March 9, 2021 • 34 mins
From Blake Edwards and Paul Mazursky, to Audrey Hepburn and the history of Improv, Sam Wasson tackles distinctive creators and seminal moments in Hollywood history. Alec loved Sam Wasson’s latest, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood. In this fascinating conversation, Wasson tells the story of the four men behind the 1974 film, producer Robert Evans, screenwriter Robert Towne, director Roman Polanski, and the star Jack Nicholson. Chinatown marked the end of an era for Hollywood and a turning point in each of their lives.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is author
Sam Wasson. Whether he's writing about directors such as Blake Edwards,
(00:21):
Paul Mazurski, or the history of improv, a consistent theme
running through Wasson's books is the perseverance and talent required
to make art in Hollywood. His latest book, The Big Goodbye,
is about the seminal film Chinatown. How much You're Worth?
(00:43):
How much you want? I just want to know what
you're worth? Over ten millions by yes? Why are you
doing it? How much better can you eat? What can
you buy that you can't already afford? The future? Mr
Gitts the Future. This is the love theme from Chinatown
(01:05):
by the film's composer Jerry Goldsmith. In The Big Goodbye,
Wasson chronicles the friendships of the four men at the
heart of the nineteen seventy four classic producer Robert Evans,
screenwriter Robert Town, director Roman Polanski, and the movie star
Jack Nicholson, and what was at stake for each one
(01:28):
in making this definitive film. Sam Wasson grew up in
Los Angeles and fell in love with the movies. Early on,
I was a movie love. It was actually Bullets over Broadway.
I went nuts. I thought, oh, film is not just
dialogue and performance. It's visual component. It's a complete sensual experience.
(01:49):
That Bullets was so beautiful and so funny. It knocked
me out when I saw it. That was the end.
It's the ultimate art form, combining all the other art forms.
You finished film school, yeah, USC. First I went significantly.
I went to Wesleyan for film School in Connecticut and
studied with Janine Basinger, who's the Hollywood historian on the planet.
(02:09):
Knows more about Hollywood than anyone ever has I think
ever ever will have. And it's just obvious when you
talk to her, and she really teaches a tour theory
of Hollywood. So I got a deep, four year long
survey of the greatest and there was no deconstruction. There's
no you know, film theory. It's film as film. And
(02:33):
that was my film education. And then I went to USC,
which was kind of a bust for what for film production.
I directed one film myself and I just I wouldn't
say hate it, but I didn't care for at all,
you know, being responsible for cajoling the work, especially actors.
It's a lot of managing, isn't it. I mean it's
(02:54):
it's as as a much managing as art. Whereas if
you're acting, or if you're starring, or if you're writing,
there's very little bullshit that you have to deal with.
It's purer. I think when I was acting and mid
that I directed a film, I remember that when you're
when you make films and you're starring in films, you know,
years ago for me, you could be in your trailer
(03:16):
and they would knock on the door and say, well,
the producer I would like to talk to you, or
the head of the studio is here visiting, he'd like
to talk to you, and I'd say tell him I'm
asleep and just and you could hide in the trailer,
as opposed to when you're directing. You can't do that.
You can't. You have to. They come to work and
they're like, let's let's talk about how you're over over
(03:37):
schedule here. That's an amazing thing about directing is that
you're you're really in reality. You're interfacing with reality all
the time, and in other art forms you don't. You
can be in your imagination but when you're making a movie,
there's so much ship that you have to do. You're
making a building from scratch. So you finished, you did
four years at Wesleyan. Yeah, and then you wanted more
(03:57):
film school. And then I and everyone was said, Oh,
you want to make movies, you gotta go to film school.
You gotta go to USC. And so I thought, oh, yeah,
at USC. Of course, that's where you know, you go
to Juilliard. If you want to do Lincoln Center, you
go to USC. If you want to do you know,
Man's Chinese. So Wesleyan was more film theory, and USC
it was about film production. Yeah, it was film study.
(04:19):
I mean it was filmed. It was watching movies and
talking about filmmaking. But at what point do you stop
and see yourself. I don't think I'm gonna make movies.
Well I'm not totally convinced that I'm not going to.
But at that moment, it was a combination of two things.
I looked around and I saw that my fellow classmates
were completely invested in the Hobbit thing, and I felt
(04:43):
instantly lonely and realized that I was experiencing a microcosm
of what it was gonna look like out in the
real working world. And I thought, you know, maybe the
Hollywood that I grew up in is no longer the Hollywood.
That is the Hollywood that grew up outside. I dove
and I was right. And then the book thing just happened.
(05:06):
How it was actually Janine Basinger Wesley and said why
don't you write a book? I never thought of it.
And I picked Blake because I wanted to pick who
I thought was the greatest writer director of comedy alive
who had not been celebrated. Now Blake. My ex wife
Kim Basinger did a man who loved women with Blake,
And that's when I first met Julie. And you know,
(05:27):
you're so right. I mean, he's so under are I
think Victor Victoria is one of the ten funniest movies
I've ever seen in my life ever. I love Victor Victoria.
I loved ten. I love a movie he made that
a lot of people probably don't know about, called What
Did You Do in the War? Daddy, Dick Sean, Dick Sewn,
and Dick Sewn. I'll just say this, Dick Shawn is
(05:49):
a drag scene in the movie. I mean, if I
don't know what else you need. But but Blake Blake.
I I always thought that Blake was People look at
sla up stick somehow, with the exception of Chaplin, who
is revered as poetic because he is, everyone else looks
at slapstick as this low form. You know, slapstick is dumb,
(06:11):
it's for children, it's childish. And so I think Blake
got a bum rap because of that, and I wanted
to elevate him and say this is sophistic. Someone can
fall off a fucking chair and it's still be nol
coward and that's what Victor Victoria is. Okay, So then
you do after Blake your next book Fifth Avenue five AM,
(06:32):
So fifthven and five M is your next book. Why Missourski,
what did he do to you that made you want
to write a home Because to write a book, as
you know, you spending a lot of time in your
life with that person. Yeah, missours Ki, was just just
love for the work, enthusiasm for the man who had
met a couple of times. And actually it ties to Blake.
(06:53):
As much as I loved the work, Blake left me
with such a scar in my heart. Why why he
personally was so sadistic to you. Yeah, sadistic to me.
And he was that way to you as his as
his boswell here, it was astonishing. I was young. I
(07:13):
don't know. You could probably tell me how old I was.
I don't remember. I was young. And he would cancel
on me, and I'd be in the car on the
way over and he would cancel on me with not
giving any reason. And then he would call me up
and he would say, you know, get in the car,
come on over. And I would get in the car
and he would cancel on me. It was a real
(07:34):
dance of death. And I finally got in there a
couple of times, but um, it was open hostility. It
was like nothing. It was a real abusive codependent relationship.
