Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 321: Inside the Golden Age of Hollywood with George Stevens Jr.

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BPS 321: Inside the Golden Age of Hollywood with George Stevens Jr. · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
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Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three twenty one. Yeah, I didn't get into
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Sundance either. Anonymous broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we
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really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
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showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
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screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to
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another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex
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Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
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readers, head on over to cover my screenplay dot com. Now, Guys,
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today on the show, we have Oscar winning legendary filmmaker and producer George
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Stevens Junior. Now George is an American writer, playwright, director, and
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producer. He is the founder of the American Film Institute and the creator of
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the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also the co creator of the Kennedy
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Center Honors. George and I had a very deep conversation about his legacy,
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his father's work, his legendary father, George Stevens's directorial work, what he
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hopes the industry will become, and what it was like living in the Golden
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Age of Hollywood. So, without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation
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with George Stevens Junior. I like to welcome to the show, George Stevens
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Jior. How are you doing George, I'm doing well. Thank you,
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Thank you so much for coming on the show. Sir. I'm excited to
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talk to You've lived a very interesting life, sir, to say the least,
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well, I'm working on it. You have definitely gone through some journeys
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in your life in the film industry, in politics, in so many different
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areas. So my first, my first question to you is how did you
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get started in the film industry? And I know your father was a little
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well known directed The Little Guy started out a few years ago, But how
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did did you get your interest? How did you get your foot in the
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door, if you will, Well, as you suggest, my father was
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a director, but my he just for full disclosure, My great grandmother was
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born in San Francisco after the Civil War and became an actress and a fine
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actress on the stage, and she was known as the youngest Ophelia to the
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great Edwin Booth's Hamlet. He was the greatest Shakespearean actor really, I think
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in American history. Certainly his hamlet is renowned. And she started five generations
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of Stevens's in show business. Her daughter, Georgie Cooper was my father's mother,
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and she married an actor called Lander's Stevens and it kind of went on
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from there. And yes, having been born to a father who was a
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director. At the time I was born, he was photographing Laurel and Hardy
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comedies as a cameraman, and in nineteen thirty five he directed Alice Adams with
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Katherine Hepburn and Fred McMurray at age thirty and from then on he just made
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the great films, one after the other. Had a three year experience in
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World War Two overseas in that chronology, and when he came back from the
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war, I was a couple of years after that. I was graduating from
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high school and I didn't have a summer job, and he said, well,
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you can help me, and he gave me two jobs. One did
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this at a home and was too break down Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy,
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the great novel of a of a murder in the Eastern United States, because
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he was about to write the screenplay for what became called A Place in the
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Sun with Montgomery Cliff and Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winners, which was his first
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Oscar winning picture as a director, and I broke that down and gave him
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all the information and two notebooks. And then also I was to read the
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stories they sent from Paramount Pictures, where his company was. They'd send books,
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screenplays, all sorts of stuff, and it was pretty yeah, becames
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it was kind of boring because most of these were kind of triakly love novels,
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you know, for a seventeen year old and hot summer afternoons. Yeah,
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but one afternoon a little smaller book came and I picked it up and
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I read it in the afternoon and I want to see him that night with
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the book in my hand, and I walked in. He was in bed
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reading and I said, Dad, I said, this is really a good
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I think you ought to read it. And he said, why don't you
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tell me the story? So I started my brain started working and I started
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reconstructing this book that I'd read, and I walked around his bed telling him
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the story of Shane. It was Jack Shaker's novel, and you know,
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I could get more interested in that A little boy with this gun slinger he
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had. And then the next summer I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with
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my first job on a movie set. I was what was called company clerk,
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which I'm meant I kept track of stuff. But I was right near
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the camera, and I did not know it was going to be a classic
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film. Shane is celebrating its seventieth anniversary this year. And so it was
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seventy one years ago that I was in Jackson Hole watching Alan Ladd and Van
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Heflin and Jean Arthur and this little boy from New York who'd never been west
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of New Jersey um and uh he uh and Jack Palance who came was his
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first major role. Uh. And So I was there, I was seeing
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it all and and I did kind of fall in love with it. You
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got so, I mean, you were born into the business. I know
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a lot of people who've been born in the business that don't get bitten by
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the book. But it seems like you were not only bitten. You were
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not You were malled by the book. And some people get bitten badly by
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it all the way. You know that particularly. I mean, I'm very
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fortunate that I had a wonderful father and mother, but sons of famous fathers
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there you know at the time that most of them were having difficulty with it.
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And I think largely by the nature of my father, it worked out
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beautifully for him and for me. We became partners and did things together later.
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Now you also worked on, you worked on as a PA on a
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bunch of your father's movies. Once specifically was a little phone called Giant.
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What was it like being on set watching Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean And what's
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the biggest lesson you pulled from being on the set of such a classic film
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like that? Gosh, there's so many, Alex But it was a great
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experience because I gotten out of the Air Force, I gotten out of the
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college Buck Occidental College, and the Korean War ended and they postponed my commission
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for a year, and I had nothing to do. And at that very
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moment, or a couple of months before, Dad had acquired the novel Giant
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and made a deal with Warner Brothers to make it. So I spent nine
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months with him and two writers in his living room working on the scriptive Giant.
