Audio transcription

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

Haden Guest 0:02  

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  If you could please take your seats. Thank you all for coming tonight.  I'd like to welcome you to a very, very special evening that we've been eagerly awaiting and hoping for, and we're so glad to be here to celebrate an artist whose extraordinary talents and inspiring career have made her a legend—many, many times over.  I’m speaking, of course, of Ms. Elaine May, who is with us tonight.

[APPLAUSE]

Haden Guest 0:38

As you know, Ms. May made a name for herself, first of all, through her incredible and pioneering work with Mike Nichols, with whom she formed what was, without a doubt, one of the most popular and deeply influential comedy teams of the 20th century.  During their unforgettable five years together, May and Nichols redefined the course of American comedy through their urbane, irreverent and breathtakingly intelligent blend of satire that gleefully poked fun at the absurdities of everyday life in 50s America. May and Nichols’s hilarious skits had a shaping influence on contemporary stand-up comedy, it should be noted and is often stated.  And also offered a wonderful showcase for Ms. May’s innate talents as a commanding actress, able to transform herself in a flash and with total conviction from coy teenager to intractable telephone operator, to a ruthlessly nagging mother. And on Sunday we're going to be seeing one of Ms. May’s really great performances in A New Leaf, her first film, which you absolutely cannot miss.

Equally showcased, however, in her work with Nichols, was Ms. May’s absolute brilliance as a writer. Her talent and ability to craft keenly insightful, even we could say intellectual, but at the same time totally hilarious comedy. Since the end of her fabulous collaboration with Nichols, Ms. May has flourished both as a highly successful and prolific playwright of such major works as Not Enough Rope, Adaptation and Adult Entertainment, and a much sought after screenwriter.  But equally important, and the reason why we're here tonight, Ms. May also directed four boldly original and wonderfully eccentric films: A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Ishtar and tonight's film, Mikey and Nicky, that together have won her a prominent place in the history of the post-studio era American cinema as one of the unsung, and still I would say, underappreciated heroines of the so-called New Hollywood of the 70s. 

Ms. May was, of course, one of the few women directors active in Hollywood during the 70s, but she was also one of the few directors making significant work in comedy, an important tradition in American cinema. It was of course comedy that was the home to some of Hollywood's greatest directors: Wilder, Lubitsch, and Sturges, many, many others. But it was, by the 70s, a genre that had long been abandoned as a source for major work. And it was here that Elaine May entered, and she did by embracing a notably offbeat and often quite dark, we can say, mode of comedy that brought to a new level the fearlessness that had defined her work with Nichols, which was characterized by a bold, and even affectionate, embrace of often taboo subject matter. As a result, many I would say, of Ms. May’s films were often met with stunned disbelief and misinterpretation. And it's only in recent years, only with events such as this, that Ms. May’s films have been rediscovered as the major works which indeed they are. And tonight's film from 1976, Mikey and Nicky, offers a really splendid expression of the true fearlessness and brilliant iconoclasm that defines Ms. May’s films. It's her first original screenplay. And it offers a dark and intense portrait of friendship and masculinity that's quite complex and fascinating, and, I’d say, among Ms. May’s most intense and rewarding works. It was dismissed perfunctorily by the mainstream press. It was mishandled criminally by the studio, Paramount, and it's a film that deserves to be far better known. Thankfully, it's often cited as being recognized gradually, to the point that today, it's often cited as one of the great films of the 1970s. It has dark comic touches, but it is in no way a comedy, as you'll see. It's a tough and unflinching film. We're really proud that we can see it tonight in a gorgeous new print that comes to us, thanks to Julian Schlossberg, who I would ask us to applaud in person but, unfortunately, he can't be here tonight. But I really want to thank him. And this print is now becoming part of the Harvard Film Archive collection, available for future generations of students and scholars and, of course, film lovers such as all of you. Tonight is extra special because we also have two additional guests, who I just want to thank for being with us tonight and acknowledge. I speak, of course, of Mr. Stanley Donen who is here.

[APPLAUSE]

Just about a year ago, we had a wonderful retrospective, celebrating the amazing work of Stanley Donen.  And so it's always an honor to have him with us.  But we also have a wonderful actress whose Oscar-nominated performance in The Heartbreak Kid we're going to see on Sunday: Ms. Jeannie Berlin.

[APPLAUSE]

But now, with no further ado, I give you Ms. Elaine May.

[APPLAUSE]

Elaine May 7:07  

Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me? Cuz that's important. It was because of this film, Mikey and Nicky, that Stanley Donen asked me out.

