Ralph Bakshi & Frank Frazetta's "Fire and Ice" (Interview with ROY THOMAS)

 

SWORD & SORCERY

RALPH BAKSHI

FRANK FRAZETTA

ROY THOMAS & GERRY CONWAY

Mix them all together and you'll get 1983's Fire and Ice, an astonishing animated film conceived & directed by Bakshi & Frazetta from a script written by Thomas & Conway.

I've been fortunate enough to be granted an interview about this film with Mr. Thomas, to whom I want to express my gratitude for his kindness and his time.

The notes in brackets ( ) were made by Mr. Thomas. The notes in square brackets [ ] are mine.

Interview conducted by e-mail in December 2021 by Miguel Ángel Ferreiro

RALPH BAKSHI first approached you by phone on January 2, 1981. By that time, you were already writing scripts for Hollywood in partnership with GERRY CONWAY -- SNOW FURY, inspired by a novel by Richard Cort Holden, being your first sale, en 1979 -- so you brought CONWAY into the deal. Even though it was BAKSHI who phoned you, did you get to learn who suggested you for the job, RALPH BAKSHI or FRANK FRAZETTA?

Actually, no one needed to "suggest" me at that time. Two or three years earlier, probably late 1976 or early '77, before I was partnered with Gerry, Ralph had contacted me to write a different project of his... not sure what it was to be, but something sword-and-sorcery, though I don't think it was necessarily one of his features that actually emerged. It was Mike Ploog, who was then working with Ralph on Wizards (at whatever stage it was then in) who had suggested Ralph get in touch with me, since he was looking for a screenwriter. But, as it turned out, I wasn't "available" then because, as part of my "story consultant" deal on Conan the Barbarian with producer Ed Pressman, I couldn't write a Sword & Sorcery film for a year or so (I forget the exact time limit). So when Ralph had another idea a few years later, he contacted me again. This time, with Gerry added to the mix, it was a go. 

 

As far as I know, BAKSHI & FRAZETTA got together in 1980 and created the main characters in the film. Then they hired an anonymous screenwriter to work with them in a story, but, apparently, they only managed to write the first ten or twenty minutes of the script. Do you remember the name of this previous writer?

I don't recall ever hearing of any previous writer from Ralph or anyone else.  Certainly most of the characters weren't in place when Gerry and I came aboard... or else we abandoned most of them. I suppose one of them could have become Larn, although if so there was virtually nothing given to Gerry and me to work with except a few Sword & Sorcery actions, no character or background. Ditto with whatever thought may have been given to a female lead. And Darkwolf, I believe, came from Gerry and me (and Bakshi) alone, though of course Frazetta did the visual designing.

Larn and Darkwolf

Basically, Ralph had no real plot... just a few scenes in his head.

The first one was of the hero (who became Larn) climbing up and up a huge tree to escape the beast-man types pursuing him -- finally getting to the top, and then leaping off. It was a dramatic scene, but Ralph had no idea where it led... we had to figure out why Larn wasn't killed and where the story went from there.

I don't want to disparage Ralph... he had a great visual sense for the scenes he came up with, but there was, when we came in, no story at all to provide connective tissue. Just his visual scenes, and some drawings by Frazetta... though they didn't tell any story or really develop any through line. 

 

In November 1981, you've stated in a panel held in Los Angeles that the title was devised by GERRY CONWAY and you, and CONWAY himself, in an interview published in FILMFAX PLUS #143, stated that the title and the plot were inspired by two of FRAZETTA's paintings: CONAN OF CIMMERIA, which featured a snow landscape; and the original DEATH DEALER, with the lava motif.

I recall the precise title Fire and Ice as being Gerry's suggestion, so maybe he had the Conan of Cimmeria cover in mind; I don't recall thinking of it particularly, but it's a beautiful cover, and I have a sentimental liking for it, since it was reading L. Sprague de Camp's intro in that volume, when it first came out in 1969, that led me to contact Robert E. Howard estate literary agent Glenn Lord and make the deal to bring Conan to Marvel.

The original Death Dealer painting was doubtless the general inspiration for Darkwolf... although, again, there's no story suggested by that magnificent painting, only a mood and a strong, super-Conan-esque figure. 

 

A hand-written note by FRAZETTA, that appears in FRANK FRAZETTA JR.'s book FRANK FRAZETTA: ART AND REMEMBRANCES (2013, HERMES PRESS), succinctly states that he "conceived of the original concept", and that he "created the characters of LARN, TEEGRA, DARKWOLF, NEKRON and subhumans".

