INT: What are you looking for in selecting a Costume Designer?

AH: When you're selecting a Costume Designer, you're looking for very much the same things that you look for in a Production Designer, Cinematographer with each person, an understanding of what your vision is. Will they understand? Will they complement your needs? Will they come up with ideas that fit into your vision but that give you something new, something different to work on? And so it's very much the same for each of the creative elements. And like the other elements, you have the same problems that they then have to figure out a way around. For instance, on OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, we had, Bette Midler was four to seven months pregnant during the filming. And so of course the costumes had to be designed in a certain way. Luckily most of it she could wear sweaters, and they could be loose, but it still required a lot of thinking and a lot of care. And obviously you sit with the Costume Designer as with the others and talk about what you're feeling about the script and the story and what it is you're looking for. And then they come up with ideas, or sketches, or show you things and you talk to them about it, and you make your selections and… I'm just remembering on HOSPITAL [THE HOSPITAL], that for the Diana Rigg character, who was a sort of oddball, interesting character, and brings the first sort of life and rebirth to the George C. Scott character, that the Costume Designer had put her in a, I think it was a suit. That's what he showed me, and I thought, no. That's… no-no. And I said, "No, I want something more sexy without being obviously sexy," 'cause I wanted that attractiveness to come through too, that physical attractiveness, and I suggested like, an open blouse, but I said, not too open. I wasn't looking to see breasts or anything, just but open. And short skirt, and I think we ended, I forgotten now, but like a denim shirt. I think it was maybe and even almost like a male shirt, but it works. So you'll have to do the things like that, in... But then that's, it's true like when you're working with your Assistant Director, does your Assistant Director catch on to what you're looking for? Does he or she understand the film and get the feel of helping you with your vision? Obviously there are a lot of elements where the Assistant Director hopes you're catching on, in terms of budget and schedule, and that's why you have to work together a lot, you know, with your AD. You need that camaraderie and that togetherness, because you do have a budget you have to worry about, and you do go over… Let's say the Assistant Director, or the Production Manager, usually the Assistant Director has worked out a schedule, and you as Director go over that schedule with them and try to see how do you feel you can do that in one day. Or do you think you could do a little more in that day. Or do you think part of that has to be worked on another day, because in your mind, it's a complicated sequence, more complicated than appears on paper. So you can go either way, but it requires that…

AH: When we were doing THE BABE, and did the, I mentioned, doing the baseball, figuring out all the shots that we were going to do at the Chicago stadium, at Wrigley Field, working them all out ahead of time, exactly the shots I wanted, so that I could sit with Jimmy Van Wyck [Jim Van Wyck], my Assistant [First Assistant Director] and Haskell Wexler our Cinematographer and I've forgotten his name from the optical house, and figure out what we could do and where and whether we needed... I remember Haskell coming up with an idea I hadn't even heard of at the time which was a camera hanging from wire, that would be able to move from second base to third base, with the Camera Operator off on the, in the wings somewhere as we say, because we were not allowed to put the camera on the grass or anything. But that Jimmy had to sit down then with all the shots and put them into an order that would be in budget terms, the best. For instance, we shot towards first base constantly. We did it rather than move first base, then home plate or center field, or round to third, because we didn't have 50,000 extras. We had 750 to a 1,000 per day, and the time that it would take to move them for each shot, so despite the fact that it would be out of sequence, so to speak, we would do them that way and made it also harder for Haskell because the light is different than, for different angles on it, but we worked it. We worked it out. Jimmy worked out a schedule, and we worked to that schedule. Or on SILVER STREAK, when we were filming up in Canada, and brought the whole Crew up, yes and organized everything, but with my Assistant Director, with Jack Roe, we also would have to carefully scheduled because we'd have to sit down at the end of every day, with the Coordinator from the Canadian Pacific Railroad [Canadian Pacific Railway] and tell him exactly what we would be doing the next day. I would have to outline the shots that would be on top of the train. It would be moving at this kind of speed, or that we were gonna slow up and drop an Actor or Stunt Person off, or we were gonna have cameras hanging out the side. All those things had to be very exact, which track we would be on, what angles, because this Coordinator would have to coordinate all the regular trains, and there were times when he would listen and then say, "That's fine, but you're gonna have to figure out something between four o'clock and five o'clock because," he said, "I need you off the track in order to have the regular trains that we're holding up come through." So you have to be able to do that, and you do that so much with your Assistant Director. And we were very fortunate that the Coordinator understood what filmmaking was and didn't say to us, "Well, you wouldn't go 45 miles an hour there. You'd go 60 miles an hour. He understood that as long as it was possible for what we wanted to happen, even though it wasn't what would most likely happen at that moment. And so it was very helpful to have somebody like that working with us. And so you work away in that sort of way, with your Assistant Director, and I say, and you know, and that's, you involve everybody. Your Cinematographer, your...

