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captainscanadian · 4 years

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Hope | Bucky Barnes x Reader (Part 1)

My Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Summary: Being back in your childhood home had certainly brought you some well-needed inspiration.

Word Count: 2900+

Pairing: (Eventual) Doctor!Bucky Barnes x Patient!Reader, OMC Harry Nelson x FWB!Reader, Rebecca Barnes x OFC Rosie Bender

Warnings: Heartbreak, Bullying, Grey’s Anatomy Spoilers

A/N: This fic was my entry for @wkemeup‘s 4K Writing Challenge. I DON’T DO TAGLISTS!

When Harry Nelson had first moved to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen, he’d had many dreams of becoming a screenwriter and director. He wanted to make movies that seemed relatable to the general public, with no action sequences or elements of science-fiction, no monsters or magic, no million dollar budget to be spent on visual effects. Just simple stories about real people, whether it was the kind that made them laugh or the kind that made them cry.

Throughout the span of his twenty-year long career in Hollywood, he had come to realize that the genre of romance movies had their own built-in audience that he could definitely make money off of. The hopeless romantics, as he liked to call them, were a group of people who were always longing to see love stories that don’t necessarily end happily, but still leave them believing that true love existed.

While he had since directed several romance films that went on to have the cultural impact in the likes of Notting Hill and The Notebook, it hadn’t been until he had met another hopeless romantic did he realize that he was one of them. For a man who never believed in true love, he sure enjoyed love stories. He was a hopeless romantic, as much as he hated to admit it. Whether his story was going to end happily or not, he still had a part to play in it.

Back when the first instalment of the Hopeless series had turned out to be a success, Harry had simply approached you in request of the movie rights to your novel series. While you hadn’t given in to his request due to not knowing how you might even end the series yourself, he decided to play the long game and wait until you figured out the ending.

Years had gone by and the two of you had only become best friends, bonding over your mutual love for the romance genre. Many movie nights were spent watching the classics such as Casablanca and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He had invited you to his premieres and parties, to simply take part in the discourse of what it meant to write a beautiful love story that stood beyond its time. But the friendship you shared had turned to something more when you had found yourselves drunk at an after-party and consumed by lust of all things and not love as one would have assumed.

Even though becoming one of the love interests in your story had certainly not been his plan all along, he couldn’t complain about it either. A newly single romance novelist and a divorced filmmaker with a knack for romance getting involved with each other was not the strangest thing to take place in Hollywood, not even when you had a ten year age difference. You had kept your arrangement as secretive as you could though, for you did not need the prying eyes of the media to ruin what you had.

By the time the third instalment had been published, no one had suspected that the muse behind Dr. Jake Winston was Harry Nelson himself. Harry had seemed to figure it out early on though, when you had let him have a glimpse of the first draft. But when he gave you his approval to go ahead with the story, you had made him promise you that he would play the role he helped create if your novels were ever made into movies. Harry had been delighted to accept that if he were to make his acting debut, it would be as one of the love interests of Hope Anderson.

Being the man who taught you what it felt like to be safe in a relationship, he had always given you a way out of your friendship with benefits. After all, the strings had never been attached to begin with. But that was a path you did not think you would want to take, at least not until now.

Not that the two of you had managed to drive each other crazy like most Hollywood couples. As unsurprising as that would have been, you felt that you really needed a break from living the California dream and that included what you had with Harry.

With the fourth and final instalment of your series being due in just a few more months, you found yourself hitting a brick wall with where you wanted Hope Anderson’s story to go. Writer’s block was a curse that you hadn’t really experienced with the last three novels. But inspiration for the fourth novel had just not struck.

You were well aware that your readers were longing for a happy ending for the girl who had spent a majority of her life being heartbroken. For a strong and career-driven woman like herself, she could easily find someone to settle down with. But that wasn’t what you wanted when it came to the ending of your series.

You wanted Hope to find some kind of purpose for the journey that she had taken since leaving her hometown for college. You wanted things to be right for her, even if they weren’t necessarily right for you. There needed to be a purpose behind her journey, that was meant to be fulfilled in the final book.

It had been Harry’s suggestion, being a fellow writer himself, that it might be plausible if the fourth novel took a rather ‘coming-of-age’ kind of path compared to the last three instalment. Reid made her realize that she had moved on too soon, Ethan made her realize that love was messy, and Jake made her realize that there are good men in this world. Neither of these men had been right for her, but then who was?

“I think our girl Hope needs to go home.” Harry had suggested one night in the midst of your pillow talk. “She hasn’t been home in ten years. I think she needs a little trip of self-discovery, a walk down memory lane… she needs to find herself in order to find her one true love.”

“What makes you think that she’ll find her true love when she finds herself?” You had asked him, curiously.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

The air was crisp as you stepped out of your Uber and grabbed your suitcases from the trunk, leaving a heavy tip for the driver at the end of this dreadfully quiet ride from Indianapolis International Airport to your humble home in Shelbyville, Indiana.

Being back in this little city after an entire decade in the West Coast sure brought back the good old days for a moment there. But when the cold breeze hit you, you were reminded why you had fled your hometown in the first place. Certainly, you had gotten used to the California sun. But who could blame you though? This place was hell on earth.

As you dragged your suitcases up the driveway, you could not help but look around the neighborhood that you had grown up in. It seemed as though nothing had changed in the last ten years. Or perhaps, it was just the nostalgia of being back here that made it seem as though everything was still the same when it wasn’t.

Old man Nick who lived next door still had his ratty old truck parked out front - was that thing still kicking; you couldn’t believe it. The last you heard, his daughters Carol and Maria had moved out to Indianapolis after college and visited the man every now and then. Apparently, he refused to leave Shelbyville as he had lived there his whole life. His wife had lived and died at that house, and he could not see himself leaving behind the memory of her.

The girls had asked your mother to keep an eye on him, and she had kept an eye on him because she seemed to be the only one in the neighborhood he trusted. Your mother had told you that they were bonding over their mutual empty nest syndrome, but not even her attempt to guilt trip you had brought you back here.

You hadn’t even bothered to come back here when you had found out that your mother was ill. You had flown her out to Los Angeles instead, and did the best you could to give her the medical care she needed at one of the best hospitals in the country.

Not even when she had passed away did you ever try to come back and take care of the house she’d left behind for you. You just hated everything about Shelbyville, Indiana, to ever come back.

But nothing like a little writer’s block to bring you back here.

You made a mental note to leave a rather sarcastic voicemail for Harry, for convincing you to fly out here on your own and facing a part of your life that you never wanted to return to. God, you hated him sometimes, mostly because he was always right and he seemed to know it. You loved him too. Not the kind of love that destroys you, but the kind that made you realize that you always deserved to feel loved by someone.

Truth be told, the house was not as bad as you had thought it would be. It just needed a little dusting and maybe a paint job, but it was still your childhood home in every way. Nick had kept it in good shape while you were gone, because your mother had asked him to take care of it in case you had ever thought about coming back home.

You thanked the man when he handed you the keys, and asked him if you could borrow his truck to run some errands later that day. You just needed to run into town to pick up some groceries and stop by the hardware store to grab some supplies.

In the meantime, you could use the quiet and the nostalgia to come up with the perfect plot for the final instalment of your novel series. Perhaps you could start off with Hope Anderson returning to her hometown due to her mother being ill, putting a pin on completing her residency and giving herself a break from her arrangement with Jake.

She spends hours on end sitting by her mother’s bedside, losing her hope as the days rolled by. And when her mother passes away, she copes with her loss by spring cleaning her childhood home and fixing it up.

*EDIT: 4th love interest?

You had written a few pages of your first draft when you finally decided to take a break, stretching your arms as you stepped away from your laptop on the dining table. You had been avoiding your childhood bedroom like the plague ever since you had arrived, claiming the master bedroom as yours for the duration of your stay.

But as you ascended up the creaky stairway and turned the corner to your childhood bedroom, you could have sworn that the last ten years had never gone by. The paint was chipping off of the cream colored walls, multiple posters of the Jonas Brothers pasted against them, never being taken down in your years away.

You recalled the time you’d had the chance to meet them following their comeback, as one of their wives had starred in one of Harry’s films. You may not have been an overly enthusiastic fangirl on the red carpet, but you were certainly proud of how far you had come from your childhood bedroom. The teenage girl who used to live in this room had clearly grown up, living every dream she’d always had… except one.

You walked over to the desk at the corner of your room, where the first few scenes of your Grey’s Anatomy fanfiction had been written. You had written more than one hundred thousand words about the undying love between Mark Sloan and Lexie Grey, as though they had never died after that plane crash, not even realizing that the basis of that story would eventually inspire the plot of your third novel. The attending and the resident with a significant age difference - God, could you ever be original with your own writing?

This was the room where you fell in love with writing, but writing was not the only thing you had fallen in love with at the time. On the bulletin board above your desk remained one photograph, being held together by a thumb tack.

You remembered the day after your high school graduation, when you had forcefully ripped out most of the photographs you had pinned to that bulletin board and chucked them in the trash bin, along with the feelings you had for the seventeen year old boy who was in those photographs with you.

A part of you wanted to rip up the last remaining photograph that still remained on that bulletin board, but the ten years you had been away had certainly suppressed the anger you felt towards him. So instead, you left that photo where it was and returned to your laptop, picking up your writing from where you had left off but the thought of him now lingering through your mind.

James Buchanan Barnes. Your best friend. Your first love. Your first heartbreak. The reason why Hope Anderson’s love life, and yours, had become hopeless in the first place. Perhaps the best way to end this story was to go back to the very beginning, to where it all had started, to the man who had been a part of her life before Jake, Ethan and Reid.

“Oh Harry, you son of a bitch!”

Dr. James Barnes let out a yawn as he eyed the CT scans in front of him, even though it was only the beginning of his twelve hour call shift. Only into the second year of his three year residency in emergency medicine, he was starting to familiarize with the intensity of his life as an emergency room physician. Sleepless nights were only the bare minimum.

Not that he could not handle the stress of running the ER one day, but Bucky was well aware that outside of the walls of Shelbyville Hospital, he did not have a life. No girlfriend to go home to, no hobbies to kill time with and no friends from outside of work to hang out with. Work, sleep, repeat… life was starting to get boring for the poor twenty-eight year old man.