[LAUGHTER]

I haven't seen this movie in twenty years. So I hope I enjoy it. 

[LAUGHTER]

The milieu, the people in this movie, are actually my milieu. I'm a Chicago, sort of gangster girl.  And the events aren’t exactly true, but they have happened. So it's sort of a kind of a true story, but nobody knows this about me except you guys, and I'm afraid you all have to die.

[LAUGHTER]

I’m so pleased that you’ve come. I've never introduced a film before, so I don't know exactly what to say except that I hope you like it, and I'll see you after the show.

[APPLAUSE]

[MUSIC FROM END CREDITS]

[APPLAUSE]

John Quackenbush 9:27

Ms. Elaine May with Haden Guest.

[APPLAUSE]

Haden Guest 9:46

Thank you so much for sharing this film with us and for being here tonight. And I wanted to ask you, just to begin, what you think of seeing this film for the first time in so long? How did it strike you tonight?

Elaine May 10:01  

I keep remembering that during this film, Paramount Pictures changed hands. A new head came in. And he thought this was a comedy. And I don't know why they made it. I really don't.  The guy who made it was a guy named Frankie Yablans and he was also a gangster, and probably knew my family. But when they saw it, it was a bad moment.

Haden Guest 10:35  

You mentioned Frank Yablans, and I've heard it said that he was originally—he was then President of Paramount. He was originally cast in the Ned Beatty role as the hitman, correct?

Elaine May 10:46  

Yes, we cast the head of Paramount, Frank Yablans, in Ned Beatty’s part, and he was fantastic.  He would drive up. We were rehearsing, I forget where, he would drive up in his limo and get out and then join the cast and rehearse. And the real owner of Paramount, a man named Charles Bluhdorn, called him and said, “What are you doing? You're the head of Paramount, you're playing a killer in a movie? And it's a small part?” 

[APPLAUSE]

So he quit.  And we got Ned, who was actually really good, really close to what those guys are like. Because they're just little businessmen.

Haden Guest 11:28  

No, he's absolutely fantastic. And, I mean, the film is such a radical film, I think, in so many ways. But also I think, perhaps most interestingly, in the way that it breaks from your previous films. It's the intensity of it, the sort of nervous style, and the presence and role of Cassavetes is of course major in this film. And I was wondering if you could talk about how you came to Cassavetes. And also, of course, Peter Falk. Because these were two actors who were very much identified with a certain style of performance. So how did you come to Cassavetes?  And how did you work with him?  Is it true that much of the performances were improvised?

Elaine May 12:18

No, you can't.  It's not possible to improvise this because—although it seems not to be—it's really plot-driven. 

Haden Guest 12:26

Absolutely.

Elaine May 12:27  

So you can only fit these small incidents to tell the relationship, and they have to be narrow, and they have to really say exactly what they're going to say. You can't ad-lib around them. But I met John Cassavetes way before this, because he tried to give me $10,000. Because Screen Gems had foolishly put him in charge of giving money to artists, and he just gave money away.  He said, “I'm going to give you $10,000” and I said, “I don't want it.” I didn't know him at the time.  He knocked on my door and he said, “I'm giving you $10,000. You don't have to do anything.”  And I became immediately paranoid and I said, “I don't want it.” And he wrote me a letter.

Haden Guest 13:14  

Sounds like the beginning of the film.

[LAUGHTER]

Elaine May 13:17

Well, we became friends because he felt that I was more insane than he was. And we just were friendly.  And when this movie—which I had written, which actually is sort of based on an incident with these guys. He and Peter read the film, because Peter was a friend too, and he was great. And then he said he wanted to do some movie of his own first, because I forget why.  And I was so pissed that I was going to cast somebody else. And I read people for a year, and then in the end he said, “I'm done with my film, I really apologize.” And then I just cast him, because nobody else could play him. He was so perfect for that part, for that Italian guy. He's a terrific actor.

Haden Guest 14:15  

What role did he have in shaping the sort of nuances of this character, of Nicky?

Elaine May 14:24

He just got him. I mean, he was just born to play him. He and Peter were very good friends, so that was very helpful. Everything went wrong on this, because they kept cancelling the movie.   Because they kept looking at the dailies and seeing that it wasn't a comedy. And they would cancel it, and then we would be off. And somewhere I read that I was able to shoot as much as I wanted, but I just really kept shooting because they would cancel it, we would go off, we would start. And he was really great about it. He stuck it out. And the only thing he demanded was that he'd be good. So things would break down, it would be late, they wouldn't show up, etcetera, he would stand by. But if he thought he wasn't good in a take, he would just be furious at me. So that was his demand, which is an absolutely reasonable demand. He just was very good in the part. He got it immediately, he immediately understood who the guy was. Didn't try to make him nice, didn’t try to make him mean  Just understood that it was about the friendship with Peter, and he would tease Peter anyway so...

