As anyone who ever exchanged email with Ric Menello can attest, he was a copious correspondent, letting his mind pour forth with seemingly endless facts concerning whatever topic was at hand. I was an e-pal for many years, and used to save off exchanges that I found particularly valuable (needless to say, I learned quite a bit from Ric about films and film-making).
I therefore present a sampling of the voluminous “Menello Papers” I’ve amassed over the years highlighting Ric’s vast range of knowledge. Please bear in mind these are excerpts from email conversations between two obsessive film nerds; some might be a bit too “inside” to hold your interest. But if you shared Ric’s passion for film, you’ll likely want to read each one. Enjoy!
— Patrick Galloway
On the old Japanese studio system
PG: The directors at Daiei Studios were more of a collective than at other studios. This led to a distinctive “Daiei vibe” — a certain energy and pace that all of those guys strived for, although some of them were more distinctive as you say. Maybe it was down to the influence of charismatic producer Masaichi Nagata … ?
RM: I agree…I think it was OKAMOTO in his interview in CHRIS D’S book who first broached the idea that at EACH studio there was a different setup…he said at TOEI the STARS were the most important, at TOHO it was the TWO PRODUCERS who competed to see who was top dog (the guy who produced GODZILLA and either produced or exec produced most of Kurosawa’s films and then there was ANOTHER guy who was younger and challenged him), while at SHOCHIKU he said the directors were more important and the basis of everything especially OZU…But said nothing about DAIEI where I THINK probably it was a combination of STARS (specifically RAIZO AND KATSU) and that one big producer NAGATA…but of course MIZGOUCHI was a special case and DAIEI’S star director, and also DAISUKE ITO and SATSUO YAMAMOTO obviously had some special status due to their seniority. And the comparisons get more complicated because at SHOCHIKU the main producer/studio head KIDO REALLY called all the shots tho it was a director oriented studio (OZU, etc) which encouraged directors to create their own units of technicians…So it gets very complicated but it’d be interesting to read some articles or a book on PRODUCERS like KIDO, NAGATA and the two guys at TOHO. Even as STAR oriented and CHEAP as TOEI was they had their senior or sort of “star” director in UCHIDA and then later FUKASAKU.
PG: I saw a Mikio Narus film, Repast, from 1951 and done at Toho. However, it featured Setsuko Hara and Haruko Sugimura, two Ozu regulars whom I’d think would be under contract at Shochiku. Perhaps it was all in how they negotiated their contracts. Or maybe some folks were just more in demand and got to move around more. Who knows.
RM: Possibly or some just went INDEPENDENT like CARY GRANT did early in his career in the US. Also possible like in US studio system actors could be LOANED out to OTHER STUDIOS if a director or producer wanted them badly enough and the OTHER studio would pay a BIG FEE for the actor’s services and the actor’s own STUDIO would keep the FEE while the actor got his or her usual salary from their home studio. It could get VERY crazy that way. With some actors who were in demand and under contract their STUDIO might ask double their salary or MORE to lend them out then KEEP everything except their salary. Selznick had to negotiate a BIG deal to get GABLE from MGM for GONE WITH THE WIND (and probably PART of the deal was MGM would get DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS). Sometimes these deals also involved a SWAP, one actor would be loaned to a rival studio in return for one of THEIR BIG STARS being loaned back. And of course SOMETIMES a rebellious or troublesome actor was PUNISHED by his own studio by being loaned out to some B movie studio or smaller studio. Famous example of that is Capra’s IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT where I believe BOTH GABLE (MGM) and CLAUDETTE COLBERT (PARAMOUNT) were loaned to COLUMBIA for the film partly as PUNISHMENT for being troublesome at their home studio. The joke was on the other studios of course. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT got lotsa oscar nominations and was a HUGE HIT. Then again MGM and PARAMOUNT weren’t too pissed off because THEY still owned the contracts of GABLE and COLBERT so their properties were worth even MORE now at the BOX OFFICE!
That’s interesting because on the other hand, a COUPLE of times I looked at the casts of an OZU film from the 50s and noticed a LOT of TOHO ACTORS in one and DAIEI ACTORS in another and wondered why there were SO many in SHOCHIKU films cause I thought OZU had always worked at SHOCHIKU especially after a certain period. LO and behold it turned out ONE of those films was for TOHO (END OF SUMMER? I can’t remember) and the other was done at DAIEI (FLOATING WEEDS). Turned out OZU during his height in the 50s had a contract at SHOCHIKU which stipulated he had to deliver ONE FILM a year to them and if he did that he was FREE to make a ANOTHER film at a different studio. Usually it took him a year to do the film, or else he sometimes did two at SHOCHIKU but THOSE two times he finished his SHOCHIKU FILMS early so he did another film each time at another studio.
