“Mel was different from anyone else I've worked with because .... he's Mel! It's a pleasure to talk with someone who is so bright and has such command of the language - you don't want it to end. The most fun was being able to throw out questions that he hadn't heard before - or approach topics from an angle that was new to him. As Rob Reiner says, he's at his very best when he's put in a corner. I asked him deep, probing questions for four months, and he got to keep the shirt we bought for him. So I think we both made out pretty well."

In preparation for my conversation with Mr. Brooks earlier this week, I spent two weeks calling close friends with whom I shared an eternal love and reverence for Brooks and his works and sought their input as to what made him better and more enduring than anyone else who does what he does. It was the joyful conversations themselves that provided the obvious conclusion: No one else could have gotten me to make those calls to other busy people who took the time to think and laugh. Each call reflexively elicited dialogue from his films (including my favorite, “What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?”), which over the years has become the shorthand of our affection. Brooks’ comedy is the currency of our friendships.

While it is well-settled that he is a genius at comedy, he is also a genius at collaboration and friendship. Infused in his work is his love for comedy teams and the journey: The Marx Brothers and the Road Pictures with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. At the core of every one of Brooks’ films there is a partnership and a friendship between at least two characters that are on an adventure. It is the well-defined characters that launches and sustains the comedy and makes the stories enduring. “Unconsciously I was a pup in a cardboard box with three other pups, my brothers, and we tumbled about with each other,” Mel Brooks insightfully said, recalling his modest Brooklyn roots. “That’s why my films are almost always two guys on a journey,” he said.

“When you parody something, you move the truth sideways,” Brooks said. However in developing the on-screen friendships, Brooks built foundations of truth and drilled down deep into the relationships.

I invoked Sid Caesar, Brooks’ friend and former boss, who said: “Great comedy is stories with beginnings, middles and ends. And its best version is combining comedy with pathos. In City Lights, Chaplin’s little tramp character falls in love with a blind girl. He takes out his last dime and gives it to the blind girl to buy the violets she is selling. When she goes over to the water fountain to rinse out her cup, Chaplin follows her with love in his eyes. She rinses the cup and then throws the water in his face. There was a hush in the audience because they didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. That to me was a great piece of comedy because Chaplin captured that bittersweet moment, and was truly working both sides of the street.”

While most of the interviews analyzed the comedy penthouses of his skyscraper classics, I challenged him to analyze the foundation of Brooks’ work: The Da Vinci “science of the art,” the sub-textual pathos of his work- comedy as the currency and engine of friendship, defining the essence of the characters that define and drive the comedy, and a comparison of his fictional friendships with his real-life counterparts. Brooks’ understanding and creation of screen friendships mirror his real-life friendships which go back decades.

Early days: Mel and Sid Caesar (Photo courtesy Mel Brooks/PBS)

Blazing Saddles, Brooks’ 1974 masterpiece is a satire of Western films and a brilliant social commentary on race and government. The two heroes- Black Bart (Cleavon Little), the Sherriff of Rock Ridge and The Waco Kid (Gene Wilder), are overtly friendlier than Newman and Redford’s Butch and Sundance, on which they are based. When it comes to character development, the Brooks films take the attendant characters and make them more passionate, compassionate, and affable. The comedy is buttressed by friendship, heroism, and honor.

The last interchange in the film occurs after Bart has killed Harvey Korman’s villainous Hedley Lamarr:

Kid: “Where are you going?

Bart: “Nowhere special.”

Kid: “Nowhere special… I’ve always wanted to go there.”

As the two ride off into the sunset, and then into a town car, the scene is as poignant and heartfelt as it is anachronistically funny, with the best friends not knowing where they are going next, and not concerned because they are going there together.

The screen friendship mirrors the relationship Brooks has with Carl Reiner, his comedic and creative partner in crime for over 60 years. “When I first joined The Admiral Broadway Review, the predecessor to Your Show of Shows, I was so unsure of myself I was throwing up between parked cars. I came from South Third Street in Williamsburg [Brooklyn]. I thought I was destined to work in the Garment Center and work my way up from shipping clerk, to salesman, to maybe a partner. I thought that any minute I would be fired. Sid fought for me, but [Show of Shows producer] Max Liebman didn’t want me.” According to legend the stern and staid Liebman would throw lit cigars at the young and animated Brooks.

