Due to a title change, you may not have seen this one
coming, but on Tuesday, March 6th, SONY HOME VIDEO will release
WYATT EARP’S REVENGE, previously called THE FIRST RIDE OF WYATT EARP. (I was actually surprised that the original
title had the ‘money-name’ as words number five and six; no wonder they
switched it!)
I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of days on the set
last March, first at the Caravan West Ranch in Agua Dulce, then at Paramount
Ranch in Agoura – you can read my in-depth two part report HERE and HERE.
The film, scripted by Darren B. Shepherd from a story by
Jeffrey Schenk and Peter Sullivan, is directed by Michael Feifer. Based
on a real incident – the murder of Dora Hand – the tale pulls together a great
many young lawmen who would become legends.
Val Kilmer plays Wyatt Earp as an older man, and Shawn Roberts plays him
in his youth. Matt Dallas is Bat
Masterson, Wilson Bethel plays Doc Holiday, Scott Whyte is Charlie Bassett, and
Levi Fiehler is Bill Tilghman. Daniel Booko and Steven Grayhm play the
no-damned-good Kenedy brothers, and singer Trace Adkins plays their politically
connected father. AMERICAN IDOL favorite
Diana DeGarmo plays the beloved soiled dove at the center of the story, Dora
Hand.
Shawn Roberts as Wyatt Earp
Producers Jeffrey Schenck and Barry Barnholtz clearly have a
commitment to the genre: they produced last year’s AMERICAN BANDITS: FRANK AND
JESSE JAMES, and just finished shooting BAD BLOOD – THE HATFIELDS AND
MCCOYS. Here is the trailer!
FOX TRIES FOR ‘HONEST ABE’ MONOPOLY!
Talk about covering your bets! According to Deadline: Hollywood Burton
A Fox spokesman says they do not currently intend to
release both pictures on the same day.
They were mum on rumors that they were also trying to acquire Asylum
Film’s ABRAHAM LINCOLN VS. ZOMBIES. Stay
tuned.
BOOK REVIEW
SARAH GOLDEN HAIR – Original
screenplay by Michael B. Druxman
I promise to review the book
shortly, but a bit of a preamble is necessary first.
Before you can evaluate a
published screenplay, you must decide why you are reading it in the first
place. Reading a screenplay is not the
same as reading a novel. A novel is a
finished work, while a screenplay is a blueprint. To appreciate a screenplay you cannot
speed-read. You need to pay attention
to the description, not only ‘hear’ it but visualize it, to decide if it will
work on the screen. Do the words of
the characters sound real to you? Are
they individual voices, or does everyone talk the same?
If you are reading to recall
your feelings when you saw a movie, you probably want a screenplay that
conforms to the finished film. But if
you want to know what went into making that movie, you want the same
blueprint that was handed to the director and the actors and the crew. This is especially true if you are a writer
– you want to see how the words were turned into a finished film.
If you want to become a
screenwriter, taking classes is a good idea – assuming they’re not based on
Syd Fields’ teachings – but the most important thing you can do is to read as
many scripts as you can. You can learn
from both good and bad examples; what works and what doesn’t. I wrote my first screenplay when I was
thirteen, and I actually learned the format from STAR TREK. Gene Roddenberry used to sell copies of
their scripts, and my first was Harlan Ellison’s CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER
episode. It was a great script, and because
it was a first draft, I could see the differences between the original ideas
and the finished product. Some changes
were good: he opened with a whole subplot of interstellar junkies that there
was no time for, and that got dropped.
Some changes were bad: Spock and Kirk, in 1930s
Michael B. Druxman is a very
talented writer. His CHEYENNE WARRIOR
is the best micro-budget Western I’ve ever seen. It’s also one of the very best Westerns of
the last twenty years, regardless of budget.
What Michael has done with
SARAH GOLDEN HAIR is quite audacious: he’s published a screenplay for a movie
that has not been made, and is not currently slated to be.
He’d written CHEYENNE WARRIOR
for Roger Corman, and it was successful enough that a sequel was considered. But it didn’t happen, and Michael wrote the
screenplay SARAH GOLDEN HAIR, not a sequel exactly, but a story in much the
same world, with similar characters. He wasn’t able to get it made. A year later, Roger Corman hired him to
write a sequel to CHEYENNE WARRIOR, but it’s currently sitting on a shelf.
As Michael explains in his
introduction, any screenwriter who’s been at it for a while has some scripts
that never got made, and often they’re what we consider our best work. After all, no producer has had you rewrite
a part so his girlfriend could play it.
No director has decided to let his actors improvise the dialogue. Michael considers SARAH GOLDEN HAIR among
his best work. If someone would like
to option, he’d be delighted. If not,
he’d like people to have the opportunity to read it.
His subject matter is the Sand
Creek Massacre of 1864, and a group of people caught up in that ghastly
event, when a Colorado Militia attacked a village of friendly
You can read my review of
CHEYENNE WARRIOR, and my interview with Michael Druxman HERE: http://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2011/06/round-up-joins-tcm-for-salute-to.html
FREE GENE DOUBLE-BILL AT THE AUTRY SATURDAY At noon on Saturday, February 4th, the Autry will present HOME IN WYOMIN' (Republic 1942), a murder mystery at a rodeo, with Smiley Burnette, and TWILIGHT ON THE RIO GRANDE (Republic 1947) is anothe rmurder mystery, set in Mexico, and featuring short-time sidekick Sterling Holloway. |
That's right, the segment I was interviewed for is now
viewable here:
That's about it for now, pardners! On Friday I had the pleasure of interviewing Robert Wolders, Erik Hunter of LAREDO, and that will b in the Round-up very soon!
Happr Trails,
Henry
All original contents Copyright January 2012 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved
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