TAKE 22: Moviemakers on Moviemaking

Since 1971 film-critic Crist has been hosting film-buff weekends in Tarrytown, N.Y.--where the audiences get to talk to an actor or director while seeing retro-spectives of the moviemaker's work. Here, then, are 18 transcripts of those conversations between guest-filmmakers and audiences: a predictable mixture of hohum chat (favorite movies, favorite leading men, etc.) and more revealing/enlightening comments. Burt Reynolds is comically candid about what went wrong with Lucky Lady. Screenwriter Jay Presson Allen provides one of several inside-glimpses of the ugly, deal-making side of the movie business--in an anecdote about pretending to be Jewish in dealing with a worried Cabaret backer (""a professional Jew""). Burt Lancaster, an incisive, articulate standout, is matter-of-fact about the obsessions of Luchino Visconti (""now, here's a man who loves little boys""). There's an engaging give-and-take when a couple--Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews--appears together. And the speakers--also including Michael Caine, Steven Spielberg, Bette Davis, Peter Bogdanovich, and Walter Matthau--wind up talking about everything from salaries to shot-by-shot technicalities, from personality-conflicts to script revisions to agents. Lots of chaff to wade through, perhaps, but also a good measure of lively, no-nonsense, browse-worthy testimony--from veteran moviemakers who probably didn't think, at the time, that their remarks would end up in print.