he apparently phoned in a bomb threat to the press screening of his 1989 attempt to jump on some Satanic Verses coatails.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4DE1330F937A25756C0A96F948260&pagewanted=printIf some film controversies signal artistic challenges, others are merely circumstantial. ''Veiled Threat,'' a low-budget thriller about Iranians in the United States, was recently dropped from the American Film Institute's festival in Los Angeles. It is the best example of an unnecessary fuss, detached from art and politics.
After a false bomb threat halted a press screening of ''Veiled Threat'' on March 8, a dispute exploded between the A.F.I. and the film makers. The chronology of events, charges and countercharges is complicated. Basically the A.F.I. says it dropped ''Veiled Threat'' because the film makers irresponsibly sought publicity that endangered the entire festival. The film makers say they were censored.
Five days before the bomb threat, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the film's American director and writer was quoted in The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner as saying the film makers had ''had the specter of death threats hanging over us for a long, long time.'' As Mr. Nowrasteh explained recently, he was referring to his lead actor, Behrouz Vessoughi, who had been warned not to return to Iran. But, he continued, ''all anti-Khomeini Iranians live under that specter.''
After the threat, the A.F.I. asked the producers not to speak to the press and suggested that for security reasons the film be shown in a theater on the A.F.I. campus, placing it apart from the other feature films. When a schedule of public festival screenings appeared and ''Veiled Threat'' was not listed, the film makers complained in public and all the screenings were canceled.
No one's actions were beyond reproach. The film makers seemed eager to compare their problem with Salman Rushdie's. The A.F.I. shunted the film aside with all the timidity of those bookstore owners who were willing to sell ''The Satanic Verses'' under the counter but refused to display it. Meanwhile, the film lost its British, French and Italian distributors. ''Veiled Threat'' was suddenly dangerous.
But viewing the film makes it clear that ''Veiled Threat'' is as political as a movie of the week that latches onto the latest headline in the most superficial, exploitative way. The story concerns an evil Iranian mullah in Los Angeles who extorts money from an anti-Khomeini journalist. The journalist hires a down-and-out private investigator who stoops to blackmailing the pro-Khomeini mullah with homosexual videotapes.
Without irony, the detective recites lines warmed over from a string of interchangeable Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone movies, as he threatens to take the law into his own hands. ''The mullah's crime is not that he's a queer, it's that he had those people murdered,'' says the film's infinitely insensitive hero. ''I want him to know there is justice in this country.''
Like the Rambo films, the political significance of ''Veiled Threat'' exists entirely outside the work itself. The popularity of the simple-minded jingoistic Rambo may be a barometer of the nation's conservative mood, but ''Rambo'' is not a political work, and neither is ''Veiled Threat.''
Wisely, Mr. Nowrasteh does not make any artistic or political claims for his film, whose controversy has generated interest from several distributors. And the film's lack of artistic value is beside the point when it comes to questions of censorship. Yet to link ''Veiled Threat'' with ''The Satanic Verses,'' as the film makers have done, is arrogant at best.
William Castle?
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/10.12.95/castle-9541.html
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