VOLUME 21 - NUMBER 05 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1985

, •shima' Paul Schrader s Cinema, 'Seppuku'-style Mishima by Henry Scott Stokes. Out on his boots, slipped off his wristwatch, and by Frank Segers the balcony at japan's Eastern Army head- knelt on a red carpet six feet from the quarters jumped a trim man with a crew general's chair. With his right hand, he I f nothing else, Paul Schrader's Mishima cut, smartly outfitted in a mustard military picked up a yoroidoshi, a straight-blade has kindled the intensity of controversy uniform. Around his large head was dagger. After saluting the Emperor three that Yukio Mishima himself sought when wrapped a headband, or hachimaki, embla- more times, Mishima expelled a gust of air just before ending his life in 1970, he urged zoned with the symbol of the Rising Sun. from his chest. He hunched his shoulders, a jeering military garrison to restore the lost \"It is a wretched affair to have to speak to jamming the foot-long dagger into his gut. honor of the samurai to japan. From its lieitai men in circumstances like these ...;' He began the horizontal cut across the inception, legal disputes, personal and began Yukio Mishima, now standing on a abdomen, . the hand holding the dagger administrative battles, money problems, as parapet facing several hundred soldiers shaking violently. well as death threats, embroiled this japa- gathered on the parade ground below. Standing above him, holding a sword, nese-American coproduction, directed by Overhead , helicopters whirled , almost was a young man, Mishima's lover, a mem- Paul Schrader. drowning out his words. Mishima urged the ber of the self-styled paramilitary band that Mishima, the man, lived a politically troops -commandeered to this bizarre had broken into the military headquarters entangled life as an artist. When he died, gathering at his demand-to reassert the and had overtaken General Mashita in his his widow, Yoko Mishima agreed to let honor of japan undermined by power-mad office. At a prearranged signal, the young Schrader make this ftlm only if he focused politicians and money-grubbing business- man swung down the sword-hard. Too on her husband's art, not his politics. men. '·'Will any of you rise with me?\" he late. Mishima lay groaning on the carpet. Schrader assented. But now, the film, like asked. The blade missed the back of his neck, the man, has become a political sorespot. The soldiers jeered. \"Bakayaro\" (an hitting the floor. A second swipe of his And if he were alive, Mishima would proba- untranslatable vulgarism roughly equivalent sword hit Mishima's body. The third blow bly approve. to \"fool'), cried one. The jeering contin- almost severed Mishima's neck. 'This is \"The reason rm making the movie;' ued. Mishima then shouted three times the the end;' General Mashita sobbed. Schrader said in Tokyo during its fllming, traditional salute-\"Tenno Heika Banzai!\" For Leonard Schrader, coauthor and \"the reason the widow wanted me to do it, (\"Long live the Emperor!') - and climbed associate producer of Mishima, it was the the reason she gave me permission is that I off the parapet and into an office window. beginning. He shared the prevailing West- see Mishima's life in artistic terms :' He Inside, near collapse, was General Kane- ern response to Mishima's elaborately recalls the story that made him want to toshi Mashita, commander of the Eastern planned ceremonial suicide- horror and make this ftlm: Army. He was bound , gagged , and incomprehension. The whole thing was The shouting began at noon on a sunny strapped into a chair. Doors and windows \"dumbfounding\" and \"impossible to make November day in Tokyo 15 years ago, were barricaded. sense of' according to The life and Death of lWdo Mishima unbuttoned his jacket, unlaced At his death at 45, Mishima was japan's 49

best-known writer in the West. Author of japanese social conventions against an out- he. was walking was getting narrower and 40 novels, dozens of plays in Western as sized individualistic strain that pushed him narrower. But there was nothing to indicate well as Kabuki and Noh styles, an essayist, a to the flagrantly iconoclastic. His death he had lost control over his functions. He letter-writer, he was being touted as a candi- remains an embarassment to the japanese was not given to public depression. He was date for a Nobel Prize. Mishima hob- largely because of its extravagantly staged not moody. He was, in fact, cheery with nobbed with Western literary figures, hung theatricality. The gruesome manner in people right up to the very end:' out with Tennessee Williams. A relentless which it was carried out prompts a basic self-promoter, he cultivated the foreign question: Was Mishima by the end of his A short, balding 38-year-old with large press in Tokyo. He even acted as press life playing with a full deck? Was he a mad- horn-rimmed glasses, Schrader is disarm- agent to publicize his own death, caUing man? ingly straight-forward. He is somewhat together reporters for the event. reserved and careful in what he says; he is \"0 ne of the many reasons I wanted to not blabby. But neither is he, as are so many Mishima was also known by perhaps a do this fLlm was because I don't think younger Hollywood directors, self-serving- smaUer circle as an enigma, a man of many Mishima is a nutcase:' Schrader told me ly disingenuous. contradictions: A homosexual and a fre- over coffee in Tokyo. \"He knew perfectly quenter of Tokyo's gay nightclub scene, he well what he was doing. In the middle of his His interest in japanese ftlms began in was married to a resolutely conventional most outrageous conduct, he was dead seri- 1968, when his brother Leonard avoided japanese woman and was the father of two the Vietnam War by becoming a Calvinist children. Sickly as a boy, he turned to Too late to tum back. teacher-missionary in Kyoto, japan's old pumping iron in his mid-30s to strengthen capital. Leonard, who with Paul wrote The his body. A sado-masochist, he experi- ous. He had an obsessional view of life. Jizzuka (1975), Sydney Pollack's study of enced his flfst ejaculation peering at Guido Rather than rejecting the increasingly bleak the japanese underworld, made the flfst Reni's portrait of St. Sebastian showing him conclusions his mind was leading him into, moves to launch the Mishima project. The almost naked, hanging from the wrists, his Mishima embraced them. llzkuza script was rewritten by Robert torso and abdomen pierced by arrows. Towne to become a half action film, half \"He became one of those people who love story, recaUs Paul: \"It fell between two By the time he died, Mishima was per- actually lived what they believed. In that stools:' By the early Eighties, Paul had ceived in the West as a political kook, a way [the fLlml is a study of a mental aberra- made his mark as a screenwriter and a right-wing zealot who advocated a return to tion. Nobody could be that pure. Nobody director of decadently extravagant flair japan's prewar military supremacy and the could live by their beliefs, because usually (Blue Collar, Hard Core, American Gig- absolute primacy of the Emperor. Modern what that means is dying by their beliefs. olo, and The Cat People). He is also the japan was worthless to Mishima; it was He was never 'flipped out: He was never author of Transcendental Style in Film under a \"curse:' crazy in that way:' (1972), which includes a section devoted to What clinched the militarist impression No one, says Schrader, even suspected the work of Yasujiro Ow. Donald Richie, of the man was his formation of a private Mishima's grisly end. \"People knew that he army, known as the Takenokai, that per- was limiting his options. A man who had the American-born japanese ftlm scholar, formed training exercises each year on Mt. been writing about blood and death his Fuji. Thanks to Mishima's connections to whole life found the corridor down which writes that Schrader's handling of Ow is the politically influential, the exercises were carried out with the tacit approval of japan's \"required reading. The author presents the self-defense force, the military. It was a fLlmmaking ethos of the director in such an band of four super-dedicated Tatenokai informed and persuasive manner that members that accompanied Mishima into neglect of this excellent book remains mys- General Mashita's office and helped stage terious:' the author's ceremonial seppuku. Mishima's Regardless of their credentials- beheader also committed seppuku. Leonard speaks japanese and his wife, Also something of a filmmaker, Mishima Cheiko, is japanese-the Schraders were not prepared for the arduous task of dealing produced, directed, and starred in If.Jcoku with a widow and an estate eager to spiffy (!he Rite of Love, made in 1965), a short up Mishima's fmal image. Other directors adaptation of his own short story about the had expressed interest in a ftlm biography of ritual suicide of a young army officer and his Mishima (Elia Kazan, Bob Rafelson, wife. It was ftlmed on a bare set; the only Roman Polanski, Nicolas Roeg) but had sound was the \"Liebestod\" from Tristan been turned away by Mrs. Mishima, the urui Isolde. (The Schraders tried unsuc- former Yoko Sugiyama, and jun Shiragi, cessfully to locate a print of this fLlm.) Kon Ichikawa, one of japan's best-known direc- executor of the author's estate. tors, turned Mishima's Kinkaku-ji (The Leonard Schrader softened up both after Temple of the Golden Pavilion) into Enjo (Conflngration) in 1958. Another Mishima years of painstaking talks but lacked novel became Senklchi Taniguchi's Shiosa $50,000 in seed money to execute an (The Sourui ofutzves). And Kris Kristoffer- agreement. In the spring of 1980, Paul son romped naked with Sarah Miles in Schrader contacted Tom Luddy, codirector Lewis john Carlino's 1976 British-made of the Telluride Film Festival and director of adaptation of The Sailor Who Fell from special projects for Francis Coppola's Zoe- Grace With the Sea. trope Studios. Schrader believed that if Coppola decided to get behind the project, Personally, Mishima carefully balanced the japanese would faU in line. He was correct. When Coppola agreed to back the project-he is billed as an executive pro- ducer of Mishima-reluctance from the 50

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estate and from Yoko Mishima evaporated. tlgtOUS mm imponer in Japan. He con- Shiragi, who says he had never been partic- vinced both Toho-Towa and Fuji Televi- ularly impressed with Schrader as a direc- sion, one of japan's fIve 1V networks and tor, was a convinced man when Coppola by far the most progressive investor in came on board. motion pictures, that Mishima would be a Coppola is one of a handful of direc- good investment. Toho-Towa received the tors- not just American directors, but japanese distribution rights and Fuji 1V directors period - whose name on a mar- picked up the 1V rights. quee means something in japan. His work In November 1983, the Schraders is widely admired. The Godfather mms, arrived in Japan to embark on a $5.5 million after all, could easily be about a powerful fUm with only a laughably small ponion of Japanese family. His association with and that amount on hand. The top-of-the-line admiration of Akira Kurosawa - the two personnel, including Paul and Leonard made a tongue-in-cheek Suntory Whiskey Schrader, were cinematographer John 1V commercial a few years ago - holds Bailey (\"His agent told him not to do it;' Coppola in good stead (even though Kuro- remembers Paul) and designer Eiko sawa then was virtually banished from the Ishioka, who agreed to work for scale. The Tokyo fUm establishment). Most of all, Toho-Towa and Fuji investments were, it perhaps, Schrader came knocking on the turns out, slow in coming. Zoetrope door at a time when that studio On the premise that it was too late to t1.)rn was feisty, economically viable, and ready back, Mishima went into the fmal stage of to take on unorthodox projects. preproduction at Toho Studios, on the out- Luddy flew to Tokyo later in the spring of skirts of Tokyo. \"To me, the whole venture 1980 and stepped into the negotiations was brave;' wrote Henry Scott Stokes, the with Shiragi on behalf of the Mishima Tokyo-based journalist in The life and estate, and with Yoko Mishima on behalf of Death of lUkio Mishima. (There are two the family. He was accompanied by biographies of Mishima in English; signifI- Leonard Schrader and a battery of lawyers. cantly, none in Japanese.) \"For a start, Mi- They were all needed. shima is a hero of the right in Japan, which Mrs. Mishima was most concerned that looks on him as a kind of patron saint. I was the fUm not be about her husband's homo- sure the ultra-rightists, who are increasingly sexuality or sensationalize his bloody active in japan, would not approve of a· death. Whatever her reasons for pushing foreigner making a fUm about Mishima:' forward given those unrealistic precondi- Later I was to learn that there were veiled tions, Yoko Mishima then seemed the soul threats of murder to Schrader and that of patience-and trust. ''Yoko disassociated Yamamoto sent off envelopes stuffed with herself from the fIlm a week or two into cash by night to buy off the rightists. fUming;' Schrader recalls. ''We haven't heard ''We really had to have a press blackout anything since:' while we were shooting in Japan;' Paul said. After the enormous fmancial flop of Cop- ':And kept an almost day-to-day contact pola's One From The Heart in 1983, the with representatives of the far right so their Zoetrope empire was floundering. In June paranoia wouldn't rdease itself in action. 1983, instead of receiving $150,000 that Yamamoto had the daily contact with them. was due on the Mishima rights payment, They read the script and we went over the Yoko Mishima received a paltry $800, plus material to assure them were not making fun a shon note of feeble explanation: ''Were a of a fIgure they revered:' bit shon on our fIrst payment:' Still, the Brave or not, Mishima was almost deal wasn't abrogated from Tokyo. scratched by Christmas 1983, even before Working early on from the japanese side the cameras turned. Luddy and Yamamoto, on Mishima was Mataichiro Yamamoto, the billed as Mishima coproducers, contacted genial head of Filmlink., an independent George Lucas in January 1984 and asked Tokyo production company. Yamamoto for help. Curiously, Coppola and Lucas, had spent more than a year in the U.S. two wildly successful but estranged fIgures studying all aspects of making fUms at 20th (Lucas was once Coppola's protege), had Century-Fox studios, and emerged with by this time become somewhat humbled- fluent although occasionally halting Eng- Coppola by his fmancial reversals, Lucas by lish, an informal manner of office dress and a broken marriage. The two men had a gregarious way in working with foreigners. renewed old ties. He knew the industrial byways of Holly- \"They (the right) have the power to shut wood and Tokyo, a combination essential down a fUm. They also have the power to to a production involving Japanese as well keep a film from being released, not as American fmancing. For many years, because their number is so great but Yamamoto enjoyed a special apprenticeship because in a consensus culture like japan, if with Toho-Towa, the largest and most pres- something is sensitive enough to a cenain

The First Annual number of people, the rest will yield for the sake of propriety. It's not like the American GREAT WESTERN system, where controversy helps you; it's TELEPLAY COMPETITION the opposite. Controversy hurts you:' Sponsored by U S WEST Lucas agreed to step in and pitch for production money. Warner Bros., eager to The Denver Center For The Performing Arts invites writers to submit a curry favor with the producer of three of the script of 60 or 90 minutes, written for or adaptable to the television most popular films in history (all distributed medium. The script must exemplify the spirit of the American West, by 20th Century-Fox), decided it would be past or present. The winning author will receive $10,000 and a good idea to buy distribution rights to will work with The Denver Center and American Playhouse Mishima in all territories except Japan. on developing the script for possible inclusion in the PBS American Playhouse series. The money, about $3,500,000, came Deadline: January I, 1986 through by April 1984, shortly after shoot- Submit scripts to: ing began. The one-two combination of Great Western Teleplay Competition Coppola and Lucas finally saved Mishima. P.O. Box 8446 , New Haven, Conn. 06530 ''Without them, the fUm wouldn't have a Scripts will be returned only if accompanied by a self-addressed , profLie, it wouldn't be getting the attention, stamped envelope it wouldn't be getting the production advances , and it wouldn't be getting the 0. The Denver Center respect in Japan we need to get things For The Performing Arts done;' Schrader said in Tokyo during shoot- is a not-for-profit organization serving the public ing. Was he worried that the two directors ® through the performing arts. would intrude in creative matters? \"Francis and George are invited f~r past and future Toshiba Beta VCR has some real competition . Introducing Toshiba VHS. input, [butl in the end, I have to make the It offers the quality and features you 've come to expect from our Beta . Like fLim . I'm the writer and the director, and 4 heads a 16-function wireless remote, one-touch time recording, 4-event, that's where the power resides:' 7-day p~ogrammability, plus 117-channel cable compatibility. Schrader had certainly constructed an elaborate structure to control. He tells the And Toshiba offers a larger selection of VHS InTouchwithTomorrow story of Mishima by concentrating in detail on the events that occurred on the final day TOSH I BAand Beta model~ than anyone else. In fact, when of his life, in highly stylized depictions of excerpts from three of his novels and flash- It comes to VCR s, no one stacks up to Toshiba . To,h,baAme\",a,ln, . 82 Totowa Road.Wayne,NJ 07470 backs showing various events in Mishima's life before Nov. 25, 1970. Played down are two key subjects: Mishima's homosexuality and his politics. The film's only explicit reference to the former is a flashback show- ing Mishima dancing with another man in a chichi Tokyo gay nightclub. Politics in any coherent form are largely absent. \"I see him as an artist who was driven to becoming one of his own creations, a piece of his own fiction :' said Schrader. ''The whole problem is what happens when art becomes action. And the stage on which this is played out was politics. I don't think the politics are particularly relevant. ''The homosexuality is such a subject also near and dear to so many people pro and con. Some people say to me that only Fassbinder could have done this kind of movie. Others will say that if you deal \"vith the homosexuality, it will throw everything askew, and you'l have another drag show. It is part of my agreement with the widow that the movie not be about homosexuality and not be about politics. I don't think I'm quali- fied to make either of those movies:' Scott Stokes claims that Schrader was not qualified to directly appropriate mate- rial taken from the gripping flfst chapter of his 1974 biography of Mishima. The chap- ter is a detailed , almost minute-by-minute 54

