Willeford said he sent his 1960 novel in under the title The Director, before Newsstand Library changed it to The Woman Chaser.
The director for the movie didn’t make it to this screening (I heard it may have been an option), but the producer. . . . I bet Joe McSpadden represents his movie at every major screening that comes along. A hero.
Image at top, left to right: me, Joe, and Woman Chaser star Patrick Warburton.
After it was all over, I remembered that I wanted to ask Joe about a movie he described when I first met him at the Pacific Film Archives showing in 2009. Joe doesn’t do a lot of producing, but he’s had his hand in here and there.
I thought he had mentioned a Western they were planning to film in Texas.
I’d forgotten Willie Nelson was attached.
“West of Texas aka Badlands Baldy,” Joe told me, “died on the vine because Willie Nelson’s name didn’t mean as much as we had hoped. . . .
“The writer and lead actor, Sonny Carl Davis, and I are still in touch, but no one (it seems) wants to make a family Western with those names. . . but you never know.
“You can check out SCD in Richard Linklater’s Bernie, which got a lot of attention for Sonny — he made a campaign spot for Beto O’Rourke as that character.”
