Film Tells Pittsburgh's 'Comeback Story'

Before he became a Pittsburgh icon, making “speedy deliveries” to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as Mr. McFeely, David Newell was just another kid watching movies at Dormont’s Hollywood Theater. 

The Green Tree native frequented the theater through his teen years, but said he never imagined that someday he’d see himself on the Hollywood’s screen.

When the theater shows “My Tale of Two Cities: A Comeback Story” this Friday, he’ll get to share the experience with an audience that loves Pittsburgh—and its many neighborhoods—as much as he does.

“I spent a lot of time going to that theater, from when I was a child until it closed,” Newell said. “Little did I know when I was sitting in that theater that a movie I’m in would be showing here. Little did I know that I’d be signing autographs here. It’s really sort of a completed circle.”

The Hollywood will host a Pittsburgh double feature this Friday, showing the WQED special “Pittsburgh From the Air,” on the big screen for the first time, followed by Carl Kurlander’s documentary “My Tale of Two Cities: A Comeback Story” and several shorts of “Pittsburgh Dad.” Newell and Kurlander will sit on a panel for audience discussion after the show.

The documentary played at the Hollywood earlier this year and Newell visited to see the show, but he and Kurlander—in the words of Kurlander’s daughter—are hoping this event will get people “all Pittsburgh’d up” for the holidays.

Kurlander, also a Pittsburgh native, said he produced “My Tale of Two Cities” to document his move from Los Angeles back to Pittsburgh in the early 2000s.

But it’s also a representation of the transition the city has made from a booming steel town to a center for various other successful industries, he said.

“The movie is a comeback story not only of coming home again, but for Pittsburgh coming back as a city,” Kurlander said. “Pittsburgh has taught me more in coming back here than I learned in 20 years in Hollywood.”

Kurlander’s career took him to Los Angeles in 1982. He wrote the screenplay for “St. Elmo’s Fire,” produced “Saved by the Bell: The New Class,” “Hang Time” and other television series. 

He and his wife, Natalie, were living above the Sunset Strip when he accepted a job offer to teach a college course at the University of Pittsburgh.

Given his then 2-year-old daughter’s habit of dancing naked on the coffee table—which his wife pointed out could one day become a profession in Hollywood—the family decided to move home.

But the Pittsburgh they came home to wasn’t the city Kurlander remembered.

“Pittsburgh, as a city, was struggling at the time,” he said. “Nobody thought Pittsburgh was going to win two Super Bowls. No one thought it would be the most livable city.”

Pittsburghers—himself included—wanted to see their city thrive, Kurlander said.

“I came back here and I remembered how much community there is here, how connected I feel and how much is so special in Pittsburgh,” he said.

In “My Tale of Two Cities,” Kurlander plays football on the North Side with Steeler star Franco Harris, who told him that sports, business, medicine and art needed to work together for Pittsburgh to be great. He shops in the Strip District with Teresa Heinz, and has breakfast with former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill.

Since filming began in 2005, Pittsburgh has added some things to its resume—backdrop for blockbuster films, Google offices, and a couple of Lombardi Trophies, to name a few.

But the event Kurlander chose to put at the beginning of the documentary is an interview with Newell. It ends with a shot of Point State Park, filled with Pittsburghers singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.”

The Hollywood is the perfect place to show the documentary, Kurlander said, because it’s in one of the neighborhoods that make the Pittsburgh area so unique.

And for Newell, who hung out with friends, went bowling, shopping, to school and even to the dentist in Dormont, watching the documentary in the Hollywood really is like coming home.

 “When I was sitting in the theater, it made me feel very good that I was able to help Fred (Rogers) spread the word about good programming for children, and now help Carl spread the word about Pittsburgh,” he said. “That’s my touchstone to Dormont. Not just the theater, but all of it.”

If you’re going:

• When: Friday, Dec. 16, 7 p.m.
• What: Pittsburgh Double Feature – “Pittsburgh From the Air,” “My Tale of Two Cities: A Comeback Story,” “Pittsburgh Dad” and panel discussion with David Newell and Carl Kurlander.
• Where: Hollywood Theater, 1449 Potomac Ave., Dormont
• Tickets are $7 each and are available at www.showclix.com. For more information, see the “My Tale of Two Cities” website, or call the Hollywood at 412-344-2958.

This story originally appeared on Dormont-Brookline Patch