VISIONS OF ENGLAND (BERG PUBLISHERS)

Paul Dave, Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of East London, analyses the relationship between what makes the notion of « Englishness » and British contemporary cinema, through the prism of the core of this notion and of British culture in particular: Class.

« To put it bluntly [...] there [is] a certain incompatibility between the terms « cinema » and « Britain »... » (François Truffaut, quoted by Roy Armes in A Critical History of the British Cinema)

« The class war is over and we have won it. » (British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, 1959)

MASTER CLASS

Cinema is both an industry and an art, but it is also the reflection of the societies, of the Histories, and of the cultures movies originate from. And one of the first (and numerous) merit of Paul Dave's book is to recall us - in spite of François Truffaut provocative's declaration - that British movie industry is not only a reservoir of technical and artistic talents for delocalized Hollywood blockbusters like Harry Potter and the excellent Basic Instinct 2 (with a fascinating use of its London locations), or « a bunch of people in London who can't get Green Cards » (Alan Parker, Will Write and Direct for Food, Page 85).

But the most intellectually attracting element of Visions of England is the angular stone of the book: the notion of Class as the essential component of the English culture, mirrored by contemporary British cinema.

« The Enchantment of Englishness is the dissociation of class and class struggle or, what amounts to the same thing, class and capitalism. » (Paul Dave, Visions of England, Preface)

Following brilliantly the illustrious paths of Eileen Meiksins Wood and Andrew Higson with an original synthesis between sociology and Cinema study, Paul Dave explores a vast period of the History of the British film industry, from the « Heritage » films of the Thatcher-Major Era to more experimental movies (e.g. London Orbital - 2002), not to forget « Fairy-tales » entries such as Notting Hill (1999), or milestones like Trainspotting (1996).

« Film historians agree that between the 1940s and the 1980s there was a progressive dislocation of the unity of the National community as imaged in wartime films. » (Paul Dave, Visions of England, Page 10)

UPSTAIRS...

« Let's play Master and Servant » (Depeche Mode)

« The Upper reaches of the English class system seem to fascinate film makers. In particular the monarchy, the aristocracy and the upper middle classes featured prominently in what some critics have referred to as the British « Heritage Film » . » (Paul Dave, Visions of England, Page 27)

The Heritage genre includes Merchant Ivory Productions - what director and cartoonist Alan Parker called « the Laura Ashley school of film making » in a cult-classic cartoon (See Will Write and Direct for Food, page 93 - this book is a definitive all-time favourite for the author of this review), movies like A passage to India (1984), or even Television dramas such as The jewel in the crown. In some respects it is what Midsomer Murders or Miss Marple are for British Television: postcards from the non-edge, the way continental Europeans or US viewers often represent themselves british cinema in a sort of collective phantasm (1).

« The authorities were disappointed to find, not the remains of Big Fat Paulie, but instead The Remains of the Day, a boring Merchant Ivory Film starring Sir Anthony Hopkins.
- Hum, funny how they could have confused that... » (Diane Simmons and Tom Tucker, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story)

The main characteristics of the genre, as idenfied by British film Historian Andrew Higson, are « sumptuous mise en scène showcasing heritage properties (landscape, interiors, architecture, costumes) » (Higson in Paul Dave, Visions of England, Page 28) and « a nostalgic and conservative celebration of the values and lifestyles of the privileged classes » (Ibid.)

Visions of England explores and expands the work of Higson on the subject with analysis of a string of typical Heritage films such as Chariots of Fire (1981), The Remains of the Day (1993) or later avatars like Angels and Insects (1995) or The Tichborne Claimant (1998), and even establishes a filiation between Heritage and Working Title's Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) - the matrix of some the most famous films of this company until Thunderbirds (the book of Paul Dave proposes further excellent developments on this specific point).

