Stephen King at The Movies
Stephen King at The Movies
Stephen King at The Movies
o
I I II
71162 00995
.~------------~
~ 8
STEphEN KiNG liv£s & wRiTES iN MAiNE.
By JESSIE HORSTING
(5
z
»
~ ____________________________________ ~o
'"
.....
L.-.~I
• ...... Have
SCAaIDI
Y
OU may have noticed that Stephen King's name is a great
dea l bigger than mine on the cover of thi s book . It is
a tran sparent ploy to get you to pick it up and look at
it, because he has about 50 million more books in print than
I do and the publi shers figure there's some value in his name.
I wouldn 't have it any other way- I admire hi s writing,
always have, and I hope that's the reason you're reading thi s.
But there 's always the chance you don 't know who Stephen
King is. You may have spent the last decade in eclusion . You
may have recently returned from the dead. You may think he
only does commercials. You may have seen his name and
thought it was a pseudonym for a conglomeration of writers
and filmmakers.
I assure you it is one man, he has written all those books
(and a few movies) and he is one of a kind .
Let me give you a stati sti cian 's eye of view of the
phenomenon: Stephen King's first novel was Carrie, publish-
ed in 1974 and relea sed as a film in 1976. Stephen King's se-
cond novel was 'Sa /em 's Lot, published in 1976 and premiered
as a made-for-television movie in 1979 . Stephen King 's third
novel was The Shining, published in 19 77 and released as a
film in 1980-a dozen books later, a dozen years later, thi s
unprecedented pattern continues. Here is a man who may pro-
ve to be the best-selling author of the century- the funny thing
is, no one is sure why.
If I had to review his books analytically in terms of style,
structure, characterizations and such, I suppose they would
get middlin ' to high marks. But in the analysis, the elusive quali-
ty that energizes his work wouldn 't translate. He has a soul
which speaks to millions sharing the experience of being
human, and sharing the question " what if? " Harl an Ellison
examines that quality cogently at the back of thi s book, King
understand s it and comments on it in hi s remarks, but no one
seems to be able to put their finger on it. Maybe it's the fiterary
equivalent of Schrodinger's Cat: If you can't see it or touch
it or name it, you can 't prove that it's there. But it is. Trust me.
However, the topic here is movie. Thi s overview of the film
adaptations of King 's stories was not inspired simply because
there are a dozen of them . Sure, that's a bunch, but several
authors-Ian Fleming, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Conan Doyle,
Edgar Rice Burroughs, all popular writers of their time-boast
F
No, I don't think so. I think
with the phenomenon Ken Kesey is very much there
of Stephen King, he in One Flew Over the
needs no introduction. For Cuckoo's Nest, and I think that
those who may be unfamiliar, James Dickey is there almost
I'll be brief. completely in Deliverance;
A tall, dark-haired, blue- the spirit of that book and that
eyed family man, Stephen movie are exactly the same.
King lives and writes in The soul has made that trans-
Bangor, Maine, makes movies ference; it can happen. The
in North Carolina sometimes, same thing is true of Rose-
and is about the most popular mary's Baby. I think the film is
novelist of the last decade. He a very faithful adaptation of the
is frequently described as a book and it keeps the spirit of
horror writer, but that does the Ira Levin's novel. But take
man a disservice: although he Firestarter, which is very
often explores the darker cor- L...._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _-----....J faithful to the novel, and yet
ners of possibility, he's mostly a fine, honest storyteller with an I'm not there. I'm just not in that movie.
engaging prose style and an unerring understanding of human
nature. He knows what scares you-but he also knows what What's missing?
makes you laugh and what makes you weep. It's between the lines in the books. It's whatever it is, it's
Because he tells good stories, people like to make movies of whatever flavor that readers come to expect and they come to
them. Some are bad, some are good, and he is constantly asked want, it's the sort of thing that they come to crave. It's the only
his opinions about them. reason they go back to buy more. They don't go back because
In the following pages, at no extra charge to you, he answers they think; " This Stephen King book looks particularly
the most frequently asked questions about the movies bearing interesting;" they go back because they say, "It's a Stephen King
his name-with the hope they will put some rumors to rest, get book, and I will get that flavor,"-the way that somebody- who
your mind in gear, and maybe incline you to read one or two of likes coffee will say, "I want coffee, I want Maxwell House
his books, if you haven't already. Coffee." And it's the same reason they don't go to the movies;
they say, " Ah, it's just another shitty adaptation of a King book."
Stephen King begins- Have any of the films exceeded your expectations?
Carrie did. It was a big thrill because it was the first one, but
Let's get one thing up front. Most of the movie adaptations, I it was stylish and had things in it I wish I had thought of. In most
like pretty well. The only real exceptions to that are The Shining of the pictures, I've seen things that made me say, "Shit, I should
and Children of the Corn. The rest of the stuff I can deal with; I have done that." For instance, in Dead Zone, the way Frank
don't like them all equally well, but I can deal with them. Dodd kills himself, and the way David Cronenberg put Johnny
Many people who love my books have turned away from the Smith in his own visions. I thought that was a wonderful thing.
movies, particularly since The Shining-they don't find me in the 'Salem's Lot exceeded my expectations for what they could get
movies-whatever me is. Writers don't have style so much as away with on television .
they have soul; it's between the lines of the prose that they write, What makes adaptations so tough?
it's that interior tension, the stuff that you don't say or the way Well, it's like my own screenplay for The Stand. When you
that you say the things that you do say. A perfect example is to adapt a novel, it's like sitting on a suitcase, trying to get everything
take the novel Stick, by Elmore Leonard . Although he got a co- inside. It's a little bit like working for Reader's Digest Condensed
credit for the screenplay, he's not present in the film. And when Books. It gets to the point where I have to say, "We'vegot to
you look at Christine and some of these other movies, I'm just lighten this boat; we've got to throw some people overboard.
not there for some people, and they don't like it. Who's expendable?" I try to get rid of things, but they don't want
to stay down. The hardest thing is deciding
Isn't that always a problem when you adapt a story? what has to go.
How man y screenplays have you adapted from your own works?
jeez, I've done a bunch . Let's see what I didn't do: I never did
an adaptation for Ca rrie, I never did one for Sa lem 's Lot,
Christine, or Firestarter. I did one for The Shining, I've done it for
The Stand, I did it for The Dead Zone and Cuio, Cat's Eye, Creerr
show, Silver Bullet and Maximum Overdrive.
Now that you've directed one, does it make you more forgiv-
ing abo ut any of the others?
I'm not forgiving or unforgiving. I go to see them like a fan,
they don't do a thing to the book. A movie is a very ephemeral
item. It comes to a theater near you and it's there for two weeks,
unless it's a mega-hit, like E. T., and then it might be at that
th eater near you for 12 weeks, and you say, " Holy shit, th at
picture has been there forever. " But, I ju st had a book that
fell off the bestseller lists, Skeleton Crew, and it was on th e
lists for 32 weeks.
Cat's Eye (top) is a film King likes. "I think it's a good movie,
witty and stylish," he says. But it's Cujo (bottom) that holds a Books live damn near forever. Movies have a first run, maybe
special place in the author's heart. "That's my favorite if they're successful, they have a second run, they turn up on
adaptation of all the movies," King explains, "because it does cable TV, they turn up on network TV. Then, they'll be on
keep some of the spirit and flavor of the work." the shelves at the video store and you say, " Well shit, they 're
at the video store now, you can rent 'em, they're there forever,
it's like a library. " But that 's not true-after a whil e, they just
simply di sappear. It's a question of shelf space. I mean after
a while, sombody's going to take Eaten Alive off the shelves
because nobody watches it, so the movie is gone. But the book
is still around.
There' s an anecdote I use often and I'll use it again. A
reporter once complained to novelist James Cain that the adap-
tation of his novel Th e Postman Always Rings Twice ruined
his book . Cain turned to the bookshelves behind him and said,
" I don't know- it looks th e same to me."
That's how it is. The books will always be the same.
10 STEPHEN KING AT THE MOVIES
George Romero put King
before the Creepshow cameras
as the ill-fated Jordy Verrill,
about to suffer a lonesome
death thanks to strange weed
from space. The director offers
this review of his star: "Steve's
wonderful, really good . In
fact, I think he was a
frustrated actor all along. He
has great range and good
comic timing. He did a terrific
job."
·
"
"
.
. " ..
., '
..
..
.....
,'
.
.
tephen King's first published novel , Carrie, was written big-buck horror films like Th e Omen and Burnt Offerings. A
S in the furnace room of a trailer while the author was " run-
ning sheeb at a laundry for $1 .60 an hour" to support
his family. As Harlan Ellison describes elsewhere in this
darkhorse? More like a plough horse against a field of
thoroughbreds. United Artists executives held Carrie's budget
to a modest $1 .8 million (modest is a polite publicity term
volume, Ca rrie caused a minor sensation when it arrived at for dirt cheap) and were stunned by its success; no one at the
Doubleday's editorial offices. By the time it was released in studio anticipated the insatiable national willingness to be
April 1974, it was a major sensation; not only had King writ- scared senseless. Carrie returned $15 million net to the pro-
ten a story that battered the senses, but he had done so within ducers and garnered Oscar nominations for the two stars, Sissy
the most ordinary setting-the psychological Cuisinart of the Spacek and Piper Laurie.
American public high school. It was like the plough horse taking the derby.
King's timing was flawless, if coincidental. The public's taste
Ie story focuses on the
T
in reading entertainment had
been whetted by William American rite of
Peter Blatty 's The Exorcist, passage-getti ng
and the impending film through public high school
version had Hollywood alive-and the unusual talents
execu tive s scouring their of a shy, awkward, friendless
slush piles for the sort of teen named Carrie.
