Sunday, October 21, 2018
On The 80th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International (1938)- *In Honor Of Leon Trotsky-Leader Of The Red Army
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky, founder and leader of the Russian Red Army, on the anniversary of his death.
As The 100th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Creative Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth –Kirchner
As The 100th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Creative Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth –Kirchner
By Seth Garth
A few years ago, starting in August 2014 the 100th anniversary of what would become World War I, I started a series about the cultural effects, some of them anyway, of the slaughter which mowed down the flower of the European youth including an amazing number of artists, poets, writers and other cultural figures. Those culturati left behind, those who survived the shellings, the trenches, the diseases, and what was then called “shell shock,” now more commonly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is duly recognized, and compensated for at least in the United States by the Veterans Administration in proven cases reacted in many different ways. Mainly, the best of them, like the ordinary dog soldiers could not go back to the same old, same old, could not revive the certitudes of the pre-war Western world with it distorted sense of decorum and went to what even today seem quirky with moderns like Dada, Minimalism, the literary sparseness of Hemingway, and so on. I had my say there in a general sense but now as we are only a few months away from the 100th anniversary of, mercifully, the armistice which effectively ended that bloodbath I want to do a retrospective of creative artistic works by those who survived the war and how those war visions got translated into their works with some commentary if the spirit moves me but this is their show-no question they earned a retrospective.
Poets’ Corner-In The Aftermath Of World War I- Poets Take A Stab At Visually Understanding A Broken World After the Bloodbath
By Lenny Lynch
I don’t know that much about the Dada movement that swept through Europe in the early part of the 20th century in response to the creation of modern industrial society that was going full steam and the modern industrial scale death and destruction such mass scale techniques brought upon this good green earth by World War I. (Foreshadowed it is agreed by the industrial carnage at places like Cold Harbor in the American Civil War, the butchery of the Franco-Prussian War and subsequent river of blood by its own rulers of the Paris Commune and the Boer War.) The war to end all wars which came up quite short of that goal but did decimate the flower of the European youth, including vast swaths of the working class. Such massive blood-lettings for a precious few inches of soil like at the Battle of the Somme took humankind back more than a few steps when the nightmare ended-for a while with the Armistice on November 11, 1918. An event which in observing its centennial every serious artist should consider putting to the paint. And every military veteran to take heart including the descendants of those artists who laid down their heads in those muddy wretched trenches. Should reclaim the idea behind Armistice Day from the militarists who could learn no lessons except up the kill and fields of fire ratios.
I don’t know much but this space over this centennial year of the last year of the bloody war, the armistice year 1918 which stopped the bloodletting will explore that interesting art movement which reflected the times, the bloody times. First up to step up George Groz, step up and show your stuff, show how you see the blood-lusted world after four years of burning up the fields of sweet earth Europe making acres of white-crossed places where the sullen, jaded, mocked, buried youth of Europe caught shells and breezes. Take one look Republican Automatons. Look at the urban environment, look at those tall buildings dwarfing mere mortal man and woman, taking the measure of all, making them think, the thinking ones about having to run, run hard away from what they had built, about fear fretting that to continue would bury men and women without names, without honor either.
Look too at honor denied, look at the handless hand, the legless leg, the good German flag, the Kaiser’s bloody medal, hard against the urban sky. The shaky republic, the republic without honor, shades of the murders of the honest revolutionary Liebknecht walking across Potsdam Plaza to go say no, no to the war budget and grab a hallowed cell the only place for a man of the people in those hard times and gallant Luxemburg, the rose of the revolution, mixed in with thoughts of renegade burned out soldiers ready for anything. Weimar, weak-kneed and bleeding, would shake and one George Groz would know that, would draw this picture that would tell the real story of why there was a Dada-da-da-da-da movement to chronicle the times if not to fight on the barricades against that beast from which we had to run.
