7/24/22
Newsletter51
The Crack of Dawn
At 4:52 AM it’s still very much night.
During WWII, the shortest paratrooper in the U.S. Army, as well as the only Jew, was Rod Serling. During the 1950s, which many consider the Golden Age of television, there were many great writers, but Rod Serling the most honored, most famous, writer by far. He won five Emmys for writing five of the Emmy-winning Best Shows of the Year. Then Serling created The Twilight Zone, one of the best, most influential, TV shows ever. Of the 155 episodes over five seasons, Serling wrote 90 of them. Since he lived on a diet of coffee, cigarettes, and speed, he unsurprisingly only lived to be 50.
When I was a kid I used to write limericks. Here’s my best one:
Rhett Butler is in quite a jam
He’s about to go out on the lamb
“Scarlett,” he rasps
As she falls back and gasps
“I frankly don’t give a damn”
At 21 years old, Don Siegel (another Jew) was hired by Warner Bros. in 1933 as an assistant film librarian. Over the next twelve years he worked his way up to being the head of the montage department. Siegel cut the brilliant little montage at the beginning of Casablanca. Feeling stuck, he got himself into the short subject department. He directed two shorts in 1945 and won Oscars for both of them. He moved up to directing features, and became one of the most dependable directors in Hollywood for the next 45 years. His third film, The Big Steal (1949), with Robert Mitchum is a classic film noir. In 1956 Siegel directed the original, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is still scary, and far superior to its several remakes. In 1960 he directed what many consider Elvis Presley’s best “serious” film, Flaming Star. In 1968 Don Siegel produced and directed Clint Eastwood’s first hit Hollywood movie, Coogan’s Bluff, which launched Eastwood’s career as a leading man. In 1972 he directed Dirty Harry, a gigantic, smash hit that cemented Eastwood’s position as a top movie star. During the shooting of that film, Siegel said to Eastwood that he thought he should try directing. Eastwood wasn’t interested. So one day Don Siegel called in sick (something directors never do), and told Eastwood to direct the scene (a nut trying to jump off a rooftop). Clint was scared shitless, but did a good job. Thus Clint Eastwood became a director. In Clint’s first directorial effort, Play Misty for Me, Don Siegel plays the bartender. In 1976 Siegel directed one of my favorite movies, and John Wayne’s last film, The Shootist.
Screenwriter Ernest Lehman (yet another Jew), had an unparalleled run of hit films that earned him six Oscar nominations, but no wins: Sabrina (1954), Somebody Up There Likes Me and The King and I (1956), The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), North by Northwest (1959), West Side Story (1961), The Sound of Music (1965), and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966).
It never did get light. Instead, it’s an exciting thunderstorm. Better turn off my computer.
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