Take One (Jul 1978)

“I did this thing in New York, ‘The Royal Hunt of the Sun,’ and I actually acted like an Indian for ten years after that.”’ ed if & ee eli * %4 Carradine and his leading ladies from Death Race and Cannonball: Roger Corman alumni loosed on the world. asks, “‘that you became president through the unleashing of unparalleled and almost inconceivable violence?’’ It was here that Corman and I had our disagreement. I wanted to have Frankenstein answer the question by simply running over Junior Bruce as he drove away on his honeymoon. Roger, on the other hand, was against the violence of this ending, feeling that it would compromise the hero. He proposed instead that Junior be led away in chains by a pair of FBI agents. During one of the final script conferences, it was decided that we would compromise by having the FBI agents machine-gun Junior on the spot while Frankenstein remarks, ‘‘ How can we have a free press if they’re going to ask that sort of irresponsible question?”’ But when it came time to shoot the scene, I was dissatisfied with the compromise ending. Throughout the film, Frankenstein had been running people over. Indeed, the film was about running people over. I felt very strongly that the film ought to end with somebody being run over. But Corman also had strong feelings about this last scene. We had already had so many disagreements about how much humor there should be in the film, and how much blood (with me arguing for humor and Roger for blood) that I was reluctant to go against his wishes again. It was David who insisted I had a larger responsibility to myself to shoot the scene the way I saw it. I decided to try to shoot it both ways. But of course there wasn’t time. And after we had shot the ending where Frankenstein runs over Junior Bruce, Carradine said he wasn’t interested in fooling with the other one—so we forgot 18 about it. When he found out, Corman blew up at the production manager for letting me change the ending, but typically, he never said a word to me. Shortly after the movie was completed I had occasion to send David a telegram of my own: MY DEAR FRANKENSTEIN, I AM VERY SORRY YOU COULD NOT BE WITH US AT THE SCREENING LAST NIGHT SO I COULD THANK YOU IN PERSON FOR ALL THE SUPPORT AND COLLABORATION YOU HAVE GIVEN ME OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS. IF OUR CURIOUS AND ECCENTRIC FILM SUCCEEDS AS I BELIEVE IT WILL, ITS SUCCESS WILL BE DUE IN NO SMALL MEASURE TO YOUR CONTRIBUTION. I HOPE ANOTHER PROJECT WILL COME ALONG SOON ON WHICH WE CAN COLLABORATE. YOUR DIRECTOR AND FRIEND, PAUL. In addition to his moral support, I learned a great deal from Carradine about the art and craft of acting. David has spent a lot of time developing his persona. This involved unlearning many of the things his actor father had taught him, such as ‘‘how to speak’’ and how to ‘‘be a gentelman.’’ His television experience has been very important to him and there are traces of Kwai Chang Cain (his ‘‘Kung Fu’’ character) in many of the roles David has subsequently played in movies. is evening, as we sit together talking, I ask him about the extent of the influence of kung fu on his life. “*I guess it’s too soon to tell where everything will eventually level out,’’ he says. ‘‘It seems to me you can’t get the Tao (Chinese philosophy, e.g., the J Ching) into your life and then get it out again. It’s very difficult to study these ideas closely without being affected by them. You know, I did this thing in New York, ‘“The Royal Hunt of the Sun’’ [in which he played Atahualpa, the Aztec prince] and I actually acted like an Indian for ten years after that. I don’t act like an Indian any more, but I act more like an Indian than your average Irish-American movie star’s kid.”? Although he has a personal tabu against performing in films which contain ‘‘gratuitous violence’’ or ‘*macho bullshit,’’ a certain combativeness is undeniably part of David’s image. Perhaps this stems from his role in ‘‘Kung Fu.’’ Although the characters he plays never pick fights, they are always ready to hold their own. ** After I left “‘Kung Fu,’’ I felt it was important for me to disassociate myself from that image I had established if I wanted to survive the series,’’ he says. “*For a year after getting out of ‘‘Kung Fu’’ I didn’t study kung fu at all. Then there was a moment when I had thought about it a lot and never gotten around to it. Finally I got into my car and drove down to Torrance to Kam Yuen. He’s a marshal arts advisor who has a studio down there. And that’s when I really started studying. From that moment dates my pure interest in kung fu. It had nothing to do with movies. By the time we did Cannonball, I'd just come back from the Cannes Film Festival where I’d taken Kam with me. Just because I went to the festival I didn’t want to stop working out. I was still studying. So when I hit Cannonball 1 was actually steeped in kung fu. It’s a pity, because actually in Cannonball I didn’t do a lot of kung fu. I just did ‘stuntman’ fights