Taking Chances: Interview with Leo McCarey
Serge Daney & Jean-Louis Noames, 1965
Translated by Rose Kaplin
The following interview was published in Cahiers du Cinéma (no. 163) in February 1965. In January 1967, it appeared in translation in Cahiers du Cinéma in English (no. 7), a short-lived publication spearheaded by critic Andrew Sarris.
This text accompanies our retrospective dedicated to Jean-Claude Rousseau, an admirer of director Leo McCarey. McCarey’s 1935 film Ruggles of Red Gap screens in our program.
Cahiers: Recently the Cinémathèque Française programmed a series of Laurel and Hardy shorts that you “supervised”: exactly what was your role?
McCarey: You know, the film industry has undergone many changes since that time—I would like very much to give it the name of art, but so many people call it an industry… and, in any case, I believe our success comes from the fact that, from time to time, we do something artistic. In the genre of popular comedy about which we are speaking, people like Marcel Marceau and Charles Chaplin have mastered a certain form of art. Once more, I want to say that, for myself, I would like very much to call this métier an art, for I do not like to call it “business,” and I wouldn’t do it if everyone else didn’t… This “supervision” you were asking about was, in those days, the function of being responsible for practically everything in the film: writing the story, cutting it, stringing the gags together, coordinating everything, screening the rushes, working on the editing, sending out the prints, working on the second editing when the preview reactions weren’t good enough and even, from time to time, shooting sequences over again… The function of the supervisor comprised almost all the responsibilities. But there was, in those days, a custom that called for one’s name not to be mentioned in the credits: the members of the industry knew who had done what. Thus, many of our great artists didn’t even have their names on the screen. For example, Irving Thalberg… never put his name on anything. In my modest fashion I tried to follow the same path. While I “made” at least a hundred Laurel and hardy films, I only very rarely took the credit. Following in this way the example of several predecessors I thought, as they did, that the people who were pleased would ask, “Who is the auteur?”... someone would tell them, and eventually the whole world would know. Today, it’s completely different: thousands of dollars are spent on publicity so that people may know such and such a person has made such and such a film, even if, in reality, he hasn’t done a thing…
We all particularly like one of those shorts: Putting Pants on Philip.
That one I did entirely, it’s my baby. I made it from beginning to end with no outside help at all. For no one wanted to make it, that one! As well as being the producer, the boss (and I had three other films on my hands), I had to direct it, telling myself that at least I would be popular with the tailors! And all the tailors in the world have laughed at this film. Briefly, the idea of the film pleased no one, from the beginning, and I was so furious about it that I closed my office in order to go on the set myself with Laurel and hardy (I hadn’t directed anything for some time and hadn’t even had the occasion to go on the set); in this way I wrote and made this film in just about six days. I’m happy you liked it; it’s one of my favorites and Laurel considered it one of his best.
Putting Pants on Philip (1927)
What was Laurel’s role on the crew? It is said he was very inventive…
He was one of the rare comics intelligent enough to invent his own gags. Laurel was remarkably talented, while Hardy wasn’t. This is the key to the Laurel-Hardy association. Throughout their lives (I was one of their intimates), Laurel insisted on earning twice as much as Hardy. He said that he was twice as good and twice as important, that he wrote the film and participated in its creation, while Hardy was really incapable of creating anything at all—it was astonishing that he could even find his way to the studio… This work represented a great deal to me; nothing could have replaced such an experience. And this experience—where all the ideas on which we were working were original and completely new—is comparable to no other. By virtue of the success of these films, it was possible for me to make a reputation and to receive offers to direct feature films. This allowed me, in a sense, to climb the ladder. And when I say “climb the ladder,” sometimes I ask myself… Briefly, it caused me a lot of my successes and the rewards that crowned them, when I continued on my path in this industry—but here I am starting again. I mean to speak of our art, of course.
Haven’t you retained, from that period, a manner of cutting and editing your films, a sort of rhythm that recurs up to your most recent productions?
I believe in effect that first influences install themselves for life. But there is one thing above all that we, so to speak, discovered. At that time comics had, for the most part, a tendency to “do too much.” With Laurel and Hardy we introduced a nearly opposite comic conception. I tried—we tried—to direct them in such a way that they showed nothing, expressed nothing, which had the consequence of making the public, which was waiting for the opposite, laugh. We restrained ourselves so much in showing the actors’ feelings that the public couldn’t hold back its laughter, and laughed because we remained serious.
