MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > OT: Recent Books on The Wild Bunch, Ni...

OT: Recent Books on The Wild Bunch, Nick Nolte, and Casablanca

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
11 replies | jump to latest

Though often I'm in despair about the paucity of "film books" nowadays, a recent bookstore browse led me to three titles of varying interest to me. A book on the making of The Wild Bunch is the most recent, but I also found books from about two years ago on the making of Casablanca, and Nick Nolte's self-penned autobiography. I bought all three. I read all three. Some thoughts:

The book on The Wild Bunch ends up being surprisingly "without new things to say." There have been at least two fine books on director Sam Peckinpah("If They Move, Kill 'Em," about his entire work; and "The Western Films of Sam Peckinpah") and the author of this Wild Bunch book seems to have simply lifted many of the anecdotes from THOSE books. This happens a lot in Hitchcock literature, too. As I recall, the 2003 Patrick McGilligan Hitchcock bio had a chapter on Psycho that was basically and entirely lifted (with credit) from Stephen Rebello's book on the making of Psycho.)

And yet, somewhere, somehow, this new Wild Bunch author finds a FEW new nuggets. For instance, it is again covered that Lee Marvin was first attached as Pike Bishop, but balked over the similarities to The Professionals and a bigger paycheck for Paint Your Wagon. But we get this addition: Marvin actually sat in on some story conferences with Peckinpah and it was MARVIN who came up with the idea of opening the film with the Bunch dressed as soldiers to pull of their payroll job. I'm reminded that it was Warren Beatty who recommended to Rob Reiner that Kathy Bates hobble James Caan's ankle rather than cutting off his foot in Misery.
In both instances, a star who considered a role but then dropped it nonetheless contributed a key story idea.

This Wild Bunch book also gets into detail about the two screenwriters who originated and developed the material FOR YEARS before giving it over to Peckinpah for final polish; we are again reminded how many ideas struggle to come together over YEARS before a movie is made from them(mostly, this doesn't even happen, and the scripts die unmade.)

Something quite sensitive appears in the new Wild Bunch book that was never really covered in previous books on Peckinpah and this "great classic": the fact that it simply could not be re-made today(even though I hear that Mel Gibson is trying), the same way.

For the famous finale has four white Americans dying in the process of killing about 200 Mexicans. I'm not sure anybody much noticed or cared about this in 1969, and the story is very careful to base the slaughter of the 200 "bad" Mexicans on their torture-killing of a "good" Mexican: Angel, the young Mexican member of the Wild Bunch. The author gets a long-ago quote of concern from Ricardo Montelban, and a few contemporary quotes from latino scholars, casting the requisite pall on this infamous action-gore finale.

Suffice it to say that while this finale today has to give us some pause...the author makes a fair historical case(a whole chapter's worth) on who the bad Mexicans were versus the good Mexicans, and how Peckinpah took that into account as historical fact in telling his story.

Anyway, I'm OK in having this new book on The Wild Bunch, but I can't say it has a whole lot new in it.

Oh, one great thing: a photo of William Holden, in full Pike Bishop attire, doing a tightrope walk on a wire next to that bridge that blows up in the movie. The author makes the point that Holden was a lifelong daredevil, and that photo proves it.

---

Nick Nolte went and wrote himself an autobio, and its kind of a hoot, but with an undertow of a life badly spent at times.

One thing I like is how Nolte understands EXACTLY how he became a star, with one step that bothered him even as it "made" him.

The deal: A TV mini-series called "Rich Man, Poor Man" put him on everybody's radar. The movies came calling and he resented the one he felt he had to choose: "The Deep," which had been the follow-up book from Peter Benchley, author of Jaws. Nolte (somewhat of an artistic snob about his own work, but not fake about it) mouthed off that he was in a "sell out" movie from the beginning, but evidently Robert Shaw told him to forget about and just drink a bunch of rum with him, saying, "It's a TREASURE picture, Nick, let's have fun." And they did, and the movie made a ton of dough and Nolte himself realized that he now had a lot of clout. (Having a movie-shoot affair with Jackie Bisset, she of the wet tee-shirt in that movie, helped too.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Nolte promptly used his Rich Man/Deep clout to star in some fairly arty movies, like "who'll Stop the Rain?"(I saw it on release, loved it, Nolte played a tough-guy Vietnam vet in a drug sale drama), and Heartbeat, about Jack Kerouac and some other guy(Nolte played the other guy.)

