Larry Cohen

by Michael Doyle

  Davis obviously did not want to look ridiculous.

  And I understood that. I knew Bette did not like the way she looked in the film. It was bad enough that she looked emaciated and ill, but that might have been acceptable to an audience because she was playing this wicked old witch. Although Bette was having trouble speaking and moving, I shot and edited the picture as best I could to make her look as good as possible. I tried to carefully choreograph her movements around the set and paid close attention to how I was shooting her. I’d walk her from one position to the other, moving the camera at the same time to disguise the limp she had. In some instances where you see Miranda moving rather quickly, we used a double and later inserted shots of Bette to make it appear as if she was more mobile. So, I tried to minimise the negative aspects of her performance, but there was only so much I could do. As we were working during that first week, Bette knew her performance was poor and at one point she asked to see the dailies. I was reluctant to agree to that as I did not want to show her the dailies at all. Finally, we both went into one of the rooms and closed the door behind us. Bette then sat down on the bed and started to cry. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, alone in a room with Bette Davis, and she was crying. It was a sad and surreal experience. She looked up at me and said, “I have to see the dailies, Larry. I have to see what I look like.” I now realize she wanted to see what was going on with her teeth, but at the time I had no idea what was troubling her. At that moment, I only saw she was feeling very vulnerable. So, I said, “Okay, Bette, on Saturday I’ll run the dailies for you.” That weekend, we viewed the dailies together, and when she saw what was going on, Bette never came back again.

  How did the younger actors in the cast like Colleen Camp and David Rasche behave around Davis?

  Colleen and David wanted to be in the picture because Bette was going to be in it. Let’s not forget, whatever state Bette was in, she was still Hollywood royalty. I’m sure they both enjoyed meeting Bette and hanging out with her, although I don’t think Bette really had much to do with anybody on the movie except me. She wasn’t unfriendly to anybody, but she did spend a little time in her dressing room. If anybody brought friends or relatives to the set to meet her, Bette was always cordial and pleasant. She would sit down with any visitors and chat with them and exchange anecdotes. I wouldn’t say that Bette was aloof with the cast members, but she wasn’t that chummy with them either. I do recall that one day David Rasche, who was playing the young husband, made the mistake of interfering in a discussion Bette and I were having about blocking a scene. We were having a disagreement about whether she should be standing up or sitting down for the shot when David interrupted us and said, “I think Bette is right about this.” As soon as he spoke, Bette turned around and for a moment there was the familiar, strong Bette Davis with the flashing eyes. She suddenly barked at him, “You keep out of this! He is directing this picture! I don’t want to hear another sound from you!” I turned to look at David, but he was already gone. Literally, all I saw of him was the last of his heels crossing the door as he exited the room! [Laughs] All it took was a few sharp words from Bette, but she could do that. She wasn’t going to tolerate interference from anybody, certainly not from an actor who was telling me how to direct my movie. David was playing sides with Bette, but she was definitely on my team all the way. I should add that Bette chose Colleen Camp for the role of the housewife. We had a casting session, but Bette selected Colleen because she liked her, and I liked her, too. Bette also requested Lionel Stander to play the part of the widower she marries. So, I went out and got Lionel and put him in the picture. That also made me happy because I was always a big fan of Lionel’s work. I must also say that one of the many things that fascinated me about Bette was her amazing ability to zero-in on other people’s deficiencies.

  Can you give me an example of that ability?

  [Chuckles] Well, I remember we had the first reading of the script over at my house. Afterwards, Bette took me aside and said that Lionel was deaf. I said, “That’s okay, Bette, he’s still a wonderful actor. Don’t worry about it.” I mean, there she was, barely able to stand up without hanging on my arm, and she was telling me that Lionel had a severe deficiency! Later on, I suggested that we hire Paul Henreid to do a cameo in the movie. The idea was that he could appear as the ghost of the witch’s ex-husband. I thought Henreid could’ve had two cigarettes dangling from his mouth as a takeoff on the famous scene he and Bette shared together in Now, Voyager. [4] I thought it would be fun to reunite them on screen, but Bette suddenly said, “Oh, have you seen him lately? Paul can’t be photographed! He’s in terrible condition!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There was Bette swaying in front of me, looking like she’d just crawled out of a coffin, and she was telling me I couldn’t hire Paul Henreid because his appearance was so awful! Another time, I asked Bette about Lillian Gish, with whom she had just co-starred in The Whales of August. [5] Bette said, “They complained that I deliberately lowered my voice so that Lillian couldn’t hear her cues. She’s so deaf I could have shouted my lines out of a bullhorn and she would never have heard me!” So, as you can see, Bette was merciless about other people’s weaknesses but completely oblivious of her own.