The Runaway Horses set designed by Eiko Ishioka. account of Mishima's actions on his final relevant to the particular theme. on the screen. You never hear anyone say day-from the tinle he awoke in the morn- The flfst and fourth sections are ex- the words I have written. People who are ing to an empty house to his grisly end conversant in Japanese and English will be some three hours later in General Mashita's pressed through excerpts from Kinkaku-ji hearing one thing that is perfect for that office. Scott Stokes and his publisher, (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion), writ- scene in Japanese and reading something Roger Straus of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, ten in 1956 in cold, Dostoyevskyian style else that will be perfect for that scene in maintain Mishirna lifts dialogue from the and based on a true story about an obsessed [English) subtitles:' biography that the biographer acknowl- young Buddhist student-priest, with a pro- edges was invented when he constructed nounced stutter, who purposely burned Mishirna, says Schrader, without much the flfst chapter. Luddy and Schrader stre- down Kyoto's famed Golden Pavilion exaggeration, \"weaves a complex tapestry:' nuously deny Scott Stokes' claims, and temple. the matter remains up in the air as of this With fmancial hurdles negotiated, Schra- writing. The second 'j\\rt\" section of Mishirna is der pushed forward with Mishirna through buttressed by an excerpt from Kyoko no Ie the middle of 1984. He was happy with the The fmal day of the author's life, shown (Kyoko's House), written in 1959 about a work of his leading actor, Ken Ogata, largely in realistic style in color, comprises the young man and an older woman who in a unknown in the West except for his per- general framework of Mishirna. His past lover's pact commit ritual suicide. formance in Shohei Imammura's Nara- life, told in flashbacks, was fumed in grainy, yama Bushiko (!he Ballml of Narayama), black-and-white style. The fictional counterpoint to the fum's which won the Palme d' Or at the 1984 third section, Action, is an excerpt from Carmes Festival. The fUm's boldest stylistic departures are Honba (Runaway Horses) , written the year the dramatized excerpts of three Mishima before Mishima died. Set in the Thirties, Toward the end of 1984, there were novels surrealistically garnished by Eiko's the novel details the life of a 19-year-old rumors that Mishirna would end the flfst intensely colorful and theatrical studio sets. terrorist, called Isao, who murders a busi- Tokyo International Film Festival (Kurosa- Schrader had originally planned to incorpo- nessman. The killer ends his life by com- wa's Ran would be the opener), a presti- rate these excerpts using high-defmition mitting seppuku on a cliff top, facing the gious designation since the event was con- video developed by Sony Corp. Early tests rising sun at dawn. The moment is Mishi- ceived as the maiden Japanese effort to didn't please him, and he dropped the idea. rna's bloodiest, since Mishirna's final day establish a world-recognized ftlm festival. ends in the ftlm when the tip of the dagger The script is divided into four sections, touches his abdomen. By the year's end, however, something each with a separate theme: Beauty, Art, else happened. That something was Yoko Action, and \"Harmony of pen and sword:' Mishirna was shot in Japanese-Schra- Mishima. And, according to Schrader, Yoko Each section concentrates on one of these der worked in translation through his sister- wanted Mishima portrayed as a great liter- themes but is chronologically developed. in-law and Alan Mark Poul, both associate ary artist. Any mention of his homosexual- Each also includes an excerpt from a novel producers. ''I wrote words that were never ity or even the slightest emphasis on his spoken;' says the director. 'They are read death led her to pull back. Since the the- 55

Francis Coppola, Paul Schrader, and George Lucas. ered to submit Schrader's film to festival authorities until April 12. No \"pre-censor- matic thrust of Mishima is his death - unspecified differences between the pro- ship\" was involved, they counterclaimed. unifying the pen and the sword - she was duction and Mrs. Mishima. Scott Stokes bound to be unhappy with Schrader's con- pointed out that Mishima had traveled in Then the committee came to the crux of ception of his ftlm. Thus, the lawyers were the highest japanese social and political the dispute: 'What's more, as the coprodu- called on to enforce the legal niceties (the circles, and had been on friendly terms with cer of Mishima, Mr. Tom Luddy has the contracts and the payments) to keep her japanese Prime Minister Yashuhiro Naka- duty to resolve all the problems-legal as objections at bay. sone. It was Nakasone, maintains Scott well as moral- existing between the pro- Stokes, who was instrumental in getting duction and the owners of the author rights In early 1985, the japan film establish- Mishima permission to train his self-styled of the original work:' ment in effect washed its hands of Mis- military group at an elite Self Defense Force hima. Concern about demonstrations from boot camp near Mt. Fuji. (After his suicide, The counterattack from Tokyo was bold, the political rigtlt were a constant worry. says Scott Stokes, Nakasone denounced since at the time Mishima was being touted The production team suspected that in Mishima.) as a favorite for the top jury prize at Cannes. some quarters Schrader was resented sim- Had the film emerged with a Palme d' Or ply because he, an American, dealt with a The matter was brought to a head April along the Croisette, it would have been sensitive japanese subject. ''Though the 15, 1985, when Luddy flfed off a telex to japanese rarely admit it, their society is an the Tokyo Festival executive committee highly embarrassing in Tokyo to dismiss exclusionary one;' writes Robert Chris- protesting what he termed \"pre-censor- the film as unworthy. Finally, just before the topher in his excellent 1983 study, The ship:' The protest came complete with the Cannes premiere, the Tokyo Festival ren- Japanese Mind: The Goliath Explained. signatures of 57 directors including Cop- dered its official verdict: Mishima was ''The only way to win complete acceptance pola, Lucas, George Roy Hill, Woody turned down as lacking \"in quality of art:' by japanese is to be born into their tribe:' Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Norman Mailer. 'We defend the right of a film to be The May 15 Cannes opening was Whether or not these dark suspicions seen before being judged. A film festival, respectfully but not ecstatically received. '~ from Schrader and the Mishima production which effectively engages in pre.-censor- boldy conceived, intelligent and consistent- team were borne out, there was no disput- ship, or which refuses to consider a film ly absorbing study;' found Mlriety's Todd ing that trouble was brewing. By late winter which might be 'controversial; violates the McCarthy. Schrader played down the dis- it was obvious that Mishima was out as an very essence of a festival's mission;' the pute at Cannes, instead concentrating on entry in the Tokyo Film Festival set for late protest read. giving interviews to promote Mishima's May and early june, despite the fact that its . Stung, a week later-during the Cannes Paris opening. The film was, again, respect- official rejection didn't come until months Festival but before the May 15 premier fully received in Paris, but it did not prove to later. screening of Mishima-the Tokyo Festival be popular. It opened at nine Paris screens, flfed back. In a full-page ad in Mlriety, the but by its eighth week was down to one Mata Yamamoto, who was a festival Festival's executive committee, comprising small theater on the Left Bank. It never organizer, resigned and kept a low profile in the most powerful figures of the japanese Tokyo. Questions by me and others drew film business, said that Luddy hadn't both- made Mlriety's top 10 Paris boxoffice chart. vague responses. One festival official cited Its best ranking, opening week, was 12th. The lack of wholesale enthusiasm in Cannes (it must be noted, however, that Mishima did come away with a special jury prize citing photographer john Bailey, designer Eiko Ishioka, and composer Philip Glass for combined \"artistic contribution') plus the soggy boxoffice in Paris took some of the wind out of the Mishima controversy. By the time of the flfst Tokyo Interna- tional Film Festival, in late May, the dispute was all but forgotten. There were some gripes in the English-language press in Tokyo, but that was about it. The festival closer was, instead of Mishima, Kon ichika- wa's remake of his The Harp ofBurma. No one seemed to mind very much. At Toho-Towa, which has distribution rights in japan, Mishima is being put on the shelf. It may get a release date early next year, says the company's president, Haru- masa Shirasu. He did cite, however, the unprepossessing Paris opening of the pic- ture. The outlook for a japan release of Mishima is not favorable. How will Mishima play in the U.S.? After its U.S. premiere in mid-August at Boston's Phoenix Film and Video Festival, followed by larger exposure in September at the Toronto Festival of Festivals, the Mishima controversy is likely to continue. ~ 56

H~'re waiting nowfor another typhoon. The last one was perfect, but I still need some more shots. ... \" Akira Kurosawa ar fh e lens. (Continued from p. 48) all the delays. He remained optimistic, as toric crater. The entire area might well rekindled in 1983 , when Serge Silberman, have been designed to Kurosawa's specifi- the French producer of most of Luis always, that Ran would somehow, eventu- cations, with sulfurous steam issuing out Bunuel's later films , announced that a ally, be made, but now he began to wonder of rocky crevices to lend drama to certain work of Ran's importance could not be left if he could outlast the waiting game. Was scenes and vast grassy fields and thickly unmade and that he was negotiating to do Kurosawa up to the enormous task he had wooded hillsides to provide the backdrop it as a French-Japanese co-production. set for himself? for Ran's pitched battles and scenes of charging cavalries. The inevitable setbacks followed when Though the notion of a japanese Lear the French government announced aus- may at first startle literary purists, there is Shooting began in June at Himeji Cas- terity measures preventing the investment an authentic rightness to the combination tle, one of the most beautiful and best of French capital abroad. But by early '84, of forces at work on the project. Kurosa- preserved relics of Japan's feudal past. Silberman negotiated a solution with the wa's finest earlier films - Rashomon, Kurosawa shot parts of Kagemusha at French Finance Ministry and enlisted the [kiru , Red Beard, The Seven Samurai- Himeji, taking advantage of its massive cooperation of Masato Hara, president of have an intellectual seriousness, a passion- stone walls, labyrinthine passageways, and Herald-Ace, a major Japanese film distrib- ate humanism and moral power, and an overall architectural authenticity. Com- utor and occasional producer. A deal was artistic weight that could be described as pleting the Himeji scenes in early summer, struck between Herald-Ace and Silber- Shakespearean. His 1960 film, The Bad Kurosawa next moved his cast and crew of man's company, Greenwich Films, and it Sleep Well, a contemporary fable about a more than 300 to Kyushu , where through- was announced that Ran would finally go young businessman challenging corporate out the rest of the summer, shooting con- into production with a $10 million-dollar corruption to avenge the murder of his tinued at Kumamoto Castle and on the budget. For Japan , that is a record-break- father, has been called a modern japanese broad plateaus surrounding Mt. Aso. ing sum: No film had ever before been Hamlet; and his Throne ofBlood, a direct conceived on so grand a scale. Shooting adaptation of Macbeth to medieval japan, A fine drizzle is falling as I approach the would begin in June. singular in its translation of Shakespearean town of Choja-baru, actually only a themes and methods to the screen. cluster of hotspring inns, where the main A s I drive through the Kyushu country- cast and crew is lodged. The skies are side, I wonder about the effect on My excitement rises with the smooth ominously gray, imperilling the shooting Kurosawa of this long struggle. He has highway along Mt. Aso. The volcano is that I have traveled so far to witness. If it is declared that Ran will be the culmination actually a tremendous crater, encompass- going to rain, I think, let it really pour. of his career and no doubt his last film. But ing hundreds of square miles of Kuma- Then maybe they'll shoot the great storm when I saw him last, a year earlier, he moto and Oita prefectures in central scene when Kurosawa's protagonist -like appeared tired , angry, and disgusted with Kyushu . Rather than a single mountain, Shakespeare's Lear-slips into madness Aso consists of five separate volcanic peaks along the rim of this huge prehis- 57

and dashes out into the hurricane. five in the afternoon. They say all he had arrived right on schedule so we could As I pull up at the Yamanami-so, the for lunch was one rice-ball. shoot the storm scene. You know how those journalists always call me Tenno small inn where Kurosawa is staying, out \"I don't see how they could get anything dashes Teruyo Nogami to greet me. (Emperor)? Well, now r guess I can even Nogami , affectionately known as Non- done;' she adds . '''There were 30 other chan, has been Kurosawa's chief assistant people, at least, climbing all over the tower command the heavens. What a great for more than three decades. Beginning with cameras and equipment and things, storm it was , too. And it hit just when we work with him in 1949 as a script girl on getting in sensei's way. And there were lots needed it:' Rashomon, Non-chan has since been con- of other cameras and equipment scattered stantly at his side, protecting, suggesting, around the field , and horses charging up Earlier, Non-chan had rehearsed me a and anticipating every request. Wearing and down. It's amazing that the actors bit on what I might say to get Kurosawa to baggy jeans and an old T-shirt, her hair tied managed to get through those crowds in show me some of the sacred, secret loosely back with a kerchief and her face their costumes. Good thing the sun was rushes-something mildly flattering like, nut-brown from months in the sun, she shining. If it had been a day like today, that \"How can I leave Kyushu without seeing looks more robust than I have ever seen field would have been an ocean of mud!\" any of the movie? And now, with this rain, her. 'Wait till you see sensei ;' she laughs , I may not even be able to see you shoot- referring to Kurosawa with the honorific From the battlefield, Okada drives me ing:' But no such subtle hints are neces- word for \"master\" or \"teacher:' \"You won't to an adjoining valley where a row of large sary. \"Don't you want to see the battle recognize him either! We all look like canvas tents had been erected now hous- footage?\" he asks. \"C'mon, let's go look at weve been planting rice all summer:' ing crates of costumes and props used by some of the scenes I've just been working the more than 1,000 extras who had taken on:' Back he goes into the editing room , a T he rain has curtailed all plans for part in the battle. Armor, helmets, swords, converted maid's room about ten by seven shooting today. Since Kurosawa is saddles, banners, stirrups, all manner of feet. Ten of us crowd around his Movieola. locked away in his editing room and will military equipage fill the tents. It is now remain at work there for the rest of the day, waiting to be used in additional shooting- What we see is still rough , but magnifi- Non-chan sends me off with one of the even though filming of the main battles cent. The crisp mountain air of the Aso assistant directors on a tour of the nearby was completed - and is simply left in plateau has contributed much to the strik- filming locations. tents , protected only from the rain. ing beauty of the footage. The trees, grass \"Nobody else can make a samurai movie pasturelands, and forests are brilliantly First, we go to see the horses. Okada- in japan right now;' laughs Okada. 'We emerald, with none of the thick heavy san, my guide, tells me that the production have all the costumes and equipment right summer haze that has enveloped the rest calls for nearly 250 of them to appear in here:' Though the costumes and props of japan. Images are sharp in this crystal- several huge battle scenes fought by made from modern materials , \"are fine for line air, and rushing boldly across the rich mounted warriors. This seems to be all the extras, the foot soldiers, and cavalry ground of green are streaks of red and blue becoming one of Kurosawa's trademarks: horsemen;' Okada says, \"the costumes of the mounted horsemen riding to battle. Who could forget the charging cavalries of the main actors wear, especially in close- There is something vaguely European Kagemusha and the horrible battlefields at ups, have to be much better. Sensei about the visual quality of this footage- the end of that film , where hundreds of wouldn't allow anything that's not perfectly something like Bosworth Field in Olivier's horses lay dead or dying? They have never authentic. We've even used some antique film of Richard III- but then it all comes been in great supply in japan, and for armor in some of the scenes :' back into japanese focus again, looking Kagemusha Kurosawa had to import like a scene from one of the great battle horses from the United States-some of I arrive back at the inn , just as Kurosawa screens of the early Edo period. The mili- which are being used again in Ran, aug- is emerging from a concentrated four-hour tary banners flutter and are whipped by mented by 70 quarterhorses flown from session in the editing room . 'What took the wind in perfect rhythm. And clouds Oregon, Colorado, and Idaho, plus about you so long? I thought you'd never get dashing across the blue sky create patterns 100 more obtained from riding stables all here;' he greets me with a friendly nod. He of shadowy movement on the earth, urg- over japan. has just got rid of a flock of japanese and ing on in turn the human action, pushing European journalists who have come to one phalanx of mounted troops after At a nearby dude ranch where the watch the shooting of the battle scenes, another across the fields into battle. horses have been stabled, local farmers but hes all smiles and affability. Six feet recall the preparations for a huge battle tall, deeply tanned in a green football jer- These fragments combine the grandeur scene shot the week before. 'What a day sey that has NOTRE DAME in bold yellow of Kagemusha with the passion and feroc- that was! \" one of the farm women letters across his chest, he towers over ity and controlled chaos of the great battle exclaims to me in her thick Kyushu drawl. everyone around him. Surrounded by his scenes in The Seven Samurai. Only Kuro- \"There must have been 2,000 people closest associates , this Kurosawa is not at sawa can command such action onscreen, charging all over those fields , with sensei all the tense, imperious autocrat I'd seen at and he hasn't managed it so superbly since up in his tower over there shouting orders press conferences. The work may be gru- Throne ofBlood. at everybody through a megaphone:' Fol- eling but clearly it suits him. lowing her gaze across the pasture, now Kurosawa's rooms are a mixture of abandoned in the warm rain and fresh We joke about the press reports I've Western and japanese styles - the breeze blowing through waves of grass, I been reading about Ran. 'What? Not even conventional sort of hybrid suite often see a 20-foot steel scaffold where Kuro- one delay yet? Everything right on sched- found in such provincial hotels. The West- sawa must have perched. 'I\\nd he sat there ule and on budget? Amazing!\" He assures ern living room is full of heavy, modernis- on that tower all day long, without coming me it's all true. \"I've gotten everything I tic furniture upholstered in phony suede; down even once. He must have been up want so far, and we're more than half done the appointments in the adjoining japa- there from nine in the morning till four or with the shooting. It's never gone so nese room are more elegant. Remember- smoothly for me before. Even a typhoon ing his rather disheveled hotel rooms in New York, r am surprised at how neat and 58

