I knew James Lorinz--the actor best known to genre film fans as the wise ass doorman in STREET TRASH and as the star of Frank Henenlotter's FRANKENHOOKER--when he was a doorman in real life. Well, maybe "I knew him" is too strong a description--I avoided him; the guy was so brilliantly comedic that you never wanted to be in his sights. We worked for the same movie theatre chain and studied filmmaking with Roy Frumkes at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

The next time I saw him, he was on the humongous screen at the Ziegfeld Theatre for the premiere of STREET TRASH. He was only supposed to have one line in that film, but his improvisations with fellow thespian Tony Darrow so impressed director Jim Muro that the fledgling director asked Frumkes, the film's screenwriter and producer, to create more and more material for them, until Lorinz stole the show from the melting winos.

Lorinz went on to co-star in several movies before flirting with actual financial success on a TV sitcom called CITY, which was canceled after half a season. But it was a monster of his own making--SWIRLEE, a man made out of ice cream, that derailed Lorinz's career. He had created the character at SVA, then developed it into a brilliant short film designed to raise financing for a feature. He sank all his money into the project, which was deemed too dark by the studios, who wanted more kid friendly fare, ala TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. Lorinz stuck to his guns... and now he's a car salesman. But he's making more money than he ever did as an actor.

Before he gave up on acting, Lorinz starred in THE SWEET LIFE for Frumkes. I invited the two of them to Buffalo to premiere the film, and I also screened the SWIRLEE short to an appreciative crowd; it's a terrific little film, a wonderful cross between David Lynch's ELEPHANT MAN and Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS. And he's not finished with it: as we speak, he's ignoring the half completed screenplay for a new feature length version that he intends to make some day.

I interviewed Lorinz at length about his genre experiences as an actor and filmmaker for an upcoming book, CHEAP SCARES! Low Budget Horror Filmmakers Share Their Secrets. The snippets that follow won't be in the book; these are warm up act, the outtakes, the deleted scenes, the bonus features. A good portion of the interview focuses on New York City movie theatres. Lorinz asked the first question. . .

First off, can I talk about Cinema 5 and the Beekman Theatre?

Oh, we're going to talk about that.

Because those were the glory days.

Of course I'm going to mention anything that gives me an opportunity to insert myself into the narrative...

What was that one female assistant manager's name?

Una Yearwood...

That's right!

I remember when I became an assistant manager at another chain and she called me up for passes. You have to savor these little triumphant moments when life throws them your way. Now, did you grow up in Queens?

Yeah.

When we both worked for the Cinema 5 movie theatre chain--you were a doorman at the Beekman on 2nd Avenue and I worked a few blocks away at Cinema 1 on 59th and Lex--I knew you as a guy who imitated a lot of classic comic movie actors: Abbott and Costello, the Three Stooges, etc. What were your primary film interests growing up?

Martin Scorsese, everything he did. At the time, they showed double features. It would be TAXI DRIVER and a movie called THE FARMER. Does this ring a bell to you?

No, I'm a seventies fan and I don't recall that one.

I remember we saw it in Jackson Heights at the Boulevard Theater, which is no longer there; now, it's a Spanish nightclub. Me and a friend went together. I wanted to see TAXI DRIVER again, and he went downstairs to watch THE HILLS HAVE EYES and something else. There was a scene in THE FARMER where they poured acid in a guy's eyes. We went to the movies all the time, which is ironic because I never go to the movies anymore.

Me, either. I'm taking care of my daughter, but I wouldn't go if I could.


Oh, it's over. It's finished. I took my daughter to see HAIRSPRAY. I hadn't been in a theater in years. I was okay, but it was three hours by the time we got out. I remember always going to the 8th Street Playhouse, and the Thalia, and all these great theatres. But Scorsese was a big influence, I guess because his films were really different. And they're not different anymore.

When your daughter's older and you try to explain to her that the Upper East Side of Manhattan used to be the neighborhood to open a movie, she's going to look a you like you're from outer space.

What really bothers me a lot, and I'm serious, is that they fucking tore down the Beekman Theatre. I can't believe it. The Cinema I and II are great theatres, and the Baronet and Cornonet... you've been in the Beekman.

Many times. That's where the annual Christmas party was!

I remember the other parties, after everyone went home.

