L.Q. Jones: "I Guess We're All the Same" By Jonathan Marlow January 18, 2006 - 12:14 PM PST "I was sitting in hysterical laughter because he had actually pulled it off." When we next see L.Q. Jones, it'll be in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion in the spring, more than fifty years and scores of film and television roles since his onscreen debut. From his late 2003 conversation with Jonathan Marlow, though, you can tell that the achievement he's most proud of is having made the cult science fiction favorite, A Boy and His Dog. I allowed myself some extra time because, as I understand it, you like to talk. Well, I like to talk if you like to ask questions. I have a habit of asking questions. Otherwise I'll sulk and say nothing. Let's start, naturally enough, at the beginning. You starred in quite a few films before you got around to making your sophomore directorial effort, A Boy & His Dog. Buchanan Rides Alone, Ride the High Country, Hang 'em High, to name a few. As for The Wild Bunch, how many weeks were you down in Mexico? Sixteen. The whole shoot. You worked with Sam Peckinpah many times. Was it natural when a film would start up that he would call you? He'd say, "Okay, we're starting another one, come on down?" You know, there were a number of us that worked for him. I worked for him far more than anyone else. I think the one that came closest, besides me, would be R.G. Armstrong [who worked for Peckinpah four times]. Hell, he wouldn't even tell me until about a month or so in advance. When he finally got fired after Major Dundee - which was totally unfair to Sam; they wouldn't let him on the lot - Danny [Melnick] gave him Noon Wine to do. He called me and wanted me to do the piece. I told him, "Sam, I can't do it 'cause I'm doing [the television show] The Virginian on a regular basis and we work all week. We work all five days. I'd love to do it but I can't do it." He then changed it so that he shot on Saturday so I could be in it. That's just the way Sam was. Was this a quality of Peckinpah's - that he liked working with people who had a great propensity for depth? If you look at his actors, and there are about six or eight of us [regulars], a lot of us are that way. Sam was sort of like a Raoul Walsh. He was a "man's man," if you will. He'd look for people who fit that bill. Warren [Oates] certainly did. Ben Johnson certainly did. R.G. did. Strother [Martin]. The people that we got to work with were extraordinarily talented. They could also be a real pain in the ass. But that was Sam. That's the way he was! We got used to it and didn't pay any attention to him 'cause I guess we're all the same way. How did you come to direct your first film, The Devil's Bedroom? We made it for spit. I think it cost $20,000 for the whole thing. Now, when you make a picture, you spend that much on paper clips. Anyway, we made it and it was hideously bad. I directed it, more or less. Do you know that picture has shown up on a number of "best ten of the year" lists? People are crazy. You're not a fan of that film, even though you directed it? Were you involved in writing it as well? Somebody else wrote it. It is a true story which took place in an area where I went to college in Jacksonville. That's where it took place. The title was the name of the cave we used in the picture, the "Devil's Bedroom." The quality is so bad that people who watch it think it's a documentary. Their theory is that you can't make a real motion picture this badly. So they look at is like a documentary and they like it as a documentary. So it has some redeeming qualities... I guess they're there somewhere. I don't know. The cast worked their fannies off. We did a lot of work on it, shot it over a period of a year. Somebody finds something in it, what the heck. Fortunately, I've burned it wherever I get a hold of it. I take it that one won't be coming out on DVD anytime soon. No. If someone were to do that, I think they can shut their business down safely. Still, I think it's a good story. There are two boys in the same family. One of them went to school like he was supposed to and followed his old man, while the other one just liked the outdoors. When the father died, he left the farm that he had to the son who liked the outdoors. The other one wasn't too happy, but the father left him a store. I believe it was okay with both brothers up until they discovered oil on the farm. At that time in Texas there was a weird law (although the same law may have existed in other places, too) where two members of the same family can commit you to an asylum without an examination or anything. They changed it now, I believe, but then two people could commit you without a doctor's exam or state interference anywhere. So that's what had happened. And then he