A look inside Hollywood and the movies : 3 on the Towne, or How to Get a ‘Firm’ Writing Credit

Gene Hackman may not want any credit for his work on “The Firm,” but David Rabe certainly does.

Rabe was the first screenwriter to pen an adaptation of John Grisham’s “The Firm” for the screen and he wanted credit for it. It meant potentially more money. It meant prestige. After all, this was a high-profile movie starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman that Sydney Pollack would direct for Paramount Pictures based on a best-selling book. All the makings of a hit, in other words. Besides, his agent encouraged him to fight for a credit-- fight being the operative word. In the biz, the term is generally known as “arbitrate.”

And who might he have to fight? Well, truthfully, all the principal filmmakers who actually made “The Firm,” beginning, but not ending with, the two other screenwriters who now share screen credit with him--Robert Towne and David Rayfiel. Later, Pollack and “Firm” producers Lindsay Doran and Scott Rudin would get into the fray. Their contention was that Rabe, at most, contributed one-half of a line of dialogue to “The Firm.”

But the Writers Guild of America, which decides such arbitrations between writers, ruled in Rabe’s favor. Ads for “The Firm”--which opened Wednesday--from several weeks ago as compared to ones now in circulation tell the story. “Screenplay by Robert Towne & David Rayfiel” (the ampersand signifies the two collaborated) is the old credit. “Screenplay by David Rabe and Robert Towne & David Rayfiel” is the final credit in ads and on screen.

Such is the stuff that usually comes and goes without notice. But this is Hollywood and these aren’t the usual suspects who are likely to remain quiet. Even Rabe, who lives far from filmland, felt the repercussions from his home in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. And, it should be said, the Tony-nominated playwright-turned-screenwriter (“Streamers,” “Casualties of War”) said he’s never met Pollack or the others. He was off the project before Pollack was signed to it. “I’m surprised at all the brouhaha,” he said. “I’ve arbitrated on three different (movie scripts) and this is the first time I’ve won. For me to try and get into the elements of the script is pointless. Everyone out in Hollywood knows they (Towne, Rayfiel and etc.) wanted this credit the other way. . . . It’s very simple, really, it’s about the guild and guidelines, not about my feelings about what I wrote or didn’t write or anything else.”

The guild bases its decision of whether at least 33.3% of the shooting script is derived from the source material. For an adaptation, that can mean keeping the original character’s names, their situations and additional elements like structure and dialogue. Scripts are submitted by each of the writers for comparison.

Towne, the revered (not to say loquacious) Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Chinatown,” finds the rules “arcane.” He is furious.

“(Rabe) typed the name Mitch McDeere. I’m quite serious. That’s all it takes for a first writer on any adaptation to get credit,” he said. (McDeere is the leading character of John Grisham’s novel played by Cruise in the movie.)

A spokeswoman for the guild acknowledged that the WGA’s rules committee “is reviewing the entire credits manual.” The guild does not publicly discuss arbitrations or acknowledge receiving letters written on writers’ behalves.

For this reason, Towne and other screenwriters interviewed for this story say they often won’t take on adaptations after a first screenwriter’s drafts have been turned in because the chance of getting sole credit is slim to none and a shared credit usually a hassle. There’s also the matter of money. Screen credits translate into residuals if the movie’s a box-office success. No screen credit means no more paychecks beyond the initial payment for services.

(Rayfiel, best known for “ ‘Round Midnight” and “Three Days of the Condor,” declined to be interviewed for this story. Dan Pyne (“Pacific Heights”), who wrote a couple of drafts of “The Firm” after Rabe but before Pollack became involved, did not ask for credit.)

But Towne is an old friend of Pollack’s and, as it happens, also his neighbor in Malibu. A casual conversation that began informally on the street one afternoon turned into a collaboration. Besides, this was March, 1992, and Pollack needed the movie to be shot and ready for a summer ’93 release.

A couple of weeks ago, when it came time for the “good faith” credits the studio puts on its movie advertisements, in advance of what the producers believe will be the final credits, an executive at Pollack’s Mirage Productions said there was no thought that Rabe would protest.

“To our surprise and horror, he did,” said the executive, who asked to remain anonymous. “Only one line of (his) dialogue survived and we remembered it. Half of it was lifted from the book.” Additionally, the executive described Rabe’s earlier adaptation as “a kind of Faustian epic” where McDeere’s wife is raped, his brother is murdered and, in seeking revenge against the mob-controlled law firm where he works, goes in with a machine gun at the end and kills everyone.

None of this happens in the book, though the Towne and Rayfiel ending isn’t the same as the book either.

Rabe concedes that his version and their version “diverge radically” about halfway through the screenplay. “I would call mine more sophisticated, they might call it darker,” he said.

He also would not confirm the rumor that his agent, Marty Bauer at United Talent Agency, had asked Paramount--and was turned down--for $150,000 compensation in lieu of a screen credit. Bauer did not return a reporter’s calls. A spokeswoman for Paramount said the studio maintains that arbitrations are solely a matter between writers and the WGA. Following the final WGA determination, Pollack, Rudin and Duran all wrote letters of protest to the guild.

Towne, who’s done both credited and uncredited work on numerous movie projects, says that, in the very least, co-writing “The Firm” was “tremendous fun.” This was his first arbitration.

“The first thing that occurs to me,” he says, “is that old John Donne quote, ‘No man is an island.’ Well, no writer is an island when it comes to the guild. Any credit that is unjust diminishes all of us and I think it’s our responsibility to change it.”

Such “bluster” disappoints Rabe though it’s not unfamiliar to him: “I accept it as part of the Hollywood process.”