Stanley Kramer on Film

From Casey TS nine Seattle this is Kramer on film producer Gibson record date 5:26 82 length 58 46. Following program is a production of Casey vs Seattle funding for Stanley Kramer on film was made possible by this station and other public television stations making movies that comment on our political and social values. It's a tough business. Believe me I know. Hello I'm Jane Fonda. Over the past 40 years one man has made this kind of film with a commitment and consistency that is very rare. Join me for a look at the career of Stanley Kramer on film.

You told me there was money in the fight you take me on and I'll make money for food. HE WAS LIKE WHAT DO YOU. We. To be a part of the fame. He was. Yeah. And I got a needle stick it to me right on the. And there was nothing absolutely nothing. It just feels for my daughter but I feel for Christina. Is that true is going to go forward. Yes. Tell me how big you want to see get Stanley Kramer is a film director and producer. He spent his life making hotly debated movies and making us think. Kramer. The writing. Always controversial Kramer's films are as much editorial as entertainment. He was the first to make mainstream Hollywood movies questioning our political and social values. And along the way angering critics

Hollywood colleagues and the public. Standing. In the old days was considered a genuine liberal. Actually that's not a particularly accurate term today because the word has taken on so many varying connotations that it's been diluted by the kind of genuine liberal he was in the old picture making days was tantamount to revolutionary. Forty years later Cramer hardly seems revolutionary. His candid memories of 35 films are full of contradictions about himself in the Hollywood film establishment. Stanley Kramer was the original independent filmmaker. He was recently honored at the United States independent film festival in Utah for his lifetime contribution to the movies.

Nothing else that I might say. I am here tonight because this is the independence festival. I am an independent. I am your brother and that's why I am here. Stanley has the infinite patience that you need in the movie business which is to stay it until you get it perfect. I believe that he's a man who is adamant about is his is very adamant about he has his individuality and that's what being creative is all about Kramers individuality has its roots in New York's Hell's Kitchen where he was raised by his mother a secretary at Paramount Studios. Following college at NYU he made training films for the army and after the war Kramer and his army buddies decided to take on Hollywood. We formed the company out of nothing and publicize it and financed it. I went

out I'd never finance say I'd never been inside a bank except to take out $20 and literally I mean I learned how to do it. You have to be a kind of second story man as well as a creative genius. You go to the bank and you say sir I have a great piece of property here and with this property I intend to start Kirk Douglas. And you say I have Kirk Douglas and he said well you mean Melvin Douglas. No no he's a new father Kirk Douglas. Very very good. He says oh well what else. I have a United Artists release and I have all the secondary financing. And so he doesn't believe a word to say. See I learned that by the way there's a kind of a game of Fritzy you tell him what you think you can get. And he tells you whether that would be acceptable for the basic note. Then you go to Kirk Douglas and say I have the bank loan and United and you go to United. I got Kirk Douglas and the bank loan. And one day you sit in a room with all these strings hanging down and you give a

yank and hope they come down together. So you told me there was money in the fight you take me on and I'll make money for both. Will. You do. Better. Take your. Kid. I. Get this straight. Along as long as I think you can get somewhere. I'm not interested in club fighters a $50 course and you're going to work. You're going to work harder than you. Have a. Champion was and a prize fight as he was a hero. He died in the ring because there was something more than in going the distance. See I don't believe the philosophy of rock that it is an achievement to go the distance and get your head beat off and maybe get punchy. That doesn't mean anything to me. I have been a butcher as far as I'm concerned. You're going to work until you're so smart. You're going to learn the other

guys. Learn. Every dirty trick in the business and there's plenty of us but that's what I want to say. The last line in Champion was the crippled brother said about a heel champion. He was a credit to the fight to the very end. Wow that was a sardonic comment. If I was a credit to this rotten racket Stanley Kramer's motion picture credits include some of the most important and popular films of the last four decades. His films have earned eighty five Academy Award nominations and more outrage and controversy than almost any other Hollywood filmmaker. He produced classics like high noon. The wild one and the Cain Mutiny. His directing credits include The Defiant Ones on the beach. Judgment at Nuremberg.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. And Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Critics labeled Kramer a message filmmaker. He saw himself as a storyteller with a point of view. The studio saw him as controversial when they wanted him to be commercial. All right. I said Get up. The duck. People. Yes you can. Try. To. Get. Your. Boss get what.

