UPDATE ~ Work: My Classic Film Nest

My recent post about my work area was quite popular and I wanted to follow it up with a few things:

1) Hurricane Kyle must not have been a classic film fanatic, because due to all the rain and an unfortunate leak above my desk, my images of Marilyn Monroe and Spencer Tracy with Katharine Hepburn were destroyed due to water damage. It's a shame. Maybe I need laminated photographs?

2) Jonas of Lokomotivet started a new international blog called All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!. His first post is a photograph of his work desk and a description of all the classic images posted. He has a poster of Hollywood Revue of 1929!!! Check it out. And maybe you'll notice which blog just happens to be displayed on his computer monitor? Hmmm.....

3) At my work, we hosted an author event that had a collegiate theme. Organizers posted huge college-style posters including the standards like John Belushi/Animal House, Led Zeppelin and the Tournée du Chat Noir. There was a humongous, bright pink Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany's poster too! Once the event was over, the Hepburn poster quickly disappeared. My co-worker Frank immediately suspected me. However, I was absolutely NOT the culprit since I already have two obligatory Audrey Hepburn photos (one at work and one at home) and that poster was so big it would be an eyesore in my apartment. I'm suspicious that a resident Louise Brooks fan took it. She has a penchant for oversized posters and old film stars. The investigation is ongoing.

4) Bloggers - please feel free to post images of your work area on your respective blogs, like Jonas did! Give me a heads up when you do. Guest Bloggers - if you are blogless and want to participate, please e-mail me a contribution and I can post it here. Consider youserlves tagged!

The Great Depression ~ Ethay Reatgay Epressionday

I have been thinking about the economy a lot lately, especially how its going to affect myself and my family and how its going to affect American culture and business. I keep asking myself, how is our view of money and wealth going to change in this turbulent economic climate?

Something happened a couple of years ago that bothered me immensely. It was August 2005 and the MTV Video Music Awards were being held in Miami, Florida. I was watching the ceremony because my favorite new band was up for an award. Hurricane Katrina had just past by and the clouds were dark in the sky as the sun struggled to breakthrough. One of the VMA announcers declared how lucky they were to have escaped the storm unscathed. Instead of a red carpet, artists arrived with expensive luxury cars. Photographers snapped shots of the celebrities draped in their wealth. Cameras soaked up all the bling to transport those images to viewers who sat at home, their lustful eyes glued to the screen. The same Hurricane that left all those rich celebrities intact was headed start towards Louisiana to cause unspeakable destruction in an area populated with poor civilians. Why were the rich spared?

With all this talk about the state of the current economy, it got me thinking about the Great Depression. And when I think about the Great Depression, I think about the Gold Diggers films, especially Gold Diggers of 1933. There is that great number with all the ladies dressed in fake coins singing "We're in the Money". The lyrics dance in my head...

We're in the money, We're in the money,
We've got a lot of what it takes to get along.
We're in the money, the skies are sunny,
Old man Depression, you are through, you've done us wrong!
We never see a headline 'bout a bread line today;
And when we see the landlord,
We can look that guy right in the eye!
We're in the money, come on, my honey,
Let's spend it! Lend it! Send it rolling around!

Images of the girls borrowing clothes from each other, stealing the neighbor's milk and avoiding the landlady are burned into my brain. They had to be gold diggers. They had to do what they could "to get along"! I can see how audiences during the Depression would love this kind of film. They could identify with the lowly condition of the girls but also root them on as they tried to find a way out of their situation.

What about the flip side? Americans in the 1930's went to watch films in the cinemas as an escape from their current reality. They spent what little money they had at the pictures. Did they want to see films about poor people suffering? NO! They were living that reality and wanted to forget about it for an hour or two in a dark theater. So what did they go see? Films which had rich people as central characters. The Thin Man (1934), Dinner at Eight (1934), A Free Soul (1931), etc.

So what makes watching rich people in movies during the Great Depression different from viewing excessive spenders on reality shows and televised award ceremonies? Is it that the rich people in the movies are fictional so we can't really envy them because they don't exist? Where as those celebrities at the VMAs were real? How is this going to affect what we watch on screen? Will we continue to watch shows like Gossip Girl (fictional) and The Hills (Reality, bordering the line into fictional) and live vicariously through the characters or tune in simply to watch them fall? I don't know what's going to happen. I just know that what's on screen has to speak to us, otherwise audiences will go elsewhere.

You Otto See It: Angel Face (1953)

This is my first in a series of entries on the director Otto Preminger. I'm planning to watch 8 Preminger films (click here for the list) in preparation for my friend Kevin's lecture in November.

The first I watched was Angel Face (1953) , "presented" by Howard Hughes and starring Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum. I'm not sure what this film is and after watching it I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I saw. I just know that Robert Mitchum looked hot and that he slapped Otto Preminger during production. Go Mitchum! I would have liked to have slapped Preminger too for having to sit through this film. Although I titled this series "You Otto See It", I don't really recommend it. It's boring, confusing and the only thing to look forward to is Mitchum's pretty mug.

I did, however, like the beginning of the movie. Mitchum plays an ambulance driver, Frank, who gets called to the scene of a potential smothering. A rich woman claims someone tried to suffocate her and already we are suspicious. Then there is the woman's step-daughter, Diane, played by Jean Simmons, who is beautiful, tormented, has an angel face, blah blah blah. Frank and Diane slap each other a few times (many re-takes compelled Mitchum to slap Preminger) and are thrusted into a hot and heavy affair. Trouble is Frank's got this girl, Mary, played by Mona Freeman, a nurse at the hospital he works for. She doesn't have the angel face but she's got an angel heart. He should be with Mary but Diane is the one who excites him. Mary is confronted by Diane and finds out about Frank's infidelity. Frank doesn't know that Mary knows about Frank & Diane's rendezvous the previous night. When Mary confronts Frank, this gem appears in the dialogue:

Frank: I would have been lousy company last night. Ten minutes after I left Harry's I was in the sack.

Mary: I can believe that. Well, you can head for that same sack tonight.

I don't know much about the social norms of dating and relationships in the 1950's. But from what I gather from this film and others like it is that a man is free to see who he wants until he gets married. There isn't really a concept of a "boyfriend" or a committed pre-marital relationship, as we have in our contemporary culture. Just a courtship, which if successful, leads to an engagement which is mercifully brief and followed by a quick marriage. Engagements sometimes last hours or a few days, unless the beau is really dragging his heels. Maybe fast courtships and engagements were a way to snag a guy before a dangerous angel face lures him away. Who knows?

It's not that this film answered any questions I had, it just got me thinking. So at least I have that. In the end, the moral of the story was that beauty is dangerous and don't teach a girl how to fix a car.

God Speed: Paul Newman (1925-2008)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!