The Whole Shootin' Match  /  Northern Lights

The Whole Shootin' Match  (1978)

Texas independent filmmaking legend Eagle Pennell made his feature debut on a shoestring budget with this homespun ode to American dreamers and the small town blues. Longtime friends, Frank (Sonny Carl Davis) and Lloyd (Lou Perrymen) try their luck at get-rich-quick schemes while negotiating the daily indignities of being seen by everyone else—including, occasionally, Lloyd’s long-suffering wife–as the local losers. Pennell found the poetry in their plight and helped launch the Austin film scene in the process.

Courtesy of Watchmaker Films.

DCP, b/w, 109 min. Director: Eagle Pennell. Screenwriter: Eagle Pennell, Lin Sutherland. Cast: Lou Perryman, Sonny Carl Davis, Doris Hargrave.

Northern Lights  (1978)

The only period piece in this series, Northern Lights illuminates the still resonant formative years of The Nonpartisan League, the Socialist-inspired political party founded by immigrant farmers in North Dakota at the turn of the century to fight back against the moneyed interests who controlled their economic destinies. Produced by the radical Bay Area film collective Cine Manifest with a mix of professional and non-professional actors, it was a grassroots effort that won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes. 

Print courtesy of Cinema Conservancy.

35mm, b/w, 93 min. Director/Screenwriter: John Hanson, Rob Nilsson. Cast: Robert Behling, Susan Lynch, Joe Spano.