Film Scholar Carol Clover first coined the term "final girl" while writing in her seminal work Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. The term has come to define the last woman alive to confront the killer or monster in horror films. While the term primarily refers to heroines in slasher horror films since the late 1970s, I would make the case that the very first "final girl" appeared at least three decades earlier with the character of female news photographer Billie Mason (Louise Currie) in the 1943 Monogram poverty row horror "The Ape Man," starring Bela Lugosi in the title role. In the movie, Lugosi plays a mad scientist whose experiments have rendered him into a half-human/half-ape creature. In an attempt to find a cure and return himself to full human form, he commits a series of murders to obtain freshly drawn human spinal fluid. His activities arouse the attention of newspaper reporter Jeff Carter (Wallace Ford), and his female photographer sidekick Billie Mason (Ms. Currie).
In the finale of "The Ape Man," Lugosi has kidnapped Billie Mason and taken her to his basement laboratory to draw spinal fluid from her. When she comes to, and realizes the danger she is in, she looks for a way to escape and grabs a nearby circus bullwhip to fend off Lugosi's murderous advances. You can see a clip from that finale here. When Lugosi struggles and fights with Billie Mason to get the bullwhip away from her, she stumbles backwards and accidentally releases the angry captive gorilla who causes Lugosi's death. (We wouldn't see another horror heroine taking proactive measures to defend herself until Gretchen Wells's feisty coed in Herschell Gordon Lewis's "The Gruesome Twosome" nearly a quarter of a century later!) By taking a more active role than the average 1940s horror heroine, Louise Currie's Billie Mason represented a small, yet significant, advance forward in depicting female assertiveness and determination in horror films. In the average horror film up to that point, the heroine usually stands by helplessly awaiting rescue, or faints out of fright, until she comes to later after the danger has passed. In "The Ape Man," the Billie Mason is allowed to take matters into her own hands in order to ensure her survival in the film. When she holds off Lugosi's Ape Man monster by cracking the bullwhip, Louise Currie foreshadows Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween" and all of her other horror vehicles, Amy Steel in "Friday the 13th, Part 2," Sigourney Weaver's Ripley character in the "Alien" films, and Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox in the "Scream" series, making her their spiritual big sister. Her feisty quality reflected how WWII-era American women found themselves having to resolve issues on their own while men were away fighting the war overseas. Film audiences, by that point, might have been more willing to accept assertive females in horror films as they were witnessing women around them taking on new roles by assuming factory jobs and serving in the military.
With her character's masculine first name, sophisticated and witty manner (she and Wallace Ford spar delightfully throughout the movie), photographic talent (which reflected a technical and creative thought-process), and deep speaking voice, the underrated Louise Currie set a refreshing contrast to the milquetoast, frail-voiced starlets who usually top-lined poverty row horrors. Currie was a Max Reinhardt acting-protege who balanced lead roles in Republic serials and Monogram horror films with bit parts in films for major studios, including a notable one as a reporter in the finale of Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane" (1941). Currie and Lugosi worked together for the first time in the RKO mystery comedy "You'll Find Out" (1940) and re-teamed at Monogram a year after "The Ape Man" in the horror vehicle "Voodoo Man." In "Voodoo Man," Currie again depicted an unusual quality for 1940s horror heroines as her character reacts to being kidnapped by Lugosi, John Carradine and George Zucco with an atypically calm directness and intelligence that remains fresh and impressive almost 70 years later. When her character is freed at the end of "Voodoo Man" from a lifetime of being held captive in a catatonic state, Currie reacts to her rescue with an appealingly flippant attitude. Nothing, not even Ape or Voodoo men, could faze her for long. She deserved better out of her career, but distinguished herself by bringing a level of class into films and serials that rarely received it. At the very least, Louise Currie, as Billie Mason in "The Ape Man," deserves greater recognition for her modest, but important, contribution in helping to advance the depiction of women in the history of horror films.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Why all the hate for the Julian Fellowes "Titanic"?
I was riveted this weekend with the 4-part miniseries "Titanic" that aired on ABC. I approached it with skepticism due to lukewarm reviews and news that ratings for the miniseries in the UK (where most of it had already aired in the past few weeks) had declined continuously after the first episode. I thought I was only going to be mildly interested, but within minutes I was sucked into the drama! I have been surprised at the chilly-to-downright-hostile reaction this miniseries has received from the public. It's an intelligently written and acted drama that ranks well with the classic network-TV miniseries of the 1970s and 1980s, truly a lost art form. I enjoyed how Fellowes plays with our expectations of retelling the story by laying out familiar elements, and then turns everything upside down by taking us down a completely different path! In what could be considered the disaster-version of the underrated TV drama "Boomtown," each episode of "Titanic" takes us back to the beginning of the story before the ship even sets sail, and focuses on an entirely new set of characters, who we had only glimpsed earlier, and tells the story from their perspective. Scenes we had witnessed earlier are replayed, but from a different perspective with a new nuance and meaning to be discerned from it. The net effect allows us to realize that none of the characters in the background are just "extras," because their stories will come to the forefront later.
The opening segment focuses much of its attention on the Earl and Lady of Manton (Linus Roache and the unsympathetic Geraldine Somerville--a chilly actress who exudes as much sex appeal as you would expect from someone with that name) and their annoying daughter, Lady Georgiana (Perdita Weeks). I started off thinking that Lady Georgiana would end up being the centerpiece of the whole miniseries, as her character was vaguely reminiscent of Kate Winslet's Rose in the famous James Cameron telling of this story. But, by the second episode, the story of the Manton's retreated into the background and we found ourselves enmeshed in the other, more interesting passengers aboard the ship. I was much more taken with the unrealized love between the Manton's servants Barnes (Lee Ross) and Mabel Watson (Lyndsey Marshal). The subplot where Barnes attempts to redeem himself after he has ruined Mabel's copy of "Aesop's Fables" (after he snatched it from her teasingly) takes on surprising levels of depth and feeling later on. I have never seen Ross or Marshal before, but they commanded the screen with great confidence and feeling and I look forward to following their careers in the future.
But best of all is Jenna-Louise Coleman's radiant performance as second-class stewardess Annie Desmond. In later episodes, Annie's character comes into greater prominence and eclipse's Lady Georgiana to become the miniseries's actual romantic heroine. Unlike Lady Georgiana's fake progressive activism (we first encounter her in jail after she has been arrested for protesting for suffrage rights in the UK), Coleman's Annie Desmond truly represents the future of English womanhood. With her cockney accent, warmth, intelligence, heart, courage, and can-do attitude, she represents the sort of young woman who will likely rise to the occasion and volunteer for leadership roles as the 20th Century progresses and her nation faces two impending world wars in the decades to come. Her intelligence, wit, and sensitivity is reminiscent of the servant maids played by Kelly Macdonald and Emily Watson in the Fellowes-scripted "Gosford Park" (2001), not coincidentally my favorite characters from that film. Coleman is a real find--when she appeared on-screen I said to myself "Ah, a star is born!"--and I rooted for her character to survive.
