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INTERVIEW: ROBERT MARTIN CARROLL

By Franco Frassetti • Sep 19th, 2009 • Pages: 1 2

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT CARROLL

Robert Martin Carroll

How did the script for SONNY BOY get into your hands?

My lawyer, Paul Brindze, was also the lawyer for Paul Mason who was the head of Trans World Entertainment and knew that he was looking for someone for the script that they had. I went to their offices in Hollywood and still remember breaking out into a sweat reading it. It was a strange and unusual script. I knew there was something different about it and I really wanted to do it. He said, “Do you want to do it?” It was basically that simple.

What drew you to the script?

I like things where you don’t know what’s going to happen in which I can explore the emotional depth of characters and even in a film like this, which is a horror film, but in other ways it’s not a horror film. I saw it as an opportunity to make something that was a combination of the ELEPHANT MAN and FRANKENSTEIN. I just thought that there was something very powerful underneath it. Just as Paul Mason had said, once you read it, you really can’t put it down. It is unusual, it is strange, the characters are upsetting and there was something that compelled you to continue on with it. I felt, as a filmmaker, that I could make it come alive and make it as good or even better than the original script. I felt an understanding of the character. I am always fascinated by characters that feel like loners or who are rejected by society. Maybe I have a little bit of that in myself.

Tell us about David Carradine?

David didn’t come on until we were filming for almost a week because he was finishing up on another project, so I had a chance to work with everyone but him. He didn’t know who I was. He walked right by me then asked for the director. I introduced myself and I don’t remember what I said, but it just clicked with him and he liked the way I thought.

David is a true artist. I don’t think a lot of people know what a true creative guy he is. If he likes you, he will give it all to you. He said, ‘I totally trust you. Tell me what to do and I will do it.’ He brought a wonderful depth and feeling to the character that I couldn’t have done with other actors. He was available to go places that were not even in the original script. I had a few conflicts with the production company and the producer. David recently had all his teeth removed because he was having all new teeth put in. He had fake teeth temporarily. I asked him to play the older part without the teeth and he consented. The studio really wanted David to pull off his wig and reveal that he was a guy. Well, I didn’t want him to do that because he created such an empathetic character and that would take away from it. In the character’s mind, this is how he lived. As David put it, ‘He’s John Wayne in drag.”

What was the difference between what you shot and the original screenplay?

The original script was a little bit different. Graeme Whiffler is a very good writer and the original script was very strong, but it was more of a straight horror story. Sonny Boy was actually deformed by these people. The abuse they give him growing up actually physically deformed him. I didn’t want to do that. I came up with the concept that it would be more interesting if he wasn’t deformed but just felt different because he only knows these terrible people and he didn’t have any way of judging himself compared to normal people. I didn’t want a film where the main character was deformed like Frankenstein. I wanted a film in which he was beautiful.

Where did the filming take place and how long was the shooting schedule?

What was the budget?

27 days in Deming, New Mexico. I believe it’s the closest New Mexican town to the Mexican border. On days free, we would go to Mexico and visit some strange places. The budget was about 2.8 million in 1990, but who knows how much of that actually gets into a film. It was a tight budget but I had a really good Line Producer named Peter Shepherd who worked very hard for me. It was the cast that made the film work so well. My greatest experience was during the first week on the set, to have great actors and to have them open up and take chances, to see the ideas that I had for SONNY BOY and to know that they will work out. I didn’t need to see the dailies, not that there were any for this film.

RMC on left on France

Paul Smith played Slue, What kind of direction did you give him, was he written with such a nasty sadistic streak?

Yes, it was written that way. He was the heavy. Paul Smith was Bluto in POPEYE and the fearsome jailer in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. He is a big man. He didn’t know who I was when we were first on the set, but eventually we became good friends. I have my own way of working. I know what I want, I don’t do a lot of extra heads and tails, I don’t do a lot of coverage, I film what I am going to edit. He didn’t understand it at first. He had his microphone on and a couple of times and I heard him saying, ‘What the hell is going on here?’

What can you tell us about your editing experience with SONNY BOY?

That was a bad experience for me. I went to Italy to edit. The Executive Producer’s office was in Rome. The editing bay was in the attic and the editor was this cigar-smoking Italian guy who didn’t like actors and thought that he could do everything better than anyone else. All along, he’s puffing on his cigars and I’m getting sick from the smoke. I got through it and was actually happy with the cut we did. I came back to LA afterwards and I finally got to see a screening. I hadn’t been able to see a completed piece until everything was done. I remember going there, watching it and noticing that they had cut out a couple of scenes. They had not told me at all about this. I guess the cuts had to do with the X rating that it originally received. Instead of calling me and working through it or just asking for my input, I got nothing. I remember jumping up watching it. This is not the way that you treat a director, not even on a low-budget film. To me that was a huge slap in the face.

