Larry Cohen

by Michael Doyle

  It’s obvious that Sorvino clearly relished the role.

  Oh, he did. During filming Sorvino said to me, “You’re the second best comedy director I’ve ever worked with.” I asked, “Thank you, but who’s the first?” He said, “Carl Reiner.” [6] I certainly didn’t mind being second best to Carl Reiner, who is a great comedy director and a wonderful performer. That was a great compliment. Actually, we have two members of the Sorvino family in The Stuff. Paul’s teenage daughter came by the set to visit one day when we were shooting the sequence where the army storms the factory where The Stuff is manufactured. As I was filming the scene where our heroes are chasing all these “stuffies” — that’s what we called the factory workers in the yellow uniforms — I said to the young Sorvino girl, “Hey, do you want to be in the movie? Put on one of those yellow uniforms and you can be in the picture.” She then got into a costume, and I put her in as an extra. Apparently, she’s in the shot where you see all the stuffies lying dead on the factory floor. That was actually Mira Sorvino’s first screen appearance. She’s lying there somewhere amongst all those corpses. Of course, several years later, Mira went on to win an Academy Award for a Woody Allen picture [7] and has since enjoyed a good career. I’d forgotten all about her cameo, but when I met Mira several years later with her then boyfriend, Quentin Tarantino, she reminded me that The Stuff was her first acting role.

  O’Neal and Scourby, who play the two corporate bigwigs, are eventually forced by Mo Rutherford to eat The Stuff at gunpoint. Talk about just desserts!

  I love that scene. If only real life was like that. Unfortunately, it isn’t. I remember Patrick O’Neal and Alexander Scourby were gorging on whipped cream — take after take after take — and they really did feel sick by the end of it. I think some members of the cast put on a little weight due to the sheer amount of ice cream and whipped cream they’d consumed during shooting. We originally closed that scene with Moriarty saying to the kid as they walk away, “Okay, son, let’s go get a hamburger.” Sadly, that line got lost in the sound-mix somehow, but I always liked it. I also think the last scene, which reveals that The Stuff is now being sold to addicts on the black market, makes perfect sense. Realistically, that is exactly what would happen if this product suddenly became illegal. Various criminal organizations would peddle The Stuff on the black market to meet the demand. It would naturally go underground. I mean, where else could it go? That’s pretty much where it came from — underground!

  When you were editing the picture, you cut a fairly sizable amount out of the finished film. I believe that some of this deleted material can be glimpsed in the theatrical trailer. What scenes hit the cutting room floor?

  I don’t remember all the scenes that were cut. I don’t think any of them were crucial to the narrative, but we did lose a few funny scenes that I wanted to keep. When I showed New World my original cut, they felt strongly that the film should move a lot faster. I realized that I’d made a picture that was a little too dense and sophisticated, so we increased the pacing. I know that along with some of the commercials, we did lose a romantic scene between Moriarty and Andrea that took place in a hotel room. It was perhaps a wise decision to cut some of those scenes out, because I don’t think they played well in the totality of the film. The story needed to drive forward at certain points and not be slowed down with extraneous material, although it can be painful cutting scenes out that you like. Sometimes the small scenes that cement the characters’ relationships and romantic interests are the first things people want you to cut. They want you to get to the meat of the action and scares as quickly as possible.

  You just mentioned the romantic scene in the hotel. I’ve seen stills of Moriarty and Marcovicci cuddling up in bed.

  That’s right. We actually shot that scene in a suite at the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel and Andrea’s mother came to visit us on the set that day. As we were talking together, she looked around the room and said, “You know, Andrea’s father was a well-known doctor in New York. One night, many years ago, he was called to the Sherry-Netherlands because Judy Garland had overdosed on sleeping pills. He actually saved her life and it all took place in this very room where you are shooting.” I couldn’t believe it! It was such a remarkable coincidence. To think that all those years later, we should be shooting that scene in not only the same hotel, but in the same room in the same hotel! It was pretty incredible.

  You once indicated to me that New World were somewhat disappointed with The Stuff when you finally showed it to them. What prompted the negative reaction?

  New World wanted a straight-up horror film, and, in retrospect, The Stuff had more comedic aspects to it than the executives were perhaps expecting. They thought they were going to get a flat-out horror movie with a lot of gore and scares, and we made a film that was more satirical and had a lot of humour and commentary in it. We played the characters for laughs in many cases and that greatly diluted the horror element. It made The Stuff more of what I would consider “A Larry Cohen Movie” but less of a conventional, commercial horror film. I think New World were disappointed that The Stuff wasn’t more horrific and nasty — more of a balls-out monster movie. I knew before the film even hit theaters The Stuff would appeal to a different audience than the one we were trying to get. I mean, people who go to see a horror movie want to see the horror. They want to be scared and have some visceral thrills and chills. I think The Stuff was far too relaxed, too pointed, and too cerebral for them.

  Are you suggesting that the horror audience is less literate than the general movie audience? I certainly don’t think that’s the case.

