From Bonnie & Clyde to JFK: Reel Meets Real in Texas | Kelly Kitchens & Farris Rookstool

Show Notes

This week, Mike Rhyner and Rob Ervin settle into the shadows with a pair of guests who know exactly how Hollywood spins a Texas yarn. Kelly Kitchens, the mastermind behind the It Came from Texas Film Festival, takes us behind the curtain on curating films like Bernie and The Great Debaters, where fact and fiction duke it out in the Lone Star State.

Then comes Farris Rookstool III — retired FBI analyst, JFK authority, and genealogical surprise package (yep, there’s a Bonnie and Clyde connection). From ferrying assassination files across the country in a U-Haul to surviving an awkward dinner with Oliver Stone, Farris proves truth is stranger (and often funnier) than film.

Together, the crew unpacks what happens when Texas history collides with cinematic mythmaking — and why Garland’s Plaza Theatre might just be the best place on earth to argue about it.

Pull up a chair, pour a drink, and prepare for a ride where the stories are as big as Texas — and sometimes just as unbelievable.

Chapters

0:00 – Festival Lights Up Garland
Kelly introduces the It Came from Texas Film Festival and its mission to mix fun with fact.

3:20 – Plaza Theatre, Small Town, Big Screen
Why Garland’s historic square is the perfect stage for Texas tales.

12:43 – Growing Up with Bonnie & Clyde
Farris recalls childhood memories of the movie shoot and his family’s unexpected ties.

17:56 – From Curious Kid to FBI Analyst
How fascination with history turned into a career in federal investigations.

21:41 – Dinner with Oliver Stone
When Farris met the JFK director — and lived to tell the awkward tale.

26:51 – A U-Haul Full of Secrets
The wild journey of transporting classified JFK files across the country.

40:11 – Family Trees and Texas Lore
Genealogical surprises that prove history can be deeply personal.

45:50 – Dallas, Ground Zero for Breaking News
Why the JFK assassination made Dallas the world’s media hub.

54:02 – Preserving Stories, Screening Truths
Kelly shares how the festival keeps Texas history alive on the big screen.

1:03:02 – Wrapping with a Lone Star Verdict
Rob weighs in on Oswald, accuracy, and the power of film.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Mike Rhyner

Mike Rhyner… "a little on the bumpy side, but rather likable"…so stated famously by a grade school teacher in Oak Cliff, where Mike grew up. A complicated guy, yet a guy who can do long division and remember call strike three to A Rod. Probably best left unattended. Don't expect assistance from him if a medical situation arises.

What is Your Dark Companion Podcast?

"Whatever I want it to be about on a given day; is what it is." Your Dark Companion couples your familiar friends from radio, Mike and Grubes! Mike brings his classic interviews that draw you in, and Grubes—The Devil—drops…well the drops, and throws the occasional grenade. Mike likes to draw on his fascinating acquaintances and friends allowing them to tell their stories as you've never heard them. But he also goes outside his network, sharing Grubes' network, and often outside of both, to bring you those they don't know, but believe have a story that will make you laugh, make you think, think differently, or just entertain you…"that's what we are trying to do here."

