"Hi, I'm Tim Zinnemann." "I'm Fred Zinnemann's son, here to talk about From Here to Eternity, or at least what I know about it." "And I'm sitting here with Alvin Sargent, who has not only worked with my father on Julia, but we also worked together on a picture called Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman." "He can tell you more about it than I can, because he was a soldier who was shot during the attack in the movie." "I introduced the World War II to the film, and I can't imagine why I'm even here, given how it all began." "In 1952, a telephone call a telephone call" "from a casting director at Columbia, Max Arnow, found me one afternoon and said," ""I have a part for you in From Here to Eternity."" "I said, "I'm not an actor any more." "I haven't been an actor for years."" "He said, "Well, we have your picture here." ""Somebody must have dropped it off about two years ago." ""Buddy Adler wants you to come over to Hawaii tomorrow morning" ""and be in this movie."" "I said, "I can't." "I have a job." ""I'm selling advertising at Daily Variety and I can't be there."" "He said, "Buddy Adler insists that you be there," ""and we'll give you $400 for a week's work."" "And that's how it began." "That's why I'm sitting here today with Tim Zinnemann." "I wanted to talk a little bit about the background to From Here to Eternity, for those who might not be aware of it." "The movie was based on an 800-page book by James Jones," "The movie was based on an 800-page book by James Jones, which, in its day, was a big, huge best seller." "Also, it was highly critical of the Army, and it had a lot of things in it that for the day were considered scandalous, like adulterous affairs, etcetera." "So it was viewed in Hollywood as a project that would not actually ever be made, and it became known as "Coho's Folly" for Harry Cohn, who bought the book for Columbia." "At the time that he bought it, he did not even have the rights from the Army to get their cooperation." "It was a venture that people thought would never actually get started, and it foundered at a couple of other studios." "A young writer named Dan Taradash was hired to do a script and worked with the producer, Buddy Adler, and turned in, apparently, an amazing first draft that everybody thought extremely highly of." "As a result, they decided to fast track the movie and start immediately." "My father, Fred Zinnemann, had just come off High Noon, so he was considered an up-and-coming director." "Prior to that, he'd been known as a director's director or an art-house director." "Meaning, basically, you make good pictures, but they don't make any money." "So he was really not anybody's first choice, except Dan Taradash's, who insisted that Cohn meet him." "So my father read the script, which he loved, and went in to see Harry Cohn, who ran Columbia with an iron fist, and he was quite the tyrant and basically insisted on getting his own way." "So he talked to my father about the script, and my father said he loved it and would be very interested in directing it." "Cohn then said, "I have a young actor under contract here" ""who's going to play the part of Prewitt." "The girls love him." "He's a boxer." ""He's on salary and hasn't worked in 10 weeks," ""so I gotta put him to work and his name is Aldo Ray."" "My father just sort of said nothing and sniffed." "Cohn said, "What's the matter?"" "My father said, "I don't think he's right for the part."" "Cohn said, "Then who would you suggest?"" "My father said, "Montgomery Clift."" "Apparently Cohn went into a rage and he said, "Well, Clift can't box," ""he doesn't look like a soldier," ""and for all I know, he's probably a homosexual." ""And for all I know, he's probably a homosexual." ""Absolutely not." "That's the most ridiculous suggestion I ever heard."" "My father said, "If I can't cast this picture the way I think it should be cast," ""I think it's a wonderful script," ""and what you should probably do is get another director." ""Thank you very much."" "Cohn said, "I'm the president of Columbia." "Nobody gives me ultimatums." ""Get out."" "So my father reported in to his agent, who is Abe Lastfogel, the head of William Morris, and said, "I just don't think it's going to work." ""I love the project, but we just don't see eye to eye here." ""I'm not going to do a picture with a cast that I don't like." ""So, I'm going to pass on the project."" ""So, I'm going to pass on the project."" "Lastfogel said, "I completely understand your point of view." ""You're absolutely right."" "Then, Lastfogel got on the phone to Cohn and said, "Freddy loves the picture and he can hardly wait to start."" "and said, "Freddy loves the picture and he can hardly wait to start."" "Much to my father's amazement, he was given a contract, which he signed." "Cohn sent the script to Clift and the rest is on the screen as you see it today." "In terms of other ideas for casting," "Ronald Reagan was among those considered for the part of the captain, as was Walter Matthau and some others that I can't quite remember." "As was Walter Matthau and some others that I can't quite remember." "Joan Crawford was considered to be the lead choice for the Deborah Kerr part." "But my father and Buddy Adler and Taradash wanted to find somebody against type, because they thought it would be much more interesting because they thought it would be much more interesting" "to have somebody as the adulterous wife who was actually quite prim and proper" "and who had a very nice demeanour, so to speak." "So that's why Deborah Kerr was cast." "Who is that?" "She's Captain Holmes' wife." "I never met her." "The only actors I met were Monty Clift in the scene that I had to do for Buddy Adler." " But was that cut out of the movie?" " No, it's in the movie." "Which is it?" "No, it's a scene in which I announce to Monty Clift that Frank Sinatra's in the brig and Fatso is beating him up." "It's on the grass, just before the big fight." "There's a couple of other things I could mention here." "When Cohn was first developing the script, and Buddy Adler, who had been in the Army, I believe, was able to get the Army's permission to do this very controversial story," "they had two scenes that they said could not be in the movie that were in that current script." "One was that they didn't want to see Maggio, or Sinatra's character, physically abused in the brig." "They didn't want to see any violence of that nature on screen." "So that was eliminated." "The other one was the captain, in the script, was rewarded for his work rather than punished." "And they said that would not fly and they would not allow that." "Because in the original script, he was promoted to major." "In this version, you'll see that he's punished." "It's something they had to give in to in order to make the picture at Schofield Barracks." "So they agreed to do that." "I'm a writer now, and when I was given the script, the following day after this phone call and put on an aeroplane," "I was presented with Dan Taradash's script." "I had never read a movie script before." "It is a great film script, a great adaptation." "It was like going to the movies." "It taught me everything I needed to know about writing film." "I'll never forget when I read it, how perfect it was." "I have a letter James Jones wrote to my father about his feelings of the script, and I just wanted to read that here." "He wrote it on January 25th, 1953, just before they went into production." "It said, "Dear Fred," ""I'm going to call you that, since, after talking to Taradash," ""I always think of you that way." ""I want to tell you what a bang-up job I think you two guys have done," ""along with Buddy, in getting as much into the screenplay as you have." ""I had long expected and been resigned to a typically sentimentalized," ""crapped-up movie version of the book." ""It was a hell of a surprise to find it wasn't that."" "So James Jones was a big fan of the script of Taradash and of the picture, which, as a writer, you probably know is not always the case, is it," " with novelists, would you say?" " Absolutely." "But this particular one was extraordinary." "Then I went and read the book and understood just what he had been up against and how successful it was." "I used the script once when I was staying at a hotel." "Everybody stayed on Waikiki Beach back then in 1953 or '52, and of these wonderful hotels that the stars stayed in, we stayed inland in some small place in town." "I remember there was a young waitress who waited on us and wanted to write films." "So I showed her the script, which brought me a lot of points with her." "It never went much further than that." "However, I don't remember so far back." "It was a successful script in many ways." "Going back to what Cohn said about Aldo Ray being perfect for the part of Prewitt, there's a description that I pulled out of the script from Taradash's first draft describing Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt as a "23-year-old, deceptively slim, immaculate, decisive." ""The picture of a soldier." ""On his sleeves are marks where chevrons have been removed."" "So the back-story of Prewitt was that he was a corporal elsewhere, and he had been busted to private, because he wouldn't cooperate and he had been reassigned to Schofield Barracks." "So, actually, Clift was very much properly cast," "I mean, the way he is described." "He