A statement from Cynthia Swartz, a New York-based Miramax publicist, sought to establish the company's apartness from Friedman, although she also conveyed that the company believes in showing favoritism to friendly columnists.

"It's common in the industry for studios to give gossip columnists first crack at a movie," she told O'Neill, "but we did not do that for Roger Friedman. He did not attend the screenings of GANGS OF NEW YORK. Frankly, I don't know how he saw the movie."

Swartz "said she has no professional opinion about the now-common industry practice of gossip columnists writing movie reviews," according to O'Neill. Although O'Neill reported that she "acknowledged that there was a journalistic embargo partially in place last week against GANGS and CHICAGO," a Miramax source says Swartz in fact said there was no embargo in effect.

Therefore, the source contends, Swartz's quote about a review embargo not applying to Friedman, syndicated columnist Liz Smith, NEW YORK POST columnist Cindy Adams, or to E! Online's Anderson Jones was a moot point, since Miramax didn't show GANGS to Friedman, and that Adams and Jones haven't seen it either.

"We didn't ask [Friedman] to write this thing," the source continued. "Roger Friedman writes what he writes. Why would we want his review to be the first one out? Why would we do that? It was embarrassing."

I don't have any particular problem with sweetheart arrangements with distributors. I've run early reactions to films in the past that I've seen in long-lead screenings, which have always run with the assent of both the director or the publicists repping the film, in one form or another. The deal is always if I like a film 90% or 95%, I'll tell the publicist I'd like to run something and they say fine. If I'm more like 60% or 70% positive/mixed, I tell them so and back off.

Friedman's rave aside, the rumble out of last week's screenings is that GANGS is a strong, tangy "critics film" that may not necessarily light a bonfire with general audiences. I'm shocked. Who would've guessed such a startling development, given the snarly-Irish-immigrant subject matter and the career-long tendency of director Martin Scorsese to make films that are less than wholly audience-friendly?

A friend who saw it last week told me yesterday that "the vision [behind GANGS] is truly epic - it's the first real great moment for Scorsese since GOODFELLAS. The sense of full-scale epic filmmaking (with no computer crap until the last shot) may be old-hat but I find it exciting. This has not been a year for ballsy movies, and GANGS is truly [that]. Along with FAR FROM HEAVEN and ADAPTATION, it takes a swing at something [and] there my sympathies lie."

Who's the winner in all this advance-screening mucky-muck? DreamWorks and their Xmas release, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. The Steven Spielberg-directed caper flick will be the last big December release to be shown (I haven't been told this, but I'll bet screenings will probably begin next week for the usual elites). As a DreamWorks insider confided last week, "We're waiting for the air to clear."

ADDENDUM: Roger Friedman contacted me Wednesday morning to complain that I didn't contact him directly in writing this piece, and that this means the article is "all opinion and no fact at all." I didn't call him, true, but I figured I was being fully fair by quoting from his Tuesday column, which addressed this situation and I figured would be fairly definitive since it came directly from him. And I quoted fairly liberally from it! If Roger feels my piece is missing or overlooking something important, he's invited to explain what it is and I'll run it in Friday's column in a prominent place.

Orange Heads

The films of Stanley Kubrick have always had a reputation for aging well -- for holding people's interest and even gaining in aesthetic intrigue after repeated viewings. Now I'm hearing that Kubrick's most controversial film, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE ('71), is possibly aging better than any of his other movies, since it appears to be a kind of cult favorite among young teenage boys.

Or rather, a small, select group of boys I spoke to last weekend. They may be representative of something larger, or not. They're all residents of Tiburon, California, an affluent bedroom community just north of San Francisco. My sons Jett and Dylan, aged 14 and 13, who first tipped me about this, are part of this group. But I've also spoken to six of their friends -- two of Dylan's, four of Jett's -- and their enjoyment of this 31 year-old film seems genuine.

And on a certain level, ironic. Today's kids, after all, are living in roughly the same socially degenerated era that the film (and the Anthony Burgess novel it's based upon) futuristically imagines, which is somewhere around the turn of the 20th Century, give or take.