0:00:00 - (Mike Rhyner): Baseball, baseball, baseball. Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, okay, now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys.
0:00:12 - (Rob Ervin): What happened over there, Grego?
0:00:14 - (Mike Rhyner): We had a little lightning strike right outside the window.
0:00:18 - (Rob Ervin): The Texas Rangers win the World Series.
0:00:22 - (Mike Rhyner): All right, all right. Here's a tip for all these Americano league teams.
0:00:26 - (Rob Ervin): Don't. Wait, you said tip? Yeah, tip.
0:00:28 - (Mike Rhyner): Okay, with a P. Keep jamming the ticket colon. Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off session. This is a cool night or what? Although somebody would hear that.
0:00:39 - (Rob Ervin): Go.
0:00:40 - (Mike Rhyner): I'm back.
0:00:50 - (Rob Ervin): Hello.
0:00:52 - (Mike Rhyner): It is another episode of your Dark Companion today and we are glad to have you with us. This is Monday 8th September. How about that? And this, boys and girls, is episode 150 of your Dark Companion.
0:01:15 - (Kelly Kitchens): Wow.
0:01:17 - (Mike Rhyner): Thank you. Thank you. You can count the number of things that I've done 150 times in my life on one hand, but I'm happy that this joins those rather limited ranks. And that's. That has more to do with me and my own lack of an attention span than any other thing, probably. But anyway, we are here today and ready to roll out episode 150 of Little YDC for you. And what we're going to do today, first, we're going to say hello to Rob.
0:01:56 - (Mike Rhyner): Hello, Internet.
0:01:58 - (Farris Rookstool): Good to be back with you.
0:01:59 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes, Robert, back with us once again. You hear him with Alex and Don and Don on their podcast, which is quite, quite good.
0:02:13 - (Farris Rookstool): Thank you. And we'll be live this week at Writers Field.
0:02:15 - (Rob Ervin): Oh, really?
0:02:16 - (Farris Rookstool): Yeah, this Thursday night or Thursday afternoon, I guess. Yeah.
0:02:18 - (Mike Rhyner): All right. Check it out. Check it out. I always forget Don in the thing.
0:02:23 - (Kelly Kitchens): He's.
0:02:24 - (Farris Rookstool): He kind of exists in the shadows sometimes, especially when we're going to be at. We're at film festivals. Usually when we're at film festivals, it's Alex and myself at the desk and Don is bringing us guests.
0:02:35 - (Rob Ervin): Which segue brings us to our guest today?
0:02:40 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes, because our guest has everything to do with that which we're going to be talking about today, which is the. It came from Texas Film Festival.
0:02:51 - (Farris Rookstool): The third.
0:02:52 - (Rob Ervin): The third is.
0:02:53 - (Farris Rookstool): The third one.
0:02:54 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes, the third one. Now, we had her on last year in connection with this. And I went down there to take in one of the movies myself because they were happy to be showing one of my favorite films of all time. And I went down there to see that and I was just really excited about the buzz that was going on down there over it.
0:03:20 - (Farris Rookstool): That Plaza theater is something else.
0:03:22 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, it is gorgeous. This is all going to take place to the old Plaza Theater, and it's all on the Garland town square. And if you've not, if you've not been down there on the town square of Garland yet, you missing out on something really, really cool. And you're also missing out on something that, that for once a city, a town, municipality decided that they were going to do something, but they were going to do it right.
0:03:49 - (Farris Rookstool): And they did. That square is beautifully done. It is restaurants, shopping, there's an arcade down there. We actually were at Kelly's Roundtable or I a few weeks ago, and I learned some stuff about Garland itself. I didn't know Garland was one of the very few cities back in the days when you had these things that had three movie theaters, three other single house movies. It's also the hat capital because that's where Stetson comes out of.
0:04:18 - (Farris Rookstool): But yeah, they had three movie theaters in Garland, which was very rare back in the day when you only had a theater showed one movie. I mean, that's how I saw the original Star wars in 77 was at a theater like that. And for. To have a town like Garland, to have three of those, one of which is still a functioning theater. We just had the, the, the Bankhead Festival there earlier this year. And that, that theater, it's just, it's got all of the nostalgia you want.
0:04:46 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah.
0:04:47 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, we have Kelly Kitchens with us today to elaborate a little bit further on this, and they're going to say hello to another guy momentarily who's joining us today. But first, let's. Let's deal with you a little bit.
0:05:02 - (Kelly Kitchens): Okay.
0:05:03 - (Mike Rhyner): Exactly what is your role in all of this?
0:05:05 - (Kelly Kitchens): Well, I just have a little role. I'm the festival director, the programmer, basically, and also the festival publicist. So, you know, I have a few things to do with it. But I'm so thrilled. This is like, like y' all said, this is our third year. And this year, this year, every year we have a theme. And this year's theme is True Texas Tales. And there is so much that has come to light with what is true and what is not true inside these movies. And I, I love exploring that because I love movies, I love history.
0:05:49 - (Kelly Kitchens): I don't want to ruin a perfectly good movie by knowing the truth first. So we sort of are going to dig the truth that's behind it. You know, as, as we go on.
0:06:00 - (Farris Rookstool): Are you also the same kind of person that won't read a book before the movie? Yes, for the same reason.
0:06:06 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:06:07 - (Farris Rookstool): I, I have the opposite problem.
0:06:09 - (Kelly Kitchens): So I watch the movie first, then I go run out and buy the.
0:06:12 - (Farris Rookstool): Book, which I think for Ready Player one, that's what I should have done.
0:06:15 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah, probably.
0:06:16 - (Farris Rookstool): And, and for those that don't know if I can jump in for just a second.
0:06:20 - (Rob Ervin): Sure.
0:06:22 - (Farris Rookstool): I have always said that Kelly is one of two people in the history of the Clubhouse podcast that if it wasn't for her, we are not where we are.
0:06:31 - (Kelly Kitchens): Oh, thank you, Rob.
0:06:33 - (Farris Rookstool): Other the. The dearly departed Gary Murray. But Kelly was the first person to ever get us a live show at a film festival. She has been our champion for years. And the fact that I get to sit here and talk to her when I don't have to run the. The interview is even better because it's the first time that really we've gotten to sit down out on microphones and talk when I don't have 50,000 sheets of paper in front.
0:06:58 - (Farris Rookstool): So that's another reason I'm always happy not only to be with you, but not only. And for the 150th episode. But Kelly is incredible at what she does. Oh, she doesn't do anything halfway. If you need something publicly related, that's her.
0:07:12 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes.
0:07:13 - (Farris Rookstool): That's the only verb I could come up with.
0:07:14 - (Rob Ervin): Yeah, yeah.
0:07:15 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, she, she's got that thing.
0:07:17 - (Farris Rookstool): Yes, sir.
0:07:17 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, if you are game long enough and deal with these people enough, you can tell that there is a certain something that they all have.
0:07:25 - (Rob Ervin): Yep.
0:07:26 - (Mike Rhyner): And she has that.
0:07:28 - (Kelly Kitchens): Come on.
0:07:32 - (Mike Rhyner): Now, before we get into all this and before we meet our next guest, I want to talk a little bit about the Clubhouse.
0:07:38 - (Rob Ervin): Yes, sir.
0:07:38 - (Mike Rhyner): Give you a chance to give that a little bit of love because I hope people are checking out the Clubhouse over at the Sunset Lounge.
0:07:45 - (Rob Ervin): We do.
0:07:46 - (Farris Rookstool): We're live.
0:07:46 - (Rob Ervin): Really good.
0:07:47 - (Farris Rookstool): We're live on Thursdays. This week we'll be on at 5 Eastern. Just because we'll be at Writers Field. Normally it's a 8 Eastern. It's your one stop shop for all things sports, entertainment, pop culture and pro wrestling. There's basically two halves to the show. This is our 16th season, which is crazy to fathom. Oh, you're talking about episodes. Our weekly episodes. We just passed 7:30. And if you, if you put all of our, all of our episodes together when it used to be two separate shows and when we used to do the movie review shows, we're probably close to 1500 now, which is mind blowing.
0:08:22 - (Kelly Kitchens): Amazing.
0:08:24 - (Farris Rookstool): But we, we've, we have a good time.
0:08:26 - (Mike Rhyner): I look up to you guys the other way around. No, no, no. I mean, you've been doing this a long Time.
0:08:32 - (Farris Rookstool): Well, you've been doing it longer.
0:08:33 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, not.
