29th Street

Frank Pesce has been lucky his whole life. In 1976 he wins six point two million dollars on the New York State lottery. The same night he is arrested throwing stones at a church. At the station he tells the officer his story: growing up on 29th Street, a father who gambles, debts that never end, the loan sharks in the neighbourhood, and how that lottery ticket ended up in his hand. Explaining why the luck never did him any good takes him all night. George Gallo directs; a hundred and one minutes, with Anthony LaPaglia as Frank, Danny Aiello as his father and Lainie Kazan as his mother. It is the real Frank Pesce's story, and Pesce plays his own brother Vito in it. The lottery is real too: he did win that prize in 1976.