Some sources list you as the writer of Joseph Adler’s 1969 horror film, Scream, Baby, Scream. Apparently, it’s about a psychotic artist who kidnaps models and slices up their faces to create mutant models.
I’m not the one responsible for writing that. No, those sources are incorrect. I’ve never even heard of Scream, Baby, Scream. Obviously, a different Larry Cohen is guilty of creating that movie. There are more than one of us in the business. [4]
Another early screenplay you wrote was the thriller Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, which eventually found its way into the hands of the acknowledged master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. How exactly did that happen?
Well, the idea for Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting concerned this disturbed young man, who comes back to stalk the estranged young woman who has aborted his child and moved on with her life. He tries to get his revenge on her by getting the girl to abort the child she now carries, which has been fathered by another man, thus killing her new baby. I relayed this story to a gentleman named Mike Ludmer, who was head of the script department at Universal. Mike liked the idea a lot and suggested it would make a wonderful movie for Hitchcock. [Gasps] Gosh, I thought I was dreaming! I mean, Hitchcock was one of my heroes. I adored his movies and still do. Ludmer then arranged for me to meet with Hitchcock at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. They also sent along a Universal representative, who sat there and said nothing. He was there just to keep me company, I guess. I got to meet Hitchcock in his suite, the usual suite that he used at the St. Regis Hotel, which was his favorite and was actually reproduced in his movie, Topaz. I arrived there, and Hitchcock was very cordial, warm, and friendly. He talked to me for three and a half hours. The first three hours was Hitchcock just regaling me with stories about the movies he made, the scenes he shot, the scenes he never shot. He spoke about all the incredible people he had worked with and shared anecdotes from his career in England and then later in Hollywood. It was obvious that he liked to talk and I certainly liked listening to him. It was a fascinating conversation and he was just delightful. Then, after Hitchcock had talked for three hours straight, he suddenly stopped and said, “Well, how about you tell me your story?” So, for the remaining half hour, I told him about Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting.
What was Hitchcock’s reaction to the story?
He loved it. He said, “That’s a wonderful story, so full of suspense. How shall we get started? Shall we go into first draft immediately?” Oh, it was just wonderful to hear Hitchcock say these things to me. After I left the hotel, I phoned him up about an hour later and said, “You know, I think we really should go right into script because the story is so well-developed.” Hitchcock said, “Yes, I agree. I’ll see you back in L.A.” I then started telling everyone I knew that I was working with Alfred Hitchcock and what a thrill it was! I arrived back in L.A., and Mike Ludmer called me. He said, “Hitch has changed his mind.” [Sighs] I said, “What happened?” Mike said, “Ed Henry talked him out of it.” Now Ed Henry was a studio executive at Universal, who was known around the lot as “Dr. No.” He got that name because he screwed up every project he ever involved himself in. He was a complete negative force. If anything good came along, Ed Henry always fucked it up! Henry had managed to get to Hitchcock and tell him that he shouldn’t do Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting. At that time, Hitchcock was under the influence of the Universal executives to a very high degree. They really messed around with all of his pictures. Everything he later did over there at Universal was terrible, stuff like Torn Curtain and Topaz. Fortunately, he was able to go over to England and do Frenzy, which was the only good picture Hitchcock made in the last ten years of his career. I mean, Family Plot was certainly passable, but Frenzy was good.
What happened to Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting after Hitchcock’s departure?
Well, after they had talked him out of doing this wonderful script, my friend Lorenzo Semple Jr. [5] and I decided we would sit down and write Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting on spec. The idea was that after we wrote it, we’d then give it to Hitchcock to see what he would say after he read the completed screenplay. In just ten days, we had written the entire script, typed it up, and sent it to Hitchcock. His response was: “It’s wonderful, but you haven’t left anything for me to do.” You see, Hitchcock liked to be heavily involved in the development of his projects, and we had made the perfect Hitchcock movie without Hitchcock. When he read it, he didn’t have any input to offer because everything was already there. I then received a call from Joan Harrison, who had been Hitchcock’s secretary in England and later became his associate producer. Eventually, she became his producer and co-writer on a couple of pictures and, later on, produced the Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series. Joan called me up and said, “I’ve heard about this script you’ve written and I’d like to produce it.” So, I met her for lunch at The Brown Derby, and Joan agreed that it was the perfect Hitchcock movie. She wanted to do it herself, and I was inclined to give her the script, but then we got an offer from Mark Robson and a company called National General for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. That was a lot of money in those days, and Robson was a very good director. He had previously made some excellent films like Champion, Home of the Brave, The Harder They Fall, Ryan’s Express, Peyton Place…
And Isle of the Dead, of course.
