Hype and Glory [antikvár]

I went back to Cannes yesterday, wandered. It seemed the proper time. The film festival had been in May. The Miss America Contest was to be in September. It was July now. Midway. Early evening. A light wind. The sun was deciding to go down, the mist was rising to cover the not-so-distant mountains. The beach was emptying. In the harbor, the pirate ship was making long, then longer, shadows. It had been built for a film directed by Roman Polanski, entitled, logically enough. Pirates. I was told it had been sailed to Cannes during the festival to publicize the movie. Few films have ever lost more money. The extent of the carnage is hard to put precisely: people connected with a calamity tend to be the least bit skittish on the subject, since they're panicked they'll be tarred forever with red ink. (Only buffs associate Michael Cimino first with The Deer Hunter nowadays; like it or not, he's the guy who gave us Heaven's Gate.) Pirates is in that league. It was weirdly financed—some say the prince of Tunisia, assuming there is such a creature, went on the hook for it. One top Hollywood executive told me, "We are talking a movie Edsel here. Lost fifty million easy. But then, look at the casting—Walter Matthau starring in an action