Robert Redford - Michael Feeney Callan [181]
Of some concern to Redford was the warmth he was conveying as Hobbs, who, in Towne’s script, is impressively lovable. “I reviewed my work of the seventies and found I’d begun to come across on-screen as cold, something I hadn’t intended,” says Redford. “I decided this was the time to fix it.” For The Natural he sought openness and innocence and was encouraged by Levinson’s wry take on the world. “The trick really was Barry’s spin on the humor. He was a comedy writer who started with Marty Feldman and Brooks, so he had a grin going on all the time. That carried into Hobbs. He said, ‘Let’s not be crease browed about this. We’re looking to leave the audience with a smile on its face. It’s a fun tale.’ ”
There were different kinds of complex challenges for Gary Hendler. The Natural was to be his big chance, the test of TriStar’s marketing. Levinson and Redford both felt the sharp edge of Hendler’s nervous impatience. “It was heartbreaking,” says Redford, “because suddenly he was in charge of having to figure out the studio logo and come up with production schedules and deal with not just one star ego, but many, many star egos. He tried to deal with it valiantly, but all the time he was ill. He’d always suffered from stomach ulcers. When things went wrong, it was his stomach that gave in first. It was pushed into the background for a long time, but bit by bit we discovered the illness was more serious, that he had developed stomach cancer and was fighting that as well.”
In the spring of 1984, Redford and Levinson found themselves burning the midnight oil for a rushed print to satisfy Hendler’s too-hasty distribution schedule. “It made no sense,” says Levinson, “because we’d spent $20 million making The Natural look so good, and here was this early completion deadline just to get in theaters to fit a summer social calendar.”
The first cut, a three-and-a-half-hour assembly that included a subplot centering on actor Michael Madsen, quickly bit the dust. “We had so many elements so well balanced,” says Levinson. “Randy Newman’s Americana music was spot-on. Mel Bourne gave us a wonderful design look. But then Hendler gave us a put-up-or-shut-up date, and we stupidly caved in. He pressured us to death, and we let the movie go without it ever being properly finished.” What doubly upset Redford and Levinson was Hendler’s last-minute decision to use a second-rate picture, Where the Boys Are ’84, as the TriStar flagship instead. “I don’t think there was malice of any kind in it,” says Redford, “just terrible misjudgment, which arose from Gary’s inexperience. The problem was, he was being pressured by higher-ups and gave in to that. He could have rationalized it with TriStar with greater strategy. But he was inexperienced and he didn’t see the long view, so we all lost out.”
When The Natural opened in May, just as TriStar had demanded, business was slack, and though it made its money back and garnered reasonable reviews, it seemed a hollow victory. For Levinson it left a sour taste “because there was a better version available”; for Redford it was “worthy, something I’m proud of.” Nevertheless, its fate represented a downturn for Redford, if only in Hollywood icon terms. Alan Pakula thought it was a miscalculation. “He hadn’t been on-screen as an actor for