TOP SON screens at the Narrative Shorts: Comedy program Friday, Nov. 4 at 9:45pm at The Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found HERE.
TOP SON stars Evan Ferrante as Mike Giavotella, a 30 year old Tom Cruise impersonator who still lives at home in his parents basement. When he learns of a local talent competition, he sees it as his opportunity to hit the big stage. More information about Top Son can be found at the film’s site HEREhttp://topsonmovie.com/
Evan Ferrante took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about TOP SON
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 21st, 2016
Tom Stockman: Your film TOP SON is playing at the St. Louis International Film Festival on November 4. Are you going to be here for that?
Evan Ferrante: Absolutely.
TS: TOP SON was shot here, wasn’t it?
EF: It was. It was shot in St. Charles. It was a blast. My friend Abby Wathen, who I’ve known her for 20 years, plays my sister in that short. It was just a total coincidence that we both know each other because the filmmaker, Joe Puleo, wrote a script about a Tom Cruise impersonator who lives in his parent’s basement and dreams of fame and fortune and leaving his parents basement. He’s in his early 30s and should not be there any longer. Joe needed the best Tom Cruise impersonator out there and Abby told him that she knew me and that’s how I got the role.
TS: So, he wrote the film first? I almost assumed that he met you, then wrote the film around you.
EF: No, he happens to be a very committed Tom Cruise fan and he also loves those great Christopher Guest films. It was very savvy of him as a producer, but he was trying to create a film for very little money that had a lot of substance to it and he came up with that concept. Like the Christopher Guest films or The Office, it is shot in a talking -heads doc style. And he really knows all about Tom Cruise, so you write what you know, so that’s what he wrote.
TS: Was there a lot of improvising during shooting or did you guys stick pretty much to the script?
EF: We stuck to the script for the most part but there was some spontaneity. There are some great outtakes that we did, but we tried to keep it as tight as possible so we decided to mostly go by the script.
TS: I first saw TOP SON when it played at the St. Louis filmmakers showcase where you want to ‘Best Actor in a Short Film’ so congrats on that.
EF: Thanks, yes that was a surprise. The crew and the rest of the cast of TOP SON were all from St. Louis. Everyone except myself.
TS: Are you guys talking about doing a feature length film version of TOP SON?
EF: Yes, Joe the writer and director, and his friend Steve the producer are currently cowriting it together. They made a great short so when anyone asks them about their prospective feature they have that to show. It’s a smart approach. I’ve never met such motivated people. Out here in Hollywood, people move a lot slower. They kind of coast through life. Joe is currently on the second draft of the feature’s screenplay. It will be low budget, probably under $1 million, but we hope to sprinkle some cameos in there from some name actors and comedic actors. I think it’s going to be great. It’s ripe for future adaptation. It gets into the family more and the Tom Cruise moments and the third act is going to go into a very exciting, Mission impossible, Jack Reacher direction, all running parallel to the story of him winning this local contest, Just like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. I think it has a lot of potential. Me too.
TS: How much is Mike Giavotella, the character you play in TOP SON, like you?
EF: Well, I don’t live in my parent’s basement, but I did after college, like many people of my generation, for three or four years. I absolutely do a Tom Cruise impersonation. I think I do it a little more professionally than him because I have something of a semblance of a career. But yes, we’re very similar. Joe wrote a close characterization.
TS: What do your real parents think of your Tom Cruise impersonating?
EF: They’ve been very supportive, but they go back-and-forth, wondering maybe if I should pursue something else or find something else to work on. Maybe another character. But it’s a side thing that I do. Maybe 30% of my life and income right now comes from my Tom Cruise stuff and the rest is from producing with my own production company.
TS: Have you met Tom Cruise?
EF: I did. I met him a few years back. It was a totally magical night, totally unexpected. I was at a restaurant in LA eating dessert, and the guy I was with heard a rumor that Tom Cruise was there that night. I couldn’t believe it. This was going to be the night that I came in contact with him! I was very excited about that. My friends I was with were egging me on to make it happen. I was looking for him but didn’t see him. I thought maybe he had left the building and it wasn’t going to happen. Then suddenly I felt his energy near me. He was sitting about 15 feet away from me at a dinner table with a group. I called the waiter over and wanted to send him an expensive bottle of champagne. The waiter stopped me dead in my tracks and told me if I did that, I would be banned from the restaurant and he would lose his job. The restaurant was the Château Marmont, a very exclusive place where a lot of celebrities go to and they don’t like to be bothered, so there are strict rules. I didn’t feel like I would be bothering him, since I had been impersonating him for eight years but I was just happy to be in the same vicinity as him. So, I just kept drinking and having a good time with my friends. My girlfriend, who was there said there was no way I was going through the evening without meeting him. Everyone cleared out of the restaurant except for his group and mine. He finally left and it was just me and my friends in the restaurant’s garden. My girlfriend excuse herself to go to the restroom. It was two in the morning. My friend’s phone rang and he picked it up, then said to me “Tom Cruise wants to meet you in the lobby”. I couldn’t believe it. I raced to the lobby and he was there. We hugged each other. It was a beautiful moment in my life.
TS: Did Tom Cruise know who you were?
EF: Yes. Eight years ago, when I was starting out, I won an award for best Tom Cruise impersonator on that Mario Lopez show Extra! When I won, Tom Cruise was on the show with Mario watching my videos and laughing about them and saying how uncanny my impersonation is. I wasn’t invited to that show, so I never got a chance to meet him, But I won the contest.
TS: How did you get into this? When did you start imitating Tom Cruise?
EF: I was in college in 1998, right after JERRY MAGUIRE came out. My friend Alex and I were freshmen. He’s now a director. We lived in a very anti-social dormitory. It was actually a Howard Johnson’s hotel converted to a dorm. It wasn’t conducive to socializing, so we would make an extra effort to get to know the people living in the dorm on our level. The rest of the levels were actually for hotel guests. Alex came up with the idea because he thought I sounded just like Tom Cruise and had his personality and affectation. So, I learned some lines from JERRY MAGUIRE and some lines from RISKY BUSINESS. Alex happen to do a really good John Claude Van Damme impression, which is hilarious. So together we tag teamed and we knocked on dorm rooms and met women. Then I would do it at parties. Alex would always make me do it. It became like a very popular little parlor trick. I never had any aspirations of doing it professionally even though I am an actor. I have been a child actor from the age of eight to my late teens professionally in New York City. I never thought I would take this Tom Cruise show on the road and make money with. Years later, YouTube came out and I put up a video just for the heck of it. I was moving into producing at the time and had really given up being an actor. But the YouTube videos had hundreds of thousands of views. It did well enough that I got a lot of work out of it. I got work through Disney and other big studios and feature film work and corporate work. I’ve flown to New Zealand and London with it. I’ve done jobs all over the world. It’s been great.
TS: How has TOP SON been received at film festivals?
EF: We are all very close to it, but I don’t think any of us expected it to receive such a warm reception in St. Louis, but we were thrilled. We hope more people have the same reaction to it and we can do something bigger with it.
TS: What’s your next project?
EF: I’m producing a number of music docu-style interview series for Verizon Go90 platform. Those are with my producer partner Adrian Grenier for a company called Wreckroom which is a subsidiary of Reckless Productions. With Reckless we do a lot of socially-minded documentaries and with Wreckroom it’s all music-based. I’m also trying to build a portfolio for a film fund or a TV fund around technology-centric stories, Things like Mr. Robot or EX-MACHINA. Anything to do with technology and its consequences. I did my first appearance on theTonight Show a few weeks ago with Jimmy Fallon and that was very exciting,. I did a A FEW GOOD MEN sketch with a Jack Nicholson impersonator. I’m hoping that opens up some more doors and opportunities down the road.
TS: Well good luck with everything going on in your career and with the TOP SON feature and we’ll see you here in St. Louis in a couple of weeks.
ST. LOUIS BREWS (a work in progress) screens Thursday, November 3rd at 8:00pm at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar Blvd) as the opening film of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. There will be an opening-night reception with complimentary product from local breweries.Ticket information can be foundHERE. AFacebook invite for the event can be found HERE.
ST. LOUIS BREWS director Bill Streeter is the creator of Lo-Fi St. Louis, a pioneering video blog that’s documented our town, with a particular emphasis on its vibrant music scene, since way back in 2005. Inspired by the same-named 2009 book by Henry Herbst, Don Roussin, and Kevin Kious, ST. LOUIS BREWS examines St. Louis’ defining influence on the beer industry and profiles the innovative craft brewers who are building on that storied tradition. The screening features a generous sampling of three extended sequences from the film, and the Q&A will include a number of the brewers featured. Through interviews, archival footage, memorabilia, and visits to brewing sites of yesterday and today, ST. LOUIS BREWS will quench beer aficionados’ thirst for knowledge, and the fest’s opening-night reception will satisfy their actual desire to drink with complimentary product from local breweries.
Bill Streeter took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about his upcoming documentary.
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 25th, 2016
Tom Stockman: Last time I interviewed you was five years ago regarding your film BRICK BY CHANCE AND FORTUNE: A ST. LOUIS STORY. What have you been up to since then?
Bill Streeter: I started my own video production business and I’ve been working on this film. I’m still doing Lo-Fi Cherokee and all of that stuff. This film has been on the drawing board for about five years. It’s been sort of on and off again.
TS: What made you interested in telling the story of Saint Louis breweries?
BS: Well first I have a friend named Josh at Reedy Press and they printed the book St. Louis Brews a number of years ago. The second edition was published about a year and a half ago. He suggested that I do this documentary. It’s been a very successful book for them and no one has done a documentary about brewing in St. Louis which is surprising. I was intrigued by the idea. I really wasn’t planning on going into another documentary right away but I knew there would be plenty of interest in the subject. Unlike the movie about bricks, which is something of an esoteric subject that I didn’t think a lot of people would be interested in. I turned out to be wrong about that as it was fairly successful. It took a while to get off the ground. I’ve been into brewing and beer for a long time.
TS: Do you brew your own beer?
BS: I have. I was into home-brewing 20 or 25 years ago, before anybody recognized the whole craft revolution. Craft beer has been with us for about 30 years, but it’s really just take it off in the past 10 years or so. So I had interest in the topic and it really wasn’t a hard decision for me to choose to make this film.
TS: Where are you now in the progress of the film?
BS: I’d say we’ve shot well over 90% of what we need in terms of production. There are a few events that we are waiting on. One of our ‘B’ stories is about Earthbound Brewing. We started following them just as they were getting close to finishing the construction of their brewery, about two months before they opened in 2014. We follow them through their first year and well into their second year. They’re moving into a big space soon and have been working there for close to nine months now. The space they’re moving into is a former brewing building, It’s the last remaining building from the old Cherokee Brewery which closed over 100 years ago. So, in this movie we’re trying to connect the history of St. Louis brewing to the modern-day craft brewing business. That story of Earthbound Brewing, these young creative entrepreneurs starting a small brewery on a shoestring and having this old brewery and turning it back into a brewery, we thought was a really interesting story. That’s one of the stories that we are waiting on. They were hoping to be open this summer, then they were saying October, but I think it will probably be next spring. So, whenever they finish up, we want to have that opening in our film. There are a couple of other craft brewers that we have not interviewed yet that we think are important to include in the story. This work in progress has been really good for me. I’ve been getting material ready for it. The historical piece of the film is really solid so most of what people will see at the work in progress screening next week will be the history, with just a little bit of the craft. This could easily be a five hour long, Ken Burns-style documentary.
TS: 150 years ago there were almost 50 breweries in St. Louis. Why was St. Louis such a beer capital?
BS: The primary reason was that we had a huge influx of Germans. There were some Germans before that, but there was a huge wave of Germans that came to St. Louis starting in about 1849. There’s an old saying “anytime you have 100 Germans together, you’re going to have a brewery”. Germans had a very different drinking culture then Americans did. Americans were very puritanical in terms of drinking. Americans drank alcohol but it was mostly wine or cider. They drank a lot of whiskey, but they did not drink a lot of beer. The beers they did drink were ales which didn’t travel well and turned very quickly after it was made. The drinking culture here at the time was, I’d say, dysfunctional. Germans had a very healthy drinking culture. Beer drinking was just part of enjoying life. They loved to go to the park and drink with their family, they would have their kids there and their wives and they would drink and listen to music on a Sunday. Americans were kind of thrown off by this. Over time Germans figured out how to get Americans to drink beer. Part of that was developing a style of beer that Americans would drink. What the Germans were drinking when they first came here was not something that was particularly appetizing to Americans. It wasn’t until they invented Budweiser and American-style lagers that Americans really took to drinking beer. So essentially it was the Germans, but there were a lot of environmental issues as well. There was good water here and good caves for watering and other things.
TS: Does your film tackle The prohibition period ?
BS: Yes, we talk about prohibition. There were actually a number of prohibition movements that happened. The big one was of course the one everyone remembers because it was enshrined in the Constitution in the 1920s. But there were efforts to start prohibition long before that. We talk about that. We’re not comprehensive but we talk about all the major points in terms of brewing in St. Louis.
