Rewriting old excuses, delete the kisses at the end
I seem to be continuing to sleep more than has been my steady norm for months into years, albeit at peculiar and inconvenient hours that leave me feeling like some sort of crepuscular mammal. I have never been able to nap in my life without it making me feel worse than when I conked out and now it just seems to be an irregularly scheduled part of my day. I am operating on the theory that I will eventually evolve a circadian rhythm. I had one in college, I think.
It would never have occurred to me that the house style of 20th Century Fox was historical megaflops, but Wilson (1944) is the third to cross my radar after Cleopatra (1963) and The Big Trail (1930): it lost its $5.2 million shirt at the box office and Darryl F. Zanuck died mad that it didn't win Best Picture. In the first edition of John Gassner and Dudley Nichols' Best Film Plays of 1943–44 (1945) which![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch picked up from the carrel outside the Brattle Book Shop the week before Christmas in 2017, Zanuck is the only producer to have a preface devoted to his published screenplay and it's all on the defensive, primarily against charges of unnecessary expense and boosterism for FDR. It is not majorly concerned with the historical accuracy of the script by Lamar Trotti, which is fine because regardless of whether it has its names and dates in order, it reads like a political fairy tale. How appealing it is to imagine the twenty-eighth President of the United States as a shy dry stick of a boffin animated by an almost supernal honesty and a self-deprecating sense of humor as underestimated as his perseverance, untarnished by failures of civil rights and never so impaired by his stroke that he can't share the joke with his wife of her letting him out of his presidential responsibilities. A kind of sacrificial king of American idealism, broken across a vision that the world is too fallen and fragmented to match him in, classed by the opening titles with the national saints of Washington and Lincoln. Probably it could only have been trounced by the Catholic super-treacle of Going My Way. Hollywood gonif!
Pursuing some details about Wilson with the fervor of a person who really does not want to have to watch the damn movie, I found a profile of Alexander Knox by James Hilton in the February 1945 Photoplay and blew a gasket that I hope registered with Harry Cohn's ass:
Knox belongs to the new generation of Hollywood stars who shape so oddly into the category that they are already on their way to changing both Hollywood and the star system [. . .] Indeed, the only possible thing to say is that he's an actor, and that the fame he has secured in "Wilson" neither enforces nor precludes any particular kind of thing he will do next.
In support of this argument one has only to glance at his previous motion picture roles to gather some notion of the man's range. His first Hollywood film was "The Sea Wolf" with Edward G. Robinson, in which he played the shipwrecked author, a man of physical fear but mental courage. After that there were the memorable moments in "This Above All" as the gentle clergyman and in "None Shall Escape" as the fanatical Nazi leader which in Knox's hands had the sharpness of a steel engraving.
So Knox is a star, but like many of the newer stars, he doesn't fit into the star system; and when enough people don't fit a system it is the system that has to be changed.
I don't disagree with Hilton—about either the actor or the system—but if the latter had changed to accommodate the former in the mid-'40's, I wouldn't have spent these last ten years of my semi-professional life banging my head against the exact intractability of classical Hollywood to know what to do with its actors of whatever gender who couldn't be easily typed or ticky-tackied into marketable components of the dream machine, which are naturally the kind it seems reasonable to me to like best and inclined to be frustrating to follow. In the same way that it fascinates me to encounter criticism of the Production Code at the time of its enforcement, it's useful for me to know that my feelings about the limitations of the traditional star system were shared by its contemporaries, but then it's even more maddening that its operations would not shift meaningfully until the '60's. Justice for Jean Hagen, basically. In other news, I am charmed that Knox was into motorcycles. So was William Wyler around that time; I am glad they never collided.
I forgot to mention when the three robin nestlings fledged and launched, but the current monarch count stands at one chrysalis and four caterpillars. The moon is still wildfire-stained.
It would never have occurred to me that the house style of 20th Century Fox was historical megaflops, but Wilson (1944) is the third to cross my radar after Cleopatra (1963) and The Big Trail (1930): it lost its $5.2 million shirt at the box office and Darryl F. Zanuck died mad that it didn't win Best Picture. In the first edition of John Gassner and Dudley Nichols' Best Film Plays of 1943–44 (1945) which
spatch picked up from the carrel outside the Brattle Book Shop the week before Christmas in 2017, Zanuck is the only producer to have a preface devoted to his published screenplay and it's all on the defensive, primarily against charges of unnecessary expense and boosterism for FDR. It is not majorly concerned with the historical accuracy of the script by Lamar Trotti, which is fine because regardless of whether it has its names and dates in order, it reads like a political fairy tale. How appealing it is to imagine the twenty-eighth President of the United States as a shy dry stick of a boffin animated by an almost supernal honesty and a self-deprecating sense of humor as underestimated as his perseverance, untarnished by failures of civil rights and never so impaired by his stroke that he can't share the joke with his wife of her letting him out of his presidential responsibilities. A kind of sacrificial king of American idealism, broken across a vision that the world is too fallen and fragmented to match him in, classed by the opening titles with the national saints of Washington and Lincoln. Probably it could only have been trounced by the Catholic super-treacle of Going My Way. Hollywood gonif!Pursuing some details about Wilson with the fervor of a person who really does not want to have to watch the damn movie, I found a profile of Alexander Knox by James Hilton in the February 1945 Photoplay and blew a gasket that I hope registered with Harry Cohn's ass:
Knox belongs to the new generation of Hollywood stars who shape so oddly into the category that they are already on their way to changing both Hollywood and the star system [. . .] Indeed, the only possible thing to say is that he's an actor, and that the fame he has secured in "Wilson" neither enforces nor precludes any particular kind of thing he will do next.
