When I meet someone out of the ordinary for me, someone I am not likely to come across again, I ask a lot of questions. Pester them if they don’t mind. I guess looking for material. Because all I know is my ordinary life, college, army, grad school, wife, kids, writing.
“I worry for my sons,” I remember him saying.
Why?
“The life.”
I waited.
“Well, when I went in, there was no choice. Not just because my father had been one but because, well, yes, you knew every day you went off to work you might not come home, yes, you remember all the funerals, but you also remember the sense of doing something glorious, you remember the people on the streets cheering the wagon as the siren screamed and traffic got out of the way. People knew you were risking your life and there was a sense of appreciation. I always worked in slum areas, always wanted to work in slum areas, more action there, I loved that.” Now he was silent, I suppose in reverie, back where the action was.
“And your sons?” I prompted.
“People throw shit at wagons now. Bricks, garbage—my boys are going out on the job, looking to save a building, save a life, and what do they get? Shit. They get shit. They’re both taking early retirement and I’m glad of it.”
Back to his reveries for a while.
Then I asked it: “Did you ever know a great fireman?”
He looked at me. “I don’t know what ‘great’ means here.”
“Somebody better than anybody else. More talented than anybody.”
No reply.
“Okay. Willie Mays was the greatest and most talented baseball player I ever saw. Was there anybody like that?”
Now this great Irish smile. “The Willie Mays of firemen? Know what you mean—know what you mean.” Thinking. “The Willie Mays. Never been asked that. Never been asked it but I know what you mean.” Still the smile, still the thinking. “Better than anybody, did I ever know somebody who was—” And then he looked at me. Said this: “Yes. One.”
“What made him better?”
“He’s still alive, y’know. We used to bet about that. I knew the flames would get him.”
“What did he do that was so special?”
Now the old man looks at me. “Bravest thing I ever saw. We’re getting out of a building, old tenement, about to explode, we’re on the second floor, one more to go and we’ve got no time, y’see, and he’s the same as me, wife, boys—and then he stops dead.”
“What?” I say.
“ ‘Heard a baby,’ he says. He points to this apartment door that’s closed, of course, and flames are all around us, you must believe that, it was so loud and so hot and so horrible.
“And I say, ‘Get out, Johnny,’ and he doesn’t answer, just turns and kicks the door off the hinges, then shouts ‘Go’ but of course I couldn’t do that to the man. He grabs the door by the handle and uses it as a shield as he makes his way through this blazing apartment in this terrible old place that’s about to die, and on he goes till he gets to another closed door, and of course he kicks that open too and, my God, there is a baby inside, screaming to wake the dead. He tucks her away under one arm, uses the first door as a shield again and comes back running through the flames, and then we all get the hell out of the place just before it goes.”
I remember thinking in that quiet moment: How does someone know he can do that? Or I guess more important, where does it come from that he must? I knew one thing for sure—that baby was lucky I was not the guy outside the door that terrible day.
“Bravest thing I ever saw,” the old man said finally.
I hope you agree with that too.
Because now I am going to tell you among the saddest and most important things I have in my arsenal. That incredible act of heroism the Willie Mays of firemen did?
That is what Sylvester Stallone does in an action picture before the opening credits start to roll. That is what Arnold Schwarzenegger does in an action picture before breakfast. That is what Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson do in their action pictures before they’ve brushed their teeth!
Stars do not—repeat—do not play heroes—
—stars play gods.
And your job as a screenwriter is to genuflect, if you are lucky enough to have them glance in your direction. Because they may destroy your work, will destroy it more often than not—
—but you will have a career.
Plus one more thing to remember: what is genuinely heroic in life may not work for film. It simply, as they say, won’t shoot.
In Adventures in the Screen Trade I wrote about trying to translate to film what many military experts feel was the single most heroic action of the entire war. It involved a river crossing.
My problem, Doctor, was that what the experts were talking about as incredibly brave was not the soldiers who made the first crossing—the normal group glorified in a movie—it was the next wave of soldiers, the ones who saw the first group get slaughtered, who knew they were mostly going to die, and who made the second crossing anyway.
I saved someone from drowning once. I was in a pool here in New York, no one else in the water, an Indian kid, maybe five years old, on the diving board, his parents chatting off to one side. The kid dove in, came up, went down, came up, whispered “Help,” and I got him before he died.
Sorry, folks, that doesn’t raise the hackles. It won’t shoot. In real life, it’s extraordinary. On film, nothing.
(It got even worse when I took the kid back to his parents, told them what had happened. They thanked me, went back to their chatting and when I left the pool, the kid was playing alone, getting close to deep water again. This was so fucking surrealistic I have doubted since that day if anything happened at all.)
Why am I telling you all this?
Because Patterson, wonderful heroic John Henry Patterson, famous throughout his lifetime as the man who killed the lions?
Sorry folks, it doesn’t shoot.
For nine months he sits in a tree?
Wow.
For nine months his plans mostly suck?
Whoopee.
For nine months he fails?
What are you smoking, this is a Hollywood movie.
