The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

"People are always surprised ' to learn," says actor Terrence Stamp, "that I never wore diapers as a child."

Odd variations in toilet training were not the subject of the press confer­ence held last July in Los Angeles, but Stamp has spent most of the past decade sorting through the psychoanalytic rever­berations in his life. Such details were connected to both his career and his de­cision to play an aging transsexual in the Australian comedy The Adventures of Prisclla, Queen of the Desert.

"I was one of those eldest sons who always had to be perfect," Stamp contin­ues. His drive for perfection has always been evident in his acting, even though Stamp has spent a long stretch of his ca­reer coasting through easy-money parts as the fancy English villain in expensive American films. Though he gained criti­cal respect in the early '60s in such movies as Billy Budd and The Collector, Stamp has mostly made his living with such parts as the evil General Zed in Su­perman II and the world's meanest Mr. Potato-Head in Alien Nation.

Such typecasting was, admits Stamp, part of the reason why he was interested in playing Bernadette, a very prim gen­der-bender who joins two young drag queens on a campy excursion through the sand-blasted Outback.

"I've often boasted that if I'm fright­ened by a role, then I'll take it. That's how I grow. But when this role came up, the fear threshold became so rarefied. There were times when I was absolutely petrified and had to counter years and years of conditioning."

Stamp, a 54-year-old straight man, has a handsome and youthful appeal that even his snowy white, widow-peaked hairline cannot alter. But as a woman, Stamp's sharp facial features form a crow's nest of repressions. The shrewish quality of his performance was accentu­ated by the discomfort of his costumes: a parade of house dresses, sequined tights, pantyhose that tucked in his genitalia and water-filled condoms that propped up his bra. "I looked like the worst kind of draggy old tomcat. I finally started yelling, 'Come on! Make me look even more stupid!.'"

Added to this was the rigor of a 39-day shooting schedule, most of which took place on a seemingly endless sweep of road that cuts across the sweltering wasteland. The filming, like the movie, was an absurd journey through arid ter­rain best known for its enormous flies. The sight of three actors in drag, tooling around in a pink-colored bus named Priscilla, must have been a dubious spec­tacle for the miners in the region.

"Not really. The locals were actually pretty laid back," insists Stephen Elliot, the director of Priscilla. "What they're into is much weirder. Really weird. It's mean out there in towns like Coober Pedy. You get on someone's wrong side and they blow you up."

Priscilla is Elliot's second feature and its success on the film festival circuit has given him a rep as the hot, new talent from Down Under. At 30, he looks ex­cessively boyish, with a gap-toothed smile and an Aussie accent that practical­ly screams for a translator.

"I didn't want to make a gay film," ar­gues Elliot when pressed about the audi­ence he intended for Priscilla. "As far as I'm concerned, the film is not a gay movie. I wanted to make a musical, and drag was a great vehicle for it." Ironically, that contradiction has been both help and hindrance for Priscilla. The overt gayness of both its story and humor doesn't always click with a straight audi­ence, and some homosexual groups have been upset with the movie's refusal to tackle political issues. Priscilla has a com­promised quality: as it avoids the thornier parts of its own concerns, settling instead for a gaudy display of feather boas.

"I honestly wanted to do a film where you start by laughing at these charac­ters," explains Elliot. "They are freaks, and people come into the cinema to see the freak show feeling unthreatened. Then, very slowly, it changes, 'til you're laughing with them. You end up having complete sympathy with them.

"That's my way of making films."

Art Night at the Drive-In

Art house movies and drive-in theaters don't often mix. The whole idea would strike Joe Bob Briggs as being a communist conspiracy. But on May 7, the Kingman Drive-In in Delaware (it's located 9 1/2 miles north of 1-270 on SR 23) will host "Drive-In Surreal," an evening of experimental flicks and fresh country air.

"What could be better than watching surrealist films in the privacy of your own car under the stars?" asks Tim Lanza, the screening's organizer. Lanza is the U.S. distributor for the Rohauer film collection, a specialty movie company that's been located in Columbus for the past eight years. Developed from the estate of the late Raymond Rohauer — an art house theater owner and former business partner of Buster Keaton — the collection is an impressive list of titles from the avant-garde and the silent cinema.

