Jane Russell, 1921-2011

Jane Russell has died at her home in Santa Maria, California. She was 89.

She starred at age 19 in Howard Hughes movie, The Outlaw, made in the 1943 but not released nationwide until 1950 because of censorship problems.

I posted something not long ago----I had a teacher in high school who told about going with his friends and crossing state lines to see The Outlaw. It was banned in his state. He said that he and his friends were disappointed. He was discussing censorship and how conservative the country had become in that era.


The first thing I remember seeing her in were Playtex bra commercials. That had to have been the 1960s. I didn't know who she was. It came as a surprise when I saw her later in Tom Laughlin's Born Losers, the first Billy Jack movie. They showed it over and over on Home Box Office in its early days.

Russell played Calamity Jane in The Paleface and Son of Paleface with Bob Hope. She starred with Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which was her favorite movie. Streaming video is available on Netflix if you want to see it.

According to her obituary in the L.A. Times:

“These days I’m a teetotal, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrow-minded, conservative Christian bigot, but not a racist,” she told an Australian newspaper, The Daily Mail, in 2003. Bigotry, she added, “just means you don’t have an open mind.”

Well, it was good that she wasn't racist. Perhaps she should have been open-minded. She didn't drink because she had gone through treatment for alcoholism. She had three children, two sons and a daughter, all adopted. She was unable to have children after an illegal abortion she had before she was married. She became an abortion opponent and founded the World Adoption International Fund in the 1950s.

I remember back when she revealed that she had had the abortion in Mexico in the 1940s. At the time I heard this, I assumed she was revealing this because she was pro-choice.

She was in an episode of Hunter in 1986, her last role.

Well, she led an interesting life. Somehow, I'm not surprised to learn that she was a right-winger. I'm a little surprised she was so religious.

From the obituary in the L.A. Times:

Ms. Russell was very public about her religious convictions. She organized Bible study groups in Hollywood and wrote about having experienced speaking in tongues. In her memoir, “My Path and My Detours” (1985), she described the strength she drew from Christianity.

A higher power was always there, she wrote, “telling me that if I could just hold tough a little longer, I’d find myself around one more dark corner, see one more spot of light and have one more drop of pure joy in this journey called life.”

You kind of have to admire Charlie Sheen. In a way.

I don't know. Charlie Sheen seems to be terribly screwed up. But maybe he really is some kind of ubermensch. It's possible, I suppose. There's something strangely admirable in any case.

From the "Today Show" website:

...[Sheen] claimed he has conquered his own drug and alcohol problems by the sheer force of his will: “I closed my eyes and made it so.”

...“I will not believe that if I do something then I have to follow a certain path, because it was written nice,” he said. “It [AA] was written for normal people, people that aren’t special. People that don’t have tiger blood, you know, Adonis DNA.”

He dismissed the idea that he has anything in common with addicts and alcoholics, who he says lack his strength of character, describing them as “fools, trolls. Weak. Defeated. They allowed defeat to be an option. I will not.

“I’m tired of pretending like I’m not special,” Sheen continued. “I’m tired of pretending like I’m not bitching, a total fricking rock star from Mars, and people can’t figure me out; they can’t process me. I don’t expect them to. You can’t process me with a normal brain.”

Sheen insisted that the drug- and alcohol-fueled behavior he described as “epic” never interfered with his work on “Men,” and that despite all the headlines, all his bosses saw when he showed up on the set was “a guy hitting every mark, nailing every line, every joke, with a full house screaming.” He claimed he never missed a day’s shooting: “Not a day that cost anybody any money,” he said. “I missed practice. We’re talking about practice ... practice is for amateurs, you know?”

...

He was now “at war” he said. “They picked a fight with a warlock,” he said — a war he plans to win “with zeal and focus, violent hatred ... You either love or you hate. You live in the middle, you get nothing.”

...

...“I think my passion is misinterpreted as anger sometimes. And I don’t think people are ready for the message that I’m delivering, and delivering with a sense of violent love,” Sheen said.

Is it Oscar night already?

I haven't seen a damn thing. I just hope the Zionist Natalie Portman doesn't win anything for that swan movie. And Christopher Hitchens attacked another Oscar nominated movie, The King's Speech, as historically inaccurate. He wrote that, in the movie, Winston Churchill

is shown as a consistent friend of the stuttering prince and his loyal princess and as a man generally in favor of a statesmanlike solution to the crisis of the abdication. In point of fact, Churchill was—for as long as he dared—a consistent friend of conceited, spoiled, Hitler-sympathizing Edward VIII. And he allowed his romantic attachment to this gargoyle to do great damage to the very dearly bought coalition of forces that was evolving to oppose Nazism and appeasement...

