Be True To My School

 

Should They Have Just Thrown Me Out and Be Done With It?

Started Pinocchio the other night, left it after twenty minutes. Took that long to bring the puppet to life, to get anything like a story underway. I’m supposed to be of a stripe tolerant toward measured pacing, but Pinocchio saw me restless to be past a cricket, then a cat, then a fish, layers of bread between set-up and presumed meat that is the wood boy given speech. Kept thinking how this Disney favorite (but whose favorite in 2021?) would be itch powder for generations, several now, who want, insist upon, animation at warp speed. Occurred to me too that Pinocchio lacks giddyap even Snow White had, forward from its opening with the queen’s threat, resolve, to black out a fairer heir to her throne. Don’t know another Disney that so licked challenge movies share of engaging us right from starts. Pinocchio too seems pitched to children, Pleasure Island and then Monstro but partial rescue from that. There was a book, heavy as a church door, called The Art of Walt Disney, out the same year I was at USC (Southern California, not South Carolina). Ours was a class, given over summer 1975, where members spent two-three days of each week at Universal, learning how movies got made. Portals were all open to us, a real-life Pleasure Isle minus bad boys (like me, as things developed) taking on donkey features, even where donkey-behaving (me again).

Semester assignment was to make a film, content our choice, one classmate’s a fully animated cartoon, six minutes long, good as Hanna-Barbera if not Disney, but peppered with profanity to make it seem an encore to Fritz the Cat. Still we were astonished, no less so than “den mother” of our group, Mona Kantor, who with her husband Bernard, greased entry onto various Universal filming sites and brought us before many a crowned head among studio personnel (missed Steven Spielberg, whose Jaws was getting ready to open, because he was sick on our appointed day). Wish I could remember that student-animator’s name. No one doubted his future in the field. Bet he has directed any number of cartoon features over intervening forty-six years. Our class was filled with singular personalities. Some were offspring of industry notables. One boy I have thought of often, clairvoyant a better word for him, used to ask every guest speaker if Universal had plans, or would make plans, to do a big movie set in outer space. Got to where everyone snickered at his glue on the topic, a monorail alongside wider tracks the rest travelled. I do remember several guests advising him that science-fiction was a doubtful prospect “at this time.” Did they, any of us, recall his prescience two years later when sci-fi took a highest gross of all time? I speculate too as to what became of our soothsayer. Would he/did he become an industry power?

Universal was retro-conscious that summer, having lately done Gable and Lombard, W.C. Fields and Me, others trading on past days and no doubt lubed by success of The Sting. There was a parking space designated for “W.C. Fields,” sop to Method-fueled Rod Steiger, who through production insisted he was Fields, according to a U-employed observer. There were veterans busy on the lot, Hal Wallis, Don Siegel, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock … nature’s last preserve for wildlife grazing on thinned grass. Each had an office or suite of same. We were escorted, the fifteen or so in my class, to a morning shoot on Deceit, initial title of Hitchcock’s Family Plot, not just for moment-glimpse, but to stay several hours and observe the Master at work. I stood there knowing this was a high point of my life, and so recorded as much detail as memory might allow. It was a garage set, with a parked car, all indoors, the stage dark where we stood, lighted for that portion needed to film. Karen Black did a scene and waved at us afterward. Hitchcock sat somewhat at a distance, people approaching him to confer, then withdrawing to where cameras and action was. Edith Head walked over to show AH some costume drawings. We were closer to him than he was to scenes being shot, I mean close within feet. At one point, he turned and looked straight at me, not for any reason I could discern, me quiet as a little mouse. Hitchcock was low-key and spoke soft to all in his orbit. We were finally ushered out, having presumably learned how to be a movie director just like Alfred Hitchcock. USC had real juice to arrange field trips like this. I was about to discover, however, limits to studio and school hospitality, certainly willingness to let me buddy up with idols a la cart.

There was more-less free reign despite recommendation we stay with the group. Lunch was daily highlight, the food plenty good, plus familiar faces passing our table or terrace seating. Mona Kantor always sat with us to sort of maintain invisible fencing. One time I hopped up to join Jackie Cooper as he left lunch to rejoin the Mobile One crew, that series produced by Jack Webb (whose parked car was always identifiable for its “Mark VII” license plate). Cooper was nice to me as he, like seemingly everyone at Universal, was aware of USC presence and commitment to make us feel welcome. There was an ominous “Black Tower” (presumably still there) where biggest wigs planned projects, though some, like Wilder and Hitchcock, kept to more picturesque, free-standing bungalows. I found out Don Siegel and Hal Wallis were in the Tower, so was determined to meet them. I called Siegel’s office first and the secretary was taken right away by my Southern accent, which I saw quick as a way in. Approach to Siegel’s office, down a long-carpeted hallway, was spiked by a figure coming out the door who walked toward, then past me, Clint Eastwood and I the only persons in an otherwise empty, cavernous, space. He spoke, cordial if subdued, perhaps knowing I had no business there. Would Clint rat me to Mona Kantor? Doubtful, as he had larger fish to fry. Siegel was great, loaded me down with souvenirs from a recent Euro festival in his honor, signed all of it, along with an Invasion of the Body Snatchers one-sheet I brought along. He told me he was getting ready to do The Sentinel, a project Michael Winner ended up directing. Siegel, always a favorite, became more so for showing such kindness and generosity that day.

It Wasn't So Lavish As This When I Was There

Next was Wallis. I went over this and more of the USC/Universal adventure back in 2010, so won’t hash further, except to report it was Mr. Wallis who unknowingly got me caught by the Kantors. The class was having outdoor lunch a couple days after my off-limits Wallis visit. He happened to walk by with some of his people, glancing our way, noticing me, and saying, “Hello, John.” That was it. Mona did not speak, but she knew. There was surely a woodshed in my offing. Investigation bore fruit, Bernard the bearer of dire warning that I would be marched out, epaulets stripped, sent home ignominiously should I ever do such a thing again (this with but a week left of the semester). It was the first time I was took out of class and hall-berated since Wilkes Central High. But who cares, I got to visit Don Siegel and Hal Wallis! I’d do it all again this minute, so clearly did not learn my lesson. So '75 was a most exciting summer I’d known, certainly better than a couple year’s previous as a sawmill hand at $60 take-home per week, goal to gather $400 and have The Adventures of Robin Hood on 16mm. Leave that account, however, for another day …