Filmmaker William Friedkin will be reuniting with "The Exorcist" author William Peter Blatty in February to do an on-camera tour of "all the locations in Georgetown" where the iconic horror film was shot. "We're going to the real places," he reports.

The trek is part of Friedkin's plan for a major re-release of "The Exorcist" on Blu-ray in the fall of 2009. The Oscar-winning director has also been working on such a release of his classic Gene Hackman cop action thriller, "The French Connection," which he tells us will include "eight hours of new material overall."

"French Connection," the Blu-ray edition, will hit the U.S. market in February, "after a week's screening at the Museum of Modern Art," Friedkin reveals. "It's a beautiful print. It took me months to make it." Blu-ray is the new standard of excellence, he says, and "the way of all films in the future. VHS was a lousy medium. All my films came out on VHS, but they're all faded now, just like the 35 mm prints. They had a death certificate on them when they were made."

MEANWHILE: Friedkin's seminal 1970 feature "The Boys in the Band," counted as the first major film to provide a view into the gay culture, is newly in DVD release. He tells us its timely positioning is a coincidence, "but it does become part of the new zeitgeist involving gay rights. The DVD release date was set over a year ago. They didn't know 'Milk' was coming out now, or that there would be a Prop. 8 on the ballot. I thought that more progress had been made. I was very surprised to see the outcome of that," he adds of the California measure banning gay marriage.

Dismaying as he finds "that denial of civil rights," Friedkin is clearly delighted that the movie has found a new generation of fans. Back in 1970, there were complaints that it mocked its characters, though playwright/screenwriter Mart Crowley, gay himself, "was writing about the people he knew," Friedkin says. Now, "I've been getting some of the best reviews I've ever gotten."

FROM THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT: They finished filming of the Thanksgiving-themed episode of "The New Adventures of Old Christine" last week, with esteemed actress Brenda Blethyn aboard playing the mother of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hamish Linklater on the show. "What's fantastic is, Brenda Blethyn is basically a carbon copy of my real mother," declares Linklater. "The same height, the same English accent. She kisses me on the mouth like my own mother."

Linklater's real mom is the well-known dramatic vocal trainer Kristin Linklater. "I grew up in the theater. It was the family business, so fortunately, Mom has been training me every single day. She's training me right now in my head," he notes lightly. That theater background definitely pays dividends in the sitcom world, according to him. "We have the live audience, which is fantastic because they tell you right away how things are working. When you're doing a play and you hear people coughing and opening wrappers, you know you're stinking up the joint. And with our audience miked for their reaction when we tape our show, it's instant non-gratification." He adds, "We get to do the whole show beginning to end, like a play. Hopefully they clap for you at the end, you do a little bow, and then go off to a tavern and forget it ever happened."

But seriously, Hamish says the mood on the set these days, in the show's fourth season, is "really upbeat. We're having a good season after last year, when we could only do 10 episodes because of the strike, and the numbers have been kind of nice."

READY FOR TAKEOFF: Subsidiary casting is being completed on "The Line," Jerry Bruckheimer's soon-to-shoot pilot for a TNT drama with Dylan McDermott as star. It's a definite changeup for the former "The Practice" lead, with McDermott playing a police lieutenant who runs a secret unit of undercover cops who set out to infiltrate the city's criminal organizations — and who has to live with the fear of one of his elite, highly trained officers going over to the other side.

Over at ABC, they're getting ready to shoot the pilot for "Flash Forward," in which everyone on Earth simultaneously gets a vision of an exact time and date, and then, five months later, passes out unconscious, resulting in massive loss of life. One can only imagine where they're going to go with that one.

With reports by Emily Feimster.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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