In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out In The Be-Bop Night- In the Beginning Of Rock- Bop- Once Again, From the Vaults Of Sun Records

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Carl Perkins performing Boppin' The Blues.


In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out In The Be-Bop Night- In the Beginning Of Rock- Bop- Once Again, From the Vaults Of Sun Records

CD Review


The Sun Gods, 3-CD set, Dressed To Kill Records, 1999


One of the purposes of this space is to review various cultural trends that drove American popular culture in the 20th century. More specifically in the post-Word War II, the lifetimes of many of today’s baby boomers. A seminal point, musically at least, was the breakout of the mid-1950s fueled by a strange and sometimes contradictory mix of black-based rhythm and blues, Arkie, Okie, Appalachian “hillbilly” rock-a-billy and plain old jazz and show tune Tin Pan Alley. The mix of course we now know as rock ‘n’ roll, sadly for this aging reviewer now called the age of classic rock 'n' roll. No sadly that it does not exist except in CDs such as the one under review, The Sun Gods, but that frenetic fury to change the musical direction of popular culture seems to have lost steam along the aging process. But take heart. While we have all probably slowed down a step or seven we will always have Sun Records CD memories to carry us.

And there is no question, no question at all that, pound for pound, the music that came out of Sam Phillips’ Memphis-based Sun Records for about a decade in the 1950s was central to the mix that created rock 'n' roll. Think Elvis, Jerry Lee and Chuck Berry to name just three of the more famous singers to come out of that label. And as this CD demonstrates beyond doubt, highlighted by the work of Sonny Burgess and Warren Smith here, also a whole tribe of lesser lights, one hit Johnnies and Janies, and those who never made it that formed the background milieu that drove the others forward and created this musical chemistry that can boggle the mind. If you want to find, in one spot, a CD set that rediscovers the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, especially the contributions from the rock-a-billy side well here you are.

I have highlighted some of the tracks on each disc.

Disc One: Carl Perkins performing Roll Over Beethoven, a song made famous by Chuck Berry (and that I went crazy over when I first heard it as a kid) which I think that he may actually do better than Chuck, if you can believe that: there are several Elvis interviews recorded here as part of the promotion of his records and/or concerts in the early days. I would say, thank god, that he had that great musical talent because off these innocuous, bland interviews he would have starved otherwise. Still these are good to hear from a time before the king became “the King.”

Disc Two: Red Hot by Billy Lee Riley, a rock-a-billy hard-driving classic that expresses just what the break-out was all about; We Wanna Boogie by Sonny Burgess (a definitely underrated force), Red Cadillac and a Black Mustache by Warren Smith (Bob Dylan covered this one in a tribute album); and, Crazy Women by Gene Simmons. This is one of those CDs that you have to listen to all the way through to get a real feel for this music, and you should.

Disc Three: Rock Boppin’ Baby by Edwin Brice; Let’s Bop by Jack Earls; Thinkin’ Of Me by Mickey Gilley; Rockhouse by Harold Jenkins; and, You Don’t Care by, Narvel Felts. Yes, I know, you probably have never heard of any of them. But if you listen to this CD you will see where Elvis, Jerry Lee and Chuck got their stuff from. And you know, successful or as failures, as I have mentioned before in reviewing Sun Record material, all these guys (and a few gals) all sound like they are happy to be rocking and rolling rather than whatever else they were slated to do in life.

From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future

From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future

Logo Of The Communist Youth International

Frank Jackman comment:

One of the declared purposes of this blog is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past, spotty and incomplete as they may be, here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. Historically these lessons would be centrally derived from the revolution of 1848 in Europe, especially in France, the Paris Commune of 1871, and most vividly under the impact of the Lenin and Trotsky-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, which is now a 100^th anniversary event, a world historic achievement for the international working class whose subsequent demise was of necessity a world-historic defeat for that same class. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over.

More importantly, for the long haul, and unfortunately given that same spotty and incomplete past the long haul is what appears to be the time frame that this old militant will have to concede that we need to think about, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. An education that masses of previous generations of youth undertook gladly but which now is reduced to a precious few.  That is beside the question of numbers in any case no small or easy task given the differences of generations at least in America (the missing transmission generation problem between the generation of ’68 who tried unsuccessfully to turn the world upside down and failed, the missing in between generation raised on Reagan rations and today’s desperate youth in need of all kinds of help); differences of political milieus worked in (another missing link situation with the attenuation of the links to the old mass socialist and communist organizations decimated by the red scare Cold War 1950s night of the long knives through the new old New Left of the 1960s and little notable organizational connections since; differences of social structure to work around (the serious erosion of the industrial working class in America, the rise of the white collar service sector, the now organically chronically unemployed, and the rise of the technocrats); and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses (today’s  computer, cellphone, and social networking savvy youth using those assets as tools for organizing).

There is no question that back in my youth in the 1960s I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view.

As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material that I used in this series was weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.

**********

Third Congress of the Communist International

The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement

---

Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;

Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

---

12 July 1921

1 The young socialist movement came into existence as a result of the steadily increasing capitalist exploitation of young workers and also of the growth of bourgeois militarism. The movement was a reaction against attempts to poison the minds of young workers with bourgeois nationalist ideology and against the tendency of most of the social-democratic parties and the trade unions to neglect the economic, political and cultural demands of young workers.

In most countries the social-democratic parties and the unions, which were growing increasingly opportunist and revisionist, took no part in establishing young socialist organisations, and in certain countries they even opposed the creation of a youth movement. The reformist social-democratic parties and trade unions saw the independent revolutionary socialist youth organisations as a serious threat to their opportunist policies. They sought to introduce a bureaucratic control over the youth organisations and destroy their independence, thus stifling the movement, changing its character and adapting it to social-democratic politics.

