Bobby Rivers TV

Downey Jr. Picked Himself Up

2013-05-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

You have to give him credit. He cleans up very well.

Robert Downey Jr. was one of my most memorable guests on my VH1 talk show in the late 1980s. He was very late arriving to the studio for the taping. His clothes were quite rumpled. He was talkative. One of the first things he said in the interview was, "I've never done drugs."

Seriously. And I hadn't even asked. But he wanted us to believe that he didn't have that in common with the character he played in his new movie, Less Than Zero.

Less Than Zero was such a truly 1980s movie, a decade for his "bad boy" behavior.

Remember when he was a cast member on NBC's Saturday Night Live in the mid '80s? Robert Downey Jr. got his share of "bad boy" press because of his party drug behavior. But one could never say that he lacked talent. I admit that I was a bit irritated because he was so late showing up. But I was impressed with that performance. I am so glad he got control of himself and gave us even better performances. I did the DTST (Danny Thomas Spit Take) with my soda watching his comic brilliance in Tropic Thunder, directed by co-star Ben Stiller. It's one of Downey's Oscar-nominated roles. He deserved that Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. His work as the vain but vapid movie actor shooting a war movie on location was, alone, worth the price of the movie ticket.

You just know this hue-altered character sees himself as a male Meryl Streep. It was one of the funniest and smartest comedy performances I'd seen a guy deliver in a long time. Downey is two characters -- the pompous method actor movie star who's clueless in the jungle and the character the movie star is playing in this jinxed action production.

My other favorite Robert Downey Jr. movie performances are in Soapdish, Wonder Boys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zodiac and the current Iron Man franchise. One day, I'll get to rent Chaplin. I hear he's outstanding as silent screen legend, Charlie Chaplin. I'm an uncle now. My two young nephews totally loved him in Iron Man 3. Millions of others seem to be loving him too based on the Iron Man 3 box office reports.

I'm so glad he conquered that pain in his heart, let some light in and got good roles to put his versatility on display.

As for his "I've never done drugs" statement on my show way back when, a future guest came on who'd seen the show. Off-camera, he said to me "Oh, please. He was the biggest pusher at Hebrew camp."

I cannot tell you who broke me up laughing when he made that remark with a totally deadpan expression. Like Robert Downey Jr., he's still working. He stars on a very popular TV series.

I'm eager to see Iron Man 3. And Chaplin.

By the way...if you want a real edgy DVD double feature one weekend, rent Tropic Thunder. But, first, watch James Whitmore star in the controversial 1964 race drama based on a real life story. The independent film is called Black Like Me, based on the autobiographical book of the same name.

And, yes, it stars the same James Whitmore from the movies Battleground, The Asphalt Jungle, Kiss Me Kate, Them! and The Shawshank Redemption. He plays a reporter who goes undercover as a black man to gain first-hand knowledge of the minority experience in America.

John Landis on Black People

2013-05-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Movie director John Landis needed me as his segment producer.

Allow me to be a classic film geek again. The movie I'm discussing is Cabin in the Sky. This all-black musical was the first feature film directed my Vincente Minnelli, the man who'd go on to direct some of MGM's best and most famous musicals. His An American in Paris starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1951. Minnelli won the Best Director Oscar for Gigi, also starring Leslie Caron, and it was the Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1958. Meet Me in St. Louis, starring Judy Garland, and The Band Wagon, starring Fred Astaire, were other future Minnelli hits. He came from Broadway. As did Ethel Waters. As did A Cabin in the Sky. When Ethel Waters premiered in that new musical, she'd been a Broadway star since the 1930s.

On Broadway, she sang tunes that became pop standards -- like Irving Berlin's "Heat Wave." She introduced that hot song in Irving Berlin's 1933 Broadway hit, As Thousands Cheer. Since the 1920s, she was a top recording star. Ethel Waters is another black performer spotlighted in the Ken Burns' Jazz documentary. She had a 1933 hit record with "Stormy Weather," a song that became associated with Lena Horne in the following decade and the rest of her career. Horne sang it in the 20th Century Fox all-black 1943 musical, Stormy Weather. Waters was definitely a Broadway star.

She added film appearances to her resume. Here she is in the 1933 musical short Rufus Jones for President. There's Ethel Waters holding a very young Sammy Davis Jr who played Rufus Jones. His terrific musical talents were evident even then.

Cabin in the Sky premiered on Broadway in 1940. Her leading man was Dooley Wilson. He'd go on to movie fame as "Sam" in Casablanca, having key scenes with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. He and stage co-star, Ethel Waters, would get to do a movie scene together in MGM's 1942 musical comedy, Cairo. In the movie, Waters played the maid to Jeanette MacDonald's character. Ethel didn't look pleased about it.

In the 1943 Minnelli film version for MGM's famed producer of A-list musicals, Arthur Freed, the Dooley Wilson part of "Joe" went to Eddie Anderson. At the time, Anderson was hugely popular as "Rochester," a regular on Jack Benny's hit comedy radio show.

The beautiful Lena Horne, a sophisticated and talented band singer, made her film acting debut as the temptress, Georgia Brown, in this musical folk tale fantasy.

It's a power struggle between good and bad for Joe's soul in this story. Will Joe be good and make his Bible-lovin' wife happy? Or will gambling and Georgia Brown lead him astray? Here's a photo with Lena Horne and director Vincente Minnell. He's to the left of her. That looks like actor Melvyn Douglas on her right.

A new song was written for the movie version and Ethel Waters performed it. She introduced the world to "Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe." Composers Harold Arlen and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg got themselves an Oscar nomination for Best Song of 1943.

Now...with that background I've given you...here's John Landis on Cabin in the Sky. In this short segment, he calls himself "Paul Whiteman." I'll explain later.

Let's start with "Paul Whiteman." He was a popular, corpulent and Caucasian bandleader who was called the "King of Jazz." This irked many African-Americans at the time who felt that title belonged to Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington. It was like, if today, entertainment reporters started calling Justin Bieber the new "King of Pop." Michael Jackson fans would be furious. Whiteman played himself opposite Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in MGM's Strike Up The Band (1940).

Landis should've called himself "Count Basie" instead. Or "John Landis."

Next...Landis got the name of the song wrong. It's "Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe." Not what he said. One more thing: It did not win the Oscar for Best Song. He was incorrect there, too. The Oscar went to "You'll Never Know" sung by Alice Faye in Hello, Frisco, Hello.

Finally...does Landis know that the movie musical stardom of Waters and Horne, and the rest of those gifted black performers, was limited due to racial attitudes in Hollywood, especially in the 1930s and '40s? Did Ethel have as many opportunities for future lead roles in musical comedies as Dorothy Lamour, Esther Williams or June Allyson did? After 1943's Cabin in the Sky, her next film appearance did not come until 1949. That was in the racial drama, Pinky, directed by Elia Kazan. Waters played a maid. She's also the grandmother of a light-skinned woman who studied to be a nurse. Pinky, played by Jeanne Crain, is angry and conflicted. She's light enough to pass for white and escape racism. If she passes for white, she can move up in her profession and have equal opportunities. She's angry that her grandmother was treated like a second-class citizen.

The grandmother sees her granddaughter headed for heartbreak if she's not true to herself. And true to her race. This was strong pre-Civil Rights movement material.

Ethel Waters made Hollywood history with this performance. She was the second black performer to be nominated for an Oscar. The first was Hattie McDaniel who won for 1939's classic, Gone With The Wind. Hattie won for Best Supporting Actress. Ethel Waters, for Pinky, was nominated in that same category.

Waters had another Broadway success and, again, was lucky enough to repeat the role in the movie adaptation. Ethel Waters, Julie Harris and Brandon De Wilde reprised their stage roles in 1952's Member of the Wedding. Fred Zinnemann directed the film.

I do agree with John Landis that you should see Ethel Waters in Vincente Minnelli's Cabin in the Sky. On that, he was not wrong. Just listen to her glorious singing voice. It's like an orchestra unto itself. What a shame that color limited her future Hollywood film opportunities back then. As it did the rest of that talented cast which included Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. As for that Cabin in the Sky video commentary by John Landis -- I should've researched it for him. And I should've written it.

ALIENS: Sci-Fi Mama Drama

2013-05-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

She's my favorite action movie hero in one of the best horror sequels to be made since James Whale's classic, Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Rarely is a sequel as good or even a bit better than the original. Aliens was an excellent sequel to the groundbreaking Alien (1979). Alien was groundbreaking in the same way Whale's 1931 Frankenstein was by introducing movie-goers to a new monster, a monster that became part of our pop culture. Alien was also groundbreaking gender-wise. Sigourney Weaver, as the intellectually and physically strong Ripley, showed Hollywood that a woman can be the action movie hero -- and make the movie a box office champion.

Her reprise of the Ripley role in Aliens brought her a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actress. This 1986 roller coaster ride of a sci-fi horror action movie is one you should consider for Mother's Day viewing. Unusual choice, right? But look again at this movie. First of all, as I've blogged before, Aliens is one of the most feminist action make-believe adventures since 1939's The Wizard of Oz. Next, the main battle is between the light and dark of the maternal instinct. Just because Ripley can be tough doesn't mean she's not compassionate. She cares about her crew. She cares about her world. She is a responsible person in society. In Aliens, the little survivor nicknamed "Newt" enables us to see the gentle maternal Ripley under the military exterior. "Newt" prefers her nickname. Only her brother called her Rebecca. Space creatures killed her family. There's an immediate bond between Newt and Ripley. Ripley becomes her new parent.

Her new mission is to protect Newt and to keep her from having bad dreams.

Newt: "My mommy always said there were no monsters. No real ones. But there are."

Yes, Newt, there are. But sometimes they resemble regular people you see everyday. Like the corporate character onboard played by Paul Reiser.

He looked just like your average 1980s yuppie in love with the financial joys of Wall Street.

Ripley is the light force of the maternal instinct. The dark force is the Alien Queen. She's been busy laying eggs. They will hatch and endanger the human race if they grow.

Her eggs are being destroyed. The Alien Queen is a protective, evil mother. She is angry that her young are in danger. She wants to destroy the little human child she sees.

That ain't gonna happen on Ripley's watch.

Ripley: "Get away from her, you bitch!"

The packed New York City theater audience broke out into wild applause and cheers at that line when I saw this movie. We were set for one of the fiercest female versus female smackdowns in Hollywood film history. Opposite sides of the maternal instinct in a battle to the death to protect offspring. This was serious Mama Drama.

Like Dorothy in 1939's The Wizard of Oz, she wanted to be rid of a deadly female presence and return safely home. I saw Aliens recently on late night cable. Man, that sci-fi horror movie still holds up. It's so good.

Sigourney Weaver was one of my favorite guests on my VH1 prime time talk show back in the '80s. Funny, smart, gracious, interesting. I absolutely loved talking to her and listening to her. Here we are in a VH1 publicity photo for my talk show.

Her career fascinates me. We talked about this on my show. I usually sit through the end credits of a movie. I saw her name in closing credits and remembered it because...well, very few actresses are named "Sigourney." Her name was near the bottom of the closing credits. She was in Woody Allen's classic comedy, Annie Hall (1977). She had no dialogue. She didn't get a close-up. For a few seconds in the Best Picture Oscar winner's final scene, she was seen as his character's current girlfriend.

There she is , hand extended, in the beige trench coat under the movie marquee. That's about as close at the camera got to her. She got a close-up in her next theatrical U.S. production. That movie was Alien -- and the rest is Hollywood history. From a few seconds as basically an extra in Annie Hall to a futuristic outer space horror movie that made millions remember the new actress' name and face. Wow. Did you see Annie Hall? In our VH1 interview, Sigourney told me that Woody Allen auditioned her to play the humorless girlfriend who couldn't understand why Alvy was too skittish to just pick up the lobster on the kitchen floor.

The next time I interviewed the actress was on WNBC's Weekend TODAY in New York when she was promoting her film with Ben Kingsley, Death and the Maiden. She and I talked about her teacher at Yale who told her that she had no talent. He suggested she withdraw from her drama classes. She was stunned at what he said and thought, "How dare you."

I often wonder how that instructor felt when she became one of the few actors in Hollywood history to get two Academy Award nominations in the same year. For 1988, she was Best Actress Oscar nominee for the dramatic biopic, Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey. She was also a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee for her comic turn as the over-bearing boss in the big hit office comedy, Working Girl. Those two came after her Best Actress Oscar nomination for 1986's Aliens.

I was new in my professional broadcast career when 20th Century Fox publicity announced that Alien would be going into production. There was an item in the entertainment news columns. The item reported that Paul Newman was slated to star in it. He was quite the hot star at the time and would've wanted a big fee. Things changed. There was a gender switch. A newcomer got the part. A star was born.

She's such a versatile screen and stage actress, now getting laughs on Broadway dressed up like a Disney character in Christopher Durang's Tony-nominated Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike . I had been a devoted fan ever since I saw her kill her first space alien. There's a great lesson to be learned from the Sigourney Weaver story.

Especially if you go to Yale.

Happy Mother's Day.

On HIGH SOCIETY (1956)

2013-05-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

You may have read in one of my previous that the MGM movie musical remake of The Philadelphia Story became part of our Rivers Family history. Many years ago, my first television appearance was on a syndicated game show. The subject was film trivia. The Movie Game was filmed at the old Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. I was the show's first African-American contestant, the youngest contestant at the time, and The Movie Game's first African-American winner. I was in high school then and a total classic film geek. I knew that High Society was Cole Porter's musical remake of The Philadelphia Story. Knowing that "True Love" was the name of the boat in both versions helped me put a Kimball spinet piano in our South Los Angeles home that summer vacation.

Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly took on the roles originated on film by Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm did the roles originally played on film by James Stewart and Ruth Hussey.

A new character was added. Playing himself and bookending the movie in the open and at the end was the internationally acclaimed jazz artist, Louis Armstrong.

Here's Louis Armstrong with the soon-to-be Princess Grace of Monaco.

Here's Armstrong at work while High Society director Charles Walters, Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby look on with obvious delight.

On Twitter, a Turner Classic Movies fan tweeted this while High Society was airing recently on TCM: "The best part of High Society is Grace Kelly's wardrobe." If I was a guest programmer on TCM with host, Robert Osborne, would I have said that? No. If I was introducing High Society at a screening during the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Hollywood, would I have said that? No. Would I have tweeted that? No. But, in all fairness, I must add that I'm way older than the TCM fan who did tweet that and I've probably looked at more life through a civil rights era prism that he has. He is a pretty nice guy.

Three people who were true legends in American music were musically in very fine form for this picture. Those talents -- Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong. They got some tasty original music to perform written by a superstar of Broadway and movie musicals, Cole Porter. Maybe it's not a 4-star quality musical like Top Hat, Swing Time, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon and West Side Story but I will sit there and swoon every single time I hear the elegant "I Love You, Samantha" sung by Crosby with silky trumpet accompaniment by Armstrong. Man, that number is a beauty!

