John Walsh and Volcano
TrackBacks (0)
Comments (0)
Throughout our conversations, Walsh invoked the movie Volcano a number of times. Released in 1997, the film invokes many of the fears that John has to this day- racial divisions, a powerful MTA that answers to no one, corrupt developers, and of course, bizarre geological conditions. It's as if the movie sprang forth spontaneously from Walsh's subconscious.
He summarizes the lesson of the film like this: "Mother Nature tends to resist a sixteen-mile concrete tube up her ass."
Volcano features numerous cameos of the marginally-famous, including Mother Love, Dennis Woodruff, an Angelyne billboard, and a number of recognizable homeless people. Walsh himself did not appear in the film, although he suggests one of the characters was based on him: "You know, they technically can't use my name in a fiction movie. But it's inspiration."
Indeed, there is a character, played by John Corbett, who runs an organization called STOP: Sensible Transportation Only Please. At the beginning of the film, he's picketing the subway.
Property of 20th Century Fox
"They had told me that there would be characters we'd recognize. The movie ended in the original script with the evil contractor, which was based on Ron Tutor, being killed by the lava in the tunnel. They then decided that Ron Tutor might sue them. So they changed it to an MTA worker."
Property of 20th Century Fox
Here's the catch: in the film, Corbett's character is the devloper. He's against the subway because he thinks it will integrate Beverly Hills and hurt his investment. Mexican-American immigrants are seen picketing in favor of the subway. This is a twist of John's argument, which is that subway expansion is motivated by development, and hurts poor immigrants, who would be better served by the subway.
Another catch: screenwriters Billy Ray and Jerome Armstrong have never heard of John Walsh. In an e-mail to me, Ray wrote:
I had never heard of John Walsh until I got your e-mail. No character in my drafts of the movie were based on anyone real. We chose the subway as a setting for the movie simply because it was so controversial and seemed like an interesting (and new) means of moving lava.
It's hard for me to offer more than that. The movie is one of several embarrassments from the earlier stages of my career. I try not to think about it too much.
Armstrong also e-mailed me:
Sorry, I have no knowledge of John Walsh. The information sounds like the product of an overactive imagination.
Leave a comment