He. Needs. All right. Roger Ebert film critic for public television sneak previews of The Chicago Sun-Times. In cities like New York and Los Angeles in Chicago his films. At the time that they were released were probably not nearly as controversial as they were. We're 90 let's say 90 percent of the moviegoing audience lives. Stanley I think was basically looking over the heads of the intellectuals and the liberals in the big cities to the traditional mass audience that Hollywood has always reached around the country and around the world. And for those people sometimes his movies came as real news. The.

Only thing. You. May. Be. Revealing what you got. We thought it was shocking and it was. The girl said What are you rebelling against in Brando's or what it got. You know that was the sign of the age but I didn't interpret it exactly. It's too early. It was until later it was banned in England and

banned in a lot of other places as being too too effective in break off from this Savanah to revolutionary in some way. I brought Brando to California. With the aid of his agent Jay Cather who then was with MCSA. And it paid him nothing but he was a young actor and yet become a big star except in New York. And we put him in men and Fred Zinman directed it for him and wrote the script. And I I wrote heard Brando how they open his face every which way. I mean. Like. Some mythical white. Get some water. And you've seen this

before. I'm sorry. I. The way you're looking at me. I said. Yeah I know but what are you sorry for. I. Know right. What are you thinking. You think you made a mistake. You. Know. Why. Did. You. Have to wait till we were married. He was absolutely wonderful he went to live with them at the at the hospital and of course he was at the hospital that I was present at the actual scene. It

sounds always like such a wondrous story but he would go with the fellows out to dinner in his wheelchair with the bottle the urinal bottles drop those like this as they drove a car just like they did with it and brakes and they would go to a place and get drunk on Saturday nights and he was there and I was having dinner at another table with somebody else and a woman said well got up and went over the table an elderly woman said Oh well we owe you boys remember this is 1950 not so long after the war. What we owe you boys will never be able to repay. And remember if you have faith faith will allow you to walk again. And of course they couldn't walk again because their spinal cords were severed and they knew it. And rather their prob was to adapt to the fact they never walk again. Well so Bob 15 minutes went by and then Brandon did the act. He slowly stood up in his chair walked across the room haltingly and I thought that woman was going to pass right out of the picture that I saw.

He did it magnificent because I was Brando the greatest young most sincere greatest range actor. As a young actor with whom I've ever come in contact. In the four years between the man and the wild one. Kramer produced 11 Motion pictures including Cyrano de Bergerac. Death of a Salesman and the member of the wedding. But the film we remember best from this time is the one which no one expected to be more than a great picture. High Noon was a quiet understated western star Gary Cooper Grace Kelly at a haunting theme song. It won four Academy Awards and secured Stanley Kramer's place in Hollywood. I. Come. Out. I go. Through that door.

Come I met my father. I. Thought. It was a strange film and there are so many people who made wonderful contributions and so many people who have claimed complete credit for it. I did test Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Cooper was right. I think Grace Kelly was not that good. No Phil.. I wish I also knew that I thought you were going to be a big star. I didn't. John Wayne always said he was a communist film because the marshal dropped his badge in the dirt at the end and left the town in one fell swoop he swept aside all of the diligences necessary to make democracy work because the town had not stood by the Marshall in a moral way that the bad men were coming home by himself.

The critical and financial success of high noon ensured the Cramer would continue making films with a message. His next target was racism in the Defiant Ones he team Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis. It was a risk because a white and a black actor had never shared equal screen time and there were still powerful Hollywood columnists who could make or break careers. He still had to see sticking needles in the back with a word. You know what I mean boy. Yeah. And I got a needle sticking in me right. You could not call me boy. It was not on your normal piece of American fluffy entertainment.

