VOLUME 22 - NUMBER 05 SEPTEBER-OCTOBER 1986

take a joke, fuck it, and shit like that, and See, him play with Odetta, Judy Collins, THE CASE FOR then she's going to try to defend The Leon Bibb, Peter, Paul , and Mary. I really Color Purple by saying, what about strive to make music play an important COMMENT Purple Rain? What about when Prince part in all my films . This is the third film had women thrown in garbage cans? Hey, that my father has done the music for. Stop playing hide and seek with your I didn't like that shit either, but that And this is the first where the soundtrack back issues of FILM COMMEN T. doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with is going to be released .\" [Island Records is Our customized cases will hold a Color Purple. And Whoopi Goldberg releasing.] year's \"\"orth of issues . Made for us by says that Steven Spielberg is the only Jesse Jones Industries, the blue leather- director in the world who could have What sit like working with him? ette cases are gold-stamped with the directed that film. Does she realize what FILM COMMENT logo . You can pay she is saying? Is she saying that a white \"It's hard [laughs]. Because he's a by check, money order, or with a major person is the only person who can define perfectionist and a nonconformist, and 1 credit card . Mail your coupon today our existence? And now, even something love him because he's my father, but he's and stop playing around. more stupid , she's running around with not the easiest person to work with.\" goddamn blue contact lenses in her eyes, FILM COMMEN T telling everybody that she has' blue eyes. At what stage do you start working with And that's sick ... to me. And 1 hope him? In the script? Jesse Jones Industries people realize, that the media realizes, D ept. Film-C that she's not a spokesperson for black \"Yes. 1 knew 1wanted a theme for Nola 499 East Erie Avenue people, especially when you're running played throughout the whole film and 1 Ph iladelphia, PA 19 134 around with motherfucking blue contact had a lot that had to be recorded before lenses telling everybody that your eyes we shot for playback, for the choreogra- Please send me _ _ FILM COMMENT are blue. Tell her to read Toni Morrison's phy, for the dance scene, and some other book, The Bluest Eye.\" stuff. Then 1 went and shot it, cut it, and leatherette cases. when 1 had a rough cut, that's when we I t was a wonderful idea to have \"the sat down and decided when we wanted 1 case .. . . . . .. . . ... . . .. .. . ... . .. $7.95 dogs\" speak. music, the type of music, the color of the 3 cases . . . . .. . .... . . . .. . . . . . . .. $2 1. 95 \"I'm just amazed at the things men instrumentation, the length of it. Then 6 cases ... .... . .. . ....... . . . . . .$39.95 tell women. And when you think about it, he went away and came back and played the only reason why they say that stuff is an idea on the piano. Then we decided Enclosed is $_ _. Please add $ 1 pe r unit for that it must work some of the time, what piece was appropriate for each postage and handling. Outside USA orders because if it never worked, they wouldn't particular scene ~ please add $2.50 per unit. (US fund s only.) keep on saying that dumb stuff~ What is the balance ofpower; working Please charge (minimum charge $ 15.00): And what do women say to men? with your father ? o American Express \"I don't think they're as... .1 don't know o MasterCard 0 Visa about that. It might work. But it never \"Well , 1 don't want to sound like a happened with me! [Laughs.)\" dictator, but film is a director's medium. I 0 Diners C lub Whose work are you influenced by? try to listen to everybody's suggestions, You quote 20m Neale Hurston in the but the final outcome ultimately is going Card #_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ beginning ofyourfilm. to be my decision ~ \"I think it's a very good book [Their Expiration D ate _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Eyes ~re Watching God], and she's a Do you feel like jazz has influenced Signature _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ person that all black female novelists your writing or editing ? quote. Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, all Toll Free #, 7 days a weekJ24 hours a day talk about the influence Zora Neale \"That's a hard question. Well, I guess it Hurston had on them. But for film, I like has in the sense that I never try to restrict (Charge orders O N Ly): the work of Scorsese, Kurosawa, Cop- myself. I just let my imagination go very pola. 1 also like musicals, too, and my free. And I like to improvise. So you 1-800-972-5858 next film is going to be a musical.\" could say maybe like that.\" She's Gotta Have It was shot in the Please ship to: style ofRashomon. Was that scripted? Are you a perfectionist? Name: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ \"Yeah. I called it confessions with \"No. I haven't been in a situation where people facing the camera. It also was very I could afford to be a perfectionist.\" Address: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ economical. It doesn't take a whole lot of What is your next project? time to light. And you just shoot. That \"The next film is a musical called (no PO box please) really helped us to shoot in 12 days.\" School Daze for Island Pictures. I hope to ~re you very influenced by your dad? begin shooting in March on a $3 million C ity/State/Z ip: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Does his music influence your work? budget, which feels good. It is set at a \"Yeah, his music, jazz.... We were black college in the South, during PA residents please add 6% sales tax. raised in a very artistic family. So he was homecoming, on the Spellman/More- taking me to see him play at the Village house campuses . I intend to include a Gate, at The Bitter End, at the Blue whole spectrum of black music , from Note, when I was four, five years old. funk to jazz. \"You know, what we're doing now, people are saying, 'Spike, this is great, this is great, aren't you excited? You look so blase: And I say, 'Everything we're doing now, Monty, Pam, and I talked about when we were in school eight or nine years ago. So this is what we're supposed to be doing. It's no shock:\" ~ 49

Kureishi LikeAFox Hanif Kureishi Nasser's oldest daughter castigates \"In 1967, Duncan Sandys said: 'The interviewed by Marcia Pally Rachel for \"living off a man.\" Rachel-the breeding of millions of half-caste children white, aging, working-class adulteress- would merely produce a generation of My Beautiful Laundrette, the reminds the wealthy, dark-skinned girl, misfits and create national tensions: Romeo-meets-Romeo sleeper of \"You have everything waiting for you. The 1986, was shot in six weeks on a only thing that ever waited for me was \"I wasn't a misfit.\" $900,000 budget for British TV. It is your father.\" Hanif Kureishi's first film. Like Laun- A few years later, in a library, Kureishi drette, his plays for the Royal Court Laundrette may owe part of its success lifted a Life magazine with pictures of the theater and Royal Shakespeare Company to the AIDS crisis. With twisted irony, Black Panthers. He put them up on his also explore immigration and race rela- illness has yanked gays out of the closet wall. He also put up a picture of James tions in England. Kureishi wanted to and occasionally the airing is sympa- Baldwin. In the end, Baldwin won out. make a political film that was amusing (an thetic. Even terror-mongering about con- When Malcolm X became a Muslim, antidote to \"dourness and didacticism\") tagion makes gays familiar; we expect to Kureishi felt he had fallen for an and that caused \"mass erections.\" see them in the media. Yet the bulk of \"unreason; an \"abdication of intelligence; credit for Laundrette's success goes to its as pernicious as prejudice itself. Kureishi Laundrette is more about Capulets and uncompromising characterizations. We couldn't accept reverse racism. \"I had to Montagues-in this case Pakistanis and come to all the Big Issues through a few live in England, in the suburbs of punks in contemporary London-than charming but not unnecessarily good London, with whites. My mother was about Omar (Gordon Warneke) and people and are thus spared the usual white. I wasn't ready for separate devel- Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis). The Paki- mandates and Messages. We are left opment. I'd had too much of that already.\" stanis despise the hoodlums for their alone to sort our laundry. racism and violence, but also because the After graduating from university, kids are loafing, uneducated wastrels. I n 1947, Kureishi's father went to Kureishi started writing porn and plays in The unemployed youths resent the England to study, married a British London. In 1985, he visited Pakistan for Pakistanis for taking away their jobs. woman, and never returned home. the first time. The government was Immigrants who have made it, as Omar's The family that remained on the subcon- trying to manage an uneducated, poor, family has, infect them with even greater tinent moved from Bombay to Pakistan but religiously fervent populace while the hate. Kureishi almost called the film The after partition. When Kureishi's uncles small middle-class tried to eke out a Empire Strikes Back. visited England, they took him in taxis to \"European\"-style life smuggling in booze restaurants and hotels. He had trouble and rock 'n' roll. \"This country is being One evening, young Omar-who's matching them up with the pictures of sodomized by religion,\" one man told Lived in London since he was a boy-runs squatting, naked Indians he saw in him. (Kureishi thought the line was so into his childhood best friend turned school. good he put it in the film.) But another, punk. With the chutzpah that earned his educated and a lawyer, said the Western- family its money, he takes on Johnny in At first, the bigotry he encountered ized elite should go abroad and get beaten his newly acquired laundrette. Together made him ashamed. In his autobiogra- up where they came from. Kureishi again they turn the dilapidated joint into a phy,' The Rainbow Sign, Kureishi wrote: balked, as he had against the Islam of laundering/entertainment center. It's not \"I was desperately embarrassed and afraid Malcom X: \"... the entire recognizable clear, but it seems they had been intimate of being identified with those loathed rhetoric of freedom and struggle ends, in before- so quickly and easily do they fall aliens ...The word 'Pakistani' had bocn the lawyer's mind, with the country on its in love. made into an insult. It was a word I didn't knees at prayer. Having started to look for want used about myself. I couldn't itself, it finds itself... in the 8th Century.\" Gay sex is just one of Laundrette's tolerate being myself.\" Later, racism provocative issues. Prejudice, class, and made him dejected and angry. Kureishi returned to England and the condition of women are a few of the finished Laundrette with these ironies in others. Salim, Omar's cousin, is as \"J withdrew, from the park, from the mind: Westernized Pakistanis still believe bigoted and violent as any skinhead. lads, to a safer place within myself...In in what they consider Britain's only Omar, in anger, isn't above tellingJohnny, this isolation .. .1started to write down the positive contributions to its empire- \"White boys beat me up after school. speeches of politicians, the words which tolerance, pluralism, and secular institu- Now you work for me. That's the way I helped create the neo-Nazi attitudes I tions based on reason. Yet, in England, like it.\" Additionally, their relationship asacwcoaurnotusn.,d me. This I called 'keeping the these ideals have been supplanted by isn't the film's only Romeo-Juliet update. intolerance and parochialism. Educated Omar's uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey) is \"In 1965, Enoch Powell said: 'We Pakistanis feel that their poor compatri- having an affair with foreyish redheaded should not lose sight of the desirability of ots who emigrated deserve whatever stunner Rachel (Shirley Anne Field). In achieving a steady flow of voluntary brutality they find in England because one of the film's most dignified scenes, repatriation for the elements which are they are dirty and contemptible, while proving unsuccessful or unassimilable: the white working classes in England disparage all Pakistanis-rich and poor- 50

Hanif Kureishl underdressed for the Algonquin. in the same language the British middle- classes use to vilify them. The Labour Party, once equality's hope , is at a loss, for no matter how liberal and egalitarian it might like to be, it must appeal to its constituents who often are neither. Kureishi and I met in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel. A waiter approached our table holding a shapeless blue jacket by the collar as though it were murine, damp and odoriferous. \"I can't serve you unless you're wearing a jacket,\" he informed Kureishi , looking at his T-shirt as though it were murine, damp and odoriferous. \"Really? Not even juice, tea?\" \"Nothing,\" the waiter burped, swinging the garment he didn't expect Kureishi to accept. \"How about water?\" Kureishi forayed out again . Beneficently, the man consented. A few moments later we received our water on the rocks. After an hour or so, we noticed two white gentlemen in sport shirts, no jackets, being served wine and a compli- mentary bowl of nuts. Their waiter agreed to bring Kureishi an o.j. , and then showed up with the blue jacket. I looked at Kureishi: brown skin, slouching, and so boyish at 30 that he could pass for 17. No wonder the Sartorial Majority was offended. Our conversation took place four days before New York celebrated indepen- dence, liberty, and our lady of the harbor, and one day after the Supreme Court ruled that laws against consensual sod- omy in private are consistent with American democratic ideals. -M.P. \"This law is ridiculous. You people are talking about freedom and yet you can't bugger your wife. You can carry a gun-a cherished Ameri- can right-but you can't sodomize your friends. I hope they have to examine what people are doing in bedrooms all across the country. Or maybe a heterosexual couple should show up at a police station and say they did it. \"In Pakistan there's really quite a lot of sodomy. It's very important for a girl to be pure when she marries , and she's consid- ered a virgin as long as her maidenhead is intact-though she's been buggered up the ass for years. Seriously. \"We don't have laws like this in England-except the age of consent is 16 for heterosexual sex and 21 for gay sex. We have no laws about lesbians because Queen Victoria didn't think they existed. \"The Tories talk concertedly about 51

curtailing all sorts of sex-what they call those that have sexually explicit lan- Cinema promiscuity-except sex between a man guage or lyrics that refer to drug use. Studies: and his wife. We're moving away from the \"Surely these would be recommenda- An education for our time basic Liberal notion that individuals can tions. How about sexist or racist Iyrics- Film is the art fonn that defines our make up their minds. Throughout the or doesn't your government care about time. Films by Eisenstein, Godard, and Fassbinder, for instance, offer pen- Eighties weve seen a return to sacred those?\" etrating insights into human behavior, cultural change, life as we live it and books-as though the freedom of the Why don't people recognize that \"cer- perceive it At New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, we believe Sixties and Seventies so unsettled people tainty\" is flimsy, man-made. lOu'd the study of film develops analytic skills, hones critical thinking, and that they want to go back to older ways. expect life experience to show it up. broadens perspectives. It offers under- graduates superb preparation for many Thatcher wants England to be like the \"Once you have a theory to believe, of life's callings. Fifties, with the family of the Fifties. experience just proves it. Pakistanis have Our program in cinema studies allows undergraduates to study film Unfortunately for her, the traditional an added problem. In the US., people with the same distinguished scholars who teach our graduate students. The family is exploding. Cecil Parkinson had believe different things; journals, books, department's film archives, variety of courses, and viewing facilities are an affair; his daughter is a heroine addict. films express doubt and dissent. In exceptional. And, students have access to all the film screenings that make Paul Channon's daughter died of an Pakistan, there is nothing that suggests New York City the richest film center in the world. overdose .. ,\" there's another way to live. Islam is it. The possibility of disinterested search- Because film is a truly interdisciplin- What s the appeal ofsacred books? ary art fonn , the program includes the study of related subjects: art., history, \"Certainty. Once you accept a world- like Darwin's for example, where one psychology, and even film production. As a result, our students get a broadly view-be it Marxist or religious-you've begins with a slate clear of assumptions- based education as they undertake a serious study of cinema given over freedom, and that's a tremen- is nil. I hear that Darwin is having a hard For more infonnation, return the dous relief to most people. In the Sixties, time in the States at the moment. coupon below or call (212) 598-7777. people lived a sort of existential life, Perhaps Reagan is proof that Darwin was Tisch School of the Arts New York University where you develop your views as you go wrong~ 721 Broadway, 7th Floor New York , N.Y. 10003 along. To have the world explained and What about violent response to preju- Attn : Dr. Roberta Cooper Please send information on the c inema studies decided for you satisfies the need for dice or government repression-you program. 0 undergraduate 0 graduate security. didn't take to the streets as a teenager. o I am al so interested in summer sessions. \"Pakistan is a new country politically, You snooped around libraries. Name but as part of Indian culture it's very old. \"Had there been race riots lin Britain) Addrc!<.s It's affected also by Afghanistan, in the Sixties, I'd have been. there. But Ci lyl Sla le l Zip New York UnIYCr\\lly \" '1O a lli rll1<1I1Yt' :Jl lllln / cj,fl.lal ,lrrnrlunHY FC9/86 England, and the US.; it hasn't found an there weren't. I understand the riots now.\" ln ~tJl ullnn identity. People get a sense of themselves You recommend them? 52 by saying, 'Were Moslems first. That s \"I do. They're fine assertions of the who we are: human spirit against democratic tyranny. \"Doubt is the most crucial human Theres a fine phrase.\" faculty of all. Montaigne dealt with it, and lOu say artists have to be terrorists, not Shakespeare. With this return to faith, masseurs. Is this your way of being we're moving back almost to a medieval violent? state. \"We live with such media conformity. \"Prejudice is also the pursuit of cer- It's very rare that a film like Laundrette tainty. It's an easy way of explaining the gets through. Writers have to say what world's various wrongs, You see one people don't want to hear. We have to group as ineradicably corrupt and lacking fight against what Milan Kundera calls the humanity that you yourself have. You kitsch and tell our stories to each other don't have to examine history or the the way they really are.\" spo~itical and economic reasons for exploi- What in store for Pakistan? tation. Men say women are stupid or that \"Benazir Bhutto will be the next their sexual organs will devour them. president. Then, I don't know. I haven't Women argue that all men are essentially been there since I wrote the film. It's rapists or that the source of sexism is the difficult for me to go there. It's hard penis. Whites say blacks are stupid or enough for me to come here. The last worthless; blacks counter that white men time I was in New York, 300 men from are devils. So no one has to look at why the Pakistan Action Committee demon- people become the way they are or notice strated every Sunday outside the theater that people resist their training and where Laundrette was showing. The change.\" placards read , 'This film is the product of Some people in the U. S. not only rely a vile and perverted mind: Of course, son stereotypes to explain the world ills, none of them had seen the film. They they blame records- \"porn rock.\" They were disturbed by the homosexuality, hold Congressional hearings about its and because they felt the film was a ostensible dangers. Zionist plot-the director is Jewish-to \"This won't affect the recording indus- disrupt relations between the US. and try, will it?\" Pakistan. There are no Pakistani homo- The companies have already agreed to sexuals, they say.\" put warning labels on records, indicating Just like there are no British lesbians?

