Original subtitles

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DICK: That's Italian.

You can go pump or auto.

SCHWARZENEGGER: The .45 Long Slide with laser sighting.

These are brand new. We just got them in.

That's a good gun.

Just touch the trigger, the beam comes on...

Yeah, I remember after shooting this scene

thinking, "That guy is good.

He oughta run for Governor."

LAINIE: Schwarzenegger?

What Schwarzenegger? Me!

Friend of mine was working for Roger Corman.

And he had to go drop something off

and I said, "Can I go with ya?"

Dick Miller was an essential part

of those early Corman films.

He's in quite a number of them.

You got a thought, or do you want to sit here

and play with your blocks?

I'll play with your blocks. Here, give him this.

Sometimes he has a small part, sometimes one of the leads.

CORMAN: Bucket of Blood was probably Dick's best role.

He played Walter Paisley.

Oh Walter, I want to be with you!

LAINIE: Let's call the character Walter!

Yo, Walter!

MAN: Hey, Walter, it's your wife.

LAINIE: It's just one of those things.

It sort of got attached to him.

MAN: Walter Paisley is born!

But you did shoot with naked ladies.

No, I don't remember naked ladies.

Dick did his share of gangsters,

and he did policemen -

You know, working stiff parts.

I don't know an actor who has been in the business

as long as Dick has been in the business

who isn't hiding a million wounds.

Dick came out here as a writer

and that's what he wanted to do.

Our childhood was probably like everybody else's.

Who knows?

You hear stories, you don't hear stories.

I've been mistaken for him several times

and I always thought I was better lookin' than him.

Ah, sorry pal, you're over the limit on this card.

SAYLES: He's that guy.

He's the guy that when you're watching a movie

and you see him, you say, "There's that guy!"

He's in everything.

He's like the Washington Monument of actors.

You can't turn on the TV or go to the movies

without seeing this man's career spill out before you.

Listen to me, punk,

I've handled jaywalkers who were tougher than you.

I do hope you'll write my book.

I grew up with Dick Miller.

I mean I really did.

INTERVIEWER: Ever flub a line? No.

I take Master Charge, American Express -

I blew the fuckin' line!

Yeah, maybe once or twice...

Dick Miller is the quintessential character actor.

Lets get outta here.

I hate cul de sacs.

There's only one way out and the people are weird.

FELDMAN: He's in every Joe Dante movie, isn't he?

What was he in Innerspace?

BOTH: Would you shut up! Get back in your cab!

I never thought about being a filmmaker.

I was going to be a cartoonist. I was just a film fan.

But then when finally I got a chance to make a movie,

I couldn't do it without Dick Miller.

I had to have Dick Miller in it.

Joe seems to adore Dick.

They seem to get along fantastically.

What's so great about Dick is -

It's the fact that he's so Dick Miller.

He's so himself.

Completely, 100 percent,

undiluted, pure Dick Miller.

He's so completely authentic.

You're never going to steal a scene from him.

Because how can you steal a scene from

somebody who's so real?

You're never going to steal a scene from reality.

No, that's what I said. No, that's what I said!

No, I said forget it. I said...

[**]

[**]

We're in New York because Dick is doing a film.

I'm so excited!

DICK: Back in New York - This is my stomping ground.

I started out here, a Bronx boy.

I haven't been here in a couple of years.

It's nice.

This one is with Abe Vigoda

and it's called Cutaways.

I've never worked with him before.

He's a nice, quiet old gentleman.

My friends are still amazed -

and the people that I work with -

that my brother's an actor and he's been in so many films

and he's such a well known face.

You look at him and you say, "I know that guy."

GENE: But he made so many films...

Somebody told me he made about 300,

which is an awful lot.

Can we have the check?

It's on the house.

Really? Sure, what the hell.

Different rules apply when it gets this late.

Know what I mean? It's like after hours.

KAPLAN: I love having him around.

I love working with him.

Cause Dick's got a New York accent, you know?

You feel at home.

Dick is a dyed in the wool kind of New Yorker.

He's a super authentic guy.

He's a no bullshit guy.

This is my first professional picture...

"Sorority Girl,

featuring Dick Miller."

Here's some more junk.

This is from Gremlins.

This is a Walter Paisely sign.

I've got Walter Paisely signs all over the house.

The Undead...

INTERVIEWER: You played a leper in that movie, right?

Yeah, he cleared up my skin nice.

Ahh, this is War of the Satellites...

Rock All Night...

INTERVIEW: How many movies did you do for Roger?

Do you remember?

I've been associated with him in about...

49 pictures...

That's he's either directed or produced,

or something or the other.

The first film Dick and I worked on together was Apache Woman,

a two-week western.

I think it was my third or fourth picture.

I was just learning how to be a director.

I was five when he made his first movie -

Apache Woman -

where he plays Tall Tree.

I would've made a great Apache Chief...

Wouldn't I have, Tall Tree?

Mmm, Good Chief. You Chief now.

SADLER: And I think that's really the secret

to his longevity in the film industry -

is his height.

Because there's always room for somebody who is that small.

You'll have to ask Dick about his secret.

I have no idea what his secret is.

DICK: I was playing an Indian in my first picture,

and I felt good about it.

He says, "When you finish your work here,

how would you like to play a homesteader for me?"

I said, "Yeah, sure. When does that start?"

He says, "Tomorrow!"

So I played a cowboy and an Indian in my first movie.

I think part of the success of Corman

was that everything was well planned in advance.

Roger Corman was a well-educated young man

who sort of stumbled into the movie business.

Corman was his own director and producer,

and knew how to make these films quickly and efficiently,

and had no pretense of them being great art.

Won't be laying that track for two weeks yet.

We're all waiting for that big letter.

Yeah, and I'm waiting to carry it.

DICK: Roger was on a Western kick then.

I played cowboys for him.

I played a Pony Express rider for him.

I was making a buck.

Dick came out as an actor from New York

and started getting cast in all those movies

and became this presence.

Frankly, at the time of those movies,

I wasn't aware of Dick.

But looking at it in retrospect,

he's a thread that you see throughout those movies.

He's like the everyman.

Jonathan Haze, by the way,

was the one who introduced me to Roger the first time.

What do you do, kid?

I'm here to keep Mr. Johnson healthy.

I don't even think we had

each other's phone numbers in those days.

No, who had telephones?

I want to rustle some cows. Don't be stupid.

Who's stupid? You're stupid. Who's got any cows out here?

Alright, I'll go rustle some chickens.

HAZE: That was all pretty much ad-libbed.

But it was the first time that Dick and I

got to work together as a comedy team.

It's not here? Si, way back in there.

It's too big for this little squad, I think.

HAZE: And it gave Roger some ideas

about us playing comedy

that paid off later on with Bucket of Blood

and Little Shop of Horrors.

Jonathan Haze - Dick calls him Jackie.

But he's Jonathan Haze.

They've been together as friends since New York.

They've known each other longer than Dick knows me.

DICK: When Jonathan Haze said

he was going to introduce me to Roger,

I thought, "I'm gonna sell him some science fiction if I can."

Didn't happen.

Roger at that time, he said, "What do you do?"

I said, "I'm a writer."

He said, "We don't need writers. We need actors."

I said, "I'm an actor!"

The State Theatre in Boonton, New Jersey.

That's where I saw my first Dick Miller movie,

which was "Not of this Earth".

Mornin'. I represent the Air Wave Vacuum Company.

You the gentlemen of the house?

This is my house.

Crazy. I'd like to show you the product.

DANTE: I didn't know Dick,

because I hadn't seen any of his other movies.

But the vacuum salesman

definitely made an impression on me.

So when I saw him again in another AIP picture -

"Oh, that's the guy! That's the vacuum cleaner guy."

I know that better than you do, sergeant.

How well are you doing?

Half my men are dead. Nothing can stop that thing.

In Not of This Earth,

Dick plays a door-to-door salesman.

This, they say in the vernacular,

is the darling of the vacuum cleaning world.

ROGER: And it was really one of the high-points,

if not THE high-point of the picture.

It's a vacuum cleaner.

You purchase, you don't wanna purchase.

You wanna purchase, you purchase.

I don't want ya to purchase, mister.

I just want to give you a free demonstration.

You wanna purchase, you purchase.

You don't wanna purchase, you don't purchase.

I ain't gonna force you to purchase.

ROGER: It was a well-written scene,

but Dick re-wrote it just slightly,

just changed a little bit of the dialogue.

Crazy.

I said, "Wait a second..."

Among my many occupations,

I was also a door-to-door salesman.

I said, "And I didn't have a spiel.

I just spoke naturally."

It's a very simple operation.

MALTIN: When people try to do homages to these B-movies,

they do it sometimes with a wink.

The actors who worked for Corman never did that.

There's no condescending to the material.

It's done with conviction.

I must have met a thousand cops

and every one of them is stupid

Tangling with punks like you for the money they draw,

maybe they are.

"Got a picture here called Rock All Night."

I said, "What do I do in it?"

He said, "You're the lead."

CORMAN: In Rock All Night,

Dick played what we used to refer to as The Little Guy.

