The old switcheroo

Last year I read a book called The Studio, by John Gregory Dunne, a favourite novelist of mine, but also a screenwriter with over thirty years experience of Hollywood. In 1967, Richard Zanuck gave Dunne "free access" to Twentieth Century Fox for a year, while he researched his book. The result is a wonderfully written description of how the biggest movie studio in town was run. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in Hollywood history

One result of reading that book was that I bought a copy of The Devil's Candy, on Dunne's recommendation. This was written by Julie Salamon in 1991 and is the result of Brian De Palma agreeing to allow Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's book, The Bonfire of the Vanities. (I recommend both those books, as well.)

Tom Hanks reigns over the Trading floor in Bonfire of the Vanities.

The Devil's Candy exceeds William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade in making the point that, in Hollywood, Nobody Knows Anything. The studio decided that Bonfire, a book about a bunch of unlikeable characters, could be rescued by casting Mr. Likeable himself, Tom Hanks, as the protagonist. Hanks had just become a star, courtesy of Big (1988). De Palma was appointed director, on the back of his success with The Untouchables (1987). Melanie Griffith had just had a big success with Working Girl (1988), so she got to play the mistress role. Bruce Willis had just become a movie star, courtesy of Die Hard (1988), so he was cast in the pivotal role of the alcoholic English journalist. Morgan Freeman had just been nominated for an Academy Award for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), so he was cast in the role of the white Jewish judge. Kim Cattrall won the role of the wife because she looked the part.

With a cast like that, what could possibly go wrong? Well, pretty much everything. The film cost almost $50million, but was a critical and commercial flop, taking about $15million at the box office.

Richard Gere talks business on his private jet in Arbitrage.

So what, I hear you ask. Well, last night I watched Arbitrage (2012), in which Richard Gere plays a rich Wall Street dude, with a wife and a mistress, who needs a particular deal, worth hundreds of millions, to go through in order to save his financial bacon. While sweating on the deal, he is involved in a car accident with his mistress. She dies and Gere tries to cover his tracks, but falls under the suspicion of a persistent cop.

And I thought to myself, here it is, the old switcheroo! Bonfire of the Vanities as a thriller, rather than a comedy. In Bonfire, Tom Hanks plays a rich Wall Street dude, with a wife and a mistress, who needs a particular deal, worth hundreds of millions, to go through in order to save his financial bacon. While sweating on the deal, he is involved in a car accident with his mistress. A local citizen is injured and Hanks tries to cover his tracks, but falls under the suspicion of a persistent cop.

The old switcheroo, as a device for creating story ideas, has been around a long time. Take a story you understand and feel comfortable with, and rearrange the elements in some way, then write your own version. Turn a comedy into a thriller. Move the country story into the city. Or the other way round. Make the white hero black, or turn the male protagonist into a woman. There are endless examples.

Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.

The first time I noticed the technique was with Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991). Two close friends, who ride motorcycles (rather than horses), sense that their time has just about passed. They rob an armoured car in order to save a friend's business, find themselves pursued by an implacable superposse, jump off a twenty story building into a swimming pool (rather than off a cliff into a river), and finish up in a shootout which has a happy ending, in contrast to the original: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

Robert Redford and Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

One film which makes no effort to hide its origins is Throw Momma From the Train (1987). Not only is it modeled on Strangers on a Train (1951), with the story reversed from a thriller to a comedy, but it references the film and includes footage of it.

Farley Granger and Robert Walker meet over a book in Strangers on a Train.

Danny De Vito and Billy Crystal both write books in Throw Momma from the Train.

There are endless examples of the old switcheroo, from TV as well as the movies.

If the opposition has The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971), a successful TV show about dumb country folk moving in amongst the rich people in Los Angeles, you could always do a switcheroo and write a show where rich people move from Manhattan to live amongst the dumb country people. You could call it Green Acres (1965-1971).

The old switcheroo, you can use it, too.

Don't just sit there, do something!

This piece of street art was tweeted by @BestEarthPix. They have a lovely collection of photos. Take a look sometime. 

Andy Warhol’s ‘Screen Test’ of Bob Dylan

From: Open Culture, March 14, 2012, and Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol, by Tony Scherman and David Dalton. 
____________________________________________

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol used a 16mm Bolex camera to make 472 short films of people, both famous and obscure, who came to visit his “Factory” on East 47th Street in New York. The idea of calling them “Screen Tests” was something of a joke.

