THE REAL MONEY TRAIN

By MARGARET CARLSON

WHEN TWO THUGS SPRAYED A FLAMMABLE LIQUID through a token-booth opening, flicked a match and set Brooklyn subway-token clerk Harry Kaufman on fire--an attack that mimicked a scene in the new movie Money Train--stars Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes expressed deep sorrow and said they were praying for the victim. Columbia Pictures stated it was "appalled and dismayed" at the incident as well.

Much of the nation was not just dismayed but calling for action. As Kaufman lay in a hospital with burns over 80% of his body, the Money Train incident reignited a debate about whether violence on the screen inspires the real thing. It's a debate that crops up regularly, most recently over the firebug antics on the MTV cartoon show Beavis and Butt-head and the traffic-dodging pranks in Disney's 1993 film The Program. This time, however, the filmmakers appear to have been warned. Jack Lusk, senior vice president in charge of movie permits for New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority, says the MTA cooperated with the filming, but not with the token-booth scenes. "We objected to the torching of the booth," he says. "We said the torching was not central to the movie, and that it was a dangerous thing to do and could lead to violence."

Other officials, however, have distanced themselves from the crime. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says the city cannot act as a censor for all movies shot there--157 last year, bringing in about $1.75 billion to the city. Commissioner Patricia Reed Scott, of the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, asserts, "Our interest in reading the scripts is purely logistical ... Even if the attackers did see the movie, they are still responsible for what they did."

While the finger pointing was going on in New York City, Senator Bob Dole, who knows the marquee value of a cheap shot at a movie when he sees one, took the opportunity to reprise the attacks on Hollywood that garnered so much attention last spring. "For those in the entertainment industry, who too often engage in a pornography of violence as a way to sell movie tickets, it is time for some serious soul-searching," said Dole. "Is this how they want to make their livelihoods?"

The short answer is yes. If it sells, they will make it. Yet Dole has been reluctant to do anything about the situation but talk. He has sided with the industry in opposing the V-chip, a device that would allow parents to block out violent TV shows. He championed the telecommunications bill that offered major regulatory relief for the industry. What's more, even as he lambastes the entertainment industry, Dole is not reluctant to accept its money. Despite singling out Time Warner in his much publicized attack on rap music last May, Dole did not return a $15,000 PAC contribution from the company. He also invited Time Warner chairman and CEO Gerald Levin to a recent $1,000-a-plate fund raiser at the Beverly Hills Hotel. (Levin did not attend.) And after grabbing headlines for condemning Disney's Miramax Films for the movie Priest and making a huge to-do over selling $15,000 worth of his wife's Disney stock in protest, Dole took a $4,000 contribution from the company in August. Last year Dole's Campaign America fund took in $79,000 from the entertainment industry.

Democrats, of course, have long been pros at courting Hollywood money. But Republicans aren't letting their public attacks stop them from trying to get a bigger share. In the first six months of 1995, Republicans narrowed their Hollywood contribution gap with the Democrats from 9-to-1 to 5-to-1. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has joined Dole in his attacks on Hollywood, was host at a breakfast for 18 studio heads in the spring, and has appointed Representative Sonny Bono to head up the first formal bridge to the industry. The House Entertainment Industry Task Force held its first session in Beverly Hills in September. Originally billed as a hearing, it was scaled down to a meeting, and ultimately devolved into a group-therapy session intended to show that Republicans are on Hollywood's side. Congressman David Dreier, one of the House Republicans who spoke, said his intent was "to calm the industry. We were worried that many people may have misunderstood the criticism."

Of course, the fact that some politicians are using the media-violence issue for their own electoral ends does not mean popular culture is not offensive, or that the producers of violent movies shouldn't think about what message they are sending. But good people don't suddenly do bad things because they see it depicted in Colors or Natural Born Killers or Money Train. (The subway-torching scene was based on real-life incidents dating back at least to 1988.) Movies don't kill people. Evil, impoverished, hopeless thugs, deadened to all that's human, do, and that's who torched Harry Kaufman. Someday, when Dole has finished bashing Hollywood, maybe he will get around to addressing that.

--With reporting by Jenifer Mattos/New York and Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles

With reporting by JENIFER MATTOS/NEW YORK AND JEANNE MCDOWELL/LOS ANGELES