Let go of me, you big ape!

Now beat it!

Dick's a very real guy. He doesn't cut you any slack.

Fill it, will ya?

And he's got that sort of New York

attitude in his performances

Say somethin' nice,

or I'm gonna bounce you right off that wall.

Now start talkin'!

I'm talkin'. You listenin'?

What he was was the underdog

who rises to the occasion and conquers.

LAINIE: Roger started his career.

All of the people who grew up in the Corman camp

wouldn't be using Dick

if Dick hadn't been an actor for Roger Corman.

DAVISON: I grew up in New Jersey

and was a big fan of Roger Corman's.

I went to see Attack of The Crab Monsters

and Not of This Earth when I was eight years old,

and I don't think I've ever been as scared since.

He was able to get the money to make those little movies.

I guess little by little, he got better at it.

People liked them...

which surprised the hell out of me.

But in high school, I learned to appreciate Dick Miller.

I learned to appreciate how he was able to give life

to even the smallest of roles.

We don't have much time, Dave.

We've got plenty of time.

They're just calling for Rocket One. I'm going on Rocket One.

Dick Miller's first 10 feature film acting jobs

were all for Roger.

Dick is top billed in War of the Satellites,

and he tries hard to suppress his Bronx accent,

and is pretty successful with it.

Is it fantastic that there's an intelligent race out there

that stops at nothing to keep us quarantined on our own planet?

Is the Sigma Barrier fantastic?

But he plays it more like a leading man

than the character actor that he is...

And manages, I think quite convincingly,

to play against his blue collar persona

and portray a scientist.

It's harder then anything we have yet been able to devise.

And it has a fantastic thermal resistance.

Hm. I didn't know that.

I think the first movie I saw

was War of the Satellites.

I remember, years after, my brother Gene said,

"You know, where did Dick learn all those big words?"

Now the gentlemen here ask themselves why

these aliens are so concerned that we do not

penetrate the Sigma Barrier?

If Lenny Bruce could've acted,

he would've been Dick Miller.

Especially the young Dick Miller,

'cause Dick had this kind of

hipster quality about him.

Hello?

Hello, Sybil? This is Dave.

BEHR: One of my favorite moments

in the Dick Miller filmography

is in War of the Satellites,

where he plays this absolute hipster scientist.

They never identify him as a hipster,

but you know he's off boppin' at night, smokin' reefer.

And there's one moment

when he comes in to see Richard Devon...

I was wondering if I can ask you a question, personally.

Certainly...

BEHR: Dick sits down

and he does this little thing with his head

that he sometimes does.

Which is the exact same thing

that Lenny Bruce used to do in his act.

That's the coolest guy in movies, guys!

So that's why when he gets to play Walter Paisley,

people use that as a reference

to who Dick Miller is...

That's not Dick Miller at all!

DICK: For a while I was writing in New York.

So I came out here with a bunch of stories,

science fiction things.

GENE: I knew he was writing,

but I really thought that what was going to happen in the end

would be his acting,

because he's gone to a theatrical school

and he seemed to have a lot of talent.

But I knew he'd been writing.

But I didn't know is he was successful with that or not.

DICK: I got out of the service,

so I went to an upholstery school.

I went down there and filled out all of the papers.

He said, "We don't have any night classes anymore,

just the day classes.

Start at 8 o'clock in the morning."

I said, "That's no good.

I don't go to sleep until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning.

Right next to the New York School of Upholstery

was the New York Theatre School of Dramatic Arts.

I called them - "What time do your classes start?"

BILL: He was on his own at a young age.

He always learned to rely on himself,

and I think that's good.

I really didn't know much about acting.

I didn't care to be an actor.

I had fooled around a little -

Played drums, sang a little.

So maybe the formative years

and the separation from the parents

had more of an affect on him than,

psychologically, he wants to admit.

GENE: My mother, she was an opera star.

She was soprano and very good.

And we were raised, really, on that type of music.

But she was very talented, quite talented.

DICK: Oh, I was about 8 or 9 years old, I guess.

I came home to just one of the usual arguments.

Of course, my mother and father divorced.

I think all of his interest in show business

stemmed from his mother.

DICK: My mother was prepared to give up everything.

He just couldn't understand

why she wanted to sing

and wanted to be happy.

It had a big affect upon Dick.

And I think Dick, overall, felt

my father wasn't fair to his mother.

DICK: I didn't know why they got divorced.

My father was living someplace else -

and that was it.

So he went out to California, sort of alone.

You know, Gene was going his own way

and we had a big family in California.

So they took care of him to a large extent,

but mostly he took care of himself.

I was busy living life.

And I came out to California...

Unfortunately...

my mom died before

she could see any of my films.

MAN: I will talk to you of art.

For there is nothing else to talk about -

For there is nothing else.

Life is an obscure hobo,

bumming a ride on the omnibus of art.

Burn gas buggies

and whip your sour cream of circumstance,

and hope.

And go ahead and sleep your bloody heads off.

SCHLESINGER: When you talk about quintessential

Dick Miller roles,

the common agreement is that

it's Walter Paisley in A Bucket of Blood.

Yes, man, yes! Hi!

The image we have of Dick Miller

was created in Bucket of Blood.

ARKUSH: Bucket of Blood, I think,

is maybe my favorite Roger Corman movie.

Hey, that's a pretty far out name for a statue.

I saw a statue once - It was called

'The Third Time Phyllis Saw Me She Exploded'.

It's a role where he does play kind of an idiot,

even though he's kind of good natured.

You alright, Franky?

Dick is in no sense

like that character in life.

He is much more like the character

in Rock All Night.

I thought you said that life was like an obscure hobo,

bumming a ride on the - I do believe in that Walter,

but I also believe creative living.

He could play a comedy role

and bring a depth to it,

and a seriousness to it,

that gave it an added dimension.

The artist is - All others are not.

That's most intriguing.

Are you a painter?

His ambition is to be an artist.

What's it called?

Dead Cat?

He takes the cat, and he covers it in plaster,

and he shows it to people,

and they think it's a great sculpture.

Man, you are in! Oh, Walter...

Then he has to do more and he kills a man.

So there's interesting levels of one killing

for the sake of beauty,

and is that the right thing to do, you know?

Is that fraudulent? Is it not art?

Yeah, you're a real artist now.

I think people do relate to Walter Paisley.

We've all been through that -

Trying to break in,

trying to get started.

A canvas is a canvas, or a painting.

A rock is a rock, or a statue...

ARKUSH: Like in all other parts of life

and in social settings, there's a hierarchy.

People respond to hierarchies,

whether it's professional sports

and you're the quarterback,

or, in the this case, instead of the quarterback,

you're the poet or the artist

who is the center of beatnik life in the coffee shop.

Bring me an espresso, Walter.

ARKUSH: Walter is on the fringe.

He's got no artistic talent,

he's got nothing going for him,

and he can't get girls -

which is kind of a big motivating factor for him.

Crazy, what did he say?

Didn't you hear him? No man, I'm too far out.

KARASZEWSKI: A Bucket of Blood is a hoot!

It sort of takes

what would be a generic drive-in picture

and, all of a sudden, gives it an odd spin.

Its really a sophisticated, brilliant little satire

for a low-budget, quickie B-movie.

For some reason, Chuck Griffith's writing,

which can be very dark and funny at the same time,

was the perfect match for Dick.

CORMAN: Chuck Griffith and I went out and had dinner,

and I said to Chuck,

"Let's spend the night going from beatnik coffee house

to beatnik coffee house,

and we will put together an outline from which

you will do the treatment."

I don't want you to make any more statues.

Do you understand?

No more statues! Why not?

If you do the lead in the picture,

you do the lead in the picture.

They're all pretty much the same.

But that's the one that I like the best.

It really is, I think, his best performance,

and he's been known for it in sort of a cult way.

Did you call me, Mr. Mushnik?

No, I was calling John D. Rockefeller

for to make a loan on my Rolls Royce!

JACKIE: Oh, I'll tell you something.

But it's the first time I really saw Dick.

He was in a movie called Bucket of Blood,

and I knew Antoney Carbone, who was in it -

we went to school together.

So, naturally, I went to see the movie

and Dick was the star.

So that's how I felt on the set.

Look, here I got a new customer.

JACKIE: When Dick stepped on the set,

you just know that he's somebody special.

Now what can I do for you, sir?

My name is Burson Fouch.

Excellent, I'm Gravis Mushnik. Oh, that's a good one.

Who's gonna get my roses?

The Little Shop of Horrors went so fast,

nobody had time to have small talk, really,

'cause you're running from scene to scene.

It was a two-day movie.

AUDREY II: Feed me!

HAZE: We had to shoot it fast,

and a lot of the times we would just have to ad lib

because we'd lose ourselves -

we didn't know where we were.

Little Shop of Horrors was the next picture

after Bucket of Blood.

By the time Roger was getting ready

to do Little Shop of Horrors,

I'd heard that he had Chuck Griffith

writing a comedy for Dick Miller.

Now came Little Shop of Horrors.

I said, "This is the same character."

