7/12/22
Newsletter39
The Ass Crack of Dawn
What other description can I give other than it’s nighttime out my window.
On March 22, 1895, the brothers, August and Louis Lumiére, had the very first screening of a movie for 200 people in Paris. Edison had just started selling his Kinetoscopes, or peep shows, and hadn’t moved in the direction of film projection, but he soon would. So the Lumiéres had the movie projection market all to themselves for a few years. But what would they show? Edison was filming vaudeville acts of muscle men lifting weights, female fan dancers, and monkeys in boxing matches. The Lumiéres decided to send cameramen out all over the world so that people could see what other countries looked like. They had all of their cameramen set up on a major street, at a slightly raked angle – not straight on – for a better composition, then they got the very first movies of Jerusalem, Cairo, Istanbul, etc. Most of these films still exist and are fascinating and beautiful.
Although period epic films began being produced in Italy in 1910, then D.W. Griffith followed up in 1914-15, it wasn’t until 1923 that Cecil B. DeMille made the first “Biblical epic” with “The Ten Commandments,” which was a huge success. He followed that up with “King of Kings” in 1927. Then sound arrived and Biblical epics went out of fashion. DeMille kept making epic-style films throughout the 1930s, like “Cleopatra” and “The Crusades.” DeMille revived the Biblical epic in 1949 with “Samson and Delilah,” which is wonderfully ridiculous, particularly Victor Mature fighting a lion. The film was a huge success, and now Biblical epics were back. In 1951 MGM produced the lavish, expensive, sadly static, “Quo Vadis?” Then widescreen was introduced with 20th’s entry into the genre with “The Robe,” the first film in Cinemascope. Then for the next decade there were a plethora of widescreen Biblical epics, or as they called them, “Sword and sandal” pictures. This finally culminated with “Ben Hur” in 1959 and “Spartacus” (which isn’t a Biblical epic; it takes place 300 years before Jesus) in 1960, and the Biblical epic went out of style again. But those first two, “Samson and Delilah” and “Quo Vadis?” are not widescreen and very odd because of it.
In the late Peter Bogdanovich’s one terrific movie, “The Last Picture Show,” a detail was changed from the book that I think is too bad. In the movie, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) takes his date to the movies, and as they’re kissing he’s actually looking at young Elizabeth Taylor in “Father of the Bride.” Well, “Father of the Bride” was a high-quality, Technicolor film that would probably have never been shown in that little shit-ball Texas town in 1951. In the book it’s the lower-budget, black and white film, “Storm Warning,” with Ginger Rogers, very young Doris Day, and Ronald Reagan in one of his best roles. So when Sonny and his date are kissing, he’s watching Ginger Rogers take off her dress down to her slip, which makes more sense. Elizabeth Taylor was certainly beautiful at 21 years old, but the scene with Ginger Rogers is sexy, and kind of tawdry.
Sticking with “Storm Warning,” Ginger Rogers (whom I met) goes to stay with her newly-married sister, Doris Day, and her husband, Steve Cochran. It turns out Cochran is a member of the KKK who have all just killed a black man for no reason other than he’s black, and Ginger Rogers mistakenly witnesses it. The KKK kidnap her, then have a big meeting with burning crosses where they intend to kill Ginger Rogers. However, the town’s sheriff, Ronald Reagan, comes strolling into the middle of the meeting. As robed and hooded KKK members tell Reagan to get lost, Reagan recognizes every one of them by their voices, saying things like, “So, Bob, how was business at the hardware store today?” He finishes with, “Do you think you’re good Christians by desecrating the cross?” They’re so ashamed of themselves that Reagan saves Ginger Rogers without ever having to pull his gun.
The sky isn’t blue, it’s more whitish, but it’s still another day.