0:08:34 - (Rob Ervin): But you had a microphone in your.
0:08:36 - (Farris Rookstool): Face for a chunk of my existence.
0:08:37 - (Mike Rhyner): That was in another life. This is a whole. A whole nother chapter of that. And we're a whole nother thing.
0:08:46 - (Farris Rookstool): And we just hit our one year with Sunset Lounge last week.
0:08:48 - (Kelly Kitchens): Wow.
0:08:49 - (Farris Rookstool): So we're. Yeah, we are.
0:08:51 - (Kelly Kitchens): That's great.
0:08:52 - (Farris Rookstool): We are so excited just to be a part of this family. And if you're not checking out all of these shows, you're missing stuff because there's literally something for everybody at Sunset Lounge. Whatever you're into, we got something that we'll get you to.
0:09:06 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, it's in there somewhere and it's all good.
0:09:08 - (Farris Rookstool): And if you haven't watched that fantasy football draft, do yourself a solid. That was some of the most fun I had in a long time. And of course, week one, I get your team as my opponent. I haven't looked at the scores yet. I'm a little nervous, but. But I appreciate you giving me the chance to plug the show. We're just happy to be in the building, as you know, and to be here with you, as always, is an honor.
0:09:30 - (Mike Rhyner): Your show is very worthwhile.
0:09:32 - (Farris Rookstool): Thank you, sir. That means a lot to us.
0:09:33 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, I really enjoy it. All right, now let's turn our attention to the film festival.
0:09:39 - (Kelly Kitchens): Sounds great. Sounds great.
0:09:41 - (Mike Rhyner): We'll get to you in just a second there, as I promise. But is this the way you do it?
0:09:49 - (Rob Ervin): You.
0:09:50 - (Mike Rhyner): You just. You round up a few films every year, you show those films and. Well, I mean, what am I, Am I missing anything here?
0:09:58 - (Kelly Kitchens): Well, what I, you know, I kind of. We kind of started this year on a whim, meaning that, you know, I was looking at Oscar winning films that made in Texas and I kept going back to Bonnie and Clyde and the Alamo. And I was like, well, what does Bonnie and Clyde and the Alamo have?
0:10:17 - (Farris Rookstool): And the John Wayne version?
0:10:18 - (Kelly Kitchens): Just the John Wayne version. Yes, yes. And I was like, well, gosh, those are true Texas stories. And so I was like, well, that's that. We. Let's. Let's round this up around that. And, and so in. In doing this, I have. I've reconnected with. With Ferris Rickstol after not seeing him for. We figured out 25 years. It's a long time and meeting so many new people. But the whole thing about this particular year is I wanted to bring in historians, authors, family members where we could and really find out, okay, what is, what is the true story and that based on a True story.
0:11:10 - (Mike Rhyner): And it looks like you've done that too.
0:11:11 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes. Yes.
0:11:14 - (Mike Rhyner): Is one of those.
0:11:15 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:11:15 - (Farris Rookstool): A total of five films plus Maki Horror this year?
0:11:20 - (Kelly Kitchens): Actually six. Wait, 1. Maki Horror 2.
0:11:26 - (Farris Rookstool): 2 on Friday.
0:11:27 - (Kelly Kitchens): Well, and a double feature on Saturday night. And then Bernie on Saturday. Saturday early afternoon. And then at the Alamo and Viva.
0:11:39 - (Farris Rookstool): Max and the Great Debaters.
0:11:41 - (Kelly Kitchens): And the Great Debaters also. Yes, that's the double feature. Yes, with the documentary with it too. So I kind of count that as a feature.
0:11:50 - (Mike Rhyner): All right, now Ferris Rookstool joins us. He is one of the, I guess, historians that you were speaking of.
0:11:58 - (Rob Ervin): Yes.
0:11:59 - (Kelly Kitchens): So can I just say real quick that so Faris and I connected over the JFK segment that we're going to do for the film festival. But then he told me, oh, by the way, I have a connection with Bonnie and Clyde too. And I was like, what?
0:12:24 - (Rob Ervin): What?
0:12:25 - (Kelly Kitchens): It's like, okay. So he. Oh my goodness. So th. I'll let him talk in a second. But this festival is kind of a full circle for him.
0:12:37 - (Mike Rhyner): So, Ferris, now it says you're a retired FBI analyst.
0:12:42 - (Rob Ervin): Yep.
0:12:43 - (Mike Rhyner): Is that correct?
0:12:43 - (Rob Ervin): That's correct.
0:12:46 - (Mike Rhyner): So explain your connection to all this.
0:12:50 - (Rob Ervin): Well, first off, on the Bunny and Clyde portion, I was five years old and watched them film the movie in Dallas in 1966. And I had never seen a Hollywood production being filmed before. Growing up in Dallas, it's not like Dallas, you know, all the Hollywood, like State Fair and some of those other movies were not in our neighborhood.
0:13:17 - (Mike Rhyner): Right.
0:13:17 - (Rob Ervin): But of course, Bonnie and Clyde was urban legend growing up in, in Northeast Dallas, in Lakewood area, you know, Bonnie and Clyde had come through and there were places like the Filling Station restaurant in the 70s where they are purported to have stopped for gas. And then there was the Creek Bar up on Greenville, north of Meadow and Greenville that they were supposedly had stopped to get drinks at one time.
0:13:47 - (Rob Ervin): But having grown up around Bonnie and Clyde in this kind of urban mythology, when Hollywood came to town, they came in full force. Now when I say full force, I grew up pretty poor and didn't have air conditioning in our house. We had old school box fans and an open window. And so at night I heard all this machine gun fire. Now, you know, to hear actual automatic machine gun fire was. Was pretty exciting. So I said to my dad, I said, oh my God, you know, it sounds like machine gun fire. He says, oh yeah, they're filming the movie Bonnie and Clyde.
0:14:26 - (Rob Ervin): Well, for a child, I wanted to go see it. So we hopped in the car and we drove to the scene where they were filming all these machine gun fire sequences. And I had never seen cameras, lights, you know, the whole clown car of production like I'd seen with Bonnie and Clyde. And then the next day, my mom and I, we went to the grocery store. And one of the funny things was, you know, when you grow up poor, you never have a full grocery cart.
0:14:54 - (Rob Ervin): That's something that is, you know, other people had. And so I saw this caravan of carts that looked like circus elephants with the trunks and the tails attached to each other, over, expanded over, just like fill to the rim of these grocery carts all linked together. And I said, oh, my God, what is that, Mom? She says, I don't. I don't know. And so we asked the. The clerk, I said, you know, what is all that? And they said, oh, that's the production group for Bonnie and Clyde. They're. They're getting all the food for the staff and the production team and the crew, the whole bit.
0:15:30 - (Rob Ervin): And it was like 20 carts. It was just endless supply of that. So when the movie came out in 1967, you know, the first time I'd ever seen the movie, you know, from. From Soup to Nuts, from being shot to then being seeing it on the big screen was quite an experience. It was so much of an experience that, you know, it. It seems so realistic and so captivating, but at the same time wove together more of this. This kind of. This love story between Bonnie and Clyde.
0:16:04 - (Rob Ervin): And it wasn't so necessarily based and rooted in hard facts and evidence and things like that. In 1983, I had been working for UT Southwestern Medical School for five and a half years as a medical illustrator, medical photographer. And the oil revenues in Texas were in the tank. Which is kind of funny when you think back, you know, 40, 41 years or 42 years ago, to think that that that was a case. But with today's economy, it's. It seems like yesteryear.
0:16:36 - (Rob Ervin): But what happened was I was back up, having gotten laid off from my job. They laid off. Our entire department was back up at that same grocery store where I had seen Bonnie and Clyde production team. And as I'm driving to the grocery store, having just gotten laid off from my job, this man steps out in front of my car and I nearly drove over him. Well, he's flipping me the finger and saying, hey, asshole, look where you're going. And I'm like, oh, I'm terribly sorry. And he's like, no, no, no. And then I look at him and he looks at me and he says, ferris.
0:17:07 - (Rob Ervin): I said, greg, holy shit, I haven't seen you since junior high, you know, middle school. I said, what are you doing? I said, well, I just got laid off from my job. I said, what are you doing? He said, well, why don't we have lunch? I said, okay, you can treat. Since I just got laid off from my job, you can treat. So we go to have lunch just right around the corner next to a movie theater, the Medallion Movie Theater.
0:17:30 - (Rob Ervin): We went to this little Italian restaurant. We're sitting there. I said, greg, you never told me, what are you doing? He said, well, he does a left to right, well, you know, I'm working for the FBI. I said, no, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You work for the FBI? I said, come on, let me see some credentials or a badge or something. He says, okay. So he pulls it out. I'm like, crap, he really does work for the FBI. He said, well, you ought to apply.
