Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God
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“The writing is the easiest part of it,” [303] he said, then corrected, “the trying period is the period of conceptualization, followed by research. This pre-writing time can take anywhere from six months to ten years. But once I know everything there is to know about my story’s milieu, once I have taken the separate pills of their characters, then the actual writing of the script switches to automatic pilot. It makes no difference whether the script is for TV or a feature, the writing period is the same: five pages a day, seven days a week. That’s it. Nothing mystical. You just sit there and keep typing. When you’ve got your five pages, you’re the hell out of there and off to explore life away from the IBM. So, okay, that’s 35 pages a week. If you’re talking about a one-hour TV show, you should finish in two weeks. Less, since these scripts should run between 50 and 60 pages, depending on their content. A two-hour MOW takes me three weeks since these end up anywhere from 105 to 110 pages in length. A script for a feature, using this measurement, should take no more than four weeks, at the max. But here, in consideration of the fact that you can elevate the quality of dialogue and the visualization of the scenes themselves, their staging, their mood, their texture, given the fact that a director is going to have more money and can spend more time in shooting a feature than a TV chunk of sausage, I cut down my page count per day to three pages rather than maintain the five-page-a-day pace. I round this out at 20 pages a week and allow myself between six and eight weeks for the first draft. If a writer takes more time than that he is bullshitting you. Of course, if you want to calculate working time from sitting down without the faintest idea of what you intend to write — until you finish whatever that thing may be — you could spend a lifetime and produce nothing.”
“What is this mystique when people say, ‘I spent all year working on a script?,’” he added to interviewer Bill Collins. “I say they spent all year at the beach, goofing off, avoiding the responsibility of trying to solve their scene. They didn’t sit down, as a producer or director must, and work at the film. My ‘inspiration’ comes by sitting there. If I don’t write anything that day, the next day I have to write ten pages. Another thing I find, if I’m really blocked, when I go to bed at night, I will feed it into my head before I go to bed and do a thirty-minute self-hypnosis in the dark, and it has never yet failed me. I don’t do it too often; I’m afraid of using it up. You wake up the next morning and wonder what the problem was. You don’t die when you sleep, so why not let your brain work?” [304]
“I feel that the screenwriter must isolate himself from the established ignorance of the people he’s writing for — the producer, the director, the actors (with some exceptions), the studio executives — and write for himself, that he must invest his script with a visionary energy which not only describes a particular scene but communicates his own unique and utterly subjective apprehension of what the scene feels like to him at that moment. I don’t believe one can do that by simply having your coffee, rubbing your eyes and sitting down at some machine and writing your scene off the top of your head. Hence, my belief in an almost mythic or spiritual hype before starting work each day.
“What I am saying here is that, once you’ve done all your spade work — got your locations in mind, have dressed the sets, selected the wardrobe, decided on the weather, cast your characters and know more about them than the average guy ever knows about his wife — at that point, if you take more than two or three months to write a script, I don’t ever wanta have lunch with that writer. Too fucking depressing to consider.
“Let me sum it up by saying that it shouldn’t take the writer any longer to write his script than it takes the director to shoot it or the actors to get it right.”
Stirling Silliphant “got it right” more often than not, and more often than most. He was both a craftsman and a businessman, someone who just did the damn job, sometimes because he wanted to, and sometimes because he had to, but he did it. When the source was inspired — when he found a way to make it touch his own life, as with Route 66 or Charly or In the Heat of the Night or The Grass Harp or The New Centurions or The Silent Flute — the results were personal, revealing, and moving. Even with pictures that turned out to be worth less than the paper they were typed on, he found ways to invest himself in the characters and tried to engage the audience to do the same.
Not all screenwriters’ lives are the Hollywood tragedy the wags gripe about. Billy Wilder said that of the oppressors that “theirs may be the kingdom, but ours is the power and the glory.” Stirling Silliphant had the gift of writing scripts that could be taken straight to the soundstage and, when the director did his job right, the results went straight to the heart.
“Stirling could do anything with both hands tied behind his back,” said Charles Matthau. “He was so able, so instinctually smart and emotionally intelligent. He was a great storyteller and he could ‘get’ something that was cerebral or something that was not on the nose and he could distill that quality while moving the story along. When you combine that kind of a brilliant mind with the great craft he had, and instinct about what not to write, that is, skipping over the boring parts, you get that he’s one in a million.”
John Corcoran, whose long interview with Silliphant about the martial arts developed into a mentor-protégé relationship, got a call from him six months after the series had run, “and [he] said that a Variety staffer asked him to do an interview about his martial arts involvement. He said he told her that she should talk to me since I had already done the quintessential interview with him on the subject. He told her he had nothing left to say about the subject. I never heard from her, and I got the clear impression that SS didn’t want to grant the interview. But I felt his endorsement of me and my work to an important media professional was a wonderful compliment.”
