Pip & Zastrow: An American Friendship

Filmmakers Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes' documentary Pip & Zastrow profiles the lifelong friendship between two larger-than-life men in Annapolis, MD. Pip Moyer and Zastrow Simms first met in 1948 when both were athletes at rival (and racially segregated) high schools. The white Moyer went on to coach basketball, but later entered local politics, becoming the mayor of Annapolis during the tumult of the Civil Rights movement. Although Simms, an African American, found himself in numerous run-ins with the law during that same period, his friend Moyer tapped him to serve as a liaison with the Annapolis black community. In 2005, the 71-year-old Simms decided to run for a seat on the Annapolis City Council himself, and Moyer, despite being stricken with Parkinson's disease, offers to help with his old friend's campaign. Pip & Zastrow offers a unique perspective on the civil rights era in Maryland—a state geographically north of the Mason-Dixon line but still entrenched at the time in a suffocating Jim Crow mentality—but its real attraction lies in Moyer and Simms' charisma and genuine affection for each other: these men are natural charmers and their wonderful rapport lends the production emotional heft. A warm and touching documentary, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)