Legacy Notes

The Movie From Hell

Personal Trench Level Notes

After the release of Goodbye America things went relatively quiet. I did some (uncreditted) work on the script for Legacy, starring David Hasselhoff and Rod Steiger with two of my favorite people, Donita Rose - creditted as Donita Rose Calvert, and Junix Inocian.

Let's start with the good things about the Legacy shoot.

Donita Rose

I'd been secretly in love with Donita, a Filipino-American born at a US Airforce base in Pampanga, since meeting her on the set of Divine Mercy six years before. It was hopeless and non-existence love affair of which Donita was totally unaware. Mike Sellers had actually introduced Donita into films in The Class of '92, a Tagalog movie. Donita's father had been in the US services and she'd lived in the Philippines for a while, eventually moving to the US. The result was that she actually spoke little Tagalog but learned it as her movie career progressed and she became a movie name in the Philippines. Shortly after Legacy wrapped she was recruited as a host for MTV Asia, was elected one of Asia's ten sexiest women and got her face on the cover of Time magazine.

We were old acquaintances and would quietly chat in a corner between takes. A long time ago I was an extra in one of her early movie, Divine Mercy. She's very unaffected and gave probably the best interview for the Behind The Scenes video, which I wrote and directed, as I did for Goodbye America.

Junix Inocian

Junix Inocian came from the stage and spends much of his time in London, where he has built a reputation in theatre. He was one of several Filipinos of tremendous talent to be discovered in the London production of Miss Saigon. In a way he was a disconcerting - a Filipino who spoke English not just with a British accent, but with something of an Irish lilt, too. He is a superb actor and utterly professional. Someone I'd very much like to work with again.

Rod Steiger

Meeting Rod Steiger was… Well, what can I say? Whatever the mills he's been through, I'd been in awe of him for decades. Legacy wasn't an easy shoot for him, indeed the shooting in the lahar-covered town of Bacolor was gruelling for everyone - he'd recently emerged from a ten-year bout of depression and alcoholism, a heart by-pass and a hip replacement. Talking to him about movies and creating characters in his trailer, he suddenly slipped into character and let loose with a display of threat of frightening power that I'll never forget. I'm still in awe of him, but now I like him, too.

Legacy had been doing the LA rounds for some time without a script - Baywatch producer David Hasselhoff had acquired the rights to an idea by James Grady, who wrote the novel on which the successful movie Three Days of the Condor were based.

Somehow, I had a bad feel about it. My instincts were right. The script that came out of LA was unmakeable. A rewrite, based on notes wasn't a lot better. The lead characters were Alan and Lana because, explained the writer, they were anagrams and the audience would feel the characters psychologically compelled towards each other. No-one, however, was compelled towards the script.

I was asked to do another rewrite, unofficially, to try to save it. Sadly, Hasselhoff's people wouldn't let him read the script, nor, as far as I can gather, did they read the script. We were merely Little Brown Brothers whom they had condescended to allow to make, and pay for, their movie. Nothing in my personal experience suggests that was Hasselhoff's own attitude, but it was that of certain people around him. They insisted that only someone with an LA halo would be sufficiently touched with divinity to be worthy of writing lines for David to say.

As it happened, a European buyer somehow got to see this script. Later, presented with the finished film, he expressed disappointment that it wasn't the one that had been made. At least one of the producers also felt the same way, but that's Hollywood.

A writer/director was found who turned in a ten page sample script which had Hasselhoff as an alcoholic being looked after by an effeminate gay above a girly-bar in Manila's redlight district. Fortunately, we didn't have to turn this one down, Hasselhoff did it himself with instructions "Never let him near me again".

Hasselhoff's aim was to transition from TV into movies. It isn't a change many have done with success but he was determined to get away from the Baywatch persona. That's why Manila Bay's spectacular sunset and the gorgeous Philippine beaches don't appear in the movie. It could have been a temendous opportunity for him.

TJ Scott, a Canadian-born director was brought in, together with his writing partner, Kevin Lund. I acted as creative consultant, since they didn't know the Philippines, and read and prepared notes on the script etc.

The final script was a reasonable fist of a thing but to me lacked the sort of multi-layering I believe gives depth and heart to a story, and the climax didn't seem to be there. Little irritants remained - Manila looked more like Mexico, they even had a middle ranking Filipino police officering keep Philippine-made tequila in his desk drawers - in fact tequila isn't that popular in the Philippines and for anyone of any rank it's Johnny Walker Black Label or nothing. On the whole, though, it was passable.

The set was not a very happy one, a curtain best drawn over it, but it did get made and pretty close on budget.

Among the bright spots was getting together with Corin Nemec, who'd starred in Goodbye America and now played Steiger's sidekick in Legacy, and Mike Sarna, the action director.

In post production, the toothache remained. It took a horrendously long time to edit and there were problems with the negative. One good thing is that the Dolby Digital sound mix was done, very successfully, in the Philippines by Road Runner Network.

The movie got very good reviews in Manila, it was compared to Costa Grava's 'Z', but the Legacy curse remained. The Philippine government censorship board suspended the movie for seven days allegedly because it hadn't approved a catchline on the ad saying "See Donita Rose in her first International Movie". There was a widespread suspicion that the suspension was really because Legacy had been advertised in the Philippine Inquirer, then being boycotted by the movie industry in support of President Estrada, who felt the paper had given him a rough deal. There was also some talk that the Marcos's were involved in the suspension because they don';t come out well in the movie.In the Philippines a movie has just seven days at the box-office unless it's very, very successful. After the suspension it was impossible to get back into enough cinemas and the wave had passed.

President Estrada eventually became a victim of the Legacy curse when he was peacefully run out of the presidential palace in 2001.

Still, it turned out to be quite a good movie, and a good effort by Hasselhoff, who did work hard to shuck off Mitch, I think successfully. Even if you don't like Hasselhoff, go see it for Donita, Junix and the stunningly beautiful Chin-Chin Gutierrez.

There's some more about Legacy at this Hasselhoff website.

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