I'LL BE DERNED!.....AN IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH ACTOR BRUCE DERN

By: Terry L. DuFoe

BRUCE: Hello;

OUTRE: Yes, is Mr. Bruce Dern in?

BRUCE: Yes, this is.

OUTRE: This is "FilmFax" and "Outre" magazines calling.

BRUCE: Right.

OUTRE: I had spoke with Robert today....

BRUCE: He told you you could call.

OUTRE: Exactly, I want to thank-you....

BRUCE: Oh, your kidding. Your really calling for two magazines? It comes off the 
same recording, because you can't type that fast.

OUTRE: No, I can't

BRUCE: So, I'll make your public announcement that you may be recording most of 
this so that's o.k. with me.

OUTRE: O.k., thank-you.

BRUCE: So just tell me again what the name of the two magazines are so I don't 
forget in my own mind.

OUTRE: "OUTRE" and "FILMFAX" magazines.

BRUCE: That sells all over the country? And what's it about basically?

OUTRE: It's all about the world of ultramedia!

BRUCE: But it's not a show biz kind of you know, show biz or buz talk, or is 
Rosie having the baby and was there a real donor, and who's the father and all 
that kind of shit? Is Michael Jackson really marring this woman cause I think 
it's all a crock of shit.

OUTRE: No, we center on media legends like Samuel Z. Arkoff, who we interviewed 
for the magazine in "Outre" number #1.

BRUCE: Well, if you talked to Sam Arkoff you talked to the Godfather.

OUTRE: I'll send you a copy of the article.

BRUCE: If I give you my home address will it be protected?

OUTRE: Definitely!

BRUCE: Good. I have to much German fan mail at home that bothers me already. 
There can't be that many people that have never been out of a wheel chair or 
totally blind or all this bullshit that they say in their letters. Uh, I mean 
some of it isn't bullshit, some of it's legitimate when they write. I have rules 
for fans for example; I return no fan mail or have my people return no fan mail 
for me if, there is not a return stamp, number #1., Number #2. I don't return 
fan mail if they don't express any thing other than I'm just a tremendous fan of 
yours and I loved you most of all in "The Great American Train Robbery" you know 
which I was never anywhere near much less in and thirdly, I don't return fan 
mail if they want a picture from a certain movie because I don't know how to get 
these pictures and I'm not nuts about going into Larry Edmunds book store and 
asking for nine 8x10's of myself from "Posse". (1975)

OUTRE: Your fans seem to span all ages. In fact my 13 year old daughter loves 
your films and is listening in on this interview.

BRUCE: That's fine. She keeps her mouth shut at school right? Your lips are 
sealed Tiffany.

OUTRE: Say hi Tiffany. Get it out of your system.

TIFFANY:Hi.

BRUCE: Hi.

OUTRE: How did you get involved in "Speedvisions Lost Drive In"?

BRUCE: I got a phone call one day from this guy Robert Dalrymple totally out of 
the blue. I didn't know who he was, I didn't know who "Speedvision" was, I 
didn't know who Mesmerized Studios was and I didn't know anything about anybody 
that wanted to revive Drive-In movies that were for the most part rather 
ghastly! I could use the word gas in several descriptive situations I'm sure 
but, G-H-A-S-T-L-Y would be the best first syllable for them! They were made in 
a era when the Drive-In was popular, the plus to that being that there was a 
direct market from the provider to the market place of Drive-In movies 
particularly of this kind and A.I.P had it down to a science, which the only 
exploitation kind of movies that I ever did were for A.I.P. and basically were 
for Roger Corman. You know it's unfair to call him the king of the B-movies 
because he did better then B-movies! If you classify a B-movie in terms of 
economics and how much money it cost to make it or, how short of time you had to 
make it in then their B-movies but, if you classify them because of content or 
anything like that, on certain movies Corman really tried to make an attempt to 
tell it like it was and they got him into some incredibly bad trouble and bad 
luck and other times they've got him into some incredibly good luck. I was 
interested in doing "Lost Drive In" when they explained to me what "Speedvision" 
was trying to do and what it was about.

OUTRE: I understand "Speedvision" is available on C-band for backyard dish 
owners in addition to cable and the small DSS dish market through "Direct T.V.".

BRUCE: We can't get it out here. I have a big satellite dish up in Tahoe and I'm 
trying to get them to give me the actual transponder number so that I can look 
at it one time but, if you ask Dalrymple about the transponder numbers and 
everything he doesn't know what that means. Well that kind of frightens me right 
away because it means does he know what a big dish really does? Or how it 
operates and that you can go half way across the sky and find 24 different 
satellites that you can beam off of you know. It's not one of those DSS machines 
where everything is ready made but, doesn't move. I mean their locked on a 
certain satellite.

OUTRE: You can find "Speedvision" on C4-transponder 11 on your dish.

BRUCE: Let me write that down.

OUTRE: I understand you prefer to live away from the insanity of L.A.?

