Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters

By Michael Doyle

Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters traces the extraordinary career of the legendary writer/producer/director responsible for such cult and classic films as Black Caesar, It's Alive, God Told Me To, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, Q - The Winged Serpent, The Stuff, Maniac Cop, and Phone Booth. Creator of some of the most diverse and thematically rich genre films that have been made in American independent cinema, Cohen's oeuvre has embraced horror, science fiction, thrillers, Westerns, comedies, the biographical film, and blaxploitation gangster movies. At turns provocative, disturbing, and humorous, his distinctly personal works in film, television, and theater are distinguished by their ferocious intelligence, biting satire, and powerful emotionalism. Over the course of 28 chapters, this in-depth career-length interview is an entertaining, enlightening, and gripping account of the singular career of a true American original.
"For those of us who love the works of Larry Cohen, this is the most revealing and informative material ever published about him. And if by some chance you don't know about Larry's remarkable career, take this opportunity to learn how one maverick writer/director/producer has been able to survive and flourish in the ever changing madhouse of show biz."
-- Joe Dante, director of The Howling, Gremlins and The 'Burbs

• Language: English
• Publisher: BearManor Media
• Release date: Nov 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310993787

Michael Doyle

Michael Doyle is a journalist who has written for such publications as Fangoria, Rue Morgue, and Scream. He is author of Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters and Hancock on Hancock.

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Praise for Michael Doyle and Larry Cohen: The Stuff Of Gods And Monsters

"Michael Doyle is not only one of the best writers I’ve ever known, he’s one of the best interviewers. Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters is a vital look at one of genre filmmaking’s more important, and less appreciated, artists. A wonderfully-written, well-researched, and completely captivating portrait of a consistently brilliant auteur, this book is an absolute must-have for anyone who loves genre movies, filmmaking tales or in-depth character studies."

Dave Alexander, Editor-in-chief of Rue Morgue magazine

"Larry Cohen is a truly independent American filmmaker whose remarkable body of work continues to entertain and astonish. Michael Doyle’s book, Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters, provides new insights into this unique and always surprising filmmaker."

John Landis, director of The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London

For those of us who love the works of Larry Cohen, this is the most revealing and informative material ever published about him. And if by some chance you don’t know about Larry’s remarkable career, take this opportunity to learn how one maverick writer/director/producer has been able to survive and flourish in the ever changing madhouse of show biz.

Joe Dante, director of The Howling, Gremlins and The ‘Burbs

"With Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters, Michael Doyle has delivered an essential and profoundly illuminating volume on one of American cinema’s most idiosyncratic and unheralded talents."

John Hancock, director of Bang the Drum Slowly, Weeds, and Prancer

Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters

© 2016 Michael Doyle. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This version of the book may be slightly abridged from the print version.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword: A Few Thoughts on Larry

Introduction: CohenVision

Youth (1941-1958)

The Television Years

Screenplays: Part I (1966-1986)

Bone (1971)

Black Caesar (1972)

Hell up in Harlem (1973)

It’s Alive (1974)

God Told Me To (1976)

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

It Lives Again (1978)

Full Moon High (1981)

See China and Die (1981)

Intermission: I, the Jury (1982)

Q — The Winged Serpent (1982)

Perfect Strangers (1984)

Special Effects (1984)

The Stuff (1985)

Screenplays: Part II (1987-1997)

Intermission: Deadly Illusion (1987)

It’s Alive III — Island of the Alive (1987)

A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987)

Maniac Cop Trilogy (1988-1993)

Wicked Stepmother (1989)

Intermission: The Heavy (1990)

The Ambulance (1991)

As Good As Dead (1995)

Original Gangstas (1996)

Screenplays: Part III (1996-2011)

Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up (2005)

On Writing

Methodology, Movies & Madness

Notes

Credits

Bibliogaphy

About the Author

This is for my two lovely little monsters,

Poppy Mae & Milo Jack

Acknowledgments

A writer, whose name presently deserts me, once remarked that no book is ever written alone. The one you now hold in your hands is certainly no exception.

Of those helpful individuals who assisted me in realizing it, my profound thanks go first and foremost to Mr. Larry Cohen for his unwavering enthusiasm and patience with this project. The myriad interviews that comprise Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters were conducted from June 2011 to September 2014, and involved several additional phone calls during that period in order to corroborate facts and add further details and depth to existing answers.

Throughout this endeavour, Larry always gave generously of his time as my innumerable questions demanded a seemingly effortless feat of memory on his part. Needless to say, this book would not have been possible without his full co-operation and support. Let me also submit for the record that ever since I first saw It’s Alive as a traumatised eight-year-old — peeping through my fingers as Frank Davis discovers his newborn baby has decimated the entire maternity staff — Larry’s movies have been a constant source of entertainment and enlightenment for me. I thank him again for the countless hours of pleasure they — and our many long conversations — have given me.

I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Laurene (nobody knows Larry Cohen like I know Larry Cohen) Landon for furnishing this volume with a deeply heartfelt foreword, and for giving me some personal insights into Larry and his work. The same goes for Mick Garris, a man who is truly deserving of his reputation as the nicest guy in Hollywood, for providing me with a wonderful introduction. Aside from being a passionate director and writer, Mick is also an eloquent voice and erstwhile advocate for all that is great about the horror genre.

In addition, I would like to extend my appreciation to Dave Alexander and Rodrigo Gudino of Rue Morgue magazine for kindly giving me something else to do whilst toiling on this book. I also offer similar sentiments to Ben Ohmart for his quiet but consistent encouragement, and Dale Warner for his invaluable technical assistance with digitizing photographs, stills and illustrations, all of which came courtesy of Larry Cohen, Steve Neill, and Mick Garris (cheers, guys!)

