European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 27, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                ". -. -.-. .-.-,. Geffen pictures Tom cruise As Lestat in interview with the Vampire which opens Friday at military Heaters in Europe. In the thick of hype with Winfrey and cruise by Steve Persall St. Petersburg times ome people always fall for a Good practical joke even if it s one encountered time and again. Hollywood occasionally plays such whoops made you look stunts for one very Good reason if you do look it makes Money for the jokers who pulled it off. That s Why i had to shake my head at reports of moviegoers becoming physically ill during sneak pre View screenings of interview with the Vampire then laughed out loud at the magnificently cheesy hype generated by talk show Host Oprah Winfrey s with a Well publicized interview with the main vein Vampire Tom  Only thing funnier was Warner Bros straight faced response that these incidents were unfortunate while figuring How to invest the extra profits Likely to accrue from All this publicity. Oprah was a riot. Now she can claim to be the most influential film critic in America and she did t even have to sit through the entire movie. Winfrey snagged cruise gathered a crowd of 500 people and screened interview with the Vampire before cruise was to appear on stage. Things did t go As planned. Winfrey walked out of the screening right after cruise s character Lestat squeezed a rat cocktail for Louis Brad Pitt. She was joined in the lobby by nearly 30 other squeamish types who could t stand the film. Winfrey telephoned cruise explained her aversion to promoting such dark menace Days before she joined the Susan Smith watch in South Carolin and offered to let cruise Back out rather than face Tough questions on the film s violence and alleged occult nature. To his credit cruise appeared and did t receive an entirely Friendly Welcome. Several guests disapproved of the Gore which is minimal compared to Many film Sand some agreed with a woman who called it  the High Point was when a woman complained the movie did t have the Tom cruise i review on Page 12  Winfrey asked who is the Tom cruise she knows and the woman replied the clean Cut Type like in an officer and a  cruise enjoyed telling her that she was thinking of Richard Gere. This constituted Good trash television until Winfrey reverted to form and started embarrassing cruise with questions about his romantic ways wit wife Nicole Kidman. Before All that cuteness made my eyes Glaze an interesting question came to mind what if Winfrey had enjoyed or even tolerated interview with  for one thing she would have stretched those Lovey Dovey questions into a full hour. She definitely would have bequeathed a favourable opinion to those lemmings who swear by to talk shows. Above All she would t have created a controversy certain to make Warner Bros Richer. Buzzwords like evil and occult bring to mind the exorcist and interview with the Vampire certainly in t in that league. But you can sell 100 tickets for every picket and Oprah Winfrey gave the Lunatic fringe plenty Tomull Over. "  is no bad publicity Only bad spin doctors. Warner Bros publicity flacks pulled off a coup wit the next Ripple of interview with the Vampire hype. At a screening in los Angeles at the same theater where or legend Marty Weiser staged similar occurrence for Warner s the exorcist Iti 1973 " two women reportedly fainted and several were sick in the restroom during an interview screening. Warners denied this was a stunt How one May ask did journalists find out about the incidents anyway it could t have been a Warners information leak could it somewhere the late 1960s schlock meisters William Castle and Hershell Gordon i Ewis Are grinning. The whole affair reminds me of 1963, when my father was playing Lewis Low budget shocker blood feast at his drive in theater in Alabama. One Gross scene showed a psycho ripping a woman s Tongue from her Throat. Dad used that scene to build a Box office monster. My father hired an Independent ambulance service to be on Call. His Concession stand Cook waited for the scary part in a car parked in one of the first rows. As the blood gushed the Cook leaped from the car and faked a heart attack. Customers were so shocked that nobody questioned Why an ambulance happened to be there immediately. The victim was taken away. Thirty minutes later he was flipping hamburgers again and nobody recognized him. Blood feast did sold out business for three weeks after that. Enough people bought the stunt. Some people always do. Scrupps Howard news service interview with the director Neil Jordan by John Anderson new Day Anna see a gothic thriller dark intentions and bared fangs a subject that has been around so Long it could qualify As the undead How about the making of interview with the Vampire there in t one yet but Neil Kordari could Star As an Irish director of Small Quirky films caught up in a swirl of ill wind and cult Fervour trying to make a mainstream movie out of a basically pilotless novel. He d have his most critical casting Choice Sec Ond guessed by the writer a mortician Addams lookalike who then changes her mind. And he d go on a publicity tour for the film while visions of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins to be played by Liam Neeson Are dancing in his head. During that tour he would sit in a Manhattan hotel room with an air of Tea time fatigue and say something ironic like perhaps Hollywood is Chang  Well at least making Vampire was t As bad As his 1989 Flop we re no Angels. In that Case the director says of his Oft derided collaboration with David Mamet and Robert de Niro i was a director for hire and it did t make any sense. Somebody else could have done it better than me cause what they wanted was t what i can give. So i just made a Rule for myself that i be got to have a certain amount of Freedom. Otherwise i can t  Jordan who Between we re Job Angels and 7n Ter View with the Vampire made a not so Little inde pendent feature called the crying game for which he won an Oscar with Best original screenplay claims to have been Given his Freedom this time. It was remarkable really Given the size of the budget a reported $50 million. And he got his share of Hollywood style contre Temps via Vampire author Anne Rice s vehement objections to the casting of Tom cruise As lest atthe Veteran Ghoul who sucks the tortured interviewee Louis Brad Pitt into the life of coffins and Moonlight. Rice experienced such a change of heart after actually seeing the movie that she ran ads to say so considering Book sales and everything this might suggest to the less romantic among us that her Public Tantrum was a publicity stunt. I have no idea Jordan says convincingly. She certainly does t mind inviting the press into her House though does she i mean i would t do that y know. But we did t speak when we were making the movie. In the end when she saw the film she Neil Jordan accepts an Oscar in March 1993 for Best original screenplay for the crying game. Page 6 sunday november 27.1994