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spacelazarwolf · 4 months

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in honor of that anon who said jews have done nothing for the world, here’s a non exhaustive list of things we’ve done for the world:

arts, fashion, and lifestyle:

jeans - levi strauss

modern bras - ida rosenthal

sewing machines - isaac merritt singer

modern film industry - carl laemmle (universal pictures), adolph zukor (paramount pictures), william fox (fox film forporation), louis b. mayer (mgm - metro-goldwyn-mayer), harry, sam, albert, and jack warners (warner bros.), steven spielberg, mel brooks, marx brothers

operetta - jacques offenbach

comic books - stan lee

graphic novels - will eisner

teddy bears - morris and rose michtom

influential musicians - irving berlin, stephen sondheim, benny goodman, george gershwin, paul simon, itzhak perlman, leonard bernstein, bob dylan, leonard cohen

artists - mark rothko

actors - elizabeth taylor, jerry lewis, barbara streisand

comedians - lenny bruce, joan rivers, jerry seinfeld

authors - judy blume, tony kushner, allen ginsberg, walter mosley

culture:

esperanto - ludwik lazar zamenhof

feminism - betty friedan, gloria steinem, ruth bader ginsberg

queer and trans rights - larry kramer, harvey milk, leslie feinberg, abby stein, kate bornstein, frank kameny, judith butler

international women's day - clara zetkin

principles of journalizm, statue of liberty, and pulitzer prize - joseph pulitzer

"the new colossus" - emma lazarus

universal declaration of human rights - rene samuel cassin

holocaust remembrance and human rights activism - elie wiesel

workers rights - louis brandeis, rose schneiderman

public health care, women's rights, and children's rights - lillian wald

racial equity - rabbi abraham joshua heschel, julius rosenwald, andrew goodman, michael schwerner

political theory - hannah arendt

disability rights - judith heumann

black lives matter slogan and movement - alicia garza

#metoo movement - jodi kantor

institute of sexology - magnus hirschfeld

technology:

word processing computers - evelyn berezin

facebook - mark zuckerberg

console video game system - ralph henry baer

cell phones - amos edward joel jr., martin cooper

3d - leonard lipton

telephone - philipp reis

fax machines - arthur korn

microphone - emile berliner

gramophone - emile berliner

television - boris rosing

barcodes - norman joseph woodland and bernard silver

secret communication system, which is the foundation of the technology used for wifi - hedy lamarr

three laws of robotics - isaac asimov

cybernetics - norbert wiener

helicopters - emile berliner

BASIC (programming language) - john george kemeny

google - sergey mikhaylovich brin and larry page

VCR - jerome lemelson

fax machine - jerome lemelson

telegraph - samuel finley breese morse

morse code - samuel finley breese morse

bulletproof glass - edouard benedictus

electric motor and electroplating - boris semyonovich jacobi

nuclear powered submarine - hyman george rickover

the internet - paul baran

icq instant messenger - arik vardi, yair goldfinger,, sefi vigiser, amnon amir

color photography - leopold godowsky and leopold mannes

world's first computer - herman goldstine

modern computer architecture - john von neumann

bittorrent - bram cohen

voip internet telephony - alon cohen

data archiving - phil katz, eugene roshal, abraham lempel, jacob ziv

nemeth code - abraham nemeth

holography - dennis gabor

laser - theodor maiman

instant photo sharing online - philippe kahn

first automobile - siegfried samuel marcus

electrical maglev road - boris petrovich weinberg

drip irrigation - simcha blass

ballpoint pen and automatic gearbox - laszlo biro

photo booth - anatol marco josepho

medicine:

pacemakers and defibrillators - louise robinovitch

defibrillators - bernard lown

anti-plague and anti-cholera vaccines - vladimir aronovich khavkin

polio vaccine - jonas salk

test for diagnosis of syphilis - august paul von wasserman

test for typhoid fever - ferdinand widal

penicillin - ernst boris chain

pregnancy test - barnhard zondek

antiretroviral drug to treat aids and fight rejection in organ transplants - gertrude elion

discovery of hepatitis c virus - harvey alter

chemotherapy - paul ehrlich

discovery of prions - stanley prusiner

psychoanalysis - sigmund freud

rubber condoms - julius fromm

birth control pill - gregory goodwin pincus

asorbic acid (vitamin c) - tadeusz reichstein

blood groups and rh blood factor - karl landsteiner

acyclovir (treatment for infections caused by herpes virus) - gertrude elion

vitamins - caismir funk

technique for measuring blood insulin levils - rosalyn sussman yalow

antigen for hepatitus - baruch samuel blumberg

a bone fusion technique - gavriil abramovich ilizarov

homeopathy - christian friedrich samuel hahnemann

aspirin - arthur ernst eichengrun

science:

theory of relativity - albert einstein

theory of the electromagnetic field - james maxwell

quantum mechanics - max born, gustav ludwig hertz

quantum theory of gravity - matvei bronstein

microbiology - ferdinand julius cohn

neuropsychology - alexander romanovich luria

counters for x-rays and gamma rays - robert hofstadter

genetic engineering - paul berg

discovery of the antiproton - emilio gino segre

discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation - arno allan penzias

discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe - adam riess and saul merlmutter

discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity - roger penrose

discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of the milky way - andrea ghez

modern cosmology and the big bang theory - alexander alexandrovich friedmann

stainless steel - hans goldschmidt

gas powered vehicles

interferometer - albert abraham michelson

discovery of the source of energy production in stars - hans albrecht bethe

proved poincare conjecture - grigori yakovlevich perelman

biochemistry - otto fritz meyerhof

electron-positron collider - bruno touschek

#jewish #jumblr #am yisrael fucking chai

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gatabella · 6 months

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Greta Garbo, Two-Faced Woman, 1941

"The picture she talked about most often and most freely was Two-Faced Woman. It was her last film, made in 1941, and she hated it. She described in graphic detail the horror of going to the preview in Long Beach and realizing the picture was no good. Because she liked Louis B. Mayer and the director, George Cukor, she offered to shoot the final scenes over again. In fact, they reshot them twice. But no amount of tinkering could fix the flawed film. Garbo’s verdict: “Two-Faced Woman was not good and never could be made good.”

-William Frye, Vanity Fair, 2010

#greta garbo #two-faced woman #quote

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friendlessghoul · 5 months

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Hey there!

So not having read many biographies of Buster, how did he feel about being teamed up with Jimmy Durante? I know Buster got along with Roscoe Arbuckle and was good friends with him, but I'm curious to know if he and Durante got along.

Hey! Sorry for the delayed response, but here is what I was able to find. There isn't a whole lot in the books, but we do get an idea of how he felt, with additional context and all that.

James Curtis - A Filmmaker's Life -

(Pg 416) - Keaton heard that Mayer was out to build up Broadway acclaimed Schnozzola at his expense.

