Monthly Archives: December 2003

The guy's gone and corrected the eBay listing, which was for an 8mm print of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein wrongly identified as Laurel and Hardy Meet Frankenstein. It was not only a great typo, it was a great concept for a movie. They could even have used some approximation of the same script, casting Jimmy Finlayson as McDougal (the guy who owned what he thought were wax statues of Frankenstein and Dracula) and maybe Mae Busch in Lenore Aubert's role. And don't think we could never see this. It would not surprise me if one of these days, the technology of computer imaging reached the point where it was possible to "create" a performance by some real actor and use it in constructing a movie. I'd like to see them start by taking George Lazenby out of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and putting Sean Connery in. Where he should have been in the first place.

Can you find the error in this eBay auction listing?

Bob Gregory, who wrote and/or drew hundreds of Donald Duck comic books for Western Publishing has died. He was 82 and the official cause of death is listed as pneumonia. Gregory was born in 1921 in Los Angeles, where he eventually attended Otis Art Institute. He did several years as a technical illustrator for an airplane manufacturer but the work did not suit him and he began submitting ideas and sketches to Western Publishing. In 1958, they finally began accepting his work on a steady-enough basis that he could chuck the aircraft job and go full-time. Thereafter, he wrote scripts for others to draw and scripts for himself to draw, and while he worked on most of Western's "funny animal" comics, his main gig was as writer-artist for Donald and other ducks. In the seventies, he wrote and pencilled most issues of Daisy and Donald. He was the guy who drew the ducks with very round heads, which he usually created with a circle template.

His work was quite popular and he obviously had cartooning in his blood. You can tell because he passed it on to his daughter, who is also a cartoonist and a very good one. Roberta Gregory created the popular feminist anti-heroine, Bitchy Bitch, who is not exactly Daisy Duck but does continue the family tradition.

I've been busy this evening for two reasons. One is that there's a full moon so I had to go out and be a werewolf for a while. Then after I'd bitten almost enough people for one night, I came in and read about two dozen political websites. On them, I found at least three dozen speculations as to why Al Gore has decided to endorse Howard Dean. They're all predicated on the assumption that Gore thinks it will aid his own self-interest. He wants a cabinet post or a Supreme Court appointment or to stick it to Joe Lieberman or to solidify his base with a certain wing of the party or…whatever. A number of folks seem to think Gore's trying to position himself for a presidential run in 2008. The way that one goes is that he knows that if a Democrat wins in 2004, that Democrat will run for re-election in '08, so Gore wants to support someone who's likely to lose, and that's Dean.

I have no idea what's on Gore's mind and neither do any of the speculators. But most of these theories sound pretty far-fetched to me, especially the notion that Gore (or anyone) is really acting with an eye on 2008. Let's see: The theory is that he wants his party to lose so he's endorsing the front-runner. And of course, if he endorsed anyone other than the front runner, they'd say it's because he wants to see a weaker candidate in there. Or if he didn't endorse anyone, they'd say he's withholding his support because he wants the Democratic nominee to lose…

Aren't there simpler, less devious explanations? Like maybe Gore thinks Dean is the best candidate? None of the people guessing at Gore's motives seem to think that but maybe Gore does. And maybe he thinks it will serve the party's interest, and indirectly his own, to help Dean nail down the nomination a.s.a.p., before a contentious primary battle fractures the Democratic party.

The other thing I notice is a lot of pundits saying Dean has darn near tied up the nomination. I'm not that old but I can still remember when, even after all the primaries, there was still an uncertainty about who'd be the nominee, all the way up until the second or third night of the convention. Then, thanks to changing party and primary rules, we reached the point where the presidential nominee was set before the election and the suspense at the convention was who he'd pick as his running mate. Then even that small nugget of suspense went away and the veep was selected before the delegates convened. Now, we seem to have arrrived at the next, obvious step: A nine candidate race is being called before a single primary has been held.

If this keeps up, we won't even need that silly part of the process where we actually vote. That will be good because, hell, those Diebold machines weren't going to count our ballots, anyway. And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going out for some more werewolfing…

One of the best TV channels I get on my satellite dish is Trio, which describes itself as "the only pop culture and arts channel." It's actually the "weird stuff" channel with a schedule that includes reruns of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, old Letterman shows from when he was on NBC, music shows, documentaries about the entertainment industry and the occasional outright oddity. At the moment, they're rerunning old episodes of Battle of the Network Stars. I tend to watch it rather often.