HAZE: Dick read it and decided that he didn't want to do it

because it was similar to Bucket of Blood.

In those days,

there weren't any sequels.

I resented doing the part.

I said, "I don't wanna do this.

Give it to Jonathan Haze."

I said, "Well, I'll do anything in it to be workin'."

Are you crazy?

Who, who? You, you!

So I felt that it was a good payback time

by giving him a lead in this picture.

Dick was in scenes with me,

'cause I worked in the Flower Shop

and he came in and ate the flowers.

Of course, what else?

DICK: I said, "Get me clean flowers."

I think he got them from a funeral house or something,

'cause they tasted terrible.

You didn't mean it...

ROGER: I did have, to a certain extent,

a stock company, as much as you can.

Dick was one of my favorite actors.

I always thought he was a brilliant actor.

One of his best friends, Jonathan Haze,

was among them, as well.

HAZE: Well, I mean, I've heard that story.

I've heard all about stock companies

and the Corman Acting School and all that stuff.

There wasn't any kind of any of that.

There was no stock company.

There was no unified group of actors that were his group.

If you worked for him and he liked you,

he'd use you again.

Except for Jackie and Jack Nicholson,

we'd all worked together before.

Is this Doctor Forbes's office?

DEL VALLE: Dick Miller...

I thought his performance in A Bucket of Blood

was every bit as good

as Jack Nicholson's in The Little Shop of Horrors.

Oh, my God,

don't stop now!

Hollywood is not based on talent.

It's not based on anything other than being

in the right place, at the right time,

and having within you whatever that is that someone wants.

It's all a matter of luck.

Little Shop of Horrors is interesting because, originally,

Roger wanted Dick to play the lead character

and he felt, "I've already done that.

Let Jonathan play it. Give me something else to do."

In a way, it seemed like a missed opportunity.

But maybe it sort of, in some peculiar way,

confirmed his decision that being the star of the movie

isn't necessarily always the best thing to be.

DICK: There wasn't a large pool of actors

that were ready to work for Roger Corman.

He worked like lightning.

The only reason Roger did a second take

was if the camera fell over.

He did his best work

in casting his pictures.

And I think that when

a newcomer comin' along

did a good job for him,

he'd say, "Let's use him again."

In the name of the government of France,

I order you to open this door!

Your pardon, young sir, I was at my devotions.

I did not hear you.

I'm sorry, sir.

But surely I made enough noise to awaken the dead.

I don't what Jack really wanted to do at the beginning.

Yes, Baron?

Cognac, for our guest.

Yes, Baron.

DICK: He was ill-suited for the part.

Right after that,

he did some other pictures that he was marvelous in.

The legend goes that Roger wrapped

The Raven three days early.

So he still had Karloff under contract for a couple of days

and the sets were still standing.

So he decided to shoot another movie,

right then and there.

Even as a kid, I had no clue what that movie was about.

They didn't have a script.

They would just scribble down a bunch of stuff.

You know, Roger would have Boris

walk across the room,

change his jacket, and walk back.

Karloff just walks through this movie in smoking jackets.

[Imitating Karloff] "Where do you want me, Roger?

Three days is too much time."

None of this was cutting together.

DEL VALLE: When Karloff did The Terror,

he said, "I never want to hear that man's name again."

And I always thought that was funny.

Because Vincent Price said, "Well, I hear it all the time,

and I don't have a problem with it."

But Boris was kind of cranky.

Plus he had guys like Monte Hellman,

and Francis Coppola, and Jack Hill

out shooting second unit stuff.

Allow me to show you something...

One of the problems with the movie also was that,

for a horror movie,

it didn't really have the kind of scenes

that you want for a horror movie.

So I added in a scene where the Jonathan Haze character

is up on top of the cliff.

Somehow I got the role of a deaf mute!

HILL: This falcon comes down out of the sky,

flies into his face,

and tears his eyes out.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

So Jack Nicholson grabs Dick -

"Alright!

Tell me everything that's going on around here!"

The Baron did return that night to find Eric with the Baroness,

and he did kill her.

SCHLESINGER: Then Dick spends the next minute and a half or so

literally summarizing the entire plot up to that point,

including things he could not possibly have known!

But it got the audience up to speed

and made the picture half-way sensible.

Ahhh!

HAZE: I liked that picture.

I liked wearing all the weird costumes and being crazy.

And it was good working with Boris Karloff,

who was an old hero of mine.

My thrill of a lifetime

was working with Boris Karloff.

I think Karloff, Gable, and Cagney

were the three big giants I met in this business.

You meet actors today, they're nice guys,

but they're not giants.

KAPLAN: As much film history as he's seen,

and given where he started -

with Jack Nicholson and that whole gang -

You would expect to see some bitterness or something in him

that a lot of the people around him

went on to make it big,

and Dick is still playing the smaller roles.

Write your thoughts down here and he will read them to you.

Just by pressing them against his forehead.

Anything you want to write. Anything at all!

How about my mother-in-law's will?

KAPLAN: He's a throwback to the studio system actors, you know?

LAINIE: I knew about whatever he was he was doing at the time,

but we were so involved

in starting our relationship,

I didn't really get involved

in knowing about his work.

I saw my husband in

War of the Satellites.

I was in the movie theatre with a fella I was dating.

I made one of those unforgivable,

embarrassing, glib remarks at the time.

I said, "That guy can put his shoes under my bed any time."

When I was 16,

I wound up in California.

And Dick came a little bit later

and started working on his own career.

And then he met Elaine,

and he got outta my house. [Laughing]

Carla...

I don't wanna make statues anymore.

I wanna get married...

to you.

LAINIE: I came here when I was 17 and a half.

Another actor introduced me to Dick in Schwabbs.

I almost fell flat on my face

that I was meeting this guy,

that I had seen a couple of years earlier

in a picture.

I met Dick

in May 1959

and we got married the following October -

Five months.

GENE: It's a terribly good relationship.

It's shown over the years.

She was in show business at the time.

I'm trying to remember when I met Lainie.

I think I knew that Lainie was in The Graduate

before I met her.

I think Dick had told me that that was her.

What do you want to know about The Graduate?

I mean, I'm not Mike Nichols,

so I can't answer from his perspective.

He had seen something I did

where I played a voodoo witch.

He asked his production coordinator who that was

and she looked and said,

"Oh my God, that's my neighbor!"

And the next thing I know,

she's knocking on my door saying,

"Mike Nichols wants you for The Graduate."

MAN: Sit down!

LAINIE: That's how it happened.

I asked Dick, "Do you mind if I play a stripper?"

It seems that I've gotten known for this

little, itty-bitty role I did in The Graduate.

Because, for its time, I suppose it was rather racy.

But by today's standard,

it's just another dancer.

This is a portrait I did of Dick

in 1966.

INTERVIEWER: What inspired you to do it?

Me!

Who do you think?

BILL: They love being with each other.

They love bickering with each other.

They can have their own radio show.

What do you mean? I don't know what it is.

That's what the trouble is for 55 years or whatever.

What was our first argument?

That's what I'm trying to argue about.

Of course I understand that these two would be together.

You didn't like what I made you for diner.

I wouldn't even call it bickering.

It's just sort of...

Pork chops!

Pork chops! Alright.

No, it wasn't pork chops was it?

DANTE: It's very funny,

in a sort of sitcom way.

She's never cooked anything since then.

And you deserve it!

She has trouble boiling water.

She doesn't know what temperature it boils at.

INTERVIEWER: What temperature does it? I don't know.

LAINIE: As all actors can tell you,

it's not a gravy train all the way through.

The foibles of being an actor -

You just don't get that much work.

DOEL: The first film that I actually worked on

was in fact The Wild Angels.

And that, I believe, was the first time I saw Dick Miller.

Hey, what's the matter with you guys?

You're supposed to be doing some work around here.

Cool it, I'm just talking to my buddy.

Yeah? Yeah.

What's with the Iron Cross? You one of those dumb angels?

ANNOUNCER: Their intimacies -

A rape of decency...

DOEL: Defiance of authority...

Not trusting people over 30...

I think Roger responded to that,

because, even though he didn't hang out

with the counter-culture -

really except for purposes of research -

I think he had some instinctive sympathy

with the idea of mistrust of authority,

which is something he had very strongly.

ANNOUNCER: Their emblems -

Those of the defeated, the despised...

I didn't see it happening.

To me, a job was a job...

Kasch, Kasch. This is Paul.

How you doin'? Good to meet ya.

LAINIE: At that particular point,

he was more playing the establishment roles

and they were playing the anti-establishment roles.

I don't know whether it amused him,

I don't know whether it interested him at all,

but he definitely wasn't part of it, I never felt.

Listen, I'll tell you something now.

The pay in those days was, I think,

300 or 350 dollars a week.

I remember telling my daughter once -

We were talking about money,

and I said, "I've gotten by on 15 for the year!"

She said that $15,000 was a lot of money.

I said, "Wait a second, wait a second -

$1,500."

She said, "You made five pictures!"

I said, "That's right."

There just wasn't any money.

