From KCRW, Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the Treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com. You may know the Academy Award

winning actor Dustin Hoffman, who's sitting across for me.

I'll just throw out a few titles for you, maybe some of my favorites.

Oh, Agatha, a Papillon, certainly the graduate.

Kramer v. Kramer.

His first film as director is the new film Quartet in adaptation of the play by Ronald Harwood. Dustin,

thanks so much for being here. Well, thank you for inviting me. All these years you didn't.

I thought you didn't like me. Yeah, I was just afraid. I could put these notes under your door,

and you thought, oh, Elvis, he's dead. I don't need this stuff. But I know that it's, when this

show runs, it will be the 35th anniversary of a movie you almost directed Straight Time.

Yes. Oh, I didn't realize it was that.

Yeah, which was for a long time unavailable on home video.

What happened with Straight Time? Why did you end up not directing that?

I cast it. I cast the crew and a cast. I did my due diligence. I hung out with ex-convicts for over a year and a half.

I got to know Eddie Bunker who wrote the novel, No Be So Fierce.

Which I think is a line from Shakespeare as man himself or something.

I actually was snuck into San Quentin after touring it about a half a dozen times.

You sneaked into San Quentin?

Usually people try to sneak out of San Quentin.

Yes.

I was snuck in, and I was there for about six hours, dressed as a convict.

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