Charlton Heston Film Quotes

Yet, for a few weeks, Jackson had in front of him the chance of adapting Tolkien’s beloved bestseller, reviving Charlton Heston’s dystopian talking ape thriller, or remaking the film that had, in many ways, charted the course for his life. Which would, in fact, count as his second attempt to remake King Kong.

The last thing DeMille added to his $13 million film before he delivered the final negative to Paramount was his introduction that ran before the opening credits, filmed with him standing behind a microphone in front of a blue-and-white curtain (the colors of the Israeli flag). His intention was to emphasize the “importance” of what the audience was about to see and how authentic the film really was, and to make the spiritual connection to the Holocaust. DeMille says, in part: “The theme of this picture is whether man ought to be ruled by God’s law, or whether they are to be ruled by the whims of a dictator like Rameses. Are men the property of the state or are they free souls under God? This same battle continues throughout the world today. Our intention was not to create a story, but to be worthy of the divinely inspired story, created three thousand years ago . . .” The introduction was almost always cut after the film’s initial run. That

CHARLTON HESTON: A screenwriter has to recognize that film is a collaborative undertaking. You can’t write a film script totally in the typewriter. This is a highly controversial point, and the next time you have a writer in front of you, quote me and hear how mad it makes him.