LAINIE: There were a couple of years

when so little came into the house

from Dick's acting

and from me going to school...

BILL: I remember, in those days,

when I first went out to California,

Dick never wanted to leave the house.

I had a lot of agents.

They didn't do a thing for me.

BILL: And he never even wanted to go 10 or 15 minutes way,

because he was afraid he'd miss a call.

When I got a call, I got a part.

Tell us, Miss Campbell,

did you ever dream of being a star in those days?

I used to dream about getting away

from Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire.

BILL: I remember, maybe 40 years ago,

35 years ago maybe,

he wasn't getting as many parts as he deserved.

Gene was the coroner of Orange County

and he got him some interviews.

Dick resisted it in the worst way.

Eventually, he said, "Alright, I'll go to the interviews."

And they set up the interviews

and Dick just never showed up.

[Laughs]

I don't know whether I should laugh at that or not.

Dick is the type of person that does not want to do

what he doesn't want to do.

Not that he didn't do what he didn't want to do,

but he knew what he did want to do -

And he wanted to be an actor.

And he didn't care if he was going through a dry spot

or he wasn't getting called upon in those days.

He was just going to wait it out,

and do what he wanted to do,

'cause he knew what was best for himself.

GENE: It wasn't easy.

And it never is, I think.

I think the fact that he was liked

by producers and directors helped him, though.

We couldn't afford vacations, the truth is.

The very first time we did

anything that resembled a vacation

was when he making The Long Ride Home and I came.

You've hurt yourself more than once on a picture,

doing stunts.

DICK: I get hurt.

On The Long Ride Home,

I busted my tailbone early in the picture.

Did some very, very fancy riding after that.

DOEL: Roger had a deal at Columbia

and was preparing to shoot a western,

with Robert Towne re-writing the script.

This script was not The Magnificent Seven.

[Laugh]

It soon turned out that there were some very serious people

who thought they were doing Shakespeare.

The company broke into two camps...

There were the Union soldiers

and the Rebs.

And that's why, to this day,

I'm friends with Dick Miller.

We stayed in a town that had as many churches as bars

and there were about 20 shootings every weekend.

The experience was -

How many things on a movie can be made difficult?

One of the things that may have been a sign early on -

Every day, there would be memos sent around

from the Columbia Production Department

listing such things as the equipment that would be sent.

And Roger would study these lists very carefully

and he would instruct me sometimes

to strike things off.

"Two generators?

I assume if they send a generator to the location,

it's going to work!"

DICK: I remember all the suits came out

and I said, "What's going on?"

And they said, "He's getting chewed out up there."

PETERSEN: Roger wanted some freedom.

He didn't want to move 30 pieces of equipment

to get the shot he wanted.

It was a new way to make a picture,

and, frankly, I agreed with him.

DOEL: The Columbia guys were worried that Roger,

from his AIP,

low budget, exploitation background,

was going to make a cheap-looking movie.

DICK: "Don't go up there.

You're gonna pass these guys in the suits

and they'll remember you!"

And all kinds of panic.

I said, "Ah, bull!"

And I did pass a guy on the stairs.

"Are you on this picture?"

I said, "Yeah, I think so..."

PETERSEN: And we had the directorial change -

the sudden and abrupt dismissal of Roger Corman -

which I didn't support then.

And I still argue to this day

he was going to make a better picture than we deserved.

DOEL: He was bent on bringing in the movie

on time and on budget -

even under budget -

and he simply assumed that

they would like it if he did that.

DICK: He went off and did another picture.

Hello, boys.

Something I can do for you? Yeah, you can shut up.

He didn't miss a beat.

[Gunfire]

DICK: I was writing.

I wasn't selling too much.

And at that point,

becoming an actor,

I just gave up the writing.

Not entirely, but I decided,

"I'm concentrating on something else now."

I sold a couple of scripts.

I remember "Which Way To The Front?"

with Jerry Lewis -

One of the sore spots of my career.

One of my first moviegoing experiences

was being taken to see a film

called "Which Way To The Front?"

with Jerry Lewis.

It might actually be Jerry Lewis' last studio picture.

Yaaa-vwaoit!

It has a great plot -

just really weird execution.

Fuehrer!

An acquaintance of mine, who was an actor,

he had worked for Jerry, I guess,

and he bought my script.

And, little by little, I started hearing about it.

The studio bought it,

and all of a sudden they announced it

and it was in the trades...

And I saw my name's not on there.

And I took it to the guild,

and we had a hearing,

and I got my credit for it.

I love it! I love it!

What they did was

they had a re-write on it,

and they changed the battle from

the Pacific Islands to Germany.

[**]

KARASZEWSKI: I like to forgive Jerry Lewis

only because I find that it's so watchable.

Even when it's a car crash, it's really watchable.

Well, it was funny for a Jerry Lewis picture.

BEHR: It's a tough business,

and its full of hopes,

and dreams, and disappointments.

I think that Dick has gone through a lot,

and because of that,

I don't think he allows himself

to be totally accessible.

LAINIE: He had a couch and a Murphy Bed.

When we got married,

we just kept all of that stuff -

'Cause I came from Canada.

What did I have?

He had his typewriter.

That was his main possession.

DICK: I was just staying alive,

making movies.

I think I must have been in four or five pictures

before I realized I was a movie actor.

I'm still trying to sell scripts...

Wasn't selling.

KARASZEWSKI: He seems to have come out here to be a writer

and sort of ignored it completely

until, for some reason, around 1970 -

Which he gets two writing credits.

He gets a writing credit on a western

called Four Rode Out, or something.

It's with Sue Lyon.

He does that and the Jerry Lewis movie back-to-back.

Maybe working for Jerry Lewis

makes you give it up completely.

BEHR: It didn't really hit me until the first time

that I was invited to Dick and Lainie's house.

And the two things that I discovered there

were the photos of Dick,

with the big lions, and the cats,

and I realized how much they loved animals.

And then there was this art...

DICK: That is kind of a strange little face.

What's this?

Here's an interesting thing...

What have you got? It's a thing I made!

DICK: They're all made about 50 years ago, really.

INTERVIEWER: Did you draw a lot?

I drew constantly.

I drew thousands of pictures.

These are the few that are left.

"The Family of Man."

INTERVIEWER: They seem sexual.

DICK: I believe all my pictures are sexual.

I just like life that way...

If I drew girls -

They loved it when I drew them.

Or else it was strictly from my imagination.

INTERVIEWER: Was there a particular part of the anatomy

that you liked drawing?

DICK: Well, God, no!

I guess, as I got working as an actor,

the need to draw disappeared.

I got a job once, The Andersonville Trial,

because I could draw...

Oh God, there -

That was the set.

I'm George C. Scott.

It's my happy job this evening

to give you an improvisational introduction

to The Andersonville Trial -

a play by Saul Levit.

I asked George C. Scott -

he was the director at the time.

I think it one of the first things he directed.

I asked him, "Were there many lines?"

He said, "Not too many at all.

You're playing a court reporter."

And I drew a picture of him in about two seconds flat.

I said, "You mean like this?"

"Oh yeah, that's good!"

I remember, when I was a kid,

a guy came over from Disney to my mother.

He wanted to stick me in pictures.

I didn't know that.

I thought he was going to make me an animator.

I said, "Yeah, I wanna do that!

I wanna do that!"

He told me, "You're gonna be an actor."

I said, "Nah, I don't wanna do that."

Who knew?

You want a portrait of yourself?

He'll make it for you in pen and ink in ten minutes.

BILL: Dick and my father had

a little bit of an interesting relationship.

If you ask Gene about the early childhood -

"Oh, it was perfectly fine!

It was perfectly fine!" So...

GENE: He was a nice guy,

but very much involved in his own life,

his own affairs.

Both Dick and I would see him occasionally,

and go to lunch or something,

and that was really about it.

BILL: When I was about 17, 18 years old,

my father put me on an airplane with him.

We were going to California,

and he said, "You're gonna meet some people

who are gonna call me dad."

And I met Dick and Gene.

You know, my father had a drawer in his apartment.

And he had some pictures of Dick

in a movie called Rock All Night

where he was on the back of Variety.

And there was pictures of Gene in the Navy.

You know, these guys look so much like my father

that, even as a young kid,

I said, "Something weird here..."

But, you know, Brooklyn has its own vibe.

DICK: I knew about Bill from the very beginning.

I didn't know that Bill didn't know about me.

I first saw Bill when I got out of the Navy

and went home to see my mother and Dick.

And I went up to see my father

and Bill was his child,

sittin' in a high chair...

BILL: But Dick will never admit it.

He doesn't have the most positive thoughts

about my father.

DICK: My father, our relationship was -

I didn't see him that much.

Me? I was the perpetual bum.

LAINIE: He really didn't have any respect

for show business whatsoever, his father.

BILL: He was born in Russia in the 1890s

and he came during World War I.

I don't know if he was a Socialist,

but times were different then.

My father was a fighter,

a little bit like Dick, ya know?

My father had a temper,

and he didn't suffer fools gladly,

and Dick doesn't suffer fools gladly.

