My Life as a Mankiewicz (45 page)

Ladyhawke:
Million-Dollar Rewrite

Dick Donner had tried to start a picture called
Ladyhawke
twice; once in England and once in Czechoslovakia. He was always prepping and somebody was rewriting, but it never got exactly right. It was going to be a Fox/Warners picture. Alan Ladd, who was running Fox, said to Donner, “Look, Dick, I love you to pieces”—they were very good friends, and Dick had done
The Omen
for Laddie—“but you get one more writer. I don't care if he costs one dollar or one million dollars. You get one more writer, and if the script isn't right, we're not going to do it.” The producer who owned the piece was Lauren Schuler, who was a real hotshot. She had another project called
Mr. Mom.
Aaron Spelling wound up being listed as the producer. So I was on the picture now, furiously rewriting. I also got a separate credit again as creative consultant.

Ladyhawke
is about a couple that's doomed; he is a knight by day with a hawk on his wrist, and at night, the hawk turns into this beautiful woman and he turns into a wolf. And they are destined never to meet until there is neither night nor day. At the end of the picture, there's an eclipse and they do meet. The casting was really difficult. Kurt Russell was originally going to play Navarre, the knight, and Kurt was a pretty big deal at the time. We were trying to find a girl for Isabeau, and Michelle Pfeiffer had just done
Scarface
with Al Pacino in which she didn't have much to do. Michelle had been Miss Orange County, and she didn't have any acting background. Dick tested a lot of people, and Michelle said she would do her own test. Because the hawk is on Navarre's wrist for most of the picture, she sent a test of herself, and it was a canary inside a cage. Every time the canary opened its mouth, Michelle said, “Oh, I'd just love to be in this picture.” When we watched the video, Dick started pounding the table and laughing so hard, he said, “She's got it.”

We had Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer. We needed a little pickpocket who was the spine of the piece, Phillipe. Dick said, “The guy I want is Sean Penn. I'm leaving for Italy tomorrow. Sean Penn's shooting up in northern California, and if he's interested, go up and meet with him. If he's fine with you, he's fine with me and let's just do it.”

Sean Penn was at the beginning of his career; he'd done a couple of movies. I called his agent and said, “Listen, Dick Donner's sending the script of
Ladyhawke
with Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer, and this is actually a bigger part than they've got. It's the lead.”

And he said, “Oh, this is going to be difficult. Sean is shooting in northern California and he doesn't have a phone because his character wouldn't have a phone and he's in character.”

I asked, “Well, how do you communicate with him?”

The agent said, “Well, he goes to a payphone every Friday night and calls me.”

I said, “When he calls you on Friday night from the payphone, would his character be interested in doing a medieval fantasy?”

He said, “I don't know, because he's playing a traitor.”

I said, “I'm terribly sorry. I was under the impression he was an actor.” That night, I called Donner. “You don't want this.”

Next stop: Dustin Hoffman for the pickpocket. Dick had called a lot of people who'd worked with Dustin Hoffman, including Sydney Pollack, who did
Tootsie.
Pollack said, “Never again. I'll never work with him again.” John Schlesinger did
Marathon Man
with him and said, “Never again.” So Dustin met with Dick and said, “I loved the script. If I have little things to do, will Mankiewicz do them or could I get Elaine May?”

And Dick said, “No, Mankiewicz will do them.”

Dustin said, “And the other thing is, I don't want to shoot in Italy because they're kidnapping people there.”

Dick said, “Well, I'm sure nobody's going to kidnap you, Dustin. We'll give you a bodyguard.”

Dustin said, “And I'd like to play it with a French accent.”

And Dick said, “No, you can't, Dustin, because it's an international cast, and if you have a French accent, everybody's got to have a French accent otherwise you're a transplant.”

Dustin said, “I know I sound picky, but you know my relationship with directors, it's like a marriage. We fight and so on, but in the end, we love each other.”

Dick said, “That's not true, Dustin. I've talked to four directors and they hate you.”

So that was the end of Dustin. Dick said, “If I go with this son of a bitch up in the Alps in Italy and he's scared of being kidnapped and he wants to do a French accent and Elaine May shows up in the lounge, forget that.” We settled on Matthew Broderick, who was just brilliant in the film. Matthew's father, James Broderick, a wonderful actor, had just died. Matthew was in Ireland, and he leaped at the chance to do it. Dick got Vittorio Storaro to photograph it, probably the best cinematographer—he's right up there, there's two or three, he's one of them—ever in the history of film. This thing looked like it was really going to go. Dick had started this picture twice and had it aborted twice.

