Made in Texas: Tribute to Austin Film Society 2018 / Last Night at the Alamo / USA 1983
Eagle Pennell, Texas’ own outlaw filmmaker, came out of a world full of saloons and country people, barmaids, drunks, schemers, and small time criminals. Not surprisingly, he chose to realize a film that would capture “a dying breed of Westerner” whose existence was threatened by Texas’ sprawling urban development and ever-growing oil wealth.
Eagle Pennell was Texas’ own outlaw filmmaker. Pennell attended the University of Texas film program in the 1970s before dropping out to make micro-budget feature films about his Texas world, which was full of saloons and country people, barmaids, drunks, schemers, and small time criminals. His break-out film The Whole Shootin’ Match (1978) famously inspired Robert Redford to found the Sundance Institute. Pennell had worked on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and in the early 1980s he convinced that film’s producer, Kim Henkel, to help him realize his vision for a film that would capture “a dying breed of westerner” whose existence was threatened by Texas’ sprawling urban development and ever-growing oil wealth. In 1996 Pennell received funds from the Austin Film Society for a new film, which was never completed due to Pennell’s struggles with alcoholism and subsequent death in 2002.
Holly Herrick
84 min / Black & white, DCP
Director Eagle Pennell
/ Screenplay Kim Henkel
/ Dir. of Photography Eric Edwards, Brian Huberman
/ Music Chuck Pinnell, Wayne Bell
/ Editor Eagle Pennell, Kim Henkel
/ Art Director Fletcher Mackey
/ Producer Kim Henkel, Eagle Pennell; restoration: Mark Rance
/ Production Alamo Films; restoration: Watchmaker Films
/ Coproduction restoration: Louis Black Productions, IFC Films, Richard Linklater
/ Cast Sonny Carl Davis, Lou Perryman, Steven Mattila, Tina-Bess Hubbard, Doris Hargrave
/ Sales Watchmaker Films
Eagle Pennell (1952, Andrews, Texas – 2002, Houston, Texas). Filmography: A Hell of a Note (1977, short), The Whole Shootin’ Match (1978), Last Night at the Alamo (1983), Ice House (1989), City Life (1990), Heart Full of Soul (1990), Doc’s Full Service (1994)
Watchmaker Films
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E-mail: [email protected]
Mark Rance
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