Disney story and graphics are no longer just bad, they’re evil. Daniel starts the list of pedophiles and other degenerates that now work at Disney with the full blessing and knowledge of the company. You knew Hollywood was just waiting 50 years ago for the head of the lone Christian studio to die. He did, and now we see the fruition of Disney without Walt.
Lana Turner is a bit of an odd duck with me. Not having lived back then I don’t know what was really going on, only what I read and perceive from her work. Hollywood being of zero intelligence and no creativity, pigeonholed Lana like they did so many others (Esther Williams: She swims! Judy Garland! She has to sing! Ginger Rogers dances! Bette Davis plays crazy old bats!) Hollywood knows nothing else. That’s why there is a law in Hollywood that allows them to only make remakes. If they make something new they have to pay a fine.
Hollywood’s perception of Lana was that she could only play oversexed bimbos. When her parents moved to San Francisco her parents separated and she was placed in the foster care system. Meaning we pay adults to abuse these children in their care. Hollywood just continued the abuse. They nicknamed her “the sweater girl“. Married 8 times. Her 14 year old daughter stabs to death her mom’s abusive gangster boyfriend. She was a wild ride.
I knew nothing about all this until recently. I had a hard time remembering her name. The only reason she came on my radar at all was that I saw “The Postman Always Rings Twice” was coming on TCM and I had always wanted to see it. I had really come to appreciate John Garfield. As far as Lana Turner having sex appeal? Not for me. Nothing. She’s beautiful, but she certainly didn’t bring any heat. But that’s like a lot of what Hollywood tries to force on you; Joan Crawford, a young Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, and on and on.
The other noteworthy work of hers from my perspective was Peyton Place (1957). Visually it was a stunning work. The people, the locations, the clothes. It was part of Hollywood’s period where they were a little ham-handed trying to take down mainstream American society. They wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t okay to be white. That traditional American culture was responsible for all the world’s problems. It wasn’t just me that liked that one, she received an Oscar nomination for it.
And none of this wasn’t to say old Hollywood couldn’t take a stunning photo. But that’s all they were, visual pageantry. Thus Lana was useful to them for awhile.
Americans have no idea what they’ve missed, being dependent on Hollywood for their movies as it were. Being of limited experience I hadn’t realized it myself until 8 or 9 years ago with, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Hollywood of course had to keep the Danish version out of America so they could remake their own version to scoop up all the profits. Sure they ruined the movie, but by doing so they were able to release their own clothing line! It was all about merchandising!
Shortly thereafter I discovered film festivals. Where a sixteen year old with a Sony Handycam could generally be counted on to come up with something more interesting than Hollywood and a $23 million dollar budget. I was watching a really fun little movie last Saturday morning from 1932 that I thought was original, it was a remake from 1920! That’s all the last few years have been. So this morning I happen upon Un Carnet de Bal. A French film of course where a just widowed Christine takes the death of her husband to examine her own life. No children, just a haunting dream of a ball from 20 years ago and of the men who were on the dance card of her coming out party.
Having nothing to tie her down now, she decides to travel to look up the men from that night to see what has become of them. Some have died. Some have found their dreams. Many have not. Just fascinating vignettes as we drop in to observe lives that have been in motion the entire time, we just weren’t there to see them. Each sphere orbiting its own little world. Christine drops in for a moment of time and then moves on to the next on the list of 20 men. Simple men, complex men, good-hearted men, bad men.
Immediately below Christine on the upper left of the picture was my favorite encounter, the one with Alain Regnault (portrayed by an incredible actor named Harry Baur). The scene embodies everything lacking in American film. The understated nature. The focus on human emotions and not car chases and shootouts. Alain is now a Monk who leads a boys choir for at risk youth. His one true love having spurned him decades before. Now he tries to teach these boys the morals missing from today’s childhoods. The idea that the soul of a youth was to be nurtured and strengthened. Not coddled and ignored.
This movie from 1937 was in such contrast to American movies of the time. They seemed to be all about talking fast, drinking a lot and zinging one-liners (think William Powell, Myrna Loy, Clark Gable, Rosalind Russell). European films of the time weren’t stuck in a time warp so to speak. The people talked and acted like they do today, they just happened to be in black and white. Its never been so stark a difference as in their silent films. Watch a French, German, Danish, Italian, Norwegian, Japanese or Indian silent film and compare it to an American film.
Its like 10 year old’s with bad taste made the American films. The exaggerated body motions, ridiculous facial expressions. Everything was slapstick. So much of American film then seemed to be about spectacular train wrecks, impossible car chases, and death defying physical stunts. Lacking was any subtlety or nuance, all they had was a hammer and everything else was a nail. The overall impression I have of Hollywood film through the decades was their condescension for the American audience, or their complete lack of ability.