was a dear man." "I remember the scene that I did with him was done on the squad." "The sun was baking us." "We were really all very hot and perspiring and weakened a bit." "I remember your father said, "Al, would you like a glass of water?"" "I'd never acted before in a movie, and it was my first scene that I ever had, one of two scenes." "I said, "No, thank you." "That's fine." "I'm fine."" "Monty Clift was standing next to me." "He knew I wanted some water and said, "I'd like some water, Fred."" "So out they brought him a glass of water." "He drank a few sips and offered the rest of it to me." "There was a wonderful kindness in this man that you could just perceive right away." "There was a gentleness and a sadness and a caring." "A beautiful man." "He had an intensity and an intelligence, and he really knew how to get to the heart of a character." "I remember in pre-production, he knew absolutely nothing about being a soldier." "He had no idea how to play a bugle." "He completely threw himself into the part, and by the end, not only could he play the bugle, it never left his side." "He used to sit up in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and play the bugle to the kids in the school next door, because they used to come out and go in by bugle calls." "So he would play the bugle call at the wrong time, and all the kids would come out onto the field." "He used to have a great time doing stuff like that." "What's interesting about the character and the actor is that, if you think about Monty Clift, you just don't think of him as a bugler, as playing the trumpet or any kind of horn." "And it made it even much more..." "It must have been what your father saw in it, the contrast of that character, that actor, with what he had to be." "I'm sure that excited your father, that edge that he always wanted to give to everything." "My father saw the character as a loner who loved the Army and was trying to fit in, but was also a guy who was self-destructive in his stubbornness." "He tried to set this up in the very beginning scene, where you see a platoon marching by and Clift coming towards camera, and the platoon is moving across screen." "So they're moving in opposite directions, and here is a lone soldier coming towards camera and towards us." "But he's an outsider within the system." "That's a subject that has always fascinated my father throughout his career, which he repeated in other movies, like Nun's Story, for instance." "What I knew of your father, when I spent time with him for a year or two on Julia," "this kind of wonderful stubbornness of his that was really fierce sometimes." "You had to learn how not to be frightened and how to stand up to him." "It always made things much better." "But he always did look for that part of himself, I think, that is in all of these characters." "I'd say, actually, he himself was very much like Clift in From Here to Eternity, in that he did work within the Hollywood system, but he stubbornly would refuse, in the beginning, to do movies he didn't want to do, even though he was under contract to MGM" "and had no right to refuse to do them." "But he stuck to his guns." "In that way, he was very similar to this character." "Precision, that's the big, important word for your father." "He was so precise about everything, and when he had a scene written, at least in Julia, it was finalised and there it was, and that's what he shot." "It gave it kind of an eloquence and elegance in everything that you saw on the screen." "It was very exciting." "When you think about From Here to Eternity, the picture was made in 41 days." "They had a 42-day schedule." "So when you see what's on the screen, they must have worked very quickly." "I read his script, and he has notes on every page, very precise notes about where everybody is in a scene." "That's exactly what he did in the movie." "For him, the script was definitely the bible, and he really adhered to it." "The scene we shot, maybe there were three or four takes." "Then, later on, when the war begins," "there's a rumbling, I think, you hear." "The men are in their offices and at the mess hall, and you hear these bombs going off in the distance." "Then suddenly you hear somebody running across the field screaming," ""The Japs are bombing Wheeler Field!" "The Japs are bombing Wheeler Field!"" "I'll tell you how I got to do that, which is kind of a funny idea in itself." "It was shot with a Japanese Zero coming at us." "It was shot in half a day, as I remember, whereas today, that would have been a few days' work." "It was actually very effective and the special effects were great." "There were a lot of bullets in the ground in front of me, and I had to stop at a certain spot." "Actually, there was another person who had been given..." "I had finished my little scene with Monty Clift, and I was standing around with a bunch of people watching somebody run across the field screaming," ""The Japs are bombing Wheeler Field!" "The Japs are bombing Wheeler Field!"" "The actor did it with not very much intensity and not really too worried about anything." "It just didn't work." "I remember everybody huddling and deciding that actor wasn't going to be able to pull this off." "I saw your father look around, and I saw him wander towards this group of guys in which I was standing." "I said to myself, "He's going to come and he's going to ask me to do that." ""He's going to ask me to run across the field and scream that the war is beginning."" "I felt like a little kid playing war." "You know, it was really exciting." "He said, "Al, you think you could run across the field and do that?"" "I said, "Yeah, I think I could."" "He said, "I think you can, too." ""Because, Al, look up there on that roof." ""See the man with the machine gun?" I said, "Yeah."" "He said, "Who's that?" I said, "Burt Lancaster."" "He said, "Yeah." "Now, you, Al, are a better actor than Burt Lancaster."" "He laughed." "But he was trying to give me some belief in myself." "So I ran across the field, screaming, "The Japs are bombing Wheeler Field!"" "Announcing the war." "And very well done it was." "Then somebody thought I was a stuntman." "I wasn't." "I just decided to flip over at the end." "Very believable." "One fellow, Bob Wilke, as a matter of fact, came up and said," ""You know, that's really one of the best stunts I've ever seen."" "I'd go along with that." "For some reason," "I just recalled this story, my father told me about Burt Lancaster." "They barely knew each other." "Burt had just been cast." "He was a big movie star." "It was the first day of rehearsal." "They were blocking a scene with Monty Clift and Burt." "During the rehearsal, Burt turned to Monty and said," ""Listen, Monty, instead of coming from over here," ""why don't you go to the door and come in that way?" ""Let's see how that works."" "They started doing it the way Burt had directed Monty to play the scene." "And then my father waited till halfway through the rehearsal and said," ""Stop." "Let's stop here."" "Burt was a little surprised to be cut off in the middle of a scene, especially since he was a big star." "My father just said quietly, "Burt, could I talk to you for a moment?"" "Burt said, "Sure." So he says, "Let's walk outside."" "So Burt and my father walked outside and he said to Burt," ""Listen, I'm under the impression that I was hired to direct this movie" ""and that you were hired to act in it." ""If that's not your impression," ""then perhaps we should both go see Harry Cohn right now."" "Burt said, "I'm terribly sorry." "I'm just so enthusiastic about the project." ""I didn't mean to do that."" "And that was the end of it." "From then on, they got along famously." "That must have been the day he told me I was a better actor than..." "Yeah, probably." "But my father's way of working..." "They called him the Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove." "He had a very..." "In Julia, when we were about to start shooting, a month away," "Vanessa Redgrave came into the room one day," "I was sitting there with them, and she said," ""Fred, I'd like to talk to you about the script that I was given and agreed to do."" "He said, "What's the problem, Vanessa?"" "She said," ""There's a line here that was taken out regarding Karl Marx."" "He said, "Yes, we've taken that out, Vanessa."" "She said, "That's not the script I agreed to do." ""I would like that name to be back in that speech."" "He said, "Well, that's not going to be the way it is, Vanessa." ""I just don't think we want to talk about Karl Marx at that moment."" "She said, "Well, I don't know, Fred." ""Then I don't know if I can handle the work as I intended to."" "He said, "Then we can always recast, you know."" "And she said, "Well, let me give it a think."" "Of course, I'm shivering there, thinking we're going to lose this actor." "She left the room and he called Meryl Streep on the phone." "She came over the next day or two days later." "They had a discussion in the room about the part." "He had seen her in Shakespeare in the Park in New York, and she'd never been in a film before." "But he thought she would be a very good Julia." "It worked out that Vanessa just went ahead and had her wardrobe fittings and everything was fine." "He put Meryl Streep into a smaller role in the movie." "But, boy, he just stood up for it." " Yes." " He stood behind his guns, and that was that." "I