ES: I know I said that ROUTE 66 was the first and now just on reflection I realized that it wasn't. That I did go out, after I did OMNIBUS, I did some hour dramatic shows it was called US STEEL HOUR [THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR], for the Theater Guild. And then I went out to California because the work was starting to dry up in live television in New York. And I was at the Montecito Hotel in Hollywood, and down to my last five dollars and I called a friend of mine, Robert Wexler, who used to go Yale [Yale School of Drama] with me, and I told him. And he said, "Stay where you are." And about 15 minutes later I got a call from a Producer who's name is Bill Sackheim [William Sackheim] and he said, "Wexler sent me a telegram saying you gotta go to work." I said, "Yeah." He said, "Come in." So I came in and he gave me a script for ALCOA-GOODYEAR THEATRE, which was a half-hour film drama. And I was, I remember now I was stunned when he said the cast was Edward G. Robinson, who had been one of my idols from the early movies and, that I'd seen. And so I worked with Edward G. Robinson, was a great help to me. And I remember going to him [LAUGH] at one point and looking at the, at the Day Out of Days and the schedule. A quarter of a page here, half a page here, three-quarters of a page. I said, "Look at this crazy industrial breakdown." And then, "You see how well they do that in movies." And so I really didn't know very much about movies at all or how they were organized. I just kind of followed the lead of the Assistant Director. That was a great help to me. And then I went back to New York. And then they called me out to do a ROUTE 66, and then there were various opportunities between New York, which was doing NAKED CITY and I was asked to do NAKED CITY by the same Producer who produced ROUTE 66. Made a lot of those things and a few more ALCOA-GOODYEAR THEATRES. And it, the career was generally the same for most people who were traveling coast to coast at that time.

INT: Did you have, in those early stages where you were really learning on the run, did you have a mentor? Was there somebody who was helping you at all or…? ES: No. No. No. Not particularly. Seymour [Seymour Robbie] had been a great help to me initially, but from then on it was learn by doing. [INT: And was there any cross-fertilization? I mean you mentioned people like Lumet and did, were you guys, did you exchange experiences, or you all pretty much on your own?] Who are you talking about? [INT: Like, people like Sidney Lumet. You mentioned him earlier and...] Yes. No. I never had much to do with him. I watched him work. Which was a joy to see. But no, there was nobody that took me by the hand and say, “No, this is what you shoot, you do this and this and this and this.” I had to learn the hard way.

INT: Now what, as you remember back, what were the more difficult, not the difficult projects, but what were the things that you found the most difficult to learn, that took you more than one film to manage the craft of it? ES: To prepare. To be disciplined. To stay focused. To carry the white plume of the Director's vision all the way through the hell that was, the experience was going to be. To stick to that. To be aware of time, to organize and to know more than anybody else knew about the script. Because inevitably, somebody was gonna raise a question and I knew that if I flunked around and didn't have the answer as to what I wanted that I would be defeated. I remember, ROUTE 66 was a great lesson. They used to have a Director come in every week. And the crew would all line up with their arms folded, saying, "What is this idiot gonna do to us this week?" And so I knew that I had to have the first four shots laid out for them. I said, "The first shot is gonna be here. The second one is gonna be there. The third one's gonna be a close up of that. And the whole thing'll be so." And I saw the arms go down. "Okay. He knows where he's going." And after that I learned to do something, I guess a lot of Director's don't do, maybe a lot do, I don't really know. And to make a shot list and organize the shooting for the day and communicate it to everybody so there were no excuses. "We didn't know you were gonna shoot this." “You didn’t know that was going--you're gonna do that. You're gonna do this." So I did that. So it was, the learning experience was one primarily of organ--of envisioning, focusing on the vision and disciplining myself to organize the time. Something every Director does. I mean it was no different. I just had to learn it by doing it.

INT: And for something like a shot list, is that something you've carried with you throughout your whole career? Every movie you then have a shot list? Or did that... ES: Yeah, I used to do it in the script. And then I said, "No, it's gonna be easier if I take away my own excuses and everybody else's excuses." So I'd make a, I used to, on a vertical piece of paper, I'd write the shot number, and a short description, maybe, you know, a stick man, angle of what it was, and the order in which I was to shoot for the day. And I would, that would be picked up by the Second [Second Assistant Director] in the morning, duplicated, passed on to the First [First Assistant Director], the Cameraman, even the Producer; I didn't care who saw it. That was what I was gonna do for the day. And it was enormously helpful. [INT: But you did that throughout your whole career then?] Yes. Still do it. [INT: Right, down to the end.] Absolutely. I have it in my head, pretty much, but I'd do that so other people know what was in my head. [INT: Right. Right. And do you find yourself married to that list or...] No. I mean if a better idea comes up I can shift it but I know where I'm going, or where I want to go. And so I can, I can be fairly flexible with it. But I know of, for instance, I knew at one point 10 shots ahead where a wall had to be moved. And so the Assistant knew that. And the Assistant could look at the shot list and say, “Wait a minute, if you do this here, do number five instead of number eight I can do this and this and this.” And so, it was a great help in its efficiency.