So Missurski is platformed off of Blake. How why because
(07:54):
I we're getting into the therapy portion of the conversation.
But of course I blame myself for the way I was,
you know, and I guess I wanted to make sure
I knew how to do this and that it wasn't
going wrong because of me, And so I wanted to
be with someone that I was comfortable with and obviously idolized,
and those two things dovetailed perfectly, and Paul was nothing
(08:18):
like Blake Take Oh no, Missour's Keys. You know, it
turns out people are like their movies. Blake edwards movies
are sadistic and we love them for it, and Paul's
movies are loving and warm and we love him for it.
But because comedy is finally about rage, to find a
(08:40):
nurturing director of comedy and Nichols wouldn't be would qualify
in this case is a rare thing. And so I'm
interested in funny people, and funny people and good people
don't always go together. So to find in Missourski funny
and mensch to the core was a beautiful thing, and
(09:01):
is what what his movies are about. Well interesting you
mentioned Nichols because Nichols is a very good example. A
lot of these big directors I worked with and had
very small parts, you know, Stone, Marty, Woody, Nichols. I mean,
I didn't have leading roles in these films. And when
I worked and I did the movie Working Girl, one
of the first films I did, and I worked with Mike,
you could tell that Mike was someone who had come
(09:23):
through a gauntlet, he had worked his way and I don't.
I don't mean this as a criticism. He had come
through a gauntlet where in the way that you move
through the film business, and you have and Polanski reminds
me of this as well in your book. Mike was
someone who had in the way that you You'll take
the good ideas wherever they come from. You'll take the
good advice wherever it comes from. And you're going through
(09:45):
the jungle, if you will. And eventually you realize that
the person you can rely on, the person has that
typically not always maybe, but who typically has the best
ideas is yourself. And you grow to rely on yourself
and you don't want anybody to talk you out of
what you're keen. That's improvising. That's because Mike is an improviser.
I mean, does that fit. Why did you write that book?
(10:07):
Why did you write about improv Well? Two reasons. One,
I do believe it is a great American art form.
I do believe that. And the other reason, I wanted
to meet Elane. I wanted to know Elane. I wanted
to celebrate Elane because she created this. She's a national treasure.
You're referring to Elaine May. Yes, she is, as you know,
(10:29):
you know, tough to get a hold of. I wanted
to do it, I didn't do it, and my heart
is still not whole. There's still a dark Elaine part
in the heart. It belongs to her. I just worship Elaine.
I mean a new leaf yep. I love Elane, I
love you. And talk about physical comedy, I mean that
moment where she's taking off the or she putting on
(10:52):
the dress or the nightgown. I can't remember what it
is and she gets stuck in it. I mean a
woman who could do that and be as spontaneously brilliant
as she it is. A author Sam Wasson. If you're
as fascinated with old Hollywood as i am, check out
my conversation with the legendary Debbie Reynolds and her reflections
(11:15):
on the Hollywood studio system. Most of us, Shirley McClain
and Elizabeth they were at MGM and everything was done
for us, you know, the makeup of hair, sent cars
for us. We were very spoiled. We didn't kind of
know what to do when they dropped everybody, like when
television came in, and remember what year around there was
(11:37):
the end of the studio system. Kind of died as
you get into the fifties, it is slowly died a death.
You know. It was like interesting to watch it was.
I didn't realize it was the end, you know, I
didn't know that it was that. Here more of my
conversation with Debbie Reynolds at Here's the Thing dot Org.
(11:58):
After the break, Wasson described vibes what motivated each of
the four men behind Chinatown's success. I'm Alec Baldwin and
you're listening to Here's the Thing. In the movie Chinatown,
(12:18):
Jack Nicholson plays private eyed Jake Gidtis, who becomes ensnared
in a web of corruption, at the center of which
is developer Noah Cross, played by John Houston. It was
no Ah Across, Sam Wasson was thinking of when he
watched the two thousand sixty election results come. In the
moment Trump won, I turned to my friend Graham and
(12:41):
I said, where, what's the story now? Where? What movie
are we living in? And that was it combined with
the fact that of course I want to I'm angry
about what's happened to Hollywood, and so I'm always looking
for ways to scream and to tell this story about
the nightmare that is become of America, which was the
(13:01):
story we were just beginning to live at that point
four years ago, combined with its position in the decline
of that second great wave of the New Hollywood, and
the four personalities who are fascinating, you know, in and
of themselves. But that's what I want to I want
to I want to break that down, those four because
for me, when I read what you said about Trump
(13:24):
and now Ah Across, I thought, well, Noah Across to
me was more even though he was a fictional character.
He was more Robert Moses than Donald Trump. And I
mean he actually accomplished things. He was diabolical, and he
was very, very machiavellian, but he accomplished things as opposed
to Trump was accomplished only genocide. That's right. When I
read the book and I put everything through the prison
(13:45):
of the book and the understanding the film through your lens,
what I what I came away with, and you correct
me here or help me, is there's four men that
come together. Robert Evans at the head of Paramount Nicholson
is the film star really ascending at this point in
his career. Polanski does Rosemary's Baby, then his wife is killed.
(14:06):
Right after that, he makes a movie right on the
heels of his wife being murdered. And then Robert Town,
the screenwriter, and all four of them come together, And
I guess it's safe to say this is a bit
of an obvious thing. Four guys come together, all of
whom have an equivalent level of desperation for this movie
to work. They all are obsessed with making this work.
Is that? Because that correctly describe for me with the
(14:30):
relationship between you spend a good amount of time in
the book and the relationship between Town and Polanski. So
the film of Chinatown, the shooting script, the scenes that
were shot, and I'm assuming that eventually a script is
compiled and is and is bound if you will, Then
is the shooting script is that more Polanski than Town? Well,
(14:51):
Town obviously generated it, and then Polanski for years he
was generating it. And Town is a very slow writer
and a very expansive writer. I mean he writes big
and then struggles to cut down to structure. So when
Polanski comes in in the last two or so weeks
(15:11):
or a month or whatever it was, Polanski really structures it.
So I guess the answer is yes. So the structure
is Roman, no question about it. But the material is Town.
Now Town who had his writing partner Edward Taylor, and
Taylor was someone described that relationship. Taylor was someone who
(15:34):
did a lot of work uncredited, I think nearly all
of it on Was he ever credited? Did you mention
that in the book? What did he get a credit anywhere?
And not on a Town movie? He got a credit,
a writing credit on a movie called w I Warshowski
Kathleen Turner picture. Edward Taylor got credited for that. Um,
but he never got a writing credit on a Robert
(15:56):
Town movie. UM, never wanted one. Why do you think
that is when you have a guy, here's four men
who are fairly um, I'm not obsessed with success, They're
obsessed with greatness, their legacy. I mean you could you
could find tune all four men what they had something
in common, but there was a little bit distinctive what
Nicholson wanted Evan so Forth. But for Taylor to be
(16:19):
in the rooms with these people and writing these seminal films,
why do you think he didn't want any credit? What
was it about? Well, there's stated reasons and then there's
unstated reasons, and The stated reasons were, and this is
Taylor either from his own writing or front or what
he told to other people, were one, he didn't want
to deal with the bullshit of show business. He just
wanted to punch in, punch out right the scenes, do
(16:42):
the creative work, and not have to deal with the
haggling of the negotiations and and egos and despair and
all that stuff that comes with having your name on something.