" legitimate" horror repre- Carrie (Sissy Spacek) has
se nted by Blatty's work . telekinetic ability; she can
Ex ec utives from several move things, throw things,
studios had gotten wind of break things .. . and burn
Ca rrie and expressed interest: things with a concentrated
by the time Carrie sold to force of will. Her latent
paperback, the certainty of a pyrotic and telekinetic talents
film translation pushed the mature with her first
pri ce up to a staggering menstruation, an event which
$400,000. causes her to be humiliated in
When King got the news, front of a group of teenage
he and wife Tabitha and their girls in the school locker
child were living in a Bangor, room . They peg her with tam-
Maine walk-up on his teach- pons and sanitary napkins,
er's salary. Because the young jeer at her naivete and verbal-
writer was still an unknown ly savage her in the first of
commodity, the first paper- Brian De Palma's many slow
back edition of Carrie was motion sequences. This open-
released without King's name ing scene was a shocker at the
on the front cover. But his time. The mere mention of
time had come. Whether menstruation was one of the
King started a phenomenon cinema's long-standing no-
or was merely a writer in the no's and De Palma had not
ri ght place at the right time, only opted to mention it-he
his name was to dominate the eleded to show it in a scene
bestseller charts from that that graphically demonstrated
time forward. Carrie's total alienation and
The movie version of Ca r- th e thoughtless cruelty of her
rie was released in late 1976. The film was a darkhorse; a cast peers.
of unknowns, based on the novel of an unknown writer and Carrie is sent home to find that mother is equally unforgiv-
directed by a talented, relatively unknown filmmaker up against ing. De Palma cues us visually when Carrie steps into a house
CLOSING DAY
The Torrances arrive and
are given a tour of the
"A STORY of TItE SUPERNATURAL
facilities. They are shown the CANNOT bE TAkEN ApART ANd
kitchen by Halloran (5catman ANALYZEd TOO closEly. TIlE
Crothers), a tall, lanky black
cook who recognizes that lit- ULTiMATE TEST of iTS RATiONALE
tle Danny has a talent for is wltETItER iT is Good ENOUGIt
telepathy and the apparitions
TO RAisE TItE ItAiRS ON TItE
of past and future. Halloran
calls it the "shine", a talent he bAck of YOUR NECk. If you
boasts as well , and warns SUbMiT iT TO A cOMpLETEly
Danny that he may " see"
things-but they won't hurt LOGiCAL ANd dETAiLEd ANALysis,
him . But Danny senses iT will EVENTlIAlly AppEAR Stephen King wasn't too crazy
Halloran's fear, and when he about the casting of Jirl
AbsuRd." NichoI!IOI1 for The Sl!inins's
asks about one of the hotel
rooms, Halloran tells him -STANLEY KubRick, ON Jirl TorrarKl!. Below:
NichoI!IOI1 utters the dassic
angrily, " Don't you go in ThE ShiNiNC; line, "Here's Johnny!"
there!"
A MONTH LATER
As the Torrances settle in to the daily routine of hotel-sitting,
things start to go wrong in small ways. Kubrick gives us a look
at the Torrances' day, little slices of boredom, awkwardness
and madness akin to the free-floating anxieties let loose in a
sensory deprivation tank.
TUESDAY
The Hotel-possessed somehow by the evil decadence of
its ghostly former tenants-has started to assert its presence.
Room 237 attracts Danny like a child magnet; Jack has become
haggard and belligerent.
THURSDAY
Kubrick shows Wendy and Danny playing in the middle of
a virginal snowfall, while inside, Jack stands staring out the
window, deadly-looking and crazy as a thousand battlefields.
Redrum. The family is snowbound . Jack will later sabotage
any chance to escape.
SATURDAY
The title cards cease as we watch Jack's descent into utter
lunacy. The hotel stirs into life like an angry nest of hornets.
Danny's visions become more frequent and infinitely more
horrifying-elevators spew a sea of blood, the twins lie
dismembered and bloody in a hallway, a corpse rises soggily
from the scum of a half-filled tub. Wendy's confused
helplessness keeps her near hysteria and Jack is becoming
dangerously unraveled.
Danny passes by the forbidden room to find the door open,
the pass key dangling from the lock. Downstairs, Jack has had
a nightmare while dozing at his writing desk. He wakes
screaming for Wendy and, after she arrives to comfort him,
Danny enters the lobby catatonic with terror at whatever was
in room 237 .
Time seems to telescope as the hotel calls up the varsity
squad of apparitions. At first, they appear only to Jack. Although
he has been on the wagon since the incident with Danny, Jack
finds himself in the expansive Gold Room bar, bemoaning the
empty shelves and dry taps.
" I'd sell my soul for a glass of beer," he says aloud and,
as if he has made a pad, " Lloyd" Ooe Turkel) appears, along
with a full inventory of spirits. Lloyd pours Jack a drink and
they discuss Jack's family. Jack complains that Wendy won't
let him forget the child abuse incident, though he perversely
protests: "I wouldn't touch a hair on his goddam head-I love
the little son-of-a-bitch."
STEPHEN KING AT THE MOVIES 19
Redrum is murder, Danny discovers in a mirror.
The line between reality arid the paranormal starts to fuzz
as Kubrick shows a vision that is shared by Danny and the
vacationing Halloran but is, In truth, Jack's waking experience
when he investigates room 237, where he figuratively and
literally embraces the hotel 's evil.
Later, while Jack mingles in a ballroom full of reveling ap-
paritions, he is taken aside and implored by the shade of
Delbert Grady to " correct" his headstrong wife and child who
want to leave the hotel. (The phones are out and Jack has
destroyed the last link-a shortwave radio-with the rest of
the world.)
Only Halloran senses something has gone very wrong, and
heads back to Colorado for the boy's sake.
Kubrick's pace has been leisurely-it is two hours and 10
minutes into the movie before Jack finally flips out. A few
minutes later, Jack makes his intentions clear to Wendy in an
intense scene on the hotel staircase: ''I'm not going to hurt
you-I'm just going to bash your brains in. I'm going to bash
them right the fuck in."
The last half hour sees Jack on a psychotic rampage as the
hotel comes fully awake, showing Wendy and Danny the evil
that lurks within, and driving Jack to stalk his wife and son,
murder the hapless Halloran, then chase Danny in frenzy
through the frozen labyrinthine hedges on the hotel grounds.
Jack is completely possessed and inarticulate, becoming con-
fused and hopelessly lost in the maze, while Danny escapes
with Wendy.
The last lingering sequence starts on Jack's frozen corpse
and travels inside the hotel to an extreme close-up of his face
in a framed black and white photograph dated 1921 ,
establishing at least in spirit,
that Jack has always been the
"TltE ShiNiNt; is SORT caretaker for the Overlook-
of LikE I LOVE Lvcr and always will be, in one
GONE bAd . .. IT's A form or another.
One of the surest indica-
GREAT, biG bEAuTifuL tors of the respect garnered
CAR wiTlt NO MOTOR by a director is the awe-
some profundity attributed to
iN iT . .. " his work by scholars and
-STEpItEN KiNG critics.
However, trying to deter
mine the deliberate intentions of a director can be a double-
edged sword. For instance, in a volume entitled Kubrick by
French critic and scholar Michel Ciment, the author made
much of Kubrick's decision to end The Shining in the bowels
of the hedge maze:
" . .. The most remarkable idea was undoubtably the
final one of the labyrinth. It enriched the plot with a
new mythic dimension ... If it is, as has been noted by
Paolo Santarcangeli, a symbol for the maternal belly,
for the intestines, it is also the extension of the objec-
tive correlative to Jack's psych ism, already represented
by the Overlook Hotel . ..
When Ciment queried Kubrick for the orgins of this
remarkable coup de grace, he responded simply:
"The maze ending may have suggested itself from the
animal topiary scenes in the novel. I don't actually
remember how the idea first came about."
As it so often happens, Ciment has simply overstepped his
bounds in the enthusiastic search for artistic resonance, whether
it's there or not. This is not to imply a lack of resonance in
Kubrick's storytelling or that Kubrick was after pretty pictures
and not pretty ideas: it's just wise to remember that filmmak-
ing is the art of compromise.
During the production of The Shining-as with most of his
films-Kubrick's operative word was control. He selected the
property, co-wrote the script with Diane Johnson, and acted
as producer as well as director. He oversaw all aspects of pro-
duction, the selection of equipment and hand-picked person-
nel, casting, set construction and design. Kubrick had no
20 STEPHEN KING AT THE MOVIES
difficulty interesting Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall to por-
tray Jack and Wendy, but an extensive search involving almost
5,000 boys was conducted before selecting Canadian native
Danny Lloyd for the crucial role of King's young hero.
Though principal photography was scheduled for 17 weeks,
an average length of time for
a feature film, Kubrick need-
ed England 's EMI-Elstree ~~I REAlly ItAd LiTTLE TO do WiTIt
Studios for nearly a year to TItE ACTUAL sitooTiNG, bUT, LikE
construct the massive sets
representing the Overlook.
ARTIIUR CLARkE ON 200 1 ,
The principal photography I WAS CONSULTEd DURiNG OUR
ran into 27 weeks, 10 weeks fiRST TAlk, STtNLEY MENTiONEd
over due to illness and Jack
Nicholson 's troublesome TIIAT ItE'd likE TO CItANGE TIlE
back injury. In a three- ENdiNG-itAVE All TIlE MAiN LEAds
character story, there was no
way to shoot around the
killEd off, ANd RETURN TIIEM
leads. From May 1978 to LATER AS GhosTS. I ToLd ltiM TItE Shining moments of terror:
April 1979, Kubrick kept his AudiENCES wooLd ItAVE Itis ItEAd (opposite top) A ghost cracks up;
sets closed, carefully monitor- Wendy (Shelley Duvall) locks
ing all visitors and releasing if fACEd wiTh TIlE slAUGItTER of herseff in the bathroom, but her
virtually no information on cltARACTERS TIlE)' CAREd AOOtIT." security doesn't last (bottom).
the particulars of the Below: jack prowls the maze, an
project-a pol icy that con-
-STEpitEN KiNG impreMive set built at EMI-Elstree
tinued throughout production
Studios in Great Britain.
and well after release in 1980.
The lion's share of the budget-some estimates go as high
as $18 million, though a source close to the production puts
the figure closer to $11 million-went into reconstructing the
facade and interiors of the Overlook, based on a sprawling
complex in Oregon 's mountains called the Timberline Hotel.
A full-front facade was erected and another stage was filled
with the spacious reconstructed lobby and hallways. A massive
set fire also increased the amount of money spent.
One puzzling change from King's novel was the room
number. King had the apparition in room 217 but in the film,
the room is 237. When Kubrick was asked if there was any
purpose in the change, he replied that the owners of the
Timberline Lodge had a room 217 and were afraid no guest
would want to stay there after the film was released . However,
there was no room 237-so the change was made for the
benefit of the Timberline.
Kubrick made extensive use of the then-recent innovation,
the Steadicam, designed and operated by cameraman Garret
Brown, whose name may seem familiar from Lucasfilm epics.
The Steadicam is not so much a camera as a camera-mounting
harness (gyroscopic system) that allows a camera to be car-
ried with little or no sway 'n' shake, a typital danger with a
moving, handheld camera.
The set construction was designed with the Steadicam in
mind: hallways led off the main floor in continuous, multi-
level construction to allow uninterrupted traveling shots. Danny
rides his tryke throughout the hotel, taking corner after corner
without a cut-foreshadowing the film's labyrinth ending-
the camera giving a snake's eye view from the back of the
bike. Cinematographer John Alcott, a veteran of four Kubrick
films (A Clockwork Orange, 2001, Barry Lyndon and The Shin-
ing) was responsible for the planning and lighting of the com-
plex shots: " I spent three or four weeks pre-lighting every shot
and every set. All the lights in the lobby and hallways were
rigged-the chandeliers, all the bracket-mounted lights,
everything was connected to a rheostat board off-set. I would
regulate the lights during the shots, calling the instructions over
a radio, while the camera traveled."
Part of Alcott's preparation was to light each area and take
slides to check the registration on 35mm film. "It's just part
of being ready. It was one of the great things Stanley taught
me-to be ready so the director has as much time as possible
to do his job, which is not waiting around for a cinematogra-
pher to light a set."
The Shining was Alcott's first extensive experience with
W
hen Romero first approached potential underwriters
for Creeps how, he found that few of them really
understood the concept. They asked him to change
the name, they asked him to change the cast, they wanted that
" comic-book stuff" removed. But Romero-a notoriously in-
dependent filmmaker who has turned down many offers to
go " Hollywood"-stuck by his guns until U.F.D. offered to
finance the project the way Romero wanted it done.
King was on hand for any emergencies during the filming.
(Occasionally, time and budget considerations during filming
forces on-set rewrites-frequently, the rewrites seem to have
been handled by cameramen rather than writers.) King was
present as often as possible during principal photography, and
explains why:
O
apparently unaware that n the outskirts of a small
Donen had been signed, in- New England town, a
vited director David Cronen- confusion of light marks
berg to take a look-see at the the midway of a small traveling
script. Cronenberg was very carnival. As the booths and rides
interested in doing it but, close down for the night, a young
several profuse apologies schoolteacher stands mesmer-
later, discovered the project ized before a swindle known as
was spoken for. After three the Wheel of Fortune. The spin-
years and a few false starts, ning, clacking wheel has not
Cronenberg got his chance. entranced him as much as the
Lorimar had been taking a fact that he knows what numbers
financial beating on some will fall. He is surrounded by
major box office flops, and stragglers who do not question
abruptly closed its feature film his gift, but merely enjoy the
divsion, shelving The Dead opportunity to beat the shill at his
Zone. In 1981, Dino De game.
Laurentiis expressed interest, Johnny Smith is conscious on-
and secured the rights from ly of the spinning wheel and the
Lorimar. certainty of his premonitions.
King was contacted to try This scenario from King's
his hand at the screenplay: "I novel introduces the reader to
thought the screenplay for the idea that Johnny Smith has a
The Dead Zone was the best little something extra-a paranor-
I had even done in terms of mal psychic ability that allows
an adaptation. I started talking him to glimpse into the past, and
first to Michael Trevino, who wanted Johnny Smith to come more important, the future. The balance of the story takes place
from Texas and to show his sensitivity by 'talking to horses.' after Johnny awakens from an injury-induced coma of five
I said, no, I don't think so. Then , it was Dino De Laurentiis, years' duration. His abilities have increased dramatically,
and back and forth, they commissioned another though interfering with his sharply focused foreknowledge are
screenplay ... " De Laurentiis had slated Debra Hill (Hallow- "dead zones" where he cannot "see," or cannot interpret,
een) to produce the project and had her contact original scripter certain events. Even so, his life becomes a nightmare of
Jeffrey Boam to rewrite the draft he had produced for Lorimar, dangerous visions.
while both sought a director. King's story is complex and lengthy-forcing Cronen berg to
Many names appeared in connection with the project. The abandon three script drafts and have screenwriter Jeffrey Boam
Hollywood Reporter printed a story in September 1982 that start from scratch . Cronen berg explains: "I thought the way
De Laurentiis had selected Russian director Andrei Mikhalkov to be faithful to the story was to throw the book away and
O keeps the spirit and the flavor of the work; it's this big
dumb slugger of a movie. It stands there and keeps on
punching. It has no finesse; it has no pretensions. I thought Dee
Wallace should have been nominated for an Academy Award."
their fears. Cujo was only part of the story."
The family is Vic and Donna Trenton and their son Tad. Vic
and Donna's marriage is deteriorating and they've moved to
Castle Rock, Maine, to try and pull it together. That was the
story that intrigued Teague, but Cujo was the driving force
King's admiration is warranted. Of all his novels, Cujo is behind the events. Teague was forced to spend most of his
the least likely candidate for a film: a big, friendly mutt con- energy trying to make the dog work, in order to buoy the Tren-
tracts rabies and goes on a murder spree, then spends 200 tons' story. It was like slogging through a swamp filled with
pages waiting for a woman to step out of her car. quicksand to gain a piece of dry land.
The second problem was the intentional miscasting. King
has the uncanny ability to make the most innocent situations
the source of unspeakable terror, so he made Cujo a Saint Joe Camber's dog Cujo is a big, good-natured creature out
Bernard: a big, fluffy, dopey-looking, 200-pound, brown and for a ramble one summer morning. He sticks his nose
white huggy-bear of a dog. Visually, 5t. Bemards are about in the wrong hole and is bitten by a bat. The bat is in-
as terrifying as a 200-pound, fected with rabies, and passes the
pink and white Easter bunny. r - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . disease along to Cujo.
The third, and biggest prob- The Cambers are not well-
lem, was the narrative. King off-Cujo seems off his feed, but
focused on Cujo from two a vet fee is out of the question.
standpoints: what Cujo does Across town, Castle Rock has
and what's going on in his some new residents, Vic (Daniel
head while he does it. King Hugh-Kelly) and Donna Trenton
doesn't anthropomorphize (Dee Wallace) and their seven-
the animal, he simply crawls year-old son Tad (Danny
into his head and gives the Pintaurol.
reader a play-by-play as the Teague establishes the tension
rabies infect the brain tissue early: Vic is a workaholic, a
and disintegrate the dog's typical driven young executive in
functions, driving it slowly a small advertising agency on the
berserk. * "How do you take verge of losing an important ac-
a picture of that?" laments count. Donna is a bright, creative
director Lewis Teague. " I was woman with too much time on
first approached by the pro- her hands and the fear that she's
ducers in summer 1982 to do not keeping up with her hus-
a horror film about a rabid band's needs. Though most of
dog. At first, it didn't sound their problems aren't verbalized,
good to me. I wanted to do their son Tad manifests his in-
something more ambitious. securities with vague nightmares
But they were persistent and, about monsters.
when I read the book, I got A short aside: King had the
very very excited about the Trentons moving into the house
dynamics of the family-they formerly occupied by Frank
were completely plagued by '--_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.J Dodd, the Castle Rock killer from
• Rabies is also known as hydrophobia because it seems to make the Dead Zone who took his life in an upstairs bathroom. King
victim fear water. The virus causes swelling and extreme pain in the implies that the monstrous presence Tad senses is the spirit
throat, but dehydrates the animal, making it constantly thirsty. With of Dodd's evil which-somehow-comes to possess Cujo.
torturous irony, the animal finds it almost impossible to drink. The Teague felt this idea was an unworkable convolution in an
swelling and joint pain is followed by "delirium" and convulsions, already troublesome story.
encephalitis, paralysis and death. The incubation period is three to Meanwhile, Mrs. Camber (Kaiulani Lee) and her son (Billy
six weeks, and the disease is almost always fatal.
Jacob) prepare to leave on a long-anticipated trip to the city, leav-
ingJoe to mind the house. Cujo is nowhere to be found. Teague
foreshadows events as the Cambers' boy hunts for Cujo to say
goodbye. Sound effects cue the dog nearby, just hidden by the
ea rly morning fog. A low
growl as the boy approaches "SIIE FElT A SCREAM buiLdiNG iN
lets us know that Cujo is
already so far gone that he IIER CIIEST, cOMiNG Up iN IIER
doesn't even recognize hi s TIIROAT LikE iRON, bECAUSE SIIE
owner. Teague intercuts the
boy getting closer to the sound
couLd FEEL TilE dOG TliiNkiNG AT
of the animal we now susped IIER, TElliNG IIER 1',., CjOiNCj TO
is deadly, creating the antici- CjET rOIJ bAbE. 1',., CjOiNCj TO
pation of attack, but he doesn't
pay it off just yet: Mom ca ll s CjET rOIJ, kiddo. ThiNk AbolJT
her son back to safety. ThE ,.,AiIMAN All rOIJ WANT TO.
