29th Street

29th Street

I find the news coverage about lottery winners to be one of my favorite things on television. Here they are, sitting in their living rooms, holding the winning ticket and expounding on what their plans are. Their faces are transformed by a microphone and out come words like benevolent investors, financiers, and good deeds such as buying one’s mother a house or paying off one’s in law’s pickup truck.

Those narratives have always seemed to me as being more complex than they seem to be and George Gallo’s “29th Street” shares this thought too. This is the story of Frank Pesce Jr., who was born lucky only to be tormented by it through all his life right until when he won the New York State Lottery of 1976 which was just about the worst thing that could ever happen to him. Why would that be terrible? I can’t say without giving away too much but trust me when I tell you this. As a famous line from “Raging Bull” goes if he loses he wins; if he wins he loses.

Frank Jr., played by Anthony LaPaglia is an incompetent character while Danny Aiello acts as his father whose fortune is as bad as his son’s is positive in the film. The family resides together in a small row house, maintained somehow inside riotous good will by Mrs. Pesce (Kazan Lainie) who sings operatic arias at the kitchen while men sit next door looking at her with sheer love and amazement. Frank Sr.’s dream has been to move his family into Queens and his great passion lies with maintaining a perfect lawn (he chases cats because he believes that their body heat puts holes in grass).

These characters are based on real people (the real Frank Jr., for example, plays Vito, his own older brother) but largely are Italian Americans’ characters throughout “29th Street”.

They have a distant connection with characters in the “GoodFellas”, “Married to the Mob”, “True Love” and “Spike of Bensonhurst,” while Aiello as head of the family can provide them all with warmth and passion.

The story’s biggest problem is the good luck of his son. Even Frank Jr.’s bad luck is good luck too, because when he got stabbed by a girl during a fight; surgeons then discovered that she had a tumor in its earliest stages which they took off. Without being stabbed who knows what disease might have been caused by that tumor? In an amusing episode, he tries repeatedly to lose his car so that he may report it stolen but each time it keeps being located and given back to him.

After this, he enters into his first New York State Lottery. And naturally, he is one of the finalists for the main prize. By now however, he no longer has the ticket because mobsters are dealing with his father at that point in time. That made winning even more significant.

I have a tiny problem with what happens next. It’s so neat and tidy at the end of the movie that I didn’t really even believe it, especially after it had already presented me with two different explanations of what was going on. The ending is so improbable that I suspect it might be the truth, word for word and such an incident did in fact take place just like this to Frank Pesce Jr., himself. This is beyond any screenwriter’s imagination.

Still, Anthony LaPaglia makes a fairly good fist of it and he does a convincing job. If you saw Alan Alda’s 1990 little seen motion picture “Betsy’s Wedding,” then you’ll remember LaPaglia as an Italian who falls desperately in love with Ally Sheedy while working as an undercover cop. Once again, he proves himself as an accomplished comedian. Nevertheless, “29th Street” despite its conclusion is full of life and humor with larger than life Aiello, uninhibited Kazan and crazy La Paglia having lots of fun with their roles.

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