‘Deuce Coupe’ to be shown Friday
Published 9:29 pm Monday, September 10, 2012
The 20th anniversary of the 1992 film “Deuce Coupe” will be celebrated this week with a movie night at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts as part of the Paul D. Camp Community College Movie Night series.
The movie was taped locally at sets including Suffolk Raceway and Suffolk High School, now the arts center. Many local people, along with the cars they owned, had parts as extras in the film.
“The college is showing the film to celebrate the anniversary of its release and offer local people who have never seen the film an opportunity to experience the use of local sites,” said Nancy Warren, a member of the English faculty at the college. “It also provides a chance to see some of the local cars and extras that appear in the movie 20 years later.”
The college sponsors a movie night series each year, including one each of foreign, documentary, classic and pre-released flicks. “Deuce Coupe” fills the classic category, Warren said.
Set in the 1950s, the film is a love story that also pays homage to classic cars, Warren said. Two brothers in the movie love the same girl, but their interest in cars draws them back together.
“We thought it would be a fun thing that would draw a lot of interest,” Warren said. It also gave the college the opportunity to partner with the cultural arts center, which was “something we’d been wanting to do,” she said.
Local people who were in the movie are planning to take a walk down memory lane by viewing the movie again at the event, Warren said.
One of them is Bobby Cullipher, who drove a blue 1938 Chevrolet Coupe that he owned at the time in the movie.
“After work, I would go down there to the movie set, whether it be Suffolk High School or the drag strip, and we would do our thing,” he said. “They combed my hair back and put me in the driver’s seat.”
Cullipher said he got to spend time with Brian Bloom, who was one of the main stars of the film. Sometimes they would film at 1 or 2 a.m. to get night shots, he said.
“It was very enjoyable,” he said. “We saw how movies come together. Watching the movie when it was all said and done, it was interesting how things came together.”
Cullipher said the extras were paid only $50 a day but had access to one of the perks of any movie set — catered food.
“We played our parts and did our thing and went home,” he said. “You ate good, and you got your 50 bucks.”
The event will be held on Friday at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts, 110 W. Finney Ave. Tickets are $5. The box office will open for ticket sales at 6 p.m., and the theater will open at 7 p.m. The movie will begin at 7:30 p.m., followed by remarks by the movie’s director, Mark Deimel, at 9:15 p.m. The event will wrap up by 10 p.m.
For more information, call 569-6792.