Latest / Cinema Yūgen / The September Screenwriters Series: Edward Khmara
Transcript
- 0:00G'day. That's right. It's that time again.
- 0:03Time for cinema. them off yes you can it's welcome back the september screenwriter series continues.
- 0:08Music.
- 0:23Jeez there's a lot of s's in that and luckily there's not too many s's in my next guest's name.
- 0:29Edward kamara who's edward kamara you say
- 0:32well you might have heard his name but you've certainly only heard of
- 0:35films like lady hawk enemy mine dragon the bruce
- 0:38lee story the tv miniseries version
- 0:42of merlin that's the sam neill starring version had a huge cast rickie how among
- 0:50them martin short there was a huge cast isabella rossolini massive but yeah
- 0:57this is the man who He wrote Enemy Mine, as I said.
- 1:01Huge, huge fan of Enemy Mine. Ladyhawk, which certainly has its fans.
- 1:07Early Richard Donner film there.
- 1:09So, yes, this was my chat with the wonderful Edward Kamara. He also has a great
- 1:15story about the Lone Ranger.
- 1:17And to clarify that is Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger,
- 1:22oddly starring two men who ended up as hot topics in Hollywood,
- 1:27Wood, Armie Hammer, and Johnny Depp, who would have thought their career paths
- 1:32would have gone the way they were, or the way they did go.
- 1:36Edward Kamara, ladies and gentlemen, the second in the September Screenwriters Series.
- 1:42Here he is. Edward, welcome.
- 1:45Thank you. Oh, fantastic.
- 1:48So, Edward, could you tell us, best place to start is at the beginning,
- 1:53could you tell Tell us a little bit about your journey before you came to the movie business.
- 2:03Well, gosh, it's a long way to come back.
- 2:07I was born and raised in Los Angeles.
- 2:12So I was raised in the Russian community there, and a lot of the...
- 2:19The people around me, my parents included, worked at the film business in any way they could.
- 2:26It was bit players, extras, musicians, and so on.
- 2:31And so the film business was always around me.
- 2:37I went to Hollywood High School. Later I went to UCLA.
- 2:42My original goal was to be an actor. But somehow the writing broke through first
- 2:50and I followed that for the rest of my career.
- 2:54I became a screenwriter rather than an actor.
- 2:57So what was your first professional writing job that you got?
- 3:07Well, actually it was ladyhunt. It wasn't a job in the sense that it was what we call a spec script.
- 3:14Okay, so Ladyhawk was just straight off the bat, you got that one,
- 3:19you got interested in that one straight off the bat?
- 3:23I'd written seven screenplays before that, or six I think, Ladyhawk was my seventh,
- 3:27and it was the first one that I managed to sell.
- 3:32And went from there. Right. So can you tell us about a little bit of the development process?
- 3:39Once they were interested in Ladyhawk, how did it go from there? Was it a long process?
- 3:47Well, I wish I could tell you about the development process,
- 3:50because as often happens to first-time screenwriters, I was pretty much excluded from that process.
- 3:59I hired other writers.
- 4:02You know, two of which are credited with me on the screenplay,
- 4:06and one of which actually did quite a bit of work and ultimately wound up with Dope Bear. Right.
- 4:14So, I really had very little participation. Once in a while,
- 4:17they would call me up and ask me, basically, how I felt they could do this or that.
- 4:25Right. And I would give them some ideas, and they would say,
- 4:28thank you very much. and then continued.
- 4:31They're people. Okay, right.
- 4:34So you had very little to do once they purchased your script.
- 4:40Right. The only thing that ultimately appeared to my thinking afterwards was
- 4:45the scene where she falls out of the tower and squirms into a hop in the air.
- 4:52That was an idea I gave them during their development process.
- 4:56Right. And it's probably credited in the draft that Paul Mankiewicz did. Right.
- 5:03So you didn't, I mean, I've heard, I've heard a few wonderful tales from other screenwriters.
- 5:11Since I've been doing this, you know, wonderful tales that they got to,
- 5:14you know, be part of the whole thing and they were there when it was filming.
