Steven Spielberg (113 page)

Sources on previews of
1941
include Gale and Veitch; Bouzereau,
The
Cutting
Room
Floor;
and 1979 articles: Dale Pollock,
“1941
Openings Cancelled as Pic Undergoes Surgery,”
DV,
October 24; “Col & U: Opinions Differ on Spielberg’s
1941,
”
DV,
October 25; “Re-Edit of
1941
Proceeding; Spielberg Sanguine Re Tightening,”
Variety,
October 31; “Minimum Run on
1941
Shortened,”
Variety,
December 12; and Pollock, “Spielberg Cuts
1941
17 Mins.,”
Variety,
December 19.

Reviews (1979) include Ron Pennington,
HR,
December 13; Charles Champlin, “Spielberg’s Pearl Harbor,”
LAT,
December 14; Michael Sragow,
“1941:
World War II,
Animal
House
style,”
LAHE,
December 14; and in 1980, Stephen Farber, “Nuts!”
New
West,
January 14. Spielberg’s comment about Adolf Eichmann is from Rehlin.

Information on the premiere of
1941
and Spielberg’s trip to Japan with Amy Irving is from Woodward,
Wired;
Archerd column,
DV,
December 17, 1979; Janos; Black; and Jahr. Rumors about Irving and Willie Nelson were mentioned in Chambers, Farber, and Jahr. Spielberg commented on Kathleen Carey in Skow, “Staying Five Moves Ahead”; their relationship also was discussed in “As
E.T.
Grows, Spielberg Cools Out and Mulls the Sequel,”
People,
August 23, 1982. A photo of Valerie Bertinelli on a date with Spielberg appeared in
US,
June 10, 1980; they also were seen together on
The
American
Film
Institute
Salute
to
James
Stewart
(CBS-TV, March 1980).

The author interviewed the following people who worked on
Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark:
Gary Graver, Lawrence Kasdan, Kazanjian, and Tomblin. Information on the cost and schedule is from Kazanjian. Kasdan’s screenplay, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, was published in 1995 by O.S.P. Publishing as part of the
Premiere
magazine series The Movie Script Library. The revised third draft of the screenplay is dated August 1979. A children’s storybook adaptation by Les Martin was published by Random House, 1981.

The production was chronicled in Taylor,
The
Making
of
“Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark”;
Ann Heller, ed.,
“Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark”:
Collector’s
Album,
George Fenmore Associates, 1981; and the 1981 Lucasfilm documentaries
Great
Movie
Stunts:
“Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark”
(directed by Robert Guenette) and
The
Making
of
“Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark”
(directed by Phillip Schuman). Other information appears in Pollock,
Skywalking:
The
Life
and
Films
of
George
Lucas;
Alan McKenzie,
The
Harrison
Ford
Story,
Arbor House, 1984; Thomas G. Smith,
Industrial
Light
and
Magic:
The
Art
of
Special
Effects,
Del Rey, 1986; Champlin,
George
Lucas:
The
Creative
Impulse;
and Mark Cotta Vaz and Shinji Hata,
From
“Star
Wars”
to
Indiana
Jones:
The
Best
of
the
Lucasfilm
Archives,
Chronicle Books, 1994.

Spielberg wrote about the filming
of
Raiders
in
“Of Narrow Misses and Close Calls,”
American
Cinematographer,
November 1981, which also includes “Making Sure the Action Never Stopped” (interview with stunt coordinator Glenn Randall). Other articles on
Raiders
include Pollock, “Paramount Floating Lucasfilm’s
Ark,
”
DV,
November 30, 1977; “Paramount in Deal with Lucas for
Lost
Ark
and Four Sequels,”
Variety,
December 5, 1979; item in
HR,
May 9, 1980 (on Tom Selleck); “Harrison Ford
Lost
Ark
Star,”
DV, 
June 10, 1980; and in 1981, Janet Maslin, “How Old Movie Serials Inspired Lucas and Spielberg,”
NYT,
June 7; David Ansen, “Cliffhanger Classic,”
Newsweek,
June 15; Richard Schickel, “Slam! Bang! A Movie Movie,”
Time,
June 15; Michael Sragow,
’’Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark:
The Ultimate Saturday Matinee,”
Rolling
Stone,
June 25; James H. Burns, “Harrison Ford: The Name of the Game Is ‘Hero,’”
Starlog,
July; Mitch Tuchman and Anne Thompson, “‘I’m the Boss’: George Lucas Interviewed,”
Film
Comment,
July– August; Ben Stein, “A Deal to Remember,”
New
West,
August; and Peter Sullivan, “Raiders of the Movie Serials,”
Starlog,
August.

