A Town in in the Throes of Change

At the beginning of the provocative, engrossing and often droll “Dadetown,” the narrator explains that his crew arrived in an idyllic upstate New York community to make a 20-minute film called “Small Town America: Where the Heart Was,” in which its citizens proclaim the unchanging joys of life unspoiled by urban ills. “The small town is the backbone of America,” says one resident proudly.

Unforeseen events occur, however, with the filmmakers ending up telling a far longer and far different story than the one they had apparently intended. First of all, it doesn’t take much probing on their part to uncover tensions between the longtime locals and the sizable number of newcomers employed by API, a high-tech communications corporation headquartered in a large, sleek, glass-clad structure plunked down in what was once a beautiful meadow.

The newcomers are clearly better-educated, more sophisticated and more affluent than the locals, most of whom are employed at Gorman Metal, a venerable paper clip and staple factory, which had its brief moment of glory as a World War II airplane plant but more recently had lost a bid for an aircraft parts contract. The API families live in lavish new tract homes and are eager to bring boutiques and other trendy upscale amenities to the town.

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No sooner does API’s expansive president state that his company’s information systems will eventually make paper clips and staples obsolete than Gorman announces a drastic layoff that is but a prelude to a full closure of the factory within a year.

Management points out that it can have 120 tons of paper clips manufactured in Korea, Mexico or the Philippines for what it costs to make but 10 tons in Dadetown. API announces smoothly that it will accept resumes from the laid-off workers, but it’s clear that few if any of these blue-collar guys with few or no skills beyond operating metal-bending machinery have a hope of being hired. In their frustration, ignorance and desperation, the ex-Gorman workers threaten to rage out of control, making API the scapegoat.

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Thus filmmaker Russ Hexter, who died in April at 27 of an aortic aneurysm, establishes a classic predicament in many of America’s smaller cities and towns, in which sophisticated electronic technology is replacing traditional methods of manufacturing, leaving countless semi-skilled workers out of work and with no job retraining programs in view.

The irony here is that Dadetown is luckier than most: At least API assures its survival and promises prosperity but surely the quality of life that made the community so attractive in the first place will inevitably change.

Alternately disturbing and amusing in its depiction of human nature in the throes of crisis and change, “Dadetown” arrives at the Nuart with the proclamation: “No one will be allowed to leave the theater during the last five minutes of this film,” the kind of old-fashioned promotional hype associated with schlocky horror pictures. “Dadetown” in fact is one instance in which it is essential to stay through the end credits.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film has some blunt language, some violence and scenes showing the consequences of vandalism.

‘Dadetown’

A Castle Hill presentation. Director Russ Hexter. Producer Jim Carden. Written by Hexter & John Housely. Cinematographer W.J. Gorman. Editor David Kirkman. Production designer J. Edward Vigeant. Art director Dan Blanchard. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Nuart through Wednesday, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.