Yesterday I posted a clip of a pissed-off Burt Lancaster at a press conference. Today we’ll temper that a bit by looking at a much more cordial Burt in a 1963 interview, done shortly after the release of ‘The Leopard’. He talks about directors, a species he was notably hard on. Here, though, he has nothing by kind words for Lucino Visconti, John Huston and Carol Reed. Of course it’s the year before he fired Arthur Penn from ‘The Train’ and fifteen years before he terrorized Louis Malle during the making of ‘Atlantic City’ (he made fun of his heavy French accent among other things). But this is five years after ‘The Sweet Smell Of Success’, a movie on which he had physically violent altercations with Alexander Mackendrick. Burt didn’t suffer fools and why should he have? The only thing is that Penn and Mackendrick were far from fools–they were two of the finest directors of the era. I’m not sure what went wrong between them and Burt. Anyway, he’s in a good mood here but note how he steps on the interviewers questions, not quite letting her finish them. Is this a sign of impatience or eagerness to address the matter at hand? Pleasant though he is, he gives off an edgy vibe that makes me nervous…