William Horberg

Harlem For The Holidays

Elsa, Natalie and Diego are here to visit for winter break, and it almost snowed last night.

But Christmas is multi-colored and multi-ethnic in the vibrant village of Harlem in 2012, and the kids are having a blast riding subway trains with ragtag mariachi's singing Feliz Navidad, sidewalk poets rapping about Rudolph the red-nosed Guiliani, and Dominican fir dealers sawing pint-sized evergreens down to size for the perfect Xmas bush to fit our snug little Harlem rental apartment.

Apologies to long time readers for my peripatetic blogging efforts these last few months. It has been a "be careful what you wish for" kind of year at Wonderful Films and the Horberg household with four films in prep/shoot or post-production over the last year and change.

Life IS change and this level of activity has meant something had to give, and alas my blog posts of late have been fewer and farther between.

But I hope to keep writing and sharing new and interesting news from the frontlines of filmmaking, arts, autism, music, literature, travel and other obsessions.

Happy holidays and best wishes for a great 2013!

Enjoy!

william 

Another Rome

I have been to Rome many times.

At the turn of the last century, I was involved in making three movies there over the course of a few years - (now that was a fun sentence to write!) But this weekend, thanks to my old friend and co-worker on The Talented Mr. Ripley, Laura Luchetti, I got to visit another side of Rome that I had not seen before, the neighborhood of Pigneto, once made famous by Pier Paulo Pasolini in films like Accattone!, always literally and figuratively the other side of the tracks, and now a slowly emerging gentrifying area of artists and cafes and bohemian vibrations.

The long walk from Rome's Termini Station to Pigneto was hard on the old still-suffering foot, but it was a fascinating landscape unlike a typical touristic view of the city. I had not been back to Rome for a number of years, but this street felt more like the existential landscape that Antonioni favored back in the '60's.

The Piazza di Pigneto is across the train tracks that give the area a natural border or boundary, and it definitely felt like crossing over into another world, a neighborhood that has had a more violent recent past, like Venice Beach back in the '80's, or certain areas of the Chicago I grew up in.

Pasolini's Accattone!

Hidden away on the Via Fanfulla da Lodi, which was not on the map and quite hard to locate with my incredibly rusty and limited Italian, was this nice outdoor cafe from 1924, Trattoria Necci, which is a kind of nexus of the artistic life of the area, and a place that Pasolini himself used to frequent (before his own violent and untimely demise, murdered by being run over by his own car in Ostia in 1975, a case that is still unsolved as to the actual perpetrators and motive.)

It was such a pleasant afternoon that our conversation and thoughts strayed far away from any Pasolini-esque quality of our experience, but I left motivated to rewatch and rediscover this artist, poet, journalist and filmmaker and his own view of the other side of Rome.

Enjoy!

william

Wonderful News

2012 looks to be a busy year for Wonderful Films!

The "Disconnect" editorial team is cutting away (a false metaphor these days as all our "footage" really consists of digital bits of data) in preparation for upcoming screenings of the movie for our financier, test audiences and ultimately distributors.

A nerve-wracking process but one I thoroughly enjoy as the ability to "write" a film for the third and final time with the almost infinite ability we have to stretch and reorder and recolor and manipulate the film with music and sound never ceases to fascinate me.

Next up is the upcoming production of "Therese Raquin" which has been adapted by writer/director Charlie Stratton from Emile Zola's prescient, modern and nor-ish 19th century novel of an adulterous-turned-murderous affair in the lower depths of Paris.

Scouting, budgeting and casting are underway, as am I, off to Eastern Europe in search of remnants of Zola's epoch in these post-modern times.

Another favorite script and project I have been laboring on with my partners for years looks like it is almost set to go at the same time, so watch this space for more news, and for my inevitable 19th Nervous Breakdown to quote the song as I struggle to juggle all the various demands of these shows.

Exciting times!

I hope I can keep up the blog posts and don't disappoint you with what I bring back from my travels and experiences to share with you here.