0:17:56 - (Rob Ervin): And I said, well, you know, it's funny you should say that. I said, when I was 10 years old, I wrote J. Edgar Hoover a letter asking for wanted posters of Bonnie and Clyde. He goes, what? I said, yeah, I still have the letter from J. Edgar Hoover. Some GS3 clerk at FBI headquarters did not even understand my letter. And I got a form letter back, but J. Edgar Hoover actually signed. It says, you know, Derek Farris, we're sorry we can't give you actual wanted posters because those are supplied to law enforcement. And I'm like, no, no, they didn't understand the whole thing. But anyway, what happens is, fast forward.
0:18:34 - (Rob Ervin): I go down to, to the Dallas field office and apply and. And a year later got sworn in to work for the FBI. And now I'm back where all the original Dallas FBI files on Bonnie and Clyde were. Well, it was incredible to see that Dallas, the Dallas FBI field office. That famous wanted poster that I wanted so bad as a kid that I had seen all over, you know. You know, it's like an iconic image of Bonnie and Clyde. The famous wanted posters was actually created out of the Dallas FBI field office because of the fact that Bonnie and Clyde were wanted. This was an early foothold into the FBI's Interstate Transportation of ST Vehicles Act.
0:19:21 - (Rob Ervin): And so the FBI got involved in the Bonnie and Clyde criminal investigation based solely on the fact that they had stolen motor vehicles. So that famous wanted poster that you see that is iconic of Bonnie and Clyde was. Was created and authorized from the Dallas FBI office at the same post office, ironically, where Lee Harvey Oswald got his famous 6.5 men, like a car rifle, which ties into another part of the.
0:19:54 - (Rob Ervin): At the same place. And so ground zero. I'm working for the FBI and what happens in 1984? But all the original JFK assassination records come back to the Dallas field office. And so I'm like, what is all this? And they're like, these are the original JFK assassination records. I said, but yeah, why aren't they coming back, you know, like in bulk, you know, to the office? They said, oh, well, they were up at FBI headquarters during the House Select Committee on assassinations in 1977.
0:20:25 - (Rob Ervin): And they shipped them all back because they're trying to clean out the closet FBI headquarters. And so like anything in the US Government, if you show too much interest in something, you get assigned. On top of working criminal investigations. I got assigned to go through all the JFK files to make sure we had everything back. And so for nine and a half years, I read over 500,000 pages of material and ended up writing about 3,500 pages of follow up investigation. And so by about 1991, I had returned back to Dallas. I had been at FBI headquarters working in D.C. but came back to Dallas and ended up having a phone call come to my desk at the office.
0:21:10 - (Rob Ervin): Now they paged me in the office at Ferris. You have a, a call on hold, you know. And so I picked it up in my office and I thought it was a crank call. I thought, you know, Oliver Stone wants to speak to you. So I thought, okay, sure, some agent in the office is pulling one on me. And I thought, okay, and what happens? It's Stone's production company on the phone. They're saying, Mr. Rookstool, we understand that you are the FBI. FBI's expert on the JFK assassination. I said, well, you know, expert? Yeah, okay.
0:21:41 - (Rob Ervin): They said, well, we want to have you as our on, on the scene, you know, expert when we're filming in Dallas. And we need to set up a meeting between you and Mr. Stone. And don't worry, we're going to pay you like $50,000. I said, well, first off, I'm a humble government servant. I'm not allowed to accept money and all that. But I said, now, what exactly are you needing? They said, well, we want to have you on the set every day.
0:22:08 - (Rob Ervin): So if Mr. Stone has a question for you, he can ask you, is this the way it happened? Is that the way it happened? I said, well, okay, well, wait, wait. First off, let me explain how the FBI operates. You will have to prepare in writing a series of questions that you have for me. I'll prepare my responses. And then after I prepare my responses, we'll send them to FBI headquarters. Then they will fax you. After they bless them and review them, they'll send those back to you, and then that's how it'll work. They said, oh, no, that's not going to work. No, no, no, no. The production staff, you know, we're over here at the melrose hotel, and Mr. Stone, he's over at the Stonely, and we. I tell you what, why don't you come to dinner tonight?
0:22:50 - (Rob Ervin): So I said, okay, I'll come to dinner. And so I was going to meet Oliver Stone and his, you know, team, production staff, and everyone at the Stonely Hotel for dinner. Well, before I did that, I thought, number one, you know, it'd probably be a good idea for me to kind of look at the screenplay to see whether or not, you know, this is something that is really going to put the. The FBI in bad light. So a friend of mine was working on the. On the production. I said, hey, can you do me a favor? Can you backdoor me, bootleg me a copy, photocopy, what we used to call xeroxing a copy of the file of the screenplay, and let me take a look at it. He said, sure, I'll be happy to do it. So.
0:23:27 - (Rob Ervin): So the original screenplay was called Project X. Wow. So I got this screenplay called, you know, from Camelot Production, and I read this thing, and I said, oh, my God, it's worse than I thought. So, okay, this is going to be a very interesting dinner tonight with Mr. Stone. So I go to. To. To meet with Oliver Stone. Now, I will know Oliver Stone has a very apropos name. You know, his last name is Stone, but when he's meeting with me, he's as stoned as you can get.
0:24:06 - (Rob Ervin): Okay? So I'm thinking, this is kind of odd that a man is meeting with someone from the FBI and he's high as a kite, and we're sitting there. And so I said, okay. You know, they introduced me, Mr. Stone, this is Ferris Rookstool, the FBI, blah, blah, blah. You know, he's the expert guy we brought on and all this. I said, well, you know, I said, Mr. Stone, respectfully, let me tell you, I had a chance to review your screenplay, your. Your Project X. And he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
0:24:34 - (Rob Ervin): How'd you get a hold of that? I said, well, you know, the FBI, we have sources and methods, of course. I said, you know, a guy who knows a Guy, I'm not allowed to. You know, I hold the highest security clearance in the US Government. What's called an FBI security clearance. But I'm not at liberty to tell you how I came about getting a copy of your screenplay. Well, that's intellectual property. You can't have.
0:24:56 - (Rob Ervin): I said, well, it's not going anywhere. I'm not gonna make a movie. The Bureau's not gonna make a movie. It's going nowhere. I said, but let me just tell you this. After reviewing your entire screenplay, I found that the only thing that you have right is the victim, the date and the location. Everything else is a work of fantasy. Well, of course that's what you would say. You're part of the COVID up. And he laughed.
0:25:22 - (Rob Ervin): I thought, okay, I've pissed the guy off and he's never gonna wanna ever see me again. And so he's. Well, well, you know, I respect your position. You know that. You know, you're a good FBI man. You know, that's. That's exactly what I expect you to say.
0:25:36 - (Mike Rhyner): So how'd the rest of the dinner go?
0:25:39 - (Rob Ervin): It was awkward. It was awkward. I mean, you know, how do you say, Excuse me, can you pass some more bread over here? It was awkward. If there's no. I mean, it was like, you know the old saying, you know, it's like a fart in church. I mean, you know, you just can't get over it. It's one of those situations where when it happened, there's no putting that back in the bag. I mean, there's no, like, you know, dressing it up and saying, oh, this is really tasty. I. I think I'm gonna have some dessert.
0:26:11 - (Rob Ervin): There was none of that. And so.
0:26:13 - (Farris Rookstool): And he was high. So, you know, we had the munchies.
0:26:15 - (Kelly Kitchens): You were right.
0:26:16 - (Rob Ervin): Exactly, Exactly. And so I thought, okay, you know, he may not remember this conversation, and I'll be good to go. No, what happens? The movie comes out. And of course, the main mantra of the movie is, release the files. Release the files. It's very much like we have today. Full circle. Release the Epstein. Yeah, same thing. My life is this. This endless cycle of history. The FBI says to me, now, Ferris, you've read all the files. You're our FBI's expert on all this man matter.
0:26:51 - (Rob Ervin): We need to know what's in the files. And the special agent in charge of the Dallas field office, you know, he, he said, why don't we just bring in the retired special agent who was assigned the case? And, and Bob was my neighbor, and he was on my background investigation for the FBI. He's a night. He was a nice guy, but, you know, it been all these years, he's like, I don't. I don't remember this crap. You know, I mean, I. I worked on all this stuff for years and, you know, I don't know. Ask Ferris.
