ThelmaTodd
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Posts posted by ThelmaTodd
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Hi gagman,
I regret to hear of your youtube troubles. Find a hosting service in Russia (".ru") and these problems will be over.(Write to them in English, no problem.) The Russians act as if there are bigger and other things for them to worry about besides what a Hollywood studio doesn't like! (BTW, the Russians are becoming a major internet resource for world classic film. They have many serious film buffs over there, some of whom demonstrate a formidable knowledge of American classic films!)
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Here is a treat from *Buster Keaton's* sound period, that features (the original) Thelma Todd! A very funny film. Keaton's sound films unfortunately are less known and appreciated. (As are Harold Lloyd's soundies.)
Relaxing off camera on the set of Speak Easily
There was a lot of physical horseplay in the film between Keaton and Thelma. How he must have relished shooting these scenes!
Thelma with Chico in Horsefeathers, made the same year.
Depression over!
*SPEAK EASILY (1932)*
*MGM w/ Buster Keaton, Thelma Todd, Jimmy Durante*
*Full movie in one clip*
*This film is a great showcasing of the comic talents of Keaton, Todd and Durante. Keaton plays a staid, formal college professor who leads a sheltered humdrum life. He thinks he has inherited $750,000, and uses to opportunity to add excitement to his life by bankrolling a show that had hit the skids out on the road, away from Broadway. The title of the film is a joke, from when Thelma suggests going to a "speakeasy". Keaton, as naive grammarian who doesn't know what she is referring to, corrects her saying that the proper form is "speak easily"! She cheerfully overlooks this inane eccentricity because she's looking to Keaton to be her sugar daddy!*
*Durante's comic trademark and genius was telling (deliberately) bad jokes, but delivering them so that you end up laughing anyway! Doing that successfully just may take more talent than telling good jokes! (As a life long pianist, I can also attest to the fact that he was one hell of a good piano player!)*
*I couldn't resist taking this opportunity to post some motion images of Thelma from a few other films!*
*This post is a good illustration of the power of free internet content to educate and and raise awareness of classic film among the message board community and readership! Speak Easily is in the public domain, and available on video for as low a $6-7.*
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Hi mark!
You are very kind. On behalf of my namesake and myself, we thank you!
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Hi GinnyMae,
I would suggest that you get the *7 disk Buster Keaton Collection published by Kino.* They are a high end, high quality publisher that offer restored versions. I have it in my collection and am very pleased with it! I took a quick glance on the web and found that you could pick up a used set for $87. (The set originally sold for about a $150.) Go to Amazon and look around for price and availability.
I am of two minds on the issue of free downloads vs. buying videos. I agree with krieger that not everybody can afford to buy DVD's all the time; it's a very personal choice, often influenced by one's finances. I am aware of the advantages and disadvantages of both. Buying videos costs money. Looking at free web content also has drawbacks, as the upload could be of a poor quality, in parts and often risks being withdrawn from the hosting service at the request of the copyright holder. (Youtube films are often here-today-and-gone-tomorrow!)
For purposes of sharing films with this community, I absolutely revel in the free resources of the internet. Perhaps no one has resorted to posting free complete film links around here more than myself! In doing so, I am in no way trying to discourage the purchase of video copies! Perhaps a broken up youtube download might give you enough of a taste to decide to make a purchasing decision.
Happy shopping!
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Hi MovieMagazines!
In that last post, was the second picture the back cover? I was going to suggest that you scan the back covers as well. It's easy to do on a flat bed scanner wothout damaging the magazine. The other reason is that even if the back is an ad, the ads themselves are interesting in very old magazines! I have some National Geographics that go back to as early as 1915, and many from the 20's and 30's. I find that the ads are every bit as interesting as the articles with their vintage graphics and products!
