ZombieSpirit

Janet Leigh's Breasts

Doug A. Lentz — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:24:10 +0000

While Google takes its sweet time reindexing this site since moving from WordPress to Squarespace, it has become apparent to me that a good percentage (no, a scary percentage) of search engine traffic to this site if coming from queries for images of "Janet Leigh's breasts". Now, I'm not talking about search queries for "Janet Leigh" and search queries for "breasts", I'm talking, specifically about the actual search term: "Janet Leigh's breasts", and, I should add, "Janet Leigh naked" and "Janet Leigh nude".

While a happy part of me would like to think that people are merely searching for truth behind the long-running story that Janet Leigh actually appeared nude for a couple of frames in the shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (the story, which I wrote about nearly a year ago on this blog), there just can't be that many interested part-time film buffs. I mean, I'm talking at least 40-50 searches a day from around the world, for images, not text!

Am I missing something? Is there a new porn star named "Janet Leigh"? I mean, what is the fascination?

Yes, I do understand that in her day, the late Janet Leigh was not only a talented actress ("Jet Pilot", "Touch of Evil", "The Manchurian Candidate") and a very beautiful woman. Starting her career as the quintessential "girl-next-door", she transformed, in the 1960's into a B-movie sex goddess for a short period of time. Richard Armstrong, in an article entitled "The Fall of Janet Leigh" says, "Once Welles and Hitchcock got hold of them, Janet Leigh's breasts would become moments in the subterranean glop of America's postwar id." (I found that using Google search!)

However, the number of searches ending up here and the seeming frantic nature of the searches really has me baffled. It does make me a little pleased that maybe some film history education is getting out to a bunch of guys who might not normally seek the information and have just stumbled here during, uh, recreation time (that's Jamie Lee's mom, for God's sake!).

If, indeed, you have landed here searching for information about Janet Leigh's nudity in Hitchock's shower scene, apart from my original article here, there's an additional terrific article at hitchcockwiki that goes into a hell of a lot more detail than I do, specifically talking about Marli Renfro, who stood-in nude for Ms. Leigh during the shooting. I hate to spoil things for you, but when you do see the out-of-focus naked breasts (that Hitch snuck past the censors) at the end of the scene, you are in fact looking at Marli Renfro's breasts.

Just goes to show you the awesome power of Google. Welcome, stranger, enjoy your stay. I guess it's a good thing I didn't write something about Megan Fox and accidentally use the words "nude" or "naked" on the same page, because then — uh — oops.

Who Actually Wrote "Star Wars" Anyway?

Doug A. Lentz — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:48:12 +0000

One of the things that you do when you're writing is randomly surf the web. This way you at least retain the appearance of working (you're sitting at your computer, using your keyboard) when you're not actually doing anything, and, as every good writer knows, 75% of writing is comprised of sitting around doing nothing.

Anyway, I happened across an interesting post at Mystery Man on Film, commemorating the 32nd anniversary of "Star Wars" (odd number to pick as a milestone, but I digress) where MM goes through the early drafts of the script and compares them to what actually ended up on the screen, which, if you've read the early drafts, leaves a chasm wider than Beggar's Canyon between the written word and the final result.

MM's conclusion?

Lucas had the amazing ability to scrap a script he just wrote and approach the story again from a completely different perspective, which he did repeatedly before settling on Luke and the hero’s arc. We all need this quality. Too many of us get too stuck on what we write and we lack the discipline to start from scratch or even approach our stories from a different perspective just to see how it plays.

I agree, and it got me thinking about what I was working on myself and the fact that I had to start thinking radically to get what I had on the page to match what I imagined I would see on the screen. However, reading the comments to the article (when you're "writing", you'll often go as far as to plow through the talkback to what you stumble across while surfing, anything to keep from actually working on your screenplay) and came across this, from Anonymous:

Lucas also had ghostwriters Willard Huyuck and Gloria Katz who completely re-wrote his script, for zero credit. You want to see a film written only by George Lucas, watch the torturous Phantom Menace -- where, as someone has already mentioned, many of the awful ideas from the first draft of The Star Wars ended up. Huyuck and Katz wrote the 2nd Indiana Jones movie for Lucas. Then he repaid them by letting them make their own movie. Unfortunately it was Howard the Duck.

