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Tuesday July 30, 2024

Movie Review: Remembering Gene Wilder (2024)

WARNING: SPOILERS

I’ve seen this documentary twice already and I’m sure I’ll watch it again. It’s a sweet doc about a sweet man who was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood when I was coming of age. And he was totally unique. He didn't look like a traditional leading man, his hair went everywhere, but there he was again—starring in another box-office smash.

And not just starring. Here’s some of the stuff, per the doc, that Gene Wilder brought to his films. These were his ideas:

  • Willie Wonka’s intro: the cane getting stuck in the cobblestone leading to the fall and—alley oop—the summersault. From then on, he said, you never knew what was real or fake about the guy.
  • “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in “Young Frankenstein.” Mel Brooks was against it—he wanted a truer James Whale homage—but admits he was wrong here. “It’s the best thing in the movie,” he says.
  • The very idea of “Young Frankenstein.” I always assumed it sprung from Brooks’ mind, part of his great satires/homages of great Hollywood genres: westerns, silents, Hitchcock. Nope. It was part of Wilder’s satires/homages: Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, Valentino.

Spinoffs were big in the 1970s and they kept spinning off writer-directors from Mel Brooks’ universe, including Wilder, but one wonders if they should have. They were stronger together. “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein” were the second- and third-biggest box-office hits of 1974, and beloved to this day, but then each of the elements went off to do their own thing. Gene wrote and directed “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother” and “The World’s Greatest Lover” and those were meh, Marty Feldman did his “Beau Geste” remake, another meh, and even Mel with “Silent Movie” and “High Anxiety” became a bit meh.

And then Gene teamed up with Richard Pryor and became a smash again. He was always partnering with people, wasn’t he? First Mel, then Richard, then Gilda. That describes most of his theatrical releases.

Here’s a shocker: He has just 37 credits on IMDb, including television. He was huge for an actor with just 37 credits.

His life as a dog
Gene’s childhood in Milwaukee in the 1940s reminds me a bit of the Swedish film “My Life as a Dog.” Ingemar’s mom was terminally ill, he tried to make her laugh, but he was still too much trouble and had to be sent away. Gene’s mom wasn’t terminal but she had heart trouble and a doctor told a young Gene that he should never make her angry; that it might kill her. So he tried to make her laugh. And became funny. And bottled up everything. 

He met Mel through Anne Bancroft. Wilder was cast (he uses the term “miscast”) in a small role in the 1963 Broadway production of “Mother Courage and Her Children,” starring Bancroft, and Bancroft thought he would be perfect for the role of the innocent accountant in that new movie Mel was writing. Mel met him and agreed. The producers, of course, wanted a handsome leading man for this part, but Mel did his usual chicanery: “Great idea, boss!” he said, and then ignored them until it was too late to change anything.

On IMDb, there’s a three-year gap between “The Producers” and “Start the Revolution Without Me.” Was Wilder doing stage work? The doc doesn’t help us. Alan Alda and Harry Connick Jr. are talking heads here, longtime friends of Gene’s, but we get no indication how they became so. Worse (for me), we don’t get Wilder’s longtime attorney and friend, Eric Weissmann, whom I interviewed back in 2011. Was he unavailable? I remember asking him who was funnier, Mel or Gene, and he paused. Not to think it over, but because—I think—he’d never heard such a stupid question. The answer is Mel and it wasn’t a contest. Mel was one of the funniest people alive. Gene could be funny, as we see, but it wasn’t his default mode.

We get some of “Willie Wonka” but not enough, and nobody underlines the fact that this actor, so sweet and innocent, could play demonic so well. That’s what stunned me when I saw “Willie Wonka” again as an adult in the 1990s: how uncompromising Gene is in his performance; how much he doesn’t care if we like him. There should’ve been more roles like that for him.

For the Pryor-Wilder teamups, “Silver Streak” is given short shrift here while the doc is all over “See No Evil, Hear No Evil.” I get it: Rain Pryor, one of the doc's talking heads, was on the set for the latter, and it’s also where Gene met his second wife, another talking head. They have stories about “See No Evil.” But it was a bad movie that had no cultural impact. “Silver Streak” was huge at both the box office and in our imaginations. So was “Stir Crazy.”

Here’s how the Pryor-Wilder teamups did at the box office, along with their B.O. ranking for the year:

  • “Silver Streak” (1976): $51m, 4th
  • “Stir Crazy” (1980): $101m, 3rd
  • “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” (1989): $46m, 27th
  • “Another You” (1991): $2m, 137th

I just realized: Did they shy from “Silver Streak” because of the blackface scene? I recently rewatched the film. There’s nothing embarrassing about that scene 50 years later. It’s subterfuge, and the joke is on the white protagonist (a bit), but mostly on the white police force who can’t see past the black. The thing that’s truly dated in the movie is the ’70s swinger vibe. Horrible dialogue and Jill Clayburgh is given nothing to do. But it would’ve been nice if someone here had talked about the film.

Encore
I feel like a dick complaining—it’s such a fun documentary, totally in my wheelhouse. Anytime I can hear Mel Brooks tell stories, I’m there. I also found it lovely seeing Peter Ostrum, Charlie from “Willie Wonka,” as a seemingly well-adjusted adult. That was his only film role, it turns out. It was huge, but he just said, “Well, that was fun. Bye.” He became an animal vet.

The stuff about Gene’s Alzheimer’s is tough to watch but worthwhile and not without grace moments. His wife talks about a day when he suddenly broke free of whatever Alzheimer’s was doing to him and decided to go for a swim. In the pool, he seemed himself again, flicking his head to get water out of his ear the way he’d always done. It was as if his true self decided, “I want to do this one more time.”

Posted at 10:52 AM on Tuesday July 30, 2024 in category Movie Reviews - 2024   |   Permalink  

Sunday July 28, 2024

It's Kamala! Part II

Sunday morning, a week ago, I turned on the radio during morning ablutions and these were the first words—literally, seriously, the first words—I heard on NPR's “Weekend Edition”:

...Joe Biden's age...

I snapped it off. No way. Fuck you. I was so sick of the drumbeat—from Democratic donors, politicians, friends, but mostly from the mainstream media, the supposedly objective media, who kept sticking its fat fingers into the Democratic race while letting a brat-tryant mewl away forever for the Republicans, normalizing his rants every day. I was so sick of all of this that I couldn't deal. It felt like “...but her emails” all over again. I've seen this movie and I hated it the first time. So: off. 

