Salon: Jews for Jesus Not the organization, but a link to my essay that appeared on Salon about how my mostly Jewish public school in Chicago forced us to welcome the birth of the Christ child in song.
Los Angeles Times Here are links to three recent articles I wrote for the Times: a profile of our historic neighborhood, a cover story about the crazy-making practice of backup offers, and a primer to getting your house a gig in the movies.
The Huffington Post I am a contributor to this group blog founded by Arianna Huffington in 2005. My latest posts can be found here.
WILCO My brother-in-law's band. If you want to see them live, take a look at their upcoming tour schedule. You might also want to check out the book or documentary about the band, or maybe Jeff's own poetry.
Jill Soloway Check out this cool site. It belongs to the the writer/co-executive producer of the dearly departed "Six Feet Under" and author of the must-read "Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants."Jill's a hip L.A. resident but her mom Elaine lives near my sister in Chicago and has just published her own fabulous memoir called "The Division Street Princess" that touches on my three favorite topics: Jews, Chicago, and the 1940s.
Books to Read
A Woman of Independent Means My mother-in-law's most well known novel. This terrific book is based on the life of her grandmother.
Confronting Our Discomfort An intensely thought-provoking book by Tamar Jacobson. The book is aimed at early childhood educators but would be helpful for anyone to read.
Letters to a Buddhist Jew This deeply moving work is co-authored by True Ancestor David Gottlieb (of the famous blogging tribe) and Talmudic scholar Rabbi Akiva Tatz. The two enjoy an in-depth correspondence about a range of topics that will help anyone questioning his or her faith embark on a true spiritual journey.
Sparks This is one of my favorite stories by my friend and writing group colleague Karen Kasaba. Also read her wonderful "Kon Tiki" and "Views Views Views."
The Day I Became an Autodidact If you haven't read my wife Kendall Hailey's brilliant, funny book, you need to! I first read it just before meeting her in 1989.
Above is a photo of my mother (top row, center) and her
cabin mates at Burr Oaks Camp in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. The date is August 1943.
Last Friday we picked up my nephew Spencer from the very location this photo
was taken 65 summers ago. Burr Oaks was a Jewish girls camp that
began in 1928 and closed down some time in the mid-1970s. A few years later it
reopened as a co-ed B’nai B’rith camp called Beber using the same beautiful
grounds and buildings where my mother spent all her summers during the
1940s.
This was Spencer’s second year at Beber and he loved it.
When my sister and I stumbled across the former Burr Oaks Camp two years ago
after dropping Spencer off at a different camp nearby, we were flabbergasted
that we found it and amazed that we recognized so many things from my late
mother’s stories and photos. My mother had frequently talked about her years at
Burr Oaks, but we never knew where it was or if the grounds still existed. When
we got back to Chicago, I wrote a post mentioning the camp and was delighted to hear
from a bunch of former Burr Oaks campers and counselors. I’ve even met
some of them since then who shared with me their memorabilia from the camp. It
seemed like a really special place. As I said in my previous post, my mother
spoke often of the theatrical elements of Burr Oaks, including the night they
would wake campers each summer and herd them to an open area where they would
somehow project fairies dancing in the trees.
While there last Friday, we ran into Jennifer, one of the former campers I met through my blog whose kids go there now. The old Burr Oaks
slogan, Lo-He-Ha (for Love, Health, and Happiness), is still visible throughout the camp along with the acorn motif. I remember my mother talking about Memory Hall
which is now Crown Hall but is otherwise unchanged. We walked the 72 steps that
my mother told us about and we gazed at beautiful Lake Beulah which is still there in all its glory,
with the Beber kids doing many of the water sports the Burr Oaks girls did
so long ago.
Most of my mother’s time at Burr Oaks took place during
World War II. As I study the photos of the smiling Jewish girls lined up in
their beautifully pressed white Burr Oaks uniforms (who would put active summer
campers in clean white uniforms?), I can’t help but
think of their counterparts in Europe during those same summers—girls who who looked just like them and came from the
same well-off families but who were now being herded into crowded ghettos and then
shipped off to Nazi death camps. Oy, I grant you that’s an abrupt transition
from a happy reminiscence of summer camp, but it’s impossible for me
to see those dates on the photos and not think of what was happening to the Jewish girls in Europe while my mother and her friends were singing camp songs
in Mukwonago. I wonder if there was any awareness at the camp about what was
going on in the world at that time. I’m sure they discussed the war at length,
but did the girls know what was happening to the Jews of Europe?
As I looked at the photos posted daily of Spencer and his
buddies over the past four weeks, I marveled at the team spirit and at all the
fun the kids were having. I had my usual wistful thoughts about never having attended
summer camp but then I started thinking that as great as it looked, I don’t
think I was cut out for such camps at all. As much as I always long to be part of some idealized fantasy of community, I also carry major fears about
groupness in general. To me, any large group of people united in purpose or belief or
interest, whether it’s a crowd of campers at Burr Oaks or Beber, a gaggle of
supporters at an Obama rally, a sold out stadium watching a Cubs game, or an
audience full of enthusiastic Wilco fans, they always seem like they
are two steps away from mob rule, capable of crushing anything in their path and losing their individual identities as they blindly follow whatever the group is commanded to do. What is wrong with me? Why do I simultaneously fear and crave being part of a group? Nothing grosses me
out more than the chanting at political rallies or sports events, no matter what side I’m on. I always feel like I’m at a Hitler Youth Camp or Nazi rally, being indoctrinated into some larger cause that
requires me to abandon my free will.
I know this is not what’s happening at most summer camps,
certainly not at Burr Oaks or Beber, two institutions that are incredibly beloved by former campers across the globe, and yet I don’t think I could ever have fully embraced the group
spirit that would have been necessary for me to get the most out of that
experience. I admire people like my nephew who truly understand the proper ethos of summer camp, but I
think I am more like the old high school classmate I was talking to yesterday about
the cliques we belonged to back in the day. “I only belonged to one clique,”
she told me. “It was called the Anti-Social Club. We had no meetings.” At last—my
people!
Why do I continue to monitor my numbers? It’s not like I’m
actively trying to “attract” more readers—as if I'd know how to. I’d rather end this blog than start
writing about things just because I think they might be more appealing to a
wider audience. Maybe it’s because I’ve done so many writing jobs for hire that on here I only want to write what I feel like writing about, no matter how
obscure it is or how few people may be interested in the topic. Looking back on
my posts over the past few years, though, even I have to admit I’d need to be
in a certain kind of mood to trudge through my loooong pieces on subjects such
as the Armenian genocide, the treatment of Jews in Russia in the 1800s, or the
ravings of Ann Coulter. Oy. And I wrote the damn stuff! But at the risk of
sounding like a parody of an affected pseudo-intellectual writer, I often feel
like I don’t choose the topics I write about on my blog—they choose me!
Honestly, something will get in my head and try as I might, I just have to
focus on it, even if I think there’s not a soul on earth who will read my
ramblings on the subject.
Last June, I wrote about so many people who had died that
month that I worried my blog was turning into a celebrity obituary site. I
purposely avoided mentioning such deaths for the rest of the summer. That’s not
working. Now I find that when I ignore certain people, I can’t let them go—or
rather they can’t let go of me! It’s not everyone. Don’t worry: I won’t be
writing a post connecting Golden Girls’ Estelle Getty to writer Alexander
Solzhenitsyn. But remember actress Evelyn Keyes? She died on July 4th at the age of 91. I would guess that the vast majority of the public has
forgotten this talented, lovely, and somewhat troubled actress, but my attempts
to avoid writing about her have practically led to a full-scale haunting.
