(upbeat music) (projector clicking) - Have you ever wondered where the television signal you're watching is coming from?

♪ I love to go a wanderin' (projector clicking) ♪ along the mountain track - Welcome to True North.

(upbeat music) (mysterious music) - Good evening and welcome to Mainewatch (upbeat music) (projector clicking) Welcome to From the Vault, A celebration of 60 years of Maine Public Television.

On this episode we will focus on movies in a way.

We are going back to 1988 for Hollywood on the Kennebec a look at the history of moviemaking in Maine from the silent era of the 19 teens right up through today Maine has been the filming location for many movies TV shows and commercials.

In this special we will look at the 1920s "Northwoods Dramas" of Holman Day Right up through 1987s "Whales of August" with Lillian Gish in her final film role.

Along the way we will see some great old shots of downtown Augusta, the Statehouse and even Governor Percival Baxter.

We will see a couple old TV commercials shot in Maine, including one for Old Milwaukee beer that you might remember.

Many of the old films you will see come from Northeast Historic Films in Bucksport, an important repository of old films, TV shows, footage of all sorts, including much of the Maine Public Archive.

They also make films available for research and have an incredible inventory of DVDs featuring old Maine films.

And they show movies old and new, in their beautiful Alamo Theater.

Check out their great work at oldfilm.org.

As this is just a half hour show.

We will make this episode of From The Vault a double feature that stays in the moviemaking theme.

We will go back to 2001 for an episode of A Good Read with Sandy Phippen.

And hear from author Richard Russo.

Several of his works have been adapted for the screen, most notably Empire Falls, which was shot in Skowhegan, Augusta, and several other Maine locations.

Let's start our look at Maine in the movies by going back to 1988 for Hollywood on the Kennebec it looks great.

Okay let's do it.

Oh, I thought you just wanted the glass.

It's big.

Excuse me.

I'd like to do this (violin music) (can I have you on the set, plea Today.

When we think of filmmaking, we think of Hollywood.

But movies weren't always shot in California.

In fact, the first directors worked out of studios in New York.

Believe it or not, Maine was once on the verge of becoming a movie Mecca.

Hello, I'm Bill Maroldo And for the next half hour, we're going to be taking a look at the history of moviemaking in Maine.

We'll also examine why the industry is showing renewed interest in Maine as it hastens its departure from the backlots of Hollywood.

(silent movie type piano music) The year was 1920 movies about life in the backwoods lumber camps were especially popular in theaters across the country, lasting about 20 minutes and often sharing the bill with longer feature films.

These so-called "Northwoods Dramas" were typically fast in action and low on budget, figuring that Maine was a perfect setting for the storylines.

Two Maine businessmen decided to establish a film company in Augusta.

Actor director Edgar Jones was persuaded to take charge of the small troupe of actors.

Later, a writer Holman Day joined as scriptwriter.

Soon, they were cranking out movies at the breakneck speed of one every ten days.

In the 1920s, filmmaking was really at a peak.

As far as volume.

There was an incredible demand.

Everybody went to the movies all the time.

And somebody like Maine's famous author Holman Day, who was involved with popular writing, saw no reason not to get into popular filmmaking as well.

(silent movie type tinkly piano A "Northwoods Drama" was a picture that emphasized the location with...sports were very often... hunting, adventures in canoes, logging and lumber camps often played a part in these dramas, and they were rough and ready back to the land, and they were probably enjoyed by urban audiences who were at that point, rather far from their country roots (silent movie type tinkly piano (silent movie type tinkly piano Walking along Water Street in August, you might not think the city was once a budding film Capital but there was a time when a resident could at any time pass an actor or actress on the sidewalk only moments after seeing them on the screen.

For that matter, in those days, if you lived around here, it wasn't all that uncommon to see yourself in the picture.

Wings on the Border is a collection of outtakes shots.

The film itself does not exist, or at least if it does, we don't know where it is.

What exists is basically everything that wasn't in the film.

They might have shot each shot several times, and what we have are the ones they didn't use.

But pretty much the complete film exists in sort of a random jumbled up form.

The story is as near as we can tell about a French Canadian who, for some misfortune, he lives up in the northern part of the state close to the border, suffers some tragedy or other, or sees a wrong that needs to be righted and decides to set out on a major journey down to Augusta to see the governor.

He asks his way and finally arrives at the Capitol and bursts into the governor's office.

And we can be sure that it's Augusta, Maine, because the governor who's sitting behind the governor's desk is our own governor, Percival Baxter.