The Tiburon boys have all watched older films from time to time, they say, but not avidly. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE appears to be an exception. Somehow a heavily mannered, richly composed piece of futuristic social criticism made during the height of counter-culture mania at the dawn of the 1970s is passing the cultural acid test with barely pubescent fans of Korn, The Misfits, "Celebrity Death Match" and THE MATRIX.

"As soon as this school year began everyone was talking about how cool it is," Jett told me last weekend, "and how awesome and wild and crazy it is." He and his friends, he says, "wanted to dress up like Clockwork Orange for Halloween...it's kind of like a fad."

A predominantly male fad, it appears. Jett says he's talked with a group of girls who attend his school who are also fans, but I wasn't able to track any of them down. It seems unlikely that a movie in which every female character but one (i.e., the main character's mother) is depicted as either a rape victim or lust object would inspire much allegiance among young women.

The boys all say they like the aliveness and trippiness of the characters. They get a charge out of the intense visual style of the thing, they say, and particularly the spirited anarchy in the early scenes between the rakishly psychopathic Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his three droogs (Pete, Georgy and Dim) as they steal cars, get into gang fights, invade middle-class homes and rape and assault their residents.

It sounds creepy on one level, yes, for impressionable kids to be savoring such brutality. The film is a "hard" R and was banned from British screens for several years because it inspired a killing. But most of ORANGE, of course, is a deeply ethical film. Put aside the anarchic first act and it's mainly about society's response to Alex's crimes -- prison at first, and then a medical procedure that conditions him to be repelled by violence. The film questions the value of "good" behavior that's imposed instead of individually chosen.

Compare this to today's adult-level sci-fi or action flicks, the vast majority of which don't appear to have been made with the slightest consideration about moral content, or a lack of.

Besides, teens are always attracted to anti-social material and elders are always misreading the import of this. I think these Tiburon kids are enjoying not just the anarchy in the story, but the rich and exacting film language that Kubrick used in making the film.

Nick Rosenoer, 12, says he's seen A CLOCKWORK ORANGE "five or six times. A lot of my friends like it because of the violence, but I think that's stupid. I liked it because it's got a really good plot and it's kind of funny in a weird way...it's fun to watch." He says he's "seen a lot of Stanley Kubrick flms before...FULL METAL JACKET, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and...uhm, EYES WIDE SHUT, which I watched maybe once...so I'd heard about Kubrick before but I really like how he directed this one."

Dylan says he likes it "because it's so different from the movies today, with your boring good-guy vs. bad-guy stories. It makes you think and put it all together, instead of throwing the story right at you, [and] every character you see is so full of personality."

John Taylor, 14, says ORANGE "is one of my favorite movies..I would give it a 10. It's very contemporary and down to earth, and it's kind of like Stanley Kubrick wanted to show what he thought the world was coming to and all that....makes you think about what's out there. It tries to give a message that there's scum in the world and the government is trying to fix it but it's just getting worse."

"A lot of people like how [Alex and his friends] talk...that special language thing," Jett told me last weekend "And the eyelash thing with the lead guy...I liked seeing the criminal stuff in the beginning and then he gets caught and it slows down a bit...until then it's really exciting and cool to watch."

Has Jett ever talked to any of his teachers or anyone's parents about the film? "I've never heard a parent's view about this movie," he replied. "It's a tough theme to talk about."

Gordon Jacobs, 14, says he bought the Burgess book after seeing the film, "not for school...well, Graham had picked it for a class we're both in, so I couldn't... but because I wanted to read it. I started reading the book but then I kinda stopped for a while because the slang is kinda hard to understand."

He watched the Kubrick film initially because "my mom told me about the story a buncha times, and [because] Jett was watching it. We're all kind of into it. Whenever we're walking around we kinda talk in that slang." And the message of the film, in his view? "No matter how hard you try you can't change a person, and sometimes when you do change him, you change him for the bad."

