Peege

Peege is an awardwinning 1973 short student film, written and directed by Randal Kleiser, about a familys visit to an elderly relative in a nursing home. The film was named to the National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress in December 2007.

After graduating from University of Southern California, Kleiser had struggled creatively while making educational films, and at the behest of his father he returned to college to earn his Masters degree. In the film he originally planned as his thesis, a Los Angeles theater company puts on an experimental play about a time traveller. However, he had intended to supplement the picture with special effects, but if he did so the consequent budget would be 5,000 more than he could afford he would only be able to complete it by renting equipment from USC and ceding the copyright to them. Unwilling to lose ownership of his movie, he instead followed the advice of producer Curtis Harrington, who suggested he abandon the project in favor of a more personal and intimate subject. He chose to write about his own familys visits to his grandmother, also nicknamed Peege, when she was in a nursing home in Pennsylvania. Each trip found her in poorer health, to the point where, according to Kleiser, he dreaded visiting. The familys final journey to see her served as the inspiration for the script.There were no problems during shooting, and indeed the production enjoyed more than its share of good fortune. Producer David Knapp was also working on a CBS television movie at the same time Steven Spielbergs Something Evil, and since that film had wrapped ahead of schedule, the Peege crew were able to get access to the studio offices for the remaining two weeks of the lease without any cost. Next door to those offices was the studio for the television series Gunsmoke, and Jeanette Nolan, a gueststar on the show, was approached to play the role of the grandmother. Lead actor Bruce Davison had enjoyed recent success as the star of The Strawberry Statement and Willard, but liked the script enough that he agreed to participate for only the Screen Actors Guild statutory minimum wage, and a small share of any profits. ........

Source: Wikipedia