This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
T For Texas, Texas Blues-Willie
Nelson’s Milk Cow Blues (2000)-A CD Review
CD Review
By Zack James
Milk Cow Blues, Willie Nelson and
others, 2000
My old high school friend Greg Garret whom
I am still in close touch with reminded me the other day when he was over at my
house and I had the CD under review playing in the background, Willie Nelson’s Milk Cow Blues, that back in the early
1980s he recalled that I had had what he called my “outlaw country cowboy
moment.” I didn’t recall that I uttered that particular expression although I
did recall that I had for a brief period been drawn to the likes of Willie, Waylon
Jennings, Townes Van Zandt and a number of other singer-songwriters who broke
out of the traditional stylized Nashville formula mold epitomized then by guys
like George Jones and gals like Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. Just then rock
and roll was taking one of its various detours which I could not follow, folk
music, the social protest kind anyway that had attracted me in my youth was
fading fast even among aficionados and the blues was losing its star performers
by the day and the younger crowd was heading to what would become the hip-hop
tradition so I was up for listening to something different. Willie, not
clean-shaven, pony-tailed, not shining sparkly suit Willie filled the
bill.
Yeah, Willie filled the bill with songs
about two-timing men, women too, lost love, the heartache of love
relationships, getting out from under some rock that was weighting him down but
down in soulful, thoughtful way with a bit of a gravelly voice, a kind of voice
that always had the ability to draw me in, to make me stop what I was doing and
listen up. Of course I had remembered back then that Willie had written a song
that Patsy Cline whom I had always liked had made famous in the late 1950s, Crazy, which I had learned about when I
was at Cheapo Records over in Cambridge looking for some bluesy stuff back in
the 1960s.
Fast forward to 2000 and this CD. I had
expected that Willie, now ancient Willie if he had written Crazy back in the 1950s, would still be grinding out in his twangy
way the old classics which fill out this album. Would put his Texas touch on
these standards. Guess what-he switched up on me, made an album of well-known
covers made hits by some very famous like Cline, Bessie Smith, B.B. King (who
is featured on a couple of songs here), Jerry Lee but changed the tempo. Put
everything in a bluesy frame, and let the beat go on. Let the music carry the
day with whoever was singing along with him on each cut. Not a recognizable
cowboy sound in the house. Now part of that switch-up represented the hard fact
that age had like with Bob Dylan rusted up his voice and so he no longer tried,
or was capable of , hitting the high white notes. Part of it was to let the
other singers or the musicians carry the force of the songs. But guess what if
you, and Greg agreed with me on this, need some nice jazzy, bluesy background
music this one fills the bill. Yeah, we all have come a long way from that old
“outlaw country cowboy moment” Greg claimed I was in thrall to. Enough
said.
Gene Kelly And Fred Astaire Go Mano a
Mano, Part 2 - Astaire’s “Shall We Dance” (1937)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon
Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire,
Ginger Rodgers, music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, 1937
Those of you who saw my recent review
of song and dance man Gene Kelly’s performance in An American In Paris know that that review had come about after a
dispute I had had with the general editor of this space, one Pete Markin, over
who was the better popular music male dancer Kelly or Fred Astaire. (Neither
party disputes the proposition that nobody today, maybe nobody since their
respective times, is even close to this pair so don’t bother to bring up any
other contenders if that is what you are thinking about). Markin, after years,
decades of honorable service to the memory of Mister Astaire’s talents was
swayed by Kelly’s performance in that above-mentioned and corralled me by the
water cooler one office morning and laid that dead-ass bombshell on me.
Naturally I had to upbraid him for his treason, there is no other way to put it
even though I would be hard-pressed to have him prosecuted and tried on the
charge since I lack a second witness to the travesty and whether it is wartime,
declared by Congress wartime, currently is disputable, and error. Now I am
reviewing Mister Astaire’s stellar efforts in a second string song and dance
genre classic, Shall We Dance, (the
seventh of ten in which he shared the dance floor with Ms. Rogers the earlier ones
being usually better so here the dancing really shows his superiority) a
vehicle like An American In Paris for
the music and lyrics of super talented composer and lyrist George and Ira
Gershwin.
I mentioned in the lead-up to the Kelly
review that someday I would give you the long suffering reader the complete
story of how a film critic gets his or her assignments from “upstairs,” from
the general editor, from a guy just like Markin (unless of course that person
is hard road free-lancing and is just submitting pieces to publications “on
spec”). I noted then that I should know the ropes of that slippery slope after
some thirty plus years of doing this type of work recently here and for many
years at the American Film Gazette
(where I still do on-line reviews and where I started out as that free-lancer
submitting pieces “on spec” when the publication was strictly hard copy before
I was taken on as a staff member). A reader, a thoughtful reader I assumed,
wrote in to ask for a specific example of such behavior, of an odd-ball
experience in assignment world to give her an inside view of the madhouse. I
immediately explained the genesis of this current review (and the Kelly review)
as nothing but hubris from Markin. I explained that the only reason that I was on
a “run” was I got this assignment to review first Gene Kelly’s An American In Paris and now this film because
Markin had grabbed these two films via Amazon for one purpose and one purpose
only-to see who was the better dancer back in the day -Kelly or Astaire.