It was at once taking to task the system in a in a hard hitting way. You're just too sensitive to nothing. That's right you're not right. But I got a little advice for you man because I like you man. You've got to take things as they are. You can't keep buying them unless you want to be unhappy. I see you got a lot to learn. Boy. Thank you. Living in a fancy hotel. Yeah like living in that fancy hotel and at angiotensin. Oh sure they can let you in that hotel through the back door if you've got a pail and a mop and you know just long enough to collect your tip. There were people who felt I'm sure that we ought not to have been making pictures like that. And many of them said so. As I recall. But that didn't faze me in the least. I don't think it fazed Stanley Kramer. It's just

the way he was. I mocked him though from that film. For being a man who had a kind of a mission. Do you know what I mean. And his mission was to agitate to as some people say stir up you know his mission was to to force into our consciousness. Some disturbing thoughts in 1959 Kramers target was nuclear war. Some Americans were building bomb shelters in their backyards. Cramer was building a movie on the idea that nuclear fallout could destroy mankind. I still remember with a great deal of poignancy and emotion the feeling that I had after seeing on the beach. And I think that that film probably influenced my notions about nuclear war. More than anything that has come along since

then. What do you think started. The war. Albert Einstein. Kidding. Do you really want to know who I think started the war. Yeah. Why. Did I get on you. Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves up in the face of the earth. I don't believe it even. Though we didn't want a war we didn't start it. How did it stop. The trouble with you is you want a simple answer. There isn't any. The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't possibly use. Without committing suicide. To me none of those films are controversial. See now you're saying well I'm oversimplifying.

And no I believe them. Do believe it to be controversial version of the black man should have come into his own as an equal citizen or a war a nuclear war might destroy all countries or that a citizen shouldn't have a right to teach freely in a classroom. Why you don't want. To. Other creatures of power of his brain to reason. What other an. Have is larger the horses swifter is stronger. The butterfly is far more beautiful and was more prolific. Even a simple sponge is more. Like just a sponge. I don't know if. I can. Find. Things just fine with Inherit the Wind Cramer continued to agitate but for all the controversy the movie was

a flop. Today the film is very popular on television and seems as topical as it was two decades ago. But Cramer had to wonder then what good it does to make message films. If no one wants to see them it almost broke my heart that I almost broke my pocketbook. But I went all over the world with that film. And people simply didn't come. I'm forced to admit. It had to be lacking in some of the basic elements of provocative drama because why wouldn't they come. The performances were excellent. Tracy in March and Gene Kelly. And you know it was about a hot subject and it certainly turned the fundamentalists off. I'll tell you that. Or on you know they objected strenuously but but with all the conflict people didn't get excited. You think a man should have the same trouble with Jesus. Of course we should still be a part of the. Thing. He was just.

The wind was one of the lowest grossing films of United Artists history. The Kramer was undaunted. He tried another controversial topic the Nazi war trials Judgment at Nuremberg was studded with stars to get the studio to distribute the film to a mass audience. The film made a great deal of money but it didn't live up to Kramers expectations. I'm not satisfied with any film filled with faults and flaws some of which I only am conscious that critics are conscious of others but they may be the wrong thing. I'm conscious very conscious of that fact never satisfied myself thank God but in pieces. Man there are a lot of pieces of films and I'm very conscious of them right proud. Where's the responsibility of those American industrialist who do not define American industry. No John you're only

responsible for Germany did you think to condemn one man in the dock. It is easy to condemn the German people to speak of the basic flaw in the German people to rise to power at the same time. The best that I can find Jenning said is guilty. If there's Jennings guilt the words go no more or less judgment at Nurnberg enhanced Kramers reputation as a thoughtful filmmaker. But what he really wanted was a big commercial success. He found that success in his only comedy. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. It was a chase movie all about it starred almost every comedian Hollywood has to offer.