MARK DARCY IN THE MIDDLE

« Do you remember Mark Darcy, darling? Malcolm and Elaine's son? He's one of these super-dooper top-notch lawyers. Divorced. Elaine says he works all the time and he's terribly lonely. I think he might be coming to Una's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet, actually. » (Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones Diary)

Paul Dave links what he calls « the culture of the « millenial » neo-liberal capitalism » and the evolution of middle-class as reflected in the British commercial hits of the 1990s, where London has been transformed into a « Fairy-tale city of delights » or an « enchanted village » (Robert Murphy, quoted Page 45).

« The film [Notting Hill] prefers to suggest that the privilege is the reward of an unassuming English charm... » (Paul Dave, Visions of England, Chapter 2, Page 47)

Not only within this perspective, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones Diary (2001) and its sequel are the objects of the author's scrutiny but the recall by Dave of the production context of these movies (from the Working Title company) will remain to cinephiles and movie specialists as a very precious instrument of comprehension of the recent History of the British movie industry.

Such a morceau de bravoure would be sufficient for the satisfaction of the reader but Paul Dave goes on his demonstration with Miramax's Sliding Doors (1998) - six pages that deserve a lecture in cinema schools (« Sliding Doors opens up the cracks in this « new middle class » - its identity is seen to unravel under the impact of a capitalist dynamic. », Page 55).

... DOWNSTAIRS (AND BEYOND)

« A working class hero is something to be. If you want to be a hero well just follow me, If you want to be a hero well just follow me. » (John Lennon, Working class hero)

« As if by a process of delayed action, Brassed Off gave expression to a popular mood disturbed by the legacy of the struggles between the neo-liberal state and organised labour that had taken place a decade earlier in the mid 1980s » (Paul Dave, Visions of England, Page 62).

Brassed Off (1996) - one of the most beautiful British film of the last century, The Full Monty (1997), Among Giants (1998), The Navigators (2001), Late Night Shopping (2001) and Billy Elliot (2000), are the on-screen elegies of the British working class selected in Visions of England, with sometimes nuances that non-British readers will certainly consider with the highest interest (« Billy Elliot is at its closest to the ideology of Blairism here in its representation of the glittering trajectory of an individual talent and success as an adequate answer to structural social problems... », Page 75).

« Thank you, your honor. With God's help I'll conquer this terrible affliction. » (Trainspotting)

Beyond downstairs lies what the British New Right called « the underclass », a notion covering « the systematically destructive effects of capitalism on particular sections of the working class... » (Page 83) Trainspotting is there used as the center of an aesthetic and cultural reflexion.

CLASS PERFORMANCE

The last part of the book offers us an in-depth analysis of Performance (1970), the masterpiece co-directed by the late Donald Cammell, and, among others elements, a look at experimental documentaries such as Robinson in Space (1997) and London Orbital (2002).

Visions of England (Berg Publishers, Oxford), by Paul Dave, reinvents the study of British cinema with talent, intelligence, clearness and style through a sociological point of view that makes his work not only useful to cinephiles and searchers, but also for everyone who wishes to learn more about a revealing aspect of what constitutes the contemporary History of United Kingdom.

We would be delighted if Mr Dave could someday do the same work with British Television, or at least a 2nd tome of his great book, this time with England as portrayed in British-based American productions. Until then buy Visions of England and have a look at the catalog of Berg Publishers, especially film studies.

« The beauty of cinema is it's something that can be made locally and consumed the world over. » (Doctor Who)

(1) Interestingly enough, in an episode of the BBC Hustle tv series, when the con-artists heroes want to trick a mobster into believing they’re working in the Cinema industry they choose the shooting of a Merchant Ivory style costume drama.

NICHOLAS MEYER

Nicholas Meyer is without any doubt one of the most important artists of the american cinema: novelist, writer, director, producer. He has revisited with great intelligence the myth of Sherlock Holmes and left his mark on the Star Trek franchise and on the History of Television with The Day After - his vision of nuclear Armageddon. Adapter of Philip Roth, this man of art and culture discussed his career and his work with us.

Nicholas Meyer, you are definitely a master in the art of story telling. When did you decide to imagine stories of your own? Which books gave you the desire and the taste to do so?