Maybe like OZU at SHOCHIKU at some studios actors had to do a CERTAIN number of films a year by contract and IF they did those they could do films at OTHER studios? I DO know from reading about OKAMOTO and that short interview he did for some magazine which was posted on VENICE BIENNALE WEBSITE as part of their 2000 ATG retrospective and is also included in ATG book (I should get that ATG book someday, ATG is interesting), that apparently at TOHO if you wrote a script on your own time, you could either sell it to TOHO (they probably had FIRST refusal) but if they turned it down you were free to sell it or even MAKE the film somewhere else. Both Okamoto’s THE HUMAN BULLET and TOKKAN were written on his own time and in both cases eventually TOHO turned them both down (HUMAN BULLET immediately, TOKKAN he said after like two years of negotiating). And he made both films with his own money at ATG (though ATG had some kind of deal where YOU put up HALF the money up to a certain amount and they’d put up the other half). He even used his whole TOHO CREW and ACTORS from TOHO in both films so I guess TOHO was okay with it as long as THEY didn’t have to pay the actors or crew (I believe they all worked for peanuts or virtually free on HUMAN BULLET, even Nakadai who narrates, and on TOKKAN too). So that’s another interesting wrinkle in how things worked. KUROSAWA mentioned that as an assistant director he was paid PEANUTS, virtually nothing at TOHO, but when he wrote stories and scripts on his own time he could SELL them to other studios which he did.
On shooting with long lenses
PG: I’m watching the It’s Wonderful to Create documentary series for Yojimbo and they’re talking about how Kurosawa used a telephoto lens for a lot of shots. Apparently Mifune’s action scenes look swifter through the telephoto lens. How’s that?
RM: Wow sounds like a great documentary. Apparently, because a telephoto lens distorts the image a bit by FLATTENING it out, making background and foreground appear closer than they are visually (an EXTREME TELEPHOTO shot will make it look the the foreground figure is literally ON TOP of the background which is flattened out, or else that the BACKGROUND is literally up AGAINST the foreground figure and usually out of focus), I guess the resulting distortion when the figure MOVES make the movements seem faster and possibly a bit jerky. I don’t know but that seems to be the idea or what is being said. Kurosawa’s use of the TELEPHOTO LENS (which is a VERY SHALLOW FOCUS LENS) is more subtle than most and tho I can usually tell when he’s using it, it’s not as obvious as it was when widely used by American filmmakers in the 70s where it became this kind fetish where shots looked very obvious. Makes it easier to SHOOT action or movements because you basically can SHOOT the whole thing from FURTHER AWAY and thru TELEPHOTO LENS makes it look like it’s closer as well as flattening out the whole image. When used like this it’s the OPPOSITE of DEEP FOCUS, using a VERY SHALLOW FOCUS LEN. Sometimes called a LONG LENS (cause you can shoot from FAR AWAY) while for some reason a wider angle lens is called a SHORT LENS even tho it has a lot more depth of field. So for instance a 100 MM lens is VERY SHALLOW FOCUS while a 30MM lens has a LOT of DEPTH OF FIELD as well as being a bit WIDE ANGLE. They usually claim the human eye is like a 40mm lens or 50mm lens which gives you depth of field and which WELLES often used as well as wider angle shorter focal length lenses. Kurosawa used both and when he DOES use his TELEPHOTO LENSES he manages not to make them too obvious in B&W and still get decent depth of field probably again because he’s shooting his shots from FURTHER AWAY and it only LOOKS like Mifune is closer to the camera. I’d guess in THAT case the distortion of the lens doesn’t seem obvious until he MOVES then makes it look like he’s moving faster than normal tho as I said I’d imagine it also gives his movements a bit of a speeded up or even slightly jerky look.
Lenses just have a strange series of attributes associated with them and I GUESS this is one of those common to the TELEPHOTO LENS. Perhaps Kurosawa discovered it on SEVEN SAMURAI which is the first time I saw him use one though AGAIN he also DOES speed up the image anyway sometimes through classic “undercranking”, which comes from silent era when to get a FASTER IMAGE for chases or whatever you cranked the camera by HAND more slowly.
I was watching the opening of SCANDAL the other day when looking at it to make sure the DVD-R someone sent me of it would play and noticed in the opening scenes with Mifune on the MOTORCYCLE it was all sped up action, so it had a slightly jerky, sped-up look we see in older movies or movies of that era such as the chase scene in Walsh’s HIGH SIERRA, etc. Now since SCANDAL is 1951 I don’t know if he was using TELEPHOTO LENSES yet but it looked like he probably WAS for that part at least which also might account for the sped up jerky look. If so, it was a subtle use of a less extreme kind of telephoto lens than they used in the US in the 70s.