You a chance to look down the bottom. Line. To. Me. I. Guess. He can't possibly. Be. I. Too bad we didn't have a camera on the guys truck. With. Trucks.

And we were placed in the truck and told to stay there in funny little chairs and they would supply us with soft drinks not unlike the San Diego Zoo. Only we got out. We all were kind of on all day long you get all of these animals together and they and they roar every once in a while. Some of the funniest things in the world I've ever seen in my life. What are the things the the the improvisational things that Jonathan Winters would do every day and. We were all just out of our Gord's we were it was fun just being nuts. I found out that comedy is a very grim business very serious watching somebody who's dealt with comedy sweat out a piece of timing to make an left trigger is beyond anything I'd known and drop. It really is it's miserable suffering perspiring everything. Stanley Kramer's Twenty-Seventh movie It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World became one of United Artists all time box office hits. He had apparently combined message

films with commercial success. But even with success Kramer had another battle to fight the critics hated his work. Charles Chamblin has written numerous books on film and as the film critic for The Los Angeles Times. I think he was a convenient for daring to do anything I think he became a convenient whipping boy for all of the ills that particular eastern critic critics attached to Hollywood. You know he seemed you know the liberal conscience of an industry which didn't want a liberal conscience. I suppose the critics blasted Cramer for his choice of subjects. Always the big issue with the liberal lean to the left. Cramer made actors the focus of his films and this didn't fit the critics theory that style is everything. I remember when I was a very young man. I. Used to lose sleep for two weeks if I got a bad review in the film. And when I hit what's affectionately termed middle age I don't

know I thought I had a little more strength and power and I thought wow I can hire a hitman and get rid of the guy and now cement overcoat in East River or some other in my. But. Now and. In my ear I call my Mieder dotage. I you know I can pop one aspirin tablet and forget about it completely. I think that basically they've said it's a message picture that is out of step with the times. He's bringing a message that everybody has already heard it's corny. It's obvious. I said things like that myself about some of his films. I've said this before but I still think so I think a critique is like a football coach. You know he has to be smart enough to know what he's doing. And dumb enough to think it matters all that much. Cramer ever the Independent has fought with the major studios over films like The Defiant Ones he's fought with the right wing over films like Bless the Beasts and Children.

He's also had his problems with actors most of the trouble I've had in my life came from actors because I'm a square. I'm really square that way. I mean I don't believe in boozing or popping pills or being late or not rehearsing and blah blah blah. You know I don't. I pray straight that way. But I've had to stand still for a variety of people in my life. I mean I've made films with a great variety of people. I don't know that I still have as much patience as I once had nor have they for that matter. But I do believe this. I told you that I believe that is the function of a director who thumb print is mostly on the film to create a climate which is right for the artists to give their full contribution. It ranges the background for it and the general atmosphere that it's done in. And then according to what he has in his own the back of his own mind. If you weren't presenting hat for him

he would have checked. And if you felt that he'd put you in a position that way you couldn't do what you felt should be done in that scene. Stanley was very fair about that. I mean he's not wildly bossy but I think he's very opinionated and I would say you could say the same up me up we got on fine. So I didn't have any Rao's. Stanley has the habit of either if he speaks to his actor in terms that everyone can hear. He speaks to him in a way that the actor knows that he can he can function at his own pace at his own level. Stanley family compliments his actors and he suits them. He seduces them. You ought to be assigned to do you fall from the bishopric. Once more. I've worked with everybody from Bob mid-teen to Frank Sinatra. In Monte Clifton Judy Garland where we're in bad shape at the end of their career.