The "Now You Has Jazz" jam with Bing and Louie is a crowd-pleaser. It bounces. They'd do it again on a network TV special. You can feel the fun they're having. Crosby probably wished they could've done more of that had Hollywood been more liberal.

This movie came 20 years after Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong's first film appearance -- and that appearance was in an Oscar-nominated Bing Crosby musical. Armstrong had a charisma and a natural acting talent. However, Hollywood did not consistently give him upscale roles the way it gave sophisticated roles to Caucasian bandleaders such as Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Harry James. High Society gave Louie Armstrong an upscale, sophisticated role.

These black men are music festival headliners. They're wearing suits, not uniforms. They're carrying their own bags. They're not domestics carrying someone else's bags. There was still work to be done in terms of racial equality and opportunities in Hollywood but this was a big step ahead. Here are the two stars in 1936's Pennies from Heaven in which Crosby introduced the title tune. It got an Oscar nominee for Best Song.

Crosby used his major star power at Paramount to get Armstrong hired for the movie and to get him star billing -- unheard of for black actors at that time. The jazz musician followed this with one of the best specialty numbers in Paramount's Artists & Models (1937). He and Martha Raye killed with the "Public Melody Number One" number.

At Warner Bros., he did Going Places with Dick Powell and introduced the Best Song Oscar nominee, "Jeepers Creepers." But he and the other black actors were in stereotypical servant roles. For Vincente Minnelli at MGM, he played one of the funny devils in the musical folk tale, Cabin in the Sky, based on a Broadway success.

Armstrong (far left in top photo) and Duke Ellington (in photo under it with Armstrong) were both in this musical, the first film directed by Minnelli. Armstrong and Ellington had minor roles in the movie but both were already established jazz stars in American and Europe. Ken Burns expertly shows Louis Armstrong to be an American genius in his must-see Jazz documentary. Jazz experts support Burns in this PBS production. Although Armstrong was groundbreaking in the American art form called "jazz" and although he was celebrated here in America and revered in Europe, you'd never know it from the quality of most roles Hollywood gave him in the 1930s and '40s. The best and most fitting role of Armstrong's film career came during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. He played a highly-respected jazz legend on tour in France in Martin Ritt's Paris Blues starring Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier. "Satchmo" played "Wild Man" Moore.

If you watch the Louis Armstrong chapters of Ken Burns' Jazz, the history will give you an appreciation for his part in MGM's High Society.

By the time Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby teamed up again for MGM's High Society, they were veteran superstars with two of the most recognizable voices in show business. But the closing credits irk me. Look at them. Louie Armstrong, American jazz genius and internationally famous entertainer, is billed below John Lund and Sidney Blackmer. Not near Crosby, Sinatra and Grace Kelly. I'm sorry. That's just wrong.

Watch Vincente Minnelli's 1943 musical, Cabin in the Sky before watching this 1956 Cole Porter musical directed by Charles Walters. Minnelli guided Ethel Waters through a reprise of the lead role she originated in the hit Broadway musical version. That was not the only Broadway hit on Ethel Waters' resume when she got to MGM. Look at the extraordinary talent in the film -- Waters, Lena Horne, Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington and dancer John Bubbles. Their Hollywood opportunites for the rest of that decade were limited because of race. Lena Horne's glamorous numbers at MGM were specialty numbers. She was in the A-list of musical stars but did not get to act with the white fellow A-list MGM musical stars such as Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, or Kathryn Grayson. She was separated. Gene Kelly, Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland successfully fought to get The Nicholas Brothers in 1948's The Pirate. Kelly said in one interview that the studio head didn't want a lot of black people in the film. Vincente Minnelli's The Pirate is a musical comedy story that takes place in the Caribbean. The Nicholas Brothers were brilliant in the "Be A Clown" number with Gene Kelly. Broadway star Ethel Waters, also spotlighted in Ken Burns' Jazz, made history as the second black actor to get an Oscar nomination. Like Hattie McDaniel in Gone With The Wind, she played a maid. Waters was a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee for Elia Kazan's race drama, Pinky. The 1949 20th Century Fox release was her second film after 1943's Cabin in the Sky for MGM. That Minnelli musical gave us a Best Song Oscar nominee. Ethel Waters introduced "Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe." Armstrong got another MGM assignment. He and his band were featured in the Mickey Rooney drama called The Strip. Armstrong plays at a nightclub on the Hollywood strip. In that 1951 film, he introduced another tune that got a Best Song Oscar nomination -- "A Kiss To Build a Dream On."

Can you just imagine if racial diversity had been embraced by Hollywood's top studio for movie musicals, MGM, and if the studio had utilized the artistry of Armstrong, Ellington and Waters after Cabin in the Sky? Can you imagine a number with "Satchmo" and Eleanor Powell? Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington? Gene Kelly dancing to an original Ellington composition? Lena Horne and Judy Garland doing a number together in Words and Music? If only MGM had been brave enough to embrace racial diversity the way the Goldwyn Studios did in another musical remake that featured Louis Armstrong. That movie starred Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo in A Song Is Born, a tuneful 1948 remake of the Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper comedy, Ball of Fire. The racial integration in the title number alone is what Lena Horne longed for at MGM. That number has Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Louie Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton swingin' in the same scene. I'm still ever so grateful to the Goldwyn Studios.

High Society -- Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm. Four Oscar-winning actors. Louis Armstrong and two other male legends from the world of music. New songs by Cole Porter. I dig Sinatra's "Mind If I Make Love To You." That vocal is like musical foreplay with a bottle of champagne. "True Love," sung by Crosby and Kelly, got an Oscar nomination for Best Song. True, High Society is not up there with Singin' in the Rain, but it does have more going for it than just the lovely Grace Kelly costumes designed by Helen Rose. There's some iconic American music talent, American racial history and social change to consider in this MGM feature. Just my opinion.

LA PERLA: Mexican Film Art

2013-05-04T10:30:00.001-07:00

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I'd like to introduce you to some art in Mexico's classic cinema. This film is based on a story that I was assigned to read in high school. In later years, I read it again because I loved it. The story is The Pearl by John Steinbeck. The 1947 Mexican movie adaptation, directed by Emilio Fernández, is called La Perla. The cinematography in this film is so beautiful that watching it is practically a religious experience, like witnessing a Christmas miracle. The black and white images made me gasp with awe. Truly, they did. I was that moved. La Perla is rarely, if ever, talked about here in America. Blessedly, it is available on DVD. The pearl is not just the gem found in a creature from the sea. It is also the wife of a poor Mexican diver. She is a gem.

Her love and her spirit will be a great source of illumination to his troubled heart.

One day he finds a large pearl. It could bring them much money. They could use more money to take care of their sick child and themselves. But does more money bring happiness and safety? What does it do to the soul? What does it do to men's hearts?

The two stars of the film are Pedro Armendáriz as Quino, the diver. This charismatic, talented and handsome actor was one of Mexico's top movie stars. Maria Elena Marqués plays Juana. They are excellent in their roles. However, the ultimate star is cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. He is not mentioned a lot here in America.

But you need to experience his exquisite work in La Perla. Gabriel Figueroa was a master with black and white cinematography, an artist with light and shade.

In Hollywood, Figueroa studied and worked with cinematographers Gregg Toland (William Wyler's Wuthering Heights, The Little Foxes, The Best Years of Our Lives...Orson Welles' Citizen Kane) and James Wong Howe (Kings Row, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Sweet Smell of Success and Hud). For Luis Buñuel, he shot the surreal and symbolic film, The Exterminating Angel. The upper class can't leave the room days after a dinner party.

After the dinner party in Buñuel's film, the upper class eventually will be stripped of all facades and will behave like animals when that little society of theirs collapses.

For director John Huston, he photographed Richard Burton as a defrocked clergyman now living abroad, Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner in The Night of the Iguna.

In this, based on a Tennessee Williams story, I loved the dreamy sensuality he gave to earthy Maxine's late night swims with her two local boy-toys in coastal Mexico.

This was the kind of role that Ava Gardner was born to play. She's at her best here.

There was a time when so many films were shot in black and white that the Academy had separate Oscar nomination categories for cinematography and art direction in black and white and color films. Not now. The Best Picture of 2011 Oscar winner, The Artist, was a rare example of a modern black and white film. Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993) Soderbergh's The Good German (2006) and The Man Who Wasn't There from the Coen Brothers in 2001 are other examples of stories that had more impact in black and white. Mel Brooks had the boldness to embrace black and white. Look at Young Frankenstein, which he directed, and The Elephant Man directed by David Lynch. Brooks was its executive producer. I wish more filmmakers today had the cojones to shoot in black and white. Especially the independent filmmakers. That cinematography does have its own richness. Gabriel Figueroa realized that richness in La Perla.

A supporting cast member, Alfonso Bedoya, would follow this film with a bandit role in the Hollywood classic, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, from director John Huston. Bedoya would say the now-famous line, "I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"

1947's La Perla is a true work of art from Mexico's Golden Age of classic film. John Steinbeck co-wrote the screenplay based on his novella. It's a fine adaptation. I mentioned that the first time I read the short story was in high school. This is a film that middle schoolers and/or high schoolers could enjoy. It's a good fable about greed and wealth. It's subtitled, easy to read, easy to follow. Young students could watch this classic foreign film and then read the Steinbeck novella. If funding for arts in our schools is cut back, use the arts we have to fill the void. Embrace classic Hollywood and world cinema. Make this DVD a bridge between two fine arts -- film and literature. Also, the kids could learn something about another culture. Just an idea. Happy Cinco de Mayo.

Sex, Laughs and Older Women

2013-05-03T11:30:00.002-07:00

Got time for a DVD double feature over the weekend? Here's my tip for two movies and one movie is referenced in the other one. The first movie is a Hal Ashby comedy that still tickles the heck out of me. I saw it during my college years when it was new. It was a film that got a lot of campus buzz and became very popular with the student body. It's Harold and Maude starring Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort. A more unlikely romantic couple, you've rarely seen. This comedy holds up and still feels more original than some modern romantic comedies that Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler gave us.

Harold lives in a huge house with his wealthy widowed mother. He's a young man with an early Beatles haircut but he's obsessed with death while his mother is trying to arrange dinner parties and such. She's on the phone trying to make a hair appointment while he's hanging from a rope in the middle of the living room. "Harold, puh-leeze," she says to his grotesque suicidal activities. She wants him to quit those and get married. She fills out his application to a matchmaking service. Mother also sends him to a therapist.

The therapist asks Harold, "What gives you that special...satisfaction?" The rich young man answers, "I go to funerals." He does. He attends the funerals of people he doesn't even know.

He's at one such funeral when an older lady in the opposite pew waves and winks at him.

Maude is a 79 year-old car thief.

Well...not just cars. She can also rip off a motorcycle. A cop's motorcycle.

This lovable, wise and rebellious lady will teach the young man how to save death for later and get obsessed with life. She's a champion of "Liberty. Rights. Justice." She instructs Harold to "Live! Otherwise you got nothing to talk about in the locker room." This was a perfect social comedy for the turbulent Vietnam War years.

Actress/writer Ruth Gordon. She made her mark on Broadway and in Hollywood. She was a 3-time Oscar nominee for Best Screenplay (A Double Life, Adam's Rib, Pat and Mike) and a 2-time Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actress (Inside Daisy Clover, Rosemary's Baby). This lively, golden comedy performance came a couple of years after her Oscar-winning turn as the wicked, nosy neighbor in Rosemary's Baby. There's another terrific comedy performance in Harold and Maude. Britain's Vivian Pickles is a hoot as Harold's mother. Did you ever see Rosalind Russell as Auntie Mame? Harold's mother is the kind of character who would've been played by Mame's best friend, stage actress Vera Charles. This woman would watch Downton Abbey as an instructional video for tips on how to live one's life. Pickles is perfect. More people should see her in this. In the category of supporting performances in comedy films of the 1970s, this one shares a place with Madeline Kahn in What's Up, Doc? and Young Frankenstein.

Harold and Maude became a popular couple world-wide. This was the second film Hal Ashby directed. The Last Detail, Shampoo, Coming Home and Being There followed.

After Asbhy's comedy, you should watch the smart, erotic road movie from Mexico called Y Tu Mamá También ("And Your Mama Too"). A road movie means that there will be a change of outlook and a self-discovery. You get that and more in this subtitled movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón. I picked this as of the 10 Best Films of 2001. It opens with a naked young couple passionately making love on a big bed. They are boyfriend and girlfriend moaning in sexual ecstasy under this large foreign movie poster:

The French poster for Harold and Maude. In the literature of film, that is a brilliant detail in the art decoration of the bedroom because it gives you a hint of the drama to come.

Gifted Mexican actors Gael Garcia Bernal....

...and Diego Luna (later Sean Penn's co-star in Milk)....

...play two best friends, middle class and educated but slackers nonetheless. They like to get high. They boast about sex. Their girlfriends are away with family for the summer. They meet an older woman at a wedding party. She joins them on a road trip in Mexico.

They will discover much about life, love and sex while on the road with this intelligent older woman. It is a trip that they will never forget. Neither will you.

That's all I'm telling you about the story. I'll let you discover the rest for yourself. I will tell you that, in foreign films like Y Tu Mamá También, sex is not just sex. It's just a hot skin-on-skin display of desire. In foreign films, the sexuality can be hot and also be a socio/political statement in the script. It can be an erotic strike against the confines of a government rule or a religious ban. The sex can comment on the character's social class and social image. To me, that makes the sex even more interesting.

OK. I'll admit. At my age, any sex would be interesting.

These are two fine films. I hope you enjoy them. With someone special.

Lindsay Lohan: My Wish

2013-05-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

I admit it. I'm hoping she has a successful stay in rehab and heals the hole in her heart. I really felt that after I saw her weeks ago on David Letterman's show. For a moment, he got her to expose a vulnerability she probably had not been prepared to expose.

Did you see Lindsay Lohan as the late Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor? It was like watching a high school production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Don't put all the blame on Lindsay. The entire cast was burdened with a lame script. If Liz & Dick was any cheesier, it would've been a fondue. Years ago, one of my best friends introduced me to the talented little Lindsay Lohan. She urged me to see the 1998 remake of Disney's The Parent Trap. I did and I was charmed. Lohan was delightful in it, as was Hayley Mills in the 1961 original. I did an interview of Tina Fey at the Directors Guild in New York City when 2004's Mean Girls went to DVD. Fey is in it and she wrote it. Lohan starred. I watched the teen comedy and, again, was impressed with her acting skills.

The 2006 film Bobby, written and directed by actor Emilio Estevez, is not a great film but it does have some fine moments. Lohan is in those moments. She plays one of the people assembled at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night our presidential hopeful, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated there after a political victory.

