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FILM FOLLIES
Gossipy hack puts Scorsese project on the wrong track
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
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Here’s a tip: if you’re a celebrity hoping to keep your trip to Boston on the q.t., don’t invite along someone who keeps "Inside Track" on speed-dial. That’s a lesson that filmmaker Martin Scorsese and his staff learned the hard way last week. They were swinging through town to scout locations for the director’s next movie, The Departed, and to meet with Mayor Thomas Menino. It was a considerable coup for the nonprofit Massachusetts Film Bureau and the quasi-public Massachusetts Sports and Entertainment Commission (MSEC), as Scorsese had never deigned to step foot in the Hub of the Universe before, at least in a professional capacity. He might think twice about doing it again. The visit was supposed to stay out of the papers, according to local film-industry insiders, one of whom described "several conversations with [the movie’s] producers and staff, in which they expressed their desire that the press community not be informed." Unfortunately, the job of escorting Scorsese went to MSEC vice-president Mark Drago. Drago, as Phoenix readers may recall, was removed from the MSEC several months ago, only to be reinstated thanks to his State House connections. (See "Hack Attack," This Just In, November 12, 2004.) Drago also has an inside track with the Boston Herald’s "Inside Track" gossip column: he has been mentioned there 21 times since 1996, according to an archive search. Make that 23 times, after back-to-back write-ups of his outings with Scorsese last week. Add to that a page-three story by Herald crime reporter Laurel J. Sweet about Scorsese’s tour of Boston Police Department headquarters, and you get a sense of why Scorsese and his crew apparently left town a little grumpier than they arrived. Not only did the stories put the director’s name in the papers, they also revealed a variety of possible shooting locations — including City Hall Plaza, Flagship Wharf in Charlestown, and housing developments in South Boston and Dorchester — that were supposed to remain under wraps. In fact, plans to film The Departed in Boston aren’t even official, which means Bostonians are now scrambling to make sure Drago’s loose lips haven’t sunk the deal. Drago’s boss, MSEC president Don Stirling, confirms that Drago spent time with Scorsese and his team, but would not comment on the press leaks. "All of us are just hoping that they will be able to film as much as possible here in Boston," Stirling says. If they do, no doubt we’ll be reading all about it.
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