By Chris Aldridge

Kentucky Ag News

When a movie crew showed up in Maysville in June to film, Alice Applegate Myers got a phone call. Alice sells her homemade jams and jellies in the A&J Produce booth at Mason County Farmers’ Market.

“A woman named Audrey said, ‘We’re filming a Christmas movie in downtown Maysville, and we’d like to feature your vendor booth,’” Alice recalled. “She said, ‘Could you provide us with 10 cases of half pints and five cases of pints (referring to Mason jars of Alice’s jams and jellies)?' I didn’t have that many, but I told her, ‘I’ll get ’em.’”

Audrey Easton, a key production coordinator who was heavily involved in organizing local business partnerships, coordination, and community outreach for the film's holiday market and parade scenes in Maysville, was interested in Alice’s booth.

“She said, ‘Send me pictures of your set-up, and I’ll submit it (to the producers),’” Alice said. “Within a few days, she text messaged me back: ‘They want your stuff. They’re gonna pay you to rent it for two nights.

“I said, ‘Who’s gonna work my booth?’ She said, ‘We’ll get a background person, unless you want to do it.’

“Well, darn straight I wanna do it!” Alice added. “That would be frickin’ cool if I’m in a Netflix movie!”

Immediately, Alice’s mother saw a change in her daughter’s demeanor.

“My mother started crying when I was on the phone with Audrey,” Alice said. “Mom said, ‘I haven’t seen your face light up that much since your dad died.’”

Alice has been mourning her father’s death since he passed away March 31. She has since moved in to help care for her elderly mother.

“I’ve really been struggling since Dad died,” Alice said. “I truly believe Dad had a hand in making all of this happen – Dad and the good Lord.”

"All That Glitters at Christmas" is a faith-based holiday romantic comedy film from an original screenplay that is expected to be released around Christmas this year.  There’s a current bidding war between Netflix and Amazon for streaming rights to the movie. The plot follows a stressed-out Wall Street widower who takes over a struggling small-town church.

The lead actress is Greer Grammer, daughter of “Cheers” and “Frasier” actor Kelsey Grammer.

“Some actors wouldn’t really talk to you,” Alice said of her experiences on the set. “They were busy memorizing their lines.

“The funniest lady was the woman in the Austin Powers movies,” she added, referring to actress Mindy Sterling. “I didn’t recognize any of the others, but my favorite person was Radio Ray (actor Raymond Arroyo). He played the local radio news guy, and he’s a real newsman on FOX.”

The movie built six large booths and changed the name of Alice’s to A&J Jams. Alice has since changed it to A&J Jams & Jellies.

“The six booths they built were all vendors in Kentucky,” Alice said. “At least three of us were Kentucky Proud vendors. I really wanted to say ‘Kentucky Proud’ in the movie, but it’s set in a town called Forest Glen with no state mentioned.

“They let me bring my big green booth home with me. I’m gonna make it into a little roadside stand (at her home in Fleming County).”

Alice said some of the actors and crew became her customers.

“Some ended up buying some of my jams and jellies,” she said. “They couldn’t believe I made all that stuff.

“Everybody loved my strawberry preserves. I get my strawberries from Cornett’s (Farm Fresh in London, Ky., another Kentucky Proud business). You can’t get better strawberries than that! And my carrot cake jam, they loved that one. It tastes pretty close to a carrot cake.”

Alice participated in two full days of filming. The filming in Maysville wrapped up before the July 4 holiday weekend.

“My first day, we filmed noon to 9:30 p.m.,” she said. “The next day, we filmed the Christmas parade scene and went from 7 a.m. to I don’t remember, but I didn’t get to bed until 4:30 a.m.”

Alice said she was fascinated by watching the film crew and actors at work.

“We would walk through a scene three or four times,” she said. “Then they would film it to see what it looks like, then shoot the scene from four different camera angles. It was really interesting.”

One of Alice’s acting assignments was silently selling one of her jars of jam in the background of the scene.

“You can’t talk out loud, so I had to whisper,” she said. “I ‘fake sold’ one jar of strawberry jam to one girl about eight times.

“I don’t know what parts (of the movie) I’ll be in,” Alice added. “They told us everybody will be seen in the movie somewhere.”