Here is another one, another prime
example of odd-ball assignments out of the blue. A few months ago Markin was
all hopped up on some exhibition out at the de Young Museum in San Francisco
that one of his growing up childhood friends had told him about after viewing
what was called The Summer Of Love
Experience (from 1967 so they were commemorating the 50th
anniversary of the events in style) he had me and my associate film critic
Alden Riley working like seven whirling dervishes to write up a ton of stuff on
the music (deemed “acid” rock for its connection with LSD), films and
documentaries of the times. After I had reviewed a break-through documentary by
D.A. Pennebaker chronicling the first Monterey International Pops Festival held
that same 1967 year where Janis Joplin (and others like Otis Redding and Ravi
Shankar) made her big splash in the rock icono-sphere I asked Alden, a much
younger man than I, what he thought of Janis Joplin. He stated to me that he
had never heard of her. Somehow Markin heard about that remark and being very
much connected with that whole Summer of Love, 1967 scene (having actually gone
out there from his growing up home in North Adamsville, Massachusetts
hitchhiking out with a couple of friends) told Alden, by-passing me, that his
next assignment would be a biopic about Janis Joplin titled Little Girl Blues. That will give you
just a rather current example of the inside the pressure cooker atmosphere we
work under.
But back to the Astaire-Kelly controversy what I
called a tempest in a teapot in that Kelly review. A remark that I now wish to
publicly apologize to Mister Markin for making in the heat of a writing a review
under deadline. Of course in a world going to hell in a handbasket with
rightwing movements sprouting up all over the world, with bare-faced nuclear war threats on the table, with climate
change dramatic weather and natural disasters on the rise and with the social fabric coming undone in this
American society (what the political commentator Frank Jackman has rightly I
think called the first stages of a “cold civil war” likely to get hot) there is
no question that the presses (or cyberspace) should stop while we haggle over
which of two long dead popular culture
dancers was the max daddy of the genre. But to the lists once again to right a
minor wrong in this crooked little orb of a planet.
I noted in that review of An American In Paris with
its paper thin plotline that it might not be the best place to critique Mister
Kelly’s dancing (or acting efforts which whatever faults I find in his dancing they
do not compare to his wooden glad hand acting in that role) but I did not throw
down the gauntlet this time. Frankly although Shall We Dance has a plotline a bit superior to the Kelly vehicle
it would not be out of place to call that paper thin as well. Apparently in the
song and dance genre all the dough goes for staging and about three dollars to
screenwriters to come up with a plausible scenario to justify all the sprouting
out to sing and dance at the drop of a hat.
As with An American in Paris
I do not utter that term “paper thin” lightly here. Here’s the play as my
predecessor and friend in this department Sam Lowell always liked to say in his
reviews. Astaire whose character is called Petrov is actually an American
ballet dancer working in Paris whose most fervent desire is to blend that youthful
ballet training with modern jazz that is running rampart in the land and hence
the need for the services of the Gershwin brothers to do the music and lyrics
in this film. But I am getting ahead of myself. Petrov spies this dishy tap-dancer,
Linda, Ginger Roger’s role, and immediately makes a play for her for love (and
maybe, just maybe as a dance partner who might have the moves to jazz dance).
She of course gives him the cold shoulder-sees him as some Russian stupe. Naturally
there has to be a nefarious plan hatched by others to get them together. Bingo
a rumor is started that the “lovebirds” are married, which they are not at
first, and to make this thing go away they do get married with Linda intending
to get a divorce ASAP.
Get this though. She starts falling for
the big Russian turned American cuckoo until she finds that he is playing
footsies with another dame. Then the big freeze is on. But you know the thaw is
on the wings and they will be lovebird back together again before twelve more song
and dances are completed. Like I said with the Kelly plotline watch the song
and dance stuff and go numb in between.
Of course this whole dispute, this
tempest in a teapot, no I already said I apologized for my indiscretion on that
score so forget I said that expression, brewed up by Mister Markin is not about
the qualities of the storyline but about Kelly’s dancing superiority. I have
already conceded that on the question of pure physical energy and verve Kelly
is not bad reflecting I think the hopped up (maybe drugged up) post-World War
II period when everybody who had slogged through the war was in a rush to get
to wherever they thought they should be going. But Fred did the Gershwins proud
in all the numbers that he performed with Rogers despite the silly plotline. Catch
classic Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off
and They Can’t Take That Away From Me
and you will get my drift. He had his own sense of controlled athleticism and
looking at any one number like his tap dance in the ship’s hull with a black ship’s
crew for support shows his physical prowess. But where Astaire had it all over
Kelly was his grace, his long reaches and close insteps. Notice in contrast
that Kelly never did much pair dancing with Caron and Astaire waltzed and
two-stepped Ginger right out of her shoes. Like I said in the Kelly review how
the usually level-headed Markin could have turned traitor on a dime tells a
lot. Tells me he, he Mister fancy general editor has maybe really has been at
the hash pipe too long of late. Touché-again.
