Interviews
Entries from May 2008
Author and film scholar Dr. Peter X. Feng talked with Cinema Retro Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer about Turner Classic Movies' series of movie presentations, Asian Images in Film which launches on June 3. The film festival explores the way Asians have been portrayed in Hollywood productions from the early days of the industry until the present time. Dr. Feng co-hosts the introduction to each movie with Robert Osborne. CR: How did the idea for this film festival originate? PF: Charlie Tabesh, the head of programming for TCM, initiated it. He specifically wanted to do Asian Images in Film. In the process of his research, he came across my work and contacted me. CR: I recently helped host a film event at Pinewood Studios in London and interviewed Burt Kwouk. We chatted briefly about the fact that Burt was one of the first Asian actors hired to play an Asian part. Until that time, most of the major Asian roles were played by caucasians. Why was this the case? PF: Not to put too fine a point on it, but I would say it was racism. It's understandable that from a studio standpoint, they'd want to use actors they were already familiar with. It's also understandable that they wouldn't want to invest money in developing actors if they weren't going to develop roles for them. The larger issue is not being interested in Asian themed stories except as a backdrop for American and British characters. Once you're not interested in developing those stories, then there's no incentive to develop an Asian American star. As a principal, I don't have a problem with a white actor playing an Asian character. But until there's equity in the sense that a studio would cast an Asian actor to play a white character, then it's not fair. CR: It seems to me that it's more permissible to have actors play characters of different races in theater productions, but when you see absurdities like Rex Harrison playing the King of Siam in a film, you have to wonder if there weren't any qualified Asian actors to take that role. PF: I think you're absolutely right and in theater they have cast people of color in white roles. In theater, there's more playing with illusion. Somebody's hand can be empty but you understand they're supposed to be holding something. You can get away with that in theater. I understand that the film industry is a business and as soon as it becomes profitable to develop actors, they will. Of course, we're starting to see that now. CR: Who would you say were the first actors and actresses to beat the system by being cast in Asian roles? PF: Way back in the silent era we have Sessue Hayakawa and then Anna May Wong, of course. Then it wasn't until James Shigeta and Nancy Kwan in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who were the first ones to really be developed and nurtured and given a variety of roles. CR: Would you say Hayakawa was more a character actor than a leading man? PF: No, not until later in his career with The Bridge on the River Kwai. He was a matinee idol before Rudolf Valentino. He had a big fan following and women were really interested in him. CR: What is your opinion of the Charlie Chan films which were so successful, but which featured European actors in the title role? PF: To me, that's the issue. On the one hand, Charlie Chan is certainly a hero and the lead in the seriesand that was a huge step forward in how Hollywood represented Asians. But I still find Charlie Chan to be a limited characterization. He may be the smartest man in the room, but it's still clear he has to know his place. For me the ironic thing about the casting of caucasian actors as Charlie Chan is that they always cast Asian actors as his kids. Number One Son and Number Two Son are really important in the series, so there's that strange disconnect. CR: It was the same dilemma black actors faced to a certain degree -being subject to bizarre casting choices. I noticed that you unearthed this rare short film from the Spanish American War in which the Phillipinos are played by black actors. Since this was made in 1899, it shows that if blacks were subjected to prejudices in the industry, then Asians were below them. PF: Well, they were probably cast simply because they were available. It was shot in New Jersey, which is where the early film industry was based and there weren't that many Asian Americans living on the east coast. The other thing that should be said about casting white actors in Asian roles is that Hollywood was always very interested in romance plots and was always interested in flirting with interracial romance. But the production code at the time forbade them from really developing these plots. The American public was kind of fascinated by it, but uptight about it also. One of the things that casting a white actor in an Asian role allowed you to do was have the characters be of different races but if they're kissing or something, then everyone knows they're really of the same race. CR: In watching your intros with Robert Osborne, I was intrigued by your opinion that Japanese were placed on a higher level of respect in films than Chinese were. What do you attribute that to? PF: I attribute it mostly to the political clout of Japan internationally. Japan was a powerful country, a relatively rich country compared to China which is obviously a big country, but was less developed industrially and technologically. It just wasn't a player on the world stage. I think that's the main reason. CR: The outbreak of WWII set the cause of racial equality in films back for years, obviously. The first major film I recall seeing that was sympathetic to Japanese Americans was John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock in which Spencer Tracy plays a government agent who tries to bring to justice the racist killers of a Japanese American farmer. It was ironic, because the Asian character is never seen - he's already dead when the film starts. PF: I think you're right- that was certainly a high point. We're showing another film, Go for Broke that's about the WWII regimental combat team made up of Japanese Americans that was made before Bad Day at Black Rock but it wasn't as a big a film. CR: As a child, when you went to the movies, what Asian characterizations used to grind on you the most? PF: That's a good