In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 113: BONUS - Interview with Producer Frank Durant: What He's Been Up To, New Projects He's Working On, Life After the Lady of the Dunes Documentary and the Case Being Solved(9-20-2023)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 113

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Episode 113 sees the return of film producer Frank Durant for a third interview. It is an all-encompassing chat as we look at what he's been up to over the last year. Frank speaks about traveling over to France to work on a spiritual successor to the beloved 1956 short-film The Red Balloon. It can be watched at this link: It Comes and Goes - an homage to The Red Balloon.
He spills the beans about his current project in the world of horror. We also reveal some potential projects that hit roadblocks.
Naturally talk turns to the Lady of the Dunes. The day of this interview was when the authorities officially closed the case and named Ruth Marie Terry's husband Guy Muldavin as her killer.
Frank and I look back on the documentary, the book, and the adventures that stemmed from both. It is an insightful and humbling talk as we both realize the scope of knowing that the documentary had a hand in helping to solve a nearly fifty-year-old cold case.
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Speaker 00:

Hello world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 113. It's going to be a very fun, very informative episode of the podcast this week. It's a special bonus episode, although those are typically shorter. This is going to be just about normal length. As I sit down for a special interview, the third interview on this program with film producer Frank Durant, you may know him from the Lady of the Dunes documentary that has been a big part of this podcast and my life for the past few years. We're going to talk about what he's been... up to his most recent projects, what's on the horizon. And of course, we will dive a little bit into the Lady of the Dunes case as she's been identified as Ruth Marie Terry. And recently, the case has been closed. So get ready for interview number three with Frank Durant coming up right now on episode 113 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Welcome to the show, everybody. Boy, it's close. Fall will have arrived, likely by the time some of you even listen to this episode. It goes live a few days before the last day of summer. Funnily enough, we had the hottest day of the summer in New England came after Labor Day. I don't know how everyone else handled it. I had to put my AC unit back in. I jumped the gun, thought that summer was over, and then wham, it's 90 degrees outside. But as summer ends and fall begins, my favorite time of the year is in full swing. We're coming up on Halloween season, spooky season. And so next month on the podcast, there's going to be a lot of true crime stuff. And I'll get into that more at the end of the episode. But this week, even though it's a bonus episode, it's going to be basically full length as I do an interview with Frank Durant. Those of you that have listened to the podcast for a while know him as the producer of the very well-received Excellent Lady of the Dunes documentary. This interview was recorded a couple of weeks back because we had to coordinate our schedules. It was meant to be not just catching up with Frank, but seeing the projects he's been working on, what's new, what's coming up. and there's no way this could be a coincidence, but about an hour before we were set to do our interview, authorities announced that they were closing the Lady of the Dunes case. Not only had they identified the Lady of the Dunes as Ruth Marie Terry last year on Halloween Day, but on the day that I interviewed Frank, they closed the case saying that her husband, Guy Muldovan, was her killer. Granted, they didn't say anything about accomplices or Who else may have been involved to help get her body way out into the dunes? But any way you slice it, the Lady of the Dunes case is closed, which is mind-blowing to me. For those of you that this may be your first time listening to the podcast and you're not sure of what the Lady of the Dunes case is, if you're not from Cape Cod or Massachusetts or New England, you're in luck. There's a lot of information on this podcast. I interviewed Frank twice before, specifically about The Lady of the Dunes, episode 62 and episode 97, both interviews with Frank. There is a supersized episode of the podcast, episode 100, that talks about The Lady of the Dunes case, the documentary, my book that I wrote, and the revelations of her identity. So if you want to learn more about The Lady of the Dunes case, you can check out any of those. But right now, it's time to catch up with Frank Durant and see what he's been up to and what is coming up on his schedule. So welcome back, Frank, to the podcast as we start the interview with him here on episode 113. So I guess we'll circle back to the Lady of the Dunes naturally, but I wanted this to be a lot about where you've been because the listeners of the podcast, they've heard everything connected with you with The Lady of the Dunes, and I wanted to give them more of what you've been up to since, because you're like several projects past The Lady of the Dunes documentary, as much as I've been going on about the book, because it took longer to do. I guess I want to start off with kind of what are you working on now? Like, what's your current project?

