The True Legend of Allen RossThis Story was originally published in the Newsletter of the Film & Video Department, Columbia College Chicago under another title.I had just gotten my first technician job as a continuity and script supervisor on an independently produced film called
Chains. We were working out of a dusty old hardware store on Archer Avenue. The script was so hackneyed and full of cliché that I told the director I thought he should film it as a spoof. He just glared at me and said nothing. Unless related to the smooth continuity of the film, I kept my opinions to myself after that first day of preproduction.
I was nervous and excited as I punched up the crew list on the computer. Near the top it listed Assistant Camera/ Allen Ross. Yikes. After that first run in with the director, I had hoped to be working with friendlier faces. Besides my two childhood friends, Jeff Reid and
James Richardson, Allen was the only person on the list I was familiar with. I was less then pleased at the prospect of working with someone who had initially impressed me as difficult.
I remembered our first meeting several months back: a group of would-be and accomplished filmmakers had braved a winter snow storm to attend an independent filmmakers meeting in a loft across from an “All-Nite” Hot-Dog stand on Maxwell Street. The stand was world famous for its fatty Polish sausage sandwiches. Rich and poor alike would brave bitter cold, gale force winds and no napkins to stand on this corner at 4am eating sausages from which grease oozed, slathered and then froze to face hands and clothing. Those with fancy cars risked ruined upholstery. This was also the exact spot where my some of my immigrant family had settled around 1893. Now the neighborhood is quite upscale but at this time I had to step over garbage and dodge homeless men who rolled towards me in wheelchairs. Light from rusted fire filled barrels guided me from my car back to a gasoline alley where I found a mysterious door. An address had been crudely scrawled 1323 & ½ So. Halsted St. It matched the address that was written on the
Chicago Filmmakers invite. To my surprise the door was unlocked.
The meeting was a bit lonely for me despite the large group. Most of the people were from the School of the Art Institute. Nobody talked to me or ate the lemon brownies I brought. Maybe they were all on a diet. I was relieved when the lights dimmed and the movies began. One film called the
The Universal Citizen by Peter Thompson was quite remarkable. Allen’s film,
Grandfather Trilogy was difficult and disturbing.
When the lights came back on, I stared at the handsome yet odd looking young man with the horned-rim glasses who had operated the projector and thought, “…what an interesting but scary person Allen Ross was…” Many years later, through an odd coincidence I ran into Peter Thompson. I asked him about Allen. I told him that I’d heard that he moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma. His eyes widen with surprise and concern. Hadn’t I seen that day’s
Chicago Reader? Allen’s picture was on the front page. He had been missing for quite some time. I had no idea.
Filming on
Chains began. Some of the neighborhoods where we filmed still hadn’t fully recovered from riots during the 1960’s. Often the locations were abandoned burned out factories and warehouses. It was exhilarating to work in places most never see. I mean how many people get to sit in the dirt under a train trestle or at 3am? Or how about eating a midnight snack in the back seat of junked car at a salvage yard? We worked all night long. It was grueling work at times but often a lot of fun. The crew slept during the day or at least I tried to. Stressed out and sleep deprived, I hallucinated the entire crew filming in my bedroom. I tossed and turned all day because just as I predicted I wasn’t getting along well at all with the difficult and enigmatic Allen Ross. Instead of sleeping I was compelled to devise intricate and potent insults to spring on him the next night.
As the days passed I grew comfortable with the routine and sleep returned. Filming was going well and I forgot my well planned insults. One morning, after the director called “Wrap!”, I hurriedly gathered up my notebooks, photos and pencils. As I rushed to catch the Western Avenue Bus, I noticed an unusual yet familiar car pulling out of the parking lot near the set. It was a strange murky color of that may have once been forest green. Time, the elements and rust had turned its paint so lackluster that its surface like a black hole, could only absorb light no longer reflect it. The crew filmed it early that morning. At least 20 actors dressed as gang-bangers rode on the roof, hood and trunk alternately shaking sticks in the air and banging them on the side of the car. Despite being rumpled with small dents and dings and covered in prop graffiti I was able to identify its model and year of production. It was a 1963 Chevrolet Bel Aire.™
I wasn’t entirely surprised when I saw who drove it home that morning. That wouldn’t be the only time Allen’s car was used as a prop. I began to notice how Allen and his car were very much alike. His clothing personality and appearance had the same rumpled murky quality.
Chains continued shooting indoors in a dusty factory that made worthless “toilet bowl fresheners” that turn the water bright poison blue. Do they still manufacture such things? Even more frightening than the blue dust that filled the air was the thought or feeling that started to overtake me: Maybe I didn’t despise Allen Ross? Maybe I LOVED him!
Sometimes I hitched terrifying rides home from him. He wasn’t a reckless or speedy driver but occasionally he would fall asleep when we stopped for a red light or the steering wheel would come off as we turned east onto Garfield Boulevard. Without stopping, showing no emotion or alarm, he would calmly reach under his seat to produce a large wrench and replace the wheel as we rode.
Frozen rain overwhelmed us one winter morning. After 12 hours of work, it meant and unwanted delay getting home. Luckily we were off the next night. The parking lot was an ice rink. Allen’s glasses were thickly glazed with ice as were his car’s windows. Scraping proved useless—the frozen rain was relentless. As soon as one window was cleaned, the previously cleaned one was ice again. Cautiously, Allen drove me home again. As the Chevy slid down 57th Street toward Hyde Park, occasionally whirling out of control I felt so lucky and happy I never wanted the ride to end.
On the Web:Searching for Allen
When filmmaker disappears, friends and family chronicle mystery as documentary
By Dennis Murphy and Shane Bishop
Dateline NBCUpdated: 3:25 p.m. CT Feb 25, 2005
IN THE SUPREME COURT, STATE OF WYOMING... Peter Thompson's Universal Hotel/Universal Citizen
