All the Best Lines

by George Tiffin

  TURA

  Really?

  COLONEL EHRHARDT

  What he did to Shakespeare, we are doing now to Poland.

  Dir: Ernst Lubitsch • Scr: Edwin Justus Mayer • Based on a story by Melchior Lengyel • Cast: Jack Benny (Joseph Tura), Sig Ruman (Colonel Ehrhardt)

  SCRIPT DOCTORS

  POLISH: to fix minor problems in an otherwise completed script.

  PUNCH UP: to give key scenes and dialogue extra energy.

  The single most dreaded phrase in the film business is ‘it died at the box office’. Nobody has yet devised a way to take out health insurance for a picture, but producers are willing to spend fortunes on script doctors. As with all specialists, their fees are steep and membership of their guild hard-won and exclusive. When a project has been given the green light – that is to say, that finances have been committed – the pressure to ‘lock’ the script becomes immense; once the actors are cast, the locations are fixed and the crew is on the clock, it is too late to tinker under the hood.

  So where is the original writer in all this? By the time she has handed in dozens of drafts, rewrites and polishes, she may have lost her way, become burnt out or simply fallen victim to the infighting of executive factions. There may have been others involved, all of whom are vying to maintain their contractual, financial and credit positions. As the first day of principal photography approaches and directors and producers are mired in the innumerable day-to-day issues leading up to the shoot, a quick fix from a trusted expert is increasingly desirable. So, as they say in Ghostbusters, ‘Who you gonna call?’

  If you’re worried about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Sleepy Hollow (1999) or The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), you need playwright Tomáš Straussler (better known as Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, CBE, FRSL). Although he has plenty of Tonys and an Oscar to his name for credited works including Brazil (1985), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Enigma (2001), he is regularly hired on anonymous rewrites: ‘The second reason for doing it is that you get to work with people you admire. The first reason, of course, is that it’s overpaid.’

  One day, while in the shower, he received a call from Steven Spielberg, an old friend. The director was shooting Schindler’s List (1993) and was having trouble getting a scene written by Steven Zaillian to work on camera. Still dripping wet, Stoppard improvised a solution on the spot while the crew waited on location in Poland. Like most in his trade, Stoppard has huge respect for the writers whose work he is summoned to ‘fix’, but accepts it as an unavoidable part of the way the business works. ‘I [urged] him just to film Zaillian’s script. But Steven, like a lot of other people in movies, tends to think one more opinion can’t hurt.’

  Zaillian was almost certainly untroubled by contributions from others as he retained sole credit when the film won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. The Screenwriters Guild of America has strict rules about how much of a filmed work must have been written by any individual to qualify for a shared credit: for original work 50 per cent, and for adapted material 33 per cent. Without a credit, there will be no residuals (royalties) or any chance of nomination for awards, so script doctors accept anonymity in return for a fee that may run to $300,000 a week.

  As far back as the 1930s Ben Hecht (Scarface, Notorious, Wuthering Heights) was in demand for his uncredited assistance on such hits as Gone with the Wind, Foreign Correspondent and Mutiny on the Bounty. Today the hottest names include David Koepp (Jurassic Park), Scott Frank (Minority Report), Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich). Most studios have their favourite writers on speed-dial for last-minute fixes, even as late as post-production when the editing process sometimes reveals weaknesses in the story line and re-shoots are hurriedly ordered. Even actors have their preferred saviours: Vince Vaughn uses Dana Fox (Couples Retreat), Will Smith asks for Akiva Goldsman (The Da Vinci Code) and Matt Damon counts on George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum).

  Despite the hefty cheques they write, studio executives remain reluctant to discuss the prevalence of these last-minute fixes – and are ambivalent about their benefits. Two anonymous LA sources highlight the dilemma: ‘Once a movie is green-lit, you’re no longer spending development dollars, so it’s not speculative spending. You’re now making an investment on making this the best movie it can be. And at that point in the process, that last 10 per cent of the script is the most important.’ Even so, ‘Sometimes you have to spend even more money to fix the problem created by the script doctor you just hired. It’s a crapshoot.’

  1944 HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO

  LIBBY’S AUNT

  Well, that’s the war for you. It’s always hard on women. Either they take your men away and never send them back at all, or they send them back unexpectedly just to embarrass you. No consideration at all.

  Dir: Preston Sturges • Scr: Preston Sturges • Cast: Elizabeth Patterson (Martha, Libby’s Aunt)

  1947 CROSSFIRE

  CAPTAIN FINLAY

  My grandfather was killed just because he was an Irish Catholic. Hating is always the same, always senseless. One day it kills Irish Catholics, the next day Jews, the next day Protestants, the next day Quakers. It’s hard to stop. It can end up killing people who wear striped neckties.