Do you remember how Keyes kept appearing to Tom Ewell as a
ghostly apparition in Billy Wilder’s great 1955 film, “The Seven Year Itch,”
one of Keyes’ best known films? Ewell was sweltering through a hot summer in
his Manhattan apartment while his wife (Evelyn Keyes) had absconded to the
country with their kids, but after sexpot Marilyn Monroe sublets the apartment
upstairs and Ewell starts to fantasize about having an affair with her, Keyes
keeps materializing in the apartment to shoot her husband down and act as his
conscience. Keyes was a brilliantly understated comedienne in this film,
delivering Wilder’s great lines in a deadpan style while sitting in a chair
knitting. That’s the version of Evelyn Keyes that’s been appearing in my house
during the weeks since she died. “Are you going to write about me today,
Danny?” she says from the overstuffed green chair in our bedroom. “Well, no, I
don’t think so?” “How about today?” her ghost asks in the kitchen as I’m frying
an egg.” “Today would be a good day, don’t you think,” I hear her purring from
the back seat of my car. Jesus, Evelyn, get off my back!
Keyes is part of that category of actors that has always
fascinated me. The ones who easily could have been big A-list stars on par with
Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, and so on, but
for whatever reasons of fate and circumstance, never completely crossed over
into that group. Evelyn Keyes was always “about to” make that transition. At
least once a year for over a decade, an article would appear announcing that
Keyes had finally arrived.
Evelyn Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1916 but was
raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Shortly after coming to Hollywood in 1937, she was
“discovered” by Cecil B. De Mille, who gave her small parts in “The Buccaneer”
and “Union Pacific.” This led to an incredible break for a brand new,
relatively unknown actress. David O. Selznick noticed Evelyn in her small roles
and gave her the part of Scarlett O’Hara’s bratty sister Suellen in the biggest
A-picture of all time, “Gone With the Wind.” After working hard for a full year
to get rid of her Southern accent (De Mille was impressed by Keyes’ ability to
“speak the King’s English”), Evelyn had to learn it back for her new role. While
many actresses were having their dark locks dyed blond in Hollywood, Evelyn
again had to go in reverse and have her golden hair dyed brown to match
Margaret Mitchell’s descriptions of Suellen.
Does this building look familiar? I took this photo from my cell phone this morning as I rode by the building on my bicycle. Today it’s the
administrative building for the Culver Studios and it was once the headquarters
of the Thomas Ince and Desilu Studios. But in 1939, this building, looking
exactly as it does today, appeared at the beginning of “Gone With the Wind”
as the logo for Selznick International. It was probably in this very structure
where Evelyn Keyes signed her contract to play Suellen O’Hara along with Ann
Rutherford who was brought over from the Andy Hardy set at neighboring MGM to
play Scarlett’s other “nicer” sister, Careen. Directly behind this building was
the backlot, where, in 1938, Selznick set fire to his old sets from “King Kong”
and other films for the famous burning of Atlanta scene. That backlot is now
long gone but the gardens still exist where Bonnie Blue Butler rode that little
pony to her untimely death.
I’ll save my thoughts about “Gone With the Wind” for another
post. Suffice it to say that it’s a great film that only suffers today when you
realize that it glorifies the unnamed Ku Klux Klan. Oy. Vivien Leigh
and Clark Gable were perfect as Scarlett and Rhett, even when Leigh’s English
accent kept slipping into her performance. Olivia de Havilland was a moving
Melanie, Hattie McDaniel was a fabulous Mammy, and the rest of the cast was
sublime except, in my opinion, Leslie Howard as a phoned-in Ashley Wilkes. Evelyn
Keyes did a superb job in her small but high-profile role. Who can ever forget
her whiny howl after she finds out her sister has snagged her long-time
boyfriend Frank Kennedy in order to pay the back taxes on Tara. “Scarlett’s had two husbands and I’m going to be an OLD MAID!”
But Keyes herself was anything but an old maid. While
filming “Gone With the Wind,” she was already secretly married to architect
Barton Bainbridge. I don’t know why she kept the marriage a secret, I guess she
thought it might hurt her career and the studio wouldn’t like it. News of the
marriage only leaked out after Bainbridge’s suicide in 1940, a few months after
Evelyn had left him. Keyes revealed later that she got
pregnant during the making of “Gone With the Wind” but rather than risk her
part in this film, she had an illegal abortion that went bad, leaving Evelyn
unable to have children.
Keyes then married director Charles Vidor who directed her
in three films. That marriage went south in little more than a year, thanks
largely to Vidor’s womanizing, and the two were divorced in 1945. In early 1946
Keyes told a Los Angeles Times reporter that she would never marry again, but
in July of that year she impulsively snuck off to Las Vegas and tied the knot
with director John Huston. “Hollywood was left gasping by the swift-moving
romance. Huston and Miss Keyes, who met but a month ago, were dining at Mike
Romanoff’s when Huston said, ‘Listen, honey, there’s no point in waiting any
further. Let’s get married now!’ Miss Keyes assented, and while Huston was
making arrangements to charter a plane, host Romanoff hurried home to secure an
old-fashioned gold wedding band that, he explained, had been lost by a guest in
his swimming pool.”
It was another tempestuous marriage for Evelyn. She moved
into Huston’s sprawling farm in Calabasas and had to deal with his menagerie of
animals including cats, dogs, horses, burros, monkeys, parrots, and a chimp who
would torment the poor actress. In 1948, when Huston
was in Mexico filming “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” with Humphrey Bogart
and his father, Walter Huston, a young orphaned boy named Pablo Albarran became
a sort of mascot on the set, helping with the crew and befriending the director.
When it was time to return to Hollywood, Huston didn’t know what to do with
Pablo so he decided to bring him home and adopt him…without telling his wife!
In his autobiography, Huston recounts how he met Evelyn at the aiport and
surprised her by introducing her to their new son. Good lord. Keyes tried her
best but that was the beginning of the end of their marriage. They divorced in
1949.
Throughout the 1940s Keyes’ career had followed the same
path of “almost” stardom. A great role in the 1941 film “Here Comes Mr. Jordan”
was supposed to do it. A dazzling performance as the Genie in “A Thousand and
One Nights” in 1945 was supposed to do it. Playing the Ruby Keeler-like wife of
Al Jolson in the popular “Jolson Story” with Larry Parks in 1946 was really supposed
to it, and then taking on the title role in 1948’s “The Mating of Millie” was
supposed to do it again. As each of these films came out, articles appeared
announcing Keyes’ newfound fame, but then it always seemed like she was back to
square one, something she found increasingly frustrating.
In 1949, Evelyn
campaigned vigorously for the role of Billie Dawn in the screen version of Judy
Holliday’s Broadway hit, “Born Yesterday” that her studio, Columbia, was
planning. She almost got it, too, after Columbia’s reigning queen, Rita
Hayworth, turned it down. But at the last minute mogul Harry Cohn made the rare
decision to give the part to the woman who created the role on the stage and
Judy Holliday won an Oscar for her performance. That was definitely a smart decision
and Holliday was exquisite, but I wonder how Keyes’ career would have changed
if she had landed that plum part. Bitterly frustrated, Keyes’ agreed to a 20
percent pay cut to get out of her contract at Columbia.
After her excellent turn in “The Seven Year Itch,” Keyes all
but retired from the screen. Her love life didn’t fare much better than her
career in the 1950s. Evelyn began an affair with Mike Todd that ended when he
dumped her for Liz Taylor. To everyone’s surprise, she married musician Artie
Shaw in 1957 (another philanderer who’d already been married to Ava Gardner,
Lana Turner, and five other women) yet this marriage lasted into the 1970s and
the couple only got around to a divorce in 1985. Following Shaw’s death in
2004, Keyes sued his estate, claiming she was entitled to half of his fortune
based on a verbal agreement they had made. She was eventually awarded well over
a million dollars. In addition to her husbands, Keyes also had well known
affairs with Anthony Quinn, David Niven, and Kirk Douglas. “I was always
interested in the man of the moment,” she later said, “and there were so many
such moments!”
