Casey Siemaszko, Oct. 9, 1987

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

OGDEN -- Filmmakers must wonder if half the kids in America want to be in the movies. Before the casting calls for “Three O'Clock High" were over, about 3,200 actors had auditioned for the lead role.

Chicago-born actor Casey Siemaszko was one of the 3,200 who showed up for casting calls in Los Angeles, New York or Chicago – or who sent in a videotape (they came from 17 states) – hoping to win the part of high school journalism student Jerry Mitchell. Two and a half months later, in September 1986 – after a series of readings and screen tests – Siemaszko got the part. Four days later, he was in Ogden preparing for his first starring role in a motion picture.

"The first time I read for (the part) I had just finished 'Gardens of Stone,’” Siemaszko (pronounced Sham-OSH-koe) said during a lunch break at Ogden High School last November. "I was a soldier in that film and I had a buzz-cut and flat-top and I wore a white T-shirt. … I didn't feel like I looked right for the part.

Phil Joanou, Oct. 9, 1987

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

For a first-time feature film director, Phil Joanou has been getting more than his share of attention. His "Three O'Clock High" is being released today, but already the 25-year-old has been called one of the "hottest" young directors in the business by magazines like American Film and Premiere.

So, why- all the hubbub? Well, first off, Joanou was "discovered" by Steven Spielberg, the hottest of the hot directors in a town where everything is measured in terms of heat -- hot directors, hot pictures, hot actors, hot scripts, hot, hot, hot.

It all started with a phone call. The day after Joanou's student film "Last Chance Dance" was shown at the annual University of Southern California film-school screening -- where student films are screened for industry professionals -- Spielberg phoned Joanou at home, asking if he'd like to direct an episode of "Amazing Stories."

The Paramount logo and Mt. Ben Lomond: facts and myths

April 24, 1987
"Outtakes" movie column
Donald Porter
Standard-Examiner

Recently, a local TV show attempted to discover whether the voice of God in "The Ten Commandments" was dubbed by a Utah man. It seems the story has been circulating in the state for years, yet no one has been able to provide any evidence to establish the myth as fact or fiction. The man in question is dead, and all that remains is hearsay.

Well, I love a good story -- especially when it concerns the movies. One I've heard repeatedly since I took over the movie beat at this newspaper concerns Ogden's connection to the Paramount Pictures trademark. People keep telling me that the logo -- a mountain peak circled by stars -- was patterned after Ben Lomond Peak.

These aren't exactly crackpots, mind you. People at the National Western Film Festival love to tell the story, and a lot of folks have traced Paramount's business history (rather inaccurately in most instances) in support of the Ben Lomond connection. Why, even Gedde Watanabe -- the Ogden native who's gone on to act in films -- said he heard the story from a crew member while starring in "Gung Ho" (a Paramount film).