Failures are never notable. Besides, I do not consider any of my films failures.
Are we talking now about artistic failures or box-office failures?
I have never made an artistic failure. Some of my films were mildly disappointing at the box office. But not very many of them.
When the Sardinian film was ready to open last June...
July. It opened on the Fourth of July.
Yes, but before it opened, when...
That would have been June, yes. July is normally preceded by June.
There was speculation that the studio would not permit its showing.
Rubbish.
The rumours were unfounded? That the studio would suppress the film?
The film opened, didn’t it? And was a tremendous success, I might add.
Some observers maintain that the success of the film was due only to the publicity given the Sardinian accident. Would you agree to that?
I’ll ask you a question, young man. Suppose the accident on Sardinia had been related to a film called The Beach Girl Meets Hell’s Angels, or some such piece of trash? Do you think the attendant publicity would have insured the success of that film?
Perhaps not. But given your name and the stellar quality of...
You can stop after my name. Stars have nothing to do with any of the pictures. I could put a trained seal in one of my films, and people would come to see it. I could put you in a film, and people would come to see it.
Don’t you believe that films are a collaborative effort?
Certainly not. I tell the script writer what I want, and he writes it. I tell the set designer what to give me, and he gives it to me. I tell the cameraman where to aim his camera and what lens to use. I tell the actors where to move and how to speak their lines. Does that sound collaborative to you? Besides, I resent the word ‘effort.’
Why?
Because the word implies endeavor without success. You’ve tried to do something and you’ve failed. None of my films are ‘efforts.’ The word ‘effort’ is like the word ‘ambitious.’ They both spell failure. Haven’t you seen book jackets that proudly announce. ‘This is So-and-So’s most ambitious effort to date.’ What does that mean to you? To me, it means the poor bastard has set his sights too high. And failed.
Are you afraid of failure?
I cannot abide it.
Do you believe the Sardinian film was a success? Artistically?
I told you earlier...
Yes, but many critics felt the editing of the film was erratic. That the sequences filmed before the drowning were inserted piecemeal into...
To begin with, whenever critics begin talking about editing or camera angles or dolly shots or anything technical, I instantly fall asleep. They haven’t the faintest notion of what film-making is all about, and their pretentious chatter about the art may impress maiden ladies in Flushing Meadows, but it quite leaves me cold. In reality, none of them know what’s going on either behind the camera or up there on the screen. Do you know what a film critic’s sole requirement is? That he has seen a lot of movies, period. To my way of thinking, that qualifies him as an expert on popcorn, not on celluloid.
In any event, you were rather limited, were you not, in editing the final portion of the film?
Limited in what way?
In terms of the footage you needed to make the film a complete entity?
The film was a complete entity. Obviously, I could not include footage that did not exist. The girl drowned. That was a simple fact. We did not shoot the remainder of the film as originally planned, we could not. But the necessary script revisions were made on the spot — or rather in Rome. I flew to Rome to consult with an Italian screenwriter, who did the work I required.
He did not receive credit on the film.
He asked that his name be removed from the picture. I acceded to his wishes.
But not without a struggle.
There was no struggle.
It was reported that you struck him.
Nonsense.
On the Via Veneto.
The most violent thing I’ve ever done on the Via Veneto was to sip a Campari-soda outside Doney’s.
Yet the newspapers...
The Roman press is notoriously inaccurate. In fact, there isn’t a single good newspaper in all Italy.
But, sir, there was some dispute with the screen-writer, wasn’t there? Surely, the stories about it couldn’t all have been...
We had some words.
About what?
Oh my, we must pursue this deadly dull rot, mustn’t we? All right, all right. It was his allegation that when he accepted the job, he had no idea the publicity surrounding the girl’s death would achieve such hideous proportions. He claimed he did not wish his good Italian name — the little opportunist had written only one film prior to my hiring him, and that an Italian Western starring a second-rate American television actor — did not wish his name associated with a project that had even a cloud of suspicion hanging over it. Those were his exact words. Actually, quite the opposite was true. Which is why I resisted his idiotic ploy.
Quite the opposite? What do you mean?
Rather than trying to avoid the unfortunate publicity, I felt he was trying to capitalize on it. His move was really completely transparent, the pathetic little bastard. I finally let him have his way. I should have thought he’d be proud to have his name on one of my pictures. As an illuminating sidelight, I might add he did not return the five-thousand dollars a week I’d paid for the typing he did. Apparently, my money did not have a similar ‘cloud of suspicion’ hanging over it.
‘Typing,’ did you say?
Typing. The ideas for changing the script to accommodate the... to allow for a more plausible resolution were all mine.
A resolution to accommodate the drowning?
To explain the absence of the girl in the remainder of the film. I’m reluctant to discuss this, because it has a ghoulish quality I frankly find distasteful. The girl did, after all, drown; she did die. But that was a simple fact, and we must not lose sight of another simple fact. However coldblooded this may sound, and I am well aware that it may be an unpopular observation, there had already been an expenditure of three million dollars on that film. Now I’m sure you know that leading players have taken ill, have suffered heart attacks, have died during the filming of other pictures. To my knowledge, such events have never caused a picture to halt production, and neither do I know of a single instance in which a film was entirely scrapped, solely because of the death of one of the leading players. Yet this was the very pressure being brought to bear on me immediately following the drowning, and indeed up to the time of the film’s release.
Then the studio did try to suppress the film?
Well... at first, they only wanted to stop production. I refused. Later, when they saw the rough cut — this was when all the publicity had reached its peak — they sent in a team of strong-armed Executive Producers, and Production Chiefs, and what-have-you, all know-nothings with windy titles, who asked me to suppress the film. I told them exactly where to go. And then later on, when the film had been edited and scored, the same thing happened. I finally threatened suit. My contract called for a large percentage of the gross of that film, and I had no intention of allowing it to crumble unseen in the can.