The rewrite was going very well, but my script was 140 pages, which was too long. Alan Ladd Jr. said, “Tell Mankiewicz he's got to take at least ten pages out of this—fifteen. I don't know how he does it, but that's his job.” So I had the script retyped, cutting out the double spacing. It came in at 128 pages, so I'd dropped 12 pages. And Laddie said, “Oh, this is much better. This is really great. It's moving now.” Some asshole at Fox sent out a memo saying, “This is exactly the same script. Mankiewicz just cut 12 pages.” If I ever found that guy, I would have killed him. He was from the story department.

We're in rehearsals now. There's something wrong with Kurt Russell. We're going to be shooting in three weeks, and there's something really irritating him. One day he said, “I don't want to have that helmet. I don't like a helmet. I don't look good in a helmet.”

Dick said, “You've got to have a helmet.”

And Kurt said, “Kirk Douglas wouldn't have a helmet.”

Dick said, “Kirk Douglas had a helmet in
Paths of Glory;
it looked great.”

The real thing that was eating Kurt was he had just fallen in love with Goldie Hawn. She was in L.A., and he was about to spend eight months in Italy. He thought he would lose her forever. She couldn't fly over because she had pictures to do. Kurt told me one night, “Besides, I don't know if I'd go back in time anyway.”

I said, “If you want my honest opinion, Kurt, you don't go back in time earlier than 1969.”

He said, “Charlton Heston looks like that, other people look like that, but I'm a very modern face.”

I called Dick. “We're in real trouble here because I don't think Kurt wants to do the movie. He wants to marry Goldie.”

Dick said, “Oh, my God, this picture can't stop again. It can't stop again.”

We ran into Cinecittà the next morning and said to Kurt, “Don't tell anybody for two days what's going on.” Dick was looking through pictures of all the actors he thought of for the role, and one of them was Rutger Hauer, the great Dutch actor. He played the lead in a movie that won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Film called
Soldier of Orange.
He had been in the Ridley Scott futuristic movie
Blade Runner.
This is how things happen in movies at some point, like Claudette Colbert breaking her leg and Bette Davis playing
All About Eve.
We looked on the back of Rutger Hauer's glossy, and it had his apartment building in Amsterdam and his phone number. Now, what are the odds that Rutger Hauer's at home in Amsterdam? We dialed the number.

“Hello?” he said. He's at home.

Dick said, “Rutger, it's Dick Donner. How are you?”

“Oh, how are you?”

Dick said, “How'd you like to play Navarre? You always wanted to play—”

“I'd love to.”

Dick asked, “Are you free?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you ride horseback?”

Rutger said, “I was on the Dutch Equestrian Team.”

Dick said, “Holy Jesus.”

Rutger said, “I fight with a broadsword.”

Dick said, “Oh, my God. Get your ass down here. We'll make a deal. I'll call your agent.”

Rutger said, “I have a motor home. I live in a motor home.”

Dick said, “Get it rolling. Come to Rome.” Dick called Mike Ovitz (chairman of CAA) and said, “You've got to get on Fox and Warners and tell them that Rutger Hauer is a great idea. I can't have this picture canceled.” Suddenly, Rutger Hauer's this great idea.

Kurt Russell flies off, and now we wait for Rutger. Three days later, he hasn't shown up. We can't find him. It shouldn't have taken him four days to drive from Amsterdam to Rome. There were no cell phones then. Rutger took his big motor home, and the quickest way was through Switzerland, but at that time, Switzerland didn't let motor homes into the country, they were too big for the roads. So he had to go all the way around Switzerland. We receive word that Rutger Hauer's in Florence and he's on his way. He's going to be here tomorrow morning. So Dick did the most wonderful thing. There was a terrific restaurant near Cinecittà. (Cinecittà being the Pinewood Studios of Italy, it's
the
studio. My father shot
The Barefoot Contessa
at Cinecittà in 1953. I worked there during vacations on
Cleopatra.)
Dick said, “We're going to take Rutger to lunch.”

