She Shines in PAPER MOON

 When I was in high school and soon to transition to my early college years, there were three young film directors anointed to be the future kings of New Hollywood. They were Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich. Bogdanovich gave us three memorable films -- his 1971 masterpiece, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, his 1972 screwball comedy, WHAT'S UP, DOC? and his 1973 Depression Era comedy/drama, PAPER MOON. Unfortunately, he did not go on to make a handful of other critical and box office hits like Spielberg and Scorsese did. However, he did remain a respected director to film journalists. He acted. Bogdanovich had a regular role on HBO's THE SOPRANOS. He played Bennett Cerf, one of Truman Capote's friends, in INFAMOUS, the under-appreciated 2006 drama about Capote. He was a noted film historian and wrote books about classic film directors. He acquired a tremendous reputation as a raconteur who'd tell tales during interviews of his encounters with famous Old Hollywood figures such as Orson Welles and Cary Grant. His amusing stories and vocal imitations of Old Hollywood figures seemed to be what interviewers craved. The interviewers let them dominate the interviews.

Did I love Peter Bogdanovich's big three hits early in his directorial career? I sure did. When I was in high school, I loved reading articles he wrote about directors such as Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock. But there was something about his films that put a big question mark in my mind, a question that did not appear when I saw films by Spielberg and Scorsese. It started when I saw his 1976 film, NICKELODEON. It's sort of a valentine to the very early days of Hollywood moviemaking. The silent movie years. I went to see it because it starred Burt Reynolds. I was a fan. I loved how he was serious about his career and took on roles that challenged him. For instance, he starred in Bogdanovich's 1975 swanky musical comedy, AT LONG LAST LOVE. It was packed with Cole Porter songs but the movie did not pack theater seats. Neither critics nor filmgoers took it despite its talented cast. that included Cybill Shepherd, Madeline Kahn and Eileen Brennan.

In NICKELODEON, Burt Reynolds played a clueless but lovable aspiring actor. In one scene, he gets a brief role in a movie theater stage piece. He shows up and has to wear a costume. And he has to ride a horse across the stage. He has no idea that the costume is a Ku Klux Klan outfit. As he rides across the stage, the packed audience breaks out into enthusiastic applause. The last 15-20 minutes of the film are practically a salute to D.W. Griffith's 1915 box office blockbuster, THE BIRTH OF A NATION. That silent era film was ripe with racist images. Look at the reminder of its racism that director Spike Lee gave us in the opening minutes of 2018's BlacKkKlansman. Near the end of Bogdanovich's NICKELODEON, a movie audience sees the premiere of that 1915 film. We see an extended clip from the film, a clip that includes white actors in blackface. In Griffth's epic, the KKK is presented as heroic. THE BIRTH OF A NATION ends and the premiere audience breaks out into thunderous applause.

I thought to myself, "Does Peter Bogdanovich know that Black people go to see his movies?" No national magazine or TV film critic prepared me for the racial discomfort I'd feel watching that finale sequence. But then that field of film critics was predominately White. There was no critic of color to present a different viewpoint.

Which brings me to PAPER MOON, my favorite of Bogdanovich's big three early films. In Los Angeles, in Milwaukee and in New York City I have been with friends and co-workers who also love that comedy. We quoted lines from it. The majority of lines that we quoted from PAPER MOON were lines said by Imogene, the sassy and subversive teen maid to Madeline Kahn's Trixie Delight floozie character. Imogene was played brilliantly by P.J. Johnson. In that supporting role, P.J. Johnson proved she could whip out a wisecrack with the best of them -- like Lucille Ball and Eve Arden in 1937's STAGE DOOR, a classic that Bogdanovich had surely seen. P.J. Johnson broke through the confines and stereotypes of the Black maid role that Old Hollywood gave Black actress to play in the 1930s and 40s. Her wits upscaled the character. Johnson's comic timing was delicious.

To this day, P.J. Johnson in 1973's PAPER MOON is the only Black actor I can think of who had a significant role in a big screen Peter Bogdanovich film. Why? Spielberg had parts for Black actors in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, 1941 and THE COLOR PURPLE. Scorsese had parts for Black actors in TAXI DRIVER and NEW YORK, NEW YORK. Bogdanovich used stars and non-stars more than once in his films. He directed Burt Reynolds, Madeline Kahn, Cybill Shepherd, Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal in more than one film. He directed supporting players John Hillerman, Austin Pendleton and Randy Quaid more than once. Why didn't talented P.J. Johnson get another significant, memorable character to play in a Bogdanovich film? She was a stand-out in PAPER MOON. Has she ever been invited to be interviewed as a guest for a Turner Classic Movies Film Festival? She and Madeline Kahn had fabulous chemistry in PAPER MOON.

From what I saw as a moviegoer, Black actors had little -- if anything -- to do in Peter Bogdanovich films after 1973's PAPER MOON. No Black actor even had a sizeable role in his 1981 comedy/romance THEY ALL LAUGHED, a story that takes place in 1980s Manhattan. The same goes for his screwball comedy, SHE'S FUNNY THAT WAY, which takes place in the Manhattan of 2014. That film is now available to see on Netflix.

Bogdanovich directed and wrote the 2018 feature, THE GREAT BUSTER, a fine documentary about Buster Keaton. In all the actors, film historians and movie hosts who gave soundbites about Keaton, not a one was Black. We saw film critic Leonard Maltin, comedian Richard Lewis, Dick Cavett, Quentin Tarantino, Dick Van Dyke and Johnny Knoxville, host of MTV's JACK-ASS. We did not see Wesley Morris or Hilton Als, Black writers who won Pulitzer Prizes for arts criticism that included film criticism. They won their awards between 2012 and 2016. Morris won in 2012 and again in 2021. We did not see the popular Elvis Mitchell.

These are points I can't recall being brought up when White film journalists and TV hosts interviewed and wrote about Peter Bogdanovich. I would have asked him about actress P.J. Johnson and how she came to land that role in PAPER MOON. When the Elder Statesman filmmaker got on a roll as a raconteur, interviewer adoration tended to just let him go.

For them, the career of director Peter Bogdanovich was like the line from John Ford's classic western, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."