February 2, 2026 • 39 mins
As the war winds down, Dahl packs up and takes his talents to Hollywood. Seduced by stardom and early success, Dahl plunges into an exciting new adventure. But will his massive ego permit him to survive inside a collaborative medium? A crucial test comes when he’s offered the assignment of a lifetime, shaped by his past as a real-life 007.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Here's what sometimes happens in Hollywood. It's a cautionary tale
that we've all heard in a million books and movies
and pop songs. A young, sometimes talented actor filmmaker goes
out to LA to pursue their dream, gets seduced by
the flash and glamour of the industry before they've done
the hard work of mastering their craft. And what does
it always lead to? They get chewed up and spit out.
(00:24):
There's a reason the cliche exists. Roll Doll is twenty six.
He has one published story to his name, one he's
never read a screenplay before, let alone written one. But
the most successful producer in Hollywood history, more than him
in a sec has just flown Doll all the way
from DC to Beverly Hills, where he throws a lavish
welcome party in Doll's honor. The guest list is like
(00:45):
the front row at the Oscars. Giant movie stars, beautiful actresses,
all looking ridiculous because they're dressed up as tiny green creatures.
Why you ask, because those are the main characters in
dull short story, The Gremlins. Imagine the head trip for
Dahl seeing all this, just strolling through the party, champagne
in hand, looking at his boyhood heroes and his greatest
(01:06):
fantasies in these ridiculous costumes based on creatures he thought
up sitting in his underpants in his tiny walk up
apartment in DC. He doesn't know whether to laugh hysterically
or cry at the absurd sight. A powerful producer throws
his beefy arm around Doll's shoulders. The producer ushers Doll
through the party and guides him over to a little
(01:27):
man who's currently delighting a whole circle of giggling women
by the bar. The producer wants to introduce Dall. The
little man turns around, sees that the producer is giving
him the eye, looks Doll up and down, then winks
at him, followed by an exaggerated theatrical bow, as if
welcoming the young writer into a secret society like everybody else.
The little man is dressed up as a green monster,
(01:48):
but despite the costume, Doll recognizes him. Of course he does.
He's the most beloved man in the country. What the
hell is happening? When we talk in future episodes about Dolls,
sometimes bomatic Ego try to remember that he's twenty six
years old with zero produced credits to his name. When
a starry Hollywood party is thrown in his honor and
(02:08):
Charlie Chaplin bows at his feet, what chance did the
poor guy have? As we discussed in previous episodes, Dahl
packed a lot into his twenties and thirties. He was
starting to figure out where his passions lie. He suspected
they were somewhere in the dark, twisty short stories he
was writing, which leads to the next completely crazy and
(02:29):
intoxicating chapter that he wills into the story of his life.
Welcome to Hollywood for my hard podcast, Imagine entertainment and Parallax.
I'm married, Tracer, and this is the secret world of
Roald Dahl. Episode three. Imagine for a second that you're
(02:54):
a young, ambitious short story writer being praised for the
originality of your voice and your clever to steddings. And
imagine that you've just spent years as a spy learning
how to seduce and manipulate and lie your way into
the highest echelons of power. If you were such a person,
where would you go when the war ends? Of course,
you would pack up and take your talents to the movies.
The dream is intoxicating, especially back in that era. Oh y, look,
(03:21):
Hollywood's out there. Like countless writers before him, Doll is
blinded by the promise of celebrity, money and mingling with
the tan and beautiful, and honestly, after years in spycraft,
where he lived in a world of smoke and mirrors,
transitioning to another world of illusions does make some sense.
Succeeding in Hollywood and succeeding in espionage require many of
(03:42):
the same skills, like manipulation and seduction for starters. Plus,
after all, the daily adrenaline he's become used to from
flying aerial missions then spying on the rich and powerful.
I think it would have been too difficult for Dol
to transition directly to the sedentary life of a novelist,
which is what he really wanted to be. Screenwriting is different, beast.
It's an adrenaline roller coaster. I've been doing it since
(04:04):
right out of school. There are crazy high highs and
awful lo those and every day is different. So Doll
tries on yet another mask as he attempts to figure
out who he is now. He'll see if this one
fits better than businessman, fighter, power or spy. This one
is Hollywood power Player. The short story directly responsible for
(04:27):
bringing Dall to La is the one about the Gremlins,
those menacing little green creatures destroying RAF planes, The one
Eleanor Roosevelt likes so much she invited Doll to the
White House. The hero of Doll's story, Gus, is an
RAF pilot who's playing crashes because of a Gremlin. He
learns that the little creatures are avenging the destruction of
forests where they live to make way for British airfields.
(04:49):
Gus heroically convinces the gremlins to redirect their energy into
helping the war effort instead of sabotaging it. The Gremlins
become allies of the Brits, using their expertise to repair
planes and even make them faster. Dall thought of the
story as just a silly fairy tale about quote little
creatures with horns and long tails who walk about on
the wings of your aircraft urinating in your fuse box,
(05:13):
So all this hoopla around the story is kind of
hard for him to believe. At the time Dahl writes
the story, all the big Hollywood movie studios are on
the lookout for patriotic films. Unlike the First World War,
when the industry was still in its infancy and there
was more ambiguity about the conflict, this war offers the
opportunity for big, noisy, nationalistic movies to feed an existentially
(05:35):
terrified audience. This war is tailor made for the movies.
It's an easy to digest good versus evil storyline, those
who love freedom versus fascists trying to conquer the world.
Here's Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and
the power they took from the people will return to
the people. And so long as men die, liberty will
never perish.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
All working as a spy for the Regulars when he
writes The Gremlins, his employment requires him to run any
story he wants to publish by the British government first,
so they can pass judgment and be sure no national
secrets are being spilled. The government reader assigned to Doll's
story happens to be a very well connected businessman with
a passion for film, Sidney Bernstein. Bernstein is a devout
(06:21):
anti fascist desperately trying to help Jewish actors and filmmakers
get the hell out of Germany right now. He's also
a producing partner of Alfred Hitchcock. When Bernstein reads The
Gremlins ahead of its publication, he instantly sees the potential.
It's a little diamond of a story instead of just
straight propaganda, which can be heavy handed and boring. Doll
(06:43):
story is full of clever, inventive details, but is still
an inspiring tale of US and British cooperation to defeat fascism.
Bernstein has just come off a consulting gig on Missus Miniver,
William Wiler's Best Picture winner, about how an unassuming British
housewife is affected by the war of the.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
People, of all the people, and it must be fought
in the home and in the heart of every man,
woman and child who loves freedom.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Missus Miniver is also the highest Christman film of nineteen
forty two. With its huge success, Bernstein can kind of
write his own ticket and get any material he wants
into the hands of practically anybody he wants. He could
have decided to give Doll's story in Hitchcock and potentially
saved all decades of pushing a boulder up a hill. Instead,
he goes in a different direction, he decides the perfect
(07:28):
fit for Doll's Gremlins. Is a charismatic producer in his
early forties who happens to be on a hot streak.
His name is Walt Dissey.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Animal anatomy is a thing that is not taught properly
in the art school.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So I started the special course in animal anatomy.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, that's Walt Disney with weirdly specific insight into the
kind of small details that differentiate his technique. Disney is
only a handful of years removed from his giant, industry
changing success with snow White. In just the past couple
of years, he's made Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. I'm
gonna make you stop and think about that for a second.
(08:08):
When people debate the best run by an American filmmaker ever,
some argue for Hitchcock's six year period of nine absolute
bangers ending with Psycho, or Billy Wilder's decade long run
of eight classics starting with Cells at Boulevard and ending
with the Apartment. Personally, I advocate for Rob Reiner in
the late eighties, who had a string of five perfect
movies and six years with When Harry met Sally's Smack
(08:30):
in the middle. Disney produces rather than directs, but he's
the creative force behind his films, so you've got to
put his miraculous period just before meeting Dol up there
with anyone. Like seemingly everyone who meets young Doll, Disney
takes right to him. He loves the Gremlin story, which
somehow blends fantasy and horror with patriotism and heroics without
(08:52):
feeling it all manipulative. Disney see's serious promise in the
Young Writer, just like Ces Forster had, so he takes
Doll under his wing to show him how movies are made,
which is pretty nuts. Doll is twenty six. He's trying
to make a career out of writing, and specifically, at
this moment, screenwriting. When a typical young writer goes to
Hollywood and gets really lucky, maybe a junior development exac
(09:14):
at a mid sized production company lets him be an intern,
offering pointers while making him carry his golf clubs at Hillcrest.
But if you've learned anything about Roll Dall by this
point in our season, it's that normal rules just don't apply.
Dall's introduction to Hollywood is getting mentored by the most
creative and arguably the most successful producer the town has
ever known. Right at the moment of his peak creativity,
(09:36):
Disney puts the Gremlin story right into development, and rather
than hire a professional screenwriter to come adapt it an adult,
he decides he wants to keep Doll's unique voice. Here's
Doll talking about it on Desert Island discs.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
That went out to Hollywood at his expense with raf
permission on the stain of the car provided by Walt.
