Oh, brother...

Well, the amended "there was too cannibalism in the Donner Party!" statement from the archaeologists didn't get nearly as much attention as the earlier gaffe it sought to retract, but at least the retraction is out there. Anyway, the flap had calmed down and I was taking a breather, but Ken Dunn got me back to the blog when he alerted me to a new "independent horror film currently in development" called Donner Pass. The premise is a doozy:

"There are those who say the Donner Party was no accident. They say George Donner brought those people there on purpose." (Snort. ) "They say that by eating them, he could steal their life energy, and gain near immortality. They says he's still up there, still ravenous, still hunting for his next victim."

Ya know, that's pretty pathetic, gaining immortality only to spend it trapped in the mountains. What's the point? Heck, if I were immortal I'd want to travel, study, learn -- see and experience all the world has to offer, not just hang around one place!

The plot revolves around a group of teens who go on a ski weekend, get snowed in, and start dying in gruesome ways. Sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it? No word on when this is supposed to be released, but the website promises a "powerful twist ending," making the film "an elegant and terrifying modern-day take on the Donner legend." We'll see.

Snark attack!

[Note: Some of you might notice I've toned my initial response down. I decided there's enough negativity in the world without my adding quite so much.]

Well, I just received a rude response to my previous blog entry, "Director Responds." Anonymous commented,

Why don't you post the paragraph where he consulted you about the script prior to filming? I find it interesting that you go to such lengths to torpedo a small indie film that is the ONLY feature drama made about your subject of fascination. This film was not a documentary. Get over it already and move on with your life.

If you are going to present yourself and this site as a FORUM, let people speak their mind and stop editing information to suit your own ridiculous ego.

I did leave out the first paragraph of the e-mail TJ Martin sent me on February 4. This is what it said:

Kristen, [note misspelling]

My name is T.J. Martin and I wrote and directed the movie. You may remember me. Years ago, while I was researching the script I called you twice and sent you a copy of the script for notes when it was completed. The original script was called "The Forlorn" and it was a closer depiction to the actual events then the final film portrays. Our talks were spirited and you were supportive of the idea to focus on the "Forlorn Hope" as it would contain the vast story.

To address Anonymous's comments:

Why don't you post the paragraph where he consulted you about the script prior to filming?

I didn't include it because I thought it was addressed to me personally, it didn't add anything to TJ's defense of his film, and the post was long enough without it. (In case anybody's wondering, when TJ says he consulted me years ago about this project, I'm sure it's true, but I have only the faintest recollection of it.) Maybe I should have left it in; if TJ is upset about it, I'll apologize, but I don't think it's a huge deal.

I find it interesting that you go to such lengths to torpedo a small indie film that is the ONLY feature drama made about your subject of fascination.

"Go to such lengths"?! Oh, man. If only you knew. It could have been much, much worse, believe me.

This film was not a documentary.

I never thought it was. I'd have been willing to accept The Donner Party as an effective film if it had been true to the spirit of the Forlorn Hope, if it had presented the members of the Donner Party sympathetically. It did not.

Get over it already and move on with your life.

I am over it, have been for quite some time, and have "moved on"; I was working on a new post on an entirely different topic when your comment came in.

If you are going to present yourself and this site as a FORUM,

This is not a forum nor do I present it as one. This is a blog -- my blog. It's where I present my opinions, musings, and news reports about the Donner Party.

let people speak their mind and stop editing information to suit your own ridiculous ego.

I moderate all comments. Nothing appears in the Comments section unless I OK it, and I OK almost everything. I published TJ's response and your comment -- how is that not letting people speak their mind?

As for "editing information to suit [my] ridiculous ego," I'm perplexed. What did leaving out a non-essential paragraph have to do with suiting my ego?

And as for my ego being "ridiculous," all I can say is, why do you care what I think? If my opinion matters, then my ego is not unmerited and therefore not ridiculous.

It's interesting that you know the entire content of a private e-mail sent me over a week ago. Did you see my response to TJ, in which I wrote, "I'm very sorry I can't like your movie"? I meant it sincerely -- I truly wanted to like The Donner Party.

You sound hurt and angry and I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm passionate about the Donner Party and am very disappointed that the first feature film to be made about it didn't turn out better.

Director responds

TJ Martin, director of The Donner Party, which I slammed in my last post, responded with thoughtful response detailing the history of the project and how it evolved into its final form. It's too bad he didn't get a chance to make the film he wanted to make. With his permission, here's his email:

I write this letter because I thought you and your readers might be interested in knowing why we made some of the changes. I also wanted to address some of your concerns with the movie by explaining our process to you.

