Casting CAPTAIN APACHE

From HOLLYWOOD EXILE Or How I Learned To Love the Blacklist

by Bernard Gordon

(While trying to get A TOWN CALLED BASTARD into shape for release, Bernard Gordon was in pre-production for the second movie to be made at Philip Yordan's new Spanish studio.)

Meanwhile CAPTAIN APACHE had to start shooting. Lee Van Cleef had been signed as the lead. He was an ex-stuntman who had become a leading man in spaghetti Westerns. In appearance he was well cast to play the Indian-who-became-a-lawman-for-the-whites called for by our script. He was tall, well-built, with a strong, aquiline face. He had been signed for two back-to-back features at $150,000 each, but he seemed to resent everything about work. I found him a clod and wondered why he appeared sullen. I decided it wasn't the script - I doubted he'd bothered to read through it. Still we had to be concerned about getting another script ready for him after APACHE.Carroll Baker had been signed for the female lead. She was a delight. True, she got in a flap over getting exactcly the right brand of bleach for her very blonde hair. I picked up the phone and reached Jean just before she left Los Angeles and asked her to get a stock of the special brand; I had to make arrangements for a hairdresser at the Hilton beauty salon to report each morning at five a.m. to get Baker ready for the day's work. Carroll was serious about her work, though, was always on time, always knew her lines, and laughed readily at all the right moments. My sessions with her in her suite at the Hilton were entertaining. She traveled with a very small dog, a Yorkie that couldn't have weighed more than five pounds. She carried it with her on airplaines in a little overnight bag that had been fitted with plastic windows and air holes. The Yorkie was so small that whatever mess it made was easily picked up, and Baker was relaxed about this, as she seemed to be about everything. Always considerate about sex, she also carried with her a small stuffed dog about the same size as her terrier. The real dog had a fine time humping the stuffed dog, much to Baker's satisfaction. "The little fellow simply has to have an outlet," she explained to me. And why not?

We were well along in the production when she had to play a fairly explicit sex scene with Van Cleef, both of the lightly clad under the covers and presumably naked. Baker went along without demur and disrobed above the waist. Van Cleef, also undressed, had to appear to be making love to her.

He was alarmed. "What will I do if I get an erection?" he demanded. I was not on the set at the time and the problem did not have to be resolved by me. After a hurried consultation with (director) Alex (Singer), the matter was turned over to (producer/writer) Milton Sperling, who came up with a quick answer.

"Fuck her," Sperling replied gleefully.

Trying to fix A TOWN CALLED BASTARD

From HOLLYWOOD EXILE Or How I Learned To Love the Blacklist

by Bernard Gordon

Bernard Gordon had been hired by Philip Yordan to help write & produce films for his new studio in Spain. While in pre-production on CAPTAIN APACHE, he had to deal with a prior film on which he had no previous dealings.

A TOWN CALLED BASTARD still had to be attended to. When we viewed the first cut of BASTARD, we all agreed it didn't make sense and that production would have to be reopened. Again, I realized this was a commonplace with Yordan. Finish a film inadequately, then worry about making changes when it was, in effect, too late. Strangle a production with too little money, then spend a great deal more than was saved on fixing it up. Like (THE DAY OF THE) TRIFFIDS.

I was asked to write an "envelope" for BASTARD, something to help to make sense of the plot's mishmash. Yordan got Robert Shaw, one of the principals of the original film, to come back for the new scenes. I wrote a half-dozen envelopes. Some were rejected by Yordan, some by Bob Fisz. I don't know how we ever agreed about anything.

(Later, Irving Lerner, who had directed THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN for Yordan, was "pressed into service" to do the reshoots for BASTARD.)

Back on BASTARD, one scene involved Robert Shaw on a horse leading a captive prisoner on another horse across a small stream. It seemed simple enough to me, but this time Yordan complained about the scene no matter how many times we shot it. I was lunching with Yordan and Robert Shaw when Yordan vented his vexation at Irving for not knowing how to direct the scene. "You'd think by now he'd know how to shoot two men on a horse so that it looks like something is happening."

This kind of buck passing annoyed me. "Did it ever occur to you that the director needs something to work with?" I asked. "If he had a scene with anything written, anything but two men on horses crossing a stream, he might be able to put a little drama into it."

Shaw, who knew Yordan was responsible for the script and had a fine sense of it all, was delighted to hear Yordan taken to task. He chortled happily...

