INT: In SEPARATE TABLES, there was some reediting after you left. Tell us about that.
DM: It was the worst experience of having a picture re-edited behind my back. HAROLD HECHT, the producer and I worked on getting the picture completed. JIM HILL who had recently been named the co-partner, JIM HILL and BURT LANCASTER took over the picture after HAROLD and I had finished it and did some extreme re-editing. They prevailed upon DAVID RAKSIN to rewrite the music for some of the scenes, and he refused. They wanted in particular a song called "Separate Tables" played in the opening credits of the picture. I was really furious and I said the picture did not need a title song, it was totally wrong. They wanted to release a record with the picture and that's why they wanted the song, not for the picture, he promised me. For a different scene, DAVID RAKSIN also had to rewrite another scene. Later realizes the title song, with VIC DAMONE singing, had been put in after someone asked him about it after a screening at the Astor theater. Mann demanded to be removed from the contract with HILL-HECHT-LANCASTER and never worked with them again. Before the picture opened in New York, HAROLD called and told him about a preview, but Mann said he didn't want to see the changes they had made. His wife wanted him to go see it, and finally she said she'd see it and tell him. She came home and said she ran into RITA HAYWORTH and JIM HILL and RITA asked where I was and explained. RITA berated JIM. RITA called late that night and was crying, saying that JIM walked out, and it was all about Del. She begged him to come over and his wife came with to see her at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

INT: Go to THE PLOT TO KILL STALIN.
DM: That was my first PLAYHOUSE 90, and I think it was FRED COE'S first one as producer. MELVYN DOUGLAS played Stalin, ELI WALLACH played his secretary, LUTHER ADLER played Molotov, E.G. MARSHALL played Beria. A lot of really good actors in the cast. It was based upon HARRISON SALISBURY'S memoirs of those days in Russia, 1953, about six years before Stalin's death. SALISBURY was the New York Times correspondent in Moscow. We constructed the script according to SALISBURY'S notes. In the scene we'll see, Stalin berates his staff and has a stroke. In the script, DAVID KARP, the writer, had the men take advantage of the moment and let him die. In rehearsals, the scene wasn't working terribly well for me at that point. I changed a few things and it worked. When FRED COE came to the Thursday rehearsal he was stunned. He talked about that scene, told me it was a great moment. But I had pointed the finger at one man for the death. Mann said that's what I wanted. They kept it, but the newspapers the next morning were filled with stories. The Russian Embassy had protested, the State department protested. CBS got their Moscow office closed and were booted out of Russia for 2 years. But that's the scene I want to take a look at.

INT: THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS was kind of unfortunate for some reasons. Tell us about that?
DM: I was very young and inexperienced at that point. It was my first for JACK WARNER and WARNER BROS. I had a phone call from JACK WARNER and STEVE TRILLING, his assistant, saying the first days work did not have enough close ups. He wasn't covering enough they said. I was not used to having a head of a studio calling me, I sent the cast and crew to lunch and I stormed up to JACK WARNER's office. I was going to confront him, except he was not there, but STEVE TRILLING was there. I began with some four letter words and said I wasn't going to tolerate it. STEVE was very apologetic and assured it would never happen again. And I never had any more word from the front office. I'm sure they still saw it but they never mentioned it.

INT: Would you rewrite your behavior or would you recommend that a young director behave in kind?
DM: No, I think I went farther out on a limb than I realized, but I really was infuriated. That hadn't happened before and I certainly didn't want to start with JACK WARNER in that manner. I could have been out of there really easily so I would not recommend it.

INT: On the DORIS DAY comedies, LOVER COME BACK and THAT TOUCH OF MINK, big budget, big Hollywood comedies. Tell us about those. And in color.
DM: I never knew how I got that first job, LOVER COME BACK, because I had never done comedy in film, only in TV. But this was a special sophisticated brand of comedy, which looks pretty tired today but really holds up amazingly well. DORIS DAY and ROCK HUDSON and TONY RANDALL, and a really clever script by STANLEY SHAPIRO. It's the usual pursuit thing that DORIS and ROCK would play so often, and so all the double entendre and the sophistication was there on the screen. They were wonderful to work with. DORIS became concerned as to how she looked, and she had the cameraman fired and a new one brought in. But things were serene after that. ROCK and her and I all got along famously. I just had a ball with them, so it was a fun picture to do. It went into Radio City Music Hall and broke records. The next picture was also for UNIVERSAL with CARY GRANT, DORIS DAY, and GIG YOUNG, written by STANLEY SHAPIRO. Not as clever a script, but good comedy. A little bit more direct in the sexual innuendoes. CARY and I just did not get along. I figured finally he was tired of acting, it no longer excited or interested him. He was just disinterested. He spent his time worrying about DORIS's wardrobe and her shoes. CARY was always amiable, pleasant as can be, smiling, told stories, but I knew somehow that he deep down knew that he was ARCHIE LEACH from Liverpool and that someday the clock would strike. I think he only did two pictures after that. Interesting that DORIS, seeing that we were not getting along, did her best to be cooperative and helpful and cheerful. And she was just totally adorable. CARY would not shoot until we changed the doorknobs to his office. I liked him a lot, but I often said to myself what is he really thinking? I never found out.