2 As a result of the imperialist war and the positions taken towards it by social democracy almost everywhere, the contradictions between the social-democratic parties and the international revolutionary organisations inevitably grew and eventually led to open conflict. The living conditions of young workers sharply deteriorated; there was mobilisation and military service on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing exploitation in the munitions industries and militarisation of civilian life. The most class-conscious young socialists opposed the war and the nationalist propaganda. They dissociated themselves from the social-democratic parties and undertook independent political activity (the International Youth Conferences at Berne in 1915 and Jena in 1916).

In their struggle against the war, the young socialist organisations were supported by the most dedicated revolutionary groups and became an important focus for the revolutionary forces. In most countries no revolutionary parties existed and the youth organisations took over their role; they became independent political organisations and acted as the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle.

3 With the establishment of the Communist International and, in some countries, of Communist Parties, the role of the revolutionary youth organisations changes. Young workers, because of their economic position and because of their psychological make-up, are more easily won to Communist ideas and are quicker to show enthusiasm for revolutionary struggle than adult workers. Nevertheless, the youth movement relinquishes to the Communist Parties its vanguard role of organising independent activity and providing political leadership. The further existence of Young Communist organisations as politically independent and leading organisations would mean that two Communist Parties existed, in competition with one another and differing only in the age of their membership.

4 At the present time the role of the Young Communist movement is to organise the mass of young workers, educate them in the ideas of Communism, and draw them into the struggle for the Communist revolution.

The Communist youth organisations can no longer limit themselves to working in small propaganda circles. They must win the broad masses of workers by conducting a permanent campaign of agitation, using the newest methods. In conjunction with the Communist Parties and the trade unions, they must organise the economic struggle.

The new tasks of the Communist youth organisations require that their educational work be extended and intensified. The members of the youth movement receive their Communist education on the one hand through active participation in all revolutionary struggles and on the other through a study of Marxist theory.

Another important task facing the Young Communist organisations in the immediate future is to break the hold of centrist and social-patriotic ideas on young workers and free the movement from the influences of the social-democratic officials and youth leaders. At the same time, the Young Communist organisations must do everything they can to ‘rejuvenate’ the Communist Parties by parting with their older members, who then join the adult Parties.

The Young Communist organisations participate in the discussion of all political questions, help build the Communist Parties and take part in all revolutionary activity and struggle. This is the main difference between them and the youth sections of the centrist and socialist unions.

5 The relations between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Party are fundamentally different from those between the revolutionary young socialist organisations and the social-democratic parties. In the common struggle to hasten the proletarian revolution, the greatest unity and strictest centralisation are essential. Political leadership at the international level must belong to the Communist International and at the national level to the respective national sections.

It is the duty of the Young Communist organisations to follow this political leadership (its programme, tactics and political directives) and merge with the general revolutionary front. The Communist Parties are at different stages of development and therefore the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International should apply this principle in accordance with the circumstances obtaining in each particular case.

The Young Communist movement has begun to organise its members according to the principle of strict centralisation and in its relations with the Communist International – the leader and bearer of the proletarian revolution – it will be governed by an iron discipline. All political and tactical questions are discussed in the ranks of the Communist youth organisation, which then takes a position and works in the Communist Party of its country in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Party, in no circumstance working against them.

If the Communist youth organisation has serious differences with the Communist Party, it has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

Loss of political independence in no way implies loss of the organisational independence which is so essential for political education.

Strong centralisation and effective unity are essential for the successful advancement of the revolutionary struggle, and therefore, in those countries where historical development has left the youth dependent upon the Party, the dependence should be preserved; differences between the two bodies are decided by the EC of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International.

6 One of the most immediate and most important tasks of the Young Communist organisations is to fight the belief in political independence inherited from the period when the youth organisations enjoyed absolute autonomy, and which is still subscribed to by some members. The press and organisational apparatus of the Young Communist movement must be used to educate young workers to be responsible and active members of a united Communist Party.

At the present time the Communist youth organisations are beginning to attract increasing numbers of young workers and are developing into mass organisations; it is therefore important that they give the greatest possible time and effort to education.

7 Close co-operation between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Parties in political work must be reflected in close organisational links. It is essential that each organisation should at all times be represented at all levels of the other organisation (from the central Party organs and district, regional and local organisations down to the cells of Communist groups and the trade unions) and particularly at all conferences and congresses.

In this way the Communist Parties will be able to exert a permanent influence on the movement and encourage political activity, while the youth organisations, in their turn, can influence the Party.

8 The relations established between the Communist Youth International and the Communist International are even closer than those between the individual Parties and their youth organisations. The Communist Youth International has to provide the Communist youth movement with a centralised leadership, offer moral and material support to individual unions, form Young Communist organisations where none has existed and publicise the Communist youth movement and its programme. The Communist Youth International is a section of the Communist International and, as such, is bound by the decisions of its congresses and its Central Committee. The Communist Youth International conducts its work within the framework of these decisions and thus passes on the political line of the Communist International to all its sections. A well-developed system of reciprocal representation and close and constant co-operation guarantees that the Communist Youth International will make gains in all the spheres of its activity (leadership, agitation, organisation and the work of strengthening and supporting the Communist youth organisations).

---

*Once Again, Out In The Be-Bop Night-See Jack Run- The Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Elections of 1960, A 50th Anniversary, Of Sorts

*Once Again, Out In The Be-Bop Night-See Jack Run- The Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Elections of 1960, A 50th Anniversary, Of Sorts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/jfk-election-50-photos_n_780421.html

Click on the headline to link to a Huffington Post entry on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's victory in the 1960 American Presidential Elections.

