Once Again, The Voice of The Generation Of '68?- Bob Dylan Unplugged

Once Again, The Voice of The Generation Of '68?- Bob Dylan Unplugged

A YouTube's film clip of Bob Dylan performing "Blowin' In The Wind" in 1963.


CD REVIEW


The Times They Are A-Changing, Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1963


In this selection we have some outright folk classics that will endure for the ages like those of his early hero Woody Guthrie have endured. "The Times They are A-Changing" still sounds good today although the generational tensions and the alienation from authorities highlighted there is markedly less now than than in those days-not a good thing, by the way. "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" is a powerful tale out of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" about the plight of an up against the wall family farmer out on the then hardscrabble prairies (and it has only gotten worst since and Dylan made one of his periodic 'comebacks' doing this song at a Farm Aid concert in the 1980's).

"With God On Our Side" like "Masters of War" is a powerful anti-war song although some of the tensions of the Cold War period in which it was written have gone (only to replaced today by the fears generated by the `war on terrorism'). "Only A Pawn In Their Game" was a powerful expression of rage after the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers. The "Hattie Carroll" song shows Dylan's range by dealing with injustice from a different perspective (and a different class) than "Only A Pawn In Their Game". But with no let up in highlighting blatant discrimination and animus in either case. Finally, in reviewing these early Dylan albums (and some of the later ones, as well) I have noticed that they are not complete without at least one song about lost love, longing or perfidy. Here, there is no exception to that rule with the haunting, pleading voice of "Boots of Spanish Leather".

posted by markin at 10:49 AM

7 Comments:
Kim said...
The problem is that Dylan himself clearly states that Masters of War is not an anti-war song:

Q: Give me an example of a song that has been widely
misinterpreted.

A: Take "Masters Of War." Every time I sing it, someone writes
that it's an antiwar song. But there's no antiwar sentiment in
that song. I'm not a pacifist. I don't think I've ever been one.
If you look closely at the song, it's about what Eisenhower was
saying about the dangers of the military-industrial complex in
this country. I believe strongly in everyone's right to defend
themselves by every means necessary... you are affected as a
writer and a person by the culture and spirit of the times. I was
tuned into it then, I'm tuned into it now. None of us are immune
to the spirit of the age. It affects us whether we know it or
whether we like it or not.

from http://expectingrain.com/dok/int/2003tour.html

And I think to say that "With God on Our Side" is an anti-war song is reducing the song to something topical. The idea that it is simply an anti-war song really ignores the last verse in the piece regarding Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot fought in no war, so then, if this is an anti-war song why is he even in the picture?
I believe it is far less an anti-war song and far more a song about asking the question: what does it mean to believe in God? To me, it's more about asking the question: shouldn't we be on God's side and not He on ours?

THIS question then throws into the spotlight the idea that God is on the side of America and that she is always right. Dylan, it seems to me, is not quite buying into that. None of us should. But he's not an either/or kind of a guy. He's not an "America is all bad or all good" kind. Hattie Carroll bites into two groups, and both come out severly wounded: the racists and their racist application of "justice" AND the liberals who decry injustice but do nothing about it.

7:10 PM
markin said...
When I used the term ‘anti-war’ in relationship to Bob Dylan’s song Masters of War I meant that in a generic sense rather than giving it some specific political or pacific meaning. According to the Dylan quote that Kim cited in her comment there is a tendency, including by Dylan, to equate the terms ‘anti-war’ and ‘pacifist’. I would not give such a narrow meaning to the term ‘anti-war’. In Dylan’s context it is essentially anti-militarism, especially the dramatically American militarism of the time by the Brecht-like phrases that he uses. That concept does not preclude the concept of just wars against the escalation of such militarism. Leftists except probably Quakers, as a rule, subscribe to some form of just war theory. Certainly in my youth the concept of just war meant supporting the struggle of the Vietnamese against the American presence.

One need not go back that far for an example, though. Much closer in time is the current ‘struggle’ by Iraqi forces against the American presence there. Although the situation is definitely murkier than in Vietnam, to the extent that any one is fighting directly against the American presence (as opposed to indiscriminately bombing everything that moves), theirs is an example of just war. Hell, in 2003 the simple act of the Iraqis, with or without Sadaam, defending themselves against the American invasion was an example of a just war. So Kim, you see that ‘anti-war’ is a pretty elastic term and that brother Dylan and I are, after all, not so far away in our idea that everyone has a right to defend themselves. It is a question of whose right to such defense is supported at any given point that is at issue.

After the above rather abstract discussion, let us cut to the chase about whether Masters of War is an ‘anti-war’ song. During the Vietnam War I was involved with a group of active duty anti-Vietnam War G.I.s (Army soldiers, in this case) who faced court-martial for disobeying lawful orders. Those orders being refused were orders to go to Vietnam, a rather serious offense for a soldier. As part of their defense at the court-martial a few of them, when they got on the stand to make statements, started reciting Master of War in order to have it placed in the transcript of trial. The colonels and majors who made up the court-martial board tried to, red-faced with anger, stop them. Those officers, at least, knew what ‘anti-war’ lyrics were when they heard them. Enough said, I think.

11:01 AM
markin said...
The question of whether “With God On Our Side” is an anti-war song is a little more problematic than that of “Masters of War”. I would only comment that one should not get hung up on the ‘god’ part as I consider this more a common political convention of the time in order to get a hearing for your song (a not unimportant consideration, by the way) that a universalistic appeal to for America to get “on the right side of god”. In the 1960’s, an age wedded to existential concepts, references to god could be as directed to the void as they could to some religious supreme being. Later, as Dylan entertained more religious feelings in his life and in his work that argument might make more sense but certainly not in the early 1960’s. If one did not have a sense of irony then, one was ‘lost’. That ironic sense is why we listened to Dylan and others. They expressed in song things about the world that disturbed us at the time.

What really interests me today about Dylan’s lyrics on this song is how passive they are in relationship to the task that he has presented. In those days, the threat of nuclear annihilation was palpable as things like the Cold War –driven nuclear arms race and the Cuban Missile Crisis made plain. Dylan was apparently entirely willing to let some ultimately ‘just’ god pull the chestnuts out of the fire for us. Alternately, in those days a number of us preferred to take to the streets to organize the fight for nuclear disarmament. “God” could come along if he/she wanted to-no questions asked. Hell, we were so desperate for recruits that Judas Iscariot was welcome if he wanted to turn over a new leaf.

