the '40s and '50s, before leaving to go to film school. why did you come back? - why did i come back? i was gone from about '68 to about '75. they i came home, and i saw everything's decaying even worse, and the people i hung out with, like there's sal carulli and other guys, they were these really characters. - chico pushed the button me. no one' gonna push the button on me. nobody. nobody. the only guy that can do that is that guy up there, j.c. j. c., my man. - there's a lot of world war ii people that were starting to die off, and i was really like, "this is gonna disappear, and the industry's going away." so i didn't know what else to make films about, so i just started documentaries and i just wanted to capture, and get some of these characters on film, and make them mythical. - but you stayed in braddock because braddock was your subject. - it's my subject, and i thought, "okay, what if i move? if i move to los angeles, maybe i can get a job in the industry, but what if i get stuck working on "love boat" my whole life, you know? - yeah, that would be the nightmare scenario. - yeah, exactly. - in the mid-20th century,