'Tis a scarce occurrence when a skimpily funded independent film is an artistic success, and although such is not the case in this instance, credit should be given to those who make the attempt, this particular effort primarily stumbling due to inexperience, especially relative to its scenario. In what must be viewed as being nearly a student production, an unpublished writer, Jack Buck (Bo Clancey), is unfulfilled in his position as editor for a New York City publisher, and when he is telephoned by an uncle in Colorado, offering Jack a chance to join him and manage his mountain lodge, thereby gaining the time to complete a novel, the young man eagerly accepts and resigns from his employer. His decision is easier to make when he discovers his fiancee dallying with another, but Jack is soon involved with a former girl friend in Colorado, although even greater complications appear for him at his new post when his creative flow is apparently stillborn and he faces unforeseen difficulties in managing the lodge. Other problems surface when he is beset by blandishments from a local rival who desires to obtain the lodge for conversion into a casino, and also when his former fiancee unexpectedly visits, but he nonetheless discovers a method of overcoming his writer's block in an unforeseen manner. The director, who also scripts, furnishes a highly cliched piece with enormously telegraphed dialogue and continuity flaws, most evident in a failure to give flesh to scenes supporting the storyline, and in a hurried ending, indicative as much of a lack of expertise regarding pacing and post-production polish as of budgetary constraints. Although most of the players lack film credits and want closer direction, they have theatre experience, with Holly O'Neill, Alex McLeod and Tricia Gregory contributing good turns, and the editing is effective for the most part, but the musical sound track is obtrusive and hackneyed with the mixing being quite erratic for this affair, shot largely in and near Nederland, Colorado, that benefits from multiple functions for cast and crew; the scenery is, of course, all a nature lover might want.
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