Adventures in the Screen Trade

Adventures In The Screen Trade

by

William Goldman

----------------------------------------------------

A personal view of Hollywood and Screenwriting

A Futura Book

First published in Great Britain in 1984 by Macdonald Be Co (Publishers) Ltd London & Sydney

First Futura edition 1985 Copyright c 1983 by William Goldman

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN o 7088 2596 6

Reproduced, printed and bound in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Limited, Member of the BPCC Group, Aylesbury, Bucks

Futura Publications A Division of Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd Maxwell House 74 Worship Street London EC2A 2EN A BPCC pie Company

For Ross Claiborne

Contents

Author's Note

PART ONE: HOLLYWOOD REALITIES

One; The Powers That Be

Stars Studio Executives Directors Producers

Elements L.A. Agents Bread Meetings Auteurs Beginnings Endings Speed Subtext Protecting the Star Believing Reality

Enduring The Ecology of Hollywood (or, George Lucas, Sleven Spielberg, and Gunga Din)

PART TWO: ADVENTURES

Introduction Three: Charly and Masquerade Four: Harper Five: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Six: The Thing of It Is... Seven: The Stepford Wives Eight: The Great Waldo Pepper Nine: All the President's Men Ten: Marathon Man Eleven: The Right Stuff Twelve: Grand Hotel Thirteen: A Bridge Too Far

PART THREE: DA VINCI

Introduction Fourteen; The Short Story Fifteen: Before We Begin Writing Sixteen: The Screenplay

Seventeen: Interviews Tony Walton Gordon Willis Dede Alien David Grusin George Roy Hill

Eighteen; The Relay Race

Final Fade-In Index

Authors note

This book was begun at the greatest time of panic and despair in modern Hollywood history-late January of '82. Future film scholars may well term it "the Heaven's Gate era." And certainly that movie received more media coverage than any other con- temporary disaster.

But only a few enlightened bookkeepers will know for sure if it lost more than, say. Raise the Titanic! or Honky Tonk Freeway.

During the holiday season of '81-'82, sixteen films were re- leased by the major studios. Of those, only one-On Golden Pond-was a runaway success. And ten of the sixteen each lost more than ten million dollars. One major studio executive told me recently, "Of course the failures are upsetting. But there have always been failures. What's got us so immobilized now is that whatever it is. that we're making, we're missing the audience by a wider margin than ever before. We don't know what they want. All we do know is that they don't want what we're giving them."

Perhaps the key word above is immobilized. By the end of February, only ten films will have begun production. At the same time a year ago, twenty-five had started shooting.

Again, this is the worst period within memory. By the time this book sees print, it may well be the best period within memory. The point being this: Movies an a gold-rush business.

Anyone interested in what follows had best commit that fact to memory....

What follows, generically speaking, is a book about Hollywood. It may not come as a total shock to you if I say this is not the first attempt to mine that subject.

All I can provide that is different is my point of attack: I have been, for close to twenty years now, a screenwriter. I have seen a lot, learned more than a little-most of it, alas, too late.

In terms of authority, screenwriters rank somewhere between the man who guards the studio gate and the man who runs the studio (this week). And there is a whole world to which we are not privy. And I thought it may be helpful to know at least something about just what is taking place Out There. With that in mind, I've interviewed a number of people who work the other side of the street: studio executives, producers, directors, and stars. By the time we're done, it's my hope that you'll understand a good deal more about why you see what you see on the screen.

Because of my Hollywood work, I have seen films on three continents and in at least twice that many foreign countries. But for me, still, always, it is the Alcyon. - . .

Certainly not a great movie theatre. Probably not even a very good one. But the Alcyon stands alone in memory because it stood alone on Central, even then an aging monopoly; if you wanted to go to the movies in Highland Park, Illinois, in the 1930's, it was the Alcyon-or it was no movie at all. And the thought of no movie at all was just too painful. Even when I was six and seven and eight, I was hooked. I suppose I stilt am, but the stuff I see today often vanishes, while the Alcyon remains.

