Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [87]
After Louis’s death, Paul Ford, a very funny actor, was brought in to replace him, but I, director Danny Mann and Glenn ruined the movie. On the first day of filming, I discovered that Glenn thought of himself as a masterful scene-stealer. He wouldn’t be photographed from the left because he thought it was his “bad side,” so before every shot he came to the set early and installed himself in the position he wanted, where the camera would see him from the right side; then, after we took our marks, he backed up a step or two, so that the camera had to follow him and he wound up full-faced in the shot, and other actors had to turn and lose three quarters of their faces. Sometimes he would gesture across my face, or as I said a line he would make a quick movement to catch the audience’s eye; or he would begin stuttering to draw attention to his character.
I knew what Glenn was doing, but I don’t think he ever realized how transparent he was. I had occasionally run into actors who tried to hog the camera, but had never met someone of this caliber. I knew the techniques as well as anyone; they’re not mysterious. A lot of actors try to do it and manipulate the audience. Olivia de Havilland had a wonderful trick of breathing deeply to make her breasts swell in and out; when she did, she made short work of the other actors in the scene because the audience—at least all the males, and probably half the females—was preoccupied with the movement of her breasts. But Ford took scene-stealing to Olympian heights, and in this fragile story, which required the two of us to act in delicate concert, he wanted to be the center of attention in every scene.
At the beginning I tried to reassure Glenn that I wasn’t a threat to his status, and in several scenes turned three quarters around so that he would appear full-faced to the camera. I wanted to let him know we weren’t combatants, but he kept it up. Whenever we took our places for a shot, just before the camera started rolling he took a step or two backward, which made me pull my head around to look at him as he went upstage; in the camera’s eye, I went from full face to a narrow profile. But he thought I was just stupid. I finally thought, To hell with this, and I followed him across the stage the next time he did it. When he backed up, I moved forward; he backed up again and I moved another few inches; we repeated this until we were moving across the stage inches at a time like a couple of dancers doing a tango until finally the camera operator shouted, “Hold it. I can’t hold the focus anymore! You’re out of focus.” Eventually I decided that the picture was a dead horse and that there was no way it could be saved; it was a sensitive comedy and we were wrecking it. I didn’t think it was one of Danny Mann’s best efforts. Quite apart from everything else, I felt inept as a comedian; David Wayne should have played the part in the movie.
But since the picture was lost anyway, I decided to have some fun with Glenn’s performance. Thereafter I made sure to arrive on the set before he did and took a position that made him face the camera from his left side. I began stepping on his lines and blowing mine when he had a big scene and trying to rattle him during his speeches. When an actor has a long take, he hates to be distracted, so before one of his big speeches to a group of Okinawans,