THE BACHELORS OF BROKEN HILL FARM (2018, Feature Doc)
“A moving and complex story of a forbidden and enduring love and a fascinating core sample of American social and cultural history.”
—W. P. Rosenthal, Writer “Bikini Moon”
The Bachelors of Broken Hill Farm (documentary, 75 minutes)
VOICEOVER CAST:
J Ryan Carroll, Chloe Mollis-Bride Jillian Geurts, Paul Caamano, Jim Haines, Sean Patrick Murtagh. Susan O’Doherty,
Angela DiCarlo, Lizzy Yoder, Kayla Eisenberg, Brendan McGrady, Chris Tse
The true life soap opera of actors, writers and gentleman farmers - Frank Provo and John Pickard. In the early 1930s, they fell in love while working on a radio program in San Francisco and went on to become a successful writing team for various radio and television programs (Wendy Warren and the News, Young Dr. Malone, From These Roots, Love of Life). In this documentary, there are no talking heads. The script is based entirely on letters, interviews and the diaries of Frank, John, their actor friends and family. Their voices brought to life by professional actors. It is a fast paced documentary of found footage, news-reels, photographs and personal mementos to tell the tragic-comic adventures of their life together as well as various close actor friends lives, such as Julie Bovasso of Saturday Night Fever and Jessie Royce Landis of To Catch a Thief. Together, Frank and John would live through the Jazz Age, WWII, homophobia, family crimes and professional hits and misses. The Bachelors of Broken Hill Farm is a fun, strange, fast paced story about early 20th century life for young gay artists trying to make it big on broadway and in the new medium of — RADIO.
Director Notes
In the summer of 2014, I came across an archived New York Times story about an American Sargeant John David Provoo who was a practicing Buddhist and had been an American POW in Japan during WWII. After the war, he was put on trial for war crimes. While researching his treason trial, I ran across a more fascinating story about his brother, Frank “Bud” Provo and his writing partner John Pickard. As I dug deeper, I found a neighbor of John’s in Great Barrington, Mass. I drove to meet this neighbor and he gave me 2 boxes full of their personal materials. He seemed relieved to give them to me. In the boxes were over a 1000 typed letters written by Frank to John during his military service in WWII, hundreds of faded old photos, a handful of diaries, news clippings, postcards and plays. After several years of research and despite being a documentarian, I decided to create a documentary based on the materials given to me. The Bachelors of Broken Hill Farm is the result.
Festivals
Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival, September 2020, Winner Viewers Choice Award
Semi_Finalist, Blow Up Film Festival, Chicago, Nov 2019
Hollywood Women’s Film Festival, July 2019, Winner Best LGBTQ Historical Documentary
Zeitgeist, New Orleans, April 2019
New Filmmakers, New York, February 2019
Miami Independent Film Festival, November 2018