Coleman isn't alone in the miniseries--Fellowes allows many of his female characters moments to shine. He doesn't just put all his eggs in one basket the way James Cameron did with Kate Winslet in his Titanic movie. Silent film star Dorothy Gibson (Sophie Winkleman) and Benjamin Guggenheim's French mistress Madame Aubart (Josephine de la Baume) are depicted as feisty women who had the courage to thumb their noses at the British class system on board that seeks to put them in their place. Aubart even gets my favorite line in the whole miniseries. After she has been insulted by the shallow Lady Manton (the one irredeemable woman in the story), Aubart dismisses the slight by wryly commenting, "No one is more morally indignant than a beauty on the wrong side of 40." I particularly liked the sequence, after the ship has gone down, where Molly Brown and other women aboard the lifeboat stage a mini-mutiny by disobeying the the cowardly seaman who refuses to go back to look for survivors. Fellowes at least plays fair with Molly Brown, who lives up to her feisty reputation in this version of the story, not the toothless counterpart that Cameron depicted in his film who lets herself gets shouted down by others on the lifeboat when she insists on going back for survivors. Fellowes generally shares the courage equally among his women, rather than limiting it to just one woman as in the Cameron version. That in itself gives this version of the "Titanic" tragedy enough of an edge to distinguish itself from the many interpretations of this story.
The opening segment focuses much of its attention on the Earl and Lady of Manton (Linus Roache and the unsympathetic Geraldine Somerville--a chilly actress who exudes as much sex appeal as you would expect from someone with that name) and their annoying daughter, Lady Georgiana (Perdita Weeks). I started off thinking that Lady Georgiana would end up being the centerpiece of the whole miniseries, as her character was vaguely reminiscent of Kate Winslet's Rose in the famous James Cameron telling of this story. But, by the second episode, the story of the Manton's retreated into the background and we found ourselves enmeshed in the other, more interesting passengers aboard the ship. I was much more taken with the unrealized love between the Manton's servants Barnes (Lee Ross) and Mabel Watson (Lyndsey Marshal). The subplot where Barnes attempts to redeem himself after he has ruined Mabel's copy of "Aesop's Fables" (after he snatched it from her teasingly) takes on surprising levels of depth and feeling later on. I have never seen Ross or Marshal before, but they commanded the screen with great confidence and feeling and I look forward to following their careers in the future.
But best of all is Jenna-Louise Coleman's radiant performance as second-class stewardess Annie Desmond. In later episodes, Annie's character comes into greater prominence and eclipse's Lady Georgiana to become the miniseries's actual romantic heroine. Unlike Lady Georgiana's fake progressive activism (we first encounter her in jail after she has been arrested for protesting for suffrage rights in the UK), Coleman's Annie Desmond truly represents the future of English womanhood. With her cockney accent, warmth, intelligence, heart, courage, and can-do attitude, she represents the sort of young woman who will likely rise to the occasion and volunteer for leadership roles as the 20th Century progresses and her nation faces two impending world wars in the decades to come. Her intelligence, wit, and sensitivity is reminiscent of the servant maids played by Kelly Macdonald and Emily Watson in the Fellowes-scripted "Gosford Park" (2001), not coincidentally my favorite characters from that film. Coleman is a real find--when she appeared on-screen I said to myself "Ah, a star is born!"--and I rooted for her character to survive.
Coleman isn't alone in the miniseries--Fellowes allows many of his female characters moments to shine. He doesn't just put all his eggs in one basket the way James Cameron did with Kate Winslet in his Titanic movie. Silent film star Dorothy Gibson (Sophie Winkleman) and Benjamin Guggenheim's French mistress Madame Aubart (Josephine de la Baume) are depicted as feisty women who had the courage to thumb their noses at the British class system on board that seeks to put them in their place. Aubart even gets my favorite line in the whole miniseries. After she has been insulted by the shallow Lady Manton (the one irredeemable woman in the story), Aubart dismisses the slight by wryly commenting, "No one is more morally indignant than a beauty on the wrong side of 40." I particularly liked the sequence, after the ship has gone down, where Molly Brown and other women aboard the lifeboat stage a mini-mutiny by disobeying the the cowardly seaman who refuses to go back to look for survivors. Fellowes at least plays fair with Molly Brown, who lives up to her feisty reputation in this version of the story, not the toothless counterpart that Cameron depicted in his film who lets herself gets shouted down by others on the lifeboat when she insists on going back for survivors. Fellowes generally shares the courage equally among his women, rather than limiting it to just one woman as in the Cameron version. That in itself gives this version of the "Titanic" tragedy enough of an edge to distinguish itself from the many interpretations of this story.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
My Ode to Miss Ellie
Thirty-four years ago this week, on April 2, 1978, "Dallas" premiered on CBS. It told the story of the wealthy Ewing family, led by patriarchal oil baron Jock Ewing (Jim Davis), and his sons Bobby (Patrick Duffy) and JR (Larry Hagman), and of the Ewing’s on-going feud with the poor Barnes clan, led by drunken Digger Barnes (David Wayne and, later, Keenan Wynn) and how that feud escalates to epic proportions when Bobby marries Digger’s beautiful daughter Pamela (Victoria Principal). The public and the media nowadays narrowly view "Dallas" as a show about 1980s opulence and excess and know it only for its memorable “Who Shot JR?” cliffhanger at the end of its second season in March 1980.
But its true fans know that it is much more than that. They stayed with the show even after its eighth season (1985-86) turned out to be a dream; recognize that Morgan Brittany (and not Morgan Fairchild) was the Morgan who had a regular role on the series as Pamela’s scheming half-sister Katherine Wentworth; and remember that actors other than Ted Shackelford, Mary Crosby, and Priscilla Presley originated the roles of Gary, Kristin, and Jenna. They also know that, at its heart, "Dallas" was really a family drama about a clan whose existence and way of life was dictated by a larger-than-life father, who set stringent standards for his sons to become competitive, ruthless oilmen with guts that results in decades of turmoil and misery as his children (and their wives and extended relatives) almost destroy one another in an attempt to live up to those expectations. The psychological and emotional pathos of how the Ewing's unhappiness stems from their inability to recognize the impossibility of completely reaching that goal gives “Dallas” a subtext that belies ordinary expectations and interpretations of the series. Even the Barnes clan is not immune from this: Digger’s desperate son Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval) spends the entire series in an increasingly futile effort to compete with, and defeat, the Ewings--JR in particular--in order to redeem his father's name. Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) also acknowledges at one point that her mother groomed her and her sister Kristin to believe their only purpose in life was to marry rich husbands someday, which ultimately proved to be the root of her unhappiness. In short, "Dallas" is about parents who expect too much from their children, and the devastating effects on them.
It is for these reasons that “Dallas” still has enough resonance in 2012 that TNT will debut a revival series, bringing the saga of the Ewings up to current times, later this summer. Whether the new series lives up to expectations set by the original, not unlike the standards Jock set for his family, remains to be seen. Nevertheless, as long as the new series recognizes the theme of people attempting to define what it truly means to be an Ewing, it may have a fighting chance to make an impression of its own. There is a reason why “Dallas” (despite its ups and downs through the years) remains part of the popular consciousness, while its competitor prime time soaps of the 1980s (such as “Dynasty,” “Knots Landing,” “Falcon Crest,” and “Flamingo Road”) have not been revived.
