Interview
with Film Director Tommy Reid
Interview
with Film Director Tommy Reid
Director
and producer Tommy Reid who produced the film
Kill The Irishman starring Val Kilmer
and Christopher Walken, a movie that depicted the life and crimes of Irish
American mobster Danny Greene, has the makings of a new blockbuster film based
on the life of another criminal, but this time one with a much more passive
history bank burglar Phil Christopher. The groundwork has already been laid and
the research has been completed in the form of Reid’s documentary film
$uperthief, which culminates with the
1972 record setting burglary of the United California Bank in Orange County,
California. Although, the film chronicles Phil Christopher’s life before and
after the burglary, the suspense builds with the heist and well we do not want
to spoil this for you, even if it is a documentary film, so we will let you
guess at the ending. The film is
narrated by John DiMaggio, Tommy Reid’s business partner and the voice of Bender
from television’s Futurama.
Revealing that it was definitely his goal to turn this
enterprise into a feature film project, Tommy Reid says, “For me doing a
documentary is fantastic research to understand the material better and to get
more insight into the characters. It helps you that much more when you go to
talk to any actor, about what you are trying to portray. We already have the
script (for the feature film) written and it has been adapted from the
documentary. The guys who wrote it
are very hot writers right now and they write the TV show
The Blacklist, which is coming out
this fall (premiers September 23, 2013)
with James Spader for NBC. There is
a hot hand to this project and there is some really big talent onboard.
I can’t say who is coming on, but we are talking to some very “A” list
talent.
It (the film) definitely has the capability to be a
Hitchockian (Alfred Hitchcock) type of a movie and it was one of those things
where I knew it was a great opportunity to tell this type of story, because it
hasn’t been told before. There are some other stories out there that are
different. I wanted to make our story relevant. Other stories talk about how
they went to the bank and they were after Richard Nixon’s milk money. The FBI
told me that is a fallacy and they will not be a part of that story. I said well
let me get you saying that and what isn’t true about it. That is a big thing.
There are aspects of the movie ($upertheif)
that are third party and to get Phil Christopher to talk about it is a dream
come true, because it is not an Orange County reporter and it is not a
journalist. It is actually the criminal who was tried for this crime and paid
his time in jail. To hear him speak about it was like getting inside the mind of
a criminal to see how he would successfully pull off this caper.
I found out about (Phil
Christopher) when I was making the film
Kill The Irishman and it was interesting to me to hear that the biggest bank
burglary in U.S. history took place in California, but all four of the criminals
who pulled it off were from the Cleveland Youngstown area of Ohio. (I thought)
there is a story right there. Let’s go try to dig it up and see what happens.
The book that Rick Porrello wrote was very factual, but I knew there was way
more to the story that had to be uncovered. It is very rare that you get to
speak to the subject matter himself.
When most people do documentaries, the parties are deceased. It gelled in
2009 and it was like striking gold. I was able to talk to Phil Christopher
exclusively about how he pulled this off. Where did his training come from and
what made him tick? What motivated him? I learned a lot. He wasn’t involved in
the Danny Greene stuff, but he was very close to it. His associates were very
close to the Danny Greene stuff. It was right there in the same time period. It
was a fascinating time in Cleveland. There was a lot of history that was being
made at that time.
The documentary interviews
several key law enforcement officers, prosecutors and others close to the crime,
investigation and trial, including Phil Christopher. During his interviews
Christopher almost appears philosophical about his life of crime and at one
point even suggests that really the only people who got hurt were the insurance
companies.
Tommy Reid talks about
Phil Christopher, “There is no question, he was a very likeable guy and even the
cops had a little bit of respect for him, because he was a nonviolent bank
burglar. He never carried a gun and he never did any of that. He just went
against the odds when he did his crimes. He was a very good looking, fun guy to
be around. He had a lot of women and a lot of people wanted to be his friend. He
was very social and he is someone that you could go and have a drink with. He is
actually a really nice guy.”
Phil Christopher was
already familiar with Tommy Reid’s work and Reid says that he was a big fan of
the movie Kill The Irishman.
Christopher liked Reid’s film adaptation of Rick Porrello’s book about Danny
Greene.
“(Phil Christopher) was
onboard from day one and gave me access to everything that I ever wanted to ask
him about and even subject matter that was difficult for him to answer. He was
very, very cooperative with me. You have to understand, he already had paid his
dues and he had spent thirty-seven years in jail,” says Reid.
Tommy Reid wants to make it quite clear that it is not
his intention to glorify the crimes or the criminals.
“When I went and talked to the FBI that is one of the
things that they wanted to make sure I was not doing and that I was not going to
glorify them (the criminals) whatsoever.
You have to understand that the whole message at the end of the movie is
that crime doesn’t pay. To me that was a very big thing and I wanted to get that
point across that crime doesn’t pay. If you are going to do something, you are
going to eventually get caught, period,” he says, pointing out that in an
interview Phil Christopher acknowledges that as well.
