Presenting Fearless Francis!

By RICHARD CORLISS

Coppola unveils his new film in a bankruptcy-defying stunt

Come one, come all to the Greatest Show on Earth! The Zoetrope Circus is back in town! Famous for its tradition of death-defying stunts! Three years ago they thrilled you with Apocalypse Now--and made you gasp with public previews on two continents, perpetually revised endings, ruptured psyches! Last year they made you weep with the spectacle of a three-ring movie studio on the verge of bankruptcy, only to be saved at the last minute by the world-renowned Paramount Pictures! And now, for their most stupendous caper, never before attempted on any stage . . . One From the Heart! It will be presented--without the sponsorship of Paramount--at the legendary Radio City Music Hall in the heart of glamorous Manhattan! So come! See a high-wire artiste, a pratfalling clown, a man who shoots himself from cannons, a spellbinding ringmaster. . . all wrapped up in the person of Mr. Zoetrope himself, Francis Coppola!

All the guy did was rent a hall to preview his movie. But the guy was Francis Coppola, 42, director of the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now; and the hall was the 6,000-seat art deco monument in Rockefeller Center; and the movie was a $26 million love story whose ballooning budget carried Coppola's Zoetrope Studios further on its drift toward disaster; and in violation of all movieland protocol, the preview was arranged without notifying the film's distributor. And so, with one full-page ad placed in last Sunday's New York Times, Coppola turned One From the Heart from a potential loser into the year's first big media event. This Friday night, thousands of the movie-mad and the just plain curious will crowd into the Music Hall to watch this world-class shaman pull a rabbit--or a dog--out of his hat. "It's a brilliant move," marvels Writer-Director Paul Schrader (American Gigolo). "If it's a hit he can wipe out a year of bad publicity."

The past year has not been kind to Coppola and Zoetrope. Three movies the studio was to have released in 1981--not only One From the Heart but also Hammett, German Director Wim Wenders' moody detective drama, and Escape Artist, Caleb Deschanel's saga of a runaway boy--have yet to be seen. The Chase Manhattan Bank, which had lent millions to Coppola, cut off the funding. Staff salaries were met with the help of Paramount Pictures, which bought one of Zoetrope's scripts and offered Coppola a low-interest loan. Paramount also secured the distribution rights to One from the Heart.

The film, a stylized musical set in Las Vegas on Independence Day, recounts the affairs of a junkyard owner (Frederic Forrest) with two women: a travel agent (Teri Garr) and a circus star (Nastassia Kinski). Coppola calls Heart "a lounge operetta, pretty and sweet. I've made too many gangster and soldier movies. I like fantasy and fable--it's a large part of me." It is also a huge part of the film's budget: Dean Tavoularis' dazzling sets cost more than $6 million to build. The film went $11 million over the original budget, shooting was suspended as Coppola wooed other investors--and in August, Paramount showed a very rough cut to a group of disappointed exhibitors. Coppola the lion tamer felt caged; it was time to crack the whip and see who jumped.

"As soon as things started going bad with Paramount I decided to open the film," explained Coppola last week, sitting in his luxurious San Francisco penthouse office. "It's like being rejected by your lover; it gives you an excuse to call someone else. Every day I heard that somebody new didn't like it. So I thought let's have a perfect screening--a big screen, good projection, a 1.33 ratio [the pre-CinemaScope screen shape, 1.33 times as wide as it is high] so the heads don't get chopped off. Let 6,000 people see it, not six exhibitors. Besides, I own the picture, not Paramount. It's up to me to make it a success. If it is, we'll be able to make eight to ten pictures a year. If not, the banks get the studio."

There is some dispute over who owns One From the Heart. According to one source, Coppola may have sold the film to Paramount without having bought it back from MGM, its previous distributor. Lawyers from Paramount and Zoetrope are also haggling over the contract. Did Paramount renege by not paying Zoetrope $1.6 million in "completion money"? Did Coppola lose his claim by going too far over the shooting schedule? The maestro maintained that these details do not matter: "There is no battle as far as I'm concerned. I'm just trying to give people the excitement the movie business isn't giving them. Caution doesn't make for good show business or good art." Then the co-author of the screenplay for Patton stood and quoted the general: "L'audace, toujours l'audace."

It is Coppola's audacity-- as brilliant film maker and profligate showman--that raises both hopes and hackles in the industry. Last week Paramount executives were grunting "No comments" through clenched teeth--perhaps because, as Zoetrope President Robert Spiotta suggests, "they're more disturbed by not being told than by Francis' marketing strategy." One Paramount insider did allow that "we might well have backed the idea--if Francis had come to us with it." But surprise is all in a flanking maneuver. Besides, as one screen writer friend of Coppola's says: "Francis is a genius at manipulating the media, and I'll bet he pulls it off again. Just remember: this isn't the story of a little guy against the system. Francis is the system."

System or chaos, Coppola is never dull. Two years ago, he had New York cinephiles atwitter with his presentation of the seven-hour Our Hitler. Last January he put a refurbished version of Abel Gance's 1927 epic Napoleon into the Music Hall, and played host to not just a celebrity party but an exhilarating film experience. After the Napoleon coup, movie wags were wondering which charismatic dictator Coppola would bring to New York in early 1982. Now they know. Frederic Forrest may be romancing Nastassia Kinski onscreen, but center stage will again be occupied by the One and Only. Lay-deez and Gentlemen . . . Francis Ford Patton Bonaparte Coppola! --By Richard Corliss. Reported by Martha Smilgis/San Francisco

With reporting by Martha Smilgis

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