A few hours later, it was all moot. Pres. Joe Biden sent out the letter withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race; a short time later he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

This is, by the way, exactly what I wanted in 2019. In August 2020, when Joe picked Kamala, I wrote about it in a post titled “It's Kamala!” and included an old tweet from 2019 laying out my wishlist. That tweet is now without formating since I left Twitter (which isn't even Twitter anymore) in 2022 but the words are still there:

Here's what Biden needs to do.
Don't ignore the age thing.
Talk up the extraordinary circumstance with Trump—how he's destroying America and its place in the world. Say that's why he's running. Then pledge to serve only one term.
Pick Kamala as VP.

— Erik Lundegaard September 13, 2019

So it's exactly what I wanted but not exactly how I wanted it. I didn't figure on Jan. 6, and I didn't figure that the Republicans would be so cowardly and opportunistic that they'd let a man who tried to end the great American experiment back into the room (to lead it), but JFC are they cowardly and opportunistic. And I didn't figure the Biden administration wouldn't put Kamala out there. I remember early in his administration, spring 2021, wondering, “Why are they burying her? She's the next stage. Let's go!” But wasn't happening. He thought he could do the second term and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was the only one who'd beaten Trump. All those GOP hopefuls in 2015-16 fell by the wayside, and Hillary, poor Hillary, too much arrayed against her. Too many dick pics, too much Russia, too much Comey. But Joe did it. I also figured the country was less ageist than racist/sexist. I still figure that.

Here's mainly what I figured. I figured Joe would get us past the crisis point. Trump, and American fascism, wouldn't be a threat anymore. But here we are. 

I haven't been writing much about the election. I haven't been paying the usual attention. It's been a shitty year and I don't have the emotional reserves for it. But maybe this move will help. Everyone else seems recharged, maybe I will be. We'll see.

I liked the cessation of the drumbeat. For the month prior, it was: Old is Joe, gotta go. Now there are other drumbeats, some just as stupid, but not as insistent, and with different rhythms. We'll see. 

I also felt something lift in me, some sense of responsibility for it all. Even though it's the result I wanted, back in 2019, it's not the path I wanted, so some part of me is telling the George Clooneys of the world: OK, we'll see how it goes. Good luck, assholes. Fingers crossed. But I like the energy. We'll see.

My kingdom for a serious media.

Posted at 09:35 AM on Sunday July 28, 2024 in category Politics   |   Permalink  

Saturday July 27, 2024

Trump Promises Supporters That After 2024: 'We'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote'

One of the major candidates for president of the United States said this, exactly this, last night in West Palm Beach, Florida:

“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians. I'm a Christian.* I love you, get out, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote.”

* I initially heard this as “I'm not Christian” and it still could be that, since Trump has a tendency to say the quiet parts out loud.

Waiting to see if this makes it into The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR or The Wall Street Journal. In a serious country, you think it would. Feels, I don't know, newsworthy: LEADING CANDIDATE PROMISES END TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

Will update if any news org decides this is news.

ADDENDUM: The NY Times did a story on it today, and for a hot minute it was on their main page, about half a dozen stories down. A few hours later it's off the main page and just part of a series of articles on the 2024 election: MN Gov. calls Trump and Vance 'weird people'; Harris: 'We are the underdogs'; J.D. Vance hits back at Jennifer Anniston and defends 'childless cat lady' remarks; Peter Thiel elated by Vance pick; and, you know, this one: Trump tells Christians 'you won't have to vote anymore' if he's elected. Cuz those are all the same, none more important than any other. 

ADDENDUM II: No words, NPR. 

I think NPR should do a piece on this. The “how to” of it. I'm curious how they got there. Is this interpretation something Trump said, his campaign said, his supporters said, or did NPR read the tea leaves for the most anodyne explanation? Since, you know, no word quite describes Trump like anodyne. JFC.

Posted at 08:42 AM on Saturday July 27, 2024 in category Politics   |   Permalink  

Friday July 26, 2024

Movie Review: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

WARNING: SPOILERS 

The movie begins with a voiceover from super-scientist Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) about how for centuries we humans thought we were the dominant species on the planet, and that life could only exist on the surface, and now we know there are titans, giant creatures like Kong and Godzilla, with thousands more living in Hollow Earth, the prehistoric jungle realm in the center of the world. 

“You have to wonder,” she intones, “what else we were wrong about.”

Great lesson!

The rest of the movie is people—mostly her—stating with absolute certainty what they can’t possibly know.

  • Why is Kong leaving Hollow Earth? “Godzilla won’t come down here unless Kong brings him,” Ilene says.
  • Why is Godzilla absorbing massive amounts of energy? “The Iwi must have known it was just a matter of time, and that’s why they’ve been calling for help, and that’s why Godzilla is changing,” Ilene says.

Right. The only possible answer, old chum.

Most of this know-everythingism is clumsy exposition, since Kong and Godzilla can’t tell us why they’re doing what they’re doing, but it doesn’t help that many titan actions are the result of telephathic communications from the Iwi tribe in Hollow Earth, and they don’t talk, either. So Ilene keeps filling the nonsensical gap.

But my favorite example of someone stating with absolute certainty what they can’t possibly know is just good old fashioned hubris:

Trapper: It’s a bit rough and ready, but it should hold.

Who’s Trapper? He’s a hippy-dippy veterinary-dentist (Dan Stevens of “Downton Abbey”). Initially I thought his character was an homage to Jeff Bridges’ slacker-hippy in the 1976 Jessica Lange version of “King Kong,” but no, he's apparently like some 1980s G.I. Joe named “Chuckles” because director Adam Wingard’s wanted to make the movie akin to the experience of walking down a toy store aisle in the 1980s—as every good director wants to do. We first see Trapper, amid blaring rock music, helicoptering onto an anesthetized Kong to replace a sore tooth. But the new tooth isn’t the thing that “should hold.” No.

Deep breath.

You see, when Kong battles the movie’s villain, Skar King, in the Great Ape colony in Hollow Earth, Skar King unleashes Shimo, a kind of reverse-Godzilla whose breath is ice rather than fire, and who, according to Iwi legend, caused the last Ice Age on Earth. In this battle, Shimo freezes Kong’s right hand, rendering it useless. Ah, but ever since the last movie the Monarch team has been working on “Project Powerhouse,” augmentations for Kong against existential threats, and these include an exoskeleton-type glove. Ilene and Trapper figure now’s the time to trot out the prototype. So Trapper flies to get it and then puts it on Kong. And that’s when he says the line.

I can’t change a tire without worrying it’ll come off, but this guy, a dentist by trade, puts a giant mechanical glove on King Fucking Kong and assures everyone “It should hold”? My kingdom if it had fallen off as soon as Kong stood.

The x is silent
Why was this the plan anyway? I mean for the filmmakers. Who thought, “You know what’s missing from this franchise? A mechanical glove for Kong!” Turns out, per IMDb trivia, it was to boost sales of Kong toys. Shocker.