But allow me rather to tell you an anecdote: “Babe” Hardy (“Hardy the Babe” was the nickname I gave Oliver), one day, was playing the part of a maitre d’ who was coming in with a cake to be served. As he steps through the doorway, he falls and finds himself on the floor, his head buried in the cake. I shouted to him, “Don’t move! Above all, don’t move! Stay like that, the cake should burn your face!” And, for a minute and a half, the public couldn’t stop laughing. Hardy remained immobile, his head in the cake! He remained stretched out, furious, and you could only see his back.
That, in fact, was one of the shorts we saw (From Soups to Nuts), and there is another scene we liked very much. The one in which a woman tries desperately…
…to grab a cherry! I remember it very well, it was a gag that never ended. It lasted throughout the film and we came back to it over and over, the woman trying, each time, new methods of getting hold of the cherry! Those were really marvelous times. Every two or three weeks we had to have one of these shorts finished and, in proportion as the quality was improved, we were given more time, more money too!
Did you get along with other comics of the period?
I knew them very well, I should say. We were all good friends, although rivals, and every evening we met. It was in this way that I very quickly allied myself with Chaplin, who particularly loves Laurel and Hardy films. One of the most precious souvenirs is a fan letter that Chaplin sent me in which he congratulates me on my work with Laurel and Hardy and predicts a beautiful future for me. Keaton too was working, I believe, in a manner analogous to ours. Two or three gagmen were at his disposal and proposed gag ideas, which he had the privilege of accepting or rejecting. Besides, we often tried to steal each other’s gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton: it was most often he himself who found his best gags, and we could not steal him! Another man that everyone tried to “steal” was Chaplin’s gagman… There is, in America, a sort of dictum: “If we could only find the ghost who writes for Irving Berlin…” It was the same principle with us.
I am very happy to learn that Laurel and Hardy are still liked in France, for here they are still popular with the children of the new generation: their comedy cannot grow old, it is not faded by time.
Do you know Harry Langdon?
Very well. But he worked far from our studio, in the valley, and I no longer recall his collaborators very well. I only know that Frank Capra was his director and he had a lot of talent. Arthur Ripley also worked with Langdon, and, in addition, he wrote very intellectual things: he was erudite. In my opinion, Langdon was too intellectual to be appreciated by the general public. And because he pleased only certain people he was not as successful as he might have been.
Have you seen Jerry Lewis’ films?
I haven’t seen a one. And I must admit that it was only recently that I found out that he is a director: and I live in Hollywood!
Coming back to Laurel and Hardy, I must tell you that it was I who had the idea of putting them together: Laurel worked for me as a gagman and “Babe” Hardy was only an ordinary extra. In those days, the extras reported at the studio every morning to find out if there was work. I shall never forget the day the idea came to me to have them act together in a film. I had Hardy called and told him I had a project for him that would bring in ten dollars a day, six days a week, and he shouted, “Oh! Sir, that’s marvelous news… sixty dollars a week! I can’t believe it!” And I continued, “What’s more, if the films are good, you will earn that amount every week.” As for Laurel, he was earning a hundred dollars. Figure it out: for a hundred and sixty dollars a week, I had one of the greatest comic teams, in my opinion the best. But I don’t want to start an argument. Of course they got a raise shortly afterwards!
But isn’t this one of the constants of your work, the bringing together of people who, physically, do not go together at all?
It is possible that this is an interior theme in my films… but I am too close to them to account for it.
We were thinking in particular of that scene from An Affair to Remember between Deborah Kerr and the child hanging from the balustrade.
Yes, of course; she says that when she was little she broke a leg that way and he answers her, after having asked if her leg is alright now, “What are you complaining about then?” Above all, what I wanted to show in the scene was—a rare enough thing on our screens—a sort of turned around humor… also, that scene provided a link for me: this child that the public already liked because he had made it laigh said, as soon as he saw Cary Grant, “You know, I’ve heard so much about you.” And when Cary Grant asks what he has heard about him, he replies, “I don’t know, because whenever they start to talk about you they make me leave the room.” I could, in this way, show the public the opinion people had about a character without having to underline it.
