{"id":55046,"date":"2014-05-04T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-05-04T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=55046"},"modified":"2014-05-04T09:52:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-04T13:52:46","slug":"billy-friedkin-i-dunno-little-sweet-robots-and-stuff-maybe-were-on-the-wrong-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=55046","title":{"rendered":"William Friedkin on <i>Star Wars<\/i>: &#8220;I dunno, little sweet robots and stuff, maybe we&#8217;re on the wrong horse.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/z33-qOXOWS4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n<big>For May 4, Star Wars Day.<\/big><\/p>\n<p>William Friedkin&#8217;s movie <i>Sorcerer<\/i> was opening at the same time as that little movie about robots called <i>Star Wars<\/i>, the movie that would end up being the industry game-changer. (Speaking of <i>Sorcerer<\/i>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/movies\/moviesnow\/la-et-mn-new-releases-sorcerer,0,4568414.story#axzz30kpbvfUx\" target=\"_blank\">it just came out on Blu-Ray<\/a>, and if you haven&#8217;t seen it, do yourself a favor. It&#8217;s a masterpiece. It just happened to come out in the wrong damn week. More on Friedkin\/<i>Sorcerer\/Star Wars<\/i> here, in this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/vf-hollywood\/william-friedkin-sorcerer-star-wars\" target=\"blank\"><i>Vanity Fair<\/i> interview with the director.<\/a>) <\/p>\n<p>Peter Biskind describes Friedkin&#8217;s response to <i>Star Wars<\/i> in <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0684857081?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=thesheivari-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0684857081\">Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock &#8216;N&#8217; Roll Generation Saved Hollywood<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0684857081\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/i>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>The Sorcerer<\/i> trailer Bud Smith cut played in front of <i>Star Wars<\/i> at the Chinese Theatre.  Says Smith, &#8220;When our trailer faded to black, the curtains closed and opened again, and they kept opening and opening, and you started feeling this huge thing coming over your shoulder overwhelming you, and heard this noise, and you went right off into space.  It made our film look like this little, amateurish piece of shit.  I told Billy, &#8216;We&#8217;re fucking being blown off the screen.  You&#8217;ve got to see this.'&#8221; Friedkin went with his new wife, French actress Jeanne Moreau.  Afterward, he fell into conversation with the manager of the theatre.  Nodding his head toward the river of humanity cascading through the theater&#8217;s doors, the man said, &#8220;This film&#8217;s doing amazing business.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah, and my film&#8217;s going in in a week,&#8221; replied Billy nervously.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, if it doesn&#8217;t work, this one&#8217;ll go back in again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Jesus!&#8221;  Friedkin looked like he had been punched in the stomach.  He turned to Moreau, said, &#8220;I dunno, little sweet robots and stuff, maybe we&#8217;re on the wrong horse.&#8221;  A week later, <i>Sorcerer<\/i> did follow <i>Star Wars<\/i> into the Chinese.  Dark and relentless, especially compared to Lucas&#8217;s upbeat space opera, it played to an empty house, and was unceremoniously pulled to make room for the return of C3P0 et al.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For May 4, Star Wars Day. William Friedkin&#8217;s movie Sorcerer was opening at the same time as that little movie about robots called Star Wars, the movie that would end up being the industry game-changer. (Speaking of Sorcerer, it just &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=55046\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[451,1428],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55046"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83477,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55046\/revisions\/83477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}