“You look miserable.” Rosie Bender, the ER nurse on call and Bucky’s former classmate, remarked cheekily at her friend before she slipped into the seat next to him.

He shot her a fake smile as he set down his patient file back onto the rack, leaning back in his chair and looked over at the nurse. “I’m just bored as fuck, Rosie. As you can see, the ER’s pretty quiet tonight. I just want something to do.”

“If you’re so bored, you can help me make some calls. I have to finalize the number of people who are coming to this thing by the end of the week. The catering people have been asking for numbers… and don’t even get me started on picking the menu.”

For the woman who had been head of the Prom Committee back in senior year, planning their ten year reunion was supposed to be a piece of cake. But Rosie was struggling with juggling all of the responsibilities that came with planning this reunion, being the only who seemed to care so much about being able to reunite with some old friends from what had been the best four years of her life. Why did no one else care about this as much as she did?

Truth be told, Bucky could care any less about this so-called ten year reunion. He was well aware that the one person he would be hoping to see would never show up. You hadn’t even come back to town when your mother had gotten sick, let alone to this stupid reunion that was meant to be a remainder of your senior year - the memory that he had ruined for you by being so inconsiderate towards your feelings for him.

He could never forgive himself for what he had done to you, and to think that he would never have the chance to apologize to you in person. He fucked up, and he pushed away the one friend he had. If he could just see you one last time and tell you how sorry he was, Bucky would give anything. But he knew that all hope was lost on that, at least until Becca Barnes had come rushing into the ER.

He had just assumed that she was only dropping off some dinner for him and Rosie, but instead she looked over at the two of them with beaming eyes. “You two are not going to believe who I ran into at the hardware store just now...”

“Is old man Nick renovating the Y/L/Ns’ house again because he’s bored?” Rosie perked up at her girlfriend, giggling softly as she stood from her chair to lean over the desk and peck her lips.

“No, but close…” The younger Barnes chirped before she turned to her brother. “Y/N’s back in town.”

Perhaps, all of his hope was not lost after all.

#kas4kwc #hope #aj writes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes series #bucky barnes au #doctor au #doctor!Bucky

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gav-san · 5 years

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The Hollow Kingdom

Review and Defense of a classic fantasy favorite.

Warning: Below is a large explanation that spoils some upcoming projects and talks about things you may be uncomfortable with, but are important to talk about. Also, spoilers of the book.

Please consider reading the book!

There’s a stage that man girls go through, likely after watching the 1986 Labyrinth. I like to call it the ‘Goblin King Craze’. After all, few things match the childhood spectacle of David Bowie dancing in very tight pants with his cohort of bumbling goblins, coupled with the magic of Jim Henson.

I can imagine many of you who have watched this movie, had like me, also longed for the imagination and craze in your own life, or at least something similar in fiction.

Cue being a teenager, and discovering The Hollow Kingdom (published 2003), but mere chance in your hometown library.

Here is the Goodreads summary: “In nineteenth-century England, a powerful sorcerer and King of the Goblins chooses Kate, the elder of two orphan girls recently arrived at their ancestral home, Hallow Hill, to become his bride and queen...”

It’s no surprise that I ended up loving this book.

This book is generally under a YA fiction/fantasy tag. It has won various awards, including the 2004 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature. It’s well-written, relatable to a young woman, and full of intelligent moments and clever thinking. The characters are fully-fledged, as are the societies they live in.

It’s not a perfect book. Sometimes the pacing and choice of focus can be inconsistent, and sometimes the timing and structure are not as strong as they could be. Its lack of care for developing romance can cause problems with the reviewers, had they been expecting a romance.

Now let’s chat a bit. As a teenager, it was an eye open experience to discover a book that didn’t pander another tale of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ once again. Meaning, an easy tale that force-fed me obvious morals, and condescended to my 'age-level’. And, I thought, it was better to talk about difficult things then pretend they didn’t exist.

And so time passed, the internet grew, and the Me Too movement rolled along, said hi, and sorta gave a half-hearted wave as it did so. Now, much older, I have finally had time to work on some projects that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I do fanfic’s as a writing exercise, but my true love is illustrating stories on the webtoon platform. I have a series called ‘Vixen’ out that has been a trial run of sorts to sharpen my skills and get me back on track.

One of the long-running projects that I’ve desperately wanted to illustrate for a long time is ‘The Hollow Kingdom’. I am only in the beginning steps and have yet to contact the author or any of the other relevant sources. This research stage is mostly an exploration to see if this is even possible, and how it would be done.

As I’ve delved into the internet to see how my old favorite has aged... I was a bit startled.

Despite its initial accolades around 2018, when a lot of Hollywood was being stripped and scattered, and there were many accusations worldwide of prominent figures accused of sexual abuse, perhaps it was predictable that a complicated book that does not deal with a traditional happy ending started becoming maligned in general. And as social media, as a rule, tends to ignore content in favor of a thoughtful readthrough, I felt the need to go reread and reassess my POV.

So I did.

And I still enjoyed the book. As did the roughly 10,000 others who rated it 4 stars and above.

But to be fair, here are some reviews from other who didn’t:

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1. The end is some sort of apologia for rape, abduction, and Stockholm Syndrome.

2. I expect that when I’m told said female protagonist is intelligent for her to actually be intelligent, like you know, by giving her any ounce of sense, resourcefulness, or deductive skills.

3. (The Goblin King)...seriously tries to justify his actions by saying he doesn’t have a choice...

4. I also did not like the pointless slaughtering of animals…which really if you think about it made no sense…why would the monkey and wolf not be threats and be all for following kate but not the bear or the snakes…

5. It didn't help that I was well aware of how the main character got tricked. I mean, if her guardian believed her and was concerned for her sister why would still keep Kate locked up in her room and offer freedom from the room in exchange for info on goblins?

6. A young woman is coerced into marrying the Goblin King, Lord of the Hollow Kingdom.

7. What I'm trying to get across is that this is another example of a story where a young woman gets virtually everything taken away from her - her passions, her freedom, everything - but (through Stockholm Syndrome or sheer stupidity, I'm not sure) she forgives it all in the name of love and becomes a supremely contented Stepford Wife.

8. So a girl is kidnapped by the Goblin King, and is trapped in the goblin kingdom. The end. Well, she ends up liking it, doesn't struggle, doesn't really care about what is happening to her.

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Sorry, that was a lot. I understand that there are many who are just not going to jibe with a book. But I think it’s fair that on the complaints that accuse the book, it can be rebutted.

1(a). Perhaps many of the problems with the book that people expected it to be the perfect mash between Labyrinth and Beauty and the Beast. First of all, Beauty and the Beast is a classic tale, which many accuse of Stockholm Syndrome. It isn’t, by the way, but that’s not why I’m here. Or here.

Neither is the Hollow Kingdom. It seems that many of the reviewers are sure that Kate is forced into marrying the Goblin King. She wasn’t. She actually ends up going to the Goblin King and agreeing to marry him in exchange for the release of her sister.

But Gav-san, the Goblin King )Marak) misled Kate into thinking they had her.

No, they didn’t. It even points out that had she asked, they would have told her. It’s stated very early on that Goblin do not lie under any circumstance (though are prone to being crafty beasts).

Kate never is isolated with her captour, or ignore his awful parts and has does not fall in line with his ideas, holding strongly to her own. In fact, it’s her very ideals that lead to her success in the end, and that leads to Marak’s change of ideology. Kate’s own honor often compelled her to make choices that seem frustrating to the (modern) reader (who perhaps forgets this is 1815 England). To demand modern ideologies from the protagonist is awfully stupid and presumptuous.

1(b). This book, in no way shape or form, is an apology for rape and abduction. It’s a large point in this book that is unavoidable. The Goblins and Elves kidnap humans (and the occasional elf) to marry. The King must always marry outside of his race. This inevitably leads to unhappy women and broken families.

It is not seen as a happy, good event, but often a stressful, angry one that leaves tragedy and scars that echo across the generations. It is also a revealing look at humanity and our own atrocities. Much like the goblins and elves, sometimes these things are painted as noble when they weren’t, and thus it makes the societies feel real, having these pitfalls.

And, as a King whose entire, beloved kingdom is at stake, do you chose to make one person miserable, or condemn the entire lot to a slow death?

It may make us uncomfortable to see the reality of this situation played out in such close-to-the-chest terms.

Because Kate ends up happy and the victor, even in a situation that was not perfect, should she be condemned? I don’t think she or any women forced into that situation should be denied a healthy joy they find.

Remember, at the end of the book, it’s because of Kate that the Kingdom continues.

2. Kate is intelligent. (How could you miss her relentlessly scheming, most that succeed?!?!) And due to her heritage, she has top-notch instincts (untrained though) she continually outsmarts and outmaneuvers the Goblin King and the meddling human family. I think, had her Uncle not kidnapped Emily, she would have escaped. But her own concern for her sister was more important, and so she made that choice. That’s why she agrees to settle in, and that’s what open’s the door to her falling in love with Marak. She isn’t his prisoner, but his equal, who he learns to respect. Many human relationships could learn that last part better.

3. The Goblin King doesn’t justify himself in any degree. He knows he’s not going to be a desirable, handsome husband to any woman, especially in 1815 (or any time before and long after). If the only way a magical kingdom could continue is the misery of one person outside your race who is treated well, all things considered, then why would a brusque goblin who is not naturally inclined (thanks to his heritage) to get his feelings hurt easily worry? Many of the King’s Wifes never fell in love with their husbands, especially the sensitive elves.

In the animal kingdom, it’s not as important. Stop projecting modern standards on a fantasy culture. JRR Tolkien's goblins murder, are crass and cruel, but we don’t expect them to be human and learn to be polite. Dunkle’s Goblins are far more genteel and human-like, but they are not humans.

4. At the end of the book, there is a sorcerer who is a bad man and uses human and animal parts in his spells. If you are sensitive to that, perhaps it’s something to consider, but the book doesn’t go into great detail of these things. And frankly, ‘traditional’ medicine in many parts of the world does the same.

And why would Kate release animals that would hurt her?

5. Kate’s Guardian was never concern for her. He thought about murdering her and was concocting plans to do so. As it says in the book, society would not be kind to Kate or Emily. This is no surprise. A wealthy young woman in 1815 England? A prime target.

