May we know who the playwright is?
I thought you were here to talk to me.
Well, yes, but...
It has been my observation that when Otto Preminger or Alfred Hitchcock or David Lean or even some of the fancy young nouvelle vague people give interviews, they rarely talk about anyone but themselves. That may be the one good notion any of them has ever contributed to the industry.
You sound as if you don’t admire too many directors.
I admire some.
Would you care to name them?
I have admiration for Griffith, DeMille, Eisenstein, several others.
Why these men in particular?
They’re all dead.
Are there no living directors you admire?
None.
None? It seems odd that a man known for his generosity would be so chary with praise for other acknowledged film artists.
Yes.
Yes, what?
Yes, it would seem odd, a distinct contradiction of personality. The fact remains that I consider every living director a threat, a challenge, and a competitor. There are only so many motion picture screens in the world, and there are thousands of films competing to fill those screens. If the latest Hitchcock thriller has them standing on line outside Radio City, the chances arc they won’t be standing on line outside my film up the street. The theory that an outstanding box-office hit helps all movies is sheer rubbish. The outstanding hit helps only itself. The other films suffer because no one wants to see them, they want to see only the big one, the champion, the one that has the line outside on the sidewalk. I try to make certain that all of my films generate the kind of excitement necessary to sustain a line on the sidewalk. And I resent the success of any film but my own.
Yet you have had some notable failures.
Failures are never notable. Besides, I do not consider any of my films failures.
Are we talking now about artistic failures or box-office failures?
I have never made an artistic failure. Some of my films were mildly disappointing at the box office. But not very many of them.
When the Sardinian film was ready to open last June...
July. It opened on the Fourth of July.
Yes, but before it opened, when...
That would have been June, yes. July is normally preceded by June.
There was speculation that the studio would not permit its showing.
Rubbish.
The rumours were unfounded? That the studio would suppress the film?
The film opened, didn’t it? And was a tremendous success, I might add.
Some observers maintain that the success of the film was due only to the publicity given the Sardinian accident. Would you agree to that?
I’ll ask you a question, young man. Suppose the accident on Sardinia had been related to a film called The Beach Girl Meets Hell’s Angels, or some such piece of trash? Do you think the attendant publicity would have insured the success of that film?
Perhaps not. But given your name and the stellar quality of...
You can stop after my name. Stars have nothing to do with any of the pictures. I could put a trained seal in one of my films, and people would come to see it. I could put you in a film, and people would come to see it.
Don’t you believe that films are a collaborative effort?
Certainly not. I tell the script writer what I want, and he writes it. I tell the set designer what to give me, and he gives it to me. I tell the cameraman where to aim his camera and what lens to use. I tell the actors where to move and how to speak their lines. Does that sound collaborative to you? Besides, I resent the word ‘effort.’
Why?
Because the word implies endeavor without success. You’ve tried to do something and you’ve failed. None of my films are ‘efforts.’ The word ‘effort’ is like the word ‘ambitious.’ They both spell failure. Haven’t you seen book jackets that proudly announce. ‘This is So-and-So’s most ambitious effort to date.’ What does that mean to you? To me, it means the poor bastard has set his sights too high. And failed.
Are you afraid of failure?
I cannot abide it.
Do you believe the Sardinian film was a success? Artistically?
I told you earlier...
Yes, but many critics felt the editing of the film was erratic. That the sequences filmed before the drowning were inserted piecemeal into...
To begin with, whenever critics begin talking about editing or camera angles or dolly shots or anything technical, I instantly fall asleep. They haven’t the faintest notion of what film-making is all about, and their pretentious chatter about the art may impress maiden ladies in Flushing Meadows, but it quite leaves me cold. In reality, none of them know what’s going on either behind the camera or up there on the screen. Do you know what a film critic’s sole requirement is? That he has seen a lot of movies, period. To my way of thinking, that qualifies him as an expert on popcorn, not on celluloid.
In any event, you were rather limited, were you not, in editing the final portion of the film?
Limited in what way?
In terms of the footage you needed to make the film a complete entity?
The film was a complete entity. Obviously, I could not include footage that did not exist. The girl drowned. That was a simple fact. We did not shoot the remainder of the film as originally planned, we could not. But the necessary script revisions were made on the spot — or rather in Rome. I flew to Rome to consult with an Italian screenwriter, who did the work I required.
He did not receive credit on the film.
He asked that his name be removed from the picture. I acceded to his wishes.
But not without a struggle.
There was no struggle.
It was reported that you struck him.
Nonsense.
On the Via Veneto.
The most violent thing I’ve ever done on the Via Veneto was to sip a Campari-soda outside Doney’s.
Yet the newspapers...
The Roman press is notoriously inaccurate. In fact, there isn’t a single good newspaper in all Italy.
But, sir, there was some dispute with the screen-writer, wasn’t there? Surely, the stories about it couldn’t all have been...
We had some words.
About what?
Oh my, we must pursue this deadly dull rot, mustn’t we? All right, all right. It was his allegation that when he accepted the job, he had no idea the publicity surrounding the girl’s death would achieve such hideous proportions. He claimed he did not wish his good Italian name — the little opportunist had written only one film prior to my hiring him, and that an Italian Western starring a second-rate American television actor — did not wish his name associated with a project that had even a cloud of suspicion hanging over it. Those were his exact words. Actually, quite the opposite was true. Which is why I resisted his idiotic ploy.