United Press International

Entertainment shorts

"Poltergeist III'' will begin filming at MGM next month with Zelda Rubinstein, the tiny actress who played a psychic in the first two films, returning as co-star.

The second of the horror film sequels will be shot entirely on location in Chicago with post-production work scheduled for Hollywood.

Heather O'Rourke also will star in ''Poltergeist III,'' which was written by Gary Sherman and Brian Taggert. Sherman will also direct the film. --- Turner signed

 Business Wire

MGM; MGM Chairman welcomes journalists to new headquarters; discusses upcoming motion pictures

At an informal gathering Wednesday morning, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alan Ladd Jr. welcomed journalists to MGM's glamorous new Filmland Corporate Center headquarters in Culver City, where he discussed more than 25 new motion pictures currently in preparation at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.

''Like this elegant, ultra-modern facility, our slate of upcoming motion pictures represents a renewal of our commitment to excellence in entertainment,'' said Ladd. ''They are just a glimpse of the rich, prod future that lies ahead for MGM.''

''Spaceballs,'' which began filming for director Mel Brooks on Oct. 28, drew a note of special attention from Ladd. ''We are pleased and very, very excited about what we've seen so far,'' he reported, adding that the filmmakers will use Laird International Studios, the former MGM lot, and several other facilities for their production and post-production work.

Starring Mel Brooks, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, Bill Pullman and Dick Van Patten, the new comedy adventure will be released on June 26, 1987.

Turning to upcoming starts, Ladd called attention to ''Moonstruck,'' which begins principal photography on locations in New York on Dec. 1. Cher stars for producer/director Norman Jewison and producer Patrick Palmer, in an original screenplay by heralded New York playwright John Patrick Shanley.

Among the candidates for which start date assignments appear imminent are the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell film, which Mike Nichols will direct and Roddy McDowall and Anthea Sylbert will produce from a screenplay by Leslie Dixon, writer of ''Outrageous Fortune;'' ''Whereabouts,'' to team Sigourney Weaver and Billy Crystal for producer Joe Wizan in a screenplay by ''Top Gun'' writers Jim Cash and Jack Epps, and ''Fatal Beauty,'' to be directed by ''Fright Night'' writer-director Tom Holland.

A contemporary dramatic love story with music, with which ''The Color Purple'' producer Quincy Jones will make his motion picture directorial debut, was prominent among the previously unannounced projects revealed by Ladd during the working session. To star Robert DeNiro, the project is being developed for MGM by producers Harry Ufland and Joe Roth.

''Tina,'' which will star Meryl Streep, and ''Stand-up Detective,'' a comedy to star Bette Midler, were also disclosed publicly for the first time by Ladd Wednesday. ''Tina'' is currently being adapted from a short story by Anton Chekhov, and will be directed by Nikita Mokhalkov, the director of ''A Slave of Love.'' ''Stand-Up Detective'' is being developed for Midler by executive producers Bonnie Bruckheimer and Margaret Jennings.

MGM's exclusive arrangement with the Zanuck/Brown Co. will begin bearing fruit early in 1987 with ''Women Wanted,'' which is currently awaiting assignment of a start date. To star Mia Farrow for ''Room With A View'' director James Ivory, the film will be produced by David Brown and Richard Zanuck, from a screenplay which Joanna McClelland Glass has adapted from her own novel.

A contemporary suspense drama titled ''Surprise Party,'' as well as an untitled contemporary action-adventure drama from writer Richard Wolf, are among the additional Zanuck/Brown projects in the running for production in 1987.

In addition, Ladd revealed that MGM has recently acquired the motion picture rights to ''Walking Papers,'' a soon-to-be-published novel by Jay Cromley, which will be developed under the guidance of producer Freddie Fields.

Describing the current level of development activity at MGM as ''intensive and well-focused across every area of audience taste,'' Ladd identified more than a dozen other projects which are strong candidates for production in 1987.

These include both ''Poltergeist III,'' which ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'' directory Gary Sherman is developing with writer Brian Taggert, and ''Running Scared II,'' a sequel to the hit action-comedy which starred Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal, now being developed by producers David Foster and Lawrence Turman and executive producer Peter Hyams.

