Hollywood's Great Directors Talking Pictures

The great directors are those whose names on the credits excite

you just as much as the presence of an Oscar-laden star.

They were the pioneers of cinema.

Makers of movie history. Here we open a treasure chest

of interviews with some of the titans of Hollywood's golden age.

Joining them as they discuss their

careers, the people they worked with and how they got started

as directors in the first place.

Kicking off our illustrious list,

the man behind Ben Hur, a director

renowned for his perfectionism and versatility,

William Wyler.

How did you begin? Did you begin as a...

-Begin directing, you mean??

-Did you begin as a director?

-Oh, Lord, no.

-I was going to say.

-I sort of went

through the mill.

It was... In those days...

You know, you sort of learned an apprenticeship.

And the Universal studio

was sort of a school for directors,

actors, writers.

And I just went through everything. I started

sweeping floors and washing dishes and sort of everything. I went

through every department, cutting room, sort of learning the business.

And...

Finally, I was given an opportunity. It was easier

in those days than today, because the company was making a great many,

very cheap films.

Little Westerns, two-reel Westerns, they were called.

And...any young man of ambition at that time

would sooner or later get an opportunity to do one.

The risk for the company was very small.

Sidney Lumet, master of the gritty movie drama,

got his break in television, thanks to a very familiar face.

'A friend of mine, Yul Brynner,

'was directing at CBS. This was in the early days of television.

'And he called me one day because I

'had no dough.'

And this was before King And I. We had literally

been sharing spaghetti plates. Canned spaghetti together.

And he called, he said, "Come on in. Nobody knows

"what they're doing here, this is great, you can get away with murder."

And I came into TV as his assistant.

As his AD.

And then when Yul left to do King And I, I took over the show.

I was doing two live shows a week.

A melodrama called Danger.

And a wonderful show called You Are There, which was...

I know it sounds ridiculous, but really worked, it was covering any kind of

historical, all sorts of historical events with modern news techniques.

So we would be there at Caesar's assassination and

a correspondent would break in and say, "Brutus, just a few words, please."

The director Frank Capra famously went through a rags to riches story

worthy of one of his films.

With no job or money, he just bluffed his way into the business.

I was in San Francisco one time

and I saw an ad in the paper, or a write-up in the paper, that somebody

was starting a new motion picture company at Golden Gate Park,

to make some kind of films, I didn't know what they were talking about,

really. But something new was starting.

And... I... I was locked outside of my hotel room and I couldn't get into

-my clothes. I had to do something.

-You mean because you couldn't pay?

I couldn't pay, that's right. So I was pretty desperate, so I

walked to... And I was kind of a cocky kid, I thought I could

make my way around. So I went out to see this man and I find an

old Shakespearean actor there.

Who was going to do these things.

And I introduced myself as Frank Capra from Hollywood, which

was true. My home was Los Angeles, I had never been into a studio.

Well, he nearly fell over. I mean, when I mentioned

Hollywood. And he opened the doors and he brought me in, and I didn't

disabuse his mind.

So I started helping him make this first picture of his,

and gradually I took over from him because...

it was the blind leading the blind, but I was younger. You see, so the

younger blind man... So, I took over and made this first picture for him.

I'm a disappointed musician, you see. I wanted to be a conductor.

And too late I discovered I had a tin ear,

I couldn't hear music very well.

And at that point I didn't know what to do, and I started

to study law.

Which bored me very much. And instead of going to lectures,

I used to go to movies.

And I saw a few films, such as

Potemkin and a few others, which I thought were extraordinary.

And from that I developed a great unlikely idea of wanting to

become a movie director. And sitting in Vienna in those days,

wanting to be a movie director, was totally outlandish.

But somehow it worked out.

I knew right away the first time I peeked through the eye piece

of that camera...and saw these actors and bums

that I had rounded up from the waterfront.

I got such a thrill that...

I still get the same thrill every time I look through the eyepiece

of a camera. And that's my start. I knew I had found something.

-The bug had really bit you, in other words?

-It bit me all over,

I was just all sores.

But it wasn't a labour of love for all.

Witness legendary Western director John Ford.

