Scrooged (1988)

My name is Dick Donner, and I directed this wonderful film Scrooged. And Danny Elfman did the music. Paramount put up the money. A lot of great actors, a lot of great fun. And Scrooged was supposed to be advertised as, "You've been Scrooged." But, you know, people are chicken, and they were worried about the, you know, the right. You know which right I'm talking about. And, so we never said, "Scrooge," but I'm saying it now. And if you guys don't want to buy it, then go Scrooged yourself. How's that? Now, okay, this is a great little set. A wonderful little set. I have a lot of this at home. I know I shouldn't, but... And these are all the little people. We got little people from all over to come, and some of them turned out to really be Santa's helper. We didn't realize it and... But they showed up, because they heard about the casting and figured it would work. That... Last time a star appeared like that, it was Joel Silver. You should pardon the expression.

Uh-oh. Oh, yeah. This is a clever film about... a military attack on Santa's headquarters. Shooting reindeer. This is the mentality of Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue. Great minds. Great, funny... Great, funny. Why don't you just leave it at that? Great, funny minds. You all Know who that is, that's Lee Majors. Good old Lee.

This is amazing. You know, we happened to be out there doing a documentary, and these guys... We actually were filming this, and then these guys showed up, and the attack started and we were lucky. Bob Goulet. Did I really make this movie? Robert Goulet in the Everglades. Cajun Christmas. Great man. Well, it's a great cast. Great names, great people. All a lot of fun.

Sure. "Hi, Mom." "Dad's in jail." "Oh, no, not again." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." That's it. We also got away with that. "Father Loves Beaver." How do you like them apples? Try that today with the you-know-what right. "Why, you can't say that." Don't they know what beavers are? These wonderful animals get trapped. There he is. William F. Burray. Look at that. He is so cute. The movie could not have been made without Bill. And Alfre Woodard. Alfre Wood... What a cast.

I have one of those TV sets, actually. I bought it fair and square. Oh, gosh. One of the greats.

Who else would you want to read... and be there, but John Houseman and... You're hearing all this. Mary Lou Retton. You're hearing these names. There's John Houseman. I don't want to repeat it. You probably think I'm gonna be very, you know, repetitive. I don't Know. So just listen. Listen and watch. And applaud if you like. "

Do you like that one? U-L-E. "

Clever.

That's Mary Ellen Trainor. Wonderful actress. And Alfie. What a great lady.

Bob Goldthwait. Everybody is supposed to be so scared of Bill, and in reality they were. I was afraid of Bill. Sometimes I didn't even go to work. If he stared at me, I just panicked.

You know what Bill does now? He reads books in front of fireplaces.

I may not talk all the time. You'd probably enjoy that. There's my Picasso painting that Mills didn't return.

Actually Mike O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer were really close friends of Bill, and they really wrote this for Bill. And you can see it's brilliantly written for his personality and character. He loved this stuff.

Producer's name is Art Linson. And Art Linson, of course, Art's humor, I think he provoked the two guys to write it for Bill. So we all owe this to Art Linson. Much older man, great guy. Very respected. Married to a young girl. Brilliant, beautiful woman. Writer, producer, actress. We all respect art. He kind of brought us up in the business. Fiona Lewis is his wife.

Mary Ellen Trainor, she's been in a lot of my movies. Bobcat was in a Iales of the CryotI did, and I thought he'd be great for this, which he was.

Bill Murray's takes.

Scare the dickens.

That was a mistaken cut. We should never have double-cut that. Should have stayed on him. You would have got a better laugh. Live and learn.

The shots at the Seagrams Building, which is supposed to be their building. Daytime shots. Most of it we can find in the direction of the building, which we controlled at the time. Actually, New York was fairly simple to shoot in.

I look at this movie and I realize some of the things we shot and can't find. Too bad.

Is she a beautiful woman or is she a beautiful woman? What a wonderful actress too. That was a funny story. I read the script and... My agent sent it to me and...

He is cheap. Look at that. Were we lucky? Bob Mitchum. You all better know who Bob Mitchum is, or else go do your homework.

My agent sent me the script, and I liked it a lot, and I didn't Know who was gonna be in it.

That look on his face. Robert Mitchum. Anyway... I got a call... My agent, Michael Ovitz, I say that with great reverence, called and said, "Hey, Bill Murray's in town, and he'd love to come and talk to you." I said, "Oh, great." The next call said he'd be at my house at six o'clock.

"Walk with me." "Walk this way," is what we were gonna do. You know, we were gonna give him a limp.

