I briefly mentioned some work I did a few weeks ago in which I filmed interviews on HD video for a woman who is trying to put together a documentary on Raoul Walsh. She had recently written a book called Raoul Walsh, The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director.
A director friend of mine had met her and she mentioned that she wanted to interview the last few actors who had worked on Walsh films. Walsh himself passed away in the 60's. He started in silent films and went on to work on movies with Bogart, Cagney, Flynn and almost every major actor of the 40's and 50's.
My friend suggested I could film the interviews as at least half of me is a camera guy, working as a news film photographer way back when. Naturally I said yes, as I love shooting film and video.
The job turned into a few other things that I could do to help here and along the way I met a type of people I never really knew.
The other film writers.
They don't write screenplays, at least most of them don't and they live in a world of admiration and frustration, envy and to some extent, are rewarded with meager book sales and attention. Unlike screenwriters who even among the lowest paid still get, if they're WGA, around $42,000 for a screenplay that they might have taken 4-6 weeks to write.
Writers who write books on famous film people rarely make that much and Marilyn, the author, for example, worked 5 years on her book. It has recently been released in paperback and she will earn more, but nowhere like a comparable mid-successful screenwriter.
People who love trains and follow them across the country just to take photos of them call themselves "foamers", in other words, fanatics. Like foaming at the mouth.
As I met and talked with more of these film foamers I entered a world I never really knew. There's a guy who works at an average job all day who puts together film noir festivals and eagerly tells you about the stars he's driven around. There's another person who quotes movie dialog lines at parties. Another tells me secrets about Katherine Hepburn.
There are critics now on the internet who look for attention by reviewing movies in hopes of getting invited to premieres where they can feel at par with the famous people.
There's also the book writers, like Marilyn, who spend hours and days and years on a book and there are some of them who are only too anxious to put down writers who might be more successful. Marilyn, to her credit, has written the definitive book on Walsh and did a great job.
Watching these people talk about movies and movie stars makes me feel like an outsider, they swap stories about the living and dead actors and directors and even the classic screenwriters of another era. Their world is far more immersed in movies than even I am, even my Sundays with the guys breakfasts at Venice Beach bring discussions of politics and other subjects.
But these other writers only talk about film, and the books they hope to write and the latest revealed secrets of the long dead movie people. Watching them watch old movies is almost voyeuristic, it almost seems to be a religious experience, the faithful watching their gods and goddesses in black and white.
In fact it really is worshiping the past when "movies were great", as they would say and they repeat lines of dialog from a Bogart movie or Gene Tierney (how's that for a reference), arguably the most beautiful actress of the 1940's.
Most of them have massive collections of movies and books on movies and often stacked in piles and seem to have a love/hate relationship with each other. And yet it's a strange passion that brings together people who love the movies and yet are distant from the reality of movies. I probably have a dozen movies and copies of the ones I wrote, and I rarely look at them.
My world is contrary to theirs, I live in a world of writing these movies, and we couldn't be any more different than them. We make the movies, while they talk about them and hang around the outside of the real film world of writers, actors, directors, cameramen and technicians.
My director friend jokes that they all live in basements but they don't. However the ones I met live in Hollywood and along streets that they can tell you were used in movies made a hundred years ago and who directed those movies and who starred in them and who had an affair with the lead actress. Marilyn has problems coming into the valley, as it's too far away from Hollywood.
You're looking at Howard Hughes home in Los Angeles. For those who saw The Aviator with Leonardo as Hughes, they did some filming here. It's now owned by an agent. So how did I get there?
As mentioned in a past blog, I still occasionally shoot some video for friends or for a particular effect I might need. For the last two weeks I've helped out my friend Marilyn, who is an author of 2 books on film directors, George Stevens and Raoul Walsh.
Marilyn is considering a documentary on Walsh, who was a studio-based director rather than the more flamboyant directors like Huston or Ford. Walsh showed up on Monday, got his assignment and then went and made it.
Among those assignments were legendary movies, White Heat with James Cagney, High Sierra with Bogart, Objective Burma with Errol Flynn. He also made The Big Trail, just at the beginning of sound movies, John Wayne's first big role.
Since I will gladly take any filming assignment just to shoot something, I said I'd help her out. She has a list of older actors, all of whom worked for Walsh, who died in the early 1960's. Since they're all at least in their late 70's and most in their 80's, she wanted to get interviews with as many as she can find, or who want to.
