Our Very First Vietnam Movie

Colleagues and friends from the agency and network days believe that I was ahead of the game when I put together "Tour of Duty," the 1987 CBS one hour about our heroes in Vietnam. But, actually, when I first got to town in the mid-'70's I sold and developed a TV movie about an MIA soldier that was astonishingly prophetic and wildly successful at a time when no one was supposedly watching NBC.

A writer team, John Herman Shaner (the dentist in "Little Shop of Horrors") and Al Ramrus, heard that I had an interest in original TV movies that were more substantial than Gary Collins in a Pinto chasing Leslie Nielsen and pitched me a story they called "The Reach of Love." 

An attractive, middle class housewife gets nowhere in her search for her missing soldier husband in Southeast Asia.  No one in the State Department or armed services would help. Pre-Internet this was based on a modicum of research the writers attempted.  There were, they offered, service wives who suffered this dilemma. 

Our heroine, however, would secure passage to Vietnam and personally find her man.  And she did. He was alive and married to a Vietnamese and torn about his decision, possibly damaged from the war, not wanting to return home. 

But how to get them into the network for a meeting? I had just been relocated from New York and this was the early days of NBC's TV movie department. Fortuitously, this team had written a script for American-International (Sam Arkoff-Sandy Howard) called "The Island of Dr. Moreau" starring Burt Lancaster. 

The film company had been taking full-page ads in the trades, each ad showing a different page from Shaner and Ramrus' screenplay. I chose an NBC exec and begin sending over each ad every day until he called me. 

"Let's bring them in."

They pitched "Reach of Love" and the response was a thud, nothing. No emotion, no smiles or warm embraces, no congratulations or well dones. 

I believed we were dead at NBC. So the drive back to El Camino pretty much sucked.  Until I hit the office. The caller was our NBC exec, who offered a "treatment" deal. I didn't even know what that was, but at that point in time, networks and studios could offer to buy a treatment, which was a glorified synopsis of a film told in present tense. 

My choices were to pass with outrage (and lose a potential deal) or agree and convince my clients to go through the motions. I called back the network and ran through their credits and honestly expressed that I wouldn't know how to tell them.

"I'm at a loss, maybe Len Hill at ABC will see the merits and…" 

He asks, "Look, can you tell me what they get?"  I didn't even know what he meant. 

Oh, you mean what their money for a real draft would be?  I'll have to check.

On hold, Peretzian was walking by.  He suggested $35K. 

"Oh here it is, it's $35 grand." 

Mr. NBC movies said, "OK, I may be speaking out of school but I'll recommend that we go forward with a first draft and a polish for $35K." 

I thanked him profusely and hung up still not knowing what to say to the writers except, "I think we got a deal."

Before I could reach either, Mr. NBC movies called back and said, "You have your deal."

I called the boys and they began to write. A month later they have a first draft, which I read and think is merely okay. Not great. Not brilliant. But with a couple of TV series stars on hiatus, who knows? 

Yes, I was underwhelmed. But I was more than concerned when I learned that our exclusive NBC movie exec had left the network. 

I called and found that I had to submit their completed draft to someone called Deanne Barkley. I did, and her office set a meeting for us to all meet.

Deanne, as I have expressed here, was a charismatic force of nature and creativity. She jumped from her white grand piano when we all arrived and screamed at us to sit down and listen! 

"Hey you guys, don't fall down, I read your script, there is hope, there is salvation, there is a movie here, I believe and maybe, just maybe you can deliver it!" 

They were ashen. 

"I don't want our wifey to find her guy. She may well find his grave, and what's missing is the real ball breaker — she's accompanied on her journey by an international anti-American journalist. 

“I mean, he can be a former American, or an Australian or Canadian, but there's a sexual chemistry between them that grows red hot when they both fall over the MIA soldier's grave!"

Now both Shaner and Ramrus are crestfallen. In their draft wifey finds her husband on page 23 and they both kvetch the next 80 pages about their love and life together in Colorado or wherever. 

I could see the writers' eyes and they were thinking of all the rewriting awaiting them to deliver what this new crazy woman wanted.

"I think the audience wants to see him alive…” mumbled Ramrus, a former documentary writer for Wolper. 

"No,” interrupted Shaner, our sellout, “I see where Deanne is coming from” (this was the '70's and Shaner was nothing if not grammatically hip) “and I believe we can come on board." 

God bless you, Shaner.

We exit. They are still crestfallen. I am angry with them.

"Listen, guys, don't you know the tradition here? New exec, new development. Yet she wants to be a part of your movie, she wants to join your club, she wants to make a picture that everyone will discuss the next day at the water cooler. She's invested and you are depressed?” 