Anyway, six o'clock, Bill didn't show up. Seven o'clock, Bill didn't show up. Eight o'clock, Bill didn't show up. Nine o'clock, Bill didn't show up. Ten o'clock, my wonderful wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner, who you all know and respect and love her work... We got in bed. The doorbell rings. It's Bill Murray, twelve o'clock. I said, "Bill, I'm going to bed." He said, "I just gotta come in and talk to you a minute." I said, "But..." I said, "Okay." So I went downstairs... and charming Bill came in, and I mean charming. And we had this really funny conversation, had a couple of belts, had a couple of more belts. Feeling no pain whatsoever. It's one o'clock in the morning, and Bill said, "Where's your wife?" I said, "She's asleep." He said, "I gotta tell her about this script." And at one o'clock in the morning, he walked upstairs to our bedroom, woke Lauren, said, "Talk this guy into it," which she just said, "Go do it so I can sleep." And I ended up making the movie, and dear Bill became a good friend. Don't see much of him anymore, because he became a big star. But, that's Hollywood.

Anyway, was that an interesting story? I don't Know. Will you be up all night telling your friends? No.

Miles Davis, guys. Miles Davis and Paul Shaffer. We see him every night. Sanborn. Larry Carlton. I mean, those are four of the great names of all time. And we got him to play jazz on our street. Supposedly at the wee hours of the morning, I can say I worked with Miles Davis. Actually, Miles Davis went around saying he worked with me. Kind of helped. We shot on Fifth Avenue and that was not so tough, because I think we were allowed to close it down at one o'clock in the morning. So we shot from 1:00 till sunrise, and that was well organized and we had a lot of cooperation.

21 Club, folks.

"$4.85. Here's five." He left it in the car.

Good shot, Dick. Thanks.

Got to admit, he's a bit of a genius, Bill Murray.

Now, who do you think it's gonna be on Christmas Eve? Nobody. You know why? It's going to turn out to be a Ghost of Christmas Past. I'm not gonna tell you his name is John Forsythe, because that would give it away. But you know what? It's John Forsythe. You must admit we had a great cast.

I haven't seen this movie in a long time. I'm getting a big kick out of it myself.

Funny. Funny. Not stupid. Bright, intelligent, cleverly done.

Right. That was... When you look at John Forsythe behind that makeup, you think it's makeup, but it's not. He was quite old when we hired him for this role, you can see, and we changed it to fit his character. First, we thought he was young.

That's not makeup. When you see him nowadays, cleaned up, that's makeup, and that's done by Burman. Tom Burman and his wonderful wife. That's one of the great makeup effects houses. A bit of a genius. He also did the upcoming character you'll see and all the little characters in the belly of the upcoming character you'll see, and went on to do a lot of wonderful things. He also went on to do, in Goonies for me, Sloth. A great big character. Tom and his company are really great.

These were tough effects to do in those days, because there were no computers yet. This is all done... Physical effects and green screen and... And... Whereas I look at it today and I say, "Gosh, you could do that like that." In those days it took us a long time. A lot of trying to figure out how to do it. The only green screen we had... it was blue screen at that time... was when the ghost holds Bill Murray outside the window, and he had to go through the glass.

Call that, everybody, and see who you get.

It's Bill Murray's private cell phone. So don't tell anyone.

I really-- It's hard to talk. It's so cute.

I keep saying, "Mary Ellen, don't get into his shadow". Watch. Good, she didn't. But if you notice again, she leaned in too much. Things like that just frustrate the hell out of you.

Look at these sets, folks. Look at these sets. First of all, starting with Santa's workshop and... The office is okay, that's common. But this had great, great, great production designer. I forget his name. No, Michael Riva. This is all a great cast. So, Michael Riva... he was the first son of Bill Riva. Who was married to Maria Riva. Who is the daughter of Marlene Dietrich. And... I don't Know why I'm telling you about this. Except I knew Michael since he was an infant, having worked with his father, Bill. What a great actress too. And then, I was fortunate enough to find out Bill was back designing. He was in designing and... I mean, Mike was. And I grabbed him for this, and we've got a good relationship ever since. He turns me down on everything. But he did a great job on this one.

Look at the famous Karen Allen eyes. Is that not the happiest, sweetest face you ever wanna know in your life? Look at that, Karen Allen. Very special. Very special. As I keep repeating, it was a great cast. Makes the director real lucky.

Great choreographer too. And I worked with him a lot.

Good old physical slapstick. "A ghost?" See, I remember all the dialogue.

Lumpy.

That's the special effects man. Had to get him in.

That sure is dated. Anybody know who Marlin Perkins was? I knew it.

