GEORGE GROVES AND WARNER BROS. (1964-71)
The parting of the ways with Jack Warner
plus Bonnie and Clyde,
Bullitt, Camelot, The Wild Bunch
and Woodstock
I’d been with Colonel Warner for a long, long time and I felt
that he was more like a father to me than a boss - [George Groves]
George though labelled it a "sound effects editor's dream" and it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound. There was much ingenuity involved in creating the sound fx and considerable imagination used in employing them. By the 1960s the technological advancements in production were facilitating enhancements in creativity.
George was grateful to Henry Mancini who wrote the music for the film and who lobbied Jack Warner to pay for enhancements to the scoring stage mixers so they could accommodate more inputs. He was concerned that they wouldn't be able to cope with the demands of the film. This was a small first step in modernising the scoring and dubbing studios.
Warren Beatty was producer on the show and took his responsibilities very seriously, sitting in on most of the dubbing sessions. Some directors and producers would want to involve themselves in the dubbing, others such as Alfred Hitchcock never did. They simply trusted George with his forty years of experience and his skilled editors to deliver the goods. George recalled Beatty as being "very fussy" about many of the sound edits. He was particularly insistentent that the gunshots and sound of old vehicles be as authentic as possible.
However, twenty years earlier George was nearly sacked by Jack Warner after bringing Errol Flynn into the studio to do some sound looping. Just one line in his latest film had to be re-recorded but George was unaware that he was in dispute with Warners. He was contracted to them but was off-salary and not being paid in between pictures. This was a bone of contention for Flynn as George recalled:I’d been with Colonel Warner for a long, long time and I felt that he was more like a father to me than a boss. I always had a wonderful feeling of support from him...One thing I could always rely upon and that was 100% backing.
So George rang Errol and told him the writ was likely to cost him his job and Flynn said "If that’s the case George, I’ll forget it". And he simply cancelled his writ.After he’d done the looping job he demanded salary for all the time he’d been off salary. Well Warner he could have killed me. He said "who gave you authority to call Flynn in..Didn’t you know that he was off salary and he’s suing us? This looping is costing me $5000 a word?" He was mad. Mad, mad, mad.
It was, however, nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound and won an Academy Award for Best Music-Scoring. The main problem as far as George Groves was concerned was director Josh Logan's decision to use "extremely loud" playbacks in Vanessa Redgrave's musical numbers.
The lack of isolation of her recordings led to the actress having to 'loop' or re-record her vocals. "This was a very unusual procedure", said George. Looping (a.k.a. ADR) is standard practice these days. The hostility of some actors and directors to the process, which George often experienced, has been overcome by a demand for the highest quality digital sound. But the looping procedure was developed to post-record lines of dialogue, not lines in a song. Redgrave had to sing the song line by line in the looping room to the original orchestrations, lip-syncing to her filmed performances.
George was highly impressed with Alfred Newman's scoring of the picture. "He was so wonderful and did a beautiful job". Although, Jack Warner and Josh Logan made him re-write the main title theme as they both considered it to be "depressing", although George thought it "gorgeous".
These were played back for McQueen to listen to in the dubbing room. He was quite a speed buff himself and enjoyed driving fast cars. But he was unimpressed with the recordings and said to George "that's not me driving, that's not my style." He explained that he had his own rhythm of shifting gears up and down and accelerating. Plus he felt the recordings failed to fully convey the sensation of speed. He said "Set up a date, get the car and I'll drive."
Steve McQueen
in his Ford Mustang during the car chase
sequence in Bullitt
The quietest place that George could find with long enough runs to accommodate McQueen's driving at 120 mph, was at a disused airport in the Mojave desert on a boiling hot summer's day:
The film was nominated for best sound but the Oscar went instead to Oliver!We had a sound fx editor ride in the car with Steve. He drove at such speeds that this boy had to tie down the recording machine and he had to brace himself on the sides of the automobile to prevent being thrown from side to side when he made these fast turns and shifting up and down. They were out there all day with Steve just driving this thing for all it was worth. And we came up with the sound fx that you hear in the picture....He was absolutely delighted [with the results] and [Steve McQueen] threw a party for everybody in the dubbing room after he'd heard it.
