An Independent Filmmaker's Guide to Feeding Your Crew

“That’s a wrap!”

The sentence we are all waiting for after being on a film set for an excruciatingly long time.

“What kinda wrap?”

The sentence we are all waiting for after being on a film set for an excruciatingly long time without proper sustenance. 

Making a film is exhausting enough, do we really have to starve while we’re at it? A wrap. With Turkey, Cheddar & Tomato. Yum. Good food, nourishing food, and plenty of food can be the three things that save a film producer from utter (and justified) mutiny. A bacon egg & cheese with hot sauce versus a stale cold bagel might be the difference between your sound guy going for another take versus saying:

“Screw this and screw you, there’s an airplane in the background but idgaf because I’m hangry.” 

As an actor, producer, director & part-time cook, I fully understand and never underestimate the power of a proper meal. I grew up in a family run grocery store (established in 1941!) and spent most of my summers & breaks from school pillaging produce, so working long hours & eating food has always been a big part of my life.

Back to the film world.

I’ve been on sets where I’ve had no energy because I wasn’t properly fed. I’ve been on set where I’m cooking homemade pasta and meatballs and probably over extending myself. Like everything in life, there needs to be balance. As a food lover, and also someone who understands the hard labor that goes into making a film, I always say that feeding the cast & crew WELL and OFTEN is the MOST important task on your to-do list. 

Breakfast.

Most important meal of the day, especially if you are shooting early. Not only should you have unlimited coffee throughout the day, you should also 100 thousand percent have water. These two things should never run out. Ever. If you do, you’ve failed and you deserve to walk the apple box.

“If we warned you once, we warned you a million times, Steve, Turkey Bacon is not real Bacon!”

It’s perfectly fine to order bulk, like bagels or breakfast sandwiches, especially if you have a large cast & crew and a time crunch. HOWEVER, I always recommend reaching out individually to your team members to ask if there is anything specific they would like. Obviously if they are asking for smoked salmon, caviar and champagne showers, and you aren’t Jerry Bruckheimer, tell ‘em to settle down. But things like swapping a croissant instead of a bagel, or an iced coffee with some vanilla syrup over a regular cup of Joe, go a long way.

It’s not so much the food or drink itself as it is you acknowledging that you recognize that your people are important and that they deserve a little consideration for the massive amount of time and energy they are putting into your project. Being aware that you are not working with robots, but with real life humans will get you far in this business.

People remember little things and if you are considerate, attentive and take a little extra time to cater to and care for your crew, they will undoubtably not only do the same for you, but also remember that you did and want to work with you again (and maybe even recommend you to others in this god forsaken industry!) 

Glorious Snacks!

Snacks.

You can never have too many snacks. It doesn’t have to be over the top, but having food available all day on set is such a nice touch. It allows people to grab a little pick me up during the long hours and breaks when lighting is getting fixed, shots are discussed, batteries being changed, or actors are rehearsing. Something light, yet filling is perfect. Things like a variety of granola bars, a platter of fruit (good against fighting scurvy as well) juice, or some multi-grain sun chips will give your crew the little extra boost of energy they might need for that mid day slump. If it’s a crew I’ve previously worked with, I make sure to remember the things they got excited about, like eggnog in July or sugar-free red bull and I always make sure to have some of that whenever I work with them. I’ve had crew members take pay cuts because they felt appreciated enough to also give me a break as an independent and perpetually broke artist. 

Dinner.

This is a big one as you are probably now somewhere between hour 8 and hour why tf is the director still breathing if I haven’t been fed? MAKE SURE YOU EAT TOGETHER. I have been on set where the director starts eating without his cast & crew. This is a sure fire way to bring a curse down upon you and the entirety of your project.

I would also recommend, if you can fit it in the budget, to allow variation. Pick a restaurant, or better yet, have your squad vote on what type of cuisine they are in the mood for, then allow them to individually chose what they would like off the menu (within reason) and you will find yourself with some very happy hands. Of course you can always squeeze in a day of pizza but do NOT, my god I repeat, DO NOT feed your mates the same meal for multiple consecutive days. This is not a deserted island we are stranded on, it is a professional setting where taco bars and sushi are going to bring you spectacular results and lasting energy that you will thank yourself for when you see the final film. Make it an adventure!  Plus, you won’t have to worry about the crew trying to eat you (even though you would deserve it). 

Also, please, ALWAYS make sure to ask in ADVANCE about allergies or diet restrictions— there is nothing worse than getting to set and realizing that something someone ate might be able to kill you. This is super unsafe practice and also horrible for the person trying to work under stressful and anxiety-ridden conditions.

Try these tips and I guarantee specular results will follow. It’s hard enough to make a film, why even bother if it’s going to be an unpleasant experience for those who are willing to be a part of it? I always think back on the projects I’ve produced and I smile at the fact that no matter what road bumps we’ve hit, or setbacks we’ve endured, I know in my heart that I did everything I could to make sure my people were well fed.

Food is a love language!

Food is also incredibly important in regards to energy—you never want to overfeed or serve cuisine that will knock your party out or make them too tired to do their job. But again, not having enough food is always worse. There’s no telling what I might do when I haven’t been fed, and I wouldn’t wish that sort of rage on anyone…except maybe you if you ignore this warning. 

I’m starving, so I’ll leave you now with a great recipe that’s not only healthy but also delicious, filling and perfect for your first voyage into feeding the crew.

Ahoy!

E

Serves 1 Italian. For normal people, a pound of pasta should feed 4.

BRENDA AND THE MONSTERS

She wrote for Sherlock Holmes, Kharis, The Mad Ghoul, and the Weird Woman. Her name was Brenda Weisberg, and during the war years, she was the sole female screenwriter for Universal’s horror output.

