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Home , Across the Pacific, Curtis Cokes, In This Our Life, More American Graffiti, Nicholas Colasanto, Sinful Davey

February 26, 2013 (XXVI:7) , FAT CITY (1972, 100 min.)

Directed by John Huston Script by Leonard Gardner, based on his novel Produced by John Huston and Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall Edited by Walter Thompson Production Design by Richard Sylbert Set Decoration by Morris Hoffman Costume Design by Dorothy Jeakins Stunts: Nick Bullom and Rachel Schedler Music supervisor: Fight consultant: Al Silvani First aid: Brad Siniard

Stacy Keach…Tully …Ernie Susan Tyrrell…Oma Candy Clark…Faye Nicholas Colasanto…Ruben Aragon…Babe Curtis Cokes…Earl Sixto Rodriguez…Lucero Billy Walker…Wes Freud, 1961 The Misfits, 1960 The Unforgiven, 1958 The Roots of Wayne Mahan…Buford Heaven, 1958 The Barbarian and the Geisha, 1957 A Farewell to Ruben Navarro…Fuentes Arms (uncredited), 1957 Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, 1956 Moby Álvaro López…Rosales Dick, 1953 Beat the Devil, 1952 Moulin Rouge, 1951 The African Carl D. Parker…Paymaster Queen, 1951 The Red Badge of Courage, 1950 , Al Silvani…Referee at Tully-Lucero Fight 1949 , 1948 Key Largo, 1948 On Our Merry Way (uncredited), 1948 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1946 JOHN HUSTON (director) (b. John Marcellus Huston, August 5, Let There Be Light (documentary), 1945 San Pietro (documentary 1906, Nevada, Missouri – August 28, 1987, Middletown, Rhode short) (uncredited), 1944 Tunisian Victory (documentary) Island) won best screenplay and best director Oscars for The (replacement scenes), 1943 Report from the Aleutians Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). His other 48 films are: 1987 (documentary) (uncredited), 1942 , 1942 The Dead, 1985 Prizzi's Honor, 1984 Under the Volcano, 1982 (short), 1942 , and 1941 The Annie, 1981 Victory, 1980 Phobia, 1979 Wise Blood (as Jhon Maltese Falcon. Huston also has 54 acting credits, some of which Huston), 1979 Love and Bullets (uncredited), 1976 Independence are 1982 Cannery Row, 1979 Wise Blood, 1979 Winter Kills, 1978 (short), 1975 The Man Who Would Be King, 1973 The MacKintosh Angela, 1978 The Bermuda Triangle, 1975 The Wind and the Lion, Man, 1972 The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, 1972 Fat City, 1974 Chinatown, 1973 Battle for the Planet of the Apes, 1972 The 1971 The Last Run (uncredited), 1970 , 1969 Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, 1970 Myra Breckinridge, 1969 The Madwoman of Chaillot (first director), 1969 A Walk with Love A Walk with Love and Death, 1969 De Sade, 1968 Candy, 1967 and Death, 1969 , 1967 Reflections in a Golden Eye, Casino Royale, 1963 The Cardinal, 1963 The List of Adrian 1967 Casino Royale (scenes at Sir James Bond's house / castle in Messenger, 1961 The Misfits, 1951 The Red Badge of Courage, Scotland scenes), 1966 The Bible: In the Beginning..., 1964 The and 1948 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Night of the Iguana, 1963 The List of Adrian Messenger, 1962 Huston—FAT CITY—2