INT: So how did you get from episodic television to making films? Even until--was your first movie a television movie or was it… ES: No, it was a, actually there were two events. I did a pilot for Screen Gems called, with David Janssen and Polly Bergen called THE INSIDER. And it didn't sell as a pilot but Screen Gems liked it so much they released it as a feature, which it is not. It was not shot as a feature. It didn't reach as a feature. It was done on a pilot schedule. But that had some buzz about it at Screen Gems, which was an arm of Columbia Pictures at the time. And I had done a--this is kind of an anecdotal story. I had done a--to show you how things can link. I had done a television show called PALADIN [HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL], with Richard Boone. And Frank Pierson had written a script for it. And it was a simple situation. It was, Richard Boone had gotten a hold of a bad boy little kid of about five years old and was trying to give him a bath. And again I wanted to stick it in the eye of the censors. They said, "You can't show a little boy naked." And the script called for the little boy to get out of the tub, wrap a towel around him and run down the street. I said, "I'm gonna get him. I'm gonna make 'em face up to this. And that little boy is gonna rabbit and little boy, that little boy's gonna run." The towel is gonna be less important to him. So I had him, I got up at the top of the building with a 35-millimeter lens. Had like a 20 figure shot. And he ran out with the towel around him. The towel dropped halfway through the picture. And he's ran, he's stark naked from above, down the street. Well you couldn't see any genitals or anything; it was too high, but he was naked. And they said he couldn't be naked. They didn't say to me, "You can't see genitals." They said, "He couldn't be naked." And so I said, "He's gonna be naked." And apparently that, it got by. And everybody laughed because they forgot suddenly, what it was.

ES: Now Frank Pierson had been approached by Harold Hecht to do a redraft of a movie, which Hecht had earlier developed with Walter Newman, called THE BALLAD OF CAT BALLOU. And Frank was about to be hired, or he had been or was about to be hired to do some additional work on it. And he called me and said, "You're gonna, you're gonna get a call from a guy named Harold Hecht. Do you know who he is?" I said, "No." He said, "He's gonna talk to you about directing a movie." I said, "Oh my God. Really?" "Yeah." "Okay." I later found out that Hecht had interviewed everybody in town for the material and people didn't, either didn't feel comfortable or for one reason or another, didn't think the project was for them. And I understand, although this is not, I've never asked him and I don't know that this is the case, that Sydney Pollack had been approached and said, "There's only one guy crazy enough to do it," and that was me. That's what I heard. I never asked him. I should have asked him. But any rate, Frank called me and I said, well, I'd called him back and said, "I did get the call. They want to see me tomorrow morning." And he said, "Well we should talk." And I said, "Yeah, when are we gonna talk?" This was like nine o'clock at night. I said, "Meet me on the Santa Monica Pier." Yeah, but he said he has a date of some kind. And I said, "Well meet me at midnight." So we met at the Santa [LAUGH] Monica Pier in the dark and compared notes as to what we would say and what he would say. Because he said that Harold's a very nervous guy and not entirely sure of what he wanted but that if the Director and the Writer agreed, that it might shore up his feeling of security. So we plotted various scenarios, some of them different so it would seem credible. And I went and had the interview and they threw a lot of curveballs at me, "What would you do if this...? It was this kind of scene, I mean this kind of scene, this kind." And so it worked out and I got the assignment, for which is another story in itself.