  Speaking of ghosts, a neat touch is having the photograph of Jenny’s mother on the dresser which of course is a picture of Davis’ great rival, Joan Crawford.

  Actually, that was not in the original script, and when Bette saw that shot in the dailies, she was very upset. She thought I was trying to put something over on her and I don’t know why. I suspect it probably had something to do with Mommie Dearest, [6] a book that had been written by Joan Crawford’s daughter saying what a terrible person Crawford had been. Bette’s own daughter, B.D., [7] then went and wrote a scathing book about her saying what a terrible mother Bette had been. Somehow, a connection had been formed in Bette’s mind between the criticism of her own motherhood and the shot of Crawford’s photograph. She thought I was making some kind of personal comment on the raising of her child and, of course, I wasn’t. Bette wasn’t even on speaking terms with her daughter anymore, but that book was very damaging. I don’t think Bette ever really recovered from the hurt of it. Although I must say, long after that book had been published and even though the two had been estranged for some years, Bette still had pictures of B.D. on the mantelpiece in her apartment. I guess Bette still harboured hopes of reconciling with her daughter someday.

  How confident were you during shooting that you would be able to cobble together a workable film?

  Oh, I always believed that Wicked Stepmother would come out alright after Bette had gone, because I still had a reasonably coherent story to tell. But if I had known that Bette was going to drop out of the picture I would have shot more of her scenes during the first week. I now regret that I shot other people’s scenes while Bette was sitting in the dressing room, doing nothing but smoking. I could have had as much as twenty-five minutes of Bette if I’d only shot nothing but her scenes all week long. As it was, I believe we only had around fifteen to twenty minutes of her — perhaps a little less — but I could not have anticipated what was going to happen. I wish I could have received some kind of clue. I thought she was going to be on the picture for the entire four-week shoot, so I continued with the schedule as I ordinarily would have done.

  After Miranda vanishes, you tie up the loose end by having the Witch Instructor reveal that two witches can’t occupy the same body at the same time.

  I tried to fashion some logic out of the whole situation by having Evelyn Keyes come in as this witch expert. If you watch any movies about witches, like Bell, Book and Candle and I Married a Witch, there is always a lot of nonsense about the rules of witchcraft. My feeling is that the rules of witchcraft are pretty much anything you want to make them. Witches are flexible creatures and can be altered and reconfigured in order to fit the story you want to tell. I tried to do a takeoff on The Wizard of Oz in the scene where the housewife throws a buck
et of water over Priscilla, only for Priscilla to say, “This is reality not MGM, Dorothy!” I wanted to make fun of the regulations and rituals of witchcraft, but also recognize the fact that movies have impacted on the way witches are portrayed in works of fiction. Even though legends and tales of witches have existed for thousands of years, movies have also contributed to their mythology in some amusing and interesting ways. I mean, our picture even has a black cat smoking a cigarette! [Laughs] That’s got to be a first, right?

  Why, immediately before Davis makes her first appearance in Wicked Stepmother, did you insert explicit references to two of horror cinema’s most recognizable boogeymen, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees?