So sometimes when people have a lot in common,

there's certainly more issues between them.

Though, God forbid,

if Dick thought I was psychoanalyzing him,

he'd think I was completely crazy.

My father, I know, was very proud of Dick.

He really was very proud of Dick.

You know, if Dick came from the perfect family -

I dunno, maybe he woulda been an accountant.

Though that's hard to believe, right?

When Roger started New World Pictures,

he sort of updated the exploitation formula

that he first worked with at AIP in the 50s.

And this is now the 70s.

So now things were a little grittier.

The screen was a little more freer.

The marvel of all this is that

the young guys that Roger hired,

they all were fans of the early Corman films.

They'd grown up on those films

and now they were working for him.

Dick Miller had somehow fallen out of the Corman Universe.

He hadn't been in a Corman picture for about four years

and he'd never been in a New World Picture.

I think it was because Roger had stopped directing

and so he wasn't casting.

I thought it was really wonderful

that the new young directors who came in

recognized the guys who had been working with me,

and they continued working with them.

And Dick was probably the most important.

JULIE: I first became very clearly aware

of Dick Miller as a presence

when I started making films with New World.

In fact, I used to read a treatment or a script

and say, "Wait, where's the Dick Miller part?"

You know, Dick is sort of a laid back guy

in the sense that he never

went out to seek work.

It either came to him

or he didn't get work.

I went to film school with Jon at NYU.

And I knew of Joe

because Joe and Jon were very good friends.

Jon and I not only went to film school together,

but we worked at a rock 'n' roll theatre together,

along with Jonathan Kaplan.

And when Jonathan and Jon came out to Los Angeles

to work for Roger Corman,

I came out eventually

and lived in their houses for free,

and slept in their garage,

and all that kinda stuff you did when you were broke.

Jonathan cast Dick in -

I guess it was Night Call Nurses.

ANNOUNCER: Come and spend the night

with The Night Call Nurses.

They nurse patients the way no doctor can.

From New World Pictures...

ARKUSH: Essentially, Jonathan got the first job

and brought everyone else along.

When Jonathan Kaplan gave me the chance

to write Night Call Nurses with Dan Opatashu,

I was thrilled.

I mean, that was the biggest break of my life.

And I said, "Do me a favor - Hire Dick Miller.

I'll write him a part for the picture."

[**]

I don't know how smart it is

for a young lady to be hitchhiking alone at night.

KAPLAN: When Dick walked in the room,

it was like, "Oh, I know this guy!"

So when he came in to audition,

he was a little put off.

I don't audition good.

KAPLAN: He said, "I don't audition. I read terribly.

I'm a terrible reader."

I didn't know who Jonathan Kaplan was at the time.

I'm gonna read this, and you're gonna say to me,

when I'm done, "That was terrible."

Good director.

He was right!

He can't audition.

But you got the part anyway.

LAINIE: Everybody from the Corman camp, they said,

"If Dick worked for Roger, he could work for us!"

My ass!

Hey Gallager, kiss my jolly!

Dick Miller became their good luck charm.

He's definitely a good luck charm.

They used him in every movie they ever did.

If you're talking about

what I think you're talking about,

I ain't gonna talk about it!

WORONOV: They prayed and hoped that he would, once again,

pull them through a crappy movie.

He has a Jimmy Cagney kind of rhythm to his delivery.

Well, he had a gun.

He said he was going to shoot my ear off - That ain't nice.

Sheriff...

SAYLES: Most good directors,

the first thing they do is see what the actors are going to do,

because they may do something the director hadn't thought of.

He's dumb enough to get married. Twice!

You saw the first one...

DAVISON: I think Roger has

a genuine affection for Dick,

as much as he has an affection for anybody.

Especially if Dick works for scale -

Then the affection is definitely there.

DANTE: When I came out to Hollywood,

Jon Davison was the head of publicity

for New World Pictures,

and he had raided the NYU group

and brought them out to work for Roger.

And so Allan Arkush and I

became the trailer department at New World Pictures.

They were kind of wild men

who came up with these crazy ideas.

ANNOUNCER: Flying out of the skies and onto your lap...

They battle the flying feet of kung-fu killers!

DANTE: One of the first trailers that we did

was for Big Bad Mama.

ANNOUNCER: Angie Dickinson is Big Bad Mama!

Wilma gave her daughters everything...

DANTE: Dick is in the movie, and I thought,

"This is a kind of rough and tough gangster kind of picture

and Dick's got that kinda voice.

Maybe we should get him to do the narration?"

ANNOUNCER: Big Bad Mama, rated R.

Working at New World Pictures was a lot of fun.

[**]

BEYDA: There was definitely structure,

but it was also very free wheeling,

because everybody was quite young

and just getting started.

It was a very exciting time.

I met Dick Miller in Griffith Park in 1975.

I got a job from Jonathan Demme -

Crazy Mama.

It was produced by Julie Corman.

JULIE: He brought more than his performance,

which was always wonderful to look at.

I mean, Dick Miller arrives in whatever scene.

And he brought a certain presence to the film.

"He's coming tomorrow! He's gonna work tomorrow!"

Ya know?

And people who weren't even working that day

would show up to see Dick Miller.

The main thing is the film.

You're all there to make a good film.

Did you do good? Were you articulate?

Did you tell the story in a good way?

Is it new?

Did it extend the tradition?

Every part counts.

It's like poetry -

Each thing adds up to the whole.

There were very few film schools in those days,

so, for us, this was our way

of really learning our trade.

DOEL: When I realized that these first-time directors -

It was very important for them

to have an actor on the set

who was good, who they admired,

and that they could absolutely rely on.

I found myself not having to direct him a lot.

There was no need to do other takes.

He made the scenes work.

When he walked in, I started smiling.

Here was a guy that I never met before,

and yet I felt like I knew him for years.

DOEL: When I really had more to do with Dick Miller

was when Roger hired him

to write the script for TNT Jackson.

The thing was a stinker.

[Fighting and shouting]

I think Roger and I had a slight argument -

"Go in to meet with Roger."

It just fell apart.

"Dick, this all just dialogue!

This is terrible!"

I'll pay you hard cash for raw heroin

any day at those prices.

And I was supposed to do the lead in it.

When we wrote dialogue, dialogue, dialogue,

it was with the understanding

that you may not need all of it -

But you may need some.

The re-write was about 90% of the picture.

The reader needs some dialogue sometimes

to understand why TNT Jackson is kicking ass.

[Screaming]

I don't know what -

I really literally don't know what happened

after that meeting.

Except I know that, of course,

I did know that the script was re-written.

It was probably re-written on location or so.

Damn...

DOEL: He was a brilliant dialogue writer,

absolutely brilliant.

The humor and the timing...

It was that rhythm that he got.

I would call it -

It was so working class,

ordinary-Joe American.

It was perfect.

INTERVIEWER: Why did you stop writing?

I don't know...

LAINIE: Okay...

I have several scripts here.

This is...

"Rock n Roll Killer..."

"Help, There's a Spy in My Bed..."

"Rancho Bikini..."

"The Assassination..."

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever think you would go back?

Yeah, continuously.

But each time I did, something else would come up.

Usually my projects, whatever they were,

always interfered with pictures.

They came first.

I would think that there was

more satisfaction and enjoyment to be had,

if you were as good an actor as Dick Miller -

to do that,

rather than sit and sweat by yourself

and have your work torn up by other people.

DANTE: Paul Bartel was a friend of mine

and he made Death Race 2000, which was a huge hit.

And he did this picture, Cannonball,

which was based on a cross-country road race

for an independent producer

named Sam Gelfman and Run Run Shaw.

They're doing it again.

Well, they're in for a surprise.

If they're racing anywhere,

they're gonna race to the impound lot.

Get me the Highway Patrol!

Paul was viciously unhappy.

ANNOUNCER: Cannonball!

WORONOV: He thought, "Oh God,

I have to work with cars for the rest of my life!"

ANNOUNCER: Cannonball!

You're the outlaw racer!

Geez, a real pleasure, Mr. Cannonball,

a real pleasure.

ANNOUNCER: Cannonball!

Allan and I were persuaded to appear

as actors in the movie.

If Cannonball Buckman wins

the Trans-American Grand Prix in our car,

we're gonna be two heavy dudes.

Dick had a part as David Carradine's brother.

Hey Danny, where you been?

I thought you weren't gonna show up!

What, are you kidding me?

You think I'm gonna miss my kid brother's

first big race after he just got out?

Dick is really good in this movie.

It's actually one of the best performances

I think he ever gave.

This is important to me.

Its not just the money - My life is on the line!

DANTE: And I was privileged to look at the dailies.

I was just really impressed with Dick,

at how good he was in this part.

And I thought, you know,

"This guy doesn't get enough big parts."

Joe says to me, "You and I did a picture together!"

If you don't start with Roger, I don't know where you end up.

I thought Joe was either

a production assistant or a producer.

It wasn't quite clear.

And Dick was in that movie, as well.

And I think we may have met during the screening of that.

I'd say, "Hey, Dick!"

I don't think he knew who I was, frankly.

