Pacino plays the legendary music producer in HBO film ‘Spector’ invents the inside story

By Frazier Moore

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Much to his sur- prise, Al Pacino learned that once upon a time he met the legendary music producer Phil Spector, whom he now plays in a new HBO film.

He had no memory of it, “but somebody showed me a picture of me and him on the Internet,” Pacino says, laughing. “It was at some event or party, and we’re both looking into the camera, two guys who do not want to be photographed. Since he had mostly worked behind the scenes, I didn’t know who he was, and he looked like he didn’t know who I was.”

That was then, whenever that was. Now, spurring after-the-fact speculation, this forgotten encounter serves Pacino as a fitting first step into the character he captures for “Phil Spector.”

Written and directed by David Mamet, this film explores the preparation for Spector’s murder defense: As the story begins in 2007, he stands accused of having forced a pistol into the mouth of a woman — his by-chance date for the night — and pulling the trigger.

The difficulties of the case seem beyond the wherewithal of Spector’s original attorney (played by Jeffrey Tambor in a robust supporting performance), who has brought in hotshot lawyer Linda Kenney Baden (the splendid Helen Mirren). His lawyers know that, in the mind of the modern-day public, he is not the music wizard who created the girl-group sound in the early 1960s, co-wrote “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” for the Righteous Brothers, and produced records for the Ramones and The Beatles. Instead, by 2007, he’s generally regarded as a creepy, homicidal has-been who hides out with his dozens of guns and his dozens of outlandish wigs — a pint-sized wacko too big for his britches.

But “Phil Spector” makes no claim to uncovering the true facts of the crime, or of Spector’s guilt or innocence. Quite the opposite. The film opens with a flat-out disclaimer that it’s NOT “based on a true story,” that it’s a work of fiction “inspired by actual persons in a trial,” but unconcerned with depicting those actual persons or the case.

“That’s why it’s set in trial preparation,” says Pacino. “We weren’t there. No one knows what happened in the trial preparation.” Or no one, anyway, who will talk about it. Which makes the inside story ripe for invention by Mamet, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whose many works include the play “Speed-the-Plow” and screenplays for “The Verdict,” “The Untouchables” and “Wag the Dog.”

“Here’s the thing,” explains Mamet by phone from Los Angeles. “I’m a gag writer. That’s how I make my living. I don’t want the audience saying, ‘That’s the most accurate thing I ever saw in my life.’ That’s what we have dictionaries for.”

But there are a few inarguable truths about Spector. One is that in 2009, he was convicted of second- degree murder and, at age 68, sentenced to 19 years to life.