TS: What happened to the Lemp Brewery? I know they and Anheuser Busch were pretty much the only ones to survive prohibition.
BS: Yes there’s a big section about Lemp Brewery that we will see you Thursday. Lemp was a very successful brewery here, even larger than Anheuser Busch. William J Lemp, The son of Adam Lemp who started the Lemp Brewery, was the second generation, but was the one who really grew the brewery into a massive business. He was a very ambitious person. They had a number of different beers and were shipping beer all over the world. A couple of things happened. One was that his son Frederick. who he was prepping to take over the business, died at age 28 before William Lemp retired. His wife was ill and his best friend, William Pabst of Milwaukee, committed suicide. His son and best friend died close together and he just went into a deep depression and he eventually committed suicide. When that happened, his son William Junior took over the business. Billy Lemp wasn’t very forward-thinking or a very creative guy. He grew up kind of spoiled and wealthy and did not take a great interest in the business. He didn’t invest the way he should have. And then prohibition of came along and he was very cynical about that. He thought that that was it, that the business was over. Lemp, and all of the other breweries as well, try to come out with other products. Billy Lemp staked all of its future on this one brand of non-alcoholic beer, actually it was a malt beverage, not even a beer, called Cerva. It failed very quickly after six months. It never took off and Billy went into a funk and sold the brand Falstaff to the Griesedieck brothers. He just shut down the business. He didn’t even tell the employees he was closing. The workers showed up one day and the gates were locked. That was the end of Lemp. Billy eventually committed suicide. It’s a pretty sad story.
TS: Your film is based on a book by Henry Herbst, Don Roussin and Kevin Kious. Were these guys involved in your film?
BS: Henry Herbst passed away almost 10 years ago, soon after the book was published. But both Kevin and Don contributed interviews for the film and both of them were very helpful, pointing out certain things and letting me know where some things were. Some of the other people we interview in the film are Maureen Ogle, who wrote a book called Ambitious Brew. She’s up in Iowa. Also Chris Naffziger, who has done some good research mostly about Falstaff and Lemp. And Mimi Harris who I interviewed for the brick film.
TS: The microbrewery scene here in St. Louis is pretty vibrant. It seems like they’re always opening up new ones. Do you think there is a risk of having too many microbreweries here in St. Louis?
BS: That’s not really a question for me to answer, but we’ve brought that up. I guess there could be a bubble but now it’s a growing market. There are more and more people interested. The market for beer in general has been shrinking for a number of years for a number of different reasons, but the craft brewing segment is a growing segment. There’s a general cultural trend in people appreciating local stuff, handmade stuff. One interesting thing is that, you mentioned that over 100 years ago there were between 40 and 50 breweries operating in St. Louis and this year there will be 50 breweries operating in St. Louis, so we’re sort of back to the future with the number of breweries. But we may see a repeat of history happening. In the 19th century there was a whole shift in business and consolidation of breweries and that could happen again. Anheuser Busch has certainly bought their share of craft beer brands. They own maybe six or eight of them now.
TS: How much of the rough-cut will we see Thursday, November 3 at the film festival?
BS: There will be about one hour of material, Mostly the history stuff. There will be about five scenes. There may be stuff that will end up cut out of the final film so there’s a good chance that people who come to the screening may see stuff that won’t be shown again. It will be a good way for me to gauge how it’s going, with audience reaction, see if I’m going in the right direction. It will primarily be about the German immigrants in the origins of American beer. We’ll talk about the Lemp story and the Falstaff story and then we’ll talk a little bit about Earthbound. Those are the main topics that people will see you next Thursday.
TS: And they will be serving beer before and after?
BS: I’m not sure about after but there is a beer reception that starts prior to the film, around 6:30. Seven local breweries will be serving beer.
TS: That sounds good. Good luck with the film and maybe we can review it here when it’s complete.
A STRANGE NIGHT WITH COFFIN JOE takes place Sunday October 9th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 E. Lockwood Ave.) beginning at 7:30pm. The event will consist of a double-bill of THIS NIGHT I WILL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE (1967) and EMBODIMENT OF EVIL (2008). There will be an appearance by Raymond Castile, who played the young Coffin Joe in EMBODIMENT OF EVIL
The Webster University Film Series is going to honor José Mojica Marins with ‘A Strange Night With Coffin Joe’ which takes place Sunday, October 9th beginning at 7:30pm at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 E. Lockwood Ave.) The event will consist of a double-bill of THIS NIGHT I WILL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE (1967) and EMBODIMENT OF EVIL (2008). This will be the first time these films have been officially screened back to back in the United States. Though made over 40 years apart, the first film directly leads into the second. THIS NIGHT I WILL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE is the second Coffin Joe film. Brazilian censors forced filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins to recut and redub the ending to the film, making Coffin Joe find Jesus and repent. This infuriated Mojica. In his mind, this mangling of his film put a “curse” on him and his career. For the next 40 years, Mojica tried to make the third movie in his official Coffin Joe trilogy, one that would erase the stain of that imposed ending. It became his obsession. But for various reasons (career slump, funding falling through, a producer dying in a plane crash), he could not get that third film made. In 2005, with the help of fans who had now grown up and become filmmakers themselves, Mojica finally got the third part of his trilogy off the ground. The Brazilian equivalent of our NEA gave him financing. Cameras rolled on EMBODIMENT OF EVIL in 2006. Mojica, then 72 years old, played the contemporary Coffin Joe in most of the film. But he wanted a young Coffin Joe to recreate the ending of THIS NIGHT I WILL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE, revealing how Coffin Joe survived his apparent death. Marins auditioned many Brazilian actors, but none were convincing as a 1966 Coffin Joe. He finally found Raymond Castile, a Coffin Joe fan from the St. Louis area who bore an uncanny likeness to the young Marins. He reached out to Raymond who flew to Brazil to play the role.
Castile went on to write, direct, and star in the short film The Blind Date of Coffin Joe which can be viewed here:
Raymond Castile took the time to answer some questions for We Are Movie Geeks about José Mojica Marins and what it was like to work with him on EMBODIMENT OF EVIL.
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman
Tom Stockman: When and how did you first become aware of Coffin Joe?
Raymond Castile: I saw Coffin Joe mentioned in magazines in the 1990s, but I did not know who he was. I thought he was a horror host like Svengoolie. I remember seeing a photo of him accepting an award. It must have been the lifetime achievement award he received at Chiller Theatre around 1994. It wasn’t much of a write-up, and didn’t give any background on why he received the award. I didn’t think of him again until Fantoma released the Coffin Joe Trilogy boxed DVD set in 2002. I saw it at Best Buy and was very intrigued by the big, coffin-shaped box. But the price always made me put it back on the shelf. Later that year, my brother bought me the set as a gift. I don’t remember if it was my birthday or Christmas. I hadn’t told him that I wanted it, but he knew that any DVD set that came in a coffin-shaped box had my name written all over it. That turned out to be a pretty important gift, considering all that transpired over the next six years as a result of my exposure to Coffin Joe.
TS: What is your favorite Marins film and why?
RC: My favorite Marins film (everyone in Brazil refers to him by his middle name, Mojica, as in Mr. Mojica) is This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse. It is the most fully-realized and developed of all his films. Despite its low budget and limited production values, the story has an almost epic scope. It feels like three movies, the first being a “typical” Coffin Joe movie, followed by a surreal, psychedelic 60s trip, then ending in a tragic goth romance. Technically and artistically, it is a giant leap from the first Coffin Joe movie, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. It offers a lot of pulpy fun with the hunchbacked assistant and the “mad scientist” laboratory. The tarantula scene and color hell sequence are perhaps the most iconic scenes in Brazilian horror. This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse is audacious, maverick, auteur film-making.
TS: How did Marins become aware of you and how did he contact you about appearing in EMBODIMENT OF EVIL??
RC: I should preface this by saying that I bear an uncanny resemblance to Mojica. I noticed this the first time I watched one of his films. It was really quite striking. Even his body language and attitude. It looked like I had traveled back in time to the 1960s, learned Portuguese, and starred in low-budget Brazilian horror movies. In 2003 or 2004, I created a Coffin Joe costume. Today, we would call it a “cosplay.” I’m sure that word goes back many years, but I don’t remember anyone using it in 2004. I just knew I wanted to dress like Coffin Joe, as an expression of my fandom, so I went to a lot of trouble and expense to create a Coffin Joe costume good enough to use in a movie. I had my friend Max Cheney photograph me in a graveyard, striking typical Coffin Joe poses amid the tombstones. I posted these photos online (this was way before Facebook, so I created a little homemade webpage for them). The following year, I wore the costume to a horror convention in Pittsburgh. I wasn’t planning on doing much more with it. Then in early 2006, I received an email from Mojica’s assistant director. He said Mojica saw the photos online and loved them. Of course, I was very excited to find out that Mojica was even aware of my existence, let alone that he had given me a “thumbs up.” I later found out that his wife had discovered the photos online. A magazine had published an interview with Mojica and used my photos to illustrate the piece, mistakenly thinking they were vintage photos of Mojica. Mojica saw the photos accompanying the article and said, “I don’t remember this photo shoot.” His wife googled around and discovered my webpage. She told him it was not him, but this guy in Missouri! I was told that Mojica was “amazed.” I knew that Mojica was working on a new Coffin Joe movie, his first in many years. I had been following news about the film on Brazilian entertainment websites, using online translators to decipher the Portuguese text. In October 2006, I received a second email from Mojica’s assistant director. This time, the subject line read: “Do you wanna be Coffin Joe?” Mojica was then 72 years old. He wanted to include a flashback scene in his new film to link it to his 60s film, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse. He had auditioned several Brazilian actors, but none of them looked like a 1960s Coffin Joe. Mojica wanted me to fly to Brazil and appear as the young Coffin Joe in the flashback sequence. Of course, I took him up on his offer. It was a surreal experience, easily one of the greatest of my life.
TS: Had you ever reached out to Marins before he found you? RC: No. I had no idea how to contact him. And I would have been too shy to try.
TS: Were you nervous on the plane ride to Brazil?
RC: I was nervous and excited. It was so surreal, I’m not sure how I felt. I think I was in a daze. I felt like I was going on an adventure.
TS: Did you have to bring your own costume or did they provide you with one for the film? RC: I asked if I should bring my costume and they said no, they would have a professional one for me. Then after I had been there a couple days, they asked, “Did you bring your costume?” They had the outfit I was to wear in the flashback, but Coffin Joe is not wearing his trademark hat and cape in that scene. I think, after I arrived and they saw that it was actually going to work, they might have considered shooting additional scenes with me. But they did not have a full costume with hat, jacket and cape that fit me. They had me try on Mojica’s costume, but it was too big
TS: Did they film a lot more of you than what was in the final film?
RC: No. As I said, it seemed like they regretted not having a full costume for me, so I can only assume that they would have shot more with me if they had the wardrobe.
You could mine that diary for all the information you want.
To put it briefly, my first meeting with Mojica was very dramatic. A Brazilian screen legend, Jece Valadao, who was costarring in the film had a heart attack and died just hours before I arrived. So the mood on the set was somber. Mojica was at the hospital, in his Coffin Joe costume, with Valadao when he died. Mojica returned to the set heartbroken. I was introduced to him. We sat down next to each other. He put his hand on my shoulder, tilted his head to mine, and wept. My first meeting with Mojica was crying with him over the death of an actor. I immediately bonded with him emotionally and felt like a part of the family, and I mourned with the rest of the family over the loss of this man whom I had never met. The next day, all the newspapers had front-page stories about Valadao. I had never heard of him before my arrival in Brazil, but I felt the cultural importance of his passing. The country was in mourning.
TS: What did he say to you when you met and what was he like?
RC: He thanked me for coming, and said our introduction was not supposed to be this way, he had intended to welcome me properly, but it was a sad day and everyone was in mourning. Then he hugged me and cried with me.
TS: Tell me about filming your scenes in EMBODIMENT OF EVIL?
RC: I was underwater all night, freezing to death. I could not wear a wetsuit, because it would show up on screen. I kept submerging in this swamp, then slowly rising. But I would float, ruining the effect. And my fingernails would break after every take, so I had to have new nails every time. It’s a wonder I did not catch pneumonia. At first, Mojica’s instructions were not being translated properly to me. I blew many takes as a result. Then Dennison Ramalho took over as my sole interpreter for Mojica. Once I was listening to one man who truly understood what Mojica wanted, I was able to follow instructions correctly. Then we got some great footage. Mojica was having a ball, once things started humming along. It was like going back in time to the 1960s and working on an original Coffin Joe movie.
TS: Did many of the crew speak English? Was the language barrier a problem?
RC: Very few crew members spoke English. Language was a problem, especially when there were different people giving me conflicting instructions in Portuguese. The assistant director, Dennison Ramalho, spoke excellent English. I told him I would take directions from him and him alone. Once we had that agreement, communication was fine. Mojica spoke directly to Dennison, and Dennison spoke directly to me. Then I always knew exactly what was expected of me. But in the beginning, it was confusing.
