Original subtitles

- This was good, that was good,

but don't pay attention to it,

because the characters were amusing.

They were young, they were good looking,

and they were ridiculous.

Because what I was doing long ago

was showing that the second half of the 20th century

was ridiculous, and young people were really ridiculous,

because they were born into the sex filth,

drug filth, rock and roll filth of the bosses,

who were all Christian-hating, Soviet-worshiping (laughs)

terrible people.

I made that, yes. - Yeah.

The boy from Lonesome Cowboys

was in San Diego, so he was a real surfer,

and his name was Tom something or other,

and he was one of those characters --

not like Joe, but similar.

He was like a saint, he was such a nice human being.

And physically, he was perfect, and he was a real surfer.

I made him a cowboy and he said, "I can't ride a horse."

I said, "Well, make believe."

I made Lonesome Cowboys in two days.

I rented the studio where they made John Wayne,

but half the day. I said, "I'm making a college film,"

so I didn't have to pay more than $500

and they ride down the street in the morning.

In the afternoon, We went to this ranch

I was renting to sleep in and shot the other half.

And then one more day, and maybe one shot the third day,

and it was successful in the United States,

Lonesome Cowboys, but, I mean, all my films are very odd.

I have others that are so funny,

but a film to me is good

if I like the people in front of the camera.

It doesn't have to be the greatest film.

It's extraordinary.

I wanted to make the film after Flesh, called Trash,

and I read a big newspaper story in a stupid hippy newspaper

and it was an interview with Holly Woodlawn.

Ancl it was Holly saying this, and Holly saying that,

and then they said, "You starred in Andy Warhol's films,"

(sighs) Andy Warhol never made a film.

And she said,

"Oh yes, I had a good time," blah, blah, blah, blah.

I thought that was very funny.

There was no such thing as an Andy Warhol film,

he didn't know what a film was.

He had no brain, except,

"Where's the money, where's the money?"

Anyway,

I laughed and I called the newspaper,

"Can I have her phone number?"

They gave me her phone number, I said, "Holly, it's Paul."

"Oh, I didn't mean to say that, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

I said, "No, it's okay, Holly,

I'm gonna make a film Saturday afternoon

around 1:00 on 6th Street, where I live, and--"

"Oh, I'll come, I'll come."

I got the camera, Joe Dallesandro,

just me, and I'm waiting, and she shows up.

She says, "What do I do?"

I say, "Well you're living with this drug addict,

and you're this and you're that, and let's go."

I had never met her. Never.

I just saw this stupid newspaper,

and she gave the greatest performance I ever had in a movie.

And she was a man, a Puerto Rican and a German, I think,

and she just was extraordinary.

And I was so lucky, but I was a good director,

because I could tell, immediately,

who was good or bad in front of a camera

and I never put anybody in a part that I later regretted.

And I just wish I made more movies,

because I think so many people are gifted for acting,

but are not given the chance

because of the stupidity of the producers and the directors

who wanna use actors from acting class,

acting school, done other jobs,

done this, done that, then they discuss,

and they talk and they talk, and they rehearse

and they test, it's over.

Hollywood did not work like that.

Hollywood did not work like that. (laughs)

Hollywood put them in front of the camera

as soon as they saw them.

Great directors like William Wyler,

I don't know if you know him, he made masterpieces.

He was a little, tiny, German, Jewish guy,

and he never spoke to the actors.

He said, "Do it again, do it again."

He made masterpieces and he never talked with the actors

about what they should do.

And he made so many great films.

And this was true of the great George Cukor,

who was far more educated. I mean, Hungarian,

Jewish, German, these people were geniuses.

We don't have them anymore.

The movie business doesn't exist anymore. (laughs)

It's as if, instead of being a cook in a kitchen,

you went to school for how to cook a frankfurter,

(laughs) and it's over.

I like them, but they were my films

and they were funny.

They were not to frighten you. Maybe a little bit.

And Udo Kier was great in Dracula,

last night they showed him with the part.

He was so good.

And he was young, it was the first time he made a film,

but

a very nice producer who lives in Vienna,

named Andrew Braunsberg, do you know him?

He's great.

