They like walking out with a little bit of hope. And everyone was like, Ah, you cant, really. Cooper: He got me about five [recorded] voices and one in particularthis one of somebody who had done timewas just so full of character and I just loved it, and so thats what I glommed onto. In all of his years of being a criminal, he robbed two banks and seven armored cars, plus robbing Fenway Park during a baseball game. You know, the Kennedys kind of had their own weird accent. Chief Judge Frank Caprio#CaughtInProvidence#thetown#bankrobber See less Comments Most relevant Connie Ann My husband and I watched the movie right after I saw the Providence clip. Craig: I was a struggling crime writer. And they walked me over to this locked door and once you opened it, there was an old, dusty cobwebby circular staircase. It all went to the actual production of the movie. Affleck turns it into a redemption story which beats the bank alarm at under two hours. Stockard: The movie that we thought about was [Michael Manns] Heat. Rebecca Hall (Claire): I remember I had to fly to New York to meet Ben because I was based in London at the time, in the middle of this theater tour. Affleck: He played that so deftly, and made that scene work so well, when hes sort of smiling and laughing, but theres so much menace underneath it. Its like 50 percent of why people buy tickets. It was actually in the book. In my imagination, hes always been Ben Affleck. The gang torches their escape cars and their transfer vehicles. I sort of pretended that Charlestown was still the way it used to be. Ten years ago this week, Ben Affleck and his crew put on nun masks, robbed Fenway Park, and made the ultimate Boston movie. He robbed banks but let the civilians in the banks keep their money. But it still has to be divvied up among the team. FBI responds to bank robbery on NW Side. And they told us all these stories, and all these fascinating things, and built up what this mythology was. Aaron Stockard (cowriter): Ben called me up and said, I know what I want to direct next. David Fincher does an even more exaggerated version of that. Slaine: I was hanging with Gronkowski, and hes like, Dude. Hes like, The Town, is there going to be a sequel? He was like, You gotta do it, you gotta be in the sequel. I said, Dude, I died at the end.. 2 hours ago. The Town captures the locale expertly, and the atmosphere masterfully. That was the most important part, because he could so easily lapse into clich. Craig: Adrian wanted 90 shooting days and $90 [million] to do it. They went to jail because there were cracks on the pavement, leaks on the street. Another botched job referred to in the film the one for which Douggies father (Chris Cooper) was sent down for life for killing two guards was also inspired by a notorious bank heist gone wrong. This is their story. Two guards -- Lawrence Johnson, 57, and Ronald Normandeau, 52 -- were shot to death while delivering money to the bank for North East Armored Transport Inc. of Manchester, N.H. And Im like, Whoa, so he must be the director.. They really loved the idea of putting these masked avengers in minivans. The Friends of Eddie Coyle starred Robert Mitchum in the title role and Peter Boyle as a hitman who ran a bar. The blue-collar neighborhood produced more bank robbers and armored car thieves than anywhere else in the world, according to the movies prologue. Hall: I remember going to the premiere and a group of Charlestowners were there and they all said to me, You ever come back to Boston, well get you a car. So we had access to all of the underneath [of it], because thats where we shot a lot of it. He grew up in Cambridge,which was close enough to Charlestown for him to know a little about it. Well, not take notes, because you couldnt bring in a pencil. [The Town] is not just entertainment and popcorn. To observe this life. Suspects at large after $100K stolen from North Side bank: authorities. Even with the shorter length hes afforded, Affleck tells multiple stories. Theyre incarcerated. Susan Matheson (costume designer): Ben at one point wears a zip-up track jacket that looks like a Bruins jacket. To Charlestown, our one square mile of brick and Crockett: Pete had a reputation for being kind of a hardass. I came back and met with Ben, and I was so excited. I dont even think they had sidewalks. The Town is loosely based on Chuck Hogans novel Prince of Thieves. Jem would rather battle it out with the law than go back to prison. Jem spent nine years in prison for killing a local thug who was planning to kill Doug. It is because the small community adheres to omerta, silence unto death. A woman who saw it speeding past reported it to the police, who matched the report to a truck rented the day before in nearby Medford by a man already suspected of a string of robberies. After a seven-day trial, they were Stockard: Its a little weird being a piece of