(Pg 418) - From the outset, it was clear to Keaton that he and Jimmy Durante lacked chemistry. “He tried hard, and I tried hard, but our styles, our timing, didn’t jibe.” Each extended the utmost courtesy to the other, Durante making no attempts at upstaging and Keaton giving him all the room he needed, even to the point of suggesting retakes on scenes where the Schnoz appeared to be overshadowed.

(Pg 419) “Durante just can’t keep quiet,” Buster complained. “He’s going to talk no matter what in the thunder happens. You can’t direct him any other way.”

Tom Dardis - Keaton the Man Who Wouldn’t Lie Down -

(Pg 202) - Some people felt that Durante was brought in to fill out Busters pictures, to give them an extra dimension, but this was firmly denied by Weingarten.

No. Keaton was doing a certain amount of business. And we thought that Durante… in this particular role, would be fine, that’s all. We weren’t thinking of bolstering him. There were a number of pictures made, we tried our best. If it wasn’t good enough, that’s another thing. But we didn’t set out to destroy Buster….

(PG 204 - 205) - Buster was unhappy working with Durante for two reasons. He was aware that Mayer had high hopes for “Schnozzola,” and that he was being given parts in Busters films as a showcase for his talent. Buster was quite sure that he and Durante didn’t belong in the same picture:

Then of course, when you give me a Jimmy Durante— they brought him in there to play a part in a picture with me. Well, Durante just can't keep quiet. He’s going to talk no matter what happens. You can’t direct him any other way. Louis B. Mayer liked him very much; it could have been that he was brought out to replace me, I don’t know….

(Pg 205) - Buster disliked working with Durante for personal as well as professional reasons. Durante invariably punctuated all of his conversations with Buster by punching him on the upper arm and chest. Since Durante was, in Buster’s words, “strong as a bull,” this constant rain of punches really hurt, but Buster was simply too polite to tell him to stop. The punching continued unabated for the next year.

(Pg 221) - What did bother him was that MGM was no longer under obligation to star him in his films; the new contract made a point of the fact that he could be starred or co-starred as the studio saw fit. This contract made it possible for MGM to have Jimmy Durante as the official co-star of their films together.

MGM considered Durante fully Keaton’s equal and wanted to be able to indicate it on the film credits.

Buster Keaton & Charles Samuels - My Wonderful World of Slapstick -

(Pg 236) - The experiment I know most about was the one made by Louis B. Mayer when he teamed up Jimmy Durante and myself in a series of features. There is no one in the world like Durante, bless him, but in my opinion, we just did not belong in the same movies.

(Pg 237) - At any rate, as I see it, there was no way to mesh, match, or blend Durante's talents with mine. Yet Jimmy would have been great in the pictures that we did together if he would have been merely to do spots of comedy instead of playing a character all of the way through.

However, he was very good in the one picture we made together that had quality. I think this was because the character he played was very much like the real Jimmy Durante. The picture was Speak Easily, which was based on a Clarance Budington Kelland story and had a sound plot.

From the time Jimmy and I were teamed up I heard rumors that Mr. Mayer was planning to build him up at my expense. This didn't worry me much, although I can't say I liked it. With my record of successful pictures, I felt I was a fixture at M-G-M. I couldn't imagine anyone there wanting to get rid of me. If Jimmy Durante could replace me, it would be on his superior ability. Like a lot of men, the world considers modest and humble I had unshakable confidence in my talent and ability to hold the place that I had staked out for myself. Dana Stevens - Camera Man (Pg ) Though the two were friendly offscreen, Keaton admitted years later that Durante’s constant rain of chummy punches in the arm actually hurt.

It doesn't seem as though there was any animosity towards Durante. Buster appeared to make the best of the situation as MGM was forcing them together and there wasn't much else he could do. He acknowledged that their style just wasn't meant to mix and that was all there was to it. They took plenty of photos together for publicity but not much else? There's probably more information out there but this is the extent in the books that I have. Their personalities didn't mix on or off the screen but it didn't cause any issues between them. I'd imagine partially due to Jimmy's boisterous friendly attitude and Buster being passive and never speaking up. Though I don't think there was much for Buster to have complaints about, other than being hit constantly.

Hope this helps and thank you for the ask! And now photos -

#buster keaton #jimmy durante #MGM #Asks #Ask

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citizenscreen · 4 months

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On or about January 11, 1927, Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, announced the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. #AMPAS #OSCARS

#louis b mayer #ampas #oscars #old hollywood

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homomenhommes · 4 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in GGay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 2

1806 – Ohio repeals its common-law reception statute. Since it has no sodomy law, sodomy becomes legal and remains so for nearly eighty years.

1900 – (Charles William) Billy Haines (d.1973) was an American film actor and interior designer. He was a star of the silent era until the 1930s, when Haines' career was cut short by MGM Studios due to his refusal to deny his homosexuality. Haines never returned to film and instead started a successful interior design business with his life partner and was supported by friends in Hollywood.

Billy Haines was born in Staunton, Virginia. Haines ran away from home at the age of 14, accompanied by another unidentified young man whom Haines referred to as his "boyfriend". The pair went to Hopewell, which had a reputation for immorality. Haines and his boyfriend got jobs working at the local DuPont factory for $50 a week. To supplement their income, the couple opened a dance hall, which may have also served as a brothel. His parents, frantic over his disappearance, tracked him through the police to Hopewell. Haines did not return home with them, remaining instead in Hopewell and sending money back home to help support the family. The couple remained in Hopewell until most of the town was destroyed by fire in 1915. Haines moved to New York City settling into the burgeoning gay community of Greenwich Village. It is unclear whether his boyfriend accompanied him.

He worked a variety of jobs before becoming a model. Talent scout Bijou Fernandez discovered Haines as part of the Samuel Goldwyn Company's "New Faces of 1922" contest and the studio signed him to a $40 a week contract.

Haines's career began slowly, as he appeared in extra and bit parts, mostly uncredited. His first significant role was in Three Wise Fools (1923). However, he continued to play small, unimportant parts at Goldwyn. It was not until they loaned him to Fox in 1923 for The Desert Outlaw that he got the opportunity to play a significant role. In 1924, MGM lent Haines to Columbia Pictures for a five-picture deal. The first of these, The Midnight Express (1924), received excellent reviews and Columbia offered to buy his contract. The offer was refused and Haines continued in bit roles for Goldwyn.

On a trip to New York in 1926, Haines met James "Jimmie" Shields, probably as a pick-up on the street . Haines convinced Shields to move to Los Angeles, promising to get him work as an extra - some sources say Shields worked as Haines' "double' in his films. The pair were soon living together and viewed themselves as a committed couple.

