We're So Sorry, Uncle Albert

"I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else."—Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn), Charade (1963)

From time to time, we here at the Monkey receive e-mails requesting that we (I) (there's just one of me) carry some particular advertisement, presumably in exchange for money or services. But the fact is, this is an ad-free blog. Not, mind you, because I believe art should be free (any more than I believe soup should be free), or because I don't believe in corporate America, man (I own s#!t-loads of stock in corporate America, man), but because (1) carrying ads would also, I assume, require me to carry content, which I am too lazy to do; (2) I'd feel obligated to make sure all the pictures I post are in the public domain, which I try to do anyway but don't always succeed (see: lazy); and (3) I'm lazy.

I'd reply with an e-mail saying as much, but I'm (4) anti-social and (5) lazy. So (6) don't take it personally.

As for all you faithful monks and monkettes hungry for that good Monkey writing, I'll have content for you in November. Probably.

You Know, Who ...

I've been so long in responding to the comment Who Am Us Anyway left the other day that I thought I'd just turn it into a short, blabbery post.

"You know, Who, I read a throwaway line in this week's New Yorker magazine that serves as the antithesis of the movie reviewing philosophy we adhere to here at the Monkey. In an article called "Tune In Next Week," Emily Nussbaum wrote:

As viewers, we rely on hierarchies to govern our notion of television ambition: cable trumps network, drama is better than sitcom, adult is worthier than teen, realistic is more grownup than sci-fi, grim beats sunny, PBS documentary tops Bravo reality show, and 'as good as Dickens' is superior to anything resembling a soap opera.

I don't know that Nussbaum meant that seriously Nussbaum doesn't believe in those hierarchies any more than I do, but I do know plenty of people who would take it seriously, especially if you substitute 'film' for 'television' and 'Erich von Stroheim' and 'Douglas Fairbanks' for, respectively, "PBS documentary" and 'Bravo reality show.' And I'm just telling you, Who, I'm not buying it.

This is my aesthetic criteria for judging a movie: does it move me (to laugh, to cry, to think, to leer at my wife lasciviously)? and does it do so in a memorable way, despite the passage of time and with it, the hype, buzz or cultural relevance surrounding the film's initial release?

Some movies you forget before you've even left the theater, some fade within a few years, but some are as fresh and exciting as the day they were made, maybe even more so.

Thus, as you scroll through the Silent Oscars and on to the Katie Awards, you'll see Chuck Jones next to Ingmar Bergman, Shirley Temple next to Alfred Hitchcock, and yes, even a grim, grownup head-scratcher like Abel Gance sharing the stage with Harold Lloyd. If it's good, it's good, and if it's not—at least in my often-wrong opinion—you probably won't find it here."

New Comments Policy

Just to let you know, the blog has been getting spammed a lot recently, and not the good kind like Monty Python serves up. So I'll be approving comments in advance for a while at least.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Love and kisses,
the Mythical Monkey

New Poll, New Project, New Followers

Faithful reader Erik Beck (of the Boston Becks) has demanded a poll on the question of the best drama of 1932-33 and we here at the Monkey aim to please. I promise the results of the poll will be binding on my choice of best picture in the category of a drama, providing of course that the results jibe with the essay I'm already writing. Otherwise, we'll just call it another frustrating exercise in democracy, what in America is known as an "election."

I'm working on a new project for the blog and have been very distracted lately. As soon as I post the essay on the best drama of 1932-33 and then a brief recap of the year's Katie Award winners, I plan to spend the rest of 2010 writing capsule summaries of each movie year from 1915 to 1927, retroactively awarding Katies to the best movies and performances of the silent era, the "Silent Oscars," if you will.

Which means fans of Harold Lloyd, Theda Bara and Musidora should be very happy.

Then because I like this drama-comedy split I've been using for 1932-33 so much, I'm going to fill in those years I've already covered (1927-1932) with my picks in the categories of drama, comedy-musical and foreign language—e.g., it looks like Luis Buñuel will finally pick up a long overdue award. (Don't worry, it'll make more sense when you see it in action. Or not.)

