Gary Kent spent hours on movie sets during the 1960s and ’70s to become a keen observer of the trade, as well as one of its critics.

Gary Kent

Kent, a stuntman who became a stunt coordinator and eventually an actor and writer, has long had a special place in his heart for independent film. His book, Shadows & Light: Gary Kent Journeys With Outlaws in Revolutionary Hollywood, is an insider’s look at how maverick moviemaking was done and how it changed movies for good.

Kent will be in Denton this weekend for a book signing and film screening.

It was on the set of the 2002 independent movie Bubba Ho-tep that Kent began writing the book. The movie went on to become a cult favorite.

Directed by Don Coscarelli, the movie weaves a unusual tale. Bruce Campbell plays Elvis Presley, shuffling toward the great beyond in an East Texas rest home. He befriends Jack (the late Ossie Davis), who believes he is John F. Kennedy. Together, the creaky old men fight an evil Egyptian spirit who has come to feed on the souls of the elder residents.

“I got hurt on that movie,” Kent said. “Nonetheless, I was the stunt coordinator on that movie, and there was nothing for me to do. I was laid up. I was writing to my wife. And she said, ‘You know you’re always writing down these things. You should put them in a book.’ That’s how it started.”

The book, from Dalton Publishing, is a tightly written kaleidoscope. Memoir breaks into mini-biographies of men and women in the business. Kent doesn’t edit out the drugs, alcohol or sex, but he doesn’t exploit them either.

Kent said that independent filmmaking didn’t reach its creative peak in the 1980s and ’90s, which saw the creation of the Sundance Channel, which airs movies shown at past Sundance Film Festivals, and the Independent Film Channel on cable television. Kent said that’s about the time when independent film was losing steam in terms of risk and creativity.

The golden age of indie film was in the 1960s and ’70s, he said.

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One of the films Gary Kent worked on was Bubba Ho-tep, a still from which is pictured.

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“Back in my day, in the 1960s and 1970s, the exciting part of indie film was that it really challenged moviemaking of the time,” Kent said. “The reason was that it changed what was wrong with so many films. The independent movies back then tore down the walls of bigotry and deceit and decay. They aren’t doing that today. The independent film went away during the late 1990s.”

Kent makes no bones about it: Early independent film didn’t flinch when it came to storytelling.

“American life in the 1960s on the street was really, well, there was a lot of unrest — and I’m talking about sexual relations and cursing,” Kent said.

It undoubtedly sounds quaint in the era of The Sopranos and Queer as Folk, but before the sexual revolution and the civil rights movement, most American movies were musicals or sweet depictions of the nuclear family.

Kent said street life in major American cities was changing fast, and filmmakers weren’t flinching from reality.

“Suddenly, in the ’60s, movies unleashed these guys who finally swore,” he said. “But because it was more honest, it was accepted. You didn’t get money from the studios to make those movies, but they got made.

“You could write dialogue for longshoremen and sailors, bikers or truckers that reflected the way they were really talking, and it was just much more honest.”

Kent also points to the film adaptation of Blue Denim, the Broadway play by James Leo Herlihy. The 1959 movie told the story of a teenage couple derailed by an unplanned pregnancy. The couple seeks a back-alley abortion. At the time, premarital sex was an enormous taboo and abortion was a shameful thing that could earn a family social shunning.

Kent said independent film at the time got funding — the perennial blessing and curse of moviemaking — by word of mouth, sometimes with a little help from the media.

“John Cassavetes, the director, got on a radio show in the 1950s and started talking about this [improvisational acting] class he taught in New York City, and how he was exploring racial stuff with an interracial class and how he wanted to get some of it on film,” Kent said. “People in New York started sending in money. People sent $20,000 to the radio station, and back then that was a lot of money, and John Cassavetes filmed his improv class in New York. It was about middle-class blacks working to fit into a white world, and we got to go home with them and see what their lives were like — what they were really and truly like.”

The project became the 1959 film Shadows.

“Shadows was a barrier-breaking movie. Many people credit him with being the guy who started independent film,” Kent said.

Indie filmmakers have lost some of their edge, Kent said.

“What are they doing that’s galling me? Some of them, the ones who are getting their work done, are still pandering to the same old people,” Kent said. “They do the same old coming-of-age, boy-meets-girl stuff. The ones who are exciting me are taking risks and being creative.

“Slumdog Millionaire was an independent movie, and it was great. Film-wise, it just works. It had a heck of a time getting made, and it’s an example of indie filmmakers coming together and making the movie happen.”

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com

What: Gary Kent signs copies of Shadows & Light: Gary Kent Journeys With Outlaws in Revolutionary Hollywood. An interview with Joe O’Connell, which will be filmed, precedes the book signing.

When: 4 p.m. Saturday

Where: Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 2201 S. Interstate 35E

What: Gary Kent and journalist Joe O’Connell appear for a live interview, Q&A with the author and a screening of Bubba Ho-tep.

When: Doors open at 8 p.m. Sunday. The interview begins at 9 p.m. and screening begins at 10 p.m.

Where: Dan’s Silverleaf, 103 Industrial St.

Details: Free.