9/4/22
Newsletter90
The Crack of Dawn
It’s dark and ATT is still down.
Irvin Shapiro was the first and last great overseas film sales agent. Irvin was the Godfather of overseas film sales. Two of the last films he handled were Evil Dead and my film, Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except. Irvin basically invented the system for selling non-studio films to the world. He was in his mid-eighties when we worked with him. Irvin began his career in his early twenties in the early 1920s. Irvin hustled what is considered the first great documentary, Nanook of the North (1922). Since Nanook was not a studio film, there was no mechanism for distribution. So Irvin used his ingenuity and invented a system of distribution that came to be known as “Four-walling.” Irvin rented a theater, did the publicity himself, and the film was a critical and box office success. Irvin had a keen eye for films he believed would sell and make money. He then got the U.S. distribution rights to Sergei Eisenstein’s Russian classic, The Battleship Potemkin (1925), and it too was a success. Seeing the need for a marketplace for international film sales, in the early 1930s Irvin created the Cannes Film Festival, which was really a front for the Cannes Film Market. For the next 50 years, when Irvin came to Cannes, everybody got down on their knee and kissed his ring. Irvin was the one who got one of his clients, Stephen King (Irvin sold Creepshow [1982]), to watch Evil Dead at Cannes and give it the quote, “The best horror film of the year,” which is what sold the movie. Irvin was known for changes the titles of the films he handled. He changed Book of the Dead to Evil Dead. His reasoning was, “Book of the Dead makes me think I’m going to have to read for the next hour and a half.” When he took on my film it was called Stryker’s War. His comment was, “I feel like I’ll see a bunch of people on strike going to war.” He called and said to me, “The new title of your film is Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except.” I said, “Irvin, that doesn’t even sound like a title, it sounds like a tagline.” He reiterated, “Your new title is Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except, and it translates into every language in the world.” I said, “Irvin, I don’t think I can live with that.” He asked, “Would you like me to be your film agent?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Then your new title is Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except.” He then went on to sell the film to every country in the world, and the title did in fact translate into every language. In Spanish it was, No Mataras…Excepto, and I have the German poster on my kitchen wall, Du Sollst Nicht Toten…Ausser.
Both Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except and Evil Dead were distributed on DVD by Anchor Bay Ent. Back in the 1990s Anchor Bay had a terrific party every year for all of their clients in Las Vegas. Bruce Campbell and I would go to the party together, and it was always an odd collection of people. One year we ended up sharing a limo several times with Crispin Glover and his mortician girlfriend. Bruce and I went out of our way to try and meet and talk to as many interesting filmmakers as possible. One night we hung out with George Romero. George was about six-foot-three, wore Coke bottle glasses, and couldn’t have been nicer. John Landis, on the other hand, was just a snotty prick. Ultimately, we ended up hanging out with Werner Herzog and his brother. I think Werner Herzog may well be the best filmmaker living.
No sunlight yet.
The Crack of Dawn
I'm glad you found a hotspot. I was missing the daily posts. I hope your water and weather is okay. Your assessments of Romero, Landis, and Herzog are spot on, in my opinion. I think several weeks ago you mentioned some crew jobs you had on crappy movies in the mid-80s. Maybe I'm remembering that wrong? But I recently had to suffer through a movie called "Alien Private Eye," and I saw a credit for Josh Becker and Scott Spiegel as Foley artists. That was definitely the best part of the movie.