Frank Crivelli

Frank Crivelli was always a big time ?go to the movie picture show" fan. Growing up, he had access to a couple of movie theaters in Chicopee, Massachusetts, and even more in Springfield and Holyoke. Frank Crivelli used to go to the movies all the time either with all of his pals, or even just as much on his own, solo, in the evenings, when no other kid was allowed to go to the movies. Frank went to the movies all all the time much more than any other kid around. He had more freedom to go. He had no rules to follow at home because he was so responsible. He had tons of spending money at all times, .and he saw all the pictures when they first came out in his era of the 1950's and 60's. Frank continued this even later on in life, with his original steady girlfriend, Linda, of five years. During high school and college, they used to go to the movies together all the time. Another big favorite hobby was going to the drive-in movies all the time, so they could make out and have teenage sex at the movies too. With his interest in the movies already, his original knowledge of making his own movies came from his mother,Jean Crivelli, who got her son a wind-up 8mm home movie from turning in some S&H Green Stamps coupon book. Well lo and behold, his genius mom, and the fact that many a beautiful home movie was made on that camera in the 1960's, of the Crivelli family. Cut to Boston College, 1969, the third largest University in Boston. It's a Catholic School, Jesuit, of high academic and moral standards, and the biggest Sports School in the entire city of Boston. It's Frank Crivelli's Junior year, and Frank has fulfilled almost all the requirements for his history major at the school, and now he has 2 years of free courses to take. Frank decide to get into film-making. Boston College had just started its first film-making courses that year, so Frank jumped at the chance to take film study and Associated Arts. Frank took the film-making course, and he took a course in television, a course in radio, a course in Visual Arts . .next year senior year I do it all over again, same courses; film-making, TV, and radio. Frank almost went on to graduate school in London, England, in the field of film-making. He actually applied and everything, and got accepted, but after graduating from college, he really didn't want to go on to any more schooling, and everything ended up being a pipe dream instead. Frank moved to Cape Cod for a month, and then went on a backpacking adventure track, with a hometown buddy, of 10 countries of Europe,in the summer, fall, and winter of 1971, and he never really came back to civilization from that. He just became an adventure and traveler after that. He ran around without a camera for a few years in 1972 - 1973, which was ridiculous, because he did very many amazing and exciting things, including going to India for 4 months, but he never even had a camera with him on his whole travels (during this time). He finally smartened up again in 1974, when he washed ashore and Provincetown, and spontaneously [resumed film-making] with a Super 8 automatic focus camera, that he had began shooting everything in sight with. This went on for years and years, in Provincetown, and wherever else he went, like New York City or Key West. He shot tons and tons of still photos as well. At he end of 1975, or beginning of '76, Frank went down to Baltimore for two weeks, and long story short, participated as an extra in a John Waters movie called "Desperate Living". It's amazing. that unbeknownst to him initially, he is a very prominent feature in the closing minutes of that movie. He's in the scene jumping up and down like a happy ecstatic madman, upstaging everything around him really, but the cast were supposed to be rejoicing because cruel Queen Carlotta was dead and they were all free. all of the tortured denizens of Mortville Maryland. It really is quite an outrageous movie. Frank Crivelli's adventure to Baltimore, where he stayed for about two weeks for the filming of the movie, which happened in a couple of different locations, including a farm, way out of Baltimore. He made himself handy as wheel-man, and brought three of John Waters little starlets out to the set, there at the farm, with his car. Frank always expected to have a whole lot more to do with the whole art and Industry of film, and video, even on an amateur or artistic or professional level but, he ended up being kind of a dropout from that as well, as a lot of things he dropped out from. Frank got into the video cameras for decades, and so, in the end, most of his collection is about the Outer Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and his own personal life. Once Frank was a partner in a very culturally successful little film, shot in Provincetown, with a whole cast of real characters from town. Frank was a bit of a partner in that movie with his friend, and collaborator, Jonathan Morrill. Together they put out a movie called 'Jailbait Summer', which is standing the test of time as a real iconic classic movie. Eventually, some of his archival collection was featured on a top television show called 'Parts Unknown'. The Massachusetts episode, hosted by the famous, and now Infamous, Anthony Bourdain, used some of Crivelli's background archival images of Provincetown, and were very successful in lending some color and character to that particular TV show. Now the industry wants to use more of Frank Crivelli's Cape Cod footage in an HBO production about Roy Cohen in Provincetown. Frank hopes that that becomes his next little project.