A Powerful Curse
“For the NY Times Classifieds:
MAY ANY FILM MADE ABOUT HOWARD HUGHES NOT DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS RAY BE PUT TO REST IN A VAULT AND MAY THE VAULT HAVE SEVEN ROOMS AND MAY EACH ROOM HAVE SEVEN SHELVES AND MAY THE FILM BE SHIFTED EVERY SEVEN YEARS FROM SHELF TO SHELF TO ROOM TO ROOM UNSEEN AND UNREMEMBERED.
1977.”
~ Nicholas Ray, in I Was Interrupted, Nicholas Ray on Making Movies.
June 2, 2008 at 11:44 am
There has`nt been a movie made about Howard Hughes YET.They don`t make movies in america-they make money off of murdered off hughes`s coverups.
June 2, 2008 at 11:49 am
Thats How you make coverups-not movies!.
June 2, 2008 at 11:52 am
SO…Where is the oscar????!.On the same shelves?
June 2, 2008 at 1:48 pm
How rude! And Marty LOVES Nick Ray.
June 2, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Yeah…the curse didn’t really work, did it?
I think it only had legitimacy while Ray was alive — he didn’t want anybody else making a film on that subject, since he knew HH and had been protected from the blacklist by him. He probably wouldn’t object to somebody else having a go now that he’s unable to.
But I wonder if Scorsese knew of this curse before embarking on his film? It would freak me out slightly, if it were me.
June 2, 2008 at 4:28 pm
HH — I’m intrigued. What cover-ups are you referring to?
June 2, 2008 at 4:28 pm
That’s because you weren’t raised in Little Italy. Marty is exceptionally brave. A Nick Ray curse from beyond the grave is nothing compared to taking on the Mafia as he does in Casino (Goodfellas was about small fry.)
June 2, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Well, I don’t know, an undead Nick Ray might be quite scary. He has an eyepatch!
I was raised in Portobello, a seaside bit of Edinburgh that’s a bit like the town in I Vitelloni, only colder.
June 3, 2008 at 8:12 am
Jesus, I forgot that Nick had written that about Howard Hughes. When we were filming We Can’t Go Home Again during 1972-73 one of the people Nick telephoned to raise money for the film was a close associate of Howard Hughes, who had access to his fortune. These calls to Hughes failed to produce any results. Nick also admired the Orson Welles film F For Fake even though Welles had made some derogatory comments about Ray years before.
June 3, 2008 at 8:52 am
The book I Was Interrupted should bring back all kinds of memories for you, as it reproduces Ray’s classes and other documents.
Welles didn’t see many movies so maybe he just saw one Ray film, didn’t get it, and assumed he was overrated by the French. At any rate, Welles had a lot of respect for the older generation but tended not to praise his contemporaries. (I guess Ray was older than Welles but started later.) And Kubrick was the only younger director I can recall Welles praising.
August 15, 2008 at 5:34 am
Andy Cipollo is a code word for killin the hughes`s
August 15, 2008 at 5:42 am
Broken lance with Jeam Peters and robert wagner tells the real story about the coverup and kill off of HRH.Robert/jean&comunists–HRH was setUP so the busted RKO apart and sold it off.He was national defence player#1.No body screwed with billion stockholder CIA hughe`s not even blacklistee jean peters his wife.Cuba missiles at our asses closest to nuke war EVER before or since.They still play fox players on howard robard hughes IIV.
August 15, 2008 at 9:52 am
Can I gently you suggest you consider restarting whatever medication you were on? I’m not being rude or dismissive. There may be something in your theories. But the way you express them tells me that you are suffering some kind of chemical imbalance.