RAY STARK (producer) (October 3, 1914, , Illinois – adaptor), 1978 “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (7 episodes), January 17, 2004, West Hollywood, ) produced 32 films: 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me, 1973 The Sting (music adaptor), 1993 , 1993 “Barbarians at the Gate”, 1989 Steel 1973 Save the Tiger (conductor), 1972 Fat City (music supervisor), Magnolias, 1988 , 1986 , and 1964 “Judy and Liza at the Palladium.” 1982 The Toy, 1982 Annie, 1980 Somewhere in Time, 1979 The Electric Horseman, 1979 , 1978 , AL SILVANI (fight consultant) (March 26, 1910 – January 10, 1978 , 1977 The Goodbye Girl, 1976 Murder 1996, North Hollywood, California) has been involved in five by Death, 1976 Robin and Marian, 1975 The Black Bird, 1975/I films: 1983 “Dempsey” (fight trainer), 1981 “Goldie and the Boxer , 1975 , 1973 , Go to Hollywood” (technical advisor), 1980 Raging Bull ( 1972 Fat City, 1970 The Owl and the Pussycat, 1968 , technical advisor), 1979 Rocky II (technical advisor), and 1972 Fat 1967 Reflections in a Golden Eye, 1967 Oh Dad, Poor Dad, City. Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, 1966 This Property Is Condemned, 1964 The Night of the Iguana, STACY KEACH…Tully (Walter Stacy Keach Jr., June 2, 1941, and1960 The World of Suzie Wong. Savannah, ) has 181 acting credits, some of which are 2013 Ooga Booga (post-production), 2013 Nebraska (post- CONRAD L. HALL (cinematography) (b. Conrad Lafcadio Hall, production), 2012 The Legacy, 2012 The Great June 21, 1926, Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia – January 4, Chameleon, 2011 Storm War, 2011 Jerusalem Countdown, 2011 2003, Santa Monica, Cellmates, 2011 “Lights Out” (13 episodes), 2010 “Two and a Half California) won best Men”, 2009/I The Boxer, 2005-2007 “” (23 episodes), cinematography Oscars 2005 “Will & Grace”, 1995-2003 “”, 2000- for Road to Perdition 2002 “Titus” (54 episodes), 2000 Icebreaker, 1999 Children of the (2002), American Corn 666: Isaac's Return (video), 1997-1998 “, Beauty (1999) and Private Eye” (26 episodes), 1997 “Die Gang” (11 episodes), 1996 Butch Cassidy and the Escape from L.A., 1993 Sunset Grill, 1989 “Mike Hammer: Sundance Kid (1969). Murder Takes All”, 1988 “Hemingway”, 1984-1987 “The New Some of his other 41 Mike Hammer” (46 episodes), 1986 “The Return of Mickey films were 1998 A Civil Spillane's Mike Hammer”, 1986 “Hardcastle and McCormick”, Action, 1993 Searching 1983 “Murder Me, Murder You”, 1982 That Championship for Bobby Fischer, 1991 Class Action, 1988 Tequila Sunrise, 1987 Season, 1980 , 1978 Gray Lady Down, 1977 The Black Widow, 1976 Marathon Man, 1975 The Day of the Locust, Duellists, 1976 The Killer Inside Me, 1972 The Life and Times of 1973 Electra Glide in Blue, 1972 Fat City, 1969 Tell Them Willie Judge Roy Bean, 1972 The New Centurions, 1972 Fat City, 1972 Boy Is Here, 1968 Hell in the Pacific, 1967 In Cold Blood, 1967 “Particular Men”, 1971 'Doc', 1970 Brewster McCloud, 1970 End Cool Hand Luke, 1967 Divorce American Style, 1966 The of the Road, 1968 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and 1967 “The Professionals, 1966 Harper, 1963-1964 “The Outer Limits” (15 Winter's Tale.” episodes), 1963 “Stoney Burke”, and 1958 Edge of Fury. JEFF BRIDGES…Ernie (b. Jeffrey Leon Bridges, December 4, WALTER THOMPSON (editor) (May 8, 1903, Indiana – December 1949 in , California) won a best actor Oscar for Crazy 17, 1975, Los Angeles, California) has 71 editor credits, among Heart (2009). Some of his other 81 roles have been in 2013 The them 1975 Farewell, My Lovely, 1975 Rafferty and the Gold Dust Seventh Son (post-production), 2013 R.I.P.D. (post-production), Twins, 1973 The Paper Chase, 1972 Fat City, 1969 Marooned, 2012 Pablo (completed), 2010 True Grit, 2009 The Men Who Stare 1965 King Rat, 1964 Behold a Pale Horse, 1959 The Nun's Story, at Goats, 2009 The Open Road, 2008 Iron Man, 2007 Surf's Up, 1949 The Big Wheel, 1943 Crash Dive, 1941 That Night in Rio, 2004 The Door in the Floor, 2003 Seabiscuit, 2000 The Contender, 1940 Tin Pan Alley, 1940 The Return of , 1940 Lillian 1998 The Big Lebowski, 1996 The Mirror Has Two Faces, 1996 Russell, 1939 Everything Happens at Night, 1939 Young Mr. White Squall, 1992 American Heart, 1991 , 1990 Lincoln, 1939 The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, 1931 All Texasville, 1989 The Fabulous Baker Boys, 1988 Tucker: The Man Gummed Up (short), 1931 Not So Loud (short), and 1930 Men and His Dream, 1987 Nadine, 1986 The Morning After, 1986 8 Without Women. Million Ways to Die, 1984 Starman, 1984 Against All Odds, 1982 Kiss Me Goodbye, 1981 Cutter's Way, 1980 Heaven's Gate, 1979 MARVIN HAMLISCH (music supervisor) (b. Marvin Frederick Winter Kills, 1976 King Kong, 1976 Stay Hungry, 1975 Hearts of Hamlisch, June 2, 1944, , New York – August 6, the West, 1975 Rancho Deluxe, 1974 Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, 2012, Westwood, Los Angeles, California) won three best music 1973 The Iceman Cometh, 1973 The Last American Hero, 1972 Oscars: two for The Way We Were (1973, scoring and song) and Bad Company, 1972 Fat City, 1971 The Last Picture Show, 1969 the third for The Sting (1973). Some of his other 29 screen music “Lassie”, 1958-1960 “Sea Hunt”, and 1951 The Company She credits are 2012 “Idina Menzel Live: Barefoot at the Symphony” Keeps. (conductor), 1996 The Mirror Has Two Faces (music adaptor), 1995 “Barbra: The Concert” (musical arrangement, musical SUSAN TYRRELL…Oma (b. Susan Jillian Creamer, March 18, direction), 1991 Frankie and Johnny (conductor), 1987 “In 1945, , California – June 16, 2012, Austin, ) Performance at the White House: A Tribute to American Music - has 77 acting credits, among them 2012 Kid-Thing, 1998 Relax... Rodgers and Hart”, 1985 A Chorus Line, 1981 Pennies from It's Just Sex, 1997 Pink as the Day She Was Born, 1995 Powder, Heaven (conductor, music arranger), 1980 Ordinary People (music 1995 Digital Man, 1995 The Demolitionist, 1995 “Tales from the Huston—FAT CITY—3

