Tuesday, November 11, 1997
Mob shots
FILM Jim Abrahams of ‘Hot Shots’ fame brought over-the-top humor
and more than a few movie stars to campus
to shoot scenes of ‘Mafia’
By Aimee Phan
Daily Bruin Staff
Last Tuesday afternoon in front of Royce Hall, the Dalai Lama
and Saddam Hussein exchanged a secret handshake and warm hug while
foreign dignitaries around them cooed and applauded.
Sounds unbelievable? Not in a Jim Abrahams movie. If you looked
a little closer, you would have seen a camera crew in front of the
two foreign figures and co-star Christina Applegate on the
sidelines making faces and trying to make the extras laugh.
For two days last week, curious students who passed through
Royce Quad may have been surprised at the elaborate movie set
camped out in front of Royce Hall.
The building was draped with the flags of foreign countries.
Expensive cars littered the lawns. And security guards were
protecting all sides of the set so the wandering students could not
disturb the shooting.
But it wasn’t too hard to find out what all the hoopla was about
since the guards happily gabbed to bystanders about the movie.
Abrahams, director of some of Hollywood’s most hilarious spoofs
("Airplane!" and the "Hot Shots" films), had brought the cast and
crew of his latest parody, "Jane Austen’s Mafia," to UCLA to shoot
one of its most pivotal location scenes.
"It’s a spoof on all the mafia pictures," said Bill Badalato,
producer of "Mafia." "It’s taking a comedic look at all the carnage
and darkness of the mafia movies and having fun with it."
Borrowing its story lines liberally from the mother of all mafia
movies, "The Godfather," the film stars Lloyd Bridges as the big
Don, Jay Mohr as his son Anthony Cartino, and Christina Applegate
as Anthony’s love interest Diane, who also happens to be the
president of the United States.
The scene shot Tuesday was supposed to take place in The Hague,
in the Netherlands, where Applegate’s character is holding a
national conference for a world peace treaty. Director Abrahams
said they had decided on UCLA for its classical architecture and
resemblance to The Hague.
The atmosphere on the set was incredibly relaxed and cheerful.
Some of the scenes had to be shot more than once because of the
cast and crew’s constant laughter over the ridiculous situations
called for in the script.
"It’s just so much fun here," said Applegate, taking a break
from the set and sitting under the makeshift tent that’s only
several feet away from the filming. "Jim Abrahams is the reason
that everybody’s in such a good mood. Plus we’re doing something
fun so there’s not that many heavy scenes."
Badalato, who worked with Abrahams previously on the "Hot Shots"
films, agreed that the laid back atmosphere was due to the
director’s own mellow attitude.
"His sets are always very relaxed," Badalato said. "There’s
always a lot of humor around it. We get a lot of work done because
people are not tense or upset or yelled at. People work twice as
hard under these conditions."
In one of the longer scenes shot that day, Anthony, who has just
been made the Don, is interrupting the world peace conference to
ask Diane to marry him and introduce her to the son she never knew
they had together.
"It’s very silly," Applegate said, laughing. "I’m just about to
sign a peace treaty for the world that would end all wars and
turmoil and then he comes in saying, ‘Be my wife and here’s your
son.’ How did that happen? I don’t know."
Jay Mohr, who is best known to audiences as the mean sports
agent who fired Tom Cruise in last year’s "Jerry Maguire" and one
of Jennifer Aniston’s love interests in "Picture Perfect," enjoyed
the opportunity to play this character which he called "Michael
Corleone under an alias" because of the many things he gets to do
as Anthony.
"I’m in the Marines, I get to sing like Wayne Newton, do magic
tricks, do stunts, and kill the man that murdered my father," Mohr
said. "But I actually get to deliver my lines straight. It’s sort
of a comedy of errors around me."
The cast and crew were successful in shooting all their scenes
on schedule, even having enough daylight to shoot an extra scene
which involves a recurring joke of a woman sitting in a car and
eating eggs.
The cast and crew credited the respectful students and calm
atmosphere for the smooth shooting.
"Everyone seems to have a nice energy here," Applegate said of
UCLA. "None of the students are obnoxious or coming up and bugging
us. They’ve been really respectful to the fact that we’re working
and we don’t really have too much time to chat. They just really
calmly and politely sit and watch."
Abrahams, who lives just five minutes from UCLA, believed that
the blase attitude from the students is typical considering how
many film sets come through the campus.
"Los Angeles is so used to having movies shot all over the place
so it just isn’t a big deal," Abrahams said. "If we had been at the
University of Wisconsin, it may have been a more disruptive
environment. But here, this is a way of life."
FILM: "Mafia" is scheduled to open this summer.
MICHAEL ROSS WACHT
Christina Applegate takes a break from the filming of "Mafia" in
the Royce Quad last week. The film pokes fun at the world of
gangster movies.
HILARY DOUGLAS
Students watch as scenes from the movie "Mafia" are filmed in
the Royce Quad last Tuesday.