Boxoffice-June.1989

:lte
•
on
'^iZ*if

P''4
'jMali*
KRYDALL-JOrMnHAN*
^NFAIRCHILDas-Kai
lARL^Hp Story by SCOTT J. SCI
NEID ^HlMICHELMAN and ROE
COMING SOON

1
EDITOR AND ASSOCIATE
PUBLISHER
Harley W. Lond
The business magazine of the motion picture industry
MANAGING EDITOR
Tom Matthews
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
David Kipen
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
John Allen
Bruce Austin
David H. Chadderdon
Tony Francis
Jim Kozak
Karen Kreps
Lesa Sawahata
Kristi Turnquist
Mort Wax
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
Mary Bermudez
CORRESPONDENTS
(Atlanta) Stewart Hamdl. (Baltimore) Kale Savage, (Boston) Guy
Livingston, (Cliariolte) Cliartes Leonard, (Chicago) Frances Clow,
(Cleveland) Elaine Fried, (Dallas) liable Guinan, (Florida) LoisBaumoel.
(New England) Allen Widem, (Honolulu) TatsYoshiyama, (Indianapolis)
Gene Gladson, (Milwaukee) Wally Meyer, (Minneapolis/SI
Paul) Jack Kelvie, (Philadelphia) Maurie Orodenker, (Raleigh) Raymond
Lowery, (San Anlomo) William R Bums, (San Francisco) Nancy
Foley, (Toledo) Anna Kime, (Washington DC ) Elias Savada
CANADA: (Calgary) Maxine McBean, (Edmonton) Linda Kupecek,
(Montreal) Jim C Diono,
(Toronto) Doug Payne
FOUNDER
Ben Shiyen
PUBLISHER
Bob Dietmeier
(312) 271-0425
NATIONAL ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Robert M. Vale
(213) 465-1186
ADVERTISING CONSULTANT
Morris Schlozman
(816) 942-5877
BUSINESS MANAGER
Dan Johnson
(312) 271-0425
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Chuck Taylor
(312) 922-9326
OFFICES
Editorial and Publishing Headquarters:
1800 N. Highland Ave.. Suite 710, Hollyw/ood,
CA 90028-4526 (213) 465-1186
Corporate: Mailing Address: P.O. Box
25485, Chicago, IL 60625 (312) 271-0425
"It in
FEATURES
JUNE, 1989 VOL. 124, NO. 6
the husinesn of the very few to he mclependent;
It is a privilege of the strong "
—Friedrich (Wilhelm) Nietzsche
10 Cover Story: P.O.V.
With "84 Charlie MoPic," writer-director Patrick Duncan tells the
Vietnam story from a special point of y\e\N.
1 New Century/Vista: Back in the Battle
14 Fall/Winter Blue Ribbon Award Winners
"Rain Man" reigns supreme!
16 "It's Murdiferous."
The state of independent distribution today.
19 Boxoffice's Annual Guide to Independent Distribution
27 Boxoffice's 1989 Buyer's Directory Questionnaire
Be sure that your company is included in our comprehensive
annual directory of the theatrical industry.
MODERN THEATRE
30 Theatre Profile: Film Forum
The house that art built.
32 On the Front Line
Mark Bennett and the Bay Theatre.
33 New Products
35 For the Record: All the Awards Fit to Print
REVIEWS— Following page 40
Field of Dreams; Major League: Say Anything; The Dream Team;
Slaves of New? York; Disorganized Crime; Jacknife; Dead Calm;
Dead-Bang; Troop Beverly Hills; Sing; The Mighty Quinn; The Luckiest
Man in the World; Chocolat; Edge of Sanity.
DEPARTMENTS
Hollyw^ood Report
Circulation Inquiries:
BOXOFFICE Data Center
1020 S.Wabash Ave.,
Chicago, IL 60605
(312) 922-9326

HOLLYWOOD REPORT
Jack Lemmon
"Dad" Gary David Goldberg,
the creative force behind
TV's "Family Ties,"
makes his feature directorial
debut with this bittersweet
comedy about an estranged
father and son who reconcile
during the last year of the
father's life. Two-time Oscar-winner
Jack Lemmon
plays the title role, with Ted
Danson playing his son (Danson
replaced James Caan
shortly after production began).
Also in the cast are
Olympia Dukakis ("Moonstruck"),
Kathy Baker
("Jacknife") and Kevin Spacey.
Goldberg, whose classy
TV pedigree makes one suspect
that he could be the
next James L. Brooks, wrote
the script, based on the novel
by William Wharton, A Universal
release this fall.
"Stella" Bette Midler, the
best thing to happen to Walt
Disney Pictures since Daisy
Duck, stars in this remake of
"Stella Dallas," the 1937 tearjerker
starring the terrific
Barbara Stanvin/ck. It concerns
a woman who sacrifices
everything — and we
mean eveiything — in favor
of the well-being of her
daughter. John Goodman
("Rosanne") co-stars, with
John Erman directing in Toronto.
A Buena Vista release.
"Bird on a Wire" The 60's
once again provide the back
story for this comedy-drama
that stars Mel Gibson and
Goldie Hawn. Gibson plays a
man who got caught up in a
derailed drug deal back in his
flower power days, and who
has paid the price ever since
because he decided to tum
state's evidence against his
former partner (played by
David Carradine). John Badham
("Stakeout") directs. A
Universal release.
"Heart Condition" Two
great contemporary actors —
Hob Hoskins and Denzel
Washington — team up in
this comedy which brushes
perhaps a tad too close to the
body-switching genre. Hoskins
plays a gruff cop whose
( hief adversary is an inflexible
lawyer (Washington),
When both men are felled by
accidents (Washington fatally),
Hoskins inherits the lawyer's
heart (and ghost), and
then must solve the lawyer's
murder. James Parriott
writes and directs. A New
Line release in the fall.
"The Fourth War" Director
John Frankenheimer,
whose career was revitalized
by the re-release of "The
Manchurian Candidate" and
"Dead-Bang," is at the helm
of this $14 million action drama
which is being shot in
Calgary, Alberta. The film
stars Roy Scheider (who starred
for Frankenheimer in "52
Pickup") and Jurgen Prochnow
("Das Boot"), and it tells
the tale of a tense border
confrontation between an
American Vietnam combat
hero and a Soviet officer. The
two men fall into a personal
campaign to outwit the other,
but their rivalry nearly leads
to global war, Tim Reid, who
starred in TV's "Frank's
Place" as well as working
with Frankenheimer on
"Dead-Bang," also stars.
"Opportunity Knocks"
"Saturday Night Live's" Dana
Carvey makes his major big
screen debut in this comedy
about mistaken identity to be
directed by "Mystic Pizza's"
Donald Petrie. The script is
being written by Mitch Catlin
and Nat Bernstein. A Universal
release.
"Harlem Nights" Looking
for new ground to conquer —
and possessed with an absolute
power that allows him to
do anything he darned well
pleases — Eddie Murphy
turns writer-director with
this drama that pairs him
with Richard Pryor, the comic
who provided the template
for Murphy's success. Set in
Harlem of 1938, the film is
about an upcoming mover
and shaker on the nightclub
scene (Murphy) who is aided
by an old veteran (Pryor). A
Paramount release.
"Eddie and the Cruisers
H: Eddie Lives" The 1983
film about the mysterious
death of a 1 950s rock star has
spawned a sequel, this time
focusing on the rocker himself
and not on the surviving
members of his band. Michael
Pare returns as Eddie,
with Jean-Claude Lord directing.
The original "Eddie
and the Cruisers" only made
SI. 8 million in rentals, but
Scotti Bros., the film's producer,
cites an extremely
high recognition factor with
movie audiences, and also
points to the success of the
original's popular soundtrack
album. A Scotti Bros, release.
"The Freshman" Now
that he has officially come
out of retirement, Marlon
Brando suddenly can't be
stopped. In this, his third
consecutive role in the past
nine months or so, he returns
to familiar ground as an aging
mobster who passes on his
knowledge to an eager student,
played by Matthew Broderick.
Andrew Bergman
("So Fine") writes and directs
for Tri-Star.
"The Pit and the Pendulum"
Charles Band, who sold
his Empire Pictures in order
to return to independent film
production, is responsible for
this latest interpretation of
Edgar Allan Poe's infamous
short story. The cast will include
Peter O'Toole, Billy
Dee Williams and Sherilyn
Fenton ("Two Moon Junction"),
and it will be directed
in London and Italy by Stuart
Gordon ("Re-Animator,"
"From Beyond"). Distribution
rights are pending.
"Coupe De Ville Set in
the 1950s, this is a comedy
about three estranged brothers
who join forces to drive a
1954 Cadillac Coupe De Ville
convertible from Michigan to
Florida at the request of their
father, unaware that this is
the father's attempt to reconcile
the brothers. The cast
includes Patrick Dempsey
("Lover Boy"), Arye Gross
("The Couch Trip""), Daniel
Stem ("Leviathan") and Annabeth
Gish ("Mystic Pizza"),
and it will be directed
by Joe Roth. A Universal release.
Alec Baldwin
"The Hunt for Red October"
Alec Baldwin, who
came from nowhere to seemingly
co-star in half the films
released last year ("Beetlejuice,"
"Talk Radio," "Working
Girl") takes the lead in
this adaptation of Tom Clancy's
hugely popular espionage
novel. Baldwin plays a
CIA agent who tries to assist
the defecting crew of a Soviet
missile-firing submarine,
while the angry Russians
back home try to blow it up.
James Earl Jones co-stars as
Baldwin's superior. John
McTieman ("Die Hard") directs.
A Paramount release.
"Where the Heart Is"
The story of King Lear gets
an updating in this comedydrama
about an industrialist
who decides that the greatest
gift that he can give to his
children is to cut them off
from his considerable wealth.
Dabney Coleman stars as the
power baron, and Uma Thurman
("Dangerous Liaisons")
and Anthony Michael Hall
(who co-started with Thurman
in "Johnny B. Good")
play the kids who are forced
to fend for themselves. John
Boorman ("Deliverance,"
"The Emerald Forest") directs
from a script that he
wrote with his daughter. A
Buena Vista release.
"Ford Fairlane" Yet another
car-inspired title. This
one stars Andrew Dice Clay,
the standup comedian who is
the latest comic trying to
prove that the boundaries of
bad taste and outrage may
never quite be extended to
their fullest (his potshots at
women and minorities are
particulariy vile). He plays a
hip detective who is trying to
solve a murder in L.A.'s music
community. A 20th Centur\'
Fox release.
4 BOXOFFICE

THE MOTION PICTURE SEEN BY OVER 50 MILLION RUSSIANS WILL
SOON BECOME THE MOST TALKED ABOUT FILM IN YOUR CITY.
'''LITTLE VERA' is so funnV; so abrasive and so true...Natalya Negoda's VERA is an
enchanting creature.. .played with remarkable comic autnority. She could be the
discovery of the year. Go!"
-Vincent Canby, N.Y. TIMES
"A cinematic event.. .Natalya Negoda is like Natalie Wood with a sense of humor''
—David Denby, NEW YORK MAGAZINE
"Veramania hits our shores.. .a sexy soviet hit'.'
-Richard Gold, VARIETY
"A smash hit..'.LinLE VERA' is big news!'
-Richard Corliss, TIME MAGAZINE
Starring Playboy Covergirl
Natalya Negoda
THE REVOLUTION THE]
RUSSIANS NEVER EXPECTED.
»^^i
iiiiiiniiiiMiiii!
CONTACT: ROBERT NEWMAN, V.P. THEATRICAL SALES, 212-582-4318, FAX; 212-956-2257

TRAILERS
June Releases
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
Walt Disney Pictures, which set a
whole new set of standards for special
effects with last summer's "Who Framed
Roger Rabbit," tries to outdo itself with
this new science fiction comedy. Rick
Moranis stars as a suburban mad scientist
who accidentally trains his new shrinking
all time is finally here, with the entire
cast back on board. Bill Murray, Dan
Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigoumey Weaver,
Rick Moranis, Annie Potts and Ernie
Hudson (in descending order of big, fat
paychecks) have returned, in a story that
finds the intrepid spook smashers taking
on an evil spirit that has invaded the body
of an eccentric artist (or at least that's the
premise that has leaked out). Aykroyd
and Ramis once again provide the script,
and Ivan Reitman, fresh from his outrageous
success with "Twins," is back in the
director's chair. A Columbia release.
The Abyss
Remember how three body-switching
comedies were released last year before
20th Century Fox finally got it right with
"Big?" That same studio may find itself in
the same fortunate position with this
third in a series of thrillers about terror
beneath the ocean's surface. True, this
actioner will no doubt be compared to
"Alien{s)," just like "Deepstar Six" and
"Leviathan" were, but the diflFerence here
is that James Cameron is the director.
Cameron directed "Aliens" — as well as
"The Terminator" — and has proven that
he is an unparalleled master of terror and
suspense. Early buzz is quite enthusiastic.
The story is one of the most tightlyguarded
secrets of the year, but it involves
Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
("The January Man") working in a
deep sea environment and being terro-
(continued p 8)
machine on his kids. Suddenly shnmk
down to quarter-inch size, the tiny tots
are cast adrift in their backyard, where
pebbles have become mountains and insects
are giant monsters. Jared Rushton,
who played Tom Hanks' boyhood pal in
"Big," co-stars as one of the shrunken
ones. The film is directed by Joe Johnston.
A Buena Vista release.
Star Trek V: The Final
Frontier
In what must have been a fascinating
bargaining session, William Shatner has
been allowed to direct this fifth chapter in
the successful science fiction series ("Let
me direct it, or you just go ahead and try
and make a 'Star Trek' movie without
Admiral Kirk!"). The story is a kind of
outer space Western, with the crew of the
Enterprise touching down on a planet that
has been turned into a wasteland due to
an ecological disaster. Leonard Nimoy
and the rest of the cast are back, along
with newcomers Laurence Luckinbill and
David Warner. Coming in 1991: "Star Trek
VI: Dammit, Jim!," directed by DeForest
("Bones"J Kelley. A Paramount release.
The film
kill! One of
Ghosthusters II
hat David Putlnam could not
ic most inevitable sequels of
If nothing else it's going to be merchandising
heaven for this dark rendition of
Batman
the life and times of the Caped Crusader.
In a casting decision which we shall continue
to find dubious until we see the final
results, Michael Keaton stars as Bruce
Wayne, the millionaire playboy-tumedmasked
crime fighter. (Batman works
alone in this one; Robin, the Boy Wonder,
will supposedly be introduced if there is a
sequel ) Batman's chief nemesis in this
adventure is The Joker, played by Jack
Nicholson, in a casting decision that is so
brilliant it's scary. Making up the supporting
cast in this hush-hush project are Kim
Basinger, Jack Palance, Billy Dee Williams
and Mick Jagger's live-in, Jerr\'
Hall. Although director Tim Burton is
known for his loopy treatments of "Peewee's
Big Adventure" and "Beetlejuice,"
this is said to be a serious comic book
movie and far removed from the campy
TV series of the '60s. A Warner Bros
release.
6 BOXOFFICE

Congratulations,
Ray and loan
From your friends and colleagues
at Dolby Laboratories
in San Francisco, London, Hollywood,
and New York.
1988 Academy Award of Merit
"To Ray Dolby and loan Allen
of Dolby Laboratories Incorporated for their
continuous contributions
to motion picture sound through the research
and development programs
of Dolby Laboratories."
nn Dolby
Dolby Laboratories, Inc., 100 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94103-4813,
Telephone 415-558-0200, Telex 34409, Facsimile 415-863-1373
346 Clapham Road, London SW9 9AP, Telephone 01-720-1 1 '1, Telex 919109,
Facsimile 01-720-4118
"Dolby" and the double-D symbol are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories
Licensing Corporation. S89/8630.

ized by something quite nasty. The film
utilizes pioneering underwater photography,
and was shot in water tanks located
at the studio of B-movie king, Earl Owensby.
A 20th Century Fox release.
Lethal Weapon 2
Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are back
as Riggs and Murtaugh, the mismatched
crimefighters who tore up the bad guys
and the boxoffice in the spring of 1987.
Now, the prickly pair are assigned the
rather undignified task of guarding a mob
accountant, little knowing that he is the
key in a case that they have been trying to
break for months. Richard Donner
("Scrooged") once again directs, with Jeffery
Boam ("Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade") providing the script (Shane
Black, the kid who wrote the first film,
parted company with the project when he
was determined to have Gibson's character
killed off at the end of the new film).
A Warner Bros, release.
No Holds Barred
We thought the pro wrestling craze had
pretty much come and gone, but here is
this action/adventure story which stars
the one, the only, the balding. Hulk Hogan.
Hogan, who of course made his big
screen debut in "Rocky III," heads a cast
of unknowns in this stors' which promises
"The Buddy Holly Story" and "La Bamba"
were exhilarating but ultimately
tragic rock and roll sagas which ended
with the deaths of their respective protagonists.
But in this new true-life rock biography,
its subject — Jerry Lee Lewis —
is still very much alive, although most
people find that surprising. This survivor
of seven divorces, countless life-threatening
illnesses and many personal tragedies,
"The Killer" is still a flamboyant fixture
on the concert circuit, keeping his hits
from the '50s alive.
In this biographical drama, Dennis
Great Balls of Fire
Quaid stars as Lewis during one pivotal
year in the singer's life, the year in which
he married his 13-year-old cousin and
caused a scandal which irreparably damaged
his career. Winona Ryder ("Heathers")
plays The Killer's blushing bride,
with Alec Baldwin ("Talk Radio") also
starring as Lewis' bible-thumping cousin,
the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart. Quaid lip syncs
Lewis' hits, a creative decision which
reportedly caused some sparks between
the actor and the singer. Jim McBride,
Quaid's "The Big Easy" director, directs.
An Orion release.
"revenge, greed, hand-to-hand combat,
family loyalty and romance." The film is
directed by Thomas J. Wright, who has
helmed episodes of "Beauty and the
Beast" and "Max Headroom," and it is
produced by Michael Rachmill, responsible
for such classy fare as "Roxanne" and
"Punchline." A New Line release.
The Bear
The Karate Kid III
French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud
("Quest for Fire") directs this liveaction
family drama about a precocious
Canadian bear cub who is adopted by a
grizzly. This woodland adventure has
been earning critical raves and superb
boxoffice throughout Europe. A Tri-Star
release.
The first "Karate Kid" was such a simple
and predictable little film that its success
($91 million in domestic grosses) was
a genuine surprise When its first sequel
did even better ($115 million), it became
obvious that director John G Avildsen
and writer Robert Mark Kamen had
tapped into something quite special. So all
bets are off for this third installment in
the martial arts series, which finds Daniel
(Ralph Macchio) breaking away from his
mentor, Miyagi (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita).
They suffer a painful estrangement, but
are reunited — naturally — before a crucial
karate tournament. A Columbia Pictures
release.

A NOTICE TO
ALL INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS
FROM
AQUARIUS
EXCELLENCE IS OUR STANDARD
MR & MRS. PRODUCER. STOP WASTING YOUR VALUABLE TIME. PUT THE INDUSTRY'S BEST
INDEPENDENT DISTRIBUTOR TO WORK FOR YOUR PICTURE-AQUARIUS RELEASING, INC.
L
.
^
B^
• INTEGRFT^,, ,^P
• commitment' M
• RESPONSIVENESST
• SUCCESS tj4
AQUARIUS RELEASING, INC. IS ACTIVELY SEEKING 35MM PRODUCT FOR DISTRIBUTION
'. INTERNATIONALLY, NATIONALLY, REGIONALkY, & LOCALLY.
AQUARIUS RELEASING, INC. IS INTERESTED IN EXPLORING

COVER STORY
P.O.V.
With "84 Charlie MoPic/' writer-directer Patrick Duncan
tells the Vietnam story from a special point-of-view.
By Tom Matthews
Managing Editor
WRITER-DIRECTOR PATRICK Duncan,
whose "84 Charlie MoPic"
fought with to tell the story accurately.
want to see a movie about the Vietnam
war.
"When I was an exhibitor, everyone
said that boxing films would never make
money," Duncan says, recalling the period
just prior to the first "Rocky." "Up
until recently, everyone said that Westems
wouldn't make money, and then
'Young Guns' comes along and makes
money. There are all these myths
Patrick Duncan (right) and three members of his
"platoon": (L-R) Byron Thames, Richard Brooks
and Jonathan Emerson
But interestingly — although slightly
less importantly — Duncan also brings
a professional's view of the hard, cold
world of movie exhibition and distribution.
In the mid-1970s, Duncan was an
exhibitor in Michigan, the state in which
he grew up, and then he headed to Los
Angeles, where he worked for the exhibition
giant General Cinema, and in the
distribution offices of Crown International
and New Worid Pictures. He got
an up-close look at how the movie business
works and how trends form in storytelling,
and in 1983, when he first
wrote the script for "84 C;harlie MoPic,"
he became determined to prove wrong
the industry belief that nobody would
[about what audiences don't want to
see], and most of the time these myths
has become one of the crirical
pets of 1989, brings two very distinct
areas of expertise to his daring and
agonizing Vietnam drama. Most importantly,
Duncan was there, serving as an
infantryman in South Vietnam from
May 1968 until his discharge in July are supported by bad films."
1969. Like Oliver Stone, the writerdirector
It's important to stress that Duncan's
of "Platoon," Duncan brought project dates back to '83, long before
"Platoon" became one of the most surprising
to his film not only first-hand knowledge
of the almost unimaginable hell
that frontline soldiers went through, but commercial successes of the de-
cade. He was an untried filmmaker try-
also a sense of obligation to the men he
ing to tell a story that nobody apparently
wanted to hear, and he had also writ-
ten his script to be filmed in a very specific
and unique fashion. He wanted to
strip away all of the philosophizing and
political overtones that he felt marred
most previous combat movies, and he
wanted to present nothing but the viewpoints
of the soldiers who were fighting
and dying in the trenches.
So Duncan wrote "MoPic" as a mock
documentary, a fictionalized account of
a "real" six-man reconnaissance mission
into the heart of the Vietnamese
jungle. An Army motion picture unit
(dubbed "MoPic" in military jargon)
would follow the soldiers into the bush,
and everything they said and did would
be directed into the shakily-held camera
which tailed them. The film would
be cast with unknowns in order to maintain
the illusion of the documentary,
and likewise no music — neither a score
nor an easy-to-market collection of '60s
rock and roll standards — would betray
the journalistic feel that Duncan was
determined to create. It was a thoroughly
unconventional project and while an
endless string of film executives read
and praised the script, no one would put
any money behind it.
Duncan's break came in 1984, when
he submitted the script to Michael Nolin,
a producer at 20th Century Fox. Nolin
had been involved in the creation of
the Sundance Institute, Robert Redford's
acclaimed filmmaking compound
in LItah, and he sensed that "MoPic"
would make an ideal project for Sundance's
Directors Lab. Competing
against 800 other submitted scripts,
"MoPic" was selected as one of eight
projects that would be worked on during
Sundance's June 1985 session.
More a workshop than a conventional
film school, Sundance is a place
where established actors and filmmakers
come together to nurture new talent.
For Duncan, this meant being able to
take selected scenes from his script and
experiment with the subjective camera
technique, while actors like Karl Maiden,
Peter Coyote and Sam Waterston
read his dialogue.
"I'd rehearse for a day, shoot for a
day, edit for a day, and then get (my
work] torn apart for a day" by the professionals
who descended on the Sundance
ranch for just such purposes. The
experience left the fledgling writerdirector
confident with his project, and
supported by the clout that the Sundance
Institute tends to pro\ade.
"MoPic" then briefly found a home
at Columbia Pictures under David Puttnam,
but when Puttnam went back to
England, "MoPic" — along wth an unknown
number of other projects —
found itself orphaned. It wasn't imtil
producer Nolin was able to secure a video
presale unth RCA Columbia Video
and a theatrical distribution deal with
New Century /Vista (see sidebar) that
Duncan finally found himself with the
meager funds that he needed to shoot
10 BOXOFFICE

