Rob Reiner is happy in his ”Misery.”
For years, even when he was playing Meathead on the landmark television sitcom ”All in the Family,” the word on Rob Reiner was that he was incredibly morose, not at all like Archie Bunker`s hippie, happy son-in-law.
The morose tag continued when he started making such cheerful movies as
”This Is Spinal Tap” and ”The Princess Bride,” culminating with last year`s hit ”When Harry Met Sally . . .”
But now he has made a movie called ”Misery” (now playing in Chicago)
and he couldn`t seem happier.
”I am, I am. I am a happy guy,” he says. ”I don`t know where all that morose stuff started. So many things are written.”
Surprisingly, the grimly titled movie also contains a number of laughs. Based on a best seller by horror master Stephen King, ”Misery” tells the story of a successful romance novelist, Paul Sheldon, who is rescued from a car crash by Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who is also his most devoted and demented fan.
What Annie doesn`t know is that Paul, determined to embark on a serious literary career, has killed off his heroine, Misery Chastain, in the romance series` latest installment.
When Annie discovers the awful truth, she goes berserk and torments Sheldon while holding him captive in her secluded snowbound cottage.
Paul Sheldon`s situation was reflected, in a much more serene manner, by Reiner`s decision to film ”Misery.” Reiner already had directed one successful King adaptation; his 1986 hit ”Stand by Me” was based on King`s short story ”The Body.”
But after the unexpected success of ”When Harry Met Sally . . .” his public wanted more romantic comedies.
”They definitely wanted more Harrys to meet more Sallys. The funny thing is I never thought `When Harry Met Sally . . .` would be such a hit. I thought it would do well in New York, and if it did $25 million across the country, I would be happy. It wound up doing almost $100 million across the country. I had no idea it would catch on like that. All I know is that people related to it. Everyone`s either in a relationship or is looking for one.
”People would come up and relate scenes from the movie to me, as if they think I wouldn`t remember those scenes myself. Then they would all say, `Just keep making those happy movies. We need those happy movies. When we pay money at the box office, we want to see happy movies.` So my answer to all that is to make a movie called `Misery.` ”
Even so, Reiner`s movie is much less ominous than King`s novel. In the book, the hero`s legs are amputated. In the much-talked-about ”hobbling”
scene from the film, Annie is slightly more merciful. She rebreaks his partially mended legs with a sledgehammer.
”We considered using the amputation at first,” Reiner says. ”But we changed it because the metaphor is that the guy grows through enduring a lot of pain. But we wanted to stop short of saying that the guy has to lose something in order to gain something.”
Ironically, Reiner is not a Stephen King fan and has read only the two King stories that he filmed.
”Those two were character-driven rather than horror-driven,” Reiner says. ”I`ve always been a suspense fan but not a horror fan. I love suspense films. I love Hitchcock. But you know, in some ways, Hitchcock was a prisoner of his success. He never got really rave reviews. He`d be directing all these great films, `North by Northwest` or `Rear Window.` And the critics would say, `Yes, they`re nice little entertainments,` and then they`d go on and discuss some film that no one remembers now.”
His favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie is one of the director`s least heralded, ”Dial M For Murder.”
”So much of it took place in that one apartment, and yet it never became claustrophobic,” Reiner says. ”I didn`t want `Misery` to be claustrophobic. We expanded the characters of the sheriff and his wife and kept their search for Paul as a thread running through the movie. That helped alleviate the claustrophobia.”
Despite the changes, King apparently is delighted with the movie version of his work.
”I watched him watch the movie,” Reiner says. ”He was just like a little kid, jumping and screaming and talking back to the screen. He would say stuff like `Hurry up! Hurry up! She`ll be coming back into the room any minute!` and `Oh, no, don`t do that to the poor man!` And at the end, he gave me a big hug and called it the best film ever made from one of his books.”
Going from the comedy of ”When Harry Met Sally . . .” to the tautness of ”Misery” isn`t the only major change Reiner has made.
He achieved such recognition as Meathead on ”All in the Family” that television viewers felt betrayed when he didn`t want to continue in the series.
”I had always wanted to direct,” he says. ”I never directed any `All in the Family` segments because the show was done on tape and the director had to stay in the camera booth. I helped a lot in the staging process, and it was a great learning experience.”
His first great learning experience came when he visited his father, television veteran Carl Reiner, on the set of ”The Dick Van Dyke Show.”
”He didn`t actively teach me. I just sat on the sidelines and soaked everything up like a sponge. It was great, being a silent observer of all that talent.”