That's bullshit, except to the extent we knew there'd be a young hero, an older/stronger hero, a heroine, and some sort of fantastic villain of a sorcerous nature... though the nameless "subhumans" I'll give Frank, since they're the guys who were chasing Larn in that first scene Ralph gave us.

As for names, Larn I took from the title of Gardner Fox's paperback novel Warrior of Llarn (which was more John Carter-ish than Conan-esque)...

The 1964 Ace Books paperback, with cover art by Frank Frazetta

Teegra was just another form of [Marvel Comics'] Tigra the Were-Woman in terms of name, and I believe there'd been a Tigra heroine or two in jungle comics years earlier than I had read...

Nekron was the name of a villain in a Dr. Strange story I had written in the late 1960s [Lord Nekron, in Doctor Strange #174, November 1968].

And I'm pretty sure Darkwolf was also a name Gerry and I came up with, there being nothing particularly "wolfish" about the Death Dealer painting.

Frank created the general milieu and feeling, and I wouldn't begin to want to take that away from one of the greatest dramatic/romantic action illustrators ever... but we all know that in Hollywood everyone claims credit for everything they touch.  That's not to say Frank didn't come to believe he had created those characters to a greater and more specific extent than he actually had, but they were merely phantoms with beautiful muscles at most when Gerry and I first encountered "them" (or rather, the vague images that BECAME Larn, Teegra, Darkwolf, and Nekron). 

 

Teegra & Larn

Who was your "boss" in the scriptwriting process? Years after the film's release, both FRAZETTA and BAKSHI have denied much involvement in the writing process, putting the blame on each other.

While Gerry and I were at at least one meeting (MAYBE two) attended by Frazetta, that was pretty much it. Ralph, whatever he remembers now, was VERY much involved with the writing process... not in writing down anything (or maybe he wrote a few general notes), but in going over the plot and character ideas Gerry and I had. I'm more with Frank there... I don't think he knew or ever had much of any idea of what writing was going on, but Ralph ALWAYS knew, because we turned in every draft, every proposal, to him and we went over everything with him at a goodly number of meetings. If the movie had been a great hit, Ralph would've remembered how involved he had been in the plotting and overseeing of the writing, believe you me. 

Gerry and I found him a sometimes charming, sometimes boorish boss/collaborator. But he liked what we did well enough that he hired us to write a second, fully live-action screenplay for him, titled Cage, which was fully written and then shopped around by the three of us for a little while. 

 

In 2012, BAKSHI told interviewer Devon Ashby: "FIRE AND ICE wasn't personal at all. I liked hanging around with FRANK, and that was personal. But there wasn't anything I invested in FIRE AND ICE, as far as ideas go. The writers were comic book writers, and I didn't care what they wrote."

That's sure not the Bakshi I remember. Oh, I suppose he might very well have lacked "personal investment" in the material... but he still gave us a number of scenes he definitely wanted in there. He definitely DID care what we wrote, which is why we went through two or three drafts. If he hadn't cared what we wrote, he wouldn't have taken us to lunch (at some comissary, I believe) to both cajole and threaten us to do a final and veryveryfast rewrite... he'd have simply filmed what we'd already written, right? He got so pushy at that lunch that at one stage Gerry angrily got up and stormed out. I stayed with Ralph to calm him down. I guess eventually I got Gerry to return, but it was a fiery day. 

 

In 2002, when asked by interviewer Daniel Robert Epstein, "How much did the script change once you started the movie?", BAKSHI answered: "It didn't change enough from what those guys came up with. I wasn't too happy with the script. I'm not putting it down, but the basic comic book story was pretty much intact and I had nothing to say."

Ralph is within his rights not to like the script, even though it well reflected what he told us he wanted.

Basically, we wrote what would have been a two-hour script... and even at our level of relative inexperience at the time, I remember us telling him it would be that long a script in order to get in all the stuff he kept verbally forcefeeding us. He said just write. Then, an actor's strike was about to happen... and, while he told us he could have gotten away with working with live actors (and the later rotoscoping) because the final result would be an animated film, he said that when the strike came, "I don't want to be the only director in town working with live actors". For whatever combination of reasons, he basically just tore pages out of our script, filmed a 78-minute version of what should have been at least a 90-to-120-minute movie, and threw it out there.

