Stephen Mitchell's Lounge Discussions

An associate of mine is looking for 40-50 titles (short subjects or feature-length) for a YouTube-style platform he is about to launch that will pay you based on viewership. He is not asking for exclusive rights meaning you can place your media where ever you like as long as no one is requiring exclusivity.

You must have clear ownership of title and--it goes without saying--the media must be finished content and not something currently in production or pre-production.

Send me a direct message to be put in contact...

I received this from a contact--Is anyone who has completed film content interested?

"Real close to creating a You-Tube style platform, subscription based, where artists will receive pay for their media based on viewership - need about 40-50 titles for the proof-of-concept.

Do you have clients with clear ownership of title for their media, and would like to be the first ones to have their shorts on our prototype?"

By 1981, I had returned from Paris and had already made two movies that I filmed out in the desert on and around El Mirage, a dry lake bed located between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The first was Desert Center with Gérard Ismaël and Georganne LaPiere (who played the original Heather on General Hospital and was Cher Bono's sister) and the second was Success with Gérard Ismaël and Vinny Argiro (an actor who owned the trendy men's clothing store Mike Bain on the Sunset Strip). I decided to make a third film with Gérard when a friend who was an art gallery owner in Palm Springs offered me the run of the Palm Canyon Hotel, also in Palm Springs. I could shoot there to my heart's content for as long as I needed without restriction; it was an offer I couldn't refuse. During that period, I made it a policy to welcome anyone visiting from France to stay in my apartment at no cost as a way of thanks for the exceptionally nice treatment I had received during my time in Paris; giving back, as the saying goes. At the time, I had two Frenchmen--Serge Georgeon and Yves Morel--living as guests in my apartment, both involved in their own film projects, who agreed to come onto the project as actors playing international traffickers of art forgeries. Serge introduced me to jazz bassist Bunny Brunel who would score and perform the music for what would become Fait Accompli. I was having difficulty casting a leading lady though I auditioned a large number of actresses in the weeks leading up to the filming. Leading men and leading ladies must have qualities that can be optional in other roles. Not only must they be competent and fascinating, they must have sexual appeal and, together, they must have chemistry. I was learning that this was not the easiest combination to achieve. One day, I received a photograph from an actress that took my breath away--not only was she beautiful and statuesque looking for all the world like Rachel Ward, she exuded an intelligent playfulness in the photo that would serve the role very well. I have my leading lady!, I thought to myself. When the time came for her audition the next morning, in walked a woman that had nothing in common with what I saw in the photograph except dark hair. She was much older, much shorter and weighed at least three times as much as the actress in the photograph I had received. Feeling, perhaps, that an accurate photo would not have gotten her any roles, she sent one she (rightly) believed would get her in the door. Sadly, that's as far as it got her on this occasion. On the heels of this development, Serge suggested that I might want to consider Bunny's wife Nani who he thought would be perfect. He was right; she was. A beautiful brunette whose native language was French, her English was flawless and she had great chemistry with Gérard. Thank you, Serge! A few days before we were to leave for Ensenada where I wanted to shoot part of the film, Gérard came to me and told me that he couldn't go to Mexico. His immigration status required that he stay in the US and leaving would have interrupted the process causing him no end of grief. So, here I was with a cast and crew ready to leave for Mexico minus one leading man. How did that happen? My options were to shoot the entire film in California or go to Mexico and add another role in the film that could take up the slack caused by Gérard's absence. I decided I wanted the exotic Mexican locations in the film and quickly put out a notice to find Leading Man, Part B. With only days to find a candidate, I was not hopeful and could not find what I was looking for. In the end, it was easier just to play the role myself. I wrote in a character who is killed in the opening scene and who we see in punctuating flashbacks through the balance of the film. His death became the impetus for Gérard's actions in what was a story of love and revenge. It would not be the last time I would have to introduce a new character in a film to take up the slack created by circumstances; it became a useful solution when I was making Dead Right. I found that using conservative, 'old Hollywood studio system' concepts combined with guerrilla filmmaking tactics was a very effective approach to movie making. We had a great shoot and part of the fun is described here: http://emcpb.blogspot.com/2010/09/nicest-man-in-whole-of-mexico_10.html In addition to everything else, Fait Accompli brought me an unexpected reward. As I was marketing the film to producer reps, Robert Lecky was one who responded and though another company took the film, Robert became an important friend and mentor for almost two decades. He passed in 2000 and is deeply missed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LffEWg1ESvQ&feature=youtu.be Recently, Hal Singleton who acted in my film Bleeder and Bates and a number of other films and television shows produced by my repertory company was able to convert a VHS copy of the (Interview) segment he did with me. The story I created for him was that of an author of a controversial novel which tells of a series of murders of beautiful, vulnerable women. A female homicide detective begins to suspect that Cauthen was actually committing similar, real-life murders and she becomes involved with him as she tries to prove her theory. Her own lack of emotional stability subsequent to a failed personal relationship mitigates against her and her theory about Cauthen Williams. This episode was submitted to TriStar Pictures in 1990 as part of a 'first look' deal I had with them at the time...

