Frank Langella on 'Wrath of God's Troubled Shoot

Actor Frank Langella has just published his memoirs in the new book "Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them," out later this month. An extended excerpt details the difficult 1972 shoot of The Wrath of God, starring ROBERT MITCHUM and Rita Hayworth. The '40s screen goddess (who was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's) had difficulties remembering her lines. Langella recalls how Mitchum helped get Rita to the set on time.  

She was by then finished in pictures and the word was that Mitch had insisted on her, possibly for old times’ sake, the rumor being they had once had a tumble or two. Mitch would play a runaway priest. I would be the town’s despot, who swears revenge on all priests for murdering my father, and Rita would be my mother, a God-fearing matron who never lets go of a set of rosary beads...

One day [Mitchum] comes to me and says: “Listen, pal, we’re never going to finish this f--king picture if we don’t get your girl to work on time.” Mitch, Rita, and I have our own local drivers, and each of them regards the harrowing ride along narrow, unfenced mountain roads as challenges to be met with daredevil speed. Mitch sleeps through his rides and so do I. But Rita, who is terrified of all moving things, makes her driver go at a snail’s pace and often arrives at work an easy hour or more after everyone else. So Mitch comes up with a plan: “Look,” he says. “Let’s the three of us ride together. You sit up front and we’ll put Rita in the back with me.”

Early mornings become a struggle of manipulating Rita into a broken-down jalopy and laying her down on the floor of the back seat. Mitch tosses a blanket over her as she pulls her floppy sailor hat down past her eyes. I then hop in the front and off we go. These rides become a hilarious routine of Rita laughing and screaming at the top of her lungs, with Mitch stretched out on the back seat outshouting her, singing Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs, exactly as written, in perfect pitch, while a non-English-speaking driver careens close to the narrow road’s edge as wildly as he dares. When we reach the location, I get out and Mitch and I lift Rita from the floor, remove the blanket, pull up her hat, and calm her down. “Cheated the old Grim Reaper again,” he says and saunters off to his trailer.

At the time, very few people understood or recognized Alzheimer's and assumed she was simply an alcoholic. Hayworth died in 1987 at the age of 68.

via The Daily Beast (Newsweek)

Behind-the-Scenes Footage Shot by 'Ryan's Daughter' Stand-In to be Shown for First Time

An Irishman who served as a stand-in for ROBERT MITCHUM on "Ryan's Daughter" has just donated the on-set home movies he made during the film's shoot. That behind-the-scenes footage from the David Lean film will be screened for the first time March 17.

Tom Fitzgerald, who went on to become a Fianna Fail senator, earned £96 a week. He put part of that new salary towards a Super X 8mm camera and began filming, often without the crew's knowledge. "For film people, this is of huge interest. I was the only one with a movie camera at the time so there's no other archival material like it around," he told the Independent

Fitzgerald has donated his original reels to the RTE Archive, who then transferred the original to DVD. He gave a copy to the Dingle Film Festival, which will screen his footage for the first time in public in St James' Church on March 17.

Festival director Maurice Galway said it would be a unique opportunity for the town to celebrate its association with "Ryan's Daughter."

Via Irish Independent