thought I could talk also about how Frank Sinatra got the part of Maggio." "It was not by putting a horse's head in Harry Coho's bed, as some people might have thought." "He, at that time, was married to Ava Gardner, who was doing a picture in Africa called Mogambo." "Harry Cohn was over there visiting, as it was a Columbia picture." "She said to Cohn," ""My husband, Frank, would be perfect for Maggio." ""You should give him a shot."" "At the time," "Sinatra was completely washed up and really not working at all." "Cohn was very reluctant to do it, but thought about it and mentioned it to my father, and then they decided to go ahead and test." "Cohn, who was very tight with the bucks said," ""If you fly yourself over here, we'll think about it," ""and you have to pay for your own test."" "So Sinatra flew back from Africa, paid for the test and did a brilliant job and immediately got the part." "The only other person that had been thought of for it was Eli Wallach, who was also a very good actor, but had a prior commitment with Kazan to do a stage play, so he was out." "The closest I ever got to Frank Sinatra was in a limousine that picked him up and me at the same time." "For some reason, I was sitting in the front with the driver, and he was in the back with somebody, I don't remember who it was." "All I know is they were speaking about Ava." "Maybe some problems with Ava," "I suspected, because he was very nervous about Ava," ""Where is Ava?" and, "Why don't I hear from Ava?"" "It's the best I could pick up in the front, that was it." "I think that was just when they were splitting up, and it might be that she wanted him away from her at the time." "So she got him a role." "Very good." "There you are, sweetie pie." "Dues all paid up." "Hey, who you got playing the piano there?" "A hippo?" "Oh, Angelo, I don't think I've met your friend." "Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt." "Oh, you know how I hate it when you boys are in this condition." "You see that, buddy boy?" "A woman sees a soldier, and, like that, she figures he's drunk." " Why?" "You know why?" " Because he is." "Well, heavy drinking simply doesn't mix with the entertainment business." "Every respectable place has to consider its future." "Mrs Kipfer, ma'am, you have my solemn word your future will be safe with us!" "Angelo is one of my favourites." "Annette, dear, take care of this gentleman for me, will you, please?" "That'll be four bucks, baby face." "Two for initiation fee, two for this month's dues." "What do I get for it?" "Members are entitled to all privileges of the club, which includes dancing, snack bar, soft drink bar and gentlemanly relaxation with the opposite gender, so long as they are gentlemen and no liquor is permitted." "Donna Reed, in the novel, was meant to be a prostitute." "Because of censorship at the time, they changed it to a social club." "There was to be no hint that this was a house of prostitution." "So they called it a social club." "Donna Reed was not particularly my father's choice." "She was under contract to Columbia, and my father felt that he had given Cohn such a hard time about Clift that he should really go along with Coho's choice, Donna Reed." "He was very surprised to find that she did the wonderful job that she did do on the movie, which, in the end, gave her an Academy Award." "So he was extremely pleased with what she did." "One of the other things is that my father insisted that the picture be shot in black and white, which was very much against what the studio wanted, because they thought that they would make a couple million dollars more" "if the picture was in colour." "He insisted on shooting in black and white, because he thought it would give it a much more realistic tone." "So they did go along with his desires on that." "Black and white made a big difference." "He shot so many of his films in black and white, didn't he?" "Yeah, I think, going back in time, he was an apprentice to Robert Flaherty, who was sort of the king of documentaries, and he also started in photography." "So he was very influenced by documentaries and by Flaherty." "That sort of continued on throughout his life in all the work that he did." "I don't know if you felt that influence in Julia." "No, I don't..." "I mean, I think he basically shot the script, didn't he?" "He shot the script." "It was wonderful." "I remember him saying Sydney Pollack was meant to do it originally." "Sydney was involved in it and then he pulled out." "Your father came over looking for material at 20th Century Fox, and that script was down there on some shelf and they handed it to him." "And he read it and he said, "I want to do this." "I really would like to do this film."" "I don't think he made any changes at all, did he?" "We made very few changes in England." "We worked on that precision, you know." "I remember it was May." "We were going to start shooting in September." "I think it was May, and he said, "You know, Al..."" "I said, "I think we're ready." "We've got the script."" "And he said, "Yes, but I want this cross to the window," ""and I don't think we have it yet." I said, "Well, I'll get it."" "He said, "No, it's a cross to the window." "I want it more precise than it is now."" ""What do you mean, like going around a chair, or picking up a teapot or what?"" "He said, "Just..." I said, "We'll get it, I..."" "He said, "Well, Al..." I said, "Well, it's May."" "He said, "The clock is ticking," which I'm sure you've heard many times." "Did he ever connect you back to From Here to Eternity?" "We had lunch one day with him and his friend." "And I said, "Do you remember From Here to Eternity?"" "And I mentioned the scene, and I said, "That's me, Fred."" "I remember." "And he was pleased." "The next day, he gave me a photograph of himself and Burt Lancaster and Monty Clift." "They signed it." "I still have it on my wall." "I noticed the scene that's coming up here was highly controversial at the time." "And I think, was it the Breen Office, it was the censorship of the day, insisted that Deborah Kerr wear a skirt over her bathing suit." "They were insistent that they not touch in a certain way." "It's still one of the most romantic scenes in film." "I think what they found erotic and objectionable was the water in that particular scene." "Rolling up over them." "They wanted some cuts made." "There were certain angles that my father was not allowed to shoot because of censorship at the time." "It's a scene that caused a big flap in its day, as I remember." "Must have been phone calls every day from Hollywood to Honolulu, with your father ignoring most of them." "Ignoring everything he could." "But sometimes there was too much pressure and he had to give in." "Let's go up to Mrs Kipfer's parlour and sit there." " She was really wonderful." " Donna Reed was great." "I think up to this time, she'd done mainly roles of starlets and stuff." " Was she on television already or..." " I don't think so." "I think she was just a contract player at Columbia." "The water, this part is what the Breen Office, they objected to this." "The water rushing in." " Oh, boy." " But it stayed in." "And then running after her." "And then for years, this was one of the most famous love scenes ever shot, I think." "They're so mature, these two people." "It made it so much more exciting that they weren't just young kids." "There's an elegance about the way it's shot." "It's the utter precision, too." "Black and white does so much for you, though." "Doesn't it?" " If he did that in colour, wouldn't you lose..." " A lot." "Because it makes it very specific and you're focused in on these two." " How many men do you think there've been?" " I wouldn't know." "Can't you give me a rough estimate?" "I saw your father when he was here last time." "What's that?" "15 years ago?" " No, when was he here last?" " '92." "'92, yeah." "We had lunch together." "It was a nice time." "Yeah, he died in '97, so it's the last trip he made to Los Angeles." "The year before he died, I was in London with my granddaughter." "I took her for a trip." "We went and tried to find his..." "We went over to..." " What's the street he was on?" " Mount Street." "Mount Street." "But nobody was there." " 98 Mount Street?" " 98, yeah." "He was there, but probably wasn't answering." "I think that's right." "Yeah." "Because he became very deaf." "That's too bad." "Which he was able to use as a weapon, because he basically heard anything he wanted to hear." "But he would pretend that he hadn't heard anything." "I should have sent him a note." "During Julia, I had the apartment next door, up above the chicken store." "I think there was a bakery or a butcher." "We had two scripts." "We had the red script, which was my script, and there was your father's script, which had certain changes in it that we fought." "We used to have a big sign up on the wall in our office, and it said, "Better red than Fred."" "We had a good time, though." "I learned a lot from your father." "I'd only been married to Dana two years when I found out he was cheating." "This looks like it was shot late in the day." "I thought I had something to hope for." "I was almost happy the night the pains began." "I think this scene still holds up after all these years." "It's very sensual, don't you think?" "She's a knockout." "He was drunk when he came in at 5:00 a.m." "He was great." "Did he win