While renovations for Tom Lee Park were underway, Carol Coletta, Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) CEO and president, knew that the project was worth remembering. It’s a story almost a century in the making, beginning with Tom Lee’s heroic act of saving 32 people from drowning in the Mississippi River in 1925. “Very few public assets or public parks are built with one person’s courage and display of generosity and humanity at its core,” she says.“We had this in mind every step of the way … the opportunity to bring that story to the forefront and put that at the center.” A film, it seemed, would best document MRPP’s efforts in continuing that story, so Coletta commissioned filmmaker Molly Wexler and her team at Last Bite Films to follow the four-year journey.
“We didn’t specify the story,” Coletta says. “We just said to Molly and her great crew to just document what’s going on here and talk to everyone, see what you see. And I think they really landed the story really neatly because in a lot of ways, they’re really telling a story about equity and at its heart that’s what the story of the making of this park is all about. We had this mantra of a riverfront for everyone. And not just for a few days a year, not just to be enjoyed by a few, but really a riverfront for everyone.”
Part of the beauty of a documentary, as opposed to, say, a book, is that individual voices come together, with each voice taking direct ownership of part of the story. It’s a story of many, not just one, Coletta says. “It just comes alive and I think it sticks in a way when you hear straight from people who’ve been involved, people who feel affected by it, seeing some of the images. It opens with a beautiful image of Tom Lee’s family and just to see them, just to hear from them, and how meaningful this was to them is a lovely part of the story. But it’s a piece of the equity story.”
The film, she continues, “has a real emotional center to it that is quite lovely, and so I think it will be a film that can be enjoyed by people who know nothing about Memphis and know nothing about this park. … I think of major projects that have been built in Memphis, and the histories teach us a lot about what it takes to build something ambitious. I’ve seen a lot of projects get built and I hope someone who’s going to build the next project can look at this film and say, ‘Let’s learn from this experience.’”
The 25-minute documentary, titled “A Riverfront for Everyone,” will premiere at the inaugural This Is Memphis event on Friday, February 16th, ahead of Tom Lee’s birthday on Sunday. For the premiere, MRPP will host a silent auction of fun, unique, Memphis-related experiences, and will serve generous bites and drinks throughout the evening. Cocktail attire is suggested. Purchase tickets here.
MRPP also plans to air and to screen “A Riverfront for Everyone” on WKNO and at film festivals at later dates.
Suhair Lauck at her post behind the cash register in the documentary The Little Tea Shop.
As director of operations for Indie Memphis, Brighid Wheeler has had a crazy year. She and her organization have been charged with trying to figure out how to throw a film festival amid a worldwide pandemic. “I think the biggest challenge — I don’t necessarily want to speak for the whole team, but I think it would resonate with each team member — has been reminding yourself that every situation needs to be rethought. The moment you find yourself approaching something in the same way you would have pre-pandemic, you need to start over.”
The 2020 festival, which began on Wednesday night, is taking place online and outdoors. Indie Memphis has already moved their weekly programming online with the help of Memphis-based cinema services company Eventive. The staff, who specialize in in-person events, have had to learn to become broadcasters on the fly. There’s been a lot of time spent teleconferencing, says Wheeler. “Suddenly, you become an expert in a very specific sense on Zoom, like for our Tuesday nights, when we’re doing our weekly screenings and, [artistic director] Miriam [Bale] was hosting various industry people and having conversations about films with a filmmaker or a critic.”
But the new challenges have brought new opportunities. Wheeler says this has been driven home for her as the team records filmmaker interviews for the festival. “I’m reminded sitting through these Q&As that this is such a unique opportunity. Of course, I would prefer to have these filmmakers physically in Memphis. We are Indie Memphis. That’s our brand. But I’m able to have the majority of the filmmakers for each short film block in attendance for the Q&As. That is just something that is not always afforded to us at the in-person festival.”
Wheeler is in charge of programming the short films for the festival. This year, there are almost 200 of them, organized in themed blocks, all of which are available online. “In my time programming Indie Memphis, I’ve never been as proud of a shorts program as I am about this one,” she says. “I think that speaks to a number of different things, but I want to highlight first and foremost Kayla Myers, who has been a great addition to our programming team.”