11:12 AM
markin said...
Here are the lyrics to Masters of War and you can make your own judgment about whether it is an anti-war song or not. I have given my opinion above. Markin

Masters Of War

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

7:31 AM
markin said...
A Voice Of His Generation

Nod To Bob: An Artists’ Tribute To Bob Dylan on his Sixtieth Birthday, various artists, Red House Records, 2001

A musical performer knows that he or she has arrived when they have accumulated enough laurels and created enough songs to be worthy, at least in some record producer eyes, to warrant a tribune album. When they are also alive to accept the accolades as two out of the four of the artists under review are, which is only proper, that is all to the good (this is part of a larger review of tributes to Greg Brown, Bob Dylan, Mississippi John Hurt and Hank Williams). That said, not all tribute albums are created equally. Some are full of star-studded covers, others with lesser lights who have been influenced by the artist that they are paying tribute to. As a general proposition though I find it a fairly rare occurrence, as I noted in a review of the "Timeless" tribute album to Hank Williams, that the cover artist outdoes the work of the original recording artist. With that point in mind I will give my "skinny" on the cover artists here.


It seems hard to believe now both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). It is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.

Others have, endlessly, gone on about Bob Dylan’s role as the voice of his generation (and mine), his lyrics and what they do or do not mean and his place in the rock or folk pantheons, or both. I just want to comment on a few songs and cover artists on this 60th birthday album. Overall this Red House Records (a well-known alternate folk tradition recording outfit) production is a true folkies’ tribute to old Bob where the artists while well-known in the folk field probably as not as familiar to the general listener. Nevertheless several covers stick out: John Gorka’s rendition of the longing that pervades “Girl Of The North Country" is fine, as is the desperate longing of Martin Simpson’s “Boots Of Spanish Leather”. Greg Brown does a rousing version of “Pledging My Time” and the long time folk singer Rosalie Sorrels does a beautifully measured version of “Tomorrow Is A Long Time”. The finale is appropriately done by old time folkie, and early day Dylan companion on the folk scene Ramblin’ Jack Elliot with “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” Solid work here. Kudos.

3:32 PM
markin said...
In the interest of completeness concerning my earleir evaluation of the Dylan songs "Masters Of War" and "With Good On Our Side" on his early albums here are the lyrics to the latter song.

Interestingly, except for changing the Cold War theme against the Russians then to the so-called War On Terror now against seemingly every Moslem that any American presidential administration can get it hands on (Bush in Iraq and Afgahnistan) and Obama (same and, maybe, Pakistan) these lyrics "speak" to me today. The word they speak is hubris, American hubris, that the rest of the world has had reason to fear, and rightly so. What do they "speak" to you?

"With God On Our Side"

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns on their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

11:32 AM
markin said...
Guest Commentary

I have mentioned in my review of Martin Scorsese's "No Direction Home; The Legacy Of Bob Dylan" (see archives) that Dylan's protest/social commentary lyrics dovetailed with my, and others of my generation's, struggle to make sense of world at war (cold or otherwise)and filled with injustices and constricting values. Here are the lyrics of three songs-"Blowin' In The Wind", "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Like A Rolling Stone" that can serve as examples of why we responded to his messages the way we did. Kudos Bob.


The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Blowin' In The Wind

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Copyright ©1962; renewed 1990 Special Rider Music


Like A Rolling Stone

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Copyright ©1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Don’t Blame It On Rio, Rio de Janeiro That Is-Once Again Under The Astaire-Rogers Screen With Divine Dolores del Rio Thrown In-“Flying To Rio” (1933)-A Film Review

Don’t Blame It On Rio, Rio de Janeiro That Is-Once Again Under The Astaire-Rogers Screen With Divine Dolores del Rio Thrown In-“Flying To Rio” (1933)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

Flying Down To Rio, starring Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and  a million dancers, singers and musicians, especially the Carioca scene, 1933    

Thank God for Sam Lowell’s words of cinematic wisdom after watching this film under review an early Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers song and dance musical from the early 1930s Flying Down To Rio. (I might add that unlike later productions by this song and dance team they were not the leads here which will be discussed below.) Sam’s pearls of wisdom culled after some forty years of reviewing every kind of film is that when you are at loss, actually I was truly befuddled, for a “hook” for your review you can always go to the “slice of life” gambit, especially as here on older films. Actually I had two choices for the “hook” the previously mentioned slice of life which I will use, thanks Sam, and the eternal fallback since Greek times maybe before, maybe going back to the Garden in Genesis-“boy meets girl” that has saved many a film and many a film reviewer. That seems too weird to use here, although the material as will become clear was there, so I will go with the former Godsent.   

Here’s why I was befuddled. Bandleader and playboy, maybe that is not a good term to use these days although that seemingly fits this character, Roger, played by Gene Raymond who along with ultimate love interest, Belinha, played by Mexican femme idol Delores Del Rio, are the leads here has landed his band in hot water for the umpteenth time due to his romantic interests overriding the need for him and his band to make a living. To keep body and soul together and off the mean streets of America. As it turned out Roger is just slumming since he is strictly a Mayfair swell lad who can go back home and idle about whenever things get tough. Not so from hunger Fred Ayres, Astaire’s role and vocalist Honey, Ginger’s role who are living from paycheck to paycheck. The latest firing of the band with the lively name Yankee Clippers came about when Roger went charging after the Brazilian dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty Belinha who was being held on a leash by her chaperone so she wouldn’t stray before her wedding day. Roger and Belinha were smitten with each other but there was no place for them to expand that relationship given Belinha’s status (although I am still scratching my head over Ms. Del Rios poses looking heaven-ward bound which should have given Roger the chills but I will chalk that up to her having had to “over the top” emote like that in those silent films where she got her start since it was probably hard to break the habit).    