This silly young man in the RIF uniform staying in
the suite in the bevel Hill's Hotel.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It's the same swanky hotel that's about to be a
favorite of Mariel Monroe, Howard Hughes, and Frank Sinatra. And
it's Disney who throws Doll that welcome party where everyone
dresses as a gremlin. From the top of this episode.
According to writer Matthew Denison, a Disney illustrator who meets
Doll at the time, all the girls in Hollywood went
crazy for Doll, and he basically starts dating all of
(10:21):
them and flirting with alist actresses like Ginger Rogers and
Marlene Dietrich. Heard here in Angel in Paris.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Well, we must see that you have a very amusing time,
So down, please have you been in Paris before?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Those are Doll's evenings. During the days, he and Disney
spend long hours in story conference, working with illustrators and directors.
Disney is crazy about Doll, though he has a lot
of trouble pronouncing his first name, so instead, in very
Disney fashion, he calls this tall protege Stocky. As Walt
(10:54):
and Stocky continue to break story for the Gremlins, Disney
does what he's learned to do best, active the publicity machine.
He puts the little Green creatures into advertisements and even
creates a comic strip around them. Disney is basically willing
the film into the public consciousness well before the screenplay
is finished, where Craft Services has laid out a single cracker.
(11:15):
At first glance, Dall and Disney seem to be total opposites.
Dall's work, even at the beginning, is dark and subversive,
often satirical. Disney's is bright and idealistic. Doll's stories have
a creepy edge and explore greed and cruelty and the grotesque,
leaving the reader with moral ambiguity. Disney makes movies with
clear moral lessons and usually happy endings, aiming to inspire joy.
(11:38):
It's the difference between the dark, all skater kid in
high school who listens to a lot of Billie Eilish
and Old Cure albums and the upbeat, preppy cheerleader who
loves Ariana Grande. As for their take on childhood, which
is a key subject for both men, Dall sees it
as an existential battle against cruel adults. For Disney, it's idyllic,
filled with wonder and innocence, sir, and the two men
(12:01):
do share a bunch of things in common. For starters,
both create trippy, fantastical worlds, and both champion the underdog,
big time Doll's Matilda, Charlie and James overcome huge challenges.
So do Disney Cinderella, snow White and Dumbo. All of
them rise above adversity, screaming at the world that I
better not overlook them.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Like Disney's Pinocchio, I'm am real, I'm a real boy
here life, you are a real boy.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
The biggest difference between dal and Disney, and what's going
to lead to their undoing, is they're very different approaches
to work. Dall is a writer's writer in the mode
of great novelists. He likes to work alone, doing battle
with the page, fulfilling his very personal vision. Disney is
the ultimate collaborator. He works with teams of writers, directors, animators,
(12:52):
and musicians to bring ideas to life in a communal environment.
So it's not a surprise that dal and Disney begin
butting heads. Dall is just not capable of letting go
of his vision at this point in his life. He
doesn't understand or doesn't care, that filmmaking is collaborative. The
screenplay is just a blueprint for a structure that will
be built by lots and lots of people. For his
(13:14):
entire career, Dall will have a hard time with anyone
who dares to edit or change his vision. His ego
just always gets in the way, and right now, because
of his success with the Gremlin short story, he is
quote more arrogant than ever, according to his buddy Antoinette Marsh,
So of course he believes there's no need to change
anything he doesn't want to, even if Walt Disney, the
(13:35):
King himself, is the one asking. Eventually, inevitably, Disney decides
the collaboration or black thereof just isn't working, and there
are about a million other stories he could be working on. So,
after all the time, money, and advanced publicity he's poured
into this thing, Disney pulls the plug. Doll is furious
(13:56):
at first, then maybe a little embarrassed. He quickly he
tries to find another producer. But the war has wound down.
Audience's tastes of bevan to change. Troops are coming home
completely traumatized. Two world changing nuclear bombs have been set
off Audiences they don't want a story like The Gremlins anymore,
a story that highlights cooperation and camaraderie. People start demanding
(14:18):
more challenging, more morally ambiguous movies like film noir. Dahl
is incredibly disappointed, but self aware enough to realize he's
just gotten a crash course in Hollywood's inner workings from
one of its all time master craftsmen. He's determined not
to let that go to waste. He decides to keep
at it. Dahl's decision to keep fighting that uphill battle
(14:44):
of a Hollywood career could have been game over. There
are so many stories of gifted writers coming out to
La and falling on their faces. William Faulkner comes to mind,
Aldois Huxley, Truman, Capodi. Maybe the most interesting and most
tragic is f Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had every reason to
think he'd be a success in the movies. He was
maybe the most gifted novelist in an era that included
(15:07):
a hell of a lot of gifted novelists, and he
loved film. He didn't just come to Hollywood for the
paycheck like so many others. Part of what makes Fitzgerald's
attempts at screenwriting so sad is that he seemed to
put as much effort into it as he put into
Tender as the Night or The Great Gatsby. One of
the reasons we only have four and a half novels
by Fitzgerald, each a masterpiece is because he spent some
(15:27):
of his prime years trying to break into movies. He
blamed his failure on the studio system, which is always
totally demeaned writers. Here's Robertson Eiro as a studio head
and Jack Nicholson as a union organizer from Fitzgerald's unfinished
novel The Last Tycoon.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I'll tell you three things. All riders are children. Fifty
percent of drunks, and up till very recently, writers in
Hollywood were gag men.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Most of them still are a gagman, but we call
them writers.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But there's still the farmers in this business.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
They grow the grain, but they're not in at the feast.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Fitzgerald's pal, Billy Wilder, compares him to a great sculptor
who's hired to do a plumbing job. Fitzgerald simply didn't
know how to connect the pipes so the water could flow.
In his entire Hollywood career, Fitzgerald only got a single
screenwriting credit, and even on that one, he was totally
rewritten by the producer Lake Dahl with his gremlins. Many
of Fitzgerald's projects were scrapped or he got fired off them.
(16:27):
By the time Hollywood kicked him out, Fitzgerald was broke alone,
his body ravaged by alcohol, and years of his talent
completely wasted. That's the potential future that awaits Doll. Whenever
there's a forking path and the universe splits in two directions,
the path Doll goes down as always, always the more
interesting one. I want to jump forward to several years
(16:50):
after the Disney debacle, Dall is still trying without success
to get a movie made. His agent brings him an
offer from United Artists to write a screenplay called wait
for It, Oh Death, Where is thy Sting? A Lingling?
The reason Doll is interested in it, aside from the
hefty check, is that it's based on a story by
a very talented, very eccentric, young director, Robert Alman. Here's
(17:13):
Alman on The Dick Cavit Show from nineteen seventy one
on starting new projects.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
No matter how easy it seems, is always impossible, and
there's a thousand things to get in the way, and
then you go into making the picture, and then finishing
the thing, and then going through this business of getting
it opening and seeing properly, and luckily the cycle. About
the time you really get bored and tired with one thing,
the next one comes up and you get a kind
of a whole new shot of enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Alman will bring that enthusiasm to some of the defining
films of the nineteen seventies that he directs, like Mash mckayban,
Missus Miller, and Nashville. The idea for single Lingling centers
on a raid by World War One fighter pilots on
the German Swiss border. Doll, of course, has first hand
experience as a pilot in a world war, and he
sees promising Alman seems like a fet he takes the gig.
(18:01):
United Artists loves the script all rights, but they do
not want Altman to direct it. Almond's too stubborn to
avant garde for the studio system, which he freely admits
here on the Charlie Rose Show.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
I think that had I had to always make successful films,
I would have failed.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
But Almond is so angry at getting booted that he
tries to get the entire project scrapped, which really angers Dahl,
who's desperately trying to get his first movie made. Dall
hires a famous pit bull of a Hollywood agent, Swifty Lazaar,
to fight for him, and eventually all Men gives him.
A new director is brought on, and filming in the
movie actually begins with Gregory Peck, the legendary Starve to
(18:39):
Kill a Mockingbird and Roman Holiday in the lead. Dahl
seems to have finally done it after several failed attempts.
He's finally going to have one of his screenplays produced.
The Curse of f Scott Fitzgerald be damned. But then
during the shoot, the head of United Artists watches the
footage and doesn't like what he's seeing. He pulls the
plug in the middle of production, just shuts the whole
(19:00):
thing down. According to Doll, two million dollars had already
been spent, Just like with the Gremlins, Doll's left with
yet another abandoned project and more of his heart fought
writing that will never see the light of day. It's
devastating for Doll. He was so close he could taste it.
Cameras were rolling, a movie star was saying his words,
and then nothing. He's ready to give up, to abandon
(19:25):
this insane business that just keeps delivering heartbreak. But after
some sleepless nights with that awful three am wake up
where you feel trapped wondering if you're wasting your life
on something that will never ever happen, Doll does an
amazing thing. He walks it off. He puts the rejection
behind him, chalking it up to an industry that is
very much not a meritocracy, and decides to keep trying.