When I got to that scene Faye Dunaway sometimes wasn't easy in terms of the patterns which she saw for herself. And I had I've had the deliciousness of failure with many of them and you know a brief moment for joy when something worse. One legendary actor Kramer worked with early in his career was Humphrey Bogart in The Cain Mutiny. Bogart was a facade in many ways. He wasn't what he appeared to be. Who is he. First night in Hawaii Pearl Harbor we were having dinner and he was having a few drinks and I was the boy producer eager beaver so forth and I said at 12 o'clock I looked at my watch. I said Well I think I'll turn in. Tomorrow's a big day and we've got to get an EARLY START. And Bogart put his glass down very dumb brutally and he looked at me for no 10 seconds within a long time he said

Tell me something. What the hell difference would it be if you never showed up at all. And of course he had me. And but it was very embarrassing and I felt oppressed and put upon. But almost in anger I said well maybe it doesn't make any difference but I'll have to get up early and be there to see to it that prematurely prematurely balding and aging actors are also there on time and again looked at me and then he burst out into laughter. And I must say we got on extremely well after that. He loved that he just loved that more than you can even describe. So that was a I thought it was a wonderful actor. He was soft. He had humility. He had tenderness. All of things within the facade didn't seem to be there. Another actor Kramer collaborated with an admired was Spencer Tracy Kramer and Tracey worked together in four films including Kramer's biggest success. Guess who's coming to dinner.

Spencer Tracy had that famous line that everybody tells me how good I am. But only Stanley Kramer gives me work. It was really true I think Kramer's relationship with Spencer Tracy was really one of the most marvelous things in this town and in Kramers career I think because he took an enormous chance doing just was coming to dinner with Tracy when it made all kinds of commercial sense. Tracy was in very poor health as we all know and Stanley was on the line. If anything had happened to Tracy before the film was finished Kramer would have would have suffered financially. You know he couldn't be insured. Columbia tried not to make the film at the last minute because it was only by accident that we were making it and because he couldn't be insured Hepburn and I put up our salaries as the guarantee for anything happening to Tracy. I was present when Spencer made the decision to do. Guess who's coming to dinner. And Stanley had sent him a script which was very good and very

much as you know it was seen on the screen. And as Spencer. Hadn't felt well and really felt that he should do it. So Stanley who is the assistant fellow kept sort of calling and calling and finally said he wanted to talk to him. So Stanley came out and he sat down and said I want him to do it. And and and Stanley they won't show up. And Stanley said I'm aware of that. And. Spencer said well you can't I couldn't allow you to take the risk and stand that said I'm the to that was taking the risk and I am happy to take that risk in our view. And Spencer said no I really couldn't do that. And Stanley looked at Spence and he said Spencer What are you going to do. You're just going to sit and rock in that

chair and fall over. You change of heart and decide to do something. I think you shouldn't do this. And Spencer stop for minute and said You mean to say it would be dumb and to take that chance. And he said as I would be dumb enough to take that chance. Spencer Tracy is it for me to see he is the man who best said on every occasion as an actor what I wanted said what I believed in. I think really Spencer was the most brilliant actor in my humble opinion he was a brilliant brilliant act that just had a gift and he ended at Taylor I think had magic sort of crazy. Absolutely. Simple true sort of discovered acting during the film of filming of the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and an awful lot of individual

things happened I was exposed to an everlasting encounter with. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. That was an incredible experience. I have to tell you it was awesome awesome. I have never been in the presence of actors who carry with them kind of live living legendary or all the time and to look at them you never saw the characters they were supposed to be representing as actors you always saw the legend of the individual living there right in front of you talking to you. He was an actor who was a listener so he listened better than most people spoke that you're going to have four pages. Spencer Tracy had been listening if you looked at Tracy the whole story was there was fantastic because he listened hard. I was playing a very big scene with Katharine Hepburn sitting on the desk and Spencer Tracy's behind the basket. And I had about a page of dialogue and I couldn't

