AN EXPATRIATE IN PARIS GETS THE HOLLYWOOD BUG

Bob Swaim was carefully sipping soup and sounding properly professorial as he sparred with a visitor on the subject of making movies in the United States.

“I don’t want to be a Hollywood director, but I figured if I was going to make a film in America, I might as well make a Hollywood studio film, so I could see what the process was like, rather than criticizing it,” said Swaim, between sips, in the cramped quarters of the standard, film location camper-van. A large but graceful man, Swaim was unusually well-dressed for a director who was about to spend the night shooting on a dusty, outdoor location nearby. What was not so unusual was the ambivalance that Swaim, an American expatriate director living in Paris, expressed about making his first film in America.

“I’ve not come here to make an American movie, but to make a movie in America,” he said sharply, noting that it was “the process” and not the geographical location that distinguished films made by the major American studios from others.

The MGM film, “Masquerade,” recently completed a 10-week shooting schedule in and around the Hamptons, the fashionable stretch of Long Island communities where the New York social set--and hangers-on--summer.

Described in press materials as a “contemporary romantic thriller,” the film stars Meg Tilly, as a young socialite, and Rob Lowe, as a hanger-on, who become entangled in what Swaim referred to simply--and somewhat secretively--as “a web of intrigue.” Also featured in what was being referred to as a “pivotal” role is John Glover, an actor who has come to be critically hailed for his wide-ranging, but usually off-beat characters, in films such as “52 Pick-Up,” and TV’s recent “Nutcracker.”

During a visit to the set, virtually all the participants were claiming that the film noir project was not so much marking Swaim’s adaptation to American movies, as the reverse: the American-made movie was adapting to Swaim and his adopted, European sensibility.

Swaim, a self-described “Valley boy” who left his San Fernando Valley home for Paris 21 years ago, swept onto the international film scene in 1982 with the release of his first feature, a French-language film, “La Balance.” The $1.5 million film was the first major French film success in years, winning three Cesars (the French Oscar), and reportedly grossing more money throughout Europe than any 1982 film, except “E.T.”

The less successful release two years ago of the British-made “Half Moon Street,” starring Sigourney Weaver and Michael Caine, gained Swaim more recognition in this country. Despite a range of critical opinion on both films, he was hailed as a new American director with a flair for the classic film noir -style of film making. And, he recalled, his life changed.

“I was perfectly happy living and working in France,” said the director, “But suddenly I was getting all sorts of offers from Hollywood.” He recounted a trip to Los Angeles and “a stream of phone calls, messages, and even champagne,” from agents, producers, and studio executives “I never even heard of. . . . I’d get a case of wine, with a message, ‘Welcome to L.A.’ I couldn’t wait to get out of there and back home,” he said.

“I wanted to make a film in English, but not in Hollywood,” he continued, pointing out that the “overkill” reception he received in Los Angeles confirmed “the horror stories” he had heard from other directors, more experienced with the major film studios. “I realize I’ve operated out of a lot of ignorance, and that there are interesting things going on in Hollywood, and good people,” said Swaim, who acknowledged that his anti-Establishment attitudes did not prevent him from signing with super-agents Jeff Berg in Los Angeles and Sam Cohn in New York. “I’m not dumb,” he said.

“But what’s on-screen speaks for itself; most of it seems to me to represent the vision of marketing departments, rather than the vision of film makers. I don’t want to be a hired hand, which is what it means to be a Hollywood director,” he said. “In France, I can write my own stories, cast and hire my own crew. . . . I may have to find the financing, but at least, under French law, I have final cut (approval) on the film. . . . I’m in control.”

He pointed out that he maintained control on the $2.3 million “Half Moon Street,” until 20th Century Fox acquired the film for U.S. distribution. “It was clear to me that the studio didn’t know how to handle the film (in release),” said Swaim, adding, “And, of course, not having financed the film, if it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere (at the box office), they just drop it.

“I figured it couldn’t get any worse,” he said, summarizing his views of Fox’s handling of his second film, “so I thought I might as well try a studio film, so long as I could find the right people.”

Swaim said he decided to sign-on with MGM and “Masquerade,” because the original screenplay by Dick Wolf (previously “Dying for Love”) was strong on the psychological and stylistic plot and character elements usually associated with film noir. And he said that MGM boss Alan Ladd Jr. was one of the few studio executives he “trusted and admired. . . .

“And so far, so good,” said Swaim, of his experience to date with the studio.

He expressed some reservations. He said he was “greatly offended” by the studio’s initial suggestion of “name stars” such as Lowe and Tilly. “But with the money that’s at stake, you have to be realistic,” he said, stressing that he since has been “blown away” by both actors’ work. And he also said he was “scared” by the studio’s advance market research among the film’s potential teen-age audience.

“My real fear is that they’ll take the (completed) picture away from me,” acknowledged Swaim. “They have to be nice to me now, not because they love Bob Swaim, but because they want me to make a film that will make money. I just hope that when the film is completed, they don’t say, ‘Thanks, kid, you can go home now.’

“I want to make movies, and I don’t care where I make them. I’d even like to make a film in Los Angeles, the city where I was raised and grew up,” said Swaim, in his most open admission of “warming” to the Establishment. “But it has to be a pleasurable experience. Film making is my love, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my well-being,” he said.