they were casting for Moose Malloy and
I figure I should be Moose, but I don't hear a peep from anybody, so I
call Eddie Dmytryk and Eddie says, 'Aw, Mike, c'mon. You're a wrestler.
You're a phony.' So every
day
after that I read in Variety that they're testing truck drivers,
musclemen-- anybody that's big they're testing cause they gotta get a
big, big guy to play Moose Malloy. Well, a friend tips me off that Eddie
is having lunch
with the president of
RKO at the commissary. The word out is that the president is mad as hell
at Eddie for not finding a Moose. My buddy says, 'Eddie's still mad at
you for buffaloing him on your last picture, but I've got an angle on this
thing. Here's what you have to do...'
out to here,
and I throw open the commissary doors and walk in like I own the joint.
Everybody looks up at me and stops eating, and the president of RKO.... I
have to think about that.
He was a
good friend of Bing Crosby's. Anyways, I walk by his table, and Eddie
can't believe it. The president says to him, 'Who's that, Eddie?' And
Eddie says, 'Aw, that's nobody. He's a wrestler.' 'Did you test him?'
'Naw. Wrestlers can't read.' 'Well test him anyways,' the president
says, and then he comes over to me and says, 'What's your name?' And I
says to him, 'I'm Moose Malloy.' He goes back to Eddie and says, 'Test him
today.'
At my test we get along
fine. He has to, because the president of the company is there, and the
producer is there. Everybody is there. When I test with Dick Powell, Dick
says, 'Mike, you're the best Moose Malloy I've seen so far. I'm gonna
help you on this.' So, like I said, we get the script Thursday, shoot the
screen test Friday, I sleep Saturday and Sunday, and we start production
on Monday. That's how clean it was."
