The People vs. Larry Flynt

"I know if I'm no good everybody will slaughter me," says James Carville as his Louisiana drawl resolves from its characteristic deep baritone register to a high cackle. "So what? People have been slaughtering me for the last three or four years."Speaking from New York, Carville, the Washington-based political consultant many feel deserves much of the credit (or, depending on your point of view, the blame) for putting Bill Clinton in the White House, was not talking about the 1996 presidential campaign. Surprisingly, he was referring to his dramatic acting debut. Under the direction of legendary film maker Milos Forman, Carville will portray Cincinnati smut-buster Simon Leis, Jr. in a film about Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, the man Leis prosecuted for obscenity in 1977 here in Cincinnati.NO MOTHER THERESACarville's involvement with the film ("It's more than a cameo appearance, OK? I would describe it as a minor role," he says) is not the only example of unorthodox casting in the Columbia pictures film, currently being shot under Forman's direction in Memphis. Ruth Carter Stapleton, the former president's sister who temporarily "converted" Flynt during a plane trip, is portrayed by someone who, like Carville, is also a film debutante with significant political connections -- Donna Hanover, wife of New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The film stars Woody Harrelson as Flynt, and the character of Jimmy Flynt, the publisher's brother, is played by Harrelson's real brother, Brad. Larry Flynt himself, who -- despite the almost constant criminal prosecution and civil litigation levied against him and a would-be assassin's bullet to his spine which has left him paralyzed from the waist down since 1978 -- has become one of America's wealthiest publishers, also appears in the film, in a cameo role ripe with ironic potential. The man who once represented himself in a lawsuit before the US Supreme Court and proceeded, while diapered in an American flag, to cuss out the Justices (including gender-specific vulgarities for the benefit of Sandra Day O'Connor), makes his own film acting debut as Judge William Morrissey -- the Hamilton County jurist who sentenced him to twenty-five years in prison for publishing a dirty magazine."I know how to do it, because I was there. It was kind of eerie," Flynt says about the experience of portraying Morrissey -- whose rulings during the trial invariably favored the prosecution and were virtually all overturned by an appeals court -- "but I think the story's important and the movie's pretty much on the money [about] the way everything happened."And what did happen? Making use of a loosely-written (and subsequently overturned) state statute designed to combat organized crime, then-Hamilton County prosecutor Leis brought criminal conspiracy charges against Flynt in 1976. Under that statute, if five or more parties conspired together with the intent of breaking the law -- even if the law they were intent on breaking was only a misdemeanor -- those parties were guilty of a major felony, punishable by up to twenty-five years in prison. Accordingly, Leis alleged that Flynt, his production manager and other Hustler staffers were guilty, along with "unindicted co-conspirators" Capitol Printing and J.L. Marshall (respectively, the magazine's printer and local distributor), of conspiring to pander obscenity. While "pandering obscenity" is a slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor, "conspiring" to do so, if the prosecution had its way, would have put Flynt behind bars for a quarter-century.That the prosecution did indeed have its way, at least during the trial, came as no surprise to Flynt."We knew going in that it was a losing battle," Flynt says. "We took one look at that jury and we knew we weren't going to win. And I'll give Fahringer and Cambria [the Buffalo-based First Amendment attorneys who defended Flynt during the Cincinnati trial] credit for one thing building as much error into that case as they could. You think Leis is smart, but Leis fell into every trap that we laid for him. Not allowing comparable material as evidence, and so on. We weren't really allowed to put on much of a defense, but [even if we had] the outcome probably wouldn't have been very different. But he really gave us strong grounds [for appeal]."Although Flynt won that appeal in 1977, his adventures in and around various courtrooms were just beginning. While on trial in Lawrenceville, Georgia in a case patterned after Cincinnati's Flynt and his lawyer, Gene Reeves, are wounded by an unknown assailant wielding a handgun. His spinal cord severed, Flynt becomes a complete paraplegic. But not a bit apologetic.With his innate genius for