Word: badham
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...exchange for putting Bond behind the wheel of its top-of-the-line luxury model. So it was farewell, Aston Martin. In the lucrative world of product placement, show business and big business are seeing eye to eye about getting brand names into the movies. Says director John Badham, who incorporated Alaska Airlines, Apple computers, Bounty paper towels and Ore-Ida frozen french fries into his film Short Circuit: "If we can help each other, and it doesn't intrude on the movie, it's fine...
Cost-conscious studios have created licensing and merchandising departments to arrange the deals, since free cars and other products save them millions each year in production costs. "Movie budgets have become unreasonably high," says director Badham, "so we're always looking to maximize the money available. From a producer's or a director's view, product placement is a great way to reduce the budget and keep the studio quiet...
...about the measure. "Why should I?" asks Hamberger. "That's not my job." The Navy was infuriated. "It was all done before we knew anything about it," said a senior Defense Department official. "It was an abhorrent exercise of legislative prerogative." Last spring the Navy persuaded Republican Congressman Robert Badham of California to offer an amendment to the 1988-89 defense authorization bill banning the use of funds to reimburse Dravo. "It was an extremely dangerous precedent," says Badham. "It gives a whole new dimension to bidding and contracting: If all else fails, go to the Congress...
...Badham's measure has been trumped by a rider from Republican Congressman Herbert ("Sonny") Callahan of Alabama, who proposed that the Pentagon reimburse Dravo for losses incurred between last October and such time as the repeal is signed into law. Callahan too has reason to be sympathetic: Dravo is a major employer in his district around Mobile. The Dravo PAC has also provided him with $4,000 in recent years...
...then it all goes blooey with an endless, irrelevant car chase and -- shades of Snidely Whiplash! -- a showdown in a sawmill. Was Badham's heart really in these contortions? Or did he, like us, leave it back at Maria's place, where a smart, sweet comedy was so rudely interrupted...