Crypt”, 1990 Rockula, 1989 Far from Home, 1985 Flesh+Blood, Huston’s parents’ marriage—contracted at the St. Louis 1984 The Killers, 1982 Fast-Walking, 1981-1982 “Open All World’s Fair was never a great success, and in 1909 they Night” (12 episodes), 1980 Loose Shoes, 1977 “Starsky and separated, divorcing four years later. Huston spent his boyhood Hutch”, 1977 Islands in the Stream, 1976 The Killer Inside Me, shuttling between them, spending most of the time with his mother, 1972 Fat City, 1971 “Bonanza”, and 1971 Been Down So Long It who became a journalist under her own name of Rhea Gore. With Looks Like Up to Me. her he traveled the Midwest, picking up her taste for literature, horses, plush hotels, and gambling. He remained somewhat in awe CANDY CLARK… Faye (b. Candace June Clark, June 20, 1947, of her, though, feeling that she despised him as a romantic Norman, Oklahoma) has 62 acting credits, among them 2012 fantasist. “Nothing I ever did pleased my mother,” he later “Criminal Minds”, 2009 The Informant!, 2007 Zodiac, 2006 remarked. “Mystery Woman: Redemption”, 2006 The Boneyard Collection, He was far more at ease with his father, who when not 1997 Niagara, Niagara, 1994 , 1992 Buffy the acting in New York would take him on the vaudeville circuit, Vampire Slayer, 1988 The Blob, 1986 staying in hotels that were anything but “Starman“, 1985 Cat's Eye, 1983 plush. Huston thoroughly relished the Amityville 3-D, 1983 Blue Thunder, 1979 contrast, and was enthralled by the More , 1979 When You theatrical low-life he encountered. But Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, 1979 at twelve he was found to be suffering “Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and from Bright’s disease and an “enlarged Grill”, 1978 The Big Sleep, 1976 The heart.” The boy was placed in a Man Who Fell to Earth, 1976 I Will... I sanatorium in Phoenix, Arizona, and Will... For Now, 1973 “Banacek”, 1973 told he must henceforth live as a American Graffiti, 1972 Fat City, and cautious invalid. Rebelling, he took up 1972 “Room 222.” secret midnight swimming in a nearby river. After some months, this pastime NICHOLAS COLASANTO… Ruben (b. was discovered, and it was decided that Nicola Colasanto, January 19, 1924, he must have made a fortunate Providence, Rhode Island – February 12, recovery. 1985, Studio City, California) has 38 His mother, who had acting credits, some of which are 1982- remarried, moved to Los Angeles, 1985 “” (70 episodes), 1980 where Huston attended Lincoln High Raging Bull, 1978 “Lou Grant”, 1976 School. As if making up for lost time, Family Plot, 1975 “Baretta”, 1973 “The he plunged into a multitude of interests: Streets of San Francisco”, 1972 Fat City, abstract painting, ballet, English and 1966-1971 “The F.B.I.”, 1968 “Mannix”, French literature, opera, horseback 1967 “Mission: Impossible”, 1965-1967 riding, and boxing. At fifteen he “Run for Your Life” (6 episodes), 1966 dropped out of high school, becoming “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”, 1965 one of the state’s top-ranking amateur “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”, and lightweights (with a permanently 1962 “Car 54, Where Are You?” flattened nose) while studying at the Art Students League in Los Angeles. RUBEN NAVARRO… Fuentes (August 5, 1946, Mexico) has two He was also “infatuated” with the cinema, though as yet only as a acting credits: 1997 “Walker, Texas Ranger” and 1972 Fat City. spectator. “Charlie Chaplin was a god, and William S. Hart. I remember the enormous impact the UFA films had on me, those of Emil Jannings and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I saw this many Huston Fat City, From World Film Directors, Vol I. Edited by times.” John Wakeman. H. W. Wilson Co., NY, 1987, entry by Philip had moved over from vaudeville to the Kemp legitimate theatre, and in 1924 achieved fame on Broadway with John (Marcellus) Huston, American director, scenarist, actor, and the lead in O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. Watching his father’s producer, was born in the town of Nevada, Missouri, where the rehearsals, Huston was deeply impressed by O’Neill’s work and Water and Power Company—or, according to some accounts, the fascinated by the mechanism of acting: “What I learned there, entire town—had been won by his maternal grandfather, John during those weeks of rehearsal, would serve me for the rest of my Gore, in a poker game. Huston’s father, Walter, was at that time a life.” He himself acted briefly with the Provincetown Players in small-time actor whose itinerant troupe had just gone bust in 1924. The following year, recovering from a mastoid operation, he Arizona; John Gore therefore installed him as head of Nevada’s took a long vacation in Mexico, where among other adventures he public utilities. Totally without engineering training, he proved rode as an honorary member of the Mexican cavalry. On his return, spectacularly unsuited for this post, and when a fire broke out he Huston married a friend from high school, Dorothy Harvey. The mishandled a valve, cutting off the water supply. Half of Nevada marriage lasted barely a year. burned to the ground, and Walter, with his wife and infant son He had begun to write short stories, one of which was John, went back on the road. published by H.L. Mencken in the American Mercury. Further pieces, clearly influenced by Hemingway, appeared in Esquire, the Huston—FAT CITY—4

