#sol c siegel

[filmnoirfoundation]

Today's double feature of NAKED CITY & CRY OF THE CITY plays twice today, 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm at Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre. Afternoon screenings introduced by Alan K. Rode and evening screenings by Eddie Muller.  There will be a special guest as well. Full festival information and tickets available at www.NoirCity.com

NAKED CITY; 1:00, 7:00 PM

This landmark crime movie, producer Mark Hellinger's hardboiled tribute to his beloved Big Apple, peels away all the stylistic melodramatics of noir to present Hollywood's first true policier. Scrupulously researched writing by Malvin Wald and vivid location photography by William Daniels (an Oscar® winner) combined to make this one of the most influential Hollywood films of all time, the template for thousands of cop shows to come. With Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Don Taylor, Dorothy Hart, and a very scary Ted  de Corsia.

Originally released March 4, 1948. Universal–International, 96 minutes. Screenplay by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald. Produced by Mark Hellinger. Directed by Jules Dassin.

CRY OF THE CITY; 3:00, 9:00 PM

Perhaps the most perfectly realized, thematically and stylistically, of all Siodmak's noir films. Victor Mature is the lawman and Richard Conte the fugitive crook he pursues across Manhattan with tragic results. Shot entirely on location, Siodmak skips the semi-documentary vogue of the day, creating instead an Expressionistic urban landscape ideally suited to this mythic mid-20th-century tale of good and evil. Co-starring Shelley Winters, Debra Paget, Fred Clark, and a scary Hope Emerson in her startling screen debut.

Originally released September 29, 1948. 20th Century-Fox, 95 minutes. Screenplay by Richard Murphy and Ben Hecht, based on The Chair for Martin Rome by Henry Edward Helseth. Produced by Sol. C. Siegel. Directed by Robert Siodmak.

[gracie-bird]

Director Charles Walters, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, producer Sol C. Siegel on the set of High Society in 1956

[project1939]

Day 58- Film: Monkey Business 

Release date: September 5th, 1952. 

Studio: 20th Century Fox 

Genre: Comedy 

Director: Howard Hawks 

Producer: Sol C. Siegel 

Actors: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe 

Plot Summary: Barnaby Fulton is a chemist experimenting to find the right combination for an anti-aging elixir. One day a chimpanzee in the lab gets loose and tinkers with his chemicals, pouring some into the water cooler. Suddenly, anyone who drinks water in the lab begins acting funny. What exactly has the chimpanzee done? 

My Rating (out of five stars): ***½ 

This was a simple enjoyable screwball comedy- the kind that Cary Grant was born to be in. You won’t find anything new or groundbreaking in this, but it’s certainly fun. 

The Good: 

Cary Grant. The role fit him like a glove. No other actor from his era was so effective and funny playing tightly wound, prim, befuddled people, while still maintaining a touch of class and sex appeal.  

Ginger Rogers. She was pretty funny in this, too, but what I most loved was her pairing with Grant. As Grant got older, the pattern became to partner him with younger and younger women. Ginger Rogers is basically the same age as he is, so it was refreshing. It also worked for the movie, given that this was supposed to be a middle-aged couple who had been married many years. 

The screwball comedy zaniness. If you want silly hijinks and fun, look no further. 

Lloyd from All About Eve! He played Hank Entwhistle here, but I’ll always love him for All About Eve. 

The bits with Cary Grant losing his glasses. His physical comedy in general, as well. He’s so skilled at it. 

I liked the fact that Barnaby showed no interest at all in Marilyn Monroe’s character. I wasn’t expecting that. 

The Bad: 

I felt the film lost some steam toward the end. Some of the jokes had kind of played themselves out a bit. 

I didn’t think the kid-aged antics were as funny as the college-age stuff. 

This was not the kind of movie one expects to find bad stereotypes of Native Americans in, but they were unfortunately and disappointingly there. 

Sometimes I wished the writing was a little more witty- Grant is so good with that kind of patter. He had a few lines that were reminiscent of it, but not fully. 

This role fell firmly in the “dumb bimbo” category for Marilyn Monroe. She had been in some other films that year that moved beyond the stereotype, but this unfortunately does not. It doesn’t really give her much to work with at all. 

[adscinema]

Les Girls - George Cukor (1957)

Poster

[mycinematheque]

[dweemeister]

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

In another time, during my mid-twenties, I would be considered old to have never married. Millennials, in their young adulthood, have stared down an economic crisis and now a pandemic that has encumbered societies in unprecedented ways. The median age for a first marriage has never been higher. Go back to the years after World War II in the United States and one will find a record amount of marriages (and divorces) among those in their early twenties. Marriages then and now test the forces of attraction as they ebb, survive disagreements, temptation, differences in character and values. Few other films capture that essence as well as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s A Letter to Three Wives. Released by 20th Century Fox, A Letter to Three Wives is set in an idyllic, upper-crust suburban America – a reality most Americans are unfamiliar with. Yet, the tensions in this drama are deeply felt, and the anxieties of the three wives are shown with extraordinary compassion and understanding.

