A Taste of Nails’ ‘Fragile’ Future?

Can Nine Inch Nails still hammer out hits? Expect to hear that question this week as the initial excitement that greeted the newest song from the Trent Reznor project fades fast on radio. “Day the World Went Away” takes a steep second-week tumble on the new Billboard Hot 100, going from No. 17 to No. 58 on the airplay-weighted chart, and the single will also likely fall out of the Top 10 sellers when SoundScan releases its new retail tally on Wednesday. The fate of the song is being closely watched--five years have passed since the darkly industrial songcraft of “The Downward Spiral” turned the Nails into a pop music force, and “Day the World Went Away” is the first glimpse of the double-album follow-up, “The Fragile,” expected in October. Does the song’s slide suggest the Nails, like Pearl Jam, are fading as grunge and industrial music give way to rap rock and teen pop in the music arena? No, says a spokeswoman for Reznor’s Nothing Records, because “Day” was not promoted or even distributed to the nation’s radio stations, nor was it accompanied by a video. She says the first formal radio single from the album won’t hit until later this month, and “Day” was meant only to whet fans’ appetites. Still, the radio stations that sought out the song on their own and promptly made it a Top 20 single have quickly backed off of it--doesn’t that mean the Nails sound might be a bit rusty? “I don’t think so, not at all,” says Cheryl Botchick, music editor of CMJ New Music Report. “[Reznor] has created such a massive following that he rises above the trends around him, much like Metallica . . . he’s a juggernaut and there is intense fan anticipation for ‘The Fragile.’ ”

She’s 89 but Thinks She Looks 120

Luise Rainer has one very serious complaint about “The Gambler”--her first film in 55 years--which opens Friday in Los Angeles. “It is horrible how they photographed me!” she declared in a telephone interview from New York City. “They made me look 120 years old! I should be in the grave the way they photographed me!” Rainer, who reigned as one of MGM’s golden girls in the 1930s, is only 89, thank you very much. “The Gambler” was released in Europe two years ago, but it only recently found a U.S. distributor. Los Angeles-based Independent Artists acquired the rights for the film, which will open nationwide about a month after its New York and Los Angeles debuts. Directed by Hungarian Karoly Makk and starring Michael Gambon, Jodhi May and Polly Walker, the film is an adaptation of Feodor Dostoevsky’s 19th century story. In this film Rainer appears for just 11 minutes as the wealthy grandmother to a family ruined by gambling debts. Rainer fled Hollywood for good in 1943 after winning two consecutive best actress Oscars for her roles in “The Great Zeigfield” and “The Good Earth.” She says she abandoned Hollywood when MGM--the studio that made her a star--began casting her in films she considered “idiotic.” It was her dear friend, Roddy MacDowall, who urged her to return to the silver screen after more than half a century. “It was Roddy who pressed me to do it!” she recalled of her close friend who passed away last year. “He said, ‘It’s a crime you don’t work! You are a widow and alone in London and with lots of time on your hands.’ ” As Rainer herself said, when acting comes from your soul, the ability to convey emotions on the screen is never lost. “This is not a comeback, I’ve always been there,” she said. “If God gave you that gift and put it into your cradle, it remains inside.”

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers