It took nine tailors (1948)

232 IT TOOK NINE TAILORS "Great," I said. "Give me the new pages and I'll learn it." "We haven't written it down," Leo said. "Can't you remember what I said?" "Not word for word." "That doesn't matter. Let's start shooting and you can ad-lib it." "Ad-lib it!" I exclaimed. "An important scene like that! I never heard of such a thing." "Why not ad-lib it?" insisted Leo. "Maybe it will be better that way. It's that kind of a scene. You're talking a lot of hokuspokus to the guy and making it up as you go along. Maybe we've discovered a new technique. Maybe that's the way I'll shoot pictures from now on. We'll call it the McCarey System— the ultimate in the true art of motion pictures." He was kidding about the new technique and the art of motion pictures, because Leo is interested only in making good pictures and not in the art of the cinema. But he wasn't kidding about ad-libbing the scene. "O.K.," I told him. "Ill try anything once." So we shot the scene once, and that was it. He printed the first take. Gregory LaCava is another one of my favorite directors. At one time he was an artist, but because of economic necessity he got into animated cartooning and from that became a director. He has a grin that is second only to Joe E. Brown's, the enthusiasm of a college kid, and no respect whatever for Hollywood traditions. If he had become an actor, he would have been a great low comic. He loves to have a good time, even in the midst of the hard work that goes into shooting a picture. During the making of My Man Godfrey, one of LaCava's best pictures, he and Bill Powell disagreed on how Powell's part should be played. "You haven't found Godfrey yet!" exclaimed LaCava. This led to a nightlong discussion of the character of Godfrey,