6/19/23
Newsletter #372
The Crack of Dawn
In early 1980, a month or two after we returned from Tennessee shooting Evil Dead, I got together with Scott Spiegel for coffee. I had known Scott since 7th grade. Even though we both knew that we were both making Super-8 films, we didn’t work together. Scott had appeared in several of my Super-8s, but that was it. I had moved to Hollywood, and I still don’t know what went on between Sam and Scott while I was gone. When I returned, Sam, Bruce and Rob Tapert had formed a company and intended to make a horror movie and Scott wasn’t involved. So, we shot Evil Dead, and there was still a ton of shooting left to do, plus post-production, so now what were we going to do? I knew that I would write and direct the next feature, but I was nowhere near ready. What I needed to do was to make some short films to improve my skills. I also wanted to work more in comedy, and Scott was Mr. Zany, and had made nothing but comedies, several with Bruce and Sam, so he seemed like the guy to talk to.
So, Scott and I were sitting in this diner drinking coffee and ostensibly considering the idea of making a Super-8 comedy short together, although what it would be about we had no idea, and we had a waitress with Coke bottle thick glasses. And even though this waitress was very nice, and well-intentioned, she kept missing the coffee cups and pouring coffee on the table, or just dropping things, or bumping into people. After several hours of discussion about horror parodies of every shape and size, while being in the middle of this visually impaired waitress bumble her job in every possible way — and being the budding geniuses that we were — we both said, “Hey, how about a near-sighted waitress?” And thus, we had an idea that we both liked.
Scott was the manager of a grocery store. Next door to the grocery store was a barber shop, where I had already shot a Super-8 film, Acting & Reacting, a few years earlier, and next to that was Maria’s Pizzeria. Scott knew the owner, and he was happy to let us shoot there, but only when they were closed. Scott and I got together at Maria’s and skulked around the place, considering the comic possibilities, which seemed plentiful. We met again at Maria’s, and unlike anything that had ever occurred to me before, we figured out the entire movie and every gag in those two meetings. I kept notes on placemats. I went home and effortlessly knocked out a 15-page script called, The Blind Waitress.
We both wanted Ellen Sandweiss as the blind waitress. Scott and I both knew Ellen from school, but she had already been in one of my Super-8s, plus she had just co-starred in Evil Dead. Ellen turned us down. We were forlorn. We had both envisioned her in the part and now we didn’t know what to do. As casually as he could, Bruce suggested, “Why don’t you make it The Blind Waiter, and I’ll star in it.” Scott and I looked at each other, and I don’t believe we even had to speak the words out loud, but I know we both thought, “Of course Bruce should star in it. Are we just idiots?” It was an easy rewrite going from The Blind Waitress to The Blind Waiter, even before computers.
The Blind Waiter may be the most un-woke film any of us has ever made. Bruce plays the blind waiter, Sam plays the stuttering busboy, and Rob plays the deaf manager. Scott actually suggested that there be a sign that said, “Fire the handicapped,” which I nixed. We didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about it, either, because it was based on the true events of our sight-impaired waitress.
Meanwhile, Scott didn’t know how to approach the issue of shooting the film, given the restrictions. And I had just experienced how Sam, Bruce and Rob on Evil Dead had managed to turn a 6-week shoot into an 11-week shoot, and only get half of what we needed. I had other ideas. I said, “We’ll shoot The Blind Waiter in one weekend during the hours that Maria’s is closed, at night.” This seemed novel to everyone, and the owner was fine with the idea, so that’s how we planned to do it.
The point of this story was the shoot itself; of shooting the whole movie in two nights. However, since I’ve run out of space, I’ll explain it tomorrow.
The sun will soon rise here in lovely San Rafael, but it hasn’t yet.
great story! hope you're enjoying the wild west!