Rewriting CAPTAIN APACHE

From HOLLYWOOD EXILE Or How I Learned To Love the Blacklist

by Bernard Gordon

Gordon was engaged by Philip Yordan to work at a new studio he created in Spain as a writer-producer.

Shooting on A TOWN CALLED BASTARD was completed and the editing was under way. The "studio" was not much - offices, dressing rooms, a warehouse, and a standing Western street with a substantial wall, a tower, and a well-built church, finished inside and out. The street was minimal, not much more than a cantina, which was all that the Mexican pueblo of BASTARD had called for. But the wall, tower, and church were impressive enough, and we could see how, with the erection of a few storefronts and a hotel, the requirements for CAPTAIN APACHE would be met. There was no soundstage and the interiors would have to be shot inside the church, in the warehouse, or in the interior of the hotel, still to be built. Since shooting on APACHE was due to start shortly, the construction had to start immediately.

The next few months, until the end of 1970, were a time of madness. Nothing went right, but everything finally worked out - if the quality of the picture-making is ignored. I was involved in every aspect of production: construction, casting, wardrobe, locations, sets, publicity, even makeup, yet I had no real authority. Most of all, there were endless hassles over the script. The APACHE script was a dreary mess. (Cowriter & Coproducer Milton) Sperling knew it and wanted rewrites. I found that working with Sperling was impossible. For weeks I held conferences, listened to his comments, reached agreement on changes, went back to my hotel (now a nice suite at the Commodore) and wrote late into the night. The next day Sperling liked nothing, had changed his mind, demanded a rewrite of the rewrite. Yordan was too involved with more important matters about financing and coproduction to concern himself with script. I suspect, also, that he may have resented the notion that we were rewriting his work. Eventually, I tossed the pages back to Sperling, told him I was not being paid as a writer, and if he knew better than anyone what was needed, he could make the script changes himself.

Impatiently, Yordan cut through all this. "Forget about making changes. You're wasting time. You're not making it any better. We're going to shoot the script the way it is."

Leone on COLOSSUS

Sergio Leone: The tricks and effects used in filming the final cataclysm (for THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES) were fairly realistic. (Eros) Baciucchi, a craftsman who was even sought after by the Americans, and made many other films, was excellent and knew that I expected the scenes to be totally realistic. He studied everything to the millimeter and to the milligram weight and checked the consistency with which the sets would collapse, so there was no risk of hurting anybody: a lot of preparation that others didn't take, even though significantly there was a notable loss of time, and accordingly a considerable increase in costs. After having seen IL COLOSSO DI RODI, Aldrich invited me to direct the second unit of SODOM & GOMORRAH. I shot all the battle scenes in the environs of Marrakech, in two weeks with a thousand riders and a crew of seventy people.

The director of TODAY TO ME...

Tonino Cervi: When I'd go to the distributors, the financiers, agents, actors and tell them the stories of the films I planned as a producer, I so often heard them say: "But why don't you direct it, seeing that you've told it and visualized it so well!"

Once I went to a producer and proposed to him yet another Western, OGGI A ME...DOMANI A TE (TODAY TO ME… TOMORROW TO YOU): "Listen. There's this very entertaining story I've written with a young journalist named Dario Argento..."

"Who's directing it?"

"Listen, given that the last ones I've done, I practically ended up directing myself, why don't we just pick the first person walking down the street, and it will go fine."

"But, hey, why waste time. Why don't you just direct it yourself?"

But yes, but no, yes, no, then again yes, but maybe not.

After fifteen days I adapted it for Bud Spencer, my friend from the days when he still called himself Carletto Pedersoli, and we acted together in the theater. And I had four faces with blue eyes, because it was the moment of the faces with three days growth of beard, and as antagonist a Japanese actor I really loved. Not Mifune but Tatsuya Nakadai, who went on to be the hero in KAGEMUSHA. In the film the set design was very Japanese, and there were beautiful, strange costumes. Nakadai was a marvelous actor, but he only spoke Japanese and needed an interpreter. But after two days we sent the interpreter away, and we understood one another perfectly. I explained myself with gestures and he understood everything I wanted with an exceptional sensitivity.The sword duel between the Samurai and Pedersoli had an incredible success!

I began work the fifteenth of January and the film was released all over Italy on March 24th, two months later. In two months, everything. Even the reviews were great; some of them were truly enthusiastic.

