INSP PREMIERES ORIGINAL WESTERN SHORT, ‘HOUSE OF THE
RIGHTEOUS’ MONDAY!
I can’t recall another time when I wrote about a
brand-new film, and could conclude with, “and if you want to see the entire
film right now, click the link below,” but that is exactly the situation here!
INSP is a channel with a longtime commitment to
family entertainment, particularly in the Western genre: they’re the folks who
brought back – and exclusively show – the classic HIGH CHAPARRAL and THE
VIRGINIAN series. They also run THE BIG
VALLEY, BONANZA, LITTLE HOUSE, and DR. QUINN.
(To learn more about the history of INSP, read my interview with Senior
VP of programming Doug Butts HERE )
After years of airing classic shows, they started
getting their toes wet with creating original programming in 2012, with a series
of short films under the heading of Moments.
Here’s how they describe their mission at the moments.org page: “Moments.org is a web network producing original short
films. Our films are designed to inspire, encourage and entertain viewers with
stories that celebrate love, faith, redemption, patriotism and other timeless
truths in action.”
Starting with the two and a half
minute ‘Thank you for your service’ -- which is not exactly the story you
expect -- and grouped under the headings ‘A moment of truth,’ ‘A moment of
hope,’ ‘A moment of insight,’ ‘A moment of valor,’ and ‘Unbroken soldiers,’ the
team of Thomas Torrey, Shea Sizemore, Michelle Wheeler and Jim Goss have
produced dozens of short dramas and documentaries which run on INSP as Public
Service Announcements, and are also available on-line HERE.
But creative filmmakers always want more, including more time, and in 2013 they created OLD HENRY
(not me!), as a series of two-minute
films about an aging man played by THE WALTONS star – and hence INSP-viewer
favorite – Ralph Waite in his final lead performance. The chapters were later edited into a 22-minute
story, the longest Moments film by far, and it’s been extremely popular.
Now they’ve made a Western, the
ten-and-a-half minute HOUSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS, the Moments.org’s tentpole
production for 2014, written and directed by Thomas Torrey, and it is by far
their most ambitious outing yet. Set in
a sun-blasted desert town, opening with two men on a gallows, it’s a good vs.
evil story, starring the Emmy-winning (for MIAMI VICE), Oscar-nominated (for
STAND AND DELIVER) Edward James Olmos as someone who has seen a vacuum of leadership
in the town, and decides to fill it. Grant
Goodeve, who has toughened considerably since his 8 IS ENOUGH DAYS, is the
lawman who stands in his way.
The air is electric with tension
from the first shot to the last, and each of those shots if wonderfully framed
by cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos, who won a Wrangler Award for his work
on the Western CONAGHER, shot much of the recent sensation BREAKING BAD, and
elegantly lensed one of my all-time favorites, RISKY BUSINESS. RIGHTEOUS is a tantalizing little film, which
fulfills its promise, but leaves you wanting more. It’s easy to see it as a back-door pilot to a
full-length feature, or even a series.
The drama is the work of writer and
director Thomas Torrey, who had also written and directed THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
and OLD HENRY. I asked him if he was
originally hired for the Moments.org films. “I got hired in January of 2012 to
create this department. As you know,
INSP (presents) all family-friendly content, but it’s all classic, licensed
family shows – nothing was original. Our
CEO wanted INSP to have a voice. So
before he was gonna run, he was gonna walk, and before that, crawl, with short
films that would air on commercial breaks.
I was hired to create the (short form) department. We produce ten to fifteen significant pieces
a year, both scripted and documentary.”
Cinematographer Villalobos and Olmos sharing
a laugh between scenes.
HENRY: Why did you decide to approach Ralph Waite
with the OLD HENRY story?
