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Uptown streets to be closed for movie filming

Some Uptown Jackson streets will be closed starting Thursday evening for the filming of a feature film, “All Nite Skate”.

On Friday, crews will film a scene in which a car travels from Jones Drug to Jackson High School.

Businesses along the route will remain open. However, the public will not be allowed to enter or exit businesses while filming takes place outside the business. This film is set in the 1990s and only extras dressed in clothes from that period or vehicles from that period will be allowed in the scenes.

The film is the brainchild of Jackson native Nick Murphy. He wrote the script and will direct it. He admits it is somewhat autobiographical.

“”I grew up here,” Murphy told the crowd gathered at a Chamber Breakfast May 18. His parents owned McCombs Funeral Home. He graduated from Jackson High School.

During his high school days, he spent time at the Jackson Skate Center, a roller rink that no longer exists. His film revolves around “the last all-night skate of the summer,” he explained.

Murphy, who now lives in California, said his film was “hard to make in Hollywood” because the skating rinks there are too new to represent the 1990s. He found people generally uncooperative toward his independent film efforts and wanting to charge him too much to use their locations.

He scrapped his plans to make his short film in California and brought the idea home. He found a skating rink in Puxico that will double as the Jackson rink.

“In two weeks, we had every location we needed,” Murphy said. “People have come out of the woodwork, asking ‘How can we help?’”

With the friendly cooperation he found here, Murphy was able to expand his short film into a feature-length film.
“It’s a film about all of us,” Murphy said.

Although some of the main stars are from Hollywood, many of the faces will be local. There are roles for “47 kids” in the movie, and some leading roles will be filled by local people. “Everybody used will be from Cape, Jackson and Puxico,” Murphy said. “We’re going to show off Southeast Missouri.”

Murphy plans to premier his film this fall in Jackson.

“It’s good to be home,” he said.

The Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce held a ’90s trivia night fundraiser to help finance the film. This past Friday night, another fundraiser was held at the Ground-A-Bout in Uptown Jackson.

Gregory Dullum has worked for The Cash-Book Journal for more than 25 years. Prior to becoming the editor in May 2017, he was production manager, circulation manager and reporter. Before moving to Cape Girardeau in 1988, he was editor of the Saint Louis Park Sailor, a weekly community newspaper in suburban Minneapolis, MN. A native of Minnesota, he returned there after graduating with distinction in 1978 from Ambassador College in Pasadena, CA, with a degree in mass communications. His wife, Marie, whom he met in college, is a native of Zalma, a small town in southeast Missouri. They have two grown daughters and five grandchildren. Gregory may be reached at cashbook@mvp.net.

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