Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 293

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Wackar Drtva, Chicago, 60606 Sill! Brian wesk Subscribe now and see these 3 operettas in English with full cast and orchestra: ransienns by Jacques Offenbach June 21-24 by Franz Lehar September 6-9 by Gilbert and Sullivan December 28-31 At Cahn Auditorium, Evanstorr GET THIS FREE BROCHURE: LALL ctrt rit NOW TONIGHT I NeU Simoniy A hilarioui modem version of tha biblical tale of Job "Wacky, weird and wonderfully funny" dinner a Show S21 JO Lunch Mil. Wtd.ft Sun. $16.20 (Prlcw Inehid antuity.) THEATRE PARTIESGROUP DISCOUNTS FOR RESERVATIONS 584-1464 Ohicaoo 261-7843 'I Stopia i Iimitec 4 and he said. 'Amy, you have a future in the business how much can you do the rest of the film for? "I hadn't wanted to direct that picture, but I told him I could do it for $250,000, and he put a 'go' on it. Then I reread the script and was sort of appalled at what I'd gotten myself into, so I rewrote it to emphasize the comic elements, ana we shot it in 20 days.

"I think it's a funny little film, although it is violent and the premise Is sort of offensive. If somebody came up to me and said, 'You're a monster for making that I'm not sure what I'd say. "But those were the choices: Do I cut a 'morally correct' movie like and become a big-time editor, or do I get out of make a 'morally incorrect' slasher-picture, see more of my child and become a director? I sold my soul for rock 'n' roll." Born 30 years ago in Buffalo, N.Y., Jones made her first film in high school "a documenlary about hippies in a local and studied photography at MIT, where she also took film courses and made another documentary that won a prize at a student film festival Judged by Martin Scorsese, who offered her an editing Job on "Taxi Driver." Working on that film, Jones met her husband-to-be, cinema-tographer Michael Chapman in addition to "Taxi Driver," his- credits include "The Last Waltz" and "Raging and soon Jones was making a name for herself in Hollywood as an up-and-coming young editor. But a director was what she had always wanted to be, and after 'Slumber Party' Jones told Corman, "Since I could make a movie for very little money, we should try to make one that wasn't an exploitation picture. Finally he said, 'Okay, write an art "I was casting around for ideas when I saw Truffaut's The Woman Next which was about an obsessive love affair, and realized that a love story could be done very inexpensively.

Then I saw 'Shoot the Moon' and was offended by the. treatment of the other woman in it the idea that she had no feelings and what really mattered were the feelings of the wife and husband sol decided to make a movie from the other woman's point of view." In one sense, "Love Letters" is that movie. But the gimmick Jones had thought of to set the story in motion having Anna discover a series of love letters her mother had received during an affair she had broken oft when Anna was a child eventually became the heart of the as the daughter tries to relive her mother botched romance and make it come out By Larry Kart Entertainment writef Fjhis is a story about a fj new movie called "Love 1 1 Letters" that opened this weekend in the Chicago area a shrewd, tender film, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and directed by Amy Jones, in which a romantic triangle is. depicted from the point of view of the "other woman." But this is also a story about bow "Love Letters" came to be made a tale of luck, guts and creative drive that says a great deal about the problems that can arise when any American filmmaker; let alone a woman, sets out to make a movie that is, as Jones says, "really about something." Featuring a remarkable performance from Curtis as Anna Winter a young woman who embarks on a love affair with a married man James Reach "Love Letters" could be described as an American art film. Dub it into French, substitute the name Francois Truf-faut for Amy Jones, and "Love Letters" might be an art-house hit, because it's the kind of sensitive, emotionally complex movie one expects to come from abroad.

But "Love Letters" is as American as can be, and it's also not what one would expect from a director whose first commercial film was "Slumber Party Massacre," an exploitation flick about a killer whose favorite weapon is an electric drill. "I guess," Jones says, "it's more a question of how I came to make 'Slumber Party Massacre' than 'Love I'd been working as an editor and was offered several pic- tuxes to cut, including 'Diner' and My first child was 10 months old, though, and I wanted to spend all the time with her I could, so I signed for and turned the others down. Then kept getting postponed, and by the time they told me I'd be working seven-day weeks on it, I got very nervous. "Meanwhile, I'd been thinking about directing, and I spoke about it to Roger producer Roger Corman of New World Pictures, the king of the low-budget, exploitation filmmakers. He said, 'You've got to direct in order to so I read a bunch of scripts he had shelved and found one called 'Slumber Party Massacre' that seemed sort of' interesting.

"It had a prologue, and after rewriting it a bit, I simply did it in one weekend, using UCLA students as actors and a crew of five people. Then I cut it on a friend's moviola and dropped off this seven-minute reel of film at New World. "Roger' called the next day and said he could use the seven minutes, but what he really wanted to know was how much it had cost I told Mm, charcs dy (312) 3-1212 (w mcf vn a Mumoa) CROUP SALES: (312)951-7683 MM a il A Stat Stat Marts SPMf Front a Front $22.50 Rmt Middb 1i.S0....tH.M NOTE OPENB MAY TJM0MI.PBetAt0OEB PEHF VON, fi21 atlFM. 41. IU.V iixiriixxirrG rTT-TITTtTTTrrl I p- LTIXX rixtixuri rrrrm TTYTTYTT rTTTi I NOW THROUGH OCTOBER 1 THE SHUBERT THEATER, 27 W.

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