DAN'S PAPERS, October 9, 2009 Page 20 www.danshamptons.com
Movies
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Kosleck, an actor who was often featured as the consummate evil Nazi. Also, when it appeared around the country during its run in 1964 in movie houses, after the film ended patrons were handed tiny orange sponges, which, when dipped in water, released tons of “blood” into your sink— and wherever else you wanted to smear it. While writing this newspaper over the years, I’ve visited the sets of many motion pictures in the Hamptons—and worked as an extra in some of them. Here are a few that I was involved with. Woody Allen, in one of his rare forays outside Manhattan, made Interiors almost entirely in a single remote beach house in Southampton. I spent an hour one day in the dunes just outside, hoping to get a glimpse of him or of Diane Keaton, and I did.
I watched an old cabin cruiser get blown up outside the jetties in Montauk, which was part of Rob Lowe’s Masquerade. I was an extra in Alan Alda’s Sweet Liberty. For that film, Main Street in Sag Harbor was rented for two nights from midnight to five a.m. for several scenes in which Alda and Michael Caine walk down the middle of the street a bit drunk and deep in conversation about something. I was one of a few pedestrians strolling along on the sidewalk at that hour. Michael Caine starred with Christopher Reeve in the making of Deathtrap at a house in Water Mill. I watched the filmmakers do a scene at the Montauk railroad station late at night, with Sidney Lumet, who lives out here, directing. I was an extra for an entire afternoon in a
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restaurant at the Westhampton Bath and Tennis Club for a scene in Love Walked In starring Denis Leary. Leary and another actor walked through talking. The re-takes went on for hours. The salad on my plate, which I was not to eat, got very old. A moth flew in it. It stayed there. I wound up behind a pillar in the film. I tried out at the Amagansett Fire House to be an extra in Steven Spielberg’s Deep Impact for a scene on the beach in that town, but didn’t make the cut. I even spent time on the set of a film made out here that never got released because of a lawsuit. The film was entitled Steven Spielberg’s Boat, and it was filmed in a former sea captain’s house high on a hill overlooking the bay in Sag Harbor. The film was about two filmmakers who wanted to get Steven Spielberg to watch the movie they were making. From the mansion, they could see Spielberg’s boat, a 150-foot pleasure palace, with the staff and crew on board dropping anchor in the bay. They snuck down there at night, used grappling hooks to come aboard with their film, and, well, you get the idea. Spielberg did, too. He filed a lawsuit to prevent it from being distributed, saying he had no yacht that size, he had not been asked permission and he considered the movie libelous. Rather than fight with him—who wants to fight with Steven Spielberg?—the filmmakers got the message and withdrew the film, even though it had been completed and sold. It’s been fun making movies in the Hamptons but I can tell you that life as an extra is not glamorous. There’s pizza and donuts, coffee, and maybe $70 for the day. Many other movies have filmed here. Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton starred in Something’s Gotta Give, which was made almost entirely in the Hamptons. The making of a scene for this film created quite a stir on Newtown Lane one morning in East Hampton, when Nicholson emerged from a café eating an ice cream cone. Much of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, was filmed in Montauk. Scenes from Sex in the City 2 were shot just this past week at Coopers Beach in Southampton. This weekend, you can spend all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday either waiting in line or going to see a film from 10 a.m. until midnight. You can spend the entire weekend in the dark. I don’t recommend it unless you just can’t help yourself. Last year, the director of the festival Karen Arikian, showed two stunners—The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, and Slumdog Millionaire—that went on to the Academy Awards. So everyone wonders what she will have up her sleeve this year. The opening night film, The Greatest, is a serious and moving film about the unexpected death of a young son in a close American family. This will be on October 7. The closing night film is Terry Gilliam’s film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which was in production when its star, Heath Ledger, suddenly died. The original screenplay was scrapped, but the film lived on with a new script, in which the character played by Ledger is passed on to three other actors: Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. It has something to do with magic and mirrors, and I (continued on page 23)