ANNOUNCER: Cannonball!

I think I may have known Allan when I was in New York.

We formed a very close working relationship,

to the point that when we got a chance to do a movie,

it was the trailer department's movie, basically -

Hollywood Boulevard -

Which was made up of sequences from

a zillion other pictures that we had done trailers for.

ANNOUNCER: Hollywood Boulevard,

the street where starlets are made.

On Monday, Candy came to Hollywood.

On Tuesday, she lost her blouse!

On Thursday, she massacred 300 rebel soldiers.

WORONOV: There they were,

and they were the directors,

and we were told that they were a team,

and we were told that this was a spoof on a Corman movie.

Cut!

I don't think they told Corman that.

You, fucking fly!

I kept seeing Dick Miller everywhere.

I saw him in Big Bad Mama,

I saw him in all the Nurses movies that he was in.

He was just a friend of Roger's

who kept getting hired over and over again.

I guess I met him and worked with him on Hollywood Boulevard.

I may have met him in passing before that.

But Hollywood Boulevard,

where he plays Walter Paisley,

that's where I spent time with him.

DICK: It's a nudie picture with a $2,000 budget.

No script, a ten-hour shooting schedule,

and it opens in 22 cities at the end of the week.

You want it or don't ya?

I was signed to do this part.

And the character was named something and the guys said,

"Can we change the name to Walter Paisley?"

I said, "That's the same name."

What did you want to talk to me about, Walter?

DICK: I believe Joe Dante said, "Yeah, let's us that."

Inside gag.

And that seemed to be a good idea.

It's not the same character.

People say, "Well, that's the same character."

No, it's not the same character -

just the name is the same.

So I think it was out of the Walter Paisely role

that most of the affection these

young directors had for Dick Miller came.

You know, we saw ourselves as giving a leg-up

to the Walter Paisely's of the world.

They were so busy doing things

that they'd never done before,

like, you know, looking at sunlight,

that they didn't pay any attention to me and Paul.

And I have a habit of ad-libbing.

Your money or your life.

No feeling Mary - "Your money or your life."

Your money or your life! Terrible, Mary.

Your money or your life!

Magnificent, wonderful...

GOLDBLATT: The first time I saw Dick Miller

was when we shot the big party scene,

which takes place at the end of Hollywood Boulevard.

You really handle that trey nice.

Oh, thank you.

Actually, I'm not a waiter - I'm a robot.

I was a production assistant.

This was my first legitimate

Hollywood feature job.

So I saw Dick Miller in a scene with Robby The Robot.

500 a piece. Be reasonable!

Say, man, who you tryin' to jive?

KARASZEWSKI: There was a period in the 70's

where he was wearing a pink jacket all the time.

So, clearly, he's bringing his own clothing to the movies.

So I could say, "It's the guy with the pink jacket!"

But I don't know if that would really help anyone.

Hi there.

I'm Joe Littman and welcome to Guess Word.

GOTTLIEB: We had him for a day.

His wardrobe was a sports jacket -

A pink sport jacket that I guess he owned.

This is how he showed up.

Number 7!

Karen, that's really very good for your first spin.

Hi, Joe.

Ready for the question from behind the Magic Hole Board?

We certainly are.

This has been in about ten pictures.

GOTTLIEB: And there was a wit there.

There was an intrinsic wit.

And probably still is.

That says "Death Before Dishonor".

Oh, I didn't have Death Before Dishonor put on it.

[Laughs]

I figured it's too much to pay.

Those Ramones are peculiar.

They're ugly, ugly, ugly people.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ad-lib your line? DICK: Yes.

I had a long speech there

about "Where are they - " I forget what it was.

But I looked at these guys

and I thought, "They're ugly people!"

[Laughs] That's funny.

I'm sure he ad-libbed it.

BEYDA: I was there the night they blew up the high school.

And Dick was there, of course,

and, you know, Mary Woronov and everybody.

That's probably the first time I met Dick, actually.

It was like two in the morning in South Central LA.

They gave me the uniform and they said,

"Leave your jacket off until we're ready to shoot."

I said, "Why?"

They said, "You may get killed."

Whenever there's a part that I can fit Dick in,

I try and find a place for him.

Well, you know, Piranha was written by John Sayles

and he was stuck in the role of Buck Gardner.

There were two pictures -

Rock n Roll High School and Piranha.

Rock n Roll High School

was a much more interesting subject, I thought,

but Allan had been living his whole life

waiting to do this picture.

So he got that one and I got Piranha, the fish story.

Excuse me, I'm on the phone.

But the piranhas...

I thought I told you not to even say that word!

But the piranhas...

What about the Goddamn piranhas?!

They're eating the guests, sir.

SAYLES: And I just remember Dick playing this guy,

who's trying to run the whole show,

and the stupid piranhas come and start eating the guests

and mess up all his plans.

I met Dick in Austin, Texas,

when they were filming the big scene in Piranha.

And Joe said, "You gotta come watch this guy.

He's just great."

Look, I want all incoming calls switched directly to me.

I blew that. I know it. It stinks.

BALASKI: He's so fast,

and he's so furious, and he's so delicious!

In a lot of his roles he has something like that -

Which is basically a straight part, in a way.

But he understands the tone of the movie

and so it ends up being very funny.

He doesn't have punch lines, per se,

but it ends up being a funny performance.

Schmuck...

Joe was a great mentor to me.

I noticed that both of us

and some of our friends like Jon Davison,

Allan Arkush,

also loved genre pictures.

And Dick was right there.

Piranhas! Jeez...

Dick was making the movies that we were watching

that were driving us insane with delight.

LAINIE: Actually, all of these kids

that came up with Roger Corman...

When they grew beyond that

and went to the studio level,

they gave Dick his third career...

[**]

FORSTER: Well, the first thing most people don't know -

certainly I didn't know when I started -

was that there are this many of us

and that many jobs.

Every one of those jobs is politically given.

You don't have a batting average.

You can't walk in and say, "Look, I bat 350.

Put me in the line-up." No, no, no.

Somebody who likes you has got to say,

"No, no, Dick Miller is the right guy for this one."

Or, "Bob Forster is the right guy that part.

We want him."

ANNOUNCER: We return now to Divorce Court.

Being sworn in is Jim Breen,

testifying on the behalf of Walter Higgins.

Well, Walter and me used to be partners

and we've been friends for nigh on 40 years now.

I think maybe I first became aware

of Dick Miller at breakfast.

There was a breakfast place that I went to.

And Dick Miller - if he wasn't working -

he was sittin' there every single day.

We all met at this place

about 10:30 in the morning.

We had a pretty good group of people -

Robert Forster,

Dick, and I...

Every day, he would eat the same thing.

It would be a scoop of tuna

with chopped up onions on it, or egg salad.

Well, Harry was a part of the group.

I know a lot of stories about him.

I don't know if he's told any of these stories.

DICK: There was a picture called White Dog.

And they said, "Sam Fuller's gonna direct."

And I said, "Gee, I'd like to get in on that."

Jon Davison was the producer.

He says, "You go down there.

The guy's got a monkey for ya."

He says, "He's your monkey.

He's a nice little guy. Weighs about 30 pounds.

In the event that he starts to bite ya -"

I said, "What?"

He says, "No, no, it's not bad.

He'll just nibble on you a little."

"I ain't gonna work with no monkey that nibbles."

He says, "Just listen to me. It works -

Bite the monkey."

Up this road, on the right, is the arena.

The monkey starts nibbling on me...

I say, "Stop it! Cut that out!

Don't do that! Stop it!"

The monkey looks up at me like that.

I got it whipped.

Leave it up to me - I know what I'm doin'.

And they said, "Alright, get ready for the retakes."

I said, "What retakes?"

He says, "Look at you - The monkey peed all over ya!"

We get into -

I changed my clothes by the way.

All of a sudden, the monkey's biting on my wrist.

He's tearing me up!

"Will you do what I say? Just bite the monkey.

We're gonna do this scene once more.

Go change your clothes."

I said, "What?!

The monkey - you should pardon the expression -

crapped on me."

The monkey starts nibbling,

the guy's in the background going,

"Bite the monkey!"

And I bite the monkey on the neck.

We finished the scene.

The monkey never laid a hand on me.

I go outside to find Jon Davison.

"You fixed me up good!

I got a monkey that pees on me,

that craps on me."

And he says, "The legend lives!"

So there's two things that I learned

about this business...

One - The legend, which is me, lives...

And two - Whenever you think you know something,

there's always somebody who knows

a little bit more about it than you.

"Bite the monkey!" [Chuckle]

Well, as the years went by,

and Dick took on this sort of iconic status,

his mere presence sort of became self-referential.

And I think probably the key person

responsible for this is Joe Dante,

who him in every one of his pictures.

Please, you gonna purchase, purchase.

Now leave 'em alone, you'll get 'em greasy.

HORA: The first day on The Howling

was when we did Dick's scene in the shop,

where he has the silver bullets.

And I just thought it was a magical scene.

Your classic werewolf can change shape any time it wants.

Day or night - Whenever it takes a notion to 'em.

