Malverne Setting for Indie Mob Flick, Now Shooting

I once lived right near this town, so this piece caught my eye, and hopefully will catch yours. The title of the indie film now being shot in Malverne on Long Island is "Send No Flowers"; let's hope the script was better crafted than that title, though.

Tony Lo Bianco, who most recently played a certain mob boss preoccupied with having a certain Irishman murdered, stars in "Flowers," which is a strong plus, and the plot twist, a woman running a crime family, offers nifty dramatic opportunities -- although Jackie Collins wrote something similar sounding to this, on a basic level, back in the 1980s, when there was only one mob wife and her name was Victoria Gotti. Still, I like the screenwriter's taste in  film, so this has potential.

In a quirk of fate, I interviewed the producer/director of this film, back in my college days when he was working on his first film. Now his subject matter is gangsters; back then, it was AIDS. I prefer gangsters.


From the Patch.com:

A group of slick-looking Italian guys wearing suits had a confrontation with a detective outside of Angelo's Pizza in Malverne Friday afternoon while a film crew captured it all on camera.

No, they weren't shooting The Sopranos movie that many fans of the HBO series have been pining for since the hit show ended in 2007. But if you're a fan of the mafia crime drama genre or you enjoy films with strong female characters, then you may want to check out "Send No Flowers" when it comes to a film festival near you.

The independent film, written by Lee Kolinsky and Michael Lovaglio, follows the story of an aging mobster (played by veteran actor Tony Lo Bianco) whose daughter takes over running the crime family.

"...," producer and director Fred Carpenter told Patch Friday in between takes outside the Hempstead Avenue pizzeria. [We just deleted what the director/producer said because he gave the whole fucking plot away, also revealing probably the film's key plot point, all in about a dozen words. Unbelievable.

[Even more unbelievable, this is the guy I mentioned earlier, whom I interviewed back in 1989; he was shooting a film for which he found his acting talent from among my fellow college students; I was in the J-program, so I got to report on the shooting of the film for the school's weekly paper. Titled "On the Make," it sank through its allocated itty-bitty theatrical time frame making barely a ripple, and I don't even know if it ever emerged on VHS. It was primarily focused on a group of druggy night clubbers trying to get their late-night jollies, even with the shadow of AIDS looming over them. Christ. We actually thought things were bad back then! LOL! LOL!]
It was the first day of what Carpenter expects to be a roughly 20-day shoot, and although they won't be returning to Malverne, they'll be filming in other parts of Nassau County, including Island Park, Carle Place, Baldwin and parts of the North Shore.

...Lovaglio, who works as a New York City cop ... in the past few years has written numerous scripts about organized crime. This script, however, was the first one he ever wrote with a female character as the lead. "It was kind of challenging," he admits.

Inspired by his own on-the-job experience as a city cop and his favorite 1970's crime dramas, including "The Seven-Ups" and "The French Connection," both of which starred Lo Bianco, Lovaglio wanted the film to be "edgy." He says, "It's violent. It's not a soap opera by any means. It's a drama that has action."

The film has some serious star power including Lo Bianco, Robert Clohessy ("Blue Bloods"), Cathy Moriarty ("Raging Bull") and Sean Young ("Blade Runner," "No Way Out," and "A Kiss Before Dying"). And most of the police officers who appear in the film are actual cops who Lovaglio has befriended during the past 30 years he's been on the force.

Once the film is ready, Lovaglio plans to submit it to festivals in the area and shop it around for distribution rights.

"It was fun to write," he adds, "so hopefully we'll entertain people."

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