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I obviously as a junior partner observer for the most part, but he
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started to learn about film structure, and then one night then I went in
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the Air Force. And when he started shooting just before I was in Los
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Angeles and he said, go show you a movie. So my mother and
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Dad and I went to Musso Franks on Hollywood Boulevard and then across the street
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to the Egyptian Theater and saw Elia Kazan's East of Eden. And the reason
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he wanted me to see it was that this young actor, never seen before
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comes on the screen and had this way of kind of walking and this uh
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hooded eyes and it was James Steen, and Dad was considering casting him in
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the role of jet Reek. We'll be right back after a from our sponsor,
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and now back to the show. Who in the book was described at
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this sort of burly big fellow, but Jimmy Dean was his shooting rebel without
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a cause at Warner Brothers. And he kept hanging around Dad's office because he
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knew about Giant and he wanted to be a Giant. And though he was
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very different than jet Reek had been imagined, Dad thought he was a kind
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of a once in a lifetime talent and gave him that role. And when
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you think about it, the three stars Rock Hudson was twenty eight, These
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actors all going on to play in their fifties, you know, with gray
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hair. Elizabeth was twenty three and Jimmy Dean was twenty three, and for
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what it was worth. I was twenty three, and you know, but
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to watch this work go on. Being in the Air Force, I flew
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to Virginia to see the film. Shot in Virginia where the film begins where
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Elizabeth Taylor is the daughter of this man with a great stallion war Winds,
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and Rock Hudson comes from Texas to buy war Winds and they fall in love
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very quickly, etc. Etc. So I was there, and then I
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would fly into Marfa, Texas, and then I would be on the set,
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and there were lots of experiences. I've a sad experience. I was
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on the set very late in the picture. Jimmy Dean had finished all of
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his shooting and he had agreed not to dry. He had a little race
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car and he'd agreed not to drive it while the film was going on because
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if he broke his leg, everybody would be out of work. He understood
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that, but he'd finished shooting, so he bought a sport a Porsche Spider,
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I think a poor Spider five hundred it was called. And I was
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on the set one day and Jimmy walked in with his kind of tinted glasses
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and told me about the car, and he said, you want to ride?
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So I walked outside the big sound stage at Warner Brothers with all those
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you know, narrow roads you've seen pictures if you haven't been there, and
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this little gray roadster sitting on the ground seemed so tiny. And we got
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into it and he revved it up and we drove through the studio lots of
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thank god, a prop truck wasn't coming or a studio policeman, and came
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back Mark and he said what do you think? And I said, well,
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it's pretty good. It's pretty good. Well now, of course,
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the sad part of the story is that two weeks later too, he had
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told my father he was going to ship the car up to Selena's from Los
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Angeles, where he was going to be racing. But on the morning of
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the day he decided not to ship it, and he and his mechanic got
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in the car and Jimmy drove it up and they had that accident on the
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Pacific Coast Highway. And Jimmy was really a He was a complicated guy,
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but he was talented and fun and I think he had plans to become a
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director. Uh and uh, you know, but it was such a tragic
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loss. And it is strange how you know this is sixty five years ago,
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Giant, how his memory lives today? Oh, without question, he's.
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I mean I've been, I've been at the observatory. I've seen the
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block there in the statute James Dean, Yeah, I mean he's I mean
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Rebel, those those movies A Giant, Rebel and East of Eden, I
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mean, they just it is one of the tragic stories of of of Hollywood
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history, without question. What could have what else could have been? What
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else could he have done if given the opportunity? It was? It was,
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it was pretty, it was by then twenty four had a whole life
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ahead of him. You asked about a lesson on Giant, one that might
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be interested filmmaker listeners who were editing the film. I was now out of
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the Air Force. Yeah, and three hour and twenty minute film Giant.
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Yeah. We premiered it at the Turner Classic Movies Festival last year. Steven
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Spielberg and I introduced a restoration of it, and that film plays. To
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see it with an audience all those years later, and they're just with it
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every minute on the big giant Imax screen. You know, it's a film
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about an independent women woman. They weren't making films about independent women in nineteen
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fifty six. And it's a film about the Hispanic problem or that existed back
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then, and it's an issue we are still working with in our country.