(19:48):
Producers and agents, after all, keep telling him how talented
he is and cs Forrester asked him if he knew
he was a writer, he'll crack the code eventually, he
has to, too many people are telling him he will.
Dall becomes the living embodiment of my favorite quote about
the industry from our greatest film critic Paulin and Kale.
Hollywood is the only place where you can die of encouragement.
(20:12):
So he soldiers on. He doesn't know it yet, but
his script for that abandoned film will eventually do more
for his career and for his finances than any other
script he'll ever write. We'll come back to that. Over
the next few years, Doll has a number of other
projects fall apart. Revered director Howard Hawks wants to work
(20:33):
with him, but it comes to nothing. Dall supposedly wins
an incredible assignment to adapt the classic dystopian novel A
Brave New World, but again it doesn't work out. He
also apparently tries his hand at adapting Moby Dick No Dice. Then,
in the late fifties, Dall finally hooks up with the
person who feels like the platonic ideal of a collaborator
for him, very much as long lost spiritual brother and
(20:55):
sometimes that's all it takes. Hitchcock started making movies in
America in nineteen forty. Fifteen years later, near the beginning
of that wild six year run of Classics, he somehow
finds the time to host, produce, and occasionally direct an
anthology TV series on CBS. The show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents
(21:16):
is made up of thrillers, mysteries, and creepy stories of
all kinds. Here's the man himself. Do you Believe in?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Ghost of I Knew?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
The show is hugely successful and becoming a major influence
on series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Now.
While most of Hitch's films are written by great playwrights
like Thornton Wilder or novelists like John Steinbeck, or established
Hollywood heavy rats like Ben Hecht, John Michael Hayes and
Ernest Lehman, hitch needs way more writers and way more
(21:48):
material for a weekly show. Skimming through Collier's Magazine one
week on the lookout for new blood, hitch comes upon
a story called The Smoker, by a writer with a
very unique name, dlor Is, about a man who gambles
with strangers the stakes of the bet they're pinky fingers.
If they lose, they have the chop theirs off and
(22:08):
hands it over Dolls sadistic hero a mass is a
disgusting collection. Hitch reads the story in one sitting and
is completely tickled. It's just his blend of dark and
funny and sadistic. Hitch buys the rights to the story
immediately and asks what other tales mister Doll has.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Now?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You have to remember that TV in the late fifties
and early sixties is not what it is now. Prestige
TV was an oxymoron. The year Alfred Hitchcock presents First Heirs.
The top rated series are all inane variety in talk shows.
Number one in the nation The sixty four thousand Dollars
Question before the massive scandal that revealed it was totally rigged.
Others in the top ten the Ed Sullivan show, You
(22:53):
Bet Your Life and I've Got a Secret. Hitchcock looks
at the TV landscape and sees an opportunity for sophisticated
scripted drama. He adapts Dolls stories into episodes for three
different seasons of his show, Watching Them Now. It's obvious
the filmmaker and writer are a perfect match. Both delve
into dark, unsettling themes. Both love twist endings that throw
(23:15):
their audience for a loop. They both create morally corrupt protagonists.
Today we call them anti heroes. Decades before, The Sopranos
and Breaking Bad did the same thing, and people called
it the Great American art form. Hitch is the collaborator
Doll has been waiting for. He made no sense with Disney.
Hitch is his destiny. It says a lot about Doll's
range by the way that he could write movies for
(23:37):
both of those men. He's the only person on history
to do it. One of Doll's stories option by Hitch
is called Lamb to the Slaughter, which centers on a
wife who kills her husband with a frozen leg of
lamb and then serves the murder weapon his dinner to
the investigators searching for the killer. The story shares a
lot in common with hitches, dial and for Murder, and
(23:57):
even more blatantly rope, where chilling murders are committed by
killers arrogant enough to keep the evidence right beneath the
nose of the lead investigator. We've always said you and
I that moral concepts of good and evil and right
and wrong don't hold for the intellectually superior. Remember Rupert, Yes,
I remember. Hitch and Dahl also shared an interest in
(24:19):
the psychological depths of their very flawed heroes. Jimmy Stewart
in Hitch's Vertigo, is obsessed with transforming a new woman
in his life into his deack girlfriend. In Doll's The
Way Up to Heaven, he creates a hero who's just
as manipulative a Stuart's character, taking pleasure and tormenting the
woman in his life. Dall has such a good experience
(24:40):
with Hitch's show that he's inspired to create his own
anthology series near the end of his life called Tales
of the Unexpected. Dahl takes a page r Hitch and
introduces the stories on screen himself, though in his case
he sits in a cozy armchair by a crackling fire,
with his writing board on his lap and a pencil
in his hand. The image screams kindly, grandfather and I, which,
(25:01):
of course is smartly undermined by the utter creepiness of
his plots. Here's a typical clip from dolls opening.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
If a bucket of paint falls on a man's head,
that's funny. If the bucket fractures his skull at the
same time and kills him. That's not funny, it's tragic.
And yet if a man falls into a sausage machine
and is sold in the shops at so much a pound,
that's funny. It is also tragic.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
The show becomes a rare Hollywood success for Doll, one
that took him decades to achieve. Doll's show runs almost
as long as Hitchcock's Dead, nine full seasons, and Doll
becomes famous as his host. The years before he conceives
of that show, Doll's still chasing his dreams of getting
a movie made. You've got to admire his persistence and
his hutzpah. Dolls on the lookout for a project with
(25:48):
even greater auspices than Disney or All Men or Peck,
something even less likely to fall apart. What's most amazing
is he actually finds it in an assignment that he
feels downright destined for.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Now.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Whenever I pitch a TV show or future I spend
at least a minute at the very limited time you're
given trying to explain why I'm the guy to write
this particular project. Writers joke about this. It's kind of
a silly thing. Buyers want to know that if they're
giving you all this money to write a script, it's
got to be something you are the perfect fit for.
What goes unsaid, of course, is that you're a working
writer who needs to pitch a new idea at least
(26:24):
a couple times a year, and they can't all be
perfect fits for his next project, though Dall didn't need
to do much convincing. In nineteen sixty six, Albert Broccoley
and Harry Saltzman, producers and owners of the James Bond franchise,
approached All with an offer. They want him to write
(26:45):
the fifth Bond movie, You Only Live Twice. The producers
had read and loved Doll's script for O Death Where
Is Thy Stingling a Ling Sorry, and they had heard
about Doll's life as a British spy, possibly from Bond
creator himself, Ian Fleming. Fleming passed away in his mid
fifties from a heart attack, two years before Dahl joined
the franchise he created. Dahl and Fleming, you may remember,
(27:07):
were buddies in DC in their twenties, both writers, both
working in espionage, both uncommonly handsome and charming, though Dall
never felt comfortable around Fleming. Fleming was always too cool,
too cosmopolitan, two above it all. Dall always felt like
his raggedy younger brother. But now Fleming is gone and
Dall has seemingly been tapped to succeed him. While Dall
is privately thrilled about the opportunity to rate Bond, he's
(27:30):
a little embarrassed at how far away it is from
his ambition to write great novels. As writer Matthew Denison
points out, while in public, Dall maintains a snobby detachment
toward Bond, like in a letter to a friend where
he refers to the movie as quote my silly James
Bond film, or when he tells his book publisher that
he finds the whole enterprise exceptionally distasteful. This is a
(27:51):
theme that will recur throughout Dahl's professional life. He becomes
successful in something, but it's not the right thing, like
later killing it in children's literature, and he'd rather be
writing for adults. But Doll's drawn to the glitz and
glamour of Hollywood, and there is no glitzier franchise than
James Bott. It clearly feeds his ego to have a
(28:11):
rolls Royce and to his writing studio to ferry new
drafts of his script to London. And remember, Doll is
still desperate to finally actually get a movie made now
with any script, even with the greatest auspices attached or
based on a popular piece of intellectual property, there is
no such thing as a sure thing. A friend and
I were once assigned to write the TV adaptation of
(28:31):
the board game Risk, a beloved game with international name
recognition but no human characters. We still came up with
a pretty good idea, but the project fell apart. There
are no guarantees in this business. But for Dall being
presented with the fourth sequel to a cultural touchstone and
money printing franchise starring the same A list actor in
what appeared to be his final time as the title character,
(28:54):
that is as close to a sure thing as Hollywood
ever has to offer. And even though Dall despises being
rewritten himself, he doesn't seem to have any qualms about
totally rewriting his old pal Ian Fleming. Honestly, it feels
as if Dahl didn't even bother to read the book
he's adapted on the film's release, New York Times critic
Bosley Crowther says it is notable that only Bond, the
(29:17):
title and the location of an Ian Fleming book have
been used by mister Dahl in writing his screenplay, which
is maybe for the best. Fleming's novel is kind of dreadful,
which Doll takes his license to create his own, completely
Banana's story. In the film, we follow Bond as he
fakes his own death and goes under cover to Japan,
who investigate the disappearance of American and Soviet spaceships which
(29:40):
are threatening to ignite World War three. Along the way,
Bond trains with Ninja's infiltrates a secret layer that's housed
inside a working volcano seriously and encounters one of Bond's
greatest villains, Blofeld, who makes his first full appearance. And
you only live twice. Here's Blowfeld himself, complete with his
blue eyed Persian life.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
You will see that my piranha fish get very hungry.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Zay can't strip a man to the bow, I mean
thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And if that all sounds incredibly silly, it is ten
times sillier when you watch actors try to pull it
off with a straight face. There are lines in the
movie like bad News from Matter Space and Welcome to
My Ninja Training School, which I transcribed I kid you
not from the same scene. But that's the contract the
audience signs with the Bond movie when they buy a ticket.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
The zaniness isn't a defect, it's built in. Dol knows
that and he delivers. You can just tell how much
fun Doll is having while writing. He revels in the
playfulness of Bond, even more than the screenwriter of the
earlier four films. Of course, there are some problematic elements
in the film too, which is partly due to it
being nineteen sixty seven, partly due to it being James Bond,
(30:50):
and at least partly because it's from the mind of
Roll Doll. For instance, Bond's opening line in the film,
why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?
