10/12/23
Newsletter #486
The Crack of Dawn
The first cut of my film Running Time came out short at 67-minutes. At the suggestion of my buddy, Jack Perez, I added a new sequence that filled a big plot hole. It also lengthened the film out to 70-minutes, which is still short for a modern-day feature, but was just fine. I still got shit from random Hollywood know-it-alls, stating definitively that 70-minutes does not a feature make. Bullshit. As per Academy rules, 60-minutes and over is a feature film. Just as a note, however, Frankenstein (1931) with Boris Karloff is 70-minutes, and I don’t believe that anyone doubts it’s a feature. However, between the 67-minute first cut and the 70-minute final cut, I had a 68- minute version that had a ridiculous amount of Special Thanks credits.
Initially, and the way it finally ended up, two directors get special thanks: Alfred Hitchcock and William Wyler. I had to give Hitchcock credit because he conceived the all-in-one-shot concept that I borrowed. I gave William Wyler credit for no other reason than he’s my favorite director, and if Hitchcock is getting credit, so is Wyler. In this 68-minute version, desperate for length, I thanked ten other directors. I had one rough cut screening, which happened to be this 68-minute cut with the long Special Thanks at the end. After the movie, my buddy, Ron, who’s a real film buff, said confidentially, “You forgot Rouben Mamoulian.” I laughed then and I just laughed now.
But Rouben Mamoulian was a very important director in the 1930s and ‘40s, as well as being a founding member of the Director’s Guild. He directed a number of very important movies, like the 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Fredric March, Queen Christina (1933) with Greta Garbo (in possibly her best sound movie), he directed the first three-strip Technicolor film, Becky Sharp (1935), as well as Golden Boy (1939), William Holden’s first movie, and a lot of other movies. Mamoulian was the original director of Cleopatra (1963) with Elizabeth Taylor. Rouben Mamoulian was instrumental in figuring out how to use sound in movies, specifically with his film, Applause (1929). But beyond any of that, he directed the some of the biggest shows on Broadway – Porgy and Bess (1935), Oklahoma! (1943), and Carousel (1945). He’s really important and I should’ve put him in the credits.
Right when I first moved to Hollywood in 1976, the American Film Institute was just a couple of years old and located in the Doheny Mansion off Sunset Blvd. I read in the paper that Rouben Mamoulian would be speaking at the AFI, and there didn’t seem to be any restrictions like, student’s only, so I went. There we about 50 people, mostly AFI students, seated all around in a big classroom. Rouben Mamoulian was about 80 years old and walked with a cane, but he was sharp as hell, with a Russian accent. There was a teacher/moderator, and it went immediately to questions. A student raised their hand and asked, “What kind of film did you use to shoot Queen Christina?” It was the first question, and he was slightly taken aback, asking, “What do you mean? It was black and white.” The student continued, “But specifically which kind of film?” Mamoulian shook his head sadly and said, “No. That was handled by the camera department.” He then got several other questions about what brand of camera he used, or preferred, but he didn’t know anything about cameras.
Well, call it virtual signaling or anything you’d like, but I’m proud to be a film geek. It doesn’t have much value very often, but it did here. I raised my hand and asked, “Would you say that William Holden was your greatest discovery?” He smiled widely and said, “Yes. I had directed him on stage, you know.” I said, “In Golden Boy, right?” He said, “Yes.” Then he was off and running and certainly held his own. When the talk neared its conclusion, I asked as sort of afterthought, “What did you think of Joseph Mankiewicz’ completed version of Cleopatra?” (Which was still, as of that moment in 1976, the most expensive movie ever made, and he was fired after a year and all his footage was scrapped).
He slowly rose to his feet, picked up his cane, and started for the door. After a few steps he finally stopped, turned to us and said, “Abysmal,” and left.
I’m proud to say that on this little occasion I saved his butt. Don’t ask him about cameras, for Chrissake, ask him about actors. Come on, you silly students, do your homework. This guy is an important man, even if he didn’t make it onto my top ten list on the padded out Running Time credits.
Ron said, “You forgot Rouben Mamoulian.”
Yes, Ron, from that ultimately excised list, but not from my heart.