Then her personal life started to fray, giving fuel to tabloid journalists, and her irresponsibility started to affect her performances. I had to endure her work in 2007's Georgia Rule and review it on national radio. That was one dog of movie. Again, very sad. Especially when you consider that she was obviously talented enough to act opposite Meryl Streep in 2006's A Prairie Home Companion. She didn't put much effort into her LifetimeTV biopic role. She didn't attempt to capture the 2-time Oscar winner's definite cadence and pitch to her voice. She didn't get Taylor's sexy and wry spark in her eyes. She didn't have her voluptuousness. She didn't get Taylor's legendary compassion for others, her humanitarian spirit, and ability to laugh at herself. Taylor was rarely on time in her superstar years. The Cleopatra star had it written in her will that she'd be late for her own funeral. Yes. Elizabeth Taylor's casket arrived late for the services. Lohan's performance was devoid of humor. Maybe that's how her life is right now.

I wish that Lindsay Lohan could pull it together, with the help and support of responsible people, and use someone like Ann-Margret as a career role model. A lot of us babyboomers totally dug Ann's teen movies and groovy sex kitten roles. In Hollywood, she had the reputation for being a sexy Kitten With A Whip on the screen, but being more like a librarian on the set. She was disciplined. She did the work. I was one of those kids who begged his parents to take him to see her in Bye Bye Birdie and then in Viva Las Vegas with Elvis Presley. That pop musical movie was a huge hit with kids.

While America's youth was spending its allowance to see gorgeous Ann-Margret shake her groove thang in teen-oriented musical comedies, she was gaining respect. Gypsy writer/director Arthur Laurents told National Public Radio that he wanted Judy Garland for the film version. But Warner Brothers Studio nixed that wish claiming Judy, a recent Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee for her dramatic work in Judgment at Nuremberg (a Best Picture nominee) and still hot from a now-legendary concert at Carnegie Hall, was 15 pounds overweight and too heavy to play a middle-aged mother of two who ages 15 years in the story. So they gave him Rosalind Russell. Word had it that Ann-Margret would've been considered to play Gypsy to Garland's Mama Rose.

My mother got so tired of me talking about Ann-Margret that she said she was going to the movies to see what all the fuss was about. Mom and Dad went to see The Cincinnati Kid. Ann-Margret was in that Norman Jewison drama with Steve McQueen and Karl Malden. When they got home, Mom said "SHE is good. Like actresses from when I was a girl. She's like Joan Blondell good." Mom told me to mark her word that Ann-Margret would move up from those teen movies. Mom was right. Ann-Margret's first Oscar nomination came for her dramatic supporting role opposite Jack Nicholson in Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge (1971). She played the dark side of the sex kitten image.

Her second Oscar nomination placed her in the Best Actress category. In Ken Russell's 1975 rock musical, Tommy, she was the mother of the blind pinball wizard.

She won the the respect of acclaimed Hollywood veterans like Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell. She worked onscreen with Bette Davis, Bing Crosby, John Wayne and starred opposite Claudette Colbert in the TV adaptation of The Two Mrs. Grenvilles.

This 1987 made-for-TV movie, based on a novel by Dominick Dunne (seen in photo with the two stars), was a return to the cameras for Claudette Colbert and it was also her last film. Colbert and Ann-Margret were Emmy nominees for their performances.

Look at the impressive resumé of Ann-Margret's career. She went from Bye Bye Birdie...

...to playing Blanche DuBois in a 1984 special ABC TV presentation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Treat Williams co-starred as Stanley Kowalski.

Whether she was or wasn't as good as Jessica Tandy or Vivien Leigh isn't the point. The point is that she did the work. She challenged herself. Lindsay Lohan could have just as impressive a resumé. Liz & Dick was not a good TV biopic. But there are hundreds of young women who could have played that role better if given the opportunity. And many of those young women are currently doing part-time clerical work or taking your lunch orders and asking "Would you like fries with that?" Seriously. They finish their shifts at those jobs and take acting classes to improve their craft. They dream of getting the chance to audition for the kind of quality work that Lindsay was offered at one time.

I wish Lindsay Lohan could get that pain out of her heart, revive her talents, and be like Ann-Margret. Not like Neely O'Hara in Valley of the Dolls.

Bring Back the ABC Movie of the Week

2013-04-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that ABC should bring back its Movie of the Week and a buddy added that airing some of those golden oldies during the summer would be totally cool. I agree! If ABC aired a classic Movie of the Week on Saturday nights opposite Smash, I'd watch in a heartbeat. Some of those old made-for-TV movies were better than a couple of big new theatrical releases I paid to see last year in a cineplex. I'm sure I'm not the only babyboomer who couldn't wait to talk about some of those TV movies the next day with his classmates. Young guys and their dads teared up at the end of Brian's Song. Based on a true story, James Caan and Billy Dee Williams co-starred as the NFL players who were competitive on the Chicago Bears playing field yet formed a tight friendship off the field. And then Brian Piccolo, played by Caan, is diagnosed with a terminal illness.

This was a tale of male bonding beautifully told and a big hit with viewers. Actor Lou Gossett Jr. had the Gayle Sayers role but injured himself during rehearsal practices and had to withdraw. This TV movie did good things for the film careers of Williams and Caan. Billy Dee went on to do Lady Sings the Blues. Caan did The Godfather.

Last week came Hollywood news that Lou Gossett Jr. and James Caan will team up for a boxing movie. Long before ABC's gay male parents on the sitcom, Modern Family, there was That Certain Summer. Hal Holbrook starred as the loving, divorced father who came out and was now living in San Francisco. Martin Sheen played his partner.

The son lives in Southern California with his mother, played by Hope Lange.

He wants to visit his father for a few days. Dad hasn't told his son about his new life. This was a groundbreaking made-for-TV drama, tastefully done and very well-acted.

The only thing I questioned was...how the heck did two Anglo-looking characters played by Hal Holbrook and Hope Lange manage to have a kid who looked like the firstborn child of Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman? Not that Scott Jacoby wasn't a good young actor in the role....but....well, look at them. Look at him. We've got That Certain Summer going on, next thing you know, we're casting for Meet the Fockers.

That's how my mind worked back then when I was a student. One feature we talked about at school for days was Trilogy of Terror. It was just too damn cool and spooky!

Karen Black as a woman alone in her apartment with a possessed voodoo doll creeped the bejeebus out of us. Even today, it's one of Karen Black's most famous roles.

Another popular ABC movie was Duel. Steven Spielberg, in his early 20s, directed this original TV thriller starring Dennis Weaver. Spielberg had not yet started directing Hollywood feature films such as Sugarland Express and Jaws. Weaver played a Southern California suburban man terrorized on the long, open road by a diesel truck.

We never see the face of the stalker trucker nor do we know why he's stalking. This tense drama was released theatrically in Europe. I think it's still one of Spielberg's best works. By the way, he shot this highway death match in 13 days.

The ABC Movies introduced us to new talent. Viewers loved Stockard Channing in the black comedy, The Girl Most Likely To... with its story and script by Joan Rivers. (Earlier this month, I blogged about this one in my entry about Joan with actor Burt Lancaster.) Stockard Channing was fabulous as the abused ugly duckling college girl who survives a car crash and gets a new life with a new face after plastic surgery due to disfigurements. With that new life, her keen mind and a series of disguises, she kills each mean sorority girl and guy who made her lonely life even more miserable.

The Girl Most Likely To... still makes me laugh. What a good revenge comedy. The ABC Movie of the Week was a great vehicle for casting mature actors from the Hollywood Golden Era and pairing them with new talents on the rise. Darren McGavin was in David Lean's 1955 classic Summertime with Katharine Hepburn. He was a hit in two Movies of the Week. Jan-Michael Vincent was a new actor with the ultimate surfer look.

He played the long-haired rebel hippie who, surprisingly, has the right stuff be to a Marine in Tribes. McGavin played his hippie-hating drill sergeant in this feature made during the Vietnam War years. The drafted recruit's gentle spirit is hard to break.

McGavin also played an investigator named Kolchak, a guy on the beat of the occult in The Night Stalker.

That one was so enjoyable that it became a TV series -- a series that should've had a longer life.

Bing Crosby was one of the biggest stars of Hollywood and the pop music business. He won the Best Actor of 1944 Oscar for playing a priest in Going My Way. He topped that performance with his portrayal of a co-dependent alcoholic has-been actor/singer attempting a comeback in The Country Girl. He went to the dark side in that performance and totally deserved his Oscar nomination for Best Actor of 1954. His final performance was in an ABC Movie of the Week. It was one of his strongest performances since The Country Girl. He plays a New England M.D. with a very dark side in Dr. Cook's Garden.

This thriller paired the Hollywood legend with a new actress named Blythe Danner.

Jackie Cooper and Eleanor Parker were starring in movies before Sally Field was born. She acted with them when she played a teen runaway who returns to the suburbs in Maybe I'll Come Home In The Spring...

...and two of them worked together again in the really fun Christmastime murder mystery, Home for the Holidays.

Bickering relatives at a family gathering are trying to not get killed before Santa Claus arrives. The future 2-time Best Actress Academy Award winner was acting opposite Oscar-nominated Hollywood stars Eleanor Parker...

...and Julie Harris.

This yuletide murder mystery TV script was written by Joseph Stefano, the man who wrote the iconic screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, Psycho. Here's some more trivia about that: Did you ever see Cabaret? This stars two women who played Sally Bowles. Jill Haworth (seen in the black hat) played Sally Bowles in the original Broadway cast of Cabaret in the 1960s. Julie Harris played Sally in the 1955 movie I Am a Camera, based on the Christopher Isherwood stories.

One sci-fi horror thriller that was so cheesy it became a guilty pleasure to watch starred Patty Duke...

...and former MGM musical comedy star, June Allyson.

One of them may have the power to turn into a giant bug at night in The Curse of the Black Widow.

Sid Caesar co-stars. Anthony Franciosa is the hero who solves the mystery of macho studs being punctured and killed. You need Margaritas and snacks to sit through this one. And a couple of friends to laugh with you at Patty's Eastern European accent. There were lots of ABC Movies of the Week. They introduced us to new faces like Nick Nolte's and presented fabulous familiar faces like Fred Astaire's. A number of TV series got their starts as a MOTW (Movie of the Week).

Each MOTW ran under 90 minutes. We got some pretty good entertainment in the 1970s in a short amount of TV movie time. They weren't all classics but many were highly entertaining. The Night Stalker inspired the creator of TV's The X-Files. I'd get big retro kicks seeing some of them repeated in prime time again. And today's film students could learn an Old School thing or two from a solid feature like Spielberg's Duel. Only 75 minutes long -- and it's way better than last year's big sci-fi production, Prometheus.

Did you have any favorites in the MOTW line-up?

My Date with a Gay NFL Star

2013-04-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

I knew that headline would get your attention. I did have a dinner date with a gay NFL star after I interviewed him on live television. I'll tell you about that. I thought about him when today's sports news broke.

Back in 1999, before she'd embraced my diversity, my mother and I had a tiff about my sexual orientation. With a sort of Catholic parental stubborness, she said "Why did you decide to become gay?" I replied, "Oh, I don't know. I guess I wasn't having enough drama just being black in America."

Things are so much better now between Mom and me. There's been a great change in our relationship. Today, there was a great change in sports. NBA center Jason Collins reportedly is the first active player to come out of the closet. He's in two groups that have met with high discrimination in America. He's black and he's gay. Sometimes it was even hard for black gay men to be noticed by gay white men. Did Will & Grace have a regular gay black friend and neighbor in New York City? Was there a black member of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy team when it was a network hit? Just two examples. This Jason Collins story is one brave step forward. His story will make for a historic Sports Illustrated magazine cover. He's a free agent. Will he get signed again? Let's see. The sports culture has changed a lot in just the last five years.

This will start a whole new conversation. One that's long overdue. This will also have an impact on how sports news is covered and who covers it. Thank you for your honesty, bravery and compassion, Mr. Collins. I bet that, by the time I post this blog, you'll have already received offers to write a book. Nike recently signed WNBA star Brittney Griner.

That was a major corporate move proving how the sports culture has changed in the last five years. And that brings me to my dinner date with former NFL star, David Kopay. The former running back asked me to take him to dinner one night in Milwaukee.

Of course, I said "Sure!" This was in 1984. I'd never had a date with anyone who'd been coached by the legendary Vince Lombardi. I was co-host of a live hour-long afternoon show on Milwaukee's ABC affiliate, WISN TV. Kopay had come out of the closet in his autobiography. This was long before the changes in sports culture that we've seen this year -- like the two items mentioned above. Kopay played for the San Francisco 49ers, the Washington Redskins and the Green Bay Packers. He came out when his NFL career was over. He was the first NFL player to do so when his book was published.

For May ratings, our WISN TV Vice President of Programming wanted our show to have a week of "controversial" or "sexy" guests. In Milwaukee. Because we were an ABC affiliate and ABC had a colossal hit with Dynasty, he told our show's little ragtag, fabulous staff to see it we could get the L.A. network publicity office to fly in any Dynasty cast member to be on our show in person. Our show, called More, had a studio audience. Every dealing we had with the L.A. network publicity department was a joy. Its team tried to help us but, understandably, all Dynasty stars and supporting cast members were booked for May sweeps. Our V.P. had also told us we could offer the guest a $2000 honorarium for the Milwaukee appearance. I was the show's associate producer, so I'd been making calls with our excellent executive producer.

The Advocate magazine had carried a fine profile of Dave Kopay, saluting the bravery and importance of his book. I contacted The Advocate to see if they could put me in touch with Mr. Kopay. They did. He had a successful business in L.A. I told him I'm also "a member of the club" and bought his book. I bought it, read it and felt his story and the stellar NFL career he had would change stereotypes. He was a positive role model. I asked him if he would consider flying in to be a guest on our show. I wanted to pitch his appearance to my executive producer. He said, "Yes." I told my boss. She loved the idea. We took the idea to our V.P. He wasn't too enthusiastic. I was very passionate about this booking and my executive producer backed me up. The V.P. gave in and told us we could have Kopay on the show. But there was no money in the budget. Somehow the $2000 available for Linda Evans, John James or Heather Locklear the previous afternoon had suddenly disappeared for Dave Kopay's plane ticket.

I made a flight reservation for Dave Kopay and called him. This man could not have been kinder. When I said, "I don't have enough to fly you out first class but I got you in business," he stopped me. "Isn't your station picking this up?" I told him what happened and how $2000 we had was suddenly not there for him. I was paying for his ticket out of my own pocket because I believed in this appearance.

Dave Kopay told me to re-book him in economy. He'd upgrade himself to first and pay the difference. "Just take me to dinner afterwards at Karl Ratzsch's." That would be his payment. He loved that German-American restaurant. It was a deal. He wanted to help me prove a point to my narrow-minded Programming V.P.