I had one promise to get me a job in Hollywood, and I never got it...she met somebody else on the way.

Stan Hussey remembers those early filmmaking days in Augusta.

He was once cast in the leading role of a Holman Day production titled Quest for a Kiss.

Well, it was laid on the main street.

From the Hartford Fire Station on top of the hill, the whole length of the street.

And I was supposed to be the leading man... what they call a villain.

I was, and the other fella...

I was trying to get his girl ...and she left and went with me on the ride up the hill.

He tried to separate us at the top of the hill, and I hid behind the fire station and I hit him with a big hub.

"Quest for a Kiss" perished in a fire.

In fact, nearly all of the films produced by Holman Day and Edgar Jones have been either lost or destroyed The same fate has fallen upon countless other silent movies filmed in Maine, including "Queen of the Sea" made in Bar Harbor.

Recently, it was discovered missing from the 20th Century Fox Archives.

Another major loss is Holman Day's only feature length movie "Rider of the King Log".

Nearly 200 copies were distributed nationwide in the early 1920s.

No complete version has since been found.

Fortunately, other silent film classics have survived among them.

D.W. Griffith's production of Way Down East to the most expensive film ever made up until that time, about a Greenville, Maine girl jilted in love.

It stars a diminutive actress, Lillian Gish.

Today, following restoration by the Museum of Modern Art, it is delighting a new generation of moviegoers We have sold out tonight, and we never expected to do that before.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this is a very rare kind of an event.

People do not get a chance to see some of the silent classics "Way Down East" is the story of a young woman who lives in a small village and she goes to the big city where she is tricked and seduced by the wily, cosmopolitan men.

She thinks that she's been married, but in actuality, it was only a sham.

When her past is discovered.

Anna is driven from the house in which she is staying, and she flees into the teeth of the blizzard.

And with thoughts of of ending it all, she rushes out onto the frozen river.

The ice is just beginning to break up, and she finds herself trapped on an ice floe.

Racing towards the falls The hero, forgiving her, searches to find her.

And there's a thrilling rescue at the at the top of this falls where she is saved with mere inches to spare.

It's hard to believe that movies have been with us for some 80 years now.

Of course, the advent of sound motion pictures had a dramatic impact on the film industry.

And the demise of silent movies ushered in a new chapter in Maine's motion picture career the 1930s and forties belonged primarily to Hollywood, but there were still some motion picture directors who realized the benefits of shooting on location and more specifically, the shooting on location in Maine.

One of Henry King's earliest films, The Seventh Day, was a silent classic shot in New Harbor.

He returned to Maine to shoot Deep Waters and a remake of Way Down East, starring Henry Fonda and Margaret Hamilton.

And years later, Boothbay served as his backdrop for Carousel, the top grossing film of 1956, which starred Shirley Jones and Gordon McCrea.

And that's what Henry was after you know reality and that you can't duplicate it you can make it, but it won't have the same thing.

Henry was more theatrical.

It was lovely.

Because "Twelve O'Clock High" was basically my first picture.

And I remember we spent a whole morning rehearsing and it was, it was a good segway for me from the theater to that because we rehearsed this whole big scene all morning or like five or 6 hours and then we shot it.

So he was very theater oriented that way.

But he had his editor with him all the time and he sort of camera cut.

I mean, he knew what he was doing and he didn't have to waste a lot of time covering it up because there are other directors who just shot the shot and shot all the way around, and then they put it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

But he just knew where he was going and kind of ran the movie off in his head and knew what he was doing.

(Theme from "A Summer Place" plays) Another critically acclaimed movie with a Maine setting was "A Summer Place" featuring Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee.

Their performances were good, even though the accents of some of the movie extras weren't always as convincing.

Stretch the paint, Todd All we wish to do is put up a good front.

Tain't the only thing running thin around here.

Set off the coast of Maine on a fictional Pine Island.

"A Summer Place" is a story of young love and an old romance which threatened to destroy two families Johnny, tell 'em you haven't seen me Molly, are you there?

Maine is one of those unique, beautiful places in this country that has a lot of things to offer in the way of physical assets.

The producers are aware that there are going to be trials and tribulations in any distant place.

They're not in the backlot in Hollywood, but they're going there for the particular look.

What they need is a coordinated effort of local people who know the area and know the business climate here know and how to work with the political leaders to cut through red tape and whatnot, to assist them to make their life here as easy and simple as possible when they are conducting a business.

So what we would like to do is find a way to accomplish this particular goal within the code.

