Excerpt from Conversations with Wilder
[Barbara Stanwyck] was just an extraordinary woman. She took the script, loved it, right from the word go, didn’t have the agent come and say, “Look, she’s to play a murderess, she must get more money, because she’s never going to work again.” With Stanwyck, I had absolutely no difficulties at all. And she knew the script, everybody’s lines. You could wake her up in the middle of the night and she’d know the scene. Never a fault, never a mistake — just a wonderful brain she had…
And then there was an actor by the name of Fred MacMurray at Paramount, and he played comedies. Small dramatic parts, big parts in comedies. I let him read it, and he said, “I can’t do that.” And I said, “Why can’t you?” He said, “It requires acting!” I said, “Look, you have now arrived in comedy, you’re at a certain point where you either have to stop, or you have to jump over the river and start something new.” He said, “Will you tell me when I’m no good?” [Wilder nods; a partnership is born.]
And he was wonderful because it’s odd casting.
“It requires acting!”
That reminds me of the lines from “My Favorite Year”: “I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star!”
HA! He’s flinging his cape around in that moment, isn’t he? Peter O’Toole is so damn hilarious in that movie.
Yes he is. He had a couple of great movies around that time (“The Stunt Man” springs to mind as about a year before), but this is one of my all-time faves. I need to see it again soon!
I think what made MacMurray so perfect in that role is that his insecurity about his acting ability came through as the insecurity his character felt about the situation he was in.
Oh, and Sheila, rent The Big Steal. It was on TCM last evening and I loved it. Mitchum is perfect (and funny!) and Bendix is spot on. Anybody know who the lead actress is? I can’t remember ever seeing her in anything else. (I missed the credits.)