FALL RIVER -- The making of the 1964 film Below the Hill itself almost sounds like the plot of a movie: a small group of dreamers led by a passionate, determined director strive to create something remarkable.
The movie was shot in Fall River over a period of just three weeks and then shoehorned into director Angus Bailey's vacation time from his day job as a writer for The Herald News of Fall River.
Its $40,000 budget -- modest for a movie in the early 1960s -- came mostly in $100 increments from local donors who bought stocks sold by the film's producer. All but one member of the cast came from The Little Theatre of Fall River, a community acting troupe from which LT Film, the film's production company, drew its initials.
The movie's title is pulled from the context of Fall River's topography and its past as a city dominated by textile mills. The city's wealthy lived at the top of the hill, while the poor lived at the bottom, near the mills in which they worked.
But even though the plot follows laid-off mill worker Fred Beauchemin (played by Ray Bernier, then a middle-school teacher) as he struggles with life after his wife becomes the primary breadwinner, the city's name is never mentioned in the picture.
There's even a mystery element to the story behind Below the Hill. After it played for four weeks at local theaters in 1964, the movie disappeared from the public eye.
The one complete copy that survived spent years in the trunk of Bailey's car, unavailable for large-scale viewing -- until tonight.
At 8 p.m., Below the Hill will have its second big premier in Fall River, 40 years after its first. The Fall River Historical Society will present a sold-out screening of the restored and remastered film for an audience of 700 at the Margaret L. Jackson Arts Center Auditorium at Bristol Community College.
The screening is a fundraiser for the Historical Society. The Fall River 5 Cents Savings Bank is underwriting the event.
If the history of Below the Hill were a documentary, the Historical Society would be the filmmaker. Assistant Curator Dennis Binette has stacks of newspaper clippings about the movie in his office.
He can tell you about how the movie made its debut as an unofficial entry in a 1963 Italian film festival, or how it was seen as controversial by American audiences, because it showed a married couple sharing a bed.
"People who saw it when it premiered were also watching Rob and Laura Petrie going to bed in separate beds in their pajamas," Binette said. "In this movie, the husband went to bed in his underwear." The movie's depiction of an extramarital affair between Beauchemin and downstairs neighbor Marlene also made viewers uncomfortable, he said.
Binette can tell you about the Historical Society's attempts to piece together scraps of the film. These efforts ended, however, when Bailey's nephew, Paul Burke, convinced him to donate his complete copy to the society just before the director's death in 1999.
A financial gift from an anonymous donor allowed the Historical Society to pay for the film's restoration and transition onto a digital, high-definition cassette, Binette said.
He said Fall River residents have been calling the Historical Society for years asking about Below the Hill, and they won't be disappointed by the film quality at tonight's screening.
Binette said Below the Hill will be available on videocassette at the screening, and at the Historical Society after that. The society was unable to book the BCC theater for a second showing, he said, although the movie may get another screening there next spring.
Many of the film's creators will be on hand for the event, including local businessman Leo Strickman, its producer, and assistant director Sumner MacDonald, who now owns a jewelry manufacturing company in Bristol. Supporting actors Lita Anderson Burke and Roger Sorel are flying in from Florida and Georgia, respectively, for the screening.
Lead actor Bernier died in 1986. Susan Mannion, who played Fred Beauchamin's wife, Claire, has also died in the years since the film was made.
MacDonald said he's looking forward to seeing the movie again, but can't believe it's been so long since he helped make it.
"It's nice to know that people want to see it," he said, "But it's also sort of horrifying to know that we did it 40 years ago." He added that last night, the screening afforded him the opportunity to have dinner with Sorel for the first time since 1964.
MacDonald describes Bailey, who died June 15, 1999, as a man with a great love for movies. He and Bailey would watch at least one movie per week, he said, and they developed a taste for quality cinema. Their love for the medium, he said, made them "bound and determined to make films."
In fact, he said, they had a vision in mind before Bailey even began to write the script -- they wanted a low-budget movie, full of true-to-life gritty realism. They were inspired by the movies coming out of Europe, especially Italy, at the time.
But it took all of their passion to plow through the truncated shooting schedule, said MacDonald, who was then a freelance jewelry maker. "It was the vacation from hell. Neither one of us had any direct experience with filmmaking," he said.
Despite the difficulty of making Below the Hill, MacDonald said, the two went on to make another movie. They found filmmaking too difficult to continue after that. He said he and Bailey stayed interested in movies, though, and talked almost every day on the phone for the next 30 years.
MacDonald said he doesn't often watch movies today. They're marketed too heavily and it's hard to pick out the good ones. But the screening of Below the Hill, he said, will be a nostalgic trip to a time when movies were a burning passion that he shared with Bailey.
"Angus was my best friend," he said. "Since he died, I haven't had anyone to talk to about movies. This will be a nice chance to remember making the film with him."
To contact Rob Margetta, phone 508-674-8401 or e-mail rmargett(at)projo.com.