After holding public hearings in 1987.

The Maine Legislature voted overwhelmingly to approve funding for the creation of a state film commission.

The new office now oversees efforts to promote Maine as an ideal location for media production.

And I think that it's the kind of industry that is nonpolluting that really takes advantage of one of our major assets, which is our environment and our natural resources.

And now that we really are in a situation where we have a state that has a lot to offer other than just nice views.

We have the ability to do these films in Maine.

We have the kind of talented people that can be a part of that process.

And being able even before the establishment of the Maine Film Office, Hollywood was already knocking on the door.

For example, the sequel to Stephen King's Creepshow shot mostly in Bangor, injected nearly $1,000,000 into the local economy.

Holy ol' Jesus!

A lot of different businesses were able to participate.

Your rental agencies, your car dealers.

For this particular film, but it brought in a lot of support from different types of businesses.

I think one of the things to see that's very important that can't be measured in dollars and cents is the excitement is generated in a community by a project like that.

The community feels very special in that they've been selected, and they also feel a certain dedication to to the overall project and will help in any way they can When we were children, you believe that the whales changed the seasons?

I did?

Father told you that the whales cause the wind with their tails and brought it down from the Arctic.

And I believed that?

The Whales of August proved to b another feather in Maine's cap.

Filmed on Cliff Island in Casco Bay, the movie focuses on the relationship between two sisters, played by Bette Davis and Lillian Gish, who have spent over 60 years summering in Maine.

What would be nice?

A big picture window here instead of these two I've always wanted one.

It would be too expensive, Sara.

Joshua says.

Well, of course, Joshua would want one.

He would make money from it.

Besides, Sara, we are too old to be considering new things Unlike whales of August, not every movie with a Maine setting has actually been filmed here.

Some producers apparently believe that states like New Hampshire, Vermont and even Oregon look more like Maine than Maine does.

Perhaps that's why some pictures, including "On Golden Pond", "Stand By Me", and even the TV program "Murder, She Wrote", have been shot elsewhere.

Hollywood seems to abide by the principle that perception is reality.

And frankly, no one in Maine was heard to complain when "Peyton Place", supposedly based in New Hampshire, bore a striking resemblance to Camden when it appeared on the screen.

As it turns out, Hollywood isn't the only film community which has taken advantage of Maine's scenic coast.

In fact, producers from as far away as West Germany have come here in search of the ideal location, (Crew members speaking German) Filmed on Mount Desert Island, "Winter Beach" is a made for TV movie (suspenseful music) Popular German actress Ruth Kubitschek is cast as a biologist doing research on eagles in Bar Harbor.

But the field trips come to an abrupt halt when her friendship with the creator of a formula for immortality lands a pack of shady characters on her trail.

Hello, residents.

Blessed to be to come Carlos.

Come to the house.

Yes, the line.

One of them is real life.

Bar Harbor producer Jeff Dobbs, who got a small role in the film after lending technical assistance to the German crew.

Obviously, they had no idea of what the coast of Maine or what it was supposed to be like.

And although the director and and most of the people spoke fairly good English, they were looking for certain images in this area.

They had heard that they could find them and they would describe to me in their best English what kind of a feeling they were looking for.

And out of my my knowledge of the area would find them pretty much the right place.

They would, you know, pretty much a hit it right on the nail on the head every time.

Sprechen sie Deutsch?

No sprechen sie Deutsch.

What the hell you doing in this picture?

Trying to get out of it.

Dobbs production assistant Bing Miller was also rewarded with a brief appearance in the film.

Never mind that the German audience never heard his brilliant delivery Lassiter wants to talk with you.

He's in the trailer in the trailer park.

What they did hear was a German dubbed voice, not unlike the kind we've become accustomed to in those late night Godzilla movies.

(Speaking German) There is a certain image which Maine.

Which Maine creates in the mind's eye of someone who's never been here before.

And when they come here and they look at the pink granite coastline and.

And the the evergreen trees and the mountains, and they go, yeah, this is.

This is beautiful.

And I haven't had anybody who would give me one complacent remark as to the beauty that was.

They were always this static about it.

There's no question that there are a number of states that are aggressively marketing what they have to offer to help with the production companies.

And the filming of productions.

What we are wondering is, in spite of the things that have happened, especially in the recent past, how many films or other opportunities that the film commission could have taken advantage of, have fallen through our fingers that we didn't even know about?

You know, we talked about "Golden Pond".

There was no reason why that couldn't have been shot in Maine, certainly.