On The 80th Anniversary Of The Entry Of The International Brigades Into The Spanish Civil War All Honor To The Memory Of The "Premature" Anti-Fascist Fighters
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the International Brigades and their role in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39. ****** Saturday, May 20, 2006
"Viva La Quince Brigada"- The Abraham Lincoln Battalion In The Spanish Civil War BOOK REVIEW
THE ODYSSEY OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE: AMERICANS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, Peter N. Carroll, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1994. AS WE HEAD INTO THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY IN JULY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR MILITANTS NEED TO STUDY THIS IMPORTANT EVENT OF INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS HISTORY. THE WRITER WILL BE REVIEWING AND COMMENTING ON SEVERAL ASPECTS OF THAT FIGHT FOR MILITANTS TODAY. I have been interested, as a pro-Republican partisan, in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 since I was a teenager. My first term paper was on this subject. What initially perked my interest, and remains of interest, is the passionate struggle of the Spanish working class to create its own political organization of society, its leadership of the struggle against Spanish fascism and the romance surrounding the entry of the International Brigades, particularly the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th Brigade, into the struggle. Underlying my interests has always been a nagging question of how that struggle could have been won by the working class. The Spanish proletariat certainly was capable of both heroic action and the ability to create organizations that reflected its own class interests i.e. the worker militias and factory committees. Of all modern working class uprisings after the Russian revolution Spain showed the most promise of success. Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky noted in one of his writings on Spain that the Spanish proletariat at the start of its revolutionary period had a higher political consciousness than the Russian proletariat in 1917. That calls into question the strategies put forth by the parties of the Popular Front, including the Spanish Communist Party- defeat Franco first, and then make the social transformation of society. Mr. Carroll’s book while not directly addressing that issue nevertheless demonstrates through the story of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion how the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and through it the policy of the Communist International in calling for international brigades to fight in Spain aided in the defeat of that promising revolution. Mr. Carroll chronicles anecdotally how individual militants were recruited, transported, fought and died as ‘premature anti-fascists’ in that struggle. No militant today, or ever, can deny the heroic qualities of the volunteers and their commitment to defeat fascism- the number one issue for militants of that generation-despite the fatal policy of the the various party leaderships. Such individuals were desperately needed then, as now, if revolutionary struggle is to succeed. However, to truly honor their sacrifice we must learn the lessons of that defeat through mistaken strategy as we fight today. Interestingly, as chronicled here, and elsewhere in the memoirs of some veterans, many of the surviving militants of that struggle continued to believe that it was necessary to defeat Franco first, and then fight for socialism. This was most dramatically evoked by the Lincolns' negative response to the Barcelona uprising of 1937-the last time a flat out fight for leadership of the revolution could have galvanized the demoralized workers and peasants for a desperate struggle against Franco. Probably the most important part of Mr. Carroll’s book is tracing the trials and tribulations of the volunteers after their withdrawal from Spain in late 1938. Their organization-the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade- was constantly harassed and monitored by the United States government for many years as a Communist 'front' group. Individuals also faced prosecution and discrimination for their past association with the Brigades. He also traces the aging and death of that cadre. In short, this book is a labor of love for the subjects of his treatment. Whatever else this writer certainly does not disagree with that purpose. If you want to read about what a heroic part of the vanguard of the international working class looked like in the 1930’s, look here. Viva la Quince Brigada!! Labels: abraham lincoln brigade, AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY, international brigades, SPAIN 1936, spanish civil war posted by Markin at 7:53 AM 2 Comments: markin said... Two Songs Of The Spanish Civil War: "Viva La Quince Brigada" And "El Paso Del Ebro" By Thomas Keyes Apr. 16, 2005 “¡Viva La Quince Brigada!” (Long Live the Fifteenth Brigade!) and “El Paso del Ebro” (Crossing the Ebro) are two songs of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) sung to the same melody. The original version of the song goes back to the time of the Napoleonic Wars, but I haven’t found the lyrics for that version. The lyrics of these two songs both pertain to the later war, since both mention aircraft. “¡Viva La Quince Brigada!” is also called “¡Ay, Manuela!”, while “El Paso del Ebro” is also called “¡Ay, Carmela!” “Manuela” and “Carmela” are women’s names. Unfortunately, the two audible versions that I was able to find on the Web are somewhat different from the song as I know it, and not as good in my opinion, but perhaps they are more authentic. I have known “¡Viva La Quince Brigada!” since the 1960’s, but to date have not learned “El Paso del Ebro”. I just like the music for its own sake and for its value as a souvenir of Spanish culture. I don’t take sides on the Spanish Civil War, because I don’t know much about it. Incidentally, the Ebro is a major river in the north of Spain. The Jarama, mentioned in the first song, is another river. I have provided my own translations, for those who cannot manage the very easy Spanish lyrics. Below are the URL’s for the music: http://idd003x0.eresmas.net/mp3/El%20Paso%20Del%20Ebro.mp3 http://personales.ya.com/altavoz/midis/elpasodelebro.mid VIVA LA QUINCE BRIGADA (Spanish Lyrics) Viva la quince brigada, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Viva la quince brigada, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Que se ha cubierto de gloria. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Que se ha cubierto de gloria. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Luchamos contra los moros, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Luchamos contra los moros, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Mercenarios y fascistas. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Mercenarios y fascistas. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Solo es nuestro deseo, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Solo es nuestro deseo, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Acabar con el fascismo. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Acabar con el fascismo. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! En los frentes de Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, En los frentes de Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, No tenemos ni aviones, Ni tanques, ti cañones. No tenemos ni aviones, Ni tanques, ti cañones. Ya salimos de España, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Ya salimos de España, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, A luchar en otros frentes, ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! A luchar en otros frentes, ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! EL PASO DEL EBRO (Spanish Lyrics) El ejército del Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, El ejército del Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Una noche el río paso. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Una noche el río paso. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Y a las tropas invasoras, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Y a las tropas invasoras, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Buena paliza les dio, ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Buena paliza les dio, ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! El furor de los traidores, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, El furor de los traidores, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Lo descarga su aviación. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Lo descarga su aviación. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Pero nada pueden bombas, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Pero nada pueden bombas, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Donde sobra corazón. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Donde sobra corazón. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Contraataques muy rabiosos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Contraataques muy rabiosos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Deberemos resistir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Deberemos resistir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Pero igual que combatimos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Pero igual que combatimos, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Prometemos combatir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Prometemos combatir. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! VIVA LA QUINCE BRIGADA (English Translation) Long live the fifteenth brigade, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Long live the fifteenth brigade, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Which has covered itself with glory. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Which has covered itself with glory. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! We are fighting against the Moors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We are fighting against the Moors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Mercenaries and fascists. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! Mercenaries and fascists. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! It’s our sole desire, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, It’s our sole desire, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, To be done with fascism. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! To be done with fascism. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! On the front lines of the Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, On the front lines of the Jarama, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We have neither airplanes, Tanks nor cannon. We have neither airplanes, Tanks nor cannon. We’re already leaving Spain, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We’re already leaving Spain, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, To fight on other fronts. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! To fight on other fronts. ¡Ay, Manuela! ¡Ay, Manuela! EL PASO DEL EBRO (English Lyrics) The army of the Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, The army of the Ebro, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Crossed the river one night. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Crossed the river one night. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! And to the invading troops. Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, And to the invading troops. Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, It gave a sound beating. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! It gave a sound beating. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! The fury of the traitors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, The fury of the traitors, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, They discharge with their airplanes. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! They discharge with their airplanes. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! But bombs can do nothing, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, But bombs can do nothing, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Where there’s a lot of heart. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Where there’s a lot of heart. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! Very rabid counterattacks, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, Very rabid counterattacks, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We will owe it to resist. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! We will owe it to resist. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! But as we have fought, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, But as we have fought, Rumba la, rumba la, rumba la, We promise to fight. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! We promise to fight. ¡Ay, Carmela! ¡Ay, Carmela! 2:30 PM markin said... Lyrics to Jarama Valley : by Woody Guthrie There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama It’s a place that we all know so well It was there that we fought against the Fascists We saw a peacful valley turn to hell From this valley they say we are going But don’t hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through We were men of the Lincoln Battalion We’re proud of the fight that we made We know that you people of the valley Will remember our Lincoln Brigade From this valley they say we are going But don’t hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through You will never find peace with these Fascists You’ll never find friends such as we So remember that valley of Jarama And the people that’ll set that valley free From this valley they say we are going Don’t hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through All this world is like this valley called Jarama So green and so bright and so fair No fascists can dwell in our valley Nor breathe in our new freedom’s air From this valley they say we are going Do not hasten to bid us adieu Even though we lost the battle at Jarama We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through [ Jarama Valley Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/
Gene Kelly And Fred Astaire Go Mano a
Mano- Kelly’s “An American In Paris” ( 1951 )-A
Film Review
DVD Review
By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon
An American In Paris, starring Gene
Kelly, Leslie Caron, music by George and Ira Gershwin, 1951
Someday let me give you the complete
story of how a film critic gets his or her assignments from “upstairs” (unless
of course that person is hard road free-lancing and is just submitting pieces to
publications “on spec”). I should know after some thirty plus years of doing
this type of work recently here and from many years at the American Film Gazette (where I still do on-line reviews and where I
started out as that free-lancer submitting pieces “on spec” when the publication
was strictly hard copy before I was
taken on as a staff member). For now though since I am on a “run” so let me say
that the reason I got this assignment to review Gene Kelly’s An American In Paris (and the next one
which will be on Fred Astaire’s, and Ginger Roger’s, Shall We Dance) is that the editor here, Pete Markin, had grabbed
these two films via Amazon for one purpose and one purpose only-to see who was
the better dancer back in the day -Kelly or Astaire. (There is not even a
question of anybody today touching the hem of either’s skirt since dance kings
are a rare breed and one would be hard pressed to name one male popular dancer who
is even close. Whatever else our disagreements as will be noted below we agree
on that point-to our collective sorrows.)
This no academic question because not
only did Pete go out of his way to view both film he engaged me in a heated
argument one morning in front of the water cooler when he casually laid a
bombshell on me. The bombshell? After years of assuming that Fred Astaire had
the title of king hell king popular dancer wrapped up he had switched his
allegiance to Kelly on the sole basis of this film under review. Needless to
say I had to upbraid him for both his treason and his error. And hence this
“run.” So you see here is a prime example of the odd-ball ways of those high
and mighty general editors in doling out the work. But to the lists.
Maybe An American In Paris with its paper thin
plotline is not the best place to critique Mister Kelly’s dancing (or acting efforts
which whatever faults I find in his dancer they do not compare to his wooden glad
hand acting in this role) but I did not throw down the gauntlet this time. I do
not utter that term “paper thin” lightly here. Here’s the play as my predecessor
and friend in this department Sam Lowell always liked to say. Kelly finds
himself in Paris after the war, after World War II of which he was some of veteran
of although it was probably work in a Special Services unit entertaining
entertainment-starved G.I.s fresh off the front lines with his song and dance
routine. Empathically not after World War I when Paris was the center of the F.
Scott Fitzgerald-dubbed Jazz Age and the period when the Gershwins, George and
Ira, wrote the music and lyrics for the origin concept and which given the
playlist here would have been a better time frame for Kelly’s character, a guy,
a regular guy, named Gerry Mulligan stew to have strutted his stuff. In gay
Paree (gay in the old-fashioned sense of happy, light, and so on not today’s
sexual identity usage) Gerry was doing his best to be a mediocre artist, a
painter (already you can see there is a problem since the transition to dancer
in each routine seems bizarre or his being an artist seems bizarre when he was
at least a better dancer than artist - take your pick). He is getting nowhere
fast in his humble little garret imitation of how he thinks his heroes the
Impressionists suffered for their art. Finally some moneybags “art patroness”
takes up his cause and easy street and high society (which is really a ruse for
trying to get him to fall for her-no dice-no nice dice)
What or rather who he does fall for,
falls hard for, is a little French twist with a turned up nose and who we will
find out quickly is as light on her feet as Gerry is on his on the dance floor.
