Kim Hunter reminisces about the making of
A Matter of Life and Death.
Born in
1922, Kim Hunter’s movie career spans several generations and
seems to have met with success in each. Stage trained, she made
an eye catching debut in ‘The Seventh Victim’ in 1943.
She went on to enjoy success in a variety of films, including ‘A
Matter of Life & Death (known in the US as Stairway To Heaven,
1946), ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1951 – for which
she won an Oscar), ‘Lilith’ and three popular Planet of
the Apes movies.
What are
you memories of making A Matter of Life & Death?
That Powell
& Pressburger were wonderful filmmakers. They had a wonderful
working relationship. Frequently the ideas for the films came from
Mickey Powell, not always, but Emeric would write them down, and
then Mickey always got his finger in the script. Every one of them.
And the fact that they could work that closely together says a lot
about Pressburger as well.
Was it fun
to work on?
It was a fabulous
experience. I did have a word of warning from Roger Livesey. I had
just arrived, I came by ship and then got the train up to London,
stayed in a hotel and almost as soon as I’d arrived in London
Mickey invited me to a little cocktail party for everyone who was
to be involved in the film. Roger grabbed me at one point, and insisted
I have dinner first with him and his wife. This was so he could
give me a warning about Mickey. He told me that Mickey liked to
play this game, it was a tease really, and I caught him doing it
once. I caught his eye as he was really killing this actress, nagging
her and asking lots of crazy questions. I gave him a look, and he
just howled, he was so delighted. He wanted to be caught, he wanted
people to know what he was doing, and if you didn’t stop him
he’d carry on until he practically killed you.
So you got
off lightly then?
I was fortunate,
although there was a time when David [Niven] and I were rehearsing
on the set, and Mickey had been seeing us for days working on lines
together, and he’d come by and listen. Then when we got to
do it, to actually shoot it, we had a run through and at the end
of it he asked ‘is that the way you’re going to do it?’.
He said ‘oh God, no!’. he told us to go home and work
on it. We came back, and what we finally did the next day was practically
the same thing, but he was delighted. That was his way of keeping
you on your toes.
The film
became the first Royal Command Performance, what was that like?
The King and
Queen made the rounds after the film. We were told how we were to
respond, and we were in a semi circle in the lounge area of the
cinema, they came around after the King, the Queen and both Princesses.
What was fascinating – Mickey told us later – was that
the King had said he knew how he had faded in and out of the black
and white and the colour, and he told him correctly. Mickey was
absolutely delighted that the King should have figured it out.
What are
your memories of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, both on stage
and screen?
That Marlon
was the best actor I’ve ever worked with in my life, and that
Tennessee Williams wrote a beautiful play. To a certain extent it
transferred to the screen, but because it was made in 1951 the concept
of homosexuality couldn’t be touched on. So unless you know
the play you can’t really understand Blanche’s deep sense
of guilt about the death of her husband, who was a homosexual.
Although
Streetcar was made in the early 50s Elia Kazan obviously chose to
make it in black and white didn’t he?
I think it’s
because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much
stronger in black and white. Colour is distracting in a way, it
pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart.
As for Planet
of the Apes, as unrecognisable as you were it must be another movie
that people are constantly asking you about?
That make up
took four hours to apply in the morning, and then another hour and
a half to get it off at the end of the day. And while Streetcar
is a classic and ‘A Matter of Life & Death’ is a classic
those ape films have become a cult in their own right. People from
all over the world write to me about those films.
More recently
you have starred in films like ‘Midnight In The Garden of Good
& Evil’, and ‘A Price Above Rubies’. Did this
give you the opportunity to compare actors like Kevin Spacey and
John Cusack with the Marlon Brandos and David Nivens?
It’s hard
to compare actors from different generations. I don’t know,
I don’t know that the intentions are much different, and I
think there are an awful lot of good actors now. When I was brought
up I can’t say that they were any better. A lot of more modern
films seem to just be out for violence or sex or what have you,
without relating it to what’s going within human beings. But
every now and then one comes along that does that, and it’s
a joy.
Click here
for the review of
'A matter
of life and death'.
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