THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 11, 1995 TAG: 9505110035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 160 lines
FOR SUBMARINE-MOVIE fans everywhere, it's time to scream ``Dive! Dive!'' yet again.
But not with any help from the Navy. The makers of ``Crimson Tide,'' the star-powered submarine film opening locally Friday, were shut out by the sub masters.
``I never got near a real nuclear submarine,'' co-star Denzel Washington said, with obvious dismay. ``The Navy lent no cooperation on any level - from top to bottom. The reasons were twofold. First, and foremost, I think, they didn't want anything to do with a movie that suggested America might strike first. They didn't want it suggested that the Navy could, ever, make a mistake about firing nuclear weapons. Secondly, they didn't want anything to do with a script that dealt with a mutiny.''
Consider the situation.
A charismatic but Hitler-like Russian nationalist has banded with a rebel faction of the former Soviet army to seize control of a nuclear missile base.
An American nuclear submarine, captained by a hardened veteran played by Gene Hackman, is off the Russian coast, carrying enough nuclear firepower to start World War III. An incomplete order to fire the nuclear missiles is received. It's the greatest global emergency since the Cuban missile crisis! But the sub's Harvard-trained executive officer, played by Washington, feels the orders are not valid and clashes with the captain.
Will the result be mutiny or the end of the Earth as we now know it?
``The stakes are high,'' Washington said. ``They couldn't be higher.''
For Washington, it's a chance to score a third commercial hit, after ``The Pelican Brief'' (the adaptation of a John Grisham novel with Julia Roberts) and ``Philadelphia'' (which grossed $80 million in the United States and got an Oscar for Tom Hanks).
Sitting for an interview overlooking Marina Del Rey's harbor in Los Angeles, Washington said he was drawn to the film ``because it was a character-driven piece.
``It's almost a two-character drama. There aren't many special effects. We've got two guys who face off and go at it. Most of all, I wanted to do it because I get to co-star with Gene Hackman - a real heavyweight actor. He's one of the greats, and I've never been in this kind of company. I knew if I didn't come prepared for every single scene, I'd get my backside nailed to the wall.''
Washington is also pleased that the part was not expressly written for an African-American. Also in the running for the part were Andy Garcia, Al Pacino, Warren Beatty and Brad Pitt.
Not since Sidney Poitier's breakthrough in the 1960s has an African-American actor been such a part of the Hollywood mainstream. Billy Dee Williams was billed as ``the Clark Gable of black actors'' but never quite reached the mainstream. Danny Glover is a major star but can't seem to break out of the ``Lethal Weapon'' buddy roles. That leaves Washington, who says he doesn't feel the pressure of the position.
``I'm an actor, not a politician,'' he said. ``I don't represent a race. I don't represent any group. I just represent the character I'm playing at the time.''
His latest character is already unpopular with Navy brass. Capt. Skip Beard, U.S.N. (Retired), technical adviser for ``Crimson Tide,'' confirmed that the Navy disliked the movie's script. ``The U.S. Navy has never had a mutiny,'' he said. (``The Caine Mutiny'' was fiction).
Beard spent five months teaching Hackman, Washington and the rest of the actors to salute, operate technical controls and generally look like submariners. He isn't unduly afraid that some of his Navy buddies will spot errors.
``Sure there are things wrong,'' he said. ``If we made a real movie about submarining, everybody would walk out. The most fictional thing is the mutiny itself. The regulation that Denzel cites to stop the captain, Gene Hackman, is fiction. On a submarine, the captain is god. Once the ship leaves port, he is the law. There are just no regulations to provide for anyone taking command. He would have to go totally nuts and be incapacitated.
``And, too, I will tell you, there are no possibilities for accidental nuclear firing. As pointed out in the movie, there are stricter regulations now that require clear orders for any such firing.''
Beard questions several other aspects of the film. For one thing, Hackman's captain has a pet dog on board. ``That could have been done by a captain,'' the technical adviser confirmed, ``but it's unlikely. I once knew a captain who announced that all the crew could bring pets on board. Just before the submarine left port, the admiral heard about it and ordered all the pets off.''