By dint of swallowing his differences with some senior left and liberal politicians, Churchill had helped build a lobby, with strong grass-roots support, against Neville Chamberlain's collusion with European fascism. The group had the resonant name of Arms and the Covenant. Yet, as the crisis deepened in 1936, Churchill diverted himself from this essential work—to the horror of his colleagues—in order to involve himself in keeping a pro-Nazi playboy on the throne. He threw away his political capital in handfuls by turning up at the House of Commons—almost certainly heavily intoxicated, according to Manchester—and making an incoherent speech in defense of "loyalty" to a man who did not understand the concept. In one speech—not cited by Manchester—he spluttered that Edward VIII would "shine in history as the bravest and best-loved of all sovereigns who have worn the island crown." (You can see there how empty and bombastic Churchill's style can sound when he's barking up the wrong tree; never forget that he once described himself as the lone voice warning the British people against the twin menaces of Hitler and Gandhi!)

Hitchens discusses Edward VIII's support for Chamberlain and his Nazi sympathies. He concludes:

In a few months, the British royal family will be yet again rebranded and relaunched in the panoply of a wedding. Terms like "national unity" and "people's monarchy" will be freely flung around. Almost the entire moral capital of this rather odd little German dynasty is invested in the post-fabricated myth of its participation in "Britain's finest hour." In fact, had it been up to them, the finest hour would never have taken place. So this is not a detail but a major desecration of the historical record—now apparently gliding unopposed toward a baptism by Oscar.

Read the whole thing here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2282194/

Fear of public speaking is common enough. People can understand the king's feelings. I'm not sure what it tells you. That hereditary monarchy is stupid.

Maybe democracy isn't so bad after all. One of its weaknesses seemed to be that a smooth-talking dullard is more likely to be elected that an intelligent, well-informed, competent stutterer whose views were in line with the will of the people. But this movie may show that this isn't an entirely terrible thing.

Many years ago, in the early days of Home Box Office, they showed a pretty good World War Two British propaganda film called The Lion Has Wings. They included a long clip of the king looking ill at ease. He was playing some sort of patty-cake-like game with a large group. And they had a point. You'd never see Hitler or Mussolini do that.

Something else about movie stuttering

I know almost nothing about stuttering. But there were two scenes I can think of from film and television that I always assumed would be rather offensive to those who stutter. The same thing happened in both things.

In The Cowboys with John Wayne and an episode of Room 222 with Karen Valentine, they cure a young person of stuttering by making him mad until he starts yelling at them.

Maybe this was real. I haven't seen the movie, but I heard a clip on the radio. When the speech therapist meets the king for the first time, he takes a seat on the throne to make him mad so he'll start yelling.

(By "mad" I mean "angry". The British think it means crazy.)

Aristocratic internationalism

One thing some people mentioned---they thought it was implausible that the therapist would address the king by his first name. I didn't know kings had last names. I know they made up the name Windsor during World War One to conceal the fact that the British Royal Family was German. They were all related, the British Royal Family, the Kaiser, the Czar.

Years ago, I read an intellectual (Eric Hoffer?) attack the Communist notion of an international proletariat. He argues that it was the bourgeoisie that was international. They all dress alike and act the same no matter where they come from. But it turns out that royalty was international, too. And they had a sense of solidarity. The British Royal family is still mad at the Bolsheviks for killing their cousins, the Czar and his family.

Maybe they HAD to kill the Czar

It's too bad they killed the Czar. They should have reformed him, like the title character in The Last Emperor. Czar Nicholas was a pathetic person in a number of respects, although he still thought he was the shadow of God, or whatever the Czar called himself.

He was sort of like George VI. During World War One, he decided he would inspire the troops by visiting the front lines. But when he got there, he couldn't think of anything to say. So he just stood there, tongue-tied with the troops wondering what was wrong with him.

The Romanovs could have become citizens of their country and achieved personal liberation through Communism.

I don't think the Bolsheviks had much choice but to kill them. They were in a Civil War. Millions were dying. The White Army was about to free the Royal Family, and if they had, the war would have gone on forever.

The same thing happened in Romania. The government was overthrown, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife were captured. Their captors set up some card tables and after a quick "trial", took them out the side door and shot them both. Hard to tell why they went through the pretense of a trial.

But people defended the executions because their followers would have fought on and on as long as they were alive.

And, right now in Libya, some people are calling for Gaddafi to be killed for the same reason.

Cutting videos on You Tube

They may not be troubled teens, but they wish they were

A few years ago I was looking at another blog site. I was able to look for blogs written by people here in my area. So I went through the local ones looking for people I knew.

I seemed to be the only middle aged person blogging. And a very large portion of the teenage bloggers said they were "cutters", people who cut themselves with razors or whatever out of some emotional pain. Hard to believe there were so many of them.

