I’m a long time Jeopardy fan. I like the knowledge aspect of it. I’m usually not interested in the contestants and I skip the interviews. But I must confess, I was intrigued by the lovely young woman with the Audrey Hepburn haircut who was on Thursday, April 2, 2020. What’s her story? So I watched her interview.
She is Felicity Flesher (not Fletcher), a screenwriter and creator of a podcast called Film Frontier (with her boyfriend, Clarence Pruitt, lucky guy) which is devoted to Western films. I’m a film historian and I’m always up for a good podcast. Here’s what I found.
The first episode arrived on November 8, 2018. As of April 2020, eleven episodes have been produced, the last from Nov 22, 2019. Because of the self quarantine I’ve listened to every one today.
The shows are are fantastic. Most episodes focus on one Western film but the discussions usually vere off into different directions. The talk is interesting, insightful, informative and intelligent. Ms. Flesher and Mr. Pruitt get their facts right and punctuate their points with audio from films, interviews from directors and stars and in one case, the Roger Ebert-Gene Siskel review of Pale Rider (1985). No surprise, they have great chemistry together. The technical quality of the production is first rate.
My favorite episode, so far, is the one about Tom Mix. What made this one special was their interview with Ben Model, a silent film composer/performer. (Note: He has his own podcast, The Silent Film Music Podcast, also highly recommended).
Because of the subject matter, this podcast has the potential to develop a large fanbase and run a long time. I certainly hope it does.
Ms. Flesher is indeed a screenwriter. Her IMDb page indicates four credits as a writer, three as a director and producer. I’ve just watched her second appearance on Jeopardy and as I write, she is a two day winner. She went into final Jeopardy in third place but she went all in on her wager (always a smart move), knew the answer and gets to come back after the teen tournament. I’m hoping she’ll use some of her winnings to produce more podcasts.
I highly recommend Film Frontier.