OK, but what’s with the X in the title? The last one was “Godzilla vs. Kong,” because they fought. Now they’re teaming up, so shouldn’t it be “Godzilla + Kong”? Or is it “x” because they’re not just being added together, they’re being multiplied? Nope. Per studio PR, the “x” is silent. It's supposed to be like something that appears in a lot of Hollywood contracts. Great. Thanks for thinking of us.

For those paying attention, which I assume is a handful of sad folks somewhere, this is the fifth installment in Warner Bros.’ “Monsterverse,” its sad attempt to do with monster IP what Disney/Marvel did with superhero IP. To wit:

The first of these Godzilla movies was simply envisioned as a reboot, and the first Kong set in WWII/1973, so the continuity really begins with the 2019 movie. Except there’s no continuity in terms of human characters. Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobby Brown show up in the first movie with Vera Farmiga, who’s replaced in the second by Rebecca Hall, who’s in this one even as Brown/Chandler vamoose. Brian Tyree Henry also reprises his role as conspiracy-theorist podcaster Bernie Hayes, while Kaylee Hottle returns as Jia, the deaf-mute who taught Kong sign language. So in the third true installment, no human from the first installment remains. 

Kong and Jia have more in common than sign language. Both are the last of their tribes and both are lonely. That’s the theme. Kong looks sad and moans, while Jia, now raised by Ilene, doesn’t fit in at school, and it gets worse when she goes into a trance and sketches something that looks like an EKG of a heart attack. But guess what? She does it because of telepathic communication by the Iwi tribe from within Hollow Earth warning of an existential threat! She’s not the last of her tribe!

And neither is Kong! When Ilene, Jia, Bernie and Trapper transport to Hollow Earth, they see a giant bloody handprint on a mountainside:

Fat asshole who gets eaten by a tree: You think Kong did that?
Ilene: No, that’s not Kong. That’s something else.

There’s a whole giant ape colony on Hollow Earth. Except, whoops, it’s actually a slave colony. Stuff is being mined, ape heads on spikes, you get the idea. Why is stuff being mined for apes? Who knows? But the tyrant ape is Skar King, who’s tall and thin. He’s the existential threat.

Him?

Yes. Because he controls Shimo with some pain crystal thingee.

Sure, but with Godzilla, how is this even a battle? Godzilla takes on Shimo while Kong knocks out Skar with one punch.

Nope, it’s a battle. More than battle. Godzilla and Kong need help.

They need help? Against that skinny fucker?

Yes. Mothra. Whom only Jia can awaken.

Why only Jia?

It’s been prophesied. Anyway, Mothra, who looks like a giant moth, isn’t particularly scary—you feel like a strong breeze could pull off her wings—but her role is to stop Kong and Godzilla from fighting each other in Cairo so the two can return to Hollow Earth to battle Skar/Shimo. But then Skar/Shimo find the portal to the surface and Skar tries to initiate a new Ice Age in Rio de Janeiro. How do our guys win? Suko, the annoying teen ape Kong found earlier in the movie finally comes through. He uses Kong’s axe to destroy the pain-crystal-thingee, freeing Shimo, who immediately freezes Skar. Then Kong shatters him with one punch from his exoskeleton fist.

And the prototype holds.

Toys R Him
Want to see something sad? Here’s a roll call of the talent we’ve seen reacting to and interacting with the monsters of the Monsterverse over the last 10 years:

  • Ken Watanabe (twice)
  • Juliette Binoche
  • Bryan Cranston
  • Sally Hawkins (twice)
  • David Straithairn (twice)
  • Elizabeth Olsen
  • Tom Hiddleston
  • Samuel L. Jackson
  • John Goodman
  • Brie Larson
  • Shea Whigham
  • John C. Reilly
  • Vera Farmiga
  • Millie Bobby Brown (twice)
  • Bradley Whitford
  • Alexander Skarsgard
  • Lance Reddick
  • Demian Bichir
  • Rebecca Hall (twice)
  • Brian Tyree Henry (twice).

Imagine the other movies you could've made with these people.

But if you’re going to make these things, Warners, do what your international partner Toho did with “Godzilla Minus One.” They grounded the story in history—WWII and its immediate aftermaths—and focused on characters. This thing is just a cartoon. When Kong tears a giant wolf in half, then has to shower off its green insides, I could help but think of “Shrek.” Is Skar a nod to Scar of “Lion King”? Meanwhile, the fights make the battles in the WWE seem legit.

Now that I think about it, Warners did ground “Kong: Skull Island” in history—WWII/Vietnam and its aftermaths—and that was the best movie of this sorry bunch. The good news? Apparently, after two films, Adam “Toys R Us” Wingard is leaving the Monsterverse, so maybe someone not trying to recreate a 1980s toy aisle, but actually trying to make a movie with a story, will be hired. Stranger things have happened.

Posted at 09:16 AM on Friday July 26, 2024 in category Movie Reviews - 2024   |   Permalink  

Thursday July 25, 2024

Ms-Angels Redux

I usually don't go to two Mariners games in a week, and certainly not from the same series, but Tim had an extra ticket Monday to see the Angels, and when I accepted I forgot I already had a ticket to Wednesday's getaway game against the Angels.

The sad part was how shockingly similar the games were. 

Monday night, the M's squeaked a run across in the first, Bryce Miller pitched seven shutout innings, but the Angels pushed across one in the eighth and two in the ninth and won 3-1.

Wednesday afternoon, the M's got a run off a Mitch Haniger homer in the second, Luis Castillo pitched six shutout innings, but the Angels pushed across two in the eighth and won 2-1.

Some thoughts from the series:

  • The M's scored one run each game against the team with the second-worst ERA in the Majors. (Only Colorado, for obvious reasons, allows more runs.) What happens when the team with the second-worst ERA in the Majors meets the team with the worst batting average in the Majors? Now we know.
  • The M's starting pitchers gave up a total of one earned run, combined, over three games. And we still got swept. 
  • Yesterday the Rockies beat the Red Sox 20-7 and an M's fan posted that the Rockies scored more runs in that one game than the M's scored in all of July. It's not correct, I checked, but it feels correct.

I showed up late to the Wednesday game and left early. I showed up late because of work and I left early because it was a huge crowd and I didn't feel like fighting them to see a bunch of .220 hitters that I don't even know strike out or pop out. I was also still angry. I figured arriving late (top of the second) would mean a quicker entry but it was the opposite. I arrived to lines stretching down the block. Both blocks. It was insane. It was chaos. Weekday afternoon games used to be calm affairs but the M's org seems to be selling cheaply to tons of groups, particularly kids groups (they were very obedient when the scoreboard told them to make noise). Which is fine. The M's should be selling cheaply to kids groups. They're the future. But then hire enough people so you can funnel them through. I don't care if everyone shows up at the same time, it's your job—M's management—to anticipate this and ameliorate the situation. But the situation was so bad when I arrived, so seemingly hopeless, that I repaired, as they say, across the street to a bar for a drink. I saw Haniger's homer on TV. I didn't sit down at the stadium until the bottom of the third. 