Oh Evelyn, Evelyn, I’m sorry that you never felt fully
appreciated. “I’m the first to admit that I never achieved my potential as an
actress,” she told a reporter in the 90s. “I got to star in my own movies. I
even had my name above the title in some cases. But what am I known for? My bit
part in ‘Gone With the Wind.’ It’s very funny.”
Kendall, Leah, and I
are heading out to Chicago on Thursday for two weeks. Yikes, is that too long
of a period to spend with family? Will I be fully regressed into my 12-year-old
self by Saturday? Probably, but we’re all looking forward to the trip. I’m just
kicking myself that we weren’t there this weekend. Last night my
brother-in-law’s band headlined Lollapalooza, a Chicago-based music festival I attended two years ago. I watched the video simulcast and was dazzled by the debut of the new Nudie
suits worn by all of the band—spectacular! And Dave Max Crawford and his horn section, the Total Pros, were playing with Wilco which is always great. Here’s a brief clip from
last night so you can see the amazing new threads:
And then, to really make me want to shoot myself for not
being there, this afternoon Jeff threw out the opening pitch at the Cubs game!
WTF? All of Wilco was there, and they sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the Seventh-Inning Stretch. I’m just sorry my nephew
Spencer wasn’t there since he’s such a baseball fan—we’re picking him up from
camp next Friday. Jeff even got his own Cubs uniform with Tweedy on the back. That has to be the greatest honor any Chicagoan (even one who grew up in southern Illinois like Jeff) could ever receive—much
better than winning a stupid Grammy or playing at Carnegie Hall or the
Hollywood Bowl!
Here are some photos from earlier today, direct from my sister’s iPhone:
How cute are Sue and Jeff in that last shot? I don’t think
I’ve been at a Cubs game, I’m sorry to say, since my grandfather’s clothing
store, Karoll’s Red Hanger Shop, sponsored the game and I got to sit in the
press box with Jack Brickhouse.
Jeff will be on the road during most of our
visit, including a concert in Massachusetts that will be attended by the
youngest, most devoted Wilco fan I know. His name is Ben and he’s the son of a
guy I used to work with at my old New England-based publishing company, Heinemann. I’ve never
heard of a seven-year-old who was so into Jeff’s music. Apparently Ben is
completely obsessed and plays Wilco day and night. He made the following video
of himself singing “Shot in the Arm.” His dad told me that Ben didn’t really
understand some of the lyrics, thank God. But how many seven-year-olds are interested in this kind of music?
What a cool kid! Four days until we hit the Windy City. Sue, please meet us at the airport with three Superdawgs and a Lou Malnati's pizza.
A few days ago I saw a moving
documentary by Nanette Burstein called “American Teen.” It follows the lives of
a bunch of kids during their senior year of high school in the small Midwestern
town of Warsaw, Indiana. The weird thing about the film is that it’s being
marketed not as a documentary, but as a teen flick, a modern-day John Hughes
film. Check out the crazy ad campaign that has these real characters aping the
poses of the teens in Hughes’ popular film, “The Breakfast Club.”
Obviously the similarity between
the two posters is deliberate, even down to the clothes they’re wearing. What I
don’t get is who the studio is trying to reach with this ad campaign. Certainly
not people my age who saw “The Breakfast Club” over twenty years ago. My 13-year-old
daughter loves “The Breakfast Club” which she’s watched on DVD, but I’m not
sure she or any of her friends would recognize the poster image. The ads also scream that the film is “funnier than Napoleon Dynamite!” No it's not, nor should it be. Leah and I
saw the previews for “American Teen” together and when I told her this morning
that I saw the film she said that she really wanted to see it. But when I asked
if she realized it was a documentary about a group of real kids in a real high
school in Indiana, she seemed disappointed and said that made her want to see
it less. I guess Leah’s reaction explains the reason for the deceptive marketing. But I really don’t get it, I think the fact that it’s a documentary
makes it way more powerful, not less! Several articles I read about the film
mention how they avoided using the “D” word in the promotional materials. When did
documentaries become something film studios needed to hide? It’s one of my
favorite art forms—what is more effective than an excellent documentary?
I guess I’m being a bit naïve
here. Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” is the top-grossing documentary of all
time with a box office take of $119 million since its release in 2004. That’s
huge, of course, especially for a documentary, but it’s still only a third of
what “The Dark Knight” grossed in its first weekend. The reality is that most
people are more likely to watch documentaries on TV, if at all, but they go out
to the movies for pure escapism. I’d take a good documentary over most feature
films any day. But they are not easy sells to the studios and most documentary
filmmakers have a hell of a time getting funding or a distribution deal.
I remember what a big deal Al
Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was when it came out in 2006 and yet it “only”
made $24 million. Leah recently saw this film in her humanities class at school
and I suppose that’s the kind of afterlife the makers of documentaries dream
of. I was surprised by Leah’s negative reaction about “American Teen” being a
documentary because I’ve taken her to so many that she’s loved—films such as
“Super Size Me” (she’s never touched anything form McDonald’s since), the
delightful “Mad Hot Ballroom,” and the moving “Spellbound.” Leah and I both
sobbed through those last two, but I doubt the studios were all that moved by
their respective theatrical grosses of $8.1 and $5.7 million. That’s still on
the high side when you look at the list of the Top 500 documentaries in terms
of their box office receipts. Leah also loved the poignant “Paper Clips” (which
earned $1.1 million) and the controversial “Jesus Camp” ($902,000). I’ve
written about many other documentaries over the years on this blog, including
such outstanding films as:
“The Fog of War” ($4.2 million)
“Born into Brothels ($3.5 million)
“Grizzly Man” ($3.1 million)
“Capturing the Friedmans ($3.1 million)
“The Endurance: Shackleton’s
Antarctic Adventure” ($2.4 million)
“The Life and Times of Hank
Greenberg” ($1.7 million)
“Who Killed the Electric Car?”
($1.6 million)
“Anne Frank Remembered” ($1.3
million)
“In the Shadow of the Moon” ($1.1
million)
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” ($1
million)
“35 Up” ($922,000)
“Trembling Before G-d” ($788,000)
“For All Mankind” ($770,000)
All of those are in the Top 100.
The film made about my brother-in-law Jeff Tweedy (and featuring my sister and
nephews), “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” comes in at #123 with a total
domestic gross of $445,522, right after “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on
Journalism” and “The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.” Still a
very respectable take for a documentary but probably less than the catering
budget on a typical superhero film. Oy, listen to me with all these numbers,
you’d think I was the money-obsessed studio executive! I’m just listing these
figures here to educate myself on the realities of the documentary world. I
understand it better, but I’m still saddened that Paramount Vantage feels it
needs to pass off an excellent film like “American Teen” as a non-documentary.
It reminds me of how the previews for foreign films that try to “cross over”
never include a word of dialogue because the American distributors think
audiences will stay away in droves if they know they’re going to have to read a
subtitle. Is the American movie-going public really that stupid? I think not.
Apparently there was a bidding war
at Sundance for “American Teen” and I can’t blame director Nanette Burstein
(who also made the excellent “On the Ropes” and “The Kid Stays in the Picture”)
for wanting her film to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. After
spending a few million for the American rights, I’m sure Paramount had their
marketing wunderkinds working overtime to come up with a plan that would get
the film into the multiplexes. But is pitching it as a modern-day “Breakfast
Club” the best they could do?