Markin comment:

A few weeks ago I mentioned, in an entry that amounted to a nostalgic 1960s Boston kid time trip down political memory lane, the following that links in with this entry posted under the sign of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kennedy’s presidential election victory election over one Richard Milhous Nixon, the arch-political villain of the age:

“During the course of the afternoon that event (the Patrick campaign event), and the particular locale where it was staged, brought back a flood of memories of my first serious organized political actions in 1960 when, as a lad of fourteen, I set out to “save the world.” And my soul, or so I thought at the time, as well. That was the campaign of our own, Jack Kennedy, as he ran for president against the nefarious sitting Vice President, one Richard Milhous Nixon. In the course of that long ago campaign he gave one of his most stirring speeches not far from where I stood on this Saturday (near the Hynes Center).

Although gathering troops (read: high school and college students) for that speech was not my first public political action of that year, a small SANE-sponsored demonstration against nuclear proliferation further up the same street was but I did not help to organize that one, the Kennedy campaign was the first one that hinted that I might, against all good sense, become a serious political junkie. Ya, I know, every mother warns their sons (then and now) and daughters (now) against such foolhardiness but what can you do. And, mercifully, I am still at it. And have wound up on the right side of the angels, to boot.

The funny thing about those triggered remembrances is that as far removed from bourgeois politics as I have been for about the last forty years I noticed many young politicos doing their youthful thing just as I did back then; passing out leaflets, holding banners, rousing the crowd, making extemporaneous little soapbox speeches, arguing with an occasional right wing Tea Party advocate, and making themselves hoarse in the process. In short, exhibiting all the skills (except the techno-savvy computer indoor stuff you do these days before such rallies) of a street organizer from any age, including communist street organizers. Now if those young organizers only had the extra-parliamentary left-wing politics to merge with those organizational skills. In short, come over to the side of the angels.

But that is where we come back to old Jack Kennedy and that 1960 campaign. Who would have thought that a kid, me, who started out walking door to door stuffing Jack Kennedy literature in every available door in 1960 but who turned off that road long ago would be saying thanks, Jack. Thanks for teaching me those political skills.”

And not just that thanks for heralding the break-out, or at least the attempted break-out of my 1960s generation from the Eisenhower-Nixon cold war death trap. See, at the time of the great attempted break-out from the confines of bourgeois society and the tracked career path all kinds of people seemed like they could be allies, and Jack Kennedy seemed a kindred spirit. I will not even mention Bobby, that one still brings a little tear to my eye. But enough of nostalgia we still have to fight to seek that newer world, to hear that high white note before everything comes crashing down on us.

*******
Below is an American Left History blog entry, dated, Thursday, August 23, 2007, entitled ON COMING OF POLITICAL AGE-Norman Mailer's The Presidential Papers to give a little flavor to the above commentary.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

ON COMING OF POLITICAL AGE-Norman Mailer's "The Presidential Papers"

Click on the headline to link to a "The New York Times" obituary for American writer Norman Mailer article, dated November 10, 2007.

COMMENTARY/BOOK REVIEW

THE PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS, NORMAN MAILER, VIKING, 1963

At one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Hemingway as the preeminent male American prose writer of the 20th century. Mailer certainly has the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels, like The Deer Park, in his time I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might partially admit, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I recently re-read his work on the 1960 political campaign-the one that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon- that is the center of the book under review. There are other essays in this work, some of merely passing topical value, but what remains of interest today is a very perceptive analysis of the forces at work in that pivotal election. Theodore White won his spurs breaking down the mechanics of the campaign and made a niche for himself with The Making of a President, 1960. Mailer in a few pithy articles gave the overview of the personalities and the stakes involved for the America of that time.

Needless to say the Kennedy victory of that year has interest today mainly for the forces that it unleashed in the base of society, especially, but not exclusively, among the youth. His rather conventional bourgeois Cold War foreign policy and haphazard domestic politics never transcended those of the New and Fair Deals of Roosevelt and Truman but his style, his youth and his élan seemingly gave the go ahead to all sorts of projects in order to ‘‘seek a newer world”. And we took him up on this. This writer counted himself among those youth who saw the potential to change the world. We also knew that if the main villain of the age , one Richard Milhous Nixon, had been successful in 1960 as he graphically demonstrated when he later became president we would not be seeing any new world but the same old, same old.

I have been, by hook or by crook, interested in politics from an early age. Names like the Rosenbergs, Joseph McCarthy, Khrushchev and organizations like Americans for Democratic Action and the like were familiar to me if not fully understood then. I came of political age with the 1960 presidential campaign. Mailer addresses the malaise of American political life during the stodgy Eisenhower years that created the opening for change-and Kennedy and his superb organization happily rushed in. These chances, as a cursory perusal of the last 40 odd years of bourgeois presidential politics makes painfully clear, do not come often. The funny thing is that during most of 1960 I was actually ‘Madly for Adlai’, that is I preferred Adlai Stevenson the twice defeated previous Democratic candidate, but when the deal went down at the advanced age of 14 I walked door to door talking up Kennedy. Of course, in Massachusetts that was not a big deal but I still recall today that I had a very strong sense I did not want to be left out of the new age ‘aborning’. That, my friends, in a small way is the start of that slippery road to the ‘lesser evil’ practice that dominates American politics and a habit that took me a fairly long time to break.