Somewhere in what looks like upstate New York (still close enough to drive to the Big Apple and back in a day), Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern), and Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell) are volunteers who are about to take an annual riverboat ride for the underserved children in the community. Lunches have been prepared. The children are running up and down the decks, excited for a weekend of play. The ship’s engine sounds ready for cast off. In this town of enormous two-story homes, spacious front yards, old trees overlooking residential streets, and a quaint Main Street, even cosseted families help their neighbors in need. Before embarking, they receive a letter from their friend, Addie Ross (who is never fully seen; voiced by Celeste Holm), saying that she is leaving town with one of their husbands. She does not specify whose husband has she run off with: Bradford “Brad” Bishop (Jeffrey Lynn), George Phipps (Kirk Douglas), or Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas; no relation to Kirk). 

After reading the letter, Deborah, Rita, and Lora Mae decide not to speak about it for the rest of the trip, so as not to spoil the mood. During the trip and picnic, all three wives reminisce about their marriages as if they fully expect it is their respective husband – each of whom has, at one point in the past, admitted attraction to Addie Ross – who has been unfaithful. What could possibly have gone wrong, they wonder as they remember. This is shown in three lengthy flashbacks before the trip concludes and the women return home.

Already boasting breakthrough hits with Dragonwyck (1946) and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Mankiewicz would find himself among the elite of 20th Century Fox’s directorial lineup with A Letter to Three Wives. Joseph L. Mankiewicz served not only as director, but as screenwriter in this adaptation of A Letter to Five Wives by John Klempner – too many wives, said Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, as writer Vera Caspary adapted the story for four wives and Mankiewicz eliminated one more. Indeed, given how this film is organized, five wives are too many and four would be a stretch. Mankiewicz and Caspary’s treatment of the three stories manages to tie each wife’s/married couple’s story to the others, while retaining each marriage’s distinct dynamics.

First is Deborah. Played by Jeanne Crain, she is a U.S. Navy veteran, having served in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and met her now-husband, Brad, while in the Navy. Her flashback takes us to the time when Brad introduced her to his friends’ circle and the country club’s social for the first time. Being out of uniform and donning a formal dress is an alien concept to her, and she is worried about making a fool of herself in front of Brad’s friends and everyone gathered there. There are hints in this first vignette of a class divide between Brad and Deborah, but this is never expounded upon for Deborah (Lorna Mae’s segment will lean into this). Nevertheless, the screenplay confronts Deborah’s fears about being the new girl, imposter syndrome, and her social anxiety. This could be treated as a punchline, as some 1930s and ‘40s films were more inclined to depict. But the writing and Jeanne Crain’s unsettled visage in her performance treat her feelings with legitimacy, acceptance, and good humor. Deborah’s flashback in A Letter to Three Wives sets the tone for the film: always rooted in humanistic drama, but not without some gentle comedy.

For Rita and George Phipps, their scenes together are more confrontational, with the other trying to assert as much control in their off-kilter lives as they can. She writes for radio dramas; he is a schoolteacher in language arts. She wants him to secure a higher-paying job (as if their comfortable house isn’t already enough, apparently); he feels like he has found his calling in teaching and think radio drama writing makes a mockery of great literature. Viewers more attuned to the politics of gendered pay differences might find George’s assertions to be backwards. The fact that it is even shown at all in A Letter to Three Wives upends the stereotypes of a male breadwinner – while not portraying the husband as a jobless ne’er-do-well – is remarkable, regardless of artistic medium. Yes, this is always framed as Rita’s story, but it takes her and George’s concerns as seriously as the other. Again, we see Mankiewicz and Caspary treating both side of a married couple with all respect to what fulfills them professionally and personally – occasionally in a relationship or friendship there is a clash of interests, but it is up to both to work through those differences. Though not his finest performance, Kirk Douglas – given the rough-edged persona cultivated in his filmography – is perfect casting. Ann Sothern’s passive-aggressive delivery of her dialogue is a joy, as we know she means not to offend. Those who adore Old Hollywood character actors will notice an uncredited, scene-stealing Thelma Ritter during Rita and George’s vignette – her last uncredited film appearance before greater (credited) performances for her future.

With Linda Darnell and Paul Douglas starring, Linda Mae’s flashback was the least satisfying for me, but also the most comedic. Linda Mae is from a working family – the finances difficult, the home ramshackle. Her story is set before meeting Porter, who just so happens to be her wealthy employer. The ethics of a wealthy executive being engaged with a younger employee (this soon-to-be married couple appears to have the largest age difference of the three, even though the age difference between Jeanne Crain and Jeffrey Lynn as Deborah and Brad is similar) are murky at best, and the dynamics of their relationship deserves to be viewed rather than described. Their marriage is not one of convenience, nor one based on values, but it overcomes the class differences – illustrated hilariously – that should make their story together impossible. It appears Linda Mae and Porter are on unstable ground, speaking to the unease in her socioeconomic status and his lingering pain over a failed marriage. Mankiewicz and Caspary’s screenplay, for the first time, appears a little unsure about what to do with Porter – whose free-wheeling personality sees Linda Mae make fewer demands than her friends. The resolution may surprise some in its brevity (and I imagine some will take issue to it), but it speaks to the messiness of individuals and how love contorts and forgives.