On Thursday night, Indie Memphis takes over all four screens at the Malco Summer Drive-In. The Hometowner Documentary Shorts program, which begins at 6:30 PM, features both Memphis filmmakers and newcomers. It begins with “American Dream Safari,” G.B. Shrewsbury’s portrait of Tad Pierson, the Bluff City tour guide operator whose expertise in local music sites is unrivaled. Zaire Love, a graduate of the Crosstown Arts residency program, takes audiences on the “Road to Step,” which examines Black fraternity culture’s step show competition at Ole Miss. Artistic polymath Donald Meyers’ “The Lonely” is an intimate portrait of elderly isolation, and a plea for compassion. Bailey Smith’s “Holding On” is a chronicle of Memphis musician Don Lifted’s first U.S. tour. Matthew Lee urges the audience with “Remembering Veteran’s Day.” Emily Burkhead gets experimental with the hybrid doc “She Is More,” featuring musician Jordan Occasionally. Tyler Pilkington’s “Teched Out” explores the frontier of transhumanism, where the line between human and machine is blurred. Kierra Turner chronicles NBA player Jonathan Stark’s recovery from a potentially career-ending injury in “Wake ‘Em Up.” Josh Cooper’s “Loose Leaves” brings the story of a group of Black women entrepreneurs in Orange Mound. And finally, Matteo Servante and Molly Wexler’s “Little Tea Shop” gives you the background on the famous Downtown restaurant where you can find power players seated next to a person experiencing homelessness, and the immigrant restauranteur Suhair Lauck who brings them together.
“It’s an introduction to Memphis,—a taste of different areas and people within our city,” says Wheeler. “We know how hardworking our filmmakers are, but to see, even through the pandemic, the resilience they continue to display as they make their work is nothing short of amazing.”
Indie Memphis 2020 continues through Thursday, October 29. You can buy online and in-person passes at indiememphis,org.
Ira Sachs, Sr. in Lynne Sachs’ documentary Film About A Father Who
In a virtual version of its traditional preview party, Indie Memphis announced the lineup for its 23rd annual film festival. The opening night film is Memphis-born director Lynne Sachs’ documentary A Film About A Father Who. Sachs draws on 35 years of footage she shot of her father, Ira Sachs, Sr., to draw a portrait of a family struggling with generational secrets. Michael Gallagher, programmer for the Slamdance Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere in January, said “This divine masterwork of vulnerability weaves past and present together with ease, daring the audience to choose love over hate, forgiveness over resentment.”
Sachs is the most prominent of the Memphians among the dozens of filmmakers who have works in the 2020 festival. The Hometowner Features competition includes Anwar Jamison’s feature Coming to Africa, a bi-contentental production which was shot both here in the Bluff City and in Ghana. We Can’t Wait is director Lauren Ready’s documentary about Tami Sawyer’s 2019 campaign to become Memphis’ first Black woman mayor. The Hub is Lawrence Matthews portrait of Memphians trying to overcome discrimination, underemployment, and financial hardship in an unforgiving America. Morreco Coleman tells the story of Jerry C. Johnson, the first Black coach to win an NCAA Basketball title, with 1st Forgotten Champions. The detective thriller Smith is a neo-noir from director Jason Lockridge. Among the dozens of Memphis-made short films on offer will be “The Little Tea Shop,” Molly Wexler and Matteo Servante’s moving portrait of beloved Memphis restauranteur Suhair Lauck.
Director Anwar Jamison (far left) filming Coming To Africa in Ghana.
World premieres at Indie Memphis include Trimiko Melancon’s race relations documentary What Do You Have To Lose? and Cane Fire, director Anthony Banua-Simon’s incisive history of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i.