My deepest love and thanks everywhere and at all times to my wife, Siân, whose unfailing belief in me is the source of all my strength. Not only did you lend a hand in tracking down rare copies of movies, television shows, books, periodicals, and other elusive research materials, you also plied me with copious cups of soul-restoring tea. And big love to my beautiful children, Poppy and Milo, for distracting their Daddy both when it was necessary and when it wasn’t.

I am also indebted to my parents, John and Christine Doyle, my siblings Steven and Sarah (who have both survived their childhoods reasonably intact despite having me for an older brother), and my parents-in-law, Howard and Daryl Morgan, for all their love and support over the years.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to remember my beloved grandparents, Evan Idris Evans (1925-2001) and Evelyn May Evans (1923-2008), as this book owes its very existence to their contagious love and passion for cinema. Thank you both for always allowing me to watch horror movies like It’s Alive, Q — The Winged Serpent and The Stuff on any day that ended in a Y, and for letting me burn out a succession of your video recorders with barely a complaining word.

Michael Doyle

November 14, 2014

Foreword: A Few Thoughts on Larry

Most people conversant with the satirical allegories of a Larry Cohen film are well aware that in every movie he has made there is a thematic echo or accompanying social commentary. It may be subliminal or subversive, but it is there.

I first met Larry during the filming of Full Moon High, when my then agent, Beverly Hecht, sent me to see him for a small role. After speaking with him for maybe half an hour and witnessing his joyful sprit (not to mention how handsome he was) I became more and more intimidated. He was in the process of firing the lead actress and asked me if I wanted to star in the film. Being Polish, blonde, and a moron, out of sheer terror I lied and said I couldn’t star in his film due to an audition.

There was no audition!

Larry is arguably one of the most distinctive twentieth century filmmakers and one of the few who has been consistent as a writer for over fifty years. He is the most convivial and jocular man one could ever hope to encounter — which I sincerely hope people will remember — and to lose him will undoubtedly be the darkest day of my life; the absence of light in my heart. He has been my best friend and confidante for over thirty-seven years and I have always felt that we are one soul intertwined in two bodies.

I sometimes wish Larry had authored more comedies as his humour by far eclipses his fame as a suspense/thriller/horror director and wordsmith. He has so many fans it is simply mind-boggling, but, despite that fact, Larry is still the most insecure and humble mortal on God’s earth.

Larry Cohen is not one in a million; he is one in a lifetime. No one comes close. Everywhere I go, there’s no one who compares. It’s like climbing to the top, then falling down the stairs.

Laurene Landon

June 20, 2014

Laurene Landon is an actress and model, who has worked on many Larry Cohen productions including I the Jury, It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive, The Stuff, A Return To Salem’s Lot, Maniac Cop, Maniac Cop 2, Wicked Stepmother, The Ambulance, and Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up. She has also appeared in Roller Boogie (1979), All the Marbles (1981), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Hundra (1983), Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold (1984), America 3000 (1986), and Day Out of Days (2014).

Introduction: CohenVision

I thought that the brilliant It’s Alive was my introduction to the unique filmic mind of Larry Cohen, but I was wrong.

A child of the 1960s, I was brought up by the family Magnavox television, and Cohen’s footprint was stamped large and indelibly there. Branded, a Western starring Chuck Connors, whose theme song still remains seared into my musical memory, was created by the same man who has brought us mutant babies, hermaphrodite gods, killer desserts, and maniacal undead policemen. So was The Invaders, the classic paranoid science fiction series about insidious aliens with rigid pinkies who are secretly infiltrating American society. Cohen’s other writing credits from this period include some of the best episodes of the Emmy-festooned, high falutin’ legal drama, The Defenders, which was the Law and Order juggernaut of its day.

These shows might have been huge successes, and maybe even drew audiences in far greater numbers than his iconoclastic feature films, but the man achieved fame and glory for his movies — all of them independently produced and each possessing a singular style and undefined sanity that could only have come from one director. Larry Cohen’s cinematic vision is truly one of a kind and often not of this earth. His sense of storytelling logic is his own and, though eccentric might be a gentle term, its brilliance and audaciousness sets him apart from all others.

It’s Alive was made (or acquired) by Warner Bros. in 1974, the same year that studio took William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. This whacked-out ecological baby monster thriller, featuring one of a very young Rick Baker’s earliest monster creations, rolled through America — market by market, drive-in by drive-in — and was a huge, if quiet, success. Though I later caught up with earlier work by the Maestro — including Cohen’s trenchant directorial debut, the uncompromising and unforgettable racial drama Bone — it was this picture with its notable tagline (There’s only one thing wrong with the Davis baby…it’s alive!) that pricked up my ears.

But it was Cohen’s next movie — known at the time that I saw it as God Told Me To — that completely blew me away. The film, with its committed and excellent cast including Tony Lo Bianco, Sandy Dennis, Richard Lynch, and Silvia Sydney, among others, was a stunningly original science fiction horror story and drama of religious doubt that was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was played completely straight and was an incredibly powerful indictment of blind faith and religious fervour — mostly through Catholicism — that was written and directed by a Jew. It’s deep, it’s perceptive, it’s brilliant, and it’s out of its fucking mind!

I had just started writing about genre films at that time — it was 1976 — and had to interview the guy who had made this amazing movie. So, I contacted him through New World Pictures and met him where he was editing The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover in a little cutting room on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. That was my first meeting with Larry Cohen, and I was amazed to find that this auteur of remarkable lunatic cinema was a kind, normal, really funny former Borscht belt comedian who had discovered a new life in the world of horror films.