- 5:19So, but that wasn't the case for you, was it?
- 5:22You didn't get to visit the shoot or anything like that, did you?
- 5:26Not with Ladycock. I spent a lot of time on the set of Enemy Mine in German. Oh, okay.
- 5:33I was quite involved in that project.
- 5:37And, you know, I don't know, there's a bit of a separated film there,
- 5:40and you want me to tell you. Right.
- 5:44But, well, anyway, coming to Enemy Mine, which is one of my favorite movies,
- 5:49was Hell in the Pacific an influence on that movie at all?
- 5:54Well, you don't have to say so. So, you know, it was based on a story by Barry,
- 6:04name's escaping me at the moment, the original writer.
- 6:08Barry, it was an 80-page short story. Right.
- 6:11And, you know, I was hired to adapt it for the screen.
- 6:18And so while I have some screenwriting credit the original short story writer
- 6:24used his credit as well so it's based on so.
- 6:29I understand that initially Wolfgang Pedersen was not the director,
- 6:32that he was brought on to the original director. Yeah, that's right.
- 6:36The original director was an English director named Richard Longcrane,
- 6:44who I think is a brilliant director and had some really wonderful ideas for
- 6:50the screenplay and for the movie.
- 6:52But, you know, we were shooting in Iceland and weather problems developed and
- 6:58the budget got out of hand, and the studio decided to pull the project.
- 7:03And when they started again, they started with Wolfgang Pierce. Right.
- 7:08So what was your experience on that film?
- 7:11I mean, unlike Ladyhook, were you there this time for, like you said,
- 7:16the duration, and you were on set?
- 7:18What were some of your experiences during the filming of Enemy Mine?
- 7:25Well, gosh. Maybe one of the interesting experiences came after the shooting
- 7:33itself and the film was being edited.
- 7:36And I was in California, and I got a call from Peterson saying that one of the
- 7:43major scenes, which explained the Drax lineage,
- 7:49did not work.
- 7:52There were certain problems with the image. and so I came back to Germany and
- 7:57tried to put that scene into essentially extra footage that they had and so
- 8:04when you're watching the film the whole lineage was explained when,
- 8:09the draft and damage or you know Venusquake are escaping from this huge earthquake
- 8:16and during that time you hear some of the critical information that has to
- 8:23be conveyed to the audience all shot at a distance where you can't see their faces.
- 8:29And that happened because the original close-up footage completely didn't work.
- 8:35It had technical difficulties. Right.
- 8:39So they look very impressive. I mean, it was obviously all done in,
- 8:43a lot of it was done in stages, and they're very impressive sets.
- 8:46What were they like to actually be standing on? Were they very impressive?
- 8:51They were impressive. It was shot at the Bavaria studios there,
- 8:55just outside of Munich, Germany, and a big soundstage was built especially to shoot that film.
- 9:03That was the first time that that soundstage was ever used. The
- 9:07sets were huge As you
- 9:12said they weren't Quite impressive They were some of the effects You
- 9:15have to remember that This was
- 9:18before CGI Everything was done On film And so A lot of the special effects Required
- 9:28very difficult And expensive photographing process Sure I spoke recently with
- 9:34I did an interview recently with Chris Wallace,
- 9:36who did the makeup effects on the film.
- 9:41And I remember saying it was an extraordinary performance by Louis Gossett Jr.
- 9:46Because I was amazed that that was him under that makeup because it was certainly
- 9:53a grueling process to get him into it and then for him to be able to act underneath it.
- 9:59Did you get to meet the cast and all that?
- 10:03Yeah, I was there basically the whole duration of the shooting and one interesting
- 10:09experience is that I had my daughter there at the time who was about four years old then.
- 10:17I was walking with her on the studio lot.
- 10:22Along comes Lou Gossett in whole track makeup with only his hands.
- 10:28He didn't have the big the big black gloves on it.
- 10:31So my god, I take one look at him passed out They said I said to him Lou hold out your hands.
- 10:39He held out his hands and I said look see That's just a person there.