THOMAS: We had such success with THANK YOU FOR YOUR
SERVICE, the veterans piece, because it served an underserved demographic. We started thinking, what was another
underserved demographic that we can honor, in hopes of generating a piece that
would have that kind of impact. I had spent
three years working in the retirement industry as a filmmaker – kind of
imbedded with a company – and really became a champion for pro-aging causes. My eyes really opened to the ageism that’s so
pervasive in the media and America. I
said, well I know a demographic that’s underserved: the elders among us. So I came up with the character, and my boss
challenged me: why don’t you come up with a longer story, so that we can really
explore this. Ralph Waite was already
well-loved by our audience. THE WALTONS
is one of our most-watched programs. And
we already had a relationship with him, so I wrote the piece for him, figuring
that if we could afford him, we could probably get him. I sent him the script, saying I wrote this
for you; our audience loves you. What do
you think? He got back to us real quick,
and wanted to jump on-board.
HENRY: HOUSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS is a short film, but
at ten minutes, it’s five times the length of most of the films you are
doing. What made you make the jump?
THOMAS: Westerns are dear to my heart, and I knew coming
out of last year that I wanted to raise my own bar, and think of something that,
if I weren’t working for INSP, I’d want to make by myself. Well, a Western! And I knew it would be a good fit for our
network, because the western block of programming, Saddle-Up Saturdays, is some of our highest-rated. So I told my boss, Jim, I want to write a
western for 2014. And he said, “Let’s
see if we can find the story.” Actually
I had a whole different concept and story, but it didn’t work; it was too big for
the amount of time I had to tell the story.
And Jim said, “Why don’t you think of something more classically
Western; think about the battle between good and evil.” I
started writing this character, Mr. Lucey (Edward James Olmos), coming in to
town: he’s the Devil, obviously. And I got to page three, page four, got to
page eight or nine and I thought, I bet I could get away with a longer short if
I create a nice sort of cliffhanger by the second or third minute. And I (went) back to my superiors and said, “I
want to try an experiment. I want to try
making the two or three minute version, the thing that we show on-air, end with
a cliffhanger, and say, to see the entire film, go to moments.org.” So it’s a little experimental. We’re going to see how much traffic we can
generate from our on-air viewers to on-line.
So the real answer is, the only way I could get away with a ten-minute film
which is only going to be seen on-line is because I’m also creating an on-air
short version, which is the opening three minutes. Another sort of justification for doing it
is, next year, INSP is going to begin producing longform original series. Moments.org will
continue to produce shorts, but we’re also keeping an eye internally on what
are the popular stories among Moments.org that perhaps the network could
develop into something longer. Up until
Ralph Waite’s passing, we were developing a feature film version of OLD
HENRY. And so if HOUSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS
is really popular with our audience, if people are clamoring for it as a series
or a feature film, well then at least we have a little home-made market
research that says there may be an audience for this film.
HENRY:
Sort of a short back-door pilot.
THOMAS: Exactly.
And you’ve seen the piece – it’s unresolved.
HENRY: It’s open-ended.
THOMAS: And that’s by design.
HENRY: How long did you shoot?
THOMAS: This was shot in three days, over two
timezones. We had a two-day shoot out in
the desert at Whitehorse Ranch in Landers, California --
HENRY: That’s Peter Menyhart’s place. It looks fabulous; wonderfully solid and
rough-hewn.
THOMAS: He did an amazing job – that’s why he gets a
set designing credit. We shot there two
days in May, and then we did a third day of pick-ups here in South Carolina
last month.
HENRY:
And you limited your story to one sequence in real time, which I thought
was much smarter than trying to compress a feature into ten minutes.
THOMAS: There’s a whole back-story that’s implied.
Grant Goodeve
HENRY: What were Edward James Olmos and Grant Goodeve
like to work with?
THOMAS: They were fantastic. Our cinematographer, Reynaldo Villalobos, who
we had through a mutual friend, and who was excited to come on-board, was
friends with Edward James Olmos, and that’s how we were able to hire Mr.
Olmos. Grant Goodeves has been a
longtime friend of INSP, and I had tried casting Grant in OLD HENRY as Henry’s
son, and for logistical purposes it didn’t work out, but we stayed in
touch. And when I thought of this pure
hero, he was the first guy I went to. Grant
is a warm, generous, funny man, and he was just a joy to work with. Edward James Olmos got there just the day
before (shooting), and he was just such a warm, inviting, unassuming guy. You get the impression that he’s very
intense, but he’s just doing his process.
