*From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-In Honor Of The Three L’s-In Honor Of Karl Liebknecht-The Main Enemy Is At Home!(1915)

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  

Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.

There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

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

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

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

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
**********
Karl Liebknecht
The Main Enemy Is At Home!
(Leaflet, May 1915)


Source: Karl Liebknecht, Ausgewählte Reden und Aufsätze (Selected Speeches and Essays), Berlin 1952, pp. 296-301.
Transcription: Einde O’Callaghan for Marxists' Internet Archive
Translation and Markup: John Wagner for Marxists' Internet Archive
Online Version: Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002



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What has been expected every day for the past ten months, since the Austrian invasion of Serbia, has come to pass: There is war with Italy.

The masses in the warring countries have begun to free themselves from the official webs of lies. The German people as well have gained insight about the causes and objectives of the world war, about who is directly responsible for its outbreak. The mad delusions about the "holy aims" of the war have given way more and more, the enthusiasm for the war has dwindled, the will for a rapid peace has grown powerfully all over – even in the Army!

This was a difficult problem for the German and Austrian imperialists, who were seeking in vain for salvation. Now it seems they have found it. Italy's intervention in the war should offer them a welcome opportunity to stir up new frenzies of national hatred, to smother the will for peace, and to blur the traces of their own guilt. They are betting on the forgetfulness of the German people, betting on their forbearance which has been tested all too often.

If this plan succeeds, the results of ten months of bloody experience will be made worthless, and the international proletariat will once again be disarmed and completely discarded as an independent political factor.

This plan must be wrecked – provided that the part of the German proletariat which has remained true to international socialism remains mindful and worthy of its historical mission in this monstrous time.

The enemies of the people are counting on the forgetfulness of the masses – we counter this with the solution:

Learn everything, don't forget anything!
Don't forget anything!

We have seen how when war broke out, the masses were captured for the capitalist aims of the war with enticing melodies from the ruling classes. We have seen how the shiny bubbles of demagogy burst, how the foolish dreams of August vanished, how, instead of happiness, suffering and misery came over the people; how the tears of war widows and war orphans swelled to great currents; how the maintenance of the three-class disgrace, the unrepentant canonization of the Quadrinity – semi-absolutism, junker rule, militarism, and police despotism – became bitter truth.

Through this experience we have been warned – learn everything, don't forget anything!

Offensive are the tirades with which Italian imperialism glosses over its pillaging; offensive is that roman tragicomedy in which the now-common grimace of the Burgfrieden ("civil truce") is present. More offensive still is that in all of this we can recognize, as if reflected in a mirror, the German and Austrian methods of July and August 1914.

The Italian instigators of war deserve every denunciation. But they are nothing but copies of the German and Austrian instigators, the ones who are chiefly responsible for the outbreak of war. Birds of a feather!

Whom can the German people thank for this new affliction?
From whom can they demand explanation for the new piles of bodies which will tower up?

It is still the case: The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia from July 23, 1914 was the spark that ignited the world, even if the fire was very late in spreading to Italy.

It is still the case: This ultimatum was the signal for the redistribution of the world, and by necessity called on all capitalist pillager-states to participate in the plan.

It is still the case: This ultimatum contained in it the question of the dominance over the Balkans, Asia Minor, and all of the Mediterranean, and therefore contained all the antagonisms between Austria-Germany and Italy in one stroke.

If the German and Austrian imperialists now try to hide themselves behind the scenery of Italian pillaging and the backdrop of Italian disloyalty; when they don on the toga of moral indignation and aggrieved innocence, while in Rome they have found nothing but their equals, then they deserve the cruelest scorn.

The rule "Don't forget anything" applies to how the German people were just manipulated in the Italian question by the very honorable German patriots.

The Triple Alliance treaty wth Italy has always been a farce – you were all deceived about that!

The experts have always known that in the case of war Italy would be a certain opponent of Austria and Germany – you were led to believe it would be a certain confederate!

A good part of Germany's fate in world politics was decided in the Triple Alliance treaty, which was signed and renewed without your consultation – till the present day not one letter of this treaty has been shared with you.

The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, with which a small clique took all of humanity by surprise, broke the treaty between Austria and Italy – you were told nothing of this.

This ultimatum was given with the express condemnation of Italy – that was kept secret from you.

On May 4 of this year Italy dissolved the alliance with Austria – until May 18 this crucial fact was withheld from the German and Austrian people, yes, in spite of the truth it was directly denied by the officials – a parallel to the intentional duping of the German people and the German Reichstag about Germany's ultimatum to Belgium from August 2, 1914.

You were given no influence on Germany and Austria's negotiations with Italy, on which Italy's intervention depended. You were treated as sheep in this vital question, while the war party, the secret diplomacy, a handful of people in Berlin and Vienna rolled the dice about the fate of Germany.

The torpedoing of the Lusitania not only consolidated the power of the English, French, and Russian war parties, it invited a grave conflict with the United States, and set all neutral countries against Germany with passionate indignation; it also facilitated the disastrous work of the Italian war party right in the critical moment – the German people had to be quiet about this as well; the iron fist of the state of siege was held around their throats.

Already in March of this year peace negotiations could have been initiated – the offer was made by England – but the greed for profit of the German imperialists led this to be rejected. Promising peace endeavors were thwarted by German parties interested in colonial conquest on a grand scale and in the annexation of Belgium and French Lorraine, by capitalists of the big German shipping companies, and by the agitators of the German heavy industry.

This was also kept secret from the German people, once again you were not consulted about it.

We ask – whom can the German people thank for the continuation of the horrid war and for the intervention of Italy? Who else but the irresponsible people at home who are responsible.

Learn everything, don't forget anything!
For thinking people, Italy's imitation of Germany's actions from summer of last year cannot be a spur for new war frenzies, just an impetus to scare away the phantom hopes of a new dawn of political and social justice, just a new light for the illumination of the political responsibilities and the exposure of the public danger presented by the Austrian and German pursuers of war, just a new indictment of them.

But the rule "Learn and don't forget" applies most of all to the heroic struggle against the war that our Italian comrades have fought and still fight. Struggles in the press, in meetings, in street demonstrations, struggles with revolutionary energy and boldness, defying with heart and soul the rabid crash of nationalist waves which were whipped up by the authorities. Our most enthusiastic congratulations for their struggle. Let their spirit be our example! Provide that it should be the example of the International!

Had it been since those August days, the world would be better off. The international proletariat would be better off.

But the resolute will to fight cannot come too late!
The absurd slogan "stick it out" has hit rock bottom; it leads only deeper and deeper into the maelstrom of genocide. International proletarian class struggle against international imperialist genocide is the socialist commandment of the hour.

The main enemy of every people is in their own country!
The main enemy of the German people is in Germany: German imperialism, the German war party, German secret diplomacy. This enemy at home must be fought by the German people in a political struggle, cooperating with the proletariat of other countries whose struggle is against their own imperialists.

We think as one with the German people – we have nothing in common with the German Tirpitzes and Falkenhayns, with the German government of political oppression and social enslavement. Nothing for them, everything for the German people. Everything for the international proletariat, for the sake of the German proletariat and downtrodden humanity.

The enemies of the working class are counting on the forgetfulness of the masses – provide that that be a grave miscalculation. They are betting on the forbearance of the masses – but we raise the vehement cry:

How long should the gamblers of imperialism abuse the patience of the people? Enough and more than enough slaughter! Down with the war instigators here and abroad!

An end to genocide!
Proletarians of all countries, follow the heroic example of your Italian brothers! Ally yourselves to the international class struggle against the conspiracies of secret diplomacy, against imperialism, against war, for peace with in the socialist spirit.

The main enemy is at home!

Yet Again Into The Lion’s Den- Not Fit For Hallmark Channel Prime-time, Maybe -Cary Grant And Irene Dunne’s “The Awful Truth (1937)- A Short Film Review-Of Sorts

Yet Again Into The Lion’s Den- Not Fit For Hallmark Channel Prime-time, Maybe -Cary Grant And Irene Dunne’s “The Awful Truth (1937)- A Short Film Review-Of Sorts   

[In a recent introduction to this new series, a series based on short film reviews for films that deserve short reviews if not just a thumb’s up or down I noted that Allan Jackson, the deposed previous site manager, required his film reviewers to write endlessly about the film giving the material an almost cinema studies academic journal take on it. That caused a serious decline in the number of reviews over the years which I hope to make up with a flurry of snap reviews for busy people. To see in full why check the archives for November 28, 2018- Not Ready For Prime Time But Ready For Some Freaking Kind Of Review Film Reviews To Keep The Writers Busy And Not Plotting Cabals Against The Site Manager-Introduction To The New Series. Greg Green]

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Awful Truth, starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, 1937

I am inured to the trolls who have been haunting and harassing me ever since I casually mentioned that a couple of films dealing with romance and thwarted romance especially would find no airspace on the vanilla-flavored one plot fits all Hallmark Channel that during the Christmas  has distracted a good portion of the population from anything more controversial than what to wear to the festivities in small town home town America where almost all the action takes place. One reader of those reviews in a deliberate slap in the face called me either asexual or a hermaphrodite, heartless, lacking in manly virility even in comparison to the guys the lead female character had dumped, lacking human warmth or even a pulse, and needing a brain transplant. That series of bromides from my long-time companion Laura Perkins, a devoted, should I say fanatical adherent to the Hallmark Channel at Christmastime. So you can imagine what the unformed, ill-advised trolls who apparently between 24/7/365 devotion to the channel have plenty of time to commit to no holds barred defenses of this mush.

Like I said I have become inured, had in any case expected some blow back from my comments since Laura was first on the warpath and she is generally a very civilized person, except on the question of the fake love and romance stories churned out on that network. Subsequently I have been called queer, not queer in the LGBTQ sense but as some kind of withered human being. Been called various reptilian names and been charged with crimes ranging from causing the fall of Eden way back when to aggravated assault on the senses for making unkind remarks about the silliness that dare not speak its name-although I will. And have.   

I have been doing film reviews of one kind or another for many publications of one kind or another, some with generous payment and some for a penny a word or so it seemed with the time spent and I would be hard-pressed to see plots, and I have seen some horrible ones, so mundane as those on Hallmark. Therefore I have begun a little campaign, probably hopeless and thankless, of reviewing films with a slant toward whether they would make the networks’ programming format. Or that they were too real for the mud thrown at the audience on Hallmark.    

My latest  presentation, a 1930s film to boot which given the Hollywood codes of the day should easily allow it to qualify  for Hallmark consideration, is a Cary Grant-Irene Dunne vehicle entitled The Awful Truth which is a pretty good if not great romantic comedy which nevertheless deals with the question of trust between married people, or any couple whatever their marital status or these days gender. The plotline is not spectacular but the play by play of a marriage gone down the tubes, and then resurrected, is worth a peek.

Cary, playing the gallant don’t take living on the high side of life too seriously that he made into an art form when he did comedic Mayfair swell characters, American version, is miffed at his ever-loving wife, Irene, because she seemingly has been having a flirtation, an affair although do look for that word in the script, with a French guy who she claims is her music teacher. Cary, manly, virile Cary does not believe the innocent story she had to tell about why they, she and that French guy, had been out all night. So to the courts, the chancery courts in those days for the decree nisi, including giving custody of the inevitable cute family dog to Irene. A decree which will become final in ninety days unless something happens.    

During that crucial ninety days she, Irene, gets herself engaged, reluctantly engaged, to some cowboy angel drifter from Oklahoma and he, Cary, cavorts, nice word, with some society dame with plenty of dough and status. But rather than go their separate ways this pair find about sixteen ways to cross each other’s path and either make trouble or surprise for the other. Of course, we are going for the big ending, an ending Hallmark would appreciate-the kiss and make-up at the end. And as if on cue just minutes short of the ninety- day cutoff they walk into that good night-together. But Hallmark in 2018 might object that Cary was down on his knees playing with the dog, might object that they shared an open door between bedrooms, that Irene was drunk as a skunk in one scene, that some of the songs as performed were too suggestive and showy. The list goes on. No, once again this is not fare for Hallmark eyes and ears. Let’s see what remarks Laura will make, all others I am inured to so fire away.       

While You Were Sleeping-Not-Jeff Goldblum And Michelle Pfeiffer’s “Into The Night” (1985) A Film Review

While You Were Sleeping-Not-Jeff Goldblum And Michelle Pfeiffer’s “Into The Night” (1985) A Film Review  

DVD Review

Into The Night, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer,  

Having just finished my 27^th mid-life crisis gag I can relate to Jeff Goldblum’s angst and aggravation and alienation from his wife, his wife’s so-called clandestine affair with some workmate, from his own work as a worker bee in some aerospace operation, and from his drumbeat existence. Although I can’t get my head around what our boy did to resolve his crisis as detailed in the film under review Into The Night. Can’t figure to go to the mat with scads of bad guys, a few shots fired in anger, murder and mayhem no matter how foxy the damsel in distress to work out that mid-life dilemma.