Luckily Roger was able to rebound nicely by getting an engagement for the band in Rio, Rio de Janiero and so everybody is off to the races heading to Rio. Oh yeah, playboy Roger along the way was also a pilot and he wound up giving Belinha a ride down to Rio, with a quick romantic pitstop on what was supposed to be a desert island (although it turned out to be Haiti in a ham-fisted view of the “natives” on that then, and now, benighted island). Not only that but the hotel where the boys and Honey are to play belongs to Belinha’s father who has all his dough tied up in the venture.   

Naturally, aside from some so-so dancing by Fred and Ginger in their first film together and a spectacular rendition of the Carioca by an ensemble cast of singers and dancers, there has to be some problem to be resolved before the couple can go off and get some suntans (which as Cole Porter noted in one of his lyrics has “taken all the gold of more than one man”). This is around the question of an entertainment license which a cabal of competitors is holding up so they can buy the unsuccessful hotel on the cheap. Never happened though since Roger and Fred came up with an idea to use airplanes to highlight the dancers who could not perform on the ground and make the grand opening of the hotel as success. Weird, very weird, to watch in 2018 believe me. Naturally as well good sport and good friend Julio who is the guy engaged to Belinha seeing that they are in love joins the pair together, literally, arranging their marriage in an airplane by the captain as heartbroken Julio parachutes out of the plane to whatever fate awaits him. Weird again but you can see what my dilemma was. See some later Astaire-Rogers films if you really want to see what dancing was like when done for keeps.   

Everybody Loves A Con, Con Artists Unless They Are The Dreaded Con- Steve Martin and Michael Caine, Oops And, Oh Yeah, Glenne Headly “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” (1988)-A Film Review

Everybody Loves A Con, Con Artists Unless They  Are The Dreaded Con- Steve Martin and Michael Caine, Oops And, Oh Yeah, Glenne Headly “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” (1988)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starting Glenne Headly, Steve Martin, Michael Caine, 1988

One of the virtues of coming back to work at this publication occasionally after I retired from my daily by-line at Women Today is to hear the stories from some of the older writers about various characters, mainly but not exclusively male con artists and armed robbers, they knew when they were growing up. That includes my old flame and now fellow writer Josh Breslin who along with one Sam Lowell live by the headline above that “everybody loves a con artist except the conned.” That idea will come in handy as I review the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels because the whole film, every waking minute, is spent documenting a series of interrelated cons. Cons coming out of your ears before the last frame. (By the way in case some other writer has betrayed a water cooler thought the relationship between Josh and I these days is well, murky. After my two failed due to the press of work marriages and his three due the press of work failed marriages murky is good, very good.)      

One day around the water cooler on another occasion not related to the discussion mentioned above Sam, Josh, Fritz, Frank and maybe Laura Perkins were talking about the legendary Eddie Riley from Sam and Frank’s old neighborhood who pulled the biggest con they had heard of on a New York banker who was looking to  make some easy money to get out from under some Ponzi scheme he was running that was starting to go awry and he would listen to anything that sounded like a life-saver. (Rule number one by cynical Sam make sure your mark is desperate then it is like finding money on the ground to take whatever you want.) Nobody was still sure of all the details since the gaff had happened a couple of decades ago but basically Eddie set up a fake stock brokerage house complete with agents and all putting up numbers for stocks especially around say the Acme Toy Company. A sure thing, especially when Eddie said he had inside information (illegal I know but goes on all the time just be smart about it). So Mr. Investment Banker forked over a cool 100 thou and the game is on. Two or three days later the stock jumped from say ten to fifteen dollars, a good rise with Eddie’s assurance that it was just the start. Another 100 thou, no two hundred thou since Mr. Big was in a very deep hole. Stock goes from say fifteen to twenty-two and Mr. Big is almost hooked. Another couple of hundred thou to make a half million and the stock goes to thirty then thirty-five in a short time.

Mr. Big is breathing a sigh of relief. So he goes another two hundred thou. Eddie makes his smart move here by not being too greedy and starts to wind the con up although he knew for certain he could have gotten to a million no sweat. Of course on all of this Eddie, really Mr. Big, is buying on margins, grabbing stock for say ten percent down with the expectations that it will generally keep going up for a while even with some blips. The blips start and eventually just to add salt to the wound the stock goes low enough that margin calls come into play and Mr. Big has to folk up another couple of hundred thou to cover his margins. Done. From there the stock takes a slow nosedive all along Eddie “calming” the guy with a new upturn soon. Never came as the stock when to about twenty cents and Eddie wrote the guy a check for about a thousand dollars to close out the account. I don’t think the guy committed suicide but I do believe that Sam said that he fled the country. Here is the beauty-there is, was no Acme Toy Company, no stock was ever issued-t was all mirrors-beautiful, even I can see the beauty of the thing. And everybody else, well, except Mr. Big probably could as well.               

That was the high side but of course that requires some skill and a deep understanding of human greed only a greed-head could understand and work through. Mostly, and after Eddie’s exploits got a serious airing at the water cooler that day, they began to talk about small time grifters starting from street guys hustling blind routines or from hunger stuff. Probably started with guys like this hustling their fellow student out of their milk money or throwing counterfeit slugs in change machines, stuff like that. That latter point is important because that idea, that grifter business enters into the plot of the film under review via small time Freddy, played by Steve Martin, whose idea of a big score is hustling some passenger on a train for dinner and carfare. Kids’ stuff. But Eddie, you remember Eddie of the big score, also enters the scene as the fast company for the big-time scam artist, Lawrence, played by million film Michael Caine, bilking rich widows and bored wives of enough money to keep his mansion and his expensive appetites afloat. The rubber will hit the road when these two go mano a mano as the action progresses.      

They start as strangers on a train to the French Rivera and Lawrence once he meets Freddy and find out that he is planning on squatting on his turf tries to move heaven and earth to get him out of town, and away from endangering his profit margins. And it works, well, almost works as you could figure since Freddy on his way out of town runs into one of those rich ladies Lawrence has been bilking based on his being an exiled prince in need of funds to get his kingdom back, or something like that. In order to avoid exposure as a fraud Lawrence agrees reluctantly to tutor Freddie on the high-side economics and style of the con game. And he doesn’t do badly but in a place like the Rivera only one king can survive.

