Finding Love With ‘Frankie & Johnny’

The Scene: The premiere of Paramount’s “Frankie & Johnny,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino, Tuesday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences theater in Beverly Hills. The screening and party benefited the Center Theatre Group.

Who Was There: Pfeiffer and director Garry Marshall, plus co-stars Kate Nelligan and Jane Morris. The 1,000-strong guest list was half Music Center (CTG board members Lawrence Ramer, Leonard Hirshan and Richard Kagan, plus Gordon Davidson, and Anne and Frank Johnson) and half Hollywood (Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Rodney Dangerfield, Chuck Fries, Sid and Nancy Ganis and Pat Sajak).

Tokyo Subway Factor: The Academy theater easily seats 1,000; the lobby holds about 300 comfortably. Using the lobby for a post-screening party is logistically impossible, but it is done all the time.

Buzz: The film was very well received. There were reports of women repairing their mascara in the ladies room, always a good sign after a love story.

Sign of the Times: It was a nice premiere, but not a lavish one--a post-Katzenberg memo/Age of Austerity event. “It’s the new Hollywood math,” said a jaded exec from a rival studio. “You pay $125 and you get two croutons to eat.”

Chow: More than croutons. Pasta, pizza, small sandwiches and desserts.

Greed Level: The lobby was decorated like a flower shop to go with a key scene in the film. The hosts hadn’t planned to give the flowers away, but every last bud was grabbed by departing guests. “They even gleaned the greens,” noted a waiter.

Money Matters: Tickets were $125 and $250; the net was just under $60,000.

Scourge on the Horizon: Autograph seekers from England, fiercer than the paparazzi they elbowed out of the way when Pfeiffer arrived. Could be the soccer hooligans of the ‘90s.

Life Imitates Art: The film’s subject matter--finding love at long last--inspired many comments. One woman said of finally finding her own Mr. Right: “I kissed a lot of frogs before I got to this one.”

Quoted: Director Marshall on the film’s “not happy, hopeful” ending: “This kind of ending they usually shoot in a wheat field somewhere. There I was, stuck in a New York bathroom with two doors.”