NEW YORK--April 24, 1998—
A capacity crowd braved last night's torrential downpour in Manhattan to attend the Special Advance Industry screening of Asset Pictures' feature documentary Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me at the Sutton Twin Theatre on East 57th Street. The 300 or so in attendance suffered fierce wet-weather traffic and a line that stretched for half a block, from 57th onto Third Avenue, before finally gaining admission to the theater well after the scheduled 7:30PM screening. The projector cranked up at just after 8:00, and the pic soon proved to have been well-worth the wait. The crowd whooped and howled from its deliciously wry first frames all the way to its simple and poignant ending.
Director Tessa Blake and producer Jason Lyon stayed afterward to greet their guests as most again waited online to congratulate their success. Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me is director Tessa Blake's portrait of her irascible 87-year-old-father, Tommy Blake, a Texas oil man, Hollywood playboy and serial monogamist who manages to charm even as he proves himself as sexist, racist, and classist as they come. Filmmaker Blake, 28, uses the backdrop of her father's soap opera world of big money (and big hair) to examine with aching honesty the intricacies of all our parent/child relationships. The net result is a hilarious comedy that packs a surprising punch in its final reel.
The 81-minute film premiered at last month's SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, which is described by the entertainment trade magazine Variety as "rapidly becoming one of the most important film forums in the country." Critics from coast to coast heralded the debut of an auspicious career for Blake and Lyon. The Austin Chronicle hailed Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me as "fascinating, intensely personal ... witty and incisive .. a rare invitation to see how the other half lives," while Seattle Weekly described the film's climax as "one of the most powerful father/daughter moments ever seen in a documentary." One festival-goer went so far as to write Entertainment Weekly that the film had changed her view of the entire documentary genre.
Last night's screening was a first glimpse at Five Wives for the New York community in which Blake and Lyon live and work. Among those attending were actors Billy Crudup ("Sleepers," "Inventing the Abbotts"), Mary Louise Parker ("Fried Green Tomatoes"), and Brooks Ashmanskas ("How to Succeed ..."); novelists Dale Peck ("Martin & John") and Michael Klein ("Track Conditions"); writer-performer David Drake ("The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me"); filmmaker Tim Kirkman ("Dear Jesse"); poet Dana Bryant; singer-songwriter Shannon Worrell Chapman of September '67; composer Ricky Ian Gordon ("Tibetan Book of the Dead"); artist Mary Weatherford; and art director Santo Loquasto ("Bullets over Broadway"). As for a distribution deal, producer Lyon would only say that he is "considering a pair of offers." Industry insiders spotted scouts from no fewer than four distribution companies at the screening.