There's a certain amount of freedom that you get to say,
no one's going to know that I was here. So
there was that. Then there was the long term friendship
that he had with Town, going all the way back
to their years at Pomona when they were in college.
(17:06):
So he felt a kind of loyalty to Town, which
manifested as subordinating himself to Towns, you know, quite obvious
need to be a star. And then there were all
these speculative secret reasons about secrets that they might have
had on each other. Uh. Then there was of course
(17:28):
Edwards alcoholism and Town really being a support to Taylor,
you know, because Taylor got paid for this, and Taylor
in his heart really did believe you know, these are
Towns movies, which they were in so far as Town
generated them, and I'm just helping Robert with his movie.
He convinced himself of that that it really was more town.
(17:49):
And also there are people like that who what they
convinced and they have a certain kind of personality. I've
known a couple of myself where their attitude is better
the crumbs off your table than nothing at all. That's it.
That's it. So there's deep pathological stuff that we can't
even get into. But that's the type that you're describing.
But the one thing that you see in this movie
is the death of that studio executive like Evans. You
(18:11):
mentioned a piece of very well known history, the advent
of Jaws and what Jaws does to marketing and films
and how the business will changes in the wake of that.
But you tell it so well, I mean, you tell
it really wonderful. You you make everybody really see the
impact that once these guys knew there was big money
in them, there are hills. Everything changes. What was it
(18:32):
about Evans that he wanted to have great films that
made money and one awards? He loved it, He loved it,
He loved show business, he loved movies, he loved people.
He loved talent. It's actually that simple. I asked him
this question. I said, Evans, is it as simple as
you bet on talent? Do you have an easy job?
(18:54):
And he said, you goddamn right. That was and and
and it's true. I mean, if you have the courage,
that's the question. Do you have the courage to say, yes,
I believe you are talented. Here's the check. Then you're
a great studio executive because even if the movie fails,
(19:15):
even if it is a steaming piece of ship humiliation
to everyone on the planet, at least you go to
bed thinking I picked a good guy. I picked the
right people to do that. That's a pride that what
executive can now go to sleep saying that you know
the Evans Is and you mentioned Zani and people like
(19:36):
that who are running with the studios. Back then, some
of them were people who knew how to make movies,
but they knew people who knew how to make movies,
and they knew how to bring them together, and they
seduce them into comming and to join them on this venture. Yes,
I mean Goldman's maxim turns out to be right. I
believe nobody does know anything. I believe nobody knows anything.
Those people who end up being the most successful are
(19:59):
the people who have the who are the strongest to
adhere to their great taste. And those guys Zanick, all
those great guys had exactly that. Now, Evans, of course
you you you do a wonderful job in the book.
This is a prism through which you learn a lot
about the movie business and the history of the movie business.
(20:20):
It's a great, great, great book. And you also learn
what a seminal year of this is in nineteen for
so many great movies made. And Evans is someone who
knows that white hot period in the seventies, the studios
are making Paint Your Wagon and Finnian's Rainbow and all
that stuff is tanking, and then along comes and Robert
(20:41):
Osborne said this to me when we co hosted TCM together.
He said, you know, I just hate Easy Rider, because
Easy Writers the movie that comes along and just changes everything.
The movie becomes so real and so ugly and so
and so nasty, and so they're they're like documentaries. Nicholson
becomes a star, if you will, on the back of
that movie in sixty nine. Let me get into the seventies,
(21:02):
and what happens, well, you know, just like Hollywood being Hollywood,
Easy Rider is a hit. So then they all fall
over themselves trying to get the next one now, unlike
today where they fall over themselves trying to get the
next one. Back then making a movie was relatively inexpensive
enough that they could understand the next one being well,
(21:26):
let's try another little movie based on a you know,
based on a couple of guys. You know, the modesty
of the Easy Rider project could be replicated. And that
is a recipe for creativity. And so that's what they
did after that absolutely cynical undertaking insofar as Hollywood is
(21:47):
doing what it's always done. But because the economics of
the system are conducive to creativity and the people calling
the shots are genuinely interested in art, it can flower
Polanski's wife. He makes the movie Rosemary's Baby, which I
can't say enough about that movie. And the more I
watch that movie, that's one of the ones I've downloaded
(22:08):
in my computer because of that remarkable balance he has.
You have Ruth Gordon in this, like right up to
her toes or right on the line of camp in that,
and yet there's Sydney Blackmer playing her husband, who's his velvety,
and the cast is Alicia Cook. You have the creepy
(22:30):
and the sour, and the sweet and the weird and
the pleasant, everything the harmony, and the same is true
for this movie. The same is true. Polanski is a
master of casting. Master. I'm so glad you brought definitely
down to I mean, who is Bert Young in Chinatown?
Talk about juicy? I mean, there's so it's an embarrassment
of riches that we never get the movie is so
(22:52):
fertile in talent that we never get down to the
Burt Young of it all. Obscure Bert, Yeah, we do
obscure Bert Young, Diane Lad how about that dead on
the floor and just a perfect, perfect portrait of a
nervous actress all the way through performing down to the
(23:13):
very end when he pulls out the sag card, and
that is an l that is also inside. That's a
little gift to an Angelino to see that, Oh yes,
she was an actress. Of course she was, and you
play it back in your mind, and and the whole
psychology of the actress just kind of harmonizes with what
you've seen Fucking Polanski casting that movie. I mean, how
(23:36):
do you do you can't tell. How do you teach
the ability to cast? That has to be one of
the things like like, yeah, you don't have you have
to have you have to sense that that person can
do even if you have to push them, even if
they have to dig down, you know. You know. Gary
Oldman became a star doing sidon Nancy. Uh. Gary Oldman
(23:58):
became a star doing sid Nancy and won an oscar
playing Churchill. Talk about that journey as an actor in
terms of the disposition of the character. Now, Polanski, his
wife is killed, he does Rosemary's Baby. It's it's released
in sixty eight. His wife is killed in sixty nine.
He comes and does this movie I guess in seventy three.