At 74, Kurosawa began to wonder ifhe could outlast the waiting game. Was he up to the enormous task he had setfor himself? tidy the suite is, considering that Kuro- 1,200 extras, 1,400 suits ofarmor. .. Ran he has created his masterpiece, a sawa had been living there for three huge fortress on the gray-black dusty months . \"Of course, I'm tidy. I'm always battle scene that called for hundreds of slopes of Mt. Fuji, near where he had straightening up here. I've got plenty of horses and thousands of soldiers. constructed the great castle for Throne of time to be tidy because all the work is Blood in 1956. Ran's castle is to be more moving along so well; I don't have to hang We talk about his paintings. During the than three times bigger than Throne's, and around these rooms worrying:' long years of waiting for Ran to start pro- as authentic in every detail. When one duction , Kurosawa had painted all the key remembers the brooding, malevolent Non-chan and Fumio Yanoguchi, the scenes in extraordinary detail. (An album presence of that earlier castle, one antici- sound recordist, bring in a tape deck and of these paintings is soon to be published.) pates that this new one-with towers small speakers. Composer Toru Takemit- Kurosawa opens a desk drawer and pulls thrusting 60 or 70 feet into the air-will be su's piercing flute music (a nokan, or Noh out a thick sheaf of paintings on paper. On truly overwhelming. flute) pours out timelessly - neither mod- page aher page of rich expressionistic ern nor archaic - shrill and harsh at imagery, the paper is encrusted with pig- D inner-a stately event. The atmo- moments , hauntingly beautiful at other ments that are thick and powerful. The sphere at table is rather formal at first. moments, calm and yet shot through with eight or ten paintings that he thrusts My presence as a stranger and a foreigner terror. There is only a solo flute sequence before my eyes seem brighter, more full of no doubt contributes to the stiffness, but I that Takemitsu is considering using as a sunlight, than he did for Kagemusha. sense that the assembled actors-the vet- kind of theme. He had sent it from Tokyo \"We'll have to exhibit them in New York erans Hisashi 19awa, Kenji Kodama, Jin- to get Kurosawa's reactions. The passage when we show the film;' I say, \"the way we pachi Nezu, Takeshi Kato , and Masayuki captures both the beauty and terror of did with your Kagemusha paintings.\" Yui , plus some new faces-are always Lear's themes. As always with the Noh Absently, Kurosawa replies , \"Yes, of rather formal in Kurosawa's presence. flute , the sound verges on madness. course. Wonderful. Let's do that:' When Peter, the actor playing Kyoami, the fool, bursts in , late for dinner, things We listen to four slightly different ver- I ask about shooting plans for the next loosen up considerably. Peter (the stage sions of the same passage of music. few weeks. The schedule calls for them to name of this hugely popular TV star) Although the notes are the same, the film in Kyushu until the end of September. flounces down in a seat directly across the phrasing and atmosphere of each version There are still some battle sequences to table from me, wearing a loose, well-worn are different. The first three end on an be shot and many close-ups. And some of yellow sweater, a blue-jeans skirt, hair in a identical high note, but the fourth holds the storm remains to be done. \"We're wait- long ponytail. Is he a guy in drag or a that same high note a split second longer, ing now for another typhoon. The last one woman with a deep, mannish voice? then ends abruptly with a shriek that rises was perfect, but I still need some more Everyone seems to sense my bevvilder- even higher. \"That's it!\" exclaims Kuro- shots. Not just any storm will do :' ment, but they say nothing. He/she calls sawa, sure that the fourth version captures for a beer in a loud , rather sassy vo ice and the qualities he is seeking. There's more In October, the entire production is to fixes his androgynous almond-shaped eyes hysteria in it. It's also shorter. '~Iways, the move to Getemba, near Mt. Fuji, for more on me. Peter is clever, sharp-tongued, full shorter the better, less is more ;' insists the shooting at a different castle. '~sk Muraki of jokes and outspoken, the on~y one at director who, a week earlier, had spent to show you his drawings of that open sed\" nearly $2 million in two days shooting a suggests Kurosawa. \"They're building it right now. It should be ready by the end of the month .\" Yoshiro Muraki has been Kurosawa's art director since 1955, and for 59

the table who seems liberated enough the purpose as well- maybe even better. films, The Seven Samurai, Red Beard. from the air of formality to speak directly, And then, film festivals are really nothing and his early film adaptation of The Idiot. almost rudely, to Kurosawa. (And the old but commercial marketplaces, riven by Hastily arranging for me to see the film in a man actually appears to enjoy it.) Sitting nationalistic politics. He grumbles about small, dusty screening room at Toho, opposite Kurosawa and me, Peter cooks the 1980 Cannes Festival, where Kirk Nogami apoligizes for the cramped quar- sukiyaki on the brazier in front of us, bick- Douglas, chairman of the jury insisted that ters, for the poor quality of the work print, ering with sensei over whether more or All That Jazz share top prize with Kage- and for the unavoidable reel changes. less soy sauce or sugar should be poured musha; had the chairman been French, Most, but not all of the dialogue and sound into the sizzling pan. he would've insisted that a French film get effects will be in, she reminds me, but of the top award. course none of the music track had been What do the Japanese really think of recorded yet. Peter? They kid around with him, but it's Returning to the Tokyo Festival, Kuro- as though he's a friendly being from sawa wonders why the Trade Ministry was As the film rolls past me-scarred and another world. Having seen him on TV, given responsibility for it instead of the incomplete though it is - I see all the ran- where his popular singing and dancing acts Bunka-cho (Cultural Agency). After all, dom bits of footage that had seemed so seem idiotic and vulgar, meeting him I isn't a film to be considered \"culture''? Or is brilliant in Kyushu six months earlier find- sense a real intelligence and volatile bril- it just a trade commodity? Anyway, sighs ing their place in a tapestry of overwhelm- liance. Perhaps Kurosawa, always noted Kurosawa, the Bunka-cho has no power or ing power. This is the birth of a master- for his unorthodox casting, has struck gold money, no toughness or strength to hold piece, I think. The image of a great once again. its own within the Japanese government. Japanese screen painting looms in my con- \"Isn't it ridiculous that the Bunka-cho is sciousness: in such screens, the viewer is The dinner-table conversation shifts located within the Mombusho (Ministry presented with a world of infinitesimal back and forth on a variety of subjects, of Education)? Shouldn't it really be the detail while never losing sight of the whole always controlled by Kurosawa seated in other way around - the education agency composition. Myriad actions of tiny the middle like a referee. They talk surpri- within a culture ministry?\" human figures unfold in a narrative of singly little about the work at hand. dense complexity, but all are bound up in a Instead, they take advantage of my pres- Masayuki Yui as Tango. universal cohesiveness. To count the pass- ence to talk about New York, its dangers ing minutes in a film of this sort would be and its thrills. Nearly all the actors have M arch, 1985 - Back in Japan six as trivial as counting the brushstrokes in a been to New York at least once; they seem months later, I make a beeline for the Japanese screen or in a mural by Michel- fascinated by it. The subject turns some- sound studio at Toho where Kurosawa is angelo. how to Sidney Lumet. Kurosawa com- dubbing dialogue for Ran. Toru Takemit- ments on the opportunities a city like New su's musical score is incomplete, and And yet, sharply-etched scenes and York offers Lumet, who takes full advan- much work remains before the final mix, individual performances stand out: Tat- tage of them. How well he captured New but editing of the film is virtually finished. suya Nakadai in the Lear role transcends York in Prince ofthe City, remarks Kuro- his long film career of samurai heroes and sawa; the power, the energy, and grit of the The preceding half-year have not been modern madmen in a performance that city are the real heroes of that film . Unfor- easy on Kurosawa, Nogami tells me. His derives pow~r from under-playing. Mieko tunately, the movie had not done well in wife died after a long illness, and sound Harada, a young actress little known out- Japan; nobody understood it. Kurosawa recordist Fumio Yanoguchi collapsed and side Japan, plays the protagonist's malevo- spoke of his pleasure at seeing Prince of died. Still, the sensei persevered. Follow- lent daughter-in-law, Kaede, with a feroc- the City on his first night in New York in ing his wife's death after 35 years of mar- ity inspired as much by Shakespeare's 1981, then meeting Lumet several days riage, he stayed away from Ran for only a Edmund as by the tragic and vengeful later at William 'Friedkin's home. He says few days before returning to work. demonesses of the Noh stage. This that he hadn't understood much of what should set aside once and for all the criti- Lumet said to him that night, but the At two hours, 40 minutes, Kurosawa is cism that Kurosawa is a man's director, man's passionate commitment to movies resisting pressure to cut the film. No incapable of creating credible female char- was clear. '?\\ll of his films are so different longer than Kagemusha, Ran is still con- acters. And Peter's sexual ambiguity from each other, but I've enjoyed every siderably shorter than his most acclaimed invests angry tears and tragic joviality into one.\" his Fool with keen poignancy. N o one expects much from the First Critics will debate long into the future Tokyo International Film Festival, about the passion Kurosawa has poured which is to open with Ran. First of all, says into Ran. Is his Lear the cry of an elderly Kurosawa, government-sponsored film and alienated artist, lashing back at a life- festivals never really work, and it's foolish time of detractors who have misunder- for the Japanese government to expect stood his films, who have impeded his that its Ministry of International Trade and freedom to work? Is it the courageous final Industry could possibly handle a film festi- statement of a cultural nationalist who has val intelligently. The government's pri- watched modern society betray the deep- mary focus is on the location, not the est values of the Japanese past? Is it the content, of the festival he says. They want ultimate denunciation of war and human to feature the Shibuya district of Tokyo as folly by a great humanist? Kurosawa will no a center of new \"youth\" culture. That's all doubt shrug off the critics and the ques- they're interested in, sneers Kurosawa, not tions with the unspoken claim that he is selecting good films. A circus would suit entitled to all interpretations and to mean- ings that others have not discovered. ~ 60

National Television Issues Conference at HOFSTRA_UNIVERSITY NOVEMBER 19 - 21, 1985 The c onference will be divided into six half- days. Each part will include a series of scholarly papers of approximately 20 minutes duration, an industry panel lasting about 90 minutes, and a luncheon or dinner speaker. During the conference there wi II be a gallery exhibition of video art, and continuous showings of historic television programs in cooperation with the Museum of Broadca sting . There will also be tours of the new Hofstra Television Institute, the large st. most sophistica ted, non- commercial television facility in the east. Panel topics and moderators are: Luncheon and dinner speakers are: The Docu-drama Joel Chaseman, President, Post- Moderator: Dr. Frank Stanton, Newsweek Stations ' President Emeritus, CBS Inc. Bruce Christensen, President. PBS Television and Sports Charles F. Dolan, General Partner, Moderator: Jim KinseJ, President N .Y. Jets Football Club Inc. CABLEVISION James E. Duffy, President, The Creative Side of Television Moderator: Brandon Tartikoff, Vice Communications/ABC Broadca st Group President, NBC Entertainment James Quello, Commis sioner, FCC James H. Rosenfield, Sr. Exec. Vice Television and the Critics Moderator: Neil Hickey, N.Y. Bureau President. CBS/ Broadcast Group Chief, TV Guide The full program wil l be available in late September. To obtain Internationa I Televis ion a copy w rite to the Conference Director: Dr. I .R, Block, Assistant Moderator: Michael Gardner, Attorney to the President for Information Systems, Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y. 11550. AIternatives to the Networks Moderator: Dr. George M. Back, REGISTRATION AND TRANSPORTATION President, All-American Television For those who wish to \" commute\" to and from New York City during t he co nference, registration will be $125 . Thi s includes lunch and dinner wit h ope n bar, and sc heduled round-trip helicopter service from t he 34th street ..,~, heliport to the Hofstra Campus - flight time, 12 minutes. Transportation se rvice \"'lII. ._ .... provided by Island Helicopter. 61

Ralph & Alice & Ed & Trixie Ralph Kramden piloting the cast ofThe Honeymooners. Age precursors to the 39 teleftlms that have His popular if not aesthetic decline was just as rapid. For '55-'56, Gleason (now by J. Hobennan thrived in reruns 10 these 30 years than known as ''Mr. Saturday Night') made an prime examples of a fully developed con- extremely profitable deal to split his weekly slot. The flfst half hour was to be a variety '.:4 neo-realistic black comedy in the style of cept. show he would produce, followed by a half- hour Honeymooners telefIlm. Although the an imaginary East European director Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, his 39 episodes that were the fruits of this experiment have been rerun hundreds of obsessed with Ozu and The Honey- long-suffering wife Alice (originally Pert times in some markets, they were clob- bered in their original ratings by Perry mooners:' -Jim Jarmusch, describing his Kelton before Audrey Meadows assumed Como, the show barely finishing in the top 20. Stranger Than Paradise. and became synonymous with the part), T hese days, urban sophisticates are apt and their upstairs neighbors, the Nortons to appreciate The Honeymooners for its beatnik poverty and minimalist aes- T hey may yet raise the TItanic, exca- (always Art Carney and Joyce Randolph), thetic. \"There is a ritual, ceremonial, vate Troy, or unearth Judge Crater, but first appeared in late 1950 during Gleason's almost kabuki-like flavor to The Honey- I doubt any archaeological fmd will generate stint on the old DuMont network's Caval- mooners,\" writes David Marc in his indis- pensable Demographic Vistas. \"Each story more excitement this year than the cade of Stars, where they formed the is told by means of a series of 20 or 30 highly stylized morphemic units.\" The armouncement that Jackie Gleason had nucleus of one skit among many. By the familiar routines, the iconic costumes, the no-frills set (Ralph and Alice's almost osten- opened his vaults and discovered no less time Gleason jumped to CBS two years tatiously barren kitchen) presented in every episode from the same static camera posi- than 75 hitherto believed lost episodes of later- Meadows having replaced the ailing tion have the timeless quality of a long- running daily comic strip. \"The only mod- The Honeymooners. One expedition to the Kelton - The Honeymooners was the cen- ern convenience in this house is this can opener;' Alice complains in \"Santa and the basement and the extant examples of the terpiece of his show. Indeed, there was a (Continued on p. 66) Great One's supreme creation nearly tri- time during the first Eisenhower adminis- pled. tration when it would be the centerpiece of Last aired between 1952 and 1955 dur- the entire CBS schedule- if not America's ing the halcyon days of The Jaclde Gleason Saturday night. After struggling and prevail- Show, all 75 were snapped up by Viacom ing against NBC's All-Star Review during International for cable telecasts beginning the 1952-53 season, The Jaclde Gleason this fall. (In the meanwhile, 20 were \"pre- Show gathered momentum throughout '53- viewed\" during the summer at the Museum '54 to place third in the Nielsen ratings of Broadcasting in New York, where the (behind I Love Lucy and Dragnet) by late rapturous reception that had greeted four spring. The program reached its peak of earlier lost-and-found Honeymooners popularity in January 1955, when Gleason reportedly inspired Gleason to go digging stood atop the TV heap - although Lucy for more.) The remarkable thing is that the would fmish flfst for the entire '54-'55 sea- new \"lost\" Honeymooners are less Stone son, as it had for the previous two. 62