With Carl Reiner, 2001 (Photo courtesy Robert Trachtenberg/PBS)

“Carl came to the show and thought I was really talented- he supported me at every turn. Carl was a little older and had been on Broadway, he starred in Call me Mister. I was leaning on him for the first two years until I felt I could be there and had my own sense of confidence. If I said I was the best, he said “’you are.’” He created the 2000 Year Old Man with his tape recorder having faith that I could become any character he threw out: From a submarine commander to an Israeli psychiatrist or a Cockney English director.”

“The first portion of my life Carl was my rock. Christ said on this rock I will found my church. On this Jew from the Bronx I founded my church.”

In public from across a room he looks at Carl not only affectionately and for artistic fuel, but often protectively, to make sure his friend is okay. To anyone with close friendships of their own, their rare and enviable bond is apparent and palpable. There is purity to it. They are the Butch and Sundance Kid of comedy, both comedic alchemists, creating funny lines, images and situations literally from the air spinning their golden wit and entertaining and energizing everyone around them, endeavoring to make everyone in the room not only entertained by but engaged in the comedy. “We have a talent for that- turning a room into a community and we enjoy doing that,” Brooks said.

“He’s not a kid anymore and I still love him,” Brooks said of the now 91-year old Reiner. Things turned around. 60 years later Carl leans on me. We’re both very lucky we’ve survived the storms of age and loss. It’s the son’s duty to take care of the father. He just called to ask whether I want the marinated lamb chops or the baby lamb chops- I said get the baby lamb chops thick.”

In 1967’s The Producers, Brooks took the name of Gene Wilder’s character Leopold Bloom from James Joyce Ulysses, and undertook the challenge of making the audience root for two characters that are crooks. It is because of the affection and friendship between Bloom and Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) that the story works.

“You can’t help yourself, you want them to succeed,” Brooks said. “I try to explain it all in the lovely speech that Bloom makes in the courtroom trying to protect his friend, Max.”

After the jury foreman (Bill Macy) announces that the jury finds the pair “incredibly guilty,” Leo says:

Leo: “Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, Max Bialystock is the most selfish man I ever met in my life.”

Max: “Don’t help me.”

Leo: “Not only is he a liar and a cheat and a scoundrel and a crook who has taken money from little old ladies, he has talked people including me into doing things that they would never have done in a thousand year… this is a wonderful man who made me what I am today. And what about all the women: Max made them feel young, attractive and wanted again.”

“It’s the father taking care of the son,” Brooks said. “And then the young guy is taking care of the old guy. I also had that in The Twelve Chairs. The young streetwise guy is dealing with the “’out of it’” privileged aristocrat, who never had to worry about life until the revolution set him back on his heels.”

1974’s Young Frankenstein, which director Brooks co-wrote with Wilder has Wilder’s Victor Frankenstein nurturing Peter Boyle’s monster. In none of the other 200-plus versions of the genre did the creator ever risk his life to save his creation. Boris Karloff never sang and danced when he portrayed the monster, nor did he sit on his creators lap. “In no other version did anyone say: “This is an angel- this is a good boy,”” Brooks said.

Both The Producers and Young Frankenstein are metaphors for Brook’s friendship with Gene Wilder. In accepting his Oscar for Best Screenplay from Frank Sinatra for The Producers he thanked Wilder three times, with both men fighting back tears. “Gene Wilder came from nowhere, unknown. Just like Carl spotted the talent in me ten years before that, I spotted the talent in him. I knew there was no more talented actor in comedy or drama than Gene Wilder.”

“He was so grateful to me for supporting him emotionally and bringing the best out of him. I have a great wine collection because of him. I was drinking Manischewitz until I met Gene. He really understood wine. Anne [Bancroft] and I went over to his apartment in the [Greenwich] Village one night. A real dump. But he had a rotisserie, a barbequed chicken. I didn’t know how he did it. He served Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a Rhone wine, and I said “What the hell is this liquid?”

So I began buying that wine and then he served Nuits Saint Georges, a burgundy. I had not yet hit gold, a claret or Bordeaux. At the next meal he ordered Lynch Bages, a French Bordeaux, which I began to collect Bordeauxs, including Sassicaia. I now send Gene something I don’t think he can afford and he’s always happy to get it.”

Cinematic legends meet: Mel, Alfred Hitchcock (who he used to call "Al"!) and Anne Bancroft during the production of High Anxiety. (Photo courtesy of Mel Brooks/PBS)

1982’s My Favorite Year was Brooks’ love letter to Sid Caesar and early television, and was based on his own experience as the youngest writer on Your Show of Shows. Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) is assigned to chaperone the less than reliable movie-star Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole) who is scheduled to appear on King Kyser’s (Joseph Bologna) Cavalcade of Comedy. The film made me fall in love with Sid as well. I told Brooks that it was 20 years to the week after I saw My Favorite Year that I was writing with Sid. The affection between the two is still strong. “If Sid Caesar was in a coma and you walked into the room, Sid would get up, say “’hello Mel,’” and drop back into the coma,” I said.

