Action, Camera : Cast Fits the Script--Lost County Jurors

A former Hollywood actress who played a showgirl in “Rio Rita” in the 1920s, a Newport Beach handwriting analyst and a man whose last acting role was that of the dandelion in a grammar school parade arrived at curtain call Monday for Orange County’s newest film.

The volunteer actors, who range in age from 26 to 75, appeared at the Orange County Courthouse Monday looking lost. Because the video is about the ins and outs of jury duty, that’s exactly what director Dave Forman wanted.

“Just come up the escalator, and look lost,” he instructed Betty Ebrams of Orange, whose husband Ed, a ballroom dance instructor, also stars in the video.

‘Good Typecasting’

After seven rides up and down the escalator under full camera lights, Ebrams observed that this role was “good typecasting, because I tend to look lost just naturally.”

The video seeks to capture on a shoestring $18,000 budget the everyday experience of county jurors. It was financed by three California lawyers’ groups after they saw the dated, New-York-produced version currently shown in the county and said, “We have do something about that,” according to court Executive Officer Alan Slater.

He said most courtrooms have similar films or slide shows for jurors, but he prefers a locally produced show for the estimated 12,000 jurors a month who move through Orange County courts.

In addition to escalator rides, the film features jurors in routine situations such as talking to relatives from phone booths and locating courtrooms, scriptwriter Jerry Holderman said.

He said the film’s producers, 4MN Productions, also wanted to cast ordinary “Janes and Joes” in the jury box. “You don’t just get Wonder Bread housewives and men in blue sport coats, staring straight ahead, like you see on ‘Perry Mason.’ You get all ages and all ethnic groups.”

Dorothy Berges, 75, a former Hollywood showgirl, has served on four juries and agrees that jury members “come from all walks of life, and I think it’s great.”

Berges said she grew up in Hollywood, under contract with Rico Productions in the 1920s. She said her roles as a showgirl in such films as “Rio Rita,” “Hit the Deck” and “Dixie Anna” weren’t the best preparation for the film. “Being a juror was,” she said. “You meet a lot of jurors who really care about the cases.”

A narrated portion of the script reinforces that idea. “It’s not the kind of case that’ll make the evening news,” it reads. “But to the parties involved, it may very well be one of the most important days of their lives.”

“We want people to know their jury duty is vital to this country, and so are jurors who really care,” Holderman said.