Boardwalk

Boardwalk (1979)

In this drama, David Rosen and his wife Becky have lived in the same Coney Island neighborhood for nearly all their married life. But the area is not what it used to be, and a gang leader named Strut has decided to make Coney Island his new turf. Strut begins shaking down the merchants in the area, demanding payment for "protection" and using violence to deal with anyone who gets in his way. David refuses to give Strut protection money for the restaurant he owns, and as a result his diner is soon firebombed, while many of his neighbors are attacked and his synagogue is desecrated.

Date of release
1979-11-14
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (4)
Runtime
1h 38m
Genres
Drama
Director
Stephen Verona

Casting

Interesting facts

Boardwalk is a 1979 American drama film written by Stephen Verona and Leigh Chapman and directed by Verona. It stars Ruth Gordon, Lee Strasberg and Janet Leigh. It follows an older Jewish couple living in Coney Island that are challenged by increasing crime in their neighborhood.

Production

It was filmed on location at numerous spots in Brooklyn, including the famous but now defunct Dubrow's Cafeteria.

Strasberg spoke to The New York Times about challenging perceptions of older characters on screen: "That's the difficulty of playing older people...The audience doesn't see them as people, but as old people. They think you have to act old. But old people don't not make love; they don't not have feelings. Aging is like wine: give me old wine — it's more enriching.

Gordon spoke about her positive experience acting alongside Strasberg: "From the very word go, it was chemistry. We loved each other. That's why we worked together.” With Strasberg adding, “I guess we do share something in the theater, don't we?...I remember seeing you in ‘Serena Blandish’ — that was the kind of theater I loved as a young actor.

It was written by Leigh Chapman and Verona, who were a couple at the time. Chapman later recalled the film as "Amateurish? boring? Strasberg [was] a dreadful actor...I give V[erona] credit for tenacity...[a] British investor who put up the money for the film. He was one of those 'commoner' Brits who created a travel agency and made a lot of money. I don't know how Verona met him or conned him into putting up the money."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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