A comedy adventure from Amy Robinson and Griffin Dunne, which the ''After Hours'' producing team is developing with writer Mitch Glazer, is also in the running for production in 1987, as are ''Family Man,'' anginal comedy from ''Breaking Away'' writer Steve Tesich; ''The Most Powerful Man in the World,'' a comedy to star Steve Martin for ''The Tin Drum'' director Volker Schlondorff, and ''Soap,'' a comedy which Richard Donner will produce and direct.

Also likely to qualify for the 1987 production race abe such dramatic and action-advenure entries as ''The Brotherhood,'' which ''Carrie'' writer/producer Paul Monash and producer Clyde Phillips are developing; ''Edge of Eden,'' which is being adapted from the Nickalos Proffitt novel under the guidance of producer Michael Levy; ''Father Rock,'' being developed for MGM by Pierre Cossette; ''Rescue,'' which is being developed for ''Soldier of Orange'' director Paul Verhoeven; ''Sanctuary,'' which will serve as the screenwriting and directing debut of television producer, director, writer and ''Magnum P.I.'' co-creator Don Bellisario, and ''Two Are Guilty,'' which producer Victor Dral is developing.

MGM's current schedule of releases also includes ''Solarbabies,'' a Brooksfilms presentation from director Alan Johnson starring Richard Jordan, Jami Gertz, Jason Patric, Lukas Haas and Charles Durning, which opens on Nov. 26; ''Dead of Winter'' from director Arthur Penn, which stars Mary Steenburgen, Roddy McDowall and Jan Rubes and will open in February; and ''Bobo'', starring Howie Mandel, Christopher Lloyd, Cloris Leachman, Colleen Camp and Amy Steel, which is directed by Mel Frank and will open in March.

The news conference was the first to be held at the impressive, eight-story Filmland Corporate Center, which became the permanent headquarters of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. on Oct. 28. Temporarily located on the building's third floor, MGM staff members will be relocated gradually to the upperfour floors of the building as the motion picture company's highly specialized offices are constructed during the next five months.

The center features a multi-story glass atrium, surrounded by an elegant restaurant, an indoor garden cafe featuring international international cruisines, two screening rooms, and a private health spa. The atrium is equipped with a stadium-size video projection/stereo system for state-of-the-art multi-media events, premiere parties and a wide range of other special activities.

CONTACT: MGM/UA Communications, Culver City
            Ed Pine, 213/280-6150
            Copyright 1986 Business Wire, Inc

Chicago Tribune

SCENE 3 'CHICAGO FILM' TAKES ON A LEADING MAN, RECRUITED BY LOCAL CASTING AGENTS

BYLINE: By Robert Cross.

We don't need something like that, because we've already done tremendously without it," said Kirk Paulsen, 28, the tall, soft-spoken general manager of Victor Duncan Inc., an equipment-rental firm at 661 N. LaSalle St. Victor Duncan supplies and maintains an estimated 95 percent of the cameras used in Illinois motion picture production, and Duncan also does a lively business in the rental of lights, camera dollies, video equipment and production trucks.

Although the city lacks a huge studio center, movie producers have been able to improvise, filming interior scenes in rented offices and homes or building elaborate sets in factories, gymnasiums, warehouses and advertising- commercial stages around town. In recent months, the producers of MGM's "Poltergeist III" managed to make full use of Chicago's motion picture resources. Rather than simply film at a few outdoor locations and then head back to the coast, as most Hollywood people do, director Gary Sherman shot every foot of "Poltergeist" in the city and edited it at Cinecenter on Erie Street. Shortly thereafter, he supervised the shooting of "Sable," an ABC television series set in Chicago.

Last summer Paulsen and his Victor Duncan technicians worked out some complex optical illusions for "Poltergeist III," while Sherman filmed interior scenes at Metropolitan Chicago Corp., a warehouse at 2500 W. Roosevelt Rd.

"They were doing a lot of in-camera effects," Paulsen said. "Instead of using West Coast special-effects laboratories, which would have driven up the costs tremendously, they used camera tricks instead. That way, they could make a $15 million film look as if it had a $25 million budget."

"Poltergeist" relied heavily on smoke, mirrors, trick sets and other optical illusions, all designed and built with Chicago labor. Victor Duncan technicians performed further magic by manipulating Panavision cameras.

"For example, we built for them a small bracket system with partial mirrors so they could do a lot of ghost effects," Paulsen explained. "It's just a set of mirrors attached to the lens and angled at 45 degrees. While the camera films one of the other characters directly, the actor playing the ghost stands in darkness to one side. All of a sudden, they turn a light on the ghost, and the mirror throws his image into the same shot."

