Scarface memories and Sarasota redux

Big day. Gotta get some things cleaned up for work, get packed and get down to Sarasota for the closing weekend of the Sarasota Film Festival. Check back this weekend because I'll be (fingers crossed) blogging and posting photos from various events, and shots of some of the visiting celebs.

One of the last things on today's to-do list is polishing off a story running Monday that was born out of serendipity. Twenty-five years ago, a Miami amateur photographer named Bill Cooke was in the Ocean Drive neighborhood when gunfire erupted and two bloodied men faced off. One walked away alive.

Cooke kept on snapping photos.

Don't worry. It wasn't real, but a scene being filmed for the 1983 cult classic Scarface. That was Al Pacino as future drug kingpin Tony Montana still standing, after his buddy got chainsawed inside a hotel room.

Cooke kept those photos stashed away all this time. When he found them, the Times bought these previously unpublished artifacts from what many feel is the quintessential Florida movie.

Thing is, most of Scarface was filmed in California, after the production was chased from Miami by Cuban-American complaints -- and reported threats -- aimed at the movie.

I spoke with Scarface producer Martin Bregman, who said he has never talked about what happened behind the scenes in this matter. Monday, we'll run several of Cooke's photos in Floridian, along with Bregman's recollections. Here's a taste:

“The problem started when I had some Cuban expatriates, I guess, that called me and wanted to meet with me (in 1982),” Bregman said by telephone from his Manhattan offices.

“They were from Union City, N.J., right across the river," he said. "They told be that it would be very unsafe for me, my family and everybody involved in this enterprise to make this film. They said they were aware – and they used the word ‘aware’ – that (Fidel) Castro was financing this film to embarrass the good Cuban community.”

Bregman called that claim “pure, absolute stupidity.”

Those Union City emissaries also expressed displeasure with associating Cuban-Americans with drug trafficking, according to Bregman.

“They said over and over: ‘There’s no Cuban drug people. No Cubans are involved with that,’” Bregman said.   “Now, I had just gotten back from Miami with Oliver Stone and we spoke with nothing but Cubans and they were all in the drug business. Not all Cubans but the people we talked to, the big guys in the drug trade.”

It gets better. See for yourself Monday.

Comments

[jane]

Fascinating. Cannot wait to hear, as they say, the rest of the story. Both from the Sarasota Film Festival and about Scarface.