Kate manages to trick the doctor who the guardian brought (to put her in the insane asylum) and save her sister, though she needed to Goblins help. She was in a bad position!

6. Why are people so determined to take away Kate’s dignity and choice? Her uncle lied to her, and he was punished for it later, by the Goblin King. She went to the Goblin King and bartered her own freedom. Women make their own choices and feminism is respecting those choices as a man’s would. Her acceptance of the Gobline Kingdom is not proof of her weakness, but a show of her strength. You will face difficult problems you cannot change, and the only decision at that point is how you react.

Just because Sarah didn’t chose the Goblin King doesn’t make her strong. It was what she learned doing it. The point of reading the book is the journey.

7. Or you can see this as a book that takes on the idea of conflicting cultures that are forced upon a woman, and she makes decisions that ensure the important things to her are seen through. A real woman who, much like real women, is put into a difficult situation that is fraught with dangers and missteps, and does a decent job at navigating them without giving up her integrity or beliefs.

Don’t be taken in by easy illusions that meant to be as shallow as they appear. Feel free to message me and we can chat about it more.

In the end, this is just my opinion. But I don’t think I’m wrong, and I stand by it, which is why I’m writing it, and why I hope to illustrate this magnificent work one day.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

#the hollow kingdom #hollow kingdom #Clare B. Dunkle #review #webcomic #defence #book #Ya lit #goblin #goblin king #fantasy #slight romance #adventure #spoilers

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project1939 · 10 months

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Day 78- Film: Desperate Search

Release date: November 19th, 1952.

Studio: MGM

Genre: Drama/adventure

Director: Joseph H. Lewis

Producer: Matthew Rapf

Actors: Howard Keel, Jane Greer, Patricia Medina, Keenan Wynn, Robert Burton

Plot Summary: When a bush pilot’s two young children are involved in a plane crash, he desperately searches for them himself, using his own plane. Emotions fray when his pilot ex-wife, and mother of the children, arrives to help.

My Rating (out of five stars): **½

Even knowing this was a B film, I had somewhat high hopes for it when I discovered that the director also directed the fantastic film noir Gun Crazy. This wasn’t anywhere near as good as that, however. It had a lot of issues- the general story, the writing, the child actors, the way it villainized his ex-wife... and also, if there is a head of the Mountain Lions Union, please stand up and sue!

The Good:

There was a lot of nice aerial footage, but most of it was stock, I assume. It wasn’t overly obvious stock footage, though.

The ex-wife and pilot, Nora Stead. She was a tough dynamic character, and easily the most compelling. Too bad the movie kept telling us to hate her.

I liked Keenan Wynn in this. He was good as a gruff character actor, not hamming it up like he usually does.

Another rare Hollywood film that takes place in Canada!

The Bad:

Mountain Lions almost never attack humans. And they certainly would never get into a gladiator-type throw down with a guy like Howard Keel! It was ridiculous! I kept wanting to scream at the screen. Look at the little illustration of it on the poster! It’s that preposterous!

The way we were supposed to hate Nora. The film constantly told us how awful she supposedly was, but she was far more interesting than any other character. And she wasn’t all that bad, really. She was hyper-competitive and a somewhat distant mother, so as a woman, she should die, I guess?

The “heroic” woman was boring as hell, as usual. Julie, wife number two, suffers from “Classical Hollywood Good Wife Syndrome.” Noble, weepy, and bland.

I didn’t really like Keel’s character either. He could often be mean to people, especially his wife, and he had a drinking problem he needed to address. He certainly wasn’t a candidate for father of the year.

I don’t enjoy seeing children suffer in a movie, especially when I know real child actors have to act out these things. I don’t care if it makes good drama, I just don’t like it.

The little girl made me hit the forward 10 seconds button several times, because I could not bear to keep listening to her shrieking and wailing. Like, we get it already! Tell the director she can stop! Sometimes her screaming was clearly ADR, so they had an easy chance to trim it down!

The writing was predictable and obvious. I actually got bored more than once, and it’s only a 71-minute film.

The ending. (Spoiler!) The way it says, “Well, the kids are with the family they should be now!” Meaning, not with their mom? Why can’t she be in their life? She clearly does care about them.

#project1952 #1952 #project1952 day 78 #Classical Hollywood good wife syndrome #100 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 film 78

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onlythehours · 7 years

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Top 17 of 2017

Here are some of my favourite films from 2017. Since I’m Oscar obsessed, I’m not including UK releases from 2017 that were in the previous awards season…..

17. Blade Runner 2049:

It is bleak, foggy, and misty, but it sure is beautiful. The production design and cinematography are some of the year’s best. I loved its haunting atmosphere and thought the opening sequence was especially good.

16 The Disaster Artist:

I was surprised by its sincerity and warmth, especially in how it (non-ironically) handled its central figure. It’s at its best when it’s giving us a quasi coming-of-age actor’s dream.

15 Mudbound:

I died for the scope of It’s narrative and characterisations. It is beautifully shot and so many scenes were rich impressive layers. A modern day riff on the classics like The Grapes of Wrath. For once narration (and there’s a lot) doesn’t feel like a short cut. Mary J Blige was wonderful.

14 Girls Trip:

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. My best and most enjoyable ‘in-cinema’ experience of the year. So many laughs. Full of heart, and I loved how authentic it made its narrative conflicts.

13 War For The Planet of the Apes:

Emotional-modern-tech-cinema. Andy Serkis continues to be fantastic. I loved the classic and quietly epic scope of the story. It’s all about the journey, and the narrative conflicts that rise along the way. Felt like an old-Hollywood take for a modern time.

12. The Zookeeper’s Wife:

Compelling and powerful. It takes a seemingly familiar ‘hide-from-the-nazis’ narrative and tells it with an effective sincerity that overcomes convention (kudos to Jessica Chastain).

11. Dunkirk:

Event cinema. I loved its micro approaches to ‘big narrative’ storytelling. The score is sort of grotesque but I loved it.

10. Berlin Syndrome:

Taut and compelling. A rich take on a seemingly simple idea. I loved the balance of psychological terror, subversion of characters POV’s, and thrilling tension.

9. The Beguiled:

Elegant, funny, biting. Nicole and Kirsten give it life. The dresses are lush and a whole other film could just revolve around the way the light hits the fabric.

8. Gerald’s Game:

Pulpy and dedicated to its story. Carla Gugino is a tour de force. Loved its marriage of terror and humour, and relationship with memories past and present.

7. Lady Macbeth:

Haunting and captivating. Florence Pugh is a ferocious talent.

6. Mother!:

As embarrassing as it is sensational. A wrenching, loaded event. Come for the marketing, stay for the farce and spectacle.

5. Call Me By Your Name:

Lush, persuasive, and enticing. Timothee Chalamet is spectacular. I loved the slow-blooming flow of the narrative, and of course: the final shot is breathtaking.

4. A Quiet Passion:

Gloriously performed, beautifully shot. The words drip, float, and fly off the screen. Also SO funny.

3. Get Out:

A fully charged ride. As scary as it is funny, as terrifying as it is enlivening. My second best ‘in-cinema’ experience. Very re-watchable.

2. God’s Own Country:

A film full of gorgeous frames and stirring moments - a new queer classic. The performances are quiet and tender and the story is beautifully hopeful.

1. Personal Shopper:

Endlessly fascinating. A modern masterpiece. iPhone’s have never been more evocative. I loved the connections sketched out between fashion, materiality, transience, and identity, and I was captivated by the fragile and luminal nature of them all. Brilliantly matches the elements of a tender ghost story with the suspense of a cat-and-mouse thriller.

PS: please forgiveth my sins, I haven’t seen: BPM, The Post, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, I Tonya, The Florida Project, Faces Places, Beach Rats, I am Not a Witch, The Ornathologist and many more…..

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newstechreviews · 4 years

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(LOS ANGELES) — Wilford Brimley, who worked his way up from movie stunt rider to an indelible character actor who brought gruff charm, and sometimes menace, to a range of films that included “Cocoon,” “The Natural” and “The Firm,” has died. He was 85.

Brimley’s manager Lynda Bensky said the actor died Saturday morning in a Utah hospital. He was on dialysis and had several medical ailments, she said.

The mustached Brimley was a familiar face for a number of roles, often playing characters like his grizzled baseball manager in “The Natural” opposite Robert Redford’s bad-luck phenomenon. He also worked with Redford in “Brubaker” and “The Electric Horseman.”

Brimley’s best-known work was in “Cocoon,” in which he was part of a group of seniors who discover an alien pod that rejuvenates them. The 1985 Ron Howard film won two Oscars, including a supporting actor honor for Don Ameche.

Brimley also starred in “Cocoon: The Return,” a 1988 sequel.

For years he was pitchman for Quaker Oats and in recent years appeared in a series of diabetes spots that turned him at one point into a social media sensation.

“Wilford Brimley was a man you could trust,” Bensky said in a statement. “He said what he meant and he meant what he said. He had a tough exterior and a tender heart. I’m sad that I will no longer get to hear my friend’s wonderful stories. He was one of a kind.”

Barbara Hershey, who met Brimley on 1995′s “Last of the Dogmen,” called him “a wonderful man and actor. … He always made me laugh.”

Though never nominated for an Oscar or Emmy Award, Brimley amassed an impressive list of credits. In 1993’s John Grisham adaptation “The Firm,” Brimley starred opposite Tom Cruise as a tough-nosed investigator who deployed ruthless tactics to keep his law firm’s secrets safe.

John Woo, who directed Brimley as Uncle Douvee in 1993′s “Hard Target,” told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 that the part was “the main great thing from the film. I was overjoyed making those scenes and especially working with Wilford Brimley.”

A Utah native who grew up around horses, Brimley spent two decades traveling around the West and working at ranches and race tracks. He drifted into movie work during the 1960s, riding in such films as “True Grit,” and appearing in TV series such as “Gunsmoke.”

He forged a friendship with Robert Duvall, who encouraged him to seek more prominent acting roles, according to a biography prepared by Turner Classic Movies.

Brimley, who never trained as an actor, saw his career take off after he won an important role as a nuclear power plant engineer in “The China Syndrome.”

