Cleaning Up the Act

That trend of X film makers switching to mainstream fare continues: Now it’s director Icek Tenenbaum and producer Lori Levine trying for a new and improved image-- abracadabra! --with a family pic called “A Night at the Magic Castle.” Now in post-production, it’s about a boy’s wondrous adventures with Harry Houdini (Arte Johnson) on Halloween night.

When we called, Tenenbaum and Levine (their respective hard-core aliases are Jerome Tanner and Lauren Ross) denied their porno pasts. She claimed, “You could ruin our nice family movie--and put a lot of people out of work.”

But they had a change of heart. Tenenbaum called back: “Making this movie is a dream of mine. I didn’t want you to destroy it.” Our calls prompted him to take aside the mother of his 10-year-old star, Max Thayer, and fess up to his credits. “And she took it very well,” Tenenbaum said.

In a later interview, an optimistic Levine added: “There’s no way we can lose. The footage we’ve got is great--and with the special effects and music, well . . . kids need movies to see. Jerry’s got a 9-year-old daughter and I’ve babysat her a few times and there’s absolutely no movies to take her to.”

Tenenbaum and Levine have teamed for such X-ventures as “Moonlusting II,” “Sinset Boulevard” and “Club Exotica.” (Tenenbaum directed; Levine worked as an assistant director/script supervisor/wardrobe.)

A director of adult films for the past three years, Tenenbaum co-owns X-rated Western Visuals, but he’s trying to divest himself: “I looked around one day and told myself that society has changed--and that the way society perceives these movies has changed. Also, I realized I didn’t want to do this with my life.”

(His life was especially complicated last year when he was charged with pandering--hiring actors to perform sex acts in a film. The case is pending in Van Nuys Superior Court. He faces up to three years in prison.)

Levine first worked in an X in 1982 as a crew member: “I wanted to get in the business. So when somebody asked me, ‘How do you feel about adult films?,’ I figured, ‘I’m an adult--why not?’ I didn’t know what they meant--exactly--until I got on the set.”

Added Levine: “In the beginning, I was shocked only because I was naive.”

She’s since criss-crossed into the mainstream, with credits in educational films, commercials, rock videos, “two religious films” and four features: “Among crew members, it’s not at all unusual to go back and forth. This is a business, after all.”