Cujo deteriorates in tandem
with Vic and Donna's relation-
I'll kill hi,., TOO if I hAVE TO,
ship. Donna has taken a lover; ThE WAr I killEd All ThREE of
Cujo takes a life, stalki ng and ThE CA,.,bER§, ThE WAr 1',., CjO-
killingJoe Camber. Vic leaves
town on the heels of an argu- iNCj TO kill rOIJ ANd rOIJR §ON.
ment. Joe's neighbor comes YOIJ ,.,iCjhT A§ wEll CjET IJ§Ed
over to the Cambers to visit Dee Wallace and five-year-old Danny
TO ThE idEA."
and is disemboweled . Donna Pintauro make Cujo believable terror. It's
has an ugly scene with her lov- -ClJjo Stephen King's favorite movie. "It stands
er when she tries to break off there and keeps on punching:' he says.
the affair. Teague finally brings the threads together when Donna
has to take the family Pinto out to Joe Cambers' place for repairs.
Aside number two. Try to imagine Teague's problems here. The
film's last 40 minutes condense the last half of the novel. Where
King was free to create suspense by letting the narration jump in
and out of Donna's head, Cujo's head, and all over the coun-
tryside, the film is obligated to one place [the Cambers' yard], one
set [the inside of the Pinto]. and one event-Cujo trying to eat the
Trentons. Teague deserves nothing but admiration for pulling it
off. The diredor left the car only briefly to develop the subplot
where the sheriff and Vic are afraid that Donna may have been
kidnapped, but he can't spend too much time with it at the ri sk
of losing the tension he's trying to create. We already know what
has happened. The fj 1m story has to stay with the car, where there
are no dark corners, creaky doors or hidey-holes for monsters.
Donna's car dies at the Camber place. Cujo looms like a
nightmare and begins to terrorize Donna and Tad, imprisoning
them in the car with no food or water while the sun turns it into
an oven during the day.
Like a godsend, Sheriff Bannerman comes out to investigate at
Vic Trenton 's urging. Cujo, pretty hungry by now, has a Banner-
man lunch in Teague's grisliest scene. The mailman is Donna's
last hope for rescue. No one comes. Tad is dehydrated and
delirious, becoming comatose in the heat. Donna knows it's up
to her and somehow, with a mother's hellish fury, she rescues
herself and her son-but not before Teague has pulled out the trick
bag to keep us guessing whether the dog is dead or hot.
Last aside. Teague acknowledges a debt to film editor Verna
Field Uaws) for showing him some suspense tri cks when he was
editing his other creature feature Alligator. The rest he learned
during his apprenticeship with Alfred Hitchcock. Cujo's "false"
ending is a fake-out shared by many thrillers, among them The
Terminator, A lien and Silver Bullet. King had let Tad die in the
novel-Teague confessed he couldn't make himself do it after
all they had been through . He lets the kid live.
I
suggested selling Cujo to Taft International, " says King,
"although they couldn't pay as much as some of the other
people, mostly because I had seen a low-budget picture
called The Boogens and I thought it was really good. And I sug-
gested Lewi s Teague as the diredor because I had seen Alligator.
I thought A lligator was great, very funny, and the guy could
handle animals. Well , Taft went with Peter Medak instead,
the guy who did The Changeling. He lasted one day.
D
being able to light fires irector Mark lester
sometimes just by thinking commented before the
about fi res. It usually happens film's release: "People
when people are upset. Some shouldn't come expecting to see
people apparently have real gross shots of someone's
that . .. power all their lives hands being burned to a crisp
and never even know it. And or that kind of thing, cause we
some people ... well , the didn'tdo it. I think, instead, you'll
power gets hold of them for a see a very suspenseful movie . .. "
minute and they ... they burn True to his word, lester refrained
themselves up .. . from buming h.mds, though he
" 'One [story] was about a did have a few melting, flaming
lady who had burned up in the skulls.
living room of her trailer lester opens his film with a coo-
home, and nothing in the fusing sequence in which Charlie
whole room had been burned (Drew Barrymore) and her father
but the lady and a little bit of Andy (David Keith) are chased by
the chai r she had been sitting undercover types. Andy "pushes"
in . .. ' " a cab driver into taking them to the
This phenomenon inspired airport. His "push"-an ability to
Stephen King's story in which make other human see things
the progress of the genetically which don't exist, or do things
enhanced child is covertly charted by ''The Shop", a hush-hush, against their will-is obviously exhausting, and definitely causes
mythical organization of scientists and operatives gathered to find nosebleeds. (King's character was experiencing minor brain
ways to exploit the "wild talents" they've created. hemorrhages; lester does not make this clear at any time during
The novel lays an accusing rap on drug experimentation, the the film, though David Keith seems forever dabbing at his nose
"Big Brother" tactics of governmental agencies, and the burden with a red-stained handkerchief.)
48 STEPHEN KING AT THE MOVIES
L-_ _ _ __ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _......
O
ne thing is sure about Children of the Corn: neither
the stars nor the director would pose a serious
threat to Stephen King's top billing. Producer Donald
Borchers lined up an untried director, Fritz Kiersch, and two
first-time youngsters for the pivotal roles of Isaac and Malachai.
Linda Hamilton (who went on to star as Sarah Connor in The
Terminator) came from television roles and an appearance in
the overlooked drama Stone Boy. Starring as Burt was Peter
Horton-again a first feature appearance, although he did go
on to marry Ladyhawke's Michelle pfeiffer.
Possibly the most familiar performer was R.G. Armstrong
as Chester, the grizzly gas-pump jockey. Armstrong is one of
those guys-the faces you always know with the names you
can never remember. A veteran of 60 movies, Armstrong
appeared in Children of the Corn to make an even four genre
features after The Beast Within, fvilspeak and The Car.
The bottom line with Children of the Corn is that it was a
rush job. New World needed to create cash flow. They had
acquired a King property-still a magical name in the pre-
Firestarter days-and needed to coattail on the inertia from
1983's onslaught of King.
A fourth draft script was whipped into shape and approved,
a crew and cast was slapped together and shipped to the
Midwest before the com got cut in late August.
f you are a King fan at all, Cat 's Eye is a feast of self-
B
efore we shamble into Silver Bullet and take a look- They change at the full moon, werewolves can "infect" their
see at Stephen King's treatment of one of horror's victims, they have supematural strength and are full of
standbys, the werewolf, let's talk for a minute about murderous cunning. There is only one way to kill a
archetypes. werewolf-a silver bullet before the end of the last reel. Hence
An "archetype," in the storytelling vemacular, has come to King's title, which we discover is a double-layered pun .
mean a character that incorporates universally recognized King explains the origins of his werewolf story in his book
characteristics, or plays on universally understood fears. In Silver Bullet (Signet, 1985): "Silver Bullet is probably the only
short, a model. Archetypal characters are those such as Tar- movie ever made that began as a calendar proposal. The
zan, Sherlock Holmes, Superman, Hamlet, Mickey Mouse, and proposal was made to me in the lobby of a hotel in Providence,
more recently, Luke Rhode Island, during the
Skywalker, Mr. Spock and World Fantasy Convention in
Indiana Jones. The last three 1979, by a young man from
are based on currently anach- Michigan named Christopher
ronistic ancestors, David Zavisa . . . [he) had an inter-
of Judaea, Pentheus, and esting concept. He thought
Odysseus, underscoring the maybe I could conceive a
fact that character-types that story which would run in 12
have recurred in storytelling monthly installments of
since man first huddled in vignette length; each of these
caves trying to verbalize (and installments would be accom-
dramatize) the important panied by a Bemi Wrightson
events in his life. Of course, painting . .. That was a new
you can't have heroes with- one, at least to me. I started
out villains: Mephistopheles, to play with it a little, to rock
Caligula, Captain Ahab, Ming and roll with it a little, to see
the Merciless, Darth Vader- if there was anything there,
you get the idea; dark-eyed, and if there was, if I could
furrow-browed, mustachioed make it work."
or helmeted bad guys. King did make it work,
Horror, too, has its arch- developing 12 little vignettes
types; the grunting, demonic, of horror centering around the
mindless apparitions sharing appearance of a werewolf in
the cave origins of the the little burg of Tarker's Mill.
storytellers. Myths of King sent the book to Dino
vampires date from ancient De Laurentiis for his con-
Greece, likewise poltergeists sideration, and the producer
and other spirits. Foul- " - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_ _ _ _---1 acquired the property. De
tempered imps are as old as civilization. But there are modem Laurentiis urged King to draft a screenplay.
archteypes, dating from the mid-nineteenth century. Mary King's screenplay added to the werewolf "oeuvre" in a uni-
Shelley created an archetype with Victor Frankenstein 's que way. This werewolf talks and has a rather bizarre sense
Monster. It has endured more than a thousand filmed varia- of humor. His first murder victim is a night railroad switchman,
tions. Ditto Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. The discovery of who hums a jingle for "Rheingold beer" as he works late one
the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen spawned The Mummy, evening, until the werewolf decapitates him in one powerful
and European folklore of the Dark Ages led directly to our swipe. The creature grabs the switchman's bottle, takes a swig,
contemporary revisionist's werewolf, that hairy, liJHmacking, and throatily mimics his victim-
fanged Jekyll and Hyde (to drop another archetype), whose "My beer is Rheingold the dry beer .. .
biological clock coincides with the full moon. Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer .. . "
Lon Chaney'S portrayal in 1941 's The Wolf Man provides - as he lopes away from the corpse, swinging a beer bottle
virtually all the cinematic common wisdom about werewolves. from one furry paw.