During World War II, Universal Studios was as busy a factory as any defense plant in the country, churning out entertainment for servicemen, civilians and their families by the celluloid mile. Features, shorts, serials, cartoons, newsreels, and promotions for War Bonds, the Universal cameras never stopped turning. Like Columbia Pictures, Universal was considered second tier compared to MGM, Paramount or Warner Brothers. A “B” studio that occasionally put money into larger productions. For every THE SPOILERS with John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Marlene Dietrich or ARABIAN NIGHTS, there were a dozen quickly made adventures (BLACK DIAMONDS, NORTH TO THE KLONDIKE), comedies (ALIAS THE CHUMP, TOO MANY BLONDES), or Johnny Mack Brown westerns.

Universal’s sure-fire box office hits came from Abbott and Costello and the classic stable of monsters. The comedy duo had exploded with laughs and music in the low-budget BUCK PRIVATES while THE WOLFMAN, released around the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was the smash that ushered in Universal’s second horror wave, shouldered by Lon Chaney Jr.

Chaney’s star vehicles were divided among different production units within the studio according to their budgets. George Waggner and Western specialist Paul Malvern produced the bigger films such as SON OF DRACULA and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, while the smaller films, including the Inner Sanctum mysteries, were the province of producer Ben Pivar. Born in Britain, Pivar had followed his film editor brother Maurice to Universal, first as an assistant, then an editor, and then a producer while Maurice became an executive, supervising the editing of all of Universal’s products.

As an editor, Ben Pivar knew the Universal stock footage library backwards and forwards, and could initiate adventure films and westerns based on the existing material. Pivar was responsible for an enormous amount of releases which meant an enormous number of screenplays. Many of the writers in Pivar’s stable came from pulp magazines and radio, or were freelancing, grinding through series mysteries for other studios. The one woman who was writing low-budget genre films at Universal was Brenda Weisberg, and she would be a perfect fit for the Pivar unit.

Born in Rovno of the Russian Empire [now Rivne, Ukraine] in 1900, but raised in Ohio and Arizona, Brenda Weisberg came to the movies through her work in newspapers, initially selling original stories to Universal for their own incarnation of The Dead End Kids without Leo Gorcey. After the classic ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES at Warner Brothers, Dead End Kid Billy Halop had become a popular teenage star on his own, working successfully with Humphrey Bogart in CRIME SCHOOL and YOU CAN’T GET AWAY WITH MURDER. Halop, Huntz Hall, Gabe Dell and Hal Chester were brought to Universal for LITTLE TOUGH GUY, directed by Harold Young (THE MUMMY’S TOMB) and written by Brenda who had crafted a juvenile delinquency drama, not a silly comedy like the later East Side Kids and Bowery Boys films for Monogram.

Brenda had found her niche, writing a total of seven features and one serial for Halop, Hall, and their pals. YOU’RE NOT SO TOUGH, directed by Joe May (THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS) emphasized humor, while MOB TOWN, directed by William Nigh (who guided the MR. WONG films with Boris Karloff) was a tight, gangster drama in line with Halop’s films at Warner Brothers. Universal also cast Dick Foran and Anne Gwynne, giving the movie a little extra “B” polish, which Brenda’s script deserved.

In the middle of these assignments, Brenda co-wrote her first serial for chapter-play specialist producer Henry MacRae, JUNIOR G-MEN OF THE AIR also starring Halop, Hall and the gang facing villain Lionel Atwill. Working with a structure from Griffin Jay (RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE), Brenda’s experience had taught her how to fashion the right dialogue for the young, tough actors, giving snappy answers to Halop, and the slow-witted comedy to Hall. Under MacRae and director Ray Taylor, who had both guided the FLASH GORDON serials, Brenda rose to the tough occasion of writing a long-form serial, and was quickly handed another, OVERLAND MAIL, her first western and first film starring Lon Chaney Jr.

Brenda would work on separate chapters of the Chaney Western, tailoring her scripts to old footage from Universal Westerns with new material to match it. Beyond character, plot, and dialog, the serial writers had to be technically savvy as well, knowing how to write scenes around the stock footage and the best way to integrate it into the productions. After the Western, Brenda jumped back to rough house comedy with 1943’s KEEP ‘EM SLUGGING, starring Bobby Jordan and directed by veteran Christy Cabanne (THE MUMMY’S HAND).

KEEP ‘EM SLUGGING was the kind of material that Brenda knew like the back of her hand, but the Little Tough Guy films and the serials proved Brenda could handle any genre, and she soon wrote four Universal horror movies in a row, and established herself as a B-Movie-Writing-Queen.

THE MAD GHOUL is absolutely one of her best works, and one of the best of the Pivar “B” films, if not the best. The dour, savage story of medical student David Bruce being victimized by his mentor George Zucco is one of the darkest, and most brutal, Universal horrors. Much has been made about the tragedy of the fate of Lon Chaney’s Larry Talbot, or Robert Paige’s hapless Frank in SON OF DRACULA, desperately trying to prevent his love from becoming a vampire. But THE MAD GHOUL creates an even grimmer story.

David Bruce, desperately in love with Evelyn Ankers, is deliberately victimized by the man he trusts most because he too wants to share Evelyn’s bed. Zucco’s destruction of Bruce, and sending him on a killing spree because he’s been rejected by Evelyn, is remarkable for its purely evil motivations, which Zucco plays with smooth relish. Brenda then adds the mutilation of corpses to the story, the flesh of a human heart to be distilled into a “Ghoul antidote,” that’s remarkable for its frank gruesomeness.