0:27:23 - (Rob Ervin): So now I'm like, you know, I'm being trotted out like, you know, Ross Perot's, you know, albino monkey. You know, this guy is like the most, you know, he's entertaining. He's. He. He knows this. This stuff. So let's ask what's in the files? I'm like, well, what do you want to know is in the. There's a lot of. I mean, 500. I mean, that's like asking for a book report. Can you please give us the Cliff Notes version of what happened with 500,000 pages?
0:27:50 - (Rob Ervin): Oh, my gosh, no, no. I mean. So what happened is Congressional leaders are now, like, leaning on the FBI director. They're saying, you know, we need these files released. And the FBI is, you know, they're. They're in this position where they're like, we don't know what's in them. So the President of the United States, the Attorney General, they're all asking each other to the director, what's in the files?
0:28:16 - (Rob Ervin): So I found myself in the awkward position of. Now I'm having to brief the FBI Director, the Attorney General, the President, United States and all these people is what's in the JFK file. So this one man named Senator John Glenn, God bless his soul, famous astronaut, first man to Orbit the Earth, 1962. He introduces and gets into legislation what's called the JFK Assassinations Records Act. And it gets passed, gets signed into law Oct.
0:28:46 - (Rob Ervin): 26, 1992, by President George Herbert Walker Bush. But what happens is the FBI is now like, oh, my God, these files. We're going to have to declassify all these files. So we're like, yeah, that's. That's what's going to have to happen, guys. We're going to have to take all these records and declassify them. So I had what I affectionately describe as the most psychotic supervisor in the Dallas FBI. We've all had a psychotic supervisor during the course of our careers and in life, but this guy, he took the cake.
0:29:26 - (Rob Ervin): His nickname in the FBI was. We called him Budo, the acronym for big, ugly, dumb one. This guy was so dumb, he was as dumb as a box of rocks. Now, I won't say his name because he's still alive, but he was dumb. We all said the only way he became an assistant special Agent in charge is he raised his hand. He might say, okay, I'll do it. I'll do it. And this guy says, ferris, I need for you to come to my office. I need. I got an assignment for you.
0:29:53 - (Rob Ervin): I'm like, okay. So I go up to his office and he says, now, these JFK files, we need those back at FBI headquarters. And I've decided that we're going to task you with taking those back to headquarters. I said, okay, I understand. I'll be the evidence custodian. Yeah, Record custodian. Yeah. Okay. And so what we're going to do is we're going to have you drive them From Dallas to D.C. in a U Haul truck.
0:30:19 - (Rob Ervin): I'm like, are you kidding me? Are you out of your mind? What are you talking about? He says, no, put them all in the FBI in a truck. In a U Haul truck. You'll rent it, of course, and put it on your government credit card and you'll rent it. You're going to drive it non stop. You and a couple other guys from the office. No one will know what you're up to. I said, well, excuse me. I said, let me just tell you this.
0:30:40 - (Rob Ervin): I said, let me go check on something. I'll get right back with you. So I go and I go to my office, I call to the aviation unit or the FBI headquarters. I say, our planes, our bureau planes, where are they right now? They said, well, one's in Houston, one's in Newark, Orleans, and one in New Orleans is actually refueling, heading to Houston. I said, good. Is it possible you could swing by Dallas? We put all these FBI JFK assassination records on the Bureau plane. We probably have to put it in two planes.
0:31:08 - (Rob Ervin): But I can fly up with you on the plane. We'll get there in a few hours. Oh, absolutely. So I go back to Budo's office and I tell the big ugly dumb one, I say, hey, boss, I said, I found that. We can put these on our FBI planes. They're called the planes called Night Stalker. I said, we can put it on on Night Stalker and we can have it back in headquarters in roughly three hours. He says, no, no, I've decided you're going to drive the files to DC So yours truly did the most reckless, irresponsible thing in my FBI career by taking all the 500,000 pages of materials, loaded them up on a U haul truck, drove 1372 miles, 26 hours, non stop in a U Haul truck across the country, not stopping.
0:31:58 - (Rob Ervin): And when we finally got to FBI headquarters, of course I had what I call severe sphincter tightening. I was so puckered up, I was like just completely, like, terrified because everything was charged out under my name. I said, if the U Haul truck caught fire, this is the original records. These are not. Oh my gosh, this is it. So I get to FBI headquarters, pull in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover building and back up the U Haul truck.
0:32:27 - (Rob Ervin): All the gnome squirrels and monkeys from the records management unit come out with their. You with their, their carts and, and all this and go, oh my God. Holy crap, this is a lot of stuff. And I said, yeah, you think? And they said, yeah, oh my God, it's going to take us a while to unload this truck. I said, yeah, well, what. Have fun. I said, I'm now. So I signed it over to FBI headquarters guy. I said, I'm gonna have to have a photo of this. And, you know, transferring these records back to headquarters.
0:33:00 - (Rob Ervin): And then I get a person that comes up to me who's the unit chief working with Easy and working with the inspector over the, the, the records unit. He says, ferris, I have some, some news for you. And I said, what's that? He's, well, you've been put on what's called TDY temporary duty assignment to work on the JFK task force. And I said, what? They said, yeah, you're going to basically coordinate with the, the unit up here at headquarters for all these particular records. And so I became the, the guide to explain to all the clerks and all the support staff and people what is. Because, you know, government. I hate to say this, that's why I made a, quote, 1993, in San Antonio, Texas, during a. Another famous criminal investigation we had in which the prosecuting attorney was. The night before we were getting ready to prosecute the closing arguments of the case.
0:33:53 - (Rob Ervin): He says, let's get everyone together. And I said, okay. And so we got everyone together and it was just he and I. And I said, where is everyone? You know? And he says, I don't know. Where are all these people? This is the most important case. It's being broadcast on Court TV daily and it's only. And I. What. What the hell? So finally I said, cecil, let me explain something to you. I said, this is like the Kennedy assassination.
0:34:18 - (Rob Ervin): I said, quote, people are forever saying that President Kennedy was killed as a result of a governmental conspiracy. I said, the truth of the matter is the government's far too Inept to pull it off in quotes. Well, what happens? That quote gets published in the Dallas Observer. Next thing you know, being called into the boss's office. You said the government is inept. No, we are not inept. Oh, my. How could you say such a thing?
0:34:45 - (Rob Ervin): And I said, well, are you saying on the obverse that we are capable of killing the President, United States, and keeping it secret for 50 years? And he says, no, no, no, no, no, we're not saying that at all. And I said, well, I didn't say federal, state or local. I said, you know, the government in its entity. So what happened with this? All these files, these. This massive amount of files I had to go through.
0:35:09 - (Rob Ervin): And then, lo and behold, the unit chief says, ferris, I think it's only fitting that you have the final act of transporting These files from FBI headquarters to the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Archives 2, as they call it, where they reside today. So, once again, yours truly got into a U Haul truck, drove the files from FBI headquarters to College Park, Maryland, backed up the truck, and the archivist, Steve Tilly, said to me, he says, oh, my God, Ferris, it seems like you've been on a U Haul truck this entire time. And I said, well, Steve, I feel like it.
0:35:47 - (Rob Ervin): All these files, all this entity, all these things that happened, I never imagined in my wildest dreams because I was at love Field on November 22nd. I mean, Mike, you. You grew up in Oakland, Cliff. I mean, you were like 13 or so at the time of the assassination.
0:36:02 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, I was in room 122 at Brown Junior High.
0:36:05 - (Rob Ervin): Yeah, exactly. And all of this. I mean, we all know where we were and all these particular things, but you don't expect something that occurred in your life to define your life or to overshadow your life. And of course, you know, the, The. The one tie in is. Is how a movie, a film that's supposed to be representing fact and, and all of that, how this movie, you know, it. It kind of dovetails in the fact that Oswald's captured in a movie theater.
0:36:38 - (Rob Ervin): And, you know, I mean, every aspect of this, from, you know, from the highs and the lows, all has this theatrical, almost grandiose performance that the best writers in Hollywood couldn't create. All of this. And when you don't set out to be an expert, I mean, in 81, when I was working at the medical school with all the doctors, I was on the exhumation team assigned to dig up Lee Harvey Oswald in 81, and of course, I was at the at the site when they actually pulled him up out of the ground and all these particular things with, with, with that. With.
