Hollywood on the Rio Grande

INNOCENT IN THE VELVET JUNGLE

- Introduction
- Hooked Forever
- Innocent in the Velvet Jungle
- The Commission of Doubt or
  What the Hell do we do Next
- Stinky Flies in the Gourmet Soup
- One for the Money, Two for the Show
- The Wrap Without Bow Knots Parker optioned The Rounders and I was talking to Kennedy with great enthusiasm about its production. Suddenly Burt was out. William Wellman was in. Wellman came out of retirement to direct and oversee Tom Blackburn's script. Then it all fell apart from personality clashes amongst the principals.

Four years later it would be back in Kennedy's domain. He and producer Richard Lyons would make it. Burt and his location crew met me in December of '64 in Santa Fe to look for New Mexico locations. They liked the ranch south of Santa Fe, then owned by Alva Simpson. The first part of the location scouting was successful. The next day we were to look between Santa Fe and Las Vegas for a small town and high-country locations near Pecos. That night it snowed over a foot in Santa Fe and even more to the east. Our car got bogged down on the highway and had to get pulled out by a road crew. Kennedy's tight time schedule forced the filmmakers to head southwest to Sedona, Ariz., for locations. I was deeply disappointed. So was Burt. The Rounders was released in 1965. The effort was not lost. Over the years, he would return to make three pictures in New Mexico.

I must digress and return to my second Hollywood action. During those years I was simply trying to survive to write more books and have as much fun as circumstances and the frail human body would allow. Unbeknownst to me, an up-and-coming young director, Sam Peckinpah, was disappointed that he did not get The Rounders for himself. He did get advance galleys of my next novel, The Hi Lo Country, and called my young agent, Peter Thomas, to get me to Hollywood to negotiate for the film rights. He told Peter, "I want to meet the S.O.B. who wrote this book, face to face." We did. I naturally had no idea what would occur from these early, fateful and fruitful meetings, but somehow, amidst both our youthful madness, Sam and I remained friends from then until he died.

The film industry in New Mexico was ready for a new jump-start. These early meetings with Kennedy and Peckinpah would directly lead to the filming of five major movies - from them alone - in New Mexico, and indirectly to an amazing amount of celluloid money and adventure.