What also truly sets "Dallas" apart from other shows in its genre was Barbara Bel Geddes's beautifully subtle and touching performance as Ewing family matriarch Miss Ellie. Miss Ellie defied typical feminist expectations of powerful women because she was a socialite and homemaker who didn't wield her influence and authority with an attache case. She contradicted other television images of women set in the 1970s (when the series premiered) in that she did not pursue a professional career. And, yet, few characters on "Dallas" projected such authority and strength as Miss Ellie. As Julie Grey (Tina Louise) tells Miss Ellie in a 1979 episode, "You're Ellie Ewing. You don't need a man to give you power." Ironically, "Dallas" creator David Jacobs has said that he intended Miss Ellie to be more of a powerful, professional Southern woman, describing his original intention that she be an Ann Richards-type character. He felt Miss Ellie, as played by Bel Geddes, turned out boring in his opinion. Jacobs proves, with his short-sighted assessment, that series creators are sometimes the last people to fully understand what made their brainchild work. (This statement on the interpretation of Miss Ellie is not surprising considering that Jacobs, IMHO, has always appeared in interviews to be disappointed that "Dallas," a show that he had less influence on after its first season, was always more successful, and continues to have more of a widespread cultural impact, than his other successful series "Knots Landing," which he had greater influence on and has said felt reflected his values better than "Dallas." I liked "Knots Landing" very much, but I find it ludicrous for Jacobs and its cast to practice reverse-snobbery and allege it was inordinately superior to "Dallas" simply because it was about middle-class suburbanites and, purportedly, more "realistic" than "Dallas." They conveniently ignore how "Knots Landing" stopped being about middle-class suburbia when it went upscale after Season 4, heartlessly dismissed original cast members such as Kenny & Ginger and Richard who didn't fit into this new upscale image, and also had its share of ridiculous melodramatic storylines.) Had Miss Ellie turned out to be the Richards-prototype that Jacobs had envisioned, the audience would have dubbed "Dallas" a modern-day imitation of "The Big Valley" and immediately compared her to Barbara Stanwyck's Victoria Barkley character. It would not have stood out as something unique and different as to inspire a new TV genre in the 1980s.
Miss Ellie reflects Camille Paglia's view that women who maintain a strong influence over their family are the ultimate leaders of the world. She was one of the few characters whose words could single handedly put JR, Bobby and Jock in their place, and whose courage, humility, and integrity was boundless. Her heart and ability to continue to love her children, even as she disapproved of their actions, made her instantly recognizable to all of us who have disappointed our own mothers at one point or another in our lives. But she wasn't perfect. She was occasionally blinded by her own hurt and rage. There was the storyline where Miss Ellie opposed Jock and Ray Krebbs's (Steve Kanaly) involvement in the Takapa resort real estate project ostensibly on environmental grounds. It later turned out that her opposition to Takapa was more rooted in her resentment of Jock welcoming ranch foreman Ray into the family, once it became apparent that Ray was his illegitimate son, at the expense of her own son Gary, who never wanted to move back to Southfork from his Knots Landing cul-de-sac due to his bad memories growing up there. Her inability to forgive Jock, and accept the fact that Gary did not want to come home for reasons other than Ray's presence in the family, almost leads to the dissolution of their marriage. She ultimately comes to the realization that, despite her deep love for her favorite son Gary, she was never an effective parent in addressing the demons that had haunted him from childhood on. She must, once and for all, relinquish the hope that Gary will someday return to Southfork permanently. One year later, after Jock has died, Miss Ellie ostracizes her best friend Donna Krebbs (Susan Howard), Ray's wife, after Donna uncovers unflattering facts about Jock while researching a book. She shuns Donna and refuses to acknowledge the truth of Donna's discovery, all in effort to keep Jock's memory alive and deny that he had truly died in a plane crash in South America. Just as Miss Ellie could be a formidable ally, she could also prove to be a devastating adversary when crossed.
Nevertheless, the moments I remember most about Miss Ellie are the heartfelt moments where she openly expresses love and caring for her own children. In the 1979 episode "Return Engagement," the segment that spins off into "Knots Landing," Miss Ellie offers to buy the re-marrying Gary and Val a new house in California so they can start their lives over again. Both Gary and Val try to talk Miss Ellie out of such an extravagant gift, citing all the things she has done for them, including raising their daughter Lucy (Charlene Tilton) after JR had run Gary and Val off of Southfork 20 years earlier. The humility of Miss Ellie's speech still awes me to this day--she acknowledges her own complicity in how Gary and Val were mistreated due to her silence and inaction at the time. She rhetorically asks them "Do you think my giving you a house makes things right? I don't. So if you're going to refuse the gift, refuse it because the gift is too small. Otherwise take it, please take it." I also recall the lovely scene in 1988 when Cliff Barnes calls a truce to the Barnes/Ewing feud by finally acknowledging that Jock never cheated his daddy Digger out of his fortune. It was appropriate that Miss Ellie, and not JR or Bobby, proved to be the peacemaker who brought an end to the family squabbling.
Barbara Bel Geddes might seem an unlikely choice to play the genteel Miss Ellie. Born in New York, the daughter of theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, she was a sophisticated, urban Yankee who was as far from being Southern as you can imagine. And, yet, there has always been a truthful, direct earthiness to Bel Geddes that made her believable as a Texas rancher's daughter with a great love of the land. Her deep voice gave her gravitas and presence as she faced off against Jock, JR and Bobby on the series. In one episode, when Miss Ellie overhears Jock condescendingly describe what he considers a woman's "proper" place in society, she responds "You believe that the woman's place is two steps behind the man...except when walking through a minefield!" Nobody could've delivered that line better. Briefly, in the 1984-85 season, Bel Geddes took a sabbatical and was replaced by Donna Reed, who turned out to be woefully inadequate for the role. Reed, with her frail voice, awkward vocal cadences, and extravagant wardrobe, stripped away the subtleties of what made Miss Ellie a compelling character and made her a conventional soap opera matriarch. Reed attempted to turn Miss Ellie into the Ann Richards-prototype envisioned by the series's creator, and proved how that interpretation for the role was completely wrong for the series. Thankfully, Bel Geddes returned to the series the following season, and not a moment too soon, as "Dallas" was then fully entrenched in the dreaded "dream season" and needed as much grounding and gravitas as it could get.
In later seasons, Miss Ellie was married to the dignified and kind Clayton Farlow (Howard Keel), a man whose warmth, patience and understanding rivaled the enormity of Jock Ewing's ego. We finally saw her in a marriage where she wasn't expected to live up to expectations of being either Miss Ellie Ewing or Miss Ellie Southworth (her maiden name), and could simply be "Ellie," as Clayton often referred to her. Bel Geddes and Keel had great chemistry together, probably even more natural chemistry than she had with Jim Davis, and the two of them even had a fun storyline in the 1989-90 season, when Miss Ellie became a Jessica Fletcher-type sleuth and solved several mysteries with Clayton as her trusty companion. This might have been during the waning years of the series, but I liked this storyline because it allowed us to see a different side of Miss Ellie. After that, Bel Geddes decided to call it a day, retired from acting for good, and did not return for the final season of "Dallas." The last time we see Miss Ellie, she is getting into a limousine for an extended cruise around the world and this allowed the character to go out on top. After the years of turmoil Miss Ellie had endured, she had more than earned the vacation.
Nevertheless, Miss Ellie, the reluctant Ewing who originally married Jock during the Great Depression to save her family's ranch, ultimately proved that she understood what it meant to be an Ewing even better than Jock or her sons. In the 1981 episode, "Waterloo at Southfork," Miss Ellie calls the entire oil cartel, including Cliff Barnes, to the carpet at Ewing Oil offices late at night after learning how they have charged an outrageous amount of interest on loans they have made to JR, who has hocked Ewing Oil assets as part of an effort to regain custody of his son John Ross. She castigates them for taking advantage of JR's situation by betraying the friendship and trust that their family, especially Jock, has bestowed upon them through the years before announcing that she has intervened in the situation, and that Ewing Oil is now prepared to repay the loans with interest. Before she does that, however, she issues a stern warning to the cartel that sums up the Ewings better than anybody else could: "We may be wrong, and we may be right, but we're Ewings and we stick together. That makes us unbeatable!"
