Harmony as Allegory: Robert Davi on 'The Dukes'

EVER WONDER WHAT happened to all those Italian-American doo-wop groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s after the British Invasion bands rendered their vocal harmonies unfashionable?

Veteran character actor Robert Davi did. So he made a movie that documents the plight of one such fictional group, The Dukes, a vocal quartet who find themselves so hopelessly out of style decades later that they can't even get plugged into the oldies circuit. Instead of collaborating on musical endeavors, they work together to pull off a heist in hopes of getting some bucks to fund a doo-wop club.

That's the plot of "The Dukes," an independent comedy that marks Davi's first outings as both director and screenwriter. His debut has been, as the saying goes, auspicious. When "The Dukes" made the rounds at film festivals earlier this year, it was met with rave after rave. The "Spinal Tap"-with-Brylcreem plot scored laughs, but the film's deeper message earned Davi deeper respect than he ever got playing villains such as Franz Sanchez in the 1989 James Bond film "License to Kill."

Variety magazine praised the comic chemistry between Davi and co-star Chazz Palminteri, who play the hapless band member who try to pull off the hopeless heist. The Monte Carlo Film Festival handed the film a Platinum Award for Best Screenplay, while the Queens International Film Festival hailed hometown boy Davi as Best Director. "The Dukes" also nabbed a Best Screenplay award at the Monte Carlo Film Festival de la Comedie.

The film will get a D.C. premiere at the American Film Renaissance Institute's fifth annual film festival, taking place Oct. 1-4 ("The Dukes" will then open in New York Nov. 14, and get a wide release the following Friday). Davi was named the festival's "featured star" and will do a question and answer session after the Oct. 1 screening.

Express caught up with him by telephone.

» EXPRESS: How did you come up with the idea for "The Dukes?"
» DAVI: The idea for the film came about in the 1970s when I was in New York. I'd read an article about steelworkers that were getting laid off — about 25,000 at that moment. I had a strong response to that as a young man, thinking people had done something their whole lives and were now not able to do that. What happens? It's a frightening thing. Then my father got laid off from his job of 25 years, and around the same time I read this book by Alvin Toffler called "The Third Wave," which talked about society going from an industrial age to a technological age and how a ton of people were going to fall through the cracks.

Then I did my first film, with Frank Sinatra [the 1977 TV movie "Contact on Cherry Street"]. I met [singer] Jay Black from Jay and the Americans. I started thinking about how these doo-wop groups were on top of the world, and then all of a sudden music changed, just like technology.

» EXPRESS: Can you explain what the theme of the movie is?
» DAVI: The film, to me, is about the everyman. It's about the quiet desperation of people that are struggling to survive and recapture perhaps something they once had. How do they recapture that? How do you pull together and move forward in a very difficult time. You could say it deals with lost fame, or it deals with lost identity in terms of the job workforce. Redefining one's self.

» EXPRESS: Why did it take so long to get made?
» DAVI: I didn't have the financing for it at the time. But [co-screenwriter] James Andronica and I had a first draft done. I wanted to do this film for years, but I kept it in the drawer.

» EXPRESS: What turned the corner on getting the film made?
» DAVI: What happened was a friend and I ... were talking and he said "You've gotta meet this guy Frank Visco — you guys would get along." We did and we became very close friends. One day I was talking to Frank. He was talking about Las Vegas and how he'd gambled there a couple of times and I said "You know, Frank, I'll put a table in my living room — you could do it right here." And we laughed. So I said, "Better yet, why don't you invest in a film I have?" He looked at me and said "That sounds interesting. Let's talk about that." So we had a dinner the following week and I pitched him the story and gave him the script and he says, "I'm in. I'll raise the money as well as invest."

» EXPRESS: How did Chazz Palminteri come to be involved?
» DAVI: Chazz and I have known each other since the 1980s. I always wanted him to play my cousin George [and fellow Dukes singer] in the film because of our rapport. You see the relationship on screen that we have in life — it's the same kind of thing. We're very close friends.

» EXPRESS: What is it about doo-wop music that inspires such fanaticism?
» DAVI: The melodic lines that the music has are just very positive and beautiful and nostalgic. It's just good music, and it's fun. You hear that stuff and you get into a certain kind of feel-good rhythm. When I screen this film for young kids they come out wanting the soundtrack and loving the music. And God that's terrific. So there's a universality to the music.

» AMC Loews Georgetown 14, 3111 K Street NW; Wed., Oct. 1; 7 p.m., $10-$40; 202-342-6441.

Written by Express contributor Tony Sclafani
Photos courtesy Sun Lion Films/Christel Golden