Mystery Train, Memphis Film Prize return

John Beifuss
Japanese tourists Yuki Kudo and Masatoshi Nagase encounter Rufus Thomas in Central Station in "Mystery Train," which began shooting in Memphis 30 years ago Aug. 4.

A key event in the fortunes of the local filmmaking community in general and New York director Jim Jarmusch in particular, "Mystery Train" was celebrated Saturday night with a reunion that marked the 30th anniversary of the start of principal photography on the film in Memphis on Aug. 4, 1988.

Cast and crew members from New York and elsewhere gathered at the Arcade restaurant on South Main, swapping stories about Jarmusch and such late-great "Mystery Train" cast members as Memphis' "Clown Prince of Dance," Rufus Thomas; inimitable rock-and-roll-and-hoodoo shaman, Screamin' Jay Hawkins; and Joe Strummer, the co-founder of The Clash.

"I remember Screamin' Jay Hawkins said to me when I walked into the production office, 'You're Bonnie and I'm Clyde, but I don't know if I want a life of crime,'" said Memphis-born, New York-based actress and director Jodie Markell, who plays a Sun Studios tour guide in the film. 

Jarmusch did not attend, but he contributed a self-shot video message that was at once upbeat — "I hope you have a blast down there and celebrate each other and just life in general and all the things that make it interesting and valuable and amazing," he said — and bittersweet.

"In the 30 years that have passed we've lost some of our collaborators, some remarkable people that made 'Mystery Train' possible," said Jarmusch, wearing large sunglasses, his trademark thatch of white hair and what might have been a Wu-Tang Clan T-shirt (yellow triangles that appeared to be the top of the Wu-Tang logo were visible at the bottom of the screen). 

Jarmusch made special mention of Robby Müller, "the great cinematographer, my dear friend," who died July 3 at 78. Adding a "wow" for emphasis, he referred to Thomas, Hawkins and Strummer ("my brother") as "unparalleled musical entities," and paid tribute to deceased cast members RIck Aviles, Richard Boes and Rockets Redglare, who contributed to "Mystery Train" in "very beautiful ways." 

Summarized Jarmusch: "So respect out to those we've lost — respect out to all of us that are still here celebrating each other and our fragile consciousness."

Stax soul queen Carla Thomas attended the 30th anniversary of "Mystery Train" party at the Arcade.

Some others who attended the event included — to name only a few — singer Carla Thomas (representing her father, Rufus, and late brother, Marvell Thomas, who both appear in the film); former Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris (who not only provided official assistance to the movie but appears in the brief role of "Man with Briefcase"); and Sherman Willmott, who was a production assistant and hosts a key bonus feature on The Criterion Collection's definitive "Mystery Train" DVD and Blu-ray. The food at the party included Elvis-style fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, cut into bite-sized pieces, and train-shaped chocolates, provided by Becky Dinstuhl of Dinstuhl's Fine Candy.

Dinstuhl's train-shaped chocolates were on the "Mystery Train" party menu.

Released in 1989, "Mystery Train" was the first widely seen and widely acclaimed movie to be shot from a Memphis production base since King Vidor's "Hallelujah" 60 years earlier. The movie not only affirmed Jarmusch's identity as one of America's most distinctive and interesting filmmakers but "kept the Film Commission from shutting down," according to Memphis Film Commissioner Linn Sitler: The production arrived at a time when government officials were considering eliminating funding for the film office. The success of "Mystery Train" demonstrated that Memphis could benefit from abetting the film industry, and such movies as "The Firm," "The Client" and "The People vs. Larry Flynt" soon followed.

Set over a single haunted (perhaps literally) night in Memphis, "Mystery Train" tells a trio of stories, all involving visitors to the city, from Japan, Italy and England. The focus is on down-and-out Memphis — places of grit-and-grind, before the term was coined, but also places of serendipitous magical mystery, as when Rufus Thomas suddenly appears to speak in Japanese to a young pair of rockabilly-loving Yokahama tourists. 

A key scene is set in the Arcade, which production manager Kathie Hersch, who came to Memphis from Salem, New York, for the reunion, called "the center of the 'Mystery Train' universe," which made it an appropriate location for the party.

Across the street from another important location, the now-vanished Arcade Hotel (remembered by most as "a flophouse"), the restaurant functioned as "the nexus of the film — the center of the Bermuda Triangle, where Elvis' ghost could appear," Hersch said. She said she and other crew members often spent mornings literally mopping up moisture from the street between the hotel and restaurant with paper towels, because Müller wanted "a dry kind of street — he didn't want the corny neon-reflection look."

Michael Berry, location manager on the film, said Jarmusch's movie preserves an underdog Memphis, before the Grizzlies, the craft breweries, the revitalized Overton Square, the National Civil Rights Museum and the other injections of money and creativity boosted its confidence. "He really captured what it was like back then — the ghostliness."

'Last Day' and a gala day for Kevin Brooks and the Memphis Film Prize 

Rosalyn R. Ross stars in director Kevin Brooks' "Last Day," which screens Nov. 1 during the Indie Memphis Hometowner Narrative Shorts Competition (after having already won this year's Memphis Film Prize).

Young Memphis director Kevin Brooks was the winner of the third annual Memphis Film Prize, earning the event's $10,000 cash award for his short "Last Day," which chronicles what might be the final hours of freedom for a father and husband facing a possible jail sentence on the day of his daughter's talent show.

"I made it because I wanted to get the message out there about the injustice of the prison system," said Brooks, 24, a graduate of the film-and-TV production program at the University of Memphis. "I really wanted to show what a person might have to go through, not knowing if they might be about to lose the next 20 years of their life for something they didn't even do."

The film, which stars Ricky D. Smith and Rosalyn R. Ross as the parents of a young girl played by Peighton Cantrell, was voted the best of the 10 Memphis Film Prize finalists screened Friday and Saturday at the Malco Studio on the Square. The votes of moviegoers counted for 50 percent of a film's score, with a panel of jurors determining the rest.

This year, there were a lot of votes: According to Film Prize organizers, a record 1,300 people attended the eight Film Prize screenings, doubling last year's turnout. The winner was announced during a Sunday ceremony at downtown's Arcade restaurant. (The finalists had been selected by the jurors from close to 50 submissions, shot here between January and June.)

A former student participant in a Sundance Film Festival program intended to encourage "emerging filmmakers" with a "clear artistic passion" for cinema, Brooks has, in turn, become a mentor for local teen filmmakers via an Indie Memphis youth program. He had been a finalist in the first two years of the Film Prize, but had not won in the  past.

The first offshoot of the well-established Lousiana Film Prize, the Memphis Film Prize is an annual event that attempts to promote the economic impact of local filmmaking by requiring that eligible films be shot in Memphis or Shelby County. The films must be short, between 5 and 15 minutes in length.

Memphis Film Prize local coordinator David Merrill, actor Ricky D. Smith, director Kevin Brooks and Film Prize founder Gregory Kallenberg at Sunday's award event,

Gregory Kallenberg of Shreveport, the founder and director of the Film Prize Foundation, which provides the prize money and oversees the events in Memphis and Louisiana, said this year's Memphis Film Prize fulfilled its mission, which is "to inspire great filmmaking, and then reward it in a very direct and profitable way." He said this year's entries "raised the bar in ambition, vision, and technical skill."

The submissions also were a testimony to the widespread appeal of filmmaking as an expressive art. At a time when Hollywood faces increased criticism for a lack of diversity behind the camera, four of the Memphis Film Prize finalists were the work of black directors, and most of these had sociopolitical themes. For example, "Minority," by Will Robbins, imagines an alternate-world America of majority black rule.