She gives him the cold shoulder for a while mainly because she is trying to do
the honorable thing for her benefactor and fiancé (and to boot Gerry’s friend too).
As Gerry pulls the hammer down on the romance she softens a bit. But still no
sale until the end when after this serious imaginary dance Gerry has worked himself
up over recreating various paintings by his max daddy artist Impressionist
artists heroes (and a couple of guys from early trends in French art) where he
and Leslie trip the light fantastic she relents. Or rather her lover-benefactor
seeing the writing on the wall brings her to Gerry’s doorstep. Nice guy. So you
can see no way that even the best song and dance man could overcome these
disservices to the Gershwins 1920s be-bop Jazz Age pieces.
Of course this whole dispute, this
tempest in a teapot, brewed up by Mister Markin is not about the qualities of
the storyline but about Kelly’s dancing (and singing too but dancing is enough
to chew on). On the question of pure physical energy and verve Kelly is not bad
reflecting I think the hopped up (maybe drugged up) post-World War II period
when everybody who had slogged through the war was in a rush to get to wherever
they thought they should be going. He has all the moves if not all the grace
that Fred Astaire had in his own prime. And that is really the sticking point
here, the point that became clear during that seventeen minute interlude where Gerry
imagined those painterly scenes from the works of his favored artists. Kelly
was all arms and legs and odd-ball twists and turned but only for a few seconds
during that whole “why the hell is this long scene in this film anyway except
to prolong the film” did he exhibit any grace and that was when he was doing
yeoman’s work lifting Ms. Caron in balletic style. How the usually level-headed
Markin could have called that one of the best dance scenes he had ever seen
tells a lot. Tells me he, he Mister fancy general editor has maybe been at the
hash pipe too long of late. Touché
When Women Played Rock And Roll For
Keeps- The Music Of Bonnie Raiit
[The world of on-line editors and named
bloggers is actually rather small when you consider what cyberspace can allow
the average ingenious citizen to do. I have been highlighting some of the
conversations between long-time music critic Seth Garth and some of his growing
up in Riverdale (that is in Massachusetts west of Boston) friends as he/they
discuss a various older CDs which reflect a certain period in their then youth
lives growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Part of this latest series
of sketches by me is based on information that Seth has provided comes under
the sign of the Summer of Love, 1967 out on the West Coast, especially in the
San Francisco and Bay area.
I am a bit too young by about a decade
to have had anything but a nodding acquaintance with the Summer of Love
experience. That era’s music did not form the basis for my musical interests although
I heard it around the house from older siblings but rather the music of the
1970s which when I get a little bored with book reviews or general cultural
pieces I write about for various publications including this one I write some
music reviews. Knowing that let me take a step back so that you will understand
why I made that statement about the review world is really a small place.
As I said earlier I was a little too
young to appreciate the music of the Summer of Love first hand but my eldest
brother Alex was not. Had in fact gone out to the West Coast from our growing
up neighborhood the Acre section of North Adamsville that summer along with a
bunch of other guys that he had hung around with since highs school. He wound
up staying in that area, delving into every imaginable cultural experience from
drugs to sex to music, for a couple of years before heading back to his big
career expectations-the law, being a lawyer. The original idea to head west
that summer was not his but that of his closest friend, the late Peter Paul
Markin forever known in town and by me as the Scribe (how he got that is a long
story and not germane to the Seth sage). The Scribe had dropped out of college
in Boston earlier in 1967 when he sensed that what Alex said he had been
yakking about weekly for years that a “new breeze,” his, the Scribe’s term, was
going to take youth nation (and maybe the whole nation) by a storm and headed
west. A couple of months later he came back and dragged Alex and about six
others back west with him. And the rest is history.
I mean that “rest is history” part
literally since earlier this year (2017) Alex, now for many years a big high-priced
lawyer after sowing his wild oats and get “smartened up” as he called it once
the bloom of the counter-culture they were trying to create faded had gone to a
business conference out in San Francisco and while there had seen on a passing
bus an advertisement for something called the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate
Park. He flipped out, maybe some latent recoil from those long ago drugs, and
spend one “hooky” afternoon mesmerized by the exhibit of poster art, hippie clothing,
photographs and music. That was not all though. When he got back to Boston he
contacted all the old neighborhood guys still standing who had gone out there
in 1967 to put a small memoir book together. One night they all agreed to do
the project, do the project in honor of the late Scribe who had pushed them out
there in some cases kicking and screaming (not Alex at the time). That is when
Alex, knowing that I have had plenty of experience doing such projects
contacted me to edit and get the thing published. Which I did without too much
trouble.
