 editor Jill Schweitzer make the case that casting directors should be considered partners in the creative process by hauling in such heavyweights as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford and Robert De Niro for support. While Norman Jewison and others point out that in the old days, casting was a more organizational function that involved shuffling studio contract players into roles according to type and salary scale, it was Dougherty who raised the stock of the job.
The doyenne of a breed that includes such casting vets as Juliet Taylor, Ellen Lewis and West Coast counterpart Lynn Stalmaster, all of whom put in screen time here, Dougherty pioneered a shift to choices based not on looks or cookie-cutter personae but on the ability to create a character.
Honing her skills on Kraft Television Theatre, and later on Naked City and Route 66, Dougherty trawled Off Broadway and acting schools, finding talents like James Dean, Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Maureen Stapleton, Christopher Walken and Gene Hackman. She cut her teeth working with television directors who would go on to major film careers, among them George Roy Hill, Sidney Lumet and Arthur Hiller. The rapid assembly of footage and stills from these early years shows the staggering array of fresh talent Dougherty tapped.
While she died in 2011, Donahue’s interview with Dougherty forms the spine of the film. She attributes her success to “gut instinct,” never letting a bad audition or disastrous first day of shooting (as in Dean’s case) blind her to whatever potential she had intuited.
Jon Voight speaks frankly about botching his first job on Naked City and then being championed five years later by Dougherty for Midnight Cowboy over the more established Michael Sarazzin. A hilarious clip of a barely intelligible 22-year-old Warren Beatty on a Kraft drama backs up Dougherty’s advice to his agent that he should lose the Brando mumble.
Via her work with Hill, Dougherty took her New York approach to Hollywood. The high points of that association were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, but one of the best stories concerns the casting for Hill of Hawaii and an unexpected appearance by Bette Midler. Other choice anecdotes cover everything from The Last Picture Show to The World According to Garp.
Both before and after Dougherty’s physical move to Los Angeles, the film conveys a vivid sense of her New York brownstone offices as a hub of creativity and a magnet for eccentric talent. That building provided fuel for the most exciting decade in postwar American movies.
While Dougherty is very much the film’s focus, Stalmaster’s work is also lauded. There are great stories about casting The Graduate (Buck Henry recalls Redford testing opposite Candice Bergen: “It was more blonde than any human should be asked to accept”); and finding the Appalachian banjo-playing kid for Deliverance. It’s thrilling to gain insight into how these iconic movies came together. Jeff Bridges and John Travolta are among those offering wry recollections of their early experiences in Stalmaster’s casting pool.
Building evidence that the importance of casting is and always has been marginalized, the film recaps Dougherty’s struggle to get her first single-card title credit – on Slaughterhouse-Five, a few years after Stalmaster had broken that barrier with The Thomas Crown Affair. But her lack of a credit because of a dispute on Midnight Cowboy was a lasting wound; producer Jerome Hellman confesses that it continues to eat away at him 45 years later.
Without hammering the issue, the closing section reflects on the lack of respect given to the role of the casting director, much of it stemming from misperceptions about what the job entails. Seemingly untroubled about coming across as a pompous protectionist, DGA president Taylor Hackford sounds off about the inappropriateness of the word “director” attached to casting, or even in describing a cinematographer as “director of photography.” Hackford’s insistence that the director is the sole person whose creative vision matters seems somewhat rigid in what is unquestionably a collaborative art form, as so many other directors here attest.
While the Emmys have Outstanding Casting categories, the Oscars remain resistant, and bids to change that over the years have failed. More surprisingly, a 1991 campaign to get Dougherty the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar, led by a stellar roster of producers, actors and directors, was also nixed. Donahue’s tribute to her game-changing career is perhaps a bid for posthumous reconsideration.
Handsomely packaged, with some nifty use of colorization to highlight key figures in b&w stills, Casting By makes just one notable misstep. Running sappy “Thank you, Marion” interview clips over the end credits reiterates in unnecessarily sentimental terms the gratitude and acknowledgment that have been warmly evident throughout.
This invention relates to baskets and, more particularly, to a basket arrangement formed from plastic-coated wires.
Plastic-coated metal wire devices have become very popular consumer items. These types of goods are available in a wide variety of configurations including shelves, racks, baskets and like arrangements which facilitate convenient storage of articles where desired. The preferred plastic coating on these types of products provides an attractive, durable, corrosion-resistant finish which permits these types of products to be used in a myriad of locations throughout the home.
Basket-like coated wire products have proven particularly useful. Some basket arrangements typically include interconnected coated wire members which define a basket having an open side and are supported or hung from a shelf. An example of such a basket may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,456,125 to J. P. Chap.
Other types of basket arrangements are used as a receptacle for a removable bag. Moreover, some basket arrangements have been known to provide storage means, such as outwardly extending pockets, arranged in combination with the basket. Such pockets may be provided as an integral part of the basket or may be removably attached thereto. Additional or replacement bags may be stored in such pockets, thus adding convenience for the user.
While providing convenience, such additional storage means also present certain drawbacks. Those storage means which are removably attached to the basket often become separated therefrom and are ultimately lost. Those storage means which are permanently affixed to the basket also suffer drawbacks. That is, such storage means may extend outward in a stationary fashion from the basket. As such, the overall size of the packaging for such baskets is significantly increased. An increase in package sizing presents further problems in shipping and storing of such articles. That is, the increased size in packaging is further reflected in increased shipping size and decreased storage capacity and, thus, a decreased capacity in retail display room.
Heretofore, no known basket arrangement has been configured to provide additional storage without adding significant size to both the overall size of the basket and the packaging for such baskets and, thus, a reduction in retail display area. Thus, introduction of a coated wire basket which provides additional storage without adding significant size to the basket, the packaging of such units, or a reduction in the retail display space for such units would answer customers' needs for convenience without imparting additional burdens on the manufacture and ultimate retailer.
In view of the above, and in accordance with the present invention, there is provided a two-piece, preferably plastic-coated wire basket assembly which factilitates convenient storage of additional bags. The basket assembly of the present invention is constructed to optimize package sizing without subtracting from the conveniences afforded customers.
The present basket assembly preferably comprises plastic-coated metal wire for ease of economical fabrication and for convenient, durable, and attractive use. The basket assembly includes a first wire structure formed from a plurality of spaced, interconnected elongated members defining an open-top basket having a front, two sides, and a bottom, and a second wire structure defining an article support which is coupled to and manually translatable toward and away from the basket structure. Because the article support structure is coupled to the basket structure, it will not readily be separated or lost therefrom. The second wire structure defines a one-piece article support or receptacle whose capacity is limited by the extent such structure is movable away from the basket. By such construction, the receptacle can provide an adjustably sized storage means, e.g., for additional bags, to be used in combination with the basket.
The article support structure is coupled to the basket structure in a manner allowing slidable movement therebetween but which securely retains the two structures together. As such, during shipping and subsequent use, the article support structure will not readily be separated from the basket structure. Moreover, the instant invention allows the second wire structure or storage means to be arranged close to the basket so as to not add significant size to the packaging and/or storage space consumed by the basket arrangement and enhances nestability of the basket assemblies. In use, such article support can be laterally moved away from the basket to provide a storage means for the additional bags. The basket assembly may further include handle means provided on the wire structure defining the basket. Such handle means provide a support for plastic bags whose upper ends may be encircled about such handle means for purposes of stability and convenience.
Numerous other advantages and features of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention and embodiment thereof, from the claims, and from the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a basket arrangement incorporating the teachings of the present invention; and
FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the basket arrangement illustrated in FIG. 1.
While the present invention