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Patrick Warburton is the
Woman Chaser
| "WE WERE SITTING AROUND IN THE editing suite," says
writer-director Robinson Devor. "It was very depressing. Things were
kind of dragging, and we knew we had a longer road to go down. The
phone rang, and we said, 'Don't even pick it up.' Then Joe got the
call." The call was from Richard Peña, director of the New York Film
Festival, and the news was as sensational as the 35-year-old tyro
director and his high school buddy, newly minted producer Joe
McSpadden, could have dared dream. The Woman Chaser, a
genuinely independent, low-budget feature shot entirely in and
around Los Angeles, had been accepted into the 37th New York Film
Festival. "We were announced in The Hollywood Reporter as
being in New York on a Friday," says McSpadden, "and literally that
morning the phone started ringing off the hook. A lot of people,
especially acquisitions people, say, 'Were you guys hiding in the
weeds?' The truth is, not really. We were in the production reports
in Daily Variety, we sent out a press release, and no one
paid attention." Until now.
Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by pulp
master Charles Willeford, The Woman Chaser tells the story of
used-car salesman turned filmmaker Richard Hudson, a native Angeleno
slab of beef with a hard-on for Hollywood. Three years ago, Devor
picked up a copy of the novel in a mystery bookstore in Redondo
Beach. He pursued the rights, wrote a script and shopped the project
around town with little success. "People responded positively to the
script," he says, "but they also knew it was not a huge commercial
film. They didn't have a problem with the fact that Richard Hudson's
somewhat of a contemptuous character. It was just getting someone to
take me seriously. When all was said and done, last summer I just
said, 'Screw it. I'm just going to go forward. If I have to make it
for $20,000, well, then, that's just the way it's going to
work.'"
As it turns out, the film was made for more than 20
grand. ("My quotable quote around investors," says McSpadden, "is
'It's slightly more than The Blair Witch Project but a lot
less than Titanic.'") What cinched it for Devor was signing
Patrick Warburton, best known to Seinfeld fans as Elaine's
erstwhile boyfriend Putty. "This is the role Patrick Warburton was
born to play," says McSpadden. "This will forever put a stake in the
heart of Putty, which for Patrick, professionally and personally, is
very important." The film was shot in 38 days over a four-month
period, the stop-and-go production dictated by Warburton's guest
bits on TV's NewsRadio. Shot in 35mm color, then transferred
to black and white, the film has a sumptuous tonality and fluid
camerawork that bring to mind I Am Cuba. If it's half as good
as its two irresistibly entertaining trailers, The Woman
Chaser will be a knockout.
Devor, who had to quit his job as an advertising
copywriter ("I was kind of proud of the fact that I shot two-thirds
of the movie without my day job knowing"), is currently living off a
minor stipend from the production budget, all of which was raised
through friends. Devor and McSpadden have decided not to show the
film to distributors before it premieres in New York later this
month, despite the pressure and enormous temptation. "We wanted to
put our best foot forward," says McSpadden. "The best foot for us is
when the print's going to be ready." This is the producer's first
movie as well, and he's careful about not seeming overly excited.
"We'll see," he says about the future. "It's an overnight town, but
it doesn't happen overnight. It takes about 10 years, and I'm right
on schedule. August is the beginning of my 11th year here." - - - -
Copyright © 1999, Los Angeles Weekly, Inc. All rights reserved.
P.O. Box 4315, Los Angeles, CA 90078-9810
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