“Are you crazy?” Phil cut me off. “He’ll know.”
“He won’t. He’s not sitting there, counting frames. Every note he gave us is off the top of his head. If I do any of it, we’ll ruin the picture.” Phil sat down in one of Darryl’s cracked leather chairs. The decision was his, and we both knew if he went the wrong way, the picture would suffer and maybe die. “Let me think about it,” he said softly.
We were summoned to the sumptuous offices of Jonas Rosenfeld, president of marketing for Fox. Jonas was a heavyset, wavy-haired man, well dressed, usually smiling. His number two was a yes-man with a perpetual five o’clock shadow named Johnny Friedkin, no relation to me, though he always called me “cuz.” If they knew they were presiding over a dying empire, they didn’t act like it. To them film was just product. Johnny and Jonas plunged right in, even though they hadn’t yet seen a rough cut of the film. They had charts, surveys, and mock-up posters strewn around the room:
JONAS: Fellas, we did some surveys and we feel we have to change the title.
Phil and I stared at each other.
JOHNNY: The French Connection means nothing to the average Joe, nothing!
JONAS: In fact, people thought it was (a) a foreign movie; (b) a porno; or (c) a condom. We can’t go out with that title. We’ll get killed. Johnny, show them what we have.
Johnny dutifully walked behind Jonas’s desk, where stacked against the wall were two large cardboard posters. He handed them to Jonas. Jonas took one and set the other facedown on his desk.
JONAS: This is the one we prefer.
It was a bland depiction of Hackman posing in front of a group of uniformed cops, his .38 Special in hand. Under the image in big black letters was the title: Popeye.
“You must be kidding. First of all, you know there’s a comic-book character by that name.” I stared at the poster in disbelief. I looked over at Phil—he was laughing.
At this point, Jonas showed us his other concept. Same image, basically, but a new title in bold letters: Doyle. A long silence while Phil and I stared at it.
“It’s fucking terrible,” I said. “You haven’t seen the picture, and you want to change the title to something as bland as this?”
Jonas was angry now, his polite facade gone.
JONAS: Fine. Why don’t you guys come up with something? Come back with your suggestions. But we’ve got to get a campaign going. We have to release this picture in four weeks.
It seemed the picture was cursed. The difficulty of getting it financed, the casting problems, the studio’s reaction, and now the advertising guys, considered among the best in the business—could they all be wrong? Phil and I spent a few hours in our little bungalow, kicking around other possible titles. I don’t remember what they were, but we hated them all. We made an appointment to see Jonas the next day. The fact that the studio was in play, and several dissident stockholders were fighting for control, worked to our advantage. One of the biggest and most restive shareholders was the Broadway producer David Merrick. I met Merrick a few times and thought him to be brilliant but mentally unstable. I said, “Jonas, if you try to change our title, we’re going to go to David Merrick. We’re going to tell him the title by the man who wrote The Green Berets, you now want to change because of some stupid survey.”
Phil was hurting inside, but he agreed with me and let me ramble on. When he thought I’d said enough, he chimed in, ever the diplomat, “Guys, we appreciate what you’re trying to do, but we believe in the French Connection title.”
Eventually, Johnny and Jonas backed down. There were times when Phil and I were so beaten down by the process we were ready to give in, but this time the other guys blinked first.
Elmo, Beetley, and their assistants returned to the Zanuck screening room ten days later, eager to see the changes Elmo suggested. We’d changed nothing—not a frame.
D’Antoni greeted Elmo with a hug as he and his entourage entered the screening room, “Elmo, you nailed it,” Phil enthused. “You saved our ass; the changes are great.”
Elmo was smiling as he turned to me. “You’re happy, William?”
“Oh, yeah.” I smiled back as I clapped him on the shoulder.
The picture Elmo saw on that occasion was the same one he saw, before he left the country. This time he gave no notes to his assistant, and as far as I could tell, though he was sitting behind me, Beetley stayed awake. When the lights came up, Elmo got up and turned to us. “Congratulations, fellas, you did a great job.”
“Thank you, Elmo,” Phil and I chimed in.
