'Bloody Kemper' set to become movie
By Duncan Dent Kemper County Messenger CANTON, MS
A doctor without scruples, an innocent young wife, a vicious cabal of rich merchants and a deadly feud between two families are all stories told in the historical novel "Bloody Kemper" and what a Canton man hopes to turn into an award winning film. Jerry Lousteau, owner of WMGO radio station in Canton and a member of the Board of Directors for the Mississippi Film Office, wants to commit this story to film through his new production company Kemper Pictures. Lousteau said he was originally introduced to the book's author, Hewitt Clarke, at a Friends of the Canton Library event where Clarke spoke. "I asked him if he ever thought of making a movie out of "Bloody Kemper," and he said 'people keep telling me that, but I don't know how to make a movie.' I told him I did," Lousteau said. The book tells a few sinister stories, but Lousteau said the movie will concentrate on Dr. Lipscomb, a normal enough man who snaps under the pressure of his young wife's death and an addiction to opium right around the turn of the 19th century. "Apparently one day he just snapped. He became an evil man and started killing his patients, but not before taking out insurance policies on them and collecting the insurance," Lousteau said. "His job became even easier after he became county coroner." Eventually a group of local merchants became involved who wanted to profit from his scheme. Clarke said family members of many of these people still live in the area. Even stranger, Lousteau said the stories are all true. Clarke, a Meridian native, specializes in tracking down, researching and retelling the myriad of compelling stories from Meridian and the surrounding area of east central Mississippi. "I guess I specialize in murders," Clarke jokes. He started writing with a thorough, roughly 400-page history of Lauderdale County and east Mississippi. Clarke's narrative starts with the Choctaw Indians in 1695 and extends all the way to the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County. Clarke got his start at the Meridian library when he asked for a book on the history of Meridian. There was not one. After a brief conversation with someone at the library, Clarke said they asked, "Why don't you write the history of Meridian." The project took Clarke 20 years while he was working a full time job, but at the end of it all, he had "Thunder at Meridian." "I would never try something like that again," Clarke said. He found out about Kemper's interesting past while researching Meridian. "There are all kinds of stories running around there," Clarke said. "Sometime I wonder how the hell I have written eight books about Meridian. There are just a lot of wild characters there around Meridian." One of the characters that Clarke thinks stands out is Guy Jack, a businessman and co-conspirator in Lipscomb's sordid scheme. Clarke describes him as "a real character" and "vicious" and said he was surprised someone didn't shoot him. Lousteau said they are in the development phase right now. He hopes to work with writer and producer Rene Fabre to have the film "shovel ready," a co-opted engineering term that refers to a project that has an accurate schedule, budget and committed personnel that are ready to make the movie happen, by the end of the year. Lousteau has talked to investors in Canton and New Orleans and hopes to raise close to $30 million to make the project happen. He plans to shoot the film on location in Kemper County, Canton and New Orleans. Lousteau has previously worked as a producer on films like the post Katrina documentary "Renaissance Village" and the low budget independent drama "Duct Tape." He has worked on "Ballast" which won several awards at Sundance. He has experience as a music supervisor, animal trainer/handler and in casting. He has worked on several essential Canton productions like "My Dog Skip" and "A Time to Kill." Clarke, who lives in Houston, said he stops by Canton to see how the film is going from time to time and hopes they can make something happen. "Honestly, I just want to see one of my books made into a movie," he said. Clarke has written eight books largely centering on east central Mississippi and people from there. He is working on a ninth concerning the rags to riches story of a wealthy Meridian family involving a murder and "drugs, sex and rock and roll." Clarke also gives lectures about Southern history at Lone Star College. For more information about Kemper Pictures contact Lousteau by phone at 601-331-2664 or his email jlou1@prodigy.net. More information on Clarke and his books can be found at rebelwriter.com.