remember a single word. Every time I began the scene it's terribly quiet on the set. There are hundreds of technicians around. I would look into her eyes or I'd look into his eyes. And every word just flew out of my head. Sidney had done several scenes with me and it didn't make him nervous at all. He didn't blow up a bit. Not a bit. He was calm as a goof. But then he had the scene with Spencer and Spencer was sitting at his desk and Sidney came in to ask him for his daughter's hand in marriage. And I was sitting on a sort of bookshelf in back of Spencer and Cindy came on and he started saying hi like. And he said again. And he had a kite and he started again and he blew of the kite. And finally Stan They said my lady I think we should stop

doing this in the morning. So in the morning I called Spencer and I said you want me to wake you up at the usual time and he said no he said I'm not going to go into work early. I said Oh really. I asked him why. And he said I don't think I don't think that said they like those two older owls looking at him. I think I'd be happy to do it without that I said. So he's just go to sleep. Yes. So I said well I'm going down. Well as I drove down I thought spins is a very sensitive man. I sent Stanley a note when I read ready so I sent and the notes say I'm ready and I'm in my dressing room. That's Bence's suggested that maybe I can do.

Sidney shot without either of us be there. And I got a quick note from Stanley. Stay away. So one day it was about 104 degrees. I got a call from aspirin's person saying lunch come over. So I presented myself with Columbia. I'm Gower Street about 9:00 in the morning. It was really just blistering hot as I got to the stage. I have friends this is awesome. I could tell that something was up and. I said Look Ali was you know they just decided to do the big master shot on Tracy's key speech to Poitier and Katharine Hepburn saying you know if you love this girl why it'll be on major speech long take I mean you lose track of what the real time is when they're making a scene. But this must have been a five five to seven minute M.Tech I should think précis pacing up and down the camera doing a long slow track around as she does a whole speech

I guess are going to do inserts later when it was really one of the most incredible pieces of acting I've ever seen. It was just so common to this whole thing. He paused and he waited and the camera followed him. Pin drop silence. And he got to that line and which he said if you love this man as much as I love this one just happened you'll be OK. And there wasn't a dry eye on the set. I mean it was just. Kramer finally said very quiet. And there is nothing absolutely nothing that your son feels for my daughter that I do feel for Christina old. Yes. Out certainly. But I can tell you that memories are still there clear. In fact indestructible and they will be there. I lived to be under the tent where John made his mistake.

I think it was a touchy so much important as to what your mother and I might think because in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel and how much they feel for each other and it's what we felt. So three days before we finish the he put his arm around me and he said you know Ketterer I've been looking at the script and if I die on the way home tonight it won't matter. You and Kate will be bailed out because you don't need those last three days really go away without them. And ten days later he died. Spent died suddenly of a heart attack but he was glad he did

it. He knew how it was that he did the picture. And Stanley was right and I think I spent a lot of it terribly you said one do you do if I dropped dead on the picture and just and said Let me worry about. And I don't think they even had sense enough to worry about it. I thought he thought the band. You know I never knew him when he had a well all day. In other words for films he made. Inherit the Wind. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. And Judgment at Nuremberg. And then Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Well never well at all. I came to him very late in life with a good good friend though I admired him. He always was able to deal with Katharine Hepburn with not everybody could because after all they had been together 25 years. We used to rehearse a scene and she come in and kneel down alongside him because she knew that her neckline wouldn't show in the film if you're down because he is very smart. You know he

looked like a What the heck are you doing there. You know they will Spencer. I just thought the suspense. I just I can't talk. I got a big go on outside and come in now on a normal regular fashion weather. You know. And she said OK OK that was a relationship that's the way he talks. You wouldn't take that from anybody else. Katharine Hepburn is really a legend in her own time because actors realize what she's done. She's she's conquered too many handicaps physical handicaps and almost everything as you think she played everything. She is very forthright and square. And you always know where she stands and what she means. She's very strong. Should have been a director somewhere along the line. But what can I say is that she's she has the things she'd hate most to hear. I guess she has sweetness and intelligence of course but she's a lovely woman.