Once Again On The Legend-Busting Trail-This Time One Don Juan-With Errol Flynn’s The Adventures Of Don Juan (1948) In Mind-A Film Review-Of Sorts
Once Again On The
Legend-Busting Trail-This Time One Don Juan-With Errol Flynn’s The Adventures
Of Don Juan (1948) In Mind-A Film Review-Of Sorts
DVD Review
BY Will Bradley
The Adventures of Don Juan,
starring Errol Flynn, Vivica Lindsfor, 1948
[Seth Garth reminded me
recently that in this journalism business, this writing for publication, you
have to find some niche, some “hook” as he said not only for the piece itself
but for you to gain recognition for some particular aspect of the realm of
ideas. It seems that as of late I am becoming the “go-to” guy to debunk or
clarify various legends that have come down to us and which get accepted fairly
easily by those who thrill to legends, myths and religious expressions. Greg
Green has given me the “green light” to pursue this work as he believes that
this looks like my niche- and my “ticket” to a by-line. So be it. W.B.]
*********
Apparently I am the
debunker-in chief of various legends and other signs of humankind’s inability
to get past legends, myths and other religious expressions for explanation of
the ton of stuff even now we don’t know, whether consciously or not, the
unknown. At least I hold that position at this publication it seems after
having to take fellow writer Lance Lawrence to task for telling the tale about
Johnny Cielo, the so-called legendary aviator whom he touted based on the
memories of some rum-dum he met in a bar in Miami who led him by the nose maybe
for just a few drinks when he was hard-up for a story. You can see my retort in
the archives here for September 30, 2018. (Lance was on the bum after busting
up on a big drug cartel story when the informants never showed up probably
re-thinking their options in the light of their probably fates if they were
exposed. In any case Lance was hungry for copy having been on the sidelines for
a while with a threat of losing his by-line if he didn’t come up with something.
I have been there myself although I don’t have a by-line yet but may get one in
this goddam cutthroat business at Lance’s expense.)
I have a certain history on
this subject of fake legends having exposed a modern- day so-called Robin Hood
from around where I grew up by the name of Pretty James Preston (real name
except the “Pretty” since he was very good-looking even in his police mug and
had more than one gal swooning over him, and protecting him with hide-outs and
alibis) whose claim to fame was that he robbed banks and other places where
hard cash was located like department stores in those days in the time-honored
tradition except alone and in broad
daylight. Of course it is easy to break the legend of modern day figures since
there is a fair amount of paper trail involved. In James’ case he had been
touted by his voluntary press agent Scott Allan who worked as a reporter for
the North Adamsville Ledger who had
known Pretty as a young man, as a schoolboy, and who was also tired of the dead-beat
police beat for the newspaper and so got carried away with his reportage. Let
Pretty James off the hook and let him become some later day Robin Hood based on
what had been his leaving a fifty-cent tip for some sullen waitress who he had
an eye on, maybe didn’t jackroll some old guy when cash was tight and who
didn’t pistol whip some poor bank clerk. His exploits like paying rent for
those who lived in “the projects” where he grew up, sending milk and food to
elementary school kids and sending dough along to Sacred Heart parish was all
hooey, all made-up bullshit. By the way this has nothing to do with his
so-called legend but the real Pretty Boy blew away four bank customers for no
good reason except they were in the way on his last caper before going down in
a hail of bullets. Even Scott Allan couldn’t pretty up Pretty Boy on that
one.
Like I said modern-day
legends are easier to bust than the old hoary ones like Robin Hood and the
subject of this piece one Don Juan, or maybe not “one” since my investigations
to be detailed below point to multiple sightings-and sighings. Take Lance’s
fatal pitch on behalf of Johnny Cielo. He egged on the legend created by a
drunken sot met one hard-scrabble night in a gin mill in Miami after falling
down on another more important piece when his people didn’t show. His source
Billy just unwound on him, probably gaining steam as the evening wore on and
they both got drunker. Lance made the cardinal error, strangely not uncommon in
this damn cutthroat business and which I had to my own regret did one time as
well, of not checking sources, of not seeing what was myth and what was true if
anything.
