Charles Grodin Documentary: Comedy Star, Prison Crusader

James L. Freedman 00:03
There's a Jewish expression, tikkun olam, which is, you save one life, you save the world. And he absolutely believed in that. And it's a wonderful thing to believe in, because you feel so helpless sometimes with what's going on in the world, regardless of your political bent. And you say, how can I affect anything? These films show that one person can affect an enormous amount.

Christian Taylor 00:26
How does an independent filmmaker get Robert De Niro, Steve Martin, and Martin Short on camera? Or Elaine May, for that matter, who doesn't do interviews at all? Well, it took my guest a year to get her, but he did it. And it may have something to do with his subject, Charles Grodin. He's James L. Freedman, director of Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause. Welcome to Documentary First, where we dig into the craft, the business, and the truth of documentary filmmaking. I'm your host and a documentary filmmaker myself, Christian Taylor. James L. Freedman, welcome to Documentary First. I'm really glad you're here.

James L. Freedman 01:04
Thank you so much, Christian. I'm thrilled to be here.

Christian Taylor 01:07
Now, before we get too deeply into our conversation, I want everybody to see what we're talking about. So let's look at your trailer for Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause.

Robert De Niro 01:18
Chuck was a very special person, a special actor.

Charles Grodin 01:32
These things go down!

Robert De Niro 01:33
All right.

Charles Grodin 01:34
These things go down, they go. It's too big! It's too big!

Marlo Thomas 01:38
There wasn't a person in show business who didn't know that Chuck was one of the funniest people alive. Everybody wanted Chuck.

Martin Short 01:47
We thought he was the funniest and the hippest and the bravest.

Elaine May 01:51
He was a phenomenal actor. There is no actor better than him.

Waiter 01:55
Pecan pie.

Charles Grodin 01:56
No, no. Okay. Thank you, thank you.

Waiter 01:58
Would you like some whipped cream?

Charles Grodin 02:01
No!

Carol Burnett 02:01
He's a masterclass in comedy.

Jon Lovitz 02:03
He wrote plays and produced and did everything.

Marc Maron 02:06
Grodin was one of the great cranky comedic geniuses.

Jon Stewart 02:10
He's the best talk show guest ever, ever!

Steve Martin 02:13
None of us could do what he did.

Marion Grodin 02:15
He turned the whole talk show form on its head.

Charles Grodin 02:18
Don't try to prevail if it's gonna cause stress in a loved one. Have you ever had a loved one?

Erica Rhodes 02:25
By making them uncomfortable, he gave them something to play with.

Charles Grodin 02:29
There have been many years when I've, you know, been banned from this show. Let's be honest.

Johnny Carson 02:36
And many more to come.

Alan Arkin 02:37
Chuck didn't care what people thought about him.

Richard Kind 02:41
Chuck was the most caring, loving narcissist.

Ellen Burstyn 02:44
He was eccentric in almost every conceivable way.

Elissa Grodin 02:47
He was unbelievably annoying, and I adored him.

Art Garfunkel 02:51
It's Chuck Grodin's liberal heart, juxtaposed with Simon & Garfunkel's melodies and lyrics.

Lewis Black 02:57
He was presenting his ideas with civility.

Charles Grodin 03:00
This is what the Black people in this country have been feeling for hundreds of years.

Julian Schlossberg 03:06
He was a man who tried to change society.

Richard Martini 03:09
Getting people out of prison. I mean, who does that?

Elaine Bartlett 03:12
By the time that Charles Grodin came to see me, I was broken.

Jan Warren 03:16
He rescued me.

June Benson Lambert 03:17
If it had not been for Charles Grodin, I would still be rotting away in a prison cell.

Julian Schlossberg 03:23
And it took a toll on him. It took a big toll on him.

Scott Budnick 03:27
I don't think Charles really understood the ripple effect of all the hope he gave everybody.

Henry Schleiff 03:33
At his heart, he really was this champion for justice, this rebel with a cause.

Jonathan Alter 03:39
And when he got wrongly convicted people out of prison, it changed history.

Christian Taylor 03:49
All right, James, I gotta tell you, I said this off the air. Midnight Run is one of my all-time favorite movies. I do consider myself a super fan of Charles Grodin. Well, I mean, I did until I saw your film. There was so much I didn't know about him. When Robert De Niro showed up in your film and Charles said that Midnight Run was his favorite too, I almost died. It was an amazing film. I really am gonna try to be a good, calm, stable reporter in this interview, but you really did find your target audience in me. I really appreciate you making this film. I thought it was a terrific movie.

James L. Freedman 04:25
Oh, thank you for the compliment and kind words.

Christian Taylor 04:28
Why did you make this film? And when the audience leaves, what do you want them to think about?

James L. Freedman 04:34
I had always been a fan of Charles Grodin, and I remember seeing him in The Heartbreak Kid, which is one of the most uncompromising comedies, directed by the great Elaine May, written by Neil Simon. I became an instant fan. My mother was a huge fan; she gave me his books to read. And then when I was young, I got to see him and Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year on Broadway, which is still one of the greatest nights I've ever had in the theater. When I was looking for a new subject, I found out about all of his social justice work and prison reform work. And that's what I look for in my films. I look for someone who the public knows and was very successful in their career, but has a whole other side to them that people don't really know about. So for instance, in my first film, Glickman, people knew him as this great sportscaster, but they didn't really know his Olympics story: that he was one of two Jewish runners not allowed to run in the 1936 Olympics because Nazi-sympathizing American officials didn't want to upset Adolf Hitler. And Carl Laemmle founded Universal Studios, but he also saved over 300 refugees from Nazi Germany. So I look for subjects that have both of those sides to them, and Charles Grodin absolutely fit that.

