TWO FAMILY HOUSE
Every once in awhile a movie comes along that packs an emotional wallop that seems to come out of nowhere. Usually the picture starts with a reminder of the past that makes you think of a more innocent time when family and friends had a way of doing things that was accepted at face value. Then you realize that the times were not all that innocent. What were once thought of as quirks of personality are recognized as character flaws. The value system you grew up in no longer has the answers to all your questions and it’s time to move on and find them elsewhere. You may be ostracized by members of your family, or fall out of favor with childhood friends. Still, you make new friends along the way who are looking for the same answers to the same questions. If you’re lucky, you’ll fall in love with someone who appreciates your special gifts and who will love you back for who you are and not what others may have wanted you to be. If you are like Buddy Visalo, you might find the answers to all your unanswered questions and more in "Two Family House" at a place called Buddy’s Tavern.
Set in Staten Island in the mid fifties, "Two Family House" is an urban folktale told by a mysterious narrator whose identity provides one of the movie’s big surprises and instigates its heartiest laughs. Buddy Visalo ‘could’a been a contender,’ not as a boxer but as a crooner. Arthur Godfrey, the real life king of radio, hears Buddy sing at an Army show and offers him an audition when he gets out of the service. Once out, Buddy’s wife Estelle keeps him on a leash, never letting him stray too far from home, which just happens to be her mother’s house. Buddy misses his big opportunity and soon enough, a new singing star, Julius LaRosa, is heard coming across the airwaves from The Arthur Godfrey Show into everyone’s living room. Buddy has regret but his enthusiasm for life never wanes. He yearns to be his own boss and goes from one failed business venture to the next. In a moment of inspiration, he hits upon the idea for Buddy’s Tavern - a place where he can sing to his heart’s content. He buys a dilapidated two family house hoping to live on the second floor above his business on the first. He has two problems - his intransigent wife - and the ‘shanty Irish’ tenants, Jim and Mary O’Neary, played to the hilt by Kevin Conway and Kelly McDonald. He’s an alchy and she’s his victim of a wife - and pregnant. Buddy swears he’ll get rid of them but he thinks with his heart and not with his head. He can’t kick them out. The baby comes, the husband runs out and Buddy takes it upon himself to help the destitute Mary - unbeknownst to his friends - and his wife. What develops is an honorable understanding of each other’s needs based on the moral concerns of their consciences. She is an enigma - wise to the ways of the world, yet possessing an innocent optimism that sees her through any difficulty. It’s something Buddy can relate to. Meanwhile Buddy works to fulfill his dream - day and night - night and day toiling in a machine shop. His wife thwarts him at every turn and the inevitable happens, but the inevitable isn’t quite what Buddy expected from his life. .
The strength of "Two Family House" lay in Buddy’s attempts to grapple with the trappings of his working class culture. His friends and family cling to its clannish ways to preserve their identity, but Buddy’s view of the world is not rooted in the neighborhood. It is molded by his hopes and aspirations for a better future. He longs to move up in the world while his peers are satisfied with the status quo. They are fundamentally good people who look after their own, but are suspicious of outsiders and anyone who sides with them, even Buddy. His struggle for personal independence puts him on the pathway to a higher plane of consciousness that recognizes people for the goodness in their hearts regardless of race or creed. He doesn’t know where his journey will lead him, but he hopes it will end up at a place where he can sing his heart out to the woman he loves. A place like Buddy’s Tavern.
"Two Family House" is based on some family folklore about one of writer/director Raymond De Felitta’s favorite uncles who lived a life of eternal optimism and utter failure. De Felitta has chosen a cast of familiar faces who have appeared in dozens of TV shows, a few of whom had recurring roles in "The Sopranos." The lack of a big name in the cast works in the film’s favor. There are no preconceived notions that come with a star’s baggage. De Fellitta’s creations, although based on established stereotypes have enough innovative idiosyncrasies to make them unique in their own peculiar way. Michael Rispoli brings a quiet dignity and stoicism to Buddy Visalo, turning him into a comical Job. He doesn’t quite know how to appease his wife. He persists in holding onto her, along with his dreams. Kathrine Narducci is the shrewish wife, Estelle, who firmly believes Buddy’s going through one phase after another until those phases add up to years. Her idea of happiness is to protect him against failure, but Estelle will never understand that she is real disappointment in his life. You may feel sorry for Buddy, but Narducci makes you pity Estelle in a heartbreaking scene in a diner where all her friends have come to watch her appease Buddy for the first time in her life. It’s a remarkable scene that not only elevates the entire movie to a new level of understanding that changes Buddy’s perception of everyone in his life, but one that also announces that there is a new master story teller in our midst.
Some other movies about dreamers
"29th Street" (1991) - Another New York with Anthony LaPaglia as a guy who believes he’s destined to win New York State’s first state Lottery. He has a reputation among his family and friends as the luckiest man alive because his life has been made up of strange coincidences that have paid off in equally strange ways, one of which saved his life after just escaping death. A great whimsical story based on fact. With Danny Aiello as the father who doesn’t want his son to tempt fate.
"Tucker: The Man and His Dreams" (1988) - Dir. Francis Ford Coppolla: True story about Preston Tucker whose car of the future poses a threat to the three big car makers of the forties. Jeff Bridges has the title role with some great cameos by his father, Lloyd Brigdges as a compromised senator, and Dean Stockwell as Howard Hughes. Also starring Martin Landau Joan Allen, and Frederic Forrest.
"Field of Dreams" (1989) - Kevin Costner is the guy who hears voices telling him to build a baseball field in the middle of nowhere in the hope of bringing back the spirit of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a victim of the Boston Red Sox Scandal of 1919. I didn’t believe it when I heard the plot either but it works as a metaphor for holding on to our hallowed traditions and all things good in the world.