VOLUME 23 - NUMBER 01 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1987

serving promotional films. Not so with • Secrets of Magic. Want to know how • Space Patrol. This Saturday morning MacKenzie's, which are practical, orga- balls levitate, doves disappear, and ma- space opera was one of the very first at- nized (with periodic recaps of informa- tempts at live, coast-to-coast network tion), and diverting in their own right. gicians saw women in half? In this soon- TV. The actor-delivered commercials One criticism that seems applicable to are a howl. many other quality videos: certain se- to-be-released video, a magician-sur- quences slag this video's pace and would rounded by guards to supposedly protect • Fox-Movietone Newsreels. Probably have probably been edited out were it him from his angry peers-tells all. nothing documents the first half of the not for the \"required\" 6O-minute run- Brought to you by the guy who invented 20th century better than this series, con- ning time. the pet rock. Honest. veniently repackaged into two half- hour decades and narrated by Lowell • The Compleat Beatles. A compilation • Havoc VI. Racing cars and motorcy- Thomas. of both familiar and rare footage, this one cles crash, one after the other. The pro- has the structure, perspective, and schol- ducer assures buyers that there will be • The Bell Science Series. One of the arly fondness that make it the most de- more crashes per minute than in versions earliest attempts to popularize science finitive among dozens of attempts to I to V. for youngsters, this series was directed document the career of the Fab Four. by Frank Capra. • Video Bingo. Bingo is bad enough. • Mousercise. There are a surprising Calling the bingo numbers is even • Life Is Worth Living. It's hard to be- number of exercise tapes for children- worse. This video is nothing but profes- lieve, but Milton Berle was almost de- some improbably aimed at \"super ba- sionals calling bingo numbers. You lose throned on Tuesday nights by the glib, bies\"-but none does it better than this again. pixyish lectures of New York Archbish- lively Disney product. • Video Cycling Tours. Pedal your way op Fulton J. Sheen. Here are six of his • You Can Win! This tightly construct- through Yellowstone or Maui on your ed video, though a bit cartoonish and stationary bike. best. simplistic in its approach, employs dra- matic vignettes and energetic pacing to • Lumia Lights. One catalogue de- • The T.A.M.I. Concert. What MTV present its theories of \"negotiating for scribes it this way: \"Through the defrac- would have looked like in 1965. Chuck power, love, and money.\" tion oflight, California artist John Beard Berry, Marvin Gaye, Gerry and the creates a continuous, sensual flow of Pacemakers, Jan and Dean, Smokey • Contact French. Though CBs-Fox prism-bright colors and imagery across a Robinson, The Supremes, The Rolling Video can' t figure out whether this high- velvet-black background.\" Psychedelic, Stones, etc. ly professional 10-hour series should be man. priced for home or educational use, Con- • The House That Jack Built. The tact French-featuring Professor Jean • Faces of Death. The unspoken suc- Avengers was one ofTV's most memora- Rassias of60 Minutes fame-is the most cess of home video. Animal slaughters, ble, tongue-in-cheek series. This 1966 entertaining and effective language in- executions, murders-all real. Change episode, in which Steed rescues Mrs. structional program ever made. Honor- of pace from Video Aquarium. Peel from a mechanical house, may have able mention goes to the amusing Sur- been its most inventive. vival Spanish. • Video Aquarium. Pretend (as Steve Martin did in The Lonely Guy) the face • The Best of John Belushi. This hour- MONDO VIDEO: of your TV tube is the front of an aquar- long homage to Killer Bees, Blues Broth- ium. Also available: Video Fireplace, ers, and Samurai Chefs is at once sad, People are buying strange, sometimes which turns a famous metaphor into an nostalgic, and hilarious. MCA reputedly disquieting tapes in their neighborhood electronic artifact. Boy, what McLuhan spent an unmatched $1 million to pro- video stores. Below are some of the more would have made of this.... mote this one. unusual ones. GOLDEN OLDIES: VIDEOS YOU'LL • The Fishing Series. No one expected NEVER SEE: surface lures, buzz baits, and feeding Until home video began to repackage habits of bass to lend themselves to ex- them, most of these titles seemed • Video Pets: AT&T's witty radio spot citing video presentation. They don't. doomed to the oblivion of studio attics. satirizes the eccentric bends ofspecial in- But backed by the marketing clout of Unexpectedly, for better or worse, terest videos. Ideal for the apartment 3M, this series has been widely distribut- they're back. owner, this fictive video allows you to ed. bring non-smelling, non-shedding, non- • Jon Gnagy-Leam to Draw. The art- fouling pets into your home. • Wrestlemania II. Early TV knew that ist with the beatnik beard shows you the histrionics of \"professional\" wres- how to sketch Canadian geese, a grist • The Stealth Bomber Tape: This video tling had a loopy appeal, one redisco- mill, a fishing dock, an ocean liner, and really does exist. I spotted it on a major vered by the USA and ESPN cable net- all those other kitchy things of the Fif- government official's desk a few years works. This tape, though, is the ultimate ties. Perfect gift for David Lynch. ago. When I asked if I could see it, he carnival, ending in a bloody mess that responded, tongue firmly in cheek: seems distressingly genuine. • Victory at Sea. The best of that defini- \"Trouble is, the pictures on that tape are tive World War II documentary con- invisible to VCR's.... \" ~ densed into 98 dramatic minutes. 49

ether Britain? ARoom With aView. Room for a British cinema? his recent U. K. departure to head Colum- bia Pictures. In recent times the standard Lee has given way to Jake Eberts, return- British doomsday question, \"What hap- pens to the country when North Sea Oil By Harlan Kennedy ing to helm the company he ran in its runs out?\" has found a movie-world coun- Chariots/Gandhi heyday. terpart in \"What happens to the British I s there life after British Film Year? film industry when David Puttnam and/or Eight months have passed since that Today, Goldcrest is little more than a Dickie Attenborough run out?\" Well one giant year-long rallying cry to U.K. sales and distribution company, and its re- possibility, according to The Irreverent (of moviedom ended, when cash, publicity turn to active filmmaking, alas, depended which I only hope someday to belong) is and runaway optimism were mobilized to too much on the solid boxoffice perfor- that the country might begin again to mance of The Mission, given the mantle make good movies. The Puttnam-Atten- borough Cinema of Moral Uplift may transform the British film scene. Called on of restoring credibility with investors. Sir have won Oscars and influenced inves- were everything from roadshows to school Richard Attenborough hopes that Gold- tors, but it seems depressingly remote fare in a country whose present-day problems study-packs on Great British Movies, to crest can participate in the financing of his have little to do with interbella Olympic runners or bald Indian Gurus (irreverent vows to clean up old cinemas and build next project, Tom Paine, rolling in enough?). Britain today is more exercised new ones. Now that the dust has cleared, 1988-after the performance of Biko- by a raging North-South divide, a fair amount of ethnic tension, and all the diffi- the landscape seems scarcely changed Asking for Trouble, a Goldcrest-Univer- culties attending an unemployment-rid- den land forced into leisure when it would from what it was before. British cinerna- sal-Marble Arch production due out later rather have labor. and for that matter British culture in gen- this year. It's all the more refreshing to see the success, at home and abroad, of the small- eral-has always tended to indulge in Other internationally ambitious British budget Lener To Brezhnev, Mona Lisa, and My Beautiful Laundrene: films fired brief symbolic hiccups of reformation and companies in recent years have been in the kiln of modern British experience. Thanks to these films and the more Arca- activity and then to sit down again ex- Handmade, Virgin, Hemdale, and Enig- dian but scarcely more mega-budget or in- ternationalist A Room With A View, the hausted while things regress to normal. ma. The first has the bottomless coffers of country's cinema's most unyieldingly Brit- ish movies are becoming their most global \"Normal,\" for British film means being its chairman, ex-Beatie George Harrison, performers. trapped in that perennial interface be- to draw from, with which it funded brave Despite the collapse of the Big British picture, and the passage of four years tween nationalism and intemationalism. . follies like Brazil and outright fiascos like since the country last won a Best Film Os- car, there are signs that U. K. screen enter- Should the country make big-scale movies Shanghai Surprise. Virgin is the celluloid tainment is becoming more, not less, ex- portable. Last year's £164 million foreign full ofintemational (i.e. American) appeal arm of the mega-profit British record gi- earnings by British film and TV companies was a 44 percent increase on 1984, and which can leap the Atlantic at a single ant. It too has had its fingers burnt in re- 1986 looks no less healthy. In the wake of the disastrous big-budget attempts to go bound? Or should it make smaller indig- cent months, notably by Absolute Begin- international with films like Revolution, the export success of homegrown TV se- enous films hammered out in the smithy ners which it co-funded with Goldcrest. ries and films made by Britons about Brit- ain suggests that when nation speaks unto of its own society and culture? On my right After losses of £2.4 million in the 18 nation, it does so better with its own voice Chariots Of Fire, Gandhi, Revolution, months up to July 31, 1986, Virgin an- than with a ventriloquist's. and The Mission. On my left My Beauti- nounced a moratorium on movie produc- So it's no surprise, in a climate where smaller is currently better, to find the Brit- ful Laundrene, A Room With A View, tion and retired, like Goldcrest, to sales, ish production scene comprised mainly of a bewildering mass of oddball and semi- Lener To Brezhnev, and Mona Lisa. distribution, and pick-up deals. midget companies. Many have been born At present the internationalist side of Hemdale, founded in 1967, and a rela- the argument is in spectacular abeyance. tive veteran, is healthier. The company is The main production company speaking busy buying the U.S. rights to major inde- up for it in recent years has been Goldcrest pendent U. K. movies, including Defense which brought you Chariots Of Fire and Of The Realm and Peter Greenaway's Gandhi, bu t then brough t you Revolution new In The Belly OfThe Architect. Hem- and Absolute Beginners. Now they're dale has also financed The Terminator, At racked by financial difficulties and man- Close Range, and Salvador in the U.S. agerial upheavals. Once Britain's only and currently has a $7 million stake in Ber- mega-budget (by British standards) movie nardo Bertolucci's $21 million The Last outfit, Goldcrest sustained losses of £20 Emperor shooting in the People's Repub- million in 1985, thanks to the Hugh Hud- lic of China. son and Julien Temple pics. Since tllen, As for Enigma, its superstar chief is still Goldcrest's ousted chief executive James none other than David Puttnam, despite 50

out of a union between the film industry the first six months of 1986 only 15 films to lunch a year hence, or 24 months if he and the commercial TV companies. Ze- nith (Insignificance, Sid And Nancy) is went before the cameras in British studios, preferred , to review their respective posi- the feature film arm of Central Television. The older Euston Films came out of representing a £42 million investment. tions. Implication , from one depayse parry Thames TV. And the big Norrhem TV company, Granada, is about to launch a (Compare 28 films and a £109 million in- to another: he would be out of a job before filmmaking offshoot, Granada Intema- tional. Meanwhile, Zenith has joined vestment for the first half of 1985). But in they would. Or prime minister-which- forces with two lively production compa- nies, Palace and British Screen, to create the third quarrer of the year the figures ever. The Sales Company. Object: to cut out sales-agent commissions and thereby dra- leaped into overdrive, with 16 new films This exchange is merely a light shone at matically reduce deal-making costs. budgeted at £92 million. a different, cruder angle on the same po- But the outstanding performer among TV-created film companies is still Channel The determined doomsayer will then larity we came in on: nationalism versus 4. Their movie program, designed to give their best pictures a high-profile exposure point out that ten of these 16 films were internationalism. Puttnam's view of Can- in theaters before their first TV showings, has put directors Neil Jordan (Angel), Pe- American-financed (and at$1.42 to the £1 non is that they will turn Britain into a ter Greenaway (The Draughtsman's Con- tract), Michael Radford (Another Time at press time , the investment is starring to crank operation for faceless \"commercial\" Another Place), and Chris Bernard (Letter to Brezhnev) on the international arr- look Third World). The big question for movies that would be able to be exporred house map. British Cinema watchers is, \"What is a anywhere in the world-if they were com- By contrast BBC-TV, which can call on an awesome roster of filmmaking talent, is British film?\" The illustrious Brit director petent. A high contrast, no doubt, to Saint prevented from entering the feature film scene by its own in-house red tape. John Boorman recently said that not one of David's strict fidelity in the past to British Though most of the BBC full-length dra- mas are now made on celluloid and are his dozen-odd films-up to and including culture, themes, and casts. To wit, Span- 'films' by any other name, the BBC can't show them in cinemas due to longstand- The Emerald Forest-had been funded iards and South Americans fighting it out ing staff and union agreements. Recently BBC has been trying to break the dead- by British money. His new film , Hope in The Mission, American drug smugglers lock by negotiating a foreign sales-only deal. And Glory , ironically has $3 million from in Turkish jails in Midnight Express , The British film industry has had some David Puttnam's Columbia. With the de- French hussars played by American actors success in re-igniting moviegoing interest at home. The trough of 55 million U. K. mise, actual and threatened respectively, in The Duellists . ... etc. cinema attendances of two years ago re- covered in 1985 to 70 million, and final of u.K. filmmaking giants Thorn-EMI Of course, this laying down the law, by 1986 figures appear as strong. But the fig- ures must be treated with caution. Recent and Goldcrest, Britain's dependence on whatever parry, as to what should or government legislation dealt the industry a double blow by the abolition of capital American (or international jet set, anyway) shouldn't be parr of British film culture is a allowances and the Eady Levy (a tax on cinema seats redistributed to producers); dollars is likely to grow not shrink. ludicrous procedure at best of times. No Parliament also dismantled the ministerial machinery for recording cinema-going country confident of its identity would statistics. With the Trade Deparrment bowing out of that operation, it has been Showing rare caution for such a bucca- give a tinker's cuss about what kind of taken on by private firms, resulting in neering outfit, Cannon Films has not films it \"should\" be making. It would just greater or lower dependability, according to speculation. yet leaped into production in the U.K. make films. Likewise, no country confi- Like the weather, the film industry in with the same vigor as exhibition, with 60 dent of its ability to entenain audiences Britain is ever-changable and fre- quently appalling; thus the good news, percent of all British cinemas. Aparr from a would subscribe to such bizarre notions as when it comes along, seems as precious as the two or three sunny days that Britishers lone international blockbuster at Cannon the government's \"obligation\" to supporr are allowed each summer. The industry's vicissitudes can't be better illustrated th~n Ellstree Studios (Superman IV), the only the film industry. by this year's production figures: During major production stir they've made this Byear has been to starr a \"first directors\" ut confidence is exactly what British cinema today doesn' t have in sackfuls. scheme: launching three young film- makers on their debut features . The first It overreacts wildly to every new govern- of these movies , Lezli-An Barrett's Busi- ment move to disengage itself from subsi- ness As Usual, went before the cameras in dizing the industry (notably in the 1985 November. Films Bill which threw out the Eady Levy Brightening up the trade papers in late and the National Film Finance Corpora- '86 was a slanging match between David tion , a centralized funding body). And it Puttnam and the Cannon cousins, Mena- cries up every incipient crisis or misfor- hem Golan and Yoran Globus, which crys- tune. Currently the headlines are howling talized all the old fatuities of U. K. cultural about the Cannon Group's rumored finan- sectarianism. From his Hollywood eyrie, cial troubles, including losses of$14.5 mil- the Coca-Columbia Kid fired a salvo at the lion for the third quarrer of 1986. Go-Go Boys, accusing them (roughly) of It's not that some reaction isn' t under- being fly-by-night adventurers and exploi- standable in a country that now has less tationists. Their appeal to lowest-com- state subsidy or incentive than almost any mon-denominator audience tastes, sug- comparable Western country, except of gested Puttnam, would not go down well course Goliath. It's that no one is grap- in dear old Blighty, and they'd be out of pling with the hypothesis that maybe Britain within the twelve-month. \"The cinema, unlike roads, welfare, or the worst disaster ever to hit us\" , said David of armed services ought to be an area of life Cannon's swallowing of the Thorn-EMI that supports itself. And maybe a more ac- empire at the end of 1985 and the subse- tive response by filmmakers to modem quent addition of an appreciable stake in Britain and its needs and aspirations-a British distribution and exhibition. Not to response already beginning with My mention Elstree Studios, home of Star Beautiful Laundrette, Mona Lisa and Wars and sequels. Co.-will catch all those vanishing filrn- The loose Cannons promptly penned goers with the siren of truth, beauty, and an open letter to Saint David inviting him the British way. ~ 51

