James Toback Just Might Kill A Critic, Literally

When I’m not using Yelp to double as a dating site I’ll read a review or two. I really don’t care what you have to say about an establishment’s food but if you’re hot I wouldn’t mind having you with a side of fries. But I understand how deeply a bad review of something you put your heart into can slowly eat at your soul. Most rational people just smile, say thank you for the criticism, and secretly wish that person would fall off a bridge on the way home from work in a freak accident. If you’re James Toback you’re a little more vocal about your displeasure with their displeasure of your debut. Harsh criticism can end a screenwriter’s career so it’s only right that you threaten to end that person. Permanently. With murder. 

NYT Film Critic Janet Maslin on Toback:

The threatening calls came in the middle of the night at her apartment, and during the day at her office at The New York Times.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” the male caller warned in his rants.

It was 1978, and Janet Maslin had just reviewedJames Toback’s directorial debut, Fingers. She believed Toback was the man behind the death threats.

“He disguised his voice,” Maslin tells The Daily Beast. “It was a very menacing tone, and you know, I was scared. But at that point I had a listed phone number. He was the guy who made me unlisted.”

The renowned film critic believes Toback called her at least 10 times following her scathing summary of his film. The daytime dials were more comical, Maslin says, because she waved over fellow scribes to listen in.

Still, the threats prompted the Times to contact authorities. Maslin says it was the only time in her decades-long career that she filed a police report.

Robyn Hussa Farrell’s story:

Toback then ordered her to rub his nipples and began humping her leg. “I was terrified,” she said. “You’re also just like, ‘I can’t believe it’s all happening.” Unsure of how to react, her defense mechanism was to be smart-alecky.

“Right after that happened and he was done with my knee… I was basically mocking him. I was like, ‘Really. That’s it?’” Farrell says.

That’s when Toback turned threatening, Farrell recalls. He allegedly warned her, “Do you know what it feels like when a knife enters the skin? Do you have any idea the layers of tissue you can feel the knife cutting through layer by layer?”

Normally I’m skeptical of subsequent smear campaigns by women after a man has been accused of sexual harassment. It’s almost normal for women to embellish experiences that didn’t go exactly the way they say. But the guys being accused are starting to fit a hard to defend description. Toback is literally a fedora wearing neckbeard. He looks like the stereotypical asshole leaving the rape and murder comments on Disqus and Reddit because he truly believes he’s anonymous. But then at the same time if you’re an actress and you willingly walk into a four hundred pound man’s house who has a fedora on the fault is on you. I’m going to throw a Hail Mary here and say if he was in shape and what women considered attractive so many females wouldn’t want to crucify him for the casting couch religion. Had Brad Pitt been accused of all the same that Toback is being accused of it would never make headlines. Moral of the story is if you’re going to be creepy, curse and threaten to kill critics you better look like Brad Pitt. Only women are allowed to be out of line and overweight and demand the same treatment and privilege of a model.