New York Times, and other journals He also wrote Frankie and They were taken aback by the enthusiastic response of public and Johnny, “ a puppet play with music (the music being by Sam critics. The latter immediately hailed the film as a classic, and it Jaffe). This was produced in by Ruth Squires has since been claimed as the best detective melodrama ever made. and published in book form. Through his mother, Huston was “It is hard to say,” wrote Harold Barnes in the Herald Tribune, given a on the New York Graphic. “I had no talent as a “whether Huston the adapter or Huston the fledgling director, is journalist whatever and I was fired oftener than any reporter ever more responsible for this triumph.” Already, in his directorial has been within such a limited time. There was a kind-hearted city debut, many of Huston’s characteristic preoccupations appear. The editor who kept hiring me back.” When even that man’s patience plot is a web of deceptive appearances; characters and even objects ran out, Huston headed for Hollywood, where his father had (including the coveted falcon itself) are duplicitous and moved with the coming of talkies. untrustworthy, and the hero himself is not what he seems. Spade, Huston was hired as a scenarist by Goldwyn Studios, outwardly a cynical opportunist, proves to be driven by a spent six months there with no assignments, and then moved to his scrupulous personal code. “When a man’s partner is killed,” he father’s studio, Universal, where he collaborated on four scripts, says, turning the woman he wants over to justice,” he’s supposed two of them for films starring his father: A House Divided and Law to do something about it.” and Order. His colleagues had no doubt of his talent, but one of …A few days before shooting was complete on Across them described him at this time as “just a drunken boy, hopelessly the Pacific, Huston received his army induction immature.” After a lethal automobile accident in which he was the papers….Appositely, his first assignment as a documentary driver, he “wanted nothing so much as to get away” and left filmmaker for the Signal Corps was across the Pacific—in the Universal for a job at Gaumont-British in London. Unhappy there, Aleutian islands off Alaska. The resulting film, Report From the he quit again and lived rough for a while, before bumming his way Aleutians (1943) was described in as “one of to Paris and eventually back to New York. After a brief stint as a the war’s outstanding records of what our men are doing. It is journalist there and a few months with the WPA Theatre in furthermore an honest record.” Promoted to captain, Huston was Chicago, he returned to Hollywood in 1937 and went to work as a sent to Italy to make (1944) regarded as writer for Warner Brothers. one of the finest combat documentaries ever filmed. “No I Newly married to Leslie Black, Huston now seemed have seen,” wrote James Agee in The Nation, “has been quite so ready to settle to a serious career as a screenwriter. His first credit attentive to the heaviness of casualties, and to the number of yards was for William Wyler’s Jezebel (1937); this was followed by The gained or lost, in such an action.”…Huston’s ironic realism Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), and two of Warner’s prestigious disconcerted the War Department. One general accused him of biopics, Juarez (1939) and Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940). Dr. having made “a film against war,” eliciting the response: “Well, Ehrlich won Huston an Academy Award nomination, as did his sir, when I make a picture that’s for war—why I hope you take me next script, for Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York (1941). He was now out and shoot me.” Despite this, he was promoted to major and successful enough to persuade the studio that, if his next script was awarded the Legion of Merit. a hit, he should be allowed a chance to direct. “They indulged me His last film for the army was Let There Be Light (1945), rather. They liked my work as a writer and they wanted to keep me on the rehabilitation of soldiers suffering from combat neuroses. on. If I wanted to direct, why, they’d give me a shot at it, and if it The overtly optimistic message was constantly undercut by the didn’t come off all that well, they wouldn’t be too disappointed as compassionate objectivity of the filming, which for Huston was it was to be a very small picture.” “practically a religious experience.” The War Department shelved Huston’s next script was for High Sierra (1941). Directed the picture, but it was finally given general release in 1980. Noting by Raoul Walsh, it gave , as a gunman on the “its voice-over narration [provided by Walter Huston], its use of run, his breakthrough to stardom, and provided Huston with the hit wipes and dissolves, and its full-orchestra soundtrack music,” he wanted. Warners kept their word and offered him his choice of Vincent Canby called it “an amazingly elegant movie.” subject. He chose ’s thriller, The Maltese Discharged from the Army in 1945, Huston returned to Falcon, which had already been adapted twice by Warners, both Hollywood, where he was divorced from his second wife. After a times badly. Wisely, Huston stuck closely to the original, taking brief, spectacular affair with , he married the over much of Hammett’s dialogue unchanged, and filming with a actress Evelyn Keyes in 1946…. clean, uncluttered style that provided a cinematic equivalent to the At this period Huston had a reputation—which he did novel’s fast, laconic narrative. He also benefited from a superb little to discourage—as one of the wild men of Hollywood. Along cast. George Raft was offered the role of the private eye Sam with such friends as Bogart and William Wyler, he indulged in Spade but turned it down (as he had previously with the lead in frequent and well-publicized bouts of drinking, gambling, and High Sierra). Bogart, who liked Huston, was happy to take over, general horseplay. …Jack Warner, though autocratic, was ready to supported by , Peter Lorre, (in his tolerate a lot in return for talent and box-office success. He even let first film role), Elisha Cook, Jr. and—in a walk-on part “for himself be persuaded-though with considerable misgivings—to luck”—Walter Huston. allow Huston to shoot his next film almost entirely on location, and The Maltese Falcon (1941) was made on a small, B- in Mexico. At the time, this was a radical move. picture budget, and put out by Warners with minimal publicity. Huston—FAT CITY—5

