James B. Harris

The New York Times has a review of a new bio of Kubrick.   The reviewer takes the opportunity to take shots at Pauline Kael (as if, how dare she say anything negative about 2001!), and poor Tom Cruise for his performance in the dreadful Eyes Wide Shut (people have apparently forgot Kubrick's late night phone call to Lee Ermey. "He told me it was a piece of shit". Kubrick blamed it on Cruise and Kidman.  What a guy).

The reviewer reveals when the Great Stanley first conceived of EWS, he considered Bill Murray for the lead.  I can well understand that, considering Murray's stunning dramatic performance in 
The Razor's Edge.

But Kubrick's new legend does not include his partner in the early films, James Harris, despite the fact he produced, and was a writer on The Killing, Paths of Glory, and Lolita (the Nabokov screenplay was unfilmable.  I read part of it, as much as I could take.).  He also worked on the
Dr. Strangelove screenplay, before he departed to direct The Bedford Incident, which was pretty good.

When Kubrick died, entertainment “journalists” fell all over themselves to get comments from Steven Spielberg, who by all accounts knew him only over the telephone.  Harris's phone never rang.