Haden Guest 15:45  

Now I want to talk about these characters. Because, throughout your films, so many of your characters are adults who seemed trapped in a sort of extended childhood. I think of the character you play so wonderfully in A New Leaf, the botanist, or Walter Matthau, sort of Little Lord Fauntleroy in the same film. I also think of Charles Grodin in The Heartbreak Kid. And of course Beatty and Hoffman in Ishtar. But it's in this film, I think, that we find the purest expression of this idea. Especially Cassavetes, who's being given glasses of milk, who’s got his lollipops in his comic books, and all of these sort of motifs. I'm wondering what attracts you to this type of character, this sort of man-child if you will?

Elaine May 16:42  

Well, these are these guys. 

[LAUGHTER]

I mean, these are really what these guys are like. The Jews in the– The syndicate was very big—f you really want to know this. This is just hearsay, but the syndicate was very big in Chicago. And we were sort of part of it.  And we were very good friends with my uncle who had an ulcer.  Was very good friends with the Italian guy who once blew up a cleaning store because they were rude to my aunt Fanny. 

[LAUGHTER]

But they were in the back of the store. They weren't killed, thank God. And they just, they're like this. They fascinated me because the wives sort of know and don't know. You think they have to know, and they kind of do know, but they don't. You can't finger a guy unless you're a friend.  You can't get close to him. So only friends can finger you. And yet, they allow friends in, yet they get fingered. Yet they're very interesting men because their friendships are very tight. Their bonds are really with other guys. And they've known each other for years. They don't totally trust each other if they don't know each other a long time. That's who will betray you, your best friend. It’s the only one who can.

Haden Guest 18:23  

This idea of betrayal is also a constant. Betrayal is a constant in your films. Friends betraying friends. Here, though, you add another layer of complexity in the way that other people are brought in too. The way the wife is made an accessory to the murder at the end. I think it's quite extraordinary.

Elaine May 18:45  

Well, she would have been  I don't know if they're interesting as people. I don't know if they’re interesting as characters, but they were interesting to me as people. Because I can't tell you why they behave that way. But I really can tell you, hardly ever said this firmly about something I've done, that that's truly what they're like. What you see, if you're at all interested in these guys —and they’re small-time—the killers are really trying to get enough money to get a bank going, open a bookie joint. They're just small-time businessmen, but they have to have a stake, and it's a terrible job. They're out all night, there's no place to park. If they hire another guy, then they gotta split with the other guy. So it's fascinating because it's just like business. It's not as bloody as Wall Street, but it's bloody.

Haden Guest 19:48  

Now the character of the Don, or Don I think is too strong a word. One of the mob bosses is played by one of the great—considered together with Lee Strasberg to be one of these great acting coaches—Sandy Meisner.

Elaine May 20:06

Sandy Meisner, yeah.

Haden Guest 20:07

I was wondering if you could talk about the decision to cast him.  Like Lee Strasberg, this is only one of two films that he's in.

Elaine May 20:17

I wanted Kazan.

[LAUGHTER]

And Kazan said, “I'll do it if I can play the killer.”

Haden Guest 20:26

Everybody wants to be the killer.

Elaine May 20:29

I thought he was wrong for the killer. Bill Hickey, who was the guy sitting down, is also an acting teacher. But Sandy Meisner did it because acting teachers like to act. Everybody likes to act, really. And it was a good part. It was a longer part originally. The sound in this is very odd, because occasionally I can't hear any of it. Because the mix is strange. But when he came back to loop, the reason I had to cut him down: his voicebox had been taken out. He had his surgery. It was really awful. So I had to cut his scene down. But I wanted him because he was perfect. Acting teachers are perfect for this. They're on top of it. They know you. I knew he knew how to do it. It's good to get good actors. It gives you a lot less trouble.

Haden Guest 21:34

It's an interesting motif. Think of Lee Strasberg, and here as well—the acting coach as criminal.  Speaking of criminal acts, I guess I'd like to know a bit more about– This is a film like so many of your films, it's sort of wrapped in myth and legend. I've heard so many times, told again and again, how, you know, the acting was improvised, you corrected that. But something else that’s constantly repeated is the story of why Paramount so terribly mishandled this film. The film was given only two days release, perfunctory, and part of that is there's some sort of myth that somehow two reels of the negative were absconded with.