The 1986 Movie Revue: I Oscar'Tout Sheet' na of middlebrow seriousness,\" as Rafe by Anne Thompson Blasi, head of marketing for Alive Films, notes, \"but Paul Newman and Kathleen As with horse races, so with Oscar Turner are so popular that they give them races: it's a lot harder to handicap a the bit of class the movies need.\" weak field . Because the pickin's were slim in 1986, the choices are many. Roland Joffe's ambitious jungle epic, \"It's a wide open race,\" says Academy ex- The Mission, may have put the critics to pert Lloyd Leipzig. \"Nothing has sleep, but the film appears to be solid with popped out like Amadeus, Out ofAfrica, the Academy. It is as perfect an Academy or Terms of Endearment, where you movie as A Room With a View but on a could smell the possibility of a sweep.\" more lavish, star-heavy scale. In the tradi- tion of Gandhi and Passage to India, The The 1985 lineup was infiltrated by a Mission is \"big, literary, and academic,\" more diverse group of independent films, says industry savant Stuart Byron, \"which notably Kiss of the Spider Woman and is Hollywood's idea of a good film.\" The Trip to Bountiful. Although the inde- pendents continue to make serious mov- Although the hit Stand By Me is well- ies as the studios increasingly neglect loved in Hollywood, it lacks both stars and them, any bona fide contender for the stature and thus has to be regarded as a Best Picture Oscar must still fit the tradi- long shot in this category. Don't look for it tional criteria of the Academy's middle- to break out like the 1979 Breaking Away. aged, middle-brow membership. The PR agency biggie Bruce Feldman says film must be prestigious, high-minded, \"Stand By Me is seen as too modest an ef- and at least moderately successful. And, fort. It's just not a big enough picture.\" critics or no critics, a small film has little hope ofclaiming a nomination without the Two prestigious play adaptations have a Academy's kind of stat Spider Woman , shot at a Best Picture nomination: Chil- Bountiful, and before them Tender Mer- dren ofa Lesser God, the classic fall pres- cies and Atlantic City all starred actors tige adult film-\"It's a contender,\" says who had previously won or been nomi- 20th Century-Fox publicity director John nated for Oscars. DiSemeo, \"but it doesn't seem to have heat\"-and another respectful Broadway Best Picture import, Crimes of the Heart. \"It is not a major critic's movie,\" says Blasi, but it T his is the category where the support may slip under the radar on the strength of of the critics matters most. Unless its Oscar-winning star trio Diane Keaton, they are perceived strictly as art films, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek. movies that reach a national critical con- sensus usually receive Best Picture or Best Several Academy hopefuls won't make Director nominations. Oscar-winner An- it to the Best Picture Category because the nie Hall was ranked first- by the critics in critics simply didn't like them and the au- 1977; Terms of Endearment was their top diences stayed home. Forget The Mos- choice in 1983; and The Killing Fields and quito Coast, That's Life, Extremities, and Amadeus were numbers one and two in Nothing in Common. 1984. According to Jim Chiesa and George Tait, compilers of a consensus list of the Sure Shots: Hannah and Her Sisters, national film critics' Top Ten choices A Room with a View, The Color ofMon- since 1974, 27 out of the last 30 Best Pic- ey, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Mission. ture Oscar nominees have ranked in the Long Shots: Platoon, Stand By Me, critics' top seven. The three that didn't were year-end limited releases that . ofthe Heart, Children ofa Lesser opened wide the following year. Best Actor Several 1986 critics' favorites likely to gain any Academy nom ' very once in a while,\" says Byron, David Lynch's Blue Velvet \"Hollywood is so determined to Cox's Sid & Nancy are too al and unpleasant for the p the Oscar-be it John Wayne or Henry Fonda in On Gold- it doesn't matter what the They want to give Paul New- \" Newman is unanimously 52

Kathleen Turner. considered the man to beat for Best Actor. a Lesser God. Aliens' genre status may Paul Newman. Sissy Spacek. He's been nominated six times and has not be a stumbling block for Weaver, who William Hurt. Jessica lange. never won. \"Many people think New- was the National Assn. of Theater Own- Harrison Ford. Marlee Matlin. man should have got it for The Verdict,\" ers' star of the year though her other two Signourney Weaver. says Warner Bros. publicity executive Rob recent films were barely released. Blasi Friedman. It looks like Newman's year. agrees: \"Weaver is a class actress in an accessible film.\" And for months, Para- William Hurt is also a shoo-in for his mount has anchored its Children of a sensitive performance in Children of a Lesser God campaign around luminous Lesser God. And two stars of art films deaf actress Matlin. She's as sure a have a shot at nominations. Bertrand Ta- shot as the handicapped Harold Russell vernier's 'Round Midnight may not be (The Best Years of Our Lives) was back boffo at the boxoffice but thanks to Warner Bros.' effective campaIgn for in 1946. Academy votes in New York and Los An- Industry people concur that at least one geles, musician Dexter Gordon should receive this year's Haing S. Ngor prize ofthe Crimes ofthe Heart actresses will be for nonpareil non-actor. And Leipzig is nominated, and most agree that it will positive that Cockney star Bob Hoskins probably be Sissy Spacek, who nosed out will ride the momentum from his N.Y Turner in the New York critics voting. and L.A. critics' prizes and get a nomina- Keaton and Lange have their chances as tion for his performance in Island's Mona Lisa: \"If he isn't nominated I'll tum in well. The Academy has consistently re- my card.\" warded these actresses: \"If Spacek got a nomination for The River,\" says Blasi, The Mosquito Coast has suffered from \"there's no reason she won't for Crimes of bad reviews, but the acting branch could the Heart.\" Lange was nominated two still reward Harrison Ford for his bravery years running for boxoffice duds Country in a difficult role. Blake Edwards' low- and Sweet Dreams, but Keaton hasn't re- budget home movie That's Life was a na- ceived a nod in five years, since Reds. tional flop, but did well in N .Y and L.A., Crimes of the Heart's overall momentum and, says Leipzig: \"Jack Lemmon is a will determine whether it's one, two, or perpetual favorite.\" So is Michael Caine, three nominations in this category. Be- the star in a supporting role as Mia Far- sides, they won't have Meryl Streep to row's philandering husband in Hannah worry about. The winner of six nomina- and Her Sisters. Orion is campaigning for Caine in the Best Actor category; he could tions in the last eight years, she won't get wind up in either slot. one for Heartburn. Although everyone agrees that The Fly Julie Andrews stands a good chance ofa is too uggy for most elderly Academy nomination for her performances either in members even to watch, let alone reward , husband Edwards' That's Life or Andrei JeffGoldblum stands an outside chance of Konchalovsky's follow-up to Runaway becoming the first actor since Fredric Train, Duet for One. It helps that in both March in 1932's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde films she plays a woman under a death to win an Oscar for a horror role. The late- sentence. And Farrah Fawcett has been year entry Hoosiers, a basketball drama, campaigning hard for a take-me-seriously could earn Academy favorite Gene Hack- nomination for Extremities. The Acade- man another nomination. \"He's popu- my loves it when a beautiful actress allows lar,\" says Blasi. \"People love him, and herself to be beaten up on-screen. he's a wonderful actor.\" Finally, critical kudos could help nudge James Woods' Sure Shots: Turner, Spacek, Lange, virtuoso performance in Salvador toward Matlin. Long Shots: Weaver, Keaton, nomination. Besides, points out ,DiSe- Andrews, Fawcett. meo, \"It's on videocassette.\" Best Supporting Actor Michael Caine. Sure Shots: Newman, Hurt. Long Dexter Gordon. Shots: Ford, Caine, Gordon, Hoskins, I na year with a dearth ofobvious Acade- Lemmon, Goldblum, Hackman, Woods. my-caliber scene-chewing supporting- actor performances, he who garners the Best Actress most publicity wins, which makes the crit- ics and Golden Globe awards critical in Kathleen Turner, long denied an Oscar this category. nomination, is the year's only shoo-in actress. Leipzig sees three strong candi- The actor mentioned most often is dates for this category: Turner for Peggy Dennis Hopper, the cleaned-up rene- Sue Got Married, Sigourney Weaver for gade, because, says Byron, \"Hollywood Aliens, and Marlee Matlin for Children of loves a comeback. They probably don't like Blue Velvet, but in the absence of a solid winner they'll go with the sentiment of a reformed druggie comeback.\" The 53

obvious solution to the Blue Velvet prob- Beautiful Laundrette. With momentum Academy acting branch sees Mona Lisa, lem is to give Hopper the nomination for for View, his co-star Denholm Elliott also Cathy Tyson, who was nominated by the Hoosiers instead. \"Hopper has longev- has a good chance. Other possibilities: London film critics, may have a chance. ity,\" remarks Feldman. \"It seems to be Ray McAnally in The Mission, Victor his season.\" Love in Native Son, Barry Miller in Peggy Industry folks don't think that Bette Sue Got Married. And Nothing in Com- Midler, star of the hit comedies Down Danny DeVito may be top-billed in the mon's Jackie Gleason may win what in- and Out in Beverly Hills and Ruthless hit comedy Ruthless People, but \"if dustry analyst Len Klady calls \"this year's People, will rate a nomination this year. you're not a leading-man type,\" says By- Don Ameche vote. \" Unlike DeVito, she is a star lead, but com- ron, \"then you're supporting. You have to edy roles don't equal Oscar nominations. playa title role like Gandhi or Marty be- Sure Shots: Hopper, DeVito. Long fore they'll consider you for best actor.\" Shots: Cruise, Miller, McNally, Phoe- Sure Shots: Mastrantonio, Wiest. Because Hollywood likes Ruthless People nix, Day Lewis, Elliott, Love, Gleason. Long Shots: Farrow, Hershey, Smith, and DeVito is a star who was not cited ear- Harper, Harris, Midler, Tyson, Winfrey. lier for Terms of Endearment, Romanc- ing the Stone, or Jewel of the Nile, he Best Supporting Actress Best Director could very well be nominated. Although Orion has been lobbying for Writers and directors are most likely to Writer Lawrence O'Toole thinks Hannah And Her Sisters' Mia Far- reward off-beat talent whom the rest young hearth rob Tom Cruise, star of Top row, Barbara Hershey, and Dianne Wiest of the Academy won't touch. It's possible Gun, the year's highest-grossing movie, for Best Actress, they should wind up in that Oliver Stone might be nominated for has a chance for a supporting nod for The the supporting category. Only Wiest is a writing and directing two of the year's Color of Money . \"The actors may give shoo-in, but in a weak category the others most exciting films , Salvador and Pla- the young hunk a chance,\" OToole says. have excellent prospects. Another sure toon. Here too, maverick David Lynch Again, momentum for The Color ofMon- shot is The Color ofMoney's Mary Eliza- has an outside chance of a nomination, as ey would make a difference here. Two beth Mastrantonio. Other frequently well as 'Round Midnighfs Bertrand Ta- new faces of 1986, River Phoenix and mentioned candidates: Peggy Sue's mom vemier. Among the best picture candi- Daniel Day Lewis, could eam supporting Barbara Harris; Crimes ofthe Hearts yap- dates, Woody Allen, James Ivory, and actor nods. Phoenix received good notices ping Tess Harper; Academy perennial Martin Scorsese are shoo-ins, while Fran- for his work in both Stand By Me and The Maggie Smith for A Room With a View; cis Coppola, Bruce Beresford, Roland Mosquito Coast. The New York critics and Native Son's Oprah Winfrey. Few Joffe, and Randa Haines look like outsid- cited Lewis, and that could help him win a seem to feel that Blue Velvet's Isabella ers. Haines (Children of a Lesser God) Rossellini or Laura Oem have much like- would be the first American woman ever nomination, probably for his role in A lihood of being named. If enough of the to be nominated for an Oscar; Lina Wert- Room with a View rather than for My Summer '87: June 22-August 14 Do you want to make films or sit in a classroom? If you want to make films, our intensive. interdisciplinary 8-week summer session is for you. Refine your craft while earning an M.FA in Filmmaking. A working filmmaker will be your advisor. while all the other artists-photographers. sculptors. composers. writers. and painters will be your responsive audience. Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at PARD For a descriptive brochure and application write: Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. Bard College. Bax FA Annandale-an-Hudson. NY 12504 Or call: 914-758-6822. x183 - FINANCIAL AID AVAILABLE - 54