THE MAD GHOUL is a stand-alone, not a continuation of Paula the Ape Woman or Kharis, that deserves kudos as being a cut above almost all the Pivar productions. Utilizing sets from larger Universal films, THE MAD GHOUL has an expansive look, with extras filling in scenes and excellent production design and art direction, all beautifully photographed by Oscar winner Milton Krasner (THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOW THE WEST WAS WON). The talented James P. Hogan directs admirably, but sadly did not live long enough to see his horror gem completed, as he died before THE MAD GHOUL was released.

With its fine direction and good performances, all on a tight budget, THE MAD GHOUL remains a stalwart of Universal horror because it has real emotional current running through its scenes, and that is thanks to the fine work of Brenda Weisberg. Because of her ear for dialog, Brenda was assigned to WEIRD WOMAN, the third of the Inner Sanctum mystery series starring Lon Chaney Jr. Based on Fritz Leiber’s superb CONJURE WIFE, writer W. Scott Darling (THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN) fashioned an adaptation that Brenda transformed into a screenplay, actually riding against the tropes of the Inner Sanctum series by making Chaney almost a supporting character, despite the films being designed for him.

WEIRD WOMAN, as is appropriate for its title, is a “Woman’s Picture” in the best sense of the label. All of the action, all of the mystery, is tied to the female characters of the film. The original story of witches controlling the destiny of their husbands was mutated into a tale of a professor (Chaney) who marries a girl from a South Sea Island (Anne Gwynne), and brings her back to his college town where mysterious happenings, including a murder, unfold and she’s blamed by an old flame of the professor’s (Evelyn Ankers) for bringing tribal magic with her from the islands and using it against the college community.

While Chaney is nearly always on-screen, trying to debunk “native superstitions,” Brenda Weisberg’s script focuses on Gwynne as the young island bride, Ankers’ jealous ex, and the wonderful Elizabeth Russell as the wife of a professor who commits suicide out of shame for plagiarizing a book he’s just published. These women, along with the great Elizabeth Risdon as the down-to-earth Dean of Woman, toss Brenda’s dialog like so many knives, sometimes drawing blood and sometimes having their nasty comments boomerang back.

If Chaney’s professor is only marginally interesting, then Brenda more than makes up for it with the female characters as they try to one-up each other, which is the joy of the movie. Directed by the able Reginald Le Borg, WEIRD WOMAN remains one of the favorites of the Inner Sanctums, as it’s one of the only films that actually have a supernatural element that can’t be explained away.

From one successful series to one of Universal’s most famous, THE SCARLET CLAW is, arguably the best and most atmospheric of the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films, as its concerned with a monster, and not fighting Nazis on the home-front. Brenda devised the story of a glowing creature that is terrorizing a Canadian village as a cover-up for a string of murders. Roy William Neill directed Brenda’s story with his usual skill and sense of dread, especially in the beautifully rendered scenes of the monster with a phosphorous glow courtesy of effects genius John P. Fulton.

Brenda returned to the Pivar unit to script one more adventure for the mummy Kharis, and his search for eternal love, for THE MUMMY’S GHOST, directed by Reginald Le Borg. A sequel to THE MUMMY’S TOMB, GHOST is regarded as being the best of the Chaney/Kharis outings because of its unusual ending steeped in romantic tragedy, and the sultry presence of Ramsey Ames. Again, Brenda Weisberg brings a sense of desperate emotion to the film, as the spirit of the Princess Ananka inhabits Miss Ames, leading to disastrous results.

Le Borg directs in snappy style, emphasizing great low-angle images of Kharis as he breaks through fences and walls or goes berserk in the Scripps Museum when the soul of his love is lost to him. John Carradine makes a fine obsessed high priest, but one of the movies true delights is Barton MacLane as a detective, firing off Brenda’s dialog the same way as he handled his lines in THE MALTESE FALCON.

After THE MUMMY’S GHOST, Brenda Weisberg focused on family films, musicals and comedies before moving to Arizona to marry and retire from the movies. Away from Hollywood she happily focused on community theater, even as THE MAD GHOUL, and others, were being included in Shock Theater packages across the country, revived in the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland, and even sold in 8mm home-movie editions.

The Queen of the Ben Pivar unit passed away at the age of 96, but her accomplishmentlives on. In a field dominated by men, Brenda Weisberg made her mark with her Universal horrors.

---

C. Courtney Joyner is an award-winning author and screenwriter with more than 25 screenplays to his credit including The Offspring starring Vincent Price, and Prison directed by Renny Harlin. His short stories have been widely anthologized and his novels include the SHOTGUN western series, and the adventure NEMO RISING. A film historian, he was the movie/tv editor for TRUE WEST magazine for three years, and has recorded commentaries, written documentaries and appeared on more than 200 blu-ray releases. Recent non-fiction books include WESTERN PORTRAITS with Steve Carver, PERSPECTIVES ON ELMORE LEONARD, and the upcoming WARNER BROTHERS FANTASTIC.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.

Batter Up! Summoning The Devil in the Diamond

Our house was destroyed.

The year was 2012 and Hurricane Sandy ripped through, among other places, the Mid-Atlantic States.

It is said that the storm damaged, destroyed, or severely flooded around 100,000 homes on Long Island, where my family and I lived. By December of that year, more than 2,000 homes were deemed uninhabitable. 

At the time I was enrolled in grad school, studying acting. My then girlfriend was a dancer in the department and as these things go, I met and grew close to her family. As my parents went to live with an aunt and uncle of mine out east, I was fortunate enough to move into my girlfriend’s family’s home, a very generous offer that they extended to me, which also made my daily commute to Long Island University far more doable.