Sam and Spencer had a great appreciation for each other. Sally was that handled Spence very shrewdly. And I think that's very sad and very true. It was a lovely friendship. In the decade following Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Kramer style which had worked so well for him in the 60s seemed out of sync. He made r.p.m. the secret of set of the Toria Bless the Beasts and Children the domino principle and his most recent film The runner stumbles his formula for making a controversial theme a commercial success just didn't compute with the film going public. Chemistry is a peculiar thing. You're going to have a film which is perfectly to sequence the sequence when the audience views it or when you're viewing yourself you couldn't care less. Nicely done. But you couldn't care less. Then you can take a film which is full of faults but its impact its chemistry flips

over so that it's got it. That's all you get to grab. I wish you were more predictable but it isn't particularly in some of the things that I've tried. I made a picture called Oklahoma crude and I can't tell you today what's wrong. I think mostly I couldn't decide whether it was a comedy or a drama so I played it in between and took advantage of Dred Scott who does comedy very well. We got a lot of laughs in the theater but he didn't care about the film itself. Will. Be. Any fun. And fancy. Just kidding. You know what man wants on my couch. What are you. Doing. Could you remind me of my future.

Say is a volatile gal. And the two of them made sparks no doubt about it. They ended great friends by doing this the filming we had it out. As soon as. She made you I know. You're not a bad guy. That. Chant. It ain't that easy. And in this way know. Oklahoma Crood won the Moscow film festival in 1973 but was received

less enthusiastically here at home. Kramer tried again with a film in the assassination genre that was popular for a while in the 70s. But the pieces didn't fall into place and the domino principle. In fact it was a dog standing Elby first I think to agree with you. I think that. That the screenplay was developed into a. Into to nurture and to into the things that really Stanley. Could Ever wanted to do. I don't think it was one of Stanley's better efforts. I thought I was miscast in the picture. And it was a picture of much ado about nothing and of course the picture I'm sure monetary we didn't do too well at the box office and Stanley will be the first one to stand up and say that I think an audience as an audience is an audience with a pilot is a good good story and I think that's true. And I think if you got them there's no way to describe how you got them or why but you got them. And it's a wondrous feeling and excitement. There will be quiet there participate for sure when you don't have them

when that restlessness is restlessness is there and when something's not going the chemistry is not working and then head for the exits because you're in trouble. The reception to the domino principle was the signal Stanley Kramer needed. He knew it was time to leave Hollywood. I have found in the 70s a tremendous confusion in my life. I moved away from Hollywood California not because I didn't respect everybody there among my friends and because I didn't know that there was the greatest talent in the world residing there but because for myself I had to get out to contemplate my navel if nothing else just take what in the Sam Hill is it that has puzzled me frustrated me and turned me aside. So Stanley Kramer embattled filmmaker left Hollywood and at age 65

started over in Seattle Washington. I want to do to leave Hollywood for a while simply because. I was always a fish out of water anyhow. I mean I'm not I'm not a person has been on run a Bairds a b c d or e parting this. And I never was simply because I didn't enjoy it. I'm uncomfortable in groups. That meet socially that way. Also. You know I want to get out but I've got two young kids I thought to be a good idea to go to where the environment was. Shall we say a little bit more basic the values a little bit more clear if somewhat challengeable still Cramer hit Seattle like a storm riding a controversial newspaper column appearing on local television introducing movies. Good evening. I'm Stanley Kramer. Well tonight is a special evening I think. Goodbye Mr. Chips starring Robert

donut and Greer Garson. Stanley Kramer is first and foremost a movie director and he couldn't stay away from the business. He managed to finance and produce the runner stumbles in 1979. The film was controversial featuring Dick Van Dyke as a priest and Kathleen Quinlan as a nun who fall in love. The movie barely broke even one of stumbles was a try was made very inexpensive way. I am disappointed at what happened it's had crucial critical rip off and some ecstatic reaction. It will break even you know make a little money but it was not a success. We better go back to training and go in a lower windows and try to get one that. Works all together. So I would say we will try one more. I'm not as interested. I don't know I want to. Know.