Captain January. 1936. Shirley Temple. I was five and she was eight. My first time sitting there in the dark, I remember her curls so plainly. And could her dimples have been as large as they seemed? If the answer is no, don't tell me.

Tarzan Finds a Son. Late thirties and memorable because I went to see it twice on consecutive matinees. I don't think I liked it as much as I wanted to escape some visiting relatives, but the fact remains: I was the first kid on the block who had ever done such a lunatic thing. In this Star Wars era, nothing unusual. But the news swept the Elm Place Grammar School playground during Monday recess. "Twice? How could you do it twice when you knew who won?" I didn't have an answer. And I didn't like Tarzan Finds a Son as much the second time. But I sure did like sitting there. Not true of Invitation to Happiness, my first evening flick. I was

eight and already a sports fan and, during an earlier matinee preview, Invitation to Happiness flashed on - a prizefight movie.

Fifteen or twenty seconds of solid slam-bang action were shown. I had to see it. It was only playing for two nights in the middle of the week and I understood the importance of school the next day. But I knew I had to go. Problem: I couldn't go alone. I launched a campaign of such ferocity that my parents gave in. Grudgingly, we trooped off to Invitation to Happiness- -and it wasn't a prizefight movie, it was a kissing movie. All they did was kiss, the hero and the lady. Those precious fifteen seconds of slam-bang action were there, all right, but that was the sum total of prizefighting. I never dreamed a preview would snooker you that way.

The kisses went on and on. I began to groan. Then I started counting. Eleven kisses. Now a quick buss on the nose, but that counted. Twelve. On and on they went, and by now I was counting out loud.

There were twenty-three kisses in Invitation to Happiness and I hated every one.

But I didn't hate the movies. Not then, not now. Too many memories involved. Movies help mark out our lives. Do you remember who you were when you first saw Citizen Kane? I do. Or Casablanca or Singin' in the Rain? If you give it a moment's thought, I'll bet you can come up with an answer.

I've been a fan for forty-six of my fifty-one years. Before I ever dreamed of entering the business, movies were an essential part of my life.

And whatever theatre I walk into today, part of me, a large part of me, is still going to the Alcyon. . . .

Part One

Hollywood Realities

Chapter one

The Powers That Be

It may well be pointless to try and isolate the great powers of the movie industry. Stars, studio executives, directors, and producers all circle in the same orbit, subject to the same gravitational laws.

I have divided these powers nonetheless, in the hope that it may simplify matters and shed additional light on the moviemaking process as a whole. Just remember that they are all joined at the hip, locked in an uneasy alliance, groping sometimes - but by no means always-toward the same mist-shrouded goal: a hit.

None of this Is meant to imply that they like each other very much. Or trust each other, fully, ever. . . .

STARS

With one major exception, which will be dealt with in due course, as far as the filmmaking process is concerned stars are essentially worthless-and absolutely essential.

Stars and studios coexist in an arena rarely glimpsed by screenwriters. When God chooses to smile on them, they make fortunes for each other. But money, as we know, doesn't cart happiness along with it. So if you choose to imagine these two mightiest of industry elements as snarly Siamese twins, you won't be far wrong. To understand why this situation exists, a little history may prove helpful.

Studios came first, and in the beginning they were not remotely ambivalent about stars: They hated them. It's important to remember that movies began as a fad-not unlike the Atari games today. No one knew what the future might bring-or if, indeed, there would even be a future-but the present was plenty lucrative enough for even the greediest executive.

April twenty-third, 1896-as much as any date, that can be taken as the beginning of the motion picture business. It marked the opening of the first theatre in New York that took money from the public in exchange for filmed entertainment. By the year 1910, there were over nine thousand theatres in operation across the country.

