A: Some, not as many specific incidents, but Ritchie's feel for what goes on in a make up room before a debate. The actual dialogue was written by me. We traveled around with Tunney for awhile. I was also with Unruh, wrote a piece on Unruh and Reagan...Nothing Jarman says in The Candidate hasn't been said by Reagan or Murphy People don't realize how crazy these guys are when they're with their hometown people.

Q: A major part of the film depicts California, the happiness culture--

A: Right...Ritchie lives in the San Francisco area, Redford's from the Valley, the other side of Low Angeles...California is just an example of what the rest of the country becomes...It's a redundancy to moralize about California, all you have to do is show it.

Most people in California don't think or talk about books and they regard writers as janitors, somebody you have to have. The things you talk about in L.A. are rock music, movies, and "where my head is at."

Q: There seems to be a theme running throughout year work of people with delayed adolescence, grouping for something to hang on to in their lives or professionally...

A: Yes Obviously the social system has collapsed to a degree, leaving a lot of people shipwrecked. The things people believe in don't work as well in terms of them making a life for themselves, and that's something that does crop up again and again in my writing.

By the way, this is the first time I have defended my film so insistently, because your review expressed what a lot of people felt about the film, I don't think the film is above criticism.

* * *

I spoke with Ron O'Neal under quite different circumstances. As is often done for stars with commercial prospects, a studio representative and one of Sack Theaters invited a few critics to dine with the star at the suits. The interview was interspersed with casual conversation and the dining room's piano.

O'Neal is a tall, bag and handsome man who lives in New York but speaks with an educated Midwest accent, unexpected after his portrayal of Super Fly, a live cokepusher named Priest. O'Neal led off by calling the production the "definitive black film."

Q: Have you seen Clayton Riley's piece in the Sunday Times? Compared to the other black films. Super Fly came off pretty well, but what he said in general was that all black films subscribe to a sort of black macho ethic which he thought was very crude in which there was a return to the law of the gun and women figure only as sexual pawns.

A He's probably absolutely correct, Clayton, you see, fancies himself as the moral and artistic leader of the black artistic community. He usually states the obvious rather well, in a rather esoteric and involved fashion. He's very, very bright, but not particularly wise. Being correct is not necessarily the only thing of worth.

Q: What good is Super Fly if Riley's criticisms are correct'

A: Go see the film and watch the black audience watch the film.

Q: In other words, you think it's useful to have black versions of the crude white superheroes?