Welcome back to my visit with producer Robert E.
Relyea, who continues to share with us some more anecdotes from his remarkable
career. If you remember from part one, the principal wooded exterior location
for the Elvis Presley picture Kid Galahad
(1962), was the small mountain community of Idyllwild, California, near Palm
Springs. Relyea had kept the location in mind for his next film, The Great Escape (1963). As hard as it is to believe, director John Sturges and United Artists
were all set to shoot right there in sunny southern California, building the POW camp in the California hills with only some second unit shots done on location in Germany. This strategy would have obviously ensured that the movie was shot on a relatively low budget. Relyea told
Sturges “It’s not exactly the Black Forest, but it does have a few treesâ€. Relyea advised Sturges they could hire locals
to play the large number of POWs – all they would need is a waiver from the
Screen Extra’s Guild. In this
pre-production stage, their best-laid plans fell apart.The Guild insisted they bring out the
hundreds of union extras each day from Los Angeles. With a prohibitive cost like that, Germany
suddenly seemed rather appealing and a lot simpler.
Troubled icon: McQueen in The Great Escape
This revelation gives you a sense of how Hollywood
studio brass thinks and acts, which is not always in the interest of art over
commerce. However, in this case, we have to thank the Screen Extras Guild, long
since merged into the Screen Actors Guild, for unexpectedly playing a role in
the creation of a classic. Thanks to the Guild, The Great Escape benefited from the kind of authenticity that you
could only get from shooting in Germany itself. The unit shot at the Bavaria Studios in
Geiselgasteig near Munich, with the camp set and railway station stunningly
constructed in a real forest setting right behind the studio lot. Â As assistant to John Sturges, Relyea got the
necessary government permission to clear some 400 trees and the permission from
the German railways to shoot those crucial scenes. In addition to personally helping Sturges,
Relyea also was second-unit director and even performed one of the film’s most
dangerous stunts. Remember when the German plane James Garner and Donald Pleasence
escape in crashes into the trees short of the Swiss border? The regular stunt
pilot did not want to deliberately crash the single engine, two-seater vintage
Bucker Bu 181. Having a license to fly and not wanting to hold up production,
Relyea simply went ahead and did it himself. It is quite a story that Relyea relates
in detail in his recent autobiography Not So Quiet
On The Set. The crash caused him some considerable
pain, but like a true professional, he did not allow it to interfere with
getting the picture made. Speaking of stunts, the famous iconic jump was indeed
performed by Steve McQueen over that barbed-wire fence – only not in the film. McQueen
was frustrated that the insurance company wouldn’t allow him to do the stunt on
film – so he secretly did it on his own time in secret just to prove he was up
to the task. Still -as every devoted fan knows- on screen, Â it was his close friend and motorcycle
enthusiast, Bud Ekins who performed the classic stunt. McQueen still performed
all the other bike sequences, even - through the magic and skills of editing -
chasing himself dressed as a German soldier. Relyea directed the actual jump,
not Sturges, and even though on screen it was only a very few celluloid seconds,
it would go on to become an iconic sequence in film history. Another
interesting fact is that, because Sturges refused to work at night, the task of
filming the actual escape from the tunnel sequence fell to Relyea. Sturges simply told him, “Don’t shoot it like
I would –surprise me!â€
Relyea’s next assignment from the Mirisch Company re-united
him with Magnificent Seven (1960)
star Yul Brynner and West Side Story
(1961) star George Chakiris on a period picture called Kings of the Sun (1963).Chakiris was cast as the young king of a Mayan tribe with Brynner
playing an Indian chief, this time under the action direction of a British
equivalent of John Sturges –J. Lee Thompson. The movie was filmedon actual Mayan locations near the
Yucatan Peninsula, with the interiors shot later in Mexico City.Â
It was a script that Relyea said was the worst he had ever seen; despite
the fact having been co-written by James R. Webb, veteran screenwriter on How the West Was Won (1962) and The Big Country (1958).Webb and Thompson had only just worked
together on the hit suspense classic Cape
Fear (1962). For Relyea, working
with Thompson was not exactly the same smooth experience as it had been with Sturges.Under the scorching hot tropical sun, Relyea
was unit manager to a director who had a work habit of popping pills and
drinking everything in sight -except water.As with other John Sturges hits, the
great Elmer Bernstein left his mark by composing a dynamic score that
elevates the film’s status considerably. As the late Bernstein once related to
TCM’s host Robert Osborne, it is one of his most popular scores among his
devoted fans. Incidentally, the film’s opening narration was spoken by an un-credited
James Coburn. Despite some major casting problems and inconsistencies in the
script, Kings of the Sun remains a
top-notch action film. It recalls an era when stunt men like Ronnie Rondell Jr.
were really risking their lives. Rondell performed a high-fall from a burning
observation tower into a thatched hut.Another memorable occasion from the shooting did not occur on screen: Robert
Relyea got married for the second time on the film location. It was not wedding day jitters, but badly sunburned
feet that kept our groom from standing tall to take his ceremonial vows. Â
The comic book tie-in to John Sturges' The Hallelujah Trail belied the fact that there was nothing funny about the misguided, overblown production that saw a stuntman killed during filming.
