Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade

by William Goldman

I had never seen it all put together. Director George Roy Hill had been in despair after the first sneak, because, as I said earlier, the audience had laughed too much, which made the ending a problem. So he set about taking out laughs.

  Example: the movie opened with these words:

  Not that it matters,

  but most of what follows is true.

  Got a laugh, so he cut the first words, "Not that it matters, but." Laugh gone.

  Unlike Jaws, Butch had been a splendid shoot. But there was controversy because my very late great agent, Evarts Ziegler, had secured $400,000 for the screenplay. A lot of money today. Back then, record-shattering. It made all the papers, not just Variety. And a lot of people wondered what the world was coming to, a western selling for that.

  It's my belief that the reason the reviews were so shitty is because of the money I got. A lot of people were pissed, a lot of those people were critics. For them the title of the movie really turned out to be this: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid $400,000.

  All the New York and national magazine reviews were mixed to terrible. You could not have reprinted one in its entirety. The reviews in the rest of the country were terrific, and in the rest of the world we soared. But I had no idea of any of that as I sat in another large theater in New York for the first major screening. A similar audience to the Jaws gathering.

  And Butch just died.

  No one left, but no one laughed either. Or was moved. Just a bunch of opinion makers sitting on their hands, and as I fled up the aisle all I heard were remarks about why would anybody open a western in late September, and would Redford be a star, and would the movie make money, and why would anybody pay that much for a screenplay in the first place.

  I didn't see the movie for years after that. I went during one of its reissues--they did that in those days--and by that time the movie had become sort of the Forrest Gump of its day, in terms of audience reaction, anyway, and I sat happily munching my popcorn as the audience muttered, "Who are those guys?" along with Redford and Newman.

  Way better time was had by all.

  Going from glorious to crushing to sheer horror, the worst I ever saw was when I was a judge at Cannes and I saw this movie at night when you had to get all dressed up in your tuxedo and it started late, I want to say after ten, and it turned out to be an opera--in Portuguese, yet--and all the creative people were there, hopeful, nervous, and the lights went down in that greatest of all movie palaces, and once the audience ascertained they were going to be sung to and it was dinnertime, well, they fled. A thousand fled.

  We didn't have that many people at our sneak for Comet in Sherman Oaks. It was at a mall, and the theater held a flat five hundred.

  For those of you who don't know, here is what generally happens today at test sneaks.

  The audience comes in. They have been recruited by whatever company is running things. And usually the people selected are moviegoers who have been to this kind of story before.

  They sit down and get comfortable.

  Somebody from the focus group goes to the front and greets them, thanks them for their help. Then the usual excuse about the quality of what they will be seeing: there are no credits, the print is scratchy, etc., etc. Then the test leader asks them a favor--when the movie is done will they all please stay in their seats and fill out a short survey.

  A focus group of twenty-five or so has already been selected and will stay after the theater is empty and talk to the group leader, answering more specific questions.

  Final thanks for coming.

  Lights out.

  Magic time.

  And it is exciting. When I'm involved and when I'm not. Because so much is riding on this special evening.

  Not that these groups are without flaw. The highest-rated film I've been involved with was The Princess Bride. I was told by the man who runs these things that it was the second highest movie of its year. That would indicate a huge hit, which The Princess Bride was not.

  But these nights, as well as draining you, tell you a lot. Have you got a shot? That's what you know by the end of the night and your head hits the pillow.

  Okay. The Year of the Comet.

  What you do at the start when you write a movie is this: you set up your universe. The audience needs to know what world it's entering. Comedy, drama, horror, what.

  I was very careful with this baby. So I opened in London--gorgeous romantic London--at a wine tasting.

  I did it for several reasons. Get the people familiar with where we were going, of course that. But also to set up my lady. Penelope Anne Miller played a brilliant but loveless wine expert at a family auction house. Her father treated her with coldness--this was London, after all, and she was a woman. And her older brother treated her with disdain--she was smarter than he was and he was frightened she might inherit.