But its true fans know that it is much more than that. They stayed with the show even after its eighth season (1985-86) turned out to be a dream; recognize that Morgan Brittany (and not Morgan Fairchild) was the Morgan who had a regular role on the series as Pamela’s scheming half-sister Katherine Wentworth; and remember that actors other than Ted Shackelford, Mary Crosby, and Priscilla Presley originated the roles of Gary, Kristin, and Jenna. They also know that, at its heart, "Dallas" was really a family drama about a clan whose existence and way of life was dictated by a larger-than-life father, who set stringent standards for his sons to become competitive, ruthless oilmen with guts that results in decades of turmoil and misery as his children (and their wives and extended relatives) almost destroy one another in an attempt to live up to those expectations. The psychological and emotional pathos of how the Ewing's unhappiness stems from their inability to recognize the impossibility of completely reaching that goal gives “Dallas” a subtext that belies ordinary expectations and interpretations of the series. Even the Barnes clan is not immune from this: Digger’s desperate son Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval) spends the entire series in an increasingly futile effort to compete with, and defeat, the Ewings--JR in particular--in order to redeem his father's name. Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) also acknowledges at one point that her mother groomed her and her sister Kristin to believe their only purpose in life was to marry rich husbands someday, which ultimately proved to be the root of her unhappiness. In short, "Dallas" is about parents who expect too much from their children, and the devastating effects on them.
It is for these reasons that “Dallas” still has enough resonance in 2012 that TNT will debut a revival series, bringing the saga of the Ewings up to current times, later this summer. Whether the new series lives up to expectations set by the original, not unlike the standards Jock set for his family, remains to be seen. Nevertheless, as long as the new series recognizes the theme of people attempting to define what it truly means to be an Ewing, it may have a fighting chance to make an impression of its own. There is a reason why “Dallas” (despite its ups and downs through the years) remains part of the popular consciousness, while its competitor prime time soaps of the 1980s (such as “Dynasty,” “Knots Landing,” “Falcon Crest,” and “Flamingo Road”) have not been revived.
What also truly sets "Dallas" apart from other shows in its genre was Barbara Bel Geddes's beautifully subtle and touching performance as Ewing family matriarch Miss Ellie. Miss Ellie defied typical feminist expectations of powerful women because she was a socialite and homemaker who didn't wield her influence and authority with an attache case. She contradicted other television images of women set in the 1970s (when the series premiered) in that she did not pursue a professional career. And, yet, few characters on "Dallas" projected such authority and strength as Miss Ellie. As Julie Grey (Tina Louise) tells Miss Ellie in a 1979 episode, "You're Ellie Ewing. You don't need a man to give you power." Ironically, "Dallas" creator David Jacobs has said that he intended Miss Ellie to be more of a powerful, professional Southern woman, describing his original intention that she be an Ann Richards-type character. He felt Miss Ellie, as played by Bel Geddes, turned out boring in his opinion. Jacobs proves, with his short-sighted assessment, that series creators are sometimes the last people to fully understand what made their brainchild work. (This statement on the interpretation of Miss Ellie is not surprising considering that Jacobs, IMHO, has always appeared in interviews to be disappointed that "Dallas," a show that he had less influence on after its first season, was always more successful, and continues to have more of a widespread cultural impact, than his other successful series "Knots Landing," which he had greater influence on and has said felt reflected his values better than "Dallas." I liked "Knots Landing" very much, but I find it ludicrous for Jacobs and its cast to practice reverse-snobbery and allege it was inordinately superior to "Dallas" simply because it was about middle-class suburbanites and, purportedly, more "realistic" than "Dallas." They conveniently ignore how "Knots Landing" stopped being about middle-class suburbia when it went upscale after Season 4, heartlessly dismissed original cast members such as Kenny & Ginger and Richard who didn't fit into this new upscale image, and also had its share of ridiculous melodramatic storylines.) Had Miss Ellie turned out to be the Richards-prototype that Jacobs had envisioned, the audience would have dubbed "Dallas" a modern-day imitation of "The Big Valley" and immediately compared her to Barbara Stanwyck's Victoria Barkley character. It would not have stood out as something unique and different as to inspire a new TV genre in the 1980s.
Miss Ellie reflects Camille Paglia's view that women who maintain a strong influence over their family are the ultimate leaders of the world. She was one of the few characters whose words could single handedly put JR, Bobby and Jock in their place, and whose courage, humility, and integrity was boundless. Her heart and ability to continue to love her children, even as she disapproved of their actions, made her instantly recognizable to all of us who have disappointed our own mothers at one point or another in our lives. But she wasn't perfect. She was occasionally blinded by her own hurt and rage. There was the storyline where Miss Ellie opposed Jock and Ray Krebbs's (Steve Kanaly) involvement in the Takapa resort real estate project ostensibly on environmental grounds. It later turned out that her opposition to Takapa was more rooted in her resentment of Jock welcoming ranch foreman Ray into the family, once it became apparent that Ray was his illegitimate son, at the expense of her own son Gary, who never wanted to move back to Southfork from his Knots Landing cul-de-sac due to his bad memories growing up there. Her inability to forgive Jock, and accept the fact that Gary did not want to come home for reasons other than Ray's presence in the family, almost leads to the dissolution of their marriage. She ultimately comes to the realization that, despite her deep love for her favorite son Gary, she was never an effective parent in addressing the demons that had haunted him from childhood on. She must, once and for all, relinquish the hope that Gary will someday return to Southfork permanently. One year later, after Jock has died, Miss Ellie ostracizes her best friend Donna Krebbs (Susan Howard), Ray's wife, after Donna uncovers unflattering facts about Jock while researching a book. She shuns Donna and refuses to acknowledge the truth of Donna's discovery, all in effort to keep Jock's memory alive and deny that he had truly died in a plane crash in South America. Just as Miss Ellie could be a formidable ally, she could also prove to be a devastating adversary when crossed.
Nevertheless, the moments I remember most about Miss Ellie are the heartfelt moments where she openly expresses love and caring for her own children. In the 1979 episode "Return Engagement," the segment that spins off into "Knots Landing," Miss Ellie offers to buy the re-marrying Gary and Val a new house in California so they can start their lives over again. Both Gary and Val try to talk Miss Ellie out of such an extravagant gift, citing all the things she has done for them, including raising their daughter Lucy (Charlene Tilton) after JR had run Gary and Val off of Southfork 20 years earlier. The humility of Miss Ellie's speech still awes me to this day--she acknowledges her own complicity in how Gary and Val were mistreated due to her silence and inaction at the time. She rhetorically asks them "Do you think my giving you a house makes things right? I don't. So if you're going to refuse the gift, refuse it because the gift is too small. Otherwise take it, please take it." I also recall the lovely scene in 1988 when Cliff Barnes calls a truce to the Barnes/Ewing feud by finally acknowledging that Jock never cheated his daddy Digger out of his fortune. It was appropriate that Miss Ellie, and not JR or Bobby, proved to be the peacemaker who brought an end to the family squabbling.
Barbara Bel Geddes might seem an unlikely choice to play the genteel Miss Ellie. Born in New York, the daughter of theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, she was a sophisticated, urban Yankee who was as far from being Southern as you can imagine. And, yet, there has always been a truthful, direct earthiness to Bel Geddes that made her believable as a Texas rancher's daughter with a great love of the land. Her deep voice gave her gravitas and presence as she faced off against Jock, JR and Bobby on the series. In one episode, when Miss Ellie overhears Jock condescendingly describe what he considers a woman's "proper" place in society, she responds "You believe that the woman's place is two steps behind the man...except when walking through a minefield!" Nobody could've delivered that line better. Briefly, in the 1984-85 season, Bel Geddes took a sabbatical and was replaced by Donna Reed, who turned out to be woefully inadequate for the role. Reed, with her frail voice, awkward vocal cadences, and extravagant wardrobe, stripped away the subtleties of what made Miss Ellie a compelling character and made her a conventional soap opera matriarch. Reed attempted to turn Miss Ellie into the Ann Richards-prototype envisioned by the series's creator, and proved how that interpretation for the role was completely wrong for the series. Thankfully, Bel Geddes returned to the series the following season, and not a moment too soon, as "Dallas" was then fully entrenched in the dreaded "dream season" and needed as much grounding and gravitas as it could get.
