We’ve got so many cool events coming up on Sweat’s fall schedule… Next Wednesday the 19th we’re teaming up with the Indie Film Club to present a screening of 1972 South-Florida-centric cult classic STANLEY.
Stanley is about a young Seminole Indian who uses his beloved rattlesnake to take revenge on all those he thinks have wronged him. Director Bill Grefe (dubbed the “Godfather of Grindhouse” by Quentin Tarantino) will be in attendance, doing a Q&A after the screening! Read more about the film below and come out next Wednesday!
This is how the legend of the “making of” goes:
STANLEY (1972), otherwise known as the Seminole Indian version of Willard, but with snakes instead of rats, was dreamed up by director Bill Grefe in a night, from beginning to end. Grefe told his production company, Crown, that it will cost $125,00 and the executive producer Red Jacobs shook his hand. In those days, that was the contract. Red had to get the movie in theaters by April 15th, and here it was November 1st and Grefe didn’t even have a script. He called a writer friend, Gary Crutcher, they got together on a Friday, wrote every scene on a legal pad, handed the pages to Crutcher and said “I gotta have a screenplay of this in Miami on Tuesday morning”. He did.
STANLEY began principal photography on December 1st, wrapped right before Christmas and was indeed in theaters by April 15th. Grefe recalls, “It opened in L.A. against THE GODFATHER (1972), which made $181,000 in L.A. – and STANLEY made $175,000.”
