Show Business: Presenting Fearless Francis!

Coppola unveils his new film in a bankruptcy-defying stunt

Come one, come all to the Greatest Show on Earth! The Zoetrope Circus is back in town! Famous for its tradition of death-defying stunts! Three years ago they thrilled you with Apocalypse Now—and made you gasp with public previews on two continents, perpetually revised endings, ruptured psyches! Last year they made you weep with the spectacle of a three-ring movie studio on the verge of bankruptcy, only to be saved at the last minute by the world-renowned Paramount Pictures! And now, for their most stupendous caper, never before attempted on any stage . . . One From the Heart! It will be presented—without the sponsorship of Paramount—at the legendary Radio City Music Hall in the heart of glamorous Manhattan! So come! See a high-wire artiste, a pratfalling clown, a man who shoots himself from cannons, a spellbinding ringmaster. . . all wrapped up in the person of Mr. Zoetrope himself, Francis Coppola!

All the guy did was rent a hall to preview his movie. But the guy was Francis Coppola, 42, director of the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now; and the hall was the 6,000-seat art deco monument in Rockefeller Center; and the movie was a $26 million love story whose ballooning budget carried Coppola's Zoetrope Studios further on its drift toward disaster; and in violation of all movieland protocol, the preview was arranged without notifying the film's distributor. And so, with one full-page ad placed in last Sunday's New York Times, Coppola turned One From the Heart from a potential loser into the year's first big media event. This Friday night, thousands of the movie-mad and the just plain curious will crowd into the Music Hall to watch this world-class shaman pull a rabbit—or a dog—out of his hat. "It's a brilliant move," marvels Writer-Director Paul Schrader (American Gigolo). "If it's a hit he can wipe out a year of bad publicity."

The past year has not been kind to Coppola and Zoetrope. Three movies the studio was to have released in 1981—not only One From the Heart but also Hammett, German Director Wim Wenders' moody detective drama, and Escape Artist, Caleb Deschanel's saga of a runaway boy—have yet to be seen. The Chase Manhattan Bank, which had lent millions to Coppola, cut off the funding. Staff salaries were met with the help of Paramount Pictures, which bought one of Zoetrope's scripts and offered Coppola a low-interest loan. Paramount also secured the distribution rights to One from the Heart.

The film, a stylized musical set in Las Vegas on Independence Day, recounts the affairs of a junkyard owner (Frederic Forrest) with two women: a travel agent (Teri Garr) and a circus star (Nastassia Kinski). Coppola calls Heart "a lounge operetta, pretty and sweet. I've made too many gangster and soldier movies. I like fantasy and fable—it's a large part of me." It is also a huge part of the film's budget: Dean Tavoularis' dazzling sets cost more than $6 million to build. The film went $11 million over the original budget, shooting was suspended as Coppola wooed other investors—and in August, Paramount showed a very rough cut to a group of disappointed exhibitors. Coppola the lion tamer felt caged; it was time to crack the whip and see who jumped.