“Well, it’s a lot better, but I have two important notes,” Elmo said quietly. What the hell was this? “I still don’t understand the story. I think we need narration,” he said evenly. “And I think your sound mix is too loud.”
They left happier this time, but I was more concerned than ever, and so was Phil. He now realized Elmo was jerking our chains. “We can’t put narration in this,” Phil said.
“Of course not,” I agreed.
“What do we do?”
We knew the producer of Hackman’s new film, Joe Wizan, my former agent, and called him to confirm that Gene wasn’t available in case someone from Fox called. We told Joe the whole story, and he agreed with our position, earning my eternal gratitude. We decided not to tell Elmo, but just let the release date get closer. Eventually he called to ask if we had written the narration, and whether Hackman was available to do it. I had to break the news to him that Gene was unavailable, but I told him we were working on the narration. We hadn’t written a word, or even thought about it.
“Meanwhile,” I said, “we better finish sound mixing if we’re going to make the release date.” Elmo agreed. We could add the narration at the last minute, just before printing.
I’ve always thought of the sound track as separate but equal to the film. This goes back to my love for radio drama of the 1940s, where evocative sound played a big part in telling the story. I’ve often replaced dialogue recorded on location or even on a sound stage, with what we call “looped” or “postsynchronized” dialogue. Since many of my scenes are shot in the streets, not on a stage, you get background noise that obscures or even drowns out an actor’s words. In the calm, quiet atmosphere of the looping room, the actor can reproduce, even alter and improve, his performance.
The sound mixers, especially Ted Soderberg, were extremely helpful and efficient. The mixers are really your first audience. They’re the first to hear the sound track matched to the edited picture, and if you want them to be honest, they will. They’re able to spot when a scene isn’t “playing,” what’s too long or too short, and I often act on their advice. They created a sound track for The French Connection that I think makes the picture. Sometimes total silence is more effective than a loud explosion. When we came to the final shot, where Popeye runs along an empty corridor in the abandoned building on Welfare Island and disappears, the music was quiet and slightly schizophrenic. After I’d seen the rough cut hundreds of times, an inspiration came to me. I turned to Soderberg, who was sitting at the center of the sound console. “Ted, why don’t we end this with a bang?”
He smiled. “What do you mean?”
“When Hackman disappears offscreen, let’s hold for a beat, then put in an offstage gunshot.”
“What does it mean?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “But people will think about it—did he shoot somebody? Or was he shot?” And that’s the answer to thousands of people who have written to ask me why the film ends this way. Originally I had planned to end with a surreal sequence, which we photographed but cut before the mix, in which Popeye is alone in the abandoned hospital on Welfare Island. He has lost Charnier, and he’s killed a federal agent by mistake. I was trying to portray his chaotic mental state, so you see him shooting at a figure running toward him that is himself; another, himself dressed as Santa Claus; another, as Charnier coming at him from everywhere. I shot this sequence and put it together, but before we showed it to Elmo,
I decided it might work in a Fellini film, but it wasn’t going to work for a commercial thriller. Dave Wolper would have killed me for that.
There used to be a supper club on Melrose called Nucleus Nuance, where I first heard the Don Ellis Orchestra, a big band made up entirely of electronic instruments. They played every Monday night under what was called a “rehearsal contract,” which meant they didn’t have to get paid union scale. They played for the love of it, and they were taking big-band jazz to a new level. The club held about three hundred people and was always packed. The orchestra played offbeat and constantly shifting time signatures: 14/8, 25/16, 13/4. The arrangements were unique, experimental, and thrilling. Don was in his early thirties when I met him, but seemed even younger. He was soft-spoken, soulful, with a Beatles haircut. After listening to the band at Nucleus Nuance for almost two years, I asked Don if he would be interested in scoring a film. The French Connection was his first film score, and it was a perfect fit.
