Ars Gratia Guano

By JAY COCKS

The scene is an MGM staff meeting on an out-of-the-way bench at Knott's Berry Farm.

Top Exec [suave but stern]: All right, gentlemen. We've sold the studio. We've sold the offices. We sold the commissary. We even sold the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. Now we have to sell movies. [Low chorus of enthusiastic murmurs from subordinates.] We gave them Zabriskie Point, and we even put back all the sex and dope stuff that had been cut out. The public still didn't go for it. We gave them The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, the tender story of a student's search for identity. Nice sex in there, but they didn't go for that. We gave them The Strawberry Statement. No sex but, I felt, a very strong political statement, a courageous film, you might even say. They didn't go for that. We gave them that movie by a 22-year-old kid, The Traveling Executioner. It was black comedy and everything, but they still didn't go for it. So, gentlemen, my question to you simply is: What are they going to go for?

Subordinate No. 1: How about another Mutiny on the Bounty?

Subordinate No. 2: We could re-release Gone With the Wind again.

Top Exec: We've already done that. I mean something fresh for the youth market. How about it? [He looks up and down the bench. Finally Subordinate No. 3, easily distinguishable from the others by his long hair, his love beads, his puce bell-bottoms and the sweet-smelling smoke coming from the thin cigarette between his fingers, casually raises his hand.]

No. 3: Listen, man, I got this really far-out project called Brewster McCloud, right? It was written, if you can dig it, by the guy who wrote Skidoo. [There are cries of "Oh my God" from elsewhere on the bench.] Just cool it a minute. It's a really weird little number, man. I mean, it's like about this guy who lives in the basement of the Houston Astrodome and builds a pair of wings cause he wants to fly.

No. 1: Fag movies don't sell.

No. 3: No fags, man. No fags. Just weirdness. And dig: I got Bob Altman to direct it. You dug M*A*S*H, right? This'll really blow your mind. And Lou Adler to produce it, man, he did all those old records with The Mamas and The Papas. It shapes up very groovy.

Top Exec [after long pause): You know ... I like it. I really do. I like it. [Executives on bench make noises of enthusiasm.] For the kid, we'll get that small actor from Strawberry and Executioner. You know, the one who reminds me of Mickey Rooney ...

No. 2: Bud Cort.

Top Exec: Right. And let's get that Sally Kellerman broad . . .

No. 1.-I'd like to.

Top Exec: . . . You know, the one from M*A*S*H. She's terrific.

No. 2: Lot of talent.

No. 3: Lot of legs.

Top Exec: . . . and Stacy Keach from Executioner, . . . and, well, anyone else Bob Altman wants. I see this as a very hip film, very freewheeling. We can even do some gags about other pictures. Bullitt. The Birds. Very hip, very in. We can--and this I really think is terrific--we can even do a bit with the ruby slippers. Maybe get that old witch from Wizard.

No. 3: Far out. Bob has developed another dynamite notion for the film that'll really make it move. There's some kind of weirdo relationship between the Cort character and the Kellerman character, and she seems to have this thing about birds, they're all in her power or something. Anyway, these birds are gonna be flying around for the whole picture. When people get bird-do on them--this is the fantastic part--that marks them for death, see?

Top Exec: I really love it.

No. 1: But--and I don't mean to be negative about this--but do you think people'll go for a movie like this. I mean, it's all about bird crap.

Top Exec: Of course they will. This is what the new Hollywood is all about.

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