BRUCE: Unfortunately, I live in Malibu Colony which is the last of a certain 
breed of housing in this country and it's the south of France only it's in the 
north of Malibu. It's a private colony protected by armed guards and a guard 
gate yet at the same time it's on the beach. We own up to the main high tide 
line because they can't come and camp out beyond the main tide line. I hate 
being bothered when your sitting on the beach on a nice day, during half time of 
a football game because I'm basically a gambler in a way, sports wise and it's 
annoying when your eye sockets are taking a 45 minute break half time of a 49ers 
Dallas game or something like that and you have somebody come up and say "Mr. 
Dern, oh god, I love your movies. Can I use your bathroom?" No, my bathroom is 
out! Try Surf Rider Beach that's why it's a half mile away. Go there, it's a 
public beach. They also ask if you mind if I take pictures of your house? Well 
you can't mind, but yes you do mind. I always ask them if you will promise to 
keep it unidentified as far as the location. I mean take pictures of the house 
but don't say it's between this guy's house or that guy's house or it's between 
this person's or that person's house. I remember back in 1983 we got hit with a 
big flood from the ocean. We got whacked and lost the front 2000 square feet of 
our house in the ocean which caused us to build a bald cap which was a miracle 
in the long run but it should have been built before, however the ocean had 
never been a problem before. I bought my house from Frank Capra. Capra built it 
in 1929, but nobody in those days ever built these homes to be lived in all year 
round and when they did they didn't use them all year round and to this day 
there's only 72 homes in the colony of which only 24 are lived in year round.

OUTRE: At one time did you live in L.A.?

BRUCE: Well, I had lived in L.A. at a permanent residence since 1960. Before 
that I lived in Winnetka Illinois which is where I was born and raised and then 
I was off to the Chode School in Wellingford Connecticut for 2 years as a 
freshman and sophomore in high school. I tested the prep school experience! They 
sent me there to shape up because I was kind of a wild kid and I gambled even 
when I was young and they didn't like that. They didn't like my best friends who 
were Jewish kids for the most part and if you know anything about the North 
Shore of Chicago until you get to Highland Park the Jewish folks have a rough 
time buying property. It's disgusting when you find out the mayor of Kennelworth 
used to be Chuck Percy for a long time. I think he's Catholic and Kennelworth is 
the first of the towns that doesn't admit that he's Catholic and if he's 
Catholic he's the only Catholic in the whole town. It's not that they 
discriminate against Jewish and Catholic folks, they discriminate period and 
they practice it whenever they want. I mean I'm making them seem like monsters, 
they're not monsters but at the same Percy's got a perfect right to be worried. 
I mean he had a guy walk off the beach and murder his daughter right in her own 
bed several years ago. Irv Cupsinate who writes the column for "The Chicago Sun 
Times" had a similar thing happen to his daughter and it was never solved and 
they never found the guy although some guy did admit to doing Percy's thing but 
they never tried him for it.

OUTRE: It almost sounds like a movie doesn't it?

BRUCE: Well, they usually end up being movies or Bob Stack movies meaning Robert 
Stack's 10 most wanted.

OUTRE: You mentioned that you were wild. Of course that was certainly portrayed 
in your movies. Were you a reckless biker like your character The Looser was 
portrayed in the 1966 film "The Wild Angels" where you were shot by the Police 
during an insane chase scene?

BRUCE: No, I'm not into speed, I'm a runner. I always have been a runner.

OUTRE: What do you mean by that? 

BRUCE: Well, I run everyday. I haven't missed a day running in over 13 years 
except for 5 days and that's because I had a collapsed lung. I suffered for a 
longer period then that but I eventually ran through the collapsed lung. I tried 
to make the Olympic team in 1956 and was unsuccessful and since that time I've 
been striving to get back into shape even though your not going to get back at 
60 years old what you could do at 30 years old. Being a half miler that's 2 
laps, and I wouldn't look forward to ralfing on my hands and knees so I race in 
my own age group in the Senior Olympics. I go all over the country and the world 
doing that and I'm in the top 109 in the 800 meters for men 60 to 65 and that's 
a bit of an accomplishment but it's a sickness, that I can't quit. That's what a 
sickness is. It's wonderful on the days that you feel great but on the days that 
you feel awful you still go out and push yourself, it's disgusting!

OUTRE: I understand that "Speedvision" is going to be airing "Cycle Savages" 
(1969) of which you have a starring role as a psychotic biker who becomes 
involved in white slavery.

BRUCE: I play Keeg and I and my motorcycle gang kidnap high school girls who we 
give LSD and rape before we sell them. In one scene I torture Chris Robinson by 
putting his hand in a vise. Melody Patterson is in the film and the executive 
producers were disc jockey Casey Kasem and Mike Curb of the "Mike Curb 
Congregation" who is now Lieutenant Governor of California.

OUTRE: "The Wild Angels" also featured non-actors including Nancy Sinatra who 
had a hit on "These Boots Are Made For Walking". 

BRUCE: Yeah, she was in "The Wild Angels". She played Peter Fondas girl friend. 
"The Wild Angels" made about six and a half million dollars which doesn't seem 
like a lot of money but, the movie was made for two hundred and eighty five 
thousand and it was made in sixteen or seventeen days. It was the first one I 
did for A.I.P. and it was interesting to see biker Peter Fonda before "Easy 
Rider" (1969). "The Wild Angels" was made in the spring of 1966. I co-starred in 
that with my ex wife Diane Ladd. It was out of that movie that Laura was 
conceived and later born. It was the first of the motorcycle movies and the 
first of my exploitation pictures. I had been kind of dead in the water movie 
wise before I made "The Wild Angels" for Roger Corman. It was based on stories 
told by the real California Angels, who appeared as themselves. Afterwards they 
sued for defamation of character. Peter Bogdanovich was the assistant director. 

OUTRE: It is interesting that you consider "The Wild Angels" a turning point in 
your career considering before that you did Hitchcocks "Marnie" (1964) and 
"Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1965) with Betty Davis.

