Mark My Words

"That's Entertainment," by The Jam

2012-01-21T11:53:00.003-06:00

I’ve been listening to a lot of the British band The Jam lately. The Jam were a great band, mixing punk and new wave in their brief career. Paul Weller was the lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter in the band, with Bruce Foxton on bass and Rick Buckler on drums. Foxton’s bass playing was amazing, and it frequently provided the main melody for The Jam’s songs. The Jam never made much of a commercial impression in the United States, but in England they were very successful, with many top ten singles to their credit.

One of The Jam’s greatest songs is “That’s Entertainment,” from their 1980 album “Sound Affects.” It’s not to be confused with the song of the same name by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz from the 1953 Fred Astaire musical “The Band Wagon.” The Jam’s “That’s Entertainment” was written by Paul Weller in 10 minutes after coming home from the pub drunk. (That’s according to Weller, at least.) “That’s Entertainment” was never released as a single in the U.K., but amazingly enough, it charted as an import single, making #21 in the charts in early 1981.

“That’s Entertainment” is a great example of the power of music to communicate emotion. The melody, chords, and progression contain such emotion that you would know the feeling of the song even if you didn’t understand the words that Weller was singing. The song builds tension all through the verses before releasing some of that tension in the chorus. “That’s Entertainment” begins with a catchy guitar riff before Foxton’s bass line enters and provides a neat compliment to the main melody of the guitar. Then the guitar riff gets doubled and gets louder. Then Weller’s vocal enters and he sings the first verse:

“A police car and a screaming siren

A pneumatic drill and ripped up concrete

A baby wailing and stray dog howling

The screech of brakes and lamp light blinking”

Then the chorus, which is simply:

“That’s entertainment, that’s entertainment”

The verses all follow this pattern, seemingly disconnected images of everyday life. The only thread that connects the lyrics is their stark bleakness. In Weller’s lyrics here there is little happiness or pleasure, only bad things and images of urban decay. Weller’s voice is forceful and angry as he sings the verses, and it lightens somewhat as he sings the chorus. The words in the first verse tell us that this is not a happy landscape, the siren is “screaming,” the baby is “wailing,” the stray dog is “howling,” all images that set us on edge right from the beginning.

The second verse isn’t any happier, and it ends with:

“Lights going out and a kick in the balls”

Again, not a very happy image. But the second time through the chorus, after the second “That’s Entertainment,” Weller reaches up for a high “Ah, la la la la la,” giving the music a tremendous lift. The “la la la la la” melody then becomes a backing vocal behind the third verse, providing a kind of ironic counterpoint to Weller’s lyrics about “slow time Mondays” and “boring Wednesdays.” (I’m not sure if the backing vocal is sung by Weller or by Bruce Foxton.) The fourth verse provides a really terrible image:

“Waking up at 6AM on a cool warm morning

Opening the windows and breathing in petrol”

Ugh, what a terrible way to start the day. The beauty and tranquility of an early morning is shattered by the intrusive smell of gasoline. Nature is spoiled by man’s inventions. I’m not quite sure what a “cool warm morning” is, but it’s a nice turn of phrase. At the end of the verse Weller gives us the only escape so far from this stagnation and decay:

“Watching the telly and thinking ‘bout your holidays”

Which isn’t too uplifting. As the fifth verse begins, the only new sound in the record is introduced, a brief backwards guitar part that plays as Weller sings the verse. It’s unobtrusive enough that I didn’t even notice it the first few times I listened to the song. The fifth verse has one of my favorite lines:

“A hot summer’s day and sticky black tarmac”

Which isn’t that deep or anything, but I love the way it sounds. Everyone knows what a day is like when it’s so hot that the fresh tar on the roads bubbles up. And I love all the c’s and k’s in “sticky black tarmac.” It just wouldn’t be the same if Weller had written “sticky black asphalt.”

The sixth, and final, verse starts with the lines:

“Two lovers kissing amongst the scream of midnight

Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude”

This is simply great writing. In the first line Weller has subverted the usual romantic notions of kissing at midnight, which is usually thought to be the height of romance. But here midnight is not romantic at all, it screams. The next line further explodes the romantic notion of lovers being together. In Weller’s song the lovers aren’t happy that they are together, they are wishing for the other person to leave so they could be alone. In this song there is truly no escape from the harsh brutality of the world. So why do I keep listening to this song? Why does it draw me in? It’s the music that pushes the song forward and makes that chorus so powerful. The chorus is a release from the brutality of the verses, in the same way that entertainment is a release from the brutality of everyday life. Which may be Weller’s point. But maybe not, maybe the point is that we think entertainment is an escape, but it’s only a temporary forgetting of our problems, it doesn’t make our problems go away. “That’s Entertainment” is a truly great song that intrigues me a lot and keeps me listening to it over and over. It’s a great mix of a terrific melody and interesting lyrics. After the sixth verse and chorus, the song slowly fades out as the “la la la la la” section repeats again and again. And then I have to listen to this song again.

Extremely Belated Concert Reviews from 2011

2012-01-20T16:48:00.003-06:00

I went to some great concerts during 2011 that I never got around to writing about in detail, for whatever reason. So here are some reflections about those concerts.

Allen Toussaint, solo at the Dakota. An amazing show. I saw Allen with his band at the Dakota in 2009, but seeing him perform solo was just as awesome. He performed a lot of the hit songs he’s written over the years, including “Mother-In-Law” and “Java.” The highlight of the show was a 10 or 15 minute version of “Southern Nights” with Toussaint playing the melody of the song as he told stories about his childhood. It was beautiful and just mesmerizing.

Elvis Costello, the Spectacular Spinning Songbook Tour at the State Theater. So amazing! Elvis sang about 30 songs over almost 3 hours. I had high expectations for my first time seeing EC in concert, and this show definitely exceeded them. I can’t believe how much energy Elvis has. Elvis did some medleys where he mixed all kinds of songs together, both his own and other people’s, and I thought to myself that these medleys kind of explained his vision of music. Costello probably sees all kinds of music as being linked together, since his own music is so diverse. He gets the links between Broadway, jazz, rock, blues, country, folk, and just about any other genre you could name. Costello is a great showman, as he showed when he talked to the audience members who came up to spin the songbook wheel. He ended up performing just about every song listed on the wheel! Highlights included a gorgeous version of “Shipbuilding,” “Beyond Belief,” “Everyday I Write the Book,” which segued into Prince’s “Purple Rain,” and lovely solo versions of “A Slow Drag with Josephine,” and “Jimmie Standing in the Rain.” For the first time on this blog, the photo is one that I took from my seat.

U2, in the rain at TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota. It was worth the year wait. (The concert was postponed for a year because of Bono’s back injury.) The weather was fine during Interpol’s opening set, but once U2 took the stage it began to drizzle, and finally the skies just opened up. It was an exhilarating feeling, singing along with 60,000 other people to these beautiful, moving songs as rain poured down on us. When you can’t get out of the rain, eventually you get to a point where you’re as wet as you can possibly be, and you don’t seem to get wetter. The rain gave the show an amazing energy that makes this one of the most memorable concerts I’ve ever been to. This is what music is all about, the connections between 60,000 strangers who all know the words to the same song. The highlight for me was probably “Beautiful Day,” as it rained. Like Elvis, Bono also did an impromptu version of Prince’s “Purple Rain” during the encores.

Tony Bennett, Mystic Lake Casino. I’ve seen Tony twice before in concert, and this show was in late August shortly after he had turned 85. I can’t believe how good his voice still is. His voice is still so powerful, he hardly needs a microphone. Tony’s voice is a little ragged around the edges now, but I think that just gives his voice more emotion. Bennett obviously still gets such joy from performing, it’s really fun to see him. He still performs with just a quartet, giving the music a real jazz feel. Highlights included a beautiful version of “Cold, Cold Heart,” and of course, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

Concert Review: Peter Asher at the Dakota

2012-01-19T00:20:00.002-06:00

On Monday night I attended a really fun show at the Dakota. Peter Asher, of Peter and Gordon fame, brought his show to the Dakota. Asher sings Peter and Gordon songs, and tells stories about his life. It was a great night, and truly amazing to hear stories about the Beatles from someone who was actually there during the swinging 60’s. Asher is a great storyteller, and you can tell he’s a very smart and very nice guy. Here’s the background story on Peter Asher-his sister is the actress Jane Asher, who dated Paul McCartney during most of the 1960’s. Soon after Jane started dating Paul, Peter’s singing career with his school friend Gordon Waller was starting to take off. Peter asked Paul if there were any songs he’d written that he and Gordon could record. Paul gave “A World Without Love” to Peter and Gordon, and it became a number one single on both sides of the Atlantic in early 1964. In the US, it was the first number one single of the British Invasion by an artist other than the Beatles. Peter and Gordon went on to have 9 more Top 40 hits in the US, and after they split up, Peter went into producing. Asher was the A&R man at Apple Records, and it was while he was at Apple that he discovered a signed a young American singer/songwriter named James Taylor. Taylor’s first album was released on the Apple label, and when Allen Klein took over the Beatles’ business dealings Asher left and took Taylor with him. Asher became Taylor’s manager and produced several albums for him as Taylor went from unknown to superstar. Asher also managed and produced Linda Ronstadt during the 1970’s. Asher has produced lots of albums by big stars since the 1970’s, including several for Diana Ross and Neil Diamond.

Asher’s show consists of him singing several Peter and Gordon songs and telling stories about his life and music. The second half was a bit heavy on the talking, but all of Asher’s stories are still really interesting. Asher has assembled a very good band, so the songs sound very good. And Asher’s voice still sounds wonderful, so he can still hit those high notes that he did in the 1960’s. Unfortunately, Gordon Waller passed away in 2009, so we have to make do with Asher’s band harmonizing. Although Asher did harmonize with Gordon through the magic of video clips of Peter and Gordon performing in the 2000’s. Asher sang all of Peter and Gordon’s big hits, “I Go to Pieces,” “Nobody I Know,” “Lady Godiva,” “True Love Ways,” “Woman,” and of course, “A World Without Love.” Asher also told great stories about the Beatles, like how he was the first person other than John and Paul to hear the finished “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” John and Paul finished the song at the Asher’s house, and played it for Peter in the basement music room. Asher said it was an amazing moment, being present at the creation of a great work of art, even if it was just a pop song. Interestingly enough, Jane and Peter’s parents liked Paul enough to let him live in their house when he was in London! Paul and Peter shared the top floor, and Paul lived with the Asher’s until he bought his own house in St. John’s Wood around 1967. Peter Asher was also part owner of the Indica book shop and art gallery, which Paul was also involved in. The Indica hosted a show of Yoko Ono’s in late 1966, and it was at the opening of this show where John Lennon met Yoko for the first time.

I got to meet Peter Asher after the show, and he was a super nice guy. He seemed really down to earth, and not at all stuck up on his own importance. It was pretty cool to meet living rock and roll history, and a man who played an integral part in the story of the Beatles.

Vada Pinson-A Great Baseball Player

2012-01-04T17:12:00.003-06:00

While I was thrilled that Ron Santo was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame last month, I was also annoyed that Vada Pinson was not on the ballot. The Veteran’s Committee that voted Santo in examined the careers of players active during the “Golden Age,” defined by the Committee as 1947-72. Pinson’s major league career started in 1958 and ended in 1975, putting the bulk of his career within that time span. Apparently, the ballot went through a screening committee, and the committee felt that Pinson wasn’t good enough to be on the ballot. I strongly disagree with the decision of the screening committee, and I feel that Pinson should have been on the ballot. The extremely overdue election of Ron Santo proves that the writers and the Veteran’s Committee sometimes get it wrong, and it can take a long time to correct that wrong.

I don’t know if Vada Pinson should be a Hall of Famer, but he was a great player who should at least still be considered for the Hall of Fame. I’m too young to have ever seen Vada Pinson play, so I can’t sprinkle this post with anecdotes about the time I saw him make a game-winning catch in center field or hit a game-winning home run. I’ve never even seen film footage of Pinson playing. All I have are Pinson’s numbers, and they’re pretty darn good. I’m not quite sure why Pinson became a favorite player of mine. I got to know of him through his baseball cards, which I collected when I was a little kid. I always liked players with unique names, and Vada Pinson’s name was certainly unique. I also remember looking at his stats and seeing how high Pinson ranked among the all-time leaders in various categories. I thought, “Wow, he seems pretty good. Why isn’t he in the Hall of Fame?” (Pinson still ranks among the top 100 players in Games, At Bats, Runs, Hits, Total Bases, Doubles, and Triples.) I remember being saddened to read of his death in 1995, at the age of just 57. The notice of his passing that I read in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune was just a line or two. I want to shine more light on Vada Pinson and his career-he deserved much more than just a line or two.

As an adult baseball fan I look back at Pinson’s stats and I’m still very impressed. Pinson was a truly great player for the first half of his career, and an above-average player for the second half of his career. Pinson finished his career with 2,757 hits. If he could have remained a great player for just two or three more seasons he would have reached the 3,000 hit milestone and he would be a Hall of Famer for sure. (Although he would probably be the most obscure member of the 3,000 hit club.) Pinson’s career breaks almost exactly in half-from 1959 to 1967 he was a terrific player, and from 1968 to 1975 he was merely pretty good. After appearing in more than 150 games in every season from 1959-67, from 1968-75 Pinson never again appeared in 150 games in a season. Were nagging injuries the cause of his decline as a player? I’ve read online that he played with a broken leg for most of the 1969 season. I’m not quite sure how that’s possible, but that’s what I read.

Vada Pinson made his major league debut with the Cincinnati Reds in 1958, at the age of 19. Pinson began the 1958 season as the Reds’ starting right fielder. However, he quickly slumped and was sent down to the minors in May. After hitting .343 in the minors, he returned to the major leagues to stay in September of 1958. In 1959 Pinson shifted to center field, and he would go on to play 1,681 games in center field during his career. Pinson had a huge year in 1959, hitting .316, good for 4^th in the National League. Pinson also cracked 20 home runs, collected 205 hits, and lead the league with 47 doubles and 131 runs scored. He might have easily been Rookie of the Year, but he had slightly too many at bats in 1958 to be considered a rookie in 1959. Pinson quickly became friends with the Reds’ other African-American superstar, Frank Robinson. Ironically, Pinson and Robinson had attended the same high school, Oakland’s McClymonds High. McClymonds also boasted Cardinals center fielder Curt Flood and NBA great Bill Russell among its alumni.