Indie Memphis remains devoted to the latest in film innovation, but the festival’s Retrospective series alway offers interesting and fun films from years past. In 2020, that includes The Wiz, Sidney Lumet’s 1978 cult classic remake of The Wizard of Oz with an incredible all-Black cast, including Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow and Diana Ross as Dorothy. Joel Schumacher, the legendary writer/director who passed away this year, wrote the screenplay, which was adapted from a 1974 Broadway show. He will be honored with a screening of Car Wash, the 1976 comedy which is the definition of classic drive-in fare.
Ted Ross, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and Nipsey Russell in The Wiz
With film festivals all over the United States facing cancellation because of the coronavirus pandemic, the theme of this year’s Indie Memphis is “Online and Outdoors.” Screenings will take place at the Malco Summer Drive-In and at various socially distanced outside venues across the city. All films will also be offered online through the festival’s partnership with Eventive, the Memphis-based cinematic services company that has been pioneering online screening during the pandemic. “We hope to bring people together, in person and online, and provide inspiration and an outlet,” says artistic director Miriam Bale. “In order to counter Screen Burnout, we’ll be offering a series of what we call ‘Groundings’ throughout the digital festival, including a meditative film called ‘A Still Place’ by festival alumnus Christopher Yogi.”
You can buy passes for the 2020 festival at the Indie Memphis website. The Memphis Flyer will have continuing coverage of the fest throughout the month of October.
Molly Wexler is a longtime Indie Memphis board member who recently decided to try her hand at making films herself. Her documentary, The Little Tea Shop, recently aired on WKNO, and will play at the upcoming Nashville Film Festival, the Portland Short Film Festival, and the Australian Muslim Film Festival. For Never Seen It, the first-time director and producer chose one of the greatest films ever made, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 masterpiece Rear Window.
Chris McCoy: What do you know about Rear Window?
Molly Wexler: I know it’s a classic movie from the 1950s starring Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. It’s one of Hitchcock’s most famous, and on many, many people’s top movies of all time lists.
Chris: Do you like Alfred Hitchcock movies? Generally?
Molly: I’m so embarrassed to say this. This is my first Alfred Hitchcock movie. I haven’t seen any other ones. I’m mortified saying that.
Chris: Well, we’re going to have a good conversation, then! I’m excited.
Molly: You know, I’m so involved with Indie Memphis, and I love independent film, and I’ve taken a film class before and stuff, but somehow I missed that whole Alfred Hitchcock thing. And honestly, for a long time, that really wasn’t my jam. But lately, I’ve been way more into mysteries, and thrillers, and horror, and just that whole genre of movies that I hadn’t explored before. So it’s time for me to explore Hitchcock and I’m excited to do that in a very public way.
112 minutes later…
Chris: Molly Wexler, you are now someone who has seen Rear Window. What did you think?
Molly: I think when you hear Hitchcock … and by the way, I’m almost positive, when I thought back on it, that I’ve seen Psycho, but so long ago. But I may have just seen enough scenes from it to think I’ve seen it. But I’m going to rewatch it. So, Hitchcock. You know, certain things come to mind. I went in with certain expectations. I thought I was going to be black and white. So, right off the bat, I was shocked that it was colorful and sort of lighter. I was expecting dark and heavy and intense. It didn’t feel like that to me. It just felt different than I thought it was going to feel. Jimmy Stewart, my God! He’s so good! And Grace Kelly is iconic.
Never Seen It: Watching Rear Window with Director Molly Wexler (3)
Chris: Has anybody ever been as beautiful as she was?
Molly: She cannot be real. I love her accent, the way she enunciates. Just what is that? The only other person who talks like that is like Moira from Schitt’s Creek.
Chris: I hit Wikipedia right after I finished watching this time because I’m always so enthralled with her. Rear Window is from 1954. That year, she did three movies: this movie, Dial M for Murder, which is also a Hitchcock movie, and a movie called The Country Girl, which no one ever watches anymore. But she won the Best Actress Oscar for The Country Girl, beating out Judy Garland for A Star Is Born.
Molly: God!
Chris: I mean, that’s a good year. And then, the next year at Cannes, she met Prince Rainier and became actual royalty.
Molly: Legendary. And Jimmy Stewart! He’s so cool.
Chris: He’s in full grumpy Jimmy Stewart mode.