Mailer has some very cutting, but true, remarks about the kind of people who populate the political milieu down at the base of bourgeois politics, those who make it to the political conventions. Except that today they are better dressed and more media savvy nothing has changed. Why? Bourgeois politics, not being based on any fidelity to program except as a throwaway, is all about winning (and fighting to keep on winning). This does not bring out the "better angels of our nature." For those old enough to remember that little spark of youth that urged us on to seek that "newer world" and for those too young to have acquired knowledge of anything but the myth Mailer’s little book makes for interesting and well-written reading.

The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir- Barbara Payton’s “Bad Blonde” (1953)

The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir- Barbara Payton’s “Bad Blonde” (1953)

DVD Review

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

Bad Blonde (released in England unbelievably as The Flanagan Boy), starring tragedy-filled blonde bombshell Barbara Payton, Tony Wright, Belinda Lee, Hammer Productions, 1953

I am done, finished, ended, kaput, vaya con dios, adios, out of here or whatever expression you like to indicate that before I blow my top I will go no further with this series of B-noirs (noirs not to die for unlike the lead-ins expression on each DVD intro). Part, the lesser part now, of that reason is based on getting tired, very tired, of the razing I have been receiving from my fellows here on this site after an irate reader called me out as essentially a “penny a word” buffoon “padding” my reviews with extra stuff that she believed didn’t need to be included in order to get the gist of what each film was about. The greater reason now is rather more simple one of B-noir exhaustion after struggling through trying to find any reason for watching the latest film in the series Bad Blonde which had many ways to go, had many possibilities to reach high B-noir almost A-level but sank into its own funk and never rose from the mud again.

To give one very germane example of what I should have expected since I have already reviewed a half dozen or so in the series is that in England the film was released under the totally boorish title The Flanagan Boy making me think of the old-time Boys’ Town out in Nebraska I think run by Father Flanagan from which every Christmas I would get some kind of Christmas stamps was supposed to send dough for the wayward boys as a result. Being wise to the world a little even then I never sent nothing since I had nothing to send although that did not stop me from using the stamps as cheap Christmas wrapping for presents. Yeah, times were that hard for us, for my family back then. But this Flanagan is nothing but an up and coming prize fighter, you know a boxer who spends his eye time eying like any good-looking young guy blondes, good or bad, or any other color around should. To name the film after him when this bad blonde dish comes hither and yon his way seemed like such a travesty along with the dialogue that I, like a used up prize fighter threw in the towel, or will after this excursion is over.                       

Here’s the beauty of a last review though. I don’t have to give, as we used to say in the old neighborhood, a rat’s ass about that irate reader who tagged me with that “penny a word” designation that will probably hang around my neck until they put me under the ground if my dear colleagues, led by Sandy Salmon, Alden Riley, and Pete Markin have anything to say about it. So I will “pad” this baby with whatever comes into my head.

This is what I started with in my last review as a lead in for this dog’s tail, a review of has-been (hell he did three of these Hammer films not to his subsequent film career advantage I don’t believe) Dane Clark’s Blackout (released in England under the quizzical title Murder by Proxy so this latest title travesty was hardly the first):   

“Wouldn’t you want a long-time film reviewer like me, or my colleagues in this space who are the regular reviewers, Sandy Salmon and Alden Riley, to draw a map for you, let you know what is what about any particular film in relationship to others in the genre. As the headline to this review notes (and has on other occasions in this ten film series) I am reviewing a series of B-film noirs from the 1950s produced by the Robert Lippert Hollywood-based organization in conjunction with Hammer Productions in England. The idea, at least this is what I have been able to gather from various readings and speculations after now having reviewed scads of these efforts, by Lippert was to grab some faded Hollywood star who either needed the dough or was looking for some film, any film, to satisfy whatever stardust lust drove him or her to the studio lots in the first place and back him or her up with an English cast, do the production in England and get away with costs on the cheap. If you knew that and then somebody, me, came along and told you that these efforts didn’t compare, didn’t compare at all with classic noirs, you know Out Of The Past, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, The Last Man Standing and others that you almost know all the lines from by heart since you have seen the films so many times, wouldn’t you appreciate that knowledge   

“You would think so but you would at least in one case, actually more, but the reader I am thinking of as I write this has become something of a thorn in my side, my efforts to draw comparisons have given me nothing but grief, and had hung on me the title of “penny a word” writer as a joke by my colleagues. 

“I noted in my last review in this series, The House Across The Lake, another has-been title that in my long career in the film reviewing racket, a profession if you will which is overall pretty subjective when you think about it, I have run up against all kind of readerships and readers but my recent escapade with one reader takes the cake as they used to say in the old days. That is the person I am thinking of right now as I write yet another screed against the injustice done to me by that person. To cut to the chase a B-grade film noir is one that is rather thin on plotline and maybe film quality usually made on the cheap although some of the classics with B-film noir queen Gloria Grahame have withstood the test of time despite that quality. I have contrasted those with the classics like The Maltese Falcon, Out Of The Past, The Big Sleep, and The Last Man Standing to give the knowledgeable reader an idea of the different.

“I have as already noted done a bunch of these (excluding a couple which I refused to review since they were so thin I couldn’t justify the time and effort to even give the “skinny” on them) using a kind of standard format discussing the difference between the classics and Bs in some detail and then as has been my wont throughout my career giving a short summary of the film’s storyline and maybe a couple of off-hand comments so that the readership has something to hang its hat on when choosing to see, or not see, the film. All well and good until about my fifth review when a reader wrote in complaining about my use of that standard form to introduce each film. Moreover and this is the heart of the issue she mentioned that perhaps I was getting paid per word, a “penny a word” in her own words and so was padding my reviews with plenty that didn’t directly relate to the specific film I was reviewing.