It is rare indeed to find an original voice in film, rarer still to find it in the world of horror. Practically by definition, horror movies are self-referential and deal in the tropes and techniques of decades of scaring audiences. But Larry’s films are like no others. Aside form his wildly original themes, his characters are richly drawn. They are not just flawed but are sometimes downright off their rockers — like Michael Moriarty’s likable low-life criminal Jimmy Quinn in Q — The Winged Serpent, the tale of Quetzalcoatl, a flying dragon-lizard god that nests in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan. There is also the charmingly demented Mo Rutherford in The Stuff (Moriarty again), an industrial saboteur who pits his considerable wits against an implacable and remorselessly homicidal ice cream dessert.

But it is not just the wild tales and brilliant performances that make Cohen’s idiosyncratic work so legendary; it’s how he makes them as well.

This is the ultimate guerrilla filmmaker we’re talking about here. The director who, during the making of God Told Me To (also known as Demon and I have the one-sheet to prove it) brought his crew — without permits or anything — to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of New York cops marching and participating, and without telling anybody what he was doing then started a shoot-out between characters from the film in the midst of all of this real-life action! A very young Andy Kaufman — before he became legendary for his masterly audience-baffling stand-up comedy — played one of those cops, and I ran into him at a movie theater not long after that. I asked him about the experience and he just said, in the most angelic way, that he wasn’t sure about it as he was new to movies then.

Similarly, there was gunfire, mayhem, and mischief aplenty on the streets of New York during the shooting of Black Caesar, Hell up in Harlem and Q – The Winged Serpent, and again, all done without the necessary permits! No one but the members of the production were informed of what was actually going on, and if you watch those movies a little more closely, you’ll notice that the terror, confusion, and concern you read on the faces of many actual bystanders is quite genuine.

It is about time that there was a book that chronicled the remarkable life and work of one of our most unique and under-appreciated filmmakers. I was thrilled to be able to bring Larry back behind the camera for his 2005 Masters of Horror film, Pick Me Up, which showed he was still in peak visionary condition, even when the script (and this one was written by David J. Schow) was not his own. And now his work has finally been chronicled here and laid out for your inspection.

Larry Cohen is a filmmaker whose canon has to be seen to be believed but, once seen, can never be forgotten.

Mick Garris

October 20, 2014

Mick Garris is a writer, producer, and director, and is responsible for such acclaimed films and mini-series as Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990), Sleepwalkers (1992), The Stand (1994), The Shining (1997), Quicksilver Highway (1997), Riding the Bullet (2004), Desperation (2006), and Bag of Bones (2011). He is also the creator and executive producer of Showtime’s Masters of Horror, directing a film in each of its two seasons, Chocolate (2005) and Valerie on the Stairs (2006).

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

Polonius, Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2

If I had all the freedom, time and money to do what I wanted, I’d still do things my own way because I can only be me. Only I can make the kinds of pictures that I make.

Larry Cohen

To a new world of gods and monsters!

Dr. Septimus Pretorius, The Bride of Frankenstein

Youth (1941-1958)

MICHAEL DOYLE: Conflicting sources claim that you were born on July 15, either in the year 1938 or 1941, in Kingston, New York, and that your family later moved to the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Is any of this accurate?

LARRY COHEN: No, not entirely. I was not born in Kingston and neither did I move with my family to the Riverdale neighbourhood. That information is all wrong. I was born in 1941 and grew up in Manhattan and I’ve never even been in Kingston. My folks did move to Riverdale, but I was no longer living at home with them anymore. I had already moved out by the time they’d arrived there. Before that, we had been living in the Washington Heights section of New York City in uptown Manhattan.

What was your neighbourhood like?

Washington Heights was a very nice neighbourhood. There was a huge park there called Fort Tryon Park, and at the top of the park was a reconstructed church called The Cloisters that the Rockefellers had shipped over from Europe and reassembled back in the 1930s. It looked just like a medieval castle and had drawbridges and all kinds of turrets. My friends and I used to play Robin Hood there and games like that. We would be duelling with each other and excitedly running around the parapets and it was a truly wonderful, magical place. The park was great during the wintertime and there would be sleigh-riding through the snow. In the summertime, it would be beautifully lush and green and I enjoyed that place very much. I actually made my first 8mm movie in Fort Tryon Park.

What was that first film about?

It was about Russian spies and I actually shot it on the very same day that Stalin died. [1] The whole idea of the story was that Russian spies were using the park as a place to drop off top secret microfilm. This one defecting Russian spy wants to destroy the microfilm but he is captured. He has the microfilm rolled up in the barrel of his gun, so he wants his enemies to shoot him as they will inadvertently destroy the microfilm when he is killed. That was the gimmick of the movie. It was a real Larry Cohen story even though I was only ten years old when I made it. I used my father’s 8mm camera, and you had to wind it up and it ran for about forty-five seconds or a minute before you had to wind it again. All the cuts were done inside the camera. I’d do a master shot then cut in for a close-up; followed by another master shot, another close-up, an over-the-shoulder shot, and so on. When the picture came back after being sent away to be processed, the whole movie was right there with all the different cuts and angles. Then, a couple of years after I made this film, the most remarkable thing happened: the FBI arrested a man named Rudolf Abel, who was the number one spy for the Soviets in the United States. Abel was the spy ringleader and, after he was captured, it turned out that he was actually using Fort Tryon Park as the drop-place to pick up secret microfilm from other spies — just like in my movie! I was amazed at this coincidence. Unfortunately, today, I don’t have a copy of my first little film and I don’t even remember what it was called.

