Adventures in Low Budget: Under Arrest

I have always wanted to be in the movies, a dream shared with billions of others, a number I do not feel is an over-estimate at this point in time. After all, the movies have been around for well over a century now (so have I) and, since their inception, inspired the dreams of oh-so-many as they continue to do day in and day out.  For me, I wanted to be a movie star, plain and simple. This lifetime wish has made me no more significant than a grain of sand.  However, if it had come true, I would have been an extremely famous grain of sand. And rich.

It took me a long while to fulfill any semblance of my silver screen dreams. Like real estate, it was a matter of location, location, location and Stockton, California wasn’t exactly the Entertainment Mecca of the Universe. But, as I mentioned in previous posts, major and minor productions did find their way from Hollywood to this hub of the San Joaquin Valley. I did what I could to hunt down them while they were in the area with mixed results.

Stanley Kramer, legendary producer/director of The Defiant Ones, Judgment at Nuremburg and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World filmed a major motion picture disaster about student unrest called RPM at the University of the Pacific starring Anthony Quinn and Ann-Margaret. During a riot scene, I snuck onto the set and hid in the bushes, filming the entire thing from my vantage point with my Super 8. The footage turned out to be useless since it turned out to be nothing but feet and foliage. When I finally saw the finished product, I couldn't find me anywhere in the riot footage, so I was very well camouflaged. Well, maybe too camouflaged. If there was a trace of me in this piece of dung, it would have made up for wasting any time at all slogging through Kramer's krapfest.

Not long after, Quinn returned to Fat City, scouting locations for a feature he was developing to be shot, among other places, at Stockton Jr. High. I recall Zorba himself standing in the courtyard between classes, surrounded by admiring kids and signing autographs. Two guys my age, Paul Stewart and Jeff Passegi, were walking past when Paul called to his friend in a voice loud enough for the Oscar winning actor to hear, ”Hey, Passegi! That guy kinda looks like Anthony Quinn!” This sarcasm caused Quinn turn to my smart ass friend with a slow burn. Even though a pair of local girls had been cast in the leading roles, complete with a feature in the Stockton fish wrap, the movie fell through.  I blame Paul.

It took me until after high school, but I finally made my way legitimately onto a working set as an extra in the TV movie, Senior Year (See post: Special Guest Star: Richard Donner) But I craved more and time was passing me by. Eventually, I had the good fortune to find my way into not one but three different shoots, not majors by any means, but minors of the memorable kind.

In 1981, I was deeply ensconced in Pollardville, an independent company arrived in the area for a film of unknown origin and content entitled Under Arrest. Thanks to Bill Humphreys, who had previously worked in television production down Los Angeles way in the 1970s, scored a casting gig on UA. This insured that most of us Pollardvillians were hired for roles big and small for this movie that was to be shot in locations in and around Stockton, Morada and Amador County, not to mention on the streets of our very own Pollardville Ghost Town.

A period piece of sorts, set in perhaps the late Thirties or early Forties, I was cast a newsboy (an honest to Buddha speaking role, no less!) who had to alert the main character, a small time thief, that the cops wuz watchin’ him. It had this Warner Brothers gangster vibe, so I affected some kind of a bastardized Bowery Boys accent that would have made Leo Gorcey wince. Little did I know that Under Arrest was a fabled Based on True Story and shot on the same locations where this tale actually unfolded. Therefore, my sequence was filmed in downtown Jackson in the foothills of Northern California, not the streets of Flatbush where I thought I belonged. Here I am, Frankie Darro’s long lost littler bruddah from Brooklyn in the middle of the Mother Lode. Oy.

I also managed to grab a couple of non-speaking roles as well. The first, a carnival barker (in appropriate disguise, of course) and as a double for my friend Ed Thorpe who had played a deputy to Bill’s country sheriff. (We went from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Mayberry in one fell swoop!) Ed had moved to Santa Barbara long before the crew returned for some re-shoots and pick ups, so I filled in as the deputy loping down the street calling for the sheriff in long shot.

Once completed, we were granted an advanced screening of the finished product at our very own Palace Showboat. Projection wasn’t an issue in our theater since Under Arrest was shot on 16mm, a format we could easily accommodate. A borrowed projector and a screen set center stage later, poof! Instant cinema!

Under Arrest turned out to be a revelation in more ways than one. First of all, it had the look and feel of a higher budgeted production. As a whole, we Palace Showboat Players came off quite nicely and we had every reason to be proud of what we did on screen, even me, not the Guys and Dolls reject I had imagined. (Our own D.W, Landingham liked to kid that he had three lines as a shopkeeper robbed by the main character: “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” and “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”) The film’s main cast, while mostly unknowns, did include two actors we had no idea had been involved since their scenes were shot after we had all wrapped and may have been filmed in L.A. Richard Moll, only months shy of appearing as Bull in the Harry Anderson sitcom Night Court was totally unrecognizable at first glance since he sported a full head of hair, not the scalping he had on the show. The other cast member had been associated with another film, though not as the main character not as a performer. Billy Hayes was the subject of his own Based on a True Story, Midnight Express, all about the hash smuggler who spent time in Turkish prison, played in the film by Brad Davis. Hayes must have been dipping his toe in the acting game, though nothing much more came out of it after this movie. Hope he didn’t return to his wicked, wicked ways.

What really blew our minds was that Under Arrest turned out to be, not a period crime drama, but a faith based story. Based on the autobiography of Phil Thatcher, this story is a classic Bad Boy Meets Jesus and Makes Good story and, for a film of this nature, really didn’t seem particularly preachy. Maybe the director, William Fields, had something to do with this, downplaying what could have an infomercial for Christianity and taking a more subtle approach. To be sure, its message was effectively signed, sealed and delivered, only not with the usual sledgehammer to the soul. Overall, I gave Under Arrest the full Ebert.

