The “bullshit” scene Clint Eastwood refused to shoot: “I hated the idea”
It’s been a long time since Clint Eastwood has taken orders from above his pay grade, and he earned that right by becoming Warner Bros’ golden goose for the better part of 50 years.
Whether he was acting in the studio’s movies, starring in them, or pulling double duty, Eastwood was the gift that kept on giving after remaining loyal to the company that gave his Malpaso Productions an office on the lot, and he’s remained true since 1975, when he inked his first production deal with WB.
It’s been a two-way street, though, with Warner Bros knowing that the actor-turned-filmmaker will deliver his pictures on schedule and on budget, while he benefitted from not having to deal with interference or executives peering over his shoulders to make sure he’s doing everything to their satisfaction.
Of course, billions of dollars at the box office and multiple Academy Award wins, including two ‘Best Picture’ gongs for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, have also sweetened the deal. What Eastwood wants, Eastwood gets, and even when he was first dipping his toes into directorial waters, he refused to be pushed around.
His first feature from behind the camera, 1971’s Play Misty for Me, was a Universal film. He’d always fancied directing, but his paymasters were reluctant to fund a low-key psychological drama where the biggest action star in the business played a small-town radio DJ, and the female lead had the meatier part.
Eastwood was willing to bet his career on it, though, and that included how the story was formed. At the suggestion of the studio brass, the first-timer was asked to add a dialogue-heavy scene between his character, Dave Garver, and Donna Mills’ Tobie Williams to inform the audience that the pair were falling for each other and indicate a passage of time during the incarceration of Walter’s Evelyn Draper.
“The real motive was temporarily to take us away from Evelyn,” he explained. “People were also suggesting that the part of the other girl, Tobie, needed strengthening, and there should be some sort of love scene. Well, I hated the idea of a dialogue sort of love scene, bullshit dialogue, and I was trying to look for a visual way to show life was really falling into place for these two people.”
Instead of spelling it out, like the folks at Universal wanted, Eastwood stuck to his guns and let the dynamic unfold visually and musically to the strains of Roberta Flack’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, a song he heard on the radio that “tells the whole story.” He purchased the rights, edited the scene around it, and proved himself right.
Would it have dramatically altered Play Misty for Me had Eastwood acquiesced to the studio’s demands and added a verbal exchange between the characters? Not really, but even as a directorial debutant, he wouldn’t compromise his vision just because he was told to.
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