Molly: Oh, I know! And I loved that because it was just exactly how he’s supposed to be. As opposed to the predisposed expectations I had for Hitchcock. Jimmy Stewart lived up to everything, whereas Hitchcock was shocking me a bit.
Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo in Rear Window.
Chris: As you were saying, there’s a lot more emotional variation in this film than in a normal thriller.
Molly: Exactly. I expected to have much more of an air of suspense and foreboding. I knew the premise, that he was stuck home in his apartment, which was kind of why I wanted to pick this movie, because of all of us being stuck at home because of the pandemic. I felt like people could really relate to that now. Especially for people who live in apartment buildings or in big cities. You hear that all the time, how hard it’s been for people in New York and places where they’re in these tiny apartments. They just say basically, you know, other than TV or the internet — he had the radio — other than that, what is there to do besides look out the window?
Chris: He doesn’t own a TV.
Molly: I guess the differences that his neighbors can still socialize, even though he can’t.
Chris: I feel like this movie is about mass media. It’s about television, which was still new then, to a certain extent. But it’s also about the movies.
Molly: It’s about that sort of voyeuristic tendency that we all have.
Chris: I think that the thing that really connected with me this time is the true crime trend.
Molly: It’s the first movie that’s about reality television, or that could be spun into a reality TV situation.
Chris: They become amateur detectives, trying to figure it all out. What’s fascinating to them about Thorwald? About all these people that they’re watching across the way? This is real, and there’s a mystery. They’re prying into these people’s personal lives. That, to me, is kind of the same thing that you get from like … I don’t know, like Gone Girl, for example.
Molly: That’s true. Yeah.
Chris: Except Gone Girl was a fictional thing. … Okay, Tiger King. Those are real people, and you’re really prying into their lives. You’re just getting little dribbles of information about these real people, and you’re trying to make a moral judgment about them. “Did Carole Baskin kill her husband?” is the same as, “Did Roger Thorwald kill his wife?”
Molly: Right. Exactly. Lisa is the one that says, “I’m not up on my rear window ethics.” I thought the writing was really well done.
Thelma Ritter as Stella, Grace Kelly as Lisa, and Jimmy Stewart as Jeff.
Chris: The first half-hour is like a rom-com.
Molly: That’s where I was totally thrown off. That’s what I was going to say to you actually, that in the beginning, especially when Stella comes in and she’s funny. They have a real cute dynamic. I’m like, “What is this? This is not what I thought it was going to be at all!” But I knew it was going to go in a different direction, and there was a mystery aspect. I knew there was a murder, or maybe not a murder. But it felt very light in the beginning.
Chris: It begins with a whip around the set, and it ends with a whip around the set, that big, huge set.
Molly: I love that opening shot.
Never Seen It: Watching Rear Window with Director Molly Wexler
Chris: You get everything you need to know about Jeff. You introduce Miss Lonely Hearts, the dancer, Thorwald and his wife, and the musician.
Molly: But not the woman who does the pottery quite yet, or the newlyweds.
The Newlyweds
Chris: So did you know which one of those threads was going to end up being the murder mystery?
Molly: No, not from that.
Chris: I’ve seen this movie so many times. That’s why it’s so cool to talk about it with you. That’s what I like about writing these things, too. It makes me look at these movies with new eyes, you know? I was like, if I didn’t know, could I tell?
Molly: Well, we see Raymond Burr. I didn’t know for sure. but I figured his character was going to do something. And I sort of assumed murder. But no, I didn’t know a hundred percent, for sure. But after not too long, the way the camera lingers on him, it’s just a weird dynamic between him and his wife. You kind of feel like, okay, that’s who it’s going to happen with. They tee that up.
Raymond Burr (left) as Lars Thorwald and Irene Winston as Anna Thorwald.
Chris: One of my all-time favorite lines is “Save us from the over-passionate daughters of the rich!” I say that to myself all the time, in totally inappropriate circumstances. It’s like a personal catchphrase. I sometimes forget where I even got it, but then I heard it this time, and I was like, “Oh, yeah. That’s where I got it.”