Meaning I watched four innings and saw nobody score. Some of it was just bad luck. Bottom four, Jorge Polanco led off with a double, Haniger followed with a walk, and Jason Vosler (who???) singled over the second baseman's glove to load the bases. Up stepped Tyler Locklear (who???). Per the scoreboard, he'd struck out swinging his first time up. “Don't strike out!” I shouted. He didn't. He ground into a double play. That was the bad luck. It was a bullet down the third base line, but Luis Rengifo (who???) gloved it, stepped on the bag, and threw home to get Polanco. Then Luke Raley struck out swinging to end the rally.

And so it went. Bottom five, leadoff walk that never advanced. Bottom six, leadoff walk eliminated in DP. Bottom seven, one-out single followed by two Ks. Maybe M's management did me a favor by keeping me from the park for three innings.

Posted at 07:59 AM on Thursday July 25, 2024 in category Seattle Mariners   |   Permalink  

Tuesday July 23, 2024

A Dark and Drury Evening: Mariners Lose Most Mariners Game of All, 3-1, to Angels

Tim and I played a game within the game at Mariners Park last night: Could we find a fan in stands who was wearing the jersey of a player—Mariners or Angels—who was actually on the field

Most Angels fans wore the jersey of Mike Trout, who's been MIA most of the season—and most of most recent seasons. He hasn't played 130+ games since 2019. On the field, in his stead, and the stead of Shohei Ohtani, the star of stars who fled for the other So Cal team last off-season, were a lot of .220 hitters whose very names sounded hopeless. Neto, as in young shortstop Zach, sounds like a compression of “Net zero”; Schanuel, as in young first baseman Nolan, sounds like something you'd say if you disagreed that Charlie Manuel was the best Phillies manager of all time (Manuel Schanuel); while Drury, as in journeyman Brandon, aptly described last night's weather: overcast and chilly after several weeks of 80 degrees and blue skies. I think eventually we saw a kid wearing an O'Hoppe jersey, as in Logan, as in their catcher leading the team in hitting with a .277 BA and .800 OPS. Smart kid. No other choice, really, except maybe their starter for the game: All-Star selectee Tyler Anderson, whose record was a very Angels 8-8.

On the Mariners side, we caught the usual Griffey 24s and Ichiro 51s, though the most popular continued to be Julio 44, who is having an off-season, or maybe an off-career, and anyway was out with an ankle sprain from the day before. MRIs had been announced. Walking in, we saw a few Ty France jerseys, possibly worn in protest, since he was waived earlier in the day, and nearby we saw a few J.P. Crawford jerseys. At least he started the game. In fact he scored its first run—after being hit by a pitch in the bottom of the first that got him pulled from the game in the top of the second. By the time we played our game, he was no longer on the field. (Update: hairline pinkie fracture for J.P.; probably a stint on the IL.)

I'll cut to the chase: the dude on the field with the most fans in the stands wearing his jersey was probably Cal Raleigh, Mariners catcher, currently leading the team in homeruns (20) and RBI (62). Not many other options. Mitch Garver? Dylan Moore? Jorge Polanco? The game-within-the-game demonstrated both past glory and current paucity for both teams.

As did the game. Tim called it the most Mariners game of all. We got seven shutout innings from starter Bryce Miller, who left with a 1-0 lead. The reliever they brought in? Ryne “Time to Panic” Stanek, who walked the Angels' #9 hitter on four pitches, walked the Angels' leadoff hitter on five pitches, then, on a 3-2 pitch, got Schanuel for a called third strike that was so iffy it got Schanuel tossed from the game. At this point, the M's went to the 'pen again for ace All-Star closer Andres Munoz, who looked a bit shaky himself. Worse, Angels pulled off a double steal, Turner Ward hit a long fly to center, and the game was suddenly tied.

Were we doomed to extras? No, thank god. Top of the ninth, M's reliever Trent Thornton promptly retired the first two batters, then promptly walked the next two, allowing #9 hitter (but oddly their top RBI man) Jo Adell to lace a single to center to put them on top. Trying to nab runner #1, mayhem ensued, allowing runner #2 to score as well. It was the most exciting play of the game.

And in the bottom of the ninth for the M's? After Cal Raleigh flied out, the next two guys up were Mitch Garver and Dylan Moore, both of whom, I shit you not, had already completed baseball's ignominious hattrick: each had struck out three times. In the ninth, Garver managed a fly out but Moore came through for us: he struck out to end the game. Fourpeat.

Tim thinks the hitting coaches up and down the Mariners organization need to be fired, and he's not wrong. We're currently last in the Majors in team batting, with a .217 average, two points behind the dismal Chicago White Sox. We're also first in strikeouts with 1,052, nearly 100 ahead of the second-place A's. Not a good combo. I returned home to find out that Teoscar Hernandez, who underperformed for us last season, and was a starting All-Star for the LA Dodgers this season, drove in all three runs in a 3-2 Dodgers victory over the SF Giants. How refreshing. Not drury at all.

Posted at 09:25 AM on Tuesday July 23, 2024 in category Seattle Mariners   |   Permalink  

Saturday July 20, 2024

Bob Newhart (1929-2024)

Yep, Dad interviewed him, too, in the summer of 1980, as Bob (Newhart, not Dad) was headlining a weeklong run at the Carlton Celebrity Room in Bloomington, Minn. The gig had been planned for earlier but he ran into scheduling conflicts filming the Buck Henry comedy “The First Family” so he put it off for a few months:

“'I was originally supposed to come there in February,' he said, the telephone line virtually crackling from the dryness of his wit, 'and like a fool I made the film instead. I mean, who would conceivably come to Minnesota in June if they had the chance of going there in February?'”

The movie didn't open until December, so thankfully Dad's feature on Newhart doesn't have the awkwardness of a fun interview juxtaposed with a pan. (Despite the comedy credentials of almost everyone involved, Dad wrote five months later, “'First Family' is about as funny as the 5:30 news.”) The interview in June begins with back-and-forth on the upcoming election, which neither Bob is looking forward to, and includes great quotes and a deep dive into Newhart's background. He began on stage in Chicago as part of a comedy duo with longtime friend Eddie Gallagher but it never took off, and Eddie moved to NY to go into advertising. “Really, the telephone in my act became Eddie,” Newhart told Dad. “There's always somebody on stage with me, in a sense, because I'm either acting with someone or reacting to someone. Once a double, always a double, I guess.”