an Oscar, or did she win an Oscar?" "No, they were both nominated." "Donna Reed and Frank Sinatra did." "I think the picture was nominated for 13 and won eight Academy Awards." "My father did win and Taradash won, and the picture won and editing." "But in the way this is shot, this very much goes back to his beginning and his influences with Flaherty." "It's very precise." "He also worked with a great man, Paul Strand, who was a still photographer." "He was also a cinematographer." "There's a real elegance to how he composed his shots and a real precision to it." "Did your father make some documentaries?" "He made one and he actually won an Academy Award for it." "It was for orthopaedic hospitals." "It was a charity thing." "But no, he wanted to, and he was dying to work with Flaherty, but he wound up spending six months in Berlin drinking beer with Flaherty and not making anything." "But he did learn a lot from him." "Look at her." "Look at that arm." "In my father's direction, everything is thought out." "It was always very precise." "Nothing was ever left to chance, in terms of the framing, the staging." "He was a big believer in preparation." "He never did wing it." "Tell me about it." "But there was a security in that, too, when you worked with him." "You wrote, and you placed something on a page and it was agreed on." "And you felt that what you were going to do next, whatever you were going to do, was going to be given some credibility." "You weren't going to have to worry about it being tampered with all the time." "Right." "There's a scene that's going to be coming up later with Sinatra, where he is arrested and is resisting arrest." "I think it was the last night of shooting." "Harry Cohn had come over and was not coming on the set, but was getting reports back as to how everything was going." "There weren't really any problems." "They were delighted with dailies and everything was going really well." "But there was some concern about the scene that my father had staged that afternoon that they were going to shoot at night, where Maggio is standing up, resisting arrest." "The Army complained to Cohn and said they didn't want him to resist." "They just wanted him to be arrested." "That night, while they were shooting the scene," "Cohn came on the set with the commandant of the base to watch the shooting." "They started to shoot as they had staged the scene." "Cohn went to my father and said, "Maggio has to sit down, not stand up in the scene."" "Contrary to my father's character and contrary to everything he had done before, he said, "Yes, okay."" "I think this caused a rift with Sinatra and my father that never healed, really." "But my father, according to him, did this because the Army insisted on it, and he felt that he had pushed it to the wall, and he wasn't going to get them to bend, so he just gave up on that point and had Maggio sit down in the scene," "which, apparently, Sinatra was very upset about." "...and he must have been set pretty flat on his feet..." "I liked him sitting down." "It's fine." "Maybe your father knew that, too." "Maybe he thought, "That's not a bad idea." "I'll act as if I'm giving him something."" "I think in Sinatra's mind, he lost respect for my father for not standing up for himself." "You said that Clift was a good friend of your family's?" " You spent a lot of time with him socially?" " Well, we went back..." "Clift did, I think, his first picture," "I can't remember if it was before Red River or right after, but he got the lead in a picture called The Search that my father did in Germany right after World War II, and did it very much as a documentary." "And Clift became a very close family friend, including a friend to me." "He used to come and play with me all the time." "He had his agent send me birthday presents." "His agent was Lew Wasserman, so he'd send Lew Wasserman out to buy me a birthday gift." " How old were you now?" " When we first met Clift, I was seven or six." "During the making of From Here to Eternity, I was 13." "But Clift, until his death, was a close family friend to all of us." "I remember taking little walks around that beach with your mother." " Really?" " Yeah." "I don't know why." "I found myself once walking with Fred's wife." "Really?" "That's funny." "All right, that's enough." "Okay, Prewitt, bury it." "Clift looks in great shape there." "He does look like a middleweight." "Yeah, absolutely." "I used to go and watch him with Mushy Callahan." "I used to go and watch them training." "It was kind of fun." "So much my pockets is sore" "Oh, my pockets is sore" "Yeah, that a boy!" "More dough than I can use" "Reenlistment blues" "Sing it, boys!" "Time!" "My father, being very precise in his thinking, in the way that he shoots and the way that he prepares," "contrary to that, he was also a great risk-taker, as Alvin was talking about with Vanessa." "And possibly throwing the best person for the part out of the movie just because she resisted some changes." "Anyway, my father, right after From Here to Eternity, was riding high, extremely successful." "He went out and did something that he'd never done before, which is, bought a new car." "It was this fancy Jaguar that he picked up in Italy for some reason." "He said to me, "Let's go for a ride."" "We were in Rome and he loved to drive really fast." "He was actually a reckless driver." "We were approaching Switzerland at about 100 miles an hour in this fancy Mark VII Jaguar." "There was a gypsy caravan going into a tunnel ahead of us, and there were two choices, either slow down and go through the tunnel behind the horse-drawn caravan, or try to pass them in the tunnel." "The car was very big and the caravan overhung the road." "It didn't look like we were all going to fit." "But he decided to gun it." "So he passed the caravan on the wrong side of the road in the tunnel with sparks coming off the driver's side, because he kept hitting the tunnel wall all the way through." "And sparks were flying off his side, and we just kept on going straight through the tunnel and got to the other side." "He had been, with me, very precise getting into the car, not to put my fingerprints on the glass, and not to touch the seat and not to touch the wood and all of these things," "and to be very careful because it was brand new." "Now, essentially, the whole left side of the car had been sheared off." "He completely played it like nothing had happened." "We got out of the tunnel, past the caravan." "We were still going 100 miles an hour." "I think we stopped someplace in Italy for lunch." "We just pulled to a stop and he said," ""Excuse me, but I think I'd better get out your side." ""There's something wrong with my door."" "That's very much how my father was, not only in life, but in his work." "There was definitely this dichotomy where he was extremely precise, but he was also willing to throw it all away at any time for a principle." "And a good story." "Well, good for him." "I'll buy that." "I would have taken a long time and been behind that cart." "So he was always one to take chances in his personal life and in his work." "He would always..." "In terms of From Here to Eternity, he would much rather go with Deborah Kerr, who was not the popular choice, who was not somebody you'd think of for the role, as against a proven star like Joan Crawford, who not only was up for it," "but thought she had the role and was even talking to the costume designer about her wardrobe." "I wouldn't have wanted to be in her house that night" " when she learned the truth." " No." "In all of these scenes, just look at this scene, particularly," "I mean, there's always a story being told." "Every moment there's a story." "The cleanliness of the scene, the sharpness of the images is so much your father." "I remember he considered John Ford a mentor, in a way, and he very much admired his work." "Ford said to him about his earlier work, he said," ""You know, kid, you've got potential, but you move the camera too much." ""Just remember the camera is an information booth" ""and let the people come to you."" "I think that's something that stuck with my father, too." "I've watched him and what I found was that he..." "And then I started doing it in writing, too." "He doesn't move in on faces." "He cuts closer and cuts closer, but there's never that zooming in." "Because I don't think that's how stories are told, anyway." "You always tell a story..." "A story's like a..." "A movie's like a joke." "Like you tell a joke, that's how you tell a movie, a story." "So this happened, two guys came into a bar." "They stood in front of the bartender." "An elephant walked in the door." "You know, it's all very quick, very precise." "Dreams are also, I think, very much..." "I write when I think about cutting, moving a story along," "I think about, "Does it work in a dream?" "Does it work in a joke?"" "When you tell a tale..." "And your father..." "I don't know if this applies to what I'm talking about with your father, but if you watch, you don't see a lot of camera movement." "You don't see a lot of..." "God." "Zooming in and out." "Panning, very little panning." "No, he was a very good editor and relied on good editors, such as Walter Murch and a lot of people that he worked with to really let them do their job." " Murch was very helpful on Julia." " I'm sure he was." "But he definitely listened to the