He was also the father of Michael McGreevey, our old buddy Schuyler from the Dexter Riley trilogy. Screenwriter John McGreevey had an extensive resume in both film and television, winning an Emmy for his work on The Waltons. Perhaps as a sign that Disney intended to treat the project with respect, Leetch and Miller dug a little deeper than the usual numbers they had on speed-dial to find a writer and director. With four kids involved, nobody else stood a chance. In their downtime, they were given VIP treatment at the Happiest Place on Earth. The studio arranged to interview the eight escapees in Southern California. Maybe more importantly, they had Disneyland. For one thing, both families had kids and they had fond memories of watching Disney movies on West German television (the movie includes a brief nod to this tradition of tuning in to illicit TV signals). As soon as it did, producer Tom Leetch, who had also been responsible for bringing The Watcher In The Woods to the studio, took a meeting with studio head Ron Miller, urging him to secure the film rights to the story.ĭisney was not the only studio interested in making the movie but they did have a few advantages. The incident made headlines around the world. That changed on September 16, 1979, when two families, the Strelzyks and the Wetzels, made a daring escape from East Germany via a homemade hot air balloon. The closest his studio had come to making a movie based on current events was the wartime docu-ganda (propa-mentary?) Victory Through Air Power. His tastes also ran more toward the history books than the newspapers. Davy Crockett, for example, would have been surprised to hear about his adventures bringing the River Pirates to justice. ![]() But he very much subscribed to the “Print The Legend” school of historical accuracy. ![]() Walt would occasionally dabble in historical dramas, as in Johnny Tremain, The Great Locomotive Chase and the utterly dire Ten Who Dared. “Based on a true story” is not a phrase typically associated with Walt Disney Productions.
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