THE MOVIES : FIRST, THERE IS THE WORD

The American Film Institute has declared 1988 the Year of the Writer. There is a move on to give film writers the recognition they have earned. But it’s going to be an uphill fight.

“Audiences don’t know someone sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along.”

“Just think, you can put those words down on paper like that, and all I can do is hem brassieres.”

Two different quotations, two different attitudes about writing for films, a process so confusing to most audiences that they often reject the idea that what is happening up there on the screen isn’t happening at all; that it has all been written, shot, canned, projected, put on film or videotape and, usually, soon forgotten.

Written? What does that word mean?

The quotation that begins this piece is spoken by William Holden in “Sunset Boulevard.” It is presented as a voice reading his thoughts. But those thoughts aren’t his . At the time, the actor was probably thinking about when lunch would be called. The thought was actually written for him by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman Jr. It probably didn’t take the three of them to write one line, but they all got paid for it, thanks to the Writers Guild of America.

The “hem brassieres” line? That was delivered by Shirley MacLaine in “Some Came Running” during one of her more recent incarnations. The words were by John Patrick and Arthur Sheekman. After delivering the line, MacLaine went right back to hemming brassieres. As for the screenwriters, what they had done, if they had done their job well, was make the audience unaware that they had done it.

There is a move on this year to change all that, to give film writers the recognition and the acknowledgement they have earned. But it’s going to be an uphill fight, for many reasons.

The American Film Institute has declared 1988 the Year of the Writer, and there are many “Writers Film Festivals” scheduled in various parts of the country. The Writers Guild Foundation, a child of the Writers Guild itself, has made a theatrical movie short entitled “Words,” the work of Academy Award winner Chuck Workman, which has been playing theaters across the United States. It includes no less than 236 examples of memorable lines from as many films and television shows in its 13 brief minutes of running time.

But throughout those 13 minutes there is no identification of the writers.

Perhaps it’s just as well; many times, it is almost impossible to identify the actual author of a single line, and in some cases--very few--the actors did make them up.

The miracle, to me, is that any good lines ever get to the screen. There is an obstacle course between the lovely, carefully nurtured words written on the page of a screenplay and what is actually spoken in front of the camera on a crowded, hectic sound stage.

How many of these lines from “Words” that stir fond memories today, were delivered exactly as written?

“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?”

“This is the cleanest and nicest police car I was ever in.”

“Fasten your seat belts; this is going to be a bumpy ride.”

“I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

And, of course, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

I have no idea how many of these were spoken precisely as written in the script. And memorable as they may be, almost no one remembers who wrote them. But almost everyone remembers the actor or actress who spoke them.

As a writer of film and television stories, that disturbs me. Authorship is not a trivial matter. Ideas are the basis of any civilization. Words are the way we express those ideas. Those who create the words that influence our thinking and our perceptions on the motion picture and television screens of the world deserve a better fate than the obscurity in which they often find themselves, unable to control their creations.

Many of us who write for films figure we are fortunate if 50% of what we intended ever reaches the screen. I’ve often said I am a writer by choice, a producer through necessity and a director in self-defense. If I were also an actor, I might have an even better chance of protecting what I have written. Or, if I were Noel Coward, I could act, write, direct, produce, and sing and dance to my own songs. And then, possibly, a camera operator might miss the lifted eyebrow that conveyed Coward’s real meaning and thereby change the whole thing.

Incidentally, I am not Noel Coward.

In this battle of making a motion picture, the writer can’t always win. Sometimes I believe that writers never can. Steven Spielberg spoke brave words when he received the Thalberg Award at the 1987 Academy Awards:

“I’m told Irving Thalberg worshipped writers. And that’s where it all begins . . . ; without, as he calls it, ‘the photoplay,’ everybody is simply improvising.”

Simply improvising. “Ay,” as another writer once wrote, “there’s the rub.” (There is still dispute in some circles as to whether the Bard of Avon actually should get credit for some of his writings. The problem on and off the screen is timeless.)

The difficulty with motion picture actors improvising is that sometimes they know what they are doing.

I was directing a film I had written with Danny Arnold, later the creator of “Barney Miller.” Our movie, “The War Between Men and Women,” was based on the writings and drawings of James Thurber. Barbara Harris played Jack Lemmon’s somewhat confused new bride, and Jason Robards was her romantically inclined ex-husband who had returned to try to woo her back. In the living room that night, the two men discussed the details of their separate honeymoons with Harris until she was livid with anger.

This is how we wrote it in the screenplay:

HARRIS: I’m ashamed of you! You have no regard for women! You’re talking about me as if I were a-a-a motel room the two of you shared for a night!

LEMMON: That’s an unfortunate choice of a simile.

ROBARDS: Very unfortunate . . . but revealing.

HARRIS: Shut up! Everybody just shut up!

Harris runs up the stairs, close to tears, and disappears.

