Film Tugs 9

The idea for this series is that while watching a movie, I see tugboats in it unexpectedly.  This happened last night as  I watched Kill the Irishman, a 2011 movie based on events in Cleveland OH during the mid-1970s, when a mob war led to 37 bombings in Cuyahoga County.  I was outside the US during that time period and had no recollection of it, nor do I recall this movie from a decade ago. 

The protagonist is Danny Greene, who first worked as a longshoreman on the Cleveland docks. While taking a break from discharging grain, he points out this container ship being escorted and tells his fellow dockworkers that containerization will take away all their jobs. 

Is this a model?  I don’t recognize the livery on either tugboat or containership.  Haven’t all escort tugs in Cleveland always been GL tugs?Were there ever containerships of this type in Cleveland in the 1950s or 1960s?  Danny was born in 1933, dropped out of high school, did a few years in the military, and came back to Cleveland in the 1950s, I’d calculate.

At one point in the early 1970s, Greene gets a loan from Shondor Birns, a racketeer who gets this money from the Gambino family, leading to this gratuitous shot of an eastbound tug in the East River.  Now that could be a canaler like  Crow or Cheyenne . . . .  These photos are both screen grabs and the tugboat below plays no role in the movie except to establish the location, already done by the buildings.

Can anyone shed any further light on these two tugboats, the ship, and containerization on the Great Lakes in that time period? 

Screen grabs by WVD, whose previous film tugs can be found here.

Film Tugs 7

Here are previous posts in this series.

There is some self-disclosure here:  since last winter and thanks to my movie-buff son, I’ve gotten hooked on movies based on comics.  So, recently, to my surprise, while watching Gotham, I saw Marie J. Turecamo and one of the 6000s in a CGI-noir of an East River scene.  She’s unmistakeable.  Season 1, episode 11 has all these, along with some FDNY vessels, a NYCDEP tanker, and recognizable barges.

And with apologies to the actor, that is one of the Harley boats, St. Andrews (my guess) or Liberty.

And this . . . ABC-1, with a very odd mast.

I realize some of these are not tugs, but categories are made to be challenged.  In the next two photos, I’d heard that Lilac was used for a Daredevil scene, so I watched the series–not liking it at first–until I got to the scene.  By the time I got there, I was a fan.

Clearly filmed in the Navy yard, I have to say I’m impressed by the magic of cinema, and that’s why it’s the economic powerhouse it is.

All “screen-grabs” by Will Van Dorp.

Somewhat related:  Come celebrate the launch of film maker Thomas Halaczinsky‘s “Archipelago New York”: June 18th, 6PM at Rizzoli Bookstore at 1133 Broadway Manhattan.