When ‘Benny & Joon’ came to town, a host of locals got a front-row seat

When Hollywood came calling, Kim Stout answered quickly.

Stout was working in the yard when Jeremiah Chechik pulled up in March of 1992 to the tranquil Peaceful Valley house that could have been in a Norman Rockwell painting.

The director of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” uncovered a photo of a property in a serene location in Spokane and tracked it down. Chechik asked if the charming two bedroom house on the corner of Cedar Street and Water Avenue could be used as the home for his forthcoming film.

“I came up and said, ‘We’re from Hollywood,” Chechik said by phone from Victoria, BC. “Would you consider us using your home?”

Stout was surprised and jumped at the opportunity.

“I was there as a caretaker for an elderly lady who owned that house,” Stout said while calling from her Colbert farm. “She let me make the decision. She thought I would say no but I said yes, since I knew it would be a blast.”

Within a month of giving Chechik the green light to shoot at 301 N. Cedar St., filming of “Benny & Joon” began. The clever romantic comedy-drama centered around a pair of eccentrics, played by Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson.

Stout had one condition. She demanded unfettered access to photograph the actors and the action behind the scenes. More than 450 of Stout’s photos will be on display Saturday at the Garland Theater, which will celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Benny & Joon.” The film will be screened and a mini-documentary about the film and the 30th anniversary event by West Central photographer and filmmaker Don Hamilton will follow. After the movies hit the screen, there will be a Q&A with local cast and crew.

Faye Allen, who has a line in the video store scene, can’t wait for the event. “It’s so great to commemorate the film, which is part of Spokane history,” Allen said. “I’ll never forget it since it was my first speaking role in a feature film. My excitement level and nerves were through the roof when that scene was shot.”

It’s expected that Allen, who resides on the Five Mile Prairie but lived off of Loon Lake back then, would be intimidated working with established stars such as Depp and Aiden Quinn. “But the great thing was that Johnny made me feel very comfortable,” Allen said. “Johnny was a casual person on the set. He would sit across from me and make jokes to loosen me up.”

However, Quinn was distant during his scene with Allen. “Aidan never looked at me and I never understood it,” Allen said. “He wouldn’t give me the time of day. Before the scene and during the scene he just looked at Johnny Depp in this intense manner but I realized later that he was just locked into his character; back then I thought Aidan Quinn wasn’t very nice but he was just a good darned actor.”

Allen didn’t have any scenes with Masterson. “But she was nice enough to take photos with me,” Allen said.

Stout wasn’t so fortunate. Masterson flipped out at Stout after she took a shot of her during the first day of filming. “A bunch of people were standing around her and she didn’t care for the crowd,” Stout said. “When everyone shuffled away from her I started taking photos and she got angry. She told me to stop taking pictures of her. I did but I explained to her that taking photos was part of my deal for the use of the house. She responded by saying, ‘Well, I don’t take photos of you when you’re working.’ I said, ‘But I’m not a bleeping actress!’ ”

Masterson never warmed up to Stout. However, Stout became close with Quinn, who ironically called her Mary. “Aidan would sit in the director’s chair and he would always say, ‘Hey, Mary,’ come over here.’ I told him that my name is Kim but he would still call me Mary. It got to the point where I told him that I would call him something different than Aidan.’

Stout was most impressed with Depp. “Johnny was so nice,” Stout said. “I wondered how to approach Johnny. I told Johnny that I would show him something he never saw, which was four-week old Angora bunnies, which I had in the backyard. We played with the rabbits back there for an hour. The cool thing about Johnny is he was low key and he dressed that way as well. He was often in ripped jeans and a ripped shirt. He could have easily passed for a local.”

According to Stout, Depp mostly kept to himself. “From what I knew he mostly stayed in the house he rented on the South Hill,” Stout said. “The guy who did roof work on the house on Cedar stopped by Johnny’s rental and ended up playing cards for hours with Johnny. At that point Johnny wasn’t this massive actor yet.”

Depp was an emerging star and then there were “Benny and Joon” actors who would go on to be household names, such as William H. Macy and Julianne Moore.

“On the very first day of shooting I was in a scene with Oliver Platt, Aidan Quinn and William H. Macy,” Hamilton said. “Back then William H. Macy was just a guy, a nobody. He was just wonderful. He told me he was teaching acting classes in Los Angeles. I had a great time on the set with him.”

Hamilton was so excited about appearing in a scene that when asked to shave his beard, he immediately complied. “I played a UPS employee and a UPS rep was on the set and told us that UPS doesn’t allow facial hair,” Hamilton recalled. “I was asked if I would shave off my beard and I said that I would cut off my nose to be part of the scene. So there I was beardless and I’m so glad I was part of a film, which generated so much interest in our fair city.”

Stout was blown away by how quickly problems were solved on the set. “If there was any issue, they had the money to just take care of it immediately,” Stout said. “It was so different than anything I ever experienced.”

Chechik concurs that he had carte blanche. “It’s uncommon but we had total control of our budget,” Chechik said.

Stout laughed when recalling time spent with set decorator Barbara Munch. “She would cry and tell me anything,” Stout said. “She was either hyper focused on the movie or just losing it. It was chaos for her but it was also chaos for Peaceful Valley but it was a blast, like I knew it would be for me but also for Spokane. No wonder we’re going to look back at this movie, which is one of the great films made in Spokane.”