DirecTV is now superimposing on Trio broadcasts an occasional message that says, "DirecTV's carriage agreement with Trio network expires on December 31st. If we cannot reach an acceptable agreement by December 31st, Trio will no longer be available to DirecTV subscribers." Trio has set up this webpage to urge people to write to DirecTV and say it matters to them if Trio is in the channel lineup.

This is probably about money and nothing else. Last time I heard, about half of Trio's viewers came to them via DirecTV, so losing that outlet might finish them off. DirecTV is figuring they can get better terms out of Trio. Trio is figuring DirecTV won't want to piss off subscribers by taking away something they already get. It's all a game of Chicken but I decided it wouldn't hurt to tell DirecTV I really want to keep seeing Trio on my satellite, so I filled out the form on the Trio site. You might want to do likewise.

Here's William Raspberry with one of the best articles I've read on this whole topic of gay marriage.

As I browse the news websites and watch the cable news channels, I get the feeling that the general attitude towards Howard Dean is, "No, no! We don't want this to be over so soon!" I don't think the man has a lock on the Democratic nomination but I think a lot of newsfolks are afraid that day is imminent and that we will all soon see the Joe Liebermans and John Kerrys conceding defeat and denying reporters several months of mud-wrestling. It's way too soon to generate real interest in Dean vs. Bush so the media was counting on Dueling Democrats to sustain them. If the Michael Jackson case collapses, they don't know what they're going to do. Maybe they can get O.J. to kill someone else.

Here is the text of a very good campaign speech by John Kerry, who is probably not going to be the Democratic nominee for president. And here's a very good speech by Howard Dean, who probably is. Both links are to Salon so if you're not a subscriber, you need to watch some ads.

And just find me another one-man website that links to both Ron Paul and those guys in the same day.

Libertarian Congressguy Ron Paul discusses the plunging value of the American dollar.

A further annoyance about AMC's broadcast of the movie, 48 Hours: Not only was it full of badly-done cuts of naughty words but the schedule was screwed up. It's a 95 minute movie, they put it in a two hour slot, inserted a featurette before it and commercials throughout…and it wound up running two minutes over the two hours. So my TiVo cut off the last two minutes. And amazingly, their viewership is said to be on the upswing.

Writer Arie Kaplan is doing a series for Reform Judaism magazine on "How the Jews Created the Comic Book Industry." Which they pretty much did. The first chapter, which I linked to some time ago, can be read here. The second part, which just came out, can be read here. Both include some interesting observations and an intriguing context, but a few facts are askew. Chris Claremont, for example, was not picked to revamp X-Men in 1975. Len Wein was, and he did most of the initial upgrade before Chris took over. Also, it's implied that the "Silver Age" revamp of Flash came after Green Lantern, when it was actually three years before, and that the Jewish Robert Kanigher was the main writer. Actually, Kanigher only wrote four of the early stories. That's kind of the problem I have with the series. Kaplan is essentially right about the role of Jews in comics, but he overstates the case by, for example, singling out the Jewish Kanigher as the writer of Flash, and not the non-Jews, John Broome and Gardner Fox, who wrote most of the Flash scripts. He also omits non-Jew Carmine Infantino, who drew them all and who was arguably the most important member of the creative crew. An incredible percentage of movers and shakers in the comic book field were Jewish but it wasn't quite as lopsided as Kaplan makes it out to be.

(Another slightly-misleading point in the second chapter: Steve Trevor was not added to the Wonder Woman comic because Dr. Fredric Wertham suggested the title character was a lesbian. That's not exactly what Doc Wertham said, and Steve Trevor had been a fixture of the strip for more than a decade before, anyway.)

Despite these quibbles, I'm enjoying the articles and I hope Kaplan expands his overview and turns it into a book.

