Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1014407
22 CINEMONTAGE / Q3 2018 novel and wanted to direct it. In Infiltrating Hollywood, his widow recalled him insisting, "I've got to make this movie." Neither Dixon nor Greenlee wished to compromise the story to get studio backing, and they formed a partnership called Bokari, Ltd. Over the next three years, they raised $850,000, mostly from black investors, while Dixon built a resume directing TV and a black detective feature, Trouble Man (1972). Assisted by attorney Thomas Neusom, Greenlee's University of Chicago graduate school classmate, Greenlee and Dixon's fundraising continued through Spook's post- production. Chicago-based actor and casting director Pemon Rami, who also worked on Cooley High and The Blues Brothers (1980), explained to CineMontage, "The book created a community of support for its expression of what all blacks have experienced in American society." This was also true for crew and cast. Early in her career, the 2017 recipient of the Set Decorators Society of America's Lifetime Achievement Award, Cheryal Kearney (Poltergeist, 1982; Coming to America, 1988), brought African artwork to Spook's apartment sets. She told CineMontage, "When I read the script, I saw how important that was… and that the producers were trying to get as many blacks on the crew possible." Spook's camera operator Joe Wilcots, the first African- American camera operator in Local 600, later became a DP on Roots (1977) and Roots: The Next Generation (1979). The film's complex portrayal of the divisions within African-American society itself motivated the actors. J.A. Preston (Body Heat, 1981; A Few Good Men, 1992), who played the cop working within the established system, noted for this article, "All of us had read the book and we didn't expect that it would be a movie… Everybody was doing it at minimum wage." Rami added that many in the cast brought their own clothes for wardrobe throughout the shoot. Despite a lack of location permits, production began in Chicago, shooting on and off with a skeleton crew and handheld camera equipment over two weeks in October 1972. In an interview appearing on the movie's 2004 DVD, Greenlee admitted, "All the scenes in Chicago were…shot guerilla-style...like the shots from the 'El' platform at 63rd and Planters Row in the neighborhood where I still live. We just paid and went through the turnstile." In contrast, the city of Gary, Indiana opened its arms to the entire company for three weeks in November. Richard Hatcher, the first African-American mayor of the city, had read the book and put everything at Dixon's disposal: A two-block section of a neighborhood resembling Chicago's South Side, the fire department and the police department, including its helicopter. All of this would be especially crucial for the movie's riot scene, which provided temporary employment as extras for up to 500 residents. Prefiguring recent events in US cities, the final third of Spook begins with Shorty (Rami), an unarmed junkie, being shot and killed running from the police. A neighborhood protest explodes into violence when police bring dogs to the scene. Deploying handheld cameras over a day and a half, DP Michel Hugo, ASC (who also shot Trouble Man), captured more realism than expected. As Preston described it, "Some of the extras got carried away with the action; they even turned over a police car and set fire to it. That wasn't scripted." Filming was completed over two weeks early in December in Los Angeles, where the footage was already being edited by future three-time Oscar winner Michael Kahn, THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20 CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 The Spook Who Sat by the Door. United Artists/Photofest