In later seasons, Miss Ellie was married to the dignified and kind Clayton Farlow (Howard Keel), a man whose warmth, patience and understanding rivaled the enormity of Jock Ewing's ego. We finally saw her in a marriage where she wasn't expected to live up to expectations of being either Miss Ellie Ewing or Miss Ellie Southworth (her maiden name), and could simply be "Ellie," as Clayton often referred to her. Bel Geddes and Keel had great chemistry together, probably even more natural chemistry than she had with Jim Davis, and the two of them even had a fun storyline in the 1989-90 season, when Miss Ellie became a Jessica Fletcher-type sleuth and solved several mysteries with Clayton as her trusty companion. This might have been during the waning years of the series, but I liked this storyline because it allowed us to see a different side of Miss Ellie. After that, Bel Geddes decided to call it a day, retired from acting for good, and did not return for the final season of "Dallas." The last time we see Miss Ellie, she is getting into a limousine for an extended cruise around the world and this allowed the character to go out on top. After the years of turmoil Miss Ellie had endured, she had more than earned the vacation.
Nevertheless, Miss Ellie, the reluctant Ewing who originally married Jock during the Great Depression to save her family's ranch, ultimately proved that she understood what it meant to be an Ewing even better than Jock or her sons. In the 1981 episode, "Waterloo at Southfork," Miss Ellie calls the entire oil cartel, including Cliff Barnes, to the carpet at Ewing Oil offices late at night after learning how they have charged an outrageous amount of interest on loans they have made to JR, who has hocked Ewing Oil assets as part of an effort to regain custody of his son John Ross. She castigates them for taking advantage of JR's situation by betraying the friendship and trust that their family, especially Jock, has bestowed upon them through the years before announcing that she has intervened in the situation, and that Ewing Oil is now prepared to repay the loans with interest. Before she does that, however, she issues a stern warning to the cartel that sums up the Ewings better than anybody else could: "We may be wrong, and we may be right, but we're Ewings and we stick together. That makes us unbeatable!"
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The "3 Girl" Formula
The recent Shout!Factory DVD release of three Roger Corman-produced drive-in exploitation films from the early 1970s has reawakened my interest in the "3 Girl Formula" movies that Corman produced during that time. In an appropriately-numbered triple feature package, the set includes the unique distaff "Spartacus"-inspired "The Arena" (1973), starring Pam Grier, Margaret Markov, and Lucretia Love as a trio of women who are captive slaves in the Roman empire, forced to battle one another in the gladiator's arena. Next after that is the Philippine-shot comedy adventure "Fly Me" (1973) with Pat Anderson, Lenore Kasdorf, and Lyllah Torena as a trio of flight attendants working the Hong Kong-Tokyo-Manila shift while dealing with romance, white slavery, mystery, and espionage. The third film in the set is a virtual remake of "Fly Me" entitled "Cover Girl Models" (1975) with the returning Pat Anderson joined by Lindsay Bloom and Tara Strohmeier as a trio of fashion models involved with romance, comedy, mystery, revolutions, and espionage while on a photo shoot that takes them from Hong Kong to Singapore. The latter two films were part of a series of films that Corman's New World Pictures released at the time that involved a trio of beautiful young women as they juggle romantic relationships, career complications, and action-packed adventure. The more famous of these films were Corman's "nurse" and "teachers" movies (my favorite being 1975's "Summer School Teachers" starring Candice Rialson, the aforementioned Pat Anderson, and Rhonda Leigh Hopkins as, what else?, beautiful summer school teachers dealing with romance, action, comedy and intrigue while working at a Southern California high school). I liked "Fly Me" and "Cover Girl Models" even more than those films because it takes advantage of the Asian locations that enhances these colorful, breezy movies.
I have always loved Corman's "3 Girl Formula" movies. Actually, I've always loved "3 Girl Formula" movies in any context or capacity. The genre has always been around in cinema. 1937's classic "Stage Door" is one of the earliest examples of the genre juggling the stories of Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Andrea Leeds as three promising young actresses hoping for success on the Broadway stage. Another good example of the genre was "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953), with Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable as three golddiggers out to land rich husbands. We also had 1958's "The Best of Everything," with Hope Lange, Diane Baker, and Suzy Parker as three young women vying for success in the New York-Madison Avenue business world. Later we had "Where the Boys Are" (1960) with Dolores Hart, Yvette Mimieux, Paula Prentiss, and the added bonus of Connie Francis as a quartet of college coeds finding romance, comedy, adventure, heartbreak, and tragedy during their Spring break vacation in Fort Lauderdale. (Sometimes, the "3 Girl" movies can broaden its canvass and allow for a 4th girl to join the team.) Then there was "Come Fly with Me," with Dolores Hart, Pamela Tiffin, and Lois Nettleton as three attractive flight attendants and their romantic entanglements while living and working in Europe--a much milder predecessor to "Fly Me." We next had Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley, and Pamela Tiffin as three roommates living and working in Madrid, Spain in the campy "The Pleasure Seekers," itself a remake of another "3 Girl Formula" movie "Three Coins in the Fountain" (1954) with Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters, and Maggie McNamara finding romance in Rome instead of Madrid. The 1960s TV series "Petticoat Junction" featured the adventures of Bea Benaderet's three beautiful daughters Betty Jo (Linda Kaye Henning), Bobbie Jo (Pat Woodell and later Lori Saunders), and Billie Jo (alternately, Jeannine Riley, Gunilla Hutton, and the uncongruously sophisticated Meredith McRae) around the Shady Rest hotel and the Cannonball train in the town of Hooterville.
"Valley of the Dolls" (1967) is one of the most famous examples of the genre, with Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate as three young women scaling the heights of show business. Even Russ Meyer got into the act, with "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1966), starring Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams as three go-go dancers who embark on a wild sex and crime spree in the desert, and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970) with Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, and Marcia McBroom playing a female rock trio seeking fame and fortune, only to find degradation and corruption, in Hollywood. The "Charlie's Angels" TV series was yet another step in the development of the genre, as it centered on three female private detectives. Wes Craven's "Deadly Blessing" (1981) with Maren Jensen, Susan Buckner, and Sharon Stone as 3 modern urban women facing discrimination and danger while living next-door to a repressed religious sect in rural Pennsylvania took the genre outside of its light-hearted roots and placed it in a horror/suspense context.
Why have I always loved "3 Girl" movies and TV shows? I guess it's because I was always intrigued to see how the filmmakers would juggle three subplots and allow each of the attractive female leads equal screen time to shine. Just as the camaraderie among men in Westerns and War movies have always held a certain appeal, the friendship in stories involving young women pursuing careers are equally endearing. The implication of having multiple subplots suggests that these young women enjoy strength in numbers as they face ordinary and extraordinary challenges in their lives. These films usually depict the friendships these women have with each other in addition to their romantic relationships, as opposed to most films which usually depict typically one woman juggling her career and romantic life. Female friends exist in these sorts of movies merely to act as sounding boards for the central female lead to complain about what's wrong with her life.