knowing precisely where American society draws the line on what is acceptable for a general circulation magazine and then smashing that line to smithereens Flynt continued to find many willing to take offense at Hustler and more than a few willing to take him to court. Nothing if not even-handed when it comes to dabbling in defamation, Flynt goes on to attract high-profile libel lawsuits from such diverse antagonists as fellow girlie mag publisher Bob Guccione, Grant Wood's sister (the model for his "American Gothic," she was portrayed topless in Hustler) and bible-thumping Moral Majority preacher Jerry Falwell. After being shot, Flynt cut back on flamboyant appurtenances such as his labia-pink private jet and Rolls-Royce and, since the 1987 death of his wife, Althea (portrayed in the film by rock star Courtney Love), he has been relatively publicity-shy. But he has also diversified his publishing empire and become even more financially successful than ever.The 1977 trial also established Simon Leis's reputation as an uncompromising enemy of anything smacking of "indecency" (even though not a single one of his obscenity convictions ever stood up on appeal). After leaving the prosecutor's office, Leis was elected to a judgeship, then left the bench to become country sheriff, an office for which he again runs unopposed this November. The Hustler trial also cemented another reputation that of Cincinnati's as a city free of smut and adult entertainment, but burdened by intolerance. There can be little doubt the Hustler trial paved the way for subsequent actions by local law enforcement officials against the legitimate theater (e.g., Ensemble Theater's Poor Superman); art museums (e.g., The Contemporary Art Center's indictment for obscenity and child pornography in connections with its Mapplethorpe exhibition); serious film (e.g. the recent prosecution of the Pink Pyramid bookstore for renting Pasolini's Salo: 1,000 Days of Sodom); national book chains (e.g., charges against Barnes & Noble last December in connection with the sale of Libido magazine to a minor were dropped in spite of Leis's strenuous objections when it became clear the father had forced his child to purchase the magazine); and, most recently, computer bulletin boards (e.g., cross-county raids by Leis's Computer Intelligence Task Force, or RECI, in which computer equipment is seized in private residences -- in some instances with no charges being filed).As a result of those computer raids, Leis has been named as the primary defendant in a ground-breaking group lawsuit filed in Federal District Court on behalf of the computer users who were affected by the action. Leis and county prosecutor Joe Deters also became co-defendants in another federal court suit stemming from the Barnes & Noble incident, with Playboy and other publishers alleging prior restraint. [In May, federal judge Herman J. Weber found for the plaintiffs, declared the prosecutor's order to Barnes & Noble null and void and ordered his office to pay court costs.]Cincinnati's legacy of litigation of this nature hardly inspires confidence among local free speech advocates. It does, however, help explain the keen anticipation with which many here look forward to the eventual opening of The People vs. Larry Flynt -- even if only about twenty minutes of the two-hour film are devoted to Cincinnati and even if, as James Carville puts it, "You can't make a First Amendment film about Mother Theresa".THEN, NIXON DIEDWhile the film may have built-in appeal for card-carrying ACLU members, to attraction of the project for a major studio like Columbia/Tristar may be less apparent. After all, one might expect mainstream Hollywood executives to be skittish about a project referencing a character like Flynt, who seems to attract lawsuits like picnics draw ants. In fact, they were."What happened," explains Flynt, "was the scriptwriters, Larry Karascewski and Scott Alexander, were going to UCLA at the time all that stuff was going on with Falwell (suing me) and. ..and they thought back then it was good movie material. They got out of college and started doing some writing [including the film Ed Wood]. Then they started working on a treatment for the [People vs. Flynt] script. They thought they would have a tough time peddling it, but they took it to Columbia -- soon as Columbia saw it, they liked it and wanted it. But because there was so much controversy in it and a lot of opening for libel, they figured they needed my participation. So, we touched base with Columbia and worked out a deal for me to work on the script with them and consult on the project. [the writers] did an excellent job, but there's no doubt that it's better because they got me involved."If Columbia liked the script at first, they positively