The second film of the Rick Schmidt trilogy (also includes: A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER, EMERALD CITIES),’1988’ is about a huge audition for the remake of the classic American musical "Showboat." For three nights, July 22-24, 1975, hundreds of San Francisco’s most bizarre talent turned up, while lead actor, ED NYLUND, a real-life librarian and musicologist, tried to enact his dream of bringing "the stench of death" to the musical comedy form.
————
(Excerpt (below) is from “TWELVE DEAD FROGS and Other Stories”––my Filmmaker’s Memoir,©2017 Light Video Books).
60 CENTS POSTAGE (1974),
In December of 1974, I finally had a print (actually two copies) of my first feature, A Man, A Woman, and A Killer (75 minutes, B&W/Color) in my hands. With my last few hundred dollars I figured I’d better just fly to New York City and try to sell the movie to distributors. I still owed about $4,000 to Palmer’s Lab, and was in deep debt to my mother, who had gone the extra distance to help me finish. I figured that I’d better use the only asset I had – the film – to somehow recoup the money. At that time, there was nothing like the present-day Independent Feature Project’s Film Market in New York City, where screenings are pre-arranged for distributors and TV buyers for a small fee. Back then every independent filmmaker had to invent his or her own way of selling a film.
Using the two prints, I felt I could give the top New York film people a chance to view the movie over a week’s timeframe Fortunately, I decided to phone ahead to make sure that these important film industry people had time to screen my work during that busy time, the last week before Christmas. I had no idea what I was doing, but taking that trip sounded about as practical as anything else I could imagine.
But before I could get out of town, my filmmaking friend Bill Farley got on my case, suggesting that I fill out the American Film Institute’s grant application forms he dangled in my face, saying that I might win an Independent Filmmaker’s award of $10,000. I declined, saying that I didn’t have any new ideas, or energy for applying. But he remained adamant. “You have a feature-length film as an example of your work. You have to apply!”
After returning my kids to school on a Monday morning, I read over the application he’d left at my house, and put it aside. Finally, two days and three bothersome phone calls from Farley later, I came up with a second feature film idea.
I decided to use the same three characters from the first film and work toward a feature trilogy staring Dick, Ed, and Z. Whereas the first feature had been about Dick’s real-life negative fantasy (becoming such a successful gangster that a hit man hunts you), I figured the second movie should be more positive and fun. I remembered Ed Nylund’s distaste for the musical comedies, and that gave me an idea. I decided to apply for a grant to shoot an audition for the remake of the classic American musical Show Boat, with Ed in charge. I imagined that he could play a sort of contemporary Captain Andy from the original story. The film would be about Ed’s dream to be a success in music (he had studied at the Manhattan School of Music, but had dropped out before he could receive his Masters in musicology). When I mentioned my idea to Ed he didn’t shoot it down right away, which I took as a good sign.
In my exhausted state I wrote my synopsis for Showboat 1988 (the date in the title stemming from my compulsion for double dates since making the short film, 1944), then quickly wrote the rest of the required information about my career and past filmwork, typing directly onto the application. Anything, I thought, to avoid the possibility of more harangues from Farley! But even though I had completed the application, I hesitated to mail it in. It just felt so dashed off and incomplete. When I complained to Farley that I didn’t have the 60-cent postage, he came right over to my apartment and jammed the needed coins in my hand.
SOMETHING HAPPENED (1975)
Around late April, walking back to my Oakland apartment on Hudson street from the return bus-riding leg of my LA trip #2, I passed ex-roommate Wayne Wang, just back from Hong Kong, who now lived across the hall from me. He blurted out words about there being something in my door, and said, with a strange stutter in his voice, Congratulations...you deserve it...you’ve earned it. I had no idea what he was talking about.
Reaching my front door, I noticed the yellow envelope of a telegram stuck in the crack. I took it out and opened it to learn that an AFI selection committee of four judges, including King Vidor, had awarded me $9,918 to make my new feature, Showboat 1988. (Thanks again Bill!).
REVIEWS
“The big hit of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, it’s easy to see why. The film has carved a unique nitch for itself, somewhere between FREAKS and Fellini’s 8 1/2. It’s as though someone forgot to lock the studio door and Luis Bunuel and William Burroughs sneaked in and began a hatchet job on Hollywood."
— David Harris, THE BOSTON PHOENIX
“1988 recounts the fictitious tale of a middle-aged librarian’s attempts to finance and remake the film musical “Showboat” in contemporary terms. The auditions are arranged on a San Francisco stage, and range from incredible to merely bizarre.”
— VARIETY
“1988 in its cumulative preposterous flummery is a spirited outcry for people to throw off the covert and overt forms of oppression and be themselves. Beneath the film’s Quixotic humor and surprisingly touching pathos stands the surrealist belief that art is never more important than life. An outrageous tour-de-force.”
— Vic Skolnick, CINEMA ARTS CENTRE
READ MORE. EXCERPTS-–“OVERTURE/APERTURE––SHOWBOAT 1988-THE REMAKE,”Chapter, p. 275, HERE. From,"The Female Complaint" by Lauren Berlant, Chair, LG Studies Project, U. of Chicago.
1988 (94 min. ©1978/9, (The Censored Version). A FLM BY Rick Schmidt. Co-written/directed/produced by Rick Schmidt. Script by Rick Schmidt, Bill Farley (I WANTED TO BE A MAN WITH A GUN), Nick Kazan (REVERSAL OF FORTUNE), & Henry Bean (Sundance Winner, THE BELIEVER). Starring Carolyn Zaremba, Ed Nylund, and Dick (Richard A.) Richardson.
————
Share this post