MovieChat Forums > Grand Theft Parsons (2004) Discussion > So what really happened?

So what really happened?

posted 19 years ago by Buzz-39
28 replies | jump to latest

I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what parts of the movie actually happened and what parts were made up for the movie?

[–] jdrysdale 19 years ago

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

Hi Buzz.

Phil Kaufman was a consultant on Grand Theft Parsons, and thus pretty much everything you see in the movie is based on truth, with the following comments:

1) The time period was extended to make it a longer journey.

2) Gram's father actually died when he was young, so the character played in the film by Robert Forster is invented for dramatic reasons.

3) The Christina Applegate character is not based on anyone real, and thus the girls did not actually follow Phil and the hippie into the desert.

4) In reality, Phil and the hippie (actually based on a guy called Michael Martin) knew each other before Gram's death, and Michael actually knew Gram as well. Michael was aware of what was in the coffin.

I think that's it.

So, Gram and Phil did make the pact, Phil did try and steal the body at the hospital, and he and Michael did then steal the body at LAX using a borrowed hearse, they did crash into the hangar wall, the cop conversation at LAX did happen, they were handcuffed to the wheel, and they did believe that they were being chased through the desert by the cops (although they probably weren't.) They then burned the body exactly as shown in the movie.

I hope this helps, and that you enjoyed Grand Theft Parsons.

All the best,

Jeremy Drysdale - screenwriter.

[–] mmc1224 19 years ago

And, in real life it was his stepfather who tried to retrieve the body. Bob Parsons adopted Gram when his real father died (Grams real name is Ingram Cecil Connor)and eventually took back his burned remains to New Orleans where he is buried today.

[–] jdrysdale 19 years ago

That is correct. Many feel that he wanted the body buried in New Orleans because under that state's statutes, he would then inherit Gram's wealth, which mainly came from the family citrus groves. Obviously, I couldn't comment on the truth of that, but it does certainly seem possible...

JD.

[–] tedslaw 19 years ago

Dear Mr. Drysdale,
Thank you for a lovely movie...

now when I feel my time is almost up
and destiny is in my right hand
I'll turn to him who made my fate so strong
come on wheels make this boy a man
we're not afraid to ride
we're not afraid to die
come on wheels take me home today
come on wheels take this boy away

[–] zap644 17 years ago

Thanks for the info. I liked the movie. I didn't love it, but it was good and I am putting it in my NetFlix queue which is saying a lot for a movie I've already seen.

I think it would be great to see a true version of this movie made. I suspect it could be a case where truth is stranger than fiction or at least just as interesting. I don't even mean a documentary style film, but something that followed Parsons and Kaufman before Parsons death and the events as they actually unfolded without any improvisations to make the story more interesting - footage of FBB would be a great bonus, IMO.

Gram Parsons is one of those musical legends who I (and probably most people) know very little about and whose name I know, but don't know what he did.

In fact, despite owning the "Dim Lights" album on CD for years and loving every song on it, I never even made the connection that he was a Flying Burrito Brother. I don't even know how I got turned on to them.

[–] mickey_blue1976 12 years ago

@jdrysdale You are wrong straight away . At the beginning the reporter states that Gram died of a drugs overdose on tv but the media was told he had died of natural causes and that was what was reported until weeks later when it was found out he had died of other things. If you read his toxicology reports no drugs showed in his blood only alcohol. Although in his urine morphine, cocaine and barbiturates showed up, barbs can stay in your system upto 3 months after taking them i know this myself and morphine and coke around a week.

And the police did show up at the scene of the burning but only after the fireball was seen.
It's not hard to find this stuff out yet you claim to "know" what isn't correct!

