12/10/2009 10:00:00 PM
Prescott Film Festival arrival brings 'The Red Machine'
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Courtesy photo
Actor Lee Perkins plays U.S. Navy spy F. Ellis Coburn in "The Red Machine," a 1935-era independent film that screens Wednesday as part of the Prescott Film Festival's monthly series. In the pre-World War II adventure, Coburn teams up with a professional thief in a covert government assignment. |
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By KAREN DESPAIN
The Daily Courier
"The Red Machine," a caper adventure circa 1935, will take the audience back to the days of larks, jaunts and japes when it shows at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 16, at the Yavapai College Performance Hall.
Another screening in the series presented by the Prescott Film Festival, The Red Machine takes place in Depression-era Washington, D.C., as Eddie Doyle (Donald Thoms-Capello), a handsome likeable and fun-loving professional thief, gets caught in one of his robberies and lands in jail.
Enter U.S. Navy spy F. Ellis Coburn (Lee Perkins), who plays a perfect center-point for Doyle because he is looking for a thief to help him with a covert government assignment. Coburn promises Doyle he will make his jail term go away if Doyle will break into the Japanese Embassy and "steal" Japan's new coding device - without taking it out of the embassy. The question is, "How do you steal something, without really stealing it?"
The guest filmmakers for the Dec. 16 showing are co-directors, co-producers and co-screenwriters of the film, Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm. Argy said she and Boehm "really love" stories of capers and heists and came up with the idea for the movie after reading a random reference in a book about a rumor that a professional safecracker had helped the U.S. Navy steal a copy of Japan's codes for secret messages.
This piqued their interest, and they set about turning their idea into "The Red Machine," which they started making in 2006. The film made its debut this past October.
In the May 2009 issue of American Cinematographer, Argy describes the origin of the movie's storyline and the challenges they faced in producing "The Red Machine."
"In the years leading up to World War II, cryptographers devised increasingly difficult-to-crack codes for secret military and government messages," Argy wrote. "Eventually, they created machines that could produce codes almost impossible for humans to decipher."
If the characters' mission was next to impossible, Argy and Boehm tackled a similar one in making the film on a "very low budget," portraying Washington in 1935 and, through flashbacks, Tokyo in 1928, with 32 actors in period costumes, 36 separate locations and a 27-day shoot.
The independent "indie" film has won the praise of reviewer Dave Minyard, who said on shockya.com that some productions are disappointing and a lot are really good. "Obviously some are great ... I give you The Red Machine. The story and script are extremely well written, and I think the cinematography is some of the best I have ever seen in an independent film."
Argy said Madoka Kasahara, who plays Naomi, the spy's Japanese love interest, will be at the "The Red Machine" screening, along with some of her costumes for the audience to see. In addition, Argy and Boehm will offer door prizes, souvenirs from the movie, to the show goers.
The Prescott Film Festival's short film for Wednesday's showing is "Mildred Richards," directed by Marc Kess, who took the soundtrack from the 1940 radio drama of the same name and shot a film using the original recording.
Mildred Richards is an egomaniacal, nearly bankrupt actress who hopes to persuade her reluctant brother, Gerald, into bilking their elderly, ailing aunt out of her fortune. Mildred has murder on her mind, but the aunt's doctor, lawyer and maid throw a monkey wrench into her plan when Mildred and her brother arrive at their aunt's country estate to execute her plan.
Helen Stephenson, director of the Prescott Film Festival and Series, said that two new sponsors - The Zaki Gordon Institute for Independent Filmmaking and the Yavapai College Humanities Department - will make it possible for the film series to screen at the Performance Hall for the next several months. Tickets for Wednesday's films are $6.50 at the door, cash or check only, at the Yavapai College Performance Hall. For more information and updates on the Prescott Film Festival, visit www.prescottfilmfestival.com.
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Posted: Friday, December 11, 2009
Article comment by:
patricia watkins
can't wait for the Prescott Film Festival this summer in August 2010. Prescott is the PERFECT town to host a film festival.
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