There’s ALSO I am told a way using a certain more subtle kind of TELEPHOTO LENS and shooting the shot FAR AWAY from the action or composition, to actually make it look like DEEP FOCUS but supposedly the tip off is that tho both FOREGROUND FIGURE IN CLOSEUP and BACKGROUND FIGURE are both in FOCUS they look like they are ON TOP OF EACH OTHER VISUALLY, as if there isn’t much SPACE SEPARATING THEM. At least I am told that. Supposedly a few shots in CITIZEN KANE were done like this but I am not so sure. After all besides using REAL DEEP FOCUS and wider lenses than normal and the advent of certain LIGHTS that made deeper focus possible in KANE, Welles freely admitted that for MANY DEEP FOCUS shots he was using TRICK PHOTOGRAPHY and superimposing one image on another.
I associate the worst of telephoto lens shots with TWO GUYS WALKING DOWN the STREET in MEDIUM SHOT in 70s cop movies with the BACKGROUND OUT OF FOCUS AND LOOKING LIKE IT’S RIGHT ON TOP OF THEM, or someone walking down the street in the crowd and the WHOLE SHOT looks FLATTENED OUT. They did it a lot (understandably so) and still do when a CAR or TRUCK EXPLODES behind our hero in the same shot and it looks like background is RIGHT on top of him when the EXPLOSION COMES so it looks like he’s CLOSER to the object exploding than he really is. A good use of that lens.
Also as I recall the TELEPHOTO LENS was first used in DOCUMENTARIES widely via hidden cameras, and later in fictional films because it allows you to shoot on a street with people on it from FAR AWAY so they can’t see the CAMERA as easily and still put your ACTORS in the scene (assuming it’s a shot without sound). Actually as you probably know almost every kind of lens or visual technique existed in one way or another in the silent era but some caught on and some didn’t and languished for decades before finding their definite and secure place in our cinematic vocabulary. Widescreen a la Cinemascope was around in some silents like the end of WINGS and NAPOLEON, split screens (NAPOLEON among others), obviously hand held cameras, even zoom lenses. I’ve seen ZOOM shots from the early 30s now and then using an actual ZOOM LENS, not an optical zoom done in the lab. Kurosawa was very aware of this when he made RASHOMON and said he was trying to revive the experimentation with technique common in the silent era as well as trying to give RASHOMON a self consciously silent movie style (acting, imagery etc) which in 1950 seemed AVANT GARDE and NEW. Allan Dwan who made films in the early teens thru the early 60s, once said EVERY technique he had ever seen in movies was around in some form in the silent era, many just fell by the wayside only to be picked up decades later and used.
On filmmaker Alexander Mackendrick
Mackendrick said he quit making films because “Spending fifty percent of my time getting the money and setting things up and fifty percent actually making films was okay. But eighty percent and twenty percent? Not acceptable”. Something to that effect. Also by the late 50s after SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS he ran into a series of reversals which basically sent his career into what eventually became a tailspin. First he was fired from the Burt Lancaster film production of George Bernard Shaw’s witty satire THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLE, when again as on SWEET SMELL he fell WAY behind schedule and took too long to set up scenes and film them. He also wasn’t that pleased with the way Shaw’s story had been reworked as an adventure movie and thought they could get MORE Shaw back into it but Lancaster disagreed. Before being fired and replaced by GUY HAMILTON, Mackendrick directed all of the scenes involving LAURENCE OLIVIER as the witty Gentleman Johnny Bourgoyne the British officer who is trying to unmask the revolutionary mystery man who is bedeviling the British forces. THEN Mackendrick was hired to direct THE GUNS OF NAVARONE which COULD have been his entree into the big time and kept his career going for YEARS. He worked on the script, cast it and did pre-production. Began shooting but supposedly got SICK and was replaced on short notice by J LEE THOMPSON. Finally in the mid-60s he made two excellent films A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA (on DVD) with Anthony Quinn and James Coburn as Pirates who capture a group of children when they raid a ship and take the kids with them as hostages on an adventure that grows increasingly savage, and SAMMY GOING SOUTH (aka A BOY TEN FEET TALL) about a little British kid orphaned by a rebellion in North Africa who treks across Africa to visit his Aunt, helped by Edward G Robinson as a hunter. THEN another setback when he was ORIGINALLY supposed to direct THE HILL with Sean Connery, Ian Bannen and an all star British cast. Again he butted heads with the producer this time KENNETH HYMAN (DIRTY DOZEN) because he kept saying the script wasn’t quite right and wasn’t ready to film it. This happened SEVERAL times and the film was postponed and finally HYMAN told MACKENDRICK to shit or get off the pot and either MACKENDRICK equivocated and was fired OR quit. By then he had done preproduction and cast it. SIDNEY LUMET who was going thru his entertaining “British phase” (THE OFFENCE, THE DEADLY AFFAIR) took over, beginning a fruitful relationship with CONNERY that included three more films. Finally MACKENDRICK was hired at star TONY CURTIS’S behest to direct the kinda cartoonish but often BRILLIANT satire DONT MAKE WAVES set in Malibu. He directed that and finished it. A flop tho. Finally in 68 Mackendrick was at his lowest ebb and without credit directed ADDITIONAL scenes for the now forgotten oddball freaky comedy OH DAD POOR DAD MOMA’S HUNG YOU IN THE CLOSET AND I’M FEELING SO SAD starring Robert Morse and Rosalind Russell. The original director RICHARD QUINE (who made some good films in the 50s) had finished it and the studio didn’t like it so they hired MACKENDRICK to do extra scenes of JONATHAN WINTERS in heaven as “Dad’s Spirit” commenting on the action below. MACKENDRICK had TONS of projects which never bore fruit as well.
