My Life as a Mankiewicz (49 page)

“Why the Fuck Are We Here?”

Sometimes projects just happen. An example is a picture called
Hot Pursuit
, produced in 1986, of which I was one of the executive producers. There was a French-Canadian producer named Pierre David, with whom we almost got a film off the ground called
The Practice
about doctors owning a certain drug and masking the fact that it was actually killing people. David got a little project together with a director named Steve Lisberger, who directed
Tron
, which was a big flop when it came out and is now regarded as a great science fiction piece. Steve had written a script, a coming-of-age story about a kid who falls in love in Mexico. I read it and liked it and tried to help Steve Lisberger with some ideas. They couldn't get the budget down below $4 million. Nobody was interested in making it except RKO, which had some money to invest, but they only had $2.8 million.

Ned Tanen was one of the greatest guys who was ever an executive. If he had been an executive my whole life, I would have only done pictures with him. I never did. He started at Universal and was a real iconoclast. You could come in with the biggest stars in the world and he'd say, “No fucking way, I just hate this script,” or, “I love it, I don't care who's in it, let's make it.” He was funny and smart. He was then head of production at Paramount. I said, “Maybe, we could get a million-two from Paramount.”

Ned and I saw each other socially. So they set up a meeting with Ned. He'd just had a big hit with
48 Hrs
, and they'd announced a sequel. Paramount was doing great. David said, “If we can get this money, Tom, you'll be executive producer.” They wanted to use my name because I was hot at the time.

So we all assembled at Ned Tanen's office, and the RKO guys were dressed to the nines. They'd got three-piece suits. Pierre David looked like he'd just come from a wedding. They'd rehearsed their speeches. I was in a shirt and pants. I wasn't in a jacket. We waited ten or fifteen minutes in the outer office, and I could hear them mumbling and going through their notes. An assistant appeared. “Come in, Mr. Tanen will see you now.” So we all walked in. “Hey, Ned, how are you?” “Great, Mank.” Everybody sat down. It was one of those nervous Hollywood beginnings with “How ‘bout those Dodgers? Thought they were going to lose last night.” “It sure is hot today.”

Ned cut right through it. “So, why the fuck are we here?”

I said, “Ned, we sent a script to you guys. We're asking for a million-two, or slightly less than you're going to spend on the wrap party for
48 Hrs. II”

Ned said, “Yeah, you got it.” There was a big silence. He said, “So, do we have anything else to do?”

I said, “No.” All these guys have their speeches. Never said a word. “That's it, Ned. Thank you.”

“Okay.” So off we went. We looked at young actors. There was a wonderful young actor named Anthony Michael Hall who almost got the part. We settled on a young actor who had never played a lead but had played a couple of small parts, John Cusack. And the villain kid, in his first lead, Ben Stiller. Robert Loggia played the old sea captain. And son of a bitch, they had a $4 million budget; shot it for $3.999 million. Paramount owned the cable rights. Everybody came out fine, especially Cusack and Ben Stiller, who went on to bigger and better things.

Dum, Da, Dum, Dum

In 1986 Frank Price called and said, “Dan Aykroyd's here, and he's going to do
Dragnet.
He's written an original screenplay. Ted Kotcheff is supposed to direct it. He's a Canadian director who's done a lot of things—a good football movie,
North Dallas Forty;
the Mordecai Richler thing,
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.”

I said to Frank, “It's inspired to have Dan Aykroyd play Jack Webb. He'll be great.”

Danny was bouncing off
Ghostbusters
and he was a huge star. He was getting $2 million for the picture, which was a huge amount of money. His screenplay was hysterical, but it didn't make any sense, didn't hang together; insane stuff like kidney thieves who would sit down on a bus bench and knife you in the back and take your kidney and leave you. Danny had a friend involved named Alan Zweibel, a good writer who was working on
It's Garry Shandling's Show
and had written
Saturday Night Live.
Frank said, “Try and meet with Danny. He was great with Ted Kotcheff. But I've got to warn you, Danny can be very prickly. He's not the easiest guy in the world to work with. He's an acquired taste like mushrooms, and very smart.”

So I went over to Danny's bungalow, and I just fell in love with him. We got along like a house afire from the beginning, the same kind of humor. I said, “Okay, you can never get away with this stuff in the script.”