In 1933, Haines was arrested in a YMCA with a sailor he had picked up in Los Angeles' Pershing Square. Louis B. Mayer, the studio head at MGM, delivered an ultimatum to Haines: choose between a sham marriage (also known as a "lavender marriage") or his relationship with Shields. Haines chose Shields and they remained together for almost 50 years. Mayer subsequently fired Haines and terminated his contract, quickly recasting Robert Montgomery in roles that had been planned for Haines. Haines did make a few minor films then retired from film.

Haines and Shields began a successful dual career as interior designers and antique dealers. Among their early clients were friends such as Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Carole Lombard, Marion Davies and George Cukor. Their lives were disrupted in 1936 when members of the Ku Klux Klan dragged the two men from their home and beat them, because a neighbor had accused the two of propositioning his son. Crawford, along with other stars such as Claudette Colbert, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Kay Francis, and Charles Boyer urged the men to report this to the police. Marion Davies asked her lover William Randolph Hearst to use his influence to ensure the neighbors were prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but ultimately Haines and Shields chose not to report the incident.

Haines and Shields remained together for the rest of their lives. Joan Crawford described them as "the happiest married couple in Hollywood."

Haines died from lung cancer in Santa Monica, California at the age of 73, a week short of his 74th birthday, which was on the new year of 1974. Soon afterward, Shields, who suffered from what many believe to be Alzheimer's Disease, put on Haines' pajamas, took an overdose of pills, and crawled into their bed to die. They were interred side by side in Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery.

1905 – Over the twentieth century, Sir Michael Tippett, (d.1998) a most unlikely composer and musician, progressed from being the great enigma of British classical music to being one of its most respected and influential figures. His visionary, idealistic humanism, which, while firmly grounded in the traditional, embraced contemporary and popular forms as well. Tippett was, in the words of his partner Meirion Bowen, an "unabashed homosexual," and he defied the social taboos of his time by incorporating homoerotic themes in his operas.

Michael Kemp Tippett was born in London, and raised in Surrey, where he lived most of his life. Unlike many composers, he was not a child prodigy, and, aside from piano lessons, he had little early involvement with music. In his teens, however, he attended concert performances of Beethoven's symphonies, and as a result of this experience he realized his desire to become a composer.

Consequently, he persuaded his parents to support his studies at the Royal College of Music, from which he graduated in 1928. For several years, he taught French in a preparatory school and conducted local musical ensembles. In 1940, he was appointed Director of Music at Morley College in London, a post he retained until 1951.

Although Tippett's early compositions had their first public performance in 1930, the work that brought him widespread recognition came a decade later. The oratorio A Child of Our Time (1939-1941) was inspired by Tippett's concern for the oppressed and his outrage over Nazi persecution of the Jews. The work is dedicated to Hershel Grynzpan, a gay Jewish youth who, in 1937, assassinated a Nazi official in a Paris club frequented by homosexuals, an act that the Nazis used as a pretext for the acts of anti-Semitic terror known as Kristallnacht. Tippett also wrote the libretto for this oratorio, as he would subsequently do for all his vocal compositions.

Aside from A Child of Our Time, he is perhaps best known, for his operas. Tippett's first opera, The Midsummer Marriage (1955), was first staged at Covent Garden with a young Joan Sutherland, then beginning her stellar career, in the lead role. Although the opera has endured the test of time, the plot at first bewildered audiences used to more traditional opera fare.

King Priam (1962) retells the ancient story of the siege of Troy and, in one scene, presents the homoerotic attachment between Achilles and Patroclus. More daring is The Knot Garden (1970), an examination of the dynamics of contemporary relationships. Among the main characters are Mel and Dov, an unambiguously gay, mixed-race couple.

Tippett's final major work was the opera New Year (1989), written by the octogenarian composer as a sort of postscript to his long career. In keeping with Tippett's ongoing interest in contemporary currents in music and culture, this late piece is perhaps the first opera to include a "rap" vocal.

Tippett was a lifelong humanist and pacifist who stood by his beliefs, even when they were out of step with the rest of society. In 1943, he was incarcerated for three months in London's notorious Wormwood Scrubs prison for refusing to do the civil defense duty expected of conscientious objectors; he responded to his conditions by organizing and conducting the prison orchestra.

Tippett was, moreover, openly gay at a time when male homosexual acts were criminal in Britain. Yet despite his "outlaw" history, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1966, made a Companion of Honour in 1979, and granted the Order of Merit in 1983. Tippett remained active through his eighties, and only declined at the very end of his life.

His autobiography, Those Twentieth Century Blues, was published in 1991. In November, 1997, while attending a retrospective celebration of his music in Stockholm, he was stricken with pneumonia. He died of the illness in his London home on January 8, 1998, days after his ninety-third birthday.

1918 – Clyde E. Martin (d.2014) was an American sexologist. He was an assistant to Alfred Kinsey on the Kinsey Reports and served as a co-author on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.

Martin commenced study in economics at Indiana University in 1937. Soon after in December 1938 Martin actively sought out Kinsey and gave Kinsey his sexual history. The pair formed a bond, and Kinsey offered the cash-strapped Martin work in his garden. From spring 1939, he was assisting Kinsey with tabulation of his sexual history surveys. In 1941 when funding for the project was received from the National Research Council, Martin became the first researcher hired by the project. In 1960 he resigned from the Institute for Sex Research to pursue his doctoral degree, receiving his Ph.D. (in social relations) from Johns Hopkins University in 1966. From 1966 until 1989, he conducted research, specializing in gerontology and sociology at the Francis Scott Key Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. He retired in 1989, and died on 5 December 2014, aged 96.

In May 1942, Martin married his girlfriend, Alice, in the garden of the Kinseys' house. Before marrying, he had a sexual relationship with Alfred Kinsey.

The 2003 musical Dr. Sex focuses on the relationship between Martin, Kinsey and his wife, with the character of Wally Matthews being based

1928 – Ray Kassar was president, and later CEO, of Atari Inc. from 1978 to 1983. He had previously been executive vice-president of Burlington Industries, the world's largest textile company at the time, and president of its Burlington House division. A member of the Board of Directors, Kassar had spent over thirty years at Burlington.

Ray Kassar was hired in February 1978 as president of Atari Inc.'s consumer division by Warner Communications, which at the time owned Atari. By this time, rifts had begun to develop between the original Atari Inc. staff (most of whom had engineering backgrounds) and the new hires brought in by Warner (who, like Kassar, mostly had business backgrounds).

In November 1978, when Atari Inc. co-founder Nolan Bushnell left the company after a dispute with Warner over the future of Atari Inc., Kassar became CEO. Under his leadership, sweeping changes were made at Atari and the laid-back atmosphere that had existed under Bushnell's leadership all but disappeared. Kassar's twenty-five years at Burlington Industries had given him a taste for order, organization, and efficiency and his efforts to revamp Atari along similar lines provoked substantial animosity. Kassar shifted the focus away from game development and more toward marketing and sales. Atari Inc. began to promote games all year around instead of just at the Christmas season. R&D also suffered deep cuts and the discipline and security at Atari Inc. became strict.

