The Gentleman Bandit | |
---|---|
Written by | Milan Stitt |
Directed by | Jonathan Kaplan |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | John E. Quill |
Production company | Highgate Pictures |
Budget | $2 million [1] |
Original release | |
Release | 6 May 1981 |
The Gentleman Bandit is a 1981 TV movie directed by Jonathan Kaplan and starring Ralph Waite. [2] It is based on the real story of Reverend Bernard Thomas Pagano.
A priest is accused of armed robbery by various eyewitnesses.
Until the eve of the first screening, [3] the working title for the film was The Bandit Priest. [4] [5]
The film was based on a true story of the Reverend Bernard Thomas Pagano [6] who was arrested in 1979 for five armed robberies and one attempted robberies. Eventually another man, Ronald W. Clouser, confessed to the crimes. [7] [8]
Writer Milan Stitt spent a week interviewing Pagano, his attorney, friends and parishioners in December 1979. He wrote the script in four days. [1] Pagano, a native of Newark, New Jersey, served five years as a chaplain at the VA hospital in Lyons and East Orange in the 1990s, according to Tom Malek-Jones, the chief chaplain for the facility. [9] Pagano, himself a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, was considered "a valuable asset for his work with veterans of that era and did not seem like a robber", Malek-Jones said. [9]
Filming took place in New York City and Westchester County. [10] It began on 19 January 1981. Pagano himself acted as technical advisor on the film. [1] Pagano later taught theology at Notre Dame High School in Easton, Pennsylvania in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The Gentleman Bandit | |
---|---|
Written by | Milan Stitt |
Directed by | Jonathan Kaplan |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | John E. Quill |
Production company | Highgate Pictures |
Budget | $2 million [1] |
Original release | |
Release | 6 May 1981 |
The Gentleman Bandit is a 1981 TV movie directed by Jonathan Kaplan and starring Ralph Waite. [2] It is based on the real story of Reverend Bernard Thomas Pagano.
A priest is accused of armed robbery by various eyewitnesses.
Until the eve of the first screening, [3] the working title for the film was The Bandit Priest. [4] [5]
The film was based on a true story of the Reverend Bernard Thomas Pagano [6] who was arrested in 1979 for five armed robberies and one attempted robberies. Eventually another man, Ronald W. Clouser, confessed to the crimes. [7] [8]
Writer Milan Stitt spent a week interviewing Pagano, his attorney, friends and parishioners in December 1979. He wrote the script in four days. [1] Pagano, a native of Newark, New Jersey, served five years as a chaplain at the VA hospital in Lyons and East Orange in the 1990s, according to Tom Malek-Jones, the chief chaplain for the facility. [9] Pagano, himself a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, was considered "a valuable asset for his work with veterans of that era and did not seem like a robber", Malek-Jones said. [9]
Filming took place in New York City and Westchester County. [10] It began on 19 January 1981. Pagano himself acted as technical advisor on the film. [1] Pagano later taught theology at Notre Dame High School in Easton, Pennsylvania in the late 1990s and early 2000s.