BRUCE: In 1966 I'd been an actor for 10 years. I began in 1956, so I've done 40 
years now and my family was very unsupportive of my choice to leave being a 
lawyer or go to work in the family store which at that time was Carson Piere 
Scott Inc. which was a big department store in Chicago. The store was owned by 
Federated but was still run by our family. Once Federated had taken over Carson 
we didn't know how long Carsons was going to last and as it had turned out it 
didn't last beyond 89 or 90 when the Federated department stores bought them 
out. What ever happened to Bullocks, what ever happened to Bloomingdales? It's a 
tragedy to me. I mean it's like what happened to the exploitation films? In the 
time that I had done several exploitation films for A.I.P. we've lost 2 
critically important building sources in America and that is the middle to upper 
range department store such as Bullocks, The May Company, and Carsons of which 
were bought out by combines such as Bergners which bought out Carsons, which is 
the Dutch combine. You say to yourself now what the hell does the Dutch do 
besides growing tulips and, ice skating? What do they have to do with department 
stores?

OUTRE: Let me ask you this. You of course have worked with A.I.P. and other 
small studios but, you have also done pictures with the giants like Universal 
Studios. Was it easier working with A.I.P. in comparison to the major studios?

BRUCE: No, it was always easier working with the major studios.

OUTRE: Really, why is that?

BRUCE: Well, I can name two basic reasons without wanting to hurt anybody. One 
would be attitude toward the individual, the individualism really of the artist. 
In other words, in exploitation you were hired because you had a gift of gab. 
The pictures were very, very quick! You could turn a page that was relatively 
blank into a page of dynamite, witty, funny, terrifying, blood letting, 
animalistic behavior through dialogue which was not allowed otherwise. Secondly, 
an advantage of the A.I.P. type movie or B-film that you refer to it as would be 
the fact that you were going to basically run into new people that were either 
on their way up or their way down and you would catch them kind of in between. I 
never looked at it that way. I remember doing "Cycle Savages" in which Scott 
Brady played a little one scene bit part and that always affected me because I'd 
been very impressed by Scott Brady and not impressed that he was overly gifted 
as a actor but, that he was certainly gifted in several things. What I liked 
about him and why I bring him up is that he managed to survive the dwindling 
interest in his career by doing a plethora of A.I.P. typish movies from the mid 
1950 to the 1970's. Where he is now or what's become of him I don't know but, he 
was great! He had his own television series called; "Shotgun Slade". In the 40's 
he starred in many many movies. Whether you call them B-movies or not he was the 
star of movies and I'm sure some of them made some money and some didn't but, 
certainly made enough money that somebody that ran a studio felt aware that 
Scott Brady was going to bring home the bacon for them if they could land him to 
do a part. What interested me was that it wasn't the lead in the movie which it 
always was before.

OUTRE: What other actors have you enjoyed in film? For instance let's say Jack 
Nicholson who wrote your film "The Trip" (1967) for A.I.P. and "Psych-Out" 
(1968) of which you co-starred with him. What do you think of him?

BRUCE: Oh, it's tough to say because I have a personal relationship with him. I 
mean he was one of the very first actors I ever met when I came to Hollywood. We 
were both similar age wise, background wise in terms we were both interested in 
sports, we were both interested in the movie industry, we were both interested 
in literature. He's a bright man. He came through for me at times of need. I've 
come through for him at times of need. We're friends to the heart and yet we 
probably haven't talked in 10 years. If he called me tomorrow and said, "Derns I 
need you to do the following thing" and, it was something I could deal with and 
he had thought through rationally I'm sure I would do it and vice versa. 

OUTRE: What about Peter Fonda?

BRUCE: Not anything, no relationship. I've never had any contact with Peter 
Fonda other than the 10 days we made "The Wild Angels". We made "The Wild 
Angels" in 10 days for about two hundred ninety thousand dollars and I have no 
other history with him other then "The Trip" (1961) of which I also did with 
Peter. A.I.P. often used names like Fonda, Sinatra, because it looked good on 
the billboard.

OUTRE: You co-starred with Dennis Hopper in "The Trip". Can you comment on him?

BRUCE: I'm a member of the Actor's Studio in New York as is Dennis. I guess 
Dennis paid his dues but, to me Dennis was a star. When we were 20 Dennis had 
already done two of the James Dean movies that he was going to be in and was on 
his way to starting to do "Giant" which would have been his third, but he had so 
many ups and downs. Once he made a decision to direct as well as act. I'm not 
sure he fully recovered from that and that non-recovery kind of unfolded a 
rather driven person who would do what ever it took to stay on top, meaning in 
terms of roles. I don't mean chicanery, or anything like that. I've never gotten 
to know Dennis well. I've always been impressed by the fact that he has a 
multiplicity of talents. He can make a movie, he takes beautiful pictures, he's 
an artist, he's a very good actor, and you know he was close to James Dean, and 
actually worked with James Dean. He was around James Dean who was like an icon 
to us because he had already passed away when we got to Hollywood so he was 
somebody that left a mark. It was quite indelible on somebody like me because I 
walked into the theatre and I saw people riveted to the screen when he was on it 
and I said, "I want to be able to do that!" I want people to really look at me 
and observe that you can't wait for the dialogue to happen for you to feel that 
this guy is successful enough because maybe his voice isn't up to what you think 
or maybe he can't do this or that but, at least he's an interesting troubled 
human being. I became an actor in 1956, really for one reason. I was interested 
in what made people do what they do particularly in times of crisis and that led 
me to being under contract with Mr. Kazan who I did "Wild River" (1960) for. 
When I first came to New York as an actor, I had two goals. One was to work for 
Kazan, and two was to become a member of The Actor's Studio and I don't think I 
was alone. I think that was a goal of many actors, maybe most actors that came 
to New York certainly in the mid 50's.