Pinson and Robinson tore up National League pitching during the early 1960’s. The Reds went to the World Series in 1961, and Pinson and Robinson both played key roles in getting the Reds to the Series. Pinson hit a career-best .343 and led the league in hits. Robinson led the league in slugging, hit 37 home runs, and was voted the MVP. Pinson floundered in the World Series against the Yankees, getting just 2 hits as the Reds lost in 5 games. His batting average for the Series was an anemic .091. This would prove to be Pinson’s only post-season experience. Robinson was traded to the Orioles after the 1965 season, just after he turned 30. The Reds’ General Manager famously pronounced Robinson to be “an old 30.” (Robinson went on to win the Triple Crown and lead the Orioles to the World Series, where they swept the Dodgers.) Pinson was traded just after he turned 30 as well, after the 1968 season. Pinson had suffered through a lackluster 1968 season, hitting just 5 home runs. He was dealt to the Cardinals, where he teamed with Lou Brock and Curt Flood to make up an awesome outfield. (The second photo posted above is of Brock, Flood, and Pinson, from left to right.) However, 1969 would prove to be another disappointing season for Pinson, as he broke his leg and slumped to a .255 batting average, the lowest he had ever hit in the majors. Pinson was sort of a victim of bad timing in his trade to the Cardinals. Had the Reds traded Pinson after the 1966 season, Pinson could have played for the pennant-winning Cardinal teams of 1967 and 1968. On the other hand, if the Reds would have kept him for his entire career, Pinson would have played for the Big Red Machine team that won pennants in 1970, ’72, and ’75. After the 1969 season, Pinson was traded to the Cleveland Indians, and he rebounded, hitting 24 home runs-the most he ever hit in a season-and hitting .286. 1970 was Pinson’s last really good year. He spent the rest of his career in the American League, playing for the Indians in 1971, the Angels in 1972 and ’73, and finishing with the Royals in 1974 and ’75. He was reunited with Frank Robinson in 1973 when they both played for the Angels. (Robinson had a better year that Pinson, as he slugged 30 home runs.) After being released by the Royals after the 1975 season, Pinson was signed by the Brewers in early 1976. However, he was released by the Brewers on April 4, 1976, just 4 days before the season began. No other teams were interested in signing Pinson, and he retired.

That’s a short summary of Pinson’s major league career. He was a good hitter who usually hit for a pretty high average and he had good power, putting up solid totals of doubles, triples, and home runs. He was fast on the base paths, stealing 305 bases. He played most of his career in center field, a very demanding defensive position. From everything I’ve read about Pinson, he was a good defender who was quick and graceful in the outfield. So why isn’t Pinson a Hall of Famer? I think there are several reasons why Pinson has been so overlooked by the baseball writers and the Veteran’s Committee. (Of course, you could simply say that Pinson clearly isn’t a Hall of Famer, but I think it’s more complicated than that.) Pinson seems to have been underrated for just about his whole life. During the best years of his career, he was overshadowed by his teammate Frank Robinson. Pinson was also overshadowed by his fellow National League outfielders. Pinson played in the All-Star games in only two seasons, 1959 and 1960. However, from 1959 to 1962 2 All-Star games were played, so Pinson is either a 2-time or 4-time All-Star, depending on how you look at it. The outfielders that Pinson was competing against for the All-Star selection were Frank Robinson, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and Billy Williams, among others. Robinson, Mays, Aaron, and Clemente were some of the very best players to ever play the game, and Pinson simply wasn’t as good as they were. Pinson was also up against the same competition when it came to winning Gold Gloves for fielding excellence. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Curt Flood, and Roberto Clemente had virtual locks on the Gold Gloves while Pinson played. Pinson won one Gold Glove, in 1961.

Pinson is also a player without a “signature stat.” He fell short of 3,000 hits, which so far has ensured Hall of Fame election to everyone who surpassed it. Pinson had good power for his era, and he hit more than 20 home runs in a season 7 times. But his career high in a season was just 24, and he finished his career with 256 home runs, which is certainly a respectable total, but that alone won’t get you into the Hall of Fame. Pinson was also a gifted base stealer, swiping 305 bases during his career. But, like his home runs, this stat alone is not enough to get him in the Hall. In short, Pinson’s career numbers are very, very good, but he doesn’t have any stat that really stands out. And his totals have since been dwarfed by the numbers put up by players during the offense-heavy 1990’s and 2000’s.

After he retired, Pinson stayed in the game as a coach, and he coached nearly every season from 1977 until 1994. So he was at the major league level as either a player or coach for about 35 years. Oddly enough, Pinson’s visibility after his retirement did not help his Hall of Fame vote totals. Pinson got less than 5% of the vote his first 4 times on the HOF ballot, which now would get him kicked off the ballot. However, the rules were different at that time, and Pinson stayed on the ballot. After those first 4 votes, he was always above 5% of the vote, but seldom above 10%. His highest total was 15.7% in 1988, which is a long ways from the 75% of the votes required for election. I’m not sure what Pinson’s relationship with most of the press was, but he once punched Cincinnati beat writer Earl Lawson. Lawson had been riding Pinson in his columns, and they got into an argument in the locker room. Lawson said to Pinson, “If you want a piece of me Vada, come and get it.” And Vada did. Which begs the question: Why would you say something that dumb to a pro athlete? If I were a betting man, I would always put my money on the athlete to win the fight rather than the sportswriter. Judging from his baseball cards and just about every picture I’ve ever seen of him, Pinson looks like a really nice, happy guy. But if he were mad at me, I wouldn’t provoke him. Anyway, I wonder if the incident with Lawson hurt Pinson’s reputation with the press. Pinson seems to have had a quiet personality, which could be another factor in why he didn’t get much support for the Hall of Fame. He never seemed to get much attention from the press, and he never wrote an autobiography. I haven’t been able to find out much about Pinson’s life, and just about everything I know about him I’ve repeated in this post. Pinson was so quiet during his first spring training with the Reds that coach Jimmy Dykes thought Vada didn’t speak English. (Pinson was not foreign and was raised in Oakland.) Dykes attempted to communicate with Pinson using gestures and broken English until Vada said, “Mr. Dykes, if there is something you want me to do with my stance, please tell me.” Dykes was shocked.

Another reason why the baseball world is not clamoring for Vada Pinson to get into the Hall of Fame is that the new sabermetric stats don’t really help Pinson’s case very much. Sabermetric stats tend to place a great importance on drawing a walk, and that wasn’t one of Pinson’s strong points. His career OBP is .327, which is really low for someone with a lifetime batting average of .286. Pinson’s selling points for the Hall of Fame are not found in the “new stats,” they’re found in the old stats like batting average and hits. Pinson’s stats don’t get any better when you view them through the sabermetric lens. In this way, Pinson is very similar to Al Oliver, another player with over 2,700 hits who didn’t walk very much and also didn’t get much support for the Hall of Fame.

So, what’s the conclusion? Like I said at the beginning of this post, I’m not really sure if Vada Pinson is a Hall of Famer or not. I’d like to see him elected to the Hall of Fame partly because he’s one of my favorite players. I think he was a really great player who deserves to still be considered by the Veteran’s Committee. Pinson was not an “inner-ring” Hall of Fame player like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and his friend Frank Robinson were. However, Vada Pinson was a better player than many players who are in the Hall of Fame. Sure, some of the players I’m thinking of are widely regarded as terrible choices for the Hall of Fame, but putting Vada Pinson in the Hall of Fame would not blemish the reputation of the Hall of Fame one bit. Hopefully Vada Pinson will be on the ballot the next time the Veteran’s Committee votes on players from the Golden Age of baseball.

JFK and "Seven Days in May," starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas

2011-12-02T03:57:00.000-06:00

I recently watched John Frankenheimer’s 1964 movie Seven Days in May, starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Ava Gardner. It’s about a right-wing general’s attempt to start a military coup against the President of the United States. It’s based on the novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey, and the screenplay was written by Rod Serling. Seven Days in May is a tense, intelligent film that asks big questions about the relationship between the Presidency and the military. In the movie, the President, played by the great actor Fredric March, has just signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. This proves to be a very unpopular action, and right-wing Air Force General James Scott (Lancaster) feels as though the President has betrayed and weakened the country. Colonel Casey (Douglas), an aide to Scott, senses that something fishy is going on, as he starts learning of secret military bases and lots of interest in an office horse-racing pool. Casey soon discovers that Scott and the other Generals on the Joint Chiefs of Staff are planning to use a training exercise to take over the United States government. Casey goes to the President with what he knows, and an investigation begins.

Seven Days in May is a great political thriller, and Frankenheimer was the perfect person to direct it. Using black-and-white film, he creates a tense mood similar to his earlier film The Manchurian Candidate, in which things are not quite what they seem. Fredric March gives a great performance as the embattled President, who is just trying to do what he thinks is best. Kirk Douglas is excellent as Colonel Casey, whom everyone calls “Jiggs.” Douglas gives a pretty restrained performance, but it fits the movie, and the part, perfectly. Sometimes it’s hard to have the less flashy part that anchors the movie, but Douglas did a great job, and he’s very likable as Casey. Douglas said, “I haven’t played a lot of nice guys in my time, so I enjoyed that.” (The Cinema History of Burt Lancaster, by David Fury, p. 170) Lancaster was also excellent as General Scott, even though he was cast against type both as a villain and as a right-winger. (In real life Lancaster was very liberal politically.)

Lancaster wanted to make Scott a real character, not just a cardboard cut-out, and he succeeded. Scott isn’t an evil person. Scott is just doing what he feels is right, out of his patriotic obligation to protect America from its enemies. Scott feels that the Soviet Union is using the treaty as a trick to launch a pre-emptive attack on the United States, and he thinks that he can best protect the country he loves by essentially staging a military coup. Lancaster didn’t overplay the part. There’s a scene in the movie where Scott gives a speech at a conservative rally. Lancaster could have easily played it over the top, using all his Elmer Gantry-like charm and charisma to sell Scott’s point of view. But he plays it much more low-key, much closer to how a real General would address such a gathering. I think the scene works because Lancaster played it this way. I admire Lancaster’s ability to play someone who he totally disagreed with in real life, and to play a character that is not very sympathetic. Lancaster is really playing a supporting role in Seven Days in May, as Douglas has much more screen time. (Lancaster still got top billing, though.) In a way, there’s a lack of ego to Lancaster’s acting that I find very appealing. Obviously, he had an ego, you probably can’t remain a top Hollywood star for forty years and not have an ego, but he also didn’t seem to be hung up on his own image as a star. He was not afraid to play unsympathetic parts like J.J. Hunsecker in Sweet Smell of Success, or Emil Jannings in Judgment at Nuremburg. If the part called for big bushy eyebrows, mutton chops and a moustache, like in The Leopard, Lancaster was willing to be made up to look like a much older man. I’m not saying that Lancaster was a character actor, because he really wasn’t, but he was a big movie star who was also willing to do whatever it took to fit the part. It wouldn’t fit for General Scott to suddenly come on like Elmer Gantry, with Lancaster’s mega-watt smile of blinding teeth, and so Lancaster holds back. Pamela Tiffin, who co-starred with Lancaster in 1965’s The Hallelujah Trail, said this about working with him:

“Burt was not worried at any time about other actors and if they had more lines, if they had close-ups, if they had more screen time. That was one of the most wonderful things about him when I knew him. There was no pettiness in him whatsoever. And that’s rare.” (Against Type, by Gary Fishgall, p. 237)

The supporting cast of Seven Days in May is excellent as well, with Martin Balsam as the President’s Chief of Staff, Edmond O’Brien as a drunken Southern Senator who sobers up once things get serious, and Ava Gardner as Scott’s ex-lover. O’Brien gave a great performance, and he won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor as well. March was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Leading Actor in a Drama. March lost the Golden Globe to Peter O’Toole’s brilliant performance in Becket. (In a perfect world, I think both O’Toole and his Becket co-star Richard Burton should have won Oscars for Becket.) Interestingly enough, both O’Brien and Gardner had co-starred in Lancaster’s first movie, The Killers, in 1946. However, in The Killers, Lancaster and O’Brien have no scenes together, since O’Brien is playing the private detective who is investigating Lancaster’s death. And in Seven Days in May, Lancaster and Gardner have no scenes together.

What did the United States government think of Seven Days in May? It was released in February, 1964, just three months after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Predictably, the military hated it, and had wanted Frankenheimer to submit a script for Pentagon approval. Frankenheimer refused. Kennedy himself, however, had read the novel and strongly encouraged the movie to be made. When Kennedy ran into Kirk Douglas at a party before filming began, he asked Douglas if he planned to make the movie. “When Douglas replied yes, the President proceeded to tell him why and how it would make an excellent movie.” (Burt Lancaster: An American Life, by Kate Buford, p. 230) For the opening scene of the movie, Frankenheimer wanted to film a mock protest outside of the White House between pro and anti-disarmament treaty protestors. Kennedy arranged his schedule so that he and the First Family would be in Hyannisport for a weekend, thus giving Frankenheimer the opportunity to capture the scene.

Kennedy was highly skeptical of the military after getting burned early in his administration during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. (The military had assured Kennedy the invasion plan would work; it didn’t.) Kennedy also earned the wrath of some right-wing generals who thought he should have taken more aggressive military action to support the Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. According to Richard Reeves’s book President Kennedy: Profile of Power, “John Kennedy distrusted the military, at least its commanders….Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, and Maxwell Taylor were the men he entrusted with one of his fundamental goals: gaining civilian control over the military.” (President Kennedy: Profile of Power, by Richard Reeves, p. 306) Kennedy also faced severe pressure from the military to act during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Many of Kennedy’s military advisors advocated a preemptive strike against the Cuban missile sites. But cooler heads prevailed, and Kennedy was able to skillfully defuse the crisis without starting a nuclear war. Kennedy said of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “If we listen to them, and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.” (This quote is from a photo caption in President Kennedy: Profile of Power, by Richard Reeves.)