Speaker 01:

Currently in pre-production on a Giallo film. that we're filming in upstate New York in November. I say giallo because there's a G in it, G-I-A-L-L-O. It's giallo, giallo. It's Italian for yellow. And it's a typical early 60s slasher horror film style that was made big in Italy. You got movies like Suspiria that capitalized on that. So you wouldn't have any of the Friday the 13th style horror slasher films if it wasn't for the giallo films that came 20 years before that. So I'm doing my fifth... Possible final collaboration with Blondie Brothers Entertainment to do a film, The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace, which is a typical giallo title for a horror film. Got back from Paris. I did a little short film with my son based on The Red Balloon. During post-production on Lady of the Dunes, I did the first part of a trilogy on the Rip Van Winkle series. I ended up doing part two and part three the previous year. So I've kept busy moving forward. I did that little short with Edie Vonnegut. on her father's Saab dealership out there in West Bonstable. And just keep plugging away. Keep moving forward on the next book like you are.

Speaker 00:

Man, that's, I think, why we get along so well. You've got the same mindset as me, where it's never, what are you working on now? It's, yeah, there's something now, but what's next? I had forgotten about the Rip Van Winkle, because that's in the Lady of the Dunes book you were working on. I had totally forgotten. So the girl who wore yellow lace, what can you share as far as the process? I don't want you to give away any spoilers and stuff, but how much can you share as far as the process of putting it together and anything you want to share about it?

Speaker 01:

Well, I was approached to do it because Mock had always wanted to do a Jalo film. I said, all right, so we know what we want to do. Let's just now write a screenplay and get the funding and cast it and make this into a movie. So I wrote a nice screenplay, but I figured what can we do more than just doing a typical horror slasher film? So the goal was to do kind of a morale piece and say, well, can we really have multiple stories and themes going on as opposed to simple? Don't go in the woods. Don't go in the basement. It's not going to be pretty for the for the young actress. What's going to happen to her? And so Mark's happy because Mark's always wanted to do a film like this in 40 years. So it's kind of a it's personal, but also professional because now we have multiple characters. distributors interested in taking the film and getting it out there. And I think it's official since she signed the contract, but actress Lynn Lowry, who has been around for over 50 years, she starred in The Crazies, directed by George Romero. She's worked with Lloyd Kaufman. She's been directed by Jonathan Demme, David Cronenberg. She's done over 100 films and she's been amazing talent of giving her name to young independent filmmakers and say, listen, I've done some amazing things. Big films in the 70s and 80s. She was in the movie Cat People, which is a cult classic now. She just signed on because I wrote a scene with her in mind and she just said she loved it. So we worked out a deal. She's coming down as well. And so honestly, just keep moving forward like you, Chris. You know, you write one good book. It should lead to another great book. Why go back and do a pamphlet when you should be doing, you know, the next big novel?

Speaker 00:

So last time I had seen you was when we were at the mall and we had exchanged the book and the documentary. We got pictures I've posted on social media. That was when you were getting ready to go do the Red Balloon. So what was it like as far as the process of going overseas to shoot this? And I knew what the Red Balloon was from when I was in school. So it's just fascinating to me that You actually went and did that and had your son be a part of it. So how was that?

Speaker 01:

Well, I had a friend 20 years ago remind me that they played the Red Balloon all the time when cable just came out, like HBO, Showtime. There's always that little 30-minute bumper where they kept showing the Red Balloon. And my friend was kind of thinking it was a conspiracy theory. Why? Why were we always watching the Red Balloon every day throughout like 1982 to the 90s? And I said, I don't think it was a conspiracy theory. It was just a very beautiful, innocent... Perfect film. And I reached out and met a very young, talented female filmmaker through the Emerson College program. She's now out there in Paris. And she wanted to find the original filming locations filmed back in the 1950s and just kind of do our own little thing. It's on YouTube right now. It's titled It Comes and Goes. And I got my little son who's timeless now. He's five years old. Back then he was four. And he's dressed up just like the young Pasquale. combed his hair back in the 50s style, gave him a red balloon. He's out there walking the streets of Paris where they filmed this over 50 years ago. My best moments of that, besides spending the day with my son, is a lot of older people who were seeing what we were doing. We shot on film. Younger people, anybody younger than 60 had no clue what we were doing. However, when we saw a group of old people, they noticed what we were doing and they were like, it hit home to them because the The world of the eastern part of Paris is completely different from what it was back in the day. Very artsy, very creative, very low-end, kind of like early commune area of Paris, which used to be very affordable. And we just had a great time. We shot on film, we shot all day, and we turned some heads. So that's the goal of any film you do. You want to turn heads.

