So one day I was wandering around the internet looking for pictures of guys with mustaches, when I came across this:

Now I’ve never heard of Mr. (or Ms.) Joop Van Den Ende before, and even though I’m sure they’re a very lovely man or woman, I knew looking at this poster that whatever qualities the real film ‘Zwarte Ruiter’ possessed, I could direct a far better movie myself. It would feature such characters as Hat-Man and Police Officer Who Views Things From A Distance And Is Also Hatted. There would be gunplay, and sex, and sex featuring gunplay. It would be awesome.

But it turns out that making a movie is pretty hard. For one thing, I was going to need a lot of black and white film and fedoras, and I had no idea where to find either. Also I may have gotten bored with the whole idea, or possibly distracted by an entertaining new game show.

In the end I only managed to come up with a bio for the protagonist and a couple storyboards.

John Fistpump

John Fistpump is a Private Detective with an agency set up in Mystery City. At the beginning of the film, very little is known about Fistpump, other than the fact that he is a Private Detective. It is evident that he has an extremely mysterious and enigmatic past, a past that is in some way related to the hat which is constantly perched on his head, even while sleeping. But this past will only be revealed in pieces as the story unfolds.

Many years ago, in what he refers to as his ‘previous life,’ he was a police officer. He was forced to leave the police force prematurely due to his poor attitude, particularly his habit of drinking during briefings and while showering. Also, he shot a kid.

With no job, and now a pariah in his own town (the child he shot was a heavy favourite in the next Mystery County Spelling Bee), Fistpump slips into a drunken spiral of despair. After months of this, when he is both figuratively and literally lying in the gutter, Fistpump is approached by a mysterious Gypsy haberdasher with an eye for a quick buck. The haberdasher, after hearing Fistpump’s tales of woe, convinces him that he can turn his life around by donning the mysterious Hat of Shame. Despite being in a drunken stupor, Fistpump still has a cop’s ear for sniffing out a scam, and springs to his feat to pound the Gypsy to death with his bare fists. The feel of another man’s blood on his hands reawakens Fistpump’s passion for police work, and he vows on the spot that he will become a private detective. As a symbol of his new purpose, he takes a stylish fedora that the gypsy was trying to pawn on him, and christens it The Hat of The Demolished Gypsy. A new chapter in John Fistpumps life has just begun.

The following storyboards depict a scene about two thirds of the way through the film, when Fistpump is chasing the villain who has escaped with Lincoln’s Beard.