Movie Will Focus on Stephen Crane’s Life in Asbury Park
By TOM CARDINALE
Susan Pellegrini has been making films for 15 years, typically projects for corporations and non-profit organizations, but also short films.
She’s even written her own screenplays. So, when she met Asbury Park resident Frank D’Alessandro, owner of the Stephen Crane House, and heard the history behind the Asbury Park landmark, she felt compelled to immortalize it on film.
“Five years ago I spoke to Frank about the story of the house and his story and Crane’s story and at that moment I knew it was a story that needed to be told,” says Pellegrini.
She began plans for the film four years ago but, as she said, it was “just in the background.”
Recently, however, she decided to make the Crane House project her priority, even going so far as to move to Asbury Park.
The movie, which Pellegrini describes as a “love letter to Asbury Park,” is titled “Greetings from Stephen Crane: The Asbury Tales” and will center on not only Crane’s life and career in Asbury Park but also the way in which he still influences the city today.
“It’s really about Crane and his spirit and how his spirit is still alive in the people that are drawn to the town,” says Pellegrini, “He was here at the beginning of Asbury Park and some books have even compared him to Bruce Springsteen. Crane was the Springsteen of his day. His spirit is here in the revitalization of the city.”
The movie will also feature short film adaptations of two of Crane’s stories, “The Pace of Youth” and “The Reluctant Voyagers.”
Crane, the author of “The Red Badge of Courage” and numerous other works, was born in Newark but attended the Asbury Park public school system. Later in life he worked as journalist for a New York newspaper, filing his stories from the home on Fourth Avenue. He left Asbury Park in 1892 to pursue his writing career and published “The Red Badge of Courage” one year later.
The film, which is currently in pre-production, has a budget of $250,000. Pellegrini says she is still seeking potential investors but has a few already on board, including Bruce Springsteen, who, she says, made a “very generous donation” to the budget. Pellegrini is hosting an invitation only launch party she has dubbed the “Red Event” for potential investors on Oct. 20 at the Howard Johnson Pavilion at Fifth Avenue on the boardwalk.
Filming for the documentary, which will be filmed entirely locally and using local merchants, has a tentative start date of early November and Pellegrini hopes to have the project finished by June.
More information on the film, as well as investment opportunities, can be obtained by contacting either Susan Pellegrini at (732)895-1705 or Michael Heath at (732)299-6930 or by emailing them at scranedoc@optonline.com.
Contact Tom Cardinale at tom@thecoaster.net.
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