On Ric’s music videos
PG: So you shot videos for Atlantic? I thought you only worked for Def Jam.
RM: No actually once I quit working regularly for DEF JAM and Rubin, I didn’t want to make any videos anymore. But I probably SHOULD have kept doing them even tho I knew there’d be a lot of BAD ones for other record companies and a lot of crap to take for such short videos. I could’ve gotten more of a rep, or else made a decent living. But I disliked doing most videos and so at first I didn’t want to do any more, but then someone who had seen one of my DEF JAM videos from a record company or someone I knew in the biz would tell me they knew a company that wanted me to do a video for them and I’d have no interference (yeah RIGHT!). In MOST cases I also needed the MONEY. Anyway, after my work at DEF JAM, I directed CAPPUCCINO for MC Lyte at Atlantic, and NOBODY KNOWS KELLI for Soul Records. Those were uneven but okay, but I didn’t like dealing with all those record company assholes. I also did “creative supervision” (meaning I planned the video and oversaw the director even tho they mistakenly credited me as “co-director”) on one of the videos for ELECTRIC BOOGIE for Marcia Griffiths, and also was “creative consultant” (meaning I worked WITH the director creating the concept and suggesting images and shots) on a few others including one for some idiot named JESSE JAMES and two for German Metal Chick DORO PESCH one of which won a special European MTV anti-racism award!
The only music videos I consider really mine are the ones I REALLY directed or co-directed like FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PARTY, NO SLEEP TILL BROOKLYN, GOIN BACK TO CALI, the uncut version of Danzig’s MOTHER which is his best selling first long form which earlier played hacked up on MTV, and Slick Rick’s A CHILDREN’S STORY. All of those were either done for Rick or for DEF JAM after he left in the case of A CHILDREN”S STORY. I DID direct MC Lyte’s CAPPUCCINO and Young Black Teenager’s (who are white), NOBODY KNOWS KELLI, but I like those less. And I also kinda like some of the stuff I directed for the messy Danzig video SHE RIDES (which I directed the original version of but Danzig wanted to recut and I wouldn’t go to LA to do it with him and Rubin because I had quit working for Rubin and was sick of that shit, so Glenn got mad and reshot like 3/4 of it and left 1/4 of my stuff and my concept in). I ALSO had directed the concept portions with him of his half live/half concept video AM I DEMON but he was so mad about SHE RIDES and how he thought I wasn’t “into” it enough and how I didn’t come to LA to help re-edit and re-shoot parts of it, he DROPPED my name from the video as co-director. So I ended up getting co-directing credit on SHE RIDES with Glenn, but NO credit on AM I DEMON which I actually directed MORE of in collaboration with Glenn. The upshot of it was Glenn wanted to do more videos with me IF I’d APOLOGIZE for not being “into” SHE RIDES enough and trying to as he saw it sort of just go thru the motions. I didn’t apologize because the ORIGINAL rough cut I had done was GOOD. Anyway we never spoke again!
On The Naked Prey
PG: Finally saw The Naked Prey. Wow, what a flick. Never saw a film like that before. So stark. I was somewhat turned off by the animal abuse — elephants were definitely harmed in the making of this picture (as well as other local fauna … ). But there was this awesome mixture of the horror and beauty of nature that you don’t normally see in a picture from that period. Raw and amazing. And quite a different Cornel Wilde from the guy in Leave Her to Heaven!
RM: Yeah I LOVE that movie and always have since I saw it as a little kid. I assume the animals were killed and then eaten by locals. I recall WILDE eating a snake in one scene…He was kinda a wild, crazy guy as a filmmaker and THIS was his best film and most intense by far tho I’ve heard good things about his influential bloody WWII movie BEACH RED with him and RIP TORN which reportedly influenced Malick’s THIN RED LINE very strongly. He also did a late 60s or early 70s movie about an ecological apocalypse and the survivors battling to stay alive NO BLADE OF GRASS with Nigel Davenport, and a fun if goofy King Arthur movie SWORD OF LANCELOT where he played Lancelot and was perhaps the FIRST Lancelot in movies to affect an authentic (well maybe not authentic!) FRENCH ACCENT. Very funny scene where GUINEVERE is shocked by him taking a bath in the river and using some square bar which makes suds “We all it SOAP!” he enthuses, “It helps keep you clean!”