Alllozing Anthologies by Elvis Mitchell I n an age of six-episode try-outs, which Sid Caesar in \"Mr. Magic.\" translate into two airings and ca ncel- lations that come too swiftly to be humili- promotion by NBC (which will carry it jects for this show. One of these first tim- ating, along comes Amazing Stories, Sundays at 8 P.M .), nor will any of the ers, Timothy Hutton, has a career he can which BC has given an \"unprecedented\" storylines be released to TV Guide in fall back on if his Amazing Stories epi- two-year, 44 episode commitment. (This advance. Whether the Manhattan Project sode, which he also wrote, doesn't work is evidently the season of the \"unprece- approach to television wiJl prove success- out-he can always go back to directing dented\" commitment on NBC. Roger ful or turn out to be a new form of ritual rock videos. Mudd has spoken about the commitment suicide still remains to be seen. NBC is giving to the newsmagazine Ameri- Amazing Stories is just one of four can ALmanac , which is to information pro- What does all of this mean? First of all, anthology series coming to network televi- gramming what Velveeta is to cheese. Let Amazing Stories is guaranteed to be the sion this fall. Alfred Hitchcock Presents, us not forget the last recipient of an NBC talk of tout L.A. \"Jesus;' one publicist said, literal remakes of episodes from the old \"unprecedented commitment;' Prime \"it's great. You know the joke about selling suspense show with computer-Hcolorized\" Time Sunday With Tom Snyder.) If things the sizzle instead of the steak. With Amaz- and restored versions of the original intro- don't work out satisfactorily, NBC's com- ing Stories, yo u don't even have to sell the ductions with Hitchcock himself, is NBC's mitment may lead Steven Spielberg into sizzle and people will still line up around other entry into the anthology sweep- one of the most heartwarming areas of the the block to buy it:' stakes. CBS is carrying two also: TwiLight industry: the settlement. But for now, the Zone, which will consist of mostl y new show is enjoying a priveleged status. The Spielberg's presence has drawn an inor- episodes (although executive producer story of its genesis is already the stuff of dinate amount of attention to the anthol- Philip DeGuere said that at least two epi- legends . It supposedly began when ogy series, which promises to be worthy of sodes, \"Dead Man's Shoes\" and \"Night of Spielberg just told MCA chief Sid Shein- the recognition if simply for the roster of the Meek\" will be remade) and George berg \"I want to do an anthology show;' directors helming episodes. The list, Burns' Comedy Week, a comedy anthol- which led to an NBC deal faster than yo u which includes Spielberg, Martin Scor- ogy series that will be executive produced can say \"deficit financing.\" sese, Clint Eastwood, Thomas Carter, by Steve Martin and Carl Gottlieb , a for- Burt Reynolds, Irvin Kershner, Paul Bar- mer Spielberg associate (he wo rked with ' ~mazing Stories\" is seemingly a publi- tel, Bob Clark, Peter Hyams, reads like Spielberg on a TV project , which led to cist's dream come true . Never has a series some \"Happy Holjdays from the DGA\" his getting a rewrite assignment on Jaws). attracted so much coverage without show- advertisement that one would find on the ABC, developing a sudden interest in the ing so much as a frame to hardly anyone. pages of DaiLy Variety. But Spielberg isn't anthology form, is gearing up a version of Yet all of this advance publicity isn't mak- only interested in using known quanti- The Outer Limits as either a series or a ing the Amazing Stories people reaL ties-especially if one considers what feature. happy. Especially one person at Amazing some of those quantities are known for. Stories: Steven Spielberg. \"Steve just feels He's also contracted a healthy slate of deb- Both Hitchcock and TwiLight Zone have that if the public is saturated with informa- utantes to make their first commercial pro- assembled an impressive group of direc- tion on Amazing Stories before it even begins, they'll feel they don't have to watch the show. Or else all of the publicity will set up expectations that the show will never be able to live up to ;' a source at Amazing Stories told me. \"TV isn't like movies, though. Normally, viewers feel entitled to know all they can before a series begins;' I replied. \"Normally, yo u'd be right;' the source responded, \"but this isn't that kind of show. Steven feels it's to our benefit to go in with the element of sur- prise:' So far, Spielberg's idiosyncratic paranoia has led him to request-demand-that the show remains a mystery until it airs. This means that no footage of Amazing Stories, the most eagerly awaited anthol- ogy series ever, will be used for on-air 63

tors for the shows. Alfred Hitchcock pre- later. I think that the anthologies will all too. \"I'm not interested in doing TV,' said senters so far include Richard Pearce and help each other:' 23-year-old Phil Joanou, whose assured Brian De Palma (no jokes, please). Twi- USC student film, Last Chance Dance, got light Zone has stockpiled episodes A mazing Stories is counting on ambi- him both a Stories and a deal at Disney to directed by Wes Craven, John Hancock, tious stories that, in the words of Sto- direct. \"TV is artificially heightened. The John Milius (who will probably write his ries first-time director Donald Petrie, first scene of any show is pumped up, so own episode), Peter Medak (who has \"make the home audience work, instead of pumped up that the next scene has to be directed several Remington Steele shows), giving them chewing gum for the mind.\" jacked up, and then the next, and it doesn't and William Friedkin. Friedkin's episode, Timothy Hutton agrees: \"If Amazing Sto- mean anything. There's no arc, which is \"Nightcrawlers;' is said to be so violent ries asks people who watch TV to really what you get to do in features. But this and frightening that CBS and the Twilight participate, become actively involved in show is obviously different, because Zone staff are deliberating over how to cut the show, then it's gonna attract a different Steven is treating each show as if it were a it without diminishing its value. kind of audience:' The one thing that I little feature: ' Peter Hyams confesses that found in everyone connected with Amaz- he came to work on the show for a differ- The return to the anthology form has ing Stories-both those who spoke on the ent reason: ''I'm not supposed to say no to been infrequently attempted for years. record and those who chose not to-was Steven Spielberg?\" Recently, HBO has seen success with its an overwhelming enthusiasm . The eager- horror (and horrible) anthology series, The ness among ttiis band of insiders reminded There are those who wonder if these Hitchhiker, which manages to include me ofthe way Martin Mull described show hot-shots will seduce a special audience, frontal nudity in every episode, apparently business: high school with money. And or any audience at all. \"How many people in the interests of symmetry. Swedish this spiritedness wasn't just on the part of in, say, Detroit;' a network insider said to director Mai Zetterling has helmed a few the younger directors, many of whom me, \"will care that Peter Hyams is direct- episodes. The success of Hitchhiker has were working with real budgets for this ing Am(lzing Stories? If they want to see allowed HBO president Michael Fuchs to first time. One of the first-timers, Lesli Peter Hyams, they'll turn to HBO. This claim that the networks took their lead Linka Glatter, joked that her AFI grant- movie psychology doesn't work on TV. I'll from HBO in deciding to ·revive antholo- budget on her Oscar-nominated short, tell you something else, too-Spielberg'lI gies. If we are to believe this rather spe- Tales ofMe~ting and Parting, was \"about be out on the stump doing interviews by cious line of logic, then surely George enough to pay for 7-Up on this set:' October:' His point, not a bad one, is that Romero's Tales From The Darkside, a most viewers don't care who direct TV syndicated series that has also enjoyed Every director of Amazing Stories shows. some small success and has even managed claimed to not be a regular watcher of to produce a few interesting episodes, series television, using the age old The series' fortunes are likely to be tied influenced the networks' decisions as well. response that they caught only informa- to how long NBC can afford to stick with it. tion programs: the news and documenta- At Sunday at 8 P.M., Stories has a dead In the industry, Shelley Duvall's Faerie ries-which, considering the shortage of start. Its lead-in is Punky Brewster, one of Tale Theater is considered to be the best documentaries on television, raised my the few shows dozing peacefully at the of the anthology series, in that it combines suspicions. Only Martin Scorsese pas- bottom of the ratings to be renewed. a mix of suspense, drama and comedy, sionately admitted to watching TV (of Punky invariably does so poorly in the elements that Amazing Stories will draw course, he admits passionately to every- ratings that it's not carried, or \"cleared;' by upon . Personally, I've found Faerie Tale thing) and talked about the worth of TV, a number of NBC affiliates. The affiliates Theater a little hard to concentrate on. It's particularly made-for-TV movies, which would rather slot public affairs program- glib and self-consciously spoofy, and with \"tackle subjects that features can't be both- ming against the competition, the power- its Yo-I'm-so-hip group of guest stars, it ered with:' All of the Stories directors house 60 Minutes. NBC has traditionally sugges~s nothing so much as Rolling talked about the magnetic energy that been posed to accept any blip that regis- Stone's \"Random Notes\" section in cos- Spielberg had , which caused them to ters in the Nielsens on Sunday nights, but tume. I was told that Faerie Tale Theater agree to do the show in the first place. now, posed on the precipice of nudging once wanted to make a live-action version CBS out of its number-one slot, the net- of the \"Mr. Bill\" films from Saturday Night There are deep-pocketed budgets: the work has major-league expectations of Live, until it was made clear that most show is said to be budgeted at a, well, Amazing Stories. This also means that viewers wouldn't find a realistic version of amazing $900,000 per half hour episode, NBC cannot afford to sustain a long term Sluggo's tearing Mr. Bill's arm from its (compared with the most expensive hour loss leader on the scale of Amazing Stories socket too amusing. show currently on the air, Miami Vice, at for any extended period of time. $1.2-1.5 million, largely because it's shot For the most part, the lack of success of on location). But the money isn't what It's felt that if NBC can't make a go of most anthologies is something that has brought the high-backed chairs of Scor- Amazing Stories, then Universal can take been mentioned in quieter corners of the sese and Kershner to the '~mazing Sto- the show into the syndication arena with network buildings. Zone's DeGuere, in ries\" set. \"I just wanted to work fast again, no problem. Well, there might be one talking about his show, said, \"It has con- think on my feet again;' Scorsese said. problem. There's no support system in sistently been shown that science fiction \"My last feature, After Hours, was a fast syndication for a show that costs nearly a alienates more people than not. What shoot, too, so I was ready to do a six-day million dollars an episode; no one can we're going to do is take the approach that shoot [which is what all the Stories sched- afford to pay it and no station can make Twilight Zone is the star and go for a well- ules call for). But before trat , I'd worked any equitable barter offer. balanced hour of entertainment. Our on movies that took a lot of time. Maybe show will probably have three segments- too much time:' That's hardly expected of Amazing Sto- we'll stay away from the cold and metal- ries. The odds are that the show will lic-use a lighter one as the first and the The younger directors were attracted become the Satur4ay Night Live of the especially frightening segments will come because of what Spielberg offered them, eighties, this decade's Zeitgeist cynosure, the place that everyone will want to be. 64

There are already pockets of resentment Sam Waterson and Martin Scorsese in \"Mirror, Mirror.\" deepening among actors and directors and writers who want to be a part of the Amaz- only if directors like George Miller, with an surrealist-vaudevillian approach, Burns ing Stories experience-inclusion in the amazing instinctive understanding of the will introduce what is , in effect, a comedy show has become the industry's version of psychology of film, can be used . (Even one-act. The episode I saw, which starred getting invited to solo on \"We Are the Miller couldn't make a total success of the Catherine O'Hara as a sociopathic loon World :' One director, who will have to Zone film , executive produced by who instantly and expertly assumes any busy himself handling one of the other Spielberg himself, who has presumably identity, is among the best of the fall pro- anthologies shows , was heard to say, \"Burt learned his own lessons from all of this .) gramming. That one show, written by Reynolds. Cmon ... he can't work without Fridays at 8, CBS. executive producer Carl Gottlieb and a swamp!\" directed by Peter Bonerz, may not be George Bums ' Comedy Week: This indicative of the remaining shows. Sup- Though the cries of \"Me, too\" echoing show doesn't exploit the comically bizarre posedly CBS is taking more of a hand in the throughout the industry make the SNL potential of the medium the way Burns' development of episodes than was comparisions particularly apt, Amazing Fifties show did . In that series, he stood expected. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Stories most closely resembles the NBC on a balcony, an amused figure comment- family anthology program , The Wonderful ing on the action. Instead , employing that Wednesdays at 9:30. ® World of Disney, and it seems to be Spielberg's aim to craft involving entertain- ment that pulls the whole famil y before the set Sunday nights at eight. Co nsider- ing the tone of recent Spielberg-produced features such as Back To The Future- the cinematic equivalent of a high-speed buzz- saw with no teeth-it's safe to say th at Unca Steven may be eliminating much of the ruthless ness that we associate with his best work. Perhaps someone used the phrase \"If only he used his powers for the good of mankind\" around him and he took to believing it. After all, N BC has kept Punky Brewster on the air primarily because it draws the very young children who more than likely aren't entertained by the spectacle of Mike Wallace circling the bloodied, sobbing hulk of a humiliated industrialist. The show may prove to be problematic in other areas. Melissa Bachrach , head of development at Simpson/Bruckheimer, thinks that it may trigger the end of the fantasy film, 'J ust like the cowboy shows ended the western. When somebody comes into my office with an idea for a fantasy film , I'll be able to say, unfortu- nately, I saw it on Amazing Stories last week;' T wilight Zone: Phil DeGuere (for- Keifer Sutherland (left) and Kevin Costner in \"The Mission.\" merly of Simon & Simon) is eager to use unsolicited material on his show. \"We don't want the usual sources;' he told me. Harlan Ellison will serve as creative con- sultant for the series (something he hasn't done since the mid-seventies show, The Sixth Sense , which he left after two epi- sodes) and a new version of the theme has been worked up by the Grateful Dead . The Zone segments I've seen are lacking the hyped post World War II paranoia about the bomb that often inspired and energized the original show. They're tepid enough to provoke a question: Can The Twilight Zone survive in our current era of self-involved indifference? The answer: 65

The Fifties mass come to examine the apartment; a single ness - a matter of poetic loose connections cultural figure glance sends most of them fleeing in horror. and malapropisms, idiosyncratic rituals, Ralph takes this more or less in stride, but and occasional idiot officiousness - is the Ralph Kramden most when one couple actually stops to marvel at show's most surreal element. Alice, by con- resembles is the antique icebox, he flies into a rage and trast, is the reality principle incarnate. Donald Duck, looking throws them out. The episode ends, grati- Motherly but insulting, she refers to Ralph for the one great fyingly enough , with Ralph trashing the as her \"266-pound baby;' and caustic banter business idea that will apartment in the vain hope that he will be aside, her specialty is the terrifying calm catapult him into the evicted by his invisible, penurious land- she exhibits in the face of her husband's economic stratosphere, lord - revealed in \"Principle of the Thing\" Vesuvian tantrums, her basilisk stare of sea- or even the middle (4-30-55) to be Jack Benny. soned contempt as, hand on hip, she class. begins, \"Now you listen to me, Ralph .. :' But if the lost Honeymooners clear up (Continued from p~n several minor enigmas (e.g., Trixie Norton's For Ralph, Norton is an object of friendly Bookies\" (12-12-53). real first name), the essential mysteries are contempt, sexual solidarity, and intermit- left veiled. The Kramden bedroom, for tent male rivalry, while Alice is a Kali-like Yet, the Kramden's kitchen is a complete example, is never shown. being eliciting fear and hatred as well as and highly charged universe-its epic rich- veneration. 'This Is Your Life\" (1-1-54) is ness is underscored by one of Alice's most \"F uller's scripts are grotesque jobs one of the various episodes in which he famous exercises in conjugal sarcasm. that might have been written by the suspects her of carrying on an illicit affair. Comparing her realm to Disneyland (which (So far as I know, Alice never suffers a opened, amid much fanfare, in 1955), she bus driver in The Honeymooners: one corresponding suspicion.) \"Fourteen years identifies her back window view with Fan- I fractured myself driving a bus to take care tasyland, the perpetually malfunctioning 'OK, I'll give you five minutes to clear out. of her;' Ralph screams two minutes before sink with Adventureland, the stove and ice- reversing himself, after imagining that she box with Frontierland. All that's missing, If you're not out, we're going to bum the might actually leave him: \"I'm gonna treat she concludes, is \"the world of Tomor- her like a queen!\" row\" - thus setting up the literal punch line place down.'\" - Manny Farber as Ralph proposes addressing that absence B ut as inspired as Audrey Meadows and by sending her to the moon. The elegant simplicity of The Honey- (especially) Art Carney are, they are eclipsed (figuratively as well as literally) by The lost Honeymooners enrich the syn- mooners' formula is exceeded only by its the stupendous character they support. dicated shows emotionally even as they There's Shakespeare's Falstaff, and then take the edge off their formally rigorous superb execution. As Marc has noted, vir- there's Gleason's Kramden - succinctly stylization. Typically four eight- or nine- characterized in The Honeymooners' Com- minute \"acts;' the rediscovered episodes tually every show is concerned either with panion as \"a fat, jealous, conclusion-jump- escape more frequently from the less-is- ing, big-mouthed bus driver with an ego more confines of the Kramden apart- Ralph's hare-brained schemes to better his that is dwarfed only by his waistline:' Pos- ment-most often to the local poolroom or sessed of a hair-trigger temper-the loss of the front stoop, but also to assorted movie lot or his equally doomed attempts to assert which could well have inspired Zero Mos- theaters , restaurants, and street corners, as tel's transformation into a rhinoceros in well as Ralph's and Ed Norton's places of authority over Alice. Similarly, two relation- lonesco's play- Ralph wakes up in a walk- employment. The apartment itself is less up tenement and a constant state of irrita- fixed and more stagey (extravagant cracks ships provide most of the comedy: Ralph's tion. Indeed, one of The Honeymooners' appear in the plaster, the curtainless win- best built-in gags (all the more splendid for dow casts a painted reflection). Still, the sarcastic bickering with Alice and his Lau- never being truly articulated) is the hilarious essentials are all in place-the mysteriously and appalling mental image one conjures of denuded window, the ancient icebox that is rel-and-Hardy-like rapport with Norton. this frustrated, hostile, short-fused bully the prime signifier of Kramden poverty. piloting a bus through midtown Manhattan. In the worle of The Honeymooners, Nor- In \"The Move Uptown\" (4-24-54), Ralph In some respects, the Fifties mass cul- and Alice attempt to leave Brooklyn for a ton is the natural man-stupid, relaxed, tural figure Ralph Kramden most resembles relatively lavish apartment in the Bronx. is Carl Barks' comic-book version of the Their relocation is, in part, predicated on fundamentally satisfied with his lot (which similarly tantrum-prone Donald Duck. their ability to sublet their Chauncey Street Philosophically opposed to both Alice and dive-a task that would require the ingenu- is, of course, working in the sewer). Playful Norton, Kramden (like Donald) is continu- ally looking for the one great business idea ity needed to sell the Brooklyn Bridge. A rather than driven, he willingly participates that will catapult him into the economic successIOn of mainly immigrant families stratosphere, or even the middle class. in Ralph's ventures, if only for the enjoy- (That Manny Farber could envision the script of The Steel Helmet or The Crimson ment that his neighbor's discomfort invari- Kimono as one of Kramden's get-rich-quick schemes is a joke of which I will never tire.) ably affords him. Norton's inspired foolish- Despite his pretty wife and steady job, Ralph is a failure. Lonely, thwarted, and frightened of 66