By 1984, my repertory company had already formed and was fully functioning. Since returning from France, I had made two films immediately back-to-back--Desert Center and Success--followed the following year by Fait Accompli. All three films featured Gérard Ismaël who came from France to live in the States at about the same time I returned from Paris. Gérard had starred in Just Jaeckin's The Last Romantic Lover with Dayle Haddon and Fernando Rey (Frog 1 from The French Connection and its sequel) and had worked with Claude Lelouch. Friends put us together. All three movies were shot, in part, on El Mirage which is a dry lake bed in the California desert where years earlier I had worked on the CBS TV movie Sole Survivor. It wasn't until 1984 that I once again made the trek to El Mirage with a film crew. I intended it to be something akin to Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway and chose Terminal Velocity as the title. Those interested in drag racing know this term as referring to the speed at which a dragster is traveling as it crosses the finish line at the end of the quarter mile. I liked the literal speed reference but I also saw it as being a conceptual speed that kills as the events in the movie would be proceeding at a terminal pace for several of the characters. Wanting something a bit racier for my film hero 'Carter' (played by Joel Hile who was a member of my repertory company) than the 1980 Corvette I was driving at the time, I went to my friend Matthew Ettinger who then had an interest in Street Rods, a dealership that specialized in some very hot cars. He offered me a burgundy Corvette convertible LT1 with ZR1 option. It had loads of horsepower and was extremely fast. A great screen car! We traveled to the desert in a Winnebago which, given daytime temperatures exceeding 125 degrees Fahrenheit, was a blessing with it's air conditioning and other creature comforts. On the lake bed, it was so hot that the handkerchief I would drench with water and tie around my neck before leaving the motor home would be bone dry by the time I called 'Action' for the scene. At one point, the windshield of a Pontiac Tempest we were using shattered when actor Tom Hutchinson rolled onto the hood in a fight scene. The extreme desert heat had made it brittle. We spent half a day finding a replacement in a local junk yard and having it installed. Back in Los Angeles, we added Swedish actress and artist Margareta Sjödin to the cast as the gang leader's wife. She visited as we were shooting a car chase in the underground parking of my apartment building. The sequence included multiple gun shots and a scene where one of the actors is being dragged by Tom Hutchinson's car as he is making his getaway. The combination of gun shots and squealing tires and related commotion set off numerous car alarms in the vicinity and attracted the attention of the building's landlord who took one look through the basement door and said, "Oh, it's you" and left us to ourselves. From my apartment, we moved on to the, by then, deserted Tiny Naylors restaurant located at Sunset and La Brea where Tom smashed his car through a collection of shopping carts and other debris abandoned there before the restaurant could be demolished. The scene had him winding down from the violent action of the previous garage/shoot-out sequence and I suspect we were the last crew to film at that historic location as it was torn down days later. We also shot in a downtown Los Angeles tenement house that would have fit nicely into Barbet Schroeder's Barfly. I'd knocked on a door of one of the tenants and asked if we could shoot a scene in their apartment and, inexplicably, they said yes. Thus, an hour later, Joel Hile barged through the door and fired off a full clip from his 9mm Browning (using blanks from Ellis Mercantile on La Brea) killing some poor character who had been hiding out in the apartment. It was the film's opening scene. Today, I would probably have taken pains to notify the neighbors that we would be shooting a scene with fake gunshots but those were different days and, besides, given the nature of the building and its tenants, I really didn't expect that shoot-outs were an uncommon occurrence. When it came time to edit the movie, I made an appointment with the owner of a company in Burbank that rented editing equipment. When I was seated across from him, I spoke these words (as closely as I can recall them), "I have a proposition for you and there is no reason in the world for you to say yes, in fact, you should ask me to leave right now but here it is: I need to take one of your editing machines to a house in Thousand Oaks and keep it there for a long weekend while we edit my latest film which I need to deliver to my producer's rep ASAP. I have no credit nor references nor cash so all I can offer you is points and if that isn't the damnedest proposition you've ever gotten, I'd like to hear what was." A moment or two of silence followed as the man exchanged looks with his assistant and then looked to me again to see if I was serious. I was. "What is the title of your film?" he asked. Terminal Velocity, I told him. He thought for a minute and said, "You've got a deal." Later that day, we were loading the equipment into a van. When the film was completed, I sent out flyers to producer reps listed in a directory. These were companies that would attend the major film markets around the world selling films in various markets. Several responded to my flyer which included a rendering of the poster and a synopsis of the story. I did a deal with a fellow named Bob Katz who lived in Malibu. We didn't have name players in the cast but the title and poster did their work and soon Bob was making sales and delivering checks that rewarded our endeavors and made it possible for us to go on to the next film. There's no business like show business...