The Duplex Planet

Return to The Duplex Planet

Two documentaries have been made about The Duplex Planet:

Your Own True Self - a film by Paul Athanas and Jay Rooney (available in our giftshop)

Premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1994, this as best
described as a film version of the Duplex Planet. Twelve men from the
Duplex Nursing Home talk to David Greenberger on a wide variety of subjects
and over the course of the 45-minute work reveal a range of themselves.
Features Fergie (William Ferguson), Ed Rogers, John Lowthers, Bill Niemi,
Ed Poindexter, Walter Kieran, Bernie Regan, George Stingel and Larry Green.
Produced and directed by Paul Athanas and Jay Rooney for Gravitas
International. Music by Phil Kaplan.

Lighthearted Nation - a film by Jim McKay

This documentary is an insightful look into the Duplex Nursing Home in
Massachusetts and the resident contributors to the Duplex Planet. Director
Jim McKay interviews David Greenberger, the magazine's founder and member
of the band Men & Volts. The real stars of this documentary-essay, however,
are the residents of the Duplex Nursing Home, who offer interesting
anecdotes and opinions on subjects ranging from their mothers, moon-walking
and fortune tellers, to their attitudes about life. This work also includes
a special tribute to Duplex resident-poet Ernest Noyes Brookings.
As director, McKay does not attempt to mediate the experience or
moralize on why the lives represented in this tape are significant or
worthwhile, he simply lets them speak for themselves. Directed by Jim
McKay for C-Hundred Film Productions, 1989.

A film inspired by The Duplex Planet:

WHITEWASH - A short film by David Kagen
A story featuring Duplex resident Arthur Wallace,
Starring Pat Cranshaw as Arthur Wallace

See David Greenberger in:

THE BAND WHO WOULD BE KING - A film by Jeff Fuerzweig
A documentary about the band Half Japanese.

8 TRACK MIND - a film by Rand Forster
A documenatary about collectors of 8 track tapes

The Duplex Planet Magazine is featured in a scene from GHOST WORLD, a movie
by Terry Zweigof and Dan Clowes

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE?

ELMER WALLACH: Well, there was what you call Ben Hur or something like
that. Or Exodus. Or All Quiet On the Western Front. I haven't gone to
a movie in years.

SOPHIE TERKEL: You know what I saw and I was so disappointed? Three Men
and a Baby. It was the most stupid thing I ever saw.

DOROTHY STEIN: I saw The Nuts with Barbra Streisand. She's a terrific
actress. Boy, what an actress she is.

HENRY TURNER: Gone With the Wind. And my second favorite movie is South
Pacific.

CHARLIE PERKINS: Last one I saw was Alice's Restaurant and I didn't like
it. That's not my favorite movie. Greatest Show on Earth, that's my
favorite.

MARIAN KINNAN: I haven't seen anything in so long. Oh. I'll tell you,
Sound Of Music!
CELIA FLATLEY: I like that Doctor what's his name?
MARIAN: Zhivago.
CELIA: Yes, Doctor Zhivago.
MARIAN: That's a nice one
CELIA: I don't see any anymore.
MARIAN: I saw that.
CELIA: I could see that a hundred times.
MARIAN: Well, I've seen it just the once, but I could see it a couple more
times.

(from Duplex Planet issue #132)

WAS JOHN WAYNE REALLY BRAVE?
ED ROGERS: Oh, ah, he's a good, I would say he's a good, he's a good
actor. I would say that he's a good actor I mean. The way he plays his
part, the way he plays his role, his part, I'd say he's a good actor, yeah.
DBG: But was he really brave?
ED: I would say he was brave, I would say he's brave, yeah, the way he
plays his role in the movies. Oh yeah, I would say he was brave, yeah. He
was a brave actor, yeah.
(from Duplex Planet issue #124)

TELL ME ABOUT CARY GRANT
LARRY GREEN: Oh, He's a great lover! I think he married Katherine Hepburn.
Beatrice Lily. Fay Wray. He's been married four times.

BILL NIEMI: Cary Grant, well let me see now. Cary Grant has been an actor
a long time and when he first started out - I think he started out in the
movies somewhere in New Jersey - and then he was cast as a sort of a, a
certain doubt worthy, like a heavy character. Mosey-posey in his way he
became the leading man, like the main character or the star.

ANDY LEGRICE: He was in the show business, a good actor. He helped to keep
show business goin' on.

FRANCIS McELROY: You got me, I don't know nothin' about him.

HAROLD FARRINGTON: He was a resident here one time, wasn't he?
(from Duplex Planet issue # 58)

DBG: Tell me about the Wizard of Oz.
JACK MUDURIAN: The Wizard of Oz is a small-sized person. He's small in
size, he's not very big, he's a dwarf, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
DBG: Where is Oz?
JACK: It's in the storybook that you read, Dave, right? Right Dave, Dave
Greenberger? I'll call you Dave or David, whichever you want. Right? Right.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THE MOVIES?
JACK MUDURIAN: You learn how to be a movie actor. And how to fight. I saw
Killer McCoy - Mickey Rooney was in that, he played the part of Killer
McCoy. He was a boxer in the ring.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE?
ED ROGERS: Oh, my favorite movie? Oh, I think my favorite movie was, the
best movie was Duel in the Sun - that was my favorite, yeah. That was a
good movie, Duel in the Sun.
(from Duplex Planet issue #66)

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE MONSTER MOVIE?

ANDY LEGRICE: Catnip.
DBG: That's a movie?
CELIA FLATLEY: Oh God! I never watch any of those kind of movies.

HELEN PETTEYS: Ah, what's that called?
RITA BUTLER: I don't know. I don't watch any of those things.
HELEN: Oh -- The Munsters! -- 'cause they're funny and they're not
scary. I mean, some of those monster movies are too scary to even look at.

(from Duplex Planet issue #141)

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE?

BOB HARTWELL: Patton, I think

CELIA FLATLEY: I'll say Gone With the Wind I guess, I don't know. I
don't go to the movies anymore.

BILL MORSE: I think William S. Hart in The Great Train Robbery was one
of the best I've ever seen.

RITA BUTLER: Gone With the Wind, I guess maybe. I saw it a couple of times.

BILL BITTNER: Lost Horizon.

MARIE FOSTER: I was gonna say Gone With the Wind, but The Titanic,
that new one, was very, very good.

(from Duplex Planet issue #155)

IF GONE WITH THE WIND DIDN'T EXIST, WHAT WOULD YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE BE?

BILL BITTNER: How about Ecstasy with Heddy Lamar?
BILL MORSE: Yeah, Heddy Lamar. Is that your favorite?
BILL BITTNER: No, it was Lost Horizon. But Heddy Lamar in Ecstasy
wouldn't be bad either.
BILL MORSE: (nodding) Heddy Lamar.
BILL BITTNER: That Lost Horizon was just wonderful. They found a
mountain paradise in that one.

HELEN SHERIDAN: I'll go with Gone With the Wind. I saw it three times.
DBG: But what if Gone With the Wind didn't exist?
HELEN: I wouldn't go to the movies (smiles). Well, the one I like really
was The Horse Whisperer, that's the only one I've seen in the last ten
years.

(from Duplex Planet issue #155)

KEN EGLIN: Did Roy Rogers die?
DBG: No.
KEN: Oh, his horse did.

(from Duplex Planet issue # 109)