Corman's "3 Girl" Movies were usually made with nudity and sex to appeal to the R-rated drive-in crowd. However, the typical drive-in sex comedy could have contained these same elements in a film where the MEN were the central characters shown in pursuit of three beautiful nurses (or three beautiful teachers or three beautiful fashion models or three beautiful flight attendants...you get the picture). Compare "Fly Me," where the flight attendants are involved with mystery, intrigue, and adventure (Lenore Kasdorf's admirable flight attendant from "Fly Me" even gets to demonstrate her proficiency in martial arts as she investigates the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend in Hong Kong, and helps to destroy mobsters dealing in racketeering, narcotics, and white slavery in the process), with Al Adamson's lazily pointless "The Naughty Stewardesses" (1975), where the flight attendants truly are stereotypical mannequins only interested in pursuing men, with no other interests and objectives in life. In "Cover Girl Models," Pat Anderson's character tries to figure out why enemy agents are after the red dress (that has had secret microfilm sewn in the lining) she is modeling, Lindsay Bloom attempts to break out of being a model to become a legitimate actress, and neophyte model Tara Strohmeier is busy gaining the self-confidence she needs to be a success in the field. None of them are pursuing the stereotypical paths typically set for women in these exploitation films. What makes these movies truly unique is that, despite their prurient and exploitative elements, Corman told these stories from the perspective of the women, humanizing them, allowing them to set goals for themselves, and be portrayed with sympathy and depth (or at least attempts at depth), rather than being leeringly objectified in a film where the perspective comes solely and narrowly from the men.
I have always loved Corman's "3 Girl Formula" movies. Actually, I've always loved "3 Girl Formula" movies in any context or capacity. The genre has always been around in cinema. 1937's classic "Stage Door" is one of the earliest examples of the genre juggling the stories of Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Andrea Leeds as three promising young actresses hoping for success on the Broadway stage. Another good example of the genre was "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953), with Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable as three golddiggers out to land rich husbands. We also had 1958's "The Best of Everything," with Hope Lange, Diane Baker, and Suzy Parker as three young women vying for success in the New York-Madison Avenue business world. Later we had "Where the Boys Are" (1960) with Dolores Hart, Yvette Mimieux, Paula Prentiss, and the added bonus of Connie Francis as a quartet of college coeds finding romance, comedy, adventure, heartbreak, and tragedy during their Spring break vacation in Fort Lauderdale. (Sometimes, the "3 Girl" movies can broaden its canvass and allow for a 4th girl to join the team.) Then there was "Come Fly with Me," with Dolores Hart, Pamela Tiffin, and Lois Nettleton as three attractive flight attendants and their romantic entanglements while living and working in Europe--a much milder predecessor to "Fly Me." We next had Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley, and Pamela Tiffin as three roommates living and working in Madrid, Spain in the campy "The Pleasure Seekers," itself a remake of another "3 Girl Formula" movie "Three Coins in the Fountain" (1954) with Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters, and Maggie McNamara finding romance in Rome instead of Madrid. The 1960s TV series "Petticoat Junction" featured the adventures of Bea Benaderet's three beautiful daughters Betty Jo (Linda Kaye Henning), Bobbie Jo (Pat Woodell and later Lori Saunders), and Billie Jo (alternately, Jeannine Riley, Gunilla Hutton, and the uncongruously sophisticated Meredith McRae) around the Shady Rest hotel and the Cannonball train in the town of Hooterville.
"Valley of the Dolls" (1967) is one of the most famous examples of the genre, with Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate as three young women scaling the heights of show business. Even Russ Meyer got into the act, with "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1966), starring Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams as three go-go dancers who embark on a wild sex and crime spree in the desert, and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970) with Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, and Marcia McBroom playing a female rock trio seeking fame and fortune, only to find degradation and corruption, in Hollywood. The "Charlie's Angels" TV series was yet another step in the development of the genre, as it centered on three female private detectives. Wes Craven's "Deadly Blessing" (1981) with Maren Jensen, Susan Buckner, and Sharon Stone as 3 modern urban women facing discrimination and danger while living next-door to a repressed religious sect in rural Pennsylvania took the genre outside of its light-hearted roots and placed it in a horror/suspense context.
Why have I always loved "3 Girl" movies and TV shows? I guess it's because I was always intrigued to see how the filmmakers would juggle three subplots and allow each of the attractive female leads equal screen time to shine. Just as the camaraderie among men in Westerns and War movies have always held a certain appeal, the friendship in stories involving young women pursuing careers are equally endearing. The implication of having multiple subplots suggests that these young women enjoy strength in numbers as they face ordinary and extraordinary challenges in their lives. These films usually depict the friendships these women have with each other in addition to their romantic relationships, as opposed to most films which usually depict typically one woman juggling her career and romantic life. Female friends exist in these sorts of movies merely to act as sounding boards for the central female lead to complain about what's wrong with her life.
Corman's "3 Girl" Movies were usually made with nudity and sex to appeal to the R-rated drive-in crowd. However, the typical drive-in sex comedy could have contained these same elements in a film where the MEN were the central characters shown in pursuit of three beautiful nurses (or three beautiful teachers or three beautiful fashion models or three beautiful flight attendants...you get the picture). Compare "Fly Me," where the flight attendants are involved with mystery, intrigue, and adventure (Lenore Kasdorf's admirable flight attendant from "Fly Me" even gets to demonstrate her proficiency in martial arts as she investigates the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend in Hong Kong, and helps to destroy mobsters dealing in racketeering, narcotics, and white slavery in the process), with Al Adamson's lazily pointless "The Naughty Stewardesses" (1975), where the flight attendants truly are stereotypical mannequins only interested in pursuing men, with no other interests and objectives in life. In "Cover Girl Models," Pat Anderson's character tries to figure out why enemy agents are after the red dress (that has had secret microfilm sewn in the lining) she is modeling, Lindsay Bloom attempts to break out of being a model to become a legitimate actress, and neophyte model Tara Strohmeier is busy gaining the self-confidence she needs to be a success in the field. None of them are pursuing the stereotypical paths typically set for women in these exploitation films. What makes these movies truly unique is that, despite their prurient and exploitative elements, Corman told these stories from the perspective of the women, humanizing them, allowing them to set goals for themselves, and be portrayed with sympathy and depth (or at least attempts at depth), rather than being leeringly objectified in a film where the perspective comes solely and narrowly from the men.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Falling Star
There's nothing I hate more than stupid/sensationalistic Yahoo News headlines. There was one earlier this week with a headline that said something to the effect of "Stars Who Have Children While They're Young." Underneath it was a photo of, of all people, Bristol Palin. I immediately disregarded the subject matter of the article itself and thought to myself "Why the Hell is she considered a star?"
I realized how the definition of "star" seems to have become cheapened in recent years. Used to be, the term applied to people who had reached the highest pinnacle of success in their careers, most notably movie or TV actors, or music performers, or professional and Olympic athletes. Now it seems to apply to anyone who is notorious to the public, whether it's for appearing on reality shows, or through some sort of public scandal. There have always been notorious famous people throughout history. But, in the past, they were reserved for the pages of the sleaziest tabloids, not for the mainstream press. These days, people like Bristol Palin or the Kardashians or that couple who crashed the White House party are profiled and legitimized by regular newspapers and magazines. These are the sorts of "celebrities" who appear on shows like "Dancing with the Stars."
Decades ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, we had "Battle of the Network Stars," a series of TV specials where the actors from then-current TV shows representing all three networks faced off against each other in athletic competition. But in the case of "Battle of the Network Stars," we watched people who were truly the top stars of television back then, not the "never weres" that we are subjected to now. What's sad is that mainstream publications will devote paragraphs and pages upon people who haven't really done anything legitimate to earn our attention, while more deserving figures are ignored.
