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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 have been all working at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood: Brando on One- Eyed Jacks, Hitchcock on an unrealized undertaking referred to as No Bail for the Judge, and Jerry Lewis on his tour-de-force The Bellboy. My backup is a sequence of “Route Cards” I acquired some time in the past on eBay. Each one presumably helped individuals within the Mail Room and others who had enterprise to do with filmmakers on the busy studio lot. Some of the movies have been taking pictures, whereas others have been probably in pre- or post-production, however they have 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 have been filming episodic tv, as have 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 Started in Naples.
Almost one yr 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 referred to as Hatari!) and a few relative newcomers to the ranks of A-list administrators, (Richard) Quine and (Blake) Edwards. Note that One-Eyed Jacks continues to be on the energetic checklist eleven months after the sooner card was issued.
Now let’s bounce forward to August 1, 1966, the newest Route Card I’ve. Surely by now we wouldn’t see main filmmakers from the Golden Age of Hollywood nonetheless at work… or may we? Howard Hawks is making El Dorado with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, George Sidney is directing Ann-Margret in The Swinger, and William Castle, who began out as George Stevens’ assistant director on Penny Serenade in 1941, is directing Sid Caesar in a comedy referred to as The Spirit is Willing. There can also be a sprinkling of recent names, like (William) Friedkin, who’s making his feature-film debut directing Sonny and Cher in Good Times, and Buzz Kulik, a veteran of reside tv who’s making a police drama referred to as Warning Shot, starring one other émigré from the world of TV, David Janssen.
Other movies on the agenda are within the palms of two Brits: Guy Hamilton, who labored his approach up via the ranks to the director’s chair, now steering Michael Caine via Funeral in Berlin, and Freddie Francis who was a grasp cinematographer en path to calling the pictures on The Deadly Bees.
Meanwhile, two older administrators who focus on Westerns are making the Sixties equal of B motion pictures for producer A.C. Lyles: Red Tomahawk, Fort Utah, and Huntsville (later retitled Hostile Guns). Their casts are additionally an echo of an earlier time, that includes the likes of Howard Keel, John Ireland, Virginia Mayo, Joan Caulfield, Broderick Crawford, Yvonne De Carlo, George Montgomery, and Lyles’ good-luck allure, Richard Arlen.
The previous guard had moved on utterly after I started working for Entertainment 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 Nineteen Fifties. Every at times I’d tease him about these Westerns he made, none of them distinguished in any approach apart from the employment they supplied to grateful actors who have been previous their prime. His eyes would glint as he talked about the residual checks that saved coming in for these worthwhile programmers from international locations across the globe.
Yes, I can learn all kinds of issues into the careers of the lads whose final names flip up on the Paramount Pictures Route Cards. That’s why I’m so blissful to have them in my assortment.