Speaker 00:

How did your son handle being... in the movie was it more like here take this balloon and go walk or did he have to actually be kind of directed i guess

Speaker 01:

little both we caught a lot of happy accidents but it's nice that his father has some directing experience and a lot of candy a lot of gummy bears gummy bears is a great uh motivator for any for any young actor especially my son and uh no it's very magical time because at the end of the day it may not be your bag but I'm hoping five years, 10 years, especially 20, 30 years from now, he'll look back and just go, that was great. You know, because he's not going to remember flying over to Paris and having the croissants and all the other stuff, but he'll remember that. And I think that alone was the big motivator. Did you say that this is already on

Speaker 00:

YouTube to see or is it still

Speaker 01:

in? It's on YouTube. The filmmaker's name, Sonny Keller, K-E-L-L-E-R, done a lot of YouTube videos, but it's titled It Comes and Goes. Because I don't know, are we going to call this the return of the Red Balloon? What are we going to call this? But the funny thing is, we reached out to Pasquale, who's now in his 70s. He lives out in southern France. He did end up contacting us, reaching out and gave us his approval to do this because it's not an official sequel to Red Balloon. But he supported Sonny and myself and thought it was just a beautiful idea that the next generation of people have continued that story. And Pasquale's daughter is also a filmmaker. So it's just a wonderful group of young artists coming together to tell a little story, have some fun, and produce something beautiful.

Speaker 00:

I love it. I'll make sure I put a link to that in the description of the podcast and when I make a video of this so people can go and check it out. All right, so. I know that the point of this interview at the beginning, what kind of gave the idea to do a part three, was you said you were going to be redoing the Thoreau Walk on the Great Beach, the outer beach of the Cape. Is that still good to go? Yep,

Speaker 01:

going out on Saturday, October 14th is the day. And currently talking to some people who want to either start in Orleans, where Thoreau spent the night and started walking up the bare-bended back of the Cape, And then most of us will meet at the visitor center, where from there, we're probably going to go to Makoni and then come back because it's going to be impossible to do the entire 34-mile hike all the way up. So we're trying to do it in pieces. But the goal is to come back to Cape Cod every year and do a piece of the many Thoreau hikes that are on the out of Cape. And that's what we're doing.

Speaker 00:

So I know this won't be your first time doing it. For people that aren't familiar with Henry David Thoreau, Can you, because that was kind of how we met up, was the Lady of the Dunes was recommended to you when you were doing the Thoreau documentary, but kind of give people some information about Thoreau and the documentary and such, just for people that don't know.

Speaker 01:

Okay, a few years back, I did a documentary called Finding Thoreau's Cape Cod, which was not completely driven by my ego, but the ego was definitely present. I thought, hey, Sumitin Dennis and I'm a fan of Thoreau. I love Walden. I love reading the book he wrote about Kate Codd, which is really a destination travel book from point A to point B. And back in the 1840s and twice in the 1850s, he did hike. He hiked from Orleans. all the way up through East End, Wellfleet, Turin, up to Provincetown. And along the way, he'd get into adventures, talk to some interesting characters like Oyster Man, Wellfleet Oyster Man. So what I did during the documentary was to recap that entire 30-mile journey and also trying to see if I could find Thoreau's Cape Cod, where it's up to you to decide if you could find the light, get to see the same things Thoreau's seen, because the Cape Cod has changed quite a bit. Many aspects of the 1840s. But there's little glimmers of remembrance of Thoreau and part of the cape that still lives through today. And that's what I thought we did by making that documentary.