TS: How does EMBODIMENT OF EVIL reference Marins’ earlier films?
RC: It is directly connected in terms of plot and continuity with the first two films, At Midnight and This Night. There are flashbacks from both films using original footage, plus my newly shot flashback. Most interviewers thought I played Coffin Joe in all the flashbacks. Mojica did not correct them, so neither did I. I think he wanted people to think that it was me in all the flashbacks. Perhaps he didn’t want people to say there was “old” footage in the movie. He wanted it to seem all-new. I am just guessing. Nowadays, I am very upfront with telling people that I am only in the one scene. The other flashbacks are the real Mojica in footage from the 1960s.
TS:Did Marins see your BLIND DATE WITH COFFIN JOE short film?
RC: Yes, and he liked it very much.
TS: What has Coffin Joe been doing since EMBODIMENT OF EVIL?
RC: Mojica has been very ill the last few years. But he is regaining his strength and doing public appearances again. His family and fans have rallied around him, especially his daughter Liz Vamp, who keeps fans updated on Facebook about Mojica’s health. There have been many tributes to Mojica, such as film festivals and special screenings. He completed a “lost” film called The Curse which is reportedly very scary. This was a film he started 30 years ago but could not finish due to financial problems. But now it is finished and has screened in theaters. Mojica has been involved with a couple of anthology films, and he has tried to get another feature off the ground. He tried to make a move about a cannibalistic scientist called The Eater of Eyes. It was to have been shot in the Amazon. An associate of Mojica told me he wanted me to appear in the film in some capacity, but I don’t know how credible that information was. A lot of people claim to speak for Mojica, so you have to be careful. In any case, the movie never got off the ground. If it had, and if he did ask me to be involved, I would have certainly done so. Also, Mojica has hosted a weekly talk show called The Strange World of Coffin Joe, named after his 1960s anthology film. I don’t know if he is still taping new episodes of that talk show, but it ran for many seasons.
TS: Will Sunday night’s screening of EMBODIMENT OF EVIL be the first time you’ve seen it on a big screen?
RC: No, I saw it at the premiere in Sao Paulo in 2008 with Mojica and the entire crew in attendance. It was a great premiere. Lots of press. I was interviewed multiple times. Mojica and I went on a television talk show. It was a great week. This was two years after the shoot. It took awhile between wrapping production and releasing the film
TS: Tell me about your collection of Coffin Joe memorabilia
RC: I have several original Coffin Joe movie posters, including both A and B versions of This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse. I also have both versions of Ritual of the Sadists/Awakening of the Beast. One of my Awakening posters is signed by Mojica to Forry Ackerman and came from the Ackermansion collection. I have Exorcismo Negro, Strange Hostel of Pleasures, Hellish Flesh, Perversion, Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind, probably others that I’ve forgotten. I don’t have At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul or The Strange World of Coffin Joe. Of course, I very much want those two. Mojica might have the only surviving copies of the At Midnight poster. I’ve seen the Strange World poster in a museum exhibit, so at least one copy exists. I also have the press kit and some lobby cards for Hallucinations. I have some newspaper clippings and a 60s Brazilian TV Guide with a story on Mojica’s 60s television show. (There was a 1960s Coffin Joe TV show similar to Tales from the Crypt, with Coffin Joe as the Cryptkeeper character.) Besides the posters, the other “centerpiece” of my collection is a complete run of the 1969 Coffin Joe comic book. I have all issues, including the retitled versions that came out after the run ended. Miniature versions of some of these comics were included in the Fantoma DVD set. But those mini comics were edited, missing stories and artwork. The original versions are much better. I have some tchotchkes from the now defunct Coffin Joe museum, including a souvenir bust of Coffin Joe. I have some books and programs. I have a couple of LPs with Coffin Joe “singing.” One of my most special pieces is a prosthetic fingernail from Embodiment of Evil. It broke in the middle and I glued it. But still, it’s a “real” Coffin Joe movie fingernail. I don’t know if it is screen used. It doesn’t show any signs of adhesive, so it was probably one of the leftovers in the makeup box.
Raymond Castile as Coffin Joe at the 2009 Rondo Awards ceremony
Matt Johnson’s films could almost be described as half-truths or honest lies. They purposefully blur the line between fiction and non-fiction in such a fascinating way that you are never quite sure where the lie begins or ends. So it makes sense that my discussion with the young actor and director would include discussing the classic Orson Welles film F FOR FAKE and why he enjoys injecting truths into stories… or maybe it’s the other way around.
After the controversial but film festival favorite THE DIRTIES showcased the director roaming the halls of a real high school with his partner Owen Williams, Matt Johnson decided to use his unique storytelling style to venture to a new distant place and era. OPERATION AVALANCHE follows a group of CIA paper pushers as they attempt to orchestrate possibly the greatest hoax in human history: the 1969 moon landing. The group’s mission quickly goes from impossible to dangerous when some mysterious figures seem determined to put an end to the secret project. Comprised of “archival footage filmed during the 1960s,” OPERATION AVALANCHE is a unique film that is now playing in select theaters and opens in St. Louis on Friday. Look for my review then, but for now, enjoy my interview with the candid director.
We Are Movie Geeks: I feel like many of us go through a period of time when we suddenly become really interested in conspiracy theories. When did you first become interested in the fake moon conspiracy and did the documentary ROOM 237 and one of its stories about Stanley Kubrick directing the fake landing have anything to do with it?
MATT JOHNSON: That documentary was definitely an influence, but I think I was more interested in the moon landing as a kid than as an adult. I saw ROOM 237 at TIFF and thought “Wow! This is amazing.” I think it reminded me of how interested I was in that conspiracy story. But I didn’t think I would make a movie about it until much later when THE DIRTIES finished and I was thinking about what film to make next. I wanted to make a historical film – about some famous moment in history. When my producer (Matt Miller) and I stumbled on the fake moon landing as a story premise, we knew we had to do it.
I like conspiracies. One of my favorite movies is JFK. But I’m not really a conspiracy-head. I just love the stories. I think they are amazing.
WAMG: There’s a meta element to the film where you have art imitating life, which is essentially the main idea behind filmmaking. You’ve explored this with THE DIRTIES and now with OPERATION AVALANCHE where it sort of blurs what’s real and what’s not. What about this style of filmmaking interests you? Because you aren’t making a “documentary,” but you aren’t making an entirely fictional film since you are incorporating real moments with real people.
MJ: I’ll tell you what I like about it: you can do things that Hollywood movies or even just bigger budget movies could never do. I’m not saying “could never do” because they don’t want to do them, but “could never do” because the restrictions put on them make it impossible. Say for instance the car chase scene. You would never see that in a bigger budget film because they couldn’t take the risks with their actors that we can take. Those scenes where we are talking with real NASA staff and they are responding to us as real people (the crew posed as “documentarians” and got into NASA), you could never see that in a bigger budget movie. Those would be paid actors and that would be a set, not the real NASA building.
So, apart from it being quite frugal shooting in this style, we get paid off in really amazing ways and we get to do things that haven’t been done in mainstream movies. That’s why I’m interested in this. It’s not to say I will always make movies like this, but I think we have discovered some new territory telling stories in independent filmmaking.
WAMG: And have you ever had an interest in making a straight documentary? Are you intrigued at all in capturing reality and telling that style of story?
MJ: Of course it does, but what’s interesting to me is perverting that into some kind of narrative story. I think one day I will make a documentary because, frankly, I think it will be much easier than the stupid stuff we’re trying to do. But for now, I like taking as much from that aesthetic as I can and applying it to fiction. This is only my second movie, so I have got some ways to go before I really know what I’m doing.
WAMG: That’s true. You have some time.
Between the sets, costumes, locations, and songs, you have exhausted a lot of effort to make OPERATION AVALANCHE look as accurate to the period as possible. What was the hardest aspect of recreating this period of time?
MJ: From a production point of view, it was definitely finding environments that would pass as the 1960s. With THE DIRTIES, we could shoot anywhere we wanted – the world was our oyster. Here we had to be so specific. We were shooting in old universities and studios that were basically derelict. We had to find places that looked like they were still active but had the sense of the 1960s. It was really really hard.
I would say though that the biggest challenge was recreating that section with Stanley Kubrick. That took months and months and months.
WAMG: How long did the shoot take overall?
MJ: We shot for 30 days one summer and then edited for a few months and then shot another 30-40 days over a mixed amount of time. We basically had a documentary production schedule where we shot for many many days not sequentially.
WAMG: At this point did you have investors already or were you shooting out of pocket?
MJ: We had a loan from a Canadian bank that was funding us based on a negative pick-up deal that Lionsgate made with us quite early on.
WAMG: That’s interesting. Is that how you did THE DIRTIES as well?
MJ: No. THE DIRTIES was made for $10,000 and I just paid for it myself.
WAMG: Oh wow!
When your character in the film starts to direct the “moon film” he has this sort of manic, jovial spirit. He becomes an enthusiastic larger than life, much like Orson Welles. Is that how you really are on set with your own films and were you influenced by anyone in particular for this character?
MJ: Orson Welles is a hero of mine and this film is very much influenced by his film F FOR FAKE.
WAMG: Yeah, I can see that.
MJ: I will say that the way I act in this movie is how I am in real life, especially with directing things. Now, I couldn’t tell you because I’m not self-aware enough if I have stolen any of that behavior from Orson Welles. I’ve never actually seen footage of him directing, so I’m not sure if he acts like that. For me, when I see myself acting that way, I see myself acting like a kid. I feel like I’m hanging out with my brother and we’re just yelling. It’s not really an impression of anyone. I’m just being myself.
WAMG: Was there any real tension on set while making OPERATION AVALANCHE? You obviously have the fake tension “on-set” which becomes integral to the plot of the film. Did any of those problems spill over?
MJ: Most of the stuff you see between me and the other actors is really coming from what we were feeling. A lot of that shoot was stressful since we were sneaking into places, working with a script that was not finished, and a lot of really frustrating things that happened. It was the same with THE DIRTIES. Much of that was more or less based from reality.
WAMG: So you just had an outline? You didn’t have any dialogue written?
MJ: Exactly. We had no dialogue written. It was just like THE DIRTIES. We were just making things up as we went along.
WAMG: Was that hard later in the editing room-
MJ: It was impossible!
WAMG: You include a lot of Kubrick posters in the background throughout the film and so it seems like you are clearly a fan of his work. Aside from all of the stuff that all film historians speak about regarding his work, is there anything about his films and his style that interests you?
MJ: It’s funny because both myself in real life and my character in the film only really love DR. STRANGELOVE. The other Kubrick films I don’t completely love. I think they are really cold and overly technical.
WAMG: That’s exactly how I feel about THE SHINING. I’ve never connected with that film like so many have.
MJ: Which is funny because OPERATION AVALANCHE is really technical and it sort of bears some of the same bad behavior that Kubrick has. But that’s not to say that I don’t respect him and think that he’s a master. I think DR. STRANGELOVE is one of the greatest movies ever made. What draws me to that is that he’s able to combine really light and easy performances with unbelievable technical rigor. Like Peter Sellers acting like he’s almost making up what he’s saying as he’s going while you’re watching these sets and these very specific camera setups is so amazing to me. It’s a huge inspiration for me. As a filmmaker, you can spend tons of energy making sure everything is perfect, but in terms of performances, you can just let people go.
WAMG: In regards to the moon landing – because there are some people who believe that it is a hoax – do you think it’s healthier that our country believes “the lie” if it is in fact a lie, or is it better to uncover the truth? Also, do you think there is any truth to the conspiracy?
MJ: No. I can guarantee there is absolutely no truth to it (the conspiracy). And I’m a good authority on this since I did try to fake the moon landing with my friends. There are a lot of really, really specific reasons why, especially considering video technology.
But the more interesting question you asked there is it better if Americans believe it was faked or not. That’s really interesting. I’ve never been asked that. In the movie INTERSTELLAR they play with that a little bit. I hate that movie–
WAMG: You’re not the only one.
MJ: But they talk about the history of America and how it was more useful in that dust world to say that the moon landing was faked so that people didn’t think that American opulence in the 60s had run amok. I don’t know about that. Now, I’m not an American, but I actually think having a few major accomplishments as a uniting force is quite good. I don’t think it would be good if it was faked. Let’s say if it was faked, then I think it would be worse if the world knew.
WAMG: Finally, what are some film projects you have lined up for the near future?
MJ: There are two movies we’re going to make. One is about a time machine and the other is the third film in this Matt and Owen trilogy where they get in over their heads. We’re going to make both of those movies but one of them is going to start early 2018.
OPERATION AVALANCHE is now playing in limited release and opens in St. Louis on Friday, October 7th.
