Saturday, December 19, 2009

Recommended Reading

Matt Taibbi talks about pork and payoffs that get added to the Defense Bill each year, usually at the expense of things like pay for our soldiers or body armor for our soldiers. Our soldiers are sacred in a curious way. You're not allowed to speak ill of them or to suggest that their leaders have sent them off on the wrong mission. But when someone cuts their benefits or deprives them of equipment that might save their lives, no one on the right or the left has much of a problem with that.

• Posted at 5:00 PM · LINK

Funny Friends

Speaking of Buster Keaton, as I was earlier today: I'm intrigued by this photo which someone sent me a year or three ago. It's a shot of two stars of the TV show Bonanza, Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker, with comedians Ed Wynn and, of course, Mr. Keaton.

I'm presuming it was taken on the set of the one episode of Bonanza in which Mr. Wynn appeared — an episode called "The Ponderosa Birdman" which, research tells me, first aired on February 7, 1965. Keaton wasn't in that show but he was filming a lot of guest appearances then in various TV programs and movies, so I'm guessing he was shooting on the lot and came by to see his old pal, Ed. And there's something amusing to me about the fact that Buster is perfectly in character...and not smiling.

• Posted at 2:38 PM · LINK

More Blacklist Memories

The L.A. Times archive folks dug up a 1959 article about a man named Louis Pollock. Pollock was a screenwriter who was blacklisted in 1954 not because of any political activities on his part — that would have been bad enough — but because some folks had him confused with a storeowner named Louis Pollack. Pollack (the storeowner) refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and the mix-up seems to have harmed the career of Pollock (the writer).

It would be a nice ending to this tale if, after the confusion was cleared up, the career of the writer Pollock had flourished. But a check on his IMDB listing does not list a whole lotta work after things were cleared up. It only lists one 1985 job on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which was quite a coup for Mr. Pollock when you consider that he passed away in 1964.

I couldn't help noticing that IMDB lists him as having been an uncredited writer on Lady and the Tramp. Since that movie came out in June of '55, it's possible — though I should think unlikely from the timing — that Pollock did whatever he did on it after he was blacklisted. Mr. Disney, despite all the tales of his right-wing politics, was willing to surreptitiously employ blacklisted writers. As I explained here, my old neighbors Al and Helen Levitt worked on several scripts for Walt during the period when they were effectively barred from writing under their own names. You'll notice that in that piece I wrote, I mentioned that one of the points they made about the blacklist was how sloppy its enforcement was, often confusing one person with another and blacklisting the wrong guy. Well, now here's Louis Pollock as a perfect example of that.

• Posted at 11:32 AM · LINK

Money Matters

This chart has appeared on a couple of other websites lately. I stole it for mine because I think it summarizes a fundamental problem we have in this country. In every poll, Americans say they want lower taxes, a balanced budget and deficit reduction. Fine. So do you. So do I. So does just about everyone. But when you ask people to get more specific about where they want to see cuts, you find that the answer is "Almost nowhere." They want more money spent on education. They want more money spent on veterans' benefits. They want more money spent on health care. Et cetera. The only place where there's any substantial willingness to slash is foreign aid...and foreign aid is less than 1% of the federal budget so cutting there isn't going to save much cash.

I don't have any great insights or ideas here. I just thought we need to stare this problem in the face. It's political dynamite to start slashing in any of these categories. If you cut education, you're harming children. If you cut veterans' benefits, you hate the troops. If you cut health care, people die. And so it goes.

• Posted at 3:23 AM · LINK

The Sound of Lincoln

According to this article, the Disney folks are about to unveil a new, improved Animatronic version of Abraham Lincoln at Disneyland and, one assumes, at its other theme parks later on. The new robotic Abe is capable of hundreds of different facial expressions...which is more than can be said for the last dozen-or-so men to occupy the Oval Office, unless you count talking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time.

The old voice track by actor Royal Dano has been retained despite suggestions that they opt for a new one...say, one by Sam Waterson, who is said to be closer to what The Great Emancipator actually sounded like. In the linked piece, it says, "To be sure, no one living today has ever heard Lincoln speak — and there are no recordings. Much of what scholars have deduced about Lincoln's delivery comes from contemporary accounts of his relatively high-tenor voice."

Far be it from me to quibble with Lincoln scholars...but I'm quite sure I remember reading or hearing somewhere the opinion of poet-historian Carl Sandburg on the subject. Sandburg, of course, never heard Lincoln speak having been born in 1878. But I'm certain he said somewhere that his research had led him to conclude that Lincoln sounded very much like the late Pat Buttram.

You all remember Pat Buttram, perhaps as Gene Autry's sidekick, perhaps as Mr. Haney on the TV series, Green Acres. He was a lovely, funny man and I had the pleasure of directing him a half-dozen times for his recurring role on Garfield and Friends. In fact, I once asked him about the Sandburg remark and he said he'd heard it, too. Pat had a squeaky voice filled with highs and lows, often at different ends of the same word, and he said, "People would never believe ol' Honest Abe sounded like me."

He may have been right about that...and the current flock of experts may know that. Look at that line above about our 16th President having a high-tenor voice. And look at this quote: "He often was so nervous at the beginning, he would almost shift up into a falsetto before he settled himself," said historian Ronald C. White Jr., author of "A. Lincoln: A Biography." Sure sounds like Pat Buttram to me.

• Posted at 2:05 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

You got 22 minutes? If not, come back here when you do and watch One Week, a wonderful comedy made in 1920 by that grinning fool, Buster Keaton.

It was his first solo comedy to be released. For several years, he made films in support of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, turning down offers to go off on his own. When he finally did, he first made a movie called The High Sign. As the story is told, when The High Sign was completed, Keaton decided it wasn't good enough and that it should be shelved. But once that decision was made, Keaton — being a compulsive perfectionist — went back and did rewrites, reshoots and re-editing on The High Sign and then, once he was convinced he'd made it as good as it could be, then he shelved it. The film would be released a few years later when Keaton injured himself and had to take some time off to recover. Only then did he agree to its distribution so that audiences, eager for the next Buster Keaton comedy, would not be disappointed.

In any case, after The High Sign was squirreled away, Keaton made One Week...a remarkable comedy and one that was recently selected for preservation by the National Film Registry. When you watch, you might keep in mind that no miniatures or camera tricks were used to make things happen. Obviously, Keaton's crew knew how to rig things up with wires and breakaway materials...but the big clunky mobile house was actually the size it appears to be, and they made it do all the things it does in the film. That credibility was one of the things that made Keaton's silent films wonderful. Even better was the fact that they were just plain funny.

• Posted at 12:06 AM · LINK