The publication and distribution of
that book while not extensive got around to plenty of people who were involved
in the Summer of Love, or who knew the Scribe. And that is where Seth Garth
comes in. While he was not part of the Summer of Love experience he did drift
out west after college to break with his Riverdale growing up home in the early
1970s. As a writer he looked for work among the various alternative presses out
there and wound up working first as a free-lancer and then as staff as a music
critic for the now long defunct The Eye which
operated out of Oakland then. Guess who also was working as a free-lancer there
as well after he got out of the Army. Yes, the Scribe who was doing a series of
articles on guys like him who had come back from Vietnam and couldn’t relate to
the “real world” and had established what amounted to alternative communities
along the railroad tracks and under the bridges of Southern California. So yeah
it is a small world in the writing for money racket. Here is what Seth has to
say right now. Zack James]
CD Review
The Best Of Bonnie Raiit
By Zack James
Seth Garth and Jack Callahan who had
been friends since highs school down in Riverdale after they returned from a
whirlwind few months on the road on a magical mystery tour yellow brick road
merry pranksters adventure out in California during the Summer of Love, 1967, were
sitting in Jack’s, the local hang-out bar in Cambridge where the drinks were
cheap and the conversation interesting, when a young woman stepped up to the
small stage preparing to sing. Jack mentioned to Seth that she looked familiar,
that flaming red hair a giveaway, and asked him if he could place the face.
Seth who was beginning his long career as a music critic just then for The Eye whom he had contracted with when
he was out in California blurted out that didn’t Jack remember seeing her,
seeing Bonnie Raitt, on the Boston Common before they had taken off for
California where she blew away the crowd with a cover of Down Highway 61. Jack laughed and said that he was so stoned that
night that he wasn’t sure who he had heard (Seth reminding him that it had been
an afternoon concert).
Of course Seth, as a budding music
critic, expecting to ride the wave from folk to folk rock to what was now being
called “acid” rock with all the strobe lights and dipping into the drug bag to
bring out the right mood had done some basic research on Bonnie as an up and
coming star who was riding her own wave of the new trend in having female
singers lead the bands they were in. Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Amy Kline,
Nicky Adams and then her. He had found out that Bonnie had dropped out of
Radcliffe a little earlier in order to pursue her musical career as a result of
the success of the Boston Common concert. He also had found out that her
budding virtuosity with the slide guitar had come from sitting at the feet of
country blues legend Mississippi Fred McDowell. So she had a pedigree. Still
she a was only starting out and grateful that Jack’s had allowed her up on the
stage a couple of years earlier where she had begun to hone her skills both at
presenting a professional musical veneer and connecting with the audience. So
the night Seth and Jack were sitting there at the bar drinking and talking
about everything under the sun Bonnie was doing “pay back.” Performing for the
old crowd, performing for Jack.
She started her first set with Hound
Dog Taylor’s The Sky Is Crying and
McDowell’s Highway 61 and the rest
would be history. A history which is well documented in this compilation from
those classics to Fairport Convention member Richard Thompson’s The Dimming of the Day.
The Bank Job, starring
Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, 2008
Recently I did a short
review of the film adaptation of writer con-artist’s Clifford Irving’s The Hoax about his take (remember he was
a con artist and so his fast-talking-writing should be taken for what it is
worth) on his con of a major publishing company over an “autobiography” of the
reclusive eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes back in the early 1970s and
mentioned that everybody loves a con. Everybody except the person con of
course. That notion can be extended, was extended in my old working-class
growing up Acre section of North Adamsville, to include high profile bank
robberies. In those days the big deal was the then never solved great Brink
armored car robbery of the early 1950s where it turned out one of the
participants had lived in the neighborhood at one time. So when Pete Markin
tagged me to do a short piece on the
film under review The Bank Job about
an equally famous bank robbery in London in the early 1970 I was all in.
Usually the genesis of a
bank robbery (aside from the famous bank robber Willie Sutton’s response to the
question of why he robbed banks for a living- because that was where the money
was) is to grab some quick dough and split. Average stuff. In this film, based
on a true story, although it is hard to separate fact from fiction according to
the historical record, the motives are a little bit trickier. Oh sure the guys
who are touched for the job have that motivation-have that wanting habits
hunger but this one has a catch to it. See the robbery is just supposed to be a
front for getting some very juicy photographs of a member of the royal family,
a royal princess acting the slut. (According to my sources that part is
make-believe courtesy of the thriller-crazed producers and not a bad motive at
that if you hold any republican sympathies. In any case given the batch of
whores, whore-mongers, homos and lesbians when that was not cool, dope fiends,
junkies, sex addicts, lunatics, mad men, philanders and the like who have made
up the royal family and nobility that would not be so far-fetched. And those
are from the good side of the families the others’ depravity starts from there.)
Maybe nowadays with 24/7/365 celebrity exposure that would be nothing for
royals to bother with but back then it was enough to get certain secretive
governmental agencies on the move to cover the damn thing up-to bury it deep.
That was the story then anyway make of it what you will.
The whole play came
about because one neighborhood working class woman, Martine, played by Saffron Burrows,
who took a turn at modeling had been stopped with a hell-broth of drugs in her
suitcase at the airport. So she needed
to get out from under any way she could since female prison life would quickly
turn her into somebody’s honey and she would not have looked good in prison garb
anyway. Fortunately she had a lover-boyfriend from MI5 who was in need of a
favor. Seems that a sneaky fiery black nationalist leader, Michael X, had the
vaunted photographs in question in a safety deposit box for further use-blackmail,
trade for freedom, you know the rest. Also in need of a favor was Terry, played
by Jason Statham, a hard-pressed auto body shop owner and small time hood. The
man, men, he needed a few confederates for this caper, and the moment meet. Martine
cons Terry into this fantastical notion of robbing a bank (naturally the Baker
Street branch bank where the safety deposit box is located) to get out from
under-to get him and his family on easy street. At first he balks but then facing
a blank wall future he bites.