In a sense he also helped create the video game maker Activision. While Kassar was at Atari he angered a large number of the game developers by not crediting them in any way to the point where they walked out of Atari. He told them that they were no more important to the games then the people that worked on the assembly line. They started their own company and called it Activision.

Ray Kassar is the namesake the widely popular game “ Yar’s Revenge.” The creator of the game was a former employee at Atari “Yar” is Ray spelled backwards. The title is a deliberate jab at Kassar, mocking his dictator-like work ethic as well as his flamboyant manner. Ray Kassar was known by the employees at Atari to be an extremely flamboyant homosexual outside the work place. Employees didn't care what his sexual preferences were, but they were irked by his daily habit of being chauffeured to work in a limo and then proceeding to make grand entrances into the office.

Kassar built Atari into a video game giant that it was, before he was forced to resign because of allegations of insider trading in 1983. He sold all of his shares in Atari just hours before a report was published that Atari had suffered monetary loses in the millions.

1929 – Charles Beaumont (d.1967) is born Charles Leroy Nutt. He was an American author of speculative fiction, including short stories in the horror and science fiction subgenres. He is remembered as a writer of classic Twilight Zone episodes, such as "The Howling Man", "Miniature", "Printer's Devil", and "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You", but also penned the screenplays for several films, among them 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The Intruder, and The Masque of the Red Death.

In 1954, Playboy magazine selected his story “Black Country.” Playboy has been loved by straight men for decades but it was this gay short story that built its reputation. Hugh Hefner was the only one to accept a science fiction story about heterosexuals being the minority against homosexuals. When letters poured in, he said: 'If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society, then the reverse was wrong too.'

1961 – Todd Haynes is an American independent film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his feature films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Poison, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, and the Academy Award-nominated Far from Heaven and I'm Not There.

In 1987, while an MFA student at Bard College, Haynes made a short, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, which chronicles the life of American pop singer Karen Carpenter, using Barbie dolls as actors. The film presents Carpenter's struggle with anorexia and bulimia, featuring several close-ups of Ipecac (the prescription drug Carpenter was reputed to have used to make herself vomit during her illness). Carpenter's chronic weight loss was portrayed by using a "Karen" Barbie doll with the face and body whittled away with a knife, leaving the doll looking skeletonized. The film is also notable for staged dream sequences in which Karen, in a state of deteriorating mental health, imagines being spanked by her father.

Superstar featured extensive use of Carpenter songs, showcasing Haynes' love of popular music (which would be a recurring feature of later films). Haynes failed to obtain proper licensing to use the music, prompting a lawsuit from Karen's brother Richard Carpenter for copyright infringement. Carpenter was reportedly also offended by Haynes' unflattering portrayal of him as a narcissistic bully, along with several broadly dropped suggestions that he was gay and in the closet. Carpenter won his lawsuit, and Superstar was removed from public distribution; to date, it may not be viewed publicly. Bootlegged versions of the film are still circulated, and the film is sporadically made available on YouTube.

Haynes' 1991 feature film debut, Poison, garnered Haynes further acclaim and controversy. Drawing on the writings of "transgressive" gay writer Jean Genet, the film is a triptych of queer-themed narratives, each adopting a different cinematic genre: vox-pop documentary ("Hero"), 50s sci-fi horror ("Horror") and gay prisoner love story ("Homo"). The film explores traditional perceptions of homosexuality as an unnatural and deviant social force, and presents Genet's vision of sado-masochistic gay love as a subversion of heterosexual norms, culminating with a marriage ceremony between two gay male convicts. Poison marked Haynes' first collaboration with producer Christine Vachon, who has since produced all of Haynes' feature films.

Poison was partially funded with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The film subsequently became the center of a public attack by Reverend Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, who criticized the NEA for funding Poison and other works by gay and lesbian artists and filmmakers. Wildmon, who had not viewed the film before making his comments publicly, condemned the film's "explicit porno scenes of homosexuals involved in anal sex", despite no such scenes appearing in the film.

Poison went on to win the 1991 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize, establishing Haynes as an emerging talent and the voice of a new transgressive generation. The film writer B. Ruby Rich cited Poison as one of the defining films of the emerging New Queer Cinema movement, with its focus on maverick sexuality as an anti-establishment social force.

Haynes achieved his greatest critical and commercial success to date with Far From Heaven (2002), a 1950s-set melodrama inspired by the films of Douglas Sirk about a Connecticut housewife Cathy Whittaker (Julianne Moore) who discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) is secretly gay, and subsequently falls in love with Raymond, her African-American gardener (Dennis Haysbert).

Haynes is openly gay. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

2005 – Bonnie Bleskachek became the first openly lesbian fire chief of a major city, Minneapolis. She was demoted two years later amid claims of harassment and discrimination, but return to the department as a staff captain. She co-founded the Minnesota Women Fire Fighters Association.

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franciegummstarstruck · 8 months

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My new JG fanfic, "Soldier Boy"..

Judy was seated in a sleek set chair, lightly puffing on a cigarette while listening to another one of Mr. Louis B. Mayer's lectures inside his stark white pretentious studio office.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Judy. Your mother has informed me that you're spending too much time at night clubs. Dating men twice your age and staying out much too late for a girl your age.." Mr. Mayer grumbled while organizing a stack of papers on his enormous desk.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mayer. I will try to get in earlier..but I am over eighteen. And I can assure you, the men I go out with are complete gentlemen." Judy confidently replied.

"All gentlemen are wolves." he retorted.

Judy low-spiritedly looked down at her lap.

"Why, a young lady like you can get in all kinds of trouble running around night clubs with over sexed actors and Latin lovers. Just the other day, I read in some movie magazine that you and Tony Martin were seen French kissing over cocktails at Ciro's!"

Judy's big beautiful brown eyes popped out and her mouth fell open.

"But, Mr. Mayer. That never happened. Although, I admit it would've been sorta nice if it had.." she replied with a teasing smile.

"Stop behaving like a silly schoolgirl! This studio is not paying you to flounce around Hollywood as a party girl. You are one of the most important stars on the lot and we're going to make sure your reputation stays untarnished." he fired back.

Judy soberly looked at Mr. Mayer and gently put out her cigarette in the ceramic ash tray resting on the studio executive's desk.

"And that's another thing..you're not to be seen smoking in public. Photographers are everywhere in this town...it's bad for publicity. Your wholesome image is important. The studio is going to protect that image for as long as you're under contract here, young lady." Mr. Mayer continued.

"Greer Garson smokes in public." the pretty young actress spoke up.

Mr. Mayer flashed a stern look at Judy.

"Ms. Garson isn't America's little sweetheart."

"America's little sweetheart? I thought that was Shirley Temple." Judy sassily replied with a cute chuckle.

Unamused, Louis B. Mayer straightened his necktie and took off his glasses to clean them with a nearby handkerchief.