- 10:43You see the hands are a person's hands.
- 10:45Then she kind of You know kind of calm down Of course, he spoke to her,
- 10:50you know in a gentle voice and she understood what that was like,
- 10:54but she still she's 37 years old now, she still clearly remembers that moment.
- 11:01Yeah, it would have been quite a fright.
- 11:04But Wolfgang Peterson is a wonderful director. What was it like working alongside him?
- 11:10I really enjoyed it. I had a very long relationship with Wolfgang.
- 11:18I have very, very nice memories of him.
- 11:21Of those times. It was a very good experience for me. Right.
- 11:28No, it's a wonderful movie and it continues to endure.
- 11:33I mean, I never saw it at the, it never came out in the theaters here.
- 11:37It only ever came out on VHS tape over here.
- 11:42But it's, ironically, it was a movie, and I've written about this before,
- 11:47but it was a movie that i'd only ever seen the
- 11:50last 20 minutes of for the
- 11:53longest time because a cousin of mine had it on videotape but they had taped
- 11:58something over it because he didn't he didn't he didn't like the film so much
- 12:04but every time we would watch this other film i would always say we'll leave
- 12:08it go and i'd watch the last 20 minutes of this movie i said well what is this movie,
- 12:13and he told me the title and then so next time i went to the video store i want
- 12:17to see the rest of of it now because I've only ever seen the last like 20 minutes,
- 12:22and so finally I got to watch the whole thing and I was like well that's a good
- 12:26movie what did you tape over it for and he said oh I didn't he didn't like it so much but.
- 12:32I've always always loved it and I thought I think it's great that it has continued
- 12:38to grow in it's cult status and popularity,
- 12:41helped by VHL it was another you know one of the great actors I met with the
- 12:48bear director, Brian James, who, uh... Yes, he's sadly...
- 12:53He's passed away, sadly, you know?
- 12:56He did, yes, he did.
- 12:59And he was actually a great pleasure to work with. Sure.
- 13:03Very, uh, very creative, very educated, very smart fellow.
- 13:09You know, it's still strange to see it in the role of a villain him because
- 13:15he was a thoughtful person.
- 13:18Yes. And what was it like when it would, I mean, was there a big premiere for
- 13:24it back at that time when it was finally released?
- 13:29I don't think there was. I don't remember any. I don't think so.
- 13:35I think it just, it just opened.
- 13:37Oh, okay. Just an ordinary, yeah. What was it like when you finally got to see it?
- 13:41What was it like when you finally got to see it finished in the theater? Thank you.
- 13:46Well, you know, by that time, I'd tuned it probably two dozen times.
- 13:49Okay. Different stages. Different versions. Right, yeah.
- 13:55And everything. And so, you see, it wasn't that exciting.
- 14:00Okay. The first time, I had the video. Right.
- 14:04Because you would have seen all the dailies and stuff, would you, at the time?
- 14:09Most of them, yeah. Yeah. I was even involved in working on the looping,
- 14:15you know, the dubbing of the voices.
- 14:17So I was fairly familiar with every inch of that film by the time it came out.
- 14:22So there was no surprises left to be had.
- 14:29You know, I'll tell you one thing that was different. In fact,
- 14:32the story was edited quite differently than I had written it.
- 14:37And even than it had been directed.
- 14:40So there is a basic change in structure, which I think works, but that surprised me.
- 14:49And to this day, when I watch the film, it surprises me because I'd seen the
- 14:54other structure so many times that when it makes that shift,
- 14:59it's always like, oh yeah, I remember now, they re-cut it.
- 15:02Right. So how did it play out originally?
- 15:06You know I would have to I would have to look at it again okay to be able so
- 15:12is it is it a major plot change or is it a character change,
- 15:17well it's just it's just the way the just
- 15:21the structure of the story oh okay right
- 15:24so just just a different sequence and if
- 15:26I get into it I'm liable to to confuse the whole issue I have to look at it
- 15:32again to remember which was which oh okay years ago that's all right but so
- 15:38in in between these films did you keep obviously writing other scripts and trying
- 15:43to get other scripts produced and.
