Not as a Stranger trailer above.
Not As a Stranger was produced in 1955. It's a story about doctors in training directed by Stanley Kramer who directed The Defiant Ones, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Not as a Stranger had the top four big drinkers in Hollywood; Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin and Broderick Crawford.
At the end of a day of filming, according to Stanley Kramer;
"I told the cast that we had some long difficult scenes to film the next morning and to please get to bed early and get some sleep. I made sure to look at my four famous boozers when I said it and I saw them nod in agreement.
"I had to go to a meeting that night and when I was driving back to my hotel at 10pm, I stopped at a stop light.
"Suddenly to my left, I saw four men come pouring out of a bar, swinging their fists at each other and falling drunk onto the sidewalk where they continued to fight. It was Sinatra, Mitchum, Marvin and Crawford.
"What could I do? I did nothing but drive back to my hotel and pray that the next day's filming would go all right. The four of them came in with hangovers, but were able to complete the scenes satisfactorily."
Interesting note: When the doctors graduate, the head doctor, Broderick Crawford, says as a joke, after lighting up a cigarette, "Don't endorse any cigarettes." And the new doctors laugh.
Crawford Note: When Broderick Crawford worked at Universal Studios in the 1940's, he would go to Lon Chaney Jr's dressing room at the end of the day, get drunk with Chaney, hang the chairs on the wall out of the way and they'd fight. The clean-up people would come back to next morning to see a 'war-zone'.
Chaney got angry when his 'Wolfman' co-star, Evelyn Ankers, took his dressing room because he and Crawford couldn't continue their drunken brawls in it.
Chaney Note: In 1953, Lon Chaney Jr. was rehearsing a TV show that would be broadcast live that night. He had a long arguing scene with a character that he rehearsed perfectly. When the scene required a fight to start, to not break any furniture, Chaney said to the other actor, “Okay, I push you over there. You hit me and I fall back here. And then I hit you and you fall down there.”
Coming back from dinner, the live broadcast started. When Chaney walked into the scene the director could see that Chaney was totally drunk. “Somebody drag him out of there,” the director ordered. But it was too late, Chaney had started his dialogue. And miraculously, he was perfect.
“I can’t believe it,” the director said watching Chaney perform. “He’s brilliant. He’s doing every line exactly right.”
They got to where the fight was to start, and Chaney said, “Okay, I push you over here. You hit me and I fall back here. And then I hit you …“
“Cut, cut,” the director yelled. “Go to black and get him the hell out of here.”
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My movie Forbidden Power won 13 awards including:
2018 - Best Picture - Hollywood BITB Festival -
2019 - Best Science Fiction Feature - Oklahoma BB Festival -
2019 - Best Thriller - London Flicks Festival -
2019 - Best Original Screenplay - Florence Film Awards Italy -
2019 - Best Feature Film - New York Cinematography Awards.
In those days it seemed that smoking and drinking or a natural part of the scene. If you didn't you were pretty dull. And these big stars couldn't afford to be dull. And the fighting, it seemed to go along with drinking. Although because they were so drunk, they really didn't hurt each other, just swung wildly and passed out momentarily if they were hit. Those were the days?
Ron