  No, I’m not saying that, because I think those kinds of generalisations are dangerous. But there is a chunk of that audience — any audience really — who have no patience for something that makes small demands of their intellect and imagination. A lot of people like everything to be reassuringly predictable and undemanding. I think what ultimately harmed The Stuff was the fact that the audience were unsure about exactly what kind of movie it was. Was it a horror film or was it a comedy? They seemed to have trouble making that distinction and we suffered for it. In that regard, the only substantial fault with The Stuff was that it wasn’t overtly horrific enough as a horror movie. Yes, there are moments when people’s heads explode or their mouths stretch open grotesquely as The Stuff erupts out of their bodies, but the picture was still essentially a comedy. The audience did not respond to the comedic approach because they came to the theater to see a horror film and be shocked. They wanted to scream and cringe and shudder, and we gave them laughter instead. Unfortunately, that’s not what they bought when they laid down their bucks for a movie ticket.

  I think some of the critics also felt that there was an uneven and erratic quality to The Stuff — a criticism that some of your films have been laboured with.

  I don’t understand that. The reviews I read were all good, actually. In fact, I have a big poster of great reviews for The Stuff hanging on a wall. Now that I think about it, I got really wonderful notices on that picture. This may be hard for you to believe, but the day The Stuff opened in New York a hurricane hit and the newspapers were not delivered. Of course, we had received all these great reviews, but it didn’t matter because nobody ever got to read a single word of them. Even if they had been delivered, the newspapers would have probably been reduced to piles of wet shreds and mush. Nobody would have been able to decipher a word of them. That hurricane practically wiped us out and caused all sorts of problems. The windstorms were so powerful they actually blew the title of the movie off the marquee of the theater. What can you say? I should have taken that as a sign! It was one of those untimely things that sometimes happen. I just wish it had happened to somebody else.

  Screenplays: Part II (1987-1997)

  In the mid-1980s, it was announced that you planned to write and direct a film called The Apparatus. What exactly was this unmade project?

  You know, it’s incredible, but after all these years, somebody actual
ly called me up just last week to talk about The Apparatus. It’s another one of those scripts from the past that has suddenly re-emerged in the present. A producer called me and said, “What about The Apparatus? I’d really love to make it.” I said, “Well, see if you can clear the rights to it.” I then told him where to look. The problem with these long dormant projects is that when you sell something or option it to somebody, and then that company goes out of business, which most of these little companies have over the years, many of the people involved who were principals have died. Also, the chances are their widows and children don’t know anything about the rights situation. So, having to trace back who owns these pieces of material is an arduous process, but you can’t make a picture without clearing the rights first. You don’t want somebody to come out of the woodwork after the film is made who claims they own it. I certainly don’t want to get in the middle of a potential lawsuit. So, I told this enquiring producer, “Go out and find who owns the damn thing and I’ll be glad to rewrite The Apparatus, or do whatever is necessary to get it made.”

  The screenplay for The Apparatus has gained a strong reputation over the decades, but very little is known about it. What is it actually about?

  The Apparatus is a thriller about a man who goes on a trip to Europe and meets a beautiful girl. He takes her back to his hotel and goes to bed with her. He wakes up in the morning and discovers that the girl is gone and he now has this peculiar apparatus strapped to his chest. It has a leather band on it and when he tries to remove it, the apparatus starts to get hot and burns him. He then receives a phone call and a voice warns him not to attempt to remove the apparatus from his body. If he does, it will explode and kill him. The voice then instructs him to go to a certain location in the city and more will be explained to him. So, he arrives at this place and a stranger approaches him and says, “If you try to take this thing off it will blow you to pieces.” The stranger then opens his shirt and reveals that he too has an apparatus strapped to his chest. The stranger then walks a few feet away and his apparatus explodes, blowing him apart. Our guy immediately realizes that this situation he finds himself in is no joke. It then becomes apparent that he is now a slave and must do whatever the dark forces behind the apparatus instruct him to do. The apparatus now controls him and he is informed that he must assassinate someone. That’s basically the story.

  It sounds a rather intriguing concept for a thriller.

  Oh, it’s a terrific story and a really great script. Twice we were close to making The Apparatus, once over in Italy and once over in France. On both occasions, various things conspired against us that meant the picture didn’t quite work out. The first time we tried to do The Apparatus, the company that was going to make the picture got into some trouble and was bankrupted. The second time there was a rights clearance problem that prevented the film from being shot. Despite these disappointments, I did get a couple of nice trips to Italy and France out of it. Actually, in the French version of The Apparatus, my second wife, Cynthia, and I were in Paris for three or four months, all expenses paid, and had a beautiful apartment, a driver, and a weekly salary. Unfortunately, when the rights couldn’t be cleared, the movie didn’t happen. Now the damn thing has resurfaced again, so maybe someday it will get made.

  You continued in the thriller genre with your next produced screenplay, the 1987 film Best Seller. Do you like that picture?