Trickery aside, a motion picture, reduced to its simplest terms, involves shedding light on a subject and recording the image on film running past a camera lens.

Most of the gigantic studio lights that once confined productions to sound stages have been replaced by HMI's, powerful little beams employing haloid (a mixture of chemical elements including fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine). A medium-size electric arc, passing between two electrodes, torches the haloid when a gaffer flips the switch. Haloid, Medium-arc Iodine is never mentioned on a set, of course. Cinematographers simply say, "Give me a couple of hemmees over here."

"Ordinary lights tend to be on the green side," Paulsen said. "The old, standard movie lights are on the orange side. Daylight tends to be blue, and HMI's simulate daylight."

Duncan maintains 25 cameras in its rental stock. Six are made by Arriflex in Munich. The rest come from Panavision, headquartered in Tarzana, Calif. "Panavision is the Rolls-Royce of camera equipment," Paulsen said. "The body alone, without the lenses, is worth $75,000. A Panavision zoom lens costs $20,000. A basic camera package with an assortment of lenses would be worth $200,000."

The rental fee for a Panavision camera and accessories averages about $4,000 a week. Arriflex cameras rent for slightly less, because Duncan owns them outright and does not have to split revenue with the manufacturer, as it does with Panavision, which retains ownership of its equipment and consigns it to authorized leasing agents. "Some directors of photography prefer the Arriflex lenses," Paulsen noted. "They have a very sharp resolution and general high quality."

Victor Duncan, a Detroit filmmaker, started the company in 1959 and over the years branched out from the Motor City to establish facilities in Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago, which is the largest in the group. Not long ago, Samuelson Ltd., the immense, London-based audio-visual concern, bought Duncan and then promptly merged with Eagle Trust, another huge British conglomerate. In January, Duncan bought a large lighting inventory from a Los Angeles company, consigned most of it to the Chicago branch and joined the Crededios and Hudecek in the super gaffer business.

Out-of-town filmmakers have come to appreciate the eagerness and vast resources of local equipment-rental outfits. Almost always, producers find everything they need in Chicago, and when one company runs short, the others gladly help fill the gap. "We try never to tell a customer we can't get something," Paulsen explained, "because it looks bad for the city."
 
Film city. Third of four parts. With a script, financing, direction, actors and other support staff, Tempo Productions' all-Chicago motion picture is taking shape. People with the necessary skills all work locally in a city that has fast become a film center. Here are some of the professionals who would work on our movie. Wednesday: The future of Film City.

 Chicago Tribune

TECHNICIANS ROUND OUT THE FILM CREW

BYLINE: By Robert Cross.

SECTION: TEMPO; Pg. 2; ZONE: C

Enough movie experts to make Chicago something of a film capital now work locally. It no longer is difficult to imagine them collaborating on a project like our fanciful all-Chicago motion picture. Meet a few representatives.

SOUND ENGINEER

Several yards away from a big "Poltergeist III" apartment set, Glenn Williams, a graying, bespectacled man wearing T-shirt and shorts, sat at a table with his Nagra tape recorder and a heavily annotated copy of the script. Strange noises pounded through the walls and echoed in the cavernous warehouse-turned-sound stage on Roosevelt Road. Bystanders could only interpret them as a cacophonous din. Williams, however, heard them in pure form through his earphones, which were connected to the microphone boom held by Williams' son Jeff.

An alumnus of DeForrest Institute (now DeVry) and Illinois Institute of Technology, Williams, 56, worked 13 years as an aerospace engineer at Cook Research Laboratories in Morton Grove.

"In 1967, the bottom dropped out of the research field, and I went to Bell & Howell as a circuit designer," Williams said. "Bell & Howell bought the old Essanay studios to make educational movies, and I got acquainted with this industry."

A far-off cry of "Action!" forced Williams to put on his earphones and devote attention to the dials on his tape recorder. The take lasted only seconds, and he resumed talking.

"Then I went to Universal Studios as a sound engineer to help them build a new studio, and their people taught me this end of the business. I went freelance in 1971. I worked on 'Blues Brothers,' 'Chicago Story,' 'American Dream,' the Chicago portion of 'Weird Science.' There have been so many, I'm beginning to forget some of them. "'The Color of Money' is the biggest picture I've done. And I hope this picture might be another big one."