Or the long section when Bond disguises himself as a
Japanese fisherman yellow face and all. Though it should also
be mentioned how many Asian characters and therefore Asian actors
have major roles in the film, which is very unusual
(31:12):
for a major Hollywood movie. At the time, and as
for the typical Bond womanizing, there's a lot, which of
course is baked into the franchise, though Doll has to
take some of the blame for not even bothering to
give Bond's love interest and name much less a personality.
Watching the movie now knowing its screenwriter was very much
a real life James Bond, makes the espionage plot a
(31:34):
lot of fun. Dall was clearly drawing on his own experiences.
Much of the film is set in a foreign country
for the hero, where he has to immerse himself in
the culture in order to stop a world war, and
he seduces influential women as he goes, just like Dahl
had to navigate the elite social circles of DC in
New York to extract information, build alliances, and do a
hell of a lot of seducing during his World war.
(31:57):
The producers took a big gamble bringing Doll into the franchise.
The first four Bond films had all been hugely successful.
Doctor No introduced the series from Russia with Love outperformed
it at the box office, which is super rare. Goldfinger
came next and became a cultural phenomenon. Then Thunderball, the
fourth in the series, which is still the biggest box
office hit of any Bond ever adjusted for inflation, so
(32:19):
expectations are sky high for the next one. What's more,
each of the first four are co written by Richard Maybom.
Maybom is the one who established the formula of Bond,
and when franchises are working, you do not change writers
mid stream. Just look at the Harry Potter films, where
seven of the eight movies were adapted by a single writer,
Steve Cloves. But while Maybom will stay with the franchise
(32:41):
until his death, you got to wonder if the producers
are growing tired of him or not sure he's up
to the challenge of the fifth film, which is especially
difficult because of how terrible the source material is and
because there's now tons of competition from Bond knockoffs. The
real test for Doll and all of this is whether
or not he's learned to collapse. His inability to do
(33:01):
so destroyed his film with Disney and contributed to his
failures with Altman. But by this point Dahl has learned
his lesson and become a great generous collaborator. Just kidding,
collaboration is antithetical to Doll's nature, so he takes another
path when the producers of Bond bring in a second screenwriter,
Harold Jack Bloom. Bloom is a veteran TV writer who
(33:24):
comes in and basically rewrites all of the action scenes
in the movie. Dahl is furious about this. He tries
to completely rewrite Bloom until all Bloom's action scenes are gone,
and through sheer force of will, Bloom's credit drops from
the prestigious screenplay by to the sort of embarrassing additional
story material by. It'll be the first time on any
Bond movie that a writer has received solo written by credit,
(33:48):
and in the end, whether or not, Bloom deserves more
credit than he got, the film does feel very dollian like,
with a villain Earns Blofeld who becomes iconic in Doll's
hands and calls to mind Doll villains like Miss trench
Bowl and mat Hilda and the Grand High Witch and
the Witches. The whole vibe of the movie reminds you
of Doll's children's books, with a playful tone mixed with
existential cruelty and danger. Dahl calls Bond the best experience
(34:14):
of his Hollywood career. After many failed or aborted attempts,
Dahl has finally achieved his goal. He's the writer of
a major Hollywood hit. Here he is again on Desert
Island Discs, discussing the experience.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That was fun. That's the only only one I've had
any real fun doing. And it was Connray Sean Connery's
last one. Yeah, he did. And we went to Japan.
And you you live in such luxury when you do
a book and you're going helicopters everywhere, tops of mountains
and everything. It's en almost fun.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
The film does not receive raves, but Bond movies aren't
made for critics, and some reviewers do actually love it.
Bosley Crowther, again in The New York Times, writes, this
way out adventure picture should be the joy and delight
of the youngsters and give pleasure to the reasonable adults
who can find release in the majestically absurd, which kind
of doubles is a pretty good summation for all of
(35:06):
Doll's children's books. Actually. Pauline Kale enjoys the film too,
comparing it favorably to Stanley Kubrick. Kale writes, there was
a little pre title sequence and You Only Live Twice
with an astronaut out in space, a daring little moment
that I think was more fun than all of Kubrick's
two thousand and one. It had an element of the unexpected,
of the shock of finding death in space lyrical. Even
(35:29):
more important than critical reception for Doll is the film's
box office, which is huge to this day. Twenty seven
movies in You Only Live Twice is the fourth highest
grossing Bond film ever adjusted for inflation, and in no
small part because of that. It's a turning point in
Doll's career. After Bond, he never has to worry about
money again. But of course it's a bit of a
(35:50):
double edged sword. He's gotten the film made, but it's
not the serious literature he still aspires to. Dolls massively
conflicted and doesn't quite know where to turn next. Producers
have an idea. As soon as Bond is completed, they
bring Doll on to write another Ian Fleming adaptation. But
rather than another Bond, which plays into Doll's real life experiences,
this new project takes advantage of Doll's recent success with
(36:13):
children's stories. The film is Chitty Chitty Bang, Bang starring
Dick Van Deng. What an Unusual Cop That's a curious
name for amoto car. The movie centers on an eccentric
inventor who transforms a broken down car into something that
can fly. And while people still adore the film today,
(36:35):
Dall found it a terrible experience. It permanently soured him
on filmmaking. He had a very difficult relationship with the
film's director, Ken Hughes, who dared rewrite Doll's script, which
again veered far from Fleming's novel. Doll is still struggling
with what kind of writer he wants to be. He'll
soon find that Hollywood actually kind of gives him a roadmap.
Doll's experiences in La directly lead to the success he'll
(36:58):
find writing for children. You could call it a necessary
step in his evolution. His work with Disney two Light
Chitty Chitty two, Saccharine Hitchcock Perfectly Dark help him find
the sweet spot that will define his children's books, dark themes,
packaged and accessible, entertaining ways. It also helps him realize
where his strengths and interest really lie. For one thing,
(37:19):
in creating original worlds rather than adapting other people's work,
and it teaches him the importance of creative control and autonomy.
During all of Dall's adventures in the screen trade, he
becomes notorious for dating beautiful actresses. Doll is thirty six
when he's invited to a dinner party one night at
(37:40):
Lillian Hellman's house. Hellman is one of the most respected
playwrights and screenwriters in the country. Also invited to the
party is twenty six year old Patricia Neil, a confident, beautiful,
redheaded movie star currently cast in one of Hellman's plays.
Here she is years later in her most famous film,
Breakfast Aatifanies.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I am a very stylish girls. What are you doing
writing a check? Don't look so bewildered.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Surely you've noticed me writing checks before.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Dahl will marry Neil. I'll have five children together. Their
experiences during the marriage, writing bestsellers, winning oscars, and enduring
some of the most devastating traumas and tragedies imaginable, will
make all of Doll's exploits so far look like child's play.
Doll's life with Neil is eventful, emotional, and shocking enough
to fill several books and movies, which it does, But
(38:32):
this is not your typical love story. As Neil reveals
in her memoir written thirty five years later, even on
the day of their marriage, she knew she didn't love him.
The reason for this She's in love with someone else,
and this other man, this rival for Doll, happens to
be the most famous man in the world. The Secret
(38:56):
World of Role Dahl is produced by Imagine Audio and
Parallax Studios for iHeart Podcasts. Created and written by me
Aaron Tracy, produced by Matt Schrader, post production by wind
Hill Studios, with editing, scoring, and sound design by Mark
Henry Phillips. Editing by Ryan Seton, music by APM Executive
(39:18):
producers Nathan Cloke, Karl Welker, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and
Aaron Tracy. Additional voice performances and recreation by Mark Henry
Phillips and Eleven Laps. If you enjoyed this episode, be
sure to rate and review The Secret World of Roll
Doll on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
(39:39):
Copyright twenty twenty six Imagine Entertainment, iHeartMedia and Parallax
Here's what sometimes happens in Hollywood. It's a cautionary tale
that we've all heard in a million books and movies
and pop songs. A young, sometimes talented actor filmmaker goes
out to LA to pursue their dream, gets seduced by
the flash and glamour of the industry before they've done
the hard work of mastering their craft. And what does
it always lead to? They get chewed up and spit out.