OUTRE: How do you feel now that you've achieved that?

BRUCE: Well, I achieved it very quickly. I was extremely lucky in that way and 
I'm not disappointed at all. I still feel Mr. Kazan is probably one of the best 
although I don't consider him a genius and I do feel that I have worked for 2 
geniuses. I do consider him maybe the best film maker I've ever worked for. 

OUTRE: Who are the 2 geniuses?

BRUCE: Well, Mr. Hitchcock obviously and a guy named Douglas Trumbull who at 18 
years old won a Oscar for "2001" and directed me in a movie called "Silent 
Running" (1971) which was really the beginning of my career as a guy who could 
star in movies or carry a movie and was something that made me feel, you know 
like I was doing the right thing and I wasn't whoring out. When I made "Silent 
Running" I wasn't living in a cold water flat but, I wasn't living on Gracie 
Square, or Sutton Place either and I was driving a cab 7 nights a week and had a 
baby that I was struggling to support, and I had a wife who was on the road 
doing the road company show of "The Fantastics". It was a very, very difficult 
time but, my days at The Actor's Studio during that time enlightened me a great 
deal and gave me a constant striving goal that never leaves me to this day, it 
developed unbelievable work habits in me and left me with a way to work and I 
think the thing that visibly shakes me the most about Laura's age group, who's 
my daughter and who's an actress also, is their preparation. Somehow the closer 
the camera gets to them the more panicy they get and the more afraid that their 
going to get exposed. We thrived for it to get as close to us as possible so we 
could see the exposure. I mean, acting is very simple and when I say it to 
people they say, "Well, no it doesn't look very simple to me." Well it is very 
simple. The art of acting is the very simple thing of being able to be publicly 
private, and if you can be publicly private, you can act. If you can't or your 
worried about that well, then go to game shows or get out of the business, it's 
as simple as that.

OUTRE: Getting back to "Lost Drive-In" where's the show filmed? I know it's shot 
at a real Drive-In but, where's it located?

BRUCE: Well, so far I've done two stints and we used 2 different Drive-Ins. One 
was in Long Beach, and one was in Van Nuys. The one in Long Beach has since 
become history and the one in Van Nuys is closed so I think the Drive-In is 
definitely on it's last leg. Not last legs but leg! There was almost a plethora 
of Drive-Ins in the 50's and 60's and now I think their a thing of the past.

OUTRE: Why do you think so, why has that happened?

BRUCE: I don't think that the guys that own the Drive-Ins can afford the movies 
that come out now because they can't compete with the six plexes and the 
multi-plexes that show 75 to 100 seats per multi-plex. They show the kinds of 
movies that are hits and, people don't seem to go out and pursue movies because 
of the reasons we would go to pursue movies. We pursue movies because of A: Who 
was in it. B: What the subject matter was. C: Who directed it. D: What it looked 
at, what it examined, what it might have been about, what kind of film, and 
where was the film headed, just in general and now I think they go to the films 
that are hot. Look at the way a movie is measured now. You make a movie and it's 
measured on it's first weekend and in the first weekend, if the numbers aren't 
there the movie is pulled or dropped from half it's theatres or it's not given a 
chance to survive and that's a tragedy!

OUTRE: It sure is.

BRUCE: It's like Broadway in a way. Broadway for other reasons has become the 
same way. If you have a drama and you go to Broadway of which I did in 1979 it 
is measured by it's first week. I did a play about Sinclair Lewis and Dorthy 
Thompson and the relationship between the two of them and I was stunned from 
when I had been there before in 1958, 1959, and 1960 doing Orpheus descending 
off Broadway and "Shadow Of A Gunman" and "Sweet Birdie" both with the original 
companies. I was quite astounded that the old plays were kind of open to 
everyone and every play had a chance but, now if your in a drama you had better 
be in a Pulitzer Prize winning drama or your not going to be around very long. 
People aren't going to get to see it because the theatre is so costly to get to 
and the ticket prices are so outrageous that, people can't afford to go so their 
only going to afford to go to what they've been told to go see. Either the best 
musical, or the best comedy, or the best what ever but, it's not drama. They 
don't go to see drama. I remember, I was in "Shadow Of A Gunman" and the alley 
way to "Shadow Of A Gunman" goes out on 45th street and I would sit in the alley 
getting ready to report to the stage door to go up and start putting my make-up 
on for the show that didn't start for maybe an hour and a half and out rolls 
this big limousine and every night the man would get out of the car with two 
poodles one in each hand. He was a huge man about 6'5 or so and his very 
demeanor kind of wife would get out of the back seat and they would make an 
entrance she would go first, then he would follow. There was no touching or 
handling or anything like that and the driver knew he was suppose to pick them 
up at 11:00. They entered into the theatre and to me that was the most theatre 
that I had ever seen. It was drama, it was an entrance to end all entrances and 
that's the way they lived their lives. They were bigger than life and there are 
very few people today that are bigger than life and I'm not sure that movies 
have to have people that are bigger than life to be successful. I just think 
they have to have people that are life like and believable. In other words I 
think the actor has to be able to go home and look in the mirror and say "I was 
on the money tonight." In other words I was honest, my behavior was honest, and 
I communicated honestly. There was a beginning, middle, and end to everything I 
did and I really looked people in the eye and I was really able to communicate 
and I wasn't afraid of being looked back at and caught napping. I find that of 
all that today for the most part is missing.

