The Red Scarf movie

I've just finished reviewing the local list of movies showing--pretty sorry lot, I must say. But, yes, there have been some great movies this year. However, for every great--can't wait to see it movies---there have been 10 or maybe a 100 pieces of trash. I go to a lot of movies, and the overdone sequels and plotless stuff I've sat through this year has been unreal. And it's not because there's not any material out there. It's because the mind
set of the movie producers are locked into catering to a 13 year old---they buy the tickets don't they? Yes, they do, but feeding them mindless trash is not the way to do it---in my opinion. I have a published book, The Red Scarf, that has great characters, an actual plot, and a super ending. I have had dozens of readers tell me it would make a great movie. I agree, and I've let a couple of studios read it. No response---figures.
I know I'm not the only author that sees crap adapted to the screen and watches in dismay as a plotless piece of junk fills the screen. Well, I've sounded off enough---more later.

A look at 1944

When I started writing The Red Scarf, and set the novel in 1944, I realized it was going to take some research into the how much, what happened, and when it happened in that year. I started with the Internet, but I got my real insight by interviewing some elderly men and women that lived during that time period. Of course, the cost of everything was so different it was unreal---Eight cents for a double feature movie--or I should say "a picture show" and eleven cents in the fanciest theater in town--if you were under 12. Paper boys were paid $3.50 a week. Even though the Depression was over, money was in tight supply, and hunting for coke bottles to turn in for a two cent deposit was an everyday occurrence. Buying a comic book--or I should say, "Funny book" was a real treat---ten cents for a Captain Marvel funny book. Cokes and candy bars were a nickle. In my novel, Richard, the paperboy, is determined to buy the prettiest girl in the 6th grade a red scarf---it's cashmere and costs $15.00, an impossible sum for a young boy to earn in 1944---but he's resourceful.


But it turned out there was a bonus by having the novel set in 1944. When I started writing the novel, I didn't intend for a lot of the readers to be Seniors, but the flavor and nostalgia of 1944 pulled them in. When I sign books at a bookstore or for a book club, I always sell more books to adults than the youth market.



Will there be more? Yes, I've finished the sequel and it's full of the same characters as The Red Scarf--I'll keep you posted on publication.