Enter the con between cons, always a good watch when titans go at each other no holds barred. The object here is one Judy, really, Judy Colgate of the Colgate fortune they think. The bet $50,000 but the real stakes are the first guy to bed her wins, the other guy leaves sad sack out of town and back to cheap street and hustling winos for beer money. For a good while the battle of the titans is something to watch as they cut and feign, slash and burn and still get nowhere near a bedroom until finally Freddie makes a score, or think he has. Faking the old cripple routine that has melted many a woman’s heart her “love” has allowed him to walk, to walk right up to the bed.  Success. Well almost, well no actually. See Judy is from hunger or rather is a con artist on her own, the notorious Jackal that every con artist stays up late trying to emulate (to no success). After she cons Freddy into taking a shower before love-making she blows town. Or rather she heads over to Lawrence’s mansion where he, suddenly soft after finding she was no heiress and from hunger herself, gives her the 50K and she really does blow town after blowing the boys off and sending them back to school chastised. Nice, and in a real twist on her next caper to show no hard feeling she brings a boatload of suckers Freddie and Lawrence’s way as they head off into the sunset. Nice, yeah, everybody loves a con, no question, none whatsoever.

  

  

“We’ll Meet Again Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When”-Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon’s “Mrs. Miniver (1942)-A Film Review

“We’ll Meet Again Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When”-Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon’s “Mrs. Miniver (1942)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

Mrs. Miniver, starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Dame May Whitty, Teresa Wright,  Richard Ney, 1942

They say that Dame Vera Lynn’s (at least I think she is a Dame now if she is still alive and a quick look at Wikipedia confirms that she is at 100 having been born during World War I and hence having seen many, many wars over the past century)  song We’ll Meet Again got England, you know the stiff upper lip British, through the night of the long knives when that country was basically alone fighting against the Nazi night-takers after Hitler and his minions stepped over most of Europe and the destruction of the British Isles by a massive bombing campaign was beating down as a last step in that act. This before Pearl Harbor put American boots on European soil. (The Americans having their own get through the war song Til We Meet Again to keep up morale as the soldiers, sailors, marines and flyboys were leaving these shores for an uncertain fate many laying their heads down on those foreign shores.) If that was the case then the film under review, the award-winning Mrs. Miniver, was the cinematic complement to that song as a combination straight story about civilian wartime struggles in the modern age when such populations have unfortunately become front and center in military warfare planning and none too veiled propaganda for the British government’s war effort. (Such things are hard to gauge but as eminent a spokesman for British war efforts as war-time leader Winton Churchill said the film (and the book it was based on) was invaluable to keep British morale high.) 

Some seventy-five years on and too many brutal wars to count, including atrocities which come close to those of World War II, it is hard to say whether such a film did or did not lift morale although especially with the minister’s sermon that ended the film urging all Britons to keep the faith and keep pushing on it must have had some impact. For now though let me give the reader the “skinny” as I like to do and you can figure how much of a propaganda vehicle it was against the storyline of how a ordinary middle class British family dealt with the hard realities of war on its doorstep.    

  

Obviously the key figure here is the ordinary citizen housewife Mrs. Miniver, played by Greer Garson who won an Oscar for her performance, as she tries to keep her family together through those trying times. This although her husband, Clem, played by Oscar-nominated Walter Pidgeon who was too old for military service but who took his civilian war service seriously (including participating in the evacuation at Dunkirk in the darkest days of the war as Germany was marching to the seas) was at home. And despite her worry over her oldest son joining the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot at a time when Germany essentially ruled the skies over Britain. The most important thing that Mrs. Miniver does, aside from keeping the faith that her country will survive this big hit, is to keep cool, keep that notorious stiff upper lip as least for public consumption and therefore becomes a model for her fellow villagers. That becomes increasingly necessary as the air war begins to take a serious toll since there is an RAF base close by which the nasty Germans are very interested in putting out of commission. (One gardener set on winning an annual flower competition which went on as usual named his rose selection after her as tribute to her low key steadfastness).     

Along the way Mrs. Miniver faces a number of trials which only steel her against the plotting of the night-takers including coolly capturing a downed German pilot, constant worries over her son’s fate up in the skies and as the German juggernaut hones in on that airbase protecting her two younger children as the Germans lay waste to her homestead (seeing that destruction which I think would have made most women, and men, flip out she merely carries on with what is left of the house and Clem does to in his own understated way). Added in is a little romance aside from the warm regard that she and Clem have for each in their marital relationship. That RAF son, played by Richard Ney, meets the granddaughter, played by Oscar-winning Teresa Wright, of the local leader of the gentry in those parts, played by Dame May Whitty, and they fall in love, get married and plan for an uncertain future despite that Lady’s objections. In the end that romance is shattered but not in the way one would expect. Mrs. Miniver’s now daughter-in law is killed during a German air attack as they were exposed in the open rather than her son up in the skies. As the film ends that previously mentioned minister’s sermon speaks of the new ways of war, the need to fight a people’s war against the night-takers. (Although the British were none too keen, not at all, when their “colonials” got all uppity in places like India after the war working for their liberation through that same basic strategy.)  Like I said it is hard to see what effect this film had on morale at the time but it certainly was a very powerful if in spots melodramatic film showing the modern realities of warfare.          

From The Pen Of American Communist Party Founder And Trotskyist Leader James P. Cannon

From The Pen Of American Communist Party Founder And Trotskyist Leader James P. Cannon

Click below to link to the “James P. Cannon Internet Archives.”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/index.htm

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Frank Jackman comment on founding member James P. Cannon and the early American Communist Party taken from a book review, James P. Cannon and the Early American Communist Party, on the “American Left History” blog:

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past mistakes of our history and want to know some of the problems that confronted the early American Communist Party and some of the key personalities, including James Cannon, who formed that party this book is for you.

At the beginning of the 21st century after the demise of the Soviet Union and the apparent ‘death of communism’ it may seem fantastic and utopian to today’s militants that early in the 20th century many anarchist, socialist, syndicalist and other working class militants of this country coalesced to form an American Communist Party. For the most part, these militants honestly did so in order to organize an American socialist revolution patterned on and influenced by the Russian October Revolution of 1917. James P. Cannon represents one of the important individuals and faction leaders in that effort and was in the thick of the battle as a central leader of the Party in this period. Whatever his political mistakes at the time, or later, one could certainly use such a militant leader today. His mistakes were the mistakes of a man looking for a revolutionary path.