I fought Elmo Williams for final cut. Not out of ego, nor did I think I knew more about editing than he did. The movie was something I lived and breathed. To Elmo it was just another title on the long trail of his career. The editing process is mysterious; you enter it, as in a trance, and with the help of a good editor, if you “listen” to the film, it can tell you what it is and what it isn’t. Fixed ideas don’t belong in the cutting room. Just as jazz depends on improvisation and variation, so in the editing room you find that sequences you thought were important, even necessary, can be cut or moved to a different place. Scenes that once seemed vital are revealed to be irrelevant. In this way, a performance you thought was fair, even bad, can be trimmed, polished, and made to work.
I remember working with the great actor Joseph Wiseman on The Night They Raided Minsky’s. Joe was playing the father of Billy Minsky (Elliott Gould), and I thought he wasn’t giving enough in his scenes. With trepidation I told him so. He said, patiently, “Wait till you see it in the cutting room. You’ll find that ‘less is more.’” He was right.
You watch your film over and over, allowing it to enter your subconscious, and as you open yourself to it, it takes on a new shape. This has happened to me on every film I’ve ever worked on, which is not to say you can pull success from the jaws of failure. Even so, a film is successful or not for reasons having little to do with how good it is. The zeitgeist plays a major role, and what I choose to call “the grace of God.” You can offer any reason for a movie’s failure and who’s to dispute you. Think of a movie that failed, say, Dr. Dolittle. What was wrong with it? “The story,” or “the acting,” or “the directing,” who knows? Whatever.
But try to explain success.
By the first week of October 1971, Fox had a new management. Dennis Stanfill was appointed chairman and CEO, after a proxy fight for control of the company. Dennis had no experience in the film business. He was a Rhodes scholar and former head of the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity funds. Fox was close to collapse after the uninspired box office performance of The Bible, Star, and Hello, Dolly! Dennis appointed Gordon Stulberg to be president of the film division. I knew Gordon as the chairman of Cinema Center Films, where I made The Boys in the Band. I liked him, and looked forward to his taking over Fox. Elmo and his cronies were on their way out, but not before one last shot to our bow. We managed to fake Elmo out of the narration track, and out of his plan to re-edit the picture, but now it was about to be released. Jonas and Johnny came up with a print campaign that I hate to this day, showing the small figure of Doyle in the distance, shooting the large foreground figure of Nicoli, the French hit man, in the back. The copy line was lame: “The time is now right for an out and out thriller like this.” Phil and I protested to Jonas, but we weren’t going to win this one. A culture of depression had spread through the studio like a virus.
Amazingly, The French Connection opened on October 9, 1971, to glowing reviews and sold-out audiences. Why? The studio spent little on advertising, and it was a limited release. In some areas, including Forty-Second Street in New York, it opened as half of a double feature. The studio just threw it out there. But the movie god, true to his own purposes, smiled upon us. The picture was an instant hit, and many critics called it a classic, singling out the chase and Hackman’s performance. Phil and I were in shock. We thought the film was pretty good—but not this. All I could think about was: the struggle to get it made; the studios who had turned it down twice; the many actors who turned us down; Hackman walking off the set; Stan Hough’s many attempts to fire me; Elmo trying to put his stamp on the picture without really understanding it.
But Elmo wasn’t finished. Toward the end of the film’s first week in theaters, I got a call from Ted Soderberg: “Billy, you’re not gonna believe this . . . Elmo wants to remix the picture.” I thought he was joking. No, the vampire had risen again.
“He’s ordered all the elements brought down to the mixing stage this Thursday, and he plans to supervise a remix himself.”
I told Phil, then I called Elmo. The nasal twang came on the line right away, with a noncommittal “Yes?”
“Elmo,” I plunged ahead, “are you planning to remix The French Connection?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s too loud, it’s distorted—I told you fellas that.”
“But it’s playing in theaters now, and it’s doing great.”
“Yeah, but the mix is bad, and we—”
I took the gloves off. “Elmo, you’re full of shit. I’m going to Gordon [Stulberg] with this.”
I told Gordon of our dealings with Elmo, and about the remix. Gordon was low-key. He summoned Elmo to his office and, with me sitting there, said, “Elmo, you don’t really want to remix The French Connection, do you?”