“Training? I’ve never been to acting classes, but I’ve had 50 years of training,” he said in a 1984 Associated Press interview. “My years as an extra were good background for learning about camera techniques and so forth. I was lucky to have had that experience; a lot of newcomers don’t.”

“Basically my method is to be honest,” Brimley said told AP. “The camera photographs the truth — not what I want it to see, but what it sees. The truth.”

Brimley had a recurring role as a blacksmith on “The Waltons” and the 1980s prime-time series “Our House.”

Another side of the actor was his love of jazz. As a vocalist, he made albums including “This Time the Dream’s On Me” and “Wilford Brimley with the Jeff Hamilton Trio.”

In 1998, he opposed an Arizona referendum to ban cockfighting, saying that he was “trying to protect a lifestyle of freedom and choice for my grandchildren.”

In recent years, Brimley’s pitchwork for Liberty Mutual had turned him into an internet sensation for his drawn out pronunciation of diabetes as “diabeetus.” He owned the pronunciation in a tweet that drew hundreds of thousands of likes earlier this year.

Brimley is survived by his wife Beverly and three sons.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

#Blogger

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cinephiled-com · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/seven-surprising-discoveries-2017-tcm-classic-film-festival/

Seven (Surprising) Discoveries at the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival

My eyes are still recovering from watching back-to-back movies from 9 am to midnight for days on end at the eighth annual TCM Classic Film Festival last week in Hollywood. But, eye strain aside, it is an exciting, joyous event for the thousands of classic movie lovers who come to town from all over the world for the festivities. I can’t even tell you how much I look forward to this four-day festival. Taking place in two historic 1920s movie palaces, Sid Grauman’s stunning Chinese and Egyptian theaters on Hollywood Boulevard, as well as the neighboring TCL Chinese Multiplex and a few presentations at the nearby Cinerama Dome, there are up to five concurrent presentations taking place in every time slot (totaling more than 100 films) over the course of the festival. Choosing what to see when there are so many great options is part of the agonizing fun.

I’ve attended every TCM Festival since it began in 2010 and this year’s was especially poignant following the death last month of the beloved TCM host and father figure Robert Osborne at the age of 84. Getting a chance to meet Osborne at the festival and hear him introduce films and interview the actors and filmmakers he knew so well was every bit as exciting as meeting our favorite stars. This year, the entire festival was dedicated to Robert Osborne and there were many tears at various remembrances. Also many laughs, as this year’s overall theme was comedy in the movies. Sadly, many of the people who attended the festival in years past are no longer with us. I have so many wonderful memories of hearing stars such as Debbie Reynolds, Tony Curtis, Maureen O’Hara, Luise Rainer, Mickey Rooney, Betty Garrett, Esther Williams, and so many others talk to us about their work. This year’s special guests included incredibly talented folks such as Carl and Rob Reiner (who became the first father and son to get their footprints immortalized in cement in the famous Grauman’s Chinese forecourt), Sidney Poitier, Genevieve Bujold, Michael Douglas, Peter Bognonavich, Lee Grant, Buck Henry, Keir Dullea, Richard Dreyfuss, Dick Cavett, Ruta Lee, and Mel Brooks. Taking up hosting duties in Robert Osborne’s absence were movie experts and TCM family members Ben Mankiewicz, Illeana Douglas, Cari Beauchamp, and Leonard Maltin, among others.

In addition to seeing great movies the way that should be seen and meeting some of the people who made them, one of the best parts of the festival is getting a chance to hang out with fellow movie lovers of all ages and from all walks of life. I have made many friendships at the festival which continue online throughout the year as we share notes and gab about our hopes for the next year’s offerings. The night before the festival, the online TCM group I am a part of gets together at the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (site of the very first Academy Awards and the festival headquarters) and we often bring in a special guest. This year I interviewed the glamorous and talented Barbara Rush who regaled us for over an hour with stories of her amazing films and co-stars including Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, James Mason, Montgomery Clift, Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas, and many others. Barbara, who turned 90 in January, was so full of energy she was still going strong hours later across the street at Musso & Frank’s, holding court with an adoring crowd over dinner and sharing poignant stories of her close longtime friendship with Robert Osborne. I also got the chance to spend some time at our gathering with Cora Sue Collins, renowned child star of the 1930s who was handpicked by Greta Garbo to play Garbo as a child in Queen Christina (1933) and also appeared with the great Swedish star in Anna Karenina (1935). As a young girl, Cora Sue acted in many other well-known films such as Treasure Island (1934) with Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper and Evelyn Prentice (1934) in which she played the daughter of Myrna Loy and William Powell. She so enjoyed visiting with us two years ago that she came back to see us this year and had a mini-reunion with Barbara Rush (Cora Sue had appeared in the 1935 version of Magnificent Obsession with Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor while Barbara was in the 1954 Douglas Sirk version of the story with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson).

Sitting in movies from early morning until midnight for several days in a row is a thrilling treat that requires stamina and an understanding family, but I wish I could do it all over again just to see some of the films I missed at this year’s festival. Films such as Jezebel (1938), Born Yesterday (1950), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1967), Broadcast News (1987), Laura (1944), Twentieth Century (1934), The China Syndrome (1979), The Last Picture Show (1971), David and Lisa (1962), The Great Dictator (1940), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), King of Hearts (1966), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Casablanca (1942), and so many others. Oh, the pain! And yet I don’t regret ANY of my choices, from the films I’ve seen dozens of time to the new discoveries. Despite being a classic movie fanatic, there are some surprising holes in my movie repertoire — I can’t tell you how many times I heard my TCM friends exclaim, “You’ve NEVER seen The Awful Truth or The Palm Beach Story? What the hell is wrong with you?!” I can’t explain why I’ve missed some of the classics, especially when I’ve seen so many other films such as The Philadelphia Story, Meet Me in St. Louis, and All About Eve at least 50 times each. Here’s a rundown of seven films I saw at the festival this year for very first time (in alphabetical order so I don’t play favorites):

1. The Awful Truth (Columbia, 1937). Such utter joy with Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, and Ralph Bellamy at their screwball best. Leo McCarey won his first of three Oscars for this film (although he personally felt that he deserved it more for his drama that came out earlier that year, Make Way for Tomorrow, that screened at the 2014 festival). I have no idea how I missed The Awful Truth all these years but seeing it with a big audience on a huge screen was a great introduction and we all laughed ourselves silly at the story of Jerry and Lucy Warriner — a loving couple that splits up early in the film and then keep sabotaging each other’s relationships before their final divorce kicks in. Grant was reportedly very unhappy with McCarey’s directing style during this film, which included a fair amount of improvisation (rare for the 1930s), and tried to get off the film. Thank goodness he didn’t succeed since his performance set the stage for many of his best comedies to come including three more films (The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday, and My Favorite Wife) that featured divorced couples who rediscover each other and fall back in love. The best screwball comedies always include a bunch of perfectly played smaller roles and here I’d like to call out Egyptian actor Alexander D’Arcy as Irene Dunne’s questionable companion, Armand Duvalle, and Joyce Compton as Cary Grant’s showgirl squeeze, Dixie Belle Lee. My favorite part of The Awful Truth may be when Irene Dunne crashes a party at the home of Grant’s new fiancée, heiress Barbara Vance, and poses as his gum-chewing sister, performing one of Dixie Lee’s risqué nightclub numbers we saw earlier. The film also features Nick and Nora Charles’ dog Asta in the key role of the Warriners’ pooch, Mr. Smith. Grant and Dunne would go on to co-star in two more great movies, My Favorite Wife (1940), and Penny Serenade (1941).

2. The Court Jester (Paramount, 1955). Danny Kaye seems to be an acquired taste, I’ve spoken to many classic movie fans who are lukewarm on Kaye and his films. As a young kid I loved Kaye’s TV variety show, and I remember enjoying him in perennial broadcasts of White Christmas and Hans Christian Anderson. But I approached this film with a fair amount of trepidation myself, I really didn’t know what to expect, and have to admit I was flabbergasted by how much I loved it. Seeing a glorious Technicolor restoration on the huge Grauman’s Chinese screen didn’t hurt, nor did the fascinating discussion of the film and Danny Kaye’s work between Illeana Douglas and actor Fred Willard (a huge Danny Kaye fan) before the screening. Kaye is just brilliant in the triple role (sorta) of Hubert Hawkins and his masquerade as Giacomo the Jester in order to gain entry into the royal palace so that he and his friends can reinstall the rightful heir to the throne, a baby with a telling birthmark on his butt, the “purple pimpernel.” Confused? Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense when you watch the crazy fun, including Kaye’s “third” role as a much more menacing Giacomo after he’s hypnotized by Griselda (Mildred Natwick). With beautiful Glynis Johns as Kaye’s fellow rebel and eventual love interest, Maid Jean, and a young and gorgeous Angela Lansbury as the recalcitrant Princess Gwendolyn who falls in love with the hypnotized Kaye, the film provides lots of color, music, and howls from beginning to end, especially with great actors such as Basil Rathbone, Cecil Parker, and John Carradine playing it completely straight during the nonsense. Danny Kaye’s particular style of wordplay is at its peak here: “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”

3. Lady in the Dark (Paramount, 1944). Introduced by actress Rose McGowan, the final film I saw at the festival on Sunday night was a rare screening of the nitrate Technicolor print of Mitchell Leisen’s Lady in the Dark starring Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Warner Baxter, and Jon Hall. To say that this is one CRAZY-ASS film is an understatement. Loosely based on the successful Moss Hart-directed Broadway musical of the same name with songs by Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill, the film stars Ginger Rogers as the no-nonsense editor-in-chief of Allure, a successful fashion magazine. The repressed Ginger is dating her older publisher (Baxter) despite the fact that his wife won’t give him a divorce and she is constantly battling with one of her top editors (Milland) in such an irritated way that you KNOW they will ultimately end up together. But poor overworked Ginger is plagued by strange nightmares (which we see in all their bizarre Technicolor glory) and is finally persuaded to visit a shrink (Barry Sullivan) who convinces her that something traumatic from her past is responsible for her decision to eschew all glamour and femininity (a ridiculous assertion given Ginger’s beauty and her allegedly “plain” clothes that any woman I know would kill for). Enter visiting hunky movie star Randy Curtis (Hall) who everyone in the magazine’s office (except for Ginger, of course) goes GAGA for, including the openly gay photographer (Mischa Auer in the part that made Danny Kaye a star on Broadway) and the male assistants at the magazine (I guess in 1944 it was okay to show male-to-male attraction in the context of employees at a fashion magazine). But Curtis only has eyes for Ginger, and her dreams take an even odder turn. The costumes in this film (by Edith Head, Raoul Pene du Bois, and Barbara Karinska) are miles over-the-top, including a bejeweled mink-lined number (now in the Smithsonian) that was so heavy Ginger needed a second, lighter version of it made for the dance sequence. What this movie says about psychotherapy, femininity, and relationships is so outrageous and politically incorrect that one friend of mine at the screening immediately pronounced the film “monstrous.” But it is fascinating time capsule of another time and place, and definitely worth seeing even though it’s so weird I now feel like I may need a visit with Rogers’ psychiatrist.

