Some Came Running

Tales From the Warner Archives #5: "Mammy" (Curtiz, 1930); or, "Feelin' Grate"

I've bumped this delightful (if I may say so myself) piece up a bit from its original place. Because writing about movies really is more important.

That corner of my sensibility that I sometimes refer to as "my weird Al Jolson thing?" It all began with Aaron. I'd known him slightly since grade school, a blustery, larger-than-life fellow who was a fan/scholar of vintage musicals of all sorts—he was the kid who once borrowed the key to my house so he could play hooky and go over there and watch Rose Of Washington Square on the box (both my parents worked days). Not merely an Al Jolson nut, he was a fantastic Jolson impersonator, and his greatest triumph in a high-school theatrical career full of triumphs (including a raucous turn as Luther Billis in Dumont High's production of South Pacific) was the Jolson act he did at S.O. (for "Student Organization") Night in early February of '74. Singing "Mammy," "Rock-a-bye Your Baby," and "California, Here I Come..." in a period suit, white gloves, string tie...and full blackface. Not only did nobody care about the blackface (Dumont was a pretty lily-white town, and in the '74 high school yearbook I only count a total of three African-American students; as for teachers, forget about it), but Aaron completely brought down the house. He was just the third performer of the first act, but he pretty much defined the show. Not even the spectacle of Aaron's younger brother in drag, with Larry Golden and Mark Zecca similarly arrayed, doing the Andrews Sisters doing "Rum and Coca-Cola," could touch Aaron's white socks.

As some American high-schoolers may be aware, it's tough when you peak in your junior year. Which is, effectively, what Aaron had done. As my friend Joseph Failla recalled in a recent conversation, "After 'S.O. Night' there was no where else to go, right away, so Aaron just kept preaching the Jolie gospel to whoever would listen."

Hence, bugging the Dumont Public Library into letting him introduce at least one screening of a Jolson picture. Which is how I first saw Mammy. A film I found very befuddling, and continued to be befuddled by for many years.

Happy Thanksgiving...

...a holiday that, despite whatever the meanies at Big Hollywood would have you believe, is frequently enjoyed by counter-culture/"progressive"/leftie types, as the above screen cap from Arthur Penn's 1969 Alice's Restaurant testifies.

It's been an...interesting year, and it ain't over yet. For today let me extend my very best wishes to you, my readers, old and new, and to your families. As you may have noticed by this point, this blog is in no way a commercial venture, which to me makes the give and take that much more meaningful. I'm also gratified at the way the regulars stick around regardless of the strange tangents I sometimes go on.

So thanks. I'm consistently grateful for your time, your loyalty, and for your always smart and impassioned and sometimes challenging feedback. Have a great Thanksgiving, wherever you are. 

Two or three (make that four or six) motherf**kers

Any of you out there ever read Miles Davis' autobiography, co-written with the incredibly patient and scrupulous poet Quincey Troupe? If you have, then you know that there's no greater praise that the very eccentric Mr. Davis can give a musician than to call him or her (although in Davis' case it's more than likely a him) a "motherfucker."

It is in Mr. Davis' twisted but apt spirit that I offer for your delectation and appreciation these samples of the works of two quite significant motherfuckers, who passed away in recent days,in the hope that you'll further explore their good and great works. 

 

God bless Les, and Jim. And the lovely Mary, who passed in 1977. Motherfuckers all.

UPDATE: Damn, how could I have neglected to remember Rashied Ali? Thanks to several commenters for the reminders. Here's a clip of Rashied with James Blood Ulmer and Don Cherry. Of the three, only Blood still walks among us. Saw him not too long ago, he's still and absolute...what's the word?...oh, yes, motherfucker.

Happy 4th of July!

James Cagney and company, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Michael Curtiz, 1942

Tales from the Warner Archives #1: "Bye Bye Braverman" (Lumet, 1968)

"It should have been a soufflé, but it turned out a pancake." So director Sidney Lumet described his 1968 film Bye Bye Braverman in his entertaining book Making Movies. Andrew Sarris, describing the film in his book The American Cinema, is a bit kinder, citing "marvelous" and "affecting" work by some of its cast; still, Sarris says, the picture is "as courageous in its conception as it is vulgar in its execution."

What's so courageous about it's conception, you may ask. And I'll then ask you: how many studio pictures do you know of concerning the mid-life crises of a small group of New York Jewish intellectuals? So there. And this one's plot—in which the aforementioned fellows convene for the funeral of an old pal—seems to take its cue from the "Hades" section of Joyce's Ulysses. At least that's what Stanley Edgar Hyman said of the Wallace Markfield novel upon which the Herb Sargent script is based. (Markfield himself: "I can't say that Joyce is important to me. But what writer has not been influenced by Joyce?") Again, pretty highbrow for a Hollywood picture. Then again, the town was opening up at that time. 

Given its milieu and the fact that Lumet is one of the most indefatigable cinematic chroniclers of NYC, the movie maintains a very distinct curiosity value, one which can now be satisfied via its DVD release from the Warner Archive. After checking it out for the first time in decades—I think the first and last time I saw it was in a truncated version on WABC's "The 4:30 Movie" or some such program—I somewhat regret having to report that Lumet's a pretty good judge of his own work. Braverman has its moments—quite a few of them, in fact—but on the whole it's a bit of a botch. 

Film Exhibition In These United States

The Lincoln, Cheyenne, Wyoming, August 23, 2008

Which is, apropos of nothing, right around the corner from...