Molly: I liked his relationship with Lisa, too, because he had it in his head that it wasn’t gonna work. Everything was too perfect. I liked how I think she definitely wanted to change for him, and she enjoyed that change, and he appreciated it. I liked how they evolved that way. Although, I have to say, one of my notes was the casual misogyny that runs through the whole movie, which was par for the course for the era. But it’s still jarring.
Chris: It is jarring. I think that’s when a lot of kids … uh, younger people watch older movies, they can’t get past that a lot of times.
Molly: So many old movies have a lot of racist and misogynistic and homophobic stuff, things that under the lens of today do not hold up.
Chris:King Kong is my one that I always talk about. King Kong is an amazing movie. It’s groundbreaking, and the special effects sequences still hold up today. But that movie was made in 1933, and in places, it’s just racist as hell. And sexist, too. I mean, it’s not Birth of a Nation racist, but it’s really uncomfortable, the way the natives are portrayed on Skull Island.
Molly: Speaking of special effects, there’s one scene in this film where a helicopter shows up. It’s almost like, where’s the person holding the string to the helicopter? It was so bad. I was like, why is this here? Did it add anything?
Chris: Well, I think you’re right. It’s a bad composite shot. You’ve got the two girls who are in bikinis sunbathing, and then the helicopter comes and hovers over them to ogle them.
Molly: Oh, okay. I wasn’t getting that.
Chris: It probably worked better in 1954, But it’s another aspect of everybody watching each other. What’s the difference between the guys in the helicopter ogling these chicks, and what Jeff and Lisa are doing? But you look at that helicopter, you immediately think it’s wrong. And also, by extension, it’s what the audience is doing when the audience is watching the film. You judge the people in the helicopter, but you don’t judge yourself, and you don’t judge Jeff, even though you’re all in comparable moral positions.
Molly: Well, it’s interesting because Jeff’s the photographer. And so he’s naturally always seeking out compelling visuals. Until they brought up the whole “rear window ethics” thing, I didn’t give it much thought. I mean, you’re living so close to other people and everyone keeps their windows open. So everyone’s doing some of that. And I don’t know, just seemed to me like, that’s what you did back then. And even now, like reality TV, I guess people who are in those shows agree to be in them, but I’ve never been so drawn to that. I mean, there’s some reality TV that’s better than others, but some that’s just that pure voyeurism. A peek inside someone’s life that seems so staged, but is supposed to be real, that didn’t interest me. Whereas this was much more compelling to me because I could relate to it. I used to live in New York, in an apartment building. I felt like I was really remembering that and missing that.
Chris: Where did you live in New York?
Molly: A few different places, but the last place I lived was the East Village, in a 550 square-foot studio.
Chris: I wrote this down. She lives on …
Molly: She lives on 63rd. I remember he said at one point he was on 9th street. So, he was in the Village, and she was probably on the Upper East Side
Chris: He’s in the Village, ’cause next door, he’s got a sculptor, a dancer, and a musician. And he’s a photographer. They’re all artsy.
Never Seen It: Watching Rear Window with Director Molly Wexler (2)
Chris: So, you just directed your first movie …
Molly: It was very different!
Chris: It is different, but this film brings up questions of documentary ethics, as well. What did you take from this, as a newly minted director?
Molly: Well, I had a great appreciation for a lot of the shots, especially at the end. Jeff knows Lars is coming in the door, and they sort of pan down on top of Jimmy Stewart’s face. That was classic Hitchcock in my mind. The way it was lit, and the look in his eye, and the shot from above. I love that shot, maybe because it’s so familiar. I also liked [that] there were so many fade to blacks. Not that fades are especially creative, but I thought it just felt right.
Chris: Hitch uses it as a pacing element.
Molly: And he never lost me. Something else that I really thought was nice was how so much of the score was from the musician who lived in one of the apartments in the courtyard. What a clever idea, not just to play the music, but to have it come from one of the apartments. That’s very realistic in New York. You hear everything, you know? I liked how like the music saved Miss Lonely Hearts, but also it saved the Composer, because there were times when he seems pretty despondent and upset. He definitely seemed to be having his ups and downs. At the end, him hearing how the music saved her probably ended up helping save him, too.