authority (Gleason's overwrought coward- Gleason's other alter egos (including Joe the sive tastes in booze, broads, and life ice is one of his prize routines), Kramden espouses a male supremacist philosophy so Bartender, the Poor Soul, Reginald Van itself, the Cincinnatus of the Brooklyn blatantly compensatory that it becomes a virtual critique of macho.· In \"The Battle Gleason, and several anonymous trades- tenements wallowed in the admiration of the Sexes\" (11-13-54) , Ralph teaches the henpecked Norton his credo: \"Tell her, Tm men and delivery boys) come calling. of the masses:' the King of the Castle- and you're noth- ing!' \" (\"Those words should be recorded Although designed as a tour de force for The show's blowsy, \"sophi sticated\" and played at every wedding instead of 'Here Comes the Bride; \" Norton riffs, pos- Gleason , the show is actually a tiresome theme, its glamorous opening (successive sibly to avoid commenting on the notion of the Kramden apartment as a \"castle:) But washout. Struck by Gleason's lack of range, dollies in on the dangling earrings and however aristocratic Ralph's pretensions, he does not believe in noblesse oblige. The one waits impatiently for Ralph's return . plunging necklines of a series of gorgeous would-be tyrant is stingy - not simply with Alice but with Norton as well. Indeed, Ralph scarcely seems to be a Glea Girls), the Depression era opulence of In \" Kramden vs. Norton\" (1-5-55), performance, so utterly did Gleason inhabit the June Taylor Dancers, the star's grand Ralph conspires to take his buddy and their wives to a cheap neighborhood movie the role. But is it a hundred guys he is entrance and his brazen slogan, created a rather than a nightclub as agreed. When playing or is it one? Gleason's father, for multi-faceted spectacle of abundance. It Norton wins a TV (an unlikely door prize for a theater in 1955 but the universal whom he was named, was an alcoholic was only within the security of this gilded object of desire-and thus the exact oppo- site of the Kramden icebox - on The failure who deserted his family when Jackie frame , perhaps , that Gleason could Honeymooners), Ralph flies into an impla- cable rage: \"Da set belong to me!!!\" (Ulti- was eight. For Gleason , the Depression explore-and his Saturday night audience mately the case winds up in night court.) That Kramden is Gleason's funniest crea- began at least five years before the stock endure (from the relative security of their tion goes without saying. It is Gleason's genius, however, that he makes this belli- market crashed. 'The set for The Honey- suburban sofas)-the grim comedy of dep- cose, gloating, ungenerous blowhard not just sympathetic, but profoundly moving as mooners was exactly our living and dining rivation that was his master piece. well. \" Vroom-we had a different kind of stove but iewers apparentLy keep dialing in \"I knew a hundred guys like Ralph Kramden in BrookLyn.\" that was it;' he told American FiLm. The to find out whether RaLph actually -Jackie Gleason, American Film (1982). Kramdens' address, 328 Chauncey Street, There is a rediscovered episode, 'The is that of the Bushwick tenement where will crank up and let Alice have one 'Pow! Honeymooners' Christmas Party\" (12-19- 53), in which Alice-bitchier here than on Gleason and his mother lived at the time of right in the kisser! ' Male viewers in partic- the syndicated shows-sends Ralph out on Christmas Eve to bring back her preferred her death in 1935; the building's facade is ular seem to get a vicarious satisfaction out brand of potato salad. As a result, the hap- less bus driver is away from the house fairly accurately reproduced by the lost of watching a man prepare to clobber his when , one after another, a half-dozen of Honeymooners' exterior sets. spouse.\" - TV Guide, 10-1-55 ·In this sense, Kramden is the perfect subject of fas- cism - in dlfall to authority and content to reproduce Clearly, Kramden is an integral part of The lifestyle represented in The Honey- his own exploitation in the domestic sphere. For all Ralph's bellyaching. a trade union is one of The Honey- Gleason's identity. Despite the versatility mooners is at least as suggestive of the mooners' key significant absences; instead. Kramden and Norton belong to a ludicrous fraternal organization he demonstrated in his Hollywood per- Thirties as it is of the Fifties. One would (replete with much bogus pageanty and arcane ritual), the International Order of Friendly Raccoons. formances, Gleason has made intermittent have to return to the earl)' Thirties, to vin- A potitical reading of The Honeymooners is long attempts to revive The. Honeymooners tage W.C. Fields or the first Warners overdue - it would be useful to chart the curve of Kramden's popularity against that of the similarly loud- throughout his career, most notably during talkies, to find a corresponding atmosphere mouthed , lower-class , conclusion-jumping Senator Joseph McCarthy. (It's interesting as well that Farber the mid-Sixties, after his formula had been of lower-class meanness. Despite its near· associates Kramden with Sam Fuller, the lumpen- Americanist par excellence, before Sylvester Stallone.) successfully travestied (and grotesquely obligatory kiss-and-makeup fadeout, the Although Archie Bunker, Ralph's most notable succes- sor as a 1V prole, is clearly modeled on Kramden , The denatured) by The Flintstones. Based in . show is notable for its startling lack of senti- Honeymooners is as true to its historic moment as All in the Runily is to its, in avoiding poti(ics. ''The People's Miami-where Gleason moved in 1962 mentality. When Gilbert Seldes wrote of Choice\" (10-23-54) furts with the idea of Ralph as a potitical icon, then uneasily backs away. (and according to a contemporary Look The Honeymooners' \"harshness, often too magazine proftle) lived like a \"sultan\" - the realistic to be funny;' he was speaking not Sixties' Honeymooners was inflated to suit just of economic impoverishment but of the boom-boom years. Gleason and Car- emotional suffering as well. ney sported new (and younger) wives and \"Ralph and Alice dramatize the bickering enjoyed a more properly bourgeois lifestyle, of the loveless;' Seldes observed in his per- even though many of the show's scripts ceptive 1956 essay, \"and the emotion deliv- were remakes from the \"lost\" era. ered with the authentic ring of truth is The extent of Gleason's psychodrama actual dislike .... A scene of high-pitched becomes evident in the context of the hour- recrimination between ]the Kramdensl long programs which in 1954 and 1955 reminds us of voices overheard across defmed the nation's Saturday nights. As areaways and on back porches just before David Marc describes it, Gleason was doors slam or crockery is smashed :' Or the ''Brooklyn's answer to Le bourgeois gen- screaming starts. The Honeymooners may tiLhomme:' be the most intense representation of ongo- \"Opening his show with a Busby ing marital discord ever put before the Berkeley-style number by the June American public. In no other sitcom has Taylor Dancers, entering from the the threat of domestic violence ever been wings amidst an entourage of his per- so tantalizing (even titillating) a constant. sonally auditioned Glea Girls , daintily '1ust once, just once!\" Ralph snarls in each lifting a coffee cup from a saucer to and every show, brandishing his fat finger in take a sip of you-know-what, the Great Alice's sneering face. \"One of these days , One bellowed, 'How sweet it is!' and POW!!!\" mugged for the camera while his audi- Nor is Alice's infinitely postponed trip to ence-often composed of old neigh- the moon the show's only taboo. Students borhood cronies brought in from of Leslie Fiedler should note that where across the river-went berserk. Ralph and Norton are several times com- Ostentatiously displaying his expen- pelled to share a bed, Ralph and Alice have 67

never been so depicted - and the Kramden It may be that the Kramden's childless- tor after all. Sensing a deadbeat, the ice- bedroom is a structural absence. In some ness is even more intrinsic to their identity man escalates the argument until the social ways, food is the displaced expression of as a couple than is their continual bickering. worker has to take notice. Now the humil- sex, particularly insofar as it demonstrates The punchline of a celebrated Saturday iated Kramden is forced to make a direct Ralph's dependence on Alice. When Alice Night live parody later has Alice knocked bid for her sympathy, pathetically bleating, and Trixie, walk out on their spouses in up, rather than knocked out. (That Norton \"I want a kid:' Surprisingly, she agrees. \"I 'The Battle of the Sexes;' the men are is revealed to be the father adds another don't think I've ever been in any home with literally starved into submission. Similarly, wrinkle.•• ) Alice's phantom pregnancy a greater desire for a child;' she says, turning dissatisfaction with Alice's cooking is provided one of the comic situations in a phrase with a ghostly resonance for every Ralph's most persistent domestic gripe. 'The Second Honeymoon;' an hour-long successive Honeymooners episode. ''No wonder I'm getting those crazy sup- special that reunited Meadows and Ran- pers;' he explodes with the force of a sud- dolph with Gleason and Carney in 1976 for Sure enough, the next act finds the den revelation in 'This Is Your Life;' having a 25th anniversary celebration. Indeed, the Kramdens (supported by the Nortons) in a jumped to the conclusion that Alice is in the Kramden's unsuccessful attempt to adopt a hospital waiting room. The baby is brought habit of sharing afternoon cocktails with an child was the subject of a one-hour special out and predictably it's a girl. Just as pre- imagined lover. \"Every time she cooks ten years earlier, for which Meadows also dictably (but no less shockingly for all that), them, she's loaded!!!\" emerged from retirement. This was actu- Ralph goes berserk, button-holing the doc- ally a reprise of a lost show, 'The Adoption\" tor and demanding a son: ':-\\ girl! A girl!! Whatever the state of the Kramden's sex (3-26-55), which might reasonably be Nobody wants a girl!!!\" For once, Alice life, however, the absence that The Honey- among her favorites. For it is the episode proves unable to cope with her husband's mooners cannot conceal is that of offspring. that forever establishes the Kramden's tantrum; so mortified she lacks the strength Among other things, The Honeymooners is childlessness as a loss rather than an to argue she retreats with the Nortons. one of the few child-free domestic sitcoms absence and thus throws the entire Honey- Meanwhile, the doctor (who, as played by of the Fifties, and the possibility that the mooners enterprise into a particularly harsh show regular George Petrie, has the profes- Kramdens might not want children- and poignant light. sional demeanor of a backstreet abortion- amidst the greatest baby boom that the ist) is called away, leaving Ralph alone with Republic has ever known - is kinkier than \" T he Adoption\" opens with a call for the baby and Gleason to play an expert any sexual aberration. Thus, in \"Santa and the Kramdens on the Nortons' solo. He begins by telling the infant not to the Bookies;' Ralph discovers the baby phone (Trixie obligingly lowers her receiver take his rejection personally - \"If I wanted a clothes that Alice is surreptitiously knitting down through the Kramdens' kitchen win- girl, you'd be the one\" - and ends by bellig- to pick up some Christmas cash (she's not dow) . Ralph and Alice, we discover, have erently refusing to surrender the child back permitted to work) and is thrilled by the registered with an adoption agency and are to the doctor's care. possibility that she's pregnant. now to expect a home visit from a social worker who will report on their suitability as The drama concludes where it began, in Pin·Ups • Portraits • Posters • Physique parents. The news delights Alice and sends the Kramdens' kitchen - now festooned Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • Ralph into an overheated reverie about his with diaper-draped clotheslines. Ralph and Science Fiction • Musicals • Color Photos • son, Ralph Jr. 'We wanted this more than Norton are amusing little Ralphina, ineptly 80 Years of Scenes From Motion Pictures anything else in the world;' he expansively Rush $1.00 FOR OUR ILLUSTRATED BROCHURE tells Norton, setting the table for the trag- fashioning a nipple out of a rubber glove edy to follow. and squirting each other with mille Alice 134 WEST 18th STREET. DEPT. Fe returns with bad news - in the form of the NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 Act II reveals that the Kramdens have doctor- in tow: The baby's natural mother (212) 620-8160-61 borrowed furniture (including a refrigerator) has changed her mind and wants the child from all their neighbors, turning their Thir- back. Ralph, naturally, flips. \"I've had the ties hovel into a Fifties Potemkin village. kid for a week! I'm in love with her!\" he Beside himself with anxiety, Ralph natu- trumpets, while Alice, who appreciates the rally accuses Alice of being 'Jittery\" and hopelessness of the situation, is simply neurotically plies the social worker with stricken. (Meadows' performance is exem- sandwiches. In the middle of the interview, plary in its underplaying.) The scene con- the ice man shows up demanding the four cludes with the most agonizing demonstra- dollars the Kramdens owe him. Ralph tion of Ralph's powerlessness imaginable. totally mishandles the crisis. Rather than As rage is spent (and his awe of authority simply paying the bill, he loudly accuses returns), Ralph retreats into a pitiable fan- the ice-man of having come to the wrong tasy of being Ralphina's secret benefactor, apartment - the Kramdens have a refrigera- her anonymous \"Santy Claus:' Then he dazedly exits, leaving Alice alone and shak- •• Here SNL has precipitated another latent aspect of ing with silent sobs. The Honeymooners. Norton's appetite for food exceeds Ralph's; left alone, he frequently raids the Kramden ice- The grandeur of this episode lies in its box. In general, Norton is less repressed than his elevation of the child to metaphor. Ralphina buddy - more apt to bring up the prospect of ditching is the embodiment of all the Kramden's their wives for some illicit fun and also more flirtatious , failures, the epitome of everything they albeit brainlessly so. (Bumping into Alice at [he start of lack - including, apparently, the capacity to 'This Is Your Life\" he extravagantly doffs his hat and comfort each other. It is at this point that exclaims, \"I beg your pardon, my fair mam'zeUe:) the Kramden kitchen becomes as mutely According to The Honeymooners' Companion, Trixie eloquent as a Beckett stage set, and Ralph's is a former ''burlesque queen:' monstrous figure but a fragile bulwark against the void. ~ 68

Bad Girls of the Sahara Competing for the Golden G-String Award. hit on her, only to dump her when he band , a bystander, was killed in a barroom shoot-out, she's concerned about her in~ by Jim Verniere spied something prettier and yo unger. laws. Cassie is a principal, I'm told , but a publicist arrives and blithely announces Ten minutes earlier, Lisa had been the that the principals are constantly chang- ing. Cassie says nothing. Her look says r\"Dee! this ;' she says, hiking up her center of attention, pulling up her blouse she's used to disappointment. skirt to reveal a pair of firm but- for the photographers. Now she's crying The next day registration for the con- tocks. Her name is Lisa, and she says, in the bar, dr inking Kahlua and Sanka. vention continues while the preliminary competitions for the Golden G-String \"'This is the ass of an 18-year-old:' I am Months ago, Gary and writer Charles begin in the Sahara Space Center, the auditorium in which Jerry Lewis used to not the only one at the bar that notices. Gaines, who sketched out Pumping Iron use for his telethons. The stage is a T- So why are mascara gullies running down I and II, had decided to focus the film on shaped expanse of glossy black with a her cheeks? \"Because -I'm 30 years old, five strippers, and they went out in gold colored pole at the foot of the run- way. In the background is a silver Mylar and in this business that's too old:' search. Though Lisa had already been rain curtain. A Japanese video crew hov- ers around a San Francisco stripper \"'This business\" is stripping, and Lisa rejected, undaunted she spent her own named Shakti. She works at the Sutter Street Theater and is wearing a Crimes of and I are both at Las Vegas' Sahara Hotel , money to come to the Vegas auditions. Passion wig. She says she dances for the Church of Om. Another Boston dancer, the setting of the First Annual Strippers' But a principal role is not in the cards, Rikki Harte, sits by looking malignantly bored. \"Do you think it's fixed?\" she asks Convention (which includes seminars, she's told, and something in her sud- Cassie, who's second up in the prelimina- ries. \"I don't know... Yes, I do:' display booths , and a Golden G-String denly seductive manner sets off warning \"I do, too; ' says Rikki. Award competition) and the shooting of bells. \"You're just depressed ;' I say. \"Be- ''I'm really tired of selfish men and vio- lent men ;' says Shakti. Her real name is Stripper, a sort of Flashdance-cum-docu- sides, you'll hate me tomorrow for taking MaryClare McSweeney, and she ran away from Dayto n when she was 17 . Now she mentary without frills. In many ways the advantage:' says she dances for a goddess -named flip side of Pumping Iron II: The Women, \"You're real smart:' Stripper, directed by Pumping Iron I , Not really, just wary. producer Jerome Gary, will focus on Upstairs, the auditioners' cocktail party women who take their clothes off for a is heating up, fueled by an excess of living. booze and a scarcity of food. Cassie Upstairs, dozens of strippers, most of (stage name Cassiopeia), a 21-year-old them dressed in fuck-me fashions, have Jodie Foster look-alike from Boston's convened with the press, video crews, Combat Zone, stands alone in a modest and the filmmakers, headed by Gary and blue dress and flat shoes. She wears no cinematographer Ed (Desperately Seek- makeup, and her hair is in a bun, school- ing Susan) Lachman. I run into Lisa, who girlish wisps haloing her face. She gives is crying because a sharp-dressed publi- me her real name but doesn't want it in cist (masquerading as a film producer?) print; recently widowed when her hus- 69

