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2007 Movie News Archives

February 6, 2007: Allen Coulter Talks “Hollywoodland”

With today's release of "Hollywoodland" on DVD, and following up on yesterday's interview with Paul Bernbaum, Newsarama.com has published an indepth interview with "Hollywoodland" director Allen Coulter. Here's an excerpt from the interview...

Q: When there are certain things that can't be confirmed such as the kid with the gun and also when people were yelling "Superman" at the screening of From Here to Eternity, do you just have to say "You know what, that makes for a good movie so that's going in regardless"?

A: You're absolutely right. You have to make a decision and here's the grand rationale. We had read in one of the books about George Reeves that allegedly, a child had pulled a gun on him and he had disarmed him. If you ask someone else, that was apocryphal. According to Jack Larson, who was the original Jimmy Olsen, he didn't think that happened. In things like this, one is subject to someone else's memory, which may be faulty. As for the From Here to Eternity screening, Jack Larson was at a screening in which he witnessed personally the shouting at the screen by the audience. However, he's not certain if George Reeves was there. But other people say they were present when that happened, so it stands to reason that George was at a screening which this rather common phenomenon occurred. So that scene, though it may not have included Jack Larson sitting behind George Reeves at that moment or necessarily George sitting with Toni [Mannix], it is extremely likely that George witnessed it. It is also an exaggeration that he was cut from the film as a result of that because he's still in the movie. But the simplest dramatic way to express to the audience that as a result of his fame as Superman, his legitimate acting career was over. We took the dramatic license of showing Buddy Adler, the producer of From Here to Eternity, making the miming gesture of scissors cutting to make the point that George's career was over as a serious actor. So that part was an artistic, if you will, solution to a very real situation.

Q: Did watching the Adventures of Superman give you any insight into George?

A: A little bit. Ben [Affleck] looked at virtually every episode. I abstained. I didn't think I could punish myself that much, but I looked at enough of them to get a sense of what guy was a little bit. When you combine that with what you've read, what we'd heard secondhand from Jack Larson, I felt like I had some sense of who he was. I could see what was ultimately his ironic detachment from the role of Superman. George would continually say, "I'm not this actor. I'm better than this material. I'm laughing at this material." This is certainly my take on it, but children saw themselves as complicit in a secret. That secret that he let them in on as "I am above this material."

Read the entire interview at the Newsarama website.

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