Elaine May 22:20

Yes, someone stole them. But when Paramount changed hands, the feeling between the two people—Yablans and Barry Diller—was very bitter, to put it mildly. And of course, Barry Diller thought this was a comedy. Thinking this was a comedy really killed me. I mean, it was a cheap little movie and I don't know why they let me do it. I think because A New Leaf was so successful, and I promised to do another one, or Heartbreak Kid—whatever I did this after.  But they were also horrified to see it. Because they laughed, and then they realized that it wasn't funny. I mean, that it was funny but that it wasn't gonna turn out well. So they had a fight with each other. I think Diller said to you Yablans: “Why have you let her make this movie?” And Yablans said to Diller, as was his want: “Fuck you.” And then they had a big fight. I mean they really, really were at each other's throats. So when Yablans left, they sued me. I have no idea why. I really don't know why. But the only thing I can think of—I know this sounds insane—is that Diller was from television. And I was cutting the negative. And the only thing I could think of was that he didn't understand that you had to cut the negative to make a movie. And I never knew why. And I once asked him, because we became, of course, friends: “Why did you sue me?” He said, “I don't know.” He said, “I was so miserable.”

Haden Guest 24:04

So the story of the stolen negative, then, was a fabrication?

Elaine May 24:08  

No, the negative was stolen.

Haden Guest 24:11  

Can you tell us a little bit of–?

Elaine May 24:14

Well, the feeling was, because there was a strange call that they were going to come and seize the movie. And then someone stole the negative. And then, when they came to seize the movie they came– There's an old law in New York that you can bring a sheriff with you  I don’t mean to laugh, but a sheriff with a gun came in to this editor who said the negative and a reel was stolen.  They went into a mix studio with the sheriff and a gun, and the mix studio was furious and wouldn't turn over the reels. They were very stupid about it. But they cost me a fortune. I think they were pissed at each other. I think Yablans treated Diller very badly. And this wasn't a comedy. That was the biggest thing that this wasn't, was it was a comedy. I think, I don’t know.  I keep looking for reasons, but I never did understand it exactly. And it went on for a very long time because they couldn't recut it, because they didn't have the negative. But I want to tell you that no matter how you recut this, it wasn't going to be a comedy anyway.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest 25:36  

Now you did, though, you were able to put the film back in the form that we saw tonight?

Elaine May 25:44 

Yes.

Haden Guest 25:45

So how did that happen?

Elaine May 25:48

Well, the law firm for Paramount decided– We're in a meeting and the lawyers came in and said, “We have turned this into a criminal case, because we have said that the negative may have crossed state lines.” 

[LAUGHTER]

Elaine May 26:08

And Barry Diller said, “Are you crazy? You want us to be the only studio that jails a director for going over budget? Are you crazy?” And they actually dropped the suit for that. They were so terrified. My lawyer also. They were so terrified that I would be jailed, that they went back and they tried to take it back. And the judge said, “If you're using this court, in a civil matter, if you're using it, we will come down very hard on you.” So they just let the subpoena ride. And they said, “Okay, just have the negative show up” although I didn't know where it was. But I put the word out and it came back and we put it together.

[LAUGHTER]

Elaine May 27:01

It was a very odd movie. Its history almost overcame it. And it was odd to them because it was about guys. It was a gangster movie. It was funny only for a limited amount of time. And I wanted it to look streety, grainy. It was shot at night, you know, sort of like it was captured. And they didn't like that. They just didn't expect it. They didn't like it. They didn't. They weren't prepared for it.

Haden Guest 27:35  

This is a film, to me, that is truly ahead of its time. Looking at the reviews that came out, in the way in which it was completely misunderstood. So to see it with an audience today, and to feel the appreciation is really rewarding. I'd like to take some questions from the audience. Open it up. And if you just raise your hand. There are audience mics. There’s one there in the back?

Elaine May 28:06  

Ask me anything.

Audience 1 28:08 

Thank you. I guess I'm a little dense, or was a bit dense tonight watching this, because and maybe it's partly because I had in my head the program notes which said two guys fleeing a contract killer. And I couldn't get out of my head until really late in the movie that, you know, the extent of the betrayal. The phone call early at the bar, I sort of didn't get it. And then I didn't get the phone call to his wife's house. I guess what I'm sort of wondering: are viewers meant not to quite get it as it's going along or, in fact, was I just too dense?