Angst and alienation driven Jeff who can’t seem to sleep during his crisis, not a good thing for the fast judgements he will face, decided that he will take that trip out of town to work on his issues as suggested by a friend and does it on the fly. He gets to the airport but then gets cold feet and is ready to head home. But in a split second his fate gets whacked around by a decision he makes to help Michelle Pfeiffer out of what appears to be a serious jam of unknown original but of pressing concern since the bad guys who will help drive the film-and Jeff’s decisions are on the march. Of course, along the way it does not hurt that the gal Jeff is helping out of whatever jam she is in is drop-dead beautiful but that will keep for another time since the forces of evil are coming down on her head. 

What is driving Michelle to desperate acts and Jeff to decisions which put him in deeper and deeper into her life is that she had been the “mule” smuggler of a precious jewelry theft where the delivery got botched, get banged around and she was left with the goods running for her life after the guy she was to transfer the goods too was wasted by competitors also interested in the goods. We are off and running to beat the band. It appears that the final destination for the jewels was to be an Iranian agent, female, who had her henchmen running ragged over the damn thing. Like I said I would have thought twice about getting knee-deep into this one just to be able to sleep at night without sedatives no matter how foxy the damsel in distress was. But maybe that is because I resolved my own mid-life crisis, resolved it in a very different way.      

Once Again Ain’t Got Not Time For Corner Boys-With Clint Eastwood And Jeff Bridges’ Thunderbolt And Lightfoot (1974) In Mind-Yet Again A Film Review Of Sorts

Once Again Ain’t Got Not Time For Corner Boys-With Clint Eastwood And Jeff Bridges’ Thunderbolt And Lightfoot (1974) In Mind-Yet Again A Film Review Of Sorts

DVD Review

By Zack James
     
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, 1974

Yeah, I know it has been a while since you have seen my by-line running in this publication but let me explain. Or try to since our site manager Greg Green has asked me to ask for your indulgences. This whole mess really goes back to 2017, the year of the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love which if you do not know by now let me tell you got practically 24/7/365 coverage in American Left History. The saturation coverage ordered by previous site manager Allan Jackson (and one of those “present as the creation” as they like to say when this publication started out in hard copy form back in 1974, I think) for young and old writers alike. This ordered madness started a rebellion among the younger writers, which included me, who did not give a rat’s ass about the Summer of Love or had to ask the older writers or their parents what it was all about.

What is not well known is that my oldest brother, Alex, just Alex not Alexander, was the catalyst for that wall to wall coverage after he went out to San Francisco that year and was inundated with stuff commemorating the event including a multimedia exhibition at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park the site of much of the music madness. Once Alex talked to Allan the gold rush was on. See Alex, Allan and the key person driving the action that year the late Pete Markin had been, at Markin’s urging knee- deep in the Summer of Love craziness that stalked the land then. Moreover, as a result of all that nostalgia. Alex, Allan and whoever was left standing from the old Acre neighborhood of North Adamsville located south of Boston, the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor (which is still there just with long gone Tonio) “corner boys” got together to contribute to a memorial book of their experiences, including 1967 in honor of their fallen comrade Markin. Markin, the “idea” guy for a million legal and illegal things they did back in the day, their expression not mine. (Being a decade younger than Alex I did not know or remember much about Markin, except the stories, although he and Alex were best friends and he had come over to our house many times).

Guess who they wanted to iron out the contributions, the personal remembrances, edit and see that the thing was produced. Yes, yours truly. Which leads us to the reason for my prolonged absence from my by-line. Another Acre corner boy, Jimmy Higgins, the “muscle” of the group, of the corner boys, passed away in 2018 and Alex, Allan and the others tagged me with doing the same things for a memorial book in Jimmy’s honor (a guy I did not know at all and who as far as I know never came to the house).

This work on the combination of books and the extraordinary, hell, maybe weird is better exploits of this generation of corner boys is what I immediately started thinking about when Greg assigned me my first film review back Clint Eastwood (Thunderbolt) and Jeff Bridges’ (Lightfoot) Thunderbolt and Lightfoot from 1974. Not that either of them were corner boys, or at least I don’t think so since Clint’s character was several years older than the brash Bridges’ but that throughout the film the bonds of buddy-hood grew until the tragic end of Lightfoot succumbing to the vicious injuries sustained when one of their comrades in crime Red, played by George Kennedy, went crazy after the heist they pulled off. Those bonds and that age difference, experience difference is what is driving this final part of the review.

The contribution from several corner boys that overlapped both memorial books was the role that one “Trigger” Burke played as a model for the Acre corner boys. Burke was about ten years older than my brother and his crowd but as they came to high school age they would see Trigger around, would see him coming out of the Dublin Grille (no longer there), mostly, which was a few doors down from Tonio’s and he would stop and talk to them. Burke was something of a local legend among corner boys from all the corners, a guy who had done a few bank robberies, done a little time and had plenty of money (and girls, women not all of them his age either usually younger and according to Alex foxy) and respect among the eager corner boys.

Markin, and Jimmy Higgins who lived across the street from the rooming house where Burke lived, were the real devotees of what he had to say. As it turned out half of Markin’s ideas, his plans for grabbing dough, fast and smooth, had been hatched by one Trigger Burke. As Alex kept painfully reminding me the ideas might have been Markin’s via Burke but the operation chief was always after a first close call with the coppers when Markin led the operation had been one Frankie Riley, the acknowledged leader of the Tonio’s corner boys.