Finally, I've been out of town a lot lately and have been playing catch-up, blog-wise. If you've recently become a follower of the Mythical Monkey and for some reason I'm not following your blog, drop me a line in the comment section and let me know. I enjoy following the blogs of those following me, whether you write about movies, fashion, music or the rain in Spain that stays mainly in the plain, and I don't want to miss out on the action.

Comments, Comedy and Clara Bow

Going back to comment moderation for a while which may mean a brief delay before your comments show up, but at least we can keep this "Mythical Monkey" guy out of here.

Oh, wait, that's me.

The essay about the best comedy director of 1932-33 promises to be one of those five thousand word jobs so I'm going to start publishing it in pieces, the same way I did when I wrote about City Lights. I'm not telling you who I'm choosing (perhaps you can guess), but I think he's worth taking a bit of time talking about.

In the meantime, it's 1933 here in Monkeyland and Clara Bow is about to flee Hollywood permanently, moving with her husband Rex Bell to a ranch in Nevada where she spent most of the rest of her life. So how about we take time out for a few last photos before she drives off into the sunset.

Revolution Is Dissent

"You separate a man from what he loves the most, what you do is purge what's unique in him, and when you purge what's unique in him, you purge dissent, and when you purge dissent, you kill the revolution—revolution is dissent." Warren Beatty as John Reed in Reds (1981)

I can't honestly say I'm a revolutionary or that I have ever even aspired to being a revolutionary. I'm much too pragmatic in a Burkean sense—18th century political philosopher Edmund Burke, that is, who I believe once said, "You say you've got a real solution, well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan"—to want to sweep away everything that's come before just because I hope for a future that promises something better.

As a practical matter, I gravitate more toward evolution than revolution, or at least I prefer a messy compromise that gets me a step closer to my goals to a perfect plan that goes nowhere and leaves me mired in the status quo. Which means if to get you to watch Chaplin's City Lights I have to run down Pennsylvania Avenue with the blogging equivalent of boxer shorts on my head, so be it.

And a necessary component of compromise consensus and evolution is a healthy respect for what Warren "John Reed" Beatty called dissent. For without dissent, there is no revolution, no evolution, no change, no compromise, no cheese crackers, no nothing. There's no learning either. And learning is what we're all about here at the Monkey.

(Of course, we're talking about what I would call engaged dissent, dissent grounded in fact and reasonably logical argument and a respect for a difference of opinion without bullying or feeling bullied. But that's a subject for another day.)

I was thinking about the role of dissent this past weekend after "Zak in the ATL," a fan of Norma Shearer, took exception to my blithe dismissal of the Oscar-winning actress (here and here). And he's was right to, of course. As I wrote in reply, "It's a big tent we've pitched here at the Monkey and we encourage all points of view. Hopefully, your enthusiasm for Norma Shearer's work will counter my own crabbier response and will encourage readers who stumble across this blog to give her a try. ... The goal of this blog, for me at least, is to encourage my readers to see as many movies as possible. I hope you stick around to cheer Norma on in the future and argue in support of your favorites."

Because that's really the point of the blog, right? To inspire you to see movies you might otherwise have missed, if only to prove to yourself that I am an idiot. The only proper way for movie fans to address a difference of opinion is to watch the movie. (Coincidentally, the only way to celebrate complete agreement is to watch the movie—indeed, the answer to every question for a movie fan is to watch the movie. Which perhaps explains why so few world leaders ever blog about the movies.)

I have another reason, though, a more selfish reason, for encouraging your dissent.

As you may have already guessed, I've actually spent the last ten months telling you what I don't know about the movies, and I've had to do quite a bit of scrambling to develop a working knowledge of the films of the silent and early sound eras. I've enjoyed the effort and hopefully the pleasure I've felt researching old movies has translated into some interesting essays.

