The Director's Chair Network

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some little typewriter right i'm going
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to write my name all over this town with
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big letters hey stop him somebody get
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out of my way Johnny i'm going to spit
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welcome back to the Goat Abrian de
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Palama fan podcast and I am very very
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excited today to be joined by author Nat
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Sealof nat welcome hello Craig thanks
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very much the the laughing and the uh
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audio listeners won't have any way of
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knowing this i have an Italian greyhound
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named Louie who insists on joining the
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podcast so if you hear any barking it is
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him and not I yeah it's funny there are
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so many podcasts out there that have
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furry friend guest stars that we
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sometimes see and hear thankfully mine
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are downstairs and behaving today well
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listen if if it wasn't for Louis during
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the uh pandemic I probably would have
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French kissed a light socket
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so Nat uh I introduced you as author Nat
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Seagalof and uh we we are primarily here
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today to talk about a depo related book
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you wrote but before we get into that
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one of the more interesting aspects of
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the book that I found was learning about
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your history in film and your journey
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from uh what film publicity and
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journalism all the way to becoming uh
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the author that you are today do you
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want to sort of give us the little
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cliffnotes version of uh of how you got
Nat’s Film Publicity Journey
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where you are today well I graduated a
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long time ago and I went right into
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movie publicity because I'd been running
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the campus film program and I got to
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know all the publicists in my town which
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was Boston because I wanted to tie in
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with them and so I entered film
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publicity when a job opened and after
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about five years between Boston and New
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York and a little stint somewhere else I
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guess I got black balled by my newspaper
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so I had to find something else to do so
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I became a producer and uh and a critic
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uh in in Boston and then I moved out to
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California so I've been doing that ever
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since and when the industry stopped here
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because I made the mistake of turning
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over 40 uh I started writing books yeah
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excellent and the one we're going to be
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talking about today is Say Hello to My
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Little Friend A Century of Scarface
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before we get into that I wanted to ask
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you a little bit about your career as a
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critic and I and I believe you reference
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this in the book a little bit but
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Depa has always been a a bit of a sort
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of critical
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uh target pin cushion pin cushion yeah
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pin cushion that's exactly right so do
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you have any sort of recollections of
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your time as a critic
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and particular movies or um events i
2:43
know Scarface is one that was critically
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sort of attacked and really took a while
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to to find you know find its audience
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but I was just curious as a critic and
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it seems like you were one of the
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DealMama defenders out there if you had
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any just overall general thoughts about
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your time as a critic as it relates to
De Palma’s Early Career & Sisters
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covering the films of Brian Deama my
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main criticisms of the record were
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written for the Boston Herald which was
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a tabloid and would like to call it
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Boston's alternative newspaper because
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they were conservative i was the second
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string critic and therefore I was never
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given the big pictures to do so when I
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saw Scarface it was just somebody who
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watched Scarface not as the critic who'd