On the other hand, Burstein does a
good job shoehorning the five featured kids into the teen archetypes seen in
Hughes’ film. Megan Krizmanich is the Princess. She lives happily at the top of
the food chain and is attractive, confident, and ruthless. We see that she is
perfectly willing to humiliate a friend if her power is threatened in any way.
But her life is not without its stresses. Megan’s parents desperately want her
to get accepted at Notre Dame and she worries that she’ll disappoint them.
Hannah Bailey is the Rebel who dreams of getting the hell out of Indiana and
moving to California to make movies. She marches to her own drummer but is
devastated by two break-ups during her senior year and terrified she will
succumb to the mental illness that has ruined her mother’s life. Hannah lives
with her grandmother but her damaged parents appear in the film long enough to
tell her she’s not special enough to make it in on her own in California. Oy.
Mitch Reinholt is the Hearthrob. During the course of the year he takes a
liking to quirky Hannah. He tries to introduce her into his group of popular
friends but ultimately worries about his social standing at the school and
cruelly dumps her via text message. Colin Clemens is the Jock, the star of the
high school basketball team. He seems to have it all but we see the intense
pressure he’s under from his family to get an athletic scholarship. His father
once had dreams of making it in pro sports and now, working as an Elvis
impersonator, he is living vicariously through his son’s achievements on the
basketball court. Will Colin choke from all this pressure and screw up his
future? Jake Tusing is the Geek who is painfully shy but desperate for a girlfriend.
Jake is so awkward that he dreams of going somewhere new for college and
reinventing himself, possibly as a “Mr. Muscles,” if he works out a lot.
I was riveted throughout the film
and fully engaged in the stories of these teens, especially the two I could
most relate to—misfits Hannah and Jake. In Hannah I recognized my own “I’m
above all this crap” high school stance that I used to camouflage my
insecurities and my secret desire to fit in with the kids I thought I had no time for. I could well relate to Jake’s geekiness and wanted to shout at the
screen, “Just hold tight, Jake, it’s all going to work out. Your skin is going
to clear up, you’re going to learn how to talk to girls, and you’re going to
find the right niche of friends.” I found Jake completely endearing although he
was even odder than I was with his disturbing collections of taxidermied
animals and his obsession with video games. But for me, Hannah is the emotional
linchpin of the film. When a sudden break-up with her first boyfriend leaves
her clinically depressed and she refuses to go to school, I was so fearful of
her not getting into college and out of Warsaw that I wanted to rush over and
drive her to class myself. When it looks like she might choose to bow to pressure
and stay in Indiana rather than pursuing her dreams in California, I wanted to
ask Kendall if we could adopt the 18-year-old and send her to USC. I knew many
kids like Megan, Mitch, and Colin, but they were in different worlds. Yet
Burstein showed the very real adolescent horrors experienced by the kids who
seem to have it all and it made you care for them as well.
I always wonder why anyone would
agree to be so publicly exposed in this way. Of course today, with the popularity of so-called Reality TV, the shock factor of watching the real lives
of people has completely worn off. I remember when the PBS series “An American
Family,” by documentary filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond, premiered in 1973
when I was a freshman in high school, it was a sensation. I became completely addicted to the story of the Loud family from Santa
Barbara and I was glued to the set as Bill and Pat Loud’s marriage
disintegrated before our eyes, as their oldest son Lance came out of the closet
and moved to the Chelsea Hotel in New York, and as the other kids Kevin, Grant,
Delilah, and Michele went through the horrors of adolescence in their
privileged affluent world.
The Louds reunited on
camera a few times, once in 1983 and once in 2003 when 50-year-old Lance Loud was dying of
AIDS. But despite the fame and opportunity the show afforded
them (Lance in particular became a darling of the avant-garde), several members
of the Loud family were bitter about their experience and regretted taking part
in it. With no precedent, they weren’t prepared for the way the country
dissected their lives and judged their actions as
depicted on the screen. Even Lance said that he thought the filmmakers had intentionally edited the series to make him seem obnoxious and grating.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the
subjects in “American Teen” had any misgivings about their participation in
this film. From the interviews I’ve seen since the film opened last Friday, it
doesn’t look like it. Popular girl Megan, now a sophomore at Notre Dame (yes, she got in—sorry for that spoiler!), seems
especially articulate and appealing—a big surprise since she comes across as
a mean whack-job in the film. An episode involving Megan forwarding a topless
picture of a classmate to everyone in the school and then making cruel prank
calls to the teen is particularly chilling. And the way Mitch dumps Hannah
makes him seem like a Class A creep but there the two of them are promoting the film together. In the short text updates during the
closing credits, Megan assures us that since the film was made she’s matured. A
lot. And Mitch self-consciously swears that he’ll never break up with anyone by
text message again.
I wonder how I would have come off
in such a series. Here is the page from my yearbook that introduces the section
for the senior class at Von Steuben High School. It could serve as a poster for
the 1976 version of “American Teen.” There I am in the top left, the troubled,
disgruntled geek, sleepwalking through many of my classes and trying my best
not to engage with my classmates. On the top right are the jocks, lording over
the gymnasium like mini-Mengeles, deciding who will live and who will die.
Bottom left is the Class Clown, a popular guy who uses his outgoing humor to
bop between several social strata at the school. And in the bottom right is a member of the popular set, very involved in all school activities, head of
the afterschool clubs, and always wearing the right makeup and stylish clothes
(in this case the dreaded 70s elephant bells!). While it would be fascinating
to watch today, may I express my gratitude that such a documentary was never
made?
Now, partly because of the
desire to blur the lines of documentary filmmaking, Nanette Burstein is getting
criticized by some for staging scenes and even scripting the film. I believe her
vehement statements that these claims are completely false. “I was really
surprised actually and have been upset by it,” Burstein said of these critics.
“I think it's unusual to have a very narrative documentary, so people aren't
used to it. I think people have a hard time believing teenagers are willing to
be that intimate on camera. So sometimes I feel I'm being criticized for what
the film’s achievements are.” The director said she’s being targeted for
wanting to make a documentary film with broad appeal. “I do want as many people
to see it as possible,” Burstein said, “and I'm not approaching it with as much
of a political agenda as more of an anthropological one. And I want to
entertain people, I want to move them in the same way a fiction film would.”
I worry about the young stars of
“American Teen.” They’ve been traveling the country together to promote the
film and I fear that their sudden celebrity may not be a good thing. As part of
the ad campaign, Paramount has set up glitzy Facebook pages for each of the
“characters,” inviting fans to become their “friends.” Even more disturbing is
seeing this group pal around with each other. Back at Warsaw High School,
someone like Megan never would have given Hannah the time of day and she would
have looked straight through Jake, not seeing him at all. I thought that seeing
them hanging out and joking around with each other during interviews would be
somehow reassuring but instead it seems an affront to the natural world order.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think shedding these ridiculous cliques and finding
common ground with people from other social groups is a very important part of
growing up. It took me until my 30th high school reunion to fully
let go of some of my biases about my former classmates and jump over that once impenetrable barricade. But I think such a move needs to come
naturally as a result of age, experience, and maturity. If these kids hadn’t made this film, there’s
no way they would be palling around together. I
guess there’s one social group that trumps all others. Megan, Jake, Hannah,
Mitch, and Colin are now members of the most coveted clique among adolescents in this country:
My sister, Susan Rae Miller Tweedy, has been having an impact on
world events since she was a little girl. In 1971, she spearheaded a successful campaign
to overturn a 50-year-old policy at Mary Gage Peterson Elementary in Chicago
that prohibited girls from wearing pants to school. She was one of the first
women to pump gas and load trucks for UPS in the Windy City. She later became,
according to one guidebook, the “doyenne of the Chicago music scene” as the
owner of the beloved Lounge Ax rock club with her partner Julia Adams. During
the Lounge Ax years, Sue met and married acclaimed singer-songwriter Jeff
Tweedy and gave birth to two future rock stars of America. Today, among her
other prominent contacts, Sue is on a first-name basis with the man who will
soon occupy the White House.