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So the film is so far ahead of its time, and it's and it's
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kind of values and concerns. But we were editing, and we've been I've
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been working with him for a year in the editing room again, hot summer,
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you know, and I've got a golf game to worry about. And
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we've had two previews. And I said to him, just the two of
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us there, and you know, we're running the picture. And I said,
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Dad, I said, this picture, we've had two previews, audiences
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to love it. I think, just don't you want to just get it
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out there? And he looked at me and he said, when you think,
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how many man hours I think and they said, man and woman hours
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are going to be spent over the years watching this picture. People sitting and
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watching it. How much time will be spent. Don't you think it's worth
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a little more of our time right now to make it as good as we
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can. And it's a lesson that I took with me and everything that I've
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done in that idea and that it's just I just finished a book, as
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we're called, My Place in the Sun, Life in the Golden Age of
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Hollywood and Washington, and I was finishing it during COVID, which gave me
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time, and I worked on it. Like Giant, I just would go
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back to you quote real one as why he would do chapter one and go
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through it and just polish it and make it as good for the audience as
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you can. So the lesson is respect for the audience, and I think
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that should be in the head of every filmmaker, absolutely without question. Now
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you were when you were on the set of Giant, you had a young
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Elizabeth Taylor, which was your age at the time. Um, she's obviously
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a legend, and what she was able to do, I've got to imagine,
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guy to guy, you must have had a crush on her. I
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mean every man on that set probably had a crush on her. Well,
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she met her age. I met her a few years before when Dad was
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took Place in the Sun and I came on the set and a Saturday and
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Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor were shooting a scene, and I watched Dad direct
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the scene and a quick story. He had people who make films, and
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he said, Monty, why don't you to go over there by the pool
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table, and Elizabeth, why don't you just start at the door, and
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then we would just try to And so they went and they did the scene
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with a clip clift script script girl, a person giving her, you know,
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corrections if they missed the dialogue, you know, And Dad said,
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all right, he said, let's do it one more time, and sudden
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he went act and they did it again. Yeah, and oh, so
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that's good. Let's do it one more time, and so got they go
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that they do it again, and then after that, Monty comes over and
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comes up close to him and starts asking questions, and Elizabeth comes over anyway,
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and and anyway, they kind of got the scene all set and it
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was time for lunch. And I said to Dad, I said, why
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don't you happen to do it three times before you gave him any instruction?
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He said, sometimes it's helpful for the actors to know that they may need
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some help. You know. That's brilliant, that's actually pretty brilliant. It's
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brilliantly effective about it. You know. His his job was to make the
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actors comfortable, but in order to give them advice, the advice has to
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be welcome. If he goes over and says, no, no, why
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don't you go here? And you go there and do that anyway, it's
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just a little lesson and uh in directing. But on that day he introduced
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me to Elizabeth on the set, I mean, and she was, without
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question, in my mind, the most beautiful person on the planet, you
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know. And then as we're getting for lunch, Elizabeth walks over said would
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you like to go to lunch? So I found myself walking down the streets
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of the Paramount studio. We were both seventeen and uh, and we go
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to the commissary and she kind of walks in and I follow in her wake
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as the woman takes her to a corner table and all and then we had
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and she said what would you like? And I was kind of fumbling around
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with the menu, said I'm going to have a hamburger and a chop at
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milkshake. And I said that works, And so I had lunch with Elizabeth
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Taylor. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now
20:06
back to the show, which was and throughout many episodes in my book,
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because Elizabeth kept coming in and out of my life and right up to the
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very end of hers and she's a she was a wonderful talent and great fun
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That must have been just amazing. Well, listen with all of the I
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mean, you grew up in the Golden Age of Hollywood and you were in
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the midst of it. You were in the thick of it. Were there
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any actors or actresses that had a major impression on you in your life?
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Well, obviously many from on the screen, and for Lucky some of the
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older ones Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fond, Betty Davis, and I when I
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started the American Film Institute, that's another story. As I started the American
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Film Institute Life Achievement Award, and you know, the first was John Ford
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and the second was James Cagney, and Orson Welles and Jimmy Stewart and Capra
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and Fred Aston got on a few other names. Yes, yeah, and
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uh so I knew all of those greats. But I think the two who
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because I had I worked with them in personal situations were Sidney Potier and Jack
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Lemon. They were a few years older than I am, but more of
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my generation, and I I knew, I knew them in all aspects of
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their lives. Me became great friends. But I did I've produced and directed
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and wrote Separate but Equal, the Story of Brown versus the Board of Education,
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a miniseries that one the Emmy for the Outstanding Mini Series, and I
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did another only I've only done too mini series and both one the Emmy,
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one with Jack and one with Sydney. And Jack was just this extraordinary,
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gifted fellow who could do drama and comedy and was such fun and Sydney had
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all the great human qualities in addition to being such a pioneer in the matter
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of and Separate that Equal was about equal justice. He played Thurgood Marshall arguing,
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developing and arguing the case against segregated schools and the Supreme Court that led
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to the outline of segregated schools. So those two, those are two pretty
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pretty impressive ones, to say the least, both legends in their own right
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because you were in the Golden Age. Is there any misconceptions that people have
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of that time in Hollywood, at that time in filmmaking in general, any
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misconceptions that you think that uh, that you can think that comes to suit
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to your mind. Um, I guess what I don't think. I guess
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they are all kinds of conception, Alex. But one is it looks like
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a lot of fun. It was really hard work and making and making the
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great films, particularly though, uh, you know, accepting those challenges.
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And then films are filled with adversity if something's going to go wrong, you
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know, and if you're talking from the director's standpoint, Uh, how do
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you deal with adversity? How do you deal with personalities? But when you
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tie a ribbon around it, uh, you know, Turner classic movie,
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it's just amazing how so often you turn on and there's something that's just delightful,
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and it's that there's another phrase that's kind of part of the Stevens family
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that it involves another little story. But Dad and I went to the Academy
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Award to nineteen fifty two and I sat next to him, and Joseph L.