question, because now I think a lot of them are silly- you know, Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed, for example. I would have to say it was the villains, because I wasn't thrilled with those characters anyway - Fu Manchu in particular, you know, Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff. CR: Have you seen the Hammer films with Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu? PF: I have. His daughter was played by Tsai Chin, a British actress who is also in The Joy Luck Club. She had also played Suzie Wong on the London stage. But we're talking now about the 1960s and I think there was a little bit of the camp aspect to it. Everyone knew that the idea of a megalomaniacal villain trying to conquer the world was kind of a joke, whereas originally, the character of Fu Manchu expressed a lot of anxiety about what it meant in London that there were so many Chinese there and the popular fear about the opium dens, which of course was unfounded. CR: How do you feel about Samuel Bronston's 55 Days at Peking about the Boxer Rebellion? It at least attempted to present the Chinese frustration at having the European powers dominate their country in the early 1900s. PF: I haven't seen it in many years and I agree with your assement. You're right in that it did portray the issues, but it was still a backdrop for the story involving Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner. That film came along in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. The first time the phrase "Model Minority" was used was in a Time or Newsweek article in reference to the Japanese American community. It said that here was a community that was interned in WWII and they've risen in economic status and they've done it by being a model minority- by keeping their head down, by not complaining. It's clear they were supposed to be a model to other minorities. The message was: blacks are militant are asking for things and demanding things rather than just putting their head down and working hard. I would put 55 Days at Peking in that context. It may be a favorable representation of one group, but it's kind of a message to others that says, "We will help you. We will take care of you. Just stop complaining about whether you get to ride in the front of the bus." CR: How were the films selected for the TCM festival? PF: Charlie gave me a big list of all the films that were already in the Turner library. I also made a wish list of other films I hoped we could get the rights to. Of course, Charlie took care of the budgeting aspect and came up with the best way we could get the most bang for our buck. We got almost everything I wanted. There were a handful of films I would have loved to have gotten, but I'm really happy that we covered the topic with other films that were available. CR: I see they're going against tradition by showing a couple of relatively recent films like Rush Hour II and The Joy Luck Club. PF: Well, Charlie wanted to bring the stories as close to the present day as possible. I think that's really great. I thought we'd end the series around 1960. CR: Do you think there has been sufficient progress in how Asians are portrayed on screen today? PF: We still have a long way to go. There's still not many opportunities for Asian American actors. There's been an influx of actors from Hong Kong like Jet Li and Chow Yun-Fat but they're not Asian American roles. The stories are generally set in Asia or it's the hero comes to the United States to solve a problem and it's clear he's going to leave. So they don't deal with the kind of social issues such as the fact that we live in a multi-racial society. They still engage in this fantasy that Asian Americans are temporarily here. CR: How do you feel about the emergence of the Asian cinema as a major force in the film industry? PF: If all we see are action films and horror films, that's still a stereotype. When I was a kid on the playground, everyone called me "Bruce Lee", but people didn't see me in a more rounded way than that. It occurs to me now, with all these horror movies from Korea and Japan, they all seem to feature an Asian kid in a bowl haircut and I worry that people are going to freak out when they see an Asian kid because that's the only thing they ever see him as. (Laughs) CR: Is there one film in particular you would recommend our readers tune in for during the TCM festival? PF: Walk Like a Dragon isn't widely seen. It's not available on DVD. It's a film I put very high on my list because I hadn't seen this film, only excerpts. I'm really excited about it. It's set in California in the Old West and Jack Lord from Hawaii 5-0 finds out there's a slave auction of Chinese women and he intervenes and purchases a woman from the auction with the intent of setting her free. But it doesn't occur to him that setting her free isn't enough. Where is she going to go? She doesn't speak English and she's just going to be exploited by somebody else. It's a film about this problem and a character of good intentions who gets in over his head. James Shigeta plays a recently arrived Chinese immigrant who refuses to walk with a bowed head. He walks down the center of Main Street with his head held high and gets beaten up. It's a film that is really complex and rich. The character is not a saint. The answer to these depictions is not to create characters who are morally spotless, but to create real characters - and this is a character who is flawed. It's a really interesting film. CONTINUE READING FOR THE TCM PRESS RELEASE AND SCHEDULE FOR ASIAN IMAGES IN FILM
Continue reading "DR. PETER X. FENG DISCUSSES TCM'S ASIAN IMAGES IN FILM"
Cinema Retro correspondent Gareth Owen was invited by Warner Brothers to join a select number of journalists to interview famed film critic and documentary producer/writer/director Richard Schickel for the official Cannes Film Festival press kick-off of his five hour history of Warner Brothers, You Must Remember This: The Warner Brothers Story. The documentary, for which Clint Eastwood is executive producer, will be broadcast this September on TV and a 550 page coffee table companion book will accompany its premiere. The following questions were compiled from those asked by Gareth and other journalists during the interview. Q: When did you begin work on the documentary?