his movie. Equipped with a 16mm camera,
a small crew, and an unbelievable
16-day shooting schedule ("It was actually
17 days," Duncan confesses, "but
one day doesn't coimt because we were
never able to get the helicopter off the
ground"), the director and his cast of
newcomers restaged the Vietnam in the
hills just outside Los Angeles.
The results of Dimcan's long struggle
to get his story on the screen are both
terrifying and illuminating. For much of
bloodshed which make the most impact
and stay in the memory the longest, and
never more so than in "84 Charlie MoPic."
If Duncan had any single goal for
his movie, it was to smash the cliches
and conventions of movie gimplay.
"I was trying to get across the fact
that real battles don't last very long in
general, and that you don't get the kind
of lead-in that you usually get in war
movies," he says. "In most movies, the
audience always knows that the enemy
the film, there is little gvmfire, and the is out there; there's always something to
audience is given an engrossing look — give them a warning. I didn't want to
sometime humorous, sometimes gruesome
— into the non-combat existence wanted [the shooting] to come at unex-
give them any warning whatsoever. I
of the Vietnam infantryman. But like all pected times. I wanted it to be a surprise
war movies, it is the violence and for the audience in the same wav that it
was a surprise for us, and I also wanted
it to be over just as fast.
"You never see the enemy," Duncan
continues, recalling an experience
which clearly few can fully appreciate
without having lived it. "You're walking
along, and all of a sudden — hang! —
somebody is shooting at you at the least
likely moment."
As a filmmaking experience, Duncan
says that "84 Charlie MoPic" was terrific,
claiming that he had none of the
nightmares that many novice directors
encoimter and that he was able to make
exactly the movie he set out to make
(even the most acclaimed directors are
lucky if they can say that). But retum-
(continued p 12}
New Century/Vista
Back In The Battle
NEW Century./Vista has been a had been shut down for several months, film did weaker-than-expected business
distribution entity since 1986, and Richard Ingber, president of marketing,
in New York and Los Angeles in April,
admits that it has taken some and as a result Ingber says that the
when New Century and the Vista
Organization — two independent production
companies — decided to join "It hasn't been easy, because there markets will be slow and carefully mon-
work to get back up to speed again. film's integration into additional
forces and create a third company that had been a dovm period. Our two production
itored,
could release their oivn films, together
companies are still making ad-
"['MoPic'] is not the type of picture
with acquisitions. During it's brief existence,
justments, and it has been slow," says that you would even consider going
NCA' has yet to hit one out of the
park, but it has released such criticallyadmired
films as last year's "The Lady
In MHiite," "The Stepfather," and the
Ingber. "In our first year, we released
nine films. We were off to the races, and
then we had to put on the brakes for a
while,"
wide with," says Ingber, "It's the type of
picture that needs to be nurtured. It's a
low-budget film which doesn't have any
cast to mention, so it really lends itself
hilarious and unjustly-ignored "Pass the
Ammo," which somehow managed to
not capitalize on the various televangelism
scandals which it accurately lampooned.
The company also distributed
the independent horror film "The
Gate," which opened the same weekend
as "Ishtar" and earned a three -day gross
that very nearly eclipsed that mulri-milhon
dollar flop.
By mid-1988. New CentiiryA'ista's
release schedule had dwindled down to
almost nothing, and it appeared that it
would soon go the way of more and
more independent distributors. But then
the company got a major shot in the
arm: director Taylor Hackford ("An Officer
and a Gentleman," "Everybody's
All American") decided to merge his
company, New Visions, with New Century.
The New Century moniker was
effectively dissolved into New Visions,
and Hackford and his partner, Stuart
Benjamin, were given almost complete
creative control over New Visions production
slate. Soon after the merge,
Cineplex Odeon also jumped on board,
kicking in half of the company's $50
million primary funding.
New CenturyA'ista, meanwhile, has
survived, now releasing New Visions
and Vista product, along wdth the occasional
pickup. Its machinery, however,
''It's very tough out
there, which is
something that we didn't
have to learn hut which
was reinforced."
"Rooftops," NCA'^'s first release under
the Hackford regime, did not prove
to be the success that everyone had
been banking on. Directed by industry
veteran Robert Wise ("West Side Storj',"
"The Sound of Music"), this urban
dance-musical set against the crackinfested
streets of Manhattan opened
on 1,044 screens on March 17, and it had
all but vanished by the end of its first
week. Reviews were weak, and the
ty of the marketplace after having been
out of the fray for a few months,
"It's very tough out there, which is
something that we didn't have to learn
but which was reinforced," says Ingber.
With "84 Chariie MoPic," however,
the company udll be moving more judiciously.
Despite glowing reviews, the
to a slow release. It's the type of picture
that's reliant on reviews and press, and
we're very happy with the response
we've been getting from the media. The
movie really needs that extra help."
On May 19, NC/V will release "Fright
Night 2," a long-finished movie which
had to be shelved during the company's
fallow period. Then, barring any quick
acquisitions, NC/V won't release anythmg
until the fall, when "Defenseless,"
starring Barbara Hershey and directed
by Martin Campbell ("Criminal Law"),
is sent out to do battle with the competition.
Shortly thereafter — probably before
the end of the year — "Confidence,"
starring Bryan Brown as a sympathetic
con man, wll also be released.
In these and future instances, Ingber
is confident that the relationship that
NC/V was able to establish ^fni\\ exhibitors
during its previous incarnation will
film's opening weekend gross was a continue,
poor $1.1 million gross. For Ingber, it "Our relationship with exhibitors is
was a rude re-introduction to the feroci-
not a problem," he says, "Gene Margoluis
(president of domestic distribution)
used to be with Columbia Pictures, and
Sheila DeLoach (Eastern division sales
manager) and Jerrs' Smith (Southern
division sales manager) worked for Fox,
Basically, our sales force comes from
the majors, and they have a long-term
relationship with exhibitors."— T,M,

Eastman Kodak Company, 1
MOPIC
(cuntinued from p 1 1)
ing to the anguish and carnage of Vietnam
— even if it was only make-believe
— was not easy at all.
"After we shot the first death scene,
my technical advisor [Captain Russ
"Gunny" Thurman, also a Vietnam vet]
and I went off into the woods and cried
for about five minutes," Duncan says
quietly. "It was hard. It's hard to shoot
scenes like that, especially as realistically
as we were doing them."
Duncan realizes that he has now
entered into another war of sorts, the
war to get his movie seen. Despite the
success of "Platoon." he knows that
subsequent Vietnam films ("Hamburger
Hill," "Full Metal Jacket") have not
fared as well. And as a fonner exhibitor
and distributor, he knows that working
with an independent distributor and trying
to fight for screens against the
majors is an often doomed campaign.
But the filmmaker is happy with the
attention and support that New Centuiy
/Vista is giving "84 Charlie MoPic,"
and he's not sure that he would want
"MoPic" released through a major even
if one were interested.
"I'm not sure that a major could handle
a film like this. It's hard for a large
company to release a small film like this
and do justice to it," he says. "This is not
a film that you would send out in 2,000
theatres. I would hate to see a film like
this go out wide with an S8 million
advertising campaign, and then only
make $1 million. I want this film to
come in in the black, and I think a small
release pattern makes more financial
success."
"You never see the
enemy. You're walking
along, and all of a
sudden — hang! —
somebody is shooting at
you at the least likely
moment."
How does Duncan view the state of
independent distribution in general, and
to what does he attribute the problems
that many indies are experiencing?
"They tried to grow too fast. We see that
all the time; there are always peaks and
valleys in the distribution business, especially
among the independents. They
all tiy to become majors overnight,
when the majors didn't become majors
overnight.
"It's always been tough to be an independent.
It's tougher now, because in
some ways the majors have coopted the
independent films. There was a time
when 'Friday the 13th' would' ve never
been distributed by Paramount, and it's
the same with art films," Duncan observes.
"Once something becomes successful,
the majors always have the
inside track."
For the immediate future, Duncan
plans on monitoring the gradual release
of "84 Charlie MoPic," and then he also
has to complete three episodes of HBO's
"Vietnam War Story." After that, he's
leaving the war behind, at least as a
source for material. The last thing he
wants is to be typecast as "the Vietnam
director" and while he will continue to
carry the memories of his battlefield
experience, he has other stories to tell.
"What's nice about writing, whether
it's about Vietnam or anything else, is
that you get to psychoanalyze yourself
It's good therapy," he says. "But I didn't
come back from Vietnam with many
problems — most of us didn't. I grew up
over there, and I became a better person.
I think I became an optimist over
there, because I saw people doing incredible
things. I saw people risk and
lose their lives for somebody that they
didn't know. That has to give you some
optimism for mankind."
IH
KODAK lOX-OFFKE BUILDERS. Handlins film v^ith naked
finsers is a crime Make lint-free sieves mandatory, along
with a spotless projection booth. Even tiny dirt specks
become big blobs on the screen. You'll find these
and other tips to upgrade presentations in
Reel People, the industry periodical from Kodak. For
a free subscription, call 213 464-6131. Ask about our
s your Image" seminar, too. It can help make every
performance a quality presentation.
Motion Picture
Motion Picture and Audiovisual Products Div
1 2 BOXOFFICE

I
I
NATO
ShoWest
Independent
Distributor
of the Year
1988
NEW
UlNE
in 89
Hulk Hogan in
NO HOLDS BARRED
June 2nd
BABAR: THE MOVIE
July28TH
A NIGHTMARE C
ON ELM STREET J/
The Dream Child
August 11th
TEXAS CHAINSAW
MASSACRE 3
September 22nd
Bob Hoskins, Denzel Washington
and Chloe Webb in
HEART CONDITION
October 6th
Judd Nelson, Robert Loggia
and Leo Rossi in
RELENTLESS
November 10th
NEW LINE CINEMA
I
Dallas
New York Los Angeles
Robeson
Chicago
Atlanta
4501 asm rCrte 'tS Pkwv • 6060 North Central (Suite 210)
,3^„/,5°!i=;^^3^,^,r g730339
Road^ load •
575'l^h^^^Ave . 116 N Blvd • IJOO
m&mT ' ""la;cA^648- ' DesPla,nes,ILr - - ----'
Dallas, TX75206_

BLUE RIBBON RESULTS:
"
''Rain Man" Reigns Supreme
By Tom Matthews
Managing Editor
THE IMMORTAL words of Raymond
INBabbitt: "Uh-oh."
There was definitely not a fair fight
when it came to picking both the best
and most popular movies of the fall and
winter seasons. "Rain Man," that alltoo-rare
mix of class and thundering
boxoffice power, clobbered all of its
competition, more than doubling the
number of points its nearest rival ("Mississippi
Burning") earned in the "Best"
categoiA'. Both in terms of tickets sold
and pure craftsmanship, this was the
film that made exhibitors the happiest.
The irony, of course, is that this
touching tale of brotherly love and
repressed emotions could have very
easily never been made at all. The stoiy
of its on-again, off-again path to the
screen is reaching legendary proportions,
with just about eveiyone now
knowing that three different directors
(Martin Brest, Steven Spielberg and
Sydney Pollack) signed on and then
abandoned the project because of
scheduling conflicts and problems with
the script (an early draft of the screenplay,
at least according to Newsweek,
involved white supremacists, wath Raymond
building a motorcycle from memoiy
in order to race to this brother's rescue!).
At the last moment — knowing that
they would be hampered by the writer's
strike — Barry Levinson and his partner
Mark Johnson finally accepted the
challenge. But even then the project
almost came unglued. Dustin Hoffman,
whose legendary tenacity was primarily
responsible for keeping the film on
track during its prolonged pre-production
ordeals, finally got before the camera
and immediately sensed that he
couldn't "find" his character. Despite
extensive research and personal contact
with several autistic people, the actor
wasn't comfortable with his interpretation
of that ven,' unique affliction. And
when Dustin Hoffman isn't comfortable,
production becomes very tenuous.
It wasn't until a few days into shooting,
during the scene in which Raymond
stresses the urgency of returning to
Ohio to buy his particular brand of
14 Boxoffice
underwear, that the actor truly understood
the peculiar single-mindedness of
his character. He finally settled into the
role that would ultimately win him his
second Oscar.
And for their part, BOXOFFICE readers
knew that they were witnessing something
special. Gary Strahan, with General
Cinema in Mishawaka, Indiana, says
simply, '"Rain Man' is by far the best
movie that I have seen in a very long
time," while Andre Grey of United Artists'
Stonestown Theatres in San Francisco
calls "Rain Man" the best picture
by far, adding "Hoffman should get an
Oscar or quit the industn,'."
"There were no great
Glms last year, just some
very good ones piled in
with mediocre ones.
'"Rain Man' was vidthout a doubt the
best and most popular film this winter,"
says Mark A. Robertson, who works for
R/C Theatres in Christiansburg, Va.
"Very seldom does a film come along
that opens strong and grows for as many
weeks as 'Rain Man' has."
'"Rain Man' was an extremely brilliant
piece of cinematic art," claimed
James Stewart with Moonchild Films in
Orange, Calif '"Rain Man" is a masterpiece,"
chimes in Bertha Mariano of
Miami, Fla. "Dustin Hoffman had better
win Best Actor," threatens Kari Rea
>rV
with Svufy in Las Vegas, failing to add
what would happen if he didn't. All in
all, a soaring combination of artistry and
commercialism, the likes of which, sadly,
we see far too infrequently.
A Very Good Year
As far as general observations went,
the mood of our readership reflected
the record-breaking course set by the
films of '88. Most seemed to feel particularly
blessed that Hollywood kept their
cash registers ringing, and they expressed
a hope that this windfall will
continue.
"What a mixed bag of good films.
There were plenty of excellent performances,
and just a good time going to
the movies," says Mike Sowinski with
General Cinema in Merrillville, Ind.
"What a fabulous year! The public was
given a wide variety of films to choose
from for their motion picture entertainment,"
proclaims Sharron Marshall with
Mann Theatres in San Diego, "It was
hard to pick just five films from a selection
of 73 because many were so good.
Let's hope that the producers and distributors
keep up the good work," says
Randy Thomsley, with the Film Gallery
in Anchorage.
Some readers, however, appreciated
the quality of what Hollywood had to
offer, but made some astute obser\'ations
about the kinds of films being produced,
and how they're being distributed.
"The movies are continually being
targeted toward smaller, more urban
audiences, leaving the rural towns
cold," observes Dennis W. Guidry, who
works for Jet Cinemas in Galliand, La.
"The movies are being made better, but
with less mass appeal." And Stan R.
Sinith with the Big Sky Cinema in Dillon,
Mont., offers the familiar complaint
about distributors focusing only on peak
release seasons. "I would like to see the
film companies concentrate on the
whole year, and not just on summer,"
he says. "They are especially neglecting
tlic
fall and the late winter."
But What About...?
The obvious hits and critical favorites
("The Naked Gun," "Working Girl,"
"Twins," etc.) all earned glowing com-

ments from our readers, but there were
Most Popular
1. Rain Man
2. Twins
3. Naked Gun
4. Working Girl
5. Scrooged
6. The Land Before Time
7. Mississippi Burning
8. Beaches
9. Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels
10. Young Guns
Best Film
1. Rain Man
2. Mississippi Burning
3. Working Girl
4. The Accidental Tourist
5. Gorillas in the Mist
6. Dangerous Liaisons
7. Twins
8. Tequila Sunrise
9. The Naked Gun
10. Oliver & Co.
lotte, N.C. "And 'Dead Ringers' was riveting.
Jeremy Irons' performance was
much too classy for the Academy's
mundane tastes."
'"Women on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdovirn' was a pleasant and unexpected
surprise," raved Woody Bnmson,
who works for Pacific Theatres in San
Diego. "I thought 'The Beast' was in-
also words of praise for some films credible and did not get the attention it
which didn't find universal appeal last richly deserved," complains Thomas
year. '"Torch Song Trilogy' was Newsom of TMT Management in Portland,
touching, illuminating and memorable,"
says F.M. Hough with Q-Notes in Char-
Ore. '"Salaam Bombay!' made for
riveting cinema, and 'Bird' was a complexly
detailed film that was directed
excellently by Clint Eastwood. The film
ebbs and flows like a piece of modem
jazz," enthuses Wendeslaus Schulz with
Star Theatres in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
And Ron Yardley, who keeps his eye
on the movies while working for DHS,
Inc., in San Diego, applauds a whole
trend which he finds encouraging:
"Hooray for Hollywood women! Four of
the five films that I selected as having
the highest aesthetic quality had women
as their major headliners," he
writes. "Only the wonderful Dustin
Hoffman broke the string that the likes
of Jodie Foster, Melanie Griffith, Glenn
Close and Sigoumey Weaver put together.
Not long ago, no female — outside
of Meryl Streep — could carry the
weight of a movie on her shoulders.
You've come a long way, lady!"
Give The Grumblers Their Say
Inevitably, however, there are those
who thought that the closing months of
1988 brought nothing but turkeys, and
they're not happy about it. The common
word in their complaints is "mediocre."
"It was a very dull Christmas season,"
reports T. Campion with Laemmle
Theatres in Los Angeles. "There was little
that really grabbed your attention,
and there was a lot of mediocre product.
It's enough to drive one to a video
store."
"There was not an impressive array
[of films] to choose from," says James
H. Atherton, a retired manager with
Cineplex Odeon in Atlanta. "Mediocrity
was more the rtile than the exception."
"There were not many blockbusters
last year; none, I would say. We need
more good family, PG-rated shows,"
says Bert Lee with Lee Theatres in Terry,
Mont. "All of the films except
"Twins' were standard, mediocre fare.
They were the kinds of movies that we
used to use as 'fill-ins' between hits.
There are no hits today," observes D.
Farber, who works for Cinema Designs
in Livingston, Mont. Michael Chamberlin
with Cineplex Odeon's Marketplace
Six in Bowie, Md., concurs, adding:
"Nothing in '88 could equal the greatness
of last year's 'The Last Emperor' or
'Broadcast News' There were no grept
films last year, just some very good
ones, piled in with mediocrity."
"The movies that you listed are some
of the worst selections 1 have seen in
years. Couldn't Hollywood do any better?"
asks Martin Stringfellow with Reel
Theatres in Richfield, Utah. "The presidential
race was just as exciting to
choose from." Obviously, it was not a
kinder, gentler year at the movies for
Mr. Stringfellow.
A Summation
Finally, C.W. Rose, who is employed
by Floyd Theatres in Lakeland, Fla.,
offers an observation which, in its simplicity
and eloquence, could threaten
Jack Valenti as the most articulate
spokesperson on the film industry:
"All films were great; [although]
some [were] a little better than others."
Amen.
Mi

It s Murdiferous!''
A Colloquy on the Current State
of Independent Distribution
By David Kipen
Associate Editor
Save fifty cents in this business and all
you have is five dollars worth of bookkeeping
—Oppenheimer the studio head, in Raymond
Chandler's The Little Sister.
OR,
AS Hemdale Films chairman
and co-founder John Daly says,
"Money is expensive." A few
years ago, however, money was cheap.
It came from front-end video deals and
junk bond backing. It went into independent
film distribution and, frequently,
independent production. It paid for
what Heritage Entertainment president
Arthur "Skip" Steloff ruefully calls "a
shark-feeding orgy of picture-making,"
and before it could be paid back the bottom
fell out.
Black Monday, the day the New York
Stock Exchange went into free fall, was
not the only reason for the shakeout in
independent distribution. Even if all the
independent features released during
the boom years had been masterpieces,
there would not have been screens
enough and time to nurture them properly.
Making matters worse, they were
not all masterpieces. When, on the
morning of Oct. 19, 1987, Wall Street hit
an iceberg, that only opened a new
chapter in the increasingly sorry log of
independent distribution. The number
of that chapter, for DEG and FilmDallas
and who knows how many more to
come, is 11.
Among those independents whose
phones are still connected. Heritage,
Alive Films, New Line Cinema and
Hemdale represent four different strategies
for survival. One's buying theatres.
one's concentrating on production,
one's fortifying its diverse film library
with the further misadventures of a
dead child murderer, and the last is
defiantly stepping up its distribution operation.
In vaiying degrees, all will have to
contend with what Roger Ebert, arguably
the nation's most influential film
critic, considers "the biggest problem.
...Manv of the theatres in America
Arthur "Skip" Steloff, Heritage
are now run by chains, and it's veiy simple
to sit in the central office and strike
a deal with one of the majors and fill up
300 of your screens. The theatre chains
that are booked centrally have bookers
who have little sympathy with or interest
in independent films, and would
rather just book 'Rain Man' into .300
screens, than trj' to book a city at a time
according to their knowledge of thimarket
and the film."
While Washington's fiscal policies
were lighting a fuse on Wall Street
before the fall, the Justice Department's
new laissez-faire deregtilation
policy was taking the teeth out of the
Paramount Decrees, making possible integrations
not only lateral, but vertical.
New Line Cinema founder Robert Shave
allows that vertical integration is "not
necessarily a healthy thing for
the industiy.
It could be a healthy thing for
the company that's doing it, if they
don't pay too much for the screens.
Also, if they don't take the wrong kind
of advantage of the fact that they own
screens by holding their own pictures."
Notwithstanding his reservations
about the majors' entry into exhibition,
Shaye himself has flirted with the idea
of partnering New Line with an independent
theatre chain. "We talked to
Landmark [Theatre Corporation]. It
struck me that there were lots of fits.
They're kind of like the New Line of the
exhibition business. But they have a difficult
business plan to achieve, because
the competition is the rest of the world.
We just thought that, at the end of the
day, it was a business we didn't want to
get involved in."
Skip Steloff had no such misgivings.
Heritage recently signed a definitive
agreement for the purchase of Landmark,
and also that of the Pacific Northwest's
Seven Gables chain, which the
Landmark management teatn will nm.
"We, the distributor," SteloflP says, slipping
effortlessly into his acquisitions
pitch, "are going to be able to show you
where your film is going to open, how
it's going to open. Here's your campaign,
and gtiess what? These are the
theatres you're going to be in on a cer-
16 BOXOFFICE

tain date. Here's what I love the most
about [Landmark co-founder Steve] Gilula
and his gang: when a Hght bulb goes
out somewhere, they get crazy."
Alive Films is counting on virtually
the exact opposite strategy to ensure its
survival in the wake of the shakeout.
While Heritage is diversifying into exhibition,
Alive is scaling back its distribution
operation. Enlarging on a pre-existing
arrangement to produce a series of
modestly budgeted horror films directed
by John Carpenter and Wes Craven for
distribution by Universal, Alive cochaimian
Shep Gordon has announced
that Universal will now release all of
Alive's productions whose budgets exceed
$6 million.
"We're going to use the Universal
apparatus to get our systems into the
marketplace," says Gordon. "The
amount of films that we will release will
be very limited to a very few pieces,
probably pickups. And we still wanted
to keep the spirit of independent distribution
alive and have the opportunity to
maybe produce one a year that we
thought was worthwhile, but that
wouldn't necessarily fit into a studio
system."
In Shaye's opinion, "It's an interesting
permutation. I think it's smart for any
particular company to figure out a strategy
where they can take advantage of
other facilities that are around, like we
are with our home video distributor,
which is RCA, Columbia, or with our
television distributor, which is Columbia
television, because we don't have the
distribution facilities to do it ourselves.
If they think their product fits Universal's
distribution system, then it makes
good sense for them."
Hemdale's John Daly sounds a cautionaiy
note, however. He recently
voided a similar three-year deal he had
cut with Tri-Star for the distribution of
Hemdale's pictures. "It was so difficult,"
Daly explains, "so time-consuming
having to tiy to work through another
company on films that we believed
in. Yes, they were wonderful people.
Shep Gordon, Alive Films
They had strong connections to the cinemas.
But they also had their own program
of films."
Heritage's Steloff sees such alliances
with the major studios as a necessary if
problematic element in the future of
distribution. "There were days when the
studios would throw you out the window
if you mentioned the word 'partner,' or
'co-production.' You got that look: 'L's.'
Us? What are you talking about?' Probably
now that the herd is being cut,
you're going to see an awful lot of consolidation.
I only know that, when
somebody else gets the pencil, it gets
very difficult finding profits."
In spite of skepticism from his peers,
Gordon remains sanguine about his deepening
association with Universal.
"Once we've basically decided on what
project we're going to do, we're free to
go make our pictures. I don't foresee
any huge problems. There's some input
the studios can give us which could be
Robert Shaye, New Line Cinema
worthwhile. I think you'll see more and
more of the independents hooking up to
the majors for distribution. It wdll become
not unlike the Amazon, with a lot
of tributaries."
Even if Daly did repent of the plan to
hitch his wagon to Tri-Star, he's not
unalterably opposed to partnership on
general principles. He just prefers to
join up with partners nearer his own
size. "We've got a couple of interesting
plans to carry out," Daly says. "There
may be a little bit of joint venturing that
will take place. I think some of the independents
wi\] probably find a way of
talking to each other, and instead of
making pictures at 52 million or S3 million,
perhaps a couple of independents
will make a picture for 88 million, which
will have a bigger chance in the world
markets.
"I certainly see no reason why, as
long as you both jointly want to make
the picture and you're in harmony on
the film, one shouldn't share worldwide
markets and make a picture. The majors
have done it successfully by joining
John Daly, Hemdale
together to distribute in the foreign
market, so I don't see any reason why
independents can't link up to make a
program of pictures."
SteloflF sees a reason. "The big thing
that's kept most of us from doing it," he
says, "is the ego of the independent
entrepreneurs. When one independent
talks with the other, eventually somebody
has to say, 'Who's going to nm this
thing, this consolidation of power?' And
you stare at each other."
Rather than stare each other down
until their ribs begin to show, the
remaining independents may have to
put their egos on hold. Even Robert
Shaye admits that, if "A Nightmare on
Elm Street" hadn't come along when it
did, "Maybe we would have merged
with somebody else."
Shaye's New Line represents a third
response to the continuing shakeout
among the independents, the tack all
the other companies would gladly take
if they only could. As Steloff laments,
"We don't have that great franchise picture.
We don't have Freddy."
Freddy is Freddy Knieger, the character
created by Wes Craven and played
by Robert Englimd and thanked heaven
for by everyone at New Line Cinema.
Freddy is an ingenious personification
of everything that made "Invasion of
the Body Snatchers" such a classic of
insomniac terror. Mainly though, Freddy
is, to paraphrase New Line's promotional
copy, the bastard son of 1,000
maniacs that laid the golden egg.
Thanks to Freddy, whose fourth sequel
will go head-to-head with the majors'
big gims on Aug. 1 1 this summer -— historically
a season for independents to
lay low — New Line's "priman' focus of
business is the producing of our o\vn
movies," Shaye says. "It shifted after
the 'Elm Streets' and our public offering,
when our bank facilities finally
established that we had enough money
to do it.
Before, virtually all of the films
that we had were pickups — just distribution,
because that was the only thing
we could afford to do. It was mostly for-