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*The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA)*,* if enacted and enforced, would directly impact this message board community. A video hosting service like youtube would be one of it's primary targets, given that Hollywood interests have been one of the main proponents of this legislation. You could kiss my* *Vintage Exploitation Films threads* *(and a lot of other threads as well) good-bye if they enacted this legislation. The ability of this community to share and view pictures, articles and film links would be almost halted. We don't just share youtube links here, but make extensive use of image and article hosting as well. (I also use google and wikpedia extensively in researching my material for these threads, sites which would also be affected.)*
*Under current copyright legislation, the holder of copyright could always "request" that the hosting service withdraw a posted film, and believe me, they do. Under the new legislation, they could go after the hosting service or website, and shut it down.*
*We are enjoying the fruits of the internet revolution here on these boards as classic film buffs. The internet has revolutionised the subject of classic film, making once rarely exhibited and seen films readily available for viewing, study and discussion. To ensure that this can continue, I urge the readers to express their concerns to their legislators.*
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Frank Zappa telling Davy Jones that although his dancing is good, that he should work on his music more.
*HEAD (1968)*
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*Raybert Productions, Produced by Bob Rafelson, written by jack Nicholson, w/ the Monkees.*
**http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9bre0CBh1I&feature=related
*Full movie in 8 parts*
*The Porpoise Song*
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*4 minute clip*
*A self satirical and oftentimes surreal film by the Monkees. In this film, they appear acutely aware of their status as fabricated mass market TV icons and seem to enjoy making fun of themselves. This ability to see themselves in perspective, at the height of their fame and popularity, is a very endearing quality:*
*" “Well well well, if it isn’t God’s gift to eight year-olds.”*
*- A sassy waitress, to Davy Jones*
*Their teenybopper TV audience and fans didn't like or get the point of the film. The older hipsters who listened to more cutting edge bands dismissed them out of hand.*
*The "box" that The Monkees keep getting trapped in and attempt to escape from is symbolic of television, as the real Monkees felt trapped in what they considered to be their increasingly silly TV show. They wanted to "escape" the show in order to express themselves with no boundaries to their creativity. The first realization of this freedom was, in fact, the film "Head."*
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Hello MovieMagazines,
This thread subject is a wonderful addition to the Your Favorites forum! These magazines were a vital piece of cinema history before the age of television and televised "entertainment reporting". VP19 has suggested that you post some of the articles. Having some of these magazines myself in my collection, I can appreciate that it is difficult to scan the contents (the cover can be laid flat, no problem) without risking damage to the magazine, unless you have a hand held scanner. The collectible value of these magazines varies with who is on the cover and the condition. Many of these covers and some of the articles are available on the internet.
This thread can become a long running personal project for you and a great resource for the community. I value "resource threads" that reflect historical exhibits and submissions.
The readers should bear in mind that much of the biographical information about the stars in these magazines was fabricated by the studio publicity departments, especially their life details before stardom. They none the less bear great contemporary witness to what they were doing. Part of the fun is figuring out what's true and what isn't. Of course, the artwork, photography and ads are also wonderfully reflective of that bygone period.
Best wishes! Go for 10,000 hits (at least) on this one!
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I am the walrus...
*MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (1967)*
*Apple Corp/ BBC Produced, directed and starring McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison.*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOKYfgWlzpU
*Full movie*
*I like this idiosyncratic and surreal Beatles music video, which both was influenced by the psychedelic revolution and which in turn influenced that revolution as well. The Beatles were a good 20 years ahead of MTV. This effort was so far ahead of it's time that critics could only judge it by conventional cinematic standards, and they found it wanting. The film was savaged by critics. It is more appreciated with time as a cult film showing the Beatles in their vintage psychedelic phase. I also think the advent of MTV and music videos has better enabled us to appreciate music videos, which is what Magical Mystery Tour is and was a precursor of.*
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*After Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul McCartney wanted to create a film based upon The Beatles and their music. The film was to be unscripted: various "ordinary" people were to travel on a coach and have unspecified "magical" adventures. The Magical Mystery Tour film was made and included six new Beatles songs.*
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*Film sountrack:*
*1 "Magical Mystery Tour"*
*2. "The Fool on the Hill"*
*3. "Flying"*
*4. "Blue Jay Way"*
*5. "Your Mother Should Know"*
*6. "I Am the Walrus"*
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Hi jamesjazzguitar!
A brief but amusing post!
Since you are old enough to remember, would you agree with me that what really fueled that counterculture was the politics and psychedelics? That what deflated it was a combination of the end of Vietnam and suppression of psychedelic use by the authorities? What if those young people had gone on using acid to the degree that they were? Acid was legal (at the federal level) until '65 or '66.
