81-year-old Chickie Donohue has been telling tavern stories since she was a teenager, but there’s one story she doesn’t need to tell anymore.
It tells of his wildly unlikely journey in 1967 when he went to Vietnam, bringing beer and cheering hugs from his hometown of Inwood in Upper Manhattan.
Soldiers stationed in various units groaned when they saw their neighbors wearing well-worn dungarees.
Over the decades, the story has been widely known and widely believed among Inwood’s saloons and Donahue’s fellow sandhogs, urban miners digging train and waterway tunnels deep into the city’s bedrock. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the middle of a long time.
But now, Donahue is more than surprised to see his story move from New York’s gritty bars and muddy tunnels to the big screen.
that is”Best beer run ever,Adventure comedy directed by Peter Farrelly and starring Zac Efron. It hits theaters on September 23rd, and he’s coming to Apple TV+ on September 30th.
During his four months in Vietnam, Donahue visited four friends. All returned home after surviving a disastrous combat tour. They are all still alive and regularly have dinner together in New York.
when the movie Premiering at this month’s Toronto International Film Festival, the producers flew them and paid for everything. It was a far cry from being rationed in a muddy foxhole. There were fancy hotel rooms, $250 a day meal allowances, red his carpets, and screenings where the boys got his standing ovation.
On a recent weekday, the day after he flew home, Donahue slammed a $100 bill into the bar at Inwood’s Tubby Hook Tavern.
Owner Niall Henry tapped Donohue on the shoulder and said, let me rest “
“I had never heard of him,” said Donahue. “But my granddaughter told me he’s this, he’s that, so he passed his family’s smell test.”
A Donahue named John grew up in Inwood, a bar-filled Irish-American enclave. He ran errands for veterans at Democratic clubs and bookmakers’ stores. By the end of 1967, he said he knew more than 20 young men in his neighborhood who died in the Vietnam War.
One night at Doc Fiddler’s Tavern in Inwood, a patriotic bartender nicknamed The Colonel (played in the film by Bill Murray) lashes out at anti-war demonstrators and a local boy fighting over there. Donahue shocked him when he mumbled that someone should bring beer to us. Fellow Patrons Volunteered.
At 26, he was a Marine Corps veteran (stationed in Japan and elsewhere) and served as a merchant marine. He contracted a ship to transport ammunition from New York to Vietnam and brought with him an American beer and a duffle his bag full of any information he could find about the whereabouts of half a dozen soldier friends.
He essentially stalked across the country, navigating exclusion zones and military officials, and took jeeps and planes to find fellow units.
“The story spread throughout the neighborhood, but some people had their suspicions,” said Duggan, a former New York City Police Department lieutenant who grew up in the same Inwood apartment as Donahue.
Duggan showed a bar patron a picture of Donahue eating rations with an ambush patrol force.
Having a photo like this on hand has helped corroborate his far-fetched story over the years, Donahue said, “I haven’t had to buy a beer in Inwood for a long time.”
“But of course, I never dreamed that this would become a movie.”
From Inwood’s bar to the big screen, the Beer Run story is another dazzling Chicky story. Andrew Muscat, one of the film’s producers, said, “Making the movie was as improbable as beer itself runs,” adding, “Bringing beer into a war zone is a big deal.” It required ‘the same kind of arrogance and naivety’.
According to Donoghue, the story stems from the 1990 New York Daily News strike, when the owners were keen to put out “scab paper” despite workers’ strikes. He said he had diverted rail shipments of Canadian newsprint to the Dakotas with the help of union allies to sabotage operations.
In any case, Donahue and his Beer Run story caught the attention of news reporter Joanna Molloy during the strike.
While writing the book, she met Muscat, a documentary filmmaker looking for a project. They arranged to meet Donahue and her four Vietnamese associates at a bar to hear Bialang’s definitive story. The companions brought photographs, and Donahue brought a stamped passport issued by the American Embassy in Saigon.
Muscato made a short documentary, you guessed it, with funding from Pabst Blue Ribbon. “Best beer run ever” It has become widely watched on Pabst’s YouTube channel.
Muscat said his goal is to document the trip.
Although the short was only 13 minutes long, it cemented the credibility of the story and caught the attention of executives at production company Skydance, who decided to make a film with Muscat in 2017.
Muscato’s short film caught Farrelly’s attention during the production of the 2018 Best Picture-winning drama Green Book, and she was instantly hooked.
“I was like, ‘I’m kidding,’ for a minute,” he said in a phone interview.
“The concept is seemingly silly. It’s silly for a guy to bring beer to his friends during the Vietnam War,” said Farrelly, who signed on as director.
Early on, he asked Donahue how familiar he was with the rich genre of Vietnamese cinema.
Only one, Donahue answered heartily: “Forrest Gump.”
Muscat said Efron approached Skydance as soon as he got the script and wanted to play Donahue.
This caused quite a stir for Donahue’s friends and family. Efron-like Hank played a man who didn’t put too much stock in his appearance, especially when working underground or driving a locker room trailer in a workplace known as “The Hog House.” Sandhogs shower and wash their mining clothes when they return to the surface.
Donahue, new to the movie set, saw Efron and was at first confused as to why the shoot required so many takes.
“I wasn’t impressed at first,” he said. I told myself I’ve done a lot of work, and if I had to be asked to do something over and over again, I would have been fired very quickly. “
Donahue then watched Efron use those takes to polish his portrayal.
“He asked me, ‘Did you do this or did you do that?’ He wanted my help,” Donahue said. “I’m glad he wanted me to participate.”
“I’m not a great acting judge, but I think he really nailed me.” I felt the emotion.”