Posted on 08/30/2009 12:48:52 AM PDT by iowamark
FLINT, Michigan -- Don't rub the stars from your eyes: you really might see award-winning actor Brian Dennehy chatting up fellow star Fred Thompson at Gillie's Coney Island in Genesee Township or Blackstone's in downtown Flint.
The pair have signed on to two of the leading roles in "Alleged," a new movie on the historic Scopes Monkey Trial being shot at Crossroads Village starting Sept. 14.
Dennehy will portray Clarence Darrow and Thompson will play William Jennings Bryan in an original screenplay (not a remake of the Spencer Tracy classic) about the famous courthouse battle over evolution.
Names have not been announced yet for the film's other two major roles, including an ambitious journalist to be played by a young actor whose name should be familiar to twenty-somethings, said line producer Kevin Reidy of Dean River Productions.
During the 20-day shoot, more than two dozen 50-foot trucks will fill the Village parking lots and fields to house equipment, wardrobe and personal needs for 150 cast and crew.
"We're like gypsies setting up our tents for a few weeks and then we leave. In the meantime we're the world's largest mobile home park," said Reidy, laughing. Seeing famous faces around town is just the tinsel on Flint's growing role as a filmmaking destination. The real gold is the economic and social impact on everything from local eateries and hotels to lumber yards, grocery stores and antique shops.
Dave Gillie of Gillie's Coney Island has already named a banana chocolate milk shake the Monkey Malt, after learning the film's history from director Tom Hines, who's been using the restaurant as a lunchtime office.
"He comes in with maybe half a dozen people coming in and out, running videos on their laptops. I had no idea what it was all about at first until he introduced himself," said Gillie, chuckling. "They're really nice people so I'm looking forward to seeing more of them as things go along.
"I'm trying to think of some pranks we can do to tie in, like maybe put some monkey tails on the waitresses and monkey masks on the cashiers. And I'll be keeping my camera handy in case somebody famous comes in."
The film's $4.1-million budget might be small by Hollywood standards, but nearly a quarter of it will go directly into the pockets of businesses right here in Flint and southeast Michigan in less than eight weeks' time -- and that's just for the most obvious, basic expenses.
Dean River Productions is setting up shop inside the old Red Ink Studios next to the Flint Farmers' Market.
Besides renting the vacant office and warehouse space, Reidy expects to spend more than $320,000 to house about 35 cast and crew members coming in from out of town.
The Holiday Inn Express on Longway Boulevard next door is serving as the first stop for arriving crew members, some of whom will stay there throughout the production while others are renting homes and apartments in Flint and nearby communities.
"The impact for us is huge, but what a lot of people don't realize is that's also money going right to Flint's fire and police departments through the city taxes paid by our hotel," said Rose Seaman, regional director of sales at the Holiday Inn Express. "Plus we're sending them downtown to all the new restaurants there so we're helping spread it out even more."
About $150,000 is paying for lumber and other set construction materials, and doesn't include wages for more than a dozen skilled union craftsmen.
"Not only does it bring in a paycheck for us, we turn around and spend it in the community for our own needs," said Bill Hinderer, business manager of Local 201 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, which has about 25 members in the Flint area skilled in stage craft including electricians to carpenters. A huge section of the empty Red Ink warehouse is already lined with antiques culled from shops all around the area -- old wooden chairs and tables, brass fans and table lamps, telephones and filing cabinets.
Upstairs in the makeshift art department, production designer Marthe Pineau and set decorator Andy Krish are busily turning those items into the thousands of tiny details necessary to faithfully recreate the 1925 Rhea County, Tennessee courthouse and town at Crossroads Village.
"We're basically hitting every single antique store and mall over 75,000 square feet throughout the state," said Pineau, chuckling.
Even for all the money he's spending here, Reidy said the shoot is a real bargain compared to his past productions, which include "Mortal Kombat" starring Christopher Lambert and "Shanghai Noon" starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson.
"The only reason we can even do this film at the budget we're doing it is because of Crossroads Village. It's almost as if they built it just for us," said Reidy. "I spent $2 million for a single train sequence for 'Shanghai Noon,' so just the steam locomotive alone is priceless."
Reidy himself has rented digs downtown. He's already memorized the menu at Blackstone's and can recite the details of every recent crime story and gossip item in Flint.
Would he recommend Flint to other Hollywood producers and directors? You bet.
"Michigan still needs to build up more of an infrastructure here for the film industry, but Flint already has so much to offer that's different than Detroit," said Reidy. "I'll be telling them there's a lot more to Flint than 'Roger and Me' and it's about time they found that out for themselves."
Brian Dennehy as phony war vet.
Burkett thought he was signing on for a short project, but he ended up exposing more than 1,200 bogus Vietnam War records, including those of prominent activists, celebrated war heroes, criminals, politicians, and even a well-known actor. For years, Brian Dennehy publicly maintained he was a Vietnam combat veteran, telling a New York Times reporter in 1989 about his combat wounds, and holding forth about the brutal realities of combat in a 1993 Playboy interview. Burkett's examination of Dennehy's military records showed that during his four years on active duty his only overseas assignment was in Okinawa in 1962, and there was no record of his having ever been wounded.
Sad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Dennehy
“”Later that year, Dennehy admitted to the tabloid The Globe “I lied about serving in Vietnam and I’m sorry. That was very wrong of me. There is no real excuse for that. I was a peace-time Marine, and I got out in 1963 without ever serving in Vietnam. I started the story that I had been in ‘Nam, and I got stuck with it. Then I didn’t know how to set the record straight.” However, in 2007, he once again told a reporter tales of his service in the Vietnam War, this time to Glenna Whitley of the Wall Street Journal.[3]””
Incredible, it reminds me of Mitt Romney.
"Suddenly, a heavyset man wearing a bright-orange cap entered the room. “Mr. Romney,” he called out. “Eric Orff—I’m a hunter.” It was a potentially awkward moment. Earlier this year, Romney claimed that he’d “been a hunter pretty much all my life.” A few days later, he said in a statement, “I’ve hunted small game numerous times.” Four days after that, Romney told W. Gardner Selby, of the Austin American-Statesman, “Any description of my being a hunter is an overstatement of capability.”
Still, he couldn’t resist. “You’re a hunter?” he said to Orff. “Well, same here. Good to see ya.”
It only gets weirder and weirder.
The name, Burkett, rang a bell. I checked & found this at:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/mtwpfg
B.G. Burkett, co-author of Stolen Valor, is not to be confused with Bill Burkett who was the CBS source in the Killian (GW Bush) documents affair of 2004.
That is a good point, I should try to separate the two in the future, I forget many people won’t know about that important book Stolen Valor and it’s author, it is a source book that people should own.
Actually the casting of the two top stars is a huge selling point, it sounds like it has the real possibility of being a top film.
I hope they show the whole trial was a set up to embarass Bryan and was never about real science.
I just can’t see these two being cast against each other unless this was going to be a sincere effort to tell the story.
This is good casting.
I’m hoping it’s much better than “Inherit the Wind”. While good drama, ITW is worthless as history. It plays fast and loose with the facts to make the town and the anti-evolution side look evil.
From what I’ve read of the real trial it’s much more interesting than the fake trial in “Inherit the Wind”.
Well, then Dennehy will be perfect to play Clarence Darrow, a charlatan asshat if there ever was one.
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