Let’s go back to your beginning. Can you tell us how you entered the cinema?
I started by being script girl! At that time I didn’t know that it was almost always girls who did this work. I was dying to work in cinema, I wanted absolutely to get past the studio gates, to be one of them, I adored this métier. And that is why I accepted this job which consisted of following the script and taking notes on each scene. During the shooting I sat next to the director and, after that, I went to the editing room. From film to film, I had the opportunity to propose ideas because the scenarios we were shooting were all original. It was a unique apprenticeship working with a man who wrote, directed and edited his films himself. So much so that I didn’t care what position I occupied. This man was named Tod Browning and he was famous, a little like Hitchcock, because he made horror films. Lon Chaney was his number one star. Strangely enough, and in spite of this apprenticeship, I have never made any but the genre of films I wanted to, and never horror films… However, I had the idea of one day making a film with Hitchcock. Quite simply, I wanted to direct Alfred in a horror film. But in spite of all the time we have spent together discussing it, we have never found a moment when we were both free. I wanted him to act in this film and to commit the perfect crime in it. He was fascinated by this idea, his wife too. (Moreover, our families were very close and our daughters excellent friends.) We have often discussed this project…
You know, he has a very great talent for acting. He proved this in the presentation of his films on TV, but at that time he had never been on TV and he only improvised droll things at certain parties where he did imitations, the people who listened to him laughed until they became hysterical. That’s how I got the idea of having one of our greatest directors act. Besides, I like his films very much, I always go to see them with enthusiasm. At certain moments, he fascinates me by what I consider a supreme disdain for logic. His principal aim was to frighten people and, in order to make them even more afraid, he often threw logic out of the window. I marveled at his films in spite of the certain “ruptures” that hurt their continuity. In one of them, whose title I have forgotten, there are two people isolated on a desert, near a ghost town. A telephone starts to ring. One of them picks up the receiver, then holds it out to the other, saying, “Take it; it’s for you!” Then he adds, “They want us to come back to town.” The following sequence shows them back in town. Thus with no transition at all, they passed from the desert to town. I remember being convulsed with laughter, so recognizable was Hitchcock’s stamp.
Let’s talk some more about your work as assistant director.
There is a film I like, called Outside the Law. We were behind in our shooting schedule. The studio sent me to San Francisco to direct Lon Chaney. This was my first chance to become “somebody.” That gave me importance. At night, nearly ten thousand people gathered in the streets to see me direct Lon Chaney and I walked back and forth, a little like DeMille. I was finally somebody. I headed towards Chaney, who was a great actor, and said to him,” Lon, at least give the appearance of listening to me.” We had a little conference and I proposed that he do this or that, for example, to light a cigarette, which accounted to nothing because he knew exactly what he had to do. But me, I was giving the appearance of directing him, for three nights in a row. Besides, I made a big impression on the crowds. It was one of my first real joys in the cinema.
Then, you made several films with Charlie Chase.
Oh well, I can’t really explain to you what genre of comedy these films were, if you haven’t already seen them. It is a little like the Dick Van Dyke genre of comedy, but I don’t believe his films were ever shown in France. It was a matter of, if you will, these domestic comedies that, later, transposed to TV, were an enormous success. Moreover, I must say that the TV people didn’t use our ideas badly. Some of these films were really very funny, but they were completely different from what we did with Laurel and Hardy. Most of them dealt with the misadventure of husband and wife. For example, the husband had a very big nose and the wife buck teeth; each of them saved his money in order to have plastic surgery. And each made excuses to the other, saying he was going to see a friend, and went away for a month. A little later, they meet on the street, their faces naturally different: they don’t recognize each other. He approaches his wife, romance is born between them. And the public couldn’t find this immoral, since they were still husband and wife! And, in the following scene, he invites her to their apartment. Realizing his mistake, he is enraged that his wife could have wanted to deceive him with another man, without, of course, considering he too was all but unfaithful. All that was really very funny.
And your first film: The Sophmore?