One can mock that flower child generation as revolutionary failures ( a point often made by younger people), but the 60's have left a few indelible legacies in our culture. (One of them is the continued widespread use of pot)
Note to the readers: I have loaded a bunch of *Timothy Leary, LSD and hippie films* to the *filmography* thread)
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*LSD: TRIP TO WHERE? (1968)*
*US Navy*
**http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8Yxb2OMm14
*Full short in 3 parts*
*Amazingly sensible for an "anti" film at the time, this was produced by the US Navy, probably for exhibition to it's personnel. A great many of it's target viewers were no doubt already "experienced" in one way or another, and so the Navy avoided the over hysteria and sensationalism of the "Reefer Madness" school. Practical objections are raised, such as a potential arrest record that could hurt you in civilian life, to concerns over whether a man guiding in planes on an aircraft carrier should be impaired. Clearly, LSD and naval flight control are incompatible! Marijuana is given the villain treatment to be sure, but most of the film focuses on acid.*
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*MAN ALIVE: THE 14 HOUR TECHNICOLOR DREAM (1967)*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxtCXYMbMKI
*Documentary in 3 parts.*
*Pink Floyd At the UFO Club*
*Mark Boyle's Psychedelic Light Show with Pink Floyd at the UFO Club*
http://wn.com/PSYCHEDELIC_LIGHT_SHOW_UFO_1967_Soft_Machine'>http://wn.com/PSYCHEDELIC_LIGHT_SHOW_UFO_1967_Soft_Machine'>http://wn.com/PSYCHEDELIC_LIGHT_SHOW_UFO_1967_Soft_Machine'>http://wn.com/PSYCHEDELIC_LIGHT_SHOW_UFO_1967_Soft_Machine
*7 minute clip*
*Soft Machine, live at the UFO CLub 1967*
http://wn.com/PSYCHEDELIC_LIGHT_SHOW_UFO_1967_Soft_Machine
*4 minute clip*
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*The* *"14 Hour Technicolor Dream"* *was a countercultural concert event at the Alexandra Palace concert hall in London, on 29 April 1967, featuring a number of artists. (It's title had to be a veiled reference to acid.) The fund-raising concert for the International Times was organised by Barry Miles and John "Hoppy" Hopkins and David Howson. It was part-documented by Peter Whitehead in a film called* *Tonite Let's All Make Love in London*.
*At the time, The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream was described as a multi-artist event, featuring poets, artists and musicians.* *Pink Floyd* *headlined the event; other artists included:* *Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Soft Machine, Tomorrow and The Pretty Things.*
*Pink Floyd* *appeared right at the end of the show, just as the sun was beginning to rise at around five o'clock in the morning. Although "underground" venues such as the UFO Club were hosting counter-cultural bands, this was certainly the biggest indoor event at the time. Other performers included* *The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Move ,Sam Gopal's Dream* *(featuring Sam Gopal, Mick Hutchinson and Pete Sears).*
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*TONITE LET'S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON (1967)*
*Film by Peter Whitehead w/ Pink Floyd, Allen Ginsgerg*
http://video.mail.ru/mail/4reks/313/2551.html
*30 minute film*
*Haight Ashbury wasn't the only epicenter of the Hippy movement; the counterculture had a global capital in London as well. Fueled by the cutting edge rock and fashion scene in Britain, London was very hip and happening.*
*This was filmed at an event called "The 14 hour Technicolor Dream" at the Alexandra Palace and the UFO Club. If that sounds like a rave it probably was, as 14 hours was the commonly assumed duration of LSD's effects. The New York Times reports that "Tonite" was a 70 minute film, but no 70 minute version exists on the internet.*
*Peter Whitehead’s* *most famous film is a free-form time capsule of Swinging London in 1967 which combines concert footage of Pink Floyd with “cameos” from a host of pop-culture icons:* *Mick Jagger, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Lee Marvin, David Hockney, and Allen Ginsberg. Comprises a number of different “movements,” each depicting a different theme underscored by music. An early version of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive”* *plays behind some arty nightclub scenes, while Chris Farlowe’s rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Out of Time” accompanies a young woman’s description of London nightlife and the vacuousness of her own existence. Sandwiched between are clips of Mick Jagger (discussing revolution), Andrew Loog Oldham (discussing his future) and novelist Edna O’Brien (each discussing sex). The best part is footage of the riot that interrupted the Stones’ 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert.*
*On one level, this rather raw documentary shows Whitehead to be a successor to the Free Cinema movement and a rare British exponent of cinema verité. However, it is just as fair to see him as the avant-garde, non-fiction flipside to Richard Lester. Both used pop-culture to chronicle the initial optimism and subsequent disillusionment of the decade, while at the same time creating the aesthetics of the music video.*
