THE LITTLE MAGAZINE THAT COULD

FOREST PARK, Ill. — Fred Clarke used to put out his magazine from the attic of his mother’s house. Now he works out of a second-floor office in a red brick building in a small suburb of Chicago. There’s a lawyer’s office out front, an ambulance service in the back. Down the street is the White Hen convenience store and Bishop’s “World Famous” Chili.

Cinefantastique--which they’d like you to please pronounce sin-eh-fawn-toss-teek --bills itself as “the magazine with a ‘Sense of Wonder.’ ”

Clarke, 37, puts it out five times a year: “The goal is six--but for the moment, we’re lucky to make five.” He oversees 50 to 100 free-lancers, most avid genre fans, who earn about a nickel a word writing about science fiction, fantasy and horror films. In the free-lance business, a nickel a word is the loose change category.

The magazine goes to 5,000 paid subscribers and about 20,000 newsstand readers, many of whom find it in sci-fi specialty stores, with a maxi cover price of $4.95. (The term sci-fi is ours; the magazine finds it a “vulgarism.”)

The latest issue has a cover piece on “Psycho III” and director-star Tony Perkins (Perkins wears a beckoning smile out in front of the ramshackle Bates house), as well as a retrospective look at “Psycho” on its 25th anniversary. There’s also a story about the scary “Godzilla” movie that was planned, but didn’t get made (as opposed to the tame one that did) and a sneak peek at the summer release “Short Circuit” (about a wayward robot).

True to what has become a Cinefantastique trademark, the 64 glossy pages are handsomely produced, with eye-catching art direction and LOTS of color photos. The magazine has other trademarks:

It sometimes prints tantalizing gossip and colorful behind-the-camera incidents--like the time Steven Spielberg had special effects artist Rick Baker locked out of his effects lab and fired from “Night Skies,” the horrific alien film that was the precursor to cute “E.T.”

It sometimes gives away the plots and/or endings of highly anticipated films. It was Cinefantastique that grabbed headlines in 1983 when it announced the plot to “Return of the Jedi” even before the “Star Wars” buffs began standing in line.

It sometimes takes critical swipes at the biggest guys and the biggest movies. Among victims: “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back.”

As a result of all this, Goliaths Steven Spielberg and George Lucas go out of their way to avoid dealing with the little David magazine. Well, that’s putting it mildly: Spielberg’s Amblin Productions and Lucas’ Lucasfilm and ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) have strict policies forbidding cooperation with Cinefantastique. They won’t assist the magazine with photos or press releases or interviews.

Some Spielberg and Lucas associates have adopted a similarly hostile attitude toward the minimagazine. Like directors John Landis and Joe Dante and special effects master Richard Edlund (“Star Wars”).

One studio--Warner Bros.--has a total blackout on Cinefantastique. That’s because the magazine printed photographs of “The Twilight Zone” tragedy.

Other studios have, from time to time, dispatched memos telling their staffers to avoid and/or be very diligent in their dealings with it.

And speaking of blackouts, the Big Boys steadfastly refused to discuss their differences with the magazine with Calendar.

Making the tale curiouser still is the fact that some of the magazine’s enemies also admit to being among its ardent fans. Like Joe Dante, who goes to dramatic lengths not to talk with the magazine (more on his tactics, later), but nonetheless concedes: “I’ve probably bought every copy . . . In terms of what it does, nobody does it better.”

The story of the little magazine that stirs up so much passion--pro and con--is of course indelibly linked to the story of the very genres it celebrates.

They are not always taken seriously.

But science-fiction, fantasy and horror are among the most enduring of genres. Their impact on Americana is undisputed. Anyone who’s ever visited the Empire State Building and purchased a postcard of its most infamous visitor--a guy named King Kong--knows that.

But with lots and lots of box office money now at stake, and with so many advances in special effects, secrecy has become the hallmark of many a film set. That’s one reason film makers (and their publicity networks) are not pleased with Cinefantastique.