President Obama would do well to give my sister a place in
his Cabinet for her astute observations of important moments in history. Sue
has been reporting on major happenings for as long as I can remember. Responding to a challenge by the late John F. Kennedy, landing men on the moon and safely returning them to Earth was a shining moment for our nation and
one of the most remarkable achievements of the twentieth century. For a brief
moment, the entire planet was united as all eyes were on the courageous
astronauts and the talented NASA scientists who were responsible for Apollo 11.
But no reporter captured the gravity of this event with more skill and
poignancy than young Susan, writing in her diary 39 years ago today. Here, my
friends, ripped from the pages of 11-year-old Susan’s actual diary, is one of
the most powerful primary source documents you will ever see:
Walter Cronkite couldn’t have said it better. (And I bet his hair never smelled like a Garden of Earthly Delights like my sister’s Herbal Essenced locks did.)
As I continue to illegally scan my
sister’s diaries next month during our trip to Chicago, I will share her insights on other world events such as the
Cuban Missile Crisis, the March on Washington, the Iranian Revolution, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the collapse of the Soviet
Union, and the creation of the Internet. In the meantime, may I suggest that
Barack Obama consider Sue and me for top positions in the Bureau of Indian
Affairs? As you can see in the photo at left, we have a long history of
sensitivity to issues affecting Native Americans.
I found this weekend’s record-breaking grosses for “The Dark
Knight” terribly depressing. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I
was part of those grosses, we saw the film on Sunday night. I did not care for
the film but my fear about its massive profits rests more in how this will
affect the already vision-impaired movie executives who, in their idiocy, will
interpret this as a clarion call to green-light an endless list of superhero
movies and to put the kibosh on anything that includes skilled character
development.
Not that I have any desire to trash the talented actors and
filmmakers who gave us the newest Batman flick. Director Christopher Nolan,
along with “Dark Knight” screenwriter Jonathan Nolan, cinematographer Wally
Pfister, and stars Christian Bale and Michael Caine were all in our house two
years ago when our first floor was transformed into a period London tavern for
Nolan’s film “The Prestige.” They couldn’t have been nicer or more
professional. I am a huge fan of Nolan’s film “Memento” and I liked “Batman
Begins.” But this one? Not so much.
I just didn’t get it. The look of the film was great
although I preferred the old stylized versions of Gotham City instead of the
clearly recognizable downtown Chicago streets that were used here. Batman’s
gadgets were top-notch but maybe we’re so used to those by now they’re just not
that exciting (I remember how in the James Bond movies of the 60s, the
introduction of each film’s gadgets was always so thrilling—are we just too
jaded in today’s high-tech world?). The violence was so intense and pervasive
that I’m starting to give more credence to the folks that claim such films
desensitize young people and run the risk of turning us all into crazed
killers. After two hours and forty minutes of such unrelenting violence, I was
ready to grab a machine gun and mow down all the people in the sold-out theatre
who were talking or texting during the film.
The acting? I can’t complain although I have to admit I was
far more interested in Bale’s zillionaire Bruce Wayne than I was in his
monotone, nearly lifeless Batman. My favorite Christian Bale performances were
when he played a young Nazi in “Swing Kids” and as the emaciated Trevor Reznik
in “The Machinist.” Now word comes today that he spent four hours
in a London police station this morning being questioned about allegations from
his mother and sister that he assaulted them on Sunday night. Bale has denied
the charges, but WTF? Something is going on in that family. What really got my
attention in the news report is that the police did not question him on Monday
because they did not want to interfere with last night’s European premiere of
“The Dark Knight.” Excuse me? The police ignored an official complaint of assault
because of a movie premiere? Did those orders come from the Gotham City PD?
The biggest draw this weekend was undoubtedly Heath Ledger,
who was quite good in his creepy portrayal of the Joker—certainly light years
away from Cesar Romero or Jack Nicholson’s take on the character. I’ve no doubt
a substantial portion of the weekend grosses are due to the curiosity of many
to see Ledger’s final performance. I just hope his young daughter doesn’t see
it—not exactly the way anyone would want to remember Daddy. I doubt that this
disturbing role had anything to do with Ledger’s accidental death last January
despite the salacious reports that try to connect his own Dark Side to the
Joker’s. Ledger was an extremely talented actor who was able to disappear into
every part he played. As riveting as he was in the film, I’m just sorry
they didn’t provide the Joker with more of an interesting back story. I could
have used a little less crazy, a little more character analysis.
I think Michael Caine was the perfect choice for Alfred, Bruce
Wayne’s butler and Batman’s confidante. The friends we were with accused Caine
of phoning in his performance but at least he provided a few light moments in
this deadly serious tale. I get that the Batman movies have tried to distance themselves
from the slapstick fun of the 1960s TV series, but could someone inform the
producers that even serious films could use a few laughs? Hell, there were
scenes in “Sophie’s Choice” that had me in stitches, but “The Dark Knight”
takes itself so seriously I would've needed to grab the Joker’s paring knife to put a
smile on my face. Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman were both wasted, and what
was with Freeman’s sudden bout of ethics? He’s fine with all sorts of
mayhem, illegal activity, and danger, but he draws the line when Bruce Wayne
figures out a way to bug every cell phone in Gotham City in order to catch the Joker? Was that a veiled criticism of the Patriot Act?
Maggie Gyllenhaal took over the thankless role of Rachel
Dawes from Katie Holmes for this film, but in my opinion that part should have
been tossed the minute Holmes turned down the sequel. Dawes is not even a
“real” Batman character, she was invented for the last film in an attempt to
give the series a character that provided Batman with the same angst that Spiderman had to face with Kirsten Dunst. But Dunst’s
character achieved its purpose beautifully while Rachel Dawes’ motivations
never made any sense. (And just to be clear, I am a huge fan of Gyllenhaal’s, I
just didn’t think she belonged in this film.)
Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent is an interesting character and
he does a good job with the District Attorney who becomes an Obama-like savior
for the desperate citizens of crime-ridden Gotham City, but (warning: spoiler
ahead!) his transformation into Harvey Two-Face is absurd. To go from being
such a fantastic guy to a child-killing monster all because of a severe facial
disfigurement makes no psychological sense at all. Eckhart’s makeup or the CGI
effects that ravaged half of his face were excellent (notice how even after he
turns into Two-Face, he is still coiffing and blow drying the side of his head
with that perfect hair) but more was needed to make this character work.
Oy, enough with my sniping already, don’t you just hate
people who endlessly kvetch about other people’s creative endeavors? I do
admire Nolan’s attempts to re-invent this character. My only question is—why?
If I had my way, they’d retire the series and let Nolan use his creativity to
make more truly original films like “Memento.” But fat chance of that after the
biggest opening weekend in movie history. Still, who am I to diss a movie that
seems to be striking such a nerve? I should shut up until I come out with my
own Batman flick. Of course, MY version would star 79-year old Adam West as
Batman and 75-year-old Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Do you think it will be a hit?
