Experiencing Interruptions?

DOCTOR PAIN Sizzle Reel

Logline: A Sicilian immigrant lives a double life in World War II-era Brooklyn, working as a professional wrestler to pay his way through medical school.

Synopsis for Proposed Narrative Short: In World War II-era Brooklyn, young Sicilian immigrant John Bonica is wrestling professionally, taking on all comers and working as a strongman at carnivals. He's also a third-year medical student, working toward a future that will one day reflect on him as a leading light of 20th century medical science. But when he shows up to assist in an important surgery one morning after a night of particularly grueling bouts looking worse for the wear, his mentor and lead surgeon has seen enough, calling him into his office and confronting him with the true nature of his hitherto unspoken double life — and perhaps an ultimatum to choose between his dreams and the only means he has of continuing to pursue them.

  • Michael Pantozzi
    Writer
    Off the Face of the Earth, Daredevil, Perry Mason, Service to Man, Feast of the Epiphany
  • Michael Pantozzi
    Director
    Off the Face of the Earth, Daredevil, Perry Mason, Service to Man, Feast of the Epiphany
  • Michael Pantozzi
    Producer
    Off the Face of the Earth, Daredevil, Perry Mason, Service to Man, Feast of the Epiphany
  • Michael Pantozzi
    Key Cast
    "Michael Pantozzi (Narrator)"
    imdb.me/michaelpantozzi
  • Project Type:
    Other
  • Completion Date:
    February 29, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Michael Pantozzi

Neapolitan/Sicilian-American. Brooklyn-born. Long Island-raised. Los Angeles-based. Voracious reader. Ardent cinephile. Former wrestling champion. Current long-distance runner and devoted dog dad. Freelance editor at various media outlets. Part-time actor (SAG-AFTRA, AEA). Writer and director of "Off the Face of the Earth" starring Kimmy Robertson ("Twin Peaks").

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Dr. John J. Bonica was my paternal grandmother's brother (so my great uncle). He arrived in the U.S. from Sicily in 1927, at the age of 10. By the time he was 15, his father had died, and he had assumed full responsibility for the household, selling newspapers and shining shoes.

By the time he was in his mid-20s (around 1941), he was wrestling professionally — which was a very different thing back then than it is now — working as a strongman at carnivals and challenging anyone in the crowd to wrestle him. As in, random strangers would actually climb into the ring to fight him.

He was also a third-year medical student, and wrestling was simply the most immediate and natural means he could find for paying the tuition. So he would wrestle on nights and weekends, in environments where the knowledge that he was essentially a scholar would've undermined his credibility there, and then he'd go into surgery theater with his face all messed up the next day, threatening to undermine his credibility there, and of course all kinds of events would routinely threaten to make one of these personas bleed (if not full-on spill) into the other.

With no small amount of difficulty, he navigated this (taking a break from both occupations to serve in the Army in the last couple of years of World War II), and went on to become one of modern medicine's most celebrated anesthesiologists.

And so to me, the importance of depicting such a narrative on-screen (or at least part of it, given that this is a short we're talking about) is perhaps as much as anything else rooted in the fact that such a story — the story of someone living a double life and trying to keep their two distinct lives separate — has always made for a pretty reliably compelling movie (or at least the potential for one).

My connection to the Italian American community and the roots of my passion for Italian American storytelling are perhaps by now implicit: I was born into them. They are inextricable from my very blood and have informed every moment of my life's experience for as long as I've been self-aware.

As for my motivation for participating in the Russo Brothers' Italian American Filmmaker Forum in particular, all I can say is that I've long been inspired by any Italian Americans I can point to as an indisputable example of our staggering contributions to this country and this world — never mind the art to which I've devoted my life — and I think it's safe to say that these days, AGBO stands as a rather significant one.