The results justified it. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre endeavor” carried out by ordinary people motivated not by the (1948) is generally agreed to be one of Huston’s finest films. megalomanic will to power of the 1930s movie gangsters, but …Treasure has often been cited as the archetypal Huston movie, simply by the desire to feed their families or realize some small though the director himself denies the presence of any authorial private ambition….That same year, 1950, Huston was amicably unity in his films.” I fail to see any continuity in my work from divorced from Evelyn Keyes; one day later he married Enrica picture to picture—what’s remarkable is how different the pictures Soma. In August, while Asphalt Jungle was still filming, his father are, one from another. In fact, though Huston’s cinematic style died of a heart attack. Huston’s second picture for MGM varies according to the nature of his subject matter, clear thematic was…The Red Badge of Courage (1951), taken from Stephen preoccupations can be seen to recur throughout his work. The Crane’s novel of the Civil War….Huston left for Africa to make a classic “Huston movie” concerns a quest, often a parody of one of film for Sam Spiegel, his partner in Horizon Films. society’s sanctioned forms of endeavor—the pursuit of wealth, The script of The African Queen (1951) was taken from power, religious knowledge, imperial sovereignty—which is C.S. Forester’s novel and written by Huston in collaboration with destined, after initial success, to end his greatest critical supporter, James in failure and futility. (This kind of Agee….Filming, on location in the Congo denouement became known in the and Uganda, took place under appalling trade as “the Huston ending.”)… conditions: not only extreme heat and The art, technique, and humidity, but dysentery, malaria, moral implications of The Treasure of mosquitoes, crocodiles and safari ants the Sierra Madre (as of The Maltese beset actors and crew. Everybody became Falcon) have since been discussed in ill except Bogart, (who great detail by many critics. came to keep Bogart company) and …Warners were less circumspect Huston, who all ascribed their immunity to over Huston’s next film, his fourth copious quantities of Scotch….The film with Bogart. Key Largo (1948) was was a huge popular success, and won adapted from a prewar play by Bogart the only Oscar of his career. Maxwell Anderson, originally written Through some financial sleight- in blank verse. Huston and his co- of-hand, little of the profits from The scriptwriter Richard Brooks, junked African Queen ever reached Huston, who the verse and updated the plot….To consequently pulled out of Horizon Films. Huston’s annoyance, the studio cut For his next three films he acted as his several scenes from the final release. own producer….Meanwhile, disgusted by Not long before this, Huston had been the HUAC “witch-hunt” and the “moral refused permission, under the terms rot” it had induced in the entertainment of his contract, to direct a play by his industry, Huston had moved to Ireland. He idol Eugene O’Neill for the had bought a house in Galway, St. Clerans, Broadway stage, Angered by these incidents, Huston left Warners and moved there in 1952 with his wife Enrica and their children when his contract expired. Anthony and Angelica. Twelve years later he took Irish Together with Sam Spiegel and Jules Buck, Huston citizenship…. founded Horizon Films. The new company’s first feature was a After two financially unsuccessful picture [Beat the Devil courageous failure. Huston had been among the strongest and Moby Dick]…deep in debt…he accepted a three-picture opponents of HUAC and the Hollywood blacklist, and when John contract with 20th Century-Fox…Heaven Knows, Mr Allison Garfield came under pressure, Huston offered him the lead on We (1957), teaming Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr as a marine Were Strangers (1949) as a deliberate gesture of defiance—the and a nun stranded on a Japanese-held island during World War II, more so since the prophetic plot concerned a revolution in Cuba struck many reviewers as an attempt to repeat The African Queen. against a corrupt dictatorship. It was attacked on release by both Huston coscripted, and enjoyed working with Mitchum, whom he left and right. It was also a box-office disaster, and Huston considers “one of the really fine actors of my time.” admitted that “it didn’t turn out to be a very good picture.” …A retrospective atmosphere of doom hangs over the Needing funds, he signed a short-term contract with MGM. Misfits (1961). Clark Gable died shortly after shooting was Having refused Quo Vadis—despite an amazing episode finished. never completed another film. when Louis B. Mayer (according to Huston) “crawled across the Montgomery Clift and Thelma Ritter were dead within a few floor and took my hands and kissed them” in order to persuade him years….Huston had conceived the idea of making a film about to reconsider—Huston took on a far more congenial subject in The Freud while working on Let There Be Light. He now invited Jean- Asphalt Jungle (1950). Based on a novel by W.R. Burnett (author Paul Sartre to prepare a script. Sartre did so—four hundred pages of Little Caesar and High Sierra), this was the progenitor of a long of it. Huston tactfully suggested that cuts might be necessary, and cycle of “caper movies,” in which a crime (here a million-dollar he and Sartre went over the script together. Sartre returned to Paris, jewel theft) is successfully carried out by sympathetically depicted and in due course submitted his revised script—of six hundred criminals, only to fail through subsequent ill-chance or internal pages. With the help of Charles Kaufman, who had coscripted Let dissension. Huston was breaking new ground in presenting crime There Be Light, the scenario was pruned to a manageable hundred as an occupation like any other, “a left-handed form of human and fifty pages, although Sartre disowned it. Huston—FAT CITY—6

Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) is not a conventional narrative for which the misused term “epic” is for once wholly biopic, but rather an intellectual detective story, in which Freud is appropriate.…For the first time in a decade, Huston achieved shown tracking down, in himself as much as in others, the success at the box office as well as with the critics, and he and psychosexual source of the guilt which torments them….By way of Gladys Hill were nominated for an Academy Award for their relaxation, Huston turned to a spoof murder mystery, The List of screenplay. After The Man Who Would Be King, Huston Adrian Messenger (1963), in which the villain, played by Kirk underwent heart surgery and as a result produced no feature films Douglas, appears in numerous elaborate disguises. As an additional for four years. Any speculation, though, that his career as a director gimmick, the film features might be over was answered by various guest stars, also Wise Blood (1979). … heavily disguised. Response An unmixed success was was mainly puzzled…. Prizzi’s Honor (1985), based on “The Huston ending” the book by Richard Condon, wherein all human activities starring Jack Nicholson, Katherine culminate in ironic futility and Turner, William Hickey and disaster was notably absent Huston’s daughter Anjelica (who from The Night of the Iguana won an Oscar for best supporting (1964). Huston and his co- actress)….After this success, scriptwriter, Anthony Veiller, Huston set to work on an took a characteristically adaptation of James Joyce’s story” overheated and doom-laden The Dead,” which he completed play by Tennessee Williams shortly before his death. and transformed it into a Robin Wood wrote of melodramatic farce with a Huston in Richard Roud’s Cinema happy ending. Amazingly, that “the problem lies in tracing Williams went along with their any significant unifying or changes and even helped with the script…. developing pattern through his career as a whole….This is but one While Iguana was doing well at the box office, Huston of several signs—though a crucial one—that Huston is not a major was visited in Ireland by , who planned to film artist, though he has at different stages of his career been mistaken The Bible. He envisaged a multiplicity of episodes, each with its for one.” This is the view that has dominated serious discussion of own eminent director. Eventually, the producer modestly limited Huston’s work since the rise of auteurist criticism in the 1960s. But himself to half the Book of Genesis, with Huston as sole director. Andrew Sarris, once one of the director’s most dismissive critics, Huston also played Noah and the voice of God….The film finally wrote in 1980 that “what I have always tended to underestimate in cost eighteen million—by far the most expensive of Huston’s Huston was how deep in his guts he could feel the universal career—and received atrocious notices…. experience of pointlessness and failure.”… Richard T. Jameson maintains that “we do encounter a In Fat City (1972) Huston drew on the boxing world of cohesive world-view, not only thematically, but also stylistically; his youth. Unlike most fight movies, though, the film offered its there is a Huston look,” though one extremely difficult to define…. characters no moment of glory in the big time; these were the In his last years, Huston pursued a parallel career as a film small-time losers on the lower fringes of the sport, failures and actor. In 1963 he was invited by Otto Preminger to portray a derelicts never more than a step away from defeat. Filmed in Boston prelate in The Cardinal and virtually stole the picture. muted, smoky tones in the bars, tenements, and pool-halls of dead- Then, besides taking key roles in several of his own films, he end Stockton, California, Fat City offers the clearest statement of appeared in a wide variety of works directed by others: most Huston’s fascination with defeat, and the small vestiges of dignity notably as the sinister patriarch Noah Cross in Polanski’s that can be salvaged from it. As a washed-up fighter, Stacy Keach Chinatown (1974), and as Teddy Roosevelt’s adviser John Hay in gave the performance of a lifetime. Critics hailed the film as a Milius’s The Wind and the Lion (1975). Huston evidently enjoyed return to form, and John Russell Taylor described it as “one of acting and invariably denied that he took it at all seriously. “It’s a those late films by old masters that look effortless because they are cinch,” he maintained, “and they pay you damn near as much as effortless.”… you make directing.”

Huston had long cherished an ambition to film Kipling’s from John Huston’s Filmmaking. Lesley Brill. Cambridge U story The Man Who Would Be King. Originally he planned it with Press NY 1997 Gable and Bogart; then with Peter O’Toole and . It Why has Huston’s artistic personality gone more or less finally reached the screen with Sean Connery and in unremarked for so long? Briefly, his neglect seems to be a the leading roles as the two British soldiers who set up a private consequence partly of the history of taste and fashion among critics kingdom in the wild mountains of Afghanistan. For once, delay and academics in film studies, and partly of a stylistic finish so proved beneficial. As Huston remarked, his modern actors brought smooth and self-effacing that it conceals its remarkable art as “a reality to it that the old stars could not do. Today they would straightforward. Generic story-telling (if such a thing exists). seem synthetic, so in a way I’m glad I didn’t make the picture with Huston’s art looks to us, I suspect, as Shakespeare’s did to his them.” Certainly it would be hard to imagine the film done better. contemporaries: like nature itself. There is a sweep and grandeur, a legendary resonance to the Huston—FAT CITY—7