  Dir: Edward Dmytryk • Scr: John Paxton • Based on a novel by Richard Brooks • Cast: Robert Young (Captain Finlay)

  1957 THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

  The Japanese commander of a POW camp discusses with the commander of his Allied prisoners the importance of the railway bridge they have been forced to build.

  COLONEL SAITO

  Do you know what will happen to me if the bridge is not built on time?

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL NICHOLSON

  I haven’t the foggiest.

  COLONEL SAITO

  I’ll have to kill myself. What would you do if you were me?

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL NICHOLSON

  I suppose if I were you. . . I’d have to kill myself.

  Dir: David Lean • Scr: Carl Foreman, Michael Wilson • Based on a novel by Pierre Boulle • Cast: Sessue Hayakawa (Colonel Saito), Alec Guinness (Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson)

  Pierre Boulle’s novel was a bestseller and producer Sam Spiegel bought a copy to read on his flight from Paris to London. By the time he arrived in England he was so determined to make a film of it that he got on the next flight back and demanded a meeting with the author, who promptly agreed to sell him the rights.

  1960 THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

  VIN

  We deal in lead, friend.

  Dir: John Sturges • Scr: William Roberts • Based on a film by Akira Kurosawa • Cast: Steve McQueen (Vin Tanner)

  1964 DR STRANGELOVE

  Faced with a nuclear crisis, the President tries to quell uproar among his military staff.

  PRESIDENT MUFFLEY

  Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.

  Dir: Stanley Kubrick • Scr: Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George • Based on a novel by Peter George • Cast: Peter Sellers (President Muffley)

  Peter Sellers was paid $1 million [$7.5 million], over half the film’s budget, for playing the parts of President Merkin Muffley, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake and Dr Strangelove; Stanley Kubrick famously quipped: ‘I got three for the price of six.’ International paranoia about nuclear war was running so high at the time the film was made that a camera crew shooting aerial footage near a US base in Greenland was forced down and accused of being Soviet spies.

  1964 ZULU

  Outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke’s Drift, 1879.

  SERGEANT BOURNE

  It’s a miracle.

  LIEUTENANT CHARD

  If it’s a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it’s a short-chamber Boxer Henry .45 calibre miracle.

  SERGEANT BOURNE

  And a bayonet, sir, with some guts behind.

  Dir: Cy Endfield • Scr: John Prebble, Cy Endfield • Cast: Nigel Green (Colour Sergeant Frank
Bourne), Stanley Baker (Lieutenant John Chard)

  Racial tensions had not eased in the century that passed between the historical events and their portrayal on film. Cast and crew on location in South Africa were warned not to fraternize with the topless tribal dancers as the penalty for inter-racial sex at the time was seven years’ hard labour.

  1966 THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI)

  JOURNALIST

  M. Ben M’Hidi, don’t you think it’s a bit cowardly to use women’s baskets and handbags to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people?

  BEN M’HIDI

  And doesn’t it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on defenceless villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims? Of course, if we had your airplanes it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our baskets.

  Dir: Gillo Pontecorvo • Scr: Gillo Pontecorvo, Franco Solinas • Based on a book by Saadi Yacef • Cast: Uncredited

  The film was commissioned by the Algerian government to portray the 1954 revolution in an even-handed way. In 2003 the New York Times reported that the Pentagon screened the film for senior troops involved in the Iraq conflict. The invitation read: ‘How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas.’

  1969 BATTLE OF BRITAIN

  A German pilot shocks the commander of the Luftwaffe by speaking the truth.

  GÖRING

  I’m here to help. Is there anything I can do for you?

  AIRMAN

  Yes, Reichsmarschall. Give me a squadron of Spitfires.

  Dir: Guy Hamilton • Scr: James Kennaway, Wilfred Greatorex • Based on a novel by Derek Dempster, Derek Wood • Cast: Hein Riess (Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring), Unknown (Airman)

  1970 PATTON

  General Patton addresses his troops.

  GENERAL PATTON

  Be seated. Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

  Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner • Scr: Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North • Based on a book by Ladislas Farago, Omar Bradley • Cast: George C. Scott (General Patton)

  The quote above comes from a long speech by Patton at the very start of the film and has become so well known that it is now frequently cited as an actual remark by the general. Scott won an Oscar for his performance but refused to accept it because he disapproved of competitive awards for acting.

  1970 CROMWELL

  CROMWELL

  Every man who wages war believes God is on his side. I’ll warrant God should often wonder who is on His.

  Dir: Ken Hughes • Scr: Ken Hughes • Cast: Richard Harris (Oliver Cromwell)

  1979 APOCALYPSE NOW

  An air cavalry commander relishes the destruction his regiment has wrought.

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL KILGORE

  Smell that? You smell that?

  LANCE

  What?

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL KILGORE

  Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that.

  He kneels, savouring it.

  I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed for twelve hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like...

  He scents the air.