editors, and he gave them the respect that they're due." "Editing was very important to him." "He was an editor, wasn't he?" "He began as an assistant cameraman in Berlin." "He worked with Billy Wilder on his first movie." "He came to Hollywood, hoping to break in as a cameraman." "His first job was as an extra as a German lieutenant on All Quiet on the Western Front." "Really?" "He was told by the first assistant director to do something and he said no." "He got fired, which is typical of him." "Glad he was acting." "But in terms of his camera set-ups, he's always doing it being terribly aware of how he's going to edit the picture." "He also started in the shorts department, so he learned how to tell a story, say of George Washington," "80 years of George Washington Carver's life in 10 minutes." "So there was always this economy to his style." "He always knew where he was going to go with the material." "Also, in these days, in the '50s, people like Harry Cohn did interfere with editing a lot, the process, and they did have final cut and the directors didn't." "In the case of From Here to Eternity," "I think they shot it in the spring of '53, and they had it edited by June and in the theatres by August." "So it's a very fast schedule." "They didn't give my father much time to edit the movie." "Cohn came right in and took it over and made his changes, and my father had to fight tooth and nail for what he believed in with Cohn." "The picture was released in August in the biggest theatre on Broadway, which was not air-conditioned." "It was regarded as a very foolish move by many, but Cohn took full responsibility for it." "They didn't do a press preview for the picture." "They just released it." "On the first night at midnight," "Marlene Dietrich called my father, who he didn't know that well, and said there's lines around the block and they've added a 1:00 show." "Then everybody knew it was going to be a big hit." "Great." "They opened it here at the Pantages Theater." "I went back after my week or so on this movie." "I went back to selling advertising at Daily Variety." "They opened the movie five months later, whenever it was, six months later, and I went to the premiere by myself, I think." "And sat there, somehow I got in and watched this movie." "Suddenly there I was, this amazing full close-up on the Pantages movie house screen." "It must have been a thrill." "I didn't know if it was a thrill or embarrassing, I couldn't tell." "It's like listening to your own voice." "That scene will be coming up here in a minute." "But there was definitely a feeling about this movie in pre-production that it was a great script and a great project." "I remember the opening night, the premiere there." "It was a thrilling night." "Everybody just couldn't get over it." "My own personal recollection," "I had just been for the summer touring Europe with some people from my school and met my father in New York just as the picture..." "I think it was in its first week, I forget the theatre, on Broadway." "He said to me, "Do you want to go see my latest picture, From Here to Eternity?"" "And I said, "Sure, I'd be thrilled."" "It was the first time he'd allowed me to see one of his pictures, other than High Noon." "So we went to the theatre." "It was a really hot day, and we got close and there was this huge long line that went all the way around the block." "We got right up to the front door." "He talked to somebody there and they let us right in." "I was completely impressed." "The long line was for the next show." "There was a show in progress, so they were in line waiting for two hours." "We went in and sat down." "It was a theatre that held 2,000 people." "It was a big deal." "That was the first moment that I knew my father had made it." "Because prior to that, he was an art-house director, and we lived in a small house and drove an old car." "This was his big moment." "Great." "He shared it." "Beautiful." "Big moment in your life." "I'll meet you at the Kalakaua, later." " There's Bob Wilke." " There's Bob Wilke." "Maggio, get ready for guard." "Campaign hat, cartridge belt and weapon." "He was also in High Noon, actually." " Was he one of the three guys?" " Yeah." "Not any more." "Anderson's sick." "You're on guard." "I just had guard yesterday." "That was a great film." "You should've gotten dressed faster." "I sure never figured in your giving me the runaround." " They didn't even want to let me in this place." " We're mobbed, that's why." "Talking about editing, the way things worked in 1953," "Harry Cohn had the final cut." "A lot of the things that the directors of those days did in self-defence was what they used to call camera-cutting, and not give what they called "the front office" enough coverage to work with, so that a scene could only be cut in one way." "And this was a trick my father learned early on and utilised in most of his movies up to this point, including From Here to Eternity." "So I think a lot of that was why he was so precise." "It was just a way to protect himself and protect his vision of the movie." "As I think I said before, the picture was made quite quickly, in today's terms." "So it was made in eight weeks." "The cutting period was only about two months before they went to a preview." "I think that they found in the first preview that they were going to have a monstrous hit, because they utilised something that was new for the time." "They wired every seat in the preview theatre, and they were able to get the response of everybody to each particular scene at any given moment." "And apparently, Harry Cohn came out with a 25-foot-long roll of paper with a graph that showed everybody's reaction to everything in the picture, and came screaming down the aisles and saying, "We have a hit!" "We have a hit!"" "And I don't believe they ever previewed the picture again." "And they just decided to release it in August." "So from inception to release, it was less than a year, which was very fast." "See, I'm just lucky getting in town." " Topkick gave me a break." " They still pouring it on?" "Holmes and those others, they really got me on the edge." " Gee, you must hate the army." " No, I don't hate the army." "But look what it's doing to you." "I love the army." "But it sure doesn't love you." "A man loves a thing, that don't mean it's gotta love him back." "I was just wondering when you were at home and Clift was around, were you making the movie then?" "Did he..." " What, From Here to Eternity?" " Yeah." "Well, he..." "Was there any discussion about..." "What I'm getting at is, was there much discussion about the film, or was your father always away when he was shooting this?" "They were away, and they worked intensely and closely together." "My experience with Clift was after he came back and he was still in character." "And he was still wandering around in Hawaiian shirts and clutching his bugle." "I remember going to Don The Beachcomber's, which was a very chic place at the time to go for dinner." "He got extremely obnoxious and very rude and very drunk." "And he had his bugle, which he was blowing in the middle of dinner and getting everybody very upset." "This is working on the role, right?" "Well, no, this was after he had finished and he couldn't get out of the role." "And somebody came up to the table and said," ""Listen, you're upsetting my wife, and you're upsetting me." ""And we're trying to have a peaceful dinner." "Just, will you cut it out?"" "And Clift told him where to go and stood up, and then the guy decked him and knocked him out completely, and he was on the floor with blood gushing out of his nose, clutching his bugle." "And then the maître d' came over and thought it would be a good idea if we left." "This isn't that kind, gentle fellow I was talking about earlier." " Who, Clift?" " Clift." "He had his moments both ways, I'd say." "You get your tail right back to the post." "You're in trouble." "You know that." "So many of these people are..." "I don't want to talk about that, but passed away." "So few people are left." " That's amazing how few there are." " Yeah." "You'd better go." "What's interesting to me is how this movie, watching it, still holds up." "I don't know what to attribute it to other than good acting, good script, good direction." "But it's something that's really stood the test of time, I think." "Yeah, you're awake." "Put your clothes on, all right?" "Give them back to the Indians." "The Indians need the clothes." "Look at the structure of that shot." "He staged everything so beautifully." "I think part of the reason that they were able to do movies in eight weeks then was that they were so precise about what they were doing, and things were so well thought out." "They didn't really use multiple cameras." "Things were just a lot easier." "Well, I'm tired." "I ain't no criminal." "I ain't no coward!" " Is this the scene where he gets arrested?" " Yeah." "You get dressed, you put your clothes on." " Will you wait for me?" "I'll get a cab." " Yeah, yeah, sure." " Will you wait?" " Yeah, you get a cab." " How much of it was shot in Hawaii?" " The whole movie." " Was it all shot there?" " Yeah." " Nothing back here at all?" " Nothing." "I think this is the scene coming up that was the one I was talking about earlier." "Come and get me, you guys!" "Here I am!" "Is that the best you can do?" "I bet you guys eat Wheaties!" "Harry Bellaver, he