My First Business Meeting
Before getting too deep into this story, I should point out that being an outside investor in even a very successful motion picture can be a very risky proposition. Everyone remotely involved in the production gets paid before you, including the kid who makes the popcorn. In 1977, everything anyone had ever believed about the movie business changed, and people in Jackson wanted a piece of it.
While I wasn’t a witness to it, I’ve always believed that this story began with somebody saying to somebody, “I dunno, man. That Campbell kid likes this science fiction crap. Let’s ask him.
The Jackson Investment Club was mostly guys who had been at Ole Miss, and more than half of them were KAs. When they invested in local things, like Doctors’ Hospital, they made a lot of money. When they invested in things outside of Mississippi, it often went south. Jack Geary handled most of the trades, but he wanted no part of this.
Mr. Geary was nice enough that people didn’t hate him when investments didn’t pay off. The Jackson Investment Club bought a shipment of Koi fish once that all died on the trip to the United States. They invested in a racehorse with a legendary bloodline, who developed a nosebleed and died on the track. Most of the group wanted nothing to do with this opportunity, but a few did, so my expertise in science fiction was called into action.
Turning from thirteen to fourteen was a pretty big deal to me. I got my first ever girlfriend, even though she lived in another state. I got my learner’s permit to drive, and enrolled in Driver’s Education. Leading into all this, the most successful motion picture of all time was a space opera with robots and spaceships.
Some men wanted to take me to supper at Primos, my mother said. “Why?” I asked.
“They want to ask you some questions.” She said. Whatever trouble I was in, this was some next level shit.
“They’re nice.” She said. “I’ll be there with you.”
I’ve heard different opinions about whether or not a thirteen-year-old should be made to wear a tie. We wore them at school, except on some Fridays. My brothers learned to protest long enough and loud enough to get out of it or cutting their hair, but I generally submitted. It didn’t seem like too much of a challenge to my personal sovereignty. My brothers disagreed.
My jacket was getting too small for my shoulders. We arrived at Primos Northgate to meet five men at a circular table in the back. “We ordered you a hamburger.” One of them said.
Why do people always assume kids want hamburgers? I liked the trout almondine at Primos, but they’d already ordered. Pop Primos used a really sharp cheese on his hamburgers, giving them a pretty memorable flavor.
Two of the men had children at my school, but one had switched to Prep when we went from sixth grade to seventh. One was a cousin by marriage, and one set my arm when I broke it playing touch football.
JO Manning had a great booming voice like God in that movie with Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. He was usually really good with money. I don’t know how he got roped into this deal.
“We want to know what you think about a movie coming up.”
Well, now, it was about time somebody recognized my genius. Cinema, it just so happens, was my best subject. I had already seen the teaser poster for the movie they wanted to know about. “Gentlemen, I’m glad you asked. I’m your man.”
It’s about UFOs, I explained. Mississippi, in the years leading up to 1977, was awash with alien encounters. One of the most famous incidents occurred just a few miles north in Madison, Mississippi, in February, before our meeting.
I explained what Project Blue Book was and how the famous astronomer J. Allen Hynek developed a system to classify UFO encounters. An encounter of the first kind was the sighting of a UFO. An encounter of the second kind left some evidence, such as scorch marks or broken tree limbs. An encounter of the third kind, like Betty and Barney Hill, and the fishermen in Pascagoula, was actual contact with an alien life form.
We call them “flying saucers” because one of the first sightings in Project Blue Book was from a Navy Pilot who described the UFO as two tea saucers, turned upside down, one on top of the other. Ray Harryhausen made the first UFO movie, “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers,” which solidified the most common concept of UFOs, although some sightings were of triangular and spherical-shaped crafts.
“What we really want to know about is this Star Wars thing.”
“Oh, I know all about that!” To make Star Wars, they invented this thing called a “Motion Control Camera” that used computers to memorize camera movements. Using chromakey and other compositing methods, the model space ships were stationary, but the camera moved to make it seem like the space ship was rocketing past.
“It made a lot of money, didn’t it?”
“Boy, did it!” Star Wars broke every record ever set for a movie, including the one set just two years before with “Jaws.” Star Wars was playing at the Deville Cinema in Jackson, nearly everybody I knew had seen it at least twice.
In most books about salesmanship or corporate deal-making, there comes a make-or-break moment called “the ask.” We were at the “The Ask” moment of the dinner.
“Do you think this movie about flying saucers can make as much money as the Star Wars thing?”
“Well, Close Encounters is being made by the same guy who made ‘Jaws.’ He’s best friends with the guy who made Star Wars. I haven’t seen any pictures yet, but I’m sure they’re using the same system to make the UFOs that they used to make the X Wings in ‘Star Wars’. Oh, the star of ‘Jaws’ is in the Close Encounter movie, too.”
I stopped short of saying “you should invest in this” because nobody told me that was the issue at hand. I just thought they were asking me if it was gonna be a good movie, which is very similar to the conversations I had with friends my own age.
“Did I do ok?” I asked my mother, driving home.
“You did fine.” She said.
“I think it’s really cool that men like that are interested in the same movies I’m interested in.”
“I think they enjoyed talking to you.” She said.
Many years later, I asked my cousin-by-marriage how their investment in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” worked out. “We made more money buying heifers at the State Fair,” he said. I didn’t really know how to take that. Buying heifers at the State Fair seemed like a horrible idea to me.
I don’t know if there are any original members of the Jackson Investment Club left alive. A lot of my stories end that way. I’ve had a lot of business meetings along the way, but this was my favorite, and my mom was there, so that makes it special.