(00:24):
There's a reason the cliche exists. Roll Doll is twenty six.
He has one published story to his name, one he's
never read a screenplay before, let alone written one. But
the most successful producer in Hollywood history, more than him
in a sec has just flown Doll all the way
from DC to Beverly Hills, where he throws a lavish
welcome party in Doll's honor. The guest list is like
(00:45):
the front row at the Oscars. Giant movie stars, beautiful actresses,
all looking ridiculous because they're dressed up as tiny green creatures.
Why you ask, because those are the main characters in
dull short story, The Gremlins. Imagine the head trip for
Dahl seeing all this, just strolling through the party, champagne
in hand, looking at his boyhood heroes and his greatest
(01:06):
fantasies in these ridiculous costumes based on creatures he thought
up sitting in his underpants in his tiny walk up
apartment in DC. He doesn't know whether to laugh hysterically
or cry at the absurd sight. A powerful producer throws
his beefy arm around Doll's shoulders. The producer ushers Doll
through the party and guides him over to a little
(01:27):
man who's currently delighting a whole circle of giggling women
by the bar. The producer wants to introduce Dall. The
little man turns around, sees that the producer is giving
him the eye, looks Doll up and down, then winks
at him, followed by an exaggerated theatrical bow, as if
welcoming the young writer into a secret society like everybody else.
The little man is dressed up as a green monster,
(01:48):
but despite the costume, Doll recognizes him. Of course he does.
He's the most beloved man in the country. What the
hell is happening? When we talk in future episodes about Dolls,
sometimes bomatic Ego try to remember that he's twenty six
years old with zero produced credits to his name. When
a starry Hollywood party is thrown in his honor and
(02:08):
Charlie Chaplin bows at his feet, what chance did the
poor guy have? As we discussed in previous episodes, Dahl
packed a lot into his twenties and thirties. He was
starting to figure out where his passions lie. He suspected
they were somewhere in the dark, twisty short stories he
was writing, which leads to the next completely crazy and
(02:29):
intoxicating chapter that he wills into the story of his life.
Welcome to Hollywood for my hard podcast, Imagine entertainment and Parallax.
I'm married, Tracer, and this is the secret world of
Roald Dahl. Episode three. Imagine for a second that you're
(02:54):
a young, ambitious short story writer being praised for the
originality of your voice and your clever to steddings. And
imagine that you've just spent years as a spy learning
how to seduce and manipulate and lie your way into
the highest echelons of power. If you were such a person,
where would you go when the war ends? Of course,
you would pack up and take your talents to the movies.
The dream is intoxicating, especially back in that era. Oh y, look,
(03:21):
Hollywood's out there. Like countless writers before him, Doll is
blinded by the promise of celebrity, money and mingling with
the tan and beautiful, and honestly, after years in spycraft,
where he lived in a world of smoke and mirrors,
transitioning to another world of illusions does make some sense.
Succeeding in Hollywood and succeeding in espionage require many of
(03:42):
the same skills, like manipulation and seduction for starters. Plus,
after all, the daily adrenaline he's become used to from
flying aerial missions then spying on the rich and powerful.
I think it would have been too difficult for Dol
to transition directly to the sedentary life of a novelist,
which is what he really wanted to be. Screenwriting is different, beast.
It's an adrenaline roller coaster. I've been doing it since
(04:04):
right out of school. There are crazy high highs and
awful lo those and every day is different. So Doll
tries on yet another mask as he attempts to figure
out who he is now. He'll see if this one
fits better than businessman, fighter, power or spy. This one
is Hollywood power Player. The short story directly responsible for
(04:27):
bringing Dall to La is the one about the Gremlins,
those menacing little green creatures destroying RAF planes, The one
Eleanor Roosevelt likes so much she invited Doll to the
White House. The hero of Doll's story, Gus, is an
RAF pilot who's playing crashes because of a Gremlin. He
learns that the little creatures are avenging the destruction of
forests where they live to make way for British airfields.
(04:49):
Gus heroically convinces the gremlins to redirect their energy into
helping the war effort instead of sabotaging it. The Gremlins
become allies of the Brits, using their expertise to repair
planes and even make them faster. Dall thought of the
story as just a silly fairy tale about quote little
creatures with horns and long tails who walk about on
the wings of your aircraft urinating in your fuse box,
(05:13):
So all this hoopla around the story is kind of
hard for him to believe. At the time Dahl writes
the story, all the big Hollywood movie studios are on
the lookout for patriotic films. Unlike the First World War,
when the industry was still in its infancy and there
was more ambiguity about the conflict, this war offers the
opportunity for big, noisy, nationalistic movies to feed an existentially
(05:35):
terrified audience. This war is tailor made for the movies.
It's an easy to digest good versus evil storyline, those
who love freedom versus fascists trying to conquer the world.
Here's Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and
the power they took from the people will return to
the people. And so long as men die, liberty will
never perish.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
All working as a spy for the Regulars when he
writes The Gremlins, his employment requires him to run any
story he wants to publish by the British government first,
so they can pass judgment and be sure no national
secrets are being spilled. The government reader assigned to Doll's
story happens to be a very well connected businessman with
a passion for film, Sidney Bernstein. Bernstein is a devout
(06:21):
anti fascist desperately trying to help Jewish actors and filmmakers
get the hell out of Germany right now. He's also
a producing partner of Alfred Hitchcock. When Bernstein reads The
Gremlins ahead of its publication, he instantly sees the potential.
It's a little diamond of a story instead of just
straight propaganda, which can be heavy handed and boring. Doll
(06:43):
story is full of clever, inventive details, but is still
an inspiring tale of US and British cooperation to defeat fascism.
Bernstein has just come off a consulting gig on Missus Miniver,
William Wiler's Best Picture winner, about how an unassuming British
housewife is affected by the war of the.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
People, of all the people, and it must be fought
in the home and in the heart of every man,
woman and child who loves freedom.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Missus Miniver is also the highest Christman film of nineteen
forty two. With its huge success, Bernstein can kind of
write his own ticket and get any material he wants
into the hands of practically anybody he wants. He could
have decided to give Doll's story in Hitchcock and potentially
saved all decades of pushing a boulder up a hill. Instead,
he goes in a different direction, he decides the perfect
(07:28):
fit for Doll's Gremlins. Is a charismatic producer in his
early forties who happens to be on a hot streak.
His name is Walt Dissey.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Animal anatomy is a thing that is not taught properly
in the art school.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So I started the special course in animal anatomy.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, that's Walt Disney with weirdly specific insight into the
kind of small details that differentiate his technique. Disney is
only a handful of years removed from his giant, industry
changing success with snow White. In just the past couple
of years, he's made Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. I'm
gonna make you stop and think about that for a second.
(08:08):
When people debate the best run by an American filmmaker ever,
some argue for Hitchcock's six year period of nine absolute
bangers ending with Psycho, or Billy Wilder's decade long run
of eight classics starting with Cells at Boulevard and ending
with the Apartment. Personally, I advocate for Rob Reiner in
the late eighties, who had a string of five perfect
movies and six years with When Harry met Sally's Smack
(08:30):
in the middle. Disney produces rather than directs, but he's
the creative force behind his films, so you've got to
put his miraculous period just before meeting Dol up there
with anyone. Like seemingly everyone who meets young Doll, Disney
takes right to him. He loves the Gremlin story, which
somehow blends fantasy and horror with patriotism and heroics without
(08:52):
feeling it all manipulative. Disney see's serious promise in the
Young Writer, just like Ces Forster had, so he takes
Doll under his wing to show him how movies are made,
which is pretty nuts. Doll is twenty six. He's trying
to make a career out of writing, and specifically, at
this moment, screenwriting. When a typical young writer goes to
Hollywood and gets really lucky, maybe a junior development exac
(09:14):
at a mid sized production company lets him be an intern,
offering pointers while making him carry his golf clubs at Hillcrest.
But if you've learned anything about Roll Dall by this
point in our season, it's that normal rules just don't apply.
Dall's introduction to Hollywood is getting mentored by the most
creative and arguably the most successful producer the town has
ever known. Right at the moment of his peak creativity,
(09:36):
Disney puts the Gremlin story right into development, and rather
than hire a professional screenwriter to come adapt it an adult,
he decides he wants to keep Doll's unique voice. Here's
Doll talking about it on Desert Island discs.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
That went out to Hollywood at his expense with raf
permission on the stain of the car provided by Walt.