Because it has a special interest in the “hows” of the special effects gizmos and gadgets, Hollywood publicists think of Cinefantastique as a “fanzine.” But fan magazines usually are adoring to a fault; Cinefantastique adores--and analyzes and criticizes.

Admitted Clarke: “I have pretenses of covering the field better than anyone else.” He hastened to add, “We don’t do press releases.”

For some film makers such exhaustive examinations can be, well, exhaustive. Said genre-meister John Carpenter (“The Thing,” “Starman”): “They are very thorough . . . they are insistent, persistent and they are very tenacious . . . They ask for as much energy or cooperation from you as The L.A. Times or the New York Times.”

They may, in fact, ask for more. Cinefantastique’s 1981 cover story on Carpenter (he was photographed in a shroud of fog alongside a grinning jack-o-lantern--references to “The Fog” and “Halloween”) included a photo of an 11-year-old Carpenter, dressed as The Mummy, and reproductions of three covers drawn by Carpenter for Fantastic Films, the fanzine that he edited at 16.

In looking for what Clarke called “the, quote, story,” the magazine sometimes uncovers things that some publicists and film makers prefer not covered. And the writers use tactics that aren’t always appreciated.

The magazine snared the script to “Return of the Jedi.” It’s been known to buy artwork from sources outside the studios. And reporters have gotten interviews with film makers (who wanted to avoid the publication) by using other press affiliations. (Contributors occasionally use pseudonyms. “It’s a science-fiction tradition,” said a writer who admits to three noms de plume.)

And coverage is not always congratulatory. Nor is it delivered without a point of view.

“It’s the only magazine that has the guts to take an editorial stance--and that arouses the ire of some people,” believes former Cinefantastique contributor James Van Hise (now editor of Monsterland magazine, which addresses a younger readership).

Said author Harlan Ellison: “They (Cinefantastique) sometimes will say a bad word about the great gods. They will point out that the Emperor has no clothes--which is often the case.”

A Hugo-winner (the achievement award from the World Science Fiction Society), Ellison views the majority of genre magazines as “camp followers . . . edited for the level of a 12-year-old imbecile who goes to watch the special effects and never once questions the fact that there is a loud explosion in outer space--where there is no air.” What makes Cinefantastique different, Ellison added, “is that it treats film in a fairly serious way.”

Well aware that Cinefantastique is not spoken of kindly within the Spielberg and Lucas camps (“It’s common knowledge in the industry”), Ellison was amused by their hostility toward such a small publication. “Steven Spielberg shouldn’t give a (blank) if the New York Times said he sucks runny eggs,” he quipped. “Why would he care what a minuscule magazine like Cinefantastique thinks?”

Why would anyone care what a magazine with such a teensy readership thinks? (And it is teensy compared to Starlog, the genre biggie, which boasts a monthly circulation of 200,000.)

Fandom--and its power--has a lot to do with the impassioned attitudes.

According to marketing and production specialist Charles Lippincott, who was vice president of the “Star Wars” marketing and merchandising campaign (and who has had run-ins with the magazine): “What you’re dealing with in fandom is people who talk to people. You’re dealing with a special group of insiders.”

Those insiders generate a “pass-along” readership that magnifies circulation. They attend conventions across the country. And they form the core audience of genre films, as in ticket buyers.

“And most of them are aware of Cinefantastique, which is probably the best-looking of the (genre) magazines,” said Lippincott (who brands its editorial content “glorified gossip”).

Some observers maintain that, for fans-turned-film-makers such as Spielberg and Lucas, the opinions of the little magazine might outweigh those of the monster mainstream press.

What the little magazine has said about Lucas and Spielberg and their films has not always been positive. For instance, in listing the top genre films of the ‘70s, the magazine sidestepped all but one of their efforts.

(The top 10 titles, from 1 to 10: “The Exorcist,” “Colossus, The Forbin Project,” “The Wicker Man,” “Carrie,” “Capricorn One,” “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” “And Soon the Darkness,” “Sisters,” George Lucas’ “THX 1138” and “Zardoz.”

Still, it remains near-impossible to think that the industry’s biggest film makers could be so angered that they would go to lengths to keep Cinefantastique at bay.