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3y8ypQHZ3U I made my first film in Paris, France after spending years immersed in the academic and practical study of filmmaking. I studied cinematography with Peter Gibbons who was head of the camera department at CBS Cinema Center in Studio City and editing and sound recording/mixing with Elliott Bliss who was head of the sound department at the same studio. Elliott later took over the camera department when Peter retired. All the while, I was practically living on film and television sets and locations. I watched episodic director Paul Stanley's every move on shows like Mission: Impossible, Medical Center, The Road West, Then Came Bronson and T.H.E. Cat, among others. I also worked on a number of films and shows that provided me with some real-world experience and close up glimpses of major Hollywood icons at work--Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, Josh Logan, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Robert Wagner, Gene Kelly, Barbra Streisand, Dean Martin, Sharon Tate, Richard Basehart, William Shatner, Vince Evans, Lou Antonio, Ryan O'Neal, Barbara Parkins and Mia Farrow. The one time I worked on Mission: Impossible (as opposed to observing Paul Stanley), was in an episode directed by Bob Gist who directed so many episodes of Peter Gunn. That's a story for another time of significance only to me and (actor/composer/musician) Michael Chanslor possibly. A week wouldn't go by that I didn't see three or four films that were outstanding in some respect, usually at one of the Laemmle Theaters or at the Nuart or Fox theaters but sometimes as re-runs on television. These outlets were the forerunner of home video in that the films they presented had earned cult or classic status and the people who one saw in attendance were devoted cinephiles. The movies we saw there are now staples on DVD and Netflix--Lawrence of Arabia, Sunset Boulevard, A Touch of Larceny, Dr. Strangelove, All About Eve, The Flight of the Phoenix, Casablanca, L'Avventura, À bout de souffle, Run Silent Run Deep, My Fair Lady, Persona, La nuit américaine, Soldier in the Rain, The Hustler. I went to Paris to reconnoiter for two weeks and stayed two years filming Montmartre and my television pilot The French Chef with Philippe Léotard during that time. I wanted a name for the activity and Cine Paris came immediately to mind; it described the activity and the location. Some years later back in Los Angeles, my brother-in-law at the time, Scott Mednick, graciously offered to design a logo for me. Scott was one of the foremost logo designers and his work would be familiar to anyone paying attention in those days. When it became customary for film companies to show their logos in the opening credits, I wanted to add sound to the graphic image that would appear. There was no question about the sound I wanted--it had to be a symphony orchestra playing the A above middle C, which I am pleased to say has been the French tuning standard since the 1860s (if Wikipedia is to be believed). I wanted to take all that had inspired me to make films--the French Nouvelle Vague, the Italian Neorealism movement, film noir--and have it be reflected in the film or project I was presenting, however experimental it might be, and alert the audience that what follows might include unexpected influences and references. I thought it would be consistent with my style of filmmaking wherein what is implied is of greater importance than what is said. My thanks go to Kevin Courtright who was an actor/ writer/director member of my repertory company for fifteen years and who suggested I write this post and to my son Sean who recreated the clip as the only version I had was third generation lacking resolution and sporting time code. Thanks also to Louella Ladybug for recreating the graphic used in the clip. It will be featured in the opening credits of A Series of ONE episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEh_G5cKwi8 The process of making a film is as important to me as the content of the film. Every time I make of movie, it is something of an experimental exercise (the title of Blake Edward's 1962 film Experiment in Terror leaps to mind). Most filmmakers start with a script, cast it and shoot it wanting to bring the script's vision to the screen. I am more like an artist painting a model he has placed in a particular setting. I start with the actors and, knowing the theme of the story I want to tell (and very few of the story events), I begin shooting scenes. I've made my films using actors from my repertory company whose 'signature' or brand I had established and whom I had trained in my Action/ReAction technique. Thus, we were well acquainted. My process was to arrive at a location and as the crew set up, I would dictate the dialogue to the