Locally made documentary to screen in June and July
“Have you ever heard of the phrase river rat?” asked local author and documentary filmmaker Denise Parkinson. “I started the project to find out if they would be acknowledged as a culture and be called river people instead of [river] rats. Unfortunately my dad’s name was Matt. And all through school ‘Matt, Matt, the river rat’ but it’s more than that. It was a culture that was marginalized.”
Parkinson is screening her first ever documentary film “Daughter of the White River” at the Historic Malco Theatre, home of the Maxwell Blade Theatre of Magic and Comedy, in Hot Springs 2 p.m. Sunday, July 10. The event is sponsored by Maxwell Blade and will be dedicated to the memory of Karen Jenkins, a river person and artist whose art was featured on the film and recently died. Another screening in Little Rock is set for Wednesday, June 22 at the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Ron Robinson Theatre in Little Rock. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the film starts at 7.
The 50 minute film, which takes its title from Parkinson’s book “Daughter of the White River: Depression-era Treachery and Vengeance in the Arkansas Delta,” was shot entirely in Arkansas in several locations around the state, including the Bismarck area and the historic Hot Springs train depot.
Helen Spence is a local legend on the White River for following a code of “river justice” and avenging her murdered father.
“It’s basically a houseboat girl from the White River Delta,” said Parkinson. “She is an Arkansas folk hero who has been misunderstood, forgotten over the years because she was a houseboat girl. And so, it’s a reconnecting with river culture. There used to be houseboats on the Ouachita River before the dam.”
The book and movie follow the story of Helen Spence, who went to court to shoot the man who shot and killed her father. She was sent to a women’s prison in Pulaski County and was killed at the age of 22 after escaping prison several times.
Spence is symbolic of the river people and represents a dying way of life. As the White River was tamed by the federal government, houseboats all but completely vanished.
“Well, river justice is swifter,” said former Clarendon mayor Jim Stinson III in the movie. Stinson, who is a member of the RRR Duck Club and owner of Stinson Duck Calls, spends time in houseboats on the White River just as Spence did. “They handle it their own and they don’t talk about it.”
“The Pea Farm” is what they called the prison that Spence was sent to for killing her father’s killer, Jack Worls. The documentary reveals that the practices of the farm were less than ideal for Spence and other women prisoners.
While in prison Spence was likely prostituted out by those running the farm. She was also beaten and mistreated by guards and locked in a hot outdoor cage- like cell during the sweltering summer months.
Spence was crafty with her many escapes. On one occasion, she fashioned a dress out of cloth napkins that she’d obtained on kitchen duty at the farm. During a prisoner transport, she asked to go to the bathroom, where she changed into her handmade dress. She left the bathroom and fled undetected only to be caught down the road.
Parkinson grew up on the Delta and moved to the Ouachitas in 2008. In 2015, she moved to Bismarck with her family. Growing up around river people, the story of Spence is very important to her and to others from the region.
“My grandpa spent a lot of time on the White River,” said Grace Ann Brown in an interview on the film. Brown is the granddaughter of the late L. C. Brown, who knew Spence as a child. “His mother moved from Chicago after the great Chicago fire by covered wagon to Dewitt, Arkansas. And they set up there, and he spent a lot of time on the river, you know, he said a lot of things like ‘ The river never gets out of your veins,’ and I heard a lot of that.”
The film, which features an all- Arkansan cast and crew, won a laurel for best documentary at Oct. 2021 San Francisco Indiefest. Several Bismarck students were in the film during one of the few dramatized scenes.
“I’m hoping to bring the film to historic theaters because it’s an Arkansas history project,” said Parkinson. “There’s been a half dozen podcasts on my book, if you like podcasts. Helen Spence is more widely known in Denmark and Japan than in Arkansas, thanks to these true crime podcasters.”
Years after publishing her debut book, Parkinson’s documentary is finally ready for festivals and screenings. She hopes to do a follow up film on the Pea Farm in the near future.
During the making of the film several people surrounding the story and landmarks of the area were lost, including the historic White River Bridge in Clarendon, which was demolished in 2019. The bridge was built in 1931, meaning Spence and her people would have known the bridge well.
The movie sheds light on the river people’s way of life and their plight as their numbers continue to dwindle. It delves into the history and the mystery of the Arkansas judicial system. And it tells the true story of an Arkansas girl who lived the only way she knew how.
“We’re marginalizing our river people and they’re dying off,” said Parkinson.
The film will be screened at 2 p. m. Sunday, July 10 at the Maxwell Blade Theatre at 817 Central Ave., Hot Springs. Tickets cost $ 7 at the door or can be purchased at www.maxwellblade.com. The other screening will take place Wednesday, June 22 at 7 p. m. at the Ron Robinson Theatre in Little Rock located at 100 Library Square.