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Mankowitz came on the stage, who had won the Oscar the year before
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for All About Eve, and he read the nominees for Best Director, and
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he said, John Houston, the African Queen, William Wyler Detective Story,
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Vincent Minnelli, an American in Paris, Elia Kazan, a streetcar named Desire,
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and George Stevens a place in the Sun. It's a pretty cool year
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to say that composition was stiff that year. Let's just say. And I
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wouldn't be telling you this story if John Houston had won for African Queen.
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My father won his first oscar for his son, and we were writing home
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that night, and the oscar was in the seat between us. He was
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driving the car a little old school there, and the oscar was on the
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seat between us, and for some reason he looked at me and he said,
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you know, he said, we'll have a better idea. What kind
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of a film this is? In about twenty five years now, this is
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when movies came and went. There were no cinema techs, there were no
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DVD, there was no streaming. But he, having grown up in the
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theater and he read the great plays, understood that the important thing about a
26:02
film was would it stand the test of time? And he did not know
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that the seventeen year old sitting next to him would one day be the founder
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of the American Film Institute, which is based on the idea of movies that
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last and the test of time, or the Kennedy Center Honors, which is
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about artists whose work stands the test of time. But it is also like
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respecting the audience. This idea of the test of time is kind of how
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I frame my appreciation for my own work, for you know, the work
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that I value and treasure. Now, how did you says, since you
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brought up the a FI, which is obviously a legendary institution of film institution,
26:53
one of the greatest film schools ever to be created, as well as
26:56
the honors that you create a Lifetime achieve Award, which I watched every year
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when they came out. I started in the eighties when it's going to come
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out, and you remember Clinton, Marty and Steven and you know Jack and
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these these guys. There was just so much fun, especially when Robert Williams
27:14
showed up, uh or John Stewart or or Rickles or Ricles, I mean
27:22
destroying Spersese, which was in the only Rickles could do. So what how
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did you begin and what caused you to begin to create the AFI which is
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pretty pretty you know, audacious goal to start on it. Well, I
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was after Giant, I worked with my father, I started directing. I
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directed Peter Gunn, Alfred Hitchcock presents those kind of shows. And then I
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went to work with my father on the Diary of Anne Frank and we completed
27:52
that. I was an associate producer, and then he got behind schedule and
27:56
I directed all of the location work and Amsterdam. He had always done his
28:00
own location work, so it was a big step up for me. But
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I did kind of joke to my friends that said, I think I'm spending
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going to devote my entire life to becoming the second best film director in my
28:15
family. And then Edward R. Murrow, the great broadcaster, came into
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my life. President Kennedy had been elected and asked ed to run the United
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States Information Agency, which made the Voice of America, telling America's story abroad.
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And they've had a film division. They made three hundred documentaries a year,
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and ed wasn't satisfied with the documentaries, and he asked me to come
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run the motion picture division of USIA. And it took me into the new
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frontier and President Kennedy, it's just a whole exhilarating new world and I was
28:57
making films. I mean, I mean was able to. Ed wanted a
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total rejuvenation of what was being done under the more staid Eisenhower administration. And
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I've brought in lots of young filmmakers who went on to have great careers,
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and we made wonderful films. And I love one thing about President Kennedy.
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He was so eloquent, and he was off, had wonderful quotes at his
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speeches, and one that I remember I'd written down. He read the ancient
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ancient Greek poetry, you know, and he loved to quote. And then
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he spoke of the Greek definition of happiness, which the ancient Greek said is
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the fullest use of one's powers along lines of excellence. And I realized that
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Ed Murrow and President Kennedy had put me in the saddle of Greek happiness.
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We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
30:03
the show. I was making films, loving what I was doing of long
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lines to excellence and for public purpose. So it was a wonderful Murrow and
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Kennedy were great influences on me. At age thirty twenty nine and thirty when
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I came to that job, and then and then when did you actually start
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the FIH in nineteen sixty seven, but I had, you know, in
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the Kennedy government because now there's not much about film going on, and I,
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you know, had earned some prominence because people were conscious of the films
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we were making and working with Murrow, and so people would come to me
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when it was an issue of film. And the National Endowment for the Arts
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was created to support the arts, the first legislation funding for the arts.
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And they knew how they could give grants to ballet companies or symphony orchestras,
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but what do they do about film? And you can't give a grant to
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MGM, you know. So it came to me and I suggested an American
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Film Institute because I had been working with young filmmakers and knew that we needed
31:22
a better opportunity and training. I was conscious of the disappearing of our film
31:29
heritage, that all the films made on nitrate stop from the beginning up the
31:36
nineteen forties were disappearing, nope, catching on fire or in great archive fires
31:44
or you know. So we started this film rescue program at A five and
31:49
I was asked to run it. Actually Gregory Peck was the first chairman,
31:55
and Sydney Pottier to bring his name up again, was vice chairman of A
32:00
five when we started it. Now, at that time, it correct me
32:02
if I'm long. There weren't that many film schools or programs in the country
32:07
at all, right in the sixth or several there, you know, UCLA
32:12
and USC had film programs in Columbia, an NYU, maybe a few others,
32:16
but they were part of four year courses. And we had a theory.
