Excerpt: William Goldman's
Adventures
in the Screen Trade.
p.178
I finally chose the first Archer book, The Moving Target,
which Kastner optioned, and I set to work. The script
I wrote was dialog heavy because I still thought that
was the crucial element. (The resulting movie, by the
way, was very successful for a lot of reasons, none
of which I can take much credit for. Television had
preempted the private-eye format, and there hadn't been
a movie like Harper for years, so it had freshness.
It also had some kind of a cast for a detective flick-among
the performers were -Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur
Hill, Janet Leigh, Strother Martin, and Robert Wagner
giving what I still think is far and away the deepest
emotional work he's yet shown. Not to mention just wonderful
work by Paul Newman, who simply shouldered the script
and rammed it home.)
I don't believe Newman was the first to see it-my memory
is Sinatra turned it down. Newman was in Europe when
he was sent the project, and he showed quick interest.
Because we couldn't have caught him at a better time.
He was making a dog of a period piece, Lady L, and he
was running around in tights and having a miserable
time. Harpe?~ very much in the American tradition, felt
very appealing to him.
Kastner did then what any adroit producer does at such
a time: He hustled. A young director acceptable to Newman
showed a willingness to do it, so Kastner took him and
they flew to Europe to sew up Newman while his interest
was high.
Imagine Kastner's surprise when the meeting took place
and it turned out the young director didn't like the
script at all, said it was rotten, and what they should
do was pitch it all and start over, doing something
in the genre but not this piece of shit. (Piece of shit
by the way is the standard terminology in Hollywood
for a project. If you ask a producer what he's working
on, more than likely he will say, "Well, I've got
this Western piece of shit I'm working on" or "this
piece-of-shit comedy.")
Kastner managed to stifle the director before total
disaster overtook the project. They left Europe with
the director out but Newman, perhaps a bit ruffled,
still interested. Eventually, another young director,
Jack Smight, did the picture with terrific pace and
skill.
When Lady L. was done, Newman returned to his home
in Connecticut and Kastner took me up to a crucial meeting:
Changes were needed and were they the kind of alterations
I could accommodate. (If I hadn't, by the way, I would
have been gone and someone else would have done them.
If Newman's interest would hold. Stars like Newman get
offered everything practically every day, and if a situation
begins to get messy, they can get turned off. Quickly.)
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