  That was one of several tricks I used. That scene was supposed to be from the point of view of the housewife after she discovers that this horrible old woman has married her father and moved into her home. In her mind it’s exactly like having Freddy or Jason in her midst. The other purpose of doing that was to juice the scene up a little since Bette’s appearance was so shocking. I felt there had to be some kind of transition or diversion that would soften that shock for the audience. I thought the sight of her would be particularly alarming for those viewers who hadn’t seen Bette onscreen for a while and remembered her somewhat differently. I thought if I cut in those shots of Freddy and Jason, maybe we’d get a laugh and the audience would relax a little and accept Bette’s appearance. It really was disturbing to first see her, even for me. I can recall seeing Bette at the Golden Globes ceremony a couple of months before I wrote the script. She came on stage to present an award and was literally dragging her leg behind her. Bette was still suffering the facial paralysis from her stroke and she looked dreadful. Frankly, the audience were stunned that night and just couldn’t believe what they were seeing. I mean, you could really feel it in the room. In fact, sitting at the next table to mine was Barbara Stanwyck. I glanced over at Stanwyck and noticed that she’d clasped a hand over her mouth and was visibly gasping. Stanwyck wasn’t in the best of health herself at this point and actually died pretty soon afterwards of emphysema, but she still looked rather good. But Bette looked frightening and, oddly enough, Stanwyck was a star before Bette had even made any movies. However, Stanwyck never reached Bette’s iconic standing and level of acceptance. Bette Davis was, unequivocally, the queen of Hollywood.

  You just mentioned that you employed “several tricks” to soften Davis’ first appearance in the film. Exactly what were they?

  I tried to cram a lot of stuff in at the beginning of the movie to build up the witch’s character and reputation before you saw her, making her almost this legendary figure. I did this because, again, I knew everybody would be disturbed by the sight of Bette. During the prologue, Tom Bosley plays a detective, who arrives at this house to investigate the disappearance of a family who were previously associated with the witch. I put in several lines of dialogue where characters are saying things like, “She’s a horrible-looking old woman,” and “She could be a hundred years old.” All of this was designed to anticipate Bette’s first appearance onscreen. I know all of this might sound a little extreme, but the strong reactions I had witnessed to Bette’s appearance convinced me that I had to do something. I also wrote the scene where there is a police line-up of old women who’ve been brought in by the cops to apprehend this witch. I figured that these old women looked pretty bad themselves. My reasoning was that Bette might not look so bad herself after the audience had seen this parade of elderly ladies. Honestly, these were all considerations that we made. I was trying everything to lessen the impact of Bette’s first appearance, but I guess I failed in that respect because everybody still kept endlessly talking about the way Bette looked.

  Did you encourage the actors to go all out in their performances?

  In a comedy, everything is always heightened and a bit of an exaggeration, so the genre invites that kind of colourful performance. There’s always the danger that an actor will push it too far, but I thought all the performances in Wicked Stepmother were nicely measured and in keeping with the tone and mood. The fascinating thing about comedy is that when you encourage actors to go a little crazy and be inventive, you can achieve a real spontaneity and freshness. You can still achieve those improvisational effects when everything is tightly scripted and choreographed, but it isn’t as much fun to do. I’d always intended to surround Bette with accomplished comedic actors because I thought that environment would bring out the best in her. The entire supporting cast did do a fine job and I still think that Wicked Stepmother is the best part Colleen Camp has ever played in a movie. David Rasche and Tom Bosley had done a lot of comedy before Wicked Stepmother and were very adept at it. As for Lionel Stander, it was all pretty effortless for him. I mean, Lionel had worked with some of the greats like Carole Lombard, Katherine Hepburn and Gene Arthur. He’d enjoyed a long and successful career. Lionel was even in A Star is Born with Janet Gaynor! I have these old newspapers from the day I was born and as it happens Lionel was actually appearing in a movie that was playing on Broadway at the Capital Theater the very day I came into the world. I know Lionel also enjoyed working with Laurene Landon, who played the game-show hostess. He was very taken with Laurene and her comedic abilities. Lionel actually told me that he thought Laurene had the potential to be a huge star, and he’d know because he’d worked with most of them.

  How much of the budget was spent on the special effects for the climactic showdown between Jenny [Colleen Camp] and Priscilla?

  It wasn’t a great deal of the money as we didn’t have a huge effects budget. In fact, it was the kind of budget where you only got to make everything once! We didn’t get an opportunity to go back and do things over and over again like on big Hollywood films. Whatever we got on the first pass, that was what we had to live with as there was no time or money to finesse things. I think the special effects in the movie are not too bad. Yes, they are a bit hokey and ropey, but Wicked Stepmother is a comedy. It’s not a realistic, literal production, and, in those terms, the effects fitted the wackiness of the whole film in a rather loose, self-conscious way. What I mean is, on one level, the effects needed to be a little cheesy. And I don’t say that to hide the incompetence of some special effects people, who can often seriously fuck up your movie.