Grace after starting out as a beggar. \"I am string and doing an acrobatic slow dance laid out like Rambo prepping for an inva- an erotic flower, most rare.\" She calls stripping the \"dance of annihilation\" and on the pole. Next is Cassiopeia, whose sion: studded accessories, thigh-high seems unaware of the bundle of dollar act is a basic peel and shimmy-and how leather boots, a cat-o'-nine-tails. \"No love bills she waves in her hand as she speaks. titillating it is to watch a woman I'm lost on men,\" is how another stripper \"All forms of nationalism are an insult to me ... I'd like to strip on the Berlin Wall ... attracted to take her clothes off in front of characterizes Danyel. \"Onstage, she I don't think women's vaginas are the gates of hell. Grace's vagina is a whorl of strangers. Backstage is a communal begins to the tune of \"Don't Take Me light. .. Men need to be humbled. They need to kiss the Goddess' feet.\" Shakti dressing room with four full-length mir- Home 'Cause Your Momma Won't Like concludes by telling the grinning japa- nese interviewer that she's from the rors. In this forest of naked limbs a dozen Me:' The crowd seems turned on by her planet Omloka and that Om lovers find perfect peace after death on Saturn. or so dancers are chatting, trading tips, S&M look. Then, as \"Only Women In the competition, dancers will be and telling stories. \"Do you get to wear a Bleed\" plays, she snaps a blood capsule in scored on the basis of \"costume, body shape,choreography, personality, and G-string at your club?\" Cassie asks Laura her mouth, lets the gore spill over her overall effect.\" The show's emcee is Emily, a middle-aged black woman who Faye, a statuesque redhead from Peoria body, and then traces bloody welts all works with Rikki Harte at the Golden Banana. Rikki sits beside me, explaining who's here with her mother. It's a chore to over herself with the whip. that in Boston they observe the \"yellow line law;' which prohibits physical contact stay out of the camera crew's way, but so The crowd goes absolutely nuts. Even between the strippers, who work nude, and the audience. It soon becomes clear far no one is shouting. Cassie is the filmmakers freeze, mouths agape, that there are two kinds of strippers: Those who work where the laws are depressed. She knows she can't compete except for Lachman, who shoots inches strictly enforced (Canada) have elaborate acts. Those who strip where anything with the strippers who have dance train- from Danyel's face as she gyrates on the goes are relatively artless. ing and elaborate acts, and at 21 she feels edge of the stage. She seems to swallow The Canadians are a healthy, sororal lot with theatrical agents, good pay, and the camera. It's bona-fide movie magic, decent working conditions. U.S. strip- pers are a harsher crowd, and many of . and later Danyel explains that although them work for tips in \" mixing bars,\" where they also hustle the customers for she plays the dominatrix onstage, she's drinks. A few strippers from L.A:s Body Shop seem more like aspiring actresses submissive in her private life. \"Onstage I trying to pay the rent. There are also a couple of Las Vti:gas \"show girl\" strippers, have the power;' she says, echoing her including janette Boyd, a six-foot, 37- year-old born again Christian recently di- colleagues, who all pride themselves on vorced from a jockey. Boyd used to work for Harold Minsky, and is a graduate of control. '1\\t home I like to give it away;' Holy Name Academy. There are no strip- pers from New York, the fleshpot of the Danyel allows. She left Oklahoma where, East. \"Too sleazy;' explains a fummaker. she says, \"The clubs own the women. I sit with Rikki as the contest com- mences. She's about 22, blonde, and They trade them.\" doesn't like being called a stripper. \"It makes us sound like prostitutes,\" she Later, ·the first cut is announced. says. She's wearing a hot-pink tank top, tiny pink and white shorts, black patent- Danyel has been eliminated (\"too kinky leather high heels, and ankle socks. Her boyfriend drives a Corvette and owns a for the Vegas crowd\"), and so has joy repair shop. A few months later I spy Rikki on the poster for a porn flick called Michael, from L.A:s Body Shop, who Firestorm; she gets good reviews. runs backstage in tears with the camera T he first dancer up is from Vancouver, and she strips to \" He's a Dream\" crew in hot pursuit. from Flashdance. In about two minutes she's down to a rhinestone-studded G- I go to check out the sparsely attended seminars, which inciude consultations on plastic surgery and \"How to Be a Las Vegas Show Girl:' The companies repre- sented at the display booths include Fan- tasy Systems, Pleasure Products, Dew Productions, and the South African Feather Company. There's a \"Kiss Your Favorite Stripper\" booth, but it's empty. Ten minutes later, I run into Rikki Lisa. Harte by the pool. She says hello, but is surrounded by middle-aged men. One of her days are. numbered. She's preparing them says he's the film's producer. He's an for a civil service postal exam. amiable guy with pale skin and a prodi- The room is full of voices. \"I gotta quit gious spare tire, and he's anointing Rikki's smoking\" ... \"Do you use a whip in your magnificent, burnished limbs with oil. routine?\" ... \"God, I was so stoned I didn't The tableau: poolside at Vegas, palms know what I was doing\" ... \"I used to have swaying in the desert wind, strippers a class act. Now I'm a little kinky:' Laura, floating on rubber rafts , sipping daiquiris. whose father owns a junkyard, asks me to That evening the filmmakers stage a help her with her costume, which she \"Roaring Twenties\" fashion show, to no glues on. Tasha, a diminutive blonde particular end. I meet a stripper named from Calgary in a fur G-string, hasn't lived Mouse. She's in her early twenties but at home since her stepfather \"made looks about 16, and she seems to be with advances:' And so goes a litany of broken jerome Gary for the evening. \"Why homes, foster parents, religious cults, 'Mouse'?\" I ask. \"No personal questions;' and abusive fathers. she pouts. The afternoon's highlight is a Canadian The highlight of the finals held the next dancer named Danyel. I noticed her day is Venus DeLight, a stripper from backstage where she had her costume Minnesota who rolls onstage in a coffin 70

and strip s in a fog of dry ice. Tarren Rae, a ve ntion to achieve a \"composite reality;' 26-year-old stripper from Vancouver who that he fictionalizes in places because the is clearly the best dancer in the competi- resulting \"vis ualization s\" capture the real- tion , take s her clothes off to \"Mo ney ity of strippers in general, if not one strip- Selected as an outstanding film of the year. Make the World Go 'Round ;' then with per in particular. \"Docume ntary is always London Film Festival world class gymnastic talent attacks the a manipulation ,\" he says . \"Eve n Robert 93 minutes, color I B&W. big golden pole. She wins - hand s down. Flaherty staged scenes in Man ofAran. In A FILM BY RICK SCHMIDT The morning after the celebratory documentary filmmaking, \"Verisimili- The big hit of the Ann Arbor film festival in 1978, Rick Schmidt's 1988-THE REMAKE is currently party I visit Gary in his hotel suite. He's in tude is just that-the appearance or illu- enjoying cult status in other cities. It 's easy to see why: the film has carved a unique niche for itself bed , fully clothed , and hung over. Crew sion of reality,\" says Gary. Ironically, somewhere between FREAKS and Fellini's 8 1/2. Purporting to be the first musical \" with the stench members pop in and out to ask questions Stripper is most effective when it is least .of death about it \", and ending with the message \" be the star in your own life\", 1988 mixes deadly or make announcements. Tempest illusory, reac hing its emotional peak in seriousness and high camp , avant-garde aesthetics and transsexual athletics with an at- Storm, an old-time stripper serving as a the sad details of Janette Boyd's story - mosphere that is alternately sordid and seductive. judge, need s money to eat. Ed (\"I want an told without the fact-dummying in David Harris The Boston Phoenix expressionistic reality \" ) Lachman Danyel's portrait. 1988 recounts the fictitious tale of a middle-aged arrives, stumbles over a chair, and shouts Like Pumping Iron II and The Inheri- librarian's attempts to finance and remake the film musical \" Showboat\" in contemporary terms. The \"Roll 'em,\" before dissolving in laughter. tors, Stripper seems designed to exploit a auditions are arranged on a San Francisco stage, and range from incredible to merely bizarre. Gary has wanted to make a film about \" high concept\" (i. e., strippers, female Variety strippers since he lived with one who bodybuilders, etc.). When concept be- worked days in the San Francisco corps comes all, it swamps plot, character, and de ballet. \"Strippers are different from logic in fiction film s and truth in docu- other people,\" he says. \" If you don't mentaries. Although Gary says he's not believe that, try taking yo ur clothes off in \"into the philosophy of the documentary:' front of an audience. They tend to come I think what were witnessing is the perva- from broken homes . They tend to have sive influence of B-movies . It's probably estranged male images in their lives. easier to raise money to make a film about Then-phoenix-like-they build a pro- strippers or female bodybuilders than to fession out of a disastrous personal life: ' make a film about scrimshaw. In the Most of the women I've met, however, world of B-movies, integrity takes a back- claim not to be victims, and not to be seat, if not a powder. interested in psychoanalysis. ' 'True, but Is he further exploiting the already one of them is a kleptomaniac ;' Gary exploited? \"Some of the strippers have rebuts, \"and she makes $\\,200 a week. been using the word exploitation to me Another had a stepfather who locked her lately. And it makes me feel bad , because in a closet and repeatedly molested her on one level I think they're right. But when she was a child. She subsequently when they see the film, I don't think went temporarily blind. And a third has they'll feel exploited. Plus, a lot of them the same story:' feel they're the ones doing the exploiting. They feel in control, and a lot of them are C alling Stripper a documentary would into that power. They can do anything be \"like giving it the measles :' Gary they want on that stage, and no one can says. Like the Pumping Iron II filmma- touch them: ' kers, he's cast docu-method to the wind. Later that day, Gary and his crew are \"We've prelit so me scenes and staged shooting filler in the Sahara casino. Tar- some of the action, like the contest:' The ren Rae shows up in tears . She has on * * * Movies on TV question is: Just what do you call Strip- jeans, a T-shirt, and no makeup , and she per? A docu-flash? looks like a cute girl. She's been told by Although Jerome Gary has been hon- Burlesque Productions, the organization Featuring SYLVESTER, JESUS CHRIST SATAN, LINDA MONTANO, RAL-PHENO, BILLY est about his intention to use fiction film- that staged the contest, that the bank is BARKSDALE, DICKIE MARCUS, JON CARROLL, NUNS and NUDIST, many others ... making techniques in his documentary, busted. There's no money left, and she 1988 is now available for sale or rental at the following video stores in San Francisco : a great many scenes in Stripper look won't be getting the $5,000 prize. Gary • •••••••• SUPERSTAR ViDEO········· scripted, and some of the film is utter fab- takes her aside and personally guarantees .................. .... CAPTAIN VIDEO .... * .............. .. rication . \"It's still a documentary:' argues that the money will be paid. •••••••••• THE VIDEO ROOM •••••••••• Gary, \"because it's about real people. It That evening three security guards doesn't betray the reality of their lives :' march around the pool with a young, But the prize awarded to Tarren Rae was well-dressed black man in tow. He'd been ••••• LE SALON VIDEO EXCHANGE ••••• .... * .......... .... THE VIDEO MART .................. .. $5,000, whereas in the film Gary dubbed . eyeballing Rikki Harte for the past two in an announcer who says it is $25,000. days and was nabbed waiting for her, out- Or purchase your VHS/BETA (please specify) cassette for $49.95, plus $2 .00 per copy for And Danye l was eliminated from the side her hotel-room door. Apparently, he shipping! handling . competition before the finals , but in the hadn't heard about the \"yellow line law.\" film she's a finalist (creative editing); she's Two minutes later Rikki follows. She's Please send -..- .. ... r\" money order ~ even given a background as an assistant in dressed in electric blue spandex and high payable to Rick Schmidt a veterinary hospital (pure fiction). heels . \"Jesus Christ:' she says, visibly rat- Gary contends that he jettisoned con- tled. \"Guys like that really scare me:' ~ ?,. : ; ..) ...' 7\\

Tum on the Dark and Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, he conceded that \"the Roth approach has by Lois P. Sheinfeld encf9achment on private home viewing certainly taught us that the outright will be sustained by the courts is rooted in suppression of obscenity cannot be reconciled with the fundamental the \"chartless abyss\" of obscenity law. It principles of the First and Fourteenth Amendment . For we have failed to began in 1957 with Roth v. United States, formulate a standard that sharply distinguishes protected from unprotected The baby bat which first squarely presented the speech ... .[O)ne cannot say with certainty that material is obscene until at least five Screamed out infright, question of whether obscenity (\"material members of this Court, applying inevitably obscure standards, have 'Tum on the dark, which deals with sex in a manner pronounced it so:' I'm afraid ofthe light. ' appealing to prurient interest\") was But, alas, Justice Brennan could not command a majority for his enlightened -Shel Silverstein, \"Batty,\" protected expression under the First position, and the Miller-Paris test (a somewhat altered Roth approach under A Light in the Attic Amendment. Putting the cart before the which, for example, \"prurient interest\" must invoke \"shameful and morbid\" horse, the Supreme Court held that thoughts, instead of \"lust;' \"itching;' and \"longing') is now in vogue. State bans on H ome videophiles now live in a time of obscenity was \"utterly without redeeming films under the Roth/Miller-Paris tragic irony. While modern tech- social importance;' and was therefore guidelines have been startling in their nology fast increases the availability and \"unprotected speech\"; thus, the Court did number and range, dramatically testifying to the stifling effect of obscenity versatility of video equipment, new not have to apply the traditional First censorship. The films include: The Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger), forces of censorship threaten to profound- Amendment rule that speech is protected The Lovers (Louis Malle), Never on Sunday (Jules Dassin), The Connection ly restrict what one may see on it. unless reliable evidence demonstrates a (Shirley Clark~), The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman), Un Chant d 'Amour Troubled by escalating purchases and direct connection between that speech (Jean Genet), I am Curious-Yellow (Vilgot Sjoman), The Fox (Mark Rydell), rentals of videocassette erotica- and antisocial behavior. No connection Titticut Follies (Frederick Wiseman), Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols), The particularly by women uncomfortable could be demonstrated, then or now. Exorcist (William Friedkin), and Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci). [For attending back-street adult theaters- After removing obscenity totally from a comprehensive list, see DeGrazia & Newman's excellent book, Banned Films morality censors have been spurred into constitutional embrace, the Court had no (R.R. Bowker Co., 1982).) action. Video shops have been stormed by difficulty deciding that \"prurient interest;' The Supreme Court's latest pro- nouncement , in June of this year, local police, and dealers have been defined as \"a tendency to excite lustful exemplified its continued, unfortunate plunge through the quagmire of obscenity arrested and prosecuted on obscenity thoughts;' \"itching;' or \"longing;' was a suppression. Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., involved the state of charges in Arizona, Ohio, New York, sufficiently precise standard to support a Washington's moral nuisance law, which provided civil and criminal penalties for Minnesota, and Tennessee. In Memphis, criminal conviction. Thus the Roth test those who deal in obscenity. The statute site of the Deep Throat trial a decade ago, was born: \"whether to the average person, defined \"prurient interest\" as \"that which incites lasciviousness or lust:' A federal the FBI seized 36 X-rated videos from 24 applying contemporary community court of appeals held that by including \"lust\" in the definition of \"prurient;' the stores. An FBI spokesman called the raid a standards, the dominant theme of th~ legislation had gone too far. \"Lust;' the court reasoned , has acquired a far broader \"reflection of a national situation:' material taken as a whole appeals to meaning since it was condemned in Roth; now the word refers to a \"healthy, The availability of sexually explicit prurient interest:' wholesome human reaction common to millions of well-adjusted persons in our material in mainstream America has Following Roth, the Court's docket was society;' and Washington cannot prohibit material that does no more than arouse mobilized numerous groups , including clogged with obscenity appeals, the cases \"good, old-fashioned, healthy\" interest in sex. Morality in Media-which promotes pouring in from lower courts \"media based on love, truth , and good mind-boggled by Roth's elusive guidelines. taste\" -to pressure for action against The Justices became a \"Supreme Board of shops located in urban middle-class Censors;' reviewing scores of books and neighborhoods and suburban shopping fums-like most censors, never fearing for malls. 'This is not aimed at the sleazy, their own moral well-being but raincoat people;' said the leader of one unwaveringly vigilant for the safety of group protesting outside a video rental others. It was no surprise when the agency in Lincoln, Neb. 'They rent to authors of The Brethren revealed that the decent middle-class people.\" A jurists privately devised their own spokeswoman for a Minnesota anti-porn unwritten , subjective tests for what group summed up the moralists' appealed to the \"prurient interest\" and complaint: \"What would have been off what did not. Consider Justice Stewart's limits even in a red-light district a few years \"Casablanca Test;' publicly translated in ago is now available for people to see in the Jacobellis case as: \"I know it when I their living rooms:' The living room and see it:' the bedroom are the real battlefields in this Roth's sorry progeny compelled Justice war against erotica. Brennan, Roth's author, to do a complete The question whether governmental turnabout in 1973 . In Miller v. California 72