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The Grateful Dead being interviewed
*THE HIPPIE TEMPTATION (1967)*
*CBS News documentary w/ Harry Reasoner*
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho-tPtTwJK8&feature=related
*Full documentary in 4 parts*
*In this,* *Harry Reasoner* *takes a sanctinonious and slanted view of the San Farancisco hippy movement in that clipped tone that was characteristic of narration and newscasting at the time. This documentary has taken on a "camp" appeal over the years, and like so many of the drug scare films before it, was meant to play to the fears and prejudices of mainstream viewers. Reasoner seems to assume (probably correctly), that this whole phenomenon was incomprehensible to the parents of these youth and to much of his viewership. It is negatively biased of course; to speak favorably of it might have cost him his job.*
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*Features an interview with the* *Grateful Dead, and shows* *Canned Heat* *in a ballroom. At the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, a guy nods off onto Janeane Garofalo's mom! A Dr. David Smith is interviewed at the clinic who ends up making the most intelligent commentary in the whole production. He says that the* *"kids attracted to the Haight come from some deprivation, intellectual deprivation in their former mode of life... it is a product of the middle class...it's not an anarchist movement. The hippies are not interested in any philosophy, including communism. Many people say this is a communist inspired movement. They're reacting against any structured philosophy... They just wanna live the way they live without structural bindings."*
*Recently the SF Weekly remembered this documentary with the title: "Occupy Haight Street": Harry Reasoner's 1967 The Hippie Temptation".*
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*SAN FRANCISCO 1968- Summer Of Love*
**http://www.archive.org/details/SanFrancisco1968
*5 minute short*
***This appears to have been amateur footage taken of an event in a park. In it's brief 5 minutes, it manages to capture well the spirit of it's time and place. It's all there: kids chilling out, rock music, a child playing with a Bible, Hare Krishnas, pot smoking, people dancing like they are zonked out and under the influence. This event is much remembered and celebrated in the popular consciousness; there was an attempt to recreate it 40 years later with apparent nostalgia.*
*I'm reminded of a memorable line in* *Casablanca (1942),* *where Captain Renault (Claude Rains**) is ordered to shut down Rick's Cafe after the people get carried away singing the Marsellaise:*
*"But everybody's having such a good time."*
*Major Strasser: "Yes. Much too good a time!"*
*That's it in a nutshell. These people were obviously having much too good a time; it couldn't last! The "scene" was done in by two forces, the authorities cracking down on open drug use, and by so many people "graduating" from pot to "speed"(meth) and other hard junk. Junk produced a "downer" in the form of junkies, who preyed on the flower children.*
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*AQUARIUS RISING (1967)*
*Film by Pierre Sogol*
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*Full film in 7 parts*
*A remarkable documentary that bears contemporary witness to the heyday of the the hippie movement, set off by a lot of music by various groups, including the Beatles. Created by "Pierre Sogol", suspected by some to not be his real name. (I think his name is a reversed annagram for "Logos", a Greek word for cosmic name of God). Sogol is a self-descibed "noologist". This film is a 1992 edit of his archival footage.*
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*Aquarius Rising* *shows the famed "Sunset Strip Riot" following the closure of Pandaros Box, a hiptser hangout and club, some communes like Strawberry Field and OM, as well as a few other hippy gatherings.*
*Also shown are citizen meetings with the police, where the hippies are derided in language that almost exactly mirrors the current critiques of the Occupy protesters of today, complete with suggestions that they are in need of a bath. If anything, the original hippies make the current generation of Occupy people seem like a bunch of wannabes; their aims were more radical and far-reaching, seeking nothing less than a reinvention of human consciousness, spirituality and society with psychedelics.*
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*The film has title overlays that make a number of claims that conventional religious people would consider sacrilegious and blasphemous. Mentioned is something called "Kykeon", an ancient Greek word for sacred barley bread, which is claimed to have been consumed by the Essenes and Jesus himself to bring about an altered state of consciousness. The implication is that the "bread" which Christ gave as a sacrament to his apostles was well, loaded with a little something that would make you see things differently! The scientific basis for this was (re)discovered in 1943 by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, who isolated and ingested LSD in the course of his research into barley mold.*