Interestingly, it was another "art film" of sorts(but a very different sort) that was Nolte's finest hour, for me. Nolte gets into detail about how, despite his Rich Man/Deep heat("I was superhot"), he couldn't get his agent and manager to support his bid to star in a movie of Peter Gent's NFL expose novel "North Dallas Forty." When Nolte set up the deal on his own with Paramount...he promptly fired his agent and manager. (Though he at least went back to the agency and a new superagent -- superagent Sue Mengers -- when somebody agreed to meet him in the agency parking lot with a beer.)

North Dallas Forty is my favorite movie of 1979, and my favorite Nick Nolte movie. Judging from his autobio, I think it is his, too .(I know swanstep shared a good video interview with Nolte where he said some good things about the experience.)

But hell, North Dallas Forty was Forty...years ago! Nolte worked steadily ever since, even as his face has deteriorated into craggy blobbiness and his size has soared (though Nolte proudly notes how he lost all sorts of weight to play the very thin and trim lawyer in 1991's Cape Fear -- always impressive to me.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Nolte would have a bigger hit than North Dallas Forty soon: 48 HRS, the movie that made Eddie Murphy an instant superstar, but where Nolte certainly held his own. Nolte tells a funny story of refusing to work with "that black SNL guy" because he was told by a musician friend "he has a freebase addiction." Turns out that was the OTHER SNL black guy at the time, Garett Morris. Nolte and Murphy hit it off...and Nolte watched as Murphy got a $120 million 7 movie deal out of Paramount. Nolte warned Murphy not to make such a commitment but....no dice ("I have my needs," Murphy told Nolte. Indeed.)

I suppose the "Nick Nolte glory years" are the stretch from Rich Man, Poor Man through The Deep(famous) North Dallas Forty and 48 HRS." After that , he worked a lot -- more and more in low-paying indies, but plenty for studios as "the sixth choice"(if Harrison Ford or Robert Redford said no). Its been a working actor's career. The "Cape Fear" remake was a huge hit, but now that's almost 30 years ago. And then there's The Prince of Tides, directed by and co-starring Streisand, which ALMOST won Nolte a Best Actor award (Hannibal Lecter took it away with much less screen time.)

Funniest quote from Nolte(paraphrased): "My agent told me that I should handle my career like Robert Redford, who does two movies for the studio and then one for himself. I told my agent, well I tell you what: I want to do the next one for me, and then the next one for me, and then all the ones after that for me." Nolte's a man of his word. A lot of indiefilms for low pay on his resume. (Though I like him and Redford as hiking pals in "A Walk in the Woods.")

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In some ways, the Nick Nolte autobio is like other actors's autobios(or biographies): "I did this movie, then I did that movie, and then I was in a BIG movie that saved my career, and I know you want to read my stories about that." ) But Nolte also gives us a look at his dark side: mental breakdowns as a young man, a big drug habit, failed marriages and relationships(but he always has one.)

A funny "think about it" story about one of his wives: she cajoled him into travelling to South Carolina as the "guest of honor" at a party thrown by the wife's father. What Nolte knew is that "Nick Nolte being at a local house party" was an invitation to being mobbed by female and male fans alike, in close quarters. He knew what fame meant. So he hid out at somebody's house in South Carolina who was "a friend of the family", met the grown daughter of the household -- and eventually married HER, after divorcing the wife who sent him to South Carolina. (But the new wife cheated on him, and THEY divorced.) Also, before these two wives, Nolte was in an "open marriage" with a first wife that broke up when she broke the rules(slept with his best friend. But I thought it was an OPEN marriage?) Actors...

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Finally, there is this: though Nolte admirably shows how he hustled in low-pay/no-pay local theater work for 15 years before Rich Man, Poor Man made him(one theater was in Phoenix, there's your weak Psycho connection!), he also paints a portrait of life in 1960's hippie commune, free-love Los Angeles(when he WAS poor) which lays out the whole Manson Era perfectly: Nolte writes of living in houses where all sorts of long-haired drug taking strangers came in and out, and "crashed" and left. Free love, threesomes and foursomes and all-somes. And , occasionally "scary strangers" whom Nolte personally threw out as the designated bouncer. Maybe had Nolte been at Sharon Tate's house, he could have done something. But it sounds like he had some near misses anyway.