Movies, of course, were shorter then. D. W. Griffith, in one five-year stretch, directed over five hundred "movies." Not only were they of less duration, they were also a good deal more simplistic than what we are used to today; one early hit consisted in its entirety of nothing but a horse eating hay. (The filmmaker who created the horse movie followed up with another smash - some footage of a pillow fight between his two daughters.)

The audience could have cared less-they loved going to the movies. Clearly, these films were not directed at intellectuals or the upper classes. Movies then were for immigrants and the poor, who sought entertainment where they could get it cheaply.

And in this early booming decade, there were no stars. Actors, mostly "legitimate" ones, were ashamed of this new medium. They snuck over to New Jersey and worked, but only for the bread-the last thing they wanted was their name attached to anything they did. Also, it was not glamorous labor: Actors were automatically given other chores to do, such as sweeping up, doing carpentry, etc. One early matinee idol shocked his employers by declaring, when he reported for duty. "I am an actor and I will act-but I will not build sets and paint scenery." Then again, it was difficult for the public to find a favorite: During this "buccaneer" period, theatres would often change entire shows-up to sixty minutes of short featuresevery day.

The resulting flood of product was, ultimately, responsible for the existence of Hollywood. All the major studios paid a fee to Thomas Edison for the right to make movies: The motion picture was his invention and he had to be reimbursed for each and every film.

But there was such a need for material that pirate companies, which did not pay the fee, sprang up. The major studios hired detectives to stop this practice, driving many of the pirates as far from the New York area as possible. Sure, Hollywood had all that great shooting weather. But more than that, being three thousand miles west made it easier to steal. (The more things change, etc., etc.)

In spite of the Studios, certain performers began to become favorites. Of course they had no names. If you wrote to them, you would have to send off your fan letter to "The Butler with the Mustache" or "The Girl with the Curly Blonde Hair."

If a studio had a performer they used a great deal, they still would never give the public a name to associate with the face. And so it was that, in 1910, perhaps the most popular film performer in America was known as "The Biograph Girl," Biograph being the company that had her under contract.

But when her contract was up, another studio stole her away. There were, of course, the usual inducements-a higher salary, her husband came along with her with a directing contract of his own-all standard. What was not standard, and what altered the future of movies, was this: The new studio agreed to feature her name. And so, in 1910, a beautiful young girl with the mellifluous name of Florence Lawrence initiated the star system in America.

The peers of Carl Laemmle (the executive who had spirited away Miss Lawrence) were, of course, more than a little displeased. Why? Because they were afraid that once the public really began to identify with performers, they might be forced to pay them more. You can say what you will about the morals of these early titans, you can scorn them as little more than furriers. But boy, they sure weren't dumb. Here is what happened to salaries:

1912: Miss Lawrence was now the highest paid movie worker, making, by the end of that year, $250.00 per week.

1913: Mary Pickford signs for $500.00 per week.

1914: Miss Pickford re-signs for double her previous weekly fee.

1915: Miss Pickford re-re-signs, 'this time $2,000.00 weekly compensation.

1916: $10,000.00 per week-that was Charlie Chaplin's sti- pend. Plus $150,000.00 inbonus money for signing.

1919; Fatty Arbuckle became the first star in history to be guaranteed a salary of one million dollars per year. Minimum.

The war cry of the studios has been the same ever since: Every time the business is about to self-destruct, they can pinpoint the reason-it's the goddam greed of the stars. In the late sixties, the most recent crisis time till now, it was the Burtons' fault, each of them getting a million to co-star in such items as The Comedians and Boom! (The exclamation point didn't help the latter at the box office.)

Today, a million dollars is what you pay a star you don't want.

Personally, I don't blame the stars for grabbing every cent they can. They all know the studios are going to rob them of as much of a Film's profits as they can. And no one forces the studios to pay what they do. Most of all, though, stardom just doesn't last. (For a gifted few, sure. But only a few.)

No one can say with mathematical precision who are the top ten stars. But Quigley Publishing Company has been taking a