A set piece would be when Texas Rangers with the help of a local sheriff are making their way through the impregnable thickets that cover the floor of the piney forest. All is quiet. All of a sudden dogs rush out of nowhere and everywhere in the underbrush, barking, snarling, and howling. The Rangers raise their weapons, expecting to see the feudists burst out of the woods. Instead, their ears are met by the sound of cow horns blowing through the tree limbs. One comes from the northeast. Does another blow come from the south? Southeast? As soon as the dogs appeared, they vanished toward the blowing of the horns. “Well, that does it,” says one of the Rangers, lowering his Winchester. “We’ve lost the element of surprise and might as well head back to Hemphill.” The local sheriff smiles with relief.
And if written and directed in the tradition and with the maturity of David Lean, John Milius, and Kevin Reynolds, it could be a classic which blends the action and adventure with thought provoking lessons in the futility of nation building, the arrogance of imperialism, and the empty self-defeatism of refusing to know when to give up, surrender, forgive and bury the past. If told right, Shelby’s Expedition into Mexico could be a healing journey.
Logline: When 46 hard-fighting Irish-Texan cannoneers face off against an invasion of 15,000, it will result in the only medals issued by the southern Confederacy.
Short Pitch
It is called The Battle of Sabine Pass
It is a war action movie.
In the vein of 300.
It is like Fury meets Glory.
It follows ambitious, jovial Irish officer Dick Dowling
And young runaway drummer boy John Drummond
As they fight to free the Texas coast from Yankee invaders and prejudice against Irish and Catholic immigrants.
Problems arise when most of the Texas army is pulled from the coast and Dowling and his forty-six men find themselves the only ones to stop an invasion of 15,000.
Together their skill, training, dedication to each other and Gaelic love of fighting will result in one of the most lopsided victories of the war.
The idea came to me when I read a paragraph about the battle in The Civil War: Strange & Fascinating Facts by Burke Davis and it grabbed hold of my Irish and Texan descendent soul.
My unique approach is focusing on one unit of artillerymen called The Davis Guard and their struggles with military life, war and bigotry against Catholic Irish.
A set piece would be when Dick Dowling is standing on top of the mud pile called Fort Griffin. He has told the Davis Guard that their officers want them to retreat. “What say you,” says Dowling in a thick Gaelic accent. “No, no!,” reply his men. “Shall we fight,” he ask them. Fight, fight, fight,” they reply in unison. “It’s too hot to walk back to Sabine City,” one jokes. Just then a courier rides up. He carries a small Confederate flag. Dowling grabs the flag, crawling higher on the parapet and waves it toward the approaching gunboats. “Dick Dowling is a dead man before that flag shall come down!”
Target audiences would be men and women 20-70, teenagers, military buffs, action movie fans, history buffs, Civil War reenactors, naval buffs, Navy veterans, service members and their families, Catholics, Irish Americans, Irish people, and of course, Texans.
Audiences would want to see it for its epic stand of fighting Irish against overwhelming odds, its action, adventure, and themes of courage, brotherhood, honor and devotion to duty.
A Journey from Texas ends at the cold waters of the Rapido in Italy. Today’s book I would like to pitch as a movie is Crossing the Rapido: A Tragedy of World War II by Duane Schultz, from Westholme Yardley. The 36th Infantry Division, also known as The Arrowhead, Panther, or Lone Star Division was …