A Great Idea and a Great Business Education all rolled together...

     If the low-power television business was considered to be the “minor leagues” I was about to be called up to the Major League business of hard-ball full-contact rough-and-tumble television syndication. It was time to really “buckle up” for the bumpy road ahead. And, boy, what an education I was about to receive.

     It didn’t take long to wind down the JPD closure and, sadly, that whole experience also created a rift between the LCM partners, up to the point of them also choosing to go their separate ways. My financial backing from them also dissolved in the same wave but it really wasn’t too much of an issue because my forced neglect of the Wuergler Productions business during the time I was in California had caused all of my proposed projects to dry up anyway. It was an amiable departure between me and my partners and I was grateful that they trusted me enough to manage their investment in JPD and in the low-power world. Sadly, the federal government’s failure to issue construction permits for stations was what really killed that business.

     So, on to the next gig, right?

     And it didn’t take long. My good friend Randy Largent knew of an energetic venture capital investor who had been approached with a deal for a totally new scheme of television syndication that sounded promising to him, but since he knew nothing about that business he was looking for someone to run it for me and Randy knew just the guy…me!

     And this idea was truly brilliant. The concept that was created by Tom Hughes was to offer first-run movies to syndicated TV stations so that audience would get to see films long before they hit the cable networks. We would build our own network of stations and give them one new movie per month that had not yet been on the pay cable networks. I called it the “First Wednesday Film Series” and I started building the business by hiring an excellent syndicator, George Back, who went to work right away selling this idea to stations around the country. We were off and running.

     We went to the NAPTE convention with this idea and created a lot of “buzz” about the idea. And I wound up on the front page of the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times. 

     I had already been to several major movie distributors and started to make offers on their newest movie releases, and also generated a lot of serious interest with them as this was truly a brand-new market for them and an exciting new source of revenue.

     We were thrilled to go on the air with our very first offering “Godzilla 1985” and had built a solid group of stations. One of my artist friends created a fun ad which we placed in TV GUIDE and which loudly proclaimed our “World Television Premiere”.  

     We were really making some noise in this business.

     Here is the terrific article that appeared in Daily Variety:

Syndicators Plan Ad-Hoc Web for 1^st-Run Features

New York, April 8 – Two syndicators have joined forces to set up an ad-hoc network that would funnel theatrical features into tv syndication before they get any runs on pay-cable.

The plan, put together by All American TV and a new company called Alternative Network Television, kicks off with “Godzilla 1985” which goes out on barter May 16 in primetime on a lineup that already has reached 81% of the country.

Just about all of the stations taking “Godzilla 1985” including those in the top 22 markets and in 39 of the top 40 will run it day and date, giving the advertisers a genuine alternative network and allowing the distributors to launch a national promotion effort.

“This is a syndication first,” says George Back, president of All American TV, which will sell the 14 minutes of national barter time in “Godzilla.” “To my knowledge, all of the previous nationally televisied movies in recent years have had multiple runs on pay-cable.”

Mike Wuergler, president of Alternative Network TV (ANT) says, “Independent tv stations are severly hampered in the ratings when they play a movie that has had a number of runs on pay. That’s why we’ve cleared so many stations so fast – “Godzilla” will be coming to them without any pay-tv exposure at all.” ANT is clearing the stations for the ad-hoc network.

Sources say ANT paid New World, the theatrical distributor, about $550,000 for two runs of “Godzilla 1985” within a 60-day window between mid-May and mid-July 1986.

Tom Hughes, v.p. of programming and station relations for ANT, says his company is negotiating with a number of independent theatrical movie distributors to outbid HBO and Showtime for the first post-homevideo window. (New World released “Godzilla 1985” to homevideo late last year.)

If “Godzilla” get good Nielsen ratings for its May 16 telecast, Buck says he and Wuergler plan to buy at least 12 new theatricals (with no previous pay-tv exposure) for a proposed monthly ad-hoc network that would run from September 1986 through August 1987.

Wuergler says he’s negotiating with the following theatrical distributors for new pix: Hemdale, Concorde, New World, Cinema Group, Sandy Howard, Dino De Laurentis and Samuel Goldwyn.

     What we were about to discover what that we had been “tickling the tail of the sleeping tiger” in being so successful so early in our efforts and were about to get hit with a large dose of financial reality. This is what I meant earlier when I characterized this business as “hard-ball full-contact rough-and-tumble”.

     We had made the cable network giant HBO take notice, especially with the Variety article that outlined our battle-plan…and our apparent challenge to them. They knew that we were, in effect, stealing away a potentially large audience from them by offering free movies to television audiences long before those films would ever show up on their Pay TV channel.

     What happened is that HBO simply went around outbidding us with the movie distributors. And, they must have felt that we were a credible threat because their offers were far and above what we were offering so producers and distributors took HBOs offer and left us “all dressed up with no place to go”. We had a wonderfully viable company with a terrific idea but were outbid by the “tiger” we had awakened and were, quite effectively, simply put out of business. Hard ball, right?

     Our principal investor was really good about this in that he realized that he just didn’t have deep enough pockets to get into a bidding war with such a giant organization as HBO, so we parted ways in a good way and I then went about folding my executive tent, saying a sad goodbye with my deepest thanks to all of our television stations who pioneered this concept with us, and, then…with a heavy heart but with a fantastic learning experience under my belt, I turned out the lights.   

     And, as a fun little add-on for you, I received a terrific mention in Mark Wolf’s article in the Rocky Mountain News after the NAPTE convention in New Orleans. After talking about the ATN Network and what we were doing in the business, his final three paragraphs were a nice nod to me and a bit of my history in Denver.

     Here is a portion of that article 

ANTv’s package has not yet been sold of a Denver station, but Wuergler’s roots to KWGN-Channel 2 go back nearly 20 years.

Wuergler is a Denver native who graduated from Aurora Central (then just Aurora) High School and the University of Colorado, with a degree in speech and drama. He hosted Teen Time, an afternoon music-and-dance show on Channel 2, live from a teenage nightclub near East High School and performed for seven years in and around Denver as a member of the band The Hustlers.

He appeared in productions of Oklahoma and The Boyfriend at Country Dinner Playhouse and returned to Denver as production stage manager of the national company of Fiddler on the Roof at the Auditorium Theater. Wuergler produced the revival of “The Mickey Mouse Club” for Disney in 1977, served a hitch as president of Osmond International, then became a film producer for Comworld. Among his movies were “The Avenging” (filmed in Telluride in 1981), “One Dark Night” and “Hit and Run”. “They were tax-shelter movies,” joked Wuergler.

     Ok...now what? 

Teaching Seminary

   
     One of the most satisfying and truly joyful things I love to do in my life is to be of service by teaching the beauty and simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think, at the bottom of my heart and soul, I’m a teacher and one of the true joys that I have had the privilege of doing is teaching teenagers during early-morning seminary. The teenagers of the church are a truly amazing group of people and when they choose to get up really, really early and come to a religion class way before their regular school begins, it truly warms my heart, because they really want to be there and they really want to learn.