Kennedy was genuinely appalled at the idea of nuclear war, and despite his sometimes tough rhetoric, he was determined to maintain peace at the height of the Cold War. Early in his Presidency, he sat through a meeting where he was presented with the American plans for a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. (Kennedy was not seriously considering such an attack, it was merely a contingency plan.) After listening to details of exactly how many missiles would be fired, and learning how much they would destroy, Kennedy disgustedly said, “And we call ourselves the human race.” (Reeves, p. 230) Kennedy thought it was “insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization.” (One Minute to Midnight, by Michael Dobbs, p. 229)

Like President Lyman in the film, Kennedy also signed a weapons treaty with the Soviet Union, although Kennedy’s treaty was much more limited and was not a total disarmament treaty. It was the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. It was the first significant arms control treaty of any kind signed by both the United States and the Soviet Union. JFK signed it on October 7, 1963. Kennedy had called for the Treaty much earlier, and he advocated for it in a remarkable speech he gave at American University on June 10, 1963. The topic of Kennedy’s speech was world peace, and the speech was written by him and Ted Sorensen, his most trusted speechwriter. In the speech, Kennedy argued for seeing citizens of the Soviet Union in a more human light. Kennedy said, “No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.” (Let the Word go Forth: The Speeches, Statements, and Writings of John F. Kennedy-1947 to 1963, p. 285) In the same speech, Kennedy stressed what the citizens of the world have in common, saying, “For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” (Let the Word go Forth, p. 286) This was actually a pretty radical thing to say in 1963, at the height of the Cold War, to actually acknowledge that the Russians were people too, just like us. Today Kennedy’s speech at American University is seen as one of his most eloquent.

When JFK’s friend Red Fay asked Kennedy if he thought the events depicted in the novel Seven Days in May could ever actually happen in the United States, Kennedy had an interesting response.

“It’s possible. But the conditions would have to be just right. If the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness. Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs, the reaction of the country would be, ‘Is he too young and inexperienced?’ The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation and only God knows just what segment of Democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment. Then, if there were a third Bay of Pigs it could happen. It won’t happen on my watch.” (Reeves, p. 305-6. Story originally from Red Fay’s book The Pleasure of His Company.)

There were certainly right-wing military men during this period who were very contemptuous of liberalism and Kennedy. Perhaps the most well-known was Major General Edwin Walker, who had served in World War II and Korea. By the late 1950’s Walker was convinced that many of America’s leaders were too soft on Communism. Walker began giving long lectures to his troops, and eventually telling them how they should vote. Walker used “a political index prepared by a group so far to the right that it did not even give Barry Goldwater a perfect score.” (Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, by David Talbot, p. 72) For these acts, which broke many Army regulations, Walker was relieved of his command and transferred. Walker became a darling of the far right, and eventually resigned from the Army. Walker was also a racist, and he protested the enrollment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi in 1962. Was Walker really trying to start a military mutiny, or was he just a slightly wacky John Bircher? It’s more likely that he was just the latter, but he was investigated for sedition after his conduct during the riot at Old Miss when James Meredith tried to enroll in classes. And then Walker’s story just gets stranger. Walker lived in Dallas, and on the evening of April 10, 1963, someone fired a bullet at him through the dining room window of his house. The bullet hit the window frame, thus saving Walker’s life. Walker just had a minor cut on his forearm from bullet fragments. The crime went unsolved at the time, with no real suspects. However, once President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald immediately became a suspect in the Walker shooting. While Oswald did not confess to firing the shot at General Walker, the Warren Commission concluded that it was in fact Oswald who fired at General Walker. It makes some sense that the apparently left-leaning Oswald would have a hatred for the right-wing General Walker, but if he did indeed fire the shots at General Walker, why would he assassinate the liberal Kennedy just seven months later? Like many things in Oswald’s life, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless Oswald was just trying to get famous, and didn’t really care who he tried to shoot.

There’s a final, sad note in the relationship between John Frankenheimer and the Kennedys. Frankenheimer was a very good friend of Bobby Kennedy’s, and when Kennedy was running for President in 1968, he spent the day of the California primary, June 4^th, at Frankenheimer’s house in Malibu. Later that evening, Frankenheimer drove Kennedy to his victory party at the Ambassador Hotel. After making his victory speech, Kennedy was walking through the kitchen of the hotel when he was shot three times by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy died 26 hours later. While Frankenheimer was driving Kennedy to the Ambassador, he was speeding and missed a turn off of the freeway. As Frankenheimer cursed himself, Bobby Kennedy said to him, “Take it easy, John. Life is too short.”

Concert Review: Ray Davies at the Fitzgerald Theater

2011-11-09T22:56:00.000-06:00

Last night I saw Ray Davies at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul. It was a terrific show. I’ve seen Ray in concert once before, at First Avenue back in 2006. That was an amazing show as well. Ray seemed to be pretty chipper, after the first song he said, “I’m in a good mood tonight.” He didn’t tell as many stories as he did when I saw him five years ago, and it was a slightly shorter show, an hour and a half versus two and a half hours. Ray still looks and sounds good, he’s as thin as ever, and he was jumping around the stage as usual. (But he didn’t balance a bottle of beer on his head-a usual Ray trademark.) For the first half of the concert, he was accompanied by just Bill Shanley on guitar, who did a tremendous job playing the guitar licks that Dave Davies made famous. The first half was my favorite, as hearing all of Ray’s great songs with only two guitars really highlights how classic these songs are, and how well they stand up even 45 years after they were written. It was amazing hearing Ray sing “Waterloo Sunset,” one of the most beautiful songs ever written. We even got to help out on the “sha-la-las.” (Ray really loves having the audience sing along!)

For the second half of the show, Ray was joined by the band the 88, who were also the opening act. The 88 did a great job, but the sound mix was really loud. It’s something that annoys me about rock concerts, how the sound just gets all muddy once 4 or 5 people start playing together. The subtlety of the playing just gets lost, and I can’t hear individual parts anymore. Can’t they make it sound like a record, where you can hear the different parts? Anyway, Ray rocked out more Kinks classics with the 88 backing him, like “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” and “Till the End of the Day.” Ray dedicated “A Long Way From Home” to his brother Dave, which he also did when I saw him in 2006. The show was very 60’s-centered, the most recent song Ray played was the encore, “Low Budget,” from 1979. Ray said something towards the end of the show about putting out a new record next year, which would be great. A highlight of the second half was Ray digging deep into his back catalogue and pulling out the “Face to Face” track “Too Much on My Mind.” And “Celluloid Heroes” is really one of Ray’s best songs; it was fun to hear that one as well. All in all, it was a really great show by a rock and roll legend.

Here are the songs that Ray sang, in mostly correct order:

Acoustic, with Bill Shanley:

I Need You

Sunny Afternoon

Dead End Street

Waterloo Sunset

Apeman

A Long Way From home

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

See My Friends

Victoria-partial, which segued into:

20th Century Man-in which Ray was joined by the 88

This Is Where I Belong

I'm Not Like Everybody Else

Where Have All the Good Times Gone?

Tired of Waiting for You

David Watts-sung by the 88

Nothing in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout that Girl

Too Much On My Mind

Till the End of the Day

All Day and All of the Night

Celluloid Heroes

You Really Got Me

Low Budget-encore

Bob Forsch, Cardinals pitcher: 1950-2011

2011-11-05T20:38:00.000-05:00

Bob Forsch, a right-handed pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1974-88, died on Thursday at the age of 61. Forsch threw out the first pitch at Game 7 of the World Series just a week before he died. This just makes me really sad. I’m not old enough to have ever seen Forsch pitch, but he was a player I was very familiar with through my baseball card collection and my fondness for the Cardinals. I’m a Minnesota Twins fan through and through, but the Cardinals are my second favorite baseball team. As a kid, red was always my favorite color, and the cardinal was always my favorite bird, so it was inevitable that I would like the Cardinals. I was rooting for the Twins during the 1987 World Series, though. Even at age 6 I had to support my hometown team. It always makes me sad when someone who played baseball during the 1980’s dies, as it serves as a continuing reminder of my own creeping mortality and it also means that my childhood has been over for a long time. Forsch was also way too young to die at 61. He looked very healthy and vital when he appeared at Game 7. Forsch died of an aneurysm, which sounds like the kind of thing that could happen to pretty much anyone his age.

Forsch wasn’t a Hall of Famer. Heck, he was never even an All-Star. But he was a good, solid, steady, dependable starter for 16 big-league seasons, from 1974-1989. (After pitching for the Cardinals, Forsch finished up his career pitching for the Houston Astros in 1988-89.) Forsch won 168 games and lost 136, with a lifetime ERA of 3.76. Those are really good career numbers, but not great. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate players like Forsch more. It’s so unbelievably hard to just make it to the major leagues, let alone to be a consistent starting pitcher for 15 years, that I tip my hat to Bob Forsch. I was looking through my set of 1988 Fleer baseball cards a couple of weeks ago when I came across Bob Forsch’s card. I said to my wife, “You know, Bob Forsch wasn’t a Hall of Famer, but he had a pretty darn good career. Winning more than 150 games is really impressive.” That I randomly picked Bob Forsch’s card out and had been thinking about his career recently is definitely one reason why I’m writing this post. It’s easy to like the superstars and the Hall of Famers. They’re the best of the best, and they will never lack fans. But for every Tom Seaver, there are a lot of guys like Bob Forsch, players who did the best with what they had and made the most out of their talent, even if it didn’t carry them all the way to Cooperstown. As a baseball fan, I’m in awe of anyone who made it to the major leagues, since I would probably sell my soul to get just one major league hit.

Forsch won 20 games once during his career, in 1977, when he went 20-7 with a 3.48 ERA. His best season might have been his second, 1975, when he went 15-10 with a 2.86 ERA. Forsch also threw 4 shutouts that year. Forsch was not a strikeout pitcher, as he only had 3 seasons in which he topped 100 strikeouts. Forsch consistently threw 200 innings a year for the Cardinals, with a high of 233 and 2/3 innings pitched in 1978. All told, he had 7 seasons over 200 innings. Besides 1977 and 1975, he had just one other year in which he won 15 games, 1982, when he went 15-9. Forsch had a lot of seasons where he won 11 games. He must have been injured in 1984, and in 1985 he wasn’t used very much as a starter. Forsch did get a lot of post-season playing time, as he was with the Cardinals when they had a resurgence in the 1980’s. Forsch pitched in the 1982, 1985, and 1987 World Series. He threw a shutout against the Braves in the 1982 NLCS, giving up just 3 hits. Forsch started Games 1 and 5 in the 1982 World Series, but lost both starts. The Cardinals won the Series in 7 games against the Brewers. Like the rest of the Cardinals, Forsch didn’t do well in the 1985 World Series, getting an early exit from his Game 5 start. But he did pitch an inning of scoreless relief in the disastrous Game 7, which the Cardinals lost 11-0 to the Royals. Oddly enough, Forsch was only used as a reliever in the 1987 post-season. He pitched scoreless relief in Games 2 and 3 of the NLCS against the Giants, and he got the win in Game 3, but then blew up in Game 5, giving up four runs without retiring a batter. The Twins hit Forsch hard in the World Series, tagging him for seven runs over six and a third innings pitched. But Forsch pitched well enough in Game 4 to earn the win, his only World Series win.

Forsch was also a good hitter for a pitcher, hitting 12 career home runs and winning two Silver Slugger awards at pitcher, in 1980 and 1987. He hit .295 in 1980, .298 in 1987, and .308 in 1975! In August of 1988 Forsch was traded to the Astros and finished his career there as a spot starter and long reliever. Forsch started 422 games in his career, which puts him at 99^th on the all-time list. That’s pretty impressive, that only 98 guys in the history of the game ever got the call to start more than Bob Forsch. Forsch ranks 3^rd on the all-time Cardinals win list with 163, he’s only behind Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Jesse “Pop” Haines. Forsch threw 19 shutouts in his career, which is 15 more than Andy Pettitte threw. Of those 19 shutouts, two were no-hitters, putting Forsch on a short list of pitchers with more than one no-no. Bob’s brother Ken was also a pitcher and threw a no-hitter, making the Forsches the only brother combination to both throw no-hitters. Bob’s no-hitters came against the Phillies in 1978 and the Expos in 1983. In both games, he faced 29 batters, just two more than a perfect game. He gave up two walks to the Phillies, and against the Expos he hit Gary Carter with a pitch and the next batter, Chris Speier, reached on an error. The 1983 Expos were a very good hitting team; the heart of their lineup was Andre Dawson, Al Oliver, Tim Raines, and Gary Carter. Dawson, Oliver, Raines and Carter had a combined total of 10,214 hits in the major leagues, so holding all of them hitless for a game is pretty darn impressive.

From what I’ve read about Bob Forsch it sounds like he was also a really nice guy, in addition to being a pretty awesome pitcher. It sounds like he was very humble and down to earth, and was a great mentor for younger pitchers as his career wound down. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I’m not an expert on Forsch’s career and I never saw him pitch, so there are certainly lots of people out there who know more about him than I do. But I have very fond memories of him through my baseball card collection, and I think it’s important for baseball players like Bob Forsch to be remembered.

Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Laurence Olivier in "The Devil's Disciple"

2011-11-04T16:52:00.001-05:00

I watched The Devil’s Disciple this week, a movie from 1959 starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Laurence Olivier. It’s based on the play of the same name by George Bernard Shaw. The play is from 1897, and is set in New England in 1777, during the American Revolution. Olivier plays British General John Burgoyne, also known as “Gentleman Johnny,” a real-life figure who was also a playwright. Douglas plays Dick Dudgeon, the title character, who is a hedonistic ne’er-do-well. (He’s not actually evil, he’s just sort of an outsider who plays by his own rules and mocks the piety of his fellow townspeople.) Lancaster plays Reverend Anthony Anderson, a rather colorless minister.

The plot concerns the British occupation of the town. Dudgeon’s father is hung by the British as a traitor, and Dudgeon breaks the law by cutting his body down and burying it in Anderson’s churchyard. Anderson invites Dudgeon to his house for dinner, as he thinks he can help redeem Dudgeon. Anderson’s wife Judith is appalled at this idea, as she sees Dudgeon as a hopelessly wicked man who is beyond saving. Despite this, she is attracted to the dashing Dudgeon. When Dudgeon is over for dinner, Anderson is called away. British soldiers then knock on the door wanting to arrest Anderson, whom they believe stole Dudgeon’s father’s body. (Dudgeon is also wanted by the British, which is part of the reason that Anderson is being so nice to him.) When the British mistakenly believe that Dudgeon is Anderson, Dudgeon plays along so as to spare the minister. Anderson is sentenced to hang, and during his brief trial, Dudgeon continues impersonating Anderson until Judith breaks down and reveals Dudgeon’s true identity. However, because Dudgeon has said terrible things about King George during the trial, he is still sentenced to die for being a traitor. Meanwhile, the real Reverend Anderson has learned of Dudgeon’s bravery. Anderson rides off to find Hawkins, a lawyer who he thinks can help. Hawkins is actually the leader of the rebels, and while engaged in a skirmish with the British, Anderson finds his fighting spirit and blows up a British ammunition site. Just as Dudgeon is about to be hanged, Anderson rides into the village and presents General Burgoyne with orders that Dudgeon be freed. Anderson announces that the rebels have just beaten the British at the battle of Saratoga. Burgoyne reluctantly frees Dudgeon. Anderson then tells Judith he has joined the rebels. He tells her she is free to go with Dudgeon if she wants to, and he will not stand in her way. She chooses Anderson over Dudgeon, despite her realization that Dudgeon is good at heart as well.