What do they got that I ain’t got? Courage! That pretty much sums up modern Hollywood. Classic Hollywood had boldness (and subsidies as it turns out). TCM (thank God and Ted Turner for them) actually has a show on why 1939 was such an incredible year for movie making. They were at the frontend of their monopoly, before they got fat and lazy. It was in 1941 because of the war that Congress ended some incredible tax breaks for them. And it was an undefinable juncture where you simply had an incredible number of stars. Grant, Stewart, Bogart, Wayne, Davis, Crawford, Hepburn, Garland, Rooney, Gable, O’Hara, Flynn, Powers, Fairbanks, Barrymore, Tracy, Temple, Astaire, Rogers and on and on!
They did it before computers, lasers and helicopters! Maybe the Great Depression had something to do with it, the need for escapist fantasy. Perhaps just as incredible were the wonderful films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame who didn’t get much recognition simply because they were released in the wrong year! At the link above there is a list of all the films released in 1939, its just staggering. Little did I realize my favorites would end up being Stagecoach, Andy Hardy, Goodbye Mr. Chips and The Wizard of Oz.
[Wikipedia] “The year 1939 was one in which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated ten films for Best Picture”:
TCM is showing a black movie, did somebody die? In the 70’s they had a kind of “separate but equal” scenario with white films / black films. Then somebody decided it was “exploitation” and black people no longer appeared in films at all (Oh excuse me, Denzel Washington, Will Smith & Halle Berry did). I think a lot of it was the Elites in Hollywood weren’t getting what they considered “their cut”, or have control of what was getting made. In time I think the quality of the films would have naturally improved and become a serious venue outside of Hollywood control. Kind of what Tyler Perry did by moving his operation to Atlanta. He had total control and he kept the profits, becoming one of the wealthiest men around.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC, Daniel Truhitte, Charmian Carr, 1965, TM and Copyright (c)20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection.
Oh my gosh, what a wasteland modern Hollywood is! I was flipping through the channels, desperately seeking to be entertained by something. Its pretty bad when you’ve gotten too old for the Lone Ranger and Laramie. Yesterday I discovered 17-3 Charge plays several hours of CHiPs in the afternoon. That’s good for about an hour. Whenever I start thinking about the dearth of wholesome, quality, family fare, I think of the Gold Standard: The Sound of Music.
Seriously though, without trying to sound like an old “Stay off my lawn!” geezer, what has Hollywood come up with in the ensuing 55 years? Its still #1 in ticket sales. They always want to talk about the newest and greatest highest “grossing” movie, but that’s only because of ticket price inflation. As far as butts in theater seats, I’m pretty sure SOM is still number 1. It reminds me of the pop song American Pie. Its a good song, don’t get me wrong, but the reverence in which it is held shows how bad the competition is. We should have had more songs in 50 years that were capable of using metaphor, parable, poetry and analogy than just this one song. It stands out cause, ‘Baby, baby, baby! Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ is so weak.
In the 70’s Benji was a wholesome family movie. Low budget, but nice. There were a bunch of good movies, but I wouldn’t call them family fare. John Wayne movies, Clint Eastwood movies, the first Star Wars movie. ET? A few Disney flicks, Lion King, the Little Mermaid, but those weren’t movies adults could get into also, just the kids. A few live action Disney movies over the years, but nothing in the last 40 years. I’ll have to come back later and add to this list the ones that will inevitably come to me, but as of right now its a desert.
[Charmian Carr was an interesting bird. She made one more movie after SOM with that nut job Anthony Perkins and that was it! If ever there was a natural for the movies it was her. Exquisitely beautiful with those glacier blue eyes, a wonderful charisma, she puts 99% of Hollywood to shame. She chose instead some area of decorating as a career as I understand it. Of all the obnoxious louts that the industry forces on us, to have a gem like that getaway…. and then God took her home at just age 74. And in the movie Ralph chooses the Nazis over her, my ass. Not a chance.]
Viola Davis had an Emmy first last night, winning Best Actress in a Drama for How to Get Away with Murder. That seemed somewhat odd. 65 years of television, and she is the first black actress to get the nod? Hmm. Maybe Hollywood is not as progressive as they like to think. Do as they say, not as they do.
Harry Truman was President when television started. WWII had ended, and the Korean War hadn’t started yet. Jackie Robinson was starting his third year after integrating baseball with the Dodgers. Martin Luther King’s ‘March on Washington’ was 15 years away.
