INT: When we left off and we were just talking, we were talking about how Darryl Zanuck [Darryl F. Zanuck] was forcing you to use his girlfriend playing all these parts in [THE LONGEST DAY]--[KA: That's right.] And I was just talking to your wife Pauline [Pauline Annakin] about the fact that the French Director was originally working with her, and Darryl Zanuck didn't like what he was doing, and he fired him right in front of all these people in the--
KA: That's true. All on the set was the two French cameramen, and Zanuck was sort of sitting down there with her, his girlfriend, always sitting next to him, and we saw their heads go together like this, and he suddenly said the name of the French Director, "You're... I'm not, we're not happy with what you've been shooting, you're fired, and Ken Annakin, you're going to take over the Free French [French Resistance] section tomorrow." [INT: And this is in front of the crew?] In front of everybody, [INT: Oh my God.] And so, and the two French cameramen said, "Well, it's nice to have known you, but I presume that the same will happen to you in another three or four weeks." [INT: But you were able to make it work with her.] Yes--[INT: Yes.]--I made it to work with her, but it wasn't only that, it was, I mean--getting involved with the Free French work, there was something else which my knowledge and technique helped a great deal. There is a--the sequence of the Free French raid on the casino [in THE LONGEST DAY]. [INT: Oh, yes.] Which lasts for eight minutes. [INT: That is amazing that shot.] In one shot. [INT: Yes.] Well, now, he had taken a French--brilliant French helicopter pilot, Gilbert Chomat, and they had worked this out, but they'd had, the French Director, had had six attempts at it and it had never satisfied--[INT: Zanuck, yeah?]--Zanuck. So, I really spent quite a bit of time with Chomat, and he became like another--I made him almost like another camera operator, that he would know exactly where I was leading him and where I would be leading him next, and what it was there we had to make most important. And we shot that and that's the sequence that's in the picture, and the eight-minute sequence of the Free French moving in and overcoming the German defense, and then, if you remember, all the nuns come out, [INT: Right.] as well. It's all one shot.

INT: Well, that brings up the idea of how you work with an Assistant Director? Because I'm sure on that shot, there must have been--that must've been the biggest work of all, for your whole career, for an Assistant Director. [KA: Of course, yeah.] Yeah? How did you work with him on that? Did, how did you stage that, it just was such a huge shot.]
KA: In actual fact, we--I had my Assistant [Assistant Director], my own personal Assistant, who was an Israeli, and we got on very, very well, and he helped to organize other Assistants under him. So, we were able to--he had a very good feeling for what an Assistant should do and be, and he would--some of them, he bring to me and introduce them to me, and we would talk to them, and agree that he--"well, he could watch that part, and then he, another one would watch that,” and it worked. [INT: Were they dressed as extras?] Yeah. [INT: Because they were in... there's no way to hide people.] Oh, they're absolutely… [INT: Did you have walkie-talkies?] All dressed. They did not have walkie-talkies, no. [INT: So, signals, some kind of signal?] As you just said, there were signals. That's right. [INT: So, the other Director who tried this four or five times, whatever, what was not working that you were able to do that he couldn't do in that shot?] It wasn't only that shot, Zanuck [Darryl F. Zanuck] had become rather fed up with the main French sequence and he'd found that he didn't have any sense of humor, as well, and he wanted me to get involved with a comedian that we made into--turned into the French mayor--[INT: Right. The one who greets them with the champagne?] That's right. [INT: Yeah.] He wanted a whole number of shots that involved French, but didn't--he didn't feel--well, he was convinced were not working with the--and the French Director wasn't too unhappy about being fired, because he hated being bossed by Zanuck. So, one way or another, I came out of it by handling it because I didn't--I tried to make a--have some sort of friendship with him. [INT: Being a diplomat.] Yeah. [INT: Yes]