RS: We did our first interview for it in the fall of ’06. We
started the cutting a year ago next month (June 2007).
Q: Was it a daunting assignment?
RS: Sure it was daunting! But it was also irresistible. I
always wanted to do a studio portrait. I had come close once before but
somebody else got the job. But patience is always rewarded because Warners has
always been my favorite studio and the one that most interested me – the films
they did, the stars they had, the directors they had. That goes back to when I
was a little kid, ten years-old looking at Saturday matinees. Somehow at that
time, I noticed there was something a little different about Warner Brothers
that appealed to me. They were kind of tough and they took up subjects that
somehow interested me as opposed to MGM which was glamour. There was an edge to
them, a toughness about them.
Q: What films influenced you the most?
RS: Back then – the early 1940s? I would say Air Force was one. Casablanca,
certainly. Yankee Doodle Dandy, certainly.
Those were the big movies I remember from that time. I was born in 1933, so it
was mid-War before I was allowed out of my house to go to whatever I wanted to
see. So some of those war-time movies were the ones that kind of hooked me.
Q: What is the status of the Warner Brothers documentary, You Must Remember This?
RS: It’s a five-hour project. Two hours are finished and the
third hour is just about finished. We’re starting on hours four and five now.
Getting it finished on a deadline basis is fairly difficult. People think these
things are easy, but they’re very difficult. Documentaries are one of the more
difficult forms of filmmaking. If you’re making a fictional film, you can go
back and reshoot the scene. I can’t reshoot the scene from Casablanca. It’s there. You have to live with it. It’s
difficult to link the movies to star and director careers and to the studio’s
general history. You know, Harry and Jack Warner fighting with each other all
the time, for example. It’s a question of balancing. There are lots of things
I’ve had to cut out of this film that I would have preferred to have in the
film, but there are time constraints.
Q: Has Warners pressured you to present a rosy picture of
the studio?
RS: Not in the least. That’s where Clint, as executive
producer, has been very helpful. When we first talked about doing this, I said,
“I want you to be in on this."...
He said, “Yeah, I’d like to do it – but only if it’s not a puff piece.†We
didn’t want to just say “Warner Brothers is a great studio. They never made any
mistakes. Everything was just great. They never did anything stupid†So with that kind of understanding behind
you, they really just left us alone and that’s been very pleasurable. I
interview who I want, play the movies I want. It’s that kind of a deal. In the
course of doing all the films I’ve done, I’ve never really been interfered
with. Only one time, that I can think of, and that was a network I was making a
picture for. A particular person got to be a real pest. But we stumbled through
it and I don’t feel I compromised in any important way. I’ve had a lucky
filmmaking life. I haven’t had a lot of contentiousness with studios.
Q: What were some of the most surprising and most
disappointing things you found on this project?
RS: In terms of surprising, lots of little movies from the
pre-code era like Heroes for Sale, a
Bill Wellman movie about exploited veterans that’s a wonderful picture. I also
found clips from a movie – I forget the title now- but Pat O’Brien is a
telephone repair man and he has to go into people’s houses to fix the plugs and
what have you. And it’s very sexy because he’s intruding on women and there’s a
lot of funny cross-talk there. Then there’s Three
on a Match, which I was aware of but wasn’t as aware of as I became, a
wonderful movie about drug addiction, among other things. I wish I had a lot
more of Warren William, who was wonderful and very amusing playing slimy
characters. He had a picture I really wanted to get in but couldn’t, called Employee’s Entrance. It’s a terrific
little movie but I couldn’t figure out a way to get it in. I would have liked
to have done something about John Garfield. I would have liked to have done
something about Ann Sheridan, who was a special favorite of mine when I was a
kid, as was Garfield
– a very interesting, New York-kind of actor. Joan Crawford surprised me. She’s
pretty good. She’s not an actress I though that highly of at the time. But
there’s something about the intensity of her work in those pictures as a young
woman trying to rise in the world, particularly in Mildred Pierce. The surprises are always kind of nuanced. There’s
another movie and, again I can’t remember the name of it, but it has Kay
Francis in a really sophisticated movie about gambling addiction that was made
around 1935. But these surprises haven’t
made me change my mind about Cagney, Errol Flynn or Bette Davis – people I’ve
always loved. I think the era from the beginning of sound through,
roughly, White Heat (1949) was a great era and Warner Brothers was the
greatest studio. It was very fractious. Everyone was always yelling at each
other and going on suspension. Warners was kind of like a rat’s nest. Everybody
hating Jack Warner and him trying to keep all these people working and doing
what he wanted them to do, and they
didn’t want to do it. But I think that out of that kind of foment came the qualities
of the studio that I admire. Jack Warner was a really cheap guy. He wanted his
pictures to be low-budget, to get done on time, to have the actors he wanted in
them, and if they didn’t want to do it, he’d try to make them even if he
couldn’t. It’s a wonderful story of that kind of activity at the studio. I
think in some ways Warners was better than some of the more smoothly-running
studios. I mean, MGM really was a
factory that turned out that material without a lot of apparent difficulty with
the personnel.
I’m not saying Warners made all terrific movies. They had
their share of turkeys but the average was pretty good. There was an attempt to
go being Warner Brothers in the fifties. They did make a few socially
conscientious movies, but the pictures got bigger, they got slower, they got
longer, and the sprightly energy the studio had in the thirties and forties
started to disappear. They were fighting television, which was a huge challenge
to that system. The studio, I think, revived itself in the seventies. There was
a new management. Steve Ross had bought the studio and he had John Calley as
head of production and they’d just do anything and everything they wanted to
do. So, the studio was re-energized in that decade or decade-and-a-half after Ross
bought it. It again became the most interesting studio in Hollywood during that period. That’s when
Clint came there. That’s when Stanley Kubrick started his relationship with the
studio. They were making All the
President’s Men. They were making The
Exorcist. I mean, these were kind of exciting movies. The studio was
stirred again in that period.
Continue reading "CANNES REPORT: RICHARD SCHICKEL DISCUSSES "YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS: THE WARNER BROS. STORY" DOCUMENTARY"
If the new big screen version of Get Smart turns out to be a turkey, Mel Brooks can't pass the buck. In an interview with the L.A. Times, he says he has been consulted on every major aspect of the movie - unlike the previous ill-fated movie based on the series, The Nude Bomb (1980) which Brooks criticizes for not linking the name of the famous series to the title. For the interview click here
7 Author Wes Britton, who runs the great spy movie web site www.spywise.net has a revealing interview with Whitey Mitchell, a prominent sit-com writer who worked on some of the best episodes of the Get Smart TV series. Among the "top secrets" revealed is why Don Adams didn't star in the show's take-off on Ice Station Zebra and why Bill Dana had to take over for him. To read the interview click here
THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES WILL HOLD A TRIBUTE TO PRODUCER ROBERT EVANS IN LOS ANGELES ON MAY 22. CINEMA RETRO'S MIKE THOMAS SPOKE TO THE LEGENDARY PRODUCER ABOUT THE EVENT AND MEMORIES OF HIS DISTINGUISHED CAREER.
BY MIKE THOMAS
In this era of 12 producers per movie and studios run by committee, and
driven by marketing analysts, it is well worth remembering a time, not that long
ago, when studio heads relied on their own instincts and trusted their own taste
in material instead of that of a research firm. There are two producer in town
who can say they saved a studio. One is Richard Zanuck, a prince of Hollywood
royalty, rescuing a nearly bankrupt 20th Century Fox with “The Sound of Music.â€
Dick Zanuck is still actively producing, his recent films include a long
association with Tim Burton, including last year’s well-received musical,
“Sweeney Todd.â€
The other studio savior is also, as he put in his best-selling
autobiography, still in the picture. By now, Robert Evans has passed into legend
and achieved an iconographic status unlikely to be enjoyed by any producer in
the years to come. He saved Paramount Pictures with “Love Story“ and turned a
company best known for Jerry Lewis vehicles and creaky Hal Wallis Elvis movies
into the most successful and artistically challenging studio in the
industry.