Yes STARK and RAW was what he was into in that film and wanted. Someone said he made movies like he NEVER saw another movie in his life, like an authentic primitive artist at least in THIS movie. And don’t forget the authentic tribal music used as the score! It’s always been a favorite movie of mine when it comes to 60s African flicks! One of the main evil hunters who gets killed in the beginning is Dutch actor (boer) GERT VAN DER BEERG who is also in ZULU, and I also recognized some of the Native actors such as SIMON SABELA (also in ZULU).
He’s in a few really good movies…But his personal triumph was indeed THE NAKED PREY! There is a VERY funny parody of it in Carl Reiner’s politically incorrect offensive but funny WHERE’S POPPA? Whenever George Segal’s brother played by Ron Liebman goes thru Central Park at night these black guys hassle him and one night one of them says “You ever seen the NAKED PREY with Cornel Wilde?” He nods, “Well tonight you gonna be Cornel. And YOU better pray cause you gonna be nekked!” They then do a parody of the scene where WILDE runs and each WARRIOR in turn takes up the chase only whenever one of them catches up to RON LIEBMAN they make him take off some of his clothes till he’s running naked in the park.
He is usually thought of as a stolid hunk who was not particularly smart but he went to YALE and was and trained there for the Olympic Fencing team (I think he actually FENCED possibly at the olympics). Besides NAKED PREY he’s very good as the obsessed cop in Joseph H Lewis’ THE BIG COMBO a great noir with Richard Conte as the gangster he’s stalking and Wilde’s HOT wife JEAN WALLACE as the society chick he’s in love with who is sexually enslaved by Conte! Also good in SHOCKPROOF which I recall wasn’t bad. Did some good B movies too but THE NAKED PREY is his all the way! Didn’t direct many films but in the late 50s thru 70s he did a few…I recall an early one MARICAIBO and he ended his career starring and directing some B movie where he played an aging but still muscular (he does one handed pushups in it) salvage boat captain battling sea going hijackers in SHARKS TREASURE, a post-JAWS pic.
On filmmaker Nicholas Ray
PG: Anything that makes In a Lonely Place a Nick Ray picture particularly? I’ve seen very little of his work, so I’m wondering about auteur touches … ?
RM: The whole thing about him being rather FREAKY (likable but FREAKY) and in the end VIOLENT and DANGEROUS…Well that WAS NICK RAY…the film is as PERSONAL a film made in HOLLYWOOD by a director as ever has been made….BOGART’S CHARACTER is a self portrait…the outbursts of violence coming thru the charm and attractiveness…the alienation and bitterness of his place in Hollywood and in society…the self mocking quality…the way BOGIE signs his name DIX STEELE in the kid’s book is the EXACT way NICK RAY signed his name….same kind of signature…Ray used to sign his name with a QUESTION MARK…The title itself has a poetic quality which is a hallmark of Ray’s films…BOGART’S character in the film is as typical of Ray’s MATURE (well older) heroes as JAMES DEAN is of his younger ones tho there too there is a similarity…Remember? DEAN’S family had to movie because he “messed a kid up” because when he’s pushed he becomes VIOLENT in REBEL. BOGART in the movie IN A LONELY PLACE is basically a rebel without a cause too…turned in on himself with nowhere to really express how he feels or find a way to live, he strikes out at people…rebels but in the end it’s useless because the VIOLENCE is INSIDE him..and society only brings it out.
