We sat alone and austere amongst the wooden folding chairs. Eyeing each other nervously. Each with a mission. And the sense that maybe our missions were incongruent. I knew enough of country life to not blurt out my intent. That I learned years earlier in the Edgeley post office and general store. Now swallowed whole in the
Nonetheless, my purpose was simple and direct. And so was Ulmer’s, I was to discover. But only later. We talked about the country and how Sanco had become a ghost town. Years before there had been boll weevils. And now drought, in its seventh year. There was something Biblical in the conversation. Then a cautious bit of talk about our families. I think Ulmer was pleased that I had six children. He probably thought that the whole film crew were licentious gadabouts. Then I told him that we wanted to use his old Sanco filling station as a location. And that overgrown and dilapidated, with rusting gasoline pumps, it was perfect for a scene in Red Desert Penitentiary.
My request, because it really was a request, was answered with some comments about his dear wife Josephine and her skills as a cook. At respectful intervals thereafter, I raised the subject again. We needed that location badly, and right away. And again. Dusk was approaching and I knew the moment of truth had arrived. I lied to the preacher. A cock and bull tale that we had another site available at Maryneal, and I must rush off to make final arrangements there.
Ulmer looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Is it a dirty film?” Knowing full well that the nude bathing scene with Cathryn Bissell playing Myrna would qualify it as X-rated to his Methodist understandings, I emphasized only the international reputation of Director George Sluizer. And Ulmer said “yes”.
Over the following years we kept up a sporadic correspondence. The last letter from Sanco reported on Ulmer’s physical decline. It closed with “Your coming our way was a
