OUTTAKES DEAREST:

I rented a video called “The Hollywood Dream,” which, it turns out, I’d already seen at a drive-in when it was entitled “Game Show Models.” How, pray tell, did your esteemed arts editor, Charles Champlin, ever get roped into appearing in this bizarro sexploitation oddity?

Vance Nardo

Phoenix, Ariz.

Well, Vance, turns out that our Mr. Champlin kindly agreed to appear (as himself) in a movie then called “The Seventh Dwarf,” being made by an AFI student about the struggles of Hollywood hopefuls. But a distributor urged the film maker to put in some racy stuff. Then it all was retitled “Game Show Models.” Now it’s a cassette called “The Hollywood Dream.”

Editor/actor Champlin himself once saw “Game Show Models”--at Cannes!--and he kindly describes it as “awful.” He went with some friends who walked out on the film. When Mr. Champlin protested, saying, “But you haven’t seen my scene yet,” they replied, “We’re not that good friends.”