As Constable Sanders, Clint Howard channels Buford T. Justice in "Alabama Moon." "Constable Sanders is a character in the film that needs to be intimidating, yet possessing degrees of humor," Howard says. When Clint Howard first read the script to the backwoods adventure "Alabama Moon," he figured the dastardly Constable Sanders would be a character he could sink his teeth into.
With his ranger hat, cowboy boots and aviator shades, the constable looks and acts a lot like a scaled-down version of Jackie Gleason's Buford T. Justice, complete with the over-the-top Southern dialect.
"Constable Sanders is a character in the film that needs to be intimidating, yet possessing degrees of humor," Howard says. "Although Constable Sanders isn't always funny, of course, he certainly needs to get a few laughs.
"I felt like this is a character that I could play," he adds. "I'm certainly the right type, right age. So I just felt like it was a good fit for me."
Adapted from the 2006 young-adult novel by Mobile resident Watt Key, the small-budget "Alabama Moon" opens in Birmingham theaters Friday.
Jimmy Bennett, who played the young James T. Kirk in the 2009 "Star Trek" movie, stars as the film's title character, Moon Blake, who lives in the woods with his survivalist father Pap (J.D. Evermore) but has to fend for himself after his old man dies.
Howard's Constable Sanders is convinced "that boy," as he calls Moon, is nothing but trouble, and he's out to get him.
"You need to believe that Constable Sanders would whup on the boy, if given the opportunity," says Howard, who was in Birmingham for the world premiere of "Alabama Moon" at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in 2009.
Key, a 1992 Birmingham-Southern College graduate, was inspired to write his book after he and two friends lived for two weeks in the swamplands along the Alabama River as part of an interim course at BSC.
"As a book, it's pretty edgy," Howard says. "I think it's certainly appropriate for a 12- or 13-year-old boy, or girl, to read, but it certainly had issues that are, to a degree, edgy.
"And Watt didn't pull any punches in describing the behaviors of the characters," he adds. "In fact, Moon's dad is a pretty troubled soul.
"Any fellow that separates himself from society, goes and lives out in the woods, raises a child outside of society with very little contact with humans -- something's not quite right, you know. Something is very much wrong."
Producers Kenny McLean, left, and Lee Faulkner, center, hang out with Howard before the "Alabama Moon" premiere at the 2009 Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham. (The Birmingham News/Jeff Roberts)A group of investors, including Tuscaloosa native Lee Faulkner and Fairhope real-estate developer Kenny McLean, raised about $10 million to adapt the book into a movie, and filming began in the fall of 2008 in and around Covington, La.
(At the time, Louisiana offered filmmakers better tax incentives than Alabama did, so, for financial reasons, the producers shot "Alabama Moon" out of state.)
The movie premiered the following fall at the Sidewalk festival, where it won the audience choice award for best narrative feature.
After playing additional film festivals in Austin, Dallas and Omaha, "Alabama Moon" will begin a limited theatrical run Friday in theaters in Birmingham, Gadsden, Tuscaloosa, Mobile and Pensacola.
Director Tim McCanlies, whose credits include "Secondhand Lions" and "Dancer, Texas Pop. 81," has done a good job shaping Key's book into a PG-rated picture that's suitable for the family, Howard says.
"He had to shave some of the rough spots around the characters," Howard says. "We've just sort of rounded it out so a mother and a father can comfortably take their children to go see this movie.
"It certainly isn't Disney, but it certainly isn't some sort of hard-to-watch social commentary movie."
All in the Howard family
From as far back as he can remember, Howard has grown up around and hung out with actors.
Father Rance Howard plays with his sons Clint, left, and Ron, right, in this family photo from 1960. Rance and Clint have since appeared in several of Ron's movies. (Photo courtesy of Everett Collection)His father, character actor Rance Howard, made his movie debut in the 1956 western "Frontier Women," and his older brother, Ron, began playing Opie Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show" in 1960.
Howard's mother, Jean Speegle Howard, later appeared in more than 30 TV shows, including the 1990s sitcoms "Married .$?.$?. With Children" and "Grace Under Fire."
"My dad was raised on a farm, and my mom was raised in the small town of Duncan, Okla., back in the Depression, but they both loved show business and they both loved the process," Howard recalls.
"So it was always in the house -- auditioning, dialogue, writing, talking about the business, rehearsing. Those are my first memories. So by osmosis, I had a really good grasp of what you had to do to be an actor."
When he was about 2 years old, Howard got his first acting break when his mother took him along to watch his older brother on the set of "The Andy Griffith Show."
"I showed up on the set wearing a little cowboy outfit, and Bob Sweeney, the director just thought that was the cutest thing," Howard remembers. "Bob asked Mom and Dad, 'Hey, we'd love to put Clint in a scene. Can we do that?'
"I ended up doing five episodes over the course of two or three seasons of 'The Andy Griffith Show.' I played a little character called Leon. I don't think I ever said anything, but I had some business with Barney (Don Knotts)."
By the time he was 8, Howard was starring in his own series, the family adventure "Gentle Ben," in which he played the precocious Florida boy whose best friend is a big, docile bear. It ran for two seasons on CBS.
Making movies with big brother Ron
Working mainly as a character actor, Howard, now 51, has since appeared in more than 200 films and TV shows, including several movies directed by his big brother, Ron -- "The Paper," "Apollo 13," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "Cinderella Man" and "Frost/Nixon" among them.
"He's hired me a lot, but listen, I wish I was in 'The Da Vinci Code,'" Howard says. "The residual checks would be phenomenal. I wasn't in 'Ransom,' and I wasn't in 'Angels & Demons.'
"But listen, when he sees a part for me, he trusts me, and casting is a lot about trust," he adds. "We really are very close as brothers, and he's very comfortable hiring me. He knows what he's getting, and I completely know how to deliver what he needs."
Howard has one of those distinctive faces that seems to show up everywhere, but he says he doesn't work as often as it might appear.
"If I work 20 days a year, it's a big year," he says. "Part of the trick is never say no. Little movies, small parts, just anything -- I like to do it.
"A lot of times, too, if I don't work for two or three months and some little job offer comes along, I will grab it just to get out of the house.
"I certainly will occasionally turn work down," he adds. "I've got standards, but I like to work."