Well, dear readers, may I just pay my little tribute to Mr. Patrick Macnee, who passed away yesterday at the grand old age of ninety-three, an incredible run for a wonderful, warm, kind and talented gentleman. I’d always enjoyed him in The Avengers, especially the first series with Diana Rigg, which I discovered in the early 1970s. But I’d never met him until we began working on my second film, The Creature Wasn’t Nice (aka Spaceship, aka Naked Space and heaven knows what other titles). I recounted all of that experience in There’s Mel, There’s Woody, and There’s You. Casting the film proved to be an ordeal. Originally we had Richard Benjamin to play Captain Jameson, until one day our mutual agent called me and said he didn’t want to do it unless he could co-direct with me. I thanked him and said no, and he went his merry way and would shortly make his directorial debut in a much better way, with My Favorite Year. So, instead we got the wonderful and perfect Leslie Nielsen. For the role of the misfit, Rodzinski, the first two people we went to were Tim Thomerson and Geoffrey Lewis – both were busy with other projects. Then we offered it to Christopher Lloyd, who, amazingly, accepted. Three weeks before filming was to commence he dropped out due to some personal problems he was having. That led us to the perfect person – the great Gerritt Graham, who I’d loved in Phantom of the Paradise, where he played the rock star Beef. That left us only the role of Dr. Stark. Everyone thought it was a great idea to offer it to Christopher Lee. We did. He got back to us, saying, “I loved it until I got eaten.” I wish you could just hear that line as it came out in that unmistakable voice of his.
We then went to Jose Ferrer – my producer thought he would be great. His agent said he didn’t do low-budget nonsense like our film – he said this in a rather uppity way, so the producer and I were happy to say to him, “We know, we saw his latest film, Dracula’s Dog.” That was the end of that conversation. And then my agent at the time recommended Patrick. The minute he said his name, I said yes. And Patrick was on board and we had our five-person cast (well, six, if you count Ron Kurowski as the Creature). We all had the best time shooting the film. It’s hard to get people to understand that now, but the dailies were HILARIOUS every evening – we all went, we all howled with laughter, and we were all sure we were going to have a hit film. On the first day of filming (I think we only had one read-through of the script before we began), dear Patrick came up to me and said, “Please direct me. I don’t think I’m funny and I like to be directed.” Well, of course he was funny – he was funny because he didn’t TRY to be funny, he played it straight. But I loved directing him – he would take anything I said and make it his own and we all just adored him. As you might imagine, being on the set with such folks as Leslie Nielsen, it got pretty wild and wacky, and it did. Leslie had his little machine at all times. For those of you who don’t know about Leslie’s little machine, he had this little thing he kept in his hand and when he pressed it it made a fart noise. Not a hard to hear fart noise, mind you, but a big, loud fart noise. He did this at every opportunity, no matter who was standing around.
At one point, Patrick took me aside and said, “Does Leslie have problems, is he eating right?” He honestly had no idea about the machine until I told him and then he just howled with laughter. Of course, things didn’t turn out so well with the film, but the making of it could not have been more fun, even though we had to replace the cameraman a week into shooting. The editor was not up to the task, I, for whatever reason, was unable to get him up to the task or even on the right track – we needed someone who was like me, someone who had a skewed sense of humor and could see different ways of getting the laugh. Our editor was just a TV guy, meat and potatoes, with not a creative bone in his body. After our first screening at MGM, which started off with two of the biggest laughs I’ve ever heard, and continued to get big laughs, but I knew instantly the laughs were too far apart and we needed to be more creative than we were. And the film’s sure-fire showstopper, I Want to Eat Your Face, wasn’t working at all. The next morning, the editor and I went back in, I tightened a lot of stuff and completely re-edited I Want to Eat Your Face. The film played better the second screening and the song did bring the house down. But I needed another three weeks with a new editor, and the writing was on the wall that I wasn’t going to get them. Patrick was at one of the screenings and he really liked it a lot, despite the problems.
Then the score we had really didn’t help the film at all – in fact, it hurt it hugely. I was very specific about the kind of music I wanted, and my temp track really did the trick. But my composer just didn’t listen and came up with a ponderous theme that didn’t set the tone of the film, and then went against every scene scoring it in the opposite way he should have. And I was not strong enough to tell him no, stop, I’m not having it. It was the one and only time I was not strong enough, that I can tell you.
The end of the story is that the producers took the film, had it massively re-cut, added stock footage from other movies, removed Broderick Crawford as the computer voice and replaced it with some hipster radio kind of voice with dialogue written by someone else and strictly from hunger. The scene order was rearranged and, one of the first two huge laughs was removed completely and the other was moved to the middle of the film where it didn’t work nearly as well, and it was just embarrassing.