Remaining at United Artists, Relyea went on to 633 Squadron (1964) and A Shot in the Dark (1964), both based in
London.Then there was The Satan Bug (1965), a pre-cursor to
Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain
(1971).Based on the Alistair
MacLain novel, this picture suffered from a bad script, bad casting and a bad
direction. Unfortunately, the director was John Sturges, who – according to
Relyea - was so pre-occupied with his upcoming comedy western The Hallelujah Trail (1965) that he just
lost interest. The over-inflated 70mm widescreen
offering was a box-office disaster. Associate producer Relyea had
seen the warning signs early on, as neither star Burt Lancaster or producer-director
Sturges were suited to this rambling tale of drunken miners and Indians
battling booze-busting females. Toward the very end of filming on location in
Gallup, New Mexico, Relyea was directing the second-unit. As he so vividly
recalls, it was Friday, November 13, 1964, there was to be a particularly
dangerous stunt performed by several veteran stunt men. The scene involved
Indians stealing the booze consignment from the wagon train. Several wagons hit
a bump in the ground, and the horses and driver manage to safely escape  as the wagons separate, catapult into the air
and crash land.To quote Relyea – “I
broke two rules that day. The first rule: don’t allow visitors on the set during
a stunt sequence. You do not need the added distraction. The second rule: don’t
alter the plan for any stunt at the last moment, even slightlyâ€. The mishaps started when good friend,
stuntman Billy Williams asked if he could bring his wife and two children to
the set. He asked Relyea to allow him to participate in the sequence. Relyea reluctantly agreed. Williams said he could improve on the stunt
that others had just performed.His
wagon, having separated from the horses, would go off a ravine in a spectacular
leap. Tragically, for some unknown reason, he was not able to jump clear and was
dragged-off the cliff in full view of everyone, including his horrified family.
It resulted in a tragic death that marked the saddest day of Relyea’s career.
He always felt some degree of responsibility, even though no one could have
predicted the outcome. He vowed never to direct a second-unit ever again. To add insult to the tragedy, the studio kept
the fatal footage in the movie.             Â
 In 1966, Robert
E. Relyea became a partner and  vice-president in Steve McQueen’s Solar Productions,
named after McQueen’s 2419 Solar Drive street address up in the Hollywood
hills.They were both 36 years old, born
just days apart. McQueen was the number one box-office star in the world, but
he still depended upon Relyea to build-up his self-esteem, as McQueen always
feared losing his popularity with the movie-going public. On September 27 1966,
Solar Productions held a special press conference at the Warner Brothers
commissary where Jack L. Warner announced a six-picture deal between Warner
Brothers and Solar. It was Relyea, who asked for silence after the announcements
and proposed a toast of champagne to all those gathered -“Steve and I are bad
losers. I’m telling you here and now, somewhere down the road Solar is going to
make the ultimate racing picture. And
when we do, it will probably destroy our friendship… along with our
companyâ€. Little did he know then, how
profound and accurate that statement would go on to become.The racing picture would become a reality in
1971, with Le Mans, but in the
interim, the two men teamed for another film that would be associated with
racing – Bullitt (1968). The film was
one of many projects that Solar Productions was interested in making. Relyea
asked for Jack L. Warner’s consent to proceed with the picture. He recalls the
meeting at which that historic permission was so casually given, though the
legendary mogul kept referring to McQueen as “what’s-his-name†during the
abbreviated five-minute session. With an agreed upon budget of $4.5-$5 million,
Relyea assured Warner they would be ready to start in eight weeks and would be
finished in time for a fall 1968 release.
The film was based on Robert Pike’s novel Mute Witness, acquired for $25,000 by producer
Phil D’Antoni, who was actually only marginally involved in its production.
When it came to choosing a director, McQueen became very impressed by a recent
British film called Robbery (1967),
directed by a rising new talent called Peter Yates. Loosely based on the actual 1963 Great Train Robbery,
the film featured a car chase through the streets of London that was unlike
anything ever shot before. In addition
to looking spectacular, ot looked real and that is how Yates (the former
assistant director on J. Lee Thompson’s The
Guns of Navarone (1961) got the job to direct Bullitt .
Just as things started to get moving, fate threw a
monkey wrench into the production of the film. Â On November 14, 1966, Jack L. Warner announced
he was selling his controlling 1.6 million shares in his studio to a Canadian
company called Seven Arts Productions for $20 a share. Despite netting an after
tax profit of $24 million, Warner soon realized he had made the biggest mistake
of his life. Like so many moguls before
him, he would quickly see that not only had he sold cheap, he had relinquished
the almighty power and stature that was his very life’s blood. However, as it turned out the new studio
owner Kenneth Hyman was about to make an even bigger mistake running his new
company, now known as Warner-Seven Arts. Â On the Sunday prior to starting principle photography
on Bullitt (1968), Hyman and his
personal entourage flew up to San Francisco to get a few things settled with
Relyea. Hyman announced he not only wanted the budget cut, but he wanted the
film shot on the studio backlot. Relyea resisted and held firm. This was going
to be a real location picture, as Relyea further explained in private
conversation with the new “mogulâ€. Hyman said he wanted to dissolve the
contract beyond this current commitment and Relyea agreed. The rest is history. Hyman lost the future services of the biggest
star in the world, not to mention all the potential profits. As with Ben-Hur
(1959) and its spectacular chariot race, Bullitt, would set the stage and the standard for the great car
chases that would follow in the 1970’s and beyond.Unlike Ben-Hur,
which won eleven Oscars, Bullitt would
only get one for Frank P. Keller’s editing, largely attributable to that
classic chase scene. The sequence also benefited greatly from Bill Hickman’s
and Carey Loftin’s choreography of the stunts and William Fraker’s striking
photography. (Even if the cars pass the same green VW bug four times and five
hubcaps come off the Dodge Charger and the gas station blows up two seconds before
the Charger plows into it!)
