Larry Cohen

by Michael Doyle

  What about the late Ester Rolle? What was she like to work with?

  Oh, Ester was delightful. I loved working with her. She was absolutely as cute as can be. She was very funny and we’d often kid around together.

  In one scene, a man in an oriental mask chases Momma Sykes out to the end of a pier. She then knocks him off the dock by continually rocking the boardwalk back and forth with her own weight.

  Yes, well, there is no denying that Ester was a very heavy woman. I tried to make use of that by having her character use her weight to shake the narrow boardwalk. I thought that was a very funny bit.

  Was Rolle ever concerned that the joke was being made at her expense?

  No, not at all. She thought it was great. I actually made that up when we found the location. The pier was there and I said, “Okay, let’s write this into the script.” We just used it and devised that whole scene with Momma knocking the guy into the water. That’s another good example of always using a location to its utmost advantage.

  How did Rolle feel about the negative reaction from a few complaining viewers? Did she ever object to the screenplay and her maid character in any way?

  No, absolutely not. Ester was delighted with the idea and that’s why she signed on. As I say, she was a very popular TV star. Ester could have had her pick of what project she wanted to do next, but she thought Momma the Detective was going to be a successful series. I think Ester was just as appalled as I was when the network treated it so badly. But you know, most TV pilots don’t get on. I mean, at the time we made Momma the Detective NBC had sanctioned something like forty pilots but only a few new series were actually made. When you weigh that situation up, the odds are always stacked heavily against you when making a TV pilot and the venture often ends in disappointment. Even if the network does put the show on sometimes they schedule it during a time period that is absolutely ridiculous and self-defeating. When that happens, you can’t get a rating because you are up against some established blockbuster hit that is going to bury you. Television is extremely difficult, but thanks to cable and the fact that there are now forty different stations airing shows rather than three or four, you do have a better chance. Also, with the instant recording we have at our disposal today, people can now record a show and see it later at their behest. They can get it on demand and that adds a lot to the viewing possibilities.

  Why did you choose to set the story in New York?

  I was living in New York at the time. I had a townhouse on 79th Street, and I was really enjoying the city. More than that, I always enjoy shooting movies in New York, and I thought it would be the perfect place to set this particular story. I always used to describe New York City as “my backlot” as I was so familiar with it. We shot some scenes around Rockefeller Centre and the Radio City Music Hall, and also around the Diamond District of the city. 47th Street is where the diamond merchants all sell their wares and is located between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. It famously featured in Marathon Man [5] during the scene where Laurence Olivier, who plays a Nazi war criminal, knifes an elderly Holocaust survivor who recognizes him in the midst of this bustling street. We used that same area when we shot a chase sequence, which was a lot of fun to do. What was interesting about the film was we had a full union crew of about fifty or sixty people. Obviously, I couldn’t shoot that chase scene in the Diamond District with so many crew people, so I knowingly sent them to a different location. Basically, I lied! [Chuckles] I sent them to a fictitious location and I only took five or six people with me. We went over to the Diamond District, shot the sequence, and left the rest of my crew abandoned someplace else until we got finished. We later went over and joined them, but I guess I was resorting to my old ways, even though we had a very big crew on that particular picture. The fact that See China and Die was originally an NBC pilot meant we simply had to carry a full load of crew people.

  What is the extent of your own interest in detective fiction and mysteries? Are you a fan of that brand of literature?

  Not particularly, no. I find that most mystery books and thrillers start off rather well, but when they attempt to tie the story up at the end they are usually rather disappointing. A lot of these books run out of steam and stutter to an unremarkable and inane conclusion in the last couple of chapters. As a reader you often say to yourself, “Why did I read 400 pages to get to this?” It would have been much more valuable if I had spent that time writing something myself. Very often, when I’m reading a book, after a few chapters I’ll say, “I can do better than this!” I then put the book down and do that exact thing. I have a lot of unfinished books.

  Are you a fan of Agatha Christie?

  I’ve read a lot of Agatha Christie’s books because they are very short. They are good to read on an airplane, something like that. I like her classic ones such as Ten Little Indians [6] and, of course, I love the movie adaptation of Witness for the Prosecution [7] very much. As a matter of fact, the mystery at the heart of See China and Die is resolved — in the classic tradition — during a dinner scene. We did a thing like Agatha Christie does in her Hercule Poirot books, where we assembled all the suspects together in one place for the final revelation. In this case, since Momma Sykes was a housekeeper and a cook, she invites everybody over for a big meal and they all sit around the table as she serves them. During the course of the meal, she cleverly exposes the killer and then brings out the dessert, which was a Baked Alaska. All the suspects who were innocent then blow out the candles, and that was the end of the film. I thought the mystery elements of See China and Die were very successful and that the resolution paid off well.

  Do you think the comedic elements were as successful?

  Oh yeah, I thought so. I thought the picture was a lot of fun. When we screened it for people in New York, we had a lot of laughs and I think the audience really seemed to enjoy the comedic aspects. I believe I only screened See China and Die for a theater audience once, but it played very nicely. Actually, in general, I thought it was rather cute but I certainly wouldn’t call it one of my major achievements.