I grew very chummy with her brother Lou, a history buff who went on to become a history teacher. One day he casually told me about an academic paper he had read that he thought I might enjoy. When he told me it was about baseball (big Yankee fan here!) and the role it played in the ever-evolving relations between Japan and America, I was immediately intrigued. A scholarly article about the greatest sport in the world!? Sign me up! Amidst the cyclone of confusion and devastation that ensued, however, the existence of the article fell into the obscurity of my mind as life forced me to focus on other things.

Regardless, a creative seed had been planted.

Fast forward to September of 2015.

For some reason, out of the blue, I remembered that article. I never did get my hands on it and so I emailed Lou; after a quick email to his old professor, he obtained the PDF version and sent it my way. The piece was entitled For Love of the Game: Baseball in Early U.S.-Japanese Encounters and the Rise of a Transitional Sporting Fraternity; it was written by Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu. 

As I read it, I was mesmerized by the enchanting history, a phrase not often uttered when referencing a peer-reviewed article. Don’t get me wrong – it was certainly academic, but I saw through its scholarship and could smell the fertile soil of a great story (as a matter of fact, many of the characters in my novel were directly inspired by historical figures mentioned in the piece).

Though I enjoyed historical-fiction, the genre was certainly not my forte. I did, however, like a challenge. Ideas started swirling in my head - directions I could take the story, historical avenues I could explore.

And then, of course, I started writing something else and the story once again fell by my creative wayside.

That is until the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic emerged and I found myself in quarantine. Determined to remain productive – I decided to take one of the ideas I had for a novel and give it a go.

The problem was, and indeed it’s a good problem to have, I had a handful of good ideas that I felt could make for great novels.

That’s when I noticed the news was reporting a rise in Anti-Asian sentiment in the United States. Later, in August of 2021, NPR reported more than 9,000 Anti-Asian incidents had been documented since the pandemic began. The New York Yankees’ own ace at the time, Masahiro Tanaka, left the ball-club and the country to go back to Japan upon having concerns about his family’s safety due to the spike in discrimination and hate crimes against members of the Asian community.

 I thought of that article. I thought of how baseball acted as a healing factor between the Americans and Japanese after being at war with one another. All the other novel ideas suddenly paled in comparison.

With that article as my springboard, I catapulted into piles of research, which included World War II, Japanese culture, mid-20th century culture in general, the history of baseball (there’s so much that your average fan like myself had no idea about!), and countless other topics.

I began assembling. I amassed quotes, notes on fascinating historical tidbits, events, laws, pandemics, milestones, records, occurrences, statistics, journals, philosophies, articles; anything I could get my hands on.

The following quote convinced me that the relationship between baseball and war was far from trivial:

“Baseball is part of the American way of life. Remove it and you remove something from the lives of American citizens, soldiers and sailors." - Private John E Stevenson

 

I created a massive timeline. It went as far back as 1871 and as recent as 2004. This timeline became my novel’s bible. Anything that could be relevant to my story went on the chronological itinerary.

Upon glancing at this timeline over and over – I soon realized that my initial idea of writing a story about an American soldier and a Japanese soldier during and after WWII just didn’t seem to cover enough ground given all the wonderful information I had accumulated.

And so I decided to expand my story to make it a multi-generational tale. Though it has a less epic scope than something like Centennial, James A. Michener’s 1974 novel and the subsequent 1978 mini-series acted as inspiration.

My novel suddenly became not just about Eugene and Yuujin, my main protagonists, but also their grandparents and, to a slightly lesser degree, their parents. I could now trace and explore baseball in relation to America and Japan in its entirety.

 Which, of course, meant – more work for me! But again, being quarantined allowed for such an indulgence. And so I wrote. Every. Single. Day.

A little history to wet your beak - in the 1870s, as part of the state-driven modernization program, rulers in Tokyo recruited over 3,000 experts called oyatoi (foreign employees) from Europe and the United States. As Americans were valued in public education, those in that department came to Japan. And do you know what they brought along with them? Bats and baseballs! The game was primed to spread! And so I made Eugene’s grandfather one of these oyatoi…

After a good year, I had a solid manuscript.

It was important to me that the novel was not only a great story – but had literary merit as well.

As I thought about possible themes, motifs, and metaphors – baseball concepts lent themselves naturally.

For example, the idea of “making contact” came to mind. Hitting a baseball is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, feats to accomplish in professional sports. As too is making contact in the sense of forming a connection with another human being or culture. This parallel acts as the backdrop to an entire chapter late in the story. Crossing the threshold of difference to make first contact with a new world can take strength and courage.

Speaking of strength and courage, the novel opens with the (historically accurate) near-complete destruction and seizing of Shuri Castle. Yuujin, part of the Japanese rearguard unit, soon finds himself the last living member of his regiment and before long becomes a POW. In real life, Shuri Castle had always symbolized strength, power, and honor and in my tale Yuujin had always revered the palace. And so its physical demise mirrored the spiritual demise of Yuujin, who deals with the shame and dishonor associated with being captured. He very much wonders if both he and the castle can one day be restored to the glory and honor they once exemplified.

 Eugene, our American counterpart, is put in charge of watching Yuujin as they wait for a transport and things don’t exactly go smoothly. In fact, Yuujin gets a punch to the face. Enter one of the novel’s motifs – Yuujin’s bruise. Eugene watches the black and blue begin to form and take shape. As they become friendlier, the blemish becomes more profound, acting as a visible reminder of Eugene’s act of brutality. Bruises are interesting in that they’re not actually very deep under the skin but they’re quite grotesque to behold. Eugene marked his enemy. And then he questions how much of an enemy Yuujin truly is. Even when he returns home, Eugene is haunted by nightmares of a discolored Yuujin, his ever-swelling contusion enveloping his face.