  Were you generally sympathetic to the demands you placed on special effects artists toiling under the constraints of your low-budget productions?

  Firstly, let me just say that it’s amazing how much incompetence there is in the special effects business in terms of the quality of the work that sometimes comes in. I’ve had experiences where the effects are delivered and they are neither good nor suitable. What would always annoy me was when an artist would come in with a particular makeup or an effect and say, “I know this isn’t quite right, but I wanted you to see it.” I would then inevitably reply, “If you knew it wasn’t right, why did you do it in the first place? Why bring me something that you know is not good? Are you doing this to intentionally get me upset? Go away and fix it!” Then certain individuals would approach me and say, “Larry, you are mistreating the special effects people. You were so nasty to that guy.” In my defence I would argue, “How can I not be nasty to him when he brings me something that he already knows is deficient?” When you are making a low-budget movie, you can ill afford to waste time and money looking at something that is clearly wrong. Fix it, make it right, and then bring it in! That level of incompetence amazes me, but that’s the way some people are. When you are fighting a tight schedule, and have little money, you’d prefer it if the artists brought you stuff that they know is done to the best of their ability. Why would anybody want my observations on something they’ve already acknowledged is a failure? It’s crazy!

  Were you happy with the shot of the miniaturised people in the shoebox?

  There are a number of things I like about Wicked Stepmother, but that shot isn’t one of them. I wanted the movie to open with somebody discovering a shoebox full of these tiny
people — all of them victims of this witch — calling for help. I thought it would be an interesting scene, but that’s another thing that could have been done better. We built an oversized shoebox set and put a big shoe in it along with some actors and shot it from overhead, high up on a crane. It wasn’t entirely successful, but for the money we had to spend it looked okay. That was the first big effects shot of the movie and I wanted it to look good. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the money to matte Tom Bosley’s hands into the shot, so that it looked as if a huge pair of hands were holding the shoebox. That would have certainly added more value to the shot.

  The film ends with the detective and his vehicle shrinking as they drive along a highway. He then looks into camera and says, “I suppose this means there’s a sequel.” Judging by the reviews, most critics hoped there wouldn’t be one.

  I’m sure that’s true. I really expected the entire audience to yell back at the screen, “That’s what you think!” [Chuckles] To be honest, I hardly saw any reviews of the picture. If you have any reviews please send them to me because I didn’t read any of them. I’m sure that a lot of the people who lambasted Wicked Stepmother didn’t even see the movie. They probably thought that because Bette left the picture, there must have been something seriously wrong with it. If they’d actually watched the film, they might have found it enjoyable. Many of the contemporary articles were more concerned with Bette’s departure and not the picture’s overall quality. I certainly read a lot of that stuff. Everybody seemed to have an opinion that Wicked Stepmother was not up to her usual standards and that she had been mishandled. There was never much published about Bette’s dental problems, because I chose not to respond in public to any of her remarks or those made by other people. I didn’t want to attack Bette or do anything that might prevent her from making another movie. Perhaps somebody else would have hired Bette after her teeth were fixed and I didn’t want to say anything bad. I liked Bette, and even our last conversation on the phone before she left, was very friendly. She actually apologized and never accused me of anything. She said, “Larry, I’ve made a terrible mistake and I can’t continue.” If only she had come to me before and told me about them. I would not have fired her. I would have listened and tried to find a resolution to this situation that satisfied everybody. That would have been better than Bette basically trying to deceive me. Bette prided herself on being a totally frank and honest individual. She was from New England and had that New England attitude of, “Hey, I’m right up front. I’m a straight-shooter and I always tell it the way it is.” Unfortunately, she didn’t always tell it the way it is. She misled me into thinking she could do the part when she knew that she couldn’t. She tried to get through it and then, when that proved impossible, she tried to get out of it by blaming me in public. Of course, some journalists knew the facts and reported her version, as well as the truth. I just kept my mouth shut. All I said was: “A lot of people give Bette Davis testimonials and awards and honors, but I gave her a job.”