And maybe if Maine were more active about it, they could have got it here.

I don't know.

Every state that has created a film office or a film board has seen nothing but tremendously positive results from their efforts their actions.

For instance, I use it as an example.

State of Maryland, which is a small state, has a small operating budget.

The amount of dollars they spend is around $75,000 per year.

Last year that brought in over 17 and a half million dollars from production Leave them, we're getting out of here.

Prior to having a film office in Maryland, I would say that we didn't even rank in terms of any kind of selectibility.

People really didn't know we were here.

And have a nice day.

Hollywood is a multi- multi-billion dollar industry.

Feature films, television, mini series, etc., Variety specials.

And they've realized that producers have realized that New York and L.A. are decentralizing, and they're looking for areas where they can save money.

And because of that, they're looking at states, they go right on location instead of saying, Well, hey, let's build this back.

The street in Baltimore on the backlot.

Let's go to the exact street in Baltimore and shoot it.

So that phenomenon has changed dramatically.

The impact of feature filmmaking on the entire United States, as well as North America.

KSGG, Jackson, "Count on us" it's time to rise and shine now.

Best day of the week.

It is Friday and it's six 26 and 28 degrees.

And don't forget, seven 45.

Wyoming It has so much to offer that you'll soon see why we say once you've filmed in Wyoming, you'll be back.

The Cowboy State, Wyoming is also aggressively marketing itself as an ideal location for a motion picture production.

Motion picture production is basically a business and in the course of business.

In other words, shooting, they spend huge quantities of money in a lot of cases on feature films upwards to $50,000 a day.

And that, of course, is a major benefit when you can attract a feature film of that size.

Film Commissioner Bill Lindstrom says the money spent by production companies is only part of the overall benefits enjoyed by a state like Wyoming.

Past that, and what really is important to Wyoming is the fact that when the project is aired or screens or broadcast or whatever, it provides an extremely valuable exposure of Wyoming's tourist attractions.

And so that secondary benefit, the exposure of Wyoming as a possible tourist destination, and it has been found that tourists make conscious tourist related decisions on what they see on television or on the movie screen.

That's important to a state that depends on tourism.

As much as Wyoming does Today, there are over 100 film commissions throughout North America.

As the competition has grown, new strategies have been developed.

And once again, Maine is in the picture.

Television commercials.

They've become an important economic force in the industry.

One which the film commissions can no longer afford to overlook.

Tell me Mercury.

The shape you want to be in.

Are we ready?

I think so.

Take the ah...

Try and hit it...whack it right on there, guys.

Got it.

We know that.

Right?

You go.

All right.

Standing by.

Ready and go.

(people screaming with delight while director yells commands) I guess the most important thing for me in casting is the spirit of the folk.

And I got a real nice response from the folk around here.

I felt very, very comfortable working with them.

They seemed to open up to working with me in a very special way.

And that to me is quite important.

East Point, Maine and Milwaukee both mean something great to these guys.

Eastport means a New England clambake.

Summer fun and food at its best, and Milwaukee means beer, cold, crisp.

Also, many times it's a job for people, and I love it where it's something from a deeper place, something from a more caring place.

And I found that strongly here.

You know, guys, it doesn't get any better than this.

It's what I look for in the special places where I want to shoot.

And I have a real great feeling for the people, for the spirit of the place and for the visual beauty it's it's quite unique and quite special.

The name itself, Maine, when it when you think of it, it it even I mean, I live here and it still means a certain thing to me and to somebody who's never been here before.

It means, you know, the ocean, the you know, the salt water, the fishermen, robust, hardy people, honest, you know, that type of thing.

And and good clean living that that kind of an image and and that's what they were looking for, especially in that beer commercial because they were they they liked to get that image across to sell their product.

Producers are no longer content with creating and building sets to to try to portray a certain area or atmosphere.

They want the real thing.

The audiences are demanding it these days.

So they're going to the real places.

And Maine is one of those unique, beautiful places in this country that has a lot of things to offer in the way of physical assets.

The setting for a movie should be real but imaginative, a place that can be a background for the action while conveying a presence of its own and from the birth of the film industry to today and beyond.

Maine has been and always will be such a place Do you think one can live too long?

Life can never be too long.

Even if one outlives one's time?

One's time is all one's time, even to the end.

You see out there, how the moon casts its silver coins along the shore There is a treasure that can never be spent.

(gentle music) Channel Ten is interested in helping to preserve Maine's film heritage.

If you have any information, whether it be about the existence of old movies or films pertaining to life in Maine.