Also of interest but not online is a letter in the latest issue of Reform Judaism. It's from Irwin Donenfeld, whose father was the founder of DC Comics. Irwin himself served as…well, I'm a little fuzzy on Irwin's titles because my understanding doesn't match what he says below, but he was certainly one of the main executives at the company for a long period. Here is his letter, as retyped by Don Porges, who let me know about it…

This is the true story of Siegel and Shuster. Dad decided to take a chance on a comic character that no one else wanted. Vince Sullivan, Dad's editor, cut up the panels made for newspaper syndication. It came out to thirteen pages, and at $10 a page it was more than the going rate, and easy money for the boys. They were paid for their artwork when no other publisher wanted it. In 1938, $130 was a lot of money. Dad paid for the first issue of Action, and the second issue at the printers, and the third issue on the way to the engraver, before he found out if Superman would sell. He had a lot of money riding on his hunch. I was the first kid in the country to read Superman, and in the original art.

After Superman became an enormous hit, Dad got it into newspaper syndication. After all the expenses were paid, all of the profit went to Siegel and Shuster. Dad kept none of it. they were far and away the best-paid artists in comic books. Despite this, and at the urging of a lawyer, they decided to sue dad for the rights to Superman and Superboy. In a settlement directed by the judge, they gave up all rights to Superboy (they never had any for Superman) and in return they each received $125,000. It didn't take them too many years to run through all their money. No one else would hire them. Toward the end, Joe Shuster needed an eye operation, but he didn't have the money to pay for it. Dad paid for his operation.

In 1948, after college and a stint in the Air Force, I went to work at DC. In 1954, I became editor-in-chief. In 1956, DC president Jack Liebowitz made me publisher. We built up our circulation to more than eight million copies (average) a month. We were the largest comic book publisher in the industry. One day Mr. Liebowitz called me into his office and told me Jerry Siegel was in financial trouble. He had a wife and a child, and he was broke. Despite the fact that he had sued us and caused us all kinds of trouble, Mr. Liebowitz asked me to hire him, which I did. All the time that I was there, until 1968, he always had work.

I like Irwin but some of the above is at odds with the facts as I've heard them. Jerry Siegel was certainly hired by others after leaving Superman and so was Joe Shuster, as long as his eyesight permitted. Siegel and Shuster won their lawsuit for Superboy, then sold those rights to DC for a dollar figure that has always been reported as much lower than what Irwin reports. It's true that DC gave Siegel work in the late fifties when he needed it but all records say that his employment there ceased in 1966, and when I first met him in '68, that's what he told me. There are other points and I've generally found Irwin to be accurate, but I have to note when his recollections do not coincide with others. (One other trivial matter: Vince Sullivan may have "cut up" those Superman comic strip samples to form the first story in the sense that he was the guy in charge. But Vince told me that Joe Shuster and his brother did the actual conversion, with Siegel deciding what should go where.)

I TiVoed 48 Hours, a movie I liked in theaters, off American Movie Classics and I'm watching it at the moment. Sort of watching it, at least. I forgot when I marked it for recording that A.M.C. has become a pretty awful place to watch movies, what with commercial interruptions and films being "cleaned up" for broadcast. There's a great line in the movie and I need to describe the context. The bad guy, who is stark-raving homicidal crazy, kills a couple of policemen. A hooker who was with him is hauled in for questioning and she warns that the authorities will have a hard time dealing with this fellow. She says, "I just think he likes shooting cops a lot more than getting laid."

The line was redubbed on AMC and badly — not in sync and apparently not by the same actress. Her voice changes noticeably and her lips do not match the words as she now says, "I just think he likes shooting cops a lot more than women."

Uh, that isn't the same thing. I mean, there are two ways to parse that sentence but neither of them mean quite what the original line meant. As altered, it could mean the guy would rather shoot a cop than shoot a woman. Or it could mean he likes shooting cops more than women like shooting cops. But it doesn't mean he'd rather shoot a cop than have sex with a woman, which is what the line has to denote for it to have any meaning. The rewritten line doesn't even have the same number of syllables, which is the first thing you try to match when you rewrite dialogue for looping purposes.

The obvious substitution would have been to swap out "getting laid" for "having sex" or even "making love." Same number of syllables, same rhythm of delivery. Why didn't they? As I'm watching now, I hear obvious bleeps and redubs all over the place, and they've also reinserted a number of scenes that I'm pretty sure were out when it was first released, which probably means that after they made all their deletions, someone decided the film was too short.

