Merchant Ivory

Helen, Queen of the Nautch Girls, a 30-minute documentary film that looks at an aspect of Indian culture from a rather whimsical angle, has always been a popular Merchant Ivory film. The idea for the documentary came from Anthony Korner, an associate of Merchant Ivory's in the period, and now the publisher of Art Forum. It was directed and narrated by him, but the scenario was devised by Ivory. The subject of the film, which cost a modest $17,000 to make, is the most popular dancer in Bombay musical films -- so much so that since 1957 she had appeared in five hundred of them. In part the movie is a montage of scenes from her pictures and of the opening sequence in Bombay Talkie in which Helen dances with Shashi Kapoor on the keys of a giant red typewriter. Indian musical films that provided the background ofBombay Talkie now come to life before the bemused viewer. Stepping neatly around the puritanic codes governing Indian films that forbid direct sexual contact (even kissing), the musicals project sexuality fervently through innuendo -- in teasing situations and the sensuality of Helen's dancing. Extravagantly romantic fantasies are the stuff of this popular art form, of which Helen is clearly "queen."

In 1979, shortly after The Europeans was completed, Ivory took on an assignment outside Merchant Ivory Productions. One day at lunch he heard that Channel 13 television in New York was doing three adaptations of John Cheever stories for the "Great Performances" series, and that one of them, "The Five Forty Eight," adapted by Terrence McNally, had no director. Ivory then approached channel 13 and persuaded them to let him direct it. The Five Forty Eight, drawn from a Cheever story about the fictional New York suburb of Shady Hill, concerns an advertising man, John Blake (Laurence Luckinbill), who is emotionally estranged from his wife and those around him. His disturbed secretary, Miss Dent (Mary Beth Hurt), whom he has seduced and then fired and discarded, pursues him harrowingly, and in a final scene in which she holds him at gunpoint in a field beyond the Shady Hill railroad station, she forces him to confront the squalor of his life.

In the early 1980's Merchant first set in motion a project of which he had long dreamed, and that he was to do outside of his usual collaboration with Jhabvala and Ivory, the making of The Deceivers. The Deceiversis adapted from the John Masters novel, set in India in 1825, which depicts the exploits of William Savage (based on William Sleeman of the Indian Political Service), who disguises himself as an Indian in order to expose and destroy a secret cult whose members, the infamous Thugees, ritually murdered and robbed travelers in the name of the goddess Kali. Merchant had read the novel years before, been struck by it, and later decided to film it. The movie was slow in getting into production, however, and once into that stage presented such an array of problems as to stagger even Merchant. An entire book, Hullabaloo in Old Jeypore: The Making of "The Deceivers", was needed for Merchant to set down all that occurred.

Make the Wiseguys Weep will be Merchant Ivory’s first feature since 2009’s The City of Your Final Destination.  Based on a novel by David Evanier, and adapted for the screen by Ric Menello (The Immigrant, Two Lovers), the film traces the life and career of singer Jimmy Roselli, who is blacklisted from the music industry in the 1960’s following an altercation with Frank Sinatra.

There were two great singers from Hoboken, New Jersey: Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Roselli, whose staggering vocal range, passion and authority outstripped his world famous rival.  Despite being a beloved entertainer among Italian mobsters, and particularly their wives and mothers, Jimmy refused nonetheless to be beholden to the Mafia.  Accordingly, Jimmy was left unprotected when, ostensibly under Sinatra’s order, the music industry blackballed Roselli for three decades.   Largely guided by his own erratic integrity, the mercurial Roselli never received the worldwide fame his talent deserved, and whatever success he did achieve was owed in part to the selfless actions of those who cared for him most.  Jimmy’s aggressively supportive wife, Donna, convinces him to start his own record label, and Mafia soldier and Jimmy’s childhood friend, Matty, makes the ultimate sacrifice, all in the best interest of an unsung entertainer who by his own admission, was most happy when in the company of his hometown pals.

Make the Wiseguys Weep is a sincere tale about the influence of the Mafia in showbiz, of Italian-American culture and music heritage, and of a thrilling, unsung entertainer.