Texas Extra: Extended ‘Riverbend’ film interview

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Hi there, Laura Rice here with a Texas Extra.

It's been a while since we've brought you extended and special content for our podcast

and digital audiences, but I think you'll find this conversation worth the wait.

Director Sam Firstenberg and film Restoration Pioneer Michael J. Dennis joined me in the

studio this week to talk about the movie River Bend.

As usual, I included as much of the conversation as I could on air, but there's always good

stuff left out, and in this case, a whole second wave of an interview that came about based

on the question of someone listening in the control booth.

So you'll hear me, thank our guests, and then get back into it.

Hope you enjoy.

It's the Texas Standard, I'm Laura Rice.

This is nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, but long before Michael B. Jordan took

on the dual role-fighting racist vampires in the South, there was another story of black

resistance filmed right here in Texas.

River Bend was produced in 1989, and though the story is set in Georgia, it was shot in

East Texas around Waxahatchee.

Despite some early recognition, the film was largely lost to history until it caught the

attention of a man committed to restoring films featuring black stories.

Now River Bend is again available to audiences this time in 6K, and it's showing this weekend

at the Austin Film Society Theatre.

Director Sam Furstenberg is in the Texas Standard studio with me.

Sam welcome to the Texas Standard.

Hey, thank you for having me, and I'm happy to be here with you.

I also have with me Michael J. Dennis, the man behind Real Black Renaissance and the Restoration

of River Bend.

Michael, thanks to you.

Hey, thank you, Laura.

It's great to be here in Texas.

Absolutely.

I want to start Michael with you and how this film first caught your attention.

Well, it goes all the way back to my days of video library.

I was a buyer at a video store back in the 80s, and I never watched it then.

But then there's a gentleman named Charles Woods, who's a mentor of mine, my podcast co-host,

and he had five copies in his collection of River Bend on VHS.

When I asked him, why do you have so many, so you have to watch this movie.

It's unlike any other film that you'll see.

Long story short, I ended up putting it on my YouTube channel right before the pandemic,

and that was in 2019, fast forward to 2021.

Sam Furstenberg sends me an email and I'm saying, oh, this is going to be a season to

sit.

He says, no.

He said, no, thank you for putting this up, sharing this movie with the public, because

it was independently produced, and it's considered an orphan film.

So we start talking, and all these magical things started to happen, right Sam?

No, correct, absolutely.

Magical is the right word.

Sam, tell me a little bit about the synopsis.

Michael said, you know, this was a special film, what makes it special?

This is a story about racial injustice in the segregated south in the 1960s during the

height of the civil rights movement.

But the different, the unique thing about this movie, that in this movie, it's not about

movie, like all the other, the rest of Hollywood movies were the white hero comes to save the

black problem or to resolve the black problem, but rather the black population of a small town,

which is called Riverband in the South, they're resolving and solving the problem, the

racial problem that they are facing by themselves.

It's self-reliance, this movie and the Spook who sat by the door, the only two movies in

film history, they're show this, this sort of agency among black characters.

Well Sam, tell me about the initial reception, this is, you know, this is sort of after the

black exploitation movement, right, what did it receive like in the late 80s, early 90s?

So you have mentioned that this was privately financed, the movie was privately financed,

so right away it's not a Hollywood corporation type of a movie, and it was made in Texas

in the Waxaji area, with the Texas money, the investment was locally.

When the movie was finished, when we finished the filming, when we finished the editing,

the producers, the local producers sold it to a company in Hollywood.

It was a small independent distribution company, which somehow managed to give it to a bigger

company, Paramount Video.

And Paramount Video came out with the movie, from my understanding with very few copies

of the movie, for a rental shop at the time, in the 1990s, whoever, remember there was

a rental shop in every corner, every block.

But this was a limited number of the VHS cassettes that came out.

I understand that there were few screening in the East Coast, there was none in the West

Coast.

I never heard about any.