The producers and I originally had this project set up at with an Oscar winning production company at a much higher budget. We got to the point where we had 2 well known actors in the lead roles and we were ready to shoot. One of the actors even shed 20 pounds in preparation. Suddenly, the production company pulled the money from us.

So instead of quitting, my producer raised as much funding as he could with limited time. Most people thought were were crazy to try to shoot it at this budget and within a 12 day schedule, but we had already put so much time into it and the alternative would have been to abandon the project and our dreams of making the movie.

So we forged ahead. Our new budget and schedule meant major script changes. First we would have to do it without the bigger name actors. We had to lose Lemuel and William Murphy, even though the children were a major part of the original script -- there simply wasn't time or money to have children on set. (SAG has very clear rules about how much time they can work) We had to condense the number of characters and lose the extensive costume changes that would have showed the wear of the clothes through the journey. New actors were cast, actors who did not have time to shed weight. (I considered hitting the streets and methadone clinics to get people with the right look, but it was obvious I needed people who could act and I think our cast delivered amazingly well)

We hoped the audience would take the leap with us despite not having the means to accurately depict the severity of the physical look. It was more about getting the tone right for us anyway.

As far as making Foster the leader and this was in the script from the beginning. I wanted to explore the theme of false leadership and the resentment many teamsters felt towards the captains. It was a theme that was echoed across the rest of the journey and just because I was focusing on the "Forlorn Hope" I didn't want to lose it. Other choices were creative, some done in editing to make the movie flow better. The bottom line is that we were more interested in making a movie that worked. We never set out to make a documentary, Ric Burns already made an excellent one.

So what about the title change? "The Donner Party" was strictly a business choice made by the distributor. (This also explains the error filled synopsis on the back cover) I was not consulted and I was angry about the change at first, but I understand it. If you are an average Joe picking up a movie for a weekend are you going to rent "The Forlorn" or "The Donner Party?"

I don't write this letter to make excuses for the movie. I stand behind it and the cast and crew who worked so hard to get this done under severe restrictions. I'm relieved that we got it done and I'm glad people are talking about The Donner Party.

I never saw this as be all and end all of movies about the subject. I think to properly tell the entire story you would need a "Band of Brothers" mini-series style production. I encourage you and your readers to try to write it and then convince Steven Spielberg to put 200 million behind it, because I will be the first in line to see it.

"The Donner Party" a.k.a "The Forlorn" is my first movie and it's simply my take on a small part of the Donner Party experience. I am proud of the all of the hard work people put into it and I hope it continues to spark interest and debate into a fascinating dark corner of American History.

T.J. Martin

Okay, so I watched the movie

Well, all you aspiring screenwriters can take comfort: there's still no Donner Party movie. At least, not one that you need to worry about competing with.

As you probably all know, Anacapa Entertainment's new film, The Donner Party, was released on DVD on January 26. I got my copy yesterday and have watched it twice. I don't quite know what to say, but that won't stop me from saying it.

Donner Party fans will notice a certain similarity between the movie and the story of the "Forlorn Hope" snowshoers who set out from the lake camp in December 1846 to seek help. While reference is made to a wagon train stuck in the Sierra Nevada snow, to someone named Hastings who misled them, and to other emigrants camped elsewhere named Donner and "Kessyberg," the story centers on characters named Foster, Eddy, Graves, Fosdick, Stanton, etc., who set out on snowshoes to California to get help; some people die and are cannibalized. Sound familiar? Good. Because not much else will.

I could go on at length about all the discrepancies, but it would take ages and I don't want to rag on the producers too much. I've talked to enough screenwriters over the years to know how hard the Donner story would be to capture on film: large cast; quantities of animals; wagons; costumes; number of sets; varied terrain (prairie, desert, mountain); varied weather conditions (thunder, searing heat, snow); length and complexity of the story; and so on. Obviously, some liberties have to be taken and events telescoped.

What I don't get, however, is the necessity to butcher the plot. Why? Why not stick closer to the truth? Why, for instance, make Foster the rich fop and Eddy his teamster? Why make up an imaginary cache of provisions left along the trail? The truth just isn't dramatic enough? While he lay dying, Franklin Ward Graves besought his daughters to use his body for food, but apparently that's far too tame. This Mr. Graves (the least gaunt person in the flick) kills himself so his daughters -- his clean, well-kempt, full-fleshed daughters -- will have something to eat.

