FRANK SWERTLOW

Staff Reporter

When Budd Schulberg wrote “What Makes Sammy Run” six decades ago, little did he realize that his classic Hollywood character, Sammy Glick, would become a role model for future generations of young studio executives.

“(Schulberg’s book has) become the bible,” said Terry Keefe, a former Hollywood assistant and independent filmmaker.

Keefe and his partner Michael Wechsler, also a former Hollywood assistant, have created their own version of Sammy Glick: a character named Roman Sofine, who is at the center of their low-budget black comedy, “Slaves of Hollywood.”

The film is a docudrama about twentysomething Hollywood assistants, a group that flies below the radar but keeps the entertainment industry rolling on a daily basis. Adding to the film’s realism, much of it was actually shot inside the offices of now-defunct Orion Pictures a move that Sammy Glick himself might have appreciated.

Wechsler and Keefe began “Slaves of Hollywood” five years ago while they were working as assistants at Orion. To save money during the filming, they used the closed Orion offices as a set for many of their scenes, without the knowledge of their departed bosses. Although out of business, Orion’s offices were still open during its final months.

The script is based on autobiographical material and composites of people the filmmakers knew during their time as assistants.

“There are only a few films about Hollywood,” Wechsler said. “There was ‘The Player.’ But there was nothing yet about the film assistant corps in Hollywood.”

Financing the film was a study in how the true independent filmmaker scrambles to make a movie a process in which filming is often delayed for months, if not years, until new sources of capital can be found.

For “Slaves of Hollywood,” which ultimately cost $107,000, the two borrowed heavily on their credit cards. When they ran out of money, they would get jobs, pay off their debts, and max out their credit cards again.

Wechsler used what he described as “bar mitzvah money” he discovered in a bank account. Keefe, whose parents own a motel on New York’s Long Island, auctioned off some valuable scrimshaw from the motel. That netted him $15,000.

Typical of independent moviemakers, the two also learned how to beg and borrow equipment and film stock so-called “short ends,” unused film from other producers’ movies.

To support himself, Wechsler, 30, works as a film editor. Keefe, 29, works at his parents’ motel during the summer and makes enough money in four months to support himself in Los Angeles.

“Slaves,” which was completed last year, has been screened at more than three dozen film festivals from Australia to Great Britain. The producers have yet to sign a deal with a distributor, although they say they are currently in negotiations. After screenings at a recent comedy arts festival in Aspen, Colo., they said several network executives asked them to develop a pilot for a series based on “Slaves.”

The film portrays a world of ambitious and often ruthless assistants with an uncanny knack for survival the sort of person who might eventually become a studio executive or talent agent. Sofine, a former stiletto-wielding street-gang member, is perfectly at home in the shark tank of Hollywood.

Unlike Sammy Glick, the uneducated hustler who rose to the top, these aspiring agents, producers and movie moguls are sleek, coifed and well-schooled.

“Where you went to school is now very important,” said Wechsler, who worked as an assistant at a talent agency. “It’s not uncommon today for someone in the mailroom of a major agency to have a law degree or an MBA from Harvard. They think it gives them an edge.”

One thing they say doesn’t give anyone an edge is film school, which Wechsler and Keefe both attended at NYU and USC, respectively.

“A film degree is meaningless until you make it, and then they want you to come back to be honored,” said Wechsler, who met Keefe when they were both assistants at Orion in 1992.

As they both quickly and painfully learned, and as their film displays, the job of a Hollywood assistant is fairly mindless answering phones, delivering mail, taking memos, getting laundry and even babysitting their bosses’ kids. Such duties can consume most of a 16- to 18-hour day, which is not uncommon for an assistant.

“You are a go-fer in a suit,” Wechsler said. “You do the crap. This wouldn’t fly in other industries, but there is so much competition in Hollywood. Everybody wants to be the next Michael Eisner or Mike Ovitz.”

Then there is the art of skullduggery digging up secret memos, betraying confidences, and the ultimate test: covering for the boss’ indiscretions.

“Talent helps you to succeed,” Wechsler said, “but being slick and lucky and dangerously ambitious helps, too. You really have to want it.”

While their bosses are paid millions of dollars and live in the luxury of their perks, Hollywood assistants work for slave wages. It is not uncommon for someone in the mailroom of a major talent agency to earn $250 a week. An assistant for a top producer might earn as much as $1,500, but that is the exception.

Despite the film’s send-up of Hollywood, no one has tried to blackball the producers. “The key to success is perseverance,” Keefe said. “It’s easy to walk away. You just have to stick it out.”