     I was able to have this calling three times. The first was in Anaheim when I first worked for Disney. The next time was in Orlando when I was at Disney World and that was especially a challenge because I had to drive 30 miles to the place where we held the class. Then, in Palos Verdes when I was working at JPD, and that was especially wonderful because I was able to have my own daughter Debbie in my class.

     During each of their four years of high school, the class focuses on a different course of study. Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon and finally, Church History and the Doctrine and Covenants. There are in-depth studies of each of those scriptures so by the time a student graduates from high school, they have been introduced to deep discussions on gospel topics that give them, hopefully, a more firm and solid testimony of the reality of how Jesus Christ affects their lives and how He loves and cherishes them. It is a joy to be a part of that process.

     One day, a news reporter came to our class at Palos Verdes East High School and sat in for the whole hour. She took a couple of terrific pictures and wrote an article that wound up on the front page of the religion section of the Palos Verdes Peninsula News.

     I hope you enjoy reading this wonderful little story.

Students Forsake Sleep For Early Bible Study

By Joan Denslow (Religion Editor) and Beth Paullin, Saturday, October 6, 1984

Every school day, about two hours before most Peninsula students have climbed out of bed to quiet a noisy alarm clock ringing in another day, Laura Merrill, a freshman at Palos Verdes High School, is preparing to leave the house.

Like Merrill, PVHS junior Gordon Anderson is also one of a small number of early risers who can be found about 6:40 a.m. weekdays sitting in the Oral Arts room at the Palos Verdes High Estates high school.

Merrill and Anderson are part of a group of some 100 high school students who , as members of the Palos Verdes Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are seminary students who regularly meet for scripture study just about the time most of their high school chums are sitting down to breakfast.

But the early-bird Bible study isn’t as rare as the 12 or 13 participants at PVHS might indicate.

In 1983, according to church records, Mormon seminary students numbered 10,699 including two such classes that meet at another Peninsula public high school, Rolling Hills High.

During the four-year seminary program students review most of the King James version of the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon and another book known as Doctrine and Covenants, which is also accepted as scripture by the Utah-based Mormon Church.

“I love to teach,” said teacher Michael Wuergler during a recent seminary session with his PVHS group.

Wuergler, who follows his early-morning class with a full day’s work as a television producer, added: “Religious education is as important as academic education. My goal is to have the students know and understand the teachings of Jesus Christ so that they will learn to love Him and make Him part of their lives.”

“They think I’m crazy,” laughed Jennifer Davey, another PVHS senior who attends the early morning session, when asked what other students think about the seminary’s early call.

“But I think they respect us too for getting up early,” Davey commented.

Some of the seminary students echoed the feeling of Rolling Hills High School student Dru Morgan. “When I don’t go to seminary the day seems lost,” the student said.

Leisa Hadley, another student who attends the RHHS seminary class, added that the camaraderie of the class group “is like a large and very close family.”

Other seminary teachers in the Palos Verdes Stake in addition to Wuergler are Mark Williams, John Perotti, Antoinette McNeil, Gwen Williamson and Tessie Castillo.

     I truly loved the kids I taught and we became very close friends. I just wish I had stayed long enough in one place to have gone through all four years with them. But, I still have life-long friends that I made in each of the three years I taught this wonderful class.

My Television Network Executive Experience
     Just as I was wrapping up my assignment at the Disney Studios in late 1983, there was an interesting development in the television broadcast industry that would affect me and my family quite powerfully and personally…unbeknownst to me at the time, of course. The Federal Communications Commission had approved a new technology which they called LPTV (Low-power Television) and which allowed a station to obtain a license to operate outside of the area of dominant influence of the major television markets. In other words, those signals could not cross.

     But, these tiny-market stations needed programming, right? So, it turned out that a rather enterprising person from California named Jim Devaney had created a network which he titled the JPD Television Network (his initials, of course). 

     Jim and his wife, Susan, had obtained broadcast rights to some really old TV shows, purchased time on a satellite transponder and had started broadcasting (or maybe narrow-casting is a better term considering the ultimate reach of the signal) for 12 hours a day in September of 1983. The FCC had announced that they would award construction permits in the hundreds and thousands by the end of 1983 so the future of the JPD looked really, really good as the network could then add station affiliates by the bucket-load and thereby grow the business rapidly.

     Didn’t happen.

     For some reason, the FCC was dragging its bureaucratic boots and this fledgling industry was floundering and not quite off the ground. While I was in LA, however, Jim Devaney had discovered the deep pockets of the LCM Group and had gone to Dallas and made what must have been a pretty convincing presentation regarding the potentially bright future of LPTV to Bruce, Kenny and Alan to the point that they agreed to back JPD…but, only if they could have their own guy who knew something about the television business on the inside keeping a watchful eye on their investment.

     Guess who that was going to be?

     You guessed it, I was about to take yet another detour.

     Bruce and his partners were okay about me putting all of my Wuergler Productions efforts on hold and asked me to move from Dallas to Southern California to be their venture-capital-investment watchdog and to become, of all things, a television network executive. Who knew? 

     I think Jim Devaney was very reluctant in having someone look over his shoulder, but because he needed the financial backing of LCM, he wound up taking their deal and agreeing to have someone (me) come to Palos Verdes and take up residence inside his company.

     So, once again, away we went.

     I found an absolutely fabulous home for rent in East Palos Verdes that was only a one block walk to the Pacific Ocean – Lunada Bay. I have often said that if a person was going to live on the West Coast, why not live on the west coast?!?

     So we did. 

     Getting there was half the fun. We had three cars, so Sherry drove one with one of the kids, Debbie did the same and so did I. I bought three CB radios, one for each car, so that we could talk along the way, announce the need for a bathroom stop and let everyone else know when someone was hungry. Somewhere in west Texas, Debbie had a great big ol’ 18-wheeler truck driver call her on her CB radio and after they chatted for a while he tried to get her to pull over so they could “get acquainted” a little better. She coyly replied, “Well, you’ll have to ask my daddy first”. He came back with “ok little darlin’…where’s your daddy?” And she told him, “He’s the one right behind you in the black Cadillac”.

     We never heard from him again.

     We moved into the home, got Leah and the boys registered at Lunada Bay School and Debbie enrolled at Palos Verdes High School. We went to church and made instant friends that are still in our lives to this day. The Palos Verdes Peninsula was an absolutely fabulous place to live. It was the southern-most tip of Los Angeles with the Bay on the west and the LA Harbor on the south. We were right in the middle. 

     The JPD offices were on the other side of the Peninsula in Rolling Hills Estates so the drive to work was beautifully breathtaking, each and every day. And, they had not spared any expense on decorating the offices, they were stunning, right down to the huge seawater fish tank filled with truly exotic fish.