INT: Well let's talk a little--that's, this is a good way to let's start talking about CAT BALLOU. How did that script evolve once you did get the job? And let's talk about your relationship with the Writer. In this case it was Frank [Frank Pierson]. But, and is your experience with that Writer indicative of what followed in the rest of your career? ES: Okay. Let me back flash for a moment. [INT: Sure.] And if you'll help me come back to this, to that question because there's an incident that occurred earlier which had something to do with the post-production CAT BALLOU. I had done a number of TWILIGHT ZONES [THE TWILIGHT ZONE] which were half-hour, sci-fi movies, very well-produced movies. Rod Serling wrote them and had Directors every once in a while, alternated. And one of them I did was responsible for the entire creative arts program that I started and also had much to do with CAT BALLOU. And if I may, I'd like to tell you about that and then we could link those things. [INT: Absolutely.] This was called THE OBSOLETE MAN [THE TWILIGHT ZONE: THE OBSOLETE MAN], a futuristic story about a librarian who became obsolete and was gonna be destroyed in a kind of a Kafka-like [Franz Kafka] setting. And I had a scene, in which he was being tried. And the judge sat on a, kind of a desk that was 20 feet high and below them was a table that was 30 feet long and then, you know, huge doors that were 30 feet high and opened like this with this kind of light coming in, and an army of black shirts surrounding it. And I had a scene in which they decided that he was obsolete. And the plot called for the table to turn and the chief prosecutor was shown to be obsolete. And I had a scene in which these nightmarish black shirts who were surrounding the whole scene would start this crazy noise that I'd heard in a nightmare once. [MAKES NOISE] Not moving and not getting higher in frequency but louder and louder and louder. Then they would slowly move forward as this sound got louder and louder and louder until finally it bursts into a shriek. And they attacked the prosecutor, who was played by Fritz Weaver, in a kind of a football huddle, screaming and yelling and they're feeding on him there. The Editor, who's name was Jason Bernie, and I wanted, I just wanted to cut it with a slow pan and a couple of other... He didn't want to do it that way. He says, "I don't want to cut it that way." I said, "I don't understand you don't want to cut it that way." I said, "That's the way I directed it." He said, "But I don't think it works. I don't want to cut it that way." Well, I'd come from New York, along with a lot of the other guys at the time and we did our own editing. And I said, "But I'm the Director. I want you to cut it that way." He said, "I'm not gonna do it."

ES: And that resulted in a brouhaha [referring to an editing dispute on THE TWILIGHT ZONE], and again the authority of the studio was now being... [INT: Challenged.] ...arrayed against my idea and the manager of the studio came in and we had a whole thing about that. And Buck Houghton, who was a very capable Producer, who's since died, kind of helped me reach a compromise. Well compromise, I said, "Okay," but I still am pained when I see it today. But, I'm gonna go into something I'm sure we'll come to back later, but I immediately went to the Guild [Directors Guild of America] and I said, "I'd like to see the Guild contract." And Joe Youngerman, who was the Executive Director at the time, said, "What do you want to see the contract..." I said, "I want to know whether they can do this to a guy." And he pulled it out and it said, in the area of interest, "The Director," as best I can recall, "Director shall have the right to view, to view the first rough cut and make suggestions for improvements to the Associate Producer." Period. That was the end of the creative rights contained in that initial document. Well I… how I started the creative rights movement, we'll come back to later. But that's what started it. And it had just started prior to CAT BALLOU. So when I got to the end of CAT BALLOU, I had similar problems with an Editor. That Editor was a favorite of Harry Cohn who used to run Columbia Pictures, and was used to not letting Directors into the editing room. Well, I could not tolerate that. And here once again was that same authority preventing me from expressing myself. Well CAT BALLOU was shot in a style that required certain kind of editing rhythm to it, known as musical. And Charlie Nelson [Charles Nelson], who was the Editor, would not let me in the editing room. And I couldn't describe the rhythm I wanted. I'd staged certain scenes to a metronome. And I wanted them cut in the metronome and he wouldn't do it. And we came to confrontation. And he slammed the door of the editing room, ran out in the street, and I said, "My God, my first film. I can't have this happen." I ran after him. He got in his car, almost ran me down, he was so furious. Later, Michael Frankovich [M.J. Frankovich], who was the new production head of Columbia at the time, came from Europe and with a European sensitivity, said, called me in and said, "What happened?" I told him. He said, "What can we do?" I said, "Just give me a guy who's worked in television. Give me an Editor, who'll listen to what I want to do and give me a few days to do it." He said, "All right." He did it. That cut was the one that was released. And except for a minute and a half, the original edition, that's the cut that went out and that's the one that won the award for editing, which Ch--Charlie Nelson now has, wherever he is, has that Oscar on his shelf. But that was how the initial portion of my efforts in creative rights linked to an experience I had in CAT BALLOU, 'cause I was primed by virtue of my, what happened in THE TWILIGHT ZONE, my initial discussions for creative rights, which we can get to later. And I was the leader of that. I couldn't allow myself to be steamrolled.