Christian Taylor 06:03
Yeah. You really opened my eyes. That was one thing that I did not know about his work. And I'm ashamed that I didn't, because it was pervasive. It went on for a very long time. And he was relentless, and he was also very successful at it. He was a great example to us. I walked away feeling very inspired by how he chose to live his life that way, using his position to really work hard and give a voice to people who didn't have one.

James L. Freedman 06:31
Yes, and he was very different than most celebrities who put their name on something or march when the news cameras are there. His line was, "You don't want me to picket the governor's office, you want me to be in the governor's office."

Christian Taylor 06:43
Now, you spent over 25 years writing in Hollywood for many things, but some of them are Cybill and Coach. How did you start making documentaries?

James L. Freedman 06:52
I had a writing partner near the tail end of my career, and she was having her second child, and she said, "I wanna take a couple of years off." And I just didn't have it in me to start a new screenplay. And I was at a party and someone asked me, "What's the best job you ever had?" And I said, "When I was a senior in high school, I produced Marty Glickman's late-night radio talk show on WNEW in New York." And no one had heard of Marty Glickman, because he was mostly in New York, and I was stunned by this. You know that famous New Yorker poster that has New York as like 90% of the poster and the rest of the country is 10%? That's what this was like to me. So I had worked for Marty Glickman. He was wonderful, but I didn't even know his Olympic story when I was working with him. He was a very modest man in that regard. He didn't talk about that. But what happened was, my wife said, "Well, why don't you make a documentary? If you don't want to start a new script, why don't you make a documentary about Marty Glickman?" I said, "I've never made a documentary before. I don't know how to do this." And she said, "Well, you should think about it." So I read his autobiography, and a friend of mine I hadn't spoken to in six months called me. He said, "What are you up to?" And I said, "Well, I'm kind of sort of thinking about making this documentary on Marty Glickman." And then I told him a story from Marty's book about Lou Zamperini, who was also on the '36 Olympic team. Laura Hillenbrand wrote a bestseller about Lou Zamperini called Unbroken, and then Angelina Jolie made a movie about him. And the story of Lou Zamperini was, he was in World War II with two other Marines, lost at sea when his plane went down. And he was declared dead. And Marty Glickman announced the first Lou Zamperini Memorial Mile at Madison Square Garden. In the ensuing year, he had been caught by the Japanese. One of the people on the little raft passed away, and Lou Zamperini was in a Japanese prison camp. And the war ended, and he was clearly alive, and he was at the second and final Lou Zamperini Memorial Mile at Madison Square Garden, to shoot off the starting gun of his own memorial race. And I tell my friend this story, and my friend says to me, "So what do you think you've done?" I said, "But I don't know how to make a documentary. I don't know how to do any of that." And he says, "Are you sitting down?" And I said, "Yes." He goes, "Lou Zamperini, he's my next-door neighbor." I said, "I'm making this film." And I made the film, and Ari Emanuel at WME saw it was playing at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, and he asked to see it. And I said, "Sure, as long as you're willing to talk to me after you see it." And he said yes. And I went and met with him, and he said, "You know who should see this film? Martin Scorsese." And I was sitting there saying, "Yeah, that guy shows promise. Yeah, get it to him." And the next day I got an email saying Marty's in, he wants to put it on HBO through his deal. And then there was a nine-month wait before I actually spoke to Marty and talked about stuff. But I was very, very spoiled with my first documentary. I went right to the head of the class, and you get Scorsese's definition of points through HBO. It's ridiculous. And then I quickly learned on my next two films that's not what life is like for an independent filmmaker. But that's how I started making films.

Christian Taylor 10:33
Yes, you were the lightning-strikes example in the documentary filmmaking world.

James L. Freedman 10:38
Yeah, yeah.

Christian Taylor 10:38
And that was before everything was turned on its head. So you had an amazing opportunity.

James L. Freedman 10:44
Yeah, I mean, without question.

Christian Taylor 10:46
I'm surprised, though, that that one opportunity and the success with that did not carry you through, or wasn't easier the next couple of times.

James L. Freedman 10:55
Every single project is its own entity, and Los Angeles is littered with actors and actresses who were in something and thought their career was made. It's not. You just have to always start from scratch, and that's the way it works.

Christian Taylor 11:14
Well, that actually happened with Charles Grodin, I learned in your film. There was the film, I think it was The Heartbreak Kid, is that right, that really blew up for him. After that he wanted to break the mold and do something different. And then it totally tanked, and then his career tanked for a while. Is that right? Am I remembering that correctly?

James L. Freedman 11:33
Sort of. Before that he had done Rosemary's Baby, a small role, and he had done Catch-22, a small role, and then he did The Heartbreak Kid. And after those three roles: in Rosemary's Baby, he's the doctor who turns Mia Farrow over to the devils. And in Catch-22, he's the crazy soldier who throws a woman out the window to her death. And in The Heartbreak Kid, he's a guy who leaves his wife on his honeymoon to pursue another woman. So he wanted to do something where he was just a nice guy, and he made a film called 11 Harrowhouse with Candice Bergen. And it's a fun romp, but it didn't do very much business. And he said every single offer dried up. It was as if The Heartbreak Kid never happened, and he was not a movie star anymore. And it happens to everybody. It's a tough business.

Christian Taylor 12:24
So interesting. Now, you had known Glickman, but you didn't know Grodin. How did it change your way of making the film, not knowing the person you were making the film about?