Since the movie -- which was, of course, basically Ralph and Frank's concept, whatever the particular plot and characters -- wasn't a hit, he decided it was convenient to disown it. If it had been a hit, it would be "Roy and Gerry Who?" If Ralph "had nothing to say", that's on him, not us. 

 

On the other hand, FRAZETTA told Steven Ringgenberg in 1987 that "Some of the weaker parts of the film are in the storyline, which I was never too thrilled about", and also, in 1994, that "they had other guys writing the story and I fought like hell about that".

What can I say? Since we had very little contact with Frank after an initial meeting or two, I can see what he felt he had little impact... and his only influence on the script would've been through Ralph communicating with us, but I don't recall Ralph ever really referencing any views Frank had of script or storyline. 

 

You guys wrote the screenplay in the Spring of 1981 and the live action footage was shot in the Summer of 1981. After delivering your final draft, were you off the film, or were you consulted during the live action shooting, the animation stage or the post-production?

We weren't really consulted during filming... no changes were made to the script particuarly except to not film a goodly percentage of the pages, with whatever violence that may have done (and it did) to the story... but he did have us come by one day and watch the live-action filming, which consisted that day of guys leaping around on a jungle gym... maybe one of the chase scenes. 

 

Aside from FRAZETTA's designs, did BAKSHI draw any storyboards during the writing stage, as a guide to your writing process?

I saw nothing ever drawn by Ralph, that I can recall. Don't recall seeing any storyboards, either... maybe Gerry does. We just wrote our several drafts of the script and handed them in to Ralph, and he never asked us for further input, which we'd have been happy to give. 

 

There are a couple of intriguing moments in the script regarding DARKWOLF. For instance, when LARN wanders by some old ruins, he finds a statue, a bust, which very much resembles DARKWOLF's head. What was the idea behind that? Was once DARKWOLF the ruler of that kingdom?

The scene you mention is, in fact, just about the only scene in the finished movie which, so far as I can recall, was NOT written by Gerry and me. Ralph clearly meant that to suggest a connection... sort of like the line of Phantoms in the classic comic strip by Lee Falk and Ray Moore... but he never spelled it out, and I never met anyone who saw the film who could quite figure it out.  

In fact, Ralph directed and cut the movie so carelessly that the name "Darkwolf" is, so far as I could ever tell, never mentioned in the entire movie... till you read the credits at the end. In fact, at the screening, as soon as the lights were turned up, our agent Dan Ostroff turned to Gerry and me and asked kind of sarcastically, "Who WAS that masked man?" Ralph was so harried trying to get the film finished fast to beat that strike that he never noticed he hadn't named the character.

(Must be a prerequisite of sword-and-sorcery films: John Milius cut out the reference to Valeria's name in Conan the Barbarian, so you have to wait till the end of the movie to know her name, too, if I recall a-right. Certainly it was cut out at the point where Conan and Valeria met.) 

But yes, Gerry and I had a sort of Phantom-like approach to the Darkwolf idea, and Ralph chose that way to get it across... except that he fumbled the ball and it wasn't clear to anyone. 

 

In the original script, in the final showdown between DARKWOLF and NEKRON -- according to actor SEAN HANNON's statements included in BLUE UNDERGROUND's DVD -- DARKWOLF is revealed to be NEKRON's father, but this section of the script was deleted from the final cut of the film. What was your original backstory, if any, for DARKWOLF?

Darkwolf was either Nekron's father or Larn's -- I really don't recall without digging out the script from the closet -- but either way, those are among the pages that Ralph threw away. He should have done a bit of a rewrite himself as he went along, but I guess he was just too frantic in working around the clock. 

 

Another script change made by BAKSHI during the shooting concerns the character of QUEEN JULIANA, who was originally played by actress CAROLE MALLORY. Again, according to SEAN HANNON, BAKSHI gave JULIANA some incestuous undertones that weren't in the script. Later on, he changed his mind again and reshot all the JULIANA scenes with another actress, EILEEN O'NEILL, who was given a different costume and a different make-up. What was your original characterization for JULIANA?

I certainly don't think Gerry and I implied any incest, but otherwise I don't recall much about Juliana at this late remove. 

 

Aside from the continuous action scenes that run throughout the film, there's also room to feature a couple of monsters: a giant lizard which attacks the subhumans, and a giant octopus/squid which attacks LARN. Were these two monsters conceived by CONWAY and you, or was is it BAKSHI's and FRAZETTA's idea?