“The only thing I’m going to say to you--the only thing--is that they have some questionable techniques about getting their stories. Otherwise, no comment,” stressed Sidney Ganis. The brand-new (he starts Tuesday) worldwide marketing president for Paramount Pictures, Ganis spent seven years as senior VP of the secrecy-minded Lucasfilm. (He once had a Cinefantastique reporter escorted off the ILM lot.)

A spokesman for Spielberg refused comment. So did a P.R. executive for Warner Bros.

Some publicists around town refused to be quoted, stressing that they didn’t want to get caught in the cross-fire--so that they could deal with the magazine on non-Amblin and non-Lucasfilm productions.

Others were upfront. Like Scot Holton, unit publicist for the “Invaders from Mars” remake: “I don’t have a problem with working with the magazine . . . but, if I’m working for an entity that writes my paycheck, that tells me that we don’t work for so-and-so, then I can’t cooperate.”

He assessed the magazine’s reputation for making waves: “They’re pretty absolutist in their opinions. They make statements that make it sound as if they’re accompanied by the wisdom of the ages.”

Still, he had only a good relationship working with the magazine on “Lifeforce” (subject of a cover story) and “Invaders From Mars” (subject of a recent in-production article and an upcoming cover).

The resulting “Invaders” production story, said Holton, was objective and fair. “I couldn’t have been happier with it--unless I’d written it myself,” he joked.

Jesse Horsting deals with the magazine as both a writer and a publicist. A consultant for sci-fi films at MGM (where she’s working on “Poltergeist II” and “Solar Babies”), she wrote for Cinefantastique about the marketing problems of “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.”

“The only place to go with something like that is to Fred Clarke, which earns him a lot of respect from writers. He’s not afraid to touch things.

“I suppose if you’re looking for my complaints, the main thing would be that Fred is both sincere and naive--and his naivete shows up in that he thinks everyone has the right to know everything, at the expense of everyone involved.”

Many Cinefantastique writers, past and present, heard through the active grapevine that this article was in progress--and they all called the reporter.

“I just wanted to call to tell you how strongly I feel about the magazine and its importance . . .,” began one call.

“I wanted to call to tell you how irresponsible I think the magazine is . . . I don’t know why I wrote for it as long as I did,” said another.

The most oft-heard complaint was of Clarke’s editorial policies; the most oft-heard praise was of his editorial policies.

Nearly all agreed that working for Cinefantastique is, at times, like squeezing yourself through a wringer.

“I think of us as the Rebel Alliance,” said former contributor (and supporter) Michael Mayo. “All we are trying to do is tell what we perceive as the truth--that some of these movies are good and some aren’t good.”

“It seemed I spent half of my time mending fences . . . it’s really a drag to have to explain things to people that are a total surprise to you--that you just heard about,” said Jordan Fox, former Hollywood correspondent, who said he tried to talk the magazine out of its decision to run the “Twilight Zone” photos and story.

Former contributor Bill Warren, author of the authoritative “Keep Watching the Skies,” a two-volume study of science-fiction films of the ‘50s, wondered if the tendency to “stir up trouble” emanated from Clarke’s attempts “to bend over backward to keep from being tainted by Hollywood.”

Clarke seemed surprised when he was first contacted: “You want to come out here to interview me? What--does your mother live in Chicago? You aren’t having to pay for this trip yourself, are you?”

The interview took place one rainy morning at the magazine’s offices.

Clarke showed a visitor the computer and typesetting equipment (“We do just about everything in-house--except the printing”), introduced managing editor Avis L. Weathersbee, and apologized for the crunched state of his office, which contained light table and his 15-month-old daughter’s chair swing. “She likes to sit there and bounce around and watch me work,” said Clarke, who didn’t seem to be kidding when he surmised that one day, little Whitney might well follow in his footsteps. (“Christie Hefner did it,” he said, in reference to the president of another Chicago magazine of a more substantial size.)