The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film IVANHOE will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman. A Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE
Hollywood Cinematographer Stephen King Baggot, also known as King Baggot III, is a retired cinematographer and news cameraman born in 1943. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was always billed onscreen as simply ‘King Baggot’. The first King Baggot (1879-1948) was at one time Hollywood’s most popular star, known in his heyday as ‘King of the Movies’ ,’The Most Photographed Man in the World’ and “More Famous Than the Man in the Moon”. Baggot appeared in at least 300 silent motion pictures between 1909 and 1921, ruling the international box-office during much of that period. His son, Robert King Baggot, was a cameraman who worked for decades in Hollywood. His name can be seen in the credits of such films as THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON. While filming offshore background footage in 1965 for the Disney movie LT. ROBINSON CRUSOE U.S.N. in Hawaii, his 16-foot outboard boat was hit by a huge wave, throwing him into heavy surf. He was rescued from the water, but died of his injuries. He left behind his wife and two sons.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Stephen King Baggot worked as a field cameraman at KABC-TV in Los Angeles. He found himself in the middle of the Charles Manson trial in December of 1969. The Los Angeles Times printed a confession by Manson “family” member Susan Atkins detailing, among other things, how they changed into clean clothes during their getaway drive after the Tate murders and then dumped the bloody clothes into a roadside ravine. The L.A. Police Department ignored this part of the confession while Baggot and two members of his news team did not. The three of them decided to recreate the getaway drive the day after the Times printed the confession. They drove from the murder scene and parked at a spot on the shoulder that matched the description Atkins gave and at the bottom of the ravine, they found the bloody clothes. At the trial, Baggot testified for the news team. Since Atkin’s L.A. Times confession was suppressed, no mention of it was made during Baggot’s testimony. This made it sound as if he’d found the clothes out of sheer luck. During his self-defense testimony, Charles Manson used this to try to implicate Baggot in the murder. All of this is documented in Vincent Bugliosi’s book on the case “Helter Skelter.”
After his news career, King Baggot III became a motion picture cinematographer and had a successful career in Hollywood beginning in 1980 as a cameraman on AMERICAN GIGOLO. Noted for his Steadicam specialty, and his ability to direct the action, he was hired as Director of Photography for such films as Oliver Stone’s THE HAND, CHEECH AND CHONG’S NEXT MOVIE. THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and REVENGE OF THE NERDS. He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). King Baggot III, now retired, has been married to his wife Marilyn since 1968 and they have raised two sons, Joseph and Michael.
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman
We Are Movie Geeks: You were five years old when your grandfather died in 1948. Do you have any memory of him at all?
King Baggot III: I remember meeting him just one time. I went to Culver City in California to spend some time with him. My dad dropped me off to spend some time with him there he asked me what I wanted, and since I was just a little boy I told him I wanted some food like cowboys eat and that I wanted some cowboy boots. So he took me to the store and bought some cowboy boots for me and we had lunch together. He passed away shortly after that.
WAMG: What do you remember about him physically?
KB: I recall that he was a very striking looking man. He was tall man, especially for his age. Over 6 feet tall, just a striking looking gentleman.
WAMG: Have you been in touch with any of your St. Louis family members?
KB: Yes when I was young I spent a weekend on summer in St. Louis with my grandfather’s sister Mariam. She was the secretary to August Busch for over 30 years, you know down at the Budweiser brewery. Mr. Busch treated her very well.
WAMG: Oh yes, August Busch was another famous St. Louisan. Do you recall if you went and visited your grandfather’s boyhood home when you were here?
KB: I do not recall but I don’t think we did. I was just there in St. Louis a few days. I know my uncle Bob was there as well and he and Marion took me on a tour of the city.
WAMG: When your Grandfather was growing up here, he lived in a nice part of North St. Louis, but that area has become pretty run down now.
KB: A lot can happen in a hundred years.
King Baggot III’s Grandmother Ruth Baggot and his father Robert King Baggot in a photo take in 1926
WAMG: Your father King Baggot II worked in Hollywood as well. What was his job in the movie industry?
KB: He was a camera loader and assistant camera operator. He was killed on the set of a movie for Walt Disney, LT. ROBINSON CRUSOE USN, in 1965.
WAMG: What famous films did your father work on?
KB: He was at MGM for years he worked on TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON and HELEN OF TROY. These were tremendous movies of the day. Also GREEN MANSIONS and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY.
WAMG: How was he credited in those films?
KB: Assistant cameraman or camera operator.
Robert King Baggoton the set of GIVE A GIRL A BREAK with Debbie Reynolds in 1953
WAMG: And your mother’s name was Mimi. When did she pass away?
KB: My mother passed away just six years ago. She lived to be 92.
WAMG: Good for her. Did she have any memory of your grandfather? She must have known him.
KB: Yes Sally Dumaux interviewed her for the book (King Baggot – A Biography and Filmography of the First King of the Movies). My father and my grandfather weren’t very close for whatever reason – but they were reasons that were never discussed with me. If my mom had anything she would have given it to Sally.
WAMG: I’ve approached Cinema St. Louis with the idea of throwing a King Baggot tribute tonight as part of the St. Louis international film Festival and it looks like that will indeed be happening in mid-November but of course there are very few King Baggot films in existence. It looks like IVANHOE and DR JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (both from 1913) are the only complete films that your grandfather started in that are extant. I believe there are fragments of a few others. Have you seen IVANHOE?
KB: Yes I have seen it. UCLA did a tremendous restoration of that film and they gave a big exhibit probably about 10 years ago. They recognized him as one of the giants of the film industry. The students there were taught about him. But yes I remember IVANHOE and when I was young we had a photo in our living room of my grandfather in his Ivanhoe costume and I would look at that a lot as a child. I don’t know what happened to that photo. You know, when he came back to New York from Europe after filming IVANHOE, there were thousands and thousands of people waiting to greet him when he got off of that steamship. They carried signs that read “Our King is Back”. I have seen photos of that event and it’s the most impressive thing I have ever seen. Just thousands and thousands of people.
WAMG: There was a similar event at Union Station in St. Louis in 1910 where there were massive crowds lined up to greet your grandfather when he got off the train at there. In fact, President Taft had made a stop there a couple of weeks earlier and the crowd for the President was half the size of the one for your Grandfather.
KB: Yes, he was very popular in his day
WAMG: Did you attend the UCLA event?
KB: I did not.
WAMG: Have you ever spoken about your famous grandfather?
KB: No I have not. Sally DuMaux had some of the other of my grandfather’s films on video tape. One night she had my brother and I over to her house and we watched them. I do believe they may have just been fragments of some of his films.
WAMG: There doesn’t seem to be any photos of your grandfather as a young man. In fact, the earliest photo I can find of him is from one of his films from 1909 when he would have been almost 30.
KB: No, there’s not. I’ve never seen a photo of him as a young man either.
WAMG: The high school your grandfather attended burned down in 1916 so though so there are no archives there and even Sally could only find one photo of your grandmother Ruth Baggot.
KB: Yes my grandmother Ruth died before my grandfather did so I never met her, but my father and his mother were very close.
WAMG: Sally theorized in her book that Ruth may have destroyed all of the family photographs during the divorce. Have you heard that?
King Baggot biographer Sally Dumaux
KB: I had heard that. The divorce at that time was very bitter. I have heard there were two photo albums and they seem to have disappeared right around that time so that is probably what happened to them. I would have to say that Sally in her book didn’t really personalize my grandfather much or at least not to a great extent. I really don’t think she got into his personality much but I think that type of information would have been very hard to find. It was so long ago. I met Mary Pickford one day when I was a young man. She heard someone say my name and she came up to me and she asked if I was related to King Baggot. I said yes, that he was my grandfather, and she said that he was the most wonderful man she had ever worked with. Rumor had it that they had a long affair. Cary Grant was another actor who approached me and asked about my grandfather. He had met him and thought he was a most terrific man as well. Everyone I met when I was younger from that era just told me how well respected my grandfather was.
WAMG: Though he seems now to be somewhat forgotten.
KB: Well, they all are. He started in films so long ago. I’ll tell you a great story. I was filming a movie with George Burns in 1984 called OH GOD YOU DEVIL. I had a director’s chair and my name was on it. After about a month of the filming he approached me and asked me if I was related to King Baggot. I told him that yes, I was his grandson. Then he told me that when he was five years old he would save his pennies becasue all he wanted to do was go to the Nickelodeon and see my grandfather’s movies. He said that my grandfather was one of the reasons that he became an actor.
WAMG: That is a great story. Even here in his hometown of St. Louis I will approach my movie buff friends and very few have heard of him.
KB: You have to remember, that was over a century ago. His career started in 1909. Those were all Nickelodeon’s he was in, they were one reelers. In 1913 he was at the top of his career. Charlie Chaplin didn’t even start until 1915. He was a pioneer of the industry. One thing that is well-documented is his directing career, he directed TUMBLEWEEDS. That film went down as a landmark on how westerns will be made. It was my grandfather’s greatest triumph as a director, the picture he’ll be remembered for.
WAMG: Oh yes clearly more of the films he directed have survived in the films he acted in. Of course that was over a decade later.
KB: Right, of course film acetate in those days just destroyed itself. They didn’t know that you had to keep the films in vaults at certain temperatures. And even if you did keep them in vaults, they still decomposed.
WAMG: Then of course after his directing career ended he went back to acting. but had these tiny cameos in films up until his death.
KB: The industry kept him going. But this was later in his life. He had a huge drinking problem but there were people that wanted to keep him going until the day he died. He was a tremendous gambler and a tremendous drinker, but the women loved him. He lived quite a life, so you have to put that into perspective.
WAMG: He did have a few speaking roles in the very early 30s there’s a comedy short on YouTube that he has several lines him.
KB: Yes, he spoke very well. He came from Broadway, He was a stage actor. It wasn’t like a lot of silent stars who had terrible voices – Valentino could barely speak. But my grandfather was no kid by them. That was 1929 when the talkies came to be, and he was around 50.
WAMG: Why do you think he didn’t get more roles in talkies?
KB: It’s just that he wasn’t a leading man. Back then actors were just gone by the time they got to a certain age. It’s more in today’s market that actors careers just continue on and on. How many movies did Roy Rogers make when he got old? Not many.
WAMG: It’s fun to look for him in these cameos. In A NIGHT A THE OPERA you can barely spot him but there’s a great on-set photo of him that I have where he’s sitting with the Marx brothers.
KB: Yes and of course in those days those stars knew who he was, they would have remembered him. Many old actors that I met were in awe of him, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy. He was a forerunner of what actors are doing today and that’s how he kept living, those cameos. They didn’t pay a lot of money, but they paid enough to pay the rent.
WAMG: And he did a lot of them.
KB: Yes he worked a long time at MGM.
WAMG: Let’s talk about your career. What did you do before you were a cinematographer?
KB: I was a news crew cameraman for ABC.
WAMG: Right and there’s a famous story in the book “Helter Skelter” about you.
KB: Yes. I found the Tate murder clothes.
WAMG: What was it like being involved in the Manson trial in the late 60s?
KB: It was very exciting. I was very young, but it’s just like it’s documented in “Helter Skelter”. It was a very exciting time in my life. After the trial we toured the country talking to people. You have to realize that the Manson trial was what everybody was talking about in those days and I worked on the murder case for a year. That’s all I did. It was the biggest story of its time. I was a very successful news crew cameraman. I started at a very young age and was very lucky to have had that career. I did that at KABC-TV from 1964 two 1977 at that station.
WAMG: Was it easy then to transfer to Hollywood is a cinematographer?
KB: Yes. I was probably the best known news cameraman in the country and well-known from what I had accomplished and the awards that had won. I knew I didn’t want to be doing that at age 50. I wanted to do film. I wanted to be challenged. I wanted to be a movie camera man so I just quit the news industry.
WAMG: What was it like to work with Cheech and Chong on CHEECH AND CHONG’S NEXT MOVIE?
KB: They were absolutely great. That was kind of a lucky thing for me. I was a camera operator on the movie UP IN SMOKE and Cheech Marin came up to me and asked if I remembered him. It turns out we had gone to high school together. In those days his name was Richard Marin. We became friendly and I was director of photography on their next film.
WAMG: Where did you two go to high school?
KB: We went to Granada Hills High which is out in San Fernando Valley.
WAMG: Another film that you were director of photography on was THE HAND. Just a few years later that film’s director, Oliver Stone, would become a Hollywood powerhouse.
KB: Yes, that was his first movie.
WAMG: Did you see some qualities in him that made you unsurprised when he went on to such success?
KB: Yes, he was a very interesting man. Very talented. At that time he did not possess the skills that he has now achieved but he certainly was a genius. He had already written wonderful screenplays and I knew that anyone with talent like that would be able to fulfill his life dreams.
WAMG: Yet Stone, in interviews describes THE HAND is a negative experience.
KB: Yes, he had problems. The film went way behind schedule and the studio was on him a lot. But he was the first time director, you have to understand that.
WAMG: Then you retired in 1992?
KB: Yes, WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU and BOILING POINT were my last two films.
Some films featuring King Baggot III’s Director of Photography credits
WAMG: Are any of your children in the motion picture business?
KB: No they are not, neither one. They just had no interest? When I was working they worked for me but then when I retired, they went in other directions.