This leads me to my major beef with the movie: there's no real desperation, no real suffering. There's no cabin full of thin, crying children, no reference to mothers whose milk has dried up from starvation watching helpless as their babies die a slow, agonizing death -- no sense of the real fear that motivated the snowshoers.

Nor of their subsequent trials. There's no Christmas blizzard huddled under blankets, no raving Patrick Dolan, no Sarah Foster comforting her dying little brother in her lap, no powder horn blowing up or axe getting lost. There's some violence but little enough gore for a movie about cannibalism: somebody dies or is killed, then there's a scene of people eating -- which was actually a pretty good way to handle it, IMO. But there's little sense of their growing weakness, the toll the journey has taken on them:

""[Eddy] staggered like a drunken man; and when he came to a fallen tree, though no more than a foot high, he had to stoop down, put his hands upon it, and get over it by a sort of rolling motion. They were under the necessity of sitting down to rest about every quarter of a mile. The slightest thing caused them to stumble and fall. They were almost reduced to the helplessness of little children in their first essays to walk. The women would fall and weep like infants, and then rise and totter along again." -- J. Quinn Thornton, Oregon and California in 1848, II, 151.

This just doesn't come across in the movie.

When the real Forlorn Hope finally reached the settlement, they were skeletal and nearly naked because their clothes had fallen apart; their trail was marked by blood from their frostbitten feet. In Anacapa's parody, the Forlorn Hope was a bunch of well-fed, spiffily dressed day trippers who offed one another the first time their tummies rumbled. With no depiction of their physical and mental deterioration, they come across as depraved, not desperate.

The film does get a few things right. For instance, the pioneers' use of "Mr." and "Mrs." instead of first names, and the emigrants eying each other around the campfire. I also liked the version of "Barbara Allen" sung during the closing credits. On the whole, however, it's a shame for the producers, the viewers, and the memory of the Donner Party that the film didn't turn out better.

More gore

Well, matters move apace! Anybody willing to risk driving up into the Sierra in the dead of winter can attend a special screening of Anacapa Entertainment's new flick, The Donner Party, at the Sugar Bowl's Judah Lodge this weekend. It's showing at 7:00 P.M. on Sunday, January 17, $10 at the door. Director T.J. Martin and several cast members will be there, and there'll be a Q-and-A session after the showing. If anybody reading this goes, let the rest of us know what you think.

Here's website with a photo gallery of stills and a different trailer showing a bizarre plot twist:

http://www.movieline.com/2010/01/donner-party-trailer-tastefully-finds-slasher-pic-in-historic-tragedy.php

The more I see of this movie, the less I like it. Anybody else have a problem with it, or is it just me?

And we have a winner!

Last night as I went to bed after posting my quiz, I thought, "Dumb idea-- nobody's going to answer." This morning I get up and not only is there an answer but a winner. Eric Baumgartner identified the three errors in the blurb describing the new Donner Party movie :

Based on the harrowing true story, The Donner Party picks up after William Hastings steers a group, nicknamed "Forlorn Hope," off course by promising a shorter route to California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Eric posted to the comments section:

(1) Hastings' first name was Lansford, not William.
(2) The group that he led astray was not the "Forlorn Hope," but the Donner Party, of course.
(3) Hastings steered them to a shortcut through the Wasatch and across the Utah salt desert.

Absolutely correct! So, Eric, if you'll e-mail me (there's a link at New Light on the Donner Party) and send me your address, I'll mail you your postcard.

New Donner Party film clip

Check out this newly available clip from the film The Donner Party. Franklin Ward Graves goes bugeye crazy and takes his son-in-law down. And pipe the snowshoes -- guess the Forlorn Hope did their outfitting at Cabela's. "We don't need no stinkin' oxbows..."



QUIZ

Identify three errors in the following blurb:

Based on the harrowing true story, The Donner Party picks up after William Hastings steers a group, nicknamed "Forlorn Hope," off course by promising a shorter route to California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains."

First one to answer correctly gets a vintage postcard with a Donner Party theme.

Happy 2010!

It looks like 2010 will start off with a bang for Donner Party buffs -- the long-awaited movie is scheduled to be released on DVD on January 26. You can pre-order a copy at Amazon.com.

A lot of people have written me asking about this film, but I've had a very busy fall so haven't tried to keep up with it. Here's what I know, with some opinions thrown in:

This film, the first production of Anacapa Entertainment, started out with the title The Forlorn. It's about the "Forlorn Hope," a party of 15 emigrants who set out from the Donner Party camps in December 1846 on snowshoes to seek help for the stranded wagon train.

