Toots (2007)

Toots is a documentary film which outlines the life of Toots Shor (1903–1977), Manhattan's premier saloonkeeper from the year 1940 to the year 1959. At 18, he relocated from South Philadelphia to New York and became a speakeasy bouncer. In 1940, he opened his restaurant, Toots Shor's at 51 West 51st St., which was frequented by sports heroes, actors, mobsters, cops, politicians, visiting dignitaries, and writers. The film is commentated by Shor's daughter, Frank Gifford, Peter Duchin, former sports writers, and others as the filmmaker mixes still photographs, archive footage, including an appearance on "This Is Your Life," and an audio-tape interview from 1975 to present a portrait of New York during and after Prohibition and of a lovable, larger-than-life, uniquely New York public figure.

Synopsis

The film identifies what were the markers of Toots' career as a celebrity restaurateur: Prohibition, the growth of the Mafia, the golden age of baseball, and the death of the saloon scene at in the "serious" atmosphere created by the tumult of the 60s. Throughout the film, there is a feel of romantic nostalgia as all those who are interviewed recall Toots fondly as a lover of New York, at a moment when the city was awash in wealth and celebrity as never before, and that the city's sizzle was once embodied by a sports bar in Midtown: a place of glamour and egalitarianism, where Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra and Ernest Hemingway rubbed elbows with working stiffs.