^dependent Distribution: "It's Murdiferous!
eign films because they were the least
expensive ones to pick up.
"We've had our art picture history.
We know that sometimes they really
work, and you have 'My Life as a Dog' or
'Get Out Your Handkerchiefs' or 'Room
with a View' — there are those lucky
moments — but they happen so infrequently,
and there is a reasonable
amount of competition out there for art
films."
Is Shaye, who founded New Line after
college 20 years ago in order to distribute
his own student films to campus
film societies, at all sheepish about running
his company off the proceeds from
a teen horror movie? "h's very dangerous
to be an elitist in the movie business,"
he says. "I can have as much fun
with a hot dog and potato salad as I can
with foie gras and scallops. I like to
think that I may have good taste, and
like esoteric and finely wrought things.
It does prevent you from getting into
some of the reaUy stupid things that
have made a lot of money over the
years.
"Even though our birthright was nontheatrical,
about a year ago we made a
deal with Films Inc., who's handling our
non-theatrical rights on a subdistribution
basis." Shaye acknowledges, "It
was a painful separation."
Ask Robert Shaye where New Line
would be without Freddy, and you can
tell it's an alternate universe he doesn't
relish speculating about. "Maybe we
would have continued to be a distributor
of the smaller art films we still aspire to
producing. Maybe we would have gone
public anyhow through some smaller
underwriter, if we'd managed to hold on
for another year in that whole flurry of
entertainment companies going public.
"Almost all our capital raising has
been a bootstrapping operation. We've
had to first make the money and then
go to the capital market and say, 'Hey,
we're very successful, don't you think
we ought to have some more?' As
opposed to 'We need some, what do you
think?' and nobody being interested in
giving it to us. Let me put it this way. I'm
very glad that 'Elm Street' showed up
and we didn't pass on it."
Rules of thumb governing whether to
pass on a picture or grab it vary from
indie to indie, even from project to project.
Over at Hemdale, says Daly, "If you
put up S2 million as an advance, and
you're going to spend S3 million or S4
million on marketing, then obviously
you've got to do your homework to say
'Do I have a chance of getting six plus
interest?' If you can see that happening,
and you finish up with a residual interest
in the picture in perpetuity, then
that's a worthwhile exercise."
New Line's rubric is slightly more
supple. According to Shaye, "There really
isn't any number. The worst-case
scenario that makes it worth the trouble
is recouping all of the cost of the movie,
plus a prorated share of our overhead
for the year. Our overhead's about seven-and-a-half
million dollars, so if we
have seven pictures, they each have to
bear their individual costs, plus another
million dollars in overhead. If you need
to have some kind of touchstone, I sup-
(continued p 34)
New Location:
In Louisville Bluegrass
Industrial Park
To Serve You
Even Better
THE TAPELESS
SHOWTIME ANNOUNCER
We specialise in custom designed systems as simple
or as complex as you like. Our background is
engineering and we are eager to work with you We
understand your operational and financial requirements
Representing the world s linesi manulaclurers. we are
HADDEN r-t
THEATRE SUPPLY COMPANY
10314 Bluegrass Parkway
Louisville, KY 40294
(502) 499-0050
Louis Bornwasser, Manager
Design-Consultation-Sales
m SO^ID-STATE RELIABlLlTY-NO MOVING PARTS-HIGHEST
DINET,INC
(619) 724-5355
QUALITY AUDIO PLAYBACK/'ANNOUNCING
HANDLES UP TO 6 CALLERS AT ONE TIME-UNITS ARE
STACKABLE FOR MORE LINES
ALL RECEIVE YOUR ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE BEGINNING
RECORDED ANNOUNCEMENT CAN BE DIVIDED INTO 10
SEGMENTS-ALLOWS SCREEN EDITING'CHANGING
RECORDING TIME UP TO 9 MINUTES-ALLOWS FOR
THEATER SHARING AND FLEXIBILITY
Response No 23
MANUFACTURERS AND
DESIGNERS OF SOLID-STATE
RECORDING EQUIPMENT FOR
THE LAW ENFORCEMENT
AND PUBLIC SAFETY INDUSTRY
IS
BOXOKUCE

Guide to Independent
Distribution
IC2
ASA

1
ARKOFF
INTERNATIONAL
9465 Sunset Blvd.. Suite 307
Beverly Hills. CA 90212
213-278-7600
President Chairman: Sam Arkoft
Exec VP Production: Louis Arkon
VP Production/Acquisition: Willie H.
Kutner
BERKSHIRE
LITCHFIELD
FILMS
PO Box 590
Great Barrington. MA 01230
413-528-3164
President:: Albert M. Schwartz
ATLANTIC CASTLE HILL
ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTIONS,
GROUP
INC.
8255 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles. CA 90046-2400
213-650-2500
Chairman. CEO Alan Saffron
President: Jonathan fvt. Dana
President. Theatrical Distribution and
Marketing, Exec VP Atlantic
Mitchell A Blum
President. Atlantic International: Jules
Stem
Exec VP. CFO: Jeff Ivers
Exec VP. Motion Picture Finance:
James M Gould
Senior VP Worldwide Operations:
Patricia Furnare
Senior VP Business and Legal Affairs:
William J. Petrasich
VP. Creative Advertising: Ed
Harridsleff
VP. Aquisilions: Bobby Rock
Director of Creative Affairs:
McLeroy
Director.
Russo
Val
Theatrical Operations: Jean
Director Office & Property
Management Barbara Katz
Director of Media: Cliff Terry
Western Div Sales Manager: Tom
Hudson
Eastern Div Sales Manager: Doug
Whitford
Midwestern Div
Michael
1988 Releases: 5
Sales Manager Lou
Current and Forthcoming: For
Queen and Country. A Soldier's
Tale. The Borrower. Whisper The
Wolves of Willoughby Chase
AVENUE
ENTER TAINMENT
12100 Wilshire Blvd.. Suite 1650
Los Angeles, CA 90025
213-442-2200
Chairman: Gary Brokaw
President: Michael Eliasberg
Exec VP Domestic Dist Gary Persell
VP Advertising S Publicity: April
Karpie
VP, Financal Officer Martha Mikita
General Sales Manager Donald
Schwartz
Sales Manager Doug Potash
Controller Shen Hallon
19881
Current and Forthcoming: Signs of
Life: Cold Feet. Drugstore Cowboy.
Distant Voices. Still Lives
116 N. Robertson Suite 701
Los Angeles, CA 90048
213-652-5254
1414 Ave. of the Americas
New York, NY 10019
212-888-0080
President: Julian Schlossberg
President Marketing / Dist :
Mel Maron
1988 Releases: 2
Current and Forthcoming: Echoes
of Paradise,
Tango Bar Hell High
CINECOM
INTERNATIONAL
FILMS
1250 Broadway
New York. NY 10001
212-239-8360
Chairman. President: Amir J. Malin
Exec. VP Sales & Marketing: Richard
Abramowitz
Exec. VP Marketing & Advertising:
Thomas Moody
Exec. VP: Bart Walker
Senior VP Production: Leon Falk
VP Development: Eric Steel
Current and Forthcoming: Scenes
From the Class Struggle in Beverly
Hills. Comic Book Confidential.
Trust Me. Handmaid's Tale
CINEMA GROUP,
INC.
3 Point Drive. Suite 208
Brea. CA 9262
213-204-0102
President CEO Richard W. James
THE CINEMA
GUILD
1697 Broadway. Room 802
New York. NY 10019
212-246-5522
President: Mary-Ann Hobel
Vice President
Philip S Hot>el
VP. Acquisitions Marketing Gary
Crowdus
Development Michele Preli
Disl Coord Ted Hicks
1988 Releases: 1
Current and Forthcoming: South of
the Boarder
CINEPIX INC.
8275 Mayrand
Montreal Quebec CA. H4P 2C8
514-342-2340
Current and Forthcoming:
Snakeater's Revenge
CINEPLEX ODEON
FILMS
1303 Yonge Street
Toronto. Ontario. Canada M4T2Y9
4 16-323-6600
1925 Century Park East. Suite 300
Los Angeles. CA 90067
213-551-2500
Chairman

1
1
CONCORDE
PICTURES
t woo San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
213-326-0978
CROWN
INTERNATIONAL
PICTURES, INC.
8701 Wilshire Blvd.
DOURLE HELIX
FILMS INC.
275 7th Avenue. Suite 2003
New York. NY 1000
212-727-2000
EXPANDED
ENTER TAINMENT
2222 S. Barrington Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90064
213-473-6701
Chairman: Roger Corman
Exec. VP/President. Concorde Int'l:
Brad Krevoy
VP. General Sales Mgr: Mary Lou
Lanaux
Western Div. Sales Mgr i Co-Op Bill
Bromiley
Sales

Suite
FILMS INC.
35 S West Street
Mt Vernon. NY 10550
914-667-0800. 800^23-4222
Dir. Theatrical Operations John
OConnell
Sr VP Marketing: Doug Lemza
FILMWORLD
685 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10022
212-575-5050
President: Irene Levy
Vice President: Alexander W Kogan.
1988 Releases: 5
FIRST RUN
FEATURES
153 Waverly Place
New York. NY 10014
212-243-0600
President: Seymour Wishman
Dir
Theatrical Sales: Sande Zeig
Assistant Dir
Maucen
1988 Releases: 12
Theatrical Sales: Marc
Current and Forthcoming: The
Suitors. Back to Ararat. The Cry of
Reason. Promises to Keep.
Virgin
Machine, Rehearsals for Extinct
Anatomys
FRIES
ENTERTAINMENT
6922 Hollywood Blvd
Hollywood. CA 90028
213-466-2266
Chairman /President/CEO: Charles
W Fries
Exec. VP. Administration: Charles M
Fries
Exec
VP. Chief Financial Officer:
William T Roland
Sr VP, Advertising, Promotion: Tony
Habeeb
VP, Production: Tom Fries
VP, Personnel: Ron Takahashi
VP, Legal Affairs: Greg Redlitz
VP, Acquisitions: Henry Seggerman
VP, Production Supervision: S Bryan
Hickox
Director, Business Affairs: Margaret
Rogers
Resident Counsel: Allen Klein
VP, Business Affairs: Bob Chasm
FRIES THEATRICAL
Exec VP, Motion Pictures Maurice
Singer
VP, Theatrical Development: Andrea
Newman
FRIES DISTRIBUTION CO
Exec VP of Domestic Distribution:
Ave Butensky
Sr. VP/ General Sales Mgr Peter
Schmid
VP. Sales Don Golden
VP. Advertising
Wexner
Promotion: Lou
FRIES DOMESTIC THEATRICAL
DISTRIBUTION
Exec. VP, US. Theatrical Distribution
James Dudelson
FRIES INTERNA TIONAL
Exec VP. International Distribution
Larry Friedricks
VP, International Distribution: Paula
Dir
Fierman
European Operations: Tony Lytle
1988 Releases: 2
GALAXY
INTERNATIONAL
RELEASING
16000 Ventura Blvd Ste.907
Encino, CA 91436
818-501-3976
President
1988 Releases: 3
CEO: James Goldschlager
Current and Fortficoming:
Halloween 5, A Few Days with Me
HEMDALE
RELEASING
CORP.
12121 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1000
Los Angeles, CA 90025
213-826-2256
Chairman: John Daly
President: Derek Gibson
Chief Financial Officer:
Hustedt
Terrence R
President. Worldwide Distribution:
Andy Gruenberg
Exec VP Worldwide Marketing:
Martin Rabinovitch
VP. Acquisitions: Anne Marie Gillen
VP. General Sales Mgr Richard
Miller
VP. Advertising
Ed McKenna
Dir Marketing - Sales: TC. Rice
Dir of Publicity Amy Sexauer
1988 Releases: 7
Current and Forthcoming: Criminal
Law.
The Time Guardian.
Vampire's Kiss, Miracle Mile. Shag.
Staying Together, War Party
HERITAGE
ENTER TAINMENT
7920 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
213-850-5858
Chairman: Skip Steloff
VP, Prod Acquis : Robert Steloff
Sr VP. Creative Affairs Alan Sacks
Exec VP Robert L Oppenheim
Controller: Edward Goldstein
Dir . Acquisitions: Lora Fox
Dir. Do. Home Video S Anc Sales:
Lindsey Dudovoir
Current and Forthcoming:
Manson In His Own Words.
Knightmare. Winter Break. Slave
True Story. Ranger.
Voyager
A
INTERNATIONAL
FILM EXCHANGE
LTD.
201 West 52nd St, 3rd Fir
New York, NY 10019
212-582-4318
President: Gerald J Rappoport
VP Theatrical Sales and Distribution:
Robert Newman
Dir
of Marketing: Stephanie Holm
National Sales Director: Robert
Director of Publicity: Joan-Ellen
Delaney
Dir of Intl. Sales: Joy Perthes
Non-theatrical Dist.: Alan Sherman
INTERNATIONAL
FILM
MARKETING,
INC.
9440 Santa Monica Blvd. Ste 710
Beverly Hills. CA 90210
213-859-3971
ISLAND PICTURES
9000 Sunset Blvd, Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90069
213-276-4500
Owner /Founder: Chris Blackwell
President, Production: Mark Burg
VP General Sales Mgr. Rob Schuize
Dir
Creative Advertising: Regan van
der Werff
KINGS ROAD
ENTER TAINMENT
190 1 Avenue of the Stars, #605
Los Angeles, CA 90067
213-552-0057
Chairman: Stephen Friedman
President of Production: Martin Caan
VP, Acquisitions: Bartmra Levy
1988 Releases: 3
Current and Forthcoming: Homer S
Eddie, Kick Boxer, Salute of the
Jugger
KINO
INTERNATIONAL
CORP.
333 West 39th St, Suite 503
New York, NY 10018
212-629-6880
President
Donald Krim
Director of Operations
Non-Theatrical Sales
Gary Palmucci
Dennis Ooros
Administration Rikki Matthews
Non-Theatrical Sates (Western
States) Bret Wood
1988 Releases: 7
Current and Forthcoming: Princess
Tam-Tam, Zou Zou, The Emperor's
Naked Army Marches On
MCEG/MANSON
INTERNATIONAL
2400 Broadway , 100
Santa Monica, CA 90404
213-315-7800
Chairman/CEO, MCEG: Jonathan D
Krane
President: Charles J. Weber
Vice

MIRAMAX FILMS
18 East 48lh Street. Suite 1601
New York. NY 10017
MOVIESTORE

1
2nd
Suite
NEW LINE
CINEMA CORP.
575 8th Ave. 16th Floor
New York. NY 10019
212i
1 16 N Robertson Blvd .
Los Angeles. CA 90048
213-854-5811
Floor
President Robert Shaye
Sr VP and Treasurer: Stephen
Abramson
Sr VP, Domestic Distribution: Mitchell
Goldman
Sr VP. Production Acquisitions: Sara
Sr.
Sr.
Risher
VP. Marketing: Michael Harpster
VP. International: Roll Mittweg
VP, Business Affairs: Donna L
Bascom VP. Operations Randy
Gardner
VP, Production
Jeff Schechtman
VP, Controller: Michael Spatt
Dir, Contract Administration
Thompsen
Assf Controller
Tracy Adier
Sonya
NEW LINE DISTRIBUTION. INC
President COO: Mitchell Goldman
Sr VP. General Sales Manager: Al
VP,
Shapiro
Western Div.: Paul Ripps
VP, Southern Div.: John Trickett
VP, Southeastern Div : Don Osley
VP, Central Div
David Keith
National Print Controller: Gisela
Corcoran
NEW LINE PRODUCTIONS, INC
President: Sara Risher
Exec. VP Jeff Schechtman
VP, Talent and Casting: Annette
Benson
VP, Production: Gerald T.
Dir.
Dir
Rachel Talalay
of Music Kevin Benson
Olson,
of Development Kevin Moreton
Production Supervisor
Tim Gray
VP. Post-Production: Joe Fineman
NEW LINE MARKETING. INC
President: Michael Harpster
Sr.
Sr.
VP. Advertising: Theresa Collins
VP, Marketing and Publicity:
Alison Emilio
VP, Creative and Marketing Services
Ellen Eisenberg
VP. Field Publicity ' Promotion: Lori
Koonin
Dir . Promotion. Licensing &
Merchandising Kevin Benson
Creative Director Bert Pence. Jr
Manager of Co-Op Advertising: Darius
Krzemionka
NEW LINE INTERNA TIONAL. INC
President Roll Mittweg
Director Camela Galano
Dir.,
Sales Control and Auditing:
Nestor Nieves
Manager of Int'l
McDonald
1988 Releases: 1
Servicing: Kathy
Current and Forthcoming: No
Holds Barred. The Barbar The
Movie. A Nightmare of Elm Street
The Dream Child. Texas Chainsaw
Massacre 3. Heart Condition.
Relentless.
In the Mouth of
Madness. House Party. A Sinful
Life.
976-Evil
NEW STAR
RELEASING
260 S Beverly Drive. Suite 200
Beverly Hills CA 90212
213-205-0666
President: Dimitn S Villard
Secretary S Treasurer:: Brian Fuld
Sr VP GSM Ronald C Rodgers
NEW VISIONS
PICTURES
5750 Wilshire Blvd Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA 90036
213-965-2500
CEO/Chairman: Taylor Hackford
COO 'President: Stuart Benjamin
Sr VP. Creative Affairs &
Development Andrea Asimov
VP Mktg & Promo Patti Schulman
VP Production Art Schaefer
Dir
Production Services: Jane Russell
Current and Fortticoming:
Rooftops. Defenseless. Confidence
NEW WORLD
ENTER TAINMENT
1440 S Sepulveda Blvd.
Los Angeles. CA 90025
213-444-8100
Co-Chairman: Lawrence L. Kuppin
Co-Chairman/CEO: Robert Rehme
Co-Chairman: Harry Evans Sloan
NEW WORLD INTERNATIONAL
President COO William Shields
VP. Publicity Promotion Jerry
Zanitsch
NEW WORLD PICTURES
President. Marketing and Distribution:
Robert M. Cheren
Executive VP, Domestic Distribution:
Sr
Sr
Elliot Slutzky
VP, Creative Advertising: Stephen
J Segal
VP, Acquisitions ' Ancillary Sales
Walter Calmetle
VP, National Media
Advertising
Co-Op
Paula Hutchinson
VP, Publicity: Frank Wright
VP. Production Randy Le Vinson
VP. Asst General Sales Manager
Tim Swain
Manager Publicity Promotions Lynn
Frankel
Current and Forthcoming:
Heathers. Under the Boardwalk.
Warlock. The Punisher. Brenda
Starr. Meet the Applegates
NEW YORKER
FILMS
16 West 6 1st St.
New York. NY 10023
212-247-6110
President
Dan Talbot
General Manager: Jose Lopez
1988 Releases: 5
Current and Forthcoming: La
Boheme. The Four Adventures of
Reinette and Mirabelle. Summer
Vacation 1999. Sand and Blood,
Voices of Sarafinal
ORION PICTURES
CORP.
1888 Century Park East
Los Angeles. CA 90067
213-282-0550
9 West 57th St
New York. NY 10019
212-980-1117
Chairman
Arthur B Krim
President and CEO: Eric Pleskow
Exec VP: William Bernstein
Exec. VP Morris (Mike) Medavoy
Sr VP for Production: Marc E Piatt
Sr VP Post Production Soloman
Lomita
VP for Production: Michael Barlow.
Lawrence E. Jackson
ORION PICTURES DISTRIBUTION
CORP
President: Joel Resnick
Exec VP for Distribution: Buddy
Golden
Exec. VP. for Marketing: Charles O
Glenn
VP. Publicity: Gail Brounstein
VP, Operations: Carl Ferrazza
VP. Creative Advertising: Jeffrey
Arfer
VP and Director of Media Services:
Beverly Weinstein
VP. Sales: Sharon Badal
VP. Advertising: Tina Tanen
VP. Western Division Region Mgr:
Greg Potash
National Dir Publicity /Promotions:
Jan Kean
Publicity Dir, East Coast: Larry
Sleinfeld
Manager of Publicity,
Nina Baron
East Coast:
Staff Publicist: Henry Penner
ORION PICTURES INTERNA TIONAL
President Robert Meyers
VP IntI Advertising and Publicity:
Susan Danbra
1988 Releases: 17
Current and Forthcoming: Lost
Angels. Great Balls of Fire. Erik the
Viking, The Package. UHF. Speed
Zone. Love al Large. Everybody
Wins. Miami Blues.
Valmont
ORION CLASSICS
711 5th Ave 6th Floor
New York. NY 10022
212-758-5100
VP for Sales /Marketing: Michael
Barker
VP for Marketing /Distribution: Tom
Bernard
VP lor Acquisitions: Donna Gigliotti
1988 f
Current and Forthcoming: Women
on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown. Murmur of the Heart.
Chocolat, La. Lectrice (The
Reader).
Camille Claudel.
The Music Teacher.
Wait Until Spring
PACIFIC
INTERNATIONAL
ENTERPRISES
INC.
1 133 S Riverside. Suite 1
Medford. OR 97501
503-779-0990
President
Arthur R Dubs
VP. Sales Acquisitions: Am S Wihtot
Secretary Treasurer Barbara J
Brown
Dir Media Publicity: Paul W. Blumer
Office Mgr Andy Gough
Booking Dept :
Vickie D. Clarke
PALISADES
ENTER TAINMENT
1875 Century Park East. 3rd Ft.
Los Angeles. CA 90067
213-459-4480
Chairman: Andre Blay
President COO: Robin Montgomery
Dir Marketing Marcie Robinson
Mgr Marketing Sates Ann Greer
Adv Coordinator Vickie AdIer
Mgr West Reg. Sales: Linda
Patterson
Mgr South
McCall
Reg Sales: Ginger
PARAGON ARTS
INTERNATIONAL
6777 Hollywood Blvd .
700
Los Angeles. CA 90028
213-465-5355
Executive Producer: Walter Josten
President Tom Hamilton
Supervising Producer Jeff Geoffray
Vice President Distribution Luis
Benavides
1988 Releases: 1
Current and Forthcoming: TIPS.
Night Angel
24 BoxoKncE

i
:
Suite
REELTIME
DISTRIBUTING
CORP,
353 W- 4Bth Street
New York. NY 10036
212-582-5380
President: Roberta Findlay
Exec Producer: Walter E. Sear
General Manager: James M Cirile
SVS PICTURES,
INC.
1700 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
212-757-4990
Exec in Charge of Theatrical Dist
Ed Cruea
Marketing Manager: Teresa Bauer
Deputy President Michael Holzman
Dir. of Sales: Ed Jackson
VP Business Affairs Jeffrey Ringler
VP Operations: Steven Shalofsky
THE SAMUEL
GOLDWYN
COMPANY
10203 Santa Monica Blvd . 500
Los Angeles. CA 90067-6403
213-552-2255
200 W 57th Street. ffSOS
New York, NY 10019-3211
212-315-3030
Chairman • CEO: Samuel Goldwyn. Jr
SEYMOUR HORDE
AND
ASSOCIATES
1800 N Highland Ave. Ste 600
Hollywood. CA 90028
213-461-3936
President
Seyour Borde
Vice President: Mark Borde
Dir Non- Theatrical: Colleen Meeker
Sales: Aaron Shiesman
Office Mgr. Lee Grunden
President: COO Meyer Gottlieb
1988 f
Current and Forthcoming:
Midnight. Summer Job. Malarek.
Erik, The Last Warrior. Best of the
Best. Modem Love, Freak Show
Sr VP. Worldwide Production:
Thomas Rothman
Sr.
Sr
VP. Operations: J Michael Byrd
VP. Business Affairs: Norman
Flicker
Sr VP. International Theatrical Sales:
Ann Dubinet
Sr VP, Finance S Controller: Hans
ROXIE
RELEASING
3117 16th Street
San Francisco. CA 94 103
415-431-3611
Chaimnan: Robert Evans
President: Bill Banning
Vice President: Craig Marsden
Chief Financial Officer: Charles Ferris
VP. Marketing: Nancy Vitlacyl
SATORI
ENTER TAINMENT
CORP.
277 Park Avenue, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10172
212-874-7777
Senior VP.: Gary Conner
VP,
Theatrical Distribution: Steven
Rothenberg
VP, Publicity: Leonie de Picciotto
VP, Advertising Dan Gelfand
VP, Theatrical Acquisitions: Anne
Templeton
VP. Motion Picture and TV Facilities:
Tom Bodley
VP. Cable & Ancillary Sales: Jeri
Sacks
1988 Releases: 5
Current and Forthcoming: Heart of
Midnight. Wuthering Heights. Tom
Jones. Breaking In
SCOTTI
BROTHERS
PICTURES
DISTRIBUTION
509 Madison Avenue. Suite 1608
New York. NY 10022
212-593-6116
President: Jerry Pickman
Dir /National Publicity S Promotion:
Sieve Rubin
National Sales Manager: Brian Geller
Current and Forthcoming: Michael
Angela
'Institute
Your Partner In Good Health.
Jfords which typify the cradit
^n which the Will Rogers In;
prided itself for over 50 yea
been caring for employees of the
by providing them with
specialists is
absolutely free.
Write or call to learn more
-
about the benefits we offer and yc
will see just how we embody the
spirit of that great humanitarian
and entertainer. Will Rogers,
UCLA Medical Center