As for his interest in
crime stories, Tommy Reid says, “I am from Northern New Jersey and it is heavily
Irish and Italian descent, which is what my heritage is. I am a big fan of the
mafia genre from Goodfellas,
Casino and
The Godfather trilogy. I really enjoy
those kinds of movies, Miller’s Crossing,
and making movies that resonated with me. To me this was a good opportunity to
tell a story that combines both nationalities (Irish and Italian).
He put a thorn in the mafia’s outlook of
how to succeed and getting the criminal enterprise to the next level. Danny
Greene took it upon himself to stop it and to not allow that to happen. It was a
fascinating story about his resilience and what he did to take down the mafia.”
As for the film Kill The Irishman,
“That was my first property that I optioned and adapted to making into a feature
film in 1998 and it took me thirteen years to make that into a reality. I had
many producers and directors who came onboard for that project, but never enough
to put the puzzle together and to trigger financing of that movie. Back in 2009
we started going into production on it and in 2011 it got released. It was a big
theatrical movie that had an amazing cast and crew. We also did a documentary
off of the subject matter that was bonus material on the DVD,
Danny Greene The Rise and Fall of the
Irishman.”
One wonders what it would
be like doing the research for a film like this and meeting with some of the
individuals. 
“That’s a really good
question. A lot of people ask me were you afraid? Were you skeptical? I was
looking at it from a filmmaker’s point of view that this story is going to be
considered an urban legend. It is like the game
Six Degrees of Separation From Kevin
Bacon, but in Cleveland it is Six
Degrees of Separation from Danny Greene. Everybody has someone that actually
knew him or a cousin that watched his dog or someone who brought him groceries.
It is truly remarkable how a city that has over one million people really has
this connection to the Danny Green story whether you were on his side or on the
Italian side or whatever it was. When I was actually meeting a lot of these
individuals I wasn’t looking at it like I was putting my life in harm’s way. I
truly wanted to hear what they had to say about Danny and to hear some of the
stories come to life firsthand rather than hearing it second person.
It was truly great to (talk to) his wife and his daughter and a guy who
tried to kill Danny, Tony Hughes, a hit man. Some of the cops talked about Danny
Greene, like Ed Kovacic. It was
almost like a dream come true, because you actually felt like you knew Danny
without knowing him,” says Tommy Reid.
During the first quarter
of 2014 Tommy Reid will be releasing direct to DVD the film
I Know That Voice, a film that made
its debut at Comic-Con in San Diego in July (2013), before more than 3,000 fans
who reportedly loved the film.
“It was standing room only. This movie is not even out
yet and we already have over 3,000 pre-orders of the DVD.
We have over 7,000 Facebook fans and we have over a million views of our
trailers on Youtube. It is a documentary that puts a voice to the faces that we
all know and love. We cover cartoons and animation, video games and Anime,
history of voiceover and how it came from Mel Blanc to today’s creators. We
covered over 150 of the top voiceover artists in the industry and it is truly a
remarkable film. We are now seeking our distribution partner and we should
hopefully have (the DVD) out to our fans in the first quarter of 2014. It was my
partner John DiMaggio’s idea and he financed the film. It truly is a great
movie,” he says.
Tommy Reid took an unexpected route to the film
industry. He studied finance and economics at university in London and then
graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in Economics, with an eye to
trading on the New York Futures Exchange. He decided that career was “a little
too stressful for my blood.” He then
attended film school in New York City.
“I
knew if I wanted to get into the industry I would have to have some sort of film
knowledge, so I went into an intensive directors program and I started making
movies the first day. They put us into groups of four people and my group had
David Faustino who was Bud Bundy on
Married With Children. He became a very good friend of mine. He told me that
I really needed to pay my dues in Los Angeles and that New York was not the
place for me to make a name for myself, so I went to Los Angeles and I began
paying my dues at a very prominent talent and literary agency. I learned the
business, before I left to start my own production company, Dundee
Entertainment. I named the company after my grandfather who passed away and I
never got a chance to say goodbye to him. (The
company was founded in 1998) It was founded to make commercial films on cost
conscious budgets.
The first feature film that I directed was a film called
Strike (released
on DVD in America 2009) and it was formerly known as
7-10 Split (when
released in Europe in 2007). It is a bowling comedy about a failing actor
who couldn’t make it in Hollywood, so he just decided to take his personality
and shtick into the PBA (Professional
Bowlers Association) bowling world, which is notoriously boring. He lit it
up by making crazy costumes and changing his whole persona, creating a character
where he wound up becoming the number one figure on the PBA tour. He lost his
girlfriend and his best friend through his fame and success. That kind of led
him back to what is important. That was my first college comedy movie. It was a
fun movie and it was about a one million dollar project. It went straight to
DVD,” he says, also noting that his sister, actress Tara Reid starred in the
film.
Strike
was followed by another film, Screwball:
The Ted Whitfield Story, another movie aimed at the college crowd.
Looking ahead 2014 looks to be an exciting year for Tommy Reid, with the
imminent release of I Know That Voice
and as he continues to lay the foundation for a feature film, about Phil
Christopher and the largest bank burglary in American history.
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