Their Cameras Keep Rolling Along

They arrived in Hollywood in a distant era--long before the town became obsessed with box-office grosses, or studios had ever heard of the word “synergy,” or a small circle of actors pulling down $20 million per picture emerged as industry power brokers.

When he directed films like “Birdman of Alcatraz” and “The Manchurian Candidate” in the early 1960s, John Frankenheimer said, movies never opened on 2,000 or more screens. Today, films are judged like racehorses. If they don’t break fast and hit the wire first, they are judged failures after only one weekend in release.

When he wrote his Oscar-winning 1974 screenplay “Chinatown,” Robert Towne said, the best film executives in town often made movies on a showman’s hunch. “You [mess] up, and it’s your ass,” one studio boss growled at Towne, “but go ahead and try.”

As a producer of “Rocky” and “Raging Bull” two decades ago, Irwin Winkler said, studio executives rarely meddled in the filmmaking process. Instead of marketing research, they relied on the passion of the filmmakers.

That Frankenheimer, Towne and Winkler are still in the game, when the game itself has changed so dramatically, is testimony not only to their talents but also to their perseverance. Each has known heady success and humbling disappointments in a business no one can quite figure out.

This fall, these three men--each now in his 60s--are at the center of things once again.

Frankenheimer is directing Robert De Niro in an espionage-themed action-thriller called “Ronin” for MGM.

Towne is directing “Without Limits,” a Warner Bros. biographical drama based on the life and athletic accomplishments of legendary Oregon distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who was killed in a 1975 car crash.

Winkler is directing Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino in the MGM film “At First Sight,” a love story that revolves around a man blinded since early childhood who regains his sight. (The film is scheduled to be released late this year or early next.)

In a town notoriously fixated on youth, it seems a young director honed on rock videos and TV commercials grabs Hollywood’s attention every week. Youth must be served, as it was when Frankenheimer, Towne and Winkler were starting out.

But whether today’s Wunderkinder are still around making films three or four decades hence is anybody’s guess. Those who are, no doubt, will look back on their early days--as Frankenheimer, Towne and Winkler now do--and reflect on the Hollywood they knew, way back when, as the 20th century was passing from the stage.

JOHN FRANKENHEIMER

The movie is called “Ronin.”

The word itself refers to a dishonored samurai who, without a master to protect, roams the world looking for new challenges.

In the film, Robert De Niro stars as a down-on-his-luck American with a murky, Cold War background who is recruited by an Irish group to seize a briefcase--the contents of which are unknown. The film, which MGM will release Oct. 2, is filled with car chases through the streets of Paris, deafening explosions and weaponry galore.

“I go where the material is,” director Frankenheimer explains. “I like character-driven dramas with some action in them.” Besides, “Ronin” is not a typical shoot-’em-up, he adds. “Nothing in this picture is what it seems to be, which is what I like.”

There are those who contend that Frankenheimer peaked too early, that the brilliance he so often displayed as a young director in live TV dramas and his early films simply evaporated into thin air somewhere along the way.

But in the last four years, Frankenheimer has proved the doubters wrong. He has come roaring back in, of all places, cable television, winning three consecutive Emmy Awards and receiving a fourth Emmy nomination only this year.

He arrived during the 1950s, in what is now affectionately called the Golden Age of television. Those were the days when Frankenheimer and other directors like Sidney Lumet, George Roy Hill, Franklin Schaffner and Delbert Mann cut their teeth on live TV dramas. Over a six-year period, Frankenheimer would direct 152 such broadcasts, most of them 90 minutes in length.

“I became a director when I was 24,” he recalled. “Nobody went out of their way to say, ‘This is what you have to do.’ ” Still, he learned from great directors of that era, titans like Billy Wilder, William Wyler, George Stevens and Fred Zinnemann. “They were wonderful to me,” he said. “I learned a lot from their work. I never knew Hitchcock, but I was influenced by his work.”