Despite the terrific pedigree of the three main actors, The Devil’s Disciple falls flat as a movie. Laurence Olivier was underused, as he basically plays little more than a cameo role. It wasn’t necessary to cast as big a star as Olivier in that part. Douglas gives a terrifically extroverted performance, and is a lot of fun to watch, but Lancaster was miscast. There needed to be a bigger contrast between the two actors playing those parts. Because Douglas and Lancaster were so similar as leading men, we’re not surprised when Reverend Anderson suddenly becomes a man of action. Also, it’s not that surprising when Anderson’s wife is attracted to Dudgeon. If you’re married to Burt Lancaster, it’s not a stretch to believe you’ll probably be attracted to Kirk Douglas. Lancaster playing Anderson is a case of a star’s prior reputation and prior performances making it almost impossible to believe him in this part. If you’ve ever seen Burt Lancaster in a movie before, you know he’s a big strong guy who can kick some ass when needed. But in the movie, we’re supposed to be surprised when Reverend Anderson suddenly transforms from a milquetoast minister into a fighter. The surprise doesn’t work with an action star like Lancaster in that role. Someone like Montgomery Clift, who wasn’t an action star, would have been more believable. (Clift was Lancaster’s first choice to play Anderson.) Janette Scott gives a very good performance as Judith Anderson, despite the fact that she was only 19 years old when the movie was filmed, and thus was way too young for either Burt or Kirk, who were both in their mid-40’s. (Or were Burt and Kirk too old for their parts?)

Douglas is all grins and charm as Dudgeon, in a performance that’s reminiscent of some other parts that Lancaster had played. The first time we see Kirk, his hair is all over the place, in contrast to the rest of the film, when it’s neatly slicked back. Perhaps Douglas’s unkempt look in the first scene was a visual reference to Lancaster’s “bird’s nest” of hair? (One movie critic once wrote that they could tell what kind of performance Lancaster would give based on his haircut. If it was wild and disheveled, you could count on an outgoing, swashbuckling performance. If his hair was cut shorter, be prepared for a serious drama.) Lancaster, in contrast, is given a thankless part with not much to do. Reverend Anderson is just kind of a dull guy. Even the scenes where he finally becomes a man of action aren’t that interesting, and are not enough to lift the film. Behind the scenes, supposedly Laurence Olivier kept getting Douglas and Lancaster confused, and would call them both by the wrong name. (Which I would suspect annoyed both men.)

The Devil’s Disciple had a rather troubled production history. Lancaster produced the movie through his company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, and when Kirk Douglas came on board, he co-produced it through his Bryna Productions company. Lancaster had purchased the film rights several years before from George Bernard Shaw’s widow, playing $600,000, a huge sum in the 1950’s. Lancaster originally wanted to play the Dick Dudgeon role, and wanted his From Here to Eternity co-star Montgomery Clift for the Anthony Anderson part. This would have been much better casting, and it’s definitely understandable why Lancaster would want to play Dudgeon. But because of Clift’s 1956 car accident while filming Raintree County, he was uninsurable, according to Lancaster. However, Clift did make two movies in 1958, and one in 1959, so he wasn’t uninsurable for long. In early 1958, Douglas came aboard, wanting to play the Dick Dudgeon role, which left Lancaster playing Anderson. Because Hecht-Hill-Lancaster was not doing very well financially, the budget for The Devil’s Disciple was cut in half. Lancaster said, “We had at first planned to make it a $3 million dollar color film. Now it was going to be a black and white movie that cost a million and a half, a very limited budget.” (The Cinema History of Burt Lancaster, by David Fury, p. 130) Director Alexander Mackendrick, who had previously directed Lancaster in the amazing Sweet Smell of Success, was replaced by Guy Hamilton after only about a week of filming. (Hamilton would go on to direct the James Bond movies Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, and The Man with the Golden Gun.) Mackendrick was deemed too “meticulous” to be able to finish the picture on the very limited 48-day shooting schedule. Lancaster later said, “It’s ironic that his two days on the film are the best in the picture.” (Fury, p. 130) Which begs the question, which two days did Mackendrick shoot? To clarify the timing, Lancaster said that after a week of filming, Mackendrick had only gotten through the shooting schedule for the first two days. So Lancaster wasn’t able to get the movie cast the way he originally wanted to, he had to play the role that wasn’t his first choice, he had to cut the film’s budget in half, and he had to fire his first choice for director! No wonder the finished movie is a bit of a mess. The trimming of the budget may have resulted in also trimming the running time, as the film only runs 82 minutes. The movie probably would have worked better in color, as I had trouble telling the rebels from the British. I wonder if the odd paper-mache animations illustrating the battles between the rebels and the British were due to the lack of a budget?

Both Mackendrick and Guy Hamilton were frustrated by the casting. Mackendrick explained that the main thrust of the story is that the two main characters are miscast. Dudgeon is really a born preacher, and Anderson is a man of action. “So when they change over, you get this great burst of energy. But Kirk Douglas, he’s another Burt, so you lost the temperamental thing.” (Against Type by Gary Fishgall, p. 177) In directing Lancaster, Mackendrick tried to “inhibit him in every way possible from being the Burt Lancaster that we know…to make him play somebody who’s gauche, clumsy, shy, and lacking in force.” (Fishgall p. 177)

When Guy Hamilton took over the direction, he was instantly faced with a problem, as Douglas wanted to make his part even flashier, against the objections of Lancaster. Hamilton knew that whoever’s side he didn’t take would hate him from then on. Hamilton answered that if he had his way, Douglas and Lancaster would switch parts. That settled the argument, and neither star bothered him from then on. (Story from Fishgall, p. 178)

In summary, The Devil’s Disciple is an odd misfire. It’s the kind of movie you hear about and think, “Why have I never heard of this movie before?” Well, because it’s not that good. The budget and the running time make it almost seem like a B movie, despite the fact that it has two giant movie stars at the pinnacle of their careers, and a man often called the greatest actor ever.

Concert Review: Herbie Hancock Solo at Orchestra Hall

2011-10-30T21:03:00.000-05:00

On Friday night, I saw Herbie Hancock perform solo at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. It was pretty incredible. I’ve been a fan of Herbie’s music for the last twelve years or so, since the end of high school, and as far as I know, this was the first time he’s been to the Twin Cities since I’ve known who he was, so I jumped at the chance to go see him. Especially since this was Herbie performing solo, which I thought would be fascinating. It was.

Herbie took the stage attired in a red and black shirt and black pants, looking very fit and much younger than his 71 years. He started telling us a story about performing at the Guthrie Theater in 1973 with his Headhunters band. Partway through the concert, a fan jumped down from the rafters and landed on Herbie, knocking him to the floor. (To illustrate this, Herbie laid down on the floor of the stage as he told this part of the story.) Lying on the floor, he reached up for his keyboard and kept playing! Herbie is a natural storyteller, and he radiated a warm and open personality as he talked to us several times in between songs. On stage Herbie had a grand piano and an electric keyboard, with a couple of computer monitors set up as well. He opened with a version of Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints,” on acoustic piano. Herbie and Wayne played together on the original version of “Footprints,” recorded in 1966 when they were both part of Miles Davis’s “Second Classic Quintet.” The song is on the “Miles Smiles” LP, which I would highly recommend to any fan of Davis, Shorter, or Hancock. The way Herbie played “Footprints” I certainly didn’t recognize it. He played it with a lot of stops and starts, and there wasn’t much of a jazz groove to it. As Herbie said in his intro to the song, “This isn’t your garden variety footprints.” Next he played a solo version of his 1965 classic “Dolphin Dance.” Again, it was very different from the original version. While these first two songs weren’t my favorite performances of the night, it was still fascinating to watch Herbie improvise. When you’re performing solo, you’re really working without a net. My thought going into the concert was that I would definitely be satisfied in seeing the process even if I didn’t care for the results that much. Obviously, I wanted to hear great music, and I did. Seeing a genius like Herbie Hancock creating music all by himself on stage was reward enough, even when I wasn’t really following where Herbie was going. It was still interesting to hear, and never dull. Herbie’s next song was “Sonrisa,” which he wrote for his 1997 album “1+1,” an album of duets with Wayne Shorter. Like the first two songs, “Sonrisa” was pretty long, probably about 10-15 minutes.

After the more far-out explorations of the first three songs, Herbie returned to more familiar territory with a lovely version of George and Ira Gershwin’s “Embraceable You,” which was beautiful. Hancock has certainly not lost any of his touch on the keys. “Embraceable You” settled into a jazzier groove than the previous songs, and I definitely enjoyed it more than the other songs. Herbie then played one of his most famous and grooviest songs, “Cantaloupe Island,” from 1964. Herbie used some samples to help with the beat, and he moved to the keyboard after starting the song at the piano. About halfway through the song, he switched to keytar, and energetically moved around the front of the stage-he was obviously having fun playing the keytar! “Cantaloupe Island” had more of the funky, soulful feel that Herbie is most well-known for, and he was really digging into his solos on it. It was definitely my favorite song of the night, and it's one of my all-time favorite Herbie Hancock songs. Herbie then played “Chameleon” for the encore, again with a lot of awesome keytar soloing. All told, Herbie played for an hour and a half. Hancock clearly seems to still enjoy performing and is still creating something new every night he performs. He still loves performing, and I think that always makes for a great show. Friday night was an amazing chance to see a jazz legend perform solo.

Belated Concert Review: Ben Folds with the Minnesota Orchestra

2011-10-26T20:46:00.000-05:00

I saw Ben Folds in September with the Minnesota Orchestra. It was a terrific show, as Ben performed his perfect punchy piano pop with the Minnesota Orchestra. His songs are very well-suited to be played with an orchestra, and the arrangements of his songs were very well thought out. Of course, Folds has performed with orchestras for a couple of years now, so it’s not like this was the first time he’s done this. I have to confess, I don’t know a lot about Ben Folds’s career, and I’m just starting to get more familiar with his songs. (My wife and my best friend have both introduced me to Ben’s music.) I like his intelligent, witty lyrics and his catchy melodies. (“Steven’s Last Night in Town” has been stuck in my head for the last two days.) Folds puts on a great show, he really seems to love performing, and he seemed to get such a kick out of the orchestra playing his songs. He performed a lot of his best-known songs like “Steven’s Last Night in Town,” “Brick,” “Zak and Sara,” and “Army.” The highlight of the show may have been Ben performing “Annie Waits” as the orchestra left the stage. Ben then proceeded to make up a song about the Minnesota Orchestra, and how they have to quit playing because they have strict union rules. He then ran around the stage and played any instrument he could find on stage. It was awesome, a fun way to end the show, and it showed how much enthusiasm Folds has for performing.

Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in "Run Silent, Run Deep"

2011-10-25T14:49:00.000-05:00

Burt Lancaster was the producer and star of the 1958 World War II submarine thriller, Run Silent, Run Deep. He co-starred with Clark Gable, in what turned out to be one of Gable’s last movies. (Gable died of a heart attack in November, 1960.) Run Silent, Run Deep is a very good submarine movie, with a lot of suspense, and a battle between commander Gable and officer Lancaster. (I think every submarine movie features tension between the captain and the crew.) Submarines are a great subject for movies because they’re really creepy and terrifying for anyone who likes the open air. The enclosed setting and the constant sense of danger is a great recipe for drama. Lancaster gives a good performance, similar to his character in From Here to Eternity, the tough but fair military officer. Gable is also very good as the driven Commander Richardson.

As the film opens, Commander Richardson has his submarine sunk by the Japanese in the Bungo Straits, off the coast of Japan. He is then relegated to desk duty, even though he longs for another chance to command a sub and sink the Japanese ship that torpedoed him. Every day he “sinks” the Japanese boat on his desk, as his adjutant officer, played by a ridiculously young-looking Jack Warden, recreates the circumstances under which Richardson lost his sub. Lancaster plays Lieutenant Bledsoe, who is looking forward to command a sub of his own. Bledsoe is expecting to get command of his own submarine, but he gets the news that he will be serving under Richardson. Bledsoe quickly figures out that Richardson used Bledsoe’s good record to argue that he should be given command of a sub again, with Bledsoe on board as a “back-up.” Bledsoe resents this, and tells Richardson this before the sub leaves port. The crew of the submarine, featuring a very young Don Rickles, has worked with Bledsoe before, and they begin to resent Richardson’s constant drilling. It turns out that Richardson is planning a very risky maneuver to sink Japanese boats, which has everyone nervous. Richardson is also taking the submarine to the Bungo Straits, which is not part of their mission. During an attack on the sub, Richardson falls and sustains a skull fracture, and Bledsoe takes command of the sub.

Gable is very good in a role that isn’t very sympathetic. His Captain Richardson is reminiscent of Captain Ahab, given his monomaniacal obsession with the Japanese boat that sank his sub. Richardson is willing to put his crews’ lives in danger just so he can settle a score. Lancaster is excellent as Bledsoe, and he exudes confidence and competence when he takes over the sub. There was tension between Gable and Lancaster off the screen, as well. No doubt some of this was due to their different career trajectories. Gable, known as the “King of Hollywood,” hadn’t had a hit movie in a long time, and had left MGM, his longtime studio, in 1953. Gable was also aging, and had put on weight. In contrast, Lancaster was at or near the peak of his popularity and good looks. And even though Gable had top billing, Lancaster’s company was producing the movie, meaning Burt was calling the shots. When the time came to shoot the scenes where Lancaster would take over command of the submarine, Gable said, “I’m not going to do it. He’s not going to take over the boat.” Because the rest of the movie depended upon this plot twist, there was no way that Gable could keep commanding the sub for the rest of the movie. Gable walked off the movie, and shooting was suspended for two days. Scriptwriter John Gay and producer Jim Hill finally worked out a solution where Gable’s character would be injured, and thus could no longer command the sub. Satisfied, Gable went back to work. (Quote and story from Against Type: The Biography of Burt Lancaster, by Gary Fishgall. Pg. 166-7.) One can only wonder what Lancaster thought about Gable’s behavior! Gable must have seen Lancaster’s taking over the submarine as a threat to Gable’s own masculine screen persona. Lancaster could also be difficult to deal with at times, and I wonder how he was able to control his temper after Gable’s outburst.