They finally agree that this is positive and go home to write.

Their new draft is amazing, maybe not Chayefsky-amazing or even Rod Serling-amazing, but what they invented and Deanne adapted, was exciting as it delivered precisely what she dictated. Deanne too liked what they accomplished and set in motion its order to production. 

Business affairs called and asked if this was to be done "in house" or was there an umbrella company involved? As TV movies were still new, these deals were being made pretty loosely. There was no company but I knew enough not to agree to "in house," a dirty word at a packaging agency, as NBC in house would not acknowledge an agency packaging fee. 

"Oh we're in discussion with one of your suppliers right now," I lied.

Shaner called. 

"We want a company that will let us co-produce and pay our fees … of course … split the profits 50/50 and we want the Investment Tax Credit." 

Investment Tax Credit was a '70's government cash reimbursement for a small business that needed to spend money for machinery or construction upgrades or, basically, any action that would help productivity for the company.  It was also being offered in the entertainment industry as long as all production and post were accomplished in the U.S. 

The small print was that the company had to be "at risk."  We visited with NBC-approved suppliers including Gil Cates, Roger Gimbel, Dick Clark, Bill Finnegan, Dick Berg, Bob Papazian and some others (almost all saying no to the tax credit scheme), until we met with new client Bob Banner. 

I liked making deals with Banner as his offices were around the corner on Rodeo and I didn't have to drive.  Banner, a low-key Southern gentleman from Texas, had so much activity in specials and movies that he didn't need or care about investment tax credits, and confidentially confided to me, "I don't believe they will qualify, but that's their CPA's problem. Give it to them if we can close." 

We closed.  

Early on Kate Jackson had heard about the script and asked to see it. We met with her and pretended to take notes. She would commit if they wrote more graphically about the murder of innocents in ‘Nam. She wanted more blood and terror. All of us agreed to pass. 

Since "an actress of the import of Miss Jackson" was of the essence to the pickup, I went to our casting people and struck out. We next went to CAA to get Farrah Fawcett, who passed; Lindsay Wagner read the script, made us sit through a three-hour meeting, but also demanded major changes. 

CAA's Amy Grossman would not give up begging for this to be offered to Penny Marshall, but none of us could even imagine the romantic scenes with the journalist. Amy ran through alternatives and the name Sally Struthers came up.

Hot off “All in the Family,” Struthers was four feet 11 inches of sparkle, giggles and sexiness. After getting NBC's approval, I asked Banner if I could offer her the part. 

"You've never steered me wrong. Of course."  And we closed on Sally Struthers.  

Tony Musante joined us as the journalist (he had requested all Italian TV and theatrical rights, we said no).  James Hong, the brilliant Chinese veteran actor, portrayed Quan Dong, the Vietnamese officer.

The boys actually had a great idea, which would have garnered enormous worldwide attention.  We would aim to shoot the production in Vietnam. 

Banner approved, predicting that both governments would not sanction.  But it turned out that both Vietnam and the U.S. State Departmentcouldn't care less.  It was NBC that said "uninsurable and no."

So Malibu Canyon State Park once again served as Southeast Asia.

Fast developing was a group of directors from series and features that would for the next two decades specialize in TV movies.  Many like Buzz Kulick, Marvin Chomsky, Lamont Johnson, George Schaefer, Dan Petrie and Joseph Sargent were enormously gifted and hard working.  Most, however, were traffic cops, devoid of talent and social graces.  Our director, Richard Michaels, was in the latter group.

Oh and NBC sales came up with "My Husband Is Missing" a far better and truly marketable title. 

At the wrap party, Al Ramrus chatted with cast and crew about how agents are slow to respond to poor, suffering writer clients by saying,  "… you don't know the grief we had in getting this made."  Joining the outrageous rant, Shaner agreed with  "yeah, it was rough…."

Bob Banner, quietly overhearing, stood up. Everyone stopped talking. 

"I don't know what you two are talking about.  Didn't you both get taken to the network by your agent a day or two after you told him your idea?  And didn't he save you from a treatment deal and get you into script immediately?  And when NBC threw you a curve didn't he resuscitate that deal and encourage you to stick with it?  And didn't he line up and endure one bankable actress after another until he found our star? And, when it was ordered to production, didn't he make you co-producers, get you 50% of the profits plus the investment tax credit?  And you two are sitting here, eating my food and complaining?  About what? 

Everybody at the table, including Shaner and Ramrus, laughed raucously.  I realized at that moment the pursuit of a client's gratitude should never be expected or would it be readily forthcoming.

"My Husband Is Missing" enjoyed a 40 share.