“Of course other than to cut me to the quick “penny a word” went out with the dime store novel and I had a chuckle over that expression since I have had various types of contracts for work over the years but not that one since nobody does that anymore. The long and short of it was that the next review was a stripped down version of the previous reviews which I assumed would satisfy her complaint. Not so. Using the name Nora Charles, the well-known distaff side of the Dashiell Hammett-inspired film series The Thin Man from the 1930s and early 1940s starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, she still taunted me with that odious expression of hers. (I also mentioned there as an aside that one of the pitfalls of citizen journalism, citizen commentary on-line is that one can use whatever moniker one wants to say the most unsavory things and not flame any blow-back). Now Sandy, Alden, Pete Markin, the administrator of this space and a few others have started to call me that as well-‘hey, penny a word.” That has made my blood boil on more than one occasion but I have calmly put up with it rather than blow-up and threaten murder and mayhem to them-and to Nora…..”      

As I pointed out in that review enough of this or Nora will really have case about me “padding” my reviews. Here is the “skinny” on the film under review Bad Blonde in any case as is my wont and let dear sweet Nora suffer through another review-if she dares. A lot could have been done with this plotline, no question, and no matter dear Nora now that I have flamed out I will explain a little by comparison why this damn film is a B and not a classic. Hey this one has the eternal dilemma at its heart. A young, bored, beautiful, 1950s standard beautiful blonde, which meant very blonde and very well aware of that hard fact to the sorrows of all the brunettes, red-heads and raven-haired beauties who took back benches to goddess blonde starting with Marilyn and working down to the bad blonde in this one, Barbara Payton, playing Lorna, the unhappy young trophy wife, of an older man, a wealthy man who seemingly made his dough in some kind of rackets, but who nevertheless seems to believe that everybody in the world was his friend. And maybe they were-except that young, bored, very blonde wife who nevertheless knew that she had tagged into the next best thing-grabbing a fistful of gold in her cheapjack tank dancer life. She was not about to give up the gravy train but she was also fed up with the old man’s pawing and grabbing. And she was savvy enough once her change came to have that action stop-stopped cold.   

Enter as if manna from heaven a young prize-fighter, a young handsome Johnny, played rather woodenly and distractedly by Tony Wright, with plenty of muscle and a fatal attraction to everything that wore a skirt. Enter her life through his manager’s connection with her husband whom he knew previously and who could provide the backing necessary to get this Johnny boy, this, huh, Flanagan boy to the top of the fight racket. Once the husband sees handsome bulging Johnny, but more importantly once Lorna see him in action in the ring, her lips pursed, teeth bared, sexually aroused by the sight of him she gets her act into high gear. That husband is headed for an early grave and that is that. Of course Lorna played her Johnny like a yo-yo ignoring him at first and making little of his manhood and then letting him steam up. Easy work. So easy that when she springs the deal, the real deal, although he isn’t bright enough to see her devilish play, he is all ears. Figures that he will sweep her and the dough up. Needless to say while the murder was rather tiresome, supposedly by drowning hubby, drowning him good and dead Johnny was put on the spot, would be the fall guy, would face the big step-off for his misdeeds.

That is all in a day’s work as far as this film goes. A hard day’s work since while Lorna (Barbara Payton) played her role pretty well as the, well, bad blonde, this muscle-bound Johnny, this Tony Wright is an airhead. Now for comparisons. Look the theme of the bored younger wife, although not always a blonde, trying to get rid of an older husband for dough, for another man, hell, just to have him stop mauling her no matter what the money situation is as old as Adam and Eve, maybe older. In film think about Lana Turner leading John Garfield right up to the big step-off after putting her old curmudgeon cheapie diner chef husband to the big sleep and he still smiling at the thought of her right before the lord high executioner is ready to do his work in The Postman Always Rings Twice.  Think about Fred MacMurry once he sees that ankle bracelet walking down the stairs and even before he sees Barbara Standwycks’ face he is a goner-and so is her older cheapskate engineer stay-at home husband in Double Indemnity. Think, oh forget it, those classics should not even be mentioned in the same paragraph as they interplay between Johnny and Lorna here. Do you see now why I no longer give a rat’s ass about this Hammer Production material.             

Unlike a few other films in this series this film never took turns like a real thriller but the lifeless dialogue and the wooden acting by the Brits (and by faded Barbara in spots too too) made this thing a holy goof. As I have mentioned before in other reviews where things actually looked promising at the beginning here despite the come hither title (in America anyway) and the titillating advertisement poster (see above) for the film this one faded away on its own dead weight. B-noir but seriously B not heading to classics-no way. I am done.                       

From The Archives Of The Spartacist League (U.S.)-THE LEFT WING VIEWS THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION (1964)

Click on the headline to link to an American Left History blog entry on the subject of my youthful reaction to the John F. Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963 by way of comparison with more leftist views at the time.

Markin comment:

In October 2010 I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement than in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.

After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Debs' Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.

I am continuing today  what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.

However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
***********
Markin comment on this article:

By now, at least in this space, it should be obvious that communist militants are not born as such but come to certain political understandings depending on unfolding events, and their reaction, or non-reaction to them. At the time of the John Kennedy assassination I make no bones, as the above linked entry notes, about the fact that I was nothing but an idealistic young left liberal politico on the way to whatever form of glory that provided. Thus, my reaction, youthful or not, was appropriate. I would have found nothing wrong, or out of the ordinary, with the statements of the American Communist Party, Socialist Party or the Socialist Workers Party. The other anti-Kennedy diatribes presented here connecting him up as the “front man” for international capitalism and American imperialism would have been cause for outrage if I had seen them. The biggest thing that I held against Jack Kennedy then was around his handling of the Big of Pigs fiasco, and even that opposition was based on Cuba’s right to national self-determination (in the bourgeois Wilsonian sense) rather than class-based defense of the emerging Stalinist regime. In short, “fair play for Cuba.”

