CONVICT COWBOY

It’s interesting to sit back and watch how the rest of the world depicts the stereotypical Texas lifestyle. Cowboy hats and boots, oil deals and fast bucks -they’re all part of Texana. But this month, a very real slice of Texas culture (which, after all, is a part of American culture) will splash across the silver screen. It’s Convict Cowboy, a documentary about inmates in the Texas Department of Corrections who participate in the annual Huntsville Rodeo.

The film is the brainchild of Steve Moss, a local producer and director of music videos as well as other music and sports productions. Moss says that he’s had his eye on the Huntsville Rodeo for some time; he finally approached prison officials last summer with an offer to purchase the rodeo’s film rights. After lengthy negotiations with warden Jack Pursley, Moss bought the rights for $15,000, which went to the Texas Department of Corrections’ recreational fund.

Once Moss had acquired the film rights, his original idea of a straightforward airing of the rodeo-“just like you’d show the Mesquite Rodeo”-became a bigger project: an in-depth documentary with prisoner profiles and a close look at life in a penitentiary.

Then Moss recruited Jim Lindsay, a well-known California documentary director, whose films, such as Mr. Vanik Leaves Washington and America’s Best, have been critically acclaimed. The two men visited Huntsville and decided to proceed with the revised production plan.

The film focuses on six inmates from several Texas prisons, all of whom have varied sentences. Three are convicted murderers; two, armed robbers; another, a burglar. But what the prisoners do have in common is their desire to win the Huntsville Rodeo. According to Moss and Lindsay, the rodeo is the one highlight of the year for some inmates.

The feature-length film doesn’t have a narrator per se; instead, the ad-libbed comments of the inmates are voiced-over the film footage of the rodeo and life inside the prisons. Carlton “Corky” Stiles, a 27-year-old inmate from Fort Worth who is serving a 15-year auto theft sentence, is the central figure in the film. Stiles says that he’s wanted to be a cowboy all his life. Now, in prison, he’s getting his chance.

Convict Cowboy will premiere this month in either Dallas or San Francisco. San Francisco’s Clark Samson, president of South Paw Productions, is executive producer.