Evans also epitomized the glamour that was of a different era, of a
Hollywood in its prime, he enjoyed his success and made no attempt to hide his
good fortune as so many others did during the topsy-turvy days of the
counterculture, (which was also the last great golden age of movies). He still
possesses the larger-than-life Hollywood matinee idol charisma that launched his
career as first, a not very good actor, and then as one of the greatest studio
chiefs in American film history. His rise, his fall, his loves, his lifestyle -
these are the stuff of legend that remain permanently etched into lore of the
Hollywood, thanks in no small part to his absorbing memoir, “The Kid Stays in
the Picture,†and the equally celebrated audiocassette version of the book and
subsequent motion picture, which also garnered impressive notices.Â
Evans has survived crises that would destroyed lesser mortals, he is a
true Hollywood legend, a throwback to a time when everyone in Hollywood -
actors, directors, producers - all seemed larger than life. But Evans was no
empty glamor boy: his track record when he was running Paramount Pictures from
1966 to 1975, is a astonishing run of brilliance and creativity, including what
many call the greatest American film, “The Godfather.†A few other titles during
his tenure as head of production include a catalogue of some of the most popular
and innovative films of the era including “Rosemary’s Baby,†“Medium Cool,â€
“Romeo and Juliet,†“True Grit,†“Love Story,†“Don’t Look Now,†“Harold and
Maude,†and “Chinatown.â€
As has been noted, Evans’ own life is the stuff right out of a Hollywood
film. Spotted next to the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel by Norma Shearer, in
an eerily prescient piece of casting, she tapped him to play her late husband,
MGM studio head and “boy genius,†Irving Thalberg in a Universal picture. Evans
would go on to rival Thalberg with his astonishing success at Paramount. In
recognition of Robert Evans’ tremendous accomplishments and contribution to the
American film industry, this coming Thursday, May 22, the Academy of Motion
Pictures will be honoring him with a screening of “Rosemary’s Baby,†and a panel
moderated by Evans’ former associate, Variety editor Peter Bart.
Evans remains busy, he hosts the Sirius Satellite Radio show, “In Bed
with Robert Evans,†a few seasons back he had his own highly-rated cable TV
cartoon show, “Kid Notorious,â€(how many movie producers can make that claim?)Â
and he still has more energy than a dozen wannabees half his age. In that silky,
mellifluous voice of his Bob Evans took a few moments to talk with CINEMA RETRO
about his storied career and upcoming tribute at the Academy. With his
distinctive, silky, 3 o’clock in the morning DJ’s purr; every utterance comes
out as smooth as a single blend malt whiskey, it is a voice that should be
labeled 100 proof.
MT: So, how’s the Academy tribute shaping up?
RE: Well, I hope it all works out, it’s an eclectic group - Peter Bart, Brett
Ratner, Sumner Redstone and (Guns n’ Roses guitarist) Slash. All together again,
for the first time.
MT: What were some of the differences between that era and
today?
RE: Well, it was very different when I did it, I had total freedom. But it
was a smaller business then, there were no ancillary markets like today, with
home video, cable, rentals. The movie opened and if it didn’t open, you were
dead, that was it, except for a TV sale, and that wasn’t much back then. But the
stakes were smaller, the budgets were smaller. Paramount made about 25 pictures
a year and the total budget for all them would be $100 - $200 million. Today,
that’s the price of one picture. It was simpler, smaller and you could take more
chances. We made “The Godfather†for just $6.6 million. Brando only got $50,000.
No one on that picture got paid more than that. Now, it’s so corporate, the
studios are owned by conglomerates. Although Gulf+Western was really the first
conglomerate to own a studio, I could say yes and get a picture made. Now,
there’s so much bureaucracy. It’s not show business any more more, it’s
communications, it’s become legitimate. I liked it when it was smaller and
somewhat illegitimate. We had more fun then.
MT: What was the first picture you greenlit?
I think it was “The Odd Couple,†and then “Rosemary’s Baby,†I also had
something to do with “Alfie†going forward. But as I said, I had complete
freedom to go ahead with what I liked. We had a great team there, Peter Bart and
everyone, our group. Many people now refer to that time as a “second golden ageâ€
of Hollywood. But when I started, Paramount was ninth out of nine studios.