actors who would note it and rehearse among themselves until they were ready to run it for me. I might give them a note or two and then I would shoot it. In this manner, the 'script' was created as we shot the movie. Films aren't customarily shot in sequence and I might start the production by shooting a scene that would be part of the third act. Given the theme and the characters I'd chosen for the production, I knew the sort of scenes I would need to tell the story and as I wrote each new scene, I was aware of where it would be placed in the story's 'Paradigm' (with grateful thanks to Syd Field). This understanding allowed me to know if it was introductory, part of the rising action or something leading us to the resolution or climax. My preference in storytelling is to imply rather than declare what is going on and you could describe my style as elliptical. I like the audience to draw inferences from what they've seen and come to their own conclusions; I write for an audience that likes to decode that which they've seen going against the old maxim of 'Tell your audience what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them' style of filmmaking. In the sequence I've posted here, one can witness the elliptical and implied nature of Bleeder & Bates. We meet the enigmatic artist (Hal Singleton) and his girlfriend/model (Jeanine Anderson) in a scene without introduction but an implied sense of tension and foreboding. We then move on to the coffee room at L.A.P.D. where Bates (Gregory Brown) is getting himself a coffee but is 'buttonholed' by another detective (I don't remember her name but will edit my blog post to include it when these visual transcriptions reach the end credits). From the nature of her reactions, we perceive she has intentions towards Bates that, for whatever reasons, aren't reciprocated. We can see he doesn't want to stay but politeness keeps him from leaving immediately. Nothing revealing is said; much is implied. Before a conversation can develop, Bates is called away to his relief and her frustration. Del (Kip Parrott) gives Bates a tipster's letter that will send him on his way to meet the artist. But first... Detective Carbone (Jack Caputo) is told by an L.A.P.D. employee (Anita Wilson) that a high echelon commander wants to take him to lunch. His reaction tells us how out of the ordinary this is and, further, that he does not relish attention from the high command. Lunch, at the Pacific Dining Car restaurant on 6th Street in Los Angeles, follows this scene and the undercurrent of tension and mistrust is palpable yet unexplained. All we learn is that Commander Rogers (Joe Filbeck) wants Carbone to take Bates to lunch. Then we move on to... Bates arrives at the artist's loft in the warehouse district of Los Angeles. As he enters and inspects the paintings that are of a dark and macabre nature like the artist himself, the tone is set for what is to follow. The clues provided by the artist will set Bates on the wrong path but will, ironically, be the key to the mystery of Bleeder's murder. Halfway through the conversation, Bates is surprised by the appearance of the girlfriend/model whose presence he hadn't suspected. The ending of this scene reveals that she has an agenda of her own though we don't yet know what it might be. It took me about nine months to make Bleeder & Bates shooting about two days a week. I kept an outline of the story as I filmed it which allowed me to see where the gaps were that needed filing. Some gaps I intentionally left blank trusting the audience to fill them in on their own. The juxtaposition of one scene with another often served to create a complete thought that the individual scenes were not intended to convey. This is not the sort of screenwriting or filmmaking technique that would ordinarily be found in a film school curriculum but, back in the day, people from all over the world came to me in Los Angeles to learn this method of making movies at my somewhat unorthodox film school. [Sequence digitized from VHS copy of time-coded workprint]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWyS2Z6a4Xo This is a scene taken from a time-coded work print that recently surfaced of my movie Bleeder & Bates which I shot in 1989. Early in the investigation, Detective Bates has a conversation with the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Jimmy Beacon. She is played by Stephanie Burnham who was a member of my repertory company for film and television. Stephanie also wrote and directed for the group and joined a few of us in judging for the CableAce Awards in the 90s before they folded into the Emmys. In this scene, I wanted a serious tone but felt the need to inject a bit of gallows humor and convey a slightly unexpected aspect of the medical examiner's character. It was my practice to create roles based on the actor's 'signature' or brand that could serve as the basis for leads in their own features as opposed to being peripheral characters to advance the story; each with an undercurrent of emotion and agenda and backstory implied by emotional reactions not entirely explained by the action and dialogue. The quick tag line for my films would be ‘Thinking man’s cop dramas’ along the lines of the French films Shoot the Piano Player or Without Apparent Motive and Du rififi chez les hommes. I am greatly influenced by film noir.