Frankenheimer’s early television work included such signature productions as “Playhouse 90’s” “Days of Wine and Roses” and “The Comedian” as well as “Ford Startime: TV’s Finest Hour: ‘The Turn of the Screw.’ ”

Through them all, he forged a reputation for fluid camera work, transforming static images that were the staple of live television in those days into innovative dramatic statements.

But by the early 1960s television was changing. The great dramatic showcases like “Playhouse 90,” “Climax!” and “Buick Electra Playhouse” were disappearing. In their place were suburban family sitcoms and westerns. Like other directors, Frankenheimer decided to begin shifting his talents to movies.

His first feature-length film, “The Young Stranger” (1957), starred James MacArthur as a teenage boy from a wealthy family who has a brush with delinquency. It was based on a TV drama Frankenheimer had directed for “Climax!” called “Deal a Blow.”

Frankenheimer returned to television, but in 1961 he came out with his second film, “The Young Savages,” a film about an idealistic prosecutor and juvenile gangs in Spanish Harlem starring Burt Lancaster.

In an interview last year, Frankenheimer said he had a “horrible experience” making “The Young Savages.” By attempting to shoot the picture in only 25 days, the crew had grown to hate him, and he didn’t get along with the producer. Then there was Lancaster.

“It was terrifying,” Frankenheimer recently recalled. “He was such a huge star. It was sticky, but we came out of it fine and went on to make four more movies.

“This is a high-pressure business,” the director explained. “Emotions and nerves are almost sticking out. You have to realize, this is not some sedentary retirement home. Everybody is not on Prozac. I think you have to treat people well.”

Throughout the 1960s, Frankenheimer managed to turn out some of his best work: “Birdman of Alcatraz” (1962), “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962), “Seven Days in May” (1964), “The Train” (1964), “Grand Prix” (1966) and “The Fixer” (1968).

In the political-paranoia thriller “The Manchurian Candidate,” his images of brainwashed Korean War-era POWs who think they are attending a quaint garden party are electric to watch decades later. The opening montage of “Grand Prix” is still riveting.

By 1969, however, the quality of Frankenheimer’s films began to seesaw. “The Extraordinary Seaman,” starring David Niven, bombed that year. Critics applauded his rendition of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” (1973), but then came the gangster comedy “99 and 44 / 100% Dead” (1974). While “Black Sunday” (1977) was a hit, it was followed by “Prophecy” (1979). Throw in “The Challenge” (1982), “52 Pickup” (1986) and “Dead-Bang” (1989), and Frankenheimer appeared to be struggling.

Ask Frankenheimer today what disappoints him most about his career and he refuses to venture there. Next question.

In the mid-1990s, however, as Hollywood studios were lavishing money on formulaic, effects-driven action films, Frankenheimer made a triumphant return in cable television. He won back-to-back Emmy awards for “Against the Wall,” an HBO drama about the Attica prison uprising; “The Burning Season,” an HBO movie about Chico Mendes, who fought to save the Amazon rain forests; and “Andersonville,” a four-hour TNT drama about the infamous Southern prison during the Civil War. This year, he received an Emmy nomination for “George Wallace,” a four-hour TNT drama about the former Alabama governor.

Like much of his previous work, the four shows are politically savvy and inspired by real-life events.

Of everything he has done, Frankenheimer said, he is most proud of those four cable TV productions and his live television work in the 1950s. “Those were tremendously gratifying artistic achievements,” he says.

But despite his many awards, Frankenheimer said he can’t remember ever being asked for advice by young directors. “Nobody has asked me anything,” he says. “People don’t come and seek out your advice.” But if he gave advice, what would it be?

“Just keep working,” he says. “I don’t think making a movie every three years makes you a director. . . . You can sit there and theorize about what it takes to be a director, it just doesn’t work. You’ve got to take the bit in your mouth and go.”

ROBERT TOWNE

Towne is talking about distance runner Steve Prefontaine--the man everyone called “Pre”--and just how big a legend he remains in the Pacific Northwest.

“For them, he’s a national hero, as he is in Europe,” Towne says. “The Nike running shoe was built on his foot.”