As his career progressed, Williams began assembling gear. Skilled sound mixers with their own equipment are valued by visiting Hollywood personnel, and in Chicago, producers can count on at least four such technicians who are ready to operate their own professional-quality recorders and microphones.

"I've got almost $50,000 tied up in equipment," Williams said. "I started gathering it slowly and rented the rest, and eventually I got it all." The equipment represents an extra source of income. Williams leases his gear to the film company for $1,000 a week.

He estimated that he spends 250 to 300 days a year working on features, commercials and documentaries. In his spare time, he and his wife tour the country in their motor home, or he putters around his house in Prospect Heights.

"This is the track for the voices right here," Williams said, pointing at the reel of tape in his machine. "Later on, in postproduction, they'll add more effects. It will be stereo on the screen, but right now I'm gathering the raw data, voices in mono that will be split up later."

After he completes his work, Williams walks away with a substantial paycheck. "If I get into an episodic TV series and I'm very busy, I might average between $80,000 and $100,000 a year," he said. "I've made as much as $130,000 in a year.

"The real money is in features; it's very difficult work. I probably don't make much more per hour than a plumber or electrician, but we put in a lot of overtime."

As a reward even more gratifying than the pay, Touchstone Pictures campaigned to get Williams an Academy Award nomination for his work on "The Color of Money" with Paul Newman. "They took out three or four ads in Variety," Williams said proudly. "I did not get nominated, but it was nice. Word got out all over Chicago. It's a small industry. If you screw up, everybody knows it. If you're recognized for some sort of achievement, they know that, too."

CAMERA OPERATOR

Big George Kohut has been looking through motion-picture and still-camera viewfinders for 17 of his 43 years. His expertise as a camera operator and director of photography is so much in demand that he can work anywhere. But like all the creative and technical personnel chosen for our mythical picture, South Sider Kohut usually finds plenty to do locally.

A native Californian, Kohut shifted to Chicago in 1968, shooting still photographs for print ads and catalogues until, in the mid-1970s, he began working with veteran Chicago cinematographer Bill Birch ("Nothing in Common," "The Killing Floor"). After 18 months with Birch, Kohut set out on his own.

Recently, he shot Norman Mailer's "Tough Guys Don't Dance" in Cape Cod and served as director of photography for Robert Conrad's "High Mountain Rangers" in Lake Tahoe. His credits in Chicago include "The Blues Brothers," "Lucas" and "Light of Day."

"A director of photography is responsible for the whole look of the picture," Kohut explained one morning during a break in the filming of "Poltergeist III."

"As an operator, I basically shoot the film," he said. "I'm the person who actually photographs the shot, composing the frame. I serve as the eyes for the director of the picture and for the director of photography.

"I suppose the hardest part of my job is walking the line between those two people and making sure they're both satisfied with what we get on film. I allow the director to concentrate on performance, inflections, words. I allow the director of photography to be concerned about lighting and the placement of people and things on the set. I'm watching it through the lens, and they have the freedom to watch other things."

On the "Poltergeist" project, Kohut trained the camera on large cakes of plastic ice, mirrors of all sizes and shapes, sides of beef that wheezed, doorways that breathed and actors pretending to be scared witless.

All of it may have appeared strange in the viewfinder, but Kohut seemed confident that he was capturing the proper look. To confirm that judgment, he would wait until the following evening, after the day's film had been processed by Astro, Chicago's world-class motion picture laboratory, when he could review those "dailies" with colleagues.

"We critique ourselves then and see if what we shot the day before actually worked," he said. "Sometimes we reshoot, and sometimes-make that usually-we pat ourselves on the back."

THE GRIP

The alley behind Milwaukee Avenue near Damen probably will look more menacing and loathsome than usual on the screen next year. Dark, muscular men with scowls jump out of a Cadillac convertible parked near a garage and attack Chicago plainclothesman Nicco (played by Steven Seagal) with a gun, machetes and steel pipes.

Before the actors could do that, workers in jeans erected racks to hold lights and laid track for a camera dolly. Tall, bearded and bespectacled key grip Art Bartels, 32, was the boss who urged them on.

"A grip is somebody who does everything no one else wants to do," he explained to a bystander. "We handle all the rigging of lights, short of running the electrical stuff. We can put a light where you wouldn't expect it to be, creating shapes and shadows with it and erecting all the hardware to make the light look natural.

"We also make the camera go up and down, back and forth, into unbelievable positions. We lay the track for the dolly and push the dolly when the camera needs to follow somebody."