     I got right to work by negotiating a more favorable satellite transponder deal, acquiring some more upscale and newer programming, creating an affiliate relations department and putting in place more rigorous expenditure policies than what they had been used to. After all, I was now the company officer responsible for the investor’s investment (and, they were my partners remember).

     I called my old CU buddy, Bill Little, and he and I also went right to work creating a more pleasing “look” for the network, with station break graphics, music bumpers and animated logos that were really cool and fun to create on the newest video editing equipment that had just gone into production use. I mean, these were cutting-edge machines in that day. And, if I say so myself, this small little low-power network looked really good.

     Our station affiliates were beyond happy with the changes.

     In February of 1984, we were invited to the annual NAPTE convention. This is the National Association of Programming Television Executives and we were asked to appear on a panel discussion that featured the low-power industry, probably because we were, at the time, the “only game in town”.

Here is the article that covered our discussion.

How to sell LPTV: change name.

NAPTE panelists say outlets should be called “community television stations” and be heavily promoted in market.

Pioneers in the new field of low power television who want to succeed should heed the advice of the ad man who said that selling the steak meant first selling the sizzle. And the first step in that direction, an audience of broadcasters at a NAPTE panel session was told, was that low-power operators should stop referring to their operations as “low-power”. They are “community television stations”.

We can get rid of the “low power” and concentrate on “community television”, said Michael Wuergler president of Wuergler Productions, which provides programming for low-power stations that are beginning to emerge from the mountain of 12,000 applications on file at the FCC (96 are on the air in the continental U.S., 200 in Alaska, with 158 under construction). The FCC staff, which is preparing to set up a series of lotteries to dispose of competing applications, hopes to clear out the backlog by the end of the year. “You compete with other stations, however their signal is received, whether directly or by cable television,” said Wuergler.

     Sadly, back in the office and in my capacity of being the watchdog, and after several months of “watching the dog” I had discovered several policies and practices that had placed the investor relationship in jeopardy and which would lead to the partners taking full control of the network. I had become the “hatchet man” for the investors, and as you can well imagine, that move made things extremely tense in the office from then on.

     Here is the press release announcing that move.

American Television Network (ATN), a newly-created network, will be taking over all programming, technical operations and facilities of JPD Television Network, Alan Preston, a successful Dallas businessman and land developer, will control the new network.

Michael Wuergler, who was the Chief Operating Officer of JPD, will step in to head up the new management team of ATN. The new network will continue to air family-oriented programming to LPTV stations with interruptions of daily broadcasting. James Patrick Devaney, who was President of JPD, will continue affiliation with the new network as a consultant.

“ATN will represent heightened professional standards in the LPTV industry”, states Wuergler. “Our first step in this direction is an intensive market study of LPTV stations. Market research of this scope has not yet been done in the LPTV industry.”

The new management will be focusing on building a local image for the affiliates with programming scheduled to facilitate local promotions and the sale of local advertising.

As ATN is targeted to entertain America’s heartland, it is introducing its new logo on Independence Day, July 4. On that day each affiliate will introduce its viewers to the new on-air look of ATN.

“I feel these positive changes will enhance not only current ATN affiliates,” states Wuergler, “but will attract many more construction permit holders who, with their addition to the network, will help to create a more prosperous LPTV industry."

     The NAPTE convention created a great deal of positive press for us.

     But, at long last, after really struggling to grow the business over the past year or so, we started to take notice of the gigantic elephant in the room – the FCC. Their lack of approvals of station construction permits did not allow this promising industry to grow, but instead, was causing it to spiral downward at a rapid rate.

     One of the most difficult jobs of a consultant is to recommend to the people who hired you for your expertise, is to tell them that your expertise is guiding you in telling them the sad news that it’s time to pull the plug, which would of course, cause them to lose their considerable investment.


So…with much regret, we pulled the plug.

     Here is the press release announcing the news:

The American Television Network stopped its service to the Low Power industry today, it was announced by Alan Preston, the Dallas-based businessman who acquired the network last May. Preston, citing the cash flow problems of the affiliates, with several in default, and the slow growth of the industry in general, said that “it was too early to provide such a ‘Cadillac’ service to an industry that was only ready for something less. The FCC has hurt us as well, by announcing their intent of awarding construction permits in the hundreds and thousands by the end of 1983, and only delivering a fraction of that number to date.” There are only 107 low-power stations on air and ATN had 17 of those on air as of yesterday, with the balance of stations either broadcasting religious programming, teletext, or educational fare. “You can carry somebody else’s business just so long before it catches up with you,” said Preston, “and we were just unable to be the bank for the industry as well as a source of programming. I am sure there is future growth in the business, but we couldn’t carry individual stations along with us and expect to survive the long haul.” 

Preston said that the syndicators and program suppliers have been “champions” in the startup of this business and he had nothing but praise for their assistance in helping ATN go on the air last September. “They have been good to us and we felt that this business was going to be beneficial for both of us, but the affiliate base has just not been there, and some of those that are on the air have not been making paying us for the programs a priority.”

So closed a very interesting part of my work history. I walked away having learned a great deal about both management and leadership. I was managing an enterprise that struggled to grow and was adversely affected by conditions beyond our control. I was also leading several teams (production, marketing, publicity, operations, accounting and finance) and was learning what it meant when that leadership wasn’t always welcome in certain circles (being, of course, the guy who represented the financial backers). It was, truly, an advanced course in both executive “combat” and in continually striving to do and be your best in extremely difficult situations. With all of that going on in the background, we still were able to produce excellent content for the network and create a product that was smart-looking and had the potential of great success. I was truly sad that it never took off as it was projected to do. But, what an absolutely fabulous business education I obtained along the way.

Okay. So now what?

Yet Another Big Adventure...

     The next 10 years were to prove to be an interesting education for me. All throughout the next several adventures I am about to share with you, my primary end-in-mind was always the continuing comfort and well-being of my family, so we pretty well had to follow the money/job/opportunity, wherever that was going to take us.

     Our wonderful twins, Michael and Mark were born in 1979 while I was working with the Osmonds and living in Provo, Utah.

     In the next several years, we would find ourselves moving to Dallas, Texas; East Palos Verdes, California; Redondo Beach, California; Orem, Utah; Provo: Salt Lake City, Utah; Santa Clara, Utah; St. George, Utah; Orem, Utah; back to Salt Lake City; Boston, Massachusetts; and finally settling just outside of Atlanta, Georgia in the city of Alpharetta, which was changed to Johns Creek during our time there, and where Sherry and I have spent the largest amount of time during our so-far 43 1/2 years of a fabulous marriage – as I write this we have been here for the past 15 years.
\ 
     My time with Comworld came to an interesting end. Dick Callister (the President of the company) had found outside investors to put money into each of the other two films that I was producing in the
package of three. As I worked with Tom McLaughlin on his terrific little scary movie One Dark Night, the investor in this film came by the set one day. A pleasant enough fellow, whose name I cannot recall, but he kept injecting himself into the production and suggesting things to do that were just not feasible, given what the process of film-making was all about. And, I, as tactfully and professionally as possible, attempted to “school” him on the way films were made and why we had to do it the way we were doing it.

