Comments on: Ernie Lehman

By: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad

Tom Grey - Liberty Dad — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 13:05:56 +0000

Having just watched The Princess Bride, again, my own hat goes to William Goldman.

Great lines, many even better the second time, that’s what makes a good movie.

And a good book. 2 more days before Harry Potter #6 — in 50 years this series will be the most read books of this decade, I’m certain.

By: Duke

Duke — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:53:15 +0000

Julius Epstein wrote Casablanca? Hardly. It was originally a stage play–Everyone Comes to Ricks– and the two people who wrote it never forgave themselves for signing off for 20K. As it was the screenplay was written by committee and had no ending at all til the end of shooting. And then it was changed by Veidt and Bogart. I used to know Howard Koch, who had more than a little to do with writing it, and he used to shake his head over the movie. “We had no idea what we were doing. The Epstein brothers put in this great dialogue and then Bogart, Lorre, Veidt and God only knows who wrote the rest.” He also said Jack Warner wrote a word or two. And David O. Selznick stuck in his two cents about the ending. It’s kind of weird that Julius (and not his brother) gets full credit for writing what was already written. It is generally agreed that the play was undoable as a movie and had to be rewritten.

By: Pat Curley

Pat Curley — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 15:05:59 +0000

They managed to make a movie out of Portnoy’s Complaint? =^)

All I can say is, I don’t want to see the liver scene.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 05:34:19 +0000

Haskell Wexler’s son rebelled against his old man by becoming a staunch Republican you know, and he’s just made a documentary about his difficult reconciliation with his dad. (Might be of interest to those of you who’ve found yourselves in divided households over the last few years.) It’s called Tell Them Who You Are and it’ll be making the rounds. Reviews have been highly positive.

***

Roger Thornhill: What the devil is all this about? Why was I brought here?

Phillip Vandamm: Games, must we?

Roger Thornhill: Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theater this evening, to a show I was looking forward to, and I get, well, kind of *unreasonable* about things like that.

Phillip Vandamm: With such expert playacting, you make this very room a theater.

Did James Mason deliver a single non-quotable line in that movie? No, I don’t think he did.

Lehman did the commentary for the North By Northwest DVD and he sounded like quite the gentleman.

By: triticale

triticale — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 05:16:43 +0000

Haskell Wexler could have offered, in his defense, Matewan, the dramatic story of genuinely impoverished workers standing up to oppression.

I’m not surprised by the Hummers. He was a sports car racer during the ’50s, holding his own against Jag-you-ares and Ferraris in a hot rod special. One of my links to him, other than my leftist magazine photographer father, is the Chicago sportscar crowd of the time. He also acted, and appeared in a movie with Kevin Bacon.

By: Kyda Sylvester

Kyda Sylvester — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 22:00:20 +0000

Once every 100 years or so, Richard, is more than enough.

By: mrp

mrp — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 21:08:05 +0000

We live in a wonderful country where talented, hard-working people can achieve their dreams. Thanks, Mr. Lehman.

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 21:01:10 +0000

Kyda ó You mean, not two years in a row?

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 20:14:26 +0000

“The Epsteins have another claim to fame for us New Englanders”

Amazing that there should be so much talent in one family. I understand that Durkheim, Mauss, Sartre and Levi-Strauss were also members of the same family. Genes or culture, I wonder?

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 20:10:20 +0000

Despite the fact that our charming host is extremely handsome, very debonair, and preternaturally youthful, let me be the first to suggest that he also is now very much in his anecdotage.