It's released in seventy four. Correct, Yeah, And what Polanski
(24:20):
is showing up now to shoot Chinatown? Which Polanski shows
up Now he's changed, how from the horrors of what
happened to his wife. He's been devastated, He's been devastated,
and he's he left town. And it should be said,
not just because his wife and child and friends were
murdered by them, not just because of the emotional residue
(24:42):
of the grief but because the town turned on him
in a way, the town in the panic around figuring
out who the killer was. We didn't know who the
killer was. There was speculation that, well, maybe it's Polanski,
his movie Are Enough. I learned that from you. I
(25:02):
learned that from your book. And it's a tribute to
his friends, Dick Silbert, Jack, Warren, Baty Evans, the people
who were really his friends, who stuck by him and
supported him in that. I mean the grief to compound
on top of the grief, the paranoia of the town
(25:23):
closing in on you, I can't even make a word
to come out of that. Well, they were they put
him back together again, so to speak, his friend, They
put him back together. He's got he's got a good
bunch of friends. And that's kind of also what this
book is about, secretly for me, is a good bunch
of friends, because that's what I dream of, That's what
a good Hollywood should feel like. One thing that was
(25:44):
just really assaulted me from the book was that idea
that back then and it never crossed my mind. It
never occurred to me that Polanski was someone who people
he was a suspect and some people's mind and now
the whole Now, the whole town, the whole community lived
in terror, in the wake, lived in tear. And I
should add to compound to make this even fucking worse.
(26:05):
He didn't know who the killer was, so he's suspecting
his friends. Maybe it is Warren, Yes, maybe it is Warren.
He's trying to get sampled. What was he trying to get,
like blood samples off of steering wheels in the carpeting
of cars and all the ship. That's an amazing part
of the book. I mean, it's enough for an opera
right there. I mean people say it's a Greek tragedy,
(26:26):
I mean Roman Polanski. That's to say nothing of what
we all know is coming, but just that incident right there, unimaginable.
Author Sam Wasson. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing
on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(26:49):
you get your podcasts. When we come back, Wasson talks
about the reception of the film's shocking ending and it's
remarkable score. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to
Here's the Thing because Chinatown was Jack Nicholson's first real
(27:14):
turn as a leading man. He paid attention to every
last detail, down to his wardrobe, to inhabit Jake Giddies.
I mean it was deep in him too, because Town
wrote it for him. Town observed Nicholson. They were in
Jeff Corey's acting class, and and improvised improvisation was heavy
(27:35):
in that class. And so Jack is a great improviser.
So Town really became a master of Jack, whatever that means,
and so learned learned how to just hit it right
to him. Sometimes I think the guy that can nail
Chinatown and especially that ending and that in that last line,
(27:59):
the guy that can all that ending you right with
great detail and great insight into the shooting of that
final scene and the car driving off in that long shot,
and the actor that pulls the gun and shoots her,
you know, the whole kind of existential on wi of
the whole thing at the end, Uh, forget about it.
(28:20):
Jacob's Chinatown. I thought to myself, that's Polanski. In the
wake of his wife being butchered that way, Yes, like
his mother's killed. His father says to him, you had
you have it in there, Move it, move it. The
prompt from the Father. But you just keep moving, just
keep moving. And Polanski was certainly primed to nail because
(28:41):
of all the horrors he'd been through. And it's hard
to imagine a more horrific ending to a major Hollywood movie.
It's hard to imagine. And when the film was screened
for the executives, what was there you write about this?
What was their response to the film? You know, you
tried your best, Evans, you know, Sue Manger's was like,
(29:01):
what are you? What were you Connie? What were you thinking?
I can't do Sue, you can do it? You know,
they're filing out in the director's guil um was it
Freddie Fields who had a sort of shit eating grin
on his Freddie Freddie and Evans were never sympathico. But
then it got good reviews. Yeah, yeah, then it did well.
It did Yeah, and I won a lot of awards. Yeah.
Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. J
(29:24):
Who won that? You? Oh? Oh? Art Carney from from Missourski,
from Missoursky, even Missoursky when I talked to Jack's oscar
and hands it not so fast Jack hands it to
Art Carney. Yeah, I think even Paul was a little
embarrassed of that. Was it going in style? No, it
was Harry, Uh huh. Let's see Chinatown. Let's see Wow. Okay,
(29:52):
it sounds like an SETV sketch from the makers of Chinatown.
From the Makers comes a story of a man in
his cat. You know. One of the things that I
love the part of the story because I'm obsessed with
musical score. Describe how there was the path with the
score for Chinatown. One composer who then what happens? His
(30:13):
name was Philip Lambro, and um, he wrote, I don't
have the language to even describe what music I mean.
You can actually find the score on YouTube. And it
was an atonal, edgy, expressionistic, weird, you know, not melodic,
not what you think of his Hollywood, certainly not what
you think of his forties glamour Hollywood. And it didn't work.
(30:35):
And this was like in the final moments before you know,
scoring comes in at the very end. And what happened
was Evans called Goldsmith and said you got to save
my life, and and Goldsmith said all right. And ten
days later and and ten days sounds like a legend,
you know, sounds like fable fiction stuff. I got ten
(30:57):
days confirmed all over the place. It really was end day.
I mean, if it wasn't ten, it was eleven days.
You know, he turned around a masterpiece in no time.
This is another reason why Evans is Evans. Only people
like Evans can pick up the phone and get somebody
like Goldsmith to write a score for one of the
greatest movies in the world in eleven days or wherever
(31:17):
the funk it is. And it also tells you that
Evans was beloved on a personal level. Yes, you know,
you could make those calls. You make those calls and
someone says yes and turn and turns it around, and
Evans supervised the score. You know. Music was so important
to Evans, so important to Evans, even though he's fucked
up on on Godfather by not you know, Nino Rota
(31:38):
pushing back on Rits, okay, but Evans loves music because
he's finally in his heart just a romantic and a softie.
And also music is a major part of post production,
and that's where Evans can come in and get his
hands in there. Sometimes he gets his hands a little
too much in there, as as as Copeland knows and
(31:59):
suffered by but that's the shadow side of Evans, but
music allows him to allow him to do that. Obviously,
many people know this already that your book has been
options and they're gonna make a movie out of it,
and my dear friend Lauren Michaels is going to produce.
And then in addition to uh Lauren as producer, Ben
Affleck has been collared. If you will to do the directing.
(32:22):
What is something you are hopeful about. I'm hopeful that
they'll do right by Roman in what regard well, you know,
the times that we're living in, you know, uh, may surely,
I'm I'm surprised they even they even did it, you
know that they that they thought that this would be
the right climate to make a movie that stars a
(32:42):
character Roman Polanski, and is a I should dare say
because I wrote it a sympathetic portrait in the in
the book balanced, I hope, but sympathetic. And we live
in such extreme I don't know, we live in such
an extreme yes or no cancel culture, canceled culture this
or that there is no gray area and Roman is
(33:05):
the definition of gray and every great character is every
great character is. So I want to see, not not
just them to do right by Roman because I know
him and respect him, but also I want the movie
to be as good as it could be. And my
theory is that to write a character who lives in
the gray, I wish that for every character in the
movie that they're in the gray. And I wish that
(33:27):
for every character in every movie. Author Sam Wasson on
his book The Big Goodbye Chinatown and the Last Years
of Hollywood. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
the Thing. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue, and
(33:49):
Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening, kid,
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is author
Sam Wasson. Whether he's writing about directors such as Blake Edwards,
(00:21):
Paul Mazurski, or the history of improv, a consistent theme
running through Wasson's books is the perseverance and talent required
to make art in Hollywood. His latest book, The Big Goodbye,
is about the seminal film Chinatown. How much You're Worth?
