San Francisco Film Society Oral History Project Interview with ...

MARGARITA LANDAZURI: But I guess he didn’t like being criticized.
CLAUDE JARMAN: No, he probably didn’t.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: You also had the first time a Cuban director attended, Tomás Gutiérrez
Alea. Was that difficult, to get permission for him to come out of Cuba to do this?
CLAUDE JARMAN: I’m not sure whether he had come to New York also, maybe. What was the film
that he had the year before? One Night in Hong Kong, or something.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: I don’t know.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Anyway, it was a film by a publicist, Pierre Rissien, who used to come to the
Festival all the time. He had this film that he had made, and he was determined to get it in the Festival.
We knew it was just going to be badly, badly received. So we said, “Pierre, we’re going to show the
film”—back to Merle Oberon again—and we showed the film, and I think even the critics said, “The
only way this film got in was because the guy had built up so much good will with the Festival that they
had to let it in.” (LAUGHS) And Pierre was probably the best publicist at Cannes every year. He would
take films and—he represented Clint Eastwood, and Eastwood had a film in Cannes—and he was
coming to the Festival every year, and paying his own way. And we showed that film, and it was a no
win for everyone.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: In your years, what do you think was the worst or most badly received or
biggest disaster of a film?
CLAUDE JARMAN: Well that incident is probably in the top two or three. Incubus in Esperanto. That
was a joke. (LAUGHS) It was like, “Why are we doing this?”
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: There was one by Paul Kohner’s son, Pancho Kohner, too, that I think
was kind of—
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