Also there were two girls at the inn with him one was Dale Mcelroy and the other Margaret Fisher. Michael Martin a friend of Parson's and Mcelroy's girlfriend was with them but had gone to score some weed. Gram was drinking all day and because Dale was recovering from hep she couldn't drink and went to her room alone. Later there was a bang on her door it was Fisher saying Gram had OD'd they got some ice and went to him giving him an ice cube supository bringing him round. This was at around 9pm and Gram was walking around fully awake. At 10pm Fisher then asked Mcelroy if she'd keep an eye on Gram why she went to get something to eat. While Fisher was out Mcelroy noticed Gram's breathing was laboured then he stopped breathing, she tried to give him mouth to mouth but it never worked. After half hour Fisher returned and went to ring an ambulance but it was too late he was pronounced dead at 12.30am!

Phil Kauffman was phoned by the girls as they were being harrassed by police he spoke to them and assured them he'd bring em to the police station for questioning the day after. When Phil got there he was given Gram's drug stash by Fisher and he hid them in the desert.

So important characters are missing from this story! Still a good movie though!

[–] mickey_blue1976 12 years ago

Also the hearse belonged to Martin and Dale and Martin was the one who helped with the body snatching!

[–] weeziebug 19 years ago

I haven't seen it yet but I was wondering if they touched on the fact that he met Phil after Phil got out of prison and was hired by Mick, and Gram was hanging out and living with Keith Richards.

[–] magicplastic 18 years ago

SPOILER!

This really was a crock of a film, it could have been so much better.

Under the 'did this really happen' category, the most ridiculous moment was when the kaufman and his cohort supposedly persuade Grams father that they should burn the body in the desert and he agrees!

Why bother deviating from the truth when the original story was interesting enough to build a movie out of .

[–] jdrysdale 18 years ago

Most of what happened in the movie was truth, but we had to change some stuff for legal reasons - and some other things were changed for dramatic reasons. There wasn't much of the latter, but the main change was the one you highlighted - why bring back Gram's father when in reality he died when Gram was a child?

The quick answer is that I needed a character for Kaufman to convince of the 'rightness of his cause', otherwise the audience would be unlikely to feel sympathy for a man who had stolen his friend's body, leaving a grieving family without any closure.

If I could realistically convince Gram's own father, then I knew I would bring the audience with me. Maybe I failed to do this - I certainly seem to have upset you - but there were good reasons for the few changes to the truth that we made, even if they are not immediately clear.

I hope this helps to answer your question.

Jeremy Drysdale.

[–] wisethug0 18 years ago

what chrysler did applegate's characrter drive in the movie?

[–] JRabbit-Slim 18 years ago

Imperial.

[–] naughtymonkey68 18 years ago

No.....actually it was a 1966 Chrysler Newport. Honest mistake, though.....the Imperial, New Yorker, 300, and Newport all looked quite similar during that time period. All beautiful cars.....Elwood Engel's designs are simple yet elegant (including the incredible '61 Continental).

[–] slamfist 17 years ago

Pretty sure she was driving a 1966 Chrysler possibly a New Yorker. We had one when I was 16 but not a convertible.

[–] rivers_cuomo04 16 years ago

could have done without the scenes with christina applegate and the father

also, am i the only one that hated that scene at the end where he's speaking with gram's "ghost"?

[–] xdayton 15 years ago

I don't know if Jeremy (or anyone else) is still checking this board, but I just watched the movie on IFC for the first time. Couple questions (one small, one big).

Small one first. Why didn't the father (or anyone else) react when "Love Hurts" came on the radio in that little desert bar/restaurant? The father is telling the bartender that his son, Gram Parsons, died and his body was stolen, yet no one says, "Hey, isn't that your son on the radio?"

Bigger question. Jeremy, the screenwriter, says the father character was invented to make Phil more likable (the father is won over by the "cause.") But why did Phil have to be likable in the first place? Wouldn't it have been more interesting to show the character as he really was? Let the audience decide if the "cause" was a good and honorable thing, or just a bit of callous hippie drinking-buddy nonsense. I think the best rock and roll movies are warts and all stories, much like rock and roll itself. I'm thinking "Sid and Nancy," "Control," etc.

But then again, maybe the Parsons corpse adventure is just too slight a bit of history to build a movie on without adding the subplots. (I could definitely have done without the Applegate subplot. And why on earth did she call the highway cop a "homo...sexual?" What did that have to do with anything?).