He said, “I know, I know, but I like to make them suffer up there.”

We started to work, and it was the most complete collaboration I've ever done. Danny did a script with Alan Zweibel. Then I did the rewrite with Alan. Then Danny and I wrote the final script. So we worked with each other, never the three of us in the same room at the same time. Ted Kotcheff was in Europe. We sent him the script, and he sent back a long memo. I told Frank, “The things he likes the best about the draft are the things I think are the weakest. And the things he really thinks have to be fixed, I think are its strong points. We're the wrong chemistry for this script, because everything I think is gangbusters is what he thinks has to be worked on.”

And Frank, out of the clear, blue sky, said, “How about if you directed

it?”

A shudder went through me. I said, “Well, I wouldn't let you down.”

He said, “If I thought you'd let me down, I wouldn't have asked you in the first place.” This obviously had been arranged. Danny had approved me in advance, because he never would have asked me.

The Best Reasons to Do a Movie

The next thing was Tom Hanks, who was on the verge of becoming a huge star. He had done
Splash
and
Bosom Buddies
on television. Tom was, and still is, somebody who tries all kinds of material. He had just done a love story in Israel that no one had seen. He'd done a picture with Jackie Gleason called
Nothing in Common.
It was not a big hit, but Tom was just wonderful. Danny had originally wanted Jim Belushi to play his sidekick. I mean this with great respect to Jim, he's a nice man and talented, but thank goodness he was busy and Tom Hanks was hired. Hanks came in to see me. I asked, “Why do you want to do this picture, anyway?”

A lot of times, actors make up stuff, saying, “I think I can get to the root of this guy.” Hanks said, “I think the script is very funny, it's going to be a big hit, and I'm going to love the company I'm keeping.”

I said, “These are the best reasons to do a movie.”

When you talk to actors, always talk to them privately. Meet with them privately. Dabney Coleman, who was going to play the Bob Guccione/Hugh Hefner character, came up to the house. We sat in the bar and talked for a long time. Dabney said, “I think he should be talking like this,” and he started talking with a southern accent and lisping. I asked, why? He said, “In school, he had this lisp, and the girls wouldn't go out with him. And he comes from the south.” He started this whole back story, and as he did it in that lisp, it was so funny.

I said, “Okay, I'll buy it.” It was hysterical in the movie.

I thought Chris Plummer would be great for the phony preacher. We'd sent him the script. I called him up in New York. He said, “This looks like it could be a lot of fun. I'd love to work with you.”

I said, “Chris, it would be, believe me.” Danny loved it because Chris was Canadian.

Chris said, “I've got a thing I'd like to play with this minister because I've been watching ministers on television now for two weeks since I got the script. There's this curious man named Pat Robertson, who's the only man in the history of the world with a totally unmotivated laugh. He'll say, ‘Yesterday, my wife and I went down to the store,' and he really laughs for no reason, and I'd like to make that part of my character.” He's hysterical doing that at times in the movie.

It is total joy working with people who have that kind of talent. But always meet with them privately, and meet with them as soon as you possibly can so that you have a personal relationship with them. Have lunch with them, have drinks with them, have dinner with them. You've been through the script with them, just the two of you, so that you don't have an actor suddenly say, “You know, I never liked this line.” Now you have to deal with that, and what happens is it gets contagious with actors. Then another actor feels he or she has to object to something to show that they're contributing too, and now you've got anarchy. A movie set is not a democracy. The director is in charge on a movie set, and he or she is the ringmaster at the circus. No matter how much fun you're having, you've got to be able to pull people back and say, “Wait a minute, guys, this is our next shot, and this is what we're going to do.”

We were looking for the Virgin Connie Swail, and I wanted a fresh face. Lots of people came in, including Danny's wife, and I said, “No, you can't, Donna, you can't do that.” Lots of people wanted to play the Virgin Connie Swail because, again in the words of Tom Hanks, they wanted to be “keeping good company.” I saw this beautiful girl in a picture called
American Flyer
, directed by John Badham, reminiscent of Jackie Bisset in
Two for the Road
when we hired her for
The Sweet Ride.
It was Alexandra Paul, and she played a small part. I called John Badham and asked, “Do you think she's a good actress?”

Just like Stanley Donen, he said, “I have no idea. I asked her to do a few things and she did them well. But I have no idea whether she can act or not.”