Linking all three vignettes together is the unseen Addie Ross. Portrayed in voiceover by Celeste Holm, Addie’s presence reverberates around the film half-seriously, as the three wives wonder which husband has been poached. But most importantly, what unites the film is the friendship between Deborah, Rita, and Lora Mae. Credit the performances of Crain, Sothern, and Darnell (one of the best performances in a tragically shortened career). Each of their characters has the others’ backing – evidenced early on, when Rita counsels Deborah before the latter’s first night out in town. Their promise to not speak of Addie’s provocative letter until their trip is over holds, reflecting a predisposition to suburban secrecy and upholding gendered mores that say women are too emotional and should restrain emotional outbursts. Not once are the wives’ bonds to each other fractured. Though the wives are collectively silent, the audience knows that they must be going through that punched-in-the-gut feeling that everyone experiences sometime in their life. That this is depicted with such grace speaks to the masterful writing and a fantastic ensemble performance.

Had A Letter to Three Wives remained as A Letter to Five Wives, the wives would have been played by Gene Tierney (1944’s Laura), Linda Darnell, Maureen O’Hara (1947’s Miracle on 34th Street), Dorothy McGuire (1947’s Gentleman’s Agreement), and Alice Faye (Fox’s primary musical superstar in the 1930s) – all set to shoot in November 1946. Talk about a “who is who” of 20th Century Fox-contracted actresses! This is not to downplay the credentials of Crain or Sothern, but the former was a young actress yet to realize the heights of her career and the latter was best-known for the Maisie series at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM, who loaned Sothern to Fox for this film). With Darryl F. Zanuck’s recommendation to revise the script to cut the film down to three wives, shooting did not begin until June 1948.

There is much that A Letter to Three Wives covers. From returning veterans to gender-coded expectations to class, this is a film attempting to make sense of a time when couples hurried to marry, with the United States’ economic boom extending into peacetime. Its flashback structure may seem a hackneyed thing almost seventy years later, but each additional segment layers poignancy to the past and present. So often overshadowed by Mankiewicz’s next film (some little thing called All About Eve), it has few rivals in Western cinema among films on marriage, in exultation and anguish. A Letter to Three Wives is Americana at its finest – not in blind celebration of these days long past of manicured lawns, dinner parties, and children playing until sundown; but in acknowledgment of human foibles that have and always will persist. It is the stuff that makes life interesting.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. A Letter to Three Wives is the one hundred and fifty-ninth feature-length or short film I have rated a ten on imdb.

[tcm]

Harry Belafonte’s Production of THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL by Raquel Stecher

By 1957, Harry Belafonte was ready to take on a new venture. Frustrated with the quality of film roles he was being offered, Belafonte started HarBel Productions, a film producing unit, the first ever to be started by an African-American working directly with Hollywood. Its purpose was to make bold movies that provided better representation for his community while offering stories that could be enjoyed beyond color barriers. Belafonte knew the power that movies had to reach a wide audience, and this was a great opportunity for him to take his activism to the next level.

Almost immediately, Belafonte’s fledgling company got an offer from Sol C. Siegel, a producer at MGM, to make THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL (’59). Loosely inspired by M.P. Shiel’s novel The Purple Cloud, this post-apocalyptic story follows Ralph Burton (Harry Belafonte), a miner who surfaces days after being trapped underground to discover that the world has been wiped out in a nuclear holocaust. He eventually meets two survivors above ground, Sarah Crandall (Inger Stevens) and Ben Thacker (Mel Ferrer). Belafonte called the script “an eerily apt setting and story for a time of peak Cold War paranoia.” The rights to Shiel’s novel had bounced around from studio to studio but had yet to be adapted. Siegel saw an opportunity to take Shiel’s last-man tale and add a layer of racial tension to make the story relevant to contemporary audiences. Screenwriter turned director Ranald MacDougall was hired to direct and to adapt the script alongside Ferdinand Reyher.

THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL would be HarBel’s first production and joining forces with a major studio seemed like a prodigious start. Belafonte had the entrepreneurial spirit but lacked the business know-how, and while his contract with Siegel gave him a percentage of profits, it did not provide an exit clause nor did it give Belafonte any say in the script which would prove problematic later on.