We had two trained hawks for the movie. So Rutger arrived. Dick, Lauren, Rutger, and I had lunch. Dick handed Rutger the stiff leather piece you wear around your wrist when handling a hawk. Dick said, “This is the piece you'll be wearing, Rutger. Put it on. Now, lift your hand.” Rutger lifted his hand, and the trainee let the hawk go from across the street, and he went screaming into this restaurant and landed right on Rutger's wrist. It was unbelievable. We all jumped. Rutger was cool as ice. It was a wonderful introduction.

And son of a bitch, Rutger was a great rider. There are battle scenes in
Ladyhawke
where Rutger's rearing on the horse, and it's fabulous that he could ride. He was also European, and it turned out to be much better casting. The Friesian was a circus horse. They're the second biggest horse there is after Clydesdale. In the picture, the hawk is wounded with an arrow. Rutger says to little Matthew, the pickpocket, who has attached himself to Rutger, “Get on the horse. Take the hawk to Imperious,” a monk. “He will know what to do.” So he puts Matthew on the horse. Matthew, of course, said, “I can't ride.” Rutger slaps the horse on the rear, and the horse takes off with Matthew and just disappears into a valley. We've got Jeeps chasing Matthew on this horse. Found him like half a mile away. That was Matthew's excellent adventure.

Everybody was in love with Michelle Pfeiffer. Matthew was sick in love with her, like a puppy. She's so beautiful, she was then and still is. She was at the end of a very bad marriage to a young actor who wasn't there. Everybody wanted to jump her; Rutger, Matthew, me. She carried on with an Italian soundman, a location romance. There's no question, he's not going back to L.A. and she's going to go back and sort out her life.

A town we shot in, L'Aquila, had a thirteenth-century monastery where Leo McKern, as the monk, lived. I took the L' off and made the villain the bishop of Aquila, because Aquila is the Italian word for eagle and we had hawks, so it seemed to be right. We had red-tailed hawks. They're bigger than any European hawk. We were shooting near the Alps; the male got up in the air and said, “Jeez, this looks pretty good here,” and just flew away. We had the female for the rest of the picture; she stayed. But the guy was gone.

Taking the Set Back

Vittorio Storaro was almost an Italian national hero, and it was a mostly Italian crew, so that meant every grip worked through Vittorio, everyone on the camera crew worked for Vittorio, every electrician worked for Vittorio, every gaffer, even the Italian wardrobe people; 60 percent of the crew were working for Vittorio. There was a power imbalance shooting in Italy in the beginning. Dick is very much in control of his movies, but very early on, the first few days, Michelle was lying there, the arrow was in her, and Matthew was leaning over her, talking to her, when Vittorio said, “Oh, Mettu, Mettu!”

Matthew turned around and said, “Yes, Vittorio.”

He said, “When you lean over Michelle and your head goes past the arrow, don't do that.”

Matthew said, “Fine. Thank you, Vittorio.”

Second take. “Gerrarde, speed.” And before he said, “Action,” Dick said, “Oh, Vittorio.” Vittorio said, “Yes, Dick.”

He said, “When you talk to the actors without talking to me first, don't do that.” Everybody laughed, but Dick took his set back. That was so important. With that, he was saying, “It's my set.”

But it was a privilege to be on the set with Vittorio. He was a very nice guy. He had 2.5 percent of the profits; no cameraman or cinematographer gets a piece of the profits. Also, the print had to be approved by him, and it had to be done in Technicolor in Rome. A great cameraman at the time would get $6,000 a week. Vittorio got $10,000 or $12,000. He had shot all of Bertolucci's films,
Apocalypse Now
for Coppola. One of the greatest jobs ever in motion picture photography is his
The Last Emperor
that he did with Bertolucci.

Dick steadfastly learned no Italian on the movie at all. He was living in Italy for eight months. I spoke Italian pretty well, having lived in Italy during
The Barefoot Contessa
and visited and worked on
Cleopatra.
Dick drives like a madman. Everybody drives like a madman in Rome. Once he took a left down a street because he wanted to see Castel St. Angelo. I said, “Dick, don't go in there.”

He said, “What?” We're going the wrong way down a one-way street.

I said, “Dick, it says
senso unico. Senso unico
with a red bar means ‘one way, don't go.'” We made a U-turn, people were screaming.