Movie actors are a strange breed. They make incredible money for just ...acting. But probably more for looking and sounding like they do. And if they are Nick Nolte, there's a lot of drugs and booze along the way(how come he lived but Belushi died? Choice of drugs?). They shouldn't be interesting, but somehow they are. That's how I felt when I finished Nolte's book on himself. And I love North Dallas Forty. Just like he does.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Casablanca book.

I bought that one because Casablanca is one of my three favorites of the forties, an era of movie making I just can't relate to , movie-wise(its my problem.) The other two are: The Best Years of Our Lives(with its wonderfully modern tear-jerking score and great multi-character story) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein(and the Wolf Man! And Dracula! And The Invisible Man.)

The book keeps calling Casablanca "one of the most beloved movies ever made," and I thought: hey, nobody ever calls Psycho "beloved." Though in its weird way, it kind of is, isn't it? Raymond Durgnat offered a weird assessment of Psycho: that is created a "lurking nostalgia for evil." I never knew what he REALLY meant(he probably didn't either) but certainly nostalgia suffuses Psycho now, and its just human enough(in the performances of Perkins and Leigh) to create a certain affection for the characters even given the horrible events that occur.

But back to Casablanca. That IS a beloved movie, and its that ending(SPOILERS? Honestly, SPOILERS?) that did it: Bogie gallantly gives up the Love of his Life to Another Man(her husband; turned out the Hays Code people liked that), and gallantly signs up for the cause.

But as I like to say...hey, wait a minute: Bogie gets Super Cool Ladies Man Louis Renault (Claude Rains) as his consolation buddy. And those guys are gonna get LAID. Between WWI anti-Nazi action. I've always seen Casablanca as a "buddy movie" in which the two goodie-goodies(Ilsa and Lazlo) are sent on their way and the two cool guys get each other(and not in a gay way. Not in this movie.) Hawkeye and Trapper John. Rick and Renault.

One realizes that Renault just wouldn't play in the "me too" era. He pretty much forces beauties to sleep with him in exchange for visas. He can't be allowed to turn good guy at the end scot-free. The Hays Code may be gone, but new censorship has replaced it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Some points I liked in the Casablanca book:

ONE: All those great lines that people "in the know" can use in real life: Round up the usual suspects. I'm shocked...SHOCKED to find gambling in this establishment. Of all the saloons in all the world, she picks this one. The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans....here's looking at you, kid" are..

..evidently being forgotten by a new generation. The book author talks of a recent talk given by a film scholar where he asked the audience to identify what movie those lines were from...and nobody could. Casablanca is losing currency as the source of "lines to live by."

TWO: Damn that Hays Code. Yes, I realize that the censorship of the late 30's through the mid-sixties forced filmmakers to use "subtle innuendo" to get sexual points across but to read all the objections of the Hays Code people to the Casablanca script is maddening. Practically ANYTHING too direct was cut. On the other hand, in the finished product, yes it is pretty clear than Renault forcibly beds young women in exchange for visas.

Still this is the line in the script when Renault sees Bogie turn down a woman:

"You shouldn't throw women away like that, someday they may be rationed."

In the film:

"You shouldn't throw women away like that, someday they may be scarce."

Close...but no cigar. There are some great lines in Casablanca, but we LOST some other great lines to the Hays Code.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

THREE: In a later chapter, the book focusses a bit on Woody Allen's stage play and film with the Bogie references: "Play it Again, Sam"(and yes, I know that Bogie never said that.) Interesting, the play begins with Allen watching The Big Sleep. The movie begins with Allen watching Casablanca. The play takes place in NYC. the movie takes place in Vertigo-town San Francisco(and plays really interesting because of it: what's Woody Allen doing there?)

But then the Casablanca author digs up this shocker quote from Old Woody Allen (verbatim from the book):

"Play it Again Sam is a junky play. It is typical commercial claptrap and nothing I'm proud of. I wrote it when I was younger and I would not do it the same way, or any way, again."

Wow. As an "early funny one" (movie-wise, and with Herbert Ross directing, which evidently infuriated Woody Allen) I recall Play It Again Sam as generating huge laughs in the theater and a real affection for "the ghost of Humphrey Bogart" as a man's-man mentor to Allen. Woody Allen is flat out wrong about one of his best movies. Next to the same quote above, he does say he is glad that he met Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts via the play.

