All the Best Lines

by George Tiffin

  Start Reading

  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.headofzeus.com

  For my parents, who taught me

  to look as well as to listen.

  Frank Capra, whose winning streak as a director of warm-hearted comedies earned him six Oscars.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  Dedication

  Essays and Features

  Introduction

  Author’s Note

  Thanks

  DREAMS

  FRIENDS

  ENEMIES

  PARTNERS

  LOVE

  LIBIDO

  BRUISERS

  VAMPS

  MONSTERS

  POWER

  WAR

  HEROES

  ZEROES

  MEMORIES

  TEARS

  ENDINGS

  Titles

  Cast

  Crew

  Picture captions and credits

  Text Credits

  About this Book

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  ESSAYS AND FEATURES

  NOIR FILM

  THE NEW WAVE

  IN THE BEGINNING

  NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING

  ‘DON’T NEVER LET NOBODY MAKE A MOVIE OF YOUR LIFE’S STORY’

  ALMOST...

  ‘I AM BIG. IT’S THE PICTURES THAT GOT SMALL’

  INCLUDE ME OUT

  THE SHAKESPEARE OF HOLLYWOOD

  ‘I JUST WANT TO BE WONDERFUL’

  ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS

  AUTHOR, AUTHOR

  BE FUNNY OR THEY’LL KILL YOU

  IT’S ALL THERE ON THE PAGE

  STARRING

  ‘WHEN WOMEN GO WRONG, MEN GO RIGHT AFTER THEM’

  A FONT FOR SCHMUCKS

  CHEESE

  ‘DON’T QUIT. MAKE THEM FIRE YOU’

  ‘STICKS NIX HICK PIX’

  BEND OVER

  ‘EXCESSIVE OR LUSTFUL KISSING’

  KEEPING THE BRITISH END UP

  AS SOON AS I GET THE REWRITE

  A BODY IN THE COACH

  ‘YOU AIN’T HEARD NOTHIN’ YET!’

  ‘WHO IS KEYSER SÖZE?’

  YOUR ONLY COMPETITION IS IDIOTS

  A WORD TO THE WISE

  ‘IF MY FILMS DON’T SHOW A PROFIT, I KNOW I’M DOING SOMETHING RIGHT’

  SCRIPT DOCTORS

  ‘IT’S NOT ABOUT VIETNAM. IT IS VIETNAM’

  FADE IN...

  ‘MY GOD, THE HERO IS A BEE!’

  I SHALL NOT RETURN

  ‘SLUG IN A DITCH!’

  THUMBS DOWN

  THE MAN WHO SNEEZED IN LINCOLN’S NOSE

  A PRODUCER’S HEART

  ‘YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER’

  BY THE WAY, THE PRODUCER THINKS IT’S A GREAT IDEA

  THE GREATEST STORY EVER SOLD

  WHERE’S ALFRED?

  ‘SHUT UP AND DEAL’

  INCITING INCIDENTS AND PINCH POINTS

  ‘A DELICATE MATTER’

  ‘THE REST IS SILENCE’

  ‘TEARS IN RAIN’

  TINSELTOWN

  Introduction

  Cinema: spectacle, stars and spotlights. And, somewhere in the distant background, the clatter of a typewriter. This book celebrates the shimmer of the silver screen but really pays tribute to the men and women who dreamed up its stories: the screenwriters.

  Audiences don’t know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along.

  Screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden)

  Sunset Boulevard (1950)

  A script has to make sense, and life doesn’t.

  Screenwriter Harry Dawes (Humphrey Bogart)

  The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

  In the beginning — the early 1890s — moving pictures were such a novelty that crowds would flock just to see footage of a train pulling into a station, a circus performer or a man sneezing. Before long, directors like D. W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein had found ways to shape silent scenes into epic narratives with masterpieces like The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Battleship Potemkin (1925). But as screen stories grew more sophisticated and engaging one crucial aspect was still absent: the voice.

  In 1927 technology enabled feature-length presentations to include a synchronized soundtrack and actors were free to speak at last. Many directors resented this shift in power but producers and public alike embraced the change at once. A subtler shift made itself felt, too: scripts were no longer just structural blueprints but carefully constructed documents filled with description and dialogue that needed pace, sparkle and insight.

  The film world was not short of literary talent, and many prestigious authors and journalists soon accepted commissions to write for the movies. But the public had grown used to their stars and no producer wanted to splash the face of a screenwriter across a billboard when he could entice his audience with Errol Flynn or Mae West. Even directors’ names remained largely absent from posters for the first half of the twentieth century, but the figures behind the scenes could at least take consolation in their pay cheques. Shortly after his arrival in Hollywood Herman J. Mankiewicz cabled playwright Ben Hecht: ‘Will you accept $300 per week to work for Paramount? All expenses paid. $300 is peanuts. Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don’t let this get around.’ Though Mankiewicz and Hecht may be less well known than their novelist contemporaries Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck they penned between them enduring classics such as Citizen Kane, It’s a Wonderful World, The Pride of St Louis, Scarface and Notorious.