This silly young man in the RIF uniform staying in
the suite in the bevel Hill's Hotel.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It's the same swanky hotel that's about to be a
favorite of Mariel Monroe, Howard Hughes, and Frank Sinatra. And
it's Disney who throws Doll that welcome party where everyone
dresses as a gremlin. From the top of this episode.
According to writer Matthew Denison, a Disney illustrator who meets
Doll at the time, all the girls in Hollywood went
crazy for Doll, and he basically starts dating all of
(10:21):
them and flirting with alist actresses like Ginger Rogers and
Marlene Dietrich. Heard here in Angel in Paris.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Well, we must see that you have a very amusing time,
So down, please have you been in Paris before?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Those are Doll's evenings. During the days, he and Disney
spend long hours in story conference, working with illustrators and directors.
Disney is crazy about Doll, though he has a lot
of trouble pronouncing his first name, so instead, in very
Disney fashion, he calls this tall protege Stocky. As Walt
(10:54):
and Stocky continue to break story for the Gremlins, Disney
does what he's learned to do best, active the publicity machine.
He puts the little Green creatures into advertisements and even
creates a comic strip around them. Disney is basically willing
the film into the public consciousness well before the screenplay
is finished, where Craft Services has laid out a single cracker.
(11:15):
At first glance, Dall and Disney seem to be total opposites.
Dall's work, even at the beginning, is dark and subversive,
often satirical. Disney's is bright and idealistic. Doll's stories have
a creepy edge and explore greed and cruelty and the grotesque,
leaving the reader with moral ambiguity. Disney makes movies with
clear moral lessons and usually happy endings, aiming to inspire joy.
(11:38):
It's the difference between the dark, all skater kid in
high school who listens to a lot of Billie Eilish
and Old Cure albums and the upbeat, preppy cheerleader who
loves Ariana Grande. As for their take on childhood, which
is a key subject for both men, Dall sees it
as an existential battle against cruel adults. For Disney, it's idyllic,
filled with wonder and innocence, sir, and the two men
(12:01):
do share a bunch of things in common. For starters,
both create trippy, fantastical worlds, and both champion the underdog,
big time Doll's Matilda, Charlie and James overcome huge challenges.
So do Disney Cinderella, snow White and Dumbo. All of
them rise above adversity, screaming at the world that I
better not overlook them.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Like Disney's Pinocchio, I'm am real, I'm a real boy
here life, you are a real boy.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
The biggest difference between dal and Disney, and what's going
to lead to their undoing, is they're very different approaches
to work. Dall is a writer's writer in the mode
of great novelists. He likes to work alone, doing battle
with the page, fulfilling his very personal vision. Disney is
the ultimate collaborator. He works with teams of writers, directors, animators,
(12:52):
and musicians to bring ideas to life in a communal environment.
So it's not a surprise that dal and Disney begin
butting heads. Dall is just not capable of letting go
of his vision at this point in his life. He
doesn't understand or doesn't care, that filmmaking is collaborative. The
screenplay is just a blueprint for a structure that will
be built by lots and lots of people. For his
(13:14):
entire career, Dall will have a hard time with anyone
who dares to edit or change his vision. His ego
just always gets in the way, and right now, because
of his success with the Gremlin short story, he is
quote more arrogant than ever, according to his buddy Antoinette Marsh,
So of course he believes there's no need to change
anything he doesn't want to, even if Walt Disney, the
(13:35):
King himself, is the one asking. Eventually, inevitably, Disney decides
the collaboration or black thereof just isn't working, and there
are about a million other stories he could be working on. So,
after all the time, money, and advanced publicity he's poured
into this thing, Disney pulls the plug. Doll is furious
(13:56):
at first, then maybe a little embarrassed. He quickly he
tries to find another producer. But the war has wound down.
Audience's tastes of bevan to change. Troops are coming home
completely traumatized. Two world changing nuclear bombs have been set
off Audiences they don't want a story like The Gremlins anymore,
a story that highlights cooperation and camaraderie. People start demanding
(14:18):
more challenging, more morally ambiguous movies like film noir. Dahl
is incredibly disappointed, but self aware enough to realize he's
just gotten a crash course in Hollywood's inner workings from
one of its all time master craftsmen. He's determined not
to let that go to waste. He decides to keep
at it. Dahl's decision to keep fighting that uphill battle
(14:44):
of a Hollywood career could have been game over. There
are so many stories of gifted writers coming out to
La and falling on their faces. William Faulkner comes to mind,
Aldois Huxley, Truman, Capodi. Maybe the most interesting and most
tragic is f Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had every reason to
think he'd be a success in the movies. He was
maybe the most gifted novelist in an era that included
(15:07):
a hell of a lot of gifted novelists, and he
loved film. He didn't just come to Hollywood for the
paycheck like so many others. Part of what makes Fitzgerald's
attempts at screenwriting so sad is that he seemed to
put as much effort into it as he put into
Tender as the Night or The Great Gatsby. One of
the reasons we only have four and a half novels
by Fitzgerald, each a masterpiece is because he spent some
(15:27):
of his prime years trying to break into movies. He
blamed his failure on the studio system, which is always
totally demeaned writers. Here's Robertson Eiro as a studio head
and Jack Nicholson as a union organizer from Fitzgerald's unfinished
novel The Last Tycoon.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I'll tell you three things. All riders are children. Fifty
percent of drunks, and up till very recently, writers in
Hollywood were gag men.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Most of them still are a gagman, but we call
them writers.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But there's still the farmers in this business.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
They grow the grain, but they're not in at the feast.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Fitzgerald's pal, Billy Wilder, compares him to a great sculptor
who's hired to do a plumbing job. Fitzgerald simply didn't
know how to connect the pipes so the water could flow.
In his entire Hollywood career, Fitzgerald only got a single
screenwriting credit, and even on that one, he was totally
rewritten by the producer Lake Dahl with his gremlins. Many
of Fitzgerald's projects were scrapped or he got fired off them.
(16:27):
By the time Hollywood kicked him out, Fitzgerald was broke alone,
his body ravaged by alcohol, and years of his talent
completely wasted. That's the potential future that awaits Doll. Whenever
there's a forking path and the universe splits in two directions,
the path Doll goes down as always, always the more
interesting one. I want to jump forward to several years
(16:50):
after the Disney debacle, Dall is still trying without success
to get a movie made. His agent brings him an
offer from United Artists to write a screenplay called wait
for It, Oh Death, Where is thy Sting? A Lingling?
The reason Doll is interested in it, aside from the
hefty check, is that it's based on a story by
a very talented, very eccentric, young director, Robert Alman. Here's
(17:13):
Alman on The Dick Cavit Show from nineteen seventy one
on starting new projects.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
No matter how easy it seems, is always impossible, and
there's a thousand things to get in the way, and
then you go into making the picture, and then finishing
the thing, and then going through this business of getting
it opening and seeing properly, and luckily the cycle. About
the time you really get bored and tired with one thing,
the next one comes up and you get a kind
of a whole new shot of enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Alman will bring that enthusiasm to some of the defining
films of the nineteen seventies that he directs, like Mash mckayban,
Missus Miller, and Nashville. The idea for single Lingling centers
on a raid by World War One fighter pilots on
the German Swiss border. Doll, of course, has first hand
experience as a pilot in a world war, and he
sees promising Alman seems like a fet he takes the gig.
(18:01):
United Artists loves the script all rights, but they do
not want Altman to direct it. Almond's too stubborn to
avant garde for the studio system, which he freely admits
here on the Charlie Rose Show.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
I think that had I had to always make successful films,
I would have failed.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
But Almond is so angry at getting booted that he
tries to get the entire project scrapped, which really angers Dahl,
who's desperately trying to get his first movie made. Dall
hires a famous pit bull of a Hollywood agent, Swifty Lazaar,
to fight for him, and eventually all Men gives him.
A new director is brought on, and filming in the
movie actually begins with Gregory Peck, the legendary Starve to
(18:39):
Kill a Mockingbird and Roman Holiday in the lead. Dahl
seems to have finally done it after several failed attempts.
He's finally going to have one of his screenplays produced.
The Curse of f Scott Fitzgerald be damned. But then
during the shoot, the head of United Artists watches the
footage and doesn't like what he's seeing. He pulls the
plug in the middle of production, just shuts the whole
(19:00):
thing down. According to Doll, two million dollars had already
been spent, Just like with the Gremlins, Doll's left with
yet another abandoned project and more of his heart fought
writing that will never see the light of day. It's
devastating for Doll. He was so close he could taste it.
Cameras were rolling, a movie star was saying his words,
and then nothing. He's ready to give up, to abandon
(19:25):
this insane business that just keeps delivering heartbreak. But after
some sleepless nights with that awful three am wake up
where you feel trapped wondering if you're wasting your life
on something that will never ever happen, Doll does an
amazing thing. He walks it off. He puts the rejection
behind him, chalking it up to an industry that is
very much not a meritocracy, and decides to keep trying.