[–] GypsyMinivan 18 years ago

Okay, I'm confused about why JD keeps referring to Gram's father ... In the film, he is referred to as "Mr. Parsons," so I automatically assumed that he was supposed to be Bob Parsons. And because Bob did adopt Gram and his sister, he was "legally" Gram's father, so when he refers to him repeatedly as "my son," it's believable. The actor even bears a strong resemblance to Bob Parsons. But was this an intentional revision of history so that those who AREN'T familiar with the actual story will believe it's his father and those who ARE familiar with the story will assume it's Bob Parsons? It was that particular thread of the movie that threw me completely off. Well, that and the fact that I was sitting there wondering who Barbara was.

And the "crying girl" at the Joshua Tree Inn ... I thought Gram was with Phil Kaufman's girlfriend when he died.

[–] doctorbiobrain2005 17 years ago

No offense, but that's kind of crap. I also think that it's crap that you invented a scheming girlfriend and pretended that Phil didn't know the hippy. That changes a lot. In fact, I actually think both those changes hurt the story. For example, I think it would have helped the hippy character more, were he to have had some backstory with Phil. To give them more to talk about and add extra dimensions to both characters, even if they barely knew each other. And it would have seemed slightly more realistic that the guy would go as far as he did. So I think you should have left them as friends.

And I couldn't stand any part of the movie with the scheming girlfriend and couldn't wait for it to get back to the main guys. It was an annoying interruption, and a bit cliched and unrealistic. I didn't even like when she got the ticket, and could only wait for her to get off the screen again (though I don't dislike Applegate). And now I find that she wasn't a real person at all. Overall, it just seemed like you were trying to fit the true story into a different one that you wanted to tell, and much of it felt like padding, to make the movie longer.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie enough. But I really think you need to be more careful about changing the truth when making a true story. Sure, reality doesn't always match-up to what we expect from fiction, but that's what makes it special. Because it's true. And I really think this story had more truth that could have been squeezed out of it before we needed to start inventing some. The secret to writing isn't about fitting a story into a storyline, but finding how the story tells itself. This movie didn't feel like that, and the revisions just made an original story feel more cliched.

Oh, and one question: Were we supposed to like Phil? I had wanted to like him, at least partly because I like Johnny Knoxville and Gram Parsons, but I really didn't like the Phil character much at all. Was that intentional, or did the director screw-up? I know that sounds like a weird question, but it slightly changes my attitude about the movie if I knew that we were supposed to dislike him. As it was, it seemed like a mistake, as I never want to dislike the main character of a movie. I find it's always less enjoyable. But if that's what we were supposed to think, I guess I can live with that.

[–] ilikegoodmovies2 17 years ago

Hey Jeremy,
Question: As a fledgling screenwriter, I've been instructed to not make soundtrack recommendations in the script. But in the case of making a script about a music legend, it BEGS to have GP's songs help tell the story.
A few fun and helpful tunes of Grams may've been included - and played more prominently and longer, by the wya - would've included:
"We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning" and "Hearts on Fire" - not to mention "In My Darkest Hour".
If any of those songs were in the film - they didn't play long or loud enough for me to hear...
Were you able to make soundtrack recommendations in the script?
Lastly - enjoyed the film. Nice effort!

[–] jdrysdale 17 years ago

Hey there - I'm pleased you liked the film.

I would guess that it might well work against you to stipulate, or even suggest, music which will eventually be chosen by others. We shot GTP on a shoestring - around $1.2M and in 21 days - and always knew that there really wasn't budget for a lot of the music we would have chosen.

As it was, we got some great songs - Bruce Springsteen allowed us to use 'Blood Brothers' for hardly any money because he liked the script, for instance. I would have liked to have been in a position to use more of Gram's music, but with the whole project already on thin ice legally - lots of the contributors to the original drama are still around - we had to be careful as to who we approached for permission. And in the end, I was reasonably happy with our music setting up a period, rather than simply focusing on Gram.