The film premiered at the Austin Film Festival in October, with two results: the producers decided against a theatrical release but to send it straight to DVD, and they changed the title to The Donner Party.

I can't say much about the straight-to-DVD decision; it strikes me as unfortunate and must have been a disappointment to the producers, but that's not my call. I do wish, however, they hadn't changed the title. The Forlorn is much more evocative, to say nothing of accurate, while The Donner Party is trite, inaccurate (it's not about the Donner Party, only a fraction of it), and already taken (by Ric Burns' documentary, to say nothing of myriad books and articles).

However, the website bills the movie as "a true story of survival," which I take exception to. It changes the facts, the cast of characters, their names, their relationships with one another (it has Eddy as Foster's teamster, for instance), their motivations, leaves out a lot of details, and presents the "desperate" emigrants as well-fed, well-dressed urbanites who step out of a bandbox to tramp through the mountains.

Of course, the foregoing criticism is unfair because I haven't seen the movie yet and I don't give a rat's about much besides historical accuracy. The film may have all sorts of redeeming features that capture the drama of the Forlorn Hope despite the historical deficits. I hope so, and I'm looking forward to finding out.

Some links:

Preview -- (There's also a clip on the official website but I can't get it to load no matter what browser I use, so I'm including this one; it may or may not be the same.)

Reviews from the Austin Film Festival -- Click on the "Reviews" tab to read all of them.

Slackerwood review

"The Forlorn" trailer

Today I got an e-mail from John E. Moore, producer of The Forlorn, Anacapa Entertainment's forthcoming movie based on the band of snowshoers (later known as the Forlorn Hope) who set out from the camp at Donner Lake in December 1846 to get help from Sutter's Fort. Anacapa's in the process of scoring/mixing the film; no release date has been set yet. You can view a trailer here. It's kinda hard to get a feel for the movie, but I must say I was surprised at how well groomed these "desperate" snowshoers look. Naval officer Joseph T. Downey had to say about other 1846 emigrants after they crossed the mountains:

"... such a mass was never seen before by mortal man. They were literally the rag tag and bobtail of all Creation. Here they came, some with coats and some no coats--some with deer skin trowsers and some with awful looking things in the shape of trowsers, some with moccasins, some with Boots, some with shoes and a great majority with no covering to their feet. In one thing however they were uniform: they had good rifles and shocking Bad Hats."

The Forlorn's Donner Party members, however, are clean, well-fed, and well-dressed. Musta spruced themselves up before they set out...

"Necrosis" trailer

Last year I blogged about a forthcoming horror movie with a Donner Party theme, and now it looks like Necrosis is nearing release. From what I can tell, it has the usual plot: a group of young people goes off to have fun at some location or other that turns out to have a dark history; they are terrorized by a specter from the past that stalks them and strikes them down one by one. In this case, of course, the location is a cabin in the Sierra Nevada, haunted by some sort of horror left over from the Donner Party. Here's the trailer from YouTube. Ya know, the tall guy with with the axe does look rather like Louis Keseberg...

The movie that couldn't be made (updated)

Over the years there have been several plans to make a feature film about the Donner Party but none has ever been completed. Previous flutters about Donner movie projects have followed a predictable pattern: an initial announcement, sporadic follow-up reports, and then a deafening silence. Why? I can't say for certain, but suspect that these projects' demise can be attributed to the ever-tricky issue of cannibalism, the expense of producing historical epics, and/or the overall decline of the Western genre's popularity. And, as has been pointed out, the difficulty of condensing the story into a 2-3 hour movie.

But hope springs eternal. Just about every year since 1995 I've met, been contacted by, or heard of at least one person who's working on a Donner Party screenplay. Some of these folks have become good friends and long time correspondents, others I never hear from again, one or two have sent me scripts to peruse. But never has any movie resulted.

This might be about to change, according to recent reports on the 'net, but you can't believe everything you read. This is the real deal, according to producer John E. Moore: Anacapa Entertainment has a feature film in active development called The Forlorn. It focuses on "the 1846 tragedy of the Donner Party, a wagon train forced by the worst blizzard in recorded history to survive the winter trapped in Sierra Nevada Mountains." ("Worst blizzard in recorded history"?! Tch! That's Hollywood...) Producers are John E. Moore, Mark Costa, and Ted Meyer, with TJ Martin as the writer/director. Negotiations to cast Crispin Glover are underway but not finalized; shooting is expected to begin in March in the Tahoe area. It will be interesting to see what happens this time around.