In support of this argument one has only to glance at his previous motion picture roles to gather some notion of the man's range. His first Hollywood film was "The Sea Wolf" with Edward G. Robinson, in which he played the shipwrecked author, a man of physical fear but mental courage. After that there were the memorable moments in "This Above All" as the gentle clergyman and in "None Shall Escape" as the fanatical Nazi leader which in Knox's hands had the sharpness of a steel engraving.
So Knox is a star, but like many of the newer stars, he doesn't fit into the star system; and when enough people don't fit a system it is the system that has to be changed.
I don't disagree with Hilton—about either the actor or the system—but if the latter had changed to accommodate the former in the mid-'40's, I wouldn't have spent these last ten years of my semi-professional life banging my head against the exact intractability of classical Hollywood to know what to do with its actors of whatever gender who couldn't be easily typed or ticky-tackied into marketable components of the dream machine, which are naturally the kind it seems reasonable to me to like best and inclined to be frustrating to follow. In the same way that it fascinates me to encounter criticism of the Production Code at the time of its enforcement, it's useful for me to know that my feelings about the limitations of the traditional star system were shared by its contemporaries, but then it's even more maddening that its operations would not shift meaningfully until the '60's. Justice for Jean Hagen, basically. In other news, I am charmed that Knox was into motorcycles. So was William Wyler around that time; I am glad they never collided.
I forgot to mention when the three robin nestlings fledged and launched, but the current monarch count stands at one chrysalis and four caterpillars. The moon is still wildfire-stained.
no subject
That was it! I was entertained. A+ facepalm, the showrunners obviously agreed.
(Which reminds me, I actually collected so much info on that series which I wrote up for tumblr and kept meaning to share here, but never quite worked out how/what shape it should have, but it did turn into quite a fascinating thing to pursue).
You could still work the shape out, or at least port over the Tumblr links. The great thing about old telly is there's no statute of limitations on discovering and sharing it. I keep telling myself this about movies that everyone else has known about for decades.
At least three of mine have played paedophiles and I'm pretty sure one has even played Adolf Hitler & they've all gone on murder sprees, so these things will happen. I don't really think you should get unpleasantly completist, though!
I appreciate the support! Also the reminder of this sort of thing being a known hazard. I can brace for a certain amount of terrible science fiction, but a presidential biopic just seems a bridge too far.
It is the only thing I have ever been able to do in my defence against this horrible thing and I'm glad it turned out to be useful.
I hope even more useful data comes of it!
no subject
Yes, I really must do that sometime! It turned out to be unexpectedly interesting (from a general pov, rather than just me), because 1960s-early 1980s UK TV drama tended to default to 13 x 50 minute series, so I was used to that, but in 1964, it was in the process of changing over to that from a default of 30 minute episodes, often very anthology-like even when part of a series and an innocuous little forthcoming notice for the show caused Dennis Potter to explode in print as he saw the future of TV coming at him at speed and he didn't like it. XD
he great thing about old telly is there's no statute of limitations on discovering and sharing it. I keep telling myself this about movies that everyone else has known about for decades.
There's not really a statute of limitations on any of it! And, also, everyone? May I remind you, 0/100 noir movies score over here. Make that "everyone but
Also the reminder of this sort of thing being a known hazard. I can brace for a certain amount of terrible science fiction, but a presidential biopic just seems a bridge too far.
With UK TV & film, I get very excited if I find SFF of any sort, but at least one PM, Royal or senior cabinet minister seems to be requisite for all, so you might not want to adopt too many more Brits! (It's the period drama thing, isn't it?)
nd the rest of the small cast includes Michael Redgrave, Sheila Sim, Denholm Elliott, Michael Hordern, and some other, more bit-part familiar faces
*eyes* I did note this rec with interest yesterday, I just forgot to actually type words to say so; I was v tired last night and I got distracted while looking at gifs of JM. <3
no subject
You should absolutely write that up. You had mentioned the diversity of the show's cast, but not how transitionally important it was to the medium overall.
With UK TV & film, I get very excited if I find SFF of any sort, but at least one PM, Royal or senior cabinet minister seems to be requisite for all, so you might not want to adopt too many more Brits! (It's the period drama thing, isn't it?)
Alexander Knox had a surprisingly low hit rate for period dramas! Chalk it up to his Canadianness. He did play the expected number of doctors, barristers, and bureaucrats, the latter being the capacity in which as far as I can tell I saw him first.
I did note this rec with interest yesterday, I just forgot to actually type words to say so; I was v tired last night and I got distracted while looking at gifs of JM.
Legit! I support your interest in non-expectant sort of way. New gifs?
no subject
Ha, no, sorry! Just the easiest way for me to find that set again was just to click on my JM tumblr tag and work back - so that was a fair bit of looking at his face before I got there. XD