Yeah, he did some pictures with Val Lewton at the beginning of his career. Robson had worked with people like Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, and Kirk Douglas. He had also directed Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and Grace Kelly in The Bridges at Toko-Ri, so he was undoubtedly an A-class director. In fact, around this time, Robson had just made Valley of the Dolls, which had made a lot of money, so he was fairly hot. Since they were offering all that money and Mark Robson, we sold them the script, which I was later very sorry about. I’m sure Joan Harrison would have made a better picture out of Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting than Robson eventually did. Robson seemed to be hopelessly confused by the story, and he also cast the leading actors poorly. After working with so many great movie stars on his previous pictures, there was a distinct absence of them on this picture. Hitchcock had told me that he wanted John Phillip Law and Sandy Dennis for the two leads, and they would have both been wonderful. Unfortunately, Robson later cast Carol White as the leading girl. [6] White was actually the mistress of the head of National General Pictures, so that’s how she got the part. Not that she was a terrible actress — she wasn’t — she simply came across like a second-string Julie Christie. For the leading guy, Robson had discovered this terrible actor, who went on to do nothing of importance in his career. [7] These decisions more or less ruined the picture. Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting was also shot rather flatly and was badly thought-out, so what can I say? I mean, it did some business and got some good reviews, but both Lorenzo and I were very disappointed in the film. Ultimately, this frustrating experience was one of the things which led me to decide that I should direct my own scripts in the future.
Did you ever meet Hitchcock again after that first conference in New York?
Yeah, I met with him again some years later. We spent a long afternoon together at his office in Studio City and I saw him at the premiere of Family Plot. I also encouraged Hitchcock to do Frenzy, but it was a totally different Frenzy from the film that he eventually made in England. This version of Frenzy had an entirely different story, different characters, and a different plot. They only shared the same title.
You are obviously referring to Hitchcock’s legendary unmade film, Kaleidoscope, which was rejected by Universal executives in the late 1960s because it was deemed to be too horrific and sexually explicit. I do know that Hitchcock filmed some test scenes for Kaleidoscope, but what do you recall of the project?
Well, Hitchcock had told me the whole story whilst we’d had our meeting at the St. Regis Hotel. It was about a famous Broadway actress, whose son is a sex fiend and serial killer. He is slaughtering all these women in a series of violent and brutal sex murders. I do remember Hitchcock
telling me he wanted John Phillip Law to play the part of the serial killer. He was pretty eager to work with him. I also had the feeling that Hitchcock wanted to get Ingrid Bergman back for the role of the stage actress. He wanted Bergman to play this character and have the mother and son together in a morbid thriller. I’m sure the finished film would have bore some relationship to Psycho with that element of the story. Hitchcock had all kinds of various plot-lines and detailed storyboards done on it, and he even had the climax all worked out. There was going to be this extended chase sequence on the Mothball Fleet, which was located in upstate New York. They had anchored a bunch of old ships there that had been abandoned after World War II, and I’m sure it would have been an interesting place to shoot a movie. At the end of this version of Frenzy, a female victim has been taken onboard one of the ships, stripped naked and is about to be slaughtered by the psychopathic son. She manages to escape and the killer chases her across the ship and up the vessel’s smokestack. Obviously, the imagery of a naked girl climbing a phallic-looking smokestack is very sexual and maybe that’s one of the many things that put Universal off the project. Ultimately, the studio talked Hitchcock out of doing this incarnation of Frenzy. They did not want him to make that film, but I thought it would have made a fascinating movie.
I remember hearing that Universal’s refusal to make Kaleidoscope was the first time anybody had said no to Hitchcock in over twenty years.
I don’t know if that’s true because Hitchcock had always been subject to the influence of studio executives and producers. I was trying to get him to resurrect Frenzy, but he could sense that Universal did not want to proceed with the project. Hitchcock seemed particularly intimidated by Lew Wasserman [8] and I think his confidence was stripped away — bit by bit — to the point where he no longer believed as strongly in his own abilities as he once did. What can you say? Hitchcock had enjoyed great commercial success and became a rich man, but along the way he had ended his association with Bernard Hermann as some of the Universal executives preferred that he work with Henry Mancini instead. This was unfortunate because the Hitchcock-Hermann collaboration had been remarkably productive. But Hitchcock had allowed his mind to be poisoned by the studio executives and his creativity was diminished as a result. He should have stood his ground, but Hitchcock would always run away when there was any opposition. He was very averse to having personal confrontations with people. I remember Mike Ludmer actually telling me: “Now don’t be surprised that Hitch has changed his mind. He never likes to say no to people in person. That’s why we don’t like him having meetings with writers, because he always encourages them and then we have to disappoint them later.” Maybe that was the case with Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, but he did seem awfully enthusiastic about the project and excited about doing it. I was certainly disappointed that it didn’t happen with Hitchcock as director.
Did you ever confront Hitchcock directly?