-When did you come to America?

-I was born here.

What sort of a childhood did you have? Were you interested in

movies way back?

Not really, not interested in them now, actually.

But it's a way of making a living.

All our master directors needed special skills

to reach the top of their careers. Amongst them an ability to

think fast and not get fazed by unexpected challenges.

Expanding on that theme first is Howard Hawks,

here talking about the Cary Grant comedy

I Was A Male War Bride.

We made a scene one day with Cary.

He had to take an examination, he was marrying...

He was a French officer marrying Ann Sheridan, who was in

the American army, and he had to answer the questions that were

designed for the little French girl

who was going to marry a GI, so

they had to ask him how many times he'd been pregnant and did

he have a lot of women troubles and things like that, and a

scene we thought that was going to be very funny

was not amusing

until we found out that...

..the man who was going to be

embarrassed about the questions was the American sergeant asking it,

and that Cary was having fun about it. And the moment we did that,

it became a really funny scene.

I tell you, there isn't another

-form.

-I told you first.

-This form isn't for a man, it's for a woman!

Uh-huh.

However, if don't get this form filled and approved, you can't go.

-That's right.

-You mean, I've got to

-use this form?

-Sergeant, I felt the same way you do, but if that's

the only form, come on, let's fill it out.

Well, let's see.

Age and birthplace, we've got all that.

Here's the first one. Are you an expectant mother?

Uh-huh.

Yes.

How many months?

20.

20. 20 months.

Any...

Any female trouble?

Nothing but, Sergeant. Hmm!

And...

..have you ever had any children before?

Oh, my aching back. You know that awful feeling before

-breakfast?

-No, Captain, I don't.

-Oh, Sergeant, you're lucky.

-Captain,

-this doesn't make any sense!

-I know, I know, but come on, we've

got to fill it out. Ask me another, there's some good ones coming up.

On the 1931 film Dirigible,

Frank Capra needed an inspired idea

to make it look as though the cast were at the South Pole.

-How did you achieve the dry ice, the breathing effect?

-Well, I

always had a feeling about believability. We were... We had

some scenes on the South Pole with Dirigible.

We had this thing in San Diego, with the valley, very warm, about 90, we were in August.

And we had this grand

three acres of expansive salt, snow

and some rocks and backing, painted backing.

It didn't look like the South Pole to me,

and I kept on wondering, "What was wrong here?"

And it suddenly hit me, the breath wasn't showing on everybody.

Well, how can I get the breath to show? I went back to Caltech,

to some of my professionals, and said, "How can I get the breath to show on people?"

One of them said, "Dry ice, dry ice in the mouth."

So I went to a dentist, I had some little cages built. And I put a little...

peel of dry ice in the cage, and the cage stuck to the palate of the...

the roof of actor's mouth. Then they'd talked like this.

If Demosthenes could talk with rocks, my actors would have to talk with cages in them.

With 12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet had a film that was mostly set

in a single room. But he decided

not to look on this as a problem.

It never occurred to me that was difficult to do, to do all the movie in one room.

You know, you come in with a certain arrogance

when you're young.

I had worked out a real camera attack, I knew that the...

..the way to do it was to turn what was seemingly a disadvantage into an

advantage, so as a matter of fact, as the movie went on over the body

of the movie, I made the room smaller. The lenses got

longer and longer so the walls kept pulling in closer and closer.

The camera kept dropping, dropping, dropping, so finally the ceiling was right over their heads.

So that actually the whole piece kept contracting.

And dramatically that's what the movie was about.

And it was a movie.

Well?

Say something!

You lousy bunch of bleeding hearts.

You're not going to intimidate me, I'm entitled to my opinion.

Rotten kids, you work your life out!

No.

Not guilty.

HE SOBS

Not guilty.

HE SOBS

It's been said that great directors always have a distinctive style

that they stamp on any film, be it drama, musical or comedy.

Our line-up of interviewees don't always back that theory.

Starting with the man behind Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder.

Here are three of the finest giving their take on their own style.

But there is no...

..uh...

..cohesive Wilder style because I make

-all kinds of different pictures.