She came in to see me, and she was so charming, I said, “Okay, this is the Virgin Connie Swail.” She was nervous about it. Actors have to feel comfortable with each other, and in the first couple of days, I saw her sitting off to the side. I said to Danny and Tom, because they liked her instantly, “Any time you guys are sitting and talking, ask Alexandra to come over and sit with you. Make her feel part of this, because I think she's a little intimidated.” Pretty soon, she was just one of the gang. We called her our lucky penny.

Triple Jack and a Joint

At the beginning of the picture, Danny and I made a pact, which was that he was not to smoke marijuana while we were working and I wouldn't drink while we were working. Now, it was easier for me to keep that because, although I loved Jack Daniel's, I didn't drink when I worked anyway. So every night after we wrapped, I would go into Danny's motor home or he'd come into mine. He'd have a joint, and I'd have a triple Jack Daniel's. We were driven home by teamsters. On our first day, Danny said, “May I address the police officers?” and I said, “Oh, shit.” There were about a dozen of them on their motorcycles. He said in his Jack Webb voice, “We are about to embark on a great adventure. We will be all over the City of Los Angeles; the City of Angels. I would like to announce to all of you right now that, in the months to come, you will notice that I smoke a lot of weed.” I've never seen the blood drain out of a dozen police officers.

There was a silence, and the head sergeant said, “Well, Mr. Aykroyd, I'm sure whatever you do in the privacy of your motor home is none of our concern,” meaning, don't you dare walk around with a joint because we'll have to bust you. That was Danny's way of getting it straight, letting them know and finding out from them so he didn't have to ask anybody. We'd be filming around L.A. and I'd have my Jack Daniel's, and Danny would have his joint.

Sometimes, when we were downtown, I drove myself. At the end of the day, I'd come out of the motor home and the sergeant would say, “Ready to go home, boss?” I'd say, “Yup.” Two or three of them, with lights flashing, would go out into the middle of Hoover, stop traffic, and escort me onto the freeway. It was the greatest sense of power I've ever had in my life. I said to the sergeant, “Yeah, but will you do that once the picture's over?”

And he said, “Not a chance.” People would see my car go by and ask, “Who's that prick that's holding everything up?”

Sketch Artist and Actors

Sixty percent of the movie is Danny and Tom. So I'm going to have many over-the-shoulders and many close-ups. I saw right away that Danny, in spite of a lovely performance later in
Driving Miss Daisy
, was not really an actor. He's a sketch artist, and he is always best on the first take, or the first two takes. He's still good on the fourth take, but that kind of explosion that Danny has is in the first couple of takes. Tom is really an actor, and he's almost always best on the third take, the fourth take. I could see that the first couple of days, so I went up to them and said, “Now listen, because we're going to be doing this for months, I'm always going to shoot Danny first so that he can get that off. And Tom, you've got at least two or three takes of Danny's to wind up on. They both said, “Thank you so much,” because they'd seen it right away as actors.

Chris Plummer had his performance down. So you tuned him in like a radio station that you're not quite getting perfectly. After a take, I'd just gesture a little bigger or a little smaller. He'd nod. You're not going to put your arm around Chris Plummer and take him for a walk and explain to him the intricacies of the line he's saying. He knows what he's doing. Dabney, the same way. I don't think I ever directed Dabney once because he was locked. Elizabeth Ashley had a few nights when she couldn't remember. We had to shoot line by line. That was kind of a tragedy. She comes out fine in the picture; she's a pro. But she had some problems at the time.

Danny had Jack Webb down pat. It wasn't an imitation, it was an incarnation. He had his speaking patterns, like the fact that you don't say, “Yes, sir,” you say, “Ya' sir.” We hired Harry Morgan, who had done the series with Jack the second time around as his partner, as Captain Gannon, Danny's boss. Harry used to say, “I close my eyes, and son of a bitch, it's Jack. I can't believe it. The syncopation with the speech pattern.” Harry Morgan had played in
M*A*S*H
, the television series, and was very funny. Harry said, “You know, for the first fifteen years of my acting life, I only played creeps and petty crooks and stoolies in every drama possible. I got that part in
M*A*S*H
, and now all they want me for is comedy. I could always do comedy, but they never hired me to do comedy.” Suddenly, he was a comic actor.