Jeff Matthews, 15, says he's watched other older films like TAXI DRIVER and the original 1954 GODZILLA, but not, so far, the GODFATHER films. He says he first watched CLOCKWORK ORANGE because his older brother, 18, told him about it. "I think the story is pretty good, and I liked the way the ending turns out," he says. "They tried to control [Alex] with mind-control devices, but the end he became himself. If it's about anything, it's that you can't control people and they've got to be who they want to be [on their own]."

Andrew Turnauer, 14, says he likes ORANGE because "it's so different than all the other movies I've seen...I don't know the actors' names but they were all pretty good. I would give this a really high 9 or 10. It's a really good movie."

Graham Jones, 14, says he's also reading the Burgess book right now, partly, he admits, "because I have to read a book for this class in school." He's only seen "half " of the Kubrick film so far, but he's sold. "It's got really good acting and a really good plot. Most of the old films have better plots, though. I kind of like the old movies more. I've seen THE BREAKFAST CLUB...that's pretty old."

Jones expressed what is probably the key stylistic attraction of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE for himself and his friends when he said, "It's so good it seems like new."

Note From Leon

While writing the "Orange Heads" piece on Sunday I e-mailed Kubrick's longtime assistant Leon Vitali. Perhaps best known as the actor who played the priggish, adult-sized Lord Bullington in BARRY LYNDON, Vitali worked closely with Kubrick on his last three films -- THE SHINING, FULL METAL JACKET, EYES WIDE SHUT -- over a period of some 20 years. He got back to me Tuesday morning with the following:

"I can tell you that I constantly [meet] younger people from this age group and older who say they've seen A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and their comments match the ones you included in your note to me. Over the years it's been a constant occurrence and, interestingly, it cuts right through any kind of income group, at least here in England. But I've also heard these reactions from people in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, etc.

"Whatever one's critical angle on CLOCKWORK, its style opens itself up to young people. As you say, many feel it's 'out there' because it's a film that deals with a social issue in a big, colourful, broad manner. Personally I feel that the message it contains is obvious and because of this, kids of 12, 13, 14, etc., are very open to this way of dealing with social issues.

"I generally hate the way Stanley is sometimes referred to as 'visionary' because what he did in this case was to take a well-written book (which at the time of publication was not exactly your typical 'Child Called It' best-selling-babble but had its root in a personal experience that Burgess and his wife went through) and apply a very theatrical style of presentation. That's why it grabs young people's attention. And it's probably why, without realising it, an older generation will generally not want these same young people to see it.

"I think the only difference between 1971, when the film was first released, and 2002 is that a lot of kids of 12, 13, 14, etc., have either seen some of the things in the film for real themselves or they've seen it reported on the news or in documentaries. Sorry if I've 'gone on a bit' as we say here, but I hope it makes some sense to you and is of help.

"Hope you're well. I read your stuff by the way! Best regards, Leon."