He was a great guest. And we had a good studio audience that asked intelligent questions. Kopay is passionate about football. He hoped to follow a football career by having opportunities to coach professional or college teams. He was also very interested in being a sports commentator on network television. Those opportunities did not come his way -- and we can safely assume he was denied those opportunities simply because of his sexual orientation. Nor was he signed by a company like Nike. With his great looks, he did not get to pose for sportswear ads. His story would be so different today.

One of the best things about the Dave Kopay appearance on More occurred when the show was over. There was a long line of guys who wanted to shake his hand, get his autograph and talk football. They didn't care whether he was gay or not. They just wanted to talk about the game -- and about Coach Lombardi. THAT was the point I wanted to make. It doesn't really matter which team you play for...it's all about the game and how you play it. I was -- and still am -- proud of that show and proud of that day. And I'm proud of those Milwaukee audience members and TV crew people who treated him with such respect and regard.

Early this morning I read the news about the New York Jets. Tim Tebow was out. Dave Kopay could talk about that dismissal on a network sports show. Within the hour, I read the news that NBA player Jason Collins was really out. How I'd dig hearing Dave Kopay talk about that on a network sports show too. Let's remember this: Way back when, Mr. Kopay bravely helped kick open the door to acceptance after he retired from the NFL. I continue to be ever so grateful to him for his kindness.

And that guy can eat!

"To know is to understand. To understand is to have knowledge. To have knowledge is to tolerate, and to tolerate is to have peace." ~David Kopay

Jean Arthur vs James Dean

2013-04-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Allow me a film geek moment. If you saw Giant yesterday, either on the big screen at the TCM Classic Film Festival or on TCM, this is for you. Giant, an Oscar nominee for Best Picture of 1956, brought George Stevens the Oscar for that year's Best Director. Rock Hudson and the late James Dean were in the Oscar race for Best Actor. Elizabeth Taylor should have been in the race for Best Actress. I have a great love for that film. It's such a potent look at social class, social mobility and the barriers of race in America coupled with a wonderful love story. Taylor is terrific as the wealthy wife in Texas who's a feminist and civil rights advocate way ahead of her time. I've got a few words of praise for another actress who did some of finest work under the direction of George Stevens -- top screen comedienne Jean Arthur. He directed Arthur to her one and only Oscar nomination. Hard to believe she only got one. Jean Arthur was peerless. I still believe that a silent film she appeared in inspired ABC's The Bachelor. My parents loved Jean Arthur and I picked up the love from them when her old movies played on local TV during my childhood. James Dean was hailed for a bit of movie acting busienss he did in the 1950s. I think Jean beat him by a couple of decades doing similar business.

When it came to screwball comedy and comedy with social issues, there was just no one like her. Look at her as the street smart and crafty ace newspaper reporter whose conscience begins to bother her in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes To Town.

Look at her as the smart, cynical Washington insider who does the right thing by helping an idealistic young senator fight corruption in Capra's Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

In those two classics, Jean Arthur is exactly what Jennifer Jason Leigh as an ace newspaper reporter should have been in The Hudsucker Proxy instead of doing that imitation of Katharine Hepburn from Woman of the Year.

Ever since I was a teen and started seriously reading Hollywood history, I've read about how brilliant James Dean was when he did a spontaneous rope trick in one scene in Giant. People raved about that inspired piece of Method acting. Unfortunately, he didn't hear the raves because he was killed in a car collision before the movie opened. When actor/director Rob Reiner hosted "The Essentials" on TCM back in 2001, he also brought up the brilliance of the rope trick before he presented Giant.

If you recall that James Dean scene in Giant, rent a DVD of Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936). Watch Jean Arthur as Babe the reporter negotiate a big new assignment with her boss. The dialogue goes back and forth like a verbal tennis match in that New York City newspaper office. Jean Arthur tosses off her dialogue while doing...a rope trick.

Not only a rope trick. In another section of dialogue, Babe is doing a coin trick. While doing the coin trick, she drops it and doesn't miss a beat with the dialogue. She looks in the chair for the 50 cent piece and keeps the scene going. She's so in-the-moment during that scene. The rope bit and the coin trick are perfect for the character of the manipulative but lovable reporter, Babe Bennett. Yes, James Dean was fabulous. But, for my money, Jean Arthur went there first.

Giant director George Stevens directed Jean Arthur in 1943's The More the Merrier. Arthur starred in that bright World War 2 romantic comedy opposite Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn. She got a Best Actress Oscar nomination for this comedy hit.

She was in her early 40s. For an actress, that achievement is impressive even by today's standards. In her early 50s, she starred as the peaceful frontier wife and mother who argues about gun ownership in another George Stevens classic, Shane. Alan Ladd starred as the weary gunslinger. Paramount wanted her to do more pictures but she made Shane the end of her film career. She'd been making movies since the silent era.

She played a receptionist in the 1925 Buster Keaton silent film comedy, Seven Chances.

Buster was a guy being chased by all kinds of women who want to marry him for money.

It was remade as 1999's The Bachelor with Chris O'Donnell in the Buster Keaton role.

After its theatrical run, the movie aired in prime time on ABC. Soon, the network launched a reality show about several young, single women competing for a proposal from a guy called...The Bachelor.

Shane was Jean Arthur's last feature film. She continued to get script offers but she turned them down. Reportedly, Ida Lupino took the 1972 role in Junior Bonner starring Steve McQueen after Jean passed on it. However, she did try her hand at the small screen. Did you know she had a sitcom? The Jean Arthur Show only lasted for one season on CBS in 1966. I remember my parents making a point to watch it so they could see what she looked like. They both smiled and said, "She's still got that voice." The sitcom centered on a mother and son lawyer team. Arthur also did Jell-O commercials.

People have long held a certain affection for this shy star. After she retired from films, she taught drama for a few years at Vassar when Meryl Streep was a student. She's referenced warmly in the novels The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty and Carrie Fisher's Postcards from the Edge. Her screen persona was a muse to James L. Brooks when he wrote screenplays with characters that got Best Actress Oscar nominations for two talented women -- Holly Hunter in Broadcast News and Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets. Jean Arthur helped me realize that classic films could be entertaining and also continue to be relevant. I was home from college one summer in the early 1970s and I was lucky enough to see her do a guest appearance on The Merv Griffin Show. Merv showed a strong clip from Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and she pointed out how relevant Capra's film still was at the time, the time of the Watergate scandal and the Nixon Administration. She was right. President Nixon resigned one year after that broadcast.

A few nights ago, I watched Jean Arthur in the 1930s screwball comedy Easy Living. Oh, man, was she good! She's a poor office girl in Manhattan riding to work on the top of a double-decker bus. A Wall Street millionaire arguing with his shop-aholic wife throws her new sable coat off the roof of their penthouse. The coat lands on the poor office girl's head. A modern day fairytale with mix-ups ensues.

Check out Jean's rope trick in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town and let me know if it deserves the same attention that the James Dean rope bit in Giant for gotten for decades.

On CLUNY BROWN (1946)

2013-04-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Saintly. Sexy. Jennifer Jones was a natural beauty and a versatile actress. Few Hollywood stars could switch as easily and effectively from virgin to vamp as she did.

Her first of five Academy Award nominations came for playing the French peasant girl who would be canonized as St. Bernadette of Lourdes. Jennifer Jones won the Best Actress Oscar for her luminous and skillful work in The Song of Bernadette.

Her ephemeral loveliness was an asset again when she played a good girl who travels through time to help an artist in the surreal love story, Portrait of Jennie.

Then she could turn the coin over and get another Oscar nomination for playing the sexy half-breed seeking revenge on the gunslinger who lead her sexually astray. Duel in the Sun was so chock full o' frontier passion that it was nicknamed Lust in the Dust.

That aspect of the Jennifer Jones roles fascinated me. She could be so virginal in Since You Went Away, Love Letters and as the inspirational small town schoolteacher in Good Morning, Miss Dove. Then she could sizzle and bring male hormones to a boil as Madame Bovary, Ruby Gentry and in Gone to Earth.

All those movies were dramas. She rarely did comedies. Her first comedy was her best thanks to one of the masters, director Ernst Lubitsch. Long before Jane Withers became popular in a series of national TV commercials as "Josephine the Plumber," Jennifer Jones played a delightful British girl who could unclog your pipes in a jiffy. Plumbing was her passion. Her day job was working as a parlor maid. Her name was Cluny Brown.

When we first meet this perky and pretty young lady from London's lower class, she's wearing a silly and cheerful little hat. A middle-aged man needs his pipe unclogged. There's someone at his door. He opens it. We see Cluny. She's a babe. She says, "Well...shall we have a go at it?" He doesn't realize she's a plumber. As the gentleman visiting him says, "You see, she's not dressed for plumbing. But what woman is?" If I had to name my Top 5 favorite performances by Jennifer Jones, Cluny Brown would be in the list. If I had to name my Top 5 favorite performances by Charles Boyer, Cluny Brown would be in the list. He makes me laugh out loud with this performance as the visitor.

This Lubitsch comedy doesn't get a lot of attention like Trouble in Paradise, The Merry Widow, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka and To Be or Not To Be but you should give it a chance. I have loved this one for years. For me, it's truly a "feel-good" movie. In fact, I had a rough day this week. That night I watched Cluny Brown and laughed myself out of a funk. That was not the first time this has been my go-to feel-good classic movie. This movie lets Jennifer Jones have fun and get laughs playing both sides of that coin I mentioned. Cluny is a good girl. She has the purity of a saint yet she's also naturally sexy. A cocktail makes her kittenish. But she doesn't know where she belongs. Where would you put a gorgeous girl who wants to bang on your pipes? Cluny reviews the situation and prepares to practice her passion in the kitchen. She's a friendly free spirit.

When she's under the sink. we learn what this Lubitsch comedy is about. It's about social class and one's place in society. The story starts in London, June 1938. Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer) has managed to flee safely to England. Hitler hates this writer. But Hitler hates many people. While the Londoners fret about the social politics of cocktail parties and teas, Adam knows such class divisions are silly when one considers that Hitler is gobbling up Europe and war is inevitable. Cluny's wonderful spirit is confused and blocked by social restrictions. "Cluny Brown, you don't know your place," she's told. Mr. Belinski, fascinated by her talent for plumbing, feels that what's she been told is utter nonsense. Her tells her, "Wherever you're happy, that's your place."

She's still under the sink. But she's fascinated by his philosophy which is summed up in four words: "Squirrels to the nuts." Cluny has a cocktail with the two gents. When her humorless uncle arrives to take her home, he sees how giddy spirits have made her. She's purring. He's shocked.

Cluny's uncle sends her to Friars Carmel Manor in the country to work as a maid. Gentle Lady Alice and kind Sir Henry mistake Cluny for a friend of the Colonel's. There, a few years before Brits and Americans unite to rid the world of a global menace and fight for democracy, poor clueless Cluny learns the hard way that it's a major social blunder for the lower class and the upper class to have a cup of tea together.

Who winds up being invited to the manor as a weekend guest? Mr. Belinksi. Of course, he's going to fall in love with Cluny. He keeps her from being fired as a maid. She's still trying to find her place. She figures the best she can do is perhaps have her place determined by marriage. She's courted by a most pompous local pharmacist played by Richard Haydn. The actor is instantly recognizable from Ball of Fire, Please Don't Eat the Daisies and The Sound of Music. The pharmacist lives with his mother.

Belinski can't stand him. He's got to deal with this snob and with upper class Brits who, nice as they are, just don't seem to get it. Do you have upscale liberal friends whose idea of active social involvement against the ills and injustices of society around them is posting a devastating essay they read in Sunday's New York Times onto their Facebook or Twitter pages before they go to brunch? Then you'll understand how Belinski feels.

If you're a classic film fan, you've heard of "the Lubitsch touch." Billy Wilder talked about it and idolized the director for it. Is that touch evident in Cluny Brown? Yes. The two senior members of the Friars Carmel Manor domestic staff are the biggest snobs on the whole estate. Those two older servants, who shudder at the thought of ever being spoken to as equals, are fabulous in their domestic smugness. Another great touch is the 65 year-old mother of the pharmacist. She has not one word of dialogue and gets laughs. Stone-faced Mrs. Wilson just loudly clears her throat in every single scene. She's practically a human rattle. Lubitsch lets us imagine what she's thinking and not saying. It's a wonderful touch. So is the Fifth Avenue bookstore window sequence. Not a word is heard and it's like a champagne cocktail.

One of my other favorite scenes that kills me every time is when Adam Belinski tries to reason with the selfish and shapely Betty Cream.

She's already in bed when he enters her room to beg her to be more democratic in her treatment of people. He comments on her hair and shoulders. It's the expression on Boyer's face when his eyes land on her knockers that knocks me out every time. He had a versatility too and it's often overlooked. He could effectively play the dangerous lover with a darkness in his soul -- like the carnival barker Liliom directed by Fritz Lang (the story later musicalized by Rodgers & Hammerstein and called Carousel)...

...and the abusive husband driving his wife mad in Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman.

He could also play tender lovers like in The Garden of Allah with Marlene Dietrich...

...and the twice-remade but never surpassed Love Affair with Irene Dunne.

Boyer was also a pro at comedy and Cluny Brown is one of his best. It seems like he had such a ball making this movie. He gives an absolutely bright sophisticated comedy performance as a clever, quick-minded gentleman whose philosophy is still relevant today. Charles Boyer is just too cool. Jennifer Jones is delicious. So check out this Lubitsch comedy and remember what Mr. Bielinski said: "Squirrels to the nuts."

The Real FORREST GUMP

2013-04-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Late one night this week, one of the HBO channels aired Forrest Gump, the film that brought Tom Hanks his second consecutive Oscar for Best Actor. This touching story of a sweet, gentle Southern man and his adventures as he often runs down the road of life was a huge box office hit. People quoted lines from the movie. The most famous line quoted from the film is "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."

I was introduced to Forrest Gump by a WNBC TV local news camera crew member in the spring of 1994. I was a regular on Weekend TODAY in New York and did liveshots in the field every weekend covering events and places perfect for family entertainment. When we were in the van headed back to the station after a show, the audio guy was just giggling and guffawing at the book he was reading. I asked him what he was reading. The paperback, which he bought at a yard sale for 50 cents, was Forrest Gump, a novel by Winston Groom. I'd read in Premiere Magazine that Tom Hanks had completed a film version of it. Because the book got so many belly laughs from my co-worker, I checked it out from my local New York library. I laughed too. A lot. I read the book within a week. Forrest had many wild and memorable adventures in his life -- episodes from being a college football star and a wrestler, to being a soldier in Vietnam, an astronaut, working on a boat, and even bumbles through acting in a low-budget science-fiction movie in Hollywood with a cranky starlet named Raquel Welch.

It was a slightly cynical yet fun and very funny American story that followed this big, blond hunk of muscle. Yes, you read that correctly. In the novel, Forrest has a crew cut and looks more like this...