Production began in New York City where the story takes place. Siegel coordinated with the Department of Transportation to film in the early morning hours. Traffic lights were turned off and city blocks were cleared of cars and people. Belafonte noted in his memoir, “what was always a mystery to me was the deal he cut with the pigeons. Not one bird ever flew past our lens.” Cinematographer Harold J. Marzorati and his crew filmed breathtaking shots of a seemingly abandoned New York City. The ever eloquent Belafonte wrote, “long before the coming of technical special effects, the movie did a great job of evoking a post-nuclear New York in an almost poetic fashion, not by what it put into the picture but what it left out; all signs of life.”

Interior shots were filmed on the MGM lot and for the most part the production went on swimmingly. Then everything came to a grinding halt. Shooting was suspended for what was referred to as “a few minor script changes,” but really Siegel and the powers that be at MGM got nervous. Belafonte had been filming with his co-star Inger Stevens and their characters Ralph and Sarah develop a romance. Miscegenation was still outlawed in some states and Hollywood wasn’t quite ready yet to show a black man being intimate with a white woman. Belafonte experienced something similar with the film ISLAND IN THE SUN (‘57) in which his character has a romance with Joan Fontaine. Siegel and his team contemplated the outcome of three possible endings and decided that there was a financial risk angering certain segments of the population, whether they be pro-segregationists or African-American activists. Mel Ferrer’s character Ben becomes the third in an odd love triangle and the film leaves it up to the audience to imagine who Inger Stevens’ character Sarah will end up with.

Belafonte was furious and rightly so. He proclaimed that “they’d taken out the truth that would have made the film really admirable.” He stormed off set and threatened to leave the picture. His agent Jay Kantor and his friend, fellow actor Marlon Brando, convinced him that breaking his contract with MGM would be bad for business and his career. Begrudgingly, Belafonte returned to set and the shoot wrapped up in August 1958. THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL premiered in May 1959 to mixed reviews and a modest box-office return. Critics noted the drastic shift in the plot with the third character, the disappearance of all other life forms (where were the bodies?!) and the open ending.

THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL was a victim of its time and lacked the audacity Belafonte wanted in a HarBel production. He went on to make one other film for his production company, the gripping film noir ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (‘59). Directed by Robert Wise, the film stars Belafonte and Robert Ryan as two bank robbers who must team together for a heist despite their racial differences. It would be the last film for the short lived HarBel Productions and Belafonte decided to take a break from the silver screen for several years before returning in the 1970s.

Regarding THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL, film historian Donald Bogle in his TCM and Running Press book Hollywood Black wrote, “[it] promised to deal frankly and provocatively with the theme of interracial love. But in the end, the filmmakers lost their nerve. In the Eisenhower era, interracial love was a topic the movies were both fascinated by and frightened of.”

[mamapriest]

Marilyn Monroe in Monkey Business, September 1952.

Comedy/screwball comedy.

Chemist Dr. Barnaby Fulton (Cary Grant) is developing a pill that will defy the aging process for the pharmaceutical company run by Oliver Oxley (Charles Coburn). When a loose chimpanzee mixes chemicals together that produce this effect, Fulton tries some on himself. This prompts him to act like a teenager, making passes at Oxley's buxom secretary, Lois (Marilyn Monroe). Soon everyone, including Fulton's wife, Edwina (Ginger Rogers), is feeling the effects of the formula, with hilarious results.

Release date: September 2, 1952.

Director: Howard Hawks

Producer: Sol C. Siegel

Box office: 2 million USD (US rentals only)

A flowing scarlet gown with a purple sash, designed by noted American designer Oleg Cassini, who was married to actress Gene Tierney. This gown was first worn by Tierney in 1951’s “On The Riviera” from Twentieth-Century Fox. Marilyn wore the gown to premiere of “Monkey Business” in 1952, and also for a photo shoot which today reflects some of the most famous images of Marilyn Monroe.

This gown was also worn by Gene Tierney in an advertisement for Tru-Glo Liquid Make-Up.

*Images courtesy of marilynmonroesite.com

[kellygrantrealtor]

* OUTSTANDING CLASSIC CINEMA #93: "GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES" ©1953 Howard Hawks (Based on writing by Anita Loos & Joseph Fields (Musical / Romance / Comedy Genre - Starring: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn et. al.), Produced by Sol C. Siegel https://www.kellygrant.ca/OutstandingClassicCinema.ubr

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Children’s Hospitals Grapple With Young Covid ‘Long Haulers’

This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free.

A slumber party to celebrate Delaney DePue’s 15th birthday last summer marked a new chapter — one defined by illness and uncertainty.

The teen from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, tested positive for covid-19 about a week later, said her mother, Sara, leaving her bedridden with flu-like symptoms. However, her expected recovery never came.

Delaney — who used to train 20 hours a week for competitive dance and had no diagnosed underlying conditions — now struggles to get through two classes in a row, she said. If she overexerts herself, she becomes bedridden with extreme fatigue. And shortness of breath overcomes her in random places like the grocery store.

Doctors ultimately diagnosed Delaney with COPD — a chronic lung inflammation that affects a person’s ability to breathe — said Sara, 47. No one has been able to pinpoint the cause of her daughter’s decline.

