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Your new movie Dovey's
Promise - in a few words, what's it about? It
is a true story, a courtroom drama about the Towpath Murder Trial of
1965, in which the victim was Mary Pinchot Meyer, the last mistress of
JFK. How did you happen upon Dovey Roundtree's story in the first place, and what inspired
you to make a movie about it? And what can you tell us about your research
on the subject? I happened upon it because I am a JFKer- a person who avidly studies the JFK
assassination. And JFKers know about this case because of who the victim
was, JFK's last mistress. So, he was brutally murdered, supposedly by a
lone nut, and then 11 months later, she was also brutally murdered,
supposedly by another lone nut? That isn't credible. And then there was
undeniable CIA involvement because the very night of her murder, James
Angleton, the head of counterintelligence at the CIA broke into her house
to steal her diary. The murder had all the signs of a professional
hit, and Dovey Roundtree was so convinced that the hapless, helpless
Raymond Crump couldn't possibly have done it that she offered to defend
him for one Dollar. But what inspired me to write Dovey's Promise
was my knowing what a great courtroom drama it would make. I have always enjoyed courtroom dramas.
They are among my favorite genre of movies. And this case was so
riveting that it's amazing that Hollywood didn't jump on it. So, why
didn't they? It's because it was off-limits to them. It falls into the
category of dark history of the United States. What I mean is: if
Raymond Crump didn't do it, it's not as though some other derelict did. No
one has ever suggested that. The implication has always been that if
Raymond Crump didn't do it, then the CIA did. But it is no more
politically acceptable to say that the CIA killed Mary Pinchot Meyer than
to say that they killed John F. Kennedy. And that is why Hollywood
couldn't go near this. But I could. Regarding
my research, I read several books and many articles on the subject, but
the most important thing I got was the transcript of the trial. And it was
hard to get. It was public domain, but I couldn't find it online. So I
went to Michael Pinchot, the cousin of Mary Pinchot Meyer, and he had it
and sent it to me. And it was invaluable. Other sources of inspiration when
writing Dovey's Promise?
Dovey
Roundtree, herself, was a tremendous inspiration and motivation for me to
write Dovey's Promise. We say at the end of the movie that she was one of
the greatest American women, and she was. When you consider her life,
having been born into poverty in the Jim Crow South, and having had to hide
under the bed during KKK rampages, that she went from that to the pinnacle
of the legal power in Washington DC, that is an amazing life arc.
And she has been cheated. She should be a household name. She was
instrumental in the whole Civil Rights movement. This movie aims to
make Americans, and people everywhere, aware of this great woman. With
Dovey's Promise
being a period piece, what were the challenges of bringing the story's
particular era to the screen? We
did do things to serve the period piece aspect of the story. For instance,
we had a vintage clothier provide antique clothes for our actors, and
particularly our star Joy White as Dovey Roundtree. We used a real
courtroom that was older than 1965. We featured a 1962 Mustang as Dovey's
car. We had a very old home for Dovey's house which predated the time.
But, having said that, I'll admit that we didn't do as much as Hollywood
would have done to serve that aspect of the story. That takes a lot
of money, more than we had, but I'm satisfied with what we did. A few words about your
directorial approach to your story at hand? Thank
you for asking about that, and I did win one Best Director award. My star
Joy White, who played Dovey Roundtree, required very little direction. Her
instincts on playing the character were all very sound. She knew
that displaying Dovey's strength and power in the courtroom was paramount,
and she did it beautifully. But, I'll give you a couple examples of how I
drew out the actors. To one of the prosecutors, I suggested that he watch
the prosecutor in My Cousin Vinny because I wanted him to mimic the way he
went right up to the jury and spoon-fed them his conclusions. He did that,
and I think it helped. I told the judge that I wanted him to be very
dominant, that I wanted him to lord over that courtroom like the King of
Siam, and he did. And we had three witnesses that I wanted to get
especially combative with Dovey, and I told them so. And in one case, it
involved a sequence of outbursts by four people. And I kept telling them
that it had to be as tight as possible, but without any overlap. It was
hard to do, but we just kept doing it until we got a really good one.
