Which is why the shrewd folks at Universal Home Video are making a special appeal to these guys in their marketing campaign to sell the new SCARFACE: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD (out September 30th).

One way they're specifically targeting this fan base is with an interview-footage segment, offered as one of the DVD's extras, in which Def Jam goes around asking various big-name music stars how SCARFACE has influenced their life and music. I haven't seen the segment, but I'll bet the "music stars" won't be guys like Jackson Browne and Kenny Loggins.

Let's sum this up so far: (a) a major conglomerate run by older white guys is specifically targeting (b) a largely African-American popular music sub-culture that has a certain demonstrated fascination for gun-totin', take-no-guff, territory-minded urban desperados with (c) a product that celebrates the bravado and panache of a psychopathic, coke-dealing Cuban gangster.

The De Palma camp classic will be available in both remastered anamorphic widescreen and full screen versions with Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 sound. Other extras will include the featurettes "The Rebirth of SCARFACE" (which, to judge by the title, will probably get into SCARFACE's popularity with hip-hoppers) and "Acting SCARFACE."

If you buy the extra-deluxe SCARFACE package, you'll get a DVD of Howard Hawks' 1932 SCARFACE with Paul Muni. The jacket art is a total howl, and another indication that this package is aimed at today's street sensibility. In 1932 the subtitle of this film was "The Shame of a Nation!" On the Universal DVD, the slogan says, "He didn't create crime. He just organized it." The guy with the half-shadowed face meant to be "Scarface" obviously isn't Paul Muni. He looks like some second-tier guy from an episode of "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation."

A couple of weeks ago SCARFACE producer Marty Bregman was quoted in a New York paper about SCARFACE getting a limited theatrical release to promote the DVD. That would make sense, given the anniversary and all. (The 9.30 DVD release is a little early in this respect. SCARFACE opened on December 9, 1983.) Questions about possible theatrical intentions were pitched to Universal publicity last Thursday and Friday, and I'm hearing some kind of extremely limited theatrical break is under discussion.

I wonder if Universal Home Video is a wee bit skittish about the "urban" pitch? Maybe they're not. On one level they're kind of sticking their toe into the same water Warner Records was waist-deep in when the label was taking flack a few years back for selling CDs with cop-killa lyrics. On another level they're just being smart marketers.

"We are marketing to general audiences," a UHV spokesperson told me Monday, "ranging from the general moviegoer to the urban community to cinephiles. My best friend, who is not a cinephile nor a part of the urban community, can't wait to buy the film on DVD. SCARFACE is a seminal film in film history and appeals to a wide range of audiences."

There's obviously nothing wrong with savoring the flamboyant adventures of Tony Montana, and I'm sure most of the hip-hop crowd will think me an asshole for even bringing this up. Them's the hazards of the job, but I'll go eyeball-to-eyeball with any hip-hopper who thinks he knows Oliver Stone's dialogue better than me.

"And who you callin' 'baggage handler,' mang? I'll kick your monkey ass..."

Duke vs. Commie Killers

Hollywood producers aren't always lightning-fast on the draw, so let me point something out they might have missed. There's a great movie contained in that recently-surfaced story about how Kremlin assassins tried to plug John Wayne in the early '50s. The apparently substantiated tale comes from Michael Munn's recently released bio, "John Wayne: The Man Behind The Myth" (Robson), which went on sale in Great Britain last June.

If it's written right (and by this I mean slightly fudged), it could be made into a very unusual dark comedy -- a mix of MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON, DAY OF THE JACKAL and THE SEARCHERS. Something for the Coen Brothers, perhaps. But it wouldn't be just a goof piece. I'm imagining something with a grounded emotional center.

If it comes together, Tom Hanks would kill as the Duke. Seriously. We've all been told for so long that Hanks is our latter-day Jimmy Stewart that no one's seen that as Hanks has gotten older and beefier, he's starting to look more and more like Wayne. All he would have to do would be to get that Wayne voice down and maybe have a little tape work done to his eyes to give him that neo-Oriental look, and he'd be Ethan Edwards in the flesh. Or Tom Dunson, if you prefer.

Munn's bio differs from others, apparently, because he knew and worked with Wayne, and has interviewed Wayne's friends and colleagues (Kirk Douglas, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum, Lauren Bacall, Henry Hathaway, Don Siegel, et. al.). Since September 11th, Wayne has become relevant again in a certain jingoistic sense. And a story about Russian assassins coming to the U.S. to zotz Wayne carries a slight echo of what federal authorities fear might be in the offing from Al Qeada or Iraqi nationals.

