2 The Daily Tar Heel Friday, September 30, 1977
Ampersand
October, 1977
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Two Supermen
TWO St'PERMAN FILMS arc being shot at the
same time, or at least consecutively; the first
will emerge next June, and the second, a year
after that ghat's June 1979; Hollywood cer
tainly plans ahead). You've already read
what a gargantuan project this is SJ8 mil
lion, 2" 2 years in the planning and how
Marlon Brando is making S3 million for a
couple of weeks work. What you may not
know is that Christopher Reeves (formerly a
New York soap opera actor) was chosen as
Superman alter Sylvester Stallone was
turned down. Tiki short. And here's the big
news, the stuff you never saw in the comic
Uxiks: Superman and lxh Lane Do It . . .
after she realizes Clark Kent is really Super
man w hen he cooks her dinner w ith his X-ray
eyes. We haven't been able to ascertain
whether they Do It twice (once for each
movie), continuously or just once. Stay
tuned.
Gathering Moss
ROLLING STONE w ill celebrate its tenth an
niversary later this year by entering that last
holdout of the Establishment, primetime
network (CBS) TV. Stone's putting together a
two-hour special, produced and directed by
Steve Binder, whose credits include the
T.A.M.I. Show in 1964 and Elvis Presley's
1 968 comeback special. Stont editor and pub
lisher Jann Wenner, the special's executive
producer, is being very cagey about who will
and will not appear on the program. So far
they've announced Bette Midler, Kenny
Logging. Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek,
Melissa Manchester, Jim Messina. Keith
Moon. Billv Preston. Los Angeles Police
Chief Ed Davis (say w hat?) and comedian
Steve Martin . . . but then Martin is one of
the shows several w riters; his writing cohorts
(who may also create roles for themselves)
are comedian John Belushi, singer-composer
("Classical Gas") Mason Williams, and
Slow staflers Ben Fong-Torres and David
It
Felton. Another is Terry Kirkman, once
singer with the Sixties soft-rock band, the
Association. It'll be his first such assignment.
"He just walked into the office," Binder told
Ampersand, "and told us he wanted to help
out." Perhaps the show's theme song will be
that old Sly Stone favorite, "Everybody Is a
Star."
Enough, Already
YOU'VE HEARD. ABOUT the endless Hol
lywood sequels to successful movies
Damien-Onun , Jaws H, The Bad Sews Bears
Go to Japan (not to mention the already for
gotten Exorcist II-Tlie Heretic), but have you
heard about the remakes? Lending credence
tojhe rumor that there are no new ideas n
' Hollywood, the following films are in produc
tion (no skipping them now): The Big Sleep,
starring Robert Mitchuin as Philip Marlowe
one more time, directed by Michael Winner
(Death Wish) in London. Philip Marlowe in
London? Did they finally run out of locations
in Los Angeles for this most Angelean of all
detectives? And do they really think they can
improve on the Humphrey Bogart-Lauren
Bacall v ersion? International Velvet , also shoot
ing in England, has Tatum O'Neal in a role
made famous by Elizabeth Taylor. Last (for
now ) and possibly least $ Heaven Can Wait.
starring Warren Beany and Julie Christie,
which is not a remake of the Tyrone Power
Gene Tierney Heaven Can W ait; it is a remake
of Here Comes Mr. Jordan.
Even Hollywood's originals aren't very:
rock and roll has been discovered, sort of,
thanks in part to the loud soundtrack and
moderate success of Car Wash. In no particu
lar order, here's what they have in store for
us: Record Citr. a day in the life of a record
store ( lots of loud background music); Thank
God It's Friday, a night in the life of a disco
(boodles of loud music and dancing too); FM.
a day in the life of a radio station (and what
comes from radio stations loud music!);
last (we certainly hope so) isZ. Angeles Story,
three days in the life of a rock band playing
the Los Angeles Forum. It's only a matter of
time before someone remembers there's
copious loud music in a recording studio.
Carl PALMER, (of Emerson, Lake and) re
cently decided that running 14 miles a day to
keep in shape wasn't convenient while on
tour; just never knew where he'd have to run,
or when. So now Carl grunts and groans
every day, practicing karate, for which pur
pose his very own karate instructor accom
panies him on tour.