That night over dinner, a reporter met the rest of the Clarke clan: wife Celeste (she has a private practice in social work, and is also the magazine’s office manager), stepson Drew, 10, and stepdaughter Ana, 8. (“I inherited an instant family,” smiled Clarke, who wanted to get together after that night’s episode of “The Twilight Zone,” which he hates to miss. But his wife talked him out of that notion so that bedtimes wouldn’t be too late.)

It was Ana who took a reporter by surprise by producing her tape recorder and a hand-written list of questions for a Girl Scout career project. Among the questions a reporter pondered was “How did you get your job?” and “Do you like your job?”

Clarke was a freshman at the University of Illinois (where he earned a degree in physics) when he wrote and mimeographed the first copy of Cinefantastique. (Clarke once had intentions of becoming a scientist. “I took courses in quantum mechanics that were as fantastic as any science-fiction I’ve ever read.”) He had earlier edited the fanzine, The Garden Ghoul’s Gazette. “We all have our humble beginnings, as they say,” he smiled.

The first “official” Cinefantastique magazine debuted in November of 1970. A thousand copies were published at a cost of $280. Alan Arkin and “Catch-22” were featured on the black and white cover, along with a $1 price.

Today, the magazine publishes 30,000 monthly copies at a cost of $20,000. “I am not getting rich, but I am making a living,” said Clarke, who explained that in addition to very minimal advertising, Cinefantastique makes money through the sale of genre books and videocassettes (offered in its pages).

Some of the earliest rumblings from the Spielberg camp followed the magazine’s interview with Paul Schrader (then directing his first feature, “Blue Collar,” 1978), who discussed writing the original script for “Watch the Skies.” He described it as being “about a UFO Watergate.” Many writers later, it was “Close Encounters”--for which Spielberg received sole writing credit. According to Clarke, Spielberg wasn’t too thrilled with Schrader’s comments, which included:

“You have to understand how Spielberg felt about ‘Jaws.’ He was furious with Verna (Fields, the studio editor), (producer Richard) Zanuck and Peter Benchley (author of the “Jaws” novel). He felt they had all conspired to take away his credit.”

Still, the magazine received a congratulatory letter from Spielberg (which it printed) following their “double issue” on “Close Encounters.”

There were no congratulatory letters following the magazine’s revelation of the “Night Skies” drama.

John Sayles was scripting, production designer Ron Cobb was slated to make his directorial debut, and Rick Baker had been secretly at work on the effects for six months. Spielberg was going to produce the tale of a nasty alien for Columbia Pictures. (The alien later turned adorable, the project moved to Universal and the rest, as they say, is history . . . and celestial profits.)

It was “personal and economic differences,” that resulted in Spielberg firing Baker. This according to Spielberg associate Kathleen Kennedy, who was contacted by Cinefantastique.

The completed article was sent to Kennedy before publication for corrections/additions.

“We let her tone it down a bit,” said Clarke, who recalled that it was during the “Night Skies” incident that Kennedy asked if the magazine wouldn’t rather cover “E.T.”

“She said, ‘Wouldn’t you rather do that, than run this story now?’ ” said Clarke, adding, “The meaning was clear to us.”

Later, the magazine’s Hollywood correspondent received a phone call from Spielberg associate Frank Marshall, who said he was returning their call about “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“But we had never called him,” Clarke laughed, explaining that at that point the magazine didn’t know that “Raiders” was a genre film. “We thought it was strictly adventure--like a ‘King Solomon’s Mines.’ ”

Clarke and his correspondent deciphered the call as meaning “Would you like to cover ‘Raiders?’ ”

Noted Clarke, “I suppose if we’d jumped for it, they would have asked if our ‘Night Skies’ piece was still running.”

It did--and the magazine didn’t get to cover either “E.T.” or “Raiders.”

Not that the magazine didn’t write about “E.T.”

“We did a couple of little things--including one that I’m not too proud of,” admitted Clarke.

It took some prodding from a reporter to get Clarke to walk across his office, rummage through a stack of items, and return with a poster-size blow-up of a brief story which ran in Cinefantastique four months before the film’s release.