OUTRE: I went over your press material and I think it's wrong. It reads you 
portray a character on "Lost Drive-In" but, when you are speaking your speaking 
as actor Bruc Dern aren't you?

BRUCE: Well, yes and no, yes in that I did several movies that ended up in 
Drive-Ins and that were made specifically for Drive-Ins. A.I.P. made movies for 
Drive-Ins and didn't make them for hard tops (Indoor Theatres) and so I 
volunteered that. I'm not really a Drive-In buff. I couldn't give you history of 
what movies played at Drive-Ins and what didn't but, I could give you the 
history of mine but, I'm not a person to reveal what worked at Drive-Ins and 
what didn't work. There are certain kinds of movies that you can understand why 
they worked at Drive-Ins. Horror films worked in Drive-Ins because you were 
locked in your car, it was like the safety of your bedroom where you could lock 
the doors. Yes, there were people all around you but, everybody was having a 
uniquely individual experience. They weren't having a group experience, even 
though there was a group in the car because their eyes were on the other cars. 
They watched who was on the move, who was getting out of their cars and, where 
were they going? Your rear view mirror only showed a little bit so you couldn't 
tell where they went. You couldn't always see where they were going and what 
they were up to and it was scary.

OUTRE: You tell a story on "Lost Drive-In" about "The Haunting" (1963). Is that 
story true about how you got scared at a Drive-In watching this film?

BRUCE: I saw "The Haunting" for the first time in a hard top, the second time in 
a Drive-In and the third time in a Drive-In, and to this day, it is maybe the 
scariest movie I ever saw only because it wasn't a good cast. It was a top 
flight cast! I think Gene Simmons was in it and I think Richard Johnson was in 
it and it was based on "The Haunting Of Hell House" which was a novel I guess at 
the time. It had a character played by Julie Harris and she was fantastic in it. 
She made me feel that she really went through that fear and when I met her one 
time I asked her if she was really afraid of ghosts and things like that and she 
said, "Not until I saw the movie", and from that point on I've had trouble 
looking at movies like that.

OUTRE: Is it true you're afraid to go into a house you've never been in before 
alone?

BRUCE: It's not my first choice. I would prefer that somebody I know lead me 
into it and certainly go from room to room ahead of me. I'm terrified of snakes, 
and am afraid that one is going to slither up my leg. I don't think I was aware 
of what a snake could do and the damage he could inflict and where he could get 
to. He could climb along your water pipe and get in and come up through your 
toilet. My God, if I'd of known that I'd probably had a heart attack much 
earlier than I hope I ever have one. It's just difficult. I think there's safety 
in numbers in going into houses. Houses are people themselves and sometimes it 
has to do with what lived there and sometimes it had to do with the house 
itself.

OUTRE: You tell a story on "Lost Drive-In" that goes back to your youth where 
you and your date attempt to leave the Drive-In early only to be stopped by an 
attendant who bust your car window with his fist in order to get his speaker 
back because you failed to remove it. Is this a true story?

BRUCE: Well, it's true but, I was not stopped by a Drive-In attendant who put 
his fist through my window to get his speaker back. I had my girl friend with 
me, as it's true that I was in such a state to get the girl home so that there 
could be some possible extra ciricular activities, that I just forgot that the 
speaker was attached and as it was not going to come off it took the car window 
with it! From that time on I behaved myself very well. I forgot to remove the 
speaker because something else was beckoning me that I had not been familiar 
with. This girl, she was a girl that you wanted to make sure that you got to a 
place where there was a bed and a place for preparation. I think I was probably 
guilty of encouraging that more then anything else so, I charged out with the 
speaker with me which made me terribly familiar to remind anybody who told me 
they were going to see a movie at a Drive-In to, don't forget that the first 
thing you do when your done is put the speaker back on the stand because it's 
going to take your car! Part of your car may go but, part of your car is going 
to stay! The speaker pole is not going to be dragged away unless you're 
Superman!

OUTRE: Have you seen this girl lately, in your later years of life?

BRUCE: The girl from that particular night?

OUTRE: Yes.

BRUCE: Oh God, your talking about a girl that I saw in 1956. Fern Farcash. I 
never saw her again after that night. I think she was embarrassed to be with 
some stupid kid who was ignorant enough to speed off with a Drive-In box and it 
embarrassed her because everybody honked and you know a lot of times they think 
your trying to steal the box! You're not, you've broken it completely in half, 
it's 100 percent mechanically lame, and you could've never fixed it up so that 
it worked or used it any other way!

OUTRE: They described "Lost Drive-In" as having rotating celebrity hosts. So I 
take it your not going to be doing it anymore?

BRUCE: Well, that is now history. I think I am it, and to my knowledge I will 
always be it and that's one of the rules I set down when I agreed to do the 
show. I said, "I don't want to be a rotating host, I either want to be the guy 
or the girl and I don't want to be one of the group!"

OUTRE: I feel your show has captured the true flavor of the Drive-In as it 
really was.

BRUCE: Oh really.

OUTRE: Let me ask you about your daughter Laura Dern. Would you consider any of 
her movies fitting for playing in a Drive-In theatre?

