Word: agent
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...aura of Mannian decadence that pervades the luxurious hotel suite--a reference to the hotel scenes in Death in Venice?--is brought forth with such powerful and unsparing force precisely because Israel peoples his film with everyman figures--the sex-starved ticket agent, the sex-starved auto mechanic the sex-starved doctor and his equally emaciated wife--and sets the action in America's backyard...
...much respect for money as I do for Gaddafi." Waving aside intimations of drug abuse and gangland connections, Judge Hill left Evans in charge but gave final authority over post-production decisions to Associate Producer Barrle Osborne, who is backed by Coppola and the Doumanis. Meanwhile, one Hollywood agent is said to have found the off-camera yarn so interesting that he offered $500,000 for screen rights to The Cotton Club courtroom papers...
...SECRET! Captured by the East German secret police, Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer), an American rock star turned secret agent, is being tortured. This happens off-camera, but we have some idea of his suffering because one of his tormentors has been introduced as "a moron who knows only what he reads in the New York Post," and he has been observed, tabloid in hand, slobbering. Our worst fears are confirmed when we learn Nick has not cracked and an escalation of his agony is required. "Do you want me to bring out the LeRoy Neiman paintings?" an underling asks...
Schwed has since retired and had nothing to do with Vengeance-the same story from the same secret agent but with a new writer. It was offered by a small Canadian publisher to Michael Korda, who jumped at it. Korda is the nephew of Film Producer Sir Alexander Korda. Articulate, aggressive and imperturbably assured, he makes so little secret of his ambition for recognition that friends consider it part of his Hungarian charm. Among his own bestsellers is Power! How to Get It, How to Use It, a book neither as trashy nor as clever as it sounds. Hype...
Such hype is also the problem with Vengeance. Its author, George Jonas, a Canadian writer and radio producer, satisfied himself that the Israeli's story could be believed, though he is less sure that the supposed secret agent, code-named "Avner," was, as he claimed, leader of the mission. In his foreword, Jonas acknowledges that much of the tale rests on the unverified claims of one man and concedes that the book uses "reconstructed" dialogue. None of these caveats is suggested in the title page's promise of "the true story...