The poster blow-up, a gift from Clarke’s then-managing editor, had been accompanied by a little E.T. doll with a noose around its neck. It read, in part:

“ ‘Extraterrestrial’ opens June 18 . . . Universal hopes to make a bundle on the secretive Spielberg picture before word-of-mouth kills it. An insider who spent four months on the set reports that, ‘Basically, it’s a comedy.’ The last time Spielberg tried to make a joke, with ‘1941,’ Universal got heartburn because nobody laughed. The joke could be on Universal again. Apparently the brains in the Black Tower weren’t even allowed to see the picture until the end of March. Crowed one Universal exec as he walked out of the screening, ‘It’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’ of the ‘80s,’ obviously a wishful thinker or someone who’d recently seen the ad campaign for ‘Time Bandits.’ ”

“This is the skeleton in my closet,” said Clarke. “Believe me, it was a lesson to me. . . . “

And that didn’t end the coverage of “E.T.”

Cinefantastique later reportedly caught the Spielberg camp off-guard by printing special effects photos--including one that showed a headless E.T. (Spielberg was said to be upset about the incident.)

Cinefantastique (along with other publications) also printed stories that speculated that Spielberg “ghost-directed” “Poltergeist” for Tobe Hooper.

Problems with Lucas and associates meanwhile surfaced with “Star Wars.” Especially after the magazine panned the film and later put out a double-issue on it. Said Charles Lippincott, “We felt he was trying to cash in on the film, and we said, ‘Come on . . . ‘ “ (What was actually said was more like “How about talking with our lawyers,” since Fox viewed the issue as a form of merchandising and successfully kept it from the newsstands; it was sent only to subscribers.)

The clincher came when the magazine revealed the plot--and ending--of “Return of the Jedi.” According to Lippincott, who attends many sci-fi conventions, to this day he hears from fans who were dismayed by the revelation.

It caused additional embarrassment for then-managing editor Michael Kaplan. As he tells it, with considerable laughter, he and a friend were touring the wine country in 1982. “We had to pass through San Rafael, so I decided to find ILM.”

A source he’d talked to earlier wouldn’t give him the facility’s exact locale (it did not have an identifying exterior sign or logo), but did tell him that it was visible from a particular restaurant.

“So we found the restaurant and went in to eat lunch and we were looking all around and in walks Richard Edlund (then-special effects supervisor for ILM).”

Kaplan and his chum later followed Edlund (“I was ducking behind cars like I was a secret agent or something. I felt like I was doing a scene from ‘In Like Flint.’ ”) up to an unmarked building (“that looked like one of those low buildings you see in Van Nuys”). After Edlund went inside, Kaplan peered through the glass and spied the ILM logo.

After going inside, Kaplan asked to see Sidney Ganis.

“I went in to see him with the idea that I would smooth some of these things out . . . But it turned out that that morning in the mail he’d gotten the (“Jedi”) issue . . .

“My God, the last thing we’d ever wanted to do was to run the plot. One, it’s boring. Two, it’s the easiest thing to print. If only they’d thrown us a bone--and let us interview somebody involved with the film . . . “

As it turned out, Ganis was not pleased to see Kaplan on the lot. Recalled Kaplan: “We wound up being escorted out by two very large guards the size of Wookies, and then we were followed back to our car.”

In one recent scuffle with the Lucas family, Cinefantastique seems to have come out ahead.

Assigned to do an article on the Jim Henson-directed “Labyrinth,” New York correspondent Dan Scapperotti got in touch with Tri-Star Pictures, which told him there had been a publicity blackout for Cinefantastique. Lucasfilm is producing “Labyrinth.”

Clarke wrote a letter to Henson, with whom the magazine has had a long working relationship.

“The next thing I knew,” said Scapperotti, “I got a call from Tri-Star asking, ‘Who do you want to interview?’ We’re setting things up now.”

It was the decision to run photos and story on “The Twilight Zone” tragedy that set off the blacklisting by Warners. Taken from a videotape, one photo shows Morrow carrying two children (one under each arm), another shows the trio from the helicopter above. A third is of director Landis running forward (post-crash), arms waving, seen from behind the helicopter’s twisted tail rotor. They are very tiny and not in focus.