0:37:16 - (Rob Ervin): From Bonnie and Clyde, seeing that as a, As a child and then working at the field office with all the original records then having the f. Being thrust upon me and it Defining me, and then, you know, of course, ending my career with the Bureau. I ended up. I had done a film with. For PBS for Frontline called who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? And WGBH Frontline hired me and I ended up producing a film which I won my first Peabody Award for On the Branch Davidian Standoff, which I'd worked on in 1993 in Waco.
0:37:56 - (Rob Ervin): And so all these particular historical endeavors, these events that are monumental. I mean, you know, in Waco I met Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Murrow building. Two weeks. I mean, excuse me, two years later, I met him in Waco. And my life has been like a magical mystery tour. Yeah. In the sense that, I mean, you can make this up. I mean, this is, this is the kind of stuff people. I mean, you know, if I didn't have the photographs, they would either say, well, he's really creative. He's. He just, he took some really creative writing, you know, when he was a. Was a kid or something.
0:38:36 - (Rob Ervin): But no, this is, this is my life. And you know, matter of fact, Winston Groom, he wrote the, the. The book Forrest Gump he wrote, and it's on my website and people love this quote and it's, it's an actual quote. He said, forrest would love Ferris. Yes, really. That's really kind of how my life has been. I mean, you know, meeting. I've gotten to meet all the presidents since Nixon all the way to the current White House.
0:39:01 - (Rob Ervin): I've gotten to lecture about the JFK assassination all over the world. The Prince of Monaco lectured in Monaco, which is not a big. That gig too. No, it's not Garland, Texas. But, you know, it certainly, it's certainly memorable, but this is how my life has been. So, you know, I, I feel like, you know, you know, I'm. I'm one of these kind of like you wind him up in, you know, away he goes, you know, in the sense that, you know, I don't even know how to. When you try to describe to somebody your life and, you know, when people Google me, that's the fun thing, you know, you know, when people get on Google, who is this guy?
0:39:43 - (Rob Ervin): You know, and then they read all this stuff, their pages and pages and pages and pages, and they go to my Website. And then you see like somebody in Morocco has been on my website, you know, looking at me like, who the hell in Morocco gives a. You know? But. But that's how. That's. I mean, I'm blessed, but it's. It's bizarre. I mean, but to come back. To come back to Garland, not living in the. In the area for this film festival.
0:40:11 - (Rob Ervin): I mean, you know, to see Bonnie, Bonnie Parker's niece and. And Clyde Barrow's nephew in this. If you thought all that was weird, wait until you find out that during the course of. When I was doing DNA testing on Bonnie Parker's glasses that were getting ready to go up for auction, and we're trying to find all the nearest relatives and all this kind of stuff, we do all this genealogy stuff to find a fight. Living relatives. And lo and behold, guess who is related to Bonnie and Clyde? Yours truly.
0:40:44 - (Rob Ervin): That's my cousin. Okay, so he's seven baconing this entire film festival. Fantastic. I know. So, you know, for me, I chuckle. I told. I said. You know, what's weird is I of kind come to. I'm coming to a film festival as an Academy Award nominated filmmaker and expert historian and all this, but I'm also coming as a family member. Yeah. This is what's weird for me. This is the first time. And I haven't even shared this with Kelly. This is first for you, Mike.
0:41:19 - (Rob Ervin): This is the first time I'm seeing this movie in the theater since 1960. 67. What? Yeah. Yeah. Secondly, the first time I'm seeing it with my family members. With. With Ray Lender and Buddy Barrow. I mean, when you. I mean, think about it. If you. When you go to the movies, there's always this kind of distant relationship between you're the. The audience member or looking for me. What's weird is this is not just abstract people on a screen. This is a story about family members that it is related to and people that I know.
0:42:03 - (Rob Ervin): The. The living heirs. And to think I'm seeing this for the first time since 1967 in a movie. There.
0:42:11 - (Kelly Kitchens): Wow.
0:42:12 - (Rob Ervin): It's gonna be. It's gonna be surreal, real. And then Saturday I talk about the JFK files and the JFK video and all that with smu. Because what, you know, I didn't. I left out in this. This long winded spiel is, you know, I always say. I always say this, this could work in radio and in live stream. But I always say if people get a clue, what I call migo.
0:42:41 - (Mike Rhyner): No, it could work radio, believe me, live stream. Yes. Radio?
0:42:45 - (Rob Ervin): No. Radio, no. So what happens is, you know, like, with this, this, the film footage, yours truly. Long before the sixth floor museum at Dealey Plaza was existence, I was asked to be the principal historian for the planning of the museum. And I went around to all the TV and radio stations and newspapers and asked them and asked them to pledge preserving all the original film footage for the JFK assassination.
0:43:12 - (Kelly Kitchens): Thank you so much for that.
0:43:15 - (Rob Ervin): All of that has now ended up in the SMU film library in their, their cold storage vault. And that is something I'm very proud of, because when you think about visual and, and especially Mike, having you had a career in radio for as, as long as you have, people today have now become very, very, very accustomed and spoiled to having something visual to look at. They just, they just almost. They won't look and look or listen unless it has something they can look at. And so the film footage that is now preserved, which I was helpful in getting preserved, is what tells the story.
0:43:58 - (Rob Ervin): And it's amazing how in a society when 90, roughly 96 to 98, believe it or not, I mean, you're, you're the old gray wolf. But I'm telling you, you know, we're right up there ourselves in the sense that about 96 to 98 of the entire world population was not even alive in 1963. And so when you think about that, you think, wow, we're old. But you stop and think about how quick we move on. We move on. I mean, September 11th, you know, it's 24 years ago. We just celebrated Princess Diana's you know, anniversary and all this. You blink your eyes, you have a generation, a generation. Now we're in grandpa's years. I mean, the sense that coming to see this film festival with actual living people that are related to Bonnie and Clyde, yeah. Is going to be a rarity because Raylene is, I mean, I hate to give her age on radio, but in, in a podcast, in, in live stream is that, you know, Ray Leonard's 91, you know, so, you know, she's up in her ears, buddy's up in her, in, in his years.
0:45:02 - (Rob Ervin): And so to come to a film festival, you can actually see the film, ask questions, see the living people that are, that are related to all this and hear our stories is, is going to be one of the most unique things that, that anyone can come to because there's going to be a point in time where we won't be around to ask questions or to share the stories and, and this. And so that's Why I think this is going to be a very special festival, especially that Kelly has organized. And I'm very excited to come back to. To be a part of.
0:45:34 - (Farris Rookstool): Well, I think that something we mentioned too is that you got the Bonnie and Clyde thing on Friday night, but on Saturday afternoon at 3 o', clock, which was kind of how. Yeah, we brought everything in. Some of that footage from the JFK will be part of a documentary and a panel discussion.
0:45:50 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:45:51 - (Farris Rookstool): With. Well, along with the people from the sixth floor and some of the people from smu, which we saw a little bit. Little bit of at our media round table.
0:45:58 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:45:59 - (Farris Rookstool): Really, what a lot of people don't understand to kind of piggyback off that is how Dallas became the center of the media universe.
0:46:07 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:46:07 - (Farris Rookstool): In November of 1963, because there was no satellite feeds. There was no, you know, you could just. It was the local people and the people that could make it here. So a lot of the world was getting Dallas media as their sources to report on the things that were going on. That's going to be part of the festival too.
0:46:27 - (Kelly Kitchens): Well, and, you know, if you think about it, and on November 22, 1963, the reporters went out just thinking they were recording a parade.
0:46:40 - (Farris Rookstool): Yep.
0:46:41 - (Kelly Kitchens): So they had 16 millimeter cameras, which those, those reels are only four, 10 minutes long. And then they would have to go back to the station to process them. And it would take like an hour to process them. And this documentary, I'm so glad it talks about all of that. And so how many things were, you know, that where they had to be on the fly with, with, with people, eyewitnesses who were there. I mean, the fact that they talked to Zapp Pruder in the WFAA studio before they even realized what he had.