We got some pretty good stuff, I think:

The link is here: http://www.bucksmusicgroup.com/cubesoundtracks/FLYCUB20106.html

Good luck.

jd

[–] jacrummett 17 years ago

I knew Gram for several months before he died and had spoken with Phil Kaufman several times.

Shortly after I heard about the body being stolen and set on fire, I spoke with Phil and asked him if the rumors were true that the body had been stolen by so-called devil worshipers. He told me that he felt it was simply friends trying to give a dead pal his last wish. The ex-wife, by now, had re-entered the picture and was shipping the body off to be buried elsewhere.

Gram was a gentle. kind and unassuming soul.

[–] Local Hero 17 years ago

I am a big Gram Parsons fan, and though I missed this film when it came out, once I had heard about it, for various reasons I had been waiting for the right time to watch it. Well, my hitherto sunny life has suddenly taken a grim turn in the last few months, and the present, somewhat bourbon-addled night seemed the right occasion to watch it.

In a very small parallel to Kaufman and Parsons (very small), the film gave me closure of sorts. I couldn't help but think, while wathcing, that the tweaking of events here and there, while understandable dramatic license, must have infuriated the Parsons family, who felt they were denied closure by Kaufman's acts.

Still, in an odd way, the element that might have outraged them the most-- an ultimately approving Bob Parsons-- was a small attempt to bring conciliation on a certain level to all parties.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Drysdale, for a fine movie, but also for the pleasure of coming on to this forum with a few questions in mind only to see your explanations and justifications. Thank you for taking the time.

[–] gordzilla66 17 years ago

You should not be allowed to own any pencils or pens.

And the keyboard from your computer needs to be taken away from you...

Please retire.

For the love of God, STOP IT!

[–] CoenHead 14 years ago

I don't get this, because Kaufman isn't a sympathetic or likable guy - he isn't. He's an out and out prick, and portraying him in any other way isn't realistic or truthful.

[–] rodman1983 13 years ago

Mr Drysdale, I appreciate your information but beg to differ. If you knew ANYTHING about Gram it was that yes his REAL father did die when he was young, HOWEVER, his adopted father (Mr. Parsons) was alive and well living in New Orleans at the time of his death. Bob Parsons had married Gram's mother and adopted both Gram and his sister and they took his name(Parsons).

from allmusic.com:

"Gram Parsons was born Cecil Ingram Connor on November 5, 1946. He was the grandson of John Snivley, who owned roughly one-third of all the citrus fields in Florida, and the son of Coon Dog Connor, an Air Force veteran who owned a box-making factory in Waycross, Georgia. As a child, Parsons learned how to play the piano at the age of nine, the same year he saw Elvis Presley perform at his school; following the seminal performance, Parsons decided to become a musician. When he was 12, Parsons' father committed suicide, and the family moved in with Parsons' grandparents in Winter Haven, FL. A year after the move, his mother married Robert Parsons; Gram was then adopted by his stepfather, and the child legally changed his name to Gram Parsons."

Man, maybe I should have written the screenplay!

[–] jdrysdale 13 years ago

Well, Rodman1983 - I did know that, of course. There was much more to the story as well, with the stepfather apparently hoping to have Gram buried in Louisiana in order to increase the likelihood of his inheriting the bulk of Gram's estate.

I'm not sure what your point is, though - this isn't a documentary and I changed some of the facts for dramatic reasons. If writing a screenplay was simply a matter of researching the facts of a story, then I would find it much easier. Although there would also be more competition...

[–] mspeed44 13 years ago

This is a good movie! Not to be taken too seriously, but it is delightful to watch what a good friend will do for another--even in death. So, I'm happy you made it (and warts are for real life, not movies!!)
I still love Gram's music--and to hear Gram and EmmyLou Harris is music from heaven!

[–] GypsyMinivan 18 years ago

The only reference to the Stones was during the opening of the movie when we see photos of Gram with Keith, supposedly on Phil Kaufman's bulletin board. This wouldn't have really been relevant to the particular story, because it's not really about Gram.