Young Tommy Guns

So Steve Roth and Casey Silver hire Michael Karbelnikoff after being “blown away” by his 7-Up “Beautiful Rain” TV commercial to direct a $25-million film about Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky? (“Tommy-Gunning for Siegel and Luciano as Mini-Mobsters,” April 28.)

And they hire teen idol Richard Grieco as Siegel, who gets to undress a woman with an ice pick? (“He did a really good job of it,” says Karbelnikoff, who adds, “I want a sort of ‘Amadeus’ gangster movie.”)

That’s what this world needs--another violent film glorifying gangsters. (One is reminded of the 20 years it took Sir Richard Attenborough to finance his film “Gandhi.”) But then again, it’s much easier to make a film about ice picks and killing than love and compassion, isn’t it, guys?

JOHN HOLMSTROM

Hollywood