Well, nothing in the world has made more sense to me as far as I'm concerned. I've already commented on the difference in directing style between "Star Wars" and basically anything else George Lucas has done, here. My conclusion was that during the shoot he was helped by the cast and friends to insert the much-needed humor that's conspicuously absent from the much-derided prequel trilogy (unless you count "Noooooooooo!" as a gag line). But if you think about it in terms of screenplay drafts and ghostwriters, all the pieces start to fit.

Everyone knows that "The Empire Strikes Back" was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, and "Return of the Jedi" by Kasdan and Lucas (that explains the Ewoks). Lucas was pretty much on his own, apart from some help from Jonathan Hales ("The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones") on "Attack of the Clones" and it really shows. The following, from the first draft of "The Star Wars", would be perfectly at home anywhere in the prequel trilogy:

16. WAR ROOM - UNDERGROUND FORTRESS - AQUILAE

The war room is a mass of glass enclosures, electronic wall displays, monitors, and computer stations. General Skywalker enters a control station, followed by a covey of military aides of various ranks. As the group hurry through the crowded room, men rise and salute the new arrivals. The general stops before a giant display of the galaxy. Small symbols flash on and off over various portions of the big board. The general studies it intently.

GENERAL

Montross!

Captain Montross, one of the general's aides, snaps to attention.

MONTROSS

Sir!

GENERAL

What's the TQ on this?

MONTROSS

The last frigate to leave the Imperial capital was at twenty-three forty, Sir.

GENERAL

Have any ships at all left the planet? (to another aide) Check with the Guild on Horton three.

MONTROSS

At twenty four hundred, a full battalion of stardestroyers left for what is projected to be Anchorhead, or a nearby System.

GENERAL

And no word from Whitsun. He should have reported by now. Captain Prue!

An older, academic looking aide, steps forward.

PRUE

Sir!

GENERAL

What do you make of this?

PRUE

A battalion is invasion force...but the Empire controls that entire part of the galaxy....A revolution, maybe. At any rate, they're going in the wrong direction to be any trouble for us.

The general ponders this for a few moments, then speaks almost to himself.

GENERAL

I don't know... It doesn't feel good.

MONTROSS

Sir?

GENERAL

Put 'em on alert.

A loud uproar is heard on the far side of the war room. Everyone turns to see a foreign dressed warrior pushing his way past several guards and war-room bureaucrats. The warrior, with his long hair tied in an odd bun on the top of his head, is Kane Starkiller. He is followed by his son, Annikin, who rudely pushes the pesky bureaucrats out of the way.

BUREAUCRATS

It's restricted. You'll have to wait...(etc.)

KANE

Get out of my way, boy, before I grind you into the surface...(etc.)

As the dauntless Starkiller approaches the general, the guards stop in bewilderment as General Skywalker rushes up to the warrior and embraces him. The two Jedi warriors laugh jubilantly and slap one another, as the aides and bureaucrats look on in amazement.

GENERAL

Kane Starkiller - you old muscle-rat! What a sight! We heard that you had been executed.

KANE

So the Empire would like to believe. I've been in the Kessil System. You remember little Annikin.

Kane puts his arms around his son, who has been making eyes at one of the cute young female aides. He bows before the General.

GENERAL

He takes after his mother! (They laugh) It's so good to see you.

KANE

It's wonderful to be with another Jedi again. There are so few of us left.

The cute aide goes back to her duties, flirting with Annikin as she passes. The young warrior pinches her on the ass, which startles her, but she goes on like nothing happened.

GENERAL

What a sight!

The two Jedi stand looking at one another, hardly believing the other is real.

Harrison Ford famously said of one of these drafts during auditions, "George, you can type this shit, but you sure can't say it."

Maybe it's common knowledge that George's film school pals from "American Graffiti" gave the ol' script "a bit of a polish" before the shoot, but it's the first I've heard and my little world today makes a little more sense.

Now if only we could find out who actually directed the film, we'd know everything.

Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009)

Doug A. Lentz — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:17:47 +0000

Cool Sci-Fi Art and Storyboards

Doug A. Lentz — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:29:36 +0000

Discovered a terrific blog today called Sci-Fi-O-Rama, where you'll find some great stuff from the best and the brightest science fiction artists of the 1960's - 1970's. Of specific note are designs for Alejandro Jodorowsky's version of "Dune" (which was eventually shelved) by Chris Foss and Mobieus, a sampling of Ridley Scott's own storyboards for both "Alien" and "Blade Runner" and, of course, the work of the legendary Sid Mead.

I'd almost forgotten how much I loved stuff like this. It's a fantastic site, so check it out if you have a few hours to kill.

Conquest of the One-Week Screenplay

Doug A. Lentz — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:25:13 +0000

Well, revised first draft is complete. It nearly took as long as it did for me to write the script in the first place (three days + two and a half days, still well less than a week for the full process). I still haven't figured out why, with some scripts it takes all the time in the world (I still have two that remain unfinished despite my best efforts) while others flow so easily. This whole process, for me, on this script, has been an absolute joy, which is really something because normally I hate writing, viewing it as merely a means to an end, the painful middle step between idea and execution.

I have really wrestled with the concept of revised versus new draft and I still don't get it. What constitutes a full new draft? I Googled it and came up with a couple of hazy answers. Alex Epstein over at Complications Ensue: The Crafty TV and Screenwriting Blog says that a second draft is anything with changes that a producer has specifically asked you to make, which will trigger "second draft alarm bells" in your contract. Any changes that you make, on your own, without outside input are merely revised drafts. But what if you're working on your own stuff? Isn't it possible you could be working on the same "revised first draft" until hell freezes over? Well, for all outward appearances, for a spec script, I guess this is a good thing. "Oh, look, it's only the first draft." Greatest excuse in the world.

The Story Department has some good tips on the process for actually writing your second draft, relating how Guillermo Arriaga ("Amores Perros", "21 Grams", "Babel") starts the second draft with a new, blank document. I second this method, it's the best way to work, it's the way we used to work back in the days of typewriters. If you come to the start of a scene and say, "Oh, hell, no this scene!" that's a pretty good indication that you either have to lose the scene or revise it so you're interested. If you're not interested in your own creation, how the heck is an audience, who has nothing invested but $14 - $20 for ticket and popcorn going to be interested?

No, I'm not suggesting that you should go whole hog and start from scratch like this (although it wouldn't hurt at all), but at least read through your first draft with the mindset that you're starting from scratch. "Is this scene interesting enough? If I had to type it all over again, would I? How does it fit in context to the rest of the story?"

At any rate, I still don't have an answer. Revised first draft or second? I guess only my hairdresser knows for sure.

Related Posts:

The End of Kodachrome

Doug A. Lentz — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:21:05 +0000

Paul Simon will not be happy at all (old music reference, some of you will get it, some of you won't) as Eastman Kodak today announced the end of Kodachrome film stock's 74-year run, due to its difficult processing requirements and the popularity of more advanced Kodak stocks and digital imaging.

The end of an era, I guess. I myself have some very fond Kodachrome memories. Well, the times they are a' changin' (another music reference, see above).

The company has posted an excellent retrospective to the film stock's history on their website.

Jim Jarmusch on Directing

Doug A. Lentz — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:54:44 +0000

As appropriate now as when it was first published in MovieMaker way back in '04. Jarmusch — if you're unfamiliar with his work — is the genius behind "Mystery Train", "Down by Law", "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai" and my personal fave "Stranger Than Paradise".

Jim Jarmusch's Golden Rules:

Rule #1: There are no rules. There are as many ways to make a film as there are potential filmmakers. It’s an open form. Anyway, I would personally never presume to tell anyone else what to do or how to do anything. To me that’s like telling someone else what their religious beliefs should be. Fuck that. That’s against my personal philosophy—more of a code than a set of “rules.” Therefore, disregard the “rules” you are presently reading, and instead consider them to be merely notes to myself. One should make one’s own “notes” because there is no one way to do anything. If anyone tells you there is only one way, their way, get as far away from them as possible, both physically and philosophically.

Rule #2: Don’t let the fuckers get ya. They can either help you, or not help you, but they can’t stop you. People who finance films, distribute films, promote films and exhibit films are not filmmakers. They are not interested in letting filmmakers define and dictate the way they do their business, so filmmakers should have no interest in allowing them to dictate the way a film is made. Carry a gun if necessary.