muller was nominated for Seven Beauties DON'T READ THIS. .. MOVIE in 1976. unless you want videocassettes you STAR - can afford! Rob Reiner of Stand By Me is given PHOTOS Our used videocassettes are in excellent good odds to win a nomination. \"If Reiner condition, and $39.95 is our HIGHEST One of the world's larges t collections of film doesn't get a director's nod, something's price! Enclose SASE with your want list personality photographs, with emphasis on wrong,\" says Rob Friedman. We' ll all find for a prompt reply, or simply send for rare cand ids and European material. Send a out who's right and who's wrong on Feb- S.A.S.E. with wa nt-list to : ruary 11, when the Academy wakes Amer- Dour FREE information: ica up with its first East Coast Breakfast- Peng\\lin Milton T. Moore, Jr. time announcement of the finalists. Good homeVideo Dept. Fe morning, Oscar. 86 Tomlinson Road, P.O. Box 140280 Sure Shots: Allen, Scorsese, Ivory. Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006. Dallas, Texas 752 14-0280 Long Shots: Lynch, Tavernier, Cop- pola, Beresford, Haines, Joffe, Reiner, Stone. ~ PROFESSIONAL FILM BOOKS! by Film Professionals FILM DIRECTORS FILM SCHEDULING/FILM AComplete Guide '86 BUDGETING WORKBOOK Michael Singer, Ed. Ralph S. Singleton FOURTH ANNUAL Companion to \"Film Scheduling\". ~\\\\f.~ INTERNATIONAL EDITION Contains the entire screenplay to Francis Coppola's Academy Award nominated Ii \"\" 1600 DIREC TORS-DOMESTIC THE CONVERSATION as well as O.U'H LSll'iGlflO\" & FOREIGN sample production and budget form s to be completed by the reader. \"\" Birthdate, Place, Year, Addresses, Agents ALL SHEETS PERFORATED. \"\" Full length features, telefilms ISBN 0-943728-07-X 296 pp. $15.95 \"\" Alphabetical cross-reference of MOVIE PRODUCTION & 15,000 films BUDGET FORMS ... INSTANTLY! \"\" Index of Directors \"\" Interviews & Photos of Michael $39.95 Ralph S. Singleton Apted, Martin Brest, Joe Da nte, etc. ISBN 0-943728-16-9 8'12\" X 11\" Cloth 486 pp. FILM SCHEDULING This book plus one photocopier equals rm;~8\"(L\\O~N Or, How Long Willlt Take every production and b udget form -~-,. ..... .....c....\"..__ To Shoot Your Movie? needed to make a full length feature CAli .. -.. ~ o r teleplay. Completely redesigned and Ralph S. Singleton integrated forms th at are 81/2 \"x 11 \" format-easy to tear out and use again The complete step-by-step gu ide to and again. professional motion picture sc heduling, detailing how to create a production ALL SHEETSPERFORATED board, shot-by-sho t, d ay-by-day. Complete production board of THE ISBN 0-943728-14-2 136 pp. $15.95 CONVERSATION in colo r. YES! Please send me the following books: CALIF. FC :86 TAX ISBN 0-943728-11 -8 224 pp. $16.95 QTY. BOOK PRICE SHIPPING Recommended for college courses. 2.60 UPS _ _ _ FILM DIRECTORS '86 39.95 1.10 5.00 $ - - - 1.04 _ _ _ FILM SCHEDULING 16.95 2.50 $ - - - 2.50 $ - - - _ _ _ FILM SCHEDULING/BUDGETING WKBK. 15.95 ~LONE ~>_ E .........9 LE - _ _ MOVIE PRODUCTION & BUDGET YOUR SOURCf FOR PROFESSIONAL ALM BOOKS FORMS.. .INSTANTLY! 15.95 1.04 2.50 $ - - - . SHIP BOOKS TO: TOTAL ENCLOSED $ _ - - Name/Company _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ , Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ LONE EAGLE PUBLISHING 9903 Santa Monica Blvd. LONE EAGLE PUBLISHING : City State _ _ Zip _ _ _ __ Beverly Hills, CA 90212 9903 Santa Monica Blvd. 213/471-8066 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 : 0 Please bill my credit card . 0 M/C 0 Visa Call for faster service 213/471-8066 : Account No. Exp. Date _ _ : Signature ss

The 1986 Movie Revue: II NewFacesof 1986 by Lawrence O'Toole easy and good grace, and without a hint of nessing a gruesome traffic accident and condescension. being unable to look away. The Company T hey' re stunning, riveting, absolute- ofWolves was more an art director's show- ly astounding, and every other su- In the underrated and underseen Man- piece. A protege ofJohn Boorman, Jordan perlative Judith Crist carries hunter, Allen essayed the lady-in-distress has moved with Mona Lisa into the big around in her purse. They're the new role, held captive to the last by the killer, a leagues with his fast, nasty, and heart- faces-new blood-and people immedi- creepy Viking maniac. It wasn't until after breaking variation on the theme of beauty ately begin fantasizing roles and careers for a few scenes that you realized there was and the beast. And while we're at it, a nod something odd about the character: to the most imperious tart to ever show up them . In 1980, it was Debra Winger in Ur- Christ, she was blind! Allen made sure on the screen-Mona Lisa herself, ban Cowboy; the year after that, Kathleen you cared about her first. You did. And we Turner showed up in Body Heat. There do. We care a whole lot about Joan Allen. Cathy Tyson. was Dianne Wiest in Independence Day, You bet we do. Brian Kerwin. In that soft-core geria- Tom Cruise in Risky Business, Mel Gib- son as Mad Max; Molly Ringwald in Tem- Roberto Benigni is not one to be held tric porno Murphy's Romance, in which pest, Rob Reiner behind the camera in up in Down by Law. In Jim Jarmusch's James Gamer and Sally Field play bingo Spinal Tap , Bill Forsyth behind his cam- and try to keep the butter in their mouths era with Gregory's Girl. That's just a latest paean to losers who manage to do from melting, Kerwin shows up like a quite well for themselves, Benigni played breath of foul air as Field's wayward ex- small sampling. Oh, look at them now. an Italian tourist thrown into the clink husband. What an endearing portrait of a This year's a bumper crop. Herewith along with John Lurie and Tom Waits for leering, lying, cheating good-for-nothing. flinging an eight-ball back at a man who When he accompanies Gamer, Field, and some meditations on the top of the list. accused him of cheating at cards, killing their son to the local bijou to see a cheap But before that, let's mention those peo- him. Well, he was cheating but that horror movie, the other three walk out in ple who didn't quite make it to the list: didn' t put a crimp in his Italianate logic for disgust while Kerwin remains, transfixed, Martha Plimpton, grown out of the Goon- revenge. Benigni has the aspect of a true like a kid. Now he can be seen opposite ies and into the pubescent femme fatalism clown. His gait suggests that walking is an the emperor of apes in King Kong Lives. of The Mosquito Coast; Elizabeth Per- activity he will never quite master. His Don' t scoff: another blonde, Jessica kins in the otherwise noxious About Last flyaway hair seems surprised to be on his Lange, got off to a good start playing oppo- Night; Stephen Frears' directing of My head , and he has the dolorous face of a su- site The Big One. They all laughed then , Beautiful Laundrette; ditto for Oliver perannuated Gerber Baby. In Benigni's Stone's work on Salvador (but not Pla- mouth , language confusion has seldom too . toon , proving even a new face can do with been more poetic or funnier. I scream, you a lift); director Bill Sherwood and his star scream, we all scream for heem. Daniel Day Lewis. It doesn' t hurt to of Parting Glances, Steve Buscemi; much of what Julien Temple had to offer in Ab- Laura Oem. No one is about to wrest show up in twO acclaimed movies released solute Beginners; Alexandra Pigg and Al- within nanoseconds of each other in two fred Molina in A Letter to Brezhnev, the Junior Miss crown (at least in the Sex- wildly different roles. But it takes talent to showing Madonna and Rosanna Arquette ual Awakening Competition) from the make good on the luck. As the supercil- a thing or twO; and, rather redundantly I daughter of Diane Ladd and Bruce Oem. ious Cecil, Helena Bonham Carter's be- suppose, Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dun- She has her mother's expressive almond trothed in A Room with a View, Lewis dee. eyes and about a quarter of her father's in- brought empathy to a character who on tensity, which is quite enough. This tall the face of it could have been a stock ped- Alot of Brits, you might notice. May drink of lemonade followed up her lovely ant, and conveyed poor stuffy Cecil's tor- they all go far and be happy, especial- performance as the blind girl in Mask with ment over being misunderstood. He trad- ly the following crowd, a baker's dozen : a more restless and smoldering one in ed in his slicked-back hair, carefully Smooth Talk as Connie, the disaffected pressed suits, and spectacles for looser, Joan Allen was one of Kathleen Turn- 15-year-old studying for a diploma in sul- up-to-the-minute duds, and a mat of yel- er's best friends in Peggy Sue Got Mar- triness. She gets more than she bargains low hair to play Johnny, the reckless and ried, slightly gawky and giggly, and the for in Blue Velvet as well, doing a deadpan tender lover of the Pakistani hero, Gordon and satiric take on the same role for David Warnecke, in My Beautiful Laundrette. unofficial treasurer of the girls' common Lynch, delivering what has become the The physical transformation was astonish- sense. If she had had a heart murmur and most famous monologue on robins in the ing; the emotional one, no less so. was given an all-expense paid trip back to history of movies. her own past, she wouldn't have changed Ray Liotta. Where did Jonathan a damn thing; the character had decided Neil Jordan is winner of the best new her modest destiny early in life and then Demme find him? Liotta, as Melanie got on with it, settling down with her high- director of the year award hands down. Griffith's ex-con ex-boyfriend, is literally school sweetheart and the two-and-a-half The Irishman's muscle and music in the big surprise in Something Wild, kids she always wanted, thank you very Mona Lisa comes as no surprise to the Demme's nightmare screwball comedy- much. Allen, realizing that there are in- palmful of people who caught his debut to use the last word as loosely as it ever deed people like that, played her with an during its five-day run in this country. gets. Ray, playing mad dog Ray Sinclair, is Watching Danny Boy (called Angel over- the kind of guy you wouldn't smile at for seas), the final days in the final spree of a fear of losing limb or life-a vicious sadist crazed, modem Irish rebel was like wit- with killer baby blues-and yet both 56

and the character are such smooth- at this point, all we need to know. Surely ies they're charismatic. Liotta has a well- Webb's voice-a drugged-out Betty oiled, swaggering sexuality that seems to Walker's screechy enough to make a Ma- seep from every pore; he's anybody's rine's hair curl-is just waiting to be ex- worst possible fantasy-and dangerously ploited. A Junior Miss version of Baby irresistible. Next role, please. Jane? These two really proved that love means never having to say you're sorry. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. If River Phoenix. Kid thesps are prob- there's a God, Mastrantonio and Liotta will team up for the next Last Tango. lematic: you never know if they're truly Holding her own with Paul Newman and touched by the gift or simply toting around towering over Tom Cruise as Cruise's bags of charm which, of course, we all moll, Carmen, in The Color of Money , know that they' ll eventually eat up and Mastrantonio projects street-smarts and have absolutely none left later in life. vulnerability with equal ease. She made Phoenix, of Stand By Me and The Mos- an impression as AI Pacino's sister in Scar- quito Coast, more than promises to live up face but was much too wired in a movie to his name. As that dangerous cliche, the wired up way too much. Carmen gives her sensitive kid from the wrong side of the the chance to settle into a character who tracks (Chris in Stand By Me), the little tries to be a lot older and wiser than she guy is in there digging and scratching, real- thinks she is. She looks like a dirty dream ly working at getting at character. Boys Fra Angelico might have had. Imagine, all back then may not have talked like Chris that talent and all that hair to go with it, or been able to articulate themselves like too . he does; but they sure as hell felt the way Chris does, and that's what Phoenix sends Ray McAnally proves it's never too out, vibrating, from the screen. The labor never shows, any more than it does in his late to become a new face. As Altamirano, performance as Harrison Ford's resource- the papal envoy sent as a mere formality to ful but withdrawn son in The Mosquito decide the hapless face of the Jesuits in Coast. To say he's a natural would be to The Mission , the task of narrating the completely underestimate his gifts. complicated story falls to this little-known middle-aged Irish actor. McAnally's voice Mike, the Dog. The last time a dog keeps fighting the rhetoric in Robert Bolt's script and, miraculously, keeps the made any impression in the movies was film hanging together. As a portrait of a Clint Eastwood's bulldog in Sudden Im- man who sells his soul for the sake of his pact; his major contribution was a very church, McAnally's has yet to be bettered. loud fart while Clint walked him. With his His best work-such as his ashamed, eva- black-and-white Art Deco markings, sive turns of the head and eyes that reflect Mike the Dog, suggestive of a canine Kay both the joy and injustice they see-is, Francis, playing Matisse in Down and like the best of the film, silent. It's called subtlety, and you have to work hard for Out in Beverly Hills, is a classier act. A re- years to get it right. turn to a missed tradition, the mutt as Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. comedy's best friend, Mike recalls the venerable Asta and the brilliant Mr. Smith Will they become the Tracy and Hepburn from The Awful Truth. You can throw of the late Eighties? Not bloody likely, but Benji a ball into the middle of the high- you never know, either. Certainly they way, but Mike is going places. 'Consider get lots of marks for being such a bad boy the restraint with which he refuses to be and girl. Because their transformations walked over by the Whiteman family- into Sid & Nancy, or at least our physical and the pooch psychiatrist they hire to memory of them, hit the vein, it's hard to plumb his morose disposition. Consider tell what else they can do. Who knows? the brilliant career he has ahead of him: Maybe it was Sid's dog collar that the dear- For the Love of Mike, Pat and Mike (co- ly departed's mum gave Oldman as an act- starring a willing poodle), Mike's Murder, ing rabbit's foot that accounted for such a and so on. Another set of paws for Grau- sizzling performance. Sizzling they were, the both of them. That is all we know and, man's. ®