Did you make any other 8mm movies around this time?

As a matter of fact, that was probably the only one I made that was completed. I got friends from school to be in it and gave them comic books as a salary. I literally paid them off in comic books! [Chuckles] The film wasn’t scripted as I would simply tell the kids exactly what to do and say. Of course, it was also a silent movie. 8mm movies had no sound in those days and so you’d have to place a title card in there every once in a while to illustrate the dialogue and action.

Was yours a happy childhood?

I thought so. We didn’t have a lot of money but I always had enough to go to the movies. I used to carry packages for the customers at the local grocery stores and supermarkets. I would wait out in front and if I saw a woman coming out with a big bundle of groceries, I’d ask if I could carry her bags home for her. When my good deed was done, she would then give me a quarter. If I’d managed to collect 25¢ or 50¢, I could then go to the movies. I would also collect empty soda bottles as in those days they gave you back a deposit on them. So, I would bring the bottles in and collect enough dough to go to the theater. That was my main preoccupation as a child — going to the movies. If I could, I’d sit through the movie twice because in those days it was all double features. I’d watch the movies a couple of times and it was great. I guess that I was subconsciously studying them; trying to figure out how these wonderful stories and images were put together, but I always had a good time at the theater.

What are some of your earliest memories of cinema?

Well, my mother said that the first picture I ever saw was The Wizard of Oz, but I don’t remember that occasion. She also told me that the first time she took me to the movies there was some kind of skiing movie playing with Ann Sheridan. [2] When I entered the theater, there was a scene where these people were skiing downhill and all that motion scared the hell out of me! I suddenly started screaming and Mom had to take me out of the theater. She then waited a while and took me back again to watch The Wizard of Oz. Apparently, I managed to sit through that without panicking but, again, I don’t remember it. I started going to the movies when I was four or five years old. The first film I think I actually saw on my own — unaccompanied by an adult — was a Bob Hope picture. My mother put me in the theater and came back later and got me. I do recall seeing movies like The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and all those kinds of swashbuckling action pictures. I particularly liked that kind of stuff. Growing up, I always loved the Warner Bros. movies the best as they were the quickest moving pictures with a lot of hardboiled characters and fast-talking dialogue. They always featured actors that I liked, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and James Cagney, performers with considerable screen presence who really made the dialogue stand out. Also those pictures often featured the distinctive music of Max Steiner [3] and I always loved them.

I imagine there were a lot of theaters in your neighbourhood.

Oh, I think we had about six theaters. We had the Loews Inwood and then there was the Alpine Theatre, which was the smaller theater that ran the pictures a week later. Those movies usually played the RKO Coliseum on 181st Street which was a bit of a walk, but not so bad. Also on 181st Street they had the Heights Theatre which ran foreign films like The Wages of Fear and Rififi, and also British films. Then, there was the Lane Theatre and the Gem Theatre which played revivals. So you could go there and see Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi in Dracula, as well as a lot of the classic movies that they re-ran. There was also the Dyckman Theatre, which was a little bit further away, and the Loews 175th Street Theatre. These were all movie theaters that carried double features and they changed the picture every week, sometimes twice a week. In the old days, the movie would open on a Wednesday — that would be the big star picture featuring somebody like Clark Gable or Errol Flynn — and that would run from Wednesday through to Sunday. Believe it or not, as of the Monday, they would then take the A-picture out of the theater and would put in a B-picture like a Boston Blackie [4] movie, or a Frankenstein movie, or a Charlie Chan movie, or a Western with Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. They would be the Monday and Tuesday movies and would play for just two days. Then, on the Wednesday, they would open the A-picture again. It was very infrequent that they ever carried a film over more than one week. It would have to be a big, successful picture to play more than seven days. Usually it would only play for five days, so if you wanted to see the movie you had from Wednesday until Sunday to catch it. It would then move to a second-run theater which played the pictures that had played the previous week at the first-run theater. Many of these movies had also played downtown for a couple of weeks at the major Broadway theaters but when they came uptown to the local theaters, they only played for five days. So, theoretically, you could easily see four pictures a week — two main features and two second features.

Was cinema more than a means of escape for you?

Oh sure, absolutely. Movies were a means of escape, but they were also something that I was passionately interested in. Remember, there was no television back in those days. This was quite a while before television really got started and movies were the main source of entertainment for people during World War II. For me, movies were like discovering whole new worlds of excitement and adventure.

What were some of the first films that really had a profound or formative effect on you as a child?

All of them! I’m not kidding. Every movie I saw as a child meant something to me. When I look back now at the kinds of movies I enjoyed as a kid, I realize that a lot of my favorite pictures were directed by Michael Curtiz. [5] He was just one of those unique filmmakers who seemed to be adept at every genre he ever tried his hand at. Curtiz made gangster pictures, musicals, melodramas, Westerns, action films. He could make any kind of movie you wanted to see. If you look at pictures as diverse as Casablanca, The Sea Hawk, Mildred Pierce and Yankee Doodle Dandy, they are all very different films. Curtiz made several movies with Errol Flynn and, being an Errol Flynn obsessive, I also loved Captain Blood and, again, The Adventures of Robin Hood. So, the whole experience of seeing movies at that age was profoundly formative for me. I really enjoyed going to the theater and would watch the movies more than once. In fact, I would have been there all night long if the managers hadn’t have come down and said, You’ve got to go home, son. It’s getting to be nighttime and your parents will be wondering where you are. Of course, they weren’t. My parents were just as happy that I was out of the house, frankly! [Laughs] Later on, when I was a little older, I would visit the sets of movies that were being shot in New York City. If I heard that a movie was being made nearby, I’d make my way over to wherever they were and watch them shoot. I saw Martin Ritt directing Sidney Poitier on the set of Edge of the City. Then, I discovered that Sidney Lumet was shooting That Kind of Woman with Sophia Loren in locations around New York and I went to that set, too. I was also present when Alfred Hitchcock shot the Grand Central Station scenes in North By Northwest. I followed Hitchcock around various locations in New York just to watch him work. I actually played a little joke one day: Hitchcock had filled Grand Central Station with a lot of extras and at one point, over the loudspeakers, I started paging John Robie, who was the character Cary Grant played in To Catch a Thief, and Huntley Haverstock, who was the character Joel McCrea played in Foreign Correspondent, to please pick up the telephone. I thought it would be fun and a way for Hitchcock to notice me, but he showed no reaction or recognition to those names whatsoever. He was so totally immersed and concentrated on directing his film, I’m sure he never heard a thing. But it was thrilling to me, being physically in the presence of these great moviemakers.

