Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman Page B

aspect of their work does not often come in contact with mine.
    One other reason that there is a lack of understanding about the producer's function is this: They have no effective governing body. (There is a guild, but it is not powerful or cohesive in the sense, say, that the Directors Guild operates.) If there were a strong producers' union, the buy-offs that permeate the trade might be eliminated. You can't suddenly decide, for example, to make someone who is close to the star an "assistant director." Not unless he's already an assistant director: there's a whole program of training that must be successfully completed. Or you can't make someone suddenly the "executive writer"- there's no such thing.
    But as things now stand, anyone can walk around saying, "Yes, I'm a producer, I just bought a book." (Probably not adding that he just bought it at Brentano's.) In any case, the proliferation of terminology is something that drives quality producers up the nearest wall. And there are quality producers.
    If they are very smart, they are flexible enough to realize that their specific duties vary with the particular film. Sometimes they're on the floor constantly; at other times; if a production is
    running smoothly and on schedule, they'll stay away. But if their individual requirements alter more from one job to an- other than, for example, the dnematographer's, there are certain definites-
    -their job is to get the picture made- -and more often than not, they are the first ones on a project, and years later, after the selling has been done, they are the last ones off.
    There is only one producer today to whom no laws apply, and that is George Lucas. Lucas is our Walt Disney: His name indicates a certain kind of subject matter and guarantees success. All the rest have to scuffle and suffer. And wait.
    Waiting is the curse of the producer's profession. To illustrate this, it may be helpful now to zero in on one particular project, and I have chosen the Zanuck-Brown pro- duction of The Verdict, which is shooting today in New York City.
    There is no one best producer. But it would be very hard to make a fist: of the top half dozen and not include the team of Richard Zanuck and David Brown. They make an interesting and unusual team. Longevity, for example: As both studio executives and producers, they have been together for going on a quarter century.
    And they can scarcely be more different (except for the fact that they both are Stanford graduates). Brown, a native New Yorker, is sixty-five, gray-haired, and courtly. He comes to movies from the literary end. After receiving a Master's in journalism from Columbia, he began an editorial career. He was editor in chief of Liberty, managing editor of Cosmopolitan-the same magazine where his wife, Helen, has been so successful for the last decade. He was brought into the picture business by Darryl F. Zanuck, eventually rising to the post of executive vice president/creative affairs at 20th Century-Fox.
    Richard Zanuck grew up at the studio. His father, the legendary Darryl F., was king there for close to thirty years. He produced his first success. Compulsion, when he was but twenty-four. At thirty-four, he became president of Fox, the youngest corporate head maybe ever. During his eight-year reign, three
    Fox films won Best Picture awards-The Sound of Music, Patton, and The French Connection.
    But we already know what happens to all studio executives, and in the early seventies, Zanuck-Brown became independent producers: They "went indie-prod"-Hollywoodese for being canned.
    In the last decade, they have had their share of misses, but three of the hits, The Sting, Jaws, and Jaws II, are among the few movies in history to have taken in more than a hundred million dollars. Between them, there is precious little they don't know about the picture-making process.
    The Verdict was a novel-not a well-known one-by Barry Reed. From the moment they acquired it, they were surprised to find a