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have the ability to review it i later
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did other films for CBS radio and and uh
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local television but as far as deama's
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works I I got to know him through
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greetings and hi mom and get to know
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your rabbit in the early days before he
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was really you know quote Brian Dealama
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and then I fortunately had him as one of
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my clients when he was doing the press
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appearances for
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sisters that back in the early early 70s
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so I was kind of doing independent work
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for American International Pictures and
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and having a great time i knew who he
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was but the older Boston press and we're
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talking their traditional people really
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had no sense of it so I knew first of
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all that he was a great director of
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comedies and very political neither of
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which his later films so overtly reveal
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so I kind of got in in a side door they
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sent him up from New York and I was in
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Boston and he arrived i think he was
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wearing a safari jacket in those days
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but I really don't remember my mistake
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was that I was wearing a tie and the
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first thing Brian told me was "Get rid
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of that awful tie." So we started doing
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our press appearances and he was funny
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he was charming he was intensely
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interested in film and he hadn't been
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bruised by the press yet unfortunately
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it probably started with with Sisters
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one of the most interesting aspects of
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working with Brian and he god he was so
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smart he brought with him his production
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designs for his next film which was the
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Phantom of the Fillmore filillmore i
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guess rights were involved with Bill
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Graham and he couldn't use that name and
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they changed it to Paradise and he had
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this big thick book of of his his story
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boards not a single critic was
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interested in seeing it he whipped it up
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during a press launch and he showed it
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to people yes yes yes brian tell us all
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about working with Margot KD in Sisters
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okay well there was a retired critic
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named Marjorie Adams who for 52 years
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had been the doian of the Boston Press
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Corps she was the first journalism
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school graduate of the Boston Globe
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everybody loved her in Hollywood but she
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would put you through hell in interviews
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but then the interviews came out and you
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were God i loved Marjorie i was really
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into the older film critics and I would
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go to her apartment occasionally and we
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talked she had hurt her knee she
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couldn't leave the apartment so I
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brought Brian around to her apartment
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which was on Beacon Hill where all the
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Adams lived she wasn't N adams but she
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acted like she was and Marjorie sitting
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on the couch i'm sitting on one Ottoman
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stool brian is sitting on the other one
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and I like to think that I
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helped introduce Brian to the vagaries
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and the uh the tactics of critics
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because she who hadn't seen the film
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because she couldn't get out of the
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house is his sisters kept on peppering
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him with the questions that she had
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given in the past to John Wayne and
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George Cucor and people like that and
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Brian held up
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brilliantly well one of the odd parts of
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it was Marjorie having hurt her knee had
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her her legs propped up marjorie liked
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to wear short
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skirts and when she moved her legs in a
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particular angle well they grow a lot of
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coffee in
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Brazil brian kept his a plum but
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afterwards he kind of looked at me