That's why they call 'em shapeshifters.

I got a dozen books on it.

BALASKI: I love the book store scene,

because, to me, this is a packed scene.

How to survive a packed scene -

that's a whole other issue!

He's the perfect person to own a store

that sells curios and odd ball things,

because he doesn't really believe any of it.

But he'll sell anything.

What am I, an idiot? I'm makin' a buck here.

You want books? I got books.

I didn't write it specifically for Dick,

but in Joe's mind, it was a Dick Miller-type guy -

"And I know I can get Dick!"

They say he steals every scene.

The Manson people used to hang out around here and shoplift...

Buncha deadbeats!

So I think it's a good thing

it was only one scene we had together.

I have no idea how much of the dialog is John Sayles

or how much of it was embroidered by Dick.

You just know that no one can pack 30 seconds

with as many words as he can.

I take Bank of America Card, American Express, Visa.

You gonna buy that or what?

In the early 1980's,

Joe Dante was a guy

that we really looked up to.

And I think that during the 80s' -

particularly the Spielberg years,

where everything was sort of sweet -

Joe came in there, particularly with Gremlins.

He just really took that archetype and really twisted it.

When I first saw Gremlins,

the movie,

Phoebe and I - I think we were both like,

"What did we just see?"

FELDMAN: You never know what's gonna hit

and what's not.

You never know what's going to be a success

in this business and what's not,

what will have sustainability and a life after,

and all that sort of thing.

With Gremlins, we knew.

All of Gremlins, for me,

was madness.

We had a tremendous amount of technical challenges

on stuff that I had never done before.

The puppet part was really, really hard.

It was a nightmare working with these puppets.

WALAS: Everything about it was insane.

Everything about it was wrong.

Just staring at these puppets -

That was the most tedious...

boring...

vile footage

I have ever lived with.

On an hourly basis,

I just kept questioning my sanity

for taking the project in the first place.

Gremlins...

DEL VALLE: If ever there was a movie

that brought the Wizard of Oz vibe to a movie,

it was Gremlins.

It was a Christmas movie,

it had a Wicked Witch...

Deposit this to my account.

And there was Dick Miller...

There was someone that anchored

the movie in our childhood nostalgia.

W-W-eye-eye.

When we made Gremlins,

I didn't know there were any difficulties at all making this.

See that plow? 15 years old.

Hasn't given me a day's trouble in 15 years.

You know why? Kentucky Harvester.

I think I was brought in,

and they just said, "Hello,

we'd love to have you in our picture."

You have the thingy. Huh?

DICK: Jackie Joseph was my wife in so many things,

I thought I was married to her!

JACKIE JOSEPH: Knowing I was working with Dick,

I think these wonderful producers and director

just thought, "Wouldn't it be funny to work with

those people from Little Shop of Horrors?"

Murray, did you hear from the noodle factory?

Sheila, the noodle factory is not gonna re-open.

HORA: I really like the Futtermans.

They're totally believable.

And limited as they are, I understand them.

INTERVIEWER: Are you at all like Murray Futterman? No.

Murray Futterman is a man who makes mistakes...

Errors.

I'm perfect.

But he's a guy who's set in his ways.

Ah...

Well, maybe.

I'm set in some ways.

What? See, the dog knows.

DANTE: The critical reaction was surprisingly good.

I mean, it really put me on the map.

Suddenly, I was this person made a movie

that got pretty good reviews,

because it was weird and also made a lot of money.

So it was like, "OK, put him on that list."

I stayed on that list until my next picture came out.

Then I went off that list. [Laughs]

WOMAN: [Screams] Look out behind you!

MAN: It came out of the screen!

HIRSCH: What I see in his films

is this quality that I call "density".

It's different from a lot of people's work.

One of the things about Joe Dante's movies

that's pretty consistent is that his movies

are all love letters to movies.

I don't know -

Somehow he just manages to capture

the love of and the fun of

these genre movies

in a way that nobody else really can.

One of my favorite Dick Miller scenes

in the Joe Dante oeuvre is his scene in Explorers.

Look man, I've been having dreams about this lately and -

Yes, really!

The weird thing is...

I haven't had dreams like this since I was a kid.

You know, he's the helicopter pilot,

and when he discovers what the kids have done,

and you get the sense that was a childhood dream of his

that they have realized.

In all of his movies that center on young characters,

there's always a feeling that the movie is also

gratifying for an adult looking back and remembering

that part of their own life.

No way - Wednesday night, I'm on a league.

This seminar can change your life, Vic.

The man is a great healer.

And I'm a great bowler!

There was a lot of ad-libbing in The 'Burbs.

Joe would just let the camera keep running,

and when the actors finished the scripted lines,

they would just kind of go.

It had a wonderful cast with Tom Hanks and Carrie Fischer.

And the scene with Dick was just hilarious.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

He has a right to know, Vic.

Don't start up with me!

STEVENS: It was the type of scene where

he could control the situation.

I think Joe Dante gave him a lot of leeway

as to how he would go with it.

When I first met Dick,

I really didn't know anything about him

other than that he was an actor

that Joe really loved to work with.

The irony is, for all the movies that we're together,

we only really share the screen in The 'Burbs.

Look, I don't want any of your bullshit either!

The question here is garbage and who picks up this mess!

I was pretty reckless by that point.

I know that I was smoking weed on the set.

I remember being in my trailer,

and I was friends with Sam Kinison, the comedian.

I'd open the door and there would just be

weed bellowing out of it.

He was a smart-ass kid.

* What else could you do with those hooves? *

Shut the fuck up, kid. We're trying to do some acting.

FELDMAN: "I don't have a problem.

I'm good. I'm fine. What are you talking about?"

DANTE: It was shot during a writer's strike,

so I decided that we would shoot it on the Universal back lot,

where it would be a little stylized

and wouldn't look too real.

We could shoot in sequence.

And then, if people wanted to improv,

it would be OK,

because we wouldn't be affecting the ending,

because we'd be doing it in sequence...

All of you, go to hell!

Cut! [Laughing]

DANTE: It seems odd,

but that picture got the worst reviews

of any picture I ever did.

Yet, I'd go to dentists offices

and people would say, "You did The 'Burbs?

You made the The 'Burbs? Oh, I love that movie!"

MAN: They're playing this thing on Saturday,

unless you people stop them!

Ask the people that run this theatre.

Ask 'em why they're sailing this town's kids -

your kids - down the river.

HARVEY: I think my favorite Dick Miller role,

of the movies I've worked on, was in Matinee.

I'm Lawrence Woolsey, who are you fellas?

We're from Citizens for Decent Entertainment, Mr. Woolsey.

He was teamed up with John Sayles...

I don't know.

You'd have to ask Joe about this.

I think he was thinking that I'm 6 foot 4,

and Dick's not.

HARVEY: And they played the two hucksters

that have been hired covertly

by Lawrence Woolsey

to drum up controversy

over Woolsey's movies.

Well, this was a movie that was close my heart,

in that I was the age of the kids in the movie

when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened.

And if you weren't there,

it's hard to explain to people

how tense an atmosphere it was.

HARVEY: I think of all the things in Matinee

that are probably autobiographical for Joe,

that's the moment.

I can see Joe as a kid,

watching these Corman movies,

and going home and thumbing through

his Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazines

and figuring out,

"Oh, wait a minute! This guy!"

And it may be, out of all the movies

that Dick Miller's been in,

I think that may be the only time

he actually played an actor.

I think, if you look back at all directors,

and you look at their filmographies,

you see the same actors popping up in all the movies.

And so I did end up with a somewhat

Preston Sturges - Ingmar Bergman -

John Ford-type group of people

that appear incessantly in my movies.

Sometimes in smaller parts, sometimes in big parts.

The great thing about Dick

is that he comes from this tradition

where you can be memorable in one scene in a movie,

or you can have the second or third lead -

either one is OK.

It's always a pleasure to work with someone like that,

editorially.

Because you don't have to look for choices

to make something work, 'cause he's right there.

Lobby!

Don't mess with Murray Futterman!

[**]

Many people who know Dick through Roger,

and who know Dick through Joe,

call up and ask if Dick

will be in their movies.

Hi, Walt.

Well, well, well, Detective Cameron.

Son of a gun. Is that really you?

Yeah, it's me alright, Walt.

How's about you? Hey, can't complain.

Cannot complain, Raymond.

I never considered anybody else.

I wrote this police armourer character

and said, "Well, that's gonna be Dick Miller."

Flamethrower? Flamethrower!?

Yeah!

Flamethrower, Jesus!

I think it plays to a general audience,

but it helps if you're a movie buff.

Most of the people who really love this movie

and revisit it,

particularly in the last couple of years,

know who he is and instantly see him.

And he generally gets a round of applause

just for being in the goddamn thing.

By the way, you gotta watch out for this baby.

Once you light the pilot,

it goes out and it plays hard to get like a son of a bitch.

You looking for somethin'?

Yeah, I wanted to use the phone...

AVIS: We had a cop car.

We used to go out on weekends with the cop car,

pull over crew members who were driving drunk.