The Casablanca book author spends some good time on all the "Casablanca follow-ups":

"A Night in Casablanca" with the Marx Brothers. When Jack Warner objected, Groucho Marx wrote back, "well, what about this Warner Brothers business? We are the Marx Brothers, and we haven't objected to your use of Brothers in your name."

A pitch to Francois Truffaut to remake Casablanca as "a French film." (He actually considered it for awhile.)

A short-lived TV series with David Soul(Starsky and Hutch)as Rick.

A New Yorker cartoon in which Bogart's line "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon and for the rest of your life," is given to Bogart as a building contractor responding on when a house will be done.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A funny SNL sketch(remember those?) where Kate McKinnon as Ilsa is DESPERATE to get on that plane to safety with Lazslo, and just HUMORS Bogie as he makes his big speech -- she is trying to get away from him and run to the plane ("We'll always have Paris" "Ah...yeah, yeah...Paris! Yeah that was the BEST!")

And a Simpsons spoof. Whatever.

---

I was in some sort of a mood, buying those three books. But The Wild Bunch is my favorite of 1969 and an all-time favorite(Molly's Game is my favorite of 2017 and NOT an all-time favorite), Casablanca one of my few favorites from the forties, and Nick Nolte was in my favorite of 1979, so I guess that was the organizing principle. Taken together, the books make the point that Hollywood and its denizens changed over the decades. But not really that much. (Indeed, major substance abuser Nolte writes of how he signed on to work with Bill Holden on That Championship Season ,but bailed out in terror when Holden died from a drunken fall before the movie could be made. Robert Mitchum and Good ol' Bruce Dern took the Holden and Nolte roles.)

And I'm glad the Hays Code is gone.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Wow. As an "early funny one" (movie-wise, and with Herbert Ross directing, which evidently infuriated Woody Allen) I recall Play It Again Sam as generating huge laughs in the theater and a real affection for "the ghost of Humphrey Bogart" as a man's-man mentor to Allen.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I first saw Play It Again Sam on 16 mm in 1981 as part of a whole weekend Allen festival. It killed. Whole audience in stitches. Some of its key jokes are possibly a little shallow and maybe don't work well on rewatch (or survive being retold), but first time through they're amazing.

---

I've always felt that there was a trace of the "overrated" to Woody Allen even when he was a pretty big star in the 70's. Take a good hard look at "Take the Money and Run" and "Bananas" and you will see some of the jokes falling pretty flat or being pretty "obvious." Sleeper was somewhat better with its emphasis on silent comedy, Dixieland jazz and futuristic sets. Love and Death is my favorite -- boy do the lines kill in THAT one. And then he made Annie Hall, which is great but which turned out to be the "gateway" to the serious artist Woody Allen became.

Which gets me back to Play It Again Sam. It DID get big laughs and mainly for some very broad humor where Woody freaks out trying both to prepare for a blind date(using a hair dryer on himself he almost blows his head off) and during the blind date(he pulls a record album cover from his bookshelf and the record inside flies out like a flying weapon and breaks something.) Big laughs in the theater for both the slapstick and for Woody's "capture" of a divorced man trying to re-enter the dating world.

Its odd. Whereas Take the Money and Run, Bananas, and Sleeper were "surreal satires," Play it Again Sam played out as a realistic love story -- except for the fantasy figure of Bogart invading the story from time to time. He's actually a more sexist Bogie than the real thing - advising Woody to smack a woman around to keep her in line -- but he's still macho and manly and he DOES offer some lessons in how to get the girl.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I recall being very sad when, in the movie, the fantasy figure of Woody's ex-wife suddenly appears to shoot the Ghost of Bogart dead. Its all fanciful, but the idea that Play It Again Sam is LOSING Bogart really hurt the storyline, I felt. And then, Bogart returns at the end(I mean, he's both a ghost AND a fantasy -- of course he can come back) and Play It Again Sam feels good again.

Perfect movie? No. Lotta laughs? Yes. And even a sweet tale of infidelity as a cure for a loss of romantic confidence.

Trivia: Back in 1972, I saw Play It Again Sam twice. The first time was in a packed theater, laughing all the way. The second time was at the drive-in on a double bill with THE GODFATHER! That's right, the THREE HOUR LONG Godfather. Near the end of 1972, Paramount decided to double-bill its two biggest 1972 hits(Sam was well behind the gross of Godfather, though) and I soldiered on through five hours of movies that December night. Didn't mind. Loved both movies. Had a date with me and everything.)