Don’t know if you watched the DOCUMENTARY…but if not then you don’t know the original NOVEL was about a YOUNG SERIEL KILLER…he’s not only the KILLER in the NOVEL, he’s done it before and is a young guy PRETENDING to be a screenwriter…originally BOGIE was going to produce it and star JOHN DEREK but then he and RAY reworked it for BOGART and changed the novel (which the movie is WAY better than) a lot….Most important thing is in the NOVEL HE IS THE KILLER…and in the original MOVIE SCRIPT he was the killer and at the end KILLS GRAHAME as well…and in another draft he wasn’t the killer but DID kill GRAHAME and was arrested by the cops at the end…NOW if you WATCH the film closely this would’ve been a FAKE ENDING…a CHEAP PSYCHO ENDING. No audience problem with BOGIE killing because he PLAYED KILLERS early in his career and ALSO in TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE…What happened was NICK the day of the ending said “This is BULLSHIT…it’s fake…him being the killer is too easy. Him KILLING her is TOO EASY…Life isn’t LIKE that…” BOGART said what did he wanna do? SO…NICK shut down the SET for the day and he, BOGART and GRAHAME improvised the ending which NICK then WROTE and SHOT all in one day (he then of course added some other stuff) and that was it. NICK felt the ending was REAL now…open ended…He didn’t KILL the girl but COULD HAVE…he also COULD HAVE MAYBE killed Grahame but didn’t…Or would he? In the end it’s all a QUESTION about what he’ll do next…NICK said “I hope the guy goes to see a good psychiatrist but I have NO idea what he’ll do” but it doesn’t matter…their LOVE is destroyed forever…his last chance at happiness is destroyed forever…no matter WHAT they’ll never get back together clearly…too much happened…and that’s the tragedy of it…the romantic despair…The ending is very original and unique in Hollywood because usually he IS the killer and is killed or caught OR he ISNT and is exhonarated and they are in love at the end and it’s a happy ending..NO happy ending this time even tho he isn’t the killer.
Nick was as responsible for the script guiding the writer as the writer was. It didn’t pre-exist as a script…BOGART hired RAY to direct and develop it BEFORE a writer was assigned. ANDREW SOLT, who was a VERY young writer at the time, replaced a much older writer EDMUND H NORTH (DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, DESERT FOX, PATTON). NORTH worked with RAY and BOGIE on a treatment or adaptation and later left and they got ANDREW SOLT who was younger and more interested in the psychological nuances of the character (not to insult NORTH he’s a fine writer). SOLT later on went on to mostly produce and write TV SPECIALS about ROCK ‘N ROLL HISTORY. Look up his name on IMDB! Anyway, RAY would usually take a finished script he had worked on with the writer(s) and rip it to shreds and rewrite it and use improvisation to rework it, though he’d keep the best parts of course. But he was very much destroying the script to make the movie live. Make things more spontaneous…MANY writers were less than thrilled originally with his movies he made from their scripts only to discover that those SAME movies were the ones which have endured and become CLASSICS so the writers then are in the position of saying “Well it would’ve been even BETTER if he kept to my script!” But in the case of RAY’S films that very unstable quality is what makes them great and it extends to the script, visual style etc….I once said not only was NICK RAY a MANIC DEPRESSIVE but his FILMS LITERALLY ARE MANIC DEPRESSIVE…they dont EXHIBIT or SHOW NEUROSIS or PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE…they ARE NEUROTIC and PSYCHOLOGICALLY DAMAGED…one critic even said the very things that make a Nick Ray movie weird and freakish and even absurd or a bit silly are inseparable from what makes them great….It’s the whole thing about ART not having any rules unlike craftsmanship…
JARRING that’s a PERFECT word for it and a perfect word for RAY’S style…he always introduces these JARRING things to throw you off balance because his universe IS off balance…Like when they SHOOT SAL MINEO in REBEL and RAY cuts to a CLOSEUP of SAL and the CAMERA suddenly rocks BACK AND FORTH before he falls dead. It suddenly not only expresses how SAL is now shot and thrown off balance but the WHOLE UNIVERSE IS SUDDENLY off balance and so are we….actually WE are even MORE off balance because we are USED to seeing a shot of the camera rocking or hand held shaking a bit as a POV shot from the person’s POV who has been shot, but in RAY’S case he STAYS on the CLOSEUP of SAL and ROCKS the CAMERA both showing his REACTION to being shot AND capturing the sense of things going out of control and becoming unbalanced…Actually I had THOUGHT I had used that shot in GOIN BACK TO CALI because it was in Chabrol’s TEN DAYS WONDER but when I saw REBEL again I realized it was like the shot in REBEL a lot too.