That is the way it was written. But when Harris, an actress who really throws herself into a role, got to the top of the stairs, she suddenly turned to the men and shouted, “Come to bed . . . one of you!”

That line stayed in.

Arnold and I were happy to take credit for it.

On the other side of this considerable literary coin, I had an experience with a fine actress who also fancied herself a fine writer. She insisted on changing almost every line. Not only her own, but she wanted to perform the same generous function for everyone else in the cast.

Unfortunately, none of her rewritten dialogue is included among the 236 memorable lines in “Words.” Perhaps if there had been 237. . . .

Of course, I have been guilty of similar crimes. In my beginning days as a screenwriter, the late Don Hartman, one of the creators of the “Road” pictures that starred Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, walked on the set of “The Road to Singapore” and Bob shouted to him, “If you recognize one of your own lines, yell ‘Bingo!’ ”

And Don said, “Don’t change another word or I’ll put you back in the trunk.”

It didn’t have much effect. I know, because I was one of Bob Hope’s endless writing staff, whose job it was to “punch up” his movie scripts so he could always top Crosby, who had four fewer writers on his staff than Hope. Hope would turn our jokes in to the picture’s producer, the producer would invariably throw them out, and Hope would then insert them between the pages of his script so he could “ad lib” them when the cameras were turning.

Bingo! The richest comedian in the movie business. Or any business, for that matter. When a vice president of the Bank of America asked its founder, A.P. Giannini, if he could approach Hope with a plan to manage his investments, Giannini said, “Ask Hope if he’ll manage ours.”

There is another roadblock to getting words you write to the screen: In the world of television it’s called the networks’ Continuity Acceptance Departments, usually known as Continuity Rejection.

Some years ago, a fellow writer working on a television show called “My Favorite Martian”--you may remember that it starred Ray Walston as a visitor from Mars who had come to Earth--had his script returned from the network’s Continuity Acceptance Department with many of his speeches circled in red and a notation on the side of the page, “A Martian wouldn’t say that.”

No one could prove the censor wrong.

Sometimes writing comes down to a single word. Getting a particular, single word to the motion picture screen almost created an international incident. Some years ago, I was on the island of Capri directing a film that starred Clark Gable and Sophia Loren. It was titled “It Started in Naples,” and I had written the screenplay with my longtime collaborator, Jack Rose. Two of us were required to write that one precious word.

The scene was set in the crowded central piazza of the romantic little island, with 100 or so extras seated at tables in the outdoor cafes. It was late at night, it was hot, and it was noisy. A local band was playing soulful Italian melodies, some of them in tune. We had hired an old Italian character actor to play the part of the waiter who was to serve Gable a cup of coffee. The waiter had only that one word to say in his entire role, a single word we felt summed up Capri for all time.

The dialogue:

GABLE (to the waiter): Does this noise go on all night? It’s 1 o’clock in the morning! How are people supposed to sleep on this island?

WAITER (a smile): Together.

Simple? We thought so, until rehearsal. We discovered that our character actor didn’t speak a word of English, and of all the words he didn’t speak, together was the most difficult for him to pronounce. Our interpreter patiently explained the meaning of the word and its precise pronunciation, for what seemed hours, with our extras happily waiting as they consumed gallons of espresso and Campari at our expense. The explanations merely confused our actor further. Then, finally, a bulb went on. He had found a way. It seemed he had a friend, a director named Togazzo, and by associating that name with our word, he could remember both our precious word and its proper pronunciation in English.

We all heaved a sigh of relief and the cameras rolled.

The waiter approached from behind Gable with his coffee and set it down, amid the noise and the music.

“How are people supposed to sleep on this island?” Clark inquired.

The waiter didn’t answer. He just stood there, while the extras continued drinking, the band continued playing and the budget continued climbing.

The interpreter whispered in my ear that his friend, the old actor, hadn’t bothered to mention it, but he not only didn’t speak English, he didn’t hear it. Or any other language. He was a little bit deaf. He got by in films by reading lips, but since I had him approach Gable from the rear, there was no way he could tell when to deliver his immortal word.

I had the interpreter inform our ancient thespian--from in front of him--that I would signal him with a wave of my hand when Gable, his expensive straight-man, had delivered his feed line. The old actor smiled happily, his eyes lighting up, all his problems solved. I had become the new Rossellini, the new Fellini, a director with patience, vision, and understanding. Not to mention sign language.

Camera. Action!

GABLE (to the waiter): How are people supposed to sleep on this island?

(I throw the cue.)

WAITER (smiling): Togazzo.

So, as you see, the actors sometimes do make it up as they go along. Continuity Acceptance operates in a world of its own. Directors sometimes wield an unfeeling pencil. Producers often cut the heart out of a carefully constructed scene because the film is too long and the commercials too short.

It is part of the frustration all writers know they face after the word is on the page.

I could tell you exactly how I feel about it. But a Martian wouldn’t say that.