*The film informs us that the tiny red mushrooms that grow on the “rusted” flowering stalks of barley (called “tares” in the bible) and other grain "**are called Claviceps Purpurea, and contain lysergic acid proponolimide and lysergic acid diethylamide-25 (LSD-25)".*
*Also from the film:*
*“Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the word “peter” comes from the name for little mushrooms. In Greek, Peter could be a pun on rocks. Upon this mushroom (not rocks) I will found my church. “My way is the only way” said Jesus, whose name in greek was Iasos. Iasos means “man of the drug”. No wonder he was executed in Jerusalem…"*
*At the end is this:*
*"Seeing this video would be the greatest thought crime of all. Too late, now you’ve seen it."*
*Perhaps reading my posts is a thought crime as well? Too late! You've already read them!*
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*TIMOTHY LEARY: HOW TO OPERATE YOUR BRAIN aka How To Operate Your Mind On Drugs*
*Retinalogic Films, w/ Timothy Leary*
*Full movie in 4 parts.*
*In this montage fueled lecture, Leary contrasts his soothing, sedating hypnotherapist voice with jarring, chaotic visuals. He was a self avowed agent of chaos, saying that chaos is natural and even good. He saw society's attempts at resolving chaos as a form of control and conditioning which were an impediment to expanded consciousness. He understood all along that he would be at war with a culture that demanded conformity and control from above. Had he remained a Harvard professor, he could have had a comfortable but hum drum life. He ended up living by, and sacrificing himself to the life and consciousness altering possibilities of LSD.*
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Allen Ginsberg, beat poet turned hippy guru.
*BE-IN (1967)*
*Film by Jerry Abrams, w/ Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary*
*7 minute short*
*The term "Be-In" arose out of the "sit-in", a non-violent 60's protest strategy that would foreshadow the Occupy movement 40 years later. Sit-ins were used to target certain institutions, like ROTC and college admin buildings in order to protest a variety of causes like Vietnam, the political system etc. A "be-in" would "occupy" a certain space, not so much for protest but for the celebration of a counterculture presence and lifestyle fueled by free music, food and plenty of drugs. To the young people participating, it was a joyful life affirmative experience. To the horrified older generation, it all signalled the end of civilisation.*
*A short film with an all musical sountrack by the* *Blue Cheer*. *Conspicous on the stage were* *Timothy Leary* *and pop poet-guru* *Allen Ginsberg*
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*The Human Be-In was a happening in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park the afternoon and evening of January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol as the center of an American counterculture and introduced the word 'psychedelic' to suburbia. It is now a little-known term used by the hipster counter-culture to describe inclusive events.*
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The High Priest
*HOW TIMOTHY LEARY CHANGED MY LIFE*
*Claire Burch Production*
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http://www.archive.org/details/Timothy_Leary_Archives_223
*Full film in two parts, features full nudity.*
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*ADULTS ONLY!*
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*I sometimes like to make drastic changes of trajectory on this thread, and shifting gears from the Ku Klux Klan to Timothy Leary and LSD is one of those moments! The subject of this thread allows for great eclecticism of material, and I love it!*
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*The subject of Leary and LSD is inherently sensational. There is nothing mainstream about it. He was, and remains a perpetual radical, an alien presence in our cultural and national fabric. He might as well have been dropped off from another planet. Both the man and the drug he glorified were radical agents of deconstruction. What he was deconstructing was the very culture and shared assumptions that reinforce it. From the standpoint of the authorities, bad enough that he would engage in such experiments personally, but his penchant for proselytisation, to entice the younger generation into an altered state of mind and alternate lifestyle, was the ultimate transgression. No country or society could easily accommodate such a person; he would have wound up an outlaw in any nation.*
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*Claire Burch* *was a writer and filmmaker. In this documentary film she interviews herself and many others about their personal experiences with Leary.*
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Thank you very much Casablanca lover!