The 1986 Movie Revue: III B'NAI BRISS, OR: WHY WON'T THEY HIRE JEWISH ACTORS TO PLAY Jack Nicholson as Carl Bernstein and Meryl Streep as Nora Ephron in Heartburn; Blythe Danner and Judith Ivey in Brighton Beach Memoirs THE EMPIRE STRIKES WE EXPORT ARMS TO IRAN; WE EXPORT KIM BASINGER TO EUROPE Lucasfilm Ltd. flops with 91/2 Weeks was a big European hit, Labyrinth ($27 million) and as were The Mission and The Name ofthe Rose Howard the Duck ($50 million) THEY STILL PAY HIM A MILLION A WEEK; FORCLINT ... MUST BE THAT BEAUTY MARK ON HIS CHEEK (Heartbreak Ridge) Robert DeNiro's films since The Deer Hunter: Raging BulL, The King ofComedy, Falling in Love, Once Upon a Time in America, Brazil, The Mission RICHARD CORLISS STEPHEN HARVEY ANNE THOMPSON 1. The Fly (alphabetical order) (alphabetical order) 2. The Sacrifice 3. Kaos BLue VeLvet BLue VeLvet 4. ShadowLands (BBC Wales) The Color of Money The Fly 5. The CoLor of Money Kaos Hannah and Her Sisters 6. Peggy Sue Got Ma\"ied Mona Lisa Menage 7. BLiss Peggy Sue Got Married My BeautifuL Laundrette 8. True Stories A Room With a View A Room With a View 9. No Surrender 'Round Midnight SaLvador 10. Dancing in the Dark/Heanburn That's Life! Sid & Nancy Vagabond Something Wild ex aequo: the direction of Platoon; the Summer screenplay of My Beautiful Laundrette 58

PROVING P.T. BARNUM WAS RIGHT JOINT WINNER OF THE BETTY FORD Paramount Pictures had nothing but hits in AND NANCY REAGAN the second half of 1986. And the hits were: REHAB AWARDS Dennis Hopper Top Gun, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, (Blue Velvet, Hoosiers, River's Edge, \"Crocodile\" Dundee\"A~~ The Golden Child, Texas Chain Saw Massacre ';':\" \"~ Star Trek IV: ,- Voyage Home SMART STUDIO TO PARKING LOT ROCK AND A HARD PLACE Warners summer and fall films: Cobra, Club Paradise, One Crazy Summer, A Man and a Woman 20 Years Later, Ratboy, Pop superstars hit silver screen and red ink: 'Round Midnight, Knights and Emeralds, David Bowie (Absolute Beginners, Labyrinth) Deadly Friends, True Stories, - - I iSting (The Bride, Plenty, Bring On the Night) ___T..h.e.M_iss.i.on.,.T..h.e.M_os.q.U.it.o.C.o.as.t_ _. ._ _ _ Prince (Under the Cherry Moon) ~adon (Shanghai IS THAT AN ASPARAGUS STALK Surprise) OR ARE YOU JUST GLAD TO SEE ME? To promote Stuarr Gordon's film From Beyond, THE COLORIZATION OF MONEY Empire Pictures sent critics a red plastic visor As a protest against the cultural atrocity with a four-inch plastic \"pineal gland\" attached. known as Colorization, FILM COMMENT will continue to publish all photos, even those The accompanying press release read: \"Fun Facts & from color films, .in arristic black-and-white ~yths about the Pineal Gland (or Your Friend, the Third Eye! The Gland of the '80s!) ... 17th century French philosopher Rene Descarres believed that the pineal gland ... enabled man to see the devil; he was wrong-we think.... Other scientists maintained until. recently that the pineal gland influenced sexual function; it took years of exhaustive research to prove them wrong.... ~ad Doctor Edward Pretorius' invention, the 'resonator,' stimulates the pineal gland and causes it to protrude and take on a personality of its own-much like your official Beyond Pineal Gland Visor. ... Wear it anywhere: . LET'S GO OUT AND WIN THIS WAR ... the ballpark, poker games, parries, the shower (it's waterproofl). If you don't instantly feel different, MICHAEL CIMINO. . . . .. AND MTV contact us at Empire Pictures and we'll arrange for (Platoon) (Top Gun) your own personal visit into The Beyond!\" _ _ _ _ _...~--~-- -S.H. & R.C. LAWRENCE O'TOOLE: ELLIOTT STEIN HARLAN JACOBSON Alexandria . .. Why? (alphabetical order) C igar: Blue Velvet The Color of Money La Corte de Faraon Color of Money Down By Law Dona Herlinda and Her Son Down by Law Kaos Aliens Manhunter Elegy to Violence Mona Lisa L'Hirondelie et la mesange Good, but no cigar: Salvador The Legend ofthe Suram Fortress Something Wild My. Beautiful Laundrette My Beautiful Laundrette Stand By Me No Surrender Salvador Pigs and Battleships Standby Me Salvador Betty Blue Tokyo Drifter Decline of the American Empire Sruck in Dubuq ue: Back to School S hame!: The Morning After 59

(Continuedfrom page 20) true. I was literally with warriors. Barnes ways moving, trying to give tenseness to Huntertoo, but as big, mythic movies, not was Achilles, a truly great warrior, Elias the situation. The movie is always on top really authentic. They didn't catch the was Hector, and I was with them in an- of you, going on now. PLatoon, we pulled war-not the mood, or the look, or the ac- other world. What I wanted to convey to back more, stylistically. It's more period, tmil war geography, which is very impor- tant. They jam bodies into a frame, to fill Charlie was my sense of innocence that 1967. We didn't shoot right on top of you. the frame , masses of enemies. But that's changes as the movie develops. That's the Although we still did a lot of hand-held, very, very wrong. Perspectives are very key to the movie. there's more dolly work, and more crane important when you fight. You don't see work. We also had a little more time. the enemy that clearly. The hardest thing to get on paper was the character of Elias. I loved this guy. He I hate those clean-up war movies. Did you hoLd back at all in Platoon? was a free spirit, a Jimmy Morrison in the Nothing is real. Scorsese, Coppola, and There's a good taste factor that comes bush. Handsome.... he was our god. He Friedkin in the early Seventies tried to into play. You don't want a head blowing was killed in a very freak accident. How break out of that mold; and Altman, too, apart because it turns offa certain segment do you capture that spirit of someone who was great-his playing with perspectives of the audience. I'm aware of that. I want was mythic when you were a younger boy? in NashvilLe was an eye-opener. Those re- women and children to see the movie. So I think we got some of that spirit, but it alistic modes influenced an entire genera- you don't show the violence as it actually was hard. tion. happened. You pull back. You try to do it in a reserved fashion. That's the mode That movie is very close to Midnight Their credo might be the same as yours: right now. It's not like Arabal's Viva La Express, insofar as it deals with a young Show the ugly . .. Muerte. In Platoon, I think the power of man and with innocence. Whereas SaLva- suggestion is strong. It does the work for dor deals with an older man who is unre- Yes, but. .. show the good! There's a you. I've learned that now. deemed-unredeemabLe-although we great line I agree with that I read some- tried to redeem him. Pauline Kael pointed where. Renoir, I think, said, \"If it's not to What happened to your pLatoon? How that out in herreview. It's not just about El the greater glory of man, don't make many are still alive? Salvador, it's about salvation. SaLvador it. ...\" I remember seeing Reds after Oh, I don't know. I have no idea. I tried means to save. It's about saving Richa(d making The Hand-in which I was trying to get in touch with them when I was Boyle, that's what she said. And she's cor- to show the horror and disintegration of a working with Cimino, and only found rect-it's really not just about saving Sal- man, but ultimately you don't win with five; three had died, two I went and saw. vador but about how really hard it is to find that kind of movie. I remember seeing We were all shipped in at different times salvation in this world. Richard tries to con Reds and thinking, \"Goddamit, that man as replacement troops. It was not like the Maria into marrying him, he becomes a [Warren. Beatty] is right ... \" I don't care old war movies. I arrived in September of good guy and even goes to church; but it's how much money he spent, he went out 1967 and when I left in January of 1968, not so easy-the Archbishop gets shot; and did something that he believed in and out of the original 120 men in the compa- then, when he finally gets her out of the cared about. You have to make films as an ny, I recognized maybe ten faces. Some of country, she gets arrested and gets sent idealist. You've got to make them to the them were dead; some of them were back. Always, Richard is being disap- greater glory of mankind. Then, even if wounded; some had been shipped back or pointed, defeated. It isn't easy. That's the you fail, even if the film doesn't work, you replaced . But the company got pretty bad- point of the movie. The country is do not have to be ashamed, because you ly beaten up from September of '67 to Jan- damned. tried ... But if you try something that's uary '68. I was wounded twice. PLatoon small and negative and you fail, then covers that period; I took characters from Do you see any conflict in directing you're really in deep shit. four different units and telescoped them. your own scripts? Are you still a \"cause freak\"? What were the probLems in writing or I don't see any conflict. I see it as a natu- Oh yes. But you have to keep people casting your aLter ego? ral progression, to take it from writing to off balance. Keep dancing. I might sur- directing. Sometimes, as a director, I prise you. I might tum around and do a It was like fate. When Charlie Sheen think you need another writer; it would be comedy with all women. A remake of The walked into the room, in ten seconds I helpful to have a second voice. But the Women! [Laughs.] knew he was the one who was going to do wrirerand the director are really two differ- My style is going to change. I might go that role. The eyes, the look, the mood, ent people, two different parts of the self back to a very low-budget film, like Salva- the feeling, the face-it was just right. The director is more the host, the emcee; dor. I still have that in my blood. I'm dy- There was a rightness about him. Itflows. the writer is the quieter side, the intro- ing to do something about Nicaragua. I When Charlie walked in, it flowed. spective side, the miserable, depressed, was very interested in South Africa .... and lonely side. Writing's probably the but it's breaking as we speak. The largest I had long discussions with Charlie. I hardest of the two because it requires cause perhaps is American/Soviet rela- tried to get back to that quality of distance more loneliness and isolation and that's tions, which I could try to assess, maybe that I had when I was in Nam. I wanted to harder to put up with. Directing is more improve. If films can help-I have only convey the fear I felt in the jungles for the arduous physically, but mentally, writing very small hopes that films can help the first time. And I wanted to convey to is harder. It requires concentrated thought political climate. Charlie what the two sergeants in control over a long period of time. But I don't see I've grown with each of my films. This meant to me. To me-Sergeant Elias, them in conflict. They go hand in hand. is only my fourth movie-two of them ad- played by William DaFoe, and Sergeant mittedly were learning experiences. None Barnes, played by Tom Berenger-they StyListically, Salvador and Platoon run of them has been a waste of time for me. were gods. I was thrown into a war, just a counter to the gLossiness and form of That's important. I've educated myself kid from New York, and suddenly every- Hollywood war rrwvies. I've gotten better. I've learned more thing I had read in Homer was coming about my craft. I'm just aqhe beginning of In SaLvador, the style extends the ur- a road. I'm learning how to make movies. ~ gency of the character. The camera is al- 60

-_N_EW YORK ZOETROP_E_d.b-dl;.. THE BEST IN FILM & ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS INTERNATIONAL FILM GUIDE 1987 INTERNATIONAL MUSIC & OPERA Peter Cowie , ed . Now in its 24th edition. GUIDE 1987. Catriona Hall , ed. the world's most respected film annual The eleventh edition of this annual is now includes a special \" Dossie r\" on essential reading for anyone who loves Canada, tributes to the Locarno and San classical music and opera, both live and Francisco Festivals , plus the usual recorded. Includes informative reports medley of reports from 59 countries. from 19 countries, reviews of new \"The best ongoing inventory of the compact discs and LPs from several world 's film industry. \" LA Times . labels and an indispensable guide to the 504pp Illustrated. Paper $14 .95 best music and opera festivals , schools, shops and competitions. 224 pp. Illustrated. Paper $12.95. WERNER HERZOG. Images at the Horizon. A provocative interview wi th this important contemporary filmmaker , con- ducted by critic Roger Ebert. Fil mography. Illustrated. Paper $4 .50. LOUISE BROOKS: PORTRAIT OF AN INTERNATIONAL TV & VIDEO GUIDE THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG. ANTI·STAR. Roland Jaccard , ed . 1987. Richard Paterson , ed. The fifth Max Wilk. The stories behind the Translated by Gideon Y. Schein . updated edition features reports, data words and music of two generations, Louise Brooks - the legendary actress and statistics from 49 nations for featuring a lively collection of who rebelled against the idolatry of anyone interested in television or the reminiscences from many of the Hollywood to preserve her in· communication arts. Provides a special songwriters who shaped our musical dependence and individuality. Illustrated focus on the successful Doctor Who heritage - Irving Berlin , Jerome Kern , with over 90 photographs , this is a series, current sections on TV and video Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Fields, tribute to a woman , Loui se Brooks ; a schools, books, magazines, festivals Johnny Mercer and many more. film. Lulu: a director, GW. Pabst; and to and fairs . 294 pp. Illustrated. Cloth $24.95. an era of German Expressionism . 256 pp. Illustrated. Paper $13.95. Brooks' own luc id reflections give new insight to the woman behind the myth. WIM WENDERS. Jan Dawson. A Essays by Lotte H. Ei sner, Roland Jac· revealing interview with a director who card, and Jean·Michel Palmier shed ad· has become a major force on the inter- ditional light on this fascinating, woman . national film scene. Includes a selection Includes filmography. Illustrated. Paper, of Wender's own writings on topics from 160pp . $19.95. film criticism to Rock 'n' Roll. Filmography Illustrated . Paper $5 .00 . ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TELEVISION: SERIES, PILOTS AND SPECIALS. - --- - - - -- - - -- -- -- - - - - - -- - - -- - ... ---- -- -- Vincent Terrace. This three volume collection is the essential reference Hello Zoetrope: work on television programming from 1937-1984. All your favorite shows are [J Send me the following books . I've IJ Also please send me your free included; primetime, latenight and enclosed the proper amount plus catalogue . daytime. Each entry covers plot $1.50 for postage and handling ($200 synopsis, cast, guest stars, full credits, for cloth & orders of 5 or more NAME ______________________ air dates and much more. Volume III is books) Or call 1-800-C HAPLIN (in NY ADDRESS ___________________ a complete Index to Volumes I & II ; a 212·420-0590). Visa & Mastercard ac· mammoth \"Who's Who\" in TV, listing cepted Thanks. ________________ ZIP _______ thousands of actors, directors, producers and writers, as well as their Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery lifetime credits. Fully cross-referenced. NY residents must add 8 ';:' % sa les Vol. I 480 pp. Cloth $29.95; Vol. II ta x. 464 pp Cloth $29.95; Vol. III 662 pp. Cloth $39.95, NEW YORK ZOETROPE 838 Broadwa y Dept. MP Special Offer New York. NY 10003 $74.95 When you order the complete set! 61