Munn claims, in any event, that Joseph Stalin ordered the KGB to assassinate Wayne because he considered his anti-communist rhetoric a threat to the Soviet Union. Munn has based this contention on interviews with Wayne's close associates, and with the legendary Orson Welles.

A recent story in the GUARDIAN explains that Stalin "apparently learned of Wayne's popularity from the Russian filmmaker Sergei Gerasimov, who attended a peace conference in New York in 1949." Upon his return to the USSR "Gerasimov told Stalin of Wayne's fervent anti-communist beliefs," and soon after this Stalin "decided that he would have him killed."

Munn says he was informed of the plot in 1983 by Orson Welles at a dinner party. Welles told Munn that the KGB was given the task of assassinating Wayne. "Welles was a great storyteller," Munn told the GUARDIAN, "but he had no particular admiration for John Wayne." He said Welles had offered the story without prompting, and that his sources were excellent. A prominent Russian filmmaker, Alexei Kapler (who was imprisoned for an affair with Stalin's 16-year-old daughter, Svetlana), had told another Russian filmmaker, Sergei Bondachuk, about the order. Bondachuk was sceptical at first, but after Gerasimov confirmed the story, Bondachuk told Welles."

Munn also said that "Wayne told him that his friend, stuntman Yakima Canutt, had saved his life once. Munn later asked Canutt what Wayne had meant by this, and later learned it apparently involved an incident that took place in the early 50s. "Yakima told me that the FBI had discovered there were agents sent to Hollywood to kill John Wayne," Munn told the GUARDIAN. "He said the FBI had come to tell John about the plot. John told the FBI to let the men show up and he would deal with them."

Wayne then apparently "hatched a plot with his scriptwriter at the time, Jimmy Grant, to abduct the assassins, drive to a beach and stage a mock execution to frighten them. Munn said he did not know what transpired, but heard the two men stayed in the US to work for the FBI. Afterwards Wayne shunned FBI protection, [not wanting] his family to know of the plot. He moved into a house with a big wall around it."

The actor reportedly relied upon a group of loyal stuntmen who infiltrated communist cells in America (this is amazing) and learned of plots to kill him. "He then gathered together all the stuntmen," Munn relates, "[and] went to the communist meetings, and had a huge fight. This was apparently when Wayne believes Canutt saved his life."

A further attempt to kill Wayne by communist cell members was made in Mexico on the set of the film HONDO (released in '53), according to Munn.

His book claims that Stalin's order "was cancelled by his successor Nikita Krushchev after the dictator's death in 1953," according to the GUARDIAN piece. "The book says Krushchev told Wayne in a private meeting in 1958, 'That was a decision of Stalin during his last five mad years. When Stalin died, I rescinded that order.'"

Munn told the GUARDIAN he had gathered the anecdotes over decades of work in the film industry. "I am quite convinced that it was not propagated by Wayne or his inner circle," he stated.

This could be totally true, half-true or right-wing bullshit, and it wouldn't matter. It's a great story.

The two main characters would be Wayne, of course, and one of the KGB assassins, who would be sort of the Robin Williams/MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON figure -- only minus the sweet expressions and with more of a coldly calculating, hard-assed attitude. And yet beneath this would be a certain sadness. Perhaps a vulnerability due a recent tragedy; maybe a recently deceased wife or child.

In real life, one of these guys apparently defected before the Wayne mission was done and went to work for the FBI. This is what you have to change for the movie. He defects, all right, but the turning point comes when he decides to save Wayne's life rather than take it. Let's say the hard-assed guy pulls an undercover and manages to get close to Wayne through some ruse -- maybe a gardening job or a production-assistant gig on HONDO. His relationship with Wayne could start out suspiciously and perhaps even slip into contentiousness or acrimony. Maybe some kind of animal dislike thing.

Maybe he attempts to plug Wayne at one point and misses, like Edward Fox does in DAY OF THE JACKAL, but then Wayne finds out it was him and the assassin goes on the lam with Wayne's friends and the FBI chasing after him.

Then he gets wind from the guy he came over with of the communist cell plot to kill Wayne on the HONDO set, and this is when he turns (I haven't worked this out yet, but let's just say he's been softened up by this and that, and he decides he doesn't want to go back to the sadness of his life in the Soviet Union) and helps Canutt stop the would-be killing.

This would lead to the final beat with Wayne shaking the hand of the former Russki assassin and saying "thanks," and afterwards helping him to get work in the movies and later with the FBI. Think of it -- Wayne becoming good pals with a former Stalinist murderer who's seen the error of his ways. It would be like Wayne picking up Natalie Wood at the end of THE SEARCHERS and saying, "Let's go home, Debbie."