SHAPIRO
GLICKENHAUS
ENTERTAIMMENT
CORP.
)2001 Ventura Place. Suite 404
Studio City. CA 91604
8t8-766S500
President CEO Leonard Sttapiro
Chairrrtan James Glickenhaus
Exec VP CtMef Operations Alan M
Solomon
Sr VP General Manager Peter
Piduttj
1988 Releases: 1
Current and Forthcoming: Red
Scorpion. Moontrap. One Man
Force.
Time
The Wizard of Speed and
SKOURAS
PICTURES
INC.
1040 N. Las Palmas. Building 10
Hollywood. CA 90038
213-467-3000
President: Dimitri (Tom) Skouras
President, Motion Pictures: Jetl
Lipsky
General Sales Mgr: Gail Boumenthal
Sr VP Finance and Administration:
John Kendrick
Sr. VP / International: Sigrid Ann
Davison
Sr VP Business and Legal Affairs:
Jeffrey Holmes
VP Acquisitions: Marjorie Skouras
VP Corp. Projects: B.J. Miller
1988 Releases: 5
Current and Forthcoming: To Die
For. Valenlina Returns, Heavy
Petting
SMART EGG
PICTURES
7080 Hollywood Blvd »518
Hollywood. CA 90028
213-463-8937. 213-463-9026
CEO/President Luigi Cingolani
f^lbliclty Director: Will Baronet
Foreign Sales Ctiiel: Tom Sjoberg
VP Theatrical Distribution James
Sabo
Chief Financial Officer
1988 Releases: 1
Clive Lewis
Current and Forthcoming: Private
War. Martians. Play Room
SPECTRAFILM
2 Carlton Street. Suite 6 10
Toronto. Ontario. MSB 1J3
416-979-1490
29 W 34th Street. 12th Floor
New York. NY 10001
212-947-0888
8981 Sunset Blvd , Suite 101
Los Angeles. CA 90069
213-550-7382
CEO Barry W Young (Toronto)
President COO: Jonathan D Olsberg
President, Distribution Alan Belkin
Senior VP, Sales Marketing: Sandra
A. Shaw
VP, Publicity /Promotion: Ed Cassidy
VP, Advertising Marty Heselov
VP, Finance James Novak
VP. General Sales Mgr WR.
"Randy" Slaughter
Dir Publicity Promotion Jane Wright
Sales Mgr East: Pat Alexander
Sales Mgr South: Jim Prichard
(Dallas Branch)
Sales Mgr Mid-West Don Rosen
(Dallas Branch)
1988 Releases: 4
Current and Forthcoming: Dream
Demon, Stiff, Sorority
TRANS WORLD
ENTER TAINMENT
330 West Cahuenga Blvd, SteSOO
Hollywood. CA 90068
213-969-2800
Co-Chairman: Moshe Diamant
Co-Chairman: Eduard Sarlui
President /COO: Helen Sarlui-Tucker
President.
Phil Isaacs
Trans World Theatrical:
President. Motion Pictures: Paul
Mason
CEO Frank McKevitt
VP. Production: Jeffrey Sudzin
Current and Forthcoming: For
Better or For Worse. Night Game.
Robot Jox, Why Me?. Men at
Work. Ghosts Can't Do It. Teen
Witch, Ski Patrol
TRIAX
ENTERTAINMENT
GROUP
1801 Avenue of the Stars,
Los Angeles. CA 90067
SUGAR Chairman: Don L. Parker
n m rrmr, rm rw^ M wm rm rwi m^rm President /CEO: David J. Miller
ENTER TAINMENT Westem D,V, Sales Mgr Raymond £
15821 Ventura Blvd ^°°"
Encino, CA 91436
818-789-6555
Chairman/CEO: Larry Sugar
Executive VP: Bonnie Sugar
VP, International Sales: Andrew
Milner, Pamela Pickering
Current and Forthcoming: Honor
Bound, Hell Drivers, National
Lampoon 's Family Dies, The
Plastic Nightmare, Nobodys
Children, Damned River, Snow
Run, Dark Rain, Options
TAURUS
ENTER TAINMENT
CO.
2545 Hempstead Turnpike
East Meadow. NY 1 1554
516-579-8400
President: Stanley Dudelson
Marketing Dir. : Lynn Vanderwaler
16000 Ventura Blvd
Los Angeles. CA 91436
818-784-9695
VP/ General Sales Mgr :
Robert
19881
Current and Forthcoming: Heaven
Becomes Hell, On the Make. Fist
Fighter. Domino
TROMA INC.
733 Ninth Ave.
New York. NY 10019
212-757-4555
President: Lloyd Kaufman
Vice President: Michael Herz
Dir.
Dir.
Dir
Theatrical Dist.: Carl Morano
Marketing Coord.: Steve Gaul
Business Affairs: David
Greenspan
Dir IntI Sales: Jeffrey W Sass
1988 Releases: 5 Current and
Forthcoming: The Toxic Avenger:
Pan II.
Evil Clutch, Fortress of
Amerikkka, Rabid Grannies
VALIANT
INTERNATIONAL
PICTURES
4774 Melrose Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90029
213-665-5257
President Harry Novak
VESTRON
PICTURES
2029 Century Park East, Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90067
213-551-1723
6060 N Central Express, Suite 732
Dallas, TX 75206
214-361-7193
President: Bill Quigley
Sr
VP, Production: Mitchell Cannold
Sr. VP. Marketing and Distribution:
MJ Peckos
VP. Production: Diane Natiatoff, Scott
Kramer
VP Production, Acquisitions: Dan
Ireland
VP, General Sales Mgr :
Ditrinco
VP, Marketing
Blaise Nolo
Linda
VP, Publicity / Promotion: Susan Senk
VP. Creative Services: Sharon
Streger
VP, Creative Affairs: Diane Nabaloff
VP, Post Production: John Craddock
VP, Production Planning: Don
Wasserman
VP, Story Department: Nana
Greenwald
Executive in Charge of Production:
Alan Grabelsky
Director of Marketing: Pat Caufield
Director, Creative Advertising: Pam
Rodi
Director, Production, Acquisitions:
Jack Lorenz
Director,
Roche
Director of Media
Print Production: Mark
Eric Polin
Director, Creative Affairs and Story:
Cathy Rabin
Director of Worldwide Licensing,
Merchandising and Promotions:
Lionel Martinez
Creative Director,
Broadcast/ Theatrical Promotion:
Denise Farley
Westem Division Manager: Chhs
Aronson
Southern Division Manager: Alan
Christian
Director,
Jon Beal
Eastern Division Manager:
Southeast Sales Manager: Michael
Silberman
Westem Sales Manager: Michael
Umble
Manager, Publicity and Promotion:
Mary K Donovan
Manager, Publicity: Ed Martin
Manager of Media: Cathy Distefano
Music Consultant: Jimmy lenner
Financial Consultant: Sam Goldnch
National Print Manager Sal Ladestro
1988 Releases: 21
Current and Forthcoming: Earth
Girls are Easy
26 BOXOFFICE

Boxoffice P.O. Box 226 Hollywood CA 90078-0226
MfSRSSS^
""^SS Buyer's Directory
Questionnaire
Dear Reader,
If you haven't already received your 1989 BOXOFFICE Buyer's Directory
Questionnaire by mail, please fill out this form, remove or photocopy it, and mail
it back to Boxoffice Magazine, P.O.B. 226, Hollywood, CA 90078. This will ensure
that your company is included, with up-to-date information, in our comprehensive
Annual Buyer's Directory issue (August). Remember, there is no charge or
obligation of any kind for your listing. So please take the few necessary minutes to
fill out this form and return it to us as soon as possible— no later than May 30.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Company
Name, Title
Street, Address
POBox
City, State, Zip
Phone ( )
Company is a: Manufacturer (please fill out other side)
D Dealer/Manufacturers Rep (Please list product lines on other side)
D Service Company
D Other (please describe)
n Film Distributor (please enclose a list of your subs or branches)
D Film Subdistributors (please enclose a list of the distributors you
serve)
For distributors and subdistributors: we handle D General Release
Films D Adult Films D Art/Foreign/Specialized Films
Description
Please help us inform our readers about your company by including:
—A list of your key executives, with titles
—A list of all other branches or offices
—Brochures or catalogs that describe your operation.
Signed
Title
Date
Don't forget to check the other side of this page, if necessary, and to mail your form
back as soon as possible. Thanks again for helping to make the Buyer's Directory the
most complete information source of its kind in the motion picture business!
DEADLINE: May 30

FOR MANUFACTURERS: Please indicate below the areas in which your company is involved (check as
many boxes as necessary to adequately describe your products and/or services):
ADVERTISING/DISPLAY
ACCESSORIES
1a Ad Accessory Services— Trailers
lb D Animated Displays
1c O Changeable Letters
1d D Date Strips
1e D Display Frames Cases Easels
If n Drive-in Clocks
1g D Film Code Rating Symbols
Iti n Heralds Window Cards— Bumper
Strips
1i O Letter Repair
1| D Marquee Background Panels
Ik D Sign Flashers /Border Chasers
II D Signs
5k
BOXOFFICE EQUIPMENT/
SUPPLIES
2a
2b
2c
2d
2e
2f
D Admission Checkers
D Admission Signs
n Cash Registers
D Talk-Through Equipment
D Tickets
D Ticket Issuing
COMPUTERS
3a
3b
3c
D Consultants
n Hardware
D Sottware
CONCESSIONS— EQUIPMENT
4a
4b
4c
4d
4e
4f
4g
4h
4i
D Beverage Dispensers
O Butter Warmers /Dispensers
D Candy Floss Machines
D Caramel Corn Equipment
D Concession Equipment
D Concession Trailers/ Advertising
Films
O Condiment Dispensers
n Containers (bags, boxes, cups,
etc.)
Q Cup Dispensers
4| D Display Cases /Counters
4k D Donut Machines
41 n Food Holders /Warmers
4m D Grills/ Steamers /Rotisseries
4n n Ice Cream Display Cases
40 D Ice Cream Freezers
4p D Ice Making Machines
4q D Menu Boards /Concession Displays
4r D Popcorn Poppers
4s D Popcorn Warmers
4t Refrigerators
4u D Snow Cones /Slush Machines
4v D Straw/Napkin Dispensers
CONCESSIONS— FOOD
n Candy
5a
5b n Candy Floss
5c D Caramel Corn
5d D Concession Supplies
5e O Cookies
51 n Fried Foods
5g D Hot Dogs
5h D Ice Cream
51 D Nachos
5| D Non-carbonated beverages

ioK you go lo the box oilke, you must gel into PIODIKIION
The Only Pre-Production Magazine
OYISI Sign me up for 1 2 issues of PRODUaiN MAGAZINE for only $20.
ADDRESS
CrTY/STATE/ZIP
PHONE
PROFESSION/COMPANY NAME
o/o Preduotlon Maaulns.TIi* IWavlalon Cmtor, 6311
Hellyweed, CA OoAa. OuMda lh» US MibMflpttont ar*
ONLY $20 for 12 issues
m.
^- -v\
1

THEATRE PROFILE
Film Forum
The House That Art Built
THE
By Fern Siegel
1970, has made a business out of art.
Awarded Brandeis University's prestigious
Citation in Films in 1983 (the only
cinema so honored), Film Forum is
among the city's most successful avantgarde
institutions, boasting 160,000 admissions
annually. These days, however.
Film Forum and its innovative director,
Karen Cooper, are pre-occupied
with demolition, not daring praise.
Late last year. Cooper received notification
from her landlord. Trinity Realty,
that Film Fonmi's days were numbered.
What was once an outpost of downtown
denizens — 57 Watts Street, west of
SoHo and north of Tribeca — has
become valued commercial property.
New York Times calls it "the
most consistently rewarding
showcase for foreign and independent
films in New York," while Van-
Trinity Church in New York, informed
Trinity Realty, an arm of the Parish of
ity Fair dubbed it Manhattan's "most Cooper that Minskoff Equities is now
nourishing cinema " It is Film Forum, a scheduled to construct a 20-story office
nonprofit twin cinema which, since tower housing city unions on the theatre
Its exterior may be a bit
site. Cutting edge art houses are out,
skyscrapers are in. But when the going
gets tough, the tough get going.
"Initially we were devastated by the
news, but after meeting wth the Minskoff
people, we believe that their good
will, professional expertise and financial
support will go a long way toward
making a new Film Fonmi a reality,"
says Cooper. She notes that the "sky-
sparse, but the current site of New York's
Film Forum has played host to acclaimed films from around the world.
rocketing cost of Manhattan real estate
has already driven a great many arts
organizations from the city." Determined
to not be among them. Film
Forum has shifted into high gear.
Cooper, with the help of MinskofPs
realtor, is conducting an all-out search
for a long-term lease on a high-ceiling
space that is at least 5,600 square feet,
with unencumbered views and access to
ground floor entry. She would prefer to
keep Film Forum dovmtown and to that
end, has already made bids on two properties
— a few blocks north and west of
the theatre's present location.
"Celebrities like Martin Scorsese,
Robert Redford and Woody Allen have
been enomiously helpful, writing letters
to Minskoff Equities and rallying behind
our cause," Cooper says. "Our original
lease wath Trinity was for 21 years, with
one catch — a demolition clause. If that
occurred, they were obligated to pay us
S275,000. Minskoff Equities has absorbed
that responsibility and agreed to
commit additional monies in return for
our vacating the premises this August.
"It's our intention to keep Film Fonim
dark for no more than three months. At
present, public and private fimding for
construction is being actively sought,
and a capital campaign among New
York's movie lovers and our 3,800
'Friends of Film Forum' will be
launched this spring." The price tag of
rebuilding? "When we moved to our
present location in 1981, it cost us
$550,000," Cooper smiles ruefully. "Now
the same move will run a minimimi of
M million."
It sounds like a daimting proposal, but
1
hallenges are nothing new to Karen
( ooper. Indeed, the history' of Film
1 onim is a history of turning chance
into opportunity. From its humble beginnings
in 1970, as a theatre with .50
wooden folding chairs in a loft that doubl(!d
as a day care center on the Upper
West Side, Film Fomm has grouTi into a
year-rotmd operation, capable of 16mm
and 35mm projection.
The theatre comprises the 150-seat
Film Forum I, which prerrieres Ameri-
30 BOXOFFICE

.
"
tan and foreign independent productions
that are billed as "challenging,
provocative and controversial," while
the 194-seat Film Forum II, a repertory
cinema programmed by Bnice Goldstein,
specializes in dazzling film revivals.
"Fantasy & Science Fiction"
(where seats were wired for mild shocks
during the showing of William Castle's
classic, "The Tingler"), "Hollywood Before
the Code" and "Westerns — The
First Genre" are among a panoply of
screen festivals featured. If it's innovative,
classic or offbeat — from "The Battle
of Chile," a three-hour documentary
about the Allende regime, to "The
Atomic Cafe," to Looney Tunes, to a celebration
of Josephine Baker — it's probably
a Film Forum presentation.
As the theatre grew in visibility, so did
the need for a larger space. Like many
cutting edge artists in 1970s Manhattan,
Film Forum and Karen Cooper moved
dovmtown to a 199-seat theatre on Van-
"Theatres like Film
Forum broaden the
notion of what
constitutes
entertainment. It's vital
to have someplace to
show a unique, singular,
personal, often
signiBcant vision of our
world.
dam Street in the West Village. They
stayed from 1975-1981, even though the
rake of the seats was so small that
audiences could barely read the subtitles
on foreign films. It was then that
Cooper applied for a S400,000 low interest
Ford Foundation loan to build her
own two-screen movie house {the initial
loan, plus $70,000 in interest, was repaid
within five years)
She found it in the most unlikely of
places — a garage on Watts Street, one
block from the Holland Tunnel. The
exposed truss and high ceilings attest to
the industrial nature of the building,
while the use of bright production lights
in the lobby space allude to filmmaking.
The design may be spare and low-key,
but the atmosphere is charged with
excitement, for audiences and distributors
alike. Consider one of Cooper's
coups: introducing New York audiences
to the "Big Three" of German cinema —
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog
and Wim Wenders. Long before they
became trendy to savvy foreign film
buffs in the U.S., they were part of Film
Forum's mainline attractions.
Daniel Talbot, president of New Yorker
Films, an exhibition and distribution
company that has premiered movies at
Film Fonim, notes, "If you don't feel
that a film has a chance in the big, wide
world, then playing it at Film Fomm is
veiy felicitous." In fact. Cooper offers
distributors the best deal in town; 30
percent of the boxoffice gross during a
movie's standard two-week nm. And
Film Forum even writes, designs and
covers the cost of the advertising and
publicity campaigns. These people are
serious about independent cinema.
Cooper has parlayed an initial budget
of $19,000 into SI. 2 million, with help
from the NYS Council on the Arts, the
NEA, the MacArthur Foundation, and a
host of public and private sources. Unlike
commercial houses, she says Film
Forum is "in the business of taking risks.
I don't need a hit a week. I just need
them every so often," she smiles.
"Theatres like Film Fonim broaden the
notion of what constitutes entertainment.
It's vital to have someplace to
show a unique, singular, personal, often
significant vision of our world."
As to the future of this unusual and
extraordinary film house? "We have a
20-year track record," boasts Cooper.
"Right now we are taking things one day
at a time. We're down, but we're not
out."
Stay tuned.
Our New
Catalog of
Special Films
And Trailers for
Motion Picture Theatres
CALL,WRITE OR FAX YOUR REQUEST
riLMACK STUDIOS
1327 S. Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60605-2574
312-427-3395 FAX 312- 427- 4866
SUPERGLO
A durable pearlescent,
smooth surface
offers maximum reflectivity
& light distributiori.
%i^
A aMskxi of Cemccxp
1515 Melrose Lone
PC Box 105
forest Hill, Md 21050
{301)a3M036
HURLEY SCREENS
SILVERGLO
A smooth, oluminized
surface offering the
highest reflectivitv for
special applications
such as 3D,
FRAMING - All types available.
/HiInrn^IiiAMl
AUTOfVIATED HIGH SPEED
U/L APPROVED TICKETING EQUIPMENT
Factory Service, the only authorized
manufacturer and repair center
Response No 45
MW-16
Wk
A heavy guage matte
white surface offering
excellent light distribution,
image clarity, and
color rendition.
Hui1«y (creen Cotp
A Subsidiofv of Comcocp
1610(?oCrnClfCle
PO Box 217
Forest Hill. Ma 21050
(301)836-9333

"
Mark Bennett and the Bay Theatre
By David H. Chadderdon
On the Front Line is an ongoing column
on theatre management from the manager's
point of view What is it like to be on the
front line of theatrical exhibition? What
types of unique problems do managers face
m the day-to-day operation of a movie
theatre^ How do managers promote their
theatres and their films, how do they develop
long-term relationships with their employees,
what do they do to make their
theatre survive in today's hectic and competitive
entertainment environment^ Contributing
writer David H Chadderdon, with
IS years experience as a projectionist and
manager for the Goodrich and Redstone circuits,
will regularly profile theatre managers
and their operations, bringing their success
stories, "hands-on" experiences, and "secrets
of the trade" to the pages of Boxoffice
THE
Bay Theatre on Main Street in
Seal Beach, California is a typical
"art house." It's an old neighborhood
theatre situated in one of the most beautiful
locations in the country. Strollers
saunter by, enjoying a quaint seaside
shopping district located about a mile
from the beach Mark Bennett has worked
there for a year and a half
Bennett says he has a lot of regulars
who come to every show. "Of those, most
live within walking distance. Seal Beach is
a great place to take a walk at night. Most
of our customers don't like standing in
line. We don't get big audiences, so there's
never a line. We've just had the biggest
Saturday night we've had in a year and a
half and I think it amounted to 380
people."
There are both AMC and United Artists'
six-plexes just down the road, and according
to Bennett, "We usually try to get
movies they wouldn't ordinarily get. 'Jean
de Florette,' the French films, that type of
product I don't think it's possible to compete
with the mutliplexes on the big
movies. I think we're better off sticking
with the films they don't get and appealing
to a completely different audience."
The Bay's owners, Richard and Jane
Loderhose of New York, put in an organ
that came out of the Paramount Fox
theatre in New York. "We've had organ
concerts here with some fairly famous
organ players," says Bennett. "When we
hold organ concerts we show Laurel and
Hardy films. In this age of mcgacolor and
Dolby Stereo, it's really neat to see that
sort of thing."
Bennett has a small but loyal staff:
three concession people, an assistant
manager, a union projectionist and a janitor.
"We have one guy who comes in
every single day. He's been doing it for
eight years and he really keeps the place
clean. It's definitely nice that I don't have
to take care of that."
The Bay uses two concession people on
Fridays and Saturdays and Bennett finds
he doesn't have to do a lot of training. "It's
extremely simple work. The only thing
you really have to leam is how to use a
cash register. All the prices are kept simple:
my staff can add up sales in their
heads even if there's a crowd."
Bennett doesn't have a problem with
storage either. "We have one closet that
holds all of our candy and concession supplies.
We don't have to order that much:
we don't sell a hundred drinks in a week.
So we'll order one box and it'll sit there for
a month or so
According to Bennett, the best thing
about being the manager is being the boss.
"I don't have somebody breathing down
my neck all the time. The owners will be
gone for months at a time. There's an
apartment on the third floor and most of
the time I don't even know when they're
in. They split their time between here and
New York."
Bennett also likes the challenge of leading
and directing others. "It's real tough to
be able to get people to do what you want
and not be tyrannical. There's a real fine
line between being a jerk and getting
what you want done. It's definitely a good
experience. You've just got to kind of feel
your way through it at first. No one can
tell you how to do it; you have to experience
it for yourself."
Bennett's biggest dislikes are unruly
customers and bad prints. Used prints are
the norm with the Bay Theatre's slate of
attractions and patron complaints escalate
when there's something wrong with
the print. "I really hate it when you get a
bad print from a company, put it on, and it
sounds or looks horrible, and there's nothing
you can do — you can't get another
print until the exchanges open. 'Sorry sir,
want your money back?' "
Like all managers, Bennett sometimes
gets complaints from unreasonable customers.
"Some people just seem to be
there to yell at you. They just want to get
out their frustrations and you pretty
much have to not take it personally. You
have to have a good sense of self because
people are going to yell at you and tell you
what a horrible person you are because
you've ruined their evening. But it's part
of the job.
"The kind of movies we get here don't
really attract an unruly crowd. I saw 'Eddie
Murphy Raw' at another theatre and I
couldn't imagine being the manager
there. There was screaming and yelling
and people were throwing things, and I'm
sitting there seeing it all from the manager's
point of view. There were ushers
walking up and down the aisles the whole
time. For me, that would be horrible. I
can't imagine having to do that."
Bennett attends Cal State University
Long Beach and is studying business administration.
But being a theatre manager
is "The best job I can possibly think of"
Bennett takes much pride in his
theatre. "A lot of people I talk to have
never been here. They think of it as a dark
dingy theatre and they never actually get
in and see that it's nice and that it's got
class. We keep this place really clean.
That's foremost, because when people
come in, that's the first thing they look
at.
"These days most people want to go to
a Cineplex-Odeon multi-plex. To me it
seems like your're being herded in and
out like cattle. Totally impersonal. It's
definitely a different atmosphere here.
We try to make people happy and accommodate
them. Make them walk out wth a
good taste in their mouth, so when they
think of the Bay Theatre again they'll
want to come back That's our way of
competing: making it a nice, pleasant
experience"
^
^2
BOXOFFICF.

