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'Carmine Street Guitars': A tug at the heartstrings

(Critic's Pick): Carmine Street Guitars, in its current Greenwich Village location since 1990, is one of the jewels of a fast-dissolving bohemian Manhattan. Rick Kelly, its proprietor and luthier, makes his electric guitars from resonant wood he’s snatched from older buildings around town. Several scenes in this warm and affectionate documentary depict him realizing a long-held dream: that of carving an ax out of a plank from McSorley’s Ale House.

'Carmine Street Guitars': A tug at the heartstrings

Working with writer Len Blum, director Ron Mann (“Comic Book Confidential”) sets the action over the course of a week in the life of the shop, giving the owner, his co-workers and various visitors (some famed in the world of music, others not) opportunities to talk craft and to philosophize about the values of community the shop embodies. While this approach yields results that are sometimes a little stilted, the movie is mostly as sweet as it is informative.

Although one of the many luminaries in pictures on the wall of Kelly’s shop is Les Paul, the design Kelly favors for his own guitars derives from Leo Fender, specifically his spartan Telecaster. “Hard to beat a Tele,” guitar giant Bill Frisell quietly enthuses as he prepares to play a Kelly design. Frisell’s subsequent rendition of “Surfer Girl” is persuasive.

Kelly is shown quietly working with his friend and apprentice Cindy Hulej, who enhances Kelly’s designs with wood-burned art — she’s the one who places the McSorley’s logo on Kelly’s ale house-plank instrument. Midweek, Hulej sees that the building next door is up for sale. Soon after, a friendly real estate agent stops by to inquire about Kelly’s space. In a film full of pleasant harmonies, a note of dread comes in.

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‘Carmine Street Guitars’

Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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