Film Links  Bates Film & Television Checklist Bates 101 Internet Movie Database (IMDb) British Film Institute (BFI) Not On BATES ARCHIVE News In Memoriam SPOTLIGHTS Knighthood American Film Theatre Fifties TV Al Hirschfeld FEATURES Biography Timeline Photo Gallery Actors Centre Piffle Ephemera ARCHIVE Theatre Film Television Audio Interviews Writing     ON HIS ROLE "Dressler is someone who is enormously clever, seductive and charming. He's also someone to be on guard against," says Bates. "I think that it's fascinating for an actor to play someone wicked because I think a lot of us spend our time trying not to be wicked. It's the side of human nature that both appalls and fascinates us. There are a few wicked people who we have to be really alarmed about, especially when they achieve power. Dressler is one of those people."

f i l m The Sum of All Fears Based on the Tom Clancy novel, The Sum of All Fears stars Ben Affleck as CIA man-of-action Jack Ryan. The plot this time around, says upcomingmovies.com., involves Middle East terrorists getting their hands on a lost nuclear device and their plans to use it at the Super Bowl. Alan Bates plays a heavy in the film.   For Alan Bates, a Role's a Role By Dave Kehr Alan Bates doesn't have a whole lot of screen time in "The Sum of All Fears," the new thriller adapted from one of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels that opens nationally today. But as an infinitely evil, neo-fascist European businessman, he makes the most of it, putting the plot in motion with a mad scheme to plant an atomic bomb in a Baltimore football stadium. "It's a part like any other except it's shorter than a lot," Mr. Bates said. "You just go in with - well, not a huge sense of the whole thing when you play a part like that - but a sense that it's a key moment. It has got that." Mr. Bates added, "I rather did love the director," referring to Phil Alden Robinson of "Field of Dreams," who stepped in when Philip Noyce, the director of two previous Clancy adaptations, dropped out. "I worked for five or six days, spread over a couple of weeks. But it was a bit of fun to play a really awful guy." Mr. Bates, who is up for a Tony Award as best actor in the current Broadway production of "Fortune's Fool," did a similar drop-in role in the recent "Mothman Prophecies." "I'm not really making a specialty of these things," he said. "They just came along. But those moments can be rather great to play. The thing you remember about `The Pumpkin Eater' is James Mason, who's on the screen for five minutes." Mr. Bates, who also found time to appear in "Gosford Park" last year, clearly loves to keep busy. "It's the old actors' saying: when you're in something, you're thinking, `When is this going to end?,' and then the minute it's over, you're thinking, `I'm out of work - what's wrong?' "But I never know what I'm going to do next. I've always tried to keep it like that. Some people know what they're doing for two or three years, and I don't. I enjoy the moment." "Fortune's Fool" was staged on Broadway by Arthur Penn, a director whose film credits include "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Little Big Man," but nothing since the Showtime movie "Inside" in 1996. Any chance of "Fortune's Fool" becoming a movie? "It could be a film," Mr. Bates said. "It would be great if we could do it with him. He's done some great stuff, but obviously he decided at some point that that was it. But it never is, is it?" © New York Times, 31 May 02 THE SUM OF ALL FEARS Directed by Phil Alden Robinson; written by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne, based on the novel by Tom Clancy; director of photography, John Lindley; edited by Neil Travis; music by Jerry Goldsmith; production designer, Jeannine Oppewall; produced by Mace Neufeld; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 124 minutes. This film is rated PG-13. WITH: Ben Affleck (Jack Ryan), Morgan Freeman (William Cabot), James Cromwell (President Fowler), Alan Bates (Dressler), Philip Baker Hall (Defense Secretary Becker), Ron Rifkin (Secretary of State Owens), Bruce McGill (Revell), Ciaran Hinds (President Nemerov) and Bridget Moynahan (Cathy Muller). In The Sum of All Fears, a terrorist-supplied nuclear device explodes next to a stadium containing thousands watching a Super Bowl game in Baltimore, resulting in a scene of death and devastation many times worse than the one volunteers are sorting through now at Ground Zero. Arriving at the end of Act Two, the blast will obviously be the film's money sequence - the one big element audiences will be buzzing about as they leave the theater, which, depending upon audience sentiment at the time, will make or break it at the box office A Paramount spokesperson said plans are still in place to open The Sum of All Fears next summer, and that the events of 9/11 haven't resulted in a meeting of any kind between Paramount distribution executives and the film's producers. At least one highly regarded Hollywood public relations veteran feels they should delay Sum's release until sometime next fall. "I'd take a breath," he said Monday. "One, the political subject matter feels more to me like a fall movie. Second, it would give people that much more time for their memories to heal." Montreal Gazette Thursday, 1 February 01 Doug Camilli Under pressure from American Islamic groups, Paramount Pictures has changed villains in the coming movie version of Tom Clancy's action thriller The Sum of All Fears. This picture, being shot partly in Montreal, stars Ben Affleck. The novel is about Islamic terrorists who find a lost Israeli nuclear device, and set out to detonate it at a Super Bowl game, in Denver. For the movie, however, Paramount now says it will make sure the baddies are "European neo-Nazis." Book review from the amazon.com website The Sum of All Fears Tom Clancy, 1991 A Berkley Book ISBN: 0-425-13354-0 (1991) Once again, Tom Clancy manages to add new twists to the alternate U.S. history he initiated in The Hunt for Red October. In The Sum of All Fears, the center of conflict is the perpetual hot spot the Mideast, where a nuclear weapon falls into the hands of terrorists just as peace seems possible. Clancy realistically paints an almost unthinkable scenario--the bomb is planted on American soil in the midst of an escalation in tension with the Soviet Union; the terrorists hope to rekindle cold war animosity and prevent reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Despite such a dramatic story line, Clancy doesn't neglect the individuals who drive his tale. Jack Ryan's problems are as much domestic as they are part of the international crisis that is the ostensible narrative: National Security Director Elizabeth Elliot has the president's ear, and she has convinced him that Ryan's ethics are questionable. She hints at marital infidelity and an insider-trading scandal. Of course, both accusations are false, but her arguments have enough evidence behind them (e.g. some photographs of an innocent embrace with a friend) to cause a strain in the Ryans' marriage and a flurry of media attention. While "Mr. Clark" tracks the terrorists, he also provides some needed intelligence to heal the Ryan family. The Sum of All Fears is the stuff of nightmares but contains enough verisimilitude to terrify sober minds. Ryan has matured into a complex protagonist as Clancy's writing, too, has matured. Ryan is plagued by stress and self-doubts that test even his dauntless moral compass and make him a more interesting subject for readers' attention. Those fascinated by military hardware, from nuclear submarines to atomic weapons, will find almost enough here to start their own army. And Clancy's understanding of international politics seems chillingly correct. --Patrick O'Kelley

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