BOGART started a production company in the late 40s called SANTANA (or was it SANTANNA) after his yacht. He wanted not only to get more MONEY, a fatter share of the profits, but get more control…I’ve often wondered if the fact the company started around 1947/48 had to do a bit with him seeing HOW much control indie producer/director HOWARD HAWKS exerted over the WARNER BROTHERS productions of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT and THE BIG SLEEP where Studio execs complained they couldn’t really stop HAWKS from going over budget or doing reshooting because his CONTRACT was as an independent producer/director HIRING out his services and selling the material to WB….Anyway BOGIE and his pal ROBERT LORD whom he had met at WB formed SANTANA (SANTANNA?) and made a deal with COLUMBIA…they were looking for a director who was both cheap and new and who would have new interesting ideas AND could work with YOUNG people for a film they were doing starring Bogie and John Derek called KNOCK ON ANY DOOR….Word got out around town that the film Nick had made for RKO his first, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT about two young lovers who get tangled up in crime and go on the run in the rural 30s (it’s a sort of Bonnie And Clyde based story) was a good one, and it was being screened on the party circuit since RKO had SHELVED it temporarily without knowing what to DO with it (till it came out in ENGLAND and was a sensation — then they RELEASED it in the US)…Meanwhile the movie got a lot of good word of mouth around LA and BOGIE saw it and got NICK to direct KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (a watchable but very very minor film with a GREAT ending though). Bogie liked working with NICK so much when he bought the book IN A LONELY PLACE he got COLUMBIA to AGAIN borrow NICK from RKO (where he was under contract) to make the film for Bogie’s indie company. As time went on Bogie’s indie movies went from very ambitious stuff like those two with NICK to these kind of bread and butter mediocre redoing of CASABLANCA etc. Some of them real B movies too….Why I don’t know unless BOGIE just needed to make some money…Stuff like SIROCCO (which is probably I’ve heard one of the BETTER ones) or TOKYO JOE (which is a real cheap B movie). But to the end BOGIE had some more ambitious stuff he never got to make and his CONTRACT with his INVESTORS in his indie company said he had DIRECTOR CONTROL and had to APPROVE a director before he’d agree to do a film project…BOGIE had THREE DIRECTORS in his contract who were PRE-APPROVED…NICK RAY,. JOHN HUSTON and HOWARD HAWKS. Oddly enough he never worked with HAWKS after 1946 (though they HAD a couple of projects I always thought HAWKS held it against BOGIE he got BACALL when HAWKS wanted to fuck her first! Also why HAWKS sold her contract to WB right after BIG SLEEP). Actually when it looked like HUSTON might not be available to direct BEAT THE DEVIL, Bogart asked NICK to do it. But luckily HUSTON became available as it was much more Huston’s cup of tea (especially how COMIC it became).
RAY apparently got away with a lot of shit at RKO where he was under contract until 1953 because he became pals with HOWARD HUGHES who ALSO apparently (along with Ray’s WWII OSS record) protected him from the HUAC commie witch hunters. Also he agreed to work on like four or six movies which HUGHES said were in trouble and unreleasable and needed some reshooting and re-editing and thus got them into shape to be released and HUGHES never forgot the favor. The movies were THE RACKET with Mitchum and Ryan (not bad), ANDROCELES AND THE LION (fun), ROSEANNA McCOY, a rural Romeo and Juliet amongst feuding mountain families with Farley Granger (never seen it), and possibly even HIS KIND OF WOMAN a WONDERFUL really funny one of a kind sort of takeoff on film noirs with Mitchum, Jane Russell, Raymond Burr and stolen by Vincent Price as a ham Shakespearean actor who becomes a hero. JOHN FARROW shot it, and RICHARD FLEISCHER apparently reshot a LOT of it and had scenes rewritten to make it funnier…RAY might’ve worked on a couple of scenes my friends and I always thought he directed the scene where they try to give MITCHUM a “hot shot” and kill him via overdose…Looked like done by someone who KNEW about drugs and needles! Never been established if NICK actually did any of that one but HIS KIND OF WOMAN is a really FUN MOVIE.
NICK as you probably know was JOHN HOUSEMAN’S protege after his breakup with WELLES (which often led WELLES to make disparaging comments about NICK though ONCE he did say he was a great director he just didn’t feel as CLOSE to him as he did to someone like KUBRICK). NICK became HOUSEMAN’S assistant and protege on BROADWAY first directing some Broadway plays and assisting HOUSEMAN on others…When HOUSEMAN went to HOLLYWOOD again in the late 40s to work at RKO he got NICK a job there too, because NICK had found a book he wanted to direct, THIEVES LIKE US, which became THEY LIVE BY NIGHT. HOUSEMAN produced that, A WOMAN’S SECRET, possibly BORN TO BE BAD and finally ON DANGEROUS GROUND for RAY at RKO. They went their separate ways. HOUSEMAN once described RAY as one of THREE geniuses he had ever known the other being WELLES and a writer named ROBERT SHERWOOD but he felt NICK was his own worst enemy (he was). HOUSEMAN said “Nick Ray was a potential homosexual who had an almost constant need for the love of women, and who often treated these same women abominably for loving him. He also had a love hate relationship with money. He WANTED all of the money and success, but it made him feel guilty. I’d seen him lose 30,000 at craps in Vegas and he couldn’t afford it!”
Welles had a famous line about the French and their love of Nick Ray which went like this: “The French have a wonderful way of building you up and then tearing you down simultaneously. They will tell you you are one of the three greatest directors of all time. You, DW Griffith and Nick Ray. It’s that THIRD name that destroys you every time!”
On East/West Hollywood films
PG: Hey Ric, would you consider the ending of The World of Suzy Wong (Holden marries the Hong Kong hooker instead of the proper English girl) to be progressive for its time (1960)?