Lancaster, and director Robert Wise, strove for authenticity with all of the submarine sequences. All of the underwater shots of the sub were shot in a water tank with models, which was as realistic as special effects could get in 1957. Don Rickles said of Lancaster’s drive for realism, “He always wanted to know what the depth was and what this gear meant…He’d say ‘Don, do you know what you’re looking at?’ I had no idea what I was looking at, but to humor him, I’d always say, ‘Yes, I do, I do.’” (Fishgall, pg. 169) Typically for one of Lancaster’s movies, there were also clashes with director Robert Wise, and when Lancaster and Hill edited the picture themselves, Wise quit. (Burt Lancaster: An American Life, by Kate Buford, pg. 185.) He was certainly not the only director to be infuriated with how a Hecht-Hill-Lancaster production was run.

After the commercial failure of the amazing Sweet Smell of Success, starring Burt and Tony Curtis, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster needed a hit. They figured Run Silent, Run Deep would be a big commercial success. It was not. Although the movie was not a flop, it was not the smash that Lancaster needed at the time. Run Silent, Run Deep is still a good war movie, and I would definitely recommend it.

Nemesis, by Philip Roth

2011-09-21T01:17:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Philip Roth’s 2010 novel Nemesis. It’s an excellent book. It’s a short novel, but one that packs a powerful punch. It tells the story of Eugene “Bucky” Cantor, a 23-year-old playground director in Newark, New Jersey, during a polio epidemic in 1944. Bucky, who is a star athlete despite his short stature, is classified 4-F and thus ineligible for the draft because of his bad eyesight. He is sitting on the sidelines while his college buddies are off fighting, and this greatly distresses Bucky. He takes some refuge in the fact that he is running the playground the best way he knows how to, and he is trying to keep the kids happy and healthy while the stifling summer heat and polio take their toll on the Jewish neighborhood of Weequahic. Some of the kids who come to the playground every day are stricken with polio, and one boy dies. This seemingly random tragedy leads Bucky to question his faith in God.

“…he himself hadn’t dared to turn against God for taking his grandfather when the old man reached a timely age to die. But for killing Alan with polio at twelve? For the very existence of polio? How could there be forgiveness-let alone hallelujahs-in the face of such lunatic cruelty?” (p.75)

The city panics as the polio epidemic gets worse. Bucky gets an offer to join his girlfriend, Marcia Steinberg, at a summer camp in the Poconos as a swimming director. He goes back and forth about taking the job, worried that he is abandoning his kids at the playground. He visits Marcia’s father, a doctor, who tells him that he has been doing everything he can for the kids at the playground. Feeling better, Bucky spontaneously asks Dr. Steinberg for Marcia’s hand in marriage. Dr. Steinberg says that he would be thrilled to have Bucky join the family. Bucky decides to leave Newark and take the job in the Poconos. Camp Indian Hill is idyllic, an escape from both the oppressive heat and also the constant threat of polio. Bucky quickly strikes up a rapport with Donald Kaplow, a seventeen-year-old counselor at the camp. Bucky helps Donald with his diving skills. Bucky also has late-night trysts with Marcia, as they paddle out to an island in the middle of the lake and make love. Things couldn’t be better.

Which is, of course, when things start going to hell. Bucky is wracked with guilt over his decision to abandon the playground in Newark. He learns that just a few days after he left the city closed all of the playgrounds. However, this does nothing to assuage his feelings of guilt at having left Newark.

“If only he’d stayed, he would never have had to walk out on his kids and look back for a lifetime at his inexcusable act.” (p.194)

Bucky gets snappish with Marcia when she tells him that she prayed he would be safe from polio. He turns her simple statement into a theological argument, asking her:

“Why didn’t God answer the prayers of Alan Michaels’s parents? They must have prayed. Herbie Steinmark’s parents must have prayed. They’re good people. They’re good Jews. Why didn’t God intervene for them? Why didn’t He save their boys?” (p.170)

Polio finally enters Camp Indian Hill as well, as Donald Kaplow is stricken with it. Bucky is convinced that he is the one who brought polio to Indian Hill, even though there’s absolutely no evidence to support that. The camp doctor tells Bucky he can have a spinal tap performed to see if he has polio, as changes to spinal fluid are indicative of polio. The test comes back positive. Bucky has polio. The novel then fast-forwards a bit, as we learn that Bucky spends more than a year in the hospital, slowly and painfully recovering from his crippling illness, which leaves him with weakened legs.

Nemesis, though it is told from Bucky’s point of view, is actually narrated by Arnie Mesnikoff, who was a child at the playground that Bucky was the director of. Arnie contracted polio in the summer of 1944, and was confined to a wheelchair for a year as he learned how to walk again, with the help of crutches and braces. In 1971 Arnie runs into Bucky in Newark, and they start eating lunch together once a week as Bucky tells him the story of the summer of 1944. Bucky has become a bitter shell of a man, blaming God for his misfortunes. He let Marcia slip away by refusing to let her see him when he was in the hospital. And the one time she did come to see him, he quarreled with her. He says,

“’I didn’t want to ruin her life. She hadn’t fallen in love with a cripple, and she shouldn’t be stuck with one.’” (p.254-55)

Marcia fires back at Bucky,

“’You’re always holding yourself accountable when you’re not. Either it’s terrible God who is accountable, or it’s terrible Bucky Cantor who is accountable, when in fact, accountability belongs to neither. Your attitude toward God-it’s juvenile, it’s just plain silly.” (p.260)

Marcia is exactly right. Bucky presumes that God is responsible for everything bad that happens in the world. But whether or not there is a God does not change the fact that suffering exists. Blaming all of your suffering on God, as Bucky does, does not do anything to change the situation. Whether you think it’s the work of God or simply terrible luck, it’s something that is out of your control. Pain and suffering and unfairness all exist in the world regardless of whether or not there is a God. You have to accept the fact that suffering and misery exist, and Bucky seems unable or unwilling to do this. He is in denial. He’s essentially asking, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” There is no rhyme or reason for why bad things happen to good people. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that terrible things will happen to very good, totally undeserving people.

As Arnie says,

“Sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not. Any biography is chance, and, beginning at conception, chance-the tyranny of contingency-is everything. Chance is what I believed Mr. Cantor meant when he was decrying what he called God.” (p.243)

Bucky gets a job at the Post Office and settles into a solitary life, bereft of companionship. Arnie was able to overcome his polio in a way that Bucky wasn’t.

“I learned that back there in Weequahic in 1944 I’d lived through a summerlong social tragedy that didn’t have to be a lifelong personal tragedy too.” (p.269)

This is the difference between Bucky and Arnie. Bucky has allowed himself to be destroyed by tragedy, whereas Arnie has moved on with his life. Which begs the question, why do some people survive tragedy and others do not? Life can do terrible things to people. It can deal you a rotten hand from the beginning, or it can buffer you with blows that few people can withstand. And yet there are some people who survive, who keep going in the face of terrible tragedy. It’s probably personality that accounts for why some people can survive tragedy and some people cannot. Surviving tragedy certainly isn’t easy to do, and Arnie admits that it took him some difficult years to arrive at the point we find him in 1971. But if you stay stuck in the past as Bucky does, you run the risk of letting that tragedy define your life. Arnie contrasts Bucky with the most famous victim of polio, the President of the United States in 1944, FDR. Bucky remained mired in the past, obsessing over what he could have done differently. FDR, after contracting polio at age 39 in 1921, became the Governor of New York and the country’s only four-term President. FDR never walked again. He never regained the full use of his legs. But did he consider himself a failure? I don’t think so. He was a man full of optimism, and for him, every day was probably a small victory against a disease that had left him disabled.

Roth’s writing throughout Nemesis is sharp and vivid as he brings Newark in 1944 to life. Roth has an eye for details, and his sentences are very well-crafted, which is why I have used so many quotations from the book. Because Roth lived through the years of polio epidemics, and was about the same age as the kids on the playground in 1944, this subject must have struck a chord with him. Polio is a word from the distant past for someone of my generation, but it must have been a truly frightening childhood fear back in the 1940’s. The only other Philip Roth book I’ve read is the short novel Goodbye, Columbus, which won him the National Book Award in 1960. It’s been more than 10 years since I read Goodbye, Columbus, which means I should probably re-read it. Nemesis is a great book, and I’m looking forward to reading more of Philip Roth.

Richard Burton and Lana Turner in “The Rains of Ranchipur”

2011-05-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

Because Richard Burton is my favorite actor, and I have committed myself to the goal of seeing as many of his movies as I possibly can, I have seen many terrible movies. “The Rains of Ranchipur” is one of them. Set in India, and released in 1955, it was not a hit at the time. It was a remake of 1939’s “The Rains Came,” starring Tyrone Power and Myrna Loy. So why remake a movie that was only 16 years old? Good question. I have no idea. As far as I can tell from reading about the film, the only reason for making the film was to showcase the disasters of the rains in the glories of CinemaScope. The picture was rushed into post-production, as it was shot during August and September of 1955, and released in December, 1955.

The first thing wrong with “The Rains of Ranchipur,” besides the fact that it’s a rather unnecessary remake, is that Richard Burton plays a Hindu doctor. Yes, really. And he does a pretty bad job; it’s really just watching Richard Burton with a tan. Despite the help of a voice coach, Burton was not able to imitate an Indian accent, so he just gave up. Burton was a very talented actor, but he was certainly not a character actor.

Burton plays Dr. Safti, a doctor in the town of Ranchipur, who is doing all he can to help the sick and the poor in post-independence India. The gorgeous Lana Turner plays Lady Edwina Esketh, who is unhappily married to Lord Esketh, played by the hulking actor Michael Rennie. The Eskeths are in Ranchipur to buy some horses. You know, just making a trip to India to get some horses, doesn’t everyone do that? Probably my favorite part of the movie is a scene at the very beginning. There’s a long scene with Turner and Rennie in a train on the way to Ranchipur, and they simply discuss their empty marriage. It’s a long scene, probably 4 or 5 minutes with no breaks, no cuts, and no edits. I love seeing long scenes unfold in real time. To me it’s always been a hallmark of old movies. There’s no fancy camerawork, you just have to listen and watch, and be pulled in by the story. And I was.

Burton and Turner meet at a party, and there is an immediate spark of attraction between them. But Edwina is a totally spoiled, selfish person, and Dr. Safti is totally selfless. Eventually they acknowledge their feelings for each other and start having an affair. There’s a climactic scene where Lord Esketh and Dr. Safti go tiger hunting, and, as you can probably guess, bad things happen. Esketh gets attacked by the tiger; Safti has to shoot the tiger and in the process wounds Esketh. Dr. Safti then has to nurse Esketh back to health, an awkward situation for the two men. I found Lord Esketh to be an interesting character, he and Edwina have a very complicated relationship, and Lord Esketh comes off as a rather sympathetic character. Rennie does a good job playing a man who is somewhat lost in his own life, blessed with money, but still not happy.

Another plot in the film involves Fred MacMurray, who plays Tom Ransome, a rich alcoholic American who is romantically wasting away. A young girl, Fern Simon, played by Joan Caulfield, starts hanging around Ransome and tries to persuade him to become interested in life again.

And then the rains come, there’s both an earthquake and a flood, and Dr. Safti has to rush off and save lives, leaving Edwina behind. She becomes very ill herself, and Ransome takes care of her while also trying to get to Safti to let him know how sick she is. This is the part of the movie where we get our magnificent CinemaScope disasters, which seem to take too much pleasure in the tragedies we are seeing. Ransome, who is an architect/designer by trade, risks his life to blow up a dam and thus saves Ranchipur from further disaster. (Don’t ask me how blowing up a dam is good, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.) Ransome does not admit to the deed, but Dr. Safti cleverly lets Fern know that it was Ransome. I’m paraphrasing what Safti actually says, but it’s something like, “It must have been someone who had a great deal of knowledge on how dams are built and constructed, to have put the dynamite in exactly the right place. And someone who cares a great deal about the people of Ranchipur.” Anyway, Fern knows that Ransome is once more engaged with life, and they are paired off at the end of the film.

After she recovers, Lady Edwina has decided that she actually does care about some things in life other than herself, and she leaves Dr. Safti, knowing that Ranchipur needs him more than she does. In her first selfless act, she leaves Ranchipur with her husband.

There is an interesting film somewhere in all of this, but it didn’t quite make it to the screen. Dr. Safti is pretty much a saint, and he is not a very interesting character. His only flaw is that he’s attracted to Lana Turner, and I think just about every man would have been attracted to Lana Turner in 1955. There are a lot of things that happen off screen that might have made interesting scenes. Edwina talks at one point about Dr. Safti showing her the slums where the poor people live, but that all happens off-screen. It might have been a good scene to show Edwina’s gradual change of heart. Lana Turner is gorgeous in the movie, and parts of the story are interesting, but it doesn’t add up to a successful film. Apart from the first few minutes of the film, I don’t know that any of the movie was actually filmed in India, which is a shame. And IMDB lists the only filming location as being in Pakistan, so maybe what I thought was India at the beginning isn’t even really India.

The lack of realism in this film leads to the next problem with it. Apart from some of the extras, I don’t think that anyone in the cast is actually Indian. Of course, the unspoken reason for casting someone so totally unsuitable for the part of Dr. Safti is because in 1955 you could not have shown a romance between an Indian man and a white woman on screen. I’m pretty sure that no Indian actors were even considered for the part of Dr. Safti. This racism dates the film quite badly, and the utter ridiculousness of casting someone who was English/Welsh to play someone from India is insulting. The other major Indian character in the movie is the Maharani, the woman who basically runs Ranchipur. She is played by Eugenie Leontovich, who was born in Russia! Hollywood still had a long way to go when it came to portraying people other than Americans and Europeans.