Speaker 00:

So how was that initial hike on the Great Beach? Like, how was that as far? I mean, it's got to be I know, just walking the beach in general is rough, but I couldn't imagine doing that much.

Speaker 01:

was wet we the time he went he did write down that it rained most of the time and sure enough i went during a northeaster so it was it was saturated i double ponchoed it and luckily the community embraced by giving me you know lodgings or just entry to the oyster man's house or places in provincetown a lot of people wanted to kind of showcase what he saw uh is still relevant today even thoreau predicted that this is going to be a tourist trap one day and that's by the end of the book kind of says once people from the inlands know about this they're going to want to come in summer out here and that's been the case probably since the 1890s and now more more than ever that you can't get over the bridge you know once the summer hits

Speaker 00:

i may have glossed over this but what made you want to do this hike again

Speaker 01:

doing it the first time i'm filming i'm worried about production schedule so i really wasn't able to really enjoy and just take in the moment, because when you're on the national seashore, which is, you can't find that anywhere else on the planet. What Kennedy did, based on the writings of Thoreau, was to make this whole area seashore, nationally protected by the federal government. Otherwise, you'd have McMansions every 30 feet, and you may not be open to the general public, that once you get out there, once you get to Nauset Beach, and you just set out heading north, you're on a whole different world. And I don't want to start talking about spiritualness or hitting Zen or whatever Zen is to an individual, but you're surrounded by open sky, you got the rush of the ocean, you got the saltwater air, and you're surrounded by sand. You're not in a city, you're out there by yourself, you're away from civilization, you unplug the cell phone, you unplug from the matrix, and you just start to walk. So if you study Thoreau and you can find him in his writings with his Merrimack Valley, definitely Walden, it's the appreciation of just stop, live the moment, the journey, and not worry about go, go, go, hurry up, I got to get to Provincetown before the sun goes down. To really go out there and truly enjoy hiking. You know, Thoreau hiked a lot. There's a lot of places in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and part of the 2024 goal is to really get out there. We're trying to hit Mount Washington next month. And Thoreau hiked a lot of places in southern New Hampshire, so I'm hoping to kind of not just get back in his footstep, but hopefully experience what he intended for his readers to experience.

Speaker 00:

Did you say you're looking to hike Mount Washington next month?

Speaker 01:

Yes, I am. Yes,

Speaker 00:

I am. Oh, man. You'll have to let me know how that is because that's something that at some point I want to attempt, but I don't know anyone that's actually tried it. So you're going to have to let me know how bad it is.

Speaker 01:

I've been trying to do this. It's either been bad health, bad weather, COVID-19. But since 2017, I've been trying to get up that damn mountain. So hopefully this, unless something happens, the goal is to get out there the last weekend when they allow hikers to go up there before the snow hits. And that's just been on the bucket list. The same thing with all these other hikes and films. They're on the list that need to be crossed off before it's too late.

Speaker 00:

So this just popped in my head as you were talking about the Thoreau documentary because you had said when– You were in the process of making this. This was when several people brought up, oh, you should do a project on the Lady of the Dunes. And that's what made that next step. I know that you're someone that's always looking to the next project. So if by chance no one had ever brought up the Lady of the Dunes, when you were doing Thoreau, what was in your mind for the next project before the Lady of the Dunes came up?

Speaker 01:

I've been trying to do a murder mystery serial since I produced a pilot in 2016. So one of the first interviews I did was the Cape Cod Times with the Patriot Ledger. I said, hey, I've been trying to do a fake murder mystery as opposed to solve a real murder mystery. And that's still on the back burner. I talked to people. I've had that sold multiple times and people change their mind. Money comes and goes or people just talk. But I'm hoping to do one more really big Cape Cod project. But certain people will have, it's a very more personal than the Lady of the Dunes. I probably think it's the most personal story to affect Cape Cod in the last hundred years. But if certain people aren't involved, I have no place or purpose to really motivate or push. But it could be a possibility that, you know, having done the Thoreau documentary, I felt almost obligated to say, you know, every couple of years I want to return to Cape Cod and do something of importance. It may also be a feature film. I may shoot the murder mystery series in Cape Cod. Who knows? But there's my childhood's there. My many summers in Dennis. So it's really hard to not want to return to the garden and enjoy the real Cape Cod.