But 23 years have passed since Prefontaine died at the age of 24, the victim of a predawn automobile accident in Eugene, Ore. As one of track’s most controversial yet accomplished athletes, Prefontaine had come within 1.5 seconds of the 5,000-meter record only hours before his death.

This fall, Towne is getting his chance to tell Pre’s story in the Warner Bros. film, “Without Limits,” which opened Friday. The film stars Billy Crudup, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Pre, even down to his running style.

Towne has heard the doubters who question whether most Americans in 1998 even remember Prefontaine, noting that even the top hierarchy at Warner Bros. had doubts about the film.

“That may be true,” Towne says. “On the other hand, [Warner Bros.] has been having a hard time marketing almost any of their films.

“A lot of the reaction we are getting has been positive,” Towne notes. “Ultimately, it’s not just about running, it’s about the importance of passion in your life, something as silly as running around in circles and the power of belief.”

The film was suggested to Towne two decades ago by Kenny Moore, a Sports Illustrated writer, former Olympic runner and one of Pre’s friends. Moore co-wrote the screenplay with Towne.

On its face, Pre’s story is filled with athletic drama. He finished first in 75% of his races and remains the only person ever to hold the U.S. records in every distance from 2,000 to 10,000 meters. Still, he lost the biggest race of his life--placing fourth in the 5,000-meter run at the 1972 Munich Olympics, an Olympics marred by the slaughter of Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists. Only 21, Prefontaine returned to America battling depression and considered giving up track.

The film also focuses on Prefontaine’s battles on behalf of amateur athletes; his relationship with legendary track coach Bill Bowerman, who would go on to invent the Nike running shoe; Pre’s attraction to women; and his untimely death.

History would show that Prefontaine, in his last race on May 29, 1975, beat his good friend, Frank Shorter, in the two-mile run, although he fell a few seconds short of his own American record in that event. After attending a party, he dropped Shorter off at Moore’s house and drove off.

“That scene [in the film] where Steve drives Frank home, that was the actual house he pulled into,” Towne says. “He does chin-ups on a bar that Kenny put there when he lived there. . . . He was killed 200 yards from the house.”

Tests showed that Prefontaine’s blood alcohol level was .16. Except for showing Pre holding a beer at the party, Towne chose to avoid the issue of whether drinking caused the accident.

“He wasn’t falling down drunk,” Towne said. “Frank said he was completely alert, the way he always was. To me, why call attention to it, beyond the fact that he was drinking, when that’s the way they saw him every time after a meet?”

The Warner Bros. film is not the first Prefontaine movie to hit theaters. Just as the project was being green-lighted, Walt Disney Studios announced that it, too, had a Prefontaine project under way. Disney eventually won that race, but the film, “Prefontaine,” flopped.

Towne himself knows that movies are always difficult to handicap.

“When we were doing ‘Chinatown,’ ” he recalls, “it was a mess up until the very end. After the fact, it looks like everything was done deliberately, but at the time it was like monkeys at a typewriter.”

He remembers straggling in at 4 in the morning with Paramount Pictures chief Robert Evans after a long day’s work. Doubts crowded his mind, prompting Evans to snap: “I don’t care! I just want a good movie!”

“That’s an unthinkable statement [from a studio boss] now,” Towne says. “People then would never tamper with an ending of your movie. Focus groups were unknown. You showed the movie to a paying preview audience . . . not to people who want to do their version of Circus Maximus--thumbs up, thumbs down--movie critics on the studio lot.”

Through the years, Towne has worked as a writer, director, producer and even actor, but it is his writing that made him famous. In 1973, he received an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay for “The Last Detail” and the following year won the Oscar for best original screenplay for “Chinatown.”

That screenplay has since become a textbook example cited in screenwriting classes, but at the time, Towne said, he was merely playing with ideas, debating what should come next, only dimly aware of the connections and leitmotifs and imagery.

In subsequent years, Towne’s credits have included “Shampoo,” “Marathon Man,” “The Two Jakes” and “Days of Thunder.” More recently, he worked on Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible.” Towne made his directing debut with “Personal Best,” in 1982.

Now 63, he has survived long enough in Hollywood to know that fame--like youth--is fleeting.