He was gonna produce a Polanski film,

and (mutters) called him on it, he said, "No." (mutters)

So, he read about me or something, I don't know what,

and he called me up and said,

"I wanna made a film with you in Rome."

I said, "Oh great."

I had only made my own films, which cost nothing.

I had not made a 35mm film.

And he flew me over and he said,

"You gotta meet Carlo Ponti."

I said, "Oh great, Carlo Ponti,

the husband of Sophia Loren."

So, we went to his office, and Carlo Ponti

was one of those people,

like somebody else I was talking about earlier;

they had no personality.

They were just businessmen behind a desk.

And he wasn't the great Italian.

I got to know Fellini, I got to know many Italians,

I'm in New York, we have so many Italians, I love Italians.

But Carlo Ponti didn't talk much

and was one of the biggest producers in the world,

certainly in Europe.

And so he said to me,

"Well, Andy said he'd like to make a film here for you."

And Ponti thought, said, "Well, what kind of film?"

I didn't think he'd ask me that.

I didn't have any idea.

But Braunsberg was smart, he said, "Oh, a horror film."

"That sounds good, what kind?"

"Um, Frankenstein."

"That's good, how long is it gonna take to make?

How much money?"

Braunsberg, "Oh, three weeks, about $300,000."

Ponti said, "That's good, so why don't you make two?"

(laughing) I said, "Oh my God,

what the hell is happening here?"

And so Braunsberg said, "Okay, we'll do two."

So Ponti said, "What's the other one?"

He said, "Uh, Dracula."

"Okay, good."

And then Ponti said, "But could you do them in 3D?"

Braunsberg said, "Yeah, we'll do them in 3D."

And then he said, I thought it was over when he said it,

he said, " Paul likes to make movies without scripts."

Mr. Ponti, who made hundreds of movies, said,

"That's okay." (laughs)

And that was it.

And so, I went to Cinecitta every day

and I cast it, and the only thing, I think,

Ponti said, "You know, Mr. De Sica would like a job."

Vittorio De Sica, the handsomest man in Italy,

greatest actor, great director.

I said, "That's okay with me." (laughing)

I had this girl come from New York,

who worked for me there a little bit,

and every day, from the first day,

I went with her in a car to Cinecitta,

and on the way to the studio,

I dictated what I thought would be the stay.

I say, "Well, Frankenstein comes in,

and Dr. Frankenstein and Mrs. Frankenstein,

and do, do, do, do, do," and she took notes.

And I said, "I'll be ready soon,

about a half hour or so."

And she typed up dialogue.

And then she showed it to me.

I said, "Mmm, cross that out, cross that out,

okay, type it, let's go."

I did that in the morning

and then at lunch, they went to lunch,

and I gave her something for the afternoon.

And I did the film in three weeks, exactly like I was.

And then, in three weeks,

I finished Frankenstein in 3D,

but they said, "3D is a problem for Dracula, don't do 3D."

I said, "Okay," (laughs) "I don't care."

Then, at lunchtime,

I had to write the script for Dracula in the afternoon.

And I did three weeks of Dracula

at Cinecitta in the afternoon.

I mean, all day, for three weeks.

Now, I know enough about filmmaking

that nobody ever made films like that.

Nowhere on the planet was people writing

and directing the same day, in three weeks.

But I loved the Way the films came out.

They're different than a regular Frankenstein

or Dracula film.

So, I think I was very lucky that I had a chance to do

what would drive anybody else crazy.

They say, "You get the hell outta here." (laughs)

"We wanna work for eight years

before we give you the script to film a film."

Every film is destroyed -- today, I'm thinking --

in the preparation.

They talk and they wanna talk to the actor,

they wanna discuss it, they wanna do this.

(inhales theatrically) I don't know the reason,

but I think movies are over for a long time. (laughs)

- [Announcer] Andy Warhol's Frankenstein is here.

- Kiss him.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Kiss him!

- [Announcer] Newsweek magazine calls it

"The first original Frankenstein in years,

a perversely fascinating movie."

- [Baroness Frankenstein] Hold me close.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(woman grunts)

(muttering) What did you -- not so close!

