Thailand Moment

Synopsis

In 1967 Les Blank and Skip Gerson were hired to work in Thailand on a documentary about the B52 bomber and the bombing campaigns to Vietnam. The producer had difficulty getting Thai government permission to board the plane, and weeks went by in limbo while Les & Skip were on payroll with nothing to do so they traveled around and filmed what interested them. They made side trips to Chiang Mai, but otherwise focused in and around Bangkok. Ultimately, permission was never granted to board the bombers and the work for hire was scrapped.

Director Biography

Les Blank, born in 1935 in Tampa, Florida, attended Tulane University in New Orleans, where he received a B.A. in English literature and an M.F.A. in theatre. In 1967, after two years in the Ph.D. film program at the University of Southern California, and five years of freelancing in Los Angeles, he began his first independent films, on Texas blues singer Lightnin Hopkins (The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1970)) and the newly forming sub-culture, known as flower children, (God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance (1968)).