The Spirit of St. Louis: The Movie Billy Wilder Wanted To Make

In line with what happened Today In History, here’s something else. I love this story.

Billy Wilder and Charles Lindbergh were good friends despite many political, social differences – and here is one of Wilder’s stories of filming (who directed The Spirit of St. Louis) – and it fills me with regret that I don’t get to see Wilder’s version (in his own mind, I mean):

I got this excerpt from Cameron Crowe’s wonderful book Conversations with Wilder:

Billy Wilder: “Spirit of St. Louis”. I got into that. I suggested it. But I could not get in a little deeper, into Lindbergh’s character. There was a wall there. We were friends, but there were many things I could not talk to him about. It was understood — the picture had to follow the book. The book was immaculate. It had to be about the flight only. Not about his family, about the daughter, the Hauptmann thing, what happened after the flight … just the flight itself.

I heard a story from newspapermen who were there in Long Island waiting for him to take off. And the newspapermen told me a little episode that happened there, and that would have been enough to make this a real picture.

The episode was that Lindbergh was waiting for the clouds to disappear — the rain and the weather had to be perfect before he took off. There was a waitress in a little restaurant there. She was young, and she was very pretty. And they came to her and said, “Look, this young guy there, Lindbergh, sweet, you know, handsome. He is going to–” “Yes, I know, he is going to fly over the water.” And they said, “It’s going to be a flying coffin, full of gas, and he’s not going to make it. But we come to you for the following reason. The guy has never been laid. Would you do us a favor, please. Just knock on the door, because the guy cannot sleep…”

So she does it.

And then, at the very end of the picture, when there’s the parade down Fifth Avenue, millions of people, and there is that girl standing there in the crowd. She’s waving at him. And he doesn’t see her. She waves her hand at him, during the ticker-tape parade, the confetti raining down. He never sees her. He’s God now.

This would be, this alone would be, enough to make the picture. Would have been a good scene. That’s right — would have been a good scene. But I could not even suggest it to him.

Cameron Crowe: Couldn’t you have had your producer bring it up?

Billy Wilder: No. Absolutely not. They would have withdrawn the book or something, “There you go, Hollywood, out of here!” I don’t know — very tough guy, very tough guy…

Cameron Crowe: Did you ever think about using that character in another picture? The waitress from the early days?

Billy Wilder: Sure, that can be used, yeah, but it fit there. And just that girl, who we’d see again at the very end. And you fade out on that. That would have made the whole picture.

I am inclined to agree. Love it. Billy Wilder had lots of movies fully filmed in his own head … I love to hear about them almost as much as the ones that actually got made.