     I learned the next day that he had called Dick and demanded that I removed from the film.

     You know that “The Golden Rule” was being applied here, right? Not the one that Jesus taught us
regarding doing unto others in the exact manner in which you want them to do unto you in return. No,
this not-so-golden rule is stated that “whoever has the gold makes the rules.” And this guy had the gold and, as far as my boss was concerned, he was the one making the rules. So, I dutifully turned over the movie to my associate producer to finish up and headed off to New York to help complete that film. Of course, giving control to my assistant was also giving him the task of dealing with the meddling investor. The only reason the film turned out to be a success was that it was really the director's film - not anyone else. Tom did a sensational job.

     I didn’t take that change of assignment personally, but that little lack of support from my boss
encouraged me to begin working on, at long last, leaving Comworld and eventually hanging out my own “open for business” sign. I still completed my principal assignment of finishing those three films and getting them up and running before I ever made a move to leave. But, I had my exit strategy all planned out for quite a while but I made certain that I executed it with the upmost of integrity and didn’t pull the trigger for several months.

     I resigned as the Executive VP of Comworld on February 17, 1982 and walked into my own new world on that very same day.

Wuergler Productions was born.

     And, on that very same day, I signed a contract for an option on Alan Foote’s story, "Downwind". Over the next several weeks and months, I began lining up many potential projects such as the wonderful script "Bridge Across the Sky", the fabulous story of the Berlin Airlift. After kicking off with those two, I then bought the film and distribution rights to a fabulous book, "The Ogden Enigma".  Several ideas and concepts soon followed: a TV Special starring Clint Eastwood, a country music exercise video, "Disney’s Greatest Music" budget had been submitted for approval, "Even a Clown Must Die" was sent to A-Z Productions in London for consideration as a co-production, and I submitted "First Gentleman" and "Going Gold" to Paramount as concepts for TV series. And, all of this boatload of really great stuff was being generated from my basement office in our home on Foothill Drive.

     I was getting ready to really rock…and boy, was I excited or what!

     With all of this excitement swirling around, sometime in mid-April, I got a call from Dennis Despie at Disneyland. He was the successor to Bob Jani and was now the current Vice President of the Entertainment Division. He asked me to fly down to Anaheim as he had what he characterized as an interesting proposal for me. He wouldn’t tell me over the phone for some reason, so naturally, I was intrigued. I went to California.

    He truly stunned me by offering me the job of being the Director of the Entertainment Division at the new Tokyo Disneyland which was scheduled to open in Japan the next April (1983). They would move my family there, give me a private driver and give Sherry a cook and a housemaid, put my children in the American School, and “require” that we take a two-week “vacation” in Hawaii (or wherever) twice a year just so we didn’t get culturally burned-out or too homesick.

     Good grief! Wow! What an offer!

     After talking to Sherry and both of us fasting and praying about it, I turned him down.

     We had too much going on with our older children at the moment to uproot them from their current already “difficult teenager” routine. Plus, I had just hung out my “shingle” as a production company and had made multiple commitments to several people and to projects that I believed in. It was a hard choice to make, as I hope you can appreciate, as I would have truly loved to return to the Disney organization. But, deep down, I knew I was being guided in my choice to say no.

     None of my projects were in pre-production yet, but things seemed to be humming right along toward that end, when I get yet another outa-the-blue call.

     I had met Bruce West when I was running the international group at Osmonds and he now wanted to delve into the movie/TV business. He was an extremely successful real estate developer in Dallas and asked me if I would be willing to move my new company to Texas and become an arm of his operation. What was appealing about working with him was that he and his two partners would fund all of my preliminary efforts and would support anything I wanted to do…as long as it was profitable for them. That seemed like a better offer than uprooting and moving to Japan, especially since I could still be Wuergler Productions.

     So…off to Dallas we went.

     All of us except Todd. He didn’t want to move with us and since he was legally “of age” we said ok. He wound up staying with the Pope family, which was a blessing both to him and to us in so many wonderful ways. Lewis Pope was the Bishop at the time and was an absolutely wonderful man who, best of all, really loved Todd. It was a good deal all around.

     We rented a pretty little duplex on Moondust Drive and Debbie started to school at Richardson High School. Leah, Mike and Mark were too young for full-time school so they stayed home with Sherry. I have always been grateful that I continued to earn enough so that Sherry could stay at home at be a full-time Mom. That was always a great blessing for us.

     One of the happy accidents that happened in Dallas is that Leah, Mike and Mark were recruited to be runway models for children's clothing. They were on the "catwalk" at the Dallas Fashion Mart showing off kid's fashions and they were so very cute doing their thing. I don't know if they enjoyed it (ask them if they even remember it) or not but Sherry and I sure did. It was great fun for all of us. We even spent a little time and money to take some modeling headshots of them - which we didn't know would come in handy in about another year or so. (I wanted to get into the act too...)

     The office for the LCM Group covered the entire 8th floor of the Republic Bank Building on the North Dallas Parkway, which was a fabulous address.

     They gave me a great big office (not as big as theirs, of course) and a budget to buy some really gorgeous office furniture, which I did right away. I set up shop and started to focus on my roster of possible projects, attempting to get them funded and produced.

     After a couple of months with a lot of activity but with nothing solid happening, I got yet another call for yet another opportunity that would send me on yet another short detour. My buddy Phill Catherall had also left the Comworld organization and had gone to work back in Los Angeles…surprise, surprise…for Disney.

      Their international home video group, the sales side of which Phill was leading, needed a fun
subject with which to launch their world-wide efforts and they had landed on something they called
“Disney’s Greatest Villains” – that’s all they had…a title and an idea. Would I be interested in coming
back to the Studio and writing/producing/and directing this little project?

     Would I? Yes, but I just got to Dallas and had just purchased an office full of terrific-looking furniture. Plus, I now had partners (Bruce, Kenny and Alan – LCM Group) to whom I was accountable and couldn’t just jump up and leave. But again…surprise, surprise…they said go ahead and do this for Disney as it might lead to some great business for Wuergler Productions.

     So, off to Burbank we went.

     It turned out to be kind of a family vacation as we got a Disney-owned condo to stay in and Todd flew into town to visit us for a few days. It was a terrific three weeks for the family.

     But, it was a grueling three weeks for me. This little project, which was nothing more than an idea with a title, had to be written, produced, new narration recorded, art directed, edited, packaged and shipped out in 15 working days. Holy Moley. Phill didn’t tell me that when he extended his invitation. I first had to select the clips featuring which Disney Bad Guys I was going to use, and then piece all of that together into some kind of storyline that made sense and which was fun and entertaining to boot.