-Except, I think you did once

-say you like to mix a little vinegar in the cocktail.

-Whatever I do,

of course, it is never going to be wildly sentimental,

and whatever little thing I would like to say

which makes them talk about it, 15 minutes after the picture is over...

..nothing bombastic,

nothing earthshaking. But still if they talk about it, and if I

can sell a kind of...

..a thing that makes them...

..stay with it and discuss.

No solution, mind you, but an interesting question that

is said of the picture. That is highly rewarding.

If I'm conscious of style, I am going to be tied up in a knot.

You know, like a pretzel.

So I decided...

..to do it the way I felt it without

really understanding why I was doing it, and to please no-one but myself.

In other words, I don't make pictures for children,

I don't make pictures for Jews,

I certainly don't make them for producers.

I make them for myself. And when the day dawns that...

..people don't go to see my movies, then I'm through.

But I can't work under restrictions, so that the result is...

..having spent so many years in montage...

..my style became taut. And having

done hundreds and hundreds of second units...

And second units, basically, means that you're

doing the action sequences.

Action sequences presented no problems for me,

no fear, we'll say, because I had done so many of them.

And so my action became, perhaps,

horrific, but very quick.

I didn't linger on it, like Sam Peckinpah had done.

Do you plan your films very carefully in advance,

or are you one of those directors who likes to

improvise on the set, wait until you have the

materials in your hand before you decide on what you want to do?

No, I like to know pretty clearly what the thing's about.

I like to have a skeleton that's functioning, but I do like

to keep it open beyond that, so I can improvise to the maximum extent.

I don't want to plan it to the point where everything is crystallised.

If you see what I mean.

Yes, you wouldn't favour the sort of Hitchcock approach, which is

to make an almost total blueprint of the film, going on the studio

is simply the working out of an exactly conceived plan?

I admire the approach, but I couldn't do it.

I think everybody has his own way of doing...

I admire the people who can do total improvisations.

I couldn't do that either.

Directors run the show,

but actors are of course the ones up on the big screen.

And an ability to spot the stars was vital to all the greats.

Discussing this first, the legendary Cecil B DeMille.

I believe Gary Cooper described you as the man who puts

stardust on stars.

Now, where did you find the stars, in those early days?

Well, you found them about the same way you do now.

You find stars wherever they grow. You see little things...

I saw Gloria Swanson in a Mack Sennett comedy.

I spotted Bebe Daniels in...some place or other. I've forgotten.

When it came to Westerns, the discovery of the genre's

biggest star was down to the genre's greatest director, John Ford.

How did you first strike up your lifelong association with

John Wayne?

He was my third assistant prop man.

Then he became a second prop man.

He finally worked himself up to prop man.

And we started to do Stagecoach and everybody turned it down.

I had to peddle it around.

And finally, Walter Wanger, he says, "Well, you got to pick... A Western?

"Go ahead and do it," he said.

He said, "Who do you want to use for a lead?" I says,

"I've got a kid here. He's just out of college.

"I've used him in several bits and he's very good.

"Big, tall, handsome guy.

"And I'd like to make a test of him to show it to you."

He said, "Well, if you say he's OK, go ahead.

"I'd make the test." So, I'll make the test and he said,

"Yeah, go ahead, great."

So, Walter went off to Europe and we made the picture,

with Duke, and that sort of started him off.

I asked me to marry me, didn't I?

I'll never forget you asked me, Kid.

That's somethin'.

Wait here.

Like John Wayne, Lauren Bacall

was one of cinema's most inspired discoveries.

Here's Howard Hawks explaining how she was cast in his classic

To Have And Have Not.

How did you discover Bacall?

Oh, my secretary made a mistake

and brought her out from New York, rather than...

I asked her to find out about her.

Her schooling, background, what experience she had.

She brought her out.

Sent her a ticket. And um...

The girl just seemed to have the faculty of doing everything right.

She worked very, very hard and so we put her in the picture.

'The Bacall character developed because of an idea that we

'had of making a girl as insolent on the screen as Bogart was.'

He was probably the most insolent man on the screen.

And we thought it would be fun to make a girl insolent

and Bacall was...a very...good choice for such a thing.

