By Charly SHELTON

On Aug. 26, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order that removed married men from draft deferment eligibility. Up to that point, if any man over the age of 18 were married, he would not be drafted. As of midnight on Aug. 27, a newly-married man could be drafted. Men who were married before that date would be deferred from the draft. In a last ditch effort to avoid the draft, hundreds of couples made the journey from their homes across America to Las Vegas, where a wedding chapel stayed open until midnight, marrying desperate teens who didn’t want to be drafted. Now, 52 years later, a local film student has brought this story to the screen in a short film, “I Got You Babe.”

“I [was an] undergrad at the University of Rhode Island. When I was there, I took a class on rebel images, and we learned a lot about the Vietnam War, the impact it had on young people and how that translated to film. I saw in one of the films a girl [who] was marrying a boy to help him escape from the front lines of Vietnam,” said writer/director Ashton Avila. “After 1965, if you were married you could still be drafted, but you might be sent to a safer place, like Germany, instead of getting sent to the front lines of Vietnam.

“So I started [investigating] to see if I could find any stories. I started googling and I found this date – Aug. 26, 1965. It was written in an article in the Las Vegas Weekly and, on that date, a bunch of people from all over the U.S. [came to get married] because the executive order said that anyone who gets married after that date at midnight can no longer use marriage as a draft deferment.”

At that time, the only place in the U.S. where a couple could legally marry that quickly and with no blood tests or waiting period was Nevada. The announcement was made in the middle of the afternoon Pacific Standard Time (then evening on the East Coast), and people rushed to Nevada to get married.

Avila is a Glendale resident in the Oak Circle neighborhood and shot part of her short film at her home. A Crescenta Valley High School graduate from the class of 2009, Avila went on to URI and then Chapman University, where she made this short as a graduate thesis film. She wrote the script herself after interviewing the reporter from the Las Vegas Weekly article, as well as several brides who made the journey in 1965. The main characters in the film, Russ and Beth, are based on real-life David and Claudia of Orange County, who were the last couple married before midnight on Aug 26, 1965. As the production went along, more people opened up to Avila about their experiences at the time, and pieces of other stories were integrated into “I Got You Babe.”

“In the stories that I read and the people who I’ve talked to about it, not everyone showed up in a wedding dress, especially the closer [it got to] midnight,” Avila said. “There was one bride who passed her veil along to five other brides who didn’t have veils. So our character at one point gets passed a veil from a bride whom she doesn’t know who is there to get married. So little pieces like that were included.”

Now that the short is finished, it will enter the festival circuit. It will be submitted over the next year or two to festivals around the country for screening, judging and awarding. The circuit begins with one of the larger festivals, LA Shorts International Film Festival. “I Got You Babe” has been accepted to LA Shorts, which is an Academy-qualifying festival. The film will screen on Aug. 3 at 3:15 p.m. at Laemmle’s NoHo 7.

“We’ve submitted to a lot of festivals, and the Academy qualifiers were the big ones,” Avila said.

Academy-qualifying festivals are recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, so any of the films that wins a jury prize is then eligible to be submitted to the Academy Awards.

“We’ve gotten into two as of right now. The LA Shorts is an Academy qualifier, and the Rhode Island International Film Festival is an Academy qualifier, which we’ve also been accepted into, and [our film] will be playing there on Aug. 10,” she added.

In addition to the two Academy qualifiers, they have been accepted into smaller film festivals in Virginia, New Jersey and, notably, one in Las Vegas, to be shown the week of the anniversary of the signing of the executive order. The film will screen at The Palms hotel in the Action On Film Festival, Aug 17-26.

“It’s an overall exciting experiencel it’s kind of unbelievable,” Avila said.

After the film festival circuit is run, the next step is working on a feature film version of the story. But for now, it’s a moment to reflect and enjoy the screenings. As writer/director, Avila has shouldered a lot of responsibility on the film, and, after working with the same crew for over a year on this project, she understands the collaborative process well.

“While it was a lot of writing and directing, I very much rely on the help and creativity of my crew and my cast. It was really a collaborative project – even people in the neighborhood helped out. Films can’t be made by one person … I did it with a lot of help. The film also belongs to our producer and our photographer and editor and all these people who worked really hard on it,” Avila said.

More information on the upcoming screening at the LA Shorts Festival can be found at LAShortsFest.com.

  Charly Shelton