  Do you think See China and Die looks and plays like a TV movie?

  Yeah, it was rather television-ny. I don’t know what the rule about that is but if you have an unmade pilot, or an un-bought pilot, it doesn’t get on the air unless it is feature-length. If you’ve made a two-hour pilot or a ninety-minute pilot, you can always release it as a feature, despite the fact that it has the look and feel of a TV movie. Usually the dead giveaway that a film is a TV movie is every fifteen minutes or so — for no reason at all — there is a fade-out punctuated with a bland musical sting followed by a fade-in. Obviously, this is where the commercials were situated when it was originally telecast. When I shot See China and Die, I didn’t have those fade-outs and fade-ins, because I instinctively knew that it would make it look like the generic TV movies we usually saw back then. I find all that business unnecessary anyway, because whenever the audience saw and heard those cues it was obvious that they were looking at a TV movie. I did not want that.

  See China and Die is one of your rarest films and hasn’t been awarded any kind of official DVD release.

  Well, after the one-hour version was aired on NBC and I sold the show into syndication, it played on syndicated TV for a while. I’ve heard of one person who actually sells copies of See China and Die, but, yeah, it is very hard to find. I have a VHS copy here in my house, and I also have a 35mm print somewhere upstairs. I haven’t run that print in a long time, so god knows what it looks like now after more than thirty years. It would be good to have a DVD release of the picture — if there was any interest in it. To be honest with you, I don’t know how many people would be interested in buying that particular movie. But it is worth repeating that for an unsold television pilot, which are hardly ever seen again if they die a death, it was very good. At least this one got some visibility and we still made something out of it. There were quite a number of good things in See China and Die as
a film but, unfortunately, it wasn’t appreciated. If I had not made that ninety-minute version, it would have probably suffered the same fate that most pilots suffer: it would have completely disappeared without trace.

  Intermission: I, the Jury (1982)

  Let’s talk about I, the Jury which you began shooting in 1981 before being fired from the production and replaced by Richard T. Heffron. [1]

  Well, I, the Jury was a picture that I started making in New York for a company called American Cinema. It was based on the novel by Mickey Spillane [2], and starred Armand Assante as Mike Hammer, the famous private eye. We also put together a great supporting cast for the movie, which included Barbara Carrera, Paul Sorvino, and Laurene Landon, but it wasn’t one of my own productions and I had a lot of problems with the producers. Basically, we just couldn’t get along because they didn’t know what they were doing. I found out that they wouldn’t be able to pay a lot of the vendors in New York that I had dealt with over the years — the laboratories and equipment houses that I had used on other films — and we had to lie about it. I had good credit with these companies, and so when I learned that the people I was working for were not going to be able to pay them, I was horrified that the vendors would think it was all my fault. So, I called them up and told them to be sure to collect their money right away or they might not get paid at all. When the producers learned about what I had done, they fired me. At the time, I was pretty devastated by that decision. I mean, it’s not a pleasant feeling being fired off a movie. You can feel very alone and isolated and vulnerable. I had optioned the novel of I, the Jury, and put the whole project together. Of course, these producers had then come in with the money but, unfortunately, they just didn’t have a clue. It was a very disappointing experience, but I couldn’t just stand back and allow them to take advantage of the people who had been kind enough to give me credit in the past. I figured that if I didn’t do something about it, I would never be able to make another picture in New York again. I would be blamed for the fact that these vendors got stiffed on their equipment and services, and my reputation and good standing would be in ruins. I just couldn’t let that happen.

  How long into shooting was it before you were fired?

  It was just under a week. I think it was six days. Then, afterwards, the movie descended into total chaos and the company went bankrupt. The picture ended up costing $11 million and it still looked rather cheap. 20th Century Fox then bought I, the Jury in a bankruptcy sale, so it didn’t really end well for anybody.

  It’s been reported that Mickey Spillane was displeased that you were mounting a second theatrical version of I, the Jury as he was shooting his own loose reworking of the novel as Margin for Murder, a TV movie for CBS. Were you aware of this?

  No. Mickey Spillane didn’t have the rights to I, the Jury anyway. He sold the rights. I bought the rights from Sir John Wolf over in England, who was the son-in-law of Victor Saville, [3] the man who had made the first I, the Jury movie. It was a 3D movie and it was terrible — a real dog! Anyway, Saville’s estate owned the rights to the book. Spillane did not have a say in the matter anymore and I think he was unhappy because he didn’t get any money out of the remake. He may not have received a cent, but we did succeed in reviving interest in the character of Mike Hammer by doing the movie. Spillane was then able to do a TV movie based on the character and that later spun off into a series starring Stacy Keach, which was on for several years. Later on, they had another series with Stacy Keach, so there were two Mike Hammer series made. I mean, the character was as dead as a doornail until I optioned the rights for I, the Jury. In fact, I only paid $50,000 for the rights, so it was a very good deal. Spillane would not have been too happy because he didn’t get anything out of that deal himself.