We had a one-week theatrical release somewhere and that was that – straight to home video and cable. The film is, of course, loathed by many, but over the years kids who found it on USA network became very attached to it and love it dearly – it doesn’t have the cult Nudie Musical has, but it’s fans are loyal, ever for that horrible re-cut. The original version plays much better these days, and I still think if I’d had that three weeks with another pair of eyes the outcome would have been different.
But getting to work with those people was all that really mattered to me. My then-wife and I had Patrick over for dinner a few times. He was a great raconteur and he loved my beef stroganoff, which is all you get when you come to a dinner party of mine. My ex-wife adored him just as I did. A decade later, I ran into him at a BAFTA party. He came right up to me, hugged me, and reiterated what a great time he’d had on the film and then was kind enough to tell me I was one of the best directors he’d worked with. True or not, it was a very sweet thing to say. So, you can’t really be sad when someone’s had such a long and wonderful life – you can only celebrate, so I celebrate Patrick Macnee and my short time with him. Rest in peace, dear Dr. Stark/John Steed. Here is our wonderful cast.
Yesterday, I think I got eight hours of sleep, I did work on the computer, and I had a cup of soup and a little grilled cheese and bacon sandwich for my meal o’ the day. Then I picked up one little package, then came home. We went up one more percent on the Kritzerland a GoGo Indiegogo campaign, so that was good, but we have to go up a lot more than that. I hope some kind and wealthy benefactor is just waiting until the last minute to get us where we need to go or closer to it, anyway. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finished watching The Night of the Generals, a seriously strange film from director Anatole Litvak. The cast is pretty terrific, with Omar Sharif especially excellent as an investigator of a murder, who will not give up. Peter O’Toole, who has gotten knocked in some quarters for this quirky performance, is excellent – I’m not sure why people find it so odd – he’s playing a character and playing it well. Donald Pleasance and Charles Gray are the other titular generals and they’re both very good, as is Coral Browne, Joanna Petit, and Tom Courteney – and, in a tiny role, Christopher Plummer. The film goes back and forth between modern day (circa when the film was made) and the war – Litvak is not a subtle director and his work here is pretty ham-fisted at times. But there is something very compelling about the film and it’s just very watchable. The score by Maurice Jarre is as odd as the film, so in my opinion it works. The transfer on this Twilight Time Blu-ray is superb – great color, sharp as a tack, and wonderful contrast.
I then did some finessing of the commentary, went for a jog, and then watched another motion picture on Blu-ray, this one entitled The Muppet Movie. I only saw the film once, during it’s original engagement, and I remember really enjoying it a lot. I had the DVD from the time it came out and had never watched it. Seeing it after all these years was a real treat. It’s sweet, funny, tuneful and Jim Henson was a genius, plain and simple. I’d forgotten all the great guest stars. Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher’s songs are fun and The Rainbow Connection is a total winner. From what I understand, the film’s director, James Frawley, made everyone miserable, but you can’t see that on the screen. The transfer is terrific. I went and read the reviews online and every one of them is beyond ridiculous because they just don’t understand film and its properties at ALL. These people need to seriously be sat down and taught was opticals are, how they were printed, especially in 1979, and what they look like. One wag said the opening shot was really soft but then everything looked better. Duh. The opening shot is one long optical – once you cut out of it, voila. The grain is very heavy, as it should be, in the opticals, of which there are plenty. Some of the wags think the grain has been somehow manipulated because it doesn’t look like normal grain. Note to wags: You don’t know what normal grain looks like, sorry. And this ISN’T normal grain this is optical grain, which looks completely different, which is why you see all that yellow in those shots. I can tell you that this film never looked good in its theatrical prints. No complaints here at all – a very satisfying viewing experience of a delightful film.
I then finessed some more, took a shower, and that was that.
Today, I have a noon o’clock work session, then a three o’clock appointment – I doubt I’ll get any food in me before five, and that’s fine.
Tomorrow I have a morning meeting, place to be determined. Then I’ll just continue finessing stuff and trying to keep getting folks to come in on the Indiegogo thing as we head towards our final day. Sunday, there’s something going on but I can’t remember what, and then we begin the very crazy and busy Kritzerland rehearsal week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a meeting, have another meeting, hopefully pick up packages, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, too many to list. Blu and Ray, The Bounty. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, wishing Patrick Macnee peace and happiness wherever his soul has gone.