“There’s just no research there,” she said. “Kids are not supposed to have this kind of condition.”

While statistics indicate that children have largely been spared from the worst effects of covid, little is known about what causes a small percentage of them to develop serious illness. Doctors are now reporting the emergence of downstream complications that mimic what’s seen in adult “long haulers.”

In response, pediatric hospitals are creating clinics to provide a one-stop shop for care and to catch any anomalies that could otherwise go unnoticed. However, the treatment offered by these centers could come at a steep price tag to patients, health finance experts warned, especially given that so much about the condition is unknown.

Nonetheless, the increasing number of patients like Delaney is leading to a more structured follow-up plan for kids recovering from covid, said Dr. Uzma Hasan, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at St. Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey.

“The cost of missing these children means a horrible event,” she said.

Unanswered Questions

More than 3 million children and young adults had tested positive for covid in the United States as of Feb. 18, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association report. Most of these kids experience mild, if any, symptoms.

Over the course of the pandemic, though, it has become apparent that some children develop serious and potentially long-term problems.

The most well-known of these complications is called “multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children,” or MIS-C. Symptoms — which include high fever, a skin rash and stomach pain — can appear up to a month after getting covid. Around 2,000 cases have been identified in the United States. Black and Hispanic children make up a disproportionate share: 69%.

But clinicians also said they’re increasingly hearing of children seeking help for different complications, such as fatigue, shortness of breath and loss of smell, that don’t go away.

Clinics for Child Long Haulers

At Norton Children’s Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, clinicians set up a clinic in October after receiving calls from area pediatricians who had patients with long-haul symptoms.

No one knows how often children develop these symptoms, how many already have the illness or even what to name it, said Dr. Kris Bryant, president of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, who works at the hospital.

The children see an infectious diseases doctor who then refers them or orders tests as necessary.

So far, the clinic has seen about 25 patients with a wide range of symptoms, said Dr. Daniel Blatt, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist involved with the clinic. Because covid mimics symptoms associated with a variety of other illnesses, he said, part of his job is to rule out any other possible causes.

“Because the virus is so new,” Blatt said, “there’s a presumption that everything is covid.”

Similarly, an ad hoc clinic for other young patients has been set up within the cardiology department at the Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Patients are screened to assess the heart’s structure and how it functions. She said they’ve been seeing six to eight patients per week.

“The question I can never answer for the parents,” said Dr. Jean Ballweg, a pediatric cardiologist at the hospital who also works at the clinic, “is why one child and not another?”

So far, Ballweg said, she’s seen no published literature on the heart health of children who develop these symptoms after recovering from covid. By standardizing how doctors in the clinic collect data and treat patients, Ballweg said, she hopes the information will provide some clues as to how the virus affects a child’s heart. “Hopefully, we can look at the collective experience and recognize patterns and provide better care.”

University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland is involved in creating a multidisciplinary clinic that will consolidate care by giving patients access to specialists and integrative medicine like acupuncture.

Clinicians saw a need for the unit after teenagers with post-covid symptoms began arriving at the hospital system’s clinic for adults with long-haul symptoms, said Dr. Amy Edwards, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at the hospital involved with the project. So far, she said, she’s heard of about eight to 10 children who could need care.

The clinic, yet to open, intends to recruit more children through announcements, said Edwards. Identifying the right patient for the clinic will be complicated, she added. There’s no test to check for post-covid symptoms and there’s no agreed-on definition for the condition. Doctors also don’t know whether some symptoms can be cured, she said, or last a lifetime.

“The question is if we’re going to be able to do anything about it,” Edwards said.

‘I Don’t Know’ Is a Difficult Answer

Even Dr. Abby Siegel, a 51-year-old pediatrician who works in Stamford, Connecticut, couldn’t find answers for her daughter. Siegel tested positive for the virus last March after being exposed at work. She believes she passed on the virus to her husband and their then-17-year-old daughter, Lauren.

The family recovered by early April, but then both Siegel’s daughter and husband took a turn for the worse. Lauren — who played rugby — started feeling fatigued, shortness of breath and a racing heart rate. Siegel took her to multiple specialists — including a friend who is a cardiologist — all of whom doubted her.

Lauren, now 18, receives care at Mount Sinai Hospital’s adult covid care center and is improving. Siegel said the clinic has affirmed her daughter’s experience and helped her get more information about this condition. She wishes the doctors they had visited earlier had been more honest about the unknowns surrounding post-covid health problems.

“It’s amazing how we’re met with the denial rather than the ‘I don’t know,’” she said.

There’s another wrinkle that often comes with the I-don’t-know response.

The uncertainty swirling around these symptoms in children will likely require clinicians to run a battery of tests — procedures that could potentially cost their families a lot of money, said Glenn Melnick, a health economist and professor at USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. Pediatric hospitals usually have little regional competition, he said, allowing them to charge more for their specialized services.

For families without comprehensive health insurance or who face high deductibles, many tests could mean big bills.

Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University, said these clinics’ potential profitability hinges on several factors. If a clinic serves a large enough area, it could attract enough patients to earn substantial dollars for the affiliated pediatric hospital. A child’s health care coverage plays a role as well — those who are privately insured are more lucrative patients than those covered by public programs like Medicaid, but only as long as the family can shoulder the financial burden.

“If I had a kid who had this problem,” said Anderson, “I’d be very concerned about my out-of-pocket liability.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Children’s Hospitals Grapple With Young Covid ‘Long Haulers’ published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

Children’s Hospitals Grapple With Young Covid ‘Long Haulers’

This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free.

A slumber party to celebrate Delaney DePue’s 15th birthday last summer marked a new chapter — one defined by illness and uncertainty.

The teen from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, tested positive for covid-19 about a week later, said her mother, Sara, leaving her bedridden with flu-like symptoms. However, her expected recovery never came.

Delaney — who used to train 20 hours a week for competitive dance and had no diagnosed underlying conditions — now struggles to get through two classes in a row, she said. If she overexerts herself, she becomes bedridden with extreme fatigue. And shortness of breath overcomes her in random places like the grocery store.

Doctors ultimately diagnosed Delaney with COPD — a chronic lung inflammation that affects a person’s ability to breathe — said Sara, 47. No one has been able to pinpoint the cause of her daughter’s decline.

“There’s just no research there,” she said. “Kids are not supposed to have this kind of condition.”

While statistics indicate that children have largely been spared from the worst effects of covid, little is known about what causes a small percentage of them to develop serious illness. Doctors are now reporting the emergence of downstream complications that mimic what’s seen in adult “long haulers.”

In response, pediatric hospitals are creating clinics to provide a one-stop shop for care and to catch any anomalies that could otherwise go unnoticed. However, the treatment offered by these centers could come at a steep price tag to patients, health finance experts warned, especially given that so much about the condition is unknown.

Nonetheless, the increasing number of patients like Delaney is leading to a more structured follow-up plan for kids recovering from covid, said Dr. Uzma Hasan, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at St. Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey.

“The cost of missing these children means a horrible event,” she said.

Unanswered Questions

More than 3 million children and young adults had tested positive for covid in the United States as of Feb. 18, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association report. Most of these kids experience mild, if any, symptoms.

Over the course of the pandemic, though, it has become apparent that some children develop serious and potentially long-term problems.

The most well-known of these complications is called “multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children,” or MIS-C. Symptoms — which include high fever, a skin rash and stomach pain — can appear up to a month after getting covid. Around 2,000 cases have been identified in the United States. Black and Hispanic children make up a disproportionate share: 69%.

But clinicians also said they’re increasingly hearing of children seeking help for different complications, such as fatigue, shortness of breath and loss of smell, that don’t go away.

Clinics for Child Long Haulers

At Norton Children’s Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, clinicians set up a clinic in October after receiving calls from area pediatricians who had patients with long-haul symptoms.

No one knows how often children develop these symptoms, how many already have the illness or even what to name it, said Dr. Kris Bryant, president of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, who works at the hospital.

The children see an infectious diseases doctor who then refers them or orders tests as necessary.

So far, the clinic has seen about 25 patients with a wide range of symptoms, said Dr. Daniel Blatt, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist involved with the clinic. Because covid mimics symptoms associated with a variety of other illnesses, he said, part of his job is to rule out any other possible causes.

“Because the virus is so new,” Blatt said, “there’s a presumption that everything is covid.”

Similarly, an ad hoc clinic for other young patients has been set up within the cardiology department at the Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Patients are screened to assess the heart’s structure and how it functions. She said they’ve been seeing six to eight patients per week.

“The question I can never answer for the parents,” said Dr. Jean Ballweg, a pediatric cardiologist at the hospital who also works at the clinic, “is why one child and not another?”

So far, Ballweg said, she’s seen no published literature on the heart health of children who develop these symptoms after recovering from covid. By standardizing how doctors in the clinic collect data and treat patients, Ballweg said, she hopes the information will provide some clues as to how the virus affects a child’s heart. “Hopefully, we can look at the collective experience and recognize patterns and provide better care.”

University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland is involved in creating a multidisciplinary clinic that will consolidate care by giving patients access to specialists and integrative medicine like acupuncture.

Clinicians saw a need for the unit after teenagers with post-covid symptoms began arriving at the hospital system’s clinic for adults with long-haul symptoms, said Dr. Amy Edwards, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at the hospital involved with the project. So far, she said, she’s heard of about eight to 10 children who could need care.

The clinic, yet to open, intends to recruit more children through announcements, said Edwards. Identifying the right patient for the clinic will be complicated, she added. There’s no test to check for post-covid symptoms and there’s no agreed-on definition for the condition. Doctors also don’t know whether some symptoms can be cured, she said, or last a lifetime.

“The question is if we’re going to be able to do anything about it,” Edwards said.