     The idea that got me up and running was to use the two “baddest” guys from The Jungle Book, Shere Khan the tiger and Kaa the snake. I made them my narrators and the story simply took off from there.

      It was terrific fun. Captain Hook from Peter Pan, the Wicked Queen from Snow White, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty were just a few of my stars.

     I wrote the new dialogue, hired some fabulous voice actors, recorded their lines, then I went to work and buried myself in the editing room for hours and hours – which, by the way, is absolutely the best creative fun a creator can have, especially when you create something new that didn’t exist before you starting cutting the film into an exciting storyline.

     I had an absolute ball!!

     And, best of all. I made the deadline!

     It really turned out great. Phill was kind enough to send me this little review from one of the home video industry magazines.

          Disney’s Great Villains; starring the greatest collection of villains and weirdos ever assembled:
          Walt Disney Home Video; 75 minutes; family entertainment.

          Hosted by Shere Khan the tiger and Kaa the snake from The Jungle Book, this movie is                        dedicated to all those unsung villains who have graced the silver screen over the years.

          Who can ever forget Captain Hook and his eternal fight against the crocodile and Peter Pan,
          Snow White and the Wicked Queen, and all the dragons and other weirdos that frightened the
          pants off us in our tender years?

          Shere Khan and Kaa don’t do a bad job either and are right up there among the villains. There              is also a review of some real-life scoundrels, and no movie about monsters would ever be                    complete without a venture into the future and The Black Hole.

          My one complaint about this movie was that it was over too soon, and we did not see enough              of these lovable villains. LMG.

     How wonderful to get such a terrific review! It was great fun to do and the family had a terrific time in California.

     Now…back to Texas and back to the main job-to-be-done.

     But, little did I know what awaited me back in Dallas…can you say "yet another detour"?

     I thought it would be good for each of you to learn the story of how I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I wrote this many years ago but have felt prompted to share it with you.

I hope you enjoy reading it. 

Fishers of (Me)n

by Michael Wuergler

            “Is it alright if we come in and play the banjo? Your roommate said that you wouldn’t mind.”

            Not a terribly unusual request, assuming that I, indeed, had a banjo and that I wouldn’t mind if this stranger at my door came in and played it. Actually, there were two strangers…young men about my age dressed in suits and ties and looking very eager. Mormon missionaries, I thought, just like the ones I remember that came to our home in Denver when I was about seven or eight years old. Mom and Dad invited them in to teach my little brother Larry and I. We had just started Lutheran Bible School that summer and our parents thought that it would be a kind and gentle way of discouraging these proselytes from knocking on our door again. Mom and Dad would let Larry and I look up the scriptures while they deferred all the missionaries’ questions to us. The ploy must have worked, because I only remember one such evening.

            “Not at all, come on in.”

            There were four of us who shared the apartment in Boulder and my roommate did, in fact, have a five-string banjo that was one of the tools of our trade. We had a musical group that was actually doing pretty well at the time playing small-college concerts throughout the West. We also had a steady gig at Disney’s night club in Denver, did regular ski-season appearances at the Red Onion which was the hottest club in Aspen, and had just released our first single record on Finer Arts Records, a small local label. With all that going on it was real tough for me to carry a full load of classes at the University of Colorado so I was on student cruise-control, taking only about 3 to 5 hours a semester. I was having a great time performing with the guys and was in no hurry to graduate anyway. I don’t even think I was studying when the two missionaries knocked at my door.

            It’s over there in the black case, help yourself.”

            I came to the University of Colorado on a full music scholarship with the intention of getting my degree. I was a pretty good trombone player, tinkled an ivory or two, and could vocally belt a tune with the best of ‘em. I also subsidized my college tuition playing the pipe organ at weddings, funerals and worship services all over town. I had picked up the bass fiddle to play in the group…a “utility infielder” with a beat.

            “Hey, this is a beautiful instrument.”

            I loved music. When I was really young, Mom told me that music as not an elective for me. She said that it was to be part of my education and just maybe, some day it might pay for part of your schooling. Actually, it was my trombone that got me into college since an academic full ride was most certainly out of the question. Mom was right, as usual. Music would, in very deed, pay for my education…in more ways than one.

            “Strum away, Elder.”

            One of my roommates was a Latter-day Saint, so I knew enough to address this young minister properly. He also played a mean banjo!

            “Hey, you’re a real good picker.”

            I also knew the proper way to address a proficient banjo player.

            My music degree from CU was going to be just a necessary stop along the way because I was headed to a Lutheran pulpit. At least, up until that afternoon I thought I was. At the tender age of 14, I had chosen my career path and felt that I was well on the way. In my youth, I knew that I wanted to preach the gospel, direct the choir, compose a hymn or two, write the definitive work on Martin Luther, and wear all the fancy vestments on Sundays, all to the glory of God. It was a youthful decision that felt good and right. Mom certainly approved, even if she had been raised as an Irish Catholic. My immediate family was a real “Heinz 57” variety pack of religions. Dad was a Nazarene. My grandmother was a practicing Christian Scientist and Papa Max was my wonderful Jewish grandfather. Larry and I were raised as Lutherans because they had just built their church around the corner. It was close so that’s where we all went every Sunday morning to worship, every Thursday night for choir practice, and I mowed the lawn on Saturdays to pay my way through elementary school.

            While Elder Goodfellow was pickin’ away and Elder Anderson was wrapped up in the strains of “Orange Blossom Special,” I took a quick mental trip back to my family’s living room and remembered sitting on the floor with my brother with open Bibles, giving those poor frustrated missionaries a real hard time. My memory was stirred and I recalled that they really didn’t come to teach a couple of youngsters. So, now might be a good time to make amends.

            “That was terrific Elder. You play real good. Hey,” as if I had just thought of it, “don’t you guys have a lesson or something?”

            As I now reflect back on the very moment, the mental picture I have in my mind is a large rainbow trout taking the hook. Elder Goodfellow set the banjo down and began to reel me in.

            “Do you know anything about the Mormon Church?” he asked “goldenly.”

            “I seem to recall a couple of things from my childhood,” I responded.

            “Would you like to know more?” The fish had been carefully netted.

            These two young ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, my contemporaries in age, proceeded to lay out before me the most wonderful and amazing story. Having a somewhat religious bent, it was easy for me to follow the logic of their presentation. It made sense. Papa Max and my Jewish friends in the neighborhood had given me a terrific head start in understanding the Old Testament, and between Vacation Bible School in the summers and Pastor Jim prepping me for the Lutheran ministry all year ‘round, I had more than a working knowledge of the New Testament. I was, at that very moment, taking a history course at CU on the Reformation, so I also knew enough about the Apostasy to let them breeze right through their intro material.

            It was the story of Joseph Smith that caught my heart first. Remember that as a devout Lutheran and for as many Sundays as I could count, I had repeated the Apostle’s Creed wherein I had vocalized my belief that there was some sort of mystical three-in-one God that was always really incomprehensible to me. I could never really connect with the idea of a Trinity, but there I was, declaring that I did each and every Sunday by rote.