                 

For those of you who have never seen the Marcel Carne version of Therese Raquin from the fifties, with Simone Signoret and Raf Vallone (as I had not until getting involved with this project) it is well worth checking out. In some ways radically different from the book, and therefore quite different from our version which stays true to the 19th century setting, Carne's film is set in the time it was made, the 1950's, and wholly invents a blackmail plot for the third act of the narrative. But it is quite intense and the performances are terrific, two virtues we certainly hope to equal!

Enjoy!

william

The Robert Capa of Children's Books

It is always nice when one of my blog posts opens a door to a connection and a discovery or further elaboration of a topic. Such was the case recently when I was contacted by Adam Randazzo from New York, who had read an old post here about the unusual children's photo books published back in the 1950's by husband-and-wife team Dale and Sally Rooks.

Hi William -

I found your name and blog while Googling for Dale Rooks. There isn't much information I can find about him online, but I have some pretty interesting photos he took during WWII. During that time, my grandfather was a medic in the coast guard. Dale was placed on my grandfather's ship and was a photographer for LOOK magazine at the time. My grandfather was given the duty of basically accompanying him wherever he wanted to go to while he was taking photographs. Their travels took them all over France, Italy, Iceland, and North Africa.

During the process, the two of them became extremely close friends. After the war was over, Dale travelled to my grandparents wedding and photographed it for them. As a wedding gift, he presented my grandfather with a large collection of photos that he had taken during the war. This collection is in a large book and contains over a hundred of photos that he took. My mother received the book after my grandfather  passed away at the age of 94 late last year.  I am currently in the process of scanning and digitizing the entire collection. When I am done with that, I will be putting up a website with all of the images as its a truly amazing collection.

You are correct that Dale died young. According to my grandfather, he lived fast and was completely fearless. Next time I see my grandmother, I will see if she can tell me more stories about him. I believe Dale died of lung cancer if I remember correctly - but I may be wrong. I will also try to find out what happened of his wife.

Anyways, after reading your blog, I felt that I would share this with you as you sound like someone who may really appreciate the history.

I have attached a couple of photos that Dale took. My grandfather is the medic in the one picture and it was in LOOK magazine.

Thanks again for making the blog post!

                                           Adam Randazzo / Western NY

Adam now has a great new blog up and is posting this collection of Dale Rook's war time photography.

It seems like a strange journey from being a Robert Capa to making books about Cute Bunnies and Puppies, but when you think about the myriad experiences of men at war struggling to come back to civilian life, perhaps not so odd after all.

Check it out!

william

Save The Tiger

Thanks to an awesome blog I newly discovered called "Letters of Note" which showcases the forgotten correspondence of the famous and not-so-famous for making the in-house correspondence of '70's Texas oilman Edward Mike Davis available online for our reading pleasure and enlightenment. In case you ever thought you had a tough boss, or were worried about mincing your words with your employees, Davis' epistolary prowess sets a new standard in management style.

 

An entire series of his vitriolic memos to staff can be enjoyed here under the heading The Tiger Oil Memos. Gives new meaning to Nelson Algren's old maxim "never trust a guy with three names."

Apparently Davis was the driver for a rich Denver family who got in good enough graces with the widow to inherit a chunk of cash when her room upstairs was ready. He parlayed that into his Tiger Oil concern at which he exercised his latent dictatorial powers. Former employees might be comforted to know that he ultimately went bust, but not before leaving behind these pearls of business school wisdom.

Too bad he never made it out to Hollywood - he could have written great dialogue for our most acerbic characters!

Enjoy!

william

100,000 Reasons To Say Thank You

Sometime today, the 100,000th visitor will make his or her way to my Blog. 

Thanks, whoever you are, regular visitor or newcomer, for finding this page, browsing around the archive, leaving a comment or not, and generally just being interested in the variety of content I write about and post and share here.

I know a lot of sites get hundreds or thousands or even millions of visitors a day, but for this small corner of the blogosphere, and the eclectic mix of fairly obscure and diverse topics covered here, with no commercial agenda to promote, I could never have imagined so many eyeballs landing here in the short time since Elsita convinced me to starting writing and designed my awesome blog banner.

