Texas Weekly; Edward Dmytryk, director of The Caine Mutiny and Raintree County

the penny will this is texas weekly rehearsal question and answer session between members of the state's working press and a prominent figure in the news here is your moderator neil anderson our guest is award winning director edward dmitri who will talk with about his fifty four years in hollywood mr dimitri court in all major studios there where he created such box office hits as crossfire ranger county the young lions the caine mutiny and others we also have some film clips of mission to make its motion pictures are going to talk to him to him about a book just published by the times within string tie love it's a hell of a live but not a bad living in that book the author reveals some fascinating secrets of his art and his work with artists like elizabeth taylor richard burton bette davis william holden robert mitchum and others <unk> has lived in taxes now for the past year where he teaches film production at the university of texas at austin first on the show make it work on the texas weekly program with libya i would make is started as a studio messenger in the

nasal silence a new advanced a projectionist and then carter and then director of course of those on the top films is that a whole way of life that sort of gone with the wind or four seems to me that the money boys are finally done what they were always trying to do the hollywood in iran and that was take over feature film productions the true yes well that is true to a large extent the most is that is is you know art now in the hands of the conglomerate's i don't think any studios independently owned as they used to be by people like carrie kahn at the warner brothers or resells mccormack goldwin whoever they were these days for motion picture producers or understood films and understood that grew up with them from an accordion days today up and i mean you know what is the transamerica own psalm and god knows a westerner with little less compelling than other names because i think i did all those things but they are their own body out by conglomerates and of course

many pitches are independently of night have made an end of them distributed through the major distributors and those are made by you know essentially by promoters entrepreneurs but their that their promoters at the pizza promoters game today the most important man today and tom's as the man to get the money because of the major studios were often aren't making pictures or are financing the family outside all they will do is they will give up a distribution guarantee which really doesn't amount to anything that will get what they call a big pickup in other words if you finish the film then they will give you so much money which has uncovered when you're the cost of the film itself and doesn't to be anything towards making it so you had to gauge of money from a bank from some that means that you have obviously the banks don't give the two means of some financier was with a great deal of crum and stone somebody is is guaranteeing you're your money you know so many millions of dollars we have been hearing on taxes a year and of course throughout their foreclosures taxes is doing much you are telling very much its own liking industry here are doing observational and texas filmmaking

inducing new features to her no i haven't no i haven't so i have an observation on and i think that you know i just hope that they don't get their hopes up too high because this is a kind of thing has gone on in many cases arizona was doing it for a long while you know the new mexico got on the bandwagon in europe has always tried to be a production center has never quite made it although it's a democrat a moderate business but the one item at two percent maybe four percent of american business out of off as you know for to try to do with the evening the time hollywood hoping to get their people out there although what they will do of course and what happens quite frequently by cooperating by offering cheaper labor which is really one of the main advantages that city coming here is a people with a location pictures here if they have a western bit to do with the main shot might have a shot at in arizona about fifteen years ago twenty years ago as i did with broken lyons oh i'm it'll come here to shoot it because they will have certain financial advantages those will disappear in time because i always do for

this we went to italy right after the war what one transportation became love that's you know and then easily accessible are we started going to know him first to make pitches because it was cheap there are the people very quickly learned that they could make more money they want to come up to the standards of what's a hollywood payrolls go up and we went to italy and then we went to spain and we finally one up in yugoslavia but even he was lovely and now what we deal more money it's expensive to make a picture in italy as it is to make one in hollywood that spain this is about it's expensive to now we're talking about the course of those were what we used to call a runaway productions was for those runaway productions sort of the beginning of a hollywood and bollywood about it brief denise serve at least they thought they did before they opted to embrace tv for money if not for reasons were were runaway productions of so called with the the reproductions were so we made films abroad for

a couple of reasons the first letter that before the war you had to go abroad by boat are there where the where i think the pan american clipper is refined but those were very rare and that didn't fly often and you have to travel to new york essentially by by train most people do it anyway if it happens typically norton spend a couple days in the north for political tool we can get abroad it took two weeks traveling into weeks coming this for weeks nonproductive weeks we have to pay your actors you got to pay your pro event for your director whoever is involved not have a war was sudden provider in the day at first of course you'd have to fight in the oregon of you your view of light in the day so it had for you three or four days three times and became they became more convenient to go to paris and oil to do a parisian scene and to build paris in hollywood also course course became much higher least they would build a section of paris in hollywood for twenty thousand dollars after the war that was impossible and court judgments about that as they build a set for rachel dolly on the fox lot two million dollars for one second

build an old chicago or whatever you're whatever was streaked with an elegant than two million bucks well for once at which he could use for only one picture what it used to be others as a matter fact i think they started out to make other films it could use that set fire to get some of their money back but phil's were flops i can think of one picture made using a set that was a successful pro subjects set let's talk about directions did contemporary directors really have that season background we talked about her that you had and that most of the directors of the league did during her year of certain fifty four years ago of filmmaking is anyone willing to take the hard road and more now almost i think that maybe one or two come along now and then say by sadat nineteen twenty three there were no schools it was a school in the country was teaching film and if it were i would've heard about was fourteen years old i was working with two high school i had no intention of working in fields and it was just a job to get me through school and girl so i had i had to go that i had to go that route i have no particular of