Last weekend my wife Kendall
turned 42. A few days earlier, we were driving down the coast, returning from
our dog-centered vacation at Doris Day’s hotel in Carmel. I was reading aloud
from the book “All About 'All About Eve'” that we had picked up at a used
bookstore. (Isn’t that what most couples do on a long car trip?) We
enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at what has to be one of the Top 10 films
ever made. Of course, being the freaks that we are, we already knew many of the
details, including the fact that Claudette Colbert was originally signed to
play Margo Channing but had to bow out of the film, to her great regret,
because of some back problems. It’s almost impossible to imagine Colbert in
this role now, and yet it suddenly makes a lot more sense to have Anne Baxter
cast as the conniving Eve Harrington since Baxter looks so much like a young
Claudette. It would have been interesting to see Colbert sink her teeth into
such a juicy role, but God knows the movies would have lost one of the best
performances ever recorded on celluloid if Bette Davis had been denied the
chance to make the iconic Margo Channing her own. We loved reading the tales of
Bette’s histrionics on and off the set but one line from the book nearly caused
Kendall to veer off a cliff and hurl us to our deaths in the pounding Pacific:
“During the filming, Bette Davis
was 42 years old.”
Kendall is not someone who is
obsessed with youth and she rarely bemoans the passage of time, but hearing that she was
about to become Margo Channing’s age came close to sending her over the edge. We both saw
“All About Eve” when we were kids, and back then we naturally thought Bette Davis was
older than God. In fact, we weren't sure she wasn't God, she certainly seemed to have the
same level of power.
Margo Channing: Bill's thirty-two.
He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it twenty years
from now. I hate men.
To assuage her mounting anxiety,
Kendall did what any woman in her position would do: she became Margo Channing.
For the rest of the drive, Kendall’s mellifluous voice was replaced by the
staccato screeching of Margo Channing, aka 42-year-old Bette Davis at her most
shrill. “BILL!” she wailed when we stopped for gas in Pismo Beach, “Do you WANT
a mar-TINI from the QUICK mart? Or per-HAPS a SWIG of WA-ter?” To be honest, my
wife’s first attempts at Bette’s cadence sounded more like an aging Katharine
Hepburn but as the day wore on, Kendall lost the Bryn Mawr inflection. By the
time we reached Santa Ynez, Kendall sounded like a top-of-the-line female
impersonator at a 1970s drag show. “What a DUMP!” Even our dog Henry, sound
asleep in the back seat after a boisterous romp on the beach in Carmel, perked up
his big ears and moaned softly, as if to say, “Who is this terrifying
woman and what has she done with my mother?”
Margo Channing: I'll admit I may
have seen better days...but I'm still not to be had for the price of a
cocktail—like a salted peanut.
Returning to Los Angeles, Kendall
continued her channeling. She started calling Leah “B.D.” and even started
calling our dog McTavish after Bette’s beloved Terrier. My daughter, who goes
nuts if Kendall or I dare to attempt any kind of accent for two syllables, was
nearly driven screaming into the street after enduring several hours as Margo
Channing’s stepchild.
Margo Channing: Funny business, a
woman's career, the things you drop on the way up the ladder so you can move
faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman.
It's one career all females have in common—being a woman. Sooner or later we've
got to work at it no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted. And in
the last analysis nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner
or turn around in bed and there he is. Without that you're not a woman. You're
something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings but
you're not a woman. Slow curtain, the end.
As luck would have it, last Monday
night, just after Kendall’s entry into the Margo Channing Club, the American
Cinematheque screened a restored print of “All About Eve” at the Egyptian
Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Of course we had to attend. Shown in a double
feature with the delightful film, “The Tender Trap” starring Frank Sinatra and
Debbie Reynolds, one of the stars of both films appeared in between the
screenings for a live question-and-answer session—none other than 91-year-old
Celeste Holm. Holm is the only principal still with us from “All About Eve” and
it was fantastic to hear her talk about the film and her amazing career. The
first time Celeste appeared on the stage in Los Angeles was a whopping 70 years
ago in the 1938 national tour of Clare Booth Luce’s “The Women.”
Holm played
the conniving Crystal Allen, the part Joan Crawford would play in the movie
version. A few years later, Celeste originated the role of Ado Annie in the
groundbreaking musical “Oklahoma.” When I was a kid, the very first musical
I ever saw was a touring company of “Mame” that played Chicago’s Shubert
Theatre in 1967. The title part was played with gusto and verve by…you guessed
it—Celeste Holm.
Holm’s longevity is nothing short
of mind-boggling. A few months ago, she made a film with Mickey Rooney called
“Driving Me Crazy” which apparently was well named—after working with Rooney
for two days, Holm said she was ready for the nuthouse. Holm won an Oscar for
one of her first roles, opposite Gregory Peck in “Gentleman’s Agreement.” With
the help of her husband, Frank Basile, Holm mesmerized us with tales of her
seven decades in the business, from the time she purposely stalled an elevator
so she could beg director Anatloe Litvak for a role in “The Snake Pit” to the
“swear jar” goody-two-shoes actress Loretta Young set up on the set of “Come to
the Stable.” Celeste and the other actors had to drop a quarter into the jar
every time they so much as uttered a “damn.” When ballsy Ethel Merman heard
about Young’s swear jar, she stormed onto the set, shoved a twenty-dollar bill
into the jar, and said, “There you go, Loretta. Now go fuck yourself!”
Kendall and I, along with our
talented friend Amy Turner, sat two rows behind Holm during the films. It was a
thrill to watch her watching them. Amy had never been to a double feature
before and we had to point out that 91-year-old Holm was alert throughout the
screening while Amy was struggling to stay awake. During much of the screening,
Holm was being caressed by her husband. Oh, did I mention that her fifth spouse
was born in…get ready for it…1963?! Gulp. Whatever works between two people,
right? With that age difference, I’d have to marry someone born in 1913! I
better warn Kendall…oh, I mean Margo.
Of course we loved every frame of
“All About Eve” even though we didn’t get out of that blasted theatre until
close to 1 am. Look at this brilliant scene and see what I’ve been living with
for the past week:
Did you catch the always perfect
Thelma Ritter? Her character disappeared after this scene which is my only complaint
about the film. Marilyn Monroe got her first big break in “All About Eve” and
she did an amazing job with her small role as Miss Caswell, a Graduate of the
Copacabana School of Dramatic Art. Get a load of this perfect dialogue:
Kendall and I repeat that George
Sanders line at least once a week to each other: “You have a point. An idiotic
one, but a point.”
I’m now going on two weeks living
with Margo Channing and I’m here to say that I want my wife back. In real life,
co-stars Bette Davis and Gary Merrill fell in love and got married. Though they
stayed together for 10 years, by all accounts it was a disastrous union. If
Kendall continues to age alongside of Bette Davis, our future is doomed. I can
only imagine what it will be like living with the main characters from such
later Davis films as “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” “Where Love Has Gone,” and
“Scream, Pretty Peggy.” But I guess I should count my blessings that Kendall
has settled on Margo Channing for now. Bette was only 54 when she made “Whatever
Happened to Baby Jane?” Is this what I have to look forward to in 12 years?
Feel free to file this post in the “Delusions of Grandeur”
category but I was tickled to realize that I had a direct impact on Barack
Obama’s words in a speech he gave last Friday at a Chicago fundraiser.
In the current edition of “Rolling Stone” magazine, the main
feature on Barack Obama includes a description of what’s on the presidential
candidate’s iPod. I would venture to say that the senator is probably the first candidate to even own an iPod or know what one is (I’ll bet you a
brand new iPhone 3G that John McCain and George W. Bush wouldn’t know how to
listen to an iPod if their lives depended on it!). The piece about the iPod was
picked up by newspapers all over the country, I think I read it in the New York
Times. Reviewing the list of bands Obama cited, I was immediately struck by the
fact that my brother-in-law’s band was not included. Jeff has appeared with
Obama several times and the senator is always very enthusiastic about Wilco’s
music, always claiming that Wilco is one of his favorite bands and that his
sister is huge Wilco fan and turned him on to the music. What gives? I called
up Sue and Jeff, who hadn’t seen the article, and screamed and moaned that Jeff
should withdraw his support from Obama immediately and offer to play at McCain’s next fundraiser. (Note to readers: I was only KIDDING, I would never
base my support for a candidate on whether he or she liked my family
members—well, not for this election anyway. And Jeff would smash his best
guitar before he’d play for McCain.)
