All language subtitles for This.is.Spinal.Tap.1984.1080p.BluRay.x265.hevc.10bit.AAC.5.1.commentary-HeVK.Rob Reiner&co

Welcome to Criterion's special edition
of This is Spinal Tap.

On this track, you will hear director
Rob Reiner, producer Karen Murphy, and

editors Robert Layton and Kent Beda.

Hello. My name is Marty DeBerge.

I'm Rob Reiner. I directed Spinal Tap.
I'm also one of the creators and writers

and play the part of Marty DeBerge in
the film.

I think the criterion people ask me to
do, A Few Good Men, and my feeling about

it is to dissect a film like this and to
discuss it in such detail, I think has

tremendous value for people who want to
become filmmakers or writers or actors

or whatever.

But what it tends to do is demystify
what you've done.

And to me, it's like, you know, a
magician telling the audience how he did

trick. And to me, that's not what we're
supposed to be about. We're supposed to

do the trick, and we're supposed to
dazzle you, and you're supposed to be

excited about that. And I can tell you
things about this film that will take

away, I believe, your pleasure of seeing
the film.

It will enhance your knowledge about the
film, but it will take away your

pleasure. And I feel that it's not the
best thing to be doing.

When I did Spinal Tap, everybody
contributed an enormous amount.

I mean, it really is a product of the
four of us. I mean, really, in all

fairness, it should be directed by the
four of us.

And it should be written, it says
written by the four of us, but the

credit should read everybody who's in
the film because they all made up their

parts. We actually went to the Writers
Guild and asked if we could list...

as the writers, all the people that were
actually in the film, and they wouldn't

let us do it.

I am Karen Murphy, and I produced this
as Final Tap.

Chris and Rob and Harry and Michael had
started brainstorming, and the guys all

kind of threw in their thoughts about
what the characters were, how they

to work, the fact that they were going
to be improvising the entire film.

They wanted to know, could I, as a
producer and documentary filmmaker, make

movie like that? So I said, of course,
of course I could do that. It sounded

like the best job I'd ever been offered.

This interview right here was taken from
the original 20 minutes that we

originally shot. There are only two
pieces of film that made the final film

were literally taken from the original.

a 20 -minute film that we made, and that
was one of them.

I don't think when we started the film
that anyone knew who we were or what the

hell we were doing.

I mean, if I heard that idea myself
today, I wouldn't want to touch it with

-foot pole.

We had made a deal with a company called
Marble Arch, which was owned by Sir Lou

Grade, and it was run by a fellow named
Martin Starger.

He gave us $60 ,000 to write a script,
and the four of us sat down to write a

script, and we realized that...

There would be no way that we could
convey the feel of this film in script

because it's the complete antithesis to
what the film is. And so we went and

made this 20 -minute demonstration reel,
and actually we put our own

money into it.

We finished this film, and we had this
20 -minute test film to show people, and

they passed on it, Marble Arch did, and
then we were free to take this around,

and we went to literally every single
studio in town.

You know, I used to say to Karen Murphy,
who produced the film, I used to say,

you know, if we ever get this film made,
we will have one of those stories where

we can say we took the film under our
arm to every single studio in town and

played it for the executives and
promptly got turned down by everybody.

They say that John Belushi had a pirated
copy of this tape when they found him

in his hotel room in the Chateau
Marmont.

Let's talk a little bit about the
history of the group. I understand,

and David originally started the band
back in, when was it, 1964?

When I did Spinal Tap, I just finished
playing a part in All in the Family. I

did that for about eight years, and I
always wanted to be a director, and I

think it was very tough for me at that
time to make the transition.

doing that show and at that time people
from television were kind of looked down

upon they were not thought of to be you
know up to doing features so it was very

very hard for me to get this picture off
the ground the regulars they changed

their name back to the regulars we
thought well we could we could go back

originals about what's the point we
became a tenement at that point

This is the other piece of film that was
taken directly from the original 20

Minutes. And you'll notice on the drums
is Ed Begley.

And on the bass to the left is Danny
Korchmar, who is a great bass player and

has also played with Linda Ronstadt and
a number of, you know, really good

bands.

I had worked with Harry and Michael and
Chris, you know, over the years, and we

always had a great creative
relationship, and it always worked out.

always came up with some really great
stuff, so I thought, well, here we've

something. And a matter of fact, in
1978, I did a television show, which was

basically a satire of various things on
television, one of which we did with a

takeoff on...

a show called Midnight Special, which
was a late -night rock and roll show

was hosted by Wolfman Jack.

And I played Wolfman Jack, and I
introduced Spinal Tap, you know,

loudest band.

And during downtime, they started
improvising these characters, and it was

hysterical. We just thought, well, jeez,
we've got to find a way to use these

characters in something else other than
this little bit that we did.

If you took all the interview footage
that we shot for the film, it lasted

three hours.

Our first cut...

of the film when we put it together we
put it together without the interview

footage because we knew we would use
that as kind of the glue throughout the

film so we had a four and a half hour
film without one minute of interview and

we had three hours of interviews so
basically we had over seven hours of

that was brought down to 80 some odd
minutes editors robert layton and kent

They wouldn't make any concession to the
fact that this was actually a feature

film and not a documentary, and the fact
that we could control things.

And correct me if I'm wrong, it became
apparent that there was such an

overwhelming mountain of footage that it
was going to take more than one pair of

hands to deal with it all. Yeah, I think
initially when we watched dailies, we

used to watch dailies and people would
see these moments, which were great

moments. I remember one time Rob saying
there was a line somebody said in the

masses in return. He said, that's the
button for that scene.

And I wasn't really used to dealing with
building narrative or jokes in that

way. It's more kind of joke telling. And
Rob saw this great little moment where

somebody said a line. It was, I can't
remember quite who it was. And I'm not

sure if that's it in the film, but it
worked perfectly for the style of

We had a five and a half hour first cut
without the interview footage. And it

was an amazing piece of work.

And I think at a certain point the
decision was made that in order for it

a successful comedy and a successful
feature film, that it should be of a

certain length.

Producer Karen Murphy.

There was a wonderful piece of the film
that had to be cut out because it was a

side story.

Billy Crystal plays the part of a mime
who has his own catering company.

The name of his catering company was
Shut Up and Eat.

and he tells this wonderful story of how
he grew up in a family where he had a

tight relationship with his father, but
his father is very stern and strict, and

his father would always, at the dinner
table, tell him to shut up and eat.

This is Patrick McNee from The Avengers.

I think he seemed to be having so much
fun with these guys, but he also felt

like he was way in over his head in
terms of, you know, improvising. He was

probably the only one in the film who
really requested that anything be

down. He could have done it, I'm sure,
improvising, but he just felt more

comfortable because he's a traditionally
trained actor, having his words written

down. Are you reading Yes, I Can?

Yeah. Have you read it? Yeah. This is
Bruno Kirby.

Bruno had a lot to do with shaping this
particular character.

He knew a fellow who lived in Hollywood
who was a big Frank Sinatra fan, and

Bruno himself was also a Frank Sinatra
fan, but I think he spent enough time

with this guy that he kind of developed
an appreciation for someone who has an

obsession.

I made a film with Bruno Kirby based on
this character that he created called

Tommy Rispoli, A Man and His Music,
which is about a guy who's obsessed with

Frank Sinatra. We made a short 13
-minute film about him where he drives

Rob Reiner picks me up at the airport,
and he's having trouble with his

girlfriend who wants him to commit, and
he won't commit to a relationship, and I

help him work through his emotional
problems with her.

There's Tony Hendra.

Tony Hendra used to be part of a comedy
team, Ullit and Hendra, which was a

great British comedy team. And he also
was at National Lampoon and created

Not the New York Times and all of those.

He's a really fine satirist.

So you are hitting that market.

We're certainly doing, I'm doing
everything I can. That's right, we're

blaming you. And I'm writing about it.
But you know that we're not blaming you.