This name designates second year college students. Many actors who are forgotten today played in that film. The only one who is still remembered is Lew Ayres. He is also the only one among them to have had a long career. For this film, I wrote a large part of the scenario. A curious detail: our producer was Joseph B. Kennedy, whose experience in the cinema was very short. (And I am responsible for the only financial success he ever had.) This is the same Kennedy who later was our Ambassador to England and the father of our unfortunate John F. Moreover, I was invited to the wedding dinner of the Kennedy daughters, and I gave a little speech in which I declared that, since I had directed this film that brought in money to the their father, I had had a sort of a hand in the children’s education—which was “un peu drole.” It was a film about football and, unfortunately, I don’t believe you could really understand any of it:here, and here alone, is where this film could bring in so much money.
My following film: Red Hot Rhythm, was also a comedy, but very bad. It’s one of the worst films I ever made. I don’t want to look for alibis, but the filming coincided with a strike by the actors’ guild, and we couldn’t use people who weren’t under contract to the studio. It was a small studio: therefore, we didn’t have anyone. The actor who took the principal part was supposed to be a singer and composer and he had no voice. In those days we were note yet utilizing dubbing. When he spoke, it sounded as if the poor man had a frog in his throat: and this was our singer! That’s the only one of the inconveniences I was faced with during the shooting of this film.
For Let’s Go Native, my following film, I had a lot more luck. Paramount’s most important stars appeared in it: Jeanette MacDonald, Kay Francis, Jack Oakie, etc. My producer was Ernst Lubitsch and we were very good friends. And I am going to tell you something I think of all the time: it is I who designed the flowerbed on his tomb, and the only inscription we put on it was “Ernst,” which impressed everyone. He helped me a great deal; and I love his films.
Wild Company was a rather mediocre film, and I’m not very attached to it. Part Time Wife was, in return, a great success. It was a very funny film. And it’s the one that allowed me to double my salary, first of all, and then made me known. It is somewhat in the same genre as The Awful Truth which was the first of my films to get an Oscar… Although they weren’t filmed in the same way, there are two or three scenes in Awful Truth that are paraphrases of identical scenes in Part Time Wife. But I didn’t have so much experience and these scenes, I believe, are better in their remakes. Then, I did Indiscreet, with Gloria Swanson, which didn’t have much success here. Even so, it is amusing enough that the title was used again for a story that no relation at all to mine: it was, I believe, a film with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. I didn’t have much fun making Indiscreet. But in this métier, we all have our share of good luck and bad luck. There are many moments of intense happiness and much turmoil as well. Here, ten days before shooting was about to start, we were informed that we couldn't do a musical comedy: and we already had fifteen songs ready for the film, and the action turned entirely on the music. And Gloria had a beautiful voice! Joseph Schenck, who was then the head of the studio, asked us to find a new story quickly, because they had already started to pay Gloria. I locked myself in an office with the scenarist and, ten days later, we came out again with a new story—without music this time. It should be taken into account that this film was written in ten days! It wasn’t really bad, but I believe that I’ve done much better. Why don’t we talk about that instead?
But first let’s talk about other films you directed during that period.
Understand me: I am impatient to talk about something I like! For example, in The Kid from Spain, there is the most extraordinary corrida that was ever filmed. And this is not only my opinion but that of critics. That sequence lasted between eight and ten minutes and there was much humor and emotion. To double for the comedian who was to be pursued by the bull, I employed a young Mexican, twenty years old, who resembled Eddie Cantor; and that cannot, in any case, show Cantor in a bad light if I reveal that he had a double, because everyone knows very well that he has nothing of the toreador in him! In several shots you saw the bull throw the matador in the air with his horns and it was, of course, necessary that the young man wear heavily padded clothes in order to avoid an accident that could have been fatal. For five days we tried to shoot that sequence: and we had multiple annoyances. When we wanted the bull to charge he didn’t want to budge. And when the cameras weren’t running, he tried to kill us all. After many fruitless attempts of this nature, I finally gave up, and I was in my office when the cameraman came to see me. During my absence, the matador had stayed alone with the cameraman and the bull, and they had filmed the scene together, without me, I expressed the desire to thank the brave little young man. I was told that I would have to go to the hospital. I went there, to be sure. He had several broken ribs and the only thing he said, repeatedly, was, “Senor, I had taken off my protective clothing! But I knew how much you needed that scene so I did it anyhow…” He was an extraordinary young man.
A short time later, you made Duck Soup, which is perhaps the best of the Marx Brothers films.
