8/28/23
Newsletter #441
The Crack of Dawn
Movies are trickery. Part of getting into the film business is tricking your way in. In the world of low-budget filmmaking, there’s frequently a level of “stealing” scenes – shooting somewhere without permission. They say, and I’ve found it true, that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. For my first film, TSNKE (I hate writing out that whole title), I stole a scene on an army base. A real army base. They left it unattended. It was like a little military motor pool right off a main freeway. I had my lead car drive onto the base while I shot from outside. There were rows and rows of military trucks, causing my tiny budget to soar. My picture car – a 1969 Suburban – went in, drove slowly around all the trucks, then drove out, picked me and the camera up and we got the hell out of there.
The idea of somehow “tricking the system,” meaning figuring out a way to make a feature film for no money, or at least, very, very little money, has been lurking around since the 1920s. In 1925 the 1st assistant director, Joe Sternberg from New Jersey, known as a tough-talking, hard-ass, who was nicknamed behind his back, Joseph von Sternberg, in reference to the world famous hard-ass director at that time, Erich von Stroheim. AD Joe Sternberg had decided that he wanted to be a director. He saved up $5,000, wrote a script with a story that took place entirely on a barge in the East River (a location that he knew he could get for free, that was visually impressive), mainly involving two actors – a boy and a girl – but also a couple of other actors come and go. It’s not very good, but it looks as well made as anything from the time. The film is The Salvation Hunters (1925), which has the honor and novelty of being the first insanely cheap, though sufficiently professional-looking, film to trick the system and get Joseph von Sternberg into the Hollywood system as a director. Within a year he was directing big Hollywood movies, and within two years he was the biggest director in Hollywood. Although Joseph von Sternberg himself never won an Oscar, he was a dominant force the very first Oscars. His film, The Last Command (1928), was nominated for Best Picture, won Best Actor for Emil Jannings, and was also nominated for Best Screenplay. That same year he also made a film I love, The Docks of New York (1928). He was the hottest director in Hollywood. Three years earlier he had been an assistant director in New Jersey.
Another wonderful example of tricking the system is People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) (1929). This ridiculously talented, ambitious group of young men in Germany in 1928-29, all in their 20s, finagled a camera and some film, and with almost no money, made a feature. There is a boy and a girl, who aren’t really actors, who meet and walk around Berlin ostensibly falling in love. Once again, it’s not all that good, but it’s novel. The film is comprised mainly of shots of people in Berlin doing everything people do, that do not include their two “actors.” So, what really happened is these guys bombed around Berlin in a car and got a ton of second unit shots of people in Berlin. When they finished cutting it together, sound had just come in, so they added a musical score and some horn honks. Since there had never been anything like it, the audience took it very seriously, and it launched more important careers than any other movie.
First of all, if you read about this film, the writers of the articles cannot help themselves – being journalists and not being filmmakers – from assigning everybody a specific job. That’s bullshit. It was this terrifically talented group of Jewish movie nerds in their 20s in Weimar Germany in 1928-29, stealing a movie. Directed by Robert Siodmak, whose went on to direct the original 1946 version of The Killers with Burt Lancaster, among many others. Siodmak was a big Hollywood director for the next 30 years. His little brother, Curt Siodmak, who also worked on the film, consistently worked in Hollywood as screenwriter for the next 30 years, entirely on horror and low-budget movies. Curt’s biggest credit was writing the original The Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney Jr., which is a good credit. Also in this wild group of German film nerds was the great Billy Wilder, and he’s listed as one of the writers. Also, there was . . . this is crazy to me, Fred Zinneman, who would go on to direct and win Oscars for, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons. As well as the great Edgar G. Ulmer, king of the B- movies, like the classic, 5-day thriller, Detour (1945), with Tom Neal and Ann Savage. It’s an astounding group. Zinneman and Wilder and Ulmer? On the same crew? What the hell?
This is same method of stealing a feature film continued work, now and then, when used cleverly, and probably would still work now. A clever film that’s exactly like this is Wayne Wang’s Chan is Missing (1982). Two guys are looking for a man named Chan who owes them money. That’s it. Nine-tenths of the movie is 2nd unit shots of Chinatown, with old, public domain, Chinese pop songs on top. Spoiler alert: they never find Chan.
Dawn won’t arrive for at least a half hour.
My Hungarian grandmother would say, as she lit the sabbath candles, “The years get shorter, and the days get longer.” That was either wisdom or dementia.
Doing just this right now!!!!