RM: Well yeah I guess for 1960. But the late 50s and early 60s was a time when things were changing. It probably doesn’t hurt that I THINK it was based on a novel that sold well. NEVER seen it — would like to. Then again I THINK in WILLIAM HOLDEN’S other “I HEART ORIENTALS” film, LOVE IS A MANY SPLEANDORED THING, where he’s having an affair with a girl who is half Chinese played by Jennifer Jones, I don’t think THAT union survives. But then again THAT was written by a Chinese woman HAN SUYAN so you COULD say she was being realistic in that most of those romances in the 50s between Americans and Asians DIDN’T last.
So the SHORT answer is YES, though in King Vidor’s interesting but somewhat disappointing JAPANESE WAR BRIDE from the 60s (made independently for his own company) in which the hero who brings home a Japanese war bride from WWII and encounters racial prejudice among his own family and friends, THEY ALSO STAY TOGETHER. I think so. On the other hand JIMMY STEWART’S Indian wife played by gorgeous Debra Paget in BROKEN ARROW is killed at the end by racist cowboys which is quite sad and tragic but SOME have said it’s because HOLLYWOOD wouldn’t ALLOW such an interracial union to last in 1950. But the BOOK ends the same way and one might argue it’s much more tragic this way!
While this is true, correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t ROBERT STACK end up with SHIRLEY YAMAGUCHI in Fuller’s HOUSE OF BAMBOO? Or does she die? I seem to recall he ended up with her. AND in Fuller’s 1958 or 59 thriller set in San Francisco’s Little Tokyo, THE CRIMSON KIMONO, the Japanese American cop ends up with the white BLONDE female lead, much to the anger of his best friend who is WHITE. But it’s FULLER and he’s ALWAYS apart from the pack!
Maybe because HOLDEN loves Asia and Asian Women he might’ve INSISTED on the ending tho again I think it was a BOOK so they probably kept it from the book. I want to SEE that movie a lot. The director RICHARD QUINE was a minor 50s director who did some movies I like a lot, including a great B movie crime pic PUSHOVER with Fred MacMurray in his tough guy mode; and Kim Novak, the comedy I love about a sexy witch who lives in Greenwich village, BELL BOOK AND CANDLE with James Stewart, Novak and Ernie Kovacs; and a very cool movie about an adulterous affair in the suburbs between two married people which is one of those “the american dream is bullshit” movies from the 50s, STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET with Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak and Ernie Kovacs. Also he did some movies he cowrote with Blake Edwards before Edwards went solo like SOLID GOLD CADILLAC which is a very good comedy, and THE NOTORIOUS LANDLADY which ain’t bad with Kim Novak. I am also a fan of his late 60s oddball rural gangster movie THE MOONSHINE WAR with Patrick McGoohan and Widmark. If KIM NOVAK seems to be in a lot of his films it’s because they had a LONG HOT AFFAIR and I THINK they got married too!
Of course because she’s a Hong Kong Hooker, the phrase “a Suzy Wong” has become an insult to Asian-Americans now and is used to denote either a BIG CLICHE Asian hooker (but then again have they SEEN all the ASIAN MASSAGE PARLORS around?) or an Asian-American woman who is a gold digger. In fact they don’t like the MOVIE because she’s a Hooker. Then again most Asian-American women don’t like FLOWER DRUM SONG which is fun too!
Also don’t forget by 1959, Sidney Poitier could be smarter and SUPERIOR as a man to Tony Curtis in THE DEFIANT ONES. In fact in most movies from the 50s, Sydney is superior to everyone else in the cast morally. On the other hand in the 50s movie ISLAND IN THE SUN his romance with JOAN FONTAINE is NOT allowed to last, nor is JAMES MASON’S with a black woman. So I’d say though there are MANY EXCEPTIONS in GENERAL, especially in a BIG BUDGET MAINSTREAM HOLLYWOOD PIC like WORLD OF SUZY WONG, it WAS progressive in 1960 to have it end like that!
I think of ALL of the previous movies to SUZY WONG where an interracial romance was allowed to continue and thrive at the end, MOST of them were either low budget indie movies from the 50s like Fuller’s CRIMSON KIMONO and King Vidor’s JAPANESE WAR BRIDE, or else were made at 20th CENTURY FOX like HOUSE OF BAMBOO (unless I’m wrong about that one!) and definitely WHITE FEATHER where Robert Wagner’s Army scout ends up marrying the Indian girl he loves and his narration tells us they had a son who graduated from west point. AND let’s not forget at the end of Andre De Toth’s THE INDIAN FIGHTER Kirk Douglas’s romance with the Indian princess ALSO lasts, in fact the last shot is them making love in a river! Maybe it’s different when it’s White People and Indians marrying at the end?
© 2013