couldn't stand it because he went practically nuts being cooped up in the place. He escaped and, when he did, his brother is killed and the brother's wife. So they're after him, of course, for the murder. They finally catch him in the cave and set fire to him. There's only one big problem - he didn't do it. It's not really a happy story but it was one of those things that was easy to make. Was it produced as part of your partnership with your friend Alvy Moore, LQ/JAF? That was our first picture. Of course, at that point in time, the company had not been formed so we didn't use that name. But it was in that structure that Alvy and myself wanted to put together LQ/JAF. As I understand it, it took you five years to complete A Boy & His Dog. You bet. How did you come to the project originally? You were familiar with Harlan Ellison's story? We were finishing up another picture that our company had done. We were down to the editing stage. This was Brotherhood of Satan? Yes. I was working on that in-between doing what I normally do, which was act, and my cameraman John Morrill came by, visited for a while and left the book with Sheila [Clague], our production secretary and said, "Hey, take a look at this. L.Q. might be interested." We were always looking for something to do. I guess two months, three months went by. On my way out one day, Sheila said, "You know you should read it just because you'd better tell John what you think." I got home, got everything finished at 2:30 or 3 o'clock in the morning and I start reading. Have you ever read the story? Yes. Okay, you'll know what I'm taking about. I got about a third of the way through it and I thought, "God, what a pity, what a shame. Here's a marvelous story, a marvelous beginning, but he can't keep it up. There's no way he can keep it up." So I read the rest of it and, I guess around 3:30 or 4 o'clock in the morning, there I was sitting in hysterical laughter because he had actually pulled it off. So when I came in the next morning, I just left it on Sheila's desk and said, "That's the picture I'm going to make next." And that's what we did. This was 1970? Yeah, it'd be right then - 1969, '70, '71. Did you approach Harlan Ellison to write the screenplay? Yeah, that was funny in a way because my partner, Alvy, and I were sitting around. He didn't understand the ending so he didn't particularly want to do the picture. As you notice, it's easy to miss how the thing ends, how it really took place, so I explained it to Alvy and he says, "Oh Christ, yeah." So we decide we're going to do it and he's like, "How're we going to reach him?" I say, "No problem. I've got a friend in New York who's working for some science fiction magazine and I'll call them." And he says, "Oh, but wait a minute though, I know Charlie who knows Pete who's got a chauffer that is a fan of Harlan and we'll check with him." Sheila says, "Why don't you just look in the phone book?" We threw her out. For Christ's sake, what does she know? We sat there trying for another five or six minutes to figure out how the hell we're going to reach him. She came back in and said, "He's on the phone." She had done what she said she was going to do and she just picked up the phone and called his number. So I told him how lucky he was we wanted to make the picture and he said, "What else is new? Everybody else in town wants to, too." So we sat down, chewed the fat and I told him what I wanted to do and how I thought I could do it. Do you know Harlan? I've met him a couple of times. Then you know Harlan's a nut case. Listen, I'm not telling you anything I don't tell him. But he's just hard to get along with. No, he's impossible to get along with. So I guess what happened was, I didn't have much money and I explained that. He was talking at the time to two or three of the major producers here. But they were asking him stupid questions like, "How do you animate the dog's mouth?" Well, that's the end of the conversation in that studio. I knew how I wanted to do it. So, you know, we made a deal and off we went! You had always envisioned, even when you read the novella, that the dog was telepathic? Yeah, that's the only way it could work. The damned dog, he can't talk like humans. They have no lips, for goodness sake. No vocal chords to speak of. It had to be that - it couldn't be anything else unless he could write on a typewriter, for Christ's sakes! In effect, the story is allegorical and it's also a western. Since I like to do westerns, I guess I was saying the things Harlan liked to hear. You mention on the disc that Ellison had writers' block. He couldn't actually finish the screenplay, so you ended up finishing it. About how long did it take to actually get the script together? Now you're talking about a finished script? Oh, I'd