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Gil Jordan, executive director for the Northwest Montana Historical Society and the Museum at Central School in Kalispell, sits at the museum on March 17, 2017. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)
SCREENWRITER ROBERT Eisele will be on hand to answer questions after a screening of “The Great Debaters,” a screenplay he wrote. Eisele and Jordan worked together at a community college theater in the 1970s and are reconnecting to screen the movie, the 104th in Jordan’s History Film Club series. (Photo provided)
GIL JORDAN arranges items in a display case as he finishes up preparing for the opening of the “History of the Flathead Valley” exhibition at the Museum at Central School in this file photo. (Brenda Ahearn/This Week in the Flathead)
GIL JORDAN works on finishing touches to the “History of the Flathead Valley” exhibition in this file photo taken at the Museum at Central School in Kalispell. Jordan is retiring after 12 years as executive director in April. (Brenda Ahearn/This Week in the Flathead)
JURNEE SMOLLETT (Samantha), Denzel Whitaker (James Farmer Jr.) and Nate Parker (Henry Lowe) star in Denzel Washington’s “The Great Debaters.”
IN THIS file image released by The Weinstein Company, actor Denzel Washington is shown in a scene from “The Great Debaters.” (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company, David Lee, file)
Gil Jordan, the outgoing executive director at the Museum at Central School, has had a plan brewing ever since he announced he was going to retire last December.
The 71-year-old, who has held his position at the museum since 2005, wanted to go out at the end of March with the last screening — at least the last one he was going to supervise — in his History Film Club series.
Picking the movie wasn’t hard, either, since through a bit of serendipity 10 years earlier he and his wife, Kim, did something unusual and walked into a movie theater.
“Literally five times in 40 years have we done that,” Jordan said.
“But on our friends’ recommendation she said ‘you’ve just got to see this. It’s a great film.’ So we said ‘ok’ and on a Sunday matinee ... with about 12 other people in the audience (we) watched ‘The Great Debaters.’”
The movie, which was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture (drama), stars Denzel Washington and tells the story of an all-black debate team at Wiley College taking on the defending national champions (fictionalized as Harvard) in 1935.
Jordan and his wife, both of whom greatly enjoyed the film, finished watching and stuck around for just an extra few seconds as the credits started to roll.
“At the very end, not knowing anything, it fades out and Denzel Washington comes on that gigantic screen up there, in huge letters, that says ‘Produced and Directed.’ That fades out and then ‘Screenplay: Robert Eisele.’”
Jordan laughs as he says the name out loud.
“Kim and I just leaped out of our seats. We said, ‘My God, that’s our Bobby!’”
ROBERT EISELE, a Hollywood screenwriter and producer, first crossed paths with Gil Jordan when they were both at a much different stage in their lives.
“Gil and I and Kim, we had an instant friendship,” Eisele said. “We had so much in common. We were hippies of sorts and artistic.
“He’s quiet and introspective and I talk too much so we’re good in that regard.”
Eisele and Jordan were in their late 20s in the mid-1970s when they were both hired, Eisele one year after Jordan, to work with the theater program at Rio Hondo College, a community college in Whittier, California. They worked together there for two years before their lives took them in different directions.
“After Rio Hondo I literally didn’t see him for almost 40 years,” Jordan said.
They met and exchanged pleasantries recently at a Rio Hondo reunion, but next week will be the first time the two spend any quality time together since Jordan left the college. That connection is made possible by the movie, “The Great Debaters,” which will screen, for free, Tuesday, March 28 at 7 p.m. at the Museum at Central School. Eisele will be there, watching the film with his old friend and answering questions after the movie ends.
“It’s not often you get to talk to the creative people behind a project, where you can actually hear what went into it and how it developed and what they were thinking when they created it,” Jordan said. “If you watch the film and there’s some things you want to ask about, well, it’s nice to have the guy who wrote it be there.
JORDAN STARTED the History Film Club 10 years ago, at the urging of his late friend, Dr. Jim Mahnke. More than a decade later, “The Great Debaters” will be the 104th movie shown in the series, which has drawn more than 3,000 people to the museum. What started with Charlie Chaplain’s “Modern Times” has since covered a multitude of genres, directors and actors.
Eisele will be the first person involved with one of the films to appear.
“I mean, I’m not that well-connected,” Jordan said. “I happen to know Bob but I’m not that well-connected with the rest of the film world.”
Popcorn and the movie are free, with beer, wine and pop available for sale. For more information, visit www.yourmuseum.org.
Entertainment editor Andy Viano can be reached at (406) 758-4439 or aviano@dailyinterlake.com.