A
lthough Silver Bullet was Daniel Attias' first feature,
the young director shows a sure hand and a sense
of style. He worked for both Francis Ford Coppola and
Steven Spielberg before hooking up with Dino De Laurentiis
as an assistant director on Firestarter.
He opens Silver Bullet with a brutal slaying; a lot of POV's
and quick cuts establish a nice sinister mood, then he cuts to
a pastoral setting of a town
meeting on the village green.
~~No MATTER WItAT I SAy . .. In eight minutes, all the central
charaders have been introduced:
DON'T OpEN TItAT dOOR."
the werewolf, the Coslaw fam-
-LARRY TAlboT, ily- Nan (Robin Groves), Bob
TItE Wolf MAN (Leon Russom), daughter jane
(Megan Follows), their crippled
son Marty (Corey Haim). The
Reverend Lowe (Everett McGill) and Sheriff joe Haller (Terry
O'Quinn) . The stage has been set with economy.
It is not until that night that the town is certain someone
is murdering the citizens. Stella Randolph (Wendy Walker) is
savagely killed in her second-story bedroom. The sheriff and
townspeople are disturbed, but the murder remains unsolved,
and more a topic for cracker-barrel conversation than serious
alarm .
Marty, meanwhile, is a source of disruption in his family.
His older sister jane resents the attention he gets, his mother
Nan resents the burden he places on her, and his Uncle Red,
exceptionally well portrayed by Gary Busey, tries to make
everyone aware that Marty is a regular boy, although Uncle
Red has a little trouble of his own keeping to keep his nose
out of the bottle. Marty is Uncle Red 's favorite and he builds
a special motorized, 50 mph wheelchair for his nephew which
is promptly dubbed the Silver Bullet.
The movie becomes fairily formulized at this point. The
werewolf picks off vidims one by one, and the town shuts
its doors in fear. Except one night Marty ventures out on the
Silver Bullet to shoot off some fireworks, courtesy of Uncle
Red. He finds the werewolf waiting. Quickly, Marty lights and
O
f directing, King confesses:
" I wish someone had told me how little I knew and
how grueling it was going to be. I didn 't know how
little I knew about the mechanics and the politics of filmmak-
ing. People walk around the diredor with this 'don 't wake the
baby' attitude. Nobody wants to tell you this, that, or the other
thing if it's bad news.
"I went in assuming if somebody's says, 'We're going to
give you this, or this is what's going to happen: then it is going
to happen, because, when I promise somebody something,
it happens .
72 STEPHEN KING AT THE MOVIES
Opposite page: Even the watermelons will have their day-thanks to Stephen King-director! Some critics still say that Stephen King
movies are larger than life. Below right: Waitress Wanda June smiles before the horror begins. How can King (bottom) trust this
Maximum Overdrive steamroller?
"But that isn 't always the way it works in the movies."
King began pre-production working for a short while with
a storyboard artist to get an idea how certain things could be
done. Unit publicist Mike Klastorin relates, "Stephen is a per-
son who has worked alone most of his life; he supervises
himself and dictates his own working standards and routines.
But, as a diredor, he was forced into a situation where he
needed the help of all these other people-and he was never
afraid or ashamed to ask for it. He just dived in-the most
amazing thing to me was, here we were doing a film for 12,
13, 14 hours a day, and then Stephen would go home and
write!"
Filming began July 14, 1985, near (once again) Wilmington,
North Carolina. At a location about 10 miles outside of town
at the edge of a highway, the company construded the Dixie
Boy as a facsimile of a working truck stop. It was convincing
enough that more than one trucker stopped in for some java.
Eventually, the produdion was forced to place an announce-
ment in the local papers advising residents that the Dixie Boy
was a prop. Of the $10 million allotted for Maximum Over-
drive, most was spent on location shooting, the Dixie Boy set,
and the hardware-big diesel semi-trailer tradors, vans,
frontloaders, a bus or two, and assorted other vehicles.
"I argued very hard to get $100,000 for a truck 'hospital'
fund," says King. "They were taking such a beating. I never
got it though, and I think it hurt us a little bit in the end. I
had to make some compromises there."
Trucks were run into cars, into buildings, into culverts, and
into each other. They were bashed, overturned, burned and
blown up. One sequence called for a Miller beer truck to ex-
plode, sending gross after gross of cases flying over the coun-
tryside. Trouble was, full cans of beer don 't scatter nearly as
well as empties. Though Miller was happy to provide produd
in exchange for on-screen promotion, the cans were all full.
Thousands of them. Klastorin reports, "Crew members were
encouraged to take beer home and bring back the cans. But
there was too much beer, even for a film crew." The rest were
emptied by hand, resulting in a very satisfying shower of
aluminum upon impad.
" I got to blow up a lot of things. I liked that," King explains.
Before principal photography wrapped on October 2, King
got an intense " how-to" course in filmmaking.
" I had to make my share of compromises, but I think that
if anything astonished me, it was how much more I could get
than I thought I could get, " King explains. "Do you under-
r--------------.;;....---....;;..-, stand what I mean? I got more
HBACIc TO TIlE CAVES. from my adors than I thought
DRAWiNG picTURES iN cltAR- I could get from them. I got
more from special effects than
COAl. This is TItE MOON Cod. I thought I could get from
This is A TREE. This A MAck them; from film editing, from
the camera department,
SEMI OVERWltdMiNG A ItUNTER." everything. I guess I didn't
-"TRUcks" realize how good they were,
and how clearly they
thought. "
King also acted as second unit diredor-picking up shots
that didn't require the adors' presence. One of his first lessons
came from cinematographer Armand Nannuzzi and his camera
King makes a cameo appearance in Maximum Overdrive and experiences some troubles with a computerized bank teller machine (top).
The FX people constructed their very own truck stop for the movie. low pay and cheap tips aren't the only things that plague waitress
Wanda June (above right). The machines have plans-and they don't necessarily include human beings. Opposite page: It's not a dog's
world anymore either. Nevertheless, Emilio Estevez and friends try to corne up with a new line of strategy.
sta rted coming out ... and I had the foc us."
Anoth er aspect w hich created some di ffic ulties fo r the film-
makers was the fo ur young leads. Stand By Me is an unusual
story in that the ad ults popul atin g the town, as well as the
parents governi ng the boys lives, are almost invisible. Their
presence is felt as the boys refer to them, but-as in Di sney's
L ________________ J
r---------------------------,
-====___ Lady and the Tramp w here you see little of " Jim Dear" and
" Darling" except thei r kneecaps-they are simply not palpable.
Reiner's adu lts are cameos, cari catures; the movie rests en-
tirely on the demanding ro les of the fo ur boys.
Reiner didn't have any parti cular young actors in mind w hen
he set about casting the roles of Gordie, Chris, Vern and Teddy.
" Basically, we were castin g four 12-year-old boys, and there's
not a lot of 12-year-olds w ho are famous. We saw them, the
actors, ind ivid ually in auditi ons, and th en we brought th em
in in pa irs, th en fours, then looked at them on videotape."
U ltimately, Reiner selected Will W heaton to play Gordi e,
Corey Feldman (Gremlins, Coonies) as Teddy. Jerry O'Connell
was cast as Vern and River Phoenix (Explorers) as Chri s.
" The onl y one we decided on ri ght away was River-that's
his given name. He comes fro m a very unusual family, a ter-
ri fic bunch of people w ho have named their five kids Ri ver,
Leaf, Rainbow, Li berty and Summer," Reiner says. " When
Ri ver read, we were all knocked out. He's an extraordinary
talent and I think he's going to be a star. Rea lly, all the kid s
are excepti onal talents."
After all casting decisions had been made, locations scouted
and two months of pre-production allotted to plan the schedule
of 60 days principal photography, the prod uction crew headed
L _______________ ===:..:...:. . . ____
-.J north from Los Angeles to locati on. Of the 120 minutes footage
of Stand By Me, almost 100 minutes is outdoors, an unusual
turnabout in contemporary
Ho llywood w here almost
US ANd TO TItE RiGItT, ANd anythin g can be made in-
doors-and is.
TEddy WAS bEltiNd ltiM, Itis Kin g's story is set in the
GLASSES FlASltiNG bAck ARCS of mythica l Castl e Rock, M aine,
a community akin to H.P.
SUNLiGItT, ANd TItEY WERE bOTIt Lovecraft 's Arkham and Ray
MOUTltiNG A SiNGLE WORd ANd Brad bury's G ree n Tow n
TItE WORd WAS jV/tlp! bUT TItE w hich appears or is referred
to many tim es in the body of
TRAiN ItAd suckEd All TItE hi s work. Castl e Rock is the
bLood OUT of TItE WORd, co mmunity w here th e
·
LEAVING L· It . It· Cambers' dog Cujo went
ON Y ITS S ApE IN T EIR rabid one summer, the next
MOUTItS. TItE TRESTlE bEGAN TO town over from Cumberl and
sltAkE AS TItE TRAiN cltARGEd and 'Salem's Lot, near Sheri ff
Bannerman's territory w here
ACROSS IT. WE JUMpEd." Johnny Smith helped solve a
-IITItE Body" couple of murders. In order to
'--_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _---' achi eve th e small town ,
Bradbu ryesque feel ing of Castle Rock in the Kin g story, Rei ner
chose locati ons outlyin g Eugene, O regon- town s like
Brownsville and Cottage Grove. The production company then
traveled south to Burn ie, Californi a, about an hour outside Red-
ding, fo r the trestle sequence that is one of the mo re eventful
scenes in the film . The boys have been following th e tracks
on th eir hike and have to hazard a dash over the trestle. If
a trai n should come w hile they are midway ... well .