Brooks acknowledges the connection he still has with the 90 year old Caesar, whom he visits regularly. “I’m one of the few people who can get his synapses to fire in that special way. And I’m proud that I can do that. Because if there was no Sid Caesar there would be no Mel Brooks.”

I reminded Brooks of an evening at New York’s Pierre Hotel in 2000, where Caesar was honored and Brooks presented him with an award. He moved the capacity crowd of the great ballroom to near tears. “And it’s not the chicken,” the choked up Brooks said at the time, praising his friend. “Life takes you on different paths. I got on the right road when I went with Sid- and it never went wrong.”

He recalled the now fabled “Writers’ Room,” still one of the most romantic metaphors in history for creativity and comedy and arguably the greatest collection of comedic talent ever assembled.

“It was very stressful to be that creative. We had an Olympic level of comedy height and had to get over that crossbar. We knew when we were settling for cheap standup material and when we were exalted in terms of the human condition and being genuinely funny. We always aimed for that. Max Liebman was a master- he put on live Broadway review every week for 39 weeks a year. Sid wanted me- I could come up with bizarre things- all kinds of crazy things that distinguished Sid from other comedians. I came up with material for the German Professor character and foreign movies.”

“There were only a few of us in the beginning. Max supervised the writing with Sid and Carl sitting in. There was Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen and then myself. Tony Webster was brought in. The later incarnation of the Writers’ Room included Doc and Danny Simon, Mike Stewart, Aaron Ruben, Woody Allen, and Larry Gelbart. We’d work separately and all meet and complete each other’s tasks. Unless there was a big movie parody where we all sat in a room together. It is still the only show where the writers became as famous as the stars.”

He recalled meeting another young writer whom he is still close to, Rudy DeLuca, who along with Steve Haberman is part of Brooks’ inner circle. “Rudy is a real pal- he was working on the Carol Burnett show with his partner, Barry Levinson. Rudy has such a funny personality- he was crazy board member in Silent Movie. In High Anxiety, Rudy played the hit man with the aluminum teeth. Who came up with the idea of putting a little Japanese umbrella in his drink when he was stalking me in the bar.”

“Barry also wrote with me on High Anxiety. He would tell me stories about growing up with his friends in Baltimore. I took him to Il Vitelloni, Felini’s first film- which is about a group of friends who grow up together in Italy. I said, this sounds like what you’re talking about. Take your stories put them together and take out the ones that don’t work. He wrote the script to Diner in three weeks.”

I explained to Brooks that two people shaped my creative life and influenced what I wanted to do more than anyone else: Larry Gelbart and Mel Brooks. “Including me, he could have been the best writer in the Writers’ Room,” Brooks said.

I told him that 1974 was my “favorite year,” Gelbart’s MASH was on TV and Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein were in the movies. The intellectual driven comedy made the smart kids feel hip and ambitious. “You have to know a little bit about the world and the history. All the references are critical- if you don’t get them you don’t get the essential comedy and what we’re trying to do.”

In 1982- I bought 10 copies of The High Anxiety Soundtrack, the flipside of which included the songs from all of the other prior Brooks’ films, to give as holiday gifts to friends. When I presented it to one of my college friends, he clutched the LP to his chest and ran off eager to play it. Flash forward to 1995, I get a box in the mail- it was The 2000 Year Old Man Boxed Set that had just been released on CD with a note from that friend thanking me for the LP 12 years earlier.

Brooks recalled a similar experience: “I screened High Anxiety for Alfred Hitchcock. He didn’t say a lot, turning to me a few times, when the newspaper ran down the drain, he said “’brilliant,’” which was very nice. He said he had less showering [in Psycho] than I had. At the end he got up and left without saying a word. I was so worried. I thought this is no good. I guess he didn’t like the picture.”

“The next day on my desk in my office at 20^th Century Fox there was a beautiful wooden case of 1961 Château Haut-Brion. Six magnums. Priceless. Unbelievable to this day. There was also a little note: "Dear Mel: I have no anxiety about High Anxiety, it’s a wonderful film. Love Hitch.”