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Do talk about Dovey's Promise's
cast, and why exactly these people? Getting
Joy White to play Dovey Roundtree was the single greatest blessing the
film had. Joy is in every scene of the movie except one because I wanted
to tell the story entirely from Dovey's perspective. I won't say why I
omitted her from the one scene that doesn't have her, except to say that
it's because of the kind of scene it is, i.e. a very manly scene. But
Joy White has a brilliant mind, and I have never seen anyone retain
dialogue as well as she did. Also, she happens to look a lot like Dovey
Roundtree, especially in her eyes. They both have big beautiful round
eyes. Then there is Karl Lucht who played her paralegal, and I cast him
because I had already cast Joy, and I felt that he would have fabulous
chemistry with her. I cast Terrence Twar Mombrun as the accused Raymond
Crump, and it was because he had a very boyish vulnerability that fit the
character perfectly. I cast Eric Wilkerson as the judge because I
knew he could impart a Southern accent and mannerisms to the judge that
would be perfect for the story. I cast Lance Henry as the lead prosecutor
because he struck me as seeming very bookish. I cast Alvis Lewis as
William Roundtree because I was looking for a Billy Dee Williams kind of
actor for that role, and Alvis fit the bill. What can you tell us
about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? This
was my 6th film, and it was the most totally supportive and harmonious
cast and crew I've ever had. It's easy for people to get testy on a film
set when you're working long hours, under stressful conditions, day after
day. But that never happened. Everybody was so glad to be involved, and
some of them drove long distances to do it. They all really wanted
to do it, to be part of this great endeavor. Anything
you can tell us about audience and critical reception of your movie? Well,
the film did very well on the film festival circuit. Our star Joy White
won Best Actress at 5 film festivals. Realize that some film
festivals are really just award competitions, where they don't screen
films to public audiences. We won awards at those festivals, but
three festivals did screen our film to the public: The Oakland
International Film Festival, the Chi-town Multi-Cultural Film
Festival, and the World International Cinema Awards, which screened the film online
to 20,000 viewers. And it actually won the Jury Award at that
festival. So it was awarded by the judges and by the regular viewers.
Any future projects you'd like to share? This
summer, I am planning to shoot the sequel to the film I shot before Dovey's Promise, which was
Three Days or Else. And like Dovey's Promise, it has a connection to the JFK assassination because I consider
it an allegory of the JFK assassination, in which a black detective
returns to work after being on vacation with his family, during which a
Texas Senator got assassinated, being shot from a warehouse while he was
campaigning. So, by the time this black detective returns to work, the FBI
has already settled on a young white man, Dale Howard Osborne, as the lone
gunman. But Detective Ty Banks isn't buying it. He thinks Dale is
innocent, and he is determined to prove it. Remember, I am a JFKer,
and I believe in the innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald, and this film was a
way to give Oswald an honest cop standing up for him and fighting for him,
as I wish the real Lee Harvey Oswald had had.
However, the sequel will be a very different kind of story that tackles an
undiscussed subject, which is the challenge of finding love again in your
life after losing your beloved spouse, and especially when you are a
person of faith who believes in eternal life. That's the situation that Ty
Banks will be in this time. And I'm happy to say that it's looking very
promising that Joy White, the star of Dovey's Promise, will play Ty Banks'
new love interest, Zolana Reed, in In God's Hands.
I also have a completed script for a Viking story called Vinland, which is
about Leif Eriksson and his discovery of America. And it is a feature
film, not a documentary. And it has everything: action, adventure,
romance, conflict, pathos, and tragedy. But, it would be impossible to
make on an indie budget. So I'll have to wait until I find investors for
that, and I am very much hoping that the success of Dovey's Promise
brings that about.
What goit you into
filmmaking in the first place, and did you receive any formal training on the subject?
Frankly, what got me started in filmmaking was my outrage at George W. Bush over
the horrific wars he started in Afghanistan and Iraq. I decided I
wanted to write an anti-war movie, but I wanted it to be a feature film
and a very entertaining story. So I wrote My Stretch of Texas Ground. And
after shopping it around some unsuccessfully (and you should know that
Hollywood is like Oz, where getting into it is as hard as getting in to
see the Wizard). And eventually, I decided to make it myself on a
low-budget basis. I am very pleased with My Stretch of Texas Ground. I
think we did a great job. There are a few production issues that I wish we
could have done better, but on the whole, I think it is a masterpiece of storytelling.
But no, I don't have any formal training in filmmaking. And I admit that I'm
arrogant: I think I can do anything if I apply myself long enough and work
hard enough. And I am an extremely hard worker. When I am making a film, I
eat, drink, and sleep it 24 hours a day. Seriously. For instance, I'll be
lying in bed awake at night, mulling over the script, and I'll get an idea
about one line that I'd been toiling over. So, a thought will hit me
about what it should be, and I'll bolt up and turn the computer on and get
it into the script before I forget it. I'm obsessive; I admit it.
What can you tell us about your filmwork
prior to Dovey's Promise?
I made 5 films before Dovey's Promise, and I think they are all excellent
movies. The first, as I mentioned, was My Stretch of Texas Ground.
After that, I made a sequel to it, which was His Stretch of Texas
Ground. So, it returns to Sheriff Joe Haladin in Arlettsville, in which a horrific
crime occurs that is devasting to Sheriff Joe and his family. And
then, when it seemed like the absolute worst had happened, something else happens.
