Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: Hollywood, Behind The Camera - Part 2 of 3

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies: 

Hollywood, Behind The Camera

Part 2 of 3

Oh, those whacky producer and directors! All that behind-the-scenes drama - the power struggles, the money troubles, the casting decisions - it proved to be ripe material, the kind Hollywood couldn't resist. So, in the quest for on-screen magic, Tinseltown cannibalized it's own, putting it out there for all the world to see.

Today's Let's Go To The Movies edition takes a second look at the fictionalized accounts of some very real movers and shakers in the industry - which, of course, makes for the juiciest of gossip.

So, let's dig in and take a look at the making of these films about Hollywood's elite.

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The Band Wagon

(1953)

A famous singer/dancer movie star, is feeling washed-up and old-hat (old top hat, tie, and tails to be exact). The reporters are all hot for Ava Gardner, not him. But his old friends, a pair of married writer, have an idea for a funny little Broadway show and he agrees to do it. But things begin to get out of hand when a bigshot artistic director/producer  joins the production, proclaims it's a modernistic Faust tale and insists on hiring a prima ballerina to co-star. The star and ballerina meet and it's hate at first sight. And her jealous choreographer isn't helping to ease the tension. The show seems doomed by pretentiousness, overkill and artistic intentions. But romance, a 'let's put on a show' epiphany, and a triumphant opening are waiting in the wings... if they can just make it to opening night!

This romantic-comedy musical was directed by Vincente Minnelli, stars Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant, and Jack Buchanan.

A pre-production article in The Hollywood Reporter named Vera-Ellen as Astair's co-star in this film.

Vincent Price and Edward G. Robinson were considered for the role of the pretentious director.

Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green made the characters played by Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant a married couple because they felt that the audiences would not accept a male/female writing team who weren't married to each other, even though the characters were based on Comden and Green, who were not married to each other.

Nanette Fabray stated that Oscar Levant was difficult to work with. Whenever something would go wrong or he would make a mistake, he would blame whoever was around. This included stagehands, other actors, lighting technicians, or whoever was handy. She said that, since she was usually closest, she caught the brunt of it. Following a botched take, he again blamed her for something. She lost her temper and told him off using unladylike language. Everyone on the set applauded. After that, he was much easier to work with.

Choreographer Michael Kidd was terrified of showing Fred Astaire his ideas for the Girl Hunt ballet because they were the antithesis of the persona that Astaire usually had - that of an elegant man in top hat, white tie, and tails. It turned out Astaire loved all Kidd's ideas and even suggested some of his own.

Most of the songs in the film are not original to the movie. Its most famous song came about when producer Arthur Freed was concerned that there was something missing from the film. Freed asked Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz to come up with something similar to Irving Berlin's There's No Business Like Show Business. So, Schwartz and Dietz left, and 45 minutes later they came back with That's Entertainment.

You and the Night and the Music, during which Astaire and Charisse are overwhelmed by burst after burst of explosive flames, is a joke on the part of director Vincente Minnelli - at his own expense - referencing his similarly overproduced ballet from The Pirate (1948).

And the songs aren't the only thing borrowed... Many of the props, sets, and costumes for the huge production number that goes wrong in rehearsal in Boston are from Lovely to Look At (1952), Ziegfeld Follies (1945), and An American in Paris (1951).

The glass bathtub seen in the Girl Hunt ballet was created for The Women (1939), in which it was used by Joan Crawford.

Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse

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The Producers

(1967)

A down-on-his-luck theatrical producer is forced to romance rich old ladies to finance his efforts. When his timid accountant reviews the books, the two hit upon a way to make a fortune by producing a sure-fire flop called Springtime for Hitler.

This black comedy satire was written and directed by Mel Brooks and stars Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, and Kenneth Mars... with an incredible turn by Estelle Winwood.

When Mel Brooks was sixteen years old, he worked for a cash-strapped theatrical producer who'd raise funds by sleeping with his investors, most of whom were elderly women. "He pounced on little old ladies and would make love to them. They gave him money for his plays, and they were so grateful for his attention." In Manhattan, Brooks also knew a pair of showmen who had more or less failed their way into prosperity. "They were doing flop after flop and living like kings. A press agent told me, 'God forbid they should ever get a hit, because they'd never be able to pay off the backers!' I coupled the producer with these two crooks and, BANG!, there was my story."

Newspaper articles from 1966 indicate Brooks originally conceived of this as a Broadway comedy titled Springtime for Hitler, and that his original choice for the role of the accountant was Paul Anka.

Since Mel Brooks had never directed a movie before, he had to convince Joseph E. Levine that since he had written the script, he could visualize making it much better than any other outside director new to the project. He also agreed to work for scale.

