Another luncheon attendee is my music lawyer, Jay Cooper, perhaps the smartest musical legal mind in the business. Before Jay was a lawyer, he was also one of the best alto sax players in the music business, playing behind famous superstars like Bobby Darin, Nat King Cole, and the one and only Frank Sinatra. He’d often regale us with stories about the trials and tribulations and laughs he had making records with those legends. When my beloved lawyer Alan U. Schwartz retired, Jay took over all of my legal needs. (I paid him back with lunch!)
Also at the Friday lunch table for many years was famous veteran movie director Richard Donner, Dick to his friends. Unfortunately, he passed away recently and has left a real gap at the lunch table. We all miss his buoyant and mischievous spirit. I actually met Dick before he started directing movies when he directed an episode of Get Smart that I wrote way back in 1965. Since then, Dick directed such exciting blockbuster movies as Superman (1978), The Omen (1976), four Lethal Weapons, and the cult classic comedy adventure film The Goonies (1985). Years after Dick started coming to lunch, one of the kid actors that he cast in The Goonies, Jeff Cohen, graduated from law school and ended up becoming an entertainment lawyer. Fans of the movie would remember him as that cute heavyset little guy called “Chunk.” So when Dick asked if “Chunk” could be a regular member of the table we said, “Let’s give him a try!” Needless to say, we all liked him, and he passed the test.
Jeff isn’t the only “younger” lunch attendee; another great addition to the luncheon conversation is a familiar face to all of you who watch Turner Classic Movies—their talented TV host, Ben Mankiewicz. Ben had interviewed me many times for Turner Classic Movies events, and his love and knowledge of movies was absolutely contagious. So it was a no-brainer to ask him to be part of our lunchtime showbiz roundtable soiree. He is a great contributor.
Every once in a while, we have a special guest, like the aforementioned Michel Hazanavicius and his lovely actress wife and star of The Artist, Bérénice Bejo. When My Favorite Year star Peter O’Toole was in town, he would also join us. Mike Gruskoff had produced a French movie called Quest for Fire (1981) that was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, so whenever Jean-Jacques was in town he was always invited. The same went for Bernardo Bertolucci, the famous Italian director of such films as 1900 (1976) and Last Tango in Paris (1972).
One of our semi-regular guest diners was Norman Lloyd, who believe it or not, lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and six years old! Norman had a storied acting career doing theater with Orson Welles, and then maybe being best known for his role as the evil villain in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous black-and-white classic Saboteur (1942).
If you saw the movie, you would remember the scene: Robert Cummings, our hero, is gripping the sleeve of Norman’s tweed jacket as Norman’s body dangles from the top of the Statue of Liberty, a hundred feet above the ground. The camera slowly moves along his arm and comes in for an extreme close-up at the jacket’s armpit. One after another we see the stitches holding the jacket together start to pop…pop…pop! After a tense twenty seconds the sleeve separates from the armpit and Norman’s agonized face breaks into a howl of despair as he disappears down out of frame. Oh, that Hitchcock! Oh, poor Norman.
Anyway, thank god it was only a movie and Norman went on to not only act for Hitchcock but to later become a director for Hitchcock on his classic TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. When Norman ate with us, he would casually throw out names like “my friend Charlie” that was his doubles partner for tennis. Unbelievably, he was talking about Charlie Chaplin! And he and Charlie were playing doubles against United Artists founders Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith. Norman was always good for a remarkable story. On his last visit he told us a story of watching a ballgame featuring Babe Ruth, who tore his pants sliding into second base and the fans had to wait twenty minutes while they sewed his pants up right there on the spot.
Okay, digression over! Let’s get back to where I was.
Chapter 15
High Anxiety
The writers of Silent Movie, Ron Clark, Barry Levinson, Rudy De Luca, and I, were still all hanging out together and having fun. So I said, “Let’s just do another one.”
I had paid homage to the Western, the horror picture, and silent movies. They said, “Let’s do another genre movie.”
I don’t know who came up with it, but someone suggested Hitchcock.
“Yes! Hitchcock!” I said. “Alfred Hitchcock. He is a genre. Don’t we refer to all his movies as Hitchcock films? He’s even coined a term describing his cinematic style: Hitchcockian!”
I was a fierce devotee of Alfred Hitchcock. He could do anything—drama, comedy, tension, suspense, excitement, and beauty. He had the amazing ability to cut the film in his mind. He didn’t waste time shooting a lot of film and then choosing the right takes. His movie-editing mind was like a Moviola, Avid, and computer combined. He saw the movie as it progressed scene after scene until it arrived at one of his climactic endings. He was, film for film, probably the best movie director that ever lived.
“Let’s look at all his films and create a crazy story in which we incorporate every memorable scene from his movies we’ve ever enjoyed with our own comedy twist,” I said.
They all agreed, and we were off to the races.
When we had a rough draft of the script, I decided to make my momentous call to Alfred Hitchcock. If he didn’t like the idea, if he said no, I probably would have abandoned the whole notion. His secretary answered and I said, “Could you tell Mr. Hitchcock this is Mel Brooks? I make movies and I’d just love to talk to him.”
He gets on the phone. I don’t know what to say. I just start babbling, “Hello, Mr. Hitchcock? This is Mel Brooks.”
And before I could say another word, he cuts me off, “Is this really Mel Brooks? I love your films. I loved Blazing Saddles. It’s absolutely miraculously funny.”
“Coming from you that really means more than I can say.” And then I said, “I have to ask you something really important to both of us, but mostly to me. My last film was a genre film, Silent Movie, and before that I did a genre film all about the West, Blazing Saddles, and a horror genre film, Young Frankenstein. And for my next genre film, I want to do Hitchcock. You, sir, are an entire genre. You are the Hitchcock genre. And I’ll say it till the day I die: You’re the most talented and the best director who ever lived. And I want to salute you with a comedy that includes a faithful but satiric look at some of your most memorable scenes from your films.”
He said, “Well, why don’t you come to my office at Universal on Friday at twelve forty-five? I’m having roast beef with Yorkshire pudding for lunch. I’d love it if you could join me.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be there with bells on.”