fell in love with the project after hearing from Milos Forman that he would direct it."It's like [Columbia president] Lisa Henson told me," says Flynt, "'You know, Milos Foreman is the kind of director that every studio wants and nobody can get.'" He makes a picture every five years or so; he's won two Academy Awards [for Amadeus and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest]. So, when Milos came on board, everything started going."Forman's involvement was all the more welcome since Columbia was replacing another high-profile director."Originally, Oliver [Stone] was going to direct," says Flynt. "But then Nixon died. [Stone] told Columbia...'Look, I like the Flynt project and I want to do it, but I want to do Nixon first. I'll do [the Flynt film] when I come back.' Columbia didn't want to wait, so they sent the script out to some directors that they believed in and they were blown away when Milos Foreman contacted them and said, 'I read it, I want to do it.'"Forman provides some clues about why he chose the project through his remarks in a recent item about the film in the March 18 of Time until quite recently, one of the few publicity items about the closely guarded project which had been allowed to surface. "I lived 36 years of my life in a society where people like Flynt lost," the Czech-born director told Time. "I know the result is devastating.""You know," Flynt says of Forman, "both of his parents died in a concentration camp, for passing out literature to school kids. I don't think his feelings are going to bias the film or affect the story, but, yeah, he does have some very strong feelings about censorship. And he liked the story, too."THE RUBBER BAND THEORY OF ACTINGLike Forman, James Carville discovered his own experience provided a strong basis for empathizing with the film's story line."I know a lot of Simon Leises. I mean, there's a lot of guys like that in America," says Carville of the man he portrays in the film. However, Carville is also quick to add that he has "no political agenda" for being involved with the film and that "if Milos Forman would have called me to do a movie about, you know, a guy in an insane asylum, I would have done it too." Which Carville, says, is not terribly unlike what it was like at times on the set of The People vs. Larry Flynt."There was a lot of stuff going on the set, a lot of screaming, you know, a lot of confusion," Carville offers. Although he doesn't say so, anyone who has read All's Fair, the account of the 1992 presidential campaign which Carville co-authored with his wife (and key Republican political consultant) Mary Matalin, and/or We're Right, They're Wrong, his current best-seller, might conclude that the man whose intensity on the campaign trail earned him the moniker "Serpenthead" would feel right at home in such circumstances. Clearly, he relished working with Forman."Milos is, I'm sure, justifiably regarded as one of the great artistic talents," says Carville, describing with animation what it is like to be directed by such a talent. "For some reason, he does not over coach you or anything, you know? He would scream at some of the other people but he was always pretty nice to me. I just always stayed pretty much out of the way, you know what I mean? He'd go [and here, Carville switches from his southern drawl to a disarmingly fluid mid- European accent] 'Good, excellent, go-o-o-od, good, good! One more time, one more time!'" Carville, who shot all of his scenes in a matter of four or five days, says he teased the director by responding, "If it was so good, why have I got to do it again?" As it turns out, Forman's goal was to get Carville to play Carville."Yeah, they wanted me to be myself. They didn't want me to be Simon Leis," Carville said. "The description I got about Simon Leis is he's kind of an uptight kind of a guy. Intense. Not flamboyant at all. He doesn't strike me as a very happy camper," says Carville, even though he has never met Simon Leis. "I wouldn't know him if I ran across him. I just know what people told me about him; you know, I don't judge anybody on [the basis of a movie] script. I think I played him as somebody pretty angry about pornography and Hustler and that kind of stuff -- and a little subservient to Keating, you know? Sort of in awe of the 'great man'. I think that's historically accurate, you know what I mean?"Of course, many Cincinnatians know precisely what Carville means. Charles Keating vigorously pursued his anti-pornography activities and fund-raising with the same relentless determination he applied to the financial interests of his company, American Financial Corp., and its chairman, Carl Lindner. It was Keating who supplied much of the capitol political and otherwise which have made Simon Leis