Look, when I wrote that Butch and the Lions were the only two great pieces of narrative I ever came across? Absolutely true. Which is not to say they were perfect.
Everything needs helping along.
To help the move to South America, I invented the half-hour Superposse chase. (In real life, as soon as Butch heard about who was arraying against him, he fled to South America. That was of less than no use to me at all.)
Remember that—it was to help the story.
And I realized that Patterson, my hero’s story, needed help too. So, with a pure heart, I invented Redbeard.
Redbeard
Redbeard was always and forever only this: a plot point. I needed, for today’s audience, to make Patterson, my hero, more heroic. So I came up with what I thought would be a suitable device.
Redbeard would be a professional who came, did his job, moved on when the job was over. There were, in point of fact, people who lived that way. Hunting was popular among the very rich, and there were men for hire if you were a Russian prince and wanted to shoot in America. Or Africa. Or the mountains of India. You hired them for weeks or months, and they saw you got the best chance at game. Protected you in the bargain.
What made Redbeard different was he was a legend even to other professionals. In other words, the greatest hunter in the world.
In the very first draft, his part was relatively small. Patterson was in terrible trouble. The lions had stopped the railroad. Redbeard entered, sized up the situation. Now, I couldn’t have him win immediately, because that would have denigrated the lions. So his hospital idea failed. That helped me, because it gave a chance for even him to be impressed by the greatness of the lions. Then he came up with the notion of putting Patterson high up, all alone, in a clearing, on a rickety wooden support. (It was calle
d a “machan,” and in real life it was Patterson’s idea. He had used one before, in India.) Patterson is alone and helpless. Redbeard is in the area. The Ghost comes. (In real life it circled Patterson for hours and hours, before it struck. Couldn’t use that in the movie, it wouldn’t shoot well.) Then The Ghost attacks, Redbeard wounds it, together they kill it and triumph.
The point now was for the audience to relax. The cavalry had come to the rescue.
Then, the next morning, when Redbeard is eaten, Patterson, poor helpless fellow, would be alone against The Darkness, what chance could he possibly have if even Redbeard had failed?
The fact is this: Redbeard worked as a device.
My problem, Doctor, was he worked too well. In all the succeeding drafts, the powers that be wanted more of him. Obviously, they saw a costarring part. Fine for them.
Biiiig problem for me.
Let me try and explain why.
One of the great exchanges in movie history—I don’t mean “great” in the sense of Shakespearean, because screenwriting isn’t about that; I mean “great” in the sense of being supremely helpful, of defining character—anyway, it’s in Casablanca, by the Epsteins and Howard Koch. Probably you remember the moment. Bogart is talking to Claude Rains in front of his club.
RAINS
And what in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?
BOGART
My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
RAINS
Waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.
BOGART
I was misinformed.
Let’s talk about this for a moment. First of all, it is wonderfully elegant dialogue. Witty, plus it makes you laugh out loud. I wish to God I’d written lines as glorious as “I was misinformed.”
But what does it tell us? Well, it could be telling us that Rick is geographically challenged, coming to the desert for a water cure. But I think “I was misinformed” tells us he knew exactly where he was.
What it tells us is this: Don’t ask. What is tells us is: Bad things happened, it’s dark down there, and I will die before I tell you. A lot of that comes from the dialogue, a lot from the speaker of the dialogue. If the Hansons are in Casablanca, you know it’s because they have a gig there. Or some high school girl they like is taking summer school. But Bogart—Bogart then—forty-four years old, with the gravel voice, the sad wrinkled face, that man understands pain. And no power on earth will make him talk about it, it’s that awful.
The character of Rick, of course, is very old—he is the Byronic hero, the tall dark handsome man with a past. Most movie stars—actors, not comedians—have essentially all played that same role. And they have to always face front, never turn sideways—
Because, you see, there’s nothing to them. Try and make them full, try and make them real, and guess what? They disappear.
They are not well-rounded figures. No one in that kind of movie is. Paul Henreid is playing Honor and wonderful Ingrid is playing Anguish and my adored Bogie is playing Wounded Bravery. (When he died, I was working in my really awful pit and one of my roommates knocked on the door and said, “I have to tell you, Humphrey Bogart just died.” I was done with writing for that day. Just before he died, I was riding a bus uptown and passed a movie theater and there was an old Jewish couple sitting behind me and the man said, pointing at the marquee, “Look, it’s a Humphrey Bogart,” and the woman said, “He’s so wonderful.” I wish I’d known him at that moment. So I could have told him. Even Byronic heroes don’t mind a bit of good news.)
Let me rewrite that exchange for you now. Let’s say Rains is talking not to Bogart, but to Dooley Wilson.
RAINS
And what in heaven’s name brought Rick to Casablanca?
DOOLEY
You don’t want to know.
RAINS
But I do, I asked the question.
