Quotes

[on his blaxploitation movies] I believe that good filmmaking was what got all these movies made and good filmmaking is what drew the audiences. They were attracted by good films and I still think that good films make audiences come to theaters. I don't think there has ever been a change. Bad films will drive audiences away. You can sell them with an idea of Black, but once they're in there, what happens? Do you play a second week and drop off 50 percent and never get a third week? That wasn't my aim. My aim was to make a good picture. That was the key, to make a picture as good as you know how.

[on working for Harry Cohn at Columbia] Harry Cohn was a tough son of a bitch. He was enormous. He loved every woman he ever saw--and he had a bedroom in back of his office! He shacked up with half the studio girls under contract. If you were on his shit list, you were gone. You were gone in a day. For any reason. If you crossed his executives in the wrong way you were gone. He ran it with an iron fist. It was not a lovable place, Columbia.

[on getting his first assistant director job at Columbia] I tried very hard to get an appointment at Columbia. Week after week after week. It took six weeks. Finally I got a call to come in for an interview. I went into the palatial office of the head who hired the assistant directors [Jack Fier]. He looks at me. He doesn't say a word. Suddenly he lays into me like I'm the lowest fucking ladybird on the pole. He says, "What kind of an assistant director are you gonna be if it takes you six weeks to get in here!? You're no goddamn good! Who wants you?" I said, "Wait a minute!" I tried to defend myself. He said, "Get the hell out of here." That's the God's truth! That night I got a call from the production department to go to work at Columbia. It was weird, I tell you.