- 15:45Well, I did. I mean, the one that I did get produced was Dragon, the Bruce Lee story.
- 15:51I mean, I was hired to do that. Right. Then I was hired to do the Roman story.
- 15:59Right. And that, you know, I got only the story credit, although just at the
- 16:04last minute, the writers still determined who gets what kind of credit, you know.
- 16:10Right. So, and then for many years I sort of dropped out of the business.
- 16:15Now I'm trying to get back into the business, but not really writing fantasy or science fiction.
- 16:22I'm very interested in certain historical events in northern New Mexico.
- 16:27And certain issues of the state where I live now. So that's what I'm working on at the moment. Cool.
- 16:35So Bruce Lee, you obviously were a fan. Were you a fan of Bruce Lee movies when
- 16:39you took the Bruce Lee job?
- 16:42Or were you just intrigued by his life story?
- 16:45I wasn't so much a fan of Bruce Lee as I was a fan of the martial arts.
- 16:52And I can tell you a funny story about that.
- 16:58A strange coincidence, because my children were small, and I used to carpool
- 17:04them to school with one of my neighbors.
- 17:07He would drive all the kids one day, and I would drive another day,
- 17:12and occasionally we would have breakfast.
- 17:14And he asked me one day, one morning at breakfast, he said, so what are you working on?
- 17:20And I said, I'm working on a movie about Bruce Lee.
- 17:23And he said, you know, I was director of photography of Enter the Dragon. Wow.
- 17:29And his name was Gil Hobbs. Yep. He's still active, I believe,
- 17:35and he was the director of photography.
- 17:37Bragging there you go pure coincidence yeah.
- 17:44Wow. And of course, I heard many, many strange stories. People always wanted
- 17:49to tell me how Bruce Lee really died.
- 17:52Right. And none of the stories ever were the same. No.
- 17:57No, there's quite a few different iterations.
- 18:03But in working on that film, did you meet... I mean, his wife does a...
- 18:09Certainly, there's a version that came out over here where his wife does quite
- 18:13a long monologue at the start of the opening of the film, before the film begins.
- 18:20Did you... I think I've seen that version. Yeah.
- 18:23Did you meet with his wife or anyone connected during research and all that sort of stuff?
- 18:32I met with a lot of people. I spent a couple of weeks in Hong Kong.
- 18:37I met one of his brothers, who was, he was actually, he's passed away since,
- 18:43but he was, at that time, co-director of the Hong Kong Observatory.
- 18:47He was an astronomer, not a martial arts person.
- 18:51I met I met a man who called himself Chaplin Chang that had been the production
- 18:58manager on so many of those,
- 19:01of those films I met Bo Yang who was the villain you know in Enter the Dragon
- 19:08and also the villain in a lot of the.
- 19:11You know, the more recent martial arts movies.
- 19:15Right. And, you know, quite a few people of that kind,
- 19:22the photographer who had taken so many stills of Bruce Lee, hundreds which he
- 19:28showed to us, which I had never seen before,
- 19:31which I don't think had ever been published.
- 19:34That was also a very interesting experience. during him.
- 19:38Did you learn anything surprising about his life during your research?
- 19:43You know, the movie, the choice that I made in the movie was to portray him
- 19:48as sort of a nice guy. Right.
- 19:52One of the people that I spoke to a lot, and his name is not coming to mind,
- 19:58immediately, but you probably know the director of End of the Dragon. Oh, yeah.
- 20:04Yeah, I do. I do. It's not going to roll off my tongue just now,
- 20:08but I know who you're talking about.
- 20:09What I really learned is that Bruce Lee was a physical genius and obsessed with
- 20:18the notion of fame and style.
- 20:21Simply obsessed with it. What really fascinated me in the draft that I wrote
- 20:27was this driving determination to achieve his goals.
- 20:33And the choice that was made in the movie was to make him kind of a sometime
- 20:38guy and I think maybe that was the right choice for the movie but when the director
- 20:45first approached me with that film,
- 20:47He said he wanted to do a Chinese version of Raging Bull.