32:22
I had a theory that what we needed was a bridge from education to
32:28
the profession. And so we called our students fellows, and they came for
32:35
two years to gain that add a knowledge or you weren't required to have been
32:43
a film student, you know. I was as interested in what they were
32:46
going to bring to the screen as to whether they knew how to run a
32:52
moviola. You know. Among our first outstanding students, one was Terrence Malick.
33:00
And Terry had made one little thirteen minute film, I think in the
33:06
back of a taxi cab bet he had. He was a Rhodes scholar,
33:13
he was teaching philosophy at MIT met a journalist. He was going to bring
33:17
something to the screen. And another was an art student in Philadelphia who we
33:24
gave a grant to make a little film called The Grandmother, which is picture
33:30
a perfect little film about a grandmother. It was quite weird. And then
33:35
he came to a FI and his name was David Lynch. Where you were
33:38
going with that? Ahead of me? I was ahead of you on that
33:43
one the second you said weird and I already felt that was David coming in.
33:46
I mean, yeah, who are some kid for the audience. Can
33:49
you kind of talk a little bit about who the alumni are, because you
33:52
have, you know, the AFI has popped out some of cinema's best tours
33:58
and best filming. Yeah, joannest Kaminsky, the cinematographer who's of course as
34:05
all of you and Spielberg's films, uh, Darren Aronowsky, Caleb desh and
34:10
Noll who's with one of the first fellows and is still the top cinematographer.
34:17
Um uh uh oh gosh. And somebody the woman who directed Koda. Oh
34:25
yeah, yes, she's there and and just outstanding. I wish I had
34:32
the list in front of me, But those are a few of them,
34:36
memory, but just many, many, wonderful filmmakers are from Ed's Wick and
34:45
Marca had it. I've had it on the show. It just such a
34:47
wonderful Oh, such a wonderful soul. Ohways, such a wonderful It's like
34:51
talking when I had him on the show, it was like talking to the
34:53
Church of cinema. So just the reverence like yourself, the reverence for cinema
35:00
is remarkable. You mentioned that you worked on Alfred Hitchcock Presents as a director.
35:05
Am I Am I fair to say that you met mister Hitchcock and spoke
35:08
to him and I worked with him, and what about you? Indeed,
35:12
yes, oh please, just to tell me some stories about Alfred please,
35:16
yes, but actually only to say only almost to say hello. When I
35:22
was directing Alfred Hitchcock, because he would busy making Psycho or something. But
35:28
he had a wonderful woman, Joe and Harrison, this oneman who ran it,
35:32
and I really worked through Joan. But then when I started the AFI,
35:39
Hitchcock would come and do wonderful seminars and if he was just so you,
35:46
so precise about moviemaking and wanted to simplify it. And I remember him
35:54
saying how important the screenplay is and uh he said once the screenplay, Uh
36:05
is right. He says, it's automatic. Uh. And then somebody said,
36:12
why why don't you let somebody else then go direct it? He said,
36:16
they may screw it up and that roll away. He used to speak
36:24
that. We honored him with the AFI Life Achievement Award show Uh and uh.
36:34
You know he he s been very much at the end of his a
36:37
career. He died the next year. UM and uh, but he is
36:45
what you see is what you get with hitch h That's that manner and attitude.
36:52
Uh is who he is. Um. As a director, we all
36:59
go through times that we feel like the world is gonna come crash down around
37:04
us on set during a production. What was that out of all the projects
37:08
you've been on, or been on your father's set or your set, what
37:13
was the biggest calamity or thing that you obstacle that came across and how did
37:16
you overcome it in the day. Gosh, I've been trying to think of
37:22
my father's films. They were so frequent. But if you this is not
37:30
right in the line, But I'll tell you a story of his and the
37:34
story of mine. The day we were going to shoot the scene where Jack
37:39
Palance guns down Stonewall Tory in front of Graft Saloon and Shane, which is
37:49
has to be one of the three. I don't know what the other two
37:52
are most famous gunshots in films that Dad had this idea of he wanted the
38:05
muddy street and then you know, and he was looking for clouds up there
38:08
in the tetons and he got there and it was a Saturday, and they
38:13
hadn't gotten that they've watered the street, but it was not and he did
38:16
not and he was willing to send the whole crew home for Saturday, bring
38:21
them back on Sunday. And he said, get water from the river.
38:24
I want this street flooded. And if you remember Stonewall Tory, the little
38:30
Southerner when he gets off his horse and starts walking toward the saloon where Jack
38:36
Palance is standing on the boardwalk in front of it, he's sliding through this
38:40
mud. Footsteps are so unsteady. But for Dad that was a disaster.
