7/11/23
Newsletter #393
The Crack of Dawn
My buddy Rick Sandford and I saw David Lynch’s first film, Eraserhead (1977), on its very first run anywhere, which was at midnight at the Nuart Theater in L.A. I believe it was on Saturday at midnight, because at midnight on Fridays they showed Pink Flamingoes (1972) and had for years. I think Eraserhead showed for several years. Anyway, the film was brand-new, and nobody had seen it, other than a few glowing reviews that assured us we’d never seen anything like it. And we hadn’t.
After the movie, I vividly remember Rick and I standing on the side of Wilshire Blvd., just past Westwood Blvd., hitchhiking back to Hollywood at 2:00 AM. We were both giddy from having just seen a truly original, no-budget, beautifully realized, exceptionally weird to the point of disturbing, and visually arresting piece of cinematic art. It wasn’t great enough that I needed to see it again right away, although I knew that I certainly would see it again at some point, but I did realize that some of that imagery was going to stick with me forever, and it has. Rick and I were both hyper, high on dopamine, tripping from the thrill of seeing a completely original movie, clearly made by a talented new young artist named David Lynch. This was 1977, so I was 19 and Rick was 26, and we were both already such Hollywood cynics that we wondered aloud how long it would take Hollywood to chew Lynch up and spit him out.
Of the plethora of inspired ideas to emanate from the skull of Mel Brooks, one of his oddest and most brilliant ideas was to hire David Lynch right off Eraserhead to direct The Elephant Man (1980). I’ve watched The Elephant Man way more times than Eraserhead, and The Elephant Man is a miracle. Although slightly arid in tone – and methodically and legitimately creepy, as it ought to be, but a tad slow – it is otherwise a damn near perfect movie. Young Anthony Hopkins, the awesome John Hurt, old John Gielgud and Wendy Hiller with good parts, believable makeup, stunning black & white photography by Freddie Francis, and David Lynch’s assured approach (he’d never worked with a real film crew before, but he wasn’t a kid, he was 34), combined with his uniquely talented, blind, sound designer, Alan Splet. Somehow this odd combination meshed and created great cinematic art.
David Lynch was now unquestionably a director of importance, and seemingly had integrity, too. Was that possible? In Hollywood? No. Hollywood got him. Specifically, Dino De Laurentiis. But not until he suffered a bit.
David Lynch had a script – the one sitting next to me with a blue cover, that I nabbed at MGM – called Blue Velvet, that he really wanted to make, except that Blue Velvet is every bit as weird as Eraserhead. In what I consider an extremely well-written script, David Lynch clearly conveys the film he wants to make. He sees it, and he actually had the ability to write it down, which is no mean feat. And just like Eraserhead, Lynch’s modus operendi was to be disturbing in every possible way he could envision — picture, sound, concept, motivation, intention, everything.
I lived this part of Lynch’s suffering – without the glorious parts before and after – of watching your life slip by in Hollywood as you keep trying to get this one goddamned movie made. Meetings and meetings and meetings, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984. David Lynch, the once young hotshot young director, was now barking at 40, and he had to get this one particularly strange movie made. So, David Lynch made a deal with the devil named Dino. Right at the same time that Sam Raimi made Evil Dead 2 for Dino. But Sam just made his movie, whereas David Lynch had to bail Dino’s foolish old ass out and direct Dune (1984) for him. Nobody else would do it since it already had about $20 million sunk into it in all sorts of fucked up development costs, with no footage at all to show for the expenditures. A movie had to be made, and it didn’t matter what it was.
And it was going to be a tough audience, of which I proudly count myself. We who had actually read the book, Dune, by Frank Herbert. Nobody else knew what it was or had ever heard of it, except Dino, who had already pissed away $20 million. And then in walked the beleaguered-to-the-point-of-quitting David Lynch, clutching this blue script that I have here beside me of Blue Velvet, dated Aug. 24, 1984, “Revised Third Draft.”
David Lynch, the guy who made The Elephant Man, Mr. Integrity, innovator, visual and audio stylist, made the deal to direct Dune if Dino gave him the same low budget of $6 million to make Blue Velvet as Sam had for Evil Dead 2, and both movies shot at the same time in North Carolina. That’s me in Evil Dead 2. Scott Spiegel is on the left.
Here is where good old irony pokes its head in, retrospectively (and as a note: you can say you’re “post-ironic,” but that doesn’t mean that irony is done with you). If Dino had been smart, instead of just a great hustler, he’d have opened his eyes, looked around, and there was Alejandro Jodorowsky who was way too ready to make a movie out of Frank Herbert’s Dune. It might not have been good — Jodorowsky’s films like El Topo (1970) are an acquired taste — but it would absolutely have been worth watching. Alas, David Lynch’s version is not even worth watching, and is best summed up when I saw it at the sparsely attended theater with producer, Rob Tapert. Rob smoked cigarettes back then. He and I ducked out for three cigarettes during that movie, which he termed, “A butt-burner.”
For more on Alejandro Jodorowsky, check out the fascinating documentary, Jodorowsky's Dune (2013).
OK, this is a bigger subject than I thought it was.
David Lynch stepped in and made Dino De Laurentiis’ Dune (1984). For us Dune fans — the few, the proud — we really and truly thought it sucked. The worldwide audiences that it sucked, too, and most of them stayed away. The film cost $40 million; its worldwide gross was $30 million. That’s really bad. It may well have been the biggest bomb of 1984.
But David Lynch got to make Blue Velvet, so it was worth it.
It’s not quite dawn yet, but it soon will be.
I'm just catching up on the newsletters I haven't read yet. I'm going back in time a bit and finding some gems! I discover this photo of you in Evil Dead II...damn, you're hot! I'll just keep going.