Please write to us at WCBB, 1450 Lisbon Street, Lewiston, Maine.

Production of "A Good Read" on Maine PBS has made possible in part by the Verizon Foundation supporting literacy programs and partnerships reaching adults and children across America.

On the web at Verizon reads Dot Net.

Suddenly there was a paperback with Paul Newman's face on it.

Which I recommend to all writers.

Actually having a having it having his face on one of your books.

I joked with him afterward and said that but that it had worked so well that we were going to put his face on the cover of all of my books.

Things are looking in Bath, he said.

Some of the town's residents claim that the banner made no sense because of the arrow.

Had a word been left out?

Nobody's Fool.

Straight Man.

Empire Falls.

Richard Russo is a funny guy whose sense of humor comes through loud and clear in his serious novels about small, seen better times industrial towns.

Hi, I'm your host, Sandy Phippen.

Richard didn't start writing until he was nearly 30.

He was busy teaching college students for nearly 25 years.

By the time he found teaching jobs, that would allow him time to write.

Such as Colby College.

He was making enough money writing books and screenplays.

That he didn't need to teach anymore.

Rick, we're in your writing room.

This is your space.

It is.

Do you write in the mornings?

Mostly mornings, afternoons.

I have a session in the morning, usually in which I write for a couple of hours.

How early do you get up?

Well, I see what you want... You want everybody to know how how lazy I am, don't you?

Now we're usually up seven, seven 30 down at the Camden Deli.

For Coffee newspaper, the beginning of my writing day by eight 30 ish.

And then back here a little later than that is to start putting things on on disc.

Do you write longhand first?

First?

Yeah, usually still.

All right.

Put it on the computer either later that morning or early afternoon.

That's the first revision.

(Right) The first one?

That's right.

Right.

First of well.

Well, if we don't even need to know how many there is that, you were born in 1949 in Gloversville, New York.

And you grew up there.

That's right.

Describe what it was like growing up in Gloversville during your era, the fifties or early sixties I had a wonderful, enchanting childhood there, which surprises people sometimes because I've, I've written about upstate New York in a way that that has not prompted the Chamber of Commerce to use my books to promote, to promote the region.

But I had a wonderful childhood there.

My my mother and father were were separated.

My mother and I lived in in a flat above my grandparents house, which was difficult for my mother, but wonderful for me because I had more loved ones around.

Actually, as a result, of that, when my mother went off to work at General Electric in Schenectady, as she did every day.

Monday through Friday, I had my grandparents around.

My grandfather came home from the glove shop every day for lunch.

My grandmother was there.

My aunt and uncle with whom to whom I am still very close.

And my cousins who still live in Gloversville, many of them were just down the street, so I had relatives there.

It was the kind of growing up in a small town that kind of took place.

It was still fairly common then before the great diaspora of, you know, family members moving to Florida, to California.

The family was the family was all there.

The support was all there.

My father would make cameo appearances every now and then.

It was a marvelous growing up that was tinged in some ways by an understanding that after World War Two that this town, this region had already seen its best days, and that if you were going to be a young person in the Mohawk Valley region, then you were just waiting for high school, graduation, college, whatever, to leave and that's what I did.

I went, as a matter of fact, although I look back fondly on my childhood there now, I suspect that at the time it wasn't it I wasn't as fond of the place then as I am now looking back upon it, because I went to the University of Arizona and could have gone I had a New York State Regents scholarship.

I could have gone cheap labor, much cheaper, but chose to go to the University of Arizona.

I wanted to get very, very far away from Gloversville, New York, when I was 18.

And part of the reason that I went to the University of Arizona, I suspect, was that my mother felt that I could not get far enough away from that small town.

And her sense that her son was going would do better to make a life out in the world somewhere.

The two things, the two great gifts that my mother gave to me were where, first of all, that that fierce sense that she had of my destiny, which was not a small town destiny to her mind, her sense for me that I could do whatever I wanted, that and the equally, perhaps even the greater gift that she gave to me was her sense of reading.

She would come home I mean, she worked very long days, and at the end of it, she had more work to do when she came home.

And at the end of, you know, there was an hour to Schenectady from Gloversville, there was 8 hours of the work there.

Then there was an hour home.

So now we're up to ten Then she had to make her own dinner.

So there's an hour clean up the dishes.

There's an hour, hour and a half.

Then the washing, the ironing, the ironing of shirts, housework, all the housework, all of that brings brings us up to nine 30, 10:00 at which time she would read.