Quote of the Month
EVEN THOUGH A Bridge Too Far isn't
knocking 'em dead at the box office like
the Germans did the Allies in the WWII
battle depicted producer Joseph
Levine isn't worried. He'd recouped his
investment from foreign distributors be
fore the film was even released here. "It
was a sure thing." Levine was ov erheard
explaining. "It'll do great business in Ja
pan, because they love to see white people
killing each other. It'll be big in Germany,
because they won that battle. And the
British will line up to see it because they
love to celebrate defeat."
Wars of Attrition
BEFORE HE BEGINS PRODUCING hisiVar Wars
sequel but not directing it early in 1979,
George Lucas is busy reinserting ten minutes
worth of dialogue and music into American
Graffiti for its upcoming re-release. Universal
studios, who distributed that picture, had
ordered the cuts to decrease running time;
now that Lucas is a Wars star, he can have
things the way he likes them. . . .
Which brings us to Star Wars news: three,
possibly four books w ill be published this fall
from Ballantine. The Star Wars Portfolio will
feature Ralph McQuarrie's production
paintings, on loose sheets suitable fur fram
ing: The Star Wars Sketch Book by Joe Johnston
will contain almost 70 drawings of ships and
such; and The Complete Star Wars Book, with
art work and screenplay and no particular
author, is also in the works. If we're lucky (or
unlucky, depending on how much more of
this we can stand), there will also appear a
Star Wars sequel novel, to be written by Alan
Dean Foster. It has no official title yet.
But that's not really all. Random House
w ill publish three Star Wars children's books
a child's v ersion of the Star Wars story, a
pop-up book, and a toy book with cutouts,
not unlike intergalactic paper dolls. There is
probably no truth to the rumor that a Star
Wars daily newspaper is in our future.
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Maybe They're Good at
Math
When Kiss played the L. A.-area Forum
last month, they were recording for the
group's next live album. To commemorate
the occasion, Kiss had several thousand
specially-printed t-shirts made up for sale at
S6 each. Sou see the back of one here. We
know that Kiss's management didn't realize
that the city's name is misspelled on the
shirts. What we wonder is, how many of
Kiss's fans spotted the error? (Note to Kiss
fans: it's L-o-s A-n-g-e-l-e-s.)
Good Deeds
WE'D like to tare this OPPORTUNITY to
commend Foghat for their Sept. 30 benefit at
the Palladium in New York City. Funds will
be used for purchase and preservation of rare
blues records, to be housed in the Rodgers
and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded
Sound at Lincoln Center. It's part of the New
York Public Librarv.
Fleetwood Mac, too, ha come up with a
novel and worthy way of ni zing back some of
the take: their staging :.ivolves a fairly exten
sive backdrop behin j the bandstand, cutting
off the view of anybody sitting there. Some
bands will put ticket-buyers there anyway,
and some will rope off the section. The Big
Mac donated those seats in two sold-out L.A.
concerts 1.000 in all to a number of
organizations benefitting the blind. We think
this a generous and worthwhile gesture, one
that could be appropriated by many other
groups who'd like to do something nice. But
more than anything else, it giv es us an oppor
tunity to run a photo of Stevie Nicks.
Members OF the Band and several guest
stars most of them not at the original
concert spent several weeks this summer
in hush-hush sessions at the MGM studios in
Culver City, beefing up their film of The Ijist
Waltz. Director Martin Scorsese and the
group apparently weren't satisfied with foot
age or sound quality from the group's per
formance at the Fillmore last year, purpor
tedly the group's last live appearance. Or
maybe it was just social there was so much
cocaine floating around the MGM stages
that insiders were referring to the sessions as
"The Last Toot."
The NEW WAITER at the Great American
Food and Beverage Company in Los Angeles
is Severin Browne, Jackson's younger
brother and a recording artist in his own
right (on Motown, briefly). Severin is "be
tween labels" right now, but the restaurant is
right across the street from ElektraAsylum
. . . Jackson's label.
THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT has finally re
leased World War 1 1 film from their archiv es,
w hich will be edited down to 20 hours for an
American television series (probably syndi
cated). For WWII documentary buffs who
hav e memorized Vktory at Sea. this means we
will at last see the battles of Stalingrad and
Leningrad from the Russian side (previously
only German film was available). The Rus
sians sent along a list of "acceptable" nar
rators, including Kirk Douglas, Paul New
man, Burt Lancaster . . . and John Wayne,
the biggest Commie baiter of them all.
Perhaps the Russians have never seen Blood
Alley or the Green Berets . . . but in any case,
Lancaster got the job.