I don’t like it so much, you know. But even so I had become a better director. In fact I never chose to shoot this film. The Marx Brothers absolutely wanted me to direct them in a film. I refused. Then they got angry with the studio, broke their contract and left. Believing myself secure, I accepted the renewal of my own contract with the studio. Soon, the Marx Brothers were reconciled with the company in question and I found myself in the process of directing the Marx Brothers. The most surprising thing about this film was that I succeeded in not going crazy, for I really did not want to work with them: they were completely mad. It was nearly impossible to get all four of them together at the same time. One was always missing! Yes, they were the four battiest people I ever met, which didn’t stop me from taking great pleasure in the shooting of several scenes in the film. As my experience in silent films had very much influenced me, it was Harpo I preferred. But this film wasn’t the ideal film for me: it is in fact the only time in my career, to my knowledge, that I made the humor rest with the dialogue: with Groucho, it was the only humor you could get. Four or five writers furnished him with gags and pleasantries. As for me, I didn’t get to do any of them.
I like Belle of the Nineties better. The film was much as the title suggests: the story takes place around the 1890s. There were a few very good moments. Since I am (me too) at heart a musician, the thing that moved me the most was my collaboration with Duke Ellington. I kept him two weeks longer than the allotted time, and, one day, the big boss of the studio came to see what was happening on the set: I was in the act of playing the piano and the whole orchestra was accompanying me, conducted by Ellington… The guy, who was paying all of us, started to shout: “This evening, Ellington is finished!” But Ellington is one of our greatest musicians: I saw him create with astonishing speed. When the boss imposed this new setback on us, it was around noon. One number still remained to be orchestrated. Ellington got up, stood in front of his “gang,” his orchestra, and started to hum all the parts they had to play, to each section of the orchestra. With a few interruptions at the piano in order to correct certain passages, he wrote the entire arrangement in several hours. At six o’clock, Mae West was already singing it, and our delays were over. All of his musicians had such an immense talent and that’s why he succeeded in this prodigious feat—without even writing a single note on a sheet of paper. I am very happy to finally be talking about someone other than myself.
You wrote songs…
Yes, but only the words, of course… Following that I filmed Ruggles of Red Gap, the story of a British butler who comes to the U.S.A. explaining that his “jesting” in England woulf have forced him to remain a butler for the rest of his life, while here he himself could, with his own two hands, fashion and change his position. With a small amount of money he succeeds in opening a restaurant and, as he knows cuisine, of course, this allows him to make a fortune. Right in the middle of the film he declaims a passage from the Gettysburg Address, in which Lincoln affirms the liberty of Americans.
The Milky Way is a film I don’t like very much. In this, Harold Lloyd plays the part of a milkman who, by accident, wins the middleweight championship: it was, to be sure, a comedy… for certain people, it seemed to be good fortune that, throughout the film, everyone drank nothing but milk… For me, the luck was less favorable, for I drank the milk of a contaminated cow and had so much fever that I had to be taken out of the studio in an ambulance. Which, very happily, permitted me to not finish this film. I almost died that time, but I believe that the game was worth the candle… Moreover, what I am saying will please Harold Lloyd very much! If there were, even so, a few good funny scenes in this film, it was rather in the ensemble—like those pies made of leftovers that one doesn’t know what else to do with.
The Awful Truth, which brought me an Oscar, was a film whose shooting gave me real pleasure. Irene Dunne, Carey Grant and Ralph Bellamy never posed a problem for me. It was one of the films I shot most rapidly. And what also pleases me is that I told, somewhat, the story of my life (don’t repeat it: my wife will want to kill me…). But the few scenes turning on the question of faithfulness, I should hasten to say, were not at all autobiographical: my imagination alone is responsible.
Make Way For Tomorrow, in spite of all the humor in it, was the saddest story I ever filmed. There was much “pathos”; it is the adventure of a couple who have five children, raise them and, following money troubles, find themselves reduced to living off their children who, themselves, have problems and endlessly quarrel amongst themselves on the subject of their parents… It was at the same time very funny and very dramatic. It is difficult for me to talk any more about it, but I believe that it was very beautiful to look at. After this film, I received many telegrams saying I had won the Academy Award for the lesser of my two films and I, too, prefer Make Way For Tomorrow to The Awful Truth. If I really have talent, this is where it appears.