James L. Freedman 12:38
It really doesn't, because I became very good friends with his wife, Elissa Grodin. She sent me seven boxes of his archives, and there were a hundred hours of material to work with. When I was doing Glickman, even though I knew Marty Glickman, I worked for him and didn't know about his Olympic story. And he had passed away before I started making the movie, so I only had archival interviews of him, same as I did with Charles Grodin. And the same with my second film, Carl Laemmle, who passed away many years ago. You just are given what you're given and find what you find. I would say my strength is story, even in small doses, like the beginning, middle, and end of an anecdote or whatever it is. I do all my research myself, because that's where I find the film. It also saves money. I'm a research nut, so I find stuff and I write down my first impression of something, because, as your documentary filmmakers know, you may see something a thousand times and it's just not funny anymore, if it was a joke, or it's not interesting to you. You become numb to it. So I write down my first impression of everything I like and I throw it in a folder, and I know how that hit me the first time I saw it, so how my audience will react, hopefully, when they see it. And it's a real good reminder, because you lose all perspective.

Christian Taylor 14:03
That's a very smart tip. I appreciate that. I love it. All right. You open the film in black and white with Charles Grodin walking on a beach, with a wonderful quote from Robert Kennedy. And I thought it was all very apropos and beautiful. How did that idea come to you?

James L. Freedman 14:19
First of all, let's delineate that it's Robert F. Kennedy, the late senator. JFK is the president. I had seen the quote, and I knew what Charles Grodin's life was about, which was hope. And I said, this would be a great way to open the movie. And certain things you just see and you know what it is. For the people who haven't seen the movie, I won't say what the last shot of the movie is, or last clip. But when I saw that, I knew exactly that was the end of the movie. And in Glickman, he tells this story about what sports means to him, and I knew immediately that was the end of the movie. When you're writing or editing, I'm a very big believer in a beginning, middle, and end. And beginnings and ends are the toughest thing to do, of course. And I just like to find the spine of the story I'm working on. And then once I have the spine, I can go away from it and then come back to it. So in Charles Grodin's case, I couldn't just do a film where it's an hour of him being funny and then the last act of the movie is all this social justice work. It'd be too jarring to the audience. And also I had to make a decision how long I wanted to spend on the social justice stuff, because a lot of people were saying it's a much more saleable movie if you just keep the comedy and just mention that. And I said, if you ask Charles Grodin, "What do you want to be known for?" it would not be The Heartbreak Kid and Midnight Run or Heaven Can Wait. It would be his social justice work. And especially once I tracked down the women he got out of prison, who were mostly mothers of color with young children, with police stings that put them in prison. It was despicable. Once I saw that, I said, no, I have to fully commit to having this be a big chunk of the ending of my film. And since I knew where I was going, I then had to seed it through the film. He didn't just wake up one day and become interested in social justice. This guy was always doing that. He was the president of his class every year and was helping Black students in Pittsburgh. This is before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, so this wasn't being talked about. He directed the first Simon & Garfunkel television special. And the network was thinking they were just gonna get, as Steve Martin says in the film, a singing-dancing show. But in 1969, we had just come off the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the war in Vietnam was raging, and Charles Grodin convinced Simon & Garfunkel, who were very socially aware, that their television special had to incorporate those assassinations and farm workers and really deal with what was going on in the country. And it caused a big uproar at the network. The sponsor pulled their funding, and they had to find someone else to come in at the last minute. But that's who he was. So all through the film you see these moments. And then he had a CNBC show where he was originally doing comedy, and then he started talking about social issues, which CNBC didn't really appreciate. And he just said, "I have this forum, and this is what's important to me, and if they want to cancel me, they'll cancel me." So you see all through the film this is who this guy was. And that's important so the audience isn't shocked. Instead they go, well, yeah, this makes perfect sense. The guy wanted to be a journalist, and then he saw Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun, and he saw a poor boy on a highway, and he ends up falling in love with Elizabeth Taylor. He said, "I want to be in the movies." And by the way, Warren Beatty and Mike Nichols both say the same thing: George Stevens' A Place in the Sun is the reason they got into the movie business.

Christian Taylor 18:23
That is an interesting fact. Wow. Yeah, I do think that your storytelling was so strong in this film. And I love how you educated us on your method, because it clearly has a beginning, middle, and end, and you have woven who he was throughout all of it. Now, I said how you started the film with this very moody beginning. And then all of a sudden the tone changes and you hit us with all these incredible stars. And you shared some clips with us. So I'm gonna share one of them, and then I'm gonna come back and ask you a question. So everybody take a look at this.

Erica Rhodes 19:01
I studied Charles Grodin's appearances on all those talk shows like it was a Comedy 101 class.

Steve Martin 19:09
The late-night talk show appearances were just fantastic.

Charles Grodin 19:12
Everybody knows you don't mean a word you say.

Marlo Thomas 19:17
I remember watching him on some of those talk shows, like, oh God, what's he doing? What's he doing? Because he would just be so bold, so daring, you know, and people didn't know whether he was kidding or not.

Marion Grodin 19:28
So many people thought it was real.

Elaine May 19:30
I would have to go in the other room. I begged him not to do it, but he didn't understand why I was so upset. I thought the audience hates you.

Christian Taylor 19:37
All right, now you guys can see what I'm talking about. My question to you is, and this is what a lot of filmmakers wanna know, how in the world did you get these people in your film?