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sideways uh what was that all about well
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the next person I brought up there to
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meet Margaret was Ernest Morganite whom
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she knew so it was a a ritual a stop and
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it was one of those adventures brian is
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was remarkably open to the press uh he
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would I mean nobody would let Julie
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Solomon I'm sure do a book about them
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the previous person who allowed it was
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John Houston with Lilian Ross doing
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Picture which was based on the Red Badge
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of Courage brian has been was insanely
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open to the press and at the same time
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uh insanely vulnerable yeah i I just
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have so much regard for him and that's
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most of my Brian Dama story but the rest
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of it is lost in the midst of time yeah
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thank you for that and uh yeah not to
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not to sidetrack ourselves too quick but
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that book on the making of the bonfire
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of the vanities is really amazing and
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and u I'm glad you you sort of said that
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you know Deama gave her cart blanch
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basically to write the book that she
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wanted to write and it's it's since been
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sort of retold in a podcast that she
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hosted that was really good
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and it helped me if nothing else
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appreciate that movie i'm I'm not a fan
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of it but it helped me appreciate things
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and uh one thing I've always said about
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DAMA is I respect the fact that he takes
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big swings and sometimes when you take
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big swings you're going to miss yeah the
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Bonfire of the Vanities did not work and
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it wasn't to Palma's fault the fault was
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the film itself and my explanation for
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that is the book was written by Thomas
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Wolf who has a distinctive writing style
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but that's pros and they did not find an
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adequate transition or translation if
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you will to the screen dupalama took it
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in an elegant visual manner but it
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wasn't a visual manner that worked with
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the elegance of Wol's style phil Kaufman
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had the same problem with the right
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stuff so he just really abandoned the
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tone of Wol's book and made his own
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movie with several screenwriters
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contributing to it of course but the
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Palama took the big risks and and still
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does and he just has so much grace and a
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plum that it's hard to really find
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another director who has his combination
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of gifts yeah so so one thing you hit on
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was sort of being on the ground floor
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for Deama's early films those those
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comedies you know prior to Sisters and
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Phantom of the Paradise and I'd like to
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see if if you had any thoughts about
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from a critical perspective and also as
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a viewer
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if those early comedies informed how you
Comedy in De Palma’s Films
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viewed his films knowing that he had
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that sort of level of comedy in him you
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know I always talk about filmmakers that
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aren't sort of viewed as overtly comedic
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you know Deal is definitely one of them
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and I'd rank him in with Cubri who I
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also think you know his films have a a
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comedy streak that sometimes isn't
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caught by audiences i was just curious
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if that was something you were aware of
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as his more challenging films were
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coming out well I think the Palma when
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you start in comedies and you have
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someone like Robert Dairo who one
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doesn't suspect would be funny i'll add
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to that in a moment it's kind of
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unexpected you know it's more of an
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attitude than punchlines when you look
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at for example his film within a film Be
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Black Baby which is a