\"I thought they'd object to my portrayal always a bit of a myth, but it's a rougher ·Stephen and I want to continue certain of Pakistani businessmen. But that didn't place now. Unlike Mussolini, whom work together, like talking seriously about bother them. They think that's the way Thatcher resembles, she can't even make businessmen are. I went to a funeral of an the trains run on time. When she politics to the TV audience, seeing \\yhat we uncle in England shortly after the film returned from Israel a few months ago , can do with a small budget, and developing opened , and all my relatives cur me. I got she was appalled by the dirt in London- some surrealist film techniques~ letters from them saying it was a terrible yet she'd cut funds for street sanitation. It way to write about your family and was a moment of contradictory illumina- Why isn'tfilm writing for grown-ups? people. My play Borderline got a similar tion.\" \"If God ...\" response.\" lVu believe in God? Did it give her pause? \"Well, no. If luck or fate give you talent, Is yourfamily in the film? \"She said we should all get out there you can apply it to a number of areas. I've \"I had an uncle who wanted to set me and sweep the streets; it's not the state's written plays, films, book reviews. Now I up in the laundry business. Not a bad responsibility. There's also more violence want to apply myself elsewhere. Besides, idea, really. Good money. Can you see in England now than 30 years ago if you have a long career as a writer, you me? Maybe I'll try it.\" because of unemployment .\" don't want to spend all of that time with What made you put homosexuality into The French film, Tea in the Harem, is the whims and tastes of film producers.\" a film already full of controversial In England you've been the butt of issues? ~ racism; in Pakistan youfeel smothered by \"They were all on my mind at the time. Islam and very British. How do you My next film is just as dense. I don't like Laundrette's Daniel Day Lewis. decide which is your country ? thin films. If a black and white couple are \"The immigrant is the characteristic screwing, it involves color, class, and similar to Laundrette in exploring rela- figure of the 20th Century. Your country relations between the sexes. Human tions between white and North African must be the place where you feel relations are meeting points for a whole kids in Paris. ~t theres no racial tension comfortable. I feel things in England are complex of social arrangements, and in the film . Do you think the situation is mine, are part of what made me. It's not that's why I like to write about them. as bad in France? the same as being patriotic. Is there a \"When I started to write Laundrette, word for feeling a strong attachment to a Omar and Johnny weren't gay. But when I \"It's probably terrible. The French are a place you know to be yours that's not got all my characters together, I had to very snooty people.\" jingoistic? You have to go where your decide who would drive the film and it needs are met, and that depends on what was the boys. Now generally, the What happened to the Pakistani immi- your needs are.\" dynamics of a film is a romance, and grant epic you wanted to write? Gertrude Stein lived in Paris for 25 Laundrette didn't have one. I could've years and was indefatigably American. made a buddy film like Butch Cassidy- \"The sse said they'd back it-a kind of \"Stein had needs met in Paris that she couldn't have met elsewhere-like in the I'm sure that Paul Newman and Robert British Heimat from 1945 to 1980. But Algonquin. Maybe she wouldn't have had Redford wanted to kiss. Laundrette is like I'm going to turn them down. I want to be a jacket. My needs are books, plays, Cassidy, only with kissing. a novelist, not a screenwriter. Writing people who are intelligent, attractive to films isn't an occupation for grown-up look at. My material is in England. It's a \"Characters have lives of their own, you people. The hassles generally aren't society I can grasp, get the whole of. I know. If you're lucky, they'll tell you what worth it~ can't in America. they want to do. Omar and Johnny \"In Pakistan there are so few people like wanted to sodomize each other. I wanted Then why do Sammy and Rosie? yourself, you'd feel isolated. Your experi- Johnny to leave Omar at the end of the ence there wouldn't be so different from film, but he just wouldn't. He wanted mine. And the attitude about women is Omar one more time~ so unpleasant. Whatever you think of the progress of feminism in the West, it's far Is this a lot ofnonsense? preferable to Pakistan. There are small \"No-sometimes it's a good idea not to niches for educated women -doctors or control your script but to let it run away, journalists-because of their class posi- take its own direction. Some things don't tion. But it's very limited.\" seem right, like Johnny and Omar Are Indians or Pakistanis who say that parting, because it doesn't fit the charac- their stay in Britain is temporary delud- ters.\" ing themselves? What s your next project? \"It's a delusion for my family. They \"The screenplay for Sammy and Rosie can't go back; they wouldn't fit in. People Get Laid is done. Stephen [Frears, who think I'm caught between two cultures, directed Laundrettel will direct it. It's a but I'm not. I'm British; I can make it in heterosexual drama this time. A Pakistani England. It's my father who's caught. He politician visits his relatives in Brixton. can't make it. Friends my age don't go He hasn't been in England for 30 years back; their parents sometimes do- and thinks it's still a sedate, polite place. especially as they get older. When they When he arrives, the streets are on fire.\" take their children with them, it's disas- trous. Imagine growing up in England Was England ever that well- and ending up in some provincial Paki- mannered? \"England's manners were 53

LOOKxrTHECOMPANYWE~B$ film 111m film I . '\\ r (. I \\ I *WOODY ALLEN *BOB HOPE *ROBIN WILLIAMS *ROBERT DE NIRO *MERYL STREEP May/June 1977 May/June 1979 July/August 1979 November/December 1980 September/October 1981 Iiltii *NATASSJA KINSKI *MARILYN MONROE *GoLDIE HAWN *KEVIN KLINE *SAM SHEPARD March/April 1982 September/October 1982 November/December 1982 September/October 1983 November/December 1983 *CARY GRANT *SIGOURNEY WEAVER *KATHLEEN TuRNER *JACK NICHOLSON *DAFFY DUCK January/February 1984 July/August 1984 March/April 1985 May/June 1985 November/December 1985 FILM COMMENT Classics are on sale again! Start your collection or complete it with the stars above and more. BUY A BUNCH! 5 issues for $12.00! $2.00 each additional issue (Buy A Bunch limited [0 U.S. orders only) Please send the following issues (identify by month and year):_ _ _ __ If any of the issues I have ordered are no longer available, please send me one of COMMENT these cwo alternatives: NAME ____________________________________________ or ADDRESS _________________________________________ CITY ___________________ STATE _________ ZIP _________ BUY A BUNCI-I offer expires Detember 3 1, 1987. The INDEX SETS for FILM COMMENT. Volumes 1-21, listing every article ever Mail with check or money order to: FILM COMMENT CLASSICS published in FILM COMMENT, are available for $3.50/seL 140 West 65th Street New York, NY 10023 QUANTITY AMOUNT Back issues of FILM COMMENT. S3.50hssue $ _ _ __ _____ 5 issues for $12.00: $2.00/additional issue $ _ _ __ ___ Index Sets, 53.50/set $ _ _ ___ $ _ _ ___ lDTAL 54

fEN KEEPING stani village. I should write a play about AVAILABLE it-about going to a rural village and ON VIDEO NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1977 meeting a girl who just got there, who Bernardo Bertolucci ...Character Actors ... Beyond Selected as an outstanding film of the year. the New Wave doesn't speak the language and misses London Film Festival rock 'n' roll.\" NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1978 93 minutes, color I B&W. Sidney Lumet. .. Hollywood Makeup Artists ... You say that the black immigrant Italian Neorealism experience gave you something distinct A FILM BY RICK SCHMIDT and important to write about, yet you JANUARYIFEBRUARY 1979 refused to be on a panel to judge the work The big hit of the Ann Arbor film festival in 1978, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS •.. Billy Wilder. .. of black writers. They shouldn't be Rick Schmidt's 1988·THE REMAKE is currently Star Making considered a race apart, you said. You enjoying cult status in other cities. It's easy to see don't think black experience has given why: the film has carved a unique niche for itself MARCH/APRIL 1979 blacks a unique point of view, different somewhere between FREAKS and Fellini 's BVz . Visconti ... Milos Forman ... Alfred Hitchcock from whites? Purporting to bethe first musical \" with the stench of death about it\", and ending with the message JULY/AUGUST 1980 \"If you're black, you may have experi- \"be the star in your own life\", 1988 mixes deadly Stanley Kubrick ... New German Cinema ... Bad ences like other black people or you may seriousness and high camp, avant-garde Movies ... Reagan not. The same holds for gays, or Jews , or aesthetics and transsexual athletics with an at- women. Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and mosphere that is alternately sordid and seductive. SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1980 Isaac Bashevis Singer are all Jewish, but Peter Sellers ...Jonathan Demme ... Global only Singer could be called a Jewish David Harris Village .. .Westerns writer. He attempts to preserve in liter- The Boston Phoenix ature certains aspects of Jewish life; he 1988 recounts the fictitious tale of a middle-aged MARCH/APRIL 1981 has almost a didactic purpose. But Bellow librarian's attempts to finance and remake the film Jessica Lange. .. Barbara Stanwyck... Rerurn of the and Roth, their subject is America. musical \"ShOWboat\" in contemporary terms. The Hollywood Ten auditions are arranged on a San Francisco stage, ~A decent piece of literature doesn't and range from incredible to merely bizarre. JULYlAUGUST 1981 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ... George Lucas bother with categories. It's absurd to talk Variety interview.. .The End of the American Hero about Proust as a gay writer, or of Naipaul as a black writer, or Whitman as a gay * * * Movies on TV NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1981 writer. There's no such thing as a gay or Classic French Films ...Terry Gilliam . ..Special black sensibility. I don't think being black Featuring SYLVESTER, JESUS CHRIST SATAN, Report on the Independents or female so pervades a writer's mind that LINDA MONTANO, RAL·PHENO, BILLY all experience is different from that of BARKSDALE, DICKIE MARCUS, JON JANUARYIFEBRUARY 1982 whites or men. Besides, the job of the CARROLL, NUNS and NUDIST, many others ... .Beatty and Forman ... Art Director Midsection ... writer is to invade his characters' minds , The New Woman in Films and they can't all be the same. They can't 1988 is available for sale or rental at the all be exactly like him . following video stores: JULYIAUGUST 1982 ******** ROCKET VIDEO (L.A.) ******* THE ROAD WARRIOR . . . Richard Pryor. .. Producers \"In the end, categories become absurd. ******* VIDIOTS (Santa Monica) ******* Midsection Each individual would end up in his own. *********** DR. VIDEO (S.F.) *********** What about celibate writers or tall writers ****** TLA VIDEO (PhiladelPhia) ***** JANUARYIFEBRUARY 1983 or green-eyed ones?\" ********* NEW VIDEO (N.V.C.) ********* GANDHI. .. Video Games Midsection ... Nicholas NickJeby on TV Having green eyes doesn't give you any Or purchase your VHS/BETA (please specify) specific set of experiences; being black cassette for $49.95, plus $2 .00 per copy for MARCH/APRIL 1983 or female might. And those experiences shipping I handling. Jeremy Irons and BETRAYAL. .. Laurence Olivier. .. might contribute to the way one writes. Please send George Cukor money order \"Every writer has a unique experience payable to MAY /JUNE 1983 that contributes to his or her voice. But Ingmar Bergman ... Getting it Made. .. Israeli the idea of writing is for one person to 55 Cinema speak to a deep part of another and overcome the determined isolation of JULYIAUGUST 1983 categories. Generally, writers who put Alec Guiness and the STAR WARS saga ... MTV... themselves ,into categories aren't very Jean-Jacques Beineix talented and are published because they're gay, or feminist, or black. Their MARCHIAPRIL 1984 writings are subgenre works that don't say TERMS OF ENDEARMENT... Claudette Colbert ... anything to people outside the group. Cinematographers They're not literature. Even Bashevis Singer appeals to all the world. MAY /JUNE 1984 Joe Dante... Alfred Hitchcock...Jonathan Demme \"If you call yourself a black or gay and Talking Heads writer, it might inhibit you from entering lives of characters unlike yourself. I'm not SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984 gay but I write about gay characters. I BODY DOUBLE and De Palma. . . Hard Boiled make it up . That's my job. If I fail, it's not Hollywood ... AMADEUS a failure of sex or sexual preference. It's a failure of imagination: ~ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 Black Films ... Pornography Debate... Andrzej Wajda JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1985 PASSAGE m INDIA and David Lean ...Truffaut Midsection ...Celebrities JULY/AUGUST 1985 THE EMERALD FOREST... Youth-Cult.Movies ... Westerns ... British Films SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1985 Akira Kurosawa and RAN ... Fonda and Streep ... David Hare ...TV's Golden Age JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1986 Co ld War Flicks ... 85 Movie Review.. .Mazursky Inte rview MARCH/APRIL 1986 A New Argcntina ... British Renaissance .. .Gay Midsection MAY/J UNE 1986 Marshall Brickman interview.. . Bogart Midsection ... Woody Allen J ULY/AUGUST 1986 Dr. Ruth ... Wom<:n in Prison ... Exp loitation Mius<:ction .. .Jam<:s Cagn<:y