“The only two people who ever said I was a good director were Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. I never heard from anyone else in the business. Until the AFI called me. Last October, the AFI named Brooks the recipient of the 41st American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, which will be presented in June, joining Shirley MacLaine, Tom Hanks, John Ford, James Cagney, Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, Clint Eastwood, Sidney Poitier and both Kirk and Michael Douglas.

“I’ve always been saluted as a comedy force but never as a film director. I always explained the movie clearly so that the story worked. My dream was to get over the Williamsburg Bridge and get to Manhattan ever since I was three years old. Me and my childhood [and lifelong] friend Gene Cogan, formerly Eugene Cohen, would walk over the bridge to Delancey Street and get a knish and a root beer. I knew there was something great over that bridge.

Young Melvin Kaminsky got his knish and root beer. And Mel Brooks crossed the East River Rubicon and journeyed to entertain millions as a masterful storyteller and continues to entertain new generations of grateful fans with big noises that get even bigger laughs.

Cinema Retro Contributor Eddy Friedfeld teaches comedy and film history at NYU and Yale and is the co-author of Caesar’s Hours with Sid Caesar

Can't get enough Mel? Check out Lee Pfeiffer's extensive interview with him in the latest issue (#16) of Cinema Retro.

Click here to order Make a Noise from Amazon.

AN INTERVIEW WITH TERENCE STAMP

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:35:00 -0600

He's been in movies so long, it's hard to remember when he wasn't on the scene. From his first big splash in the 1962 film adaptation of Billy Budd up to the present day, Terence Stamp proves he is a diverse talent with a knack for stealing every scene he is in. Filmmaker Magazine writer Lauren Wissot caught up with Stamp at the Palm Springs Film Festival and got him to open up about some fascinating aspects of his long career- including an amusing anecdote about Joshua Logan literally begging for him to star in the 1967 screen version of Camelot. Click here to read.

JERRY LEWIS DISCUSSES HIS COMEBACK FILM, "MAX ROSE"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 05:22:00 -0600

Lewis directing in the 1960s

Screen legend Jerry Lewis just turned 87 years old but he still has plenty of energy- as evidenced by the fact that he's currently in production on a new film titled Max Rose, which is a drama. Lewis was recently interviewed by Entertainment Weekly and he discusses the film and his career. Click here for more

"MISTER ED" AND BEYOND:AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAN YOUNG

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:44:00 -0600

Copyright © 2006 Carol Summers. All Rights Reserved. For Alan Young's official site, go to: www.mister-ed.tv

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

(This interview originally ran in November 2009)

By Nick Thomas

Alan Young created some memorable characters over his long career in film and television. Co-starring with Rod Taylor, Young played David Filby in the classic sci-fi film of the 60s, The Time Machine. He also horsed around as Wilbur Post for six seasons in one of best-loved sitcoms ever, Mister Ed, and was the voice behind numerous cartoon characters such as the grumpy Scrooge McDuck. Mr. Young is celebrating a milestone birthday- although he isn’t especially fond of talking about such traditional annual events. But when I spoke with him a few days ago, he was quite happy to chat about his long career.

Born in Northern England, Alan’s Scottish father soon moved the family to Edinburgh, then later to Canada when he was six. Bed-ridden for months at a time with asthma, Alan would listen to radio shows and write his own comedy routines. He later made Los Angeles his home and went on to appear in some 20 films and dozens more television roles. In 1994, he wrote "Mister Ed and Me," detailing his experience with the world’s most famous TV horse, of course. He recently revised and republished the book as "Mister Ed and Me... and More!"

Why did you update "Mister Ed and Me"?

My publisher suggested adding more stories about my life so I included some that I think will interest readers. He also wanted more about Connie Hines, my TV wife on Mister Ed. So I asked Connie if she would do a chapter about her life and she was happy to.

The book’s divided into 3 sections, one called Lips Don’t Sweat. That’s an unusual title.

When I was young, I was paid $3 for doing a short monologue. That impressed my dad, who earned the same amount for working all day in a shipyard at the time. He told me to "keep up this talking business because lips don’t sweat!" It was good advice.

You also wrote "There’s no Business Like Show Business ....Was" which is crammed with delightful Hollywood memories and stories. It’s extremely enjoyable to read.

Well I love to write. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with so many lovely people here in Hollywood. I’ve heard so many of them tell fascinating stories, so I wanted to put it all together so fans could read about working in Hollywood in the "old days." Young people often say to me that it must have been easier working back then. But in many ways it wasn’t. For example, we had to learn by the seat of our pants, as there were few schools that taught acting skills.