Given the plotline of this film, basically after various crazed and random wild boy escapades in the hills of Montana Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, now bonded for life, a heist film it was no wonder why I thought about those Burke stories. In the end although the second heist was botched by Red’s crazed response to Lightfoot and the pair found the original heist money, they got away clean. Well as I telegraphed above not real clean since Lightfoot passed away from his injuries from that bastard Red. A cause for thought. I was glad in a way as much as I admired my distance oldest brother Alex that I was ten years younger than him and never had to go the midnight creep route by the time I got to highs school.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, that Trigger Burke who lived across the street from the late Jimmy Higgins when he was growing up was none other than one of the famous Brink’s armored truck robbery guys in the early 1950s. No wonder the Acre corner boys worshiped at his shrine.
                                       

On The 80th Anniversary- On The Great White Way-Broadway-Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers’ “Stage Door” (1937)-A Film Review

On The 80^th Anniversary- On The Great White Way-Broadway-Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers’ “Stage Door” (1937)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

[This review was in the pipeline in 2017 but due to some internal problems kind of got lost in shuffle so 80^th anniversary is still appropriate. Greg Green]  

Stage Door, starring Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, 1937  

Sometimes we of the later feminist-friendly generations are clueless by means or happenstance about the efforts of earlier generations of women to get ahead in this man’s world (less so that before but as the recent sexual harassment scandals of 2016 point out this bad ass stuff runs deep among important segments of the male population). Still it was nice to have Greg Green the new site manager call me up to do this review since the previous site manager, Allan Jackson, who I had known for years refused to do so. Even when one of his best friends, Josh Breslin, from back in the 1960s in California was my companion for many years (and we still talk now more frequently since we are both working at this site). Refreshing too to do basically an all women film like Stage Door at a time when such efforts were rare, certainly rare than today and where for the most part men take the background although always have a lingering presence.

The beauty of this one is that a number of then well-known women actresses like Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers work the crowd with up and coming types like Lucille Ball and Eve Arden. Of course the story-line is important here as well since well know Algonquin Roundtable writers Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman provided the original premise if not the bulk of the screenplay dialogue. Moreover it is very good that this ensemble do their thing not in glamour puss Hollywood but in the Great White Way, Broadway, which used to be called, and maybe still is by some, the legitimate theater. Of course the backdrop of stuck on stardom and its pitfalls is the same in both locations with the same failure rates and broken dreams of the thousands who headed either East or West to get themselves noticed.

The set-up, a great idea used many times to good effect in ensemble efforts, of this one is that all the main female actors reside in one lunatic asylum of a women’s hotel, famous lodgings near good old Broadway. The banter thus is close in and sharp. In the old days some would say catty particularly when Katharine Hepburn’s haughty character charges through the door. You have the whole range of experiences from last year’s up and coming star who is now on the road to bust to a bright-eyed novice dilettante who wants to make the big show on her own terms. The central action though is between Terry, played by poor little rich girl out slumming (at some level) and Jean, played by Ginger Rogers who will take whatever she can get from some two-bit dance routine to the boss’ bed if necessary. Those are the poles and all the others from that last year’s fallen wonder to truly second-rate talents who should think about a career change (fat chance) run the string out.      

We see it all, all the back story of the uphill battle the average woman faced to get her foot in the door, from the cancelled appointments to don’t call us, we’ll call you to the infamous, and in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein line of sexual harassment and other sexual crimes, insidious casting couch which beckoned to Jean by the main male figure, Anthony Powell, played by Adolphe Menjou whose way of operating seemed eerily portentous. Not to worry though Terry, after a traumatic experience, finds her voice-she despite, or because of, that good breeding has star quality-that certain “it.” (Of course figuring that out was a no-brainer since almost all these actresses had that star quality). The only discordant note, a note which I am not sure rung true and certainly broke away from the wit and sarcasm that drove the film was the suicide of that last years’ star when she was on the way to down and out. How many wannabe actors wind up in that extreme situation I am not sure of but it did throw me off a bit as the key event to get Terry to emote like crazy in the play she was starring in and show that “it.”     

Tell Me Rosalie Sorrels Have You Seen Starlight On The Rails?-In Honor Of The Late Rosalie Sorrels

Tell Me Rosalie Sorrels Have You Seen Starlight On The Rails?-In Honor Of The Late Rosalie Sorrels  

By Fritz Taylor

[This piece was written and in the pipeline before the recent (2016) internal wrangle at this site about who would write what and what kind of material would survive the posting wars so I asked new site manager not to put the now familiar notice about job titles and specialties beneath my by-line as he has done on most pieces submitted of late. He has honored my request and this may yet lead to a cessation of the practice since unless the reader has been privy to the vast inside information about the replacement of old-time manager Allan Jackson (and in the interest of transparency my old friend going back to Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) by former American Film Gazette editor Greg Green it poses more questions than it answers. In any case I will keep my opinions to myself for now about whether we have just gone through a purge and attempt to write Allan out of blogosphere history somewhat reminiscent of the old Stalinist tricks trying to write (and airbrush) Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky out of history or a simple retirement of an eligible candidate. Fritz Taylor           

Every hobo, tramp, and bum and there are social distinctions between each cohort recognized among themselves if not quite so definitely by rump sociologists who lump them all together but that is a story for another day has seen starlight on the rails. Has found him or herself (mainly hims though out on the “jungle” roads) flat up against some railroad siding at midnight having exhausted every civilized way to spent the night. Has seen the stars out where the spots are darkest and the brilliance of the sparkle makes one think of heaven for those so inclined, think of the void for the heathen among them. Has dreamed dreams of shelter against life’s storms.

But not everybody has the ability to sing to those heavens (or void) about the hard night of starlight on the rails and that is where Rosalie Sorrels, a woman of the American West out in the Idahos, out where, as is said in the introduction to the song, the states are square (and at one time the people, travelling west people and so inured to hardship, played it square, or else), sings old crusty Utah Phillips’ song to those hobo, tramp, bum heavens. Did it while old Utah was alive to teach the song (and the story behind the song) to her and later after he passed on in a singular tribute album to his life’s work as singer/songwriter/story-teller/ troubadour.         

Now, for a fact, I do not know if Rosalie in her time, her early struggling time when she was trying to make a living singing and telling Western childhood stories had ever along with her brood of kids been reduced by circumstances up against that endless steel highway but I do know that she had her share of hard times. Know that through her friendship with Utah she wound up bus-ridden to Saratoga Springs in the un-squared state of New York where she performed and got taken under the wing of Lena from the legendary Café Lena during some trying times. And so she flourished, flourished as well as any folk-singer could once the folk minute burst it bubble and places like Café Lena, Club Passim (formerly Club 47), a few places in the Village in New York City and Frisco town became safe havens to flower and grow some songs, grow songs from the American folk songbooks and from her own expansive political commentator songbook. And some covers too as her rendition of Starlight on the Rails attests to as she worked her way across the continent. Worked her way to a big night at Saunders Theater at Harvard too when she called the road quits a decade or so ago. So listen up, okay.           