With Hanks holding down the fort as Wayne, I see John Goodman as Josef Stalin, John Turturro as Sergei Gerasimov, Billy Bob Thornton as Yakima Canutt, and maybe Colin Farrell as the Soviet hitman.

Locarno In Sight

The guys and I awoke this morning at 4 am and were on the road an hour later, the better to make it to the Locarno Film Festival with time to spare. This scenic lakeside town in southern Switzerland, just north of Lake Como and the Italian border, is about an eight-hour drive from Paris. That's not counting the inevitable screw-ups, missed exits and other time-consuming setbacks that are par for the course with any European road trip. We should be arriving around 3 pm or thereabouts.

Anyway, this should be good. It's a 10-day festival with 19 world premieres, a bunch of outdoor screenings, tribute screenings to Kataharine Hepburn, Federico Fellini and Ken Loach, and -- who knows? -- maybe some parties with free food and pretty girls. Locarno's main handle, apparently, is to showcase relatively new filmmakers. Of the 20 competition films, eight are from first-timers and four are second features. The festivities start tonight and will end on Saturday, August 16.

I'm a little disappointed there aren't more U.S.-produced films. There were four at last year's event (Gus Van Sant's GERRY, Rebecca Miller's PERSONAL VELOCITY, Steven Shainberg's SECRETARY and Mark Romanek's ONE-HOUR PHOTO) but this year there's only Catherine Hardwicke's THIRTEEN, which everyone saw at Sundance last January, and a U.S.-Bolivian co-production, SEXUAL DEPENDENCY, by Rodrgio Bellott, on view. Are things really as lean as all that?

Locarno chief Irene Bignardi has told trade reporters she couldn't find any U.S.-produced films which met her criteria that hadn't been over-shown at other film festivals. But what about Scott Caan's DALLAS 362, which took the Critics Award at last June's Las Vegas Film Festival? I haven't heard of DALLAS 362 playing at any other fests, and certainly no European ones. On top of which Caan is a first-timer.

I also wouldn't mind catching Ash's THIS GIRL'S LIFE, another nicely-reviewed Vegas Film Festival highlight. Its star, Juliet Marquis, wound up winning a special Newcomer Award.

Nigel Cole's THE CALENDAR GIRLS is one Locarno selection I recognize and haven't seen. It showed in private market screenings at last May's Cannes Film Festival, but I didn't hear a damn thing about it from anyone. I've since been told it's a charmer and that it should do well in the U.S.. It's been described as a female FULL MONTY, although it's based on a true story about middle-aged women who came up with the novel idea of posing nude to raise money for charity. Helen Mirren and Julie Walters costar.

A British website review says GIRLS is "almost criminally crowd-pleasing," adding that the filmmakers "have borrowed the winning FULL MONTY formula right down to small details -- sharply comic dialogue, mildly racy innuendo, touching subplots and even a hilarious audition montage as the women look for a photographer. This is one of those films that keeps us laughing loudly then surprisingly brings a tear to our eyes. It even captures Yorkshire life and the region's spec tacular scenery (if not the accents) wonderfully without laying them, or the serious themes, on too thickly."

Among the more anticipated Locarno titles include ORA O MAI PIU, from Italy's Lucio Pelligrini; Kim Ki-duk's SPRING SUMMER FALL WINTER...AND SPRING; an Indian film called CHOKHER BALI from director Rituparno Ghosh (and featuring Bollywood "superstar" Aishwarya Rai); Soenke Wortmann's THE MIRACLE OF BERN; Rajat Kapoor's RAGHU ROMEO; and the world premiere of Masahiro Kobayashi's THE HAIRDRESSER.

I'm also intrigued by the sound of 16 YEARS OF ALCOHOL, a British film by Richard Jobson. I know nothing, but the title suggests a kitchen-sinker. There's also a French film by Jean Marc Mouttout called VIOLENCE DES ECHANGES EN MILIEU TEMPERE, which sounds vaguely twisted.

The nightly open-air screenings on Locarno's Piazza Grande main town square will kick off with Vincente Minnelli's THE BAND WAGON ('53), a celebration the 100th anniversary of his birth. Minnelli, the father of Liza, was born in February of 1903 and died in July 1986.

Yeah, yeah...

The trailer for FREDDY VS. JASON (New Line, August 15) was officially the most-watched trailer on Yahoo as of last Friday, August 1. It was the third most watched as of the last week in July, the fourth-place trailer in July and June overall, and the second most-watched in May. So I guess we're all going to be reporting a big number after these mythical murderers team up in theatres nine days from now.

