Spotlight on John Landis - Billion Dollar Director
(From Daily Variety, May 24, 1994)
by Michael Dare
For much of his career, John Landis has been the Rodney Dangerfield of
film directors. He can't get any respect. Film critics tend to prefer cerebral
humor that strokes their intellect, not guys named Bluto shoving cheeseburgers
in their mouth. Landis' first three films, Schlock (1976), Kentucky
Fried Movie (1977), and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
were so uncivilized, such a pie in the face to all things pompous, that
few reputable film writers dared admit that they were a crack up. Perhaps
critics haven't liked him because of all the lame Animal House copies they've
been subjected to. He did indeed spawn a horrendous list of "youth comedies"
that were the nightmare of every critic in America.
Landis' most formidable critical foe has been the New York Times, particularly
Vincent Canby. With articles like "What's So Funny About Potheads and Toga
Parties?," he went far beyond the call of duty to advertise his lack of
hipness. It wasn't till Landis made the relatively high-minded Trading
Places (1983) that critics, even in the New York Times, were finally
able to acknowledge what audiences knew all along - that John Landis is
one of finest and most meticulous comedy directors of our time.
Luckily,
audiences had no problem basking in his buffoonery all along. Though Danny
Peary's Cult Movies calls Landis' premier film, Schlock, one of the best
horror-comedy films around, it was little noticed at the time. But when
Animal House became the most popular comedy ever made, John Landis found
himself one of the hottest madmen in Hollywood. "When Animal House
turned out the way it did," said Landis, "they all rushed to me with barrels
of money begging me to make them rich."
And that he did. His next film,
The Blues Brothers was a monster,
spawning numerous books, records, toys, and giving a vital shot in the
arm to the blues industry. Who would have thought the blues and car chases
would be such a perfect mix? Critics lambasted it for its wholesale destruction,
somehow ignoring the equal amount of retail destruction. At least Roger
Ebert championed the film, calling it "the Sherman Tank of musicals."
Dan Aykroyd's original script for The Blues Brothers was the size
of a telephone book, with several pages devoted solely to a bolt by bolt
description of the Bluesmobile. Landis turned this epic tome into a sprawling
celebration of music, mayhem, and black culture. Watching Elwood and Joliet
Jake run rampant around Chicago is still a joyful experience, like watching
little kids playing with their toys, only instead of Hot Wheels, it's the
entire Chicago Police Department at their disposal.
Rumored to be the first film in history to go into production without a
finalized budget, Landis and friends were supposedly told to just go make
their movie and send the bills to Universal. And the bills did pile up.
The
Blues Brothers is not only an incredibly successful comedy musical,
but the actual production of the film served as Belushi's massive payback
to his home town. Belushi defended the films budget by explaining that
the money went to musicians who deserved it and needed it. He was particularly
proud of the fact that John Lee Hooker made more money in his few weeks
of work on The Blues Brothers than he had made in his whole career to that
point.
Landis wrote An American Werewolf in London in Yugoslavia in 1969
while working as a gofer on Kelly's Heroes. He didn't get to make it till
1981, showing his mastery of a whole new genre, horror/comedy. He admits
that till then, he had been pigeonholed as Mr. Mayhem. "It's fairly easy
for me to get large amounts of money to make a comedy, but if I wanted
to make a little love story, my backers might hesitate." He has to keep
reminding people that "I'm the guy who made the two Eddie Murphy movies
in which he doesn't shoot anybody."
In Werewolf, he took the whole concept to its most logical extreme.
By taking the horror remarkably seriously, he created a nightmare full
of nervous laughter, in which each chuckle catches in your throat.
Landis'
films are the epitome of the filmmaking philosophy that the best comedies
are directed like tragedies. This is a lesson that his imitators seem to
have missed, since all the second rate knock-offs of Animal House
are full of high school mugging, as though actors in a comedy have got
to be aware of the fact they're in a comedy. Of course the exact opposite
is true, and Landis' films prove it. They are entirely populated by characters,
from John Belushi in Animal House to Sylvester Stallone in Oscar,
who have absolutely no idea that they are funny.