I'm too far behind on my schedule to include these titles in the master list of all the DVDs mentioned since this side-column started in late October...but I'll get to it soon. A few late '60s and early '70s missing on DVD, according to Tim Merrill... Psych-Out ('68, d: Richard Rush, w/ Nicholson, Stockwell, Dern, Strasberg, Jaglom), Wild in the Streets ('68, d: Barry Shear, w/ Winters, Pryor, Holbrook, etc) The Trip ('67, d: Roger Corman, w/ Fonda, Hopper, Dern, Strasberg), Riot on Sunset Strip ('67, all nobodies...except for The Chocolate Watch Band) "Anyway, any '60s freak worth a tab knows these classic exploitation flicks -- the thing is, they we re all made by good ole American International, and now MGM Home Video owns the rights to all that groovy AIP stuff. (MGM has actually put out The Wild Angels with Fonda and Nancy Sinatra. Best line: "We just wanna be free....free to ride our machines and not get hassled by the Man!"). "What's great about MGM Home Video is that generally their transfers of even '60s drug-biker-bikini drive-in fare look good, and recently they've been doing these great double-feature DVDs of similar titles (all the early '60s Corman-Poe movies are great -- check out The Masque of the Red Death' to see how spotless, enveloping and vibrant a 40-year old low-budget cheapie AIP horror flick can look). "As for the '70s: Cisco Pike ('71, d: B.W.L. Norton, w/ Kristofferson, Hackman, Black, Stanton, etc.) A great, great drug-dealer movie -- never released on video, featuring Kris in his best-ever role, also many songs from his masterpiece album 'The Silver-Tongued Devil and I'. A real lost gem -- I saw it at the Egyptian a few years back and everyone really dug it." "What about Joseph L. Mankiewicz's '53 version of Julius Caesar (w/ Mason, Brando, Calhern) and Sidney Lumet's Long Day's Journey Into Night ('62, w/ Richardson, Hepburn, Stockwell, Robards)?" -- Kevin Harman Wells to Herman: I love this Julius Caesar! Brando's "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" speech is one of his best acting moments, ever. And I love the way Edmond Brien says, "It was Greek to me." "I'd like to add Wim Wenders' five-hour Until The End Of The World. I'd still love to see this director's cut on the long list." -- Alonso Duralde, The Advocate. "Coppola's The Outsiders is out, but his other Hinton film, Rumblefish is still missing and I've never heard anything about when it might be released, and it's a much more interesting film as far as I'm concerned." -- Michael Mayo Chris Smets, a senior writer for the American Film Institute Desk Reference, would like to see the following... Once Upon a Time in the West ('68, d: Leone, w/ Fonda, Bronson, Robards, Cardinale). "For my money it's Leone's best picture -- better than both The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in America. Incidentally, it's also one of Martin Scorsese's top ten widescreen films of all time, and the compositions are truly stunning -- far better than the frequent pan-and-scan showings on AMC would have you believe. Hit Man ('72, d: George Armitage, w/Casey, Grier, Mosley) and Vigilante Force ('76, d: Armitage, w/ Kristofferson, Vincent, Peters, Principal). "Two lean, funny, interesting early efforts from reclusive B-movie director Armitage, who went on to helm the critically lauded Miami Blues and Grosse Pointe Blank. White Dog ('82, d: Samuel Fuller, w/ McNichol, Ives, Winfield). "Unceremoniously dumped by a skittish Paramount, Fuller's flawed, fascinating final American film deserves a second look. Co-written by Fuller and Curtis Hanson." Le Samourai ('67, d: Jean-Pierre Melville, w/Delon) and Le Doulos ('61, d: Melville, w/Belmondo). "Two of the best, most influential crime films of the 1960s. New Yorker owns the rights to Le Samourai, while I'd love to see a Criterion-produced disc of Le Doulos." Gun Crazy ('49, d: Joseph H. Lewis, w/ Cummins, Dall) and My Name is Julia Ross ('45, d: Lewis, w/ Foch, Whitty, Macready). "Even after being featured in a lengthy interview Peter Bogdanovich's 'Who the Devil Made It,' Lewis is still one of the unsung craftsmen of the '40s B-flick. Gun Crazy's minimalist bank hold-up, shown in one long take from the back of the getaway car, is still a stunner. And Julia Ross is a great little women's picture-cum-thriller that was remade in 1987 as Dead of Winter with Mary Steenburgen. Reign of Terror ('49, d: Anthony Mann, w/ Cummings, Basehart, Moss) and The Tall Target ('51, d: Mann, w/ Powell, Menjou). "Two bizarre little historical noirs wedged in between Mann's crime and western periods. The first is a fast and loose retelling of the fall of Maximillian Robespierre, shot in gorgeously expressionistic style by John Alton and featur- ing Richard Basehart's villain. The second is a Narrow Margin-style trainbound caper about an assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln that's foiled by a rogue cop named -- no joke -- John Kennedy." "I'd like to see a remastered DVD of the Marx Brothers' Horse Feathers (1932). The current version is a duplicate of the choppy print sold to American TV by MCA. Several lines of dialogue are literally unintelligible -- a crime when the Marxes are concerned. Plus, prints broadcast on the BBC in the '50s featured a 3-minute sequence missing from their U.S. count- erparts." -- Kevin Kusinitz, NYC "The Killers (1964, w/ Lee Marvin, John Cassevetes, the beautiful Angie Dickinson, and Ronald Reagan. This one tops the original that starred Burt Lancaster. I've always thought Don Siegel is pretty underrated as a director, and where else will you find a future President smacking around Angie Dickinson? "My other movie, coincidentally, also stars Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. It's John Boorman's Point Blank (1967). Marvin is at his best as the antihero out for payback and revenge on the guy who left him for dead in a cell at Alacatraz. And oh yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing Otto Preming er's Skidoo." -- Chris Brame, Athens, GA. Wells to Brame: You're shitting me, right? Skiddo? POSTSCRIPT: "Your readers certainly don't pay attention to the DVD web sites! A double-DVD of The Killers is on the way with both versions -- the black-and-white noir directed by Robert Siodmak ('46) with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, and the color remake directed by Don Siegel ('64) with John Cassevettes and Ronald Reagan. It arrives on January 28." -- Anonymous in Atlanta

