Arts & Entertainment
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Film Family
Photos by Angie Baan
Left: Posing together on the set of Little Red Devil are, left to right, lead actor Jim Lewis of Berkley, Skeleton Factory co-owner and Little
Red Devil director Tommy Brunswick of Milford, actor James Russo, Skeleton Factory financial adviser and business consultant Alan
Gildenberg, Skeleton Factory co-owner Arlene Gildenberg, actor Daniel Baldwin and Little Red Devil bit player Eric Gildenberg.
The Gildenbergs of West Bloomfield immerse themselves
in the world of indie flicks.
Serena Donadoni
Special to the Jewish News
0
n one of the coldest nights
of a frigid February, Arlene
Gildenberg and her family left
the warmth of their West Bloomfield home
and headed to downtown Detroit to be
extras in the indie horror film Little Red
Devil, directed by Tommy Brunswick,
Arlene's partner in the Metro Detroit-
based film production company the
Skeleton Factory.
The Gildenbergs and other background
performers gathered at Club Confidential,
a deco-style nightclub located in the
lower level of a small, ornate building on
Congress and Shelby. In sharp contrast
to the members of the film's crew, who
were wearing jeans, T-shirts and very
comfortable shoes while busily setting
up the complicated scene that would end
their 14-hour shooting day, the extras
were wide-eyed and fresh, eagerly slipping
into their assigned roles and nonchalantly
lounging in the white-cushioned booths.
Clad in stylish formal wear — women
in their best little black dresses, the men
in sleek dark suits — they were portray-
ing the well-heeled attendees of a chic
cocktail party hosted by Luc (short for
Lucifer) and his henchman, Mr. Trundle.
The actors playing Luc and Trundle
were, respectively, Daniel Baldwin (John
Carpenter's Vampires) and James Russo
(Dangerous Game), two of the perform-
ers who came from Los Angeles to join the
Michigan-based cast for the 12-day shoot.
For the Gildenbergs — Arlene, her hus-
band Alan and 18-year-old son Eric — the
evening spent at Club Confidential is one
to savor, a taste of Hollywood glamour
that's rarely afforded the financial partners
in independent film productions. It was
also an on-camera celebration of where
the year-old Skeleton Factory is headed:
With larger budgets and name actors, they
aim to make the transition from direct-to-
video releases to genre movies ready for
the multiplex.
Hollywood Actors
What no one anticipated is just how much
attention the Skeleton Factory's latest
production would garner. The day this
party scene was shot marked the tipping
point, when Little Red Devil went from
being a locally produced horror film to the
refuge for "fugitive actor" Daniel Baldwin
after a story in the Detroit Free Press was
picked up by the gossip Web site TMZ and
began appearing in publications all over
the country.
The Skeleton Factory's decision-makers
knew all about Baldwin's well-documented
legal troubles (three arrests in 2006), but
Todd Brunswick — Tommy's husband
and creative partner — asserts that
Baldwin was never seen as a liability.
So when a warrant was issued for
Baldwin, for failure to appear at a Newport
Beach, Calif., court on a felony charge of
stealing a friend's car (which Baldwin
insists was based on a misunderstand-
ing), the tightly knit cast and crew closed
ranks. The Daniel Baldwin they saw was a
stalwart professional, an underrated per-
former who was getting his life together.
Nothing else mattered.
As publicist Carolyn Krieger-Cohen of
West Bloomfield dealt with an onslaught
of press interest, and was amazed by the
Film Family on page 38
March 8 2007
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