That's what I did at theatres I managed later on. It's funny that we have that in common with Roy, as well; he was a theatre manager once.

That, unfortunately, is a memory now. Theatre managers today, it's all different; you can't steal anymore, you can't palm tickets.

Well, you can ...

I don't know how. All I know is, I passed it on to the next crew at the Beekman.

You were a mentor.

I'll talk about it now. They can't prosecute me, can they?

Nah. But Eineger's still out there.

Ah, fuck Einiger.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted several months before Richard Einiger, the infamous Distract Manager of several movie theatre chains and the nemesis of many movie theatre staffs, defied expectations and actually passed away; I based the character of the principal in my novel JOHNNY GRUESOME on him. Hopefully he had a more peaceful farewell in real life.)

Give me Herb Millman anyday.

That's right, he knew how to be pompous with style!

I toast his rotted liver as we speak. I remember going in for an interview. You gotta understand something: that was one of my dreams, as a kid... I wanted to do things. I wanted to join the Navy and kill the Japs, because for some reason I thought it was still World War II, and I wanted to be an usher in a theater. And somehow, I don't know through who, I got an interview. Remember they had that office at 1515 Broadway?

I sure do.

It was right around the RKO National Theatre--

I ended up managing that, too.

Millman was nice and hale and healthy. He sat there, and I was scared to death, I was first year at SVA. I didn't know what was going on, I just wanted the job. And he said, "Uh huh, " he looks at me, "Film student, huh?" then he goes, " Report to the Beekman on Monday." Those were the old days!

You fulfilled your ambitions too early in life.

I'm glad he picked the Beekman for me because I met a lot of nice people there that I liked working with.

It's such a funny scene in ANNIE HALL when Woody Allen and Diane Keaton go to the Beekman. Now even New Yorkers will see that scene and it will mean nothing to them. So much history in that one sequence, and he used to open all as films there.

As an usher, I saw him there a lot. He would come by and watch the audience. I remember one time, before one of his films opened, he wanted to come by and inspect the projector. Say what you will about Woody Allen, but this guy was anal to the end. He came into the theatre and he wanted to make sure the projectors were up to snuff. I thought that was great.

You were a senior when I was a freshman, and I remember seeing your short film EASY MONEY at some school festival or awards night. I had no idea you'd made that in high school. In many ways, you played the quintessential James Lorinz was wiseass.

I think you're right. I wish I could get out of that. But that's exactly right. It was the same. And watching myself grow up on film is very interesting.

I have a feeling that film Roy helped produce, THE PROJECTIONIST, with Rodney Dangerfield as the tyrannical theatre manager, is only appreciated by people who worked in movie theatres. If you haven't seen it, you definitely should.


Oh, I've seen it. I was in Roy's class, I had to see it!

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After STREET TRASH, You found yourself working with a very respectable cast in LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. What was it like to be a young actor working in scenes with those people?

That was my first job as a union actor. I had to join the union to do that film. I'll never forget that.

Was this after FRANKENHOOKER?

No, before. LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN was like the first professional job I got after STREET TRASH. I got an agent and I got sent out for stuff and somebody sent me out on this, but they didn't want to sign me" "Oh, we'll freelance you." And I got the part. Then thy said, "Oh, we want to sign you." I said, "Well, it's too late." I'll never forget, it was Phyllis Black, the agent. James Jennings got me an interview with them. I went up there, and I'll never forget how horrible I felt, and that's why people hate agents, and they're just scum. I sat in the waiting room, right? "Be there at three o'clock," I got there on time. And they said, "They'll be with you in a minute." I could hear them in the office: eating, having lunch, laughing--you see what I'm saying?--for 45 minutes. Like how it's just not important enough; like, let's eat now; okay, great. So, I go in there and I talk to them, and they're like, "Well, what have you done?" I say, "Well, I have a videotape here of my scenes from STREET TRASH." And they say, "Well, we'll take a look at the tape." And I said, "It's the only copy I have. Can we look at it now?" They're like, "Oh, no, we don't look at tapes that way." She said, "I promise we'll get it back to you within a week. We'll send it right back to you." I said, "all right, I really need it back." It really was the only copy I had that Roy gave me."