- 20:52Remember that movie we directed in Arizona, Raging Bull, about Jake LaMotta? Right, yeah.
- 20:57The screenplay that I wrote for him was just that.
- 21:01It was about this obsessive, limited, but obsessively driven individual.
- 21:11Which I would have loved to have seen that movie on the screen.
- 21:15I like the movie they made but I wouldn't want to have seen that movie but that
- 21:20was harder to do and harder to hold an audience maybe with that character The
- 21:27final film is a more romantic sort of,
- 21:31retelling of his life and in the end,
- 21:37he becomes more of an iconic figure the final shots with him doing doing martial
- 21:46arts against the setting sun.
- 21:48You know, he almost, you know, they have him transforming from a man into a
- 21:53symbol, almost, iconography.
- 21:56Into a man. Yeah. Into a man. Yeah, man into a man. He is a myth.
- 22:03He's become a myth. Yeah. He's become a symbol.
- 22:06And the man from somewhere, I think, kind of faded into that. Right.
- 22:13Yeah. Yeah, but... He'll be in his 70s now, probably close to 80 years old. Think about that. Yeah.
- 22:20But, you know, I mean, it's like you said, an intriguing film,
- 22:24but now certainly I think I would like to see that version you mentioned too,
- 22:28like a Raging Bull type version of Bruce Lee.
- 22:32Like, you know, not so romantic, maybe a little bit gritty and,
- 22:37you know, show some of the flaws a little bit more and, you know,
- 22:43the price of... One of the images.
- 22:46Yeah. I was going to say, one of the images that stays in my mind,
- 22:52from the book written by the director of Enter the Dragon is Bruce Lee standing
- 22:59outside of Steve McQueen's house shaking his fist at the house and shouting,
- 23:06someday, Steve, I'll be a bigger star than you.
- 23:10Yeah. And it came true, didn't it? True, yeah, yeah. And he's...
- 23:17I mean, the scenes in the film...
- 23:21I don't know if they survived from your draft or not, but where he was lifting
- 23:26weights with one arm and reading a book with the other, always in motion,
- 23:33almost like he was the embodiment of perpetual motion.
- 23:37He was, I think. He was the embodiment of perpetual motion.
- 23:42He was just extremely, extremely focused, extremely driven, and an extreme perfectionist,
- 23:52brilliant, you know, a physical genius.
- 23:57You know, one friend of his told me that he could have you hold out your hand,
- 24:04and he would put a quarter in your hand,
- 24:06and then he would hold his hand above your hand, and he would say,
- 24:10close your fist until I can snatch that quarter out of your hand,
- 24:14and And then he would try to snatch it and close your fist.
- 24:18And he would say, do you still have
- 24:20the quarter? And you'd feel it in your hand. And you'd say, yes, I do.
- 24:23And he'd say, well, I guess I'm not as fast as I thought I was.
- 24:26Well, give me my quarter. And you'd open your hand and it'd be a nickel there.
- 24:31Five cent. You know, a five cent.
- 24:35So I heard that story from more than one person. and all of his speed and just
- 24:42the way he could focus in a unique way the power of his body and his mind together.
- 24:49He was really an exceptional brand to the withdrawing. His early death, I think, was in tragedy.
- 24:55Yeah, he was. And then his son, too, not long after that, Brandon. Thanks.
- 25:03Brandon, that happened. He died just days before the movie opened.
- 25:06Yeah. Just days before the movie opened. I got a call from my attorney then,
- 25:11and the movie was going to open in two or three days, and she said,
- 25:14I just heard Brandon Lee was killed on that.
- 25:17Sequels. Yeah. Yeah, very tragic.
- 25:23But actually, it's funny you mentioned that scene with the taking the one coin
- 25:29and swapping it for another.
- 25:30They actually used that in another movie. I don't know if you saw it.
- 25:33It was a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie called Bloodsport.
- 25:37Oh, I know Bloodsport. I worked on a project with Van Damme.
- 25:43I didn't get credit for it.