(19:48):
Producers and agents, after all, keep telling him how talented
he is and cs Forrester asked him if he knew
he was a writer, he'll crack the code eventually, he
has to, too many people are telling him he will.
Dall becomes the living embodiment of my favorite quote about
the industry from our greatest film critic Paulin and Kale.
Hollywood is the only place where you can die of encouragement.
(20:12):
So he soldiers on. He doesn't know it yet, but
his script for that abandoned film will eventually do more
for his career and for his finances than any other
script he'll ever write. We'll come back to that. Over
the next few years, Doll has a number of other
projects fall apart. Revered director Howard Hawks wants to work
(20:33):
with him, but it comes to nothing. Dall supposedly wins
an incredible assignment to adapt the classic dystopian novel A
Brave New World, but again it doesn't work out. He
also apparently tries his hand at adapting Moby Dick No Dice. Then,
in the late fifties, Dall finally hooks up with the
person who feels like the platonic ideal of a collaborator
for him, very much as long lost spiritual brother and
(20:55):
sometimes that's all it takes. Hitchcock started making movies in
America in nineteen forty. Fifteen years later, near the beginning
of that wild six year run of Classics, he somehow
finds the time to host, produce, and occasionally direct an
anthology TV series on CBS. The show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents
(21:16):
is made up of thrillers, mysteries, and creepy stories of
all kinds. Here's the man himself. Do you Believe in?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Ghost of I Knew?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
The show is hugely successful and becoming a major influence
on series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Now.
While most of Hitch's films are written by great playwrights
like Thornton Wilder or novelists like John Steinbeck, or established
Hollywood heavy rats like Ben Hecht, John Michael Hayes and
Ernest Lehman, hitch needs way more writers and way more
(21:48):
material for a weekly show. Skimming through Collier's Magazine one
week on the lookout for new blood, hitch comes upon
a story called The Smoker, by a writer with a
very unique name, dlor Is, about a man who gambles
with strangers the stakes of the bet they're pinky fingers.
If they lose, they have the chop theirs off and
(22:08):
hands it over Dolls sadistic hero a mass is a
disgusting collection. Hitch reads the story in one sitting and
is completely tickled. It's just his blend of dark and
funny and sadistic. Hitch buys the rights to the story
immediately and asks what other tales mister Doll has.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Now?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You have to remember that TV in the late fifties
and early sixties is not what it is now. Prestige
TV was an oxymoron. The year Alfred Hitchcock presents First Heirs.
The top rated series are all inane variety in talk shows.
Number one in the nation The sixty four thousand Dollars
Question before the massive scandal that revealed it was totally rigged.
Others in the top ten the Ed Sullivan show, You
(22:53):
Bet Your Life and I've Got a Secret. Hitchcock looks
at the TV landscape and sees an opportunity for sophisticated
scripted drama. He adapts Dolls stories into episodes for three
different seasons of his show, Watching Them Now. It's obvious
the filmmaker and writer are a perfect match. Both delve
into dark, unsettling themes. Both love twist endings that throw
(23:15):
their audience for a loop. They both create morally corrupt protagonists.
Today we call them anti heroes. Decades before, The Sopranos
and Breaking Bad did the same thing, and people called
it the Great American art form. Hitch is the collaborator
Doll has been waiting for. He made no sense with Disney.
Hitch is his destiny. It says a lot about Doll's
range by the way that he could write movies for
(23:37):
both of those men. He's the only person on history
to do it. One of Doll's stories option by Hitch
is called Lamb to the Slaughter, which centers on a
wife who kills her husband with a frozen leg of
lamb and then serves the murder weapon his dinner to
the investigators searching for the killer. The story shares a
lot in common with hitches, dial and for Murder, and
(23:57):
even more blatantly rope, where chilling murders are committed by
killers arrogant enough to keep the evidence right beneath the
nose of the lead investigator. We've always said you and
I that moral concepts of good and evil and right
and wrong don't hold for the intellectually superior. Remember Rupert, Yes,
I remember. Hitch and Dahl also shared an interest in
(24:19):
the psychological depths of their very flawed heroes. Jimmy Stewart
in Hitch's Vertigo, is obsessed with transforming a new woman
in his life into his deack girlfriend. In Doll's The
Way Up to Heaven, he creates a hero who's just
as manipulative a Stuart's character, taking pleasure and tormenting the
woman in his life. Dall has such a good experience
(24:40):
with Hitch's show that he's inspired to create his own
anthology series near the end of his life called Tales
of the Unexpected. Dahl takes a page r Hitch and
introduces the stories on screen himself, though in his case
he sits in a cozy armchair by a crackling fire,
with his writing board on his lap and a pencil
in his hand. The image screams kindly, grandfather and I, which,
(25:01):
of course is smartly undermined by the utter creepiness of
his plots. Here's a typical clip from dolls opening.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
If a bucket of paint falls on a man's head,
that's funny. If the bucket fractures his skull at the
same time and kills him. That's not funny, it's tragic.
And yet if a man falls into a sausage machine
and is sold in the shops at so much a pound,
that's funny. It is also tragic.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
The show becomes a rare Hollywood success for Doll, one
that took him decades to achieve. Doll's show runs almost
as long as Hitchcock's Dead, nine full seasons, and Doll
becomes famous as his host. The years before he conceives
of that show, Doll's still chasing his dreams of getting
a movie made. You've got to admire his persistence and
his hutzpah. Dolls on the lookout for a project with
(25:48):
even greater auspices than Disney or All Men or Peck,
something even less likely to fall apart. What's most amazing
is he actually finds it in an assignment that he
feels downright destined for.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Now.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Whenever I pitch a TV show or future I spend
at least a minute at the very limited time you're
given trying to explain why I'm the guy to write
this particular project. Writers joke about this. It's kind of
a silly thing. Buyers want to know that if they're
giving you all this money to write a script, it's
got to be something you are the perfect fit for.
What goes unsaid, of course, is that you're a working
writer who needs to pitch a new idea at least
(26:24):
a couple times a year, and they can't all be
perfect fits for his next project, though Dall didn't need
to do much convincing. In nineteen sixty six, Albert Broccoley
and Harry Saltzman, producers and owners of the James Bond franchise,
approached All with an offer. They want him to write
(26:45):
the fifth Bond movie, You Only Live Twice. The producers
had read and loved Doll's script for O Death Where
Is Thy Stingling a Ling Sorry, and they had heard
about Doll's life as a British spy, possibly from Bond
creator himself, Ian Fleming. Fleming passed away in his mid
fifties from a heart attack, two years before Dahl joined
the franchise he created. Dahl and Fleming, you may remember,
(27:07):
were buddies in DC in their twenties, both writers, both
working in espionage, both uncommonly handsome and charming, though Dall
never felt comfortable around Fleming. Fleming was always too cool,
too cosmopolitan, two above it all. Dall always felt like
his raggedy younger brother. But now Fleming is gone and
Dall has seemingly been tapped to succeed him. While Dall
is privately thrilled about the opportunity to rate Bond, he's
(27:30):
a little embarrassed at how far away it is from
his ambition to write great novels. As writer Matthew Denison
points out, while in public, Dall maintains a snobby detachment
toward Bond, like in a letter to a friend where
he refers to the movie as quote my silly James
Bond film, or when he tells his book publisher that
he finds the whole enterprise exceptionally distasteful. This is a
(27:51):
theme that will recur throughout Dahl's professional life. He becomes
successful in something, but it's not the right thing, like
later killing it in children's literature, and he'd rather be
writing for adults. But Doll's drawn to the glitz and
glamour of Hollywood, and there is no glitzier franchise than
James Bott. It clearly feeds his ego to have a
(28:11):
rolls Royce and to his writing studio to ferry new
drafts of his script to London. And remember, Doll is
still desperate to finally actually get a movie made now
with any script, even with the greatest auspices attached or
based on a popular piece of intellectual property, there is
no such thing as a sure thing. A friend and
I were once assigned to write the TV adaptation of
(28:31):
the board game Risk, a beloved game with international name
recognition but no human characters. We still came up with
a pretty good idea, but the project fell apart. There
are no guarantees in this business. But for Dall being
presented with the fourth sequel to a cultural touchstone and
money printing franchise starring the same A list actor in
what appeared to be his final time as the title character,
(28:54):
that is as close to a sure thing as Hollywood
ever has to offer. And even though Dall despises being
rewritten himself, he doesn't seem to have any qualms about
totally rewriting his old pal Ian Fleming. Honestly, it feels
as if Dahl didn't even bother to read the book
he's adapted on the film's release, New York Times critic
Bosley Crowther says it is notable that only Bond, the
(29:17):
title and the location of an Ian Fleming book have
been used by mister Dahl in writing his screenplay, which
is maybe for the best. Fleming's novel is kind of dreadful,
which Doll takes his license to create his own, completely
Banana's story. In the film, we follow Bond as he
fakes his own death and goes under cover to Japan,
who investigate the disappearance of American and Soviet spaceships which
(29:40):
are threatening to ignite World War three. Along the way,
Bond trains with Ninja's infiltrates a secret layer that's housed
inside a working volcano seriously and encounters one of Bond's
greatest villains, Blofeld, who makes his first full appearance. And
you only live twice. Here's Blowfeld himself, complete with his
blue eyed Persian life.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
You will see that my piranha fish get very hungry.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Zay can't strip a man to the bow, I mean
thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And if that all sounds incredibly silly, it is ten
times sillier when you watch actors try to pull it
off with a straight face. There are lines in the
movie like bad News from Matter Space and Welcome to
My Ninja Training School, which I transcribed I kid you
not from the same scene. But that's the contract the
audience signs with the Bond movie when they buy a ticket.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
The zaniness isn't a defect, it's built in. Dol knows
that and he delivers. You can just tell how much
fun Doll is having while writing. He revels in the
playfulness of Bond, even more than the screenwriter of the
earlier four films. Of course, there are some problematic elements
in the film too, which is partly due to it
being nineteen sixty seven, partly due to it being James Bond,
(30:50):
and at least partly because it's from the mind of
Roll Doll. For instance, Bond's opening line in the film,
why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?
