Ken Hechler with President Truman

Ken Hechler worked for FDR, Truman and Adlai Stevenson, three of America’s greatest political leaders. He was a speech-writer for Truman and was recently photographed by Vanity Fair magazine for a story on presidential staffs. He is also author of one of the best books about Truman, “Working with Truman - A Personal Memoir of the White House Years.” He was recently made an honorary trustee of the Truman Library, often lecturing about Truman at university campuses, libraries, and other sites around the country. He was sad to hear that Margaret Truman Daniel, Truman’s only child died, recently in Chicago. The statement below is posted on the memorial website for Margaret Truman and has been used by the media around WV and the country. Read NY Times obiturary….

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Amos Perrine in my office…note poster over this left shoulder 

Ruby in Paradise is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2008. For at least a decade I have had a poster for the film hanging in my office at the WV Cultural Center, partially because of the great look of a young Ashley Judd looking so happy with the Florida coastline in back of her, partially because I purchased a 16 mm copy of the film by my friend Victor Nunez who was a pioneer of the independent feature film.  ( I also bought a 16 mm print of his first feature, “Gal Young Un”(1979) which is based on a story Marjorie Kennan Rawlings, author of “The Yearling.”)  

 It’s the favorite film of a lady who works in the Division of Culture & History who has asked me to give her my poster. ( At one time I had a dozen copies, but somehow they disappeared along with hundreds of other great film posters I collected in Film Services.) Hopefully the South Charleston Museum will be able to fit a showing in to its 2008 schedule since no one else in the state will.  Here is a nice article by one of WV’s leading experts on film, Amos Perrine, a well-known activist, lawyer, bicyclist in Charleston.

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Bill Richardson in front of one of several Sundance theaters

Bill Richardson flew to Sundance recently to attend an event at Slamdance where one of his film scripts was a national finalist. Several years ago he directed his first feature film, editing scenes from the “Flash Gordon” TV series into his own film that he calls “Crash Gordon.” It had its world premiere at the 2005 WV Intl. Film Festival in downtown Charleston. Here is his report on some of his adventures at the world’s greatest film festival for independent filmmakers.

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Hazel Dickens sitting with John Lilly - photo by Carl Fleischauer, Library of Congress folklife

John Lilly, editor of Goldenseal and a leading WV musician, will be introducing his long-time friend Hazel Dickens and presenting Mimi Pickering’s great film about her, “It’s Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song”  at The Folk Alliance conference in Memphis. The film will be shown at 2 PM on Saturday followed by Lilly’s interview of Dickens.

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Argeo speaking before US premiere of his new film on Spanish people moving to WV and Pa in May 2007 at The South Charleston Museum

Luis Argeo will be present to introduce his great film. “AsturianUS,”  about people from northern Spain emigrating  to WV and Pennsylvania on Thursday, January 31, 7 :15PM at the King Juan Carlos Center of NYU. Prof. James D. Fernandez will introduce Argeo and help in the discussion. (more…)

The National Film Preservation Foundation has been released DVDs of important films from around the United States’ many film archives since 2000 when it began the single most important series of such films ever. “Treasures of American Film Archives” included two films made in WV and many others from all over. In 2007 they released “Treasurers III - Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934″a collection of DVDs with 12.25 hours that include 48 films on almost every possible issue from atheism to homelessness to abortion to factory safety.

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Dr. Fred Pollock and his wife Carol finally made it to Sundance this year. He’s having a great year, traveling to Israel to lecture on emergency orthopedic surgery, hosting the 10th year of the WV Jewish Film Festival, and directing ER orthopedic surgery at CAMC - which won a national award for its care of people getting hip and knee replacements. Below are some of the picts he took at Sundance plus the “Smile” he got from the Charleston Gazette…..

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Suzy McGinley, WVLC children and young adult librarian, loaned me her copy of a great new book about early cinema, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” It won a national award for best children’s novel. Read the NY Times story about it.

There is a brand-new film called “Renewal” that starts with a story about evangelical Protestants in Appalachia fighting uncontrolled coal mining including mountaintop removal mining. One of the people  interviewed is West Virginia’s own Allen Johnson, co-founder of The Christians for the Mountains. Marty Ostrow, the director of the film, called me to tell me about it. It consists of eight separate stories about various religious groups fighting the destruction of the environment.

The groups include Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim and Native American. If a person joins their Renewal Project, they will send them a copy of the DVD for showing in their local communtiy. The entire film is 90 minutes long, but each story can be watched separately. The first one that includes Johnson is 11 minutes, 20 seconds long, including footage not shown in the 90 minute feature. He told me, “Most peple are completely unaware of what is happening in Appalachia about mountaintop removal mining.” Hopefully the film will be shown all over Appalachia, and all over the country, and world.  To contact Marty Ostrow directly - finecut@comcast.net.

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Scene from 2007 reenactment

Donna May, the owner of the Matewan Depot Restaurant and director of the Matewan Massacre Reenactment, called me recently about getting John Sayles to attend the 2008 event. I suggested she call Pam Haynes, director of the WV Film Office, since she helped bring Sayles here several years ago for the WV Intl Film Festival which she once headed. Sayles film, “Matewan” is out on DVD, and The History Channel recently did its own reenactment for “Hillbilly - the Real Story.” I know that at least two groups are presently working on making more extensive films about The Battle of Blair Mountain which took place as a result of the Matewan Massacre.