driving ambition i didn't start out to be a motion picture director of the night and i didn't even know what was going to be one until i became one actually they almost by accident as it were so the minute i learned my my trade along the way and when i started directing i was an absolutely amateur director had been a couple for ten years i've been around gilbert has been a time for something like sixteen years but i knew nothing about directing percent i'd been on the set as a coder work with directors like leo mcgarry george to coral those kind of people you know were great directors and i had picked up something obviously but nobody in hollywood ever tops at what you do how do you handle people what do you do with a scene like this how do you how do you manipulate to see how you would write a scene to make it come alive it is david how do you speed up the the action so that looks real and you know everything we do on the screens faster and having the when one is good and it is an actual life it has to be for various technical reasons i won't go into here but so and i had to learn that that way and i'm

teaching here seemed so my very early pitches one just the other day and it's very interesting to say you can see you can see that of humor waylon nowadays more to the people who come out of a film schools and has a great danger of film school by the way which i point out here and there you know the old cliche a little knowledge is a dangerous thing people come out of film school and because here they work with tv they work with only that they do a little cutting the doolittle directed in some like horrible movies and pretty bad and so are and they think that they've gotten become super producers they can produce a rampaging shooter on pitchers director on pictures write their own because everything that's almost absolute sure failure i would i would give odds anytime of ten thousand to one against anybody's attempting at because how many orson welles is either in in the world and the orson welles couldn't could make a continuing core out of that nobody who has that kind of genius when you think about the connection to it and rather than concentrating on one thing saying this is what i want to be in and getting in and learning it is again you have to learn from the bottom when i was going to cal tech and a teacher who

said i'm sure that everybody was going to college at one time and others had to get on the season which are learning here is really going to do anything for your role earned a job when you get out on the job is to have people a little bit faster and a teacher maybe what books to go into to get information and that kind of stuff but you're not going to trade here at all and this is the same thing about motion pictures is nothing we can do here we don't have the facilities would have on us we spent billions of dollars literally to really take somebody hear how to make a picture let's talk about one of your specific pictures that came at a humphrey bogart season is you know one of the stars to worship even though the ice in many because the television was there any semblance of captain queen who will request played in that foam in europe in your movie and the real osama will screen will go noble right wasn't i was actually evan likes only speak about bob mitchell pritchett whose very tough guy and but is really tough physically would probably wasn't

really was of my annual dog like him he was owed physically not powerful at all very weak and takes them arms he was a gentle guy and he was a tough he be built a tough exterior it was a party was going you know a lot of actors actually been around for a while and really build up a character for themselves it was always he was always read butler he was always very courteous he was sober to women and very charming and i'm very very up very quickly a bulky made a kind of a tough guy but with great sensitivity underneath the way he died should kind of a man he was a guy very very bravely smoking his last cigarette ride you know if anybody talk about we have original film capote of caine mutiny honestly it's the trial could you just give us a brief sample of that about how you specifically what about maybe especially staging that kind of saddam's a different from the broadway production of the twilit with the people of

our production because that the broadway production which i saw later it was a quest that libya they called it the king of the court martial and where the whole story was told through the court martial or we couldn't do that because we were told the whole story as it happened the we were on the battleships we work with the united states navy little thing so that really got to the court marshal it was just a sort of an end cap close relation leo of ugly of what happened before everything had to be cut down a great deal which made it much more difficult because when i saw the kennedy court martial and what i saw on tv later alden no one who played the part had a long time which took to break because they've had a great deal with him as as a witness we cut it down to i don't know what three minute something like that so that we had a much more difficult job because he had a break from a man who was competing control of itself to a man who suddenly was paranoid in you know in a very very short time and did it beautifully what happened

into steam several hundred yards ahead of the attack both probably oh that marker and retired high speed leaving the most to make that the general question of abusive enclave in the leading role but only more serious charge against lot of rhythm part is under fire was the memo one thing where you know the point of contention with the queen to the current quite the country the defense assuming that no man who rises to commanding onstage they worship can possibly be empowered therefore if he commits questionable out on the fire the explanation might be elsewhere lured you're telling me that there are close to me there's no reasons i didn't say that yeah we do we do it we do

we do i thought of him who didn't want to do just that the port is a new low and lighting so courageous vision is recommended trip for the right of a navy pilot in that report i like to say with it is that either did not exist i don't want like this one when a court date on the bottom right here and our key definitely did exhibit leaves the court the witnesses understandably edgy about this ordeal and i requested recess to give him a widely shared and now the burden of the desert yet i get you to lie as well to fail may and then he couldn't be found old fossil record of strawberries covering afford a lot about a small one a most curious characters onboard ship that wouldn't ruin the most or the biggest robbery or imaginary can i repeat the

q is not imaginary and i don't know anything about much oil eating strawberry help them have you know a collection of a conversation with them and some hardened just prior to leaving the camp about but manson having to limit clinton's going on our members are grateful for transfer white widow and they'd go in you know when someone is no i have no way of knowing fully recover from an individual apparently our kids have an unusual talent of the poem now i don't see any of that now that i would call it a wife said something about my boy then again he might not right questions about a man and the fighting was not the most reliable officer no other recourse

