Marionville to be home of feel-good movie, not just white squirrels

Show Caption Hide Caption Filmmakers scout locations in Marionville. Filmmakers from Las Angeles traveled to Marionville recently to scout locations for their feature film.

Surrounded by 19th-century storefronts and centered on a gazebo and a high-flying American flag, the Marionville town square was deserted on a recent Saturday.

Almost.

A skinny boy on a bicycle pedaled down the pavement of the square's north side.

On the south side, a crew of filmmakers from Los Angeles scouted locations for a feel-good feature movie, described as "'Goonies' meets 'Sandlot' meets 'Stranger Things' meets 'Super-8'," in the words of its showrunner, Corbin Timbrook.

They took a look at a corner shopfront dating back to the Civil War. A cinderblock factory from the 1940s. They talked about lining the streets with period cars so their movie would have the look and feel of times past.

They talked about the hometown feel that wafts through the very air of Marionville, which is also home to a population of rare white squirrels.

Suddenly, Timbrook spied the kid on the bike, a glimpse of living Americana.

"See!" he yelped, pointing. "That's what I'm talking about."

Timbrook and his Marionville-native wife, Shelby Janes, are looking to capture just this sort of atmosphere in "The Black Widow Club," the feature film they've undertaken.

Their movie, set in the Ozarks of 1970, is about a place where kids can be free to ride their bikes unsupervised.

A place like Marionville.

"I've lived in LA a long time," Janes said, "but this is home."

"The Black Widow Club" is adapted from a short novel by the same name. It was written by Don Bassore, a retired educator with ties to Marionville who also worked in television and radio.

Bassore, who died in 2012, modeled a main character in the book on his youthful self. He drew on his experiences for the material.

In the interconnected ways of small towns, Bassore's book found its way into the hands of Janes' grandmother, Lois Logan, who passed a copy to Janes about five years ago.

Before long, Janes and Timbrook seized on "The Black Widow Club," a story of four adventuresome boys who discover a million-dollar illegal chop shop, as the kind of family-oriented film they were ready to produce.

"It's a nice change of pace from the gory, horror stuff we've done a lot of lately," Timbrook said.

For example, that gazebo in the town square is going to guest-star as the setting for a 4th of July party written into the movie, the filmmakers said.

Janes, Timbrook and a collaborator, Luis Peraza, spent the second week of June in the town of 2,197 on an advance trip.

Their goals, along with finding shoot locations, included making nice with Marionville Mayor Doris Rapp and other locals — half of whom, it seemed, were relatives or friends of Janes and her family.

They've also begun casting. Timbrook said he wants as much of the cast, and half the crew, to be as local as possible. They plan on a 20-day shoot later this summer.

Janes and Timbrook said it was important to communicate authenticity in their movie, so they skipped taking advantage of California tax incentives for filmmaking to shoot on location in Marionville.

Missouri may not subsidize films the way California does, but Timbrook said it's a place where things get done.

Mayor Rapp immediately joined their cause. "She's a spitfire," Timbrook said.

"What Shelby and I — and her mom and grandma — got done in four days here would have taken two months in LA," Timbrook said.

When they return to LA, they believe they will have a good pitch to sell to potential financiers, and their expectation is to complete the film later this year.

Timbrook said he's not worried about distribution, citing streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu along with a possible theater release.

"It's about getting it to the masses," he said.

'The Black Widow Club'

Details about the movie are available at www.theblackwidowclubmovie.com/

Search "The Black Widow Club" on Facebook.