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Small-town Indiana journalist Ric Routledge was a celebrity of dog-show culture, where the annual Westminster Kennel Club competition generates headlines and 2000 mockumentary film “Best of Show” found punchlines.
New documentary “Sincerely, Ric,” scheduled to premiere Oct. 11 as part of the Heartland International Film Festival, shares Routledge’s rags-to-riches-and-back-again story.
As founder of the Canine Chronicle newspaper and “Canine Chronicle Video Magazine,” Montpelier native Routledge helped to grow interest in dog shows in the 1970s and ’80s while displaying a quirkiness that wouldn’t be out of place in Christopher Guest’s “Best of Show.”
“He was a really funny guy and kind of self-deprecating,” said Jesse Carfield, who directed, wrote and produced “Sincerely, Ric.”
“On camera, he tried to be like a Walter Cronkite or some serious journalist, but at the heart of it that just wasn’t him.”
Routledge, who died in 2017 at age 67, had a seriously good idea with Canine Chronicle. The Vietnam War veteran launched the weekly newspaper in 1975 as a special-interest publication for pet owners spanning the globe.
It was popular enough that Routledge built a staff of 10 full-time employees. When VCR culture gathered momentum in the 1980s, Routledge charged an annual subscription rate of $180 for six episodes of “Canine Chronicle Video Magazine.”
Carfield’s father, Jim Carfield, was close friends with Routledge.
“I remember Ric having the first in-ground swimming pool I swam in,” Jesse Carfield said. “He had the first LaserDisc player I’d ever seen. He had a leather La-Z-Boy. He was just this larger-than-life person.”
Routledge also owned multiple airplanes for traveling to dog shows.
The documentary is titled “Sincerely, Ric” because of a series of postcards Routledge mailed to Carfield beginning when the filmmaker was 4 years old. The dog-show journalist sent messages from Monaco and the Bahamas. (As the documentary notes, Routledge also made frequent trips to less-glamorous destinations Kankakee and Kokomo.)
Carfield, who attended Blackford High School in Hartford City and London Film School, grew up and worked in New York City as an editor in the marketing of filmed entertainment such as Showtime series “Yellowjackets.” He moved back to Indiana during the pandemic and now leads his company, Edit Haus, in Fishers.
He refers to “Sincerely, Ric,” his first feature-length film as a director, as a way of providing a third act for Routledge’s life.
“As I was making the film I realized he was one of the first friends that I had and I wasn’t really aware of it,” Carfield said. “During one of our last conversations, he was kind of getting on me about not making a film yet. I was a little offended by it. ‘What does he know?’ Then it hit me. It’s interesting how some things are connected in your life.”
Unfortunately, Routlege’s second act was downturn from Canine Chronicle’s heyday. After mismanaging the newspaper’s finances, he sold the publication (which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year). Routledge’s marriage ended and his possessions dwindled.
Routledge didn’t let go of his dog-show archives, however, which were left for Jim Carfield to discover in a dirt-floor storage facility in Jay County.
“I had 250 8mm video tapes,” Jesse Carfield said. “It took me four cameras off of eBay before I could get one to play them.”
“Sincerely, Ric”
The Heartland International Film Festival will host the world premiere of this documentary as well as two additional screenings.
- 3:30 p.m. Oct. 11, Living Room Theaters, 745 E. Ninth St.
- 7:45 p.m Oct. 14, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, 3898 Lafayette Road
- 5:15 p.m. Oct. 19, Kan-Kan Cinema, 1258 Windsor St.
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