Bartels rested a sneakered foot on the stump of a tree that one of his seven staff members had cut down to make room for a platform holding a tentlike "silk." The cloth billowing overhead softened early-afternoon sunlight so the alley would wear a perpetual 5 o'clock shadow.

Bartels has manipulated the hardware of film illusions since 1974, at first building sets and arranging light stands for still photographers, then moving into commercial films while moonlighting at community theaters. "For the past 2 1/2 years, I've worked on virtually nothing but feature films here," he said. "I've averaged at least three films a year.

"A few years ago, I would pull into the crew parking lot, and the Chicago people would say, 'How long do you think this job will last?' We'd work together that day and shake hands and might not see each other again for weeks. The movie company would have a whole L.A. crew here, and they needed us only as schleps.

"Now it's different. Everybody's driving nice new cars and they've named wings of their houses after movies. My first daughter was born during 'Risky Business,' and I bought a car then. My second daughter was born during 'Code of Silence,' and I bought another car. I bought a house in Northbrook with money from 'Four Friends,' and I put an 1,100-square-foot addition on it last year."

Bartels also invested in the motion-picture business. During a brief stint working in Los Angeles ("I won't go back, it's no place to raise kids"), he purchased a truck with camera mounts that several productions have found useful for chase scenes. He has crammed his equipment vehicle with items that can help keep a show on schedule.

"I have a lot of things that people wouldn't even recognize as a piece of equipment," he said. "It's just a trick, or a gag, a little piece of something mounted on a C clamp, a little hardware trick to hold something together. Things like that keep movie companies interested in coming here. They don't have to pay shipping or wait out the transport time from Los Angeles to get the hardware they need.

"A lot of people like me don't find it necessary to leave Chicago to get into films. So the movies are coming in partly because we're here. Every time you make a movie, you can't just retrain everybody."
 

The Associated Press

''Poltergeist'' Actress Heather O'Rourke Dies at Age 12

BYLINE: By JUDY FARAH, Associated Press Writer

SECTION: Domestic News

LENGTH: 788 words

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES



Heather O'Rourke, the angelic-looking child actress who warned "They're heeeere!" and "They're baaaack!" in the "Poltergeist" movies, died died in surgery from complications of an intestinal infection, hospital officials said Tuesday. She was 12.

The child actress had suffered cardiac arrest and was resuscitated at another local hospital before she was transferred to Children's Hospital in San Diego for surgery, said Terry Merryman, a hospital spokeswoman.

She died at 2:43 p.m. Monday during an operation that was complicated when the girl suffered septic shock, Ms. Merryman said.

The cause of death was determined to be from a congenital malady known as intestinal stenosis, an obstruction of the bowel, she said.

"Septic shock is not uncommon in infections," Ms. Merryman said, noting that such shock involves bacteria getting into the bloodstream.

"She was evidently complaining of severe cramps or pain," said her agent, David Wardlow.

Heather's manager, Mike Meyer, said the family at first thought Sunday that she had the flu. "I was told it was related to sickness she suffered during 'Poltergeist III,"' he said.

The golden-haired girl became a star in the true Hollywood fashion, discovered by producer Steven Spielberg at age 5 as she sat in an MGM commissary with her sister Tammy.

She went on to star in all three "Poltergeist" films and was a familiar character on television's "Happy Days," "Webster" and "Still the Beaver."

"I'm deeply saddened and shocked by the news," said actress JoBeth Williams, a co-star in two "Poltergeist" films, through her publicist, Barry Krost. "Having played Heather's mother twice, I grew to love her and respect her talent. My heart goes out to her mother and her family."

"I am devastated by the news of Heather's death," actor Craig T. Nelson said in a statement. Nelson played the girl's father in the "Poltergeist" films. "It's very difficult when a member of your 'family' dies so suddenly. I loved her very much," Nelson added.

Meyer said Heather "always looked like 'Alice in Wonderland' and could memorize a 60-page script in about an hour."

She is the second actress from the "Poltergeist" movies to die unexpectedly. Dominique Dunne, who played a teen-age daughter in the original, was strangled in October 1982.

Miss Dunne, then 22, had tried to break off her relationship with her boyfriend, Los Angeles chef John Sweeney. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced in November 1983 to the maximum 6 1/2 years in prison by a judge who chided the jury for not returning a murder verdict.