,isv
1 hanges
^
NEW PRODUCTS
The Dinet DVA-1000 Showtime Announcer,
which premiered at NATO/
ShoWest '89, is a 100 percent sohd state
(tape-less) multi-telephone line, digital
message announcing device that is microprocessor
controlled and software driven.
All message recording is accomplished
through a hand-held microphone and is
digitally recorded and stored using random
access memory chips. According to
the company, marketing and design research
was conducted with the participation
of theatre managers and personnel
who currently use show-time announcing
$10,000,000
Senior Secured TermLoan
And Revolving Credit
National Theatre
Holdings Core
ofMayfield,Ohio
The undersigned represe-
Tills notice appe
COMMUNICATIONS
EQUITY
ASSOCIATES
r(|uipment. A unique feature of the systi
111 allows the operator to record or edit
thr serial announcement in up to ten segments;
this saves time when re-editing
in any part of the message, makln^
the creation of seatiiless messages an
and quick process. Other features
nil hide maintenance free design (no
lapi-s to purchase and no record head to
\M ar out), built-in speaker, 4.5 or nine
minute recording time, answers three or
six incoming lines on the first ring, battery
backup for power failures. For more
information, contact Dinet, Inc. at 619-
724-5355.
Response No. 300
Response No 46
OVER 460 SCREENS IN MORE THau
in THEATRE COMPLEXES EQUlppL^
WITH O'BRIEN'S SOUND SOrE?"
"acoustical WALL PANELS
Isaly's Klondike Miniature Ice Cream
Nuggets have been designed and manufactured
exclusively for theatre concessions.
Each 4.5 ounce package contains
eight one-half ounce pieces of vanilla or
chocolate premium ice cream double dipped
in real milk chocolate. For more
information, contact Donald P. Salvatore
at 401-738-0615.
Response No. 301
SOUND SORBIC
technically is the ideal acoustical wall panel
system to work with 70 mm Dolby Stereo;
35 mm Dolby Stereo' and mono.
SOUND SORBIC is also rated to meet
acoustical criteria in houses equipped with
Lucasfilm's THX' system.
For full information on SOUND SORBIC
call 1-800-821-3595. Or write:
0'BRI(2n*
5301 East 59th Street, Kansas City, MO 64130
Dolbv Stereo' /s a registered trademark ol Dolby Laboratories Corporation

Independents
(amtmucdfmmp 18)
pose doubling your investment would be
considered a success. I'm talking about
everv'thing, not just theatrical. It's
pretty
hard to double your investment in
theatrical these days."
Gordon has had it with formulas. "We
foimd independent distribution because
that's the only way we could get our
pictures to the people. Now that seems
like it's not valid anymore, so we have to
find a new way to get our pictures to the
people and identify them."
For Gordon, that means phasing Alive
out of the distribution business. For
John Daly, getting Hemdale's pictures
to the people means, amazingly, getting
into independent distribution precisely
when so many others appear to be bailing
out of it, "Going into distribution is a
ver\' important step for the company,"
Daly says, "and we've got to get it right.
We'll see how we fare over the next two
or three years. We seem to have a wonderful
response from exhibitors. We'll
have four offices operating: Los Angeles,
New York, Dallas and Chicago.
We've set up our overseas distribution in
most foreign countries, so we truly can
say we're operating as a worldwide distributor."
Indeed, with trade barriers coming
dovm and satellite delivery systems going
up, many industry analysts think
"Eurodollars" could take the place of
junk bonds as the common coin of the
next investment bonanza. Already, Steloff
hazards, "I think 30 to 40 percent —
and growing — of our cash flow comes
from overseas. The public sources of
money in America are drying up. The
private investment's diying up. The cost
of media's getting wildly out of sight. It's
murdiferous. You've got to go back to
the hard-ass work of finding new ways
of pre-sell."
Wherever the money comes from,
Daly is convinced that a resurgent independent
distribution market is where it
will go. "There will be the film that has
all the right elements, and the only
thing missing will be distribution, and
hopefully Hemdale will be an answer.
We may not be the first answer they
want. They may go to other studios first,
but if they can't make the right arrangement
that is required by whoever their
financiers may be, Hemdale may be a
little more flexible.
"We seem to be getting offered more
projects now that people are starting to
realize we're in distribution. This business,
as I've now been in it about 20-odd
years, is a cyclical business that has its
peaks and dips, and I think the majors
are having their peak time. I think the
independents had it two years ago, and I
think it's going to take another couple of
years to see a couple of the independents
break through with terrific product.
When you think of the Oscars in
'86, something like 26 Oscars went to
independent pictures. This year, maybe
there was one or two."
Daly's math's a little off, but his feel
for how drastically things have changed
in just two or three years is right on the
money. Independents picked up six Oscars
in 1986, a record. More significantly,
the two they collected this March
went to Miramax for "Pelle the Conqueror"
and Goldwyn for "Hotel Terminus:
The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie" —
examples of those two traditional staples
of independent distribution, the
foreign film and the documentary.
Neither of them was a picnic to market,
but both should do respectable if not
bank-breaking business for their distributors.
The lesson in all this for independents
isn't all that mysterious. As The
New Yorker's Pauline Kael, dean of
American film critics, observed in an
address delivered on the day of this
year's Oscars, "If you always are tiying
to second-guess the public and give
them what you think they want, or what
the marketing people say they can sell,
you're going to produce mediocre work.
No good business is run except in tenns
of the real tastes, the secret tastes, of
the person in charge. That's how you
get a great magazine. That's how you
get a great movie studio."
^
THE CLUB WITH A HEART
Every day around the world the Variety Clubs perform hundreds of miracles.
They may be as complex as flying a child around the world for a delicate
heart operation. Or as simple as driving a handicapped child for a swim.
You too can make miracles. Join the club with a heart... so the beat can go on.
V^HIBTT eUJB^ll^R^TIOlN^^
The Heart of Show Husini'ss That Helps Need> ChildriT
For ftirthiT information conUict our International Office at 'yX West '^ St.. New York. N.V. KHIH* or call 2\27'A-Ha){)
34 Boxoiiui

.
FOR THE RECORD
THE
TV BROADCAST of the 6 1st Annual Academy
Awards on March 28 finally brought the curtain down
on all the "best-of ' picks and awards for 1988, and not
a minute too soon. Every year there appears to be yet
another "Top Ten" list or awards ceremony highlighting
the best of the previous 12-month's theatrical output. Herewith,
for your edification (and amusement), is a listing of all
the important awards for the best (and worst) of 1988:
The Best: Jodie Foster and Dustin
Hoffman, Best Actress and
Best Actor; Geena Davis, Best
Supporting Actress: Kevin
Kline, Best Supporting Actor
(Photos courtesy AMPAS)
61ST ANNUAL
ACADEMY
AWARDS:
Picture: Rain Man
Actor: Dustin Hoffman
("Rain Man")
Actress: Jodie Foster ("The
Accused")
Supporting Actor: Kevin
Kline ("A Fish Called Wanda")
Supporting Actress: Geena
Davis ("The Accidental Tourist")
Director: Barry Levinson
("Rain Man")
Original Screenplay: Ronald
Bass & Barry Morrow
("Rain Man")
Adapted Screenplay:
Christopher Hampton
("Dangerous Liaisons")
Foreign Film: Pelle the
Conqueror": Denmark
Art Direction: Art Dir
Stuart Craig & Set Dec. Gerard
James ("Dangerous Liaisons")
Cinematography: Peter Biziou
("Mississippi Burning")
Film Editing: Arthur
Schmidt ("Who Framed Roger
Rabbit")
Original Score: Dave Grusin
("The Milagro Beanfield
War")
Original Song: "Let the River
Run," Carly Simon
("Working Girl")
Sound: Les Fresholtz, Dick
Alexander, Vem Poore, Wil-
D. Burton ("Bird")
lie
Sound Effects Editing:
Charles L. Campbell, Louis L.
Edemann ("Who Framed
Roger Rabbit")
Makeup: Ve Neill, Steve La
Porte, Robert Short ("Beetlejuice")
Visual Effects: Ken Ralston,
Richard Williams, Edward
Jones, George Gibbs ("Who
Framed Roger Rabbit")
Costume Design: James
Acheson ("Dangerous Liaisons")
Documentary Feature:
"Hotel Terminus: The Life
and Times of Klaus Barbie"
Documentary Short Subject:
"You Don't Have to
Die"
Short Films— Live Action:
"The Appointments of Dennis
Jennings"
Short Films— Animated:
"Tin Toy"
THE GOLDEN
RASPBERRY
AWARD FOUNDATION
NINTH ANNUAL
RAZZIE
AWARDS:
Worst Picture: "Cocktail"
Worst Actor: Sylvester Stallone
("Rambo III")
Worst Actress: Liza Minnelli
("Arthur 2: On the Rocks"
and "Rent-a-Cop")
Worst Supporting Actress:
Kristy McNichol ("Two Moon
Junction")
Worst Supporting Actor:
Dan Aykroyd ("Caddyshack
II")
Worst Director (Tie): Blake
Edwards ("Sunset"), Stewart
Raffill ("Mac and Me")
Worst Screenplay: "Cocktail,"
screenplay by Heywood
Gould, based on his book
Worst New Star: Ronald
McDonald (as himself in
"Mac and Me")
Worst Song: "Jack Fresh"
("Caddyshack II")
4TH ANNUAL
INDEPENDENT
SPIRIT AWARDS/
INDEPENDENT
FEATURE PROJECT
—WEST
Best Film: "Stand and Deliver"
Best Actor: Edward James
Olmos (Stand and Deliver)
Best Actress: Jodie Foster
("Five Comers")
Best Supporting Actor: Lou
Diamond Philips ("Stand and
Deliver")
Best Supporting Actress:
Rosanna De Soto ("Stand and
Deliver")
Best Director: Ramon Menendez
("Stand and Deliver")
Best Screenplay: Ramon
Menendez and Tony Musca
("Stand and Deliver")
Best Cinematography: Sven
Nykvist ("The Unbearable
Lightness of Being")
Best First Time Feature:
"Mystic Pizza," Donald Petrie
Best Foreign Film: "Wings
of Desire"
DIRECTORS GUILD OF
AMERICA:
Best Director: Barry Levinson
("Rain Man")
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF
CINEMATOGRAPHERS:
Outstanding Achievement
in Cinematography: Conrad
Hall ("Tequilla Sunrise")

WRITERS GUILD OF
AMERICA AWARDS:
Best Screenplay Written
Directly For The Screen:
"Bull Durham," Ron Shelton
Best Screenplay Based On
Material From Another
Medium: "Dangerous Liaisons,"
Christopher Hampton
AMERICAN CINEMA
EDITORS AWARD:
Best Editing Of a Feature
Motion Picture: (tie) Gerry
Hambling ("Mississippi
Burning"), Stu Under ("Rain
Man")
HOLLYWOOD
FOREIGN
PRESS ASSOCIATION
GOLDEN GLOBE
AWARDS:
Best Film, Drama: "Rain
Man"
Best Actress, Drama: tie:
Jodie Foster ("The Accused"),
Shirley MacLaine
("Madame Sousatzka"), Sigoumey
Weaver ("Gorillas in
the Mist")
Best Actor, Drama: Dustin
Hoffman ("Rain Man")
Best Film, Musical or Comedy:
"Working Girl"
Best Actress, Musical or
Comedy: Melanie Griffith
("Working Girl")
Best Actor, Musical or
Comedy: Tom Hanks
("Big")
Best Director: Clint Eastwood
("Bird")
Best Screenplay: Naomi
Foner ("Running on Empty")
Best Supporting Actress:
Sigoumey Weaver ("Working
Girl")
Best Supporting Actor:
Martin Landau ("Tucker")
Best Foreign Language
Film: "Pellc the Conqueror"
(Denmark)
Best Original Score: Maurice
Jarre ("Goiillas in the
Midst")
Best Original Song: tie; Carly
Simon for "Let the River
Run" ("Working Girl") and
Lamont Dozier (music) and
Phil Collins (lyrics) for "Two
Hearts" ("Buster")
NATIONAL SOCIETY
OF FILM CRITICS
BEST OF 1988:
Best Film: "The Unbearable
Lightness of Being"
Best Director: Philip Kaufman
("The Unbearable
Lightness of Being")
Best Actor: Michael Keaton
("Clean and Sober," "Beetlejuice")
Best Actress: Judy Davis
("High Tide")
Best Supporting Actor:
Dean Stockwell ("Married to
the Mob," "Tucker")
Best Supporting Actress:
Mercedes Ruehl ("Married to
the Mob")
Best Screenplay: Ron Shelton
("Bull Durham")
Best Cinematography:
Henri Alekan ("Wings of Desire")
Best Documentary: "The
Thin Blue Line"
NEW YORK FILM
CRITICS CIRCLE
BEST OF 1988:
Best Film: "The Accidental
Tourist"
Best Director: Chris Menges
("A World Apart")
Best Screenplay: Ron Shelton
("Bull Durham")
Best Actor: Jeremy Irons
("Dead Ringers")
Best Actress: Meryl Streep
("A Cry in the Dark")
Best Supporting Actor:
Dean Stockwell ("Married to
the Mob," "Tucker")
Best Supporting Actress:
Diane Venora ("Bird")
Best Foreign Film: "Women
on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown"
THE ACADEMY
OF FAMILY
FILMS 8TH ANNUAL
AWARDS:
Best Film: "Running on
Empty"
Best Film Actor: Jeff
Bridges ("Tucker")
Best Film Actress: Shirley
MacLaine ("Madame Soiisatzka")
LOS ANGELES
FILM CRITICS
ASSOCIATION
BEST OF 1988:
Best Film: "Little Dorrit"
Best Director: David Cronenberg
("Dead Ringers")
Best Screenplay: Ron Shelton
("Bull Durham")
Best Actress: Christine Lahti
("Running on Empty")
Best Actor: Tom Hanks
("Big," "Punchline")
Best Supporting Actor:
Alec Guinness ("Little Dorrit")
Best Supporting Actress:
Genevieve Bujold ("Dead
Ringers," "The Modems")
Best Foreign Film: "Wings
of Desire"
NATIONAL BOARD
OF REVIEW
BEST OF 1988:
Best Film: "Mississippi
Burning"
Best Director: Alan Parker
("Mississippi Burning")
Best Screenplay: no award
Best Actress: Jodie Foster
("The Accused")
Best Actor: Gene Hackman
("Mississippi Burning")
Best Supporting Actor: River
Phoenix ("Running on
Empty")
Best Supporting Actress:
Frances McDonnand ("Mississippi
Burning")
Best Foreign Film: "Women
on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown"
PEOPLE'S CHOICE
AWARDS:
Favorite Motion Picture
Comedy: (Tie): "Big,"
"Twins"
Favorite Motion Picture
Drama: "Rain Man"
Favorite Actor, Comedy:
Eddie Murphy
Favorite Actress, Comedy:
Bette Midler
Favorite Actor, Drama:
Dustin Hoffman
Favorite Actress, Drama:
Meryl Streep
Ail-Time Favorite Motion
Picture: "Gone With the
Wind"
The Worst: "Cocktail," worst
film of tfie year: Sylvester Stallone,
worst actor: Liza Minnelli,
worst actress.
36 BOXOFFICE

"
the
... lOCO 11
NATIONAL NEWS
The March of All Time
Domestic film boxofflce In March rose
$4.32, up from last year's $4 10. The total
number of tickets sold is up more than 6%.
For the first three months of 1989, the gross
take is $907 million, the highest ever this early
in the year. Cumulative ticket sales are nearly
3% ahead of 1988.
The Exhibitor Who
Liberated Europe
Henry Plitt, a veteran of World War II as
well as the exhibition industry, received the
Raoul Wallenberg "hero in our time" award
March 22. Plitt, currently Showscan's chief
executive, was the first U.S. paratrooper to
land at Normandy.
"Running on Empty"
Walks Off With Top Honors
"Running on Empty" was named best picture
of
the year by the Academy of Family
Films and Family Television March 25
Individuals
honored for their contributions to family
viewing included Jeff Bndges for "Tucker;
The Man and His Dream," Shirley MacLaine
for "Madame Sousatzka," and producer
Douglas Wick for "Working Girl."
Indie Fortunes Rally
After Early Trials
almost 13"o over last year's numbers, with Hard times for independent distributors are
"Lean on Me," "Rain Man" and "Bill and reflected in the first-quarter statistics for new
Ted's Excellent Adventure" leading the pace U.S. film releases Only 100 pictures opened
Other March successes included "Skin domestically, compared with 136 in 1988's
Deep," "Fletch Lives," "The 'Burbs," opening quarter. The drop was almost completely
attributable to the independent sec-
"Chances Are" and "Police Academy 6."
Cumulative three-month national grosses tor The majors unleashed 35 feature films
are at a record high, up nearly 9".. from a year during the quarter, same as last year. Slightly
ago. The current bull market at the boxoffice fewer were domestic productions, as the
is now in its 33rd month. Variety estimates number of subtitled imports swelled to in-
March business at $225 5 million on 52.2 million
tickets sold at a composite price near
clude "Hanussen," "Chocolat," and "Field of
Honor"
As evinced by booming boxoffice numbers,
the majors have had relatively few marginal
releases this year, with minor territorial
bookings arranged only for Paramount's
"The Experts" and MCM's "Mindgames" and
"Wicked Stepmother." Several other studio
releases had limited bookings, but drew
national exposure from their New York openings,
like the unfortunate "Bert Rigby, You're
a Fool."
Conversely, the struggling independents
have managed only one 1,000-print national
release so far in 1989: New Century/Vista's
"Rooftops," which flopped. This is at variance
with recent years, when once-healthy
Cannon, DEC, Atlantic, Empire and others
each typically mounted wide releases almost
monthly. The only good news for independents
was a slight upturn in March, when 26
indies came out, 17 of them American-made.
That was level with 1988's March results.
Overall, though, the first-quarter shortfall extrapolates
to a 1989 total of about 400 major
and independent new releases, the lowest
figures since 1984
Don't Go to Cineplex
Without It
Under a new agreement with American
Express Travel Related Services, the 1,820-
screen Cineplex Odeon circuit will start accepting
American Express cards for the purchase
of tickets to Its 500 North American
multiplexes The program was slated to go
into effect by May 1.
"Stand and Deliver"
Aces the Indies
"Stand and Deliver, film about schoolteacher
laime Escalante and his maiden class
of inner-city calculus whizzes, skewed the
curve at
the fourth annual Independent Feature
Project awards March 25. Originally
made by PBS for "American Playhouse" but
released theatrically by Warner Brothers,
"Stand and Deliver" captured six out of the
10 Independent Spint trophies given, including
best feature, and failed to win only one
honor for which it had been nominated -
the best cinematography prize, which went
to Sven Nykvist for Orion's "The Unbearable
Lightness of Being."
Hemdale Sews Up
Arbitration Over Presales
In a decision having broad implications for
presale agreements made by independent
producers, Hemdale Film Corp. has won an
arbitration award in London against AAA SA
- a leading French theatrical distributor -
for breaching its
films.
contract to distribute seven
Brian Eagles, the arbiter who made the
ruling for the American Film Marketing Association
tribunal, awarded Hemdale full payment
of its $700,000 presale guarantees.
Hemdale, which will retain all rights to the
pictures, was also awarded what it called
"substantial damages" for broadcast, cable
and video rights, which have remained unsold
because of the French company's decision
not to release the films theatrically. Kathy
Morgan of Hemdale hailed the decision as
"extremely important for all companies doing
Films Inc. Inks Film
Advertising Deal
Advertisers can now reach the lucrative
college marketplace by sponsoring film society
screenings on campus through Films Inc. A
60-year veteran of college distribution. Films
Inc.'s university showings generate annual
revenues of $12 to $15 million The films
shown - 85% are 16mm pnnts - have typically
completed their first-run theatrical engagements,
but haven't yet come out on video.
For advertisers - other than cigarette or
liquor companies, whose ads are not being
solicited - it's a prime way to reach college
students. Besides buying screen time for their
commercials, advertisers are also undertaking
direct marketing campaigns. In one instance,
students will get free candy bars upon
entering their campus theatre, then see a
commercial for
begins.
the product before the film
Festival and Event Calendar
July 8-17
July 12-14
Aug. 24-Sept. 4
Aug. 25-Sept. 2
Sept. 1-4
Sept. 6-10
Sept. 7-16
Sept. 14-21
Sept. 22-27
Sept. 22-Oct. 9
Sept. 29-Oct. 15
Oct. 3-5
Oct. 5-12
Oct. 12-16
Oct. 12-19
Oct. 22-29
Nov. 2-5
Nov. 9-12
Nov. 14-19
Moscow International Film Festival
Mid-Atlantic NATO (Virginia Beach, VA)
Montreal World Film Fest
Montreal Film Market
Telluride Film Festival (Colorado)
Women of the Motion Picture Industry (New Orleans)
Toronto Festival of Festivals
Boston Film Festival
Cinetex
New York Film Festival
Vancouver Film Festival
ShowEast (Atlantic City)
Mill Valley (California) Film Festival
Mipcom (Cannes)
Denver Film Festival
Mifed (Milan)
Film Arts Fest (San Francisco)
American Indian Film Fest
Sarasota Film Festival

usiness in this way," because financing films
through) presales is essential for independent
companies
Phoenix NATO Membership
Rises From the Ashes
screen Phoenix-based circuit that bears his
name, has returned to the NATO fold after a
10-year absence, but his constituency has
opted against re-enlistment, pending sufficient
proof of NATO's commitment to the
rights of the independent
Rank Half-Interested
in Universal Studios Florida
The Rank Organization has bought a halfinterest
in Universal Studios Florida in a deal
that MCA, co-owner of the Florida venture,
said may lead to other alliances with the British
movie and leisure concern Rank will
acquire a 50% share formerly held by Cineplex
Odeon in the combination theme park
and production soundstage at a cost of $150
million, according to a Cineplex estimate.
EASTERN NEWS
block Redstone's bid to build a shopping center
at his closed West Roxbury drive-in
The
$6.5 million mall project would contain one of
National Amusement's Showcase theatre
complexes Neighborhood leaders are pushing
for a zoning change because the center
would add thousands of cars to the already
traffic-plagued parkway...
Loews, which took over Boston's USA Cin-
The Arizona Theatre Owners Association emas, has yanked the USA logo from its
and its chairman have taken contrary stands advertising- Ads now read "Loews" and list
on the issue of repining NATO NATO has attractions for all the former USA theatres in
been seeking the return of prodigal regional
branches in its campaign to reunify the
Massachusetts. Upgrading of seating, projection
and sound in the 317 USA houses is
nations exhibitors under its banner ATOA under way, with expansion coming up for the
chairman Dan Harkins, president of the 26- Nickelodeon Cinemas across from Boston
University. Plans are to add a third floor to the
two-story structure, which is co-owned with
B.U. The Nickelodeon opened in 1983 as an
independent art house playing specialty films
and some first-runs It has become the city's
showplace for up-market pictures. Acquired
from the Nickelodeon chain by USA in 1986,
the theatres draw heavily on the student
community Loews is also adding two screens
to its nine-screen Copley Plaza Cinema, and is
reportedly looking into property near Kendall
Square in Cambridge, with an eye toward
erecting a multiplex there...
Videos geared toward the African-American
market are featured by a new Boston
mail order firm. "When 1 first started doing
research," says "Proud To Be" founder Barbara
Holston, "I was amazed at how many
black videos were available but weren't in
the stores." The catalog contains about 100
films so far, including documentaries, musicals,
sports, and episodes of "Amos 'n'
Andy." "At first," Holston recalls, "I thought
there might be objections to "Amos 'n'
Andy," but they're very popular, and an
important part of black history Top price
"
for tapes is $59.95, but most films go for
under $30. Holston is building her clientele
through the Black Video Collector's Society,
which is currently spotlighting films in the
"Proud To Be" collection
wrap-around screen that completely surrounds
the viewer. ...
Kathleen Shea is the new movie critic at the
Philadelphia Daily News, succeeding Ben Yagoda,
who was assigned to the city desk general
assignment rewrite staff...
Time ran out for the old Kent Theatre, a
neighborhood landmark in the Kensington
district of Philadelphia. First opened 61 years
ago, the Kent fell
to the wrecker's ball earlier
this year. In its day, the 2000-seat Kent
offered newsreels, movies, and music played
on a Kimball organ It had been vacant for
many years....
"Philafilm," the Philadelphia International
Film Festival, will present its 12th annual film
and video competition July 26-30. New
among this year's entry categories is the music
video division The festival's theme will be
"Mainstreaming Alternative Media," and
planners promise an analysis "in both financial
and content terms"
The Philadelphia Variety Club continues to
expand its efforts on behalf of handicapped
children Its newest project is the National
Computer Institute for Children with Disabilities,
established at Temple University With
the help of specially designed computers, disabled
youngsters can develop their language
skills.
Atlantic City
After years without one, there are strong
indications that Atlantic City will once again
have a movie theatre. Noted tycoon/crooner
Merv Griffin said that the burnt-out Steeplechase
Pier on the Boardwalk will be rebuilt as
either an amusement park, an aquarium, or a
motion picture multiplex. Griffin recently acquired
the Resorts International Hotel Casino,
which owns the Steeplechase property. His
avowed intention is to create an amusement
attraction that will lure the year-round community
as well as tourists.
Boston
Sumner Redstone, president and chairman
of National Amusements and chairman of
Viacom International, delivered the keynote
address at a symposium of New England film
and television professionals held Feb. 24 at
the Boston Hyatt Regency More than 350
risked forecasts of a blizzard to take part in a
day-long discussion entitled "Choosing the
Future" Redstone termed motion picture
exhibition as "a non-growth or limitedgrowth
industry," Martha H.W. Crowninshield,
a partner in Boston Ventures Management
(one-time owners of USA Cinemas),
declared that the present environment for
independent feature film financing "has never
been more bleak " A booking consultant
for Loews/USA Cinemas in Boston, George
Mansour said that the industry today is focusing
on multiplexes with eight or more screens
"Some exhibitors don't want to book - films
they want to direct traffic," said he Mansour
predicted that independent producers could
still fill the gap created by a forthcoming
screen glut. Attorney Mark A. Fischer counseled
filmmakers to "be very flexible, be very
creative, and, above all, be very low-budget."
City officials have filed a court appeal to
New Bedford, MA
Preservationists and culture vultures for
miles around are pitching in to help the "Save
the Zeiterion" campaign. The 1,200-seat Zeiterion
will be forced to close after its summer
season unless $300,000 is raised. Originally
built as a vaudeville house, the theatre was
used as a movie house after 192-1 Scheduled
for demolition in the '70s, the theatre was
salvaged and re-opened as a non-profit performance
center. "We have had a lot of programs
such as Broadway musicals, dances,
symphonies and films, that draw people from
the Boston area," spokeswoman Donna Fisher-)ohnson
said. "Since the theatre has no
endowment fund, we are relying on the support
of the community to come forward and
organize events which will draw funds so the
theatre can remain open"
Philadelphia
When people visit the recently renovated
Franklin Institute, one of the featured attractions
of the science museum is a spectacular
new Omnimax theatre. The auditorium seats
300 and projects 70mm film on a domed
New York City
After converting the West Side's bestloved
revival theatre into a first-run house,
Cineplex Odeon is making it up to Manhattan
cinephiles with the new Biograph Cinema, A
mere 10 blocks from the old Regency, the
Biograph recently screened a month-long tribute
to Samuel Goldwyn. Timed to coincide
with the publication of A Scott Berg's biography
of the mogul, the retrospective included
a new 35 mm print of "Wuthering Heights"
prepared from the original negative, shown
with Samuel Goldwyn, |r and co-star Geraldine
Fitzgerald in attendance. The $6 admission
tariff, high for a rep house even in New
York, goes toward glossy-paper calendars
and low-crime daylight matinees.
Rochester, NY
Nearly 100 experts participated in a conference
called "FAST REWIND: The Archaeology
of Moving Images" May 4-7, organized by
Dr. Bruce Austin, the William A. Kern Professor
in Communication at the Rochester Institute
of Technology's College of Liberal Arts.
Archivists, curators, educators, museum administrators
and others focused on issues
38 BOXOFFICE