Nicholas Meyer : I became interested in story telling from listening to the bedtime stories my father read to be at night, everything from Winnie the Pooh, to Grimm Fairy Tales, Kipling's Just So stories and later the Greek myths. I started dictating my own stories to my father when I was around five and after a year or two of acting as my amuensis, he told me I must do my own writing and I've been doing it ever since.

Which movies have influenced you the most?

Nicholas Meyer : The films which have influenced me were Peter Brook's The Beggars Opera, Henry V (both significantly with Laurence Olivier), plus the Marx Brothers, WB gangster movies, Around the world in 80 days and an endless list, comprising Woody Allen, Francis Coppola, Hitchcock, Ford, John Huston (my favorite American director), Louis Malle, etc.

Usually, a story teller loves to hear, read and watch good stories...

Nicholas Meyer : My story telling tastes are Catholic and ecclectic as is the case with these film-makers. I never cared if the stories were funny or serious, present day, historical or science fiction. I cared only that they were good stories.

My definition of a good story is that once you hear it, you understand why someone wanted to tell it to you. Henry James said the least demand you can make of a work of art is that it be interesting; the greatest demand is that it be moving.

How did your father and his profession, and later your teachers at the University of Iowa contribute to the edification of your cultural background?

Nicholas Meyer : My father was a psychoanalyst, whose chief preoccupation, therefore, was human behavior. Why and how people do the things they do. When I listened to him speak about searching for clues from people as to why they behaved as they did, I was irresistibly reminded of Sherlock Holmes, an association that eventually led to my writing the novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, as well as a general preoccupation with motivation that helps my writing.

The University of Iowa taught me technique and craft. While genius may need no instruction, chances are the rest of us could use some help. Before Iowa, I was doing things right through intuition and inspiration, but if either failed me, I didn't know how to analyze (that word again!) what went wrong and how to fix it. The writing courses that I took - also the theatre and directing classes - helped to organize my thinking and codify the process.

Your first script for television was for Judge Dee and the Monastery murders (1974), the pilot of a tv series that unfortunately never materialized. Did this first confrontation with the realities of the Hollywood system help you in some manner?

Nicholas Meyer : Judge Dee didn't become a series because the actor who played the role in the pilot died, not because of the realities of the tv system. Nevertheless, the “system” IS dysfunctional at best and not a help to taking creative chances, which was and remains a pity. It is not for the thin-skinned and humiliations come in all shapes and sizes.

Was the adaptation of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution to the big screen a kind of poetic justice for the artist you are?

Nicholas Meyer : The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was a fluke. If the book hadn't been a best-seller the movie would not have been made. Recently Universal said they didn't want to consider remaking the film because Holmes is a drug addict and that is (presently) too dark for them. Can you imagine?

Time after Time is a remarkable romantic thriller. A fight between two visions of the world: a vision of what the world should be (Wells) and a vision of what the world really is (Stevenson). Would you write the scene of the Hyatt regency room where Stevenson illustrates his vision of the world with a television set the same way today?

Nicholas Meyer : I would probably write the tv/hotel scene in Time After Time in much the same way, that is to say, I'd simply show what's on TV and let the audience - like Stevenson - draw their own, inevitable conclusions. There would be more “reality” tv, of course, but I think the same point I made then is just as true - if not more so - now.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness” , wrote Dickens. The transition between two eras seems to be a recurring theme in your work from Time after Time to Company business and, of course, Star Trek II and Star Trek VI. Is it important to understand History in order to live well one's personal history?

Nicholas Meyer : It shocks me that people are so ignorant of their own history. If we don't know where we've been, how will we be able to figure out where we ought to be going and how best to get there? In my work, wherever I get the chance to tell people something, usually (but not always) about their pasts, I will try and work it in.

The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered country are two major Shakespearian tragedies in outer-space, served by flamboyant actors (Ricardo Montalban, David Warner, Christopher Plummer...) with magnificent soundtracks and an epic direction. How did you manage to transform these installments of the Star Trek franchise from space-operas to “Operas in space”?