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ASalute to Klassik Klassix Year-and-a-Half Anniversary Eighteen Months of Quality Entertainment July 1985-January 1987 63

LASSIK Klassix by Mike Wilkins Timmel's start, too, is legendary. \"I nesses, if assets are non-performing, was trying everyone in the book, and you write them off.\" and Jack Barth no one was returning my calls. Same old story, right? But one day, I start Timmel was the first American to .,.. he view from Avi Timmel's of- ending my calls with, 'If ya don't phone shoot in the Philippines. \"Costs were ... : fice at Klassik Films is pure Hol- me, ya bone me.' That line spread like so low for my Filipino productions like wildfire. Important people started callin' Satan's Stewardesses and Monsters • Iywood. To the right is the me just to hear me say goodbye.\" vs. Candystripers that I could pre-sell famous platter-shaped Capitol Rec- five times over. And when my cast saw ords building, and just across the street That led to Timmel's big break, his how beautiful the islands were, many is Alan Hale's Fish Keg restaurant. brief association with the Kaplan decided to stay, saving me a fortune in Somewhere out there is the fabled Group. The result was his first feature return travel .\" HOLLYWOOD sign. It has been a long film, Angels With Dirty Minds (1971), climb to the third floor for Klassik Films a she-biker film starring Candy Hamill, ~ ther firsts include making and re- and Timmel, its effervescent founder. a Feintisch alumna. \" I got taken, natch, ....• leasing a film and its sequel at the You see as much of Hollywood in his but I said to myself, 'I got a talentfor this same time, to monopolize drive-in dou- eyes as you do from his window. In a business.' \" ble bills. He also led the pack to the town rite with fly-by-night operators, world down under, snapping up U.S. Klassik Films has endured. And pros- This realization spurred the creation, rights to Aussie films, most recently his pered. Here in Lotusland, where the art in 1972, of Classic Films. The spelling \"rap\" remake, Breakin ' Morant. of compromise usually compromises of the company name was changed a art, Timmel and Klassik have adhered year later after an expensive name :. n 1973, due to a language mix-up, to a simple guiding philosophy: Make infringement suit filed by Classics Il- ~Timmel was deported from Manila money. lustrated comic books. The two com- and forced to shoot his films else- panies have since mended their where. His productions soon spanned When he graduated from a law differences and plan a co-production of the globe, from Florida to South Amer- school on the GI Bill in 1961 , Timmel John Avi/dsen's Karamazov Kid, ica, and included such successes as had no idea he'd one day be running a based on the Classics Comic book. Twister-The Movie (based on the successful film company. His first job board game) and the popular \"Two was as traveling secretary for enter- \"\":\"~ he next several years were golden Horny Guys\" series. Unable to obtain tainment veteran Morty Feintisch's ~ ones for Klassik Films. Timmel quality lab processing in South Amer- \"SlutscapadeslWhores on Ice Com- swiftly gained market clout making and ica, Timmel endured for two years a bined Show.\" distributing titles such as Hippie Vam- grueling routine of commuting to Miami pire Starlets and Amazon Truckstop. and back in his private plane. In 1977, \"Morty was a great teacher, and Two business principles, says Timmel, due to a customs mix-up, Timmel was traveling the prison auditorium circuit helped him achieve his comfortable net abruptly forced to halt production on sharpened my instincts for what the operating margins: \"First, always hire Two Horny Guys Back in Bogota. average American likes,\" Timmel rec- non-traditional talent. Why pay union ollects. \"I learned you can catch more when you can get actresses for lunch Timmel spent the next six years in flies with shit than with vinegar or money down at the bus station? I also seclusion, fine-tuning his philosophy molasses. \" started volunteering one night a week and gathering creative kindling. These at the local suicide hot line. I'm proud to are years he speaks little of. He re- When the Feintisch show abruptly say that I talked a great many out-of- emerged with Klassik Klassix, import- disbanded in 1969, Timmel was work performers out of suicide and into ing films of excellence from around the stranded in Los Angeles with no job, no joining our Klassik family . . . for world and marketing them, Klassik- contacts, and no idea where his next peanuts. style. Begun in 1985, Klassix has now meal was coming from. \"I would state enjoyed 18 months of unparalleled under oath that I never saw Morty \"Second, I've always felt that in this success. We herein salute Avi Timmel again,\" he smiles. \"So, I decide, 'L.A. is business, people are your most impor- and Klassik Klassix. movies. I'm in L.A. Therefore, I will tant assets. And, like in other busi- make movies. ' \" 64

APortrait of Our Friend, Avi: Eye lor Talent Ear to the Ground Nose to the Grindstone Shoulder to the Wheel Mouth in the Gutter The X-Sell Dubbing Studio Featuring Mark Klionsky, \"The Man 011,000 Voices\" 622 Frontage Road, Pasadena ~our needs\" (We understand your needs) We Statement From the Founder by Avi Timmel . think the idea for Klassik Films get- : ting into the arty \"Klassix\" thing be- a• gan a lot earlier than just a year and a half ago. Ithink it all began back in '52, when I was a general in the Special Introducing Eddie Murray as Forces or something in the Pacific. I met The Brother From Another Parish. a lot of foreigners then, whatever. Myap- preciation of foreign culture was re- newed in the '70s when we were shoot- g you advertise with us\" ing in the Philippines and later in SOuth America with the \"Two Horny Guys\" se- ries. It all \"ads\" up! I always wished I could expose other Americans to what I'd been fortUnate enough to find on my own. Right after the \"Horny Guys\" films, I had a period of six Klassik Films years when I had a lot of time to think. There were plenty of \"important\" films + Klassix out there that their paisano owners couldn't get near this country. You could + Kulture pick them up for a couple pairs of blue jeans. An enormous opportunity for the + Kwality right kind of marketing professional. The rest, as they say, is history. Mr. + Kommitment and Miss MOviegoer have shown enough good taste to keep Klassik Klas- ± Kolar spread in Film Comment six going strong. Some of these films are not just arty but grab 'ya by the gazongas == Kritical Acceptance! too. And a few of these foreign chicks are really great-looking! But that's not the point, I remind yOI:J. Look at Bergman of 65

A/catraz, about this meshuganah killer I've inked famous directors to create The Klassik Library: who becomes a great filmmaker in pris- inexpensive personal films with great on. It did about 80 thou in its first week. name value. Wim Wenders came Angels With Dirty Minds (1971) There's only one broad in the whole film, through with London, Ontario, and my Hippie Vampire Starlets (1972) and she's ugly! man Paul Mazursky is doing his sensi- High School Galactica (1972) tive modem version of Oh Henry's Magi. Amazon Truckstop (1972) :~ lassy films are only the tip of my ice- ~ berg. I was creative consultant on The parent company, KJassik Films, is ~ in a WJmen's Prison (1972) The Mazerati Thief, a meaningful film going to get involved in more big-budget that is semi-autobiographical. It's about stuff, like Stained Glass (maybe Sinbus- Satan's Stewardesses (1973) this movie producer in postwar Italy. He's ters) starring Baltimore Oriole first base- Monsters vs. Candystripers (1973) really dipping his wick in the good life, till man Eddie Murray. He won't make any- Check My Oil, Baby (1973) someone fingers his Mazerati. Then he's body forget Chuck Connors, but my I'll Gouge Out 'tOur Eyes and Then I'll just another schmuck. The whole tsim- instincts tell me, \"Hey, this Black Per- mis about \"Let's examine material son combines the most marketable di- Rape Your Skull (1974) wealth.\" mensions of top comics Eddie Murphy I'll Pinch Off 'tOur Head and Then I'll and Bill Murray.\" It's about a bunch of Klassik Klassix is beginning to pro- nutty recruits at priest boot camp who Spit Down Your Neck (1974) duce special-marKet films as well as just have to save the Pope when he gets Billibongs 'n' Bazongas (Australia, picking them up. Iwant to make some TV kidnapped by the KGB. movies that confront the social issues of 1974) the day. I'm very proud of our Twelve An- As you can see, Klassik Films and G'Day, 'N'Die (Australia, 1974) gry w'men, about a rape trial where ev- Check My Brake Fluid (1974) ery night another member of this a11-girl now KJassik Klassix have the future Twister-The Movie (1975) jury gets raped by the man who's on trial, ahead of them. We've proven that quality Two Homy Guys (1975) but because they're so biased against and culture can be packaged and mar- Two Homy Guys in Bogota (1975) him, the guy gets acquitted on a techni- keted just as successfully as entertain- Two Homy Guys in Miami (1975) cality. You know, whose rights really ment. You've just got to know what the Two Homy Guys in Peru (1976) need protecting, blah, blah, blah. people want. As myoid roommate, No. Two Homy Guys in Fort Lauderdale 367758, used to say, \"If it's greasy, it goes in easy.\" (1976) Two Homy Guys Back in Bogota Mani la Hong Kong (1976) Morty Eng & Co. Dope Is for Dopes (1983, co-production with DEA) London, Ontario (Germany, 1985) Breakin' Morant (Australia, 1986) The Bergman of A/catraz (Sweden, 1986) The Mazerati Thief (BraziVGermany, 1987) Telex: MORTY FEIN Coming: \"WhIte Slavers For Industry and Recreation\" John Avildsen's Karamazov Kid Paul Mazursky's Magi Stained Glass (maybe Sinbusters) Twelve Angry W,men Investment opportunities From one \"Klassix\" to another: still available: Congratulations on your sesqui-. anniversary from PAUL MAZURSKY'S Classics Illustrated !7vl9L(jI Looking forward to our co-production of \\\\John Avildsen's Karamazov Kid\" Jack and Jill were in analysis and in love. and our first annual golf toumey, There was only one problem-Jack and The Classics/Klassik Klassix Classic Jill were gay. For Christmas, Jack had a sex-change operation. Whoops! So did Jill! A comedy of modem manners based on the classic Oh Henry story. 66

.-l1l11meIPrtsentJaKIJ5.slkKII\"iIPluenllllQn Congratulations, Gentleman Avi! \"\",fimllltl, \" ClulinCOni ullilnl\" Good Luck on Another 18 Months!! Hans, Italian movie produc~r, \"I'll Gouge Out Your Eye And Then I'll Rape Your Skull\" needs his red Mazerali 10 gel 10 work. -$6.8 million One day il is slo/en. \"A Iriumph of Rio-Nihilism\" \"I'll Pinch Off Your Head -Oer Speige/ Kalalog And Then I'll Spit Down Your Neck\" -$10.2 million IN WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION FROM YOUR FRIENDS MIKE WILKINS & JACK BARTH Telex: BUGRFLIX Ali Tim m~1 Plesenu a Kl ulit Kln$ll Pluenlation Av ITlmmel. \"Cre\" in Consulluf' He won his innocence. They lost Now Ihey're gOing 10 close Ihe loopholes . . . around his neck. Slarring Farrah (\"Charlie's Angels\") Fawcett ~, J4,d 7UHmd. (UI, a. 4«Ue4%«t ~ dat '~,\" ~(UQt ~~, ~ ad, 'l~. 'lM ~~, ~ t;Me dea~, 'l~ 'l~ <U ~, 7~ fkwf 'l~, Ut 7~ ~ U'Dffle#e, ~ 'J::~ 'J::~~. 67

ed'Emin Chicago Stuart Gordon. by Meredith Brody word of the movie-it escaped rather than Pauline Kael's first and last review of an was released-and at the peak of its popu- Empire picture, in the November 18, I n the fall of 1985 an audacious, com- larity had played only in about 250 the- 1985, New Yorker, Kael cited Gordon as pletely unheralded , unrated horror aters, and even those were of the second one of the founders of Chicago's Organic movie, Re-Animator, popped out of rank, the chains that will take unrated pic- Theatre in 1969. Gordon directed nearly nowhere and left its appalled and delight- tur~s . Gordon was unable to flack the film 40 plays there in 16 years, including his ed viewers reeling with questions: Who or bask in his sudden glory, because he Bleacher Bums, which not only ran for- was this Stuart Gordon? Where had he was in Rome shooting his second picture ever in Chicago but also achieved a re- gotten so smart? And was there more for Empire, Dolls, between Thanksgiv- spectable run in New York and ran seven where that came from? Nobody expected ing and Christmas. Then \"in true Corman years in Los Angeles. Another Gordon such self-aware wit from Empire Pictures, fashion,\" as Gordon says, he shot From original, EIR (for Emergency Room), ran a prolific schlock house that has lived by Beyond (based, like Re-Animator, on an for three years and inspired a Norman founder Charles Bands' credo: \"2000 pic- H . P. Lovecraft story) on the same old tures by the year 2000!\" Band has turned dark house set (redressed from American Lear sitcom. out pictures sausage-style, pre-sold to for- colonial to Victorian English style), in 40 In the late Sixties, Chicago was noted eign and videocassette markets, and made days, from February through April of at a price. But Re-Animator was a cut 1986. Within a year, Stuart Gordon had more for its Second City satire than as the above: gory, scary, and dependent on three movies in the can. hotbed for new theater that it is perceived shock effects, to be sure, but also cunning- to be now-after David Mamet's sojourn ly contrived, slyly funny, and astonish- So who was this Stuart Gordon, who at the Goodman Theater, and John Mal- ingly assured for what was a million dollar- was not a graduate of USC/UCLNNYU, kovich's tum at the SteppenwolfTheater, minus directorial debut. the hallowed halls of TV, or a member of and William Petersen's at the Remains. the Writer's Guild? Who had written A Gordon says that he was encouraged to There had been virtually no advance and B before he demanded to direct C? In start there by Paul Sills, then working at the Body Politic, who called him up and 68

