CLOSING NIGHT: JEWISH TRUE CRIME STORIES - ALLAN LEVINE & DAVID RABINOVITCH

CLOSING NIGHT: JEWISH TRUE CRIME STORIES

Thu Feb 15, 8:00pm   $20
Moderator: S.M. Freedman

ALLAN LEVINE / Details Are Unprintable: Wayne Lonergan and the Sensational Café Society Murder

Part True Crime and part a social history of New York City in the 1940s, the narrative starts with the discovery of the body of the 22-year old Patricia Burton Lonergan in the bedroom of her New York City apartment, leading to the arrest and subsequent trial and conviction of her husband Wayne Lonergan. But the story goes back to the 1920s, and becomes the chronicle of Lonergan in denial as a bisexual or gay man living in an intolerant and morally superior heterosexual world; and of rich and entitled party-loving Patricia, a seeker of attention – all set against the fast pace of New York’s ostentatious café society.
ALLAN LEVINE is an award-winning author and historian from Winnipeg. He has written fourteen books including Seeking the Fabled City: The Canadian Jewish Experience, Toronto: Biography of City and King: William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Life Guided by the Hand of Destiny which won the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction.

DAVID RABINOVITCH / Jukebox Empire: The Mob and the Dark Side of the American Dream

David Rabinovitch’s investigation into his family history pieces together an epic puzzle that begins in Chicago, with the invention of a jukebox, and spans the casinos of Havana and the financial giants of Europe, leading to what the FBI called “the biggest bank robbery in the world.” An aspiring tycoon partners with a racketeer to build a jukebox that makes millions, then takes the fall for the largest money laundering scheme in history. In a world of music, machines, and money, popular culture and organized crime collide in an epic drama of invention and greed, featuring Wolfe Rabin, David’s uncle.

DAVID RABINOVITCH is an EMMY, Peabody, and Gemini Award-winning filmmaker. With a background in investigative journalism, he has written for the Toronto Globe & Mail, San Francisco Chronicle, TIME Magazine, and U.S. News & World Report.
(David will appear on-screen from Baja California, Mexico.)