  Not only am I properly setting up the world of the movie, I am also adroitly setting up this fact: we have a maiden here who sure as shit could use a Prince Charming.

  This was not ever intended to be a blockbuster beginning--I was a long way from Sunset Boulevard. But I knew it was solid. That Yates had directed it well. And it looked terrific.

  Only now I begin to catch sight of really the most amazing thing: a couple is walking out. Not ninety seconds into it, and a couple is leaving. Probably baby-sitter problems, I told myself. Perhaps one or the other has an upset stomach.

  That must have been it.

  Now in the far aisle, four more are up and about.

  Even I could not believe it was an epidemic of food poisoning.

  I am gripping the seats now, because the nightmare was just beginning. A dozen are now up. Now a dozen more. Waves of people. In the first five minutes, fifty people left the theater.

  Left a free movie.

  Left a chance to be a part of a big Hollywood sneak.

  Hated what I had written so much they would rather face the reality of their own lives than what I had to offer.

  Death. Death. Death.

  We tried to fix it. We quickly did a new opening scene where we meet the hero first, in a steam bath, as his boss shows up and drags him off to the wine tasting, which the hero hates--and says so and calls them boring and phony.

  Guess what?

  Death. Death. Death.

  There was nothing we could do.

  Here's why: when I saw a wonderful failure called Searching for Bobby Fisher, you would have thought you were seeing E.T. Wild and constant applause. You could feel the adoration in the room.

  So how come the movie stiffed?

  Because Bobby Fisher was a movie about chess, and the audience I saw it with was made up entirely of an invited group of chess experts. My God, they even applauded the moves on the chess board during games. Fucking surreal. You see a hand take a knight, move it here or there, and "Bravo!" from all around me. But there weren't enough chess players on earth to make the movie work for a mass audience.

  Maybe if you had seen The Year of the Comet at a sommeliers' convention you would have thought you were seeing E.T. too.

  There was nothing we could do because no matter how we fussed, this was a movie about red wine and the moviegoing audience today has zero interest in red wine. They felt ignorant and they hated us.

  Now, no one knew that before we went into production. And if we had done a study that showed as much, we would have gone right ahead anyway. Because the studio who originally developed E.T. did a survey that showed--without doubt--that there was no audience that would want to see that movie.

  Those five minutes of that first screening will be with me forever. If you ask me on my deathbed, have I ever been to Sherman Oaks, I will rise up and cry, "How could those bastards choose real life over meeee?"

  But hope, as I wish I had said, is the thing with feathers.

  Because after the test screenings and the audience reaction that never climbs out of the nether world, after the early reviews that do not mistake my screenplay for Kit Marlowe or the movie
for anything worth anything, you still have hope.

  Other people have gotten lucky, you tell yourself. A couple of summers ago, the Farrelly brothers' glorious comedy There's Something About Mary didn't reach the top box-office slot till the seventh week. Amazing. And Bonnie and Clyde stiffed at first, later found glory.

  It is not a flop, you tell yourself. Oh, others may scoff at you, may turn away from your glorious and talented presence, but you know this: miracles happen every day.

  Maybe--the odds are against it, but just maaaaybe--the gods will smile on you.

  The movie opens around the country. Business is not anyone's definition of robust. But you refuse to admit the possibility that you, in all your splendor, have written a flop.

  Here is when I finally gave up all hope.

  The movie has been out about a week, maybe a little more. I am talking to my eldest, Jenny, a Philadelphian now. We blab about the usual family stuff, the Knicks and the Sixers. Next, a pause. Then I hit her with the biggie; casually, I inquire: "So what did you think of the movie?"

  Her reply was said with such sadness: "Oh, Dad, I meant to see it, I really did, but when I looked, it was gone from all the theaters."

  Final knife in the heart--because when your own kids don't see your stuff, now that's a flop.

