MOBILE, Ala. - Losing the family jewels gets an unexpected, if painful, twist in the long-awaited comedy based on Fairhope author Frank Turner Hollon’s 2003 novel, “Life is a Strange Place.”

Starring Patrick Wilson and Judy Greer with a supporting cast of Cybill Shepherd, Malcolm McDowell, Chloe Sevigny, Billy Dee Williams, Kyle Gass and Mae Whitman, the local premiere of “Barry Munday” opens tonight at Mobile’s Crescent Theater.

Hollon, who has continued to practice law in Robertsdale while publishing several novels and children’s books during the past decade, will take questions and talk about the movie following both shows tonight and three shows tomorrow.

The movie runs through Oct. 14 at the intimate 100-seat venue on Dauphin Street just west of Bienville Square.

“I’m finding that the reaction to this movie is very much like what the reaction was to the book,” Hollon said Wednesday. “They either like it or hate it. There’s no in-between, unlike my other books, where there are some people in the middle.”

The movie’s concept can set a person back a few steps, especially some men who might find the idea particularly upsetting.

To summarize: skirt-chasing and lovable dufus Barry Munday has a bad run-in with the father of a young girl who didn’t like what was happening between his teenage daughter and this 30-something Lothario in a dark movie thea5ter. One thing leads to another— albeit with a deadly trumpet— whereupon Munday wakes up in a hospital to find he’s missing a couple vital parts. Despite that life-altering tragedy, Mundy gets a chance at fatherhood after all, and a chance to change his egocentric life.

And that’s where the movie really takes off and might win over some initial doubters about the film’s offbeat premise.

“The people that are immediately put off by the oddness never embrace the rest of the story and might have an immediate hatred of it,” Hollon said. “But for those who do find how important that (initial action is) to the story line and follow the story to the end will really understand what both (the director and I) intended to do, which was really have a kind of sweet story wrapped up in a weird story line.”

The movie was a long time in the making and an education for Turner who attended the Los Angeles premier last month, but that’s another story.

For now, local filmgoers have a rare opportunity to catch a movie and talk with the novelist whose characters in a book finally reached the silver screen.

“It’s so much better than having it in a big theater house,” Hollon said of the Mobile premiere. “You have the experience of the (theater staff) getting up and introducing the movie, drinking a beer, and you also know there’s not a lot of gummy bears on the floor of this grown-up place. And if you don’t like the movie, at least you don’t like it in a nice place.

Shows tonight are at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. and tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 9, at 2 , 6 and 8:30.

The Crescent Theater is located at 208 Dauphin Street. For show times and other information, call 438-2005 or visit the theater’s website at www.crescenttheater.com.