James L. Freedman 19:49
Well, it helped that I had made two films before that. Before Elissa Grodin would give me the rights to do her husband's story, she wanted to see both of my films. And it was only then that she understood my sensibility as a filmmaker, and that's to celebrate people who I feel are real human heroes, not superheroes, but they're doing heroic things. It shows what one person can do. So because I had those two films, it was somewhat easier. And then of course, Elissa Grodin was able to get me Robert De Niro and was able to get me Steve Martin. And then Martin Short, I cold-called, and he's not doing it because of me, he's doing it because he loved Chuck, Charles Grodin. That's how you get a lot of these people. And I won't mention who they are, but by the way, there are a lot of people I didn't get. But so many people loved this guy. And I got Marc Maron, who never knew Charles Grodin. He just was a big fan. Jon Lovitz: Charles Grodin basically helped start his career. And they all want to know, by the way. "I don't wanna be in the trailer if there are no other stars in the trailer," because they don't know who you are. And they may think, well, I got Steve Martin, so, you know, he wants to make sure there's also a Robert De Niro in the film, and then he goes, "Okay, this is legit, I'm not being exploited here," because they are exploited a lot, with the charities calling them for things and things like that. So I totally understood that. They're doing me a favor. They're not getting paid for this. So it's important to me that I make them look good on camera, and they know I'm appreciative of their efforts to help me make this film about their friend.

Christian Taylor 21:35
Well, you certainly did make everyone look good on film. I think it was beautifully shot. That was one thing I noticed right away. It really was a beautifully shot film. And you could tell all of them loved talking about this guy. There was no question that he was universally loved and admired by people that worked with him. He even talked about how he worked with politicians from across the aisle who didn't necessarily agree with him, but they earned his respect over time. And the way that he worked so hard, he was able to convince them of his point of view with his respect and hard work.

James L. Freedman 22:16
Yes. Ethel Kennedy, Robert Kennedy's widow, loved him. He used to make her laugh all the time, but they had very similar political views, and she wanted to help him when she could, because it was like helping a friend.

Christian Taylor 22:32
One person that was difficult for you to get is Elaine May. And she doesn't usually give interviews, and you were able to get her to talk to you. Tell me about that story.

James L. Freedman 22:42
Well, I was unable to get her, and I finished all my interviews and I was editing. And a friend of mine, who became a friend, Julian Schlossberg, who's a producer and is kind of an Elaine May whisperer, called me up. He said, "I was talking to Elaine yesterday, and she really regrets that she didn't agree to do the interview. Is there still time for you to interview her? I know you've started editing." And I said, "Are you crazy? Of course." And I love Elaine May. I love Nichols and May. And that was one of the unexpected things about the film, by the way. When young viewers saw the film in theaters, they didn't know who Nichols and May were. They didn't know Alan Arkin. And many of them only knew Charles Grodin from Beethoven.

Christian Taylor 23:28
That's true.

James L. Freedman 23:30
And it was shocking to me. I told Elaine, "I'd love to interview you," and then she didn't want to go on camera without me being on camera with her. And I said, "But Elaine, I'm not on camera with the other interview subjects." And she says, "We'll make it work, we'll make it funny." I said, "I think it's gonna be jarring if you see Robert De Niro, then you see me on camera with you." I said, "Can I go on camera and just have a different angle and not show me?" And she said, "No, no, no, it'll be great, it'll be great." Eventually I convinced her to just go on. She really never does. She didn't do an interview for her own film on Mike Nichols. She just doesn't like to do it. She's a very private person. But I've become somewhat friendly with her, and she is as sharp as ever, and I personally think a genius in her best work. But that's how I got Elaine May. And then she saw the film and was thrilled. I remember what she said to me. She saw it in New York and she said, "This was a serious film you did," and I smiled, 'cause she didn't know. These people think you're doing a puff piece, or they don't know, and I don't really do that.

Christian Taylor 24:47
That's just amazing. Yeah, she really did add depth to that, especially...

James L. Freedman 24:51
She was fantastic too, right? I mean, she's tremendous.

Christian Taylor 24:54
Especially because of the work that she had done. His career owed so much to her. So the fact that she was willing to come on and talk about him was very, very important, I think. A wonderful interview. And the fact that it was difficult for you to get her to come on speaks even more strongly about how much she cared about him.

James L. Freedman 25:18
Yes. I'll tell you a quick story about when she met him. She met him at a party, and Charles Grodin had a very, very dry sense of humor, to the point that even friends sometimes didn't know if he was kidding or not. And they didn't hit it off. It was just very awkward when they first met. And then for some reason they were leaving the party at the same time, and it was a cold night, and Elaine May didn't have a jacket. And Charles Grodin took off his jacket as they were walking the three blocks to wherever they were going, and put it around her shoulders. And she said to herself, gee, this guy I didn't like at all, there's another side to him here. And they quickly became really good friends. And the studio and Neil Simon did not want Charles Grodin, who was basically an unknown, to star in The Heartbreak Kid. And she refused to make the movie unless he starred in it.

Christian Taylor 26:10
Wow, she stuck by her guns even way back then. Such a strong...

James L. Freedman 26:13
Always.

Christian Taylor 26:14
...woman and a great role model for so many. I knew about her comedy, I knew Nichols and May, but only through different media I've watched before. And this gave me a chance to get to know her more intimately. And that's true for other people, younger people who have watched this film. So when you talk to her again, please thank her on all of our behalves: A, we got to know her better, and B, she was able to give us a little bit more insight into Charles Grodin. I think it was really brave of her to do that, and I'm grateful.

James L. Freedman 26:48
I'm gonna call her and tell her that now.

Christian Taylor 26:51
Wonderful. All right, on to my next question. I loved the Charles Bronson sequence. Chuck told this story on Johnny Carson, and then you added the movie posters, with the guns and gunshot sound effects. It was very dramatic, super fun, hilariously funny. This was about a movie that he did with Charles Bronson. So talk a little bit about that scene and walk me through how you built that moment. Do you start with the story and then hunt for the clips? Does the great clip come first? Tell me about that.