"
"Suspect,"
"
such as the accessibility of film documents to
researchers, scholars, and the public; ethical
and legal questions, such as colorization;
methods of moving image preservation; and
the financing of preservation and maintenance
efforts.
MIDWEST NEWS
Dubuque, lA
"Field of Dreams" premiered April 20 in
Dubuque, where much of the film starring
Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan. lames Earl
Jones and Burt Lancaster was produced. Dubuque
was the site of more than eight weeks
of location filming, which employed 2,500
local citizens as extras "Field of Dreams"
contributed more than $5 million to the
Dubuque economy
Northfield, MN
In the town where lesse lames went to his
eternal reward, Oscar-winning "Rain Man"
co-screenwnter Barry Morrow may finally get
his college diploma. Morrow attended St.
Olaf College here in the late 1%0s He transferred
to the University of Hawaii for his junior
year, then returned to Northfield Not all
of his credits transferred, and Morrow
wound up one unit shy of graduation Now,
St. Olaf has changed its tune and offered
Morrow a chance at his old sheepskin. All
Morrow has to do for his last credit is submit
the "Rain Man" script to the school's speechtheatre
department. If it receives a passing
grade, maybe then he can finally get a decent
job..
Farmington Hills, Ml
United Artists Theartre Circuit will construct
a nine-screen movie theatre in the new
West River Centre shopping development in
Farmington Hills. Each auditorium will feature
Dolby Stereo sound. Completion of the
theatre is expected around Christmastime,
and will bring the number of screens operated
near Detroit by UATC to 35. West River
Centre is located on the site of what was
formerly the Grand River Drive-ln Theatre
Akron
NATO of Ohio will host its annual membership
meeting and outing August 2-4 at the
Quaker Square Hilton Inn. The hotel was
developed from the original Quaker Oats
factory. Guest rooms occupy 36 giant silos in
an L-shaped cluster
124 feet high.
Toledo
National Amusements expects work to
start about April 1 on the conversion of its
Franklin Park Drive-ln Theatre on Monroe St
into a 245,000-square-foot retail center The
site covers about 22 acres The project is a
|oint venture with Bronson & Hutensky of
Hartford, CT and McMahon Venture Partnerships
in Toledo National began construction
last fall on the site of the former Miracle Mile
Drive-ln, on the first of three such retail developments
they plan in the area.
Cincinnati
Buoyed by Cincinnati's selection as a location
for four features in the last 18 months, a
Greater Cincinnati Film Commission began
operation in March, seeking to lure more
movie production to the city "Cincinnati's
got a little bit of everything," said "Ram Man"
producer Mark lohnson "Hills, river, modern
skyline, old European charm." Other recent
"
productions were "Eight Men Out, "Fresh
Horses," and the forthcoming 'Hard Ram."
Initial funding for the organization has come
from a number of local businesses, as well as
the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce
and the Greater Cincinnati Convention
and Visitors Bureau Commission Director Lori
Holladay said that the four films have given
the city new visibility, not to mention an estimated
$10 million in production-generated
revenues.
Columbus
The third annual "It Came from the Drexel
North" science-fiction film marathon recently
hosted 24 hours of classics and clunkers.
Advance admission was $12 for adults and
$7.50 for 14-and-unders, $15 and $10 at the
door Patrons brought food, pillows and blankets,
coming and going as they liked for the
program, which included "Battle in Outer
Space,"
"The Terminator," the two versions
of "The Blob," "Flight to Mars," "Kronos,"
"
"The Time Machine, "Killer Klowns from
Outer Space," "Them'" "Thunderbirds Are
Co," '"The Brain from Planet Arous," "Infra-
Man" and "2001: A Space Odyssey"....
Ted Turner's spruced-up "Gone With the
Wind" comes to Columbus as the three-day
opening attraction in the Ohio Theatre's summer
movie series, lune 23-25 Executive director
Doug Kridler of the Columbus Association
for the Performing Arts, which owns the
theatre, said that a new screen and improved
sound system, including three amplifiers, will
be installed ...
The long-dark Southern Theatre, one of
the oldest
surviving Victorian auditoriums in
the nation, may be restored in time for
Columbus' 1992 celebration of its namesake's
discovery of America 500 years ago. The
1,200-seat venue, completed in 1896, was a
film house at the time of its closure in 1979.
The Columbus .Association for the Performing
Arts has recommended the $4.5 million restoration
project be included in the 1992 Commission's
fundraising plans
Cleveland
The 13th Cleveland International Film Festival
screened 40 films from more than 15
countries at the Cedar Lee Theatre .April 6-16.
Twenty additional films unspooled on the
campus of Case Western Reserve University.
Attractions included a Family Film Festival, and
50th anniversary tributes to the National Film
Board of Canada and the 1939 classics "Gone
With the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," and
"Wuthering Heights." The premiere of Paramount's
"Major League" opened the test,
with the real-life
Cleveland Indians participating
in
the celebration
Indianapolis
The Indiana Supreme Court has upheld the
death-penalty conviction of lames R. Games,
who killed Indianapolis theatre owner Thomas
Heaston Ferree on July 14, 1983. Ferree
owned Heaston Production Services, which
operated the Emerson, Esquire, Greenbriar,
South Keystone and Woodland Theatres.
Games' case was remanded to the trial court
for an execution date..
Harry Burkart III, who operates the 600-
seat Irving Theatre on the East Side, has
announced a series of 12 film classics from
1939, highlighted by the a newly restored
print of ""Gone With the Wind" penciled in
from March 29 to April 11. The remainder of
the series,
booked through MGM UA Classics,
includes "Goodbye, Mr Chips,
"
"Idiot's
Delight," the Humphrey Bogart double bill of
"Invisible Stripes" and "You Can't Get Away
With Murder," "Juarez," "The Private Lives
of Elizabeth and Essex," "Each Dawn I Die,"
"Dodge City," "The Women," "Dark Victory,"
""The Oklahoma Kid," and "The Wizard
of Oz"
SOUTHERN NEWS
Braselton, GA
Actress Kim Basinger has bought this town
for $20 million from a family that has owned
most of it for more than half a century For
her money Basinger got about 1,800 acres,
the town's water and sewer system, an industrial
park bordering Interstate 85, a bank, a
shopping center with 70,000 square feet of
retail and storage space, several small businesses,
and about 50 homes and other buildings
Arlington, VA
AMC consecrated their theatre complex at
the new Courthouse Plaza with a series of
grand opening festivities. On March 10 a benefit
was held for Arlingtonians Ministering to
Emergency Needs (AMEN), featuring screenings
of the courtroom classics "Inherit the
Wind," "Twelve Angry Men," and "To Kill a
Mockingbird." Later in the week there were
charity screenings of
"Witness for the Prosecution,"
"Anatomy of a Murder," "...And Justice
for All,"
"Legal Eagles,
""The
Verdict" and "Nuts" Finally, on March 16,
members of the Bush-Quayle administration
attended a reception preceding the premiere
of Universal's "Fletch Lives
Taking its name from the historic Arlington
County Courthouse nearby, the tri-level,
1,800-seat Courthouse Plaza 8 will feature
THX and Ultra-Stereo sound systems, special

."
parabolic Torus screens, and AMCs patented
ergonomic seating with cup-holder armrests,
A computerized system tor ticket sales allows
the purchase ot daily advance tickets as well
as admission to current shows The top ticket
price will be $5
WESTERN NEWS
Lakewood, CA
United Artists Hung open the doors ot its
new Lakewood Plaza six-plex March 22 in this
suburb ot Los Angeles. The inaugural attractions,
all shown in Dolby Stereo, were "Mississippi
Burning," "Troop Beverly Hills," "976-
Evil," "Working Girl," "Her Alibi" and ")acknile."
Hollywood, CA
A development team led by Pacific
Theatres has informed the Community Redevelopment
Agency of Los Angeles of intentions
to renovate the interior and marquee of
the Paramount Theatre on Hollywood Blvd.
to accommodate a second screen Owing to
the historical significance of the El Capitan/
Paramount Building, the Agency is expected
to work closely with the developer to assure
that their program will conform to the Secretary
of Interior's Standards for Historic Preservation.
Los Angeles
One of the country's most spectacular
architectural landmarks, the 12-story Million
Dollar Theatre Building is already getting a
multi-million-dollar facelift. Now Bruce Corwin,
whose Metropolitan Theatre chain operates
not only the Million Dollar but all the
ornate downtown movie palaces on Broadway,
has announced plans to relight the
Orpheum Theatre stage with a series of
monthly special events. All profit derived
from these events will be turned back into
refurbishing the theatres and keeping them
open for future generations. The first public
event was a May I 1 screening of the only
existing restored print ot the 1926 "Phantom
of the Opera" starring Lon Chaney 1950s TV
star Koria Pandit accompanied the silent film
on the Orpheum's Wurlitzer Theatre Organ,
the only original Wurlitzer still working in Los
Angeles.
CANADIAN NEWS
Montreal
More than twenty countries will be represented
during the fifth edition of the Montreal
International Festival of Films and Videos by
Women, )une 7-15. Cinema Femmes Montreal
has pragmatically announced that, "[t]o
make the 5lh Festival an attractive, provocative
and highly colored event, we are honouring
a great French actress: Delphine Seyrig"
It's
not known whether the star of "Last
Year at Manenbad' and "Stolen Kisses"
appreciates their candour.
ON THE MOVE
David S. DeCrane has joined AMC International
as vice president for Special Projects
DeCrane formerly held management positions
with MCA and DEC. He also served as a
Foreign Service Officer for the Department
of State before enrolling at Stanford, where
he received his M.B.A. in 1986
Madelyn Fenton has been named director
of Advertising and Marketing for the West
Division of American Multi-Cinema. LIntil
recently,
Fenton was Director of Exhibitor Relations
for Columbia Pictures. She joined Columbia
in 1987 after six years as National Conventions
and Meetings Manager for Coca-
Cola in Atlanta. In her position with AMC
shell be responsible for all marketing activities
for the West Division. While at Columbia,
Fenton developed and implemented intheatre
marketing programs, served as chief
communications liaison with exhibitors, and
managed the distribution of all advertising
and marketing materials for the company. For
Coke she helped stage the Coca-Cola Centennial
Celebration in Atlanta in 1986. She
holds a B.A. from Emory University.
D. Paul Zito has been appointed director of
international sales for Crown International
Pictures. Zito will replace Randolph Pitts, who
leaves after four years to join a new production
company, Euroscreen Partners Zito
comes to Crown from Nova International
Films, where he served as director of international
sales for the past year Prior to Nova,
he was international collections manager for
the De Laurentiis Entertainment Croup. Fluent
in two languages, with a working knowledge
of five others, Zito holds a master's degree in
international management
Simon Kornblit, Sally Van Slyke, David
Sameth and Perry Katz, four key marketing
executives for LJniversal, have been promoted,
kornblit will assume the title of executive
vice president of worldwide marketing,
while the others will all be elevated to senior
vice president of marketing. Kornblit has
overseen the marketing for all Universal films
since loining the company in 1987, and under
his (iirection, the department has seen its last
seven wide releases debut in the number one
boxoffice position Van Slyke has been credited
with having steered MCA-Universal
through 1988's "Last Temptation of Christ"
controversy. Sameth is
largely responsible for
the creation of the ad campaign for "Twins,"
whi( h has earned more than $ 1(X) million
domestically. Katz has worked closely with
filmmakers during the preview process, and
will now provide a liaison between them and
the marketing department.
Showscan Film Corp has announced that
co-chairman Douglas Trumbull, responsible
for the special effects in "2001" and "Close
Encounters of the Third Kind," has withdrawn
from active participation with Showscan in
order to make films through his own company,
Berkshire Motion Pictures He will, however,
continue his association with the Showscan
process, of which he is the inventor.
Showscan employs 70mm film shot and projected
at 60. frames per second Several
markets are being pursued for the Showscan
process, including specialty theatres, corporate
presentations, and Dynamic Motion Simulators.
The company is also licensing the
process for the production of theatrical
feature
films. One such film will be 'Leonardo's
Dream," which Trumbull is leaving to direct in
Rome and Milan.
OBITUARIES
Homer Dickens, 63, author of numerous
film books, died in New York Feb. 5 His bestknown
books are the 'Tilms of . series on
Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers,
Barbara Stanwyck, lames Cagney and
Katharine Hepburn, A brother survives.
Eva H. Harm, 89, who owned and operated
the Zionsville Theatre in Zionsville, Indiana
from 1944 to 1962, died Feb 28 in Indianapolis
Last November, she had her first onewoman
art show Three daughters, a son,
brother, sister, and 28 grandchildren and
great-grandchildren survive her.
Herman Hoffman, a pioneer in the development
of theatre trailers, died March 26 in
Laguna Hills, California Hoffman began his
career in 1934 making theatre trailers to promote
upcoming films. In 1951 he made his
feature film debut with "The MGM Story, "
product reel which was released theatrically.
He later directed two documentaries, "The
Hoaxsters" (1952) and "The Battle of Gettysburg"
(1955), both of which were nominated
for Oscars, and episodes of "Room 222."
There are no survivors
Word reaches us of the death of film
a
journalist
Peter Bellamy Bellamy had served the
Cleveland Plain Dealer as both film cntic and
entertainment editor
Aline Karnes Bisagno. 89, the former owner
of the .Augusta Theatre and Drive Inn, the
Isis Theatre, and other Kansas theatres for 58
years, died March 15 at her home in .Augusta,
Kansas A longtime member of the Kansas
City Women ot
the Motion Picture Industry,
she and David, her husband of 42 years, ran
the business together until his death in 1965.
A memorial has been established with the
First United Methodist Church building fund
Survivors include three grandchildren, four
great-grandchildren, daughter )une and son
Bob, who sent us news of her passing.
40 Boxoffice

Reviews
days when baseball was the obsession that held them together
— and now he has that chance. As night falls, father and son
meet on a ball field and simply play catch.
"Field of Dreams" is just the first true successor to "It's a
Wonderful Life," that's all "Field of Dreams" is. Taking an
ordinary man on a mystical journey that ultimately resolves
the dissatisfaction and regret which hounds him, this luminous
fable tells a life-affirming tale which is so moving as to
almost reach religious proportions. By doing good — by using
his magical gifts to reunite a disparate group of men with the
game that was their life — Ray is finally given the chance to
put things right with his dead father. What could be more,
enchanting than that?
And yet we fear for this film. As evidenced above, to
describe the plot of "Field of Dreams" is nearly impossible.
And what comes through sounds perfectly ridiculous: Disembodied
voices? Baseball diamonds in cornfields? Ball players
ic'turning from the, dead? (And we haven't even mentioned a
FIELD OF DREAMS
Staning Kevin Cnstncr, Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones and
Ray LiottO-
Produced by Lawrence Gordon and Charles Gordon. Written
and directed by Phil Alden Robinson
A Universal Pictures release Fantasy, rated PG Riaming time:
106 min Screening date: 3/28/89.
The only way that this one-in-a-million fantasy is going
to survive is if it's allowed to stay in theatres long
enough for people to find it. Will exhibitors be willing
to go the distance?
One of the greatest films of 1989 presents one of the most
difficult marketing challenges of all time. "Field of Dreams,"
an impossibly beautiful fantasy about lost goals and the
cleansing purity of baseball, is one of the most unorthodox, yet
spiritually satisfying films to come out of Hollywood in
decades, but its unique tone could go right over the heads of
the general public. And if that happens, it will be a tragedy.
"If you build it, he will come," a disembodied voice tells Ray
Kinsella (Kevin Costner) as he walks the cornfields of his Iowa
farm. Ray, a very common man who still retains some of the
idealism from his activist days of the 60's, dwells on this voice,
and he finally figures out what he is being commanded to do:
If Ray will build a baseball diamond in his cornfield. Shoeless
Joe Jackson, one of the disgraced ball players from the Black
Sox scandal of 1919, will return from the Great Beyond to play
the game which he loved and which he was accused of betraying
decades earlier.
So Ray builds the baseball park, and Shoeless Joe (Ray Liotta)
emerges from the surrounding cornfield to bat the ball
around. Simple as that. Don't question it; don't let your rational
mind talk you out of believing it. This is a fantasy; all rules
are suspended.
The voice returns two more times, each time guiding Ray to
a man who loved baseball with a passion, but who was denied
the opportunity to play. One is Terence Mann (James Earl
Jones), an embittered writer from the 60's who very reluctantly
joins Ray's seemingly insane quest. The other is Moonlight
Graham (Burt Lancaster), now an aged country doctor, who
only got to play one inning in professional baseball before
washing out. Ray brings them both back to his cornfield,
where, in his absence, other famous ballplayers from eras past
have gathered.
Through the rejuvenating magic of the cornfield, Mann and
Graham ultimately attain their goals, but Ray still doesn't
understand his part in all this. His neighbors think he's crazy,
his farm has slipped into financial despair, and all he has to
show for it is a private box seat at some of the greatest baseball
games ever played.
But one day, as the players depart and disappear into the
cornfield, one player remains; it is Ray's father, now a young
man. Ray and his dad, himself a committed baseball fan, had
parted on bitter terms years earlier, and his father had died
before Ray could set things straight. All Ray has ever wanted
to was to repair their torn relationship — to return to those
brief but essential flirtation with time travel ) We have the
theory that audiences have simply become too sophisticated
and/or too cynical to accept a story this fanciful, and we are
afraid that most people will spend all their time concentrating
on the illogic of the premise without being able to suspend
their disbelief and be transported by the message (keep in
mind that "It's a Wonderful Life" wasn't accepted by
audiences when it was first released either).
"Big" was based on a pretty outlandish concept, but once
the gimmick was established, the fantasy element of the
movie was shoved into the background. "Field of Dreams" is
built upon an ethereal premise which is essential from start to
finish, and which must be accepted fully for an audience to
have the magic worked upon them. We're not sure that
enough people will get "Field of Dreams," but nothing would
make us happier than to be proved wrong.
The film is rate PG for very mild language.— Tom Matthews
Review Index

MAJOR LEAGUE
starring Tom Berengcr, Charlie Sheen, Corhin Bemsen, James
Gammon and Boh Decker
Produced by Chris Chesser and Irby Smith Written and
directed by David S Ward
A Paramount Pictures release Comedy, rated R Running turn:
107 min Screening date: 4/4/89
That committee in Hollyuood which decides brilliant
things like "Nobody wants to see baseball movies" once
again finds itself red-faced. The first 10 days earned a
whopping $18.5 million.
"Major League," the only entry in the current baseball
movie glut which really aspires to only be a baseball movie, is
a fantasy about the Cleveland Indians, the most dismal team
in major league history (sorry about that, Cleveland fans). As
scripted by director David S. Ward, the fortunes of the team
are only going to get worse, because the team's owner has died
and his conniving widow (Margaret Whitton) has decided that
if she's going to be saddled with the hopeless Tribe, she'd
rather have them playing in the sunny climes of Miami. She
comes up with the inspired idea of filling the team's roster
with a group of over-the-hill veterans and undisciplined rookies,
all in attempt to create a team so bad that the good folk of
Cleveland will all but escort their beloved Indians to the town
line.
A ragtag group of players is quickly assembled, including
Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), a former star with bad knees,
and Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), a jailbird pitcher with a
comic control problem. A colorful squadron of losers, these
misfits play with an expected lack of success, until they get
wind of their new owner's scheme. Determined to not be used
by her — and knowing that their careers will be over if she
gets her wish — the team pulls together and stages an improbable
rally which ultimately wins them the Eastern Division
pennant.
Major League's" whole story is built on the silly premise
that if a team really wants to win, it can (does this mean that
the real-life Indians just don't want to win enough?). So long
as audiences can accept this unsophisticated theory, they will
find a bawdy story that is intermittently funny but populated
by an uneven group of colorful characters. Berenger and
Sheen are fine as the rough-edged leaders of the revitalized
team, but Corbin Bemsen, as a prissy, over-paid veteran, gives
a predictable and two-dimensional reading of this pampered
superstar. James Gammon and Bob Uecker are terrific as,
respectively, the minor league manager who reluctantly takes
control of the team and the beleaguered sportscaster who is
the last to believe the Indians' resurgence, but the scheming
team owner is nothing but a comic movie tyrant, painted in
loud, grating strokes by Ward.
Maybe it's just that the sophistication of "Bull Durham" and
"Field of Dreams" has prompted us to expect more from baseball-themed
movies, but the good-natured nonsense of "Major
League" ends up seeming childish (the film's treatment of
women shows a distinct lack of maturity). Those who know
the game will no doubt find a lot of humor in these shenanigans,
but beyond that core group it's questionable how much
business this "Bad News Bears" for grownups will do.
Rated R for language and sexual situations. Tom Matthews
—
SAY ANYTHING
Starring John Cusack, lone Skye and John Mahoney
Produced by Polly Piatt Written and directed by Cameron
Crowe
A 20th Century Fox release^ Romantic comedy, rated PG-13
Screening date: 4/10/89.
"Say Anything" is a charming, if somewhat insubstantial
romantic comedy which represents Hollywood in an uncommonly
good-natured mood. Its messages may be a bit vague,
and the going might get a bit melodramatic in the third act, but
writing this sharp and acting this affecting go a long way to
overshadow whatever shortcomings this delightful movie
inight have.
The story is a very simple one: Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack),
a stridently optimistic teenager who has just graduated from
high school, develops a killer crush on Diane Court (lone
Skye), a beautiful and brilliant classmate who has one summer
to kill before she moves to England on a fellowship. The
likes of Diane rarely gives the time of day to the likes of Lloyd,
whose only career plan is a possible future in kick-boxing
("The sport of the future"), but Lloyd pursues her with
unwavering determination.
Its story is low concept and its stars are not household
names, but audiences were clever enough to find this
smart romantic comedy. Its first weekend grossed a
promising $4. 1 million.
Diane, smart enough to recognize pure charm when she
sees it, slowly falls for Lloyd, but their mismatched natures
soon begin to clash. He is fueled purely by impulse and guided
by whatever feels right at the time, but she, far too intelligent
for her own good, over-analyzes everything. She spends all her
time dissecting her feelings for Lloyd and for her father (John
Mahoney), with whom she shares an unusually open and adult
relationship, and she comes to the conclusion that it would be
more logical for them to part company. When her father is
accused and ultimately jailed for fraud, she becomes convinced
that her life has simply become too complicated, and
she shuts Lloyd out of her life for good. The well-intentioned
and thoroughly decent young man must then find a way to
win her back.
Although the script is perceptive and funny, and the performances
are smart throughout, the highlight of "Say Anything"
is unquestionably John Cusack, one of the most unique
and natural young perfomiers in the business. All actors make
decisions when they are forming the personas for which they
will become known, and in all of Cusack's best work ("The
Sure Thing," "Eight Men Out"), his decision has been to portray
his characters as being unfailingly, almost intensely normal
and straightforward (his screenwriters, of course, had
something to do with this). In "Say Anything," Lloyd stands
out as an oddball simply because he sayfe what he thinks, and
because he expects his thoughtfulness to be accepted in kind.
When it's not — when Diane allows herself to be ruled by her
head instead of her heart — the bemusement and torment he
feels is genuinely touching. It's a sensational performance,
and it makes us long to see what Cusack will appear in next.
R-31 BOXOKFICE

—
— —
"Say Anything" is feather-light material, although the dark
subplot involving Diane's father becomes unexpectedly
heavy. Critical support will be strong, but it will take some
boldness on the part of ticket-buyers to turn this small gem
into the sleeper hit it deserves to be.
Rated PG-13 for sexual situations and teen drinking. Tom
Matthews
THE DREAM TEAM
Starring Michael Keaton, Peter Boyle, Chrititophcr Lloyd,
Stephen Furst and Dennis Boutsikaris.
Produced by Christopher W Knight Directed by Howard Zieff
Written by Jon Connolly and David Loucka
A Universal Pictures release. Comedy, rated PG-13 Running
time: 113 min Screening date: 4/30/89
This Bsh out of water comedy (actually four nuts out of
their pen) is a riot, although it could stand a trim.
Audiences were driven mad with laughter, leading to a
healthy 10 day gross of $11.6 million.
Now that "Rain Man" has sensitively and astutely portrayed
the plight of the mentally ill, why not do a wild and justfor-laughs
comedy that derives humor from a group of disparate
and desperate mental patients? That's what "The Dream
Team" does, and while right-minded individuals have balked
at the very premise of this movie, we found it to be hilarious
and thoroughly good-natured. As far as pure, "anti-message"
comedy goes, this is the funniest thing yet released this year.
In a page torn from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," the
story is about a day trip for four unbalanced men who have
rarely strayed from the safety of their hospital grounds. Billy
(Michael Keaton) is a schemer and a liar who also has a hot
temper; Henry (Christopher Lloyd) is an obsessive control
freak; Jack (Peter Boyle) is a former ad exec who now believes
he is the Son of God; and Albert (Stephen FurstJ is a child-like
individual who speaks only in baseball terminology.
These four don't like each other, but Dr. Weitzman (Dennis
BoutsikarisJ likes them, and he decides that the five of them
should go see a Yankees game, just for the fun of it. The
problem is that Weitzman stumbles upon a murder and is
beaten senseless by the killers almost as soon as they enter
the big city, and the four loonies are left alone to fend for
themselves. First individually and then as a team, they use
their unique traits and their recently unearthed wits to survive,
and to ultimately save Weitzman from the villains who
are determined to kill him.
Although the film ultimately suffers from being about 30
minutes too long, "The Dream Team" succeeds through some
sensational comic writing and through one of the funniest
ensemble casts in recent memory. Between serious gigs
("Clean and Sober" and "Batman"), Keaton proves once again
that he is one of the most ingratiating wiseguys going; Lloyd
gets his fullest and most consistent starring role to date; and
We know, we know. In these enlightened times, we're not
supposed to find humor in somber topics like the mentally
impaired. But we lau.ghed, so sue us, along with everyone else
who is laughing. Based on how well this film is doing, the
courts could be tied up for years.
Rated PG-13 for language and brief nudity. Tom Mat
thews
SLAVES OF NEW YORK
Starring Bemadette Peters, Madeleine Potter, Mary Beth Hurt,
Adam Coleman Howard and Nick Corri
Produced by Ismael Merchant and James Ivory Directed by
James Ivory. Written by Tama Janowitz
A Tri-Star release Dramatic-comedy, rated R Running time
121 min Screening date: 4/12/89
Merchant and Ivory, those creators of such period pieces as
"Room With A View" and "Maurice," have given us a costume
piece for now: "Slaves of New York," based on Tama Janowitz's
bestseller. In fact, this stylish film's difficulties may
arise from the Merchant Ivory-Janowitz connection; Janowitz'
screenplay is as determinedly, and self-consciously, shallow
as her characters, while Merchant and Ivory bring a studied
sincerity to their films. ..a sincerity that is as out of place in
New York's Lower East Side as Birkenstocks.
What IS in is a desperate, narcissistic clawing towards fulfilling
Warhol's "15 minutes of fame" dictum. Those who are
enjoying their quarter-hour in the sun are smug, like Stash
(Adam Coleman Howard), a whiny, immature appropriation
artist whose chief joys in life are eating pizza, painting Donald
Duck, and verbally abusing his live-in girlfriend, Eleanor (Bernadette
Peters). Eleanor is a would-be hat designer, a sweet,
klutzy, unbelievably insecure woman who stumbles over her
words in a sort of frenetic glossolalia.
Acquaintances (never friends) whirl through the couple's
life like wind-tossed leaves, never really connecting unless
they want to ask a favor. There is Marley (Nick Corri J, a manic
young artist who dreams of building a cathedral next to St,
Peters, and Daria (Madeleine Potter), a social-climbing sculptress
who carries her own caviar and sleeps with up-and-coming
artists (like Stash and Marley) in an effort to have her own
work shown in galleries. When Eleanor finally gets up the guts
to leave philandering Stash, she's commissioned to make hats
for a trendy designer's show and has a smashing success.
Despite Bemadette Peters' funny characterization of Eleanor,
one fails to feel truly overjoyed at the hat-maker's success;
the characters in "Slaves" are so underdeveloped, selfabsorbed
and unlikable that it's almost impossible to feel any
involvement with them. And, in a truly self-serving touch,
Tama Janowitz has been cast as Abby, a woman so insecure
she spends an entire party hiding in the bathroom, reading
"How to Make a Man Fall In Love With You."
While "Slaves of New York" is an acute indictment of the
80's art scene, its merits are those of a good mannequin:
visually appealing and utterly vacant.
Rated R for language and sexual situations.
Lesa Sawaha-
DISORGANIZED CRIME
Starring Fred Gwijnnc, Ruben Blades, William Russ, Lou Diamond
Phillips, Ed O'Neill and Corbin Bemsen
Produced by Lynn Bigelow Written and directed by Jim Kouf
A Buena Vista release Comedy, rated R Running time: 99 min
Screening date 4/11/89
Disorganized, it is. If it ends up making money, it'll
definitely be a crime. This botched action-comedyjust
ain't funny, and it grossed a deservedly weak $2.8
million its opening weekend.
Boyle simply does the best work he's done smce "Young Frankenstein"
(anyone who enjoyed his monstrous inangling of
"Puttin' on the Ritz" in Mel Brooks' classic will enjoy his
similar treatment of Ray Charles' "Hit the Road Jack" in this
new movie). Only Furst is stuck with a familiar and weaklywritten
"babe in the woods" role, but it's a benign performance
which certainly doesn't distract from all that is right with
this movie.
Taking everything into account, "Disorganized Crime"
could very well be the worst thing that Touchstone Pictures
has yet produced (and we remember "Off Beat" and "The
Rescue"). If they are able to turn a profit on this loud, amateurish
and aggressively unfunny action-comedy, then it will be
proven once and for all that they're using black magic over
there to achieve the astounding success they're enjoying.