The film are there's a peculiar thing. See it's so different from a painting. If a painter paints a picture if he doesn't like the picture he doesn't hang it he can scrape it and change it and he doesn't hang it till it's exactly as he saw it in his mind's eye. No that's not true the film is never exactly as you see it in your mind's eye. Too many people involved. Even if you control all things. Today Stanley Kramer is still an independent producer. He's got a new film package he's trying to finance for another shot. This man who's made 35 movies wants to do it again. He still feels he has something to say and he wants to say it on film. Stanley Kramer was a boy wonder in Hollywood. And now Hollywood has to wonder if he can do it

again. For Kramer being a filmmaker is not his job. It's his life and even though today the studios are now owned by conglomerates the business of the feature film business is in some ways the same as it's always been. Get the script. Raise the money. Make the deal world. Very good. Thank you. Gosh you got that right. Yes. After reviewing it again. Well only three times I know Gary definitely has more off. That's right. What do you think. What do you think about the general size of the pitch. Get back to how do we accommodate that contingency fee that might be a barrier for some of the investors if we don't define it in some fashion before the fact. We are rolling the dice. I don't know what the outlet is. I'm only telling you this figure with a good product you can make a substantial profit. The making of a good film always starts with a good script. That doesn't mean it will turn

out well but it should start there. Cramer is on his way to work on the script for his next film. The things Kramer has always cared about in his films are the ways people behave and the choices they make. His success is partly due to his sensitivity to what people say and don't say. Working with screenwriter Jeff Luke Kramer is as always. A perfectionist. It's the nature of the beast that writers write. Directors. QUESTION What's been written back. I actually expect her to be circumspect. Particular One she didn't expect at all but he's got to have his weak moments and one of those weak moments is going to be what his wife tells him. She's had a relationship with God to you OK. OK. There's a restlessness about this man who made movies everyone talked about. He's not content with what he's done.

He doesn't know how much time he has to do more than just possible to talk to the people at Fox. I think he had a question regarding the phone call I'll get you to call Ben Benjamin and ask him whether he got the extension from Henry Denker around the headhunters play for us. All right. I didn't do that. All right. I believe the film making is essentially a young man's game. It's a tough game. I can tell you you see the old gray coming around. Whether Stanley recovers and knocks on that again is not that important. It might be just me but in the objective arena it isn't that important what is important though is that. Stanley Kramer be followed by filmmakers of that same kind of stripe. That the younger filmmakers become Stanley Kramer's with new ideas and new courage and new.

Insight into the human condition and use their creativity to etch that. To mirror it for mankind. Those are the kinds of filmmakers that we need. And if Stanley is in his late 60s or middle 60s that he is too old for this young man's game. Then let's hope that the future filmmakers will find the Stanley Kramer concept of film on the way to go. Because to my mind we are more in need of Stanley Kramer's approach to film making than ever many people talk to me about recognition criticism. What is it is it awards is that recognition. As somebody said you had 85 Academy nominations how come you never won an Oscar. Well

I'd rather somebody asked how come you didn't win it. Then how come you did. I don't think it adds up to critics and awards. I think it's what you are inside. I think it's very dangerous to approximate what you do or don't represent. I don't know what I represent but. I got a lot of questions. The United States independent film and video festival in Utah recently honored Stanley Kramer with a John Ford medallion. It's presented each year to someone who's contributed to the independent spirit of the film industry and the betterment of American life. John Ford helped Kramer early in his career. So the award was especially meaningful. I have found in these latter years of this decade of the previous decade the 70s that I form the question is somebody once said Well it's a sign of education and maturity not to know all the answers

but to ask the right questions for myself in the name of this award. And in the name of this festival for what it can be I want to say that I am asking the questions and I intend to be in quotes dangerous unquote. In the 1980s. Funding for Stanley Kramer on film was made possible by this station and other public

television stations. In