 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
IT ALL STARTED ON A FRONT PORCH SWING…
Back in 1991, we were relatively new arrivals in Nashville, Tennessee, anxious to explore our new home state. We'd read a newspaper article or seen a reference in a travel guide to a tiny hamlet about seventy miles northeast of town called Red Boiling Springs - a sulfur mineral waters resort that had its heyday back before World War II (and air conditioning!), when people would come by train from throughout the south to take the waters, stay and eat copiously in one of the grand hotels, listen to concerts at the bandshell, and enjoy some of the beauty that middle Tennessee offers even today.
From ANGEL FROM MONTGOMERY to BROKEN BRIDGES By the time we got to Red Boiling - as its called by its townspeople - the glory days were long over. Yet there was still something special about the place. We stayed at the Armour Hotel, ate communally at a round table in the dining room with other guests - we remember that famed country CD album cover designer Virginia Team was also visiting, and even took sulfur baths. As for imbibing the famous Fresh Start Double Twist water, reputed to turn your insides out in the best possible way, we passed. But there were plenty of pumps through town where you could - and can still - imbibe to your heart's content, absolutely free. Our first day there, after a humungous supper of fried chicken and every fixing known in the universe, we retired to the white front porch and commandeered two rocking chairs. As sunset turned to nightfall, which turned to a starry night whose quiet was scarcely broken by any passing vehicles, we started to play our favorite game, which is sketching what-if stories. The first Persian Gulf war was scarcely over at this point; both of us had been stuck by an incident near its end when the Iraqis had landed an unlucky SCUD missile on an American military barracks, whose personnel were all attached to a single Pennsylvania national guard unit. There were mass casualties, but the war was over shortly thereafter and the suffering of this Pennsylvania unit was drowned out by the patriotic fervor that only a quick and relatively bloodless victory can fuel. We started to play what-if. What if that unit had been from Tennessee? What if there'd been a bunch of boys from Red Boiling Springs in it? What if the adult daughter of the owner of this very inn had a younger brother who died in that SCUD attack? What if she had a teen daughter herself? What if the father of that teen daughter had been a guy from Red Boiling Springs, who also lost a brother in the SCUD attack. What if the adult daughter and the father had ended badly, split up, and he'd never even met his teen daughter? What if the grownups come back to this place for the military funerals of their kid brothers? That was it. In about twenty minutes, we had our story. We called it ANGEL FROM MONTGOMERY, renamed Red Boiling Springs as Montgomery and named our heroine Angela Dalton -- "Angel" to everyone in Montgomery We got lucky after that. A major movie studio that wasn't Parmount was looking for country scripts, and Donald Zuckerman recommended us to Sara Risher there. We had a deal to write ANGEL a few days later. But our script died a Hollywood death not long after we turned it in. So it goes. The story, though, never died. We rewrote ANGEL a few times over the next several years, both as our screenwriting skills improved and because various possibilities for production occasionally presented themselves. All of this was on spec, mind you. We were betting on ourselves. Most importantly, our producers Donald and Sara never gave up on the story. Fast forward to the spring of 2005, when Donald connected with Steven Goldmann, noted country video director. Steven read our re-re-re-re-rewritten script, loved it, and committed to it. More good fortune got it to Toby Keith's agent. Toby had been reading script after script - he wanted to do a movie project. He couldn't find the right one. He and his agent read ANGEL. This was the right one. Toby's attachment led to Paramount and MTV Films. Kelly Preston signed on. So did Burt Reynolds, Tess Harper, and Lindsay Haun (if you don't know Lindsay now, you will six months from now). Six months, later we were shooting in Atlanta after even more rewrites. The title has changed to BROKEN BRIDGES - when you hear the incredible song Toby wrote for the picture, you'll understand why. Some minor things is in the story changed - the inciting incident is now a military training accident instead of an incident from Gulf War I - but the spine stays remarkably the same. It was a great story on the porch at the Armour, and it's a great story now. Soon, we'll post more here, about the process of shooting a film. Thanks to Donald, Sara, Steven, Loretha, Matt, Ellen, Adina, all the people at Paramount and MTV Films/CMT Films who made it happen and were confident enough in our writing to have us stay on as sole screenwriters (and you know how infrequently that happens), to Toby, Kelly, Burt, Tess, and Lindsay…to the whole cast and crew…when those credits go by on the screen, each one of them represents the heart and soul of someone who turned over a part of their life to our words. We will be forever grateful. |
 |