James Agee, in his enormously influential 1950 Life magazine portrait established this understanding: “Each of “An Interview with John Huston” David Brandes, 1977 Huston’s pictures has a visual tone and style of its own, dictated to DB: Mr. Huston, you’re a writer, you’re a director, and you’re his camera by the story’s essential content and spirit.” an actor. And you’re famous in all three areas. Which do you prefer? James Naremore characterizes Huston’s method by JH: I don’t make a distinction between writing and directing. contrasting it with Dashiell Hammett’s: “Hammett’s art is But to write and direct one’s own material is certainly the best minimalist and deadpan, but Huston, contrary to his reputation, is a approach. The directing is kind of an extension of the writing. So highly energetic and expressive storyteller who like to make far as the acting is concerned, that’s just a sort of lark—a well-paid comments through his images. lark, I might add—to relieve the responsibilities of being a To my knowledge, at least thirty-four of Huston’s thirty- director. seven features films derive directly from novels, stories, or plays. DB: Why would a creative person like yourself become a filmmaker rather than, say, a novel writer? Huston began in as a writer of screenplays…. JH: I was raised in the tradition of films—that is, like so many He has spoken of the intimate connection between writing and children of my generation, we looked to the screen for our heroes; directing: “There’s really no difference between them, it’s an we imitated and emulated William S. Hart; people like Hart and extension, one from the other. Ideally I think the writer should go Chaplin were gods. The films were every bit as much alive as on and direct the picture. I think of the director as an extension of literature, and I was always fascinated by films. So I started out to the writer.” become a writer but I wasn’t aware I wanted to become a director until after I had written for films for several years. Then I decided I Implicit in early works like The Maltese Falcon, In This could do my own material better than someone else. So I really just Our Life, and Key Largo (’48), themes of identity continue to drifted into directing…. dominate at the end of Huston’s career in Prizzi’s Honor and The DB: What about the writing itself? Is there anything about the Dead. screenplay form which makes it appeal to you? JH: The ideal screenplay has a kind of discipline. You must In a 1981 interview, Huston spoke of his first film as “a make your points with a certain clarity and decisiveness which dramatization of myself, how I felt about things.” makes the ideal screenplay closer to poetry than to the novel. I find the form itself attracts me. DB: Yet poetry is such a pure form whereas film seems to be much more of a composite, so much less pure. JH: I think of pictures as being quite pure when they are truly realized. And closer, perhaps, to the thought processes than any other form. The ideal picture is almost as though the reel were behind your own eyes and you were projecting your own thoughts. It’s only when the picture falters that your thoughts stumble as a result of the picture’s faltering. Something “wrong” appears on the screen and the dream is broken…. I don’t make drawings anymore, but there’s a logic to shooting a scene. After your first shot, everything else falls into place. And shooting on location as I do and not in the studio, the circumstances usually tell you what the first shot is going to be. By the way, I’d like to make an observation here. Very seldom does an audience realize what you’re doing with the camera. When the camera is performing at its best, the audience isn’t aware of it. It’s so close to the thought process that you’re from An Open Book. John Huston Knopf NY 1980 watching the scene, not the movement of the camera—no matter I [Huston] came well to my very first directorial what kind of ballet it might be doing. assignment. The Maltese Falcon was a very carefully tailored As a rule, I think of the camera as part of the scene. It’s screenplay, not only scene by scene, but set-up by set-up. I made a the camera as protagonist. You enter the scene through the sketch of each set-up. If it was to be a pan or dolly shot, I’d camera’s eyes. It has a physiological function. Like the physiology indicate it. I didn’t want ever to be at a loss before the actors or the of the cut. Try this little trick yourself. Look at something directly camera crew. I went over the sketches with Willy Wyler. He had a in front of you. Then look at something to the direct right of you. few suggestions to make, but on the whole, approved what he saw. You’ve made a complete right angle. But notice that in doing it I also showed the sketches to my producer, Henry Blanke. All you blink your eyes. In other words, because you’re familiar with Blanke said was, “John, just remember that each scene as you the whole area in between, you blank it out and go directly from shoot it, is the most important scene in the picture.” That’s the best point A to point B. That is a cut. advice a young director could have. Only when the intervening space—the relationship between those two objects—is important do you pan. If it isn't from John Huston Interviews. Edited by Robert Emmet Long. important, you cut…. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2001. Huston—FAT CITY—8

Making a film is like every other undertaking in life. Its Was Moby Dick the most wretched location experience you’ve success depends on whether or not you’re equipped for it. And I’m ever had? not referring to learning. I don’t know that I’ve learned a hell of a No, it was in Africa making The Roots of Heaven. That was the lot. I think I was probably as good a director at the beginning as I most physically difficult. Temperatures were quite unbelievable. am now. Oh I’ve probably learned a few small technical things. One didn’t eat, myself included. But Moby Dick was difficult. It But I’m not sure my understanding has deepened since I was nine was the worst winter in maritime history. Three of our lifeboats years old…. capsized. We just had one storm after another, wretched storms. DV: Do you feel a film like Jaws will have the same appeal Certainly once we were on our way to the bottom. And three times over time? I thought we were. We had started out with JH: I haven’t seen Jaws so I can’t three mechanical whales, and we lost two of comment on it. But good films—truly them. And I knew that if we lost the third good films—will endure. Granted the one, we were shit out of luck. This was our camera used to turn at a different last hope. So I just got in the whale, and I speed and the acting style was one of stayed there. I knew they’d have to rescue it exaggerated delivery. Today we’re if I was in it. If that whale had gone, the closer to reality. Figures on the screen picture would have died. Every day we move at the same pace we do in life. would go out to sea. That didn’t take long, And the style has changed, of course. but as soon as we got out, the storms would But a Chaplin film is as good today as just surround us—longboats would be it was then. separated, and everything would become DB: What is your opinion of the disordered and chaotic. state of the art today? I guess by today’s standards, if you were JH: One of the ill effects of the that far behind, they might have stopped the modern set up of the industry is that if picture. a picture isn’t immediately successful, By today’s standards, it’s nothing to be a they won’t risk any more money few weeks behind. Think of Apocalypse publicizing it. I’ve seen a number of Now. I thought there were wonderful things fine films that the public was barely about it, some unbelievable things, but I able to see. Like The Traveling thought it was a poor picture. It didn’t know Executioner with Stacy Keach, or what to do with itself. Walkabout from Australia. I think There is no plot to Heart of Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller Darkness. It's an atmosphere, and it’s a was a kind of masterpiece. Midnight wonderful evocation, but it isn’t a story with Cowboy was a wonderful film. Beautiful pictures—and our loss, as a beginning, a middle, and an end. a result of the present economic set up. And there were absurdities in the film. I mean, why do On the other hand, Earthquake, Towering Inferno, etc. I they all go up the river in a boat, when they can take a helicopter haven’t seen them and I’m not drawn to them because they seem to and go up the river? And so on. The nonsense of that American contain a formula. What I hear about them doesn’t sufficiently placement of light and so on and the bombing area….And showing attract me. I’d rather read a book. a bridge all lit up at night. It's absurd. Coppola took refuge. He escaped into the metaphysical at the finish. And, you know, shithouse writers have been doing that since time immemorial. “Saints and Stinkers: The Rolling Stone Interview” Peter S. The problem is that the concept of story can very easily Greenberg, 1981 be misunderstood. I mean, a story is not necessarily something “At first I didn’t know what was going on with the man,” says that’s as wooden as a first, second, and third act, or that comes out Caine, who last worked with Huston on The Man Who Would Be with a moral and a message or something that’s all underscored King. We were on location in Morocco, and I’d do a scene with and in italics and capitalized. Sean [Connery], and we’d finish it and John would say ‘cut,’ and That’s not what I mean. Peer Gynt has a dramatic then we’d do the next scene on the first take as well. I never structure. And even Tennessee Williams has a dramatic structure. thought the movie would work. And then I saw the movie. It was When we were doing African Queen—and we were just about to wonderful. Most directors today don’t know what they want-so film it—I discovered myself without a story. That’s why I say I can they shoot everything they can think of. They use the camera like a put myself in Coppola’s boot. Luckily I found the ending well machine gun. John uses it like a sniper.”… before starting the cameras. At what point did you decide that you were going to let Katherine Almost every movie you make is filmed on location. Any movies Hepburn and Bogart sink that ship? you would rather have done on a back lot? I wrote the finish in Africa. I didn’t feel that it should have an Heavens, no. If I have a trademark at all, it’s that I prefer to make unhappy ending. It wasn’t that kind of a picture. my movies where they happen. I was on one of the first location pictures, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And AfricanQueen would have been very difficult to do on the back lot of some studio. The From The Hustons. Lawrence Grobel. Charles Scribner’s Sons, point is that in a sense it’s easier to just do it than to fabricate it. NY 1989 Huston—FAT CITY—9