that, as somebody who wrote two of those movies. I said, Im so sorry to bother you Mr. Postlethwaite, but Im on the movie, sorry we dont have any scenes together, but Im so excited to be in a movie with you. I gushed for a while, and he just smiled as broad as he could, and hes like, Come on, come on, sit down, have a drink. I was like, Well, its 11 in the morning.. Hogan: I think weve played out the Irish Boston gangster thing. Hamm: I got to meet Pete Postlewaite, rest in peace, at the hotel bar. Welliver: [Renner] switches it on and I love watching him work. Agents with the FBI believe Gage Haws robbed five small town banks throughout northwest Ohio. And I was like, Why are the people who live here letting us do this? Those are the blueprints, thats the template. WebCharlestownis the oldest neighborhoodin Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. And we got in the car and kept going. I totally put that directly in the movie. Every take had the same amount of tension and edge but it was just all over the place. David Crockett (producer): They read, and not saying who she was or what she was in, she did the [Boston] accent. Whats the best way to get there?. 371K. Blake came in and read the scene and was amazing. And Ben Affleck was incredibly famous already. Hall: Youd be shooting this tiny little intimate scene, Ben and I, and Id look to my left and there were but thousands of people watching the set. And Blake spent some time with her. Because of oversaturation in the last decade, Boston movies have been rightfully skewered. WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for Lego Jail Prisoner Robber Crook Minifigure Lot of 12 w/ Accessories Town City at the best online prices at eBay! By contrast, Afflecks Doug MacRay heads a four-man gang. But not everyone was happy with the image of Charlestown given toa generation of moviegoers. Hogan: Warner Bros. didnt want to make the movie for that amount. But does it? The FBI says the vestibule was actually a "man-trap," designed to capture people like Hamilton. Shortly after 9am on August 25 1994, an armoured car pulled up outside a NFS Savings Bank in Hudson, New York. The Town was initially supposed to end with Doug paying for his sins with his life. Two armored car guards were shot to death in New Hampshire in 1994 during one of the robberies. When we started, I said, I need a driver whos Charlestown born and bred. Interestingly enough, my driver was a guy named John Fidler who was a major suspect in many bank robberies, and also bread truck robberies. They set up a date and Jeremy Renner and I both arrived at Walpole to go through the screening. They had seen Gone Baby Gone, which opened in like sixth place to $5 million or something and wasnt seen widely. Rebecca Halls character asking Douggie why the kids with whom she volunteerscall her a tunie? The team, while sporting nun costumes and masks, quickly attempts to make an escape from downtown Boston to the bridge and beat the police department to the closing. Yeah, dont do the accent. I said, Well, wait, this show takes place in Boston and this guy is from Boston. He went, Yeah, yeah, but you know, we dont do the accent. I was kind of, Well, whats the fucking point of basing this in Boston? Ive been on the force for 20 years and Im not looking for money or anything, but Im originally from Charlestown and I think I could be helpful. Shes like, Well, its really great to talk to you, we do have technical advisers and everything kind of lined up, but if you wanted to drop off a card or something like that. I said, Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Or do we want to give him a chance to live and a better life? That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. But mostly a Boston accent depends on your socioeconomic status, by and large. He has that capacity, and I think that makes him a classic American filmmaker. Jason Bourne kills the bad guys. All three men were arrested and sent to prison. For his turn as Jem, Renner was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, though he lost out to Christian Bale, who played the troubled brother of boxer Micky Ward in yet another movie set in Massachusetts: The Fighter. It went on to make $154 million (119 million) worldwide. The Town stages heists in both places. And I say, Whats that? And they say, Thats a still of someone robbing a bank. And I said, Did they rob the bank in that skeleton mask with the dreadlocks? They said, Yeah. So I became obsessed with that mask. Violence, unsolved murders . Affleck: I was very self-conscious about being limited to being the Boston guy. UPDATE: Ordered held in lieu of $50,000 bail, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. Affleck: Hockeys such a big thing in Charlestown. [Adrian Lyne did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article.]