Copyright 1996 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune October 15, 1996 Tuesday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION

THE PENTAGON'S MOVIE MOGUL; WHEN HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS NEED A NUCLEARSUBMARINE OR AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER, THEY CALL PHIL STRUB,AND HOPE FOR THE MILITARY'S GREEN LIGHT
BYLINE: By Bob Kemper, Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Deep inside the Pentagon, in a windowless, dimly lit room, a telephone rings. It's the White House. "I was talking to Demi this morning," the White House aide says. "Your name came up." There is no need to say that Demi's last name is Moore. The man in the windowless room knows this. It was he who told Demi no. He would not help Moore make her new picture, "G.I. Jane." He could have guessed what came next. Moore called the White House to see if the most powerful man in the world could change the decision. But not even the White House tries to reverse the man in the windowless room. Phil Strub, after all, is a player. Strub has no personalized canvas chair. He does not regularly take lunch at Spago's or the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When the credits scroll by at the end of a picture, his name is not among them. And yet as the Pentagon's chief liaison to Hollywood, it is Strub who decides if moviemakers will be allowed to use authentic military hardware, personnel or installations. Or whether they will have to make do with mockups and models, a distinction that could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of a motion picture and detract greatly from its authenticity, even marketability. Strub, a former Navy man with a film degree from the University of Southern California, is the bridge between the Pentagon and Hollywood, two institutions that are a continent apart geographically and even further divided philosophically and culturally. Almost as long as Hollywood has been making movies, the military establishment has been in the wings, a silent partner. The military and moviemakers collaborated for the first time on the 1927 silent flick "Wings," which captured the first Academy Award ever given for best picture. And while not always so smashing together, the Pentagon remains a Hollywood ally even as Washington politicians from Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole on down are lambasting Hollywood as a threat to American values. Hollywood is in it for the hardware; the Pentagon, for publicity. Getting a message out From his cubbyhole in the labyrinthine corridors of the Pentagon, Strub can provide what directors and producers want most: supersonic jet fighters, sleek nuclear submarines, imposing aircraft carriers and more. It's the cool stuff, the stuff that adds dazzle, the stuff that draws in audiences. Sean Connery got top billing, but the true star of "The Hunt for Red October" was a nuclear submarine from the Pentagon. And how much of a "Top Gun" would Tom Cruise have been without a Navy jet fighter? Hollywood, on the other hand, helps the military reach more people more effectively with a single blockbuster than military recruiters could ever hope to reach with all of their "Be all that you can be" TV ads. Though it has long since lost the influence it had over filmmakers during World War II, when Hollywood was churning out patriotic films by the cartload, the Pentagon still views the motion picture as an opportunity to educate the public about the military, enhance recruitment and retention and ensure accuracy in the depiction of military life. Arnold Schwarzenegger does as much for the Harrier jet in "True Lies" as the Harrier does for Arnold. And recruitment surged for the Air Force and the Navy after Cruise and friends showed audiences just how hot a fighter jock with a soundtrack can be. In some cases, Hollywood gets access to Pentagon weapons--some of which cost billions of tax dollars to build and millions more to maintain--for free. No rent is charged for use of military installations. And, if necessary, several hundred Marines or soldiers can be rounded up to act as extras without the daily fees civilian extras get.