She could insult somebody without making them angry.

Won't Frenchie help you out, without you having to do that?

I don't want his help.

Don't do it, will you, Steve?

-Didn't you ask me...?

-Don't do it.

Why don't you take this bottle and go to bed?

Here, can you use this?

I thought you said you were broke.

You're good.

You're awful good.

I'd walk home, if it wasn't for all that water.

Who was the girl, Steve?

Who was what girl?

The one who left you with such a high opinion of women.

She must have been quite a gal.

You think I lied to you about this, don't you?

Well, it just happens there's 30-odd dollars here.

Not enough for boat fare or any other kind of fare.

Just enough to be able to say no if I feel like it.

And you can have it if you want it.

I'm sorry, Slim.

-But I still say you're awful good and I wouldn't...

-Oh, I forgot.

-You wouldn't take anything from anybody, would you?

-That's right.

You know, Steve?

You're not very hard to figure.

Only at times.

Sometimes, I know exactly what you're going to say.

Most of the time.

The other times...

The other times, you're just a stinker.

What did you do that for?

Been wondering whether I'd like it.

What's the decision?

I don't know yet.

It's even better when you help.

Sure you won't change your mind about this?

-Uh-huh.

-This belongs to me and so do my lips. I don't see any difference.

I do.

OK.

You know you don't have to act with me, Steve.

You don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything.

Not a thing.

Oh, maybe just whistle.

You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?

You just put your lips together and...blow.

HE WOLF WHISTLES SLOWLY

Once they'd found the stars, our great directors had to know

how to get the best out of them, the best performances.

It was all about how they handled the actors.

First up on the subject, George Cukor, telling Barry Norman about

directing two Hollywood legends, Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe.

You make a climate in which they feel sure of themselves

and they trust your judgment,

you have the enormous advantage of seeing things,

and you're not always right,

and you make them feel sincerely

that they're brilliant,

but Garbo was very disciplined and absolutely charming to work with.

She was rigid about certain things, very practically.

She knew that if she worked longer, she was rather nervous,

she wouldn't sleep.

She was modest and funny.

And... And stubborn, in a way, but never about her work.

One of the legendary Hollywood actresses that you directed

is Marilyn Monroe, and you say in your book, to Gavin Lambert,

that you feel that she was mad and she wasn't, in fact,

destroyed by Hollywood. Was she, in fact, mad?

She was an extremely complicated creature. She was intelligent.

She was unhappy. She... You couldn't very close to her.

And she was very nervous.

The proof of it is that the poor darling killed herself.

So, she was...

She didn't really trust her talent

because she was very gifted,

she played comedy very well and she would do all kinds of studying,

when she really needn't have studied because...

Not that studying isn't right,

but she was so much more skilful than anybody could possibly teach her.

She was a natural actress with enormous individuality

and she knew what she was doing.

The performance of Laurence Olivier, I think

you had a great influence on Olivier's career.

Well, I like to think that also,

but...I must say that...Sir Laurence is,

as everyone here knows,

is a superb actor, perhaps the greatest in the world,

with or without me.

But do you like working with stage actors?

-Now, he was really a stage actor...

-Yes, he was.

At that time, I think he'd done very few films and in fact,

wasn't too fond of them.

-No.

-Er...

I like very much working with professional actors who

know their craft,

whether they're from the stage or films.

But I don't believe in amateur actors.

I believe acting is something one has to learn.

One has to have a talent for it first and...

But even that isn't sufficient. I think one has to learn the technique.

Would you say you were hard on your actors,

or do you get your results with kindness and friendship?

Well, I don't know. Human beings...

As I say, all I know is anybody who has ever worked with me

is always anxious to come back and work with me again.

I never stand behind the camera and yell directions.

I go up and I speak to each actor individually,

so the others don't hear.

And everything is thoroughly rehearsed

and I try to get the first take.

And...

Directors being hard on actors,

those directors don't usually last very long in pictures.

But it's not just actors that our interviewees had to deal with.

Relationships with movie studio bosses were always

just as important.

First again on the subject is George Cukor,

once famously fired as director of Gone With The Wind.

