Kari’s Former Marymount Colleagues Collaborate on a Murder Mystery Movie by Local Book Author By Kari H. Sayers
Former Marymount Colleagues Collaborate on a Movie
By Kari H. Sayers
When Marymount California University in Rancho Palos Verdes found itself in the online modality, many teachers and staff started to look for opportunities. Filmmaker and veteran film and literature professor Bruce Schwartz and I, also a long-time Marymount teacher and a freelance writer for South Bay publications, had been good friends since the late 1980s and were out looking for vacation properties in the spectacular Bernardino Mountains one day. Marveling at the beautiful scenery, Bruce suddenly said, “I think I want to make my next film in Lake Arrowhead.”
Producer and Director Bruce Schwartz with the two leads, Stephen Spear as sheriff Ed Cronin and Nancy Nazari as mystery writer and amateur sleuth Megan Viets
“That sounds like a good plan,” I said and quickly added, “And by the way, my murder-mystery novels are set in this idyllic resort town.” While Bruce looked around for locations, I went on to emphasize the advantages of adaptations rather than writing an original script.
“Okay, let me take a look at what you’ve got,” he agreed.
My two first books were already published and too expensive to film as several scenes are set overseas.
“What are you working on now?” Schwartz asked.
“A third novel,” I said. “Justice for Lizzie, about my friend Elizabeth from college who died mysteriously soon after we gradated.” When we returned home, I gave him my unfinished manuscript.
“Yes,” Schwartz said after he had perused it. “I’m engaged. Let’s do it.”
Schwartz started writing the script while I tried to finish the second half, changing my outlined ending, cutting scenes that required foreign travel so that the filming would be limited to areas around Lake Arrowhead and Los Angeles. I worked as fast as I could, while trying my best not to compromise the quality of the writing. Somehow we pulled it off.
Producer and actor Greg Levonian as Deputy Garcia
We approached current St. Leo University, Marymount Campus (Marymount has by now been taken over by St. Leo University in Florida) theater director Greg Levonian, a Palos Verdes Estates resident, who came onboard as the third producer. He also plays a San Bernardino sheriff’s deputy in the movie. Former Marymount theater director and Broadway actor John Lane plays, appropriately enough, a retired Hollywood actor. Business professor David Tomlin, a Rancho Palos Verdes resident, made his lake-side cabin available for the murder scene, in which the victim’s body is wheeled out the back door on a real coroner’s gurney to a real coroner’s van. Board member Caroline Sayers and her husband’s nearby cabin housed crew members. Their master bedroom also served as the sleuth and her fiancé’s bedroom, while their daughter Kari Lynn worked diligently as the script supervisor. Finally, former Marymount student Mason Howard worked with Diego Madrigal as the cinematographer.
Many of the scenes were shot in Palos Verdes. Marymount’s old Learning Center became the Los Angeles Detention Center, replete with prison guards and sheriff’s deputies. Another Rancho Palos Verdes resident volunteered her property for several scenes. The kitchen became the setting for dream scenes while closets hid clues. The yard served as the final arrest scene. Neighbors came out to watch as the property swarmed with FB I agents and more deputies. At the end of that scene, we see Deputy Levonian at the wheel of an authentic sheriff’s car driving up the hill to Hawthorne Boulevard.
But in Hollywood it’s not what you know but who you know. Fortunately, Schwartz has excellent credentials and family connections. His father Al Schwartz, a lawyer from New York, came out to Hollywood with his brother Sherwood in the 1940s and became part of the founding fathers of the biz. Al eventually became the head writer for Bob Hope and wrote several episodes of the Jackie Gleason Show while Uncle Sherwood created Gilligan’s Island and the Brady Bunch. Much later brother Douglas created Baywatch. Their niece Robin, a pianist, has supplied music for several Baywatch episodes.
Schwartz has an array of award-winning films to his credit, including the AFI-funded feature film In MacArthur Park as well as many short films, including Outside of Lucky and Make a Wish Molly. But Schwartz is best known for his literary adaptations of contemporary American short stories that are used in classrooms across the country as well as internationally. His best adaptation is Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path;” Others include John Updike’s “A & P,” Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” Langston Hughes “Salvation,” Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” and Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing.” Many of these short films are followed by interviews with the authors. His documentary Lives Interrupted: The Ito/Mitsura Story about the two Marymount students who were murdered by a gang member in a San Pedro parking lot has aired on several channels, including PBS. Justice for Lizzie is Schwartz’s seventeenth film
Schwartz is fortunately also an experienced marketer and has already entered Justice for Lizzie in area and out-of-the-area film festivals, including the Big Bear Summit Film Festival (The Lake Arrowhead Film Festival is, unfortunately, closed this year because of COVID), and the Oslo Film Festival.
The first screening of Justice for Lizzie is scheduled to take place in the auditorium of the St. Leo University, Marymount campus, 30800 Palos Verdes Drive East, in Rancho Palos Verdes on Tuesday, March 22, at 7 pm, Free popcorn and soft drinks will be available. The screening is free and open to the public.
Kari H. Sayers BIO
With a BA in English and an MA in linguistics from California State University, Long Beach, Kari Sayers went with her husband to Saudi Arabia, where she first worked as a music teacher at Riyadh International Community School and then as a journalist for the English newspapers the Saudi Gazette and the Arab News as well as in-flight magazines. When she returned to Southern California, she taught literature, college composition, and English as a Second Language at Marymount California University in Rancho Palos Verdes, while freelancing as a theater, classical concert, and opera reviewer for local newspapers and magazines in the Los Angeles area.. In addition to authoring the novels Roses Where Thorns Grow, Under the Linden Tree, and the soon-to-be-released Justice for Lizzie, all published by Melange Books in Minnesota, she is the developer and editor of the anthology Views and Values, published by Cengage. Now widowed,. Kari lives in the Los Angeles area.
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