38:47
You know, he knew how important that scene was to him. He decided
38:52
to send the crew home at whatever cost and bring them back the next day
38:58
because that scene had to be perfect. When I was working with Sidney Poitier,
39:06
and this is more personal. I had been doing a lot of stuff
39:13
since Peter Gunn had founded the AFI Kennedy Center Honors this and that and for
39:19
the Actually the Separate but Equal was the first time I had been directing.
39:23
I produced and written The Murder of Mary Fagan w. Jak Lemon, which
39:28
one the Emmy. Now I'm doing this and I hadn't. Sydney believed in
39:32
me, loved the script. Both Jack and Sydney refused to do television that
39:37
based on scripts I handed them. They agreed to do television in these instances,
39:44
and we were filming the scene. Sydney has been down in the South
39:49
and seeing the trouble there and has gotten people in Clarendon County African Americans to
39:57
agree to file a suit. We'll be right back after a word from our
40:01
sponsor. And now back to the show that would become part of the Brown
40:10
versus Board of Education legal case. He comes back up to New York where
40:15
the NAACP Legal Defense Fund law officers are. He comes in late. Several
40:23
of the lawyers are playing poker, and you know, and and Sydney comes
40:29
in, puts his stuff down, comes and sits down with him and plays
40:31
a hand of poker before telling him what the story is in South Carolina.
40:38
And I hadn't seen Excuse me, I'm going to take a glass of water
40:43
please. Of course. Of course I hadn't seeing the comedies that Sydney had
40:52
made with Cosby, you know, we're really great stuff. And Sydney started
40:57
doing some kind of comic stuff that it wasn't what I was expecting, and
41:04
I kind of had cut and had passed him to change the lighting, made
41:07
an excuse and kind of walked around it. The only place we could find
41:12
was a storeroom with lights and junk and everything. And I walked in with
41:15
Sydney, and this is the two of us, and I said, Sydney,
41:20
I said, I'm not quite sure what we're doing in this scene.
41:24
And I don't think I phrased it very well. And that wonderful face looked
41:30
at me with those eyes, and he said, well, what is it
41:36
that you want done in this scene? And I saw this whole whole thing
41:42
falling apart, you know, it said the first kind of direction I give
41:49
him, you know, And I just stood there and we looked at one
41:52
another, and I don't know where it came from, but I said,
41:59
I see they're good Marshall as a man with secrets. Oh, Sydney says,
42:07
when that is what you want, say that word. We went back
42:13
to work and we never had a false moment the rest of the way.
42:17
But it's it's it's you know, I've I look back on it thankfully of
42:23
you know, if I faltered there, it could have been uncomfortable going forward,
42:28
right. You know, it's really interesting. That's such a great thing
42:31
because each actor is his or her own world and they work in a very
42:37
specific way. And it's really interesting because if you have two or three or
42:43
four actors in a scene and they all are working in different styles and different
42:46
ways. As a director, it's difficult to you can't just do a broad
42:50
direction. You gotta do this to that one, that one's being method,
42:53
that one's not being method, and let's not even get into the personalities and
42:57
egos of the situation. It's a very interesting job directors, and a very
43:04
good rule of thumb is if you absolutely difficult. I mean, if it's
43:08
everything, fine, but if there's something and you want to address something with
43:13
one actor, if you know things are difficult and you want to address something
43:20
with one actor, how to break it up and then quietly take the actor
43:23
aside and talk to them one on one. You don't want to embarrass an
43:30
actor or you know, in front of the other actors or you know,
43:37
then they might feel they have to dig in or justify themselves. So private
43:43
attention to individual actors is very important. Now, with all the professional accomplishments
43:50
you've had in your life, which is the one that you are the most
43:53
proud of? Gosh, well, I'll pick one for you. It's a
44:01
film called It's a film called George Stephen's a Filmmaker's Journey. They did shortly
44:07
after my father's death, and it's a film biography of my father. And
44:13
I'm pleased to say that some friends and colleagues and some strangers say that it's
44:21
the best documentary about a filmmaker ever. And it was so important to me,
44:28
and I am so happy that it. You know, I applied those
44:34
rules that I learned from him. Just work on it until you get it
44:37
right, and to respect the audience. Let the audience bring something to the
44:43
film. And that film is going to celebrate its fortieth anniversary next year,
44:49
and it was on Turnssic Movies a few nights ago. And yeah, I
44:55
think you're audience batically people who are interested in filmmaking. It's called George Stevens
45:01
a Filmmaker's Journey. It's on the Criteria, Terry Channel. I think it's
45:06
on HBO Max or their way used to see it. Um, and it
45:13
uh, you know, and I was able to interview I mean Jimmy Stewart
45:17
and Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn and Warren Beatty and directors Houston and Mammolion and
45:27
Capra. It's him for a film lover or even Morgas. Yeah, it's
45:34
a Smorgas pork without question. Um, if you could go back in time
45:38
and give your seventeen year old self, who's just finished having lunch with Elizabeth
45:45
Taylor, some advice, what advice would that be? Above? Gosh,
45:52
it's it's it's pretty a plane. But find something to do that you love.