The long running exploitation film project has opened my own eyes to how many subgenres of it there are. You can exploit thematic and visual matter, you can make a film about something exploitational or you can exploit your position as filmaker and use the medium to spread mischief. *Leni Riefenstahl and D.W. Griffith* have earned a place in my museum gallery for the latter reason.
*The common thread that runs through all exploitation film is sensationalism of visual content or subject matter.*
PC and film itself is a nuanced phenomena. Sometimes undertaken through coercion (The Motion Picture Code), othertimes voluntarily for purposes of box office maximisation (out of fear of offending a class of paying customers). Othertimes out of fear of making the film uncommercial. (Film biographies and historical epics often have had to fictionalise their subject for that reason) Worst of all are when the film PC is part of the indocrination agenda of a totalitarian regime. The history of Nazi, Communist and Fascist cinema furnish abundant examples.
Do feel free to comment on the exploitation discussion thread! The furnished exhibits have been numerous and quite varied; they should provide a lot of fodder for discussion!
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Hi gagman!
I wasn't aware of more than one restored version of *Birth Of A Nation (1915).* I assumed that the Kino version and the one that TCM aired were the same, as they were both tinted. I tried like the dickens to find a tinted version of the film for posting, but could not. The film is much more intereesting to view with color tinted film stock.
A historical exhibit concerning the tone of this film
Barefoot legislators in the Reconstruction period
Griffith's fundamental fear.
The film depicts blacks with whites in makeup.
The **** disarms a black militia
A democrat President Woodrow Wilson's imprimatur.
The image of Christ, recruited to Griffith's cause.
I have posted *D. W. Griffith's Birth Of A Nation (1915)* to the *filmography* thread. I have submitted it because I feel it is a case of using film as a vehicle for the cause of historical revisionism. It's ironic that we touched on the subject of using film to rewrite history on another thread devoted to "Political Correctness" just yesterday. The term "PC" was not in use back in 1915, but it provoked a strong response back then, which included riots and disturbances in a number of cities where it was shown. I believe this film could provoke the same reaction today if it were shown for mass theater exhibition.
BOAN launched *Louis B Mayer* into his eventual career in studio production. He was originally working as a regional film distributor, and the profits from Griffith's film allowed him to dream of launching his own studio, which went on the become MGM. Not bad for someone who started in the scrap metal trade.
Here is an article and video link which open up the debate on D.W. Griffith:
*"D. W. Griffith in black and white: Was the Birth Of A Nation director really a racist?"*, published on Slate.com (where the late Christopher Hitchens was a weekly contributor)"
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/dvdextras/2003/01/dw_griffith_in_black_and_white.html
Here is a youtube link posted by film collector Ira Gallen, showing some rare footage of an interview with Griffith, who says: "that at that time, the Klan was necessary.":
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The justification for Griffith's revisionism
This, from a democrat President.
*BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)*
*David W. Griffith Corp. w/ Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh*
**http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEznh2JZvrI
*Full movie- 3 hours*
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*Historical revisionism can itself be an exploitation of the film medium. Screenwriters and producers have always taken liberties with historical personages and facts. This has almost always been done to make the screenplay more palatable and marketable to a mass audience. This film is not in that category;* *Birth Of A Nation* *was created by Griffith as a personal crusade to revise the historical record as it pertained to the cause of the South and particularly, the Ku Klux Klan.*
*To make a "southern case" is one thing; to recast the Klan as a heroic force for the good, whose main mission was the protection of innocent womanhood was quite another. Where a threat is indicated, the source of the threat has to be indicated as well- and in this case it had to be the blacks, who are shown as being out of control. It's no surprise that this film caused riots and disturbances in a number of cities.*
*Based upon a revisionist book by* *Thomas Dixon Jr., The Clansman: A Historical Romance Of the Ku Klux Klan (1905),* *the film was meant to amplify Dixon's laundered impression of the Klan. Both the book and the film reinforce the notion of white supremacy, of the innate degeneracy of blacks and of the Klan's benevolent role as a force for the good and the right.*
*This film was technically very impressive for it's time. It is quite long (3 hours), had many novel uses of the camera and featured a very compelling story narrative. Knowing nothing else about the subject, a viewer can easily be seduced by Griffith's personal passion and view. The man totally believed in what he was doing, felt strongly about it and it shows. Griffith swore by the message and mission of this film to the end of his days. Birth Of A Nation strikes a raw nerve in the national psyche, and has the enduring potential to be an inflammtory film to this day.*
*The complete upload that I am providing is a blah looking black and white print. Far better is the restored version by Kino Video using tinted film stock. The restored version has aired on TCM.*
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*Two brothers, Phil and Ted Stoneman, visit their friends in Piedmont, South Carolina: the family Cameron. This friendship is affected by the Civil War, as the Stonemans and the Camerons must join up opposite armies. The consequences of the War in their lives are shown in connection to major historical events, like the development of the Civil War itself, Lincoln's assassination, and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.*
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Hi hamradio!
Ah! There is another aspect to film- using it to rewrite history. Of course I was refering to things "old and in the can", being viewed and judged in hindsight.
The timing of your post and this thread are fortunate, as I was preparing another film submission for today on my *VINTAGE EXPLOITATION FILMS-FILMOGRAPHY thread in Your Favorites* that is to highlight your very point! An infamous case of a filmmaker using film to deliberately rewrite history! Watch for it in a few hours.
I suppose that something like PC has always existed, only in past generations of course they didn't call it that. Filmmakers at one time were never free to totally flaunt social norms, recall the Hays Office, Motion Picture Code etc. (or concerns about box office impact- the ultimate censor if you like!) With greater freedom comes the possibility of abuse- like rewriting history!
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The PC issue can get a bit muddled when the mission of a channel is to show classic films. Old movies are historical/cultural relics, reflective of their time. Public tastes and sensibilities change over time, as do perceptions of what is culturally acceptable, or "PC". Watching old films bears this out. To select or not select an old film, just because it does not reflect contemporary PC concerns, is ahistorical and a cultural disservice, both to the films themselves and the viewers.
The *Chan* movies are a good case in point. Showing them can be instructive in how popular attitudes have changed. (These films couldn't be made today) Should we deprive people of that lesson? PC should concern itself with the present. You can't use it to erase history, or to consign historical artifacts into oblivion.
The PC issue has crossed my mind more than once in the course of my *Vintage Exploitation Film* project! I'm surprised that so far no one has attacked some of my choices, which have included *Triumph Of The Will (1934), Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Mondo Topless*! I appreciate the indulgence of both the moderators and the community! Had someone made PC objections, my argument would have been that we are dealing with history here; these are old films reflective of their times- and the forum and channel are devoted to historical film. Mine is a curatorial function. As a curator, I would resist the removal of an exhibit every bit as much as any museum curator would.
Save the PC filters for films in current production if you like. You don't apply them retroactively 80 years after the fact. To do so is an attempt at rewriting history by willful omission and withholding of evidence.
Movie Magazines: covers and content
in Your Favorites
Posted
*Thelma Todd*
Couldn't resist! Must date from 1933-1934,as indicated by the *NRA eagle emblem (National Recovery Act).* (The NRA was declared unconstitutional and struck down by the Supreme Court in 1935)
Hi Movie Magazines,
You might want to check out my *VINTAGE EXPLOITATION FILMS-FILMOGRAPHY* thread (In *Your Favorites*) to view a 1935 short featuring a very young *Judy Garland* and her two sisters singing *La Cucaracha * (3:17 into part 2) in:
*LA FIESTA SANTA BARBARA (1935).Posted Dec 18, 2011 8:33 PM*
http://forums.tcm.com/thread.jspa?threadID=161844&start=0&tstart=0
(Go back to the 4th page from current)
I have set up a seperate *discussion thread* in *General Discussions* for the subject, in order to keep the filmography thread clear for the numerous film links:
http://forums.tcm.com/thread.jspa?threadID=161845&tstart=15
*Feel free to comment!*