Of course, the most famous picture you were removed from was

Gone With The Wind.

It's said that Clark Gable felt you were paying too much attention to

Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland at his expense and that you

objected to the way Selznick came on the set to supervise the shooting.

Would you like to tell me about your so-called rift with Selznick

and why you only shot two or three scenes, including the famous

burning of Atlanta and were then reportedly fired off the film?

I was fired, indeed. I shot more than that. I shot... I'm not bragging.

I shot, I think, the first one or two reels.

I really honestly don't know.

I prepared it for a year, I made the test...

I think David Selznick probably didn't think I was doing it...

I really... It's a great mystery and it's something very interesting,

it was not the pleasantest subject, it's all now being revived

and I honestly have forgotten somebody asked me a question

and I called up Irene Selznick, who was his wife, and I said,

"Really, what did happen at that scene?" And she explained to me.

I said, "Oh, did it, really?"

And it's something very remote and the sum total is that

I ended up remaining great friends with David Selznick.

I think he was very nervous, very concerned about the picture

and, right or wrong, he probably thought I wasn't doing it right.

I tell you what is extraordinary, that I was fired from that picture

and that here I am to tell the tale, still working.

Howard Hawks didn't mind producers,

just as long as they knew their place.

Have you ever had the experience of a creative producer who actually was

useful in giving advice, but staying out of the way when necessary?

No, not that I can remember. Oh, I have had instances of...

Where they bought the story...

and saw...a good picture in there.

Jesse Lasky gave me my first job.

He bought Sergeant York.

I made it because...he gave me my first job.

Cooper made it because Lasky gave him his first job.

I told Cooper, "I don't think we can do any harm to

"ourselves by making it.

Cooper says, "What's the use in arguing about it?

"We're going to do it, aren't we?" And I said, "Yeah."

But I said, "But you come on over with me while we talk to Warner.

"If I say it's not right, Mr Cooper, you say yup."

So I said, "We'll make this picture if you let us alone.

"Isn't that right, Mr Cooper?" He said, "Yup."

"And if you don't let us alone, you're going

"to be in a lot of trouble. Isn't that right, Mr Cooper?" He said,

"Yes." So, we made it and Lasky,

who was broke at the time, made a couple of million dollars

and Cooper got an Academy Award and I felt very good about it,

so we had a great time.

And now, here's Don Siegel,

on dealing with the interference from studio executives, who

he compares with alien pods from his film Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

The pods are people that can control the studio.

Naturally, they gave it the world's worst title -

The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. That was number one.

That was when we knew we were dead there.

Anyway, we shot the picture.

Very exciting picture, I think, because unlike most science

and fiction films,

that devote thousands and thousands

and thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars,

if you will, on special effects, Walter

and I agreed that we felt that the effects were not that important,

plus the fact that I'd had seven years in special effects,

so I wasn't worried about that end of it,

and we would stick real people in front of our special effects

and really get inside our people and tell a real story.

But the pods...

By the pods, I mean, not my producer Walter Wanger,

but the people who own the studio, Allied Artists.

They had rules and regulations.

For instance, their rule was that no science fiction can have humour.

There's a great deal of humour in the picture.

So, they took out all the humour.

Then they were afraid that it wasn't clear, so they made me

shoot a prologue and an epilogue, which had absolutely nothing

to do with the picture, as far as I was concerned.

I thought it was very stupid.

Walter Wanger thought it was very stupid.

We fought against it and when we lost, Walter said,

"Please shoot it because if you don't, somebody else will

"and at least, you'll keep the form," so I shot it, against my will.

That's part of working in Hollywood, I guess.

The picture previously ended as dramatically as any picture,

at least, that I've ever done.

Where Kevin McCarthy whirls to the audience

and points his finger at the camera and says, "You're next!"

Hey! Stop! Pull over! Pull over to the side of the road!

-I need your help. Something terrible has happened.

-Go on, you're drunk!

Get out of the street! Get out of here! Go on!

HORN BEEPS

You crazy?! You idiot!

You fools! You're in danger! They're after you! They're after all of us!