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After that, I made a completely different film, which I wrote for my friend, the
senior actor Mike Gassaway. It is The Pro Bono Watchman which is
about an old man who is spending most of his time sitting with his dying
wife who is on hospice. But then, he finds out about a 6 year old girl who
has been ordered by the Court to go on visitations with her estranged
father, but because he has a violent past, a monitor has to be present. So "Hank" volunteers to be the monitor, as he calls it, the
watchman. And because he was a lawyer in his working life, who did
some work pro bono (for nothing) he went from being the pro bono attorney
to the pro bono watchman. The great thing about this film besides Mike
Gassaway is the little girl who played Bonnie Gentry, who was Kariana
Karhu, a prodigious talent. Kariana was on the very popular Amazon program
Panic, and she was brilliant in The Pro Bono Watchman.
Next came a return to Sheriff Joe Haladin in Joe Haladin: The Case of the
Missing Sister, except that I couldn't get the original actor, Jeff Weber.
I recast Haladin with Samuel French, who had a speaking role in Killers
of the Flower Moon. Samuel did very well, but he was quite different
from Jeff, and Joe Haladin's life was very different, so even though it is
the sequel to a sequel, it really comes across as a fresh new movie. And
it was stylized like an old film noir. Joe Haladin: The Case of the Missing Sister won the most awards
of any of my films, including a 73% selection rate on Film Freeway.
I've already discussed Three Days or Else, but I'll add that it has a very
unusual element, which is a revelation about the history of slavery. Very
few Americans are aware that the Texas Revolution of the 1830s was fought
to preserve slavery in Texas. The main bone of contention between Mexico
and Texas was that Mexico ordered its province, Texas, to abolish slavery,
as Mexico had done. But, the Texans refused, and eventually, war
broke out, and upon winning, Texas made slavery permanent. So, Texas
independence was all about keeping slavery going, which is an appalling
but suppressed historical fact. This movie attempts to do something about
it. How would you describe yourself as a director? Well,
I admit I am not the easiest person to work with because when I know I
want something a certain way, I am adamant about it. I don't swear or
curse, but I do get insistent. I want it the way I want it, and I am very
sure of myself. But, I think it gets back to what I said about the way I
eat, drink, and sleep the story.
Filmmakers who inspire you? I think very highly of Steven Spielberg, but my favorite movie of his is a
lesser-known one called Empire of the Sun about a British boy who gets
left behind when his family was fleeing war-torn Shanghai. I admire Mel
Gibson, and my favorite movie of his is Apocalypto, which I think is one
of the best films ever made. And I admire Guillermo Arriaga because Babel
and The Burning Plain are such intense films. Arriaga is the master
of the multiple storyline, and I took inspiration from him in writing
separate storylines for Abdul Latif Hassan and Sheriff Joe Haladin in My
Stretch of Texas Ground. Your favourite movies?
One of my favorite films of all time is Chinatown, and as I said, it was
inspirational to me in writing Joe Haladin: The Case of the Missing
Sister. For instance, Chinatown is about two sisters who were also mother
and daughter. Joe Haladin: The Case of the Missing Sister is about two sisters who are also twins.
Chinatown has a gorgeous love theme written by Jerry Goldsmith with a
beautiful trumpet solo. So, I wrote a musical theme for Joe Haladin:
The Case of the Missing Sister with a trumpet solo. I call it Joe's Tribulation and your
readers can watch and listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30WLxGZWdog
I love The Graduate with that ending of Dustin Hoffman as Ben running
towards the church, hoping to get there in time to stop the wedding. Talk
about being absorbed in a movie. I also love the emotionally-wrenching The Deer Hunter by Mike Nichols. And
I must include V for Vendetta, which is an apocalyptic allegory, starring
Natalie Portman. It got mixed reviews, but people need to realize that you
can't watch it like a regular movie. It has an
"other-worldly" quality that is integral to it.
... and of course, films you really deplore? Oh
my goodness, the list is long. The truth is that I love good movies, and I
love making movies, but there are a lot of movies I abhor. I hate The
Searchers with John Wayne. So many people call it the greatest Western,
but it is such a racist thing. I hate movies such as American Sniper
and The Hurt Locker that glorify war.
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Your/your movie's website, social media, whatever else?
http://doveyspromise.com
http://ralphcinquefilms.com
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? Well,
this is more of a lament, but my experience in filmmaking has been that we
live in a pop culture world, and it's pop culture films that are most likely
to succeed. I know I'm biased, but I think all my films are gripping and
meaningful and thought-provoking, despite being indies, and they deserve
to be seen, and I mean by the masses. So, I am very excited about my new
partnership with Richard Wolff of Breaking Glass Pictures, who appreciates
the value of my films and wants to get them out there in a big way. Thanks
for the interview!
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