Chris: It ends with him playing the record that he finally got made. What you’re talking about is called diegetic sound. There’s two kinds of sound or music in film: diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic means it comes from a source that you can see on the screen, or that is assumed to be in the world. Non-diegetic sound is like the John Williams score in Star Wars. Luke Skywalker can’t hear that music.
Never Seen It: Watching Rear Window with Director Molly Wexler (4)
Chris: This movie is like diegetic everything. He built a little world. The whole thing was a soundstage.
Molly: Oh my God! I swear, I was trying to figure out where that could be. But I was like, that’s so long ago, I’m sure it’s been renovated or torn down or whatever. Wow! That’s impressive.
The New York City courtyard set was built in a soundstage at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.
Chris: Yeah. It’s all one set. You know, what I love about it — and this is my favorite Hitchcock film. Then I’ve got like five or six that are tied for second. You know what I mean? What elevates it to me is, I think, that sense of playfulness that you picked up on. The fact that it’s not just a straight spy thriller. It’s not just a straight suspense film. There’s so much else that’s going on at the same time.
Vertigo, which is the one that film writers and directors and everybody goes on about, and the one that displaced Citizen Kane as No. 1 in the decadal Sight + Sound poll, I’ve just never been a big fan. I think that the undertones of misogyny you’ve picked up on in this one are really foregrounded in Vertigo. But that’s also, I think, what people like about it. Hitchcock’s sort of confronting his own misogyny.
But what I like about Rear Window is the tightness of the construction, how everything fits together so well. Like you said, there’s so many tiny little narratives that sort of get scrunched together to make something bigger. I just love that, you know? I love the simplicity of how all these characters are drawn. Like the musician and Miss Lonely Hearts, their arc is more complete than some sitcom characters that you’ve seen for 10 years.
Molly: And it’s funny, because you have almost no dialogue from them. You just catch glimpses of them, but you learn a lot from those glimpses. What’s interesting is, after the dog gets murdered and the woman who owns him yells “Neighbors are supposed to be friends and take care of each other and not kill the dog!” Everything sort of comes to a head then. They start to solve the mystery, and then you see the neighbors mingling more with each other. The tragedy makes a community. And that’s kind of like the pandemic, where people really are getting to know their neighbors and are finding much more of a sense of community because they’re around more, and they’re out in their yards, wherever they live. Sometimes it does take a tragedy to remind us that we have neighbors, and that then it is nice to know your neighbors and have community.
Never Seen It: Watching Rear Window with Director Molly Wexler (5)
Suhair Lauck at her post behind the Little Tea Shop cash register. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’
The Little Tea Shop is closed for now because of the pandemic, but, thanks to Molly Wexler and crew, fans can visit the iconic Downtown restaurant on film.
The Little Tea Shop, Wexler’s documentary on the restaurant owned by Suhair Lauck, will air at 7:30 p.m. July 10th, 3:30 p.m. July 11th, and noon on July 12th on WKNO-TV. “This is the first time anyone will be able to see it,” says Wexler, founder of Last Bite Films. “Technically, this is the premiere. This is the half-hour version. The short version is 16 minutes long. The one we submitted to film festivals.”
The half-hour — actually 25 minutes — version is “more of the people who dined at the restaurant,” she says. It “really tells the history of the restaurant, and it goes in deep with the customers. They’re friends. They’re more than customers. They’re the lifeblood of the restaurant. Of course, we go in and get to know Suhair, too, and why Suhair was able to continue the legacy of The Little Tea Shop and really embrace it and make it grow.”
As for the patrons in the documentary, Wexler says, viewers will “see a lot of Memphis favorites like Henry Turley and Charlie Newman. And Pat Mitchell Worley, Mayor A C Wharton.”
Courtesy of Last Bite Films.