In Laughing Screaming - Modern Hollywood Horror & Comedy, one
of the few books to give Landis the credit he deserves, William Paul gives
a remarkably concise analysis of the cultural and racial elements of Animal
House. "The film might embrace slapstick," he says, "but it does so
equivocally because the romantic heroes retain the real power in the plot,
and they themselves are never directly involved in the gross-out physical
humor."
Not so the heroes of An American Werewolf in London, who go through
physical gross-outs so extreme that Rick Baker received the very first
Academy Award ever given to a make-up artist.
1983 was certainly the worst year of Landis' career. Journalists around
the world lambasted Landis for The Twilight Zone
accident, forgetting
that the reason it was called an accident is that it wasn't on purpose.*
Landis somehow managed to retain his sense of humor that year by directing
Trading
Places, which many consider his finest work, carrying the "fish out
of water" theme that runs through his films to its most hysterical extreme.
Real Landis fans can spot his cameo appearances in Battle for the Planet
of the Apes, Deathrace 2000, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Spontaneous Combustion,
Psycho IV, Darkman, Sleepwalkers, Venice/Venice, and as the director
of the Nachos commercial on Bobbe's World. Filmgoers around the
world are also forever indebted to Landis for a glimpse of Jamie Lee Curtis
they'll never forget.
I'd
also like to personally thank John Landis for the favorite direction I've
ever received.
As an extra in The Blues Brothers, I got to spend two weeks in Chicago,
hang out in the original Blues Club, and get paid for participating in
the demolition of every car in the Chicago Police Department. It was a
wild time. The whole town was giddy, celebrating the arrival of the biggest
film ever shot on location in the windy city.
The directions were simple for the soldiers chasing Jake and Elwood through
Daly plaza - run into the plaza and search everywhere for the Blues Brothers.
When
Landis yelled "action," I scurried around the heart of downtown Chicago
with hundreds of fellow soldiers. I couldn't see hide nor hare of the Blues
Brothers, so I started looking for higher ground. There was only one way
to see the whole plaza, so I climbed Picasso's famous sculpture and started
looking around.
The scene ended. Landis yelled "cut," then walked up to me, and said "You!
Get off the Picasso!" Good advise. I haven't trod on a Picasso ever since.
*Before
you write me an angry letter about my seemingly cavalier attitude towards
The
Twilight Zone accident, remember this...
I
was hired by Daily Variety to write an overview of the career of John Landis
for a special "Billion Dollar Director" issue celebrating his life. If
I had written "In 1982, John Landis committed manslaughter through his
own personal negligence, causing an actor and two children to be decapitated,
somehow managing to elude jail through a gross miscarriage of justice,"
do you think they would have printed it? Sure. And Hitler would have left
in footage of concentration camps if Leni Riefenstahl had put them in Triumph
of the Will.
This
was a job for hire and I did as I was told. That's what being a professional
writer is all about. I suppose I could have turned down the gig, but that
wouldn't have been particularly healthy for my career. Once I accepted
the assignment, I did NOT have final say. I was working with a slew of
editors who made sure the piece wouldn't offend the studios or Landis.
Sometimes you've got to say things a certain way because that's the job.
This version of The Twilight Zone accident was the best compromise
we could come up with. No matter what my personal feelings, you don't trash
someone in a tribute to them.
If
you're still pissed off at John Landis because of The Twilight Zone,
I understand. I despise Elia Kazan for testifying in front of the House
of Un-American Activities Committee, but A Streetcar Named Desire,
On
the Waterfront, and East of Eden are still fine films. And as
horrible a human being as John Landis may be (I've never really met the
guy), as inexcusable as his and other's actions were during the shooting
of The Twilight Zone, he is still, strangely enough, one of the
finest living comedy directors.
MD
