Adventures in the Screen Trade (22 page)

Because the form of the screenplay is basically unreadable. Everything brings your eye up short. All those numbers on both sides of

the page and those Christ-awful abbreviations and the INT.'s and the EXT.'s and on and on.

None of that has any bearing on what we are talking about. It has nothing to do with screenwriting, nor with the selling version of the script.

Those are all for the other technicians when the movie actually shoots. The shot numbers, for example, are for the schedule maker. If we're going to shoot Gatsby's bedroom, he will indicate that tomorrow's work will entail shots 106 through 116. Which lets the production designer know he better damn well have the bedroom set Finished. And wardrobe can read this and think, ooops, better get those damn shirts folded and the suits and dressing gowns on hangers.

All that matters emotionally to the scene is the hairbrush and the shirts. The sight of her delightedly touching her hair with his brush sends him slightly out of control, and he begins fling- ing the shirts in the air because there are no words. He tried to talk, couldn't finish his thought, so to do something, anything, he begins grabbing and throwing his shirts.

Back in Forty-second Street of course, at two in the morning, I was a long way from Gatsby. I bought the book and taxied home, wondering how in the world I was ever going to try and write a screenplay.

Some weeks later, I got a call about Masquerade. Masquerade was sort of a gentle spy parody (the James Bond craze had hit) concerning a failed soldier of fortune who gets involved with trying to protect the child heir to the throne of an Arab oil country. He doesn't protect him very well, adventures ensue, all ends reasonably happily. Rex Harrison was to play the lead but he dropped out, Robertson replaced him.

Dialog had to be altered to fit the new star, and to my astonishment (because he hadn't read the Flowers for Algernon script yet) Robertson wanted me to do the altering. I met with the English producer Michael Ralph, and after the standard case of writer's panic, I went to England to attempt the job. Five points quickly to be made about that experience.

One: Since the picture was already well into preproduction locations, casting, etc., were pretty much set-most of what I did was what I'd been hired to do: fuss with the dialog. This basically reinforced my misconception that screenplays were dialog, that talk was the crucial contribution the writer could supply. Two: A single sequence might be mentioned. Two-thirds of the way through the picture, Robertson finds himself trapped in a large circus cage that is set in the middle of a barn. (The circus people are in on the kidnapping and have trapped Cliff and imprisoned him.) Next to Robertson's cage is another large cage containing a monstrous and very hungry vulture. Now the circus people leave for a conference, but one of them stupidly leaves a large ring of keys on a nail maybe ten feet away.

Robertson spots the keys, and when the villains have left him, he tries reaching for the keys, but it's obviously hopeless. Then he realizes the monster bird is silting on a couple of long bamboo perches. Sucking it up, he reaches into the bird's arena, tries slipping one of the perches out. The bird, naturally, has a certain territorial sense and pecks the hell out of Robertson's hands. But he perseveres and, knuckles bleeding, frees a piece of bamboo, reaches with it for the ring of keys. Still too short.

Balefully, he eyes the vulture, takes a breath, and goes back into the cage again, hands getting zapped worse than before. It really smarts, but there's nothing else he can do, and after great effort he grabs the second piece of bamboo, ties it to the first, goes to the bars of his cage, reaches just as far as he ever can, tries to get the shaky bamboo pole around the rings, can't quite get it, tries again and again until God smiles, he lifts the ring of keys from the nail, raises the pole up so that, at last, the keys slide along it, and when they're close enough he grabs them, puts them in the lock of the cage- -and they don't fit, they're the wrong keys. I guess this was the first reversal I ever wrote, but it sure wasn't the last. Because that's what a lot of screenwriting is: putting new twists on old twists. The audience is so quick, so smart, they grasp things immediately, and if you give them what they expect, if they reach the destination ahead of you, it's not easy for them to find it in their hearts to forgive you.

Three: I went to Spain with the production when shooting was about to begin, in case there were last minute adjustments that needed doing. The day before principal photography, I was walking in the hills with the director and the production designer. The purpose of the walk was to discuss a location for a vehicle crash. We found the spot and stopped.