0:47:25 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah.
0:47:26 - (Rob Ervin): That was probably Dallas just to. To your point. Exactly, Kelly. Dallas became the ground zero for what is termed breaking news.
0:47:36 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:47:36 - (Rob Ervin): In the sense Walter Cronite up in New York, the orthicon tube, the television cameras had these tubes in them that had to warm up. So Cronkite, when he, when he, when he ripped and read, you know, three shots have been fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. You know. Okay. And so he's ripping and reading that. And that is because he couldn't get a television camera to warm up to get a live shot of him on the air.
0:48:08 - (Kelly Kitchens): Right.
0:48:10 - (Rob Ervin): Who in Dallas was working for. For LIF Radio when Gary ripped and read the UPI teletype and went out on the air, it was Gary's Teletype that, that he's reading that became the first breaking news on radio to announce that President Kennedy had been shot in downtown Dallas when WFAA was trying to go on air. The, the comical thing was the, the Julie Burnell Show. She was doing this show and they, they, they literally had the news director who was down with Mr. Peppermint Jerry Haynes and they had to run and Jerry was very thin and lean and the news director was a little calorically challenged. And they're, they're going back to the station to try to get on air. And then there was this man who is the unsung hero of wfaa, this man named Bob Turner, who's a news director who had purchased all this videotape and had this. Because one inch videotape was extremely, it was a brand new item. And so Bob purchase all this bulk one inch tape.
0:49:31 - (Rob Ervin): And that's when they say Bobby, on the, you know, in the life, life shot, they say Bobby, are you rolling? Are you taping? And he's like, yes, I am. They're telling him, you know, on air that they're taping this. All this, this, this material, the, these archival like, like images that we, that we take for granted now.
0:49:54 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah.
0:49:54 - (Rob Ervin): Could have been scrapped, could have been thrown away. Like Zapruder when he came. Zapruder first went to the Dallas Morning News. And yeah, the Dallas Morning News had the ability to process 16 millimeter black and white, but not color. So he went send them next door, had some stooge, said, oh yeah, we can process it. And not really looked at it thinking it's black and white, a 16 millimeter. They could have ruined the entire Zapruder film, which sold for roughly three, $13 million.
0:50:23 - (Rob Ervin): Wow. Later. But you know, and it was because Bert ship at channel 8 WFAA said wait, no, no, no, we can't, we can't process this film here. It's going to have to go to 3131 Manor Way to Eastman Kodak. And so that's when they really realized that the Pruder had this color film. And so they get him to the car and they drove over to just literally a block from Love Field to process the Zapruder film. And you think the Zapruder film, the master clock, the thing that we think of with the assassination could have been lost, could have been gone.
0:50:59 - (Rob Ervin): Completely assumed it was black and white film footage.
0:51:03 - (Kelly Kitchens): Wow. Yeah. And that's why the, the, our I love to focus on the archives and because our archives are, they are treasures and we, we've got them in, in Texas and so that's why this particular festival we're focusing on the, on these JFK of this JFK footage because I, it's, it's amazing what we do have and yeah, I, I'm just really passionate.
0:51:40 - (Rob Ervin): One of the neat things is the outtakes of the footage. The stuff that maybe is a pan shot with a camera is one of the things that established Jack Ruby being there for the midnight press conference on Friday. It's only because they did a pan shot with the, with the cameras that you have this. What most people would see is scrap footage or stuff that would have gone in the heap and be done with. But we actually were able to place Jack Ruby there's on the midnight Friday press conference and showing that yeah, he could have shot Lee Harvey Oswald on Friday had he wanted to because he was very close by, even asking questions, passing out his business cards and trying to get people to come over to his club.
0:52:23 - (Rob Ervin): But it's, it's some of those things that you see and then you understand through the archival footage the mechanics of what did it take for these cameras and for this, this, this story to go on air. It's the most complicated daisy chain. I mean we think of technology today. This was stone age technology. This is as primitive as you get. Throwing cable out windows down to a truck.
0:52:54 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah.
0:52:54 - (Rob Ervin): And of course Jack Ruby's hanging around the truck down there, you know, you know, he stole some of the food from the camera operators who ate their, the Chicken Delight food down there. I mean all these kinds of little things with the archives. And it is the real, it's the fun stuff. Like I say with the JFK records, 6 million total records. No one I'm going to be the last fossil to have ever read all these records. I mean it's not going to happen. No chat GBT is going to go through all this stuff I, and make any sense of it. So at the end of the day, the film footage, the archival footage is what people are going to lean towards and want to look at. Because when they go to the 6th Floor Museum, I hate to say it, you know, Dealey Plaza is now the death entertainment district. And really people are only going down there to get a picture of the grassy knoll, get their picture behind the picket fence or to go upstairs and peek out the window and shake their head say oh no, no, there's no way, hell like someone can do that. You know, they have, all they've done is, is, is just reconfirm their Nonsense that they believe.
0:54:02 - (Rob Ervin): So it's going to be a fun time. And. And I. And I think, you know, hopefully with a broad, diverse of audience of people, we'll get. Get to bring this history alive once again through this festival.
0:54:15 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:54:16 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, let's get into some of the other films.
0:54:18 - (Kelly Kitchens): Okay.
0:54:19 - (Mike Rhyner): That are going on down there as well as this.
0:54:21 - (Kelly Kitchens): Sure.
0:54:23 - (Mike Rhyner): I'm only familiar with one other one.
0:54:24 - (Kelly Kitchens): Okay.
0:54:25 - (Mike Rhyner): That's the Alamo.
0:54:26 - (Kelly Kitchens): Okay. Okay. I can bring you up to date on the other ones.
0:54:30 - (Mike Rhyner): Okay. Bernie would be one.
0:54:32 - (Kelly Kitchens): Bernie is about Bernie Taty, who is a funeral director in Carthage, Texas, which is deep east. East Texas. And he's so beloved by everybody in the town that they really kind of can't believe that he killed someone. And the person that they killed, they killed ended up being somebody that nobody liked.
0:55:05 - (Farris Rookstool): This is a Richard Linkletter film.
0:55:07 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah, it's Richard Linkletter.
0:55:08 - (Farris Rookstool): Jack Black plays the title character.
0:55:10 - (Mike Rhyner): Oh, really?
0:55:11 - (Rob Ervin): Yeah.
0:55:11 - (Farris Rookstool): The trailer. You would love the trailer. It's. It's almost shot documentary style.
0:55:16 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:55:17 - (Farris Rookstool): So you're seeing all these interviews with the townspeople, and they're like, yeah, I ain't gonna miss her.
0:55:21 - (Rob Ervin): You know.
0:55:24 - (Farris Rookstool): It is probably one of Winklatter's most underrated films, and it is hysterical.
0:55:29 - (Kelly Kitchens): It's. And so we'll have Skip Hollingsworth, who wrote the story in Texas Monthly in 1998. And Richard Linkletter got in touch with him and said, I want you to write the. The. The screenplay with me. And so he did. So he's going to be here. And we'll have Larry. Jack Dodson, who played the minister, he's going to be here, too. And then after that, we have the JFK deep dive into the archives. And that evening, after a dinner break, we.
0:56:11 - (Kelly Kitchens): We are going into the Great Debaters. And the Great Debaters is a movie that Denzel Washington not only stars in, but is the director of.
0:56:24 - (Farris Rookstool): Excellent film.
0:56:25 - (Rob Ervin): Yeah, excellent film.
0:56:26 - (Kelly Kitchens): And it's about a historically black college and university called Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, in 1935. And it is. They. How they went up against a white college debate team and won. But the film brings in a. Brings in the Hollywoodized version of it. And so we have the coach, the debate coach from Miley University, which is what it's called now, is going to come in and we're showing a documentary called the Real Great Debaters, which is about that team and going up against a historically white college. And so they'll tell the. Tell the true story of what that is.
0:57:21 - (Mike Rhyner): And then there's the Alamo.
