Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500026
50 C I N E M O N T A G E B O O K R E V I E W ceding creative control to collaborators, or at least sharing it. Although Laurents was steadfast in his belief that the story ought to be anchored by an examination of the politics of the time — namely, the blacklist — director Pollack fought for a film that concerned itself less with social commen- tary and focused more on the Katie-Hubbell relationship. "There was resistance from the studio, resistance from everybody to making a real commitment to deal head-on with this McCarthy issue," Pollack said. Then there was the matter of who would play Hubbell. Pollack relentlessly pursued Redford for the part, contending that Strei- sand "has a tendency to take over a picture, just by the size of her talent and larger- than-life presence." She needed a mega-star opposite her, but Redford seems to have been largely unmoved by Laurents' script: He judged the romantic elements "overly sentimental and drippy" and the blacklist scenes "bullshit knee-jerk liberalism — very arch." For his part, Laurents, seeing the film as belonging to Katie, would have been con- tent with B-lister Ken Howard, best-known for the Revolutionary War-era musical "1776," playing Hubbell. Redford, owing to his loyalty to Pollack based on past films together, at last agreed to sign up. "My decision was based on our relationship and my trust in him," Redford said. Meanwhile, Streisand — who received word on the casting coup in a telegram by her agent Sue Mengers that read as follows: "Barbra Redford?" — was over the moon. "I couldn't imagine anyone else in the role, be- cause I knew instinctively that the dynamic between us would make the picture work," Streisand said. "I wanted the writers to do anything they could to make him happy — strengthen the character of Hubbell and give him more scenes." (Hofler's account of the protracted filming of Katie and Hub- bell's bedroom scene is one of the book's most amusing: Hofler writes that Pollack, in talking with Stark about going oversched- ule on the picture, "diplomatically left out any mention of Streisand's requests for take after take of Redford spread out on top of her as she whispered, 'Hubbell. It's Katie,' over and over and over again.") Streisand's casual use of the plural "the writers" — "I wanted the writers to do anything they could to make him happy" — is revealing: In time, Pollack recruited the services of additional screenwriters, including David Rayfiel and Alvin Sargent, to bring out this or that quality in the script. To Laurents' chagrin, the changes were always in one direction. "I thought that it wasn't the romance it could be," said Judith Rascoe, a script consultant for Stark. "Lau- rents was more concerned with the political story." Pollack said: "We were rewriting all the time. While we were shooting, we were rewriting." These alterations, however, pleased the male lead. "What emerged out of the rewrites were glimpses of the dark side of this golden boy character — what his fears were about himself," Redford said. Not that authenticity was the top pri- ority once filming began. "Despite playing a communist waitress, Streisand refused to cut her long nails, and Redford, despite playing a navy officer, refused to get a butch haircut," writes Hofler, who makes note of other quirks of its stars, including Strei- sand's propensity for late-night confabs with her director. One scene slated to shoot during an evening had "one big benefit" for Pollack: "It meant that Streisand would not be phoning him at eleven o'clock to discuss everything that had happened that day and what would be taking place tomorrow." We are told that Streisand and Redford were each thought to prefer to be photographed from their left sides. "Always automatically, even when they start to rehearse a scene, when the director's looking, she'll get her- self into a position where only the left side of her face is showing," cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr. said. Hofler writes of a rather tumultuous s h o o t — o f p re ss u re c o m i n g f ro m t h e then-flailing Columbia Pictures that led to a reduction of shooting days and of expensive scenes shot and then scrapped, including a musical number meant to be from a movie version of one of Hubbell's novels. ("It was amazing to spend all that money and then toss it out," Rascoe said. "You would have to be Ray Stark to do that.") Two picture editors — the regular Stark collaborator John F. Burnett, ACE, and the legendary Producer Ray Stark (left) and director Sydney Pollack. P H O T O : P H O T O F E S T