Quotes

I liked the first Conan film [Conan the Barbarian (1982)] very much; in fact, I saw a lot of The Vikings (1958) in it. It was a very well-made film, and it had many excellent dramatic qualities. [John Milius] gave it a sort of Wagnerian feel. I thought he did an excellent job. It was a heavy picture, but then the theme was very heavy - and it was imaginative in its design. Its problems came because it, for the most part, lacked humor. There were some jokes, but too much of the film was unrelieved drama.

The Happy Time (1952) was exactly the kind of film I was looking for - a human comedy about a young boy's coming of age. No melodrama, no murders, no evil wooden puppets!

Every silver lining has a black, ugly cloud hanging over it.

[on George C. Scott] George just likes to block a scene out in a routine way. And then he does it and we shoot. He starts really acting when the camera goes. And throughout a film, 90% of the "takes" I've printed with George Scott in them have been first or second takes. And if I have to use the second "take," it's because in the first one something mechanical went wrong or some other actor blew a line.

[on working with Arnold Schwarzenegger on Conan the Destroyer (1984)] Arnold has done a fantastic job -- and real progress in this art of acting, but as he has an accent I've been obliged to work him twice as hard.

[about writer/producer Martin Rackin] Rackin was a real character. He was a fast-talking, breezy, nervous, con-man type who blinked his eyes a lot. You always had the feeling that he was some sort of a street-corner shell-game operator keeping an eye open for the cops.

[on "Fantastic Voyage" (1966)]: The whole film took about a year to make - there were hundreds of days of actual shooting on it. But, even so, I love making big films. They're a strain, but then, making any film is a strain.

[Talking about his years at RKO Studios] Everytime I was ready to be given an important film, the person who promised it to me would leave the studio and then a new one would come in and say: oh yes I've heard about you, you're very talented and I know you wanna do a big picture and you'll get it within the next 6 months. In 6 months he'd be gone, now this went on for 7 years.