The plot involved simply the capturing of Robertson by the villains. He was being driven along the road in a limousine and the villains were to roar out from hiding in a wine truck, surprising the driver. There would then be the crash and the capture.

The designer pointed to the side road and the hiding place and started to talk. "What I thought we might do is this," he said. "Here comes the Cadillac limo. Now we cut to the wine truck starting to block the route. Then cut back to the driver, surprised, trying to avoid the collision. Then back to the wine truck. Then we have the sound of the crash and we cut to the limo on its side, wheels spinning, and inside the driver is unconscious and Robertson is stunned. They pull him out, dump him in the wine truck, and drive off."

To which the director replied, "I think that's perhaps the most cliched description of a crash I've ever heard in all my life."

Silence for a while. The designer pulled on his cigarette. These were two very English men, and very proper. "You really think it's that terrible, do you?" the designer asked. "Absolutely the worst," the director answered. Now the designer flicked away his cigarette and turned to face the director. "I have a suggestion, then," he said. "Give me . . ." and now he paused for emphasis. "Give me two fucking Rolls-Royces I can destroy and I'll give you the greatest fucking crash you've ever seen, "

They went on chatting and I went on listening and what it was, of course, was the first discussion of budgets I'd ever heard. (Not only couldn't we buy and destroy two Rolls- Royces, we couldn't even destroy the Cadillac: I found out later it was rented and had to be returned unscratched.)

I had always assumed, until then, that what you saw on the screen was what was meant to be on the screen. Wrong.

A crucial if not the crucial problem of every film today is what it will cost. And within that context, how can you make what you've got to spend look like something. "It's all up there on the screen" is a common expression in Hollywood, and it has a positive meaning: We can see where the money went.

Masquerade was, as stated, of the James Bond genre, but it didn't have a James Bond budget. A Bond film would have wrecked two Rollses. Or whatever else they felt would be telling: They're meant to be expensive, part of their appeal is their scope.

Masquerade wasn't like that; nor are most pictures. That's why producers and directors fight like hell for every penny they can get to spend. Probably it's fair to say that nobody shoots what they really want, not all the time. They shoot what they can afford.

Four: My first day on the set.

Probably I have been more excited in my life, but not often. Watching a movie, a real live movie, actually being made was something I'd never dreamed of, even six months before.

(I suppose it was similar to the first time I ever went backstage in a Broadway theatre. I was in my middle teens and visiting New York and a cousin of mine had gone to high school with Judy Holliday, who was starring in her greatest hit, "Born Yesterday." After the matinee my cousin escorted me back- stage to Miss Holliday's dressing room. We were introduced, I doubt that I managed to get out more than "Hello" and "Thank you" before I was ushered out. The entire encounter may have taken five minutes, more likely two.

To me, today, it still seems like hours. I'd never met an ac- tress. much less a star. I have no artistic sense whatsoever. Even my stick figures stink.

But I could draw that room. I remember every goddam thing about it. The size, the color of the walls, the pictures hung there. I remember the bright lights on her dressing table, all the jars of makeup, the color of her hair, the texture of her skin, the angle of her neck as she looked up and smiled so sweetly at me. A lot of people believe Judy Holliday died years ago. I am not among them.) Back to that Spanish morning in 1964. A shot was being set up when I got there and I remember being surprised by two things most of all: the heat of the lights and the incredible number of people on the set. It wasn't a big picture, but there had to be over a hundred technicians.

I asked if it would be all right if I stood where the camera was pointed for a moment. No problem. I moved into the lit area. The lights literally were blinding. I turned around in a little quick circle. It was the closest I would ever come to being a movie star. I got the hell out of everyone's way and waited while Robertson was called. The setup was a very simple reaction shot. Robertson was supposed to walk to a spot, turn his head, look off, and react to what was supposed to be there. The director and Robertson talked briefly. Robertson got ready, closed his eyes (they are very blue, and the lights can be a problem), and the director said "Go, Cliff" and Robertson went.

