Peter Graves: The Movieline Interview

As hard as this might be to believe, Peter Graves has no star on the Walk of Fame. That unforgivable transgression will at last be corrected tomorrow, however, when the Mission: Impossible mastermind and enduring standard bearer of gravitas and cool finally earns his rightful place on Hollywood Blvd. The following week, he receives an equally deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival. He'll be there, answering your questions following a special screening of Airplane! -- the disaster spoof that opened him up to a new generation of fans, who to this day still pester him to, "Ask me if I've ever been to a Turkish prison!" Movieline talked to Graves about some of his classic early roles, his badge as geek totem to sci-fi B-movie fans everywhere, and his response to J.J. Abrams' invitation to return to the spy franchise from which he long ago parted ways. The incredible Mr. Graves, after the jump.

I'd like, if we might, to start by reaching backwards in your career. The Night of the Hunter is considered to be one of the very best American films of the 1950s, if not all time. What are your memories of that shoot?

It was way ahead of its time. I don't think the post-War world was quite ready for that yet. My memories of it are wonderful. We made that in '54. I do believe that was the only film Charles Laughton ever directed, but not because he didn't want to or wasn't splendid at it. He was just getting older by that time, and I don't think probably had the energy to do a lot of directing.

He was a great example of the way some actors could become marvelous directors. He had a trick that I hadn't seen before, of rolling the camera with a fresh, 1000-foot roll on it. When you finished the scene, he'd already notified the camera not to cut, and while it was still rolling, he would say to the actors,"Try so-and-so. Make this a little more pronounced, or less. Turn away for that line. Soften it a bit." He'd talk it through. And then, very quietly, he'd say, "All right, let's do it again -- action." And he might do it three or four times, or for however long it would take to fill up that first reel. Nine minute or ten. It was a wonderful way to work.

Of course, working with [Robert] Mitchum -- that was my first time working with him. And he was marvelous, very professional. A bright, bright guy. And a pretty independent fella!

Prior to that, you had also worked with Billy Wilder on Stalag 17.

I made that in '52. That's getting pretty far away, now. It was terrific. It was a great time working for Billy Wilder. He wrote it.

But it was based on a play, right?

Yeah. It was written by these two guys who had been in one of the Stalags. Paramount hired one of those writers to work on the screenplay and be a part of the barracks. But Billy didn't like him or think he could screenwrite worth a damn. So he never did anything involving writing.

Since it had been a play, and took place primarily in the barracks, it lent itself to be photographed from the beginning to the end, which we did. We started with about 20 pages. When we finished those, Billy would come striding onto the set with his new pages. And he'd say, "C'mon -- sit around the table, let's read this through and see if it's going to work for us." And we did the rest of the picture that way, which was a wonderful way to work. Again, creative stuff. He was a pressure writer. He had to be under pressure.

There are only a couple of us left. But it's a memory that will endure, and a picture surely that has endured.

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