—
rank Sdlazar (C^oibin Hcinseii), a veteran bank robber, has
set his sights on a small bank in a remote Montana town. He
has mapped out his plan and has sent out "invitations" to the
four hoodlums whom he needs to help him, but immediately
after dropping the letters into the mail, he is arrested by two
bumbling cops (Ed O'Neill and Daniel Roebuck) who have
been tailing him for a previous offense.
Unaware that their leader is behind bars, the four other
crooks — played by Ed Gwynne, Ruben Blades, Lou Diamond
Phillips and William Russ — show up at a desolate mountain
ranch as instructed by Salazar, and then try to figure out why
they were summoned. Salazar, meanwhile, has escaped from
his two captors, and the story fractures clumsily into three
separate sub-plots: the robbery of the bank by the four crooks;
Salazar's trek across through the Montana wilderness as he
tries to reunite with his four cohorts; and the pursuit of Salazar
by the two cops. Each of the stories is laughless and gracelessly
executed, all converging in a conclusion which is abrupt,
ponderous, and morally bizarre.
There isn't room to list all the places where "Disorganized
Crime" goes wrong. First and foremost, the casting is awful:
Blades and Phillips really can't act (at least Blades has the
"But I'm really a singer" excuse to fall back on); Gwrynne is a
terrific actor, but has no business in a movie this trite; and
Russ, while being perhaps the funniest element in the picture,
is stuck in a stock dimwit role. There is absolutely no rapport
between these four, when their falling into league together
should form the core of the story.
Elsewhere, Bemsen has exactly two lines of dialogue ("How
did you find me?" and "These are my footprints") before completely
vanishing from the movie, while O'Neill and Roebuck
prove once again that that most rancid movie cliche — the
stupid cop — can always be made more rancid (Touchstone's
fondness for raw language is particularly glaring here, seeing
as there is no good writing to leaven the vulgarities). The
photography is washed out and ugly, making even the wilds of
Montana look unattractive, and the editing is a shambles.
"Disorganized Crime" has all the elements of an action-comedy
hit. But even those who made Touchstone's marginal
"Three Fugitives" a modest success won't be fooled by this
one.
Rated R for language. Tarn Matthews
SCANDAL
Starring Juhn Hurt, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Ian McKelkn,
Bridget Fonda, Jeroen Krahhe, Britt Ekland, and Roland Gift.
Produced by Stephen WooUey. Directed by Michael Caton-
Jones Written by Michael Thomas
A Palace Production Drama, Rated R Running time: 105
mms
In 196.3 revelations in the British press under the headline
"The Minister, The Model and the Russian Spy" blew up into a
political scandal that made Teapot Dome look like a tempest
in a teacup. "The Profumo Affair," as it came to be known,
took its name from Her Majesty's Minister for War, John Profumo,
who had an affair with 18-year-old Christine Keeler at
the same time she was sharing her bed with Soviet Naval
Attache Eugene Ivanov. By the end of the year Profumo had
resigned, his promising political career in tatters; Christine
Keeler was in jail; Ivanov was summarily recalled to Moscow;
and Stephen Ward, benign, beauty-loving chiropractor — and
panderer to half the House of Lords — took the fall. Within
months Prime Minister Harold MacMillan resigned, and in
1964 the Conservative government fell from power, disgraced
and exhausted by the scandal.
"Scandal" is the sleek, racy name of a confidently made
new movie from England about the Profumo affair. It dowsed
a lot of ink recently for its controversial orgj' scene, which f
earned it an unwelcome Valentine kiss from the Motion Picture
Association of America before a tamer version finally
secured the needed "R". Ironically, the orgy is one of the less
erotic sequences in the picture, and probably only raised eyebrows
because of its brief, comic treatment of sado-masochism
Outside of the naked nobleman who wears a "Please
beat me if 1 fail to satisfy" sign around his neck while serving
tea, the scene plays very much like a cocktail party with
people having sex instead of talking.
"Scandal" is not, however, one of these movies about sex
that go out of their way not to be sexy. Unlike, say, "Star 80,"
which all but implicated voyeuristic filmgoers in Dorothy
Stratten's murder, "Scandal" revels in the attractiveness of
Christine and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies, who when told in
the dock that an influential Member of Parliament had denied
his liaisons with her delivered the immortal testimony, "Well,
he would, wouldn't he?" The wordless scene of the two girls
girding up for their first night out in London, set to a lurid
bossa nova of the period, is a classic celebration of lipsticks,
lingerie, and the female form.
Peter Fonda's daughter Bridget plays Mandy, and it's in
dealing with her character that the movie threatens to stumble.
She never comes fully alive the way Joanne Whalley's
Christine does, yet unlike Ian McKellen as the needy Profumo,
she can't coax a coherent impression out of a few underwritten
scenes. It's a star turn in a supporting part, calibrated for
more screen time than she gets, at least in this cut.
John Hurt's performance as Dr. Ward presents no such
problems. He's a genuinely tragic figure, shot through with the
film's nostalgia for a time when Ward's frankly promiscuous
credo of "There's no harm in it; we're all flesh," was still
possible. His face the texture of a turtle's neck, Hurt makes an
unlikely but dignified romantic, and he's what holds this ambitious
if occasionally shaky piece of social history together. (^
Rated R for plentiful nudity. — David Kipen
^
JACKNIFE
Starring Robert De Niro, Kathy Baker and Ed Harris
Produced by Robert Schaffel and Carol Baum Directed by
David Jones Written by Stephen Metcalfe
A Cmeplr\ (klfnn release Drama, rated R Running time: 102
min Screoinig ihite .'. 27/89
A brilliant cast is not quite enough to outweigh a stodgy
and rather familiar story. The film opened big in major
markets, but after six weeks it had only grossed $1.6
million.
There is something disturbingly unbalanced about "Jacknife:"
slight, small-scale and essentially dull, the story is far
outweighed by the prodigious talents of actors Kathy Baker,
Ed Harris and (especially) Robert De Niro.
"Jacknife" is another "is there life after Vietnam?" tale
about vets caught in the emotional crossfire of the past and
dealing, more or less effectively, with the present. David (Harris)
— and yet pitiable — David's alcohol consumption is out of
isn't dealing with life too well; belligerent, truly unlikable
control, and so is his life.
His dependency extends to his sister
Martha (Baker), a spinsterly biology teacher whose own life
has been subtly subsumed into her role as caretaker. When
Megs — aka Jacknife (De Niro) — enters the siblings' lives, he
blows their precariously balanced existence apart with humor,
a lively vulgarity and joie de vivre.
An Army buddy of David's, Megs has dealt with the emotional
detritus of war, which threatens the still-burdened
David enormously. Even more threatening to him is the burgeoning,
somewhat improbable romance between Megs and
^
Martha; when they chaperone a high school prom, David v^
crashes the party in a haze of boilermakers and amphetamines.
But we finally get to the root of his resentment: In a skirmish
in Vietnam, David had advised their mutual buddy to
forget about saving the heavily wounded Megs. The film's
R-33 BOXOFFICE

—
—
resolution occurs in a moving scene in which Megs lets David
know that he's forgiven.
Yes, "Jacknife" is predictable and prosy. The film's stilted
dialogue is not helped by the direction; with the exception of
outdoor shots, this movie has the box-y, enclosed look of a
stage production.
The good news is that the actors so far transcend the TVmovie
quality of "Jacknife" that they actually elevate it, lending
it integrity and grit. Baker, the ultimate anti-glamour
heroine, is a chameleon of a performer; she appears to physically
metamorphose in the film, her features softening and
relaxing. A beefier, beer-bellied Harris creates a moving character
out of the basically unsympathetic David, but the film
really belongs to De Niro. He is an endlessly fascinating performer,
and his work in "Jacknife" reveals acting unlike any
he's done before. An intellectual quality has always come
through in his work (even as Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull").
But in "Jacknife," his accustomed air of slight detachment is
gone; we're not watching him think, we're watching him feel.
If you want entertainment, look elsewhere; if you want to
see acting, see "Jacknife."
Rated R for language and sexual situations.
DEAD CALM
Lesa Sawaha-
Starring Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane.
Produced by Terry Hayes, Doug Mitchell and George Miller.
Directed by Phillip Noyce. Written by Terry Hayes.
A Warner Bros release Thriller, rated R Running time: 96
min. Screening date: 4/5/89
Just as the "Mad Max" trilogy was essentially a series of
chase pictures taken to obvious yet glorious extremes, so then
is "Dead Calm" essentially the "Max" team's intelligent and
wildly entertaining exploration of the suspense genre.
Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman play John and Rae Ingram, a
melancholy Australian couple who take to the high seas to
heal after the sudden and tragic death of their son. Alone and
thousands of miles from land on their small boat, they
encounter a smkmg, derelict party schooner, the Orpheus,
and its lone survivor, a frightened, exhausted young American
named Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane). Hughie claims that his
crew died of a terrible shipboard disease, but John — a Navy
man — finds that Hughie's story doesn't quite wash.
Just as John discovers the grisly truth about Hughie's antics
aboard the Orpheus, Hughie escapes from his cabin and
makes off with John's boat and wife, stranding John alone on
the crippled, sinking schooner.Can lithe Rae overcome the
brawny maniac Hughie in time to turn the boat around and
rescue her husband? In the isolated environment of the high
ocean, a miscalculation can spell disaster; a few seconds can
literally mean the difference between life and death.
Writer/producer Terry Hayes, who co-authored the "Max"
saga with series producer/director George Miller, brings a
characteristically humorous and propulsive mixture of twists
and spills to the adventure, alternating between Rae's battle of
wits and muscle with Hughie, and John's desperate battle to
keep what's left of Hughie's doomed schooner afloat.
The handsome but loutish Hughie makes for a particularly
loathsome boogeyman, with his unctuous pretensions of beatnik
intellectualism and smarmy ersatz cocktail banter alternating
smoothly with bouts of raging violence and sadism
He's the new archetype of the would-be junior California businessman,
his second-hand hipster charisma masking desperate,
weak-minded selfishness. He's a villain audiences can
truly despise.
By contrast, John begins the movie as square and dour, far
less handsome and flashy with his military bearing and bad
Sam Donaldson haircut. It's doubly gratifying then that when
the chips are down, John proves himself a better man than
Hughie in almost every way.
Miller has surrendered the director's chair to Phillip Noyce,
but there's still an awful lot of that great pseudo-punk "Road
Warrior" ambience in the air. Besides Hayes, refugees from
the "Max" movies include cinematographer Dean Simler and
production designer Graham "Gracie" Walker, and even Miller
takes a credit as second-unit director.
Rated R for sexual situations, gore, violence, nudity and
language. Jim Kozak
DEAD-BANG
Starring Don Johnson, Bob Balaban, William Forsythe and Tim
Reid
Produced by Steve Roth Directed by John Frankenheimer
Written by Robert Foster.
A Warner Bros release. Crime drama, rated R Running time:
100 min. Screening date: 3/25/89
One could forget that Don Johnson was the reigning TV
hunk just a year or so ago, based on how few people
turned out for this familiar actioner. Four week gross: a
weak $7.4 million.
"Dead-Bang" is a taut but thoroughly routine cop drama
which is not without its merits on a pure exploitation level.
There are flashes of intelligence where it seems that the filmmakers
are trying to do something different with the material,
but for the most part it's hard to tell why anyone with the
stature of the people involved here — primarily Don Johnson
and John Frankenheimer — were drawn to it.
Johnson plays real-life LA. homicide cop Jerry Beck, whose
personal life has bottomed out at the beginning of the film
He's going through a very ugly divorce, he has a very unglamorous
drinking problem, and worst of all, the Santa Ana
winds have kicked up on Christmas Eve day, bringing out all
the crazies. A storeowner and a cop have been shot in an
apparently random outburst of violence and Beck, who has no
one to share the holidays with and who seems to welcome the
case as a diversion, becomes obsessed with finding the killer.
Beck's investigation ultimately uncovers a mthless neo-
Nazi gang, which is on a shooting spree throughout the westem
United States. The rough-edged cop tracks them from LA.
to Oklahoma to Colorado, uncovering a huge and alarmingly
well-organized and well-financed group of white supremacists.
And yet for reasons which are not made clear in the
story, no one — not his superiors back in LA., nor the humorously
square-jawed FBI man who dogs Beck's trail (William
Forsythe) — will believe him. Finally, accompanied only by a
small group of black sheriffs. Beck storms the Nazi compound
on his own and engages in a very predictable fire fight.
The best parts of "Dead-Bang" come early, as Frankenheimer
and writer Robert Foster flesh out Beck's character
with some terrifically gritty color. There is a hilarious
sequence early on, when the cop, still hungover from the
previous night's bender, drags a yuppie parole officer (Bob
Balaban) away from his family on Christmas morning, and

—
M\r
then forces him to tag along as Beck crashes a biker's hangout.
This sequence ends with a prolonged foot chase between Beck
and a suspect, during which the queasy cop proves to be surprisingly
agile, only to vomit all over his prey when he finally
tackles him. It's a very funny moment in a disgusting way, and
it also paints Beck as a flawed and embarrassingly real charac-
Unfortunately, "Dead-Bang" slowly surrenders to predictable
action film fodder, and the shoot-out at the finale,
although photographed expertly, is so pedestrian that it <
as a crashing disappointment. What had started out
interesting study of a common and fairly unremarkable lawman
ultimately places him in a hyped-up and wholly unbelievable
predicament, destroying the very credible work that
Johnson had done up to that point. The actor's big screen
career will no doubt continue to flounder as long as he keeps
appearing in uneven projects like this.
Rated R for strong language and violence,
Turn Matthews
TROOP BEVERLY HILLS
stun mi; ShcUcy Long, Betty Thomas, Mary Gross, Craig T
Nelson, and Carla Gugino
Produced hy Ava Ostem Fries Directed by Jejf Kanew Written
by Pamela Norris & Margaret Grieco Oberman
A Fries Entertainment and Avanti Production Comedy, Rated
PC Runnino time 105 mins
If they gave out merit badges for bad Judgement, the
creative minds at WEG might deser\'e a couple. Two
weeks for this lame-brained, laughless farce earned a
pale $8 million.
Imagine "Animal House" retold from the other fraternity's
point of view — Delta's tanned, blond, dandified rivals — and
you've got a pretty fair idea what a miscalculated hodgepodge
"Troop Beverly Hills" amounts to. It stars Shelley Long as a
stupid, shallow Beverly Hills housewife who becomes den
mother to her daughter's Wilderness Girls troop. If you've
never heard of the Wilderness Girls, that's because, like everything
else in this movie, they have no correlative in reality.
The Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, Indian Guides and Brownies
of the worid all shrewdly refused to lend their names to this
ineptly prepared mishmash. Would that Shelley Long, Betty
Thomas, and even the city of Beverly Hills had been so protective
of their reputations.
Betty Thomas, late and great of "Hill Street Blues," comes
into it as Velda Plendor (?), virtual Reichsmarshal of rival
troop Culver City. Pledged to decertify the namby-pamby Beverly
Hills troop any way she can, she deputizes luckless Mary
Gross to infiltrate them. Will Thomas succeed in sabotaging
Troop B,H.'s bid for accreditation? Will Gross put aside her spy
camera and ally herself with the poor little rich girls in earnest?
Will Long win back the love and respect of her estranged
husband and skeptical daughter by trouncing the competition
in the annual Wilderness Girls scouting outing? Will any of
these actors ever work again?
Of course they will. If people will forgive Shelley Long for
"Hello Again," they'll forgive her for anything. She's the
Wemher Von Braun of comedy. No matter what atrocities
she's been party to, what evils of banality her collaborators
have perpetrated on a guileless public, she's just too blamed
proficient at what she does ever to want for a job. Her pratfalls,
her double takes, even her spit takes are all accomplished
with an eerie, almost animatronic precision. Maybe
that's why teaming her with brash, spontaneous Bette Midler
in "Outrageous Fortune" worked out so well. Midler bear-hugs
her characters, while Long always seems to handle hers with
calipers.
"Troop Beveriy Hills" cast members Long, Betty Thomas
and Mary Gross are all alumnae of Troupe Chicago, the Second
City improvisational comedy ensemble which has now
bequeathed to Hollywood more comic actors than "Your Show
of Shows" did comedy writers. The script by "Saturday Night
Live" writers Pamela Norris and Margaret Grieco Oberman for
'Troop Beverly Hills" is so slapdash that one has to wonder
how much worse it could have been, or indeed how much
better it might have been, if the actors had been allowed to
make the picture up as they went along Biu movies need
backing, and backers need scripts — even lousy ones. Scripts
need ideas, too, and the idea for this one had the misfortune to
come from producer Ava Ostem Fries, who headed up her
own daughter's Beverly Hills scout troop until she'd squeezed
enough material out of them for a movie deal. If only for her
daughter's sake, pray the other scouts never see "Troop Beverly
Hills." She'd never live it down
Rated PG for some harmless innuendo -David Kipen
SING
Starring Peter Dubson, Jessica Steen, Lonaine and
Louise Lasser
Produced hy Craig Zadan Directed by Richard Baskin Written
by Dean Pitchford
A Tri-Star release Musical-drama, rated PG-13 Running time:
97 mm Screening date 3/27/89
Three weeks for this so-so street musical grossed a
paltry $2.2 million, coming nowhere near its $1 1.5
million budget.
"Smg" is set in and around the streets of Brooklyn, where
teenagers of all types are preparing for the legendary Sing
competitions, the real-life musical contests which provided
early stage experience for the likes of Barbra Streisand, Neil
Diamond, and Simon and Garfunkel. High schools throughout
the community mount elaborate revues in an attempt to outdo
the competition, and over at Central High, Miss Loinbardo
(Lorraine Bracco). a teacher who has just returned to her alma
mater, is determined to take the top prize.
Her problem is that her two most promising performers are
Hannah (Jessica Steen), a lily-white beauty from a troubled
home, and Zametti (Peter Dobson), a street thug and common
thief who is being forced to participate in the competition
against his will. Hannah and Zametti can't stand each other at
first, but just as sure as love conquers all, opposites attract,
and lily-white beauties always fall for thugs from the wrong
side of the tracks, the two ultimately fall in love.
But that's only after their high school is threatened by the ^
wrecking ball and they and their classmates resolve to put on (^
the best Sing ever. As quick as you can say, "Hey, kids, let's
put on a show!" the students of Central and their families have
pulled together to prove just what the doomed urban school is
capable of.
"Sing" is an unabashedly corny hunk of hokum, and it's
unlikely that general audiences will warm to it (its no-name
cast won't help). It would stand a chance if its music were
first-rate, but much of the soundtrack music is performed by
some of the wimpiest mainstays on the Top 40 charts (Micky
Thomas, Nia Peebles, Kevin Cronin), and only a few of the
theatrical presentations which the students perform are that
impressive (Rachel Sweet performs a little ditty called "Life
Ain't Worth Living (When You're Dead)" which is a showstopper).
It's all perfectly watchable and listenable, but there
is very little of the excitement that was found in "Flashdance,"
"Footloose" or "Dirty Dancing."
Rated PG-13 for language and violence.— ro>?i Matthews
SIGNS OF LIFE
Starring Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio, Kevin / O'Cimncr, WiU Patt(m,
Mary Louise Parker and Beau Bridges
Produced by Marcus Viscidi & Andrew Reichsman Directed hy
John David Coles Written by Mark Malorie
An Avenue Pictures release Drama, rated PG-13 Running
time: 91 min. Screening date: 3/16/89-
BeautifuUy photographed on the coast of Maine, 'Signs of
Life" centers on the closing of a decades-old boatyard, and the
impact it has on its employees. Owen Coughlin (Arthur Kennedy),
the owner of the decrepit business, is a c.iu.stv old bird
who despises the modem technology that has fern cd ilu' . In.sing,
and who clings to the desperate hope that ihcn- icm.nns
at least one more person who wants a boat built the nUlfashioned
way. Daryl (Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio) ami 1 /
(Kevin J. O'Connor) look upon their impending uncnii'loN V
ment as an opportunity to finally do what they've ,il\\,i\.s
longed to do: move to Florida and become salvage divers. And
John (Beau Bridges), with four kids and another on the way,
sees only an impending financial crisis.
As we got to know each man. we begin to see their quirks
i
R-35 BOXOFFICE