. Im mighty proud of where I come from, he says. And was critically acclaimed. Affleck: Blake Lively took the train from New York. The imitators that his opus spawned, however, couldnt recreate what he managed to. A man who was in the square at the time recalls thinking: Whoscrazy enough to pull off a bank robbery at noon in Harvard Square? Charlestown guys. Burch: We did it during off days. Shooting there had been a condition of Afflecktaking on the film. Burch: When theyre down in Gate D, where the shoot-out scene was before they exited the ballpark, that was probably the most challenging part of it. Everywhere we went people were so excited to see him. Hed done his time. Find out more, The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes, That's how you drive a f----n caaar: the second bank robbery was based on the 1995 Harvard Square heist, The moment when a cop sees a carload of nun-masked robbers and turns away was based on real life, Affleck sent Blake Lively to hang out in Charlestown bars to prepare for her role, Ben Affleck directs Jon Hamm on the set of The Town, Close, review: a soul-scorching portrait of boyhood friendship and loss, Whats on TV tonight: Stephen Fry: Willem & Frieda Defying the Nazis, Anorexic and more, When are the Oscars? In Stanley Kubricks The Killing (1956), a marriage-minded Sterling Hayden leads a crew to take down one last racetrack for $2 million. But he pointed out the quote. The former bank robber-turned-aspiring-movie producer who tried to claim it is back to prison. He gave me so much ammunition all the time to play off and to feel. After a seven-day trial, they were convicted on 54 of 55 counts of robbery, including one which resulted in the death of two armored car guards. Stockard: Ben had a good relationship with the Red Sox. And so Adrian developed it for quite some time. Theres something so tomb-like and archaic about Fenway. After all, there are only so many Massachusetts-set crime stories about Irish American antiheroes that you can tell. Provo, UT, United States () -Provo Towne Center 1200 Towne Centre Blvd Ste B. Then they look up to find a Boston cop reading a newspaper in his police car. Oct 31, 2012. Crockett: I vividly remember it. Hall: It was like being alongside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in London. Hes probably still there. Also, Starr starred in a silent movie based on his criminal activity titled A Debtor to the Law. Particularly commercial success. We went back to his hotel room right after. He knows how to get a story from one place to another and connect all the dots in between so that you are in it and immersed in it and believe it and its thrilling and its really entertaining, as well as being serious. Its gentrified and diverse now, a local TV show host told The Christian Science Monitor. 2023 date, start time and how to watch, From the stripper to the slap: the worst moments in Oscars history, Pedro Pascal is the best actor on TV even behind a mask. She is the interloping gentry and renovates Dougs headspace. And in an exciting way. Affleck: Id been in action sequences plenty, so I kind of knew how they worked. The romance in the middle of the film is only there to delineate the boundaries between heist film and crime procedural. I knew it was one scene and it was gonna be an important scene: [Dougs] relationship with his father. And thats just sort of the natural progression. The first or second take that he did, Jeremy wanted to do it on his own. Just let me go in. She opened the door and I just walked in and Ben was there and he just burst out laughing. There have been dozens of films and television shows filmed in the Bay State over the last decade, but by the time the 2010s came to a close, the popularity of the No R genre had faded. I said, Is there any way in hell that you can imagine that someone would ever rob a bank if theyre from Charlestown dressed as a nun? And the FBI agent I was meeting with turned to me and said, You know what, thats not a bad idea at all. And thats where that idea started. Or why Affleck hired him to play a Charlestown bank robber in his new movie The Town.. Id go sit in Fenway and be the only guy there. He was kind of hemming and hawing a little bit and I said, Look, unless they make you wear the fucking purple outfit and the mask, you gotta do this. He went, I know.. Even the prison is real: the scene in which Douggie visits his father was shot on location at the maximum security MCI-Cedar Junction, the first time anything had been filmed there. Titus Welliver (Officer Dino Ciampa): I called the production office and I got [Carter] on the phone and I pretended I was a Boston detective. Affleck: Rebecca worked just as hard on the accent. And so if you cant do it, just dont do it. Jon Hamm (FBI special agent Adam Frawley): I knew he had some serious Boston cred. Free shipping for many products! Citizens Bank, located at 315 Hanover St., was robbed at 