4. Love Crazy (MGM, 1941). This was the first film I saw at this year’s festival, introduced by the wonderful actress Dana Delany who is a classic movie lover and has appeared with Robert Osborne on TCM. And what’s a comedy-themed film festival without William Powell and Myrna Loy? This was the tenth of fourteen films the two made together (including the six Thin Man films) and one of the few I’d never seen. In true screwball style, Powell and Loy play the married Steve and Susan Ireland, a deliriously happy couple celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary until Susan’s overbearing mother (Florence Bates) arrives to mess up everything. Next thing we know, Powell runs into his old girlfriend (the beautiful and snide Gail Patrick, a favorite of mine in Stage Door and My Man Godfrey) who has just moved into their swanky apartment building. Alas, a series of zany misunderstandings involving Patrick, her husband, and a random neighbor who is a world champion archer (Jack Carson) lead to Powell and Loy’s impending divorce. After a few additional escapades, the hapless Steve ends up being committed to a sanitarium by the City Lunacy Commission who mistakenly believe he is a homicidal maniac. We even get to see Powell in drag when, hiding from the police, he disguises himself as his own sister (which forced the actor to temporarily shave off his signature mustache). I know I don’t need to tell you that Powell and Loy eventually come to their senses and continue on in wedded bliss. The film, directed by underrated MGM director Jack Conway, includes some funny inside jokes such as a drunken William Powell singing “It’s Delightful to Be Married” at the beginning of the film, a song sung by his on-screen wife Luise Rainer several years earlier in The Great Ziegfeld.

5. The Palm Beach Story (Paramount, 1942). Of all of my discoveries at this year’s festival, it’s especially hard to believe that I had never seen this film, given my love of Preston Sturges and every single member of the glittering cast. I’m happy to say that the movie surpassed my high expectations and immediately leapfrogged to my list of all-time favorites. Preceded by a discussion between film scholar Cari Beauchamp and Wyatt McCrea, star Joel McCrea’s oldest grandchild, we were also introduced to several of Mary Astor’s great-grandchildren who were present at the screening, including Andrew Yang who wrote the foreword to the fascinating book I just finished reading, The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s by Joseph Egan. In the brilliant comedy, McCrea and Claudette Colbert play Tom and Gerry Jeffers, a married couple in New York that is down on their luck financially — way down. I don’t even want to explain the rest of the plot because if you’ve never seen the film it will be fun to come to it fresh as I did, but let’s just call out a few of the crazy folks that McCrea and Colbert come into contact with during their adventures, from the Wienie King (Robert Dudley) to clueless zillionaire John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee) who wants to shower Colbert with riches, to Hackensacker’s eccentric sister, The Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor) who wants to do the same to McCrea. Carole Lombard was originally slated for this film before her tragic death in a plane crash that year, but Colbert does a brilliant job in the role. Astor was apparently insecure about her comedy chops and terrified that she wasn’t giving Sturges what he wanted, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s one of the best things in the film. The Palm Beach Story is a delightful antidote to Palm Beach’s current place in our consciousness as the home of Mar-a-Lago.

6. Rafter Romance (RKO, 1933). It’s always great fun to see pre-code films at the festival, those films that were made in the early 1930s before the Motion Picture Production Code put an end to many of the risqué plot lines that were once commonplace in the movies. The rarely seen Rafter Romance starring a young Ginger Rogers (just before she was first teamed with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio) was a wonderful example of all that pre-codes have to offer. Caught up in a copyright battle for decades, our host Leonard Maltin explained that this was one of the first public screenings of the film since its release in 1933. Ginger plays a young woman who moves to New York to find a job but is having a terrible time making ends meet. Her landlord, Max Eckbaum (George Sidney, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary who was the uncle of the younger George Sidney, a director of many musicals including another of this year’s festival offerings, Bye Bye Birdie), suggests a solution. Ginger can share an apartment with another tenant in his building, a man she doesn’t know who is an artist but works as a night watchman so they will never be around at the same time. But that doesn’t keep the two from endlessly fighting via sharply worded notes left around the apartment. Of course confusion and hijinks ensue when the two meet, unaware that they are each other’s hated co-tenant. Added to the mix are Robert Benchley as Ginger’s lecherous boss and Laura Hope Crews (years before she appeared in Gone With the Wind as Scarlett’s Aunt Pittypat) as Foster’s sex-starved art patron. One interesting thing that Maltin pointed out to us was how, in addition to changes in language and depictions of sex, the dreaded Production Code also curtailed the existence of ethnic characters in mainstream movies to a large extent, such as the character of Ginger’s Jewish landlord and his Yiddish-speaking wife (played by Ferike Boros who nevertheless appeared in small parts in several subsequent Ginger Rogers films including Bachelor Mother, Fifth Avenue Girl, and Once Upon a Honeymoon).

7. Red-Headed Woman (MGM, 1932). Historian and author Cari Beauchamp introduced us to another delicious pre-code that I’d never seen, the fabulous Jean Harlow vehicle, Red-Headed Woman, directed by Love Crazy’s Jack Conway. This one is so out there and provocative it makes Rafter Romance look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. With a sizzling screenplay by Anita Loos (Gentleman Prefer Blondes), Jean Harlow plays “Lil” Andrews, a woman who will do anything to get ahead — and I mean anything. She seduces her married boss (Chester Morris), causing him to divorce his devoted wife (Leila Hymans) who he really loves only to eventually throw him over for one of her new husband’s even richer clients (Henry Stephenson). The beloved character actress Una Merkel (whose opening credit elicited as much applause as Harlow’s in our classic movie-obsessed crowd) stands by Jean throughout the film, even during Lil’s dangerous affair with her poor but sexy French chauffeur (a young and almost unrecognizable Charles Boyer). Only someone with the incredible warmth, charm, beauty, and screen presence of 21-year-old Jean Harlow could make us root for a character that, when you think about it, is completely devoid of any human decency. Once the Production Code took full effect, someone who caused such destruction to so many lives would never be allowed to get away with it. But in 1932, she does, and I found myself cheering the surprising happy ending for the unrepentant but hugely charismatic Harlow. So tragic that the actress would die just five years later at the age of 26. Considering she’s been gone for a whopping 80 years, her impact on audiences, even today, is pretty remarkable.

Lots more great films this year, I could go on indefinitely. Is it too soon to start obsessing about next year’s festival? Being the total movie geek that I am, one of my proudest moments this year was realizing the close family connection between actors in two wildly different films that were made decades apart. Remember the Jewish landlords in 1933’s Rafter Romance? Their son, Julius Eckbaum, was played by young actor Sidney Miller. Sidney is the father of actor Barry Miller who I saw as Bobby C. in the screening of 1977’s Saturday Night Fever (with director John Badham and actress Donna Pescow in attendance). Can you believe the close resemblance between father and son? See you next year at the movies!

#Barbara Rush #Cora Sue Collins #Lady in the Dark #Love Crazy #Rafter Romance #Red-Headed Woman #Robert Osborne #TCM Classic Film Festival #The Awful Truth #The Court Jester #The Palm Beach Story #Features #What's Hot

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yasbxxgie · 8 years

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Comedy legend Paul Mooney will forever be linked with longtime friends Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle, but he's racked up an impressive career outside those fruitful collaborations, both as a writer for shows like In Living Color and as an influential stand-up comedian. Mooney's early show-biz career included stints as a ringmaster for the Charles Gody Circus and a performer with the incendiary anti-Vietnam War "FTA" (Fuck The Army) troupe alongside Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Peter Boyle. A chance meeting with Pryor irrevocably shaped Mooney's career; he began writing for Pryor, in a fruitful partnership that led to classic comedy albums, performance films, and the Pryor-directed autobiographical drama JoJo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling. As a writer on The Richard Pryor Show and In Living Color, Mooney gave big breaks to acts like Robin Williams, John Witherspoon, Sandra Bernhard, and Jim Carrey. Mooney recently experienced a surge in popularity via his prominent appearances on Chappelle's Show in the popular segments "Ask A Black Dude" and "Negrodamus." The A.V. Club recently spoke with Mooney—whose new comedy DVD is titled Know Your History: Jesus Was Black… So Was Cleopatra—for a rambling, digressive conversation about misbehaving primates, Richard Pryor, the N-word, and being asked to host on the DVD Chappelle's Show: The Lost Episodes.

The A.V Club: You have an archetypal story, in that you ran away from home as a teenager to join the circus.

Paul Mooney: Oh yeah. I go down in black history, I was the first black ringmaster. This is way before the Black Circus and all this stuff, back in the day. It was called the Charles Gody Circus. We had all the animals from television: Gentle Ben, the cross-eyed lion, all that stuff. You're probably too young. Daktari was a hit then. The black man that starred in that, I forget his name, 'cause I'm getting old. I don't have Alzheimer's, I have "sometimer's": Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. They used to think I was hep, and they called me "Hollywood."

AVC: Did you run away and join the circus because you were unhappy at home?

PM: I quit my job. I was working at Joseph Magnin's in Century City. I was working with Candy, Aaron Spelling's wife Candy. Aaron used to come in all the time to see her. She had this big engagement ring, and I said to her, "Who's that ugly white man that keeps coming here to see you?" She said, "I'm going to marry that ugly white man."

AVC: Was it a big circus? Did they have a freak show?

PM: It wasn't like Barnum & Bailey, or anything like that. It was just a circus, a miniature little circus. We'd go to different places and perform.

AVC: Did you enjoy the circus life?