Speaker 00:

I know from growing up here and from seeing it makes me appreciate the work that you did on the Lady of the Dunes even more, knowing how hard it can be to get people on board here to want to talk about And I won't go too deep into this for the people listening, but we were talking about a project we were going to try to do, and it instantly got kiboshed. It was a very famous spot on Cape Cod, but immediately... I had just started doing research on the history, and you had said you would immediately run into roadblocks where you were like, this is probably not worth even checking into. So... Knowing how difficult that was, where that got killed right at the beginning, the fact that you got the Lady of the Dunes done had people that were really important to the case and to Provincetown and such get involved. And to have it be such an amazing documentary, it makes me appreciate the process even more. I

Speaker 01:

always, you know, everything I've done, if I ever hit major roadblocks, I just cancel the production because there's a reason why people can be very nimby. not in my backyard. And sometimes it's not always, I'll show up to a small town somewhere and I'll say, wow, what a great place to make a horror film. And it's kind of, kind of a slap in the face, but you know, certain places they don't want to lift a finger, nor do they want that film shot in their backyard. So on top of political reasons or cultural reasons, you can understand why someone would not want to, you know, Oh, why are we talking about that 50 year old case? And why can't we move on? Or, Oh God. And, um, I think we were successful because we knew a third of the community was not going to care. The other third were going to be a solid no. But we did have the other third of the community saying, it's about time. Let's ruffle some feathers. Let's stir the storms up. And we had some very powerful people behind the scenes support us. Without them, there's no way this would have gone off the ground. Or we would have had major, major roadblocks, but we just would have walked away.

Speaker 00:

Yeah, it's wild. And I'll circle back to where we had started. So just today, I mean, the timing couldn't be any better. The DA announced that the Lady of the Dunes case is now considered closed, that they have said Ruth Marie Terry was murdered by her husband, Guy Moldovan. They don't say anything about accomplices. They don't say anything about those intricate details that we would be interested in. Knowing where you started, like day one of the lady of the dunes documentary to now i mean what has this experience been like because you've seen this case go from it'll never be solved leave it alone to here's her identity here's her killer in the span of two years a little over two years

Speaker 01:

someone had pointed out that if i had done this movie 10 or 15 years ago it would not have been a success Or luckily, you get kind of immune to it after all. When you write your first book as opposed to your eighth book, ninth book, you start to get a style, get a rhythm, you get structured. And you're not easily taken back by critics, criticism, but you've kind of been there, done that. You've heard the word no, and you kind of want an idea. What am I trying to do? Am I trying to recreate the wheel? Am I trying to solve this? What are the multiple goals? What are we trying to accomplish here as opposed to how many bridges can we build? burn as opposed to build. So going in, I thought, okay, even if we don't, if we aim high, what are we still going to come out with? Is it going to look good? Is it a good story? Are we going to bring anything to the table worth hearing about? You know, it's like you do a crappy horror film and then you do another one and then you do another crappy horror film. So when you say, hey, I'm going to do a fourth crappy horror film, people go, why? We've seen, we get it. We don't need that. So it's like if you decide to do another horror film or documentary, what's your audience? What do you, are you doing this for the town? Are you doing this for yourself? So I think we all had a good head on our shoulders realizing, listen, we're going to do something that's going to benefit the overall story. Like you had mentioned, let's get our name back. And that was one of the goals. So we can just check that off the list. Okay. Did we bring new insight to the case? Yes. Did we educate the audience? Yes. Did we entertain them? Absolutely.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Speaker 01:

Did we motivate other people to make phone calls and to do things? I've been told time and time again we did.

Speaker 00:

I believe that.