We get the Minnesota connections: playing in Freddie's Nightclub in Minneapolis at the start of his career; his record, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” being played over the airwaves for the first time by WCCO's Howard Viken, providing “the skyrocket for his career,” Dad writes, and remaining “one of the best-selling comedy albums of all time.” They talk about his comedy friendships with Shecky Greene, Buddy Hackett, and particularly Don Rickles, whom Newhart ribs for his many failed TV shows: “I tell him he's had more pilots than TWA.” Then they talk about Newhart's own successful sitcom. 

Back then it was just the one. Generationally, I'm a “Bob Newhart Show” guy. I don't think I ever saw an entire episode of his '80s sitcom, “Newhart,” which was equally critically acclaimed. But the other? My brother and I watched it every week for years. It was part of that killer CBS Saturday Night lineup: “All in the Family,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Carol Burnett.” The sitcoms were not only funny and brilliant, they were specific to place. “Family” was Queens, Mary was Minneapolis, Bob Chicago. Casting him as a shrink was a perfect move. Giving this balding, measured, stammering man the hottest of wives, Suzanne Pleshette, was another. The supporting cast was to die for: Marcia Wallace, Peter Bonerz, Bill Daily as Howard Borden, Jack Riley as patient Elliot Carlin (49 of the 142 episodes), John Fiedler as patient Mr. Peterson (17 episodes), forever fearful, a kind of Piglet in human form. (“And I said to her, I said, 'Doris...'”) Is it suprising in that era of spinoffs that nothing spun off of “The Bob Newhart Show”? “All in the Family” gave birth to “Maude” and “The Jeffersons”; “Mary Tyler Moore” led to “Rhoda” and “Phyllis” but there was no “Borden” or “Carlin.” 

“He was successful in everything he did,” Dad said by phone this week.

Well, movies. His run there was sporadic. I guess his quiet stammer worked better on TV. But he was Papa Elf in “Elf,” Major Major in “Catch 22,” ad exec Merwin Wren in the Norman Lear comedy “Cold Turkey.” His first movie, his “...and introducing” movie, oddly, was “Hell Is For Heroes,” starring Steve McQueen and directed by Don Siegl.

When he and Dad talked, Newhart was in his 50s and had been a name comedian for more than 20 years. He would have another 40.

Posted at 11:30 AM on Saturday July 20, 2024 in category TV   |   Permalink  

Friday July 19, 2024

Bernie for Biden

“Let me be very clear as to why I support President Biden. He is the first president in American history to stand with workers on a picket line. He has lowered the cost of prescription drugs, he's rebuilding our infrastructure, and we have put money into combating climate change. Five million Americans have student debt relief. He has a record to run on. The ideas he's talking about for his first 100 days if reelected I believe will resonate with the middle class in this country.”

-- Sen. Bernie Sanders last night on “The Colbert Show”

Posted at 02:33 PM on Friday July 19, 2024 in category Politics   |   Permalink  

Friday July 19, 2024

A Few Human Hearts

“In fact, Martin, if you have desegregated anything by your efforts, kindly enlighten me.”
“Well,” King replied, “I guess about the only thing I've desegregated so far is a few human hearts.”

-- from a conversation between NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the (I believe) early 1960s, as recounted in Taylor Branch's seminal “Parting the Waters: America in the King Years.” The NAACP, remember, was not initially a fan of King and the SCLC. The former wanted to go through the courts, while King, after the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and then after a several-years pause, chose nonviolent direct action. There was probably also jealousy involved. I've always loved this quote because it's such a lovely and true sentiment that is also a lovely and true response to someone obviously trying to provoke him. It's also the underestimated portion of what leaders do. They can make us better or they can make us worse. I came across it in an old notebook and wanted to get it down here, since, unfortunately, we're all here now. 

Posted at 07:42 AM on Friday July 19, 2024 in category Quote of the Day   |   Permalink  

Thursday July 18, 2024

Movie Review: Who Is Stan Smith? (2024)

WARNING: SPOILERS

My father is a big tennis fan, and the other day I was telling him about the trailer to this movie, in which various hip and hip-hop people talk about the Stan Smith tennis shoe, and one of them (DMC from Run-DMC, it turns out) asks the title question. Because he has no idea. To him, Stan Smith is a tennis shoe, not a person.

I’m the opposite. I’m like, “Wait, Stan Smith is also a tennis shoe?”

My father, who was recovering from a stroke, was a little confused by this talk for a different reason. “There’s a movie about Stan Smith?” he said. “Is there enough material there?”

“It’s a documentary,” I said.

The doubt remained. “Is there enough material for a documentary?” 

Dad was right.

The Pilic boycott
When I was young, tennis suddenly became a thing—my parents began to play, and watch—and this was when Stan Smith, with his laughing eyes, moustache, thinning blonde hair and plain American name, was ranked No. 1 in the world. In 1971 he won the U.S. Open and in 1972 he won Wimbledon. Both times he leaped over the net in victory. (When did that practice stop?) He was at the top of his sport.

And then he wasn’t. The doc details his rise through Southern California tennis circles—winning the Davis Cup for the Americans with Arthur Ashe and company—but less the swift decline. What caused it? The change in styles? The switch to metal rackets? Age?      

The boycott probably didn’t help. In 1973, 81 of the top tennis players, including Smith, boycotted Wimbledon because a Yugoslavian player named Nikola Pilic had been suspended by his national lawn tennis association, and the newly formed Association of Tennis Professionals decided to stand by their man. So Smith didn’t even get a chance to defend his title. He never made the Wimbledon finals again. He made the semis in ’74 but in ’75 he got knocked out in the first round. Ditto the U.S. Open. He seemed to gather himself the following years, making it to the fourth round of Wimbledon in ’76 and ’77 before being bounced by Jimmy Connors both years. He was still highly ranked but not in the top 10. In 1981, 35 years old, he again made it to the fourth round before another brash American, John McEnroe, eliminated him in four sets.

The doc makes it seem that Smith and Bob Lutz dominated the doubles circuit even as Smith’s singles game fell off, but that’s not quite true. They mostly dominated the U.S. Open but at intervals, winning it four times: ’68, ’74, ’78 and ’80. They won Australia in 1970, but they never Wimbledon nor the French Open.

I do like drawing out the difference between the two men—particularly since from a distance Smith seemed like an early ’70s swinger. Opposite. Lutz was the party animal, Smith the churchgoer. He pursued a pretty blonde girl, they married, had four kids. I like the stuff about the birth of the Open Era in 1968 when professionals were finally allowed to play the Grand Slam tourneys. I like John McEnroe as talking head. I could listen to him on the history of tennis for a good long while. 