PM: I found out how they tortured the animals. No wonder circus animals do what they do: They tortured them. And you know the only ones they can't control? It's the chimpanzees. You can't control them. That's why you never see a gorilla in a movie, because the gorilla may decide there'll be no filming. Yeah, but the elephants and all this other stuff, they train everything else. They torture them. That's why they do the same thing, over and over night. That part, I didn't like.

AVC: What did you like about the circus?

PM: I liked the kids coming and all that. It just made the kids so happy.

AVC: Were there circus groupies?

PM: Oh, of course! They used to follow the circus around. Yeah, of course.

AVC: How did you make the transition from being a ringmaster to doing comedy?

PM: I was a ringmaster, and I was funny. I was doing comedy before. I just did that to make some money. I was a shoe salesman, I worked at Joseph Magnin's, an expensive store in Century City, and it was good money. Let me tell you something about Hollywood you may not know. Back in the day, we did everything we could to pay the rent. We didn't give a damn. There was a lot of us that did The Dating Game, we were married or we were with somebody, we still did it because it was scale, and we had to pay our phone bill and our rent. I also worked for Playboy for five years. I did Playboy After Dark.

AVC: Really? How was that?

PM: It was great. I know all the dirt. Barbi Benton, Hugh Hefner's girlfriend, she had just met me. Her daddy was a doctor. Janice Pennington, from The Price Is Right, and Lindsay Wagner, The Bionic Woman, we all come out of Playboy. Oh, it was great. We got to know everybody, we got to meet every star. Every star that there ever was came to the mansion. It was the place, it was the thing. The big thing was the Playboy Mansion and the Playboy Club, and Laugh-In, that was during that time. That was the big deal. Sinatra, everybody, came to the private clubs and to the Mansion.

AVC: Did you do stand-up comedy at Playboy After Dark?

PM: No, I wasn't doing comedy. I was one of the pretty people.

AVC: You were there just to stand around and look good?

PM: Yeah. We were there just for the party, to dance and all that stuff. We were like atmosphere. Hang out with Hef and go on the private jet with all the bunnies. That was back in the day. But I was still doing stand-up when I wasn't on the show. And I was writing for Richard.

AVC: What was your early stand-up like?

PM: I found myself at the clubs. What's the little Jewish lady's name? What's her name? I just saw her again, she's so funny, she was so funny back in the day. I'll think of her name in a minute, I'm getting old. It was at Ye Little Club, where we all used to go and perform. That's how I met Sandra Bernhard when she was 18 years old. And I told her she was a cigarette come to life. And that's before full lips were in. They used to call her "nigger lips." She had those big lips, and they were just jealous of her. That's why they used to put lipstick on those little tiny lips of theirs. I told her, before it's all said and done, big lips would be in. And my prediction came true. Joan Rivers! It was Joan Rivers. She used to come in all the time at the Ye Little Club. That's where she got her start. We all used to go in there and work out.

AVC: Richard Pryor's early stand-up was a lot more conventional, a lot more in the Bill Cosby mode. And then he moved into a different direction. Were you, basically, the same kind of comedian back then that you are today?

PM: No. I learned all my tricks at Ye Little Club. I found myself working there because I wouldn't have my friends come in. I'd just do what I found myself. I worked it out there. It was always there. It was always a nuclear bomb, I just wasn't in control of it. And from working in that club, and working by myself, and taking all the yes and nos, all the "We like you, we don't like you," I found out who I was.

AVC: You learned how to harness your gift?

PM: Yeah. Then I held onto who I was. When you know who you are, you know who you are. That's the real dangerous thing in Hollywood, because they all want to create you and mold you. They have Frankenstein syndrome here. But as in the Frankenstein story, the monster always hates the doctor.

Did you ever see the black-and-white original Frankenstein? Okay, the doctor has all the dialogue, you know: "You think I'm crazy? I'll show you crazy. I created it with my own hands!" He talks throughout the whole movie, am I right or wrong? Frankenstein said one thing—less is more. "Aaaah!" And all you remember is the monster.

AVC: In the early '70s, you toured with FTA, which stood for Fuck The Army.

PM: With Jane Fonda, Peter Boyle, and Donald Sutherland. That was my second time around, because I came out of Second City with Peter Boyle. We toured all over the United States. Avery Schreiber was our director. And before that, I was with the improvisational group in San Francisco, the first black improvisational group. It was called the Yankee Doodle Bedbugs.

AVC: What was it like touring the country with Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland?

PM: It was the best. She was very smart, and very pretty. I loved being with Jane.

AVC: Was she as divisive of a figure back then as she would become? Were people angry about her message and her politics?

PM: She was right. She was right. Since then, she's been saying she was used, but she wasn't. She was used by God. Because her daddy being a movie star, and all this other stuff, they wanted to kill her. They wanted to murder Jane Fonda. I was right there with her. They did not like it, they didn't like that white woman that had everything, talking up against that war, which she should've. That war, we shouldn't have been there, just like we shouldn't be in the one we're in now. People don't want to hear the truth, they never do. They wanna live in some kind of fantasy. And then when they get caught up in it, they start being in denial because they don't want to be wrong. She was right in doing what she did. She was right in bringing all the attention and all the controversy to it, because we needed that. America does not like losers. Look how we treated those soldiers who came back from Vietnam. Because they lost. America likes winners.

AVC: Because you were a part of something radical and overtly anti-war, were you subject to a lot of harassment?

PM: Not really. I only did that because I believed in it. So, majority doesn't rule. One person can change the history of the world. It wasn't Harriet Tubman and her cousins, it was Harriet Tubman. And people just have to have the chutzpah to make that stand. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything. Everyone doesn't have that in them. It's pretty sad, but that's the way it is. People do many things for many reasons. Sometimes, what you do you have no control over, because it's predestined. It's gonna happen in spite of you. There's nothing you can do about it.

[pagebreak]

AVC: How did the soldiers respond to your performances?

PM: Oh, some loved it. Some didn't. Because they were caught up in it. They were part of the war. Some people hated it, they hated us. They could have killed us. And I understand that, too, because you don't want to feel like you're doing something wrong, that you're risking your life for nothing. You don't want that feeling. Look at the Vietnamese. What a hell of an audition for a manicure and pedicure. That war, what a hell of an audition.

AVC: What was your first impression of Richard Pryor? When did you first meet him, and what were you thinking?

PM: I was living with my half-sister, who was the first black diva on the cover of Vogue, French Vogue. She was the first black woman that was ever put on the cover of any white magazine. You can go to the library, you can look her up. We were living in a cheap hotel on Sunset, and it was during the Motown days. Tammi Terrell was a good friend of my sister's back in the day. Gladys Knight and The Pips, everyone came because they had had no money. They all stayed at our cheap place, slept on the floor, wherever. Richard was dating a girl that was working at the telephone company. She was moonlighting, what they called it at night, dancing go-go at the Whisky with my sister. And Richard came by. I'd heard about Richard Pryor. It was during the mid-'60s and that hippie shit, he said "Let's all get in the bed and have a freak thing." It was like Bob, Ted, Alice, and Lassie in those days, where everyone got in the bed together. And I threw him out of the room. And in his book, he says, "I didn't know that was Paul's sister, I never would've said that." Then two weeks or two and a half weeks later, I went to a Trini López concert in West Hollywood, and Richard was there. We met, had a drink, and the rest is history. And also his first white wife, Shelley, the first one he married because he had a child already, she was working at a theater as a ticket girl where I was assistant manager, the Tiffany Theater on Sunset Boulevard. We just hooked up, and the rest was history.

AVC: What was your working relationship with him like? Did you write together? Would you bounce ideas off each other?

PM: It was like Lone Ranger and Tonto, Lucy and Ethel, any group that you can think of. Bonnie and Clyde, that was us. We were the perfect marriage, because I was Richard's biggest fan. When you listen to all Richard's old albums, you'll hear me laughing.

AVC: So how would you work together in terms of writing?

PM: It's so funny. When I met Richard, he was probably 28, 27, somewhere around there. He once stood in front of a TV set and said to me, "Do you think I can act? I want to be an actor." I said he was the best actor that I know, I said, "You're an Academy Award performer." He said, "What makes you say that?" I said, "You've convinced everybody you're not crazy." And he started laughing. Shelley Winters gave him his first movie role. He played a hippie. Wild In The Streets.

AVC: What was it like writing for Richard Pryor during his first appearance on Saturday Night Live?

PM: I was Richard's black writer. Richard took me everywhere. We went there and we wrote that. All of that stuff, all that stuff that's classic. That's what they call it, "classic." Yeah, but it's interesting, isn't it, that they call it a classic? I find it so interesting, because there was no such thing as a black comedy writer. They flew me into Miami and cross-examined me like I was trying to get over the border.

AVC: Who cross-examined you?

PM: Lorne Michaels and all the little big shots.

AVC: Is it true that Richard Pryor didn't get along very well with Chevy Chase?

PM: Oh no. Chevy Chase, he wanted to knock his teeth out. He was the golden boy.

AVC: It seems like everyone kind of hated Chevy Chase at that point in his career.

PM: Yeah. It was all crazy. First of all, Richard was on the drugs. He was getting high. Everybody on that show was high. They were all addicts. I should have turned them all in, because I don't do drugs. I was slow. I should have turned them all in.

AVC: Was it pot, mainly? Was it cocaine?

PM: Coke. Coke. You're naïve. It was really cocaine. Weed too. It was secondary. It's like smoking cigarettes. But they were into that coke.

AVC: So why didn't you do drugs? That's relatively unique in the comedy field.

PM: I've been around a lot of drug addicts. Redd Foxx, Flip Wilson, all of 'em. I don't do drugs. Because my grandmother raised me. I think like an old, black, Southern woman. If I'd have done coke, I'd probably be cooking pancakes.

AVC: Do you think Richard Pryor was satisfied with the way his film career went?

PM: I think that Richard was an Academy Award performer. I think that he picked the wrong scripts, because he was really a good actor. But the drugs had a lot to do with it too, I think. And choices, it was unfortunate. But Richard was like a little boy, really. That's one of his plusses. He had the heart of a little boy.

AVC: Do you think genius and self-destructiveness go hand in hand?

PM: It comes with the territory. There's a yin for the yang. There's a price that people pay.