For those not familiar with this period a helpful introduction by the editors gives an analysis of the important fights which occurred inside the party. That overview highlights some of the now more obscure personalities (a helpful biographical glossary is provided), where they stood on the issues and insights into the significance of the crucial early fights in the party.

These include questions which are still relevant today; a legal vs. an underground party; the proper attitude toward parliamentary politics; support to third- party bourgeois candidates;trade union policy; class-war prisoner defense as well as how to rein in the intense internal struggle of the various factions for organizational control of the party. This makes it somewhat easier for those not well-versed in the intricacies of the political disputes which wracked the early American party to understand how these questions tended to pull it in on itself. In many ways, given the undisputed rise of American imperialism in the immediate aftermath of World War I, this is a story of the ‘dog days’ of the party. Unfortunately, that rise combined with the international ramifications of the internal disputes in the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International shipwrecked the party as a revolutionary party toward the end of this period.

In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? I would argue that the period under study represented Cannon’s apprenticeship. Although the hothouse politics of the early party clarified some of the issues of revolutionary strategy for him I believe that it was not until he linked up with Trotsky in the late 1920’s that he became the kind of leader who could lead a revolution. Of course, since Cannon never got a serious opportunity to lead revolutionary struggles in America this is mainly reduced to speculation on my part. Later books written by him make the case better. One thing is sure- in his prime he had the instincts to want to lead a revolution.

As an addition to the historical record of this period this book is a very good companion to the two-volume set by Theodore Draper - The Roots of American Communism and Soviet Russia and American Communism- the definitive study on the early history of the American Communist Party. It is also a useful companion to Cannon’s own The First Ten Years of American Communism. I would add that this is something of a labor of love on the part of the editors. This book was published at a time when the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was in full swing and anything related to Communist studies was deeply discounted. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America. Now is the time to study this history.

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BOOK REVIEW

NOTEBOOK OF AN AGITATOR- JAMES P. CANNON, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1971

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the socialist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. 

This book is part of a continuing series of the writings of James P. Cannon that was published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.

In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? This certainly is the period of Cannon’s political maturation, especially after his long collaboration working with Trotsky. The period under discussion- from the 1920’s when he was a leader of the American Communist Party to the red-baiting years after World War II- started with his leadership of the fight against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and then later against those who no longer wanted to defend the gains of the Russian Revolution despite the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution. Cannon won his spurs in those fights and in his struggle to orient those organizations toward a revolutionary path. One thing is sure- in his prime which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.

I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.

The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.

It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.

I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.

Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.

I also suggest a close look at Cannon’s articles in the early 1950’s. Some of them are solely of historical interest around the effects of the red purges on the organized labor movement at the start of the Cold War. Others, however, around health insurance, labor standards, the role of the media and the separation of church and state read as if they were written in 2014 That’s a sorry statement to have to make any way one looks at it.

From The Pages Of The Communist International- In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (March 1919) -Desperately Seeking Revolutionary Intellectuals-Now- And Then

From The Pages Of The Communist International- In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (March 1919) -Desperately Seeking Revolutionary Intellectuals-Now- And Then

Click below to link to the Communist International Internet Archives"

http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/index.htm

Frank Jackman comment from the American Left History blog (2007):

BOOK REVIEW

‘LEFT-WING’ COMMUNISM-AN INFANTILE DISORDER, V.I. LENIN, UNIVERSITY PRESS OF THE PACIFIC, CALIFORNIA, 2001

An underlying premise of the Lenin-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was that success there would be the first episode in a world-wide socialist revolution. While a specific timetable was not placed on the order of the day the early Bolshevik leaders, principally Lenin and Trotsky, both assumed that those events would occur in the immediate post-World War I period, or shortly thereafter. Alas, such was not the case, although not from lack of trying on the part of an internationalist-minded section of the Bolshevik leadership.

Another underlying premise, developed by the Leninists as part of their opposition to the imperialist First World War, was the need for a new revolutionary labor international to replace the compromised and moribund Socialist International (also known as the Second International) which had turned out to be useless as an instrument for revolution or even of opposition to the European war. The Bolsheviks took that step after seizing power and established the Communist International (also known as the Comintern or Third International) in 1919. As part of the process of arming that international with a revolutionary strategy (and practice) Lenin produced this polemic to address certain confusions, some willful, that had arisen in the European left and also attempted to instill some of the hard-learned lessons of the Russian revolutionary experience in them.

The Russian Revolution, and after it the Comintern in the early heroic days, for the most part, drew the best and most militant layers of the working-class and radical intellectuals to their defense. However, that is not the same as drawing experienced Bolsheviks to that defense. Many militants were anti-parliamentarian or anti-electoral in principle after the sorry experiences with the European social democracy. Others wanted to emulate the old heroic days of the Bolshevik underground party or create a minority, exclusive conspiratorial party.

Still others wanted to abandon the reformist bureaucratically-led trade unions to their then current leaderships, and so on. Lenin’s polemic, and it nothing but a flat-out polemic against all kinds of misconceptions of the Bolshevik experience, cut across these erroneous ideas like a knife. His literary style may not appeal to today’s audience but the political message still has considerable application today. At the time that it was written no less a figure than James P. Cannon, a central leader of the American Communist Party, credited the pamphlet with straightening out that badly confused movement (Indeed, it seems every possible political problem Lenin argued against in that pamphlet had some following in the American Party-in triplicate!). That alone makes it worth a look at.

I would like to highlight one point made by Lenin that has currency for leftists today, particularly American leftists. At the time it was written many (most) of the communist organizations adhering to the Comintern were little more than propaganda groups (including the American party). Lenin suggested one of the ways to break out of that isolation was a tactic of critical support to the still large and influential social-democratic organizations at election time. In his apt expression- to support those organizations "like a rope supports a hanging man".

However, as part of my political experiences in America around election time I have run into any number of ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ who have turned Lenin’s concept on its head. How? By arguing that militants needed to ‘critically support’ the Democratic Party (who else, right?) as an application of the Leninist criterion for critical support. No, a thousand times no. Lenin’s specific example was the reformist British Labor Party, a party at that time (and to a lesser extent today) solidly based on the trade unions- organizations of the working class and no other. The Democratic Party in America was then, is now, and will always be a capitalist party. Yes, the labor bureaucrats and ordinary workers support it, finance it, drool over it but in no way is it a labor party. That is the class difference which even sincere militants have broken their teeth on for at least the last seventy years. And that, dear reader, is another reason why it worthwhile to take a peek at this book.

