By David Savage

In Vito, a new documentary examining the life of Vito Russo, the pioneering AIDS activist and author of the landmark book The Celluloid Closet (published in 1981, updated in 1987), director Jeffrey Schwarz pays tribute to a man whom he credits with being the first to break down the long history of Hollywood’s defamation against gay people in the movies, and in so doing, advanced the cause of gay rights on a crucial front. The documentary premiered at the 49^th New York Film Festival on last Friday, October 14^th, and is being distributed by HBO Films. (The cable network will air the doc sometime next year, an employee confirmed.)

“Movies caused great damage to gay people’s psyches,” said Jeffrey Schwarz recently in an interview with Cinema Retro, “and he was able to tie in his burgeoning gay activism with movies by showing films at the Gay Activist Alliance, which he founded [in 1970], and that had the effect of creating community through film. There really was no community before. Getting gay people in a room together to discuss films had never happened before, and he was the first person to make these connections.”

The documentary is the most personal yet for Schwarz, founder of Automat Pictures, a production house in Los Angeles which, in between their bread-and-butter work producing EPKs (Electronic Press Kits), behind-the-scenes shorts and making-of featurettes for DVDs and Blu-Ray releases, has been cranking out some of the best documentaries in recent memory on the outsiders of American cinema, like William Castle, Tab Hunter and drag superstar Divine (more on the last, below).

Happier times: Manes with Eastwood on the set of Any Which You Can (1980) prior to the severing of their friendship.

Fritz Manes, a boyhood school friend of Clint Eastwood who would later produce many of the actor's hit films of the 1970s and 1980s, has died at age 79. Manes was a Korean War veteran who was hired by Eastwood's Malpaso Productions in the mid 1970s. He served variously as producer, associate producer or executive producer on major films such as Escape From Alcatraz, Every Which Way But Loose, Any Which Way You Can, Pale Rider, Firefox, Honkytonk Man, Sudden Impact, Tightrope and others. Manes would occasionally appear in cameo roles and perform stunts in the films, as well. He and Eastwood had their friendship severed when the two collaborated on the 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge, a fictionalized version of the U.S. invasion of Granada. Eastwood had wanted Manes to ensure that the film had the full backing of the U.S Marine Corps and Department of Defense, especially since it capitalized on the wave of patriotism that defined the Reagan era. However, both the Marines and Department of Defense publicly disavowed the movie, leading Eastwood to fire Manes.  Later, Manes accused Eastwood of being power-crazed and reluctant to share credit for anything. Eastwood responded by saying that Manes had failed to perform the duties that had been expected of him. For more click here