Cut to last Friday night. Jeff was headlining a big
gathering for Obama at the Park West Theatre in Chicago. After playing to the
enthusiastic crowd, he said forcefully, “I have a bone to pick with the senator,”
and then playfully mocked him for leaving Wilco off his list:
Later, when Jeff
introduced Obama to the crowd, Barack came out onto the stage and his first
words were about iPodgate:
Okay, I agree that
this is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but as I read the
news reports and listened to the YouTube clip, I couldn’t help feeling like
Virginia Weidler at the end of “The Philadelphia Story” after her sly
machinations contribute to the surprise wedding of Katharine
Hepburn and Cary Grant. Sitting in her seat watching the event, she says to
herself, “I did it! I did it all!”
Meanwhile, Barack was great, and if you’re interested in more than the contents of his iPod, be sure to watch Part 2 and Part 3 of his speech from the Park
West.
As for me, I’m banking on the Wilco tour bus heading out to Washington on January 20, 2009.
That’s what the religious epic “King of Kings” was jokingly
called in 1961 when it came out because of the youthful appearance of its hunky
star Jeffrey Hunter (the actor was actually 34 during the making of the film).
Kendall and I went to see this film last night at the Grauman’s Egyptian
Theatre, now the American Cinematheque. As part of its 85th anniversary celebration, the Egyptian is screening films that debuted at the
theatre. “King of Kings” had an exclusive reserved seat run at the Egyptian in
1961, with top ticket prices going for a whopping $3.00 (which is the price the
theatre charged last night).
Here is Hunter entering the theatre in 1961. Sorry I can’t show you the pose I struck in that very spot last night, trying to adopt Hunter’s
movie star smile. Part of the reason Kendall and I wanted to attend this
special showing, apart from never having seen this 3-hour Technicolor
extravaganza on the Big Screen where it belongs, is that we have long heard
stories of Jeffrey Hunter. He was the first husband of Kendall’s mom’s
close pal, actress Barbara Rush. Hunter died in 1969 at the age of 42. Barbara is still going strong and looks more beautiful than ever.
This is what the the gorgeous couple looked like in the early 50s. Seen here as a toddler, their son Christopher is now the 56-year-old father of young twins. Though Rush and Hunter were already
divorced by the time “King of Kings” was made, the delightfully irreverent
Barbara used to love telling people, particularly members of the
clergy, that her first husband was Jesus Christ and that she raised Jesus's son.
Another draw to last night’s screening was that acclaimed writer Ray Bradbury was there to introduce the film.
Why, you may ask? Because Bradbury is the one who wrote the narration
that Orson Welles reads throughout “King of Kings” and without which even the
most devoted biblical scholars would have been hard pressed to follow the
storyline. Bradbury was first approached by producer Samuel Bronston because
they felt they didn’t have an ending for their film. “Have you tried looking at
the Bible?” Bradbury asked. The writer wrote a few new scenes and a brilliant
narration that tied the whole film together, but he got no writing credit for
the film because screenwriter Philip Yordan balked and Bradbury didn’t have
enough clout to insist. Orson Welles didn’t get credit either, Bradbury told us, because MGM wouldn’t cough up the extra dough that on-screen credit
would have required. Welles’ reading of Bradbury’s words is perfect, of course.
Did anyone in the history of the movies have a better voice than Mr. Welles? Bradbury
said he is proud of the finished product but bemoaned the fact the studio
didn’t use some of the additional scenes he wrote that he thought would have
made it much stronger.
“King of Kings” came at a time when biblical epics were all
the rage and it enjoyed commercial success but also received some critical pans
and was probably the first such film that didn’t get a single Oscar nomination,
not even for Miklos Rozsa’s amazing score. “King of Kings” was directed by
Nicholas Ray, the respected director of “Rebel Without a Cause” as well as one
of Barbara Rush’s best flicks, “Bigger Than Life” with James Mason and the
classic “Johnny Guitar” starring Joan Crawford. He also directed the weird cult
classic “Party Girl” starring the late Cyd Charisse.
Many of these old films that tackled such heady subjects as
the Bible tend to be laughable when viewed today, but I have to say that I
thoroughly enjoyed “King of Kings.” Unlike some of the other depictions of the story, this one focused on the takeover of Judea by the Romans and the treatment of the Jewish population by Caesar's emissaries. It provides an interesting context for the eventual popularity of a certain carpenter from Nazareth who has some new ideas about how his people can achieve a lasting inner peace even though their lives are filled with hardship and injustice. Jesus is called "rabbi" throughout the film by his Disciples. I wonder how this went over when the film reached the Bible Belt and the folks who refused to acknowledge the Jewish origins of their savior. Ray Bradbury told us the shocking story that at one point producer Samuel Bronston had decided to delete Judas Iscariot from "King of Kings" because he worried that people would perceive the film as anti-Semitic. Bradbury finally brought Bronston back to his senses by asking him to consider what the hordes of observant Christians would think of a Jewish producer removing the integral figure of Judas from the story of Jesus Christ.
As I said in an Easter post I wrote two
years ago about all the cinematic Christs of my childhood, to many people and in the opinion of many critics, Jeffrey
Hunter was the definitive Jesus, even with his piercing blue eyes and decidedly
non-Middle Eastern appearance. I think he did an excellent job in the role and
is certainly more fun to watch than Max Von Sydow in the laborious “Greatest
Story Ever Told” or Jim Caviezel in Mel Gibson’s insufferable “Passion of the
Christ.”
It fascinates me that Jeffrey Hunter isn’t more well known today considering how
big he was for a short time in the 1950s. Is it because he died so young?
Because of his good looks, he started out in pretty boy roles such as “Take
Care of My Little Girl” and “Belles on Their Toes” with Jeanne Crain, and
“Dreamboat” with Clifton Webb and Ginger Rogers, but in 1956 he was cast in
what I think is his greatest film, John Ford’s “The Searchers” with John Wayne
and Natalie Wood. It was John Ford who suggested Hunter to Nicholas Ray when
they were looking for someone to play Jesus in “King of Kings.” Other great
performances by Jeffrey Hunter can be found in films such as Ford’s “The Last
Hurrah” and “The Longest Day” but I wonder if his movie star looks actually
hurt him in the industry. And, of course, what would have happened to his
reputation had he not turned down the lead role in “Star Trek.” As any Trekkie
knows, it was Jeffrey Hunter who piloted the U.S.S. Enterprise as Captain
Christopher Pike in the pilot for Gene Roddenberry’s series. When the show was
picked up, Hunter chose to concentrate on his movie career instead, opening the
door for a very lucky William Shatner to take the captain’s seat. A few years
later, Hunter lobbied for the role of Mike Brady in “The Brady Bunch” but
producer Sherwood Schwartz thought he was “too good looking to be an
architect.” Jeffrey Hunter died a few months before the show premiered
in 1969.