was in Naked City." "I used to write Naked City's..." "Television." " Which one is he?" " He's sitting on the desk in the..." "He's one of the three cops in Naked City." "So many of these actors have had such careers that..." "There's Jack Warden." "He was also another one up for the captain." " Jack Warden was?" " Yeah." "Go on and shoot some pool." "Any word comes through, I'll let you know." "Don Dubbins, over there on the left." "He'd just gotten married, I think, when..." "See, going back to what I was saying earlier about my father's being influenced by documentaries, you can see how he used practical locations." "He used very few sets." "And this is something that's commonplace now, but in those days, it was rarely done." "It's another thing he utilised, practical locations." "It was very important to him to get a real look." "There was, I think, about another 20 minutes in the original script where Sinatra is beat up in jail." "And that was one of the cuts that the Army insisted upon." "And Taradash and my father gladly agreed to it, because they thought the movie was too long, anyway." "So all you saw there was him pick up the baton, and that's all you really need to see." "And I tell about it, in a minute." "You can use it any time you want to, even when I'm not here." " Hi." " Hi." "This is Prew, the soldier I told you about." "It's a simple character, simple girl, pretty girl." "I think it's interesting how they made this work." "Even though she's supposed to be a prostitute, they managed to make..." " But it still worked, didn't it?" " It still somehow worked." " It was right on the cusp, almost." " Yeah." "And there's not a lot of set dressing, you notice, on all of his shots." "It's the people that seem to be more important than..." "In terms of..." "What do you mean?" "In all the scenes, there's something very clean about..." "His framing is very precise and well thought out." "You okay?" "Perfect couple." "The cameraman won an Academy Award for this movie, too." "Burnie Guffey." " Lighting is so great, isn't it?" " Yeah." "Look at that." "Let's get out of here." "Don't look around." "So interesting, Ernie Borgnine going from Marty, the sweet butcher boy, to the totally bad..." "To Fatso." "I think he was a marvellous villain." "He was great." "I remember they used to shoot day for night a lot, which they don't do any more." "It can't go on like this much longer." "Film was so much slower, and the lenses were so much slower then." "I know." " Smoking does add something, doesn't it?" " Yes." "...but he'd never let me transfer out of his outfit." "There is a way." "I've been thinking about it." "You've got to become an officer." "You can take the new extension course, the one they passed last May." "When you get your commission, they'd ship you back to the States." "An officer?" "Yes." "Then I could divorce Dana and marry you." "I hate officers!" "I've always hated officers!" " How old were they?" " In their 30s." "Mid-30s?" "I'd say that." "And Clift would have been about the same." "Okay, suppose I did it." "And don't think it's a cinch." "My father had been working for already about 20 years, so I'd say this was the pinnacle of his career to this point." "And it definitely put him in the front ranks after its release." "So this was a major film for his career." "I've never been so miserable in my life as I have since I met you." "Neither have I." "I wouldn't trade a minute of it." "Neither would I." "I'll probably make the lousiest officer in this man's army you ever saw." "You'll make a fine officer." "A remarkable officer." "Thank you." "Come here." "Can't you wait until we finish dinner?" " Honey?" " What?" "I want to marry you." "You're a funny one." "Why?" "Why is it funny if a guy wants to marry you?" "Because I'm a girl you met at the New Congress Club." "That's about two steps up from the pavement." "Well, what am I?" "I'm a private no-class dogface." "The way most civilians look at that, that's two steps up from nothing." "Prew, I thought we were happy." "Why do you want to spoil things?" "Look, I've got a year to go before I reenlist." "If I can swing sergeant's stripes by then, they'll let me go back to the States." "Then you and I can go back there together, if you'll wait." "How do you expect to become a sergeant under that Captain Holmes of yours?" "It's all you can do to keep out of the stockade." "I'll fight." " No, you're not gonna fight." " It'd be worth it." "Prew, it's true we love each other now, we need each other," "but back in the States, it might be different." "That ain't the real reason." " All right, it's not." " What is the real reason?" "I won't marry you, because I don't want to be the wife of a soldier." "Well, that would be about the best I could ever do for you." "Because nobody's gonna stop me from my plan." "Nobody." "Nothing." "Because I want to be proper." " Proper?" " Yes, proper." "In another year, I'll have enough money saved, and then I'm gonna go back to my hometown in Oregon, and I'm gonna build a house for my mother and myself, and join the country club and take up golf." "And I'll meet the proper man with the proper position, and make a proper wife who can run a proper home and raise proper children." "And I'll be happy because when you're proper, you're safe." "You got guts, honey." "I hope you can pull it off." "I do mean it when I say I need you, 'cause I'm lonely." "You think I'm lying, don't you?" "Nobody ever lies about being lonely." "And don't talk to me about a divorce." "Why?" "Because the scandal would spoil your chances for a promotion?" "I ask you once more." "I want to know who he is and where you met him." "I'm not going to tell you." "One thing I know." "I know he's a civilian." "You'd be too discreet to pick an army man." "I wonder which is hurt more, your pride or your curiosity?" "You can't expect to know how I feel about a thing like this." "I wonder why men feel so differently about it than women." "It's just not the same." "It's a lovely day." "I think I'll go for a walk." "Here I am." "There you are." "You look just the same." " Hardly." " I know." "I kept my mouth shut, and I didn't get in no trouble." "Did you see Maggio?" "I wasn't even considered to be an actor in my own mind." "Yeah." "You're holding your own against Clift there." "He's got it down to a system." "He kicks him a lot, too." "You know how Maggio's taking it?" "He just keeps spitting' in Fatso's eye." "Ain't he a hot one?" "He's a good man." "Was he helpful as an actor to you?" "He was the connection." "The character was so clear." "He looked right at you." " So he made you not have to act." " I'd never acted with anybody like that." "So you didn't really have to act, you just had to respond to him." "When I saw that close-up," "I was sitting with some other guy from the advertising department." "He said, "What?" "Hey!"" "Well, this is quite a scene." "Well, it's an important scene because it progresses the story." "You've still got time to help us win the championship." "I might have said this before, but my father said about Clift, that because of his intensity that he sort of raised the stakes in terms of the other actors." "They all had to rise..." "That should have been my reply to you because that's absolutely the way it was." "He committed you to what you had to do." " So you had to be as excellent as you could." " You just did." "Absolutely." "That's great." "And it looks like he wasn't a selfish actor to work with." "I'll be glad to put my recommendation on that, Warden." "You've got service, experience, grade." " You'll make an excellent officer." " Thank you, sir." "It'd be a feather in my cap, too." "A man from my company." "At ease." "What's the trouble, Sergeant?" "I remember before, when I got this phone call..." "And that night, I called a friend of mine, who was a bit of a close friend at the time," "Lee Marvin, the actor." "And I said, "What do you think I should do?"" "He said, "Well, if you do it, and there's a lot of people around, get in the middle."" "Why don't Prew go for his head?" " That's you?" " That's me and Don Dubbins." "I think I got in the middle." "That was Tim Ryan, I think, that fellow's name." "Superman." "There's Claude Akins." " Come on, Galovitch, fight fair!" " I'll fight any way I want!" "Come on, Prew!" "Get him!" "How do you think it would have been if the captain had been promoted to major as the script was written, instead of the way the Army wanted it?" "It's so satisfying to see him put down." "Why doesn't that officer stop that fight?" " What's his name, Major?" " Captain Holmes, sir." "There I am screaming." "Ten-hut!" "At ease." "What started this?" "Prewitt refused order I gave him, talked back and started a fight." "I taught him a lesson." "You won't disobey any more orders in my company, Prewitt." "Sir, I'm sorry, sir, but Private Prewitt's not to blame, Sergeant Galovitch started it." " Thornhill." " Yes, sir." "You're in charge of this detail." "What about it?" "He's right, sir." "Prewitt done nothing." "Yes, sir." "Galovitch started it." "That's all." "Let's forget it." "Let's get back to our jobs." "All right, back to work." "Let's go." "Break it up." "If you guys think this means I'm stepping into a ring, you're wrong." "You'd better put some iodine on them cuts." "He's a nice guy." " Who's that?" " Claude Akins." "I remember he had a television series later on." "He