The late Howard Morris was rightly hailed as one of the best character actors, comedians and voice performers in the business. He was also a very good director. He directed episodes of many of the great situation comedies of the sixties including The Dick Van Dyke Show, the pilot for Get Smart and a helluva lot of episodes of Hogan's Heroes.
I don't know if I've told this story before and I'm too lazy to search my own blog…but Howie's involvement with Hogan's Heroes started with its producers wanting to have him play Colonel Klink. It was a somewhat different role at the time and Howie — who did one of the best German accents in the business — seemed perfect for what they had in mind. Then when they were auditioning actors to play Sgt. Schultz, Werner Klemperer came in to read and someone started thinking of him as Klink instead. Ultimately, John Banner played Schultz, Klemperer played a somewhat different Klink and Howie got a contract to direct…which pleased him a lot.
Every so often, I catch an episode he directed. I think I've heard Howie's coaching in some of the German accents of day players in the show…as if he read the lines to them and they imitated his readings. I also heard at least one off-camera German-accented voice that I'm pretty sure was Howie himself. (It was very nice of the Germans in that prison camp to speak English to each other when no English-speaking people were present and to speak English on radios and phone calls.)
Howie was directing a lot then, including tons of commercials, many of them for McDonald's, where you also heard him voice some of the characters in McDonaldland. He directed several TV Movies and four theatricals — Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), Don't Drink the Water (1969) and Goin' Coconuts (1978). The gap in dates there is notable. He was very unhappy with how Don't Drink the Water came out, feeling that others involved in the film overruled and altered his work so he didn't get to make the movie he wanted the way he wanted. But he still took much of the blame for its failure and so he had a hard time getting another directing job.
Who's Minding the Mint? was easily the best of the four and since it was his first movie that was going to be shown in theaters, he was very much afraid of…well, of what he felt later happened to him with Don't Drink the Water.
This happens a lot in businesses: You're given the responsibility to do something without always being given the power to do it the way you think is proper…oh, the stories I could tell. But what follows is what Howie told me — his version and there may be others — of what happened with Who's Minding the Mint? To him, it was a situation where he had the responsibility to deliver a good finished film on time and on budget…and others at the studio were making decisions that made that more difficult.
A lot of it had to do with simple scheduling — where a given scene would be shot (at the studio or on location) or how much time would be allotted to shoot it. Another director on another project once told me what to him was the most frustrating part of directing: "A guy in an office makes a schedule that presumes the crew can tear down one scene and set the next one up in twenty minutes….and then for unforeseen reasons, it takes the crew two hours. But it's getting dark and no one can reschedule the sun going down."
That kind of thing.
Anyway, I promised to tell the Milton Berle story here so let me get to it…and remember, I'm telling you what Howie told me. I wasn't there for any of this. But he said that without consulting him, the studio had signed Joey Bishop for a key role in the film. Howie thought that was a mistake. Then when they couldn't get Phil Silvers for the role of the pawn shop owner, no one talked to Howie. They went ahead and signed Berle.
He thought Bishop was wrong for the part and (Howie said) Joey had a reputation for arguing over every line of every script. When Howie was on or was directing The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Joey Bishop Show was on the same lot and stories got around. But, Howie decided, there was nothing he could do about Mr. Bishop. Mr. Berle might be persuadable. He took him to lunch and laid out his concern. I am here now paraphrasing what Howie told me — and he was paraphrasing what had been said at that long-ago lunch…
Howie said he'd buttered up Milton a lot, then said, "Milton, this is the biggest break I've ever had and I'm stuck with that S.O.B. Joey Bishop. The budget on this film is very tight and it's getting tighter every time I turn around. If you and I start arguing over every line in every scene, the film will never get done. My directing career will end and you'll be in a flop picture which won't do you any good. I'm asking you to please help me, not fight me."
According to Howie, Berle said something like, "I'll tell you what we can do. I've been in this business all my life. And I've directed so I understand what you have to do and the kind of pressure you're under. But I'll tell you what I hate. I hate directors telling me how to play a scene and how to read lines in front of the crew and the rest of the cast. I've been doing this too long to put up with that from anybody…
"So here's what we can do. If we're doing a scene and I'm not giving you enough energy and you want me to ramp it up a bit, give me this signal…" And here, Howie gestured as if someone was trying to say, "Come this way more."
Berle continued: "If you want me to tone it down for the next take, do this…" And here, Howie gestured as if to say, "Back off a little."
Berle then added, "If it's anything more complicated than that, you say, 'Milton, I need to ask your advice on something here…' and you take me to one side where the cast and crew can't hear and you tell me what you need. I swear to you, I'll take that direction, whatever it is, as long as no one heard you trying to tell me how to act."
Finally Berle added, according to Howie, "But if at any point, you try to tell me how to read lines in front of everyone else, I will take your fucking head off."
Howie said he thought for a second, then said "It's a deal" and they shook on it.
And Howie said that throughout the shooting — which was even rougher than he'd feared — Berle was almost perfect — good behavior, good performance, helping and not hurting. Except once. I'll try to re-create what Howie told me about the once…
We were on location. It was the last shot of the day and we had to get it. It was vital to the scene and if we didn't get it before the sun set, we'd have to come back the next day which would have cost a ton of money and I would have had to cut stuff that hadn't been shot yet, most of which was also vital. Plus, if we'd had to come back the next day, it would have thrown that day's schedule off and, God, it would have been a disaster. So the crew is hurrying to get set up for it and it's taking longer than it should have. I'm rehearsing the actors and in my panic, I corrected Berle in front of everyone else. I told him how to read a line and he got pissed and stormed off.
I was devastated. I saw the whole movie dying right in front of me and my career with it. Fortunately, he came back and did it right and we got the take at the last possible second.
Many in the movie business have written about how while directors often get way more credit than they might deserve, they also get way more pressures and headaches than they deserve. It isn't all about a creative vision. A lot of it is about budgets and schedules and sets and props and lighting and casting and special effects and wardrobe and a zillion and one other things. In every area lies the possibility of some problem impacting the way the movie comes out.
When Howie told me this story, his directing career was largely behind him and he was telling me about the part of it that he didn't miss. He called it "The Crap" and he had examples from every movie and TV show he'd directed. He said, "They hire you to make the movie that they think is going to make them a lot of money…and then they conspire to make things difficult for you." He was very proud of some of what he'd done, especially Who's Minding the Mint? and he did miss directing. But he didn't miss The Crap.