Elaine May 28:51  

Sort of, yes. Because it's one theme all the way through, and you want to have something to keep somebody wondering. Because once you know, then that emotional bond between the two of them is broken for sure. So yes, it was sort of deliberate.

Audience 2 29:13 

Thanks.

Haden Guest 29:15

We have a question here in the front. I'm sorry, it's behind you, then we'll get to you. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead.

Audience 2 29:26 

First of all, I wanted to say I am such a fan. I could gush so much about all your work and I saw Adult Entertainment. When I saw you wrote it, I dragged my dad [to it] in New York. I know so many things you've done, so many people quote [your films], even The Birdcage, Madonna and Twyla, and I mean, people still do that all the time. I just wondered what you thought of the state of comedy today, and if there were writers you particularly admired. Given that you are clever and smart and just what you think.

Elaine May 29:58  

Well, I don't think any funny movies were really funny until about 1980. I watch old movies and I cannot understand what's funny about them. There are funnier comedies now, sporadically, than there were.  But comedies were always like this. There are, you know, like ten movies that are supposed to be funny and then one that is. There's Something About Mary was funny. God, it had the best sight gag in it I've ever seen. But then there are just movies that pick up on that, and they're not. So comedy is observational now. And also, the comedic joke now is that men are sort of boyish bears and hang around and drink beer and all like that together, and that joke wears out but it's funny. Knocked Up was a very funny movie. So I think the state of comedy is just as good and bad as it's ever been. It's never been great.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest 31:24  

In the front then.  Here's the microphone, please.

Audience 2 31:29  

Well it was when you were doing your stand-up with Nichols. You have to admit, it was great.

[APPLAUSE]

Elaine May 31:40  

Oh, thank you. Actually stand-up was pretty good. It was the movies. There were some really really great stand-up guys. Carlin and Bruce and Mort Sahl. Actually in the clubs there were a lot of funny people. But somehow that didn't translate to movies, because movies were supposed to be for dumber people, you know?

Audience 2 32:06

Do you think that's the reason? Or do you think it has something to do with the structure of the cumbersome Hollywood film mechanism? Because stand-ups–

Elaine May 32:19

That's a good question. 

Audience 2 32:21

Yeah.

Elaine May 32:24

But you can tell the same story very wittily, or you can tell it very stupidly. Most comedies really have to do with what can go wrong. So, if you have a drama, some man comes in and takes a girl and rips her bra off and opens her blouse. If you have a comedy, some man rips the blouse off and then can't quite get the bra open, and then has to turn it around in front and then…

[LAUGHTER]

So, really, the kind of comedy that would be like stand-up is just detail. The real truth, the real observation, of how difficult it is to get anything done.

Audience 2 33:17  

I'd like to know what you're working on now.

Elaine May 33:21

A play. I have a play that I’m hoping is going to– Three one-acts. One with Woody Allen, and mine, and God I don’t even remember who the third one is. Who is it?

Audience member 33:40

Ethan Coen!

Elaine May 33:43

Ethan Coen? Yes, Ethan Coen. I've never met him. But a very funny play. And we're going to do that, as soon as we have a director. So I just finished that. And then I do a lot of ghostwriting, which I can't talk about.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest 34:04  

We have some questions in the middle of the house.

Audience 3 34:14  

Yes, I wondered when this movie first came out: I wonder if you remember some of the reviewers comments, misguided as they were, that sort of stick in your mind. They're probably a good transcript of the period. And I wondered if you remembered some of them that you could share with us.

Elaine May 34:33  

Say the last part again.

Audience 3 34:35  

I was curious about the reviewers, the reviews of this movie when it first came out?  If there were comments that, as misguided as they might have been, stick in your mind as good transcripts.

Elaine May 34:46  

What sticks in my mind, of course, is that I try not to read reviews. But what sticks in my mind is that they didn't like it and they were bewildered. But every once in a while, some critic would call it the best in ten years, one of the best, every once in a while. But it would have to be a critic.  Reviewers reviewed the lawsuit, literally. It was in New York magazine. Actually, that was at the moment where reviewers had gone past the movie to the fact of who you were married to, and that you had been drinking, you know, all through the summer. So it was the lawsuit, really, and the lawsuit got magnificent reviews.

Haden Guest 35:35  

You could pass the mic to the gentleman behind you. Had a question there.

Audience 4 35:40

I was a little baffled by what it seemed to me a kind of strange conflict in the presentation of the characters. Because on the one hand, they seem, comically, like a bit of ordinary males, etcetera. On the other hand, there is a scene of—really a kind of psychopathic scene. They're kind of ordinary guys talking with the usual male stuff, but at the same time, and I think that, probably, that's the way I took it, was intentional on your part. Because it does have an element of psychopathic madness.