It was very hard to trim this picture
down.

We had a scene that was very funny where
they get him high, and he's singing all

the way, the Sinatra tune.

I would never tell them this, but this
is a fact.

They loved trying on the leather
collars, and they loved trying on the

they loved the spandex pants, and they
loved performing on stage, and they

playing music.

So, I mean, to me, that would be...

the best reason in the world to want to
make a movie like this.

If you get excited about all those
things, who wouldn't want to do this?

Rob is just as good a musician as the
rest of these guys, and he could have at

any point said, well, I want to be in
the band.

He ended up deciding, or everyone
decided, that he could play another

other than being in the band, and what
character would that be? It would most

likely be somebody, if we're going to
choose this style of filmmaking, that

making the film, the documentarian.

Rob was a very good keyboard player, and
he had a good voice.

He could have been a member of the band
easily.

I don't know if he envisioned himself in
spandex like the other ones did.

I mean, all these guys are accomplished
musicians, and I think they're all guys

who fantasize being rock and rollers. I
mean, they actually went around the

world and played in London and all over
the United States, and I think they got

a tremendous kick. It's like the best
fantasy camp you could ever go to.

because these guys can actually do it. I
mean, they can actually play. Chris

actually can play the mandolin and all
those instruments.

There's not one note of music that isn't
generated by the guys that are playing

the instruments.

Editor Kent Beda.

They were also very, very, very
conscious of having the playing on stage

real, and particularly Chris Guest.

was very, very concerned that his
fingering was always exactly right.

And if he would come in and see
something that looked like maybe he

playing the right notes or whatever it
was, he would always comment on it and

would, you know, try and change it
accordingly.

I do believe, actually, we went into the
music studio at the end and we redid a

couple of notes on certain shots because
Chris was concerned about that.

Let's talk about your... That hat that
Rob is wearing is a personal triumph of

mine. He liked that hat. He wanted to
wear that hat. But it was originally

you know, famous USS Marine ship hat,
right?

And I...

took the responsibility because the
DeForest Research Company said you can't

something that's a known name without
getting permission.

So I personally sat down on the set with
a sewing needle and yellow thread, and

I closed up letters so a C became an O
so that no one would know what it said.

These interviews that we shot, the guys
never knew what questions I was going to

ask. Completely surprising.

So everything they say, they're hearing
for the first time.

See, Chris is laughing.

Chris is going there.

This film is definitely a weird tour of
LA.

Somebody should put together the Spinal
Tap tour of Los Angeles, visiting every

site that was used in the movie.

We decided to not really get into the
real seamy side of rock and roll, you

know, and not show too much of the drugs
or the groupies. I mean, they're there

and stuff, and there's one place where
you see some drugs being used, but just

to indicate that that was going on. I
mean, to do a comedy and to get into

side of it, I think, would really take
away.

Oh, there are so many scenes with drugs
and alcohol and groupies in the movie.

You would love to see that film.

Robert Layton.

I would say most of the times the way we
edited this film in the smalls, in the

detailed areas, was by being able to
edit dialogue together. We'd make the

cut first, and then we'd think of the
picture and choose where to cross over

from one image to another.

You had to make these bold cuts between
images, and it was really editing in

terms of story editing.

It wasn't anything to do with a visual
flow, although we tried to do that.

And they would do these things about
three or four times.

And then we'd have to remember where
that line was in the midst of four hours

material.

If you really want to get into
filmmaking, what makes a jarring and bad

always audio.

It's very rarely picture.

I mean, the audio is what makes you
jump, not the picture.

I mean, we plotted this thing.

Just that the dialogue in each scene was
not... We knew basically these things

would happen along the tour and that
Janine, who was David's girlfriend,

come between David and Nigel and would
break the band apart. Those things we

knew. We had a general outline for what
was going to happen in the film. It was

just that each individual scene was not
scripted. Because you tell me, the White

Album? What was that? There was nothing
on that goddamn cover.

Excuse me, the phone's ringing. We
looked at every conceivable document. We

looked at, you know, the kids are all
right, the song remains the same, don't

look back.

I mean, we looked at everything. I mean,
every film that had ever been made

about a band.

We watched all those to just sort of get
a sense of how you shape the story and

what's interesting in the story.

I think it gave them an idea of how it's
different being a performer in a

feature film in a traditional way and
being a subject of a documentary.

But it's really not that offensive for
Dennis. Come on.

Yeah, this scene, if you'll notice, when
they show Chris and Michael,

you see the two sores on their lips, the
two herpes sores.

That is the remnants.

of a whole section of the film that we
had where we had a band called The Dose,

which was a new wave band fronted by
Cherie Curie, who was one of the

and each band member.

slept with her.

And as each band member slept with her,
the next day, you know, time would go

by, you'd see they'd each have the
herpes sore.

And finally, there's a band meeting
where four of the guys are with herpes

sores, and they're all deciding that
they want to drop the dose from the

And the drummer, who's the only guy
without the herpes sore, says, why, I

them, they're good, you know, because he
obviously hasn't slept with her yet.

See, look, here's the herpes sore.

He's got it, and then you pan down.

And then he's got it. It's all a joke,
isn't it? I mean, we're making fun of

that sort of thing, you know? Not, you
know, over and over again. We can

probably work something out. I'll talk
to Dennis and maybe we can come up with

compromise and a new design concept that
we can all live with.

The last waltz was the inspiration for
my Marty DeBerge character.

You know, his name is Marty, from Marty
Scorsese. De is like De Palma, Berg is

like Spielberg, and E could be any one
of a number of Fellini or, you know,

Antonioni or whatever. It's like a
combination of a lot of directors.

And also, we took off a little bit on
The Last Waltz, those interviews.

I happen to be a big fan of The Last
Waltz. I happen to love that film, and

seen it, you know, 10, 15 times.

I mean, basically...

Chris and Michael, you know, they've
been in these characters for 20 years. I

mean, you know, at the drop of a hat,
they'd start improvising as David and

Nigel. So, I mean, that's what
improvisers do. They kind of just, it's

musicians, you know. You kind of just,
when you get with another guy who does

it, you just start riffing.

And that's what...

That's what these guys do.

If she's not on the 519, then I'm going
to know what sorrow means.

And I'm going to cry, cry, cry all the
way home.

We wrote an extensive Bible for each
character. We knew where they were from,

what bands they had played with.

We all had that common information when
we did all this interview footage. We

knew about these people.

So at least I had the information that I
could talk to them about, just as I

would do if I was a real interviewer. I
would have background material on the

people. But in order to do it, they also
had to have the same background

material because we couldn't be
contradicting each other about, you

they met and all that stuff. So we had
lists and lists of names for bands, you

know, Silver Service, Hot Waffles, I
mean, you know, Clam Caravan. I mean, we

had all these weird names we used, you
know, and they could crop up here and

there. It's really quite frightening,
the size.

And they run screaming.

This scene came from an article we read
in Rolling Stone about Van Halen.

It was an article called The Endless
Party.

in which it was described that as part
of their contract for what was provided

for them backstage were M &Ms with no
chocolate M &Ms in there, so they could

only be the colored M &Ms.

I mean, Chris is, to me, the greatest
improviser in the world because he is so

immersed in his character that he can't
ever remember having said anything.

I mean, he's just in the moment. He's so
in the moment that if you told him he

said that, he'd say, I don't remember
saying that.

He can never remember what he did.

No, no, no, you put it on the bread like
this, see? But then if you keep folding

it, it keeps breaking. And then
everything has to be folded.

And then it's this.

And I don't want this. I want large
bread so that I can put this.

Right. So then it's like this. I mean,
it is a total, you know, amalgamation of

Black Sabbath and Van Halen and ACDC and
Judas Priest.

Uriah Heep, I mean, you know, there's a
lot of bands.