(00:43):
How much you want? I just want to know what
you're worth? Over ten millions by yes? Why are you
doing it? How much better can you eat? What can
you buy that you can't already afford? The future? Mr
Gitts the Future. This is the love theme from Chinatown
(01:05):
by the film's composer Jerry Goldsmith. In The Big Goodbye,
Wasson chronicles the friendships of the four men at the
heart of the nineteen seventy four classic producer Robert Evans,
screenwriter Robert Town, director Roman Polanski, and the movie star
Jack Nicholson, and what was at stake for each one
(01:28):
in making this definitive film. Sam Wasson grew up in
Los Angeles and fell in love with the movies. Early on,
I was a movie love. It was actually Bullets over Broadway.
I went nuts. I thought, oh, film is not just
dialogue and performance. It's visual component. It's a complete sensual experience.
(01:49):
That Bullets was so beautiful and so funny. It knocked
me out when I saw it. That was the end.
It's the ultimate art form, combining all the other art forms.
You finished film school, yeah, USC. First I went significantly.
I went to Wesleyan for film School in Connecticut and
studied with Janine Basinger, who's the Hollywood historian on the planet.
(02:09):
Knows more about Hollywood than anyone ever has I think
ever ever will have. And it's just obvious when you
talk to her, and she really teaches a tour theory
of Hollywood. So I got a deep, four year long
survey of the greatest and there was no deconstruction. There's
no you know, film theory. It's film as film. And
(02:33):
that was my film education. And then I went to USC,
which was kind of a bust for what for film production.
I directed one film myself and I just I wouldn't
say hate it, but I didn't care for at all,
you know, being responsible for cajoling the work, especially actors.
It's a lot of managing, isn't it. I mean it's
(02:54):
it's as as a much managing as art. Whereas if
you're acting, or if you're starring, or if you're writing,
there's very little bullshit that you have to deal with.
It's purer. I think when I was acting and mid
that I directed a film, I remember that when you're
when you make films and you're starring in films, you know,
years ago for me, you could be in your trailer
(03:16):
and they would knock on the door and say, well,
the producer I would like to talk to you, or
the head of the studio is here visiting, he'd like
to talk to you, and I'd say tell him I'm
asleep and just and you could hide in the trailer,
as opposed to when you're directing. You can't do that.
You can't. You have to. They come to work and
they're like, let's let's talk about how you're over over
(03:37):
schedule here. That's an amazing thing about directing is that
you're you're really in reality. You're interfacing with reality all
the time, and in other art forms you don't. You
can be in your imagination but when you're making a movie,
there's so much ship that you have to do. You're
making a building from scratch. So you finished, you did
four years at Wesleyan. Yeah, and then you wanted more
(03:57):
film school. And then I and everyone was said, Oh,
you want to make movies, you gotta go to film school.
You gotta go to USC. And so I thought, oh, yeah,
at USC. Of course, that's where you know, you go
to Juilliard. If you want to do Lincoln Center, you
go to USC. If you want to do you know,
Man's Chinese. So Wesleyan was more film theory, and USC
it was about film production. Yeah, it was film study.
(04:19):
I mean it was filmed. It was watching movies and
talking about filmmaking. But at what point do you stop
and see yourself. I don't think I'm gonna make movies.
Well I'm not totally convinced that I'm not going to.
But at that moment, it was a combination of two things.
I looked around and I saw that my fellow classmates
were completely invested in the Hobbit thing, and I felt
(04:43):
instantly lonely and realized that I was experiencing a microcosm
of what it was gonna look like out in the
real working world. And I thought, you know, maybe the
Hollywood that I grew up in is no longer the Hollywood.
That is the Hollywood that grew up outside. I dove
and I was right. And then the book thing just happened.
(05:06):
How it was actually Janine Basinger Wesley and said why
don't you write a book? I never thought of it.
And I picked Blake because I wanted to pick who
I thought was the greatest writer director of comedy alive
who had not been celebrated. Now Blake. My ex wife
Kim Basinger did a man who loved women with Blake,
And that's when I first met Julie. And you know,
(05:27):
you're so right. I mean, he's so under are I
think Victor Victoria is one of the ten funniest movies
I've ever seen in my life ever. I love Victor Victoria.
I loved ten. I love a movie he made that
a lot of people probably don't know about, called What
Did You Do in the War? Daddy, Dick Sean, Dick Sewn,
and Dick Sewn. I'll just say this, Dick Shawn is
(05:49):
a drag scene in the movie. I mean, if I
don't know what else you need. But but Blake Blake.
I I always thought that Blake was People look at
sla up stick somehow, with the exception of Chaplin, who
is revered as poetic because he is, everyone else looks
at slapstick as this low form. You know, slapstick is dumb,
(06:11):
it's for children, it's childish. And so I think Blake
got a bum rap because of that, and I wanted
to elevate him and say this is sophistic. Someone can
fall off a fucking chair and it's still be nol
coward and that's what Victor Victoria is. Okay, So then
you do after Blake your next book Fifth Avenue five AM,
(06:32):
So fifthven and five M is your next book. Why Missourski,
what did he do to you that made you want
to write a home Because to write a book, as
you know, you spending a lot of time in your
life with that person. Yeah, missours Ki, was just just
love for the work, enthusiasm for the man who had
met a couple of times. And actually it ties to Blake.
(06:53):
As much as I loved the work, Blake left me
with such a scar in my heart. Why why he
personally was so sadistic to you. Yeah, sadistic to me.
And he was that way to you as his as
his boswell here, it was astonishing. I was young. I
(07:13):
don't know. You could probably tell me how old I was.
I don't remember. I was young. And he would cancel
on me, and I'd be in the car on the
way over and he would cancel on me with not
giving any reason. And then he would call me up
and he would say, you know, get in the car,
come on over. And I would get in the car
and he would cancel on me. It was a real
(07:34):
dance of death. And I finally got in there a
couple of times, but um, it was open hostility. It
was like nothing. It was a real abusive codependent relationship.
So Missurski is platformed off of Blake. How why because
(07:54):
I we're getting into the therapy portion of the conversation.
