Re: packards in tv and movies

Posted by Peter Hartmann On 2008/10/25 13:36:22

Hi Clipper:

I stopped doing movie jobs in the late 80's. Too boring. And my employer at that time started to get "uppity" about me taking time off.

List of jobs was of course part of my tax reports, but I only keep records going back 7 years.

Best I can do to re-construct - would be..let's see. The Andy Griffth job was for a TV series called "SALVAGE" We did the "pilot" for that with my Twelve - series only lasted a season. Griffth played a junk yard dealer who was building a rocket to the moon - my car was supposedly his in that show. Had lots of final screen time in that one.

I saw a movie the other day that I was involved in; came in on the middle - involved two colored guys in what was supposed to be New York. Ah..just rememberd. HARLEM NIGHTS. That was mostly shot in the old industrial section of down-town Los Angeles. Only Packard that got really good screen time in the final cut was a late 30's "120" with a town-car body, owned by a now dead friend of mine.

Did a couple of major features in which Alec Baldwin was one of the stars - got the "front clip" of my Twelve in that for about three seconds, literally! Wish I could have had the 'out-takes' on that - shot some great scenes of me tearing up deserted highways north of Los Angeles - think I got two weeks work out of that one.

Ah..I remember, a Henry Fonda movie called THE MARETH LINE (not sure of the spelling ) - the plot involved some military officers who were friends, from all the combatants - movie takes them from the thirites, thru World War II, to post-war. Lots of great shots of my car & high speed driving in that - saw it on late night TV many years ago - as usual, my shots cut to hell - you only see flashes of my car in some background scenes, and you have to be quick to see em. Some of my scenes were shot on some side-streets in Beverly Hills. Damn - wish I had the out-takes on those high-speed cornering scenes. I remember that Henry Fonda was a damn good sport about being bounced around in the back seat on some of those goofy high speed curve scenes, and was VERY cooperative when I told him, on those scenes involving him getting out and closing my back door, not to slam it.

BOTTM LINE - Movie jobs are fun for a while, but it gets "old" when you have a "call" for 5 am and they dont get to you before, say 4:00 pm, then they start screaming the light is going bad, and you guessed it..another 5:00 or 6:00 am "call". Then you run around telling all your buddies to see this or that movie and the great scene you had in it..only to find all those expensive "location" shots were cut out.

HARMLEM NIGHTS - yeah, that's the one where they called Red Foxx back into the studio to shoot a one minute scene where he EXPLAINS how they had all these expensive cars to pick up "the girls" (prostitutes) from the jail after they arranged bail. That scene with Red Foxx EXPLAINING what happened, was how they got "continuity" without including that fantastic scene that was SHOT, that he DESCRIBES, but wound up on the cuttin-room floor.

Damn..really wanted to see that scene - the "prostitute" assigned to my car was a particularly pretty college girl, whose "part" was to walk from the "jail" (actually an old warehouse in down-town Los Angeles's old industrial district) to my car. WOW ! All she was wearing was a way-too-short (did I say SHORT) baby-doll mini-dress, that had practically no top. And BE ASSURED that was ALL she was wearing, and all she had on underneath that...was her high heeled shoes !

Not sure how many commercials for various products I did over the years; recall a beer commercial with a real cute girl who sat on my front fender (no, they didnt give me any beer).

Yeah, that Packard in the EMPIRE OF THE SUN wasnt mine. Have no clue what that was.