INT: Well why don’t we stay for that for a minute, because the connection is so strong. And what immediately becomes clear is that the, your creative rights effort really began on an issue of post-production at a time historically when even the biggest name Directors didn't spend much time in the editing room. I mean, I'm talking about the big feature Directors, the William Wylers of those… they didn't spend a lot of time there. So you... ES: Well, I'm not entirely sure that's true in all cases. They didn't, many of them may not have spent every single minute in the editing room. But as I told you, I came from New York with a lot of the other Directors, who worked in live television who were calling our own shots from the console. So that was ingrained, it was ingrained instant... You get the shot at this point, not at that point. And this shot, not that shot. [INT: So, but the post-production really became the wedge, the editing room became the wedge for the creative, the whole creative rights...] Those problems. [INT: Yes.] The one on THE TWILIGHT ZONE was the trigger. Now once I got into CAT BALLOU, I was having a wonderful time, casting, rehearsing and initially the company wanted Kirk Douglas to play the part of Kid Shelleen [Shelleen-Strawn] who eventually played by Lee Marvin. And I was scared. 'Cause I'd never worked with a big star like that before and I heard that he was very strong in his opinions and I knew I was going to ask some very strange things, approaching burlesque, and I didn't know whether a star would risk that, looking that foolish. So I was uneasy about it. And they said, "Well we'd like him, so will you go talk to him?" So I called him on the phone and I talked to him and he said, well he didn't think the part was... the exact line was, "It's too small--too big for a cameo and too small for a starring part." Well I breathed a sign of relief. And I went back in the other room and all these guys were sitting around. I was impressed by the fact that they'd asked me to call him and not the Producer. I was very touched by that, but that was Frankovich [M.J. Frankovich], who had a European sensitivity toward Directors. And they said, "Well, who are we gonna get?" And I said, "Well I tell you who I'd like." And I remembered THE WILD ONES, and I remember Lee Marvin getting off a motorcycle, in a very, kind of a funny way. And I said, "I'd like him." "Oh, all right." The picture had to start soon, so Frankovich supported me. And I called Lee Marvin and his Agent. Got 'em script and he was crazy about it and ready to go. Now Lee Marvin was a professional Actor, and any professional film Actor doesn't give everything until the camera rolls. So we had two weeks of rehearsal. And I loved it because I, in earlier television, there wasn't enough time to rehearse. And I loved it because I enjoyed that a lot in my theatrical life. And all I really wanted to do was make sure the Actors were comfortable in the traffic control. And got some idea of what I had in mind for the comedic level of the piece.

ES: And my Producer came down [LAUGH] to the set [CAT BALLOU] one day, and the set, it was a taped out set. And he called me over afterwards and he said, "What's wrong with Lee [Lee Marvin]?" And I said, "What do mean what's wrong with Lee?" "Well he's not doing anything." I said, "Oh, he's just rehearsing." "Well, but he's not doing anything." "I don't want him to do anything yet. We're not shooting yet." [INT: [LAUGH]] "But I've gotta see something. I gotta see something." "Okay." So I went back to Lee. He said, "What's the matter? What's the matter?" Which was a lesson to me not to talk to the Producers anywhere in view of the Actors. And I said, "Oh, nothing. He just wants to see a little more of what we're gonna do." He said, "What we gonna do? What we gonna..." [LAUGH] I said, "I don't know Lee." I said, "Do it again and just do some spasms. I don't care what you do. Whether you have to..." My exact line was, "Do some spasms." [LAUGH] So he went [MAKES NOISE]. Did a few things. And Harold [Harold Hecht] called me up to his office, and it was very touching, and this was 48 hours before we're supposed to go to location. Called me up to his office and he was very nervous, And he again, he said, "Look," he says, "This could be my last movie," because he had had, not a success with the previous one called TARAS BULBA. "Could be my last movie. And we gotta be sure." And he said, "He's not doing anything." I said, "Harold, he's not gonna do anything until, you don't want him to run the race before the race." And he said, "But I gotta see it. I gotta know." And I said, "All right, I'll make one more effort." And I went down and I said, "Lee, would you try so and so and so and so and so and just, you know [MAKES NOISE]." And there was Harold lurking on the... and Lee said, "But I, you don't want to do that." I said, "Just for today, Lee." "Okay." [LAUGH] He did it. Harold called me back up to the office, "You gotta replace him. You gotta replace him." I said, "No." "I've gotta replace..." I said, "Harold, who we gonna replace him with?" He says, "José Ferrer." [INT: [LAUGH]] And I said, "No." I said... And I realized something, and this was when I realized another part of what directing is, which is the action off screen. I realized he had revealed his vulnerability to me by saying this is, could be his last picture. And I had a stroke, I mean an idea. I said, "Harold, let me tell you something. If you fire Lee Marvin, I'm quitting. And if I quit the picture's gonna be shut down, because Mike Frankovich [M.J. Frankovich], this is his first job as production head, his first picture as production head. And you've just told me that you're a little uncertain about your move, because you just did not come in with a big hit with TARAS BULBA. This production is gonna shut down fast." He says, "You wouldn't do that." And I said, "I'm gonna do that, Harold. We are going to Canyon City with Lee Marvin or I'm quitting." He said, "Are you sure of that?" I said, "I'm absolutely sure he's gonna do all right." I wasn't sure at all. But it didn't matter whether I was sure or not, it was, the fact is that I couldn't allow the power again to force me off track. He said, "All right, if you're sure about it." I said, "Okay. Sure." I guess the rest is history. He won the Academy Award for it. But then again, then again, there was another lesson in there for me about directing not simply being pushing a camera around and talking to the Actors, but having to do with this whole psychological treatment you have to give to a lot of people.

