Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez hope viewers like their upcoming Showtime movie, Rated X, a film about brothers Jim and Artie Mitchell, porn pioneers and producers of the 1971 classic Behind the Green Door. But they already know one person who won't be happy with the project: Jim Mitchell, the surviving brother. "He didn't feel there was any upside to making a film about their lives," Estevez recently told a group of TV critics. In addition, Jim didn't think the story was over and, hence, it was not yet ready to be told.
The film, shot in Toronto and shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is based on the book X Rated: The Mitchell Brothers, A True Story of Sex, Money and Death by David McCumber. Along with the brothers' rise to success in the fledgling porn industry, the movie dramatizes the tragic incident during which Artie was shot and killed by Jim. Jim, who said he remembered nothing of the event, was sentenced to six years imprisonment for voluntary manslaughter and served about three. He continues to operate the O'Farrell Theater, a San Francisco landmark.
"You can understand, from his point of view, his feelings about a story about a guy who killed his brother," said Estevez, who played Jim and also directed the film. "I mean, who wants to see that if you've lived through it?"
At one point, Estevez went to the O'Farrell Theater to interview Jim and look inside. "I just wanted to get the layout for our production designer," he said. Estevez got a quick look, but his video camera was confiscated. So much for any hope of cooperation, he thought.
Estevez said a lot of people told him he was playing a scumbag. "I never saw them as scumbags," he said. "I saw them as clever. They were witty. They were bright. They were businessmen and they were giving the public exactly what they wanted…. These guys had a finger on the pulse of what America wanted at that time. They were the first guys to really bring pornography into the mainstream."