....like wrestler-turned-action movie star, John Cena.

This poor Southerner is not the brightest bulb on the front porch, but he has all those amazing episodes in his life because is an idiot savant. Says Forrest in the book, "Bein' an idiot is no box o' chocolates." People want him. His mother is a whiny, clinging old bat who always wants him to do things for her. His girlfriend, Jenny, likes to roll around with him a lot when he's naked and he can't really figure out why. We readers know why. To quote a Woody Allen movie, Forrest Gump is "hung like a loaf of French bread."

So...when I soon heard there were screenings of Forrest Gump for film reviewers and entertainment correspondents...I definitely made a reservation. I'm a hardcore Tom Hanks fan. I have been for years. I just had to see how he was going to play a 6' 6" Southern muscle hunk with a low IQ and a big johnson. Well, he didn't. Screenwriter Eric Roth kept the main characters and many of the episodes while he flipped the tale from daffy cynical satire to sentimental love story. Hanks was a not the same Forrest in the book. He was a variation. There was even a variation on the chocolates line.

Mama Gump was changed from an old biddy to a strong woman who was the most devoted, unselfish movie mother since Barbara Stanwyck as Stella Dallas. No one can play a strong Southern woman like that native born Southern Californian, Sally Field. She gave us tender scenes as Mrs. Gump, the single mother who gives Forrest his spirit.

Jenny becomes a poignant character in the movie. There's more intimacy than lust.

If I had another talk show right now in New York City, I'd love to have author Winston Groom on as a guest. He didn't write or co-write the screenplay adaptation of his novel. Eric Roth did it alone and won an Oscar for his work. (Years later, he pretty much rewrote his Forrest Gump screenplay and called it The Curious Case of Benjamin Button starring Brad Pitt).

This was the very fitting cover illustration for Winston Groom's 1986 novel.

The movie took Oscars for Best Actor, Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), Best Screenplay Adaptation and Best Picture of 1994. Because the movie was such a colossal hit at the box office, paperback editions were selling well at top bookstores. I lived a block away from a Barnes & Noble and saw folks pick up the book for purchase simply because they'd just seen the movie. The paperback version got this new cover.

I often wondered how those folks felt after they read the book and discovered the night-and-day differences in the source material and what they'd seen on the screen. With that paperback edition a best-seller because of the Tom Hanks movie, I'm sure Winston Groom pocketed a few extra royalty checks. I sure hope he got a piece of the movie action. But how did he feel when the screenplay removed a lot of the spice in his story and replaced it with sugar? Or did he really care as he went to the bank...again? I would totally dig doing an interview with Winston Groom.

And I loved the chapter with Raquel Welch.

FUNNY GIRL and Me

2013-04-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

The TCM Classic Film Festival kicks off later in Hollywood with the deluxe premiere of a restored classic. A touched up Funny Girl starring Barbra Streisand hits the big screen this evening. I wish I could be there. Funny Girl -- one of my favorite movie musicals.

I'm a SoCal guy. I was born and raised in Southern California. A child of the '60s, I grew up in South Central Los Angeles. And I loved it. New York City had Broadway. We had Hollywood. For us, going to see major motion pictures was our Los Angeleno version of going to see a Broadway show. When a big movie like My Fair Lady or Camelot played, you had to purchase reserved seats just like theatergoers do when seeing a Broadway show. You could send in your requests to the movie theater via the mail but you always had to mark down a alternate date in case you first choice was sold out. Those big movies would play at one theater in Hollywood for an exclusive engagement before opening wide at a local theater or drive-in near you. I think My Fair Lady was such a hit that it played exclusively at the same theater for almost two years. Now you can see it on TCM every other month.

I had Barbra Streisand's first albums. I'd used my allowance to buy them when my parents went family shopping in Baldwin Hills at a store called FedCo. I'd do my chores and homework so they would let me stay up and watch the early Barbra Streisand specials on CBS.

The first solo reserved seat I ever had to a movie was the one I had to see Funny Girl during its exclusive engagement in Hollywood. I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven watching this new movie on a big screen in a Hollywood movie palace. The theater was beautiful and clean. The audience was packed. There was an overture. I was seated in a section called "Mezzanine." I had a great view.

I saw Funny Girl at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Mom drove me.

For one brief moment, I thought I'd see Funny Girl and lose my virginity the same evening. That is, if I even knew how to lose my virginity. Before I tell you what happened in the mezzanine, I have to reveal this to you honestly. Early in my high school years -- well, pretty much all during my high school years -- I was a combination of these two sitcom kids:

The always positive but clueless Sue Heck on ABC's The Middle....

and the insecure, lactose intolerant Jordan on The Bernie Mac Show.

Like Jordan, I went to Catholic school. Being in Catholic school, we really didn't hear dirty words. We were in a Catholic cocoon. We wouldn't know dirty words if we heard them. We were too busy dealing with socially acceptable words we didn't even understand. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." Covet? What's covet mean? Did Sister St. Paul misspell that word when she wrote the 10 Commandments on the chalkboard? Did she mean "cover"? Thou shalt not cover thy neighbor's wife? Naughty words relative to body parts or sexual recreation were alien to us. I didn't hear some such words until I transferred to public school for the 4th to 6th grades.

I still recall how Dad dropped his fork onto his plate in shock one weekday evening during supper when I innocently said, "Daddy...what does 'titties' mean? Is that like your navel?" I was a new kid at public school. The next evening, after Dad had given me a good talking to, I was so silent at the dinner table that I could've booked a role in Children of a Lesser God.

Dad took me with him to see Goldfinger. James Bond was awesome. But, when we were in the car driving home and I asked "Why did some people start laughing when the lady said her name was 'Pussy Galore'?," He said "I don't know" and "Don't ask me that anymore. And don't ask your mother."

I still had no understanding of slang or "street-and-fence" words I heard. Or ones I saw in some of Dad's paperback copies of Harold Robbins novels.

I had suggested a family outing. "Why don't we all go see Funny Girl?" Dad didn't want to be any part of that conversation. My little sister just watched this whole interaction like it was performance art. Mom was the negotiator. If I did my chores and homework, I could get a ticket to see the movie alone. She would drive me to the Egyptian, go do some shopping and then pick me up when the movie was over.

I think, at that moment, Dad looked away and saw his dreams of being a grandfather roll away like a tumblewood on a deserted dirt road in a TV western. Also, before I saw the film, I owned and had played the Funny Girl soundtrack so many times that I could lip sync every single cut on the album. Perfectly.

The movie was thrilling. Even better than the soundtrack. I fell in love with Barbra Streisand.

OK, I admit it. I fell in love with Omar Sharif too.

There was a college coed seated next to me on my right. She let me look at her souvenir program during the overture and she smiled at me a lot. She wore the kind of dress you'd have seen Dusty Springfield wear on American Bandstand. It was a one-piece mini. She was brunette and had a build that, decades later when I lived in New York, I would hear people call "zaftig."

For my early teen category, I'm pretty sure I'd integrated the audience for that showing. Not that there was any segregation, mind you. When I was in my seat I looked over the railing to spot any other black folks. I saw an middle-aged couple like Mom and Dad. No black kids my age down there or up in the mezzanine. There was one big showshopper song we all waited for. An anthem of determination and a shout-down to people trying to block your path. As soon as Barbra as Fanny Brice musically declared "Don't," you felt that entire audience collectively inhale with a community "Here it is!" feeling. It was the "Don't Rain On My Parade" number....brilliantly shot, edited, orchestrated and sung.

Yes. I was the only young black kid seated alone at that showing of Funny Girl. And I was the one who started applauding enthusiastically after La Streisand finished her final note in the song, leaving us to hear a few chugs of the tugboat before the screen read Intermission.

The coed next to me (she'd told me she was in college), said "You really liked it." I replied, "Oh, yes!" Then she sort of confidentially whispered, "A lot of my friends tell me I look like her." I remember thinking Wow. You kind of look more like Lainie Kazan but I politely said "That's cool!"

She had a little paper bag smack dab on her lap. Her hands were on her lap holding that little paper bag. Then, with a low voice that I found to be kind of sexy, she looked at me and said, "Would you like some of my......marzipan?"

I'd never heard of marzipan. But, the way she looked at me and the way she looked down at her lap when making the offer, I was positive that "marzipan" was Caucasian street talk for either "vagina" or "sexual intercourse."

I was confused. I had no idea what to do. I still had my ticket stub. If we did leave so I could lose my innocence, could we be done before my mother came to pick me up? More importantly, could it wait until after Barbra Streisand sang "My Man"?

I decided that watching the second half of Funny Girl was far more important than losing my virginity. Shyly I answered, "No, thank you."

Then she reached into that sack, took a handful of its candy contents and popped it in her mouth. Her mouth was full when she said, "I just love marzipan."

What an experience at the Egyptian Theater. My first reserved seat at a Hollywood movie. I led the entire mezzanine section in wild applause at the end of the "Don't Rain On My Parade Number." And I learned that marzipan does not mean nookie. Wow. Knowledge is power. And the movie experience was not over.

The "My Man" number made the coed cry. She'd eaten all her marzipan. We all had a great time at the movie. I did have fun sitting next to her. I beat Mom's eardrums as I gushed about Funny Girl all the way from Hollywood back home to Central Avenue. In fact, I raved about it so much that, one Saturday, my mother and a friend from work went to see it.

When she got back home, Mom looked me, smiled and said "Honey, that girl can sang." She loved it.

I bet tonight's Hollywood audience will break out into wild applause too. One day, I actually want to see Funny Girl while having some marzipan. Just for the heck of it.

Happy Birthday, Shirley MacLaine

2013-04-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Shirley MacLaine was robbed when she did not get a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for playing Doris Mann in Mike Nichols' Postcards from the Edge. As the ultimate show biz survivor and Hollywood mom of a co-dependent actress daughter, Shirley hit it out of the ballpark. She and Meryl Streep were a terrific team as the bickering but devoted Hollywood mother and child.

I love Hollywood-on-Hollywood movies and Postcards from the Edge is one of my favorites -- right up there with Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd., Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful and George Cukor's A Star Is Born.

Today is Shirley MacLaine's birthday. One of my happiest afternoons at VH1 (and there were many) was when the Best Actress Oscar winner for Terms of Endearment came over to be a guest on my talk show. She was warm and chatty as soon as she arrived in the greenroom. Before we got into the studio, we talked briefly about her Paramount comedy with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Artists and Models. She made that, "Boy, oh, boy!" face. Apparently that was a tense shoot. The comedy team was speeding to the finish line of its partnership and it wasn't pretty behind the scenes. She said they were yelling at each other a lot. But the movie is fun and she, playing the girl who has a yen for Jerry's comic book collector character, gives the movie the kooky buoyancy it needs.

At the time of our interview, Shirley MacLaine was promoting one of her spiritual awareness books. She'd completed Steel Magnolias and had just started work on Postcards from the Edge. I'd had Carrie Fisher (Postcards from the Edge novelist and screenwriter...and actress) and Carrie's mother, Debbie Reynolds, on my VH1 talk shows. Not to brag, but I got a "How did you know that?" from Ms. MacLaine during the interview when I mentioned the only-in-Hollywood casting irony. In the early 1960s, MacLaine had been slated to star in MGM's deluxe adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Debbie got the part. Debbie campaigned to play Doris Mann in Postcards from the Edge, written by her daughter, Carrie. Shirley got the part. She told me a sweet story about Debbie asking her to let her play Molly Brown.

I found out that director/screenwriter and movie producer James L. Brooks really worked her last good nerve right before shooting started on Terms of Endearment.

Here's a clip from that portion of my VH1 talk show interview with Shirley MacLaine.

Whatever James L. Brooks did certainly worked. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, Jack Nicholson won for Best Supporting Actor. James L. Brooks won Oscars for his screenplay adaptation, his direction and for producing the Best Picture of 1983.

By the way, MacLaine took the accent she'd planned to use playing Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment and used it when she played cranky Ouiser in Steel Magnolias.

Not having a husband seems to have been successful for Shirley MacLaine. Right before Artists and Models with Martin and Lewis, she made her 1955 film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry. She played a young widowed mother with a little boy.

The public fell in love with her. In the early 1960s, with three Best Actress Academy Award nominations to her credit, she was widowed several times in the extravagant all-star satire, What A Way To Go! Shirley's an Edith Head fashion show in this movie.

There's more about that comedy in my first entry of this month, "April 1st with Shirley MacLaine." The next time I interviewed her was for WNBC's Weekend TODAY in New York. She was promoting her new 1994 comedy, Guarding Tess. She's a widowed former First Lady who develops an unlikely friendship with the man she constantly irritates, her main Secret Service agent played by Nicolas Cage.

This is really a clever modern day version of a children's story. Guarding Tess is basically Snow White House and the Seven Dwarfs if you pay attention to the structure of it.

One of Shirley's best screen performances after Postcards from the Edge -- and another one that should have put her in the Best Supporting Actress Oscar race -- was in the movie Bernie. She played a wealthy widow in Texas. This is based on a real-life story.

A sweet and rather shy mortician seems to be the only person in the town who can deal with this annoying and demanding widow, Marjorie. No one else can stand her. She will wind up murdered. By Bernie. How mean was she? One local woman said, "Honey, there was people in town who would've shot her for $5.00." Shirley MacLaine and Jack Black slammed across two of the best film performances of 2012 in Bernie.

MacLaine started her career as a Broadway dancer before Hollywood discovered her in the 1950s. She knows how to use her body for character work. There's a sort of choreography to her sour and guarded exterior in Bernie. Marjorie doesn't move and doesn't hold herself they same way Doris did in Postcards from the Edge or the way Ouiser did in Steel Magnolias. MacLaine gives you glimpses into what possibly hardened Marjorie's heart, and a potential she had for sweetness, while also showing how she could be so infuriating that one of the most beloved Christians in town would kill her. Marjorie is a powerful person done in by a misuse of her power. They both should've been Oscar nominees for Bernie. Jack Black was one of her best male co-stars since Jack Nicholson. Put Bernie on your DVD rental list.

I hope Shirley MacLaine has a great birthday. I hope I can interview her again one day.

Oh! If you've never seen her with Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's The Apartment, Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1960, make that DVD rental a must-see. Forever fabulous.

On TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE

2013-04-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

This blog entry accompanies the previous one about Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2. If you need some true wit mixed in with low-brow humor, I recommend renting that DVD for your weekend movie pleasure. If you want to make it a double feature, I have another recommendation. BUT -- if you are offended by attractive puppets engaged in torrid sexual intercourse -- if you're offended by puppets using 4-letter words -- if you're offended by puppets.........smoking, then leave this blog space now.

Due to the devastating events of last week in Boston, the nation's psyche has been dropkicked back to a post-September 11th state. With that feeling in the air, on the air with cable TV's non-stop news and on social media like Twitter, TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE is now worth a second look. Watch this group of patriotic vigilante puppets do its best to bitch-slap the crap out of global terrorist threats.