There are certain observations about life that are constant and can be applied to any endeavor. After posting quotes from Miles Davis, I thought it would be interesting to read what Picasso had to say: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” “If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse...but surely you will see the wildness!” “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.” “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” “The world doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?” “I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” “Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.” “Everything you can imagine is real.” “To draw, you must close your eyes and sing” “Youth has no age. ” “If I don't have red, I use blue.” “I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.” “I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.” “What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.” “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” “All art is erotic.” “Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized.” “There is only one way to see things, until someone shows us how to look at them with different eyes” “The meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away.” See more at: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3253.Pablo_Picasso

It was after I had gone back to the John le Carré novel Smiley’s People for the umpteenth time that something dawned on me about storytelling. What matters is not that which you tell the reader—or show the viewer—but what they think they read or saw. I remembered the story as a linear narrative. However, reading it again after the passage of time, I realized the story was actually written as a series of interviews between the character George Smiley and a number of other characters that had interacted with the narrative that I had remembered but had not been written—the linear narrative existed only in my memory of the story. This realization changed the way in which I would approach filmmaking and from that point on, I didn’t shoot what I wanted the audience to see, I shot what I wanted them to remember. I found that I could intimate things about the story without actually having to film them; things that would become part of the action in the viewer’s memory.

H.N. Swanson, literary agent to the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James M. Cain, William Faulkner, Elmore Leonard, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Theroux and Joseph Wambaugh, was renowned for having said, "Whenever I am asked what kind of writing is the most lucrative, I have to say ransom notes." He is quite right, of course, but to his answer I would add: A good turn of phrase in a legal filing is worth its weight in gold. When a friend was on the verge of being evicted with a 3-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit, I took pen in hand and wrote a complaint preempting the landlord's action. I included the following language (dialogue?) in a supplementary filing subsequent to the service of a 3-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit: "This filing by the Plaintiff in the instant case is retaliatory and an undisguised effort to do an end-around of a lawsuit previously filed and served upon the Plaintiff in an unlimited jurisdiction case (see attached) wherein the exact same issues stated in the instant case make up part of the causes of action in the related case. To file a new case duplicating some (but not all) of the issues in the related case after having already been served can only be an attempt to waste the court's time while avoiding other causes of action brought in the related case where the defendant in the instant case is the plaintiff. It can only serve to create a confusion of justice to have two judges hearing the same issues simultaneously. I am informed and believe that this is a retaliatory action filed within days on my own case filed and served against the Plaintiff in the instant case after many months of trying to get Plaintiff to render the dwelling in question into a habitable condition. I strongly object to the filing of this action and the instant case should be dismissed with prejudice or, in the alternative, stayed until after a disposition in the related case. Should the court choose to hear this action already filed and served elsewhere, the following would constitute the affirmative defense..." A lovely collection of thoughts, you might agree. Anyone familiar with the limited jurisdiction of landlord/tenant law knows that a tenant customarily appears in the courtroom in the role of a tethered goat ready for the slaughter. The brief I authored and which was filed in an unlimited jurisdiction upset the apple cart and was cause for consternation all 'round. On the day of trial in the eviction action, there were three law firms appearing for the other side(s)--one for the landlord in the 3-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit action, another for the landlord in the unlimited jurisdiction action of the counter-complaint I had authored (though it was not calendared for another month) and a third representing an insurance company in the unlimited case. To say the least, an unlikely crowd for what is usually a quick and perfunctory execution after a 'guilty with an explanation' defense that normally constitutes an eviction hearing. For two of those law firms, I'd wager it was the first time they had ever appeared for such proceedings. Negotiations were interesting and somewhat unorthodox, to say the least. We were given an audience with a judge in camera whose courtroom was dark that day to assist one and all in trying to discern one railway car from another in this legal train wreck. From my perspective, after years of buying and selling exotic cars and navigating the oxygen-rich milieu of show business, this confirmed that we were bang on the desired landing path with the optimum rate of descent for our chosen runway. It seemed that none of the opposing attorneys were anxious to appear before the judge and we took over a conference room so that the parties could confer. The cross-complaint had created a sort of legal impossibility on which none of the opposing attorneys could get a grip. For reasons that are not taught in law school, they were all eager for me to suggest remedies though I was not a party to the action. And, suggest I did. I will never forget the look on the judge's face that afternoon in Santa Monica when she read the settlement agreement looking up from the bench repeatedly to verify with the parties that what she was reading was actually correct--two months free rent and $7,500 in cash for the defendant/cross-complainant along with lesser considerations like no negative credit reporting or other consequence. This was not how a 3-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit hearing was supposed to go. Sometimes, a job well done is thanks enough. In some cases, it is the only thanks.