say probably a year. It took me four and a half months to write the last line... ...With Vic and Blood walking off into the distance. Films like these live or die by their casting. I think you were pretty fortunate with Susanne Benton. You tested almost 300 people for that part. What about her really stood out? We didn't test that many. As a matter of fact, I don't think we really tested anybody. As we got started, I thought that it would take us forever to find the dog and that we'd pick up the boy and the girl over night. As it turns out we picked the second dog that came in and we whipped through like 600 young actors and actresses trying to find the boy and girl. Even by that time, I'd been an actor long enough that I knew that I would conduct interviews. I'm not interested in a reading. I just want to know who you are, what you are and what you think about the part. You started with headshots or... They could send them in if they wanted to, I didn't care. We set up the interviews and, from the 600, we narrowed it down to maybe five or six each. Then I asked for a film and sat down and looked at them and went back, talked to them again and chose the one I wanted. Susanne, let's be honest folks, is not that great of an actress. The thing that sold beyond her is, I mean, she is Quilla June Holmes. I had actors calling me, offering me anything in the world, they didn't care, so long as they got to play the part. Susanne was the same way but, if you're around Susanne very long, and I was after a while, you determine that she detests men. At that point in time, she just did not like men. She was very manipulative with her looks. She can get away with it. After talking with her, I realized, "Whoops, this is Quilla June! Now, can I get her to stay that way? Can I keep her from acting?" It worked fine. The one place she's not as good as she needed to be was the thing in the park where they're escaping. It showed that acting wasn't her strongest suit. The fault was not hers, it was mine. I just could not get her to do what I wanted done. That, for me, is the only weakness. The rest of it, she's perfect. You were pretty fortunate with Don Johnson as well. He'd been in The Harrad Experiment before that, but he was still relatively unknown. There was obviously some attraction between those two actors in the film. We were fortunate because of Don, and Don was fortunate because of us. He had already done three pictures, relatively big ones with fairer budgets and so forth, but things were just sitting there with him. I think one of the reasons was because they'd always played him as "pretty" because he was a handsome young man. Almost too handsome. You put long hair on Don and a dress and he's the best looking female you've ever laid your eyes on. I think for the first time we really roughed him up and gave him something to do. That was good for him. Coming off A Boy & His Dog, he got at least ten offers to do series pilots [for television]. Most of them didn't work, but he finally got around to the one that did go. With Miami Vice. That went and he was off and running. Hey folks, you've got to have the right vehicle or else you're screwed. That's absolutely right. So this one turns out for him. To me, he hadn't come fifty percent of anything else he's ever done compared to A Boy & His Dog. He was just marvelous in it. He was working under tough conditions to begin with and he was working with really young people and an animal. That's the kiss of death! next >>> Index "I was sitting in hysterical laughter because he had actually pulled it off." "That damn dog is phenomenal." "I would have sold my seat in hell to work with all three of them!" "I absolutely adore Vic and Blood." "It's one of the great moments of my life." back to past articles

Jonathan Marlow In addition to his persistence in acquiring obscure films for GreenCine, Marlow is a writer, filmmaker, curator and occasional critic. Not necessarily in that order. He is also a dedicated skeptic. February 6, 2007. Mark Savage & the D.I.Y. Aesthetic by Jeffrey M. Anderson February 3, 2007. Seeing the Humor in Sexual Identity by Michael Guillen January 29, 2007. Smokin' Aces with Joe Carnahan and Jeremy Piven by Sean Axmaker January 26, 2007. Include Me Out: Interview with Farley Granger by Jonathan Marlow January 25, 2007. Grindhouse: Chapter Four - The 1960's by Eddie Muller January 19, 2007. Charles Mudede: Zoo Story by Andy Spletzer January 19, 2007. Mark Becker: Merging the Personal and the Political by Sara Schieron January 19, 2007. Micha X. Peled: The Lives of the Sweatshop Youth by Hannah Eaves January 16, 2007. Djinn: A Taxi Driver Dreams of Perth by Jeffrey M. Anderson January 12, 2007. Clint Eastwood: Flags and Letters From the "Good War" by Jeff Shannon view past articles