James L. Freedman 27:22
The story always comes first. He was a TV villain in Westerns when he was trying to get started. And he tells this very funny story on Johnny Carson about how he would lower his voice to sound tougher, and so would Bronson. They just kept lowering their voices lower than the other guy throughout the scene. And it's very funny. And I saw this, and I couldn't use the entire clip of him telling the story because it went too long, and I wanted to cut out a little middle piece. So I needed B-roll to show something. So I said, people may not know who Charles Bronson is. I will show them his five Death Wish movies, Death Wish 1, 2, 3, show the posters, and then that'll cover when I do the cut to when he's finishing the story. And then I thought the gunshots just jolt the audience, and you really see how macho a guy Charles Bronson was, so it makes the story funnier. So that's what I'm looking to do. You originally look to fix a problem, and then you say, okay, I fixed the problem. I can now tell all of Charles Grodin telling this story, but instead of 40 seconds he can do it in 28 seconds. And now that I've solved that, how do I not just have the B-roll function as the bridge, but how do I now make that interesting? I remember writing on sitcoms, and when you write on a good show, there's a thing called a crossing line, where someone goes to answer the door and you have a small chuckle line in there. So not a big laugh, because they're walking to the door. And I worked on a show that wasn't very good, and there was no crossing line. And I suggested, why don't we put in a little small joke here to cover these five seconds of dead space? And they go, "All she's doing is answering the door. We don't need that." And I don't believe in that at all. I believe every single frame, every second, should have intent behind it. Even if it doesn't work, the filmmaker should be able to say, well, this is what I was trying to do.

Christian Taylor 29:35
That is a wonderful lesson for young filmmakers, even older ones. That's a great tip. And I'll tell you, your storytelling devices all throughout the film, I thought, were fantastic. You used movie posters early on, in the very beginning, and I loved how you did that. You put all of his movie posters up, and you would scroll through them backwards and forwards, and you would do that all throughout the movie as you were telling the story. I thought that was genius. I loved how you used the letters you had been given, and you showed them, but you also read them and you highlighted the different points. And this really jumped out at me, because the last podcast that I did, we had a gentleman on named Phil Maher, and he owns Stockfilm, and everything is home movie film that he curates. And I loved the home movie footage that you had of Charles Grodin and his family. Did that come from his wife, I'm assuming?

James L. Freedman 30:26
Yes, and a cousin, a relative.

Christian Taylor 30:30
Those were phenomenal. We talked in that podcast about how today people may be using AI or other things to fill in where they don't have stuff. But those real moments and those photographs make it feel so real and authentic, and they were so important. And you just filled the whole thing with these real moments. I love how you used Charles Grodin's own footage to exemplify whatever someone is saying about him. All you had to do was go find a scene in one of his films, and he's doing exactly what they're saying, every time.

James L. Freedman 31:04
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing that can possibly replace the realism of home movies, especially from that era when they were silent. Everyone can relate to it. In fact, if you remember in Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese's masterpiece, the only color footage in that entire film is the home movies of De Niro getting married to Cathy Moriarty's character. And he did it because it's so realistic, and you completely understand the jump cuts and everything else. So when you get the real footage, it's wonderful. And I probably used less than a minute of some of it, and you're looking at two hours of footage. You're just trying to find something that will work in your film. Everything's about pushing, enhancing the story you're telling. Nothing should detract from the story you're telling. It should always be about, what's the best thing I can find to put in here to show what I want to show? I'll give you an example of that in the movie. Charles Grodin was the director on Broadway of Lovers and Other Strangers, and the original production starred Richard Castellano, who was Clemenza in The Godfather, the first Godfather film. Broadway tends to film most shows now, but they didn't do it way back then. And I said, I don't have footage of this play, and I don't have pictures of this play with the original cast. All I had was the Playbill. So, as I said, I'm a research nut, so I went through the Playbill and I Googled every single person in it, no matter how small a character, to see if anything would come up online. And in the clip in the movie, Richard Castellano and his wife are talking to their son, and their son was played by this comedian. And I found a clip of him on The Ed Sullivan Show. I work very late at night sometimes, and it was like two in the morning. And I saw the guy, and then I was distracted by something and writing something down, and the clip kept playing. And after a black screen, Ed Sullivan was introducing Lovers and Other Strangers, a scene from that, because he often had Broadway shows on his TV show. And I started screaming. I woke my wife up, and she said, "What's going on?" I said, "You won't believe what I just found. I just found footage." She said, "Tell me about it tomorrow. I'm going back to bed." But it was like a scavenger hunt. I was so happy. I remember in Glickman, I was looking at newsreel footage of the US Olympic team arriving in Berlin. And there's a two-second clip of Marty Glickman on the bus. You know, we had 500-something athletes. They only showed maybe Jesse Owens, or 20 athletes. And there was Marty Glickman. And again, I went nuts. And then you slow the footage down so at least you get four seconds out of it on screen. But my God, those...

Christian Taylor 34:02
Those are happy accidents that every documentary filmmaker just dreams about.

James L. Freedman 34:07
It's probably the most fun I have, researching the thing, when you come across something like that. There was another thing on Marty Glickman where I had a VHS tape that was so snowy you could not make out what it was, but it was labeled like "Marty Glickman, high school" or something. And I spoke to the people, I'm forgetting who owns the old Paramount newsreels. And for those younger listeners who don't know, newsreels were the news that was shown in movie theaters in between the feature films. It was on nitrate film, which blows up in the lab, and I had to wait six months for this. And then out of this came this crystal-clear image of him running and winning a race, and he's with the trophy. And I was able to use this a bunch of times in the film. These things make your film. And filmmakers who listen to you will know, it's so much fun when you actually win the scavenger hunt, because most of the time you're just trying to find anything that will visually show what you're trying to do.