K
Does that give you an 'ng admits that 'Salem 's
awesome sense of power, or Lot owes a great deal to
what? This rationale under- Bram Stoker's horror
scores the unique pressures masterpiece Dracula. King
molding any production; and notes in Danse Macabre,
explains how rare are the " ... after a while, it began to
occurrences of good storytell- seem to me what I was doing
ing and good cinema. With was playing an interesting-
all the crippling exigencies, to me, at least-game of
it's a wonder the child can literary racquet ball: 'Salem's
walk at all. Lot itself was the ball and
Warner Bros . Studios L -_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _...I Dracula was the wall I kept
negotiated and bought the hitting it against, watching to
film rights for 'Salem's Lot in 1977, on the heels of Carrie's see how and where it would bounce, so I could hit it again."
surprising success. Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat When the ball finally came to rest, King had produced a
of the Night) was behind the purchase, and pushed Warners novel that left the reader feeling Bram Stoker had come back
into developing the property as soon as possible. Sever.al from the dead and rewritten Peyton Place. Though mostly
screenplays were commissioned; Silliphant wrote one, Larry about vampires, 'Salem 's Lot is, in part, a study of small-town
doors, the streets are empty, the sheriff has left town-and
Barlow is on a rampage: he kills Mark Petrie's parents, a priest,
Ned Tebbits and who knows who else. Giving Barlow a name
is like naming a disease-he is the blue-faced, fanged, grunt-
ing horror of a nightmare.
Mears and Dr. Norton are ~~ ~DEATII/ TilE boy MARk
determined to kill Barlow. But
so are Susan and Mark Petrie. PETRiE TlliNks AT ONE poiNT iN
Mark arrives at the Marsten 'SALEM'S LOT, ~is WilEN TilE
House first, followed by
MONSTERS GET you.' ANd if I
Susan . Straker surprises them
both and takes Susan to meet IIAd TO RESTRiCT EVERYTlliNG I
the Master, tying up Mark for IIAVE EVER SAid OR WRiTTEN
later. Ben and Dr. Norton
arrive-Mark has escaped and AboUT TilE IIORROR GENRE TO
the three begin their search. ONE STATEMENT ••• iT would bE
Straker is defending the
TIIAT ONE."
house, though, and kills
Norton. Ben is able to kill -DANSE MACAbRE
Straker, but the sun is lower-
ing toward the horizon-Mark and Ben have only moments
to try and save Susan and kill Barlow.
In the tense climax, they discover it's too late for Susan, but
they have discovered Barlow's coffin and stake him without
a moment to spare. He is surrounded by his minions, and Ben
must settle for setting fire to the house. The vampire's face is
superimposed over the full moon as the town goes up in flames.
An epilogue relating to the prologue shows Ben and Mark
in a small church in Central America. They gather a vial of
holy water and enter a stone hut. Susan, now undead, has
followed them . Ben Mears tearfully impales her with a stake
and warns the boy that there will be others. The notion that
this epilogue has left a swell opening for a weekly TV series
is just your imagination.
D
irector Tobe Hooper confesses his career was at a
standstill when producer Richard Kobritz called him
to talk about 'Sa/em's Lot. " Bill Friedkin, who had done
The Exorcist, was developing it at one time. He was going to
produce it and have me direct, but after eight months of try-
ing, it fell out. I was considering doing The Guyana Tragedy
in Rome, I was that desperate, before Richard called ."
Kobritz had been attracted by Hooper's work on The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, the $100,000 cult film that established
Hooper's reputation. Kobritz likes to use unknown directors
because veterans can have a tendency to worry as much about
studio politics as camera angles. Young directors, he feels, focus
on the film . He aided John Carpenter's career by bringing him
T here's an interesting
history behind this
Gary Gray relates, "We
suspected somethi ng funny.
recent videocassette ' - - - - - - - - -_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _-' We called McCauley and
release-in fact, having these
two short films available for
TilE WOMAN·IN TII E ROOM found out thi s guy had no
right to try and sell us
home viewing is somethiing anything. We contacted
of a miracle. Doubleday, and made ar-
In 1982, New York Film rangements with them to
University School student Jeff legally obtain the rights to
Schiro arranged with Stephen package and release the two
King to film the short story films."
" The Boogey Man " as a stu- In January 1985, Gray and
dent project. King's story- Lane formed Granite Enter-
about a distraught father tainment Group to develop
whose children are mysteri- and market the property.
ously dying-featured lead Since some of King's stories
performer Michael Ried, was have sold for a great deal,
shot for about $20,000, and financing became a question.
went on to win an award at They were in no position to
the NYU Film Festival. Be- pay large fees, but Granite
cause it wasn 't planned for had an alternate proposal:
commercial release, Schiro Granite arranged a guaran-
never adually bought the teed royalty with Doubleday
rights to the story. and King, and offered the two
Around the same time, two young filmmakers a royalty
graduate film students, Frank aga inst sales. Granite gave
Darabont and Greg Melton,
made a similar arrangement
TilE BOOGEY MAN Doubleday and King a good
faith fee as well.
with King, secured around Granite contaded artist
$35,000 in financing, and Mark Matusi to design the
made a short film of " The Woman in the Room," King's tender packaging. " We recognized that, without the name Stephen
story about a son's decision to end his mother's struggle with King, these films wou ldn 't have much of a chance out there.
cancer. The adaptation featured Michael Corneilson as the We hired Matusi and spent $5,000 on the artwork alone,
lawyer, Brian Libby (Silent Rage) as a death-row inmate who because we knew we had to have a package that people would
advises him, and Dee Broxton as the Woman . Darabont ob- look at. We wanted to relate a feeling of horror, but not a
tained some exceptional performances from his adors and bloody kind of thing-more a haunting horror. " The packag-
made a polished, well written short film that was on the Oscar ing was attractive, slightly oversized to stand out on the racks
ballots. and distributed by Granite. The sales quickly recouped the
King's name drew some interest in the films once word got investment.
around of their existence. Both filmmakers were approached Gray was happy enough with the success to encourage
by an entrepreneur named Gerald Ravel and his Native Son Darabont to try his hand at another King story, "The Monkey."
Internationa I who wanted to combine and release the two They have offered to finance him in part because King felt
films on one videocassette. Ravel began to adively market the Darabont's Woman in the Room was the best short film based
two films, sent out press releases and began production and on his work. Gray comments, " We're trying to keep King's
distribution of cassettes w ithout ever having secu red the right fans in mind-they want to see him on screen, and Frank was
to do so from either King or his publishers, Doubleday. able to do that. "
Doubleday eventually got wind of the deal, as did King's The Boogey Man is definitely the weaker of the two fi lms,
agent Kirby McCauley, at the same time Ravel approached pro- but a worthy effort for a student; The Woman in the Room
ducers Gary Gray and Steve Lane (The Howling) at Granite is a polished, well performed and exceptionally well handled
Produdions to distribute the film s. adaptation of the story. King may have found a good home.
PART ONE
IN Wlticlt WE ScUfRE TItROUGIt TItE EMbERS
T
here may be some readers for whom the name Harlan producers to put under option his every published word .
Hasten the pace, more likely.
Ellison bears less familiarity than that of Stephen King.
You could look him up in Who's Who In America if If your cousin Roger from Los Angeles, who works for a food
you want. But if you can 't spare the time, here is something catering service that supplies meals to film compan ies work-
to start with. ing on location, called to pass along the latest hot bit of in-
Stephen King is a friend of Harlan Ellison. Harlan Ellison group showbiz gossip, and he confided, " You know Steve
is a friend of Stephen King. King wrote an entire chapter in King, that weirdo who writes the scary novels? Well , get this:
Danse Macabre on Harlan Ellison . You could look it up. he worked with Errol Flynn as a secret agent for the Nazis dur-
ing World War II! " it would not drop the latest King tome one
King is taller, but Ellison is cuter. King has a beard (half the
year), but Ellison has never had a beard. That and the height notch on the Publishers Weekly bestseller listings. Pop it to
helps to identify them when they're out together getting in the top of the chart, more likely.
trouble. Ellison thinks King is Stephen King is a phenom-
enon sui generis . I've been
a terrific writer and King r~~i~;;~;:~~~;;;jii~~~~~;;;;;~ told he is fast approaching (if
thinks Ellison is a terrific
writer. But King drinks and he hasn't already .reached it)
Ellison doesn't, so take that the point of being the bestsell-
into consideration . ing American author of all
When Stephen King was in- time. In a recent survey taken
terviewed as to his opinion of by some outfit or other-and
Harlan Ellison 's adaptation of I've looked long and hard for
King's story, " Gramma ", on the item but can't find it so
the new Twilight Zone TV you'll have to trust me on
series (for which series Ellison this-it was estimated that
was Creative Consultant for a two out of every five people
year till he quit in a fight with observed reading a paperback
the CBS censors), he said in in air terminals or bus stations
print, " It is the most terrifying or suchlike agorae were
19 minutes ever put on televi- snout-deep in a King foma.
sion ." You could look it up . There has never been any-
-HE thing like King in the genre of
the fantastic. Whether you
(Having had a couple of call what he writes "horror
beers with Stephen King, and stories" or "dark fantasy" or
never once seen Ellison touch "imaginative thrillers , "
the stuff, I can attest the truth Stephen King is the un-
of his words . . . ) disputed, hands-down, non-
-JH pareil, free-form champ, three
falls out of three.
This is a Good Thing.