And that's another thing about this
film, and that is, you know, even though

we're making fun of the subject matter,
we all love rock and roll. I mean, I

don't... Calm down. No, it's no big
deal. I'm sorry. It's a joke, it's

It's just some crack at university, you
know? I mean, it's a joke.

I don't want it to affect your
performance. It's not going to affect my

performance. Don't worry about it, all
right? I just hate it, really. It does

disturb me, but I rise above it. I'm a
professional, all right?

I like rock and roll music. It's funny
because, I mean, when I was younger and

the bands that I listened to, which were
comparable to that, were like, you

know, Moby Grape and Blue Cheer, which
was the bands that had that big wall of

Marshall amps.

And, you know, I used to go love that
stuff.

And when we went to research this to see
what the, you know, the new bands that

were playing that kind of music, we went
to like a Judas Priest concert. And I

tell you, I've gotten now, you know, so
much older, it physically hurt my chest.

The reverberation in the hall was so
strong that it was like resonating in my

chest and I couldn't stay there longer.

I cut this scene and I remember that
there was some argument about the fact

he kept spinning him around.

But I think musically or for some
reason.

He had to keep spinning in order for him
to get up at a certain point in the

guitar solo.

It was at that point where he raised his
fist in triumph, and it had to be that

way.

We did everything we could to fill the
auditorium with people. We could only

for a certain number of extras, so then
we had to depend on friends and

promotional campaigns and people off the
street, wherever we could find them.

Do you actually play all these?

Chris is really into all these guitars,
so he knows all the stuff about this.

Between Chris, Harry, and Michael, I
think they're all equally matched in

of their ideas and their improvisational
abilities and all that.

But for the purpose of the movie and the
characters that they're playing in the

movie, Harry's character, to me, seems
to...

focus a lot and help the movie a lot in
terms of physical comedy.

Chris and Michael, because their
characters were playing off each other

friends most of the film, tended to feel
more similar, more cerebral.

I wouldn't answer the John Lennon of the
group question for any amount of money.

I know, but I'm not telling.

I do know for Chris, who is in real life
a real guitar buff, this scene was

probably a wet dream.

because he had the opportunity to go to
all of his favorite guitar stores all

over the country.

This is my favorite part of this thing.
He won't even let me look at this thing.

It's such a pristine instrument that the
tag is still on, and he won't even let

me look at it.

Whenever I'm dubbing a picture,
invariably someone says, let's do it in

or this goes to 11.

I mean, it comes up really every time.

I'm in any kind of audio situation.

One of the oddest things, these switches
that go to 11, the room I cut it in

has an air conditioner that goes to 11,
and we cut Rob's next eight films in the

same room, and we didn't find out until,
I think, somewhere through Stand By Me

that it went to 11.

It's the only other machine I know that
goes to 11.

Robert Bauer, who's in charge of
merchandising, immediately issued a T

right after the movie came out that said
in big letters all over the front of

the T -shirt, goes to 11.

Nobody got it. It took like five years
for anybody to understand what the T

-shirt meant.

Now it's a collector's item.

These go to 11.

Basically what was told here is that the
band is checking into the hotel and the

reservation's been screwed up.

Now let's see what happens.

Seven suites. He mistakenly put you on
the seventh floor with one suite. That's

considerably more than mine.

Well, it's a good -sized room, sir. It's
a king leisure.

We can get you a... How are we going to
get 14 people on a king leisure bed?

Don't tempt me, sir. Have a good time.

Welcome,

gentlemen. This is Paul Benedict, the
actor who was in The Jeffersons.

The next -door neighbor in The
Jeffersons is the...

The clerk here at the hotel. This is one
of my favorite scenes, too.

I think everybody kind of knew the form
we were following. There had been enough

really good and primarily British
documentaries and a few of those rock

documentaries that everybody kind of
knew the style of it. But I don't think

that once they started performing in
character, they were not really that

thinking about the fact that it was a
documentary.

They were a band on tour, having these
experiences and playing and, you know.

having all these things happen to them,
and we were just a gypsy band of

filmmakers who were following them
around.

There's Howard Hessman, who was a member
of the committee.

I worked with Howard at the committee,
and he was in WKRP in Cincinnati and

of the class.

Sit down in the lobby and wait for the
limo.

This scene contains my two favorite
lines in the whole film.

One is there's a fine line between
stupid and clever, and the other line is

love to sit and chat with you, but we've
got to go sit down in the lobby and

wait for the limo.

They've got more important things to do,
which is they've got to sit in the

lobby and wait for the limo.

The scene in the hotel lobby here is one
of the scenes where I think if you look

at it, you'll find that people are
standing in different formations, and we

cut this stuff together.

Really, we went so precisely for the
lines that hopefully you were just

following that and it carried you
through.

There's a certain type of filmmaker who
would linger, and if you linger and you

favour an image, then you make a visual
mismatch, you're going to notice it

because it's coming up in such a fallow
area.

But if the information is coming
quickly... Or if the cuts are taking

without thinking about it, just where
you want to be. If you're seeing the

things that you want to see, then you're
not looking at the knife in the hand or

the handkerchief in the pocket.

People always ask me if I thought a film
was well edited, and if the film was

any good, I don't notice the editing.

I think Peter had a great intuition
about...

who to stay on when people were talking,
because sometimes, for example, Chris's

face was more interesting to look at
while someone else was talking.

Peter's instinct in knowing where to go
and not always staying with the person

who was talking was similar to having
coverage.

So it was kind of a shorthand that kept
us from having to shoot more film than

we needed to shoot.

The film took us nine months to edit.

because there was so much good stuff and
it was so difficult finding a really

cohesive through line to the film. But
once we had really discovered what the

through line was and how one scene went
into the next, then it became pretty

clear what we had to cut. I worked very
long and hard in the editing room, and

then when I had something to show, the
guys would come in and we'd all sit

around and go through it.

So Chris, Harry, and Michael had a lot
of input in the cut.

We had fights, you know, certainly they
were interested in showing more of the

music and showing more of the stuff on
stage. And I understand that, but I

we were trying to also, you know, tell a
story and have it flow along in some

kind of, you know, coherent way.

The scene where the manager is smashing
up the hotel room used to be a whole

different scene where the group was
sitting around in a hotel listening

the radio they were depressed because
their first song listen to the flower

people came on the radio and then the dj
comes on and says uh yeah that was

spinal tap wonder where they are now and
they're of course they're in the middle

of a tour and they're all completely
depressed then the manager walks in and

says you know what's the matter guys
buck up and then he starts saying come

you're supposed to be like doing this
and he takes his cricket bat and

the entire room and We ended up just
incorporating just a brief bit of it

montage.

Editor, Robert Layton.

After he's broken up, he walks out and
leaves the guys there, and they're just

standing there, and it cuts to Nigel
looking at the broken TV set.

He says, oh, I want to watch that nature
documentary.

It's like, I'm sure that that would have
been something to repeat.

I'm pretty ruthless when it comes to
editing.

Like I say, I don't like...

An audience being bored for one second.

I mean, to me, you know, you have a
responsibility to put on a show for

And it's very self -indulgent to put
stuff in that you like, that only you

I mean, I do.

A little of that, I mean, certainly, you
know, a very minimal amount. If there's

something I really, really love and it
doesn't take all that long and the

audience may not get it, I'll put it in
because, you know, you've got to do

satisfy yourself after all. But then it
comes down to the audience, you know.

They're watching this thing and you're
doing it for them.

You're not doing it, you know, I mean,
first you have to please yourself, then

you have to please them, but they have
to be pleased.

I mean, I just have a feel for...

you know, putting on a show. I mean, I'm
just, you know, I got it from my

father, wherever I got it from, I don't
know. But I just have a feeling, oh,

we're staying too long at the fair here.
We've got to, you know, we've

overstayed our welcome. You know, we got
to move on. And I also know what's, you

know, pertinent to the spine of the
story and what's not.

I'm always standing behind the
cameraman. And actually, I was like a

because many times I would just
physically.

turn Peter Smolkler one way or the other
or whisper in his ear and tell him, no,

go over there, something interesting is
happening here, you know.