Additional information on Kasdan’s script is from Robert F. Moss, “New Epic, Big Stakes,”
Saturday
Review,
June 1981; James H. Burns, “Lawrence Kasdan: Part I,”
Star-
log,
September 1981; and “Kasdan on Kasdan,” ed. by Graham Fuller, in John Boorman and Walter Donohue, eds.,
Projections
3:
Film-makers
on
Film-making,
Faber and Faber, London, 1994. Information on eliminated sequences is from the author’s interviews with Kasdan, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck; and Kasdan’s third-draft screenplay of
Raiders,
August 1979.

Sources on Frank Marshall include his publicity biography, Paramount Pictures (1995), and Robert Greenberger, “Meet Frank Marshall,”
Starlog,
January 1983. Kathleen Kennedy’s comment on Spielberg’s problem with intimacy is from Schiff. Other sources on Kennedy include her publicity biographies, Universal (1986) and Paramount (1995); and Alexandra Brouwer and Thomas Lee Wright, “Kathleen Kennedy” (interview),
Working
in
Hollywood,
Crown, 1990.

Reviews of
Raiders
(1981) include Sheila Benson,
“Lost
Ark:
Back to Saturday Matinees,”
LAT,
June 7; David Denby, “Movie of Champions,”
New
York,
June 15; Robert Asahina, “Contrived Comic Books,”
The
New
Leader,
June 29; Victoria Geng, “Spielberg’s Express,”
Film
Comment,
July–August; and Molly Haskell, “Lucas–Spielberg: An
Ark
de Triomphe,”
Playgirl,
September.

Sources on
E.T.
The
Extra-Terrestrial
(working titles:
E.T.
and
Me,
A
Boy’s
Life)
include the author’s interviews with Allen Daviau and John Veitch; the 1996 documentary
The
Making
of
“E.T.
The
Extra-Terrestrial,
”
including footage shot by John Toll during the film’s production in 1981 (the laserdisc also includes outtakes from the film); Melissa Mathison’s shooting script,
A
Boy’s
Life,
August 21, 1981; and articles in
Ameri
can
Cinematographer,
January 1983: George E. Turner, “Steven Spielberg and
E.T.
The
Extra-Terrestrial”;
Lloyd Kent, “The Photography of
E.T”;
and Allen D. Lowell, “Production Design for
E.T.”
Book tie-ins include William Kotzwinkle,
ET:
The
Extra-
Terrestrial
in
His
Adventures
on
Earth,
Berkley Books, 1982 (novelization); Kotzwinkle, based on the screenplay by Mathison,
E.T.
—
The
Extra-Terrestrial
Storybook,
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982; Spielberg (introduction),
Letters
to
E.T,
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1983; and Kotzwinkle, based on a story by Spielberg,
E.T.:
The
Book
of
the
Green
Planet,
Berkley Books, 1985. The Spielberg-Mathison treatment “E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears” is discussed in John M. Wilson, “E.T. Returns to Test His Midas Touch,”
LAT,
June 16, 1985.

Information on the
Night
Skies
project is from Veitch; Crawley; and Steven Ginsberg, “Col Plans 20 Features for Year,”
DV,
April 21, 1980. Sources on Mathison include “Production Notes” for
E.T.,
Universal, 1982; Philip Wuntch, “Spielberg Isn’t All There Is to
E.T.,”
LAHE,
July 12, 1982; Andrew Epstein, “Melissa Mathison: The Hands of
E.T.,
”
LAT,
July 24, 1982; Deborah Caulfield,
“E.T.
Author Mathison on
E.T,
”
LAT,
March 23, 1983; David Robb,
“E.T.
Scripter Awarded 5% of Merchandising,”
DV,
March 1, 1989; and Bruce Ramer, “Credit on Creation of
E.T.
”
(letter to the editor),
DV,
March 6, 1989. Spielberg’s childhood wish that “strange creatures” would change his life was related to Roger Ebert,
“E.T.:
The Second Coming,”
Movieline,
August 9–15, 1985; his wish for a best friend was recalled in “Personal Glimpses,”
Reader’s
Digest,
November 1982. Donaid
Richie’s comments on
Shane
are from his book
George
Stevens:
An
American
Ro
mantic,
Museum of Modern Art, 1970. Allegations that
E.T.
was plagiarized were reported in 1983 by the
LATs
Caulfield in “Satyajit Ray Questions
E.T.
Origins,” March 16; “Authorship Claim Stirs the Studios,” March 18; and
“E.T.
Author Mathison on
E.T”;
and on June 23 in “Judge Rules
E.T.
Not an Infringement”
(DV)
and “Spielberg, Universal win
E.T.
lawsuit”
(HR).