- 25:44It was a project with the Diamond Fight Dukes. Right. That Van Damme played.
- 25:48He played Frank Dukes in that movie.
- 25:51And I developed the storyline with Frank Dukes. Oh, you did?
- 25:56I ended up getting some credits, and I didn't, but that's where it goes from that.
- 26:01I'll say you actually developed it with the real Frank Dukes, did you?
- 26:06Yeah. The real Frank Dukes. Because there's a scene in that film where he does
- 26:12that trick where he puts like a quarter or something in the guy's hand and he
- 26:17says, you know, if I can take this before you close your hand,
- 26:20you know, and he goes, ah, you lose, but when he opens his hand, it's a different coin.
- 26:27I didn't know that. I'd never seen that before. I don't even remember the name
- 26:32of the project that we worked on.
- 26:34There were later some problems with it. There was a
- 26:37falling out between Frank and Jean-Claude and
- 26:41you know but he ultimately wound up getting
- 26:44a story credit I believe whatever movie that
- 26:47is right and since he'd
- 26:50come into the project earlier than I did he got the credit and
- 26:53I didn't and that's determined by the writers deal right yeah
- 26:56we just accept that the way they at least that they're our own people at the
- 27:01turn of that yeah yeah so but if you ever watch if you ever get the time and
- 27:06you watch Bloodsport you'll see that that scene that you just described that
- 27:10Bruce Lee could do, you'll see a very similar sequence.
- 27:15That is in that movie. So it was just... Okay, so it's a blood sport.
- 27:19I didn't see that. I just don't remember. Yeah, but... Blood sport.
- 27:22Yeah, but it was just funny. You mentioned that Bruce Lee story,
- 27:27and then that was the first thing that popped in my head.
- 27:29It was like, oh, that's a scene from Bloodsport where that exact thing happens.
- 27:35So anyway, that was fantastic. So tell us then about another film that I noticed
- 27:40is on your credits. There is Submerged.
- 27:43Yeah that was a good disappointment to me,
- 27:47I'm really I really think they did a terrible job with that movie they really
- 27:54had nothing to say oh okay alright well we'll move on then it could have been a great,
- 27:59it could have been a great story yeah.
- 28:04Yeah they almost got to save people's lives yeah in that situation and they chose some,
- 28:11I've had some were just easy and I would say cheap or, you know,
- 28:16some ungraceful choices, I would say. Okay.
- 28:22I kind of just let it go. All right. Well, we won't dwell on the bitterness.
- 28:27Let's talk about Merlin then, which I watched again last night.
- 28:31I haven't watched it for a while.
- 28:32That was a huge TV movie. And for my money, it's one of the better sort of retellings
- 28:40of the Arthurian legends.
- 28:43How did you come to work on Merlin?
- 28:46Well, I was hired to do that. I was hired by Robert Hound, who was then the chief of...
- 28:53Of Hallmark, you know, the company that put it out.
- 28:58And like so often happens, they change their mind right in the middle of what they're doing.
- 29:05Originally what they told me is, we want to tell the Merlin story without King Arthur.
- 29:11And I said, you cannot tell the Merlin story without King Arthur.
- 29:15So they said, all right, well, minimize King Arthur, minimize King Arthur.
- 29:20There totally, you know, make him as insignificant as possible.
- 29:25So I wrote a draft of Merlin, which I don't think I made it as insignificant,
- 29:31but he was certainly a small part of the story.
- 29:36Robert Jami called me up and said, we're shooting this story you wrote, word for word.
- 29:43I'd never heard that before. then I heard my agent called me about a week later
- 29:49saying they fired you and they're starting over and,
- 29:55what were they unhappy of there wasn't enough
- 29:58about King Arthur oh god oh no so they decided to so then they hired one writer
- 30:09the writer's guild the guild didn't even get involved at that point so,
- 30:16screenplay by myself and this other writer and they hired another writer and
- 30:21then screenplay was by all three of us and then,
- 30:26the guild determined that I would get story credit they would get,
- 30:30you know screenplay credit and there are still some scripts out being sold you
- 30:36probably can only get them on ebay or something and which I'm credited also
- 30:40as one of the screenwriters not just the story.