"Hip-hop." I used to yell that. That was my script. "Hip-hop. Hip-hop. Let's move it. Come on. Keep it along. Keep going." So they got my script in a shot.

You know, a lot of movies... I'd like to work with them again. I'd love to improvise. Let the actors go. This particular script, this particular group of writers... Michael and Mitch, it's so well written. It's so perfect for each character that the only improv that ever happened was moments when Bill would just run off and keep going, or Bob Goldthwait. But as far as the, well, the character scenes and the people, it's all on paper before we started. Good writing. Really good writing. And it continues to be at less. I can't wait till Christmas to see this again.

Look how far back this goes. That mobile phone, you got a hernia from carrying the battery.

This is the first and only chance I had to work with Bob Mitchum. And he was a great guy. A lot funnier than you'd think. Good sense of humor, quick on his feet, real professional. And had fun.

Look at the look on John Glover's face.

We don't talk about lacrosse anymore. It had its time, and, I'm afraid, it's passé.

Eyeball, not highball. Got it?

He, who? We were gonna do about 20 minutes, which we did. That's on the floor, and it was a funny scene. It just went on forever. "Are you he? Know him, who? Who, he?" It just-- Anyway, you had to be there.

Poor Richard, he's gone too. But I assume you all realize that there was a moment in Richard's life where he... That was improvisation. It was improvisation. It was a mistake. The floor was wet. He slipped, and, boy, did he make a lot out of it.

And as you came out of that building, you noticed it was the A&M Club. That's for Alpert and Moss. The Tijuana band. A&M Records. Best group in the world.

Bill took me to a club one night in The Village. And Poindexter was on stage. I thought he was a genius. This was David Johansen, but his character name was Buster Poindexter. And did he do a wonderful job? I love him.

Did you see the time on the meters? 1980. It's the time we're going back to. Well, you know this. I'm not telling you anything new. I'm just refreshing my own memory.

How did they do that? Well, in those days, no computers. So we ran the two of them together, had a terrible accident. Never mind. The one house without lights. Now, what does that mean?

Now, earlier you saw a young guy playing Bill's brother. That's really Bill's brother.

Real slapsticks.

Oh, my golly, I forgot. That little commercial with... one of the great clowns of all time, with Emmett Kelly in it, was filmed by me. And production design by Bill Riva, Mike's father. As I said earlier, Mike is doing this. That was-- Oh, well...

And this gentleman is another of Bill Murray's brothers. This is Brian Murray. And John Murray was the younger one. For a weekend in Santa Monica.

See, that's makeup. John Forsythe there.

There was a good line that followed that, but we had to cut it out. And a better one now, we had to cut it out.

See that guy behind him? That's the makeup man. That's the genius. So a moment ago, you saw Tom Burman. That was him behind with the beard.

I put everybody in this movie. It was cheaper than hiring.

You know, in a strange way when Bill does comedy...

In some of the scenes or something, you know what a good dramatic actor he is. He just crosses those lines so gently and so carefully.

The interesting part of it, Bill got along great with everybody in the cast. Everybody got along well. It was a really homogenous group. You see what I mean? That was improv. When you have a good picture, and it's going well, and it feels good, and everybody wants to come to work in the morning, it kind of tells you where you're going. In this picture, everybody really enjoyed each other, got along well.

Karen Allen's so pretty, so alive.

"Never trusted one" was the line.

You guys read Kama Sutra? You know, it's still out there. During that period, the '60s, that was the hottest book out there. Everybody had it. And if your mother found it, you were banned.

It's still pretty good. But not for you guys out there in that conservative right. Although maybe you should read it. You could learn something.

Now, an interesting story... And Mike Riva, my production designer, my little buddy who I knew since he was a little boy.

And on that tree, it said "Lauren and Dick." Carved into the tree. Lauren is my wife. We do a lot of little personal things like that for your own kind of fun. Make you remember movies.

There she is. She was Miss Texas. Was she gorgeous?

That was Stella Hall. Beautiful lady.

I'm serious, you know, when you look at this... Look at some of this acting. Okay, it's a parody on comedy, but there's another side to it. It's Bill Murray. He can play anything. He's a damn good actor.

You know, every movie, actors, actresses... There she is. ... love to steal a coat, a sweater, a jacket or something. They say it's to remember the picture, but it's actually 'cause they're all cheapskates. Bill Murray stole the dog suit. He still has it to this day. Sometimes when you go by Bill's house, which we have a couple of times, there's this dog I don't know. That's Bill. You never know it though because he's an actor, and he brings it to life so real. He loved that suit. You see.

