Roll Those Credits Once More

On the truth-in-advertising front: Warner Bros. took out an ad last Sunday announcing this weekend’s retrospective of Warren Beatty’s films at the Mann’s Festival in Westwood.

“A remarkable retrospective of a man who has produced 6 films that have been honored with 52 Academy Award Nominations,” the ad touted.

Then it went on to list seven films--only six of which Beatty did indeed produce, including “Shampoo” and “Bonnie and Clyde.” The extra film, “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” however, was not produced by Beatty. And when one of the 1971 film’s producers, David Foster, saw the ad, “I was surprised,” he says.

For the record, “McCabe’s” credits read as follows: A Robert Altman/David Foster Production, produced by David Foster and Mitchell Brower.

Foster didn’t even give it much thought until he received a dozen phone calls from friends expressing their confusion at the omission of his credit, putting him a bit on the defensive. If he is at all sensitive, perhaps it’s because “McCabe” is the movie on which he lost his virginity, filmically speaking.

Stranger, however, is that Warners would opt for the overly vague presentation. The studio financed and released “McCabe.”

A Warners spokesperson insisted that the copy was correct in listing Beatty as the producer of six films, but that seven films were included “because they wanted one film for each night of the week.”

There are no dearth of credits for Beatty’s new movie, “Love Affair,” the third time around for this tale. The ads list the original 1939 film’s writers, including the creators of the original story, Mildred Cram and Leo McCarey (who also directed), and the screenwriters, Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart. The 1994 vintage script is credited to Robert Towne and Beatty.

According to a spokesperson for the Writer’s Guild of America West, there is a provision in the guild’s minimum basic agreement for the inclusion of the film’s original writers on a remake. However, a Beatty spokeswoman said the guild basic agreement doesn’t cover a film produced in 1939, but that Beatty himself, with Warners’ backing, insisted that the original writers be credited.

Incidentally, the writing credits on the 1957 version, “An Affair to Remember,” are not included, but are attributed to Daves and McCarey, who also directed the second version of the film.