But of course I blame myself for the way I was,
you know, and I guess I wanted to make sure
I knew how to do this and that it wasn't
going wrong because of me, And so I wanted to
be with someone that I was comfortable with and obviously idolized,
and those two things dovetailed perfectly, and Paul was nothing
(08:18):
like Blake Take Oh no, Missour's Keys. You know, it
turns out people are like their movies. Blake edwards movies
are sadistic and we love them for it, and Paul's
movies are loving and warm and we love him for it.
But because comedy is finally about rage, to find a
(08:40):
nurturing director of comedy and Nichols wouldn't be would qualify
in this case is a rare thing. And so I'm
interested in funny people, and funny people and good people
don't always go together. So to find in Missourski funny
and mensch to the core was a beautiful thing, and
(09:01):
is what what his movies are about. Well interesting you
mentioned Nichols because Nichols is a very good example. A
lot of these big directors I worked with and had
very small parts, you know, Stone, Marty, Woody, Nichols. I mean,
I didn't have leading roles in these films. And when
I worked and I did the movie Working Girl, one
of the first films I did, and I worked with Mike,
you could tell that Mike was someone who had come
(09:23):
through a gauntlet, he had worked his way and I don't.
I don't mean this as a criticism. He had come
through a gauntlet where in the way that you move
through the film business, and you have and Polanski reminds
me of this as well in your book. Mike was
someone who had in the way that you You'll take
the good ideas wherever they come from. You'll take the
good advice wherever it comes from. And you're going through
(09:45):
the jungle, if you will. And eventually you realize that
the person you can rely on, the person has that
typically not always maybe, but who typically has the best
ideas is yourself. And you grow to rely on yourself
and you don't want anybody to talk you out of
what you're keen. That's improvising. That's because Mike is an improviser.
I mean, does that fit. Why did you write that book?
(10:07):
Why did you write about improv Well? Two reasons. One,
I do believe it is a great American art form.
I do believe that. And the other reason, I wanted
to meet Elane. I wanted to know Elane. I wanted
to celebrate Elane because she created this. She's a national treasure.
You're referring to Elaine May. Yes, she is, as you know,
(10:29):
you know, tough to get a hold of. I wanted
to do it, I didn't do it, and my heart
is still not whole. There's still a dark Elaine part
in the heart. It belongs to her. I just worship Elaine.
I mean a new leaf yep. I love Elane, I
love you. And talk about physical comedy, I mean that
moment where she's taking off the or she putting on
(10:52):
the dress or the nightgown. I can't remember what it
is and she gets stuck in it. I mean a
woman who could do that and be as spontaneously brilliant
as she it is. A author Sam Wasson. If you're
as fascinated with old Hollywood as i am, check out
my conversation with the legendary Debbie Reynolds and her reflections
(11:15):
on the Hollywood studio system. Most of us, Shirley McClain
and Elizabeth they were at MGM and everything was done
for us, you know, the makeup of hair, sent cars
for us. We were very spoiled. We didn't kind of
know what to do when they dropped everybody, like when
television came in, and remember what year around there was
(11:37):
the end of the studio system. Kind of died as
you get into the fifties, it is slowly died a death.
You know. It was like interesting to watch it was.
I didn't realize it was the end, you know, I
didn't know that it was that. Here more of my
conversation with Debbie Reynolds at Here's the Thing dot Org.
(11:58):
After the break, Wasson described vibes what motivated each of
the four men behind Chinatown's success. I'm Alec Baldwin and
you're listening to Here's the Thing. In the movie Chinatown,
(12:18):
Jack Nicholson plays private eyed Jake Gidtis, who becomes ensnared
in a web of corruption, at the center of which
is developer Noah Cross, played by John Houston. It was
no Ah Across, Sam Wasson was thinking of when he
watched the two thousand sixty election results come. In the
moment Trump won, I turned to my friend Graham and
(12:41):
I said, where, what's the story now? Where? What movie
are we living in? And that was it combined with
the fact that of course I want to I'm angry
about what's happened to Hollywood, and so I'm always looking
for ways to scream and to tell this story about
the nightmare that is become of America, which was the
(13:01):
story we were just beginning to live at that point
four years ago, combined with its position in the decline
of that second great wave of the New Hollywood, and
the four personalities who are fascinating, you know, in and
of themselves. But that's what I want to I want
to I want to break that down, those four because
for me, when I read what you said about Trump
(13:24):
and now Ah Across, I thought, well, Noah Across to
me was more even though he was a fictional character.
He was more Robert Moses than Donald Trump. And I
mean he actually accomplished things. He was diabolical, and he
was very, very machiavellian, but he accomplished things as opposed
to Trump was accomplished only genocide. That's right. When I
read the book and I put everything through the prison
(13:45):
of the book and the understanding the film through your lens,
what I what I came away with, and you correct
me here or help me, is there's four men that
come together. Robert Evans at the head of Paramount Nicholson
is the film star really ascending at this point in
his career. Polanski does Rosemary's Baby, then his wife is killed.
(14:06):
Right after that, he makes a movie right on the
heels of his wife being murdered. And then Robert Town,
the screenwriter, and all four of them come together, And
I guess it's safe to say this is a bit
of an obvious thing. Four guys come together, all of
whom have an equivalent level of desperation for this movie
to work. They all are obsessed with making this work.
Is that? Because that correctly describe for me with the
(14:30):
relationship between you spend a good amount of time in
the book and the relationship between Town and Polanski. So
the film of Chinatown, the shooting script, the scenes that
were shot, and I'm assuming that eventually a script is
compiled and is and is bound if you will, Then
is the shooting script is that more Polanski than Town? Well,
(14:51):
Town obviously generated it, and then Polanski for years he
was generating it. And Town is a very slow writer
and a very expansive writer. I mean he writes big
and then struggles to cut down to structure. So when
Polanski comes in in the last two or so weeks
(15:11):
or a month or whatever it was, Polanski really structures it.
So I guess the answer is yes. So the structure
is Roman, no question about it. But the material is Town.
Now Town who had his writing partner Edward Taylor, and
Taylor was someone described that relationship. Taylor was someone who
(15:34):
did a lot of work uncredited, I think nearly all
of it on Was he ever credited? Did you mention
that in the book? What did he get a credit anywhere?
And not on a Town movie? He got a credit,
a writing credit on a movie called w I Warshowski
Kathleen Turner picture. Edward Taylor got credited for that. Um,
but he never got a writing credit on a Robert
(15:56):
Town movie. UM, never wanted one. Why do you think
that is when you have a guy, here's four men
who are fairly um, I'm not obsessed with success, They're
obsessed with greatness, their legacy. I mean you could you
could find tune all four men what they had something
in common, but there was a little bit distinctive what
Nicholson wanted Evan so Forth. But for Taylor to be
(16:19):
in the rooms with these people and writing these seminal films,
why do you think he didn't want any credit? What
was it about? Well, there's stated reasons and then there's
unstated reasons, and The stated reasons were, and this is
Taylor either from his own writing or front or what
he told to other people, were one, he didn't want
to deal with the bullshit of show business. He just
wanted to punch in, punch out right the scenes, do
(16:42):
the creative work, and not have to deal with the
haggling of the negotiations and and egos and despair and
all that stuff that comes with having your name on something.