‘I Don’t Know’ Is a Difficult Answer

Even Dr. Abby Siegel, a 51-year-old pediatrician who works in Stamford, Connecticut, couldn’t find answers for her daughter. Siegel tested positive for the virus last March after being exposed at work. She believes she passed on the virus to her husband and their then-17-year-old daughter, Lauren.

The family recovered by early April, but then both Siegel’s daughter and husband took a turn for the worse. Lauren — who played rugby — started feeling fatigued, shortness of breath and a racing heart rate. Siegel took her to multiple specialists — including a friend who is a cardiologist — all of whom doubted her.

Lauren, now 18, receives care at Mount Sinai Hospital’s adult covid care center and is improving. Siegel said the clinic has affirmed her daughter’s experience and helped her get more information about this condition. She wishes the doctors they had visited earlier had been more honest about the unknowns surrounding post-covid health problems.

“It’s amazing how we’re met with the denial rather than the ‘I don’t know,’” she said.

There’s another wrinkle that often comes with the I-don’t-know response.

The uncertainty swirling around these symptoms in children will likely require clinicians to run a battery of tests — procedures that could potentially cost their families a lot of money, said Glenn Melnick, a health economist and professor at USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. Pediatric hospitals usually have little regional competition, he said, allowing them to charge more for their specialized services.

For families without comprehensive health insurance or who face high deductibles, many tests could mean big bills.

Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University, said these clinics’ potential profitability hinges on several factors. If a clinic serves a large enough area, it could attract enough patients to earn substantial dollars for the affiliated pediatric hospital. A child’s health care coverage plays a role as well — those who are privately insured are more lucrative patients than those covered by public programs like Medicaid, but only as long as the family can shoulder the financial burden.

“If I had a kid who had this problem,” said Anderson, “I’d be very concerned about my out-of-pocket liability.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 7, 2018

Optogenetic Blockade of Dopamine Transients Prevents Learning Induced by Changes in Reward Features. Chang, C. Y., Gardner, M., Di Tillio, M. G., & Schoenbaum, G. (2017). Current Biology, 27(22), 3480–3486.e3.

The anterior insula bidirectionally modulates cost-benefit decision-making on a rodent gambling task. Daniel, M. L., Cocker, P. J., Lacoste, J., Mar, A. C., Houeto, J. L., Belin-Rauscent, A., & Belin, D. (2017). European Journal of Neuroscience, 46(10), 2620–2628.

Fractionating the Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying Working Memory: Independent Effects of Dopamine and Parkinson’s Disease. Fallon, S. J., Mattiesing, R. M., Muhammed, K., Manohar, S., & Husain, M. (2017). Cerebral Cortex, 27(12), 5727–5738.

Highly Dynamic Spatiotemporal Organization of Low-Frequency Activities During Behavioral States in the Mouse Cerebral Cortex. Fernandez, L. M. J., Comte, J.-C., Le Merre, P., Lin, J.-S., Salin, P.-A., & Crochet, S. (2017). Cerebral Cortex, 27(12), 5444–5462.

Genetic Influence on Eye Movements to Complex Scenes at Short Timescales. Kennedy, D. P., D’Onofrio, B. M., Quinn, P. D., Bölte, S., Lichtenstein, P., & Falck-Ytter, T. (2017). Current Biology, 27(22), 3554–3560.e3.

GABAergic inhibition gates excitatory LTP in perirhinal cortex. Kotak, V. C., Mirallave, A., Mowery, T. M., & Sanes, D. H. (2017). Hippocampus, 27(12), 1217–1223.

M-current inhibition rapidly induces a unique CK2-dependent plasticity of the axon initial segment. Lezmy, J., Lipinsky, M., Khrapunsky, Y., Patrich, E., Shalom, L., Peretz, A., … Attali, B. (2017). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(47), E10234–E10243.

Hebbian Learning in a Random Network Captures Selectivity Properties of Prefrontal Cortex. Lindsay, G. W., Rigotti, M., Warden, M. R., Miller, E. K., & Fusi, S. (2017). Journal of Neuroscience, 37(45), 11021–11036.

The Lateral Habenula as a Relay of Cortical Information to Process Working Memory. Mathis, V., Barbelivien, A., Majchrzak, M., Mathis, C., Cassel, J.-C., & Lecourtier, L. (2017). Cerebral Cortex, 27(12), 5485–5495.

Striatal fast-spiking interneurons selectively modulate circuit output and are required for habitual behavior. O’Hare, J. K., Li, H., Kim, N., Gaidis, E., Ade, K., Beck, J., … Calakos, N. (2017). eLife, 6, e26231.

Optogenetic Activation of the Sensorimotor Cortex Reveals “Local Inhibitory and Global Excitatory” Inputs to the Basal Ganglia. Ozaki, M., Sano, H., Sato, S., Ogura, M., Mushiake, H., Chiken, S., … Nambu, A. (2017). Cerebral Cortex, 27(12), 5716–5726.