Ka-ching
But Dad was right, there’s just not enough material here. Or the doc keeps going in uninteresting post-tennis directions. They must do 15 minutes on helping that kid from South Africa come to America and become an author. It almost becomes a mini-doc about him rather than Stan Smith.

The shoe stuff is OK but incomplete. East Enders began to wear them because Bowie did, but why did Bowie begin to wear them? Why did Run-DMC like them? Why did they sing about them?

That said, when I got home from SIFF Egyptian, where the documentary was playing, I did order a pair. So I guess the doc served one purpose. Or its only one.

Posted at 07:31 PM on Thursday July 18, 2024 in category Movie Reviews - 2024   |   Permalink  

Wednesday July 17, 2024

Nothing Works: UPS Delivery

Last week I sent birthday presents, late, to my nephews in Minnesota. I used the nearby UPS store, which I've used many times, generally with no problem. The option I was given was something like $120 and it gets there tomorrow or $15 and it gets there on Friday. I opted for the latter.

Thursday evening I got a message from UPS—or from iShip_Services_520@iship.com—telling me the delivery of my package may be delayed. It was an odd message. It was specific to the package but generic as to the reason for the delay. This was its main message:

Ah, got it. At least they refrained from giving me the dictionary definition of delay.

And the package was delayed. For whatever reason. For three days. 

Monday I got the message that it had been delivered. Success! It included a link to the UPS website, and there you could see a photo of the package delivered in the right place. Except, after clicking to see the photo, I realized it wasn't the right place. Or ... it looked kinda right but still wrong. My sister's family lives in a residential neighborhood in South Minneapolis, with easy access to their front door, and this wasn't their front door. It took me a moment before I realized that it was their garage. The UPS delivery person had left the package by their garage in the alleyway, where anyone walking by could just pick it up.

Thankfully my sister nabbed it for her sons. I asked her, “Did they really leave it by the garage?” Yes. “Have you ever received a package there before?” No.

This is why Amazon wins.

Posted at 09:00 AM on Wednesday July 17, 2024 in category Business   |   Permalink  

Tuesday July 09, 2024

What is Cheryl Ladd Known For?

Here's Nos. 1 an 2, according to the brainiacs at IMDb:

Right? I remember when I had her poster (actually several of her posters) on my wall because of “Millennium” and “Poison Ivy.” Those movies were cultural phenomenons.

“Poison Ivy” is that Drew Barrymore/bad teen thing, or whatever, for which Ladd is fourth-billed, and it grossed $1.8 million, good for 158th in 1992. “Millennium” I've never heard of. This is its IMDb synopsis: “An NTSB investigator seeking the cause of an airline disaster meets a warrior woman from 1000 years in the future.” Fun! MST3K-style fun! I guess Ladd is the warrior woman? With Flock of Seagulls hair? That one actually did better at the box office: $5.7 million, good for 117th in 1989. Cultural phenomenons, as I said. 

Here's the rest of Ms. Ladd's known fors, per IMDb:

Psst: It's that fourth one. That's what Cheryl Ladd is known for, IMDb. That's what she'll always be known for.

Posted at 02:07 PM on Tuesday July 09, 2024 in category TV   |   Permalink  

Monday July 08, 2024

Movie Review: Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song (2021)

WARNING: SPOILERS

After my brother’s death last November I looked for ways to get through the days with less pain. The music of Leonard Cohen, I found, helped: that deep Old Testament voice, spiritually weary but spirtually seeking, trying to touch the eternal but settling for (or being distracted by) a beautiful woman. Then I found this doc and kept returning to it. I couldn’t watch much but I could watch this. I’ll always be grateful for it.

“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song” is a clunky title but an accurate one. It’s half Cohen’s journey, half his song’s journey, and both journeys contain astonishments.

His music career, for example, began late, at age 32, in 1967—the very year his potential audience was shouting not to trust anyone over 30. But “Hallelujah” has even greater astonishments. I didn’t know that the album it was on, “Various Positions,” wasn’t even released in the U.S. His label, Columbia Records, paid to have it made, but then its president, Walter Yetnikoff, thought so little of it, and of Cohen, that they didn’t put it out. “Leonard, we know you’re great,” Cohen quotes Yetnikoff saying, “but we don’t know if you’re any good.” And there went that. The album, and the song, were buried.

Who unearthed it? The answer to that is less astonishing. You hear it and go, “Oh, of course.” 

Eight years
I’ve recounted my own history with Cohen and “Hallelujah” but here it is again.

In 1997, I was watching Julian Schnabel’s “Basquiat” on VHS, and over the closing credits a song played, and something about it stirred something in me. I loved the melody but it was also these lines:

There was a time you’d let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do ya?

And these lines:

Maybe there’s a god above
All I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya

So I rewound the tape and listened to it again. And again. And then I searched the credits for the singer.

“I heard this great song last night,” I said to my colleague Jeff V. in the University Book Store warehouse the next day. “It was called ‘Hallelujah’ by John Cale.”

“Cale’s great,” Jeff, a local musician, told me, “but that’s a Leonard Cohen song.” Then he led me to the music dept. downstairs and showed me the Cohen collection. I think I bought two CDs—including “Various Positions.”

The doc, written and directed by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, goes into how long Cohen worked on the song and how many verses it might’ve had. 150? 180? They retell that great story of Cohen and Bob Dylan comparing notes in Paris. Bob complimented Leonard on “Hallelujah” and asked how long it took to write, and Leonard lied a little, undercut it a little, and said it took a few years. Then Leonard complimented Dylan on “I and I” off of “Infidels” and asked how long it took. “About 15 minutes,” Dylan replied.

Glen Hansard objects to Bob’s line, saying “Come down to earth,” or some such, but I love that story. It’s so Bob. It’s so both of them. Genius comes in all forms, and we talk about the Dylan type more often because it’s more mystical. It’s a lightning bolt, or, per Scorsese’s doc, tapping into the collective unconscious. Cohen just grinds it out. “Sometimes I think that I would go along with the old Beat philosophy: ‘First thought, best thought,’” Cohen says here. “But it never worked for me. There hardly is a first thought. It’s all sweat.”

He was a scion of Montreal wealth, and the grandson of a Talmudic scholar, who went into the arts. Why the shift from poetry to music in his early 30s? Because he saw that’s where the action was? The doc doesn’t really explore it.

He seems both hugely thoughtful (about existential matters) and fairly thoughtless (in some of his relationships). In the early 1970s, for example, he began to collaborate with producer John Lissauer, and they put out a great album with a great title: “New Skin for the Old Ceremony”; and then Cohen asked to collaborate with him—Lissauer writing music to Cohen’s lyrics—and they came up with eight or so songs for an album to be called “Songs for Rebecca.” Lissauer recounts, more amused than angry: “And he said, ‘All right, I’m going to go to Hydra for a couple of weeks to work on a book of poetry. I’ll call you when I get back and we’ll finish up.’ And I didn’t hear from him … for eight years.”