In The Twilight Of The Folk Minute- Peter Seeger And Arlo Guthrie In Concert In The Late 1980s

In The Twilight Of The Folk Minute- Peter Seeger And Arlo Guthrie In Concert In The Late 1980s

By Zack James

[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Allan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin in the blogosphere) was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers solely to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment by Green designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]

[Although I am also a much younger writer I today stand in agreement with Bart Webber and Si Lannon, older writers who I admire and whom I have learned a lot from about how to keep it short and sweet but in any case short on these on-line sites. And now Lance Lawrence from the younger writers.  .

In any case the gripe the former two writers and Lance had about the appropriateness of this disclaimer above or whatever it purports to be by the "victorious" new regime headed by Greg Green and his hand-picked Editorial Board is what I support. As Bart first mentioned, I think, if nothing else this disclaimer has once again pointed told one and all, interested or not, that he, they have been “demoted.”  Same here.

In the interest of transparency I was also among the leaders, among the most vociferous leaders, of what has now started to come down in the shop as urban legend “Young Turks” who fought tooth and nail both while Alan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin as blog moniker for reasons never made clear, at least to me) was in charge and essentially stopped young writers from developing their talents and later when we decided that Allan had to go, had to “retire.” But I agree with my fellow three writers here that those on the “losing” end in the fierce no-holds barred internal struggle had taken their "beating" and have moved on as far as I can tell. That fact should signal the end of these embarrassing and rather provocative disclaimers. Done. Zack James]

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 “Jesus, they charged me fourteen dollars each for these tickets to see Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. Remember Laura about ten or fifteen years ago when we saw Pete for five bucks each at the Café Nana over in Harvard Square (and the price of an expresso coffee for two people and maybe a shared piece of carrot cake since they had been on a date, a cheap date when he didn’t have much cash and at a time when the guy was expected to pay, no “dutch treat,” no Laura dutch treat expected anyway especially on a heavy date, and that one had been s when he was intrigued by her early on) and around that same time, that same Spring of 1973, Arlo gave a free concert out on Concord Common,” said Sam Lowell to his date Laura Peters and the couple they were standing in line with, Patrick Darling and Julia James, in front of Symphony Hall in Boston waiting for the doors to open for the concert that evening. This would be the first time Pete and Arlo had appeared together since Newport a number of years back and the first time this foursome had seen either of them in a good number of years since Pete had gone to upstate New York and had been spending more time making the rivers and forests up there green again than performing and Arlo was nursing something out in Stockbridge. “Maybe, Alice,” Patrick said and everybody laughed at that inside joke. 

Sam continued along that line of his about “the back in the days” for a while, with the three who were also something of folk aficionados well after the heyday of that music in what Sam called the “1960s folk minute” nodding their heads in agreement saying “things sure were cheaper then and people, folkies for sure, did their gigs for the love of it as much as for the money, maybe more so. Did it, what did Dave Van Ronk call it then, oh yeah, for the “basket,” for from hunger walking around money to keep the wolves from the doors. For a room to play out whatever saga drove them to places like the Village, Harvard Square, North Beach and their itch to make a niche in the booming folk world where everything seemed possible and if you had any kind of voice to the left of Dylan’s and Van Ronk’s, could play three chords on a guitar (or a la Pete work a banjo, a mando, or some other stringed instrument), and write of love, sorrow, some dastardly death deed, or on some pressing issue of the day.”

After being silent for a moment Sam got a smile on his face and said “On that three chord playing thing I remember Geoff Muldaur from the Kweskin Jug Band, a guy who knew the American folk songbook as well as anybody then, worked at learning it too, as did Kweskin, learned even that Harry Smith anthology stuff which meant you had to be serious, saying that if you could play three chords you were sure to draw a crowd, a girl crowd around you, if you knew four or five that  meant you were a serious folkie and you could even get a date from among that crowd, and if you knew ten or twelve you could have whatever you wanted. I don’t know if that is true since I never got beyond the three chord thing but no question that was a way to attract women, especially at parties.” Laura, never one to leave something unsaid when Sam left her an opening said in reply “I didn’t even have to play three chords on a guitar, couldn’t then and I can’t now, although as Sam knows I play a mean kazoo, but all I had to do was start singing some Joan Baez or Judy Collins cover and with my long black hair ironing board straight like Joan’s I had all the boy come around and I will leave it to your imaginations about the whatever I wanted part.” They all laughed although Sam’s face reddened a bit at the thought of her crowded with guys although he had not known her back then but only later in the early 1970s.                     

Those reference got Julia thinking back the early 1960s when she and Sam went “dutch treat” to see Dave Van Ronk at the Club Blue. (Sam and Julia were thus by definition not on a heavy date, neither had been intrigued by the other but folk music was their bond and despite persistent Julia BU dorm roommate rumors what with Sam hanging around all the time had never been lovers). She mentioned that to Sam as they waited to see if he remembered and while he thought he remembered he was not sure. He asked Julie, “Was that the night he played that haunting version of Fair and Tender Ladies with Eric Von Schmidt backing him up on the banjo?” Julie had replied yes and that she too had never forgotten that song and how the house which usually had a certain amount of chatter going on even when someone was performing had been dead silent once he started singing.

Club Blue had been located in that same Harvard Square that Sam had mentioned earlier and along with the Café Nana, which was something of a hot spot once Dylan, Baez, Tom Rush and the members of the Kweskin band started hanging out there, and about five or six other coffeehouses all within a few blocks of each other (one down on Arrow Street was down in the sub-basement and Sam swore that Dylan must have written Subterranean Homesick Blues there). Coffeehouses then where you could, for a dollar or two, see Bob, Joan, Eric (Von Schmidt), Tom (Rush), Phil (Ochs) and lots of lean and hungry performers working for that “basket” Sam had mentioned earlier passed among the patrons and be glad, at least according to Van Ronk when she had asked him about the “take” during one intermission, to get twenty bucks for your efforts that night.