And it was hard on the actors, because it was ten hours in the desert
sun with their thick clothes. But he ate
with us, and was just so complimentary of the script and the project, that it
was just a thrill to work with both of them.
HENRY:
You said you were excited to do a Western. Are you a longtime fan of the genre?
THOMAS: Not a longtime
fan. I’m not one of those kids who grew
up watching Westerns with his dad. I
grew up with a sci-fi buff, so I was indifferent to the Western genre until I
was in my twenties. Probably ten years
ago I saw ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and THE PROPOSITION, a Western set in
the Australian outback, in the same week.
Seeing them just opened up this love for the Western genre, and then I
caught up: I watched them all. Now I’m
just a Western junkie, and I love them, the new ones and the old ones, and ever
since then, as a filmmaker, it’s a genre I want to explore, both writing and
directing.
And you can see the result, HOUSE
OF THE RIGHTEOUS, below!
TEASER TRAILER FOR ‘HATEFUL 8’ PREMIERED FRIDAY
If you rushed out to catch SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL
FOR, I understand you found yourself to be pretty much alone – but you did get
a teaser for Quentin Tarantino’s new Western – a good trick since the cameras
haven’t started rolling – and when they do it’ll be 70mm Cinemascope! It’s a graphic trailer, featuring music, and
the names of the film’s characters.
Folks who took part in the dramatic staged reading, who are expected to
take part, include Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, Michael Madsen, Walton Goggins,
and Samuel L. Jackson. Jennifer Lawrence
is said to be in talks with Tarantino, to play one of the two female roles,
that of Daisy – the role taken by Amber Tamblyn at the staged reading! Here is a shaky, presumably bootlegged, look
at the trailer.
PLEASE HELP ME SOLVE THIS WESTERN PHOTO
MYSTERY!
.JPG)
A few days ago I got an email from
my daughter with the subject-line, “Who’s the guy who’s not Fonda?” Attached was the photo above, clearly Henry
Fonda in a Western, talking to a man, also in costume, wearing a star. She’d spotted it, and other nicely signed and
framed pictures of movie stars, at an antique store. They were all signed to ‘Chalkie.’ The signature on the Fonda picture was
probably ‘Jack,’ presumably the guy with Henry Fonda. Did I know who ‘Jack’ was? Did I want it $20 worth?
My gut said it was from MY DARLING
CLEMENTINE, and when I pulled it up on IMDB, the poster they illustrated it
with showed Fonda as Wyatt Earp, with that mustache! But who could ‘Jack’ be? I checked the credits, looking for Jacks. Jack Curtis played a bartender, but a
bartender wouldn’t wear a badge. Jack Kenny
played a barfly, but a barfly wouldn’t wear a badge either, nor would the
stagecoach driver that Jack Pennick played.
A stuntman on the picture was Jack Montgomery, father of child star Baby
Peggy. It could be him – I couldn’t find a picture of him. Then another possibility occurred to me:
maybe it wasn’t ‘Jack,’ maybe it was ‘Lake’ – Stuart N. Lake, who interviewed
the real Wyatt Earp at length, and wrote the biography FRONTIER MARSHALL, on
which CLEMENTINE was based! It would
make sense for him to be on the set – Morgan Woodward, a regular on the WYATT
EARP TV series told me that Lake was a technical adviser, and on-set all the
time! I searched online, and found the
photo of Stuart N. Lake below.
Stuart N. Lake
Looks
like the same guy to me!
I called my daughter back and asked
her to buy the picture. Well, she got
it, I paid for it, and…the signature is definitely ‘Jack,’ not ‘Lake.’ So, who is the guy with the badge? My wife looked at the picture, and asked me
if it was from JESSE JAMES (1939), where Fonda played Frank to Ty Power’s
Jesse. He had that damned mustache in
that one, too, and he wore it again in the sequel, THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES (1940),
as well!
Now I’m asking you for your
help! What movie is the still from? CLEMENTINE?
JESSE JAMES? FRANK JAMES? Another Fonda Western? And who is Jack? And who is Chalky – that certainly isn’t a
common nickname? Anybody know? Any good guesses? Please leave a comment at the bottom of the post,
or email me at swansongmail@sbcglobal.net
.
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