In a funny way the bank
job is actually not only clever planned but despite a couple of glitches and close-calls
a relatively easy job done by creating a tunnel from an adjoining shop to the
vaults. Beautiful. Then all hell breaks loose once the job is done and the photographs
secured. See everybody and there aunt
and uncle has something to hide from all that hidden cash and jewels to a listing
of all the crooked cops on a local mobsters pay-roll. Between the governmental agents,
the mobsters, the cops and who knows who else Terry and his comrades are led a
merry chase. But in the end the resourceful Terry works his way out of danger
and is allowed to keep the ill-gotten goods and seek a new life somewhere out
of fetid London. Martine blows town with her cut. The royals dodge yet another
scandal and the mobster and the crooked cops take a fall, a hard fall. But the
hard criminal life is not for everybody and not everybody made the grade. One
gang member got wasted for not giving up his comrades. That’s the way it is
down on the edge. Whatever its closeness to what really happened before, during
and after this caper on Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes’ street-right) the movie
was well-done
Everybody Loves A Con
Man (Or Woman)-With Richard Gere’s “The Hoax” (2006) In Mind
DVD Review
By Book Critic Zack
James
The Hoax, starring
Richard Gere, 2006
Everybody loves a con man
(or at the headline states con woman as well although there tend to be fewer of
them in the deep rich history of this art form). Everybody that is except the guy
(or gal) being conned. That egg on the face person most definitely does not love
a con although he or she gets what they deserve in my book. I have seen some
beautiful work in my time. The time when Eddie Murray took some hungry greedy stockbroker
for a cool million when a million was something on non-existent stock, nada. Or
that time when Conrad Vedt a seemingly mild mannered non-entity took the local
syndicate for five mil and got away with it (although he did spent some serious
time looking over his shoulder before the coast was clear). The big one though
at least the one I was close to, knew some of the players, was when Jack Kiley
took down a couple of high-end Las Vegas gamblers for something like ten million
all by himself. The stuff of legends. And that brings us to the film under review
the rough film adaptation of writer Clifford Irving’s book about his big time
literary scam of the so-called billionaire when a billion was serious money Howard
Hughes “autobiography” The Hoax. (Although
the thought occurs to me why would you believe what a con artist has written
about himself-oh well.)
Clifford Irving, played
by Richard Gere, understood the first rule of the con-go big or don’t go at
all. It is not worth the time or energy to do the con for chicken feed although
I have known back in the old Acre section of my growing up town North Adamsville
guys to do cons for chicken feed. A serious con like the one Irving tried to
pull for a million bucks and maybe more if things had worked out on a
well-known if reclusive public figure working the literary scam which meant
bucking a high-end publishing company also meant possible jail time if the
thing went south on him. Which in the end as everybody now knows it did
dragging his wife and his closest collaborator down with him in the gutter-into
jail time.
Still you have to like the
brass of the guy taking a shot at immortality in the con artist pantheon-a
place not for the faint-hearted. First he had to get a big enough target for
his appetites which seemed to narrow down to Howard Hughes for no better reason
than he saw his name on a magazine cover and figured he could use that notorious
reclusiveness of Hughes’ to work his magic. Of course the second rule of the
con is to talk fast on your feet and be plausible which Irving did with relish
starting with his agent and working up the food chain to the big-time publishing
company executives. The dicey part or one of the dicey parts was that the potential
publishers advised by their platoon of lawyers were going to be looking for some
proof and a lot of the film dealt with working around that problem. But see the
third rule of the con or maybe it really is the first rule once you get a bead
on human nature as it has evolved over the last few millennia is to understand
how to play to a little greed or some
vanity advantage over your competitors. Bingo here.
The other dicey part which
in the end did Irving and his compadres in was the blow-back from the super
security conscious Hughes empire. Irving
almost had it made but just couldn’t work out that last kink about how to grab the
dough-the fatal check-which needed to be cashed with Hughes’ name on it. Tough
break. Yeah, everybody loves a con. Conrad Vedt, Jack Riley and Eddie Murray would
have been proud.
Once Again On The - 75th Anniversary (2017) Of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s “Casablanca” -
By Bart Webber
I have spent much ink this year starting almost at the beginning of the year writing about the classic black and white film Casablanca a staple at every retro-film locale including the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts where I first saw it with a “hot date” back in the late 1960s. A date who did not mind going on a cheap date (hell the admission was about a dollar maybe two) when I told her what we would be seeing. (Somehow she had asked her mother about the film and so was intrigued about this hot on-screen romance during wartime between Rick and Ilsa.) That movie coupled with a quick after film stop at equally cheap Harvard Square Hayes Bickford for coffee (always an iffy proposition depending on when the stuff was brewed also iffy) and some kind of pastry that had been sitting on the stainless steel dessert shelves for who knows how long got me away without having to call “dutch treat.” Got me as well another six months of very nice dates so my memories of that gorgeous film with the six million quotable and unforgettable lines from “play it again, Sam” (Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa request to Humphrey Bogart Rick’s main entertainment provider Dooley Wilson to play the sentimental As Time Goes By) to “We will always have Paris” (when Rick responds to Ilsa’s bewilderment that he is letting her take that last plane to Lisbon with those wicked letters of transit provided him to her husband Czech liberation leader Victor Laszlo so he can continue to do his work against the night-takers running the world in those days) are still pristine.
I am not the only one who is crazy for this movie since I am enclosing a link to an interview done by Terry Gross on her Fresh Air show on NPR with film historian Noah Isenberg on the making of the classic Hollywood film in his new book, We'll Always Have Casablanca. " Needless to say when I get my greedy little hands on that item I will be reviewing it in this space. This guy has me beaten six ways to Sunday with what he knows about that film. Kudos.
