The Kid Stays in the Picture
On the train on the way to a meeting in Connecticut yesterday, I watched The Kid Stays in the Picture, in which Robert Evans recounts his career as first (briefly) an actor and then a producer. After months of watching YouTube videos, rediscovering real cinema feels like a major revelation to me.
You don’t have to like Evans as a person to appreciate the role of his narrative voice, which plays its own part in this movie. (I’d mention Holden Caulfield or Lord Byron, but those comparisons are a bit strained.) You don’t even have to like his movies to appreciate this one. Well, maybe you need to have some interest in Hollywood history and some familiarity with the importance of some of Evans’ films (Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown,....Heard of them?).
The movie was based on a book, which I haven’t read and don’t intend to, and I have no idea what parts of the script, if any, were taken from the book. But the following passage, relatively early in the film, struck me so much that I decided to transcribe it from the DVD. Evans recalls his first big success as a producer:
“Fire the Polack” were the words from New York.
“Fire him? Fuck you. He goes, I go.”
For a moment I thought I’d have to pay my own plane fare back. I grabbed Roman aside, “Listen carefully, Roman. My ass ain’t on the line; my ass is out the door, and so are you. Now pick up the fuckin’ pace, or we’ll both end up in Warsaw.”
Bludhorn and company weren’t the only ones screaming about Roman. Another power entered the scene. My secretary comes in with an urgent message: “Frank Sinatra’s on the horn. He must speak with you.” I pick the phone up.
“I’m pulling Mia from your fuckin’ picture, Evans, if she ain’t finished by November 14th. She’s starting in my picture on the 17th. Got it straight?”
His picture happened to be The Detective, the picture that had launched my producing career. Now it was about to sink it. “Frank, you don’t understand something: we’re not going to be finished ’til mid February.”
“Hah! Then she’s quittin’. Don’t fuck around with me. We go back too far. She’s my old lady; she’ll do as I tell her.” Before I could say anything, he hangs the phone up.
Well, Frank didn’t bark; he bit. Bit Mia pretty good: “You stay on Rosemary’s Baby, you go back to Mia Farrow and forget the name Sinatra.”
Suddenly this little girl hysterically runs into my office: “I love him, Bob. I love him so. I love him. I don’t want to lose Frank. I’m going to have to leave the movie.”
“Mia, if you walk out in the middle of this film, you’ll never work again.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care. I just love Frank.”
It was there that my experience with dames came in handy. I mean actress dames. This was the moment. I knew what makes the head of an actress tick. And I finally found its purpose. “Come on with me, Mia, I want to show you something.” We both walked into the executive screening room, and I showed her a full hour of Rosemary’s Baby cut together. “Mia, you’re brilliant. I never thought you had it in you. Now shock ’em all! I want you to know something: you’re a shoo-in to win the academy award.”
Suddenly her tears were gone. Her face lights up. “Do you really think so?”
“The one thing I’m not, is prone to exaggerate, Mia. You’re a shoo-in. I mean a shoo-in, kid.”
Sinatra Who? Suddenly a smile.
She didn’t walk off the film. But Frank did serve her divorce papers right on the set, delivered by Mickey Reid, his attorney. Wow, it’s strange: women recover real quick! It may have taken a full week. And then suddenly the only thing she wanted was that Rosemary’s Baby would out-gross The Detective.
You want to know about actresses? Mia’s one satisfaction would be, that the pictures would open on the same day. I arranged that. The Detective opened to real good box office. Ah, but Rosemary’s Baby was the smash hit of the summer! Overnight, Mia was a full-fledged star.
She had one request I couldn’t fill: take a double page ad out in Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter. And on one side she wanted me to put in bold numbers the theatre grosses of Rosemary’s Baby; on the other, the theatre grosses of The Detective. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
From this point we see Evans rise to the triumphs of The Godfather and Chinatown, only to fall into cocaine abuse and later be convicted in the press of guilt by association with a murder in which he was not officially ever even a suspect. Then he is dropped by Paramount, has to sell his luxurious residence, falls into depression, and ultimately escapes from the asylum to which he has had himself committed. The movie does have a happy ending, though, when an old friend gets promoted to run Paramount and hires him back.
On the way home, instead of watching one of the other three DVDs I rented, I watched the directors’ commentary. Apparently, it was a struggle to get that strong narrative performance out of a diminished Evans, who had suffered a stroke a few years earlier. But they managed it. And co-director Nanette Burstein credits the success of the The Kid for the reemergence of the old, arrogant but charming, Bob Evans, for better or worse.
