Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: James Atlee Phillips

From: Nathan Cain ( IndieCrime@gmail.com)
Date: 10 Apr 2008


Asheville, where I spent most of my youth, gets used in the movies a lot these days (the most recent big one I can think of was Robert Redford's The Clearing, which was by all accounts terrible), but I don't think any of them will be remembered as fondly as Thunder Road.

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 1:03 AM, Richard Moore < moorich@aol.com> wrote:
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> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
> >
> > Richard wrote:
> >
> > "Finally, James Atlee Phillips belongs in my personal hall of fame for
> > having written the screenplay to that wonderful drive-in favorite
> > "Thunder Road" starring Robert Mitchum."
> >
> > For anyone in the DC area, the movie is playing at AFI Silver
> > (www.afi.com/silver) several times between 4/18 and 4/24. I'm looking
> > forward to finally seeing it on something larger than a TV screen.
> >
> > Mark
> >
>
> Man, I saw that flick first at the Starlight Drive-in on Moreland
> Avenue south of Atlanta and saw it at least twice more at the McDonough
> Theater. It played forever in the south.
>
> My cousins in Asheville, NC took me to all the locations where the
> movie was filmed. They had a fiftieth anniversay of the movie in
> Asheville last year.
>
> From what I understand the final script for Thunder Road was hammered
> out by Phillips and Mitchum in the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.
> Friends, let me tell you, the Grove Park Inn may not be heaven but if I
> wake up there when I die, I won't complain. My Uncle Andy and his
> brothers brought the rocks in for their massive fireplaces and if it
> was good enough for F. Scott, it suits me too.
>
> According to Lee Server's excellent biography of Robert Mitchum, James'
> brother David Atlee Phillips, a senior official at the CIA (and a
> player in the Bay of Pigs adventure), made some phone calls that opened
> the door to help at the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms unit at the
> Treasury Department).
>
> Richard Moore
>
>



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