Do you think it is an advantage for a filmmaker to have seen more films or possibly even a disadvantage?

Today, with television, cable, and Netflix, there are thousands of movies available simply at the push of a button. People literally have the entire history of the motion picture industry at their fingertips. You can see almost every movie ever made and most of them for free. I think that’s an incredible educational advantage over previous filmmakers, particularly those of my generation who never enjoyed that level of unprecedented access to movies when we were first starting out. In America, you can get Netflix for $7.95 a month and view thousands of films. That’s quite amazing when you think about it and is something that people take for granted today. I sometimes look at the technological developments in home video and entertainment formats and say to myself, I wasted my childhood! I spent my entire youth paying to look at all of these movies and now I can see them all for nothing! And in my own home! I mean, this is really my childhood dream come true. I used to lie in bed at night as a kid and dream about such a thing happening. I’d think, Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a big movie screen on my wall, so that I could look at movies in my own bedroom. I used to have this recurring dream that there was a hole in the floor of my apartment that led to a movie theater downstairs. I could simply look through this hole and see all the movies that were endlessly playing there — for free! It was a beautiful dream. Of course, I can now see every available movie on a screen on the wall of my home. The dream has finally become a reality. It’s interesting, but I don’t know what this luxury will do to the minds of the kids today or how it will impact on them. I’m very concerned that audiences are now becoming stupider as time goes on. I don’t see any educational benefits or gains for potential filmmakers if they don’t search out the classics. If all they are consuming is movies with car chases and big explosions and special effects, cinema is doomed! Any modern film that makes demands of the viewer’s intelligence and concentration is now frankly an oddity. Whereas, back in my youth, movies were simply better, that’s all.

What did your parents do for a living?

My mother managed the house. In those days, women stayed at home and took care of the kids. My father was in real estate. He managed apartment buildings, but his hobby was photography. He was a very gifted photographer and took all of his own pictures. He would blow them up, touch them up and mount them. He submitted his photos to various places and won a lot of awards. He was a brilliant photographer, and would have been very successful as a professional, but he chose not to pursue it as a career. In his way of thinking, you weren’t supposed to earn your living doing anything that you enjoyed or liked. He believed, as many of his generation did, that your job should make you miserable every day of your life. My father had a job that made him miserable every day and he saved all of his happy times for his photography. When I saw the way he lived, I was determined not to follow in his footsteps. I was going to do what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to get satisfaction out of something that I really liked doing. Of course, your parents are always likely to give you a negative response when you tell them you want to go into show business. I mean, nobody else in the family was in show business, so it was completely alien to them. They believed it was not something I could ever make a living out of doing. They thought you could never succeed as a writer or a comedian or a filmmaker, and that I’d simply be wasting my time and energy in the attempt. As a matter of fact, it didn’t take me much time to get started selling scripts. By the time I was twenty-one, I was already selling scripts. I was out of college and was really rolling along. Actually, I believe I was even in college when I first started selling scripts.

You just said that nobody else in the family was in show-business, but I understand that your grandfather was a Vaudeville performer.

Yes, that’s true, he was. I’d heard from members of the family that my grandfather had apparently been in Vaudeville and, before that, had also been a minstrel in travelling shows back at the turn of the century. He and his brother were eccentric banjo players. They would tell jokes, perform comedy skits, and there would be various acts of dancing and music. In the minstrel shows, they’d both be in blackface and would perform as the end men, Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo. At the time, I’m sure the minstrel shows were already beginning to wane as a popular entertainment form for people, but my grandfather later played in Vaudeville on a bill that included Jimmy Durante. [6] He toured the west extensively, moving from place to place. He once performed in a saloon that was owned by Frank James, Jesse James’ brother. When his mother was on her deathbed, she made my grandfather promise that he would give up show business and do something else. So, he placed his banjo in a closet and never played it again for the rest of his life. He had made this solemn and rather strange promise and he intended to keep it. All through my childhood this instrument was just sitting in the closet, gathering dust. As a kid, I kept trying to get Grandpa to play the banjo for me. I must have asked him a million times, but he never once took it out of the closet. I suppose it brought him some pain to think about those days and he didn’t want to revisit old memories. All of this had happened to him by the time he was twenty-one. Then, for the rest of his days, he lived a rather conventional existence, running a men’s furnishings store on 125th Street. He made his living that way and never showed any inclination towards returning to show business. In fact, when my mother once expressed an interest in becoming an actress, she was strongly discouraged from doing so. I guess it wasn’t regarded as a suitable profession. When I think about all this now, it’s certainly very odd that my grandfather did blackface performances. I mean, the fact that my father would end up managing buildings in Harlem and I actually went to school in Harlem. Who would have believed it? On top of that, I later ended up making several Black movies such as Black Caesar, Hell up in Harlem and Original Gangstas. I don’t know. It’s peculiar how these traditions just seem to occur. It was never planned that way, but that’s how it all worked out.