There's a certain amount of freedom that you get to say,
no one's going to know that I was here. So
there was that. Then there was the long term friendship
that he had with Town, going all the way back
to their years at Pomona when they were in college.
(17:06):
So he felt a kind of loyalty to Town, which
manifested as subordinating himself to Towns, you know, quite obvious
need to be a star. And then there were all
these speculative secret reasons about secrets that they might have
had on each other. Uh. Then there was of course
(17:28):
Edwards alcoholism and Town really being a support to Taylor,
you know, because Taylor got paid for this, and Taylor
in his heart really did believe you know, these are
Towns movies, which they were in so far as Town
generated them, and I'm just helping Robert with his movie.
He convinced himself of that that it really was more town.
(17:49):
And also there are people like that who what they
convinced and they have a certain kind of personality. I've
known a couple of myself where their attitude is better
the crumbs off your table than nothing at all. That's it.
That's it. So there's deep pathological stuff that we can't
even get into. But that's the type that you're describing.
But the one thing that you see in this movie
is the death of that studio executive like Evans. You
(18:11):
mentioned a piece of very well known history, the advent
of Jaws and what Jaws does to marketing and films
and how the business will changes in the wake of that.
But you tell it so well, I mean, you tell
it really wonderful. You you make everybody really see the
impact that once these guys knew there was big money
in them, there are hills. Everything changes. What was it
(18:32):
about Evans that he wanted to have great films that
made money and one awards? He loved it, He loved it,
He loved show business, he loved movies, he loved people.
He loved talent. It's actually that simple. I asked him
this question. I said, Evans, is it as simple as
you bet on talent? Do you have an easy job?
(18:54):
And he said, you goddamn right. That was and and
and it's true. I mean, if you have the courage,
that's the question. Do you have the courage to say, yes,
I believe you are talented. Here's the check. Then you're
a great studio executive because even if the movie fails,
(19:15):
even if it is a steaming piece of ship humiliation
to everyone on the planet, at least you go to
bed thinking I picked a good guy. I picked the
right people to do that. That's a pride that what
executive can now go to sleep saying that you know
the Evans Is and you mentioned Zani and people like
(19:36):
that who are running with the studios. Back then, some
of them were people who knew how to make movies,
but they knew people who knew how to make movies,
and they knew how to bring them together, and they
seduce them into comming and to join them on this venture. Yes,
I mean Goldman's maxim turns out to be right. I
believe nobody does know anything. I believe nobody knows anything.
Those people who end up being the most successful are
(19:59):
the people who have the who are the strongest to
adhere to their great taste. And those guys Zanick, all
those great guys had exactly that. Now, Evans, of course
you you you do a wonderful job in the book.
This is a prism through which you learn a lot
about the movie business and the history of the movie business.
(20:20):
It's a great, great, great book. And you also learn
what a seminal year of this is in nineteen for
so many great movies made. And Evans is someone who
knows that white hot period in the seventies, the studios
are making Paint Your Wagon and Finnian's Rainbow and all
that stuff is tanking, and then along comes and Robert
(20:41):
Osborne said this to me when we co hosted TCM together.
He said, you know, I just hate Easy Rider, because
Easy Writers the movie that comes along and just changes everything.
The movie becomes so real and so ugly and so
and so nasty, and so they're they're like documentaries. Nicholson
becomes a star, if you will, on the back of
that movie in sixty nine. Let me get into the seventies,
(21:02):
and what happens, well, you know, just like Hollywood being Hollywood,
Easy Rider is a hit. So then they all fall
over themselves trying to get the next one now, unlike
today where they fall over themselves trying to get the
next one. Back then making a movie was relatively inexpensive
enough that they could understand the next one being well,
(21:26):
let's try another little movie based on a you know,
based on a couple of guys. You know, the modesty
of the Easy Rider project could be replicated. And that
is a recipe for creativity. And so that's what they
did after that absolutely cynical undertaking insofar as Hollywood is
(21:47):
doing what it's always done. But because the economics of
the system are conducive to creativity and the people calling
the shots are genuinely interested in art, it can flower
Polanski's wife. He makes the movie Rosemary's Baby, which I
can't say enough about that movie. And the more I
watch that movie, that's one of the ones I've downloaded
(22:08):
in my computer because of that remarkable balance he has.
You have Ruth Gordon in this, like right up to
her toes or right on the line of camp in that,
and yet there's Sydney Blackmer playing her husband, who's his velvety,
and the cast is Alicia Cook. You have the creepy
(22:30):
and the sour, and the sweet and the weird and
the pleasant, everything the harmony, and the same is true
for this movie. The same is true. Polanski is a
master of casting. Master. I'm so glad you brought definitely
down to I mean, who is Bert Young in Chinatown?
Talk about juicy? I mean, there's so it's an embarrassment
of riches that we never get the movie is so
(22:52):
fertile in talent that we never get down to the
Burt Young of it all. Obscure Bert, Yeah, we do
obscure Bert Young, Diane Lad how about that dead on
the floor and just a perfect, perfect portrait of a
nervous actress all the way through performing down to the
(23:13):
very end when he pulls out the sag card, and
that is an l that is also inside. That's a
little gift to an Angelino to see that, Oh yes,
she was an actress. Of course she was, and you
play it back in your mind, and and the whole
psychology of the actress just kind of harmonizes with what
you've seen Fucking Polanski casting that movie. I mean, how
(23:36):
do you do you can't tell. How do you teach
the ability to cast? That has to be one of
the things like like, yeah, you don't have you have
to have you have to sense that that person can
do even if you have to push them, even if
they have to dig down, you know. You know. Gary
Oldman became a star doing sidon Nancy. Uh. Gary Oldman
(23:58):
became a star doing sid Nancy and won an oscar
playing Churchill. Talk about that journey as an actor in
terms of the disposition of the character. Now, Polanski, his
wife is killed, he does Rosemary's Baby. It's it's released
in sixty eight. His wife is killed in sixty nine.
He comes and does this movie I guess in seventy three.