David F. Friedman, 63, is the top David F. Friedman ducer) and Lewis (as co-writer and distributor of hardcore porn mov- interviewed by David Chute ies on the West Coast and a director) collaborated on three classic founding father of the Adult Film Associ- David F. Friedman and AFAA award. ation of America. He is also an old-time tator\" lecturing in a white coat and scumbag, scare pictures: Blood Feast exploiteer whose roots in the forbidden offering sex-education texts for sale after fruit industry are planted bedrock-deep. each performance. \"They had the show (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs (1965), After a boyhood spent running away to before they ever saw the picture,\" Fried- join Nightmare Alley-style carnivals in man recalls . and Color Me Blood Red (1965). Talk the 01' South, his career in exploitation was launched in the mid-Forties and is The post-World War II period was about contributions to world culture: linked , somehow or other, with every slow, until a jazzier, more straightforward significant twist that the Skin and Sin brand of soft-core sexploitation came these were the very first \"hardcore gore\" business has taken over the years. along. This was the period in which the true underbelly exploitation movie died horror movies, the true predecessors of In the first installment of this exclusive out: when Russ Meyer won praise from interview (published in the July-August the likes of Leslie Fiedler in 1959, it was George Romero's zombie films, Tobe issue of FILM COMMENT) , the avuncular clear that the grungy sex movie no longer Friedman described the pre-history of embodied truly forbidden impulses. It Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre exploitation from its origins in the early had carved out a tiny mainstream niche years of the century. The heart of it, he for itself. Ever the innovator, Friedman and all the slasher epics of the Seventies . said , \"was any subject that was forbidden: noticed that the tide was rising and miscegenation, abortion , unwed mother- pushed exploitation bodily into new In 1964, a dispute with Lewis encour- hood, venereal disease. You could sell the areas. seven deadly sins and the 12 minor ones. aged Friedman to accept a partnership All those subjects were fair game for the In the process of grinding out nudist- exploiteer- as long as it was in bad taste!\" colony \"volleyball epics\" like Daughter of offer from Dan Sonney, Louis' son and the Sun in the early Sixties, Friedman Officer Louis Sonney, a celebrity forged a fruitful working relationship with heir, whose Sonney Amusement Com- lawman who became a burlesque attrac- Chicago filmmaker Herschell Gordon tion and , from 192 1, a major sleaze Lewis. Friedman (as co-writer and pro- pany eventually became Entertainment distributor operating from Los Angeles, was a key figure . In the Thirties , Sonney Ventures Incorporated. This is the outfit and his contemporaries - a pack of swashbuckling ex-carnival con artists , the Dave Friedman still runs from the so-called 40 Th ieves - peddled cheap- thrill pictures like High School Girl, original warehouse-style office near usc Child Bride , and Wages of Sin on a roadshow basis. They often carried their in downtown Los Angeles. Here, he own prints from one side-street venue to another, renting (or \"fo)Jr-walling\") the- came into his own as a moviemaker and aters, playing off fast and catching a late train before word-of-mouth (or the local wheeler-dealer... -D.C. chapter of the Knigh,ts of Columbus) caught up with them. Los ANGELES The ultimate attraction of the first SEXPLOITATION phase of American skin-dependent mov- iemaking was the birth-of-a-baby classic, \"So here I am in Los Angeles, in Mom and Dad (1944) , produced and 1964, in this very office on distributed by Friedman's mentor, the Cordova Street, and I am thor- legendary Kroger Babb. Friedman, who oughly entrenched in the Hollywood apprenticed with Babb's operation in adult film scene. Of course, I already Chicago, calls Mom and Dad \"the knew a lot of the people out here. This number one greatest exploitation item in was when the so-called sexploitation the history of world movies.\" It perfected pictures reached their zenith. an array of techniques that could turn a hit-and-run opening into an event: segre- \"The great thing was the competition gated shows for men and women , nurses between Bob Cresse and me. Evt:ry on duty in the lobby, a \"hygiene com men- month we'd each try to make one better than the other guy. On The Defilers , Lee Frost came over from Cresse's stable and worked on it. Again, I produced it and wrote it and did the sound; Lee directed it and photographed it-I think we had a crew of about three. But Cresse made Scavengers [1967], and National Review called it one the ten best pictures of the year. We did Love Camp 7 (1968) together, and I did Starlet (1969) . It was a great period. \"Then I made The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill (1966) for Pete Perry and Dan Sonney, and that's when I met this little girl Barbara Jean Moore, aka Stacey Walker. The cameraman on that and on my next picture with Stacey, A Smell of Honey, A Swallow ofBrine [1966], was a 56

young Hungarian emigre, Lazslo Kovacs. week for around $2,500, which included AVAILABLE Smell of Honey was a hell of a little a captain and a cook, who cooked ON VIDEO breakfast and lunch for the whole cast picture. and crew. So I wrote the story around this One of the best independent films we've seen \"We found Stacey literally living on the yacht. all year. L.A. Weekly beach. She was a real little hippie kid , but \"In Thar She Blows, I developed a she was absolutely gorgeous. Another A FILM BY RICK SCHMIDT exploitation character of the period, character, Phil Latio (played by John Albert Zugsmith, was signing lots of girls Adlerman), which became a running gag EMERALD to contracts for his films, and Stacey in my films for a while-the way Martin CITIESco~~: showed me her contract. It said she Borman was in Russ Meyer's films . The couldn't work for anybody else, but other character was Kenyon Adler, For lovers of weird movies, independent direc- Zugsmith only had to pay her when she (played by Stuart Lancaster, who was in tor Rick Schmidt is the king. was actually working for him. 1said , 'This several of Russ' films). Kenyon Adler was isn't a contract. He can't tie up your always the boss and Phil Latio was always Robert W. Butler services without giving you anything: So 1 the underling. They were in Starlet, but KANSAS CITY STAR call Zugsmith and he says, 'I don't think I in Trader Homee [19701 I changed it to should discuss with a competitive firm Kenya Adler. In The Erotic Adventures of EMERALD CITIES features Ed Nylund as an the use of one of our stars: 1 blew my Zorro [1971], I revived Phil as an acting alcoholic, part-time Santa who runs a cafe in stack. I said, 'Do you really want me to go role for Bob Cresse, and he became Death Valley with his actress daughter (Caro- to the state labor board or the D .A. with Felipe Latio. lyn Zaremba). When the daughter runs off to that contract?' And that was the end of San Francisco with a punk (Ted Falconi of \"And in fact, this came up in the case of FLIPPER) , Ed follows. He encounters a politi- that. Entertainment Ventures vs. Alby Brewer, cian who wants the country to be one big \"I thought Stacey was going to be the Governor of Alabama. He wanted to National Park with himself as head park ranger make a name for himself, so he ordered (Lowell Darling), an ex-con in a Martian mask biggest thing ever in softcore nudie a raid of all the X-rated theaters in (Dick Richardson), punk rock bands FLIPPER pictures, though most of us were dead set Alabama. One of the pictures picked up and THE MUTANTS, politicians and priests ' against any star system. Our theory- was Midnight Cowboy and another was justifying limited nuclear war as manifested on Russ Meyer's, Bob Cresse's, and mine- Thar She Blows! Eventually the case was TV, including street interviews (by Wille Boy was that every week the suckers want to dismissed because it just got too silly. All Walker) about the death of Santa Claus. see a new face and a new set of tits. And that talk in court about Phil Latio... ~ Although the more bizarre components make before hardcore you didn't have any this film excellent late night fare, with its trouble getting a lot of very pretty girls-a lOu 've said that you enjoyed doing the allusions to mass media and the health of the lot from modeling agencies; you weren't campaigns and the trailers almost more nation, it's much more than just a freak show. showing pubic hair in those days, of than making the movies. Or is it? course. \"Oh, yes. Trailers were a vital part of Jo Comino \"But Stacey was so beautiful that after the show. We were limited in what the CITY LIMITS (LONDON) Fanny Hill 1 became convinced that she newspapers would let us include in our could be a nudie star, and I wanted to do ads. We never had radio, we never had EMERALD CITIES is now available for rental another picture with her right away. So in television. So the trailer became, and and/or sale at the following video stores: a week I wrote A Smell of Honey, A always will be, the major tool for selling Swallow of Brine. The original title was an exploitation film . You'd tease 'em, ••• ** ••• ROCKET VIDEO (L.A.) ••••••• The Maneater. It was a story about a little torment 'em, turn 'em to the right, turn ••••••• VIDIOTS (Santa Monica) ••••••• tease. She leads guys on and then yells 'em to the left, turn 'em any way but loose. ••••••••••• DR. VIDEO (S.F.) ••••••••••• 'Rape!' and their lives are ruined . Sam Melville, who was later on the TV show \"If I wrote the script for the movie, I •••••• TLA VIDEO (Philadelphia) ••••• The Rookies, plays a guy who gets so pretty much wrote the trailer right after. ••••••••• NEW VIDEO (N.V.C.) ••••••••• frustrated by this that he goes off and I'd use every outrageous pun and double- rapes another woman and gets shot to entendre. I had a dictionary of sex terms Or purchase your VHS/BETA (please specify) death by her boyfriend. This picture and a pretty good idea what scenes I was would not win any prizes from feminists! going to use to illustrate it. In the Trader cassette for $49.95, plus $2.00 per copy for Lazslo Kovacs was the cinematographer, Homee trailer I say, 'A mammoth expedi- and we shot it all over L.A. tion was mounted; and then you cut to shipping I handling. the boy on top of the girl. They're all \"Then Stacey met some character and quick cuts, .so it's just for that word Please send ' .... : ~ .... '. . ' ran off and married him. It never fails . 'mounted: \" L... i' ·..,r· They always meet some character.\" You always tried to work humor into money order What was Thar She Blows [1969J? I've the trailers? always loved the ad line on that one: \"A payable to story ofmen who GO DOWN to the sea in \"As I say, I've been putting the public on ships.\" for so long that I forget where I'm serious and where I'm not. But this whole \"That came about because Cresse and business is a put-on. And there's nothing I were always trying to one-up each other, wrong with that because I'm truly and one thing neither of us had ever done convinced that people like to be put on. was a nudie sea story. The title wrote Mike Ripps' Poor White Trash was one of itself, of course. We found we could lease the greatest put-ons in the world. He a yacht down in Newport for a whole didn't show 'em anything! The competi-

tive freedom . of exploitation has never customers. You've got spanking in The of Zorro [19711. On the back lot there, been in the pictures, because there was Defilers, and this film and that film: He no way we could compete with the big knew more about it than I did. It's like the Hogan s Heroes set was still standing. boys. But we sure could do it with ads and some of the reviews we got in France for trailers-we just pulled out all the stops~ Blood Feast: 'Clearly influenced by Well, these Canadians were playing a Buiiuel!' money game. Everything had to go Was the young talent pool an advan- through my payroll, but the bank would tage to working in Hollywood? ILSA be calling me up saying, 'Where's the money to cover this check?' One day I \"Definitely. usc and UCLA graduated Alot ofpeople don't even know that almost had to shut the thing down. 1 was you produced lisa, She-Wolf of tearing pages out of the script. The final hundreds of people who couldn't get into the S.S. [l974}. scene says, 'The Allies attack. A thou- IA [the unionl but wanted desperately to \"Well, Bob Cresse and I became sand soldiers with half-tracks and tanks: 1 work in the movies. For every Lucas or friendly- I had met his father working on said, 'Not on this budget. I'll have one guy Spielberg there were 200 people who a carnival. He was a little genius, crazy as run into the room and say the Allies are didn't make it. Nudies and exploitation a bedbug. He was an actor, making more coming!' films were a godsend for them. To get a money than he ever dreamt possible on job with Roger Corman was like going to these pictures. He thought he needed \"I had known Dyanne Thorne in graduate school. A kid coming to work as bodyguards, Rolls-Royces. I always burlesque and in Vegas, and she was the a grip on an exploitation show could work thought he was a closet Nazi, and he did perfect lisa. She was a 'talking woman' in in every department, learn everything~ like a certain amount of bondage and burlesque. Whenever two comics are sadomasochism in all his pictures. Of working and they need a woman either as Some of the Corman graduates admit course the nth degree of this was Love that but also say they were underpaid and Camp 7 [1968], which we worked on a foil or as a straight man, that was her. So exploited. together. I played the German general, now she was doing all these experiments and he was the commandant of the prison \"I never felt that way. I think of the camp. That was unreal, and it won a lot of a la Mengele. There is a scene where years I spent at Paramount as a second money. A cut version got into Canada and college education. I learned advertising made a coupla hundred thousand dollars. they're having a banquet and the girl is on and distribution there; you are what you That was how John Dunning and Andre the table with a wire around her neck, make of what you learn. Link of Cinepix in Montreal came up standing on a melting block of ice. We with the idea for Ilsa. had one scene where there's a big cut in a \"Personally, I always knew exactly what girl's arm and there are worms in it. My I was doing. Like everything I've done \"Dunning and Link wanted to make a wife was on the set that day and said, 'Are most of my life, it was always another picture that was the utmost in cruelty and those supposed to be maggots? Those scheme or another scam. But I don't degradation. Naturally, they hired me to are meal worms!' 1 said, 'You are the only think I really believed, until the last few produce it. I shot it at what is now Laird person who will ever notice!\" years, how much people picked up on International Studios, the old Selznick some of these things. People were seeing lot, where I shot The Erotic Adventures \"We finished shooting this thing, and it things in these movies that I certainly turned out pretty good. We had some never intended. Like a guy who came to great effects-we hired Joe Blasco, who is me a few weeks ago , said he was into now head of makeup at ABC-and made a dealing specialty tapes. I say, 'What's three-and-a-half-hour assemblage and that?' He says, 'Oh, B&D, S&M: And he sent it to Montreal. The whole thing had says,. 'You're quite a cult hero with my to go through Customs; the paperwork was indescribable. And then the whole FILMOGRAPHY Symbols! Starlet, the \"first adult film about the adult film Industry Itself:' A = aClOr D = direClOr P = producer/distributor SP = screenplay PM = production manager UP = unit publicist S = sound E = editor C = camera PD = production designer AP = associate producer = unreleased The Prime Time, 1957, PM; Living li?nus, 1958, UP; The Adventures ofLucky Pierre, 1959. P, co-SP, S (as Davis Freeman): Daughlerofthe Sun, 1959, P, SP, S (as Davis Freeman); Nature's Pwymates, 1960, P, Sp, S (as Davis Freeman); B-O-I-N-N-N-G!, 1960, P, Sp, S (as Davis Freeman); Goldilocks and the Three Bares. 1960, P, Sp, S (as Davis Freeman); Bell, Bare and Beautiful, 1961, P, S (as Davis Freeman): Scum ofthe Earth, 1961, P, SP, S (as Davis Freeman); BInod Feast, 1963, P, co-Sp, S: Two 11wusand Maniacs, 1964, P, S, PD; Color Me Blood Red, I?, co-SI?, S; My 1ille Is Hot (Pantie's Inferno), 1965, AP: The Defilers, 1965, P, SP, S; \"The Poker Parry; 1965. P, 0, SI?, C, E, S, A (short); \"The Casting Direccor; 1965. P, 0, Sp, C, E, S,A (short): TheNotoriousDaughterofRmnyHiU, 1966.AP, SP: A Smell ofHoney, A Swallow ofBrine. 1966, P, SP, S, A: \"But Charley, I Never Played Volleyball: 1966. P, D. Sp, C, E, S, A (short): Mondo Depravedos, 1967, p.; She Freak, 1967, I?, SP; Brick Doll House, 1967, co-P; Brand ofShame, 1968, P, SP: Love Comp 7, 1968, AI?, A: The Lustful1Urk, 1968, P, SP: The Head Mistress, 1968. P, SP: Space Thing, 1968, co-Po SP: The Pick Up, 1968, A; The Acid Eaters, 1968, co-P: Starlet, 1969. I?, SP, A; TharShe Blows!, 1969, P, SP;. The House ofa 11wusand Dreams, 1969. co-p·; The Romrodder. 1969, co-P; Come One, Come All, 1970, co-P; Trader Homee, 1970, P, Sp, A; The MiJster Piece, 1970. co-P: The Long, Swift Sword ofSiegfried, 1971, P, co-D, SP: The Erotic Adventures ofZorro, 1971, P, SP: Bummer!, 1973, co-P; /lsa, She-Jfblfofthe S.s., 1974, co-P (as Herman Traeger); Journey of0, 1974. co-P: Johnny Firecloud, 1974, P; Seven Into S,\",\"\", 1975, P (as Davis Freeman): Chorus Call, ~976, P ~as Davis Freeman): Games Women Play. 1977, co-P; The Erotic Cartoon Festival, 1977, P, SI?, A (as Davis Fortesque): Baby Love, 1979, co-P: The Budding ofBrie, 1980, co-P; Puss 'n' Boots. 1982. co-P: Alexandra, 1984, AP; Matinee Idol, 1984, P, Sp, A: Blonde Heat. 1985, P, A. 58