The social upheaval of the civil right’s movement integrating schools and lunch counters and public transportation was years and years away. Peggy on Mannix (1967) would have been one of the few black women on TV at all. Julia a year later was the first to put a black woman in a starring role. That was 1968. In 1971 it was back to a bit part with Birdie on The Walton’s.
Co-starring roles came about with Louise Jefferson and Florida Evans, a decade later came Clair Huxtable. My memory goes kind of blank after that. So we have one series that ran for three years that starred a black woman. In 1968. I’m sure there were loads and loads and loads of others, my memory just fails me.
Just 65 years later in 2015 a black woman wins the first Emmy. Kind of staggering isn’t it? Just look at all the shows today starring black women. Good old Hollywood. Julia was the first to have a black woman in a starring role, was it also the only one?
Just don’t look at any of the “un-retouched” photo sites.
Sasheer Zamata
The 1/20 DM Register had a brief “People in the News” blurb about the Saturday Night Live debut of Sasheer Zamata. The liberal icon SNL got seriously whacked last fall when it was pointed out by their own, that out of 137 previous cast members, only 4 had been black females.
I can’t help but be a little admiring of Sasheer for having the guts to be on the show with such an embarrassing spotlight on herself. True, the spotlight should have been on Lorne Michaels (Lipowitz). Even though SNL is out of NYC, it is all part of the entertainment industry, whose flagship, Hollywood, has one of the most blatant track records of racial discrimination, yet never gets called on it.
The history of Hollywood is the history of exclusion. It continues to this day. The seventies had more diversity, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Different Stokes, Webster, among others. Today it is just embarrassing. Look at the primetime offerings, who do you see? 30 years after The Cosby Show, where is the inclusion? Hollywood has always been rife with a Jim Crow mentality, and this latest indictment of SNL almost makes you feel sorry for them. But I don’t.
Who did you see in the old movies? Unless it was the occasional maid or butler, you saw white people. What did you see on old TV? Did Bonanza or the Andy Griffith Show ever have a black person on it? Pretty sure they didn’t. How about more modern TV, like The Golden Girls? Lots of diversity on there was it?
The irony of it all is there is no more liberal a bastion than Hollywood, and there is none more racist. I wonder how it got that way? I wonder who controls it? It’s almost like their is a click there that works to keep out others that they feel don’t belong.
Looking at the history of comedy, Adam Sandler, Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander, Brad Garrett, Billy Crystal, Jon Stewart, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Madeline Kahn, Joan Rivers, Mel Brooks, Milton Berle, George Burns, the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Albert Brooks, Fran Drescher, Fanny Brice, Ben Stiller, Henny Youngman, Don Rickles, Larry David, Rodney Dangerfield, Seth Rogen, Richard Lewis, Gilda Radner, Gene Wilder… it is almost like there is a common thread tying them all together, I just can’t put my finger on it. Almost tribal in nature. Not that I’m saying publishing, broadcasting, movies, and the music industry are dominated by one group.
So when SNL got busted for their exclusionary behavior, I was not completely surprised. My only surprise was how long it took the public to begin to get an inkling of what has been going on for over 100 years.
Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack
Any boomer worth his salt remembers the Billy Jack franchise of films. The tough hippie with a heart of gold. They were a big deal back in the early seventies. Everyone had heard of Billy Jack. The page of “recent deaths” of celebrities in the Sunday paper had a couple of interesting tidbits in the article about Tom Laughlin’s life.
They said his “production and marketing of Billy Jack set a standard for breaking the rules on and off the screen”. And, “a long struggle by Laughlin to gain control of the low-budget, self-financed movie, a model for guerilla filmmaking”. That’s interesting, why would you have to have a legal struggle to “gain control” of a self-financed movie? Why would you have to fight and scratch to make movies at all? Isn’t that the purpose of Hollywood?
That caused me to go to Wikipedia and read up on Laughlin. Hard as it may be to believe, it kind of sounds like Warner Brothers tried to cheat him out of various rights to his property, including television rights. I know it sounds ridiculous that a Hollywood studio would try to cheat someone, but that’s the way it sounds.
Searching for the cause of this dislike of Laughlin, I looked at his earlier career. I saw the 1960 Christian film, The Young Sinner. Then there was the 1963 Christian film, We Are All Christ. Then there was the 1965 Christian film that was never completed about a Catholic priest named Father William DuBay. So I can’t imagine what it would be that would cause a young Christian in Hollywood to have trouble making films. I’m stumped.
Hollywood says they just “make what people want to see”, so you would have thought they would embrace the wildly popular Laughlin. The guy who made huge profits on barely financed films. Nope, they fought tooth and nail to stifle him, shut him down and rip him off, I can’t imagine why.
Iowa life 