Obviously, those later unfolding events mentioned at the beginning of the last paragraph have changed my appreciation of Kennedy’s role in the world as, indeed, the "front man” for world imperialism at that time. I have also long adhered to the orthodox Marxist view that individual assassinations, acts of terror, or other forms of small group grandstanding are merely minor blips and will not produce the revolutionary change we need. That kind of big historic stage social action can only have a chance of occurring, and succeeding, when the masses take matters into their own hands. I nevertheless now scorn those messages of condolence and the reformist subservience behind the messages by the CP, SP, and SWP. Better to have said nothing than that drivel, especially by the SWP.

Note: Interestingly, intermingled throughout the various articles are early, half-formed versions of most of the conspiracy theories that would later create something of a cottage industry out of Kennedy assassination, most notably expressed in the hodgepodge of Oliver Stone’s film, JFK.
******
THE LEFT WING VIEWS THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION (1964)
The assassination of President Kennedy was an add test of the class position of every left movement in the United States. Among the radical groups in America, a qualitative division, may be perceived between those tendencies which turned resolutely to the working class for an independent alternative to bourgeois statesmanship, and those formations which joined their cries to the liberal threnody for the late president.
PROGRESSIVE LABOR

Nov. 27, 1963 — "The assassination of President Kennedy, by a still unknown assailant, not only reflects the existence of serious political contradictions for the U.S. ruling class, but raises these contradictions to new heights....

"While it is essential that revolutionaries evaluate all of the political aspects of the assassination, it is also necessary for revolutionaries to reject assassination as a conceivable form of political struggle. The killing of one man cannot alter the course of history. Only efforts by millions to change the particular political and economic system can be decisive.. .. Finally, assassination only tends to confuse the real issues that face the workers. It encourages the ruling class to step up the oppression of the people.

"Assassination and individual violence, however, is part and parcel of the Capitalist system. . . .

". . . On several occasions our government has engineered or supported actual organized assassinations with great relish. The assassination of Patrice Lumumba was warmly welcomed by the Kennedy Administration. Furthermore, assassination has also been a way of eliminating friends who have outlived their usefulness to the Administration. Only weeks before the Kennedy assassination, the Administration (and many who now cry hypocritical tears for Kennedy) were laughing up their sleeves over the U.S.-inspired as¬sassination of Diem and his brother in South Viet-Nam. . . .

"In the face of this continued ruthlessness and terror, the people and especially those who consider themselves fighters for socialism, should not be caught up in the Whirlwind of ruling class contradictions. The people should utilize every moment for pressing their demands. They should not wait for the Johnson Administration to resume the offensive—as it will—against the people's fight for a better life. Johnson's record is part and parcel of-the oppression of the ruling class—with a dash of Southern seasoning added for good measure.

"The People are still faced with racism, unemployment, poor housing and schooling, high rents and high-priced (or no) medical services. The People, if they are really to unite, should unite around programs dealing with their problems."

WORKERS WORLD
Nov. 25, 1963—"The United States of America came close to a fascist coup d'etat, and the establishment of a Right Wing, reactionary, totalitarian dictatorship.

"This is really the main and funda¬mental fact to emerge from the assassination of President Kennedy.

"That the coup d'etat did not actually come off can only be explained by the fact that the forces of political reaction, virulent racism and 'preventive war' militarism, had failed to coalesce at the critical moment and emerge with 'a man on horseback.'

"The trend to totalitarian dictatorship can only be reversed by the intervention of an ever larger mass of the millionfold working class movement, and of unity between, black and white workers against the common oppressor."

(The Workers World deserves credit for reprinting excerpts from Fidel Castro's excellent statement on the assassination.)

RED FLAG(British organ of the Posadas group, the Latin-American-based Trotskyist tendency.)

Jan., 1964—"The assassination of Kennedy is the result of a struggle between bandits. One faction has liqui¬dated a member of the opposite faction.

"Within the heart of Yankee imperialism there are two tendencies. One tendency centers on what is called the Pentagon and is wrongly called 'right wing' (there is no left or right for capitalism but simply different po¬sitions in relation to the same policy) and the 'Kennedy' tendency. . . .

"Imperialism, the Kennedy tendency, tries to profit from the conservative interests of the Soviet bureaucracy to prolong its own existence to the maximum.

"The so-called Pentagon section is aware of this situation and feels that the very time delay means a direct loss for its economic, social and ideological interests. That is the reason for the offensive that it has just carried out.

"The Pentagon killed Kennedy within the framework of a policy designed to launch the war by surprise at that moment most convenient to itself."

From the publications of the three groups above, it can be seen that a basic class position was maintained during their discussions of the Kennedy assassination. A class line must not; only continue to orient the working class against their class enemy, the bourgeoisie, but must provide a correct analysis for the workers in a period of confusion and constellation. The three groups above never lost sight of their ruling class enemy—nor did they hesitate to point this out to their readers.
There were exaggerations and mistakes, such as the Workers World's confusion between fascism and a coup d'etat. Or the Progressive Labor group's referral to "our" government. And of course the Posadas tendency's conclusion that the Pentagon assassin¬ated Kennedy can only be considered interesting speculation at this point.

