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An officer and gentleman with ?27m to his name I PREVIEW Films : An Oficer dnd -a Gent kman, w,hich-' opens ,at, 'the EEmpirte.2,-' London; ..*n Ian "20, is the- kind^ of,fibn AM,h upsets all: the industry's,: cdlulations. Para- *rnounipushd it' out in Anerica last summer, expecting no great resp'onse' to the odd' combi- nation of new fangled per- formers. (Richard Gere from American Gigolo, Debra Winger from Urban Cowboy and in- credibly hfusty material (the rough' progress. of recruits through a naval officer candi- date school). Seven weeks later. Paramount found they had box- office takings of ?27m:. after E..T. this was America's biggest cinema hit of 1982.:' The film is written and. co- produced by Douglas Day Stewart, who experienced the training programme at first' hand 20 years earlier; he served as a shipboard officer in Vietnam and the Philippines, and reached the level of lieutenant. He then turned to the typewriter, working with director Randal Kleiser on the TV film The Boy Withi the Plastic Bubble (1976) and the .vacuous remake 'of The Blue Lagoon (1980); But the person who contrib- uted most to the film's success was probably the energetic director, Taylor Hackford, ("If I wvanted a corpse revived", -rote P7aulineiKaci ini th&ew Yed.'rkdr, !-+-I'dl oall4<aylor-Hackford' before anylody else".) His backgroundt zis iii television: in the.iseventies he. W: svorked ' at ; the:, . public broadcasting station.KCET in Los Angeles, involved in' rock music shows, documentary portraits of conductors (Carlo Maria Giulini), poets (Charles Bukowski) and film directors, (Budd Boetticher). He broke into features in 1980 with The Idolmaker, a lively drama In one important respect An O)ficer and a Gentlemen departs from its Hollywood prede- cessors. Credits acknowle6dge the co-operation of the Washington State Department of Commerce and Industrial Development, even the St Regis Paper Company; but there is no acknowledgment of the US Navy. For they refused to bless the project: the script, they thought, was too foul-mouthed, the characters too disreputable; there were also insufficient displays of military hardware. Here, at least, the success of An Oceer is cheering: the script may be full of antique furniture, but the drama concerns humans, rather than special effects or machines. Geoff Brown Local 'deb' Debra Winger meets Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman -An officer! and gentleman-with ?27-m to his name