Irving did make some real contributions. As we were shooting a lively scene of dancing in the cantina, he wanted the cameraman to move around loosely, catching shots of the dancers from different angles. He knew, as a film editor, how he could use such snippets of action, but the cameraman insisted he had to light the scene for one angle, then stop and relight it for another. It would have taken a week to do the scene that way, and it still wouldn't have been right. Irving told the cameraman to put the camera on his shoulder, sit in a wheelchair, and have it pushed around among the dancers. Hand-held? No tripod? No light changes? The cameraman froze. With my authority, Irving handed the camera to the assistant, sat him in a wheelchair, turned on the music, started the dancers, then pushed the wheelchair with the assistant and the camera all through the moving crowd. It worked beautifully.

During the shooting of the cantina scene, Jean and I were sitting in the trailer with Shaw and another fine English actor, Michael Craig. We were cozy in there with the butane heater to fight off the freezing winter night. We reminisced, killed a couple of bottles of good Spanish brandy, got pretty high, and had a fine time. When this was all over about two a.m., we returned to town in Shaw's Mercedes 600. Still not ready for bed, Shaw came up to our apartment and sat around another couple of hours while we killed another bottle. Jean fell into bed long before this was over. I couldn't keep up with drinkers like Shaw, but in the interest of a career, I tried. To my admiration, as I watched helplessly from a chair, Shaw was able to get up finally and walk steadily out of the apartment.

Samson Burke chat

Larry Anderson and Gordon Harmer interviewed Samson Burke in Toronto on September 8, 2002.
Gord: How many years did you wrestle?
Samson: 9 years. I used the names Sammy Berg and Samson Burke in the ring. In fact I fought Lou Thiez 3 times for the Championship Belt. I was in Los Angeles when Norman Mauer spotted me for a film called THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES, which was being shot at Columbia. It was shot at the Columbia Ranch. Of all the films that I made, that one was probably my favorite. I was wrestling in LA and a friend suggested that I try out for the role of Hercules. Norman Mauer asked me to read for the part and without even a screen test, I got the part while others that were waiting, were told to leave. Even thought I had no prior acting experience. Norman Mauer was very helpful and understanding in guiding me through the role. The Stooges helped me immensely.
Gord: Tell us about Gordon Mitchell and Joe Gold and your times together in California.

Samson: Gordon and I used to run together, 2 or 3 times a week. We used to live in the same area. Joe Gold lived in Santa Monica and wasn't part of the clique. Gordon Mitchell brought me over to Italy to film THE VENGEANCE OF URSUS. In fact, I stayed at his place for a while. We had a gym at Mitchell's apartment on the roof. We had a makeshift gym with an umbrella to shade us from the sun as we worked out. We got a friend at a small machine shop nearby to make us weights and bars.

Larry: What was it like to work with Luigi Capuanno?
Samson: He was a Commander in the Italian Navy and did "everything by the book". Very straightforward. The Italians were more laid back in their approach to filmmaking. A very relaxed set.

Gord: Did you have an agent?

Samson: Yes, I had to have an Italian agent. It was the same agent that Gordon Mitchell used.
Gord: What about Wandisa Guida?
Samson: She was a very pretty girl. She got married soon after that (THE VENGEANCE OF URSUS), and never worked again. I saw her once after that, I stopped her in the street; she didn't want to work anymore. She said goodbye and that's all that matters

Starting Enzo Fiermonte's film career

Enzo Fiermonte circa 1934.

From DINO The Life and Films of Dino De Laurentiis

by Tullio Kezich and Alessandra Levantesi
A fledging producer working out of the FERT Studios in Turin, Dino De Laurentiis started his career with two short films.

"The first, a comedy titled TROPPO TARDI T'HO CONOSCIUTA (I MET YOU TOO LATE), was shot in July 1939. The project was a fiasco, and all prints of the film have vanished....

"He had better luck with the second project. L'ULTIMO COMBATTIMENTO (THE LAST FIGHT) was a semiautobiographical film written by the ex-middleweight champion Enzo Fiermonte, who also starred. Fiermonte had just returned from the United States, where both the boxing underworld and his American wife had caused him major problems. Dino went to meet Fiermonte in Naples after his transatlantic crossing and immediately signed him to an exclusive contract. His success with the pugilist's film neatly balanced out his failure with the comedy. Indeed, these two projects represented a great leap forward in his career. Certainly they made it much easier for Dino to position himself as the savior of FERT."

