Have a look at the short The House I Live In (1945). We start a new year of blogging today, and a new era tomorrow. We're going to accentuate the positive this year, look for hope in the darkness, and maybe finding it in each other. I'm with Frank, I don't like Nazi creeps, either, especially ones that call themselves Americans. But there is yet an overwhelming tenor of decency and fairness and compassion in this country that even the worst monsters among us can't defeat. I like the way he grins, looks the mob of kids in the eye ("you have to be carefully taught") and calls them Nazis, hoping they'll challenge him. "Religion makes no difference, except maybe to a Nazi or somebody as stupid." Great line. Lump the Nazis with stupid people. Call a spade a spade. Trample all over their self-superiority. There were plenty of people in this country who would have seen this short in the theaters in 1945 and thought that Hollywood was overstepping its bounds, preaching a liberal message. To borrow another classic movie reference, the bad guys are coming into town at high noon tomorrow. Let's meet them at the train. Don't forget to grin when you challenge them by calling them Nazis or somebody as stupid, and hit them with unwavering, unrelenting truth. They hate that. They have no defense against truth, except more lies, and we've heard them all by now. If they cannot feel shame for their words or their deeds, then make them feel aggravation that respect, let alone cooperation, will be denied them. Let them know the apologists and excuse-makers among them will be held equally accountable as the instigators. Force them to look into the mirror of their depravity. And don't forget to grin. This year we'll be covering a lot of movies with plucky heroes - in classic films they come in the form of the average joe, the little guy - and they come to us in comedies as well as dramas. We'll be spending a good part of the summer with musicals - an art form as unabashedly exuberant as any known to man. We're going to examine this house we live in, and clean it up a little. See you next Thursday, when we'll discuss a plucky Pat O'Brien who helps to stop a run on Walter Huston's bank in the coincidentally named American Madness (1932).
Tom Tully was an actor of great depth, who exuded grace even in his most snide, sinister, and crusty roles, and yet who could display such unassuming warmth that one could hardly imagine him ever being snide, sinister, or crusty. Today we join several other blogs in the 9 th “What a Character!” Blogathon celebrating favorite character actors of classic films, sponsored by the blogs Paula’s Cinema Club , Once Upon a Screen , and Outspoken & Freckled . We covered some of Tully’s work in previous posts, including his genial, kindly, and somewhat befuddled uncle of Ginger Rogers, who visits him at Christmas here in I’ll Be Seeing You (1944). He had only been in Hollywood a couple years and it was something like his seventh movie. Mr. Tully already had worked over a decade in radio and on stage, but seems to have made an effortless transfer to screen, where he exhibits a natural, if not actually a shrewd and canny ability to navigate the intimacy of playing to a ...
A Face in the Crowd (1957) chronicles its era, lambastes it, and foreshadows future evils of an unchecked demagogue. Perhaps it also marks the end of the noir era of film in its intended righteous ending. It is that ending, however, that contradicts the realities of the future, the cynical realities of our own era. It might be the weakest moment of the movie. Andy Griffith makes a magnificent film debut as the noxious “country boy” whose meteoric rise in the media is made possible by a gullible public and the machinations of a canny promoter played by Patricia Neal. Both turn in stunning performances. Their co-dependent professional relationship becomes personal, and intensely psychological as both nearly go off the deep end in mental breakdowns by the movie’s conclusion. The film is a parable, and starts, rightly enough, as Miss Neal and a radio crew discover Mr. Griffith as a vagrant in jail, a colorful character they exploit for a whimsical program. We have beginning s...
Hollywood Fights Fascism ...Coming later this month. Past is prologue. Our greatest gift from the Greatest Generation was freedom from fascism...until now. Trumpism is Hitler 2.0. Relive, and celebrate, how evil was faced, discussed, dramatized...and fought. Classic films were the weapon. Collected essays from the blog, special thanks to Casey Koester for the striking cover art.
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