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dreadfully terrorizing moment and yet
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it's funny especially if you know what
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The Living Theater had done with Judith
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Bassina and Julian Beck and and their
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film of the Brig and you see here's a
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counterpart to that which is audience
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participation there's no way I can
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explain it it it shows that Deama is
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really riding a very thin line between
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comedy and tragedy and that's what art
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is all about he manages to do it what
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what was interesting and I'm thinking
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about about Dairo in those two movies
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people forget that Robert Dairo worked
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with Brian Dema early on and the thing
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of it was he was rippingly funny in a
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very very strange way and so in 1975 I
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think it was when Diro starring in the
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Neil Simon film Bogart slept here that
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Mike Nichols was directing nichols shut
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it down after a few days because he
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thought that Dairo wasn't funny this was
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the actor who' started comedies and
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Nicholls didn't work head-to-head with
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Dairo so what what Dealama got out of
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Dairo was something that even Mike
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Nichols couldn't dealama just has a
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really really great
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reach i'm going on and on here i
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couldn't pretend to describe what his
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style is i mean look at look at get to
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know your rabbit where he is totally
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screwed out of it and yet when it works
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it works
11:06
they couldn't destroy it yeah well
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that's why I wanted to do this podcast
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Nat because I really believe in my heart
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of hearts and I wouldn't do a podcast
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and devote time to a podcast if I didn't
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believe in it that there is no other
11:18
filmmaker like Brian Dealama and you
11:22
know a filmmaker that is able to pivot
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as much as he's pivoted but also who's
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been able to make legitimate
11:29
masterpieces in multiple genres which
11:32
you know there's directors that dabble
11:33
in different genres but you know they
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either get stuck in that genre or they
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make a a serviceable movie you know that
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did the job that they were paid for uh
11:44
but isn't considered a classic to this
11:46
day i mean it's amazing to me that we
11:48
have a movie like Carrie but at the same
11:51
time you know 20 some odd years later
11:53
he's making one of the best movies in
11:55
the of the '90s in Caro's way and
11:57
there's not a lot of filmmakers you can
11:59
draw that line from
12:01
he's given the chance to do a lot of
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films and he's strong enough that he can
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do them the way he
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wants at the same time he's always had
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trouble with the sensors because they
12:12
think he takes it too far i saw Dress to
12:14
Kill in a an exhibitor screening before
12:16
it was cut
12:17
and to me it was a perfectly integrated
12:20
film i Yeah it was violent but I didn't
12:21
think it was too violent then they made
12:23
him cut it and of course the story story
12:25
of the censorship of Scarfaces well not
12:27
only is it in the book it's also one of
12:29
those things where he finally told Marty
12:31
Regman "Well Helen are going to give us
12:33
an X might as well just go for it." Yeah
12:35
which but you think of it just go for it
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is really what Dealama does in his other
12:39
work too yeah and and the funny thing
12:42
about censorship and I think you know
12:44
Paul Verhovven sort of had this
12:46
philosophy on Robocop where they kept
12:50
giving him a hard time so the the
12:52
violence just got more and more
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overblown and it almost became
12:55
cartoonish and I think the the
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opposite's true as well sometimes if you
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start cutting things too much uh like
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that elevator scene in Dress to Kill it
13:06
could become more terrifying and more
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horrific than if you just showed what
13:12
Deama wanted to show you're right and I
13:15
think there's something Hitchcocking
13:16
about that too but you don't show the
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audience is able to imagine in their
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minds but if you had it as graphic as
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Dama had the elevator scene and dressed
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to kill you see exactly what you get and
13:28
no more he's controlling it and it's
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important for us to have that
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information if you make it more obscure
13:34
then the audience gets carried away
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emotionally and you lose your
13:38
rationality for what's supposed to
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happen in the context of the story yeah
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um while we're talking about Hitchcock I
13:44
did want to ask you because one of the
13:46
more interesting things about Dama in my
13:48
opinion is a lot of people say he might
13:50