  Is it true that the Victor Saville estate also sold you the rights to two other Spillane properties, as well as I, the Jury?

  No. I had a right to go back and option two more properties, which I believe were My Gun is Quick and Kiss Me Deadly, but I didn’t. I only acquired I, the Jury. I knew that I, the Jury was a very popular book. In fact, I’d read somewhere that it was the most popular detective novel ever written in terms of sales.

  I’ve read that Spillane rejected your invitation to help promote I, the Jury when you initially approached him about it before shooting began. Is this accurate?

  I never approached Spillane, so I wasn’t rejected about anything because I never approached him. He was not part of the equation.

  Did you ever meet Spillane?

  No, never.

  That’s interesting, because it’s my understanding that he was apparently delighted that you were fired from I, the Jury by the “money men.”

  I had no idea about that. I don’t understand why Mickey Spillane would be delighted that I was fired. I had never even talked to the man or had any connection with him. He would have had no knowledge of the internal workings of the project or the reasons for why I was fired. I hope he didn’t blame me for the fact he wasn’t getting any money. I simply didn’t have anything to do with him. I just bought the rights from the Victor Saville estate and went ahead and put the picture together. I had no intention of harming Spillane in any way or dealing him any dirt. It was just the way it was, that’s all. He wasn’t entitled to any money and he didn’t receive any.

  Do you think Spillane’s attitude may have also partly stemmed from the fact that you abandoned much of his original novel?

  Oh, I didn’t follow his novel at all except for a few key things. If you read Spillane’s book and then my screenplay, you will see that I changed a lot of it. That practice is by no means unusual when I have adapted books into screenplays. I did retain the opening scene with the murder of the one-armed man and also the climax with the woman psychiatrist, who is played in the movie by Barbara Carrera. I included her character because the last scene of the book in which Hammer shoots the psychiatrist and says “It was easy” is a very famous one. I simply had to include it. That’s a rather iconic quote from I, the Jury and has even been quoted in Paddy Chayefsky ‘s movie, Marty. There’s a scene where the guys are all sitting around, talking about a book they’ve read and what a great writer Mickey Spillane is. One of Marty’s buddies describes the last scene in the book, the famous “It was easy” scene. So, I had to keep that in and I had to retain the fact that Hammer’s friend was murdered and he is trying to solve and avenge the crime. There were probably other things in there, too, but the rest of the script was really me. I just used the book as a starting point to express my own ideas about the story and the characters.

  Spillane hated your screenplay, so he must have read it at some point.

  Again, I have no idea. Stop asking me questions about Mickey Spillane because I really don’t know anything.

  How did you approach the character of Mike Hammer?

  I wanted to subvert the character of Hammer, try to see what would make a guy like that really tick. Who is this man? Why does he do the things he does? I saw Hammer as something of a psychopath himself. He had a psychopathic quality to him, only he doesn’t know this. I don’t know how many psychopaths literally pause for a moment and think, “Boy, I’m a real nut,” you know? People just behave as they naturally do. But Hammer was a sadist who enjoyed inflicting pain on people. My idea was that his dealings with the psychiatrist would have revealed some disturbing aspects of his life and character to him, things that Hammer would not have wanted to confront. I mean, Hammer is a macho guy, sleeping with all these women and punching people out and everything, and he suddenly learns from her what all his hang-ups really are. One of the things I played with in my script was the subtle suggestion that there was the possibility of a homosexual relationship between Hammer and his best friend who has been murdered. The psychiatrist reveals to Hammer in a medical report that his close friend was gay and was in love with him. This comes as devastating news to Hammer, who, let’s not forget, is a tough guy who lets his fists, and not his feelings, do the talk
ing. This aspect of the story was there for those viewers who wished to read into it. That inference is mostly missing from the movie you see now, but that was an interesting subversion of Spillane’s Hammer. Also, with a lot of these kinds of stories, you are playing with the idea that it takes a bad man to catch a bad man. Hammer has those same psychopathic tendencies as the criminals and he is going around killing people in cold blood. You don’t do things like that unless you are a little crazy in the head. That’s very much in keeping with the modern portrayal of heroes in films and in television. Today, there are no more heroes — only anti-heroes.

  What prompted you to make Hammer a Vietnam War veteran?

  I thought that if Hammer was of the age he was in the movie, he would have probably been in Vietnam. We were doing I, the Jury as a contemporary film rather than as a period piece. There was really no point in doing the picture as a period piece because, ultimately, what value would it have had? It was better to update the story and the characters, and bring in new elements like the Central Intelligence Authority and mind treatments, and so on. I came up with the idea that the Government were using psychopaths to commit political crimes and murders, and were using a sex clinic as a front to locate suitable candidates that could be successfully programmed. As it turns out, we weren’t that far off in terms of what the Government was trying to do with psychopathic people — programming and training them to be ruthless killers. Again, I wanted to play with the idea that Hammer was not that different from the psychopath that is programmed to commit sex crimes. Hammer is a vicious killer, too.