Larry Cohen

by Michael Doyle

  I wouldn’t have come back to do another one. The company considered me to be a most disagreeable fellow anyway, not like the usual television directors they had employed. These films were usually directed by TV directors, or what they call “journeymen.” These are the directors who always finish on time and on budget, but don’t bring anything special to the production. They merely shoot the regular routine coverage with no creative deviations. I’ve had friends who’ve directed hundreds of episodes of shows like Barnaby Jones and Murder, She Wrote and they have not added one unique directorial flourish to any of the work they’ve done. It’s all completely homogenised and uninspired. These directors simply shoot the stuff and finish on time. That is what TV directing was in those days. It isn’t today, of course. Now there is a lot more creativity in episodic television and in Movies of the Week, particularly ones that are done for cable companies like HBO and Showtime. It’s become a whole different business, but back then, television was merely perfunctory.

  A lot of television shows, like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones, have the production values of movies, and contain convoluted and complex storylines that often surpass those found in cinema.

  Yes, but there is a difference: when you go to work on a show like any of those you just mentioned, the cast is already in place. You don’t get to cast anybody and the sets are already constructed. Also, the visual style has to match the look and feel of every other episode in the series. So, there is very little chance to bring anything unique — like I have in my films — to these projects. They want everything to look uniform from one episode to the next, and you can’t tell which particular director has directed which episode. I like to think that when anybody sees my movies, after a couple of minutes they instantly recognize it as a Larry Cohen movie. I like to have the feeling that I’m doing something that is uniquely me when I’m working. You can’t do something that has your own personality, identity, and stamp on any of these shows because everything has to look just like everybody else’s work.

  For the reasons you’ve stated, I imagine you are neither particularly proud nor pleased with As Good as Dead, as it, too, is mostly unvarying and featureless.

  Basically, I think it had a good story and there was a clever twist to the film. Again, I did enjoy working with Judge Reinhold and Traci Lords, and some of the supporting players. I did not like the production guys. I did not like the editor, and I did not like the cameraman, whatever the hell his name was. He was just used to shooting the regular TV coverage, and when you asked them for anything different — ugh! I once asked them for a crane, and when I arrived on the day, the crane wasn’t there. I said, “Hey, you promised me a crane.” They said, “Yeah, well, what are you going to do about it?” So, again, I had a choice: either walk off the set and quit or just shoot the scene without the crane. I decided to shoot the scene without the crane. I moved on, because I realized that this was just a couple of weeks and it would all be over soon and I could go home. I now look back on As Good as Dead as just another experience, but once was certainly enough. [Pause] At least I didn’t get fired.

  Original Gangstas (1996)

  How exactly did you come to be involved with Original Gangstas, as I understand that the project did not originate with you?

  That’s right. Fred Williamson was not only starring in the film, he was putting Original Gangstas together as the producer. He called me up and said that he was going to reunite all the original stars from the blaxploitation pictures of the 1970s — people like Richard Roundtree, Pam Grier, Ron O’Neal, Jim Brown, and himself of course — and make a big all-star movie. He then asked me if I would consider directing the film. I said, “Sure, I’ll do it, but why don’t you get a Black director to make the film?” My reasoning was that when we had made Black Caesar and Hell up in Harlem back in the early 1970s, there were very few Black directors working in the industry. By the mid-1990s, there were quite a number of notable Black directors who had been very successful and had made good movies. I suggested to Fred that he hire one of them to do the picture, but he suddenly said, “I don’t like taking orders from Black people.” I said, “Well, Fred, that’s just about the most racist thing I’ve ever heard, but if you truly feel that way then I’ll direct the picture.” Of course, I didn’t ever think for one moment that he was going to come up with the necessary financing, so I agreed to do it. This project wasn’t going to be one of Fred’s ultra-low budget movies. In fact, Original Gangstas was going to cost something approaching $4 million. I thought that figure was way beyond what Fred could bring and I never dreamed that he would raise that kind of dough.

  But, of course, he did.

