STAN MCGUIRE'S ROADRUNNER IS A HALLMARK STAR

Text and photos by Stan McGuire

In the summer of 2023, Iowa member Stan McGuire was at a car show at a Des Moines restaurant with his red 1969 Road Runner convertible. A woman walked up and told him he had a beautiful car and asked if he'd be interested in having it featured in a movie they were filming locally. Stan thought that would be a fun experience so he agreed to have it at an abandoned farmhouse in Waukee, on the west edge of Des Moines, on a specific day.

That woman was Annette Duffy, actor, writer and film producer. She and her friend, writer/director Thor Moreno were getting ready to film some segments for the new Hallmark movie--originally titled "The Journey Home"--but was renamed "When Jack Came Back".

The first time Stan visited the huge farmhouse in Waukee, it was completely empty--not a thing in it. The film crew had gotten permission from the heirs of the farmhouse estate to use it as a location for their movie and they completely re-furnished several rooms in the house with period-correct furnishings.

This is a typical Hallmark movie with a story to tell, this one dealing with a serious subject, and has a moral in the end. The main characters were Nancy--the mom--played by Lindsay Wagner (yes, that Lindsay Wagner of Bionic Woman fame!); her son Jack played by Mike Markoff, and nurse/home care helper Debbie was played by Emily Ann Kincaid.

In the script, Jack was a famous Hollywood actor whose career suddenly tanked (you are left wondering why throughout the movie) and at the beginning of the movie, he has just gotten a second chance to be a star in a new film project. This project could bring back his career and make him famous again and he is ready to accept it when his mom, who he has never had a good relationship with, calls to tell him that his dad has just passed away and he needs to come home to Iowa Falls to attend the funeral--on the very day he is supposed to meet with the film producer about this lucrative new job. He begrudgingly makes the decision to go home because he did care for his father.

After the funeral and after several encounters with his mom's developing dementia, he ultimately makes the decision to leave his former girlfriend and film star life in Hollywood and remain in Iowa Falls. There are several peer characters that he encounters during the funeral and days in Iowa that make him realize how selfish he's been and he actually begins caring for his mom as she declines. At one point, he's in the farmhouse attic admiring paintings that he thought his father had done, only to find out later it was his mom who painted them. While in the attic, Jack also found an old picture of his father's convertible, although any car fan will realize it's not a picture of a Road Runner.

Jack meets nurse Debbie, who he has a crush on and hires her to help watch after his mom.

That's where Stan's Road Runner enters the story. Some of Jack's mom's more lucid moments are when she's reminiscing about riding in the convertible with his dad. It turns out Debbie now owns the dad's Road Runner convertible and Jack wants to use it to give his mom a last ride, but the Road Runner has some kind of mechanical problem that, according to Debbie, is going to cost $1,500 to fix. You are never told what the needed part is. Jack finally sells one of his movie awards to a pawn shop to get the money to buy the part and in the last days that his mom has left, he is able to take her for a ride in the Road Runner.

Stan said the scenes during which they filmed Jack and his mom "driving" the car, one crew member was down beside the car rocking it up and down while big fans blew across the passenger compartment simulating movement and wind--remember it's a convertible and the top was down. The film crew mounted their cameras on the Road Runner's hood with incredibly strong magnets but thankfully they did not leave any marks on the Road Runner's pristine finish. The film crew made much of their own lighting outside with lights and big white screens so they didn't have to worry about the occasional cloud passing over and creating shade.

Much of the movie was filmed in and around the farmhouse in Waukee. The pawn shop and hospital scenes were filmed in Des Moines and the remainder of the movie was filmed in Iowa Falls.

On October 8th, 2023, Stan and I went to the movie premier at the historic Metropolitan Opera House/Theater in Iowa Falls in his Road Runner convertible. The theater manager wanted the car parked right in front of the theater and she even put a big sign on it so other guests attending would know it was the actual car used in the movie. Needless to say, it got a lot of attention and folks took a lot of pictures posing with the Road Runner. This beautiful theater was opened in 1899 and has been historically restored and was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1975. When we arrived, there was an array of beautiful landscape paintings from around the Iowa Falls area on display in the lobby, and these were the actual paintings that were shown in the attic in the movie.

We met Annette Duffy and Thor Moreno and other film crew members and most of the actors who attended the screening, with the exception of Lindsay Wagner who was in Canada at that time promoting the film. The Princess Restaurant featured in the movie was located just a block down the street from where we watched the premier at the theater. After filming was completed, Annette gave Stan the newsboy style cap that Barry, the dad in the film, had worn. From then on, I never saw Stan that he wasn't wearing that cap.

***Sadly, we lost Stan on March 19, 2024 when he collapsed at home and passed away. In his earlier years, Stan drag raced Hemi GTX's very successfully. Stan was a great engineer and was always looking for ways to build a car part better. He built many nice projects, including a black '69 Road Runner drag car and a purple Charger Daytona tribute car, and always meticulously maintained his red Road Runner convertible even while driving it everywhere. Stan was a very devoted Mopar guy and very well-known within the club, always providing humorous moments and he could usually be found fast asleep in his chair beside his car at car shows. He is very much missed.