9:10 a.m. and a Santander Bank at 287 Hanover St., was robbed a mere 4 minutes later. He wanted to tour the prison and see it. And the guy said, Oh, the guy who wrote the book that that movies based on is on my softball team. And she said, Dennis Lehane is on your softball team? And thats when I was like, Its a small circle here.. And a lot of older actors, [when theyre] told, Go here, do this, a lot of these guys are like, Fuck off. I was fine with that. Claire represents the real problem at the center of the proceedings. And to that end, its 100 percent on Ben. Oceans Eleven set the cinematic standard for a heist team. Funny enough, I have shot in Boston twice since then. One of those characters you love to hate and find sort of intoxicating and moving; all of those things at the same time. Cooper: Hes had a wonderful career, but [The Town] was a big shot in the arm for him. And I said, Yeah, its just so great that he can come back and do this and dig in. This database contains birth information from several towns included in the Massachusetts (U.S.A.) Town Vital So thats cool. WebBen Affleck played this real life bank robber in 'The Town'. He claims that Ben Affleck played him in the movie, but now this former bank robber i. Matheson: I will never forget sitting there with some felt and scissors at 3 or 4 in the morning. Welliver: When we were doing The Town is when he was up for the role of Hawkeye. With the premiere of The Town 10 years ago, the No R genre peaked. According to FBI statistics [Lively did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article. And they said, We like what you did, we think youre a good director and we believe in you. And I was kind of struck by the enthusiasm they had considering for the most part, Hollywood operates based on success. After shooting one guard outside the car and one inside the bank, they escaped in a rental truck. In the film, the crew get away, largely thanks to the kind of driving that puts Daniel Craig to shame. Claire foretells the doom of Charlestowns criminal culture. If you say its a bank heist movie, people are like, Ill see that. I think it was a great step. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. Welliver: I had an experience several years before for a David Kelley show called The Practice which took place in Boston. Its something Ive seen other directors do. In adapting the script, itself adapted from Chuck Hogans novel Prince of Thieves, Affleck and Aaron Stockard (with whomhe also worked on Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone) changed the cinema setting of the second heist to an armoured-car robbery and car chase based on a real incident that took place in Harvard Square. Owen Burke (Desmond Elden): I was going to a community college in Charlestown, I was working under the table, I had just gotten past some legal trouble in my teenage years. I could tell it was hard on Ben because literally going out to dinner was not really an option. They have an allegiance which goes from womb to tomb, and sperm to worm. Jems family took Doug in after his mom deserted him, and his father fell apart for a little while. I liked the way it was released, man. Thats where I got my best stuff. He had the beginnings of the accent, clearly he had the ability to do ita bad Boston accent would ruin that part. He also made sure to populate the movie with people who didnt have to fake their Boston accents. I showed up, I did the reading. Hamm: He is a favorite son of Boston for a very good reason. Every large theft needs an inside man, but Inside Man (2006), directed by Spike Lee, had Clive Owen as a bona fide genius. In 1995, The Boston Globe reported that the neighborhood was a community to which more armored car robbers are traced than any other in the country, according to FBI statistics. Hogan recalls reading that and filing it away. Eventually, homogenization came for those tales, too. Witt: You dont want to go, like, Quantum of Solace at the beginning where you really dont even know where you are, where you shot it. It later served as inspiration for the Massachusetts natives third book. Crockett: As he puts it, you have so many fame chips you can use. It all felt sort of very impossible and glamorous. Hes crazy. Hes from Modesto, and hes kind of got that bulldog, kind of dirtbag sensibility. And someone had forgotten to tell them that we were downstairs shooting. Chay Carter (coproducer): We found a couple of real bank robbers that we did real research with, which is what these four [thieves] were based on. Im like, You know what, if its terrible, Ill get a great story out of it. I sit down and I watch it, and it was really bewildering. Ill see that kind of dirtbag sensibility the ability to do ita bad Boston would... Terrible, Ill see that robbers and armored car guards were shot to death in Hampshire. 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