AVC: You've vowed to stop using the N-word.

PM: I won't be using that, no. That's a no-no.

AVC: What was the reasoning behind that?

PM: Well, Michael Richards, his meltdown. His nervous breakdown is what did it.

AVC: How so?

PM: Well, it was something else. I heard about it, and then I saw the video, and it freaked me. I'm not easily freaked. And the way I used the word, I was an ambassador for the word. The way I used the word, I was a part of it too. It became an equal-opportunity word. All the little white kids, all the little Latin kids, the Asians, the Mexicans, they were all using it. And it shouldn't be equal opportunity. Even though some people say "We use the n-a, not the n-e," it doesn't matter. A goat's a goat. Whether you sauté or barbeque it, it's still a goat. And there were layers to his breakdown, to Michael. I've known Michael for over 20 years. There were layers to it. This came out of Michael. Michael's a victim of America. There are a lot of white people who have this stuff inside them. It just takes the right situation to bring it out. White America should take responsibility for it like I'm taking responsibility for it. I'm not saying it. You have to say no to it. I was married to the word, I was the ambassador for the word and now I'm not saying it any more.

AVC: Didn't Richard Pryor stop using the word at some point as well?

PM: Yes, but when he said it, I couldn't see the n-word for the trees. Richard went to Africa. I hadn't been to Africa. He said he didn't see any N-words there, so when he got home, he said he wasn't going to say it any more. He was touched. Now I'm touched. You can't pick when you're touched. You can't pick the time. It just is. It's the reality. What it is, is. I can't change the past. I can only deal with the present and the future.

AVC: Why do you think the word continues to have such power?

PM: It's because of the way it came about. That's why. I understand why people don't want to give it up. It's like Richard's old joke: "Let me check my penis to make sure you haven't taken that."

AVC: Has it been difficult weaning yourself off the N-word? You used it very, very liberally in your last special.

PM: I'm backing off it now. I have to tell you a story. Whoopi Goldberg called me when all this was going on, and said, "Paul, you're the ambassador for the N-word, but I'm going to have to ask you for a week pass. I have to cuss some black folks out on Friday, but after that, I won't say it any more." That's a true story, and I gave her a pass because she asked for one. I haven't used it. I did a show with Dick Gregory in The Lincoln Theater in D.C. I've been doing shows, being onstage for two hours, two-and-a-half hours, and I haven't used it. I'm a creature of habit, and I have an N-word jones, but I've figured it out. If I ever have an N-word jones, I'll just say "Arnold Schwarzenegger." He is my governor.

AVC: You're strongly associated with Dave Chappelle, whose stand-up seems strongly influenced by your own. Would you describe yourself as a mentor to him?

PM: There are a lot of people I've influenced, a lot of people I've worked with. I've worked with the best, from Moms Mabley to Redd Foxx to Flip Wilson to Bill Cosby to Eddie Murphy to Richard Pryor to Sandra Bernhard to Robin Williams to Johnny Witherspoon… Chris Rock, Chris Tucker. I've worked with them all. The king of comedy is dead. Richard Pryor was the king of comedy. The rest of them are the king of copycats.

AVC: Were you at all angry at Chappelle for ending the show so abruptly?

PM: No. That's his show. That's not my show. They asked me to host some "lost tapes" or something. I told them no, If Dave doesn't approve it, I don't want to do it. You have to have some loyalty somewhere. That was his choice and his show. I wasn't angry about that. It was a smart move. It put him on the A-list. And then he went to Africa. He did what white people have been telling me to do for years: go to Africa. So that really caused controversy. And he turned down that money. That stressed people out. Millions. People in America worship money, and a white man's face on a green piece of paper does not make me wealthy. My health makes me wealthy. I used to work at a hospital, so I know the real deal.

#paul mooney #comedy #black comedy #the a.v. club #the av club #interview #interviews

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project1939 · 11 months

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Day 74- Film: The Steel Trap

Release date: November 12th, 1952.

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Genre: Noir

Director: Andrew L. Stone

Producer: Bert E. Friedlob

Actors: Jospeh Cotton, Teresa Wright, Jonathan Hale

Plot Summary: Jim Osborne is a reliable husband and father and a reliable assistant manager at a bank. One day the monotony of reliability makes him start thinking he could run off with a lot of money from the bank’s vault if he did everything right. He plans a heist, stealing more than $1 million dollars ($11.6 million today), and sets up a flight to Brazil, where they do not extradite. But virtually everything goes wrong once he has the money.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***

Another day, another heist noir with a thrilling first half or so, and a disappointing Happy Ending. Grrr... There was much to like about this film, but also a lot to dislike. Have you ever had one of those days where every single little thing seems to go wrong? Well, watch this movie, and you won’t feel quite so unlucky anymore!

The Good:

This was a pacey, briskly moving film. The time flew by. It was enjoyable and engaging because something was constantly happening. Every time Jim cleared a hurdle, another one popped up.

The suspense throughout. As above, Jim was constantly trying to clear hurdles- each time he went up to jump, you’d wonder, will he do it this time? Will he fall? It was easy to get swept along in the fear.

The plot was enjoyably simple and easy to follow. Guy steals money- will he get away with it? And what about his wife? That’s pretty much it, but it wasn’t boring at all.

Some location shooting in New Orleans. It looked nice and was effective, adding some reality to the film.

The Bad: (some spoilers)

I don’t think Cotton was really the right person for this role. I like Joseph Cotton, but something about the role just didn’t fit him. He just didn’t seem like someone who would ever do something so reckless and crazy. I know that could be a plus in some cases, because his character was supposed to be above suspicion... I just think the movie might have worked better with a different lead.

His motivation wasn’t well portrayed- it was very sudden. His change from predictable guy to someone who steals a million dollars and plans to go live in another country for the rest of his life happened way too fast. It wasn’t understandable or believable.

The happy ending. Why? Why, especially, would Laurie welcome him back with open arms just because he returned the money? Wouldn’t she still be concerned that he had secretly planned and almost completely carried out a major crime without telling her a thing? I wished the end could have been darker and more complex.

The unbelievability. Aside from the unbelievability of his motivation, the roadblocks he kept hitting almost became ridiculous. Every single thing seemed to go wrong, yet he somehow scraped by just in time. There were also a lot of very fortuitously timed phone calls. Laurie’s absolute morality was even a little unbelievable.

The voice over. In a lot of noir's voiceovers can become overly obvious, and this one suffered that fate.

I felt bad for Teresa Wright’s type casting. She’s a good actress, but she gets put in the most boring “good wife” roles. All her characters get to do is worry about their husband or child or suffer nobly for their husband or child. I wish she had gotten more opportunities for well-rounded roles.

A hideous rooster lamp! In the living room of their house, there is a lamp with a plaster (?) rooster as its base. Once you see it, you can never never un-see it! It’s also subtly beneath a picture of a rooster on the wall. Apparently, the Osbornes love them some chickens!

#project1952 #1952 #project1952 day 74 #100 films of 1952 #the steel trap #joseph cotten #classical hollywood good wife syndrome #200 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 film 74

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project1939 · 2 months

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200 Films of 1952

Film number 199: The Stooge

Release date: Dec 31st, 1952

Studio: Paramount

Genre: comedy

Director: Norman Taurog

Producer: Hal B. Wallis

Actors: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Polly Bergen, Marion Marshall

Plot Summary: Singer/comedian Bill struggles as a solo vaudevillian, but when his manager suggests adding a stooge named Ted to his act, they become a big hit. Ted is happy just to be a part of it all, but Bill’s growing ego refuses to give Ted any billing in the act. Bill’s wife and manager become increasingly horrified at his behavior.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***¼

The last Martin and Lewis film I saw was Sailor Beware, 189 films ago! (It was number 10 on my list.) I thought that was all I could take, given the fact that Jerry Lewis is an acquired taste for me. But I decided to watch one more film, because Martin and Lewis were simply everywhere in 1952. They were two of the biggest stars in the country- they had a television show, a radio show, and they released three films in just that year alone! Thankfully I liked The Stooge better than Sailor Beware- it portrayed the camaraderie and bond between the two more effectively and movingly. It made me understand why they were so famous and beloved. (some spoilers)

The Good:

The chemistry and affection between the two was palpable in this. It was hard not to fall in love with them as a team. Dean Martin isn’t your typical cold and annoyed “straight man” in the act. He shows such warmth toward Lewis, it makes me a little verklempt!

Dean Martin’s singing.

Both men are very natural on screen. They’re good actors with a kind of unaffected ease- to use the old phrase, “the camera loves them.”

The film especially highlighted why each of them just wasn’t as good alone as they were when they were together. Even the scenes they were in separately lacked the same sparkle. That was exactly the point of the movie, which made the fact that they later split up even sadder.

The final performance scene was nearly perfect. When Lewis snuggles into Martin, my heart melted, I’m not gonna lie.

This film had more of an actual plot than Sailor Beware- it wasn’t just a string of gags loosely tied together.

Aunt Bee! Frances Bavier played Lewis’ mom in this, eight years before her stint on The Andy Griffith Show.

I wanna ride on an old train! Travel scenes in old movies where characters are in compartments like mini hotel rooms always seems so cool to me. Plus, I love the sound of trains going over the tracks.

The Bad:

Some of the schtick Lewis did was pretty predictable. The scenes that were basically just set ups for his gags were probably my least favorite part of the film.

The first part was also too heavily weighted with these scenes. It felt like it got more balanced as things progressed.

Bill’s character was not fleshed out enough. It was hard to understand both him and his choices, and the film spent virtually no time explaining or examining it.

The first drunk scene with Bill just came out of nowhere. I don’t remember it ever even being mentioned that he liked to drink.

Bill’s wife Mary got a bit annoying after a while- purely because of the way her character was written, not because of the actress. I liked Polly Bergen, but her character basically had a case of Classical Hollywood Good Wife Syndrome. It was a somewhat lighter case, though, because she was going to leave Bill before his change of heart- she wasn’t just a “suffering but loyal” wife.

It maybe got a bit too maudlin at the very end.