            Elder Anderson stated with such conviction that he knew that Joseph did, in very deed, see and hear the Father introduce His Son. Two separate and distinct heavenly beings, standing in the air, bathed in a glorious light, speaking to a faithful young farm boy, in upstate New York (of all places), all in the full light of day. Wow! Did that knock a few slats out from under my Lutheran upbringing or what? Martin Luther’s “Here I Stand” took on a whole new meaning for me that afternoon. “One” in purpose, not a mystical triad. “One” in a unity that I could truly comprehend.

            That was a jolt. But it was nothing to what happened next.

            “Here, Brother Wuergler, read this passage in Ezekiel thirty-seven.”

            “Oh, I know this one. I never did understand the “stick” thing though.”

            They both smiled. You could almost see the fish being dragged into the boat.

            The story of The Book of Mormon as they laid it out for me was so powerful, so compelling, so overwhelming, that I could hardly catch my breath. Imagine, a book placed in the ground somewhere in America centuries ago by a prophet-warrior that contained within its pages the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all its purity, translated only once into English by the young Joseph who never went beyond a third-grade education.

            “This is amazing, you guys! Do you know what you are really saying?”

            The trout was in the cooler        

“Brother Wuergler, let’s try a little experiment. Hold your Bible in your left hand.”

I did.

“Now, take this Book of Mormon in your right hand and let me read this passage in Ezekiel to you again. As you listen, follow the instructions as the Lord speaks.”

As he read the scripture, something truly astounding began to take place.

It was sinking in that I was holding The Stick of Judah in my left hand. Because of Papa Max, I knew the implications of the Bible being the story of the Jewish nation. That was a given.

But, this strange and wonderful new book was in my right hand. As he read, I did what the Lord told the Old Testament prophet to do.

“And the two shall become one in thine hand.”

As I placed The Book of Mormon in my left hand and held them both together, I said out loud, in a very reverent voice of recognition, “the Stick of Joseph.”

I couldn’t breathe.

After a moment or two, I began to be self-aware again. I felt as if my heart was being plugged directly into an electric socket because I could feel the surge of power that was sweeping over me. There I was, sitting in my apartment, actually, literally, physically fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. It was absolutely electric!

“The two have become one in my hand,” I whispered.

Time stood still. Pure testimony was flowing.

I hardly remember the next few minutes or what the missionaries were saying to me. I was reflecting on the thousands of rabbis down through time that had no idea what the Stick of Joseph truly referred to. How many Protestant ministers had skimmed over that passage, along with a lot of others, that didn’t fit into their particular doctrine or dogma, or did not support a Sunday sermon, so they simply dismissed it? Now, here was clarity…revelatory clarity. The two sticks had become one bringing the same message to the world…Jesus was the Christ. The Mormon Church was teaching me a simple story that was so profound in meaning and implication, that it would change the world.

At least it would mine. At that very moment, I knew that my career path toward the Lutheran ministry was coming up on a major detour.

“Will you commit to read The Book of Mormon, Brother Wuergler?”

I was still tingling from the experience.

“Yes…I will.”

I remember being completely unable to put it down. I spent the next three days devouring its pages, being wonderfully fed by the Spirit as I read. With each succeeding page turn, I could feel my testimony being fortified. Yes, Lehi coming to America answered so many questions about native origins. Of course Columbus was led here. Yes, the Savior did appear to his “other sheep.” But those were evident and rational. What was more powerful for me was taking Moroni’s challenge seriously.

“With real intent.”

I knew it was true.

My first phone call was to Mom.

“I’m going to be changing my major again, and I won’t be going into the Lutheran seminary like the family expects me to. I am going to be baptized in the Mormon Church.”

Long silence.

“How could you do that? They don’t even believe in Jesus.”

My heart pounded.

“Boy, have I got something wonderful to tell you!”

I was now the one baiting the hook.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

Another Wild New Movie-Making Adventure

     When Phill and I returned from the Cannes TV market in May of 1981, we were met with a stunning surprise. During the three week period that we were in France and Germany, the Osmond Family and their long-time lawyer, Dick Callister, who was also the President of their production company, had parted ways. I never really discovered what had caused such a huge rift in their relationship, I just knew that the man who signed my checks had left the studio, opened new offices, and had named the new company Comworld. It was, of course, a personal economic necessity to follow him. 

      There had been discussions of what projects were owned by Dick and his investors and which were still held by the family. Because I hadn’t been party to any of those discussions, I just had to go with the flow.

     But, I was now the Executive VP for Special Projects of a brand-new organization.   

     

     My first special project was such great fun. Working with football legend and Heisman Trophy Winner, Tom Harmon and with superstar Minnesota Vikings Hall of Fame Quarterback Fran Tarkenton, we put together a terrific little video called “How to Play Quarterback”. We shot it at UCLA in Los Angeles and it was a real hoot to work on.  

   

      It took another couple of weeks before a firm direction for this new company had been determined, and needless to say, I was excited! I was going back into the movie-making business.

And, of course, that meant that I got yet another new business card.

      That happened because an old friend of mine from my days in Burbank dropped by my office sometime in the middle of June. Lyman Dayton had been very successful in writing, producing and directing several family-friendly films such as the now-classic Where the Red Fern Grows, Seven Alone, Against a Crooked Sky, Pony Express Rider, Baker’s Hawk and several other low-budget family films that did very well. He had, sadly, lost the rights to all of his films due to some unscrupulous maneuverings by some pretty awful people but, after all that, he still had a deep desire to write and direct good family films. So, he knocked on my door.  

     He had written a wonderful script that he titled The Return which was really the biblical story of Joseph but set in the old west and wondered if we (Comworld) would be interested in producing it. (He was going to submit it to the Osmonds but had no idea of the very recent split-up). He had written a really great story. Josiah’s father loved him better than his brothers (sound like Rueben, Simeon, Levi and the rest?) and had given him the gift of a beautiful white horse (the coat of many colors). Josiah was tricked by his brothers so that he was put into a Mexican prison (sold into slavery in Egypt) that had a commandant (Potiphar) would had a beautiful wife (Potiphar’s wife) who tempted Josiah (he resisted). He eventually escaped and made it back home to his father who had given him up for dead (just like the old patriarch Jacob in the Book of Genesis) and he also forgave his brothers (just as Joseph of old had forgiven his brothers too). I mean it was dead-on the story right out of the Bible. 

     Perfect, yes?

     I took the script to Dick. He loved it. So did his principal investor, Bart Hewlett, mainly because it was going to cost only 1.1 million to produce. But, it turned out that Bart had a bigger bucket of money so I pitched the idea of going after some other film scripts to see if we couldn’t create an attractive package for other investors to join in as well.

     After some quick searching, I found two other wonderful films and two terrific directors attached to them. Chuck Braverman, who had optioned Don Enright’s exciting murder mystery script “Hit and Run” was a long-time Hollywood guy that I had met while I was at Disney. 