Christian Taylor 35:19
Absolutely, a hundred percent. Now, there's a section in here where he talks about his missed break that he actually gave away himself. This is with The Graduate. He was the number one pick to be in that movie, which of course we know went to Dustin Hoffman and made his career. And he then talks about how it was a really low point in his career. And it sounds to me like he's narrating that himself. How did that happen?

James L. Freedman 35:43
It was footage of him telling this to a news reporter, in a feature they were doing on him. And so I just used the audio of that. But when I showed it to some writer-director friends in a rough cut, they were saying, "Are you sure about that? That sounds a little, not self-aggrandizing, but just, is that the case?" So I then found the footage of Steve Martin saying he's not sure if that was the case or not, that Mike Nichols would have definitely chosen him. He looked a little older than he should have for the role. However, Mike Nichols did use him in Catch-22, so it's impossible to know the actual truth. So I kind of use Chuck's version and then have Steve Martin say, well, I don't know what the real answer to that was, but it certainly made Dustin Hoffman a movie star, and Chuck probably should have pursued it, but his career turned out just fine.

Christian Taylor 36:42
So you chose to narrate this film yourself. You also narrated your other films. So talk about that choice. And you cast a specific actor to voice Chuck's mother. So tell me about those two choices.

James L. Freedman 36:55
I'll start with Chuck's mother. I used my wife, because she works cheap. That's how we got that. And in terms of narrating, when I finished Glickman and I had just the temp track of my narration, and Martin Scorsese had not gotten involved yet, I was looking for New York actors or people with a strong New York presence. And I found someone, and I flew across the country and actually recorded this person, who I won't mention. There was an issue that arose, and I was unable to use that. And so then I said to myself, I should just narrate this myself, because you're literally and figuratively adding another element to the film of what you want to say. You're not directing another actor, "Could you say the narration line this way?" I know exactly how I want to say the line and what intonation I want to bring to it. I then realized I'm gonna do all my films this way. And when Martin Scorsese got involved, I didn't know if HBO would want a celebrity narrator. And by the way, one of the people I was thinking of to narrate it, before he got involved, was him. But anyway, he said, "No, I love your narration." And I said, it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. That's kind of how I looked at it. So I've done it ever since. I realize I have a pretty good voice, and I realize it's another tool to put into your film what you want to say.

Christian Taylor 38:24
Very true. All right. We're going to take a quick break right here. When we come back, I wanna talk about the part nobody really sees, and that's rights, clearances, and maybe what you can tell us about how budgets work.

Virgil Films (sponsor) 38:37
Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at Virgil Films. With over 25 years of distribution experience, Virgil has released such hits as Super Size Me and the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, along with a trove of indie treasures like Forks Over Knives, To Die For, Seven Yards, and Speed Is Expensive. Now you can find all of those films, along with the entire Virgil catalog, on any transactional platform out there like Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, Tubi, and the rest. Are you a filmmaker having trouble with distribution? Talk to Virgil. They work with every major platform directly, and they offer a variety of deals that fit every filmmaker's needs, from standard distribution to service deals. They do it all. And they don't just distribute films, they elevate them. Truthfully, they're just really good people to work with. So if you want to learn more, head over to Virgilfilms.com and tell them Christian Taylor sent you. And now, on with the show.

Christian Taylor 39:43
And we're back with James L. Freedman, director of Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause. All right. So you use a huge number of movie and TV clips in this. Now, I want to know, were they licensed, were they fair use, or were they mixed? How hard was it to clear everything?

James L. Freedman 39:58
It was mixed, and I've learned to set up a clip so it will be considered fair use.

Christian Taylor 40:06
Can you please educate us?

James L. Freedman 40:08
Well, it's not a black and white thing. It's a gray area, but what I do is try and make it a little darker gray. Fair use has to illuminate what you're saying.

Christian Taylor 40:18
As best I understand it, the clip has to give an example of exactly what you're describing. So if you describe...

James L. Freedman 40:26
That's correct.

Christian Taylor 40:27
...something about Charles Grodin, the clip has to demonstrate exactly what you're describing. And then you can use it. Is that right?

James L. Freedman 40:36
Pretty much, yes. What happens is, I license some things I have to license, but what I mostly try and do, and this is very time-consuming, sometimes as time-consuming as making the film: on my first film, Glickman, I was asking the NBA, the NFL. These are organizations that just get bombarded with charitable requests for free footage and all this stuff. And because they loved Marty Glickman, they agreed to do this. But it's very time-consuming. You have to write long emails, you have to get people to agree to do it and then deliver. And so I get a lot of stuff donated. You really have to be persistent. If I had the finances, I would never do that. I would just pay for everything and move right on with my film. But I don't have that option. So that's one of the things I do. On my second film, Carl Laemmle: I mentioned that Ari Emanuel saw the film played at Santa Barbara. Well, so did Ron Meyer, who at the time was the head of Universal. And he said to me, "If there's ever anything I can do for you, let me know." And then three or four years later, when I started making Carl Laemmle, I called him up, and he loved Glickman, my first film. I said, "Ron, this is Jim Freedman. Remember when you once said, if there's anything you could ever do for me? Well, I'm making a film on the founder of your company, Carl Laemmle." And Ron went and donated like ten high-def prints of the monster movies and All Quiet on the Western Front. I had access to 3,000 photographs. So the money you would need to spend on that, that's how I am able to make these films. But it's very time-consuming, and you don't always win. And when I lose and I have to have something, I then buy the rights. And as you know, some of these rights are so insane: $120 a second. And then I try and say, look, I'm one guy making this movie, and yes, I have an editor, I have a composer, but I'm not a corporation, I'm not a team of people, it's just me. And that's the way to keep costs down. Sometimes you get them to at least give you a discount on things.