In a capsule Johnny Cielo’s
legend centered on two key points-his “affair” with 1930s and 1940s Hollywood
glamour queen and World War II G.I. wet dream pin-up girl Rita Haywood who
allegedly in a period when she was not seen around Hollywood for a while before
marrying the Aga Khan had followed Johnny down to Central America, to Barranca
after he had run out of options in the States (had had a no-no reputation for
drug smuggling). Never happened, and Lance should have seen that from minute
one, and bells should have rung, rung loudly. What really happened beside
Johnny probably like every other red-blooded guy at the time having Rita’s
photo in his locker, that is about how close he came to her, was he brought
some tramp, some bar girl or whorehouse denizen met who knows where who was
beautiful and looked like Rita and Johnny promoted her as the real deal. The
other later long after he ditched “Rita” legend was that he had run guns to
Fidel and his guys in the Sierra Madres in the late 1950s and had fallen into
the deep blue sea in the Caribbean on some mission. Reality: Johnny had ditched
his plane and passengers while he was doing his real job of ferrying tourists
between Key West and Naples down in Florida. See where things get out of
hand.
As I said previously
breaking down old-time legends, here the Robin Hood legend from the12th century
is a much tougher matter. Really a
thankless task since even with all kinds of at least circumstantial evidence
the vast majority of humankind will still take the legend as good coin. Still
if one can one has to set the record as straight as possible. The big storyline
on this Robin Hood, or whatever his name was since he worked under many aliases
in his business, he “robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.” Pure fantasy
both before and after King Richard’s return and grant of land and other goodies
which according to church and manor records made him one of the richest and
greediest men in England. The records tell it all on the after side and Robin
would not be the first to go from decent guy to bum of the month as he aged and
grew fatter in many ways but he early side is more problematic. The only
official record is Friar Tuck’s monastery record which shows one Robert
Woodson, Hood’s real name, giving the equivalent of two buck to the place. Not
exactly a big hand out considering he is estimated to have robbed every wealthy
traveler who dared to come within twenty miles of his Sherwood Forest base of
operations.
Okay on to today’s balloon
bursting. The busting of the Don Juan legend. First off try as I might I could
find no listing for one Don Juan de la Marca, the name of the person the legend
goes under. The Spanish in that period kept excellent records, remember these
were the guys who ran the Inquisition and recorded every goddam sound cried out
in terror and pain so that made me think that maybe he was working under
another name or that there were several Don Juans, not improbable. The story
goes, at least the cinematic story, that he was a caddish love them and leave
them guy galivanting around Europe, leaving his seed, until his home country queen
knocked him for a loop (for a while) and he became something of a Spanish
patriot against the likes of the mysterious and sinister Duke of Lorca who had
the King’s ear and kept the Queen at bay. Enter Don Juan into the lists in
defense of Queen and realm. Don Juan allegedly was a great swordsman (of the
steel kind not of the kind the prurient reader might think) and was said to
have been permitted to run the academy at court producing young swordsmen
defenders of the realm. Through that connection he was able to rouse the better
elements and make short work of the Duke and his paid mercenaries. Putting
country above self, Don Juan who was supposedly a lover of the Queen, platonic
of course, left the court shortly thereafter rather than tempting the Queen in
some senseless love affair. Off to other romantic conquests.
Reality hits one in the
face hard on this one since it involved some coerced confessions from young
women who were not very world wary or wise. As mentioned earlier there is no
record of a Don Juan de la Marca which after exhaustive research now makes
sense because the whole legend was a hoax, a figment of the imagination of a
bunch of young women who would probably swear to this day they had been
ravished by-somebody. Seemingly it all started at the Convent of Saint Mary’s
(English translation) in rural Cordoba. The young women there, boarders, were
not headed for the nunnery but were being farmed off by their parents for
reasons ranging from keeping them out of temptation’s way to getting rid of
unwanted witnesses to their debaucheries.