Speaker 01:

Yeah. Somebody told me that the– what was the big TV series they filmed there just weeks prior? Oh, American Horror Story. Yeah. They're taking credit for solving the case. Hey, we did this a year before. Look what happened. It's like, no, what about our little documentary? So people assume what led to what eventually got to where we are today. To be a footnote in that story, Chris, to say, you know, a footnote in history, I'm not the great director, but to say that I did that one little thing that helped tell the story, helped get the case closed, you got to be proud of that and be content by saying we did something correct. We did through the Hayden clock or whatever we did, eventually it all came out gold for the end of the story.

Speaker 00:

It's mind blowing because there are times like when I was doing the book, I was head down, get all the facts right and editing and all this stuff. When it's done and I step back and kind of see the forest for the trees, it's amazing to think this case that I grew up with, that it's now solved. And I was able to be on the periphery of it thanks to you finding me on the internet.

Speaker 01:

Well, I'll tell you a secret, Chris. I was talking to a few different authors. I never told you. This is a first. I've never told anybody. I've never told you, especially this. I knew one of these other authors who I talked to a month previous. He was going to probably invest five years to write the first manuscript. I said, no, I hate. I'm a fan of Game of Thrones, but I'm not a fan of the author because a writer writes. Whether you're a good writer or a bad writer, write. I've had so many people tell me, oh, I'm working on a great book. romantic novel set in World War II. 10 years later, hey, how's the book? I'm still in development. And that's your dream. That's your whatever. It could take you 20, 30, 40 years to write. I understand. We're of the now generation. Instant gratification. Just pay for it on credit card. Get it online quick. People wait in line to watch movies back in the day. But still, if you want to be known as a writer, don't go to 5,000 conventions and say, hey, I'm a writer. When you're on deadline to write a book, while the movie and season 6 and 7, 8, 9, 10 are coming out. So there were other people who were interested. They wanted it. But they said, oh, no, I can't guarantee that I'm going to have something written in a year or two. I'm like, why not? I'm banging this documentary out in a year. And so I talked to you. I'm like, hey, listen, you've written. You're a writer. You actually write books. They get published. They get seen as opposed to, yeah, I like the idea, but it's going to be 10 years. And imagine that. Imagine there was no book right now to compliment the documentary. So when I met you, I knew you were a doer. And if you're going to sign on to it, that's the thing I say. If you sign on to this, Chris, are you going to do this? And you're on board 100%. And those other two people, they have reached out to me and they have apologized because they realized I would have held things up. They go, you know what? They had that chance. And I go, yeah, a writer writes. And I was looking for a writer. And the other two people, they're just– The last words to me was, hey, I apologize, but good for you. I'm like, all right, hopefully you learned something.

Speaker 00:

That's wild. I didn't know about there being multiple people, but it's incredible. Yeah, I remember basically you had told me, you know, I don't want this to be a year down the road. Suddenly me, the writer is like, oh, I can't finish it. And then you're screwed. So as soon as I said I'm in, I was like, I will continue. To the point that I put my podcast on hiatus to make sure that I properly dedicated to the book.

Speaker 01:

You had a few people say, I'll think about it. One wanted a lot of money. I was like, I'm not paying you. That's more money than production. But that one other person I remember saying, oh, you know, it could take me three to five years to write this novel. And I go, okay, I don't want to change who you are. It's arrogant for me to say maybe you learned something. But they knew. They said, listen, it's not going to work out because some people take a long time. Other people just bang out films every year. Some people spend 10 years to do one movie. It's their natural pace.

Speaker 00:

So looking at the documentary and that time as a whole, what kind of stands out as your favorite memories? Because I've started doing... book events on the searching for the lady of the dunes book. And I've got certain stories that I love to share. And I mean, right at the top is the looking for the Haddon Clark diary where we're in the woods and it's just like a movie moment. Rich was there at the event and we were talking about the whale man showing up in the woods and that I didn't know if you had a different one because that one just sticks out to me.

