Jew Eat Yet?

American Teen: The Downside of "Reality"

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:

The Famous Kids.

July 24, 1969

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. 

Batman Burn-Out

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?

Fasten Your Seat Belt, Kendall Hailey!

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?

Help me.

My Impact on the 2008 Presidential Election

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. 

I Was a Teenage Jesus

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!

Bozo’s Circus is On the Air!

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 of  technically 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 replaced by a three-piece combo and then by canned music. I stayed faithful to the show throughout my elementary school years.  I remember rushing home from school for lunch to catch the first half-hour of Bozo and then switching to “Let’s Make a Deal.” Somehow we’d make it back to school for afternoon classes.

Does local children’s broadcasting even exist anymore? Chicago had some of the best examples of this genre and I watched them all, from Bozo and Ray Rayner to “Garfield Goose,” “Kiddie-a-Go-Go”, “B.J. and Dirty Dragon,” and the Jewish-themed “Magic Door.”

Kendall and I are on a trip up the California coast with our dog Henry. I’m writing this from the lobby of Doris Day’s dog-friendly Cypress Inn in beautiful downtown Carmel. With Doris's voice being piped in singing "My Buddy," I am surrounded by dogs on all sides, a remarkable sight in this very tony establishment. But all I can think about right now is the whereabouts of the the signed photos I once received from Bozo the Clown and Garfield Goose. And where is that original Cuddley Duddley dog I once owned? I’ll be scouring our house for them tonight when we return.