Upon completion, Levine hated the results and wanted to shelve the film. At that time it was still titled Springtime for Hitler and Levine told Brooks the film wouldn't be released because he thought it was in poor taste and not very funny. The only reason the film ever got released at all was due to the intervention of Peter Sellers; Sellers loved it. When he heard it would not be released, he began calling Levine constantly, eventually convincing the producer to release it. The only compromise? The title had to be changed to The Producers.

Dustin Hoffman was originally to be involved, he was under consideration for a number of roles, but ended up working opposite Brooks's wife, Anne Bancroft in The Graduate instead.

Gene Wilder was hired to replace Hoffman because of his own connection to Bancroft. The two had appeared together in the play Mother Courage, early in her relationship with Mel Brooks. He would pick her up after rehearsals, and in so doing met Wilder.

Brooks said that producer Levine wanted to fire Gene Wilder after seeing some of the footage because he thought he 'stunk'. Levine wanted to give Brooks $35,000 more to find someone better, but Brooks convinced the producer that Wilder was fine, and would make the movie work.

To better get into character, Kenneth Mars slept in his costume every night. It was also Mars' idea to have his character's helmet spattered with pigeon poop.

The script was sent to Zero Mostel's lawyer, but the attorney hated it and never showed it to his client. Eventually, Brooks sent the script to Mostel's wife, Kathryn Harkin. While Mostel did not like the prospect of playing "a Jewish producer going to bed with old women on the brink of the grave", his wife liked the script so much, she eventually convinced him to accept the role.

Mostel was thoroughly embarrassed by how fat he was during the filming, and lamented how, for all he'd done, he'd be forever remembered as "That fat guy in The Producers."

Mostel took Gene Wilder under his wing and the two became friends. "You may have heard stories about how bombastic, aggressive, and dictatorial Zero might be," said Wilder. "It didn't happen with me. He always took care of me. I loved him. He looked after me as if I were a baby sparrow."

Although Brooks always had Mostel in mind to play the lead, they reportedly had a clash of ego on the set, and found it hard to get along. Indeed, they never worked together again.

Mostel had it written into his contract that he didn't have to work past 5:30 pm, due to a leg injury he had suffered in a bus accident. Assistant director Michael Hertzberg managed to convince him once to work overtime, but had to endure Mostel screaming his lungs off at him for several minutes. The last scene at the Lincoln Center's fountain, an impromptu substitute, caused Mostel to throw a fit and refuse to participate.  Sidney Glazier had to leave a dentist appointment and rush to the set where Mostel and Brooks were arguing. and once the producer managed to calm them both down, the scene had to be shot into the wee hours of the morning!

As Brooks recalled: "I was just a traffic cop; I mean, I did very little directing. With Gene I did very soft and quiet lying, and told him in a nice, simple, kind manner, that he was a genius; and that we were so fortunate to have him. And then I would go to Zero and I would scream, 'You're the best thing in this! Without you, we're finished!' Then I'd go back to Gene and say, 'Zero is killing us; if it weren't for your performance, we'd be finished'. You know, I kept lying to both of them."

The hysterical scene was filmed at the end of a long day, and an exhausted Gene Wilder toldc Brooks that he just didn't think he "had it in him" to shoot it that day. Brooks solved the problem by loading the actor up with sugar and caffeine (in the form of two Hershey bars and a cup of coffee), after which the scene was shot in just two takes. Wilder imagined Mostel was hurting his pet dog to put him in the right frame of mind. As Wilder recalled: "The hysterical part, you know, that came pretty easy. I don't know if I could do it today. In those days, I was ripe. Mel used to say, 'You're a perfect victim. The wolves are around because they smell a sheep. And you're the sheep.' "

Estelle Winwood said about the film, "Oh, that dreadful picture. I can't bear to watch it, even on a small television. I must have needed the money, living in Hollywood weakens one's motives. It reminds me of the saying that nobody ever went broke underestimating the American public's taste."

Brooks has said that one of his 'lifelong jobs' is "to make the world laugh at Adolf Hitler." The film was a way to enact vengeance through comedy. "The only real way I could get even with Hitler and company was to bring them down with laughter."  According to Brooks, "Jewish organizations at the beginning were outraged. They didn't get the joke." Within a few months of the movie's release, Brooks received angry letters from, in his estimation, "every Rabbi in New York." He took these very seriously. "I wrote a reply to every single letter I got, explaining 'You can't get on a soap box with Hitler. You've got to ridicule him.'"

Brooks cannot read music. The songs Springtime for Hitler and Prisoners of Love (as well as all the songs Brooks writes for his films) were hummed into a tape recorder and transcribed by an expert. When Brooks adapted the movie into a stage musical, he wrote the entire score by himself using the same method.

Brooks was so surprised to win the Oscar for Best Screenplay, he collected the award without a speech prepared.