Our wives, our children, everyone!

They're here already! You're next!

That's the moment Siegel wanted to end on.

And here's how the ending he was forced to add begins.

Siegel clearly wasn't happy.

And often, directors are the most vocal critics of their own work.

Take Billy Wilder, for starters.

Which are the favourites, your own favourites,

among all the films you've made?

Well, I don't look at the old ones, ever, no matter what.

-But I kind of think that...

-No, I'd heard that.

Why won't you look at your old films?

I see the mistakes and I'd like to hurry it up, I would like

to recast it, I would... You know, you cannot do that any more.

But it's just...

I don't have eight or 16mm prints of my pictures in my cellar.

I don't invite my friends. I just... I'm... I just don't like it.

I don't like it very much.

Maybe... Maybe if the best picture, since you asked me...

The picture I liked the best maybe was an early picture of mine,

Double Indemnity. Maybe that's the one I kind of like the best and...

There were moments in Some Like It Hot that I thought were good,

in Sunset, that were quite good.

I was very pleased to see an interview with...

Agatha Christie who said that the best picture made of her material

was a picture I had done, Witness For The Prosecution.

That was before Orient Express.

And I was very pleased about that. But...

There are good five minutes here and ten minutes there.

In other words, if...some day they do a retrospective of my pictures

and they can get it all into like...45 minutes of film...

Two minutes from that and ten minutes from that

and three minutes of here... That would make me very happy.

That, I will look at.

And now, John Ford,

on an approach that helped bring about one of his favourite films.

I think one trouble as a director in this country,

and I think one of the troubles directors universally is...

They'll make a big picture, probably a hit,

and then they try to top it and usually fall flat on their face.

It happens here a lot and I know it happens with you.

So, I try and make it a rule,

if you make a big picture which is a hit, the next one,

do a cheap picture, relax, I mean, three or four weeks,

while you're preparing for another story.

And usually, of course, I mean, to my mind,

the little picture is always better.

You see, my favourite picture, for example,

is one you'd never of heard of called The Sun Shines Bright.

-Have you?

-Great!

-Huh?

-Judge Billy Priest.

-Yeah.

-Beautiful. Beautiful!

-Well, that's my favourite picture.

-For Republic.

-That's right.

Well, we'd just made The Quiet Man, which was a big hit,

so I wanted to change, sort of...

Just do something else and we did this and I loved it.

I had a lot of fun doing it.

Frank Capra had been happy with his films, but success had

a surprising effect upon him, until one thought provoking encounter.

The film It Happened One Night won five Academy Awards.

Did that kind of recognition make you feel more

secure in the industry,

or more anxious about your ability to live up to your reputation?

Those five awards nearly killed me. I mean...

You know, you shake the Oscar tree when you get the five major awards.

What are you going to do for an encore?

This was my problem and I got it so early in my life, you see?

And I really... Nothing I could...

I'd read all kinds of things, but everything seemed very trivial

and puerile after that.

There was no... How could I make another picture? And so, I choked up.

And I feigned sickness,

not to make any more pictures. I was just going to quit for a while.

I was actually afraid to make another film.

This hits everybody.

After you have one big successful hit,

your next picture is really a problem.

And...

So, I feigned sickness, but in feigning sickness, I became sick

and I was really about to die when a friend of mine brought in...

A very faceless little man who came in and said to me,

"Mr Capra, you're a coward." And I said, "A coward?

"I'm sick!" And he said, "No, you're a coward.

"You were given certain gifts and you're not using them."

And Hitler was in the... His voice was rasping out of another room.

-Hitler?

-Yeah, you know. And he said, "That man in there is...

"What can he reach? How many can he reach? 10-20 million?

"For maybe ten minutes? 20 minutes?

"You have been given the gift to reach hundreds of millions

"and for two hours, and in the dark.

"He's selling his poison, you've got other gifts, to sell other things.

"You're a coward.

"You're an offence to God and you're an offence to humanity."

And he just got up and left.

Out of that, came, I think, Mr Deeds,

which was the first of a long series of... It's a bad word,

but what I can call for brevity's sake "integrity pictures".

