Lights! Cameras! Censors? Rough Cuts is a fascinating, funny story about what happened in the 1920’s when the silent movies went silent and the talkies took over… and so did State censors. Particularly one Reverend on the board in a tiny town in Ohio who almost brought down the movie industry single handedly. Filled with behind-the-scenes drama, secrets which needed to be well, kept secret and one director shooting his last and probably best work who must now deal with one person who could possibly ruin his masterpiece and destroy all his hard artistic work!
Patrick J. Shepard is topping off a long-distinguished career as a movie director with one last motion picture called The Mating Seas-On. He sees great potential in the casting, and all the workers involved. Yes, two of the stars went through a nasty divorce (to each other) and the only young actress has a stage mother to rival any he has ever seen, but as they work through the problems, he sees a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Until…
Revered Harold Dawdry, a minister has been appointed to the Ohio Film Review Censorship Board after the death of the previous minister. who is young and trying to make the parish warm up to him in some way. He decides to not only take this new job seriously, but act as someone who can see moral and ethical issues in just about any movie scene. So much so, he decides to show his parishioners through having them reenact said scenes during the Masses rather than give a sermon. Needless to say, he becomes quite popular with the church goers. But…
Unfortunately, the movie studios whose movies are being cut into pieces and now need to be reedited begin taking a beating. Enter Shepard who for some reason Dawdry has become obsessed with his career and not only wants to take apart his swan song, but make the story lose its heart and soul.
What happens when said director is forced to meet said censor is nothing but genius. Rough Cuts will not only give the reader a lesson in what it took to make some of the first talking movies, but will also have them appreciate the humor, deception but heart that went into the actors and the new motion pictures industry.
Thank you #JackieKarneth #KoehlerBooks #GlennR.Miller #RoughCuts for the advanced copy.
Amazon.com: Rough Cuts: 9798897470747: Miller, Glenn R.: Books
