Word: wildering
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...most famous openers, eventually used in Bluebeard's Eighth Wife: a man (Gary Cooper) and a girl (Claudette Colbert) meet at a d'epartment store counter because she tries to buy only the pants of a pair of pajamas and he only the top. One of Wilder's current and so far unused openers : the Russians kidnap a famous American actress, who might be Marilyn Monroe, in West Berlin; they take her away to brainwash her, but she beats them because she has no brain to wash. Another: a high-ranking Communist defects to the West, leaving...
After two punishingly lean years, Wilder at last got a screenwriting job at Paramount. And at the whim of an executive producer, he was teamed with Writer Charles Brackett, onetime drama critic for The New Yorker. Suave Charlie Brackett and rough Billy Wilder clicked right away. Wilder spewed Niagaras of notions, and in this prodigious stream of consciousness, Brackett fished for usable ideas. Together they wrote 14 films without a single flop, and some of their movies were among the biggest hits (Ninotchka, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard) of the era. But in 1950 Brackett and Wilder broke up. Says...
...written-though always in collaboration. "Most of Billy's collaborators," says a friend, "are just $50,000 secretaries." They sit at a typewriter while Billy strides feverishly up and down, slashing the air with a swagger stick, frothing at the mouth with dialogue and situation. On the set, Wilder is relaxed, ribald but in deadly earnest about his work. He is so sure of what he wants that he wastes an amazingly small amount of film footage. Says Billy: "All that's left on the cutting-room floor when I'm through are cigarette butts, chewing...
Other Hollywood directors answer that description. What makes Billy Wilder stand out? Two things, says Writer Brackett: "His exuberant vulgarity and his magnificent awareness of the audience. When it comes to guessing audience reaction, Billy is almost never wrong...
...Many of Wilder's fans think that he is capable of being far more than an entertainer, that he could turn into a Brecht of the cinema. But if Billy did that, he might find himself playing the lead role in a terrifying "opener": big director wins fame and fortune by making solidly entertaining movies, suddenly gets ideals and loses everything on one big flop, winds up living in the ladies' room in the Chateau Marmont...