New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Francis Lazarro "
Frank" Rizzo first came to prominence as a tough, headline-grabbing Philadelphia cop-on-the-beat in the 1960s. His increasingly mythic persona led to a 4-year stint as crusading, law-and-order police commissioner (1967 to 1971) and then 8 years (1972 to 1980) as Philadelphia's most polarizing mayor of modern times. While many working class white citizens saw Rizzo as their protector-in-chief in a threatening urban environment, minority citizens, liberal and wealthy whites, civil libertarians, and others saw Rizzo as an authoritarian bully who, himself, created a climate of fear and repression throughout the city.
Robert Mugge's and
Heidi Trombert's 75-minute film, AMATEUR NIGHT AT CITY HALL: THE STORY OF FRANK L. RIZZO, shot throughout 1977 and released in early 1978, illustrates key events from Rizzo's colorful and controversial career and attempts to analyze both causes and effects of his actions. Although the film was released before Rizzo's controversial assault on radical group MOVE, it chronicles attacks he ordered on
Black Panthers and on young people lounging in Rittenhouse Square, his failed polygraph test, and his routinely tough talk ("I'm gonna make
Attila the Hun look like a faggot."
The film's primary theme is "politics as show business," and it includes many amateur musical performances from South Philadelphia's Triangle Tavern. Among the many interviewees are broadcast journalist
Andrea Mitchell, local politicians including future Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, and stripper
Blaze Starr who discusses her reputed affair with the self-proclaimed family man.
The film had its 2-week world premiere run at Philadelphia's Walnut Mall Cinemas during the blizzard of early 1978. In January of 1979, PBS premiered an abridged, one-hour version titled RIZZO: A DOCUMENTARY MELODRAMA. Among the film's early awards was a 1978
Silver Hugo from the
Chicago International Film Festival (the highest documentary award given that year). Transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored for the best possible viewing experience.
PRESS
"AMATEUR NIGHT is a real pro job... The filmmakers have used a simple - but dazzling - framing device to pull together all the disparate elements of Rizzo's personality: they have intercut footage of the mayor (and his opponents) with scenes from performances by amateurs at the Triangle Tavern, a well-known bar in South Philadelphia, Rizzo's political and emotional base... RIZZO neatly shows the mayor's turn on the stage, and, unlike the man himself, is a class act."
- Tom Topor, New York Post
"Opening in April at selected theaters across the country is a documentary that has Philadelphia buzzing - AMATEUR NIGHT AT CITY HALL: The Story of Frank L. Rizzo... The movie charts Rizzo's rise from a cop on the beat to mayor of the nation's fourth largest city."
- US Magazine
"The film opened without incident at the Walnut Mall Theater on the University of Pennsylvania campus last February. When it aired nationally on PBS, however, the mayor was so outraged that he nearly reneged on a deal to lease the city-owned Living History Center to WHYY (Channel 12), the public broadcasting station here, for having shown the film."
- Carol Wallace, Philadelphia Daily News
"The 75-minute color film, which is also booked into theaters in New York and Washington, D.C., is not only a very professionally put together documentary about Rizzo's career, but an attempt to relate the man and his "style" to the kind of cheap, third-rate entertainer that South Philly has been turning out for years... The movie works on two levels: as a well-researched and very professionally put together piece of film journalism, and as a tongue-in-cheek interpretation-assessment of Rizzo's career."
- Lewis Beale, Drummer (Philadelphia alternative weekly - ceased publication)
