6/29/23
Newsletter #381
The Crack of Dawn
As I lay in bed last night just dozing off to sleep, a voice in my head said, “Yo, dude, you haven’t finished George Seaton’s story yet.” And I thought, “No, I haven’t. Now shut up and let me sleep.”
One of my favorite movies from the time I was a young kid, and certainly one of Doris Day’s best films, is George Seaton’s Teacher’s Pet (1958). Although, like most of Seaton’s movies, this film is mostly forgotten, it can’t be completely forgotten because Gig Young was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (he lost that year, but won in 1969 for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?). Clark Gable, right near the end of his career, at the advanced age of 57, is an old school, hard-driving city editor on a big city newspaper. He is asked to speak to a college journalism class. Since he never went to college, he thinks teaching journalism is a bunch of bunk. You learn it by living it. When he gets there, he finds that the teacher is Doris Day – looking great in widescreen black & white – and he hears her say that she doesn’t like the old school, hard-driving, uneducated, old breed of journalists. Clark Gable takes offense, with his charming, crooked grin, but doesn’t say a word. Instead of speaking – and not revealing his identity – he joins her class. And sense he’s good at what he does, his writing impresses her, and he becomes the “teacher’s pet.” The whole set-up, then how it plays out, is just delicious. When Clark Gable kisses her, Doris Day turns and walks away. With her back to us, she then loses all muscle control for a half a second and turns to mush, regains her poise, and just keeps walking. It’s hysterical, and perfectly executed.
Clark Gable’s career was huge, but in decline. He had been a top box office draw for 25 years when he made Teacher’s Pet, which was a hit. It came after a spate of bombs, so Clark Gable and George Seaton immediately made another film together, called, But Not for Me (1959). I think I was about 14 and this is the movie that caused me to ask, “This is exceptional in its own way, who made this?” Gable is an old school Broadway producer, looking for a hit. He hires young Carroll Baker as a secretary/assistant. That’s it, really, other than it’s completely lighthearted and charming, and a technicolor view of Broadway in 1959. But Not for Me is a song by the Gershwin brothers from 25 years earlier. Its opening lyric has always gotten me in how fast it gets to its point. “They’re writing songs of love/But not for me.”
However, the George Seaton film that was in my mind as I drifted off to sleep last night was Airport (1970). Somehow or other, that movie is a demarcation point for something and new. Perhaps it’s the end of the Hollywood studio system working as well as it ever did. In any case, they wisely got George Seaton to write the script (based on Arthur Hailey’s bestseller) and direct.
But I’ll go into it tomorrow because it’s really just too good and needs its own space.
It appears to be a beautifully sunny day here, with a just light dash of Canadian wildfire haze.
Avanti!