52 Ancestors Week 16: Should Be a Movie

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 16 is "Should Be a Movie." What is family history without the stories? (It's a bunch of cold, lonely facts, that's what!) What story in your family should be up on the silver screen? Write about it this week!

Reusing a classic banner? Talk about fan service!

    If there's one 52 Ancestors prompt I really like to write about, it's the occassional one titled "Should Be a Movie". The last blog where I talked about a person whose life should be a major motion picture was in a blog post I made in September of 2020 focusing primarily on the life and times of my 3rd great-grandfather, Jeremiah Smart Felker. If you read the blog, you'll see why his life really should have been a summer blockbuster. The drama alone would be enough to net an Oscar. This time around, I think I'll go in a different direction. However, the setting would ultimately be the same. Where else am I going to go? Oh, right. Newburyport. Next time.

    Set at the backdrop of the height of the Italian immigration to Haverhill, Massachusetts, the next movie I could create would focus primarily on the Italian immigrants who came to the city in order to escape poverty in their homeland. The movie would be called "Italians in Haverhill" and I do hope that I could use the title because I honestly can't think of a better one off the top of my head.  I don't think Scorsese would appreciate me calling it "Gangs of Haverhill" since it sounds a lot like his  "Gangs of New York" epic.

  Speaking of gangs,  I also want to make that movie less of a Mafia movie because when Hollywood makes a film based on an Italian family we get a TON of Mafia references. There are some exceptions like "My Cousin Vinny", though.  Don't get me wrong. Mafia movies are cool and all. But, let's be honest. It's a cliché considering how many of them there are out there these days. We've got "Goodfellas", "My Blue Heaven" and of course the "Godfather" saga to name a few. All three are classic movies. However, they kind of focus on one aspect of the whole Italian-American experience. You get a window into what life is like and you rarely get the whole picture.

     Now, granted sometimes those things have happened. People fall in with the wrong crowd and the next thing you know you're storing rope for this guy who knew your grandfather's dog in your basement. No, that didn't happen to me! Do you honestly think I'd admit to any Mafia ties on the Internet?! Besides....it wouldn't be the dog. It'd be my second cousin "Fredo". (I don't even have a second cousin named "Fredo".)

    Basing a movie on the book might be a bit of a challenge. Hundreds and hundreds of families are discussed within those pages and any one of those tales could make for a good movie. To remedy the problem of who to pick for such a tale, I suggest an "Italians in Haverhill" movie be based on some of the people who lived in Haverhill, had Italian roots and yet were not featured in the book.

I just really love this picture of
Marco and Ollie.
Dunno why

    Enter my grandparents: Marco Ferraiolo and Olympia Carrabs. I may be a bit biased, I admit. There's really no better couple to be the audience's eyes and ears to the goings on in Haverhill during this time of mass immigration. They were very young in the 1920s and yet they witnessed first hand what their parents had to deal with to get by in a strange land. From Marco's perspective, we'd get the old tried and true "stranger in a strange land trying to make it work" trope. From Olympia, we'd get to see the daughter of two immigrants caught between two cultures because even though she was born in Haverhill, she still had deep Italian roots and likely had to deal with her own problems.

    I will admit that this method is a little biased like I said. You have to understand a few things about my family. I'm connected to over fifty people IN those pages and possibly even more! My grandparents knew everyone in the Italian community in Haverhill. Everyone knew everyone and everyone was in each other's business. My father explained it like this.  He couldn't go five feet without someone saying to his parents that someone saw him walking with his cousins on Washington street one hot summer day to the drug store and that they were clearly up to something. The parents knew and they had their ways of finding out everything! There was no escaping it!

    The people in the know would ultimately be the people who were in the book like Marco's great-aunt, Concetta Coppola and Olympia's great-uncle Giovanni Antonio Penta. I can see Marco and Ollie going to them for advice and possibly an anecdote or two. The two would have their own storyline. The way I see it this movie could also be a romanticized version of how my grandparents actually met since I have no idea how it happened!

    The more I think about it, the more that plot would make sense because I'd need to have both families meet somehow! I can't just have two families milling about and not have them meet during a two a half hour tour de force. It'd make for a very disjointed movie with no plot. I'd absolutely have to have Marco and Ollie meet in the movie and have it end with their wedding in 1946!

    Where would I start the movie, though? Why not have it start when Marco arrived in 1929 and then spend parts of the movie in the 1930s. It was the height of the Great Depression and I could cover major familial events such as Marco's mother's funeral and even the wedding anniversary party where this picture to the right was taken.

    For an Italians in Haverhill movie to work and keep up the pace, we'd have to adapt some aspects of the stories in the book and use some of the stories in my family in order for things to make sense. We'd explore the trials and tribulations of what it was like in those days and ultimately end with a wedding. Would there be drama? Oh, you bet! You need to keep people invested in a period piece!

   

Vincenzo and Fortuna

    I think I can manage to have a lot of drama in the movie without there being any Mafia references. Marco's father, Vincenzo married his second wife Fortuna a little over a year after his mother died. The second world war would have to be mentioned near the end as well. There's a lot to focus on and a lot of material to work with.

    Of course I always could just set the movie from 1943 to 1946 when Marco and Ollie were in their twenties and had to deal with everything life threw at them. Ollie would have been out of high school and she'd trying to find her place in the world. Marco would have been drafted and a lot of what I talked about earlier would still have occured.

    The initial immigrants to Haverhill may have been older at this point. However, their arrival would still be fresh in their minds and they were still very much alive. So, if I cover everything from 1943 to 1946, I would still get the drama my grandparents were caught up in along with events discussed in the book and still have a glimpse into the Italian immigrant experience. 

   This week's blog reads like a brainstorming session, doesn't it? Well, it does help to talk out a story every now and then. I think if I focus on those three years, I would have a great movie if I touch on these points:

1. Immigration and the two interacting with family members who immigrated. Toss in some of the drama that went on as well. Maybe discuss a case Paolo Coppola worked on.

2. My grandparents meeting

3. The funerals/weddings

4. The anniversary party

5. My grandparents' own wedding.

    The icing on the cake would be referencing the Carrabs family in Melrose and Everett and the Tedescos from Woburn. They'd probably show up at the wedding!

    I think it would make for a decent movie. I'm not entirely sure who I'd cast for what role. But, they'd have to be people who could pull off a convincing Italian accent. I think a movie like this could work. Hey, Hollywood! I've got an idea for you! An Italian movie without Mafia connections! It'll work! Contact me! Have your people call my people!

See ya next time!

Editor's note: In April of 2023, I found that Giovanni Coppola was not the brother of Paolo, Caterina and Concetta Coppola. He is likely a first cousin of the three. Look for details in a future blog post.

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