Casting The Deer Hunter proved easier, with the acquisition of Robert De Niro to play the troubled vet protagonist sparking a veritable domino effect within the New York theatre world, resulting in the participation of Meryl Streep, John Cazale, and Christopher Walken.
Ultimately, the Writer's Guild awarded Washburn a sole screenplay byline, with Cimino, Redeker and Garfinkle sharing original story credit. According to Cimino, a booze-addled Washburn delivered a nonsensical script that required extensive rewrites. By Washburn's account (disputed by Cimino), he and Cimino established plot particulars over three days at the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles, after which Washburn was given three weeks to bang out the balance Cimino then (allegedly) took delivery of the script, added his own name, and fired Washburn.
Seeing the potential in The Man Who Came to Play, Cimino hired his Silent Running co-writer Deric Washburn to craft a screenplay that set the tale more firmly within the Viet Nam conflict. If the gate for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot failed to measure up to that of Magnum Force, Hollywood (and the critics) remained impressed. Clashing in temperament and artistic vision, Eastwood and Cimino nonetheless turned in another winner. Though the follow-up left critics unimpressed, Magnum Force out-grossed the original by an appreciable margin, insuring a green light for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with Cimino at the helm. Helping to seal the deal was his offer to rewrite John Milius' patchy screenplay for Magnum Force (1973), Eastwood's cash-in sequel to Don Siegel's searing policier Dirty Harry (1971). Though Eastwood loved the script, Cimino held fast for the right to direct. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) would come to involve Jeff Bridges in a road picture/crime caper centered on the love-hate relationship between a career criminal and a young drifter. Ambitious to a fault, Cimino began crafting an original script tailored to the talents and taste of William Morris client Clint Eastwood. With the war in Southeast Asia considered taboo subject matter for films, the property was passed hot potato style for years, landing ultimately at Universal with producer Michael Deeley, who offered it to Cimino.Ī graduate of Yale University and the Madison Avenue advertising game, Cimino signed with the William Morris Agency in Hollywood, where his first credit came for chipping in on the screenplay for Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running (1972). Garfinkle and Redeker's tale involved a cynical Viet Nam veteran reduced by bitterness and psychological trauma to playing Russian Roulette. Undisputed is that the project began with a spec screenplay titled The Man Who Came to Play, which was being shopped around Hollywood in 1968 by its authors, independent writer-producer Louis Garfinkle ( I Bury the Living, 1958) and character actor Quinn Redeker (a familiar face for cult film fans due to his jocular heroic turns in Spider Baby and The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, 1962). Though there is little disagreement among his many collaborators regarding the genesis of Cimino's notorious box office flops - among them Heaven's Gate (1980) and his 1990 remake of The Desperate Hours (1955) - the backstory of his multiple Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter (1978) remains clouded in mystery and no small amount of acrimony. The career of film director Michael Cimino supports the timeworn adage that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan.