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Sunday, March 27, 2005
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UD’s EASTER SUNDAY POST From Ways of Escape, by Graham Greene I look back on David Selznick now with affection. …When I was in New York he invited me to lunch to discuss a project. He said, ‘Graham, I’ve got a great idea for a film. It’s just made for you.’ I had been careful on this occasion not to take a third martini. ‘The life of St Mary Magdalene.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘no. It’s not really in my line.’ He didn’t try to argue. ‘I have another idea,’ he said. ‘It will appeal to you as a Catholic. You know how next year they have what’s called the Holy Year in Rome. Well, I want to make a picture called The Unholy Year. It will show all the commercial rackets that go on, the crooks…’ ‘An interesting notion,’ I said. ‘We’ll shoot it in the Vatican.’ ‘I doubt if they will give you permission for that.’ ‘Oh sure they will,’ he said. ‘You see, we’ll write in one Good Character.’ (I am reminded by this story of another memorable lunch in a suite at the Dorchester when Sam Zimbalist asked me if I would revise the last part of a script which had been prepared for a remake of Ben Hur. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘we find a kind of anti-climax after the Crucifixion.’) |