  . . . victory.

  Dir: Francis Ford Coppola • Scr: John Milius, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Herr • Based on a novella by Joseph Conrad • Cast: Robert Duvall (Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore), Sam Bottoms (Lance B. Johnson)

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

  The making of Francis Ford Coppola’s magisterial Apocalypse Now mirrors the end result as an epic, barely credible adventure; the schedule on location in the Philippines went from five to seventeen months, the budget from $12 million to $31 million [$38 million to $98 million], the director himself contemplated suicide on several occasions and by the end of the shoot he had lost nearly 50kg.

  Based on Conrad’s short novel Heart of Darkness (1899), the film moves the story from colonial Congo to Vietnam where Willard, a US captain, is sent to kill Kurtz, a Green Beret general driven mad by the wilderness and by his own power. The war and the jungle itself become characters in an exploration of morality and civilization; Coppola identified increasingly closely with Kurtz and introduced the film at its Cannes début by saying:

  My film is not a movie; it is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It’s what it was really like; it was crazy. And the way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane.

  The original adaptation was by John Milius but later drafts grew to incorporate much documentary material about the war from Michael Herr’s Vietnam war memoir Dispatches (1977). As a result of the diverse inspirations, wayward actors and extraordinary upheavals during production, Coppola ended up rewriting a huge amount as he went along. Several weeks into shooting he replaced Harvey Keitel (as Willard) with Martin Sheen and was forced to begin the movie again.

  When Sheen filmed the opening scenes, he was so drunk he punched his reflection in a mirror, slicing his hand open; Coppola just told the camera to keep rolling and filmed the ensuing mayhem as he yelled improvised directions at the actor. During hugely expensive battle sequences, the helicopters the production had borrowed from President Marcos were recalled to fight a real war. Tropical storms destroyed several large sets, causing a hiatus of eight weeks. Despite full-time security guards, the crew’s payroll was stolen.

  By this stage Coppola had mortgaged everything he owned to cover the budget overages; when filming resumed, Sheen (aged thirty-six) had a heart attack. Although Coppola’s prime concern was the actor’s safety, he was terrified the studios would shut him down if they discovered the truth, saying: ‘[Even] if Marty dies I want to hear that everything’s okay until I say Marty is dead.’ While Sheen recovered, his brother Joe Estevez was used to double him in wide shots.

  When Marlon Brando, the film’s principal star, arrived for a month’s work, he was grotesquely overweight and extremely sensitive about how he would be filmed; Coppola sidestepped the issue by shooting him largely in half-lit close-ups. Despite being paid $3.5 million [$11 million] for a month’s work, Brando also declared he had not read the script – and when he did so, refused to play it.

  Realizing he could not force his star to perform, Coppola decided to ‘just shoot for the next three weeks irrationally’. After Brando ended one crucial scene by saying ‘I can’t think of any more dialogue today’, Coppola bared his heart to his wife’s documentary camera:

  [I’m] feeling like an idiot for having set in motion stuff that doesn’t make any sense, that doesn’t match [other scenes], and yet I’m doing it and the reason that I’m doing it is out of desperation because I have no rational way to do it. What I have to do is to admit that I don’t know what I’m doing.

  Both Captain Willard and Colonel Kurtz deliver speeches which reflect Coppola’s mindset:

  CAPTAIN WILLARD: How many people had I already killed? There were those six that I knew about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time, it was an American and an officer. That wasn’t supposed to make any difference to me, but it did. Shit. . . charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500.

  COLONEL KURTZ: I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We’d left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio. And this old man came running after us, and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were, in a pile — a pile of little arms. And I remember, I. . . I. . . I cried. I wept like some gra
ndmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized — like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond, a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, ‘My God, the genius of that. The genius.’ The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure! And then I realized, they were stronger than me because they could stand it.

  These were not monsters. These were men — trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts who have families, who have children, who are filled with love — that they had the strength, the strength to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly.

  Shooting was eventually completed in May 1977, but the editing took a further two years. Initially released to mixed reviews, it was recut on several occasions and quickly recouped its costs; today it stands close to the top of every significant poll for the greatest film of the past one hundred years.

  1979 THE GREAT SANTINI

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL ‘BULL’ MEECHUM

  Now, I don’t want you to consider me as just your commanding officer. I want you to look on me like I was, well — God. If I say something, you pretend it’s coming from the burning bush. Now, we’re members of the proudest, most elite group of fighting men in the history of the world. We are Marines! Marines Corps fighter pilots! We have no other function. That is our mission and you are either gonna hack it or pack it. Do you read me? Within thirty days, I am gonna lead the toughest, flyingest sons-of-bitches in the world. The 312 Werewolf Squadron will make history, or it will die trying. Now, you’re flying with Bull Meecham now and I kid you not, this is the eye of the storm. Welcome aboard.