Here's my Brunswick, Maine movie, STICKY WICKET, where a secret band of women croquet players try to right the wrongs that come along–– especially corporate take-overs and WAR!

TRAILER: <https://vimeo.com/ondemand/stickywicket/>

Short synopsis of STICKY WICKET

A secret society of women-only croquet players try to prevent a corporate cineplex from bankrupting a small arthouse cinema.

Lead actor/co-producer Barry Norman, at Eveningstar Cinema, Brunswick, ME.

FULL SYNOPSIS

In the small town of Brunswick, Maine, the Women-Only Croquet Club is the only organized resistance to a corporate takeover by an invading cineplex movie chain. In its direct path is a 100 seat, hippie-built theater called the Eveningstar Cinema, crunched into a tiny, jewelry-store-sized space at the local mall. The owner, Barry Norman, is barely holding on. He’s too tall for the 6’ high upstairs projection booth (at 6’5”), and too old (over 50) to be carting around the heavy reels back and forth between projectors. As the cineplex ground-breaking approaches, future plans are made for a big croquet showdown at city hall. With croquet balls smacked to the tune of ‘Drive That Fast' by legendary UK band Kitchens of Distinction, it begins to dawn on us that maybe these mallet-wielding women can get the job done. And they do.

TRAILER: <https://vimeo.com/ondemand/stickywicket/>

Gracia Babbidge, a secret Croquet Club member, and Barry Norman.

This fourth Barry Norman/Rick Schmidt co-production, Sticky Wicket (2013), was shot at Norman’s Eveningstar Cinema in Brunswick, Maine, with Norman performing the lead role. On this feature Schmidt applied his ‘Workshop’ techniques to solo directing, shooting and conceiving in a breezy, improv style while still creating traditional storytelling plot points, mannered film cuts, and a concise narrative flow toward an ending or “non-ending” climax.

Other Schmidt/Norman movies:

<https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bluesfortheavatar/ <https://vimeo.com/ondemand/rickscanoe> <https://vimeo.com/ondemand/notearsforbankers>

Jesse Calderone, actor/real-life storyteller (was a projectionist at Eveningstar Cinema).

Sarah L. Childress, Lead actor//DP/Second Unit Co-Director. Vice President of the Women-Only Croquet Club, Brunswick, ME Chapter.

Vic Skolnick, co-director of Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington, NY (<https://filmmakermagazine.com/10140-vic-skolnick-r-i-p/>), had this to say about my approach to filmmaking (pertains to ‘Sticky Wicket’ as well):

“Thirty-five plus years after his 1975 feature filmmaking debut. , American Independent Rick Schmidt remains a free-wheeling derring-do filmmaker holding fast to the notion that people’s real lives are more truly dramatic, hilarious, exciting and as exasperating as those manufactured by Hollywood’s minions. Most everyone falls in and out of love, rejects and gets rejected, contends with failure and success, hatred, ambition, the death of loved ones...It’s all there.

To capture real life on film, Schmidt fashions a creative weave out of the threads of narrative, documentary, and docu-drama film forms. His actors draw on their own experience enabling him to create a unique blend of fact and fiction. In the end, Schmidt makes art and life intermingle and imitate each other.

Aware that the American Dream factory financiers would never fund his films, Schmidt, undeterred, remains the maven of low, low-budget feature filmmaking.”
— Vic Skolnick, CINEMA ARTS CENTRE

Dorothy Fortin, actor & key member of the Women’s Only Croquet Club of Brunswick, ME.

See FULL (FREE) MOVIE here: <https://filmfreeway.com/projects/30361>.