AH: In OUT OF TOWNERS [THE OUT OF TOWNERS], we had to prepare so carefully because we were dealing with, we were dealing with a, supposedly a bus strike and a taxi strike and a garbage strike. Well try filming in Midtown Manhattan and not see a bus and not see a taxi. Yes, we carried, I've forgotten what it was, like, but a ton of garbage with us, which we could place around, but we needed to know exactly what we were gonna do, so that the police would be aware and could helpful. For instance, we did film in mid-Manhattan once. I tell this often in acting terms, because in order to create the shot, I wanted to look down Second Avenue in the 50s or 60s, I forgotten exactly, and the police, they cordoned off all the streets for about 10 blocks, and so that there wouldn't be any buses, and there wouldn't be any cabs. Now, that's no small task to do that, but the thing also is, you better be ready, because when they hit the little walkie-talkie, and say, "Go. You better go," you better go. Because how long are they going to hold that? And I tell the story sometimes when, about Actors because I say, when we did that, and they said that they were ready. I said, "Fine." I said, "Let's go." And we rolled the camera and went ready and I said, "Action," and Jack Lemmon proceeded to cross the street. And I say, I know any number of other Actors who when I said, "Ready. Action," would've stepped off the curb and then turned back and said, "Arthur, should I have stepped off with my left foot or my right foot?" And we would've lost the whole shot. So it is a, again, an important sort of looking, you know, looking after things and… I was thinking also with Jack Roe on THE IN-LAWS, in the sequence where Peter Falk is driving backwards on the highway, he's not really driving backwards on the highway, obviously it's… he's, but he's at the wheel. And you say, "Well how-" Well, we worked out a car with, it was, how should we say, they figured out so that a Stunt Driver was in the trunk of the car, and he had the steering, and he had two little holes to look out of, and all the other cars were Stunt Drivers, and the actual, we didn't have a Stunt Coordinator. Jack Roe and I, I still laugh when I think of us, we're on the floor with little miniature cars, and we worked out the whole process of it, so that it would work. And yes, Peter's in the car and looks like he's driving backwards and... But it's a lot of coordinating and a lot of work by your Assistant Director and obviously a lot of work by you, and unbelievable work by a Stunt Driver and that, and when you think about it, you think, where does all this sort of stuff come from? So it is pretty amazing that way, you know.

INT: How do you hire your other Crewmembers like Sound and Script Supervisor and Props and all of the other people involved?