That's great for New Line, great for "Freddy" actor Robert Englund (whom I got to know fairly well while I worked on the promotion for Jack Sholder's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE in '86), great for the hard-core's, and great for the people who come in at night to clean the New Line offices on Robertson Blvd. after all the "creative" types have gone home. Because, you know, the work will probably be steadier than ever.

I don't know if it's so great for people like me, though. I enjoy seeing the snooty hot girl and her arrogant jock boyfriend get opened up like a can of beans as much as the next guy. But the dirty little secret behind most slasher films is that they're usually made by second-stringers who are so in love with being employed they wouldn't act on an original, off-the-reservation thought if Superman came along and offered to help them implement it.

Real movies are to heavyweight championship boxing as slasher movies are to local wrestling in Bakersfield. The same bits are repeated over and over, and they're composed of so many layers of irony and back-references to previous slasher flicks they've stopped functioning as anything that might actually scare you, me or anyone else. I respect the greats and near-greats -- EVIL DEAD, PSYCHO, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, HALLOWEEN, etc. -- but the rest blow dead beetles.

In any event, I'm detecting a routine mentality behind FREDDY VS. JASON.

I'm basing this on some comments attributed to producer Sean Cunningham at the recent ComicCon convention in San Diego. A questioner who'd seen the film asked why Cunningham and his team had decided on what he felt was a run-of-the-mill script, and Cunnigham replied, "You know, so much of it is just time. I think that inside of the development world, you had so many people that cared passionately about what happened to either Freddy or Jason, and how it should be handled. And there really wasn't a consensus, so whatever somebody really, really liked, someone else would say, 'Eh, I don't know if that's such a good idea.' We just went around and around with this thing... and it was a question of saying, 'Enough. Let's make the fucking movie.'

I think I read somewhere that the pre-shooting atmosphere of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's UN CHIEN ANDALOU was very similar. Five'll get you ten James Whale and his FRANKENSTEIN colleagues found thesmelves in the same pickle: "Enough about how many bolts he'll have in his neck and how he kills Fritz," Whale probably said in exasperation at one point. "We've got house payments to make -- let's just make the friggin' thing!"

Anyway, Cunningham added, "It just became time to make this movie [rather than have the development process] go on like this endlessly. And that's what happened. With the commitment from New Line to really make a 'movie movie', [we] were able to hire [director] Ronny Yu and break him in, and I can say -- he won't say himself -- he brings a level of visual sensibility and production that would've been sorely lacking in his absence. The notion that we were going to make a 'movie movie' and give it everything that it would take to make it into a first-class movie was the thing that finally put it over the top."

Okay, translation time. When a movie starts out as a "movie movie" at New Line these days, it stays that way. The term "movie movie" doesn't mean "first-class" -- it means something for the peons. It means a hamburger with Kraft cheese and onions and fries and a Coke. No Chateaubriand, no filet mignon.... not even rumpsteak. And when a producer pats a director on the back for bringing "a level of visual sensibility" to a film, that's bullshit producer lingo for saying the director didn't bring (and was never asked to bring) anything to the table that might have sharpened the film on a structure or dialogue level, or created a certain mood, or anything else.

I've been listening to this malarkey for years and I know what it means -- trust me.

According to Upcoming Movies, Yu and Englund told a BBC interviewer that rumors about FREDDY VS. JASON being the possible basis for a new series are true. They said that if this film is a success, it could be the start of a new franchise. Englund said it might even push the long-awaited NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET prequel (i.e. the story of how Freddy Scissorhands came to be) into production.

The FREDDY VS. JASON set-up couldn't be more boilerplate. It's about a group of teenaged asswipes who find themselves stuck in the middle of a battle between silent stalker Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) and Krueger (Englund), as the battle wages on Elm Street and concludes with a climactic finale fought at Camp Crystal Lake.

There's some crap going around about the last sixty seconds of the film containing some important final zing. I won't be catching any of it until I return from Paris on August 27th, so I'll be relying on the readership for reactions.

De-balled Woody

Yes, I know that the trailer for ANYTHING ELSE ignores Woody Allen as profoundly as the one-sheet does. I'm also aware he's no longer DreamWorks' bitch but Fox Searchlight's (for whom he's making his next film that will costar Winona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr.). And I realize that previous one-sheets for Allens' films have blurred or obscured the fact that he's the main creative factor. Thanks for the letters pointing this out.