And he had great instincts, though.

I think we realized that if we cut to
this scene here at Elvis's grave, first

they're down about, you know, spinal
tap, where are they now? And then it

immediately cuts to the grave, and I
think we felt that that was a good cut

a better way to get out of the scene
than having Ian come in and smash up the

hotel room.

I searched and searched and searched
looking for an Elvis Presley tune that

wasn't written and owned by Elvis'
publishing company.

This particular song was written by Hoyt
Axton's mother.

And because she still owned the
publishing and because I had a wonderful

conversation with her over the phone,
she gave me the rights to use this song.

So we were able to keep the Elvis
Presley story in the film without having

through. Elvis' publishing company, who
would never have allowed us to shoot

this scene.

I started out working with John
Cassavetes on a picture called Opening

People think that his films were
improvised, but in fact they weren't,

nearly as much as Spinal Tap, that's for
certain.

Spinal Tap was really much, much more of
an improvisational piece than anything

that Cassavetes ever did, in my
experience.

This only had an outline of however long
it was, 40 pages, not even that, I

don't think.

Whereas with Cassavetes' films...

It was always there on the page, you
know. I watched John Wright, believe me.

John was an amazing writer.

Basically,

we were, like what they do with
documentary films, we were writing with

pieces of film.

We were, you know, using the pieces of
film as a tool to write.

A lot of this film goes a long way just
on the satire aspect of it. You're

making fun of the genre and all that.

The story is very minimal.

It's just about the woman that comes
between the two guys. They break up and

they get back together. It's really a
minimal type of story.

But I think if you were to do...

full drama this way, you'd have to
really work out the story pretty

Then you might improvise within the
context of a scene to get performance,

it's difficult because then you have
matching problems.

I think to use these kinds of
improvisational techniques in something

a documentary form is possible, but I
think it's a lot more limiting.

Because in a drama, it has to be much
more structured. I mean, you have to be

telling a story in a much more
structured way.

I mean, the story in this film is very
thin, and the nature of the film is a

documentary, so that you kind of expect
to see a certain kind of acting.

I mean, everybody's always said, wow,
you did this without a script, and it

all improvised. And for us, for myself
and Chris and Harry and Michael and

everybody else that we picked to be in
the film, these are people that are all

very proficient in improvisation. I
mean, it comes very natural to them. So

wasn't a big deal for us. I mean, it
wasn't like...

you know, wow, you made this stuff up. I
mean, that's what we did, you know, so.

I mean, for a lot of us, you know, good
improvisational actors sometimes have

trouble with a script.

They have a much more difficult time,
you know, making pre -written dialogue

come out real than they do with making
up their own.

I mean,

you'll notice there's a scene where the
Black Album comes out.

I think it's in this scene, as a matter
of fact.

you'll see there's some major matching
problems that we just kind of blow by

because we're just using this form and
we're taking the license because of the

form we're using. But in a drama, you
couldn't have those kind of mismatches.

It'd have to be a little bit more worked
out. You could improvise within the

context of a structure, but I think it
would need to be a lot more structured

than this.

This is so much like a documentary, even
though we say we took the documentary

out of it somewhat in the editing and
made it more of an entertainment

It still essentially is a documentary.

It's got the shaky camera. People wrote
notes saying bad camera work, really

shaky. They didn't get that.

They didn't get that all these things
were studied comments on other types of

documentaries.

This is the scene where first we meet
Janine and she comes.

This is one of the few times in the film
that we acknowledge the fact that the

film is being shot, you know, that we're
aware of the camera.

Because she's a new character, and we
felt that she would have to be told that

this was going on, although I'm sure
David would have told her that they're

documenting this tour.

But we felt that, you know, since it was
a new character, so she would be made

aware of it.

whereas everybody else knows that that's
what's going on. So we thought of

breaking the fourth wall a number of
times, but it didn't really make sense.

The weird thing about this film is that
it's so close to the bone.

I mean, it is so close to what actually
has happened and is happening in rock

and roll tours that I think a lot of
people just, you know, assumed it was

We knew it was funny. We knew we were
being funny, although Peter Smokler...

shot a number of these documentaries
when we were shooting, he kept saying to

me, what's funny about this? He says,
this is no different from what I do. I

said, trust me, this is funny. Because
what we did was we just turned it a

couple of degrees. That's all really
good, fine satire, is you take what

exists and you just turn it a little
bit.

Okay, now watch this.

I'll show you.

See, there's Chris, right? And there's

Tony Hendra, and you can see where they
are.

I'll see it again. Watch.

And there's Chris on the other side.
See, he jumps to the other side.

Because we shot it a couple of times and
it's completely improvised and he just

walks over there.

I mean, the second time we did it, now
he's back on the other side, see?

He just keeps jumping around.

It doesn't work. I mean, if you really
study it, it's not good. I mean, a guy

can't physically be on both sides of a
guy, you know, but...

He just didn't remember where he was
standing because we shot it.

There's like a thousand of those things
in this film if you look for them, if

you really study them.

Well, that's basically, again, what I'm
going back to. It's a magic trick.

If the scene is working and it's
flowing, if you're really into the movie

watching the movie, you're not noticing
stuff like that. You shouldn't be

noticing stuff like that.

I mean, we're not perfect. No filmmaker
is perfect.

Who would have thought that those stupid
little plastic...

pods with the veins on them would mean
anything to anybody or the skull i mean

the skull was only worth keeping around
if they were performing as a band and

they needed an expensive stage prop that
they couldn't otherwise afford and even

then it got to be a drag because it was
so heavy and it was so expensive to

store and expensive to ship and you know
that's why the stonehenge actually

became a good symbol of the band because
it was foam and light and easy to carry

around There's Robert Bauer, yeah. He
was a roadie, played a roadie in there.

We shot all the concert footage within a
five -day time frame.

We basically went from one venue to the
next, all in the Los Angeles area.

We went from one place to the next,
packing all our equipment into the

moving it to the next location, setting
it up again, just as if it were a real

rock and roll tour with roadies and
everything.

We had one day when we shot the opening
sequence, the first number of the film,

we had, I think, 600 extras.

But we only had 600 extras one day.

And we shot that number and one other
number, maybe three numbers that day.

the rest of the numbers we shot with
anywhere from 40 to 60 extras. And we

them around in such a way that it always
looked like it was packed. You know,

wherever the angles were, it looked like
it was packed.

I remember there was just this real
atmosphere of pretty much freedom to say

whatever you felt, to really express
what was on your mind. And then Rob was

like the synthesizer of it all between
the three guys in the movie and we in

editing room. When you're distilling
comedy and distilling a parody, there's

danger that it could get more mean
-spirited in a more distilled version.

because the basis of the parody has to
be very strongly presented for the scene

to work.

And as you're winnowing down the sort of
side aspects and the peripheral

aspects, then you are going to get more
down to kind of a harsher...

uh feeling i think unfortunately you're
definitely being anti there's no

question about it you are poking fun and
there is meanness but i think in this

case there's the gentlest it's the
gentlest kind of antagonism the

idea we had was that you know there was
always these drummer tragedies

and weirdly enough life imitated art
with uh keith moon but then Even more

weirdly, this guy Jeff Procaro, you
know, from Toto, he literally died in a

bizarre gardening accident.

I mean, he was spraying some kind of bug
spray or whatever, and it got inside

and it caused him to have, you know,
coronary or something like that.

Producer Karen Murphy.

The role of producer in Smile Tap, I've
always described to other people as the

role of a rodeo queen.

It seemed to me that...

There were so many things to keep track
of. The movie was always very shapeless

in a certain way because it was a
documentary.

I felt my job as much as anything else
was to make sure that...

I helped Rob and the guys keep the focus
on what the movie was supposed to be

about because a lot of the scenes were
just so much fun.