The Rohauer Collection has a great line-up of films, but they're not often shown publicly due to the tastes of modern young viewers. "These films are part of a different era," Lanza notes sadly. "Just like drive-ins."

At the ripe old age of 30, Lanza teeters between Baby Boomer status and Generation X. His life-long passion for movies led him to earn a bachelor degree from the now defunct Department of Film and Photography at the Ohio State University, and to serve an extensive internship as a research assistant with the now defunct film program at the Columbus Museum of Art. With "Drive-In Surreal," Lanza is looking forward to being involved in something that doesn't have the word "defunct" attached to it.

But, he warns about the event, "I don't want people to come expecting a lecture. This is going to be more of a carnival."

The evening kicks off at 8:45 p.m. with Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. Made in 1928 with money borrowed from Bunuel's mother, it's the definitive surrealist movie, veering between moments of supreme shock and long passages of total craziness. The movie is littered with insects, severed hands, dead donkeys and several priests. Naturally, it's a cinematic classic.

Equally daring is Jean Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet, the 1930 underground masterpiece by the director of the old French version of Beauty and the Beast. It's a barrage of dream images and vivid nightmares that were partly based on Cocteau's brief addiction to opium.

Two of the rarest films on the program are Dementia and Salome. Dementia is an oddball horror film from 1953 that used only music and sound effects to express the mental states of a female psychopathic killer, who may — or may not — be dreaming. Salome was an infamous production in, its day — 1923 — produced by the Russian avant-garde dancer Nazimova. The movie plays like a three-way collision among Oscar Wilde, Richard Strauss and Aubrey Beardsley.

Rounding out the night are two comedy shorts by Buster Keaton: The Goat and One Week, which are among his funniest films. Keaton was the only Hollywood filmmaker who was held in high regard by the surrealists. "Drive-In Surreal" promises a wildly unusual night — one that's unlikely to happen twice.

Christine Vachon: Mogul on a Shoestring

"There's a part of me that would love to make an epic," admitted Christine Vachon. She was tak­ing phone calls during a break in the New York editing room where her newest pro­duction, Postcards From America, was under­going its final cut.

"There's something to be said about making a film that appeals to lots of peo­ple," she continued. "But there's also some­thing to be said about making a movie that really moves a few people. Actually, I would like to be able to do both."

Christine Vachon is the Manhattan-based producer of such extremely con­troversial (and high­ly acclaimed) movies as Todd Haynes' Poison and Tom Kalin's Swoon. She has been hailed as one of the leading figures behind the so-called "New Queer Cinema" and as one of the major players in the new American independent film movement. Vachon was even profiled last month in The New Yorker, and Hollywood studio executives are closely monitoring the impending release, this summer, of her lesbian romance movie Go Fish. At the age of 32, Vachon is the latest, hottest trendsetter in sight.

All of which boils down to, on one level, the fact that "I don't have much of a per­sonal life," she moaned, explaining that she just spent most of the week working on budget figures. "And I'm not sure how much good I would be in Hollywood."

But she's one of the best independent pro­ducers around. Her films are risky, audacious and — like them or not — hard to forget. They're unconventional, daring and often disturbing, — but they're also visual feasts.

"When I take a film on," said Vachon, "I not only have to be able to sell it, but I also have to be able to live with it."

Producing movies isn't simply a line of work for Vachon. It's her life. She works primarily with friends and close associates and views each movie as a collaboration of equals. She's an admirer of the films of Jean Renoir and uses a "democratic" production system similar to the co-op movie-making methods used by the old French master.

"Each time, I try to form a collaboration that will last forever," she laughs. These work relationships may not last forever, but so far they've held together well.

On April 8 and 9, Vachon presents a two-part artist-in-residency program at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The Friday evening presentation is an advanced screen­ing of Postcards From America — a wild, nightmarish journey through a mythical America that's loosely based on the life of the artist David Wojnarowicz. On Saturday afternoon, Vachon offers a workshop on the ins and outs of independent film producing.

"I would like to demystify the process for other people," said Vachon about the workshop.

That means she intends to get down to the brass tacks (and taxes) of how you do it. Take a notebook when you go. Vachon knows what she's talking about.