"Judy, I want you to know that I've come to think of you like a daughter. I'm proud of you. So proud of your work. Don't you realize that whatever I advise you to do or not do is for your own good?"

Judy dutifully nodded with a sigh.

At that moment, Mr. Mayer sprung up from his leather chair.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I visited the set of "Naughty Marietta" back in 35' and directed a scene with Jeanette MacDonald?" he boasted, putting his spectacles back on.

"Yes, Mr. Mayer, I think so." Judy answered.

Of course, she had heard him recount that tiresome story many times before in meetings over the years, but always listened with wide-eyed eagerness.

"There was this long flight of stairs..and I showed Jeanette exactly how she should glide down those steps into Nelson Eddy's arms.." Mr. Mayer dramatically rattled on, taking out of his desk drawer an old ostentatious wig.

"So help me, if he puts that ghastly thing on top of his head and starts singing I'm leaving.." Judy mused.

Mr. Mayer went on and on about how he saved the picture from disaster and with steel tears in his eyes began to croon a few lines of "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" while pretending to showgirl-like walk down a flight of imaginary stairs.

Judy held back from wanting to burst out with laughter watching this grown man cavort around the room like an idiot.

Just then, there was a brisk knock on the door, interrupting Mr. Mayer's impromptu performance. All at once, the movie mogul halted his act.

"WHO IS IT?!" he belted out, wiping his brow with a hankie.

The door swung open and to Judy's sweet surprise, there stood a tall, gorgeous Navy sailor boy.

"Who are you?" Mr. Mayer snapped.

"I'm Guy Madison. I had an appointment today, sir." the serviceman answered with an apprehensive smile.

Judy turned around in her chair and felt her heart flip looking up at the hunky young man.

Louis B. Mayer glanced down at his wrist watch.

"Oh, that's right. It completely slipped my mind. Well, you'll have to come back in another hour, young man. I'm running a little behind schedule today." he brashly replied, clearing his throat.

The wavy haired young man glanced down at Judy for a moment.

"Oh, excuse me. How do you do?" he shyly mumbled.

Mr. Mayer took his wallet out of his suit pocket and frisked out a few dollar bills.

"Here, go and get yourself some lunch at the commissary. And keep the change."

"OK. Thank you, sir." he said, briefly stepping inside the office to take the cash from Louis B. Mayer's right hand.

Judy pensively watched young Mr. Madison scat out of the room while Mr. Mayer returned to his desk.

"Ok, Judy. That's all for today. You can go now and enjoy your lunch, too. But, remember..no splitting a burger with another actor or indulging in a slice of cake. You have to stay pretty and slim for the camera."

"Yes, Mr. Mayer." she muttered in a lamblike tone. "I've got to find myself another job." Judy thought to herself.

⋆˙⟡♡₊˚⊹. .⊹˚₊♡⟡˙⋆ ⋆˙⟡♡₊˚⊹. .⊹˚₊♡⟡˙⋆

Arriving at the studio commissary, Judy decidedly joined a table occupied by fellow starlets, Ann Rutherford and bathing beauty newcomer Esther Williams. The ladies exchanged pleasantries and then dived into usual girl talk after ordering their lunch plates.

Judy was served a pineapple cottage cheese salad with a bowl of chicken broth soup and a small glass of coke. While Ann and Esther were indulging in big fat juicy cheese burgers and tall milk shakes. Both gals offered to split their burgers with Judy but she politely refused. She had to stick to a strict low-calorie diet at the studio in order to stay on the payroll.

"Gee, Judy. I don't know how you do it. I'd faint from hunger if I had to follow a liquid diet like that!" Ann exclaimed.

"Believe me, it's not easy. But, what can I do about it? I have to keep myself slim for the movies." Judy replied, sipping her bland soup.

"You need to revolt! You're one of the biggest stars at MGM. They need you more than you need them. Movie goers love you..and it has nothing to do with how slim you look." Esther spoke up.

"That's easy for you to say, darling. You can eat anything and not gain a pound!" Judy quickly responded.

"It's all that swimming Essie does" Ann chimed in.

"That's true..the studio has me kicking underwater most of the time!" Esther replied with a wry chuckle.

Just then, a good-looking serviceman, seated all alone at a table, caught the attention of Ann.

"Who's that dreamboat?" she uttered while finishing her strawberry milkshake.

Judy and Esther turned around to look at the handsome gentleman from across the room.

"Wow. He is dreamy. I've never seen him before. Must be a new guy around here.." Esther said, swooning.

"He is a new guy around here. His name is Guy Madison." Judy nonchalantly replied.

"You mean to say that, that cute guy's first name is Guy?!" Ann inquired with a giggle.

Judy smiled and nodded.

"That's right! We met informally in Mr. Mayer's office this morning.."

Esther softly interrupted, "Don't look now..but he's looking your way, Judy."

"He probably wants to come over to our table and strike up a conversation. Well, whatever..I've got to run, girls. I have a hairdresser appointment. The next time you see me, I'll be a redhead!" Ann lively expressed, rising from her chair.

The ladies heartily giggled.

Then, Esther looked down at her tiny gold wristwatch.

"Oh, my goodness. I'm gonna have to scat too. I have a meeting with some photographers at the pool. Call me later, Judy honey. You can tell me how it worked out with your sigh guy." she exclaimed with a wink.

After Ann and Esther said, "Toodles" to Judy, the dashing young sailor made his way over to her table.

"Hello, again." he warmly said, with a nice grin.

Judy felt a rush of butterflies in her stomach.

"Hello." she uttered with an inviting smile back.

"May I join you for lunch?" he asked.

"Yes, of course." she replied.

Guy took a seat straight across from Judy at her table.

"You're awfully pretty close-up..you know, you're the first movie star that's said a word to me all day...I guess around here I kinda look like a misfit..my Navy uniform and everything.." he rambled on in a sweet, vulnerable manner.

"Gee whiz. He's so open and genuine, it's refreshing. Not like most of the men I've dated" Judy mused.

"Are you an actor?" she asked.

"No, but my agent thinks I could be." Guy replied with a boyish grin.

A waitress came by with the serviceman's lunch after realizing he moved to Miss Garland's table. A large delicious looking steak sandwich with hash browns and onion rings. And a cup of coffee.

"This looks great, thank you." he said, looking up at the waitress.

Judy's big beautiful brown eyes widened, eyeing all that scrumptious food across the table.

Guy couldn't help but see her reaction and remarked, "Would you like half of my sandwich? The lunch they served you certainly didn't look very filling."

"Thank you..but I'm not allowed to split a sandwich with another actor. I'm on a strict diet. Studio rules." Judy replied with a deep sigh.

Guy reached for a fork and knife, cut his steak hoagie in half.

"Well, I'm not an actor yet. I'm a first class Navy seaman. So, you won't be breaking any rules."

Judy burst out with a cute giggle that wrinkled her nose.

