By Count Rackula
Adam Rifkin’s cinematic career has included writing big-budget family movies like Mousehunt (1997), Small Soldiers (1998), and Underdog (2008), directing Psycho Cop Returns (1993) and Detroit Rock City (1999), and acting in Disturbed (1990), Bikini Island (1991), and Bikini Squad (1993). He recently sat down to talk about his new movie, Look, which comes out on DVD May 5th.
Can you tell us about your new move Look?
Look explores the conceit that the average American is caught on surveillance camera more than 200 times a day, which is true. The movie follows four or five interweaving story lines, but the film is entirely shot from surveillance cameras.
Are any of them in women’s bathrooms or dressing rooms?
They are. And I definitely exploit that in the film.
And you’re developing a series based on the movie.
Yes. I can’t tell you who the series is for, but we are in preproduction and we’re shooting eight episodes, which is very exciting.
Is it going to be on a network that allows nudity?
Yes it is, and it’s going to allow us to go even farther with it than we did in the film.
What happened to the promotional postcards you tried to send out to promote the movie?
The film comes out on DVD May 5th. And in anticipation of that, Anchor Bay came up with several hundred postcards to send to media people.
There was a still from the film on one side of the card with a little surveillance factoid like, “Did you know that it’s legal to have hidden cameras in bathrooms and dressing rooms in 37 states?" and on the back it would say the name of the movie. The first one went out without incident.
Then the Post Office said that two of our four postcards weren’t going to be mailed and they cited obscenity as the reason. We were all shocked because we’ve all gotten much racier postcards in the mail.
There was no nudity on these cards. The best we can figure is that because the images look like they’re captured from surveillance cameras it adds a level of salaciousness that otherwise might not be there.
Because if you go down Sunset Strip, every postcard is of a topless girl in a bikini saying “Welcome to L.A.” Go figure, right?
Interesting note: The first place the story broke was on Page Six of the NY Post and I did give a quote, saying “With the Post Office in such dire financial straits, I would think they needed every 40 cents they could get.”
Something odd and ominous happened to me a few days later. Someone pried into my mailbox with a crowbar and stole all my mail.
And when I called the Post Office, I was told to call a different number. Then that person gave me an additional number and so on. Literally, I was given the runaround by so many people that no one ever sent a postal inspector to investigate. I have to believe that they’re fucking with me.
That adds another wrinkle to the film’s vision of this labyrinthine Kafkaesque surveillance society.
Exactly. Not to sound too conspiratorial about it, but the timing seemed very bizarre.
Do you remember the first nude scene you ever saw?
There are a couple of things that come to mind. First of all, when I was growing up, there was a new form of cable television called ON TV. And to see the adult movies late at night you had to pay extra or else it was scrambled. And I remember staying up and looking at the scrambled images and trying to pick out any image of a butt or a boob that I could.
You and everybody else.
Yeah, right. Early on I also saw A Clockwork Orange and there was a lot of nudity in that movie. The film is brilliant, but prior to being able to appreciate the brilliance of the film I was wowed by the graphic nudity.
Also, without my parents’ knowledge, I would order the adult movies on ON TV and I remember seeing some of the early Russ Meyer films like Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens and Up! and Mondo Topless. They had a big influence on me.
So those are the three things that come to mind when I think of early nudity.
How many of your own movies have nudity in them?
I’d say a good many of them, from my first movie Never on Tuesday. Claudia Christian does some nudity in that one, but it was cut out for the VHS release. That movie is finally coming out on DVD and I believe that scene has been restored, so that’s good news.
I then made a movie called The Invisible Maniac under my nom de plume Rif Coogan. That movie had a lot of nudity in it and it was the first film that Shannon Wilsey was in. And she went on to be a big porn star named Savannah.
Do you remember much about working with her?
I do. She was very, very sweet and very daffy in a very appealing way. Sort of like a young Marilyn Monroe. I was very surprised when she became a porn star. I didn’t see that in her future.
She did nudity in the film, but she was so nervous about it that she needed to drink to loosen up, which I let her do. I don’t know if I would necessarily let an actress do that now. But she asked if she could have some drinks, so we got some champagne before the shower scene because she was so nervous.
I then made a movie called The Dark Backward. Some 400-pound women are nude in that movie. It’s a slightly different style. Then I made Psycho Cop Returns and that had some nudity.
I then made The Chase. That doesn’t have nudity. I then directed a movie called Denial AKA Something About Sex. That has nudity, including that famous nude scene from Hudson Leick of the Xena series.
Detroit Rock City has nudity, of course. Look has nudity, Homo Erectus has nudity I guess there’s nudity in most of the movies I’ve directed.
What Hollywood actress would you like to put in a nude scene now?
[Laughs] If it, of course, were germane to the plot, I would love to work with Kristen Stewart. If there were ever an opportunity to direct her in a film and the character and plot required it, I would be fine with that.
