The stark, moody, photo-documentary look of Deuces Wild was inspired by the book Brooklyn Gang by Bruce Davidson, renowned as the world’s greatest street photographer. The book compiles photographs taken during the summer of 1959 and features highly emotional and revealing portraits of young men in tough-guy poses that also reveal the cracks and anxieties underneath. Davidson followed the young gang members around their neighborhoods, from soda fountains to tattoo parlors to late-night dance parties.
Director of photography John A. Alonzo, whose dynamic cinematography includes such classic films as Chinatown and Scarface, kept Davidson’s trademark ability to fade into the background and let his subjects’ intensity speak for itself during shooting.
"Everyone drew inspiration from images of Brooklyn — and the spirit of Brooklyn was always with us," says producer Cerenzie. "After all, the writers are from Brooklyn, Kalvert has Brooklyn connections, and many in the cast and crew grew up in or around Brooklyn. We all felt very tied to that time and place. If you weren’t from Brooklyn to begin with, it became home to you during the making of the film."
Along those lines, Scott Kalvert wanted to make Deuces Wild as authentic and true to 1950s Brooklyn as possible, but ironically, to do that he had to shoot the film in Los Angeles. To get the look of ‘50s Brooklyn it was necessary to build Brooklyn in L.A., because today’s Brooklyn doesn’t look like the Brooklyn of 40+ years ago.
"In the almost half century that has passed," says production designer David L. Snyder, "Brooklyn has drastically changed in architecture, and the ethnicity and character of the neighborhoods have also changed. Everything has been modernized, from light fixtures to fire hydrants. The environment was too different from what we were looking for. I think everyone came to agree that you can create a much more romantic notion of ‘50s Brooklyn on a backlot. We were able to come much closer to the Brooklyn in everyone’s memories and imaginations."
To get it right, Snyder rifled through every photograph of tenement buildings, soda fountains, and street corners he could find, looking at everything of the period from The New York Daily News to Life Magazine. Along the way, he discovered something important about the film’s look. "One interesting thing we found is that Brooklyn at that time was very clean and tidy. You didn’t see a lot of trash on the streets, gum wrappers and cigarettes. People swept the sidewalks. You might expect to see graffiti and trash cans in a movie about ‘50s street gangs, but that’s really a mythical cliche," he says.
Snyder was guided in the details of construction and interior design by the book Ranches, Row Houses and Railroad Flats by Christine Hunter. The apartments for the Senta and Polita families were constructed with the same measurements used for most Brooklyn buildings since the turn of the last century. The incredibly stifling 9 by 10-foot rooms helped the actors understand how little it took to spark sibling and family conflicts when living in such close quarters — and why young people longed so much to create a life for themselves on the streets.
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