Maybe Gerry recalls, so I'm not sure if those monsters were our idea or not... though I wouldn't be surprised.

There was one weird scene (I don't recall if it made it into the film, which I've never seen since that screening 40 years ago, though I own a copy of it) Ralph gave us that he wanted working in. Larn (maybe with Teegra) is moving stealthily through head-tall grass... when he/they suddenly discover that there are tigers moving parallel to them, maybe crossing their paths, too, at least some of which are headed in the opposite direction from the way they're walking. They stand stark still, hoping not to be discovered... and they're not. Apparently these tigers all had a head cold and couldn't smell them. Gerry and I tried to tell Ralph that it might be an interesting visual scene but that it didn't make much sense... but he had us write it anyway. 

 

There's much less dialogue in the final film than in your regular comic book scripts. Is there a reason for that?

Sure. Ralph dropped most of it... though we'd have had less script in the film than in our comics. That's how he achieved a 78-minute running time... by cutting out dialogue, including just about everything that made the story make sense, such as the relationships between the characters. He seemed only interested in the actions... so that, basically, was all he got on film... as if to fulfill his stated goal of making that movie a case of bringing Frazetta's paintings to life... but you needed more than action. 

 

Overall, did the final film pretty much resemble your script? Or did BAKSHI retouched more scenes than the aforementioned?

It resembled a 2-hour script cut down to 78 minutes on the run. As I said, I never noticed more than that one brief scene that wasn't ours... but it wasn't a bad one, if it had been explained a bit more. 

 

During the initial stages of the film's promotion, it was announced that both CONWAY and you were writing BAKSHI's next film, which was to be his live action debut, with DANIEL MELNICK acting as producer, but that project never materialized. What can you remember about the plot and the plans for that film?

Yes, the aforementioned Cage was a sort of Indiana Jones character, but more physical a la Schwarzenegger or a Frazetta drawing than Harrison Ford... a hero in a lost land with cavemen, primeval monsters, et al. I remember Ralph taking Gerry and me to a meeting with Dino De Laurentiis, too... maybe that was for Cage. 

 

CONWAY and you wrote several drafts for DINO DE LAURENTIIS' production of CONAN THE DESTROYER -- which was eventually released in June 1984 after several rewrites by STANLEY MANN -- and then, around 1983, you were approached to write RED SONJA, also for DE LAURENTIIS. According to CONWAY in the aforementioned FILMFAX PLUS #143 interview, you never started work on RED SONJA because you rejected the financial offer that DE LAURENTIIS offered you, because it was worse than the one you had in CONAN THE DESTROYER. The script assignment was given to CLIVE EXTON, who was then rewritten by GEORGE MacDONALD FRASER, and the film was eventually released in July 1985. Back in the day, the project was first announced with CONWAY and you as writers and RALPH BAKSHI as director. Can you shed some light on the whole RED SONJA process?

The thing was that Dino's deal for Red Sonja had no "back end" -- no financial remuneration if a film was actually made, such as we had had on Conan the Destroyer (because we made that deal with Ed Pressman, not with Dino the Destroyer...) so agent Dan Ostroff made us refuse the deal. We were reluctant to do so, but we did. Funny thing is, at the time, the reasoning was so that we could jump to a better screenplay deal... and, as Gerry pointed out to me sometime later, that period of 2-3 months (when we'd have been writing Red Sonja) was the only time in a period of 3-4 years when we WEREN'T working on a screenplay! Still, Dan was right to make us refuse it.

Of course, after Gerry and I (at our agent's insistence) turned down our chance to write a screenplay for Red Sonja after two or three others had had a shot, Ralph got hold of Doug Moench and they wrote that draft... but I don't think much of their work, if any, made it to the big screen. They were rewritten by Stanley Mann, as Gerry and I had been on Conan the Destroyer, except that we wound up with full story credit, deservedly.

I should add that, in spite of everything said above, I have... and I suspect Gerry does, too... respect for Ralph Bakshi as a filmmaker. But he let himself, not just us and Frazetta, down on Fire and Ice. Maybe it was that lack of personal involvement... maybe the failure of Wizards had left him uncertain as to his instincts on a sword-and-sorcery movie... but something went wrong besides just us poor comicbook/screenwriters letting him down.

(I've just recently came across this anonymous Italian film poster. It plagiarizes two or three Frazetta's illustrations, but the final product is quite beautiful, especially Teegra's rendition.)