From left, Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, Michael J. Fox and Bill Raymond appear on the set of "Where the Rivers Flow North," Jay Craven's 1993 screen adaptation of Howard Frank Mosher's novel of the same title. Craven will be talking about Mosher's life and work in the Upper Valley in the coming weeks.
From left, Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, Michael J. Fox and Bill Raymond appear on the set of "Where the Rivers Flow North," Jay Craven's 1993 screen adaptation of Howard Frank Mosher's novel of the same title. Craven will be talking about Mosher's life and work in the Upper Valley in the coming weeks. Credit: Courtesy photograph

Your star locks himself in his trailer, refusing to come out for the shooting of your movie’s pivotal scene: Who ya gonna call?

During the filming of his first feature, Where the Rivers Flow North, in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in 1992, director Jay Craven summoned author Howard Frank Mosher, whose novel Craven was adapting with Rip Torn playing the stubborn old logger of a protagonist.

“When I called Howard and detailed my predicament, he got into his car and headed straight to our film set, an hour south of his home,” Craven recalled this week. “You might be surprised to hear the outcome.”

Craven is promising to tell that story (involving Torn, co-star Tantoo Cardinal and a bathtub) and more about his three-decade collaboration with Mosher, who died at the end of January, during a 25th-anniversary tour of Vermont with Rivers. Upper Valley stops are scheduled for July 30 at the end of the Bookstock literary festival in Woodstock, and Aug. 5 at the Norwich Congregational Church.

While adapting Rivers and then A Stranger in the Kingdom, Disappearances and Northern Borders, each with characters woven from stories Mosher had heard from real people from the region’s pre-Ben-and-Jerry’s, pre-electrification, pre-Republic-of-Vermont past, Craven developed a deeper appreciation for the author’s “remarkable talent, grace, insight, generosity, wit and irrepressible spirit.”

And, apparently, his powers of persuasion.

During his tour of Vermont with Where the Rivers Flow North and his reflections on author Howard Frank Mosher, Jay Craven stops at the Woodstock Town Hall Theatre on July 30 at 2 p.m., and at the Norwich Congregational Church on Aug. 5 at 7 p.m. To learn more visit kingdomcounty.org.

Coming Attractions

The Mascoma Film Society screens Fantastic Mr. Fox — a close second to Moonrise Kingdom among my favorite Wes Anderson films — on Wednesday night at 6:30 in the Mascoma Valley Regional High School auditorium in West Canaan.

The following Wednesday, Aug. 2, the society will show The Concert for Bangladesh, the 1972 documentary about the two concerts that George Harrison and Ravi Shankar organized in 1971 to help refugees of that country recover from its civil war and breakup with Pakistan amid cyclones, flooding and famine. Performers at the two shows in New York’s Madison Square Garden included Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Leon Russell and Billy Preston.

Admission to all film society screenings is free. To learn more about the summer film series, visit mascomafilmsociety.org.

The lineup of films for the next two weeks at Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center begins tonight at 7, with a screening in Loew Auditorium of The Dinner, the new psychological thriller starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan and Rebecca Hall.

Next up are a pair of documentaries: Alive and Kicking, about the resurgence of swing dance, on Sunday afternoon at 4 at Loew; and The Last Men in Aleppo, which follows a team of civilian volunteers risking their lives to help civilian survivors of Syria’s civil war, on Tuesday night at 7 in Spaulding Auditorium.

The following weekend brings screenings at Loew’s of Wakefield, starring Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston as a man spying on his wife (Jennifer Garner) next Friday night at 7, and of The Wedding Plan, an Israeli comedy that won acclaim at the 2016 Telluride Film Festival, on July 30 at 4 p.m.

To reserve tickets ($5 to $8) and learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.

Pentangle Arts continues its “Thank You Thursdays” series on Aug. 3 at 7:30 p.m., with a free screening of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the 1986 comedy that jump-started the career of Matthew Broderick. The series concludes on Aug. 10 at 7:30 with the sing-along version of Mamma Mia! While admission is free, donations to Pentangle are welcome.

From Stage to Screen

Over the next two Saturdays, Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center screens the high-definition recording of the National Theatre’s revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, starring Andrew Garfield as the AIDS-plagued protagonist and Nathan Lane as Roy Cohn. Part 1 this Saturday and Part 2 on July 29 each start at 7 at Loew Auditorium in Hanover.

Additional opportunities to catch up with one or both screenings come on Aug. 13 (part 1) and Aug. 20 (part 2), both starting at 4 p.m. For tickets ($23) and more info, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.

David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.