unwanted child/part six

What follows is a transcript of an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, conducted last winter by Adam Hulin who, as previously noted, co-programs the Cinema Overdrive screening series in North Carolina. The interview is the the sixth segment in an excellent 12-part session with Hulin.



Bogdanovich is mesmerizing in it and quite entertaining. When the subject of "At Long Last Love" comes up, Peter opens up about the film (for the first time, it seems to me) and describes it as a "painful" experience. And when Hulin observes that ALLL has never been put out on video, Peter for all intents and purposes skirts the reference.



Here goes:



Peter: “When I made ‘Daisy Miller,’ Frank Yablans commented that it was like ‘Babe Ruth punting.’ With ‘At Long Last Love,’ I tried to hit it out of the fence. It was a disaster.



"Cybill had given me a book of lyrics by Cole Porter – a big coffee table book of lyrics.



"I thought it would be fun to write a script based on the lyrics and did. I wrote it for the cast that did it pretty much. And it was an original musical comedy. Now, an original musical comedy for Broadway, they take it out on the road for six months before bringing it to Broadway. We had two previews. The first was a complete disaster; the second was pretty good.



"And then I screwed it up and we opened cold without previewing it more. It was a terrible mistake. I was rushed into opening. Everyone at the studio loved it. Big mistake."



Hulin: “Visually, it’s very monochromatic with the set design in very, very black and white.”



Peter: "Yeah, we did it black and white in color.



"I wanted to do it what Lubitsch had done with the first musicals ever made - 'Love Parade,' 'The Smiling Lieutenant,' 'Monte Carlo.' They did the singing ‘live’ with the orchestra off camera.



"I wanted to do the singing ‘live’ for which Fox invented a whole speaker that would fit in the ear and the antenna was combed into the hair and we had someone playing an electric piano with the horn turned off so they could hear it in their ear but we wouldn’t record it. It was very complicated - cost about $25,000 to invent this.



"It was great. Everyone loved the picture but it was cut wrong. And It was my fault and the studio’s fault for rushing me. We should have taken more time before opening it. Once it was opened, I saw what was wrong with it."



Hulin: “What in your opinion was wrong with it?”



Peter: "Wrong sequences. Wrong things we used – some of the wrong stuff. Things cut that shouldn’t have been cut. Things that should have been cut weren’t. It was a mess. When I afterward recut it for television, that’s the version everybody sees and they say ‘What’s wrong with the picture? Why’d it get such bad reviews?’ Well, that’s not the version that was released."



Hulin: “That’s the only version I’ve ever seen. Because really, it’s a lost picture - because Fox has never put it out on video.”



Peter: There’s a beautiful print of it – a 35 mm print – that they showed in San Francisco a couple of years ago when they did a tribute to me. They loved the picture. People loved the picture. I don’t love it ... because it’s too painful."



* * *

For its June 18 and 21 screenings of ALLL, the Anthology Film Archive printed the following program note:



"Fresh off his highly successful features of the early 70s (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, WHAT’S UP DOC?, and PAPER MOON), Bogdanovich decided to try his hand at the Hollywood musical. Despite featuring Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd, the music of Cole Porter, and sumptuous production values, it was a box office failure, not least of all because of Bogdanovich’s daring decision to record the songs live on-set, despite his stars’ lack of polished musical talent. As a result the film is rarely revived – but it’s nevertheless a fascinating experiment, one Bogdanovich continues to proclaim a personal favorite among his films. These extremely rare screenings are not to be missed!"



"Personal favorite"? I wish. But, unfortunately, that doesn't jibe with what Peter said in the above interview.



Next Up- Why ALLL disappeared



Comments can be posted at the end of Part Seven.