     Also, I contacted writer-director Tom McLoughlin, who had written a very scary and very special-effect driven story that we wound up calling “One Dark Night”. He had come to me back when we first started looking for material with the Osmonds. A real plus on this was that the soon-to-be world-famous special effect guy, Tom Burman, who had previously done the effects for “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” would create the creepiest corpses you had ever seen up to that time in films.

     Was I in heaven or what?!?! I was, at long last, back in the movie-making business that I had originally come to Utah three long years ago to do...and now I couldn’t wait to get started.

     We started shooting “The Return” on August 17, 1981 over in Silverton and Telluride, Colorado. We would start “Hit and Run” in New York City in mid-September and “One Dark Night” two weeks later in Los Angeles. The only constraint I had in now being an independent film company guy, believe it or not, was the I.R.S.

     What!?! The Internal Revenue Service!?!?

     Yes. There was a rule that all three projects had to be completed and shown to the public within the calendar year in which they were produced in order for the investors to get the tax benefit of their investment. If that didn’t happen, our new little venture was going to be a giant failure.

     Impossible!

     To prep, cast, rehearse, shoot, develop film, edit, compose and record music for 3 full-length feature films and get them distributed and shown to a public audience before the end of the year was absolute madness!

     But, that was my assignment and I had best not blow it, right?

     I had the most fun on the first film. Who wouldn’t? Outdoors in the spectacular high mountains of my home state of Colorado, riding horses, choreographing knife fights, shooting guns and even getting to direct some of the second-unit action sequences of the film, all in addition to doing my main job as producer. 

     Working with Lyman was a true joy and we became life-long friends (and eventually became business partners making other movies together which I’ll tell you about in a future posting).

     The creepy/scary movie was also a very, very cool experience. Watching Tom Burman create his special effect dead and decaying bodies was great fun. The NYC mystery film was also fun to do. Each of these projects were so completely different and each of them were teaching me something new and extremely valuable which I knew I would be using somewhere downstream in my career...wherever that might be heading.  

     So…back to my dilemma of screening each of these films before New Year’s Eve. 

     Given how movies are actually made, this was never going to happen. Not in a million years. Everything that happens post-filming takes painstaking work and hours upon hours of effort by an entirely different kind of team from that which you would find on a movie set…editors, composers, sound designers, film colorists, lab technicians, publicists, advertisers and film distributors. The only film that would be even close to being ready for release in a movie theater was “The Return” which we had changed to a more easily marketable title, The Avenging. 

     The other two films would never, ever make it in time.

     What’s a young movie producer to do?

     Phill Catherall came up with a wonderfully creative alternative. We would approach our international group of television network and station connections that we had developed and to whom we had sold our Osmond product during the past three years. The I.R.S. didn’t care where or how the films would be distributed to the public - they just had to be presented in front of a paying audience. Or, they could be broadcast over television. 

     Whoa! There’s an idea.

     What we would up doing was truly genius (all credit to Phill) and, most importantly, it met the I.R.S. requirements for making investors happy.

     We found a little itty-bitty TV station on the little itty-bitty island of Bermuda that was willing to help us. 

     We offered them three movies, but the idea that we sold them on, and, amazingly, that they bought into, was a cooked-up and very creative program that we called “Movie Preview Night”. In other words, UNFINISHED films that would be broadcast over their airwaves letting their audiences see films that weren’t quite ready for the theaters but for which they would get a true “Sneak Preview”. The Avenging was the only fully completed film, which we started really early in the morning (about 1AM) on December 31^th. It ran until about 3AM when we started rolling the other two unfinished films - without music tracks and without sound effects. I sat with the technical director for the station and created sounds “live” over the air and even spoke a couple of lines for characters for which we had not yet dubbed into the soundtrack. I mean it was a truly WILD night! I’m still not sure that anybody actually saw these un-done films, especially on New Year’s Eve in Bermuda!

     But, by 7AM on December 31^st…we made it. The I.R.S. requirement had been met. Investors were deliriously happy and my boss was over-the-top pleased.

     And, the best part is that Sherry and I got to welcome in the New Year in Bermuda.

     During the production of “The Return/Avenging” we were able to land the cover of On Location, the film and videotape production magazine, and the feature article had a special section on location filming in Colorado...and, we were it! 

     Not too shabby, huh? I thought you would enjoy reading this article as it gives you a deeper look into how I spent my summer in the Colorado Rockies. Enjoy.

“Western Feature Based on Biblical Story Lenses in Colorado Mountains” by Peter Shelton. 

 “We’re bucking the Hollywood notion that a western can’t be successful,” intoned Lyman Dayton, screenwriter and director for The Movie Making Company’s low-budget/big look period piece, “The Return,” shot entirely on location this summer in the mountains of southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico. “You have a chance,” said Dayton, rebounding nicely from the industry-wide bad dream brought on by “Heaven’s Gate,” “if you can make a nice looking picture that stays within budget, and which has a real hero and a story.”

The idea for “The Return” (tentatively slated for a January 1982 release) came to Dayton while he was laid up after knee surgery in January of this year. It’s basically the Old Testament tale of Joseph and the coat of many colors set in the raw frontier of Idaho in the 1880s. Jacob Anderson (Efram Zimbalist Jr.) is the patriarch empire-builder whose two older sons Jared and Eli (Cam Clarke and Matt Stetson) resent the special treatment given the favored Josiah (Michael Horse) whose mother was a Shoshoni Indian. Josiah is groomed to take over the ranch – in fact, we first meet him as he steps off the train, home from four years at Harvard, but he is framed by the malicious Indian agent Bowden (Taylor Lacher), with the tacit approval of the brothers, and carted off to prison in Mexico as a horse thief.

The Biblical Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt and thereafter imprisoned for refusing the advances of Potipher’s wife. Josiah’s fate appears to be similarly sealed when he puts off the wife of the Mexican governor, but here the parallels to the book of Genesis end. Josiah manages a clever escape and heads north to right the many wrongs done him and the Shoshoni in general.

“So many recent westerns have been about anti-heroes,” says Dayton, whose credits include “Where the Red Fern Grows.” “Seven Alone.” “Against a Crooked Sky,” and “Baker’s Hawk.” “We wanted to be a movie with a real hero. Josiah is a man of powerful principle. His character doesn’t give in to the mores of anyone else or to the mores of another society for that matter.”

Michael Horse, in his second feature after starring as Tonto in “The Legend of the Lone Ranger,” plays Josiah with an intensity seething just below the surface. “I’m still a spiritual man,” says the 31-year-old former silversmith and professional fiddle player whose parents are Anglo and Apache. (Horse is careful to be specific, noting his mother has Zuni, Mescalaro and Yaqi ancestry within the Apache nation.) “I still believe in my religion, still go home when I’m needed. I don’t “Ugh” for nobody.”