  He did, yeah. Fred suddenly came back and said he’d secured the money to make the film and that we would be shooting it in Gary, Indiana. Gary was Fred’s hometown — actually, his mother still lived there — but that news greatly concerned me. I mean, Gary, Indiana, was the gang capital of America. There were more murders occurring there than in any other place in the United States. Every day, there was a shooting or a violent act of gang warfare, so I wasn’t too happy about having to go down there to make a movie. At this point, I had serious second thoughts about committing to the picture but I couldn’t really back out. I didn’t want to suddenly leave Fred in the lurch and screw up his project. Also, he was my friend and we’d enjoyed such a good time doing Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem together. So, despite my trepidation and being afraid for my own personal safety and the safety of my crew, we ventured off to Gary to make Original Gangstas. I just gritted my teeth and hoped that we wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire.

  What steps or precautions did you take to ensure your safety?

  We had 101 gang members employed on the picture as crew members and actors, and also as staff and back-up people. Every one of them behaved perfectly well on the set and everybody showed up on time. In fact, there was very little crime and very little violence in Gary whilst we were shooting the movie. That’s because mostly everybody affiliated with the gangs was working for us.

  Did Williamson make Original Gangstas for purely altruistic reasons? I believe he wanted to set the film in Gary to demonstrate that a neighbourhood “conversion” into gangland could happen anywhere, but he also wanted to create jobs and keep the city thriving.

  Yeah, that’s what he said, but it didn’t help Gary very much. In fact, after we finished the picture and left the city, within two weeks there was so much violence, murder, and chaos they had to bring in the National Guard to establish some order. Everybody literally went nuts after we had gone because they had nothing else to do anymore. They had invested a lot of hope in our project and there was a lot of activity to occupy them during the time that we were there. But once the movie company had gone, there was nothing for anybody to do except kill each other again. So, the shooting of the movie was all over in a month and everything went back to the way it was before. Maybe you could say that Fred helped the city for a month, but it didn’t really do any lasting good in the overall scheme of things, I believe.

  In an interview to promote the film, Williamson stated that it was “payback time” and that he had hired you to direct Original Gangstas in order to “clear his obligation” to you. What exactly did he mean by that?

  I have no idea. I’ve never felt that Fred had any obligation to me, although I guess Black Caesar and Hell up in Harlem were two of his most successful movies. We did go into profits on those pictures and I’ve been sending Fred cheques over the years. Every quarter, whenever I receive my profits from those movies, I always send my money onto him faithfully. I always fulfil my contractual obligations, which is rather unusual. Generally, people in the movie business do not pay off profits to other people. They usually steal the money and it’s a very dishonest profession. I don’t operate that way. I always paid Fred the money that was due him on a regular basis and I think he’s always appreciated it. Fred had also been directing pictures himself for several years after watchi
ng me direct. He thought he knew how to direct, but he didn’t. Most of the pictures Fred has directed are pretty bad. They were very sloppily made and I think that Original Gangstas was a bigger project than he thought he could handle. Fred wanted somebody to come in who could give him a quality movie. That’s why he asked me to do it. We hoped that the fun and laughs we’d shared on our earlier pictures would continue on Original Gangstas.

  And did it?

  No, it didn’t. As I mentioned earlier, Fred was the producer and therefore he was accountable for the money. Suddenly, he was wearing two hats: he was the actor in the picture but he was also the financially responsible person and that did not make him happy. Of course, that did not make me happy either because Fred didn’t know what he was doing in terms of producing a picture. All kinds of problems would occur that were difficult and I would have to work my way out of them. For example, we had a car in one scene where a guy was firing a machine gun out of the vehicle’s window. The next day when we had to shoot the additional coverage, Fred suddenly didn’t have the car anymore. He had gotten into a fight with the guy who owned it and this gentleman did not want to lend him the car back. So, now we had a completely different car. I said, “Fred, we can’t shoot this way. It’s not going to match.” He just looked at me like I was crazy. I said, “Look, I mean it. You have got to go back and apologize. You have to get the original car back or otherwise I’m not going to shoot it.” Situations like that put Fred and I at odds with each other, which had never occurred before. He was worried about expending the budget and about the fact that the contingency money would be spent and he wouldn’t be able to keep it. On most movies they have a budget and then the budget has a ten percent contingency that’s for the side. Apparently, in some cases, if you don’t spend that contingency money the producer can then keep it. So, Fred didn’t want to spend the contingency money, but of course, we had to spend it to get the picture made. Naturally, Fred didn’t like that because it was coming out of his pocket.

