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GENERAL GRANT IS DOOMED!
“NEVER RETREAT, NEVER SURRENDER!” Ex-President Ulysses S. Grant struggles to complete his “Personal Memoirs” while combatting terminal cancer. He produces a masterpiece. The true story. Can be expanded to TV miniseries. Professional Coverage: “Recommend” - Dave Trottier (Author, The Screenwriter’s Bible) SEMI-FINALIST Fade In Awards - True Story/Bio Competition
Undaunted, Grant proceeds with the formidable writing project in spite of violent coughing fits and a deteriorating physical condition.
Grant’s memories are depicted in the film as he writes the “Memoirs”. He recounts…
• The early days at West Point, his outstanding horsemanship, mathematical ability, and artistic talents, • His physical strength and heroic performance in the Mexican War, including encounters with Robert E. Lee, • His determination in leading his regiment to a California outpost via Isthmus of Panama during a cholera epidemic, • His resignation from the Army, drinking accusations, and subsequent failure in business, • His recall to active duty in the Civil War, and meteoric rise to Brigadier General, • His unique ability to concentrate and evaluate a situation – military or otherwise – and develop a clear, practical solution that works, • The Battle of Fort Donelson -- where he becomes “Unconditional Surrender” Grant, • His inner turmoil over Civil War casualties, • The surrender of General Lee at Appomattox.
Grant suffers greatly during this writing ordeal. He is unable to swallow without intense pain, and eventually loses his ability to speak.
His wife Julia, and children Nellie and Fred Grant stand by him – and also suffer -- throughout this ordeal.
Grant’s illness sparks a nation-wide death watch. Reporters camp out by his home and even try to dupe his doctors and the housemaid to get further information.
Then Grant has a severe choking experience which nearly kills him. Saved by his doctors – who use a unique medical procedure -- the Ol’ Warrior rallies and vows to finish his manuscript.
In June, 1885 Grant is moved to the Mt. McGregor Cottage in upstate New York to avoid the blistering heat of New York City.
There he complete his manuscript and dies on July 23, 1885.
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant were published shortly after his death. Mark Twain's company printed 350,000 sets -- 700,000 volumes -- a record number of books for that time.
Grant’s “Personal Memoirs” were a great success -- praised by the public, historians and literary critics. They have been acclaimed as the foremost military memoir in the English Language.
They have never gone out of print.
Screenplays
Jim specializes in screenplays based on historical true events (including musicals), bio/pics and/or disasters. In alphabetical order:
“BOJANGLES, EUBIE AND BERT!” Three Black musical legends of the past – Bert Williams, Eubie Blake and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson – relive their show business success in spite of racism and theatrical bigotry.
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!UNDER OLYMPUS
A disgraced security expert who lost his family wanders the Caribbean islands on his boat as a criminal fixer for the underworld, until he's given a job as head of security at an isolated luxury resort on Olympus Island.
North Amerikay
After a harrowing loss, a young Irish Catholic woman and her family adjust to life in 1915 Chicago.
When Ani Met Jo Met Cris
A recurring meet-cute over the course of a decade, but make it super gay! A fateful road trip sets pragmatic Ani and passionate Jo on the path of Reluctant Travel Companions to Enthusiastic Lovers - until they trip down the life-altering detours of Jo’s pregnancy and Cris, her dashing midwife.
The Dumb Ox Bellows
A 13th-century friar struggles to revitalize Christian theology using logic and reason, but intellectual opposition from peers, malicious slander by envious brethren, and “slavery of the pen” under two Popes drive him to mental collapse and loss of faith in his life’s work -- until God intervenes miraculously to affirm its merit.
CHARON'S DIVIDE
Two childhood friends battle over land and the love of the same woman in 1880s Montana.
SACRIFICED
In 1995, an apostate Detective investigates a Mephistophelian antique dealer linked to religious murders and unveils some horrific family truths.
Untouchable!
A blonde bombshell in stainless steel becomes a femme fatale - a relentless tiger with razor-sharp-toothed-pen spilling blood across the pages leaving nowhere, for the perpetrators to hide.
BRAVE HEARTS
In 1840, an unconventional widow risks her life when she joins forces with a charismatic journalist, brutalized tenant farmers and a traumatized exile she rescues in Montreal, to stop the most powerful men in Scotland from violently evicting Gaelic Highlanders, unaware of her own family's complicity in the ethnic cleansing.
SETTLING THE BOOKS
Lured by the reading of a billionaire rare book dealer’s will, an investigator and four other heirs are sealed in an airtight panic room, and with only four hours air, must solve the centuries-old mystery contained in the book ‘The Castilian Cypher’ in order to escape.
All My Trials, Lord
In a drunken stupor a handsome young singer kills a taxi driver while visiting Spalding County, Georgia.