What was your personal philosophy motivating the theme of these films?

Mr Deeds Goes To Town was the first picture that

I ever deliberately tried to say something

and what I was trying to say was that the value of the individual,

the divinity and the worth of the individual

is against the conforming heart

and how the individual had it within him to dig deep down

into his innermost recesses

and come up with the necessary wit and humour

and courage to cope with his environment.

This was the problem... This is the theme of Mr Deeds.

Probably the theme of most...

-Practically all the other pictures I've made after that.

-Yes.

Personally, I don't know what Mr Cedar's raving about.

From what I can see, no matter what system of government we have,

there'll always be leaders and always be followers.

It's like the road out in front of my house. It's on a steep hill.

Every day, I watch the cars climbing it.

Some go lickety-split up that hill on high, some have to

shift into second, and some splutter and shake back to the bottom again.

Same cars, same gasoline, yet some make it and some don't.

And I say, the fellas who can make the hill on high should stop

once in a while and stop those who can't.

That's all I'm trying to do with this money, help the fellas who can't make the hill on high.

What does Mr Cedar expect me to do with it? Give it to him and a lot of other people who don't need it?

If you don't mind, Your Honour, I'll ride on those top waves for a minute.

Hey, all you fellas up there! All those who applied for a farm, stand up.

See all those fellas? They're the ones I'm trying to help.

They need it. Mr Cedar and that Mr Semple don't need anything.

They've got plenty. It's like I'm out in a big boat

and I see one fella in a row boat who is tired of rowing

and wants a free ride and another fella who is drowning. Who would you expect me to rescue?

Mr Cedar, who is just tired of rowing and wants a free ride,

or those men out there who are drowning?

Any ten-year-old child will give you the answer to that. All right, fellas. Thank you. Sit down.

Capra became motivated by the desire to be thought-provoking.

The motivation for others varied.

But were there any common threads that helped one

flourish as a director in Hollywood's golden age?

What is a director, then? Is he an artist? Is he a craftsman?

Or a guy trying to earn an honest living, or what?

I think he's all of that. I think he is an artist. He should be.

And he should have his own very deep feelings about something.

And I think he has to be a craftsman

because it's always a technical thing.

And then, I hope that he makes money!

I won't take that billing of a Sidney Lumet film or

a film by Sidney Lumet. It's the dumbest thing in the world.

I'm dependent... If we were out shooting today, we'd be dependent on the sun, the clouds.

It's...

And my job is to get the best out of everybody working on it and

make sure that we are all literally going in the same direction.

That's why I'm called a director.

I don't think that there is an outstanding director,

who is not basically a damn good film writer.

The outstanding director makes it his business, has to in fact,

start from the beginning and see that the script

contains the elements that he then will make...

From which he then will make his film.

All film directors do, as a breed...

Film directors are stubborn and tenacious and unwavering

and as a matter of a fact,

Willy Wilder was one of the best directors in Hollywood, always...

When I first started directing, he gave me some advice.

He said, "Never be a nice guy."

He said, "Everyone wants to go home at 5.30.

"Everyone sort of wants to make things nice."

And he spoke about the sort of good fellowship

and the coffee breaks and everybody being sort of chatty and gossipy.

He said, "All that is against you." He said, "You have to stand there

"and you have to create the discipline of work

"and keep the goal of excellence and perfection in front of people.

"And only you can do it." And he was dead right.

And, as I say, I often feel that I have to just create...

When I come on the set in the morning,

I have to create the feeling all over that set that that day,

we're going to get two minutes of excellent film that's exactly right.

If you know anything about good work, you know that the

thing nobody will ever admit, which is that it's accidental. I'm not being falsely modest.

There's a reason why the accident happens to some of us and never will happen to other people,

which is that we know how to prepare the groundwork for it.

But finally, whatever that magical thing is that makes

a first-rate piece of work occur, it is an accident, and...

So, I'm just a great believer in quantity.

More chances for the accident to happen.

Whether by accident or design,

the directors we've heard from were the best in the business,

responsible for some of cinema's finest ever films

and masters of every moment that occurred between the start

of the action and the moment where they shouted cut!