"Our rules tell us we are not in this to make money," Strub said. "We are in this for reasons of public affairs." There's no charge for the equipment because it is already paid off and would be in use even if it were not dedicated to the filming, Strub and other military officials who work with Hollywood said. "Our support for these projects is at no cost to the taxpayer," said Lt. Cmdr. Rob Newell, a spokesman for the Navy, which lends some of the largest, most expensive equipment to Hollywood. "The production company is billed for any overhead expenses, such as fuel or maintenance charges, that the Navy would not ordinarily incur." Such charges vary widely. The nuclear sub in "Red October," lent exclusively to the movie crew for several weeks, costs $400 an hour to operate. The four F-14 jet fighters chasing a Boeing 747 across the skies in "Executive Decision," on the other hand, cost about $3,000 an hour each. "If someone said, 'Launch a missile,' I'm not saying it's impossible," Strub said. "But it would be very expensive. They'd have to pay for that." Who gets help Hundreds of scripts for motion pictures and television shows come in every year to Strub's office. Most of them come through the film liaison offices each service maintains in Los Angeles, though none of those offices can grant access to equipment or facilities without Strub's OK. Strub is one of the few reviewing the projects who has any background in filmmaking. But the military people poring over scripts are not assessing box-office potential. They are judging whether the film reflects positively on them. Inquiries are sometimes simple requests for technical advice: How many people are in the Army? How big is an aircraft carrier? Most of the callers, however, want hardware or access to a military installation. And the majority of those are turned away empty-handed. Usually, it's an easy call. The makers of "For Love or Money," a Michael J. Fox movie about a New York hotel concierge, wanted tanks to dress up a scene in which models walked down a runway. The Pentagon passed. Other proposals are not so clear-cut. "Courage Under Fire," the first theatrical feature about the Persian Gulf War, needed tanks and helicopters, but the Pentagon objected to several scenes, including one in which Denzel Washington portrays an officer drinking in uniform and another in which Meg Ryan's character is described as "butch." The producers rewrote the script five times. But in the end they could not satisfy Strub. The company and the producers had to spend $500,000 renting tanks from a private collector and dressing them up to look like the real thing. (Strub gave them the collector's name.) Even Tom Clancy, the Pentagon-friendly writer of techno-thrillers, can't always please the military. The film adaptation of his "Clear and Present Danger" had Special Forces troops killing unarmed drug dealers in broad daylight and the Air Force shooting down an unarmed plane. No way, said Strub, it would never happen that way. Finally, the producers agreed to arm the dealers and have them fire first so that the Special Forces soldiers could shoot back. And they agreed to blow up an unmanned plane on the ground instead. Strub gave a little, too, as he often must. He turned a blind eye to the Special Forces attacking during the day, something they would never really do. Strub usually rejects scripts in which the military portrayals are not realistic--as was the case with Demi Moore's female Navy Seal--too much license is taken, or characters are "unrelentingly negative." The chief offender is what one could tag, "The Loner," a prolific character in action films that Strub said underscores Hollywood's chief misconceptions of the military. The character is usually a soldier, a loose cannon, an insubordinate with no feelings of loyalty for the service or fellow servicemen--all of which is antithetical to the military culture in which loyalty is prized above all else. Making their pitch Though he doesn't take out ads in the trades, Strub does hunt them for business. He contacts production companies working on films with a military bent to see if they would interested in working together. Also, each of the services routinely shows off its wares to writers, producers, directors and studio executives in hopes of planting a story idea or cementing a relationship. The military version of schmoozing is to fly the execs out to an aircraft carrier or to take them to a base where tanks are thundering by or Marines are drilling. The results are predictably mixed. A visit to an aircraft carrier by the makers of the situation comedy "Home Improvement" led to the filming of an episode aboard the USS Constellation. But taking the writer of "Crimson Tide" for a ride on a real

ballistic missile sub proved a waste of time. The final script was so objectionable, the Pentagon refused to help. If Strub turns away a producer, or if moviemakers can't live with the changes requested, filmmakers must find other means. The producers of "Broken Arrow," for instance, were forced to create their own fictitious "B-3 Stealth bomber." (In fact, all Stealth aircraft used on the screen so far have been fake. Neither the real F-117 Stealth fighter nor the B-2 bomber has made a celluloid debut.) In fact, the increasing sophistication of computer imaging and modeling has cut into the Pentagon's niche, Strub said. "Independence Day," made without any Pentagon hardware, is just one recent picture winning accolades for its special effects. "You couldn't make 'Independence Day' without us five years ago, or if you did, it would look pretty cheesy," Strub said. The military recently relaxed the standards it has enforced since it first began participating in movies 70 years ago. It now allows non-military movies to be made on military bases it has closed in hopes that the productions will pump badly needed dollars into the surrounding communities, many of which were devastated economically by the base closings. "We have a lot of big buildings and Hollywood is very busy and they are experiencing a sound-stage shortage," Strub said. "James and the Giant Peach," "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Copycat" are among the films made in closed military warehouses. Despite the tightening of federal spending and increasing popularity of working with the private sector, no one in Washington seriously entertains the idea of turning the Pentagon's weapons cache into a profit center, according to Strub. "I'm not aware of any indication anywhere--on Capitol Hill, out in the local districts, in any of the services, anywhere--of any effort to turn this into a money-making relationship," said the military's Mr. Hollywood.