Nicholas Meyer : I am not sure how I made “operas in space”. I do know that I am a big opera fan to begin with - verismo, not bel canto - so the idea of larger than life exaggeration in this material came naturally to me, as it did to George Lucas before me on Star Wars. Also, if you want things to feel “Shakespearean”, why not use Shakespeare's words? No one wrote better dialogue.

The fact that I have a musical background is enormously helpful in communicating my ideas to the composers with whom I work on my films. I always enjoy this part of the process a lot. Sound will always dominate picture so it's a fascinating business to tease out the sounds you need to complete your vision of the film from the composer.

Music is almost an actor in itself in your movies. You worked with Mikos Rosza, James Horner, Michael Kamen or Cliff Eidelman (for Star Trek VI). How do you choose your composers and how do you collaborate with them?

Nicholas Meyer : Ideally, the music is going to be the VOICE of your movie. I use temp tracks when talking with my composers, but I also engage in free-wheeling discussions with them. What I want in all aspects of directing is to work with people who will take my ideas and make them BETTER.

On Star Trek VI, for example, I grew tired of the marches that have accompanied all main title sequences since the first Star Wars. I wanted something mysterious and brooding - our film was about the Klingons, after all! - and spoke with Cliff Eidelman about the opening music for Stravinsky's Firebird, which Cliff then went out and did his own riffs on. When it came back it was pure Klingon.

Your words as an author have been illustrated by others (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution) or by yourself (Time after Time). You started your career in Hollywood as a publicist for a major company and you are also a producer. Does your knowledge of these different aspects of the industry make you more indulgent towards how the studio and the director usually treats the work of the screenwriter?

Nicholas Meyer : I have been lucky to have had my scripts directed by some very talented directors. Notwithstanding this, I find it very frustrating to see my stuff directed by others. Inevitably it gets changed and while sometimes it is changed for the better, on a great number of occasions it is merely different and that difference divurges from my original intentions in ways that are typically not improvements.

Through your different jobs (novelist, screenwriter, director, producer...) you enjoy to explore varying genres sometimes simultaneously. For instance, Star Trek VI is an opera in space but also a clever whodunnit and a geopolitical thriller. Is a situation easily transposable from a genre to another and are there timeless and universal situations or a “construction pattern” common to every genre?

Nicholas Meyer : Usually, a work of art that is successful in a given medium will resist if not defy successful transposition to another medium. There's a reason why some stories make good novels, others make good plays and still others are perfectly suited to the screen. Adaptation is a tricky process because you want the end result to be comprehensible by people who've never read or seen the original, the “source” material. But how do you make a film out of The Brothers Karamazov without coming out hopelessly inferior to the novel?

Each job of transposition presents its own set of problems. Plays tend to be wordy and there's less action than in films; novels tend to be longer than most films and require extensive pruning; also interior thoughts and feelings are difficult (not impossible) to externalize. And so on.

While certain situations may be common to the varying venues (eg: husband discovers wife having an affair), it's what comes before and after such “scenes” that make up the UNcommon construction pattern of each genre.

One of your books, Confessions of a homing pigeon, is not well-known in France, even by those who admire your work. Could you tell us a few words about it?

Nicholas Meyer : Confessions of a homing pigeon is an autobiographical novel, which tells much of my own story in a fictitious setting and with fictional changes and disguises. It is the most personal book I have written (in my opinion) and I knew it was not going to be a block-buster but didn't care; it was an important book for me to create for myself as a writer. I couldn't keep hiding behind Holmes and Captain Kirk forever.

I believe in French it was called Confession d'un Pigeon Voyageur, which sounds pretty similar to me. It's about a small boy, orphaned young and his life and loves in the company of a charismatic expatriate uncle who lives in Paris.

In your filmography there is an unexpected entry: Collateral Damage (2002). How did you get involved on this film? What was your task as an executive producer?

Nicholas Meyer : Collateral Damage was originally written by my best friend, Ronald Roose, when it was called Prey. It was about a high school teacher who goes to Libya to avenge the deaths of his wife and daughter, who died in the Lockerbie bombing.

I was the exec and helped set up the project at Warner Brothers, where we said, joking, “Now remember, this guy ain't Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's Tom Hanks”, which we thought was the whole point. Five years later, they'd wrecked the whole thing but I left my name on just to piss them off.

