For a number of years I’ve been working with Executive Producer Howard Kazanjian. Today I thought I’d share a little of the life and career of Kazanjian. He’s a gifted film executive and his stories of Hollywood are fascinating. Movies affect large masses of people – as art, as entertainment, as a method of wide-scale dissemination of fact and opinion. Making movies offers a means of involving the mind and body in creating something that will have a direct and powerful effect on those who see and hear it. Creating such a powerful effect was the motivating factor behind Howard Kazanjian’s entry into film making. Over the course of his thirty-five years in the motion picture industry, Kazanjian has worked with some of Hollywood’s most influential actors and directors. Whether he was acting as an assistant director on such cinematic classics as The Wild Bunch, or producing movie masterpieces like The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Kazanjian has been dedicated to moving audiences through film. A graduate of the University of California Film School, Kazanjian was hired to work for a major studio as he completed the school’s assistant director training program. His exceptional talent and natural flare for directing caught the attention of his instructors and the film executives at Warner Brothers Pictures. One of the first projects Warner Brothers signed him to work on was The Wild Bunch with cantankerous director, Sam Peckinpah. Kazanjian’s first learned he had the job working with Peckinpah after he was summoned to the man’s office. “I was on time for our meeting,” Kazanjian said, “but Peckinpah wasn’t there. I waited in the outer office next to a bank desks where three secretaries were seated. I had a direct view into the opened door of Peckinpah’s massive office. I stepped into the room after getting the nod from one of a secretary’s to do so and was met by a doctor and a nurse who told me to ’drop my pants.’” The physicians gave Kazanjian a series of shots, typically administered to people set to travel out the country. It wasn’t until that moment that Kazanjian knew that Peckinpah had agreed to let him work for him. Kazanjian journeyed to Mexico to help scout locations for the film shoot, barely having enough time to buy a pair of wrangler jeans and a pair of boots before he left. The mood among the crew already on the sight was tense. Peckinpah had fired a number of staff members associated with the production and many of those that remained weren’t sure how long they would be keeping their jobs. Peckinpah was tough on the crew. “He liked making people feel uncomfortable,” Kazanjian said. Often the crew would learn they had been fired when Peckinpah’s production manager passed them on the set and told them that ‘their replacement’ had arrived. Eventually, 75% of the crew would be fired. Peckinpah tolerated Kazanjian until he felt he the young talent had proved himself. He carefully followed Peckinpah’s instruction and held his tongue when the volatile director made outrageous demands. “Sam liked to sit for two or three hours and studying a location until he figured out how hw wanted to shoot the scene,” Kazanjian recalled. “One of the scenes in the movie was to be filmed on a high bluff over looking a great expanse of desert. When Sam reached the area he was immediately upset. Through gritted teeth he shouted for me and I hurried over to him. The crew knew something was wrong and moved in a bit to hear. ‘Didn’t I tell you I wanted this valley to be greened in before we filmed here?’ Sam asked Kazanjian. “I knew he hadn’t said anything about this previously, but I didn’t argue. I had learned by now to just say, “Coming, Sam.” We had a water truck with us all the time, and I asked special effects to mix the water in the vehicle’s tanks with green die, which fortunately we had, and sprayed the area. I just got busy fixing the problem.” In a matter of a few hours the desert floor was slightly green closest to the camera. Kazanjian’s time working on The Wild Bunch was a true educational experience for him. Not only was he able to glean valuable filmmaking techniques from Peckinpah, but he learned life and work lessons from the cast as well. “William Holden and Ernest Borgnine were gifted actors who knew their craft. Sam yelled at them as much as anyone else on the set though. The only person he never yelled at or tore apart was Ben Johnson. Ben was like a father to me. He was kind and gave great advice. Advice he lived too. He told me that a person should have a second job they can fall back on in case the first job as an actor didn’t pan out or if there were dry spells.” Still photographers, grips, electricians, crew members, assistant directors, extras and key personnel came and went during the filming of The Wild Bunch, but Kazanjian stayed. Peckinpah believed the assistant director was capable and dependable, but any real respect he had for him came towards the end of shooting the movie. “We were getting ready to film a pivotal scene in the movie where a bridge is dynamited and the bounty hunters on horse back fall twenty feet down into a raging river,” Kazanjian explained. “Sam was on a barge with a film crew in the middle of the racing waters filing the last shot in the scene, the last shot of the day, the last day of shooting the picture. Sam’s barge was tethered with a cable to each bank of the river. I was on the bank with another camera filming the scene. After the shot, as the barge was being pulled towards shore, I called out to the crew near me to cut the cable! Sam immediately yelled, “Who said that?” When told, Peckinpah got off the barge laughing. He patted his assistant on the back and applauded Kazanjian for his spunk. After the film was finished and Sam returned to the studio, whenever the two met, Peckinpah would greet Kazanjian with a hug and a reflective smile. The end result of the film they had made together was an Academy Award winning, western classic. Kazanjian’s experiences working with celebrated directors like Alfred Hitchcock, George Roy Hill, and Billy Wilder provide keen insight into the filmmaking process and are as enjoyable as they are informative. Kazanjian association with such greats and his longevity in an industry that changes executives nearly every day has made him a legend in his own right. 