Did you enjoy a good relationship with your mother and father?

It was alright. It certainly got better as time went on, particularly my relationship with my father. He mellowed as he got older, but he was an unhappy man. He was unhappy with his work and was basically dissatisfied with his life, really. I think my father felt that family was a trap. He believed himself fortunate not to have been drafted in World War II because he had a kid. But the Army could have actually provided him with a great opportunity as they might have made him a military photographer. He could have had some great life experiences, that’s if he hadn’t got himself killed, of course! I think my father would have enjoyed going to Europe or Asia, visiting these historic places and taking pictures. I think it would have reinvigorated him. As it was, he stayed at home. My Dad was one of the few people who didn’t go in the Army and didn’t make any money out of it either. Most of the people who got out of military service during World War II made money because they were at home and took advantage of the economy and everything, but not my father. I was determined not to waste any talent that I might have or fail to seize any opportunities that were presented to me. In a way, I felt sorry for my father, too. I had sympathy for this man who basically had to support other people. My father had to go out to work every single day and bring home money to feed my mother, me, and eventually, my sister. I felt bad that this entire burden was placed solely on his shoulders and he had to do something for a living that gave him no pleasure.

Do you see any echoes of your parents in any of the characters in your work? Do they reappear in any of your films in some form or another?

No, not at all. I don’t see any connection between them and the work that I do. I haven’t drawn upon them to create certain characters in my movies. Well, actually, I once wrote a play that we performed in New York called Washington Heights and that was about the family and my childhood.

Do you know how your parents met?

They met at a dance and, apparently, on their very first date, they went to see a horror film. It was The Invisible Man, directed by James Whale and starring Claude Rains. Looking back, maybe that’s what first influenced me and set me on this path. Maybe it was the fact my parents went to see that movie on their very first date that inspired me to direct horror films. [Chuckles] I don’t know.

You said that your father felt trapped, but was theirs a happy marriage?

It was relatively happy, yes. My parents lived in a very different time when people rarely got divorced. In fact, back then, you couldn’t even get a divorce. The Catholic Church had such a lock on the political arm of the Government in New York State you couldn’t secure a divorce in New York City. The only way you could get one was on the grounds of infidelity and, of course, you had to prove it. People used to hire what they called co-respondents, which was a person who would testify in court that they were having an affair with you, even if they weren’t! This was so someone could go to the judge and say, My wife has been unfaithful and I want a divorce. They literally faked infidelity in order to end the marriage. If you didn’t have the money to hire lawyers and co-respondents, it was almost impossible to get a divorce. People just didn’t have that kind of money, so they would simply have to endure and suffer the marriage for the rest of their lives. But my parents didn’t have that problem as their marriage was a relatively harmonious one.

Did your family practice any particular type of religion?

No, we were not religious at all. We were Jewish, but we didn’t practice Judaism. I’ve never been particularly interested in organized religion. I’ve never thought that anybody should be telling people what God wants them to do. They have no way of knowing anything about it and it’s presumptuous of them to take on the role of interpreting God’s will. I say, Leave God alone and maybe He will leave you alone. I never got into religion, but I do like to celebrate Christmas. I’ve always liked having a Christmas tree and I like giving and receiving presents. I enjoy having a good old Jingle Bells kind of Christmas. Of course, that really has nothing to do with religion.

Did you have any literary passions during childhood? What were you reading?

I read books like The Hardy Boys Mysteries and several of the classics like Treasure Island, things like that. I actually memorised half of Treasure Island so that I could recite it by heart. I often liked to do a trick at a party where I would go to a shelf and pick out a copy of Treasure Island as if I didn’t know it was going to be there. I would briefly glance at the book, then close it and suddenly start reciting it aloud. Everybody would just be amazed! [Laughs] I also used to collect comic books. In fact, I had a fabulous comic book collection that would probably now be worth more money than my father earned during his entire lifetime. Unfortunately, when I was away at camp one summer, my parents threw them all out. I came back home and saw that my entire cabinet was empty. When I queried them about this, they said, Well, they were gathering dust and you are getting too old for them anyway. These were all first editions of Batman, Superman, and Captain Marvel. It was a truly terrific collection and would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps more. Of course, I can’t guarantee that if my parents had not thrown my comics out, I would have eventually thrown them out myself. I mean, who could have ever imagined they would now be worth as much as they are?

Many of your contemporaries, such as George A. Romero and John Carpenter, enjoyed the EC Comics like Tales from the Crypt as kids. Were you also a fan?

I remember those horror comics, but I wasn’t as passionate about them as perhaps those other guys were. I used to like a series of comic books that are a little obscure today called Crime Does Not Pay. These were comics that were very realistic as opposed to the rotting corpses and monsters of Tales from the Crypt. As a kid, I liked comic books that were more firmly based in reality, rather than ones that were about superheroes or the supernatural, although I liked them, too. You won’t find the Crime Does Not Pay comic books around much anymore, but some collectors might have them. I think the publisher actually ended up murdering his wife and, naturally, that was the end of the Crime Does Not Pay comics. Obviously crime really does not pay! But they were very good comics and somehow my tastes always ran back to them. They were more grown-up, intelligent, and sophisticated than most comics and contained intricate stories and interesting characters.

You actually drew your own comics in your youth, didn’t you?