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Desperately Seeking Revolutionary Intellectuals-Now, And Then

Commentary

No, this is not a Personals section ad, although it qualifies as a Help Wanted ad in a sense. On a number of occasions over past several years, in reviewing books especially those by James P. Cannon the founder of The Socialist Workers Party in America, I have mentioned that building off of the work of the classical Marxists, including that of Marx and Engels themselves, and later that of Lenin and Trotsky the critical problem before the international working class in the early part of the 20th century was the question of creating a revolutionary leadership to lead imminent uprisings. Armed with Lenin’s work on the theory of the imperialist nature of the epoch and the party question and Trotsky’s on the questions of permanent revolution and revolutionary timing the tasks for revolutionaries were more than adequately defined.

The conclusion that I drew from that observation was that the revolutionary socialist movement was not as desperately in need of theoreticians and intellectuals as previously (although having them is always a good thing). It needed leaders steeped in those theories and with a capacity to lead revolutions. We needed a few good day-to-day practical leaders to lead the fight for state power.

In that regard I have always held up, for the early part of the 20th century, the name Karl Liebknecht the martyred German Communist co-leader (along with Rosa Luxemburg) of the aborted Spartacist uprising of 1919 as such an example. In contrast the subsequent leadership of the German Communists in the 1920’s Paul Levi, Henrich Brandler and Ernest Thaelmann did not meet those qualifications. For later periods I have held up the name James P. Cannon, founder of the American Socialist Workers Party (to name only the organization that he was most closely associated with), as a model. That basically carries us to somewhere around the middle of the 20th century. Since I have spend a fair amount of time lately going back to try to draw the lessons of our movement I have also had occasion to think, or rather to rethink my original argument on the need for revolutionary intellectuals. That position stands in need of some amendment now.

Let’s be clear here about our needs. The traditional Marxist idea that in order to break the logjam impeding humankind’s development the international working class must rule is still on the historic agenda. The Leninist notions that, since the early part of the 20th century, we have been in the imperialist era and that a ‘hard’ cadre revolutionary party is necessary to take state power are also in play. Moreover, the Trotskyist understanding that in countries of belated development the working class is the only agency objectively capable of leading those societies to the tasks traditionally associated with the bourgeois revolution continues to hold true. That said, we are seriously in need of revolutionary intellectuals who can bring these understandings into the 21st century.

It is almost a political truism that each generation will find its own ways to cope with the political tasks that confront it. The international working class movement is no exception in that regard. Moreover, although the general outlines of Marxist theory mentioned above hold true such tasks as the updating of the theory of imperialism to take into account the qualitative leap in its globalization is necessary (as is, as an adjunct to that, the significance of the gigantic increases in the size of the ‘third world’ proletariat). Also in need of freshening up is work on the contours of revolutionary political organization in the age of high speed communications, the increased weight that non-working class specific questions play in world politics (the national question, religion, special racial and gender oppressions) and various other tasks that earlier generations had taken for granted or had not needed to consider. All this moreover has to be done in a political environment that sees Marxism, communism, even garden variety reform socialism as failed experiments. To address all the foregoing issues is where my call for a new crop of revolutionary intellectuals comes from.

Since the mid- 20th century we have had no lack of practical revolutionary leaders of one sort or another - one thinks of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and even Mao in his less rabid moments. We have witnessed any number of national liberation struggles, a few attempts at political revolution against Stalinism, a few military victories against imperialism, notably the Vietnamese struggle. But mainly this has been an epoch of defeats for the international working class. Moreover, we have not even come close to developing theoretical leaders of the statue of Lenin or Trotsky.

As a case in point, recently I made some commentary about the theory of student power in the 1960’s and its eventual refutation by the May 1968 General Strike lead by the working class in France. One of the leading lights for the idea that students were the ‘new’ working class or a ‘new’ vanguard was one Ernest Mandel. Mandel held himself out to be an orthodox Marxist (and Trotskyist, to boot) but that did not stop him from, periodically, perhaps daily, changing the focus of his work away from the idea of the centrality of the working class in social struggle an ideas that goes back to the days of Marx himself.

And Mandel, a brilliant well-spoken erudite scholar probably was not the worst of the lot. The problem is that he was the problem with his impressionistic theories based on , frankly, opportunistic impulses. Another example, from that same period, was the idea of Professor Regis Debray ( in the service of Fidel at the time ) that guerrilla foci out in the hills were the way forward ( a codification of the experience of the Cuban Revolution for which many subjective revolutionary paid dearly with their lives). Or the anti-Marxist Maoist notion that the countryside would defeat the cities that flamed the imagination of many Western radicals in the late 1960’s. I could go on with more examples but they only lead to one conclusion- we are, among other things, in a theoretical trough. This, my friends, is why today I have my Help Wanted sign out. Any takers?

Veterans For Peace-Heading Toward The Danger Not Away In The Struggle Against The Amercian Government's Endless Wars

Veterans For Peace-Heading Toward The Danger Not Away In The Struggle Against The Amercian Government's Endless Wars 

On The 50th Anniversary- Julie Christie and Alan Bates’ Film Adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Far From The Madding Crowd” (1967)

On The 50^th Anniversary- Julie Christie and Alan Bates’ Film Adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Far From The Madding Crowd” (1967)

DVD Review

By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon

Far From The Madding Crowd, starring Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Peter Finch, Terence Stamp, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Hardy, 1967   

I am sure sometimes readers of these reviews must wonder why a certain film is being reviewed, especially older films which while a big deal in the old days may not seem classical enough to warrant coverage forty, fifty, sixty years later. There are many reasons for choices but for the film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd there is one, and only one, reason. I had a big time “crush” on actress Julie Christie. That crush started not on this film but for her part in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago about the turbulent period around the Russian Revolution and the early part of Stalin’s reign based on a book, a forbidden book under Stalin if I recall, by Russian writer Boris Paternak. If memory serves I almost lost a girlfriend, the girlfriend that I saw the film under review with, over my unbridled gushing on and on about Ms. Christie’s blue eyes (that gal’s eye were brown and she had come from an all brown-eyed world in Manhattan), figure (hers was very good as well but no young woman then, maybe now as well although body shaming is rightly considered social error, if not political liked to have some other woman’s body commented upon) and long blonde hair (hers again brown from that brown-eyed Manhattan Lower East Jewish quarters world). Not a good move no question but what could you expect of wet-behind-the ears high school student from New Jersey who was a “late bloomer” in the dating/sexual allure world.                