This happened with The Sea Gull, a film adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play which was shot, edited and dubbed in Sweden in 1968 using local crews. However, producer / director Sidney Lumet (pictured right) was quite dissatisfied with the finished soundtrack to his film. So with a pressing deadline, he took it to Burbank for George and his team to re-dub. He was so pleased with the results that he took out a 'thank you' advert in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter:
It had to be done fast because there was a release date set. We made the date for him and he was very grateful because he did publish a very beautiful ad in the local trades praising the Warners sound department and the dubbing job very highly.
Peckinpah had made it clear that he didn't like Jerry Fielding's score and in the dubbing sessions he insisted, against all advice, that the music levels be constant without natural highs or lows. "All the vigour and life", as George put it, was subsequently lost. It was usual practice to preview a newly completed film at a local theatre prior to its official premiere. So The Wild Bunch was shown at a theatre in Fresno, and was not well received. The day after the screening George had a drink with Peckinpah to discuss the problems with the film:
The film was redubbed by George's team prior to it's theatrical release and Jerry Fielding won an Oscar for Best Music and Original Score.I said "do you know what's the matter with that show, Sam? You made us dub it like a TV show...it's all flattened out. There are no high spots, there are no low spots. There's no vitality. And it's your fault. Let us go back and dub it the way we think it should be dubbed." And we became friends.
This happened with Billy Jack and George's sound department played no part in its making. However substantial work would sometimes have to be done to make an acquired picture fit for purpose and Woodstock was a prime example.
The rights to the film record of the 1969 music festival were bought by Warner / Kinney for just $400,000. It was shot on 16mm by director Michael Wadleigh (pictured below left at Woodstock) with the sound recorded as 8 track magnetic. After the film had been converted to 35mm, it was edited in New York with creative use made of multiple screen images.
The dubbing was, however, scheduled to take place in Burbank but the young Woodstock crew were mainly record company people with no prior experience of the film industry.
We had to have meetings to educate these boys as to what could be done and what could not be done in making motion pictures.
George suggested that the fourth track of surround sound be used to increase audience participation in theatres. So it included the many PA announcements made at the event, leading to some theatre audiences joining in and stamping their feet. They wanted the film to replicate as far as possible the actual event and this included a higher level of theatrical playback than normal. So George Groves wrote to theatre services organisations and projectionists with instructions as to fader settings that must be used.
George even arranged for a sound technician to be sent to the main theatres that had pre-booked Woodstock to check that their speaker systems were properly balanced and to ensure that their surround speakers were good enough quality.
Woodstock was nominated for an Oscar for best sound but was unsuccessful but did win the best documentary award. George described his experience of Woodstock as "quite an event"!We went to a lot of trouble to get a good job out of Woodstock... Mike Wadleigh is a real genius, unbelievable the work that he did and the artistry that he’s shown. A real appreciation of the effect that sound could have.
Director Robert Altman was not in favour of looping dialogue after a shoot but was persuaded by Beatty and the film's producers that it was the only hope in rescuing the film. 'Sound looping' - ADR as it is now known - was so called because each line of dialogue that needed to be replaced was originally on a continuous loop of film. The actor repeated the line until s/he could no longer hear their original version in their headphones. That meant the new recording would be completely in sync with the picture. By the time of McCabe & Mrs Miller the technology had improved and an automated system had been developed and looped strips of film were no longer in use.We had long sessions in the dubbing room with Warren and Julie Christie, who played the feminine lead, and Bob Altman and myself...it was a terrible job to get any intelligibility out of it.
For some years George had been trying to persuade Jack Warner and Kenneth Hyman of Seven Arts to upgrade his scoring and dubbing facilities. Even Frank Sinatra had shown interest in investing. Finally he received the word that his plans for improvements were being given the green light by the new owners. It was to be George's swan song at Warners and the new facility would be named after him.
NEXT PAGE - George Groves & Burbank Studio (1972-76)