played a trucker." "This is where they're playing the Reenlistment Blues." "Right." "Took my dough to town Tuesday" "Found me a big feather bed" "Oh, a big feather bed A big double bed" "I'll find a job tomorrow" "Tonight I'll sleep like I'm dead" "I'm gonna sleep like I'm dead" "And get up when I choose" "Reenlistment blues" "Hey, Friday." " Why are you called Friday?" " I don't know." "But I was born on a Wednesday." "I hit the bars Wednesday" "Made me some friends on my own" "Lotta friends on my own" "Found a pretty baby" "She couldn't leave me alone" "Oh, leave me alone" "Interesting actor, really." " Yeah." " Done some great stuff." "Reenlistment blues" "Reenlistment blues" "I had the misery Thursday" "The walls was movin' I swear" "He was known as being hard to work with for certain directors." "He was?" "Well, just because he had a presence, and he was intelligent, and he knew what he wanted to do." "He knew what looked great on the screen." "But somehow, my father managed to get the upper hand there." "Hey, Prewitt, where you going?" "What do you mean, where am I going?" "I'm going to Choy's." "I'm gonna get me another beer." "My hitch was up Monday" "Not a dog soldier no more" "I ain't a soldier no more" "Halt!" " Who goes there?" " A friend." "Advance, friend, and be recognised!" "Ten-hut!" "Right face!" "Rear face!" "On your knees!" "Scrub the floor!" " Who was the set designer on this?" " Cary Odell." "Hello, kid." "What are you doing out here all by yourself?" " I'm gonna get a little drink." " Sit down." "I got a bottle." "Thanks, Top." "I gotta hand it to you, kid, the way you beat up old Galovitch this afternoon." "Too bad they gotta get you sooner or later." "Life's crummy, you know it?" "Yes, sir, it's miserable." "Perfectly miserable." "What do you suppose would happen, if a truck was to come along and run us over?" " We'd be dead." " You'd better not sit here any more." "You'd better get up and sit over on the side of the road." "What?" "What do you mean, I better?" "You've got more to live for than I do." "You got your whole company to take care of." "You move over, move over to the other side of the road." " Go on." " I'm older!" "It don't matter if I die." "But you got your whole life ahead of you." "Now, don't argue." " Go on, get up." " No, sir, not Prewitt." "Prewitt stays right here to the bitter end." "Okay, we'll stay together." "I don't..." "I couldn't have got up anyway." "I got the biggest troubles in the whole world." "In terms of the cooperation from the Army," "I think that was achieved mainly by Buddy Adler's contacts, and getting to the right people," "and getting the support that he needed in Hawaii." "So he was really the one that was principally responsible for that." "I remember reading a lot of different notes on different drafts of the script from Joseph Breen in the Breen Office, and had very specific and ludicrous comments" "about who could touch who at what point, and when is it okay to show that" "Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster are having an adulterous affair." "And they were really very intrusive." "And most of those things, my father managed to ignore, or pretended that he was listening and was going to do these notes, and then wound up not doing them." "There's a couple of things that the Breen Office insisted upon." "There was a big flap about the scene on the beach, in terms of censorship and of what should be cut and what shouldn't be cut." "And even the stills that were used in magazines, there was a big flap about that as well." "But for the time, to say anything derogatory or bad about an institution like the Army" "was really unheard of in that day." "And also, to explore an adulterous relationship" "in a movie about the Army was also a big no-no." "They rode me right out, just like I figured." "Only the tailgate opened up, Prew, about a mile back..." "This is one of the famous scenes." "This probably got Sinatra the award, this scene." "Prew." "Prew, listen." "Fatso done it, Prew." "He likes to whack me in the gut." "He asks me if it hurts, and I spit at him like always." "Only yesterday, it was bad." "He hit me, he hit me, he hit me." "I had to get out, Prew." "I had to get out." "Buddy, buddy." "They gonna send you to the stockade, Prew?" "No, they ain't gonna send me to the stockade." "Watch out for Fatso." "Watch out for Fatso." "He'll try to crack you." "And if they put you in the hole, don't yell." "We passed the scene, the Diamond Head scene, but there's this..." "I'm looking at this book your father put together, his autobiography, in which he talks about it." "But I should have caught that earlier, but it's very interesting." "Well, you want to talk about it?" " Want me to read it?" " Sure." "He says..." "This is Fred Zinnemann talking." ""That scene, regarded as sensational and extremely provocative a mere 25 years ago," ""seems harmless and friendly by today's standards." ""Although it was shot very much as written," ""the movie censors, who knew the script by heart," ""nevertheless insisted on deleting four seconds of it." ""In later years, I found that even more had been snipped out by theatre projectionists," ""as a souvenir, no doubt." ""For many years," ""the tourist buses used to stop routinely at this point on the Hawaiian shoreline" ""to let people admire 'the spot where Burt and Deborah made love in the waves.'" ""It is a curious contribution we have made to popular culture."" "Monty Clift studied with..." "It was very important to him to get the..." "Obviously, he didn't play the bugle himself, but to get the mouth movements right, and he spent a good six months with, at that time, the best bugler in the world," "learning how to bugle, or at least to get the mouth movements down." "And that bugle was never out of his hand anywhere, as I say, after the movie was over." "And he couldn't get himself out of the Prewitt part." "He went slightly nuts with it, too." "The other thing, just in terms of the detail that they were looking for, there was a reference to Prew's character being from Harlan County in Kentucky." "My father and Clift went to great lengths to get people in Harlan County, to record the locals, so he could try to mimic their accent," "which I don't think anybody picks up these days, but anyway, they spent a lot of time trying to get his accent just right." "Sergeant Judson?" "You want me?" "Yeah, Fatso." "I don't like that nickname." "You want to see me about something?" "Let's step around the corner where we can talk." "Okay." " Are you sore about something?" " I don't like the way you play the piano." " Remember Maggio?" " Oh, the wop?" "Yeah, a real tough monkey." " You killed him." " Did I?" "Well, if I did, he asked for it." "The army's gonna get you sooner or later, Fatso." "But before they do, I want a piece of you myself." "I figured that." "See this knife?" "It's the one you pulled on Maggio." "When I was just watching this, I'm thinking what a great moment, in terms of positioning and the script." "The timing and the structure is perfect." "We're ready for this right now." "And also, there's a lot more violence in what you don't see" " than what you graphically do see." " Absolutely." "You're right." "All you see are feet disappearing behind a box, and what you imagine..." " Watching life go on behind it." " Yeah." "Prew!" "What's..." " Good fall." " Very good." "Prew!" "It's all right." "Don't worry, don't worry." "I ain't gonna die." "Here we go." "The war's about to start." "Do you remember how long it took to shoot this scene that you were in?" " This?" " Well, I mean, the part that you're in." " Not very long." " Really?" "Just as long as it took for me to run across the field." " Did you have to do a lot of takes?" " Three." "I think we did it three times." "I think we rehearsed it so that I didn't fall on the explosives." "But wasn't it..." "You could have gotten hurt." "Yeah, they said, "Drop right here." "Don't get any closer."" " So it was a pretty risky thing for you to do." " Yeah, it was." "Were you aware of the risks before you were doing it?" "I was too excited about playing a game like a kid, you know, running from an aeroplane, being shot down on a big empty lot." ""...to the aforesaid Private Prewitt." ""As mentioned, this included the instigation of wholly unauthorised tactics..."" "I wonder how they communicated with the pilot, because they didn't have ground-to-air..." "I started running when the plane was at a certain position over a building, and then I started to run." "And I had done that a few times so that we got the timing right." "It seems to be the first thing that you forgot." "My only regret is that we have to keep you in uniform until a court-martial is concluded." "This guy was really good, wasn't he, the captain?" "There is one alternative, General, if you are so disposed." "This is the scene my father couldn't stand having to do, because he said it was like doing a commercial for the Army, and it just made him cringe." "Yeah." "The quicker you're out of the army, the better for everybody, especially the army." "That's all, Holmes." "I know what's been going on in this outfit." "I know how far some of you have been out of line." "If you want to remain noncoms, you'd better snap into it." "And another thing, from now on, no man's gonna earn his stripes by boxing." " Get rid of those." " Yes, sir." "Dismissed." " About