Not so, rul ed the Supreme Co urt, In 19 78, in the very narrowly drawn years old. ) upholding the legislation . Lust could also dec is io n of F C. C. v. Pa cifica , th e However, the courts have thus far taken include the \"shameful or morbid.\" Further, Supre me Court recognized the right of the a dim view of cable indecency legislatio n, the word could have bee n excised without FC.C. to regu late broadcast \"i ndecency\" striking down laws e nacted in Florida and invalidating the e ntire statu te, \"since the on radio under certain circumstances. The Utah, and rejecting the notio n that cable statutory definition of prurience referred case arose o ut of a 2:00 p . m . rad io can be regu lated in the sa me way as to 'lasciviousness' as we ll as 'Iu st.'\" broadcast of George Carlin's monologue broadcast. Co urt s have di stin gui shed (\"Lasciviousness\" is a word of precision \"Filthy Words;' and the Court noted in its cable from broadcast in othe r co ntexts as that doesn' t overreach protect e d opinion that the F C. C. had acted after well , but on this issue the differe nces have expression? About as pre c ise as receiving a complaint from a man who was bee n held to be fund amental. \"shameful\" and \"morbid ,\" I guess.) dri ving in his car with his yo ung so n when In the most recent case, Cruz v. Ferre he heard the broadcast. (The Court did (1985), a federal court of appeals held that O ne other case is particularly relevant. not note that the man was a member of the cable, unlike broadcast, does not \"intrude\" In Stanley v. Georgia (1969), the national planning board of Morality in into the home. The homeowner must Court held without dissent that the mere Media, and that his \"young son\" was 15 affirmatively elect to have the service and possession of obscene ma~rial in onds ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ home could not be made illegal. \"If the First Amendment means anything;' the Court said, \"it means that a State has no . \"'''~tc,f business telung a man , sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole \"INDISPENSABLE . ,, * constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to THE control men's minds:' At first blush, Stanley appears to dispose of the issue of government GREAT encroachment into home-video viewing. It doesn't. In subsequent decisions the Court made plain that while you are safe once you get inside the front door, the MOVIE state has the right to prohibit and punish the mailing, importation, or sale of the obscene material to you as a prospective STARS viewer. This absurd result led Justice Black to comment that \"only when a man writes salacious books in his attic, prints them in his basement, and reads them in Th e Golden Years his living room ;' will he be protected. The question is not, however, entirely open and shut. Previous cases have not as by intensely implicated the Stanley zone of protection. It is the very presence of David Shipman erotica in the living room that has the moralists in a panic. This is even more apparent when examined in the light of the \"The mos t comprehe nsive who-was-who on the si lve r screen .\" emerging battle over \"i ndecency\" and - Newsweek cable TV. \"Ma rvelo usly informed and free from all pretentiousness .. . by the Enter again Morality in Media and Co. livelies t and most painstaking of surveyors.\" - Th e Till1 es (Co. here being a like-minded group, Citizens for Decency through Law). Not \"Indispensable ... marked by a unique combinati o n of scho larship and satisfied with obscenity censorship, they judg me nt: it is very rare for a man to lea rn so much about the movies would ban \"indecent\" cable programming and keep his head. Every star's mini -biography is an o bject lesson in as well. Embarked on a formidable the relevant facts , making the work as va luabl e for cross-refere nce as national campaign, these groups seek to for reference.. . . They're the best thing ye t-m ode ls of diligent obtain the passage of anti-indecency sa nity that wi ll keep you reading the night lo ng .\" legislation that would forbid , among other -Clive James , Th e O bserver * things , the showing of nudity. This 200 biographies! 592 pages! 100 photos! Only $14.95! legislation could prevent home-cable viewers from seeing The Godfather, Available at books tores or from Annie Hall , Coal Miner 's Daughter, and other R-rated movies now routinely shown Da Capo Press 233 Spring St. , NY, NY 10013 by Home Box Office, Show Time , Call toll-free 800-221-8369 Cinemax, and The Movie Channel. 73

FILm FORum then affirmatively make the additional decision to purchase \"extra\" services such ATWIN CINEMA NEXT DOOR TO SOHO as HBO . Decisions to continue the services must be renewed monthly, and Presenting NYC premieres of Independent films the subscriber may cancel if dissatisfied. & retrospectlves of foreign & American classics On the issue of ready accessibility to children-one of the major features of September 4-10: EISENSTAEDT, CALLAHAN, SISKIND & SANDER broadcasting noted in Pacifica-the court Films on four 20th century photographers in Cruz pointed out that, with cable, not only do parents have absolute control over September 11-24: BASTILLE by Rudolf van den Berg what comes into the home, but they have September 25-0ctober 15: THE TOKYO TRIAL by Masaki Kobayashi access to detailed program guides and even lockboxes or parental keys which can October 16-29: 7 UP and 28 UP by Michael Apted prevent child access completely. Morality in Media dismisses these differences and Open 7 days a - \" . Cell or write tor calandar .. member discount Information. continues to press nationally for 57 Watts Street, NYC 10013 Box Office: (212)431·1590 anti-indecency cable laws. According to MIM general counsel, Paul j. McGeady, it's Partially supported by the NVS Coun~U on the Arts & the National Endowment lor the Arts the \"same pig in the parlor:' '11 at O'L()11) . . . By the time the Supreme Court °'The hl\\uJeosd0\\'«l(aa skabeGlBa'·ontuctlaee)s.v··«aN(rhdoI)r1..1\\'aw(DoaO\\eudsb'le addresses these issues, free expres- \\\\sa d (sunset8·W0 ao\\ttH'e-rerNcethta\\r\\akcnteorws sion will be under seige on numerous . we a . fronts. Ultra-feminists and Moral s03\\~\\\\dS'~t1S;'~~~~~f~Z\"\\:~:r\\O~:-b!'1hOt1\\SOn'S1l11)l'\\ldU0..I0ee!c11k10~e.irty()Le·an· ·uSarnau0).l.f..mo\\J\\es . aO'\\neo. 1nMajoritarians are clamoring for the \\ Ie-1m 0 censorship of sexually explicit portrayals that dehumanize and degrade women '~ movie says the N.Y. Times Book Review (\"Porn. II : Love or Death?\" FILM fan's del ight!\" says the Los \"A fertile meditation on the trajec- COMMENT, Dec. 1984); the Attorney tor y of character.\" -PHILIP LOPATE General's Commission on Pornography Angeles Times. \" Thomson has (chaired by the chief prosecutor for done something that seems in the \"First-rate Arlington County, Va., commended by same breath original and ingenious entertainment President Reagan for having all but and inevitable ... He has speculated banished pornography in his jurisdiction) on the whole lives of film characters, ... A quirky, original and brilliantly has been directed by Attorney General the time and events before and after Meese to devise new ways to control the we saw them on screen ... \" conceived novel.. .Suspects is weird, home-video pornography explosion; the Justice Department has granted $734,000 -CHARLES CHAMPLIN but wonderful!\" -SUSA N ISAACS, for a \"content analysis\" of Playboy and Penthouse magazines, to be conducted by Newsdav Dr. Judith Reisman , a former songwriter for Captain Kangaroo, who has said Just published by KnopfJackel phot08laph by Wa!kel (vans ~ publicly that Playboy's publisher is \"every bit as dangerous as Hitler\"; the House of Representatives has cut off the subsidy for braille editions of Playboy, one of 36 magazines selected by blind readers for literary merit, and, The Parents Music Resource Center-founded by the wives of senior Reagan Administration officials - pressured record companies into putting advisories on album and cassette covers identifying recordings \"believed to contain sexually explicit lyrics.\" The Senate communications subcommittee has scheduled a September 19 hearing on PMRC demands for a record rating system (X-rated music?) and stronger broadcast regulation of songs and music videos. Perhaps the furies that lay on the other side of the TV screen in Poltergeist were misunderstood. They were just inhabiting the hardware for the good of the family. ® 74

NEW FROM NEW YORKER FILMS - NON-THEATRICAL- Francois Truffaut's Jean-Luc Godard's Paul Cox's CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS FIRST NAME: CARMEN MAN OF FLOWERS Ann Hui's Bob Swaim's BOAT PEOPLE LA BALANCE Please call or write for our 1986 catalogue. 16 West 61 st Street, New York, N.Y. 10023 (212) 247-6110

The Sound ofOne Man Clapping The trick is that the prodigious enter- tainment necessarily springs from extreme by Richard T. Jameson The first time I heard Westerns likened to concentration. This plays into one of the tales of King Arthur's Round Table, I fig- fundamental tensions in the genre: be- I said I liked Silverado , and the editor said ured, \"Yeah, well, sure!\" The pure Western tween the vast, apparently endless potenti- mostly he didn't. I said it had given me a is as abstract and fanciful- and just as true ality of the landscape and the life-or-death grand time; he grumbled something about to human aspirations and the hunger for consequentiality of the smallest, most structural problems. I allowed as how it legend . mundane detail. At the beginning of the bordered on the miraculous that some film, Emmett (Scott Glenn) is bush- wised-up, thoroughly contemporary film- The great thing is, Westerns turn narra- whacked by several gunmen, whom he makers had managed to rediscover the tive itself into legend. We follow the story- succeeds in dispatching handily. Two of pleasures of the pure Western without lines about range feuds, families decima- their horses run off; Emmett finds the third parodying, tarting up, or otherwise conde- ted , old friends falling out, new alliances tethered nearby and leads it behind him as scending to the genre. He said he only being forged in the crucible of action and he continues his journey. When he comes liked Westerns that transcended the genre, history, and if someone asks of a given upon Paden (Kevin Kline), horseless, and as far as he was concerned the genre movie, \"What's it about?\" we probably stripped to his long johns, and left by four needed all the transcending it could get. I answer with a few phrases of plot summary. no-goods to parch in the desert, he revives said, \"I like Westerns. I grew up with West- But what we really watch, what makes the the fellow and trades terse introductions erns!\" He chuckled, pleasantly: \"Ken May- hair on the backs of our necks shiver and with him. 'Where're you goin'?\" Emmett nard?\" 'f\\mong others:' That put the dis- our faces spread in glee, is something else asks. \"Where's the pinto goin'?\" Paden cussion on hold for about two weeks. responds agreeably, and the next cut dis- entirely. It's the recognition we share of a closes the two horsemen approaching an Well, hell, I did grow up with West- privileged code, the evolution of signs: the outpost together. Rapport is all well and erns-Jack Randall and Hopalong Cassidy way a certain Henry rifle or a pair of pearl- good, but at base Paden rides that pinto or on Saturday-afternoon TV, occasional handled .45s or the brand on the flank of a he dies. Technicolor excursions with Audie pinto keeps turning up; whether there's cut Murphy, Alan Ladd, Jimmy Stewart at the whiskey or good whiskey in thf\" bottle on Kasdan pursues this logic of survival and Regent or the Hi-Lander in New Castle, the table; how long it takes before we know advancement and builds a wry narrative Pa. Something other than nostalgia ac- why some people persist in greeting one structure on it. The pinto carries Paden to counts for my continuing fondness for fellow in Silverado by inquiring \"Where's that outpost where, with money Emmett those youthful experiences. Some of them the dog?\" would turn out years later to be films de loans him to buy new clothes, he obtains Anthony Mann or \"the George Stevens L awrence Kasdan, who produced and instead a secondhand revolver and kills one classic, Shane\"; others would recede in the directed Silverado and wrote it with of the m·en who had left him to die. That memory as simply movies with Audie his brother Mark, obviously loves and man had Paden's bay horse (\"the only thing Murphy or Jack Randall in them. Cumula- understands this elemental aspect of the I really miss'\" aboard which Paden now tively, all left their mark. In some funda- Western, and wanted to reclaim it from accompanies Emmett to the town of Tur- mental ways, my pleasure in the ultra- decades of parody and revisionism. He's ley. (It's no longer a matter of life and death , stylized look, movements, and behaviors taken pains that his movie should be but Emmett's a decent guy and Turley of Westerns shaped my sense of what mov- \"about\" nothing beyond its own patterns of sounds as good a place as any to go.) There ies at large ought to be, what sorts of incident, character, and the characters' Paden spots another of his victimizers texture, ritual, and discovery we should apprehension of one another. The under a black hat with a silver band ('f\\fter require of them. endeavor constitutes neither an excursion the bay, the only thing I really miss ...\"). into camp preciosity nor an aridly aca- Guns are drawn, Paden blasts the varmint Is any other kind of movie more purely demic exercise in restoring an archaic out from under the hat, which plops on the aesthetic? Although Westerns speak to a genre. Rather (if my own experiences and floor in a closeup all its own - and in the dream of America and uniquely American the rapt delight of three separate next cut, the hat goes to jail. codes of honor and integrity, I never seri- general audiences are any indication), ously confused the genre (specific excep- Silverado marks the rediscovery of a truly I've shorthanded a good deal here, over- tions aside) with an even halfway literal popular art form as supple as it is forma- leaping such crucial intervening business record of historical events and personages. lized, as accessible as it is exotic, and pro- as the introduction of the two other princi- digiously entertaining. pals in Silverado's heroic foursome: Mal (Danny Glover), a less-than-stoic black who's just about \"had enough 0' what ain't right\" in the wild white West, and Emmett's kid brother Jake (Kevin Cos- tner) , who's already occupying that jail cell before Paden is shoved into it under his reclaimed headgear. No \"structural prob- lems\" here. The Kasdans' script contains nary a wasted line or move, inventing crackling-good crisis situations (how does a man in long johns with ten borrowed dol- lars to his name obtain a gun, load it, and accurately fire it before an unscrupulous man across the street either rides his stolen horse away or shoots him down?) and layer- 76

ing one spare, generic transaction over cosmopolitan peculiarity as well as quick Kasdan cannily accommodate this quality, another until a persuasive fictive life wit and strong will. Hence, th ough John even turn it into a virtue by translating it emerges. C leese arri ves upon the scene with a char- into Paden's penchant for irony and guile. Silverado is the kind of Western in wh ich acteristically Pythonesque \"What's all this And to Western habitues nervously characters have absolutely no existence then?\", the shoc k of dislocating recogni- guarding the genre's frontiers against incur- beyond the moves they eloquently make tion on the audience's part is only momen- sion by supercilious yuppies, there have onscreen. They're as thin and tran sparent tary, and our delight increased geometri- been few scenes in 1985 more gratifying as a strip of celluloid, but if they and their cally as Cleese goes on to meet all the than the string of exchanges between Kline actions are interlayered right , patterns generic obligations this lawman figure owes and Linda Hunt as a saloonkeeper of assert themselves and the interplay of to the furtheran ce of the plot, while also exemplary civility. This pair, two of the coded gestures can suggest the shape and agreeably seasoning the flavor of the pica- hippest , most esteemed theaterfolk of possibility of real human connection, and resque adventure. By the same token, the their generation, slip right into the rigor- values that are defined even as they are arrival of Jeff Goldblum as a fur-collared ously ethical, self-aware behavior and com- acted on. That's the essence of Western gentleman gambler in the immediate after- munication th at co nstitutes the genre's conduct and, not coincidentally, of how math of a killing on the main street of most privileged mode of being. Saying every film defines its own unique principles Silverado plucks at the fine line of period what needs saying and understanding of value and meaning, style and substance, credibility just enough to set it vibrating reams left unsaid , they make a marriage of in the act of unreeling. amusingly. There's room for even a long true minds across the bar of Silverado's absurdist drink of water like Goldblum in Midnight Star. I said that the Western as art form is as the mythopoeic spaces of the Western, if supple as it is formalized ; that's one rea- not necessarily the Old West. · tylistically as we ll, Kasdan has his son Kasdan has been able to hearken back Smodes of being straight, and straight to to the basic forms of the program Western Clearly, whatever he may have scripted (that is , to Ken Maynard rather than John and shot, Kasdan ultimately elected to cut the generic point. The director takes his Ford) while at the same time adapting the Silverado along a steady, masculine action pleasure in the dynamics of a classic genre models to the present day. This means line. Not surprisingly, Scott Glenn fits the rather than contriving hommnges to clas- that, for instance, when the sheriff of Tur- classic Gary Cooper mold as though it had sics of the genre: Silverado reminds me of ley has to intercede in an altercation involv- been struck for him. Kevin Kline is inesca- a hundred Westerns I've seen, but none in ing the principal characters, there is no pably a more contemporary presence, and particular. A couple dozen people get hard and exclusive reason why the sheriff urban-contemporary at that - or, as the killed, but a single gunshot is usually, should not be an Englishman who's carved estimable Juan-Carlos Selznick of the bloodlessly fatal, and accuracy tends to be out his own frontier fiefdom by force of Chico News & Review put it, \"He's got a a function of deterministic frame composi- quiche-eater's streak in 'him :' Kline and tion . Interestingly, the most communi- WRITE PENNSYLVANIA More of the country's premier collec- You need information. If it's about Pennsvlvan ia let us tion of authentic film poster~rare , vintage, help. We work closely with writers and -directors - and contemporary-such as \"Gone with supplementing their research , putting them in contact w ith the Wind,\" the original \" King Kong\" historians and industry experts and arranging meetings with and \"Napoleon\"- Comprehensive local people so filmmakers can learn about life in 8W' x 11\" catalog with more than 250 Pennsylvania . Share our wealth of information. Call us at highly coUectible graphics , many in color! (7 17) 787-5333 or write: Your opportunity now to own previously unavailable original movie posters. Pennsylvania Film Bureau To receive your copy, send $6.00 to: Department of Commerce Cinemonde 1916-F Hyde Street, 46 1 Forum Building San Francisco, CA 94109. Harrisb urg. Pennsvlvania 17120 77