BRUCE: Well, I am not sure that any movie isn't fitting for playing in a 
Drive-In. I mean, the experience of putting a movie in a Drive-In as opposed to 
putting it someplace else has really nothing to do with the kind of a movie it 
is. It's just that there was a genre of movies, hell on wheels kind of movies 
with the Hell Angels taking over a town, or a guy taking a acid trip, or the 
"Pit and The Pendulum" or anything of a "Frankenstein" movie nature, or 
something like that that they put there. I'm a huge fan of "Lawrence Of Arabia". 
I think it's the greatest movie ever made and I've seen it at a Drive-In and 
I've seen it at a hard top and there's no reason why it can't work as 
successfully at a Drive- In. It's just not as intimate of an experience. I mean, 
you don't see the people next to you like you do at an indoor. I think it's up 
to the movie to work. I think most of Mr. Hitchcock's movies would have worked 
excellently at Drive-Ins. I think edge of the chair movies work better at a 
Drive-In then they do at a hard top because I think there's an anticipation of 
the Drive-In. I think it starts with all four windows down, a couple in the back 
seat, obviously in the back seat because they figured they'd get further than 
the couple in the front seat and the couple in the front seat is usually the 
first date couple. The back seat is obviously the couple that might be 
attempting their first time trying to do the monkey business. This was applied 
with enough of the illegal stuff in the bottle, or the illegal stuff in the 
rolled up paper, or whatever it came in and I think the people in the back seat 
had access to that and were probably Drive-In vets of many Drive-Ins where the 
front seat guy had just gotten dad's car for the first or second time and 
thought a Drive-In might be a fun evening. Therefore, the actual impact of what 
the movie made on them was greater on the front seat people than the back seat 
people. Other activities went on in the back seat.

OUTRE: In "Lost Drive-In" you talk about "Two Lane Black Top". That must be one 
of your favorite movies?

BRUCE: Well, it wasn't one of my favorites because I was up for a part in it and 
I didn't get it. It was a 24 hour period that I went through in which it went 
from noon one day, to noon the next day in which I lost 4 roles all of which 
would have made a enormous difference in my career and all on the same day. "Two 
Lane Black Top" was one of these movies. Out of it the wait was worth it because 
I ended up getting in this movie, "Silent Running" which is one of my favorites. 
Many people say it's a cult masterpiece. I have two or three that are really 
legitimate cult masterpieces and "Silent Running" is one of them.

OUTRE: What's the others?

BRUCE: Well, another one is called "Smile" (1975) which is about The California 
State Junior Miss Pageant. Another would have been "That Championship Season" 
(1982) which was a movie about the play, and didn't quite work well as a movie 
but it's a wonderful movie because it's a beautiful story. It's about 5 guys who 
return for the 25th anniversary of winning their state championship in 
basketball at the Little Jessiuet School. 

OUTRE: In 1989 you did a movie for Joe Dante (another Corman alumni) called, 
"The Burbs". Your character of Mark Rumsfield showed your true flair for comedy 
and anyone that calls Corey Feldman and his friends lameos can't be all bad. 

BRUCE: Oh "The Burbs". Oh well, that is what he is!

OUTRE: Did Alfred Hitchcock treat you like cattle when you were on his set?

BRUCE: Well, you know he was accused of saying that also and not just treating 
them like cattle. He certainly never treated me like cattle, he treated me like 
a god. He knew the story board worked. He laid it all out in a story board 
fashion. He knew that frame, to frame, frame throughout the movies that it 
worked and it worked on the story board so therefore, all he had to do was 
re-create the story board. To re-create that he went to great pains to get 
actors who he felt were unpredictable, that were going to enliven that deadly 
story board! By deadly I mean it's unanimated. It just sits there and you have 
to make it work. Your mind can visualize it working but will the people make it 
work? In most cases they did not make it work and in a lot of cases they did 
make it work. I remember he was terribly upset when he did "Torn Curtain" that 
he had to pay Paul Newman and Julie Andrews $750,000 dollars a piece! He thought 
that was outrageous to have to pay to an actor, which is why he probably paid me 
so little but, I had played the part for him years earlier in "Marnie", (1964) 
it's a very difficult part in which I had discovered a kind of a shortcut. Mr. 
Hitchcock was not a man you could go up to as an actor and ask to work out a 
problem. He didn't have the patience for it, he didn't have the time for it, nor 
did he have the willingness to explain it to you because he had felt he had 
hired somebody who should had already known that. What he was there for was to 
be entertained by us. I'd say, "Why did you hire me for this movie?" "Family 
Plot" (1976) being it was his last film. He said, (imitating Hitchcock) "Because 
one never knows what the two of you might do together Bruce. I hired you because 
I know it's going to be a surprise, I want the audience to be surprised because 
what's coming down the road for them is not going to be a surprise and they know 
that. You will be the surprise." Much like Janet Leigh going to take a shower in 
"Psycho". He said, (imitating Hitchcock) "Did you realize that that's a scene in 
which there are 72 different cuts?" In other words he shot 72 different angles 
of the knife stabbing her and yet she was never touched once. By the knife, I 
mean even a rubber knife. So it gives you an idea of the pain staking labor that 
it takes. I think he said it took him a whole week. 5 days to do that sequence 
just because it had to be a certain way. She had to go from the beginning of it, 
to the middle of it, to the end of it, fighting back, not fighting back, and 
then being stabbed many times and having the blood drain down the thing, 
clutching the curtain, and all the different things he had to do! It was pain 
staking but fun. He was fun, and the reason I call him a genius is because he 
had the ability at any moment during the day to come to you and be in control. 
You know if you'd ask him; "What am I doing in the shot, what is this scene 
about?" He could tell any member of the crew who came up to him during the 
course of the shot from the actor, to the hair stylist, to the art director, to 
the prop man just what it was that their contribution was to make it a better 
shot, and that's genius to me! He knew what he wanted, he knew how to lay it 
out, and he knew what he needed from each department to make it work. Doug 
Trumble was also a genius to me because he directed "Silent Running" (1972) and 
Doug even dreamed up the scenario. I mean the thing that makes it so amazing to 
me is that you figure this movie was made 3 years before R2-D2. It was made 
three years before they made "Star Wars". So, he was using robots and yet they 
weren't robots, they were real people. They were bi-lateral amputees, they were 
kids that had been amputated at the waist, and so you could put these kits on 
them and their arms were really the legs of the kit, and they would push 
themselves up on their arms and therefore the trunks of their body would be off 
the ground and they would walk around that way and that's why they have that 
kind of adorably, lovable, human motion about them, because they are human! 

