A Winter Garden (Fla.) Premiere of “Pre Fab!” a tale of the pre Beatles Quarrymen

My old friend Todd Thompson, an Orlando filmmaker who struck gold with a Nichelle Nichols doc “Woman in Motion” that every “Star Trek” fan saw, is back with a Beatles before they were The Beatles film.

His doc “Pre Fab!” is showing to friends, family,  backers and an Orlando film critic at the historic Garden Theatre in bucolic, bike-crazed Winter Garden, Fla. I’ve been following/covering this dude for 25 years and I could not be prouder of the filmmaker he’s become.

The Garden was built in 1935 and was the first sound cinema in Greater Orlando, movies in the middle of citrus orchards and mosquitoes.

The place used to be so quaint and rural that you’d see bobcats in the empty streets, that Jodie Foster was set to film the period piece “Flora Plum” with Russell Crowe here some years back. Russell blew out his shoulder, the picture was put in turnaround and eventually was filmed somewhere else at a later date.

Now, a bike trail-inspired development boom has made Winter Garden a much more populous Orlando and theme park workers bedroom community with scads of restaurants and amenities.

It’s a rainy Sunday in Central Florida. Who’s ready to “Get Back” before they were Fab?

Who remembers skiffle?

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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