McCarey directing Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)
After that you directed The Cowboy and the Lady…
No! I didn’t do that film! I am going to tell you about that misadventure, for it was one for Sam Goldwyn as well. I was resting—in the desert—convalescing from a very serious illness; bills were weighing more and more heavily on me: it was absolutely necessary that I earn some money. I very quickly wrote a story called “The Cowboy and the Lady” and I went to tell Willy Wilder about it. Wyler found it very good: but never had I put so much into a thing—doing all the parts in pantomime, interpreting each situation, etc. He advised me to go and tell Sam Goldwyn about it. Therefore, I went to see Goldwyn, trembling with fear and praying for luck. Mr. Goldwyn declared himself very satisfied and gave me twenty-five thousand dollars, which allowed me to pay all my doctors and nurses. Then, Willy changed his mind: he didn’t want to direct the film. Moreover, I believe he had accepted the scenario in order to do me a favor and get me out of trouble. Goldwyn had me called and said he had a surprise for me: he wanted me to direct my story. I answered that I didn’t like it enough for that. Don’t let it out, to tell the truth, I answered him, “What? Direct that crap!”... That’s the whole thing.
And the first version of (Elle et Lui): Love Affair?
Between the first and second versions, to tell the truth there aren’t many differences. Moreover, it is the only time I did a veritable remake of one of my films, and I did it because it is my favorite love story. And all the celebrated actresses who have played this role on the radio and on television have told me that, of all the love stories they know, it is also their favorite. Since at least two generations of young people couldn’t have seen that first version, I had the feeling that I should tell the story again, for them. As for the differences between Love Affair and An Affair to Remember, it is none other than the difference between Charles Boyer and Cary Grant. Cary Grant can never succeed in masking that really extraordinary sense of humor he has; in spite of all his efforts, he can’t get rid of that humor. That is why the second version, even in the most touching love scenes, is so funny. If Grant had been as sincere as Boyer… I am not saying this against him: I like him very much, but he always brings out the humor latent in any situation… As for me, I prefer the first version for its beauty and the second because, financially, it was a much bigger success.
We saw Once Upon a Honeymoon…
I don’t like this film. I should even say that I detest it. I had a lot of trouble with it, which I would prefer not to discuss. For this film, as sometimes happens, the gods abandoned me.
There is something that seemed very strange to us: at the end of the film, that shot of the ship making a half turn…
In order to go looking for Walter Slezak who is drowning? But I never filmed that shot! Someone did me a dirty turn. In my version, I let him drown. But the people at the studio must have extracted this shot from the film: they must have found the ending too inhuman! I find, on the contrary, that it was very good: since this character is so ignoble, I thought it very sympathetic to have him drown. It isn’t very funny, the way the studio people deal with a film as soon as it’s out of your hands. Anything can happen! In fact, I didn’t like the scenario of the film at all: but a scenarist came to see me and, as I like to write stories very much, I helped him and, without being aware of it, found myself up to the neck in that affair…
It is very difficult, in France, to see your two “religious” films again: Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s…
But that’s tragic! These are two of my most successful films and, in a certain sense, one might say that they alone constitute my whole career. But they aren’t really religious films: there was a lot of humor. And, in any case, there was nothing at all pious in either of them. A Cardinal said of them that they were “gently disrespectful,” which gives you an approximate idea of the tone of these films. It is difficult for me to tell you about them, because each little incident in them had great importance. Moreover, I have a theory about that, with a very exact name: “the ineluctability of incidents,” which is applied to the construction of all of my films. To formulate it another way: if something happens, some other thing inevitably flows from it. Like night and day follow each other, events are linked together, and I always develop my story in this way, in a series of incidents, of events which succeed each other and provoke each other. I never really have intrigue… To come back to these two films, I really made them for the sole pleasure of making something beautiful, and filming them gave me great pleasure. I was surprised when the first one brought in so much money. I believed that it was a very small film and everyone was as surprised as I was by its success. In Going My Way, Bing Crosby took the part of a priest who wrote songs and sang them. Under a false name, he sold songs to a publisher, in this way amassing money for his church. A girl with whom he had had a liaison had become a very celebrated singer and, in order to help him, she succeeded in getting the cooperation of the Philharmonic without paying anything at all. People wanted to see this film as a “musical comedy,” because of the importance of the songs, but it was rather, to my way of thinking, a “dramatic comedy.”
