HOLLYWOOD -- With rare exceptions, Tom Green's gross-out comedy Freddy Got Fingered has been slaughtered by critics and given short shrift by its audiences since opening a week ago.

Enter Elmore Raul (Rip) Torn, witness for the defence.

The 70-year-old fly fisherman -- who also happens to act on stage, in films and on TV when he doesn't have a reel and a rod in his hands -- is a tad prejudiced. Torn is co-starring in Freddy Got Fingered as Green's bombastic, potty-mouthed daddy, the one accused of the dirty deed in the title.

When Torn is challenged to defend Green's movie from charges that it is the lowest form of crass comedy, he rips into a rant about the ribald writings of 14th century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer and 16th century French satirist Francois Rabelais. "I am not an apologist," Torn says.

"But, come on guys," Torn thunders, "that's classic comedy." He also cites Punch and Judy -- "What is that when people are whacking each other all the time?" -- as well as clown work and circus performers and antecedents for Green.

Torn says he was happy to work with Green on his directorial debut. "I had seen his work (on MTV) so I was a big fan. I had to wrassle him for the part. It's true. I have witnesses."

Torn says he knows about the lighter side of life. "Comedy kinship fits me as tightly as my polished boots," he says, stealing a line from a long-ago play. "With a name like Rip Torn, if you don't have a little comedy going for you early on, you're not going to survive."

Torn says Green was as much fun as Garry Shandling, his comic foil on The Larry Sanders Show.

"They're both so different from their stage or film personas. They're both very gentle -- sorry guys! -- and they're tough bosses. I called Garry, 'Tucson Tough.' But they're very democratic in relating to the crew, to actors, and wanting to have a happy set, wanting to have fun. Gee, I love that!"

The only catch was that Torn stopped short of doing everything called for in Green's script, although he won't say what. Torn was taking advice from his nine-year-old daughter.

"She is a Tom Green fan, but she grabbed me by my arms and, in a very meaningful way, said: 'Dad, don't let those Hollywood people make you do anything you'll be ashamed of!'

"So that's the first thing I told to Tom Green. The first thing he said to me was: 'Well, are you willing to show your ass?' I said: 'I've showed more than that before, so what the hey!' I think my bohunkus stacks up with the rest of Hollywood."

As for his torrent of dirty words, Torn is equally proud, citing congratulations from Green. "He did say I had one of the greatest commands of profanity of anyone he'd ever met. But I was an officer in the military police of the First Armoured Division (of the U.S. Army). So there -- and in the Boy Scouts -- is where I learned all those words."

Torn's future is more fly fishing. He says the greatest review he ever got was in a fisherman's magazine: "He threw a good line." Torn will also continue to act as long as he can.

In the meantime, he figures Green also has a future, regardless of the hard time he's getting for his movie:

"I think he is a good enough actor and is well spoken and comports himself, so he could be a leading man in any straight kind of movie that he wants to be in. He could do Remains Of The Day (in Tony Hopkins' role).

"I'm not saying that he could follow up with Hannibal, but I'm talking about just a romantic comedy that didn't have an umbilical cord or anything like that."


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