Articles on “Superman III” and “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” had already ruffled the Warner publicists. In fact, according to Kaplan, Warners already had put a boycott on cooperation with the magazine when it decided to run the “Twilight Zone” spread some six months after the accident. (By this time, grisly footage had aired on many TV programs.)

To this day, said Kaplan, there are no regrets about the photos and story. “What I do regret is the headline we used (across the corner of the cover), which said ‘Tragedy Update.’ But it was 2 in the morning and I had to write something with 13 letters . . . so I wrote ‘Tragedy Update see page 10.’ My gosh, it’s not as if we’d written ‘Mutilated Bodies.’ “You know, I saw the (actual) footage of that accident in slow motion, and in close-ups one morning at about 7:30 when I was watching ‘The Today Show.’ I almost lost my breakfast. What we did couldn’t begin to compare . . . “

The extremes to which “Explorers” director Joe Dante (who did one of “The Twilight Zone” segments) and producer Michael Finnell went to elude the magazine have become something of a minor legend on the publicist circuit.

A publicist for Jason Presson, 13, one of the film’s young stars, set up an interview with Cinefantastique--unaware that Dante had been trying to avoid the magazine. Just hours before the interview, at the home of new Cinefantastique writer Janrae Frank (who writes about science-fiction for The Washington Post), the publicist got a frantic phone call from a Paramount spokeswoman (who refused comment for this article). She said that Dante and Finnell wanted to avoid Cinefantastique. (“She said it had something to do with ‘The Twilight Zone,’ ” recalled the publicist.)

Then came a call from Finnell, who wanted the interview canceled. So Frank was contacted--and was upset to learn that--for what was only her second Hollywood story--she had a producer, a director and a studio upset with her.

Frank decided to pass on the story. “And I thought I had. I was walking down to the meat market on the corner to get dinner,” she said, when her husband pulled up to let her know that Presson and his father had arrived at the house for the interview.

They’d arrived with a waiver which Frank agreed to sign, which asked her never to sell anything relating to productions by Finnell and Dante to Cinefantastique.’ ”

Frank was never able to find a paying market for her piece on Presson. “I wound up giving it to The Valley Entertainer,” she admitted.

She was pressured by Clarke to write about her “adventure” with the “Explorers” film makers. (Clarke said he wanted to title it: “Joe Dante turns mogul and teaches Jason Presson a lesson about Hollywood publicity.”) She refused--but did go on to write about other films for the magazine.

Well, Cinefantastique wound up getting its interview with Dante--via a New York reporter. “He told me he was from another publication,” said Dante.

He didn’t like discussing the matter.

“I fail to see the story potential in this particular piece of work . . . the fact that I’ve spent any amount of time discussing this amazes me. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

A regular Cinefantastique reader (who once wrote for the fanzine Castle of Frankenstein), Dante admitted it was “The Twilight Zone” incident that proved to be his “turning point.” (Though he didn’t cooperate with the magazine on “Gremlins,” which also was from Amblin.)

“I hate to say it, but they’re not above inventing things,” insisted Dante. “And they’re getting famous for giving things away. If they were writing about ‘Citizen Kane’ for the first time, they’d tell you that Rosebud was the sled, or that Norman Bates was his own mother.”

Though he’s never met Clarke, Dante--like so many of the magazine’s readers--spoke of him by his first name. “Bless his heart, I think Fred sees himself as a crusading journalist.”

Clarke is insistent: “As long as I can, I’ll keep it going. It’s not been easy. But . . . I believe in what I’m doing.

“You know, people rap us for doing investigative-type stories. But we’re lazy--like every other reporter. Would Woodward and Bernstein have done ‘All the President’s Men’ if people had been upfront and talked about things? No--they had to do it because everyone clammed up.

“That makes it harder (when people won’t talk), so you’ve got to work harder. When it’s that kind of atmosphere, what kind of information do you get?

“By holding everything in, what tends to escape is, well, it tends to be the negative stuff. Doesn’t it?”