Sonny Bunch: I feel like one of the running motifs of your book is: Let’s get Brian De Palma behind a camera again. That would be fun. Maybe let him make one more movie. Somebody.

Glenn Kenny: It’s a tricky situation. Because unlike the other directors he came up with, De Palma never formed a permanent production company of his own. He never aspired to be a producer. He was never a mogul. And unlike Scorsese and his other friends, he doesn’t have an archive of his stuff. He has been a director-for-hire, and kind of, the last few films that he’s made have acquired European backing and often European producers who are on the relatively shady side and interfere with the work. I’m not sure – I can’t speak for him, what his disposition is. I do know he would like to direct another film. It’s just that the circumstances haven’t loaned themselves to it. And he’s not in a position where he’s going to… you know, it’s complicated, from what I understand, is about all that I can say. But I would love for him to direct another film. He’s always thinking about things, and he’s living in East Hampton. And I know his great friends Jay Cocks, the screenwriter, and David Koepp, the screenwriter, visit him relatively frequently. They watch films together and talk films, so, you know, he’s still all about cinema. Yeah, I agree, I hope he gets to make another film, sooner than later.

I was a visitor on-set the day of the great Scarface disaster, when Pacino nearly killed himself by tripping at the wrong time and grabbing the wrong thing with which to steady himself.

It was the final scene, where "Tony Montana" is killed. They were going to destroy the set by "gunfire" and take it up to the point when Tony falls out of the second story and ends up dead in the pool below. That really existed, in the house in Santa Barbara they were using for the exteriors. Tony would be chased through the house by the assassins, and in the end by blown away with a shotgun, as he fought them off with an AR-15 modified for full auto. Squibs were all over the set, and would be set off by a member of the SFX team offstage. It's important to note that Pacino's final mark had been made with a pair of 2x4s where "X marks the spot." This was going to be one long take and at the end the set would be destroyed.

So they start up, DePalma calls "action," and everything goes as you remember the scene watching in the theater.

Except, at the end, Pacino trips over the 2x4s and drops his gun. He grabs for it and ends up grabbing the red-hot barrel. He screams, drops it and starts to stagger back toward the window. Except there is no pool beyond it, only concrete floor. Nobody seems to know things have gone wrong other than Pacino and the actor who is to "blow him away."

At literally the last moment, before Pacino went out the window and ended up hittng the concrete floor 20 feet below, the "killer" actor grabbed his belt and pulled him back. Disaster was averted.

Pacino spent six weeks recovering from the burns. This gave the crew time to rebuild the set (god knows how much money this cost - the production accountant does too). Finally everyone is ready to go at it again. This time they use tape for "X marks the spot," and all goes well and we have all seen that final shootout and been amazed by it. (I forgot, during production, DP John Alonzo developed a way to wire the guns to the camera so they only fired when the aperture was open, so there is no rotoscoping in the entire movie).

Yeah, back in the days when makin' mo'om pitchas was fun.