At least now I know why Cohen's next album, “Death of a Ladies Man,” never clicked for me. It was produced by Phil Spector, still pushing his wall of sound, and he was all wrong for Cohen. “Oh, the album is a disaster,” Cohen told an interviewer back then.

Did Cohen’s manager, Marty Machat, push Leonard toward Spector? It’s revealed Machat didn’t like Lissauer, so maybe, but either way Cohen returned to Lissauer for “Various Positions.” The album includes not just “Hallelujah” but “Dance Me to the End of Live” and “Night Comes On” (a personal favorite), but in the wake of the Columbia snub Lissauer got blamed. “It was like The Twilight Zone for me,” he says. “You do something you’re absolutely sure is one thing, and someone else sees it as reversed as possible. … I said, ‘Boy, I must have no sense of the music world: to be this wrong.’”

And Columbia buried “Various Positions” and with it “Hallelujah.” So who unearthed it?

Bob Dylan, of course. He recognized the genius of the song and began to play it in concert. Then Cohen went on tour and played it—with more secular verses. Then a tribute album was made in 1990, and for that John Cale chose to do “Hallelujah,” mixing the religious and secular verses. I still think Cale’s version is the best.

In the 1990s, Jeff Buckley did his cover, which was a mild hit, and in the early 2000s the Cale version was included in the movie “Shrek,” while a new Rufus Wainwright version was included on its soundtrack. Which got it out among the masses.

And that’s what really broke it. Both ways. There’s a hilarious montage of people on “American Idol” and “Britain’s Got Talent” singing their soaring, crap versions of “Hallelujah.” Apparently someone named Alexandra Burke won “X Factor” in Britain with her version of the song, and it was suddenly everywhere on the British pop charts. In one week, three different versions appeared in the Top 40: Burke’s at No. 1, Buckley’s at No. 2, and Cohen’s original from 1984, the one Columbia Records wholly rejected, charting at No. 36.

“There’s a certain mild sense of revenge that arose in my heart,” the aged Cohen says about this 11th-hour success. Then he adds, with a beautiful smile, “But I think people ought to stop singing it for a little while.”

His friend, music journalist Larry “Ratso” Sloman, thinks he’s joking. I’m not so sure. Go on YouTube, type in “Hallelujah,” and the first versions the algorithm picks are by Pentatonix and Burke. Who’s Lucy Thomas? Her version has 47m views. Zack Snyder used it nonsensically during an awful moment in his awful “Watchmen” movie, and the doc includes Eric Church talking about playing his crap version at Red Rocks. People die somewhere and it’s trotted out yet again. Just stop already. Or pause. Pause and see what else might work.

White man dancing
You know what’s missing from the doc? A name.

In the 1990s, Cohen ascended Mount Baldy outside LA and spent six years in a Zen monastery, where, along with trying to get right with himself, he wrote songs like “Anthem.” Then he came back and began recording again. And in the 2000s he was ripped off. He tried to take money out of the ATM and found he didn’t have any. His business manager had embezzled everything.

That’s the name the doc doesn’t mention: Kelley Lynch. Why don’t they name her? And why did Cohen hire her? And give her such access? And which songs of his did she sign away? The doc merely says this gave him impetus to go on perpetual tour in the 2000s—he needed money—but it doesn’t mention that he sued her in 2005, won a $9.5 million judgment (which she never paid), and which led to harassment. She sent him long abusive voicemails and emails, telling him he was sick and needed “to be taken out and shot.” She kept threatening his life. So in 2012 she was criminally prosecuted and sentenced to 18 months. I don’t know. Feels like that should be in here. Cohen’s post-trial comments alone are worth it:

“I want to thank the defendant Ms. Kelley Lynch for insisting on a jury trial, thus allowing the court to observe her profoundly unwholesome, obscene and relentless strategies to escape the consequences of her wrongdoing. … It is my prayer that Ms. Lynch will take refuge in the wisdom of her religion, that a spirit of understanding will convert her heart from hatred to remorse, from anger to kindness, from the deadly intoxication of revenge to the lowly practices of self-reform.”

Cohen died Nov. 7, 2016, the day before Donald Trump was elected president, and I like to think he saw where we were going and opted out. He’d already laid it out for us in his song “The Future” from 1992:

There’ll be a breaking of the ancient Western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There’ll be phantoms there’ll be fires on the road
And the white man dancing 

That's not singing “Hallelujah” but it ain't wrong, either.

Posted at 07:28 AM on Monday July 08, 2024 in category Movie Reviews - 2021   |   Permalink  

Monday July 01, 2024

Movie Review: Born Reckless (1930)

WARNING: SPOILERS 

“Born Reckless” is not good but it is intriguing. It’s another of those movies made before genre plots became codified, so it kind of goes where it wants to go and never quite gets there. It starts out as a gangster flick, veers into immigrant family stuff, and then we’re off to war. Except the war buddies there are hardly buddies (they have two unmemorable scenes together) and the tragedy of war is undercut by all the hokum. I’m curious: Did they get Edmund Lowe of “What Price Glory?” fame because of the war stuff, or is the war stuff in there because of Edmund Lowe? Anyway it doesn’t work. His character, Louis Beretti, is also supposed to be an Italian gangster and he seems neither.

It’s one of the first talkies from John Ford, one of the greatest directors of all time, and it’s poorly directed. Certain scenes are just characters gathering to say their lines in semi-stilted fashion, like grade school kids in a play. And it turns on one of the most improbable plot devices in movie history:

JUDGE SENTENCES GANGSTERS TO WORLD WAR I!!!

At the same time, it anticipates one of the great gangster movies, “The Roaring Twenties,” which came along just nine years later. By then, whatever was clumsy about this one was smooth.

Highways and byways
“Reckless” opens with an attempted jewelry store robbery, led by Louis Beretti, and when it goes awry and they make their getaway, he slips into working man’s overalls to fool the cops. Wait, or is it to fool his immigrant parents in the apartment above, so they think he’s got a regular job? I never figured that one out. 

In the apartment, he checks out his sister’s boyfriend to see if he’s a right guy, and he is. For some reason he brings him before the boys so they can give him the once-over, too. Why he would care what gangsters think of a civilian, I have no idea, but it’s not a bad scene. One guy—the guy who’s interested in the sister for himself—calls the boyfriend “Four Eyes,” and boyfriend tries to fight him. Beretti holds him back with amused admiration. “He’s got a little rooster in him at that!” he declares.