said, \"There're two theaters down here looking va inl y for flesh would close down don). \"Peter Pan seemed very conven- now; if you start one, we can call it a scene!\" productions for building code violations, tional compared to some of the other stuff Gordon was born in Chicago, in 1946. and forced the Organic to move to five we had been doing-we had a lot of nudi- His father, an executive with Helene Curtis, died when he was 13, and his theaters in three weeks. When Paul Sills ty in the other productions and had never mother, who had been a social worker be- fore she got married, became a high school and Chicago beckoned, the Organic ' had any problems with it. That it was Pe- English teacher to support Stuart and his younger brother. His father had originally didn' t look back. . ter Pan really freaked people out; we even wanted to become an architect and so in- terested Gordon in art, which he majored Mter MaratlSade, Gordon recalls, \"I got nasty letters from J. M. Barrie's estate in at the legendary Lane Technical High School (he still has his letter sweater, wrote a play called The Gameshow, in London.\" Gordon was arrested for pub- which he says \"fits as long as I don't but- ton it\"). Mter graduation, Gordon worked which took MaratlSade to the next logical lic obscenity, and although the case was for six months at a commercial art studio, long enough to realize he didn't want \"to step. The audience was locked in the the- eventually dropped, the university told develop one particular style and spend the rest of my life doing that.\" So off he went ater and seeing a play that was kind of like him that he could only continue producing to the University of Wisconsin at Madi- son, three hours northwest, but, as Gor- Let's Make a Deal. Then audience mem- plays there ifhe submitted scripts to a fac- don says, \"a whole different world.\" bers were brought on stage as contestants, ulty review committee and allowed a fac- Gordon spent his first couple of years \"just taking general courses-things I and were beaten, raped, and even mur- ulty advisor to be present at all rehearsals. never thought I would have any use for, like anthropology. It turns out you always dered. I had plants in the audience, cho- Gordon refused , and left six credits shy of have use for them. Anthropologists will go into a village, study it and take photo- sen seemingly by chance; we had locks graduation-although he notes that graphs, and record dialects... . When I'm preparing or working on a play or a movie, and chains on the doors of the theater so they've now put him on the alumni list. I do the same thing. When we went into the bleachers at Wrigley Field, it was like that people would think they couldn't es- an anthropologist visiting this weird tribe of characters who have these weird rituals Gcape, but they were breakaway chains. ordon, Purdy, and a number of others that they perform-it was a community, followed him off campus and formed just the way the Ururumbu tribe was. We The first night, the audience got so did a lot of field trips working on Re-Ani- freaked out that they rioted and attacked the Organic Theater. Its first official pro- mator-hospital wards, morgues. None of it is wasted; it's the little details, those the actors. The show actually got pro- duction was Richard III, but they contin- things that are totally insignificant, that make something believable. \" duced a couple more times after that, but I ued to be harassed by the police, who, Ironically, he took a theater course be- didn't direct it. One critic said, This is the looking vainly for flesh, would close down cause he was turned away from the only film course. \"It was full, I couldn't get in, most exciting piece of theater that I've productions for building code violations and so I was looking for something else to do, and there was an acting class that was ever seen in my life, and it should be and forced the Organic to move to five open, and I took it, and it turned out to be one of the best classes I ever had. It was a closed immediately!' \" theaters in three weeks. When Paul Sills Stanislavski method acting class. One of the requirements was that you had to ap- His junior year summer, \"Like a junk- and Chicago beckoned, the Organic pear in a play-the play they were doing that semester was MaratlSade-and I got ie, we did four plays in two months. We didn' t look back. cast as a loony. I think I had two lines in the whole thing, but that play really did cine called Vis, which was an adapta- Sills (whose mother, Viola Spolin, was changed my life. I had always thought of theater as a bad movie.\" tion of Titus Andronicus. 'Vis' is Latin for an influential teacher of improvisational Gordon, Purdy, and a number of others violence or viscera-and in the play they theater) helped them find space in a followed him off campus and formed the Organic Theater. Its first official pro- rape a girl and cut off her tongue and her Methodist church. When he later moved duction was Richard, III, but they contin- ued to be harassed bv the police, who hands. We did this as an outdoor produc- to New York to start his Story Theater, the tion in a burned-out building, and we had Organic moved into the space he'd vacat- the whole audience sitting around a sort of ed and became the Organic Theater at the pit. We did it non-verbally, we set it in a Body Politic; they stayed for three years. sort ofpost-nuclear holocaust time, kind of \"The first play we did in Chicago was like cavemen, with grunts and groans, an adaptation of Animal Farm,\" recalls with all sorts of blood effects. . . .\" Gordon, \"which started out with sort of And \"We did a production of Who's an open space. During the course of the Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in a real apart- play, we started putting up walls between ment. We started it at two a.m., when it the actors and the audience made out of was supposed to be actually happening, camouflage netting. By the end of the play and the audience followed us around from you could hardly see the actors-they room to room, ending at six a.m. We did were imprisoned. We followed that with one play that was an adaptation of Hamlet the Odyssey, which was a non-verbal pro- that was done as a western. Instead of duction-I think there were three moving the sets, I moved the audience words spoken in the whole show. Then around, on these bleachers that were on we moved to the Body Politic and did rollers, from scene to scene, and in for an adaptation of Candide-Comedia close-ups, and back for long shots. This dell'arte, with a lot of clowning around- was a real ' exciting time-just-try-any- that we took to New York. \" thing time-and so I was shocked when \"The first two times we went to New we got into trouble with Peter Pan.\" York, we got killed. We did it atJoe Papp's Inspired by the 1968 Democratic Con- Public Theater, which he was just moving vention, during which Gordon had been into, in an unrenovated theater that was tear-gassed by Mayor Daley's police, the just a mess. We said, 'Let's just leave it as student company politicized their Peter it is' and hung a banner over the entrance Pan. Peter and the lost boys were hippies, that said, This is the Best of All Possible whose \"flying\" became metaphorical Worlds.' Chicago was considered to be drug trips, during which liquid light shows very unhip, and we were a bunch of hicks were projected on nude dancers (among from Chicago, and we came back after them Carolyn Purdy, later to marry Gor- having our asses kicked in New York and 69

From Beyond. lowed in 1974. One member of the com- pany was an expert fencer and designer of did a production called Poe, which was and Dolls) came in and redesigned the stage combat, and the Uptown wanted to about the life and writings of Edgar Allan costumes and sets. \"We took it to Broad- exploit his skills. \"We were reading all Poe. Actually, it was based on his mysteri- way and got killed. This was 1973, four ous disappearance for 48 hours just before years before Star Wars, and sci-fi was re- these revenge tragedies,\" Gordon says, they found him in a pauper's hospital, de- garded as junk. One guy started his review \"and we couldn't relate to them. Most of lirious, in someone else's clothes, with no with, 'I hate science fiction, I hate anyone them were about a woman losing her vir- identification; the mystery is what hap- who likes science fiction, and I hate this ginity and having to kill someone. Actual- pened to him. It was this delirious night- play.' ly, the boyfriend has to kill someone; the mare version of his life and writings mixed girl usually goes mad. We discovered that together, one turning into the other. It was \"It was an open-ended run, but we there were these two women pirates, our first attempt at horror.\" closed in about a week. We came back to Anne Bonney and Mary Reed, and based Chicago and had to find ourselves a new a story on their lives. The week before it After Poe, Gordon moved into science theater-since we were all going to be rich opened, Patty Hearst was kidnapped, and fiction with Wmp, Organic's first hit. In- and famous in New York, we let some- her story absolutely mirrored everything spired less by sci-fi movies than by Marvel body else take over our theater. We found that was happening in our play; people Comics, Warp featured a bank teller told the Uptown Center at Hull House, a won- started criticizing us for trying to make that he is really Lord Cumulus, Avenger derful theater but in one of the worst money out of Patty Hearst's misfortunes, of the Universe, and that only he can save neighborhoods in Chicago, Uptown, and but we'd written the story-about the the world. \"Actually, .the entire uni- people were afraid to go there. But we daughter of a governor of a Caribbean is- verse,\" Gordon corrects. \"He ends up go- moved there, and we lived there, and the land, kidnapped by pira,tes, who ultimate- ing into the fifth dimension, where it turns kids were born while we lived there-Su- ly becomes the leader of the pirates-be- out he has superhuman powers and gets zanne in '77, Jill in '82.\" fore any of that happened.\" involved in cosmic battles right there on stage. It was epic.\" In 1973 Gordon and the Uptown did an A great success, Bloody Bess was invit- adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Won- ed to play the Micjery Theater in Amster- Originally conceived of as a seven-play derful Ice Cream Suit. Bradbury came to dam as a guest of the Dutch government. cycle, Warp was done as a trilogy, \"in- see it, got up on stage at the end, disrobed, The show launched the troupe on its first creasingly grandiose, which is the way and put on the suit, saying it was the best European tour. \"It was like the Rolling comic books work-the villains get bigger production he'd ever seen. With that im- Stones, with lines around the block. Pi- and more powerful,\" Gordon says. The primatur, Gordon took it on a successful rates are to Europeans what cowboys are three original productions \"were put to- U.S. tour. to us, folk heroes, and Bloody Bess was gether literally with Scotch tape and perceived like Sergio Leone-someone string,\" and ran for over a year in Chicago. Bloody Bess, a quasi-feminist pirate else doing one of your stories. swashbuckler written by Gordon, Then artist Neal Adams (later to do Dennis Paoli, and John Ostrander fol- \"Then we came back and did The Ad- conceptual drawings for From Beyond ventures of Huckleberry Finn in two parts, two full plays,\" says Gordon. ''Twain wrote the book in two sections, put it aside for two years, and then came back to it. The first half of the book and the second are very different in tone, and though the characters are the same, the style of the two plays are very different. Like Warp, you had to come back a sec- ond time to see it. (We were in Uptown, and we were always trying to get the audi- ence used to coming up there!) We brought it to Europe the next year, '75, and then toured it through the U.S. for the Bicentennial. We wanted to take it down the Mississippi on the Delta Queen, a paddlewheeler, but never got it togeth- er.\" Gordon did get to direct a new pro- duction of it in January 1985, as a guest of the Goodman Theater in Chicago, right after he shot Re-Animator. T hen came Sexual Perversity in Chica- go, the first professional Equity pro- duction of a work by David Mamet. \"We actually helped put that play together- originally it was two scripts, which we combined into one. One was called Sexual Perversity, which was a series of blackout sketches that were various people in dif- 70

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

ferent locations all talking about sex, and it decide that they're going to switch with- house set that could do all kinds of tricks, had some wonderful dialogue, but there were no characters, really. And the other out the wives knowing. Two guys realize and set a lot of effects. In one scene, the one was called Danny Shapiro and His that they are the same size; they start girl walked up a staircase, her foot w~nt Search for the Mystery Princess, about a guy and a girl meeting and eventually wearing the same aftershave lotion, and so - through the step, and she laughed about it breaking up. We ended up putting the two plays together and using the dialogue forth. They have to explain in great detail ('How clumsy!'). When she pulled her from Sexual Perversity; we created the two friends and gave them the dialogue their lovemaking techniques to each oth- foot out, after what seems like just a few from this other play, with Mamet.\" er, so that they can duplicate them. We seconds, it was tom up and bloody with Gordon liked About Last Night, also did Uncle Oswald-it would make a big slivers stuck in it. We had two makeup though he says he would have liked to wonderful movie, too-and Mrs. Bixby guys concealed undemeath the stairs. It have directed the movie. \"It was true to the basic idea of the play . .. the conflict of and the Colonel's Coat. Dahl came with ended with her being completely de- fantasies: true love and living happily ever after fantasy versus 'Playboy, you're miss- Patricia Neal, and they loved it.\" stroyed, tom up, and eaten!\" ing out on all this great sex' fantasy. I would like to have seen more of Mamet in In 1977, Gordon and the Organic did Uptown went on to plunder film the movie; also it would have been stron- ger if they hadn't stuck a happy ending on Bleacher Bums, the snory of the long-suf- genres, doing a pomographic musical it. \" fering Chicago Cubs fans who camp out in called Fomicopia in 1980, and an adapta- Another success for the Organic-\"It was a kind of landmark for us\"-was the the cheap seats at Wrigley Field. The play tion of Raymond Chandler's The Little 1976 Cops, written by Terry Curtis Fox, then a theater cri tic for the Chicago Read- scored long runs at home and in both New Sister. In 1978, Uptown discovered the er who now credits Gordon with getting him to \"put up or shut up-if you know York and Los Angeles, and had TV pro- Buckingham movie theater on Clark what's wrong with what we do, why don't you wri te a play for us. \" So Cops was done duction. \"Bleacher Bums was the first Street, deserted since the Forties. The \"in realistic style,\" per Gordon. \"As the audience walked into the theater, there time the theater ever created a work with- troupe secured a group of angels to buy it . was this greasy spoon restaurant in full swing on the stage, cooking real eggs, with out a playwright in residence, using im- and a matching grant from the NEA to ren- people walking in and ordering food, and you smelled the coffee and the bacon. provisation as the thing,\" Gordon says. ovate it (most of which was done in secret Then the gunfight breaks out in about the middle of the play-we had all sorts of \"We went back to New York with Bleach- to avoid the endless political red tape gen- bullet squibs, and other movie effects- breakaway stuff that we had go flying off er Bums, and this time, the third time, erated by the Chicago Buildings Depart- the counter. The audience literally dove under the seats.\" Currently writing for was the charm-we got wonderful re- ment). They opened on a cold May day in Hill Street Blues, Fox is developing Cops with Stuart as a Tri-Star movie, to star Jim views. We did it at the Performing Ga- 1981 (spring is called \"June\" in Chicago), Belushi. Says Gordon, \"JeffSagansky had seen the play and understood exactly what rage, then moved it to the American Place \"with no heat, with an adaptation of Mary itwassupposed to do. Hesaid , 'Just make Theater, and it ran for six months in 1978. Renault's The King Must Die that fea- it as outrageous as the play.' The other stu- dios wanted to tum it into Dirty Harry or I felt that we had finally conquered New tured a lot of nudity--of course.\" The French Connection, but why do just York. We got back up after being kicked, Next was Dr. Rat, an adaptation of Wi1- another cop thing if yo!.! can do it differ- and tried again. Now things have com- ently?\" pletely gone full circle, and anything that liam Kotzwinkle's book. \"With Dr. Rat, comes from Chicago is considered won- we kind of returned to the Gameshow \"0 ne of the great things about working idea. All of the characters in Dr. Rat are at Organic,\" Gordon says, \"was getting to meet terrific people. We did a derful!\" laboratory animals, so I put the audience production of The Sirens of Titan, and Kurt Vonnegut came and worked on it in cages. Then the animals have a revolu- with us. We did The Great Switcheroo, a production of three of Roald Dahl's short Chicago's Public Television station, tion, open up all the cages, and encourage stories from Switch Bitch. It's about these WITW, offered Gordon the TVadap- the audience to join them on stage. Some guys who live next door to each other who tation of Bleacher Bums. \"That's the first nights we got over 100 people on stage- are in lust with each other's wives. The time I really had a chance to work with they really did play along. There's a scene wives are not into swapping, so the men cameras, and that was a real good experi- at the end where all of the animals are ence, just to sit down and work it out shot gassed to stop the revolution, and the au- by shot. We had three cameras and had to dience members all died on stage-it figure out what each was doing. I worked looked like Jonestown. These people had with Pat Denny-a wonderful director come to the theater in their nice clothes who has gone on to become one of the and everything, and there they were, ly- main guys over at WTTW. We ended up ing on this grungy stage. sharing an Emmy for direction on Bleach- er Bums. PBS picked it up. We were al- \"After Dr. Rat, we were just about to way.s trying to get Theater in America to fold, the theater had its back to the wall, do some of our stuff, and they wouldn't. no income, and the last two shows They were focusing on New York theater, bombed. We did EIR, which got abso- so it was kind of funny to come in the back lutely slammed by the press. Jill was born door with Bleacher Bums, which was one on opening night-it was the only time I of the most popular plays done on PBS.\" ever missed opening night-and Jill brought us some good luck, because EIR The Organic was nothing if not eclectic ended up running three years. It took al- and often was accused of attempting proj- most a year to write, after talking about the ects \"that should have been movies. We idea for years with Ron Berman. We were did an adaptation of The Beckoning Fair, visiting doctors and talking to nurses work- a great ghost story that is also kind of a sex- ing in Emergency Rooms, and then com- ual thing, a love triangle. A writer moves ing back and improvising based on these into a haunted house that has a female stories that we compacted all into one ghost, a succubus, who is jealous of his girlfriend. Every time his girlfriend comes night. into the house, terrible things happen to \"We did a tape of EIR, which I sent to her. Like a movie, we built a haunted some people at Norman Lear, who liked it enough to cut a deal. They hired us to be 72

