CLIFTON — Outside George's Coffee on Parker Avenue in Botany Village, there's a film crew at work. Today, George's is serving as Len's, a coffee shop in the fictional town of Manningtree, N.J.
The movie being filmed inside is titled "Split Ends," and it's a story about a Scottish woman who owns a hair salon. In the movie, she and other local small businesses are fighting against being bought out by a big developer. In the scene inside the coffee shop, hairdresser Lizzie Munro, played by Corinna May, is finding out that her shop is slated for demolition.
Lizzie Munro's love life is also full of "split ends" - she's having an unsatisfying affair with the coffee shop owner, and then a new interest appears – and he works for the big developer.
The film is directed by Dorothy Lyman, who won two Emmy awards for her role of Opal Gardner on "All My Children," and later turned to directing daytime drama and comedy. Her first feature film, "The Northern Kingdom," has won awards at film festivals and is slated for distribution in late 2008.
One familiar face in "Split Ends" is Vincent Pastore, known for the character of Salvatore "Big Pussy" Ponsiero on "The Sopranos." Pastore plays the mayor of Manningtree, who also owns a mattress store in town. The mattress store is also a Clifton setting, the Good Night Sleep Gallery on Lexington Avenue.
Most of the movie's filming – 18 days total – is slated to take place in Botany Village. Parker Avenue is the movie's Main Street, where most of the small shops are located. Jimmy Allen, one of the film's producers, said the Botany Village section of Clifton was chosen specifically for its small-town look. "It's a great location," Allen said. "We needed a town with traditional, turn-of-the-century architecture."
Development-wise, Clifton is also going through much of what the fictional town of Manningtree is going through, Allen said. "(These buildings) sit in the shadow of Kmart and Home Depot," Allen said. "This is really a story about a small area, and big stores want to swallow it up."
Allen describes the movie as a chick flick, a romantic comedy/drama, and "a little bit of 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'" with shop owners going to fight City Hall. Allen also said he was glad for the success of the recent "Sex and the City" movie, since "Split Ends" also stars a woman over 40, an often-overlooked movie demographic.
The story of "Split Ends" was inspired by real-life Scottish-born hairdresser Libby Christensen. While she was running a salon in New York, The New York Times did an article on her with the headline "A lifetime of making split ends meet."
"All my clients read the story and insisted I make a movie out of this," Christensen said. "And I started to write." Christensen had a few connections in show business through her clients. Her husband had worked in television with Vincent Pastore, who joined the cast of the movie.
The events in the film are fictitious, Christensen said, but the background is hers. Having the movie made, Christensen said, was "probably one of the most exciting moments in my life."
Originally from Paisley, Scotland, Christensen came to America working as a hairdresser for singer Connie Francis. "And that's how I got to have my fabulously colorful career in hairdressing," Christensen said. "I highly recommend hairdressing to every creative young woman. You never know where it's going to take you."
