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"What we did with this film," said Margi Clarke, red-ringed, mouth grinning, platinum-blond hair blowing in the wind, "was bring together the upper-class unemployed and the working-class unemployed to give each other a job."
Margi Clarke is one of the leads in "Letter to Brezhnev" (at the Goldwyn Pavilion). Made on a shoestring budget of $75,000, it has earned enthusiastic critical attention on both sides of the Atlantic.
Fine. But how does a group of out-of-work Liverpudlians-or, if you prefer, denizens of Liverpool-with no previous moviemaking experience and no friendly bank manager, get such a venture off the ground?
"I just told you," said Clarke, scrabbling around for a cigarette. "One day my brother Frank, who wrote `Letter to Brezhnev,' got a call from someone asking if he could put up a friend for the night.
" `Yes,' he said, `but they'll have to use the mattress where the dog sleeps. There's no other room.' The person who turned up was Fiona Castleton, who was on her way to join her family on the Isle of Man. We didn't know it then but they're really rich.
"Anyway, a bit later she asked Frank to visit her on Man so we all pooled our dole (unemployment) money...