So I left. I walked out. There office was at 44th and Fifth. I walked home. I was living on 65th and First and I walked. I was really angry: "Goddamn it, this is bullshit, motherfucker," you know. And I got there and there's a message on my machine, and it's them. They're like, "Can you come in tomorrow morning with 12 pictures and resumes?" They had looked at the tape as soon as I left. They just didn't want to see it in front of me. So they sent me out on LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. I went in there and I first mat the casting director and we did this scene and I wrote my own monologue for the audition. Because it was to be this gang member; there was no real scene. So I said, "Le me write my own thing." And I wrote this thing about pissing in the toilet and trying to break open cigarettes that were in there, about Pearl Harbor, a whole bunch of bullshit that I wrote, it was really funny. She had no idea who the fuck I was and she called me back to meet the director, Uli Edel. So I wrote another monologue. And I went in there and I made a bunch of Nazi jokes or whatever, because they're Germans. And it went really well. So I called the agent right after I got out and they said, "Well, how do you think that went?" And I said, "I don't know, I think I blew them away." They were like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't worry about it. Check with us next week." In that week's time, I got the part. And I said, "Yeah, I went with somebody else. They called me and they gave me the part."

You know, it was a foreign film. It's not a Hollywood movie. What a great treat it was to be involved in that because this was the first movie I was in, and it was a period piece, they gave me these clothes. We were in Red Hook. Apparently the German director, Uli Edel, thought it didn't look bad enough, so they built this set, of this street: a diner and all this other stuff. Garbage everywhere, rotting vegetables... I mean, it was like, I didn't know much money they spent, right? Then I realized how much money they spent when I was walking around and I look and there's newspapers all over the place, and I pick up a newspaper, and he had newspapers printed up from 1950 and thrown on the ground for the actors. And I thought, "Wow, nobody does this stuff." Then of course he went on to do some kid vampire movie; they threw him out. I'll never forget that. Can you imagine the frame of mind he was trying to put everybody in? I mean, I don't know how many people picked up on it because most of the people were stoned or drugged out.

It received a much different critical reaction than STREET TRASH did, as I recall.

Yeah, and it's funny because the two films are very similar, I think; just that street element, the street life, and the desperation... I mean, that one goes even further into the whole sexual world of everything, as opposed to just exploding bums.

Well, let's not forget that fat guy raping the corpse in STREET TRASH.

Yeah, but there wasn't a line of guys waiting to rape it.

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On working with Abel Ferrara on THE KING OF NEW YORK:

I'm grateful to have been involved, I'm in the movie a little bit, it was great working with him. It's like he's got a guardian angel--somebody else is working with him. But also, that movie was a big highway robbery, because nobody ever got any residuals or paid, it was terrible. That movie's shown everywhere on TV. Somehow they got around SAG and made it as a foreign production, like with a Limited Liability Company. There's nobody to go to to collect.

My wife felt very bad when your character hit that fire hydrant, and she didn't know who you were then. I said, "You don't have to feel bad for him, he's hardly on screen."

You couldn't even see my face! One quick thing about that fire hydrant thing. He called me back three weeks later to shoot that one shot. Now the SAG rule is, if you drop somebody, and you pick them up three weeks later, you pay them for those three weeks. Which was like, I don't know, $5,000 to me. They call me up and they say, "Listen, can you do him a favor? You know, he's doing a lot of movies, he's going to use you." This is the line you get. These producers, they're just fucking scum, all of them. I don't care, because I'm out of the business. I was like, "Okay." What was I going to say, "No, I don't want another shot at a movie"? But you're not going to pay me. "Okay." So then they said, "Well, we'll get you some stunt pay, because you're gonna do your own stunt." I didn't do my own stunt. There was a part when I was hanging on a door, and they took the door off a car or whatever. So I'm like, "Oh, I'm getting stunt pay, oh, great!' I got my check two weeks later, and it said, Stunt pay--$11.00! I was like, "My God, you sons of bitches!" (laughs)

How would you describe Abel's methods on set?

One time I had to go to the bathroom and they said, "Go into that camper." He had one of those campers, you know, trailers. And I went in and he was passed out with his mouth wide open, snoring. So I went to the bathroom, and as I was leaving I looked at him for a second, you know? And I said, "My God, the guy's got two sets of teeth!" There was like another set behind the front teeth. At least I think that's what I saw. So I said, "Ah, fuck it," and I went to the bathroom in his mouth.