Elmo explained, “the mix is bad. It’s too loud, it’s distorted—”
“How many prints do we have out there?” Gordon asked.
“I don’t know,” Elmo answered. “What’s the difference? The important thing is to get it right.”
Gordon leaned back. “You want to recall all the prints?”
“Yes.”
“What would that cost?”
“That’s not the question. Darryl would never question the cost of getting a picture right.”
“Well, Elmo, I’m not Darryl. How soon can you get me some numbers?”
“I’ll work on it right away.” He left.
Later that afternoon, Gordon called and asked me to come back to his office in the main administration building. Soon after I got there, Elmo arrived with Beetley in tow and with a set of figures. The cost of recalling the prints, remixing the film, reprinting it, and sending out new prints was considerable, about $200,000, according to Elmo, who probably shaved the numbers. Gordon studied the figures carefully, then tossed the sheaf of papers back to Elmo across the desk. “You know, Elmo, the picture’s doing so well, I think I’d rather spend the money on more television spots.”
Elmo registered the verdict stoically, “Okay,” he said, retrieving his papers. Then he turned and went to the door, followed by Beetley. I felt sorry for the old warrior. The rules were changing, and his war was over. In a couple of weeks he was gone, as the new regime cleaned house. Before he left, he sent me the original of a telegram he had received on opening day:
* * *
DEAR ELMO, SCREENED THE FRENCH CONNECTION LAST NIGHT AND FOR ITS TYPE IT IS A PERFECT MASTERPIECE THAT SHOULD RECEIVE CRITICAL ACCLAIM AND WILL CERTAINLY HIT AT THE BOX OFFICE. ALTHOUGH I HAD READ THE SCRIPT AS YOU KNOW REPEATEDLY, AND WE HAD DISCUSSED IT ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS, NEVERTHELESS I GRIPPED AT EVERY MOMENT AND THE CHASE SEQUENCES ARE THE GREATEST I HAVE EVER SEEN AND THE ENTIRE MOVEMENT AND DIRECTION WAS OUTSTANDING. I AM SURE IT WAS A DIFFICULT PICTURE TO EDIT, BUT IN ANY EVENT IT WAS DONE MAGNIFICENTLY. CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU AND TO ALL CONCERNED. BEST ALWAYS, DARRYL.
* * *
This telegram is framed, and it’s been on my office wall for forty years. I
had no idea Darryl was even aware of the film, enmeshed as he was in his own problems with the board of directors at Fox, but it was moving to get this reaction from one of the best producers who ever lived. I was never aware that he “read the script repeatedly,” or that Elmo took credit for editing the film. Darryl’s reaction and praise meant a great deal to me, but a disconnect between his reaction and Elmo’s suggests that somewhere along the way Elmo went rogue. Then again, he did send me the wire as a keepsake.
The French Connection ran successfully through the fall and winter, made many short lists of the year’s ten best films, and was praised around the world. In Italy, and elsewhere in Europe, the criticism was divided along political lines: those on the right, who thought the cops should own the streets and have carte blanche, and those on the left, who felt the cops had gone too far and that the film promoted right-wing militarism, even fascism. I welcomed this ambiguity, though Phil and I had no political agenda in making the film.
Before the film’s release, I screened it for Hackman. I waited for him as he came out of the Fox screening room. He had a detached, noncommittal look.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
A long pause, then, “I really don’t know how I feel about it. I guess I’m too close to it. I think some of it’s terrific; the action, the chase . . .” He let it go at that, and so did I. To this day I don’t know what Gene really thinks of the film. When asked, he acknowledges how important it was to his career; more money, awards, starring roles, recognition as one of America’s best actors. But when he’s called on to list his favorite role, it’s always Scarecrow, a lovely little film costarring Al Pacino. Pretty much everything Gene has done since is first rate. Watching his performance now, it appears seamless. It’s hard to recall the struggle it took him to get there. How impossible it seemed at times. But there’s sometimes an alchemy that occurs between a fine actor and a role, a kind of imperceptible transformation I can only attribute to the movie god.
The Friedkin Connection: A Memoir Page 19