That was the night during that same intermission Dave also told her that while the folk breeze was driving things his way just then and people were hungry to hear anything that was not what he called “bubble gum” music like you heard on AM radio that had not been the case when he started out in the Village in the 1950s when he worked “sweeping out” clubs for a couple of dollars. That sweeping out was not with a broom, no way, Dave had said with that sardonic wit of his that such work was beneath the “dignity” of a professional musician but the way folk singers were used to empty the house between shows. In the “beat”1950s with Kerouac, Cassady, Ginsberg, and their comrades (Dave’s word reflecting his left-wing attachments) making everybody crazy for poetry, big be-bop poetry backed up by big be-bop jazz the coffeehouses played to that clientele and on weekends or in the summer people would be waiting in fairly long lines to get in. So what Dave (and Happy Traum and a couple of other singers that she could not remember) did was after the readings were done and people were still lingering over their expressos he would get up on the makeshift stage and begin singing some old sea chanty or some slavery day freedom song in that raspy, gravelly voice of his which would sent the customers out the door. And if they didn’t go then he was out the door. Tough times, tough times indeed.             

Coffeehouses too where for the price of a cup of coffee, maybe a pastry, shared, you could wallow in the fluff of the folk minute that swept America, maybe the world, and hear the music that was the leading edge then toward that new breeze that everybody that Julie and Sam knew was bound to come what with all the things going on in the world. Black civil rights, mainly down in the police state South, nuclear disarmament, the Pill to open up sexual possibilities previously too dangerous or forbidden, and music too, not just the folk music that she had been addicted to but something coming from England paying tribute to old-time blues with a rock upbeat that was now a standard part of the folk scene ever since they “discovered” blues guys like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Bukka White, and Skip James. All the mix to turn the world upside down. All of which as well was grist to the mill for the budding folk troubadours to write songs about.

Julie made her companions laugh as they stood there starting to get a little impatient since the doors to the concert hall were supposed to open at seven and here it was almost seven fifteen (Sam had fumed, as he always did when he had to wait for anything, a relic of his Army days during the Vietnam War when everything had been “hurry up and wait”). She had mentioned that back then, back in those college days when guys like Sam did not have a lot of money, if worse came to worse and you had no money like happened one time with a guy, a budding folkie poet, Jack Dawson, she had a date with you could always go to the Hayes-Bickford in the Square (the other H-Bs in other locations around Boston were strictly “no-go” places where people actually just went to eat the steamed to death food and drink the weak-kneed coffee). As long as you were not rowdy like the whiskey drunks rambling on and on asking for cigarettes and getting testy if you did not have one for the simple reason that you did not smoke (almost everybody did then including Sam although usually not with her and definitely not in the dorm), winos who smelled like piss and vomit and not having bathed in a while, panhandlers (looking you dead in the eye defying you to not give them something, money or a cigarette but something) and hoboes (the quiet ones of that crowd  who somebody had told her were royalty in the misfit, outcast world and thus would not ask for dough or smokes) who drifted through there you could watch the scene for free. On any given night, maybe around midnight, on weekends later when the bars closed later you could hear some next best thing guy in full flannel shirt, denim jeans, maybe some kind of vest for protection against the cold but with a hungry look on his face or a gal with the de riguer long-ironed hair, some peasant blouse belying her leafy suburban roots, some boots or sandals depending on the weathers singing low some tune they wrote or reciting to their own vocal beat some poem. As Julie finished her thought some guy who looked like an usher in some foreign castle opened the concert hall doors and the four aficionados scampered in to find their seats.                 

…As they walked down the step of Symphony Hall having watched Pete work his banjo magic, work the string of his own Woody-inspired songs like Golden Thread and of covers from the big sky American songbook and Arlo wowed with his City of New Orleans and some of his father’s stuff (no Alice’s Restaurant that night he was saving that for Thanksgiving he said) Sam told his companions, “that fourteen dollars each for tickets was a steal for such performances, especially in that acoustically fantastic hall” and told his three friends that he would stand for coffees at the Blue Parrot over in Harvard Square if they liked. “And maybe share some pastry too.”      

When The Fight To Turn The World Upside Down Was In Full Flower- With The Doors The Unknown Soldier In Mind

When The Fight To Turn The World Upside Down Was In Full Flower- With The Doors The Unknown Soldier In Mind 

 By Frank Jackman  

[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Allan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin in the blogosphere) was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers solely to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment by Green designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]

******

“The Unknown Soldier”    

Wait until the war is over
And we're both a little older
The unknown soldier

Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Unborn living, living, dead
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And it's all over
For the unknown soldier
It's all over
For the unknown soldier
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Comp'nee, halt
Present, arms
Make a grave for the unknown soldier
Nestled in your hollow shoulder
The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And, it's all over
The war is over
It's all over
War is over

Well, all over, baby
All over, baby
Oh, over, yeah
All over, baby

Ooh, ha, ha, all over
All over, baby
Oh, woah, yeah, all over
All over, heh

Songwriters
Robbie Krieger; John Densmore; Jim Morrison;Ray Manzarek

[Under the newly installed regime of site manager Greg Green and the “Young Turks” imposed Editorial Board which guides his actions a new policy of openness has emerged. One aspect of that new policy has been an idea that writers with gripes or other things to say about the internal workings of the site should express themselves, if they like, as introductions to their articles. That in response to the “bottled up” emotions under the old Allan Jackson regime where the idea of expressing such thoughts in the public prints were totally frowned upon even by close and longtime friends like me. Also, and I am not sure I agree with this sentiment, to give the readership, and any potential new readership, an inside look at how a social media site works-or doesn’t work.      

We shall see but today I want to take the opportunity to describe the genesis of this article which the readership might appreciate rather than some screed about how the older writers are feeling that they are shortly to be purged, heads will roll, as one of them said, and other arcane comments which nobody except the parties involved care about.

Several years ago, it must have been around Christmas time I was attending an Arlo Guthrie concert, his daughter Sarah opening for him, a benefit concert for the New England Folk Song Society which like all such folk societies and folksingers outside of a few famous ones like the never-ending Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Tom Rush is always short of cash. During intermission (or maybe before the show started) I was walking by the inevitable CD and other paraphernalia tables when I noticed that the Society was selling calendars. Since there are a half a dozen people I know well enough to give such an item to and no more I checked it out.

Wow! Each month had a photograph detailing some 1960s folk minute like Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band at Newport in 1963, Odetta, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joan’s sister Mimi Farina also at Newport. Great photos including the one I am thinking about as I write this short commentary. A photograph of three good-looking young women, or at least I think they looked good to these old eyes sitting on a couch in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War wearing the hats, short dresses, bare stocking-less legs that their mothers would have frowned upon, in style long hair and such of the time.