“None of these screen tests amounted to giving those people the opportunity to go on in the underground film world. It was kind of a parody of Hollywood.”

The exact date of the session is unknown. Scherman and Dalton write that it most likely occurred in January of 1966, just before Dylan’s world tour. Some witnesses say it happened in late July of 1965, around the time of Dylan’s historic “electric” performance at the Newport Folk Festival. Whatever the date, by all accounts it was an awkward, chilly encounter.

Dylan pulled up at the Factory in a station wagon with his friend, Bob Neuwirth. From the beginning, according to Scherman and Dalton, it was clear that Dylan was determined to demonstrate his superior cool. “As for Andy’s motives,” they write, “he was clearly star-struck, in awe of Dylan’s sudden, vast celebrity. He had a more practical agenda, too: to get Dylan to appear in a Warhol movie.”

But Dylan wasn’t having it. After the sullen Screen Test, he walked over to a large painting of Elvis Presley that Warhol had already set aside for him as a gift and, by one account, said “I think I’ll just take this for payment, man.” He and Neuwirth then lifted the painting, which was nearly seven feet tall, carried it out of the studio, down the freight elevator and into the street, where they strapped it—with no protection whatsoever—onto the roof of the station wagon and drove away.

Dylan didn't like the painting, Double Elvis, so he traded it with his manager, Albert Grossman, for a sofa. The painting is now in the Museum of Modern Art. ________________________________________________________________________

Dylan never lost his interest in film. His music appears on the soundtrack of almost 400 movies and TV shows. He himself can be seen in a few of them.

As Alias in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

With Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson of The Band in The Last Waltz (1978)

He won an Academy Award for the song he wrote for Wonder Boys (2000)

He also wrote the screenplay for Masked and Anonymous (2003)

Meanhile, here's his original "screen test" for Andy Warhol.

"Checked Out"

Checked Out is a four-episode webseries written by David Greenman and directed by Gabriel Long. 

It stars Vicki Lewis, Zelda Williams, Arjun Gupta, and David Greenman.

What's up with those weirdos at the grocery store...

Here's Episode One.

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"First Step In Writing A Screenplay," Richard Walter

Richard Walter is an author, educator, screenwriter, commentator, consultant and chairman of the University of California, Los Angeles graduate program in screenwriting.

He has written numerous feature assignments for the major studios and has sold material to all three networks. He has also written many informational, educational, and corporate films. Walter lectures on screenwriting throughout the world, and has toured The People’s Republic of China, the Middle East, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, Spain, Hong Kong, Vancouver and Toronto. He also lectures all over the United States.

Here he is talking about where ideas come from.

"Squad 85"

Squad 85 is part of the You Offend Me You Offend My Family network, which is based on the pop culture blog founded by director Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow, Fast Five).

In 1985, the Los Angeles Police Department experimented with a secret Time Travel Division. Catapulting ten of L.A.'s Finest 25 years into the future... that future is NOW. Into today's tired world of lab work, warrants, and white-gloved crime scene investigations, bust an elite, twenty-something, mixed-race team of police who only know to kick down doors and ask questions later.

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"I Give It A Year"

Ah, romcoms. Whether you love them or hate them, they keep getting made. The next one up is I Give It A Year, by the same people who made Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually.

A look at the trials and tribulations of a pair of newlyweds during their first year as a married couple.

I Give It A Year was written and directed by Dan Mazer, co-writer of Da Ali G Show, Borat, and Brüno. Mazer says his favourite film is When Harry Met Sally (so watch out for a charades scene in this one). When given the opportunity to write a romcom, Mazer rebelled at the established formula. 

Page 78 in fact: the act two/three turning point where they realise that actually they love each other. It's formulaic and, frankly, depressing too.

I Give It A Year begins at the point most romcoms end, where the couple say "I do". Mazer said:

So a lot of the stories in I Give It A Year are slightly exaggerated versions of true stories, things that have happened either to me or to friends of mine. The basic concept, for example, comes from the fact that at this point in my life I've been to roughly 100 weddings and I can tell whether the marriage is going to last or not. I can sit there in my cynical holier-than-thou way, look to my wife and make a call. I've got an excellent hit rate. I went to a wedding where the groom was trying to give a lovely speech about his wife and the best thing he could think of to say was "the thing I love about her the most is how difficult she finds it to find her mobile phone". That wasn't even a challenge. I think it lasted two months.

Here's the trailer.

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