Elaine May 36:32  

Well they're not ordinary guys at all. You know, it's interesting, as I watched the movie—and I didn't think of this when I was making it—but I started thinking of the teasing that now goes on in high schools, where students just kill themselves because of the cruelty. The casual cruelty of high school of a certain age. These aren't ordinary guys, because ordinary guys grew up to be sort of grown-ups. And also, the milieu that they come out of, really, is a whole other background. Whatever you're born into seems like the normal world. I mean, to me, it was years before I realized that people didn't have a gun in the house and, you know, they didn't arrest you for booking every week. That seemed to me the way the world was. So to these guys, I mean, at some point somebody can overcome their world, but if you can't, that's the world. The world is that you're going to die. That you can get killed. That family is everything, but it's the family that’s going to kill you. It's a very contradictory world. It really is. My mother once said of the mafia, she said, “There’s no such thing as the mafia” because we were the syndicate. She said, “There’s no such thing as the mafia,” and then she said finally, she said: “Those Italians were our drivers.” And I thought, look at the amount of ambition each one had, the competition between the two of them. And my mother was an absolutely respectable woman. She really was. She would never, she didn’t curse, her eyebrows will go up, but that was her world, that was the world she had been born into. It's sort of like cannibals. You think: “How can they eat each other?” But that's what they do.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest 38:53   

We have a question in the back there.

Audience 5 39:00  

What makes it so difficult for the audience to recognize themselves in a work of art? To be more aware that it's about us and not about someone else?

Elaine May 39:17  

You answer that. You try, go ahead.

Haden Guest 39:23  

Gosh, I mean, I think it's sometimes, I personally feel like sometimes it's very hard to look in the mirror. And so that's the same sort of discomfort I think that we find, you know, seeing a film that has a real honesty. I think the idea, for instance, of the way in which long-term friendships can turn into betrayal, I think is incredibly true. 

Elaine May 39:44

But also, you know, we're kind of primitive and then we learn sort of not to be. But everybody has felt that you take a little kid to the street and he won't go. And you plead with him and you say, “Come on, let's go.” But in your heart, you know you can just pick him up and carry him across the street if you want to. You can let a woman slap you in the face if you're a guy because you can beat the shit out of her. So, we learn, we're civilized. These instincts are, we learn more than this. Civilization teaches us something, and really rouses, and probably, we're genetically sort of tuned to that, or else we would just sort of kill each other. But these guys, they don't have that overlay. Nobody teaches them that other way. They have a code. No kidding, it really is a code. God knows what it is because it's constantly broken. But they live by it, but they break it. In that way, we're like that. It's sort of like you say, “You've got to call me!” “I will call you, absolutely,” and you never do. 

[LAUGHTER]

And you mean it when you say it. And these guys sort of, they have a perverted sense of what honor is. But they do have a sense of what honor is. But they have to survive. It's really sort of like The Godfather at a tiny level. You kind of have to survive. And they also have a leader.  They might kill him, but while he's in charge, he's the leader. They have to kill him. They can't ever demote him. They can never go to the law. They have to police each other. So, I recognize that in me, but I’m fortunately too weak to carry it out.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest 41:57  

We have a question right there.

Audience 6 42:01  

Is it okay if I ask you a question outside the film? Sort of a broader question. I just wanted to know how you knew that this was what you wanted to do? All of this. I don't just mean making the movie, I mean..

Elaine May 42:19

You mean why I wanted to do this film?

Audience 6 42:20  

No. Outside of that. Even from the beginning of your career, if you will, when did you sort of know, “Okay, this is what I'm going to do in my life”?

Elaine May 42:33  

You mean this film or my career?

Audience 6 42:36

Your career.

Haden Guest 42:39  

Comedy as a vocation. How did you come upon–?

Elaine May 42:40

I just belonged to Second City. And that's what we did. We would take suggestions from the audience. And you really can't do a serious scene from a suggestion. So it evolved, and I think you discover that you're funny. And then you think there's a living in this. And you go on. I don't know that anybody decides to be a comedian. Maybe they do. Anybody here? Nobody wants to be a stand-up? You’re kidding. Really? Oh well.

Audience members 43:26

It’s Harvard!

[LAUGHTER]

Elaine May 43:30  

[LAUGHING] There.

Haden Guest 43:33

Amy’s got a question.

