Word Play
“Safe Is Never Sex. It’s Dangerous.”
That’s the come-on line for promotional and ad materials hyping Orion Pictures’ just-out “Hot Spot,” starring Don Johnson as a stranger who drifts into a small town--and into a steamy love triangle with sultry Virginia Madsen.
Besides being grammatically odd, we wondered: what does it mean?
“The line is a kind of a twist,” says Christine La Monte, Orion’s senior vice president of publicity and promotion. “It says that everything is dangerous in this film. That nothing is safe.
“(Director) Dennis Hopper has a reputation for being on the edge of being dangerous. So it fits the filmmaker as well as the film, which is hot and dangerous.”
Hmmmmm.
La Monte added that the film’s campaign--which also features the tag line, “Film Noir Like You’ve Never Seen,” and three provocative photos--has stirred up lots of talk and phone calls.
“It’s an attention-getter.”
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