Tessari on De Concini

Duccio Tessari: (Ennio) De Concini was indeed the man with the ready solutions. A kind of savior of our Italian cinema. One morning he presented himself to a producer who called for him to change the finale of the film CONSTANTINE THE GREAT (aka CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS) because it didn't work. The film was already being shot, so naturally there was this kind of rapid marshalling of thoughts, and then Ennio said: "I have found a very beautiful finale. Exterior day, morning sun. On the one side, the army of Constantine, from the other the army of the Barbarians. Constantine advances with his men up to the banks of the river, likewise the Barbarians on the opposite side do. Constantine unsheathes his sword, he lifts it toward the sun, the sun beats down on the hilt, transforming it into a cross, and then Constantine raises it even higher, turns to his men and cries "By this sign we will be victorious". And after this, they charge." On the word "charge" the producer interrupted to say: "De Concini, we don't have any more money, we have arrived at the finale without a lira, and very beautiful as this thing is that
you see, we just can't do it".

To that De Concini without batting an eyelash, says: "Ah, very well. Then: Exterior. Foggy Day. From out of the fog comes Constantine to call to the Chief of the Barbarians. Also the Chief of the Barbarians comes out of the fog and Constantine says: 'Why sacrifice all our men in a battle, when we can fight one against the other and the winner will decide the fate of the war.'"

After another half-hour of discussion, they found a halfway solution in which there appears Constantine, the Chief of the Barbarians, and about ten extras.

delli Colli's proudest Leone moments

Interviewed by Nighteagle

Tonino delli Colli: Well , in THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY I am proud of the scene where Tuco runs through the cemetery between the crosses. There we had to choose the right zoom, have Eli run in a circular pattern to stay precisely at the selected focus radius, and have the crosses out of focus, so to convey a feeling of total excitement and speed.

But personally I love ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. This was technically the most difficult project, not just for me, but for everybody, including (Carlo) Simi, who made real miracles to create props. In OUTA the locations were the biggest problem and I had to pay great attention to the light. Imagine the following: the New York old central train station did not exist any more, so we shot the sequence where Noodles and Deborah part, at the Gare du Nord in
Paris, very similar to the N.Y. old one. The scene where Noodles picks up Deborah with the limousine is shot in part in Montreal : the exterior of the theatre is under the front roof of a hotel , but campo was in Montreal and controcampo in New York! Campo and controcampo mean in Italian film language the direction of the camera "vision". With campo you look at the actor, with controcampo you see the opposite side, that is what the actor would see from his point of view, at 180 degrees from campo. Now, imagine..campo in Montreal and controcampo in New York... and the light must be the same! One more example: policeman Aiello walks down the stairs, campo in Montreal and controcampo in New York! This was the case whenever the architecture around us did not allow to have campo and controcampo shot in one location. We had situations where, shooting campo, we were surrounded by period buildings, but turning around (controcampo) there was a hypermodern bank of glass and steel. This forced me to keep most precise records of all shooting conditions and the lighting involved, to make the blending of the separate takes possible at all. The scene where the balloons pop out of the water was not realized in N.Y. but in Venice, another lighing problem I had to take care of. Leone seemed to get a special craze and enjoyment in this locations fragmentation, it was as if he would exploit his fantasy world to an extremum. So with the garbage truck, at the end of OUTA . He was convinced, I mean convinced, that he had seen such a truck with a grinder, beforehand. He shouted constantly...there must be two thousand of them! And when Leone is convinced of something then everybody has to be convinced too. So dozens of photos drop in showing all kinds of garbage trucks, all models running in the US. Nope, none had the rotating blades, as he had "seen" them. Finally , it had to be built like he had "seen“ it!!

But back to the photography job of mine, another take that I like very much is the one of DeNiro in the opium den. Leone shot three different ways of DeNiro smiling, and edited the one he regarded as most effective.

Bava on Vikings

Mario Bava: THE VIKINGS with Kirk Douglas had come out. So they said: "You need to do a Vichingo (Viking Movie)." And we made GLI INVASORI (aka THE INVADERS, aka ERIK THE CONQUEROR) with Giorgio Ardisson and Cameron Mitchell, shot in Lavinio, with Caldara used as the land of the Vikings. Since I am very fast, use few horses, few props, it made a bagful of money. I remember that the marquis Patrizi, the producer, came and he was pale. In the studio there was a construction of a ship that had cost 150 million. My Viking ship had a carcass of Buitoni pasta twisted together, with that kind of Dragon's head in front of it. There was dry ice to do the fog and technicians who every so often threw bucketfuls of water. There was a dolly that went up and down and the studio was filled with smoke; white smoke, black smoke. The stuff was intoxicating and it put me in bed for six months. For a while I thought I was going to end up in a sanatorium for the poisoned. Nello Santi sent a cashier to me with a gift of five million lire, one of those insurance premiums that they pay out to cabbages. The film went very well, even in America. Then with the success of the Horror Films, I was obliged to continue smashing the box-office.