- 30:44So it's drifted around a lot. Yeah. It's...
- 30:50It's a story that has been told many times, but only a few have really done it well.
- 30:56I mean, for my money, John Borman's Excalibur is a good version of the story. Yeah.
- 31:04But, I mean, of course, recently they've done another, they've done sort of
- 31:09a big budget version of King Arthur, and it's sort of more geared towards action
- 31:15and all that sort of thing.
- 31:16Yeah, I think it would be nice to see a big version of the true,
- 31:21the tale without trying to alter the point of view.
- 31:26I mean, Merlin, of course, as with John Borman's version, it's really told from
- 31:33the perspective of Merlin is the catalyst for a lot of what goes on.
- 31:40And I can see in the version that you probably wrote that it would have been
- 31:47a similar point of view, like mostly from Merlin's point of view.
- 31:52Everything going on through his eyes and from his perspective.
- 31:57Was that your original sort of take on it?
- 32:00Well, yes. I mean, he was sort of the driving, the whole idea is that he was the driving force.
- 32:06King Arthur, in a way, was his tool. that he had created him,
- 32:10and that Gene Isen was his tool, and that the policies,
- 32:16let's say, to use a matter of the word, of Merlin's, or I should say the policies
- 32:23of King Arthur were really Merlin's policies,
- 32:26whereas Merlin's horse and Merlin's ideals that were being forwarded there.
- 32:32So he was kind of
- 32:35a puppet you might say you know and i kind of the friend remembering
- 32:38in my screen play i made him sort
- 32:41of a a decent chap you know like
- 32:45a puppet to to merlin who really had the intelligence and the force and the
- 32:49vision right but is is there is there any uh obviously you know you've written
- 32:55quite a lot more scripts than than have been produced is there any script of
- 33:00of yours that you've written that you wish,
- 33:02would have gotten made or would get made?
- 33:07Yes. There really is. I did and was paid to do quite a handsome sum of money many years ago.
- 33:15A story about the American author Jack London. All right.
- 33:18About the second half of his life, his second marriage.
- 33:26I can understand it's a hard movie to,
- 33:30bring the four American audiences because in a way it was a tragic story.
- 33:33Jack London, you've heard of him in Australia, I'm sure. Well, I have, yeah.
- 33:38He died in 1916 at the age of 40.
- 33:45From the middle of his life until the end, he tried so many grand things and
- 33:51they all failed and he continued to persevere.
- 33:55In the draft that I wrote, Excuse me.
- 34:00It was a story of a man and a woman really struggling for intimacy,
- 34:05struggling to find each other amid this kind of a grandiose,
- 34:11because he was like a big movie star you might say these days.
- 34:15You know he was internationally known and though I sort of fell in love with
- 34:20that character and I lived.
- 34:22You know I tried to get in his mind and his feelings the place where he lived
- 34:28and where he died is still very much unchanged so you could go there and sort
- 34:32of experience his presence and I,
- 34:36really would like would love to see that done and then something I just completed now,
- 34:42we'll see where that goes in the future was about a
- 34:46very intense individual who came to northern New
- 34:49Mexico and tried to return to the
- 34:51people of northern New Mexico their rights in
- 34:54the old Spanish land grant they received you know well over a hundred years
- 35:02ago well actually they received the land grant over 200 years ago and so that's
- 35:08It's basically a story of modern chicanery,
- 35:13how people's rights are stolen.
- 35:16Sure. Well, I wish you all the best with it. I just finished that one.
- 35:21That's it. Wow. Well, I wish you all the best. I hope you get that off the ground.
- 35:26That certainly sounded interesting.
- 35:28But I noticed that you finally got to do a bit of, you said you wanted to do a bit of acting.
- 35:34And I noticed on your credits, you were in The Lone Ranger. Yeah.
- 35:38Yes. How did you come to get into Lone Ranger?
- 35:42You know, when I moved to New Mexico, I kind of tried to do different things.
