What gave you the idea to do Sunset After Dark?

I was a still photographer before I became a director and that's how I met Anita Page. I was doing a photo essay on the last remaining silent film stars. The fact that there are really only a handful of them left really intrigued me. I wanted to show what their lives were like...anyway, Anita was one of my subjects and we got to be good friends. While doing the essay I got the idea that it would be great to bring Anita back for another film after over 60 years of retirement. At the time my father and I were looking for a film project to produce and we thought it would be great to do a thriller about Hollywood and cast her in it. She loved the idea so I contacted Frank Spotnitz, a friend and very good screenwriter, whom I met while studying cinema at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

I can't help but thinking of Sunset Boulevard when I watch your film. Did that film influence you?

There are many similarities but they are both really quite different films. I think it's one of the best films ever made about Hollywood. They are both about troubled screenwriters that get involved with the wrong woman but John Harbert does things in reverse. He leaves the rich woman to live on the fringes of Hollywood, where William Holden's character goes the other way. In a way our title is an homage to it. Without giving away the ending you could say they also meet similar fates. I also think our characters are much stranger and much more contemporary. In a way our film could be called Sunset Boulevard for the 90's.

Tell me what it was like directing Anita Page, was she "ready for her close up?"

You are referring to Norma Desmond of course, and I think a lot of people are going to do the same. There's a magic something that makes a person a star and I think Anita never lost that quality. There is something about her eyes that the camera really loves, so she was very easy to photograph. You can see why she was in such demand when she was making pictures many years ago. I really have to thank Randal Malone for assisting her. By the time she got to the set she was very prepared and very professional. I can't imagine what she must have thought with the smaller camera and limited amout of lighting that we use today. I'm sure the last time she shot, the set was probably an inferno with all the big lights they used . The crew was especially gracious to her as well, applauding after every take.

......and working with Margaret O'Brien?

As you know, Margaret was one of the biggest child stars at MGM. Casting her as Betty Corman, the embittered ex-child star seemed perfect. She really has a great sense of humor and was able to have a lot of fun with the role without any second thoughts. There are alot of great inside jokes in her scenes. I think she gave a delightful performance.

I couldn't believe it when Margaret's character called Anita a "slut", tell me more about the dinner party scene.

It's one of my favorite scenes in the film. We wanted to show the jealousy and rivalry that exists between fallen stars and they played along with that beautifully. In the script it was written that Betty Corman was going to call Anita a "tramp". Anita would not allow that. I guess that was probably a very slanderous thing to be called years ago. Well, in trying to find another suitable word someone suggested "slut" and she agreed that would be ok. I love Anita's response to that when she says
"I was faithful to my husbands, all four of them."

You cast George Kuchar, the king of camp film, as the hilarious porno director. How did you get him to be in the film.

I met George a couple of years ago through our cinematographer David Hallinger. He had done a documentary about George's life which I thought was very funny. I told David that he was one of the most original people I had ever come across. Since Sunset After Dark was about the weird side of Hollywood I knew he had to be in the film. Frank Spotnitz basically wrote the part for him. We called George to be in the film, and he instantly said yes when he heard Anita was in it as well. That's what clinched it for him.

I hear George made a film about his experience on the set.

About a week after he left to go back to San Francisco he sent us his film Going Hollywood. We screened it at the wrap party and the cast and crew were laughing so hard we had to play it twice to hear it. I'm thinking of putting it at the end of Sunset After Dark when it hits the video stores.

I was really surprised how funny the film was. Not the kind of stuff you openly laugh at but I did a lot of chuckling to myself. Did it turn out like you expected?

I must admit that there's alot more humor in it than I had expected. You could call it a black comedy. What's really fun is that the film is always playing on itself. Even the really instense scenes are packed with sarcasm and dark humor. Tony Maggio's performance as the straight man is consistently comic.

The film has a definate "mood", can you explain how you achieved it?

I have always been a fan of 1940's and 50's Film Noir. I especially love the lighting in a lot of them. In fact, I think films like Sunset Boulevard, Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and The Big Sleep inspired me to become a filmmaker. David Hallinger, our director of photography, did a marvelous job in re- creating that look and feel.
The dark, patterned lighting is not the only thing that gives the movie its mood. A lot of it comes from the acting. If you look at Tony Maggio's performance as John Harbert, you will notice a deliberate understatement to his performance. He uses this to make the character seem a bit "disconnected." What this does is make his character seem very real and it also lets the other characters appear stranger than they really are. If Tony played it big, there would be no place for the other characters to go. John is essentially the everyman that gets caught up in something he didn't plan on. This is a true noir sensibility as is Monique Parents slightly camp performance as the femme fatale. Music also plays a big part in creating the noir mood. Fernando Cavazos, our marvelous composer, is also a big fan of Film Noir and used a lot of dark underscoring like in the earlier classics.

There seems to be a revival of these types of noir thrillers. Why do you think this is happening?

I think the resurrection of film noir began in the 80's with Blade Runner and Body Heat. I think they are still the Neo Noir films that others are measured by. There have been many others since then and the genre is more alive than ever. Some of my favorites have been Blood Simple, To Live and Die in L.A., Witness, At Close Range, Fatal Attraction, House of Games, After Dark My Sweet, The Grifters, Silence of the Lambs, Cape Fear, and Reservoir Dogs. Martin Scorsesse was a little ahead of the revival with Taxi Driver in the 70's as was Roman Polanski with Chinatown but it really didn't get going again till the 80's.

Film Noir is truly an American phenomenon just like rock and roll. I belive the French were the first ones to recognize this. They thought of it as a social criticism of the U.S. In essense we're just returning to it. These films are all truly American and I believe they metaphorically reflect the collective consciousness of the country. Many film scholars believe that Film Noir was created as a response to the great dissillusionment this country felt after World War ll. The men coming back from the war found that women were entering the work force, and coming into their own. This was seen as a theat to them, hence the creation of the femme fatale. Maybe we are going thru this again with the woman's movement in full gear and the paranoia's that brings to some in the culture. We can see this in Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Red Rock West, Body Heat, Romeo Is Bleeding, and Black Widow.

Do you think your villain, Gina Darnell, is a classic femme fatale.?

Absolutely. She has all the elements. The platinum blonde hair, the voluptuous body, the attitude, the walk and the talk. She's clearly a woman that knows what she wants and isn't going to let anything get in her way while she pursues it. She is the kind of woman that "nice" guys know they should stay away from but ultimately cannot. This eventually leads them down a path of self destruction like it did for John Harbert. Man's lustful desires have always gotten him into trouble and this genre really exploits that.

I hear you went thru a particularly tough time getting this film made.

Yes. A week before we went into production we had the big Northridge quake roll through here. I basically lost my home and many of the cast and crew sustained a lot of damage. Everyone really wanted to make this film so in essence we only lost about a week. As we were shooting the many aftershocks added some extra excitement.

Can you tell me about the locations you used?

Michelle Martin's place in the beginning of the film was one of those houses on stilts located above the Sunset strip in Hollywood. We picked it because of the spectacular view and the fact that it conveyed sucess. The old mansion was located near U.S.C. and was built before 1920 by the Crocker Bank family. The area was one of the first wealthy neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The place had 14 rooms and was over 10,000 square feet. We shot about 75% of the film there.

What is the next film you and Wildcat Entertainment are going to make?

As we speak Frank is writing a film called Turnaround, which will be another noir thriller about Hollywood. It's about an over ambitious young assistant who tries to impress a beautiful stranger by impersonating his wealthy movie producer boss. It's really a story about illusion. We're scheduled to begin filming in the fall.