  Did you have to tighten up on certain basics or extravagances on the production?

  Oh sure, but that depends on your definition of what is an extravagance and what is a necessity. For example, another problem came when Fred would not spend the necessary money for air conditioning. The temperature down in Gary was something like 106° and the actors were nearly dying of the heat. It was very difficult to shoot them because they were perspiring so heavily. Also, a couple of the actors were having respiratory problems, and we had to bring in oxygen and put them on it. Despite this, Fred would still not spring for the air conditioning. Usually you bring in these huge portable air conditioning units with gigantic hoses and feed them through the windows to push in the cold air. That’s how it’s done on most movies, but Fred would not spend the money to get them. This really slowed things down, because we had to keep mopping the sweat off the actors and changing their wet clothes. It was very unpleasant and tiring working in that kind of intense heat. Anyway, those were some of the things I found difficult to deal with but this was a movie that I wasn’t in complete control of. I was in control of the creative aspects of directing the picture, but I wasn’t in control of the financial aspects. Fred was becoming more and more upset all the time with each expenditure, and this meant that certain tensions arose between us. So, Original Gangstas did not provide the same kind of fun we had enjoyed together previously. Since that time, Fred and I have patched up our differences and we are very friendly now. Actually, last year my wife and I spent the Christmas holidays with Fred down in Palm Springs. He and his wife were very cordial and we had a great time. So, our problems on Original Gangstas are all firmly in the past but, at the time, it was very difficult for me.

  Were you enthused to be returning to the blaxploitation genre more than two decades after doing Black Caesar and Hell up in Harlem?

  To me, Original Gangstas was just a gangster movie — Black or White — and I enjoyed that aspect of it. I saw the film as a crime story and social drama as much as an action or blaxploitation movie. What defined it as a blaxploitation film was, of course, the cast and I enjoyed the actors very much. There were a lot of good people in there, like Pam Grier, who was quite good in her part. In fact, Original Gangstas was the movie that got Pam Jackie Brown with Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino once told me that he went to see Original Gangstas in a Magic Johnson Theater with a predominantly Black audience in a predominantly Black section of Los Angeles. I said, “Why did you go to see it all the way over there?” He said, “I wanted to see it with the audience for which it was intended.” I think Tarantino came away from seeing Original Gangstas with an increased respect for Pam Grier and ended up hiring her for his next picture. Robert Forster was also in Original Gangstas playing a cop, and Tarantino ended up hiring Bob for Jackie Brown, as well. So, a lot of good things came out of Original Gangstas for some people, and I was very happy about that.

  Despite your history with blaxploitation movies, did you receive any static from certain quarters over the fact that you were a White director making what was perceived to be a Black picture? I know that Tarantino and Michael Mann received similar criticisms after making Jackie Brown and Ali, respectively.

  No, I never had any problems, not from anyone. The only criticisms or doubts came from me, when I first suggested to Fred at the beginning that he should hire a Black director for the project. Other than that, nobody ever said anything, at least not directly to me. I did not anticipate that there would ever be any problems about the fact I was white and the cast was predominately Black.

  Had you seen any of the films that had been made about Black gang life, such as Boyz n the Hood and Menace 2 Society before embarking on Original Gangstas?

  Oh yeah, absolutely. I saw them all and those two movies in particular were very good. They succeeded in crossing over into the general audience by virtue of the fact that they were very well written and directed films. In fact, some of the initial reviews we got of Original Gangstas likened our picture to Boyz n the Hood. The New York Times review actually commented that we had covered some of the same areas and issues as Boyz n the Hood and with the same degree of insight and sensitivity. They saw some quality to Original Gangstas — other than it merely being some kind of knuckle-headed action movie about people shooting each other.