I made the Bells of St. Mary’s because, from all over the country, letters came to me explaining that since I had rendered the priests so human and so popular I could do so much for the good Sisters and the nuns… I was told that I owed it to them, for they were human, too: living, breathing, laughing, etc. Therefore, I worked somewhat on demand. But I put very few songs in this film, fewer than the first… I still can’t understand why Going My Way wasn’t more successful in France: the songs were very rhythmic, you could even dance to them! (and, with this, McCarey throws himself into an interpretation of the title song…) Moreover, it also had “Ave Maria,” the “Magnificat,” the “Habanera”; in brief, these weren’t really typically American songs: it was easy to appreciate them abroad!
There was also a secondary intrigue: that amorous liaison the priest had had before taking the cloth. I really want to try to tell you about one of these scenes, but you’d have to see it, it’s so beautiful: the priest and the young woman haven’t seen each other for several years; she was studying singing in Switzerland. They met in the rain and she tells him that when he was still writing to her she always read his letters by moonlight. As it was raining, Crosby was wearing a raincoat, with the collar turned up, so that his cassock couldn’t be seen. At the same time as she gives him to understand that she has become the star of the Metropolitan Opera, she invites him into her dressing-room, as shelter from the rain. She asks him to talk to her while she puts on her make-up. It is then that he sheds his raincoat and she sees that he is in priest’s clothing: she understands why her letters went unanswered.
In your opinion, do children play an important role in your work?
I must say, I like children very much. They can be extraordinary actors (moreover, they got an Oscar for their acting in The Bells…), I like to show certain naive sides to their characters, the divergence of their points of view and their incessant desire to know the why of things, which embarasses many adults. For my following film, Good Sam, I believed that my point of departure was excellent but I was visibly mistaken. The film had a certain success but when, after two immense successes, you have a small one it is considered a failure. I believe I know why the film didn’t go as well as I imagined it would: Sinclair Lewis refused to work on the script, telling me that, these days, a man who tried to live the life of a saint would be a fool and would be considered as such. But I had my heart set on my character and I did the film even so, with Gary Cooper in the role. But Sinclair Lewis was right: the public thinks it isn’t right for a man to help his neighbor. Each day, one learns of accidents happening without anyone’s intervening or seeking to bring help to the injured. Not so very long ago, in New York, two or three guys raped a woman while spectators impassively watched. They didn't even try to alert the police. It’s an unbelievable world. You see that the moment was ill-chosen for making a film about apostleship.
During the shooting of My Son John, a tragedy befell us and I was never able to tell the world about it. Right in the middle of the filming, Robert Walker died. If he had lived, it would have perhaps been my greatest film… But one night my daughter, who had gone out, called me on the telephone and announced Robert’s death. It was the end. The whole crew was as floored as myself. All salaries were stopped and everyone went to work on other films. We interrupted the film for three months. The studio wanted to recoup its money and, for that reason, we couldn’t reveal Walker’s death: I had to have recourse to all the tricks I had learned in this metier in order to transform the few scenes we had shot into a real film. And we succeeded in making this film, in finishing it, and it is all the same extraordinary that this film competed for an Oscar for best scenario. After three months of stubborn work I succeeded in establishing three or four versions of the film, then I utilized the sequences in which Walker appeared with his mother and replaced her with Van Heflin, who played an FBI man. But, in any case, it was necessary for Walker to die at the end and I hadn’t shot the scene in question. That’s when I remembered Hitchcock, in Strangers on a Train, had filmed a scene in which Walker dies under a carousel. It was three o’clock in the morning and I paced back and forth in my room, telling myself that it was necessary to wait until Hitchcock woke up.
Seven o’clock it is still too early to drag Hitchcock out of bed! Eight o’clock—still too early for him—but if I wait till nine perhaps he will go out. I look in the newspaper to verify he is not shooting any film. At eight-thirty, I had Hitchcock on the line and I asked him, “Do you have a close-up of Walker’s death?” He answered, “I know nothing about it, but I can meet you at the studio and have the sequence screened, we’ll see; I know what problem you are having; is that sufficient to help you?”—Help me? But it will save my life! I have the intention of having him shot to death, and having him pronounce the words, “I have made my confession,” which I have on a record by him. In the scene from Hitchcock’s film, young Farley Granger talks with Walker under the merry-go-round. I was in a state of excitement and shouted at Granger’s image, “But get out, get out of there!” Happily, for a second, Granger moved away and Walker remained, alone, saying several words. I took this shot and changed the text… But since I couldn’t confide in any of the actors, who could have revealed Walker’s death to the journalists, which the studio had forbidden, I myself dubbed those words in a barely audible voice.