Therefore, because it was such a limited distribution, I don't remember reading any reviews

at the time or any critics at the time, so we really don't know.

We don't know how it was accepted, except one thing that we know that it was different

for the time, for the 1990s, very different.

And I remember one review in either variety or Hollywood Reporter, that's the only one

I ever read, and they mentioned how radical, how radical the idea is, how difficult.

The movie came on the heels of Mississippi Burning, if I'm not wrong, right, Michael?

Yeah, came out and was released in 1989, home video in 1990.

So you have to realize that this is Mississippi Burning's 1988, so this was sold by Samuel

and Valerie Advance as the answer to Mississippi Burning, and it should have really been part

of the conversation of 1989, which is, do the right thing, driving Miss Daisy.

That's what was happening in the Zeitgeist, and this is a movie that was set in 1966,

made 1989, and it's still relevant today, because it's dealing with issues that we're

still confronted with in America.

But in a provocative and radical way, and that's why I don't know how really how audience

has reacted, because it wasn't widely enough released, so yeah, I mean, the reason I didn't

watch that video library immediately was because of sold as a straight-to-video action

film, and there were literally straight-to-video action movies coming out every week.

So this kind of got lost in the shuffle for me personally, but again, Charles Woods

and a lot of fans of Steve James and Margaret Avery, let's start to it, right?

But it took some time, to get traction for this movie, to get traction, it took time.

Among the collector, among the people who understood, among the people who did it, well,

for a long time it was the only film of Steve James as a people who couldn't get on DVD

or Blu-ray, and we're working to correct that now with this release and our premiere.

Well, I want to talk for a minute just about how challenging it was to find a version

that you could restore.

I mean, this was on VHS tapes everywhere, but is the Wikipedia page true?

I mean, is this real, a 35-millimeter found in South Africa?

Is that right?

Yeah, Sam and I, we start talking, like I said, he, I thought it was going to be a season

to assist.

We start talking in this magical thing happened, a print, a 35-millimeter print shows

up on eBay while we're having conversations.

So I, I said, well, let me bid on it and see, you know, because it, it seemed like it

would be incredibly rare, like it might be the only print that exists outside of the Library

of Congress.

So I won the print, we went about restoring that print, and then we found out it was missing

seven minutes.

So that's when Valerie Vance comes into our life, you know, the producer, yeah.

The producer, widow of Samuel Vance, the writer and co-producer of the film along with

Troy and Virginia Jail, we have to give everybody their fair share credit.

And she said, I have a print.

Wow.

No, she not print.

Oh, no.

She had a mold issue.

She had a mold issue.

So we're back to square one, but what she was able to do when we ran into Dennis Doros

at missing movies, he was able to locate the negative of the film.

And that's where we are able to do a 6K restoration of the film with the help of Real Revive

or Austin Squatery, who's based out of Pennsylvania.

So it looks better than ever, right?

Yeah.

And again, because it is a privately financed for a small company, we would not imagine

that even the negative exists somewhere.

Usually if it's a big company, if you deal with 20th century folks, universal, everything

is organized, you know, or everything is.

But when you deal with a privately small, tiny company, and they sold it to a company

that went bankrupt.

So where is the negative, where are the elements?

So there was a lot of detective work.

It wasn't that easy, like Michael Schrugg's.

The labs were all done in Texas, and those labs are all long gone, absorbed by video labels

and so on and so forth.

So we literally thought they just scuttled the whole thing.

And then again, missing movies.org located the negative for us, and we're able to work

out a deal to bring it back to audiences.

Yeah.

Sam, I want to take you back to, you know, 1988 Texas.

What was it like being in that community, trying to tell this story?

Well, I'm telling it again and again to everybody.

We were in the Waxhatch area.

We stayed in this auto Texas, that was our base.

The shooting, most of the movies in Venice, Texas, which is in this area.

And I must stretch the point that I have a little bit advantage here by being a foreigner,

but you didn't grow in a high school and didn't go to elementary school or an American school.