Lost in the Pines?

Last Sunday's episode of THE SOPRANOS (the 10th, leaving only three to go) wasn't bad. I got a kick out of the enjoyable "intervention" scene that ended with Paulie Walnuts and a couple of others kicking and beating the heroin-addicted Chris Moltisanti, the intended beneficiary of the this supposedly non-judgmental gathering.

But it didn't really change my mind that THE SOPRANOS has, for now, run out of gas and lost its way. I got on this kick when I read Frazier Moore's piece last week about how the currently-unfolding season isn't delivering. The truth is that if SOPRANOS producer David Chase and his collaborators lived in the same realm as THE SOPRANOS and lived by the same goombah rules of the game, Chase -- who only recently was a kind of Godfather-like figure to so many die-hard fans of the series -- would be in danger of being clipped.

I'm sorry, but the guy is screwing it up. He's not advancing the various plots. He's turning THE SOPRANOS into some kind of meditative theme show about various social and psychological "evergreen" issues -- money and investments and gambling, the importance of blood relationships in business, how should you treat the women in your life?, etc. -- and leaving the all-important narrative threads in a tangled heap on the floor.

Chris Moltisanti's significant other turned by the Feds...and nothing's really happening. Uncle Junior's RICO trial finally gets going...and suddenly the whole thing is in doubt because Junior decides to act loony like Vincent the Chin? A crazy Russian thug nearly killed by Paulie and Chris last year in the snow-covered woods and probably still alive and bent on revenge...and it hasn't been even been mentioned yet. Favio is nursing the hots for Carmella and her apparently starting to feel something for him...and aside from his talking to an older guy in Italy about it, nothing's happening.

The best moment of the season so far? Tony sitting in the Pie-oh-My's stall at night as she lies there, sick. That was the high point...that and that shot of Ralphie's head being dropped into the bowling bag. The oddest, what-the-hell? moment was when Tony belt-whipped Peter Reigert for schtupping his ex-Russian girlfriend. Who cared? Reigert is an okay guy...amiable, agreeable, rancid, corrupted. Why beat him?

"Part of what has distinguished THE SOPRANOS in past seasons was how its multiple story lines were finessed," Moore writes. "Each would dominate or recede from week to week but never get lost in the shuffle, while, collectively, they moved the viewer toward the series' distant, tantalizing resolution. [But] this season, the pacing is off and the stories seem pointed in all directions. THE SOPRANOS, and everyone in it, have fallen into a disjointed funk."

I think when Chase agreed to do a fifth and final year under pressure from HBO executives, he said to himself, "Ahhh...a break." He decided the current fourth year would be his last chance to meander and dawdle and introduce new minor characters and plant the long-term seeds, because he'll really have to deliver next year. I think he said to himself, "Fuck it...let's coast and save our energy, because next year we'll have some heavy-lifting to do."

