A photo shown in the documentary The Purple Gang

Border Crossing

DWIFF offers another chance to view
Jewish mobster doc The Purple Gang.

H

Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News

G. Manos easily recalls how

he first became fascinated
with Detroit's Purple Gang,
a group of Jewish racketeers primarily
involved with bootlegging in the late
1920s-early '30s. Manos heard about a
jarring incident witnessed by his dad.
Manos' father was a boy at the time
of the incident, selling newspapers
in downtown Detroit during the
Depression. He saw a touring car come
along and throw out a body.
"I think back to an old movie from
the roaring age of Hollywood, when
there was a little kid on the corner
saying, 'Extra, extra, read all about it,"
Manos explains. "That was my dad,
and I heard his stories growing up.
"What I found most fascinating was
that these gangsters were real people
with real families. When I took a stab at
filmmaking, I embarked on this topic."
The Manos film, The Purple Gang, is
on the program of the second annual
Detroit Windsor International Film
Festival, which runs Thursday-Sunday,
June 25-28, throughout locations in
the Detroit Cultural Center and at the
University of Windsor.
Besides showcasing projects filmed
in Michigan and around the world, the
event offers special children's mov-
ies, a 48-hour filmmaking challenge,
a tech fair and drive-in screenings.
Other films to be presented include
Raised Alone, Nerdcore Rising, Live
from Bethlehem, Breaking Upwards
and The Rain.
"My film took 20 years of research,"
says Manos, 37, the writer-director
who has introduced The Purple Gang,
his first cinema project, at various fes-
tivals, including this year's the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan
Detroit's Lenore Marwil Jewish Film
Festival. "As with any historical film, I
think we can learn from it:'

The movie, also written to give a
sense of the greater Detroit commu-
nity, includes an array of photos from
the period, stock footage and reenact-
ments. Michael Kelley is the narrator
for the fast-paced production running
72 minutes.
When Manos has introduced The
Purple Gang at Jewish film festivals, he
has met audience members with per-
sonal connections to people depicted in
the film. Sometimes, these viewers are
aware only of family rumors, and they
approach the filmmaker with questions
concerning what has been heard.
"Unlike Italian and Irish gangs,
where offspring carry on the family
legacy, that's not the case with the
Jewish gangsters," Manos says. "That's
why the Jewish gangsters didn't con-
tinue on. They promoted other forms
of legitimate existence and education
[among their close relatives]."
The DWIFF has scheduled some
films screened at other festivals, such
as the Athens International Film
Festival, South by Southwest Film
Festival, Tribeca Film Series and the
Boston Independent Film Festival.
"I'm so honored to have this film
accepted and shown at the DWIFF'
says Manos, who grew up in the
Detroit area, continues with indepen-
dent film projects in California and
earns a living working on trailers for
studio films. "Everybody has been so
professional." I I

The Detroit Windsor
International Film Festival runs
Thursday-Sunday, June 25-28,
at locations throughout the
Detroit Cultural Center and at
the University of Windsor. The
Purple Gang will be shown 7 p.m.
Friday, June 26, at the Wayne
State University Law School. $6-
$8 per screening; $25 festival
pass. A full schedule is available
at www.dwiff.org , where tickets
can be ordered.

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