These positions stand out in bold contrast to those periodicals and organizations whose "Socialism" and "Marxism" led them in the moment of panic to genuflect to the ruling class. Statements about "Loving (!) This Country (!!)" and the like can only serve to confuse and misdirect socialist militants. Compare the following examples.

NEW AMERICA

Dec. 13, 1963—"I am writing this on the day of mourning under a profound sense of shock and loss and shame. We mourn a gallant President, sincerely interested in peace and freedom, who was growing in strength. . . .

"You will be reading this column after Thanksgiving Day, when we will be putting this day of mourning into perspective. For what can we Americans be thankful in this time of tragedy? We can be thankful for some enrichment of memory. We can be thankful for the general outpouring of grief and recognition of the shame at the atmosphere of hate in which the trag¬edy took place. We can give .thanks for the orderly succession and the absence of bitter partisanship in President Johnson's accession to his high office." —Norman Thomas

"The Socialist Party joins the entire nation in deeply mourning the tragic death of our President. The senseless and dastardly murder which, took the life of John F. Kennedy was one of the greatest crimes and tragedies in the history of our country. To Mrs. Kennedy and the entire Kennedy family we extend our most sincere and heartfelt condolences."

Resolution of National Committee of
The Socialist Party

THE WORKERNov. 26, 1963 —"Nation in Mourning for Martyred Leader" (Banner front page headline.)

"We share—along with all other Americans—immeasurable grief at the monstrous and shocking assassination of President John P. Kennedy.

"We extend our deepest synipathy to Mrs. Kennedy, to his son and daughter, and to his entire family. . . .

"Although anguished in sorrow over the loss of the highest officer of our nation, the American people will not be panicked. They will rally around the constitution, defend its basic Democratic traditions and rights, and they will not be diverted from the determination that our nation shall trod the path of ever-expanding democracy, social progress and peace."

IN A MOMENT OF TRUTH . . .

"Let me then make clear as your President that I am determined upon our system's survival and success, regardless of the cost and regardless of the peril." —Speech of President Kennedy to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 21, 1961.(Following the Bay of Pigs fiasco.)

THE MILITANT

Dec. 2, 1963—"If We Really Love This Country We Must Abjure Hatred" (Front page headline quoting Chief Justice Earl Warren as a "Voice of Sanity.")

"The American people have undergone one of the most traumatic experiences in its history. The staggering news that President Kennedy had been assassinated, followed so quickly by the unexplainabte, televised murder of his alleged assassin in the Dallas, city jail by a crony of the police, left Americans reeling with bewilderment and shock. A wave of apprehension ran through the world with the news of the Kennedy assassination as people of all lands attempted to decipher the cause and portent of the tragic event. . . .

"Before all others, it is the federal government's duty to block the attempt to use the Dallas tragedy for the staging of an even more devastating witchhunt. Before all others, it is the duty of the federal government to furnish the people with a thorough-going analysis of the atmosphere of hate and violence which fostered that tragedy. Before all others, it is the federal government's duty effectively and fully to enforce the civil liberties of Americans of all political views, no matter how critical of those now dominant, and the civil liberties of all Americans, regardless of color. Only then can the cloud of violence and hate overhanging this country begin to be dispelled."
The Editors

"The Socialist Workers Party condemns the brutal assassination of President Kennedy as an inhuman, anti-social and criminal act. We extend our deepest sympathy to Mrs. Kennedy and the children in their personal grief .

"The act springs from the atmosphere created by the inflammatory agitation and. deeds of the racists and ultra-conservative forces. Political terrorism, like suppression of political freedom, violates the democratic rights of all Americans and can only strengthen the forces of reaction. Political differences within our society must be settled in an orderly manner by majority decision after free and open public debate in which all points of view are heard:"
—Farrell Dobbs,- National Secretary,
Socialist Workers Party

And Now, A Breath of Fresh Air!

THE NEWSLETTER
(Organ of the Socialist Labour League, the British Trotskyists.) Nov. 30, 1963—

"This millionaire politician was destroyed by the very contradictions which he thought he could overcome smoothly and peacefully.

"Whether or not we ever learn the truth about the killings in Dallas, Tex¬as, Kennedy's death was without doubt the result of angonising conflict within the American ruling class.

"On the issues of Negro integration and foreign and defense policy, Kennedy's programme, reflecting the needs of one section of US big business, aroused sharp hostility from powerful economic and political groups.

"The roll of the Texas state authorities makes this very clear. If Oswald was framed, and this seems quite probable, the job was organized at a high level in the state machine. ...

"We do not mourn John F. Kennedy.

"As international socialists we see him as the world leader of the class enemy.

"If he was far-sighted, it was in the interests of the continuation of capi¬talist exploitation everywhere."
—John Crawford

Dec. 7, 1963—"Marxists and the Kennedy Assassination" (Headline, page two.)

"The assassination of President Ken¬nedy has given rise to a more than usual round of hysteria, tear-jerking and praise-mongering by the literary and political representatives of the middle class.

"Reading some of the articles in the so-called socialist and liberal press about his life, one might be forgiven for thinking that Kennedy stood for the freedom of the Negro people and was, in fact, a socialist in all but name.

"Thus do the hirelings of international capital endeavor to whitewash the most reactionary imperialist power in the world in its hour of crisis.

"Kennedy was, of course, a most able representative of his class. Everything that he did had but one objective, to strengthen American imperialism. . . .

"When he spoke about Negro rights, he was merely using high-sounding liberal phraseology so that he could all the better, on behalf of his class, continue to enslave the Negro people.

"Marxists express no sympathy what¬soever over Kennedy's death.