But as I (very) slowly grind on toward the future, I find I have seen more and more of the top movies of a given year or if I haven't seen them, I'm at least aware of them and am chasing them down. In other words, I am arriving at my comfort zone. And as I become more comfortable, I am convinced blind spots will develop, that I will ignore movies I've already seen and dismissed, or assume an opinion I formed in my youth is an opinion I would still hold in my dotage. I'm counting on you to keep me on my toes.

If you don't feel comfortable disagreeing with me, this blog will never get anywhere.

"For in this very thing lies the difference between freemen and those that are not free," said Edmund Burke. "In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters; that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion upon them. They sift, examine, and discuss them. They are curious, eager, attentive, and jealous; and by making such matters the daily subjects of their thoughts and discoveries, vast numbers contract a very tolerable knowledge of them, and some a very considerable one. And this it is that fills free countries with men of ability in all stations."

"But when you talk about destruction," he added, "don't you know that you can count me out."

Hear hear, Edmund, hear hear.

Cognitive Dissonance

And the current carries us farther yet from the essay for best director of 1930-31 ...

The ever reliable Wikipedia describes cognitive dissonance as that "uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously" and suggests that most people instinctively try to bring the two ideas into harmony by either changing their belief structure so the two ideas are no longer in conflict or rationalizing away one of the two ideas, again to reduce the conflict.

Yesterday's seemingly innocent picture of Errol Flynn inadvertently created a lot of cognitive dissonance when, between Douglas Fairbanks's dirty joking and my own curiosity, we discovered that Flynn's already shady past cast darker shadows than we here at the Monkey had imagined. Not just a "dashing ladies man who drank too much and tickled Basil Rathbone's ribs with the blade," as I put it on Thingy's blog, "Pondering Life," Flynn was a serial seducer of underage girls (tried in 1943 but acquitted on charges of raping two teenagers and engaged to marry a fifteen year old at the time of his death in 1959), as well as, at least on one documented occasion, an anti-Semitic blowhard.

One biographer has even charged he was a spy for Hitler's Germany (although others contend he was a leftist drinking buddy of Fidel Castro's and the British government a few years ago revealed that during the last days of World War II, Flynn was actually a spy for the British).

In any event, nasty business.

Which is a bit of a problem because I, for one, like Errol Flynn's movies, particularly The Adventures of Robin Hood. Am I required to like Errol Flynn as well or otherwise have to explain away his private behavior before I can admit to such? Or should I just stop watching his movies altogether?

The instinctive sense that I need to choose one of these options is cognitive dissonance.

There was an even bigger example of cognitive dissonance in the movie-fan blogosphere recently when Switzerland arrested Roman Polanski in advance of extraditing him to the United States to face sentencing following his 1978 guilty plea to unlawful sexual intercourse—a subject I hadn't planned to address in any fashion until my cryogenically-frozen head reaches 1974's Chinatown in this blog, sometime around the turn of the next century.

In my notes for the essay about the best director of 1974 (yes, I've made notes that far ahead— I've even written about Amy Adams's 2008 performance in Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day and Lord knows you'll be waiting forever before I get around to posting it), I have written: "Judgment of Polanski the man I leave to you, to God, to history, to Polanski's own withered conscience and to the appropriate legal authorities in any event. I certainly wouldn't want anything I've said about Polanski the artist to be construed as a defense of Polanski the man."

That's pretty much how I feel about Errol Flynn. And a lot of other people, too.

The farther I get into blogging about movies and their history, the clearer it becomes that the people who made great movies weren't necessarily great people, and certainly what you see on the screen doesn't reflect what you would have seen in their private lives. John Ford was an insufferable bastard, Henry Fonda was a terrible father, Woody Allen married his girlfriend's daughter. Dalton Trumbo was a Communist, Ward Bond hated Communists, Elia Kazan informed on his friends. Veronica Lake earned the nickname "the Bitch," Margaret Sullavan was a depressed alcoholic and Betty Hutton was as crazy as an outhouse rat. Clark Gable had bad breath and Joan Crawford's and Marilyn Monroe's legendary shortcomings I dare say you know about.