It was really important to make sure we
got what we came to get. June Chadwick,

we did meet some very interesting women
to play that part, and there were

enough, I think, known improvisational
actresses to do the part, but June just

took to it like she was a natural.

She managed to keep up with the guys,
which was really the test.

Could you improvise your way around
these guys? And she did a great job.

It was also important that everybody
have input so that I was always there

everybody to talk to. If Rob wanted to
complain to me about something he was

having trouble with, I was there to
listen. If he was not getting through to

somebody, maybe somehow I could act as a
translator, communicator, go -between.

While they were aware of it, their focus
was really creating the characters and

making up the dialogue and the music and
performing it. So I knew they had their

hands full in terms of that. So I was
there to pretty much stay true to the

documentary form, to try to surround
them with people who knew how to make

documentaries, try to stay as authentic
as possible, and sort of to be the

reality check while they were having
fun.

And, of course, it's so strange because
Nigel and Janine are so similar in so

many ways, but they just can't... They
don't dislike each other at all. There's

great love between the two of them, but
there's some sort of communication

that's just not... It's just blocked or
something.

Here's Chris playing the piano. He
actually plays the piano.

I mean, these guys are real musicians
and they can all play different

instruments. That's what made it so
real, too.

It wasn't like The Monkees, you know,
where we were putting other musicians in

there.

We got good reviews from every single
newspaper.

I don't remember ever reading a bad
review of this film.

I mean, it's one of these films where,
you know, people feel that they're

smarter. You know, reviewers, they get
it, and they want to show that they get

it. So they write a good review.

Plus, I think it's a good film.

But there's a lot of good films that
don't get good reviews because for

agendas that critics have.

The reviews were also helpful in
positioning the film for people to

what it was that they were going to go
see.

I guess this was after the first
airplane because we had some delicious

with them about not putting a twisted
guitar on the cover of the videocassette

or the poster even. And we kept saying
that wasn't our audience exactly. There

was another audience for this.

This piece is called Lick My Love Pump.

The poster in England that I have,
actually I like much better than the

American poster.

Someone had done a really great pen and
ink color

caricature of all the characters with
little bubbles with them saying things,

and it was like a cartoon strip, and it
was really nice.

Many of the locations that you've seen
progressing obviously weren't in the

original progression, and there are
scenes which are supposedly in Los

in this film, which were meant to be in
Boston in the earlier version when it

was first shot, so we could move
everything. We could move stuff around,

then there was enough footage to
recreate the transition from one thing

another. There were often very bold
transitions anyway. You go to them on

somewhere, you can cut out of anything.

with the opening shot of them on stage,
so you could re -truncate stuff, and

then if you moved something back
somewhere, maybe you'd stick the back

It was incredibly manipulable, this
film.

I mean, there was little sort of moments
that I think we could have maybe

preserved that we didn't, sort of in the
name of keeping the story going.

So I was a little bit disappointed about
certain things that weren't there that

I felt maybe we could have incorporated
less than we thought. But then, of

course... There's always the issue that
Bob was addressing, which is that it

wasn't always so easy to make something
work editorially because of the nature

of the coverage, since it wasn't
coverage per se.

Sometimes we had to sacrifice a bit that
we liked because we couldn't get to it

very easily.

I think there were some songs that we
never cut.

That was one that was never cut, I
believe, because either it wasn't cut or

totally recut it, one of the two,
because I know that we made a lot of

I think we actually made a lot of
changes in all of the musical numbers on

stage, but particularly that one, since
it hadn't been in at all.

And I don't know why the decision was
made to put it back in. I guess somebody

felt we needed more music at that point,
or I don't really know.

But it was added in at the last minute.

The first time they performed before an
audience was on Sunset Strip at

Gazari's, and they played Double Bill
with Iron Butterfly.

I remember feeling really stupid being
there. I'd never, ever wanted to go to

that place. It was a big heavy metal
club.

I didn't relate to it. I thought it was
a little bit too close to the real

thing. Half the audience were Iron
Butterfly fans and the other half were

of Chris, Harry, Michael, Rob.

You know, what were we doing there?

And yet there was something just
absolutely silly and monumental about

that they had scored this gig, that they
were actually playing with Iron

Butterfly. And so every now and then
you'd remind yourself of that and you

to laugh.

There's Paul Schaefer, David Letterman's
band leader.

He'd done some acting too.

I mean, that's one of the things that's
so good about him on Letterman.

I mean, he can, as we call, schnadel.

He can schnadel with Letterman.

One of the funniest scenes that we all
loved, and it's not in the movie, is

Paul Schaefer.

He plays a promotion guy. I don't know
what town it's supposed to be in.

But he's trying to talk them into going
to do an early morning radio talk show.

And he does this whole manic rap, ending
up with him taking an egg and smashing

it on his head.

And it was hilarious.

But unfortunately, the whole point of
the scene was just to get them into the

radio station, and unfortunately the
radio station was not as funny.

That's Archie Hahn, who's also a
terrific improvisational actor.

Heavy metal, as a rock and roll form,
has pretty much existed

forever. Before we made the film, I
mean, heavy metal was taken very

by the people who played it and the
people who...

went to the concerts.

Maybe there are more people making fun
of it now. I don't know.

It really wasn't about let's make fun of
a band or let's do a rock documentary.

It was really looking first for the
characters. Who do we really want to

and what is the best form to show them
in?

I mean, it's very possible they could
have come up with those characters and

because they're all excellent writers
and actors, they could have written a

script and decided to do it just like a
typical...

you know, structured, written feature
film.

Kick My Ass was actually based on an
actual incident that I

think, I mean, Michael will probably
know it better than I did, when it was

Lenny and the Squigtones, and they had a
band, and there was a guy that worked

for the record company who fucked up and
basically went through this thing of

kick my ass and, you know, kick me, I'm
sorry, I did it, and we took that from

that experience.

Kick this ass for a man, that's all.
Kick my ass. Enjoy.

Come on. I'm not asking, I'm telling
with this. Kick my ass.

There are groupies. I mean, there's no
question. You see groupies around, but

didn't play that up as much.

See, there's a little drugs right there.

That's the only time we showed drugs in
the whole film.

But it was enough to know that that went
on there. We didn't have to keep

throwing that in the audience's face.

I don't believe there was a conscious
decision to de -emphasize naked groupies

or drugs. I think they just kind of fell
by the wayside as a sort of natural

byproduct of the other things we were
doing.

It was more a movie about their
stupidity, and wherever alcohol and

a part in that, you might see it, but
their basic stupidity was not affected,

and that's why you don't see too many
drugs and alcohol scenes.

See,

this shot kind of basically shows you we
could afford about 200 extras and a few

friends that day.

That was the budget limit.

Same 200 people.

This was always one of my favorite
scenes.

And it did used to go on longer.

You go right straight through this door
here, down the hall.

Wonderful Smith is his name.

He's a terrific actor.

This scene, I don't get.

I think it's funny that they keep going
around in circles and they stop and ask

the janitor where they're going.

But when people come up to me and say,
my favorite scene in Spinal Tap is this

is not an exit, I still don't get what's
funny about this is not an exit. I'm

probably the only person who doesn't get
it.

I think that was dubbed in because I
think he said hello somewhere else. This

was a different location, filmed
somewhere else. We had to change it.

added later. Then it had to be
Cleveland, so they brought him into the

stage and looped in hello Cleveland.

I hate to keep half of it, but I think
the notion of a black album has really

cursed us.

We knew that Janine coming between the
two guys was really the only story we

had. So whatever scenes fueled that
aspect of the film, we had to keep.

I mean, that was one of the parts of the
decision -making process in the

editing, was, you know, very simply,
after a while, you have to say, well,

are scenes we need in order to tell that
story. That's the only story we have.

When deciding what stays and what goes,
this scene we knew had to stay because

this scene sets up Stonehenge.

This is the beginning of the end here.
This is where you see Janine's

insinuation into the business of the
band.