Satan Never Sleeps was also a nightmare; I had a very fine story but, in the middle of the filming, people more powerful than I took pride in modifying it. I finally let the film drop and my assistant took care of the last five days of shooting. For An Affair to Remember, I wanted to find out whether I was as good a scenarist and as good a director as I had been twenty years earlier. Every night, I stayed awake trying to improve the film: I wrote nearly a third with new dialogue. And I shall always remember the time I met Deborah Kerr in Madrid and she said to me, “Do you remember the dialogue in the scene on the bridge: ‘Winter must be very cold for those who have no memories to keep them warm, and we have already missed Spring’... do you remember that, Leo?” I answered her, “Of course, I stayed up a whole night writing that…” I wanted, incessantly, to surpass the McCarey of twenty years before. A propos Cary Grant, let me tell you an amusing anecdote. We had made two or three successful films together, but his Box Office hadn’t risen and Paramount had not renewed his contract. I met him at the corner of Vine and Melrose, walking down the street. He said to me, “Paramount let me go: I’m on the streets.” I answered him, “and just what do you think I’m doing?” Paramount kicked me out, too!” We were two bums. But everything worked out well: the next year, we got an Oscar together.
For Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, there was, unfortunately, no publicity campaign at all in America… Frankly, don’t you prefer the first half to the second? No? You like the whole thing? I don’t understand why… In fact, I wrote the story completely: the author of the book was furious with me because all I had retained from his text were the names of the characters; all the rest was mine. I find the ending, which I also wrote, very funny… But let me rather tell you an anecdote: I was shooting the end of the film, when Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman are in bed, selecting from a menu… At that moment, a very important guy who was infatuated with Joan Collins arrived on the set. He asked me to do him a favor and shoot a scene with Joan for him. Since I had had a very easy day and it was the last day of the shooting, I agreed. I reflected for several instants and asked the assistant to bring Joan over and to find a bath-tub. This guy was really mad for Joa. I said to her, “Take off your clothes.” She asked me why: but you understand that I only shot that scene so that the guy could see Joan half nude, taking a bubble bath…
I believe that Joan was going to become a great star. And I could have helped her. At the beginning, she had no confidence in herself and, little by little, she confided in me. I told her I would do this film with her only if she sent her psychoanalyst away and allowed me to become him. I added, “If you want to stretch out on a couch, come to mine.” She laughed, but she sent her psychoanalyst away and I let her do whatever she wanted: her bizarre dances, for example. We shot an enormous amount of footage for that film. But everything was simple. For example, for the scene in the hotel room with Newman, I said to Collins, “You are alone with a man in this room and you want him to make love to you.” Well, she started to tickle his ears with her toes… No matter! We were really amused… But the problem, now, is that everyone tries to make super productions. I can’t say they’re wrong. But that’s unfortunate!
What are your favorite films?
Without a doubt, but not necessarily in this order, Going My Way, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Make Way For Tomorrow, Love Affair, An Affair to Remember… There are moments in all of my films which I prefer, for example, the scene with the old woman in An Affair to Remember, the scene in which Deborah Kerr is found to be crippled, certain scenes in Bells of St. Mary’s. I have always said that if I could only make a film out of all my favorite moments… but one is always obliged to show other things that are less beautiful…
I am not going to tell you the story of the film I am writing. It is so simple that someone would steal it immediately. I remember having told that I wanted to make a “Marco Polo”: that made me lose a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars, because someone printed the news and soon four versions of Marco Polo were under way. As for me, I could never do mine! In the Marco Polo project, which was a musical, I had Mario Lanza who, at that time, was thin. When I came back from the mountains where I had gone to write the scenario and the songs with the musicians, Mario had become fat. My heart sank.
In the films I am hoping to make, I don’t want to change my genre: I like people to laugh, I like them to cry, I like a story to be about something and I want the public to leave the theatre feeling happier than it had before.
— end ––