The novel’s pillars of baseball and World War II, being male dominated, also opened up the natural lane to discuss concepts of manliness and masculinity – that age-old but seemingly ever-shifting question of: what does it mean to be a man? To discuss such notions through a 21st century lens, via 20th century characters, made for an interesting expedition and reflection as well.

 But enough of metaphors and themes! One of the more fun aspects about the story is bumping into major historical figures. I won’t give them all away but don’t be surprised if, while reading, you meet the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Mark Twain, General Douglas MacArthur, and Theodore Roosevelt!

I certainly enjoyed getting to know them. And I fell in love with all my other characters as well. Of course they eventually became their own and now I must give them away.

They say a flower blooming in a storm is stronger than a tree blossoming under a rainbow. A natural disaster was the genesis for this story and cultivated a decade old seed that formed during a pandemic and is now ready to flourish and present itself to the world.

That’s pretty special.

My lifelong dream has always been to become a novelist. I would like to thank Henry Gray Publishing for making that a reality.

I very much hope you enjoy my debut novel. And I very much hope it affects and satisfies your heart and mind in the most literary of ways.

The Devil in the Diamond embraces the idea that two countries who share the game of baseball can never be true enemies. It is a story about the fraternity of nations and their connective tissue of baseball, which acts as a first step to re-building a peaceful future. The devil in the title very much refers to racism and bigotry, cruelty and hate. Despite it being a period piece, this novel confronts a contemporary revelation: not only does history often repeat itself - ignorance unfortunately does as well.

Thank goodness there’s baseball.

- G

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Bowery Boys Will Be Bowery Boys

                 I grew up in New York where for years a certain series of films were shown every Sunday at 12:00 PM on WNEW Channel 5.  These showings formed a common bond among my northeastern comrades that we share and cherish to this day. It was our affection for the low-budget offerings of a group of middle-aged men who'd once been legitimate actors on Broadway, radio, and in big-budgeted films. They had different names throughout the years: the Dead End Kids, the East Side Kids, and finally, and to me most importantly, the Bowery Boys.    

            The Bowery Boys films are love 'em or hate 'em affairs.  I've heard people recoil at the very mention of the name, while others offer a warm smile, remembering watching the boys on those glorious carefree Sunday afternoons. I saw all the films numerous times, and I eventually got to understand the interesting chronological arc that the films took.  In the beginning they were more like the Warner Brothers films.  They were little noir films featuring serious plots, threatening gangsters, and a little comedy.  I enjoyed these films, but also enjoyed the all-out comedies that the series morphed into.  The people responsible for putting these films together were true veterans.  William Beaudine was one of their regular directors, as was Ed Bernds, who, along with Elwood Ullman, wrote some of the better episodes. The latter names are more famous for writing and directing several Stooge shorts, and their familiar mark is there and easy to spot to the trained eye (unless it's being poked at the time).      

            The actual boys were discovered on Broadway in the Sidney Kingsley play Dead End.  The original group consisted of Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Bobby Jordan, and Bernard Punsley. In 1936 Samuel Goldwyn bought the film rights and shuttled the kids west for the celluloid version.  He was to regret that decision.   Not that the film wasn't a hit, but the boys were a tad unruly. Warner Brothers picked up their contract when Goldwyn gave them the old heave-ho, and in time came to also regret that decision.  They went on to appear in several serio-comic films made in the raw Warner style, featuring top stars like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Pat O'Brien, and not so top star, Ronald Reagan. Their off-screen hijinks did not endear them to the Warner family and they were let go in 1939.

            Then it gets sketchy. Billy Halop, Gabe Dell, Huntz Hall, and Bernard Punsley went to Universal for a series of B movies for the Little Tough Guys/Dead End Kids films, and one went to MGM.  Leo Gorcey actually had a short-lived contract for the studio's B unit.  When Bobby Jordan ended up at Monogram Studios as a member of the East Side Kids, he got Gorcey on the Sam Katzman bandwagon, as well.  Gorcey then got Huntz Hall and Gabe Dell in on the act, and the rest is history.  Gorcey eventually tired of working with Sam Katzman and decided to team up with his agent, Jan Grippo to produce the newly-titled Bowery Boys series himself. It was a very wise move because the films were made fast, cheaply, and they all made money.  In fact, at one time Leo was the highest paid actor in Hollywood, by the hour.  Huntz Hall was also made a partner a bit later on.

    Leo Gorcey was master of the malaprop. Nobody was better at this odd form of comedy than him. They flowed out of him in a natural and charming manner.  You never questioned it, or looked down on him for mangling the language.  He was who he was. On radio he was a sidekick to Groucho Marx on the Pabst Blue Ribbon Show.     He pretty much took over Chico's role with Groucho, and actually garnered many of the show's biggest laughs. For the Bowery Boys he was a stern and strong leader.  The cast of supporting players changed fairly often but one could usually see William Benedict as Whitey, David Gorcey (Leo's brother) as Chuck, along with Benny Bartlett, Buddy Gorman, and others in the fairly interchangeable lesser roles of  “the Boys.” Even Gabe Dell showed up occasionally, and always with a different profession.  Gabe was a reporter, a song plugger, a cop, and various other things during the course of the series.  Gabe always seemed to be outside of the gang, though.  Even in the East Side Kids series he was often one of the villains.  Apparently Gabe wanted more than the few lines the supporting gang members got.    

            Last, but certainly not least, there was lovable Bernard Gorcey (Leo and David's father) as sweetshop owner and surrogate father, Louie Dumbrowski.  He must have stood five feet one in his stocking feet, but as a performer he was a giant. He can be seen in Chaplin's, The Great Dictator in a nice supporting role, and he was even allowed to get a few laughs.