Audience 7 43:39  

Hi, I just wanted to know if you could say what neighborhood that is in Chicago. And also, whether the guys in your family saw this film and what they thought of it? 

Elaine May 43:56  

My ears closed on the train which was stalled for an hour. Say it to me a little louder.

Audience 7 44:01

I wanted to know what neighborhood it was in Chicago. I was struck by the Black dance club, and I was wondering if it was the South Side? And then I was also just wondering if the guys in your family saw the film and what they thought of it.

Haden Guest 44:16  

So first, the location of the film. Was it in Chicago? 

Elaine May 44:19

Was it where?

Haden Guest 44:20

Was it in Chicago, the film?  I thought it was in Philadelphia.

Elaine May 44:22  

No, we couldn't shoot it in Chicago. We had to shoot it in Philadelphia. You know, these guys, particularly Chicago mob guys, are sort of gone now. But really, these gangs mean nothing now.  It's just drugs now. I’ve lost touch with everybody. We left Chicago. When you leave Chicago, you kind of leave that world, because that really was what Chicago was like. It was really–

Audience 7 45:08 

You mean the South Side or?  I was just wondering about the specific part of Chicago.

Haden Guest 45:15

What was the specific part of Chicago you were from?

Elaine May 45:18

We were from the near North Side, but it didn't matter where you were from. My mother once said that no crime that was continued—that is, prostitution or vice—could be continued without the cooperation of the police. Gas station robberies, one-timers. I don't know if she was right or not, but she was right in Chicago.

Haden Guest 45:52  

There’s a question right there on the edge.

Audience 8 45:57  

Given that you've been in comedy, but that the content of this later film of yours seems the most directly about your early years, had you been wanting to make a drama or another movie about criminals earlier on? And what was your thinking as you went from comedies to this?

Elaine May 46:23  

I'm really glad you asked me that question. I wrote this as a one-act play for Second City because at that time we would run out and somebody would put out a one-act. And I thought, “What can I do with two guys and no scenery?” And I wrote it and it was a one-act and I thought, “Gee, this would be a good movie.” Because with all the scenes where there was no scenery, I could actually put scenery in, and I could put in cemeteries, etcetera. So that was how I wrote it.  I had no ambition to write about gangsters. They were just people in the company who could do that. It was good kibbitz that way, as we said.

Haden Guest 47:11  

Let’s take this one up here and then we’ll get to you in the middle.

Audience 9 47:17  

It seems like the experience making this film for you might have been traumatic and exhausting, as far as your experience with the studio and their sort of misunderstanding and interference. I wonder how you felt? I wonder if that is, in fact, how you felt once the film was finished and released? And at that point, when the film was done, how you thought about making your next film, and working with the studio again? Were you encouraged at all, or just felt victimized or exhausted? So how did you sort of proceed after this film, to write and direct your next?

Elaine May 47:57

I had a friend you probably heard of named Shel Silverstein, who once said to me, “If there was an earthquake, and all the film was destroyed, and all the editors were destroyed, will you be happy? Or would you be distraught?” And I said, “I'd be so happy.”

[LAUGHTER]

Yes, it was awful. Not that the movie was hard, but all of it was very difficult. And John Cassavetes once said to me, “If you want to avoid the lawsuit.” He was so smart this way—you wouldn't think it.  “Give a party, and invite all the important people you know, including the head of the studio.” And I said, “Oh, are you crazy?  I'm not giving a party! Such an idiot. That’s ridiculous. I’m not inviting these people to my house and blah blah blah.” But he was right. Had I given a party and invited everybody, they couldn't have sued me. It’s such a tiny community.  But I didn’t.

Haden Guest 49:16  

Well we're giving a party right now. Right in the middle, the gentleman in the striped shirt.

Audience 10 49:27  

Speaking of partying and Cassavetes, part of the Cassavetes mythology is that there was a lot of carousing in the 70s with Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. And I'm just wondering what the work atmosphere was like in your recollections? Was it that everybody just did their twelve-hour days and it looked like a lot of night shoots? Did everybody just go home and go to bed or was there carousing?

Elaine May 49:53  

He was so great that I fired my cameraman four times because he was terrible. And John actually shot– There's a handheld shot of a car pulling up. Such a steady handheld shot that you could jumpcut it. It was so incredible. We couldn't get a good decent cameraman and he said, “Don't make me shoot my own death. Please.”

[LAUGHTER]

He was wonderful. He never groused. He would be pissed at me if he wasn't good in a take.  But then he didn't grouse. He would just go huffily to his trailer. But I don't know any actor, any star, any actor who would, to make the movie work, be so un-grousy, if I may use that term. I don't know who he– Where did you hear this, incidentally?

