The Crack of Dawn

Volume #431

8/18/23

Newsletter #431

The Crack of Dawn

Finishing the story of the opening of Lunatics: A Love Story, as we last left our intrepid hero, having just spent all of his money on screening tapes for the bigshot Hollywood studio executives and agents, none of whom ever called back, or returned his tapes.  My moment in the sun had come and gone.  But I had possibly proven to my asshole producers/friends that maybe my movie wasn’t a complete piece of shit (“We’ll remake it”).  At least, Kevin Thomas at the LA Times liked it.

Meanwhile, to my chagrin, my career as a production assistant in L.A. began to flourish, just as it had in Detroit.  I really was a good PA. My first PA gig was in 1976, and this was now 1992.  16 years. 16 crucial years.  I went from 19 to 35.  And even though I had written and directed two feature films, it seemed that the film business, given the choice, preferred me as a PA.  This is when I worked on Sting’s 40^th birthday concert, then Ted Nugent and the Damn Yankee’s video, then a series of five Little Caesar’s Pizza commercials with Bronson Pinchot.  As I illustrated many newsletters back, those commercials were killers.  Every day was at least sixteen hours long and in some far-flung location around L.A., like: Pasadena, Alta Dena, Bel Air, then finally Culver City. 

The fifth of the five pizza commercials was shot at Culver City Studios (formerly Thomas Ince Studio — I couldn’t help myself).  It was a western parody with live horses on the soundstage.  My job was to shovel up the shit in a wheelbarrow and dump it in the studio’s dumpster.  It is truly incredible how much two horses can shit in 16 hours.  When I returned to the bungalow where I lived in Hollywood, stinking of shit, I made a fist, looked to heaven, and vowed, “As God is my witness, I will never be a PA again!”

So, I packed my shit and moved back to Detroit.  Fuck those assholes in L.A.  What the fuck did they know anyway?  I got a job as a furniture salesman and life became normal.  However, I was in possession of a 35mm print of Lunatics: A Love Story.

“I have the red liquid.”

Detroit’s one remaining revival movie theater is the Magic Bag – it’s still here – in Ferndale, right near where we all had our offices for many years.  I called them and asked if they’d like to show my movie.  Good folks that they are, they in fact did want to show the movie, and gave me a week on their schedule, followed by Apocalypse Now.  There were two screenings a night and I attended every one of them.  My former girlfriend Susan was working at the theater at the time.

It was twelve screenings over six nights.  I didn’t watch the movie.  I sat in the lobby talking to Susan behind the candy counter.  She gave me all the popcorn and Coke I wanted.  Back then, of course, you could smoke in the movie theater lobby.  Where I sat, I could hear both the movie and the audience perfectly.  Since Lunatics is a comedy, it has jokes and visual gags all the way through it.  And I heard exactly where the laughs, the oohs, and the aahs came.  I would hold up my hand for Susan and count down on my fingers until the audience laughed, or guffawed, or whatever.  It was wonderful.

I was just talking to somebody about this.  Really particular jokes. I have one joke in the movie that only one or two music aficionados ever get.  Hank (Ted Raimi) has settled down from his craziness.  He is leaning is head back and staring at the ceiling light fixture.  He says to himself contentedly, “Everything I need I got, shelter, food, rhythm.”  The two Gershwin fans in the audience laugh.

Anyway, and this is the point, there were a more people at every screening.  By the Thursday when Apocalypse Now usurped me and Lunatics’ run ended, it was selling out.  It was becoming a thing all by itself.  I was seeing the same people coming back and bringing their friends.  People liked the movie.  That doesn’t make it a great movie, but viewers seemed to enjoy watching it, and laughed exactly where they were supposed to.  I am convinced, although I am too old to lament, that if Lunatics had been given any kind of theatrical release it would’ve made money.  It’s not my best movie, but it’s friendly and romantic.  The deal for the film had already come out very well being sold to Columbia- Tri Star, with that cool logo of white horses riding toward us, but the movie never opened.

Alas and alack.  But beyond that moment when Hollywood took notice of me for half a second, I caught yet another tantalizing glimpse of success there at the Magic Bag in Ferndale.

What are you gonna do?