thing comes back-every single foot of education route, was the first theatrical AVAILABLE film at $700 for shipping!-with a cable hardcore film-you actually saw inser- ON VIDEO that says, 'In reel one, at 340 feet , cut two tion, and the girl taking the penis into her frames; and so on. Cut two frames? At mouth. You did not see ejaculation, but 'Director's Choice' this rate we'll be working on this thing for they were really, finally doing it. The first Ann Arbor Film Festival five years! So I just bundled it all up and halfway decent feature that wasn't a sent it back and washed my hands of it. medical thing was Bill Osco's Mona A MAN 75 MIN. My name is not on it-they used the (1970). B&W name Herman Traeger. When it came time to make the sequel, Ilsa: Harem \"And then, up in San Francisco, a lot of A WOMANr Keeper ofthe Oil Sheiks, I didn't want to people were doing hardcore but for their AND A KILLER be involved. A third lisa picture was own theaters. The Mitchell Brothers had announced, but I don't know if it was ever the O'Farrell Theater and were making If someone asked me, in conversation, what I made: Ilsa Meets Bruce Lee in the their own 16mm movies. They were part thought of \"A Man, a Woman and a Killer,\" I'd Bermuda Triangle.\" of the Sixties' Haight-Ashbury scene and say it was interesting and stop at that. I'd be afraid were always putting down Los Angeles of shortchanging the film by describing it too HARDCOREAND because we were still making these much . BEYOND pompous, Hollywood-style softcore nud- For one thing , it is in part a film about the mak- ies. But to our way of thinking they were ing of the film. This is an idea.that has endless How have you adapted to the playing for nickles and dimes and we appeal for young filmmakers, who are obsess- switch to hardcore ? were playing for big bucks. ed with what they call \"process\" - that is, the \"I was a founding member of hardware of their craft. By calling attention to the the Adult Film Association of America in \"One picture I did in the hardcore artifice of film, they are aiming t6 seem artless. 1968, and the first vice president. The period that had the old Friedman touch But artlessness is artifice, too, so the technique first president for two years was a was Chorus Call (1978), a total rip-off of defeats itself. character named Sam Chernoff. I was Chorus Line, almost word-for-word. For another, the film uses English subtitles at cer- president for the next five years, from Why nobody has ever sued me on that tain moments to \"translate\" its English dialogue, 1970 to '75, and I've been chairman of the one I will never know. There was a great a technique I dreaded when I read the publicity board and toastmaster ever since. I'd say little song in it, 'Six Tits in a Row: It was material because it seems just too cute. I've adapted pretty well.\" shot in a theater in New York, and as the But because of these devices, rather than in spite director weeds people out we flashback of them, \"A Man, a Woman and a Killer,\" works When you were interviewed by Ken to the sex scenes. I had some fun with in a way that makes it one of the most absorb- Turan and Stephen Zito in 1973, for the Matinee Idol (1984), because I acted in ing films I've seen of what is generally called the book Sinema, you said you were still that one; it was not quite a remake of the independent filmmaking movement. holding out against hardcore. What softcore Starlet, but the two main finally changed your mind? characters were supposed to be Dan - Jerry Oster Sonney and me. I asked Russ Meyer to New York Daily News \"Well, all of a sudden there was no play the other part, but he wasn't able to longer a market for what I had! The do it. * * 1. Movies on TV Supreme Court's Miller decision came down in June of 1973: 'The average \"Hardcore has not been as much fun as A FILM CREATED BY person applying community standards: softcore. Too much strain to have fun. We And I said, 'Well, that's it: From t!ren on it don't dare shoot any hardcore in L.A., DICK R4CHARDSON, RICK SCHMIDT was a hardcore business. Then Vincent and you can't shoot outdoors without AND WAVNE WANG Miranda said, 'We'll only play hardcore on great legal risks. In softcore you could the Pussycat circuit: The last picture that shoot anywhere. Most hardcore films A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER is now I made soft was Erotic Adventures of take place in a very confined area. There's available at the following video stores: Zorro [19711 and, fortunately, I had a few never any expanse to them. And with the ******* VIDIOTS (Santa Monica) ******* hardcore scenes to put into that. The first cost of these kids today-some of them ****** TLA VIDEO (Philadelphia) ****** totally hardcore film was a pickup, are demanding and getting $1,500 to ******** CAPTAIN VIDEO (S.F.) ******* Marriage and Other Four Letter Words $2,000 a day-you don't have the luxury ********* VIDEOACTIVE (L.A.) ********* (1974). of doing it the way you'd like to . Once ********* NEW VIDEO (N.V.C.) ******** you've had them do all of their fucking Or purchase your VHS/BETA (please specify) \"A lot of 16mm films had sprung up in and sucking, at that price, you've got to cassette for $49.95, plus $2 .00 per copy for the late Sixties, and they were stronger rush them through the rest of it. When shipping I handling . than the features. They all ran about an you get into the sex you are more or less hour, they were made in a day and a half, at their mercy. Since the so-called wet Please send and the guys would go out and sell prints . shot is such a central part of the thing, money order Every month they would get a little bit when the guy is ready to ejaculate you payable to stronger, until finally, one day, one guy better be ready. just slipped it in. They peddled that one off and in the next one, two guys slipped \"The Mitchell Brothers are two of the it in. Matt Cimber's Man and Wife last living examples of the classic (1970), which went back to Mom and exploiteer. Those guys have more guts Dad for a model and took the sex- than anybody else around. The big thing now in this business is anxiety about AIDS. Actresses are quitting, and so on. So what the Mitchell Brothers are doing

in Behind the Green Door; Part Two is Thar She Blows, introducing the beloved Phil Latio. saying, 'In keeping with the national concern about health, we are producing much for hardcore porn. back. The theater audience used to be the first safe-sex adult motion picture: \"It is to some degree like the bartender about 20 percent women, especially at The guys in it are all wearing condoms. the suburban Pussycats. Theater audi- When it comes to the cunnilingus shots, who doesn't drink. The old guys, like ences have almost totally disappeared, there is a little sterile cloth. Last year they Dan Sonney and myself, always had a because with tape, they can watch at did The Graffenberg Spot, which showed term for guys who walked into these home, and if something turns them on the supposed female ejaculation. You things . Professional casino people use they can get right into the act them- know, the average cop is not going to be the same term: 'See this one? He's a real selves.\" able to tell if the fluid is coming out of the D.G.: a degenerate. That's the guy who vaginal opening or the urinal opening, comes back night after night. He's lVu founded one of the very first and urination is a definite no-no. These gambling-the butter and egg money, like commercial videotape companies, 7VX, guys are just outrageous enough to draw an addict. I don't know if dope pushers in 1975, and then five years later the people in out of curiosity.\" use .the term, too , but that's what it's all company was dissolved-just before the about. What do you think of the premise of big video boom. What s the story there? \"To me hardcore is not erotic. There Terry Southern s novel Blue Movie-that was a little picture with Mimsy Farmer a \"I'll give you a quote on that: 'The few years ago called More [1969 , directed whole videocassette business was basi- a guy could make a fortune if he only by Barbet Schroeder), in which the guy cally founded by pirates and pornogra- reaches up under her skirt and pulls her phers: The majors weren't interested. could get real movie stars to do hard- panties off. Now that was a fucking erotic The only people who had the rights and core? film! But what is erotic to me may not be the will to do it were the adult filmma- erotic to you. That's why the hardcore \"A year or so ago I would have said that films throw in a little something for kers . For TVX, I was associated with a guy one day, real names are going to do it. everybody. That's a carnival trick, the named Curt Richter, who was convicted Once that happened, school would be ten-in-one: ten big attractions under one of pirating major company tapes. I wrote out and the current hardcore business tent! a big editorial in the AFAA bulletin saying, would be finished. But with the political 'Finally the Justice Department is going climate the way it is, I'm not so sure it will \"In the last year and a half, by the way, after these thieves: So Curt called me up happen anymore.\" the de rigueur lesbian scenes in porn and said, 'That was me!' And I said, films have been starting to disappear. The 'Then you are very foolish. Why steal Did you ever want to play in the same people in the theaters stop and tell the them when you could license them?' So I ballpark as the majors? manager what they like and don't like, lent him $750 for equipment, and that and all this information starts drifting was the beginning of TVX. Unfortunately, \"Oh, of course I did. I don't think it's the oldest story in the world: a boy there's any of us who wouldn't have jumped at the chance. All of us had dreams at one time or another. But one of the things everybody knows in this business is that if your own joke is working, you don't mess with it. Russ Meyer never changed his joke, and he never had to go hardcore. I think Russ is one of the most talented filmmakers we've had in exploitation. He was the first of us to get a shot at the majors, and it didn't work out too well. Fortunately, I wasn't starving, and as long as I could pick up a check at Le Dome I wasn't worried too much.\" But how about just a step in that direction? Like after Halloween came out, a cheap horror movie perhaps could have been sold to a major. \"But you see, I had already done that 20 years ago on a $20,000 budget. I am beginning to think in those terms again because exploitation is no longer a cushy ride. That's why I'm working on Blood Feast Two and half a dozen other things . As long as things are going well, this is the easiest business in the world to be in. It's only when things are rocky that you start to think further on down the line. If I'm gonna stay active a few more years I better find a new joke, and the only thing I know as well as sex is horror.\" I get the feeling you're sort of looking forward to it. You don't seem to care that 60

falls in with bad companions. I don't want \"A picture should have a beginning, a -.\" to mention any names, but one guy was a middle, and an end, and there has to be drunk and the other was a thief. some rhyme or reason to the things that :\".,.:..,: Eventually, the company was liquidated~ happen. It's got to have the requisite sex acts, of course. These things are as rigid >::: Are the campaigns to get porno tapes in their construction as a medieval and even R-rated tapes out ofvideo stores morality play. But at least if a hardcore AVAILABLE having any impact? production is made on film you know it ON VIDEO has to go into theaters first , so it's got to \"Actually cable TV will probably be the have some semblance of being a movie~ 61 first to tighten up, mostly because guys like Jimmy Swaggert know that it comes I've always been a little suspicious of into people's homes, so they can work up the claim that production or aesthetic some outrage over it. They can organize values matter to the X-rated audience. boycotts against sponsors. Where they can do damage is with stores like 7- \"Well, look at the most successful Eleven. Daytime television is controlled hardcore films . Look at Misty Beethoven. by maybe three big soap companies. If That was just Pygmalion with sex. It's a enough of these morons write to Lever very complicated, rational story. The Brothers or Colgate-Palmolive, pretty people say lines that work, actions and soon we're back in the Fifties. That's how reactions make sense, and it has humor. the whole thing works. They want to get So people went to see it. We may have porno out from in front of their eyes- fooled ourselves about these things. In New York exhibitors used to count the which eventually may also mean out of wet shots.\" the local video store. Isn't porn a documentary genre? What \"Hardcore is about all over now as far as you're selling is the opportunity to watch the theaters are concerned. Whether the the real thing. shot-on-video people are going to have the run we've had, with either soft- or \"That's why porno is the end of hardcore, I don't know. But the made-for- exploitation and will be the end of all of video porn people, in their stupidity or us. I'm not too much worried about greed, started making these weekend Falwell or the Meese That Roared. We've wonders a few years ago, shot on tape always had them, and one thing about with no theatrical playoff, and they began politics, politics change. The thing that to destroy the greatest market we ever will destroy us quicker than anything else had. We found the goose that laid the is sheer ennui. Hardcore has had a longer golden egg, and instead of just patting it run than I ever thought it would, and we every night we've done everything but don't have a new generation for our films strangle it and run our hands up its ass to every seven years, like Disney. try to grab another egg. All the compa- nies are doing it. All they need is roughly \"Our enemies think that every young- an hour and ten minutes of running time, ster is panting, waiting for his 18th a catchy title, and a dynamite box. That is birthday to walk into a Pussycat Theater. the art they have mastered. They have That's not true. These kids don't look some of the best point-of-sale merchan- upon sex as a spectator sport, they look dise I have ever seen in this business.\" upon it as 'a participatory sport, because they've already been fucking and sucking But it seems to me you're talking about for five years at least. Hardcore occupies a classic exploitation tactic. Aren't the 15 years out of 70 years of the whole ads always more important than the spectrum of exploitation. Each thing has product? come to an end, from drug pictures to sex hygiene. The audience for hardcore is \"You're right, but the whole key to still white males over the age of 35 who exploitation is that you have to deliver. grew up when sexual attitudes were a lot These things don't ever deliver, and they more restrictive. And as that generation are poisoning the well. The basic starter passes , a new audience is not going to be kit for the guy who gets his first video there to take its place.\" ~ machine is one family film and one porno. But if he picks one of these Special thanks to my colleague Kevin Allman, weekend wonders , he gets burned. The society editor ofthe Los Angeles Herald Examiner, first rule is, you must never continually who sat in on most ofthe interview sessions and burn the sucker. That's what's called a helped with the transcription. Research acknowl- scorched earth policy. Back in the carny edgment to Sinema: American Pornographic Films days, a guy'd come in and burn a town up, and the People Who Make Them, by Kenneth he'd rob 'em blind, and he would burn that Turan and Stephen E Zito (Praeger; 1974), and Rei town for a carny for five years.\" Search #10: Incredibly Strange Films, edited by V. Vale, Andrea Juno , and Jim Morton (Re ISearch, But what does \"deliver\" mean in 1986). Frederic Rappaport contributed his exper- hardcore terms ? tise.

by Bill Wyman says that many of the characters were commercials and a fluorescent marquee inspired by vignettes of small-town life he in front of his house that reads, \"Wife \"I finp them really fascinating. I go to clipped from supermarket tabloids - a wanted.\" them every once in a while. I guess woman who never gets out of bed, an in this film I'm trying to make up otherwise loving couple who haven't The chief talking head of the group, my own mind about how I feel about exchanged words in years. Byrne himself Talking Heads , Byrne ignored the two them. And I still haven't decided. There's is the film's narrator, an Everyman guide strikes against him. First, rock stars this attraction to them. And yet they're who is neither catalyst nor protagonist, making movies are like actors running for sort of artificial- I guess they just don't but rather a (not mute) brother from office-you feel like writing about it can have any history to them.\" David Byrne is another planet who almost courteously only encourage them. If the film labors of talking about shopping malls, of all dresses in a ten-gallon hat and bolo tie but Sting, David Bowie, or Mick Jagger are things , and about :. ~ -'f they came to doesn't seem to notice that Texans no any indication, we might be forgiven a inhabit his new, and first, film, True longer dress that way. collective run for the hills at the mention ,tories, which he directed and co-wrote. of another. The assumption was that Virgil, Texas , has a new high-tech record sales would translate into movie There is an important scene in a microchip plant and is in the midst of its sales, and in any event, a deal could be shopping mall in True Stories, and a preparations for its \"Celebration of Spe- struck and everyone-agents, lawyers, shopping mall functions as an appropriate cialness\" parade in honor of the Texas executives, the fat lady in Detroit, and metaphor for the film's subject, a quickly sesquicentennial. The narrator, encoun- finally, the idol himself - gets paid. So no suburbanizing small town in Texas. Byrne ters some of Virgil's various denizens, wonder no one ever utters the sentence, most notably Louis Fyne, a lovelorn \"I'm sorry, Mr. Bowie, but I just don't lughead who looks vainly for a wife via TV think S.F. is your metier.\" The second 62

strike is that rock stars do not good music types, and those who quit paying Byrne gives a sardonic laugh. \"I don't directors make (only the Kinks' Ray attention to music after 1975. think they relish the idea of being thought Davies' worthy Return to Waterloo proves of as a source of funds for movies- the rule, and don't even talk to me about A nd through it all sailed Byrne, although they do realize there's Some Prince). The process by which the sight seemingly untouched and con- cross-hybridization between the two, one as opposed to the sound in one's mind stantly demonstrating that he felt field benefiting the other and all. But 1 gets transferred to film is more complex bound neither by the conventions of rock don't think they want lots of people and removed - witness the rock groups nor even by music itself. His onstage coming to them with ideas for movies.\" who have thought MTV is supposed to be character, an Everyman with a verge-of- like concert footage. At any rate, Byrne's hysteria sheen of alienation, was already To spur the film's promotion, the film's first triumph is that True Stories is a true famous by the time it was ingrained into release is tied into the publication of an public consciousness in Stop Making eponymous book by Penguin, featuring mOVIe. Sense, the group's celebrated concert film the screenplay Byrne wrote with play- collaboration with Jonathan Demme. wrights Beth Henley and Steve Tobo- The 34-year-old Byrne is not your And his search for fields other than rock lowsky, plus various pictures and story- average rock star. Talking Heads was one has already produced work with sound- board excerpts. Talking Heads will also of the original and best Seventies \"new collagist Brian Eno, choreographer Twyla release a True Stories LP. And then there wave\" groups. Where the punks-most Tharp and playwright Robert Wilson. are the two obvious music videos featur- notably the Sex Pistols - exploded con- ing the group that Byrne conveniently ventions through personal and political Byrne faced True Stories' first hurdle- included in the film. explicitness combined with inarticulate the technical requirements - with some rage, the Talking Heads' targets were confidence. \"Working with Jonathan Byrne still looks like the earthly contravened more subtly: their hair was [Demme) helped a lot. 1 learned a lot of offspring of Mr. Rogers and E.T., but short, but also neatly combed; their the technical stuff during Stop Making over the course of the last ten years, his subjects were miniature mundanities, Sense,\" Byrne says. \"But another trouble legendary neck seems to have grown like declaring gratitude to one's appli- was funding (Talking Heads financed shorter and there are now swatches of ances; their sound was stripped down, Sense themselves), which came, eventu- gray at have appeared his temples. The but riven with odd rhythms; over time, ally, from an unexpected source. \"Most of edge of benign hysteria is gone; he main lyricist Byrne did away almost the money came from the record com- doesn't even look like a rock star anymore entirely with rhyme. Only recently did pany [Warner). We had tried numerous (if he ever did), or even the protoypical the group have a bestselling album; in the independent sources, when the record Manhattanite artiste. But this brings up a intervening years, however, the group company said they liked the idea of being point: what an urban aesthete says about garnered unequaled critical respect and a involved, as far as the money went~ Virgil, Texas, might be at worst unfair and loyal amalgam of young punks, classical at best condescending. Right? GNVIDEO Choose from the nation's most extensive collection of thousands of foreign films on video-both current releases and rare, hard-to-find classics. Films from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, USSR, Sweden, Latin America and South America. FREE Send coupon below or call (312) 281-9075. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -To: FACETS FILMS ON VIDEO, 1517 W. Fullerton, Chicago, IL 60614 Send current video catalog to: Name Institution Address City_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ State _ _ _ _ _ Zip _ _ _ _ _ _ Phone _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

