Recording MAN ON THE LEDGE with Vincent D’Onofrio
Producer Glenn McQuaid and writer/director Joe Maggio
“MAN ON THE LEDGE is my second project made in conjunction with Glasseye Pix, and it’s also the second time I’ve been given the chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do but never before had the opportunity (in this instance, write a radio play; and in the first instance, write and direct a horror film.) And so, once again, my wagon is hitched to the team of wild and quite possibly drunken horses that is Glasseye Pix. When Larry Fessenden first approached me about his and Glenn McQuaid’s scheme to produce a series of Mercury Theater style radio plays, I admit I was a tad skeptical. I mean – radio plays? Really? No picture? No special FX? Nearly thirty years past the point when kids were still capable of enjoying even pop music without video accompaniment, and Glasseye is going to start producing radio plays?
But then anyone who knows Larry knows he can be quite persuasive, especially when he’s excited about an idea, and not five minutes after his pitch began I too was all in a froth and eager to get started on my installment of TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE.
My tale is essentially a collage of the intellectual detritus that has littered my brain for some time, but never found a home in any of my films because, well, it’s so grim and disturbing that I’d never before dared expose it to the light of day. Then I met Larry and, well… Now the world sees me as slightly deranged, which is okay I guess, because frankly I’m convinced that we’re all a little nuts, some more than others, but in even the most well-adjusted among us, with just a little scratching, it’s astonishing what we might find beneath the surface.
MAN ON THE LEDGE takes a seemingly ordinary man and slowly peels away the layers of normalcy until we arrive at his burning core, a crucible of neuroses – all the perceived slights, unrequited love, nagging resentment, hopes and dreams that can and often do constitute a life. It’s also a prequel of sorts to my last film, BITTER FEAST, elaborating on the story of Bill Coley P.I., played with a kind of tattered, grimy dignity in both film and now on the radio by none other than Larry Fessenden.
So please sit back and enjoy… MAN ON THE LEDGE!
-JM
The Cops: Greg Amici, John Speredakos, Nick Damici;
D’Onofrio at the mic
Group shot with Fessenden