In the original "Poltergeist," Heather was the one who uttered the key line when the evil spirits arrived, declaring in a taunting childlike tone, "They're heeeere!" In the sequel, she confirmed, "They're baaaack!"

She finished filming "Poltergeist III" in late June, starring as Carol Ann for the third time, Meyer said. The film is scheduled for release in June.

Only the original "Poltergeist" was a Spielberg production. He was out of town doing pre-production work on the latest sequel to his "Raiders of the Lost Ark" series and could not be reached for comment, his spokesman, Rob Friedman, said Tuesday.

When Spielberg spotted Heather in the commissary, he asked if he could talk to her, but was told she didn't talk to strangers.

But she got permission, Meyer said, and that talk led to her role in "Poltergeist."

"They were looking for a kid. Expectations are not too high. Between the way she looked and how articulate she was and her ability to absorb tremendous amounts of material, she was really special," said Meyer, who has represented other child stars, including Drew Barrymore, Shannon Dougherty, Danielle Brisbois and Ke Hui Quan.

Heather recently co-starred with Robert Mandan in a television pilot called "Here to Stay."

As a regular on "Happy Days," she played Linda Purl's daughter. She was a recurring character on "Webster" and "Still the Beaver" and one of the stars in an ABC miniseries on teen-age suicide called "Surviving."

She portrayed a blind girl in a recent episode of "Our House" and played a Russian girl in an episode of "Rocky Road."

As a fifth-grader in 1985 and 1986, she was president of the student council at Big Bear Elementary School, Meyer said.

"She was real bright," Meyer said. "She was a lot more aware than you think of a kid as being. ... You could be having a conversation about anything, and she knew what you were talking about and how it fit into people's lives. She was Gandhi on the hill."

Funeral services are planned Friday in Los Angeles but the time and location has not been finalized. The young actress also is survived by her parents, Jim and Kathy O'Rourke.

Chicago Tribune

THEY'RE BAAAAA-ACK FROM THE MOVIES

BYLINE: Victoria Lautman.

Sculptor Christine Bourdette was in Paris when an unlikely telegram from her Chicago gallery arrived.

"It said, 'GOOD NEWS, YOUR WORK WAS CHOSEN FOR POLTERGEIST III STOP,' " laughs the Oregon-based artist, whose anthropomorphic wooden sculpture captured the attention of "Poltergeist III" writer, director and producer Gary Sherman after he visited Bourdette's show at the Klein Gallery, 356 W. Huron St.

"I was sort of shocked by the news," the artist admits, "since I wasn't sure at first exactly how the work would be used. I was afraid something terrible would befall it. But even though I'm not a fan of horror movies, it was thrilling to have artwork I made appear in a film. I guess it's the closest thing to seeing myself on a screen."

Nineteen of Bourdette's carefully constructed wood, mesh and plaster figures were "rented" from the gallery for just two scenes that take place in a stylish art gallery. It may sound simple enough, but alert moviegoers will notice that the mirror reflection of one sculpture comes to life and turns its head.

Creepy, yes. Easy, no.

"I just turned the original sculpture-called 'Squatting Melissa'-over to the special effects team and told them to make an exact mirror duplicate of it, but with a motorized head," explains Sherman, who filmed the entire movie in Chicago last summer. "It took three weeks to build the dupe, which only looks like a mirror reflection, since no mirror actually exists where the audience thinks it sees one." Typical of movieland, Sherman spent 18 hours filming a scene that only lasts about 18 seconds.

While animated sculptures are undoubtedly peculiar, using real art in a movie is equally bizarre. "Original artwork is rarely used in any film, no matter what the genre," bemoans Sherman, an art-lover himself who owned "Squatting Melissa" before filming began.

"It's much more expensive than just asking the scenic department to make up something approximating art, since you have to worry about insurance, security and handling. With other props, if something gets wrecked, you just repaint it."

Luckily, none of Bourdette's pieces was damaged, though the duplicate sculpture was torched after shooting, as specified in an elaborate legal contract she signed with MGM Productions. "I put that clause in myself," the artist says. "And I was also careful to add that they couldn't make any rubber dolls or promotional accessories based on my work. . . ."

If only Michelangelo had thought of that when he painted the Sistine ceiling.
 

GRAPHIC: PHOTO
PHOTO: "Mirror" image: In a scene from "Poltergeist III," actress
Nancy Allen with Christine Bourdette's sculpture and its clone. MGM
Productions.