Former Mayor A C Wharton at the Litttle Tea Shop. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’
Then there are people like Matt Dellinger, author of Interstate 69, a book about the history of the highway. “He’s a really engaging guy from Brooklyn who we interviewed because we wanted someone who wasn’t from Memphis.”
Dellinger’s story with Lauck is “incredible,” Wexler says. “About 10 years ago he was down in Memphis doing research for a book he was writing and he stumbled into The Little Tea Shop. He wasn’t feeling well. And the way Suhair and some of the other people took care of him, he made life-long bonds with people from here. Because of The Little Tea Shop.”
Asked how the documentary came into being, Wexler says, “I actually got the idea when I saw Suhair out one night and it got me thinking about the Tea Shop and how I went there with my dad when I was a kid. He was a lawyer and working Downtown. I couldn’t believe the restaurant was not just still open, but thriving. I thought, ‘That’s kind of unique. I’m curious to learn more.’”
The Little Tea Shop was founded in 1918 by Lillie E. Parham and Emily A. Carpenter as a place for their friends to eat lunch when they were Downtown. Vernon Bell bought the restaurant in the 1940s. Lauck’s husband, the late James Lauck Sr., bought it in 1982.
Lauck, who was born in Bethany, Palestine, moved to Memphis in 1967 after marrying her first husband, who lived in Memphis. She later married James Lauck, who owned The Little Tea Shop, and began her career at the restaurant.
Courtesy of Last Bite Films.
Suhair Lauck in the LIttle Tea Shop kitchen. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’
After she got the idea for the documentary, Wexler began visiting the restaurant, but not telling Lauck what she was up to in case she didn’t pursue the project. “Before I ever was even going to film it, I was doing a bunch of research. Just talking to people who ate at the restaurant to find out if there was enough material there to make the documentary.”
She got together with Newman, John Malmo, and Ken Neill at the restaurant. “Matt was in town. And his relationship with all those people and Suhair was so interesting we arranged to film another day when he was back in town to get him on camera. He adds a lot to the story, I think.”
That “shows how special” The Little Tea Shop is, Wexler says. Someone like Dellinger from Brooklyn “can come in and make these amazing connections. It feels like home here.”
That’s “the root of the story,” she says. “Why is the 102-year-old restaurant so important to so many people as a connector? I think it’s the fact that it feels so comfortable. You feel so welcome.”
A lot of it “has to do with the food. But it has a lot to do with Suhair. The environment she created. I mean, there are many places you can go in Memphis and have a fine meal. You may have great conversations with people you lunch with and that’s the end of the experience. At the Tea Shop, you have a great conversation and so much more. You might meet someone that changes your life. You nourish your body, you nourish your relationships, you nourish your soul.”
And, she says, “You might have a conversation that changes Memphis.”
Courtesy of Last Bite Films.
Familiar fare at the Little Tea Shop. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’
Wexler is executive producer and co-director of the documentary. Joseph Carr is producer and Matteo Servente is co-director. “Without Joseph and Matteo, the movie wouldn’t have been made because they brought years of expertise and they were very patient with me.”
As for the documentary-making experience, Wexler says, “I learned that I love making films. I hope I get to do this again. And I love getting to know people and getting their stories. When you give people this platform to share, you learn about the best of people.”
Wexler says she “probably met 50 new friends. We connected through The Little Tea Shop. There are so many neat things about people that are inspirational. There are a lot of exciting and interesting people living in Memphis whom I had the honor to meet.”
They whittled the documentary down to make the 16-minute version for film festivals, she says. “The half-hour version is more Memphis-centric. The shorter version is more universal. I’ve submitted it to about 25 film festivals.”
After the documentary premieres on WKNO, the station is “going to offer it up for other PBS stations in Tennessee and maybe the region to show it if they want to. Ideally, we’d love to get distribution for it. There are a few networks that could be a good fit.
“If it wasn’t for the pandemic, then WKNO would have had a big watch party and everything, but you can’t do that. What I’m hoping is that since people can’t go to the restaurant and everybody is missing that sense of community and all that great food, maybe this will bring them a little bit of happiness and remind them. It might make them a tad bit sad, but, hopefully, it will also make them happy. It will make them remember the good times there and, in kind, make them want to go back. They’ll feel that sense of missing that restaurant a little bit more.”