0:57:23 - (Kelly Kitchens): And then there's the Alamo. Yes, that's on Sunday. So Sunday is our Alamo day. And I'm so excited. Excited because Anita La Cava Swift will be with us. And Anita is John Wayne's oldest granddaughter, and she is actually a toddler in the Alamo. So she is going to be here.
0:57:46 - (Farris Rookstool): And this is the.
0:57:47 - (Rob Ervin): If I remember.
0:57:48 - (Farris Rookstool): Great. There's. This is a. A more pure cut of it than most people have seen.
0:57:52 - (Kelly Kitchens): Well, this. Okay. So there. There are two versions. There's. There's this version, which is 2 hours and 42 minutes with an intermission in there. And then there's the roadshow version. And the roadshow version is a longer version. I want to say 30, 40 minutes longer, but it is not in good shape right now.
0:58:15 - (Farris Rookstool): So it's the purest you're gonna get.
0:58:17 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah, it's the purest we're gonna get. And I'm so grateful that Dev Shapiro is talked directly to Warner Brothers and they. They are getting that for us.
0:58:29 - (Farris Rookstool): And again, star and director, the same person.
0:58:31 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
0:58:32 - (Farris Rookstool): And the Alamo, because Wayne directed this as well.
0:58:35 - (Kelly Kitchens): Absolutely. And about the. The. The Alamo with John Wayne started working on getting the alamo made in 1945, 14 years before it was made. And I just think that that is extraordinary. I mean, he. He was so determined. And so we have Jack Edmondson, who is a. He is a historian in the. The Fort Worth stockyards and. But he's also a historian of the Alamo and Frank Thompson. And he will be there.
0:59:14 - (Farris Rookstool): Oh, he's not gonna be with us.
0:59:15 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:59:15 - (Kelly Kitchens): Frank. Frank can't be here.
0:59:16 - (Rob Ervin): Oh, I'm sorry.
0:59:17 - (Farris Rookstool): Hear that?
0:59:18 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah, no, me too.
0:59:19 - (Farris Rookstool): And then closing the festival.
0:59:21 - (Kelly Kitchens): Closing the festival. Okay, so. So let me throw this in because. Because we have established that Garland really leans in on its quirky and campy side. And so, you know, so we have Maky Horror Picture show, which is on Friday night. That's Campy. And Bernie, which is quirky. And then the campy and quirky side of ending the festival is going to be Viva Max. And Viva Max is a film from 1969. And I want you to think about this.
1:00:00 - (Kelly Kitchens): It takes place in 1969, and it is about a Mexican general played by Peter Houstonov, who wants to come and take back over the Alamo in 1969 with Jonathan Winters and John Aston and. Oh, my gosh, it is so silly and wonderful and I can't wait to see it.
1:00:26 - (Mike Rhyner): And I wonder. I want to see all this stuff.
1:00:29 - (Rob Ervin): Well, come on. Join us.
1:00:30 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, I really do.
1:00:32 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
1:00:32 - (Mike Rhyner): All sounds great.
1:00:33 - (Kelly Kitchens): It is great. Great. Please join us Friday night. Starting doors open at 6:30 and all day Saturday from about noon until 10 that night and then the next day about 12:30 until about 9.
1:00:52 - (Farris Rookstool): And our show will be there Friday night.
1:00:54 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
1:00:54 - (Farris Rookstool): As we're getting ready to kick the festival off because we always support Kelly as much as humanly possible.
1:00:59 - (Kelly Kitchens): Thank you. Thank you, you. I appreciate that so much. And so passes are@garland arts.com and you'll find the It Came From Texas poster there. And there's $75 for the whole weekend. So you get all those movies and so much more and all these wonderful people that are coming in to. To just bring, bring context and bring. I'm so excited. I. I am over. You should be overwhelmed.
1:01:32 - (Mike Rhyner): This is awesome.
1:01:33 - (Kelly Kitchens): Thank you. Thank you, Mike.
1:01:35 - (Mike Rhyner): I'm gonna come see all this stuff.
1:01:36 - (Kelly Kitchens): Okay, well, I'll join you.
1:01:39 - (Rob Ervin): We'll be there.
1:01:40 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, but you gotta be there. I don't. I want to.
1:01:44 - (Kelly Kitchens): Well, you know, I plan it that way. I always plan films I want to see.
1:01:50 - (Rob Ervin): You're the Phil, you're the visual director.
1:01:52 - (Farris Rookstool): You kind of get the choice of the shoe movies you show.
1:01:56 - (Rob Ervin): There's perks.
1:01:56 - (Kelly Kitchens): How did that get in there? Oh, Kelly, she's the one.
1:02:02 - (Mike Rhyner): And you get all this and you get old. Downtown Garland and all that. They've done that down there too.
1:02:09 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes.
1:02:10 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, if you're looking for a good time, you can't miss with this.
1:02:13 - (Farris Rookstool): Some great barbecue down there that I've had.
1:02:15 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
1:02:15 - (Rob Ervin): Big fan. Yeah.
1:02:16 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yes. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. Downtown Garland. I mean, there's a. A wonderful vinyl record store. Now there are restaurants, I mean, Intrinsic and Dust and Dance.
1:02:29 - (Rob Ervin): There's stuff.
1:02:30 - (Mike Rhyner): There's stuff that you will actually want to do. You probably know that if you've been down there, but if you haven't, you owe it to yourself, man. That's all I can tell you.
1:02:40 - (Rob Ervin): Yourself.
1:02:41 - (Mike Rhyner): You got to do it. Well, thank you, Kelly, as always, for. For being on little ydc.
1:02:49 - (Kelly Kitchens): Yeah, thank you.
1:02:50 - (Mike Rhyner): We appreciate it. Those of us who are doing the very best we possibly can with. With all we have to work with. Ferris, thank you. But I got one more question for you.
1:03:02 - (Rob Ervin): Sure.
1:03:03 - (Mike Rhyner): Did Oswald Act Cologne?
1:03:05 - (Rob Ervin): Yes, he did.
1:03:07 - (Kelly Kitchens): Wow. There it is.
1:03:10 - (Farris Rookstool): No hesitation.
1:03:13 - (Rob Ervin): I'll tell you something to that point, Mike. When I was at Restland Cemetery finalizing my late mom's funeral arrangements, after I'd signed away all the paperwork and all this, the funeral director says to me, he says, ferris, there's one last thing I need to ask you. And I said, you know what, you know, we've covered everything. Yeah. Pre planned funeral needs, you know, the. Everything. What he says, I just need to ask you one question.
1:03:44 - (Rob Ervin): I said, okay, what's that? He said, did Lee Harvey Oswald kill President Kennedy? This is at the funeral home. So it's the universal question I get asked by everyone.
1:03:58 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, I'm sure, I'm sure.
1:04:00 - (Rob Ervin): And you know, at the end of the day, you know, I mean, I believe without any reservation, Oswald fired all three shots from the the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository. There were no other shots fired from any grassy knolls or any other direction. And I believe, yeah, there were some screw ups by the US government as there always is. But I can say without any reservation, I've read all the files, I've interviewed countless witnesses. I've seen all the evidence. I've handled most of the evidence.
1:04:29 - (Rob Ervin): I can say that Oswald was the sole assassin who killed jfk.
1:04:33 - (Kelly Kitchens): Wow. All right, there you have it.
1:04:35 - (Mike Rhyner): There you have it. There you have it right here on little ydc. Final authority.
1:04:40 - (Rob Ervin): That's it.
1:04:41 - (Mike Rhyner): The highest authority.
1:04:42 - (Kelly Kitchens): That's right. That's right. Thank you, Ferris.
1:04:46 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes, thank you for being with us today, Ferris. Thank you for being with us today, Kelly.
1:04:50 - (Kelly Kitchens): Thank you. And one bonus, I just got these posters that have Ferris on them that we're going to have Ferris and Raylene Linder and Buddy Barrow sign for you at the festival.
1:05:05 - (Mike Rhyner): Excellent, excellent. All the more reason. I mean, what film festival do you go to where you come away from it with a souvenir like that?
1:05:14 - (Kelly Kitchens): I know, right?
1:05:19 - (Mike Rhyner): Oh, thank you, Rob.
1:05:21 - (Farris Rookstool): Thank you, sir.
1:05:21 - (Mike Rhyner): Ashley, thank you to everybody.
1:05:24 - (Kelly Kitchens): Thank you.
1:05:25 - (Mike Rhyner): This has been Little your Dark Companion. Now you know what we would like for you to do? You can find us on Spotify, you can find us, I don't know, wherever you get your podcasts. It's what they say these days. What we need you to do is like us, share us, get us out there. Because that does more than anything for those of us who swim in the waters of the podcast. And if you'd like to write a review about us, us, do that too.
1:05:55 - (Mike Rhyner): Whatever it takes, whatever you can give us. We appreciate it. Thank you for watching all this today. Thank you, Ashley. You are wonderful as always. All right, till next time. Bye. Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Reiner. Sports talk. Baseball. Baseball. Nobody. All right, I'm gonna go take my pants off. Your Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.