He walked to the proper place, stopped, looked off, reacted as he was supposed to. The director said, "Very good, Cliff, cut, print"-

-and then it was like this army attacking. Dozens of men charged forward and work began for the next setup in a slightly different location. Which meant this: Everything had to be moved. And it took, literally, hours.

I didn't know that was how movies were made. I thought you did this shot and when it was right you did that shot and when it was right you did the third and that was how the day went. Wrong.

What happens on a movie set is this: nothing. Not for the stars, not for the director, not for most of the people you think of when you think of movies.

Let's say Clark Gable walks into a room at Tara and says "Good morning" to Vivien Leigh and she looks up and says, "I'm not speaking to you, Rhett."

Well, that kind of sequence can take a day. You shoot that little scene, if you want to skimp, in three ways. The master shot encompassing his entering and talking and her replying. Then we do his close-up of the scene with the camera just on him. Then we do her close-up with the camera just on her.

Now, I don't suppose it's giving away secrets to say, at this point in time, that there really wasn't any Tara or any room inside. That was all built on sound stages. With walls, probably.

Okay, we do the master shot. And it's lit in a certain way and they go jabber jabber and do it a couple of times until the director is satisfied.

You just don't quickly move to Gable's close-up. You've got to tear the room apart, at least the part where Miss Leigh was, because that's where the crew is going to be. And walls have to be moved and lights have to be taken down and moved and put back up and then relit and altered so that it exactly matches the lighting of the master shot. If it was early morning when the master shot was supposed to happen, it can't look like dusk when we do the close-ups.

Unless you're the cinematographer, who is busting his chops to get the look duplicated, it is the snooze of all the world.

Back on Masquerade, I remember the boring crash of reality coming down. "This is how they make a movie? Where's the magic?"

There ain't none. I've said this before and I believe it now: The most exciting day of your life may well be your first day on a movie set, and the dullest days will be all those that follow.

Five: This was my first experience in working with a movie star, and one morning Robertson and I were strolling along the beach in Alicante, Spain, where the movie was headquartered. My job was pretty much over, his about to begin, and we were in conversation when a friend of Robertson's came hurrying up, talking very quickly about Acapulco, where Robertson had done a turkey with Lana Turner.

No actor I've met has more social grace than Cliff Robertson; the man is immaculately polite. But suddenly he was distant and cold and the Acapuico man was soon behind us as we continued on. Whether he sensed my surprise or not I have no way of knowing, but a few moments later, Robertson began to talk quietly. "I don't think I ever met that guy in my life," he said. 'And if I did it might have been a quick hello with a bunch of other people. But when your face is familiar, people have an eddge on you-they know who you are, you don't know them, and sometimes they try to take advantage."

True. Over the years I have been with people who, say, will Dustin Hoffman you to death. It's "Dusty" this and "Dusty tells me he's very interested in" that. While I've sat there knowing the man has never talked to Hoffman in his life. It always surprises me, the lying, but probably the stupidity is mine: Stars are golden, they give off heat, and we all want to be closer to the fire.

Robertson added one more line then. Quietly. "You don't want to be rude but you have to be careful-there are a lot of strange people out there."

True again, sometimes agonizingly so: When John Lennon took his final walk into the Dakota, one of my first thoughts was of walking in the morning with Cliff Robertson in Alicante, Spain.

I returned then to New York and continued my first screen- play, Flowers for Algernon. It wasn't easy, but I wasn't getting paid for it to be easy, and what kept me going was my affection for that wonderful Daniel Keyes short story. That affection is all that ever keeps you going on an adaptation, and if you don't have it, or if you lose it, you are in very deep trouble.

Finally it was done and I sent it off to Robertson. The next event of consequence was when I found out that I was off the project and Stirling Silliphant was doing the screenplay. (And wonderfully, too, without a scintilla of mine in the finished work.)

I couldn't believe it. Getting canned is always two things, shocking and painful. I was rocked. I'd never been fired before. No one ever told me specifically what was wrong with my work. But if I were forced to guess, I would say, odds on, my screen- play stunk.