Last week I filmed Jack Larson, who to many boomers, was Jimmy Olsen in the 50's Superman TV show, for those who remember "faster than a speeding bullet"...
Olsen's first role was in a 1948 Walsh war movie called Fighter Squadron and he recounted, with amazing detail, almost every bit of his part in the movie, as well as great stories about other actors and the Hollywood of the early 1950's.
As we approached his Frank Lloyd Wright home, he walked out and I immediately saw Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter. Well, maybe an older Jimmy Olsen but instantly recognizable.
But now - Howard Hughes.
Hughes never really had anything to do with Walsh, but because the owner of the house had something to do with him, we filmed inside the place. Afterwards we had a tour of the place which included Hughes' "vault", which apparently was used to keep his fortune in, or at least that which he wanted to be close to.
The home can best be described as Spanish-Moroccan, he bought it in 1928 for around $135,000. Inside, the rooms are spacious and light pours in from different angles, giving it a comfortable feel.
One of the most interesting points of the house is that it's on a golf course and, if you saw The Aviator, you saw Leonardo land his airplane on the course and walk to his house. Some of those scenes were filmed there, the landing probably at a place much more accommodating than a golf club.
I'm enjoying shooting again, even if it's video, the camera is like an old friend I haven't seen for awhile and I still have the feel of filming.
A film student, David, who is helping me film the interviews is enjoying the Hollywood history lesson he's getting from the places we've been so far, and it's nice to see someone his age connecting to the history of the town. And Hughes was certainly history, as was Walsh.
We're going to have a few more interviews and I'll add to the blog if they're interesting. In the meantime, I'm working on my Christmas screenplay.
Recently I've been hearing about something called the "chemistry test". Naturally I thought it had to do with chemistry, as in bunsen burners and bubbling glass containers. But no, it's not that at all, it's something more abstract.
It's about actors.
Apparently the producers and studios want to be absolutely sure that the lead actors have chemistry, otherwise known as attraction, compatibility, comfort and any other vague quality that might translate to the movie.
Basically it's about how two actors relate to each other.
Bogart and Bacall had it. Astaire and Rogers had it. Hope and Crosby had it. Sean Connery and Candice Bergen had it. And lately Owen Wilson and Marion Coitillard had it.
Harrison Ford and Karen Allen had it in the first Raiders of the Lost Ark. But in the sequel with Kate Capshaw didn't have it.
Chemistry with actors is difficult to define, and there are probably as many theories as there are actors. Simply put, it means that the two actors, usually leads, seem to fit like a perfect glove.
One of the best examples is the Thin Man series with Nick and Nora, played by William Powell and Myrna Loy, who were probably one of the first couples that looked and felt like they really were in love with each other. It's also fun to count the number of cocktails they could down in the course of an 80 minute movie.
So now there is a chemistry test.
They take two actors, usually one is a big star and one is lessor, although it's not a rule. It's hard enough to learn lines but now to see if you get along and what's more, you can't really fake it. Chemistry is real, either it's there or it's not.
Johnny Depp and Angelina had no chemistry in The Tourist, just read the reviews. Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise had none, but Cameron and Jim Carrey had. And I'm sure Johnny and Angelina didn't test, they're too big. What it comes down to for you is this:
You enjoy watching them.
It's a magic of sorts that works sometimes, sometimes not. And the irony is that it has always been going on in Hollywood. They would test every actor together within the studio system, nobody was too big to not test, at least not for them. When a big star was tested, it was more likely for the actor who would play with them.
Testing seemed to disappear after the studios lost their actor talent to independent agents but it seems it is back.
Unfortunately, we don't have the caliber of actors we had in the 30's right through to the 80's. Watching most of the young "stars" now is less than exciting. Put Ryan Reynolds with Emma Stone and you have zero chemistry.
I'm sure there will be some who disagree but the movies show it. Some of the last few romcoms, Friends with Benefits and Crazy Stupid Love for example, took steep dives even with alleged "star power" of people like Ashton Kutcher and Steve Carrell whom some reviewers even remarked on the lack of chemistry between him and his female lead.
But the king of chemistry is probably Jack Nicholson, who seemed to work with all the actresses he worked with, Diane Keaton especially. He's one of those guys you always like to watch.
But there are fewer of them.