WAMG: We have the St. Louis Walk of Fame here and I believe your grandfather is the only star from St. Louis to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame but not our local one.
KB: Yes, his star is right at Hollywood and Vine. He was certainly proud to be from St. Louis. The whole family was. I was close with his brother and his sister Marion. She loved St. Louis and working for Budweiser. She had quite a life and a lot of stories about St. Louis. There’s not too many actors who started over 300 movies and directed 100 more in our business. He was the first movie star. Do you know how he became that movie star?
WAMG: Tell me.
KB: He had jet black hair with a white streak down it. He had the bluest eyes in the world and was very well-built. and all the women loved that. They all wrote to the studios and asked who he was. He was the first act her to get credit. He and Florence Lawrence were the first movie stars. My grandfather was really just the prototype movie star. And yes, it would be nice if people from St. Louis were proud that someone from their neck of the woods made it so big.
WAMG: And I think it’s important to keep the memory of someone like him alive. 25 or 30 years from now he may be completely forgotten so thank goodness for Sally Dumaux’s book.
KB: Absolutely she was determined, for whatever reason. That book was really her life’s goal.
WAMG: She says in the forward to her book that she was inspired when she was approached by a distant family member of your grandfather.
KB: It wasn’t me.
WAMG: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me and I’ll get this interview posted soon before our event here honoring your grandfather.
35 DAYS screens Thursday, July 21st at 7:00pm at the Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase. Ticket information can be found HERE
Veteran Showcase filmmaker Chris Grega is back with his latest feature, which also serves as a tribute to a local actor, Steve Heffernan, who died tragically of a heart attack a few years ago. The film is the story of indie-film director Eric Cutter’s attempt to complete his long-abandoned third feature film, “Gunman,” in time for a local film festival. Spurred on by the recent death of Sam Harrison, his friend and actor in the film, Cutter must reunite his old crew for one last chance to finish the movie that derailed their hopes and dreams a decade earlier.
Chris Grega took the time to answer questions about his film for We Are Movie Geeks in advance of it’s screening at the St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase.
We Are Movie Geeks: How did you get the idea to make this mock-documentary about a St. Louis filmmaker?’
Chris Grega: I probably had the original idea around 6 or 7 years ago. At that time, the title of the film was POST, and it was a similar theme, but not quite the same as 35 DAYS turned out to be. In the original idea, the director had to re-unite his old cast to finish shooting the unfinished film, and there was no death involved. Essentially, I wanted to re-purpose footage from my first feature, AMPHETAMINE, and I knew that I would be able to bring together most of the original cast for the project. However, instead of POST, I made the Post-Apocalyptic SOUND OF NOTHING. Sometime around 2013-2014, director Wolfgang Lehmkuhl approached me about a project that he wanted to do with actor Stephen Heffernan that had some similarities to my POST idea. He also wanted to use footage from AMPHETAMINE to represent another film that Steve’s character had acted in previously. I gave Wolfgang my blessing to do so, and figured at that point I would never do POST. When Steve passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack in November of 2014, the idea came to me to do a tribute film to him, based on my original idea, since obviously Wolfgang could no longer make his film. Thus 35 DAYS was born.
WAMG: Who was Steve Heffernan and what was his relationship to you?
CG: I first met Steve in August of 2001 when he auditioned for my first feature film, AMPHETAMINE. All of us at the casting immediately knew that he was right for the lead role the second he walked into the room. We went on to work together in many projects, more than I can easily count, mostly in film, but I directed him in the 7/24 project several times. That was an annual event put on by the Tin Ceiling Theatre Company, similar to the 48hr Film Project, but obviously with theatre instead of film. Steve and I also became friends beyond just filmmaking, however. He was a very upbeat, funny, kind and gentle soul. He ended up moving into my old apartment when I moved out, and I gave him most of my old furniture, including my bed! Heck, I even sold him my old Saturn for $500 bucks!
WAMG: What do you think Steve Heffernan would have thought of 35 DAYS?
CG: I think Steve would have been incredibly embarrassed by it, but I think that he would have loved it. He told me on more than one occasion that the AMPHETAMINE premiere at the Pageant in June of 2003 was the greatest night of his life. It was pretty exciting, with something like 800 people in attendance, and Steve was pretty much center stage! The fact that 35 DAYS is able to tie that film back together into a brand-new story is something that I think Steve, as a cinephile, would really have appreciated.
WAMG: What were some of the challenges of filming in the mock-documentary form?
CG: This is my second Mockumentary, the first being GAME OF THE YEAR which was shot in 2008. I think one of the biggest challenges is how much do you decide to go from the script as opposed to actor’s Improv. Another challenge is in the shooting itself, trying to maintain the documentary feel, but still making it cinematic to an extent. I would say that I learned a lot between making the two films, and 35 DAYS is visually head-and-shoulders above GOTY. But a lot of that is due to the cinematographer for the new film, Ben Vogelsang.
WAMG: Did any of your own films form the basis of what we see in 35 DAYS?
CG: Oh yeah! All of the characters are based on people that I’ve worked with, 99% of the situations are based around real things that happened, all of the “films” in the movie are based off of my own work. The story, of course, is entirely fictional, but the components that make it up are all drawn from real-life experiences.
WAMG: Tell me about Travis Estes, who stars as Eric Cutter in your film. How did you decide to cast him? Had you worked with him before?
CG: I met Travis on the exact same day that I met Steve, as he was at the same AMPHETAMINE audition. The same as with Steve, when Travis walked into the room, we all knew that we had our co-star of the film. A number of people that I still work with today came from that original talent pool, actually. Travis had a strong film and theatre background, and like Steve, we went on to work together on many projects. In 2005, I had decided that the follow-up film to AMPHETAMINE was going to be SHUFFLE, which was a film about unlicensed boxing and bar shuffleboard. That was a film that featured Travis in the lead role. We shot a teaser trailer for that film, in anticipation of raising funding for it, but ultimately, the next project was the WW2 feature RHINELAND. The interesting thing about SHUFFLE and 35 DAYS is that they essentially share the same theme, which is basically being at a certain point in your life, but not being anywhere close to where you thought that you would be. I think that both Travis and I had to go through a lot of crap and difficulty in our respective personal lives before we really understood what that meant. When I approached Travis about the role of Eric Cutter, he hadn’t acted in at least five years. He told me later that it was at the memorial for Steve when he made up his mind to get ‘back into the game’ with the first project that came his way. It just so happens that project was 35 DAYS. When I re-imagined my original concept for the film, I immediately pictured Travis as Cutter. I think everything turned out rather well!
WAMG: How did you come up with Randy Manning’s speech about “cross-collateralization”?
CG: It was pretty simple, really. Everything that his character says is 100% true. Those are actual practices that distributors use to rip off filmmakers. There are countless horror stories by filmmakers about not making a dime off of their films, while the distributor makes money hand-over-fist. Cross-collateralization is an incredibly nasty and deceptive accounting trick that underhanded distributors use to cheat filmmakers from their deserved earnings. Unfortunately, it’s all too common. I’d like to say that I sugar-coated it for comedic effect, but sadly that’s not the case.
WAMG: Were the actors starring in GUNMAN based on actors that had been in your previous films?
CG: They were, but in a more general sense. The character of Todd Fuller is based on an amalgamation of two separate people, but neither one of them is as unpleasant as Todd!
WAMG: What’s the biggest disaster you’ve had on the set of one of your films?
CG: On RHINELAND we had one of our sets catch on fire during a battle scene, that was pretty unfortunate! On one of the 48hr Film Projects that we did, perhaps in 2007, we had our sound person robbed at gunpoint, so that pretty much shut down the whole show. Every project has it’s own little ups and downs, but we’ve pretty much been able to overcome them and keep pushing forward.
WAMG: How long did it take to shoot 35 DAYS?
CG: I think it was about ten days, give or take. Not including interviews, of course.
WAMG: Have you ever almost missed a deadline for a film festival like Cutter does?
CG: No, but I’ve come damn close!
WAMG: What St. Louis locations did you use for 35 DAYS?
CG: Well, the big ones are Blueberry Hill and the Tivoli. We also shot at the offices of Cinema St. Louis, and a few local bars and restaurants such as Foam, The Way-out Club, and Feraro’s Jersey-style pizza.
WAMG: What’s it like watching one of your own films with an audience for the first time?
CG: Nerve-wracking! You hope that they jump at the scary parts, laugh at the funny parts, and cry at the sad parts. When people react the way that you’d hoped that they would, it’s a pretty incredible experience.
WAMG: Tell me about recreating the SLFS Awards at Blueberry Hill. I spotted a lot of people I knew in that sequence.
CG: That was a lot of fun to do! I was able to pull in a number of St. Louis filmmakers/directors for that scene, and I think everyone had a blast doing it. That scene, along with so many others in the film, had this surreal quality about it while we were shooting it. There were a lot of moments of Deja vu working on this film! Honestly, 35 DAYS is not a “movie about making a movie.” The tagline of the film is “A post-production odyssey,” so the film really deals with some of the lesser-known or thought about aspects of Indie filmmaking: post-production, festivals, screenings and award shows, and what happens with a film after you’ve made it. Making the thing is just the tip of the iceberg!
WAMG: What are your distribution plans for 35 DAYS?
CG: As of right now, we’re going to focus on festivals. I think this can be a great festival film, but I’ve been wrong about that before!
WAMG: What’s next for Chris Grega?
CG: I have a couple of things in the pipeline that I’m not really at liberty to discuss, and beyond that, as usual I am writing. However, some of the cast have been after me to make a third mockumentary in order to have a trilogy of sorts, so you just never know…
I MISS ME screens Wednesday, July 20th at 7:00pm at The Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase. Ticket information can be found HERE
Writer/director Chelsea Zotta’s I MISS ME tells the story of Kevin Masterson (Brock Roberts), who has everything a handsome bachelor could want: a high-powered job as an attorney, a list of women on speed dial, and enough money to get his kicks anytime, anywhere. But Calvin’s perfect life is flipped upside down when he is nearly killed by a drunk driver. Bed-ridden and depressed, Calvin must confront his inner demons to survive.
Chelsea Zotta took the time to answer questions about her film for We Are Movie Geeks in advance of it’s screening at the St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase.
We Are Movie Geeks: What was your filmmaking experience before I MISS ME?
Chelsea Zotta: After graduating college, I moved out to LA to become a movie actress, like millions of other wishful thinkers. I quickly fell into behind the scenes production work: I worked as an intern and assistant for director Mark David of “American Cowslip” and producer John Morrissey of “American History X”. I also did a small stint writing script coverage for Hyde Park Entertainment. I was then able to gain an acquisition/administrative assistant position with distributor B.D. Fox Entertainment meanwhile writing screenplays. After unsuccessfully finding a director for one of my short film ideas, I decided to try directing myself. I had never taken a filmmaking class and my only experience was as an extra and a production assistant on a few sets. I fell in love with the directing experience and I was strongly compelled to direct again, but on a much bigger scale – a feature.
WAMG: How did you become interested in films? Did you grow up a movie fan?
CZ: Both of my parents were film fanatics, so I grew up with Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman. I’ve watched every single Woody Allen film and many of them, like “Love and Death” and “Annie Hall”, countless times. There used to be an art house movie store that my parents would frequent to find some of the rarer foreign films, such as “The Bicycle Thief”. I’ve watched at least four or five movies a week since I was very young.
WAMG: What filmmakers have inspired you?
CZ: The list is very long, but here are a few: Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Charlie Kaufman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock, Wes Anderson, the Coen brothers and David Lynch. I’m a little embarrassed that I don’t have a female filmmaker to add. I do greatly appreciate the work of Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola and Jodie Foster, but I can’t say that they necessarily inspired me as a director.
WAMG: How did the script for I MISS ME come about and how long did it take you to write it?
CZ: “I Miss Me” is semi-autobiographical as it’s loosely based on my relationships with two different alcoholics. I discovered that you can’t help or change an alcoholic, or any addict for that matter. The decision to change has to originate and resonate within them. Half of their battle is realizing that there is a problem and the other half of the battle is not relapsing when times get tough and the urge to drink is stronger. It took me around 6 months to finish the script but dialogue was changed constantly on set.
WAMG: Were these characters in I MISS ME based on people you knew?
CZ: The main character, Calvin Masterson, is the rather odd amalgamation of a modern day Gordon Gekko and two of my alcoholic ex-boyfriends. His love interest, Ava Gattison, is a younger, more naïve version of myself.
WAMG: If you had more time and money, what are some things that you might have done differently with I MISS ME?
CZ: I would have hired a couple of known actors, A or B list, to fill in the smaller roles, which could have helped with the marketability of the film. Dramas are difficult to sell and dramas with “unknown” talent are next to impossible to sell unless they win awards at Sundance. With a bigger budget, I would have definitely used a higher end camera like the Red Scarlet or the Red Epic. My cinematographer, Jason Wathen, used the Canon 5D Mark 2 for most of the film.