There's a lot of the crew in this that's gone on to become great cameramen, great operators. Everybody. Everybody progressed, but I'm still back there waiting for my next job.

This little sequence was shot downtown in LA by the railroad yards. 3rd Street. I think it was really 3rd Street. I assume all these buildings are gone now. But there were things that don't exist on the lot. I don't think we shot very much on the lot. Locations were locations.

And that man on the right is named Ramsey. And he's married to that wonderful lady named Anne Ramsey, who had just finished Goonies for me. She was also in Throw Momma from the Train. Great, great comedienne, great actress. She died too early, of smoking. She was a constant smoker and that killed her.

This was in that building actually, downtown. A location.

I Know you've all seen this film, but... Hopefully. But I'm looking at it now, and I'm just kind of waiting for what happens next. I totally forgot half of it. You make so many films, and then you move on and move on, and you think you can remember it all. You do. It brings you back, but you don't remember it as you're watching it evolve.

What a great actress. She was also in Lethal Weapon 3. She was the armored car driver who fell in love with Danny Glover. Yeah, I kind of keep my cast going. They make you look good. They're fun to work with. They know how and what kind of nut you are.

Is she cute or is she cute? Let me hear it out there. Is she cute? What a great little actress.

How things fall into place is strange. But when you read the script... And I had seen Karen Allen quite recently at that point, and I said, "Oh, my God, would she be great? Think we'll get her?" And we-- Actually anybody... Everybody we approached were kind of first choices, and everybody jumped on board. I guess it was, of course, a chance to work with Bill Murray. That's why I did. Here's Michael Pollard again.

This guy, doesn't he look like me? You don't know. You don't know what I look like. That happens to be my cousin, and he's the captain in all the Lethal Weapons. He's also my good luck piece. Yeah, every movie he's been in brought me luck. Steve Kahan. Give him a hand, folks.

If I remember right... I'm not sure, but I think in one of these scenes, we pull back and the guy on the camera's me.

Paul Tuerpe on your right. Great actor. See him all the time.

You'll have to go back, folks, and look at this movie again, because I'm in there somewhere as a Cameraman. And I Know you'll all Know who I am. That'll be the day, huh?

Okay, so when you read the script... And, actually, I think the writers, the producer, everybody, we all sat there and they said, "Okay, you finally read it?" I said, "Yeah." They said, "Carol Kane?" And, of course, who else could have played it but Carol Kane? Plus the fact that she came from Cleveland, Ohio, where my wife came from. Kind of fulfilled a lot of obligations. No, I'm just kidding. She's great. Dear Carol. A ditzy, ditzy fairy.

That's interesting, you see, because Carol didn't want to really slap him, and she kept doing it very easy. And Bill said, "You gotta do it. Slap me, grab my lip." She did.

A couple of falls Bill took, he really took. But I guess Saturday Night Live and all those shows those guys did, and all the physical pratfalls they did, they were in good condition to do this. Bill was.

"Free South Africa." I always had that in in those days, and had a lot of threats on my life because of it. Believe it or not. The world we were living in. That's Damon Hines as the young boy. He's the character who plays Danny Glover's son in Letha/ Weapon.

He got the daylights beat out of him.

This young lady's name is Wendie Malick, and she plays the wife of Bill's brother right there.

In reality, she was married to Mitch Glazer, the writer. "Was," that's past tense. See, that happens in showbiz a lot. Never knew it.

On the left on the couch in the group shot, that's Mitch Glazer. No, that's Bill's brother. That's Bill's other brother. Boy, there's a whole lot of Bills in there.

That's Mitch Glazer over there on the left, looking scared stiff. Not that he was afraid to be in the movie, but that, for a moment, any of these people would read his lines wrong. There he is. Good old Mitch. And Michael O'Donoghue, God rest his soul, is in this in an upcoming scene too. Yeah, we had everybody.

It's a good attitude, because that was real life too.

It's terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Great Mike Riva set. And it was done in a refrigerated unit. So that the breath... It's so hard to show breath in film unless it's really freezing cold. And so we built this set in a unit that was sealed and refrigerated. And, oh, my God, it was cold.

There he is. What a cute little guy and what a great little actor.

Now, this was tough. 'Cause how long could he hold it, without smiling or breathing or breaking it? So we were forced to cut away, as you see. We didn't have the money to make an artificial face.

And that's acting, boy. Let me tell you. You could tell it right then and there. Bill Murray.

On the camera. That was me!

Here I am. I remember me.

I love this.

He actually belted her by mistake.

