‘Tiger Warsaw’ returns: Historical society commemorates movie shot and set in Sharon

SHARON — Even though he wasn’t a cameraman, Philip C. Myers did a lot of filming behind the scenes of the 1988 film “Tiger Warsaw.”

Myers snapped shots of whatever caught his attention — fellow crew members working with sets, costume designers handling props or groups of townspeople trying to get a glimpse of an actual film production. And occasionally, Myers would get a shot of the actors.

“A lot of the time the actors were kept separate, since they had their own crews and were usually practicing their lines for the next day,” Myers said. “A couple times I got a picture of Patrick Swayze, but usually if he saw you trying to take a picture, he’d duck or something.”

Myers wasn’t on a studio lot in California. He was right here in the Shenango Valley.

And now, 30 years later, the city that was the backdrop for the film is remembering the buzz when Hollywood came to town.

The filming took place in the suburbs and businesses of the area during the late 1980s, which Myers said was much different than today.

The area’s biggest employer, Westinghouse Electric Corp. had left. Sharon Steel Corp. was on the decline, and the revitalization of downtown Sharon was decades away. Ironically, Myers said these conditions made the area the ideal filming location for director Amin Q. Chaudhri’s film “Tiger Warsaw,” featuring Swayze, who was fresh off his starring role in “Dirty Dancing.”

“He was looking for a grounded, down-to-earth community,” Myers said of Chaudhri.

Beginning in April 1987, Chaudhri’s Continental Film Group used locations throughout Mercer County while employing local businesses and residents as extras. Myers was hired to create graphics for signs and posters and to handle sets and props for the film, which required him and the crew to read every line of the script.

“It’s like if the script said it needed an old table in the corner, or an old chandelier, then it becomes, ‘Well, where do we find a chandelier?’” Myers said.

In other cases, the film crews had to get more creative.

“For one scene we needed a closet in one house, but they liked the design of the closet in another house,” Myers said. “So we built a completely new closet in the first house that looked exactly the same as the closet in the other house.”

Ann U’Halie, a board member and recording secretary with the Sharon Historical Society, remembers the lines of people when she and her daughter went to audition for a part in the film. Unfortunately, U’Halie said the line at Penn State Shenango stretched out the auditorium doors and around the building, and moved very slowly.

“I remember we waited for hours and hours, and when you got inside the doors, you sat down for hours and hours, and eventually we decided “Let’s go,’” U’Halie said.

U’Halie and her daughter ultimately did have the chance to be in the film as extras. In their scene, Uthey were among the crowds at a fictional high school basketball game between Sharon and Farrell, which was filmed in the former Wengler Avenue School.

“I was a teacher in Sharon at the time, so when watched the film, I remember seeing some of my students in that scene,” U’Halie said.

Wengler Avenue School wasn’t the only location used by film crews. King’s Music, now replaced by Vaporosity on West State Street in Sharon, was slightly changed to become “Tony’s Records,” while the front of the Buhl Farm Casino was used as the “exterior” of Buhl Mansion, and the former George Boyd mansion at East State Street and Euclid Avenue was used as the interior.

To depict the home of Tiger Warsaw’s family, two houses on Columbia Street in Sharon were used. Even though the family lived in only one home, film crews used the front and kitchen of one home, and the interior of the other house, Myers said.

“It drove the families crazy, because we were always filming but we’d always be rearranging things in the homes, or we would repaint a room a different color than the rest of the house,” Myers said.

Things weren’t always easy for the actors either. In one scene, crews had to wash a light snow off the houses and used a firetruck to provide fake rain. Later, as shooting went on into the night, it actually began to rain for real, Myers said.

“The actors were so cold because everybody was standing outside and getting wet,” he said.

When the movie came out, Myers said he remembered people in the area were “really excited” to see a professionally made movie featuring their hometown. However, U’Halie said two of the main concerns many people had with the finished film were that some scenes were “too dark,” and the editing made it difficult for audiences to follow the overall plot.

“There were times you couldn’t tell what was going on,” U’Halie said.

When it came to the dark aspects of the film, Myers said Chaudhri and Director of Photography Robert Draper, had an argument during filming. Although their disagreement was eventually settled, Myers said Draper wouldn’t give Chaudhri lighting specifications for the majority of the film, which made many scenes so dark.

Myers said the final product had a “choppy” narrative that was much different than that of the original script because of British editor Brian Smedly-Aston.

Myers said Smedly-Aston, who won an Emmy Award in 1978 for the “Holocaust” TV miniseries, employed a lot of quick cuts between scenes and heavy use of flashbacks, while leaving much of the movie’s backstory for the audience to assume.

“Everyone on the crew received a copy of the script, and it was a really good script, but there were a lot of things that were cut or left out,” Myers said. “And if you ever watch British movies, they’re very ‘jumpy.’”

Despite the movie’s flaws, Myers said he enjoyed working on the film and having to come up with sometimes creative solutions for the film’s sets and props, despite having to alternate between the film set and his job at RGS Advertising in Sharon.

“It was fun, but it’s a lot of hard work,” Myers said. “You’d start at 6 or 7 in the morning and work until maybe 11 p.m. or 1 a.m., and possibly get a weekend off here or there.”

To commemorate the movie’s 30th anniversary, the Sharon Historical Society will be holding a celebration April 28 in the Armory for the Arts, 49 S. Sharpsville Ave., Sharon.