So I was able to kind of watch it and there was no racial tension.

I must say so.

Maybe some underneath current that I didn't feel, but not at all.

The little town was so helpful to us, as you know, most of the cast of the movie is black.

There were very few white actors.

And the crew was like 90%, 95% white persons and very few black people in the technical crew.

But I never felt any tension whatsoever here in Texas.

And we are at the end of the 80s.

So I must say it was harmonious work and we really worked very nice.

A lot of fun on the set, a lot of joking and laughing.

It was a pretty happy set, pretty happy production, I must say so.

I'm so glad to hear that.

I want you to brag just a little bit about your cast.

We've mentioned Steve James, who tragically died not too long after this film.

And Margaret Avery, who was just off of her Academy Award-nominated performance in the color purple.

Julius Tenon, who's actually a Texan himself.

From here, from Austin.

Yeah, what was that like, having that cast?

So we brought only two people from outside.

Steve James and Margaret Avery.

Steve James at this point was kind of in the action realm.

He was kind of a star already.

After American Engine number one, American Engine number two, Delta Force.

Margaret Avery, big star, Academy Award-nominated.

But all the rest, everybody, all the rest of the cast is locally here from Texas,

including Julius Tenon, including Alex, including Tony Frank, including TJ Kennedy,

and many, many others, many of them, Vanessa Tate, many of them were theater actors.

Many of them were doing commercials, very little television, very little experience in features.

But it's nice when you come to a place which is not Hollywood and you can get the best of the cast of the local cast.

So some of the performances in these movies are unbelievable.

Tony Frank, which plays the villain, the Sherry villain, he is such an actor.

Unbelievable, Julius Tenon, fantastic.

So we really, we got the best of the best of the crew that we could assemble here in Texas.

And by the way, this was the request of the financier.

Troy Del, that put the money, he insisted that we will use as many people as we can cast and crew Texans.

So very few people who came from the outside.

Texas was a big market for independent filmmaking at that time.

You know, best little whorehouse in Texas, lone star, Walker, Texas Ranger.

I mean, I don't have to preach to the choir, but when you talk to Alex Morris,

he said that this was the biggest production for black actors to ever come to the town.

And it was a privilege to be a part of that cast.

That's amazing.

You know, I want to ask, and I don't know who to direct this to.

I noticed watching the restored version.

There's a warning at the beginning about violence and racial slurs.

Is that a new addition?

Would that have been there in 1989?

I insist that Michael wasn't so much with me in this.

But, you know, to be authentic, there is a writer.

Of course, you know, I'm the director, but I did not write the script.

There is a writer, Sam Vance, and he reflects, and the movie takes place in the sixties,

in the deep south, segregated.

So all of us, especially the writer, and he was the producer, they insisted.

All of us insisted that obviously the language was much rougher back then,

probably in the sixties, and to stay authentic to the location and to the time we have to use

the language that was used back then, and who knew it better than the writer, Sam Vance,

that he grew up in Atlanta.

He was a little kid in Atlanta.

He grew up in the sun.

So he insisted.

Nowadays, you know, we're so many years away from the sixties, so we need to kind of make

it a little bit softer, and warn the audience that the language is pretty harsh when it comes

to racial references, and so on.

But we also have to warn people, this is a fun movie, like it's a very entertaining

Sam.

He doesn't talk much about his career in terms of being an action author, but, you know,

it's a handful of people, right?

That are experts, and he was a stalwart for the canon group, you know.

So if you like movies like Missing In Action, he didn't do Missing In Action, or Chuck

Norse movies, Steve James movies, Michael Dunn-Coff, you know, you're going to get a lot of that

in addition to what we're talking about in terms of the subversive nature of the story.

You know, another thing I did notice as a Texan, and, you know, again, the stories,

Set in Georgia, you mentioned that's the writer where he's from, but Blue Bonnets,

I saw some Blue Bonnets in there, right?