Once again, we are hearing the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" in news reports. This puppet posse can defeat any weapons of mass destruction you've got. Bring it!

They can tackle any foreign terrorist threat you've got. Bring it!

And they can do it with the help of a handsome young actor from a Broadway musical.

Just like in the John le Carré novel, The Little Drummer Girl, a performer is recruited by an intelligence agency. In the novel, the performer was an English actress. In this 2004 satire from the team that gave us South Park, terrorism is fought by a guy who was the leading man in a big socially-relevant Broadway musical, sort of like Rent. Yes. This non-stop action thriller starts with a showtune.

Team America: World Police was visually inspired by Thunderbirds.

I loved Thunderbirds. Just like that show, Team America: World Police has puppets who are more animated than alleged actor Steven Seagal. Here's the trailer:

Wow. That's the kind of big screen action you usually see from Bruce Willis in another Die Hard sequel. But unlike Bruce Willis as Officer John McClane, Broadway actor Gary Johnston has to fight foreign terrorists, deal with other celebrities, and fall in love. Once again, if you are offended by puppet coitus, the explicit sight of puppets graphically making love in various erotic positions, do not rent this DVD. They get very, very naked.

Otherwise, enjoy. Team America puts the "F" back in "Freedom."

On Steve Coogan in HAMLET 2

2013-04-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

British comic BBC TV and film actor Steve Coogan starred in two movies released in 2008. Tropic Thunder was a big hit Hollywood satire that brought an Oscar nomination to Robert Downey Jr for his portrayal of a full-of-himself yet totally loopy movie star on location. Coogan played the harried film director. Trying to keep control over his cast was like trying to make cats walk in a line single file. Coogan's other comedy did not get as much attention, but it also made me laugh a lot. It's called Hamlet 2. To me, TV shows liked Glee and Smash should be a lot more Hamlet 2. I felt like I knew Steve Coogan's character. I admit it. Occasionally, I've felt like I was Steve Coogan's character. He's an actor who never made it big. A part in a national TV commercial for a herpes medication was about as good as it got for him. He wound up teaching drama in high school. In Tucson, Arizona. He directs the high school plays. His plays show us why he didn't make it big as an actor. Nonetheless, he's that example of what happens when your dreams didn't work out the way you hoped they would. He still has the dream.

The part was perfect for Coogan. He seems to be a master as playing underdogs who are their own worst enemies. In Hamlet 2, you know his marriage will crumble because his non-supportive wife is played by Catherine Keener. No one can exude that "I hope your head catches on fire" feeling with a smiling face like Catherine Keener. She drinks because she's miserable with him. Michael Phelps could have done laps in her Margarita glass. It's that big. She is no help at all to her husband. I love when Keener plays that kind of barb-tongued character. Look at the size of her friggin' Margarita glass!

The biggest comedy surprise in Hamlet 2 is Elisabeth Shue as Elisabeth Shue. She lampoons her own career. In the movie, we learn that her field of film opportunities became as dry and dusty as parts of Arizona. Her career didn't kick into high gear after her Best Actress of 1995 Oscar nomination for Leaving Las Vegas. Don't even ask about her agent. She now works as a nurse in a fertility clinic. In Tucson, Arizona.

Just like Glee, this has a gay student. But he doesn't know he's gay. Even when he's being playfully slapped in the face with a large and rather phallic balloon.

The loser actor-turned-drama teacher suffers the humiliation of his wife walking out on him. He's constantly out to prove to his students that he's not a dork.

He even gets bad reviews from the teen theater critic for the school newspaper.

The teacher reinvents himself and gets support from his students when he writes an edgy new play that combines Shakespeare and Jesus. A hip, macho Jesus. With musical numbers. This is the production that brings the tough Latino kids and white drama class kids together. Rehearsals are like West Side Story with a happy ending.

Of course, lyrics like "Rock me, Sexy Jesus" are cool with the kids but not with local conservatives. He needs legal help. Enter Amy Poehler as Cricket Feldstein. Says Cricket, "Well, this play is gonna bitch-slap Broadway like a cheap hooker at a gangbang."

The teacher will cause a big local arts controversy and find new love.

If like you TV's South Park, I think you'll like Hamlet 2. There's a young actor in Coogan's comedy whose work I really like. Joseph Julian Soria plays the teacher's main classroom heckler who also appears to be the toughest Latino thug from the 'hood in the class. Not just a heckler, he's a voice of a reason for the clueless and inept drama teacher. That poor dope is the opposite of the kind of teacher we've seen in movies from Goodbye, Mr. Chips and To Sir, With Love to Dead Poets Society and Dangerous Minds. The smart classroom heckler will wind up dancing onstage with Sexy Jesus.

On the Lifetime TV drama series, Army Wives, this young actor plays Hector Cruz.

I saw Joseph Julian Soria in Hamlet 2 and an indie movie called Tru Loved. He should do more comedies. He's got the gift. I first saw this movie at an afternoon critics screening. It wasn't very crowded. There were a lot of other black and Latino viewers at the screening. We laughed a lot. We were entertained. I watched Glee when it started. But Glee and Smash got a little too ooh-la-la for me. I can't do a steady weekly diet of those shows. If they were more like Hamlet 2, I could. When Mel Brooks was on a roll as a movie director in the 1970s with films like Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety, Steve Coogan would've been a perfect addition to Brooks' company of comic actors. For some weekend laughs, check him out in Hamlet 2. The movie is only about 90 minutes long.

Steve Coogan as high school drama teacher Dana Marschz tells one of his students: "Chuy, you're going to have a magical life. Because, no matter where you go, it's always going to be better than Tucson."

On HIS GIRL FRIDAY

2013-04-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

Journalism. Politics. Ethnicity. Guns. Four topics that have been major in social media this week. Four elements we look at, plus a little romance, in a classic comedy airing later on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Need some laughs and a relief from the relentless hard news of the week? Watch the dynamo performances Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell deliver in Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday. It airs later tonight/this evening at 8pm ET on TCM. This gender-bender comedy set in the rapid-fire world of big city newspaper journalism in the "Dark Ages" is one of the best remakes ever made.

When I say "Dark Ages," I mean the days when reporters did their work on rotary telephones and typewriters. It was still like that when I got to New York City in the mid-1980s. His Girl Friday is based on a famous play called The Front Page. Many classic film fans know that. The Front Page was first adapted for the big screen in a 1931 film that seems rather creaky today. Adolphe Menjou was Walter Burns, the harried newspaper editor who wants ace reporter Hildy Johnson, played by Pat O'Brien, to call off his wedding and cover a hot story. In His Girl Friday, Hildy became a woman. Not just any woman. This Hildy got Reno-vated from Walter. She's his ex-wife and she's about to get remarried. But Walter will stop at nothing to sabotage her marriage plans so she can cover a hot story. Their marriage may be yesterday's news but a flame seems still to be burning. Notice that when Cary Grant as the scheming editor reminds Hildy, "We've got something between us nothing can change," he points to their...well, their underwear sections. Walter and Hildy were meant to be a team. Maybe not a husband and wife team, but a team nonetheless. The wisecracks whip out. The pace is fast. The chemistry is terrific. The gender switch is inspired and makes The Front Page story fresher. Hildy is a no-nonsense dame with a heart o' gold. She's a gal who's one of the guys. Not only that, she's often the smartest guy in the room. Walter goes to work in a hat and a suit. Hildy returns to the office in a hat and a suit.

In the literature of film, this costume design tells you exactly what you need to know about Hildy. In a man's world, she's just as good as a man. This would be the kind of character Rosalind Russell would make her own in 1940s comedies. When Hildy walks into the newspaper offices at the open, watch how warmly she's greeted. Notice her sisterhood with the other women. She's walking feminist turf. Hildy is not at all like Sylvia Fowler, the catty character Russell fabulously played in the 1939 comedy, The Women, also rooted in a Broadway play. Hildy is a street smart, independent career girl.

Roz got 4 Oscar nominations in her film career and received an honorary Oscar. You'd think that one of her nominations came for His Girl Friday. No. Her first one came a couple of years later for her comedy, My Sister Eileen. She never won an Oscar. Neither did Cary Grant. Hard to believe, isn't it? He, too, received an honorary Oscar. His Girl Friday always makes me wish Hollywood had re-teamed Cary Grant with Rosalind Russell they way he worked more than once with Irene Dunne, Jean Arthur, Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.

This week, we witnessed CNN report the wrong facts in the Boston bomber case. A suspect was under arrest. Then he wasn't under arrest. Other news outlets reported what CNN reported. So they were wrong too. Watch the men in the press room while they're covering the Earl Williams execution story. His Girl Friday feels relevant.

Today, in the pre-dawn hours, there was live network news coverage of the major gun battle that occurred between police and the two Boston bombing suspects in Watertown, Massachusetts. One suspect reportedly shot and killed a young security guard at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). One suspect is dead. The other is armed and dangerous...and still at large. Boston was in lockdown. This is just two days after the Senate went "Peter B. Hartwell" on legislation that would've expanded background checks on gun buyers. In His Girl Friday, Hildy refers to that character as "Sheriff Peter B. Hartwell. B for Brains." There's business about a gun in the story. Hartwell makes a big boo-boo while a gun is present. Walter and Hildy feel that Earl Williams, the white man on death row, is really innocent and that his execution would be for political gain. Corrupt politicians are up for re-election. Minority votes are important. A black police officer was killed. Hanging Williams could win over those minority voters.

Because she's so much "one of the guys," you may wonder if Hildy has a feminine, softer side. Yes. There's an important scene in which her style and banter switch out of the fast lane. We see her skill as a reporter and how manipulative she can be to get the story she wants. She visits the convict scheduled to be executed for an interview. She's softer and intimate but still serious. She makes reference to her lipstick on a cigarette. The talk is about guns and what guns are for.

Journalism. Politics. Ethnicity. Guns. Topics of this week in a fast 1940 comedy remake. As I mentioned, 1931 saw the first film version of The Front Page.

In the Howard Hawks sex-change version, Ralph Bellamy plays the nice dork of a man eager to marry Hildy. We side with Walter. Bruce is not the man for Hildy. He gets in the way of her work. He doesn't understand her journalistic talent. He doesn't see that she can do as "a newspaperman" what lawyers didn't. As for remakes, this is a rare case in which a remake is just as good if not better than the original. It's in that championship league with George Cukor's Holiday and A Star Is Born, William Wyler's Ben-Hur and the George Stevens remake of An American Tragedy retitled A Place in the Sun.

Another thing: A few years ago when I still lived in New York City, a Logo TV exec contacted me. He asked me to suggest movies the channel could air during Gay Pride Month. The movies could be old classics. Logo just wanted films with gay characters in them. Films that weren't usually seen during a Gay Pride Month. I suggested His Girl Friday. In The Front Page, Bensinger is played by Edward Everett Horton. He's an obvious fussbudget. He's prissy and afraid of germs. He's always got his handkerchief handy. He's a bit of an outsider in the press room.

Notice Bensiger in His Girl Friday. He's less a fussbudget and less an outsider. As Hildy is giving us a new woman, he's giving us a bit of a new gay image. He's just the guy at work who happens to be gay. The other reporters know and they're cool about it. Ernest Truex takes on the role of Bensinger ("Roy V. Bensinger, the poet," as Walter says).

Bensiger's newspaper writing style may be a little flowery but what's his career goal? He'd like to be a war correspondent. The refreshing attitude towards a non-hetero member of the workplace is evident when all the guys are glad to see Hildy back and congratulate her on her engagement. She tells the male reporters that she's getting married the next day. Bensiger asks if they're invited. Hildy smiles warmly and says, "Well I might use you for a bridesmaid, Roy." It's a good-natured josh and an embrace of diversity. Did Logo go with my suggestion? Nope. They aired The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Again

There were other versions of The Front Page.

Billy Wilder returned to the original in his 1974 remake of The Front Page with Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon and Carol Burnett as the hooker, Mollie Malloy. Yes, Carol Burnett. In Wilder's version, Bensiger (played by David Wayne) is quite obviously gay and doesn't have the basic "regular guy" vibe of Bensinger in Hawks' remake. He's a snooty fussbudget.

The Howard Hawks remake inspired 1988's Switching Channels with Burt Reynolds, Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve taking the action into the world of TV journalism.

Of all the new versions, the crown for remaking The Front Page still goes to Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. This 1940 classic holds up very, very well. It's fast, funny and packs a pretty fierce punch.

Asian Star in PACIFIC RIM

2013-04-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

I love the cinematic visions from that big bear of a director and screenwriter, Guillermo del Toro. Did you see his feminist fairytale, Pan's Labyrinth? His camera makes love to the macabre. The esoteric is embraced. Such beautiful images of scary things.

In Pacific Rim, director del Toro will, once again, give us magnificent monsters.

Something curious struck me about the marketing of this big movie when I saw the trailer. Or maybe I'm being too sensitive. But here goes: Often when you see a trailer with stars who have won or been nominated for Academy Awards, it's referenced on the screen. You may see something like "Oscar nominee Brad Pitt" or "Oscar winner Charlize Theron." I'm sure "Oscar nominee" would accompany Guillermo del Toro's name in articles thanks to his screenwriting nomination for Pan's Labyrinth. Well, there's an Oscar nominee in his Pacific Rim cast. The nominee made Academy Award history.

I saw the movie Babel. I felt that it went on too long and was repetitive in its message that privileged people are often clueless to the disenfranchised and less fortunate in other cultures -- or in their own neighborhoods. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett starred. But the performance that really made an impact on me was the one given by Rinko Kikuchi as the Japanese schoolgirl dealing with death and rejection. What a powerful portrayal.

That performance brought Ms. Kikuchi an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress of 2006. She was the second Japanese actress in nearly 50 years to get an Oscar nomination. And in that same category. She followed Miyoshi Umeki, Best Supporting Actress winner for 1957's Sayonara. That's a pretty significant achievement, if you ask me. She made Oscar history. Rinko Kikuchi stars in Pacific Rim coming out this summer.

Here's the current trailer for the upcoming big, new sci-fi monster action movie.

If a new trailer is edited and released closer to the movie's opening date, I hope there's a change. I hope we can get a line of dialogue from her or see "Oscar® nominee Rinko Kikuchu" on the screen. That is, if they're not too busy slapping us in the face again with that big cinematic mansack of butch, patriotic images. Let us know who the male actors are too. A new trailer should look less like Transformers.

Hollywood needs to step up its game in giving some love to our Asian actors. I've mentioned this in previous blogs. An excellent film like Wayne Wang's The Joy Luck Club comes out, gets fine reviews and not one single Oscar nomination. I still think that film should've been adapted into a network TV series that would give work to Asian-American actors. I like Disturbia, that 2005 sorta-kinda teen remake of Hitchcock's Rear Window. Shia LaBeouf took on the James Stewart duties as the righteous voyeur who sees and solves a neighborhood crime. Sarah Roemer is in the "Grace Kelly" role.

