All right, Doug McGrath, you're the cock of the walk, right?
"Er," says Doug McGrath, "it's more like I'm the chicken of the alley."
Always with the funny, eh, McGrath?
Yes, indeed. And that's why Doug McGrath, a New York free-lance writer who is mostly known for "The Flapjack File," a satirical account of the Clinton White House in the New Republic, finds himself in the odd role of an Oscar nominee. McGrath has been co-nominated with Woody Allen for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for "Bullets Over Broadway," one of seven surprise nominations the Allen film received.
"I did not expect it," says McGrath. "In fact, I don't expect anything in life, anywhere, ever."
When asked if he thought film studio Miramax's advertising campaign in the trade papers may have accounted in some part for the honor, he said, "I'm too dumb to answer that question. I don't get the trades. I'm outside. I'm so far outside."
But he does recall his co-author's excitement when Miramax, a notoriously aggressive film entity, picked up the film for release after it had been completed.
"They will go out on the street and make people see the movie," Allen told him, and it should be noted that McGrath's imitation Woody voice is absolute creme de la creme. It's much better than the previous champion's, Rick Moranis, on the old "SCTV."
McGrath came into the Allen orbit through the auspices of his fiancee, Jane Martin, who had been an Allen assistant for many years and has since gone on to a career as a children's book author. But she and McGrath and Allen had had dinner together many times, where a continual topic of discussion was Hollywood horror stories. McGrath had a few: He was the credited screenwriter a few years back on a remake of "Born Yesterday," which, he says, "Everyone now agrees was a big mistake."
He knows that Allen wouldn't have asked him to work together "if he hadn't known me for five years. He's an enormously shy man."
They got together on the principle of authorship but without any single idea in mind. "He has millions of ideas. He had a big five that we considered first. 'Bullets' wasn't in it. We would discuss them in detail. We would plot them out, scene by scene. Woody says, 'If I can just get to page 90, I know I've got a movie.' And he believes that. Several times he's quit when he couldn't get beyond page 89.
"He may seem aloof, but he's always asking: Is this interesting to an audience? In that respect, he's very disciplined, and not into self-indulgence at all. He assumes the audience will be as smart as he is and really cares that the pace be fast."
Finally, the two got down to two or three elaborate plot outlines and had to make a choice.
"I was pushing for 'Bullets' because I thought it was different from any of his recent films. It was a period piece and it had been years since 'The Purple Rose of Cairo.' "
McGrath describes the collaboration as follows.
"He did the plot, the dialogue, the action, the stage directions. I numbered the pages. I was very good at it. Sometimes they'll call me in if they've got a script that goes 7, 9, 10, and I'm very good at getting that 8 in there!"
But seriously, folks . . .
But seriously, "He was good at everything. We both saw things in there we could contribute. It's hard to separate what he did from what I did. Even now, friends who know my work will come up and quote a line and say, 'That's your line' and it never is!"
The big question: Woody Allen has been notoriously indifferent to the Oscars, always spending the night of the ceremony playing the clarinet. Surely McGrath will follow in that same pattern.
"Oh, no! I'm going to California. I'm renting a tuxedo and hiring a limo. I don't think this is going to happen again. And I also know what my fiancee would do to me if I didn't take her!"