Christian Taylor 42:59
And then are you able to get your rights in perpetuity?

James L. Freedman 43:05
Always. You have to. You have to. Yes.

Christian Taylor 43:10
A lot of these clips were from, I mean, they were all over the place. They were from TV studios and they were from different movie houses, right? Did you have to go to all of those?

James L. Freedman 43:23
Yes, you go to all of them. Sometimes you'll see something as a DVD extra, and nobody even knows who owns the rights to what was shot. And so there you take a gamble. You speak to the studio and they say, "We don't know that we own the rights to this." And then you speak to the people who made the thing, and they say, "We don't know that we own the rights to this, because we're using their footage." And then you speak to the fair use lawyer, and they say, "Just go with it. If the two people who could go after you aren't sure they even own it, they're not gonna fight you on that." And again, what are they gaining when it's such a small thing, right?

Christian Taylor 44:02
Right, right, right. Okay. Now, I know that you have done several of these films, and right now one of the biggest things filmmakers are struggling with is the finances of all of this: what's happening in the market, what we spend on films, what we make back on films, how we set our budgets. Is there anything you can educate us on, since you've been in this business for a while? How can you help us in this area?

James L. Freedman 44:27
What works for me, and if that helps anyone else, great, is I don't have to pay myself for my time. So if something takes a long time, it's my time. I'm not spending money. So I use that. That's why I research myself. I'm not paying a researcher. That's why I do all the studio calls myself and all this. I'm the producer. It's my least favorite thing to do on these films. I love writing them, I love directing them. The producing part is not my favorite thing to do, but it's necessary, very necessary. You just have to be a dog with a bone. Every day when I'm editing, I sit down to do a hundred things, and I do ten, and you know that's a good day. But I still hope to do a hundred. I never will, but there are so many things you're constantly trying to fix. So you just go one at a time, and somehow it gets done. Somehow it gets done. On my second film, Carl Laemmle, I got a grant from Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation, and so I teamed up with a nonprofit who takes 7 percent of whatever you bring in. So I was able to raise money by people making tax-deductible donations, and what Steven Spielberg's foundation gave me. So I was ahead of the game right there. And then I also knew, and it's kind of coincidental, I never set out to do this, but because my first two films were about Jewish Americans, the Jewish film festival circuit, which pays you, they pay to screen your films. I knew I was kind of a big fish in a small pond there. So I knew when I made Grodin, I could get some money back from these film festivals. And that sort of goes into your budget right away. You know you're working with that. You're gonna make that money. And it's not insignificant money. So there are other things like that. I'm sure there are churches and other religions or other entities that are very interested in the work of the filmmakers that you have listening. I would say, look at all those options as best you can.

Christian Taylor 46:49
That is very instructive. Thank you for that. I do have a couple of other questions. So let me ask you this. Do you have a ratio or a budget number where you think, I don't want to spend more than this amount on a documentary, because I'm not sure I'm going to recoup that amount?

James L. Freedman 47:09
It's not a specific number, it's a ballpark, but it's more about keeping costs down on every single aspect of the production, and knowing that if I have to spend money... if you're interviewing someone, you can't interview them in a hotel room. You have to interview them in a hotel suite, because you need room for your cameraman, you need distance, and you don't want to see a bed in the frame. When you're forced to do that, you know you have to spend that money. So then I think to myself, okay, how can I make that money up by not spending it elsewhere? Getting clips donated and stills donated and home movies donated, and all that material that Elissa Grodin was able to give me, is tremendous. And then you go through everything else, and sometimes you have to say, that's too expensive, I just have to let that go. But it's very rare. I usually can figure out some way to get the person to at least reduce the price a little bit, or find some alternative that will work just as well. But that all takes a lot of time.

Christian Taylor 48:15
Yeah, you're good at thinking outside of the box, and you're willing to take the extra time to get it done. That's great. All right. Now, full disclosure for our listeners: Virgil Films, as you heard earlier in the podcast, sponsors the show. And that's actually how your film came across my desk. But I am a Grodin fan, as you've heard earlier, so I didn't need much convincing. Tell me how you and Virgil found each other.

James L. Freedman 48:40
Through a friend of mine, a mutual friend. I just kind of liked what they were saying, what their plans were for the film, and why wouldn't I?

Christian Taylor 48:48
Yeah. And what do they handle and what do you handle?

James L. Freedman 48:52
They handle getting it on the streaming sites. Charles Grodin is on Amazon and Google Play and Fandango at Home and Apple TV. And I had done the TCM thing, because they had shown my Carl Laemmle film a few years ago, and they came to me.

Christian Taylor 49:10
Well, tell me what that TCM thing is. I was gonna ask you about that next.

James L. Freedman 49:14
So, Turner Classic Movies: Steven Spielberg wanted them to do a documentary night, where you show a documentary and then you show films that sort of comment on the documentary. And they used my Charles Grodin film to kick off the film series, and my Carl Laemmle film is also in that series, October 23rd. They licensed all three of my films for five years, so I was very fortunate, and it's a wonderful home for my movies. When I finally met Martin Scorsese and I was in his home, I saw his editing room. He has TCM on with the sound off at all times. And I said, "Why do you have TCM on at all times?" He said, "Because just looking at the pictures without the sound, you can see how they're choosing to tell the story. And it just always helps my editing if I can glance over from time to time, and maybe it'll spur an idea or something." I always have TCM on for a different reason. If I'm recording a ball game, I know they won't give the ball scores away before I watch the game.

Christian Taylor 50:19
Wow, that's a great tip from Scorsese. Thank you for sharing that. A couple of questions before we go. What surprised you most about Charles Grodin once you started digging into his life?