\"No. If I was only allowed to write putting it into real life.\" fashion show, complete with outfits for about my own experiences, well, that the whole family made out of grass, rules out a lot of art, and a lot of movies, Byrne could have said, of course, Astroturf or pseudo-brick or stone sid- and a lot of books and everything else.\" \"putting it back into real life.\"There ing? And what about the narrator's voice- True Stories ' intent, he says, is a gentle is an implicit irony in taking the over, about the beauty of the Texas look at quotidian life. look of your movie from advertisements countryside, as the camera pans over an and applying it to \"true stories,\" the very ugly housing development with dirt In his search for that gentleness, Byrne banality of which makes them eerie. A yards? has admirably created a look and a style fascination with American kitsch is that fit (or, to look at it another way, don't hardly new - it has long been a staple of The risk taken here is not that the fit , ~ the same way the subject doesn't) , modern art, not to mention new wave targets are unjust but that they are passe. borrowing from Joe Dante's Twilight music-but in True Stories , Byrne is \"Well, I think that the townspeople we Zone episode, the Fellini of Amarcord, upping the ante, claiming that he's made involved in the film, wouldn't see it that Roma , and 8i /z, the seemingly random his statement on the issue lovingly and way,\" Byrne says. The question is cross-cutting of Nashville and A Wedding, respectfully. Certainly Louis Fyne, the whether that goodwill comes through in all combined with the cartoony hyper- bearish lonelyheart , is sympathetic, both the movie, and whether audiences and realism of The Rocky Horror Picture in conception and interpretation (by New critics will take his portrait in the spirit in Show (which Byrne says he's never seen), York's John Goodman). But what about which it was offered. television commericals, and the almost the Lying Woman , whose outlandish animated 1941, or even The Blues stories (an involvement in JFK's assassi- I asked Byrne, who is a Scot, if True Brothers . \"I think it looks real in a new nation, being born with a tail , having Stories is the start of more films about the kind of romantic way; Byrne says. rejected amorous advances by everyone sad state of the West. \"I basically liked \"Usually, to make something look roman- from Burt Reynolds to \"the original doing it, and I hope I can do another, but tic and pretty you make it all kind of Rambo\") are so transparently an escape not about America and, no , not about golden looking. In this case, the colors from her numbing work on a high-tech Scotland. Not Europe at all. There's are more primaries, crayon colors. A lot production line? Or the suburban mall other countries I'd like to look into. of it is taking elements from ads and Africa, maybe .\" Coming soon: Virgil, Namibia? ~ Stop Making Sense. ! 64

May Divorce Be With lbu by Jack Barth less believable than what you hear racy but tasteful. TV has never presented through your apartment walls or over the a very honest sampling of human dia- \"[ got you babe... \"-Sonny and Cher backyard fence . And unlike The People's logue; nobody ever swears or speaks \"Laugh at me...\"-Sonny Court, which places actual litigants on graphically. But since people rarely curse \"Bang, bang, he shot me down..\"-Cher trial for cash verdicts, the tightly scripted in court, Divorce Court might be the first \"You better sit down, kids... \"-Sonny and crisply directed Divorce Court avoids TV show to approach realism in language. and Cher the hem-hawing, self-righteously con- (Except when describing the sex act. fused testimony of Peoples' warts-and-all Witnesses tend to use puns and euphe- T he plot is always the same. Act I: approach. misms based on their occupations: Wedded Bliss. Lovey-dovey, billy- Farmer: \"They were plowing away, but it cooey, pootsy-pootsy. So much in When Divorce Court first appeared on wasn't the north 40.\" Banker: \"I caught love. Sex is terrific - a pleasure, not a TV in 1957, divorce was a word that was them in the. vault, naked. And it wasn't chore. Act II: Bitter Reality. A basic whispered. The show was titillating and her safe deposit box he was opening~ incompatability is uncovered. Cash is entertaining, but could not dive into the Stewardess: \"She went into the bathroom craved to cram down the maw of greed, muck of a marriage - that is, the sex and with him. And it wasn't TWA coffee or and job-related stress stretches the mari- perversions thereof- as does Judge TWA milk she was offering.\" tal bonds. Courtship is ancient history. Keene's modern version. Language was Complacent flab and tedious technique make the conjugal bed a repulsive arena Judge Keene punders the evidence. indeed. Adultery. Physical and mental cruelty. Act III : Divorce. This is where Divorce Court - the updated version of the TV classic - begins, presided over by Judge William Keene , who served on the Superior Court of California for 18 years . And within this familiar format , an astonishing array of spattin' sweeties- pared-down, idealized versions of you and me - plead their scripted cases to the genial adjudicator in hopes of snarfling the majority of the marital assets . These are contested divorces, where complaints are met by cross-complaints, and dirty laundry is raised up the flagpole to see if anybody salutes. The slightest marital insult is magnified into damning evidence: A derogatory nickname can cost earnest wage earners their homes; an involuntary muscular contraction across a spouse's face might kiss off a stock portfolio. How could any marriage with- stand such scrutinous trumpery? Divorce Court dive-bombs the family home and strafes the survivors. Unlike soap operas, which .depict glamorous, soulless models strutting through burgs where the paperboy delivers The National Enquirer, Divorce Court chops a hearty if demographically dubious cross section of normal Americans. One mar- riage per show is placed under the video microscope. Although the plaintiff and defendant are actors, the stories are no 65 b

The story unfurls within the rigid really fair? On Divorce Court, if Judge reassuring, for in everyday life, as we courtroom format. First, the plaintiff Keene decides the guy's unfaithful wife know, people lie all the time. It's no big takes the stand and presents his or her didn't offer enough succor, he might sock deal. Facts are mangled, our opinions are case via prepared questions from the 'er for the house , 75 percent of the assets, either accepted with disinterested acqui- plaintiff's attorney (a real-life lawyer). even spousal support! escence or rejected as inane, and all our Then, cross-examination from the objections are overruled. Your spouse can spousal attorney, another real lawyer (at The trial continues. The plaintiffs sit around all day and call you Butterbutt least this keeps them out of real witness takes the stand. Judge Keene just because you're too tired to go out, courtrooms where they could be manu- bites his glasses, lifts his chin, and flaps and your only recourse is to drink more facturing foolish litigation to help jack up his dentures in disbelief at modern carnal beer. But on Divorce Court, only the our insurance rates). The plaintiff always nonchalance. \"What exactly,\" he asks the truth matters , and the hearsay and presents a strong case. The defendant's witness , \"is a sexual surrogate?\" conjecture that leads everybody to mis- lawyer always knocks a few holes in it. understand and underappreciate you in After this , Judge Keene asks the lawyers \"We're trained therapists who help real life is all inadmissible. What remains to step up to the bench. There should be a marriage by examining their sexual is a man or woman's stripped-down self- enough time for a commercial break now, difficulties.\" image, an image that is then compared to the hushed announcer tells us. the spouse's view of that same creature. \"Do you have sex with yo ur clients?\" And what that reveals is pretty pathetic. The participants always represent \"Yes . It's strictly professional.\" types: mid-life crisis philanderer; male Chomp those glasses, Judge, we can't On Divorce Court, everybody parades chauvinist joe who won't let wife work; believe it either. around with an ego larger than their brain. neurotic pervert who refuses to seek The witness is attacked by the defense An aging man fakes adultery with a young help; workaholic ; loud Italians who attorney. \"Is it true that the plaintiff is girl in order to make his wife sit up and scream in court and talk about olive oil. financing your new restaurant?\" take notice. (Judge Keene excuses the On Divorce Court, we meet not only \"Well , yes.\" perjury when the truth is reyealed , and them but their families, and hear their \"A nd is it true that you are now fosters a rare reconciliation.) A busy most lurid tales , see the effect on their repaying her by testifying against her female ad exec tries to have her embar- loved ones, and finally pass judgment in husband so that in addition you can rassing Down's Syndrome daughter precise mathematical terms. Traditional co ntinue your adulterous affair?\" stashed away in an institution over drama would bog down under such \"No. She's a fine wo man , and her hubby's objections. (He gets custody.) plodding procedure. husband is a dirty skunk. I just want him And each version of every key incident is to get his just desserts ~ told with Rashomon-like self-interest. On Knot's Landing , for example, the \"Desserts? Hmph! Like in your new decent-man-who-responds-to-pressure- restaurant? No further questions , your T he defendant takes the stand. The by-us ing-drugs-as-a-crutch might ram his honor.\" defense lawyer feeds the questions car into a bridge abutment. We get to see Should the witness be caught in one that convincingly plead their case. Cross- it explode in a tragic fireball, but is that inconsistency, Judge Keene is prone to disbelieve the entire testimony. This is \"Hmm:' he thinks, \"a baker. Bread, dough...pie in the sky...how 'bout the old 'cake and eat it too'?\"

A fresh breeze across the Pacific. The airline that serves more top boarding passes, and baggage for your friendly skies in First Class, Business business centers in the United States whole trip. Class, and Economy. now serves more top business centers across the wide Pacific with more And, of course, United's incom- Best of all, you'll be flying with a nonstops than any other airline. parable Mileage Plus, offering a whole friend. United Airlines. Now the world of exciting travel awards. friendly skies covers the wide Pacific. Convenient service to thirteen cities in all, with all the advantages You'll enjoy United's famous Call United or your Travel Agent. that come with one airline service. Royal Pacific Service, the best of the You're notjustflyJng One airline to handle you'reflying thefrienaly skies. ticketing, seat assignments,

\"Hmm, an architect. Frame, build...architect of our dreams...yes, foundation. A marriage needs a firm foundation:' examination. The plaintiffs lawyer fires a Next, the decision on the complaint damning testimony. few salvos, citing remote incidents of and cross-complaint. If either spouse can Divorce Court is dangerous. It's on moral turpitude. The defendant side- prove a claim of cruelty or adultery, that steps: side will be in a better position to scarf up during the daytime in most markets. the marital assets. Judge Keene is willing Who watches daytime TV? That's right, \"That was years ago ...\" to accept solitary, isolated incidents as resentful parasites who stay home aU day: \"But I was just so angry when she gave grounds for physical cruelty, so remem- away my record collection...\" ber to keep those paws to yourself, folks . \"Sorry you had a hard day at work while \"We were just talking. I needed a I sat around and watched TV, dear. Why shoulder to cry on. I spilled wine on my The Judge is no babe on the bench don't you (heh, heh) hit me to take out blouse, so I borrowed a bathrobe...\" when it comes to violence, criminal- your frustration, Butterbutt?\" The defense witness. If this is a tricky style. In 1970, he banged gavel over the case, it might be time for the old surprise Manson trial, where he sorted out some After watching a few months of this revelation. The defendant's mother: serious physical cruelty, also in a family show, you should be able to look at any \"Yes, the plaintiff is my son-in-law. But setting. marriage and determine who would get he's also, God help me , (choke) ...my what from a divorce. At the very least, GRANDSON!\" Finally, the division of the marital you become sensitized to the little things \"Mother, you promised .. .[to court) assets. Divorce Court is one of the least people say and do that indicate all is not The law is wrong. Why can't I marry my sexist shows on TV in this regard. Spousal well with their marriage. And how could son! [to husband/son) It's okay, Tom, we support is determined solely on the it be? How could any two typical, self- can be together. Let's be together, Tom .. .\" ability to earn a wage, and usually lasts for centered, nervous people live together Yow! Bailiff, put a bag over that loon! only a fixed period. Custody decisions without deceiving and insulting each But most often, it's a judgment call. may favor the mother, but a modern other? Judge Keene evaluates the veracity of the father who is emotionally sound and has testimony (there's a lot of obvious but time to spend with his kids just might get The participants in Divorce Court are unsubstantiated perjury on Divorce them. The most arbitrary (and exciting) predominantly middle-class whites. Court) and renders a verdict. But first, a decision is the percentage each will pull These are the people who seek marriage job-related pun or two: from the divorce. A real rat might get only counselors and sexual surrogates, who 25 percent of the assets of a long-term fret over identity and self-image, who can To Pizza Maker: \"You need a thick marriage, or nothing from a brief union. afford a contested divorce, and who hold crust for a marriage to succeed. This Decent folk who just can't work out their jobs that lend themselves to clever marriage hasn't a slice of an object of problems might go 50/50. If a family punning. They are the same busy, matrimony left in it.\" business is at stake, it usually stays with handsome, interesting people who popu- the person most involved. late the rest of the daytime dramas , To Mortician: \"This marriage is dead, except here they are exposed for their and we're here to embalm and bury it.\" Judge Keene can hit hard on occasion. prideful, troubled selves. A gold digger who married a hapless Then, a salient quote: \"I think it was lottery winner while keeping her lover And all their troubles, we discover, are Dante who said that the lowest rungs of was awarded $1. None of the actors self-inflicted. They are successful people hell are reserved for those who failed to knows what the verdict will be, so they who have attained a measure of free will do anything in time of need . That is get a chance to live their part here. In this and independence in their lives. The certainly true of your behavior, Mrs. case, the gleeful husband triumphantly only thing they don't possess is the ability Arbogast.\" shelled out the eight bits while the to sense and nurture the feelings of their infuriated hussy cursed her lover for his loved ones. Inevitably, this extraordinary show demonstrates daily, they will screw themselves up royally. ~ 68

TO KINDLE A GREAT FIRE) BEGIN WITH A BRILLIANT SPARK. Every quality diamond of a possessing four characteristics that Your jeweler is the expert carat or more is one of nature's rarest set it apart forever. They are called where diamonds are concerned. and most exquisite phenomena- the 4@s: Cut, Color, Clarity and His knowledge can help make the with more fire) more sparkle and Carat-weight. These determine the acquisition of a quality diamond scintillation. value of a diamond-and to an of a carat or more the beautiful) astonishing degreeLthe beauty and rewarding experience it should be. Each is a visible reflection of value of your jewelrY you. Unique in all the world) A diamond is forever. The ring shown features A QUALITY DIAMOND OF A CARAT OR MORE. ~ quality diamond of 2.66 carats. AFIRE RARELY SEEN. For more information, call 1·800-421·9631 ' In CA, call 213.8'37-9135.

