Word: film
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Other ads will unveil the reborn campaigner. Explains Film Maker Charles Guggenheim, who is supervising the ads: "It is no secret that Senator Kennedy is taking his gloves off. Our ads will reflect that." Whether the barefisted style will keep him in the presidential ring remains to be tested, but it is now at least clear how he intends to fight...
...dears, how William Claude Dukenfield would have chuckled over the irony surrounding his 100th birthday. To mark the date, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp honoring the Philadelphia-born comic who soared to film fame and immortality as W.C. Fields. The postmen forgot that Fields, so pinchpenny that he could name every bank in which he had an account and estimate the interest due, had willed not only his money but his name-and the attendant publicity value-to his heirs. Thus, to print the Fields stamp, the U.S. had to pay a royalty...
...power with women derives not from being aggressively male but from being ingratiatingly sweet. He is good at his work and is sufficiently self-aware to understand that his exceptional talent is ultimately self-defeating: he can give pleasure but never receive it. Indeed, the film's major psychological twist occurs when Julian discovers his capacity to believe in and accept the love of a decent woman (Lauren Hutton). The passages between Gere and Hutton-thanks largely to the latter's open and vulnerable playing-are the most affecting in the film. She actually convinces...
...film's emphasis, however, is too often elsewhere. Much of the plot revolves around an attempt to frame Julian for a particularly unpleasant sadomasochistic murder. Hector Elizondo is fine as the detective investigating the case, and Julian's attempts to clear himself allow Writer-Director Paul Schrader to penetrate the seamier side of a gigolo's world. Hollywood Boulevard garishness is colorfully contrasted with Rodeo Drive posh. But as in last year's Hardcore, Schrader seems unable to get very far beneath the ugly surface of the demimonde. It is clear he is horrified...
...what finally betrays the film is a redemptive ending. Having spent almost two hours getting Julian into a tight corner, Schrader cannot bear to leave him there. The picture ends with a cockamamie implication that love will conquer all -even the false, but seemingly airtight, murder rap. Such a conclusion betrays everything the film has so carefully built up -the easily victimized Gere character, the hypocrisy of the chic world he has risen to, the viciousness of the underworld which spawned him and retains its vicious claim...