In 2010, a Taylor resident took his son to the Howard Theatre, a place he knew quite well.
“I use to go to the Howard all the time,” said Joe O’Connell. “My son’s first movie was there. His first movie was ‘Toy Story 3.’”
Today, O’Connell is a filmmaker, and it’s time for his movie to go up on the big screen.
On Saturday, Jan. 22, “Rondo and Bob” will premiere at the Howard Theatre in downtown Taylor. Admission is free, although people are asked to bring a food donation that will go to Shepherd’s Heart Food Pantry & Community Ministries in Taylor.
“We’re doing the screening really as a thank you and for the folks that were involved to see it,” said O’Connell, the film’s director and producer. “We’ve been on the film fest circuit doing pretty well. We were delayed a little bit by COVID as far as getting out there, and now we’re close to a distribution deal where the movie will be out streaming.”
What’s the movie about?
Robert A. “Bob” Burns is a horror film art director known for the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” “Re-Animator,” and “The Howling.” His props also appear in “Poltergeist.”
From a young age, he showed signs of being a genius and could create complex designs all in his head, draw detailed cartoons and create outrageous puns. In high school and college he studied drama, which he later utilized in films, including “Confessions of a Serial Killer.”
While attending the University of Texas, he edited the “Texas Ranger” humor magazine and discovered Rondo Hatton. Hatton was a former sports reporter who contracted acromegaly, a condition that caused his face, hands and feet to grow out of proportion to the rest of his body. Together, they went to Hollywood.
O’Connell’s film mixes interviews with archival film footage and rare video of Burns and the people he tried desperately to love. Along the way, the movie examines touchstone films of the horror genre and tells true stories of “Rondo and Bob.”
How Taylor fits in?
Although O’Connell lives in Hutto now, his knowledge and relationship with Taylor citizens created the avenue to shoot and recreate movie scenes.
“The very first thing we shot was in the Taylor Post Office,” said O’Connell. “They were very welcoming to us.
We were to do it on a Sunday morning, a time when few people would be around, but they quickly gave us permission and were so helpful.”
Shooting also took place at 120Art, the former Amy’s Attic, Pecan Manor Bed and Breakfast and other locales.
“We kept going back to Taylor,” said O’Connell. “We had to do the UT Tower shooting in 1976, and we certainly couldn’t film that at the University of Texas, so we went to Old Taylor High and shot there and it was perfect.” When a baseball field
When a baseball field was needed, the film’s crew looked around Austin and couldn’t find a working option. Then, they found a baseball field belonging to the local Graef family.
“It had to look like a different time. For that, it had to look like the 1910s, and it was perfect” said O’Connell. “We just kept finding things. Taylor was the accommodating place.”
He knows he’s not alone when it comes to filmmakers finding Taylor as a perfect place to shoot scenes. Productions that have used Taylor as a film location range from com mercials to hit TV shows, such as from within “The Walking Dead” universe and the 2014 blockbuster movie, “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” Recently, the The CW show “Walker” filmed scenes in the city.
“I had an advantage because I lived there for so long that I knew what the riches were of Taylor,” said O’Connell. “There’s all kind of great locations that really worked well for us, so I just want to say thanks to Taylor for helping us out.”
ABOUT JOE O’CONNELL
Director and producer Joe O’Connell’s first doc “Danger God” about B-movie stuntman Gary Kent was released in 2019 streaming/DVD by Wild Eye Releasing and on blu-ray by Darkside Releasing. O’Connell previously was a film industry columnist for the Dallas Morning News, Austin Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman and has contributed to Variety and Texas Monthly. He is the author of the award-winning novel-in-stories, “Evacuation Plan.”