What became of Under Arrest in the years that passed is open to speculation. Only an hour in length, it wouldn’t have a theatrical release. I imagine it was carted around the country and shown to church groups, maybe even with a Q and A with Mr. Thatcher himself. I found a VHS copy in a Christian bookstore around the turn of the century. When I saw it on the shelf, I placed it over one of Willie Aames’ Bibleman episodes because…well, do you have to ask? Over time, I’ve had difficulty finding it on DVD until recently. It seems that an outfit called New Liberty Videos, a company owned by the film’s editor, Brian Barkley, acquired it and changed the title to The Phil Thatcher Story, a title even more generic than the first, but at least it’s been rescued from obscurity. It's available with two other movies under a separate title, Free Indeed. Also, the Christian Film Database which lists the film on their site, has mistakenly credited Mr. Barkley as the director when it was helmed by William Fields. Still, the preview offered on CFDb, the New Liberty page as well as YouTube confirms that first impression I had those many years ago. It looks pretty damn good.

UNDER ARREST aka THE PHIL THATCHER STORY/FREE INDEED

From top to bottom, Under Arrest was a downright pleasant experience, virtually stress free to the point that it almost spoiled me.  This movie was the polar opposite of the next two productions with which I became involved further down the road, not just in content, but behind the scenes as well. Divine Intervention, perhaps?

At the end of the day or the beginning or sometime late in the afternoon, I’m proud to have Under Arrest on my resume.  After all, it’s responsible for my very first IMDb credit.

Newsboy: Scott Cherney.

For that, that is only thing for me to say:

Hallelujah!

Maybe that’ll get me on CMDb.

Special Guest Star: George C. Scott

Back in the halcyon days in the last half of the century known as the 20th, the old hometown of Stockton, California and surrounding area played host to many a major Hollywood production. Several times a year, film and TV crews from the Land of LA congregated in our backyards to shoot a damn impressive array of titles over time.

One of those was 1973's OKLAHOMA CRUDE starring George C. Scott, Faye Dunaway, John Mills and Jack Palance. Produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, who also shot RPM with Anthony Quinn and Ann-Margaret at the University of the Pacific, CRUDE is a rollicking, unjustly forgotten Depression era saga of a wildcat oil well. It's nowhere near the caliber of THERE WILL BE BLOOD, but it's a damn decent piece of entertainment in the old Hollywood tradition. The Ospital Ranch northeast of Stockton stood in for the Oklahoma countryside.

At that time, my dad, Adam Cherney, ran a concession at Stockton Golf and Country Club. It was basically a snack shack on the 9th hole where Pop would flip burgers and pour drinks for players who took a break at the half-way point or those who just played 9 holes and didn't want to head back to the clubhouse. Since celebrities love their golf, many of those shooting in the area spent their downtime taking in a round at SGCC and most stopped by my dad's place.

One gloomy afternoon, Adam looked up looked up from his work only to see the only one and only George C. strolling up to his shack, all by lonesome, just like the other George. Gobel, that is. (Look him up, young 'un) On a midweek day off from filming OKLAHOMA CRUDE, George thought he'd kill a few hours on the links. After the first nine holes, the lure of an adult beverage or two proved alluring enough to put the game on hold for awhile. Being a slow day, he was my dad's sole customer that afternoon.

The rain began to fall, enough to cancel the remainder of General Patton's game entirely. Instead of calling it a day, George stayed put at the shack to consume a few more highballs and pound down half a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes. He passed the time away with my pop, chatting about this, that and the other thing. Since Dad was an experienced bartender from the old school, he undoubtedly treated Mr. Scott like a regular Joe and I'm sure he appreciated the normalcy of it. At that time, he was still riding on that PATTON gravy train and one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Flying solo and under the radar as it was that day, he probably wanted to feel grounded. And there was nobody that was more down to earth than my dad.

When the rain subsided, George decided to call it a day and hit the muddy trail.

"Besides, the wife's making soup for dinner," he told my dad. "You know you've got yourself a good woman if she can make you a good bowl of soup."

With that, he shook my dad's hand goodbye and tottled off to the house the studio rented rented for him while on location. That evening, my dad presented me with an autograph signed by the one only George C. Scott and relayed the soup story.

The wife Scott referred to wasn't Colleen Dewhurst, the great stage and screen actress he married twice back in the 1960s ala Liz and Dick. At this point in time, they had been divorced for good. I always felt that George and Colleen had to be one of those hard-drinking, hard-brawlin', hard-ballin' legendary show biz couples. They probably smoked each other's Lucky Strikes. They also sounded so much alike that calling them on the phone must have been difficult.

"Hello?"

"Is that you, George?"

"No, it's Colleen."

"Sorry. Can I speak to George?"

"George!"

"What?"

"Telephone."

"Hello?"

"Is that still you, Colleen?"

"No, it's George."

But alas, they were no longer meant to be. At the end of marriage, round two, they made the film THE LAST RUN. George fell head over heels for his younger co-star Trish Van Devere. Months after he divorced Colleen, he married Trish. They too made several films together including THE CHANGELING, DAY OF THE DOLPHIN and George's directorial boondoggle known as THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE.

Even if their relationship didn't hit the Shakespearean level of his marriage to Dewhurst, George and Trish stay married up until his death in 1999.

It could have been the soup. After all, you can buy the best ingredients, use the most sophisticated equipment and employ the finest skills known in the culinary world, but nothing tastes better than when you cook with love. Maybe George knew that, but he was just a newlywed back in 1973. On the other hand, he and Trish stay married for an impressive 27 years.

My wife is a fantastic cook and makes a helluva soup. I always tell her where she fixes me a bowl that somewhere, George C. Scott and my dad are both looking on and smiling.