I told -- stop it, what are you doing?

(thumping headboard) I can't breathe!

(thumping headboard) Stop it!

(grunting) Stop it!

- [Announcer] Andy Warhol's Frankenstein,

with its swooping bats,

severed limbs,

hideous decapitation devices,

and various spare parts,

they all slither off the screen

in what Playboy magazine calls,

"The most gruesome epic ever unleashed."

- Go back!

Go! (door crashes)

(man screaming)

- [Announcer] Andy Warhol's Frankenstein,

the goriest, sexiest,

and Wildest Frankenstein ever filmed.

- It was a very famous --

but I can't remember -- photographer.

(soft piano music) (water burbling)

- (sighs) What a mess, this room.

Why do you keep your room this way?

I've told you that 'I00 times,

what's the point of having beautiful things

if you just not care about it.

Look at the dolls on the floor.

You shouldn't be doing this.

You know that.

Now, come on, get your clothes off

and put your play clothes on, all right?

Go ahead, and I must tell you something.

I'm very glad that you have left that terrible school.

The children at that school are not fully on par with you.

You're very special, you are different.

- Oh, Italians are so gifted,

with photography and set design, and

Italians have always been gifted, but it's over for them.

I haven't seen an Italian movie in 3O years.

(soft piano music) (breathing heavily)

- Otto.

Otto!

Help me down.

(device rattling)

(soft piano music)

To know death, Otto,

you have to fuck life in the gallbladder.

- (laughing) You know,

I couldn't be in a Dracula -- make a Dracula

or a Frankenstein movie seriously.

There's serious parts, but to me, life is absurd.

Life is over in the second half of the 20th century,

and in my movies, I try to reflect that life was now over.

You know, things happen to Joe Dallesandro in Trash

and Flesh, and he sits there and it means nothing to him,

and I think that's what life means to people today. (laughs)

The worse things in life mean nothing,

because life is trash.

That's Why I named my movie Trash. (laughs)

As much as you love Holly Woodlawn,

or you think Joe Dallesandro's an interesting person,

and I had other people in the movie,

life is not good.

(soft orchestral music)

- That's the idea.

No, no, no, no, the other way.

Go ahead.

That's it.

Oh, my apples!

Oh, they're rolling all over the place.

Come on, help me pick them up.

Look, there's two over there.

(soft orchestral music)

What's been going on around here?

Put your clothes back on.

Get out of here, you filthy whore.

- I mean, you cannot decide who's good in front of a camera

unless you take a chance.

You can't train them or rehearse them.

"Go go go," and they do it themself,

and that's the best actors, best actresses.

And all these people I had in front of my camera,

because I wanted them to be in front of the camera,

doing whatever I'd said to do,

but the Way they are in real life.

You know, John Wayne, Carey Grant, Fred Astaire,

they were the same in real life

as they were in front of the camera.

- Two girls?

One man?

He must be very powerful.

- He is weird looking.

He is very strange looking.

He doesn't look German,

he looks like somebody from outer space. (chuckles)

- You are acting like an animal.

And we are seriously considering dismissing you.

- I just came to say goodbye, collect my pay.

I have to be leaving, anyway.

- He was also

a kind of person with a strong personality,

but the personality was quiet.

I love big personalities, crazy ones and quiet ones.

He was very young and he was only half Italian,

but he looked like a statue.

(laughs) It was incredible.

He already had a wife and children,

but again, like so many people you meet in the world today,

and especially in New York and the acting and all that crap,

they're very good looking and they don't have a mother,

they don't have a father, nobody wants them.

And they decide to go and hang out

with drug addicts or something,

and they're dead by the time they're 30.

The world is a toilet.

Religion, get rid of that.

We don't need religion, we got rock and roll,

rock and roll, rock and roll, the world is a toilet.

It's over.

If you have children today,

give them to the toilet,

because they will take charge of the children.

Not the Catholic church, not the Protestant church,

not the Jewish church, it's over.

And so I have so many relatives.

My sister had eight children and they're all beautiful.

They all have children.

She has about 15 or 16 grandchildren.

And they're okay, they're not drug addicts or anything,

I just worry about their children,

because the world is a toilet, the world is over.

