As Cinema Retro 'regulars'Â know, we have occasionally been able to find unpublished or rarely-seen interviews with legendary film personalities and provide them for our readers. In issue #1 of the magazine, Steve Mori provided an unseen interview Steve McQueen from 1968 and in issue #15, Steve did the same with a fascinating 1974 discussion with Lee Marvin. Now contributing writer Kris Gilpin has been kind enough to share with us with a 1988 interview with director Monte Hellman, whose work is revered by some of the great directors of our time. Please keep in mind that the text and events that are discussed in this interview took place in 1988 and have not been amended. (This is part one of a two-part interview.)
INTERVIEW WITH MONTE HELLMAN
By Kris Gilpin
Born July 12th,
1932 in New York City, writer-director Monte Hellman’s work is miles above
typical American drivel; while working in various traditional genres (war,
western, road film, etc.), he has produced a series of very personal character
studies, while still remaining true to the genre within which each film is
set. And his films have a definite
European flavor to them; in fact, he still has a huge following in Europe –
with Monte Hellman film festivals constantly being held there – despite the
fact that his last feature (the western China 9, Liberty 37, starring the late,
great Warren Oates, Jenny [An American Werewolf in London] Agutter and Italian
superstar Fabio Testi) was released a decade ago.
After studying theater at
Stanford University and film at UCLA, Hellman spent three years acting and
directing in summer stock before landing his first gig in film, as the
assistant editor on the Richard Boone TV series, Medic. He quit that job to return to directing plays
for a theatre company he founded, then accepted an offer from B-movie mogul
Roger Corman (who had invested in his theatre company); Hellman’s first film, Beast
from Haunted Cave, was shot back-to-back with Corman’s Ski Troop Attack in North
Dakota, using the same cast, crew and locations. He then helped finish a number of films for
Corman, one of which was the infamous The Terror, starring Boris Karloff, Jack
Nicholson and Dick Miller, a film they all made up as they went along.
Next, Hellman shot two
films back-to-back in the Philippines, Back Door to Hell, a war story with
Nicholson and country singer Jimmie Roders, and Flight to Fury, a film noir
starring, and written by, Jack Nicholson.Â
(Hellman, who always edits his own pictures, was cutting Back Door at
night, while directing Flight during the day.)
His international fame
came in 1967, with a pair of westerns filmed in Utah (once again back-to-back):
the existentialist, purposely vague The Shooting (with Nicholson and Oates) and
equally existential Ride in the Whirlwind (with Cameron Mitchell and Nicholson,
who once again wrote the script). Four
years later I first saw Hellman’s subtle cult masterpiece, Two-Lane Blacktop (which
featured Oates in a superb performance, the late Beach Boy drummer-singer
Dennis Wilson and songwriter James Taylor, in his only starring role), and I’ve
been in love with road movies ever since that day. The film’s screenplay, by Rudy (Candy
Mountain – another road film – and Walker) Wurlitzer and Will Cory, was so
impressive it was published in its entirety before the film’s release in Esquire
magazine. This was followed by Cockfighter
(aka Born to Kill), again starring Warren Oates, this time with Harry Dean
Stanton; the film was recut by producer Roger Corman and not seen its original
form until several years later.
Now Monte Hellman is back
with Iguana, the story of Oberlus, a sailor from the early 19th
Century who is persecuted due to the lizard-like scales, which deform half of
his face and neck (Oberlus is played by Everett [Quest for Fire, Silver Bullet]
McGill). He flees to a desert island,
where he declares war on mankind, capturing castaway sailors and cutting off
the fingers and heads of the “slaves†who disobey him. When Carmen (Maru Valdivielso), a
beautiful/sexy Spanish libertine, comes to the island, the two of them
eventually play out a twisted version of Beauty and the Beast (the film also
features Fabio Testi in a supporting role).
Hellman was kind enough to
give me a friendly, long interview on Saturday October 29th, 1988,
in his Los Angeles home. I met his
pretty daughter, Melissa, and marveled at the framed stills and lobby cards
adorning the walls and bookshelves (early stills of Nicholson, John Ford [with
Hellman], Sam Peckinpah [who acted in
Hellman’s China 9], Martin Landau, Millin [The Shooting, Ride in the Whirlwind]
Perkins, the late Laurie Bird [from Two-Land Blacktop, as the hitchhiker who
unknowingly breaks up the cross-country race between Warren Oates and James
Taylor, and she was also in Cockfighter]; a foreign lobby card for La
Sparatoria [The Shooting], a Japanese lobby card for Two-Lane, etc. And you can still hear the loss in his voice
when Hellman recalls his old friends Oates and Bird). Many thanks to Monte Hellman (who has always
been a favorite filmmaker of mine) for giving me such a complete interview that
day.