It's released in seventy four. Correct, Yeah, And what Polanski
(24:20):
is showing up now to shoot Chinatown? Which Polanski shows
up Now he's changed, how from the horrors of what
happened to his wife. He's been devastated, He's been devastated,
and he's he left town. And it should be said,
not just because his wife and child and friends were
murdered by them, not just because of the emotional residue
(24:42):
of the grief but because the town turned on him
in a way, the town in the panic around figuring
out who the killer was. We didn't know who the
killer was. There was speculation that, well, maybe it's Polanski,
his movie Are Enough. I learned that from you. I
(25:02):
learned that from your book. And it's a tribute to
his friends, Dick Silbert, Jack, Warren, Baty Evans, the people
who were really his friends, who stuck by him and
supported him in that. I mean the grief to compound
on top of the grief, the paranoia of the town
(25:23):
closing in on you, I can't even make a word
to come out of that. Well, they were they put
him back together again, so to speak, his friend, They
put him back together. He's got he's got a good
bunch of friends. And that's kind of also what this
book is about, secretly for me, is a good bunch
of friends, because that's what I dream of, That's what
a good Hollywood should feel like. One thing that was
(25:44):
just really assaulted me from the book was that idea
that back then and it never crossed my mind. It
never occurred to me that Polanski was someone who people
he was a suspect and some people's mind and now
the whole Now, the whole town, the whole community lived
in terror, in the wake, lived in tear. And I
should add to compound to make this even fucking worse.
(26:05):
He didn't know who the killer was, so he's suspecting
his friends. Maybe it is Warren, Yes, maybe it is Warren.
He's trying to get sampled. What was he trying to get,
like blood samples off of steering wheels in the carpeting
of cars and all the ship. That's an amazing part
of the book. I mean, it's enough for an opera
right there. I mean people say it's a Greek tragedy,
(26:26):
I mean Roman Polanski. That's to say nothing of what
we all know is coming, but just that incident right there, unimaginable.
Author Sam Wasson. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing
on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(26:49):
you get your podcasts. When we come back, Wasson talks
about the reception of the film's shocking ending and it's
remarkable score. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to
Here's the Thing because Chinatown was Jack Nicholson's first real
(27:14):
turn as a leading man. He paid attention to every
last detail, down to his wardrobe, to inhabit Jake Giddies.
I mean it was deep in him too, because Town
wrote it for him. Town observed Nicholson. They were in
Jeff Corey's acting class, and and improvised improvisation was heavy
(27:35):
in that class. And so Jack is a great improviser.
So Town really became a master of Jack, whatever that means,
and so learned learned how to just hit it right
to him. Sometimes I think the guy that can nail
Chinatown and especially that ending and that in that last line,
(27:59):
the guy that can all that ending you right with
great detail and great insight into the shooting of that
final scene and the car driving off in that long shot,
and the actor that pulls the gun and shoots her,
you know, the whole kind of existential on wi of
the whole thing at the end, Uh, forget about it.
(28:20):
Jacob's Chinatown. I thought to myself, that's Polanski. In the
wake of his wife being butchered that way, Yes, like
his mother's killed. His father says to him, you had
you have it in there, Move it, move it. The
prompt from the Father. But you just keep moving, just
keep moving. And Polanski was certainly primed to nail because
(28:41):
of all the horrors he'd been through. And it's hard
to imagine a more horrific ending to a major Hollywood movie.
It's hard to imagine. And when the film was screened
for the executives, what was there you write about this?
What was their response to the film? You know, you
tried your best, Evans, you know, Sue Manger's was like,
(29:01):
what are you? What were you Connie? What were you thinking?
I can't do Sue, you can do it? You know,
they're filing out in the director's guil um was it
Freddie Fields who had a sort of shit eating grin
on his Freddie Freddie and Evans were never sympathico. But
then it got good reviews. Yeah, yeah, then it did well.
It did Yeah, and I won a lot of awards. Yeah.
Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. J
(29:24):
Who won that? You? Oh? Oh? Art Carney from from Missourski,
from Missoursky, even Missoursky when I talked to Jack's oscar
and hands it not so fast Jack hands it to
Art Carney. Yeah, I think even Paul was a little
embarrassed of that. Was it going in style? No, it
was Harry, Uh huh. Let's see Chinatown. Let's see Wow. Okay,
(29:52):
it sounds like an SETV sketch from the makers of Chinatown.
From the Makers comes a story of a man in
his cat. You know. One of the things that I
love the part of the story because I'm obsessed with
musical score. Describe how there was the path with the
score for Chinatown. One composer who then what happens? His
(30:13):
name was Philip Lambro, and um, he wrote, I don't
have the language to even describe what music I mean.
You can actually find the score on YouTube. And it
was an atonal, edgy, expressionistic, weird, you know, not melodic,
not what you think of his Hollywood, certainly not what
you think of his forties glamour Hollywood. And it didn't work.
(30:35):
And this was like in the final moments before you know,
scoring comes in at the very end. And what happened
was Evans called Goldsmith and said you got to save
my life, and and Goldsmith said all right. And ten
days later and and ten days sounds like a legend,
you know, sounds like fable fiction stuff. I got ten
(30:57):
days confirmed all over the place. It really was end day.
I mean, if it wasn't ten, it was eleven days.
You know, he turned around a masterpiece in no time.
This is another reason why Evans is Evans. Only people
like Evans can pick up the phone and get somebody
like Goldsmith to write a score for one of the
greatest movies in the world in eleven days or wherever
(31:17):
the funk it is. And it also tells you that
Evans was beloved on a personal level. Yes, you know,
you could make those calls. You make those calls and
someone says yes and turn and turns it around, and
Evans supervised the score. You know. Music was so important
to Evans, so important to Evans, even though he's fucked
up on on Godfather by not you know, Nino Rota
(31:38):
pushing back on Rits, okay, but Evans loves music because
he's finally in his heart just a romantic and a softie.
And also music is a major part of post production,
and that's where Evans can come in and get his
hands in there. Sometimes he gets his hands a little
too much in there, as as as Copeland knows and
(31:59):
suffered by but that's the shadow side of Evans, but
music allows him to allow him to do that. Obviously,
many people know this already that your book has been
options and they're gonna make a movie out of it,
and my dear friend Lauren Michaels is going to produce.
And then in addition to uh Lauren as producer, Ben
Affleck has been collared. If you will to do the directing.
(32:22):
What is something you are hopeful about. I'm hopeful that
they'll do right by Roman in what regard well, you know,
the times that we're living in, you know, uh, may surely,
I'm I'm surprised they even they even did it, you
know that they that they thought that this would be
the right climate to make a movie that stars a
(32:42):
character Roman Polanski, and is a I should dare say
because I wrote it a sympathetic portrait in the in
the book balanced, I hope, but sympathetic. And we live
in such extreme I don't know, we live in such
an extreme yes or no cancel culture, canceled culture this
or that there is no gray area and Roman is
(33:05):
the definition of gray and every great character is every
great character is. So I want to see, not not
just them to do right by Roman because I know
him and respect him, but also I want the movie
to be as good as it could be. And my
theory is that to write a character who lives in
the gray, I wish that for every character in the
movie that they're in the gray. And I wish that
(33:27):
for every character in every movie. Author Sam Wasson on
his book The Big Goodbye Chinatown and the Last Years
of Hollywood. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
the Thing. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue, and
(33:49):
Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening, kid,
Host
Alec Baldwin
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.