In front of them though a medium-sized  handmade sign, a sign important at the time when every young man, including me, had some decision to make about fighting, or not fighting, in the Vietnam War. Of even accepting induction, of resisting the draft of the time. The sign in the language of the time: girls only do it with boys who don’t. Christ if I had had that inducement I too might have thought about draft resistance an option. My girlfriend of the time was rabidly pro-war mainly because her older brother was already over in Vietnam. Not long after I would too be in the Army eventually as a military resister. I wonder if that would have counted had I run into them. Frank Jackman]

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There was no seamless thread that wrapped the 1960s up tightly. A thousand things, or it seemed like a thousand things, came together in pretty rapid succession to draw down in flames, for a while anyway although none of us though it would on be for only a while just as we thought that we would live forever, or at least fast, the dread red scare Cold War freezes of our childhood. But you could traces things a little, make your own “live free” categories of the events that chipped away the ice of those dark nights.

Start in with the mid-1950s if you like with the heat of the black struggle for some semblance of civil liberties down South (and some sense for equality up North), the first break-out of music with the crowning of rock and roll as the wave of the future (black rhythm and blues, scat, rockabilly mixed all stirred up), the “discovery” of teen alienation and angst exemplified by movie star James Dean, who lived fast, and died fast a metaphor that would work its way through youth culture over the next generation. An odd-ball mix right there. Then start to throw in the struggles against the old authority, the old certitudes that had calmed our parents’ lives in places like Frisco town where they practically ran the red-baiters in the HUAC out of town, but of course the biggest event that opened the doors for liberals, radicals, hell even thoughtful conservatives was the sweet breeze coming down the road from Boston with the election of Jack Kennedy.    

That event opened up a new psyche, that it was okay to question authority, whatever the limitations and shortness of the Camelot times with the struggles against some hoary things like segregation, the dead penalty, nuclear proliferation, the unevenness of life which would get propelled later in the decade with fight for women’s liberation, gay liberation, and the fight against the draft, the damn war in Vietnam that drove a nail into the heart of the generation. There were more things, cultural things and experimentations with new lifestyles that all got a fair workout during this period as well.     

Plenty of us in retrospective would weigh the various combinations of events differently in figuring out how the uprising started just as plenty of us have our specific dates for when the tide began to ebb, when the mean-spirited and authoritarian began their successful counter-offensive that we still live with for not taking the omens more seriously.

And then we have the photograph that graces this short screed. This photograph is almost impossible to imagine without some combination of that hell broth mix stirred up in the 1960s. Three self-assured women comfortable with the loose and individualistic fashion statements of the day from floppy hats to bare legs, bare legs that would have shocked a mother. Uncomfortable about the damn Vietnam war that was eating up boyfriends, brothers, just friends at a heavy rate and they unlike their mothers who came through World War II waiting patiently and patriotically for their military heroes to come home, come home in one piece, have a very different sense of the heroic. A sense of the heroic going back to ancient times when one group of women demanded that their men come home on their shields if they had to rather than speak of defeat and others providing a distant echo for these three women pictured here who refused their potential soldier boys any favors if they went off to war. More, much more of the latter, please.                     

The World Gone Amok- Robert Downey, Jr. And Friends- “The Avengers: The Age Of Ultron” (2015)- A Film Review

The World Gone Amok- Robert Downey, Jr. And Friends- “The Avengers: The Age Of Ultron” (2015)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Kenny Jacobs

The Avengers: The Age Of Ultron, starring Robert Downey, Jr. Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johannsson, Marvel Studios, 2015 

[WT…. no I know what you thought was coming next but no we, Greg Green, the impresario of this site and his band of eminent Editorial Board members selected for their independence and acumen, have come to an understanding about my future exploits which may match some of the super-heroes in the film under review The Avengers: The Age Of Ultron. We have unanimously agreed that I will share review duties with the legendary writer and Bogie aficionado Phil Larkin on the upcoming The Maltese Falcon review. The idea, partially mine, but mostly that of the ever creative Mr. Green, was to get the collective takes of a younger writer and an older writer on that world-historic classic film. Otherwise I would have been forced to flee this previously barren planet site and gone to venues which would have appreciated my talents with a big by-line and who knows what else.    

The fuss up, or to use the now retired but still hanging around the water cooler Sam Lowell’s expression “tempest in a teapot,” centered on my demotion to having to grind out yet another one of these admittedly by all concerned dim-witted super-hero mutant reviews which are beneath my skill level, maybe beneath any writer on this site’s skill level. That notion makes me think that perhaps the old regime under the now mostly forgotten and exiled Allan Jackson might have had something on the question of what to review, and more importantly, what not to review. I understand that Jackson would have thrown a fit if anybody had even suggested doing such kiddie comic reviews except maybe as background for the decline in civility, decline in youthful reading in the age of the Internet, social media, and texting habits, and the fake wisdom of the greed-heads (Phil Larkin’s word) who figured out that while the kids won’t read a twenty minute comic book they will sit forever for this cinematic action adventure stuff. Or as long as the popcorn and soda hold out.

Like I said Greg saved the day and I will wrap this beast of s review up in a couple of minutes which maybe is about a minute or so more than it is worth and get ready to do battle with the beloved old master writer Phil Larkin on that new project. Everybody knows Phil’s credentials to do justice to his part in the bargain since he is widely known as a Bogie aficionado of long standing who just posted a lesser Bogie film, Across The Pacific, as a little warm-up. Of course other than as an acknowledged up and coming writer here under the guidance of Greg and the Board my credentials are almost as stellar. I had the privilege, although I did not know it at the time, of being taken when young to many film festival retrospectives by my parents so these old-time black and white classics are kind of in my DNA so to speak. That should speak for itself. Kenny Jacobs]

********

One thing that Phil Larkin has right, as many previous disagreements as we have had, is that these super-hero action adventure stories from comic land are mind numbing, are strictly for sleep aids (except for the poor buggers like me who have to earn our keep by reviewing this kickass a minute stuff). Nevertheless the only really good thing about this film as far as I can see is that Tony Stark, aka Ironman, played by the lovely Robert Downey, Jr. finally f—ked up. Let things get out of hand in Avenger Land wherever those guys and gals hang out. Tony went off the deep end because he wanted to test the edges of science in an attempt to bring some little modicum of peace to this wicked old world via his various experiments. Generally not a bad idea although a one man band approach seems kind of goofy even when a cohort of super-heroes and hangers-on to feast on. This time he was trying to create a robotic thing who could chill everybody out. Hey, that is what humankind has been doing since Adam and Eve maybe earlier, trying to get back to the garden. Where Tony f—ked up and it took a whole two hours plus (and an audience refill tub of butter-drenched popcorn and a river of cupped soda with ice) to straighten out was to let this Doctor Banner, aka the Hulk, played by savvy Mark Buffalo, no, Ruffalo, a mutant of extraordinary ugliness and brute strength within a mile of any lab. Jesus, can you believe letting a guy next to the next best thing in world peace and human-hood. Letting a guy who couldn’t control his own simple lab experiments without turning into a raving beast who rightly should be buried about fifty feet underground in concrete for the good of that humankind I have been talking about muck around with A.I or hell simple high school chemistry experiments.        