Even beautiful, old countries, (laughs) like Austria,

they're on borrowed time

before they go down the toilet, too.

(device clatters)

- I know it's you,

but I don't know how he could have done this.

It's all my fault,

if I hadn't taken you to that house and gotten drunk,

I could've helped you.

He's crazy.

- Well, he's not Brooklyn, either,

but he doesn't have a bad accent,

but he's everybody else's German or something,

French, German, I loved Europeans.

I used so many Europeans in so many movies.

But Joe was not all Italian.

His father was Italian.

I don't even know if he knew his father,

and his mother was something else.

And I think he grew up in an orphanage,

where your children go with the church or something.

It's really terrible.

You know, and you think because they're young

and they're good looking, they have successful lives.

He married so many women and had so many children,

I keep in touch with him on the phone

and I haven't seen him in years,

but he made films in Europe, but none in America.

Dalila Di Lazzaro, she was gorgeous.

Srdjam Zelemovic, he was wonderful --

- [Interviewer] Zelemovic was wonderful.

- I met him in Rome, I guess.

And I said, "Oh, you've got to be the monster," because,

first of all,

physically, he was extraordinarily good looking,

and he was extra tall.

I guess it was Yugoslavia.

- Kiss him.

Kiss him!

Kiss him!

Kiss him!

Kiss him.

What are you waiting for?

She's yours, touch her!

Kiss him!

Kiss him!

Can it be?

Could it be possible that we have failed?

Somebody must have tampered with them.

Somebody must have been in this laboratory.

Kiss him!

Otto, it can't be true.

Somebody disturbed our work.

What are you Waiting for? Kiss him!

- I don't remember how, but I think he didn't speak English.

I don't know where I discovered him,

but it took me about three minutes to see good or bad

(laughs) actor, in a person who could act.

I liked him. (laughing)

He was wonderful.

- The Baron rewarded his sister for one day's loyalty

with two hours of company with a mere creature.

For a whole life of loyalty,

I'll take my own reward.

I have my own rights.

I have more right to the girl

than the Baroness has to the boy.

Each day, the Baron worked into this laboratory, I will too.

I never had pleasure.

He never finished medical school, but I...

I have everything learned in the field, not out of books!

And now, I know exactly how to do it.

You wanna watch me?

- Now, I remember he was very famous and a nice man,

and I took whatever he gave me. (laughs)

'Cause I had never done a special effect.

And so I was very grateful.

And Italian filmmaking, to me,

was the greatest in the world.

(soft orchestral music)

- Spleens.

Kidneys.

Gallbladder.

Liver.

(grunting quietly)

(heavy breathing) (soft orchestral music)

(liver squelches)

(heavy breathing) (soft piano music)

- They were simple, yeah. They weren't complicated.

It just cut away or something, I don't remember.

I liked everything if it was a little bit humorous.

(laughs) You know?

The scene last night, I've forgotten,

Dracula's bleeding a lot, and then this blood's coming down,

he was so good, he was very good, Udo Kier,

but I was laughing, because it is funny.

It's Dracula and he was a great looking Dracula,

Udo Kier, he had this strange a face

and he spoke English with an accent and everything.

(soft piano music)

I started Dracula after lunch.

In the last day of Frankenstein,

again, I never heard, in the history of movies,

any movie being made like that.

Not only did I write it in the taxi to the Cinecitta studio,

but I wrote it in the morning, I wrote it in the afternoon,

and I edited the mote there in Italy.

Ancl Italy is a wonderful place for sorta funny people,

they like fun and (laughs) I don't know what,

they were so gifted.

Oh, the men were so good and the women were so pretty,

and everybody was good, and it's all gone away.

Where did it go? It's disappeared. (laughs)

(car engine rumbling)

(orchestral music)

- [Announcer] After Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, comes --

- May I introduce, Count Dracula.

- [Announcer] Andy Warhol's Dracula.

- Let me out of my --

_ No!

Not tonight.

- But they don't have the food I eat.

You only have chicken, vegetables I've never seen before.

I'm sure there is no virgin meat.

It must be tonight.

