Critical Moments
A Summary
Logline: Tom plays guitar on the Louisiana Hayride. Edie plays the men of the oil fields. Fun and games turn deadly in Shreveport during the 1960s.
Set in Shreveport, Louisiana during the oil boom years of the fifties and sixties, Critical Moments is a true story of the life and times of Edie Foy. From a headstrong teenager with her eyes set on Hollywood to a married mother of three with a cheating husband, Edie meanders through life with no real focus until she falls for the dashing, and married, Brewster Simmons. Brewster wines and dines her, jets her here and there, loves her and her kids but just can’t manage to leave his wife and home in Memphis for her. Still, a beautiful affair evolves as Edie is drawn into the self-made world of Shreveport oilmen and finds the fun and attention she desires for herself. She quits her job at a local radio station, working alongside the future “Wolfman Jack”, and all is well until Tom Johnson shows up. A local musician with a steady weekend gig at the Louisiana Hayride, Tom has big plans to one day own his own club, and he charms Edie into helping make his dream come true.
Realizing her affair with Brewster is going nowhere fast, Edie falls hard for Tom and joins his act as a torch singer. Tom makes a connection with Beth Dixon, a Dallas woman with Shreveport ties, and she agrees to bankroll his club in exchange for one little favor. When the “favor” turns out to be the killing of her husband, Tom tries to get out of the deal but finds he’s in too deep. Edie, who is working a gig of her own in Vegas, flies home to discover Tom dead of apparent suicide, but she’s not buying it.
As Edie zeroes in on the truth, her life is threatened by a mysterious blonde haired hit man and she narrowly escapes with her life to the safety of her neighborhood biker gang who are all too eager to help their good friend. Brewster returns and shuttles her out of town until things cool off. A secret deal is brokered between Brewster and Beth Dixon, and all appears well until Brewster is committed to an insane asylum by his wife in a seemingly unrelated incident, and Edie is left with yet another mystery to try and solve.
From the bygone days of Western movie star Boots Cahill and his buddy John Wayne to the malt shop days of the fifties and beyond, Critical Moments is the true story of Edie Foy that charts one woman’s journey through this world on a twisting, turning path of romance, intrigue and adventure.