Horse and Efram Zimbalist Jr. are the name players in what producer Mike Wuergler refers to as a “medium-low-budget“ film. Wuergler, who recently left the Osmond’s organization in Utah to form The Movie Making Co., believes in “putting every dollar on the screen” and predicts that “The Return” will look like a 10 to 20 million dollar picture.”

To get this “big look” (according to Dayton there will also be a “big score,” as yet unassigned to go with the “big look”). “The Return” was shot in Panavision in some of the most spectacular mountains of the West. The first two days shooting were at the train depot in Silverton, a tiny (pop. 800) mining and tourist town 9300 feet up in the San Juan range of Colorado. Silverton and neighboring Durango are connected by one of the nation’s two remaining narrow gauge railways (the other is in Chama, N.M. and was used in “The Lone Ranger”.) This one is true to the period, having first ascended the roadless Animas River canyon into Silverton in the summer of 1882.

Next, the small but experienced crews, recruited mainly in Denver and Salt Lake, moved to the old Mario Zadra ranch on the Dallas Divide between Silverton and the mining town turned ski resort of Telluride for scenes at the Indian agents’ house. Three tepees were set up in the meadow below a 100-year-old ramshackle dwelling. The cottonwoods whispered in the dry brilliant air, and 14,000-foot Mr. Sneffels presided in the background.

“Colorado had the natural locations,” beamed Dayton, who is known as a man with a penchant for dramatic scenery. The director and producer Wuergler “think alike” and served as their own location scouts. Wuergler is a Colorado native, and he feels that by making this picture here he is “paying back some of my dues” to a magic place. “It was a happy accident,” he recalls, “to find a script where the magic of the mountains plays an integral part. And then, we had our Jacob, the early empire-builder, and we had to find mountains to match our man. Silverton was a natural because of the train, and I’ve always thought Telluride would be a spectacular place to make a film.”

(The last feature shot in Telluride was Richard Lester’s “Butch and Sundance: The Early Days” back in the winter of 1978. Before that you have to go back to “True Grit” in 1968. “How the West Was Won” and “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” in the early 1960s and “Tribute to a Bad Man” and “The Sheepman,” starring Glen Ford, in the late 1950s. Most recent filming in the area had focused on winter sports like powder skiing and the ABC-TV “American Sportsman” segment on ice climbing 360-foot-high Bridal veil Falls.)

Wuergler suggested Dayton come take a look at Telluride, and the director was instantly smitten. The region’s proximity to Santa Fe (six hour drive), where the old Mexico scenes were to be shot, was an additional bonus. The duo scouted the specific sites, assembled cast and crew and were ready to go barely six weeks after the formation of The Movie Making Co.

“It’s a very difficult thing to do everything on location,” says Wuergler, though there is no complaint in his statement. “You have to be crafty and creative to get the look you want. You have to move the technology and the people, house and feed everybody, deal with all the unknowns. The secret to our success in our pre-planning.”

Take the art direction. Dayton hired Hollywood interior designer Gordon Larson, with whom he had worked on a picture in British Columbia, because of Larson’s encyclopedic knowledge of period furniture and design. “My budget didn’t permit bringing interiors along, and we don’t have a city to run to and get stuff from,” Larson said on the set one day. “So we’ve had to make do.” And that they did. Larson and his crew of five, including assistant art director Sarah Liles from Denver, started knocking on people’s doors, hitting up local museums and antique stores to get what they needed. Clair Hicks, one of the wranglers on the job (he provided 20 horses plus buggies and wagons) and his wife Myrna helped procure so many props and pieces of furniture, Liles said, “They could have done the whole movie themselves.”

“The locations were easy,” declared Larson. Exterior changes were minimal because so many of the buildings were authentic 1880s. “And these magnificent mountains…”

The valleys and forests were particularly lush this August after heavy rains the first half of the summer. “Boy, I’ll tell ya,” quipped assistant director Jack Clinton, “the greensman did a heck of a job. He’d be up for an academy award.”

Ever the master of his environment, art director Larson wanted “the art department to get full credit for burning off the fog at the precise moment” the train pulled in on day one of shooting in Silverton. The only thing Larson seemed to have trouble with on location was breathing. High elevations wreaked havoc with the California joggers.

One important element in the picture looked as if it might be beyond everyone’s control: the stolen white stallion.

A truly magnificent animal was required and found through the efforts of wrangler Paul Staheli and his uncle Lee. The horse’s name is Lord Roayas. 

He’s a pure bred Arabian stallion, 11-years-old, born and raised on the P.K. Wrigley ranch on Catalina Island off the Southern California coast. Lee Stahli brought him up to the set in Silverton from his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., and the horse promptly went bananas at the sight and sound of the steam locomotive. Staheli was not worried. “I think you’ll find in you look back in history, in the horse and buggy days, when a train first came to town, all the horses left.”

Producer Wuergler asked the wranglers if the horse was going to be trouble when a “dead” Indian was slung over his back. Having appraised Michael Horse’s riding skills, Lee Stahli answered, “If Mike wasn’t such a good hand, he might be trouble.” Away from the locomotive, Lord Roayas proved to be spirited but manageable, a real high-energy asset to the film. 

Wuergler has had a long and successful career in show business. He produced the second round of Mickey Mouse Clubs for Disney, has acted on and off Broadway, did a stand-up comic routine preceding We Five concerts and even hosted a Denver teen TV show (“I was a chunky Dick Clark”) in the early 1960s. His mother taught him that show business was two words – “show” and “business” and Mike has taken it to heart. 

Even with the tight purse strings, Wuergler put together first class equipment and crew for “The Return.” (A lot of the credit must go, he says, to the respect commanded by Denver-based production manager Donna Phelan.)

Personnel and services on the shoot included:

Up and coming director of photography Reed Smoot of L.A.; Stunt coordinator Dan Koko by way of the Hubie Kerns Stunt Workshop in L.A. Koko’s credits include “1941” “Lady in Red” and a Merv Griffin show stunt where he fell 18 stories off Caesar’s Palace onto an air pad. Hubie Kerns, himself a stuntman for 40 years was assistant director on “The Return”; Lighting was by Lighting Services Inc. of Denver and The Brickyard out of Salt Lake City. They brought the latest HMI lights, a Fisher camera dolley and a Fisher boom; Sound was by freelancers Garrett Collenberger and Elizabeth Moore from Boulder, Colo., who used a Sennheiser microphone on the Fisher boom for most of the scenes and recorded on two Nagra IV.2 recorders; there was a state-of-the-art crane car for moving shots provided by Camera Support Systems of Denver and Minneapolis; editor and post-production manager was Shawn Walsch; dailies were by Deluxe General in LA.

A final word from Lyman Dayton, son of a Wyoming rancher, whose baby this picture really is. “As far as I know, this is the only western being done. I’ve read in several places that the western is dead.”

From the looks of “The Return” on location, that sentiment couldn’t be further from the truth.