(heavy breathing) The girls are beautiful.

They look so pure. (heavy breathing)

But how can we get at them?

- You have no reflection!

(dramatic orchestral music) (woman screaming)

- How old are you,

little girl?

- You don't know what boys do with little girls?

- No.

- Your sister never taught you?

- No, she was too embarrassed.

- You are a virgin?

- Yes.

- You're telling me the truth?

- Yes.

- I believe you.

(woman gasps)

- What are those marks?

- The kiss of Count Dracula.

- Dracula, Dracula, Dracula, Dracula, Dracula.

(dramatic orchestral music) (Dracula gasping)

(woman screaming)

- My body can't take this treatment anymore.

(woman screams)

- [Announcer] After Andy Warhol's Frankenstein,

here is Andy Warhol's Dracula.

- They just worked all the time,

the Italians, in their studio,

and Cinecitta was a great studio.

I was in Rome a few years ago,

they said they tore down Cinecitta, it's all gone.

I said, "Oh my God."

But I was not there more than one day or two days.

The movie cost (laughing)

well, I don't remember complications. (laughing)

Believe me, I don't know,

because not only did I make up the dialogue every day,

but I made up the plot, (laughing) whatever the plot was.

I make it all up every day.

And I can't remember these things. (laughing)

But by making it up all day, it's in a class by itself.

It's not sensible,

it's not horrifying, it's just my funny,

silly mind that day. (laughs)

I cast everybody instantaneously.

I never discussed anything.

My producer, Andy Braunsberg, was producing with him,

and Carlo Ponti canceled the film,

and then I was making the film,

and I had an actor in the part and he couldn't come in,

and Braunsberg said, "Well, I'll call Roman,

he'll come in and he'll do it for me."

He worked with Andrew Braunsberg,

who now lives in Vienna,

and he's a very nice man, from England,

and he produced a lot of films in England,

and you should interview him. (laughs)

But anyway, it was just one day's work,

and he was okay, but he wasn't fun.

I loved the serious people who were young,

or the funny people. (laughs)

The girls were beautiful, a French girl

and an Italian girl, and

being educated with Hollywood films,

people had to be good looking in front of the camera.

What's the point of a movie if they're not good looking?

Especially the girls.

And that always meant something to me.

So, I didn't waste film on character actors

in front of the camera.

It was successful mostly everywhere in America,

but the man in America who took it

was a gangster who had made porno,

and he had the second biggest porno

and the biggest porno.

Nobody wanted to buy it in America,

'cause they didn't know what category to put it in,

and I had to go to see this man.

I said, "Where did you buy this?"

He said, "I bought it from this man

who bought it from--" maybe Carlo Ponti, I don't know Who.

And...

he said, "I didn't have to pay for it,

because I had the second biggest porno,

and the first man, who had the biggest, said he wanted it."

And I said, "Well, why did you give it to him?"

He said, "lf I didn't give it to him, he'd shoot me dead.

So, I gave it to him.

And I bought this Frankenstein film

'cause I have to do -- I can't do porno,

'cause they'll shoot me dead." (laughs)

That was who was distributing it in America,

a man who didn't distribute real movies.

So, I've had a very strange career.

I saw no money from it, no.

I got the rights back on so many films.

I didn't give them away forever

and they didn't cost anything.

So, I own at least 12 of my films 100%,

and now, I have to spend my own money

and make sure they're gonna last another 'I00 years. (laughs)

Because films are, especially color films --

black and white last 'I00 years,

but color you gotta worry about.

But they say you can go now direct to digital,

but I said films last 'I00 years, we know,

but digital only lasts a few years.

They want it for a couple of years,

they give me a deposit and I never see another penny.

I've been around long enough to know something.

And then, also, like I say,

they only want digital and I have to worry about,

when I'm long dead, that the original is still okay,

and the original, I think, has to be film.

They did it in every country

and his name was only there because I made it famous.

He didn't have any rights to those films,

or any rights to have his name presented.

They just did it so that the stupid people

who read the newspaper would think

that an artist -- he was not an artist --

that an artist had something to do with the film.

