Dacko had the storyboards ready to go for a vampire saga titled Dead Heaven
but he couldn’t get financing. So he came up with a high-concept plot
that would cast himself in the starring role: On Aug. 15, 2006, Dacko
will run the estimated 2,950 miles from the Salt City to Tinseltown in
90 days, attracting media attention along the way because of his
on-the-road Internet diary, so that a targeted movie producer—who
should rightly be impressed by all this attention—would give Dacko a
shot at making his three-picture pitch. (Plan 9 from Syracuse, by the way, is not exactly a deliberate reference to director Ed Wood’s no-budget sci-fi opus Plan 9 from Outer Space
(1959), although both Dacko and Wood seem to share a kindred
enthusiastic naivete. Dacko’s grueling marathon idea, the ninth plan,
simply followed eight other failed business plans.) Even the jaunt’s
starting and stopping points are part of Dacko’s grand gimmick, as he
would jog from Eastwood’s Palace Theatre to his hoped-for destination
at the handprints of Clint Eastwood on Hollywood Boulevard.
Dacko says early on during his
voice-over narration that “all of a sudden, crazy becomes logical,” and
indeed the potential for dramatic situations would spring from the
sheer zaniness of his scheme. After all, Dacko admits that he only ran
10 miles once while in the Coast Guard, and now he’s asking himself to
log an average 35 miles per day, so there’s no way that this running
misadventure, would, to mix sports metaphors, be smooth sailing. Sure
enough, sprains, cramps and overall fatigue constantly prevent Dacko
from achieving any runner’s high. Along the way, several drivers for
Dacko’s support van, filled with supplies, clothes and camera
equipment, also bail out, at one point forcing the intrepid filmmaker
to cart a John Deere kiddie wagon carrying his essentials. (Dacko’s kid
sister Delaine would eventually come to the rescue, doubling as driver
and camera operator.)
Partway through the run, the targeted
big-name producer revealed as Mark Cuban, sports entrepreneur,
occasional actor and evicted hoofer from Dancing with the Stars,
takes the opportunity to dismiss Dacko’s crazy stunt. Instead of
despair, however, Dacko finds other inspirations for completing his
quest, as Plan 9 from Syracuse receives its narrative drive
from his can-do attitude. And while Dacko doesn’t pass judgment on the
producer, a DVD extra allows viewers to make their own assumption that
Cuban might well be a peckerhead.
Plan 9 from Syracuse is certainly
a showcase for Dacko’s emotional and physical stamina, yet his
circuitous route through the nation’s backwaters also reveals a keen
eye for detail reminiscent of the cinematic observations once presented
by CBS newsman Charles Kuralt during his long-running series of
cracker-barrel vignettes. Glimpses of our fading Americana keep popping
up en route (Dacko stops at Auburn’s still-thriving Finger Lakes
Drive-In as well as the abandoned Frontier Drive-In in Colorado) but
the on-the-go filmmaker is unable to tarry long and soak up the local
color. Quirky bursts of humor inform his travelogue, like the sign at
the Jesse James Home in St. Joseph, Mo., that entices visitors to “see
the bullet hole,” yet Dacko’s unguarded moments of humanity are what
make Plan 9 from Syracuse so appealing. Nobody but a guy from
Syracuse would endure a wintry Southwest run in December and confess
afterward, “I always thought New Mexico just sounded warmer.”
The DVD of Plan 9 from Syracuse,
issued by Ron Bonk’s Sub Rosa Studios (SRS) video label, has been
mostly letterboxed at the 1.78:1 aspect ratio, save for some
full-screen images of snapshots. A director’s commentary track has
Dacko filling in some narrative gaps that the movie could not include,
while a music commentary track features Dacko jawboning with guitarist
Stephen Masucci and manager Ed Colavito from the three-piece Lost
Patrol, the band that supplied the soundtrack of dreamy mood music. A
third track isolates the movie’s score, kind of an ethereal cross
between surf and spaghetti-western guitars engaged in mind-bending
jams. The Lost Patrol will be performing these tracks during a DVD
release party for the auteur’s Plan 9 from Syracuse on Saturday, Sept. 20, 8 p.m., at Armory Square’s Half Penny Pub, 321 W. Fayette St. For club information, call 478-3091.
