In memoriam, Richard Donner

Directors will tell you that working with hotshot actors maybe tough but working with kids is the toughest. When Harvey Stephens was cast as Damien in "The Omen" (1976), he was only 5 years old. Because Stephens was so young, director Richard Donner found that the best way to direct him was to provoke genuine reactions before the camera. For example, when Damien is angry at being taken to church, Donner got his peeved facial expression by shouting to Stephens off camera, "What are you looking at, you little bugger? I'll clobber you." In the closing scene, Donner used reverse psychology on Stephens, telling him, "Don't you dare laugh. If you laugh, I won't be your friend." Naturally, Stephens wanted to laugh, and he instead smiled directly into the camera. Donner used similar tactics in The Goonies (1985) as well. The whole cast claims that director Richard Donner had one key direction for the kids in any scene where something dramatic took place. Apparently, Donner would call out “big eyes!” and the gang would do as told. Of course, sometimes shouting “big eyes” didn’t do the trick. During the scene where the kids are banging on the pipes beneath the country club—which backfires when the plumbing explodes on them—Donner couldn’t get the reaction shot he wanted from Corey Feldman (Mouth) for “Reverse pressure!” Finally, Donner told the cast that Michael Jackson was coming to set right before Feldman’s line. He got the take (but at what cost !).

Richard Donner is also famous for directing all the four movies in the original Lethal Weapon series. For him having the right onscreen chemistry was half the battle won. Having been unable to cast Mel Gibson is his 1985 film, Ladyhawke, Donner flew him down from Sydney for a table read with Danny Glover. According to him, "It took about two hours and by the time we were done, I was in seventh heaven. They found innuendoes; they found laughter where I never saw it; they found tears where they didn't exist before; and, most importantly, they found a relationship — all in just one reading. So, if you ask about casting... it was magical, just total dynamite."

However, the most iconic movie in his whole filmography, still remains Superman: The Movie (1978). Even now, audiences are mesmerized by Christopher Reeve’s onscreen presence and the monumental special effects achievements in giving it the appearance that Superman was actually airborne. As Richard Donner recounts, he was sent a 400-page script by producer Ilya Salkind for two movies to be shot back-to-back and a million dollars on the table. The original script was written by Mario Puzo but Donner being a lifelong Superman fan, felt that the script was more comedic than heroic and was ready to walk away from the offer. With the help of his friend, writer Tom Mankiewicz, Donner used the time during pre-production judiciously to overhaul the entire story, and went into production with an unfinished script. The Salkinds had already cast Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando but they needed a known face for Superman. After a lot of screen tests, casting director Lynn Stalmaster suggested Reeve for the title role, but director Richard Donner felt he was too young and too skinny. Nevertheless, Reeve did an excellent screen test that blew the director and producers away. Once he had the part, he underwent a strict physical training session for months, going from 170 pounds to 212 in the period from pre-production to filming. To obtain the musculature to convincingly play Superman, Reeve underwent a bodybuilding regime supervised by David Prowse, the man who played Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars" trilogy. The development of the best method to show Superman flying was a long period of experimentation. The methods attempted included simply catapulting a dummy into the air, a remote-controlled model airplane painted as the character and simply animating the flying sequences. The producers settled for a combination of forward projection and specially designed zoom lenses that could create the illusion of movement by zooming in on Reeve while making the forward projection appear to recede. For scenes where Superman has to interact with other people or objects while in flight, Reeve and fellow actors were put in a variety of rigging equipment with careful lighting and photography to hide the equipment. After a clash with producers Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind over the material, Richard Donner was fired before he could finish filming the second one and he was replaced by Richard Lester. Donner later estimated that he had directed 80% of the sequel and saw about 50% of his work in the theatrical film.

The creative genius breathed his last this Monday, July 5th, 2021. He was 91 years old. Following the news of his demise, thousands of fans, well-wishers, and colleagues took to social media to mourn the loss of the legendary director. The Hollywood Reporter published a funny anecdote as recounted by Gene Hackman on the sets of Superman (1978): “I showed up for the first day of makeup tests for Superman with a fine Lex Luthor mustache I’d grown for the role. Dick, wearing his own handsome mustache, told me mine had to go. He bargained to lose his if I did mine. True to his word, he celebrated my last razor stroke by gleefully pulling off the fake whiskers he’d acquired for the occasion. Dick made it fun, and that’s why the films turned out that way, too.

Rest in peace, Richard Donner -- the man who made us believe that a person can fly.