Also, avoid sycophants at all costs. There are always people around who only want to be involved in filmmaking to get rich, get famous, or get laid. Generally, they know as much about filmmaking as George W. Bush knows about hand-to-hand combat.

Rule #3: The production is there to serve the film. The film is not there to serve the production. Unfortunately, in the world of filmmaking this is almost universally backwards. The film is not being made to serve the budget, the schedule, or the resumes of those involved. Filmmakers who don’t understand this should be hung from their ankles and asked why the sky appears to be upside down.

Rule #4: Filmmaking is a collaborative process. You get the chance to work with others whose minds and ideas may be stronger than your own. Make sure they remain focused on their own function and not someone else’s job, or you’ll have a big mess. But treat all collaborators as equals and with respect. A production assistant who is holding back traffic so the crew can get a shot is no less important than the actors in the scene, the director of photography, the production designer or the director. Hierarchy is for those whose egos are inflated or out of control, or for people in the military. Those with whom you choose to collaborate, if you make good choices, can elevate the quality and content of your film to a much higher plane than any one mind could imagine on its own. If you don’t want to work with other people, go paint a painting or write a book. (And if you want to be a fucking dictator, I guess these days you just have to go into politics...).

Rule #5: Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluablele; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

Zombieland ...

Doug A. Lentz — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:26:29 +0000

... looks like fun. See full article for video.

An Ode to the Used Book Store

Doug A. Lentz — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:51:40 +0000

I recently took a nostalgic trip back to my home town, and realized that if there was one thing I missed, it was the two used book stores that I visited when I was growing up. That's right kids, used books.

People used to read,
Same people used to sell their books when they were done reading them, and
Other people would buy them.

There aren't many used book stores around these days, at least not the kind I remember. Allison the Bookman is still there in North Bay, it's got a new sign and it looks a little cleaner. I didn't bother going inside because, what do you know, they have a web page and their entire current stock is listed there, so I didn't need to bother (I didn't really want a used copy of "Twilight").

I should have though. I knew that I wasn't going to find the same cool stuff I found on my weekly visits when I was a kid (I already had a look at their inventory, remember?), but I kinda miss that musty smell. Prolonged exposure in my formative years seems to have gotten into my blood.

Fortunately, like Allison's inventory, most of that experience can be found online — if you know where to look. See, there seem to be a bunch of enterprising, nostalgia-minded folks like myself who are scanning their collections and finds and uploading them for others to enjoy. Be it old issues of pulp magazines, Cracked, assorted Marvel comics (the 70's ones were the best, in my opinion), back issues of various bizarre magazines, or the highly coveted (and much mentioned on this site) Famous Monsters of Filmland (and its imitators), it's all there. The more obscure the better.

You can either randomly search RapidShare in the hopes of finding something, or you can let someone else do all the work. There are a terrific amount of Blogspot blogs devoted to these uploaded things; old comic books magazines, out-of-print soundtracks, hell, there's even a whole page devoted to read along records (I personally had the "Planet of the Apes" one myself).

I've managed to amass a nearly complete collection of Famous Monsters (up until "Star Wars" was released anyway, as the mag sort of went downhill from there), a very healthy smattering of Marvel comics (including the horror comics from the 70's: Tomb of Dracula, The Living Mummy, Werewolf by Night and The Monster of Frankenstein) and a bunch of other great stuff I never thought I'd see again.

Currently, Beware, There's a Crosseyed Cyclops in My Basement (yeah, it's a bit of a strange site, with an unfortunate typo in the URL) has the best selection, the site's authors having trolled a lot of other sites for material. Golden Age Comics has a lot of the older stuff (like "Strange Worlds" and "Crime Does Not Pay"). DataJunkie has a good mix of material. Mad Magazine / Look / Harvey Kurtzman fans should take note of Hairy Green Eyeball, specializing in the more political stuff from the era.

If you want something to listen to while you're reading your nostalgic books, you can visit Vinnie Rattolle's and pick up some old soundtracks and other cool stuff. The always entertaining Manchester Morgue has more of the same thing. And, of course, don't forget to check out The Secret Cavern of Read Along Treasures!

