BY JOHN M. WHALEN
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood there was a writer who was something
of a living legend. Between 1955 and 1975, screenwriter Stirling Silliphant
wrote hundreds of television scripts and over his lifetime of 78 years, was
credited by the Writers Guild with 200 movie scripts. He created and wrote over
150 teleplays just for “Route 66,†and “Naked City,†alone – two TV series that
are considered arguably among the best written television dramas of this or any
time. In a 1963 article, Time magazine quoted a producer who said that Stirling
Silliphant was “almost inhuman . . . a writing machine . . . the fingers of
God.†He was not only prolific, he was good. He won an Academy Award for adapting
“In the Heat of the Night†(1967), starring Sidney Poitier; was one of the
creative forces behind the production and writing of the Shaft movies; gave
Bruce Lee his first role in an American feature film (“Marlowe†1969); wrote
the classic disaster movies “The Poseidon Adventure (1972),†and “The Towering
Inferno†(1974); turned to novel writing; and eventually expatriated to
Thailand, where he said he felt a spiritual connection, and eventually died. But
by that time—and such is the fate of the writer in Tinseltown—he had almost become
a forgotten man.
Silliphant’s early writing had a distinctive quality. He
wrote stories that used to be described as the kind that “hit you where you
live.†When he was writing at his best, his created characters that had a
strong impact on you and his dialogue was a powerful mixture of poetry and
gritty realism. The same year he wrote “The Poseidon Adventure,†he was hired
to adapt “The New Centurions†(1972) from a novel by Joseph Wambaugh. In an
interview, Silliphant said by that time he wrote this script his whole approach
to screenwriting had changed. He dropped the poetry and wrote more realistic
dialogue. He said he used to write paragraphs of almost novelistic description.
But when he wrote “The New Centurions,†when describing a room in one scene he
used just one word: shitty.
“The New Centurions†follows five years in the lives of
three Los Angeles cops, starting with their days in the academy and ending with
a grim finish for one of them. Stacy Keach plays Roy, a married man serving on
the force while he attends law school. He and his wife Dorothy (Jane Alexander)
are looking forward to the day he can quit being a cop and become a lawyer. Gus
(Scott Wilson) is a less complicated man; all he wants in life is “to be a good
cop.†But his aspirations get tossed in a trash can when he accidentally shoots
the owner of a dry cleaners, mistaking him for one of the perps robbing the
place. The third recruit, Sergio (Eric Estrada) is a Latino, a former gang
member, who has risen from the ghetto, and faces a challenge when riots break
out in his old neighborhood.
But towering above these three, is Sgt. Andy Kilvinski
(George C. Scott), a seasoned veteran who serves not only as a mentor to the
new recruits but is also a kind of spiritual force holding the whole precinct
together. Everything is done according to “Kilvinski’s law,†which could be
summed up as follows: “If a guy comes at you with his fists, use your night
stick,†Kilvinski tells Roy. “If he come at you with a knife, use your gun.
Cancel his ticket right then and there.â€
On night shift Kilvinski reveals his secret for keeping
hookers off the streets. Instead of arresting and booking them, he picks them
up in a paddy wagon, buys them some vodka and milk, and lets them get drunk
while he drives them around listening to the wild tales they have to tell about
their latest tricks. “It’s illegal as hell,†Kilvinski says, “but nobody’s hurt
and it saves a lot of paperwork and time spent in court rooms.â€