AH: Actually, you hire most of your Crew in the same way as you hire your heads of departments. You're not looking, how shall I say, for the same degree of artistic skill, but you are looking for people who care about movies, who are friendly, that you enjoy working with and who are part of a team and can work that way. I say aren't that artistic and yet, I'm thinking of Sid Greenwood [Sidney H. Greenwood], a Prop Master who worked with me many years, and I could say every couple of pictures, would come up with an idea that I, not monumental but really interesting about a prop that he could bring or something that could go through a frame or always something that came up from that or people… I will sugg--certain, obviously you go after your own Production Designer, and as I've mentioned, costuming, you go after, but often in costume design, your leading lady has come up with the idea, or your leading man, and so. But in the other areas, I try to get involved in all the areas, and despite the fact that yes, I will suggest a Key Grip, that I love, I would, or a Dolly Grip, I still, I will leave it to the Cinematographer to make the final decision because basically the Cinematographer's going to have to do the constant working with. But again, they can be unbelievable. I think about, I always say Eddie Quinn [Ed Quinn], who is a, was a Key Grip and with me, a Dolly Grip with me before that, about, I don't know, I think we did 15, 20 films together. And I say about him, he's the only person I ever worked with who was never not in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. I said the rest of us make mistakes sometimes. Eddie was just... And that included, for instance, a shot in THE OUT OF TOWNERS when they're at the Boston railroad station and their anxiety and their, can they make it to the train, and I wanted them, you know, had them running through the station, out through the big double doors, down the platform, across the little platform, to the train, and there was no such thing as a Steadicam and I wanted that hectic feeling, and even handheld isn't going to--how can you run and… What we did was we put the Camera Operator in a wheel chair, and Eddie Quinn ran backwards with this, and ran at the speed that Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis were running, swung around, through the doors, down the platform, swung around, to see them get up and around onto the train. But that's, again, when you have a good Crew and teamwork, that's the kind of work that you get.

INT: Are there any other positions that you particularly take care in hiring, makeup, hair...?

AH: You, again, I get involved in makeup and hair too, but and most of the time have brought in people, but often, the leading lady will have a makeup person that he, she wants, and the leading man may have a makeup person he wants. You know, you have to take those things into consideration, and it's always somebody very good. The question is, how much time will that makeup or hair person spend with that one character, and do you need somebody else, and do you have two people? What is your budget? Are you going to be able... So all those things have to be, have to be balanced. But you do try, if there's somebody that they, your stars like, why not? If--you check into it obviously, and you get a, you meet with them, get a feeling whether you feel you can work with them, are they going to give you what you want or are they just going to pretty up, let's say, the Actress at a time when she's not to look so good. Will they do what they have to do? So it's just a question of, again, of what I said, of what's the most important, the human relations aspect of how you work with each person and the, what you're looking for and what you're trying to get, yes.

INT: In terms of the design, how do you prepare the design of a picture?

AH: Well, to prepare the design of the picture, the whole visual of it, I know a lot of people say, "You see the picture right away?" and I say, "No." No, I read it. I read the screenplay, and I read it, and I read it, and it starts to form, and I start to see certain visual aspects and you don't know quite why you're seeing them, why you're feeling a certain relationship or why you want a two-story look or why you want a particular kind of tree or a rock formation or why you want this design in a house or that. It just sort of comes to you. And the same is true with your staging of the Actors. It just sort of comes, and even then the casting. I just keep going, and it just sort of grows and happens. Yes, you can look at it after. You can look at why did you put the father in the foreground and the son in the background? And you can psychologically analyze and say, "Oh yes, of course." 'Cause in this scene it's the prominence of the father or putting down of the… But then again, you may put the son in front because of the put down… but you can find your psychological reasons, but you don't sit and think what's, let's see now, what's the psychology of this scene, and so should I stage this because of this psychological thing or this relationship. You feel it. You feel it. Now, I feel it… I make myself work at it and feel it way ahead. A lot of that is the insecurity I talk about all the time that we all have, and the more prepared I am and the more I'm able to answer any question anybody asks me, before we start filming, the better I feel and the more flexible I am then when things happen on the set, or I can figure things out. Other Directors just get it vaguely in mind, and let it happen, or let the Actors play it, and from the way the Actors play it, but I find it particular if you want something different in staging or unusual in the set, or you have a visual concept that the more you've thought ahead, the more you can do it. And a lot of that comes too, from working, coming out of live television, because in live television you had to make all those decisions ahead.