Please send in your responses and I'll run some on Friday. I sent a letter out last weekend saying more or less the same thing. Here's some of what came back:

"I couldnt agree more. Until the last two episodes, it was a pretty dismal season. (Especially the first few, featuring Meadow, etc.) But you have to pay attention to the writers. Larry Konner wrote the next to last episode, where Tony flogs Peter Riegert, which was good, and Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess last episode where Ralphie is killed. Both were up there with the great ones, save for the Corrado shit, which, I agree, was pretty dumb. But I'm encouraged by the reentry of the one legged Russian girl, Svetlana, my favorite character. God willing, they'll do something with her and not throw her away. And did you catch what she said to Janice after her mealy-mouthed apology?" -- Peter Biskind

"You have to remember that Chase apparently had an entirely different arc planned for the fourth season until Tony Sirico, the actor who portrays Paulie Walnuts, had to have some kind of operation and was forced to miss the filming of the first six episodes. That threw the whole season into disarray, which resulted in the seemingly static non-events of the first half of the season. As things have improved greatly of late, I'm hoping that this is the main reason behind the earlier drop-off in quality." -- Jason Craig

"The biggest problem with the show this season is the seeming lack of energy from all involved. There's no spark, no oomph, and the fact that the show is being followed by a firecracker like CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM is making it look tired. Ralph's murder was the first time this season that I felt any of the old crackle that the show had. I think a problem that a lot of people are missing is that the characters that in the past have stirred the shit are all being whacked. While Ralph's death was an awesome sequence, the show has now lost the one remaining guy (maybe excluding Johnny Sack) who generated passion. People either loved him or hated him and that made for good television. And the characters that are filling the void (Bobby, Furio and the ilk) are not nearly as interesting. I'd much rather see some good Soprano/Melfi conversation than the tepid Furio/Carmella flirtation (which really came out of nowhere, didn't it?). And at the very least they could've brought back Hesch!" -- Jeff Katz, New Line Cinema

"I guess I'm one of the few SOPRANOS fans who is not bitching and moaning about this season. I like it so far. I think it is foolishly premature to say that this season's storylines are going nowhere -- how the hell does anyone other than Chase and his staff know that for sure? As far as I can tell, this season is setting up (rather subtly) all the elements that will lead to the series' conclusion next year. Just be patient - and loyal. For chrissakes, hasn't this series earned at least that much? Must fans and critics always be so damn fickle and impatient? -- Stax, IGN FilmForce

"You and Mr..Moore are looking at the series through myopic journalist eyes. Mr. Chase looks at the entire series on a big board from across the room and I don't believe for a minute he'll leave any lose strings Chase and co are meticulous, curious writers; allow them to surprise us, and let them do their jobs without being second-guessed in the middle of the process.

"The way the series is constructed is that the arcs are long and wide. This is not the Crosby Show but slow story telling, much like real life and not compacted into 22 minutes. Personally, I enjoy this. As for Chase's fate, what if we isolate him on an elevator with 20 TV critics? Just send him directly to hell." -- Mary Ann Cherry

"You don't need to be Dr. Melfi to see a psychological explanation for the disintegration of THE SOPRANOS this season. From the beginning, David Chase has been writing about his own life and preoccupations, transposed to the dramatic world of the Mafia. Most notably, Chase has said in interviews that the poisonous Livia was a version of his own mother. I think the true excitement of the show came from Chase's unflinching, hilarious, and poignant exploration of the way Tony's relationship with Livia reflected on every other part of his life -- his marriage, his work, his affairs, and his psychoanalysis. That relationship was at the heart of the glorious first two seasons, and even in the third season when Chase was able to play with the effects of Livia's death (most notably in Tony's twisted affair with Gloria). But now that Livia is well and truly gone (like actress Nancy Marchand, alas), and I suspect the fun of the show is gone for Chase. He probably feels a lot like Tony -- beleaguered, overworked, ambivalent, and surrounded by people who are obsessed with money. This is probably only going to get worse until the series sputters to an end. When inspiration dries up, you can't get it back." -- Jack Lechner, c/o Radical Media

Jersey Guy

The legacy of Frank Sinatra, one of the coolest and jazziest actors who ever walked the earth until he stopped caring about making good movies sometime in the early '70s *, was honored Monday evening on the University of Southern California campus. The occasion was a dedication of the Frank Sinatra Hall and Exhibit, which is located in the foyer entrance to USC's Norris Theatre.

