The Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman star will present his new movie at the WorldFest/Houston International Film Festival.
Some people think critics and journalists should never mention that a movie has a surprise twist, because just saying that may give too much of the game away. But when it came to interviewing Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman star William Shockley about Long Shadows, his debut effort as a feature filmmaker, I must admit I had to tread lightly, because — well, there is a honking big twist near the end, and neither one of us wanted to spill any beans.
Suffice it to say this: The movie, which Shockley will present Thursday, April 24, at the WorldFest/Houston International Film Festival in advance of its theatrical release later this year, is in many ways a traditional sagebrush saga about revenge and redemption. Until it isn’t.
Blaine Maye (Joe Bell) stars as Marcus Dollar, a young man who’s eager to go gunning for the horse thieves who killed his parents just as soon as he ages out of an orphanage in the 1880s Arizona Territory.
As he rides the vengeance trail, he is aided or impeded by Dallas Garrett (Dermot Mulroney), a former outlaw who reluctantly teaches Maye how to draw fast and aim true; Vivian Villeré (Jacqueline Bissett), operator of bordello that has a suspiciously high employee turnover rate; Sheriff Wesley Tibbs (Grainger Hines), a lawman with a tragic secret from his past; and Dulce Florez (Sarah Cortez), a young woman Dollar frees from forced employment at Villeré’s establishment before she must do more than play piano downstairs.
The last time I had the pleasure of speaking with Shockley, we were on the Mescal Movie Set near Tucson, Arizona, where he was filming the INSP-produced western Far Haven with co-stars Bailey Chase, Bruce Boxleitner and Martin Kove. Flashforward to this week, and we reconnected in the C&I Studio to talk about Long Shadows — and the possibility of a Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman reunion movie.