This happens to be a real location.

I mean, it's a real restaurant. So, of
course, it has that really bad lighting

that you get in bad coffee shops anyway.

They created a lighting grid.

which was just suspended above the
actors in sort of a pool of light in

they could move around. So the lights
were never behind them, and they would

shown in the shot if they moved in a
360.

This is a look for Bib. He's a Libra.
There's sort of a ying, yang sort of

This is Nigel. He's got the cord. Here's
Janine suggesting that they dress up

as, you know, signs of the Zodiac.

We'd shoot it once.

You know, there were no rehearsals
because, I mean, you never know what the

are going to say. You always have to be
shooting because you never know when

something good is going to come up.

We'd shoot it once, and then we'd sit
and talk a little bit about what we just

did. And we'd say, let's do it again.
But, you know, maybe we don't need to

into that discussion because that's
really irrelevant.

You know, let's lose that discussion.
Or, hey, maybe we should add something

about this, you know, about some other
idea. And then what we would do is then

we'd shoot it again.

Then we'd shoot it a third time. And
every time we shot it, the dialogue

be slightly different, but it would be
generally covering the same subject.

Then I'd shoot it a fourth time, making
sure that the cameraman always was on

people not talking so that I had plenty
of stuff to cut away from if I ever

wanted to bridge any of the dialogue.

And then when we assembled the film...

What we did is really assemble it via
the audio track more than what you saw

visually. And once we had a good audio
track that tracked, that made sense,

one dialogue went into the next and, you
know, conversations that had a flow to

them, the pictures would go along with
those.

You know, more important was getting the
audio track to, you know, to track, as

I say.

Do you feel that in collaboration with
David that you are afforded the

opportunity to express yourself
musically the way you would like to?

think I do, you know, in my solos. My
solos are my trademark.

This is based on the kind of...

I think it's based on Jeff Beck, who
does these incredible guitar solos.

The thing went on forever.

But we took the highlights, you know,
one is he's kicking that other guitar

his foot. I love that he picks up the
violin and uses the violin as a bow,

is what he's going to do here for this
flying V that he has.

I don't know how Chris ever let us cut
this, because...

I think originally this was an
incredibly long solo. I mean, once he

started, he just didn't want to stop. He
was like in some kind of meditational

state or something.

This looks absolutely perfect.

This is Angelica Houston.

I think this was one of, I mean, I know
she had worked with her father when she

was very young, but she hadn't done a
whole lot at this point.

I mean, the only thing I would have
changed is maybe to try to structure the

story a little bit better. I mean, it's
really kind of bottom -heavy in a weird

way. You know, most of the story takes
place in the last 20 minutes of the

But I guess it's, you know, maybe there
wasn't much more we could have done.

During Spinal Tap, Rob was very clear
about moving forward with the story. It

was always his central interest, and he
would be very quick to take something

out if he didn't see that it was moving
the story along, and he's been like that

ever since.

In the five -and -a -half -hour version,
there was much more character

development and much more awareness of
who each person was, I think, much more

of a sense of who they were.

And so therefore, when we got to the
end, there was a real progression

getting more serious, you know, as the
tensions escalated within the group.

And so that's probably why it feels, you
know, maybe a little more

serious than the rest of the picture in
the released version.

Because we sort of...

It went for, it's kind of de -emphasized
some of the sort of side character bits

throughout.

But then the ending was still the
ending. So I think that maybe we might

lost some of that along the way. I'm not
sure.

I don't think it's a thought out
position previously.

I think it's a characteristic of the way
the story was told.

It's not a story per se at the
beginning. It's just the documentation

event at all, and you're watching it,
and slowly parts of the story are fed

it, and by the time you get halfway or
two -thirds of the way through, enough

the story has developed that you realize
now there is a story going on. I

actually don't think that there's any
less parody happening, but before the

parody was out there in the open, and
now the story is built up enough that

you're tied into the characters. I think
there's probably still as much parody

going on, but it's not biased.

When I met Rob six months before making
that film, he was a charming, wonderful

guy. I always enjoyed him.

He was very, very giving. He was very
trusting, which was wonderful. He

hired me without having ever seen
anything else I cut.

Once we started shooting, I saw, the
first day I went to the dailies, and I

started to see this guy who was a rob,
who, you know, after one night, suddenly

there was a rob who was, like, buried in
clothing.

There was his collar turned up, there
was his hat put down, and there was his

stern face.

And it's like, you know, it was just
obvious the pressures of filmmaking are

difficult.

In the body of his work, Spinal Tap, it
has a unique situation.

I think it's his first film, and it's
quite different, and it was a

collaboration. Everybody had a very
strong idea of who their character was,

they were very consistent with that.

So I think that it was kind of a ballsy
thing for him to do because

it was so kind of unconventional in a
way.

There were some, you know, healthy,
passionate arguments, which was all

part of the process, and it was, you
know, what made it what it is.

I think you could map more clearly Rob's
desires and progression in his other

films. I think this is a very separate
individual piece that was, well, not an

individual committee piece, but
individual to the body of his work.

The last hurdle before we got to make
the movie was sort of on Rob's shoulders

was to confirm to them that there was
actually going to be a story, that there

would be characters that you care about
and there was going to be a story.

So we all got together with all the
heads of the embassy at the time, the

production people, the head of Jerry
Prancho, Norman Lear, and a couple of

people. production people. My test for
the day as the producer was to prove to

them that I knew how to make a feature
-length film with the money that they

were going to give us. They said, you
know you're shooting this film in 16mm.

And the guy gestures and shows me how
wide a piece of 16mm film is. He says,

it's a little tiny little film.

Now how are you ever going to cut that
together?

I thought, oh, boy, I've got them now.
This is it. Because I had to phrase my

answer in a way that I wasn't really,
didn't make a lot of fun of them, but

certainly to prove my point. I said,
you'll never believe it. I said, I

know a guy.

He's British.

And in England, they make these
documentaries using that little tiny

And this guy actually knows how to cut
that film and put it together. He's done

it for a living.

And I've got him to agree to do this
movie.

And everybody just looked around and
went, well, okay, there you have it.

And that was Bob Layton.

This was an education to me as well.

My feature editing since, I mean, it's
carried on with Rob, and I've used it in

other films, but the fact that you can
get away with amazing stuff as long as

you're following the rhythm of the
dialogue and you're using a forceful

about it, you can just boulder your way
through visual mismatches. People don't

really seem to notice or mind if they're
into the movie.

It was quite amazing looking at the
takes, one from one take to another.

They'd go off in different tangents.

You'd see the pathway and the other ones
would just branch off into this weird

thing and then try and come back again.
It was fascinating watching the

different takes.

The camera did different things every
time, but mostly we tried for the first

three takes to stay with the people
talking.

Whoever was talking, we'd stay with
them. And then the fourth time, we would

with people who weren't talking because
I felt usually by the fourth time, we

weren't going to get such interesting
stuff as interesting on camera because

they'd be a little stale with it by that
point.

But also, they had exhausted whatever
funny stuff they were going to do at

point. But many times when the camera
was on people not talking, you'd hear a

gem would come out of somebody's mouth,
and then you just wouldn't be there.

But you could still lay it in, you know,
over somebody's face.

Kent Bader.

There used to be some hilarious insults
that she threw at him that we took

out. Some very obscure English, I think.

I thought it was hilarious because it
was so strange.

But finally we decided that since no one
would ever know what it was, including

us, we decided to take it out.

Does she still talk about his three
-piece suite?

To refer to his cock as his three -piece
suite in this scene.

Can I raise a practical question at this
point?

Yeah. Are we going to do Stonehenge
tomorrow?

No, we're not going to fucking do
Stonehenge.

Okay, we're all set. Thank you.

See, this is a scene we shot four times.

It looks like it's just one scene.

You know, as long as you have one shot
where you do cutaways, you can paste

things together.

Which, you know, it's no big revelation.
I mean, it's the way they make films.