Closest thing I have found to a time machine on the Internet yet.

The One-Week Screenplay Strikes Back

Doug A. Lentz — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:07:14 +0000

A long time ago ... well, seems like a long time ago. In reality it was only about one short year ago ... I embarked on a seven day adventure, attempting to write a feature film screenplay in one week. The endeavor was a success in that I was actually able to write something the correct length, with three acts and dialogue and characters that changed over time, some cracking good action and the words "The End" typed neatly on the last page.

However, it turned out, upon reading the damn thing through again, that it wasn't really what I wanted to write in the first place, due mainly to (I supposed) the fact that I didn't do any real planning. The characters were stereotypical, the plot fizzled near the end, it was supposed to be a horror movie and there was no real horror.

So, my conclusion, in a nutshell, was that yes, you could write a screenplay in a week, but you're going to spend another month or more revising to the way it was meant to be in the first place.

I never did do any of that revising. The story wasn't even mine in the first place, it was an adaptation of someone else's "high concept". I'm no good at coming up with "high concept". I hate "high concept" being the whole reason to make a movie. In the case of this script, it was a what if; What if there were werewolves in space? There would be no escape, because the moon would be full all the time!

Well, no, not really. The moon isn't full all the time. It's exactly the same as it is on Earth, so all you got is a bunch of werewolves in space. Hardly groundbreaking. Unfortunately, the faulty reasoning was the core of the thing, and trying to bluff that, or work around that was a huge pain in the ass.

I'd started this adaptation in the first place, because I was avoiding an original idea of my own that I'd hit a brick wall with. However, during the course of this screenplay and the one that followed it, I kept returning to that old idea in my notes, wondering, should I? Instead? I always ended up shaking my head and getting back to work.

A couple of months back, I set myself another arbitrary deadline for a new screenplay (a haunted house horror film type thing); this time a full month. It was still a stretch, but I could at least do things properly, methodically, and even participate in #scriptfrenzy at the same time.

So I set off and got to a great start, really got some momentum going, and then, like a message from God, fell seriously ill. Well, that's one way to get out of writing.

At the end of April, when I was starting to get back on my feet again, I picked the thing up and tried to work on it. I read it through, liked where I was going with it, sat down to work and there was nothing there. I'd carefully plotted the whole story out and knew the characters backwards and forwards, but I was now at the point where I just didn't want to write the damn thing anymore!

Well, better to discover what you're writing isn't what you want to make while you're writing than after you're done, so that's progress at least.

Then it hit me: well, if this isn't what I'm interested in working on, what am I interested in working on? I actually laughed out loud, and for a lark dusted off that old screenplay that I'd abandoned over a year ago. I read the first thirty pages that I'd completed way back when and found that they weren't the worst thirty pages in the world. I went back to my old notes on the project and was surprised by a few of them, some of the stuff was actually better than the "great" screenplay that was my current task.

So I just started typing. I wasn't intending to do anything serious, I knew that I wasn't going to get any more work done that day, so I thought I'd just screw around.

Two days later, I was done.

Done.

Finished! 120 pages! I couldn't believe it. I didn't have any plot outline, I didn't have anything but the few notes that I made when I started writing last year. What I did have, though, was a story that was kicking around in my head for a hell of a long time (the whole period before I started working on it originally, plus the time between then and now), with characters that I'd been living with for just as long. I didn't spend every day working on this. Hell, there were a thousand other things I was working on, but my brain was apparently working on this, I guess kicking into gear every time I happened to glance at the folder sitting on my hard drive.

Some weeks have passed since I finished the first draft and I have been over it and over it. It's not the worst pile of crap in the world, in fact, I'm very happy with it and I think I have pretty good taste. It will need a second draft and probably a third just to whip it into shape, but it's there, I can't imagine gutting it and starting over.

I don't know what conclusion to draw from this. Maybe the longer you let something rattle around in your subconscious, the easier it is to actually visualize and write the scenes. Maybe it's just a matter of having the confidence there, fooling yourself into thinking that no one's going to read it anyway. Maybe it's the new brand of coffee I switched to recently (actually, that can't be it: I've cut down from 4+ cups a day to 2).

Like I said, I don't know, and anyway, it's just a crappy horror movie.