have rifted on on Hitchcock a little too
13:53
much i think a lot of criticism around
13:57
Obsession you know just sort of
14:00
being a re a remake of Vertigo vertigo
14:04
is one of my favorite films i'm not a
14:05
huge fan of Obsession but my point is I
14:08
think that and I don't know if there's
14:10
any contemporary opinions from Hitchcock
14:12
when he while he was still alive when
14:14
Dama was operating but in my opinion it
14:17
seems like dama is a natural extension
14:21
of what Hitchcock was doing you know so
14:24
less of just a Hitchcock riff and more
14:26
of taking the sort of playbook that
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Hitchcock created and doing things that
14:32
Hitchcock surely would have wanted to do
14:34
had he lived long enough to make those
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kinds of films well two points one when
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Obsession was made Vertigo had been out
14:41
of release for several years and so the
14:43
audience wasn't compelled to make a
14:45
comparison between them i happened to
14:47
like the film but that's because I was
14:48
friends with Cliff Robertson and I like
14:50
anything Cliff was in including
14:51
Spider-Man as far as this whole
14:53
Hitchcock business and I I
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raise I hate to use the word defense
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because I don't think DA Palama needs
14:59
defense but I raised a point in my book
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that Hitchcock developed a vocabulary of
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cinema and deama used that vocabulary as
15:08
other directors have used criticizing
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him for looking in a few shots like
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Hitchcock is like criticizing Hemingway
15:15
because he used the same English
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language that Faulner used the
15:18
vocabulary is there hitchcock perfected
15:21
it wouldn't it be awful if Deama didn't
15:24
use the appropriate shots i mean
15:26
Scorsesa uses it too everybody does paul
15:28
Thomas Anderson is also brilliant at
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that uh but Brian was the first one out
15:33
of the gate and I guess he's the one who
15:35
gets uh as many arrows as St sebastian
15:38
for it yeah so before we pivot to
15:41
talking about the book I did want to get
15:42
your opinion on and and Scarface is not
15:46
a movie that was written by Deama but do
15:49
you have an opinion on the strength or
15:51
weakness of a film based on the fact on
15:54
if it's a story and a screenplay that
15:57
DeAma has developed as opposed to coming
15:59
on as sort of just director
16:03
you know you write so much stuff that
16:04
never gets produced i wouldn't want to
16:05
venture a a foray into that area i I
16:08
know that Blowout is one of my favorite
16:10
diploma films uh at the time please note
16:14
and he wrote that and and you would know
16:16
this more than I I seem to
16:19
recall that in in film comment or
16:22
another aurist type magazine didn't tell
16:26
the story of the film before he wrote it
16:30
i I don't know why this is in my mind or
16:33
maybe it was Home Movies i don't know
16:35
what it was yeah you're ringing a bell
16:37
there and if and if I can find the uh I
16:39
could not find it the history behind
16:40
that I'll include that in the in the
16:41
show notes but yeah but but uh I I don't
16:44
know if he's any more wedded to his own
16:46
stuff he certainly gets more money for
16:47
it the reason Scarface was written by
16:49
Oliver Stone was that Oliver Stone had
16:51
been contracted by Martin Bregman and
16:53
everybody else and it's a long story
16:55
fortunately I I wrote about it but he he
16:59
wanted to write a film that he wanted to
17:00
get into directing and the only job he
17:02
could get was writing it and I'm sure
17:04
Dama made many changes along the way if
17:06
you look at the comparisons of the
17:08
scripts as I did uh you know by the time
17:11
a a script gets to the production floor
17:13
people kind of forget how many hands
17:15
were in it yeah it it's just in in my in
17:18
in sort of my fandom Nat I tend to weigh
17:23
the Deama films that he wrote uh
17:26
differently than the ones that he sort
17:28
of didn't write and like I said I'm a
17:29
huge fan of Carito's Way i really think
17:31
it's one of the best films of the '90s
17:33
and of course he didn't write that so I
17:36
think there's merit in in both um I did
17:38
want to we mentioned Oliver Stone and
17:40
and I do and I've said on this show
17:41
before that I'm a a huge Oliver Stone
17:43
fan i think he's a filmmaker
17:46
that there's a point where I think he'll
17:49
be he'll get a genuine reassessment and
17:52
I think his impact on film making
17:54
especially in the early 90s I think will
17:56
be re-recognized i I I truly feel that
18:00
the run of films probably starting with
18:02
Platoon and it ended with
18:05
um uh let's say Any Given Sunday I don't
18:10
think there were other filmmakers that
18:12
would have been as gutsy as Oliver Stone
18:14
in the fact that he was
18:15
using different media different film
18:18
formats uh he was really I think Oliver
18:21
Stone doesn't get the credit but he was
18:23
really the first like sort of MTV
18:25
filmmaker and uh I I I I truly feel that
18:29
I I there'll be a reassessment of him at
18:31
some point and um I I can say I was
18:34
there um but we're getting ahead of
18:36
ourselves no I I fully agree with you in
18:38
fact I'd even go back as far as Salvador
18:40
and I I think JFK is one of the miracle
18:42
films ever made it's absolutely it's if
18:45
it's a three-hour film you've got 2
18:47
hours and 45 minutes of exposition and
18:49
you don't get bored for one second
18:51
that's brilliant film making and
18:52
Naturalborn Killer is the same way yeah
18:54
but anyway yeah no and and I truly think
18:57
that he he had a a direct influence on a
19:00
lot of a way uh that a lot of films
19:03
looked uh after after uh Naturalborn
19:06
Killers and uh and JFK and even The
19:09
Doors um so getting into the book um Say
Scarface Book Discussion
19:13
Hello to My Little Friend a A Century of
19:16
Scarface I really really enjoyed reading
19:20
the book and uh the main reason was I
19:24
loved the history
19:27
behind really getting into that original
19:32
Howard Hawks Scarface uh the history
19:35
behind it the real life parallels the
19:38
development from the
19:40
novel when that project was sort
19:43
of on the table for you was the diploma
19:48
aspect of it part of the
19:51
appeal actually not it was the entirety
19:55
of the both films that that appealed to
19:59
me i I love the Howard Hawk Scarface and
20:02
that was the 1932 version it's a bit
20:04
pretentious for Hawk's work uh but I
20:07
don't care because MUN is so much fun in
20:09
it and also the script is terrific i
20:11
have an emotional bond with it because
20:13
at the time I showed it when I was
20:14
teaching in Boston
20:16
University you couldn't get copies it
20:18
was completely out of release howard
20:19
Hughes owned it and I'm proud to say
20:21
that one evening I walked in a 16mimeter
20:25
perloin print of Scarface ran it for
20:27
everybody I could find and then two
20:29
hours later it left the building forever
20:32
so there was a a kind of a almost
20:35