INT: Now, was it difficult for you to direct in French? Do you know French, or--[KA: Yes.] INT: You do? [KA: I had studied French, and we lived in France.] INT: So, that was easy for you? [KA: Yeah. So there's no great difficulty there. Did you shoot any of the German sequences?
KA: No. [INT: No. The American sequence, some of the American sequences--] I--well, I suppose I did shoot a bit of--no, I didn't shoot any German. Wicki, Bernhard Wicki was pretty solidly--did all the German, but don't forget that after shooting the casino stuff there, and then my own two landings--the Orne River Bridge and the landings. The landings at La Rochelle, and--that was very interesting, the La Rochelle thing, because Zanuck [Darryl F. Zanuck] managed to get an arrangement with the Americans that they'll bring in some land--they were exercise--doing an exercise with 36 landing craft in La Rochelle, which was in November. And--[INT: What a coincidence, huh?] Yes, and he arranged that we would move down there, and use them for our landing. [INT: Because that--] And of course, he built, I mean, Zanuck built up an amazing thing there. And we lined up all the shots with--so we could use all the landing crafts and bring soldiers in from various times. I remember him saying to me, "Look, Ken, we have over $3 million worth of equipment on this beach, I want to see all of it, all of it." [INT: Every penny.] And he brought in, from the French army, at 11 o’clock, a whole mass of soldiers arrived and were divided into various sections, and were lead into the landings of the scenes. The problem there was--with my landing craft, the guy--I decided that I would come in, we had five cameras working, I would travel on the left-hand-side landing craft, and I rehearsed exactly how long it took for the--when I give the signal to drop the-- [INT: Back of the thing?]--the Lander, and so that there again, Zanuck wanted the French piper... [PA: No, English piper.] The English--[INT: Queen's piper, right?]--who was a Scotsman, actually--to run off the board, but only at waist-level, so we got the full effect of his arms blowing the pipes. And then of course, Peter Lawford playing Lord Lovat leading his men down also. So that they were, we saw them as soldiers--[INT: Waist-deep.] We did this rehearsal of the whole thing there, and suddenly--and I was coming in on the thing, like this--we had Lawford here, the piper, and I give my signal, and it should've taken 15 seconds after that. 15 seconds after that for the thing to go down. It went down immediately, and Lawford and all the soldiers disappeared into the water. Vanished. But they carried on and reappeared, and sailed out, and basically, I decided that I wouldn't come back on that boat for about 20 minutes to give Zanuck time to settle down. But, and when I came back I said, "Well, I mean, that's how it probably was." He says, "Yes, but the trouble is that I want to see that piper come down and I want to see his arms. So, we'll do it again in three days time." [INT: Wow.] So, that landing, British landing really got covered twice, because you see all the background shots, had all been--they were perfectly all right. So, that with four cameras, they already taken good stuff, so we were able to put those four cameras in a different position--[INT: Oh, so you got more coverage. Yeah.]--so, basically that landing was covered by eight--[INT: Eight, yeah.]--10 cameras with the main one. Which gave it a--gave the whole thing a tremendous possibilities for when we edited it to get really the feeling of that landing. [INT: Did you wear costumes yourself, because there was so many cameras around?] No, because I was out of picture. [INT: Yeah, but it's hard to be out of picture when there's five cameras.]

INT: Now, I'm sure you saw Steven Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, which relied a lot on digital effects to create what you did in reality. You had--everything that we saw in your movie was real, correct? [KA: Yes.] And in Spielberg's they had a lot of--[KA: That's right.]--fake stuff. But what was your feelings seeing that movie?
KA: My feeling was that he hadn't been able to do as much as we had with his special effects people. Don't forget, you see, we had 28 special effects people working with us all the time. Germans, French, English, American. And they were--they all had different gifts of what they could do. And I was able to get to know them because I'd done a lot of work--pictures with special effects, and I got to know them, and was able to know which ones to allocate to do this job and which ones to do that job. [INT: Yeah.] [PA: But Spielberg said how much he admired LONGEST DAY, and looked at it a lot before he shot PRIVATE RYAN.] [INT: Okay. Yes.]

INT: Now, one question about your relationship with your wife, Pauline [Pauline Annakin], over these years. She's been there for you, helping you on every picture--[KA: Yes.] How did that all come about?
KA: Well, it's wonderful, because we met on a picture in the Sahara, [PA: In South Africa.] In South Africa. And I had been a little bit involved with various ladies that my crew were aware of, and they--I think they warned her that to be very careful about me. But I got off with her very, very well, and she was working as--from the office that we had in this middle place in South Africa. And she got stung by bees. And I started going and visiting her when we finished shooting, and I tried to be nice, because I liked her, and then the picture went on quite a bit longer than it should've done, and we moved to the far coast of--and even spent Christmas there. And the Producer was a very good friend of mine, John Stafford. He arranged that she should stay in the same hotel as we were, and one way or another, we got to know each other very well there, and from that moment on we've never stopped. Usually, she does some sort of job on the picture. I mean, take the SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, she was the one who came back to, after we'd found the location on Tobago, and she was the one who went around to studios and to various people to find the animals. And then she was the one who when we arrived on Tobago, saw to it all--they all came past a certain point and were moved, "You're gonna be there, you're gonna be there." She's been very useful as physically doing various jobs, but also tremendously useful when we've been finding locations, when we've been looking after younger people. She's done pretty well every job that can be done, apart from being the cameraman. [INT: And I would imagine very helpful with politics.] Very, very helpful with politics. Yes, because she likes politics. And she certainly has spotted certain situations arising and has guided me into taking care of that situation. I mean, there's no doubt about it that, as a Director and certainly on 49 movies, you'll meet some very strange people, and you'll meet some Producers who like what you're doing as a Director, but don't like you and your attitude and the way you observe it, because you don't take them into your confidence so very much. [INT: Right.] I mean, certain Producers, very few Producers turn out to be very creative. They're mostly there to either find jobs for their girlfriends, or to be able to raise money, they can manage to perhaps get shifted into their account. [INT: Right.][PA: Ken, stop that.][INT: Well, I'm sure that's true. Then they also can give you a hard time like when Bob Evans [Robert Evans] changed the title of your picture MONTE CARLO OR BUST to THOSE JAUNTY--] KA: THOSE DARING YOUNG MEN IN THEIR JAUNTY JALOPIES. [INT: Right, right.] Yeah, so I mean, Evans was, he was quite helpful when we were shooting. I mean, I had no complaints about him there, but he wanted to prove himself once we came back, and he certainly did. He interfered quite a bit in the editing, and certainly gave it the title, and arranged for its first showing here that it didn't do as well, anything like as well in America as it did in the whole of Europe.