- Become involved in the world's most provocative art form. re the news, the views, the angles, the r--------------., -action-wrapped between the covers of Film YES! Send me FILM COMMENT. Comment. Each issue brings it all home to you: In our January/February issue you get our u.s. Canada & Foreig!!: famous year-in-review-the best, the worst, the Mexico highs and lows of what happened during the o 1 year (6 issues) $14.95 $ 37.00 past year. In March/April our experts predict the $19.00 $ 70.00 Oscar nominations... and in May/June we let 02 years (12 issues) $26.95 $34.00 $100.00 you know just how well they did. And you get 03 years (18 issues) $38.95 $50.00 frank discussions with actors, directors, and· producers; world-wide festival coverage and the 'includes air mail postage. o BILL ME inside news of what's happening in the world of film. o PAYMENT ENCLOSED (Use envelope in magazine) Mail to FILM COMMENT 140 West 65th Street· NY, NY ·10023 Name Address Film Comment: We don't review films, we City State Zip review the industry. Subscribe and be apart of it now...because there's more to movies than Our advertisers would like to know your occupation the silver screen. L-fellS? _____________ ..J 73

advisors and consultants and so forth , and the dog and the baby know what's up. there isn' t going to be a sequel unless you they actually listened. I liked the show- Lucky was based on our own experi- kick out the jams in the first one.' And I it was interesting to watch the evolution. When the show started it was very close to ence-we had two dogs, little white West said, 'Isn' t that excessive?' and he said, the play-a comedy in which patients are dying and doctors are making mistakes. Highland terriers, and one bit Suzanne in 'Yeah.' \" By the time the TV show was happening, Re-Animator was being shot as a film ; I the face when she was a baby. No dam- Yuzna convinced Gordon that, with all was visiting the EIR set at Universal and going to locations to shoot Re-Animator.\" age, but it scared the shit out of me, and I the special effects, it made sense to shoot Gordon next adapted The Forever War, never felt the same about the dog again. Re-Animator in Hollywood. He made a a novel by Joe Haldeman, a Vietnam vet who wrote up his experiences in a sci- Anyway, it became a battle between the distribution deal with Empire in return for ence-fiction context-Vietnam in outer space. Gordon had been disturbed by the dog and the baby, and the baby wins, be- post-production services, unusual for Em- philosophical implications of Star Wars , which he thought made war look like fun, cause the baby is smarter. I thought I'd pire, which cranks out the goods after the like a video game, and blew up entire planets without showing any blood. \"It use a lot of subjective camera.\" orders are written. The movie was already must be the highest body count movie ever made, but it's clean, incredibly clean; With Re-Animator, Gordon returned in production when Charles Band started it's like a nuclear war, like dropping a bomb on a city and you don't see any of to literary rather than nursery inspiration. to get excited by the rushes and brought in the results. And it ends with them all get- ting medals at the end. Having gone \"We were having a discussion one night cinematographer Moe Aalberg, special ef- through the Sixties and Vietnam, I was horrified . about vampire movies-Dracula with fects man John Buechler, and composer \"Then I came across Haldeman's Frank Langella, Love at First Bite-ev- Richard Band. Then Charles Band started book, which is a futuristic war but is writ- ten from the point of view of somebody erybody was doing Dracula to death . I talking to Gordon about future projects who's actually been in a real war and doesn't like it. It's a wonderful book. It said, 'I wish somebody would do Fran- with Empire. The picture was shot on would be a great movie, and now with all the Vietnam movies somebody should kenstein. ' Carolyn's brother's girlfriend \"the oldest soundstage in Hollywood,\" make it. I'd love to do it. said, 'Have you ever read Herbert West, the S&A studios, where Mary Pickford \"The last sequence of The Forever War takes place on a planet in the middle Re-Animator?,' and I'd never heard of it. once worked, and where they swore to of nowhere that is to be held at all costs- sort of like the Alamo. They're attacked It is an H. P. Lovecraft story, and I Gordon that the soundstage was haunted. by aliens, and they don' t know who these aliens are. We had screens and video ef- thought I'd read all of Lovecraft, but the Editing on Re-Animator began while fects . It was a real big project, technically very involved , and not cheap. A lot of peo- book was out of print. It was in a six-part Gordon went back to Chicago to direct ple asked, 'Is this a movie?' But we always did things on stage that people thought serial in a collection that had never been Huck Finn at the Goodman, and to should be done as films . Or shouldn't be done at all.\" reprinted-because Lovecraft didn' t like choose someone to run the Organic-now Gordon's awareness that he did theatri- it. He said that he just wrote it for the mon- a thriving concem with an annual budget cal projects that were filmic in nature, and his positive experience with TV, ey. I put in a request for it at the Chicago of over a million dollars. Gordon took a prompted him to try filmmaking. He worked on two scripts with Lenny Klein- Public Library, and then forgot_all about year's leave of absence to stay in Los An- feld that were never produced. \"We wrote one called Sweetheart based on the it. About a year later I got a postcard saying geles to prepare his current Dolls, from an Karen Silkwood story. After a doctor's girl- friend is murdered , he does an autopsy on I could come and read it, but only at the original script by Ed Naha, and From Be- her and discovers that she's been killed by radiation poisoning. Then we did Lucky library. yond, based on another Lovecraft story. with Dennis Paoli, a story abouta childless couple that has a little dog they treat like \"The pages were literally crumbling in The year's leave is now permanent. it's their kid . When they have a baby, the dog gets jealous and tries to kill it. Only my hands as I read it, so I had it xeroxed. I Twas still thinking theatrically, but then hough Dolls was shot before From Beyond, most of the latter's effects Dennis Paoli and Bill Norris and I decided to do it as a half-hour TV pilot. The story is (four times as many as in Re-Animator) set around the turn of the century, and we were done on the stage. Because Dolls re- realized that automatically made it about quired extensive stop-motion animation six times more expensive, so we decided work, From Beyond was released first, in to put it in the present day. I wanted to set the fall of 1986. Empire did not want to it in Chicago, using the Organic Theater release another unrated or X-rated movie, company, and thought our chances were and despite its sexual content, From Be- better on TV. We got close to selling it a yond got an R after four edited submis- couple of times--once to Tribune Enter- sions to the MPAA Ratings Board. Gordon tainment, which' ended up going with claims that the cuts were only trimmed Tales of the Dark Side. We were told the time onscreen, rather than whole shots half-hour format was not salable, and so lifted out. By the fourth viewing, he we made it an hour. I've got 13 episodes- thinks the board grew accustomed to the one of them about starting an ambulance shock values. Technically the film is flaw- service to get bodies easier.\" less, but philosophically it is both disturb- \" Bob Greenberg, who had been after ing and intriguing. But after the totally un- me for years to come out to Hollywood, expected, loony, rapid-fire jolt of Re- convinced me that the only market for Animator, it disappointed. horror was in features, and introduced me From Beyond seems classically struc- to Brian Yuzna, a producer. I showed him tured , more evenly paced. Patiently, you the hour-long pilot script and the 13 sto- wait for the next horrible mutation of the ries; he looked over the material-the pi- Mad Doctor Pretorious, whose resonator lot went up to the point where Dean Hal- has caused his adorably phallic pineal sey is killed , re-animated, and sent to the gland to burst through his forehead. madhouse-and said, 'You've got to put Touchingly, his assistant sighs, \" Five in this headless guy.' I said, 'Then we've senses just weren't enough for him.\" used up everything, we don't have any- Dolls also doesn't deliver quite the fris- thing for the sequel,' and he said, 'Hey, son that Re-Animator did . Gordon calls 74

Dolls \"comedy-horror in the tradition of NovlDec 1974 1987 The Old Dark House.\" Well-acted, fun- Film Noir. ..Max Ophuls ... Fritz Lang ny, and mildly resonant of Bruno Bettel- BACK heim's The Uses of Enchantment, Dolls NovlDec 1977 ISSUE lacks Re-Animator's sass. Is it unreason- Bertolucci... Beyond the New Wave SPECIAL!!! able to wish that these three films could have been released in reverse order? Gor- Jan/Feb 1979 July/Aug 1986 Only don is now faced with expectations that Billy Wilder. .. Star Making Summer F un Issue $3 .50 seem unfair, given the time-dollars param- Each eters of the films . Mar/Apr 1979 Sept/Oct 1986 Visconti ... Forman ... Hitchcock Frenchmen...Company Men Gordon refers to the year that he shot those three movies as having the same May/June 1979 NovlDec 1986 junkie feel of the summer in Madison Bob Hope... Movies in the News Smalltown Psychososis .. .Festivals when he directed four totally different July/Aug 1979 productions- \"try anything time\"-in Robin Williams ...Television X C lip along line two months. And he's already shooting his July/Aug 1980 fourrh Empire picture in Rome, Robojox, Kubrick ... New Cinema Back issues are $3.50 each (postage included). Offer expires December 1987. All checks the company's most lavish and ambitious and money orders in U.S. Funds only. project to date. It is a post-apocalYJDtic fan- Sept/Oct 1979 tasy in a future in which national disputes Peter Sellers... Westerns Please send me the following issues (identify month and year): are settled by battles between gigantic ro- bots piloted by robot jockeys, or \"robo- Nov/Dec 1980 The Index Sets for Film Comment, Volumes 1-2 2, listing all articles published in Film jox.\" Ron Cobb, who designed Conan the De Niro ... Sports Films Comment, are available for $3.50/set. Barbarian, designed the hardware; Dave Allen, ofIndustrial Light and Magic, who Mar/Apr 1981 QUANTITY AMOUNT was nominated for an Oscar for Young Jessica Lange ... Barbara Stanwyck Sherlock Holmes , is doing the stop-mo- July/Aug 1981 _ _ _ Back issues of Film Comment: $3.50/issue $ _--- tion work; Giovanni Natalucci, who did Raiders of the Lost Ark ... Lucas _ _ _ Index Sets at $3 .50/set $_-- Ladyhawke and Once Upon a Time in America, is the arr director. Gordon's wit Sept/Oct 1981 Narne _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ might be obscured by the very weight of Meryl Streep ... Movie Music these special effects, but he says, \"It's Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ about the people, not about machines.\" NovlDec 1981 Classic French Films . .. Indepe ndents C ity _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ State _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Zip _ _ _ _ __ Not to worry. Empire and Gordon have a three-picture deal: Bloody Bess, based JanlFeb 1982 Mail with check or money order to: on the female pirate play he did at Organ- Forman .. .Art Directors Midsection FILM COMMENT ic; Beserker, about a wrestler who takes 140 West 65th Street bad steroids that tum him into a killing Mar/Apr 1982 New York, NY 10023 machine, and originally intended for Ar- Natassja Kinski ... Divorce, Movie Style nold Schwarzenegger (\"But,\" Gordon July/Aug 1982 sighs, \"I hear Arnold won't play villains Road Warriors .. .Producers Midsection anymore!\"); and another Lovecraft story, The Lurking Fear, in which the main Sept/Oct 1982 character is Lovecraft himself. Not to for- Marilyn get the possibility of a Re-Animator se- quel, called Bride of Re-Animatar, in NovlDec 1982 which Gordon takes on marriage. There's Goldie Hawn .. .Casablanca also a voodoo story called Gris-Gris set in JanlFeb 1983 Gandhi... Video Games Midsection Haiti, the development deal with Tri-Star on Cops, and The Teeny-Weenies at Dis- Mar/Apr 1983 ney, an Ed N aha script about children Olivier. .. Cukor shrunken to less than an inch in height who have to make it home across their May/June 1983 suddenly dangerous back yard . Ingmar Bergman .. .Israeli Cinema Teeny-Weenies came about, Gordon July/Aug 1983 says, when he and Brian Yuzna realized G uiness and Star Wars ... MTV that they hadn't made any movies that they would allow their children to see. Sept/Oct 1983 Having once turned out plays that were Kevin Kline...Coppola like movies, and re-animated by an open field, Stuarr Gordon might make more NovlDec 1983 movies that either kill audiences or free Women Direct Film ...The Right Stuff them from their cages-and at the pace Jan/Feb 1984 Cary Grant. .. 100th Issue that he produced plays. ® Mar/Apr 1984 Claudette Colbert. .. Cinematographers May/June 1984 Joe Dante .. .Hitchcock .. .Talking Heads July/Aug 1984 Sigourney Weaver... Mankieweicze Empire Sept/Oct 1984 De Palma ... Hard Boiled Hollywoood NovlDec 1984 Black Films ... Pornography Debate Jan/Feb 1985 David Lean .. .Truffaut Midsection Mar/Apr 1985 Kathleen Turner. :.Hollywood Novel May/June 1985 Jack Nicholson ... Fellini July/Aug 1985 Youth C ult Films ... British Films Sept/Oct 1985 Kurosawa ...TV's Golde n Age NovlDec 1985 Daffy Duck ...Women in Fi lms JanlFeb 1986 Cold War... 1985 Revue Mar/Apr 1986 Out of Africa... Argentina May/June 1986 Liz .. .Bogie ... Ratings 7S

