I finally had the privilege of watching “Wilde Salome,” the film version of “Salome” aka “Salome Maybe?”, directed by Al.. In a similar fashion which he explored in “Looking for Richard”, Al digs into the depths of an Actors Studio member to give audiences the internal life of how he works. Scraping the surface and peeling the layers which make him the actor he is today. Always working from the inside to reveal the inner workings of the play and how to share this. Lucky us.
So he begins rehearsals with the actors holding the scripts because he feels that the words of playwright Oscar Wilde are the most important and will allow the audiences to focus on them. Estelle Parsons is the director of the play while Al is the director of the film version. When he did this on the New York stage he created controversy which is what plays are all about .Conflict and more conflict and where does it take you. He continued this journey in Hollywood by doing another production of the play at the Wadsworth Theatre in Westwood but the only difference was that he wanted it to be filmed at the same time which created many problems. Al likes to push buttons. I will now share some of my info about Al that may not be known. In the 1960’s in New York City there was talk about this actor who was very talented and the word spread around the acting community. This started the saga of Al Pacino. His first off-bway play was “The Indian wants the Bronx” written by Israel Horovitz with co-stars John Casale and Matthew Cowles which I saw . I watched this drama which takes places at a bus stop with 2 New York thugs and an Indian, Was Al an actor or was he a thug ? Why? Because he was real. I grew up with and knew guys like him and he was the picture image of them, So Lee Strasberg the legendary artistic director of the Actors Studio suggested that Al work on the Shakespearean play “Richard the 3rd “. Some 30 years later he directed the documentary “Looking for Richard”. So this kid from the Bronx whose grandmother lived on my block in East Harlem and where Al spent a lot of his youth while attending the High School of Performing Arts while I was a juvenile delinquent... Al and I were never really close but we shared the screen in Godfather 1 and Dog Day Afternoon and I would see him at The Actors Studio and I owned peanut machines in Knobby’s his Uncle Steve’s bar.,
Now back to the present day August 23, 2010 and his film”Wilde Salome “where we are drawn into this very creative actor’s quest to share his theatrical vision of a play/film combo... His life intertwined with Oscar Wilde and King Herod and so here is his journey in the play, the movie of the play and a documentary. He shot this production in 5 days and adds footage about the controversial life of Oscar Wilde We now we have this finished film which has not been released but should be. One of the actors Jack Maxwell sent me an email asking me when will it be released. Hopefully soon. Meanwhile Al is getting rave reviews as Shylock in the theatrical production on Broadway in “The Merchant of Venice”. Thanks Al, I share your vision