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Film 'The Bread, My Sweet' rises with local flavor
Thursday, June 29, 2000 By Molly Ball, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A colorful Italian couple --let's call them Signore and Signora -- lived for 40 years in a small apartment above what is now Enrico Biscotti, a bakery in the Strip District. Everyone in the neighborhood knew and loved them. When Signora died, merchants for blocks around shut their stores on a Saturday, and the funeral procession stretched for miles.
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Scott Baio, known for his role as Chachi on TV's "Happy Days," plays the lead, a venture capitalist named Dominic who runs the family bakery. Enrico Biscotti is the setting for the fictional bakery. An old Italian couple lives upstairs from Dom and his two brothers. When the woman, Bella, gets sick, their lives are upset.
Martin's husband, Larry Lagattuta, owns the real-life bakery, an enterprise made possible largely by help from the real-life Italian couple. "They represent a specific lifestyle that has now disappeared -- you know, wine in the basement, tomatoes on the roof, and [Signora] would can tomatoes and peppers every year," Martin said.
On Tuesday, cast and crew milled around La Prima Espresso on 21st Street, another of the film's main locations. The espresso bar has long been a neighborhood gathering place; it's where Martin met Signore and Signora, who were regulars there.
"It was a community of people who had known each other for years," she says. "Now we all have dinner at each other's houses. We even vacation together."
The set quiets down as Martin calls, "Action!" Rehearsing a scene in which Dom spills the beans about Bella's illness, Baio walks into the coffeeshop and leans on the counter. Point Park College theater professor John Amplas, who plays the cafe's owner, Jimmy, says, "Hey, Dom, what's up?"
Suddenly a framed picture falls off the far wall, followed quickly by two more -- the electrical tape that was holding them to the wall gave out. The actors laugh as grips rush to the scene.
The movie's six principals come from television and Broadway, but the 25 secondary characters are all Pittsburgh locals. Martin says the film showcases her pride in the city's production and performance community, which "goes sort of unrecognized here. Pittsburgh has problems supporting indigenous artists and films," she says. "Almost all our investors are from Pittsburgh, but we got no help from any of the institutions."
"The Bread, My Sweet" is funded by private investment, though Martin wouldn't disclose how much money was raised. The movie was in the works for two years before shooting began June 1; most of that time was spent fund raising, according to producer Adrienne Wehr, who describes the film's cost as "low-budget, but not really-low-budget -- more like medium-low-budget."
Wehr says the final cut of the film should be ready by the end of September, when it will be marketed to distributors and festivals. "The rest depends on when we sell it and who we sell it to," she says. "We're striving for a theatrical release."
Wehr believes the film's poignant drama and romance make it a crowd-pleaser. Everyone who's read the script has been won over, she says. "We ended up with exactly [the actors] we wanted -- a lot of people in the acting community wanted to be in this film."
And people from outside the acting community: Fred Lehman, a salesman for Cronmiller-McCormick, plays Lorenzo in the movie. He's known Martin for 15 years. With his peppery mustache, ample belly, stained T-shirt and dingy smock, he makes a convincing Italian bakery chef.
"[Lorenzo] speaks with a thick Italian accent," Lehman says with a thick Italian accent, demonstrating his linguistic agility. "My wife's Italian -- my father-in-law's gonna love it."
Lehman says the film's tight purse strings have contributed to the camaraderie. "Nobody's doing this just for the money -- they're doing it because it's a project that's very special to everybody."
As shooting winds down, though, everybody looks forward to relief from 12- to 16-hour days in the combined heat of the sun and the lights. "Everyone's tired," says prop master Craig Hicks, who has worked on 31 films, including "Striking Distance," "Dogma" and "Inspector Gadget."
Hicks is sitting at a small round table on which rest a deck of cards, a pack of cigarettes, an ashtray and three Iron City beer bottles -- Iron City gets plenty of product placement in the movie as thanks for providing the crew with four cases of much-needed refreshment.
Hicks is chain-smoking -- or rather, "I'm doing my job. I'm filling ashtrays," to make the cafe look lived-in. Hicks likes his work but hates to watch the movies he's worked on.
"Sometimes a shoot takes six months," he says. "That's six months of memories squeezed into an hour and a half of film. I hate 'em all."
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