A very curious lot of mainly
teenage girls with time on their hands and many dreamy moments. According to
the accounts from the investigation team, the Inquisition boys, one girl, Dona
Maria, spied a lightly-bearded slender young man crossing a field and called
out to him. He answered and went away, only to show up again a day later
walking that same field. Same call out, same walk away. Truth: the young man on
closer inspection was a lout, a youth with warts and all so as he approached the
convent Dona Maria screamed out she had been ravished by the lad. She needed
some back-up for her bogus accusations and enlisted some of her convent mates
into claiming the young bearded lad had ravished them as well. That was how the
rumor got started and the hysterics began as young girls and women in similar
isolated desperately hormonal situations, not always in cloistered convents,
started clamoring the same set of lies about this long gone and who knows what
happened to him youth. The long and short of it was that every Tom, Dick and
Harry (English translations) used that bit as his calling card among his
friends that they were the Don Juan figures even if they were not from Cordoba,
or Spain for that matter. Whoever claimed to be saving the Queen at court from
the intrigues of Don Lorca is just another holy goof impostor, a con man. You
heard it hear for all the good it will for those many young women today who have
their imaginations tweaked by a good-looking guy.
[Postscript: one of my
fellow reporters at another publication whose name I will not mention but who
is known to take particular pleasure in skewering her fellow reviewers has
taken me to task for not checking the Spanish Court Record Almanac where I
would find one Don Juan de la Marco’s name prominently described as master of
the sword (again of the steel variety) and as having been given various awards
for bravery. A look at this ancient dusty book does show such a name but if
that hard-pressed fellow reporter had read further to the man’s age of
sixty-two she might have saved herself some embarrassment trying to skewer me
in this cutthroat business. Moreover, Madame Reviewer might have put her
eyeglasses on to find that the person listed was not only sixty-two years of
age but the name listed was Don Juan de la Marlo, a very different person, and
no threat to that youthful lightly-bearded youth crossing some forlorn field of
some young maiden’s sex-starved imagination legend. W.B.]
Saturday, October 20, 2018
The High White Note Blowing Out To The China Seas-The Film Adaptation Of Pearl S. Buck’s “China Sky” (1945)- A Review
The High White Note Blowing
Out To The China Seas-The Film Adaptation Of Pearl S. Buck’s “China Sky” (1945)-
A Review
DVD Review
By Josie Davis
China Sky, starring
Randolph Scott, Ruth Warrick, Ellen Drew, Anthony Quinn, 1945
Although I am fairly new to the film reviewing
business, to journalism in general having just finished up my graduate program
at Boston University’s School of Communications I find it hard to believe what
the older writers keep telling me as words of advice. To watch my back, to watch out for fellow
reviewers who will skewer my work just to get ahead, just to beat someone in
what they have all called a cutthroat, drag down business. The idea behind
their cautions seems to center on the notion that nobody really needs to read a
film review, everybody has a subjective point of view on the subject matter of
a film and the only way to get out from under the rock is to take dead aim at
somebody else’s work in order to do what they call “move up the food chain.”
Here is what is ironic about all of what they say. I
was assigned this old- time film, China
Sky, by the site manager mostly because nobody else wanted to do the review
and because if I messed up, the site manager’s words, nobody would notice some
raw rookie errors anyway. After viewing the film I was puzzled, could not
figure out how to write the review up since the film seemed very dated and
weird. Weird since the film, as the title indicated, was about and set in China
during World War II, during the time Japan was trying to make all of Asia its
feeding grounds. Yet several of the main actors like Anthony Quinn known to me
from a cinema class where we watched and critiqued Zorba the Greek who were obviously not Chinese were made up to look
that way rather than have real Chinese actors in the roles.