"That's right!" she said, discreetly taking a half of Guy's tasty looking sandwich off his plate.

"I sure hope the studio doesn't put me on any crazy diet. That's if, I get employed. I'm crossing my fingers. My agent luckily got me an appointment with Mr. Mayer today. I sure hope Mr. Mayer won't hold it against me, interrupting your meeting like I did earlier. I feel like such a dope." he confided, while munching away at his lunch.

"Don't worry about that! Mr. Mayer's bark is worse than his bite! I'm sure he's forgotten all about it." she encouragingly replied, kiping an onion ring off his plate.

Guy chuckled and playfully slapped her hand.

"Tu es un mignon petit briseur de règles." he uttered.

Judy flashed a quizzical look back.

"What does that mean?"

Guy cheekily leaned forward.

"It's French for, you're a cute little rule breaker."

Judy threw back her head in laughter.

Guy picked up the menu on the table.

"Now, let's see what sounds good for dessert.." he mumbled with a grin.

"Do you speak French, fluidly?" she asked.

"Yeah. I picked it up while stationed for a few months in the South of France." he casually replied taking a sip of his coffee.

"Oh, I'd love to visit Paris someday!" Judy said enthusiastically.

"A couple of shipmates and I drove up to Paris for a weekend. It was beautiful, if you like old buildings, art museums, and French pastry...you know, there wasn't one hot dog stand around?" he bluntly expressed.

Judy snickered and snuck another onion ring off Guy's plate.

The good-hearted sailor boy chuckled.

"Do you like chili dogs? You know, it's kinda funny..once I ordered a bowl of chili and a hot dog at The Stork Club in New York. I poured the chili all over that hot dog and the waiter just about had a fit..not to mention my date!" he vocalized with an impish grin.

Judy chuckled.

"I love hot dogs..but I've never ordered one at a night club!" she replied.

Guy broke out with a hearty chuckle. And then, suddenly, the young man grew quiet, noticing the time on a wall clock in the commissary.

"Well, Judy. It's been a lot of fun talking with you over lunch..but, I'm gonna have to scoot. I don't want to be late for my appointment with Mr. Mayer."

"Oh, I understand. I've enjoyed our chat and thanks for sharing your lunch with me." Judy replied with a wink.

She then took a little pen out of her purse, scribbled her phone number on a napkin.

"Let me know how your meeting went later on.." Judy replied, handing the napkin to the cute sailor boy.

Guy beamed.

"Thanks, I will!..and if you're not busy tonight, would you like to see a show or go out dancing? I've heard there's a great new rhumba band at Ciro's." he mentioned.

"I'd love to. Ciro's is my favorite night spot!" Judy bubbly replied.

"Then it's a date!" he said with a big smile.

"We'll order chili and hot dogs..and you can teach me French.." she uttered with a winsome smile.

Guy burst out laughing.

"I don't think you can learn French in just one night." he quipped.

"Well, we can start with the basics. Like, for instance..a kiss.." Judy flirted back.

Guy blushed all over.

"A French kiss??"

"Yes! I'm dying to learn and this time, the press can finally print something true about me for a change!"

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ The End ♥

@KristenRaeJohnson

#judy garland #guy madison #esther williams #ann rutherford #french kiss #fanfiction #golden age of hollywood

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chaoticdesertdweller · 4 months

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Born in Staunton, Virginia, William Haines ran off to live life on his own terms while still in his teens, moving to New York City and becoming friends with such later Hollywood luminaries as designer Orry-Kelly and Cary Grant. His film career started slowly, but by the end of the silent era, he was regularly named as the #1 male box-office draw. He also became fast friends with a number of contemporaries, such as Joan Crawford (pictured with Haines) and Marion Davies, whose fame would eclipse his.

"Joan Crawford thought we should get married. This was back in the 1920s, when I was a star and she was a rising flapper. It wasn't just a crass question of her ambition; we were very good but platonic friends. I told her, ''Cranberry' --my pet name for her--'That isn't how it works in Hollywood. They usually pair men who like men and ladies who like ladies.' Because if we both liked men, where would we be as man and wife? She'd resent me, and that would be the end of our beautiful friendship."

His career faded rapidly in the early 1930s, and he was finally released allegedly due to a fight with MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer over Haines' refusal to end his relationship with his lover, Jimmie Shields. However, as his film career ended, his interior design career blossomed, resulting in major work for Jack L. Warner and the Bloomingdales, and culminating in the refurbishing of the American ambassador's residence in London, England.

Although Haines was quite open about his homosexuality and entertained many of Hollywood's gay set - including George Cukor and Clifton Webb - his story is missing from many histories of the era. Haines and Shields remained a couple for 50 years; Crawford called them "the happiest married couple in Hollywood." - via Imdb

#william haines #black and white photography #vintage photography #movie history #local history #staunton #virginia #local celebrity #silent era #lgbtq+#lgbtq+ history #lgbtq+ icons #joan crawford

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filmnoirfoundation · 1 year

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Today at #TCMFF, FNF prez Eddie Muller will be discussing THE RED SHOES with film director Ernest Dickerson prior to its screening, 11:45 am at the TCL Chinese Theatres House 6.

TCMFF film notes:

For decades, young women have been inspired to study ballet by this elegant, romantic depiction of the life of a classical dancer. What started in the 1930s as a biography of Nijinsky for Alexander Korda and a vehicle for his wife, Merle Oberon, eventually became the crowning glory of the Archers, the production company founded by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The latter had been hired to write Korda’s Nijinsky film and was guided toward Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Red Shoes” as possible inspiration. When World War II delayed production and the Kordas’ divorce ended the project altogether, Pressburger bought the rights to his own work and slated it to follow a string of hits he had made with Powell, most recently Black Narcissus (1947).

By that point, the Nijinsky biopic had been forgotten, but the dancer’s mentor, Sergei Diaghilev, served as inspiration for one of the film’s central characters: the tyrannical impresario Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who refuses to allow his dancers to marry on artistic principle. He has two protégés in the film, the composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and the young ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer). He commissions Craster to write a ballet based on “The Red Shoes” and gives the leading role to Page, setting the stage for a conflict in which Page is torn between her career and her love for the young composer.

With its climactic 20-minute ballet, the film had a tremendous influence on other filmmakers, most notably Gene Kelly, who used it as inspiration for his own ballet in An American in Paris (1951). The Red Shoes’s expressive use of Technicolor (shot by Jack Cardiff) and music (by Brian Easdale) inspired generations of filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola. The picture even created a fashion trend. In the ‘60s, the Italian glitterati aped Lermontov’s practice of wearing dark glasses constantly, even indoors, a character trait Powell and Pressburger had picked up from Walbrook himself.

d. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 135 minutes, DCP

Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in association with the British Film Institute, The Film Foundation, ITV Global Entertainment, Ltd. and Janus Films. Preservation funding provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Film Foundation and the Louis B. Mayer FoundationCourtesy of MGM and Park Circus LLC

75TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING

#tcmff #eddie muller #the red shoes #powell and pressburger

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justbusterkeaton · 11 months

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“He would spend his couple of hundred bucks a week buying Meccano sets, and he would put together these Rube Goldberg contraptions! He built a cigarette lighter that was yay high, and so big, and he’d put a cigarette in it, and it traveled through Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds…round and round, came out at the top. An American flag went up on a flagpole, a picture of Louis B. Mayer went up on a flagpole, and the thing handed you a lighted cigarette. I’ll never forget that. It was a real picture of Hollywood!”