But that move worked pretty good, so we
kept that in.

But this may have been taken from
another

pass at the scene.

Sometimes they'll say things that they
said the first time. Other times they'll

discard it and say something else.

But, you know, we would discuss it after
the first time and say, you know, ooh,

that section worked great. But it's
never exactly the same because, you

you can't remember exactly what you
said. It's like if I asked you, you

you've asked me a couple of times while
we're doing this, repeat that thing. I

don't remember exactly what I said. I
said it a slightly different way.

So that would always happen.

But basically, generally, you remember,
you know, what you said.

Except for Chris Gass, who never
remembered anything he said.

Not really.

I mean, you know, we've grown up.

But really, it's not.

No, not really.

We feel like children much of the time,
even when we're playing.

We're closer than brothers.

Brothers always fight, sort of
disagreements and all that.

We really have a relationship that's
way, way past that.

I think the question is, how long can
you go away from the story?

And that was the thing here, there was
always more jokes we would cut in, but

you want to hold on to the story enough?

This scene here is based on a very well
-known tape

that has made its way around recording
studios and

rock and roll bands since it happened,
which was there was a session with a

group called the Trogs.

And they might have been doing a wild
thing. I'm not sure what they were

But there was a fight that broke out
about the drummer and how he was,

how he, you know, what he was doing on a
particular track.

And the fight lasted forever. And some
engineer.

turned on the tape, and you hear these
people screaming at each other and using

such profanity. Oh, fuck you, fuck you,
fuck you. I mean, it just goes on

forever. I can't hear the fucking beat.

It don't fucking sound. It don't fuck.

Fuck me, fuck you. I mean, they're just
going on with each other, you know.

That's not a fucking beat.

And then we just go on and on and on,
and we just said, this is hysterical. So

we used that as the inspiration for
this.

There used to be a shot.

Following the two, following Michael and
Chris into a game room off the studio,

a long kind of tracking shot, and then
Nigel was playing pinball, I believe it

was. The tension was palpable, and you
could really feel that something was

about to blow.

There's also scenes where Rob goes off
with Marty Tabergi and tracks down Nigel

as he's left the group and interviews
him. He's staying at some friend's

in Beverly Hills. He's in a tennis
outfit.

Here's Fred Willard, who's a brilliant,
brilliant improviser.

He's a writer, too.

An actor has to be a writer as well. All
these people, I mean, Fred Willard used

to be a part of a team called Greco and
Willard, and they wrote their own

material. I mean, it's, you know, a lot
of comedian stand -ups write their own

material, and they're writers, and so
they can improvise as well.

Most actors don't know how to do this
stuff.

Most actors can improvise in character,
but not interestingly.

That's the difference. I mean, you have
to make it interesting. I mean, the

dialogue has to crackle, has to sparkle,
and that takes a real writer's mind at

work. And most actors, you know, need
the help of a writer.

Can I define a writer's mind? I can't
define anybody's mind.

Nowadays, most previews are actually
done in town.

People go as far away as Marina del Rey
or North Hollywood thinking that they

get a suburban audience.

But there used to be in 1982, I don't
think every film wasn't so big, and

used to go out of town. I had been to
Detroit and Chicago and Middle America.

went to Dallas and we went to Seattle
with Spinal Tap to preview it in both

places because Dallas would be a more
regular audience and Seattle would be

college town. audience and in fact in
both places it was poorly received and

when the film was well received finally
it seemed to be that a certain awareness

had to be apparent there were people
obviously at both all those screenings

previous screens who got the film and
understood it and enjoyed it and some of

those people came out to us but there
was a general kind of

I don't know.

In Dallas, I remember it was treated
kind of like a party. The people were

constantly standing up, going out and
getting drinks and getting popcorn and

coming back. They didn't leave, but they
were just drifting in and out. They

were like the people from one of the
party things in Spinal Tap.

Those types of people. It was weird.

And because of those previews, we
decided to shorten the film, basically.

There wasn't anything that didn't go
over well, but it was just to tighten it

up, get it as fast as possible.

And make it a quicker, shorter film. And
another, I don't remember now, another

five minutes or so came out to that
point.

I was actually upset.

I was upset that they didn't get it
because it's very frustrating when

that is so clear to you is being
misunderstood by other people. And also,

upset because I knew it wouldn't do
well.

You know, we'd open the picture and
people wouldn't, you know, they just

wouldn't get it.

Now, in all fairness, I don't think we
had a very good marketing campaign for

this. I mean, this is a very original
kind of film. I mean, there's really no,

mean, except for like The Ruttles, which
I think was a specific satire of The

Beatles. There had really never been a
film like this.

And they marketed it with a, you know, a
guitar flying in the air with a twisted

guitar neck, which looked like airplane.

You know, it looked like here's a very
original film that trading.

on another film.

So I think that hurt us. I don't think
they knew exactly how to market this

film.

And I think if we had done it today, we
would have gone very slowly. We would

have put it in a couple of theaters and
one down in the village and one here in

L .A. and just run it for a long, long,
long, long time and then slowly roll it

out in such a way that people would
catch up to it. It's one of the reasons.

For me, why I wanted to start Castle
Rock, so that I could have control over

marketing and not have a situation like
what I had on this film, and also

Princess Bride, which I thought was
marketed really poorly.

Kent Bader.

After these previews, we set up another
little cutting room, and Chris came

back, and I went through, and based on
the notes from the previews, we went

through from top to bottom and made a
lot of changes. We incorporated a

number that we had taken out.

But I remember the last time I saw the
picture, I thought that maybe we might

have gone a little too far, you know? I
think the dramatic elements are put in

closer proximity now, and there's more
dramatic tension, except that...

The longer cut makes it more real in a
certain banal, the banalness of it, the

tedium of it. Not that it was boring, it
was always funny, but it, as Kent was

talking about the scene in the recording
studio following down the hallway, you

feel intrusive. You have that sense of
the camera being poking into somebody's

private business, which you don't get so
much in the final film because it was

geared as entertainment.

We just thought if we can get some money
allocated to us from advertising and

publicity, we'll do a trailer and a
video. I think it was smart that we had

do them both at the same time because
there was no way to stop us.

This video I also produced was also
directed by Chris.

It was just like cheese rolling in
Denmark. It was there to tell you about

band. It was there in some way to pique
your interest. If you got what that was

about, then you would get the movie.
That was the idea.

We thought people would, if they enjoyed
that, they'd be looking to see the

film.

On the bait, Derek Small.

He wrote this.

took out whole subplots with a certain
crazy license.

The emphasis in cutting it down was to
keep a dramatic... We knew the jokes

there all the time, but it was to keep a
dramatic structure so your interest

worked on a second level as well.

But it was kind of exhilarating because
everything, to me, everything was so

good and the material was so
consistently of a high quality that it

like a no -lose situation.

But, you know, what was interesting too
was we had a board with file cards.

with the list of, you know, each scene
was listed on a card. But do you

later on that we actually would come
back and we'd take all those file cards

and put them on the ground because we
were moving so many cards around that

couldn't do it on the board. You kept
pinning and pinning. So we just had it

like some game on the floor.

There's Lindsay Duran, by the way.

That woman right there was Lindsay
Duran, and she was the one responsible

getting this film off the ground.

I'm sure it would have been discovered
in the end. I don't think it would have

had its financial success that it had at
that time, which wasn't huge as I

remember it. It was made for 2 .4
million and it grows something like 15

million. But at that time, that wasn't
bad for a film of that size and it

certainly showed a percentage return.

I'm not sure if it would have done that.
In fact, when it first opened for the

first... week or so, it didn't do very
well, and then I had a very good review

from Vincent Camby, and that night the
box office was incredibly better in New

York City, and then advertising built up
from that.

Really what happened, I think, was that
Embassy Pictures, who were distributing

it, they figured out that instead of
just being something you could put out

not worry about, this was something you
could actually make money off, and they

did. A collection of my acoustic numbers
with the London Philharmonic, as you

know. We're lucky.

