Our film, shot one year ago here in Iowa, now has a distributor! After carefully considering four options, we have signed with a distributor, Twin Engines Global.
Alisabeth Von Presley and Paula Sands
What does this mean? Starting soon – a date TBD – you will have the opportunity to enjoy Death by Fruitcake on one or more streaming services. This will be the transactional stage, which means you pay to view it. After a number of months, it will move to streamers where you can watch free, but usually with commercials.
Alisabeth, Keith Porter, Paula
If you’re a fan of the books in the Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures mysteries that Barb and I write (as “Barbara Allan,” you really won’t want to miss this. And I think any of you, who follow my work, will enjoy it as well. It’s a low-budget production, of course, funded largely by ourselves; but you likely enjoy seeing the amateur sleuth antics of mother and daughter Vivian and Brandy Borne brought to life.
We will keep you alerted as to when it becomes available on a streaming service (possibly more than one) as soon as we know.
Max and Nate Collins on set
I’m also pleased to announce that Twin Engines Global will be releasing physical media – a DVD – and I will provide ordering and availability info when I have it.
I love indie filmmaking and Death By Fruitcake represents my tenth production, starting with Mommy and Mommy’s Day, continuing on through Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, Shades of Noir, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, my two documentaries (V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop and Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane), and more recently Encore for Murder and Blue Christmas.
Filmmaking is definitely a sideline for me, at least as a writer/director. I’ve had several of my scripts produced beyond this – The Expert and recently Cap City. And I was lucky enough to land a bigtime, eventually Academy Award-winning production of Road to Perdition, as well as one season of an HBO series based on Quarry.
But I am definitely a regional director, usually operating on what would best be described as micro-budgets (the Mommy movies sported budgets that we solid for the video store era, where they saw considerable success). I am grateful to those of you who follow my novel-writing career with the support you’ve shown for these efforts.
And remember – what would the coming holiday season be without a slice of fruitcake!
On set
On set with Rene Mauck, Chad Bishop, Alsabeth Von Presley, Jeremy Ferguson, Kim Furness, Max Allan Collins
What We Did on Our Summer Vacation Pt. 3
Consider this a coda to last week’s post about my living through a hallucination-filled hospital stay, post-ablation surgery. This follow-up will not include me thinking I was trying to expose and then contain a murderer. Nothing so fun. I will make this brief, just to bring you up to date.
I returned home from my hospital stay on Thursday the 21 of this month (August). I was worn out from the mental gymnastics my brain put me through, but generally feeling okay. But over the next three days my energy declined to where I thought I might pass out any second.
Barb and I had our doctor’s nurse check my vitals. The nurse found my blood pressure to be dangerously low. We contacted my cardiologist’s office, where I was encouraged to wait two hours and have my vitals checked again. This led to another alarming result and we (Barb and I) were sent to the Muscatine ER, where after a bunch of tests I was returned by ambulance to the Rock Island Heart Center, where I’d been recently discharged.
That night and the next day were comfortable but concerning – my blood pressure was all over the place. Two great nurses, Paige and Jemma, kept my spirits up. Finally, on the third morning of my stay, my cardiologist gave me several options, the most appealing of which was getting a pacemaker.
There’s a certain irony here. Back in my Crusin’ days, I would often introduce “Ferry ‘Cross the Mercy” or “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” by saying, “Little-known fact – today, Gerry and the Pacemakers all have pacemakers!”
This amuses me less now.
As anyone who knows us will tell you, the best thing about Max Allan Collins is his wife Barbara. She stayed with me in my hospital room (which this time I didn’t imagine was a terrible hotel room or a holding cell for a serial killer) for the two nights I was there. Barb is the best partner anybody ever had.
The procedure went swiftly and well, and I was discharged on August 30. I have some discomfort and still don’t exactly have my zip – but I wrote this, didn’t I? With one arm in a sling?
No doubt God or fate or just the ticking clock will eventually defeat me. But for now I’m winning.
I will be back writing the new Quarry tomorrow – Labor Day. Aren’t you supposed to labor then?
M.A.C.
Tags: Antiques Series, Death by Fruitcake, Trash 'n' Treasures
We’ll take it as a very good sign that you’re pounding the keys, Labor Day or no. Keep slugging!
A new QUARRY is always a good thing!
No japes or jackanapery this time. When the old ticker needs augmentation, there is a more serious situation than your usual demented maunderings. Take care of yourself and do whatever needs to be done, my friend. Hope to see you soon.