Gulf+Western was ready to shut the studio down, they were going to sell it to
the cemetery behind us - the cemetery business is always good. They were in the
sugar business, they were in the metal business, they were in the coffee
business, they didn’t really want to be in the movie business. But in five
years, we were number #1. “Love Story,†which I bought, saved the studio and
“The Godfather†did more business than “Gone With the Wind†had done in 35
years.
MT: “Rosemary’s Baby†was interesting because up to that point, the
producer William Castle, had been known for low budget horror
pictures.
RE: He wanted to direct that picture himself. But I wanted Roman, I had seen
his talent in films like “Knife in tthe Water,†“Cul-de-Sac“ and I knew he could
bring something exceptional to the picture if I could talk him into it. He
didn’t want to do it at first, he wanted to do a skiing picture. But I told him
he could write the script and I dealt with him a great deal on the film. He and
Francis (Coppola) are the two great artists I have worked with.
MT: Is it true that Coppola had drastically cut down the running time
of “The Godfather†and you made him put the footage back in?
RE: Well, I don’t want to go into that. As they say, there are three sides to
every story - yours, mine and the truth- and memory serves each differently. But I will say, I totally supported his
casting of Brando. Nobody would hire Marlon at that point, there were no other
stars in that film, Pacino had only made one film, “Panic in Needle Park†and it
had flopped. The brilliance of Coppola, was that he turned it into opera. We had
just done another Mafia picture, “The Brotherhood,†with Kirk Douglas, and that
had flopped. Nobody wanted to do “The Godfather,†a lot of directors turned it
down. But Francis was absolutely the right director for it, he knew the way it
had to look, he knew those kinds of people and their families, he made you smell
the pasta.
MT: You made another picture about the same time that wasn’t a hit
upon its initial release but has had an amazing shelf life, a personal favorite,
“Harold & Maude.â€
RE: Ahh, yes, “Harold & Maude. Imagine trying to go to the front office
and pitch that one - “I want to make a movie about a 20 year old boy who’s
always trying to kill himself who falls in love with an 80 year old woman.â€
You’re right, it wasn’t a hit at first, but it got great word of mouth, it
became a cult picture and it’s still playing around the world in places like
Minneapolis and in Paris, where one theatre has played it for 5 years straight!
Cameron Crowe has just produced a box set of the original soundtrack on LP; it’s
four records and he did a great job on it. It’s full of memorabilia, film cells
and things. He wrote a wonderful essay. You must pick it up.
MT: It was a remarkably eclectic slate of pictures at Paramount, you
would do something like “Love Story†and then turn around and release Haskell
Wexler’s “Medium Cool.â€
RE: The distribution arm didn’t want to make it, they thought it was too
political. There was a lot of resistance from the East Coast office about that
picture. But I fought for it and I won. It was exactly that eclectic range of
films that made the job so rewarding. I felt like the richest man in the
world.
MT: Another great film of your regime was
“Chinatown.â€
RE: Ah yes, that was a special picture. It came from three lines that Bob
Towne gave me at Dominick’s restaurant on Beverly Blvd. And I knew Roman would
do a spectacular job with the material. The only difference of opinion we had
was about the score. Music in films is so important, I don’t think enough people
realize that, and the score we had didn’t fit, we took it out to preview, and it
wasn’t working. So we brought in Jerry Goldsmith and he wrote the score in 8
days. It was the first picture that I personally produced, even though I was
still running the studio. As I said, it was a different time then, you could do
something like that.
And what a time it was, a perfect convergence of the man and the times.
Old Hollywood had been shaken in the Sixties and the Seventies, it was a time of
unprecedented social change and upheaval, but that winter of discontent was made
glorious summer by this son of Gulf+Western. Robert Evans made a contribution to
film history, the likes of which we shall not soon see again.
Following his tenure at Paramount, Evans went on to a successful career
as an independent producer with such films as “Black Sunday,†“Urban Cowboy,â€
“Popeye,†the ill-fated “Cotton Club,†and his most recent production, “How to
Lose a Guy in 10 Days.†So, as his well-deserved tribute at the Academy next
Thursday approaches, let us toast Bob Evans and be grateful that the kid has not
only stayed in the picture, but with three films in pre-production at Paramount,
that there are still a few pictures left in the kid.
FOR INFORMATION ON THE EVANS TRIBUTE CLICK HERE
|
|