Peter Dexter’s Train will be riding on the rails of Lakeshore Entertainment, with Barry Levinson as conductor.
Wow, what a crappy analogy. Sorry about that. I generally avoid those things, but it came out of me before I could stop it.
Oscar winner Barry Levinson has signed on to direct the film version of Peter Dexter’s noir classic. Levinson is best known for Diner, Good Morning Vietnam and Rain Man.
“Train is a 18-year-old black caddy at an exclusive L.A. country club. He is a golf prodigy, but the year is 1953 and there is no such thing as a black golf prodigy. Nevertheless, Train draws the interest of Miller Packard, a gambler whose smiling, distracted air earned him the nickname “the Mile Away Man.” Packard’s easy manner hides a proclivity for violence, and he remains an enigma to Train even months later when they are winning high stakes matches against hustlers throughout the country. Packard is also drawn to Norah Still, a beautiful woman scared in a hideous crime, a woman who finds Packard’s tendency toward violence both alluring and frightening. In the ensuing triangular relationship kindness is never far from cruelty.”
The screenplay is from Allison Burnett. Allison is currently writing the screenplay for the upcoming remake of Fame (yuck). His previous credits include the Samuel L. Jackson/Josh Hartnett film Resurrecting the Champ as well as the Richard Gere/Winona Rider romance Autumn in New York…hopefully having such strong source material will result in something more promising then those films.