In fact, the cigarette lighter, three feet in height and composed of 567 separate parts, was exhibited at San Francisco’s Union Label and Industrial Exhibition in 1940. “I built this thing in my spare time from one of those mechanical sets you give children,” he said at the time.The difference between my invention and Rube Goldberg? Mine works, while his are crazy!”

Excerpt from Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life by James Curtis

#buster keaton #rube goldberg #james curtis #Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life #silent movies #comedy #meccano #golden age of hollywood #hollywood #slapstick #rube goldberg machine

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dweemeister · 27 days

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Programming note: MGM100

Having already missed out on Columbia Pictures' 100th anniversary this last January, I wasn't about to ignore yet another - and arguably more historically important - anniversary upcoming.

The upcoming marathon will be tagged MGM100 and will appear Tuesdays and Wednesdays this month (beginning later this evening). Featured films will be posted/queued in roughly chronological order.

This April marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), the result of a merger between three silent film-era production companies in Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Within a decade, MGM became one of the major Hollywood studios*, boasting that it had contracted "more stars than there are in heaven".

By the end of the 1930s, it was undoubtedly the biggest, most stable, financially successful, and most powerful of all of those studios. Some of the most lavish productions in film history were shot on its Culver City lot (which is now Sony Pictures Studios for Columbia's use, as well used by the American versions of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune) and MGM's reputation for being the home of the greatest Hollywood movie musicals (1939's The Wizard of Oz, 1952's Singin' in the Rain) was unrivaled. Not until the Walt Disney Studios of the 2010s would Hollywood ever see a studio so dominant in the industry.

The good times did not last. Following the spectacular Ben-Hur (1959), MGM embarked upon a misguided financial strategy of releasing one big-budget epic film ever year and releasing fewer movies per year. Upon Kirk Kerkorian's purchase of MGM in 1969, Kerkorian decided to slowly convert MGM into a real estate and hotel and casino company and approved of the near-complete disposal of the studio's music library - thrown into a landfill now underneath a golf course.

MGM ceased being a major studio in 1986 upon Ted Turner's purchase of the studio and decision to almost immediately resell the studio back to Kerkorian (Turner, crucially, kept the rights to the pre-May 1987 MGM library, which formed the original basis of Turner Classic Movies, TCM). Multiple financial crises since 1986 (including a 2010 bankruptcy) have seen MGM fall even further from its once-lofty perch. Amazon purchased MGM (including the less cinematically interesting post-May 1987 library, although this includes the rights to the Rocky and James Bond series) in October 2023; only time will tell what Amazon plans to do with the studio.

***

So please join me this month as my blog features a celebration for a century of MGM. From epics such as Ben-Hur (1925 original and 1959 remake) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); romances such as Waterloo Bridge (1940) and Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022); comedies such as The Thin Man (1934) and American Fiction (2023); animation such as the Tom and Jerry series and The Secret of NIMH (1982); and musicals such as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and Victor/Victoria (1982), MGM's history is among the richest of any studio out there. I certainly hope you enjoy the marathon coming to your dashboards soon!

* MGM was considered a major studio alongside Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros.; Columbia, United Artists, and Universal were considered the "Little Three"; Disney would not be a major studio until the 1990s.

#MGM100 #MGM #programming note

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todaysdocument · 2 years

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On 9/19/1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed witnesses on the “inroads the communists have made in Hollywood.”

Among the witnesses were Charlie Chaplin, Ronald Reagan, Walt Disney, and others.

File Unit: Exhibits, Evidence and Other Records of the Investigative Section of the Internal Security Committee During the 79th through 94th Congresses Related to the Hollywood Black List, 1945 - 1976

Series: Committee Papers, 1945 - 1975

Record Group 233: Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789 - 2015

Transcription:

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

September 19, 1947

Honorable J. Parnell Thomas, Chairman of the Committee on Un-American Activities issued the following statement for release Sunday morning ["Sunday morning" underlined] newspapers, September 21, 1947:

"Subpoenaes have been issued and are now in the process of being served upon the following witnesses to appear in Washington beginning October 20 in connection with the Committee on Un-American Activities' forthcoming hearing on communist influences in the motion picture industry:

Alva H. Bessie

Roy E. Brewer

Herbert Biberman

Berthold Brecht

Lester Cole

Gary Cooper

Charles Chaplin

Joseph E. Davies

Walt Disney

Edward Dmytryk

Cedric Gibbons

Samuel Goldwyn

Rupert Hughes

Eric Johnston

Howard Koch

Ring Lardner, Jr.

John Howard Lawson

Louis B. Mayer

Albert Maltz

Thomas Leo McCarey

Lowell Mellett

James McGuiness

Lewis Milestone

Adolph Menjou

Sam Moore

John Charles Moffitt

Robert Montgomery

George Murphy

Clifford Odets

Larry Parks

William Pomerance

Ronald Reagan

Lela E. Rogers

Howard Rushmore

Morrie Ryskind

Adrian Scott

Dore Schary

Donald Ogden Stewart

Robert Taylor

Waldo Salt

Dalton Trumbo

Jack L. Warner

Sam Wood

The order of appearance of the witnesses will be announced at a later date.

In making public the names of the witnesses, however, I want to emphasize that the mere fact they are being called to testify before the Committee should not be considered a reflection in any way upon their character or patriotism. These persons are being brought with the sole objective of obtaining the facts regarding the inroads the communists have made in Hollywood. Some of the witnesses are friendly to the Committee's purposes. Others are undoubtedly hostile. The Committee wants to hear both sides.

[page 2]

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

- 2 -

The Committee had originally hoped to begin this hearing on September 29. However, a number of unforeseen circumstances have arisen regarding the membership of the Committee which necessitates a delay until October 20, in order that all members may be present for this important hearing. Mr. Mundt and Mr. Nixon are now in Europe as members of Congressional committees studying conditions there. Mr. Veil is convalescing from a recent operation, and Mr. Peterson has informed me that he cannot possibly attend the hearings this month. I feel quite certain, however, that all the members will be available by October 20.

