MOVIES - Nov. 19, 1987

The adventure continues for Columbia Pictures’ “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.” Allan Buckhantz, who owns rights to a 1942 film version of the German nobleman’s tales, brought suit Wednesday against Columbia, its corporate parent Coca-Cola Co., and unnamed defendants for more than $80 million. The L.A. Superior Court suit claims Coke lawyer Ronald Jacobi inflicted “incalculable emotional distress” on Buckhantz by calling the old Munchausen movie “Nazi-oriented propaganda.” Buckhantz, according to the suit, is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who spent more than six years in Nazi concentration camps. He had been seeking to produce his own remake of the Munchausen story before Columbia agreed to distribute a Terry Gilliam-directed version now being filmed in Italy. Jacobi said it is Columbia’s policy not to comment on litigation.