BITS AND PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: FILM #31

OPENING REMARKS TO THE YALE LAW SCHOOL FILM SOCIETY

"I have been asked what it is like to be a personage of the cinema. [long pause] It's like being trampled to death by geese."
Robert Mitchum. Reported by Brad Darrach in Penthouse, 1972
**

WHEN BRADFORD CRAWFORD DRANK FRANK SINATRA'S WIG

"He drank Sinatra's piece. We were trying to pull it away from him. He's got this hairpiece halfway down, and he takes a glass  of vodka and downs the goddamn thing. So, I called Frank -- Frank was in Palm Springs -- I said , 'Guess, what? The Crawford just drank your wig.' He said, 'Good, I  don't have to show up Mondays.'"
Jerry Roberts. Mitchum In His Own Words (New York: Limelight Editions, 2000)
**
ON MOVIE-GOING AT A VERY YOUNG AGE

"My mother used to take me to the movies when I was as young as three or four. She did menial work and factory jobs during the day, and when she came home, the only company she had was her son. So she'd bring me with her to the movies. She didn't know she was supplying me with a future. I was immediately
attached to watching actors on the screen. Since I never had playmates in our apartment and we didn't have television yet,
I  would have nothing but time to thing about the movie I had last seen. I'd go through the characters in my head, and I would bring them to life, one by one, in the apartment. I learned at an early age to make friends with my imagination.

Al Pacino. Sonny Boy: a memoir (New York: Penguin Press, 2024)
**
THE CAR CHASE in THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)

The car chase was filmed without obtaining the proper permits from the city. Members of the NYPD's tactical force helped control traffic. But most of the control was achieved by the assistant directors with the help of off-duty NYPD officers, many of whom had been involved in the actual case. The assistant directors, under the supervision of Terence A. Donnelly, cleared traffic for approximately five blocks in each direction. Permission was given to literally control the traffic signals on those streets where they ran the chase car. Even so, in many instances, they illegally continued the chase into sections with no traffic control, where they actually had to evade real traffic and pedestrians. Many of the (near) collisions in the movie were therefore real and not planned (with the exception of the near-miss of the lady with the baby carriage, which was carefully rehearsed). A flashing police light was placed on top of the car to warn bystanders. A camera was mounted on the car's bumper for the shots from the car's point-of-view. Hackman did some of the driving but the extremely dangerous stunts were performed by Bill Hickman, with Friedkin filming from the backseat. Friedkin operated the camera himself because the other camera operators were married with children and he was not.
iMBd Trivia 
**
HOWARD HAWKS & CAROL LOMBARD

Howard Hawks allowed John Barrymore and Carole Lombard to improvise freely during filming. "When people are as good as those two, the idea of just sticking to lines is rather ridiculous," he told Peter Bogdanovich in an interview. "Because if Barrymore gets going, and he had the ability to do it, I'd just say, 'Go do it.' And Lombard would answer him; she was such a character, just marvelous." Hawks then told a story about Lombard coming to him one day to complain about studio head Harry Cohn making passes at her. Between them, the director and star worked out a plan to embarrass their boss. Hawks was in Cohn's office, having a serious discussion with him, when Lombard burst in to exclaim, "I've decided to say yes!" As Cohn watched in shock, she made as if to begin removing her clothes. Hawks said self-righteously, "I'd better get out of here if this is the kind of studio you run." A shaken Cohn asked Lombard to leave, and she never had any further problems with him.

iMDb Trivia for TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934)
**
The Uncredited Cat in “The Godfather”

"The opening scene of The Godfather, in which Vito Corleone opines on the meaning of friendship to a justice-seeking Amerigo Bonasera, was part of the script. The friendly cat nestled into star Marlon Brando’s lap? Not so much. Director Francis Ford Coppola recalled he “saw the cat running around the studio, and took it and put it in [Brando’s] hands without a word.” But while the feline’s presence helped magnify the tension of the scene, its incessant purring reportedly drowned out much of Brando’s distinct mumbling, forcing sound editors to redub the dialogue."
INTERESTING FACTS website (February 13, 2025)
**
AVA GARDNER FLUFFS A LINE DURING THE FILMING OF
THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA

" He (JOHN HOUSTON) was certainly capable of being displeased, and his sarcasm and cold shoulder could be withering, but with Ava he never showed impatience or disappoinytment (not even when for more than a dozen takes she persisted in blowing the same line, saying "My husband Frank" instead of "My husband Fred").
Lee Server. Ava Gardner: 'Love is Nothing' ( New York:  St. Martin's Griffin, 2006)
**

Martin Luther King Jr. paid for Julia Roberts' birth

"Julia Roberts, the actress best known for her roles in Pretty Woman, Erin Brockovich, and Steel Magnolias, was born in Smyrna, Georgia, in 1967. But when it came time for her parents, Betty and Walter Roberts, to take home their new bundle of joy, there was one hiccup: They couldn’t afford the hospital bill. That’s when Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King — friends of the Roberts’ — stepped in to help, covering the cost of the future actress’s birth. "

INTERESTING FACTS (February 12, 2025)
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQZTCqZGbRwTMPjPbdqdHkQpkTh
**
WOODY ALLEN IN THE NUDE

Playboy: It's rumored that you always contrive to be seen
nude in every film you make. Is this true?

Allen: I have done a nude scene for every picture, but you can't
tell because I have Dacron flesh.

PLAYBOY Magazine Woody Allen interviewed by Sol Weinstein (May 1967)
**

HOW DO THE MOVIES DO IT

7:43 A.M.
I do not wish to be entertained,
By lovers unknotting
Picture-perfect bodies. 
Nobody, not even my doctor
Wants to see me naked.

How do the movies do it?
With music over
& under all, violins, harps,
As men, women, & others
Backlit & keylit,
In frame after frame,
 
Tumble over each other,
Yet there is 
No more love in the world
Than there was before.
When properly lit,
How seductive are 

Kingside beds unmade.
Time to go to work.
How about some lipstick
On my cheek or collar?
Have I learned nothing
From silver-screen romance
Except that there is

More of it than I shall 
Ever need or learn from.
Do atmosphere people count?

Louis Phillips