Canadian Film Digest (Dec 1972)

Page 15 Jack Dee Witt is what you’d call a plainspoken man, But then when you’ve been about everywhere there is to go and seen about everything there is to see; when you’ve survived for over half a century as a writer and amassed 42 screenplays, numerous novels, a horde of stage and TV dramas, and countless pulp features, stories, articles, memoirs, reports, anecdotes etc. etc. etc. along the way, you can afford to be. “Actually I don’t usually write this kind of crap,” he’s saying about his latest script, The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey, now being filmed at the Kleinberg Studios outside Toronto after extensive location work. ‘I’m not much for fantasy and I’m not much for gimmicks which is what this pucture is all about. : “What I set out to write was a straightforward adventure story about an undersea rescue operation. And for the first part of it that’s just whatit is. There’s nothing init that isn’t based on fact, that isn’t going on right now. Undersea Labs and that sort of thing. “But the studio didn’t think it could go on that basis. They wanted to play up the futuristic elements. That’s why they stuck that Undersea Odyssey title on it I guess. That’s what they figured they could sell.’’ The publicity girl across the room winces visibly. She’s trying very hard to enjoy the irreverance but her heart isn’t in it. And De Witt, relishing the flavour of his’ own cynicism, carries right on. IA 2 A WH LE EE EE OF CANADA a Season's Greetings CAPAC COMPOSERS, AUTHORS and PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION DECEMBER 1972 Profile: Screen writer Jack DeWitt “You see their idea was to bring in these sea monsters by using various photographic techniques. Horrible, grotesque creatures they are, things from all over the world. “That’s the gimmick. They come into the Story when the undersea lab breaks loose from its mooring during an underwater tremor and drifts through this fissure in a volcano down there. Inside this volcano, due to a confluence of certain chemicals and gases which really do exist by the way, all fish life is of monstrous proportions. That’s the idea you see. That’s the fantasy.” He pronounces the word with obvious distaste as if perhaps a little embarrassed at having to use it. And he’s careful to emphasize that, well, given the right conditions it just could happen. That is it’s not beyond the realm of possibility, perhaps. It’s evident that Mr. De Witt has no regard for speculative fiction. “But I must say, I really didn’t think they could bring it off, Sandy Howard the producer and the technical people. I didn’t think they could do it in such a way as to make those monsters really believable in conjunction with the actors and the undersea lab and all. “Well, they convinced me. I saw some special effects rushes the other day and I was astounded at what they had done. It really works. So right now I’m pretty optimistic. Right now I think it’s going to be enormously successful and make a hell of a lot of money. Which, since I’ve got a percentage, is not an unpleasant prospect. “T'll tell you how successful the studio thinks it’s going to be. They’ve already asked me to write the sequel. I don’t really want to do it but, well, maybe we can have some fun with it. Maybe I can get John Wayne down there and we can turn it into an undersea western.”’ His head arches back into a full thick laugh with just enough irony in it to let you know “that maybe, just maybe he’s serious. But then westerns are what Jack De Witt . does best. Or at least does most. Ever since he first arrived in Hollywood after the War hard on the heels of two novels sold to major Studios, it’s been the big outdoor western dramas that have made him his reputation and bought him his slot in the upper levels of the screenwriter’s pantheon. Though he probably wouldn’t like to hear you say that. “T’ve always had a special feeling for the outdoors certainly but I’m not a specialist. Ve YC YE YEE YEE YE BE YE YA WE Ol Uo Us Uf fs Yes Ue Yee Oe YE YEE VE YE YE Ye EE EE YEE Ll Wh I’ve written things with big city environments too. It’s just that I like a good story and the best stories seem to generate themselves out of the kind of basic conflict that a man against nature theme provides.”’ Stories like A Man Called Horse and Man in the Wilderness, the two most recent Jack De Witt screenplays to be filmed and the two pictures, all in all, of which he is most proud. ‘Yeah they both worked out pretty well. A * Man Called Horse especially was a hell of an idea. It was originally just a fragment, not even a complete story, written by this Indian lady up in Montana. I bought it as soon as I came upon it, it was such a natural. “I’d written a picture years before called Sitting Bull which was one of the first attempts to really tell the Indian story sympathetically, from the Indian point of view. But as usual in those days it got butchered, came out nothing like I’d envisioned it. So I was eager to do it right. ‘And I'll tell you, I fought like hell to see that nothing went wrong with A Man Called Horse. First of all I was determined to keep it in the original Indian dialect. Just a bit of English at the start and then a bit from the Richard Harris character scattered along the way. I thought language wasn’t important. The story told itself. Boy, we had some awful battles over that. “Finally we compromised. The _ studio backed down on the English if I would write in a kind of half-way character, the FrenchCanadian captive played by Jean Gascon, to ‘work as an interpreter. And in fact that didn’t turn out too badly. He developed into a pretty interesting fellow. “But I was glad that came out well. I fought for my points and people listened to me. I don’t know if it’s just the fact that I’m getting older or what but that’s sure not the way it used to be. “Tt used to be I’d write a script and turn it in and I’d know that they were going to hack it up so much: there was just no point in bothering about it. I’d just take my money and forget it. It was the only way. “There was no Satisfaction in writing pictures like that. If you tried to do anything original they’d lose it, if you tried to say anything serious they’d simply take it out. Like they used to say, if you’ve got a message, send a telegram. That was their attitude. “Well let’s face it, Hollywood was run by illiterates, men like Warner and Zanuck. Though Goldwyn was different, I had some respect for him. He had a sense of what was good and what was bad that overcame his illiteracy. “It’s the same with directors. Basically they’re non-literary people. If a writer wants to see what he wrote on the screen, he’s got to direct it himself. There’s no alternative. “Not that I have much sympathy for most so-called screenwriters. Like I told the Hollywood Writer’s Guild once, if a screenwriter wants what he deserves, let him write a novel. If he can’t do that then he isn’t a writer in the first place and he’s got no complaints. “All these guys sitting around Hollywood crying the blues, waiting for film assignments, they should be out writing other things, articles, stories, interviews, anything as long as they’re writing. “That’s the way I’ve lived for years, writing all the time. Always looking for ideas, always listening, keeping my eyes open. That’s the only way you can doit. Writingisa discipline like any other and to be good at it you’ve got to keep practicing. “I get up every morning at eight and write till twelve. I make myself do it. And if I don’t have anything to say, I make myself sit in front of that typewriter anyway. Writing is not an easy life, it’s damn hard work. For everybody.” Sitting there like an aging patriarch, a sardonic smile chisled across the rough edges of his face, his talk seems not so much like conversation as a series of pronouncements. But then he’s been there and he’s lived it and he knows whereof he speaks. And he’s pretty damn sure he’s right. “You know I haven't been in Canada very much over the past couple of years but I’ve been very impressed this trip with the tremendous interest and enthusiasm there seems to be for films and film making. “But I’ve been wondering why so few of your Canadian writers are looking back into your past for stories and ideas. There’s so much there, you have such a rich history. “I remember once I did a film called Canadian Pacific, about the building of the railroad. And when I wrote it I had to do a lot of research, naturally. Well, I found a tremendous amount of material, stories, The Canadian Film Digest anecdotes, all kinds of things. Much more than I could ever use. ‘And it’s all still there. People up here tell ‘me that it’s a matter of markets, that a Canadian story won't sell internationally. That's a load of crap. A good adventure story will sell anywhere any time. And there’s so many here just waiting to be told. “That’s where your writers and filmmakers should be looking to find their pictures. If I was a writer up here I sure as hell know I would.” And you can’t but believe that he would too.