WAMG: Tell me about casting Brock Roberts in the role of Calvin. Were there other actors you considered?
CZ: I auditioned Brock Roberts first and knew right away that I wanted him for the role of Calvin. I didn’t want to seem easy to please, so I auditioned others and kept an open mind. However, Brock is handsome, strong and blonde, which is the “look” I wanted for Calvin and he can also portray a self-indulged, materialistic bachelor superbly well. Brock’s personality is actually quite opposite of Calvin in that he’s a humble, kind and funny family man. Casting was basically the same for Ashley Bauman who played the co-star/love interest Ava Gattison. I saw her in a couple of local plays, and she was my father’s bass guitar student, so I auditioned her first and she blew me away. This was her first film role. The other roles were much harder to fill and I had to use the help of Azalea Agency and TalentPlus.
WAMG: Do you allow your actors to have much leeway with their roles or are you strict with keeping to the script?
CZ: I want the dialogue to suit the actors, not the actors to suit the dialogue. We would discuss the objective of each scene and the objective of each character within the scene. If the actors had a better line than the one I came up with or if they were struggling to make a line feel authentic for their character, I would gladly change it. When rehearsing, I would encourage them to improvise within the structure of the scene and I would write down any good lines that naturally came to them. I did stick to the structure of the story during filming, but I also did take Brock’s suggestions regarding potential scenes or lines that I could cut to allow for more production time on important scenes.
WAMG: What local locations did you use for I MISS ME?
CZ: Jackson Park Elementary School in University City, Melt Café on Cherokee Street, Creve Coeur Park, Faust Park, Nicole Powell’s beautiful downtown loft for Calvin’s pad, Terence Alfonso’s house for the Delila and Addy scenes, my cinematographer Jason Wathen’s house for the Frank and Martha scenes and a nurse station at Saint Charles Community College for the hospital scenes. This was all thanks to my wonderful producer April Spencer, cinematographer Jason Wathen and script supervisor Vanessa Roman. I also want to thank Respond Right EMS Academy for allowing us to use their ambulance and EMTs in training for the ambulance scene for free.
WAMG: How has I MISS ME been received so far?
CZ: The St. Louis Filmmaker Showcase is the first festival and hopefully there will be more to come. Thanks to Cinema St. Louis for giving “I Miss Me” the opportunity to be seen!
WAMG: What are your release plans for I MISS ME?
CZ: Aside from the festival circuit, I’m partnering with Kevin Edwards of Always Late TV, who is starting an online streaming service in September. “I Miss Me” will be one of the first films to launch this service.
WAMG: What’s next for Chelsea Zotta?
CZ: I hope to carve out a career as a director and a script supervisor when I’m not directing. Currently I’m writing a short film and I’m also considering developing a feature length script about the making of “Trout Mask Replica” by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, which is considered to be the weirdest album of all time. I would be honored if I could, in some small way, help carry on their legacy.
DEAD NIGHTMARE screens Sunday, July 19th at 9:30pm at Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater along with two shorter horror films as part of this year’s St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. Ticket information can be foundHERE
Writer/director Michael Schilling’s DEAD NIGHTMARE tells the story of young people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse as it tears apart their lives are forced to face their fears and make hard decisions in a place where any moment could be their last.
Michael Schilling took the time to answer questions about his film for We Are Movie Geeks in advance of it’s screening at the St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase.
We Are Movie Geeks: What was your filmmaking experience before DEAD NIGHTMARE?
Michael Schilling: I had very little filmmaking experience prior to Dead Nightmare. I had worked on writing some create your own adventure zombie stories, where I would have friends immerse themselves into the story and ask them questions to see what they’d do in those situations to survive. From there I started narrating the stories and working heavily with editing sound, pictures, & small clips to match the story. Around the same time I had a growing interest in green screening and wanting to learn how to do cinematic effects; both computer based & practical effects without having the high budget. This quickly progressed into writing script/screenplay for several short scenes in my stories & filming my closest friends to help make it come to life. I do not have any formal film-school training, but have worked hard to study multiple film styles & have utilized the internet for it’s massive wealth of filmmaking knowledge.
WAMG: Tell me about the origins of DEAD NIGHTMARE, from concept to filming.
MS: One night I had my family over watching one of my zombie stories that I completely wrote, narrated, & added multiple visuals to keep the attention of the viewer. It was a very long video (almost 3 hours) and I learned that sometimes a “big production” is not always the way to go. My uncle Gary was the one that really inspired me to do the film. Although supportive, he really wanted me to push the bar & create a film; rather than just narrate and do slide shows. From there I started my research for camera’s and audio equipment, meanwhile doing extensive research on zombie make-up, visual effects, music tracks that I could purchase, & so forth. I knew I wanted to write a story about a young couple and how their lives get turned upside down as the Z apocalypse spills into their home. The concept & name Dead Nightmare is intended to be more that just zombies, but also how our inner thoughts/dreams/fears play in on the situations. For me the name itself is intriguing, as I get this automatic feeling that these characters are about to be submerged into hell & the fight for their lives. It is hard sometimes knowing I’ve created yet another zombie film in a genre that is heavily saturated, but there is a flip side. I spent hundreds of hours working on an original story & screenplay, playing the roles of the director/editor/writer/make-up artist/sound/etc. and it’s an awesome feeling to have created a good looking product on such an amateur level, knowing that it’s our story and we made it come to life.
WAMG: Why a zombie film? What did you have new to add to that genre?
MS: I think it is fair to say that sometimes we gravitate to what we know & what we’re familiar with. For me, I know all the ins and outs of zombies and have probably scene almost every single zombie movie out there.. Give or take a couple. I wanted to write a story & create a movie on something I felt comfortable with. It’s hard to add truly original elements to the zombie genre these days as it has pretty much all been done. However, bringing in a little more of the psychological effects, along with the non-linear style timeline will hopefully draw the audience in as they try to figure out some of the events & how they came to be. Without spoiling things, there is also another entity that is introduced a little over halfway through the film that may play a lot more in a sequel.
WAMG: What was the first zombie movie you saw and how did it affect you?
MS: The first zombie movie I saw was Night of the Living Dead (1990) version directed by Tom Savini. It was amazing as I was so young and the movie really gripped me. The internal/external struggles that the characters had to face really kept me on the edge of my seat. Ever since seeing this movie, I have been hooked on the zombies and I can’t ever seem to get enough. The constant terror of having mindless flesh eating monsters relentlessly trying to eat you, while battling the threat of infection and the hard decisions & consequences that come with it; just blow my mind.
WAMG: Who are some directors that specialize in the horror genre that have inspired you?
MS: Some directors that have inspired me include George Romero… of course. Along with Ridley Scott (Alien) and Zack Snyder as I loved his 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”
WAMG: Are you a fan of THE WALKING DEAD?
MS: YES! It’s such an amazing show and my wife & I have been watching since day one. There are very few shows we stick with and this is by far #1. The show continuously works to shock it’s audience and builds great drama. I love how they truly focus on the destruction of humanity & how people truly would act in an apocalypse. Robert Kirkman has created something truly unique with his comic books and the folks at AMC have done a tremendous job at making it come to life on the screen. It really shows how an amazing thing can be created when you have an actual budget & bunch of great minds working to create a jaw-dropping experience.
WAMG: The gore effects are excellent in DEAD NIGHTMARE, yet you don’t really linger on the bloodshed. Was this a conscious decision?
MS: I appreciate the compliment on the make-up effects. I wanted the zombies to look as legit as possible, because that helps sell the story & tone of the film. I tried to focus the blood effects where they truly mattered and also where they would have the best impact. We were being mindful of how much blood was used throughout the movie. I find too often blood is over-used in horror flicks, but as an avid horror movie fan I will say that it almost always works and is a heck of a way to sell the scene.
WAMG: You did many of these makeups yourself. How did you learn the art of gore effects?
MS: I’ve been practicing w/ zombie & horror make-up for the last 10 years. But only most recently have I gotten much more serious about it and doing a lot more research. My most recent techniques were learned throughtutorial videos online. First I found the prosthetic pieces I wanted to use, then found an oil based make-up that I read was able to hold up better for long hour movie shoots and was also water resistant. I must admit that the make-up process is very intense. One of our shoot days included us making up almost 18 zombies and 80% of them were in some form of prosthetic. It really makes you have an appreciation for all the names that are listed in the credits of a movie. It also makes me very happy to know that our make-up turned out pretty darn good with me as the amateur lead artist and my wife and a few friends & family as assistants.
WAMG: Where did you find your cast and all of these extras to play the undead?
MS: Most of the cast & extras are my closest friends and family. It’s amazing how many people got super excited when they found out they had to chance to play a role in a zombie film. I have found that working with people you already know gives an advantage to the process. You can give feedback and work with them knowing they’re most likely not going to “storm off the stage” due to a disagreement or something of the sort. They are invested in the project and are just as excited to complete the scenes. I have however gotten a little more particular with the zombie actors as this is an extremely hard role to sell & not everyone can do it. All in all I am very happy with their performances and am grateful they took the time to be part of the Dead Nightmare experience.
WAMG: What would you have done differently with DEAD NIGHTMARE if you’d had a much larger budget?
MS: If I had a larger budget, firstly I would invest in better camera & audio equipment because in this work camera gear and lenses are so very crucial. I would definitely seek out professional make-up artists so that I can focus more on the filming aspects. I would also seek out different locations to shoot some of the scenes. As for hiring real actors for the roles, this is a bittersweet area. I know my family, friends & I have had such a great time together doing this project. To say that I would replace them with hired talent feels like a bit of betrayal. I think the first criticism most people will have is that the acting is sub-par. I recognize this, but I want to vouch for the work these guys/gals put in for this movie. None of them have acting experience & put in a lot of time to try and bring the emotion out of the scenes. I can honestly say some of the scenes they pulled off are better than most B movies you can find on IMDB or Rotten tomatoes. I believe if a viewer can look past the small acting issues & bring in the suspension of disbelief, they will enjoy the Dead Nightmare journey. I will simply add that if Dead Nightmare was done on a super professional scale, obviously real actors would be hired because it’s their passion and that is important to have when selling the emotional scenes.
WAMG: What were some of the challenges in making a low-budget zombie film?
MS: Some of the challenges included not having any other people that could help with the make-up and movie editing areas. We had very aggressive shoot days and having to do the make-up had us lose out on valuable hours. One particular shoot day when we had 17+ zombies to make over took almost 6 hours to complete, then we had to drive to the location, get set up, etc. etc. Not having an assistant really made my life hell. Ha… but it comes with the territory. That is something I would change for future shoots. Also not having a proper lighting crew for the scenes we did at night was a big challenge. As I continue to learn, lighting is just as an important aspect as the sound & everything else.
WAMG: What were your best and worst experiences while making DEAD NIGHTMARE?
MS: The best experiences included me watching as my friends worked out some of the more intense zombie attack scenes. I really had to contain my excitement so I didn’t ruin the shots. There was some decent laughter along the way surprisingly enough. One particular scene when Ryan and Stephanie are on the couch as they watch the news broadcast… Ryan has a line saying something along the lines of, “Man that show is predictable”… I’m not sure if it was just us being slap happy from the long day & night, but we had to do 15+ takes as he kept botching the line and Stephanie couldn’t keep a straight face as the laughter just poured out of all of us. And of course this just enraged Ryan more b/c he was trying so hard to make it sound right. I included these scenes & many more in the outtakes which can be found on my Youtube channel. I’m sure it’s mostly funny because we know each other, but I think it shows what a great time we had while doing this movie. The worst experiences I’ve had on Dead Nightmare include the scheduling for everyone for the shoot days; that my friends is the real nightmare… I will honestly say that being the one man show is awesome and terrible all at the same time. It’s a lot of pressure and you have to take a breath, keep a clear head, and keep you mind on the project. The end result can be very fulfilling.
WAMG: Would you like to make more films set in the world of DEAD NIGHTMARE?
MS: I absolutely would make more films in the world of Dead Nightmare. We’re starting to work on continuing the story. Dead Nightmare was made as a web series, however when strung together they do make a cohesive movie/story, which is why I wanted to enter it into the SLSF. I would like to continue their journey, along with adding some new characters and see how we can add in & explore the “wild card” elements of the story. One wild card being a possible different type of zombie stalker creature. I believe the survivors are in store for more hardships and unfortunately may not end well for most of them. I’m always open to ideas and hope we can continue making movies.
WAMG: What are your distribution plans for DEAD NIGHTMARE?
MS: The distribution plans for Dead Nightmare are pretty small at the moment. YouTube and Vimeo seem to be the most inexpensive way of getting our movie out to the masses. The hardest thing I find is the promotion aspect because there is so much content loaded onto these sites on a daily basis, it’s hard to get your video shown on a large scale unless it happens to go viral. I hope to talk with other directors and movie creators at the SLSF to see what success stories they have for getting real views to their product.
WAMG: What’s your next project?