I taught her how to do that. I was a gymnast for the first 20 years of my life.

The music is really brilliant. A great, great composer.

That lady is Maria Riva, Bill Riva's mother, and the daughter of Marlene Dietrich.

And a great actress, by the way.

She was in New York theater and early live television. Some great performances.

Actually, we put sardines on the TV, you know, and they licked it off. But don't tell anybody.

There's a great, great comedian, writer. Wonderful character, really. The tall guy was Pat McCormick. And one of the great humorists, writer, actor, performer. Really great.

Those are my Emmys that were shot.

I forget how it ends. I think he kills him here by mistake. Yeah, the picture ends right here. I guess that's it. Because we didn't mean to do it. But we just-- Bill decided it'd be better if he died here. Oh, no, he didn't. I'm wrong. I'm wrong.

This is also makeup people. Special effects people. Burmans.

That's also-- The Burmans did those little characters who are in my office, by the way.

The Burmans, Riva, myself, all of us, everybody got together when we designed any of these things. The Ghost was an amalgamation. That was the nice part of working on this picture, it was very homogenous. Everybody loved to work. Everybody loved to come up with ideas, and you don't stifle them. You ask them to come forward and say what it is. Even if it's bad. If it's bad, something good will come out of it. If it's good, it makes me look good.

And I like to look good. It means you're gonna get hired again.

Look what makeup does to somebody.

You believe Karen could look like that?

Great set, Mike Riva. Great set.

Michael O'Donoghue is the minister. The writer, Saturday Night Live, this, many, many things. Great writer. Great, funny and wonderful man. Who, gosh, he died much too early, much too young.

Everybody that's doing their cameo in this picture... I mean, all you had to do was say, "Hey, would you mind"-- "Yes." "No. Would you mind being in"-- "Yes." Everybody wanted to be in it. Again, it's Bill. It's the beauty of working with Bill. Imagine this kind of insanity all day, every day on the set. It's Bill. And, I mean, look at the cast that was in it, they were all wonderful people you wanted to be with.

Bobcat really got beaten up in this.

You know, I just can't imagine anybody else in this role. Yes, I can. I mean, anybody could play it, but it wouldn't be the picture. There's only one Bill Murray.

Those words were written. That was a written scene. But 99% of the physical attributes and the attitude, I mean, that was improv, that was Bill. That was Bill bringing it to life. And everybody had to play off of him. And they did it well.

Improv, improv, improv. And the speech at the end here that falls out of Bill, well written, but also really well acted and well delivered. You know, there's a moment that happens here as the actor, as the character, he breaks up for a moment. And in reality, yeah, it sounds saccharine and all that bull when you... It kind of got to Bill. It kind of got to all of us.

Some of it is a little embarrassing, but it's a long time ago.

Kama Sutra, guys, I told you, get it.

This is the speech I was telling you about.

It's a tough speech for an actor to deliver.

Kind of applies today, doesn't it? The rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. Listen to him.

Tough speech. And he did a good job. Did a great job.

When his eyes glazed, it was really happening.

Kind of fell in love with Bill Murray. Tough speech, but it came from inside.

No phony tears. Real Bill Murray. Now, this was kind of my idea at the end here. No, not this. Coming up.

Okay, here's where, as we Say, step through the proscenium arch. We step out, and we go through everything. And go past the crew, and the cast, and the working people. And I got everybody to step in, and join us in this song in the end. It really was kind of the joy of making the film. We all appreciated each other, and this was a good opportunity to say goodbye.

A little love in your heart Goes for now. Goes for always.

That's me. That's me. Upstaged by a great kiss. Those are my great writers and dear friends. Goodbye, Michael. Sorry you're not here. Art Linson, you deserve the first credit. You really did all the work on this one.

Sydney Pollack, that's Mirage. Michael Chapman did a wonderful job, wonderful, wonderful. J. Michael Riva. And that's his mom, Maria Riva. Steinkamps, good editors. This was great. I wish she was around still. Ray Hartwick. Jennie Lew Tugend! Used to be my associate, now she's a great producer on her own. Really great. Wayne Finkelman, he made me a sult. Danny Elfman, he sure as hell did it. You see that guy back there holding the baby and the young kid, that's me. Move over, Bill. You're upstaging me. There, that's me holding junior up there. The whole crew. It's the whole cast. Everybody came in. I don't think that's ever been done before.

You didn't have to ask him twice. There's Michael Chapman. There's the whole crew.

I enjoyed it.

Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it. Tell your friends to go and buy another one. I may make a couple of points on this one. Thanks again. Bye-bye.

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