Do you remember?

I remember.

I remember very, I noticed, yes, on the grave, I won't spoil anything, but, yes.

Of course, the art department crew, the art department, their job was to make sure that it

will look south, that it will look like the south.

So whatever they did, you know, art department, they don't have to consult with the director

or every little tiny details.

In general, of course, questions come up, and art department talks with, or especially

the production designer, but they know what they are doing.

Their job was to take this little town of Venice and make it look like deep south, like

Georgia, like, so they did what they had to do, probably some, you think that they didn't

even ask me, and I didn't know about it.

So what asked do you want audiences to know, I guess, Michael, about your work and what

you're trying to do in choosing films like River Bend and bringing them back to audiences?

Well, I mean, our mission is to reclaim a lot of these lost films.

So in addition to River Bend, we have another movie I can't announce just yet, but once

we clear our kickstarter goal, I will start working on the next project.

But there's literally dozens, when you say Sam, of black independent films that are

just in danger of being lost at times.

So our mission statement is to reclaim and restore those films, and you can find out more

about that at realblack.com or riverbendrestored.com.

Don't let Michael's be so humble.

Michael runs a YouTube channel, which is called Real Black, with one and a half million

followers.

That's quite a number.

And his mission in life, if I'm correct, is to find, to restore, to recover, black cinema

in general, because there are a lot of, as well as other movies, but one chunk of it is

lost, black movies, which are either we call them lost movies or orphan movies or movies

who have been neglected through the years because companies are going out of business,

bankruptcy, and many movies are there to find and to restore.

That's a key point.

You're a mission in life, Michael.

That's a key point.

Now you got me on my soapops.

You know what I'm saying?

You shouldn't have started this one.

We're in overtime now, right?

So I can talk about this.

Yeah, I mean, when I started the YouTube channel in 2006, it was really an outlet for

me to do interviews with my peers, you know, other filmmakers that were part of this

black, and this new black film, independent film movement of the early 2000s, the Ryan

Cougars, the Ava Dunez, the people that you talk about Ryan now, we talked, we interviewed

them after his first film, you know, so, uh, for real station.

So we started with interviews then I noticed that there were a lot of movies that are not

making it through the digital divide, and a lot of them are movies buying about people

of color, right?

So I started sharing those on, on that platform, that YouTube channel, real black TV, and

that's when it took off, it really, and now the mission is to try to rescue as many

as films as possible, but I mean, River Bend has been, it's been Sam's baby for decades

and now it's become something I feel very responsible to shepherd through.

Yeah, thank you.

He's a great owner, and I'm really happy that somebody here came and rescued this

movie.

I don't think I would have done it though, though I really wanted to do it, but I don't

have the energy that Michael didn't find out all these things.

I mean, it's spiritual, also, I mean, there's just too many coincidences for not to, first

not to believe that this movie is meant to come out right now, so maybe it was destined

that Michael and me will meet and together will bring River Bend back to like, but you know,

I really want to mention it, if I may, what Michael have said before, the movie we're talking

about a lot about the message and the underneath, but this is not, it's not a preachy movie,

it's not a documentary.

This is a fun semi-action movie with drama, with love story, with betrayal, with the consequences,

yeah.

Real dramatic story, and with fun, it's a rollercoaster of emotion.

Right.

I mean, on the big screen, you got to come, we're going to be screening in Austin again,

as well as Dallas, Texas on April 29th as part of the Alamo Drafthouse Weird Wednesday event.

They embraced us and there's planes in five different cities around the country.

So again, realblack.com, River Bend Restored.com, you'll find all our dates.

And we will post all of this and TexasStandard.org.

Michael J. Dennis is the founder of Real Black Renaissance boutique label dedicated to reclaiming

and restoring overlooked black cinema.

Sam Firstenberg is a director here of River Bend, as we've been talking about, Sam and

Michael, thank you again.

Thank you, Lauren.

Thank you, Lauren.