A couple of days ago, I was in a barber shop getting a haircut and I was flipping through Entertainment Weekly. A letter to the editor was featured in the issue I was reading, chastising them for giving short shrift to the recent passing of Cliff Robertson, who won the Best Actor Oscar for "Charly" (1968). Entertainment Weekly had mentioned Robertson's death in just two sentences, while they shamelessly devoted pages to people that no one will remember or care about 10 years from now. It used to be that the term "starlet" was a denigrating term reserved for actresses who toiled in "B" movies or had generally second-rate careers. But nowadays, "starlet" (if we apply that definition) sounds much better than "star" because at least the "B" actress has a career in movies or TV she can hang her hat on to explain why she might be well known to people.
I don't know who is to blame here--the press or the public for paying just enough attention to these people to make the press think that the public wants to read about them. I know I don't pay attention to them except when I casually spot their names on magazine covers at the barber shop or supermarket checkout counter and wonder "Who are they?!" I know many people who are also sick of them and would prefer to read about people who have earned our interest.
What I also despise is how "reductionist" the press has become in describing the importance of particular people to the public. Whenever I read obituaries of accomplished people, obituary writers seem to feel they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator by making an arcane reference to a minor footnote in their lives that the general public might remember them for, or draw a weak analogy to something current or hip because they expect the public wouldn't otherwise be able to relate to them, as opposed to highlighting their truly important accomplishments.
Take Lois Nettleton, for instance. She was a talented actress who had numerous credits in film, television and theatre. She had won 2 Emmys and was nominated for a Tony. And what did most of her obituaries mention? A "Seinfeld" episode where she caught George eating an eclair from a trash can. I'm not dissing "Seinfeld" at all, just the fact that the obituary writers felt that they had to reference something as throw-away (no pun intended) as that in Nettleton's career in order to make the general public take interest in her. It makes as much sense, for example, as having my retail job at JC Penny's during summer vacation from college turn out to be the thing I'm best remembered for when I pass away someday.
I realized how the definition of "star" seems to have become cheapened in recent years. Used to be, the term applied to people who had reached the highest pinnacle of success in their careers, most notably movie or TV actors, or music performers, or professional and Olympic athletes. Now it seems to apply to anyone who is notorious to the public, whether it's for appearing on reality shows, or through some sort of public scandal. There have always been notorious famous people throughout history. But, in the past, they were reserved for the pages of the sleaziest tabloids, not for the mainstream press. These days, people like Bristol Palin or the Kardashians or that couple who crashed the White House party are profiled and legitimized by regular newspapers and magazines. These are the sorts of "celebrities" who appear on shows like "Dancing with the Stars."
Decades ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, we had "Battle of the Network Stars," a series of TV specials where the actors from then-current TV shows representing all three networks faced off against each other in athletic competition. But in the case of "Battle of the Network Stars," we watched people who were truly the top stars of television back then, not the "never weres" that we are subjected to now. What's sad is that mainstream publications will devote paragraphs and pages upon people who haven't really done anything legitimate to earn our attention, while more deserving figures are ignored.
A couple of days ago, I was in a barber shop getting a haircut and I was flipping through Entertainment Weekly. A letter to the editor was featured in the issue I was reading, chastising them for giving short shrift to the recent passing of Cliff Robertson, who won the Best Actor Oscar for "Charly" (1968). Entertainment Weekly had mentioned Robertson's death in just two sentences, while they shamelessly devoted pages to people that no one will remember or care about 10 years from now. It used to be that the term "starlet" was a denigrating term reserved for actresses who toiled in "B" movies or had generally second-rate careers. But nowadays, "starlet" (if we apply that definition) sounds much better than "star" because at least the "B" actress has a career in movies or TV she can hang her hat on to explain why she might be well known to people.
I don't know who is to blame here--the press or the public for paying just enough attention to these people to make the press think that the public wants to read about them. I know I don't pay attention to them except when I casually spot their names on magazine covers at the barber shop or supermarket checkout counter and wonder "Who are they?!" I know many people who are also sick of them and would prefer to read about people who have earned our interest.
What I also despise is how "reductionist" the press has become in describing the importance of particular people to the public. Whenever I read obituaries of accomplished people, obituary writers seem to feel they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator by making an arcane reference to a minor footnote in their lives that the general public might remember them for, or draw a weak analogy to something current or hip because they expect the public wouldn't otherwise be able to relate to them, as opposed to highlighting their truly important accomplishments.
Take Lois Nettleton, for instance. She was a talented actress who had numerous credits in film, television and theatre. She had won 2 Emmys and was nominated for a Tony. And what did most of her obituaries mention? A "Seinfeld" episode where she caught George eating an eclair from a trash can. I'm not dissing "Seinfeld" at all, just the fact that the obituary writers felt that they had to reference something as throw-away (no pun intended) as that in Nettleton's career in order to make the general public take interest in her. It makes as much sense, for example, as having my retail job at JC Penny's during summer vacation from college turn out to be the thing I'm best remembered for when I pass away someday.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Norma Desmond be Damned!
I was at a dinner some months ago where a friend at the table was telling the other guests of my interest in interviewing actresses who worked in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s about their careers. One of the guests at the table made the glib comment “I’m sure they were all eager to tell you all about their faded careers because they don’t have anything now to fill their time!” I was surprised by the presumptuous comment. I know we should all “consider the source” whenever snotty comments are made. But I thought the comment deserved a response so I said “That’s not true. A lot of them are busy with their families, their grandchildren. Some of them are still active in the arts and pursuing acting roles. Others are pursuing careers in other fields, or doing volunteer work that means a lot to them. It’s not fair to make generalizations or presumptions about people you haven’t met.”
Nevertheless, his remark made me stop and think about how people easily assume that, if an actress is now over 50 and isn’t in the spotlight the same way they once were, their personal and professional lives are over and they are living in self-centered seclusion. As much as I love Billy Wilder’s classic film “Sunset Blvd,” the Norma Desmond character he created has helped perpetuate this negative notion about mature actresses. I’ve had the privilege of interviewing actresses of earlier generations and stayed in touch and developed friendships with some of them. While they are glad to share anecdotes from their lives and careers with people who are interested, it’s not their raison d’etre. They all live in the present day, enjoy what life currently has to offer, and remain contributing members of society. If they share anecdotes about the past, it is no different than an experienced attorney that I know who now teaches law school and often shares his experiences with students about how he handled numerous cases in his career. They are also no different than the retired Generals and Admirals I’ve known who share anecdotes about how they faced professional challenges in the course of their military careers. What these people have in common is that they are simply sharing their personal histories so that they can impart the wisdom and knowledge they have acquired with others. All of this has taught me that you cannot make presumptions about individuals based on the demographic they fit into.
Take the two Ann(e)s for instance—Ann Rutherford and Anne Jeffreys. I’ve had the privilege of getting to know both of them in the last year. They are both vibrant, energetic people who have an incredibly positive attitude and enjoy life. Rutherford is always busy raising money for organizations she cares about, such as the Young Musicians Foundation, or for Kent State University. Jeffreys filmed an Italian movie earlier this year with Danny Glover and Val Kilmer called “Vespro d’un Rinnegato” (a.k.a. “Espiation”). During the past year, Jeffreys also visited her hometown of Goldsboro, N.C. to see her relatives, went on a cruise, and attended the wedding of one of her granddaughters in Oregon. Both Ann(e)s are often seen around Los Angeles together attending arts-related events, such as the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival, glamorously dressed in elegant gowns designed by David Hayes. They remain close with their families and have strong relationships with dozens of friends. When a friend was recovering from surgery, Ann Rutherford made arrangements for someone to take care of him until he was well on the road to recovery. Both Ann(e)s are justifiably proud of their careers, but it is not the only thing that matters to them. Whenever I mention to each of them that I just saw one of their films from the 1930s or 1940s on TCM or YouTube, they each laugh and exclaim “I can’t believe you wasted your time today doing that!” and then proceed to ask what is happening with me. Rutherford, in particular, has taken a mentoring interest in my life and career, always offering a sympathetic ear and advice about how best to handle any situation. Whenever I tell them I will be in Los Angeles, Ann Rutherford always exclaims “We’ll go dancing in the streets together!” They have more joie de vivre than people half their age and are always thinking about helping others.