Stanley Kramer was a filmmaker who made films in all genres with grace and style--he stars today at Action/ReAction: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131

The man who arranged for me to have a S.A.G. card stars today at Action/ReAction--Frank Sinatra and his films: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131

An impeccable man's man no matter the genre, William Holden stars today at Action/ReAction: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131

Master filmmaker, actor and stuntman, Buster Keaton stars at Action/ReAction today: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131

She was glamorous and enigmatic--Greta Garbo uttered one of the most famous lines in cinema history: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131

I remember someone asking Miles Davis why he played his trumpet with a mute. Miles told him that it created a sound that was the closest he could come to the human voice. As one who sees a correlation between playing music and performing dialogue in acting, this answer stuck with me. As best I can, I try to get actors with whom I work to understand this and insinuate as many musical elements into their speaking voice as possible--phrasing, pitch, cadence, tonality, inference and even 'quoting'. These jazz concepts are all fundamental to my Action/ReAction technique, which I continue to develop. Here are a few more quotes from Miles that can definitely apply directly to an actor in performance, approach and attitude. In a session, I would guide the actor to understanding how these quotes would apply to them personally, but here I'll leave the reader to ponder them and arrive at his or her own conclusions as to how they might apply. "The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas." “Don't play what's there, play what's not there.” “When you’re creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain’t the limit.” “It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.” “Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.” “I always listen to what I can leave out.” “For me, music and life are all about style.” “If you don't know what to play, play nothing.” “Do not fear mistakes, there are none.” “I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it.” See these and other quotes from Miles Davis at: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/54761.Miles_Davis http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/miles_davis.html#CTYcZFbzFA8...

Boris Karloff is featured today at Action/ReAction--the best brands live on forever: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131

James Coburn was a star of the big screen during a time before men were replaced by boys. He stars today at Action/ReAction: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131

Federico Fellini influenced filmmakers the world over and it is interesting to see actors from American cinema--Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart and Broderick Crawford appearing in his films. He is featured today at Action/ReAction: https://paper.li/CineParis/1429356131