“King of Kings” is riddled with people who were destined for major stardom and yet somehow didn’t quite make it. The one
that really caught my attention in the film was a young actress named Brigid
Bazlen. You can tell by the ad campaign that MGM was trying to turn Bazlen into
the next Elizabeth Taylor. Indeed, in her role as the seductive Salome, she is
a dead ringer for Taylor at her most stunning. Bazlen was the daughter of
Chicago newspaper columnist Maggie Daly and as a young girl had landed the lead
in a local children’s show on WGN-TV called “The Blue Fairy,” one of the first
shows that the Chicago station filmed in color (the other was “Garfield Goose
and Friends” which I mentioned in my previous post). MGM snapped Brigid up with
a long-term contract, clearly envisioning huge fame for the raven-haired
beauty. “King of Kings” was supposed to be her big break into the major leagues
but instead it all but killed her career. Not that she was bad in the role—in
fact, I think she was extraordinarily good. But the creepy factor of this young
15-year-old seducing the middle-aged Herod in the film and then demanding John
the Baptist’s head on a silver platter may have turned the stomachs of 1961
critics and they were not very kind to the actress. She made one more film for
MGM and then was dropped like a hot potato. She later did some TV work but
sadly, like Jeffrey Hunter, died in her early 40s.
Other actors I enjoyed in the film included Siobhan McKenna
as the Virgin Mary (though she didn’t seem so much the virgin), Frank Thring as
the vile Herod Antipas, a very young Rip Torn as Judas Iscariot, a hyper Harry
Guardino as Barabbas, Robert Ryan as John the Baptist (not long after he founded the progressive school my daughter now attends), Hurd Hatfield as the ambitious Pontius Pilate,and Swedish beauty Viveca Lindfors as
his corrupt wife Claudia.I loved
Lindfors and actually had some personal encounters with her before her death in
1995, including a long talk in a Parisian post office one day in 1979 when we were
both trying to make phone calls to the States (in the Dark Ages, you had to go
to the post office to make such calls abroad).
Yikes, forgive my stream-of-consciousness rambling, I can really get lost in this stuff. But I was
happy to journey back last night and watch the original road show dye-transfer
Technicolor print of “King of Kings” that hasn’t been projected in a theatre
since I was 2 years old. The colors were magnificent. Looking at an old
newspaper from 1961, I was amused to see that while “King of Kings” enjoyed a
successful run at the Egyptian, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was premiering at
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre just down the street. In what was probably a coincidence,
that film also screened last night at the Cinematheque’s other theatre, the
Aero in Santa Monica.
Who knew that 1961 was such a good year for movies? Many other great films were also playing on Hollywood Boulevard at that time: El Cid, Splendor in the Grass, Two Women, Summer and
Smoke, Jules and Jim, A Raisin in the Sun, Flower Drum Song, The Misfits,
Judgment at Nuremburg, and a few other guilty pleasure favorites of mine such as
Pocketful of Miracles, Lover Come Back, and The Parent Trap. Jesus Christ—what
a year!
My first visit to a television studio took place in the
mid-1960s when my family got coveted seats to see “Bozo’s Circus” on WGN-TV.
The modern new WGN studio was located at 2501 Bradley Place, close to my
favorite amusement park, Riverview, and I was beyond thrilled to be entering its sacred halls.
Although the original Bozo the Clown was played by Pinto
Colvig (who found greater fame as the voice of Goofy), the character of Bozo
was owned and franchised by Larry Harmon, who died last week at the age of 83.
He often played the clown himself and was very strict about how Bozo had to
look and dress. It was Harmon who established the distinctive orange hair, the
big red rose, the blue and red clown suits, and the size 83AAA shoes. During his long
reign as Bozo’s guardian, Harmon licensed the character to TV stations all over
the country, and the Chicago version of the show was by far the most popular.
It ran for over 40 years, from 1960 to 2001, and was a true broadcasting
phenomenon. In its heyday, when I was a kid, there was a 10-year-wait to get
tickets for the daily hourlong show. One of the rituals among young newlyweds
in Chicago during the 1960s was to sign up for tickets at the time of their
wedding so that the couple would be able to take any future offspring they may
have to see “Bozo’s Circus” before the kids were too old.
My siblings and I were lucky because we did not have to wait
that long. My grandfather’s store, Karoll’s Red Hanger Shop, was a sponsor on
WGN (mostly for the Cubs games) and my grandfather was able to pull a few
strings to get us into the show. I remember walking onto the celebrated circus
set like it was yesterday. It seemed so much smaller in real life. We got to
meet all the characters: Ringmaster Ned Locke in his red tails and top hat
shook my hand so hard I had to stifle a yelp.
Oliver O. Oliver, the country bumpkin clown, was played by
the brilliant Ray Rayner, himself a Chicago institution with his own morning
show in which he would interact with the talking canine Cuddley Duddley and an
actual duck named Chalveston who was constantly attacking him. Rayner would
host a series oftechnically
unsophisticated cartoons from Diver Dan to Clutch Cargo to the Funny Company.
He wore overalls on his show that were always covered with little square notes
that he would consult and then discard. I always thought he should have gotten
the patent for the Post-It that was still years away from being invented.
The silent Sandy the Clown was played by Don Sandburg with great poignancy and
expertise. He would leave the show a few years later and be replaced by Roy
Brown’s Cooky the Cook. Brown had been the voice of Cuddley Duddley.
But the star of the show was Bob Bell’s gravelly-voiced irascible Bozo the
Clown. With apologies to Larry Harmon and all the other men who played the
character, Bell was the “real” Bozo to anyone who grew up in Chicago during the
60s and 70s. Chicago-born actor Dan Castellanata, the voice of Homer Simpson, said he based the voice of Krusty the Clown on Bob Bell's Bozo. Bell played Bozo from 1960 to 1984. He was the perfect
vaudevillian, and the frequently ad-libbed antics between Bozo, Oliver, and Sandy
were hilarious to kids and adults alike. Like the best children’s programming,
there was something for children in every sketch but also plenty of humor for
their parents that would sail right over the heads of the little ones. I wish I
could see some of those old sketches again, I think the censors today would have a fit. I remember one bit in which Ray Rayner's character was supposed to warn Bozo about some rampaging circus animals. “The
elephants are loose! The elephants are loose!” he screamed frantically. Forgetting his line, Bob ad-libbed “Better give them some kaopectate!”
Funny that I loved the clowns on this show since I had such
a fear of clowns in other venues. Once as a very young child I was watching a
Shriner’s parade marching down State Street. Sitting on the curb with my
sister, one of the clowns reached down and picked me up, placing me on a float
in the parade. Sounds like an exciting moment for a kid but I was absolutely
terrified and burst into tears, thinking I had been kidnapped and would never
see my parents again. I found clowns creepy and dangerous, but not Bozo and his
friends who seemed like family members, dysfunction and all.
One of the biggest moments in “Bozo’s Circus” was the Grand
Prize Game. A boy and girl would be chosen by the magic arrows on the screen
and get to play this game in which they would try to toss ping pong balls into
six buckets, each one a little farther away. I can still remember the odd
prizes the kids would win from the WGN sponsors such as “NuMode hosiery with
the no-bind top” and cans of Sanka coffee. I believe the prizes got more
kid-friendly if the children kept winning and for the few kids that reached the
final bucket all hell would break loose in the studio. Bozo would usually ride
out on the fire engine red bicycle that the lucky child would win. I longed to
be on the Grand Prize Game but I was also worried, even at that age, that I
might be publicly humiliated by missing Buckets #1 or #2. You had to get to at
least Bucket #4 to leave the game with any dignity. Alas, I wasn’t chosen, but
because we were there on my sister’s 8th birthday, she got to play a
mock game during one of the commercial breaks and won some nice prizes
including a Bozo mural that hung on our bedroom wall for years.
By the time Bob Bell retired, I was in my twenties and no
longer watched the show. Bell was replaced by comedian Joey D’Auria for the
next 17 years. Ringmaster Ned left the show in 1976 and was replaced by WGN
star Frazier Thomas who also hosted “Garfield Goose & Friends” and “Family
Classics,” two more staples of my TV-obsessed childhood. The 13-piece Big Top
Band I saw during my visit was eventually replac