Drivers struggled to find a parking spot on State Street in New London on the night of Feb. 23, squeezing into spaces at the New London library's parking lot. Crowds of people created a din as they headed to the Garde Arts Center to see the premiere of Mystic native Bailey Pryor's film, The Real McCoy.
As a writer, producer, and director, Pryor has worked in the film and television industry for more than 20 years. He has produced six feature films and more than 50 hours of television programming for OLN/Versus, Fox Sports Net, ESPN, Discovery Channel, Spike TV, ABC, and the Travel Channel. After serving as president and CEO of Warren Miller Entertainment for five years, he founded Telemark Films, writing, producing, and directing three television series and four feature documentary films.
"It was great," Pryor said of the premiere. "It was such a wonderful community event; it was so much fun to be there with that many people. I think we had 1,300 seats filled...I saw lots of familiar faces. I grew up around here so I recognized a lot of folks there, and it was really fun to experience it with all of my friends."
Pryor said after seeing the film come to life, he felt as though he did achieve the daunting task of sharing the story of Bill McCoy, whom he described in a written bio as a "new generation bootlegger in the 1920s, an iconic age of political intolerance, emerging social freedoms, and romantic characters who defined the times." Pryor said McCoy earned the name "The Real McCoy" because he always delivered undiluted alcohol-whiskey, gin, and rum that were always uncut. McCoy was loved by his patrons in an era, according to Pryor, unlike any other in American history.
"It was an incredibly complex story and it was something that took me two years of work to get it to the point where I felt I achieved my original goal, which was to tell a complex story about a portion of American history that people don't normally really recognize the depth of the subject," Pryor said. "I think that most people when they think of Prohibition, they think of Chicago, Al Capone, and Eliot Ness, and this is the story about the rum war at sea."
Pryor added, "It portrays some very unique and interesting American characters that I think are very under-represented in the media and it was my pleasure to try and take their stories from Stephen Jones' book [The Actual McCoy] and conform it to an entertaining motion picture...He gave me the galley of that book and I was able to read it and use that as my foundation of creating the story of Bill McCoy in the film."
"I think a lot of people know about Prohibition in general and when I went into researching this I thought I knew all that there was of interest to know about it and I found out I was very wrong," said Jones, the publisher of Flat Hammock Press in Mystic. "There's a lot of nooks and crannies in that story. It went on for about a dozen years and it went through different phases."
Jones said McCoy was active during the first golden age of Prohibition, with many others who weren't necessarily gangsters.
"Just average guys and gals were [involved], and he was the sort of patron saint of that era if you will, that represents that early period," he said, explaining the years between the end of the first World War to 1923.
Jones explained that during this period of Prohibition, bootleggers would dilute the alcohol with water or add unsafe fluids to the solution, which resulted in health problems for customers that led to blindness, heart failure, and death.
"There was no quality control in it because the whole thing was illegal," Jones said. "There weren't federal agencies inspecting it...[McCoy] never did that, so his was the standard-the Real McCoy."
Jones republished
The Real McCoy, written by Frederic F. Van de Water (1890-1968), adding a foreword and, as additional information came up, an afterward. In the midst of writing the afterward, he knew it was too long and that he should publish an additional book with the extended information, which led him to write
The Actual McCoy.
All of the proceeds from the premiere of Pryor's film were given to the Mystic Seaport. Seaport spokesperson Mike O'Farrell said it's been great to be associated with Pryor.
"This is an opportunity for us to have some fun and do something different and be involved in a great story," O'Farrell said.
"Growing up in Mystic, the Mystic Seaport has always been a very inspiring institution to me," Pryor said. "I've gone over there constantly as a kid and as an adult, and it's one of those places I consider to be one of the crown jewels of American history. In these difficult economic times, it's not an easy thing to keep a place like that running and even though they're doing a fantastic job, they need all the help that they can get. So I thought if we were going to contribute this to an organization, that the Mystic Seaport being our national symbol for maritime history, this would be the perfect place to create a beneficiary for this premiere screening."
O'Farrell added, "Our involvement essentially is we are the beneficiary of Bailey's generosity...He has a number of our historic images in the film...to document certain time periods of certain boats that relate to rum-running, so in that sense, we partnered with him with some of the historical information he was looking for."
Pryor said what stood out to him on Saturday was the positive reaction to the film.
"It was very gratifying, because when you sit there with it every single day for such a long period of time, you get so close to it, you kind of lose track of whether or not it's going to be funny in the places you want it to be funny or interesting or insightful in other areas so it's always a risk," Pryor said. "It's something that only can be experienced through live events, and I absolutely love to show my films to a live audience."
"I thought it was great," local resident Janet Hinkle said. "Bailey Pryor did an excellent job and I am so pleased that it's something [through which] we can support the Seaport...It was a lot of fun and a nice event."
Pryor said he's been talking to different television networks about the film and believes more people will be hearing about it in the summer. He is now steering his attention to other film projects.
"We've been very busy with several film projects going on, and it's very exciting because they all have such different subject matters...it's all very unique and different subject matters, which to me are very engaging and a very good way to run my life as a filmmaker."