The film was initially a box-office failure. It didn't gain popularity until 16mm prints circulated in colleges throughout the 1970s.

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The Last Movie

(1971)

After a film shoot in Peru is shut down when an actor is killed, the unit wrangler decides to give up film-making and stay. But his dreams of a simple life are cut short when the local priest asks him to help: the villagers are killing one another by re-enacting scenes from the film because they don't understand that a film's violence is not real.

This metafictional drama was directed and edited by Dennis Hopper, who also stars in the lead role of the horse wrangler. Written by Stewart Stern, based on a story by Hopper and Stern, the film stars an extensive supporting cast including Stella Garcia, Don Gordon, Peter Fonda, Julie Adams, Sylvia Miles, Samuel Fuller, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Tomas Milian, Toni Basil, Severn Darden, Henry Jaglom, Rod Cameron, and Kris Kristofferson & Michelle Phillips.

 

After the success of Easy Rider (1969), Universal Studios created a youth division, making 'semi-independent' films for low budgets in hopes of generating similar profits. The idea was to make five movies at $1 million or less, not interfere in the filmmaking process, and give the directors total control and a share in the profits.

The main premise of the film - indigenous natives enacting a movie-making ritual - is based on Hopper's own experiences while filming The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) in Mexico, in which he observed the locals doing the same thing.

Conceived  in the mid-1960s, Hopper wanted Montgomery Clift to play the lead, but Clift died before production began. He then offered the role to John Wayne, Ben Johnson and Willie Nelson. Jack Nicholson was in talks to play the lead, but then, Hopper, himself, decided to do it, explaining, "It was easier doing it myself than explain to another actor what I wanted."

Initially, drug use was rampant on and off the set. Reporter Kit Carson, answered his door one evening and a man with a bottle offered him some ether. "I mean, everything you can imagine was being done in this hotel. That whole shoot, that was one of the most out-of-control situations I've ever seen."

As filming went on, the crew turned to booze rather than drugs as the temperature dropped markedly. At the film's final shoot, Hopper hollered, "This picture was not made on grass. This picture was made on scotch and soda." During filming, Hopper's personal supply of grass was stolen and for the rest of the shoot he had to bum from other people's private stashes.

In Peru, Hopper managed to offend the government by spouting the joys of marijuana and expressing tolerance of homosexuality. The ruling junta started investigating Hopper's background, not liking what they saw. Hopper had a fling with one of the groupies who was on the set shopping around for drugs. Then he kicked her out because he was convinced that she was a spy for the government. This wasn't paranoia - the local government had posted spies among the crew, looking for any excuse to kick Hopper out of the country.

Kris Kristofferson said: "I see the guy he's mellowed into now and I love Dennis. But back then, he was the most self-destructive guy I had ever seen! He got a priest defrocked because he got him involved in some weird mass for James Dean. He antagonized the military and all the politicians. It was crazy."

In a Playboy interview, Hopper said that he had real sex on camera with Stella Garcia in the waterfall scene. He said she was wet, so he went for it.

Hopper came back from shooting in Peru with more than 40 hours worth of footage. His final cut, after more than a year of editing, was incomprehensible to many people at the studio. The long post-production and editing process is documented in The American Dreamer (1971).

Amazingly, filming was completed on schedule and within budget. A physically drained Hopper now had to edit the film, which he did in Taos rather than Hollywood. It took a year to cut forty hours worth of footage into a two-hour film because Hopper was constantly changing the message he wanted to convey. When the studio called him up to check on his progress, Hopper cursed them on the phone. And when they came to see a rough version, Hopper retreated to a local bar instead.

When Hopper delivered it to Universal, Lew Wasserman, who had overseen the production and was in charge of the Universal independent subsidiary at the time, wanted Hopper to re-cut the film. Hopper adamantly refused. Wasserman then said that if he did not re-cut the film, it would only play for a limited time in the U.S. and that it would not be distributed in Europe even though European audiences were awaiting its release. Hopper still refused to re-cut the film, and refused to speak to Wasserman for years.  

Upon completion and rejection by the studio brass, Hopper refused to edit the film into a more commercial form and Universal played it for just a couple of weeks in L.A. before shelving it, despite the fact that it won the 'CIDALC Award' at the 32nd Venice International Film Festival.

But it wasn't all roses and accolades... At a test-screening at the University of Iowa, Hopper was booed, jeered and pelted with objects as he got onstage. Dragged into the lobby, a young woman asked Hopper if he'd made the film. When he said yes, she punched him in the face and called him a "sexist fucking pig".