Talking about more personal projects, you are able to entertain audiences with intelligence, elegance and style. Are Art and Industry reconcilable?

Nicholas Meyer : It is important to remember that the Globe Theatre was a money-making operation and yet that's where Hamlet, Lear, Romeo & Juliet, etc. were first performed. Art and commerce are not irreconcilable, they are inextricably intertwined.

Movies cost too much to produce (though they needn't cost as much as they do), for them not to make a profit at the end of the day. The trick is to make art that makes money, or as Robert Bresson said, “My job is not to find out what the public wants and give it to them; my job is to make the public want what I want.”

Could you please describe us a typical day of work in the life of Nicholas Meyer?

Nicholas Meyer : My days vary. During the school year I am up, taking a daughter (any one of three) off to school, then I try to do the bulk of my writing in the morning, when I find I am fresh. I don't write when I'm not working on something but when I am, I try to write every day - no weekends or holidays allowed! Later in the morning, when I get stuck or stiff, (whichever happens first) I do a half hour on my exercycle and read something unrelated while I pedal.

Sometimes I'll swim laps afterwards, which also helps me to think about my writing and where I'm going next. If it's really going well, I'll go back to it; otherwise I use the rest of the day for business meetings, pitching projects, etc. I try to be home so as to have dinner with my family and if I'm lucky, my wife and I get to take in a movie afterwards.

In June 2000, you have donated most of your personal documents (books, screenplays, treatments, etc...) to the University of Iowa, giving researchers a unique instrument of comprehension of the art of telling stories with words or pictures. Could you explain us what brought you to make this donation?

Nicholas Meyer : The University of Iowa was the first place in my life where I was truly happy. I think I largely invented myself there, thanks to their support and their teaching, as I have endeavored to explain earlier. Since there was no undergraduate playwriting scholarship when I was there, I founded one and giving my papers simply made sense.

I try to get back to the university when I can (I'll be doing some workshops there in the fall) and I was on the board of the University of Iowa Foundation, a fact about which I have always been very proud, since artists aren't typically asked to join.

You have written the screenplay of Sommersby (1993), an US adaptation of a French movie The Return of Martin Guerre. Are there directors, screenwriters or actors from France or Quebec you admire?

Nicholas Meyer : I am a big fan of French cinema - my favorite film is Regle du Jeu by Renoir. There's a million French flicks that I love, everyone from Marcel Carne to Truffaut and especially Louis Malle. I loved Barbarian Invasions last year, as well.

In 2003 you wrote the script of The Human Stain. On what are you working currently and after Holmes and Star Trek will you explore pop culture again someday as a novelist, a writer or a director?

Nicholas Meyer : I have been adapting The Crimson Petal & The White for film, working on a new television pilot and some other Philip Roth and Richard Russo novels. I have no way of knowing when or if I'll get back to “pop” culture, since I don't really plan my career. I do what I think is interesting that comes my way and try (it's very hard!) to interest the financiers in the things that interest ME.

(Interview done in 2005)

WARREN MURPHY (THE DESTROYER)

Warren Murphy is one of the most brilliant and prolific American writers. With Richard Sapir, he has created The Destroyer, a best-seller series of books that contains everything a reader can dream of to enjoy great moments of adventure, action, humor and clever social satire. As a screenwriter he has given to Clint Eastwood the script of The Eiger Sanction, a definite masterpiece of the thriller genre on-screen.

How did you meet Richard Sapir and how came the idea of The Destroyer?

Warren Murphy : I had been a newspaper writer and editor but in the early 1960's, I was working in politics in City Hall in Jersey City, New Jersey, as the mayor's personal secretary. Dick Sapir was assigned by the local newspaper to cover news in City Hall and that's where we met and became friends and drinking buddies. We both had been writing fiction - unsuccessfully - for a long time and we decided one late drunken night to collaborate on a book.