Vincente Minnelli: 1910-1986 by Stephen Harvey and transcended the formulas Metro Minnelli and Judy on Meet Me in St. Louis. threw at him. Some filmmakers success- Anyone who wanted to read a fully fostered the principle that the best always been notoriously inarticulate proper farewell to Vincente Min- popular art was butch; meanwhile, Min- where his art was concerned. One nelli on his death in July had to be nelli kept mounting his crane as the lyric Minnelli actor after another has a fluent Francophone with an overseas poet of Arthur Freed frou-frou. When recounted the frustration of being subscription to Le Monde. In Paris, Hollywood's most culturally respectable directed by osmosis - doing take after Minnelli's demise was front page news, products were relentlessly verbal, take as he mumbled \"That-was-Iovely- prompting erudite essays on his stature as socially progressive, and monochroma- now-do-it-again-darling; scarcely know- the screen's preeminent magician of color tic, Minnelli was blithely apolitical and an ing if the fault lay with him or the and camera movement, whose work was unabashed sensualist of the camera, and recalcitrant swans/bath bubbles/Ferris the delirious summation of haute-Holly- his most sober black-and-white movies wheel embellishing Minnelli's mise-en- wood imagination and craftsmanship. tended to star Lana Turner and the like. scene. It was natural that this trait only Back at home, you could have been Even the Minnelli films which loudly deepened with the encroachment of age. pardoned for thinking that his supreme proclaimed their upscale aspirations were achievement was having been married to suspect because they attempted what Judy Garland. A large chunk of the New Everyone Knew the movies always York Times obit was devoted to recount- screwed up-high lit (Madame Bovary) ing the Garland suicide attempt at which and the lowdown on the sufferings that he was haplessly present; much of the wrought great art (Lust for Life). rest exhumed the old Bosley Crowtherite canards to the effect that his movies had a Nor did he conduct the business of lot of style but precious little sense. directing like any other American auteur Where the press was concerned, the worthy of the title. By the Fifties, most Minnelli funeral likewise was news due to directors with any self-respect and a his celebrity-by-proxy - it was a splendid healthy loathing for their studio bosses photo opportunity to catch daughter Liza unshackled themselves from contractual in the company of Michael Jackson, servitude to pursue their own muse. Yet gloveless to mark the gravity of the Minnelli cheerfully kept drawing his occasIOn. weekly stipend at MGM; like Esther Smith in Meet Me in St. Louis, he knew All of which was the predictable finale that the most opulent dreams could take to Minnelli's slow fade over the last two shape in his backyard, right here in decades, during which he was the least Culver City. Not for him the much- honored of Hollywood's great directors lauded postwar quest to make Hollywood emeriti. Ford, Wyler, and Capra got their movies that bore a pallid resemblance to medallions from the AFI while Lincoln Real Life; when he ventured on location Center paid homage ' to Cukor and to Rome or Arles or Mississippi or Huston; Wilder and Hitchcock were Indiana, it w~s to extract fresh images to respectfully roasted on both coasts. infuse into his own elegantly confected Meanwhile, the principal post-career nightmares. adornment on Minneli's mantelpiece was the parchment naming him a Com- After MGM as was went into eclipse and mander of the Legion of Honor. (And we his own active career faded with it, all know about the French and their silly Minnelli persisted in thwarting posterity. celluloid enthusiasms.) His more articulate contemporaries secured a post-career afterlife by elo- The reasons for this were predictable quently recollecting their work to a new enough. At the peak of his career as well generation of movie-mad Boswells. Thus as in retirement, Minnelli made a per- did George Cukor, the laurel-browed fectly lousy peer of the Hollywood realm veteran whose career most resembled - he clearly never understood the pre- Minnelli's, secure the monographs and requisites for post-career canonization. retrospectives he merited - as every Unlike, say Capra or Hitchcock, he didn't diva's Svengali he made good copy, and invent his own movie genres - he refined Cukor was both willi'ng and able to tell the tale. Yet even in his prime, Minnelli had 70

On our first meeting about four years ago, they're at least as paradoxical as he was- rather than aping their achievements - in he told me, with heartrending aplomb, that is their richness. the way he shaped his chosen medium to \"I'll tell you everything I can, but my suit his own eye, with no allegiances owed memory isn't what it was.\" Over the many Ostensibly, Minnelli was Hollywood's to anyone. Minnelli's oft-patronized afternoons we spent together in his quintessential company man, who obsession with style was really the quest Beverly Hills study, it was clear that he adhered to the rules long past their to express his sense that form and theme still recalled plenty; yet if the effort of obsolescence. in fact, he may well have were indivisible, and until you found the explaining the motives and processes been the movies' subtlest subversive. At most resonant images , the latter would which shaped his work had been no cinch a time and at a studio which prized remain as flat as a mimeographed three decades ago, it was heroically affirmation and escapism, Minnelli spe- scenano. cialized in concocting seductive surfaces difficult now. which masked and were enriched by the He showed his respect for Flaubert by disturbing currents he charted beneath. transforming Emma Bovary's tragedy into I n this light, Kirk Douglas' eulogy to something anyone with a keen eye could Minnelli was particularly touching in its As far as MGM was concerned, Meet Me see: With every gilt-and-plaster kni~k­ candor: while his affection and admira- in St. Louis was glorified Andy Hardy in nack in her overstuffed salon, Minnelli tion for Minnelli were boundless, period drag with songs and Technicolor, indicted Emma as an overweening pro- Douglas said that during their long and on that level it is indeed peerlessly vincial doomed never to find the beauty association he always found him an accomplished - all the better to camou- she sought - primarily because she had enigma whose mystery he never really flage its all-American strains of childhood such ghastly taste. Van Gogh's letters to penetrated. Douglas added that the dislocation and trauma, festering on jolly his brother punctuating Lust for Life's movies Minnelli had made would remain holidays like Christmas and Halloween. soundtrack tell of his frustrating inability his enduring legacy. And the truth is that Likewise, Gigi is the elegant and charm- to create in color, and no wonder - the ing account of a teenager trained against world Minnelli paints around him is all her will to become a prostitute like her charcoal and gray-green monochromes, forebears; The Band Uizgon tells of an until Van Gogh escapes to the sun of alienated has-been struggling to recon- Provence. struct his professional self-confidence and personal equilibrium, all punctuated Of course, this is inaccurate, in a literal of course by the most sumptuous and sense - just like Van Gogh's vision of accomplished production numbers to be crows and wheatfields as compared to the found in any movie musical-thats real landscape. It's equally pointless to entertainment? ponder whether a work of unabashed artifice like the The Bad and the Beautiful Purer diversion is to be found in Father is a truthful movie-a-clef about Holly- ofthe Bride , whose piece de resistance is wood. This movie's real theme is the a Spencer Tracy hallucination which exhilaration that goes along with the hard would seem copied wholesale from work of making soundstage fantasies, Ingmar Bergman at his creepiest, were it whatever toll this obsession exerts on not that this movie preceded Hour ofthe your life away from the lot - a notion Wolf by nearly 20 years. Any pop-culture Minnelii celebrates with every vertigi- historian convinced that the movies of nous swoop of his tracking camera, and the Eisenhower years mirrored the smug- each flash of blazing light and obsidian ness of society at large would do well to shadow in his palette. (Pure coincidence take another look at those CinemaScopei perhaps, but this was the movie that went Metrocolor confections Some Came Run- into production one day after his divorce ning and Home from the Hill. Both from Garland was final.) conclude their despairing dissections of American family life at its most suffocat- A surprising number of Minnelli's ing with the mute, final image of a movies turn out to be about the artist's tombstone; of course, to most contem- thwarted need to make contact with porary critics this was glossy, synthetic others, even as he probes those gifts that stuff, filmed as it was with the whirligig cut him off from everyone else. Far from virtuosity Minnelli applied to his fluffy sentimentalized, these characters are comedies and musicals. (MGM and seen to make highly unsatisfactory doubtless th~ director himself were human beings - the calibre of the work relieved that in both cases, a vast public they leave behind their main justification. proved far less captious.) As usual , Minnelli didn't comment much on this recurrence; it was one more of Frequently throughout his career, Min- those enigmas Kirk Douglas alluded to at nelli labored hard to popularize high art the funeral. But if there was an element of with his own moving canvases - the self-portraiture to be found in all this, Salvador Dali-at-Bonwit-Teller's produc- Minnelli had nothing to worry about in tion numbers in Ziegfeld Follies and the end. The movies had a complex Yolanda and the Thief, An American In beauty worthy of all his hopes for them- Paris' extension course in Post-Impres- the testament of an artist who reveals sionism 101 . Yet in the end, Minnelli's most meaningful tribute to the artists he what the man could never tell. @ revered lay in following their example 71

To the Editor: 'X'Marks film that few people want to see, no rating I would like to point out several blaring the Spat, will help you, and if you have a film that a Continued lot of people want to see, no rating will errors in Lois Sheinfeld's article, \"The Big hurt you.\" Chill\" (FILM COMMENT, June 1986), record industry to take self-regulatory which maintains that the Parents' Music measures. That is a fact. Resource Center is \"peddling censorship Statistics have been pored over, count- of rock music.\" In fact, we are doing just - Tipper Gore less times, to establish some connective the opposite. We want the record Second Vice-President, PMRC tissue linking rating and boxoffice, but industry and the artists to print the lyrics none is to be found. It is the film, not the on the outside of the albums to allow Washington, D.C. rating, that causes people to want to consumers to know what they are getting watch, or not. before they buy it. This is called \"truth in To the Editor: I have always mused that when free- packaging.\" It allows the consumer a real Rather than frisking about pointing out lance writers or movie critics have a slow freedom of choice without inhibiting the day, and ponder what to write, they expression of the artist. inaccuracies in \"The Big Chill; perhaps it always put the crosshairs of their search is wiser and more useful to state, briefly, right on the forehead of the rating An agreement was reached between what the rating system is all about. program. Ah, it is such a ripe, fat, and the PMRC, the National PTA, and the accessible target. They fire away. Splat! Recording Industry Association of Amer- What many critics of ratings always But those who shoot at the rating omit (and the eliding sometimes is not system never ask, \"What do parents think ica. It was agreed that a warning label deliberate but stems from ignorance of about this program?\" An incendiary the real world) is that if there were not a question, this query, for the only substan- would be placed on all albums containing voluntary rating system, rating boards tive answer is found in an annual explicit material and that the record would spring up all over the land, nationwide poll of some 2,600 respon- industry would be responsible for desig- creatures of the state or the local dents, scientifically sampled, randomly nating which albums should receive the community. The Supreme Court in its selected, with a probability of error of label. 1968 decision in Interstate Circuit v. plus or minus 3 percent. Since 1969, Dallas, a court opinion which the author Opinion Research Corporation of Prince- Due to the attention the issue was cited but apparently did not read, said it ton, New Jersey, has examined the public receiving in the media, the Senate was perfectly legal for local authorities to with this question: \"Do you find the Commerce Committee asked the PMRC set up their own classification system for voluntary film rating system (G, PG, PG- to testify before a hearing set for movies, provided certain standards were 13, R, X) very useful, fairly useful, or not November 1985. Apparently Ms. Shein- observed. useful in helping parents guide the feld is misinformed when she writes, moviegoing of their children?\" This last \"Flexing its political muscle again, it The author of the article, perhaps not a year, approval of parents with children [PMRC) obtained a Senate committee lawyer (possibly a good sign), erred in under 17 reached an all-time favorable hearing as a platform.\" Not only was the suggesting that the current rating system high, with some 72 percent of parents PMRC not involved in invoking the is unconstitutional. Federal judges have saying the ratings were very useful to hearing, but we testified against legisla- inspected the rating system on several fairly useful, and only 22 percent report- tion. We are simply asking the record different occasions and have pronounced ing not useful. In politics, that would be a companies to voluntarily supply con- it well and fit and affectionate of the landslide. sumer information to facilitate informed Constitution. The rating system has only one choices in the marketplace. We do not purpose in life, to give parents some advocate legislation - we advocate edu- What the rating system did when it was cautionary information to make their own cation and parental awareness. born on November 1, 1968, was: (1) give personal decisions about their children's filmmakers a freedom they never had moviegoing. That is the objective. No Since the agreement went into effect in before and, (2) baffle the attempts of state more, no less. The folks who rate movies February 1986, we are assessing the and municipal authorities to construct are neither gods nor fools . They try to effectiveness of the situation. A study their own local programs. That is no view a film through the eyes of a parent, released by the Simmons Market inconsiderable accomplishment. to rate each film so that parents will be Research Bureau of New York .indicates able to make their own judgments. If you that \"an overwhelming majority of the Critics are always troubled by the are over 17, and have no young children, public favors changes within the record notion that \"commerce\" rears its unattrac- the rating system has no meaning for you, industry.\" The study, which was not tive head in the rating system, that nor should it have. commissioned by the PMRC, finds that certain films will be edited by a producer Individual parental responsibility is the \"75 percent agree that there should be a or director to achieve a certain rating, else planking on which the rating system is rating system so that people are aware of it!) boxoffice will suffer. True, the X rating built. If parents abandon that responsibil- the contents of a record before purchas- has come to mean perceptively what the ity and don't care what films their young ing.\" One interesting note revealed by this rating system in no way intends. That is, children see, what schools they attend, research study was that although only 45 the public perceives the X rating as a what books they read, what value system percent of the public was aware of the pornographic film, whereas the rating they absorb, no rating program of any Senate hearings, 75 percent of the system criteria say it is a film which kind will be able to salvage that child's country felt that the time is now for the children ought not see and could be so social conduct. rated for elemepts other than sex. The The prime reason why the rating word \"pornography\" is a legal term and is system has survived, and prospered, is not gauged by the rating board. For the rest of the ratings, I offer you Valenti's Law, which says, \"If you have a

quite simple: It provides a service, a USCH benefit, that parents value. If it did not provide parents with something of worth, NYU Film Program it would have expired long ago. Endur- Alumni ance is a confirmation of value, in art, in love, in politics, and in the rating system. (partial listing) -Jack Valenti, Martin Scorsese President, MPAA director Washington, D.C. Raging Bull To the Editor: I was unhappy as a director of the Film Jim Jarmusch director Society publishing Film Comment, as well as a member of the Appeals Board of Stranger Than Paradise the Code and Rating Authority, with Lois Sheinfeld's unworthy attack on the rating Joel Coen system in your June 1986 issue. director Unfortunately, Ms. Sheinfeld suffers Blood Simple from a multitude of confusions. Essen- tially, she does not know the difference Marty Brest between motion picture censorship and classification. Censorship is prior director restraint. It prevents the showing of a Beverly Hills Cop film. The rating system is a classification technique that does not do this. No film Susan Seidelman is prevented from exhibition. director Films of every category are made and Desperately Seeking Susan play. There are no pictures, of any nature or character that cannot be exhibited. They learned filmmaking Incidentally, some play without any rating making films at NYU. at all. No adult is prevented by the rating system from viewing any film that an You could too. exhibitor chooses to run. NEWYORK -~ease~e:d~or~~orm:ion~:- - ----- --- The Rating Authority classifies films to ~ the Department of Film and Television. inform parents of their nature so they can o undergraduate 0 graduate be guided in their choices of motion o sununer sessions pictures for their children.. .Anyone may attend films in the System's first three Tisch School of the Nrume _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ categories ; the R merely requires that Arts Admissions _Admess~ ______________________________ children be accompanied by parents or New York University City IState/ Zip Code_________________________ guardians. But, heaven forbid , the X 721 Broadway, 7th Floor category prohibits children's attendance! New York, N.Y 10003 Does Ms. Sheinfeld really want eight- year-olds to see any and all films of every Attn,: Dr. Roberta Cooper type and nature? Is she prepared to recommend all-out physical mayhem, L - - - - -N-ew-Y-ork-Un-iv-ers-ity-is -an -affi-rm-ati-ve -act-ion-/ eq-ua-l o-ppo-rtu-ni_ty i_nst_itu_tio_n. __F_e 10_/86:..JI sadomasochism, sodomy, and fellatio as appropriate children's fare? It's difficult to believe. As executive director of International Film Importers and Distributors of America Inc. (IFIDA), and as a film attorney for 40 years, I have participated in the fight against prior-restraint censor- ship. Our independent distributors were the ones who took on the real censors and whipped them in case after case, going all the way to the Supreme Court in defense of a free screen. We also rejected the requirements of the old Hays code and frequently distributed our films without the seal. In 1968, however, in view of the radically changed nature of content, we agreed with the MPAA and the National 73

Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) creative expression, on the surface, seem Indeed , it was I who first told the world- that we had a duty to tell parents of the nothing more than the exercise of free trade paper reporter's scoop of the nature of our pictures so they could speech, a guide to parents and others century!-that there was going to be a exercise parental restraint. The rating concerned about what children see or rating system. The l1lriety he~dline that system endeavors to accomplish their hear. But, as Ms. Sheinfeld's article Sheinfeld quotes stood atop a later story purpose. If it can be improved, it points out, these systems create pres- of mine. Unfortunately, Sheinfeld, whose certainly should be, and constructive sures for conformity which are anathema research in any case appears to have been suggestions have been welcomed. But to to the underlying meaning of the First most cursory, did not bother to read any destroy it, as suggested by Ms . Sheinfeld, Amendment. This is that people are free of my many stories on the developments would be folly. Not only would the flow of to express themselves, and the public which preceded the adoption of the information be cut, but the door would be should be left free to judge the merit of rating system, most particularly\" 'Vague- opened once again to the governmental the expression for themselves and their ness' No Fatal Flaw: Dallas Flunked Only boards and agencies seeking to dictate children. Rhetoric,\" of May 1, 1968. what adults can and cannot see. And in 1986, we are faced with a new breed of Rating systems are particularly insidi- That piece discussed two Supreme judges very likely to be sympathetic to ous because they appear to be the Court cases which had been decided the censorial purposes. opposite of censorship, usually described previous month - Interstate v. Dallas as the exercise of government control and Ginsberg v. New York. The way that The ratings are not arbitrary or repres- through legislation. But in reality, they Sheinfeld sloppily presents the matter, it sive. Sitting on the Appeals Board , I can can have the same effect as official seems just a coincidence that these state categorically that they are fre- censorship, by a group determining what decisions and the introduction of the quently reversed or modified after is \"good\" or \"bad\" expression and impos- rating system both occurred in 1968. In screenings and oral argument. Ms. Shein- ing its value system on others. point of fact, the former was the one and feld goes much too far when she parallels only reason for the latter. Prior to these classification with \"McCarthyism.\" For From the point of view of the creative Supreme Court decisions - they were the record, ratings do not punish people artist, the rating systems are especially announced on the same day -the entire because of their opinions; no one is offensive because they develop standards film industry, most especially including denied the right to earn a living; no film is of what may be economically acceptable, Jack Valenti and the MPAA, was dead set banned for its political content. No one is coercion that leads to self-censorship against any MPAA rating or classification discharged because of this system. The which restrains the artist from writing or system, and I would defy Sheinfeld to cite vi le McCarthyite comparison is a low producing their real thoughts and expres- any source which indicates otherwise. blow and literally a red herring. sIon. The rating sytem was not decided on a whim , or because anyone was feeling Similarly, the devious complaint of Individuals or single organizations have moralistic. It was, purely and simply, a favoritism in the granting of ratings is the right to publish their opinions on response to a new legal situation. Does thrown in to flavor the attack. Of course, particular films and songs and let parents Sheinfeld really believe that the theater the author is careful to cover herself by and others evaluate their views. But when owners of America wo uld have taken on adding the phrase, \"it has been alleged,\" to such activity takes the form of broad the added burden of a classification disguise the defamatory charge. Let's see industrywide programs and \"public expo- system unless their la\\>\"yers had told them your evidence, Ms. Sheinfeld. If you have sure; this smacks of coercion. Such that they had to? proof of discrimination in ratings, present programs can result in creating an it; if you don't, have the courtesy to say so atmosphere inhibiting free expression Sheinfeld is the first person I know to and forget it. and encouraging more direct efforts to read these two decisions as anything but a censor. They deserve to be condemned calamity for those , like her and me, who The added allegation that ratings as an infringement of the values of the are First Amendment absolutists. But the represent a choice of compulsion or First Amendment. point isn't what I think, or what she economic suicide clearly lacks basis in thinks, but what the Supreme Court fact. Films of all kinds have done good - Alan Reitman thinks. And there is a considerable and and bad business. A rating does not Associate Director, ACLU almost unanimous literature that inter- create boxoffice - the skills of filmma- prets these two decisions as saying that kers and public tastes deal with that New York classification - that is, censorsh ip topic. Does anyone k!10w anyone who directed solely to children - is legal. In attends a film because of its rating? To the Editor: point of fact, these decisions clearly In the 20 years that I have been reading disassociated classification from \"censor- Ms. Sheinfeld purports to favor paren- ship; and made all of the cases cited by tal responsibility for children. But she Film Comment, I have not read a more Sheinfeld-1he Miracle, etc.-totally would deny parents the very information inaccurate or misleading article than is irrelevant to the discussion . As it has on which to base that responsibility. I Lois P. Sheinfeld's June 1986 piece, \"The resaid many times since, the high court submit that her proposal to abolish the Big Chill,\" about the origins and effects of said that the First Amendment rules are rating system is irresponsible and con- the Motion Picture Association of Ameri- different for children than for adults. trary to the very principles she espouses. Again, I strongly disagree with this-but ca's rating system. I, like Sheinfeld, do not have \"Justice\" -Michael F. Mayer , I undoubtedly feel that way because before my name. Scarsdale, N. Y. Sheinfeld has chosen to parade her abysmal ignorance in an area in which I All of the important First Amendment To the Editor: am one of the experts in the country. I lawyers of the era - Ephraim London, Lois P. Sheinfeld splendidly exposed covered the beginnings of the rating Emmanuel Redfield, Morris Ernst, Louis system in 1968 for l1lriety, and since no Nizer, etc.-that I consulted read the the threat to freedom of expression in the other newspaper could possibly afford to motion picture and record industries' have so many people assigned just to rating systems. Industrywide ratings of cover the film industry, that makes me the journalistic authority on the subject. 74

R B•I 5 ky u 5 I• ne 5 5 by anne thompson Reprinted from LA WEEKLY , May 16-22, 1986 Given all the fancy technology on- Over at the Walt Di sney studio , Home Video, Tri-Star Pictures, Enrer- screen in Holl ywood pictures, you ' d everyone knows that production · Vice tainll7enr Tonight , H ome Box Office, think the big movie companies would be President Mart y Kat z has a Baseline ter- Vestron Video and Lucasfilm . But what 's decked out like the Starship Enterprise . minal in his office . Hi s assistant, Laurel startling is that not everybod y does. Not so . Contrary to their glitzy image, Selko, handles calls from allover the lot Wh y? the studios are fairly antediluvian , still for information . \"I just call and print out First of all , secrecy. When Baseline chinzy about Xero x machines and IBM the credits they want,\" she says. \"It' s was being planned six years ago , Monaco Selectrics while other industries switched definitely better than taking a couple of a ss umed th a t enthu siastic word-of- over to word processors eon s ago . The days calling up all the studios and typing mouth would help sell his resource. What thousands of people involved in TV and up a memo. It helps a lot.\" he found out (more than $2 million and film production and distribution still go Baseline is not yet definiti ve. \" It 's a several hundred ·customers later) is that about retrieving information the way it's tool ,\" says one agent who uses Baseline many of Baseline's most ardent clients been done for years, through a network of primarily to check writers' credits. \"You weren' t talking up the service - they were contacts, reference books, librarians, have a lot of screwdrivers and you keep keeping it a secret! (One of the Top Three agents, publicists, unions, craft guilds and trying them ' til you find the one that Ho ll ywood literary/ talent agencies - lunchtime schmoozing. you can get One of the Top Three Hollywood .literary/tale,nt agencies In Hollywood, the quicker information, the happier your boss will be even threatened to cancel their Baseline aCCO\\Ult if it was - whether he's a rattlesnake wrangler , casting agent or Barry Diller. Who is the revealed that they were users. In Hollywood, if you find to get better, compIete informati'on faster newest , the cheapest, the best? Can she a way more play comedy? Can he write science fic- stihoenc?arIsryshaeseprlieesa?saWnthtaot awroertkhewiritchr?edCitasn? _th_an_a_n_yo_n_e _el_se_, _w_hy_t_el_l y_o_ur_c_om__pe_tit_io_n_? ______ A relativel y small number of industry works. It 's the fastest way to get a cur- CAA, William Morris or ICM - even people have found out about a nift y way sory credit li st , but I usuall y have to do threatened to cancel their Baseline ac- to get information faster. follow-up research'.\" count if it was revealed that they were Baseline is a rapidly growing 3-year- \"We're not perfect, but we're the best users .) Which makes perfect sense if you old New York-based computer-data re- there is,\" replies Baseline founder James think about it. In Hollywood, if you find a source accessible by any local phone or Monaco, a 43-year-old writer-publisher way to get better, more complete informa- by computer modem (call 1-800-CHAP- of film texts and who' s who books. tion faster than an yone else, why tell your LIN) . With one simple Baseline pass- Baseline's strength lies in being up-to competition? Wh y tell your boss , for that word, presto! Instant access to 250,000 date . Its weakness is that it s credits tend matter? names of talent and technical personnel to go back only to 1970, because Monaco But there' s something deeper: the fear in film, TV and theater; 50,000 film, TV, started filling the database with \" the of computers. Baseline insists that its Broadway and off-Broadway titles, with most useful information \" in 1983 , kept computer database is much simpler than complete cast and crew listings; a daily its data current from that point and then the systems used routinel y by bank s or show-biz column by Hollywood column- began to work backward . Now 20 travel agent s . Apparentl y not everyone in ist Martin Grove that includes corporate keyboard \"editors\" feed the databank Holl ywood believes thi s. So in response changes, upcoming film-release schedules around the clock . Eventuall y, Monaco to an entertainment industry that is com- and current picture grosses; the results of hopes Baseline's information will go all ing slowl y to the computer revolution , Cinemascore' s opening-weekend audi- the way back to the silent era . Baseline has developed a new service: If ence polls on more than 1,000 film s and These da ys certain big companies do yo u have a question, just call them up TV shows; who currently owns the right s use Baseline , including J. Walter Thomp- and they' ll provide the answer.. to hundreds of hot literary properties; son adverti sing agency , RKO Pictures. and much more. Lorimar, 20th Century Fox, MGM-UA - --=------~---------------~--------~------LINE CALL NOW TO SUBSCRIBE 1-800-CHAPLIN IN NY 212-254-8235 7

decisions this way. It's quite true that the court struck down the Dallas classifica- tion system - but for reasons that were so easily correctable that they struck fears into the hearts of every anti-censorship person I knew. Dallas was a Pyrrhic \"Other story structure and writing WEEK 6 victory. (Four years later, in 1972, the classes I've taken teach you the basics, but Truby's is on a much higher level . . . Advanced structures. Eight principles Supreme Court struck down a capital the master course'.' Conrad Schoeffter, that tum an average story into a great one. WriterlProducer. punishment law in a similar manner. As WEEK 7 WEEKI anyone can see, the real effect of the What is the Classic Structure? The Famous structure errors. How to spot 3-part process in every story. Defining problems in character and plot. Five decision was to permit capital punish- the single driving force . things to keep out of your script if you want it to sell. ment.) WEEK 2 Character Development. What works WEEKS Anyone who thinks that I am making and what doesn't. Five major character Anatomy of a smash hit. How to write changes. Four tensions that must be big box office movies and TV shows. all this up should consult the major balanced. Creating strong women. Each 3-hour class is available on interpretive articles on the subject in the WEEK 3 audio tape. The complete course Genres. Three uses of genre and the includes 16 tapes, study guide and legal journals - articles that Sheinfeld one that will get your work noticed. suggested film clips. For the audio tape Comedy, action, love and more. course, mail a $290 check payable to obviously did not research. The two best John Truby, 2507 3rd St., Santa Monica, WEEK 4 CA 90405. For information on the are Krislov, \"From Ginzburg to Ginsberg: tapes or the weekly class taught in Los Make your writing visual. Heavens and Angeles, call (213) 392-1381. The Unhurried Children's Hour in hells. Visual tricks worth millions. TRUBY'S Obscenity Litigation,\" 1968 Supreme WEEKS STORY Beginning, Middle and End. The 22 Court Review, beginning on page 153, building blocks of every great script. STRUCTURE Strong dialogue. Pacing. and Ayer et at., \"Self-Censorship in the Movie Industry: An Historical Perspec- tive on Law and Social Change,\" 1970 Wisconsin Law Review, beginning on page 791. The choice was not between a rating system and no rating system. It was between an industry rating system and SO state classification boards (more, if you add municipalities such as Dallas). I have less argument with Sheinfeld's analysis of the rating system in operation, though the horror stories she relates would occur under any classification system. And while it's true that, were it law, the courts might strike down the strictures of the rating system along Dallas-style \"vagueness\" guidelines, the fact is that the MPAA system is not law. We want governmental bodies to be precise because we know the type of old-fart moralists likely to be appointed, but by the same token we might want an industry-run system to be \"flexible,\" which is the positive side of vagueness. The MPAA rating system is a textbook case of the lesser of two evils. And Jack Valenti, in my opinion, performed one of the most breathtaking acts of political acumen in managing to get it into place before a single state had had time to pass a classification bill in the wake of the Dallas ruling. Nothing in the past 18 years has convinced me that he should not be considered a hero who saved the film industry and its artists from a terrible fate. Idiocies such as Lois Sheinfeld's Introducing the Toshiba DX-7. The world's first digital VCR . It does exercise in wishful thinking disturb me everything a VCR is supposed to do (only better). And has a. stili frame no end. capability so precise-it can actually freeze broadcast teleVISion. There's also Stuart Byron crystal-clear slow-motion . Superb stereo high-fi sound. Four heads. Los Angeles, Calif. InTouchwithTomorrow And four home computer's worth of Lois P. Sheinfeld replies: TOSH IBAmemory ~uilt in. The To~hiba DX-7 ~igital VCR. Mrs. Gore's assertion that the PMRC Once you ve seen It, you II stop looking . Toshiba Amenca , Inc, 82 To!owa Road, Wayne, NJ 07470 \"was not involved in invoking the [Senate 76

Committee) hearing\" is contrary to the Get The Superstar public record. She herself admitted, in a of Vid C talogs. statement to the press, that she had raised the matter with her husband, What a hunk! Big. . . . .. smart, committee member Sen. Albert Gore, and she further revealed that Mrs. Sally too! No wonder the Movies Ur\\limited Video We're one of the world'. oldeSt lind most Danforth had raised it with her husband, Sen. John Danforth, committee chair. (In Catalog always plays the leading role in access $5.9Sreliable home video services. all, five PMRC, members are married to to great video entertainment. Order today. And senators on the committee.) Steve discover how exciting it is to live with a legend! on'Y Hilton, Sen. Danforth's press secretary, said publicly: \"The impetus came from 1000's & 1000's of titles on VNS, Beta the PMRC, which asked for an informal presentation to the committee\"; and this & Laserdisc-Nobody has More! (Catalog fees refUlJdIl1 With 1st order) was granted. The Classics (and Not-So-Classics) • Incredible Like adult movi~?' Endose an additional It is understandable that Mrs . Gore $3.50 for our spicy Adult Video Catalog! would like to rewrite history, to white- Rarities • CUrrent Releases • Foreign Films • wash the PMRC's highly questionable use Family Fare • How-To's • Documentaries • We're The Moviest!® of political influence. But ten months ago , when PMRC was basking in the Nostalgic TV Shows • Concerts • etc . media spotlight, she was more candid in ---,---------------------------- acknowledging that the Washington o Enclosed is $5.95 cash , check or money wives' political connections gave them order ($10. outside USA). Send me your \"access,\" while PMRC founder Susan newest video catalog, plus periodic updates MOVIES UNLIMITED Baker (married to James Baker III, a member of President Reagan's cabinet) of new releases and sales items. 6736 Castor Avenue said openly: \"If being married to someone Philadelphia, PA 19149 in government got their attention, I don't o Enclosed is $3.50 additional ($9 .45 total , apologize for it.\" $13.50 outside USA). Please include your Nor did they take any chances that their call for \"attention\" might be over- adult video catalog . I am over 18 years old . 2151722-8298 looked. In PMRC's letter of demands to the Recording Industry Association of Address _ _ _ _~_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _~_--_-~~---- America (RIAA), Mrs. Gore typed \"Mrs. Albert Gore\" beneath her signature. Her City _ _ _ _~_ _ _~--_~-State- _ _ _ Zip _ _ _ _ _ __ co-signers typed \"Mrs. James Baker III,\" \"Mrs. John C . Danforth ,\" \"Mrs. Ernest F. Phone ( IFe I © 1985 Movies Unlimited Inc. Hollings ,\" \"Mrs. Strom Thurmond,\" etc . \"We obviously could not · overlook the political connections of the PMRC; said a spokeswoman for the RIAA. Of course, plain old \"Tipper Gore\" is good enough in a letter to Film Comment. Different strokes for different folks. Mrs. Gore would also have us believe that PMRC members aren't intent on censorship, because they oppose legisla- tion. Her premise is false-in fact , PMRC was \"instrumental\" in the formulation of a Maryland censorship bill that ultirriately failed as a result of lawmakers' concerns for First Amendment rights-and her conclusion is faultier still. As Alan Reitman , associate director of the ACLU, points out, legislation is not the censor's only tool. Mrs. Gore conveniently omits from her letter any reference to (1) PMRC's demand that record companies \"reassess contracting artists\" who offended the PMRC code of propriety; (2) PMRC's demand that albums offensive to their sensibilities must be hidden \"behind the counter, covered in wrappers\"; (3) PMRC's formidable national campaign to coerce radio stations to suppress music that they