James L. Freedman 50:30
There were two things. The extent of his social justice work: that he was literally going to visit these women in prison every single week. Julian Schlossberg lived near Bedford Hills Prison, and Chuck would go visit him after the prison visits, and he said he'd be a broken man, crying. I mean, the wheels of justice work so slowly. And just the fact that he did this, you know, he devoted the last 20 years of his life to this. It really speaks volumes for who the guy was, and why I feel privileged to have told his story. And the other thing was the death of his father, which I didn't know much about, who died when Chuck was 17. When Chuck was a teenager, his father always wanted him to work in the store after school and on weekends, and Chuck just wanted to play ball, like most normal teenage boys. And his father thought of him as a lazy bum. And Chuck was actually a workaholic. And when I spoke to Elissa Grodin, I said, "I think it's kind of a reaction, that he's still showing his father, look, I have value. I just didn't want to work in your store when I was a kid all the time." And I think that motivated him, because his father died before they had had a rapprochement. I don't think that ever leaves you as a kid.

Christian Taylor 51:56
Yeah. Well, let me ask you, I wondered, he is such a man of depth. Do you think that it came from that incident, or was it in him from the start?

James L. Freedman 52:11
It probably was in him from the start. And there's a Jewish expression, tikkun olam, which is, you save one life, you save the world. And he absolutely believed in that. And so did Carl Laemmle, and so did Marty Glickman. And it's a wonderful thing to believe in, because you feel so helpless sometimes with what's going on in the world, regardless of your political bent. And you say, how can I affect anything? And these films show that one person can affect an enormous amount. And I'm very proud of that. That's kind of a fun message to put out into the universe, as it were. Not to get too esoteric, but I guess I just did.

Christian Taylor 52:48
Well, and I think that's very important. I appreciate that, actually. I know that in the Jewish faith, and it's true also in the Christian faith, and I'm sure it's probably true in most faiths, it is very important to do good. I have several close Jewish friends who talk to me about that, and I know it's a very, very important tenet in your faith. Was Charles Grodin's faith important to him, or did it just come because he was raised with that moral value?

James L. Freedman 53:17
His parents were Orthodox, but after he was bar mitzvahed, he was not religious as a Jewish person, but he was very proud of being Jewish. But he didn't go to temple as an adult. That was not the case.

Christian Taylor 53:31
I think it's interesting, because I think he lived his faith anyway.

James L. Freedman 53:35
That's exactly right. That's right.

Christian Taylor 53:37
Where can everybody watch this film?

James L. Freedman 53:39
It is on Amazon and Apple TV, iTunes I guess, Google Play, and it's on Fandango at Home, and I think it's even on YouTube TV, I'm not sure. And it'll be back in the rotation on TCM next year.

Christian Taylor 53:54
Perfect. All right. Now we've come to everybody's favorite segment, which is DocuView Deja View. Do you have movies to recommend that our listeners might love?

James L. Freedman 54:06
I'm gonna be a little egotistical here and recommend my second film, Carl Laemmle, which is on Amazon right now and at the end of the year will be on Fandango. And the reason is, not as many people have seen that film, because it's about a guy who is before everyone's time. He founded Universal Studios. And as I said earlier, he got all these refugees out of Nazi Germany, and the story of how he did it, and had to fight our own US government, as well as the German government, to get these people out, is really something special. And also, it's a wonderful panache of early Hollywood, from the silent films to him fighting Thomas Edison's monopolistic trust and beating him. Thomas Edison sued Carl Laemmle 289 times. Carl Laemmle won 289 suits. He stole Mary Pickford away from D. W. Griffith, and then lost her again. And it's how one guy with nothing, he didn't get into the movie business until he was 40 years old, how one guy just found ways to get around the system and beat people who had much greater resources and power than he did. It's a who's who, if you like the Universal monster movies. There's a lot on that. There's a lot on how Nazi Germany politicized the great anti-war movie, All Quiet on the Western Front, which was the only Universal film to win an Academy Award until The Sting in 1973. And they won that in 1931, I think, the third year of the Academy Awards. I'm very proud of that film as well. And it's a really fun ride in the movie business, and then to see what one man can do to beat the system, as it were.

Christian Taylor 55:56
That's incredible. Well, you've sold me. I am a World War II filmmaker, and I have not heard of this story. So I'm super interested and can't wait to watch. So thank you very much for that.

James L. Freedman 56:08
Yes, and also my first film, Glickman, will be on Fandango and hopefully also Amazon at the end of the year.

Christian Taylor 56:14
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. I was interested in that as well. And I wanted to thank you also for mentioning all of the movies that Grodin had done. There were several in there that I had never watched, like Sex and the College Girl. I'm not sure I wanna watch that.

James L. Freedman 56:29
No, you don't want to watch that. I had to watch all his movies, and you want to watch the best ones over and over again. But every actor has a bunch of films that they would probably prefer to forget. That was his first film, and it was his first opportunity, in a very low-budget film. I use it for comic relief in the film.

Christian Taylor 56:51
Well, it was great. I loved the way you used comedy. I can tell that you were a comedy writer. It was...

James L. Freedman 56:56
Thank you.

Christian Taylor 56:57
...a delightful film. Thank you for sharing it. Thank you for your time here on the show. You have earned my respect with your film, and I look forward to watching your others. And I do hope you'll come back and talk to me when you make your next one.

James L. Freedman 57:10
Thank you so much, Christian. And thank you all for listening. I really appreciate it.

Christian Taylor 57:15
Thank you all for listening to Documentary First, where we believe everybody has a story to tell, and you can be the one to tell it. Bye, everybody.