Director seeks help in preparing dream project
When preparing his dream project, “Ask the Dust,” Robert Towne worried about hiring the right actor for the lead role of a struggling author and made his casting decision based on the reactions of a family friend. “The agent of Colin Farrell called me about casting him,” the 71-year-old writer-director said of the party-loving 29-year-old Irish actor during a Philadelphia publicity stop for “Ask the Dust,” which opens March 17. “Colin showed up at my doorstep with a cowboy hat and boots and an Irish brogue and asked for a beer.
“You could feel the heat rise in the room. One of my wife’s friends was there, and after he walked by, she said, ‘I don’t know what he wants, but give it to him.'”
Towne, famous for writing screenplays for films such as Hal Ashby’s “The Last Detail” (1973) and Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” (1974), has long been intrigued by John Fante’s novel, “Ask the Dust.” The Los Angeles-set tale concerns a struggling Italian novelist (Farrell) and a fiery Mexican waitress (Salma Hayek of “Frida”), who embark on an explosive relationship as they seek ways to make their dreams come true.
Towne, who infuses the motion picture with an old-school elegance, became intrigued with the novel in 1971, being drawn to its Los Angeles setting, volatile emotions, sexual heat and edgy romance.
The filmmaker’s friend, Tom Cruise, and former agent, Paula Wagner, who have a production company (Cruise/Wagner Productions, founded in 1993), agreed to fund the $15 million project, which had to be shot in South Africa because Los Angeles locations would have been too expensive. Towne penned four screenplays – “Days of Thunder” (1990), “The Firm” (1993), “Mission: Impossible” (1996) and “Mission: Impossible II” (2000) – for Cruise, who greatly respects the talent of the screenwriter.
“We hit it off,” Towne said of his relationship with Cruise.
When asked the person whom he most admires in Hollywood, Towne, who also served as a script doctor on Arthur Penn’s “Bonnie & Clyde” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” had an immediate answer.
“Warren Beatty,” said Towne, who wrote “Shampoo” for the actor. “He’s the brightest, shrewdest person, and he’s tough. Warren also has the ability to take significant risks very carefully. He always protects his fanny.
“He has grown as a human being and as a political observer. He’s also a guy who knew just when to get off the merry-go-round (a reference to Beatty’s marriage to actress Annette Bening in 1992).
“He had adventures of all kinds (a reference to Beatty’s years as one of Hollywood’s most notorious playboy bachelors), and then he fell in love. He now has four children and lives a life so apart from the past. It’s not a rejection of that previous life; it’s just a progressive growth.”
For Towne, making movies is a way to stretch the imaginations of viewers.
“Films in their purest forms are like dreams,” he said. “They are fantasies we want fulfilled and present anxieties we want purged.
“Isn’t that why we turn over and over again to ‘Casablanca?’ With ‘Ask the Dust,’ the feelings of the characters played by Colin and Salma transfer and ask an audience, ‘Wouldn’t you like to have a great love of your life?’
“I have hopes and dreams for my children (two daughters, ages 27 and 14). I think it’s important to keep one’s dreams, and that’s what movies are, stories about struggles to make dreams come true.”
An ‘Unlimited’ DVD guide
It’s here!
For film fans, one of the most awaited events each year is the arrival of the Movies Unlimited Video Catalog ($9.95), which lists plot details and prices of thousands of DVDs on the market.
The massive 2006 publication, which also serves as a great reference, runs more than 800 pages and is packed with information.
Star watchers should have particular fun with the 2006 Movies Unlimited Catalog, which marks its 28th anniversary this year. Numerous film favorites – including John Wayne, Michelle Pfeiffer, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Martin Lawrence, Jim Carrey, Burt Reynolds, Bette Midler, Bruce Lee and Godzilla – have special sections noting all of their titles available on DVD.
The chapters in the 2006 catalog include action/adventure, comedy, concerts, cult classics, documentaries, dramas, family titles, foreign imports, war pictures, martial-arts movies, musicals, mystery/suspense offerings and silent movies.
For information on the Movies Unlimited Video Catalog 2006, call 1-800-4-Movies or go to moviesunlimited.com.
A superstar ‘Rebel’
With “Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel – Revised and Updated” (Plexus; $19.95), Marshall Terrill provides a fresh view of the late, great movie star.
The author notes that one of McQueen’s biggest hits, “The Getaway,” which was recently released in a re-mastered DVD version, made the actor the king of the film world in 1972.
“‘The Getaway’ recorded a then whopping $18 million domestically, $35 million worldwide, making it the second-highest grossing film of the year. McQueen’s percentage of the gross netted him $3.5 million and transformed him into the world’s highest-paid movie star.”
“The Great Escape” (1963), a World War II adventure, turned McQueen into a star, mostly due to the famous motorcycle sequence in which the actor’s POW character steals a cycle and then zooms through the air and over a barbed-wire fence while being pursued by the Germans. (Due to insurance reasons, McQueen, an avid motorcycle fan, wasn’t permitted to do the stunt, leaving it to his friend and double Bud Ekins.)
McQueen demanded that a motorcycle scene be added before he signed his contract for “The Great Escape.” Director John Sturges, who previously worked with the actor on “The Magnificent Seven,” also a hit, agreed but added a line to prevent the daredevil performer from injuring himself.
“McQueen had one stipulation: that he escape by motorcycle at the end of the film,” Terrill writes. “Sturges agreed, but he had his own stipulation: Steve could not do any riding off the set of the movie.
“McQueen later commented, ‘I figure I came out a winner, but Sturges thought he also won with the exciting scenes he got of the bikes being driven pell-mell over the countryside.'”
Sharp-eyed viewers might also notice McQueen in a background shot during the famous chase. He convinced Sturges to let him put on a German helmet and uniform and appear as one of the enemy cyclists pursuing the American POW.