LaBeouf's "Thelma Ritter," if you will, was now an Asian buddy who's a tech whiz.

So...how come Disturbia couldn't have been made with an Asian-American actor like John Cho, star of the popular Harold & Kumar comedies, in the lead role? Cho's currently in the sitcom cast of NBC's Go On. He's talented, charismatic, sexy. The Asian guy doesn't always have to be the sidekick. Aaron Yoo co-starred in Disturbia.

Remember Jurassic Park? If it wasn't for the scientist played by BD Wong, there wouldn't have been a story or a park. He creates the dinosaur eggs that hatch. But his character disappears after the first 30 minutes. Giant dinosaurs come back to life but the Asian-American actor disappears. And the black dude (Samuel L. Jackson as a scientist) gets eaten. But we saw that one comin'. In a horror or sci-fi creature movie, black actors usually get killed or eaten before the last act. We're rarely around for the movie's wrap party. Did you see the 1999 sci-fi thriller, Deep Blue Sea? Samuel L. Jackson got eaten in that one too. In a wetsuit yet. Now there's a creature feature for you. Deep Blue Sea had Samuel L. Jackson and LL Cool J in the water fighting a monster shark. It was like Ghetto Jaws. For real. That shark had a grill on its teeth.

Back to Jurassic Park. My question to Hollywood was "Why didn't you bring BD Wong's character back for the sequel?" I even asked BD Wong on WNBC if he'd been considered for a sequel. His scientist character, Dr. Henry Wu, should have returned. In the 1930s, Dr. Frankenstein returned in Bride of Frankenstein. Because, without him, there would've been no Monster and no Mrs. Monster. One of the most frightening things about Jurassic Park is that Jeff Goldblum was cast as the voice of reason. Steven Spielberg should've brought back BD Wong along with Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough for 1997's The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

About the late Oscar-winning actress, Miyoshi Umeki. In Sayonara, she and Red Buttons played an interracial couple battling bigotry after WW2. The white American is a G.I. stationed in Japan. Both actors got Hollywood gold for their supporting roles in the drama that starred Marlon Brando. After she won the Academy Award, she starred in the original Broadway cast and in the film version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical comedy, Flower Drum Song. The Broadway play was directed by Gene Kelly.

The Broadway production co-starred the dynamic singer/actress Pat Suzuki (left).

Fellow Broadway cast member and future Barney Miller sitcom star, Jack Soo, joined the Oscar winner in recreating his stage role for the 1961 movie adaptation.

After that, babyboomers loved Miyoshi Umeki on the heartwarming hit ABC sitcom, The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969-1972). She played the wise housekeeper, Mrs. Livingston, opposite Bill Bixby as Eddie's dad. Mrs. Livingston, in the TV adaptation of a 1963 MGM movie, became sort of a co-parent with the widowed father. She teaches many good values to little Eddie. She's a dear friend of the family.

OK. I didn't understand why the writers had this intelligent woman keep calling the widower "Mr. Eddie's Father," but this casting was a big step forward in diversity. In the Vincente Minnelli movie, Mrs. Livingston was a Caucasian female and more a housekeeper than a co-parent. Ms. Umeki brought more dimension to the character in the expanded role. She added a wonderful soulfulness to this sitcom.

That's enough. I'm off my soapbox. Thanks for letting me vent.

Movie tip: If you don't mind reading subtitles and want to see a terrific and intelligent sci-fi monster movie over the weekend, rent The Host. This is a 2006 thriller from Korea. A smart teen schoolgirl has to deal with her sometimes exasperating working class family...and a giant sea creature on the loose that eats people. The Host is scary, funny, witty and has excellent special effects. The girl is one of my favorite strong females in a sci-fi horror film since Ripley and Newt in the Alien franchise. Enjoy.

Joan Rivers with Burt Lancaster

2013-04-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Promoting a new comedy book she wrote, Joan Rivers was on guest on NPR's Fresh Air hosted by Terry Gross. Joan killed. She was really funny and really quick in that interview last year. So quick that I felt some of her one-liners went over Terry's intellectual head. Joan's current book is called I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me.

One thing Joan mentioned, without bitterness, was that she's never called "actress" and she's never really been seriously honored for her decades of work. She's nearly 80. She's been a comedy headliner since the 1960s when very few women were stand-up comedy headliners getting solo spots on TV variety shows. Joan was right. She's not just a comedian. Another thing -- she's been profiled, roasted and featured...but she's never really been seriously honored for her long career. I'm not the only person who hoped the documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, would land a Oscar nomination for Best Documentary of 2010. It should have been nominated, but it wasn't.

If you're a Joan Rivers fan and if you're pursuing a career in stand-up comedy, you need to see this documentary. It's wickedly funny, yet it's also quite honest in showing the hard work and heartbreak that go into a career of trying to make people laugh. You really learn more about her and it opens with Joan at her brass ovaries best. There's a heckler in a Wisconsin audience. He's offended at a joke she did. First of all, how could you pay to be in the audience of a Joan Rivers comedy show and not know what kind of humor she does? She's not Jerry Seinfeld. She's not Bill Cosby. She's not Paula Poundstone. But that is an aspect of the business you have to deal with -- and deal with it, she did.

It's rarely mentioned that Joan is a writer. I've blogged previously that she co-wrote one of the best, smartest and funniest made-for-TV movies of the 1970s. It could probably air this weekend on ABC opposite NBC's Smash and make good numbers. ABC premiered The Girl Most Likely To... in 1973. Stockard Channing killed and killed in this black comedy about Miriam Knight, a sweet and lonely ugly duckling college whiz...

...who's turned into a lethal swan after a disfiguring car crash and plastic surgery. Now a real babe with a hot figure and a new face, she uses her brilliant mind to get revenge on every mean sorority girl and mean guy who mistreated her. The Girl Most Likely To... is available on DVD. Stockard Channing is fabulous in this murder mystery. Joan's script showcased her comedy skills. This was five years before Channing played a high schooler in the hit film version of Grease. Ed Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) co-stars in the TV movie as a slightly awkward and unmarried detective on the case who becomes fascinated with the killer's amazing intellect. People who liked Desperate Housewives would love The Girl Most Likely To... Great writing from Joan.

At a time when hardly any women had broken into the behind-the-camera boys' club and were directing Hollywood movies, Joan wrote and directed a 1978 comedy called Rabbit Test. Billy Crystal made his film debut as a straight bachelor who gets pregnant.

Rivers obviously called in favors from her many friends. Doris Roberts, Paul Lynde, Imogene Coca, Fannie Flagg, Alice Ghostley, Rosey Grier and others are in it. Rabbit Test is a pretty cheesy comedy, not nearly as good as as The Girl Most Likely To... and it's not up there with the movies Woody Allen directed in the 1970s. But you've got to give Joan credit for getting it done.

Joan Rivers' first film appearance was a dramatic role opposite an Oscar-winning Hollywood legend. The film will be shown during this month's Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Hollywood. Based on a work by author John Cheever, Burt Lancaster starred as The Swimmer in 1968. This is the kind of character you'd associate with Don Draper on TV's Mad Men. In Connecticut, in a community of privilege, this ad man decides to go home via the neighbors' swimming pools. He drops into each home and asks if he can use the pool. With each visit, we discover more about his life. This is a very National Public Radio kind of movie, if you will. Keep it mind, it's based on a philosophical story by John Cheever. And the tone seems to change during the film. Frank Perry (Mommie Dearest) was the original director. During the shoot, he was replaced by Sydney Pollack. Lancaster is good in this meaning-of-life story. He never shied away from films that had social significance and made audiences think.

He was 52 when he made it and his athletic 52 year-old physique is one of the best things about the film. Also, he was one of the first stars of classic Old Hollywood to go naked. In one scene, the ad man visits his nudist neighbors. We saw a bare-bottomed Burt.

In a party scene, he has an encounter with a lonely young woman. She's played by Joan Rivers. Watch the scene. It's not a long scene but Joan is excellent in it. She's playing the character. She, as an actress, is keeping up with Burt Lancaster.

She's right to feel disappointed that she's rarely called an actress even thought she's acted on film and she's acted on Broadway. Dane Cook is called an actor. So is Adam Sandler. So are Lily Tomlin, Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal. So is Louis C.K. He even showed us how good an actress Joan is in one of the best episodes of Louie on FX. Joan played herself. In her career, that's probably been her most challenging role. You'll know what I mean if you watch her documentary.

If you're lucky enough to attend the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival (wish I could go), The Swimmer shows you how good a famous funny lady could be in a dramatic acting role. And Burt Lancaster is as much a wet dream in this film as he was on the beach in From Here To Eternity (1953).

Michael Douglas as Liberace

2013-04-16T10:15:00.001-07:00

I've mentioned before that I started my professional television career in Milwaukee. From 1979 to 1985 at WISN TV, the city's ABC affiliate, I got my first spins at being a movie reviewer and TV host. I started as a weekly entertainment contributor on Milwaukee's edition of PM Magazine. In 1984, I was tapped to be co-host and associate producer of a live weekday afternoon show called More. This was a big deal for me. First, it was a live hour-long show with a studio audience. Second, Liz Ayres (my co-host) and I may have been one of the first interracial teams to host a live weekday entertainment product on one of Milwaukee's network affiliates.

Liz and I had a special telecast in 1984. In downtown Milwaukee, the Grand Avenue was a local event. The mall of shops was new, attractive and about three blocks long. Liz and I did a special broadcast from the mall because it would be large enough to accommodate all the Milwaukee fans who'd turn out to see our live special guest -- Milwaukee's own Liberace.

He was in his Vegas heyday at the time. He never forgot his Milwaukee roots.

The mall was packed. People filled the joint like he was a rock star. Middle-aged women in the crowd waved and shouted affection at him like he was a rock star. It was amazing to witness because I'd pretty much grown up seeing him do guest appearances on TV variety shows and even seeing characters like Bugs Bunny josh his famed candelabra and piano-playing style. Liberace was part of America's pop culture. There he was, seated with us on live TV one afternoon. Liberace was flamboyant, he was friendly, he was full of energy and he seemed to get extra fuel from the affection of the crowd. Liberace was a great guest. A definite showman, he delivered. He knew how to work a crowd. He was exactly what you hoped he would be. Only without the more festive attire.

Next month, Oscar-winning actor and movie producer Michael Douglas plays Liberace in a biopic for HBO. Actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter Matt Damon co-stars. Debbie Reynolds, under a white wig and character make-up, plays Liberace's mother. With acting talent like that, I am so eager to see this production. Here's a preview of Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candleabra. It premieres May 26th.

Our Liberace show was in 1984. A couple of years later, I was working in New York City for WPIX TV. I saw the entertainer again at a book promotion event. There was a sad and drastic difference. He seemed feeble. And medicated. The inner light he had in 1984 had been dimmed by something. He needed assistance walking. He was, again, gracious but there was definite lack of energy about him. It was obvious he was not in good health. Liberace died in early 1987.

I didn't become a big, popular TV star like other people I worked with before they were famous --- Rosie O'Donnell and Matt Lauer -- but I have been extremely lucky to have met and interviewed a lot of the people I did in the TV career I've had. (And don't think it's over! I'm determined to come back from this long brutal stretch of Recession-related unemployment.)

I wonder if WISN in Milwaukee still has our Liberace show in its archives?

Today, the country is heartbroken over the tragedy at yesterday's Boston Marathon.

When I started my TV career, I was on PM Magazine doing weekly film reviews, celebrity interviews and humorous lifestyle features. I wrote and produced my own features. I was also the staff's fulltime administrative assistant. I answered the phones and viewer mail. The Boston edition of PM Magazine, called Evening Magazine, was highly-regarded nationally. Landing a spot on Boston's edition was an A-list booking. Boston was seeking a third talent to make its co-host duo a trio. The executive producer, Sue Levit, had seen some of my work and liked it. Two of my features had aired nationally. She flew me out for an interview at WBZ TV. I loved meeting her. I loved being in Boston. Sue flew me out a second time. When I got there, she gave me the news that WBZ had decided to promote someone from within the company. Sure, I was disappointed because I really wanted that on-camera gig. However, it was great to see her again and great to be back in Boston. I asked her why she didn't just tell me that over the phone instead of spending her money to fly me back there. She replied that the decision had just been made. Then she smiled and added a guarantee. She guaranteed that because she did fly me back a second time, when I got back to Milwaukee, I wouldn't be answering phones and viewer mail much longer. She said that my bosses would make better use of my TV talents. She predicted that, one day, I'd move on from Milwaukee to something better.

Her guarantee, her prediction came true.

I got back to Milwaukee. Within a couple of weeks, someone else was hired to answer the phones and viewer mail. I was elevated to field producer and scriptwriter for our host duo. Also, I got to do more celebrity interviews on the show. This was a major step-up for me at that time. I went on to more national exposure on PM Magazine and, later, becoming host of More. In 1984, I left Milwaukee to accept a job offer in New York City. I never forgot the kindness, attention and career validation I got from Boston's WBZ and Sue Levit. Since then, Boston has held a very special place in my heart. Today that place hurts. I am keeping Boston in my most fervent prayers for the city's healing and recovery and restored peace.

My Missing Logo TV Moment

2013-04-14T13:45:00.001-07:00

Comedian/national radio show co-host & mensch Keith Price makes weekday mornings brighter on Sirius Satellite Radio. He's part of OutQ's team on "The Morning Jolt." Personally, I think Keith should be on TV as a humor contributor, a game show host, an actor in sitcom episodes shot back in New York or something else festive. He's got the talent. He's got the personality. He's got the time.

Keith used to watch me when I was a VH1 veejay and talk show host from 1987 to 1990. Here I am with a couple of my talk show guests -- Liza Minnelli and Mel Gibson.

Keith, one of my favorite people on this good earth, and I have traded many stories about being minorities trying to drive fast and head-on through color barriers in show biz -- like Lana Turner driving through the Hollywood hills in The Bad and the Beautiful.

A few years ago, Keith was the focus of a short and very entertaining documentary. I was asked to contribute a comment or two and I was most flattered to be in it for a few minutes. When the doc aired in a New York City film festival, a Logo TV executive I've known since the early 1990s was in the audience. So was I. So were Keith and his documentary director. I made sure that the Logo TV executive met Keith. Keith's 2007 feature, as I hoped it would be, got picked up to air nationally on Logo.

But my few minutes were cut out. I don't know why. First, two of the Judy Garland numbers in A Star Is Born were cut out in 1954 by the studio (restored decades later)...and now this. Needless to say, I was prostate with heartbreak. Or is it prostrate? Whatever. I was disappointed. Flat out. Heartbroken. I needed a cocktail.