Speaker 01:

We had a lot of memorable moments. I think that was just, that was the world just reminding us, yeah, you're doing something right. The whale guy showing up or Hayden's letters or things happening out of Bert's pizza. It's just, it seems going, what's going on here? It's just reminders that we're doing something right. We're hitting a nerve. It's not my favorite moment, but when I got the letter on the set of a Rip Van Winkle film and I realized, oh, I gave my mailing address to, you know, Hayden, that's, that wasn't too smart on, you know, it wasn't my favorite moment. It Coming home after the production, knowing that I had a family waiting for me, I was able just to say, OK, this is my reality. I could hide away and kind of take a break from being the quote unquote filmmaker. I think that was giving me just a real bliss. I was able to unplug and say, all right, you know, I don't have to worry about investigation or the phone ringing. I could just sit back and just enjoy normalness. Otherwise, you know, we captured lightning in a bottle because everybody that we interviewed, every segment, the people that were taught, everybody brought their A games. No one belittled this project. Everybody associated, even the interns, they worked hard for a sandwich. They just knew this is something that I want this on my resume. I'm proud of this. So we were very lucky. A lot of people push us, but also get out of our way to do what we did.

Speaker 00:

Yeah, I agree. I've told everyone that this book is my proudest accomplishment as a writer. And so that's why I love getting to kind of share it at events where I basically tell the story of the documentary and the case as a whole. And it's great seeing people come to this, knowing all the work that went into it, because you said you watched the, uh, Osterville library events. So, you know, I, even though you couldn't be there, I was speaking to you at times, if you're watching this, blah, blah, blah, blah, because I always say it, the book doesn't exist without the work you did there. I'm just kind of like the sidecar. I may have written a book, but the book is based on the documentary. So there is no book without the documentary so that I'm forever grateful that you, that the other two people were not smart enough to see the project and that I was, and you took a chance on me, even though when we first met, I had the black hoodie on in a foggy parking lot by myself.

Speaker 01:

Yeah. No, it all worked out for us because I could have went with someone else that was more a recognized name, but they weren't on board. They weren't serious. So it's like you work with a cast or a crew, certain people just work well. You know, you could have the best cameraman, but if they don't work well with the other people, it's not going to gel. And you gelled with the same type of vision. And, you know, you were motivated because you wanted the truth to come out. Other people were worried about, well, I got to make sure my agent's happy with this. It's going to fall in line with what the publishing has. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking business. I'm talking, do you really want to write the story of what we're actually trying to accomplish here? And before I forget, besides the case closing today, it's also the Lady of the Dunes' son's birthday. Double coincidence.

Speaker 00:

The timing of everything. Coincidence or one thing, but it's just how these things always happen like that. So I guess as we start to kind of wrap up here, I wanted to kind of give you a chance, like where can people find, like what do you want to direct people towards? The Lady of the Dunes documentary, I promote everywhere. But as far as other projects, things that you want people to go out of their way to see of yours, because you've got a big catalog of projects.

Speaker 01:

Not so much me, but the one thing that struck me as soon as I read the District Attorney's letter officially closing the case was The case file has not been available to the public because it's been an open case. Now that it's closed, that case file now is general public information. Anybody can walk into the Provincetown Police Department and ask to see the official copy in the detective's office. I would make the recommendation that they, oops, accidentally burn the file. There's over 100 around that 8x10 black and white glossy photos of the crime scene. And it's almost like if you compare this to the murder of the Black Dahlia, it's gruesome. And besides that point, there's no other reason why the Internet needs to have all those photos. She's a real person. She has her name. She has family walking the earth. And so if there was ever a time for law enforcement to accidentally lose a file or do something just morally offensive, supported that that file should not be able to be seen or photocopied and put online just to say hey look look how gruesome these photos are i think one thing that the town deserves and the story deserves is not to have this as an epilogue of let's show all this information just for the point of showing the information

Speaker 00:

it's been a wild ride i'll tell you that and what i'm thinking is we've got to do another interview a few months down the road where I just want to talk to you as a film producer and have you talk about just that, not specific things. I had thought of this earlier, and I was like, oh, I've got to make sure I bring that up. Let's go on the hike. Oh, my God.

Speaker 01:

No, meet me at Marconi. You can pick us up and drive us back to the Soul Pot. I'm going to be hiking with a few people.

Speaker 00:

Man, we'll see about that.

Speaker 01:

All right. Unless you got a hot date, man. October 14th, Saturday, I'll meet you at Marconi.