That was her great.

That was her great reward at the end of the day was picking up a good book.

And that was the single, I think, the greatest gift that she ever gave to me as a kid growing up was to understand that that's what books were about.

That's the reward you got if you were a good boy Right.

And I've never I mean, even studying literature at universities never robbed that wonderful.

Never robbed that sense.

I mean, you can study literature in universities and and have your relationship towards literature absolutely ruined by what gets stressed in those classes.

And my mother's example was such that I have and we don't read any of the same things our or our our tastes are very different.

But that fundamental sense that this in some way a good book is is exciting.

And rewarding as anything you're ever going to do in your life.

That's right.

It's true.

And that that's what I owe.

That's what I owe her most for.

And did you go back to Gloversville when you were doing of this fall and risk pool?

I still do.

I still go back and see relatives once a year.

I still have relatives that I'm very close to.

And I still do go back.

I don't go back very much anymore.

But I was maybe once a year, something like that.

Right.

But I know that when you said you have to go away, which is true, you also have to go back sometimes to recharge or find that stuff fairly old atmosphere.

What happens to me anymore is that I've told so many lies about that place and those lies are so vivid to me that when I go back now, everything's in the wrong place.

These people haven't learned anything from the stories that I've told them.

I've told them what buildings have to come down.

I've I've rearranged all the parks I've done I've done everything that I can think of imaginatively in this town to make it the way I want it.

And I go back there and these people are stubbornly living their own lives as if I hadn't been doing all of this.

This this renovation I've been renovating there for for over a decade now.

And I go back.

I can't find anything.

Nothing's where it's supposed to be.

Well, what do they say about you?

I mean, do they do they read you a lot they're back home.

I don't know what they were.

My my my feeling is from talking with my relatives, they're that my relationship to the town is a little bit on the ambiguous side in the sense that that many people there, I think, are gratified to have the kinds of lives that they lived there validated in some way, to have someone paying attention to the kinds of lives that people live in, in places like upstate New York and in inland Maine and down east Maine, and and they're flattered by the fact that someone has cared enough about the kinds of lives that they live to to set it down.

And so so the more generous and that is a generous view, I mean, the more generous of those people from that from that neck of the woods.

Is that but but then there are, I think, a substantial number of grumbling as to who who perhaps see me as validating things that they would just as soon not be validated, things that they would just as soon covered over.

Yeah, I would just soon paper over You know, and so and also making fun of them.

You're making fun of.

Yeah, there's there's there's I am a comic writer.

I am a satirist.

And I can't I have a very difficult time taking anybody all that seriously, including myself.

And so I think it's it's largely I'd like to think that, that the people who take issue are largely humorless people who are, who are, you know, don't get it.

You who perhaps just you're just looking for a little bit more dignity than than this writer for a block down the street from had his two city workers were taking down the banner that had been strung across main streets in September, where it had become the object of much discussion and derision and things are looking in barf, it said some of the town's residents claim that the banner made no sense because of the arrow had a word been left out was the missing word hovering in mid-air above the arrow?

Clive Peoples, whose idea the slogan had been, was deeply offended by these criticisms and had remarked publicly that this had to be the dumbest town in the world.

If the people who live there couldn't figure out that the arrow was a symbol for the word up.

It worked.

He explained the same principle as I Heart New York, which everybody knew was the cleverest promotional campaign in the entire history of promotional campaigns, turning a place that nobody even wanted to hear about into a place that people actually wanted to visit Nobody's fool made the big difference, didn't it?

I mean, when the movie came out and that was a breakthrough for you, it was a breakthrough not only for that book but for all of my books.

I mean, that movie because it came out at about the time the paperback had been out for a while, but then suddenly there was a paperback with Paul Newman's Face on it.

Which I recommend to all writers actually having a having Paul Newman can help having having his face on one of your books.

I joked with him afterward and said that that it work so well that we were going to put his face on the cover of all of my books for now.

But yeah, I do recommend that that movie gave nobody's fool a double life but it also had the wonderful effect of then rescuing the risk pool and rescuing Mohawk and suddenly there were maybe 100 or 200,000 or a quarter of a million readers of a Richard Russo novel that then went straight man came out after that.

Suddenly there was a a readership out there for the next book.

So it not only rescued the earlier books, it provided a platform for four subsequent novels.

So it has made it has made a huge difference.

And this new novel, Empire Falls, is is actually dedicated to Robert Batten.

I don't know if you noticed that, but I did notice Benton Benton made the film.

He made the movie.