dislike; and (4) PMRC's promotion of distributors refuse to handle them. An X comes in hard times, not easy; it is music ratings so as to give the PMRC, and means, in effect, exclusion from the measured by resistance to censorship's others like them, easily identifiable market. The R rating, while not compel- threat, not acquiescence. Mr. Valenti's censorship targets. ling a total lockout and ban , seriously pretension to \"baffle\" government censor- restricts a film's availability to teenagers, ship by leaving it nothing to censor \"Intimidation; said novelist Nadine who comprise a major segment of the simply adds the insult of hypocrisy to the Gordimer, \"has taken over much of the moviegoing public. injury of suppression. One does not resist work of the [official] censors. Indeed it an enemy by doing its evil in its stead. has gone beyond what formal censorship This is why, to avoid economic suicide, could accomplish.\"This statement, made studios will cut, recut, and cut their films In any event, the idea that the MPAA in the context of South Africa, applies in again to please and satisfy the Rating system has in fact been responsible in any equal measure to the PMRC. Board. Since the rating guidelines are measure for averting governmental cen- both vague and overreaching, the sorship 'is sheer nonsense. To the extent • coerced cuts can be considerable, with that such censorship has been thwarted , dramatic effects upon the artistic content it has been because of constitutional I'm not surprised that Jack Valenti of films. Richard Heffner and the restraints enforced by the courts. The decided not to \"frisk about\" pointing out Unknown Six of the Rating Board are case law is discussed in my article. Mr. inaccuracies in my article. That would surely deserving of mention in the credits Valenti has but to read it. have left him with nothing to say. Still, he of many a film for their \"creative\" could have troubled to read the article contribution. • before responding. Nowhere in it did I state that the MPAA rating system was Mr. Valenti's poll raises other questions If Michael F. Mayer knew more about unconstitutional. What I did state, and as well. Can anyone take seriously the First Amendment law, he would not demonstrate by case-law example, was purported measure of countless millions think me confused. The U.S. Supreme of people on the basis of a poll of 2,600? Court has struck down a motion picture that if the rating system were law, it Does anyone doubt that the same 72 classification system as unconstitutional percent would say \"very useful to fairly censorship, and a similar fate would be would be struck down by the courts, useful\" if the ratings were determined by a meted out to the MPAA system if it were because it is more repressive than any government board? And would Mr. law. Lower courts have already held that system of censorship that government Valenti then be in favor of a government the First Amendment invalidates state could get away with. The point is plain rating system? He has already ignored a film classification systems adopting the beyond debate. poll which showed that 95 percent of MPAA guidelines. 55,000 people favored an SA (substance Not that Mr. Valenti will expose abuse) rating for films. I find it hard to believe that, as a himself to debate. His letter merely member of the Rating System's Appeals rehashes MPAAs old, tired , vacant list of Free speech rights are placed beyond justifications, saying that this is \"wiser the reach of majorities. Freedom of Board, Mr. Mayer is unaware of the and more useful\" than addressing the creative expression is an individual guar- allegations of favoritism. Be that as it may, points raised in my article. So be it. His antee, not dependent on a popular vote at the allegations have in fact been made. approach leaves little new to discuss, and any particular place or moment in time. If And the Rating Boards in fact possess the I limit my response to his three principal Mr. Valenti doesn't understand that, he power to practice favoritism, unre- reliances: \"Valenti's Law,\" Valenti's poll , understands nothing. But to justify the strained by either the public accountabil- and Valenti's assertion that the MPAA repression of essential free speech rights ity or the procedural and substantive rating system prevents government cen- of hundreds of millions of Americans on safeguards and demands of fairness that sorship. the basis of a poll of 2,600 is downright would fetter a government censor. ridiculous. \"Valenti's Law\" asserts that there is, in Consider, for example, the rating effect, no \"connective tissue linking Notably, Mrs. Gore has a poll too. system's shroud of secrecy. Mr. Mayer, an rating and boxoffice .... It is the film, not According to her, it shows that \"7 5 attorney, must be aware of the Supreme the rating, that causes people to want to percent of the countr/ wants a rating Court's admonition, \"Justice must satisfy watch, or not.\" If that's true, why bother system for music. (Did they really poll the appearance of justice.\" That's why our to rate films at all? If ratings have no everyone in the country? Were you courtrooms are open, why our judges are influence on viewing- if no one cares called?) Yet Mrs. Gore showed no known, and why they write opinions about 'em, or pays attention to 'em-why hesitation in publicly rejecting-without explaining the reasons for their decisions. have 'em? (I guess that's Sheinfeld's law, even seeing it- a poll/study of junior high Contrast this with the Rating System. although I do recall learning a similar rule and high school students, conducted by a The Rating Boards meet behind closed in law school: \"The law does not require sociologist and a professor of criminol- doors, they do not reveal the reasons for the doing of a useless act.\") ogy, showing that rock 'n' roll music has their decisions, and they refuse even to no negative impact on behavior. That's tell us the names of the Rating Board Six. But Mr. Valenti wants to have it both the nice thing about polls . You can pick Mr. Mayer and the MPAA would do well to ways. For he next unveils the Valenti poll, and choose until you find one you like. remember the words of Justice Felix which is said to justify ratings because Frankfurter: \"Secrecy is not congenial to some people think \"they are very useful Mr. Valenti also repeats the standard truth-seeking and self-righteousness to fairly useful.\" Together, Valenti's Law claim that the MPAA rating system keeps gives too slender an assurance of right- and Valenti's poll say that ratings have no governmental censorship at bay. But what ness.\" is the value or the sense of avoiding one effect on anybody s viewing decisions, so set of censors by submitting to more MPAAs secrecy also leads one to extensive censorship at the hands of question what Mr. Mayer means when he they are pretty useful. One wonders: for another? The true test of a democracy's claims that the demise of the Rating what? commitment to freedom of expression System \"would deny parents the very information on which to base\" movie- In fact , ratings have a devastating going decisions for their children. What impact on both moviegoer and movie- maker. Advertisers refuse to carry ads for, reviews of, or stories about X-rated films. Theatre owners refuse to play them, and 78

information? Even those who support THE ASPEN some form of rating system, like the WINTER CONFERENCE & FESTIVAL National Council of Churches, deplore the MPAAs refu sa l to give reasons for its ON THEATRE AND FILM rating decisions. \"By merely giving any film a couple of letters and a number,\" Spend one, two, or three weeks from January wrote New York Times film critic Vincent 4-23 studying all facets of Theatre & Film in Canby, \"which are no more dctscriptive workshops and seminars plus over 200 live than a license plate , the board is and film presentations. Special rates on gratuitously fuzzing up the information housing and skiing . Faculty includes Tracy it's supposed to be dealing in.\" Clearly, as Keenan Wynn , Joan Benny, and many Walter Goodman wrote recently in the notables. Accredited sessions through the Times , parents need \"the information that University of Colorado, your home institution wilt enable them to exercise their respon- or for non-credit. sibility in a responsible way,\" which they aren't getting from the MPAA. Call (303) 925-2621 or 925-6360 or write Box 12346, Aspen CO 81612 for catalogs and But the information we pare nts need is more information. available from other sources. It was a film critic's review that informed me, among PROFESSIONAL FILM BOOKS! by Film Professionals FILM DIRECTORS FILM SCHEDULING/FILM A Complete Guide '86 BUDGETING WORKBOOK Michael Singer, Ed. Ralph S. Singleton FOURTH ANNUAL Companio n to \"Film Scheduling\". INTERNATIONAL EDITION Contains the enti re screenplay to Francis Coppola's Academy Award nominated v 1600 DIRECTORS-DOMESTIC THE CONVERSATION as well as & FOREIGN sample prod uction and budget forms to be completed by the reader. v Birthdate, Place, Year, Addresses, Agents ALL SHEETS PERFORATED. v Full length features , telefilms v Alphabetical cross-reference of 15,000 films ISBN 0-943728-07-X 296 pp. $15.95 v Index of Directors v Interview & Photos of Michael MOVIE PRODUCTION & Apted, Marti n Brest , BUDGET FORMS ... INSTANTLY! Joe Dante, etc. $39.95 Ralph S. Singleton r--IS-B-N--0--9-4-37-2-8--1-6---9--8-W-'-X-1-1-\"--C-l-oth 486 pp. This book plus one photocopier equals FILM SCHEDULING every production and budget form Or, How Long Will It Take To Shoot Your Movie? needed to make a full length feature or teleplay. Completely redesigned and Ralph S. Singleton integrated forms that are 8Vl \"x 11 \" The complete step-by-step guide to format-eas y to tear out and use again professional motion picture sched uling, and again. detailing how to create a production ALL SHEETS PERFORATED \"'- .......~w board, shot-by-shot, day-by-day. ISBN 0-943728-14-2 136 pp. $15.95 Complete production board of THE ..--. CONVERSATION in color. .. . . . . . . ._ ISBN 0-943728-11-8 224 pp. $16.95 '\" .---------------------------------------------------- -- ------------------------------ , YES! Please send me the following books: CALIF. SHIPPING FC :86 QTY. BOOK PRICE TAX UPS Recommended for college courses. _ _ _ FILM DIRECTORS '86 39 .95 2.60 5.00 $--- ___ FILM SCHEDULING 16.95 1.10 2.50 $--- • ~ LONE E.A.~LE~ • ___ FILM SCHEDULING/BUDGETING WKBK. 15.95 1.04 2.50 $--- ___ MOVIE PRODUCTION & BUDGET YOUR SOURCf: FOR PROFESSIONAL FILM BOOKS 15.95 1.04 2.50 $--- FORMS... INSTANTLY! $--- SHIP BOOKS TO: TOTAL ENCLOSED Name/Company _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ , Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ LONE EAGLE PUBLISHING LONE EAGLE PUBLISHING : City State _ _ ZiP ._ _ _ __ 9903 Santa Monica Blvd. 9903 Santa Monica Blvd. : 0 Please bill my credit card . 0 M/C 0 Visa Beverly Hills, CA 90212 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 : Account No. Exp. Date _ _ 213/471-8066 213/471-8066 : Signature Call for faster service tr

other things , that a particular film showed sweet-faced, tiny creatures being mashed up in a blender - not the sort of thing I thought my eight-year-old should see. MPAA merely stamped the film \"PG ,\" telling me nothing. Which brings us to Mr. Mayer's facetious question, \"D oes Ms. Sheinfeld Quiz #21,' The Name Game II really want eight-year-olds to see any and all film s of every type and nature?\" It is my respo nsibility as a parent, Mr. Mayer, Two years ago we asked you to send us to decide that for my children , just as your longest list of movie titles with other parents must decide it for their women's full names in them (not Julia , for children. What right do you have to make example but My Name Is Julia Ross). One the decision for anyone's children? Who contestant provided a list of 528 names. elected you? See how well you can do with the weaker Tipper Gore described herself in an sex: as many films as possible with men's interview as a ~wi th-it\" woman. I don't full names in the title. Winner gets a free know if I'm \"with-it: My teenager doesn't year of the magazine. Get your entry to think so. But both my children know I FILM COMMENT Quiz #21, 140 West 65th take parenting serio usly. Too serio usly to St., New York, N.Y. 10023 by October 15. delegate th at responsibility to Mr. Mayer, On Quiz #20 you were asked to search the Unknown Six, Mrs. Gore, or anyone a grid for the names of at least 45 movie else. I resent the self-righteous \"better- titles concealed in charade form . You did th an-thou\" attitude of self-appointed just fine; some of your discovered titles (like keepers of the public morality. Will they North Star) we didn't even know we had next tell us what books our children can't concealed. The winner, with 49 correct read , what mu seums they can't VISit, titles, is Ed Nemmers of Skokie, Ill. what goals they can't aspire to, what Congrats to Mr. Nemmers and to all CONTRIBUroRS dreams they can't dream? participants. Our grid is reprinted below. Gideon Bachmann is a veteran film journalist based in London. Jack Barth In the last analysis, it all boils down to -R.c. the question Thomas Jefferson posed: is htraB kcaJ spelled backwards. David \"Whose foot is to be the measure to Quiz #20 Answers Chute wrote about film for the L.A. which ours are all to be cut or stretched?\" Here are the titles concealed in Quiz #20 grid, reading Herald. Mary Corliss is an assistant Let the reader decide. left to right, tOp to bottom : curator for the Department of Film for Wives Under Suspicion; Halfa Sixpence; Room at the Top; the Museum of Modern Art. Marlaine • Glicksman is a filmmaker living in New Two on a Tower; East Side J#!st Side; Down Hill; Move Over, York. William Hackman is a writer on Mr. Stuart Byron's megalomaniacal Darling; J#!st Poilll; Life After Dark; Made in USA ; Once in the arts in Southern California, and is Paris; Once Upon a Time; The J#)man Inside; Time After currently working on a book about the self-testimonial sheds much light on his Time; Half a Hero; Blume in Love; Hell Up in Harlem ; Los Angeles art scene in the Fifties and Starlift; Back Street; Sink the Bismarck!; Nonhwest Passage; Sixties . Stephen Harvey is an assistant vanity, but none on the issue. It merits no Rock Around the Clock; Up the Down Staircase; Up a Tree; Back Porch; Fallen Idol; The Turning Point; Head Over respo nse. ~ Heels; Raise the Titanic; Town WithoUl Pity; Backstairs; ATTENTION SCREENWRITERS! Pro- Downpour; Gain ' SOUlh; One on One; Southwest Passage; curator of the Museum of Modern Art's fessional screenplay evaluations. De- Love Under Fire; Love Among the Ruins; Moonrise; Love on Department of Film and is the author of a tailed written reports. We guide you up the Run; Go J#!st; Journey into Fear; Nonh by Nonhwest; book on Vincente Minnelli due out next Man in the Moon; J#!slWOrld; Out J#!st; City Beneath the year. Todd McCarthy is a staff writer f?r the ladder to success. ALSO available, Sea; The Truth AboUl Women. Daily Variety in Los Angeles. MarCia our model feature screenplay and AMER- Patly is a writer on the arts based in New ICAN SCREENWRITER newsletter. Pro- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . York whose work has appeared in The ducers, screenwriters, agents, provide Bill invaluable information. Newsletter sam- Nation and The Saturday Review. ple, $1.25. G.PI., BOX 67, MANCHACA, the TX78652. AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOS Wyman is an associate editor at Hollywood legends, superstars , show biz Berkeley Monthly in California. personalities. Quality collection . Authenticity PHaro CREDITS guaranteed. Brochure: Blair Entertainment: p. 65, 66, 68. By L.&M. Gross Hugh Brown (Cinecom): p. 64. Cinecom: 2675-F Hewlett Ave. p. 22 (1,2) . DeLaurentiis Entertainment Merrick, N.Y. 11566 Group: p. 32, 33, 34. Embassy Pictures: p. 10. Courtesy French Film Offict·: p. 28. By * *RARE VIDEOS SCJUP·~-F~ Robin Holland : p. 51. Samuel Goldwyn Co.: NOW AVAILABLE! BOOK CLUB p. 36, 38. Courtesy Harlan Kennedy: p. 2. Island Pictures: p. 46. Museum of Modern RARE CLASSIC TV, MOVIES '\" SHORTS. Send 22¢ How to Write/Type/SeIl/Protect Art: p. 58, 60, 70. New Line Cinema: p. 28 stamp to: Paragon Video, P .O. Box 3478, San Mateo, (1). New Yorker Films: p. 31, 42, 43, 44. New CA . 94403 (DEPT \" B \"~ Your Film/TV Script! World Pictures: p. 12. By Jane O'Neal: p. 56. Orion Classics: p. 53. Orion Pictures: p. 18. Scriptwriting & Filmmaking books and reference Twentieth Century-Fox: p. 16, 20 . Warner works for the Entertainment Industry Professional Bros. Inc.: p. 9, 14,23 (1,2) ,24,26,62. FREE INFORMATION Write: SFBC, 8033 Sunset Blvd., #306C West Hollywood, CA 90046 80