Le Mans was to be McQueen's answer to John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix - but ended up being the most troubled production of his career.
Despite his status as “The King of Coolâ€, Robert Relyea
relates that Steve McQueen suffered from many insecurities and personal demons,
although he could be a very sentimental and loving man.Relyea’s eleven-year friendship and association
with Steve McQueen ended when it hit a brick wall in 1970 on Le Mans (1971). McQueen would also lose the friendship of his
father-figure mentor, the man who first made him a superstar, John Sturges. Â As I mentioned at the very start, Relyea has
spent decades discussing McQueen with authors and documentary makers. He is still bewildered to this day as to
what specifically went wrong, but it may be their disagreement over McQueen’s
insistence to make the film a quasi-documentary. Relyea, Sturges and the studio
saw it as a dramatic race car picture.Ultimately, the conflict-combined with McQueen’s stubborn resistance to listen to his mentors- ensured the production quickly went out of control. Sturges
walked off the film. Â McQueen then fired
Relyea, in the mistaken belief he had been conspiring against his vision of the
film.With his marriage to his wife Neile “on the rocksâ€, McQueen was in a
fragile state of mind. The resulting film was an artistic mess and completely
unworthy of the quality McQueen generally brought to his productions. The
iconic star virtually disowned the movie as soon as it was completed. Â As Relyea points out, somewhere in a film
vault there is a stack of film cans with race footage inside from the 1960s. This was how far in advance
McQueen had been in pre-production on a dream project that would ultimately
become his nightmare. Relyea would go on to produce The Day of the Dolphin (1973) and The Last Action Hero (19993), and eventually become a studio executive
first with Paramount and then MGM/UA. Â
What of Relyea, the man? A few personal insights: his
middle name comes from his grandfather, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s early editors
Emile “Frenchy†De Ruelle. Relyea’s son Craig was the riving force in
convincing his father to get his life down on paper in Not So Quiet On The Set –My
Life In Movies During Hollywood’s Macho Era. Relyea is a tall, unassuming
man, whose home is filled with the original photo and poster memories of all
those great movies he was so much a part of. In his living room, I was attracted to a
wonderful lithograph of the legendary John Wayne. There was a personalized
“inside joke†poster of The Great Escape,
given to Relyea upon his retirement from MGM a few years ago. Something,
that referred to his always being very punctual and predictable when it came
time to leave the office each day.His
staff incorporated that “escape†trait into the graphics of the famous poster
itself. When you have risen in the ranks of studio production, you have to have
that militaristic trait of taking charge and being responsible. It is about
logistics, planning, re-planning, and being precise and on time. Relyea is the dependable and resourceful type
who generally disdains the Hollywood party scene. He’s more at home with a
simple cheeseburger and a can of beer than the usual industry “schmoozingâ€.  I asked him if he would like to start out
today in the business, and he responded with a resolute (and predictable) “No!â€
 Relyea realizes he was simply at the  proverbial “right place at the right timeâ€. He
was lucky, having TV director Harve Foster, not just as an uncle, but a father figure
to help get him started.His lack of
interest in today’s film industry is probably due to the fact that he associated
with giants. After all, who are the John Sturges, the William Wylers, the Robert
Wises and Steve McQueens of today?Â
What production company has the integrity, style and achievements of the
Mirisch brothers? Years later, others
have re-made The Alamo and The Magnificent Seven, but it’s the
originals people remember.
In looking through Relyea’s snapshots taken on film
sets, one is aware of his modesty and inability to grandstand.Quiet and content, he is a Hollywood survivor,
an elder statesman in an industry that has so few. There are certain regrets of
course, one being, not able to get his old pal Steve McQueen to forgive and
forget; something that a number of the legendary actor’s family and friends
couldn’t do either.  Still, one thing is
for sure, when it came to those iconic, macho movies of the 60s –Robert E.
Relyea -was the man who really helped Hollywood get its act together.
I hope you enjoyed getting to know Mr. Relyea and if
there is anything else you would like to discuss about classic Hollywood –I will be happy
to hear from you. You can write to me at:
(For extensive coverage of the making of The Great Escape and an unpublished interview with Steve McQueen, see Cinema Retro issue #1 in our back issues section)
Click here for a review of Mr. Relyea's autobiography and a link to order it from Amazon