So much for young romantic love misadventures, although I rekindled that crush in re-watching this film so many not so young romantic misadventures since I went on and on to my longtime companion about those blue eyes (hers are brown) although she has that same ethereal beauty Ms. Christie had (and maybe still has since I have not seen her in anything recently). So maybe I am an eternal wet-behind-the ears guy. My big idea in taking this date to see this film is another little quirk I had. We had just finished reading Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge (Casterbridge the scene of many of Hardy’s novels) which I had been enthralled with, had devoured well before the class was supposed to finish the novel and I was trying to see if it was worthwhile for me to read the book this film was based on. I did that a lot then although now it is more likely to be the reverse, to read the book and then see the film adaptation which sometimes, actually many times, is not true to the author’s intention or plotline. That is a story for another day though.    

As Sam Lowell, the previous senior film critic now emeritus, is always found of saying let’s get the “skinny” on this one. Let’s get to why I was enthralled by Thomas Hardy’s novels and this film adaptation beyond short-cuts and Ms. Christie’s blue eyes. I grew up in the city, in urban Trenton (actually just outside but close enough to consider myself a city boy as did my friends) so reading about the rural life in 19^th century England was almost like I was reading a space adventure. The film in some scenes like when the shepherd Gabriel, Allan Bates’ role, loses all his flock when his sheep dog goes berserk and drives them over a cliff into the sea, or when Bathsheba’s, Ms. Christie’s role as the inherited from her uncle landowner, sheep come down with a disease that lays them low and harvesting wheat graphically showed what I had imagined when I read my first Thomas Hardy novel.         

But what we have here in this film is really well beyond some idyllic agricultural ideal a city boy had about the country. Let’s face it and deal with the real subject-the romantic endeavors of Bathsheba’s three, count them, three suitors and her attitude toward each one (and the reason that long ago almost lost girlfriend and the miffed longtime companion both loved the film). As noted poor girl Bathsheba inherited a landed estate from her deceased uncle. Being young and energetic she was determined to run the place herself and show what she was made of against the views of her fellow male landowners, male tenants and employees who believed she was in over her head. And at times, like that sheep sickness time, she relied despite her own judgement, she had to depend on Gabriel who after being spurned on his marriage proposal by Bathsheba before she inherited that land and losing his flock to that berserk dog found himself in her employ. Spurned love number one down.   

While tending to her land the precocious Bathsheba gathered in another suitor, the older bachelor neighboring landowner, Mr. Boldwood, played by Peter Finch, who developed a late life obsession about her. Spurned love number two. Along comes number three, a young man, Frank, played by bad boy Terence Stamp, a rather dashing cavalry sergeant and she is smitten beyond reason. (As was that almost lost girlfriend and that current longtime companion to Stamp’s blue eyes but I will just charge that to their respective reactions to my going on and on about Ms. Christie.) They eventually marry and this proves a marriage not made in heaven as he is something of a wastrel and philander. Or so it seemed until Fanny, a young woman from Bathsheba’s estate, whom he had gotten with child as they used to say delicately in the old days and was to marry came back to claim her man. Too late since she was very ill and passed away along with that child she bore. That began Frank’s gnashing of teeth over her death and he subsequent alleged drowning at sea.

End of story for the widowed Bathsheba (although since the body was not found she would have to wait the legal seven years in order to remarry). Or so I would think. Re-enter that besotted Boldwood and another marriage proposal. Spurned again. End of story now. Well no that bastard Frank actually had not died but had taken off for parts unknown and wouldn’t you know showed up just when Bathsheba was ready to conditionally accept Boldwood’s marriage proposal. End of Frank as the enraged Boldwood pulled the old rooty-toot-toot and he fell down. Off to the gallows and probably some measure of relief for the unlucky Boldwood. You can’t have a romance end on a sour note, or at least you couldn’t in a 19^th century romantic novel so with two departed lovers finished dear fickle, there is no other word for it, Bathsheba finally, finally gets under the sheets with Gabriel something that kept getting telegraphed throughout the movie as they threw those meaningful glances as each other. And maybe Ms. Christie batted those blues eyes. A fine if long film version of well-done book.   

When Your Rooster Crows At The Break Of Dawn-Hold On To Your Wallet-Or Shallow And Swallow Down Your Love

When Your Rooster Crows At The Break Of Dawn-Hold On To Your Wallet-Or Shallow And Swallow Down Your Love

By Ronan Saint James

That goddam rooster down the road, I am not sure how far down that road but this the fourth day running the sleepy bastard has broken the hell out of my sleep, thought Jack Dolan as he once again, for the fourth time running tried to shake off the tepid sleep of the weary. Yeah, like the song said, Dylan wasn’t it, always that gravelly-throated bugger has an apt phrase to speak to what wearied a man, probably reflecting his own weariness, yeah, his own woman trouble what else would drive a man to write prose or lyric about his malaise blame farmyard animal for his discontents -“when your rooster crows at the break of dawn look out your window and I’ll be gone.” That is what had been keeping one John Dolan weary and wary four days running and not some fucking stone cold-eyed rooster yelling his brains out for whatever he yelled his brains out for at dawn. That Jack weariness wariness too had a name. Lucinda, Lucinda Jolly, the so-called love of his life who had walked out that door four days before without not so much as a by your leave. Left him high and dry in not to be alone Naples, down in Florida, broke and broken-hearted.

He should have seen it coming should have seen that Lucinda had been distracted by something. When they had argued, screamed really, that last night before she took a powder something they generally did not do since both had come up in households where the screaming and disorder had made them very reticent to argue, to yell at each other and maybe that was the problem, maybe what called the day done, she had mentioned that he seemed to be “distant, “ seemed to have been off his “meds” his drugs that kept him on keel. He denied it as usual and maybe that was the day done deal that finally broke things in her overheated head.