In all of the Richard Burton biographies I consulted for writing this post, (yes, I really do research these movies before I write about them!) they all basically say that Burton and Turner had a pretty frosty relationship. All except for Michael Munn’s 2008 book, “Richard Burton: Prince of Players.” Munn was a close, personal friend of Burton’s, and according to him, Burton says he had a relationship with Turner. In the book, Burton is quoted as saying, “She was not someone I loved. She was just incredibly attractive and remarkably good in bed.” Well, okay, good to know! It’s not that surprising, given the romantic histories of both Burton and Turner, that they might have had an affair. (Between the two of them, they were married 13 times!) They were two remarkably attractive people, and Burton was well-known for trying to bed all of his leading ladies. (I think that Burton’s first wife, Sybil, whom he left for Elizabeth Taylor, deserves some kind of medal for putting up with him for so long!) By all accounts, Burton was supremely bored with the film, and he wrote it off by saying, “It never rains but it ranchipurs.”

It’s interesting to compare the careers of Burton at Turner in 1955, as they made this film. Burton turned 30 in 1955, and he was regarded as a promising young actor. His most successful films to date were 1952’s “My Cousin Rachel,” and “The Robe,” the 1953 religious epic that introduced CinemaScope to audiences. Turner was only 4 years older than Burton, yet she was a movie veteran by 1955, and was past the peak of her popularity, which occurred in the 1940’s. After “The Rains of Ranchipur” Turner still had a couple of hit films, like 1957’s “Peyton Place,” and 1959’s “Imitation of Life,” but after she turned 40 in 1961, her filmography is rather undistinguished. By contrast, nearly all of Burton’s most famous movies were made around the age of 40. Of course, it’s a bit unfair to compare them because Turner and Burton were very different kinds of movie personalities. Turner was discovered by Hollywood because she was gorgeous. She was a movie star who didn’t really need to be a great actress as long as she was still beautiful. Although his good looks undoubtedly helped, Burton was signed by Hollywood because of his raw talent on the London stage. But I still think it’s interesting to contrast how Turner’s career as a leading lady was basically over as she started to age, whereas Burton was still playing leading roles until he died at age 58. I think it’s generally true that it’s easier for male actors to keep playing leading parts as they age, and it’s more difficult for female actors. This gender inequity is still visible in movies today, as there are fewer and fewer parts for actresses once they start to show their age.

Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster in "Vera Cruz"

2011-05-25T01:30:00.000-05:00

I recently watched the 1954 western "Vera Cruz," starring Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper. It's a very good movie, and somewhat ahead of its time. It's also a really fun movie to watch. The plot is really complicated, and it takes place in Mexico after the U.S. Civil War, during the Franco-Mexican War. Gary Cooper plays, well, Gary Cooper, of course. Actually he plays Ben Trane, a former Confederate soldier. (Gary Cooper from the South? Really?) In these post-Civil War westerns, why does everyone play a former Confederate? Aren't there any former Union soldiers doing anything interesting? Of course Trane was one of those nice Confederates who was just protecting his family farm, or whatever, and just happened to fight for the side supporting slavery. Lancaster plays Joe Erin, an American living in Mexico. After Trane and Erin meet, they team up to become mercenaries and make some easy money. They eventually meet Emperor Maximilian I, who hires them to escort a countess to the port of Veracruz. From that point on, there are crosses and double-crosses, as the plot thickens and leads to the inevitable showdown between Trane and Erin.

Cooper does a good job playing the sort of character he played a lot, the decent, good-hearted fellow. But it's Lancaster who steals the show as the villainous Joe Erin. Lancaster uses all of his movie star chemistry to make us like Erin, even though he's clearly a bad guy. It's a flashy performance, and for it to succeed, Burt needed a more subdued actor like Cooper to play off of. Lancaster does everything he can to draw attention to himself, from eating like a wild animal at the emperor's banquet to nearly breaking the fourth wall by turning to the camera and giving a huge grin for no reason at all as Erin finishes washing his face. Lancaster draws you into liking Erin, even though he's a contemptible man. Erin's outbursts of violence are random, as when he picks on one of his fellow outlaws as the men are dancing. He isn't violent for any specific reason; he's violent just because he can be. In a way, Erin is an early example of an anti-hero, a character type that movie audiences would see much more of in the 1960's. Because of Erin's sociopathic nature and the rather violent story, some critics have seen "Vera Cruz" as a precursor to Sergio Leone's westerns of the 1960's. Lancaster gives a great performance, and he definitely elevates the movie.

Lancaster's production company produced "Vera Cruz," which meant that, typical of the movies that Lancaster produced, the script wasn't finished when filming began, and the film went over budget. Fortunately, "Vera Cruz" was a big hit and it didn't matter. Originally, Lancaster was going to play the Ben Trane part, and he apparently wanted Cary Grant to play Joe Erin. Cary Grant in a western? As a villain? Grant said, "I don't go near horses." Lancaster then took the role of Erin and approached Cooper for Ben Trane. Clark Gable had just seen Burt in "From Here to Eternity" and advised Cooper to turn the part down, telling Cooper, "That young fella will wipe you off the screen, Gary." Cooper said yes anyway. (Gable would go on to star with Lancaster in the 1958 submarine movie, "Run Silent, Run Deep.") When shooting started, it was Lancaster who had doubts about Cooper's acting style. After the first few days of filming, Lancaster told a friend, "Coop is just throwing this away. Coop isn't doing anything. I have to compensate. I have to put energy into the scenes." But once the rushes from the first few days came back, Lancaster said, "There I was, acting my ass off. I looked like an idiot, and Coop was absolutely marvelous." Once he saw how effective Coop's silent style was, Lancaster ordered that the first three days of the film needed to be reshot. Also typical of Lancaster movies, Burt was involved in just about every aspect of the film, which annoyed director Robert Aldrich. (Burt was kind of a control freak; it’s probably just as well that he and Warren Beatty never made a movie together.) And how did the two stars get along, conservative Cooper and liberal Lancaster? Very well, despite being almost complete opposites, according to "Against Type," Gary Fishgall's biography of Burt. Lancaster would even serve as an honorary pallbearer when Cooper died of lung cancer in 1961.

"Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune"

2011-05-18T14:32:00.000-05:00

I saw Kenneth Bowser's powerful documentary "Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune," a couple of weeks ago at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival. It's an amazing film, and I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in Ochs or the folk scene of the 1960's. It presents a portrait of a talented and gifted man who sadly died way too young.

Bowser was able to interview just about anyone still living who had a significant connection to Phil Ochs. (Not surprisingly, he wasn't able to interview Bob Dylan.) Ochs started out as a folk/protest singer, writing his own material about the various troubles of the day, very much like Dylan. Eventually, inspired by Dylan and the Beatles, Ochs started writing more personal material, although he still wrote the occasional straightforward protest song. Ochs had little commercial success during his lifetime, and remained more of a cult figure. Apparently, Ochs always thought that he was just about to break out commercially, and he proudly predicted that his 1967 album "Pleasures of the Harbor" would go to number one. It's highest chart position was 168. Dogged by poor reviews at the time, it's now considered Ochs's masterpiece. Ochs's material was very uncompromising, and it's hard to imagine that he didn't see why he wasn't more successful. Maybe his enthusiasm was just his way of covering up his insecurities. Phil Ochs did not write simple love songs that would have been surefire hit singles. The closest Ochs came to having a hit single was his song, "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends," from the "Pleasures of the Harbor" album. It's a great, funny, witty song, given a jaunty arrangement courtesy of Lincoln Mayorga's piano playing. But here's the first verse of the song:

Oh, look outside the window
There's a woman bein' grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes
And now she's bein' stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops
And try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun
I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends

It's a brilliant satire of apathy, specifically referencing the then-current case of Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed and killed in New York City. Neighbors who overheard the attack did nothing because they "didn't want to get involved." It's a great song, but when the first verse of your song features a stabbing, it's probably not going to get a lot of Top 40 airplay. It's a great example of how Ochs created powerful songs that were totally uncommercial. People don't always want to be reminded of bad things when they listen to music, sometimes they just want to escape. But Ochs was not about to compromise his vision of his music.

As the 1960's came to an end, Ochs had lost his optimism about America. The war in Vietnam was still raging on, MLK and RFK were dead, Nixon had won the 1968 election, and Chicago police had savagely beaten protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention. Ochs started drinking more and more heavily, and he started to exhibit signs of bipolar disorder. And for whatever reason, he became unable to write new material. Even trips abroad did not spark his creativity. After his 1970 album, facetiously titled "Greatest Hits," another bit of irony that seemed to go over people's heads, Ochs released just 5 more songs during his lifetime. I wonder if Ochs might have had an easier time today, at a time when people get irony. I sensed from the movie, and from reading parts of biographies of Ochs, that sometime his audience didn't understand him. Few people seemed to understand at the time that Ochs dressing up in a gold suit like Elvis to promote his "Greatest Hits" album was at least a little bit ironic. Or maybe a lot ironic. They just booed him because he was performing 1950's rock songs and not the protest folk they wanted to hear. They were angry at him for confounding their expectations. Nowadays it would at least be easier for Phil to explain exactly what he was trying to do, and the meaning behind it.

The film features all kinds of amazing film footage of Ochs, which is reason enough to go see it. I got more of a sense of who this remarkable man was. There's even some heartbreakingly sad footage of Ochs in his final manic state, when he insisted that everyone call him "John Butler Train." Unlike Ochs, Train was mean and belligerent, and ruined some of Ochs's friendships. When Train left in early 1976, never to reappear, he left behind a shattered Phil Ochs, who thought that he could never repair the relationships he had broken. What Ochs didn't know, or didn't allow himself to acknowledge, was that people would have forgiven him, life could have gone on. There were still people hungry for his music, who would wonder, what would Phil Ochs have written about this? Phil Ochs chose to end his own life on April 9, 1976, at the age of 35. Phil may be gone, but his music lives on, and it's still touching people's lives today. I was born 5 years after Phil died, but his music and his spirit means so much to me. He's truly one of my heroes, and I wish he were still alive today.

Michael Feinstein at Orchestra Hall

2011-04-17T21:27:00.000-05:00

The singer/piano player and Great American Songbook archivist Michael Feinstein was at Orchestra Hall last month for two concerts that focused on his 2008 album, "The Sinatra Project." It was a fantastic concert, Michael's voice is as good as it has ever been, and I think this is one of his strongest albums. I've been a fan of Michael Feinstein's music for a long time, ever since I was about 9 or 10 years old, and he and Harry Connick were really my entry points into the Great American Songbook. (My appreciation for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Bobby Darin would come in my teens.)

For those of you who need a little intro to Michael Feinstein, he worked as Ira Gershwin's archivist at the end of Ira's life, and then he started playing piano in clubs, which eventually led to a record deal. He's been making records since the mid-80's, at the pace of about one a year, most of which focus on songs from the Great American Songbook. Feinstein is dedicated to preserving the legacy of these songs, and he does deep research into them, often performing forgotten verses or special lyrics that were written for a radio show but never before recorded. He's as much an archivist and historian as a performer. It's clear from every song he sings that he really cares about these songs and loves them. But it doesn't mean that he treats them as musty museum pieces. On the contrary, he sees how these songs can still be vital in the 21st century. His PBS program, "Michael Feinstein's American Songbook," which aired last fall, gives viewers a closer look at what Feinstein does. From going to antique sales to cleaning out storage spaces of a composer who has passed away, Feinstein is always on the lookout for rare material. He's a terrific singer, with a pure tone, and you can always hear the happiness in his voice. His piano playing is also extraordinary, although he doesn't often feature his own playing on his records.

The "Sinatra Project" album is very good, in part because Feinstein isn't trying to imitate Frank, and most of the songs he sings on the album are not indelibly associated with Sinatra. He even sings one song that Sinatra never recorded, "The Same Hello, the Same Goodbye." (It was written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman for Sinatra, but he never recorded it, despite liking the song.) One of my favorite songs from the album is Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine." Sinatra only recorded "Beguine" in the 1940's, but Feinstein re-imagines it as arranged by Nelson Riddle, in the style of Sinatra's 1956 recording of "I've Got You Under My Skin." (Both songs use what Riddle called "the heartbeat rhythm," also a feature of Sinatra's recording of "Night and Day.") Feinstein swings hard on Porter's "It's All Right With Me," and it's nice to hear him sound a little more jazzy than he usually does.

In concert Feinstein added more songs associated with Sinatra, which makes me hope for a Volume 2 of the Sinatra Project. He led off with a medley of "Luck Be a Lady/All I Need Is the Girl," mixing one of Frank's most well-known swingers with an underrated gem. (Check out Frank's 1967 recording of "All I Need is the Girl," with Duke Ellington, it's amazing!) Feinstein is equally at home singing ballads or up-tempo songs. For most of the concert he just sang, but he would occasionally sing a song solo at the piano, which was wonderful to hear. You could have heard a pin drop when he sang a solo of "Time After Time." Beautiful. Feinstein has amazing control over his voice, and he seems to be using his upper range more, as he ends a lot of songs on a high falsetto, which is very affecting. Feinstein brings such a joyous energy to performing that you can't help but be charmed by him. (Although he didn't do any of his impersonations this time. In previous concerts he's veered into note-perfect mimicry of Liberace, Peter Lorre, and Jackie Mason.) Here are the songs that he sang, in mostly correct order:

Luck Be a Lady/All I Need is the Girl
I Thought About You
Exactly Like You
Time After Time
Brazil-instrumental
Fools Rush In
What Kind of Fool Am I?
Just One of Those Things
Once in a Lifetime
How Do You Keep the Music Playing?
Begin the Beguine
So In Love
All My Tomorrows/All the Way
I Remember You
For Once In My Life-which was apparently one of Frank's favorite songs, I had no idea!
Theme from New York, New York

All in all it was a wonderful concert, it's at least the fifth time I've seen Michael Feinstein in concert, and he never fails to put on a great show!

The Only Game in Town (1970)

2011-01-27T20:06:00.000-06:00

Warren Beatty became a full-fledged movie star after producing and starring in "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967. The movie helped usher in the "New Hollywood" era of films, and it also made Warren Beatty a very rich man. Warner Brothers had such little faith in "Bonnie and Clyde," thinking that it would merely be a "B" movie, that they gave Beatty 40% of the profits. According to imdb.com, "Bonnie and Clyde" cost $2.5 million to make, and grossed about $50 million in the US alone. Good job, Warren. So, what movie did Beatty choose as his follow-up? Typically for Beatty, he waited and waited, and turned down a classic movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Beatty then accepted the offer to replace Frank Sinatra in director George Stevens' last movie, "The Only Game in Town," where he would co-star with Liz Taylor. Beatty was a huge admirer of Stevens's work, and basically said yes to the movie just so he could work with him. Stevens directed many great movies like "Gunga Din," "A Place in the Sun," with Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift, "Shane," and "Giant," with Liz, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. Unfortunately, "The Only Game in Town" is not one of his great movies. Ever polite, Beatty defended his decision, saying, "I always thought that it was probably one of the most sensible decisions I had made because I got the chance to work with George...ultimately it was more rewarding to me to have made a sort of an unsuccessful picture with him." Beatty soaked up everything from Stevens, who was a perfectionist with a tendency to over-shoot. (Just like Beatty would be as a director.) Beatty was amazed by Stevens's calm demeanor, and remarked that he never once heard Stevens raise his voice on the set. Beatty tried to handle himself the same way as a director.