  Maverick

  [1994]

  * * *

  The Linda Hunt Part

  I thought Linda Hunt was wonderful as The Magician in Maverick. Crazy and weird and tough and different and if you wonder what it is that I am smoking as I write this because you saw the movie and don't remember Linda Hunt being in it, well, we are both right. She was in it. She was wonderful. She was cut out of the finished film.

  Shit happens.

  Sometimes movies are amazingly difficult and time-consuming to get going. Maverick couldn't have been easier. It went like this: I met Mel Gibson and his partner Bruce Davey, they said they had rights to the character and would I like to write the screenplay and I said, "Sure." Truly as seemingly simple as that.

  But I have secrets. I think all writers do. There are very few projects that I have been offered that I would always say yes to. My interests change, needs change, confidence ebbs and flows. A year earlier I night have not done Maverick. I said yes for four small reasons and one big one. Here are the four: (1) I loved the old TV show with James Garner; (2) I felt the material was in my wheelhouse; (3) I had never met Gibson but after five minutes I knew he could play the hell out of the part; (4) I had not written a western in twenty-some years, was glad for the opportunity to try again. And the one big reason? Shamefacedly, here it is:

  I knew it would be easy.

  That is actually the main reason I came aboard so fast. Because I had been writing originals, and them are hard. The last thing in life I wanted was to try another original. This adaptation had to be a breeze--all I needed to do was pick one of the old TV shows that had too much plot, expand it, and there would be the movie.

  One of the shocks of my life happened in my living room, where I spent many hours looking at the old Maverick shows I'd been sent. Because, and this was the crusher, television storytelling has changed. These old shows had shitloads of charm, most of it supplied by Garner. But not only was the Garner character generally passive, there was almost no plot at all. Nothing for me to steal. I essentially had to write, sob, another original. It was not going to be easy money at the brick factory again (as it always is).

  I set to work trying to figure out a story.

  All I really had was that wonderful main character. A con man and gambler. Now, if you are given the job of writing a movie about an Olympic gymnast, you know going in that the movie has to climax with her going for the gold. Rocky had to end with The Big Fight.

  So Maverick had to end with a poker game.

  For some reason, the first visual I got was of Gibson sitting on a horse, hands tied, a noose around his neck. Rattlesnakes are thrown to scare the horse. As he is about to die, he says, in voice-over, "It had just been a shitty week for me from the beginning." I liked that because I hadn't seen it before and it also told us a lot about the feel of the movie and about the man. He wasn't going to die, it said that much. He was humorous, it said that, too. For me, it set the style of everything that followed.

  So Maverick would begin with him getting hanged.

  To fill in the rest I made this assumption: Maverick would be a movie about a guy who needed money.

  Why the assumption? Well, this is a movie that has to stand alone, not as one of a thirty-nine-episode (they were in those days) TV season. So the poker-game climax couldn't be just any game, it had to be the most important game of his life. (Had it been just one of thirty-nine episodes, the game would not have needed any particular weight.) Now, if the game is important, it must require important money to enter. And if he already has it, what's the big deal? He would just have to lose it and spend the bulk of the movie getting it back. I didn't like the feel of that. He would be tracking, avenging, and the essence of the TV character is that he is acted on. I decided he needed the money, so he could meet various people and have adventures, all building to The Big Game. My problem was to make getting there half the fun.

  There is no mathematical logic to any of this, it's just how I decided what the narrative might be against what you might decide. No right or wrong storytelling answer exists. Ever. I went with my answer for many reasons, but chiefly this: it gave me my spine for the movie. And until I have that, I am essentially helpless. Once I have it, I have the confidence to start to write.

  In the first draft Maverick meets a banker friend who gives him some money and an Indian friend who gives him the rest. Then I figured a change had to happen--you couldn't just have him going from success to success, this is a movie hero, he has to win but he should sweat a little along the way.

  So I had him robbed by the bad guy.

