Word: orions
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Triumph and heartbreak abound in this story, but it has taken Hollywood nearly a quarter-century to put it on the big screen. Now it is here with a bang. Mississippi Burning, Orion Pictures' $15 million drama about the FBI's search for the murderers of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, has arrived with critical trumpets leading the way and bitter controversy in its wake. It has already won National Board of Review citations for best picture, best actor (Gene Hackman) and best supporting actress (Frances McDormand) -- prizes the film may duplicate on Academy Award night. For Mississippi Burning is made...
Another battle film helped Mississippi Burning come to life. Two years ago Orion's Platoon ripped the scabs off the wound of Viet Nam, copped lots of Oscars and grossed close to $300 million worldwide. Any successful movie creates a new market, and studios -- especially Orion, which has a rep for taking chances on political pictures -- were soon scrambling for the next Platoon. Cynicism is served with a twist in Hollywood, and Mississippi Burning has taken its licks as a ready-made Big Issue blockbuster. Before its release, even Hackman gibed that its producers "looked at how much Platoon made...
Gerolmo took the idea to his friend Frederick Zollo, an off-Broadway producer-director, who sold it to Orion. Several directors were proposed -- Milos Forman, John Schlesinger -- before Orion suggested Alan Parker, 44. His films (Midnight Express, Fame, Birdy) resist classification by content, but in style they are as easy to spot as a fist in your face. Bang on! That is both Parker's strength and limitation, which has the dervish precision of the ace London commercials director he once was. But he had never made a film with such daunting logistics as this...
Cover: Photograph by David Appleby/ ORION PICTURES...
...suposed to begin when the Hollander family, American tourists who have innocently been taking pictures of Communist missile sites, is chased into the Embassy by Communist police. Mr. Hollander (Orion Ross) is outraged that the Communists have taken "an innocent caterer" from Newark, New Jersey captive; his wife (Sara Melson) spends her time running up the embassy phone bill with constant calls to friends back home; and his daughter (Eliza Rosenbluth) predictably falls in love with the hapless Axel...