Michael Ventura touched on the downside of Silliphant’s literary fecundity. “He had a marvelous gift, and he sold it out,” he lamented. “I’d written a piece (in 1986) for LA Weekly titled ‘A Swastika in the Snow’ in which I quoted Stirling and Route 66. I wrote another piece for LA Weekly around that time, directly about Route 66, in which I called Stirling’s writing ‘jukebox existentialism.’ He liked that a lot and quoted it back to me. In any case, after I wrote those pieces, he wanted to meet me. I hadn’t expected that — I simply wanted to meet and thank the writer who’d meant so much to me at such a crucial period of life. Stirling spoke to me without hypocrisy and almost without self-pity. He justified nothing and blamed no one. Stirling enjoyed calling himself a whore… As he’d written long ago: ‘Every criminal acquits himself before he’s judged. Every violator considers himself excused by circumstances. Don’t you acquit him, don’t you excuse him.’ [305] Well, I hadn’t come for hero worship. I’d come to say, ‘Thank you.’ I believed it. I did it. Stirling was right. What he knew didn’t save him but maybe it saved me. What could he have been, had he believed in the integrity he helped teach me? I am grateful I said my thanks to that damaged man, eye to eye. He saw in me evidence that his best work mattered. It was all I could give him.” [306]
Stirling Silliphant’s legacy is larger than he could have known, even if it isn’t all he may have wished. In a business where everybody blames the director for the good stuff and the writer for the bad (if they give him any credit at all), Silliphant is an anomaly. Whether he was writing from the heart or for the wallet, an incomparable percentage of his scripts actually got made, even if many of those he wanted to get made, didn’t. Their sheer number assures him an impressive percentage of hits versus an expected number of flops. Beyond that, his moral and philosophical beliefs found kinship with the public, and his technical skills were of such caliber as to persuade money people to risk a trip off the fence to invest. As a man, he was an acute judge of character, both on the page and in real life, yet learned to expect from others no more than they were able to deliver. This is the refuge of the writer: when life hands you lemons, don’t make lemonade right away, save them for when you’re thirsty.<
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More importantly, Stirling Silliphant was the first screenwriter of the modern age to create and ply a public persona. In an era when a best-selling novelist might, at best, land a quickie guest appearance in the last ten minutes on The Tonight Show, Silliphant was a frequent interview subject on any number of talk shows, newspapers, magazines, panels, lectures, and even TV game shows. He made the public aware that, as the WGA would say in a publicity campaign, years later, “somebody wrote that.”
Back in 1953, when he quit his well-paid publicity job at Fox, it was because, “it was time either to write or be unhappy for the rest of my life.” He spent the next forty-three years proving he’d made the right decision.
Appendix A: Credits
As compiled by the Writers Guild of America in 1992 and cross-referenced with the Internet Movie Database, this is a list of Silliphant’s registered credits. Most dates reflect when Silliphant did the actual work rather than when the project was released. Feature films are shown in CAPS:
1953
THE JOE LOUIS STORY (producer; uncredited contribution) UA
1955
Mickey Mouse Club Disney/ABC-TV (various episodes)
5 AGAINST THE HOUSE (also producer) Columbia
1956
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Revue TV
“A Bottle of Wine”
“The Manacle”
“Jonathan”
“Never Again”
Zane Grey Theatre Dick Powell/CBS-TV
“No Man Living”
“The Three Graves”
Ford Theatre NBC-TV
“The Idea Man”
Studio 57 Dumont TV
“Mr. Cinderella”
General Electric Theatre CBS-TV
“Never Turn Back”
HUK! UA (script from own novel)
Stage 7 CBS-TV
“The Warriors”
NIGHTFALL Columbia
Jane Wyman Fireside NBC-TV
“The Thread”
1957
Suspicion NBC-TV
“Meeting in Paris”
MARACAIBO UA (novel)
THE LINE-UP Columbia
Chicago Manhunt TV
“Neighborhood Killer”
DAMN CITIZEN Universal-International
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Revue TV
“The Perfect Crime”
“The Glass Eye”
Perry Mason CBS-TV
“The Case of the Nervous Accomplice”
“The Case of the Fan Dancer’s Horse”
West Point Story CBS-TV
“Ambush”
M-Squad NBC-TV
“Neighborhood Killer”
1958
Naked City ABC-TV
“Goodbye, My Lady Love”
“The Shield”
“Even Crows Sing Good”
“Burst of Passion”
“And a Merry Christmas to the Force on Patrol”
“Ladybug, Ladybug”
“The Manhole”
“Ticker Tape”
“Susquehanna 4-7598”
“Stakeout”
“The Canvas Bullet”
“The Bird Guard”
“Line of Duty”
“Welfare Island” (possibly never filmed)
“Sidewalk Fisherman”
“Nickel Ride”
“The Other Face of Goodness”
“Meridian”
“Violent Circle”
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Revue TV
“The Canary Sedan”
“Little White Frock”
“Return of the Hero”
Suspicion CBS-TV
“Voice in the Night”
“The Woman Turned to Salt”
Rescue 8 Screen Gems, Syndicated
“102 to Bakersfield” (as “Loren Dayle”)
“The Ferris Wheel” (as “Loren Dayle”)
1959 Naked City ABC-TV
“The Canvas Bullet”
“A Wood of Thorns”
“The Bloodhounds”
“The Scorpion’s Sting”
“A Piece of the Action”
“Baker’s Dozen”
“Four Sweet Corners”
“The Rebirth”
“A Running of Bulls”
“Turn of Events”
“Beyond Truth”
“The Bumper”
“Hey, Teach!”