We shot it at Manziana, where all the Italian Westerns were shot, but many film people asked me where I filmed it, because there was a certain atmosphere, a certain color, a texture, which weren't the same old thing. And there was also a screenplay with some original ideas. At that time Dario Argento was a nervous wreck: totally neurotic, he bit his nails, he tugged at his hair, he couldn't keep still, he writhed. He's like a sponge. If he likes a movie, he sees it seven times, and entire scenes stay lodged in his head, the camera moves, just as they're shot. And then he refers to them later. Our collaboration went very well, he brought me ideas for the story, bits of character development, certain situations, to be fit into the basic story which was more my own, more "Japanese" in nature. He's a person who memorizes fifty thousand things and brings you fifty thousand ideas, of which ten work well, the others, no.

Tessari on Leone

Duccio Tessari: The idea of giving IL COLOSSO DI RODI (THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES) a pronounced epic sense was Leone's. I did two screenplays with him: this one and FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. All that was epic in these screenplays was his; all that was ironic was mine. Sergio is epic even when he eats! In Sergio there is the desire to tell these stories, he is an extremely receptive person, as soon as you give him an idea, he begins to play tennis with you, he pushes you to develop the idea. Now they say that he is afraid of failure, and as a consequence, he is very attentive to everyone.

Burt Kennedy on Ernest Borgnine

From HOLLYWOOD TRAIL BOSS by Burt Kennedy (in 1997)

Ernest Borgnine! Jack Elam calls him Ernie Bombastic. He said Ernie would never let him sleep in when they were rooming next to each other during the filming of HANNIE CAULDER. Early every morning, Ernie would proclaim, "Oh, what a beautiful morning," or "It's a beautiful day."Ernie's beautiful wife Tova sells products that make people look young. Ernie, on the other hand, keeps everyone young.

His is an absolute tonic to be around. He has more energy than a truckload of Jack LaLannes, and a sweeter man never walked the earth.

Ernie is eighty, a fact Jack Elam is constantly reminding him of. But he goes through life like a runaway train! You just can't be downhearted around Ernie. He is the best and I love him.

Leone on POMPEII

Sergio Leone: L'ULTIMO GIORNI DI POMPEII (THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII) was practically directed by me, because (Mario) Bonnard was ill, and besides he had a commitment to make GASTONE with Alberto Sordi. I became a substitute at his precise request, but I didn't want to be credited, out of respect to his original design. My assistant director was Duccio Tessari, the 2nd unit director was Sergio Corbucci, and we divided it up amongst ourselves. This film almost became a joke, because in the screenplay (I was one of the scriptwriters) we had written it for a type like Sean Connery, intelligent, astute, etc. But ten days before we began they told us instead that they'd had the great fortune to have secured Steve Reeves. Therefore, suddenly this film became naturally centered on the pseudo brute-strength of Steve Reeves. We had to completely change the nature of the story, and therefore in the space of a week, we were forced to totally re-write the screenplay in order that it would work with this species of robot. However the fact that this film did well; got me an offer to debut as director with IL COLOSSO DI RODI (THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES). The screenplay was written with (Duccio) Tessari, (Ennio) De Concini and Savioli who then became the critic of "Paese Sera". However with IL COLOSSO DI RODI, I was practically writing it while I was shooting because I needed to resolve the problems of the screen-play that jumped out at you there and then, because it was impossible to film certain things that had been scripted. I wanted to explode the genre a little bit, and if one watches it with an attentive eye one sees a film cast in an ironic mode. The main character is a playboy, and I tried a sort of epic comedy, with the irony not too obviously signposted, but there to be noticed by the connoisseur of cinema. Frankly, the film was my meal ticket; when it was made known that L'ULTIMO GIORNI DI POMPEII had been made by me they asked for another hit similar to that. We spent many years turning down such films, me and Cottafavi. We turned down each other's films.

Why Alexander Singer?

From HOLLYWOOD EXILE Or How I Learned To Love the Black List by Bernard Gordon

(Philip) Yordan was looking for a director for CAPTAIN APACHE. This involved me with a close connection. Alex Singer was married to Judy, Julian's young sister. (An old friend of Gordon's, Julian Zimet co-wrote CIRCUS WORLD and CUSTER OF THE WEST.) Alex had started out in the Bronx as a hopeful filmmaker and a close friend of Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was already on his way with a number of major accomplishments, but, after a promising start with a single low-budget feature, Alex had stalled. As it turned out, he spent much of the rest of his life trying to compete with and catch up to the Kurbrick who had been his young buddy in the Bronx. In 1970 this still lay in the future. Alex wanted any crack at directing a feature film. He asked me to get him together with Yordan.Though Alex's feature-film credits were not impressive, he had a number of television shows under his belt. Yordan decided he was a competent professional. What's more, Alex was willing to do the job for a minimal fee of $25,000, something that inevitably appealed to Yordan, who also calculated that Alex would be amenable and manageable. He was right on all scores.