This article caught my eye when it mentioned that Graham Gordy, helped pen the box office summer bomb starring Mike Myers, "The Love Guru", but his own film, "War Eagle, Arkansas," about a friendship between two young men in Arkansas, one with cerebral palsy and one who is non-disabled, is still looking for a distributor.From the Erie, Pa., Times-News, where "War Eagle, Arkansas," is showing at the Great Lakes Independent Film Festival:
Sounds like a feel-good, made-for-TV movie, the kind of hokey premise a first-time screenwriter would dream up.
Goes like this: In a small, bucolic Arkansas town, two boys grow up as best friends. One is handsome and athletic but shy, due to a stuttering problem. The other is smart and funny but physically challenged due to cerebral palsy.
After he graduates from high school, the athletic youth is offered a baseball scholarship; it's his chance to get away and do something big. But he'd have to leave behind his best buddy and the town that made him who he is.
That's the thrust of Graham Gordy's screenplay -- his first produced one -- for "War Eagle, Arkansas." But the kicker is this: It's based on a true story.
"The producer of the film was Vincent Insalaco; it's based on his son and his son's best friend," said Gordy. "I'm originally from Arkansas, and at the time I was in New York, going to grad school. Vincent approached me about writing a story about their relationship, and I'd never met the two kids.
"At first, I was terrified about the idea of writing about people with disabilities. I didn't know how to handle it. Then, I met the kids. I went back at Christmas. And all of a sudden it wasn't a story about two kids with disabilities; it was the story of a remarkable friendship between them."
What's most remarkable, said Gordy, is how the boys, named Enoch and Wheels in the film, complete each other.
"They function extraordinarily well together and are one, very complete human being together. Apart, they really don't know how to live," he said. "The guy with cerebral palsy is the mouth and brains of the operation, and Enoch, the kid with the stutter, is the body. And seeing them work together is great."
Gordy was nervous when he let the real Vince and Wheels read the screenplay.
"There was a silence and then, 'We really like the script. But I'm not sure about the name Enoch ...' I was like, 'OK, is that it?'" There were a handful of things they gave me notes on but they were mostly complimentary.
So are audiences and critics. "War Eagle, Arkansas" has won several audience-choice awards at festivals, and Easter Seals endorsed it, calling it "a perfect coming-of-age story about friendship and life choices."
So, Gordy's first produced script turned out well. Not the second one, though. He co-wrote "The Love Guru" with Mike Myers, a summer flop.
"The finished project is a little unrecognizable from what it started as," Gordy said. "I was hired to help write a Mike Myers' movie, not write a Graham Gordy movie that Mike Myers would star in."
Of course, "Love Guru" played nationally; "War Eagle, Arkansas" still has no distributor.
"We're getting into film fests all over," Gordy said. "The response has been really terrific."