            The films were a mixed bag, but most are entertaining at the very least.  My favorite is Blues Busters.  Sach (Huntz Hall) gets a tonsillectomy and finds himself blessed with a very Bing Crosby-like singing voice. This is just one of the many transformations Sach dealt with during the course of the series. In other films he becomes a super-athlete, develops the ability to see the future, is privy to a magic lamp (with Eric Blore as the Genie, no less), finds strength in different areas of his body for his wrestling career, and due to an electrical shock has the ability to pick winning numbers in Las Vegas.  Among the supporting cast in Blues Busters are Craig Stevens, Phyllis Coates, and the one and only Adele Jergens. The supporting casts in most of the films are a wonderful array of people who make you smile: Sheldon Leonard, Tim Ryan, Donald MacBride, Douglas Dumbrille, Ellen Corby, Lloyd Corrigan, and Joan Shawlee are just a few who graced these minor films with their major talents.

            Leo, as Slip Mahoney, is the funny straight man, always jumping at the opportunity to capitalize on Sach's odd and sudden gifts. In the earlier films Huntz Hall was quite clearly a supporting player, but as the series developed he was relied upon more and more to deliver the major laughs. Hall always claimed that while at Universal the great Shemp Howard befriended him.  He always gave credit to Shemp for helping him find his inner comedian. Hall is a natural and can make me laugh by simply walking into a room. The character Sach is the classic man-child.  He's pretty much in his own world and it's only from a blow to the head from Slip's hat that he's reluctantly brought back to reality.  Slip Mahoney is the generally kind-hearted, self-important Napoleonic leader of this motley crew.  He thinks he's intelligent, which only serves to stress his stupidity even more (Oliver Hardy Syndrome).  He's always working for those in need, but because of his lack of real brainpower his good intentions usually blow up in his face (but don't worry, it always comes out nicely in the end).

            By the time of Crashing Las Vegas (1955), Leo was in deep mourning for his Dad, who was killed in a car accident that same year.  He was inconsolable, and also very drunk.  In the film you can see his faraway look, hear his slurred words, and watch his restless bouncing up and down on his heels.  He left the series right after shooting wrapped.

            Now it was up to Hall to finish out the contracted films.   But who could replace Leo Gorcey?  For many, Leo was the Bowery Boys.  Enter Stanley Clements as "Duke Kovaleski".  Sach without Slip?  Unthinkable, yet there was this new, dapper straight man appearing out of the blue. Stosh, as he was known to friends, was one of the better child actors of the 1940s, usually playing good-hearted street toughs.  His most famous role in this capacity was in Going My Way, where he was paired with a gangly Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer.   He eventually grew into adult roles and married everyone's favorite pouty-lipped bad girl, Gloria Grahame.  How did Duke mix with the Boys?  Well, the shock of Slip's absence is somewhat softened by the abyss-like hole left by Bernard Gorcey's Louie Dumbrowski.  Louie was irreplaceable, as can be discerned by the casting of "replacements" Bill Elliot as Mike Clancy, and then Queenie Leonard as Mrs. Kelly, the landlady.  Interestingly the weak casting made it fairly easy to accept Duke as the group's leader.  The bad news is that Sach had to carry more of the show than he was used to.  Huntz Hall used to complain that the films without Leo were turkeys because they had him playing both parts.  I disagree, somewhat.  His role was padded, of course, but Duke was there to hand out the threats, and even carry them out once in a while.  Sach was most of the show, but Duke and the boys held their own in their limited capacity. Clements also added a certain class to the series.  He was better dressed than Slip, more intelligent, and he seemed more capable of functioning in the real world, a world that Sach only lived on the fringes of.  Were the films as good as the Leo/Slip opuses?  Definitely not.     But one must also consider that the already threadbare budgets were cut to the bare minimum, and the direction was left to ex-assistant directors like Austin Jewell.

            When I mentioned to a friend that I was planning on writing a piece about the Bowery Boys, he recoiled and asked,  “But weren't those movies crap?”  No, I don't think so.  They were entertaining programmers from a simpler time.  The fact that they made forty-eight of them in 12 years (forty-eight !!!!!) is testimony to their comic success and an indication that there was a definite audience for them.  I recently re-watched all the films in a row and when I got through the final film I was ready for more.  The Boys didn't aspire to art.  They didn't crave to be taken seriously.

They made funny films, plain and simple.  As Slip Mahoney might have said, “The flacks shriek for themselves.”

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Nick is a native New Yorker raised on the classics....films that is.  He has appeared on Broadway twice (GREASE, THE PRODUCERS), and has been in every form of show business except ballet.  He has written and starred in REAL MEN, the Musical off-Broadway...and co-wrote, composed the songs, and the lyrics.  He has also co-written the book, THE ANNOTATED ABBOTT AND COSTELLO, and teaches show biz history via Zoom.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.

An Announcement and a Tap Step

“Reminder -- auditions for the musical comedy Anything Goes is after school today. Students should meet at the stage and bring tap shoes. Be prepared to tap,” announced the principal of James Madison High School over the loudspeaker during my first hour biology class.

As soon as I heard the word TAP, I asked my classmates near me what that was all about. The girl sitting in the desk behind me explained our school was putting on a show that involved a lot of tap dancing and described it as a 1930s The Love Boat. It was my first year in high school, so I was still making my way but was certain I had to be part of that show. I had been dancing since the age of seven and tap was my favorite. After performing Ronnie the Robot Who Can Rock & Roll on the stage of my first dance recital, I was hooked!  Dissecting frogs was the furthest thing from my mind and all I could think about was approaching my choir teacher, the musical director, to inquire about the audition.  First hour bell rang and I ran into the Girl’s Glee choir room. I needed to speak to Mr. B before we started singing the notes to the Sound of Silence.