Yeah, that was one of my principal hobbies as a boy. I would sit down and draw a sixty-four-page comic book with six panels on each page. I would really go to town on them. I would do a lot of detailed artwork and develop elaborate storylines that had complex dialogue and plotting. I did a bunch of these comic books and would sometimes even color them. Unfortunately, today, I don’t have those either. They are all gone now. Back in those days, I basically had to bribe people to read them. I used to give the other kids in the neighbourhood a free comic book — if they would read my comic book. I also used to put on little shows at my house and I’d invite the kids in the neighbourhood to come over. I had this slide machine and would put the slides up and have puppets and stuff. Again, I would have to bribe the kids to come over by giving them comic books, so it was a truly captive audience! My father would say, Ah, you don’t have any friends! Nobody will have anything to do with you unless you give them a comic book. That really made me feel good! [Chuckles] He once asked me why I didn’t have any friends come over to our house, and I said, Well, Dad, because every time I do you embarrass me in front of them. That’s the reason.

You must have been a precocious child.

Well, I guess I was the kind of kid who lived inside his own head to some extent. I was very creative with my free time and I liked to dream up movies and stories. When you’re a child, you do seem to be more in tune with your imagination and imaginative life. You’re not so self-conscious as you can be when you grow older. I think a lot of adults seem to lose the magic of childhood. Naturally, that’s because you have to get a job and get married and have children of your own. Then your dreams and desires change into something else with the new responsibilities you have. Your fantasy life, or the way your express yourself through creativity, can be reduced or abandoned. That was certainly true in my day, but maybe now things have changed. Today, it seems to be more acceptable for an adult to be a fan or a nerd and celebrate their interests and passions. You can be more childish and childlike now and nobody persecutes you for it. But yeah, I had a big imagination as a kid. I used to draw the comics and I would also create my own little radio shows. I got a tape recorder as a present and I started going into my bedroom and creating these programs — acting out all the parts and adding background music and everything. Like the comic books and the 8mm films, it was a way to get what was inside my head out into the real world.

What about your musical tastes? Growing up, what were you listening to?

I listened to whatever was popular at the time. I didn’t have any avant-garde tastes. As time went on, I got into The Beatles and all those rock and roll performers. Back in my early days, I particularly liked Big Band music. I also liked Latin American music because I used to go to dances in Manhattan on weekends. There would be Tito Puente [7] or some other live band playing Latin music. When I worked at various weekend resorts and summer resorts up in the Catskills Mountains, they were very favourable to Latin American dance music. So, I did shows up there, doing comedy routines, emceeing shows, and working weekends. A singer and I would tour different hotels and do two or three shows, and I thought at the time that I wanted to be a comedian. But then I found out later on that I really didn’t like it. I didn’t like working at night. I didn’t like being occupied every single evening, performing, because I couldn’t have any kind of social life. All you could do is have some poor girl waiting around all night — waiting for you to get finished with your act so you could go have a drink together. I wouldn’t be through until one o’clock in the morning, so it was not something that I liked to do. When I later went to the City College of New York, I started putting on regular variety shows every Thursday afternoon, or every other Thursday afternoon, for an audience. We would do a complete review and have comedy sketches and a monologue.

Did you enjoy that experience?

Oh, yeah. I was acting like I was on television! Seriously, I had the crazy impression I was doing my own network television programme and had to devise a whole new show every week. So, we’d have singers and performers, and people who worked with me. We’d do our skits and for a while it was a lot of fun but, unfortunately, I didn’t like the kind of person it was making me. I was too full of myself, too oblivious of other individuals and what they might be feeling. I just didn’t see other people when they were talking to me. I didn’t know who they were and, frankly, I didn’t care. I was so self-centred I would do anything for a laugh. In my own mind, I was like a big comedy star or movie star. No, it wasn’t right. I didn’t like the kind of person I was becoming, so I just stopped doing the shows. I didn’t want to do that anymore.

What did you want to do?

Well, around this time, I had the idea that I wanted to become a writer instead. I suddenly switched into that gear, writing teleplays for New York TV programmes, and I put the comedy performing firmly behind me. I mean, I was good at comedy and felt I had a gift for writing and performing as it came very easily to me. As a kid, I was always the clown of the class at school. All the time, I would thrive on trying to get the other children to laugh. That usually drove the teachers crazy, but I always had to be the star. I would also frequent this coffeehouse in Manhattan called Hansen’s Drugstore where all the comedians would go. I used to go down there after high school and hang out on the corner and sell the comedians jokes. I would receive $10 for each joke, which seemed like a lot of dough back then. I wasn’t exactly making a fortune, but that didn’t matter because I was having a lot of fun. The only downside was that sometimes the comedians wouldn’t pay me for my jokes, which I didn’t think was fair. I kept harassing them for my money and, on one occasion, this comedian and his manager threatened to throw me out of an eleventh floor window if I asked them for my money again. That wasn’t very nice of them, but, hey, what can you do?

When you went to the City College of New York you majored in film, correct?

Yes. This was in the late 1950s, just before I started selling television scripts. CCNY didn’t have a regular film course in theatrical motion pictures. The course they offered was in documentary filmmaking, so I took that. I learned a lot about various aspects of filmmaking while I was attending there. I learned how to load the Cine-Kodak Special 16mm Camera; I learned how to shoot; I learned a little about camera lenses; and I learned quite a lot about how to edit film.

Were there any famous teachers instructing you at CCNY?

