Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God by Nat Segaloff Page A

which the film ultimately descended.
    “My vehemence and distaste for Stallone is not personal, strangely enough. In person he can be, I understand, a warm and delightful friend. I believe my abhorrence is based rather on the fact that he has let himself become the ultimate example of Hollywood excess. It’s the stretched limo, the need for the number one table at the trendiest restaurant in Venice, the private jet, the expectation that this is the best suite in the hotel — all the trappings which have nothing to do with the World. Only with the business and all the thousands of remora who swarm around the sharks they create.”
    When informed that the film credits bear Stallone’s name following his, Silliphant responded, “The only explanation for my obviously having got the facts wrong here is that in winning the Guild reversal of Stallone’s attempt to grab credit, I was so pleased that I must have ‘rewritten’ the actual events. I doubt that I would have become quite so determined to seek a reversal of the producer’s credit claim if the submitted credit had read ‘Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone and Stirling Silliphant.’ What difference really does it make if the other guy puts his name ahead of yours when he’s the bloody star of the movie? Could it have been (I frankly don’t remember) that the submitted credit only listed one name as the screenwriter: his name? That would have launched me on Jupiter orbit. Then, if the Guild not only restored my name, but put me in first position, that would have signified the triumph. At least, now that we both know Stallone has his name on this garbage, I am no longer quite mystified about that happened to my script as I was when I was going around under the illusion I was solely responsible for it. So your news, dear friend, is good news.”
    One other train wreck presented itself on Silliphant’s track: Sam Peckinpah and The Killer Elite (1975), a spy thriller written by Marc Norman in which an Asian politician is spirited out of America for counter-revolutionary purposes in his homeland. James Caan played a CIA agent whose best friend turns on him in the course of the mission and he has to go after him. The picture also starred Robert Duvall, Arthur Hill, and Bo Hopkins, and was shot throughout Northern California during 1974, under conditions that were as dramatic as the story itself. Peckinpah had hit worse skids than usual following the failure of 1974’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and figured that an action picture would restore his clout. But he was incapable of hiding his disgust, and he took it out on everyone, starting with himself.
    “Yeh, Sam was into the Scotch malts at the time,” Silliphant confirmed. “His heart wasn’t in The Killer Elite because he had a script of his own he wanted to shoot instead, but he was alone in this desire, and so was forced to do The Killer Elite. He had little input on my rewrite because I didn’t accept any and, since we had reached the point where I refused to come on the set, there was no need for either of us to be too polite to each other, nor for me — since I was working for the producer Marty Baum and fuck the director — to be even courteous. My changes in Marc Norman’s draft were to change London to San Francisco and an African political figure into an Asian political figure. It was basically a location rewrite. I added the martial arts stuff. I was able to obtain employment for most of my karate buddies by bringing ninja into play.”
    He also masterminded the casting of Tiana in the key role of Tommie, the politician’s daughter, but he kept his machinations to himself and let the System run its course. “I’m happy to report,” he told writer John Corcoran, “that Sam and Marty tested Tiana for the lead opposite James Caan and hired her for the part before either knew she was married to me. With Tiana in the film and Sam directing, I saw a chance to write the definitive martial