Information on Carlo Rambaldi is from “Creating a Creature,”
Time,
May 31, 1982; Jane Hartneil, “A Wide-Eyed Wonder: The Creation of a Lovable Alien,”
Marquee,
July–August 1982; Callo, “Director Steven Spielberg Takes the Wraps Off E.T., Revealing His Secrets at Last”; Ed Naha, “Inside E.T,”
Starlog,
October 1982; and Carlo Rambaldi Enterprises,
“E.T.
Clarification” (advertisement),
DV,
February 11, 1983.

Sources on Columbia’s rejection of
E.T.
and
Me
include Veitch and Caulfield,
“E.T.
Gossip: The One That Got Away?” Information on Spielberg’s
Reel
to
Reel
project is from the author’s interview with Howard Kazanjian and Army Archerd’s column,
DV,
April 18, 1983.

The cover title
A
Boy’s
Life
was mentioned in Archerd columns,
DV,
June 12, July 14, and September 21, 1981; “Fourth encounters?”
LAHE,
July 13, 1981; and “Spielberg’s Secret Film,”
Rolling
Stone,
November 12, 1981. The misleading description of the film was published in
Motion
Picture
Product
Digest,
December 2, 1981. The secrecy surrounding the production also was reported in “Raiders of the Boss’ Art,”
People,
December 21, 1981, and Richard Turner, “Steven Spielberg: His Stories Aren’t Amazing Enough … Yet,”
TV
Guide,
August 2, 1986. Information on the production cost is from Daviau and from Charles Michener and Katrine Ames, “A Summer Double Punch,”
Newsweek,
May 31, 1982. Audience figures and the length of the original run are from Universal’s “Production Notes” for the 1985 reissue. Sid Sheinberg commented on the Houston preview in Latham, “MCA’s Bad Cop Shoots from the Hip”; Ebert’s description of the Cannes premiere is from
“E.T.:
The Second Coming.”

The White House, United Nations, and royal benefit premiere showings were reported (1982) in “E.T. Phone (First) Home?”
LAHE,
June 25; Jeff Silverman, “Spaced Out …”
LAHE,
June 30;
“E.T.
Goes to the U.N.,”
NYT,
September l6;
HR
item, November 4; and in February 1983, “U.N. Finds
E.T
O.K.,”
The
Twilight
Zone
Magazine.
Spielberg’s comments on the Reagans’ reactions are from Callo, “Director Steven Spielberg Takes the Wraps Off E.T….” The
Rolling
Stone
cover story is “A Star Is Born,” July 22, 1982. Spielberg’s protest, in the form of a “Letter from E.T.: Don’t Portray Me Glorifying Vice,”
LAT,
June 23, 1985, was in response to the June 16 cover of the
LAT
Calendar section; Charles Champlin wrote “Our Response: The Joke That Turned Out to Be on Us,” June 23.

Reviews and commentary (1982) include Millar,
E.T.
—
You’re
More
Than
a
Movie
Star;
Stanley Kauffmann, “The Gospel According to St. Steven,”
The
New
Republic,
July 5; Michael Sragow, “Extra-terrestrial Perception,”
Rolling
Stone,
July 8; George F. Will, “Well,
I
Don’t Love You, E.T.,”
Newsweek,
July 19; William Deerfield, “Is
E.T.
a Religious Parable?,” letter to
NYT,
August 15; and Andrew Sarris, “Is There Life After
E.T.?”
The
Village
Voice,
September 21. The
Time
profile is Corliss, “Steve’s Summer Magic”; the bumping of Spielberg from the cover was reported by John A. Meyers, “A Letter from the Publisher,”
Time,
July 15, 1985 (the issue that finally featured Spielberg on its cover). Universal’s Christmas 1982 ad for
E.T.
appeared in
NYT.
Jimmy Swaggart’s denunciation of
E.T.
was reported in Bill Quinn, “E.T., Phone Hell,”
L.A.
Weekly,
November 8–14, 1985. Spielberg’s comment on
E.T.
’s religious overtones is from Crist,
Take
22.