Entertaiment

Johnny Lingo – The Comeback Kid
By Geralyn White Dreyfous

In an age of Hollywood remakes, Johnny Lingo may be this end of summer’s comeback kid. He is coming to the big screen; mainstreamed into theaters all across America. Created by Hollywood veteran producers Jerry Molen and John Garbett, THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY LINGO is a coming of age Polynesian fable that will enchant children and families alike. Two generations of families have been raised on Johnny Lingo truisms and lessons, mostly due to the success of a short film produced by the BYU motion picture department back in the early 1960’s. The film was adapted from a short story written by Patricia McGerr entitled JOHNNY LINGO’s EIGHT COW WIFE… Both the film and the short story have been translated into dozens of languages and seen, read or heard by millions of people around the world.

“My family and I had the privilege of living in New Zealand, working on a film eight years ago and fell in love with the country and the Pacific Island peoples that live there,” said producer John Garbett. “Ever since then, I have been looking for stories to do there so we could return.  Johnny Lingo was an obvious candidate. When I lived in New Zealand, I tested the legend out on Pacific Islanders of diverse ethnicities. I was surprised that all the Islanders know the Johnny Lingo story, and many believe he truly existed as an early trader. Our version of the Johnny Lingo story stays very close to the spirit of Patricia McGerr ‘s story and the stories I heard from the Islanders themselves”

Writing the Screenplay

Garbett’s mother-in-law, Claire Whitaker Peterson, was a young mother of five when her uncles Wetzel “Judge” and John “Scott” Whitaker of BYU’s Motion Picture Department handed her McGerr’s short story and asked her if she could turn it into a screenplay. “The screenplay almost wrote itself,” Claire mentioned musefully. “It was such a simple but delightful story, there was very little to change.” My husband and I had no money at the time. I remember renting an abandoned storefront window in Provo as an office, where I sat with my typewriter.” The script became a twenty seven minute church film that was shot in Hawaii and has since been translated into over a dozen languages and screened all over the world. It has entertained and inspired two generations of Latter Day Saints with its simple but powerful message, that hope and love always prevail if you believe in yourself.

Whitaker has been an informal advisor to the film, but mostly cheering from the sidelines. “When John first broached the idea of doing a feature film of the JOHNNY LINGO story, I thought, now why hasnt anyone else thought of that. It is a brilliant idea because of the built in audiences Johnny Lingo has enjoyed for forty years all over the world.” said Claire Whitaker Peterson. “But people going to the film should not expect the Johnny Lingo of their youth,” Whitaker Peterson cautioned. In order for the story to hold up as feature film it had to morph from a dog-eared fable into a full blown legend. And if Garbett has it his way, this will be a legend that will delight audiences enough in theaters, to live on in home video libraries for families of all faiths that want to teach their children about the responsibilities of wealth and the power of kindness and second chances.

After her experience at BYU, Claire Whitaker went on to become a very successful television writer/producer. Writing for shows like The Waltons, Eight is Enough and Falcon Crest. She and her uncles also worked for Disney as writers, producers and animators. They were pioneers of family programming and are a family that continues to love good storytelling. Now retired, Claire is a sharp, funny, attractive grandmother to twenty three, and whose only daughter married producer John Garbett. Until recently, Garbett lived and worked in Los Angeles. Today, he and his wife Kristin live in Salt Lake City with their five children, where Garbett has been working hard to tap into the nostalgia of audiences who grew up with Johnny Lingo, without pigeon-holing the latest adaptations as a Mormon movie.

Not a ‘Mormon’ Film

“While I understand there is a lot of talk these days about an emerging Mormon film genre, this is not a Mormon film and I do not consider myself a practitioner of any genre,” says Garbett. “Jerry Molen and I make films based on the quality of the story. The same way you would not call Schindler’s List, another film that Jerry worked on, only a Jewish film or pigeon-hole Stephen Spielberg as a Jewish filmmaker. To call Johnny Lingo a Mormon film is a disservice. It is, in fact, a Polynesian folktale that happens to also be wonderfully cinematic.”

When asked why or how Johnny Lingo captivated two generations of Latter Day Saints in particular, Garbett attributes it to the charm of the story and the lessons that Johnny Lingo endured. Garbett also believes that those same truths stand up today, “We made the film because we believe families all over the world will be touched by the simplicity and authenticity of Johnny Lingo’s story. I have always loved the literary idea that characters in a story are more than what they seem, and of course, the magic of Johnny Lingo is in the transformation that the characters undergo.”

“Because this is a Polynesian story, we wanted to work with a Polynesian writer and Polynesian actors. Steve Ramirez, the director, and my partner Jerry Molen wanted to get inside the culture, not on the outside looking in.” Steve Ramirez, makes his directorial debut with this film and says that he felt a great sense of responsibility with bringing such a popular cultural icon to the screen. “Like millions of people the world over, I have known and loved the Johnny Lingo story. THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY LINGO is about the power of love and hope in our lives. When you take a challenge like this as a director, you take it very seriously because the story is so dear to so many people’s hearts,” says Ramirez. “The experience of bringing the story to the screen also expanded my understanding of it, he continues. While working on location in the Pacific Islands, I saw the bigger picture and realized that Polynesian culture is all about putting other people first;­ a great lesson for today’s world.”

When asked how to explain the initial success and cultural phenomenon of the original Johnny Lingo, Claire Whitaker Peterson gives a similar story, accompanied by a bemused sigh, “You know, I have never been able to explain the success of that film. It was so long ago. But even today, people tell me Johnny Lingo stories from all over the world. They know the lines by heart, sometimes in more than one language! The only thing I can think of is that it was one of the first LDS church films that used ‘narrative story’ instead of doctrine to teach a message. People responded powerfully and palpably.” So much so that high schools wrote Johnny Lingo plays, Sunday schools taught Johnny Lingo lessons, confident co-eds established their own dowry’s of self-worth early on in relationships by exclaiming and explaining to their boyfriends, ‘You know, I am worth more than an eight cow wife!’ “I am quite pleased with what John and his team have created, and quite sure the legend will live on,” beamed a proud mother-in-law. “You’ll have to go see it yourself!”

And, if the success of these producers other films is any indication, Whitaker’s prediction might well come true. Together Ramirez, Garbett and Molen have a track record that includes box office hits like SCHINDLERs LIST, COCOON, SHREK, and JURRASIC PARK. The production team knows and loves a good story and has adapted other classics that have cult like, generational followings such as CASPER, THE FLINSTONES and HOOK.

Soon audience’s nation wide will be let in on the Johnny Lingo Eight Cow secret.  John Garbett and veteran producer Jerry Molen are applying the same principles they apply to all the other movies they have made. They are banking on ‘the story’, hoping it will bring two generations of families and friends of all faiths and fellowships to the box office.