Memory integration in humans with hippocampal lesions. Pajkert, A., Finke, C., Shing, Y. L., Hoffmann, M., Sommer, W., Heekeren, H. R., & Ploner, C. J. (2017). Hippocampus, 27(12), 1230–1238.

Motor actions influence subsequent sensorimotor decisions. Pape, A.-A., Noury, N., & Siegel, M. (2017). Scientific Reports, 7, 15913.

Pain dilates time perception. Rey, A. E., Michael, G. A., Dondas, C., Thar, M., Garcia-Larrea, L., & Mazza, S. (2017). Scientific Reports, 7, 15682.

Serotonin Decreases the Gain of Visual Responses in Awake Macaque V1. Seillier, L., Lorenz, C., Kawaguchi, K., Ott, T., Nieder, A., Pourriahi, P., & Nienborg, H. (2017). Journal of Neuroscience, 37(47), 11390–11405.

Event Boundaries Trigger Rapid Memory Reinstatement of the Prior Events to Promote Their Representation in Long-Term Memory. Sols, I., DuBrow, S., Davachi, L., & Fuentemilla, L. (2017). Current Biology, 27(22), 3499–3504.e4.

Presynaptic Neuronal Nicotinic Receptors Differentially Shape Select Inputs to Auditory Thalamus and Are Negatively Impacted by Aging. Sottile, S. Y., Hackett, T. A., Cai, R., Ling, L., Llano, D. A., & Caspary, D. M. (2017). Journal of Neuroscience, 37(47), 11377–11389.

Characterizing the role of the hippocampus during episodic simulation and encoding. Thakral, P. P., Benoit, R. G., & Schacter, D. L. (2017). Hippocampus, 27(12), 1275–1284.

Sequential Firing Codes for Time in Rodent Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Tiganj, Z., Jung, M. W., Kim, J., & Howard, M. W. (2017). Cerebral Cortex, 27(12), 5663–5671.

Deactivation of Association Cortices Disrupted the Congruence of Visual and Auditory Receptive Fields in Superior Colliculus Neurons. Xu, J., Bi, T., Keniston, L., Zhang, J., Zhou, X., & Yu, L. (2017). Cerebral Cortex, 27(12), 5568–5578.

[superangrycollection]

Panic in the Streets (1950)

Pánico en las calles Drama / Suspense / Crimen

[project1939]

Day 54- Film: What Price Glory? 

Release date: August 22nd, 1952. 

Studio: 20th Century Fox 

Genre: War 

Director: John Ford 

Producer: Sol C. Siegel 

Actors: James Cagney, Corinne Calvet, Dan Dailey 

Plot Summary: During the later part of WWI, American Troops in France are getting younger and less experienced. Captain Flagg requests help training the green young men, but when that help arrives, it is his old nemesis, Sergeant Quirt. The rivalry between them heats up even more when they both fall for the same French girl. 

My Rating (out of five stars): ** ½ 

This may not have been the worst film on my list so far, but it was without question the hardest to sit though. It wasn’t fortuitous for this film to line up as the one to watch directly after The Quiet Man- both are John Ford comedy dramas with an excessive running time and lots of macho men bonding while drinking and fighting. I find all of that a bore, honestly. I didn’t really care about the characters, and the film seemed torn over whether or not to question war or glorify it. 

The Good: 

I liked the fact that there was a lot of French spoken in the film, and it wasn’t subtitled or cut down too much. 

There was some sentiment that popped up occasionally about the futility of war or the cost of sending very young men to fight, but it often got undercut by other parts of the film. This was not a film that glamorized war, however, which I appreciated.

The Bad: 

It’s ridiculous for a stunningly beautiful young French girl to be torn between a funny looking short pudgy guy of about 50, and a 40-ish guy who isn’t much more attractive. Looks and age are not everything, I know, but this just felt unbelievable. 

All the macho bullshit that I’ve discussed already today and yesterday. 

Like The Quiet Man, this was too long.  

Like The Quiet Man, the characters were not developed well at all. 

The French girl Charmaine could literally have been a mannequin. I can’t think of one single personality trait or interest she had, except for her love of soldiers. I guess she sang a couple of songs, so I’d infer she likes music? 

The other French girl character- she is supposed to be a schoolgirl of 17 who starts seeing a 22-year-old American soldier. They gave the actress pigtails and put minimal make up on her, and I swear she looked about 14 years old. It was creepy. 

Normally I like James Cagney a lot, but I didn’t like him in this. He just kind of swung from being blandly gruff to gratingly gruff. At times it gave the impression that he was just phoning it in. 

I didn’t really understand or get invested in the rivalry between Cagney and Dailey, even after they fell for the same woman.

Dailey is also an actor that can be very appealing, but I found him hard to like here. 

This was supposed to be a comedy/drama, but I did not find much funny in it at all.

[adscinema]

The World, the Flesh and the Devil - Ranald MacDougall (1959)

Poster advertising

[mycinematheque]