Nov. 21--Police officers and firefighters responding to a report of a car hitting a building Monday morning in Long Beach wound up crashing the set of a movie featuring native son Billy Crystal.
The smashed-up Cadillac at the Slices & Ices pizza and ice cream shop on West Beech Street was part of a set for a film starring Crystal, who grew up in Long Beach on East Park Avenue.
"We got a call about 8 or 8:30 a.m. from someone who thought a car had actually crashed into the building," said Sgt. Timothy Radin of the Long Beach Police Department. "But that didn't happen."
Radin said authorities responded to the scene, though police were aware a movie was being filmed there.
"We knew about the filming but we had to make sure it wasn't another car into another building," Radin said.
According to the police department's traffic division, there was no street closure while the crash was being filmed, but motorists were redirected around the scene by an officer -- thus the possibility for confusion that a real accident had occurred.
Representatives from the production were not immediately available to discuss the context of the car crash in the film, but a spokeswoman for Crystal's publicist confirmed Crystal was part of the filming Monday.
"Billy was indeed on Long Island working on 'We Are Unsatisfied,'" Heidi Schaeffer, a spokeswoman for Crystal's Los Angeles-based publicity firm, PMK/BNC, said in an emailed statement.
According to the website Deadline Hollywood, "We Are Unsatisfied" is a comedy about an unlikely friendship between a struggling comedian living in California, who's forced to move back home to Long Island, and Crystal, who plays his alcoholic dermatologist.
The independent project started filming this month -- with another Long Beach scene being shot Monday at Gentle Brew Coffee on East Park Avenue.
No one from Slices and Ices or Gentle Brew could be reached for comment Monday.
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