46:00
You know. That's that. And if it's making movies, be prepared
46:05
for a tough road. I know you on your show are often exploring with
46:10
people how you get somebody to look at my movie, pay for my movie,
46:15
read my script, you know. And there's there's no short answer for
46:21
that. It's whatever the circumstances. You have to work with those circumstances.
46:30
Um. But uh, but to stick with it. And and you may
46:36
find along the way that you thought, oh, I want to be an
46:38
actor, uh, and you find out later you know, I'd like to
46:43
be a costume designer. I've seen that, and or direct or whatever.
46:50
And you know, so have some flexibility. Uh. Don't kind of set
46:53
you say, oh, you know, I'm going to be a director,
46:59
because you may find that may not be your strongest suit. So kind of
47:04
determination and flexibility and always to be reminded once you get some control and gaining
47:15
control over your work if you're a director, is very important and very hard
47:21
to achieve. But once you have it, respect the audience. I remember
47:27
my father saying, and it's from another era, but he he made wonderful
47:34
pictures of the early forties Woman of the Year, the first Spencer Tracy picture,
47:39
Joel McCray and Jean Arthur, and the more of the Marrier Carrie Grant
47:45
and Jeane Arthur and Ronald Coleman. There's just so many pictures. But he
47:54
talked about they would open in the archaeo City Music Hall, which has five
48:00
thousand seats of a picture of him in front of it when Penny Serenade was
48:05
opening a picture showed at the Turner Classic Film Festival last week with Iron Dunn
48:09
and Carrie Grant. But he said, there's something when five thousand minds come
48:15
together. He said, they close the circuit. They bring their intelligence,
48:21
they bring their curiosity, and the link is closed between the filmmaker and the
48:27
audience. And just to have that idea that the audience. He said about
48:31
Shane, which classic Western and all, somebody was trying to make it a
48:36
little fancy, and he said, you know, I think I made Shane
48:40
for the truck driver in Arkansas. Says he spends a day alone driving his
48:46
truck and he may not be able to articulate his thoughts, but he's thinking,
48:52
and he's curious about things, and he has ideas. And I want
48:57
to leave a little something for him to do when he comes to the movie.
49:00
Let him bring something to it. Oh, it's beautiful. That was
49:05
beautiful. That is really really beautiful. You know, since you've been raised
49:12
in Hollywood, have you've seen a change from the Golden Age to where we
49:15
are today? Where do you think the future of the industry with all this
49:22
new technology, this new generation that's coming up that is not as in love
49:28
with movies as maybe my generation or your generation was, because so many other
49:32
options for entertainment are out there. Where do you think the future is for
49:37
Hollywood moving forward? Well, it's very much up in the air. And
49:43
I'll tell you what I hope it's I hope that the movie point experience revives
49:47
itself, that there's something more than Marvel comics and the big you know,
49:53
the pictures that people love for a good reason. We'll be right back after
50:00
a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. But that that
50:10
right now, it's almost only those that are flourishing, uh, in today's
50:16
theatrical you know. And I want people to see pictures on the big screen,
50:22
that idea of my father with five thousand people, if it's five hundred
50:25
or a thousand, you seeing it with other people. So I'm hoping that
50:30
that will renourish itself. And of course there are values to streaming people.
50:38
Our sets are getting bigger at home, and it's a better experience than it
50:44
used to be. But it's it's and more kind of good directors and writers
50:51
are now working for streaming and television. Yeah, guys, they can tell
50:55
stories that they want to and that and my plans for the immediate future because
51:02
it is a way to tell ambitious stories. So now we have this writer's
51:09
strike, which is I think very serious because I think the writers are really
51:20
feeling genuine and I'm of course a member of the writer's Guild of displacement that
51:27
there are just there are less jobs and people are finding way and they kind
51:30
of fear that AI They're going to start asking AI to write a script or
51:36
polish a script or whatever. And so I'm very much interested in the writers
51:42
re establishing a place. But it has changed so much that it's going to
51:50
be difficult but very important that the studios and the writers and the other guilds
51:55
come together in a way that's fair. I mean, there are people,
52:00
you know, making fifty million dollars a year right off of the work that
52:12
these writers are doing, and there has to be some way to find a
52:16
fair situation that allows this fabulous medium that it is so rich and provides so
52:25
much for it to flourish. And it isn't it always the way though,
52:30
that the machine will always take advantage of the artist if let left alone to
52:36
its own devices, I think, I think right, And that's why the
52:43
unions are important, and that's why you know, collective and all that stuff
52:45
with with with what's going on. I agree, And it's more I've spoken.
52:50
I've spoken to so many writers on the show who are just saying it's
52:52
just becoming more and more difficult to make a living, not even become rich,
52:58
just make a living in the business. Directors as well, because of
53:00
becoming more gig oriented, like here, here's a flat fee, thank you
53:06
very much, out the door you go, and that there was a job
53:09
every week. Maybe, but yeah, but there isn't direct people who used
53:16
to direct television kind of where I did long ago. There were three networks
53:22
or four networks with the whole season, what twenty thirty episodes. You know,
53:29
that's kind of diluted. Now. Someone told me that the prominent agent
53:36
speaking to two days ago that I think the last strike was two thousand and
53:42
eight, seven or eight, and that year the networks shot fifty five pilots.