"We do not condone the act of individual terror responsible for his death, not because we are squeamish or humanitarian about how it was done, but because individual terror is no substitute for the construction of the revolutionary party.

Disorganises
"Terrorism is a weapon which in fact disorganises and leaves the working class leaderless. It creates the impression that the removal of prominent capitalist politicians and statesmen can solve the problems of the working class. "But for every tyrant shot, there is another ready to take his place. Only the overthrow of the capitalist system in the United States and its replace¬ment by working-class power and socialism can solve the problems of the American working-class whites and Negroes.

"Such a task cannot be accomplished by terrorists like Lee Oswald. The answer lies not with them, but through the preparation and building of a revolutionary party which, through mass action, will take the power. . . .

"The taking of power by th6 revolutionary party is not without terror. The ruling class will not hesitate to terrorise the working class, the Negro and colonial peoples. . . .

"The sympathy of Marxists, while not agreeing with the method of Oswald, must be given to the millions of Oswalds, black and white, who have been driven into pauperism by capitalism. The task of the American Marxist movement is to direct its attention towards these people, and not towards the sending of messages of sympathy to Mrs. Kennedy.

Fatal
"When Lee Oswald fired the fatal shot, he did something more than assassinate a president.

"He also destroyed utterly and completely the lie that the Socialist Workers Party of the United States is a Trotskyist party and that it continues the traditions for which it was founded in the struggle to build the Fourth International.

"The Militant, weekly organ of the SWP which, according to its masthead, is 'published in the interests of the working people,' carried this news item in its issue of Monday, December 2, headed 'Socialist Leader Denounces

Murder of the President':
(Here follows the statement of Farrell Dobbs which is reprinted above.)

"This nauseating report repudiates every principle that Trotsky and the Bolshevik Party fought for. It is a report written by cowardly liberals, whose eyes are turned solely in the di¬rection of the. American middle class.

'"We extend,' says Farrell Dobbs, 'our deepest sympathy to Mrs. Ken¬nedy.' ;
"Indeed! And who is Mrs. Kennedy?

Reactionary
"She is the daughter of a Wall Street millionaire, and was the wife of the leader of the most reactionary imperialist power on earth. Marxists can have no sympathy whatsoever with Mrs. Kennedy and her class.

" 'Political differences within our society must be settled in an orderly manner,' says Dobbs.

"Indeed! Tell that to the Negroes of Birmingham, Alabama, and the miners of Kentucky. Tell that to the millions of colonial people in struggle against imperialism.

"The settlement of class issues will not take place in an orderly manner, but in a violent way, because the ruling class will never give up its power peacefully. To the millions of working people in struggle against imperialism all over the world, Dobbs is just one more American liberal,- who talks the language of 'order' so as to mask the brutality of his own imperialist government.

"How Trotsky would have loathed this statement of the leader of the Socialist Workers Party. He would have flayed its author alive in every language he could muster. This is cringing boot¬licking of the American petty-bourgeois by a man who claims to be a Marxist!

Attack
"Dobbs sends his condolences to 'Mrs. Kennedy and the children,' but not a word about Mrs. Oswald, a poor Russian woman whose children and herself will be singled out for attack wherever she goes.

"Instead of taking up the cudgels on behalf of the poor in the United States, Dobbs turns his eyes to to the representatives of the rich and mighty.

"There was, of course, a distinct possibility that anti-labour witch-hunters would utilise the Kennedy assassination in order to attack the left, but such an attack could not be answered by sending condolences to Mrs. Kennedy. The answer to any witch-hunt is to explain the class issues involved in the assassination, which ran only be done by a thoroughgoing exposure of Kennedy's role.

Betrayed
"Farrell Dobbs does not look to the working class as his only real ally in the fight against the witch-hunt. He looks in the opposite direction, towards the ruling class. On this, question, as on all others, Dobbs has betrayed the Marxist movement. . . .

"His political degeneration is a warning to Marxists everywhere. It follows closely on the heels of the so-called 'reunification' with the Pabloites, who supported the brutal assassination by the hired thugs of the FLN of the Algerian trade union leaders in Paris in 1957 and 1958.

"This unification was an alliance of renegades from Trotskyism to turn from the working class to the radical do-gooders whose sole aim is to white¬wash imperialism.

"We look forward to any news as to whether or not James P. Cannon, founder of the American Trotskyist movement, was prepared to sign the message of condolence to Mrs. Kennedy."

—Gerry Healy, National Secretary Socialist Labour League

The acid test of any organisation presenting itself as socialist takes place in periods of revolutionary opportunity or crisis. All such organizations were tested in their ability to maintain their principled positions at the time of the Kennedy assassination. To those for whom the concept of Trotskyism is synonymous with firm class positions under the most adverse conditions, the statement of Farrell Dobbs and the entire edition of the Militant on the Kennedy assassination came as a profound shock. At a calmer and more reflective moment, even the leaders of the Socialist Workers Party themselves must have been chagrined and surprised at their lack of stamina.

It is, of course, true that it is a perfectly principled tactic to carefully avoid the use of provocative phrases when the legal organizational existence, and possibly the lives, of revolutionaries are at stake. However, the words of Dobbs and the Militant were not those of a revolutionary Socialist, but rather of Social Democrats and bourgeois liberals, and richly merited the attacks of Gerry Healy and the Socialist Labour League.

The Revolutionary Tendency has repeatedly pointed out the attempt to convert the SWP into an appendage of petty-bourgeois radical formations. The abandonment of the concept that the working class and its vanguard must lead the masses, evidently and inevitably leads, at a moment of crisis, to the abandonment of the essence of all revolutionary working class positions.