"The Only Game in Town" is set in Las Vegas, but it was mostly filmed in Paris. Why, you might well ask. Well, because Richard Burton was a tax exile from England and could only spend a small number of days a year in the UK. So Burton's latest movie, "Staircase," though set in London, was being filmed in Paris. (In "Staircase" Burton and Rex Harrison play gay hairdressers. Really.) And Liz wanted to be in the same city as Richard. Therefore, extremely expensive facsimiles of Vegas casinos were built in Paris to accommodate Liz. Ah, show-biz!

"The Only Game in Town" was actually a play before it was a movie, running on Broadway for 16 performances in 1968. Frank D. Gilroy, the playwright, must have clicked his heels for joy when 20th Century Fox bought the film rights for $500,000 before the play even opened! It's basically a two-person character study, as the film focuses on chorus girl Fran meeting cocktail bar piano player Joe. Fran has been in Las Vegas for five years, and Joe is planning to leave for New York City as soon as he can save $5,000. Joe soon hits a lucky streak and wins $8,000 at the casinos. He tells Fran he wants to have one more nice night on the town before he leaves the next day. In an excruciating scene, we watch as Joe gambles away all $8,000. Which explains why he's been in Las Vegas for 5 years trying to save $5,000. Just as Joe is waiting for the perfect time to leave Vegas, which may never come, Fran is waiting for her lover, married and living in San Fransisco, to finally divorce his wife and marry her. In the meantime, Fran invites Joe to move in with her. No strings attached, free to leave whenever either one pleases. Eventually Fran's lover comes back with what seems to be the perfect news: he's gotten a divorce, and now they can get married. He's booked them tickets for a honeymoon starting that night. But after saying goodbye to Joe on the phone, Fran realizes that she is in love with Joe, and doesn't leave with her lover. (In a very un-Liz Taylor like moment, Fran even gives him back the ginormous ring he bought her!) So, what happens at the end? Well, I won't spoil that for you.

"The Only Game in Town" is actually a pretty good movie, it's certainly better than I thought it would be, and better than it's reputation would suggest. It was a flop when it was released in January 1970. The movie cost about $10 million to make, took a very long 5 months to shoot, and only grossed $1.5 million in the US. But it's an interesting story, and it features a very good performance from Beatty. Like many other Beatty characters, Joe is a charmer who is very adept at reading people and getting his way. His dreams are less grandiose than most of Beatty's characters, as his only real goal seems to be making it to New York. Joe is actually a well-written character, in part because he is very sarcastic and ironic, which makes his character seem much more modern. You could give Joe's lines to a character in a contemporary romantic comedy with no trouble at all. Sinatra actually would have been quite good for this part, the only problem is that he was about 20 years too old for it. (A piano player in his early 50's who is trying to make $5,000 to get to New York? Um, no.)

Liz is good, but her voice drives me nuts sometimes, as she has a tendency to screech her lines when she yells. She can sound so shrill and harsh. And whoever designed the wardrobe for Liz should have been fired. It's obvious from the way Liz is dressed that she must have gained some weight around the middle, as all of her clothes are really big and baggy on her, which just makes her look larger than she really was. She was only 36 when the movie was filmed, and still had a gorgeous figure, but you'd never know it from this movie.

And how did Richard Burton feel about his wife making a movie with Hollywood's new Don Juan? According to his journals he was a bit jealous. (Personally, Richard Burton and Warren Beatty would both be on my list of guys I would not want my wife to make a movie with.) Burton was on the set when Liz and Beatty filmed their love scene, and he played some George and Martha-like mind games, saying to them, "I say Elizabeth, don't you think you should be a bit closer to your lover? And Warren, you look a touch bashful. Is my presence making you nervous?" According to everything I've read, nothing happened between Liz and Beatty. I would think that Beatty would have tried to do everything he could to impress Burton, as the young Beatty had a pattern of seeking out friendships with older men who were more established in their careers, but I can't find any evidence of this from biographies of Burton or Beatty.

"The Only Game in Town" is certainly a curio, and it's not good enough for me to recommend it without reservations. It's not available on DVD, but I caught it on the Fox movie channel. But if you like old movies that are somewhat talky, or if you want to see two amazingly pretty people go gambling, or if you want to see Warren Beatty be incredibly snarky, this is the movie for you.

Mint Condition, by Dave Jamieson

2011-01-24T20:40:00.000-06:00

It's the baseball off-season, so I thought reading a book about baseball would be the best way to keep the spirit of baseball alive during the gloomy winter months. "Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession," by Dave Jamieson, chronicles the history of baseball trading cards, from their introduction in the 1870's and 1880's to the present day. Confession: I love baseball cards. I collected them voraciously in my childhood, and I still make the occasional purchase online or at a card show. Jamieson is only a couple of years older than I am, so his memories of the baseball card boom of the 1980's and the collapse of the baseball card market in the 1990's are my childhood memories as well. And Jamieson gets extra points because his all-time favorite baseball card set is the 1987 Topps set, which is my all-time favorite set as well. (You can see an example of the 1987 Topps set above.)

But onto the book itself. Jamieson dug deeply into the rich history of baseball cards, and I learned a lot from this book. The first time baseball cards created a sensation among young boys was in the 1880's, when cigarette companies inserted cards into their packs of cigarettes. This had the dual effect of both promoting brand loyalty to collect more cards, and also of making these young boys eager smokers. Win-win for the cigarette manufacturers. According to Jamieson, the popularity of the baseball trading cards helped establish cigarettes as a tobacco product at a time when they were seen as hopelessly lower-class. (People with status smoked cigars or pipes.)

Back in the olden days, baseball cards were not issued every year, and the next time they make a major reappearance is around 1905-1915. These cards were again mostly made by cigarette companies, and they included the most famous baseball card of all time, the 1909 T206 Honus Wagner. The Wagner card is noteworthy not only because Wagner was one of the greatest players of his era, but also because it was produced in very limited quantities. Sources vary as to whether Wagner objected to the card because he did not want to be associated with a tobacco product, or if he was angry because the company was using his image without his permission. Whatever the reason, the Wagner T206 is very scarce, and an example of it in good condition has sold for more than $2 million at auction, making it the single most expensive baseball card ever.

After around 1915 tobacco companies stopped issuing baseball cards, presumably because their product was selling so well that they saw no need to include giveaways like trading cards. There was a lull in the baseball card market until 1933, when Goudey, a gum company, started producing baseball cards again. Goudey would include 1 card as an enticement to purchase a stick of gum for 1 penny. The Goudey cards were very successful, and a number of other gum companies, notably Bowman, jumped on the baseball card bandwagon. By the late 1940's, Bowman had established itself as the leading baseball card maker. But within a decade the Topps gum company, despite coming late to the baseball card party, would have a virtual monopoly on baseball card production. How exactly did this happen? Jamieson is able to shed some light on it, but I would have liked more detail on the battle between Topps and Bowman. Topps issued it's first real set of baseball cards in 1952, and in 1956 Bowman sold their baseball card rights to Topps. How did Topps bring down Bowman in just 4 years? Well, a lot of the credit goes to Sy Berger and Woody Gelman, who basically created the 1952 Topps cards, and in doing so, created the prototype for the modern baseball card. Berger and Gelman chose the dimensions that nearly all baseball cards would use from that point on, and they decided to include statistics on the back of the card. That was huge. Bowman's cards had narrative sentences on the back, which might incorporate some stats. It would usually read something like this: "Zernial batted .262 and slugged 29 homers while patrolling the outfield last season. The A's have high hopes for this young slugger in the years to come!" But Topps had a full row of all the most important stats from the previous season, hits, runs, RBIs, home runs, batting average, and they also had the player's career totals. And this was at a time when these stats were not readily available to youngsters. There were not comprehensive books of baseball statistics, so the newspaper and baseball cards were how kids knew what their favorite players had done. And so, despite making some beautiful cards, like their classic 1955 "television" design, Bowman sold out to Topps.

It's clear from "Mint Condition" that Topps didn't really want Jamieson digging too deeply into their closet, as Berger was the only former Topps employee he was able to interview. And there are some skeletons in Topps's closet, as they intimidated other companies from issuing baseball cards and basically had a 25-year monopoly, from 1956 until 1981. Topps pressured young prospects to sign exclusive baseball card contracts with them, meaning that other companies couldn't even get their foot in the door. Topps was the only game in town. And this led to some sloppiness on Topps's part. Like using the same photos for a player year after year. (Claude Osteen's 1963 and 1964 cards use the exact same photo, it's just cropped differently.) Or not bothering to obtain a photo of a player in his new uniform after he was traded. Which led to numerous cards of players without hats on, or players whose uniforms have been airbrushed almost beyond recognition. But Topps still changed their cards during this period. For example, beginning in 1971 photos from actual games were used on cards, which lent an excitement to some of the cards.

Eventually, the Topps monopoly began to crumble, as Marvin Miller, the new head of the player's union, took a much more aggressive stance against Topps in the late 1960's, arguing that they were getting rich off of baseball cards and barely compensating the players. (Miller was right, Topps paid most players $125 per year for use of their image.) Topps eventually let the player's union get a slice of the pie from baseball card sales. And Fleer, a rival candy company, launched a lawsuit alleging that Topps was running a monopoly. Eventually, Fleer was successful in their legal action, which opened the door for competing card companies to issue 1981 baseball card sets. Fleer and Donruss both issued their inaugural sets in 1981, and both were low-quality compared with Topps. Photos were blurry and errors were plentiful as the cards were rushed into production. However, despite Topps' fear that the market was not large enough to support two card companies, let alone three, baseball card sales jumped. Legal action by Topps meant that Fleer and Donruss could not package their cards with chewing gum, so Fleer included team stickers as a bonus, and Donruss included puzzle pieces for a puzzle of an all-time baseball great. (I never put the puzzle pieces together. Sorry Donruss! But at least the puzzle pieces didn't stick to the cards the way the gum did. My Dad once broke a crown on a stale piece of Topps gum.) An irony of the baseball card business is that the companies that produced the cards were actually candy companies, and in the beginning, it was supposed to be the gum that sold the cards, not the other way around. But at some point, the baseball cards became much more desirable than the gum.

As the 80's went on, Fleer and Donruss both greatly improved their quality, and the baseball card boom continued. I would have liked to know more about how Topps responded to Fleer and Donruss entering the market. Did Topps do anything special to make their cards better? (Looking back at their 80's sets, it really doesn't seem like they did.) The only things I can think of are the 1982 Topps "In Action" cards, and that the 1983 Topps set features two player photos on the front. Jamieson focuses on the 1989 entry of Upper Deck into the baseball card market, which proved that fans were willing to pay more money for a higher quality card. As the card market peaked in the early 1990's, all of the companies were overproducing cards at a staggering rate, and there were simply too many sets on the market. The 1994-95 baseball strike didn't help sell baseball cards, and that was around the time that I really stopped seriously collecting new cards.

As the baseball card market tanked, so too did the companies. Fleer was bought out by Upper Deck, and Donruss lost their license from MLB in 2006. For the 2010 season, the only company authorized by MLB to produce baseball cards was Topps. So we're back where we started, with a Topps monopoly.

Jamieson writes that baseball cards have become much more of a business than they used to be, and he doesn't think this is a good development. I definitely agree with him. Sure, there's joy in finding out that you have a card that's worth a lot of money, but I also take joy in common cards that aren't worth anything. It might be just a player in a crazy uniform, like the Astros' "rainbow" uniforms of the 70's and 80's, or it might be a fond memory of a journeyman outfielder like Tom Paciorek, but those memories take me back to my childhood. I still enjoy my baseball cards, and I'm very happy that I still do.

"Bugsy" & Warren Beatty

2010-12-16T21:08:00.000-06:00

I'm back, dear readers! Where was I? Well, nowhere in particular, just busy with schoolwork and not especially motivated to blog. I've been to some good concerts, like Chris Isaak, Rufus Wainwright, and Nick Lowe, and I would think, "I should write about this," but somehow it just didn't happen.

What topic am I about to tackle now? Well, Warren Beatty and his 1991 movie "Bugsy." (Okay, so Beatty didn't direct it, so it technically isn't "his" movie, but he produced and starred in it, and it sounds like he basically takes over every movie he makes, so I think it's fair enough to call it "his"movie.) Beatty is a fascinating man, he's an actor I've been aware of for a long time, ever since the summer of 1990 when 9-year-old me saw Beatty's movie "Dick Tracy." I was swept up in Tracy fever, and I was thrilled that someone made a movie out of the comic strip. I know that I saw it at least twice in the theater. The movie also got a lot of attention in the Twin Cities because Charlie Korsmo, who played the kid that Tracy adopts, was from the Twin Cities. And of course Beatty's romance with Madonna was big stuff at the time too. One thing I remember about watching the movie was seeing a close up of Beatty's hand and thinking, "That hand looks really old." I didn't really think Beatty was old, because I was 9 and had no concept of adult age. All I knew was that Beatty was older than me but younger than my grandmother. But I thought his hands looked old.

In high school I finally saw Beatty's iconic 70's movies "Shampoo" and "Heaven Can Wait." I was impressed. For whatever reason at that time I never saw "Bonnie and Clyde," I'm not sure why. I remember once it was going to be on a double bill at a revival movie theater with "Badlands," but the print of B&C didn't arrive. And by the time I was in college Beatty was off the movie scene, more often seen escorting Annette Bening to awards shows than making movies of his own. I've followed the Beatty biographies that have come out over the last ten years and I've watched him get awards like the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Golden Globes lifetime achievement award. I've often thought, he made so few films, it would be relatively easy to follow his whole career trajectory, and now I'm finally making the time to see those films.