As we wait for the Canadian producer produce his letters of commitment, I toss in my 5 cents (Cdn) on the Leno/O'Brien mess. And again, screenwriter William Goldman's now famous slogan above, says it all.
Jeff Zucker is coming off as the bad boy in this comedy of errors, he's the head of NBC/Universal and has been considered "teflon" through the 10 years he's been top dog, in the sense that nothing bad sticks to him. It's argued that most of his successes were from shows that were on TV already and all he did was renew them. Okay, he was also responsible for the "re-imagining" of that great classic Knightrider. The new show lasted a few episodes.
But somewhere in time, he decided that Jay Leno should "retire" at some point to let Conan take over the Tonight show, as Leno was getting older and his audience would want a hipper and cooler host like Conan. Even then I said it was a mistake. Most people in Hollywood said it was a mistake.
Why? Because they chose to dump Leno at the height of Leno's popularity, his show was #1 in late night. Conan took over and guess what -- they lost half the audience. 50% went to Kimmel and Letterman.
So where are we now?
Conan's out, possibly with a $40 million severance check (NBC says $25 million but other estimates by industry people are higher). And Zucker is mad as hell, mostly because almost everyone is blaming him. And they should. Even Leno is getting negative attention following the theory that when someone wins (Leno) and someone loses (Conan) and sympathy falls to the loser, the winner is seen in a bad light, greedy and selfish. Right now that's where it is.
Now let's go to Sandra Bullock. And a great article in today's LA Times. Her movie, The Blind Side is a hit movie, grossing $220 million and oscar nomination possibilities. It's the big hit she's needed for few years of flops. But it almost wasn't made.
First actor to read it was Julia Roberts, the Golden Girl, who turned it down. Executives then said if Julia turns it down, then we change the story to a man mentoring a football player. Otherwise nobody will go see it.
John Lee Hancock, the director, insisted that since the true story was with a woman mentor, it wouldn't be a good idea to cast a man instead. But since the studio guys can only focus on 16-year old boys going to their movies, they all passed.
And that's when a small practically unknown company thought they could finance it. And they did. And it has made $220 million dollars.
When Clint Eastwood wanted to make a movie about a trucker and an orangutan, the studio heads rejected it totally, as Clint's audience wants him to be the mysterious stranger who comes to town to kill the bad guys. In spite of their rejection Clint made it, Every Which Way But Loose, and it and the sequel were two of his highest grossing films ever.
So, getting back to nobody knows anything, how is it that studio execs are wrong more times than you'd think so?
What I think is this, the greatest movies in America were made in the 1930's to the mid 1970's and that was when studios were run on gut instincts by the guys who started and ran the companies. No research -- just instinct. You'd go into Jack Warner, say you got Bogart and Bacall, a good story and a budget and Jack would look at them and say "OK".
When they died off, college boys with business degrees took over. And they all came with the benefits of an MBA: research, studies, grosses, patterns and a whole busload of words and expressions. You know, like the banks and stock market guys.
And as a result we get sequels and remakes, movies that are made for $200 million but which draw a huge audience. What worked the first time will work again. No risk. And many times that's true.
Spiderman was a good movie, as was Ironman and a few others. And of course, Avatar is a huge success, but that was due to James Cameron, who had to show Fox a short demo of his effects before they committed. And this is the guy who made Titanic. He still had to show them a promotional short film.
Are there still good studio executives? Well, logistics suggest there has to be, and I'm sure they are there, but big business has taken over the movie business like almost everything else and there is less and less risk and quality.
Same thing goes for TV. One of the guys who developed the "100-Channel package" for cable and satellite said that when they started, they figured it would be great, that there would be special interest channels for everyone as well as popular ones, that everyone would produce new and exciting programming.
But he now realizes that all that was accomplished was mediocrity, reruns show up on every channel rather than "new and innovative programming". They'd rather run Friends and Seinfeld and MASH, not that they're bad shows, but on 20 channels? Sometimes at the same time.
Sometimes I wonder how I grew up on first 1 channel and as a teen in Windsor/Detroit, 5 channels. Researchers say the average person watches about 17 channels of the 110 to 200 channels available on cable or satellite.
And ironically, with all those channels, it's harder to get a dramatic series on then it ever was. Why take a risk when Mash and Seinfeld is guaranteed an audience and costs way less.
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