Just take their money and run

A true Hollywood scribe continues his musings:

There’s now a Spanish translation of the script for our maybe-yes-maybe-no movie, part of which is set in Mexico: “ ‘Un Hombre Honesto’ por David Freeman y Paul Mazursky.” I’ve put the title page on my bulletin board. It makes me smile. I’ve seen my work in translation on a number of occasions -- sometimes in languages that I can’t even approximate. I remember a play of mine in Norwegian and a magazine essay in Japanese. It’s a strange experience -- one feels flattered by the effort and yet something personal has been appropriated.

The money-raising for “Un Hombre Honesto” (“An Honest Man” in case your Spanish is really weak) lurches along. Mazursky, in his role as producer, hooked up with a guy who seemed ready to put up a significant amount of the budget. He was an experienced film financier -- not somebody representing a consortium of dentists or relatives. Then he stopped returning phone calls. That, of course, means he’s out. Nothing new there. But his excuse was a new one for me: He’s about to be indicted. Maybe so, but these people lie compulsively. It could mean he doesn’t have the money he once had and doesn’t want to acknowledge that. So he’s cooked up a reason that’s hard to argue with.

Getting studios to put up money is the true art form of Los Angeles. Now that the studios are making so few movies, money-raising skills are more frequently deployed in service of independent movies where you sometimes deal with guys who are quite likely to be under indictment. I guess this rascal won’t be putting up much. His own bail, maybe.

Brewing acrimony

The Writers Guild is now negotiating with the companies (as the studios are so quaintly called in the inner circles of the unions) over our next contract. Both sides are being oh-so-reasonable at this point, making noises about how a strike hurts everyone, which it does. Some of the issues are hardy perennials or at least seem so -- jurisdiction over reality TV shows, for instance. The specifics are new but the guild wanting to expand its reach is not.

I know those shows mean jobs for writers, but I think I’d declare a personal strike if I was told I had to watch one of them, let alone write one. The issue in all this that could make a strike is the size of our piece of the DVD pie. Writers get a pathetically small amount of those profits. The companies will dig in on this, no matter how reasonable they’re sounding at the moment. The present contract expires in early May. It’s too early to tell if there’s enough will among the writers to pick up picket signs over this issue but if anything could get them to, it will be the DVDs.

I’ve done my share of picketing over the years. I remember once, in the early 1970s, picketing in New York. I was working for David Susskind, who was famous in his time. He was one of the partners in a firm called Talent Associates. Their offices were in the old Newsweek building at 44th and Madison. There were three or four guild members under contract. We apologized to David, whom I regarded as an older and valued colleague, went onto the street and dutifully marched in a little circle out on the busy New York sidewalk.

Susskind was so amused by the spectacle that he ordered lunch for us from “21.” I remember a white-jacketed waiter and cracked crab and cold chablis set up on the pavement. Of course after so many years, memory makes its own meaning so maybe it was something less grand, but I do remember that it was from “21” because Susskind was a regular there and he took me along as his guest from time to time. The Daily News ran a picture of us -- a bunch of laughing writers dining al fresco with Susskind pouring the wine. It was a different and more relaxed era. If there’s a strike this time, don’t look for much in the way of wit or high style outside, say, Universal.

Ah, the old days

Last week I had occasion to watch “The Way We Were,” which is from the time of my first picketing adventures. It’s still a terrific love story done in the luxe studio style of an even earlier era with big stars -- Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand, both at their peak. It was produced by Ray Stark, who died a few months ago. A man could devote his days to telling of Ray’s exploits and run out of days before running out of stories. He wasn’t so much an original mind as a superb example of Hollywood skill, which in his case meant picking winning horses and riding them hard. He had a grand house in Holmby Hills. An LAPD black and white was always parked in front. It was a studio production car, perfectly done, right down to the motto painted on the doors: “To protect and to serve.” Its presence was meant to give burglars second thoughts. Others have done that since, but Ray Stark did it first.

Pay to play

Product placement as all good citizens of Los Angeles should know by now is the business of sticking commercial products in movies and television shows. If there’s a scene in a saloon and the bartender pours from a bottle with its label in the frame, money has changed hands. If the customer says something like, “I’ll have another shot of Old Overshoe” and the label is in the frame, even more money has changed hands.

A friend recently back from Tokyo accompanied by his college-age son reports that they stayed in the hotel where the barroom scenes in “Lost in Translation” were shot. That bar now features a “Lost in Translation” cocktail and gives a “Lost in Translation” tour. In the movie Bill Murray, as a fading star, goes to Tokyo to shoot a commercial for Suntory, the Japanese distillery. There is an amazing amount of their scotch shown -- including a memorable electronic billboard of Murray drinking the stuff. One result is that my Tokyo-visiting friend’s son says that American kids who don’t drink scotch now talk about the Suntory brand. I judge the movie to be the all-time product placement sweepstakes winner, replacing “Cast Away” for which FedEx deserved co-billing with Tom Hanks.

Celebrity’s curse

I’m off to New York tomorrow to promote my book. I’ll be reading and signing and trying not to repeat myself too much. Every now and again, I get a jolt of celebrity showing me how bizarre the lives of actual celebrities can be. People are always telling them how great they are and always trying to have a word with them. No wonder they retreat into themselves and in the end listen to no one. Famous people can’t get out of their fame. It’s far better to occasionally get a taste of it and then retreat into the comfort of one’s privacy.

Tim Dalton, a celebrity actor if ever there was one, called to talk about the book. He was wonderfully perceptive and honed right in on its strengths, but he chided me for portraying actors as dunces. I felt myself blush a little, which means he has a point. Tim is proof that stars aren’t all like that. Still, I don’t think I would change it even if I could because at least as far as it goes, it’s all true.

David Freeman is a screenwriter and an author, most recently of “It’s All True: A Novel of Hollywood.”