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20 CINEMONTAGE / Q1 2018 first name be changed to Jerry. Invoking method acting, DeNiro called Lewis to tell him that they had to maintain the same personal distance as their movie characters and they must have no social contact until the shoot was over. Pupkin's apparel might also be attributed to the method. Window shopping on Broadway with costume designer Richard Bruno, DeNiro espied what became the wannabe comic's red suit and red bowtie adorning a mannequin. The mannequin even sported the pencil- thin mustache the actor adopted for the role. As the talk show host, Lewis simply wore clothes from his own personal wardrobe, and his own dog was Langford's dog. Seeking authenticity for "The Jerry Langford Show" itself, set decorators George DeTitta, Sr. and Daniel Roberts based their sets on floor plans and photographs of the offices and staging areas of both The Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show. Familiar talk show figures were featured in talk show scenes, including Victor Borge, Dr. Joyce Brothers, announcer Ed Herlihy and bandleader Lou Brown. Even Tonight Show producer Fred De Cordova agreed to portray the fictional show's producer; Scorsese played the show's director. Typecasting was central in a scene prior to Pupkin's spot on the missing Langford's show, now guest hosted by Tony Randall. The scene was played entirely with non- actors doing their real-life jobs — producer De Cordova, an FBI agent, and the filmmaker's own lawyer and agent. "They really fought," Scorsese told The Village Voice in a 1983 interview. "When I yelled 'Cut,' they kept on going." Still recovering from pneumonia caused by the stress of making Raging Bull, the director planned an easy shoot in his native New York City with a simpler visual style — "more like Edwin S. Porter's The Life of an American Fireman [1903], with no close-ups," he told film critic David Thompson for the book Scorsese on Scorsese (1989). The start date was set for July 1 with cinematographer Fred Schuler, ASC, who had been camera operator for DP Michael Chapman, ASC on Raging Bull and Scorsese's concert film with the Band, The Last Waltz (1978). A possible work stoppage due to a threatened directors strike forced producer Milchan to move the shoot up a full month to June 1, with intense summer heat already setting in. In a Film Comment interview, Scorsese said, "I wasn't in very good physical shape at the time and I had very great difficulty shooting every day." Sometimes he would only shoot from about four in the afternoon and quit by eight that night, only managing to do four or five setups. Major scenes requiring improvisation also slowed things down. "We got into a rhythm where we'd go through maybe 22 takes, sometimes more," Scorsese noted in Martin Scorsese: A Journey. "I recall doing 40 takes on some scenes." One totally ad-libbed scene provoked real anger in Lewis' performance as Langford was being confronted by Pupkin at the star's Long Island estate, when DeNiro launched into blistering anti- Semitic taunts (not heard in the finished film). Similarly effective was Scorsese directing the quirky, in-your-face Bernhard to make Masha a "sexual terrorist" when she holds Langford hostage in her townhouse. Recognizing how he had tried the veteran comedian's patience during production, DeNiro praised Lewis for stepping in to correct speech rhythms during the filming of the TV show scenes. Scorsese offered, "He helped with intangibles, like body moves. I purposely did long takes on him so I could study him," according to a New York Times article published in 1981. After a 19-week shoot, production wrapped on October 21, 1981. Over the following 11 months, Scorsese cut the picture in his Manhattan triplex with editor Thelma Schoonmaker, ACE, who was also the picture's production THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18 The King of Comedy. 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation/ Photofest