Continue reading ""MISTER ED" AND BEYOND:AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAN YOUNG"

RYAN O'NEAL RECALLS WORKING WITH STANLEY KUBRICK ON "BARRY LYNDON"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 05:31:00 -0600

Click here for a portion of Ryan O'Neal's November 2012 A.M.P.A.S. interview about making Stanley Kubrick's 1975 classic Barry Lyndon.

SIR CHRISTOPHER LEE VIDEO INTERVIEW

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:37:00 -0600

Here is an excellent, informative interview with the legendary Sir Christopher Lee, conducted back in May 2012 when he turned 90 years-old. In it, Sir Christopher discusses his film career at length and thanks his millions of fans for their support over the course of his remarkable career.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? FRANK SERPICO : REAL LIFE AND REEL LIFE HERO

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 18:47:00 -0600

He was the basis of Sidney Lumet's acclaimed 1973 film and says that Al Pacino played him better than he could play himself. Frank Serpico, who along with his friend, the recently deceased David Durk of the famed Knapp Commission, exposed massive corruption in the New York City Police Department, is living quietly in upstate New York, enjoying life with a younger woman, the occasional cigar and working on his memoirs. The former detective with the mindset of a counter culture protestor started on the NYPD as an idealistic young cop determined to bring in Gotham's crooks. What he was appalled to realize was that many of the crooks were working as cops themselves. Serpico violated the "Blue Wall of Silence" and exposed his fellow officers, leading to the formation of the famed Knapp Commission that helped clean up the NYPD but also gave the force a black eye for many years. Serpico was alienated and despised by his fellow officers, a bunch of boneheads who adhered to an "all-for-one and one-for-all" policy that saw them side with the worst elements of the force. Serpico was shot in the face while making an arrest and he still gets a bit riled by the fact that his fellow cops were less than helpful in getting him prompt medical assistant. Today, he takes satisfaction in knowing that, although his name is still cursed by some current bone-heads on the NYPD, he is revered by law enforcement agencies around the world. He also takes amused pride in the fact that the cinematic Serpico ranks #42 on the list of all-time screen heroes (right behind Lassie). For a recent New York Daily News interview, click here.

ANTHONY HOPKINS INTERVIEWED ABOUT "HITCHCOCK"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:02:00 -0600

Sir Anthony Hopkins is not one for courting the press or giving extensive interviews, but he is making an exception for Hitchcock, the acclaimed new film in which he portrays the legendary director's trials during the filming of Psycho. The blunt-speaking Hopkins weighs in on his doubts about playing the role, Hitchcock's later career and the "disgusting" spectacle of actors trying to curry favor with Academy members in order to secure an Oscar nomination. Click here to read.

JOE DANTE ON "THE HOLE" AND THE STATE OF CONTEMPORARY HORROR FILMS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 05:11:00 -0500

Dante on the set of his enduring hit Gremlins.

Director Joe Dante speaks with Moviefone about his latest chiller The Hole and opines on his past movies and the state of contemporary horror films. Click here to read

EXCLUSIVE: CINEMA RETRO INTERVIEWS ELSA MARTINELLI

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:40:34 -0500

By Roland Schaefli

When Elsa Martinelli checked out our “Hatari!” article in issue #23 of Cinema Retro while attending the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, she enlightened us about how she induced baby elephants to follow her around in the film. Not surprisingly, we ended up following her everywhere. Here are a few highlights of one of our discussions.

We did an article about the making of “Hatari!” and how the locations look today.

Oh. They must have changed a lot.

Not that much. The Ngorongoro Crater (where the pre title sequence was shot) is full of tourists, of course.

Back then, we were to first to actually go down there. But you were very lucky to travel there nowadays. You know, we were there four months and it wasn’t quite as comfortable as it looks today.

Last night, to honor you, the film festival showed your Italian movie “La Risaia” which was produced by Carlo Ponti in 1956 – right after your first American film. What kind of a feeling was that, to see yourself up there on the screen at the very beginning of your international career?

Well, I’ve seen it before. It’s always something quite particular. In a way I always look at myself like I was somebody else. And then it happens that you say to yourself, “she could have done this” or “she could have done it that way”. Yet mostly I say, “She was OK”. Like it was somebody else.

Given your experience as an actress now, would you play the part differently today?

I don’t think about that. What I DID think about was the copy we got to see. We could not appreciate the scope and the beauty of the color and so on. Because this was an old print, they obviously didn’t have the new restored one which is much better. Too bad.