than to produce insulin i know exactly what to tell you i don't have money i tried to run the ship properly to the book but they fought me and every time i want to walk around with a shirt that's alright let them take a pro line defective equipment or knowledge that they encouraged the crew to go around stopping at me and reading while rumors about spinning in circles and an end then or yellow stain i was to blame for lieutenant merits incompetent employees seamanship lieutenant relatively perfect or not captain queen i've discovered that that word had been they laughed at me and made jokes but i proved beyond the shadow of a doubt with do you market logic that if you go to cuba one that might want to make it not a protest that key example that came out of action i know now they were only trying to protect some follow up that actually i can only

cover the scene from memory left anything out why i have a question lee one by one year was a publicity link it to think you really have to get an a member but i think we have to know it because i stayed but then on that lifelong job but it's this is an amazing thing to be on an oil bubble he's acting you could see them and break into one shot in cutaway hadn't had to do a little trick i used the a fading lights and you can see it so well here because this

is what the generation you know but the other the son graduated the son grayson so i got warmer and warmer and more orange aunt also and in such a position that his wrinkles began to come out more which give the effect of that place falling apart more but the ninety percent of it was done by bible that fell apart right in front of your eyes without any trick cuts without a trick makeup with iran announced that it has a fantastic fantastic job of acting that thing that would immediately in your book you also write of the blacklist period of the early fifties you were one of our colleagues in hollywood to new convicted of contempt of congress and to serve six months in prison but the new waiter broke with the party in and testified when the house on american activities committee to questions did politics influence at any of your movies like say give us this day rituals of the above and a second we do you think another hollywood ten year oh sure it could happen but that first you know because we would

leave the pendulum swings and anybody who thinks it was we go through a period when our last summer it'll never happen again immediate it happen before it happened after the first world war as you know there were some two to three thousand people in jail on charges of sedition were perfectly innocent and then there were the cases like the movie buildings case only a supplement city case where innocent people were going to jail and killed in some cases executed sure it could happen what was the first question us laugh well i did of politics influence your filmmaking friends and it was just day is up or not politically banal politics never important that it's actually silly for anybody to assume the stop to think abut who knows the studios who runs the studios the vested interest if you want to call it that if you use that phrase elegy capitalists write that out there to make money do you think that the captives are so stupid that we could make films that that were where it puts a communist inspired or something and get it by then they have the right any time they want to say you don't know

about this film that you know a rolling billboard sort of bell history happen or not it was it was a little unexpected was among millions of shown in this country no i yes it opened up a tremendous reviews fantastic reviews and people say with the best picture ever made and up but there and to build houses in the second or third day the american legion would come in where ever been showing unsavory talk about this picture will boycott you from now on so they got it and most people objected because i had made it or not to the picture but because i hadn't eaten it is the content concerns are liabilities it's a it's a story about immigrant italian bricklayer is this isn't true just causes troubles of lead to kill the bill and so we try to raise a family in india and opponents of this one hit kissing well in the end they own

the barbra streisand when we're in that if you recall there's there's a saint on you know we talk about the hollywood ten and there's a saying in that which i found very confusing and i went through a period where fighting and beating up was that correct was it was actually correct in the way we were the way it was presented you know it i don't remember i don't remember the way we were you know specifically seen casino was a picture i didn't care for what no there's never been a picture maybe without the weather factor with the conditions of that time of infection it presented not that not the front line anything those are i hate to see it but you know they were made by people who were involved in that period and yet they're dramatize romanticized audible low of all reality one wanted to change your mind and you discuss a brief window in the book where i had left the communist party even before before i appeared before congress i was not a common at that time and i was completely disillusioned with the party what you do what men mart isn't so

somebody doesn't believe in you are yourself or an ideal we order have the idea would not affect the decision to have to testify the battle of workers are going to jail there was i went to jail i could i didn't have to go to jail i could've testified earlier an end kepner you know not going to jail but the reason i didn't was good i knew people would think i was doing it because i was afraid of going to jail so i went to jail i had already made up my mind that i was going to do this because i was in no way in sympathy with the communist party or its so called ideals which are the ideals of all this is a religious experience of almost every electoral prime minister that time went through other and are there are there are directors now with i do perhaps one should should have wars are like things were you know no audience of mostly must graders are our liberal web site and they do what they do however they don't go so much of the political arena to get it very difficult and dangerous but even so sure we know which is what i did as a social picture and most of the picture that

talked about sort of condition i talked about race a great setup of anti semitism for instance i talked about the poor and social map not political i didn't go into well you know who's responsible for all this but i showed up and i it i try to show that this wasn't something admirable or desirable in our society like it would make a career out of conflict ending with assad was a lot of mind that you've been listening to texas weekly an unrehearsed question and answer session between members of the texas press corps and a prominent figure in the new texas weekly is produced by a upi fm npr and tv and distributed by communication center university of texas at austin this is the long war and radio network exchanges sees these issues