INT: When you say he interfered with editing, at that time did you know that the Directors Guild [Directors Guild Of America, DGA] would protect you at all from Producers interfering?] [KA: No.] No. Because I think, did they give you your 10 weeks of editing on that before he started to interfere or was he interfering all the time?
KA: I would say, they would've given me the 10 weeks, but usually I managed to get an Editor who was going to, knew exactly what I wanted, and quite often I got--was off preparing another picture and leaving the editing to my Editor and the Producer. And that's what certainly happened on that picture. [INT: So, you were working so much that you didn't have the chance to really…] That's right. On certain pictures, I watched every detail of the editing, on other pictures I left it to the Editor or the Producer. [INT: Okay.] And, you see, I mean, when you're working with Walt [Walt Disney], he was going to take on the--[INT: Post-production?]--the putting on of the music--[INT: Right.]--and the showings, first showings to an audience. And so, if I had something else to do, I probably did it. [INT: Got it.]

INT: Now what about casting? Now, movies like ACROSS THE BRIDGE where--can you talk about how you got Rod Steiger, because he was so wonderful in that movie, and I know it's your favorite film?
KA: Rod Steiger was a very special case actually. The script had been--the story really had been written by Graham Greene. [INT: ACROSS THE BRIDGE?] ACROSS THE BRIDGE. But he had really only dealt with what happened after this fleeing businessman had crossed the bridge and how he coped with all of the various situations that were difficult as it were made for him. We got hold of the script, because they hadn't been able to place it with anybody, and I was backed by Sydney Box who was my English good fairy and my agent. He arranged that I could take on an English Writer friend to write all the part that had happened before they came to the bridge. And it worked out very, very well, and we had a very good story. And we found then that various people could be very interested in the story. When I came to New York, to try and raise half of the money, I think I was trying to get United Artists to come down to it. Somewhere along the line, I got introduced to Rod Steiger, who had been making a picture with Marlon Brando in which--it was the two of them there, but Brando had a much bigger and better part than he had. [INT: ON THE WATERFRONT?] ON THE WATERFRONT. [INT: Yeah.] That's absolutely it. And he came--he at that moment decided, "The next picture I make, I'm going to prove that I am far better than Marlon Brando and that I can get pictures just as well as he can," because he was getting any picture he wanted. So, what happened was that I was back in England, in London, preparing the picture, and Rod came over and spent 10 days--he said, before he would accept that part, which he thought was quite a good part, he wanted to spend 10 days with me, getting to know each other, going through every scene in the--every scene in the picture, making sure that we agreed, we two agreed what was finally going to go into the picture. But he also wanted us, me to get the feeling of how he worked, and how he created, because I hadn't heard of this Actor's necessarily creating. [INT: The Method [Method acting.] It turned out that he had been brought up under the Method, [INT: Right.] I hadn't struck the Method before. But I gradually learned through him that first of all after those 10 days we really did understand each other on many, many things outside the film. And he agreed to do the picture, having felt now that I understood the way he worked or wanted to work, because let's face it, he hadn't had the opportunity.

INT: Now, had you read the Stanislavski's [Constantin Stanislavski] books before or after this?
KA: I read them when, about the same time. [INT: About the same. Did he maybe say you should read these?] No. He [Rod Steiger] might've done. Yes, he might've done. Anyhow, we came over to--I eventually, that picture took a tremendous a lot of my time. First of all, I went down to the borders of America and Mexico, and zigzagged my way across the frontier, until I came to the bridge, which was the bridge that Graham [Graham Greene] had told the story about. And then, I took 600 stills on that trip. And then, we found they couldn't get the money here in America, but we could get the money in Europe. And so I did--we decided that we'd move it to Spain, and that I found a bridge absolutely like the original one. And this was fairly near Seville, about 60 miles from Seville. And Rod and I, we did everything that we agreed to--the character, the--all the stuff that he--I mean, he did some amazing things. If you remember, this business of changing character with this guy he met on the plane--on the train. [INT: Train, yeah] A Canadian Actor, called Bill Nagy, and he decided that, if you remember, that they would change personalities--[INT: Sure.]--and would throw--he threw him out of the window. [INT: Right.] He then found out that he had committed a bigger crime than he was doing. [INT: Right.] And he had to get him back. All these things were, shall we say--Rod did them, each sequence, the way that he felt, the way that it came out of his own body, his own experience, his own feeling about things, knowing that I was knowing how he was creating, and as long as I was--there were times, for example, he went on for--when we were in the small town, on the other side of Mexico, he would perhaps carry on for three or four minutes on a scene that was only--I was only going to use maybe half a minute. But I would see things in his face, and things in the way that he was using his body, that I would decide, "Yes, I want to use them. I want to use that, what can I cut away to?" And of course, in our story, it was the dog.