Hell that was all bullshit, all crap, what it was she had found another guy, a guy he did not see coming either although he should have since lately she had been going out by herself and coming in late. Didn’t make any excuses, lame excuses anyway, about being over at some girlfriend’s house but that she needed to be alone. That was when they decided to take whatever money they had and head to Naples, not a natural place like Big Sur out in the California coast where they could wish the Japan seas would solve whatever ailed their relationship and be washed clean by the fresh air and dreams of Jack Kerouac. dreams she had been spoon-fed on growing up in the French-Canadian Acre section of Lowell, Jack’s hometown, but what they could afford and had been a place to head for in fast sunnier days. Now she was gone, left him with no dough in godforsaken Naples of all places.

Maybe Jack should have taken those rooster crows for a sign, better should have listened to the whole Dylan lyric where he talks about it not being him (her) he (she) was looking for-after having given their, her, his bet shot, best shot maybe not up to some abstract standard they could never reach and a while back had both agreed could never reach that the whole thing had been a house of cards, had been a waystation for both after divorces, his three her pair and after those deep unhappy childhoods that seemed to glue them for a while. The whole thing had been so freaking fragile from the night they met in The Garden of Eden bar in downtown Albany near Russell Sage College when he had had plenty of dough and a full to the brim credit card that got them within a couple of days out to Big Sur, out to where he believed he had been washed clean and wanted her to see life through the prism of Pfieffer State Park complete with stone ass totems once she mentioned Jack Kerouac and that Lowell Jack park set in stone too with some his words, especially about looking for some dead-beat father they never knew. Hit right home with that one.             

In his mind, in his rooster-disturbed mind as Jack started to meditate, real meditation, and not just dwell on her being gone, who the hell that other guy was that he had not seen coming but should have when they were in their down in the mud days who maybe had not been divorced a million times, maybe didn’t drink, didn’t need “meds” and even need to meditate to keep an even keel, him with no dough and Albany many miles north but some old-time Allan Ginsberg in lieu of his now depleted “meds” he unwound the whole affair. Saw for the first time that what they had had was made of more smoke and mirrors than he could have figured when she was like a breath of fresh air coming through the fields after that first date to Saratoga field the day after they first spent the night together (he still had a hard time around “sleeping together, damn, sex so spent is what anybody would get who asked when they “did it”). She had been staying with her sister, a Russell Sage graduate and former denizen of “the Garden,  over in Ballston Spa, a sleepy little town that suited her just then but she was restless, needed to see some city lights and so the Garden of Eden had been her stopping place since Guy Williams, an old favorite, was playing a few sets there and her sister assured her that no guys would hit on her. Before she got out the door that sister Kate would amend her statement given what a breath of fresh air beauty he emitted even if she thought herself not particularly pretty, at least not too hard. Guys hitting on her. And hence Jack and his credit card and shy manner around her. (Lucinda was always amazed that he was ready to shake her hand, which he did, softly that first night and leave it at that he was so shy around women even after three marriages and a bunch of affairs. She had been the one who mentioned taking a walk along the Mohawk River to “talk” although that was not the only thing on her mind that night.) 

Jack hoped that tomorrow, tomorrow the fifth day running that rooster would lay off so he could gather himself to hit the road back to Albany and pick up the pieces of his now shattered life. The meditation, a new routine, which she had introduced him to calm him down when he was wired, when he was distant too but that was probably too little, too late.   

The next morning Jack did hit the road, well, not really hit the road like he was some second coming of Jack Kerouac or his buddies Allan Ginsberg and Neal Cassidy ready to throw caution to the wind and put his thumb out but go on his computer to look on-line for some ride-sharing opportunity. After setting up a meet with a guy going to New York City he sat around for a couple of hours in the place they had rented through Air B&B and which needed to be vacated by noon and rewound the spool of their two- year relationship now in tatters wishing all the time that he thought about it that morning that she had given a better signal, better signals that he was not what she was looking for, not the one she wanted and Dylan came lyrically back into view with his phrase from some forgotten 1960s song about “leaving at your own chosen speed.”        

Funny she had actually “discussed” with him several times her feeling she had to leave, no, that is not right, feeling that they could not go the distance, that they were too similar in their quiet desperations to stick and that whether he was expecting too much from her or she had too many non-negotiable demands the thing had not been despite Kerouac, despite being washed clean at Big Sur and a few times in Naples as well built to last. She never got to the door then, they would patch things up by having sex, or doing some dope or something to keep the embers alive. But he knew deep down that she was looking at that door and that a time would come, a time would come. 

Maybe a couple of months before when he mentioned that he had after several months had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and he begged her to leave and find her path since the treatment procedure, damn, maybe his whole life said he had to face this alone had triggered something. Or maybe so gallant had seen her and taken his best shot. Who knows. Just as he was to run a new train of thought he heard the honking of the car that would take him North-north and aloneness. He put the key in the mailbox as requested, picked up his suitcase and headed out the door to the waiting automobile. 

As he entered the vehicle and said hello to his new-found friend driver and savior Jack got pensive for a while after throwing his knapsack in the backseat and adjusting his seat-belt. Started recounting, no, re-living all the steps he and she should have taken to bring them to some understanding, if possible. He was not naïve enough after three marriages, a million affairs and his stint with her to think that it would have been a done deal but maybe. How many times had she made it plain that it was him, him and his mercurial ways that would drive her from his door, their door when they decided to move in together. How many times had he had the words in his stinking overactive head that would not come out, would not come out making any sense.

And about the night when both high but still in contact with their emotions they talked the whole night away about his “problem” of not being able to say the words she wanted to hear, that maybe they would make it with a little more communication. About too how that mother constant brow-beating made it very reticent to express any emotions, about the child being future to the man. About how in the end, she must have taken a hint from her ever practical side and realized that continuing would not work out, that the percentages were too low for her own fragile existence to count on.         

As Jack started to talk to that driver he thought  well at least he wouldn’t haven’t to listen to that cocksure rooster and his king kong king of the hill crowing …