So this was a small release in 1989, independently produced, but there's actually, I don't know if

a conspiracy theory is the right word about why it didn't get more from the get-go.

So there is a mystery here because the movie was first sold to a small company, what

was called IRC and another company was involved, prison film, but it ended up at the hand of

very big company, Paramount on video.

And here comes the question, if it's at the hand of such a huge big company, how come

it was such a tiny little release?

Is there a reason?

Is it a commercial reason?

Is it the ideological reason or the reason of the time?

So what do you think about it, Lauren?

I mean, this movie came out in the big home video boom and it only made it to one pressing,

two persons of VHS that never went to sell through and never made it to cable TV.

Big stars?

I mean, just look at this.

Yeah, never played cable, never played DVD, never made it to blue.

It disappeared for 35 years.

So is this subject too uncomfortable for a general audience to the general American owners

because we know that in some other countries it did pretty well in France and in Germany.

Yeah, we have VHS copies of German pressings, French pressings.

It was sold in a lot of territories but it literally disappeared and that could be contractual

but it could also be a little more conspiratorial.

One of the theories that there is a practice in Hollywood and in music, not only in film,

sometimes companies buy a movie or buy music to so-called to suppress it, so it's so

called to buy and to bury.

So it will not compete with another product.

So was this a competition to Mississippi burning, which comes from the same company, Paramount

or Ryan, it was the same company.

So did they buy it to bury it or they found it not suitable, the subject meter and the

outcome of the story, which we don't have to give up, the world will never know.

But I think it's a perfect timing for it to come back.

Now, I don't know.

I mean, since we're chatting a little bit, what were your thoughts about the movie?

Because it's still brand new to us.

I mean, does it resonate?

I mean, again, I kept comparing to sinners just because they really are so few films

of that level of black resistance.

And I think that the reaction to it, I mean, audiences standing in theaters to sinners

and I could imagine similar things happening with this one.

The audience gets a real out of seeing a black action hero.

I mean, and that was rare.

I mean, Steve James was on the verge of superstardom in a way.

He came right before Wesley Snipes and a little bit around the same time as Carl Weathers.

But he had his own life.

After Shaft.

Well, after the 70s, after Shaft and all those guys.

And yes, he wanted to be Richard Runtry.

There's something else and I almost mentioned it now.

It verges on spoiler, but you know, you mentioned the white hero.

And there's a moment where this guy, this white guy sort of raises his hand and sort of

volunteers to be the white hero.

And then there's a, the reaction from the actor who says, you're not a bad man, but you're

white right now.

And so I need you to sit down with them.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

That's the producer of the film, who plays the executive producer of the film, Troy Dale,

has that part as Mr. Cook in the film.

So yeah, I mean, to be clear, for those who are listening, the movie was made.

It was two couples that came together, a black couple, the Vances, and the Dales, which

was a white couple.

And so the Dales provide the money.

The Vances provide the idea and the script and the script.

Yes.

Right.

So that's Van Dale productions.

Wow.

Yeah, but we just had a, we are coming from a screening in Philadelphia a few days ago.

And the reaction was tremendous.

People are cheering and laughing and standing and talking back to the screen.

So there is a emotional resonant with audience with this movie.

That's what we find out.

What a thrill to get the chance to see how audiences in a theater react so many years

after this.

Absolutely.

It's nothing.

This is not streaming.

When you sit at home by yourself and stream the movie, or with Van, this is 150 people.

You see something new every time we watch it.

And I get a kick out just out of watching Sam watch his own movie.

Like he's, it's like you're watching a kid in a candy store just like, because that's

why you make the movie.

That's why we make movie.

I don't make movies for my pleasure to sit at home and to enjoy the movie direct.

And I believe so all the other directors and writers, we make movies so audience will

see them.

We are entertainers.

And that's our goal.

Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air.

Hey, take a break from the 24 hour news cycle with us and listen to long form interviews

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So listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.