John Milius

I’ve always been interested in the career of John Milius. I first became aware of him as one of the film school generation – the movie brats that included Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Scorseses and de Palma. Milius was always mentioned in association with them – he was kind of the not-quite-famous one, the not-quite-artistically-legit one, without a hit of Star Wars or ET proportions on his CV. Nonetheless, Milius’ contribution to movies is quite enough on his own.

Of the movie brats, Milius was probably the best writer – though Coppola had a good claim to match him by the early 70s. Milius went to film school with George Lucas, and made an early claim to film history by introducing Lucas to the films of Akira Kurosawa - Kurosawa's Hidden Fortess partially inspired Star Wars. Milius, a keen hunter and surfer who must have seen larger than life to the quiet Lucas, was also supposedly an inspiration for the Han Solo character and the Paul Le Mat character in American Grafitti.

Milius' writing earned him money straight after film school. His first credit was The Devil's Eight, a Dirty Dozen knock off set in the rural south starring Fabian. Milius shares credit with Wilfred Hyuck who co-wrote American Grafitti. Milius earned a reputation as a hot screenwriter with his original scripts Jeremiah Johnson and Judge Roy Bean; the former was extensively rewritten and was a bit hit, the latter was directed by John Huston, who one would have thought would have been ideal for Milius, but no one seems to have been satisfied with the result. He also worked uncredited on Dirty Harry - I read an early draft of the script, which also had Terence Malick's hands on it, and there are several passages which are unmistakably Milius, mainly monologues about guns. (Incidentally the early draft has Harry chasing after a vigilante, not a psycho killer, and his partner isn't hispanic.) The famous "did he use six bullets or five" speech wasn't in the script I read; it has been credited to Milius and no one seems to have offered evidence to the contrary. Milius also worked on the sequel Magnum Force.

By the early 1970s Milius was one of the leading scriptwriters in Hollywood, along with William Goldman and Robert Towne. He persuaded AIP to let him direct if he wrote the script - Dillinger. (AIP gave early chances to directors such as Scorsese.) The film did well enough for Milius to get financing for a big budget studio film, The Wind and the Lion. Milius the director didn't seem to reach the heights of Milius the writer. Apparently the film did OK, and Milius could make another film, the personal surfing epic Big Wednesday. This film was a massive box office flop.

Milius' emphasis on directing meant that his writing was neglected in the second half of the 70s. His writing did attract attention - he contributed Robert Shaw's legendary "why I hate sharks" monologue in Jaws, one of the best examples of Milius' abilities. Watch it: an action film but Spielberg just keeps the camera on Shaw for a couple of minutes. The quality of the acting and the words create an amazing scene. Milius' script for Apocalypse Now, which he wrote in the late 60s and early 70s, reached the screen in 1979. His script had been much rewritten by Coppola, particularly the stuff involving Kurtz. Some of it is unmistakably Milius, including the character of Kilgore (Robert Duvall). I read an earlier draft of the script which also includes a fantastic scene where the American soldiers come across some French plantation owners. Coppola was a directo with the visual gifts to match Milius' story telling and its a shame they didn't collaborate more.

Milius spent some of the late 70s and early 80s in pseudo-executive mode, executive producing some films from film school grads including 1941, Used Cars and Hardcore. He returned to directing with a commercial triumph with Conan the Barbarian. This was followed by Red Dawn, for which Milius was paid a reported million dollars. It did OK at the box office but not as well as MGM had hoped.

Apart from an episode of Twilight Zone, Milius' next film wasn't until 1989's Farewell to the King. Like his other adventure films, it had a terrific idea - an American deserter becomes head of a tribe in WW2 Borneo - but didn't live up to its ambitions. The same could be said for 1991's Flight of the Intruder, although the story wasn't as strong for that one. Both films were expensive flops, and Milius hasn't directed a studio film since, though he has made two for TV: Rough Riders and Motorcycle Gang. His films are always interesting, but he isn't the best director in the world: his films are often visually stagnant and the action scenes full of endless gunfire and explosions. There is little real excitement.

In the 1990s he concentrated on screenwriting and made contributions to Geronimo, The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, as well as the acclaimed TV series Rome. He remains something of a cult figure - the audience for Big Wednesday continues to grow, he inspired the John Goodman character in the Big Lebowski.

Milius has a strong career and even today few screenwriters can match him. He once said his dream was to make B westerns in the 40s and 50s and he probably would have been better off doing so. He also might have been better off not directing. But with the respect givden to screenwriters that probably would have sent him nutty.