Prime Time

Prime Time

Beyond Ridicule

Richard C. Walls

BLOWING IT: When Thelonious Monk died on Feb 17 I didn’t exactly expect a Nightline special edition, that would have been asking too much, nor was I particularly surprised or bothered that Lee Strasberg’s demise, which occurred on the same day (or thereabouts), got slightly more in-depth coverage from the various news media (after all Strasberg not only hob-knobbed with, but taught American royalty) — but I did find it disgraceful that on the CBS Evening News Dan Rather couldn’t manage to pronounce Monk’s name correctly. He said it as “Theo-lonus,” not once but twice during his brief mention of Monk’s passing and rarely have the supposedly sympathetic tones of the Great White Father news establishment rang as hollowly. Hopefully, the next time an “obscure” artist with a difficult name dies they’ll spell it out phonetically on Dan’s cue cards and spare us all another depressing attempt by the network at noblesse oblige.

☆ ☆ ☆

BITING IT: PBS Late Night and Sneak Preview fans had the opportunity to combine their peculiar interests recently when SP’s Roger Ebert did a one-night sub for vacationing PBSLN host Dennis Wholey. Ebert had his charisma dial on snooze and, without the relentless thrusting of Playboy mansion habitue (see Thy Neighbor’s Wife—Gay Talese—Pg. 532 paperback edition) and mad slasher trasher Gene Siskel to keep him awake, failed to ooze his usual churlish charm. The guests stiffed-out too, though the topic, minorities in films and TV, was an honorable one. Most of the hour was filled with actor Bernie Casey doing some apparently off-the-cuff and convoluted opining about why there are fewer blacks on the large and small screens then there were ten years ago while Sumi Haru, national chairwoman of the Ethnic Minority Committee of the Screen Actors Guild, sat at his elbow and smiled smugly (no, I didn’t imagine it, she smiled smugly—and I have no idea why). No surface was scratched and the subject, an important one, is still in need of examination. (Casey’s approach to the problem was sincere but muddled, e.g., he got hung up on the word “crossover” because he perceived it as being implicitly racist—rather than acknowledge that films are scientifically aimed at certain pre-existing socio/economical/cultural groups, and that certain films manage to crossover from one target audience to another, he saw the word as an agent in propagating stereotypical conceptions. And pegging a purely descriptive term as part of the problem, rather than a bit of resultant jargon, didn’t make for penetrating analysis.) Not exactly a dog of the week, but I couldn’t recommend it.

SPECIAL BONUS OSCAR SECTION: Few things are quite as thrilling as reading about the Academy Awards two months after the event, right? So, without further apology, and in no particular order.

ONE: I didn’t think it was possible for Liberace to embarrass me—after all, he’s been a public figure for as long as I can remember and he’s always struck me as a harmless type, a show biz aberration who flaunts his banality so assiduously that he’s beyond ridicule—but on this night, having been pressed into service to introduce some music scoring award or other, Lee (as Mike Douglas calls him) managed to work in a reference to the golden turkey he starred in back in ’55, Sincerely Yours, a godawful remake of an old George Arliss flick The Man Who Played God (’32) (Leslie Halliwell, in his famous Film Guide, manages to convey its special dopeyness: “A concert pianist goes deaf and retire's to his penthouse, but with the help of binoculars lipreads the humble folk below. Helping them anonymously gives him courage to have an operation. Absurd...”). Anyway, Lee tried to create a Significant Show Biz Moment when he mentioned “the screenwriter on my movie... (pause a few beats to build up the suspense).. .Irving Wallace!” and his face froze in an expectant smile for the adulatory waves of applause that were sure to greet the name of this best-selling author person. You could hear a newt fart. Then a few half-hearted claps as the collective Academy consciousness heaved a sigh of “Big Fucking Deal.” Most embarrassing... TWO: As usual there were too many pointless production numbers. I mean, who really wants to hear Gregory Hines sing “Shuffle Off To Buffalo”? Let’s have a show of hands...one...three, four. Four. That’s what I thought. Four people in the whole country and they have to waste our time with that crap. THREE: After one such production number, one which made going into the kitchen to count the number of processed cheese slices left seem like a compelling idea, host Johnny Carson announced: “Nobody works harder on a show like this than the dancers. I thought that last number was wonderful” (dutiful applause). I don’t think a person Johnny’s age should be forced to say things like that—he’s not as flexible as he used to be and something might snap. Having to mouth such inanities is the type of thing that can make a person drink too much wine with his rigatoni. And we all know where that leads. FOUR: It sure was swell that James Bond producer Cubby Broccoli won the coveted Irving Thalberg award. Any pretense that the award has to do with “quality” has been effectively scrapped—now it’s all out in the open, this award goes to any producer who can continually rake in the big bucks. Hopefully, now, some of the other great schlockmeisters of the recent past will be honored—Samuel Z. Arkoff, Joe Solomon, Albert Zugsmith, though none, probably, could equal Cubby’s captivating subGodfather oratory style (and speaking of meisters, Frank Capra did well at the televised American Film Institute Life Achievement Award dinner/tribute, though the atmosphere of longing for allegedly simpler times was a bit thick. As a member of the AFI, which means I subscribe to their cheesy magazine, I received a ballot to cast my vote for next year’s Life Achievement winner and was momentarily tempted to write in Sam Fuller’s name.. .but life has taught me that the impact of such gestures is, at best, oblique. Besides, Cary Grant is due to get it, you read it here first.)

FIVE: Just when I’ve come to terms with being the only intelligent, sensitive caring person in America who-doesn’t like Hill Street Blues, now I’ve gotta deal with Chariots Of Fire. Try as I may, I cared not a whit for the characters in the movie or their boring aspirations. There were extenuating circumstances—my girlfriend fell asleep during the last hour which made me feel a little guilty about being awake (being sensitive, caring and all), and I found myself concentrating on the jerk behind me who kept kicking my seat each time he shifted his (no doubt runner’s) legs and explaining to his companion who was in the movie and where they were and why. And maybe it was less an innate resistance to being so mechanically and slickly unlifted and more the pint of peppermint schnapps I’d drunk the evening before the matinee that prevented me from being swept up in what seemed to me the selfcongratulatory approval of an audience of unimaginative narcissists. Whatever the reason, I thought it sucked. And the popcorn wasn’t all that great either...