  Uh, yes and no. I thought it was partially successful as a movie. Best Seller took about seven or eight years to finally get made. The project kept moving from one company to another without getting produced, which was very frustrating as I thought it was a good script. Then, Orion Pictures eventually bought it and made the film. Best Seller was an idea I had about a police detective, who writes a book that becomes hugely successful. Unfortunately, he is afflicted with writer’s block and can’t follow up his initial success with another book. He is desperate to find something to write about and satisfy his publishers when he is approached by a professional killer who wants his life-story as a paid assassin to be written. The cop and the hitman then form an uneasy alliance, and in that regard, I thought Best Seller shared certain similarities with Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. In both of those movies you have two men who come to some kind of dangerous arrangement. I initially thought that Best Seller would make a terrific project for Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, that’s who I really had in mind when I first wrote it. Despite that, we ended up with a good cast anyway. Brian Dennehy played the cop and James Woods played the hitman, and I thought they were both good. I certainly had no complaints about those guys. The picture itself turned out to be pretty good with one glaring exception: the ending. Everything was going along great but then, in the last five minutes, they fucked up the whole movie. That is what I mean when I say it was only partially successful.

  What was your problem with the ending, specifically?

  It was unbelievable, simply unbelievable! At the climax, there is the big shootout involving Woods, Dennehy, and the guy they are targeting with their book. In the middle of all this violence, you see Dennehy’s daughter come running down the stairs towards a dangerous man who is shooting guns at her. That does not make any sense whatsoever! She should be running away from this person, not racing directly into his arms! I actually told them what they had done. I said, “Look, there is absolutely no reason why she would do such an illogical thing. If you keep this ending as it is, it will be terrible. You have to re-cut the scene.” So, I explained to them how they could fix it without having to re-shoot anything, but the producer wouldn’t listen to me. Of course, when Best Seller opened in New York I went to see it downtown at the Loews Theatre. Everything was going along great, but then, as the climax arrived, I saw that nothing had been changed. Just as before, the girl came running down the stairs and into the arms of the gunman. At that moment, the audience started screaming, “Kill that bitch! Kill that stupid little bitch!” They couldn’t believe that any human being would be stupid enough to do what she did. That one moment ruined the film, and, unfortunately, it came at the end of the picture. That meant the sense of frustration and disappointment the audience felt was what they finally took away with them. That’s all people ever really remember about a movie — the ending. You can have a great picture for an hour and forty minutes, but if the final ten minutes are bad, people will come walking out of the theater saying, “What a stinker that was!” Best Seller lost its audience completely in that final scene. They just blew it. What’s most depressing of all is that I warned them ahead of time about how to fix it, but they wouldn’t listen. I mean, the film has its moments, but it could have been really great.

  An extraordinary moment in Best Seller occurs when Cleve the hitman murders the taxi driver in a photo booth. The photo strip is then ejected from the machine revealing a sequence of images that show Cleve cutting the man’s throat.

  Yeah, that was very good. That moment was in my script, too.

  Were any interesting scenes excised from Best Seller?

  They cut out a lot of stuff concerning the developing romance between Brian Dennehy’s character and the female agent who represents his interests as a writer. I think they removed most of those scenes because they felt that Dennehy was too big and too heavy to enjoy a romance. So, they cut out all the moments that showed them doing anything even remotely romantic. They thought he looked grotesque — a big guy like him and a pretty girl like her — so all of that material is now gone. They also cut a really interesting scene that I think would have given the film a little more depth and shading. The hitman takes the cop to his family home so that he can see the environment he grew up in and meet his parents and sister. We learn that James Woods likes to send his mom postcards from all the places he has assassinated people. This becomes an interesting detail as the hitman uses the corresponding dates on the postcards to authenticate his life story. But at one point, Woods goes into his mother’s room and talks to her about money and it becomes obvious that sh
e knows exactly what he does for a living. She is well aware of the fact that he murders people, but this element was deemed to be too strange and unsettling. I didn’t agree with the decision to lose that scene. It was an intimate little moment and keeping it in would have only enhanced Woods’ character and given the audience more insight into the hitman’s family life and background. Those are the only scenes that I know for sure that were cut from the picture. As I said, Dennehy and Woods were very good actors, but it wasn’t the same as if we had used real stars. If Best Seller had starred Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in those roles, it would have been a blockbuster. It certainly would have been a much better movie. Both Lancaster and Douglas were very intelligent and creative actors, who always had a lot of input into the movies they appeared in. They would never have allowed that stupidity at the end to have been included in the film.

  How did Best Seller fare? I understand that it had a fairly short release.

  It didn’t do that well, even though — as I keep saying — it was a good picture all the way up to the climax. I don’t want to go on about it, but they killed the movie with that conclusion and it’s amazing how you can do that. If they had made that one little cut I suggested, maybe the word of mouth would have been a little better and Best Seller could have made some money. People are always so resilient about keeping their position; they never want to listen to what you have to say. It simply has to be their way and they are not interested in hearing any suggestions that might conflict with their own ideas and opinions. If you tell them they did something wrong, and even if that mistake can be easily rectified, they still can’t accept it. They just can’t. I keep telling you, that’s the recurring problem with the business. The trouble has nothing to do with the creativity and everything to do with the egos.