#100 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 #1952 movies #martin and lewis #200 films of 1952 film 199

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project1939 · 3 months

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200 Films of 1952

Film number 192: Hellgate

Release date: September 5th, 1952

Studio: Lippert Pictures, Commandeer Films

Genre: western

Director: Charles Marquis Warren

Producer: John C. Champion

Actors: Sterling Hayden, Ward Bond, James Arness

Plot Summary: In 1867, a Kansas man is sent to the infamous Hellgate prison in New Mexico after being wrongly convicted of being in a guerilla gang. Once there, he tries to get along with his fellow inmates, avoid an antagonistic commandant, and find a way to get a new trial. Hellgate more than lives up to its name, though, and surviving may be the hardest thing he has to do.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***

This was a somewhat uneven film with several things to recommend it and several things that made it disappointing. I went in thinking this was going to be a film like I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, the brilliant 1932 indictment of the prison system. Instead, it was closer to a typical “innocent man in prison” drama. It certainly showed the horrors of a brutal inhumane prison, but it didn’t seem to have anything larger to say about that, even if we got a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes at the beginning! (major spoilers)

The Good:

Stirling Hayden as Gil, the innocent man. I like Hayden, even if his acting style can be kind of monotone at times. It usually works for the type of characters he plays- stoic, tough, and determined. His eyes always communicate much more than the words that come out of his mouth, so you know he’s not JUST a tough guy; there is pain and sensitivity in the man as well.

Ward Bond as the sadistic Lt. Voorhees. His performance stood out here, and it was typical Bond- gruff, angry, mean, but also a bit aloof.

James Arness as Redfield, Gil’s cellmate. He was very effective as a hard and brutish leader.

This film looked like it had a much bigger budget than it did. I was shocked to see Lippert Pictures in the credits. Everything from the script to the sets to the performances were above par.

The depiction of prison abuse was vivid and horrible to witness.

The location was eerie and awful- the cells inside of a cave, the spiked logs that served as prison gates, the coffin-like solitary confinement box partially buried in the sand... it all left an indelible mark.

The men in the prison looked realistically sweaty, dirty, unshaven, and wearing the same worn clothes. Every time you looked at them you could feel the heat and the dust they lived in.

The Bad:

A plague occurs later in the film, but the first disease we come across is “Classical Hollywood Good Wife Syndrome!” Gil’s wife Ellen showed up intermittently to cry, worry, or declare her love and devotion. She did get more action than the norm, though. While she was worrying and staying devoted, she was also working hard to secure her husband’s freedom. And she was ultimately successful!

For me, it didn’t delve enough into the issue of inhumane prison conditions. This story was solely focused on Gil, and when he was set free, that was that. I understand that was probably the film's intention, but I wished it had broadened things a little more.

There was some obvious foreshadowing when an explicit discussion happened about how crucial it was that wagons come with water every month. There was no supply of water where they were. The conversation went on for a length of time that telegraphed what would happen later on.

The portrayal of Native Americans was not the worst I’ve seen, but it wasn’t good either. You could also tell that some of them were white men wearing Cher wigs and bandanas.

There was a whipping scene in the film where one of Gil’s cellmates was being viciously lashed, but the incompetent way it was filmed sucked all of the realism and drama of it. Was it a budget issue?

The typhus epidemic at the end felt like it came out of nowhere. I even rewound the film a little to see if I had missed anything that set things up more clearly. The way it conveniently enabled Gil’s arc of redemption was awfully contrived as well.

The final scene of the movie did look like something filmed on a cheap budget- when Ellen and Gil run to each other and collapse in each other’s arms, they are clearly standing in a mediocre set meant to look like the outdoors- with fake bushes and trees placed around them in a way that screamed “set design.”

#1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 #sterling hayden #200 films of 1952 film 192

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project1939 · 4 months

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100+ Films of 1952

Lawdy Miss Clawdy, I've made it to 150 films! My list has continued to grow, but I believe the final number will be 165. I think. There are still titles I could add, but my brain will likely turn to sawdust if I attempt any more...

Film number 150: Red Skies of Montana

Release date: January 20th, 1952

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Genre: adventure

Director: Joseph M. Newman

Producer: Samuel G. Engel

Actors: Richard Widmark, Constance Smith, Jeffrey Hunter, Richard Boone

Plot summary: Cliff Mason is a smokejumper fighting fires for the US Forest Service. After an especially hard mission, he is the sole survivor of six men. Unable to fully recall what happened, he is plagued by survivor’s guilt and fears that he might have saved his own life at the expense of his crew. When others start questioning his actions as well, he becomes consumed by bitterness and anger.

My rating (out of 5 stars): ***¼

When I saw the title of this film, I assumed it was a western, and after 150 movies, I am getting a little sick of them. I was very intrigued to learn that this movie is actually about “smokejumpers”- real life heroes who fight forest fires by parachuting right down into them. That’s a pretty exciting premise, and the film lived up to it for the most part. I enjoyed the action and the chance to learn about how these men work. I read up a little on the subject and was delighted to discover that the Forest Service still employs smokejumpers to this day. What a job!

The Good:

Richard Widmark. It’s official- he's another one of my loves now. He’s such a good actor, he’s handsome in a kind of unique way, and he sounds like he was a cool person irl. He always comes across as very natural on screen, and he’s really skilled at expressing emotions with his face and body language. He elevated this film beyond its somewhat predictable story.

The real location footage used, and the real footage of fires, was impressive and stirring.

I thought the story was pretty compelling- you have a guy with a harrowing job who essentially has PTSD and must find a way to work through it.

The scenes of fighting fires were thrilling to watch. The film more than earned its description as an action movie.

As I mentioned earlier, it was fascinating to learn about who smokejumpers are and what they actually do when they place themselves directly into such danger.

Although I wasn’t a big fan of the subplot with Cliff’s wife Peg, I thought it was adorable that they would audibly kiss each other over the phone! I love seeing a macho guy like Widmark be so sweetly affectionate.

There was a pet Racoon named Henry and how could I not love that?

The Bad:

The “voice of god” narration was too much for me. Most of the information given via voice over could have been delivered in less obvious ways.

Sometimes the score was too melodramatic for my taste.

Jeff Hunter’s hair cut! He is such a dreamy man, but he doesn’t look good with a kind of flat-top buzz cut.

The scenes with Cliff’s wife were pretty boring and expendable. Peg certainly had some of the “Classical Hollywood Good Wife Syndrome”- pretty much all she did was sit around and worry about her husband. Understandable, but not exactly material for character depth.

The plot was relatively predictable- I don’t think anyone watching would really believe our main character, played by a Hollywood star, could be a coward responsible for the deaths of his comrades.

#1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #richard widmark #200 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 film 150

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project1939 · 6 months

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 110: Kid Monk Baroni

Release date: May 1st, 1952

Studio: Realart Pictures

Genre: sports drama

Director: Harold D. Shuster

Producer: Jack Broder, Herman Cohen

Actors: Leonard Nimoy, Richard Rober, Bruce Cabot, Allene Roberts

Plot Summary: Paul “Monk” Baroni is a disfigured street ruffian who is taken under the wing of a kindly priest. Father Callahan teaches him how to box, and soon he is making good money as a pro. Still unable to let go of the bitterness and self-hatred he feels, his girlfriend Emily encourages him to get plastic surgery. This gives him new confidence, but has he really changed for the better?

My Rating (out of five stars): **¼

This was a quintessential low budget film. Need I say more? It was pretty bland and silly, and the only reason anyone would care to watch it today is the fact that it was Leonard Nimoy’s first film. I’ve certainly seen worse movies, even worse movies from 1952, but that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The Good:

This had a pretty good cast for a cheap film. No one was egregiously bad, and several of the supporting characters were quite effective. Ricard Rober as Father Callahan stood out the most for me, and Mona Knox was entertaining as a bad girl. Jack Larson played Monk’s best friend- I was already familiar with him as Jimmy on The Adventures of Superman!

A mini Singin’ in the Rain cast party! Kathleen Freeman played Monk’s mother here- she was the hilarious speech coach in Singin’. Paul Maxy played a gambler here, and in Singin’ in the Rain he was memorable as a rotund dance partner for a movie star in the opening Hollywood party scene.

Leonard Nimoy did pretty well. He wasn’t outstanding, but the script didn’t give him much to do except be sulky and angry. He was definitely a nice looking young man- he was only 20 years old at the time. He didn’t quite have a body that was convincing as a boxer, though! He was lean, but not exactly muscular.

There was one cool transition edit where the screen went from a close up of Monk to a fade out, and it faded back in on the derriere of a cigarette girl walking through a nightclub.

The Bad:

This was shot in 9 days and you can tell! Nimoy said he was only paid $350 plus the suits he wore. (That’s about $4,000 today.)

The whole thing had a rather hackneyed vibe.

The ending. It felt a bit anti-climactic? And why wasn’t Nimoy in the last scene?

Allene Roberts. I’m sorry to say, her performance stood out as particularly bad. In her defense, her character, although unmarried, was afflicted with what I call “The Classical Hollywood Good Wife Syndrome.” She was wholesome, boring, and had no real purpose other than to worry about/be with Monk. She did fight back in one scene, however, which was pretty cool.

The absurdity of the portrayal of plastic surgery! Like the film Stolen Face from later in the year, in the world of Classical Hollywood plastic surgery can work outrageous miracles. Even 72 years later, nothing like it is remotely possible.

There were some cringy moments with a priest where he was trying to get teenage boys to go to the church basement where he had a gym and warm showers... In 2024 it’s hard not to be a little creeped out by that.

The script had so much terrible/terribly fun dialogue! Here are some favorites: “It’s no crime to enjoy fine music, Paul. It’s the key to a number of good pleasures.” “No fighter quits. Once you lace those gloves on, you’re in a lifelong marriage.” “This was not defeat. You’re a bigger man for trying, for the sacrifice. The way you fought carries its own victories. Look at the wounds on your face. Don’t say you lost.”

A hilariously over-explained fighting scene where Monk’s manager thinks he’s not fighting his usual dirty way. In the space of a couple of minutes he says- “Looks like he’s been reading Emily Post! He better drop his pinky in the next round!” “I’ll whisper in his ear that this is a fight and not a cotillion!” “You want a little soft music this round? You start out a tiger and end up a pussy cat!” “I don’t need you to play Paddy Cake! If I want this kind of a bout, I can get a better one out of an old maid’s home!” OK OK WE GET IT ALREADY! XD

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 #200 films of 1952 film 110

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