I actually went out to the lot one day — right after that happened — to confront him about it. I arrived at Hitchcock’s bungalow at Universal and this little old British lady, who was his assistant secretary, said, “I’m afraid Mr. Hitchcock isn’t here.” I then walked across the street and ran into my agent. As I was standing there, talking to him, I noticed that Farley Granger was walking down the Universal Street. I watched as Granger strolled up to the back of Hitchcock’s bungalow, where there was a private door, and knocked on it. A moment later, Hitchcock himself opens the door and I could actually hear their conversation. Hitchcock said, “Oh Farley, what are you doing here?” Granger replied, “Well, I’m just doing some television.” “Oh, Farley, we must have lunch this week!” “Yes, Hitch, I’d really like that.” And this went on and on, with Hitchcock giving Granger a song and dance about the possibility of their having lunch together later that week. Only I knew for a fact that Hitchcock was going away the very next day to his place up in Northern California for Thanksgiving holidays. He wasn’t going to be there to make that dinner, but he was feeding Farley a nice line of bullshit. Anyway, Granger went away and I immediately approached the very same door and knocked on it. The door opened and standing there was the same old British lady again that had chased me away earlier! She then growled, “Didn’t I tell you that Mr. Hitchcock isn’t here?” [Laughs] I mean, what can you do?
Despite your grievances and the missed opportunity with Hitchcock, at the very least you did succeed in selling Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting.
That’s true. In fact, when Mark Robson first bought the project I actually remember thinking, Oh well, this has all worked out for the best. The sad thing about Hitchcock is that he treated his writers so poorly. You could be sure that you wouldn’t receive any credit or would be fired from your own script. Hitchcock was constantly replacing writers, but he sometimes treated them royally and invited them into his home and plied them with fine wine. One day, he would be an extremely cordial and convivial host, but then two days later, the studio would suddenly notify the writer that they were fired. So, that was just the way he was. Leon Uris, who had authored Topaz, told me that he had enjoyed a wonderful relationship with Hitchcock, but then one day was notified that he was fired. Uris couldn’t get Hitchcock on the phone after receiving the news and that was that. Even John Michael Hayes, who had written several pictures for Hitchcock, felt he had been shabbily treated by him. [9] Hitchcock simply turned his back on Hayes, and again, that was that. Peggy Robertson had been Hitchcock’s assistant for twenty-five years and is depicted in several movies that have been made about Hitchcock, including the one that recently starred Anthony Hopkins. [10] Despite their long working relationship, even she suffered his ill treatment. Although Robertson had remained incredibly loyal throughout a lengthy period, one day she unexpectedly received a termination notice from Universal. She got two weeks pay and that was the end of her association with Hitchcock, without as much as a goodbye or a thank you. There was no severance, no gift, no parting words; it was simply the end, and that was that. So, Hitchcock had no real affection or sense of loyalty for the people who worked for him. I can only assume that if my services had not been terminated before I’d even started writing Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, somewhere along the line I would have probably been canned also. Hitchcock wasn’t especially generous to writers, or to anyone else who could possibly lay claim to any credit for the work. Ironically, over the following years, I probably had a better relationship with Hitchcock having not sold him the script than if I had sold it to him.
What else comes to mind when you think about the times you spent with Hitchcock?
Well, you always have an image or an expectation in your mind of who or what a famous person is going to be before you meet them, particularly somebody with such a recognizable and iconic presence as Hitchcock. But he was a very engaging and garrulous man, and he quickly put me at ease. One other thing I do remember about him is that whenever we met he would always gesture with his hands when he spoke. Hitchcock would often walk around the room, emphasising his words with the most delicate and expressive movements of his hands. He had very interesting hands, actually. Another thing I remember about him was his handshake. He had a very firm handshake. It’s funny, the things you notice and recall about people, but Hitchcock had these big fingers and thumbs and I’ve always thought they would have been the perfect hands for a strangler. [Makes choking noises] I could just imagine those hands closing around some poor victim’s throat — ugh! Maybe he would have ended up strangling me if we had worked together! [Laughs] But for a large man advancing in his years, Hitchcock was incredibly graceful and light on his feet. Of course, in the years that followed, his health deteriorated and he wasn’t quite as graceful.
Did you ever mention to Hitchcock the failed practical joke you had attempted at Grand Central Station during the making of North By Northwest?
Yeah, but it didn’t get much of a reaction out of him. I thought it was a cute little joke, but he had absolutely no memory of it.
When did
you last see Hitchcock? Was it at the premiere of Family Plot?
Yes, it was. We chatted for a while and it was nice. He died about four years later. I was over in Venice at the time, so I wasn’t around for that. By then Hitchcock had left the studio, gone home, and more or less drank himself to death. He’d enjoyed a long and successful career that had lasted more years than many of his contemporaries. In fact, most of the directors who worked in his era were finished by the time they reached their sixties, whereas Hitchcock managed to stay on until he was well into his seventies. If you examine the careers and history of a lot of big directors, you’ll notice that many of them stop making movies when they reach their sixties. Not only do you lose your stamina and drive when you get older, perceptions of you and your work can often change. It gets harder to make your movies. Directors in their sixties often stop making pictures of any importance and their careers are well behind them, not in front of them. Besides Hitchcock, John Huston was probably the only one who made good films late into his career. Huston had a couple of strong movies towards the end, such as Prizzi’s Honor and The Dead, but most of the other great directors — even people like Billy Wilder — their careers just fell apart. Wilder couldn’t even get distribution on one of his final pictures, Fedora, with William Holden.
Larry Cohen Page 10