53:51
Right this year there were fifteen pilots. So you know, it's all
53:58
changing, and I hope there's some smart enough people sitting at the top and
54:02
working for the unions that can find a balance. That's gonna, as I
54:10
say, nourish this medium that we all love so much. I agree with
54:15
you one hundred percent. I don't want to. I grew up in the
54:17
I grew up in the video store days. I worked in a video store,
54:21
and that's where I fell in love with movies. And yeah, I
54:23
mean I was in high school and I rented movies and that's where I discovered
54:28
giant and because I could see them all and I just started and that's where
54:31
I fell in love with movies and became desire to become a director. But
54:35
I worked in a movie theater and movies. You know, I remember my
54:37
first movie in the theater and thinks. But my children don't like I've taken
54:42
to the theaters. But they're just like, it's nice, but it's not
54:45
as important. They did not grow up with it. Now going to have
54:49
the first adult generation that did not go grow up going to the movies and
54:55
corect and it's something that's going to have to be managed. And uh,
55:02
you know, in the idea, you can look at a movie on your
55:05
phone with all due respect, no matter how clean and Chris the phone is.
55:08
I mean, it's it's it's a travesty to watch Taxi Driver on your
55:12
iPhone. I mean seriously, I mean our Giants, for God's sakes,
55:15
it's the movie itself, it's called Giant. You should not be watching it
55:17
on a small screen. It's to watch taxi driver in a taxi essentially,
55:24
that's a well, that's a different experience depending on what street you're driving down
55:29
and who's driving. Uh, George, what do you hope to leave behind
55:36
as a legacy in film with the work that you've done over the course of
55:39
your your life and career. Well again, I'll encourage people to read My
55:45
Place in the Sun or listen to it just come out on an audiobook.
55:51
It's hard for me to recite that. I from my standpoint, I love
55:57
I've loved being involved in it and and and kind of aspiring all the way.
56:02
I really did kind of set for myself as a standard of excellence and
56:07
h perhaps made a few mistakes along the line, but every time I did
56:14
it, it was aiming high and I'm pleased that so much of it people
56:21
are, you know, I feel good that this film I made about my
56:24
father forty years ago. You know that it's still there and looking great and
56:30
we've restored it, and so that test of time. I'm I'm respect the
56:38
audience test of time. Guy, such a beautiful place to be, my
56:44
friend. I'm going to ask a few questions I ask all my guests.
56:47
Um, what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business
56:51
today? Well, I spoke about it before, but I'll maybe yeah,
57:04
I would say to have a figure out where you're going, believe in yourself
57:09
and keep your eyes open. And you're you're not choosing an easy path,
57:15
so you have to be prepared for doors to slam and uh that make good
57:22
friends, work with friends, and set your sights high. What is the
57:28
lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film industry or
57:30
in life. I think to listen. You know, listening is very important.
57:39
And I think when you're young, or even when you're old, depending
57:46
on how if you're stubborn or not. Uh, that that being a good
57:53
listener. Uh. I remember uh Jim Cagney saying in some context to me,
58:04
he said, well, I'm a listening actor, you know, And
58:08
I think in in any field in politics and journalism, so many entries,
58:16
but just as a human being, listen to the other person. And three
58:22
of your favorite films of all time? Oh gosh, well today, today,
58:30
today, today, you of you know, I like Christopher Nolan's work.
58:38
I loved Sarah Pauly's Women Talking, a beautiful film. Um and uh
58:47
uh you know they're just so many. So a third I think I'll just
58:52
say, because it's it's seventieth anniversary, Shane, great answer, my friend.
58:59
And where can people find out about your new book and what can they
59:00
purchase it? Now? At official g S I think is my Twitter handle.
59:08
I'm not a huge Twitter person, but I did put on Twitter yesterday.
59:14
I came upon a letter I wrote to my father on Gunga Din when
59:20
I was five five years old, and picture of him on the set.
59:29
But George Stevens Junior dot com is my website, all floorcase letters g R
59:39
G E S T, E V E N S jr dot com and then
59:44
Amazon you could buy the book or audible to listen. Yes, exactly,
59:50
George. It has been an absolute pleasure and honor speaking to you, my
59:52
friend. Thank you so much for not only sharing your journey and your knowledge
59:57
with all of us, but also for everything you've done for the film industry
1:00:00
and for the arts throughout your life. So, my friend, I appreciate
1:00:05
you so so much and thank you again and for many more things to come
1:00:08
in your future. My friend, thank you well, Alex. I enjoyed
1:00:13
talking to you. I I felt I found many shared values with you,
1:00:16
and that's always a nice conversation, a pleasure. I want to thank George
1:00:22
so much for coming on the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the tribe
1:00:25
today. Thank you so much, George. If you want to get links
1:00:29
to anything we spoke about in this episode, including how to get his new
1:00:30
book and over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forard Slash
1:00:36
three twenty one, thank you so much for listening to guys. As always,
1:00:38
keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks
1:00:43
for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.