I
f tomorrow 's early edition of The New York Times bore Not only because King is a better writer than the usual gag
the headline STEPHEN KING NAMED AS THE DE of bestseller epigones who gorge the highest reaches of the
LOREAN DRUG CONNECTION , it would not by one in- lists-the Judith Krantzes, Sidney Sheldons, Erich Segals, and
crement lessen the number of Stephen King books sold this v.c. Andrewses of this functionally illiterate world-or because
week. Goose the total, more likely. he is, within the parameters of his incurably puckish nature,
IfTom Brokaw's lead on the NBC news tonight is, "The King a " serious" writer, or because he is truly and in the face of
of Chiller Writers, Stephen King, was found late this afternoon a monumental success that would warp the rest of us, a good
in the show wi ndow of Saks Fifth Avenue, biting the heads guy. It is because he is as honest a popular writer as we've
off parochial school children and pouring hot lead down their been privileged to experience in many a year. He writes a good
necks," it would not for an instant slow the rush of film stick. He never cheats the buyer of a King book. You mayor
may not feel he brought off a particular job when you get to has killed Charlie's mommy, for no particular clear reason, and
page last, but you never feel you 've been had. He does the one they want Charlie for their own nefarious purposes, none of
job no writer may ignore at peril of tar and feathers, he delivers. which are logically codified; but we can tell from how oily these
Sometimes what he delivers is as good as a writer can get in three-piece-suiters are, that Jack Armstrong would never ap-
his chosen milieu, as in Carrie and The Shining and The Dead prove of their program. Charlie and her daddy run, The Shop
Zone and The Dark Tower. Sometimes he's just okay, as in Cujo gnashes its teeth and finally sends George C. Scott as a comic-
or Christine. And once in a while, as in the Night Shift and Dif- book hit man after them; and they capture the pair; and they
ferent Seasons collections, he sings way above his range. (And run some special effects tests; and Charlie gets loose; and a lot
those of us who have been privileged to read the first couple of people go up in flames; and daddy and the hit man and the
of sections of " The Plant," King's work-in-progress privately head of The Shop all get smoked; and Charlie hitchhikes back
printed as annual holiday greeting card, perceive a talent of un- to the kindly rustic couple who thought it was cute when she
common dimensions.) looked at the butter and made it melt.
So why is it that films made from Stephen King's stories turn The screenplay by Stanley Mann, who did not disgrace
out, for the most part, to be movies that look as if they'd been himself with screen adaptations of The Collector and Eye of the
chiseled out of Silly Putty by escapees from the Home For the Needle, here practices a craft that can best be described as
Terminally Inept? creative typing. Or, more in keeping with technology, what he
This question, surely one of the burning topics of our troubl- has wrought now explains to me the previously nonsensical
ed cosmos, presents itself anew upon viewing Firestarter phrase "word processing. " As practiced by Mr. Mann, this is
(Universal), Dino DeLaurentiis's latest credential in his strug- the processing of words in the Cuisinart School of Homogeneity.
gle to prove to the world that he has all the artistic sensitivity The direction is lugubrious. As windy and psychotic as
of a piano bench. Based on Steve King's 1980 novel, and a good Mann's scenario may be, it is rendered even more tenebrous
solid novel it was, this motion picture is (forgive me) a burnt- by the ponderous, lumbering, pachydermal artlessness of one
out case. We're talking scorched earth. Smokey the Bear would Mark L. Lester (not the kid-grown-up of Oliver!). Mr. Lester's
need a sedative. Jesus wept. You get the idea. fame, the curriculum vita, that secured for him this directional
The plotline is a minor key-change on the basic fantasy con- sinecure, rests on a quagmire base of Truck Stop Women,
cept King used in Ca rrie . Young female with esper abilities as Bobbie}o and the Outlaw (starring Lynda Carter and Marjoe
a pyrotic. (Because the people who make these films think Gortner, the most fun couple to come along since Tracy and
human speech is not our natural tongue, they always gussie up Hepburn, Gable and Lombard, Cheech and Chong), Stunts
simple locutions so their prolixity will sound "scientific." Pyrotic and the awesome Roller Boogie. The breath do catch,
was not good enough for the beanbags who made this film, so don't it!
they keep referring to the firestarter as "a possessor of Like the worst of the television hacks, who tell you everything
pyrokinetic abilities." In the Kingdom of the Beanbags, a honey- three times-Look, she's going to open the coffin! / She's open-
dipper is a "Defecatory Residue Repository Removal Supervisor ing the coffin now! / Good lord, she opened the coffin!-Lester
for On-Site Effedation.") and Mann reflect their master's contempt for the intelligence
The conflict is created by the merciless hunt for the of filmgoers by endless sophomoric explanations of things we
firestarter--€ight-year-old Charlene "Charlie" McGee, played know, not the least being a tedious rundown on what esp is sur>-
by Drew Barrymore of E. T. fame-that is carried out by a wholly posed to be.
improbable government agency alternately known as the The acting is shameful. From the cynical use of "name stars"
Department of Scientific Intelligence and " The Shop." Charlie in cameo roles that they might as well have phoned in, to the
and her daddy, who also has esper abilties, though his seem weary posturing of the leads, this is a drama coach's nightmare.
to shift and alter as the plot demands, are on the run . The Shop Louise Fletcher sleepwalks through her scenes like something
Papa Doc might have resurrected from a Haitian graveyard;
Martin Sheen, whose thinnest performances in the past have
Harlan Ellison's Watching ("Why the Children Don 't Look Like Their
been marvels of intelligence and passion, has all the range of
Parents" ) originally appeared in two installments in The Magazine of
Fantasy & Science Fiction. Copyright © 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Cor- a Barry Manilow ballad; David Keith with his constantly
poration. These critical essays appear through permission of, and by bleeding nose is merely ridiculous; and Drew Barrymore, in just
arrangement with , the Author and the Author'S agent, Richard Curtis two years, has become a puffy, petulant, self-conscious "actor,"
Associates, Inc.; New York. All rights reserved . devoid of the ingenuousness that so endeared her in E. T.
How good is this adaptation of a King story? Los Angeles Children of the Corn is merely the latest validation of the
magazine began its review of Firestarter like so: "This latest in theory; or as Cinefantastique said : " King's mass-market fiction
a seemingly endless chain of film s made from Stephen King has inspired some momentous cinematic dreck, but Children
novels isn't the worst of the bunch , Children of the Corn win s of the Corn is a new low even by schlock standards."
that title hands down. I ' That how bad it is. Of the nine films that originated with Stephen King's writings,
Within the first 3 Y2 minutes (by stopwatch) we see four pe0- only three (in my view, of course, but now almost uniformly
ple agonizingly die from poison, one man get his throat cut with buttressed by audience and media attention) have any
a butcher knife, one man get his hand taken off with a meat resemblance in quality or content- not necessarily both in the
slicer, a death by pruning hook, a death by sickle, a death by same film-to the parent: Carrie, The Shining and The Dead
tanning knife . ... at least nine on-camera slaughters, maybe 11 Zone.
(the intercuts are fastfastfastl, and one woman murdered over The first, because De Palma had not yet run totally amuck
the telephone, which we don't see but hear. Stomach go and the allegorical undertones were somewhat preserved by
whooops. outstanding performances by Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie.
Utterly humorless, as ineptly directed as a film school The second, because it is the vision of Kubrick, always an in-
freshman's class project, acted with all the panache of a grope triguing way of seeing, even though it is no more King 's The
in the backseat of a VW, Children of the Corn features the same Shining than Orson Welles 's The Trial was Kafka's dream .
kind of "dream sequences" proffered as shtick by John Landis The third, because David Cronenberg as director is the only
in An America n Werewolf in London Brian De Palma in Car- one of the field hands in this genre who seems artistically
rie and Dressed to Kill, and by even less talented of the direc- motivated; and because Christopher Walken as the protagonist
torial coterie aptly labeled (by Alan Resnai s) " the wise guy smart is one of the quirkiest, most fascinating actors working today,
alecks." These and-then-I-woke-up-and-it-had-all-been-a-bad- and his portrayal of Johnny Smith is, simply put, mesmerizing.
dream inserts, which in no way advance the plot of the film, But of Cujo's mindlessness, Christine' s cheap tricks,
are a new dodge by which Fritz Kiersch, Corn 's director, and Firestarter's crudeness, 'Salem 's Lot's television ridiculousness,
his contemporaries-blood letters with viewfinders-slip in Children of the Corn's bestial tawdriness and even Steve's own
gratuitou s scenes of horror and explicit SFX-€nhanced carnage. Creepshow with its intentional comic book shallowness,
Thi s had become a trope when adapting King's novels to the nothing much positive can be said. It is the perversion of a solid
screen, a filmic device abhorrent in the extreme not only body of work that serious readers of King, as well as serious
because it is an abattoir substitute for the artful use of terror, movie lovers, must look upon with profound sadness.
but because it panders to the lowest, vilest tastes of an already We have had come among us in the person of Stephen King
debased audience. a writer of limitless gifts. Perhaps because Stephen himself has
It is a bit of cinematic shorthand developed by De Palma taken an attitude of permissiveness toward those who pay him
specifically for Carrie that now occurs w ith stultifying regulari- for the right to adopt his offspring, we are left with the choices
ty in virtuall y all of the later movies from King's books. of enjoying the written work for itself, and the necessity of ig-
I submit thi s bogus technique is futher evidence that, £lens- noring everything on film ... or of hoping that one day, in a bet-
ed of characterization and allegory, what the makers of these ter life, someone with more than a drooling lust of the exploita-
morbid exploitation films are left with does not suffice to create tion dollar attendant on Stephen King's name will perceive the
anything resembling the parent novel, however fudged for potential cinematic riches passim these special fantasies . There
vi sual translation. And so fangs are added, eviscerations are add- must be an honest man or woman out there who understands
ed, sprayed blood is added; subtlety is excised, respect for the that King's books are about more than fangs and blood .
audience is excised, all restraint vanishes in an hysterical rush All it takes is an awareness of allegory, subtext, the parameters
to make the empty and boring seem exciting. o(the human condition . . . and reasonable family resemblance.