ES: We were shooting a scene [CAT BALLOU] in which Lee Marvin as the drunken gunfighter, cant' hit, is introduced to the company who hired him to come to save the day, he couldn't hit the side of a barn door. And he was playing it very broadly. And the crew was all laughing, they--and I didn't think it was funny. I don't know why, but I just got the... I made seven takes. I will tell you later that I bought a boat on take eight. But seven takes that I made and they, everybody was laughing and I wasn't getting it. Harold [Harold Hecht] called me up and he said, "We're running overtime. You're behind schedule. That's an hour behind schedule. You're behind schedule. You gotta..." 'Cause they were nervous, it was my first movie. And I went and I said, "No we're not." I said, “He hasn't got it yet." "They're all laughing." I said, "But that's the crew. They are his buddies, you know. We're not there yet." "Well you gotta print." I said, "Okay, Harold, give me one more chance." And I remember being humiliated saying, giving me, the Director, one more chance. But I, he was making such a scene on the periphery of the set the Actors, I could see out of the corner of my eye, were getting a little shaken. He said, "Okay. One more. One more." So I remember I walked back, I didn't know what the hell am I gonna do. And then I remembered, as I got to him, he said, "What's the matter, kid? What's the matter?" I don't know. And then I got an idea. And I said, "Lee, listen we're playing this for comedy. Hand me a good one. Even Harold is very impressed. He wants to print take seven." I said, "Would you try one in which you play this, pathos, play this like a NAKED CITY bum? You know, really sad." And boom, all we talked about that. He said, "Okay." And he did that. That was, set his character for the piece. And I imagine, looking on the other side of the administrative ledger, if I had not been forced, I may have taken another eight takes to find my way to that. But the pressure to do it just pushed that idea out of toothpaste tube, maybe earlier. But I then told Harold that he couldn't speak to me in sight of the Actors again 'cause it was shaking me and I’m shaking them up. And he said, "Well I'll, what I'll do, I'll throw a stone in the set." [INT: [LAUGH]] And I said, "No." I said, "I don't want to even... Communicate with me afterwards if you want to talk with me." And he reluctantly agreed to that. He sat and didn't say anything. [INT: What did you mean? Did you say you bought a boat on the eighth take?] Yes, because the film was a success. [INT: Ah.] And that was take eight that made, that set it, and so I called the boat Take Eight. [INT: Oh. That's wonderful.] Yeah.

INT: So staying with CAT BALLOU and staying with the Writer, Frank Pierson, what, talk a little bit now about the proc--the creative process now with a Writer. What-- ES: Well that was a hell for me and I think it was probably a hell for Frank too. Not because of any problem between us, but the guy that was really largely responsible for keeping that thing going with a, with a nervous Producer, was a man who's since dead, called Mitch Lindemann, was the Associate Producer. And he was the one that convinced Harold that we could carry this to a, kind of a more farcical extreme. And he worked closely with Frank. And Frank was, Walter Newman had presented a wonderful script, which wasn't zany. Frank gave it a certain kind of craziness. And I did not work as closely with Frank as I would liked to have. He worked closely with Mitch Lindemann and then I got the results and made whatever comments I had and then they went back into the hole. But Frank supplied a wonderful foundation for craziness. And I took it one step further, psychologically biting my nails as it were, 'cause I wasn't quite sure. But I had nothing to lose. And I remember Frank and I had a conversation once just before we went out to Canyon City, in which, to show you nobody knows, nobody knows anything as William Goldman said. We were both quite nervous. And I said, "Frank, it's just another movie. We just get to the golden door of doing a feature. Don't worry about. It'll be different but that's all it'll be. So it'll go away, so what." I had no idea that it was gonna be anything special, nor did he, really.