Sam Spiegel. A fascinating producer who gave us:
“The African Queen,” “Bridge Over River Kwai,” “Lawrence of
Arabia” "On The Waterfront"
Originally, he chose to go as "S.P. Eagle" because the
word “eagle” is American.
“S.P. Eagle”=”Spiegel” Pretty cool.
It’s sucks we don’t have producers who are this mental these
days. Cigar chomping whatever it takes mentality. Many claim you could drop Sam
into a warzone with no money and by the end of the day, the guy would be dining
at the most expensive restaurant in town. Guy only wanted two things, women and making movies. You can
pretty much tell what this dirtbag becomes. But he is a dirtbag that makes
amazing movies. How did he do it?
He chose books to turn into movies. Yes, he read books and
thought they would make interesting movies. These days, people don’t read as
much. They read something called “coverage.” Which is the cheat sheet to a
movie idea. I realize people are busy (or appear to be) so they don’t have time
to read. Because they have to juggle a ton of stories to sift to the movies
they want to make. Back in Spiegel’s day people read all the time. It was a
portable way to watch movies. A good time waster. But he chose some real good
ones. And that is an amazing skill.
I think he’s been spoofed a few times. In “Sunset Boulevard”
there is a producer who chews on a thick cigar talking to writer Joe Gillis
with a sleek and hip lingo.
The guy was a total scumbag, having bounced checks and deported from countries. But I'll tell you this much...I can't think of anyone today who we'd write about in the future that had this type of success making movies with so much ugliness in how he got them made. I suppose, since we know so much these days. And laws have been passed to prohibit it.
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