One day at the water cooler I introduced myself to
some older writers who were talking about the modern film Black Panther and when I had an opportunity I asked what I should
do about the odd film I had been given to review. Most of them, actually all of
them except Si Lannon, walked away after basically telling that it was my
problem and that if I wanted to get ahead in the profession I had better figure
out a way to deal with the film or they would be more than willing to rip it
apart to show me how tough this “racket” really was. Si told me not to listen
to them because that was all an act. They just didn’t want to be bothered
“mentoring” a rookie on a turkey like China
Sky. Si gave me some advice which I think is reflected in this review-if
all else fails then use the old “slice of life” fall back. By that he meant if
I couldn’t figure a “hook” is what he, they call it to just go on and on about
the plotline of the film and move on. Thanks, Si who is proof that whatever
else some people in this business are not out to cut everybody else’s
throat.
I remember, because I asked
my mother, that my grandmother used to have many of Pearl S. Buck’s books on
her shelf. I might have glanced through a couple, I remember one The Good Earth I started to read but
gave it up because it was hard to follow when I was a teenager, didn’t speak to
me about the China I had heard about. I believe that most of Buck’s books were
based on China experiences and represented a Western missionary come to help
the heathens to the good life way of looking at that then benighted country. China Sky falls into that same category.
I have already mentioned the use of Western actors in some roles as Chinese but
also that the Chinese people are portrayed as mere props for the in this case
Americans to bring into the modern world.
Si told me to get the “boy
meets girl” part out of the way first. I already knew from the tons of films
that I had seen in classes and on my own that an extraordinary number of films,
especially from Hollywood back in the 1930s and 1940s depended on that theme.
Here that theme got a serious work- out in the relationship between the two
doctors, one male, Thompson, played by ruggedly handsome Randolph Scott and one
female, Durant, played by quietly beautiful Ruth Warrick. From scene one, where
he is absent off in America to raise money for medical equipment everybody and
their sister and brother knows she loves him. But that love is thwarted first
by their professional relationship and secondly when the good doctor does
appear he has a brand- new wife, Laura, played by fetching Ellen Drew. Done
for. No, through the course of the film as Laura cannot adjust to the wartime deprivations
and misery Doc Thompson starts to see the light, starts to see that he had made
a mistake and should have taken his fellow doctor will all hands. But brave Doc
Durant will just pine away and be the good soldier.
Of course in the end Laura
will fall down and the two fated doctors will come together. There is also a
secondary love interest between the Chinese guerilla leader, played by Anthony
Quinn in Chinese make-up and one of the nurses, also in Chinese make-up, which
will also get happily resolved when the treacherous native doctor she is
betrothed to is killed after betraying the hospital and town to a “wily”
Japanese POW.
As already foreshadowed
this film is a wartime romance set in World War II China when the Japanese were
fighting for control of the whole vast country and the town where all the
action takes place is near where the Chinese partisans have their supply dumps.
Since the Japanese are trying to push through holding that position is a must
for them. That however means that the town took a terrible beating from the
Japanese air forces bombing the hell out of everything that moved-including the
American-sponsored hospital. The wartime action spins around that senior
Japanese POW who the guerrillas want to put on trial for war crimes. He, as an
officer, tried every way to get information back to his side about the location
of the supply dumps. Including playing on the racial and romantic animosities
of the chief native doctor (who was actually Korean and whose unknown father
was Japanese). Naturally the good guys led by Doc Thompson and the guerrilla
chief beat back the bastardly Japanese. You already know the love story part
where Doc Thompson’s desperate to leave wife acted as a foil for treachery with
the Korean doctor in order to get her and Doc out of the country so that part
is done.
Final note, footnote, for
the “slice of life” idea from Si. We live in an age more concerned about what
we call political correctness than back in the 1940s so some of the stereotypes
are pretty raw. The superiority of Americans over mainly prop Asians. The
contempt for the average people expressed by Laura. The wily treacherous
Japanese and the sullen Korean. But above all that use of Western actors in
Chinese make-up reminiscent of whites in blackface tells me that this film is
certainly a period piece. That is that for a first review. Hope I survive.
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