The Motion Picture Co.
TV / MOTION PICTURE PRODUCTION
PRESENTS

"The Last April"
an Independent Short Film from Brian Meredith's screenplay.
(To be filmed in Billy the Kid's New Mexico)

Joshua Lee Haley as Billy the Kid.
 Michael Shanto as Bob Olinger.
Brian Meredith as Dick Brewer
Directed by Matt Miller.
Photography  by Joe Micalizzi
 
"Behind the Scenes", stills by Joe Micalizzi

Click to see "Screenplay Short"  (10.2 MB Windows Media)

See a 2:30 min. video of Brian Meredith speaking about the "Last April"
(4.68 MB Windows Media)

They say that the last thing to go on a dyin’ man is his sense of hearing.  By the time I reached the last April of my life, I knew enough of dyin’ to know that wasn’t true.  The last thing to go on a dyin’ man… is his sense of legacy.

April-- salvation season.  During the last April of his life, Billy the Kid hopes to capitalize on God’s promise of redemption.

April-- salvation season.  During the last April of his life, Billy the Kid hopes to capitalize on God’s promise of redemption.  Billy has already been promised redemption from the Governor of the Territory of New  Mexico, Lew Wallace.  Yet Wallace is too preoccupied with his novel “Ben Hur” to pay Billy’s prayers any attention.  Perhaps God is the Holy Ghostwriter of the Governor’s famous “Tale of the Christ.”  Maybe this explains God’s absence in Billy’s time of need.  Feeling betrayed by the ruling powers of both heaven and earth, Billy the Kid turns somewhere in between.  During the last April of his life, Billy looks for the promise of redemption among the seven horsemen charged with escorting him to his death.  Stopping overnight at Blazer’s Mill, Billy tells the posse of an April two years before, and how blood came to be spilt on this spot, the blood that stains his name.    

Billy tells the story of the Regulators-- a posse of wayward young men suddenly deputized-- charged by the law and their guilty consciences to avenge the death of their employer.  It’s here at Blazer’s Mill where the fourteen Regulators face off with the mysterious Buckshot Roberts, himself desperate for salvation but smart enough to know he will not find it in their hands.  History has recorded the extraordinary gunfight at Blazer’s Mill, but Billy knows the details.  He knows the savage events that will shape the moral sense of a developing civilization.  He knows the backdrop of a land at odds with itself, and the motives of unflinching men.  He knows the fickleness of the law and the consistency of heroes.  But most of all, he knows that the promise of redemption demands a scapegoat.  He’s seen it happen before.  “The devil is in the details” and Billy the Kid is about to raise Hell.  Why not?  Hell might be the only sympathetic ear.  During the last April of his life, Billy pleads his case one more time.  It can’t hurt.  After all, April is salvation season. 

BOB OLINGER exploding...

Well, that’s as fair a trial as your gonna get now, Kid.  Because your day in court has come and gone.  And of all the bad things you done, they tried you for killin’ old Buckshot.  Now that don’t make too much sense, does it?  ‘Cause you were with the law then, weren’t you?  And you’re with the law now, but this law is gonna hang you.  And they’ll talk about Buckshot for a long time to come, how he bravely held off all those Regulators. 

And Dick Brewer, ‘cause he died honorable, he’ll be talked about.  I’m sure your name will be mentioned too, somewhere in there, but they’ll say you died like an outlaw, hung by the throat.  Rest assured, when any of us overhears such a talk, we’ll put in a good word for you, wouldn’t we? 

On account of the Kid here takin’ the time to clear it up for us.  Now, is there anything else?  ‘Cause I don’t want to hear one word outta that carriage tomorrow.  Your story ends tonight, unless there’s anything you want to add to the record before the worms eat out that precious tongue?

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