Spanish Is The Loving
Tongue-Those Sparkling Eyes Of Hers-From The World War II Rationing Vaults-
Armida’s “The Girl From Monterrey” (1943)-A Film Review
By Lance Lawrence
The Girl From Monterrey,
starring Armida, 1943
WTF. (This is a
family-friendly publication for what it is worth although we have learned from
recent experience that the demographic the new site manager Greg Green, more on
him ina minute as the source of “WTF,” was
trying to reach with his silly experiment of, for example, having grown women
and men review cinematic portrayals of Marvel/DC comic characters like Captain
America to draw the young in a cohort that doesn’t give a, ah, fig for on-line
blogger-induced publications. Try Instagram brother, try Instagram as my eight-year
old granddaughter could have told Greg and avoided a near civil war among the
writers, young and old, and a revolt by the real readership base-the remnants,
the best part of the Generation of ’68 past its flower. So WTF it is although
that same eight-year old granddaughter was hip to that expression about two
years ago and so we are not protecting virgin ears.) I recently reviewed a boxing
film from the 1930s starring a triad of classic stars from that period like
Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart who went through their
paces in Kid Galahad (not to be confused
with the later Elvis 1960s production under the same title) with Edward G. trying
finally get a champ but who if he lived would have gotten a brother-in-law plus
champ despite his being overly protective of his younger sister who was crazy
for the big guy.
I made a big point there of
detailing my own street-fighting episodes cut short by the realization that if
anything I was more a lover than a fighter but in any case not a fighter, not
even a street fighter much less getting in the ring with anybody. I made the
even bigger point that despite that youthful folly I never was much of a fan of
boxing, of the art of the fist, of pugilism. Yet our own illustrious site
manager (the same one who made me go on and on with the “dirty language”
disclaimer so you know what I was up against) forced me to do the honors.
That was then but on the basis
of that review, the perverse basis if you ask me of that light-headed
experience he decided that I was to be at least temporarily the in-house “boxing
expert” and review the film of the headline-The
Girl From Monterrey. The “how” of that particular choice bears some
explanation. Apparently Greg was going through the archives or had remembered
from his days as editor at American Film
Gazette that during World War II Hollywood, then the sole world capital for
film production spewed out as much patriotic war material as was possible
without destroying every film produced in that period. Somehow he latched onto
this short war-induce film which featured a couple of boxers who would before
the end of the film wind up in uniform and so there you have it, why I am
reviewing this essentially propaganda piece.
But hold on there is a back
story to that as well. This year, 2018, commemorates on November 11th
the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, the day when the bloody
slaughter, the bloody destruction of the flower of the European youth ended
(the supposed “war to end all wars” was the tag to get guys to fight the
freaking thing-another WTF). A couple of stringers here, a couple of Vietnam
veterans, Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris have been spear-heading the efforts, via
their memberships in the anti-war Veterans for Peace group to publicize the
commemoration of that event in this space. Greg’s “find” dove-tails with that
commemoration since this production was a “talkie” and because few World War I
film productions still exist I am the messenger.
Well I have stalled enough
I might as well get to this short sad tale of a film which at least had the
mercy of being short probably due to the rationing of chemicals for the war
effort. This one started out south of the border, started in Mexico when that
was not a dirty word and immigrants were welcome- to harvest the fields. Started
with a spitfire, sparking eyes, Spanish is the loving tongue dancer-singer in
an up-scale cantina named Lita, played by never heard of before but well-known
then Armida. This feisty and short, unbelievably short so that say Alan Ladd
would feel tall next to her had made it clear to management that she was not
available to sit with the customers after doing her stage chores- and got
bounced, or quit depending on whose story you believe, once the manager made
one too many demands on her in that department. What is a girl to do though
when she is bounced.Enter younger
brother Baby, a good=looking middleweight, who had quit college to enter the
ring, to become a pugilist and who was raring to go in that ill-sought
profession. Lita decided against all good judgment to “manage” him after a few
gringo boxing promoters sitting in that cantina watching Lita go through her
paces saw Baby flatten the Mexican contender who made one too many advances on
Lita.
Shift scenes to New York
(presumably with all papers in order and not having creeped in via a borderless
wall) where Baby got some early cream puff fights working his way up the food
chain. But Lita is a singer and dancer, remember that spitfire and sparkling eyes
in that profession and so she found work in a nightclub where she and Baby and
those nefarious promoters went go for entertainment. Lita did a number and got
hired. Baby got all hung up on a gringa torch singer who probably was too big
for him-too cutthroat, too wise for this sap despite his pugilistic prowess. Lita
in her turn gravitated toward another good-looking middleweight, the champ, a
guy named Jerry does it really matter his last name since he was nothing but a “bicycle-rider
anyway, a dancer in the ring tiring out his opponent before the knock-down on canvas.
Baby was making time with this
Flossie the floosy and Lita with the chump champ while Baby worked his way up.
As you can guess two good-looking middleweights are bound to crash into each other
and so it goes when an American promoter gives the high sign to Flossie to get
Baby to sign the contact to fight Jerry. Lita is torn but things work out well
since Baby knocked Jerry on his ass for the championship and then both men show
up in the uniforms of their respective countries. Ho hum. What was not ho hum
was Lita’s stage presence where she sang some songs I had never heard were in
the American Songbook. Check these out on YouTube the jumping Jive, Brother, Jive, Last Night’s All Over and the title The Girl From Monterey. Yeah check those
sparkling eyes as Armida goes through her paces.