If you are a member of the Director’s Guild there are certain protections that they have to give you and certain screenings at least to keep you informed. If you are a non-guild member on a film like this they don’t have to give you the smallest amount of respect.

What were the deleted scenes? Do they exist?

I was told that there is a version on Laser Disc that has the deleted scenes.

I went to the warehouse where they have the prints after I finally convinced them to let me take one to a film festival. I went through them all. They had like 49 prints and they were cut.

One scene involves the blonde girl that Sonny Boy is interested in. When he first meets her, it is in a house for young unwed girls in the desert. He runs into the house and they try to beat him but she protects him and they roll around in the dirt. It was a dark funny scene that sets up the relationship.

Second, when Sonny Boy is 4 years old and David is playing the piano everyone is wearing these funny masks. In that scene Slue cuts out Sonny Boy’s tongue. You don’t see it but it is just a little blood splatter.

The third deleted scene is when Sonny Boy eats the priest at the chapel. In the released version, you only see the aftermath. Originally, I had a much longer shot in which we dolly down the aisle. You see Sonny Boy from the back but as the camera comes around you see him munching on a bone.

What about the struggles with the producers for distribution?

They had no idea what they had with the film. When it was done they were scared of it because the film was pulled from a lot of theaters when it was first released. It upset a lot of people and what the producers tried to do was bury it. They wouldn’t send out screening copies or press materials.
Despite the fact that the film is almost impossible to see, it has a cult following. People every so often try to get prints. Somebody at the University of Chicago saw it the other night, and of all places, on Turner Classics. Some critics have seen it by accident and fell in love with the film. Dennis Dermody of Paper Magazine said that it was one of his all-time favorite films. It has an audience and has never quite gone away despite the fact that it’s one of those films that’s not on DVD and almost impossible to rent. It just has staying power and apparently has a force to it even after all these years.

If they had just made the slightest amount of effort to capitalize on the controversy, or if placed it in a festival… It’s in the B Movie Hall of Fame and was put in there the same year as EL TOPO, which is one of my favorite movies. To be put on the same bill as EL TOPO is an honor for me. It’s also in the Pyrotechnic Film and Video Guide rated as one of the best movies of the decade. So these guys didn’t know what to do with it or give it a chance. They would have found an audience for it. If you are a filmmaker that cares for your work, it’s very painful. It’s like a child that they take away from you.

BABIES FOR SALE is another film you did. Is the baby kidnapping a recurring theme for you?
No. That is a very different type of film. The theme is the same. People that feel they are isolated from society. In this case, it is about a girl that has babies and sells them. I am very interested in people who feel that they are not part of what’s going around, who are either put in desperate situations because of that, or put themselves in desperate situations.

David Carradine

What are you doing now?

I really got burned-out with Hollywood. I still have a lot of friends there, but I moved out and am just starting to settle in. The films I want to make tend to be more personal and I am not overly concerned with famous people. I am much more concerned with someone who is perfect for the part rather than a name. That’s not the way things are done now. They also need films to fit in specific genres. I like to surprise the audience.

How did this film hurt your career?

The film, when it came out, was supposed to play at 149 Theaters. Ted Mann pulled them from all his theaters. The movie came shortly after a widely publicized child abuse scandal called the McMartin Case, where they accused these schoolteachers of abuse, which turned out not to be true. People were so emotionally involved with the idea about child abuse that they misread the movie. To me, the movie is a fable about the opposite of child abuse. It’s about how if there is good in someone you can’t really destroy it, that it will somehow survive and that was part of the theme that I had going. At the end, the goodness came out of him. A lot of people took it the wrong way and it was pulled from theaters. I lost an agent because of that. A very famous producer said that she would not do a project with this agent if that agent kept representing me. I lost friends that I had known for years.

A friend that I had gone to school with accused me of promoting child molestation.

There was a concerted effort to make sure I didn’t do a lot of work. It actually hurt my career because people were scared to work with me. Anything that was negative, I was blamed for. If you are an actor, people don’t say, ‘Oh, that’s you.’ But if you direct something, even if you don’t write it, people associate you with what you did with it. So if it is amoral, you are amoral. I thought I was making a moral film. I think with this, or with a film like John McNaughton’s HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, people don’t go beyond what the filmmaker may be trying to do. It took me so long to make BABIES FOR SALE because I had trouble raising money and making movies because of SONNY BOY. Unfortunately, I had a lot I wanted to say in films.

SONNY BOY CREDITS

Director: Robert Martin Carroll. Written by: Graeme Whifler

Cast: David Carradine – Pearl. Paul L. Smith – Slue. Bard Dourif – Weasel

Conrad Janis – Doc Bender. Michael Boston – Sonny Boy

Release Date October 26, 1990

Running Time: 96 minutes

Trans World Entertainment

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