“But a lot of filmmakers in their 50s and 60s are doing a lot of good work,” he says. “There is an emphasis on youth, but I think curiosity and flexibility are the only issues--not so much age. Arteries, metaphorically speaking, can harden at any age.”

IRWIN WINKLER

“I never made those big ‘Con Air’ type of movies,” Winkler is saying. “I like to see them, but I don’t know how to do those types of films. I never made a big action movie.”

As a producer or director, Winkler’s films have always relied on character and plot, not special effects. His latest project is the love story “At First Sight.”

Based on a story by Oliver Sacks (“Awakenings”), the romantic drama centers on a masseur (Val Kilmer), blinded since the age of 3, who meets a woman (Mira Sorvino) who convinces him to undergo a procedure to restore his sight.

“She wants to introduce him to new experiments where they can attempt to get sight for those who are blind,” Winkler explains. “He tells her he has gone through this process many times in the past, pulled and pushed by every faker and doctor there is, basically without success. But she convinces him that it’s worth a try, and they fall in love with each other.

“When he gets his sight back, he’s in terrible shape visually and emotionally,” Winkler says. “Now, this functioning blind man cannot deal with the world he is introduced to.”

Winkler was nervous about directing Kilmer, who is notorious for being difficult on the set. But the director called actor Robert De Niro, with whom he has made seven films over the years, and De Niro vouched for Kilmer. “He said, ‘He’s terrific,’ ” Winkler recalled. “He thought we would get along well,” and they did.

At 63, Winkler has had a full career in Hollywood.

He began in the mail room at the William Morris Agency. The year was 1955, and Winkler was in his early 20s. A graduate of New York University, he “just wanted to get into show business.”

His big break came when he left Morris to manage actress Julie Christie. “I arranged for her to test for ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ ” he says. “I negotiated the deal with the head of MGM [who] said, ‘I think there is a youth movement coming in Hollywood.’ It was 1966. He said, ‘We have a lot of old producers in Hollywood. I think we need fresh blood out there. See if you can find a script. I’d like you to produce a script.’ He gave it to Elvis Presley.” The film was “Double Trouble.”

“Rocky” was a special thrill for Winkler, who noted that the Sylvester Stallone film was not an overnight success.

“We opened ‘Rocky’ the first weekend in San Francisco and made $5,400 in one theater,” he recalls. “That’s nothing. By the 16th weekend, we did $30,000 in the same theater. The picture had a chance to build. Now, if you opened to $5,400 in that theater, you’re out the next weekend.”

Winkler later forged key friendships with director Martin Scorsese and De Niro, friendships that led to “Raging Bull” and “GoodFellas.”

Winkler’s said nothing can top the night “Rocky” won the Oscar, but this year came close when three films he worked on--”Rocky,” “Raging Bull” and “GoodFellas”--were selected by the American Film Institute among the 100 greatest movies of this century.

The lowest point, Winkler admits, came in 1983 when “The Right Stuff” debuted.

“The day it opened in L.A., I got up that morning, showered, shaved and went to the first show at 12 o’clock,” he says. “I just wanted to see those long lines out front. I got down to the theater and there was nobody in line. . . . I went inside and the picture was on but there were only three people in the theater.”

After four decades in Hollywood, Winkler has seen many changes, the most troubling being the escalating cost of films, which now average $75 million to produce and market.

“I think we’re probably standing over this piece of ground, and we have a big shovel in our hands and we’re digging a hole and somebody’s going to cover us up with the dirt,” he says. “What has happened is everybody gets some money. Everybody is very well paid, including myself. I’m not immune from asking for a substantial amount of money, but I think we are standing over that piece of ground and shoveling out that piece of dirt. I just don’t know who the guy is who is going to cover us up.”

In recent years, Winkler has turned to directing with “Guilty by Suspicion,” “Night and the City” and “The Net.”

Winkler understands why the film industry is always oriented toward youth, but he believes there are risks attached to using untested young filmmakers.

“If they get somebody young, they might get something they don’t expect,” Winkler says. “When you look around you, the best filmmakers are still guys like Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.’