Made me think it was some kind of teen fad or craze, probably triggered by an episode of Oprah.

I did see Larry King discuss it on a show. But he kept referring to his guests' self-injury as "self-abuse". He kept saying it over and over.

So now these kids are posting their "cutting" videos on You Tube. I haven't actually watched any. Maybe I should before commenting on this. But I don't want to see that.

For some time now, I've been telling people to let me know before they do something stupid so I can put it on You Tube. They never do.

Al Jazeera report on North Korean film school

Below is a report from AL Jazeera on North Korean film students. It seems to be cut off on one side and you may have to double click it to see the whole picture.

They explain a few special problems they have filming there. Shots containing photos of the Dear Leader have to show the entire photo and you can't pan away from the picture. Actors and film students have to always state that their main objective is to bring joy to Kim Jong Il.

They do have a few North Korean movies, or at least clips, available on You Tube. I watched a little bit of a kung fu movie which seemed pretty normal. At least the fight scenes did. Other clips seemed less normal.

Kim Jong Il will be gone before long and good riddance to him. Hopefully the new fellow will be better, but I don't know if he could make radical changes if he wanted to.

The most violent play I've ever seen

Plays aren't really known for being violent, of course

Since I mentioned Justin Bieber, young actors and movie violence, I thought I'd mention the most shockingly violent play I've ever seen.

I saw it in the fourth grade. It was performed by the first and second grade classes, and they had written the play themselves, although I'm not sure how that worked.

The play was about a king. He wanted a husband for his daughter. And he felt the best way to find her a husband was to have all of her potential husbands fight to the death.

So, they had the big sword fighting scene. A narrator explained that half the men were killed in the first round. They were carrying corpses off the stage. Then they killed some more.

In the end, there are two guys left alive. They fight. The guy who wins the fight refuses to finish off his opponent. The king wants to have him killed, but the princess stops him. She announces that he is the one she will marry.

If you're going to marry a stranger, it does make sense to marry the one who hasn't killed anybody.

I was little surprised by the violence. It didn't surprise me that first and second graders wrote it, but it surprised me that their teachers let them perform it.

Pink Flamingos

Video store put out of business by Netflix

Perhaps it was only right that Netflix killed off what was left of the video stores. After all, the video stores killed off the art theaters and second run movie theaters. I'm not sure how much we should mourn their loss, or the loss of anything else. How long have they been around? It's not like they're an ancient tradition. Same goes for newspapers. Mass circulation newspapers haven't been around that long because mass literacy hasn't been around that long.

There was a high brow video store in town that closed after years and years in business. The manager once had to apologize for telling a reporter that a local independent movie theater going out of business was no great loss. Now he was the one going out of business, and I did miss them.

The place was getting ready to close. It wasn't long before that that they had sold off their stock of VHS tapes and now they were selling off their DVDs.

Someone had the idea that the public library should buy them. And they did.

Perhaps that will be their revenge----their stock of DVDs is now available for free at the public library, perhaps depriving Netflix of some business.

I renew my library card

I had gone to renew my library card a while back. I had to show them ID. I showed them my license which had started peeling for some reason. The address on it was no longer legible and the person refused to renew my card.

So I didn't go back for a long time.

I went back again. I had a piece of mail with me. But it occurred to me as I walked in that it was addressed to my P.O. Box, so I wondered...

But I talked to a different person this time. She didn't care. She renewed my card and made me pay an old fine. It was twenty bucks. I took out twenty dollars and put it down on the desk. I didn't hesitate an instant. I showed no surprise. I made me feel like a rich guy, but no one's ever impressed.

Pink Flamingos

I got some other stuff I needed to check out. I stopped. I looked briefly at the movies. I grabbed Pink Flamingos for some reason. I had seen it years ago and never had any interest in seeing it again, but there it was and it was free.

There was a cast member of Plan 9 From Outer Space who kept saying that he thought Pink Flamingos was the worse movie ever made, and I figured he had missed the point of Pink Flamingos, but, no, I don't think that anymore.

It was very crudely made. I think Waters wanted to avoid editing which may have had to do with his using a single system sound camera. I think he got it from a TV station. The scenes were all done in one shot with some jerky panning and zooming.

There wasn't anything to recommend it except as a historical oddity. They harmed an animal during production. It wasn't funny. Waters explained that he laughed whenever he was offended, so his idea of comedy was to simply be as offensive as possible.

As I said on this blog before, Waters was somewhat apologetic about one of his other movies, Multiple Maniacs, which made light of Charles Manson's crimes without, he said, any thought about the victims.

There had been some talk about making a sequel to Pink Flamingos, but Divine started appearing in regular movies in male roles and didn't want to do it. He had other doubts about it. Who would want to watch it? Would young people accept it knowing it was made entirely by the middle aged?