Actually, the best teacher we had was Gene Milford, who taught the editing class. Milford was a fabulous editor, who had cut a number of great movies for Elia Kazan, including On the Waterfront and A Face in the Crowd. He was Kazan’s principal editor and was also a wonderful teacher, too, as you can imagine. I learned a lot about editing from Milford. He was about the only one teaching at CCNY who was a notable filmmaker. Oh, there was also a celebrated surrealist filmmaker named Hans Richter, whom you may have heard of. [8] He became chairman of the documentary department. Most people considered Richter’s work to be awful and pretentious, but he seemed to enjoy quite a lot of attention and acclaim from his admirers.

What about your fellow alumni? Did anyone else in your class go on to be successful in the industry?

Let me think. [Pause] No, not really. I can’t think of anyone else. I think I was the only one. Of course, if they had moved forward and were successful in the documentary industry I wouldn’t know much about it, because I’ve never been steeped in the documentary world. Somebody might have been successful in that area as an editor or something. I do know that some of the guys who worked with me in my comedy shows became notable in different fields. For instance, one of them was Vic Ziegel, who later became a famous sports writer and columnist for the New York Post and the New York Daily News. Another guy was Paul Kagan who founded Paul Kagan Industries, which is one of the leading media research companies for motion pictures and television in the world. Paul’s really made a big fortune for himself.

Did any famous filmmakers come to lecture you?

Otto Preminger [9] once came to speak with us, but he only stayed for five minutes — literally! The students asked him all kinds of stupid questions and then one kid suddenly jumped up and claimed he was Preminger’s nephew. That’s all poor Otto had to hear. A moment later, he was out of there.

Did you run any film clubs in college or organize any screenings?

Oh, there were screenings all the time. They were showing everything from the famous silent Hollywood movies by filmmakers like D.W. Griffith all the way to some of the acclaimed foreign pictures by Ingmar Bergman, Rene Clair, and Akira Kurosawa. They screened some extraordinary movies at the school and it was truly revelatory. I mean, these films were unavailable anywhere else because of course there was no home video back then. Very often I would duck out of school early and go downtown to the Broadway theatres, where they had first-run movies and sometimes a stage show. In those days, they would often screen a movie and afterwards there would be a live performance onstage. I saw some incredible people perform like Danny Kaye, Jack Benny, and Abbott and Costello — they all appeared in person onstage! The movie would run and then they would come out and put on a show for forty-five minutes or an hour. Then the movie would come on again. I would sit through the picture a couple of times, just so I could see the stage show all over again. What was wonderful about that time was they didn’t throw you out after a screening. The movies were continuous and people just walked in whenever they got there. Nobody actually came in at the beginning of the movie. They simply showed up at the theater, bought their ticket and an usher with a flashlight took them to their seat. Subsequent to that, I actually worked as an usher at the Roxy Theatre for a part-time job, so I was showing people to their seats, too. I didn’t particularly like wearing that stupid usher’s uniform, I must say. I sometimes felt like an idiot.

Was it a struggle getting money together during your college years?

Well, CCNY was free. It was $15 a term for a registration fee. $15 for two terms was just $30 a year, so I went to college for four years for the princely sum of $120. That’s all my education cost me. Despite that, my father still wasn’t particularly happy about paying for the school books I needed. I remember he said to me, Hey, you got books last year. I said, Dad, this is for a different class. Different classes require different books. Anyway, I finally squeezed the money out of him and eventually graduated college. By that time, I was already writing scripts anyway.

Did you make any short films at college?

We made a film called Coney Never Closes. It was about a little girl who goes down to Coney Island and it’s all a mess as, at the time, Coney Island was more or less abandoned. All the rides in the amusement parks were shut down and were just rotting and rusting away. As this little girl wanders through the decimated ruins, in her imagination all the rides and attractions suddenly come alive again. It was a cute little movie. I don’t know where that one went either. That has sadly been lost, too. I really made no effort to salvage all these films.

What was the budget and shooting schedule for Coney Never Closes?

There was no budget! They simply gave us the cameras, then they gave us the film, and then we went off and made our picture. That’s all there was.

How did your fellow students and the faculty react to the film when it was first screened for them?

I think it received a fairly average response. I mean, it was nothing extraordinary. Nobody declared, This is the work of a future Orson Welles!

Did you make any other short films during your college years?

That’s the only one I can remember, but I did edit some other people’s films, stuff like that. They would give us the raw footage and we had to cut it together, but I believe we only got to make one film of our own. The college provided us with the equipment and the other students in the class were assigned to be our support crew. Then, we would perform that duty for the other students and be their support crew when they went off to shoot their movies. That’s how it worked.

In 1958, I believe you worked part-time as a pageboy at NBC.

That’s right. I then became an NBC pageboy, working on different television shows, ushering the audience into the studio and providing services for the performers. One time, I remember actually meeting Bob Hope in the elevator at NBC. As we were standing there I said to him, Well, Packy East, what are you doing here? Now, Packy East was the name Hope boxed under as a kid and he thought it was amusing that I’d called him that. He then invited me to a screening that very same night of his new picture, Paris Holiday, in which he co-starred with the French comedian, Fernandel. It’s one of the worst movies Bob Hope ever made, I might add. It’s just dreadful! Hope asked me if I would bring some of the other NBC pages and guidettes to provide an audience, so I brought a whole bunch of people with me and we all went to the theater. I can remember saying to myself, Okay, this is my big chance. I’m now going to get to write for Bob Hope! I’ll ingratiate myself to him and show him how clever I am. He’ll be so impressed. When we all entered the screening room, Bob Hope was there. He got up and made the usual speech that everybody always makes when they run a rough cut of a picture: "Ladies and gentlemen, you will notice in the movie you are about to see that the color isn’t right and the sound is off, and some of the cutting is all confused, but