I like to point out, nobody ever cares,

in the history of motion pictures, for 'I60 years,

I'm the only human being that made films all by themself,

all by myself, all by myself without one helper, one helper.

And I edited them, I photographed them,

I produced them, I cast them,

I wrote them, I did everything.

And Andy Warhol had no connection to them,

because he couldn't connect to anything, he was so autistic,

he didn't know good or bad about anything.

He didn't know anything about art,

he knew nothing about anything.

He was a vegetable, he wore a wig that went here

and he was autistic and albino,

and he couldn't speak. I had to do the speaking for him.

And to credit him was a crime against humanity,

and I didn't know what to do, because

I had made him famous.

And they gave him credit, he didn't ask for it.

He had no rights to have his name connected with the movie,

yet they put his name on the movie.

And you have to go to court, in every country,

to sue them because it's not legal what they do.

I didn't have the money to go to court in these places,

and I'd say to the companies, "What are you doing?"

And they said, "Go to hell, We do what We want."

It was a horrible business.

It didn't happen in America, 'cause, in most cases,

I could control with a contract,

but I had contracts with Germany, with France,

with England, with all these countries,

and they had no rights to use his name, but they did.

And you have no idea how autistic he was,

he couldn't speak.

"Oh yes, what about this, Andy?"

"Oh yes, that's good, oh yes, okay." (muttering)

The interview was over.

Nobody's ever written a book about him.

There's nothing to write.

There was nothing there.

So stupid me, they should've just used my name,

because there wasn't anything in the movie that I didn't do.

And what I was gonna say before,

in the history of motion pictures,

nobody ever made films entirely by themself

and had them distributed throughout the major countries

in Europe and the United States,

and publicly accepted by audiences.

Many people made their own little films nobody ever saw,

but they never got distributed

to big motion picture theaters all over the world,

like mine.

Nobody.

And what happens to poor, little, stupid me,

who made these films that are totally unique,

not only were they distributed,

but they're unlike all other films

that went to those theaters.

They were entertaining.

They were with young people

they had never seen in a movie before.

And all this credit, which should come to me, was not.

The stupidity of people who review films,

to me, is incredible.

And they want to make believe their job is meaningful,

so they pretend the latest films

are important or interesting.

I try to read reviews in these international newspapers

and I say, "Oh my God, what are they talking about?"

Some garbage just opened where they shoot and kill,

and run and shoot and kill, and all that shit.

Movies have been over for a long, long time.

The Germans and the Irish inhabited New York City.

The city was mostly Irish and then some German.

And I think the biggest German city

in the world is in the United States somewhere,

but I liked all the countries I went to.

And I could say anything I wanted about Andy Warhol,

but they didn't care.

He was a famous name, it was like Mickey Mouse or something.

That's all, that's all the journalists cared for.

I called them the Velvet Underwear.

Terrible, stupid, no talent.

Not a nice man.

But there was a man, the second man, it was only two people,

was named John Cale and he was Welsh, from England,

and he played the viola, he was a real musician.

Lou Reed was just a hateful person, wanted money,

and I was very unhappy with them.

And then I put this beautiful --

one of the most beautiful girls in the world, Nico,

she was a famous model and she was German,

and she sang with them,

and I thought she'd bring some class,

but Lou Reed treated her very badly

and then I managed Nico separately.

And you know, Nico had a son.

The father was Alain Delon,

and Alain Delon never acknowledged it.

And I took Nico and the little boy,

when he was about a year old, in a cab, a car,

to Paris, outside of Paris, to Alain Delon's mother,

who took the child and raised it,

because Nico couldn't afford to raise their child.

And over the years, I kept in touch with him,

and he grew up, and he was a teenager,

and he was very good looking.

Imagine, Nico and Alain Delon - the child!

And the father would never meet him.

And for the past 1 O years,

he's been in and out of mental asylums,

and he's been in a mental asylum

for about five years at least, and he's like 5O years old,

same age as [lndecipherable]. (laughs)

But it's so sad that a man so rich, like Alain Delon,

would not acknowledge a child.

And Nico was, along with Verushka,

the two greatest models of all time, both German. (laughs)

But no, a sad thing happens to famous people.