such an enduring and powerful presence in Hamilton County.Ironically, of course, while Leis continues to hold sway in Cincinnati, Keating, his acknowledged mentor, was only recently released from a Phoenix jail cell on $300,000 bond, pending a hearing on a new federal trial on charges of cheating elderly investors and looting his Lincoln Savings and Loan at taxpayers expense. Before being broken on the wheel of his own vaulting ambition, Keating used his energy, intelligence, brashness and guile helped Carl Lindner (whose company also controls the giant banana export company, Chiquita, Great American Insurance and other interests) become one of the country's wealthiest men. Keating also raised tens of millions for Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) and helped his brother, William, win a congressional seat. Keating's generosity has benefited generations of local swimmers, the Catholic Church and such humanitarians as Mother Theresa. The anti-pornography organization he created, Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL) generated vast sums of money for Jerry Falwell and other right-wing religious figures.No one enjoyed working an anti-pornography crowd more than Charlie Keating, as Cincinnati reporter can attest who ever witnessed the spectacle provided by that gaunt, bespectacled financier as he drew moans and lamentations from audiences of his supporters with his frenzied narration of an always-abundant supply of dirty magazines and fuck films. It was one of Keating's last fiscal errands for Carl Lindner the sale of The Cincinnati Enquirer (which Lindner owned from 1969 to 1975) which took him to Arizona, where Keating, after a falling out with his former boss, decided to set up shop on his own. The rest, as they say in the movies, is the largest bank failure in US. history.The central figure in the junk-bond leveraged Savings & Loan collapse which deprived tens of thousands of elderly people of their life savings and for a time raised the specter of a second Great Depression, Cincinnati's high-flying home-town hero has managed to become one of the most universally reviled American citizens since Aaron Burr. And, if Charlie Keating has had one supremely hated, dedicated nemesis in his life, that person is quite certainly Larry Flynt."People often ask me, 'how to you feel about being in a movie about a pornographer?'" says Carville, laughing. "But what really bothers me, I'm in a movie with Charles Keating. He's worse than all of them!"For a movie about people who hate one another, however, there seems to be an inordinate degree of camaraderie on the set. Flynt says he's become great friends with Woody Harrelson and raves about how well Harrelson portrays him. Flynt also speaks warmly of Richard Paul, the actor playing another of his real-life arch-enemies, Jerry Falwell."He's played Falwell before," says Flynt, "in The Tammy Fay Baker Story. He looks like Falwell and acts like Falwell...but he's got a sense of humor." Flynt and Carville are perhaps even more enthusiastic about the actor who plays Keating -- James Cromwell of Babe fame. Cromwell's physical resemblance to the infamous Cincinnatian made him a natural for the part."Oh, God, I thought I was looking at Keating, you know?" Carville exclaims. Perhaps appropriately, Carville says he got most of his direct acting tips for creating the role of Leis from the actor who was creating the role of Keating. "He told me about the rubber band theory of acting, which," Carville explains, "essentially states that you get more intense at someone the closer you get to 'em. So, when I was cross-examining 'Flynt,' the closer you get, the more intense you can be."The question is, will that intensity be interpreted by audiences as merely a one-sided rant -- or will it carry across the screen as a balanced and convincing portrayal of extraordinary characters locked a bitter struggle over difficult and complex issues? Yes, says Carville, judging from what he learned about the film during his time on the set."That's what the people making the film think the movie is, that it's a First Amendment movie," says Carville, though he allows it's an open question "whether the viewers and critics will agree." Larry Flynt believes they will."I'm very glad that the movie's being made because people know me, who I am and what I do, but they don't know the whole story," says Flynt. "You know, even though that was a local trial in Cincinnati, that became a national affair. I think it's going to be good, because...Morrissey's in the film and Leis is in the film...I think people from both sides are going to go see it. People from [the First Amendment] perspective will go see it and Leis' supporters will see it. And I can tell you, it's a very dramatic eye-opener."