Shortly thereafter, he and some of his gang are fingered as the would-be jewel thieves and called before a judge in his chambers, with a fast-talking reporter, Bill O’Brien (Lee Tracy), present. I like how, when Beretti claims to be a trucker, a cop asks to look at his hands and dismisses him as never having done a day’s work in his life. So Beretti does the same with the cop: “No calluses on that hand, either,” he says. 

The judge—on what evidence?—keeps talking about sending them “up the river” (anticipating the title of Ford’s next film), but when their pockets are emptied of everything including draft cards, the reporter has a better idea:

Let ’em go to war. Great story: gangs, gunmen, turned loose, given a chance to do their bit! Patriotism, see? Safe for democracy. You’re a Democrat, aren’t you? You are. The primaries are next month, aren’t they? They are. Cardigan for City Court Judge: A Real Patriot. Get me?

He gets him.

Here's an odd moment: As they’re being led away, the Judge calls out “Wait a minute!” and Beretti says, “I knew there was a catch in it somewhere.” A catch? Dude, I think the catch is you have to go fight in a world war.

The comedy gets broader at training camp. Sgt. Ward Bond, in only his sixth film, is trying to figure out where to place a row of civilians into this man’s army. The dialogue feels like bits, punchlines, but they’re so specific to the time they go over my head. A ballplayer is made a noncom? A CPA becomes a horseshoer?

Sgt.: How about you?
Man: Lightweight.
Sgt.: Thug, huh?
Man: No, iceman.
Sgt.: [Turns to subordinate] Garbage detail.

No idea. 

One of Louis’ men, unable to think up a lie, admits his true profession, a “boiglar,” and they get excited and drag him away. When he returns, he says to Louis, “Lookit what they gimme,” and holds up a bugle. That one I got.

In the same overlong scene, we’re introduced to Frank Sheldon (Frank Albertson, the future Sam Wainwright), who seems cocky for no reason, and then Frank’s sister, Joan (Catherine Dale Owen, second-billed), to whom Louis takes a shine. Uncle Jim arrives, clothed in dark suit and pomposity, speechify about these fine young boys who have come “from the highways and the byways,”* until he realizes “Somebody swiped my watch!”

* “Highways and byways” reminded me of the opening narration of “Shazam!,” the 1970s Saturday morning live-action superhero TV show, and it made me wonder how long that phrase has been around. Per newspapers.com, it goes back to London in the 1820s. Its usage has faded, though: from 38k in newspapers in the 1930s, to 20k in the 1960s, to 15k in the 1990s to 5k last decade. And yes, some of this is because newspapers are dying. But so is the phrase.

In France, the jokes get worse. The boys play baseball and the French think the ball is a grenade. Louis tries to trade sugar for wine but his attempt to form the shape of a wine bottle with his hands is misinterpreted. Frank does a bit about “crossed ‘spoys” that he thinks is clever but no one else seems to get—including me. Everyone sings “Mademoiselle from Armentieres,” and when they are called into battle, “The Caisson Song,” followed by generic battle footage and a ticker-tape in NYC. And over there is over.

In the judge’s chambers, Louis tosses the medals of one of his men who didn’t make it, Donnelly (Mike Donlin), onto the table, but the moment is undercut by the fact that we don’t really know Donnelly. At home, Louis’ papa says Louis won the war, while his sister, Rosa (Marguerite Churchill), is wearing mourning clothes for her husband, who was killed, not in the war, but in a payroll robbery. From the gangster who liked the sister? Do we ever find that out?

Right, Frank/Sam Wainwright died, too, so Louis visits and commiserate with the sister. He’s just about to make his intentions known when she introduces him to her fiancé, played by a young, thin Randolph Scott. So that’s that. But he tells her: If she ever needs anything, she should come to him.

Believe it or not, we’re just 40 minutes in. Now Louis is running a swanky nightclub with his gang of toughs, including Big Shot (Warren Hymer), who’s been squealed on. After some back and forth, they figure out it was, OMG, Ritzy Reilly! Who’s that? You know, the spiffy ladies man who was looking at the French painting in the “Four Eyes” scene. Huh. Was he the guy who called the boyfriend “Four Eyes”? Nah, he was just looking at the painting.

The movie keeps doing this: trying to make us care about characters that have five seconds of screentime.

Ritzy winds up bragging about turning rat and gets a slug in the back, while Big gets the shortest prison term ever. Shortly thereafter, Joan’s child is kidnapped … by Big! What’s Louis going to do? Side with his lifelong pal or a woman he barely knows? Latter, of course.

It’s not all awful. After Louis gets the kid back, he confronts Big at his tavern in the wee hours, and we get a nice shot of Louis’ shadow crossing the swing doors. But then they do that slow-talking thing of early talkies (cf., Harlow in “The Public Enemy”), which serves as last-minute exposition that anticipates the Rocky/Jerry relationship in “Angels with Dirty Faces”:

Louis: I remember when we was kids together. The time I got that slug in the shoulder.
Big: All the other kids run away.
Louis: Yeah. It was you who took me to the hospital.
Big: You used to be a good guy, Louis.
Louis: Yeah. It’s tough.

When both men suddenly shoot at each other, the camera is propelled back out the swing doors—another nice shot. We hear a body drop and Louis makes his slow way out, clutching his stomach. Lee Tracy’s reporter shows up again—he’s been hanging at the bar a lot—to let Louis know the kid is safe and with his mother again. So Louis dies in peace.

Kidding. Both bartender and reporter realize Louis has been shot and call an ambulance.

Kidding. The reporter says “He’ll be alright” based on zero evidence, and calls for a drink for both of them, adding, with a knowing wink, “Hey Joe: Louis’ bottle.” And that bad joke ends our very spotty film.

Big shots
You see the “Roaring Twenties” comparison, right? Guy returns from Great War, opens a nightclub, has a thing for a girl who doesn’t love him, and risks everything to help her out of a jam. Eddie Bartlett dies onscreen, though, and given a literary sendoff: “He used to be a big shot.” Louis simply stands there, gut shot, amid winking jokes.

A lot of the film seems done on the cheap and it probably was. Fox Studios was overextended when the stock market crashed in Oct. 1929, which ultimately led to its merger with 20th Century Pictures a few years later. So Ford probably didn't have much dough to work with. In his book “Searching for John Ford,” Joseph McBride says a bigger problem was Ford’s co-director Andrew Bennison, “whose dialogue scenes are so wooden and tedious they make the entire film seem comatose.” Back then, studios didn’t know if their silent directors would work well with talkies and often subbed in newbies, and that even happened to John Ford. Turns out he wouldn't do badly with talkies.

Posted at 12:56 PM on Monday July 01, 2024 in category Movie Reviews - 1930s   |   Permalink