Truth behind some of ‘Bronx Tale’ scenes

Chazz Palminteri is on TV. And occasionally, I glance over to watch him watching himself.

This is something you don’t do every day. But when one of the publicists for “A Bronx Tale” suggested a live version of those now-ubiquitous DVD commentary tracks, the actor was down for it. He hadn’t seen the movie in five years, he figured.

The viewing in a Venetian suite (skipping past some scenes) kept coming back to one question, or variation thereof: “Did this part really happen?”

Here are some notes from the viewing. It assumes you’ve seen the movie and doesn’t explain much if you haven’t. And if not, major spoiler alert: Further reading will wreck most of the plot points.

• Young Calogero witnesses a murder from his front-porch stoop. It’s not the same street, which would have been hard to close for filming. (Most of the movie was filmed outside the Bronx.) But when Palminteri told first-time director Robert De Niro that he remembered the shooting “like it was in slow motion,” De Niro converted part of the sequence to slo-mo.

• A police lineup in which Calogero and Sonny make direct eye contact — and Calogero lies to protect Sonny’s identity as the shooter — didn’t really happen.

“Once my father dragged me upstairs (in their apartment), I never went down. I kept my mouth shut. But I thought that would really cement me and Sonny” to write the lineup scene.

• Sonny’s bar/headquarters. In real life, Sonny befriended Palminteri (whose real name is Calogero) on the street, in less intimidating circumstances than the “Godfather”-like scene of him holding court in the movie. But the boy really did shoot dice in the basement, and the extras in those gambling scenes are “real street guys,” not professional actors.

• The midpoint face-off between De Niro and Palminteri as Sonny. Was the less-known actor worried about getting blown off the screen? “I was an actor for a long time (before). I was ready,” he says. The two remain friends.

One time he told De Niro, “You’re so humble.” De Niro replied, “It takes just as much talent to recognize a great idea as to promote yourself.”

• The biker bar brawl. “In real life, the guy never punched me out.” But he’s happy that the scene’s catch phrase — “Now you’s can’t leave” — is one of the movie lines that “made it into regular society’s dialogue.” A pilot once quoted it to cabin passengers as his plane pulled out of the gate.

• The African-American girl that sparked a racial rumble in the neighborhood was real. “I dated her for about four months.” But the movie’s climactic events were dramatic compressions of separate episodes, “things that happened in my neighborhood at different times.”

• Sonny didn’t really pull Palminteri out of the car before his friends were killed by a Molotov cocktail thrown back into it. “I wanted to bond Sonny and me even more” in the story.

But the car explosion? Palminteri raises one of those famous eyebrows and says quietly, “The guys died, man.”

• Sonny’s death. Palminteri didn’t witness it in real life, but arrived soon after the real Sonny was killed by the son of the man he shot on the street.

Believe it or not, he says, “The studio wanted Sonny to live.” They tried to persuade De Niro and Palminteri: “He’s such a great character.”

Of course they stuck to their guns. “Sonny has to die. Sonny has to die,” the actor says, his voice rising a bit. “It’s not a sad ending, it’s a catharsis. Romeo and Juliet (die) but then the family comes together. That’s what a catharsis is.”

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.