On the 'colorization' ofclassics: 76

Fellowships available to study film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Each year the Willard T. C. Johnson Foundation considers applications from emerging filmmakers for two $10 ,000 fellowships for study at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. One is available to undergraduate students; the other to graduate students. We are now conducting a national search for filmmaking students of exceptional talent and promise. Candidates will be judged on the basis of creative work, academic standing, and leadership potential. For more information and an application, contact Dean Elena Pinto Simon, TIsch School of the Arts, New York University, 721 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10003 ; (212) 598-2816. (Be sure to indicate undergradu- ate or graduate level.) New York Uni versit y is an affirmati ve ac tion/equ al opportunity institution. 77

Cary Grant: 1904-1986 ty, or the manly brio of his screen image?) wriggle out of his suave sanctity and into a by Richard Corliss None of this mattered-and none of good scowl. By 1941, he literally could do \"You know what's wrong with you?\" a the later failed marriages or charges of wife no wrong. When cast in Suspicion, he frustrated Audrey Hepburn demands of Cary Grant in Charade. She leans into beating or reported experiments with forced the jettisoning of plot and logic be- him, her anger suddenly swooning into adoration , and murmurs. \"Nothing.\" As LSD-so comforting was our notion of cause no one would believe that Caty far as Hollywood's honors society was con- cerned, nothing was precisely what was \"Cary Grant.\" This creature took 27 films Grant could scheme to poison his wife. wrong with Cary Grant. His resume boast- ed no Shakespeare, his nose wore no put- to be realized in shadowy form (the insou- Hitchcock misused him again in Noto- ty, his performances betrayed no sweat, his directors had no complaints, his films ciant ghost in Topper) and two more to rious (where Grant must go all stiffand en- stoked no controversies. And so he won no competitive Oscar. That most men want- perfect (the jaunty divorcer in The Awful vious as Ingrid Bergman vamps Claude ed to be Cary Grant, and most women wanted to have him, mattered not to the Rains) but found the key for his star with solons of the Motion Picture Academy. Their insulting assumption was that Grant To Catch a Thief There, Grant has to didn't achieve this character, he was born with it. He was always just-and just mag- prove he is not stripping the bejeweled nificently-Cary Grant. necks of the Riveria glitterati, and Grace Well , pooh on them. He deserves to be cited along with the medium's top pio- Kelly has to pretend she cares whether this neers. Edison developed the movie cam- silky hunk is a common thief. Exuding era, D. W. Griffith discovered the closeup, her unique aristocratic sexual musk, Kelly the Brothers Warner brought sound to fea- ture films , and Cary Grant-not his direc- allows Grant to see her to the door of her tors, not Paramount or RKO, not his fans-invented \"Cary Grant.\" Surely it hotel room, then plants lips to lips in the was a creative triumph to have fashioned the movies' most enduring symbol of mas- most economical and forthright display of culine grace, wit, and edge. At the very least, he deserved a patent for producing a lust seen in public to that day. heart-throb machine that a couple genera- tions of audiences fell in love with. Grant was, of course, only amused by Grant did his sculpting from some pret- the Princess' tactics. He had darker work ty raw elements. At 13 he ran away from his fractious working-class home and to do for Hitchcock, in North by North- hooked up with a troupe ofacrobats. By 16 he was in New York, where he carried ad- west. He and Eva Marie Saint are slinking vertising signs on stilts and worked as a Coney Island lifeguard. Sure, he was al- toward a mutually mistrustful tryst. In a ways plenty gorgeous, but so were Fredric March and John Locke and Robert Taylor sleeping car on the Twentieth Century and Nils Asther and a hundred more glam- our-studs. Grant had other handicaps: a Limited they circle each other in a mating cutting tenor voice that refused to shake its Liverpool origins, some indifferent ear- dance that is also a war dance. As he goes ly scripts, and swirling rumors about his sexual preferences. (Which was the true to caress her, his hands suddenly seem charade? The poofter regalia he and Ran- dolph Scott would don for a costume par- huge-King Kong mitts-and we realize that every tool ofseduction he possesses is also a lethal weapon. For all these years, all these films, he has been holding his sexual power in check. He knows it can wound, kill. And his audience realizes that the se- cret ofCary Grant's popularity was not en- ergy but Olympian restraint. Oh yes, he could act too-do the big Oscar-nomination-grabbing scene, as in the long take of his plea for custody of his and Irene Dunne's adopted child in Pen- ny Serenade. Did fine, partly because the character's anxiety twinned nicely with Truth). But by then he was on a roll that Grant's discomfort at pulling out all the hardly let up for a quarter century. Some thespic stops. But this was not the most ofus prefer the Grant who swam the straits valuable lesson he would teach. The true of debonair roguery, in Holiday, His Girl subtleties of acting and character, of rev- Friday, Penny Serenade, and The Talk of elation and concealment, took place in the the Town , to the more daring performer arc of admiration that bound Grant to his testing his audience with a gallery of nerds audience, and set him apart. The defini- (Bringing Up Baby), macho aerobats tive movie idol, \"Cary Grant\" was a two- (Only Angels Have Wings), and pratfall- dimensional fiction that could be seen but ing farceurs (Arsenic and Old Lace). But not touched. To see him was to love him. his celebrity soon made it tough for him to To love him was never to know him. ~ 78

THE DEFINITIVE POSTER CATALOG The country's paramount col- lection of original movie pos- ters - rare, classic, contem- porary - such as \"Maltese Fal - con,\" \"Snow White,\" \" Jezebel.\" Comprehensive catalogue with over 350 prime lithos . Your chance nowto acquire previously inaccessible graphics. $6.00 CINEMONDE 1932 POLK STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109 ON VIDEO HARRY SMITH'S EARLY ABSTRACTIONS ©1986 Movies Unlim,led Inc \"For thirty years Harry Smith worked on these movies, secretly, like an alchemist. Please Send Me: There are more levels in Harry Smith's Movies Unlimited Video Catalog plus periodic updates of new work than in any other film animator I releases &sale ilems S 5.95 6736 Castor Ave. • Phila.. PA 19149 • (2151722·8298 know... -Jonas Mekas Adult Video Catalog $ 3.50 The mosl complete listing $ 2.00 $42 postpaid in VHS or Beta. Mastercard and Visa anywhere. t am over $18.00 $ 2.00 ADDRESS accepted. or orders may be prepaid. NYS residents add 18 years old. PHONE 8'/,'/, sales tax TOTAL STATE ZIP Shipping/Handling Fees mystic rlR€ VIl)€O Add'!. Foreign Shipping! 24 HORATIO ST. #3F, NY NY 10014 Handling Fees (APO. (212) 645-2733 Canada. Mexico excluded) WRITE FOR OUR CATALOG OF AVANT GARDE CINEMA. LIVING (Cash. checks and money THEATRE. ART. BIOGRAPHY AND SPIRITUAL VIDEOS orders in U.S. funds only) 79

Quiz #23: Can You Top This? tures: p. 57 (2, 4, 5). Courtesy Harlan Kennedy: p. 8. Courtesy Dan Kimmel: p. 41, 43. By Jonathan Le- Here it is, kids: a photo of the fabulous On Quiz #22 you were asked to iden- vine: p. 2. Museum of Modem ArtIFilm Stills Ar- From Beyond Pineal Gland Visor de- chive: p. 26 (1 , 2, 3),27 (1,2),49,30, 38,68, 72,74. scribed in this issue's \"1986 and All tify movie people from biographical hints Orion Pictures: p. 13,53 (9). Paramount: p. 53 (4,7). That.\" It's just one more promotional de- found in Ephraim Katz' The Film Ency- Samuel Goldwyn: p. 57 (11). By Bonnie Schiffman: vice from the fertile minds that publicize clopedia. All but one of the entrants cor- p. 70. Courtesy Elliot Stein: p. 6. Tri-Star Pictures: your favorite films. Promotional tie-ins rectly identified the entire list of 25 p. 53 (1), 57 (I). Touchstone Films: p. 34(2), 53 (6), 57 (9, 13). Twentieth Century Fox: p. 53 (5). Walt names. (Which were: 1. Adele Jurgens. 2. Disney: p. 34 (I). Warner Bros. : p. 53 (10), 57 (10). Saul Zaentz Co.: p. 53 (8). Klassik \"campaigns\" drawn by Derek Mueller: p. 64, 65, 67. CONTRIBUTORS and merchandise pock picture history at Asta Nielsen. 3. Buck Henry. 4. Butterfly Jack Barth and Mike Wilkins have recently been least as far back as the Thirties, when McQueen. 5. Charles Boyer. 6. Clyde appointed V.P.s of Worldwide Distribution of Klas- Mickey Mouse watches and Scarlett Bruckman. 7. Dorothy Arzner. 8. Ethel sik Films. Meredith Brody is ascreenwriter whose O'Hara panties helped pad the Disney Waters. 9. Gail Patrick. 10. George Ken- articles have appeared in the L.A. Reader. Dan and Selznick bankrolls. But there have nedy. 11. Georges MeIies. 12. Greer Gar- Kimmel reviews film for thll Worcester Telegram been plenty of movies that cried out for son. 13. Jack Palance. 14. James Young. and the Boston-based This Week. Len K1ady is a freelance writer on film based in Los Angeles. Marc promotional tie-ins-Freaks, say, or 15. Louis B. Mayer. 16. Mae West. 17. Mancini teaches film at Loyola Marymount Univer- Reefer Madness or Hiroshima, Mon Marcello Mastroianni. 18. Rudolph Va- sity. Pat McGilligan's collection of interviews with Amour or Scorpio Rising-but never got lentino. 19. Sergei Eisenstein. 20. Stan screenwriters, Backstory, was recently published by them. And we'll bet a free year of FILM Laurel. 21. Thomas H . Ince. 22. Tuesday the University of California Press. Joanna Ney is a COMMENT that you can think of some. Weld. 23. Vera Hruba Ralston. 24. Walter New York-based writer on film and dance. Law- rence O'Toole is a film critic for Maclean's. Mar- Send us your idea for a fanciful promo- Wanger. 25. WAMPAS Baby Stars.) So we cia Pally lives in New York and writes on the arts. tional tie-in to an actual film, along the closed our eyes and chose at random the Elliot Stein teaches film at Fairfield University. Be- lines of the From Beyond visor. If you name of... Rich Smreker of North verly Walker writes about film from Los Angeles. wish , you may supplement your proposal Annond White is afilm critic for The Cicy Sun and with an illustration or a photo. Neatness Olmsted, Ohio. Congratulations to him counts; wit counts more. No more than and to all contestants. -R.C. • _Pap_er i_n N_ew_Yor_k. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ three submissions per customer. Get your PHOTO CREDITS s .C.Iti.p fw1tileJt6 - F~ BOOK C LUB entries to FILM COMMENT, Quiz #23, Alive Films: p. 21, 22, 25. Courtesy Jack Barth: p. How to WritelType/Seli/Protect 140 West 65th Street, New York, N.Y 63, 64 (1), 65 (I), 67. By Rusty Brown/Sygma: p. 76. 10023, by February 16th. Make us laugh. Cinecom: p. 50, 57 (7). Columbia Pictures: p. 57 Your Film/TV Script! Make us wince. Make our day. (12). De Laurentiis Entertainment: p. 53 (2, 3), 57 Scriptwriting & Filmmaking books and reference (3). Empire Pictures: p. 68 (1),70. The Film Society works for the Entertainment Industry Professional On Quiz #21 you were asked to pro- ofLincoln Center: p. 78. Hemdale: p. 18. Island Pic- FREE INFORMATION vide a list of movie titles with full male Write: SFBC, 8033 Sunset Blvd., #306C West Hollywood, CA 90046 names. Once again, your industriousness ATIENTION SCREENWRITERS! Professional screenplay flabbergasted us. We received seven en- evaluations ,Detailed written reports .We guide you up the tries that contained more than 500 titles. ladder to success. ALSO available , our model feature And the winner, with 673 correct, is the SCREENPLAY, $18 .00; GUIDE , $5 ,00 . Plus, AMERICAN indefatigable Debra A. Millhollin of SCREENWRITER newsletter. AGENTS, MARKETS , Lakewood, Calif. Way to go, D.A. SCREENWRITER'STIPS .Sample,$2.00 . G.P.I. , Box 67, Manchaca, TX 78652 . * *RARE VIDEOS Pin· Ups • Ponraits • Posters • Physique NOW AVAILABLE! Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • Science Fiction • Musicals • Color Photos • RARE CLASSIC TV, MOVIES &< SHORTS. Send 22¢ 80 Years of Scenes From Motion Pictures stamp to: Paragon Video, P .O . Box 3478 , San Mateo, CA . 94403 (DEPT \"B \" ) Ru sh $t ,00 FOR OUR ILLUSTRATED BROCHURE 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. FC NEW YORK, N.Y. 100'11 (212) 620-8160-61 AUTOGRAPHED PHOTUS Hollywood legends, superstars, show biz personalities. Quality collection. Authenticity guaranteed. Brochure: L.&M. Gross 2675-F Hewlett Ave. Merrick, N.Y. 11566 80

New Yorker Films 1987 Doris Dorrie's MEN . .. Solanas' TANGOS, THE EXILE OF GARDEL Claude Lanzmann's SHOAH Milos Forman's AMADEUS* Hector Babenco's KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN* ~so : ___________________________________________________________________ Godard's HAIL MARY, Diegues' QUILOMBO, Mowbray's A PRIVATE FUNCTION, Roeg's INSIGNIFICANCE, Cox'sMAN OF FLOWERS, Lerner & MacAdams' WHAT HAPPENED TO KEROUAC? *non-theatrical only For further information and a copy of our 1987 catalogue , call or write New Yorker Films. 16 West 61 st Street, New York, N.Y. 10023 (212) 247-6110

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