Forty Deuce Spotting

Written by Joe D on January 9th, 2008

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I was watching Umberto Lenzi’s From Corleone To Brooklyn when I spotted this shot of 42nd street. The film advertised on the marquee, The Brinks Job was edited by my old pal Bud Smith. Jere Huggins, another friend once told me that while they were working on it, on location in Boston, a group of Mafia thugs came into the cutting room. It seems that while filming in downtown Boston the previous day Mr. Friedkin had trained his camera on a crowded street. Somewhere on that street was a wanted Mafia capo who took umbrage at being filmed. So he sent a group of soldiers to the editing rooms where they tied up the editing crew and pistol whipped one of the unfortunate cutters. They seized the film shot the previous day and left with it. One of the trussed up assistant editors, I believe it was Ned Humphries, dialed a phone with his nose and called for help. The police came and freed them. Later a ransom demand was made for the purloined film, unfortunately for the filmnappers, the editors just ordered a new print of the missing dailies from the lab where the original negative was stored. Bud Smith was not in the editing room during this ordeal, the Mafiosi struck early in the morning while the assistants were syncing dailies and Bud was having his coffee at his hotel.

2 Comments so far ↓

  1. Jan
    9
    8:54
    PM
    herman

    Some more recent 42nd street spotting Joe.

    i jut finished watching the sicilian connection, on your recommendation. 42nd street is in there. Also recently seen in Nightmare and New York Ripper.

    the sicilain connection overlaps with my latest thing – Luciano Rossi spotting and he shows up in the Italian segemnt of the film as a chemist to the mafia. Oh and wow, what a a double twist (or even treble twist) in the last 15 minutes of the film. I m going to blog this one when I get a chance, and maybe do a complimentary 42nd street spotting thread.

  2. Jan
    9
    10:50
    PM
    admin

    Rossi is great as the chemist! I thought he was the real thing! So much of that film has a quasi-documentary feel. The ending is crazy, very cool. I just watched Il Boss, it was the Italian language version and it has To Be Continued at the end! Did Di Leo make a part 2? I never heard of it. Crazy!

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