Confessions of a Cult Movie Star

Dressed like a lab technician, actor Michael J. Anderson is bent over a dead body. He slowly recites a long, fragmented string of sentences that plays like a parody of stream-of-consciousness writing. The camera does a De Palma-style track around him as he stares at some ill-defined point past the key light. There's a tight zoom onto Anderson's face - a move that finally allows the actor playing the stiff a chance to breathe.

It was "B" movie time in February on the set where Columbus' Film Group II was shooting its direct-to-video cult item First You Live and Then You Die. Anderson plied his trade in this locally produced movie, which is currently going through the Los Angeles video distribution mill for international release. Anderson not only stars in the movie, he has also been active in promoting it.

"I'm impressed with the filmmaking in Columbus," said Anderson during a conversation that took place in February. "And I've enjoyed working with Mark Burson and Dyrk Ashton," the producer/director team behind the film.

That isn't too shabby a compliment considering that Anderson is accustomed to working with infamous TV and film director David Lynch. Anderson's three-foot-eight-inch height and other-worldly looks landed him the unusual part of "The Little Man From Another Place" in Lynch's Twin Peaks TV series. His first appearance on the tube, as a disco-dancing, backward-talking denizen of some unearthly realm, was the perfect capper to an episode that was the most bizarre 60 minutes of television since Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. It was intense, absurd, vivid and surreal: a bundle of contradictions exploding in the viewer's face.

Anderson's life is full of such unlikely contradictions. His gait, for instance, is both graceful and jerky, the result of having broken more than 300 bones due to the congenital bone disease that stunted his growth and makes his skeleton extremely brittle. (He's broken bones simply by moving.) He also has a distinct speech impediment which he's successfully tamed into something that sounds like a vague accent.

No wonder his face betrays a strong sense of strength and suffering. Anderson is only 40, but he looks ageless, as if he were both a youthful elf and a wizened spirit.

"I'm not a candidate for a role about a large, black basketball player," he laughs. "But it's also nice to do roles in which everything doesn't revolve around my being a little man."

Nonetheless, Anderson's size has been his meal ticket into major guest-starring roles on TV's Picket Fence and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In addition, Anderson has continued his association with Lynch (for better or worse) - he appeared in the critically disastrous Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and is on hold for the long-awaited (and still stalled) production of Ronnie Rocket, the movie that could succeed in making Eraserhead look like The Brady Bunch.

"I have four different versions of the script for Ronnie Rocket," confided Anderson. "But Lynch has, for the moment, lost confidence in the project. Which is too bad. If he stays to his vision of the film, it would be like a cold wind blowing through this room."

His eyes momentarily twinkle. Anderson likes to work in movies that are bold, daring and different. That's what brought him to Columbus for First You Live and Then You Die.

Most of the movie was originally shot several years ago, during a rambling, cross-country trip. The movie didn't make much sense, but it received a few screenings and, more surprisingly, a favorable review from Joe Bob Briggs. Burson and Ashton decided to take a try at clarifying the footage, but they needed a way to tie the storyline together.

So they invented the concept of a "necroscope," a telepath who can read the memories of the dead. Since the pair was looking to land a video distribution deal with a Pacific rim-based company, they needed an American actor who was unique enough to handle the part, but also well known in Asian markets. Anderson had the look, and the huge popularity of Twin Peaks in Japan made him an established star.

But there was an ulterior motive to their recruitment of Anderson. Burson and Ashton are also working on a movie based on a series of mystery novels about a dwarf detective.

Despite his claim that he "sits around a pool in Los Angeles, looking abstract," Anderson is a busy man.

"The way I see it," he says, "the more balls I can juggle at the same time, the more likely that one of them will hit me."

His eyes fill again with that magical sparkle. Despite his old nickname of "little man Mike," Anderson's persona is finally beginning to grow.

Eva Marie Saint

"When I first came to Ohio by bus," said Eva Marie Saint, "I cried because everything was so flat."

It was the 1940s and she had just left her home in Upper New York state to attend school at Bowling Green State University. The young Eva Marie arrived at Bowling Green convinced that she was going to become a third grade teacher.