  The power of a screenwriter to bring a story to life — or to kill it — remains controversial to this day. Alfred Hitchcock famously said ‘to make a great film you need three things — the script, the script and the script’, while an old industry joke told of the ambitious starlet who was so desperate to break into movies that she seduced a screenwriter. Irving Thalberg, one of the most successful impresarios of Hollywood’s golden age, was more astute, remarking that ‘the most important person in the motion picture process is the writer, and we must do everything in our power to prevent them from ever realizing it’.

  When we see Al Pacino as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice we understand we are watching a man interpret Shakespeare’s words. When we buy tickets to any theatre production we know we are seeing the work of a particular writer: Strindberg’s Miss Julie, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. But the cinema is a different world. Who wrote On the Waterfront or Apocalypse Now? Even while lines like ‘I coulda been a contender’ or ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’ are universally known, few could name their author.

  In many cases, the question is complicated by the fact that films frequently have multiple contributors — for story, for dialogue, for individual scenes or even in some cases to tailor lines for a specific actor. Attribution — and remuneration — are often contentious, leading to the suspicion that the business of screenwriting is perfunctory and competitive. Sitting before their typewriter, laptop or iPad no true writer feels this; as this book hopes to show, they want only to deliver something powerful and true which will captivate us after we have bought our ticket and taken our seat in the dark.

  Writers have always had a difficult relationship with their paymasters and it remains true that producers are rarely depicted on screen in a flattering light:

  We’re only interested in one thing, Bart. Can you tell a story? Can you make us laugh? Can you make us cry? Can you make us want to break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? Okay!

  Producer Jack Li
pnick (Michael Lerner)

  Barton Fink (1991)

  I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we’ve got something here.

  Producer Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins)

  The Player (1992)

  If these portrayals seem unfair we should remember the genuine remark by Joe Pasternak, one of MGM’s staff during the 1950s: ‘You call this a script? Give me a couple of $5,000-a-week writers and I’ll write it myself.’ Many of Pasternak’s contracted writers would doubtless have enjoyed watching him try — or, failing that, to accept his cheque since $5,000 back then would be the equivalent of nearly $50,000 today.

  While novelists and playwrights enjoy authorial independence and are revered for their unique voices, screenwriters have to satisfy many different masters: producers, directors and actors. To deliver a coherent story in the face of their conflicting demands can be frustrating, if not impossible. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, brother of Herman and author of All About Eve and Cleopatra, remarked ruefully that ‘writers are the highest paid secretaries in the world’. William Goldman, responsible for All the President’s Men, Marathon Man and The Princess Bride, is more candid: ‘Screenwriting is what feminists call “shit-work”; if it’s well done, it’s ignored. If it’s badly done, people call attention to it.’ True of many professions, perhaps, but at least Goldman has two Oscars to show that the best work is often rewarded.

  If the names of screenwriters do not readily trip from our tongues, the lines they have written remain with us — zingers, catchphrases, stirring speeches, whispers of endearment. Their words echo everywhere and they prove fitting tribute to their creators long after the credits have rolled.

  This book contains five hundred excerpts of varying lengths as well as one-liners, poster quotes, opening scenes and familiar favourites to delight and enlighten. Essays throughout the text shed light on how the scripts were written, and on their journeys from page to celluloid. No matter who dreamed up the story or bought the rights to a bestseller, no matter what it cost or who was cast to play a role, somebody sat down to write it. All The Best Lines is about those men and women.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The films represented are grouped not by genre or title but by theme; a listing will be found on the contents page. Within each theme the running order is chronological; ideally this will allow a lively juxtaposition of style and author. The index will, of course, lead you straight to any particular film the book contains.

  Many films benefit from the contributions of uncredited writers. Because this book is not primarily a reference work I have tended to identify only the principal authors, except in cases where anecdotal evidence suggests a more important role.

  Where the essays mention budgets and fees I have adjusted figures in line with inflation; modern equivalents are shown in square brackets.

  THANKS

  Many friends and colleagues sent suggestions for the book. I’m grateful to them all, and hope plenty of them will find their favourites included.

  I would also like to thank everyone who helped make the process of writing the book such a pleasure: Anthony Cheetham, Rosie Alison, Plum Webber, Richard Milbank, Katy Price, Emma Duncan, Edward Tiffin, Titan Fiennes Tiffin, Jane Robertson, Rich Carr and Dan Mogford. The team at Head of Zeus and at the Picture Desk have also been vital collaborators.

  George Tiffin, April 2013

  The stairway to heaven in Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946) was rooted in earthly reality on a sound stage at Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire.

  Dreams

  1933 42ND STREET

  The show’s star has broken her leg and the producer encourages the chorus girl who takes her place.