AH: You had to have all your camera angles exactly figured [in live television]. You had to figure exactly when the camera would move. Could it move there? How the cable would be lifted, whether some way design the porch so that you could go under it, or all those things that had to be involved, or how's a boom going to get in from one place or another? Or how can you get the Actors from set to set or… I'm just thinking set to set, I'm remembering watching a live show that Delbert Mann directed in New York when I was a new little Californian and being very impressed because suddenly I saw the Actor in this one set and then it dissolved and he was in another set, and I thought, "Wait a minute, this is live. How could he be in two sets?" And I realized what they had done; they built the sets at right angles, and so that yes, the camera was looking at them, but another camera over here dissolved to that camera, and of course, was looking at another set. Now you had the person in the same, had to be in the same costume, and I was terribly impressed and started making use of that and… When I met Delbert, when he came out to the Coast, and we became friends, and I thanked him one time for his clever idea that I had stolen from him or borrowed from him. He said, "Arthur," he said, "my Production Designer came up with the idea." So you just, you never know.

INT: In designing the film, whom do you work with and why?

AH: Once you get the concept that you're looking for... I say get the concept. Sometimes you don't have, you have not a, maybe it's a concept, but you're not, you know sort of what you're looking for. You feel what you're looking for. You sit down with your Production Designer, particularly, and then with your Cinematographer and go through what's in your mind. Like, when I work with my Production Designer, I will tell him what it is I'm looking, the kind... usually the screenplay indicates, you know, and they've read the screenplay. They have their ideas and thoughts, and together we will talk away. Then I will, but if I have specific ideas of, I will sometimes floorplan, just roughly, not to say, “This is what you got to do,” but to say, “This is what I need. I need a door here, or I need a corridor here, or I want to be able to look from the kitchen into the dining room. But I don't want it open, I just, so can you build a wall, you know, with an opening.” Or, “I don't want to...” like in MAKING LOVE, “Yes, I want to see the two men in bed making love, but I don't want to do exotic,” or what should I say, the erotic shots of them in bed, you know, the kind you see of a male/female because it was new to the audience, and you don't want to, you want to make your point, but you don't want to spoil your point by overdoing so to speak. And I said, "I want to be able to look through something. Can you create a maybe a glass that has slight diffusion or..." And he created an opening from another room but with beads hanging, and we shot through that and got the feel I wanted. It was loud and clear: Yes, the two men are in bed making love, but it wasn't blatantly hitting you, hitting you with it.

INT: Why do you build a set rather than shooting on location?

AH: Normally, I like to film on location. I like the reality of, and that's why I suppose in a sense I filmed more in New York than I have on the West Coast. I just, I love the streets and the feel you get and even the interiors always, because it's an older city, and because I think in New York, you sort of, you walk down the street, and everybody you see is somebody else. They're, it's characters. Here, I walk down the street, I see myself sort of coming and going. I'm exaggerating, but... And that's true about the physicality too. And also, the problems, you know people say, "You're out of your mind. It's so difficult in New York, you know, with the traffic and the people and the problems,” and they're right. You do have, but the problems make you think. Sometimes, you may fall into just repeating yourself, and these problems make you wake up and think of something else, and to get around a problem, you come up with ideas that hadn't hit you before, and that's why problems are sometimes very helpful. And if you want something very specific, then sometime you just don't find it on a location. Then you want to build it. If you're looking for a certain camera move or a way of doing a particular scene, you have ways of...