The Alabama, the sub in the movie, is a Trident - six stories high and 42 feet wide. It was created entirely on two Hollywood soundstages. The claustrophobic sets for the sub interiors were lifted atop a gimbal, which could tilt them 30 degrees to port or starboard. The flooding of the bilge bay, one of the film's most dangerous scenes, was done in a swimming pool in Los Angeles.
Tony Scott, director of ``Crimson Tide'' and brother of director Ridley Scott of ``Alien,'' said he was surprised at the Navy's lack of cooperation. After his huge hit ``Top Gun'' was used practically as a Navy recruitment film a few years ago, he felt he had an ``in'' with the military.
``We were in a fix,'' Scott said. ``We went to the British and French and tried to rent a submarine. Finally, we decided to make do with just one exterior shot. For that, we got a real submarine leaving the harbor at Hawaii. We had a civilian stationed on the base to inform us when it left. We had boats and helicopters set to shoot the sub. It's in open water. There's no law against it. We were asked why we were there, and the captain turned 240 degrees away from us, but we got the shot. It's the only real submarine shot in the movie.''
Unlike in ``Top Gun,'' Scott says, ``I couldn't lean back on any of my tricks - special effects. The greatest challenge here was to maintain a performance piece within four walls and keep the energy and pace.''
His two stars are tremendously different, he said, adding: ``Gene needs to stay in character. He needs to stay tense. Denzel needs a release. He likes to laugh with the crew when a scene is done.''
Washington says he'd like to do a comedy next, as a change of pace, ``but a good script is very hard to find, and comedy is very hard to do. If it isn't funny, it isn't funny. There's no in-between.''
He's already has two other films ready for release this year.
First there will be ``Virtuosity,'' a virtual-reality thriller to be released in August. ``Devil in a Blue Dress,'' in which Washington plays a cop opposite Jennifer Beals, will be released in the fall.
Washington, who was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., laughingly said that he grew up not seeing many movies. ``My father was a preacher, a Pentecostal minister, and I didn't see movies,'' he explained. ``About the only movies I saw were `The 10 Commandments' or `King of Kings.' There was a lot of theater in the church, though. My father put on quite a show. My mother owned a beauty parlor. Between the two, there was a lot of theater.''
Washington planned to be a doctor but switched to journalism at Fordham University. ``Television wasn't as prominent then, so I suppose my goal was to get to the New York Times,'' he said. ``I got discouraged, though, when I learned you had to cover things like city council meetings.''
During a stint at summer camp, he appeared in a theater production, which convinced him to change course. He was admitted to the prestigious American Conservatory Theater school in San Francisco and had a New York stage career before making an auspicious movie debut in ``A Soldier's Tale.''
He won an Oscar for ``Glory'' and was nominated for ``Malcolm X.''
``My last three movies have all been shot in Los Angeles,'' he said, ``because I want to be near the family.'' He's married to musician-singer Pauletta Pearson, whom he met when both were making the 1977 movie ``Wilma.'' They have four children.
``She understands my job, but children don't,'' he said. ``My son has a baseball game today, and he didn't understand that I had to come talk to you.''
Washington says the best thing about ``Crimson Tide'' is that ``it's almost like being in theater. It's seldom that you get a two- or three-minute scene in a movie of just dialogue. I'd love to get back on stage, but it would mean going to New York, and the family is in Los Angeles. This is the closest thing to stage I could get. I'd like to do something really risky next - really take some chances.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Hollywood Pictures.
A U.S. submarine captain, played by Gene Hackman, right, and his
executive officer, portrayed by Denzel Washington, face possible
nuclear war in "Crimson Tide."
The decision over whether to launch nuclear missiles against Russia
leads the sub's crew toward mutiny.
LINDA R. CHEN, Hollywood Pictures Co.
Submarine captain Frank Ramsey (Gene Hackman, right) and executive
officer Ron Hunter (Denzel Washington) face off.
by CNB