I attended out of a lingering affection, which for me is based not just upon Sinatra's rock-solid performances (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE , FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, THE JOKER IS WILD, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM) along with a certain admiration for that blunt aura of the street he always carried around, but because of a special moment in '83 when I saw him do his act at a concert hall in Long Beach. I'd never really gotten Sinatra as a performer until then.

You've heard this before from other admirers, probably, but he acted out his songs in such an open, vulnerable way, it was impossible after that to think of him in any kind of tough, ornery, belligerent terms. He showed me that night what a softie he was, and what a huge kettle of soul he had tucked away inside.

I used to know Sterling Hayden, who lived in my home town of Wilton, Connecticut. I remember asking him once about his experience with Sinatra during the making of a black-and-white thriller called SUDDENLY ('54). Sinatra's career-saving performance as Pvt. Maggio in FROM HERE TO ETERN ITY ('53) "hadn't been seen or had its effect when we were shooting," Hayden recalled, "so he was kinda down at the time. But he still had the old pizzazz."

I had a chance to talk to Tina Sinatra about the remake of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, with Denzel Washignton in Sinatra's old Cpt. Ben Marco part, that Paramount and Scott Rudin will produce with her next year. She said the current aim is to find the right actor to play Laurence Harvey's Raymond Shaw character. She added that Janet Leigh's old "Eugenie Rose" part will be beefed up, along the lines of her character as written by original author Richard Condon.

Ms. Sinatra, who described herself in a speech that night as "pushy and a pain in the ass," said she's been trying to get a MANCHURIAN remake off the ground for a good seven or eight years, but none of the scripts were good enough. Daniel Pyne's script (which he finished about six months ago, she said) is what changed everything. Filming will start in the fall, she said, in and around New York City and Washington, D.C.

The average age of the guests at the USC event was about 69, although the tribute video that was shown was full of young USC students, all of them huge Sinatra fans. The valet parking service was slow as molasses in Minnesota, but the food and entertainment were first-rate. Kristin Borella of Bumble Ward & Associates (who's about to move over to a staff publicist job at MGM) saw to my comfort all the way.

* his last first-rate film was THE DETECTIVE ('68).

Role Playing

Greg Labate was first to identify Friday's cast. They appeared together in John Boorman's cataclysmic EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC. Boorman wrote and directed, with Richard Burton as the priest and Linda Blair reprising her role as Regan.

Today's cast: Joanna Moore, Howard McNear, Arthur O'Connell, Anne Helm, Smon Oakland, Jack Kruschen, and a tamed, pruned-down model of a certain hubba-bubba movie star in the lead role, who was playing a kind of hillbilly. Pic they appeared in was based on Richard C. Powell's novel, "Pioneer, Go Home."

What's That Line?

PREMIERE film critic Glenn Kenny was first identify Friday's dialogue. It's from David Mamet's GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, and specifically from the Broadway production opened in 1984. The role of Shelly Levene ("Guy #2") was played by Robert Prosky, the role of office manager John Will iamson ("Guy #1") by the late, great J.T. Walsh.

A delivery person (DP1) is talking to a colleague (a.k.a., DP2) she's giving a lift to. And she says:

DP1: Did you really steal a crippled kid's bicycle to make your deliveries, or is that just some bullshit story?
DP2: I didn't steal it, and he wasn't crippled.

She laughs.

DP1: Otherwise it's completely true.

And that makes DP2 laugh, really laugh, for the first time.

DP2: Yeah, completely.

She looks over at him with a grin.

DP1: What brings you out to the sticks?
DP2: Had a package to deliver.
DP1: You? Personally?
DP2: [Explains reason he never delivered it before.]
DP1: Must be a story there.
DP2 Yeah, a long one.
DP1: I've got lots of time.
DP2: So do I. (pause) So do I.

Name the film, the year of release, the director, the screenwriter(s), and the actor who played DP2.