BORACK CONTINUED

(called that for the very good

reason that it was formed on April Fools' Day), raise a million dollars, and make and sell a movie of his very own.

E

ntitled "Harper Valley P.T.A." after Jeannie C. Riley's song of the same name, the picture has been in release slightly more than a year.

It has grossed more than $20 million, with a net return, after deducting percentages for theaters that played the picture and profit participations for people who helped make and finance it, of slightly more than $5 million.

It would seem that April Fools Films is no joke.

"I didn't start out to make a movie," says Borack, 42 years

wasn't made for the audience

it should have been made for.

Teen-agers are not interested

in a resolution that has this dumb kid killing himself because he had a homosexual affair. That's great for New York, lousy for Kansas.

"If that turkey could make money, I figured another movie with a title that had a wide recognition factor could too, but a better picture would make even more money. I wanted a picture that would appeal to the audience that watches television. I wanted to

፡፡

And to my

old, funkily unpretentious, with shame, I took a

a trim body that is evidence of either a regular schedule of workouts or a damnably enviable metabolism.

"The challenge wasn't there for just booking and buying anymore, really. It isn't that difficult. You classify your classy theaters as opposed to your action theaters as opposed to your black theaters.

"It's like being a doctor; each theater is a separate patient and you have to learn where they are geographically, what kind of an audience they draw, all that. Once you've got that down, it's a cause and effect kind of thing, not really too difficult.

"Anyway, I wanted to get into distribution. I led up to Harper Valley with a Pink Floyd rock film, an Emerson Lake and Palmer film and, to my shame, I took a picture called 'Scum of the Earth,' retitled it 'Poor White Trash Part II' and made a lot of money.

"But I couldn't sit in Cincinnati and get good pictures

to distribute. 'Harper Valley' was simply the result of a lot of experience, a certain amount of frustration and a certain amount of drive.

"What gave me the idea was the success of 'Ode to Billy Joe,' a song with a pre-sold title that was made into a terrible movie and made lots of money anyway. That was a prime example of a movie that

picture called 'Scum of the Earth,' retitled it 'Poor White

Trash Part II' and made a lot of money."

go right to Middle America, because if I'd made a film that my friends and the critics had loved, with that title, I would have made a disaster."

The confidence of of the executive producer of "Harper Valley P.T.A." and the picture's resulting success, constitute one more piece of evidence confirming the essentially schizoid nature of moviegoing today.

There are the enormous crossover hits that everybody sees "Star Wars," "Alien"

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but there also are films that are not necessarily made with urban areas in mind, films that make their money, and a great deal of it, outside of the 22 cities Variety reports on.

While "Harper Valley P.T.A." did well enough in major movie markets like

Chicago, Boston and New York, it cleaned up in the land where Burt Reynolds is king, the rural midwest and the South.

To guarantee the desired grass roots response, Borack assembled a cast of familiar TV names: Barbara Eden, Nanette Fabray, Pat Paulsen, all accustomed to working on rapid TV schedules with a minimum of fuss.

Even though it began as a pragmatic moneymaking scheme, the 30 days Phil Borack spent making "Harper Valley P.T.A." mean as much to him as the more than a hundred days of making "Gone With the Wind" meant to the opulent David Selznick.

"A lot of people had expressed an interest in making a film of the song, but the rights to the song were fragmented and you had to pay a lot of people. I ended up making a down payment in six figures, just for the rights, plus a percentage of the profits.

"I hired George Edwards (best known for his cult horror films directed by Curtis Harrington) to produce because he had a reputation for honesty and was the best prepared. He wrote the script, too. I went over it, gave it a little new direction, and we both hired the director and did the casting. That was all pretty smooth.

"With the script, I just went for revenge. America likes revenge. All we did was re-enact the song for the first 20 minutes of the picture and then have her get revenge on the board members for the rest of it.

“As for actually shooting the film, I hated every minute of it. It was a very bad scene, the worst kind of aggravation. With every scene there was a crisis or deadline or something going wrong that I could not control; at one point, an elephant backed into Nanette Fabray. She hurt her back and we had to shut down production for a month. I never knew so many damn things could go wrong; I said at the time I would never do' it again.

“A year and a half later, those feelings have disappeared. I'm psychologically ready, but I want the next one to be just as sure a thing as 'Harper Valley P.T.A.', but a little more ambitious, not really an ex-