You were actually one of the first fashion models to break into movies, which is much more common now…

Well, I was really a photograph top model in New York. With Eileen Ford, the great agency. I was just doing photos with some of their great photographers, and they appeared in “Life” – I had two, no, three covers in “Life”, and they appeared in “Vogue” – so it was difficult NOT to notice me (laughs). That’s when I was approached by Kirk Douglas’ wife. He was producing this film (“The Indian Fighter”). She was French so I was able to understand what she was saying. And so I got started.

In his new and controversial book “I Am Spartacus”, Kirk Douglas recounts how he cast the leading lady. He was originally planning for you to play the part of “Varinia” but finally he tore up your contract. What went wrong with Kirk Douglas?

Nothing went wrong. It was wonderful to work with him. The thing was that I was getting ready to get my first baby. I just couldn’t make it. I suppose somebody else would prefer “Spartacus” to having a baby. But that was not my case.

Coming from the fashion scene, it must have been something special to wear the costumes designed by Edith Head for “Hatari!”.

Actually, all the costumes for the film were chosen by Mr Hawks, like he always did. To him, the costumes were very important. He was always dressing the characters accordingly. Think about Montgomery Clift in “Red River”, he stood out. He dressed Gerard Blain the same way (in Hatari!). He had something similar in mind for him, dressing him all in black. Unfortunately, Gerard was very difficult, so Hawks cut a lot from his part. So, Hawks not only chose the costumes of the females but also of the men.

Howard Hawks was also one of the first directors to show women as self-confident in a male group, even sexually aggressive.

But Hawks was a very sweet man, you see. He was a strange man, a fantastic man to work with. But quite a hard man. He knew what he wanted. So you had to be prepared: prepared to realize what he expected from you. Usually, there was no script. But Welles also never had a script. Probably some of the greatest stories in Hollywood films weren’t scripted to begin with. Like some of the scenes in John Ford’s movies: you can’t script the way a horse dies. So Hawks used to get on the set at 5 in the morning and write the lines and tape them and as soon as you arrived he gave them to you. And you had to be quite fast to memorize them.

And you had to improvise a lot in the scenes with animals.

Actually I went there one month ahead of the others just as the baby elephants were born. You see, the trick is to feed them right away. That’s how you become their “mother”. So they got used to me and would follow me everywhere. Nobody believes that’s true, but that’s it. When we came back to Paramount to shoot the interiors, they put them in the San Diego Zoo. And they were growing quite big. The last time I saw them one of them bumped me in the knee.

The beautiful music by Henry Mancini is still played around the world. What do you think when you get to hear it somewhere?

The biggest surprise I got is when I went to Brazil. I went to a very strange section of Rio to buy something. Suddenly, all these kids came after me and sang the Baby Elephant March. Unbelievable, the way this music travelled the world and is still so present. God knows how much music Mancini has written. But that’s the one that sticks.

You have acted with some of the great he-men of the screen: Wayne, Mitchum, Heston. Can you even compare them to the actors of present day?

Yes, but there are some wonderful new actors. Sean Penn is wonderful. There are so many great new actors, especially in the United States. Don’t forget the Al Pacinos.

But they’re not macho in a sense that Mitchum and Wayne were.

Of course it was different back then. John Wayne was quite tall, much bigger than me. They were born that way. They didn’t have to act macho. They were a special kind of people. Think of Gary Cooper, they were all two meters tall! They were just physically built differently. I mean, they didn’t have to go to the gym! (laughs)

What was also quite different is that leading men and women were smoking in the movies. You had your share of cigarettes on screen. We actually counted six times you light up in “Hatari”.

In Bogart’s films, there were cigarettes all over the place! Nowadays, there would be a sign saying “No smoking”. Look, we all smoked back then. I myself really stopped 9 years ago, from one day to another. I just got tired to it and said “Basta”. Of course, to smoke in a movie is a question of gesture.

You’re still working in film. What can attract you to a project?

It’s always the story, that comes first. You see, I took many chances in cinema. I’ve made movies with directors who never did direct before, at least five or six films with novice directors. Because whenever I read a story I always know there is a director somewhere behind it. That’s when I like to take risks…

You like to take a chance.

Yes, because if it’s a special story I sense that somebody special might be behind it.

(Roland Schaefli, Swiss contributor to Cinema Retro, visited the African locations seen in Hatari!. His extensive report about the locations today and the making of the film appear in Cinema Retro issue #23. Click here to purchase from our eBay store.)