Yes.

He's that he is the director and the screenwriter, and he made a good movie.

He made a great movie.

That's right.

Did you did you think about being a kid, being a writer, rather, when you were a kid?

No.

And certainly would never have thought of writing as a as a means towards affluence.

That's one of the first things that I tell students who are interested in being writers, just to understand that if you really if you want success, you know, there are there are almost anything else you would choose to do.

That's right.

Professionally, be an engineer would be better than than than this.

And I'm very aware of the fact that as a that as a writer in particular, I have achieved a degree of success that that that is I mean, how many how many serious writers are there in America who don't have to teach or don't have to have another kind of job or something that really pays the bills?

I mean, there are there are very, very few of us.

And I don't know how much longer it'll continue for.

For me, I always remind myself of the same mechanism that turns a faucet on, also turns it off.

And so it could disappear.

It could disappear next year.

But for the meantime, we are blessed.

Straight man came along.

Yeah.

And that was your academic novel.

And it's also in first person.

That's your only book.

And first person.

How come no risk pool is in first person, too?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, those are my two those are my two forays into into first person.

You prefer a third person know who I've come to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because you can edit because you can do different viewpoints in that way.

Right.

And and two over the years a third person, especially third person omniscient as you get older and more arrogant and more prone to playing the more aware of yes, you're the suitability of of assuming a God like stance omniscience just allows you to have so much more fun.

That's right.

And you can go in the heads of all these different kids.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But nobody's school actually started out as a first person narrative.

And it was only when I realized that Sulley, who was beginning to grate on me seeing everything through Sally's eyes, he was he was as interesting or more interesting to look at than to look through.

And so I switched that novel over to omniscient and and that was when I realized I really had the book, because then it was also at that point that I realized I could bring Miss Burl into it in a really meaningful way and get into these other characters heads, which was of primary importance in that book.

Right.

Because I had originally thought of Nobody's Fool as the opposite of the risk pool.

I was in the risk pool.

I had told the father son story through the eyes of the kid, which was very limiting.

I realized the closer I got to the end of that book, I thought, All right, now I got to do it again, but I got to do it through the eyes of the father.

So much of the same story, but told through a different perspective.

But when I tried to tell it through through Sally's eyes, it was just so limiting I couldn't do it but they do seem similar to those men you write about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Talk about working class guys like that who whose dreams are gone with the wind.

I earned enormous respect for men who did the work that I did during the summers, but did it all their lives.

And every one of them had dreams.

Every one of them had some sort of notion of himself that necessity had had made impossible the straight man as your most different.

But yeah, in my opinion, because it's not about the working class.

Yeah.

About college professors.

Right.

Fighting over silly things.

Right?

Nonsensical.

Right.

Scuffing the tugboat.

Oh, yes, yes.

Lost and abandoned, believing they belong in the believing they belong in the wide world.

But scared to venture more than a few inches off shore.

Scared to leave their little dinky town in Pennsylvania because of tenure.

You'll keep the tenure and so on.

It's just not.

Yeah, so true.

Yeah, true here too.

And Maine is.

Yeah.

Oh, well, yeah, I think I think that there is you know, it's not just college professors I think we all we all mistake what we want and what is good for us.

We want an easy life, right?

You know, and we want security.

And not only do we want it for ourselves, we want it for our children.

God, what a gift.

What of what a gift to give kids, you know, that that sense that sense that, you know, be secure.

Right.

Do the same thing.

That's right.

Find a job that you're sure will pay enough money.

All this advice that we give our children, it's what's so tragic.

It's much more fun to write about high school and college.

Yeah.

Because high school is still so dramatic, right?

It sure is.

Yeah.

My favorite parts of the Empire Falls are the high school parts.

All the tech chapters are really my favorite.

And it's and it has it has in part to do with the fact that I just love those chapters.

I love seeing the world through text eyes.

Yes.

But it's also just in a kind of autobiographical way.

It's always going to have a very, very special place in my heart because my daughters were both in high school when I started writing this book.

And this this really is kind of a night sweat of a book of a father's worry about what happens to his two girls right.

And Myles has the father of a daughter is able to to envision, live through and deal with things that I was hoping I would never have to envision, lived through, deal with, as has a father.

But there was one period when I was still living in Waterville teaching at Colby that that I was asking every night.

I was writing this book and I was asking every night of both of my daughters, what's going on in school today.

Right, right.

And Emily was was a senior at the time.

Kate was a sophomore.

And Kate really got into the spirit of it.

