![]() ![]() “It’s what happens in between the story that’s important.” Indeed, Hero is what Quentin Tarantino would call a “hangout movie,” where getting to know the characters is more vital than the story. “It’s not a high-concept movie, there’s actually no story there really,” he told Melville. “I wanted to show them a more realistic version of the characters.”įorsyth has said there’s not much of a plot to Hero. Everybody wore cowboy hats,” Bishop said. “When David Puttnam sent me the script, they were emulating the television series Dallas. ![]() ![]() In a 2018 Houston Chronicle piece on Hero, location manager Dennis Bishop remembers how it was up to him and local crewmates to hip Forsyth and his visiting team on what Texas truly is. I’m not very good at research.” Forsyth declined to be interviewed for this piece, with his rep telling me “he feels that a 40 year old film is old enough to be out on its own.” ![]() (Zapata Petroleum, Bush’s oil company, was located in the building.) The next-to-last shot has MacIntyre back at his condominium, looking at Houston’s famed skyline from his balcony.Īccording to Jonathan Melville’s book Local Hero: Making a Scottish Classic, while writing the script, the only thing Forsyth knew about Houston “was how to pronounce it.” The director said, “Because of the oil boom and oil companies were coming to Scotland and were in the headlines, I vaguely knew that was one of the bases of the American oil industry. The downtown offices of Knox Oil and Gas were shot at the Texas Commerce Tower, now called the JPMorgan Chase Tower, and Pennzoil Place, where Forsyth used the office of then-Vice President George H.W. The movie begins with MacIntyre driving his Porsche 93O through Interstate 45 N, on his way to work. While only 12-15 minutes of Hero is set in H-Town, Forsyth filmed most of those minutes on location. Originally showing up in a three-piece suit, it isn’t long before MacIntyre starts rocking sweaters, shooting the breeze with the locals, and collecting seashells. Once MacIntyre and his Scottish Knox representative (future Doctor Who Time Lord Peter Capaldi) get there, they both slowly but surely fall in love with the place. It’s a movie that starts off in Houston: “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert), an executive at Knox Oil and Gas, gets chosen by his eccentric boss Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) to fly to Scotland and convince the people of fictional beachside village Ferness to vacate,for a hefty sum, of course, so his company can build a refinery. theaters on February 17, 1983-40 years ago this month. “He was really impressed by the size and the muscle of Houston.”Ī couple years later, Forsyth would drop Local Hero, which hit U.S. “As I recall, Forsyth was sort of the whimsical little character that you would expect,” Leydon told the Texas Observer. Houston film critic Joe Leydon still remembers when he met the Scottish filmmaker who would make a charming little film in his neck of the woods.īack when he was covering movies for the long-gone Houston Post, Leydon met writer-director Bill Forsyth back in 1981, when his film Gregory’s Girl played the city’s WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. ![]()
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