You don’t have to like Evans as a person to appreciate the role of his narrative voice, which plays its own part in this movie. (I’d mention Holden Caulfield or Lord Byron, but those comparisons are a bit strained.) You don’t even have to like his movies to appreciate this one. Well, maybe you need to have some interest in Hollywood history and some familiarity with the importance of some of Evans’ films (Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown,....Heard of them?).
The movie was based on a book, which I haven’t read and don’t intend to, and I have no idea what parts of the script, if any, were taken from the book. But the following passage, relatively early in the film, struck me so much that I decided to transcribe it from the DVD. Evans recalls his first big success as a producer:
“Fire the Polack” were the words from New York.
“Fire him? Fuck you. He goes, I go.”
For a moment I thought I’d have to pay my own plane fare back. I grabbed Roman aside, “Listen carefully, Roman. My ass ain’t on the line; my ass is out the door, and so are you. Now pick up the fuckin’ pace, or we’ll both end up in Warsaw.”
Bludhorn and company weren’t the only ones screaming about Roman. Another power entered the scene. My secretary comes in with an urgent message: “Frank Sinatra’s on the horn. He must speak with you.” I pick the phone up.
“I’m pulling Mia from your fuckin’ picture, Evans, if she ain’t finished by November 14th. She’s starting in my picture on the 17th. Got it straight?”
His picture happened to be The Detective, the picture that had launched my producing career. Now it was about to sink it. “Frank, you don’t understand something: we’re not going to be finished ’til mid February.”
“Hah! Then she’s quittin’. Don’t fuck around with me. We go back too far. She’s my old lady; she’ll do as I tell her.” Before I could say anything, he hangs the phone up.
Well, Frank didn’t bark; he bit. Bit Mia pretty good: “You stay on Rosemary’s Baby, you go back to Mia Farrow and forget the name Sinatra.”
Suddenly this little girl hysterically runs into my office: “I love him, Bob. I love him so. I love him. I don’t want to lose Frank. I’m going to have to leave the movie.”
“Mia, if you walk out in the middle of this film, you’ll never work again.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care. I just love Frank.”
It was there that my experience with dames came in handy. I mean actress dames. This was the moment. I knew what makes the head of an actress tick. And I finally found its purpose. “Come on with me, Mia, I want to show you something.” We both walked into the executive screening room, and I showed her a full hour of Rosemary’s Baby cut together. “Mia, you’re brilliant. I never thought you had it in you. Now shock ’em all! I want you to know something: you’re a shoo-in to win the academy award.”
Suddenly her tears were gone. Her face lights up. “Do you really think so?”
“The one thing I’m not, is prone to exaggerate, Mia. You’re a shoo-in. I mean a shoo-in, kid.”
Sinatra Who? Suddenly a smile.
She didn’t walk off the film. But Frank did serve her divorce papers right on the set, delivered by Mickey Reid, his attorney. Wow, it’s strange: women recover real quick! It may have taken a full week. And then suddenly the only thing she wanted was that Rosemary’s Baby would out-gross The Detective.
You want to know about actresses? Mia’s one satisfaction would be, that the pictures would open on the same day. I arranged that. The Detective opened to real good box office. Ah, but Rosemary’s Baby was the smash hit of the summer! Overnight, Mia was a full-fledged star.
She had one request I couldn’t fill: take a double page ad out in Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter. And on one side she wanted me to put in bold numbers the theatre grosses of Rosemary’s Baby; on the other, the theatre grosses of The Detective. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
From this point we see Evans rise to the triumphs of The Godfather and Chinatown, only to fall into cocaine abuse and later be convicted in the press of guilt by association with a murder in which he was not officially ever even a suspect. Then he is dropped by Paramount, has to sell his luxurious residence, falls into depression, and ultimately escapes from the asylum to which he has had himself committed. The movie does have a happy ending, though, when an old friend gets promoted to run Paramount and hires him back.
On the way home, instead of watching one of the other three DVDs I rented, I watched the directors’ commentary. Apparently, it was a struggle to get that strong narrative performance out of a diminished Evans, who had suffered a stroke a few years earlier. But they managed it. And co-director Nanette Burstein credits the success of the The Kid for the reemergence of the old, arrogant but charming, Bob Evans, for better or worse.