It was probably Dick's idea to write about an assassin hired by the U.S. government to preserve the country's freedoms, but it was a long time ago and I can't be sure. I named the characters, Remo, Chiun, the House of Sinanju, and came up with the first title: Created, the Destroyer which is a paraphrase of a quote from the Bhagavad Gita.

Richard Sapir and yourself sold Created, The Destroyer to Pinnacle Books in 1971. Did the publication of Don Pendleton's The Executioner have an influence over the launching of the character from Pinnacle's point of view?

Warren Murphy : We finished the manuscript on June 25, 1963 - I remember the date because my son, Brian, was born that day - but we were ahead of our time and no one would publish it. This manuscript sat in an agent's cabinet for almost eight years until one day, a young secretary from Pinnacle Books, was having her mouth worked on by a New York dentist named Joseph Sapir, Dick's father. He found out what she did and said « My son wrote a book like that once », and she answered (with a drill in her mouth), « Have him send it to me and I'll show it to an editor ».

Pinnacle had by this time begun to publish the Executioner series and was looking for other series books. We had our agent send the book to them and they bought it three days later. So, yes, Don Pendleton's Executioner success opened the door for us - but we had, in truth, written our book many years before his first Executioner.

The first two Destroyer books are two excellent thrillers but don't have the distinctive trademarks of the series: humor, social satire, parodies and references to news of the moment. They appear with the third, Chinese Puzzle.

Warren Murphy : Remember, we wrote the first book in 1963 and got published and became « overnight successes » eight years later. When Pinnacle Books wanted a second book in the series, we didn't really know what we were doing so we did the best we could.

The first two books are okay, but just okay. It was only with the third book, Chinese Puzzle, that we decided that we would write satire and humor, and along the way, we came up with our overriding mythology: the brash young westerner trained in the secret arts by an aged, inscrutable oriental master.

It worked for us because, honestly, we feared we would be bored to death, writing the same book over and over again, the way Pendleton had to do. The head publisher hated Chinese Puzzle but our editor, Andy Ettinger, knew it was something new and different and he stuck to his guns and got it published.

You wrote the script of The Eiger Sanction. How were you involved on the movie? Was Clint Eastwood a reader of The Destroyer?

Warren Murphy : Despite his « public image » at the time of being a taciturn, minimal talent, Clint Eastwood has always been a very complex, highly intelligent man. It turned out he read some Destroyers and also some of my Razoni and Jackson detective series books.

Out of the blue one day, he called me from Hollywood and asked me if I had ever read The Eiger Sanction. I told him no. He asked me if I had ever written a screenplay. I told him no. He said, « We're doing really well, aren't we? » Then he asked me if I could write a screenplay. I said yes, and he said, « Read The Eiger Sanction and see if you can write a script for it ».

During this conversation, he was very laid back, almost to the point of coma. Only later did I learn that his option on the book was expiring; he had not been able to get a screenplay written, and he called me as an act of desperation. I found the book, read it; thought it was useless but pleasant dreck, and told Eastwood that I could write the script.

Can you explain us how you worked on this adaptation?

Warren Murphy : My first mission was to go to the public library and get out a book on how to write a screenplay because I had not only never written one but I had never even seen one. I read that book and then wrote the script in eight days. Clint took my first draft to camera. Later I went out to Hollywood to meet with him and do some final tweaking of the screenplay. Clint put me in for solo writing credit on the movie, but the Writers' Guild gave me shared credit with two others - including Trevanian [Rodney Whitaker, author of the book] - whose scripts Clint had found unuseable.

Clint has become known now after many years to be very intelligent and focused; he knows exactly what he wants, and he gets professionals to give him that kind of work. He is a marvelous man to work for and the truth is, he spoiled me for Hollywood, because I thought everybody there was like him - bold and unfraid to make a decision. I learned later on how wrong this idea was.

How did you work with Richard Sapir on a Destroyer book? How did the ideas emerged? (the intrigues, Chiun's addiction to soap operas and being the perfect « Jewish mother » to Remo...)

Warren Murphy : Dick and I worked in a curious fashion. We would kick around an idea that interested us, usually over a lot of vodka and tonics. We would also fool around with the characterization stuff - the Jewish mother, the addiction to soap operas, the references to Remo being the avatar of Shiva, the Destroyer... all that kind of brainstorming.