Another good example is the Chinese American actress Lisa Lu, who is a longtime family friend. Lisa was recently in Washington, DC as a guest of honor at the Smithsonian Museum’s Sackler Gallery for the opening of an exhibit of artwork depicting the life of the Empress Dowager Cixi of China. Because Lisa played her in two lavish Shaw Brothers productions in Hong Kong “The Empress Dowager” (1975) and “The Last Tempest” (1976), she attended the opening night reception of the exhibit as guest of honor. I was able to spend time with her that evening at the reception and at dinner afterwards and we caught up with each other’s lives. I hadn’t seen her since the mid-1990s. The next day, she was on a plane to Shanghai to start filming a Chinese language version of “Dangerous Liaisons” starring Zhang Ziyi, and would be appearing in a Chinese opera in Hong Kong this month. In the last few years, she appeared in the disaster epic “2012” and Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” and garnered praise at the Berlin Film Festival for her lead role in the Chinese language film “Apart Together.” She already made another movie in Mongolia earlier this year. I was just amazed at her sustained energy and enthusiasm for her craft, more than 50 years after she started her career. I could tell how grateful she is about her continued success, and her kindness was inspiring. She made a point that evening to share with me extremely positive insights about my father and mother, both of whom she admired greatly, that helped me to look at my parents from a fresh perspective. As we were leaving after dinner, Lisa went back into the restaurant to thank the representative from the Sackler Gallery who was hosting the dinner. She wanted to express her gratitude for all that the Sackler personnel had done on her behalf. It demonstrated how good manners and genuine kindness still counts for a lot at a time when too many people rely on post-modern glibness or irony to express themselves.
Yet another example is the talented Bridget Hanley, known to TV viewers as Candy Pruitt on the “Here Come the Brides” series or as Barbara Eden’s nemesis on her 1980s sitcom “Harper Valley PTA.” Bridget is very active with Theatre West, the oldest continually running theatre company in the Los Angeles area. I have seen her in several plays there that provide strong evidence that her enjoyable television roles only tapped into a portion of the talents and range Bridget is capable of. In recent years, she performed in a production of “The Lion in Winter” at Theatre West that won her great acclaim from the city’s theatre critics. Through it all, Bridget is constantly “out and about” spending time with her two daughters and her new grandson, as well as actively participating in the lives of her nieces and nephews, stepchildren and step-grandchildren, and other extended family members and friends. She has lost none of her enthusiasm for acting and continues to enjoy the process of exploring the nuances of characters. Bridget and her good friend Lee Meriwether often attend theatre productions in Los Angeles together, eager to sample and explore what their peers are working on. They both have active, well-rounded lives and are too busy to just stay at home resting on their laurels.
These are just some examples of mature actresses who defy the Norma Desmond stereotype. I'm not implying that every actress who is over 50 is as kind or well-rounded as the women I mentioned here. I am sure that there are people who fit the negative stereotype, but they should not be the standard with which to judge all the rest. The ultimate point I am making is not merely about actresses, or about women in general. All around us, in different industries and communities, we are surrounded by mature men and women who are, as Ann Rutherford likes to say, “turning their golden years into platinum.” They are vibrant members of society with a lot to offer all of us with their wisdom, maturity and experience. We just have to be smart enough to listen.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Why I'd rather hang out with Bryan Mills from "Taken" than Jack Bauer of "24" any day
While going through my DVD collection, I noticed the seasons of “24” that I owned. I realized that, even though I loved, and was obsessed with, the show while it was in first-run airings on Fox, I had no desire to relive the series in reruns, except for maybe Season 2. After you know all the plot twists and surprises, there actually is very little left to go back and enjoy because you never get emotionally invested or engaged by any of the people on-screen. The characters are all plot devices that, with some rare exceptions, were never carefully thought out or consistently written since they were all malleable to the whims of the writers. There was never a clear vision to them because they were susceptible to doing 180-degree turns if the lazy writers dictated it. (Season 2 was an exception because it was the only one where the plot and characters had a clear and natural progression, and you were as engaged by the personalities and the relationships on-screen as much as you were by the skillful plotting.)
The one character who seemed to have a clear vision, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), eventually became a pretentious bore and a drag to watch. At first, it was appealing to watch a hero who was willing to make personal sacrifices for the greater good, who was ruthless in doing what he felt was right, blah, blah. But, after awhile, he became a character who wallowed in self-pity due to the failures of the relationships in his life that were the consequences of his ruthless and short-sighted actions. He was estranged from his daughter for much of the series, and spent way too much time obsessed with his “one true wuv,” drippy Audrey Raines (the mealy-mouthed Kim Raver). He became an incredibly negative and heavy-handed character, and his “I-feel-the-weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders” act grew tiresome. This was more damaging to the character and the show than the charges of fascism and brutality that were lodged against it by harsh critics. It was a mistake to continually kill off main characters just for shock value and to narrow the focus of the series to Jack. This meant that the emotions and tenor of the entire series rested on the unstable psyche of a character who was even moodier than Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) in "Stage Door" (1937). The show’s vision of Jack as a perpetually tragic figure makes it difficult to revisit it on DVD or reruns. After awhile, it’s just not FUN to watch anymore. I say this with great reluctance because I used to be such a devoted fan of the series.
Despite some similarities, the Liam Neeson character in the thriller “Taken” is everything that Jack Bauer is not. When I watched “Taken” for the first time in the theatres, I found myself comparing these two characters. Bryan Mills, like Jack Bauer, is a ruthless agent who has participated in dangerous missions while serving his country and, as a result of focusing much of his attention on his career in the CIA, has an awkward relationship with his own teenage daughter. (Interestingly, both men’s daughters are named Kim.) But Bryan Mills has retained one quality that Jack Bauer has lost: hope. Even with all he has experienced in the course of his dangerous career, he still finds things to enjoy in his life and is determined to repair his relationship with his daughter. When the movie opens, we see Mills driving a cheap compact car and living in a dingy Los Angeles apartment. Neeson does a wonderful job portraying Mills as an ordinary guy. He works security at rock concerts for extra cash, and his attempt to impress his daughter with a karaoke player on her birthday is upstaged when his ex-wife’s wealthy husband gives her a horse. But Mills hasn’t given up on himself and remains grounded and positive. When his other former CIA colleagues show up for an impromptu BBQ, he still has the ability to relax and have a good time. When the rock singer, whose life he has saved, offers to give his daughter singing lessons to repay him, he is clearly excited at the opportunity to give her something her rich stepfather cannot. When his daughter is kidnapped while on vacation in Paris by Russian mobsters determined to sell her into white slavery, Mills is determined to get her back not merely because he loves her, and does not want to see harm come to her, but because he knows the potential still exists for good in his life as long as he can rescue her.
Despite his brutality and ruthlessness, Liam Neeson infuses warmth, unexpected optimism, and a refreshing lack of pretense into Mills. Neeson’s unconventional interpretation of the character helps to ensure that Mills never degenerates into sanctimonious self-importance the way Jack Bauer did. At the end of “Taken,” when Mills rescues his daughter, he is finally able to give her something that her wealthy stepfather was unable to: her freedom. Because the filmmakers of “Taken” paid as much attention to the logic and motivations of the characters as they did the action, this scene has more emotional impact than anything “24” or Jack Bauer were able to muster in 8 seasons.
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