For her next project, Wexler says, “Joseph and Matteo are tossing around a few ideas, but the pandemic kind of makes it challenging. It’s a good time to brainstorm. We have one idea we’re excited about, but it’s a little challenging to move forward now.”
The new project, Wexler says, would be “very different, but still Memphis-centric.”
Courtesy of Last Bite Films.
Suhair Lauck. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’
While eating at another restaurant, Molly Wexler got the idea to make a documentary on an iconic Downtown lunch spot.
“It was exactly one year ago at the grand opening of the Global Café, and I saw Suhair,” says Wexler, referring to Suhair Lauck, Little Tea Shop owner.
Wexler told her husband, “It’s amazing that the Little Tea Shop is still around, and it hasn’t changed.”
Little Tea Shop has long been the “business person’s go-to place,” Wexler says. She told her husband, “Imagine the conversations they had there. If only the walls could talk. I’ll bet some of the biggest ideas that have changed the trajectory of Memphis happened at the Little Tea Shop. That would be a great short documentary.”
Michael Donahue
Everybody loves Suhair Lauck and Little Tea Shop.
Now, Wexler is making Little Tea Shop’s walls talk through the film she’s making about the restaurant at 69 Monroe.
“I [researched] to see if it was worth moving forward with this idea. People got so excited. People love the restaurant. They love Suhair.”
Little Tea Shop “was founded by two women in 1918, which was unheard of,” says Wexler. Lillie E. Parham and Emily A. Carpenter “wanted a place for their friends to have lunch whenever they were shopping Downtown.”
They served tea sandwiches and “had a little shoebox at the front where they made change — a low-key operation. And, for a long time, that’s what it was,” Wexler says. “What I had trouble figuring out was when it became the business person’s place to go.”
She believes it was when Vernon Bell bought the restaurant in the 1940s. It was close to Cotton Row and the Memphis Cotton Exchange. Its popular Lacey Special — baked chicken, corn sticks, and rice— was named after cotton broker C. A. Lacey.
Customers included politicians, bankers, lawyers.
“I tried to talk to well-respected Memphians to find out if they remember some significant conversations,” says Wexler. “I got some great stories on film.”
Fred Davis, who is black, and Jed Dreifuss, who is Jewish, told Wexler about a breakfast group they formed there after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. “[They] said it was such a scary time in Memphis, of course, but they wanted to do something about this to try to bring blacks and whites together.”
Why Little Tea Shop? “Blacks and whites had been eating there,” she says. “It was sort of a naturally integrated place. Both black and white people felt comfortable being there.”
Former Mayor A C Wharton told Wexler everyone “was on the same playing field. Everyone had respect for each other,” and it “felt like people hung up whatever it was that made them different from other people at the door — like the coat rack. You hung up your biases and came in and you were all the same.”
Since it began, women played an important role in the operation of Little Tea Shop. Betty Cunningham was manager when Bell owned it. Bell eventually sold the restaurant to his daughter, Sara Bell Stewart, who now owns Mortimer’s restaurant. Lauck bought the Little Tea Shop in 1982. “There’s a huge female component to the operation and staff of that restaurant,” Wexler says.
Lauck is the “third aspect” of the story, she adds. “Here you have a Palestinian immigrant who is the quintessential Southern hostess. She’s amazing.”
Wexler has raised $12,000 of the $20,000 she needs to complete the film through Fractured Atlas.
The documentary speaks to everybody. “A lot of people who are from other places will see this film and say, ‘I remember the restaurant like that in my town.’
“To me, it speaks to all the good in the world,” Wexler says. “Everybody is kind, happy, and they have some cornbread. We’d better say corn sticks.”
Courtesy of Last Bite Films. 
Courtesy of Last Bite Films. 
Courtesy of Last Bite Films. 
Courtesy of Last Bite Films. 
Courtesy of Last Bite Films. 
Courtesy of Last Bite Films. 
Michael Donahue