In my scene, if you will, I addressed the problem many of us minorities have had getting representation that really sees what makes us special and helps us get auditions for the kind of work that would utilize what our special talents are. Before you see the clip that Logo TV tossed onto the cutting room floor, watch my short demo reel. This is an example of the work I'd submitted to agents:

Now here's my clip that was cut out of Keith's documentary when it aired on Logo TV:

Just thought I'd share. Thanks for watching. By the way, I've got a good new agent.

A Judy Holliday Gift

2013-04-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

The unique, gifted and lovable Judy Holliday starred in two big Broadway hits. Fortunately, Hollywood let her recreate her roles in the movie versions. The first was a comedy. George Cukor directed Holliday to Best Actress of 1950 Academy Award victory for her portrayal of Billie Dawn, the dumb blonde who gets smart and makes her own Declaration of Independence from a tyrannical boyfriend in Born Yesterday. For Vincente Minnelli, the star recreated her role as the love-struck answering service operator in MGM's 1960 screen adaptation of the musical comedy, Bells Are Ringing.

In that Broadway hit, Judy Holliday introduced two songs that are now standards -- "Just In Time" and "The Party's Over." Here's Holliday with another member of the original Broadway cast who got to do the movie version -- Jean Stapleton, a good ten years before finding TV fame as Edith Bunker on the classic sitcom, All in the Family.

Minnelli called Dean Martin to join Judy as the guy who finds true love over the phone.

A couple of months ago, I was in San Francisco for a few days freelance TV work. While there, I got to attend a local school's fine arts event one evening with my longtime dear and talented friend, singer Paula West. She was performing in this short program and she was the only grown-up. A group of middle schoolers was doing selections from Bells Are Ringing for parents, teachers and others. A wine and cheese reception preceded the 15-minute presentation. Paula sang "The Party's Over."

The short program was so delightful and entertaining that I clapped as if I was one of the parents. The kids were priceless. They did a little dialogue and some pantomime. One of the most golden moments of it was the open. I listened to the original Bells Are Ringing cast album many times. I've seen the movie many times on TV over the years. But hearing the title song done by children was like hearing it for the first time. Their voices gave that waltz a new shimmer, a new lilt. Judy Holliday along with songwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green must have been looking down from Heaven and smiling at what they heard. Here's the number from the Vincente Minnelli movie version.

During the program, I stood next to the parents of one of the little boys in the show. My joy was obvious and we chatted about how much I loved the performance. I was so glad Paula invited me along with her. If you read my post from early this month about Shirley MacLaine, the same couple I talked about classic films with is the same couple whose kid was in the show.

The children used props in the program. The married couple had watched their son in some of the early rehearsals. The wife said that the kids were all so dedicated. There was only one glitch. They did not know how to use the rotary telephones. The wife said that the kids kept poking their fingers into the holes and pressing the numbers. The teachers had to instruct them to keep their fingers in the little holes and turn that circular thing clockwise.

Yes, it's a new age...and a new generation...with new technology.

But those old Broadway hit tunes not only held up, they seemed new again when performed by a chorus of children. That presentation was like a Judy Holliday gift.

One more thing -- if you'd like to hear my friend, Paula West, look for her CD entitled Paula West, Live at Jazz Standard.

With the George Mesterhazy Quartet, she performs "My Romance," "Pocketful of Miracles," "Wichita Lineman" and gives jazz interpretations to Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Don't Think Twice." To name a few. Treat yourself. George Mesterhazy played piano. Like Judy Holliday, he was a highly-regarded and unique artist who left us way too soon. The pianist/arranger passed away last April at age 58. The San Francisco Chronicle called his arrangements for Paula "exquisite."

I Loved Jonathan Winters

2013-04-12T14:00:00.002-07:00

My late father and I had an emotionally frayed relationship for a long, long time. After my parents divorced, I didn't see him for 20 years. But we did eventually reconcile. When he was in our home, when my parents were married, some of the rare times in which he and I fully and fabulously bonded involved Jonathan Winters. When I was kid, my parents were fans of The Jack Paar Show. That prime time NBC variety/talk show was great. When Winters would be on and Jack Paar just set him up and let him go, Dad would laugh so hard that tears would roll down his cheeks. My little sides would ache from laughing -- laughing at that huggable, hysterically funny bear of a man on TV and laughing at the sight of my brawny WWII veteran father uncharacteristically out of control with sheer glee. We bonded thanks to the improvisational comedy brilliance of Jonathan Winters. The famed comedian and actor died last night at age 87. I loved his work.

The way that film, not stage, was the perfect medium to illuminate and distill the intimate essence of Marilyn Monroe (she never would've been a Broadway baby belting out showtunes -- a fact that Smash ignored), and the way that Broadway was the best showcase for Ethel Merman, night time television was the perfect medium for Jonathan Winters. He talents were too quick, too fast, too zany and free-form for movies. TV was more immediate and suited his energy. But he did leave some funny film work with us. His first big screen assignment was one of his best. He landed an ensemble cast spot in Stanley Kramer's all-star screwball comedy, It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

There he was holding his own with heavyweight veterans like Mickey Rooney, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Phil Silvers. The lovable lug of a truckdriver role was a fine fit for Winters. He wasn't a comedian who did one-liners and gags. He did more character work. It was smart comic acting. That's why he was such a good fit in the Stanley Kramer comedy. His face was a joy to see. A lot of his great comedy came from the way he reacted to someone else or a situation. He had an Everyman quality. Even when he played a woman. As Lennie the trucker in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, he's the nice guy who tries to do the right thing, gets pushed a little too far and then blows his top. We could relate to that.

Winters had a cast of characters in his head, a wonderfully mobile face and, like Mel Blanc, he was a human sound effects machine. When I was kid, he seemed like a cartoon come to life. You wanted him to be your next door neighbor, teacher, gym coach or uncle. He was fun. And friendly. And safe. He hadn't lost the sense of playfulness that seemed to disappear when people became "grown-ups." On television, he was free to let all his characters and sound effects out. And he could get immediate response from a studio audience, just like he did on his comedy albums. The Jack Paar Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Andy Williams Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour...the talk/variety format let Winters fly. He was not limited to a movie script. He didn't have to "hurry up and wait" for hours before getting on camera. He didn't have to give the same exact performance and remember the same exact blocking the following night on stage.

Also, TV was different then. Jack Paar and Johnny Carson were funny hosts who had the sense and humility to play the straight men. They'd set you up for the laughs. They were also good conversationalists. They knew how to listen. In decades to come, it would be standard to give stand-up comedians the talk show host spot. Many hadn't mastered the art of listening. Nor would they set up a newcomer to be funny the way Paar and Carson did. And I miss variety shows. Today, instead of true variety shows with established and rising talent, we get audition shows packed with mostly young people who want to be stars. The talk/variety shows gave Winters a sweet arena for his comedy club routines.

Watch the obituary segments about Jonathan Winters on the network and/or local news. Notice how many clips of Winters at his best are from television. Mostly talk/variety entertainment television. Here's a clip of Jonathan Winters with Jack Paar.

Can you see Jay Leno setting up a comedian today for that much time in the spotlight?

Nowadays, there can be a TV in every room. You can watch TV shows on a computer. You can see TV clips on your cell phone. The TV has become more portable. We wish we could be like TV. As it got older, it got slimmer and more mobile. Back in the day, it was a big boxy magnet that attracted family members into the living room. Watching TV shows was a family affair. Sometimes even neighbors dropped over to watch TV with us. It was there, like another relative. It spoke to us. It kept us informed. It started conversations. At times it made us cry. Most of the time, it entertained us. When we heard a certain talent was going to be on a certain show again, it was like hearing that a good friend of the family was going to stop by for a visit. That's the way it was for our family with the Jonathan Winters appearances. He was the guest that you wished would stay a little bit longer.

Thank goodness for the TV talk/variety show. Without it, millions of us would not have seen the brilliance of Jonathan Winters. I loved watching him on TV, and in movies, and I loved hearing his comedy albums. His talent enabled me to have some big memorable belly laughs with my dad. We needed those laughs more than we realized.

On NBC's HANNIBAL Actor

2013-04-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Two psycho killers made it to prime time TV this season and got excellent reviews. One is Norman Bates of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. In that classic film, Anthony Perkins as Norman said "A boy's best friend is his mother." On cable's A&E Network, Bates Motel takes us back to Norman's formative years with mama. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the character famously played by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, is now nattily attired on NBC. Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen stars as Hannibal.

Mikkelsen's is not a familiar name to American audiences like a George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Helen Hunt, Jennifer Aniston or other actors who graduated from prime time series work on NBC. But Mikkelsen, with that interesting bone structure in his face that the camera finds fascinating, is a top star in Danish films. With the reviews Hannibal has received, I think he's on his way to being recognized by American TV viewers and increasing his fan base. I watched last night's repeat episode. Mikkelsen brings a new approach to the character. He's not the same Hannibal as played by Brian Cox in 1986's Manhunter and not the same Hannibal as played by Hopkins in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs. His new interpretation works. He's very good. Mikkelsen, Will Dancy and Laurence Fishburne brought some solid and inspired acting choices to the episode.

He did a movie a few years ago that I highly recommend. I am so grateful that the owner of my favorite video rental store back in New York City, Alan's Alley in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, recommended it to me. It's a Danish film. It's subtitled. It's excellent. It's called After the Wedding. Mads Mikkelsen plays Jacob, a Dane driven to do the right thing. He lives in India, helping poverty-stricken orphans and other unfortunate people.

He works in an orphanage teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Salvation comes in the form of a major corporate donation and a wedding invitation. A tycoon offers him $1 million but Jacob has to return to Copenhagen for a meeting. They meet. The donor wants to think about his possible contribution a bit more before he makes it and invites Jacob to attend a wedding. The wedding of the tycoon's daughter. That's all I'm going to tell you. I'll let you discover the rest for yourself. It's not an action movie. Directed by Susanne Bier, it moves at a purposely slow pace at first. It's peeling off layers of character information. Like old paint being removed in order to see the wall as it really is. When secrets are revealed, the pace really picks up. Don't think that a slow pace means it's dull. After the Wedding is not dull. This movie is so strong and so unpredictable. I will tell you that Bier's film poses the question "Just how much can money really buy?" This drama was an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film of 2006.

Director Susanne Bier, as I've blogged previously, directed Halle Berry in her best dramatic work following her historic Best Actress Academy Award win. The movie is called Things We Lost in the Fire. Berry, as a widowed mother in the suburbs, was matched by an equally fine performance by Benicio Del Toro as the junkie in recovery who was one of her late husband's best friends. In both films, we see the complications that arise when someone steps out to do the right thing and how people deal with sudden rips in a seemingly wrinkle-free family situation.

Bier directed another Danish film after her U.S. release with Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro. In a Better World brought Bier the Oscar for Best Foreign Film of 2010.

Mikkelson will move you with his work. He's quite good in Bier's After the Wedding.

If you're a James Bond fan, you saw him opposite Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

Look at that face. You could balance teacups on that guy's cheekbones. I hope you like After the Wedding.

Overlooked by Oscars: Peggy Lee

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Peggy Lee had a way with the song that just made you want to shout "Oooh, Baby!" In between Frank Sinatra and Doris Day, she was another performer who had been a solo singer with a top big band and then went on to Hollywood movie stardom with an Oscar nomination for acting. Not only a brilliant song stylist, one who graduated from Benny Goodman's band, Peggy Lee was one of the most creative women in music.

I enjoyed some of her work in a Hollywood classic Saturday night and, let me tell you, that chick was robbed. She got one Oscar nomination? She should have had another one that same year. Like Doris Day, she did movie work at Warner Brothers in the 1950s. Opposite Danny Thomas, she was the love interest in the first remake of The Jazz Singer, the film which started the sound revolution in 1927. She sang in Pete Kelly's Blues, a 1955 drama set in the mobster-ridden 1920s. It's not a great film but it really comes to life when she sings. Rose is the emotionally troubled jazz singer who drinks too much and gets slapped around by her hood boyfriend. When she sings, it's like velvet.

Later, the booze and a breakdown send her to a sanitarium. That dramatic scene with Jack Webb helped put Peggy Lee in the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress.

The winner was Jo Van Fleet for Elia Kazan's East of Eden starring James Dean.

Another 1955 release was Walt Disney's animated feature, Lady and The Tramp.

You know this wonderful Disney classic. It has one of the most famous kissing scenes in a Hollywood feature -- and it happens over a romantic Italian dinner for two. Two dogs.

The dogs are serenaded with a beautiful song called "Bella Notte" ("This Is The Night"). This is a famous sequence in classic Disney animated features. The song adds to the deliciousness of the scene. I wish I could have a romantic dinner date with "Bella Notte" playing in the background. That would be absolutely sublime.

The original songs in Disney's Lady and The Tramp were composed by Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke. She should've received a Best Song Oscar nomination for "Bella Notte."

Or she should've received a Best Song Oscar nomination for her other tune, "He's A Tramp." Peggy sang the voice of "Peg," the sultry ex-showgirl kind of dog who delivers this jazzy showstopper of a number. It's another top scene from Lady and The Tramp.

Both those original songs still hold up. What got the Oscar for Best Song of 1955? The over-baked and schmaltzy "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" from the movie of the same name.

Besides the two tunes I highlighted, composer/singer Peggy Lee also wrote a lullaby called "La La Lu," sung to the newborn baby in the home of Lady's owners, and the mischievous Siamese cat song ("We Are Siamese If You Please")....

....and there's a holiday song. The story starts at Christmastime. Lady and The Tramp opens with a lovely Christmas composition by Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke called "Peace on Earth." It's done in a choral arrangement right before we meet little Lady.

Peggy also did the voices of the Siamese cats and the "Darling," Lady's owner.

Saturday, I was just in the mood from some vintage Disney entertainment. I wanted to see one of the golden oldies. I wanted to see that rich, elegant Disney animation -- the kind we adored as kids. Those vibrant colors, that wit, those expressive and memorable cartoon characters. The kind Disney did so well before The Lion King. That's a fine piece of work, don't get me wrong. But, starting with The Lion King, flatulence gags became a standard in Disney fare. I didn't want animated characters breaking wind. I wanted them to have charm. I wanted something romantic and funny. I got all that with Lady and The Tramp. And I got more. I knew that Peggy Lee composed the songs but I'd forgotten the sweetness of her lullaby for the baby and, after all these years, I'd never really paid attention to the Christmas song at the beginning of the story. That one needs to be re-appreciated.

My generation knew Peggy Lee from lots of TV appearances and hit recordings of "I'm a Woman," "Fever," and "Is There All There Is?" There was so much more to Peggy Lee than just being a singer. Rent Disney's Lady and The Tramp and listen to the songs she wrote. You'll fall in love with it all over again -- as I did last weekend.

She should've also been nominated in the Best Song of 1955 Oscar category. Seriously.