Guess what. Poor good-hearted Jarvis (if it has a heart)who has done yeoman service by Tony takes a beating by this run amok Ultron who is, get this logic, committed to saving the whole planet by killing all humanity. Some tree-hugger’s crazed fantasy. The Nuremburg trials would be too good for whoever let such savagery loose in the land. Of course in trying to control this monster A.I. which they had unleashed a goodly portion of the planet took some destruction as the Hulk, yes, unleashed Doctor Banner, went on a rampage until Tony as Ironman beat his brains in. They are still counting the dead and wounded as well as insurance-covered property damage on that little tryst. That rampage and other destructive incidents had led them to hiding out for a while before the vigilantes came after them. Fortunately the Avengers were able to declare a truce with a sullen world. But who knows what is next except Hulk will explode if he isn’t put to sleep, doesn’t take the big step-off he deserves since it is obvious he can’t control his rages at all even when some little old lady bumped into him on the subway. In any case enough of the cornball swill and let’s get to real adventure with dizzy dames and blackened birds and private eyes to figure that whole small-sized human mess out. I’m coming Phil.       

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-Pierce Brosnan’s “Goldeneye” (1995) –A Film Review

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-Pierce Brosnan’s “Goldeneye” (1995) –A Film Review

DVD Review

By former Associate Film Critic Alden Riley  

[I personally do not like the new regime’s,  under Greg Green’s steady guidance, policy of getting rid of  titles which were the hallmark of  the now safely departed and exiled Allan Jackson who used to run the show here. It took many years for me to get it and I resent being thrown on the dung heap and placed with everybody else with just their names on the by-line line. For now I will use my old title in the past tense until we go back to titles or Greg make a big deal out of my moniker and tries to shut it down. Then I will go back to being an Everyman like Sandy Salmon and Si Lannon have mentioned elsewhere. Alden Riley]    

Goldeneye, starring Pierce Brosnan, based on the character created by Ian Fleming although not on any of his novel series plot-lines, 1995

Sometimes writers, especially a coterie of writers of film reviews, will sometimes come up with the screwiest things to argue about in those dark getting to dawn hours when the booze has been flowing generously and the dregs of writing under deadline have passed by without comment. Especially when there are other disputes hanging in the shadows making things tense before the storm like the big blow we just went through at this site which basically came down to a battle royal against the old guard caught in their daydreams of 1960s growing up in turbulent times grandeur by the “Young Turks” whose frame of reference is later times and later connections, Reagan “trickle down” times, post-Soviet monster Clinton times, Bush-Obama boom and bust times, hip-hop, techno, social media explosion times.

That shadow battle got exploded a few months ago when I, ignorant of the hagiology of the 1960s musical scene which all the older guys carry with them like a lodestone, mentioned to then Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon that I did not know who Janis Joplin was. Sandy, to be fair, was willing to forgive me my transgression but Pete Markin, the “boss” got wind of it and “forced” me to do a review of a Joplin bio-pic over Sandy’s head. That was one is a series of grievances we younger non-1960s devotees had built up inside.     

The way these “troubles” hit before getting resolved was the big blow-out Sandy and I did have over reviewing the myriad James Bond, you know, 007, films. Sandy has started reviewing the first four Sean Connery films, I don’t think in order which he usually doesn’t give a fuck about, Doctor No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball and had asked me to continue the series, at least the Sean Connery part which is all he cared about covering since for him Connery was Bond, was James Bond end of discussion.

When I mentioned that I thought Sean Connery was probably a good Bond for the 1960s although I hadn’t seen any of his films except Goldfinger where I thought he was a little over the top Sandy flipped.  I figured I was going to be assigned the litany without any recourse or appeal especially if fellow Sean Connery devotee Peter Markin got wind of my ignorance and would have probably added that I had to review Ian Fleming’s books as well. I finally was able to get Sandy to see reason, to see that a younger man whose frame of Bond reference was not Connery but the man who played 007 in the film under review Goldeneye the beautiful rather than handsome Pierce Brosnan should have an opportunity to compare the two or at least to show that different actors working in different times would have a different sensibility. Once he saw reason he mentioned that he would finish up the Sean Connery films and I could do “pretty boy” Brosnan (Sandy’s term) and we would fight out the battle when the reviews were done. Fair enough.

Now everybody knows that there will be plenty of high tech gadgetry, plenty of physically over-the-top action and plenty of sexy women either chasing or being chased by any actor who plays Bond. That goes with the territory even though this first Pierce Brosnan Bond vehicle was not created out of Fleming’s stockpile. Brosnan brings not only a “pretty boy” as against Connery’s dashingly handsome demeanor but is much more physically agile and adept than Connery ever was. And plays the role with more cheek.

Of course each film has a storyline roughly similar, some criminal operation here the nefarious Janus syndicate which wants to create a meltdown of the London stock exchange and the British economy in general. Reason: the head of the organization who is MI6 turned rogue had Cossack parents in Russia who collaborated with the Nazis against Stalin and the British after the war sent them back to Uncle Joe after falsely promising asylum. WTF. What did the parents, what did the rogue MI6 expect with Uncle Joe an ally then before Winston Churchill pulled the “iron curtain” down.

In any case to create the meltdown Janus steals a super Euro helicopter which he will use to help when he with inside help is able to use a Russian space probe to deflect some action and destroy London for good measure. Come hell or high water he will not get away with such a dastardly deed not if Bond and his fetching Russian super-technician have anything to say about it. And they do- God Save The Queen or something like that. Pierce does it in style.