Claude Green keeps on truckin' with his first feature film

Former Reuters executive Claude Green is making the rounds of US film festivals with his debut feature The Doo Dah Man.

Based on a true story, it’s set in the 1980s and covers two journeys - Glenn Morshower as Smitty, an escaped con man running from the police, and Will Brittain as Jake, a college drop-out running from his past. They meet on the lonely back roads of America's southwest.

Green was deputy chief executive of Factiva, a joint venture with Dow Jones, when he closed a 28-year career with Reuters in 2006. Quitting the corporate world enabled him to study film-making.

He co-wrote and directed the film, his first full-length feature, which was shot on location in and around Austin, Texas. A long-time film buff, he had previously made several narrative shorts and documentaries.

The 91-minute film had its premiere at the Garden State Film Festival in Atlantic City last month and was also shown at the Sonoma International Film Festival in California. Next up: the USA Film Festival in Dallas, where it will be screened at the Angelika Film Center on 23 April.

Green’s next step is to find a distributor to get The Doo Dah Man shown in cinemas.

The title? Green says it’s inspired not by the refrain of the mid-19th century minstrel song Camptown Races but by the opening line of the Grateful Dead song Truckin’: Truckin’ got my chips cashed in. Keep truckin’, like the do-dah man…

The trailer can be seen here.

The Doo Dah Man has its own Facebook page. Here's the link. "If you enjoy the trailer and feel so inclined I'd appreciate your 'liking' it," he says.

Green is already working on his next film, this time with two old friends from Reuters Michael Hudson and Maureen Marlowe. It’s about Dimitri Tiomkin who emigrated from Russia in 1921, first to Germany and then to the United States where he became one of the most successful and productive composers in American film history with a tally of four Oscars - including the 1952 classic Western High Noon - and 16 Academy Awards nominations.

PHOTO: Claude Green (L) on the set of The Doo Dah Man with actor Jim Brewer. ■