It never ceases to amaze me how classic old films -- by that I mean films made before 1980 -- can still feel relevant and timely. We should pay attention to the literature of cinema. Films are part of our fine arts.
When Donald Trump hurled himself into the U.S. presential race, having had neither previous political nor military experience, I thought immediately of the character Andy Griffith played in Elia Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD. As a popular network entertainment TV figure who schemes to infiltrate politics with his dark ambitions, Griffith gave a brutal and blistering performance that should have landed him in the Oscar race for Best Actor of 1957.
In the 1980s, Trump was a popular millionaire figure in New York City. The case of the Central Park Five was a crime story that made international headlines. Five Black and Latino teen males were accused of attacking a White female jogger in Central Park. Trump took out full page New York newspaper ads calling for the execution of the minority teens. In the years to come, when the five males had progressed into adulthood, they were exonerated. Trump never apologized.
Even after having done that, he got bookings on entertainment talk shows. He was on live daytime TV with Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford. Kathie Lee chatted about her new friendships with Trump wives Ivana Trump and, later, Marla Maples. Donald Trump was in Macy's TV commercials. He hosted an edition of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Then he hit weekly prime time television as the host of CELEBRITY APPRENTICE on NBC. During his time as host, he took to Twitter to post basically racist comments about President Barack Obama. He demanded to see Pres. Obama's birth certificate, tweeting that he was not really an American.
This made me wonder if he had a TV contract with the standard morals clause in it. Every TV contract I've ever signed since with 1980s -- be it for entertainment or for news work -- had a standard morals clause which states that you could be given the heave-ho if you did something to shame or embarrass your TV employers. He kept insulting President Obama and he kept his job as host of a network TV reality game show. Then he insulted Mexican immigrants. Then he was caught telling NBC's Billy Bush (a relative of two former presidents) on ACCESS HOLLYWOOD about grabbing women by the genitals.
Then he became President of the United States.
Here's a trailer for 1957's A FACE IN THE CROWD:
Hollywood greats Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy appeared in 9 films together. The ones that usually get highlighted are their first movie together, 1942's romantic comedy WOMAN OF THE YEAR, George Cukor's 1949 "battles of the sexes" comedy, ADAM'S RIB in which they play happily married lawyers who have to oppose each other in the courtroom and their final film together, 1967's GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER with the pair as parents whose daughter is engaged to a Black doctor played by Sidney Poitier.
One film of theirs that rarely gets mentioned is George Cukor's 1942 political drama, KEEPER OF THE FLAME. It was not a hit like the three classics I mentioned in the above paragraph. I had never watched it all the way through until this year -- a year after the January 6th Insurrection in Washington, D.C. Cukor's drama doesn't entirely work. There's a scene with a crazy mother that's like the kind of classic film scene that would've inspired a spoof sketch on the old Carol Burnett show. However, the strong last 25 minutes of the movie just about made my jaw dropped down to my shoelaces at how timely they felt. Katharine Hepburn plays the widow of a beloved American patriot. Spencer Tracy plays a reporter trying to write a biography about him but senses he's not getting the real story.
Here's a trailer for 1942's KEEPER OF THE FLAME:
"I saw the face of fascism in my own home." ~ Katharine Hepburn as the patriot's widow. Her late beloved patriot husband was really a man who admired great dictators and planned to abuse the free press -- social media, if you will -- for his dark political ambitions.
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