TALES of 40 YEARS #27 – NEXT STOP GREENWICH VILLAGE

Back in the ’70s OLD CARS WEEKLY had an advertiser who ran a service that could get your old car signed up for movies. I lived in New York at the time and I paid $25 for this fellow to act as my agent. In 1976, my Spruce Green Metallic 1953 Pontiac sedan was used in the movie “Next Stop Greenwich Village.” We were paid $25 or $50 a day to bring our cars to the shooting site and drive them if necessary. I think we went three or four days. My car is briefly seen at the very opening of the movie when it is parked on the street and a machine is making fake rain over it. In a later scene the movie characters are inside a coffee shop and my car drives by. If you look close, my arm is in that scene. We actually had to shoot it about 20 times, since St. Vincents Hospital was nearby. It seemed like everytime they started the cameras rolling, an ambulance was sent out. My car was running out of gas, but they told me to just keep driving it and they would get me gas later. The final take was successful and, as you might expect, my car ran out of gas. So they gave me a gas can and told me there was a gas station down the street. It was 10 or 15 blocks away and I wasn’t very happy by the time I got back. But it was still fun to be involved in making a movie.