"My mom had always been a teacher, and I thought that that was what I wanted to do," she explained during a recent telephone interview. "But then someone got me to try out for a play and I suddenly realized what I wanted to do."

It was those early, faltering steps on stage in the flat lands of Ohio that eventually led Saint to a successful career on Broadway and then in Hollywood during the 1950s. Much admired for her performances in such films as On the Waterfront and North by Northwest, Saint was able to handle a wide variety of roles, ranging from fragile, working-class idealist to cool, sophisticated spy.

She also worked with such legendary leading men as Marlon Brando and Cary Grant - which is why she returns to the stage May 26 at the Palace Theatre to host a presentation of Grant's romantic melodrama An Affair to Remember. Both the screening and Saint's appearance are being provided by American Movie Classics and Coaxial Communications. An Affair to Remember is the 1957 weepie classic that was recently repopularized by the movie Sleepless in Seattle. Prior to the screening, Saint will lead a discussion of her friend Cary Grant from her "insider's" viewpoint.

"I never saw a flaw in Cary Grant," said Saint. "He was larger than life and a total professional. Midway through North by Northwest I started to feel a little guilty. I thought I should be paying the studio for the chance to work with Cary."

It will be an evening of sweet nostalgia as one legend pays tribute to another. It also, ironically, will continue Saint's association with crying in Ohio.

"It's such a great movie," Saint remarked about An Affair to Remember. "I just hope people have their hankies ready."

Addams Family Values

Uncle Fester is howling at the moon, the kids are burying cats in the backyard and Gomez is arm wrestling with a severed hand. Just another evening at the Addams' house. Then Morticia announces that she's having a baby. Literally - at that moment.

This is as close as Addams Family Values gets to a plot. The hurried sequel to 1991's monster hit shares all of the original's strengths and weaknesses. The movie has its moments, but there's not much connecting any of the scenes or jokes.

Okay. There's a bit more to the plot. When the children, Pugsley and Wednesday, try to bump off their new baby brother, the family decides that it's time to hire a nanny. Appropriately, the new nanny (Joan Cusack)is a serial killer who marries, then murders, wealthy men. She targets Uncle Fester as her next victim and sets out to deftly win his heart. But she quickly discovers that you can't easily kill an Addams - Fester thinks the murder attempts are just displays of her love.

Some of the flick's best jokes are saved for the kids, when they're sent to summer camp, where they're surrounded by the next generation of the WASP elite and forced to watch videos of The Brady Bunch. You can't wait for the two little ghouls to threaten the entire place with mass scalping. While at camp, Wednesday finds her soul mate, in the form of a pint-sized Woody Allen look-alike.

Addams Family Values is occasionally funny. But it's all punchlines with no build up. It plays like the highlights to another movie.

The Lion King

Things have been a little rough around the Magic Kingdom lately. Walt Disney Studios - and their numerous subsidiary companies - have spent the past year releasing a ton of bad movies to well-deserved critical beatings and lackluster box office. EuroDisney has taken a financial bath in a sea of red ink and has virtually provoked the French into declaring war on Mickey Mouse. Then Nancy Kerrigan showed up with a crappy attitude and blurted out how silly she felt taking their money.

But you know what they say: when the going gets tough, the tough get back to animation. The Lion King is the sort of film that the Disney empire was built on, and it's still the kind of movie that Disney does best. Sure, it's a typical production that you can just about write in your sleep. But on technical points alone, The Lion King ends up being one of the more impressive movies of the summer.

The story is a mix of The Jungle Book and The Sword in the Stone, with a good lion king squared off against his evil brother. Mufasa (voice of James Earl Jones) has just produced a son, and his sneaky sibling, Scar (voice of Jeremy Irons), can't stand the thought of being passed over by his new nephew. Scar joins forces with a pack of hyenas (voice of Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Martin and Jim Cummings) and plots a little regicide. But prince Simba (as an adult, the voice of Matthew Broderick) survives, and once he reaches maturity, he finds himself forced to return to his father's now crumbling kingdom.

The animation work in The Lion King is one of the most masterful jobs done by Disney's artists, as they successfully create a visual design that's more realistic and slightly less sentimental than the mouse that roars usually produces. Only the musical score comes close to a few false steps. For once, the empire gets it right.