“Lynn, we already had auditions the past couple days. Today is the callback.” I am sure he could see the look of devastation on my face as I pleaded and shared my  tap dancing experience, so he promised to try to work it out.  “Well, I know you can sing so you passed that part of the audition.  I’ll talk to the director. Just come to the theater right after school and I’ll introduce you.”

Seventh hour accounting class could not come quickly enough. The minute the school bell rang, I scurried through the halls, dropped off my books in my locker, flew down the flight of stairs and swam through the sea of students to get to the lobby.

Mr. B was already in the auditorium leaning over the middle row of seats whispering to the director and choreographer. They both turned around to size me up which made me nervous and a bit uncomfortable. Pam, the choreographer, led me to an area in the hallway to see if these feet could truly move. She asked if I knew the time step and when I replied which one, a smile from ear to ear graced her face. This moment was the turning point in my high school career. In my life!

The next morning the cast list for Anything Goes was posted near the office and the wannabe Broadway stars were flocking around the bulletin board searching for their names. Under the lead role was a list of six angels and there was my name.  I did not even realize that I was given this great part.  All the girls who were cast in the ensemble were praying to be one of Reno Sweeney’s Angels.  Chants of  “Who is this Lynn Bertoni?” echoed the hallway and I looked around and played dumb. Nobody knew who I was because I never set foot on that stage to audition, but once we learned our first number and I aced the shuffle ball change flap heal step, they understood.  Rehearsals were my escape from the hustle and bustle of school.  My theater friends became my second family and I have never encountered such a kind, caring and accepting group of peers in my life. I belonged! 

The following year I was cast in the lead role of Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Sugar in the musical version of Some Like it Hot my senior year. Our school was chosen to perform at the Pabst Theatre for the City Wide Theatre Festival.  Only three schools were selected so this was a huge honor. 

All my life, I wanted to become a performer as I pretended to be on a Broadway stage with the living room curtains as my entrance. My dad would play cards at a local tavern and prop me up on the bar to sing Raindrops keep Falling on My Head; Geyser cheese popcorn and M&Ms served as my reward. We often would sing for nearby nursing homes during Christmas and I relished those times. 

My father was known as the singing fireman and sang the National Anthem at numerous Brewers games so performing was in my blood. Big dreams of moving to New York or Hollywood swirled around in my head for as long as I can remember.  However, finances did not allow me to attend NYU, so I had to settle for UW-Milwaukee as a theater major. 

After the first couple weeks of my freshman year in college, I realized this was not the life for me.  After working as an usher at Melody Top, I saw backstage and did not want to make the sacrifices one makes in show business.  Family was important to me and soon I was looking for a profession that had more security.  I took a year off of college to find myself and during this hiatus, I waited on tables and worked in community theater. That year I played Miss Adelaide in Guys & Dolls and met my first and former husband. As I did four years earlier, he missed the first audition and a mutual friend, who felt I would get a callback, persuaded me to ask the director to allow him to audition at callbacks.  He did and was cast opposite of me as Nathan Detroit.  During that year, I did a great deal of soul searching and knew I needed to earn my college degree. My advisor informed me that all my theater credits could be applied to an area of concentration for a BS in Education. In order to see if this was a good fit, I had to serve 80 hours of observation in a classroom. The minute I set foot in Ms. Brown’s 4th grade classroom at Hartford Elementary School, I knew it was where I needed to be.

In 1986, I was hired to teach 5th grade at Cedar Hills for the Franklin/Oak Creek School District and continued my teaching career in the district for the next 36 years. The arts brought so much richness to my life that it was my calling to do the same for my students. Stated at the top of my resume was my mission statement with my plans to implement the arts into my teaching, so when I was asked to organize the talent show, I was elated.

Besides the typical acts of singing, playing an instrument and baton twirling, I choreographed a dance number for every grade level and would rehearse during my lunch period. My principal even became part of the show and did not hesitate when I asked him to wear coconuts and a grass skirt to perform Honey Bun with me from South Pacific. The talent shows were a smash and became an annual tradition. During my seven years in the elementary classroom, I had my students performing in Thirteen Colonies plays, Revolutionary War Newscasts and Westward Movement Silent Films.  I wrote and directed interactive US History lessons and was asked to teach Social Studies in middle school and implement the same lessons for the World History curriculum. My new principal took notice and offered me the drama and speech position and 8th grade is where I spent the next 29 years. I hit the floor running and was so enthusiastic to bring theater into the lives of middle schoolers.  They were not as enthusiastic. It took awhile for my reputation to follow me.  At first, kids were screwing around and could not follow a direction to save their lives. 

Drama class was considered a blow off class and the attitude of how hard could it be to say some lines and move on stage was evident. Getting them to attend after school rehearsals was a joke!  My passion and perseverance finally prevailed and my two drama classes put on quite the show. It took a few more years and with strategic scheduling to avoid track, basketball and cheerleading practice, drama class became very cool.  After five years of buying the rights of shows and placing so much responsibility on a few students with the leading roles, I decided to write and create shows for more kids to shine in the limelight. Thus, students would audition for a skit in the overall production and not feel the pressure of learning so many lines. It provided more roles and opportunities and ultimately spread the theater bug. I would coax theme ideas from students and write skits to create an hour long production. We produced Laugh In-a 60s Show, Friday Night Live, Vaudeville, Hooray for Hollywood, Night at the Improv and my last was This 70’s Show in which I developed a skit based on Cheech & Chong’s Sister, Mary Elephant.   Each student portrayed one of the teachers in the school and when Sister Mary Elephant said roll call, the audience roared.