Hound of the Baskervilles, it was a team

of famous English -- my memory's damaged

from a car accident, but they were very famous.

And then they had separated.

- [Announcer] Basil Rathbone,

the most famous of all the Sherlock Holmes.

He was never greater, never more chillingly awe inspiring

than in the abominable case of

The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Now, we bring you an even more

sophisticated Holmes than Rathbone,

an even newer film than the original,

more sinister, more savvy,

(dog barking) more terrifying,

more elementary, my dear Watson.

- You don't understand, he just wants to be friendly.

- You couldn't put -- you couldn't put your dog down?

- [Announcer] Peter Cook

is unforgettable as Sherlock Holmes.

- This is a job for an imbecile.

- Quite right, Holmes, let me deal with this.

- [Announcer] Dudley Moore is forgettable

as, uh, what's his name? (men chattering)

In the classic, gothic masterpiece,

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles.

M Mother will be so glad m

- They won't carry on. Oh, I loved Carry On.

Oh, the Carry On. It was Peter Cook and Dudley Moore,

and Peter Cook was very nice and Dudley Moore was not,

he was a little short guy, he was chasing the women.

He died, I think Peter Cook died too, but Dudley Moore died.

And they had been together for many years as a team,

and it was Peter Cook and Dudley Moore,

and Dudley Moore had gone away and wanted to be on his own.

And Peter Cook was so nice,

and then they came back to the producer,

who was a very nice guy.

He said, "I got them back to be in this movie."

Sort of like Frankenstein, Dracula,

but it's Sherlock Holmes, and you could write it.

Then I found out, I said, "Yes."

And then Dudley Moore wanted to write it.

I said, "Well, I don't know."

But anyway, I went ahead and made it

and it wasn't my writing, and

I didn't have my kind of people in it,

and I loved Peter Cook, but I didn't like Dudley Moore,

and he wasn't really funny.

He was not a nice guy.

But it's an odd film and I'm not the author. (laughs)

I might have credit,

but I didn't really have the authority on it.

And it was the only film I made that I didn't really make.

But Terry Thomas was great.

They were from the Carry On series, too.

I see the old movies, the '30s and '40s,

they had the greatest actors in the world.

They had women in their '60s and '70s,

men in their '70s and '80s,

these were people from the 19th century

who were working in front of a camera in the 1930's,

and you get a picture that's authentic

of what human beings were like in the 19th century

by watching the Hollywood movies made in the 1930's.

We had people in front of the camera who were in their '80s,

distinguished, British people, actors and things,

and those kind of people don't exist in the world, anymore.

Even in the '30s, they didn't exist.

So, I mean, I live on the same street

as the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

the only good museum in the United States, it's the biggest,

and I could go there in one minute.

I prefer to watch Turner Classic Movies,

because that's the museum of people.

I tried to put people in front of the camera

that represented, to me, the year I made the film.

Her name was Marilia Péra, and she was the star,

and I saw her in a film or something from Brasil

and I got her phone number, and I called somebody, an agent,

and they said, "Oh, she'd be interested."

And he said, "She can't speak English, though."

I said, "That's okay, I want her."

"She'll come."

She came right up to New York

and she said, "When are you gonna start?"

I said, "Maybe in a few weeks."

She said, "I'll learn English."

She learned English.

She was the greatest actress

I ever had in front of a camera,

and she was the number one actress in all of South America.

She still is.

And I put her in the film,

and she was just unbelievably great.

(dramatic music)

- [Announcer] New York's Lower East Side.

- I'm getting tired of this shit.

- [Announcer] Mean streets about to detonate.

- The point is, this is our area.

- [Announcer] A gang fight about to escalate.

- Do something.

Lean on me.

- Or else?

- Or else you're gonna have a war down here.

(siren wailing)

- [Announcer] And blood that will run from the gutter

into the street. (siren wailing)

- I'd put a bullet in your brain, but you don't have one.

- [Announcer] Mixed Blood.

Territorial rivalry is now open bloodshed

as the drug trade passes from the ghetto to the main line.

- Your drug business is going right into the toilet.

- [Man] When the city says

tear down a neighborhood, they tear it down.