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Inserts

(1975)

A once-great silent film director, unable to make the transition to the new talkies, lives as a near-hermit in his Hollywood home, making cheap, silent sex films while suffering with his own sexual impotence. He remains apathetic in face of plans to demolish his home to make way for a highway. His producer and his producer's girlfriend come by to see how he is doing (and to supply heroin to the actress participating in the sex films). The girlfriend decides to stay and watch the filming, and becomes deeply impressed by the director's methods. Things go awry when the actress excuses herself to use bathroom and dies there of an overdose. The girlfriend, transformed, takes the actress's place in the film, but then her boyfriend, the producer, returns.

This comedy-drama was written and directed by John Byrum in his directorial debut, and stars Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper, Bob Hoskins and Veronica Cartwright.

This motion picture was filmed on a single set as if it was like a five-character, one-act stage play, but the movie was not a filmed adaptation of a theatrical production.

Shot in sequence in 14 days, the film was made in London over three weeks on a budget of $350,000 of which $150,000 went to Dreyfuss. Publicity for this picture revealed that the movie was shot on a shoestring budget of only  $200,000.

Veronica Cartwright said, "It was such a liberating experience to do that movie and it kicked off a lot of stuff for me. I was a waitress at that time and one day this guy says 'Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Aren't you in that movie Inserts?' and I go, 'yeah' and he says 'what the fuck are you doing here?!' I was earning a living! But I went home that night and thought, what was I doing there? So I quit my job the next day."

Richard Dreyfuss has more than once claimed this to be hi favorite among his own work. The actor actively participated in the casting of the movie helping gather together talents for the film. Reportedly, he was also declared to have been a "partner in the production" (he publicly fought the film's censorship problems), and is given a credit as "production associate".

The film was originally given an X-rating. Richard Dreyfuss personally appealed the decision. "We knew it would be controversial but had no idea it would get an X-rating," said producer Belling. "It is a film about survival, ambition and fear of rejection but nobody seems to understand that."

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S.O.B.

(1981)

An extremely successful Hollywood producer, whose movies have never lost money, ends up making a major flop starring his wife - a G-rated icon. Since it almost bankrupts the studio, the studio executives turn on him and want to take creative control of the movie, demanding a re-edit it to lessen the damage. This triggers suicidal tendencies, which, in turn, lead to his actress wife leaving him and taking the kids. As the despondent director tries unsuccessfully to kill himself, he stumbles upon an idea to remedy his movie woes. Using his wife's money, he purchases the movie from the studio, re-imagines it as an adult sex romp, and adds a few new scenes, drastically altering it from the G-rated fantasy movie it used to be. His plans for a big comeback hinge on whether his wife, who is now penniless, to go topless for a scene - ruining her G-rated image forever, while potentially creating quite a sensation!

This black comedy satire was written and directed by Blake Edwards and stars his wife, Julie Andrews, along with Richard Mulligan, Robert Preston, Larry Hagman, Robert Vaughn, Robert Webber, Loretta Swit, Shelley Winters, and William Holden.

This proved to be William Holden's final screen role. Shortly after completing the film, he slipped and fell in his living room, cutting his head open, subsequently bleeding to death. He had been drinking heavily.

One of eight movies starring Dame Julie Andrews and directed by her husband Blake Edwards. This movie was based loosely on writer, producer, and director's experiences making Darling Lili (1970) and Wild Rovers (1971). This movie is noted for showing Dame Julie Andrews topless. But, this is not her first topless movie! She was seen briefly baring her breasts in Darling Lili.  

Darling Lili (1970) was made to reveal Andrews' heretofore unseen wicked and sexy side. It had a very troubled shoot, went significantly over budget, and was subjected to postproduction studio interference. Edward's next to films also proved problematic. Once again, the studio interfered in the postproduction of both films, which were edited without any input from the director. Both movies opened to negative reviews and poor business. Hit hard financially and personally by these events, Edwards moved to Europe to work independently, away from the meddling and restrictions of the Hollywood studios. The plan worked - The Pink Panther films restored his good name and reputation as box-office gold.

Edwards and Andrews are not the only Hollywood royalty represented in the film Robert Vaughn once said that his character was based upon legendary movie producer Robert Evans. While the treacherous agent played by Shelley Winters character was allegedly based on legendary Hollywood super agent Sue Mengers.

Studio brass hated the film and refused to release it. Which is why Edwards ended up getting into bed with Lorimar productions.

Larry Hagman and John Pleshette play studio executives in this movie. At the time of the film's release, Hagman was famous for playing J.R. Ewing in the TV series Dallas (1978), while John Pleshette was known for playing Richard Avery in its spin-off series Knots Landing (1979). Both TV series were produced by Lorimar.

Hagman is seen smoking in this film, even though he was, in real life, a fanatical anti-smoker who would not permit anyone to smoke near him.

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next week...

Same time, same channel.

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Dancing In The Dark - Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse

from the 1953 motion picture The Band Wagon