World Premiere
My dad was the baby of a big Irish family that emigrated from County Mayo in Ireland and finally settled in Omaha, Nebraska. It was decided he would be "the family priest" by his mother, Margaret, at a very early age. Every proper Irish Catholic family ought to have one, or so went the prevailing turn-of-the-century thought (20th, not 21st.), and Margaret was a woman who got her way.
She actually chose well. Her oldest son, Philip, was brain damaged at the hands of a forceps-wielding midwife on a South Dakota homestead. He never learned to talk - a definite anomaly in my family - and was beloved by Margaret but deemed un-priestly. Her next son was just born a hellion; no other way to describe it. Bobby loved whiskey, women, gambling - and, when none of the above was available, he settled for a fight. He had an aversion to school, authority and church. When he impregnated the daughter of a local judge, he was run out of town on a railcar that he didn't hop off of until he got to California. Un-priestly.
Then came a slew of girls: Eileen, Thelma, Maggie, Bridget and Catherine. Margaret was ready to give up the dream. At the age of 44, she delivered her final "oops" baby - a boy, James Patrick; my dad. She had her priest. He was a mama's boy from the get-go: quiet, smart, obedient, utterly devoted to his mother, not like Bobby the hellion or poor Philip the mute.
So, when the time came, Jimmy went off to seminary and all was well in Grandma Margaret's world. Enter my mother, Margaret Mary Quinlan, 5-feet-2, eyes of blue, a mountain of singing talent, cute as a button and not afraid to have some fun on a dance floor. My dad heard her sing the Ave Maria in church one Sunday and went "backstage" for an introduction after mass. Eight children later, including yours truly, the rest is history. My dad went to work as a traveling salesman after serving his country in WWII.
My mother got busy making a home. Over time, she won the affection of her mother-in-law.
I began to wonder, one day, what kind of priest my dad would have made. Out came Into Temptation. When I finally raised the funds for the film, he was 90. He had suffered two strokes and some slow-growing cancer was detected on his rib cage. But his mind was sharp as ever and he was excited.
"Go make that movie," he told me, "and tell the truth! " So I did. He called me every week during the shoot, sometimes on the set. I shot the film in 20 days and went like hell in post. This schedule was budget driven, as all indie schedules are, but I had a private agenda.
I finished in December 2008. My dad had been moved to a hospice-care facility by that time. The day after Christmas, I brought the film home to Nebraska and went to visit him. I barely recognized him. He weighed 115 pounds. I asked him how he felt and he said "fine. I just can't get warm."
I asked him if he wanted to watch a movie and he said, "Let's go."
I wheeled him out to the Hospice Day Room where they had a big-screen plasma television with bad sound. I announced to the staff that we'd be showing a film no one in the world had ever seen. All were welcome. A handful of wheelchairs appeared and one gurney - maybe 15 customers in all. I lowered the lights and started the film.
Ninety-five minutes later, I brought the lights up. No one had died, no one was asleep, and the Q&A started:
"How'd you get the damn camera in that little confessional?"
"How'd ya think of that little girl from Broadway for that role?"
"Where'd you find that priest? Sisto? He was so real."
Half an hour later, I took my Dad back to his room. I said, "What'd you think?"
He said, "I think you are a talented enough writer not to have to resort to the F-enheimer as often as you do." Noted. Then he said, "It's powerful. You make me proud."
Two weeks later, at 4 a.m., I was holding his hand while he slipped off like an old Irish proverb, gentle as a warm summer breeze at your back.
As much as I am looking forward to my official premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival, as exciting as my first film's premiere was at the Sundance Film Festival, they don't/won't compare to the real premiere of Into Temptation at The Hospice House on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska, in the dead of winter, 2009.
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INTO TEMPTATION