And then Dick would start working on the first half of the book, write his half, and send it to me to figure out, without an outline. I would figure out where the story had to go, write my half of it, and then rewrite the whole book so that it was seamless.

The producer Larry Spiegel bought the adaptation rights of The Destroyer in the beginning of the eighties and Remo Unarmed and Dangerous was shot only in 1985. According to you, why did it take so long to adapt The Destroyer on screen?

Warren Murphy : Movies take forever to make. Look at Lord of the Rings, how long it took to finally get someone interested enough to do it right. So I don't think it took inordinately long for The Destroyer to be made into a film. And we were kind of a « stealth book », selling millions of copies a year, but generally under the radar of the big reviewing newspapers and organizations.

The only people who seemed really to know about us were all the screenwriters who were stealing our stuff for their own movies.

What were your relationships with the production from the development of the project to the shooting?

Warren Murphy : Dick and I wrote a script, actually several, but the problem was they were different from what everybody else was writing. So they wound up getting another writer to work on it. His script was pretty good, but the fatal flaw was that he had a junk villain. You can't have a great hero without having a great villain. Think of James Bond: his villains are guys who want to blow up the world or steal Fort Knox's gold but the The Destroyer movie had as a villain a guy who was selling cheap rifles to the government!

So the movie was good but only a fraction of what it could have been. Dick and I tried to explain the flaw to the production people but they were all geniuses and wouldn't listen to us.

Can we consider the subsequent TV pilot has been a nail in the coffin of another attempt?

Warren Murphy : The TV pilot was okay; in fact the story was better because it came from a novella that Dick and I wrote. There is continued interest in TV or film adaptations of the series, but one of the problems now is that so much of it has been ripped off in other movies that some people can be forgiven for thinking it is « old hat ».

Still I imagine it'll be made again one of these days; and we're working now on comic books and there is video game interest.We'll see what happens.

As a talented novelist and an efficient screenwriter do you think an adaptation can be at least 60% faithful to the original?

Warren Murphy : Movies and books are different art forms, and even when one thinks that a movie has been very faithful to the book it came from, the fact is that the movie is only a fraction of the book. What a good movie adaptation has to be is faithful to the « intellectual dress » of the underlying work, ala Godfather or Field of Dreams or On the Waterfront, etc.

In your books the late Richard Sapir and yourself have often targeted with great humor the Entertainment industry. What is your feeling about the Hollywood system?

Warren Murphy : Dick and I were frankly appalled that there were so many dumb people in Hollywood, charged with the responsibility of spending scores of millions of dollars of other people's money. I think we've reflected upon that in some of the books we later wrote.

You are the creator of an other important series of books called The Trace , totally unknown in french-speaking countries except for a forgotten tv-series called Murphy's Law (1988)...

Warren Murphy : The Trace series of books which I wrote were quite different from The Destroyer and, of course, I'm proud that I wrote seven books in the series and they won seven national awards, including an Edgar. The TV series was very good, but it had only very little to do with the books.

In that day and age on television, the censors ruled supreme. Trace in the books was an alcoholic with a hooker girlfriend, an ex-wife he hated, and two children - « What's-his-name and the girl » - about whom he couldn't care less. This was too gamy for network TV... Don't forget this was the age before NYPD Blue and The Sopranos. So they fudged up the series to make it sweet rather than tart. It was well written, well acted and Maggie Han was beautiful, but it wasn't really close to my books.

Starting 1982 Richard Sapir and you started to work with other writers on The Destroyer. Sapir died in 1987, then you gradually stopped working on the title and hired « Ghost writers ».

Warren Murphy : I began working with ghost writers after Dick and I had been doing the books by ourselves for 5 or 6 years. Both of us had other projects and sometimes we just couldn't get the time to work on a Destroyer. So I picked young writers I knew and had them do me a first draft and then I rewrote it, to try to keep the Destroyer flavor.