  MARSH

  Sawyer, you listen to me, and you listen hard. Two hundred people, two hundred jobs, two hundred thousand dollars, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It’s the lives of all these people who’ve worked with you. You’ve got to go on, and you’ve got to give and give and give. They’ve got to like you. Got to. Do you understand? You can’t fall down. You can’t because your future’s in it, my future and everything all of us have is staked on you. All right, now I’m through, but you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out, and Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster but you’ve got to come back a star!

  Dir: Lloyd Bacon • Scr: Rian James, James Seymour • Based on a novel by Bradford Ropes • Cast: Warner Baxter (Julian Marsh)

  1937 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

  MAGIC MIRROR

  Prepare to be amazed beyond all expectations. After all, it is what I do.

  Dir: David Hand and five others • Scr: Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears, Webb Smith • Based on a story by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm • Cast: Moroni Olsen (voice of the Magic Mirror)

  This was Walt Disney’s first full-length animated feature and still ranks eighth among the highest grossing films of all time. Although the company focuses on mainstream family entertainment, the director Sergei Eisenstein proclaimed Disney’s work ‘the greatest contribution of the American people to art’ and the critic Mark Van Doren called him a ‘first-rate artist [who] knows innumerable truths that cannot be taught’.

  1939 GONE WITH THE WIND

  SCARLETT

  As God is my witness they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.

  Dir: Victor Fleming • Scr: Sidney Howard • Based on a novel by Margaret Mitchell • Cast: Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O’Hara)

  1941 THE MALTESE FALCON

  Polhaus finally has his hands on the Maltese Falcon, a priceless figurine the pursuit of which has caused mayhem and murder galore.

  DETECTIVE POLHAUS

  Heavy. What is it?

  SAM SPADE

  The stuff that dreams are made of.

  Dir: John Huston • Scr: John Huston • Based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett • Cast: Ward Bond (Detective Tom Polhaus), Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade)

  The Maltese Falcon was John Huston’s directorial debut, but it was the third screen version of Hammett’s novel.

  The film’s final line is a tribute to Prospero’s closing speech in Shakespeare’s The Tempest: ‘We are such stuff/As dreams are made on.’

  NOIR FILM

  ‘People like me like dark pictures – dark and mysterious. Most were B-movies made on the cheap, others were classy models with A-talent. But they all had one thing in common – they lived on the edge, told stories about life on the streets, shady characters, crooked cops, twisted love and bad luck. The French invented a name for these pictures: film noir. Black film, that’s what they called them – about a darker side of human nature. About the world as it really was.’

  Richard Widmark (Kiss of Death (1947), Night and the City (1950), Pickup on South Street (1953))

  Few genres are unique to the movies; novels, plays and musicals had charted the realms of drama, melodrama, tragedy and farce long before celluloid was invented and for a while mainstream cinema seemed content to base itself on these established styles. No medium, however, had ever been able to reach such huge audiences.

  By the 1940s cinema-goers in America were buying sixty million tickets a week. Barely able to meet this demand, studios were quite happy to turn out B-movies, projects created to fill theatres and keep their roster of contracted talent busy without requiring the budgets of their bigger pictures. Not surprisingly, these films were less closely supervised and could be made with a greater degree of freedom, which writers and directors were eager to seize, drawing on an unlikely combination of factors to create – almost accidentally – what we now recognize as film noir.

  Weary afte
r the Depression and now in the midst of a global war, audiences had grown impatient with wholesome, censor-approved material. The rise of the pulp novel, with racier protagonists and sexier women, showed that the public was ready for stronger stuff and film-makers were quick to recognize the appeal of hard-boiled writers like Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Jim Thompson.

  If mainstream studios were still reluctant to put big budgets behind such risqué material, directors like Jacques Tourneur and Robert Wise made the most of these new opportunities. The influx of European talent had spread the influence of German expressionist cinema which suited cheap production perfectly; low lighting budgets created stark chiaroscuro moods mirroring shady storylines, while the fragmented visuals conveniently hid flaws in flimsy sets and affordable locations.

  John Huston, Otto Preminger and Orson Welles refined the genre with bigger budget pictures such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), Laura (1944) and The Lady from Shanghai (1947); today, noir remains the most influential and imitated of all film styles and lives on in such diverse classics as Blade Runner (1982), Heat (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997) and Sin City (2005). The earliest noir quotes still seem as powerfully contemporary today:

  JILL: What’s the good of living without hope?

  ED: It can be done.

  I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

  Well, well. You’re the first woman I’ve ever met who said yes when she meant yes.

  Suspicion (1941)

  She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who’d take a drink if she had to knock you down to get the bottle.

  Murder My Sweet (1944)

  A woman doesn’t care how a guy makes a living, just how he makes love.

  Murder My Sweet (1944)

  Personally, Veda’s convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young.

  Mildred Pierce (1945)