And every day she was telling me she was telling me stories that would happen.

And I would I was trying to get her to to tell me the real story as to what's really going on there, because I wasn't interested in, in a, in a in a in a version that was censored for for a parent.

I really wanted to know what was going on.

And she would tell me stories about about kids and then we would fictionalize them.

Every night after dinner, we would go in and and we'd say, all right, we've got this character here.

What did she do yesterday?

Let's and we came and who I acknowledge both of my daughters, but Kate in particular, because we wrote every night some of these kids.

And so so those sections of this book are going to have a special place in my heart, not only because I think they're the best in the book, but also because that's going to be, I'm sure for me as a, you know, as a as I grow older and my daughters are both in college now, both very much finding their own places in the world.

I think that this book and those sections in particular are going to are going to have a special place in my heart.

For a long time.

You wrote a wonderful description of a high school football game, though.

Yeah.

Empire Falls.

Right.

Which which I interpreted as being between Waterville High School and Lawrence High School.

Fairfield.

Yeah.

Because if I could admit that down below the Fairhaven and Empire Falls, players were trotting back onto the field half time over Janie and did her best act interested not beat yet she couldn't help thinking how soon these limber cheerleaders now doing back flips would be married and then pregnant by these same boys or others like them, a town or two away, and how swiftly life would descend on the boys as well.

First, the panic that maybe they'd have to go through it all alone.

Then the quick marriage to prevent that grim fate, followed by relentless house and car payments, doctor bills and all the rest the joy they took in this rough sport of football would gradually mutate.

They'd gravitate to bars like her mothers to get away from these same girls and then the children.

Neither they nor their wives would be clever and independent enough to prevent their would be the sports channel on the television's wide screen.

And plenty of beer.

And for a while they talk about playing again.

But when they did play, they'd injure themselves.

And before long, their injuries would become conditions and that would be their And you also wrote about Arno and the arrest.

You mean in a fraternity party?

Yeah.

And that would have certainly been true.

I don't think we're going to be able to discuss particulars here, Sandy, how we know.

Maybe not, but I think people might want to read the book to read about that scene.

Yeah.

And also the hockey team, the hockey team at Maine, because the boys got a scholarship there.

Right.

Right.

Well, and you mentioned other things in the book.

A little Maine things there.

Yeah, but you were fair.

But it's actually not I mean, you know, it's not a Maine book, really, when you come right down to it.

I think that people who who read this from Maine, who are who are, number one, looking who are looking for the Maine flavor, the Maine flavor are probably not going to find it because in a strange way, it's much more like my other novels set, either in New York or in Pennsylvania.

Because these books are not about place.

People always say that I'm a place oriented writer.

I'm a class oriented writer.

Right.

And this book with the Whiting's and with the Robie's and these and with the kind of work that these people do, hopefully that is what is going to come to life vividly enough so that people any place see, that's right there a place.

I'm not a writer of place.

I'm a writer of class.

Right.

That's right.

And yet any of the places are there.

I mean, certainly it's a Northeastern book.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Because any any town in upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts.

Yeah.

They they could identify easily, maybe it maybe in the Midwest, but I've never been in the Midwest.

But, you know, Sandy and during my in my travels, when I go out on book tour and I mean, I get sent everywhere, I get sent to the West Coast, often I get sent south.

And if whether I'm in, you know, Jackson Mississippi or no matter where I am, there are people who come up to me and say, you know, your town, that what you wrote, that's my hometown.

That's the town that I grew up in.

And I say, where's that?

And I'll say Jacksonville and I'll say Florida, you know?

So do you see yourself if you stay on here in Camden, is becoming a main character in Camden, Maine.

Oh, Richard Russo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a diner.

This new book is kind of blown my cover in Maine.

I don't I used to be able to walk around downtown Camden with a fair degree of anonymity, which my guess is that Mainers are pretty sensible and this book is, or at least the hype around it will will blow over as they'll get over it, as hype does.

They'll get over it.

And I'll probably slip back into the obscurity that I that I enjoy fairly quickly.

Yeah.

As right as writers need that, we need that.

Yeah.

Well, Rick, thanks so much.

Thank you.

I really enjoyed this wonderful world thank you very much.

Production of a good read on Maine.

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On the Web at Verizon reads Dot net I remember being told by a number of very serious nuns who were trying to make a serious young man out of me, ambitious creatures that they were that that I was never going to amount to anything if I didn't straighten up and then fly right.

And and I take it as a great point of pride that I but I'm still around and they aren't