Speaker 00:

Yeah, no kidding. Well, it's been a blast and I will definitely keep in touch. And anytime you have projects coming out that I can share and get people's eyes on, I'm always there. That's like the connection we made during the Lady of the Dunes documentary. That's something that goes on long past the... documentary is done. The book is done.

Speaker 01:

Awesome, man. No, many more, many more stories to come. All right. So be a part of it. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 00:

I'll see you, Frank. Thanks a lot for joining us. Thank you, brother. Talk soon. All right. Thank you so much to Frank Duran for being a part of episode 113, being a part of the podcast again. We'll see you next time. So next week, there will be no new podcast episode as I have to set up the subscriber platform so that if anybody wants to become a subscriber to the podcast and get access to the special subscriber-only episodes through Buzzsprout, through Patreon, you can do it. I realized I needed a little time to actually do it and do it right. But the week after will be episode 114. You will likely hear Frank Durant's name again right in that episode as we kick off the Halloween season, the spooky season. I'm going to share the story of the disappearance of Bonnie Bickwit and Mitchell Weiser. This came up during the Lady of the Dunes documentary production and the book production. specifically through convicted serial killer Haddon Clark, who just happened to name drop Bonnie Bickwit in one of his letters that went right over Frank's head because he was so busy. I was transcribing the letters for the book and started to cross-reference who is this Bonnie Bickwit that he says he was one of the last people to see her alive. Not to give too much away, but I ended up having to reach out to the sheriff's department in Sullivan County, New York, as well as the family of both Bonnie and Mitchell, who disappeared in 1973. So next week, I will tell the full story of what is known and what I learned during my time on the Lady of the Dunes documentary. Also, we will go back to a fascinating time, the early to mid-1990s on Cape Cod and what was kind of a changing of the guard as far as Cape Cod went. It was a weird time when a lot of beloved businesses that went under due to the economic climate. We're going to go way, way back in the day as I review the late 70s PSA film Snuffy's Fire Brigade starring Snuffy the Talking Fire Engine. Kids of my age will probably remember Snuffy the Talking Fire Engine. This film is a mind trip. It's really great. There's going to be a brand new top five as we continue the Weird Laws series. We're up to the fifth New England state. This will be New Hampshire. We're going to look at the Weird Laws from that state that will just make you laugh and shake your head. And of course, there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule coming up two weeks from now on episode 114 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Before we get out of here, I wanted to make sure that I took a few moments just to say thank you to everyone who's been listening to the podcast, sharing it. Thank you in advance to anyone who becomes subscribers. I'm going to do my best to make that something worthwhile. The extra episodes are going to be good. They're going to be fever dreams as I look back at these old travel blogs that I did that ended up kind of becoming a running commentary on life from 15 years ago. You'll get what I'm talking about when you hear it, just what kind of madness goes into it. Find me on Instagram threads. Find me on the X site while I'm still there. The Facebook fan page, my YouTube channel. I'm adding new videos, 4K New England videos. Every episode of the podcast goes up on YouTube, the audio. There's a whole playlist just for them. I have the first 30 plus episodes up there and now all the new ones since I got back from hiatus. Check out my homepage, ChristopherSetterlin.com. Links to all my books, the old podcast, my blogs, all that fun stuff. If you're hearing this when the podcast goes live September 20th, I will be at the Osterville Village Library on Friday the 22nd at 1 p.m. doing a presentation on my travel and photography books. It's a fun time. If you're in the area, come on out. I'll keep you updated when the newer events get closer. Thank you again to Frank Durant for taking some time with us today. I don't do many interviews on the podcast, so it has to be people that I really want to talk to. And as we wrap up, remember to take care of your mental health. Mine is getting better as my favorite time of year has started. Fall foliage, my birthday's coming up, a lot of great holidays. But I know some people hate the fall, hate the winter. So whatever you got to do to take care of your mental health, lean into the things that make you happy. Hopefully this podcast is one of those things. I'll keep pumping out the content for you. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path. Leave the biggest footprint you can in this world while you're here because you never know what tomorrow brings. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, and I'll talk to you all again soon.

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