Take One (Nov-Dec 1972)

THE INSIDE STORY Real-time: February 24, 1974. The first time we met super-rock-critic Richard Meltzer was several years ago at a press party for the Jefferson Airplane’s newly-formed Grunt Records. We noticed Meltzer right away when he threw a plateful of food at Rolling Stone’s Smokestack El Ropo. (El Ropo, whose cool is legendary, didn’t even spill a drop of wine.) Meltzer does things like this from time to time — once he sent us a baggie of dead cockroach eggs — but anyone who can write that well is entitled to a few eccentricities. Meltzer’s unmistakeable prose has graced the pages of countless journals, including Rolling Stone, New York, Creem and, now, Take One. His cover story on the cinematic oeuvre of Elvis Presley is merely the latest example of Take One’s commitment to bringing you not only the best film Criticism around, but the best writing too. (We've also got a Meltzer quickie entitled “I Yanked It At All Ten,” which will be included in our fabled Porno Issue, if and when...) With Presley for a lead feature, we had to pull out some heavy guns to match it... so we did. Donna Dudinsky’s interview with Famous French Filmmaker (and sometime Take One contributor) Frangois Truffaut notes how he puts a script together, how he almost didn’t finish Stolen Kisses, and how he’s always wanted to make a film like Sergeant York. James Monaco contributes a fascinating profile of Dan Talbot, whose (sadly deceased) New Yorker Theater served as a combination cinémathéque, neighborhood hangout and History of the Cinema course. (It also made living in NYC almost bearable.) And Joseph Goodwin, honorable Father of our Managing Editor, has provided a warm, personal reminiscence of the making of Native Land — a seminal film in the history of radical American cinema. You think that’s all? Hell no, there’s even more. Danish film critic (and maker) Christian Braad Thomsen is here with a really fine interview with Monte Hellman, the man whose two legendary westerns (The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind) made him a cult hero despite the fact that they’ve never really been released. And if that’s not enough, there’s a spread on the Cannes Festival to round things out. Is this worth 50¢? Did John Ford know how to make westerns? Stepping back from the current issue, we have exciting news for all our friends: Take One has finally scored a distributor. Starting with this issue, our favourite film magazine will be handled by Eastern News, which means we'll be reaching 4 hundreds of new outlets. Oddly enough, this doesn’t mean sudden riches — quite the opposite, in fact. The economics of magazine distribution are one of the more arcane areas of human endeavour; as Publisher Lebensold explains it, we have an interim period of cash crunch facing us as we tool up to print more copies, but if we can hang on for, say, 12 to 18 months, we should come out the other side with much higher circulation, more subscriptions, higher ad-rates, and enough money to pay our patient contributors the kind of bread they deserve. So getting a distributor is not exactly a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But then, what is these days? Finally, in a spirit of shameless immodesty, we’d like to share a comment that Dennis Hopper made to the French Film Office in NYC. “Fuck the New York Times,” said Hopper, “Take One is the only magazine you can trust.” Thanks, Dennis, wherever you are. The Editors CLASSIFIEDS $5 for 25 words or less (20 cents a word thereafter). Rates for more than one insertion on request. Payment must accompany order. 16MM EDUCATIONAL & DOCUMENTARY FILM PRODUCER/DIRECTOR looking for women of some experience to set up production company in San Francisco Bay area on partnership basis. Send resume or letter of interest to: Mollie Gregory, 325 Flint Street, Reno, Nevada 89501. FREE SOUNDTRACK LP RECORD to first 50 persons ordering from this ad. Vertigo $5.00; Duel in the Sun $5.00; She $5.00; Twisted Nerve $5.00; Seventh Voyage of Sinbad $5.00. Add $1.00 for postage. Catalog available, 25¢. Pay by international money order. Sound Track Album Retailers, Dept. 70, Box 850, Arroyo Grande, Calif. 93420. FEEDNDAd TAKE ONE welcomes communications from its readers, but can rarely accommodate letters over 500 words in length. The editors assume that any letter received (unless otherwise stated) is free for publication. A Correction re Movietone News We at Movietone News appreciated Mr. Herman G. Weinberg’s kind words about us in his latest Take One column. However, as one who has been affiliated with Movietone News for several years, | should like to correct Mr. Weinberg on two very important points. First, and primarily, R.C. Dale has never been an editor of Movietone News. He has written for the magazine and once Following on meetings held late last year in Algiers and this month in Mar del Plata (Argentina), plans have now been announced for Rencontres Internationales Pour Un Nouveau Cinéma (“International Encounters for a New Cinema’), a series of symposia, workshops and screenings on the general subject of socializing cinema (decolonizing it; developing national cinemas — particularly in the Third World — that will confront the hegemony of the large industrial cinemas) — all to be held in Montreal June 2nd through the 8th of this year. Not a film festival, the stress of Rencontres will be very much on the side of comparing the experiences of various groups and countries in the fields. of exhibition, popular participation, distribution, technology, nationalization (to name a few of the workshop topics) with a view toward coming up with some practical guidelines to future action. Critics, heads of government agencies, and representatives from distribution and production organizations (all of them noncommercial and “socio-political” in their orientation) have been invited from some thirty countries, and the substance of their discussions will doubtless be made available in some sort of published form. Further information may be obtained by writing or calling: Comité d’Action Cinematographique, Room 212, 360 McGill Street, Montreal, Quebec H2Y 2E9 (514-861-3461). served as President of the Seattle Film Society, which underwrites the. publication. Richard T. Jameson, film teacher and critic, created Movietone News and has, for the nearly three years of the magazine’s existence, functioned as its editor — even during a brief period when someone else (not Mr. Dale) assumed the title if not the actual job. Second, Movietone News is called Movietone News and not Movietone News Quarterly, as Mr. Weinberg identified it. Far from being a quarterly, the magazine comes out ten times a year. Kathleen Murphy Editorial Associate, Movietone News 6508 17th Avenue N.W. Seattle, Washington 98117 Canadian in the Works | am deeply disappointed that you have decided not to run the “In the Works” column anymore. Your publication, while international in scope, is printed in Canada and | therefore feel a column on Canadian filmmaking would not be out of place. Do you want to relinquish all the Canadian film news and articles to Evanchuck and Motion? Michael Cox West Vancouver, B.C. No, we sure don't, for Take One is not only printed in Canada but also owned