DOOLEY
His life turned to shit, Claude. He hated his job, but he should never have sold insurance in the first place. And then his wife, she died having their kid, who died too. He got so depressed, y’know? He felt so goddam failed. Here he was, forty-five going on a thousand. Then he knocked up his mistress and she cleaned him out of all his savings, and then it turned out she’d faked the whole thing and run off with his best friend from high school. He just couldn’t get his shit together, y’understand? So he took a course in nightclub management and when this spot opened up, he came here.
Think about what that does to one of the greatest of all Hollywood movies. It makes Rick a wimp. It makes him a loser. Kills the flick, ruins it, destroys it, makes it an Adam Sandler flick. Never forget the following:
Hollywood heroes must have mystery.
Okay, back to Billy’s little Redbeard problem. I had written a Byronic hero. He’s Shane. The village is in trouble, he rides in, saves it, rides out. For that very great western directed by the very great George Stevens, it is crucial that we know nothing about the guy. Ever.
The bigger Redbeard’s part became, the more risk for me, because the more you expose that character to the sunlight, the more he starts to fade. Redbeard, in ensuing drafts, kept appearing earlier and earlier. In the finished film, he’s half the picture. I did the best I could, gave him action to do. And did my best to always keep him in shadow, but …
Michael Douglas the Producer
As good as the game. If I speak of his producing life first, it is because that is what he was on The Ghost and the Darkness first (the performing decision came later). Here are a few of his producing credits:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The China Syndrome
Romancing the Stone
Starman
The Jewel of the Nile
Flatliners
Face/Off
I have worked with Redford. I have been in a room with Beatty. They are brilliant men, passionate about what they produce, and boy are they not dumb.
Well, Michael Douglas is their equal.
And Douglas did something no other actor ever did with me—he spent time. On the script. Going over it and over it. Actors just don’t do that. They are simply too busy.
But Douglas spent literally days locked in a room with me and with Stephen Hopkins, who did a wonderful job directing the movie. Good days they were too. Michael understood the story, understood Patterson and had ideas of how to improve him, understood Redbeard, the man with no past. I remember saying to Hopkins after, say, six hours in a room, just the three of us, that I had never had that before.
In that room, you forgot he was this Oscar-winning producer and actor. He was just this other, well, guy who wanted to improve things. Lots of his ideas were terrific. Lots of them weren’t. But unlike so many stars, you could call it on Douglas. You could tell him his suggestion sucked. And when he would ask why, if you could explain it well enough, he would just make some self-deprecating remark and on we went to the next problem.
If you get the feeling I cannot say too much about Michael Douglas the producer, you are on the money.
Michael Douglas the Star
In the beginning, a quarter of a century back, I tended to think of him as either this TV sidekick working the streets of San Francisco, or Kirk’s son. But then this unusual thing happened before our eyes: he started getting good, then he was good, then he was better than that. Most of the time, stars arrive full-blown.
Douglas was okay in Coma, back in ’78. And he was overshadowed by Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome, the year following. Between ’79 and ’84, he was only in three flicks, none memorable. Then in ’84 came Romancing the Stone, where he was just terrific, the same in the sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, in ’85.
It was 1987 when he exploded. Wall Street and Fatal Attraction. He won the Oscar for the former, deservedly, but I thought he was even better in the other.
After that, The War of the Roses, Basic Instinct, Falling Down, An American President.
Who’s better?
&
nbsp; My answer is: at what he does, no one. And just what does Douglas play so brilliantly? This: the flawed, contemporary American male.
I now repeat something I wrote earlier in this book. It bears repeating: by the first day of shooting, the fate of the movie is sealed. The point, once again, is that if you have prepared the script right, if you have cast it right, both actors and crew, you have a shot. If you have made a grievous error in either script or casting, you are dead in the water.
Val Kilmer was set as Patterson. All the other parts, except Redbeard, were to be played by the best actors we could get who were not going to be prohibitively expensive. A good decision because the lions were also expensive costars.
Redbeard was limited as to number of weeks. We wanted a star at least the size of Kilmer. Ahh, but who?
I will get into this in detail some other time, but personally, I write my star parts for dead or old stars. It helps me define in my head the character I am trying to write. I use Cary Grant a lot, Cagney a lot, and for the women, for years I wrote everything for Jean Simmons.
Gable would have been fine as Redbeard—he’d played a hunter, and well, in Red Dust, later in the remake, Mogambo. And since he died so rarely, his death would have been terrific. John Wayne would have been good too, and he died even less than Gable.
But Burt Lancaster was my man.
Who did I want today? Eastwood, obviously, who got famous thirty-five years ago playing The Man With No Name in his spaghetti-western period. But I knew that was ridiculous, because he never plays supporting roles. And though Redbeard clearly was the star in his time on screen, he was also clearly a supporting role.
Connery would have been perfect.
We went to Connery, had high hopes, made a good offer—but Jerry Bruckheimer made a much better one, grabbed him for The Rock. (And a great move it turned out to be—I don’t think the movie works nearly as well without Connery.)
Back to square one.
Tony Hopkins came next. For me, along with Morgan Freeman, the two best movie actors of the era. I had no idea what Hopkins would have done with the part, but it would have been fascinating.
Which Lie Did I Tell? Page 10