“Fire Island”
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Revue TV
“Graduating Class”
“The Crystal Trench”
Markham CBS-TV
“Image of Love”
“The Altar”
“Mutation”
“The Seamark”
“The Nephews”
“The Dual”
Tightrope CBS-TV
“Appointment in Jericho”
“Stand on Velvet”
Man from Blackhawk ABC-TV
“Biggest Legend”
“The Trouble with Toliver”
Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre NBC-TV
“Medals for Harry”
“Corporal Hardy”
“The Silent Kill” (story only)
Adventure Showcase CBS-TV
“Brock Callahan”
1960
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED MGM (coscript)
Route 66 CBS-TV
“Black November”
“Sheba”
“The Quick and the Dead”
“Play it Glissando”
“A Fury Slinging Flame”
“Lay Out at Glen Canyon”
“Legacy for Lucia”
“Three Sides of a Coin”
“The Strengthening Angels”
“Man on the Monkey Board”
“Swan Bed”
“A Lance of Straw”
Naked City ABC-TV
“A Death of Princes”
“Pedigree Sheet”
“A Succession of Heartbeats”
General Electric Theatre CBS-TV
“Learn to Say Goodbye”
Checkmate CBS-TV
“The Cyanide Touch”
Brothers Brannagan CBS-TV
“Equinox”
Mr. Lucky CBS-TV
“Hair of the Dog”
June Allyson Show Dupont/Four Star/CBS-TV
“So Dim the Light”
1961
Route 66 CBS-TV
“A Long Piece of Mischief ”
“And the Cat Jumped Over the Moon”
“Some of the People, Some of the Time”
“Burning for Burning”
“Birdcage on My Foot”
“The Mud Nest”
“Mon Petite Chou”
“A Month of Sundays”
“Blue Murder”
“Incident on a Bridge”
“The Opponent”
“The Trap at Angie’s Corner” (possibly never filmed)
“The Newborn”
“Most Vanquished, Most Victorious”
“Don’t Count the Stars”
“An Absence of Tears”
“Effigy in Snow”
“Sleep On Four Pillows”
“Fly Away Home” I and II
THE SINS OF RACHEL CADE (coscript) Warner Bros.
1962
Route 66 CBS-TV
“...Shall Forfeit His Dog and Ten Shillings to the King”
“Give the Old Cat a Tender Mouse”
“A Bunch of Lonely Pagliaccis”
“Only by Gunning Glimpses”
“Hey, Moth, Come Eat the Flame”
“Lizard’s Egg and Owlet’s Wing”
“From an Enchantress Fleeing”
“Hell is Empty, All the Devils Are Here”
“Between Hello and Goodbye”
“Love is a Skinny Kid”
“Kiss the Maiden, All Forlorn”
“There I Am, There I Always Am”
“Go Read the River”
&
nbsp; “You Never Had It So Good”
“Aren’t You Surprised to See Me”
“How Much a Pound is Albatross”
”One Tiger to a Hill”
“Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma?
“Across Walnuts & Wine”
Naked City ABC-TV
“Prime of Life”
“Five Cranks for Winter…Ten Cranks for Spring”
“Torment Him Much and Hold Him Long”
1963
Route 66 CBS-TV
“Child of Night”
“Like This It Means Father…Like This Bitter…This Tiger”
“ A Long Way From St. Louie”
“I’m Here to Kill a King”
“Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are”
“Same Picture, Different Frame”
“Where Are the Sounds of Celli Brahms?”
“The Stone Guest”
“A Cage in Search of a Bird”
“Two Strangers & an Old Enemy”
“But What Do You Do in March?”
“Peace, Pity, Pardon”
“The Cruelest Sea of All”
“In the Closing of a Trunk”