Hearings will begin as scheduled September 24 on the Hanns Eisler phase of this hearing. This cannot be delayed until the October date for the reason that all of the witnesses have been subpoenaed and are in Washington at this time, some having been brought from foreign countries. The announced witnesses in the Hanns Eisler care are as follows:

Sumner Welles

P.C. Hutton, Second Secretary and Consul, Guatemala City, Guatemala

George S. Messermith, former Ambassador to Argentina

Joseph Savoretti, Asst. Commissioner for Adjudication U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Clarence R. Porter, Chief Inspector U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Hearings will begin in the Caucus Room of the Old House Office Building, at 10:30 A.M., September 24.

I should also like to announce at this time that I intend to make a nation-wide radio address early in October relative to the Hollywood hearing."

#archivesgov #September 19 #1947 #1940s #postwar #HUAC #House Un-American Activities Committee #communism #red scare #Hollywood

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byneddiedingo · 1 year

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John Turturro and John Goodman in Barton Fink (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 1991)

Cast: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi. Screenplay: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Cinematography: Roger Deakins. Production design: Dennis Gassner. Film editing: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music: Carter Burwell.

The Coen brothers are nothing if not audacious, and attempting something so outrageous and anomalous as Barton Fink at the beginning of their careers -- it was their fourth feature, after Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), and Miller's Crossing (1990) -- shows a certain amount of courage. It's a melange of satire, horror movie, comedy, thriller, fantasy, and fable that had many critics singing its praises. It was their first film to receive notice from the Motion Picture Academy, earning three Oscar nominations: supporting actor Michael Lerner, art directors Dennis Gassner and Nancy Haigh, and costume designer Richard Hornung. And it was the unanimous choice for the Palme d'Or at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival; Joel Coen also won as best director and John Turturro as best actor. Evidently it took everyone by surprise. But although it's a provocative and unsettling movie, there's not enough of any one element in the melange to suggest to me that it's more than the work of a couple of extraordinarily talented writer-directors riffing on whatever comes to their minds. Barton (Turturro) is a playwright whose hit on Broadway in 1941 gets him a bid to come work in Hollywood. There, studio head Jack Lipnick (Lerner) assigns him to write a wrestling picture for Wallace Beery. Stymied in his attempt to come up with a screenplay, Barton decides to pick the brain of a famous novelist who has also come to work in Hollywood, W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney). The playwright, the studio head, and the novelist are all caricatures of Clifford Odets, Louis B. Mayer, and William Faulkner, respectively. Each caricature is well-done: What we see of Barton's play is a deft parody of the Odets-style leftist "little people" dramas like Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing! that Odets was known for. Lipnick is a rich, sentimental vulgarian with a mean streak, who like Mayer was born in Minsk. And Mayhew not only goes by the name "Bill," as Faulkner did among his friends and family, he also has a wife back home named Estelle, just as Faulkner did. Moreover, he is an alcoholic who is looked after in Hollywood by his mistress, Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis), who is clearly based on Faulkner's Hollywood mistress, Meta Carpenter. But then we have the turns into horror-fantasy when Barton tries to hole up in a Los Angeles hotel and makes friends with his next-door neighbor, an insurance salesman named Charlie Meadows (John Goodman). Good-time Charlie is later revealed to be a serial killer named Karl Mundt -- another of the Coens' in-jokes: The real-life Karl Mundt was a right-wing dunce who represented South Dakota (neighbor state to the Coens' Minnesota) in Washington from 1939 to 1973. Clearly, Barton Fink is not without a certain baroque fascination to it. It's the kind of film you can spend hours analyzing and annotating. But this makes it, for me, little more than a fabulous mess.

#Barton Fink #Joel Coen #Ethan Coen #John Turturro #John Goodman

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citizenscreen · 2 years

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A birthday party for Myrna Loy on set of ANOTHER THIN MAN (1939).

Pictured: Louis B. Mayer, Myrna, William Powell, and W.S. Van Dyke

#myrna loy #louis b. mayer #william powell #ws van dyke

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lesbiancolumbo · 2 years

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katharine hepburn, if you havent already done her?

this entry seems to have been written while kate was still alive, so keep that in mind:

Survival alone might have enshrined Hepburn as one of the cinema’s greatest actresses, or characters. Add to that twelve Academy Award nominations and four Oscars, three of them when she was past sixty. She is so remarkable, she may have given the misleading impression that Hollywood is interested in old people. There was also the sentimental appeal of her long friendship offscreen (and the affectionate bantering on it) with Spencer Tracy.

She is no longer quite here (her health has been bad for several years), but it’s no wonder she is regarded with reverence. She has become an institution, claiming to be mystified that so many millions of strangers adore her. But she has avoided scandal and those eccentric flights of folly that beset so many elderly stars. When she came to do her autobiography, she took it for granted that we would know who Me was. The book was as brisk as a swim before breakfast, full of omissions and commissions, blissfully egocentric, and glowingly proud of her tomboy fondness for “strong” men like Tracy, George Stevens, John Ford, Howard Hughes, John Huston, and Louis B. Mayer (who never had a better champion). The book was bought by just about anyone who had two hours to read it. But maybe it changed Hepburn a little in our eyes. The vanity was breathtaking—from another age.

Hepburn was long regarded by Hollywood as an outsider, partly because she could not conceal her disdain or her healthy superiority. She did not work that much: after seventeen films in her first ten years, she made only twenty-one in the next thirty years. That sounds like discrimination, yet she made plenty of clinkers. It is likely that in the 1940s and 1950s she was hurt and perplexed that her best work so often confirmed her reputation as box-office poison. She smacked of class; her very voice rose above the mainstream, like a lace hem being lifted above mud. But there is something else: she had character, wit, intelligence, and moral being, and those things can seem cold and sexless on camera. She was most romantic when busy, doing things; not for her the passionate stillness of close-ups, rapt kissing, or worse. There are many women who like her just because she refused such “nonsense.” But the neglect had to do with her coldness, too. She is a true loner, someone who concentrates on herself.

The young Hepburn was a creature of enormous imaginative potency and showy breeding. It was said that she was not beautiful. Nonsense: she was ravishing despite thoroughbred features, a skinny body, and a deliberately, if not aggressively, emphasized Bryn Mawr accent. Her beauty grew out of her own belief in herself and from the viewer’s sense that she was living dangerously, exposing her own nerves and vulnerability along with her intelligence and sensibility. Like Jane Austen’s Emma Woodhouse, she was a moral being, sometimes at odds with herself, deluded or mistaken, but able to correct herself out of a grave and resilient honesty. Nobody on the screen could be so funny and so moving in making a fool of herself, or so touching in reclaiming her dignity. That is why screwball comedy seemed in her hands one of Hollywood’s most civilized forms and it is why Bringing Up Baby is so serious a film—without ever losing the status of being one of the funniest.

Her best work has not dated a fraction of an inch: from 1932 to 1945, she had it in her to be the most interesting, difficult, challenging woman in American pictures. Why? I’d guess it has to do with her confusion, for she loved movies while disapproving of them.

#asks #thomson meme

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