INT: A GATHERING OF EAGLES comes to mind here. Tell us about that.
DM: ROCK HUDSON was to play a strategic air command commander. There were two books coming out, one called FAIL-SAFE, the other RED ALERT, I believe, both of which were predicated on untruths about the safety procedures of the strategic air command to keep from having an accidental dropping of an atomic bomb. Both were false in their premises, sensational stories, that were both successful and made into pictures, one with GEORGE C. SCOTT. SY BARTLETT, the producer from UNIVERSAL, had been in the air force and knew LEMAY and kept up his Air Force contacts. TOMMY POWER was then commander in Omaha, Nebraska. They wanted a picture to show the strategic air command in peacetime, showing the true safety procedures. So SY and BOB PIROSH did the script. We shot at the Beal Air force base near Sacramento. They flew B52s for us and tankers. We got them to put up one load of three missiles just as B52s flew over them, great shot. In preparation for being on the base and trying to know all we could about S.A.C, ROCK and I went up to another air force base for physicals. The doctor told me I could go back up for flying status. In Roswell, New Mexico we both went up in B52s. I stood behind and watched the pilot, and we refueled in the air. The pilot turned to me and asked if I wanted to fly, I said yes! For the next 2 hours I piloted a B52. The pilot said I was like a kid under a Christmas tree. It was a beautiful ship to fly. We got back to the airfield and I did the letdown into the traffic pattern and I got out of the seat and the pilot landed it.

INT: The picture ultimately had additional shooting done by another director, was that okay in this instance?
DM: No, I did not like it. But after they previewed the picture the heads of the department said they wanted some aspects changed. I have left as soon as we got the picture finished to go to New York and cast a version of TOVARICH with VIVIEN LEIGH and JEAN PIERRE. So they got ROBERT WEBB, a second unit director, to do some additional shooting. I didn't really care for it, was sort of artificial, hokey stuff. But the studio was happy with it. Moderately painless.

INT: Screen tests, do you do them? How do you feel about it?
DM: I avoid them wherever I can. I don't like them, I don't think it does me any good or the actors. I've had to do several for MARTY and BACHELOR PARTY. Harold wanted them done. I try to avoid them, JACK WARNER wanted some. I remember the day I was shooting the test for BACHELOR PARTY. EVA LE GALLIENNE was testing for another Hecht-Lancaster film, and they asked me to direct the test. She came in and did a scene and she was just astounding, one of the greatest. She did not get the part but nevertheless she was marvelous. [INT: There is a slight change between us sitting here and us on film. Does that drift justify screen tests? Is that not a good reason to embrace testing?] Well there may be, but I have never believed in the test, they never give the actor a proper shot at the part. I tested a lot of people who were good actors, just not right for the roles, and it's a job I really hate, I do not like to do screen tests.

INT: Budget. How do you deal with budget?
DM: I scream a lot, I cry a lot, I kick. You just do it the best that you can. I try to be cooperative in keeping costs down wherever I can. I probably hurt myself in some instances by not demanding a crane camera when I could probably use one. I really try to cooperate with the producer as much as I can. There are things, a helicopter shot for instance, that I just think we must have. But it's an ever-increasing pressure and problem these days. Costs are so astronomical, so high. But it is the constant pressure of budget and schedule that is wearing. It just wears me down to fight those battles. When I should be putting that energy into doing the best picture I can. Those battles are often harmful to the picture.

INT: To what extent should you be a good guy, a collaborator? To what extent should you do that?
DM: Well I think it's incumbent upon a good director to cooperate whenever you can. But there are times when you simply can't. And there are times when I say yes, I really do need that, and more times than I should I say okay. Gut instinct makes me stick to something.

INT: How do you prepare the night before the first day of shooting?
DM: It's too late, preparation is made by that time. I've got every shot figured out, where I want it, the sketches are made in my script. The night before the first day is always a tense night, no question about it. I generally try to watch TV, just turn off as much as possible. I certainly don't sit down and make preparation for the first shooting day then. I go over the next days work, generally, the night before. See if there's anything I can change to make it better. [INT: How much changing do you do?] Not much.

INT: When you show up at work what's your process?
DM: I try to arrive as early as I can, be there as the crew arrives. Get with the cameraman right away. Check the actors in, see if any of them want to run lines or talk about the scene anymore. Generally just making preparation for the day.

INT: With rehersal, what's your process as you stand the actors in front of the camera and lay out the first shot?
DM: If it's a major scene that has emotion and it is something that needs some thought in the staging, I will almost invariably ask the whole crew to leave. If we're on location get out of the house, I'll call you when I need you. I want the whole house to be ours so the actors can work unobserved and we can try various bits of staging. Because of my live TV background I have carried that technique over to filmmaking, which is every shot is preplanned. The actors have to be rehearsed almost exclusively to that plan. I use that as a starting point with rehearsal with the actors.