Audience 10 51:06  

Carousing.

Haden Guest 51:06

Oh, carousing.

Elaine May 51:07  

Oh carousing? No. Peter Falk caroused. John Cassavetes never did, no. John didn’t carouse.  He looked like he would carouse.

[LAUGHTER]

And all the girls on the movie had a crush on him and were sort of hurt because he didn't carouse. But he wasn’t a carouser, and he was a big joker. I mean, he really was funny. He liked to imitate Groucho Marx, which wasn't a romantic thing for most women.

[LAUGHTER]

But he was not a carouser.

Haden Guest 51:41

Go ahead.

Audience 11 51:42  

The series is celebrating your direction. But you're such a wonderful comic actress. And I think the last movie that I can recall seeing you in was Small Time Crooks, the Woody Allen movie.  Do you have any plans or hopes to act in a movie again?

Elaine May 52:03  

Well, I don't know that you plan that. I mean, I could plan to, but it wouldn't mean nothing.

[LAUGHTER]

Audience 11 52:19

Would you like to?

Elaine May 52:21

You have to like the part. Because people do ask you to do parts, but they're really, you know, nothing that you can do anything with. They sort of just take your time. So yes, I would like to do something if I felt that my doing it would contribute to the movie, she said.

[LAUGHTER]

You know, it's like: I would be naked if it was part of the plot.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest 52:56  

Let's take two more questions and we'll– Right there. Yes, please. With the beard, yes.

Audience 12 53:04  

You wanted to make the narrative seem captured and give that impression. That's what I've always thought. And I think that's one of the great strengths of the film.

Elaine May 53:17

You’re speaking very shyly.  And I’ll tell you, my ears have actually closed since I got off the train.

Haden Guest 53:23

The mic’s on. Just speak into the mic.

Audience 12 53:24

Sorry. When you said that you wanted the narrative to seem captured, I thought that's one of the great strengths of the film, that it seems very casual, the performances. They just turn on you on a dime. And that's one of the most striking things about it, except for the scene right after Cassavetes sleeps with his girlfriend and she turns the lights back on. And it's a very bright scene, very stark, and the way it's lit seems different from a lot of the other scenes. And so it strikes me as kind of a very stylized moment in a narrative that otherwise seems, a film that otherwise seems almost like it's grabbed or documentary or whatever. Did you approach the scene that way when you scripted it, the visuals of it?

Elaine May 54:10

You mean the scene where he screws the girl?

Audience 12 54:15

Yeah and it's all dark.

Elaine May 54:16

I mean you’re not going to have him screw a girl—you sort of have to stylize it.

Audience 12 54:22

I meant when the lights come on, after.

Haden Guest 54:23

In the white room with the flowers.

Elaine May 54:25  

Well, yes, it was so dark, the movie, that you really– I hope I'm answering your question because…

Haden Guest 54:41

He means the actual staging of the scene. The actual staging of the apartment itself seems more deliberate, one could say, than the rest of the film.

Elaine May 54:50

Well, it was. It was, because to deal with these three people in that situation, it had to be deliberately staged. It was not true. I mean I don't know if somebody would go in the kitchen in that situation, but it had to be done. It was probably not truthful staging as the other was, but it was staged.

Haden Guest 55:27

Right. I'm struck by the film—does seem, at some levels—has this incredible improvisational sort of sense, this sense of spontaneity. But seeing it again, I'm struck at how carefully structured it is. The way the first and last scenes echo each other with the doors. Peter Falk trying to break in the first one, and Cassavetes at the end. It’s so carefully and precisely constructed, in fact.

Elaine May 55:51

I think its improvisational sense comes from the fact that A: They were friends and B: They were perfect for the part.

Haden Guest 55:58

Right.

Elaine May 56:00

He's Greek, he's Jewish. And also, I had noticed that when men fight, they never punch, they push. And that was. I just let them go till they knew they weren’t going to punch. So that actually, as John threw the coat and kept provoking, the lines weren't, but that action was. Because they knew they had to fight and we knew that there wasn't– Because they say you want a fight coordinator– And I've never seen a fight—and I've seen them—where a guy punched a guy.  I've never seen it. They push, they wrestle. I don't know where it came– Westerns, I think.

Haden Guest 56:48

Blame it on John Wayne perhaps.

Elaine May 56:50  

That movement was improvised.

Haden Guest 56:54  

Okay, well look. Please join me in thanking Elaine May. Please come back tomorrow, for Ishtar.  Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

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