cably painful wounds in the movie aren't but felt-in-the-blood awareness that it's simulacrum of adult capability to my pre- fatal: a vicious, dying thrust of a gunman's been far too long since a Western reached adolescent heart and mind. My own unsta- ted position was: \"When I grow up , I'll arm that sends a bullet into Mal's sister's for this kind of recognition. It's scarcely the understand stuff like that. Meanwhile, it's stomach during the jailbreak; and the highest order of recognition the Western at wondrous:' meaty punch! of a rifle slug entering its greatest can yield; but then, the charm In this connection, the varmint who steals Silverado for his own is Brian Den- Emmett's thigh at the final showdown. and gratification of Silverado inheres in nehy. He plays my favorite Western type, the guy who turns up early in the proceed- As for that showdown, with the four in the good faith with which it reaches for ings, trades some cryptic dialogue with the hero (in this case Paden), gives plenty of heroes converging on the hilltop town of something other than greatness. indication that he and the hero have shared some history, been friends, but somehow Silverado, realistic strategy plays no part in These peak gestures in Silverado recall no longer are. Looking at this fellow, one can't help liking him. When he shows up it. Within a distinctly limited number of nothing so much as those penultimate pas- again, we're glad to see him. We don't even mind if he kills one or two minor characters streets and buildings, each knight-errant sages when the Bar-20 riders saddled up nobody will miss , just to confirm him as a seeks out his opposite number and sends and thundered off to the showdown to the worthy and talented adversary. One senses in his ever-appraising grin not just danger him (and the occasional crony) to his accompaniment of Gluck's \"Dance of the but also a relish for life's little ironies, like the fact that he's unashamedly corrupt and reward. The fights do not overlap; every Furies ;' or Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, and will eventually have to kill or be killed by precisely the one fellow he holds in arena is a private space bearing no relation Raymond Hatton at last forswore their sep- esteem, his old chum with a weakness for values. Dennehy, a great silvery bear, to the rest. The same Western connoisseur arate-agent status and gathered their reins crawls inside this Wes6ern archetype as if it were an irresistible :oversized costume who prizes the scrupulous attention to tra- with a signatory \"Let's go , Rough Riders!\" coat, and wears it with rare style. Basically, that's what Silverado does with the long- jectory and topography in an Anthony You don't learn about this level of the West- neglected mantle of the Western. Ken Mann shootout can also value the rarefied ern in film courses, but the filmgoer or film Maynard would have approved . ~ ritual of this final clearing of the books. It critic who has entered upon his maturity compels an order of exultation all its own, bereft of such cultural conditioning is of a kind with that moment around the poorer for it. middle of the second reel, when Kasdan Agives us an auspicious horizon shot and the t least, that's how this legatee of a mis- spent youth chooses to see it. With four male leads, who had not previously made common cause, now appear to- what awe and wonder I used to attend the gether, riding abreast. esoteric transactions of that alien race up The communal satisfaction of the audi- there on the screen. What they said and ence at that moment is palpable-satisfac- didn't have to say, comprehended without tion in the moment itself and what.it signi- my comprehending how, yet somehow fies about the nature of the action that will succeeded ' in resolving through clear and follow, and also satisfaction in the unstated direct action , must have constituted a AIAU 11(),\"E VI()E() C()~~ _II PRESENTS CLASSICS FROM THE J. ARTHUR RANK COLLECTION Please send me the marked films at $24.95 WICKED LADY 1945 B/W, James Mason, Margaret Lockwood = TROUBLE IN STORE, 1953 B/W, Norman Wisdom Pplluesas$e4 sspheipcpifiyngVH&Sh_and_ling_each or Beta..a_ __ CARAVAN, 1946 B/W, Stewart Granger My check for $ is enclosed - DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD, 1966 color, the Carry On Team Charge my _ _MC _ _ Visa ~E - FAME IS THE SPUR , 1946 B/W, Michael Redgrave =LOVE STORY, 1944 B/W, Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger. . Card # expodate NO MY DARLING DAUGHTER, 1954 B/W, Michael Redgrave, Juliet Mills Name Address zip Signature =RENTADICK, 1972 color, James Booth, Jim Clark . not valid without signature Make checks payable and mail to : ROME EXPRESS 1932 B/W, Esther Ralston, Conrad Veldt ALMI HOME VIDEO CORP - THE SEEKERS 1954 color, Jack Hawkins, GlyniS Johns 1©518958B5raolal driwghatys, rNeYs,eNrvYed10036 New York residents add applicable sales tax - THE 39 STEPS ' 1960 color, Kenneth More, Taina Elg -_TIARA TAHITI, 1962 color, James Mason, John Mills _ WOMAN HATER, 1949 B/W, Stewart Granger •

EDITOR: changed the monster from Castro to New Gulf +Western * York's hostile environment, added charac- Company I was amazed to see G. Cabrera Infante ters such as the Cuban-Chinese neighbor, ® reviewing Improper Conduct without and expanded the Americanization of the informing your readers that he was one of young Cuban-American, among others. : Every peak : the principals in the documentary he found Leal finally agreed to come aboard as our * (and vaney) * so praiseworthy. Nothing better than D .P. three days prior to the start of princi- reviewing your own performance. Infante pal photography. ~: also feels able to endorse another film \"as the most effective film to date on the trag- Ichaso was not \"bugged\" by the tag of * mountain IS * edy of Cuba's revolution;' even though he \"eternal co-director;' nor did he leave : in this book-: hasn't seen the final cut. Numerous other Guede Films in a \"huff;' as Infante writes. statements in his article are of the same On the contrary, the co-director \"tag\" was * *a mammoth illustrated guide intellectual standard. I happen to disagree generously given by Ichaso to Leal in rec- to every feature ftlm made by with Infante's view of Improper Conduct ognition of his contribution, and after the (see my review in Cineaste, V. 14, N. 1) film had been completed. Needless to say, * *the studio from 1916 to 1984! and his general political perspective, but I a co-directorial effort should be viewed as * *In the latest addition to our am disturbed to see a magazine of the a virtually identical contribution in its sig- stature of FILM COMMENT pass off self- nificance and import. Infante's somewhat acclaimed series of Hollywood- serving political puffery as film criticism. equivocal language not only tends to re- arrange the facts on this sensitive issue but * *studio books each of Para- - DAN GEORGAKAS contradicts his own account implying that *mount's 2,800-plus f1lms .is Leal and not Ichaso chose to be a co- Member editorial board, Cineaste, New York, N. Y. director on more than one occasion. covered individually, over 1,000 EDITOR: Ruben Blades, a Panamanian, is not just * *are illustrated with full-color or another popular salsero. He has revolu- black-and-white stills, and a I was at once startled and upset by the tionized the genre with intelligent musical inaccuracies, half-truths, inclusions, and vignettes that have gained him recognition * *complete history of the studio omissions in G. Cabrera Infante's \"Cuba's as one of Latin America's most imporant Shadow\" (FILM COMMENT, May-June, voices. On the subject of salsa, it's not * *reveals how the name Para- 1985). Though no longer angry so much solely the \"off-spring of Cuban popular mount became tantamount to as sad, I would like to set the record music of the Forties and Fifties:' No doubt straight at least in so far as my work and this is an important element, but it's more * *scintillating, sophisticated en- the work of my collaborators at Max Mam- than that and for Infante to ignore Puerto * *tertainment at its fmest. bru Films is concerned. Rico's rich musical heritage and important contributions to this genre is to engage in * @** THE 010s * I'm the co-producer and co-screenwriter blind cultural chauvinism. of El Super. My name should be familiar * by JOlIN DSOTUOGRLYAS EAMES *Size 9'4\" x 121-',\". $35.00, now at your to Mr. Infante, not only from our personal One certainly hopes, that a writer of * *bookstore, or use coupon to order. acquaintance but from El Super and other Infantes' stature would research his subject *_ *C~WN PUBLISHERS1iiJ._ works he has viewed. For Infante to refer more thoroughly ' and not concede to to a so-called \"mysterious Max Mambru\" generational preferences, or any other r 1CROWN PUBLISHERS, Inc., Dept. 760 is more than an oversight. ... except the truth. Those of us from a younger generation learned about a magi- I I34 Engelhard Ave., Avenel, N.J. 07001 El Super, a play written by Ivan Acosta cal Havana thanks to Infantes' masterful IPlease send me THE PARAMOUNT STORY. I and staged at the off-off Broadway Cuban Three Trapped TIgers, and I look forward Cultural Center in 1977, was not discov- to his next novel and not articles of this I enclose my check or money order for $35 plus ered by Orlando Jimenez-Leal as Infante sort. I$2.75 postage and handling charge. If I wish, I wrongly states. Leon Ichaso and I went to see the play on opening night, at the insis- - MANuEL ARCE I may return the book within ten days for fuli refund. tence of an actor friend who had a role in it Producer, Max Mambru Films, New lVrk, N. Y. II Name II (Reynaldo Medina, \"Pancho;' to those familiar with the film), and because we had G. CABRERA INFANTE replies: It has been I Address I just founded Max Mambru and were anx- a long-time honoredpolicy with me not to iously looking for a property to develop. answer any criticism to what Ipublish, be I City State Zip I We both liked the play and immediately it by reviewers or by readers. I always L ..... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -II NY. and N.J. residents, add sales tax.I struck a deal with Acosta. Several weeks save my writing for a more rewarding later, Leal went to see it at Ichaso's insis- purpose-as I did trying to unify all the tance, for Leon wanted Orlando to be the different factions of Cuban filmmakers in director of photography. Leal's initial reac- exile. ~ tion was not enthusiastic. After three months of work on the screenplay, Ichaso and I made substantial changes. We 79

Quiz #15: 0, Rambo In QUIZ #15 you are asked to compile se.(The Seven) SAMURAI: Chiaki, Inaba, mount, United Artists, Warners. (Return Kato, Kimura , Mifune , Mi yaguchi. of the) SECAUCUS (Seven): Arnott, the longest list you can of one-word movie (Seven) SWEETHEARTS: Grayson, Cous(t)ineau, MacDonald , Passanante, titles ending in 0 (so, Rambo but not The Moran, Morris , Parker, Raeburn, Rafferty. Renzi, Trott. The missing units from Story of0). The winner gets a free year of (Seven) DAYS (in May): Monday, Tues- these groups were: Bancroft, Avarice, FILM COMMENT. Send all entries by day, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sun- Shimura, Hunt, Friday, Universal, and October 14 to FILM COMMENT Quiz day. (Seven Major) STUDIOS (as of Lefevre, whose initial letters spelled # 15, 140 West 65th Street, New York, 1977): Columbia, Fox, MGM , Para- BASHFUL, the \"one shy\" in the Seven N .Y. 10023 . Our thanks to Robert C. Dwarfs . Cumbow for proposing this quiz, and MP A BA N I C;O LEREM N T good luck to all submitters. This was, we figured, a tough puzzle. RAEB U R NOG T I 5SC: 0 \" We were gratified by the quality and quan- For QUIZ #14 you were asked to dis- tity of the response, and properly chas- AS E C A UCUS H V RJ Q T A tised to be informed that \"Coustineau:' cover in a word-search grid seven groups of one of the actors in Return of the seven (one generic word, six units), then B s u e H Ii 0 S Z lJ N E I) U Ii I ) Secaucus Seven , was in fact \"Cousineau\". to determine the missing unit in each A special nod to reader Scott Evans, of group and to find , by anagramming the x:N A R O M F. L K R E NN E {j S Newport News , Va., for spotting the cast initial letters of those seven words, the of The Magnificent Seven hiding among \"one shy\" in another group of seven. The ON E T N I S I C S 0 R A (j I E the unused spaces. Anyway, the winner- groups consisted of six film titles and one drawn at random by guest blindfolded li st of Holl ywoo d studios. (Seven) SAN \"'\" D LA N 0 I) CA M R E U picker Richard Schickel-is Cage Ames of WOMEN: Dunnock, Field, Lee, Lyo n, New York City, who gets a free year of the Robson, Leighton. (The 1962 French B NZQVA U E NA S WR A L(j) magazine. And congrats to all you smart film Seven Capital Sins, or Sept) entrants.-R.C. PECHES (Capitaux): Colere, Orgeuil, O T I NG H N AN Y NOU YR N Envie, Luxu re , Gourmandise, Pares- REKR A P FUU I MSOSUU C C Y A D SEN D E WL GO B O E E A ... T R 0 \"I' \"'\" E Y A I) NO M U I DF DOEXEON R W L C A I A NE MOWT N EF UA A. O R L R U R C ' \" Ii E R 0 L M ... C L A NU STM E R UXU L I L I U P N M I Y AGUC H1 AKI HM O Y A DR U T A @T U D I OS BR R S T S I TR A DE T I NU l B B S Y A @L E: I FE SS E R A I' CONTRIBUTORS chell is TV critic for the Los Angeles PHOTO CREDITS Donald Bogle's Brown Sugar, a history Herald Examiner. Marcia Pally is a of black wo men entertainers , is being New York writer. Frank Segers reports ABC Motion Pictures: p. 17 . Black Filmma- developed at PBS. Peter Grilli is Direc- for Variety from Chicago. An attorney, ker Foundation: p. 40 . Courtesy of Donald tor of Film and Communications at Japan Lois P. Sheinfeld teaches First Amend- Bogle: p. 31, 32, 33, 34. Columbia Pictures: Society. J. Hoberman is a Village Voice ment law in the department of journalism p. 14, 76. Renee Furst: p. 6. Japan National film critic. Richard T. Jameson writes at NYU. David Thomson's Suspects Tourist Organization : p. 2. Courtesy of on film for the reader in Seattle. Steve was recently published by Alfred A. Harlan Kennedy: p. 8. MGM /UA: p. 18 (2), Lawson is the literary manager of the Knopf. Jim Verniere is a freelance writer 19 . Orion Classics: p. 28. The Schecter Williamstown Theatre Festival and has based in New York. Michael Walsh Company: p. 39. By Mark Shapiro: p. 69,70. written for St. Elsewhere. Marc Man- writes on classical music for Time maga- Showtime: p. 62, 66. Sygma Greenwich: p. cini is at work on a book that will teach zine. Armond White writes for City Sun 48,57,59,60. Twentieth Century Fox: p. 13 French through feature films . Elvis Mit- and the Village Voice. (1), 15, 18 (1) . Universal Television: p . 63, 64, 65. Warne r Bros.: p.16, 49, 50, 56. By Nancy Wong: p. 23, 24. By Dick Zimmer- man : p . 13 (2). MOVIE FILMS IN REVIEW o MAGICK ~ STAR If you like movies, you 'll love Films in .~ THEATRE ~ Review. $16.00 a year. Sample copy I\\) 0 PHOTOS $1 .00. Dept. B, Box 589, New York ~ ~ 10021 I\\) Send $3 plus 50t postage per copy payable to One of the world's largest collections of film III personality photOgraphs, with emphasis on rare ca ndids and Eu ropean material. Send a ::::E Raymond F. Young ~. S.A.S.E. with wane-list to: I'l P.O. Box 0446 , Baldwin . NY 11510·0129 QI Milton T. Moore, Jr. IT'S RTS FOR ATTENTION SCREENWRITERSI Detailed Dept. Fe SOUNDTRACKS & VIDEO MOVIES! filmscript evaluations. Excellent advice and P.O. Box 140280 1,000,000 inven10ry. Rarellimited edition soundtracks, follow-up service for every script. Screen- Dallas, Texas 75214-0280 and largest selection in video (from \"G\" to \" X\", and at writers also needed to submit articles about lowest prices!). Soundtrack catalog : $1 OR Video cat- screenwriting and related trauma. We pay. alolt-$1 . RlS, Dept. 23A, Box 1829, Novato, CA Model screenplay and syllabus/guide avail- 94948. Phone: (415) 883-2179. Soundtrack Value· able. Write GPI, Box 67, Manchaca, TX 78652 guide: $5.50. 80