Tom Mankiewicz

But the other thing with, with Donner was when we were doing Superman, we rented a Winnebago and I think there were four or five of us in this Winnebago.

Tom Mankiewicz, the writer, Donner, John Barry, myself, Tim Burrell.

And we were driving all over the plains of Canada and there was this scene that we had to shoot with Miss Tetchmaker getting, um, Gene Hackman out of prison and it was written that she threw a rope over the wall.

Hackman grabbed hold of it.

... of the sort of lightness.

And at that point, I understand, as much as I credited the, those two screenplays, those two screenwriters, Tom Mankiewicz got brought in here.

Ah, the Mank.

Yes, and that's why the movie got as light as it is and has as many funny lines in it as...

And that's why I think that line probably is not Barry Corbin but Tom Mankiewicz.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I love me some Tom Mankiewicz.

They tried to get James Caan.

like James Caan considered it pretty seriously apparently and like um uh weirdly though what's funny about the Mario Puzo of it all is he's credited as the screenwriter but like basically it's not his script hardly at all like his script was apparently like insane and like unfilmable like even like on a budgetary level um so the real writer of it is Tom Mankiewicz also a huge name uh who's credited as a creative consultant in the movie weirdly um But, yeah, the fact that it's, like, yeah, post-Godfather Mario Puzo, post-Godfather Brando.

And this is kind of, like, the last Brando performance before he really goes off the rails.

Because, like, his next movie, I think, is Apocalypse Now.

And I thought, oh, what if you use the monkey's paw for this? You brought up that horror story.

Um, the tales from the crypt episode I'm thinking of is called love to death, um, by Tom Mankiewicz.

It's got Muriel Hemingway in it.

Um, A very similar plot, though that one takes a more supernatural twist on it and kind of draws it out past a certain conclusion that this film goes to.

This time around, it was agreed that they would film both simultaneously, so one hopes that they did a better job of paying people this time around.

The first screenplay by Puzo was deemed good but too heavy, so they brought in Tom Mankiewicz to rewrite him, and then Leslie Newman, David Newman, and Robert Benton were brought in to rewrite Mankiewicz.

Benton won two Oscars for writing and one for Best Director.

This brings up the second part of the question.