Making Movie Magic
Written by Edward Thomas I Photos Supplied
If you try to find Hilton Head business executive Walter Czura between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on any given day on Hilton Head Island you will need to search for him somewhere inside the 605-acre Sea Pines Forest Preserve.
This is where Czura walks purposefully along dirt pathways for three to four hours every day, rain, or shine.
He also has a curious penchant for communicating with associates by writing messages on scraps of paper, then photographing them with his mobile phone and texting the photo. He does not watch television nor own a computer. He rises at 5:30 each morning and is in bed by 8:30 p.m.
Jeff Bradley, S.C. State Representative for Hilton Head Island, is a longtime friend. He describes Czura as “enigmatic, determined and smart.”
Another business associate agrees. “Behind Walter’s enigmatic charm are thoughts impossible to guess,” he said.
Czura is founder and owner of Marlin Outdoor Advertising. It is the largest private billboard company in the region with more than 1,000 faces in South Carolina and Georgia.
But over the past 18 months, Czura has garnered local public attention by resurrecting his personal love for writing screenplays and launching two feature-length motion pictures.
The first film was an historical drama “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” which premiered last February at the 2022 Poison Peach Festival in Augusta, Ga. The second, titled “The Final Load,” is now in post-production. It was filmed a month ago in parts of Beaufort County set against the backdrop of real-life marijuana and hashish smuggling escapades from the 1970s and ‘80s that launched “Operation Jackpot” — a major drug investigation carried out by Federal agencies in South Carolina that uncovered an $850 million smuggling ring on Hilton Head Island and surrounding communities.
The South Carolina investigation ended with the arrest of more than 200 “gentlemen smugglers” — a nickname given by the media because the smugglers were college educated and did not use violence. Current state governor Henry McMaster oversaw the investigation as the State’s Attorney General and became a major political figure as a result. Czura was one of those arrested and spent 15 months in jail.
According to Czura, the movie is inspired by actual characters and events that took place in the Operation Jackpot era. Written in a contemporary setting, Czura’s fictional characters reflect people familiar from his past, including former Hilton Head Island resident Les Riley, one of the smuggling ringleaders, who serves as a technical advisor.
A native of Augusta, Ga., Czura started his adult life wanting to be a lawyer. During law school in the 1960s he summered on Hilton Head Island where his folks had a second home.
“I loved the water and the special feeling that this area evokes,” says Czura. “Back then I was a lifeguard at the old Hilton Head Inn. I also sailed and started transporting sailboats down to the Florida Keys and some Caribbean Islands. I met some great people on those trips who were enjoying the good life. They were also smuggling. Those were intoxicating times. Time went on. I got my law degree, but also got too close to the fire.”
Prison Prompts New Opportunities
Czura says he didn’t leave prison embittered. Quite the opposite. “In many ways my prison life was a period of self-discovery,” he says. “When I left prison, I had been disbarred from being a lawyer, so I saw my next chapter as a new frontier.”
“I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and saw the outdoor advertising business as something I could do and still remain living in this area if I worked hard at it,” says Czura. “I admired what Ted Turner had done with his outdoor business and after running the numbers, I quickly realized that if you work hard and efficiently the billboard business could be enormously lucrative.”
Throughout his life Czura has held fast to his love for writing — in particular novels and screenwriting.
“I think a lot of lawyers try their hand at writing novels and screenplays” he points out. “It’s natural. Look at David Baldacci and John Grisham.”
While still in law school, Czura wrote a novel about environmental sabotage focused on the Lowcountry, but it never got published. He also scripted a series for South Carolina ETV, but it ran into budget cuts and the undertaking was dropped.
Then, six years ago Czura pitched a screen play to a Hollywood producer and distributor. It was accepted by a distributor, but money issues scuttled the project. So, he decided if he was going to get his passion on the big screen he would need to fund it himself.
Forming Fortress Films as a new movie production company in 2021, Czura is now on his second major endeavor and has the support of a seasoned and talented director Chris Helton of Atlanta (Silver Line Films, Inc.) and a cast headed by award-winning actors Jeff Fahey and Judd Nelson, who together have appeared in more than 300 films and episodes.
Additional cast members include social media celebrity Maddie Henderson, who has more than 4.4 million followers on TikTok; American actor and director Drew Waters, who has 37 film and TV credits; and a veteran British actress Katie Amess, now living in Charleston. The cast also includes prominent Broadway actors Meredith Inglesby and her husband, Steve Blanchard, who live in Bluffton, and Shep Rose, a Hilton Head native who has become a TV Reality Series star in Bravo’s “Southern Charm.”
In the film’s original screenplay written by Czura, the main character (played by Fahey) is a former convicted smuggler who must consider committing a major crime again to smuggle 30,000 pounds of marijuana to cover payments that will save his home and shrimp boat from imminent foreclosure, plus pay for his wife’s $325,000 pancreatic cancer treatment.
“It’s a heartfelt but gripping drama in a contemporary setting,” says Czura. “Judd Nelson plays the antagonist as an ex-DEA agent who holds a grudge against Fahey, while Fahey’s granddaughter, performed by Maddie Henderson, plays a key supporting role.”
The film is expected to be ready for release by the fall, and Czura is already well into writing another screen play that will also be set in Beaufort County.