MS: I would like to continue working on the Dead Nightmare story as I don’t feel their journey is fully complete. I have had thoughts of doing some kind of cabin in the woods slasher or something of the sort. Again, I’m a horror film nut and it’s so easy for me to gravitate to what I am familiar with. I know that future projects will most likely stick to drama/horror/thriller style films. I find comedy is very hard to do as you need a great script and actors who can be funny. I would be interested in maybe doing some small comedy elements in a zombie or slasher, but this is something we’ll have to really work on. I just want to thank the Saint Louis Film Festival group for allowing us the chance to show our movie on a big screen. It really is an amazing feeling & I look forward to seeing what other flimmakers are up to in the STL. Thanks again!
THE TEMPTER screens Monday, July 18th at 9:30pm at The Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase. Ticket information can be found HERE
Writer/director Benjamin Thomas’ THE TEMPTER tells the story of a man who is offered all the kingdoms of the earth — all the fame and fortune he can dream of — but he must decide whether to make a bargain with a devil.
Benjamin Thomas took the time to answer questions about his film for We Are Movie Geeks in advance of it’s screening at the St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase.
We Are Movie Geeks: What was your filmmaking experience before THE TEMPTER?
Benjamin Thomas: Ozark Films had made several shorts, many of them utter disasters, but we learned from all of our mistakes. After a couple years of making shorts (some of them quite good) we decided it was time to tackle a feature length film.
WAMG: How did you become interested in films? Did you grow up a movie fan?
BT: I’m a huge fan of stories of any kind: films, graphic novels, books, songs, anything that tells a story. I didn’t set out to be a film maker, I set out to be a story teller. Now that I have learned how to make films I think it will be hard to stop, it’s addictive.
WAMG: How did you come up with the story for THE TEMPTER?
BT: I walked into a house in South St Louis and the story just hit me, all the details, how it would flow, how it would look. I had the script done in 3 weeks. A deal with the Devil, the Robert Jonson, Faust, Paganini story….
WAMG: What were some of the St. Louis locations you used for THE TEMPTER?
BT: We shot primarily at my house in Bevo Mill. We also did a bit of shooting around town, north of the arch, Old North City, Cherokee street. St Louis is an amazing place to film, so many great locations, the architecture and views are astounding.
WAMG: Why a horror film? Is horror your favorite genre?
BT: I had done a bit of research and knew that this would be the easiest genre to shoot. I didn’t want a blood and guts horror, but a more traditional thriller that keeps you guessing.
WAMG: Who are some of your favorite directors who specialize in horror (or directors in general)?
BT: Too many to list, but seeing El Mariachi by Robert Rodriguez showed that making a great movie does not take a lot of money. It takes a good script and dedicated crew. His example was a huge motivating factor in making this film.
WAMG: Was the film tightly scripted or was there some improv?
BT: Tons of improv. We shot on a hectic pace, as long as the actors followed the plot and we could edit it together it was fine with me. I told all of them, the script is an outline, play the character as you want. Use your words, not mine.
WAMG: Tell me about the character Baal – is he based on a legend or did you make him up?
BT: Baal is a demon from the Old Testament, Satan’s chief lieutenant during the Angels Rebellion and subsequent fall. His name shows up quite a bit in the Bible, mostly in association with Jezebel
WAMG: Eric Wolfgang Nelson is well-cast as Baal. How did you find him?
BT: Eric is great! I was asking other film makers who they thought could pull off this character and his name kept coming up. I hunted him down from social media and went over to his place to talk about the role, film making in general, my plans for the film. I was very lucky to get him to come on board.
WAMG: THE TEMPTER has several killings, but is not very bloody. Was that a decision you made early in the process? Were you “tempted” to make the film gorier?
BT: Blood is a mess. If you are going to do several takes you have to have a clean shot each time, that means duplicates of clothes, sheets, table clothes. I’d learned this the hard way on a previous short. So, in the film, it is actually explained why the killer is careful about spilling blood.
WAMG: What was the budget and the schedule for THE TEMPTER?
BT: We started filming in Jan 2015 and finished up in May. We shot every weekend with a day off here and there. Budget… I really don’t know. We shot with Michael Lohrums gear (Dir of Photography and absolute Genius with a camera) and I pulled some favors for locations. I wrote this around props I already had, locations I thought I could get, so our only real cost was for day to day shooting, food batteries, water, soda, beer, whiskey, batteries….
WAMG: Would you like to continue making horror films or do you want to branch out to other genres?
BT: I would be happy making anything that is interesting. I see so many films come along that seem to follow a boiler plate script, I love the ones that make you think, that push the audience to keep up.
WAMG: What different challenges did THE TEMPTER present creatively?
BT: WOW, too many to list. The main one is how to keep an audience watching a film that takes place mostly in one house. How to insinuate ghosts without any special effects. We really struggled with getting the sound as good as possible (HUGE THANKS TO TONY SCHMITT – best sound guy in the world)
WAMG: How has THE TEMPTER been received so far?
BT: Great, the rough cut won an award at the Depth of Field Film Festival. For months every Friday night I hosted a small viewing party of film buffs and film makers to get their feedback on the current edit. At first these were pretty brutal, but as I took all the suggestions and Brian Cooksey (editor of the Tempter) and I continued to work on it. We took it from 132 minutes to 97 minutes.
WAMG: What are your release plans for THE TEMPTER?
BT: Praying for an offer for distributorship at a film festival. Honestly am surprised I got this far in the process. So much can go wrong in post production that I never really prepared myself for this part.
WAMG: What’s your next project? Would you consider a sequel to THE TEMPTER?
BT: Towards the end of filming the Tempter I wrote the next script in the series. Brian Cooksey and I have started pre production on a story that starts in the Tempter. In the Tempters first scene, in the church, a homeless man is made an offer “kill a man and I will make you rich.” This film is about that homeless man who rises to the top of the mafia. There will be a few murders!
Bronson’s Loose Again!: On the Setwith Charles Bronson is author Paul Talbot’s all-new companion volume to his acclaimed Bronson’s Loose!: The Making of the ‘Death Wish’Films. His new book reveals more information on the Death Wish series and also details the complex histories behind eighteen other Charles Bronson movies. Documented herein are fascinating tales behind some of the finest Bronson films of the mid-1970s (including HARD TIMES and FROM NOON TILL THREE); his big-budget independent epics LOVE AND BULLETS and CABO BLANCO; his lesser-known, underrated dramas BORDERLINE and ACT OF VENGEANCE; his notorious sleaze/action Cannon Films classics of the 80s (including 10 TO MIDNIGHT, MURPHY’S LAW and KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUNJECTS); the numerous unmade projects he was attached to; and his TV movies of the 90s (including THE SEA WOLF). Exhaustively researched, the book features over three dozen exclusive, candid interviews including those with directors Frank D. Gilroy and Jerrold Freedman; producers Menahem Golan and Lance Hool; writers David Engelbach, Harold Nebenzal and Andrew J. Fenady; and actors Maggie Blye, Kirk Taylor, Gene Davis, Robert F. Lyons, Kathleen Wilhoite, Angel Tompkins, Catherine Mary Stewart, Robert Joy, and Diane Ladd. Profusely illustrated with rare promotional materials, behind-the-scenes photos, and images from deleted scenes, Bronson’s Loose Again!: On the Setwith Charles Bronson is loaded with previously untold insight into one of the most elusive and unique icons in cinema history. Paul Talbot is the author of the books Bronson’s Loose!: The Making of the ‘Death Wish’ Films, Mondo Mandingo: The Falconhurst Books and Films, and The Films of the Dionne Quintuplets as well as numerous articles for magazines such as Video Watchdog, CinemaRetro, Psychotronic, Films of the Golden Age, Shock Cinema, Screem, and Weng’s Chop. He has contributed liner notes, extras, and/or commentary tracks for DVD and Blu-rays including commentaries for three Charles Bronson films: CABO BLANCO (to be released by Kino Lorber September 27th), DEATH WISH 2 (from Shout Factory July 26th) and (MR MAJESTYK (currently available from Signal One as a U.K. Region 2 Disc) .
Bronson with Carrie Snodgress in MURPHY’S LAW
Paul Talbot took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks‘ Tom Stockman about his books and the career of Charles Bronson
Interview Conducted by Tom Stockman May 19th, 2016
Tom Stockman: What was the first Charles Bronson film you saw and when did you see it?
Paul Talbot : I grew up in the 1970s. My mom was a big Elvis fan and I always watched Elvis movies on TV with her. When we watched KID GALAHAD, it was the first time I saw Bronson. I was really intrigued by his persona. Shortly after that, my dad and I watched my dad’s favorite movie: THE GREAT ESCAPE. How did you become such a Bronson fan?
Bronson and Elvis in KID GALAHAD
TS: I remember the day. It was in the late 60s when THE DIRTY DOZEN first played on network television. It was on a Sunday night. My parents wouldn’t let me stay up and watch the end because it ran late and I remember asking my dad the next morning what happened at the climax. He told me all of the Dirty Dozen had died except that one guy – Bronson! A few months later I saw THE GREAT ESCAPE and thought it was so cool that practically the only guy who got away was that same guy from THE DIRTY DOZEN who lived. I became a big fan right then and he’s been my favorite movie star since. So what is your very favorite Bronson movie?
PT: I like a lot of them but I have to say that my favorite would be the original DEATH WISH.
TS: I think that’s his best performance. He’s so good in that film.
PT: Yes, it’s one of his best performances, and it’s such a rich, deep movie. It really had a lot to say back in 1974. I think it’s one of the best movies of the 70s, I would put it up there with THE GODFATHER and TAXI DRIVER, and any of those really gritty, realistic movies from the 70s. What is your favorite?
TS: I would say ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST is the best thing he was ever in, but as far as 70s showcase Bronson films go, HARD TIMES would be my favorite.
HARD TIMES
PT: I love both of those movies too. They’re both masterpieces. Bronson is just so extraordinary in HARD TIMES.
TS: Yes, he surrounded by all of these great character actors like James Coburn and Strother Martin, but the audience just stays focused on Bronson. You’ve recorded a commentary for the upcoming uncut Blu-ray of DEATH WISH 2, which I have never seen. I’ve heard that brutal rape scene with the maid goes on and on.
PT: Yes both rape scenes, the one with the maid and one with Paul Kersey’s (Bronson’s character) daughter, go on for over a minute longer each. Also the death of the daughter has a couple of extra gory shots.
TS: Those scenes are pretty rough even in the R-rated version.
DEATH WISH 2
PT: Oh yeah, they’re just over-the-top. David Engelbach, who wrote the script for DEATH WISH 2, was so appalled when he saw the rape scenes in the R-rated version he wanted to take his name off of the credits.
TS: What did Bronson think of that?
PT: He was enraged. Robin Sherwood (the actress who played his daughter) told me that when he saw the uncut version he was incredibly angry at director Michael Winner for including that stuff.
TS: Yet he went on to work with Winner for part three.
PT: Yes, part three was kind of the nail in the coffin in terms of the relationship between Bronson and Winner. Bronson vowed never to work with him again.
TS: I recall seeing an interview on The Today Show in 1985 with Jane Pauley when he was promoting DEATH WISH 3, and he just went off on Michael Winner, calling him “the worst” and saying he couldn’t stand him. I remember him being really hostile to Jane Pauley during this interview. She also brought up Bernard Goetz, the real-life subway vigilante that was making headlines around that time, and Bronson was really rubbed the wrong way with that line of questioning as well. I think he got tired of people asking him about Goetz. At the end of the interview Jane Pauley looked at the camera said “We’ll air part two of my interview with Charles Bronson tomorrow” I tuned in the next day but they never aired the second half of the interview.
PT: Ha! I would like to have seen that.
DEATH WISH 3
TS: How did you get the idea to write these two books about Charles Bronson?
PT: I’d always been a Bronson fan and one night, long before the days of DVD, I watched the original DEATH WISH again, and thought about what an incredible movie it was and how well it held up. Soon after that I had a marathon. I went to several stores and rented all five of the DEATH WISH movies and watched them all in one weekend and thought “holy crap, how did we get from DEATH WISH to DEATH WISH 5?!” They’re all so different which is odd because the first three were directed by the same guy. So I decided I needed to write an article about the first three. I did a lot of research and set up an interview with director Michael Winner. He lives in England so I had to call him at about five in the morning. We had a great talk, talked for about an hour about all three of those films. So I put together this article with this interview in it and I sent it to every single movie magazine out there. Nobody showed any interest in publishing it though. But I knew there was an audience for this kind of information, so I did even more research and wrote about parts four and five and spent years writing my first Bronson book Bronson’s Loose! the Making of the Death Wish Films. I sent that to all the companies that publish books about movies. Nobody was interested, so I did some research on self-publishing. And that’s what I did. The book has established a pretty decent following now and has sold pretty well. I’ve gotten a lot of good response from it. About two years ago, a friend of mine who I met through Facebook contacted me and told me that his cousin had written the screenplay for THE EVIL THAT MEN DO and he put me in touch with him. So I interviewed him, his name is John Crowther and he also worked on the script for LOVE AND BULLETS and was the casting director on 10 TO MIDNIGHT. I sent that interview to a bunch of magazines and nobody was interested so I thought that since there’s so many actors left that were in these Bronson movies, I’d write a sequel to Bronson’s Loose called Bronson’s Loose Again!. So over the course of two years I put that book together. I dealt with a company called Bear Manor Media that specializes in movie books, ones with topics that no one else would publish. So that’s how Bronson’s Loose Again! came about.
