Film - 'On My Way To Hollywood' | Roger Stennett

'On My Way To Hollywood'

3 ARTICLES ON AN AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT WEB SITE

MORE THAN 1.5 MILLION VIEWS

1 st Article - "Dylan Thomas May Not Have Made it to Hollywood

But Upcoming Stennett/Young Movie amplifies the Poet’s Legend"

https://www.bbntimes.com/society/dylan-thomas-may-not-have-made-it-to-hollywood-but-upcoming-stennett-young-movie-amplifies-the-poet-s-legend

2nd Article about the Dylan Thomas Film from an American Web Site

https://www.bbntimes.com/society/taylor-swift-s-tinseltown-like-wedding-her-shoutout-to-dylan-thomas-the-poet-s-own-hollywood-dream-remembered

3rd Article about my Poetry and 'On My Way To Hollywood'

Poet Roger Stennett inspired by Beethoven's imagined reaction to his Ninth Symphony’s Premiere in 1824

https://ashleycollie.medium.com/celebrated-poet-roger-stennett-inspired-by-beethovens-imagined-reaction-to-his-ninth-symphony-s-61675160ab55?postPublishedType=repub

* All written by Award Winning Entertainment Journalist ASHLEY COLLIE. *

The Dylan Thomas Birthplace. No 5, Cwmdonkin Drive in Swansea.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2k763hf0wthm8ksjkmvm0/copy_F279E408-F9E1-4F8D-B050-C7989FE116BD.MOV?rlkey=ddjgjnqjanx0rvncmajejfq7w&st=frkxen3z&dl=0

ANIMATION TEST for 'On My Way To Hollywood

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2q0320ab0trnm9mjjyqsb/ON-MY-WAY-TO-HOLLYWOOD-TEASERTEST.mp4?rlkey=b63491z7idpz22hvp9agej0fx&st=9hifc00v&dl=0

Interview with Geoff Haden, Curator of The Dylan Thomas Birthplace

...... Film : 'On My Way To Hollywood' ......

' Visual Deck' of images for my Film about Dylan Thomas

and Igor Stravinsky, and the Opera on which they were collaborating in 1953.

Images designed to give a 'flavour; of the Film which is not intended as a literary biopic but as an examination of the last few frantic months in the life of a literary genius and flawed human being, as he struggled, one last time, to 'crack it' and achieve financial security

And failed.

The Opera about the End of The World was 'a bridge too far'

But Dylan went down 'fighting' , albeit often fighting his own familiar 'demons' much of the time

'On My Way To Hollywood' is an Independent Feature Film film about the final months of the life of Dylan Thomas

The story follows Dylan in late 1953 — Broke, diabetic, physically declining, serially unfaithful — as he criss-crosses America on lecture tours and poetry readings, trying to hold together his marriage to Caitlin in Laugharne, his affair with Liz Reitell in New York, and his grand ambition to write the Libretto for a Chamber Opera with Stravinsky about the end of the world and a new Garden of Eden.

The film ends with Dylan’s death in St Vincent’s Hospital, NYC, on 9 November 1953, aged 39.

His last telegram to Igor Stravinsky read .....

“On My Way To Hollywood.”

He never arrived.

The Opera was never written.

The Film structure moves between three worlds, cutting between them throughout:

                •              Laugharne, Wales — the Boathouse, where Caitlin manages three children and a permanent overdraft with furious, despairing wit. Their marriage is fractured but deeply alive.

                •              America — Boston, Hollywood (a party at Chaplin’s house with Marilyn Monroe), New York’s Chelsea Hotel and White Horse Tavern, and finally St Vincent’s Hospital.

                •              Hollywood — Stravinsky and his long-suffering collaborator Robert Craft prepare for Dylan’s arrival, as Boston University gets cold feet about the commission.

A distinctive formal device runs through the Screenplay: Animated characters from 'Under Milk Wood'.

Reverend Eli Jenkins, Polly Garter, and Captain Cat materialise and hold conversations with Dylan.

They are his conscience, his muse, and his death’s-door visitors.

Animation is also used for Dylan’s atomic-nightmare visions of Cwmdonkin Park, his own childhood Eden, which becomes the imaginative seed and location for of the Opera that never was.

The emotional core is the tension between Dylan’s self-mythologising and his private knowledge he is finished as a poet, drinking himself to death, and failing everyone he loves.

Yet still capable of wonder, humour, and devastating honesty in his final weeks.

Caitlin is his equal throughout : raw, raging, grieving, and finally arriving at his deathbed only to be sedated and temporarily removed to a Psychiatric ward as Dylan slowly dies.

The film closes with Stravinsky’s 1954 setting of ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’, and text listing the deaths of all the real people depicted, and finally old Caitlin’s voice from Sicily, forty years on, speaking of

“The stubbornness of loving.”

'On My Way To Hollywood’ is elegiac, darkly comic, adventurous portrait of flawed genius

And the Opera that ‘got away.‘

Letter of support for 'On My Way To Hollywood'

Roger shared the Screenplay with me several months ago, and I was impressed by its themes and depth of understanding, especially when dealing with the previously under-represented planned collaboration with the composer Igor Stravinsky and their planned Opera project.

The 'build-up' in Wales before his final trip America in 1953 has never been examined in detail, and in Roger's excellent Screenplay I sense a true ‘Poet to Poet’ understanding of a creative genius who remains an internationally iconic character, as well as a truly flawed Soul

Roger was friendly with Dylan’s daughter Aeronwy, with whom he used to give Poetry readings in Wales and beyond.

I very much hope the Film finds its full financing and wide outlets.

Geoff Haden