  By solving that problem, I presented myself with another: Maverick needed money to get in the game and I didn't have a lot of time for anything elaborate. I needed something oddball and had no idea what, when I got this idea: What if somebody owned those rattlesnakes that are tossed from a sack at the start to scare his horse? Who, though? It had to be someone with a lot of money, obviously, because he'd end up giving a lot to my guy. But it also had to be somebody who lived in a desolate place, because that's where the hanging took place.

  I decided on a nut hermit. (Think of Elisha Cook, Jr.) It seemed logical in a lunatic way. A hermit might live in this terrible area, and since hermits are strange, he might also have pots of money to give to a wandering movie hero in a pickle. Following is the meeting between Maverick and The Magician. This might give you a sense of what I was after. Okay. Mel Gibson is hanging in space. He struggles. He can't make it. His body hangs motionless. His eyes start to close ...

  CUT TO

  An arrow, slicing through the air--

  --it hits the rope--

  --splits the rope--

  --MAVERICK crashes to earth amidst the rattlesnakes.

  They hiss at his still body, begin to curl.

  It's impossible to tell which one will strike first. Now--

  CUT TO

  A GNARLED HAND. That's all we see at first, just the hand. Or rather, TWO GNARLED HANDS. One of them grabs a burlap sack, the other starts scooping up the rattlers, putting them back inside. No fear of consequences. One-two-three-four-five-six, and the rattlers are gone from view. And once they are--

  PULL BACK TO REVEAL

  THE MAGICIAN, for that we will find is the name of the MAN we are looking at.

  LITTLE OLD MAN, more precisely.

  WEIRD-LOOKING LITTLE OLD MAN, more precisely still. He is dressed in clothing that neither fits nor matches. One more thing--

  --when he talks, HE TALKS VERY LOUDLY. Clearly, he does not have a lot of company.

  Now he takes a foot, pushes MAVERICK so that he's lying face up.

  Next he takes an arrow from his quiver, puts it in h
is bow, pulls it back to fire, aiming at MAVERICK'S HEART.

  (MAVERICK, it might be noted here, is wearing a shirt that is many many sizes too small.)

  THE MAGICIAN

  I'm a gonna kill you.

  CUT TO

  MAVERICK. Barely able to speak. Still, this piece of news is not so much depressing as it is strange.

  MAVERICK

  (whispered)

  ...if you were going to kill me ... why didn't you just let me hang ...?

  CUT TO

  THE MAGICIAN, coming closer.

  THE MAGICIAN

  'Cuz then you wouldn't have knowd your crime.

  MAVERICK

  (Blinking up)

  ...who are you ...? and what's my crime ...?

  THE MAGICIAN

  I'm the Magician-- and your crime--

  (bigger)

  --the crime you're gonna die for--

  (huge)

  --the crime that's gonna condemn you to Hell is this:

  (roaring)

  YOU STOLE MY RATTLESNAKES.

  CUT TO

  MAVERICK. He's just in terrible shape but he didn't think he was going mad.

  MAVERICK

  ...do I look like a rattlesnake thief?

  THE MAGICIAN

  (studies MAVERICK a long while, the arrow still ready. Finally he nods)

  That's exactly what you look like.

  MAVERICK

  You're wrong--I play cards.

  THE MAGICIAN

  (shakes his head)

  A gambler? Not in that shirt.

  CUT TO

  MAVERICK. He closes his eyes, tries to laugh--

  --but he can't. Not just because he hasn't the strength but because he is far beyond exhaustion. His body begins to shake, as if with fever. HOLD ON MAVERICK.

  Now we're back into the story, which is where I needed The Magician to give Maverick the money to enter the game. Why would he have money in the first place? I figured he'd been out there forever, it wasn't illogical for him to have found valuables from people over the decades who had died in this rough ground.

  Why would he give it, though? Couldn't be sympathy. Maverick had to earn it. The hermit didn't have a name then. I decided to call him The Magician because I decided he wanted some magic in his life. Not totally illogical--he's a weird old guy coming to the end, clearly his life hasn't had a lot of ups. Okay. He wants magic. I sold the notion to myself.