Company Town : Festival Stardust: Eastwood Makes the Day

In this year of trade tensions and other challenges to Hollywood’s hegemony, Clint Eastwood demonstrated the enduring power of celebrity at Thursday’s opening-night festivities for the 47th annual Cannes Film Festival.

A dense crowd of spectators went into pandemonium as Eastwood, who is presiding over this year’s jury, emerged in front of the Palais des Festivals. French actress Catherine Deneuve, the jury vice president, had to nudge him gently up the steps to get him inside in time for the welcoming ceremonies. It all ended with a saxophone group serenading the veteran actor-director, who’s known to be a jazz buff.

While much of the talk here is about Hollywood’s recent exclusion from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and whether that accounts for its relatively low profile at the festival, the official posture of both sides Thursday was friendly.

Festival director Gilles Jacob warmly greeted a Hollywood contingent that included producer Joel Silver and much of the creative team behind “The Hudsucker Proxy,” which opened the exhibition.

In the background of the cavernous Palais, strains of “Hooray for Hollywood!” could be faintly heard.

“Hudsucker,” which died in the United States, got a polite reception from the Cannes audience. Afterward, while a large crowd still pushed against the barriers to the Palais, the stars and others gathered for a formal dinner.

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In another trade-related development that raised eyebrows here, the respected French newspaper Le Figaro published an editorial Thursday harshly criticizing the French film industry’s protectionist policies.

Le Figaro noted that Cannes comes only six months after France succeeded in excluding American entertainment interests from GATT.

“But here’s the cold shower,” the paper added, and it went on to make the case that France’s film business is basically a failure under current policies.

The editorial also lampooned French officials who have accused Hollywood of polluting their culture with movies such as “Jurassic Park.”

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What do you get when you cross a bankruptcy lawyer, a workout specialist and a producer? In Hollywood, you get a new entertainment financing company.

Producer Mark Damon on Thursday announced the formation of IMMO Finance Corp. to back his films. IMMO will raise $25 million for interim financing and as much as $300 million internationally over the next five years--if all goes according to plan--through Baraban Capital Corp. of Century City.

While financing deals are routine in Hollywood, IMMO has an unusual genealogy. Two of its primary consultants are executives usually associated with troubled companies--bankruptcy lawyer Stephen Chrystie and workout executive John Hyde--who both happen to be longtime friends of Damon.

Chrystie, who joined Damon and Baraban President Robert C. Wilson at a hotel news conference here, said he and Hyde are using knowledge gained from other companies’ failures to reduce IMMO’s risk.

More specifically, the attorney said, IMMO will operate virtually without overhead costs and will invest only in those movies it deems likely to draw substantial pre-sale deals.

Especially high on IMMO’s wish list are action movies with major stars that have carry-over potential for the video game market.

“We’ve seen most of the troubled companies,” Chrystie said. “The challenge for us is to make suggestions that will eliminate the kind of risks that caused the downfall of those companies.”

Chrystie represents creditors that have been trying to collect money from Cannon Pictures, a film company now reorganizing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. He also represented creditors against MGM when the studio was owned by Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti.

Hyde consulted on the MGM case, and he is currently chairman of MCEG Sterling Entertainment.

Damon heads MDP Worldwide, an independent production company, and previously ran Vision International. MDP’s current projects include a live action version of “The Jungle Book,” which Walt Disney Co. will distribute in the United States.

IMMO, which plans to back two to six Damon movies a year, will have an equity stake in whatever it finances. Damon will continue to make projects independently of IMMO.

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When the Festival International du Film was begun after World War II, a young American entertainment executive named Norman Katz was there on behalf of a French film company.

Now, 47 years later, Katz can still be found at his regular table overlooking the Mediterranean at the Carlton Beach restaurant.

Katz, who went on to work for United Artists, Seven Arts and Warner Bros., mostly in foreign distribution, says Cannes really hasn’t changed much. “It always had glamour,” he said, “and it still does.”

Katz retired in 1973 after he helped launch the American Film Marketing Assn. At the age of 74, he still works as an independent consultant and unofficial historian of the evolving scene at Cannes.