3/17/23
Newsletter 278
The Crack of Dawn
Writer-producer-director, Larry Cohen, and I crossed paths in Hollywood a couple of times. Larry was a funny, bright, cynical, snotty, extremely-driven character who got a lot of shit produced in his 50-year career. Larry began writing TV shows the year I was born in 1958. In 1965 he created a short-lived (two seasons) TV show that I liked a lot called Branded with Chuck Connors. In 1967 Larry created, and wrote most of the scripts, for a show I thought was great, The Invaders, that also lasted two seasons. The last episode of that show, where we finally got to see the alien that’s been after him the whole time, was a big deal in the TV world of 1968. I remember watching it and being frightened (I was ten), but utterly stupefied that the show had been canceled.
But Larry was really a feature filmmaker anyway, and segued into features in 1966 by writing the sequel to The Magnificent Seven (1961), The Return of the Seven. After getting a few more scripts produced, Larry started directing and entered the business making blacksploitation movies, like Black Caesar (1973). Larry was a key part of the low-budget horror craze of the second half of the 1970s, leading the way with his hit film, It’s Alive (1974, followed by two sequels). This film resurrected the career of the great film composer, Bernard Herrmann, who had scored many of Alfred Hitchcock’s best movies.
Using Hitchcock as a segue, Larry told me this story: he wrote a story called Phone Booth in the early 1970s and got a development deal to write it into a script with a company on the Universal lot. Alfred Hitchcock was prepping his last film, Family Plot (1976), and was on the lot every day. Larry saw him walking by all the time and really wanted to talk to him, but didn’t have the guts to approach him. Finally, as they were passing each other one day, Hitch pointed at Larry and said, “You’re the one writing that movie that takes place entirely in a phone booth, aren’t you?” Larry nodded and said yes. Hitch said, “I think it’s a wonderful idea. Good luck.” Larry finally got that script produced in 2003 – 30 years in development.
Larry capped off the late 1970s, early 1980s, horror craze with his horror/creature epic, Q – The Winged Serpent (1982), starring Michael Moriarty and David Carradine, that I honestly looked forward to. A winged dragon-like creature living in the top of the Chrysler Building sounded great to me. Sadly, the film sucked, though it had cool effects.
Larry’s and my paths crossed when I was writing Hit List (1988) for director, Bill Lustig, who was also about to direct Maniac Cop (1988) for Larry, who wrote and produced, and the film would star Bruce Campbell. This is one of my favorite Hollywood stories. Bruce met with Larry and Bill to get Larry’s script for Maniac Cop. Larry asked Bill, “Did you read my script?” 300-pound Bill Lustig – who told me, “I make my movies for 12-year-old niggers” – said to Larry, “Yeah, it’s great.” Larry said, “Yeah. It’s actor-proof.” He said that in front of Bruce. When Bruce got out of the meeting he was livid. He called me and said, “Actor-proof? That movie is going to be audience-proof.” Bruce was wrong. The movie spawned two sequels.
All right, so get this: it was November, 1979, and a caravan of cars headed from Michigan down to Tennessee to shoot Evil Dead. I ended up riding with a fellow named David Goodman, known as Goody, who would be the cook. I knew Goody from years before at Camp Tamakwa. Goody had followed his own path into the movie business by moving to NYC and becoming a production assistant. One of the films he had recently worked on was Q – The Winged Serpent. He told me that when he was cleaning out his pickup truck to come on this shoot, he found a can of exposed 35mm negative of Q under his seat. At that point, Q was done, and being shown, but hadn’t yet been theatrically released. Well, exposed negative means that in that can was 400-feet of a shot, or shots, that Larry and his crew had gone to however much trouble it to get, that then needed to go to the lab and be processed, which was Goody’s job that he didn’t do. I assure you that at some point during editing, Larry and his editor went nuts looking for a shot, or shots, that he knew he’d gotten, but couldn’t find.
I asked, “So, what did you do with the film?” Goody shrugged. “What the fuck could I do, the movie was done.” I asked, “So what did you do with the film?” Goody said, “I threw it out.”
And I can’t help but think, maybe that was the shot that made it all make sense.
But wait, I have a joke. An old white-haired man runs into a Catholic church, going directly into the confessional booth. The priest says, “Mr. Herskovitz, what are you doing here?” Mr. Herskovitz says, “Father, I’ve had sex with a 20-year-old girl.” The priest says, “But Mr. Herskovitz, you’re Jewish. Why are you telling me?” Mr. Herskovitz says, “I’m telling everyone.”
Have a brilliant day.