STEPHEN KING AT THE MOVIES 101
FiLM CREdiTS
Ope rato r .. JOEL KING
First Ass istant Camerman DUSTY BLAUVELT
Second Assista nt Camerma n JOSEPH COSKO
MJkeup . · WE SLEY DAWN
Hdir Styli ",1 ADELE TAYLOR
CO~ lum e r ... AG NES LYON
Sc ript S u pervi~o r HANNA SCHEEL
Transportation · GARY LITTLEFIELD
Production Secrel drY PATRICIA HEADE
Auditor ROBERT SINCLAIR
Sec re tary to Mr. De Palm i! WENDY BARTEL
Assistant Specia l Effects · KENNETH PEPIOT
Set Decorator ROBERT GOULD
Prop Master · GARY SEYBERT
Sound Mi xer . .. BERTIL HALLBERG
Boom Man DAVID RUST
Assistant Editor . MICHAEL KIRCHBERGER
Apprentice Editor .. . MARIA IANO
Key G rip . · EUG ENE GRIFFITH
Best Boy Grip . · . JAMES DYER
Do lly Grip KENNETH MILLER
Gaffer JOE PENDER
Best Boy · JEROME POSNER
Sound Editor DAN SABLEIMAGNOFEX
erait Service . ANG ELO CORALLI S
l oca tion Scountin g · DOW GRIF FITH
Rerecording Supervi sor · . DICK VORISEKI
TRANS-AUDIO, INC.
Music Supervisor . · . MICHAEL ARGIAGA
ThE ShiNiNG
THE CAST
Jack Torrance JACK NICHOLSON
Wendy Torrance . · . SHELLEY DUVALL
Danny . · DANNY LLOYD
Hallora n · SCATMAN CRO THERS
Ullman · . BARRY NELSON
Grady · PHILIP STON E
lloyd . .. JOE TU RKEL
· . . ANNE JACKSON
CARRiE Doctor
Durkin · .. TONY BU RTON
Young Woman in Bathtub . ...... 1IA BELDAM
· ... BIlliE GIB SON
THE CAST Old Woman in Bathtub
· BARRY DENNEN
Watson
Ca m e . . . . . . . . . . . SISSY SPACEK Forest Ran ger' 1 . . DAVID BAXT
Margaret White . . PIPER LAURIE Forest Ranger #2 . MANNING REDWOOD
Sue Snell . ... . AMY IRVING The Grady Gi rl s . · ........ LISA BURNS
Tommy Ross .... WILLIAM KAn LOUISE BURN S
Billy Nolan · .JOHN TRAVOlTA Nurse . · . ROBIN PAPPAS
Chris Hargenson . . . . . . . . . NANCY ALLEN Secretary . . ... ALISON COLERIDG E
Miss Collins . · .. BETIY BUCKLE Y Policeman BURNELL TUCKER
N orma Watson ... P.J . SOLES Stewardess ... . JANA SHELDON
Mr. Fro mm · SYDNEY LASSICK Reception ist · ... KATE PHELPS
Mr. Morton · STEFAN GIERASH Axe Head (Injured Guest! . ..... NORMAN GAY
Mrs. Snell · . PRISCILLA POINTER
Freddy . · MICHAEL TALBOT PRODUCTION CREDITS
The Beak DOUG COX
George HARRY GOLD Produced and Directed By · STANLEY KUBRICK
Frieda . NOELLE NORTH Screenplay By · STANLEY KUBRICK
Cora .......... ClNDY DALY DIANE JOHNSON
Rhonda DIERDRE BERTHRONG Produced in Association wi th · .. THE PRODUCER
Ernest · ... ANSON DOWNES CIRCLE COMPANY
Kenny .. RORY STEVENS ROBERT FRYER
MARTIN RI CHARDS
Helen EDIE McCLURG
Boy on Bicycle . . ....... CAMERON De PALMA MARY LEA JOHN SON
Based upon the Novel By . ...... STEPHEN KING
PRODUCTION CREDITS Executive Produce r · .. JAN HARLAN
Photographed By . JOHN ALCOn
Produdion Designer . ROY WALKER
D irected By ..... BRIAN De PALMA Film Editor . RAY LOVEJOY
Produced By · .. PAUL MONASH Music · BELA BARTO K
Screenplay By . LAWRENCE D . COHEN Music For Strings, Percuss ion &
Based on the Novel By . ........... . STEPHEN KING Celesta Conduded By .......... . . ..... HERBERT VON KARAJAN
Edited By . PAUL HIRSCH Recorded By DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON
Associate Producer ....... . .. . . LOUIS STROlLER WENDY CARLOS
D irector of Photography .......... MARIO TOSI RACHEL ELKIND
Music .. PINO DONAGGIO GYORGY lIGETI
Art Directors . ....... WILLIAM KENNY KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI
JACK FISK Production M anage r . DOUGLAS TWIDDY
Costume Designe r · . ROSANNA NORTON Assistant Director . .... BRIAN COOK
Stunt Coordinator . · . . RICHARD WEIKER Costumes By . MILENA CANONERO
Casti ng By . ... HARRIET B. HELBERG Steadicam Operator . ....... GARREn BROWN
Special Effects ......... . GREGORY M . AUER Helicopter Photogra phy By . M acG ILLIVRAY FREEMAN FILMS
Sets By · ....... . " GET SET" Assistant to the Prooucer . . ANDROS EPAMINONDAS
l ocations By · ClNEMOBILE SYSTEM S Art Director .. . LE S TOMKINS
First Ass istant Director · DONALD HEITlER Make-Up Artist .......... .. .... TOM SMITH
Second Assistant Di rector · . WILLIAM scon Personal Assistant to the Director . . LEON VITALI
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Executive Producers ....... EARL GLICK
CHARLES J. WEBER
Producers · DONALD P. BORCHERS
TERRENCE KIRBY
Director . . . FRITZ KIERSCH
Screenplay . . . GEORGE GOLDSMITH
Based on a story by . . ....... STEPHEN KING
Senior Vice President ProductionlNew World Pictures ...... DONALD P. BORCHERS
Music . · ..... JONATHAN ElIAS
Casting . LINDA FRANCIS
Di rector of Photography . .. RAOUL LOMAS
Special Visual Effects . · .. MAX W . ANDERSON
Associate Producer .. . ..... . . MARK LIPSON
Production Executive . · JEFFREY CHERNOW
Production Supervisor . · MICHAEL WINTER
Editor . . ....... HARRY KERMIIDAS
Art Director . . . CRAIG STEARNS
Production Manager . ......... JOSEPH MADALENA
GARY MORGAN Set Decorator . CRICKET ROWLAND
Animal Handl ers .... GLEN GARNER Property Master · ... ROBIN MILLER
JACKIE MARTIN Wardrobe . · . BARBARA scon
Craft Service · .... . PERRY HUSMAN Script Supervisors . · . PATIENCE THORESON
Welfare Worker · AILEEN ROHLOFF FRANKIE NIXON
l ocation Auditor · .. PAUL KOVALCHUK Makeup .. ERICA UELAND
Assistant Accountant . ...... CELIA CADENA Hair Stylist ROSEMARY WEIBELHAU S
Accounting Secretary . PAT BORRI Sound Mixer · JON " EARL " STEIN
l ocation Manager ....... DEBORAH LAWSON First Assistant Director . .. SUSAN GELB
Generator Operator . . . . . . . . CHESTER SOHN Second Assistant Director . . ROBERT DEVRIES
Transportati on Coordinator · .. EDDIE LEE VOELKER Producton Coordinator . ... VIGORIA " PINKY" PEARMAN
Assista nt Coordinator . · ... DAN PHILLIPS Stunt Coordinator . BRUCE PAUL BARBOUR
Drivers . . . . BLACKIE BISSONNETII Dialogue Coach/Extra Casting . JEFFREY GREENBERG
JIM CAMPBELL Camera Operator . S. PHILLIP SPARKS
PAM DANielS Second Unit Director of Photography . DOUG O 'NEONS
JIM HUFFEY Key Grip . JOHN SAVKA
.MARTY HUFFEY Best Boy . . .JOHN VOURNAS
JIM MASON Associate Editor . .. CHRISTOPHER COOKE
JIM O 'KEEFE Assistant Editor · .... DEBRA C NEIL
laborers .... ROBER GRAHAM Proouction Auditor · ....... JlLL BASEY
JAMES McelROY Unit Publicist . JOE SANTLEY
Producti on Assistant s . TDM ZAPATA Sti ll Photographer . . .. . M.J. ELLIOT
CHRIS MEDAK Special Effects .. SPFX, INC
PIXIE LAMPPU ERIC RUMSEY
Extra Casting By ...... . ... . ...... PANDA TALENT AGENCY Visual Effects Coordinator . . PAULA LUMBARD
Catering By . . . MR. SCHULTZ ENTERPRISES INC Optical Camera . . . VITO " JACK" CODINI
Assi stant Cooks . . . . DESMOND GIFFEN Assistant Optical Camera . . · . ZOE ALEXIS BUDA
MARK MOElTER Additional Optical Effects . . V.CE. INC
Unit Publici st . · .... BOOTS LEBARON Assistants to the Producers ....... JAN LEWIS
Title & Opti cal s By ...... MODERN Film EFFEGS DAVID SIMKIN S
Main Titl e Graphic By .... CIMARRON PRODUGIONS, INC Production Secretary . ... . . .. DEBRA MAGIT
Special Consultant . . MAMIE GODSTEIN Sound . . RYDER SOUND SERVICES, INC
Executive Production Manager . . . . . . . . . . . GEORGE GOODMAN Re-Recording Mixer . . . ... GARY BOURGEOIS
Product ion Supervi sor · ELLIOT FRIEOGEN NEIL BRODY
JOSEPH ClTARELLA
Sound Design · GREGG BARBANELL
CltildREN of mE CORN Titles and O pti ca ls .
Color .
. IMAGE 3
. ... CFI