Benjamin "don't call me 'Bugsy'" Siegel has many similarities with other characters Beatty has played. Like Clyde Barrow, Bugsy is a charming psycho. Like Clyde, Bugsy is an astute judge of people, he is able to size them up quickly and get them on his side. (This is also a trait that Beatty would seem to share as well.) Like John McCabe in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," Siegel becomes obsessed with building a place of entertainment in a remote location. For McCabe, that means building a brothel in the Old West. For Siegel, that means building a casino, the Flamingo, in 1940's Las Vegas. I watched "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" a week or so before "Bugsy," and I was struck by the parallels between the two movies. Both McCabe and Siegel are visionaries, dreamers who most people consider a bit obsessive. They both anger people who have a great deal of power, and both pay for their independence with their lives. Obsessive might also be a good word to describe Warren Beatty. He is obviously a perfectionist when it comes to making movies, which is one explanation for his relatively small filmography. As Beatty once said about filmmaking:

"It is all detail, detail, detail. When...the person you are working with has to go home and return a call to his press agent, and lunch is being served, and the head of the union says, 'Well, you have to stay out there for another 10 minutes because they have to have coffee,' and then the camera breaks down, and there is noise, a plane flying over, and this wasn't the location you wanted...are you going to have the energy to devote to the detail of saying, 'That license plate is the wrong year'? That's where the stamina, the real fight comes in."

Wow. That's focused. Beatty is well-known for shooting numerous takes of scenes. Buck Henry, Beatty's co-director on 1978's "Heaven Can Wait," once said, "Ideally, Warren would never, ever, ever finish anything, because there's always got to be a better way to do something-the shot, the edit, or the scene, or the line, something." One of the hardest parts in the act of creating is knowing when the act is finished, when to step back from it and say, "It's done." Can something always get better the more time you spend on it, the more takes you shoot? Beatty seems to think so. Billy Scharf, an assistant editor on Beatty's "Reds" had this to say about Beatty's methods:

"A lot of people say Warren overshoots. I know that not to be true. Directors who come back with insufficient material are doing a disservice to the opportunity. They get intimidated by stars. Warren does not. In the movie, when Reed wants to leave Russia and go back to America, Zinoviev tells him, 'You will never be at this place, at this time, again.' Warren felt that way when he shot. He believed that that was the time, and that was the place, and he had to exploit the opportunity to the hilt. He had the resources, and he wanted to use them, because he knew he would never get another chance."

All that Scharf says is true, you really only have one chance to capture what you need for a film. You have to do a certain scene on a certain day, and you have to nail it that day, that's your one chance to get that scene done perfectly. (Of course, you can always re-shoot, which of course Beatty is known to do.) But while you're shooting, no matter how many days or how many takes you do, you have to catch that lightning in a bottle, that magic that makes film such an amazing and powerful medium. It's a big responsibility. And if you're directing a big-budget Hollywood production, every shooting day costs a lot of money. Beatty's reputation as a perfectionist actor/director/producer might also carry over into his personal life. Dustin Hoffman related this story from the set of "Ishtar."

Hoffman asked Beatty, "Theoretically, is there any woman on the planet that you would not make love to? If you had the chance?"
Beatty: "That's an interesting question: Is there any woman on the planet that I wouldn't make love to? Any woman at all?" Beatty pondered the question a moment and finally said, "No, there isn't."
Hoffman asked, "You're serious?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you never know."

And that, in essence, sums up Warren Beatty. Why shoot another take after you've shot 25 or 30 takes? Because you never know, the next one might be the perfect one. Why sleep with another woman when you've slept with so many already? Because you never know, the next one might be the perfect one.

So this post has turned into more of an exploration of Warren Beatty than the movie "Bugsy," but to return to the movie for a moment, there's another clear parallel between Beatty and Siegel. As Siegel builds the Flamingo in Las Vegas, he keeps going over budget and missing deadlines. Similar in many ways to a Warren Beatty movie. Siegel is a controlling perfectionist, just like the man who plays him on screen. Maybe the best scene in the movie is the one where Siegel, in a chef's hat, alternates between keeping his daughter's birthday party going and selling his mobster friends on his vision of Las Vegas as the new American paradise. The scene is funny, and it presents Beatty's charm at its best.

"Bugsy" is also a very significant movie in Beatty's life, as it was on the set of "Bugsy" that he met his wife, Annette Bening, who gives a great performance as Virginia Hill, Bugsy's girlfriend. It's a great movie, and it's definitely one of Beatty's best performances. So, even though I will never be at this time and place again, I'll end this post now. I'm going to step back and say, "It's done."

What Happened to this Book?

2010-06-07T21:15:00.000-05:00

Back in 2008, I was looking forward to the publication of Ashley Kahn's book "Somethin' Else: The Story of Blue Note Records and the Birth of Modern Jazz." I had it on my Amazon wish list, but then one day it just disappeared. It's still listed on Amazon, but you can't buy it, it hasn't come out, and there's no new publication date. I googled the book, but I couldn't find any more info about it. I emailed the publisher, and they said the book has been delayed indefinitely. Which stinks. I've read one of Ashley Kahn's other books, "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece," and it's quite great. (I have an earlier blog post about it.) I was really looking forward to reading "Somethin' Else" and learning more about my favorite Blue Note recording artists like Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, and Horace Silver, to name just three. So, all you jazz fans, write to Penguin Putnam and tell them to publish this book!

Is Jamie Moyer a Hall of Famer?

2010-05-26T20:04:00.000-05:00

It's baseball season, and since the opening of Target Field, I've been thinking about baseball more than usual. Yes, baseball really was meant to be played outdoors. Sorry, Metrodome, stadium of my youthful dreams and site of two World Championships, but Target Field is amazing!

I love baseball stats. I could read baseball stats for hours. Okay, maybe sometimes I spend too much time on baseball-reference.com...but it's fun. I've been following the Phillies' 47-year-old starting pitcher Jamie Moyer as he makes his way up the all-time wins list, he's currently in 40th place with 263 wins. Which leads to the question: is Jamie Moyer a Hall of Famer? (Apologies to baseball-reference, they had a blog post about this very topic just a week or two ago.) For those who would say no way, I say, look a little closer. Now, I'm not going to say that if he retired today, Moyer is, or should be, a definite Hall of Famer. I just want to examine his credentials. Clearly, there are worse pitchers than Jamie Moyer in the Hall of Fame. (Jesse "Pop" Haines, I'm looking at you.) However, as Bill James points out, this is not a good argument to use, since the Hall of Fame has made some pretty bad decisions regarding admittance. If we started admitting everyone who was better than the worst inductees, we'd have a huge Hall of Fame.

Moyer's career has been an up and down one, he started out as a starter for the Cubs in 1986, then turned into an ineffective reliever for the Rangers, a poor starter for the Cardinals, and didn't pitch at all in the majors in 1992. His career seemed to be over at the age of 29. But somehow Moyer rejuvenated himself, and made his way back to the majors. He didn't really get going until he was traded to the Seattle Mariners in 1996. In 1997 his record was 17-5, the first time he had ever won more than 13 games in a season. At the age of 34, he was finally a great starter. Moyer won 20 games in 2001, and 21 in 2003, suffered through a lackluster 2004 season, but rebounded to go 16-7 for the Phillies in 2008, at the age of 45. His career record is 263-199, and on May 7th, he became the oldest pitcher to ever throw a shutout.

How does Moyer stack up against other Hall of Fame pitchers? He is not, and never has been, a superstar. He hasn't won any Cy Young Awards, and has only been selected to the All-Star team once. He's never led the league in wins or strikeouts, and he's not a power pitcher. He's just been consistently good, and now he's at a point where the Hall of Fame debate can start to happen. Of the starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame, Moyer has more wins than 31 of them. And I didn't count any relievers, just every HOF starter from guys like Addie Joss, Dizzy Dean, and Sandy Koufax, whose careers were cut short by injury, (or death, in Joss's case) to HOFers like Don Drysdale, Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal, and Bob Gibson. Moyer has fewer wins than 27 HOF starting pitchers, so he's right in the middle of the pack. While this doesn't prove that Moyer is in the upper echelon of HOF starters, it proves that, just looking at wins, he is more than qualified for the HOF.

While reaching 300 wins is considered a benchmark for HOF pitchers, I looked at every pitcher with more than 250 wins. Every post-1900 pitcher who is eligible for the HOF with more than 250 wins is in the HOF, except for Bert Blyleven, who fell just short this year and will make it in next year, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, and Jack Morris. So, with 263 wins and counting, does this mean that Moyer will eventually get in? Perhaps, although the sportswriters voting for the HOF have been tough on Kaat and John, the two pitchers most similar to Moyer. Kaat and John never got very close all 15 years they were on the ballot, and they can now only be voted in by the Veterans' Committee, which has been very stingy lately with who they let in. Kaat and John were similar to Moyer in that they were not power pitchers who put up big strikeout numbers, and they pitched forever, Kaat for 25 seasons, John for 26 seasons. (Moyer is in his 24th season.) Kaat and John also had very short "peaks" of performance, as did Moyer, and all three pitchers were very durable and had more than their share of 14-12 seasons which don't look that outstanding taken season by season. None of them had very many great seasons, the best is probably Kaat's 1966 season, in which he was 25-13.

The charge could be leveled that Kaat, John, and Moyer are merely "compilers," guys who hang around for a really long time and pile up impressive stats, but who aren't truly "great." I can understand this argument, but I would also argue that anyone who wins 250 games has to be a pretty great player. If these players weren't truly great, they would not have played as long as they did. And also, once you "compile" a certain amount of stats, you are a lock for the Hall of Fame, no matter what. Don Sutton won over 300 games, but he never won a Cy Young Award. (Neither did Nolan Ryan, for that matter.) Sutton only won 20 games in a season once. But what Sutton lacked in peak performance, he made up for in longevity. But Sutton is in the Hall, and he was a great pitcher, he just wasn't as dominant as some of his peers like Steve Carlton or Tom Seaver.

So, where does this leave Jamie Moyer? I think Moyer needs more wins to solidify his HOF candidacy, and honestly, I think he needs 300 wins. If writers are not willing to vote for Tommy John at 288 wins, and Jim Kaat at 283 wins, Moyer is a long shot at 263 wins. The writers have shown that the line is drawn at 300. Give John back his missed 1975 season, give him 13 wins for a total of 301, and he's in. Give Kaat back his partial 1972 season, (he missed time due to injury, he was 10-2 in 15 starts) and a few more starts at the end of his career, and he would be over 300 wins easily. Of course, we can't do that, and it starts us down a slippery slope if we do. But, the point is, Kaat and John are very close to 300 wins and they aren't in, so I don't see Moyer getting in with fewer than 300 wins. It even took Don Sutton 5 tries before he made it in the Hall!

Good luck Jamie Moyer, I'll be watching your starts and I hope you get closer to 300 wins.

Robyn Hitchcock Updates!

2010-04-28T20:08:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't been entertaining you, dear readers, but I have been very busy lately with schoolwork. (I'm going back to school to become a teacher!) I have suffered from a little bit of homework shock, since I haven't been in school since I finished my undergrad in 2003. But the semester is almost over, and at that point I will work on some longer blog posts. But enough about me...Robyn Hitchcock has a new CD! It's called "Propellor Time," and it's quite good. I've only listened to it once so far, but it's lovely. And it also answers the question of what happened to some of those songs we saw Robyn working on in the documentary "Sex, Food, Death, and Tarantulas." There's also a fantastic interview with Robyn on his newly-resigned website, here's the link to that:

http://www.robynhitchcock.com/propellortime/interview/

Robyn also has a new section of his website called "Phantom 45's." It's a place where he lets fans download two of his songs, an "A" and "B" side, for free. Robyn being so prolific and awesome, these are not just re-treads, but brand-new previously unreleased songs. Four songs have been issued so far, and they're all very good. Here's the link to that page:

http://www.robynhitchcock.com/phantom45s/

I'm enjoying all the new Robyn songs, I just hope he comes back on tour soon!

Concert Review: Leon Redbone at the Dakota

2010-04-12T21:06:00.000-05:00

I don't like giving bad reviews. Life is too short to focus on the negative, and I would much rather use the limited power of my blog to champion artists I enjoy, rather than flinging arrows at artists I don't care for. That being said, I also feel like I need to be honest when I write, and not just blindly praise everything I read/hear/see. I have written some negative reviews on this blog, but honestly, a lot of them are reviews of pretty crummy Richard Burton movies. But I've also been critical of people whose work I usually admire, like Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer. Why this intro? Well, last night at the Dakota I saw one of the worst concerts I've ever seen. The artist in question is Leon Redbone, whom I like. I saw him in concert in 2002 and I remember it being a great show. He's a very talented guitar player, and he has his own unique style. Unfortunately, last night he was a caricature of himself. As I thought about it more, it struck me: Leon Redbone is really a performance artist. His whole persona is artifice, and you can never tell exactly when, if ever, the mask slips and you get a glimpse of the real person, whoever that might be.

Now I knew that I should expect a certain amount of shtick from Leon, I just didn't know quite how much we would get last night. From the time he walked out on stage until the time he started his second song of the night, fifteen minutes elapsed. Fifteen agonizing, boring, unfunny minutes. Leon complaining about the sound. Leon filing his fingernail. Leon playing the same riff on his guitar but not starting a song. Leon complaining about the lights. Leon wanting a "sing-along song." It was ridiculous and absurd. I understand now why people originally thought that Leon might be Andy Kaufman pulling another joke on people. Last night was Kaufman-esque in that Redbone seemed to be asking himself, "How far can I push this?" I like banter and jokes and goofing around on stage, but you have to be funny and you have to have a point. There are so many artists who put their whole heart into their art, and here's this guy coasting. Now, people have bad shows, I realize that. But compared to, say, John Hammond, who puts everything he has into every single song, Leon Redbone just looks lazy. Which is part and parcel of his shtick. And I get that. But you have to have an affection for your audience, and I don't get that feeling from Redbone.

While my Mom and I were thoroughly fed up with Redbone's antics, other audience members thought every single thing he did was funny. Which just proves that if you have the persona of being funny, sometimes you don't need to be actually funny. When Leon finally played some songs semi-seriously, he was good, but too many songs suffered from mumbled vocal lines. Maybe Redbone is finally showing his age. Since he claims to be the son of Paganini and Jenny Lind, he must be 170 years old at the youngest. Leon had a piano player with him, but he wasn't given very much to do, his main job was as Leon's straight man. All in all, it was a disappointing show. I was looking forward to hearing some laid-back 20's-30's ragtime blues, but I didn't hear very much of it.