Hoffman Could Be Big After This

The Scene: Wednesday’s screening on its 25th anniversary of United Artists’ “Midnight Cowboy” by the American Film Institute’s Third Decade Council. A discussion with the filmmakers and a reception followed the screening of the only X-rated film ever to win a Best Picture Oscar. “It’s a touching, rather sweet film,” said David Hockney. “It tells you something about censors that they would give this an X.”

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Who Was There: The film’s stars, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman; co-star Brenda Vaccaro; director John Schlesinger; producer Jerome Hellman; plus 500 guests including Jodie Foster, AFI’s Jean Firstenberg, Ellen Barkin, Barry Levinson, Joanna Pakula, Sally Kellerman and studio execs Frank Mancuso, James Middleton and John Calley.

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Quoted: Hoffman on why the movie probably wouldn’t be made today--”The studios want high concept films, which means you have to be able to say in a sentence: ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger is pregnant in “Twins 2.” ’ I don’t know how you explain ‘Midnight Cowboy’ in one sentence. Jon Voight comes to town to bed all the ladies and become rich, but winds up having sex with gay people in the street. You’d see the studio execs thinking ‘How’s that going to open in 2,000 theaters the first weekend?’ Right then you got a problem.”

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Audience Review: Much praise for the way the film held up. A typical comment was “a classic, a masterpiece that will play in the year 3000.”

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Trend Watch: Maybe the ‘60s really are coming back. First a 1969 movie is a major hit with an audience, then someone smokes pot in the men’s room.

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Best Anecdote: Schlesinger said an astute mind at the studio wrote a memo before the film was made that said, “If we could clean this up and add a few songs, it could be a great vehicle for Elvis Presley.”

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Overheard: When the screening ended, Martin Landau went up to Hoffman and said: “When this picture comes out, you’re going to be a star.”