—
and their unique problems. Owen is slowly sinking into senility
and he begins seeing visions of his father as a "young man,
taunting Owen for allowing the boat-building company to
founder. Daryl and Eddie, it turns out, may not find it so easy
to pack up and leave town; Daryl has a retarded brother (Michael
Lewis) who would have to be left behind, and Eddie has
a girlfriend (played by a wide-eyed, moon-faced lovely named
Mary Louise Parker) who will simply not let him go. And John,
in a weak moment, steals several hundred dollars" from a hardware
store.
The resolutions to these problems should form the heart of
the story, but most are left open-ended and unanswered by
inexplicably poor editing. Huge portions of the stoiy seem to
be missing, with the subplot involving Bridges handled especially
pooriy; it is simply forgotten for'much of the movie, and
it never comes to any kind of finish. There is absolutely no
hint about what the consequences finally are for his crirrie.
Which is too bad, because "Signs of Life" has elements of
greatness. The cast is superb, from Kennedy's first film performance
in over ten years, all the way down to a small but
charming appearance by Georgia Engel, best known as Ted
Baxter's mouse-like wife on "The MaVy Tyler Moore Show."
And there are also unexpected moments of magic which give
the film an enchanted feel (one character drowns and is
somehow brought back to life, while at the same time we are
given hints that Owen's visions of his father may not be hallucinations
at all).
We can only assume that somewhere along the way this
small and well-intentioned movie ran into money problems
and was forced to cut comers on what we're guessing was a
very good script. As a result it is a frustratingty unsatisfying
movie, and it will no doubt suffer as a result.
Rated PG-13 for language and sexual situations.— Tom Matthews
THE MIGHTY QUINN
Stamng Denzel Washington, M Emmet Walsh and Robert
Townsend
Produced by Sandy Lieberson and Marion Hunt and Ed Elbert
Directed by Carl Schenkel Written by Hampton Fancher
An MGM/UA release Mystery, rated R Running time 90 mm
Screening date: 3/19/89
It garnered a couple of miUion-doUar reviews, but this
amiable, unsatisfying mystery hardly caused a ripple.
With half-hearted support from MGM/UA, it earned
about $4 million in six weeks.
Walsh) who is involved with the theft of recalled $100,000 bills
from America. These two plots (the murder and the scramble
for the purioined loot) only barely intersect, providing a confusing
and unsatisfying conclusion to this muddled mystery
If nothing else, "The Mighty Quinn" is the sunniest example
of film noir yet attempted. It certainly has some of the stylish
touches of a classic murder mystery, and it also has the offbeat
hipness and intriguing locales of "The Big Easy." But the
components just don't jell here. Washington is fine, although
he seems too young for the role and also has trouble maintaining
his Jamaican accent. And while the reggae soundtrack i.s
very lively, its use within the film is clumsy (in numerous
scenes in which we are watching "live" bands, the music is
obviously studio-recorded and distractingly slick).
One wants to encourage a film this quirky and which features
a rare black male lead, but this weak effort doesn't make
the grade
Rated R for language and violence— Tom Matthews
THE LUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD
Starring Philip Bosco. Dons Belack, Joanne Camp Matthew
Gottlieb and Arthur French
Produced by Norman 1 Cohen. Written and directed bu Frank
D Gilroy
A McLaughlin, Piven, Vogel, Inc release Comedy, not rated
Running time: 82 min. Screening date: 2/16/89-
New York character, that's what Frank Gilroy's "The Luckiest
Man in the World" has - lots of it, but not much else It's
chock-a-block with half-funnv, half-off'ensive stereotypes a
Type-A compulsive garment center tycoon (Philip Bosco); his
hard-boiled housewife (Doris Belack), who's come to terms
with hubby's infidelities; his son (Matthew Gottlieb), a drag
queen with a giant gnidge against dad; his all-giving mistress
(Joanne Camp); his crtisty old chauffeur (Arthur French)
plus scads of other racial and ethnic stereotypes.
The one-joke plot is minimal, and what there is of it is
predictable. Bosco dominates the screen as a wealthy man
who has been cruel to anyone and everyone he's ever met. But
a close brush with death suddenly brings the man to his
senses, and he attempts to make amends "in the same pushy
way that he'd caused harm.
But his wife won't take him back; his son won't give up his
hostility; his mistress (in one of the film's few charming
To hear Siskel and Ebert tell it, "The Mighty Quinn" is
destined to become one of the greatest films released in 1989.
But to just about everyone else — including MGM/UA, which
IS giving the film only a token release — this tropical mystery
will probably only be marginal entertainment at best. Although
long on character and local color, this isn't much of a
movie.
Set in the Bahamas, the movie stars Denzel Washington as
Xavier Quinn, the straight-laced chief of police on a remote
island. A decent man who is growing increasingly frustrated
with seemingly being the only upstanding citizen in this small
town of laid-back, carefree natives, Quinn finds himself in a
very unpopular position when a white island resident is brutally
murdered.
The prime suspect is Maubee (Robert Townsend), a boyhood
friend of Quinn's who is a charming and fairly corrupt
rogue. The entire community sides with the ever-elusive Maubee,
leaving Quinn — who is constantly chided for his square
behavior — totally alone. On one hand, he would like to
believe in his old friend's innocence in order to show the
townsfolk that he is one of them. But on the other, Maubee's
suspicious behavior (he keeps appearing and vanishing magically
throughout the story) seems to color him guilty. Quinn
half-heartedly pursues him, almost hoping that he won't be
found.
It is finally revealed that Maubee had been at the murder
scene, but that the death had been caused by the poisonous
snake that Maubee's voodoo aunt (Esther Rolle) had sicced on
the white man out of revenge. The aunt, however, is dead too,
killed by some kind of pseudo-CIA operative (M. Emmet
scenes) turns down his marriage proposal; and his chauffeur
leaves him stranded on a turnpike. So after a gospel choir
stationed in a toilet stall sings "You Can't Get to Heaven on
Rollerskates" to him, the tycoon turns his generosity on complete
strangers and gets a better response. He enjoys an interracial
romantic fantasy, and then everything — preposterously
— gets resolved and all is forgiven.
Filmed on a shoestring budget in NYC, this flimsy, semisweet
comedy has more characters than it has laughs. It's
surprising how many vignettes Gilroy has managed to squeeze
mto the short running time, but there is so much repetition of
the same gags that the film seems to drag on much longer
than its 82 minutes. Too bad audiences won't be taken in by
quantity rather than quality.
The cast is filled with talent (not the least of which is the
distinguished star), but the confining screenplay gives no one
the opportunity to present himself or herself in more depth
than a cartoon. Perhaps "The Luckiest Man in the Worid" will
follow in the pattern of "The Gig," Gilroy's last feature, and
make from video revenues more than it will from theatre
grosses.
This unrated film would be suitable for general audiences.
Karen Kreps
CHOCOLAT
Starring Isaach de Bankole, Gmlia Boschi, Francois Cluzet and
Cecile Ducasse
Directed by Claire Denis. Written by Clair Denis and Jean-Pol
Fargeau.
An Orion Classics release. Drama, rated PG-13 Running time
105 min Screening date: 4/4/89
"Chocolat" is Claire Denis's first film, a semi-autobiographical
look at life in the waning years of France's coloniarrule of
Cameroon. Set in the late 50's, "Chocolat" explores the delicate
balance of relationships in the home of district officer

Marc Dalens (Francois Cluzet) and his beautiful wife Aimee
(Giulia Boschi), as seen through the eyes of their young
daughter, France (Cecile Ducasse).
Living in a stark, arid Third World country is fraught with
plenty of daily tensions and discomfort — oppressive heat,
flourishing bugs, reliance on generators for power — compounded
bv the frequent absences of Marc, whose duties as
father and husband are secondary to his district responsibilities
His role as a father is somewhat adopted by Protee (Isaach
de Bankolc), the Dalens' handsome black house "boy;"
adored by France, he is at once her best friend and protector.
Her mother, beautiful and bored, fares less well; her abundant
energy is channelled into ferocious overhauls of the kitchen
and garden, and into suppressing her own sexual attraction to
Protee. When that attraction is
finally made explicit, Protee's
angr\' rejection of Aimee results in his demotion to the garage,
and his ultimate betrayal of young France.
While "Chocolat" feels a bit vague, a bit unfinished, it's an
interesting first feature. Denis, who worked with Wim Wenders
on "Paris, Texas" and "Wings of Desire," clearly learned
a great deal about creating atmosphere from that director.
There are the same long, slow, poetic movements of the camera,
the vivid creation of time and place, and the ability to
reveal the most subtle shadings of relationships. The music,
by jazz composer Dollar Brand, is also terrific But ennui
seems to permeate the film to the extent that it reaches the
audience, too — "Chocolat" feels extraordinarily s-l-o-w at
times, which is not helped by an uncomfortable sense of
detachment from the characters.
What "Chocolat" does most potently is to create the sense
of a lifestyle that is on the verge of death, already a corpse
really. Marc, who loves Cameroon, knows that the end is near;
reminders of the impermanence of white rule surround the
colonials. There's a plaque on the Dalens' house that reminds
them that Cameroon was once a German settlement. The
blacks, though oppressed, enjoy a tight society; it is the whites
who are the true outcasts. This is not a colonial society that is
overripe and rotting, as in "White Mischief" It is instead a
society that has dried to a husk and is slowly blowing away.
Rated PG-13 for nudity.— Lesa Sawahata
REVIEW DIGEST
story type key: (Ac) Action: (Ad) Adventure: (An) Animated: (B)
Biography: (C) Comedy: (Cr) Crime: (D) Drama: (DM) Drama with
Music: (Doc) Documentary: (F) Fantasy: (H) Horror: (M) Musical:
(My) Mystery: (OD) Outdoor: (Pol) Political: (R) Romantic: (SF)
Science Fiction: (Sus) Suspense: (W) Western.
1°
IS
S §
iiiil
Accidental Tourist PG (WB)
E^,i
Z 3 <
EDGE OF SANITY
Anthony Perkins, Glynis Barber and Sarah Maur-Thorp
Produced by Edward Simons and Harry Alan Towers
Directed by Gerard Kikoine Written by J P Felix and Ron Ral
ey
A Millimeter Films release Horror, rated R Running time 86
min. Screening date: 4/5/89
"Edge of Sanity" is a camp, soft core variation on Robert
Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Alternately
appalling and embarrassing, this kinky mess could provide
unintended fun as a midnight movie, but its bleak future no
doubt lies on the video shelves.
Anthony Perkins, who took a wrong turn somewhere, stars
as Henry Jekyll, a reclusive scientist who is working on a
ground-breaking new form of anaesthetic. One night, one of
his lab monkeys knocks over a beaker, causing a gas which
turns Henry into... Jack Hyde, or, for the purposes of this screwy
thriller^ Jack the Ripper. That's right, "Edge of Sanity"
fuses together Stevenson's classic with the Ripper saga, providing
twice the gore for your entertainment dollar.
Perkins spends half the movie in pasty whiteface makeup
and red-rimmed eyes, carving up street stmmpets with a
razor. He also manages to insinuate himself into as many
situations as possible that can provide opportunities for young
women to bare their breasts. It's just razors and breasts galore
for about 90 minutes, with no bothersome plot intruding itself
into the goings-on.
"Edge of Sanity" has a twisted, Ken Russell-influenced look
to it which is fun for a little while (there are more crooked
camera angles and gaudy colors than an average "Batman"
episode). But there is also a leering, exploitive quality to the
movie which makes one pity those on screen, particularly
Perkins One memorable scene, during which the doped-up
Hyde delivers a lengthy soliloquy while addressing the
exposed rear end of one of his intended victims, made us
cringe in our seats, wondering how this once-interesting actor
ended up being the butt of such ghastly material.
R.ited R for nudity and gore —Tom Matthews

SNEAK PREVIEWS
The following films are tentatively scheduled
for release during the months of August and
September The distributors, however, cannot
stress strongly enough that these dates
and titles are subject to change.
WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S
Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman
star as two eager insurance clerl

BQ»'^PP'^F
'

E^'
^1
II
8 II
•osl
3 =
i
ol 5o«|-
i;i II II 1 r, I 11
1^
E" ^ TJooflja £ ^S 2s_ _ ,,_ ^
os1>OSfT5° I ^S- ^3^||3 JOS >'i
II
Si
S^5^^- 2=11 I III
ifi o 1 nil I ifiis 1I 1« 1= It i°l«ic5
I £5
S.I .1 JS *| - =
is;
^i
OS-..;
£ §
a (OS
ii If
|0-"| O?^?"^ a-Jill X
5 iil P
ill
J|i; 111 1.^
sill III ils
ii *|i^ i I!
^1
ll
1 BU »-
I o)5| OS
O I
o
II
1 Is
8| -. 5f ES ojS
>K53"I "-s; "OS
iJll I !)
'g
= 1
S"!"^
2^"/^
Woof
EsS
l.,SS|»|Sss
(0
£ °
I r
Ss s Eji SSe Se£
-rg^i- - --. .2-.
1!l!l.

'
;
experience
I
I Inc.
i
Oxford.
Clearing House
RATES: 75c per word, minimum $20, $7 50
extra for box number assignment Send copy w/
ctieck to BOXOFFICE. P O Box 25485. Chica
go ILL 60625, at least 60 days prior to publics
tion BOX NO. ADS: Reply to ads witti box num
bers by writing to BOXOFFICE, P O Box 25485
Ctiicago. ILL 60625; put ad box # on your lettei
and in lower left corner of your envelope Please
use # 10 envelopes or smaller for your replies
HELP WANTED
MANAGEMENT: Opportunities are available for experienced
multiplex managers and assistant managers in
the Alabama and Florida area
Please send resume to
William Homer, Cobb Ttieatres, 924 Monlclair Road,
Birmingtiam, AL 35213 Replies will be held in strictest
confidence.
EXPERIENCED MANAGERS WANTED for our existing
Michigan theatres and new multiplexes to open during
1989 in Indiana. For professional theatre managers
we offer competitive pay, and incentive program, medical
dental /optical. Send resumes to Goodrich Theaters,
Inc.. 3565 29th Street. SE. Kentwood. tvll
49508.
MANAGEMENT: Opportunities are available for experienced
managers and assistant managers Booth
a plus. Positions available in the Los
Angeles market as well as Florida Send resume to Ed
Phinney, Super Saver Cinemas, 109 N Oregon, Suite
1000, El Paso, TX 79901.
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
LOWEST PRICES HIGHEST QUALITY: NEW AND
USED PROJECTORS, SOUND SYSTEMS; New Xenon
bulbs, carbons, lenses, seating, automation No one
sells for less Dealer most mfg's "NEW STEREO
EQUIPMENT" FACTORY PACKAGED OR CUSTOM
SYSTEMS featuring ULTRA STEREO. SMART, EPRAD
& Others, call The Theatre Doctor for Stereo Installation
or Booth Service. Smith Sound and Projection,
3922 Nolen Avenue S.E., Huntsville, AL 35801 Phone
.
(205) 534-2824
PROVEN AFFORDABLE ACTION LIGHTING! Four
channel marquee belts. Rope lighting Multi Effect solid
state controllers Top quality 11S14 bulbs (11 watt
130 volt) 3.000 hour. Available in eleven colors, 39
cents each (not a misprint). Minimum quantity 120
1 bulbs Distributor for all types of bulbs Action Lighting.
406-586-5105
HIGHEST QUALITY XENON BULBS AT EXTREME
LY LOW COST. WITH FULL-LIFE WARRANTY Vertical
1600W. $440.00; 2000W $465 00. 3000W
$500.00. Horizontal 2000W /HC $460 00; 2000W.
HTP $460 00; 3000W /HC $525 00. 4000W HTP
$675,00 Min order two (2) bulbs LOW PRICES ON
STEREO SYSTEMS, installation and monthly sound
and booth service. DOLBY certified, why not call THE
PRO, The Theatre Doctor. SMITH SOUND & PROJEC-
TION. 3922 Nolen Ave SE. Huntsville. Alabama
35801-1037. Phone (205) 534-2824 YOUR TOTAL
THEATRE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLY DEALER.
DOLBY CP-50 optical stereo processor $2995 00;
Christie H-30 lamphouse & power supply $2495.00;
Century Model SA projector $199500; Simplex XL
projector $1795.00; CineVision. 1771 Tullie Circle. NE
Atlanta. GA 30329. (404) 321-6333.
1 -NEW- 18" Dia TUFCOLD STRONG FUTURA 11-
REFLECTOR $199.50 US-FOB Vancouver, B.C
Phone (604) 682-1848.
THEATRE SEATS 700 Griggs "Push Back" blue, fair
condition. $1000 each. San Jose, CA Phone (408)
279-1245
FOR SALE: Pair XE-Lamp model #8510. 1000 watt
lamphouses. power supplies and lamps, used only 26
hours, $4000.00. Call Ted Lane at Alan Gordon Enterprises,
(213) 466-3561.
XETRON XH4000 Xenon Lamphouse. Irem power supply
N3141 4X4 Tower transport with 8 reels. Xetron
Maxi 8 automation with cue detector. One set Kelmar
reel support arms with guidance hardware Neumade
MTD 36X power make-up bench Ashcraft water circulator
$7,50000 or best offer Visalia, CA Or call
(209) 734-6604
FOR SALE BY OWNERS: The entire contents of this
well maintained twin cinema must be sold
Included are
two Ballantyne Pro 35 projectors automated with all
lenses, sound systems and speakers CHRISTY Lamphouses
and autowind systems Motorized re-wind
table. 560 Irwin Citation seats. Screens with movable
masking Ticket machines and posts. Price includes
office furniture, theatre and lobby accessories. 4 backlit
one-sheet displays, sign boards, and spare parts
Everything you need for operation in excellent condition,
$17,500.00 East End Plaza, PO. Box 8476. So
Charleston. WV, 25303. Or call Cliff Haddad (304)
768-0088. or George Gannon (304) 344-3678, or
Dick Salamie (304) 744-1381.
Used Cinema Radio AM Transmitter Model SS-10A
in good operating condition Contact Joe Favuzza. 140
South Allegheny Street. Bellefonte. PA. Phone (814)
355-2308.
EQUIPMENT WANTED
DOLBY CP-50'S OR 55's. Willis Johnson (312) 968-
1600.
Twin Theatre-428 seats total Completely automated
five years ago Building includes four rental
units Southern Minnesota— 5300 population Family
operation. Call (218) 732-3433 Also. 50x100' stainless
steel Drive-ln screen and booth equipment
THEATRES WANTED
To lease: Twin or single theatres in Florida. Georgia,
S Carolina. N. Carolina. Virginia. Pennsylvania. W. Vir--
ginia. Louisiana. Mississippi. Alabama. Tennessee.
Please send typewritten or printed letters to Jim
LaLonde, 2514 Pineridge Road, Jacksonville, Fla.
32207 or call after 7:30 pm (904) 396-9660
THEATRE SEATING
ALLSTATE SEATING, INC. Specialists in auditonum
and theatre seating service, installation, covers Phone
(617) 436-3448
"SEATING SPECIALISTS" New & used seats Installations
anywhere! Good American (red) Bodiform
chairs from $15,00. Good to excellent Irwins from
$25,50 Heywood and Massey rockers. New Hussey
chairs TANKERSLEY ENTERPRISES. PO Box
36009, Denver, CO 80236 Phone (303) 980-8265
TRI STATE SEATING AND INSTALLATION CO.
Used seats & parts, sales & service, preventive maintenance
programs, complete & partial renovations to
accommodate your budget, acoustical wallcoverings
and more. Services offered throughout the United
States and Canada. Free Information: (313) 928-
9390.
THEATRE REMODELING
FOR TWINNING THEATRES call or write Friddel Construction.
Inc. 402 Green River Drive. Montgomery. TX
77358 (409) 588-2667
MULTIPLEXING THEATRES We can perform all functions
from consulting to complete turnkey package professionally
and efficiently with minimum down time.
Write or call Bill Clark. Quadrants Construction. (313)
261-9800. 12425 Stark Road. Livonia. Ml 48150
MARQUEES, SIGNS
LEASE OR PURCHASE PLANS: Replacement Marquee
letters shipped immediately. BUX-MONT Electrical
Advertising Systems. Horsham. PA. 19044 Call
(215) 675-1040.
COMPLETE THEATRE EQUIPMENT: (New. Used or
Rebuilt) Century SA, R3. RCA 9030, 1040, 1050 Platters:
3 and 5 Tier. Xenon Systems 1000-4000 Watt.
Sound Systems mono and stereo, automations, ticket
machines, curtain motors, electric rewinds, lenses,
parts and many more items in stock COMMERCIAL
large screen video projectors Plenty of used chairs.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AND INSTALLATION
AVAILABLE DOLBY CERTIFIED Call Bill Younger
Cinema Equipment Inc , 9418 N W 13 Street, Miami.
Florida 33172 (305) 594-0570.
BURLAP WALL COVERING DRAPES: $1 68 per
yard, flame retardant. Quantity discounts. Nurse & Co..
Millbury Rd , MA 01530 (508) 832-4295
CINEMECANNICA 35 /70mm current model projection
system with Christie 4500 watt Xenon console,
Christie AW3 platter, complete 35/70 system with
optical & magnetic sound $12,500.00; Phillips Todd-
AO 35 / 70 mm Projector with 24 / 30FPS motors good
used $3995.00; Cinemecannica V4 projectors
$2495 00; Noreico FP-20 projector $2395.00. Much
more, call or write CINEVISION, 1 77 1 Tullie Circle, NE
Atlanta. GA 30329 (404) 321-6333
De Vry XD 35 mm Sound Projector. 35mm "Gone With
The Wind" 16mm "Jory." Best Offer. Contact Charles
Depew. Box 2104. Windsor. NY 13856 Or call (607)
655-1884
TUBE-TYPE EQUIPMENT by Western Electric. Westrex.
Langevin. Mcintosh. Marantz. Quad. ARC. Early
speaker systems, units by W E Jensen. Altec. JBL.
EV. RCA. Tannoy Telephone (818) 701-5633. Audio
City. P O Box 786. Northridge. CA 91328-0786,
Projectors: Century C. CC, SA; all Simplex SL projectors;
Balcon 5-tier platters. Super 3-tier platters;
Potts Continuous Loop platters; AW2 Christie Autowind.
We buy and sell theatre equipment Please send
typewritten or printed letters to Jim LaLonde. 2514
Pineridge Road. Jacksonville. Fla 32207 or call after
7:30 pm (904) 396-9660
THEATRES FOR SALE
GREAT ART DECO SHOWPLACE THEATRE: Seats
1.050 North Texas city over 100,000 population
Building, land, equipment, all for $125,000! Contact
Gary Moore. (915) 267-6450 TLC
CENTRAL OREGON COAST Town theatre Seats
277. Very popular tourist, retirement and second home
area. Experiencing major commercial and residential
growth. $165,000 price buys land, building, equipment
and business. Call Vince/Rinehart Realty at 1-800-
343-3260
DRIVE-IN CONSTRUCTION
SCREEN TOWERS INTERNATIONAL New, Used,
Transplanted. Complete Tower Service Plus Indoor
Screens Box 399-Rogers, TX 76569. 817-642-
3591.
DRIVE-IN SCREEN TOWERS Since 1945 Selby
Industries. Inc P.O. Box 267. Richfield, Ohio 44286
(216) 659-6631
MISCELLANEOUS
WANTED: CASH PAID FOR MOVIE POSTERS. No
Amount Too Small or Large— All inquiries answered.
Gregg Sabbatino, 488 Henley Avenue, New Milford,
NJ, 07646. 201-262-3513
WANTED: MOVIE POSTERS, lobbies, stills, etc Will
buy any sized collection The Paper Chase. 4073 La
Vista Road. Tucker. GA 30084 Phone 1-800-433-
0025.
WANTED: Collections of movie posters and lobby
cards. Will buy a few or many. Older materials preferred,
but will consider all offers Call (213) 651-
5618

QnanaConcepts -
_ iatrc Service
Companyr
Inc.
Fabulous Full Color
Computer Animated
Institutional lyallers for
Ibdays Contemporary
Theatres
Ad Index
Aquarius Releasing, Inc 9
Arista Films, Inc 21
Automaticket 31
Cinema Concepts Theatre
Service Co Inc 54
Communications Equity Associates 33
Crest Sales of Texas 54
Deep Vision 3-D 54
Dinet Distributed Networks, Inc 18
Dolby Laboratories 7
Eastman Kodak Co 12
Filmack Studios 31
Fries Entertainment Inc
C2
Hadden Theatre Supply Co 18
Heritage Entertainment
C3
Hurley Screens 31
International Film Exctiange 5
LaVezzi Precision, Inc 54
Moviestore Entertainment
C4
New Line Cinema 13
O'Brien 33
Pike Productions of Boston 23
Smart Theatre Systems 19
Soundfold International 25
Take One Production (Magazine 29
Policy Itrailer
Anti-Utter lyail.
lon-ftail—
No Smolcing Trailers
Custom Feature Presentatic
lyallers
Catalogue
Upon Request
CINEMA CONCEPTS
THEATRE SERVICE
COMPANY. INC.
67020 Powers Fferry Road
Suite 150
1404) 9SA-7460
GET OUT OF THE DARK.
The Consumer Information Catalog will
enlighten you with helpful consumer information.
It's free by writing —
Consumer Information Center
Dept. TD, Pueblo, Colorado 81009
CREST SALES OF TEXAS— MOTION PICTURE EQUIPMENT
Complete Sales — Service
AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTOR FOR MANY MANUFACTURERS
Ed Cernosek
1900 S, Central Expressway
Dallas, 1X75215-1309
m
DEEPER 3D
4WEPmm:s%
Anaglyph Glasses
Shouldn't You Specify
Replacement Projector
Parts Made By
A Company
Who Puts Quality First?
-LOW PRICES,
FAST SERVICE
-24 HR HOTLINE
^
DEEP VISION 3-D
P O BOX 38 386
HOLLYWOOD CA 90038
^ 213-465-5819
54 BOXOKUCE
HKbponse f
A
If
your success depends upon a quality screen image, it makes sense to
• replace worn projector parts with the best available components.
Since 1908, LaVezzi built its reputation on quality That's why LaVezzi precision
parts are specified by OEMs. LaVezzi keeps projectors in
top operating condition.
If quality sprockets, gears, starwheels, or other projecter parts are in question,
LaVezzi is the answer Contact your local TEA dealer, or call LaVezzi for information
m
LaVezzi Precision, Inc.
900 N. Larch Ave • Elmhurst. IL 60126
(312) 832-8990 • Toll free: 1 (800) 323-1772
FAX: (312) 832-5865
Response (to. 55

ir
i
more information,
and product i
Void after August 1989
Reader Service
Response Numbers in these boxes.
Void after August 1989
Reader Service
For more information,
write advertisement and product news Response Numbers In these boxes.
mpany
eet
Zip.
rent Company or Circuit, if any
Theatrical Exhibition
8 D Equipment/Supplies
1 D Indoor 2 Outdoor 3 O Both 9 O Assn/Cable TV/Govt/
H Nontheatncal Exhibition
Union/Ubrary/Education
J News Media 10 O Video Related Business
J Film Distnbution 1 1 O Provide Services to the Movie Industry
D Film Production 12 O Other
Yes! Enter my personal subscription to Boxoffice!
One Year $35 D Two years $60 D Payment Enclosed D Please Bll
ada and Mexico US $45/yr. Other foreign countries US $60/yr.

WOW
M*«S.«^«*''
Movieslore Entertainment
11111 Santa Monica Boulevard
• Suite 1850 Los Angeles, CA9002
213-478-4230 J
MCMESTORI