Not because Dick wanted to be in character,

but just because it was hilarious.

Having someone like that on set,

who you can ask questions to,

or they'll just give you a wink and say "Try that."

Because, a lot of the time,

you don't want to let actors tell you how to direct.

'Cause once you open that door,

next thing they're all over you with their suggestions.

INTERVIEWER: Could you talk to us about

some of the TV episodes that Dick has directed?

You know, IMDB has it wrong.

He has not directed anything.

There was somebody with the same name who has.

He hasn't directed anything on an official basis -

let me just put it that way.

It's dusty, Dick!

You remember him?

Do I? Yes.

I'm lucky I remember who you are!

OLEN RAY: Dick's a working actor.

That equalizes out to all of the films

that you may say here or there are questionable choices.

Oh my God!

OLEN RAY: He didn't like the way he died in Evil Toons.

He said it was very humiliating.

You clumsy sonavabitch! Look what ya did!

I outta turn you into scrap metal for this.

Whenever these young directors

reference nostalgia,

they get Dick Miller.

And Chopping Mall was no different...

ROBOT: Thank you. Have a nice day.

In the past few years,

we've been doing a few of the conventions.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have fun going to these conventions? Sometimes.

Seeing your friends? What friends?

LAINIE: It's so funny, because you have people

coming with kids in strollers -

"Remember, that's the guy that the Gremlins

ran over with the snow plow!"

SADLER: You wouldn't happen to know of a place around here

where I can bed down for the night, would ya'?

Well, it just so happens I do...

That's one of my favorite parts -

was Demon Knight.

LAINIE: I was extremely pleased

when he was cast in that movie,

because now was an opportunity to work,

yet with a different group of people.

You know, the character of Uncle Willy -

I'm trying to figure out, "Who can I get to play this?

Can we get Dick Miller?"

Jeryline...

You wouldn't hurt your old Uncle Willy now, wouldya baby?

It was a movie that we did of Tales from the Crypt.

I think it was the first one that we did.

We were all worried about it being a feature movie

and if it would hold up.

And Dick was one of our performers.

It did very well.

I found myself in a situation -

To work with people whose work I grew up with.

Ernest Dickerson was very collaborative.

We worked very closely on the script.

We worked very closely on the casting.

I was next to him every day, shot by shot...

Get the pussy off the table!

[Laugh]

The great secret, it seems to me,

to the craft of acting, is to work,

and work with the best people you can.

DICKERSON: It was just a really good ensemble

and they felt very much at ease with each other.

Whenever you kill an actor in a movie,

you seem to kind of know them a little differently.

Yeah, he was a pain in the neck.

We tried to cut off his head. He wouldn't let us do it.

Oh, man!

So there was a lot of togetherness on the set.

It was sort of like every scene

involved the whole group

running frightened

from Billy Zane and company.

Fuckin' ho dunk, po dunk,

well-them-there mother fuckers!

[Laughs]

Holy shit!

Hi, Uncle Willy!

Poor Uncle Willy...

LAINIE: Demon Knight, the ladies - DICK: We shot -

LAINIE: They didn't have any clothes on!

We shot 17 or 18 takes on that.

What else could Dick do?

I mean, really?

It was kinda like a dairy farm...

DICKERSON: He's always been Dick.

I think it is his personality.

INTERVIEWER: Who is that? That's my wife.

Lainie!

Lookin' at your picture!

DICKERSON: No matter what role he plays,

who he is always comes out.

BEHR: I was looking at his old school tats.

I was asking him about it,

and he talked about how he got them.

He was a sailor and he was young.

And he looked at me

and he said, really serious -

with a twinkle, but serious -

"If I ever find out

that you get a tattoo,

I'm gonna fuckin' kill you.

Because what's cool at 20...

is an embarrassment at 50."

It is wisdom.

When I met Dick,

I thought I'd get, you know,

a whole bunch of things from him,

but I never really thought about wisdom.

You don't think about wisdom with actors, necessarily.

You don't have any ID.

You don't have any money,

and you're both dressed like clowns.

You figure it out.

BEHR: By the time I was running Deep Space,

I thought, OK, I really wanted something special.

We had this part of this camp guard

who could have been played by a 30 year old,

tall, muscular guy.

And I thought, "No, no, no.

This is the part for Dick."

Now sit down, shut up,

fill out the forms,

and if you have any problems, don't come to me with them.

BEHR: The guy carrying this

big-ass futuristic rifle

is not maybe your first thought

for a Dick Miller role.

But he plays it -

You know, you never question it.

And I wish that more people

had cast him in that kinda thing,

because he just had chops

to do a wider range of parts.

LAINIE: Dick used to go to Theodore's for breakfast.

Quentin Tarantino comes in...

He told Dick what a fan he was of his.

Low and behold, the next day,

our phone rings at home

and they're calling for Pulp Fiction!

He played Monster Joe.

Monster Joe was a guy

who had a junkyard.

But that's what he did

and that whole scene was cut out!

Tell ya what - If you ever need it,

I'll dispose of a body part for free.

How about an upgrade?

DICK: Pulp Fiction got me a little bugged.

If you make enough pictures,

you're gonna hit all the stops in the road.

LAINIE: Not that he hadn't been cut out of things before.

In an actor's life,

I can't tell you how many times the averages is

that somebody gets cut out of something that they've shot.

But this was a big deal for him.

[Laughing] I could take out an ad in the Yellow Pages.

I gotta run that past my accountant.

LAINIE: Cutaways was a short

that is directed

by a lady named Agnieszka Kurant.

She is actually an artist and sculptor.

But she wrote and directed this short

about people who were

cut out of movies -

Abe Vigoda, who was in The Conversation,

and Dick, with Pulp Fiction.

So her premise in using these people

is they meet somewhere in the Netherworld,

and it's really quite interesting.

You know, I didn't know what to expect.

It has been a long time since Pulp Fiction came out.

And all of a sudden,

when the director yells "Action,"

all of the years peel off of Dick,

and there he is - again.

BILL: That's one of the great things about Dick -

that he loves,

loves being an actor.

If you're lucky enough -

and I say this about what I do to a certain extent -

but if you can have a job like, or do something,

that's you're so committed to, that you love so much,

I think that really is

the most important thing in life.

LAINIE: There were so many years

we would have loved to have a vacation.

We never could put the money together to have a vacation.

We didn't even really have a honeymoon

until he went to do The Long Ride Home.

And when I showed up,

we called that our honeymoon.

Since then, things have changed.

And we've gone to Hawaii a number of times...

[**]

BILL: He's always so committed to being an actor.

He's so focused on being an actor.

I would say it's an important part of his life,

I would say, being an actor, I guess.

Elaine and being an actor is his whole life.

And I think the two of them

have gotten along absolutely famously.

I know that he regards her very highly,

and I know she really loves him.

I don't have any doubts about that.

Because, although I was really not in show business myself,

I worked in the film studios.

And getting to know some of the people

who were there all the time,

I'm proud at the fact that he made it.

[**]

LAINIE: Every role is special.

He just looks at each role -

that there is nothing else

and it doesn't matter if the picture is a big picture,

or if the picture is a small picture,

whatever it is,

and I think that's his secret.

Because he gives everything his all.

One of the words he uses a lot....

I understand why he uses it,

but personally,

it's a little bit of a knife to me.

He goes, "Oh yeah, that was a nice little part.

That was a nice little part."

That's what he says a lot.

And I hate the little of it, you know?

Dick did an ER.

I don't know if you saw that clip.

That's one of his best, too.

Oh, Mr. Ackerman I can't take you outside to smoke marijuana.

I'm probably not able to inhale anyway...

"Now this ER thing, they don't cut.

This is gonna be on the air, right?"

I said, "Yeah,

you're damn right it's gonna be on the air.

"Because she's in it!"

"Yeah, it's gonna be on the air because she's in it."

If you're on screen for a very short period of time,

you don't have a lot of time

to establish a character or any quirks,

so you work in slightly bolder strokes.

And I think that's one of the things that a good day-player,

a good character actor does,

no matter what size of the part.

They embody the character so much,

you feel like when the camera leaves that shop

or wherever you encountered that character,

the character is still there doing business.

And you could have stayed, and that would have been

an interesting person to hang around with.

I've always been delighted

when guys who started with me move on,

and I'm proud of what Dick has done.

LAINIE: We love going on cruises and traveling.

We like to see new places.

We like to meet new people.

We really like to meet up again with old friends

that we haven't seen for a long time.

We'll go anywhere to dance,

especially if it's got good music.

How do you like that?

LAINIE: Like what?

The boating thing. I could do that.

Dick is one of my treasured friends

and colleagues.

I would certainly think that my work over the years

wouldn't have been quite as much fun,

for me or for the people who watch it,

if Dick wasn't involved.

That's it. That's the end of the picture.

Unfortunately, I think it's my last one.

I really do. I'm tired...

It's time to retire.

LAINIE: Dick, you got a phone call. Just a second.

And I've had it.

I don't think I'll do anymore, that's the end of it.

I'm through, really.

Hello?

Yeah, I'm available!