Yeah. I mean, people should be envying
us, you know. I envy us. Yeah, I do. Me

too.

When you're doing a film with a script,
you're trying to get certain little

values out of each moment, you know,
with an actor.

This is, you know, totally freewheeling,
you know, like jazz. It's like doing

jazz. I mean, it's a totally different
set of ground rules.

I don't have to tune performances here.
All the people that are doing this know

what they're supposed to do. They all
inhabit these characters. They're living

inside these characters.

They created these characters.

It's not like it was written for them
and they have to act them. They've

them from the ground up. These are their
characters.

They've lived with these characters
longer than I have.

They can't make false moves. They're
incapable of making false moves.

This scene here, Chris is an incredible
actor, and he's very dramatic here. I

mean, he's a very solid dramatic actor
as well as being a really good comedic

actor.

They're all good actors. They're all
really good actors. You can't play

the way they do unless you're a really
good dramatic actor.

I mean, they look to me to help
structure a scene and, you know, to

know, make a certain structure, but not
for their performances, no.

The Sure Thing was more like a first
film than this for me because it was a

traditional film, and I was completely
inexperienced doing that kind of thing.

This was easy for me. This was like
falling off a lock.

It doesn't spoil you, I mean, because
you know you're never going to get to

film like that. I mean, it's basically
you know there's a one -time thing.

It's not like the next experience is
going to be like this. I mean, it's

you know, it's just going to be
different.

The final budget for the film...

was way above the $200 ,000 or $300 ,000
mark, but I would guess the final

budget was between $2 million and $3
million.

Most of the budget of the film went to
paying the talent.

Actually, all the performers, Chris and
Harry and Michael, were all Writers

Guild members, Directors Guild. Well, at
that time, Rob became a Directors Guild

member, and they were also musicians.

So in a sense, they were wearing all the
hats that on a film you would normally

hire anywhere from...

three to 15 people to do.

So they were doing basically what would
be called the writing. They were writing

all the music. They were recording the
music. They were performing the music.

They were acting in their roles as SAG
players.

And Rob was also directing.

So a good portion of the budget, because
they were all guild members, went

towards providing them their feed for
their guild.

Because the rest of the film was filmed
entirely on location, all the other

expenses were primarily location
expenses.

This concert here, we filmed it
dramatically to happen in the pacing

happens in now.

I think Rob is very intelligent. He's
got this really probing aspect to his

personality. I think that's one reason
why he's probably done so many different

genres as well.

And he really likes to get inside of a
story, it seems to me, and really try to

sort of work it through.

And I think that he likes the challenge,
it seems to me.

of these different genres, do one of
those rockumentary films like all those

other people.

Well, we talked about doing a Spinal Tap
2, and we all looked through all this

other footage, and there's some very
funny stuff, but we realized that

only one story. Even though there's a
lot of footage, there's only one story

tie it together, so it would just be
scenes that were unrelated, you know,

kind of just out of context.

And so we decided not to do it. You've
got very well -defined characters that

can either empathize with or sympathize
with, and it has

entertainment value.

If you're trying to do a comedy, then
it's funny.

You're making people laugh.

So it has to have all those things, and
it has to also not bore the people. I

never like to see people shifting in
their seats for a second. It cannot just

wander.

So all those elements have to be in
place.

That moment of the drummer exploding and
cutting to Japan, I think maybe we cut

it together and Rob saw it, but it was
either a joke or it was part of

else, and he said, no, that's the way we
should make that final transition.

That was total luck.

We didn't plan to have that drummer. I
mean, if you look at it very, very

carefully, the explosion...

happens on the B side of the cut.

Karen Murphy.

I was very upset this day because we
were supposed to fill the hall with

Japanese extras.

And we showed up the day of the filming,
and the person in charge of the extras

had not done a very good job of
selecting Japanese people. There were so

people who were Chinese and Filipino and
very many people who were not Japanese.

And I remember we went through the roof,
and we almost couldn't film that day

because there just weren't enough people
to make it look like Japan.

We actually sent everybody out to Little
Tokyo with cash, asking people to

please come and be in our movie.

Playing rock and roll music. And here's
some interview footage that just didn't

make it into the body of the film that
we thought was really funny and we just

put it in for the credits.

And in fact, when it first came out and
we previewed it in Dallas, you know.

85 % of the audience didn't have a clue
as to what we were doing.

They came out after the film was over,
and I talked to a number of these

and a lot of them wondered why I had
made a film about a band that nobody had

ever heard of and a band that was so
bad.

I think it's one of these situations
where it's in the forefront of things,

it takes a while for people to catch up
and really get the joke and really see

what's funny about it.

Spinal Tap's become a cult film.

And every rock and roller that I ever
encounter tells me that, you know, it's

required watching on a tour bus, you
know.

And they wear their copies thin, their
tapes thin, you know, from watching it

over and over. And I remember when I was
making Princess Bride, I had an

interview with Sting to play one of the
parts in the film. And he told me that

he had seen it.

you know, like 50 times.

And when he watched it, he didn't know
whether to laugh or cry because it was

close to, you know, his experiences.

I tell people the movies I've done, and
when I get back to this one, 95 % of the

people react to this one more than any
other.

And everybody, everybody can repeat more
phrases than I can about this film and

remember it in more detail than I do.

Because to me it's so tied up with all
of what it was, the whole process, it's

not just the final film. And these other
people, like these guys I met recently

from an improv group, they watched it
thousands of times. They can do whole

pieces out of it, stuff that I'd
forgotten ages ago.

We're watching it here silent in the
studio.

I haven't seen this film in four or five
years. I'd like to sit down and watch a

movie. It's kind of poignant to me.

It's something I did a long time ago. I
have a great affection for this movie.

I remember cutting this on 16mm, and it
was just like this little spaghetti

stuff, and somehow we made it all work,
and it was very low budget, and we were

cutting in this little house in
Hollywood that no one would know was any

editing facility at all.

And we had our own little kitchen, and
sometimes Bob would come in and have

breakfast in the morning, or maybe every
morning, I don't know.

And we'd have our tea in the afternoon,
and we had a picnic table outside.

We had this amazing piece of work that
we could just be completely playful

And we felt like we could do no wrong
with.

So it was quite a good time.

Good group of people and a good way to
approach any movie, I think. It should

all be that way.

This is my 108th time to see this movie.

I started counting because, of course,
I'd never produced a film before. And

when I started looking at the film over
and over again, I thought it was really

odd how many times I'd watched it. So I
started counting.

And I remember at the 107th time, I
said, that's it. I can't see this movie

anymore. But I enjoyed every minute of
it all the way to that point.

This is 108.

Not only do I wish I had a piece of it,
I wish I had a lawyer who could go in

and get me that piece that I have of it.

Here lies David St. Evans.

And why not?

I feel that sums up your life.

There's a great story about that. And if
you notice, his name is Moak.

Well, we saw a movie called Butterfly
with Pia Zadora.

And there was a credit that said, James
Franciscus as Moak.

His name was in a box, so we just
thought it was kind of funny. So we put

guy, this guy's character name in a box,
and we called him Moak because of this

character in Butterfly.

If you're a first -time director...

You know, I wouldn't recommend making a
film this way because unless you're

experienced in improvisation and unless
you have the horses, in other words,

have the actors who really know how to
do this stuff, it can be very boring. I

mean, because good improvisational
actors, what they do is not just are

improvise in context of their characters
and able to be truthful to their

characters, but they also improvise in
an interesting way.

They're humorous. They're cogent.
They're intelligent. They turn a phrase,

interestingly.

They're doing the job of a writer, and
at the same time that they're doing the

job of an actor.

So it doesn't work unless you have a
really good writer. All these people are

writers. It's not something you could
just do, anybody could just do.

In other words, kids, don't try this at
home.

I don't know. What are the hours?