My favorite and very heart-wrenching show was written in 2001.  The year before I planned to write a show titled Salute to America to incorporate some of my skits from my elementary days and this theme could not have been more timely.  I also wanted to teach my little thespians about war, poverty, immigration, and discrimination.  They learned much more while playing the roles of Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton, Amelia Earhart, Franklin Roosevelt, Linda Brown, Martin Luther King Jr, and Cesar Chavez because they got to live it. The production ended with a slide show to honor those who lost their lives during the attack on America. There wasn’t a dry eye in the audience during the encore when the entire cast sang America the Beautiful and gave their final bows to This is My County.

In addition to teaching drama and speech, I taught two sections of math. I recruited the toughest high risk kids who were failing my math class to work lights and sound for my shows. The first year I taught drama, I had this student, Paul, who adamantly claimed there was no way I was getting him on stage, so I assigned him to lights.  I had no clue how to operate the light board and this kid figured it out in 20 minutes. During tech rehearsal, I made sure the actors on stage knew how important Paul’s role was to the production as he had the power to turn the lights off at any moment. That following spring, I encouraged Paul to grace the stage at our talent show by playing Abbott in Who’s on First?. Not only did he memorize the lines, he nailed it. His deadpan humor was hilarious and the praise he received from his peers was priceless. I instilled in my students that every job in the theater was critical to the overall production and it wasn’t long before the actors, stage crew, and tech crew became one big happy family. Students of all archetypes: shy, cheerleader, jock, tough guy, gothic, nerd- they became great friends through the theater. And Paul, with a number of others, raised his grade from an F in math class to a B in one quarter. The arts can do that and often are not given the credit they so deserve. T-shirts were made with the show logo with students’ names on tha back and were worn the day of our show. It was such a source of pride in our school that it became the event of the year. Those early rehearsals of me pulling out my hair became rehearsals of pure discipline in which one could hear a pin drop when I gave directions. What my students learned by putting on a show is that after curtain call, everyone is on a natural high and there is nothing like camaraderie.

Unfortunately, due to budget cuts and a new superintendent, who wanted to make her mark and implement remedial math and reading classes, drama class was no longer. After 14 years of proving the impact the arts had on these kids, it meant nothing to the administration. A new middle school was built in 2008 and clearly there was no consideration given to building a stage. There was a black box placed between the gym and cafeteria. No lighting board, no make-up room; no costume room. No drama productions. The only space given to the theater department was a storage room that was filled with wrestling mats.

Still, I managed to keep the arts alive in our school through drama club, talent shows and field trips.

I have been in contact with former students through phone calls, letters and Facebook. One student, Sobe, contacted me 23 years later through Messenger to tell me when she was a student in my 5th grade classroom, I helped give her a voice. Another student, Summer, who was struggling with self-esteem, sent me a card to let me know she was attending college that Fall as a musical theater major and my words inspired her. I held her after class and insisted she sing as an audition for the talent show during lunch.  Summer sang “All of Me” in that talent show because I told her she had a gift she needed to share with others. At my retirement party, my daughters surprised me with a video of my former students' testimonials. They shared their memories of playing Thomas Jefferson, tap dancing with umbrellas to Singing in the Rain, performing with future community theater groups, twisting in a poodle skirt, loading the bus to Chicago to see Motown, watching inspiring films, YouTube videos of young performers, along with a host of artistic moments they recalled as part of my daily lessons.

 The arts have truly changed my life and put me on the path to such a positive and incredible journey. Not only did the arts bring joy to my life and spirit in my soul, the confidence I gained led me to win Mrs. Wisconsin-USA in 1994 and Mrs. Wisconsin-America in 1998. With this title and the pageant world, I was able to bring attention to the importance of the arts in education. As I reflect on my life of 59 years, it is difficult to imagine those years without my involvement in the performing arts. I did not flee to New York or Los Angeles as originally planned, but I still was able to make the arts an integral part of my life as well as my three daughters’. I sent my girls to the Milwaukee School of Arts which was not in the best area of town. They may have been secure in a little suburb school, but I knew in my heart my children needed exposure to all of the arts. To this day, they remind me that attending a school which centered around the arts made them more worldly, empathetic, and stronger human beings.  My first leading role in the musical South Pacific as Ensign Nellie Forbush even holds some connection to all three of my daughters. Courtney is a nurse, and my twins, Natalie, married a Frenchman and Nellie bears the name.  All three girls have taken the creativity the arts offer into their own lives.  Courtney has a side cookie business called, Life’s a Batch. Natalie lives in France and works as a translator for her own business as well as a copywriter for a company and Nellie is an art teacher and is active in the Milwaukee art culture. They are by far my finest production. The arts are in all of us and if we, as a society, do not embrace and support the arts, life may only be noise coming from the loud speaker, just making another announcement.

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Lynn Bertoni-Shaw is an actor from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and has earned a Bachelor’s in Education with a minor in Theater from UW-Milwaukee along with a Masters from Aurora University, Illinois.  During the past 43 years, she has worked in both professional and community theater in the Milwaukee Metropolitan area and Chicago. Although Lynn loved performing on stage, she dedicated her life to the classroom as an educator and recently retired after 36 years of service. She has earned the titles of Mrs. Wisconsin-USA and Mrs. Wisconsin-America and this led her to an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show in which she agreed to spend a night in the Boone County Jail, Indiana to talk about her pseudo booking experience for the episode “Avoiding Arrests.”  Retirement offers Lynn the flexibility to develop her craft while pursuing greater involvement in theater, film and motivational speaking. In addition to Lynn’s life as an actor, teacher and mother, writing has been another passion and she plans to write her novel in the near future.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.