  Did you do a polish on Aubrey Rattan’s screenplay?

  I rewrote Rattan’s script extensively. It’s funny, but I always thought that Aubrey Rattan was a Black man. In fact, I was very hesitant to rewrite his script because I didn’t want to take anything away from a Black writer. I was happy that a Black writer was getting his work produced and I didn’t want to put in for any credit, even though I firmly believe that I would have received co-screenplay credit if I had applied for arbitration. I figured, “No, I won’t do that. Let this Black writer get his credit in full.” Then, at the premiere of the movie and the party afterwards, I was introduced to Rattan and he was a White guy! [Chuckles] I was flabbergasted by that, actually.

  What specific things did you revise in the script?

  Oh, I changed a lot of it, including the whole thrust of the story. I also rewrote almost all of the dialogue. I came up with the whole business about rigging the weapons so that they would explode and I also devised the big fight at the end. All of the father’s dialogue in the hospital, when he spoke about his life and sleeping in a cardboard box and all that stuff, was all written by me. I didn’t mind rewriting the script at all. Every morning, I’d climb into the trailer with a pad and write the scene for the day and distribute it to everybody. We would then go shoot it and that was it. I felt that none of the stuff really worked in the original script, because we didn’t always have the same locations we were supposed to have. In some cases, even some of the cast members were not around when they were supposed to be around, which also necessitated some changes.

  Why weren’t certain actors available at certain times?

  Well, the key moment came when somebody informed me th
at Jim Brown was leaving that very same day. I said, “Nobody told me that Jim was leaving. He still has several scenes to shoot. What’s the story here?” I went to see Jim and he said, “Fred has known since the beginning that I had a stop date. I have to attend a political convention in New Jersey.” I said, “Fred certainly never told me.” So, I went to see Fred and said, “How can you let Jim leave? He hasn’t finished his part. We’ll be left hanging if he suddenly disappears from the movie.” Naturally, Fred did not know what to tell me. I said, “We have got to get him back. There is simply no other way around this situation.” I then went back to Jim and said, “Look, what if we flew you to New Jersey? What if you made your appearance at this rally, then we flew you back here to finish the picture? Would you do that?” Jim said, “Well, I can give you two days.” So, we had Jim flown there and back again, and he gave us the two days. Fred had to cough up for the additional airfare — a round-trip on a private plane, which cost a lot of money — and he wasn’t too happy about that. I was delighted because it meant I got to finish the movie. You know, as a matter of fact, I don’t think Jim gave me two days, I think it was just one day. Yeah, that’s right. It was only the one day. I had to shoot all the rest of his scenes in just one day.

  Were any of blaxploitation’s “Fab Five” at all reluctant to commit to Original Gangstas for any particular reason?

  Not as I recall. Richard, Pam, Jim, and Ron were all in place, and I have to credit Fred entirely for that. He arranged the casting of all the lead parts and all the supporting roles, too: the mother and father, the gangsters, and Bob Forster, as well as Charles Napier [1] and Wings Hauser [2] who played the mayor and mayor’s delegate respectively. Charles and Wings had been widely seen in other exploitation pictures over the years, and they were both excellent actors. I had nothing to do with securing them, but I was delighted to have them in the movie. In their own way, both of them were name actors in genre films. They had a lot of fans out there who appreciated their work, so I wrote new scenes for them, including the scene in the chapel where Wings shows up. I tried to give both Charles and Wings something that was a little meatier than what was originally there. The same goes for all the blaxploitation stars, I really wanted to give them something good. It was a lot of fun working with them all on one movie, and each one brought something to their part. There was certainly no reluctance from any of them to be involved. Pam Grier was very nice and co-operative, but I didn’t get to know her very well. She was always pleasant on the set, but off the set we never had very much to do with each other. Pam was always very focused and professional, and always knew her lines. Richard Roundtree came in and did his job, and it was just a job for him. I hadn’t worked with Richard since Q and he was only there for something like a week. He was pleasant enough, but all I remember about Richard on Original Gangstas is that he usually took his wardrobe with him when he left. The clothes you see him wearing in that picture? They went home with him! [Chuckles]