clovesbud

ARGUMENT FOR TEST SCREENING FILMS

"We were previewing Ninotchka (1939) and Lubitsch(the director) took the writers along too, to Long Beach. And they are outside in the lobby there, a stack of cards, with the audience invited to put down their thoughts. So, the picture starts playing, and it plays very well. Afterward, Lubitsch takes the cards, a heap of the cards, and doesn't let anyone else touch them. We get into the big MGM limousine. We turn the light up. Now, so, he takes the preview cards and he starts reading. "'Very good'...'Brilliant'..." Twenty cards. But when he comes to the twenty-first card, he starts laughing...as hard as I ever saw him laugh, and we say, "What is it?" He keeps the cards to himself; he doesn't let anybody even look. Then finally, he calms down a little and starts reading. And what he read was - I still have the card- "Funniest picture I ever saw. So funny, I peed in my girlfriend's hand."

-Billy Wilder, 1999