Thanks to all my frequent flyers like Maiz, Diane, Cat, Kirsten, John, Margie, dutchbaby, Janet, Christine, Colleen, mh, frances, snippety gibbet, chicago observer and many others.

All of your comments are what I enjoy the most about hosting this place. You've taught me a lot and turned me on to new ideas and adventures when you open the doors to your own experiences or link to some interesting portal out there on the web.

I'm off to the Producers Guild of America "Produced by" conference today, speaking on a panel about foreign film co-production, but back here next week with some new "Inside Stories from a Hollywood Outlier".

Enjoy!

william

One Reader Writes...

I've really enjoyed and appreciated the many posted comments I've gotten from all of my blog readers. Once in a while I get emails as well, and the letter I got from DIANE from Friday's post about The Latin Quarter I found memorable and inspiring so I asked her if I could post it here to share with you all. 

She had written to me to let me know that her father was a musician who had often played at The Latin Quarter, and I asked if she could elaborate on this bit of personal history.

Here it is:

He's retired. He played with Woody Herman's The Herd. Can't remember the year, but I know it was a version of the band that got very good reviews, and other big bands and went on the road till I was about 3. He decided he was missing my childhood so he took the steady job at the Latin Quarter. When that closed he moved to Vegas and was the lead trumpet at the MGM Grand till he retired. Hearing problems run in my family and he finally couldn't hear enough to play. While at the MGM Grand he used to say he played music for elephants to dance to, because the band had to slow down or speed up for their moves.

He probably is online with some of the bands. He's also on some rock records, as a session player. I know he played with Tony Pastor, and Guy Lombardo. And Sammy Cahn, I think was the leader of the Latin Quarter band. 

I used to go to the union meetings with him. I think it was Wednesday afternoon at Roseland Ball Room. I remember the huge flowered carpet, and the characters. My childhood was very Broadway Danny Rose. And I know that film isn't really that far off becuause my father and Woody shared that era in NY and the small time national touring experience.

He was also 'Gabriel' in Anything Goes, an off Broadway revival. I think it starred Diahann Carroll. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at keeping track of his career. He and my mom divorced when I was 13, and his memory has now failed. i do know that he played with a band that supported Louis Armstrong's band, and that he used to ride on Louis bus and sit next to him and hear all his stories. One night the second trumpet was out and my dad got to sit in for him. He really loved Louis Armstrong. My father was abandoned by his father as a child, and I think that Louis was a real father figure to him. 

At any rate, his name is Dudley Harvey, and I never even thought of his recordings being online. I know that in those days, the credits and pay structure was much more casual than now. Due to the family situation on my step mother's side, I no longer have access to his record collection or his scrap books. I hope that changes at some point. for now, I hear his trumpet sweet and clear in my mind.

Best to you. 

Diane

Thanks Diane. There is a great blog called "My Parents Were Awesome", and I think this could fit in there quite nicely.

Enjoy!

william

Bird Is The Word!

Yes, the bird is the word, and this bird has the last word.

It has been a gas blogging all year, but this blogger is out of gas and taking a nice break for the winter break. 

Thank you for following, for reading, for commenting, for linking, for sharing, and for putting up with the eclectic stew served here thrice-weekly.

I hope to see you back here on January 4th for more inside stories from the hollywood outlier!

Enjoy the holidays wherever you are!

william

 

The Hidden Seed's Hidden Seed

As I'm sure many of you who read this blog know, my wife Elsita started a blog called The Hidden Seed this year in which she shares her own sense of personal style and self-expression and encourages her readers to join in her community of positive self-image. 

But, as they say, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, and every apple has a seed, so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise to discover that The Hidden Seed has a Hidden Seed, as we reveal with these pictures for the very first time the self-expression through personal style of Miss Natalie!

It is fun to watch our own little Hidden Seed grow her own Secret Garden, as she surprises us every day with her creative output and style choices. I can imagine that it won't be long before she is blogging too, and sharing with the world the universe inside that she has to offer.
 

Enjoy!

william

 

The Blog

And the winner of the best Blog one-year old birthday card is the irrepressible Maiz, new third time Mom but still finding time to surf the web and leave a comment - thanks, Maiz!

william