SPY VIBE PAYS TRIBUTE TO THE LONDON PLAYBOY CLUB OF THE 1960S AND 1970S

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:17:00 -0500

Deane was crowned Bunny of the Year in 1969 by the screen's new James Bond, George Lazenby.

The terrific retro web site Spy Vibe pays homage to the glorious mod era of London in the 60s and 70s with a special look inside the Playboy Club. Bunny Deana, who worked at the club between 1969-1972, takes a trip down memory lane. To read the interview click here

THE ORIGINAL CATWOMAN, JULIE NEWMAR, NOT AMONG "DARK KNIGHT" FANS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:23:00 -0500

Batman's original Catwoman, Julie Newmar, is not among those purring over the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight interpretations of the Caped Crusader. Although she admires her successors on the big screen- Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway, she says the series has become too morbid. She attributes this to a post-Vietnam War era funk that influenced popular culture. She liked the comedic tone of the TV series in which she appeared with Adam West and Burt Ward. For more and a video interview with Newmar click here

RON HOWARD REMEMBERS ANDY GRIFFITH

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 05:14:00 -0500

In a poignant and moving article for TV Guide, Ron Howard remembers his "second" dad, Andy Griffith. Howard was but a tyke when The Andy Griffith Show started in 1960 and he was a teenager when Griffith voluntarily pulled the plug on the top-rated show. In the intervening years, the cast and crew became like family and forged life-long friendships. This included Howard, who graduated to becoming a world-acclaimed director. He had given up acting completely but made only one exception: the return to the role of Opie Taylor in the 1986 TV reunion movie Return to Mayberry. Click here to read his memories of working with Andy Griffith.

(Click here to listen to Cinema Retro's Lee Pfeiffer, author of The Official Andy Griffith Show Scrapbook, interviewed on the Bob Collins radio program).

WOODY ALLEN: THE WALL ST. JOURNAL INTERVIEW

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 18:06:00 -0500

In recent years, Woody Allen has come out of his shell to actually participate in interviews to promote his latest films. The Woodman may still be at his comedic peak, as evidenced by last year's Midnight in Paris, but he relishes waxing over the more depressing aspects of life. In a revealing interview with Rachel Dodes of the Wall Street Journal to promote his latest, To Rome With Love, Allen discusses his philosophies behind life and his chosen profession. As he's stated before, he is pleased if one of his films is well-accepted, but never wants to watch it again. As for his long-standing battle against modern technology, Allen says, "I don't have a computer. It's more than just incompetence, which I also have. I have an aversion to anything mechanical. I never liked cameras, tape recorders, cars. I have a car. I don't drive it. I don't have a camera. At home, if I want to watch a DVD, which is almost never, I have to have my wife put it on. I would never in a million years know what she was doing to put it on. There's something I generally don't like about it. It isn't just that I can't do it, which I can't. If I liked it I couldn't do it. But I also don't like it. It may be because I can't do it that I don't like it, but it bothers me.

CINEMA RETRO'S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BRADFORD DILLMAN

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 05:35:00 -0500

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST ARTICLES FROM CINEMA RETRO'S ARCHIVES

Bradford Dillman: A Compulsively Watchable Actor

By Harvey Chartrand

In a career that has spanned 43 years, Bradford Dillman accumulated more than 500 film and TV credits. The slim, handsome and patrician Dillman may have been the busiest actor in Hollywood during the late sixties and early seventies, working non-stop for years. In 1971 alone, Dillman starred in seven full-length feature films. And this protean output doesn’t include guest appearances on six TV shows that same year.

Yale-educated Dillman first drew good notices in the early 1950s on the Broadway stage and in live TV shows, such as Climax and Kraft Television Theatre. After making theatrical history playing Edmund Tyrone in the first-ever production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1956, Dillman landed the role of blueblood psychopath Artie Straus in the crime-and-punishment thriller Compulsion (1959), for which he won a three-way Best Actor Prize at Cannes (sharing the award with co-stars Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles).

On the And You Call Yourself a Scientist! Web site, Dillman’s Artie Straus is described as “all brag and bravado, contemptuous of everything but himself, with his bridge-and-country-club parents, and his vaguely unwholesome relationship with his mother.”

In the early years of his career, Dillman starred in several major motion pictures, picking and choosing his roles carefully. He was featured in Jean Negulesco’s romance A Certain Smile (1958) with Rossano Brazzi and Joan Fontaine; Philip Dunne’s World War II drama In Love and War (1958) with Robert Wagner and Dana Wynter; and Tony Richardson’s Sanctuary (1961) with Lee Remick and Yves Montand, a rancid slice of Southern Gothic based on the novel by William Faulkner.