OUTRE: Right, it's one of the greats. Do you think Roger Corman is a genius? I 
know it's hard to put him in the same bracket as Alfred Hitchcock.

BRUCE: No, he's not a genius but, he could get it done in time and still get as 
much value out of it as you can. I mean we always had plenty of time to 
rehearse, we always had plenty of time for things like that but, in the early 
days when you worked for Roger there were no stand-ins. While you were standing 
in and they were lighting the shots, the only way to get through the boredom of 
that was to keep rehearsing again and again and you just kept getting better and 
better.

OUTRE: Did you get along well with Sam Arkoff and his partner?

BRUCE: Yeah. He was fantastic! He didn't show up much on the set, he had a 
partner named James Nicholson who later left to become an executive at 20th 
Century Fox and then died at 45 on the tennis court but together they knew where 
the movie was going to belong, basically in the South in the Drive-In, and what 
the morality of that community was, and what they wouldn't take. Just those 
kinds of things.

OUTRE: You seem to be very proud of your Drive-In days and you played your 
quirky roles very well and we thank you for that.

BRUCE: Oh well your welcome, I could talk forever about it. It was a unique part 
of my life. Now you make a movie and you don't know if it's going to show up at 
a Drive-In or not, more than likely it will because they don't show 3 films 
anymore. However, nobody makes movies for Drive-Ins anymore, where back then 
they were made specifically for them. The sad thing is that they're gone, that 
their really dinosaurs, and that those that are still around are closing down. 
It was a chance for a family to go see a movie together, you know, and everybody 
could have what they wanted out of the experience. I mean, there was the kid 
that was there to hunt for girls when he wasn't suppose to be out when he'd been 
grounded, or anything like that, he could still have his hunt for girls and 
enjoy the movie or not enjoy the movie but, he could be there and the popcorn 
stand was never that far away.

OUTRE: The popcorn wasn't as expensive as it is now either.

BRUCE: No, well none of it was as expensive as it is now and back then they had 
the bargains that they had. I mean they had a thing called buck night where they 
let a car in for a buck. You'd pile nine people in the car and you would go and 
the car would get in for a buck, and then they had a night where they'd charge 
you a buck for everybody in the car. Depending on what the movie was, the movies 
would have long runs at the Drive-In or short runs depending on how the movie 
was received. The one thing about the drive is that movie popularity was never 
affected by the critic. Really the critic never really came into play movie wise 
as far as I was concerned until the early 60's, which was the first time the 
critics would really dissect a Drive-In movie like they would a regular movie at 
a indoor theatre palace. I just miss them! I think it's really to bad because it 
is a part of Americana. It is Americana and it's gone, and kind of like the 
Tottle House is gone, and the places that were in the 50's. I mean the 50's were 
a magical time to be in high school and grade school. I tell you they were 
magical for me, there weren't war threats, there was the beginning of some civil 
unrest and civil disobedience and there should have been! It didn't really touch 
us in the part of Illinois that I lived in, it touched the people that were 
black or minority that were far away. We didn't go to school with them. They 
went to a different high school but, it was in a different town. We didn't have 
any blacks that lived in our town but, we had domestics and they had children 
and they lived in a nearby town and they would go to high school with us. It was 
a different era. I don't know that the Drive-In would make it today. I mean I 
can see why they've gone down. I don't know that it would survive today. I don't 
know that the people have the patience to well... I think there's something 
about a six-plex. Definitely the single theatre movie is having a tough time 
surviving.

OUTRE: Because of television? 

BRUCE: Yeah, well there's two things that television killed, one of them was the 
single theatre movie, and two, the afternoon newspaper, and that's another thing 
that I miss a great deal that television took away from us because you already 
had the news or you'd see it on t.v. at five o'clock so why have an afternoon 
newspaper? We lost great establishments because of that and great newspapers and 
great rivalries and things that forced the morning paper to do a better job to 
fight for it's existence better, and cities were actually impounded by or 
guardianship by their paper system and by the power of the afternoon paper as 
well as the morning paper. You had two chances to read the same story but, they 
had already taken a different twist by four o'clock as they had at seven 
o'clock.

OUTRE: Now we have computers, of which I don't care for.

