ANTI SEMITISM FILMS OF THE LATE 1940s
Ran somewhere across two 1947 movies about Anti semitism.
Last night on flight to SF saw GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT, a 1947 Cary Grant romance/drama (dramedy) where he plays a Christian journalists who pretends he's Jewish to write a magazine series on anti semiticism. Slow start but some pretty interesting writing in the middle as he is put into various anti semitic situations and gets various fights with his fiance about how far he takes the charade (e.g. with her family). Not a great movie but OK.
Have rented $3 but not yet seen the other movie in the 1947 pair, called CROSSFIRE. Interestingly, supposedly it was drafted as a movie about anti homosexual bias but then re written as a movie about anti semitism. It is a police procedural based around a murder investigation.
Both movies were nominated for Best Picture, and Gentleman's Agreement, though forgotten today, won Best Picture of 1947.
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AMAZON ROMANOVS
Finished ROMANOVS, by Matthew Weiner who developed MAD MEN. Eight unrelated 60-90 minute stories, many with an O. Henry finish.
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NETFLIX BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
Have seen full movie twice and a few parts three times. Even watched some scenes with German dubbing. (Translation puzzler: How do you capture the over the top western accents plus the heightened 1880s almost-Shakespearean quirky elevated language?)
So I am now a Buster Scruggs Coen brothers groupie.
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GILLIGAN & MARX
We actually saw a small vanity indie documentary about Marxist interpretation of Gilligans Island, GILLIGANS MANIFESTO. I think director rented theater in Beverly Hills for a week as a gift to self; not in hope of actual ticket sales. Sort of interesting.
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POLITICAL QUARTET OF MOVIES
Over TDAY my brother in law and I went up to AMOEBA RECORDS in Hwd and I picked up a rare out of print DVD of BOB ROBERTS (1990; Tim Robbins as likable strongly neo-fascist, racist candidate) for $3. Neo fascism never ages. It's not available on VOD.
With the addition of BOB ROBERTS, this means we saw a full quartet of political movies, the old movies BULLWORTH (1998 warren beatty satire comedy) and CANDIDATE (faux documentary style, Redford 1972), and BOB ROBERTS; and also the brand new holiday movie THE FRONT RUNNER (2018, Hugh Jackman) about Gary Hart.
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THEY CAME FOR ME...MARTIN NIEMOLLER [By Matthew Hockenos]
Really enjoying reading new biography of MARTIN NIEMOLLER. There is a famous poem, "They came for the Communists, but I was not a communist...they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew...then they came for me." That is an interesting poem on its own terms, but it turns out it was the actual biography of the author. He was from a clergical family, very pro German, served on a sub in WW-I, then became a minister in 1924. Worried about his kids having no food during the hyperinflation, strikes, etc. Voted for Hitler in 1924, 1928, 1932. LIke many clergy, he was OK with the nationalism, war mongering, and anti semitism, but annoyed when Nazi's booted regular clergy in favor of Nazi party member clergy. However, he began protesting Nazism towards 1938 and spent 1938-1945 in Dachau. So his actual biography was very close to the famous poem. Author also does very good sketch of German history 1880s to 1930s, without which 1930s are hard to understand.
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HOWARD HUGHES & HARVEY WEINSTEIN
This Thursday night November 29, we have tickets to LACMA, screening 1949 movie CAUGHT, which is supposedly based on Howard Hughes like Citizen Kane & Wm Hearst. Little known. Will be followed by interview with new book on Hughes by Karina Longworth, SEDUCTION, which I guess frames Hughes as the Harvey Weinstein of the 1930s and 1940s.
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CAUGHT: Young model Leonora Eames marries multimillionaire Smith Ohlrig. Ohlrig, though, is deranged and has not married for love. Eames insists several times that she married for love, but the film suggests that she is deluding herself. When Ohlrig becomes too abusive, she leaves him, penniless, to find a job at a medical clinic in a poor neighborhood.
