Melancholy Is Kind Of Sweet Sometimes, I

I Knew That's Where I Was Going. I Knew We Were Going To Italy. You Couldn't Make This Movie In America At This Price. I Knew It Was Going To Be Big. I Knew There Was Going To Be A Ship Involved And That There Was Going To Be A Set As Big As The Ship. I Thought, Well, Here We Go. But I Knew That Was Where He Was Headed. He Had Been Going This Way For Some Time. All Directors, Once They Have Some Success, They Want To Spend A Whole Heck Of A Lot Of Money. (something Else Can't Hear.)

You Had To Keep The Mood Up; You Had To Keep The Tempo Up. You Had To Keep The Feeling Of, "hey, We're Doing Something That's Really Exciting. It's Fun Being With These People." And The More Fun You Have, The Better You Do It.

Buddy Hackett [was] Talking - This Is Hackett, Not Me - About The Virgin Mary, A Limerick Sort Of Thing, And All These Children And Families ... The Look Of Absolute Horror. He's Going On And On And On, And Finally He Stops. It's Just Total Horror, And The Camera's Still Rolling. You Can Hear It, Sort Of A Grinding Noise. And The Director Says, "anything Else, Bud?"

When I Started, The Scripts Weren't As Good, And You'd Have To Have A Huge Burst Of Energy To Go, "sheesh, How Am I Going To? This Stuff's No Good." So You'd Have To Improvise Something Or Create Something Or Try To Work With The Ware And Try To Figure Out, How Do You Make This Visually And Orally Acceptable, Entertaining? Nowadays, The Scripts Are Just So Much Better, That You Don't Have To Feel That Way. You Feel Like The Script's Coming To You, You Can Just Relax. You Don't Have To Drive The Boat.

The Studios Don't Seem To Foster Good Writing. They're Not So Interested In That, But They're More Interested In What Worked Most Recently. They're Definitely Very Serious About Making Money, And That's Not A Wrong Thing, But You Don't Have To Make Money The Same Way All The Time.