Or the long section when Bond disguises himself as a
Japanese fisherman yellow face and all. Though it should also
be mentioned how many Asian characters and therefore Asian actors
have major roles in the film, which is very unusual
(31:12):
for a major Hollywood movie. At the time, and as
for the typical Bond womanizing, there's a lot, which of
course is baked into the franchise, though Doll has to
take some of the blame for not even bothering to
give Bond's love interest and name much less a personality.
Watching the movie now knowing its screenwriter was very much
a real life James Bond, makes the espionage plot a
(31:34):
lot of fun. Dall was clearly drawing on his own experiences.
Much of the film is set in a foreign country
for the hero, where he has to immerse himself in
the culture in order to stop a world war, and
he seduces influential women as he goes, just like Dahl
had to navigate the elite social circles of DC in
New York to extract information, build alliances, and do a
hell of a lot of seducing during his World war.
(31:57):
The producers took a big gamble bringing Doll into the franchise.
The first four Bond films had all been hugely successful.
Doctor No introduced the series from Russia with Love outperformed
it at the box office, which is super rare. Goldfinger
came next and became a cultural phenomenon. Then Thunderball, the
fourth in the series, which is still the biggest box
office hit of any Bond ever adjusted for inflation, so
(32:19):
expectations are sky high for the next one. What's more,
each of the first four are co written by Richard Maybom.
Maybom is the one who established the formula of Bond,
and when franchises are working, you do not change writers
mid stream. Just look at the Harry Potter films, where
seven of the eight movies were adapted by a single writer,
Steve Cloves. But while Maybom will stay with the franchise
(32:41):
until his death, you got to wonder if the producers
are growing tired of him or not sure he's up
to the challenge of the fifth film, which is especially
difficult because of how terrible the source material is and
because there's now tons of competition from Bond knockoffs. The
real test for Doll and all of this is whether
or not he's learned to collapse. His inability to do
(33:01):
so destroyed his film with Disney and contributed to his
failures with Altman. But by this point Dahl has learned
his lesson and become a great generous collaborator. Just kidding,
collaboration is antithetical to Doll's nature, so he takes another
path when the producers of Bond bring in a second screenwriter,
Harold Jack Bloom. Bloom is a veteran TV writer who
(33:24):
comes in and basically rewrites all of the action scenes
in the movie. Dahl is furious about this. He tries
to completely rewrite Bloom until all Bloom's action scenes are gone,
and through sheer force of will, Bloom's credit drops from
the prestigious screenplay by to the sort of embarrassing additional
story material by. It'll be the first time on any
Bond movie that a writer has received solo written by credit,
(33:48):
and in the end, whether or not, Bloom deserves more
credit than he got, the film does feel very dollian like,
with a villain Earns Blofeld who becomes iconic in Doll's
hands and calls to mind Doll villains like Miss trench
Bowl and mat Hilda and the Grand High Witch and
the Witches. The whole vibe of the movie reminds you
of Doll's children's books, with a playful tone mixed with
existential cruelty and danger. Dahl calls Bond the best experience
(34:14):
of his Hollywood career. After many failed or aborted attempts,
Dahl has finally achieved his goal. He's the writer of
a major Hollywood hit. Here he is again on Desert
Island Discs, discussing the experience.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That was fun. That's the only only one I've had
any real fun doing. And it was Connray Sean Connery's
last one. Yeah, he did. And we went to Japan.
And you you live in such luxury when you do
a book and you're going helicopters everywhere, tops of mountains
and everything. It's en almost fun.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
The film does not receive raves, but Bond movies aren't
made for critics, and some reviewers do actually love it.
Bosley Crowther, again in The New York Times, writes, this
way out adventure picture should be the joy and delight
of the youngsters and give pleasure to the reasonable adults
who can find release in the majestically absurd, which kind
of doubles is a pretty good summation for all of
(35:06):
Doll's children's books. Actually. Pauline Kale enjoys the film too,
comparing it favorably to Stanley Kubrick. Kale writes, there was
a little pre title sequence and You Only Live Twice
with an astronaut out in space, a daring little moment
that I think was more fun than all of Kubrick's
two thousand and one. It had an element of the unexpected,
of the shock of finding death in space lyrical. Even
(35:29):
more important than critical reception for Doll is the film's
box office, which is huge to this day. Twenty seven
movies in You Only Live Twice is the fourth highest
grossing Bond film ever adjusted for inflation, and in no
small part because of that. It's a turning point in
Doll's career. After Bond, he never has to worry about
money again. But of course it's a bit of a
(35:50):
double edged sword. He's gotten the film made, but it's
not the serious literature he still aspires to. Dolls massively
conflicted and doesn't quite know where to turn next. Producers
have an idea. As soon as Bond is completed, they
bring Doll on to write another Ian Fleming adaptation. But
rather than another Bond, which plays into Doll's real life experiences,
this new project takes advantage of Doll's recent success with
(36:13):
children's stories. The film is Chitty Chitty Bang, Bang starring
Dick Van Deng. What an Unusual Cop That's a curious
name for amoto car. The movie centers on an eccentric
inventor who transforms a broken down car into something that
can fly. And while people still adore the film today,
(36:35):
Dall found it a terrible experience. It permanently soured him
on filmmaking. He had a very difficult relationship with the
film's director, Ken Hughes, who dared rewrite Doll's script, which
again veered far from Fleming's novel. Doll is still struggling
with what kind of writer he wants to be. He'll
soon find that Hollywood actually kind of gives him a roadmap.
Doll's experiences in La directly lead to the success he'll
(36:58):
find writing for children. You could call it a necessary
step in his evolution. His work with Disney two Light
Chitty Chitty two, Saccharine Hitchcock Perfectly Dark help him find
the sweet spot that will define his children's books, dark themes,
packaged and accessible, entertaining ways. It also helps him realize
where his strengths and interest really lie. For one thing,
(37:19):
in creating original worlds rather than adapting other people's work,
and it teaches him the importance of creative control and autonomy.
During all of Dall's adventures in the screen trade, he
becomes notorious for dating beautiful actresses. Doll is thirty six
when he's invited to a dinner party one night at
(37:40):
Lillian Hellman's house. Hellman is one of the most respected
playwrights and screenwriters in the country. Also invited to the
party is twenty six year old Patricia Neil, a confident, beautiful,
redheaded movie star currently cast in one of Hellman's plays.
Here she is years later in her most famous film,
Breakfast Aatifanies.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I am a very stylish girls. What are you doing
writing a check? Don't look so bewildered.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Surely you've noticed me writing checks before.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Dahl will marry Neil. I'll have five children together. Their
experiences during the marriage, writing bestsellers, winning oscars, and enduring
some of the most devastating traumas and tragedies imaginable, will
make all of Doll's exploits so far look like child's play.
Doll's life with Neil is eventful, emotional, and shocking enough
to fill several books and movies, which it does, But
(38:32):
this is not your typical love story. As Neil reveals
in her memoir written thirty five years later, even on
the day of their marriage, she knew she didn't love him.
The reason for this She's in love with someone else,
and this other man, this rival for Doll, happens to
be the most famous man in the world. The Secret
(38:56):
World of Role Dahl is produced by Imagine Audio and
Parallax Studios for iHeart Podcasts. Created and written by me
Aaron Tracy, produced by Matt Schrader, post production by wind
Hill Studios, with editing, scoring, and sound design by Mark
Henry Phillips. Editing by Ryan Seton, music by APM Executive
(39:18):
producers Nathan Cloke, Karl Welker, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and
Aaron Tracy. Additional voice performances and recreation by Mark Henry
Phillips and Eleven Laps. If you enjoyed this episode, be
sure to rate and review The Secret World of Roll
Doll on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
(39:39):
Copyright twenty twenty six Imagine Entertainment, iHeartMedia and Parallax
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