BRUCE: I wouldn't have a computer in my house. There's two things I don't have; 
I'm afraid of guns because of what I might do with a gun, and I'm afraid of what 
I might do with a computer.... smash it would be the first thing and that would 
be about $3000.00 or whatever it cost. I'm not a writer, I think to a writer 
it's probably enormously advantages, to most people. I'm for them in that it 
makes life easier. Anything that makes things easier for folks to make it 
through the day I'm for. In being a runner, you can't cheat on the run, you 
still have to put the mileage in and you have to put it in daily and, you have 
to run the speed work every now and then and, you have to run the distance every 
now and then. You have to get the 50 miles a week in. What amazes me is that 
people get on these talk shows or get on various television venues and will 
actually brag that they don't have a T.V. in their home, therefore they don't 
know what they would do at times if they had the television to take the place of 
what they do now because everything is so organized. Every kid has a project, 
every kid has things that they're working on specifically, then they have a 
dinner and a family hour, or whatever they do. You miss those kinds of things. 
It's really a shame and it really leads back to the swan song of the Drive-In. 
Will the Drive-In come back? No. When "SpeedVision" first approached me they 
really had nothing to do with the Drive-Ins to begin with. They started as a 
channel that covered speed. They were interested in Craig Breed Love and going 
700 miles an hour in a car, and the fact that they were interested in this, 
interested me in them. I was excited about the fact that people were really 
turned on to a growth industry.

OUTRE: Do you feel that your role on "SpeedVision's Lost Drive In" will help to 
preserve the memory of an era gone by for future generations who may not have 
ever seen a Drive-In such as when your daughter Laura has children?

BRUCE: Yes I do. I just hope that it doesn't become so selective that the only 
thing available to them are top ten movies. I think the audience should become a 
good consumer of what you should expect from a movie and what you can demand 
from the movie maker. I think the audience is way, way behind in doing that! I'm 
not so much with them in deciding who should be in the movie. I'm kind of 
against that. In fact I'm very much against that!

OUTRE: You seem to speak as fondly of Illinois as you do the by-gone era of the 
Drive-In. Do you ever return to your home state?

BRUCE: If I have a movie open there I do. You know something, it's sad to me 
about what happened to Chicago and the fact that Chicago didn't become what I 
always thought it should be. I thought it would be and was everything Sandberg 
said it was. Chicago really should have been the pulse of America. It never 
recaptured that and I don't know why. It's always been a big disappointment to 
me because it's a beautiful city, particularly architecturally. I think Illinois 
is a place that should have been the movie center of America. I know they made a 
lot of movies there but, there should have been a film industry that survived 
there. There should be studios there because it's the half way point and the 
center of America. It's where the trains went. The thing that is agonizing to me 
is that they tore down Riverview. There was a high school next to it (Lane Tech) 
that had 9000 Catholic boys and Riverview was part of their life and part of 
mine. Illinois was a great place to be brought up during the great era of the 
Drive-In theatre. I miss Illinois, and I miss the times we had there. You had 
The Michigan Avenue Miracle Mile, you had the Tribune Tower, you had the Rigley 
Building, you had the Outer Drive, you had the great skating ovals in the 
winter, and you had the zoo centrally located that everybody could get to. It 
was a place that for some reason was never exploited in a positive way and it's 
to bad because Illinois really still is the hog butcher of the world.

Stories That Bruce Dern has told on "SpeedVisions Lost Drive-In":

"Everybody always thinks that Drive-Ins are just for people in cars but, when 
they had a biker film the bikers came on their bikes. You came and sat on your 
motorcycle and you watched the whole thing. You shouted at the screen when they 
were right and you booed at the screen when they thought you were wrong. At the 
end of the show the biker was the bigger show then the show itself. The people 
were saying "Hey, I sat next to real bikers" and I'll tell you there's a rule 
that you must never forget when you're driving down the road in a car and a 
biker pulls up next to you and the light is red and your window is down. Don't 
roll it up because if you keep your window down he knows that you're accepting 
him. If you roll your window up he's going to get off his bike and he's going to 
come through your window because your saying "I'm afraid of you, I don't accept 
you, your a bad guy!" They're not bad guys trust me."

"For the amount of money that we had and the fact that there were no box lunches 
on "The Wild Angels" we shot a straight 22 hour day and broke every rule there 
was. We made a wonderful film that moves like a bullet and has all the action 
you ever want. It has real Hells Angels and not real Hells Angels. I was walking 
out of my trailer, a guy says "Hey, son of a bitch take that Hells Angels jacket 
off!" I said, "Here you want it? I'll take it off.", before I could get it off he 
broke all the teeth in my mouth and I had to have them capped and replaced! Why? 
Because he was from a gang called The Satan Slaves. As you figured out in 
biker talk they don't care about last names, all they care about is monikers. We 
weren't wearing Satan Slaves jackets, they weren't getting paid, I got my teeth 
broken thank-you very much."

"A lot of times A.I.P. would take advantage of the film goer simply because they 
wanted to get him into the theatre. They had a Fonda, they had a Sinatra, so 
they put their names on the billboard. They weren't lying, it was just not Frank 
Sinatra and it wasn't Henry Fonda. It was in the early days, Jane or it was 
Peter or it was Nancy or it was Frank jr. but it wasn't the two big people, but 
the audiences might have thought it was."

"I was making a movie and my daughter Laura was three days away from being born. 
Her mother and I were the two stars of the movie, (Diane Ladd) and the producer 
of the movie was signing checks for money that he didn't have and to cover 
himself he was signing his name and underneath of it he was putting "under 
protest". So, I wasn't going to take a check to my bank and have me quized 
because it said "under protest". I knew this wasn't going to work with the 
teller of the bank, especially being the kind of guy I was, I looked like I 
belonged on every post office wall in America. So I went to his house with a toy 
prop gun, but it looked real to him and I said, "Here sign your name to this 
check. Put the actual amount of money down and don't put any under protest. 
" He did and died soon after we made the movie of natural causes."

-END-