Horror director Wes Craven films Clinton at White House

Horror director Wes Craven films Clinton at White House
REUTERS

FEB 1: May be they'll call it "Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue".

Horror movie director Wes Craven, the man behind such slasher classics as "Scream" and "Nightmare on Elm Street," has made a film of former President Bill Clinton giving a White House tour during his last days in office, a spokesman for one of the movie's producers said on Wednesday.

Footage of the tour is to be edited into an hour-long documentary that will eventually be shown at the future Clinton presidential library in Arkansas, the spokesman said.

Craven spent nearly three hours following Clinton through the historic mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, including the Oval Office, Cabinet room and other areas normally off-limits to the public. The crew then went back through rarely visited private quarters at the First Lady's request to film for posterity.

"I was thinking, `Here I am. I've made some of the most horrific films, and now I'm in the White House," Craven was quoted as telling columnist Roger Friedman for FoxNews.com. "Someone said I should have brought a `Scream' mask and have someone jump out in it, but that would have been the last time we would have been invited over."

The movie, which is still in production, is being co-produced by Miramax Films co-chairman Harvey Weinstein and Jane Rosenthal of Tribeca Productions, Robert De Niro's film company, Weinstein spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

Miramax has distributed several of Craven's movies.

Hiltzik said the idea for the documentary arose after Craven was visited the White House for a screening of his movie "Music of the Heart" last year. The tour, he said, was filmed sometime during Clinton's last week in office.

FoxNews.com columnist Friedman quoted one source who observed the filming as saying, "We were a little nervous in places, thinking about what went on there. At one point, Clinton said something like, `back when they were trying to get rid of me,' with no apparent guilt."

One notable White House chamber filmed by Craven, according to FoxNews.com, was the Lincoln Bedroom, where numerous friends and political donors of Clinton slept during his eight years in office. But Weinstein's spokesman said the Oval Office ante room where Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky romped would not be shown.

The White House tour film will hardly be Clinton's movie debut. As recently as last April, he co-starred with wife Hillary Rodham Clinton in a mock documentary screened at the White House Correspondents' Association annual black-tie dinner. That video, produced with the help of "The West Wing" stars Martin Sheen and Rob Lowe, depicted Clinton answering the White House phones, trading online and making brown bag lunches for his US-Senate campaigning wife.