Keach, who considered it the best work he ever did. “I learned so much about not only acting but also directing. He was used to being an actor, so he knew actors and let them find their way. Then he would point the camera.” John “never intellectualized about motivation,” according to Keach, “or about objectives. He worked with actors the way a conductor works with a great orchestra. There was nobody like him.” For the fight scenes between Keach and Mexican fighter Lucero, played by Sixto Rodriguez, a one-time light-heavyweight contender, Keach worked with José Torre carefully staging the bout, but when it came time to film it, Huston said, “All right boys, now we’re just going to have two minutes of boxing. Just go out there and fight!” The direction surprised Keach, and he wondered if this was one of those practical jokes he had heard Huston loved to play, or perhaps it was “that quasi-sadistic element that people told Huston had been developing a project with Ray Stark about two about John. Huston said that he wanted Keach to fight, but that he down-and-out small-time boxers, one hoping to come up, the other fully expected Rodriguez to hold back. to come back. Fat City, a novel written by Leonard Gardner, But tell that to Keach. “Every time I would hit this guy,” captured the gritty, low-down world of boxing. “It's about people he remembered, “he couldn’t help it, his left hand would come out who are beaten before they start but who never stop dreaming,” and he really got me good. That shot is in the film. There’s nothing John said. When Stark first approached him about it, Huston saw it fake about it, when I go down to the mat, it’s real!” once again, as a perfect vehicle for Marlon Brando. The two men The singe was Keach’s girlfriend at the time, went to see Brando, who was in London, but Brando was involved and as she watched her man being pounded, Huston patted her on in causes then and wouldn’t commit. the shoulder and said, “It’s only a movie, my dear.” “Then” John said, “in Spain, they were shooting a picture Jeff Bridges also had to fight in the movie and shuddered about and Wyatt Earp with a young actor, Stacy whenever John would tease him: “We’re going to put you in a fight Keach, I went over to see him and was shown some film on him. I with some real guys and see how you do.” And when his fight was very impressed.” scene was filmed, he, too, got nailed. “I got cut,” Bridges said, Keach, who was twenty-nine when John showed up on “real blood was coming out.” the set in Madrid, was aware of John’s sliding reputation, but it didn’t tarnish his legend. “I just felt he was going through a period Knowing Huston’s need for a diversion when not filming, Ray that every artist goes through some time or another, “Keach said. Stark worried that John would get bored in Stockton. “The only “He came with an offer in hand and was very excited about Fat entertainment was women’s roller derby every Friday night,” Stark City. Particularly because he had experiences himself as a boxer.” recalled. But John managed. Stacy Keach said that Stark would Keach was signed to play Billy Tully, the older fighter. often run movies after dinner, and one night he showed The Battle Huston heard about an actor Burgess Meredith had recently of San Pietro and Let There Be Light. Afterwards John talked for directed in The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go. Jeff Bridges had also hours about them…. appeared in The Last Picture Show, and Huston thought he might be right for the younger fighter, Ernie Munger.… John also wasn’t well during Fat City, and often had to use an oxygen tank to help him breathe. Yet he continued to smoke his John saw Fat City as a picture “about hope and failure, great cigars each day and cough himself to sleep at night…. misery alongside great wealth.” It was his first American film …He [Huston] described a special screening of Fat City since The Misfits eleven years before. What John wanted was the he had for Mohammed Ali in Dublin before his fight with Blue look, the smell, the feel of those dank, depressed towns to which Lewis and how Ali had shouted at the screen, “That’s the way it fighters traveled in order to beat their brains out in front of is!”… drunken, boisterous crowds. He found exactly what he was looking Huston was asked what “fat city” meant. “It’s a jazz for in California, on Stockton’s skid row. musician’s term,” he explained. “A dreamer’s term, meaning no “I always had the feeling that there was the hand of boundaries to the possibilities. It’s the pot of gold at the end of the somebody very special on the pulse of that film,” said Stacy rainbow.”

Huston—FAT CITY—10

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2013 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVI: Mar 5 Volker Schlöndorff, The Tin Drum 1979 Mar 19 Mike Leigh, Naked 1993 Mar 26 Michael Cimino, Heaven’s Gate 1980 Apr 2 Paul Thomas Anderson, Punch-Drunk Love 2002 Apr 9 Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead 2007 Apr 16 Zack Snyder, Watchmen 2009 Apr 23 Marleen Gorris, Within the Whirlwind 2009

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