(gun firing)

(man grunting)

- [Announcer] If you mix blood, you mix fire with fire.

(siren wailing) (dramatic music)

Mixed Blood. (siren wailing)

- Beautiful person.

So sad, Irish.

I think he had no mother and father.

You think, "What a beautiful child."

And some girlfriends took care of him, I guess,

and then he became a drug addict and died very young.

I used him in more than one movie,

but he was

a quiet type,

in real life and in the movie, you know.

I mix types,

I just cast who I wanted

and I never had to talk to a producer

about -- (muttering)

Nobody bothered me.

I have a movie they showed a clip of,

I forgot all about it, called Spike of Bensonhurst.

And it was about a tough kid in Brooklyn

who was a boxer, and he was tall,

extremely good looking,

and he was about 19 or 20,

and he played a tough guy,

which was not normal for my movies,

but I like the movie a lot.

But he was from an extremely wealthy, Jewish family.

You see the movie, you would never guess

in a million years he was Jewish.

He was so good looking, he was so handsome,

and he was a strong character in real life.

Then he went in a TV series, somebody told me,

and another one, and then he said,

"Oh, this is crap, this is acting crap."

And he went into some business, but his father was so rich.

And, you know, I think many good people

should be in acting, especially actresses,

but it's a terrible life.

It wasn't when they had studios

and they had five year contracts and all that.

Now, it doesn't exist as a career,

unless you do a TV series for three, four years.

- [Narrator] Hey, meet Spike.

- You know what people say to me?

"Spike, do you have political ambition,

political goals, are you seeking the throne of office?"

I say, "No,

I'm just trying to get a little piece of the pie."

- [Narrator] He's Bensonhurst's biggest knockout.

(people cheering) - Oh, what's my name?

- I could be like another Sugar Ray Leonard.

- [Man] Nice kid, just a little screwed up.

- None of us have been able to control him.

- [Narrator] A headstrong rebel.

- I'm Italian, from Bensonhurst.

- [Narrator] Who thinks he's got it all figured out.

- A Mafia connection.

- I get a little piece of turf from your father,

every cugina on 18th avenue's gonna know who I am.

So maybe start eating some real pasta, you know?

But I don't mean that stuff outta the can.

- No, never, I know!

I always make it fresh outta the box.

- [Narrator] He was loved by many.

- Wanna have sex?

- [Narrator] Too many.

- Disgusting.

- [Narrator] And he's getting himself in big trouble.

- You stay the hell away from my angel.

- My father wants Justin to think

that the baby I'm gonna have --

- What baby?

- Your baby.

- So, what about India?

- [Man] She's having your baby, too.

- You don't want the baby?

- [Man] Why do you wanna show off your stomach for?

- The work I just did at Bensonhurst.

- [Spike] I can't be exiled from Bensonhurst.

- [Narrator] Now, his fight's in way over his head.

- Who do you wanna marry, anyway, me or my father?

- Whatever.

- [Narrator] He's down for the count with only one way out.

- [Together] Organized crime.

- That's right, organized crime.

- [Narrator] It's the comedy that's a knockout.

- Sounds good.

- [Narrator] Spike of Bensonhurst.

- [Spike] This arrangement here is un-Italian.

- Well, don't do any acting. (laughs)

I don't want acting, I want them to speak their lines

and they'll do it their way.

A good director doesn't tell an actor how to act.

I'm in a category of my own

and they don't know what to do with me.

(soft piano music)

It says, I just wanna say,

it says, "His trash."

Wait a minute. Why is it his? Why?

What makes it his?

- [Interviewer] Maybe Constantin was --

- They just, I know, it's just Constantin.

He had no connection to any movie.

- [Interviewer] But anybody can see your beautiful

image on there -- - Yeah, but --

yeah, but I'm the director of Andy Warhol's films.

I'm the director, but they're his films,

Flesh and Trash.

No one has ever lived through that insult

and it's a total insult.

And I lived through it, and yet,

nobody made their own films for no money, in a few days,

and I made his films.

He couldn't talk.

Oh, life is not fun.

- [Interviewer] But at least you get your credit now.

- Before I drop dead. (laughs)