He was my favorite director for a while, and he used to come to the Angelika Film Centre, which I managed, and it was frightening to see him shambling around and shouting at the screen.

But that's what makes him so endearing to everyone, I think.

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On casting David Caruso in SWIRLEE:


You and Caruso were friends from KING OF NEW YORK.

And at my wedding. As a matter of fact, he was my wife for a few years. That's when we were at Ryker's Island...

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On THE SWEET LIFE, which co-starred Joan Jett:

It took a while for THE SWEET LIFE to get finished, and you went to work while it was in post, right?

Yeah. I'm making twice as much money as I'd ever make as an actor, and I gotta do what I gotta do.

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On SWIRLEE:

And during that time the book The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made came out?

Yes, Chris Gore produced this book which had a chapter on SWIRLEE. That was great.

I brought you out to Buffalo to premiere THE SWEET LIFE...

Which was one of the only vacations I've had.

The audience responded favorably to SWIRLEE; I've watched it many times. At that point the STREET TRASH was already in the works. I screened that in Buffalo too, and I knew that the resurgent interest in '80s horror films was just around the corner.

I hope you've seen some money from it.

Well, I'm profiting from it in ways that aren't necessarily financial...

You're exactly right, because they're like the baby boomers of horror.

I had the feeling it was going to be good for both STREET TRASH and SLIME CITY, but you didn't have a clue, did you?

No.

So you were kind of in the dark when Roy got you all together to do the STREET TRASH reunion at Cinema Wasteland?

Oh, yeah.

You already said that was fun, but elaborate on the experience.

It was great!

And you realized you had a fan base.

Well, I don't know if I have a fan base...

You have a fan base.

I don't think these people knew who I was. They knew STREET TRASH. STREET TRASH is like this huge phenomenon of people.

On developing the new version of SWIRLEE:

I don't want to argue with the director, but I don't think it was one-note at all.


No, I mean that's what everyone else seems to think. They couldn't get past the makeup, that was the problem. That was the director's fault, meaning maybe I should have gone black and white. You know, there's a lot of ways you can--I've never seen this movie, but everyone keeps telling me, "You should see this movie ERASERHEAD." They say SWIRLEE is very similar to that, because there's like this weird guy in it or something, right?

Yeah, there's all sorts of David Lynch weirdness, but the difference is that the whole movie is weird, whereas in yours it's just a weird character that's very much in the real world.

Oh. Well, I'd still like to see it.

You should, it's a great film. They have these things called DVD Players--

I want to see DANCES WITH WOLVES!

No, see ERASERHEAD.

Lorinz plans to incorporate footage from the SWIRLEE short into the new feature.

So can you still have Caruso in the film?

Well, no. Caruso's not going to do it. I don't think I can even get Tony Darrow, and the whole mob element is out. It's more about a guy that's this freak; he's a loner. The movie opens up now with him on a rooftop and we see a POV through binoculars, and he's looking through people's windows: you see one window and there's a guy and he's making a sandwich; you pan over and there's a girl with no top on brushing her hair; and the binoculars move away from that. You see how I'm grabbing the audience, don't you? You see how the distributors would love this, don't you? And then it focuses in on some scene where there's a guy reading a newspaper in a chair and his wife's knitting something, and he's fixated on something. And that swirl on top starts to become erect...

So you are finally going the kid-friendly route...

I just want to make a movie my daughter can see. I've been in nothing that she can see, nothing: JERKY BOYS, KING OF NEW YORK; none of these movies she can look at. Nothing.

And CITY never made it to syndication.

No, forget it. That would have been beautiful.

You're halfway through the script?

I'm halfway through it. And then I stopped writing. But now that I've talked to you I may continue.

Yeah, I'd like to pop into your life every few years and coax you along. It's a shame that Rocco's script will never be used because it was very good, but the good thing is that the script you will use if you go forward is going to be even more your personal vision.

Yeah, the script I'm writing now is really my personal vision. Rocco's script was a very good, commercial Hollywood vision, I think. And I decided, "You know what? I want to ruffle some feathers."

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You can see portions of the SWIRLEE short in THE MELTDOWN MEMOIRS, Roy Frumkes's feature length documentary on the making of STREET TRASH on the TRASH 2-disc DVD from Synapse.

(C) 2008 Gregory Lamberson