Moaning about this isn't going to change anything, of course. I'm just wondering how long it's going to be before home video and unaltered cable broadcasts get America so used to uncut films that they won't tolerate anything less. I'd have thought we'd be there by now.

Several political websites are linking to this online page from the current issue of MAD Magazine. I offer it partly for your amusement and partly to point out that MAD has a lot more cojones than it once did.

Tim Russert, who I think is a terrible interviewer, had Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press today. Here's the transcript but basically, they both said that while the early stages of the Iraq invasion were masterfully done, we have been botching up the occupation and restructuring in ways that may have dire consquences. I suspect the reponse to these remarks will be to accuse Senator Clinton of being a craven, partisan, America-hating Liberal, and to pretend Newt Gingrich and other card-carrying Conservatives who are saying the same things don't exist.

Russert's main goal in the hour seemed to be to get Senator Clinton, who has said repeatedly that she will not accept the Democratic nomination for president in 2004, to say it even more irrevocably. He asked her over and over, and it was even more childish on the show than it reads in the transcript. I half expected him to say, "If all eight current Democratic candidates were to die in a bus crash and the entire party rose up as one to beg you to run, do you swear on the life of your children that you would not accept the nomination?"

Then later, he asked Gingrich, "Will Newt Gingrich ever seek elective office again?" and let him get away with answering, "Listen, I?m a historian. You never say never. But I doubt it very much." If Hillary had given that answer, the headline would be, "Hillary Opens Door For Presidential Bid."

The first time I read anything written by Leonard Maltin was around 1967 when I picked up a copy of Film Fan Monthly at Larry Edmund's cinema-specialty book shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Leonard was just a baby film maven then but he was already performing invaluable service in extracting film history from those who'd made it. Information does not materialize out of nowhere. Someone has to go out and find these facts and interview people while they're still around to be interviewed. As I discovered when I went back and purchased all the other issues Larry Edmund's had in stock, Film Fan Monthly was a place where this happened. A rather amazing number of actors and filmmakers were only interviewed before they died because Leonard or one of his correspondents interviewed them. A lot of today's filmographies and lists of who made what and who was in it are expansions on work that began in Film Fan Monthly. Naturally, I subscribed and also ordered all the back issues I needed, directly from Leonard.

For years, I knew of Leonard and bought his books but we'd never met. Mutual friends kept saying to me, "You ought to meet Leonard. You guys would really get along." Other mutual friends were telling Leonard about this Evanier guy. Finally around 1981, he called me…and it felt like a really awkward blind date. He said, "I'm going to be in L.A. for a few days and I'm sick of people telling me I ought to meet you, I think we ought to get it over with." As predicted, we became good buddies and later, when he was commuting to L.A. to try out for the job on Entertainment Tonight, he always made time for us to go to the Numero Uno on La Cienega, order pizza and swap Hollywood stories. He has since done fine work on that show, fine work on his books, fine work on his other film history projects, fine work everywhere.

But you know what I've missed? I've missed Film Fan Monthly. He stopped it in 1975 because paying work was getting in the way. Can't say as how I blame him, but I know the frustration he must have felt. Often, we come across a wonderful nugget of media history and we have no easy place to put it. The great thing about publishing a fanzine like F.F.M., and it's the same with a website like this, is that you can share anything you come across. There's little or no money but so what? Writing history is what's really important and with Film Fan Monthly, Leonard could just go interview Eddie Bracken (see example at right) or send someone to do it, rather than wait for that great Eddie Bracken assignment to come along.

I am delighted to report that Film Fan Monthly is back. Oh, he now calls it Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy and it's not monthly…but it's the same thing. I've just finished reading the first five issues and I can't imagine anyone who cares about film not finding this a valuable subscription. The first issue has a history of how Orson Welles almost starred in the movie version of The Man Who Came To Dinner, along with info on others who screen-tested (including Robert Benchley, Charles Laughton and John Barrymore!) to play Sheridan Whiteside. Amazing stuff. He has a number of good pieces on his website but what you really want to do is make a beeline to this page and subscribe. Movie Crazy is a newsletter, not a magazine, and it may seem a little thin for the price. But the information contained within is priceless, and you'll probably think it's a bargain.