Lanton Mills

"Lanton Mills" is a rarely-seen seventeen-minute comedy written and directed by publicity-shy director Terrence Malick. It was completed in 1969, whilst he was a student at the American Film Institute. The story concerns two cowboys (Harry Dean Stanton and Warren Oates) plotting to rob a bank in Texas. Paula Mandel (who plays a hysterical customer) is rumoured to have starred in an even more scarce Malick short entitled "Old Age" at around the same time.

The film was distributed non-theatrically (ie., to college film societies) in the 1970s but today reportedly can only be viewed in person at the AFI by researchers.

References

*Theresa Schwartzman: "Can Terry Malick tell a joke? The serious and the absurd in Terrence Malick's Lanton Mills". IN: "COP: Why you did it? I don't know. I always wanted to be a criminal, I guess.*" Edited by Dietmar Schwärzler & Sylvia Szely. Vienna: Sonderzahl, December 2005 ("Rohstoff: Eine filmhistorische Recherche nach der kleinen Form: Fanzine" #2), pp. 21-23, online [http://www.rohstoff-filmmagazin.org/contributions/Terence_Malick_Schwartzman.html here]