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By Root 433 0

had offered to finance in a joint venture with Pennebaker. I read the novel, Sayonara, which was set in postwar Japan, and thought it raised interesting issues about human relations, but I didn’t like the script. In the script and the novel, the character Logan wanted me to play, Major Lloyd Gruver, a Korean War–era U.S. Air Force pilot, fell in love with a beautiful Japanese woman, Hana-ogi, a member of a distinguished and elite dance troupe, but their interracial romance was doomed by the tradition in both cultures of endogamy, the custom of marrying only within one’s own race or caste. In accepting this principle, I thought the story endorsed indirectly a form of racism. But with a different ending, I thought it could be an example of the pictures I wanted to make, films that exerted a positive force. I told Logan I’d do the picture if the Madame Butterfly ending was replaced by one stating that there was nothing wrong with racial intermarriage, and that it was a natural outcome when people fell in love. I wanted the two lovers to marry at the end of the picture, and Logan agreed.

But once we were in Japan, I discovered that Josh was burdened with an overwhelming depression that made him unable to function. I ended up rewriting and improvising a lot of the picture, and we had to limp along as best we could. With Josh’s problems and a long run of rainy weather, it was a difficult picture to make, and I don’t think Logan knew what was happening most of the time.

My father now called me Marlon instead of Bud, and we were civil to each other, but the friction between us never ended. After he began working for me, I didn’t expect him really to do anything, but he constantly wrote memos warning me that my company was wasting money on projects that were going nowhere, and that I was too concerned with making a statement and not enough with making money. “To date,” he wrote me before we had received our share of the profits from Sayonara, “Pennebaker is almost as far away from producing a picture as it was at the beginning, and we have spent $18,000 in hard dollars contributed by you, $25,000 by MCA, and over $153,000 loaned by Paramount—$196,000. Pennebaker’s reputation as a producer has been declining and it can be assumed that this is not without its reflection on you.” He said we’d wasted $72,000 alone on preparations for the UN movie. “Some of the reasons for our diversions were that Pennebaker wanted to be a helpful force in the world. I agree heartily with the thought, but I think there is some question as to whether this sort of program belongs in an embryonic production company.…”

Regardless of what he thought, I wanted to make pictures that were not only entertaining but had social value and gave me a sense that I was helping to improve the condition of the world. My father disagreed with my priorities: “The corporation” should be “operated with the prime objective of turning out tasteful, good pictures that are commercial until such a time that it can afford to do something for the emotional satisfaction involved. I think we have put the cart before the horse in some respects. Our purpose, at least the purpose of the industry, is to entertain rather than try to use loaded directive thought … more real lasting good is probably produced by foundations, universities, colleges, medical research, hospitals and even churches, and these are all activated and made possible by the use of dollars earned in a hard commercial way. As you say, I have a money neurosis in one way. I think you have a money neurosis in another way. Someday I think we should discuss our respective tendencies. I personally don’t believe there is anything wrong in having money if it is used as an instrument rather than a means … if money can be used properly it can become an instrument for great good. After Pennebaker has earned sufficient money any surpluses above needs can be used as you see fit.”

My father also continued to complain that my friends who worked for Pennebaker were using and exploiting me. “You have great perception and knowledge,