Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/859699
P E R S P E C T I V E | S E P T E M B E R / O C TO B E R 2 0 1 7 39 disappeared. The search for a print could find nothing screenable in any archive in the US, Canada, Europe or elsewhere. I finally thought of going to the Trumbo family. A friend at the Academy gave me the number of Chris Trumbo, Dalton's son, a writer and dramatist in his own right. I got Chris on the phone, explained our problem and asked him if he had any idea where we might find a print of Johnny Got His Gun. Chris took a beat, and said, "I know where all the prints are. They're in a garage in Reseda." I called Rick Mitchell and the three of us drove out to Reseda. Sure enough, the garage held (among other things) maybe a dozen prints of the film, and even the negative. Without going into detail, there had been some differences within the family and, since the world was not interested in the film, it had lain there for many years, waiting for someone like us to come along. Eventually, all the reels and the negative went to the Academy. It might have been our finest hour. For an evening with Dick Sylbert, who'd been dining out on Chinatown (1974) for years, I wanted to run Catch-22, another anti-war film that had bombed spectacularly in 1970. I ran the idea by Dick. He was aghast. "It'll be you and me alone in the theater," he predicted. For those who knew Dick, the concept of twisting his arm to get him to do anything seems out of the question, but somehow he eventually agreed. The film played like a masterpiece. We had a great screening and a good crowd showed, including Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss. Top: DAS BOOT (1981) was screened by the Society in August of 2011. German designer Rolf Zehetbauer was not able to come to Los Angeles so Mr. Muto's guests included Dan Webster, who was the Art Director on DOWN PERISCOPE (1996) and retired submarine chief, T. Michael Bircumshaw, USN, who called the film the best and most accurate submarine movie ever made. Above: Gene Allen, one of the newest additions to the Guild's Hall of Fame, screened his inventive George Cukor collaboration HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS (1960) in August of 2008.