DEATH WISH
TS: Who were some people you wanted to interview that you were unable to track down?
PT: Not being able to interview director Walter Hill about HARD TIMES was a big regret. I was in contact with his publicist but I was never able to set up an interview. But I still think the HARD TIMES chapter is one of the best in the book. Also, there was an actor that I spent a long time tracking down. But he wanted a thousand bucks for an interview and since the book was self-published, I couldn’t afford to pay anybody for an interview. He wouldn’t budge. For a long time, I considered taking out a loan for the grand. I hated to lose that information. I don’t want to say who he was. There were some people that declined my requests to be interviewed. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it was because they did not like Bronson and it was a “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything” situation.
TS: Were there some interviews you conducted but ended up not using?
PT: No. I used material from all of the interviews I did.
TS: Did you ever try contacting Bronson’s 3rd wife Kim Weeks?
PT: I did, but didn’t get anywhere. I haven’t found any interviews she did about Bronson. She seems to be a private person. I had an address for her. Andrew Fenaday, who wrote and produced YES VIRGINIA THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS (a TV movie Bronson starred in in 1981) and THE SEA WOLF is still friends with her so I put word through him to her that I would like to talk to her. Also Catherine Mary Stewart, who costarred in THE SEA WOLF is still friends with her. She inherited a lot of money and I’ve never seen her do any interviews, so I guess she’s just not interested.
Bronson with third wife Kim Weeks
TS: She just stays home and counts her money I guess. It seems like perceptions of Bronson’s personality were all over the map in your interviews. Some said he was friendly and approachable on the set and others claim he was just the opposite. How do you account for this division?
PT: It seemed that he was more guarded and angry during his middle years and then he mellowed out in his later years. I think because of his tough early life in the coal mines and in the Army, he had a lifelong distrust of adult male authority figures. He seemed to be very friendly and approachable to women on the sets and younger male actors. I think people’s perceptions of him were often based on whether they happened to catch him on a bad day or not. While conducting the interviews, I did occasionally hear some negative things about Bronson that I did not put in the book. Some of it was information that I did not believe to be true and some of it was distasteful and I didn’t feel the need to print it.
TS: Books are still being written about Bronson. Do you see his cult status ascending among younger film fans now over 12 years after his death (I do). If so, what do you attribute that to?
PT: His cult is definitely ascending. When I published the first book, Bronson’s Loose! the Making of the Death Wish Films, in 2006, I thought the readers would all be in their 40s and older. But many of the readers were between fifteen and thirty. And when the new book came out, many of the readers were, again, in that age group. Many of his movies have been coming out on Blu-ray and it’s mostly the young audiences that are buying them. I see kids all the time with Bronson t-shirts and tattoos. I spoke before a screening of 10 TO MIDNIGHT a few months ago. The theater only sat 100 but it was sold out and the entire audience was under 35. Many of them had never seen a Bronson movie before, but that film brought the house down. I think the Bronson revival is due to the fact that there has never been a screen presence like him. When people see him, they’re captivated and they want to see more of his movies. Also, there are no “personality” action stars making movies today. Meaning that there are no action movies today that can draw an audience just because a certain star is in it.
10 TO MIDNIGHT
TS: Is there a reason you did not cover any pre-DEATH WISH films in Bronson’s Loose Again!?
PT: I decided to only cover the movies for which I could secure at least one primary interview. Unfortunately, most of the cast and crew of the earlier movies have passed away. In fact, five of the people I interviewed for BRONSON’S LOOSE AGAIN! have passed away since the interview. I’m glad that I was able to collect their stories before it was too late. I also didn’t want to cover movies that had already been extensively documented in other books, documentaries, or DVD/Blu-ray supplements.
TS: Several quickie books about Bronson were written in the mid-70s at the height of his popularity. Your newest book fills in the gaps on his later career. Did you keep that in mind when you were writing this?
PT: Absolutely. For example, the 70s paperback Charles Bronson Superstar is a cut-and-paste job and it’s padded with superfluous info. But it’s well put together and loaded with valuable information. I didn’t want to repeat too much of the info that was in those earlier books. I wanted to gather material that hadn’t been covered. In addition to my interviews, I also dug through newspaper microfilm. And I spent a couple days at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts digging through well over 100 newspaper/magazines clippings from the 1950s until the 90s dealing with Bronson. I also used pressbooks, press kits, and multiple drafts of screenplays.
Several books were written about Bronson at the height of his popularity
TS: According to Bronson’s first wife Harriett, his closest friend and confidante was his brother Dempsey. Do you know much about him?
PT: I do mention Dempsey twice in the book. (He’s in the Index as “Dempsey Buchinsky.”) I briefly discuss that he was Bronson’s favorite brother; that he was Bronson’s personal assistant prior to Kim Weeks; and that Bronson was devastated by the trio of deaths—wife Jill Ireland, stepson Jason McCallum, and Dempsey—that all happened close together. I don’t know much else about Dempsey, but he seems like a great guy that, like Charles, overcame a difficult early life. He certainly turned out much better than the ill-fated brother Roy, who ended up on Skid Row as a chronic alcoholic.
TS: What do you think about DEATH WISH 3’s current status as a cult film?
PT: It certainly doesn’t surprise me. That movie is a laugh-riot that demands multiple viewings. People should be very careful about what they drink or smoke before watching that movie because it can cause permanent brain damage and/or aneurisms. I saw that movie opening night with some fraternity brothers. We thought we were going to see a traditional Bronson action movie. Instead, we got a surrealistic comic strip set in an alternate universe. We didn’t know what hit us. I was, literally, on the floor screaming with laughter. But as much as I love DEATH WISH 3, I have mixed feelings about it. I think it’s the Bronson vehicle in which he comes off the worst. It looks like he wasn’t in on the joke. Plus, he’s unflatteringly photographed and hideously costumed, except for the black leather jacket and jeans he wears in the climax.
TS: Did you see the documentary ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS?
PT: Yes, in fact they contacted me when they were making that. I put them in touch with some people that I had talked to, people like Robin Sherwood from DEATH WISH 2. I’m in the credits of that movie.
TS: That documentary has a brief clip from the set of DEATH WISH 3 that shows Bronson working alongside his stuntman.
PT: Yes, Cannon did a short “Making of DEATH WISH 3” promo film. That’s what that is from. It may be on YouTube.
TS: Why do you think Bronson’s $1.98 project never got off the ground ($1.98 was an autobiographical film about life in the coal mines that Bronson and Jill Ireland tried to produce)?
PT: He worked on that script from 1974 until the late 80s but never got the script the way he wanted it. It went through many drafts, writers, producers, and production companies. Bronson and Ireland co-wrote the original script and were going to star with Bronson directing. Bronson spent a lot of his own money developing the script. One draft was to feature Paul Williams as a singing preacher who sang with Ireland’s character. He finally gave up on the project when Ireland got sick. The tone of the drafts constantly changed. Some drafts were set in the 1930s, at least one was set in the 70s. I think the main reason that it was never made is that the studios never saw a draft that seemed commercial enough to invest in.
TS: Did you ever see a draft of the script?
PT: I recently read a draft of $1.98 that was written by Rospo Pallenberg (EXORCIST II, EXCALIBUR). This draft is horrendous. It was set in the 70s and reads like an R-rated drive-in movie with lots of sleazy stuff. I got this screenplay from an estate sale of scripts that had been submitted to Paul Kohner, Bronson’s agent. It contained a note stating that Kohner and Bronson hated it. If I had read this script while writing Bronson’s Loose Again!, I would have included a whole chapter on $1.98. I will write an article someday on that aborted dream project.
TS: What do you think of Jill Ireland’s presence in so many Bronson films? She took a lot of heat for her lack of acting skills but someone had to play those roles.
PT: I think she’s an underrated actress. She is excellent in HARD TIMES and FROM NOON TILL THREE. I don’t see how anyone could criticize her performances in those two films. And she is appealing in almost all of the other Bronson movies she appears in. The only one that she is terrible in is LOVE AND BULLETS. But that was also a poorly-written character and she was out of her range. Of course, Bronson always insisted that she be cast.
Bronson and Jill Ireland in FROM NOON TILL THREE
TS: You call her an underrated actress, but I think her more of an underrated presence. It used to bug me that she was always in these Bronson movies and she wasn’t a very good actress. Bronson would sometimes co-star with other actresses such as Jacqueline Bissett or Kim Novak but it seemed Jill was there more often than not. But now I find it sort of comforting watching these old Bronson movies and seeing Jill there. The guy was the highest-paid actor in the world, and then on top of that, the producers were contractually obligated to provide a large role for his wife. I don’t know of any other major star before or since that’s been able to make that kind of demand, and now I think that’s just one of the many things that made Bronson so unique.
PT: She was an actress before she met him. At first after they got married, she had small featured roles like RIDER ON THE RAIN and COLD SWEAT. Supposedly she started putting a lot of pressure on him to get her bigger roles in these films, getting closer to being a lead. That really started with SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR. After that he insisted to the producers that she play the female lead. I read some producer’s notes where they would show him a script and say what a great part there was for Jill, and then say “look, there’s a great part for you in this film as well”. They enticed him are using that. I think that in some instances, putting her in the movie hurt its quality, and also he turned down some good movies because they wouldn’t cast her in the lead. I know one of the producers, Charles Winkler who went on to do ROCKY, had breakfast with Bronson once and told him that they were going to cast a different actress for a role in THE MECHANIC. Supposedly Bronson said “well, find someone else to play my part too”. Same with BREAKOUT, which was originally supposed to be directed by Michael Ritchie, but he dropped out because Bronson insisted that Jill play the lead in that as well. So he lost some good projects and some good directors because he insisted that she be in so many of his movies.
Bronson and Jill Ireland in SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR
TS: That may be, but I have a feeling Bronson never had any regrets about losing those roles.
PT: I agree and at one point there was no shortage of money being offered to him. If he turned down five movies, there was another 10 scripts being offered to him for his asking price.
TS: Do you think Bronson really cared about acting as art?
PT: I think he did. On one hand I think he didn’t want to lose his audience. He knew what his audience wanted and expected from him. On the other hand, there were some unusual projects that he did, for example FROM NOON TIL THREE, which was a very strange, offbeat movie and a definite artistic choice. HARD TIMES was in some sense an artistic choice as well. He was hoping he would get an Oscar nomination for that one and there were more traditional action movies that he was offered at that time that he could have done instead.
TS: And he took a supporting role much later in his career in the Sean Penn-directed film INDIAN RUNNER (1991). I’m wondering why more directors didn’t offer him supporting roles in artful films like that.
PT: He did the made-for-HBO movie ACT OF VENGEANCE and in one of the interviews he did promoting that film he said he hoped he would get out of the rut he was in and maybe get some more interesting supporting roles. That was 1986 and I think he knew his days as a big action star were nearing an end and he wanted to do supporting parts. But after MURPHY’S LAW in 1986, Cannon Films offered him an exclusive six picture deal at $1 million per picture which was more than anyone else was offering him, so he figured he’d be a fool to turn that down, so at that point in his career he really didn’t have a chance to do any supporting roles. And when he did offbeat films such as FROM NOON TIL THREE and INDIAN RUNNER, they didn’t do very well.
Bronson in INDIAN RUNNER (1991)
TS: True, but he did get some acclaim. I recall Siskel and Ebert reviewing INDIAN RUNNER and singling out Bronson’s terrific performance in that, saying they couldn’t imagine anyone else in that role. You mentioned some of the actors that you tracked down and interviewed for Bronson’s Loose Again! have already passed away.
PT: Yes, Maggie Blye from HARD TIMES, Menahem Golan, the famous Cannon producer. Denny Miller who was one of the villains in CABO BLANCO. Also Sylvana Gallardo, the maid in DEATH WISH 2, and Frank Gilroy, the writer and director of FROM NOON TIL THREE. So that’s five people that have died since I’ve interviewed them, but most of these people were in their 70s and 80s when I talk to them so I guess it’s not terribly surprising.
TS: Would you write a third book? What more is there to be said about Bronson’s career?
PT: Well, when I wrote the original Bronson’s Loose!, I had no intention of writing another. But ten years later, I published a sequel that was more than three times the size of the original. I provided the commentary for the MR. MAJESTYK Region B Blu-ray that was recently released by Signal One Entertainment. A few days ago, I recorded a commentary for an upcoming Region A Bronson Blu-ray. And I’ve got another one due in June. (I can’t say the titles until they’re officially announced.) I don’t know if I’ll write another book, but I will continue to research and share info about the life, films, and legend of Charles Bronson.