Yet in the early sixties, Dillman started taking any part that came along to support his growing family. From 1962 on, he guest starred in dozens of TV series -- among them Espionage, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Twelve O’Clock High, Shane, Felony Squad, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Marcus Welby, M.D., The Streets of San Francisco, Bronk, How the West Was Won and Fantasy Island.

In 1975, Dillman won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Special for his performance as Matt Clifton in Last Bride of Salem (1974), an excellent tale of modern witchcraft. The 90-minute Gothic horror movie aired on ABC Afternoon Playbreak and was so well received that it was rebroadcast during primetime.

Over the years, Dillman appeared in scores of made-for-TV movies and theatrical releases, such as Walter Grauman’s drama A Rage to Live (1965) with the late Suzanne Pleshette; John Guillermin’s war story The Bridge at Remagen (1969) with George Segal; Hy Averback’s satire Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came (1970) starring Tony Curtis; and Jud Taylor’s horror-thriller Revenge (1971), with Shelley Winters. Dillman also played a psychiatrist who goes ape for Natalie Trundy in Don Taylor’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and a scientist battling firestarting cockroaches in Jeannot Szwarc’s Bug (1975) — the final film produced by legendary horror schlockmeister William Castle.

Dillman is now 81. After retiring from acting in 1995, he took up a second career as a writer. He is excellent at his new avocation, requiring no ghostwriters to tweak his prose. Dillman’s autobiography Are You Anybody? is a series of amusing anecdotes about his Hollywood years. He has also written a harrowing adventure tale entitled That Air Forever Dark, set in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. “It’s a terrifying account of the Jet Age meeting the Stone Age – Deliverance in a jungle setting,” the actor-turned-author says.

Dillman’s latest book, published in 2005 by Fithian Press, is a comedy of errors entitled Kissing Kate. “The novel is about an amateur production of Kiss Me Kate,” Dillman relates. “An out-of-work professional actor is hired to play the male lead opposite a wealthy community icon. Ultimately, of course, they end up in bed together, where a ‘catastrophe’ occurs and all hell breaks loose. I assure you that Kissing Kate is not in the least bit autobiographical!”

Fifty-two years after appearing on stage in O’Neill’s landmark theatrical event, Dillman is now a playwright as well. His Seeds in the Wind made its debut in May 2007 at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, California. The play is set in 1939 in Santa Cruz, California, during a weekend celebrating the 40th birthday of a society hostess' daughter. The interaction of the houseguests is both humorous and dramatic, and all manner of unexpected events occur, Dillman assures us.

The veteran performer spoke to Cinema Retro from his home in Santa Barbara, California.

Cinema Retro: You achieved international prominence in Richard Fleischer’s Compulsion, in which you were unforgettable as the frightening and magnetic Artie Straus, a wealthy law-school student on trial for murder in this taut retelling of the infamous Leopold-Loeb case of the 1920s. You had been playing romantic leads up until then, so this leap into villainy was quite a daring career move on your part.

Bradford Dillman: I had a commitment to Twentieth Century Fox to do two pictures a year and, as fate would have it, the timing of the filming of Compulsion coincided. Nothing to do with the moguls’ belief that I had talent. It was just dumb luck, pure and simple.

Compulsion (1959) with Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles

CR: Following Compulsion, you were often cast in villainous roles. In 1964, you co-starred with B-movie cult figure John Ashley (The Mad Doctor of Blood Island) in an episode of Dr. Kildare with the intriguing title Night of the Beast. What was that one about?

BD: I was the beast. I was such a bad guy I had my thugs hold Kildare down while I raped his girlfriend in front of his very eyes. When we came to the comeuppance scene, I learned that Richard Chamberlain had obviously never been in a fistfight in his life. The stunt men couldn't teach him how to throw a punch; I couldn't teach him. So we had a gentle comeuppance. He's a nice, sensitive man who has since come out of the closet.

With Carol Lynley, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. feature film The Helicopter Spies (1968)

CR: In 1967, you were the guest villain on The Prince of Darkness Affair, a two-part episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E, later repackaged as a theatrical release – The Helicopter Spies (1968). You were great fun as Luther Sebastian, the Third Way cult leader who steals a rocket. Did you have any scenes with lovely Lola Albright?

BD: The Helicopter Spies has disappeared in the vortex of remaining brain cells. I don’t remember if I exchanged words with Lola Albright.

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