- 35:48And I originally, I signed up, I wanted to do some horseback stuff.
- 35:53You know, I had horses and ridden horses down there.
- 35:56I wanted to get into horseback and do some westerns.
- 36:01And basically, it's a mounted extra. I just started with these.
- 36:04And I got a call from the captain's director who called up and said,
- 36:09you know, the director saw your picture and, you know, she said,
- 36:13it's not a speaking role, but you, you know, you're there with the actors and
- 36:16you're the sheriff of the town. And, you know.
- 36:19Would you like to do that? And I said, sure. So I did it. And I'm not in the
- 36:24movie nearly as much as I was filmed. Right.
- 36:26But, you know, the major scene that you can see me is when Armie Hammer meets
- 36:32the, you know, the woman that was his brother's wife.
- 36:36The creature-born ranger meets the woman that was his brother's wife.
- 36:40Right. In the sheriff's office.
- 36:41Yeah. I'm mostly kind of unconscious on a couch right there,
- 36:45surrounded by whiskey bottles.
- 36:48I'll have to I'll have to watch it again
- 36:52I haven't seen it since it came out but I'll have to go back and watch it again
- 36:57and check it out because it was great when you said you wanted to be an actor
- 37:04and you finally got to you finally got to do it in a big movie yeah.
- 37:13Six seconds of screen time but it was a lot of fun I really enjoyed that.
- 37:20It looks like it was a massive production.
- 37:24I mean, Gore Verbinski makes big movies, so I assume it was quite a large-scale
- 37:33production by the looks of it.
- 37:34It was something else, I'm telling you.
- 37:39It was enormous. on us and they shot it not far from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- 37:46They shot it well, you know, no use to describe to you exactly where you are.
- 37:52You probably haven't been here, but near Albuquerque, New Mexico,
- 37:56it was kind of a very barren land where they built something like six miles of railroad. Wow.
- 38:03You know, train sequences, headwraps of horses, horses and skunk people.
- 38:11Yeah, it was a carnival. Well, that's great. Well, I'm glad.
- 38:16I'll go back now and I'll be sure to check out your scene now.
- 38:25Well, the guy who plays the villain, unfortunately, this wonderful British actor,
- 38:31his name is not very well known. Yeah.
- 38:35And he plays a villain. He has a perfect American accent.
- 38:39And he stands up on this platform telling the comic that they have to look out
- 38:44for the bandit, which Cavendish.
- 38:47Which Cavendish.
- 38:50And they're holding up this poster with a picture of him.
- 38:54Butch Cavendish, you know, and he kept, Tom was his first name,
- 38:59and he kept saying, Butch Cassidy.
- 39:01Right. And they would tell him, no, no, Tom, it's Butch Cavendish.
- 39:05And I said, Butch Cavendish.
- 39:07And I would tell him one time, he said, Butch Cassidy, you get out of good locks.
- 39:11He'd get grumpy about it. Then they'd shoot the scene again, and he would do it again.
- 39:18But he got it right finally.
- 39:21That's great. Great. Well, Edward, my friend, it's been an absolute pleasure
- 39:27and a rare treat to finally get to have a chat with you.
- 39:31You've led an extraordinary life, had an amazing career, and I hope nothing but the best.
- 39:39And I hope that the work that you're doing now bears some fruit and that we
- 39:43might again see another Edward Calmer movie on the screen.
- 39:49Yes good I have all good thoughts for it thank you,
- 39:55but yes it's been it's been a really really a delight and I thank you very much
- 40:00for your time today my pleasure thank you too the September Screenwriters Series
- 40:06continues ladies and gentlemen we hope you enjoyed this episode there is another
- 40:11one hot on its heels so stay tuned,
- 40:15through the month of September for the September,
- 40:18Screenwriters series and as always
- 40:22thank you for listening to us little yuganites on spotify or wherever you choose
- 40:27to listen to your favorite podcasts so until next time this is kent saying thank
- 40:33you for listening and stay tuned to the one and only cinema.
- 40:43Music.