Comic Strip Documentary by Collins

CAVEMAN: V.T. HAMLIN & ALLEY OOP, a new documentary from Iowa novelist/filmmaker Max Allan Collins, makes its world premiere as an Official Selection of the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival on April 2nd. The premiere screening will be at 7:55 p.m. at the Collins Road Theaters, 1462 Twixtown Road, in Marion Iowa as part of the festival; tickets are available at the door, and the filmmaker will be present.

Collins is best known as the writer of the graphic novel, ROAD TO PERDITION, which became an Academy Award-winning 2002 film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.

CAVEMAN, written and directed by Collins and produced by the University of Iowa Video Center, tells the story of Vincent T. Hamlin, the innovative cartoonist who created the dinosaur-laden, long-running comic strip, ALLEY OOP, from which the popular '50s song derived. The strip has been credited with inspiring everything from THE FLINTSTONES to JURASSIC PARK. Hamlin was born and raised in Perry, Iowa.

"My father grew up around Perry," Collins said, "and as a kid fascinated by comics, I was excited when I learned that OOP's creator had been brought up within a stone' s throw of my own dad. I loved that strip, and when fellow Hamlin fan Mark Lambert approached me with the idea for a documentary on the cartoonist's life, I jumped at the chance."

Lambert, an independent producer, accompanied Collins to Iowa City, where a longtime colleague of Collins's and a Video Center staff member -- Steven Henke, who edited the documentary -- helped present the idea to Dan Lind, the project's executive producer.

"It took three and a half years," Collins said with a laugh, "in and around all of my own committments, and the Video Center's heavy workload at the U of I. But we made it happen. I'm particularly pleased that we were able to interview comics innovator, Will Eisner."

Eisner died early this year. Another cartoonist key to the project -- Dave Graue, Hamlin's longtime assistant who worked on ALLEY OOP for fifty years -- died in an automobile accident just weeks after his trip to Iowa City to be interviewed for the documentary.

"The film is as much Dave's story as Hamlin's," Collins said. "I was struck by how much the story of Hamlin and Graue resembled that of DICK TRACY artist Chester Gould and his assistant Rick Fletcher, who drew TRACY for me when I took over that strip in 1977. I came to see that through the Hamlin/Graue story, viewers could understand the way comic strips in the 20th century were produced -- not just the mechanics of that process, but the personal story, the grueling work hours, the obsessive dedication, the daily struggle."

Collins's independent films include the Lifetime movie MOMMY, and the innovative made-for-DVD thriller, REAL TIME: SIEGE AT LUCAS STREET MARKET. His previous award-winning documentary, MIKE HAMMER'S MICKEY SPILLANE, is included in Collins's recent anthology film, SHADES OF NOIR, due on DVD later this year.

The Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival was created to provide a place for Iowa filmmakers to screen their work for peers and general audiences. Twenty-nine films have been selected from a record pool of sixty-four entries for the 2005 festival, April 1-2 at Collins Road Theatres. These films include comedic, dramatic, documentary, and experimental shorts and feature films by professionals, amateurs and students. Saturday night's program includes the Eddy Awards ceremony and a presentation from Cedar Falls native and Saturday Night Live alumnus Gary Kroeger.