It was later on, when Dick was working on big novels and I had a number of series going, plus Hollywood work, that I hired Molly Cochran - who eventually became my wife - as a full time ghost, and Molly did some 15 books or so in the early 80's. Molly was a terrific writer and her books were right on target, but I should point out that I always tweaked what a ghost wrote to try to keep it consistent with what Dick and I did.

Toward the end of the 80's, Dick and I were so busy with other work that we decided we would end The Destroyer. But then, tragically, dick died, leaving behind a one-year-old son, and I was faced with a dilemma. Writing the series without Dick Sapir would not be fun anymore, but I wanted to keep it alive for his family. So I contracted it out to various publishers.

Those publishers - first Signet and then Gold Eagle - selected the ghost writers, but I was fortunate in that I had at first Will Murray, a serious Destroyer fan, and then Jim Mullaney, another fan, and both were terrific writers and maintained a very high level with the series. Mullaney left several years ago and since then the longtime fans of the series feel that the quality of the newest books has been spotty.

You keep an eye on The Destroyer. What is contractually your level of control with the different publishers?

Warren Murphy : Contractually, I have very little control now over the series content; that's a bad mistake I allowed myself to make and if there's ever a new Destroyer contract, it won't happen again.

You co-wrote the script of Leathal Weapon 2 with Shane Black. How did you work on this movie?

Warren Murphy : Shane Black, a very talented screenwriter, wrote the first Lethal Weapon. He was a fan of my books and he invited me in to work on Lethal Weapon 2. While I have great regard and admiration for Shane, it soon became apparent that we did not really work well together. My way of working is to make sure the story is absolutely in place before I write even the first word. My feeling is that Shane works more by « the seat of his pants », writing right from the beginning.

So after we managed to cobble together a first draft, both of us by mutual agreement left the project and it was finished by others but let me be real clear: Shane Black is, a major screenwriting talent, far better than I am... but partnerships have to work on a lot of different levels and ours didn't. More's the pity.

Apart of The Destroyer and The Trace your books are well-known and appreciated in english-speaking countries but unfortunately unknown by most of our french-speaking readers. Can you talk to us about the rest of your litterary work.

Warren Murphy : Apart from The Destroyer, both by myself and in partnership with Molly Cochran, I have done a large body of varied kinds of work - ranging from locked room mysteries (Leonardo's Law), to big suspense novels (The Ceiling of Hell), to fantasy (World Without End), horror (Destiny's Carnival). Among many others. With Molly, I wrote Grandmaster - an epic spy novel - which won an Edgar, and also we wrote The Forever King, a modern-day Arthurian legend.

My books have won more than a dozen national awards including two Edgars, two Shamuses, many more nominations, and a lot of lifetime achievement awards. I am most proud though, I suppose, of my reputation as a teacher of writing.

The litterary work of Master Chiun is unfortunately unknown in France. The Assassin's Handbook and its sequels have no french edition and are quasi-mythic amongst loyal french fans. Are you aware of what becomes of your creation world-wide?

Warren Murphy : France has been the most consistent country of all in reprinting The Destroyer; at one time or another, we've been published in a dozen different countries, but that is arranged by the publisher's rights department and writers have very little control over that. Eventually, the two versions of The Assassin's Handbook and the book of Chiun's wisdom, The Way of the Assassin, will be published in France and other countries when I get a good publishing staff working on the projects.

You have created a website company, you are very active on The Destroyer creating spinoffs, on re-gaining the total control of the title and you work with your son, Brian. How did you start these operations?

Warren Murphy : One of the reasons I created my website publishing company, Ballybunnion Books, was because Gold Eagle clearly was not interested in promoting The Destroyer or any kind of spinoffs. So I felt it was important to get it started on my own. Sadly, some dark spirits have gone out of their way to hinder the success of Ballybunnion but eventually, I'm sure, it will all work out.

On what are you working currently and what are your projects?

Warren Murphy : I'm working right now on several different series: one about a private detective agency; the other about a secret group which fights religious extremists. When I'm done with those, I'm going to take time off and work on improving my golf game.

(Interview done in 2005)