AH: It's funny. I'm saying that [referring to how problems can be helpful], and my mind is going back to facing a problem, and although this problem wasn't a question of building a set, when we were filming on LOVE STORY, and we had that, all the snow, the one-day, and I just ad-libbed all the playing in the snow and that. The following day, we went out, and it was raining, and I said, "Well, we can do one of the new scenes that Erich [Erich Segal] had written that..." I said, "We can have them you know, walk along." And every, the Crew said to me, "Arthur, we can't. It's raining." I said, "So it's raining." They said, "No-no, it's raining." "Why," I said, "They'll get umbrellas, you know. It's a big deal to walk with umbrellas. So take two, the hair will be...” They said, "No, we're not talking about the Actors. We're talking about the camera." We couldn't afford... We didn't have anything to cover the camera. So, "Oh, so we can't," I said. "Ah, I have an idea," I said. "We have a station wagon." They said, "Yes." I said, "Put the camera in the back end of the station wagon. Then it'll be covered. And I will walk the Actors towards it." It happened to be the kind of scene that they're just walking. They can walk toward wherever the camera can move. And wherever the car, and people said, "That's fine, Arthur, but there's no, we're in the middle of a...", it wasn't Harvard Square, but it was another square at Harvard. And they said, "There's no roads here, Arthur." Oh, and then I thought, ah, there was an asphalt walk. I said, "We'll sweep that, and he can drive the station wagon on the asphalt walk." And there was a, there's no way to, no road to get to the walk. I said, "The driver will figure out." And indeed he crossed the fields, in the snow, somehow got the station wagon there, and we put the camera in the back end, we cleared the sidewalk, and we had it all nice and ready, and I staged the Actors, and we'd go take one, and the car starts driving along the walk, and the Actors are walking along. And about eight, 10 seconds in, I hear Lou Barlia, the Camera Operator, say, "Cut." And I thought, what's he cutting for, you know? The exhaust was coming up into the lens. I said, "Oh." How did we end up doing it? We ended up with everybody except the Sound Mixer. We just had a small Crew. The sound mixer was busy, but the rest of us became Dolly Grips. We put the station wagon in neutral, and I think there were 10 of us, pushing. We were moving it along, and the Actors walked, and we got the scene. I mean it looks on screen, it's just a couple walking, but can you imagine how ridiculous it looked if you walked, if you saw everybody, you know, including the Director, pushing a van, a station wagon along. So you, but you build when necessary, or if the Cinematographer feels that, you know, he or she can't cope with lighting certain things. But it's amazing how you cope on locations, and you get something different that you haven't thought about.

INT: I mean location shooting, what do you do in pre-production, in regards to the locations?

AH: When you, when you go out scouting locations, you've picked areas you know that you're either shooting in a desert or in the hills, or what have you. Let's say on, you know, obviously on SILVER STREAK, you don't have too much choice, as a, you need a train on a railroad track, and so that's because we got no cooperation from the American Railroads, they wouldn't, we just couldn't get anybody to work with us, we went up to Canada, and it worked out fortunately because in southern Alberta, I filmed the equivalent of six different states. So we were based in... Well, I shouldn't say the one, in two places, rather than being in six different places, so. And we got wonderful locations and everything, but we lucked in by the American Railroads not cooperating with us. But, so that sometimes you're, as I say, you're limited by the railroad track, but other times, you're, you know, you're going, let's say on OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, you need desert and the hills and all this sort of thing. Like we went, we would go out and what I like to do on locations, particularly when they're, what should I say, outside locations, like OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, where you have a lot of that, is to go around in a helicopter, and look down, and it's amazing how many times you and your Production Designer at the same time are saying, "Oh, that would be good for," or, "We should look at that," and, or sometimes one sees something and the other says, "What are you talking about?" And then the, you explain and you understand, but you get a feel for areas or specifics, then drive to them, the next day, drive to all of them, or, and feel them out, and you make choices, again, by instinct and by the needs you have. For instance, in OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, you were also thinking about the fact that Bette Midler was four to seven months pregnant, where would you be able to hide steps that she could be on, that you wouldn't see her on, but that make her life easier moving down, or where could you find a rock that she could go behind and you could a frame cut and go ahead with the stunt person, or a tree, like there is one, there, that kind of thing. You do that sort of thing and find your way, as I say, drive out to various places, and you make your decisions also based on what, how many things can we do on this location, or how can I make this work not just for this scene, but for another scene, so we don't have to make a move? And you'd be surprised how many times, if you keep that in mind, how many times you will find a location that will do two or three. It'll be two or three locations with very little change, and the audience has no feeling except the feeling you want of the location that they're at. And sometimes you will find that sort of thing, and you will say, you will choose something, and or that, and your Assistant Director, "Arthur, that's not what most people wouldn't..." And you say, "But you make, those are choices you make as long as it's right." And this is true all the way, as long as it's right for that character, at that time, to do that action in that place, then it's a legitimate action. It may not fit your vision. You maybe have to find a specific one, but the Writer makes those kind of choices. The Director then makes them, each one. You have to be able to do that, to feel that this will work, and is right for this character, or this situation, to happen in this place at this time.