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I remember one time, we had written a script for Mitchell Lisen and Arthur Hornblow, the producer
called HOLD BACK THE DAWN, with Boyer, and Olivia deHavilland, and Paulette Goddard, and a slew of other actors
And the basic point of the script was -- of the story, of the theme -- was...
er... the... Romanian *** who would like to get into the United States, but doesn't have a visa.
So he is now waiting for the quota number to come up
in some lousy hotel in Tijuana, across the border.
And he was lying there on the couch, unshaven and disheveled
And there was a cockroach -- I'm quoting the script now --
a cockroach was trying to climb up the dirty wall, and onto a little mirror that was there.
And he had a little walking stick there, and he would stop that cockroach any time he wanted to get onto the mirror
and say, "Wait a minute, where are you going? Have you got a visa?"
That was basically the scene.
So, I remember there was a restaurant across the street called Lucy's
and we went to lunch there, Brackett and I.
I ran into Boyer, and I said to him, "What are you doing?"
He says, "Well, we're doing that scene in the hotel..."
"Oh yes! That scene with the cockroach. It's a good scene, isn't it?"
And Boyer says, "You think it's a good scene? ...
He says, "We cut it out, because I refused to do it."
I said, "Why?"
And Boyer said, "It's stupid! It's idiotic!"
He says, "Why should I talk to a cockroach if a cockroach cannot answer me? ...
"...I'm not going to talk to a cockroach."
I looked at Brackett, Brackett looked at me, and we got very very angry.
We went back to the office
and we were still writing the final 20 minutes of that film.
I was so angry, I said, "I'll tell you...
"...this son of a ***, if he doesn't talk to a cockroach, he won't talk to anybody!"
And we gave him the absolute minimum for the end.
We gave everything to Olivia de Havilland.
Out of anger, you know?