Renee Zellweger was reportedly so difficult on the set of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason that afterwards her co-stars Hugh Grant and Colin Firth announced their (thankfully short-lived) retirements from the movies. Jane Greer, on the other hand, was as sweet as chess pie, as loyal as a faithful dog and as brave as your average Marine, but that doesn't mean she wasn't absolutely riveting as the murderous femme fatale Kathy Moffit in the noir classic, Out of the Past.

There are any number of ways you can handle unpleasant information about the people who make movies. My father refused to watch Jane Fonda because of her politics; my mother-in-law still won't watch John Wayne because of his. Which is a pity from the point of view of the movie fan because it means you miss out on Klute and The Searchers, two great movies with two great performances that, I'll tip my hand now, will win their respective stars Katie Awards.

You can also go the other way and excuse behavior of your heroes you would never forgive of your enemies. Thus you'll find plenty of petitions seeking to free Roman Polanski despite committing a crime you'd insist your neighbor be buried for. Our brains are hard-wired that way, or so scientists tell us, something to remember the next you (or I) want to beat someone senseless for taking a position we don't agree with, but there's not much future for the republic if we're forever choosing to behave like territorial pack animals.

In writing this blog, I have opted for a third way. I have in the past and will continue in the future to distill out the professional from the personal, the on-screen persona from the private one, and though I have written about both, and will continue to do so, I've been choosing awards and reviewing movies strictly based on the former. Some of the winners have been creeps and some have been saints, but all of them have done something on screen that I think is worth your time and attention.

It's either that or stop writing about movies altogether. But then anything you write is guaranteed to offend somebody. After all, I imagine there are still some people out there who insist the world is flat. You can't please everybody.

So when 1938 rolls around, I will go ahead and lavish praise on The Adventures of Robin Hood and its star, Errol Flynn, no matter what he may or may not have done when he wasn't wearing green tights and a feather in his cap.

You're okay with that, right?

New Comments Policy

It was another busy movie weekend here at the Monkey. In addition to the essay about King Vidor's Hallelujah!, which off and on took all day Saturday, Katie-Bar-The-Door and I watched Spike Lee's answer to Saving Private Ryan, Miracle at St. Anna, a very fine war movie about the experiences of the 92nd Division's "Buffalo Soldiers," an all-black division that fought in Italy during the Second World War. Here's a movie that somehow slipped through the cracks last year—no, actually here was one that critics and moviegoers alike stomped on and shoved through the cracks—but Katie and I both thought it was a superb movie and highly recommend it.

We also watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks because it was Angela Lansbury day on Turner Classic Movies and neither of us had seen the movie since its release in 1971. Turns out there's a reason for that. It's not good. It's dull and derivative and chock full of bad songs. Rent Mary Poppins instead.

On my own, I also watched a couple of Ernst Lubitsch movies, Design For Living, which you'll be hearing much more about later, and Monte Carlo, which you won't. The former is a Hays Code-busting comedy about a ménage à trois between Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper and Fredric March, with excellent support from Edward Everett Horton (support in a movie sense, that is). The latter proves that even the immortal Lubitsch can't overcome a fatal flaw in casting, in this case Jack Buchanan as the romantic lead. Who's Jack Buchanan, you say? Exactly.

As for the new comments policy, I enjoy hearing from my readers, even the ones who have been dead for years. But the comments section has gradually turned into something of the old Wild West lately and it has been called to my attention (possibly by the left side of my brain) that genteel folk have become afraid to walk the street in broad daylight.

So for the time being, my good friend, Sheriff John T. Chance, has agreed to review all comments before they are then posted on the blog. He says no cussin', at least nothing that even Two and a Half Men couldn't use, no racial slurs, no ad hominem attacks on readers who are still alive, no wearing tights in public, etc.

And leave all firearms with Dude at the end of town.

Likely, there will be some delay between when you submit your comment and when it shows up on the blog—Sheriff John T. is strictly old school when it comes to all this newfangled technology— and if you think your comment was unfairly rejected, take it up with Chance. If you dare.

Anyway, we'll see how this works out ...