THE REAL MONEY TRAIN

WHEN TWO THUGS SPRAYED A FLAMMABLE LIQUID through a token-booth opening, flicked a match and set Brooklyn subway-token clerk Harry Kaufman on fire--an attack that mimicked a scene in the new movie Money Train--stars Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes expressed deep sorrow and said they were praying for the victim. Columbia Pictures stated it was "appalled and dismayed" at the incident as well.

Much of the nation was not just dismayed but calling for action. As Kaufman lay in a hospital with burns over 80% of his body, the Money Train incident reignited a debate about whether violence on the screen inspires the real thing. It's a debate that crops up regularly, most recently over the firebug antics on the MTV cartoon show Beavis and Butt-head and the traffic-dodging pranks in Disney's 1993 film The Program. This time, however, the filmmakers appear to have been warned. Jack Lusk, senior vice president in charge of movie permits for New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority, says the MTA cooperated with the filming, but not with the token-booth scenes. "We objected to the torching of the booth," he says. "We said the torching was not central to the movie, and that it was a dangerous thing to do and could lead to violence."

Other officials, however, have distanced themselves from the crime. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says the city cannot act as a censor for all movies shot there--157 last year, bringing in about $1.75 billion to the city. Commissioner Patricia Reed Scott, of the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, asserts, "Our interest in reading the scripts is purely logistical ... Even if the attackers did see the movie, they are still responsible for what they did."

While the finger pointing was going on in New York City, Senator Bob Dole, who knows the marquee value of a cheap shot at a movie when he sees one, took the opportunity to reprise the attacks on Hollywood that garnered so much attention last spring. "For those in the entertainment industry, who too often engage in a pornography of violence as a way to sell movie tickets, it is time for some serious soul-searching," said Dole. "Is this how they want to make their livelihoods?"

The short answer is yes. If it sells, they will make it. Yet Dole has been reluctant to do anything about the situation but talk. He has sided with the industry in opposing the V-chip, a device that would allow parents to block out violent TV shows. He championed the telecommunications bill that offered major regulatory relief for the industry. What's more, even as he lambastes the entertainment industry, Dole is not reluctant to accept its money. Despite singling out Time Warner in his much publicized attack on rap music last May, Dole did not return a $15,000 PAC contribution from the company. He also invited Time Warner chairman and CEO Gerald Levin to a recent $1,000-a-plate fund raiser at the Beverly Hills Hotel. (Levin did not attend.) And after grabbing headlines for condemning Disney's Miramax Films for the movie Priest and making a huge to-do over selling $15,000 worth of his wife's Disney stock in protest, Dole took a $4,000 contribution from the company in August. Last year Dole's Campaign America fund took in $79,000 from the entertainment industry.