I did manage to make it up to Santa Monica for the Hickey and Boggs showing at the Aero Theater, with special guest Robert Culp. As mentioned previously, I took Shelby Clavell along with me for company. (Note to P. Reichhardt: my etchings remained safely at home.) The traffic was pretty good on the 405 and we got there with a couple of hours to kill.
We knew we were in the right place when this marquee loomed above us:
We had dinner and got to the theater a little before 7:00, a bit early, but we had no idea how many people were going to show up and decided to just go sit in the theater if necessary to get a good seat.
We paused to check out the one-sheet movie poster on display:
There were also these ominous words:
Left to right: Ms. Clavell, Mr. Hickey, Mr. Boggs, and Mr. Mitchell (tragically, his jacket didn’t come back from the cleaners in time):
Jimmy seems unconcerned (or simply unaware) that Frank Boggs has a Smith & Wesson model 27 .357 magnum trained on his bean:
We gave the usher our tickets and walked into the theater. And there standing at the top of the aisle which led down to all the seats was Mr. Culp himself. He was talking to someone, with a couple of other folks standing nearby, creating a menace to navigation. There were very few people in the theater as of yet. We were going to have to squeeze by and I figured I would nod at him and say hi and move on to our seats. Ms. Clavell however couldn’t pass without saying hello (he’s always had a thing for Ms. Clavell and always grudgingly admired her insistence on accuracy in expense reporting). Mr. Culp graciously consented to sign my copy of the I Spy book by Cushman and LaRosa, and pose for a photo. He did seem a little surprised to see the book. I took the opportunity to tell him how wonderful it was. I was about two-thirds of the way through the book at that moment.
Jimmy and Kelly reunited for the first time since Athens:
When it came time for the movie to start, the theater darkened, a guy went up on stage to introduce it and Robert Culp walked by us down the aisle (we were in seats right next to the aisle). I thought he was going to sit in a seat just a few rows in front of us to watch the movie, but he just paused there, sitting on the arm rest, waiting for his introduction. He spoke briefly before the movie, basically saying that the other movie on the bill, 48 Hrs., exists because of Hickey and Boggs. After he and Bill Cosby bought Walter Hill’s script, they wanted to cut the comedy way back because “we had already done that for three years”. He asked Walter Hill to do the rewrite, but he couldn’t because he was busy working with Sam Peckinpah. So Robert Culp went off into the mountains and did the rewrite himself. He said the finished screenplay is about 50-50 between himself and Hill. He also said that when Walter Hill saw the film he went catatonic and that they have never spoken since. 48 Hrs. is the movie Walter Hill envisioned Hickey and Boggs to be.
And, if all this wasn’t enough, they actually showed the movie. I haven’t seen it in over thirty years, not since I saw it on late night commercial TV. I’m a little embarrassed to admit now that I found it disappointing then, because I wanted Hickey and Boggs to be Scotty and Kelly. I don’t think I was alone in this. It struck me as overly grim and depressing, and in all the years since I’ve never had a serious urge to watch it again. Even after recording it off of TCM fairly recently, and thinking I would like it more now in my mature years, I kept putting off watching it. I think I was afraid of being disappointed again. I’m glad I waited to see it in a theater (and with Robert Culp in the audience). It is a terrific and singular movie. I love all the self-possessed characters who rarely speak and the elliptical narrative style. An awful lot is shown without being explained and I think it’s just brilliant. I know when a movie gets to me because it gets into my head and I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t like over the top violence and gore in films and I’m so grateful that his idea was to show violence to machines and not people. The living you-know-what gets kicked out of several cars (which Mr. Culp said they got for a total of $6000, including the Rolls Royce). When I first saw it long ago I thought that the camaraderie between Culp and Cosby that I loved so much in I Spy was sadly missing. But it isn’t, it’s just different, and I was too boneheaded in my late teens/early twenties to recognize it. And there are plenty of laughs in the movie too. It helps to see it with an appreciative audience, and this audience was appreciative. It broke into spontaneous applause when Robert Culp’s name came up as the director in the beginning of the movie, and again, even more so when the movie ended.
That scene in the bar when Boggs tries to rouse Hickey to action after his girlfriend has been killed. What a great scene! Culp and Cosby are terrific, but all the acting seems on the mark. There was an audible audience response when the very young James Woods and Michael Moriarty show up. I don’t think Bill Cosby has ever been better. Hasn’t he said as much? I think I’ve read somewhere that he considers this his finest performance. If he said it, I don’t disagree.
I’m going to rewatch it on my TCM tape soon. There’s a lot in there I want to see again. There’s just too much “information” (as Robert Culp likes to call it) in the film to absorb in one viewing. The guy who introduced the film said they hope to show it at the Aero once a year.
After the movie there was about a half hour interview with Robert Culp, concluding with questions from the audience. Mostly it reiterated stuff that’s in the interviews Tatia provided links for on the Forum.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/172251/message/1171434792/A+Comprehensive+%26quot%3BHICKEY+%26amp%3B+BOGGS%26quot%3B+Round-Up+....
I did learn a couple of things. I wondered why Robert Culp as Frank Boggs had a limp throughout the movie. I thought maybe he got hurt early on in the story when they were outside the building on a fire escape. No. Robert Culp had an operation for a double hernia just before they began shooting and he hadn’t healed yet. He said shooting began on his birthday. According to my calculations that would make it 16 August 1971. He said that Bill Cosby couldn’t believe the wardrobe he would have to wear for the movie (i.e. he wasn’t pleased about it). Culp said, “trust me, it will be terrific.” And then there was the scene in the L.A. Coliseum when Bill Cosby is chasing the “bagman”. I noticed that while Bill was running very fast, he didn’t seem to be gaining on the “bagman”. Culp said that he got an old friend of his from his western days to play the bagman, a stuntman who was a hell of a sprinter. I looked the guy up on IMDB. His name is Dean Smith and he finished fourth in the 100 meter dash and won a gold medal in the 4x100 meter relay at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. He didn’t tell Cosby who this guy was and got a kick watching Cosby try and chase him down. “That’s one I got on him,” he said. “That and the wardrobe.” Robert Culp was very charming and energetic during the interview. He seemed to be enjoying himself. There were a few questions from the audience at the end which strayed into I Spy territory and elsewhere.
The movie is so good, and Robert Culp’s vision so unique, that one can’t help but meditate on what a great loss it is that he hasn’t made any more. I would never dream of asking him why but, of course, someone in the audience did. The blunt question came from the audience, “why haven’t you directed any more movies?” I cringed inwardly, but Mr. Culp took it well. Basically he said his mistake was to insist on only directing his own scripts. And his advice to anyone would be to be willing to take on other people’s scripts. And the other reason was that Hickey and Boggs was a dismal failure at the box office. “It was twenty years ahead of its time,” he said.
Robert Culp did mention that he is still trying to get a proper DVD of Hickey and Boggs issued. He warned people to avoid the one that’s out there now and has been discussed here on the Forum. He confessed to being confused as to the present state of ownership of the movie. As he was leaving the theater and walking up the aisle by Ms. Clavell and me, a guy wearing a jacket that said “United Artists” on the back seemed to be explaining the movie’s current status to him. Maybe something good will come of that.
There were a lot of people around him as he walked out. He stayed in the lobby for a while and signed some autographs. He paused again outside the theater for more conversation with people. I hope he enjoyed himself and got some satisfaction from the evening. It was a polite and appreciative audience.
Mr. Culp has left the building:
Jimmy