Sergeant Galovitch." " Yes, sir." "Bust him." "Sergeant Galovitch is now Private Galovitch." "Put him in charge of the latrine." "What are you grinning at?" "I think the company commander made a wise decision, sir." "Company "G," Captain Ross." " Just a minute." "It's for you, Sergeant." " Thank you, sir." "Yes, sir?" "Yes, the parcel has already arrived." "What?" "I've got to see you, Milt." "It's important." "Trying to get back to that aspect of the story." "Sure, that'd be fine." "Yeah." "I'll be there in about an hour." "Right." " Great script." " Yeah, I read..." "I was going through the script the other day, and read the dialogue, and it's timeless." "It's as effective today as it was then." "When do you think you'll get your commission?" "I didn't put it in." "I filled it out, but I didn't sign it." "I took it out of my desk a dozen times, but I couldn't sign it." "Why?" "But it was the plan." " I know, I know." " It's been weeks." "You can't just say you'll do a thing and then not do it." "Karen, listen to me." "But why didn't you do it?" "Why didn't you tell me?" "Be back in a minute." "I'm sorry." "I thought you were somebody else." "I thought it was a guy from our company, Prewitt, the kid I was telling you about." "The one that got mixed up with one of the girls at the New Congress Club." "He's A.W.O.L. Probably in lots of trouble." "Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a crazy, no good..." "Actually, Deborah Kerr did a quite believable American accent, I thought, didn't you?" "Yeah." "I like that dress." "I've always liked that sort of accentuating her neck." "I know why." "You don't have to become an officer now, Milt, now that Dana's out of the army." "You just don't want to marry me." "You're already married to the army." "I love you, Karen." "They don't move their heads." "I always had this theory that stars, people who are really up front, they do not move their heads." "Feature players move their heads a little more." "And if you watch anchormen, they never move their heads." "And people less than anchormen will sort of move their heads around." "There's such authority that you get when you don't move your head." "And also, the wrong angle, showing the wrong side of your face..." "When people talk." "We'll see each other again somewhere." "Of course we will." "Somewhere." "Here it is." "Got it on an inside page already." ""Still no clue in the fatal stabbing of Staff Sergeant James R. Judson."" "Did you hear me?" " Trying to set a new world's record?" " Yeah." "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am." "To the memory of Robert E. Lee Prewitt, holder of the new world's record." "This is you now, isn't it?" "Ten to eight." " Everything all right, Top?" " Great." "This is a beautiful meal to put in front of a guy on a Sunday morning." "Congratulations." " Sure look pretty over them mountains." " Don't they, though?" "Sounds like they're dynamiting down at Wheeler Field." "Mighty ambitious, huh?" "Sunday morning before 8:00?" "Here I come." " There's Alvin." " Here I come." " Now!" " Excellent." "I could do that today, but by accident." "This shot, my father always loved, because he said it's like kicking an anthill." "Look at him." "There I am." "Just lying there, a dead actor." "The Japanese are bombing Pearl Harbor." "Please keep in your homes." "Do not go on the streets." "This is a real attack." "Japanese planes are bombing our naval and army installations." "All right, all right, you guys, quiet down." "Quiet!" "Quiet down!" "Noncoms, get B.A.R.s and ammunition from the supply room." " Get up on the roof." "Henderson." " Right here, Sarge." "You're in charge of the loading detail." "Get moving." "Wilson, Dole, let's go." "The rest of you men, listen to me." "I want every man to get his rifle, go to his bunk and stay there." "And I mean stay there!" "Shut up!" "You'll get your ears shot off if you go outside." "You wanna be heroes, you'll get plenty of chances." "There'll probably be Japs in your lap before night." "Now get moving." "We're wasting time." "Hey, come on." "Hurry up." "Wait." "Into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee." " Wait a minute." "A barrel of coffee!" " Right, Sarge!" "I don't care." "I can't issue any live ammunitions without a signed order from an officer." " But the captain ain't here, you jerk!" " I'm sorry." " No order, no ammo." " What's the matter, Leva?" "I got my orders!" "Army regulations say that I can't give out..." "What's the matter, are you blind?" "Give me them keys!" "I obey my orders, Top." "Okay, I'll see you get a medal!" "Bust it down, boys!" "I warned ya!" "Don't go out there, Warden!" "You'll get killed!" "Put your pants on." "You'll catch cold!" "Give him a hand with this ammo." "Put that stuff over there." "Watch your fire, boys, and lead those planes!" "Friday's gone crazy!" "He's blowing the cavalry charge!" "Here they come, boys!" "These are all tricks my father learned from the shorts department is how to tell a story without a lot of money in little time." "If you notice that scene, he just had an American flag, saw the plane disappear behind trees, and then he had somebody set a fireball." "And it was all done very economically in one take." "This is the real McCoy." "Look out for falling shrapnel." "Keep under cover." "Blackout and curfew restrictions will be rigidly enforced." "Stay in your homes." "Don't use the telephone." "Rest assured that immediate relay to you..." "Prew!" "We've been to Queen's Hospital giving blood." "The town's a madhouse." "There's a big house bombed out on Kuhio Street." "And the drugstore down on McCully and King is smashed flat." " Man and his wife were killed." " Your attention, please." "Listen to this carefully and keep calm." "The danger of an invasion continues to exist, and the planes have been identified as Japanese." "Who do they think they're fighting?" "They're picking trouble with the best army in the world." "Where are you going?" "I gotta get back." "I gotta get back to the company." " The company?" "But why?" " Why?" "But you can't." "You're not well yet." "Besides, you're A.W.O.L. They'll throw you in the stockade." "They'll be throwing them out of the stockade." " They need every guy they can get." " But your side'll open up." "They'll find out it was you who killed that soldier." "Once I report in to the company, they'll take care of me." "I'll be all right once I get back." "But you'll never make it!" "There's patrols all over!" "I'll make it." "I know a shortcut." "Prew, stay till morning." "Maybe if you stay till morning, you'll change your mind." "Oh, Prew, don't go!" "I'll do anything you want." "We can go back to the States together." "We can even get married." "If you go now, I'll never see you again, I know it." "I'm sorry." "What do you want to go back to the army for?" "What did the army ever do for you besides treat you like dirt and give you one awful going-over and get your friend killed?" "What do you want to go back to the army for?" "What do I want to go back to the army for?" "I'm a soldier." "A soldier?" "A soldier?" "A regular!" "From the regular army!" "A 30-year man!" "I gotta turn off the lights 'cause of the blackout outside." "They say they've seen parachutists land up in the hills." "I ain't worried about them." "Saboteurs is what worries me." "Yeah." "I bet they're operating all over these islands." "Halt!" "Halt!" "Halt!" "My hitch was up Monday" "Not a dog soldier no more" "Soldier no more" "They give me all that money" "So much my pockets is sore" "Do you know this man, Sergeant?" "Yes, sir." "He didn't have any regular identification." "They found a card on him with his name." "Seems to be a membership in a club." " The New Congress Club." " Yes, sir." "You'd better take care of these, Sergeant." " Was this man a friend of yours?" " Yes, sir." "He must've been trying to reach our company position up the beach here." "Then why didn't he halt?" "He was always a hardhead, sir, but he was a good soldier." "He loved the army more than any soldier I ever knew." "I see." "I'm sorry, Sergeant." "James Jones wrote to Buddy Adler in a letter about the ending of the movie and what he hoped would be conveyed." "And what he said he wanted to show was that life goes on, people move on." "Prew's death is nothing but a small ripple in a vast moving tide that stops to mourn for no man." "He said, "If you get that right, you've got the movie."" "We ain't got all night!" "It's very beautiful, isn't it?" "I think it's the most beautiful place I ever saw in my life." "I can almost see where I worked from here." "Well, it's a great way for me to end my..." "Or put some sort of a period on my connection with this movie, starting with washing my car one Saturday afternoon, and being here with Tim, and thinking about my whole history with Fred Zinnemann and how he played a big part in my career." "I'm honoured." "I have to say, I'm delighted to be here today with Alvin, who not only do I know separately from my father, having worked with him on a movie called Straight Time, but also through my father on Julia," "and from having heard all the stories about him on From Here to Eternity." "I think it was wonderful to watch this movie again, and to see how it holds up today, and how truly wonderful it was then and still is today." "And I hope everybody that is going to see it now likes it as much as I do."