the film at the behest of the Pentagon, who feared that it might erode public support for the war effort. It was eventually made for Columbia by Brian De Palma in 1989, with Michael J. Fox in the lead role. Fall Creek (1976), another collaboration with producer David Merrick, Fall Creek was a 'revisionist' look at the American frontier, in a similar vein to contemporary "new wave westerns" like Little Big Man and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. The script by Larry McMurtry was adapted from the novel by Jessamyn West, and dealt with a notorious 1824 massacre of Native Americans in Indiana, and the racial and political crisis that followed. The project was originally conceived with Robert Redford as the star, but he turned it down. Larry McMurtry discusses the production in his book Hollywood: A Third Memoir, calling the screenplay "one of my better early scripts" and describing Clayton as "much the most fun" of any director he worked with. According to McMurtry, the project collapsed after David Merrick (ominously) suffered a stroke that left him permanently confined to a wheelchair. Its cancellation was a bitter blow for Clayton, who was an ardent fan of the genre, and had long hoped to direct a western. Silence (Fox, 1977) was a contemporary urban thriller about racial tensions, based on the James Kennaway novel about a white man who escapes from a pursuing black gang by hiding out in the apartment of a mute African-American woman. The film was reportedly cancelled just two weeks before filming was scheduled to start, and according to Sinyard this was a devastating blow to Clayton. In a curious turn of events, Hollywood executive Barry Diller was responsible for the demise three of the films Clayton planned to make in the 1970s. In 1970 Clayton's plans for a film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes temporarily fell foul of a power struggle between Diller (who had just been appointed President of Paramount Pictures) and Paramount's head of production David Picker, and Diller cancelling the project. Five years later, Diller took The Tenant from Clayton without consulting him, and gave it to Roman Polanski. Finally, in 1977, Silence was cancelled just two weeks before it was due to go into production – ironically, again by Diller, who had recently left Paramount to become the head of 20th Century Fox. In 1977, as compensation for