I’m not saying that these three legendary figures labored collectively, and even shared a lunch, however right here is proof that they might have. On September 1, 1960 they had been all working at Paramount Photos in Hollywood: Brando on One- Eyed JacksHitchcock on an unrealized undertaking known as No Bail for the Chooseand Jerry Lewis on his tour-de-force The Bellboy. My backup is a sequence of “Route Playing cards” I acquired some time in the past on eBay. Every one presumably helped individuals within the Mail Room and others who had enterprise to do with filmmakers on the busy studio lot. Among the movies had been taking pictures, whereas others had been possible in pre- or post-production, however they had been all headquartered on Melrose Avenue.
My earliest card is dated October 1, 1959 and it options such distinguished administrators (all listed by last-name solely) as Cukor, Curtiz, Brando, and Hitchcock, together with (Mel) Shavelson, (Melvin) Frank, (Frank) Tashlin, and (Norman) Taurog. Some veterans like (John) Brahm had been filming episodic tv, as had been their youthful brethren (Irvin) Kershner, (Christian) Nyby, and (Joseph) Pevney. Some movies are referred to by their working titles: Bay of Naples later grew to become It Began in Naples.
Virtually one 12 months later, on September 1, 1960, we once more discover such acquainted names as Hitchcock, Taurog, and (Howard) Hawks, then engaged on The African Story (quickly to be known as Hazard!) and a few relative newcomers to the ranks of A-list administrators, (Richard) Quine and (Blake) Edwards. Be aware that One-Eyed Jacks remains to be on the energetic record eleven months after the sooner card was issued.
Now let’s leap forward to August 1, 1966, the most recent Route Card I’ve. Absolutely by now we wouldn’t see main filmmakers from the Golden Age of Hollywood nonetheless at work… or would possibly we? Howard Hawks is making The Golden with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, George Sidney is directing Ann-Margret in The Swingerand William Citadel, who began out as George Stevens’ assistant director on Penny Serenade in 1941, is directing Sid Caesar in a comedy known as The Spirit is Prepared. There may be additionally a sprinkling of recent names, like (William) Friedkin, who’s making his feature-film debut directing Sonny and Cher in Good Occasions, and Buzz Kulik, a veteran of dwell tv who’s making a police drama known as Warning Shot, starring one other émigré from the world of TV, David Janssen.
Different movies on the agenda are within the palms of two Brits: Man Hamilton, who labored his approach up by the ranks to the director’s chair, now steering Michael Caine by Funeral in Berlin, and Freddie Francis who was a grasp cinematographer en path to calling the pictures on The Lethal Bees.
In the meantime, two older administrators who focus on Westerns are making the Sixties equal of B films for producer A.C. Lyles: Pink Tomahawk, Fort Utah, and Huntsville (later retitled Hostile Weapons). Their casts are additionally an echo of an earlier time, that includes the likes of Howard Keel, John Eire, Virginia Mayo, Joan Caulfield, Broderick Crawford, Yvonne De Carlo, George Montgomery, and Lyles’ good-luck appeal, Richard Arlen.
The outdated guard had moved on fully after I started working for Leisure Tonight on the Paramount lot in 1983, however A.C. Lyles was nonetheless there, holding court docket within the studio eating room—and within the car parking zone, standing subsequent to his mint-condition Thunderbird from the Fifties. Now and again I’d tease him about these Westerns he made, none of them distinguished in any approach aside from the employment they provided to grateful actors who had been previous their prime. His eyes would glint as he talked about the residual checks that stored coming in for these worthwhile programmers from international locations across the globe.
Sure, I can learn all kinds of issues into the careers of the boys whose final names flip up on the Paramount Photos Route Playing cards. That’s why I’m so joyful to have them in my assortment.
