Giant red telephone drives into Salem for today’s screening of Automorphosis

By Dinah Cardin

At least one art car rolled into Salem this morning in honor of this afternoon’s screening of AUTOMORPHOSIS. Howard Davis drove his bright red telephone up from the South Shore and strolled into Caffe Graziani to have breakfast with his buddy, the filmmaker Harrod Blank, who features the phone car in his film.

Davis collects telephones, thousands of them, and this red aluminum push button number has been in his life for 25 years, since he converted a 1975 Beetle that he bought for $125.

“I asked them to send me a car phone and they sent me a phone car,” he joked.

He was just explaining how the police sometimes don’t stop him because he believes they just don’t know what to make of him, when two officers from the Salem Police Department  rolled up on Washington Street, put on their lights and walked toward the car with their camera phones.

“I’ve got to get a closer look at this,” one of them said and the officers two began to take photos of one another in front of it.

Passersby stopped on the sidewalk, clutching their morning coffee, chuckling and taking photos.

“That’s just amazing. Quite a sense of humor,” a man said.

Davis seemed used to the attention and was gracious with the gathering crowd, as he showed the Volkswagen’s engine and opened the door to reveal the interior with a real red telephone on the passenger seat.

From Sharon, Mass., Davis met Blank through a friend and said the two of them “get together here and there,” meeting up at art car shows and festivals.

AUTOMORPHOSIS screens TODAY at 1:40 p.m. in CinemaSalem’s main theater.