sensual feeling about Scarface that I
20:38
carried for many years publishers seem
20:40
to have a great affinity for movies that
20:42
have a round number as an anniversary 50
20:45
being preferred 40 for Scarface being
20:48
secondary in their minds and that is
20:50
what helped trigger the book with
20:51
Kensington Cital Publishers but I always
20:54
had like Scarface and it was an
20:56
opportunity to talk not only about both
20:58
films but about violence in cinema and
21:01
about gangsters and about diploma so
21:03
they all kind of came together in one
21:05
cauldron and the publisher said yes and
21:08
I'm very happy they did yeah uh and and
21:11
again I I think if you're a fan of film
21:14
in general or either one of the
21:16
Scarfaces it's it's worth reading
21:18
because it's really a logical sort of
21:21
journey through the history of of
21:23
Scarface in cinema one thing I did want
21:26
to ask you about Nat is you know there's
21:30
an interesting credit in the um DAPA
21:33
Scarface where they sort of acknowledge
21:35
the work of of Howard Hughes do you
21:38
think in 2024 if they're making Scarface
21:41
if the the writing credits for that
21:43
movie would have been handled
21:45
differently
21:47
i don't know whether the writer guild
21:49
was involved or whether licensing with
21:50
the Sumer Corporation and Universal had
21:52
anything to do with it they should have
21:56
credit Howard Hawks it should have
21:57
credited Ben Heck they should have
21:59
credited a lot of people but I don't
22:00
know if they were compelled to do it in
22:02
some cases since the 1983 Scarface is a
22:05
remake of the 1932 Scarface it certainly
22:08
uses the same structure but it also
22:10
refers to the Armatage Trail novel and
22:13
then adds information from Sydney Lum uh
22:17
Marty Bregman and of course Oliver Stone
22:19
and his escapades so it's a kind of a
22:22
hodgepodge that Depal and his editor
22:24
straightened out i don't know what the
22:27
rules are about crediting people i would
22:29
like to have think that they would have
22:30
credited everybody yeah but they didn't
22:33
yeah i almost wonder Nat if it's more
22:35
like I've always thought of Scarface as
22:39
you know sort of like you mentioned the
22:41
book whereas you look at like the thing
22:43
from another world and John Carpenters
22:44
the thing they're both sort of a a a
22:46
different take on the same source
22:48
material and and I guess you know
22:50
Scarface could be looked at that way but
22:53
one of the more interesting things in
22:55
your book is you you pointed out some of
22:57
the direct similarities
23:00
that both filmmakers made uh from the
23:03
source material again I I think it's an
23:06
excellent book i enjoyed the heck out of
23:07
reading it and I did want to sort of
23:09
give a little bit of time to talk about
23:12
some of your other books because I
23:13
believe uh this year you had released uh
23:16
a book uh devoted to the making of the
23:20
exorcist i have had so many books lately
23:22
co kept me at the typewriter and it it
23:26
worked last year I'm trying to remember
23:29
now you know when you write a book and
23:30
then it goes through the production
23:31
process you forget when you wrote it i
23:34
wrote a book called The Exorcist Legacy
23:37
50 years of fear which was all about the
23:40
various exorci and it mentioned the new
23:43
one the paperback version is coming out
23:45
next year because it'll have an
23:47
additional chapter about exorcist
23:49
believer about which I'll write in the
23:51
book it was that was an exorcism for me
23:55
because I was not only one of the
23:56
publicists on the original exorcist in
23:59
1973 but I am also William Fritken's
24:02
biographer with Billy's permission and
24:04
and a 50-year friendship with him so the
24:07
book was very much a personal effort for
24:09
me as well as a chance to set all the
24:12
record straight about The Exorcist the
24:14
new one by the way includes some
24:15
information from Michael Blatty who was
24:17
the older son of William Peter Blatty oh
24:18
wow oh so I I think the cred their
24:20
credentials are pretty much in line on
24:22
that one i also have coming out this
24:24
coming year he says in a shameless plug
24:27
for his work a book called The Rambo
24:30
Report yes which is of course all about
24:31
the Rambo films and novels and even the
24:34
cartoon series and it is written with
24:36
the close cooperation and blessing of
24:38
David Morurell who wrote the original
24:40
1972 novel First Blood which gave birth
24:43
of course to Rambo so that's at
24:45
Kensington uh Citadel again and I just
24:48
sent them the uh the approved galleys a
24:50
couple of days ago so the ball's in
24:52
their court now oh that's excellent and
24:54
uh for those who don't know prior to
24:56
this podcast I worked on a Sylvester
24:59
Stallone themed podcast called SlyCast
25:02
we did many episodes uh devoted to uh
25:04
the Rambo series and for an anniversary
25:08
of Rambo 2 uh I had the pleasure and
25:12
honor of of sitting down and chatting
25:14
with um with Mr morell um who is an
25:19
amazing podcast guest oh yeah and uh
25:22
after we got off the call he sent me uh
25:26
just a a treasure trove of uh photos and
25:30
articles related to First Blood Part Two
25:33
and uh I really
25:36
enjoy I really enjoy talking with him
25:38
and I also really enjoy uh his novels uh
25:42
I think he's a a great writer and I'm
25:45
really looking forward to that uh that
25:47
Rambo uh book and and one thing I got to
25:50
say is that's quite an undertaking
25:52
there's a lot more films than than uh
25:55
than you know the two Scarfaces uh
25:57
Scarlet films so uh I I'm I'm curious to
26:01
see how you tackle it well there's stuff
26:03
in there that even David didn't know
26:04
about and of course most of the people
26:06
involved with the films are gone now uh
26:09
so I had to do an awful lot of research
26:11
and it it was fun to write because the
26:14
politics of it are what people talk
26:16
about for Rambo and the violence but in
26:18
fact it's really about a man who has
26:20
PTSD yes when I think about all the tens
26:23
of thousands of American service workers
26:25
service men and women who have come back
26:28
with that horrible silent psychological
26:31
problem and how Rambo addresses it in
26:33
strange ways i I was trying to be
26:35
respectful of all of them in writing it
26:37
and I perhaps it'll help people i don't
26:38
know i wouldn't be that presumptuous but
26:40
it's really about adjusting from war and
26:42
about maybe not fighting any oh yeah no
26:45
absolutely so uh I will include uh
26:48
relevant links to to all the the books
26:50
we talked about and there's a lot more
26:52
that we didn't talk about but again the
26:55
deama related book is uh say hello to my
26:57
little friend a century of scarface and
27:00
u if you're a fan of this this show if
27:02
you're a fan of Scarface if you're a fan
27:04
of film it's definitely work worth
27:07
checking out natt I know it took us a
27:08
while to uh to connect and and uh uh
27:12
schedule this this sit down but I'm so
27:14
glad we did and uh hopefully we'll have
27:16
an opportunity to chat again in the
27:18
future i'm here same time same number
27:20
craig thank you so much and thank you if
27:22
Ryan Depal is listening thank you very
27:24
much for the work you've done and
27:26
certainly for all of the fans who
27:27
support you and support him i'm very
27:29
proud to be here thank you oh thank you
27:32
okay and take care