Monthly Archives: October 2016

Last night, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had a screening of the 1971 film The French Connection and your obedient blogger was in the audience. I'd forgotten how much I liked that movie, especially the second half. The first part, which is mostly about police surveillance is, at times, about as exciting as…well, as police surveillance. But as the various components of the plot come together, things speed up and the storyline becomes very intriguing and you can see why it won its Oscars.

Sitting there in the Academy theater, I kept thinking how much this film would be diminished if I were home watching a DVD. It isn't just the small screen. It's that if I were home, I'd be constantly distracted during the slower parts. Sometimes, it helps to be forced to see a movie the way it was intended to be viewed.

After the film, its director William Friedkin was interviewed by writer-director Christopher McQuarrie. Friedkin was delightful and funny and quite humble for a guy who came on to a long, loving standing ovation. The conversation was recorded for, I'm guessing, some upcoming DVD or Blu Ray release so I'll just summarize a few points.

Friedkin spoke of how the film could not be made today because today, you'd need permits and permissions for something like 95% of all the locations. He said the only time they sought and got permission was to shoot on the elevated trains. The fellow in charge said absolutely no at first, then relented when offered a bribe. He wanted and got $40,000 and a one-way ticket to Jamaica, the latter because he had to quit his job and flee the country after taking the $40,000.

The director also told of doing dangerous things (legally dangerous and physically dangerous) to get certain shots and said he would not do that today, nor recommend. This is an approximate quote: "I've come to realize that no shot in any movie is worth even a twisted ankle on a squirrel."

Gene Hackman was not the first choice to play Popeye Doyle, nor was he even on the first list. Friedkin's first choice was, believe it or don't, Jackie Gleason. Gleason was willing to do it but the studio said no due to the poor performance of Gleason's film, Gigot. (That struck me as odd since Gigot was eight or so years earlier and Gleason had made other movies after that and before French Connection was casting. I'm wondering if what did him in wasn't Skidoo.)

The next choice was Peter Boyle and yeah, I can see him in the role. But Boyle turned down Doyle because, according to Friedkin, "He wanted to do romantic comedies." The director quoted his friend Phil Rosenthal, who was responsible for Everyone Loves Raymond, as saying that every single day on the set, Boyle would talk about the huge mistake he made turning down The French Connection.

After Boyle said no, Twentieth-Century Fox suggested that maybe the film didn't need an established star. Friedkin did an audition with Eddie Egan, the real-life Popeye Doyle, who wound up in the film as Doyle's boss. He wasn't right but Friedkin thought he'd found his guy when he managed to talk writer Jimmy Breslin into auditioning. Breslin, who was skeptical about his own acting, was fine the first day. The second day, he forgot what he'd done the first day. The third day, he didn't show up. The fourth day, he showed up drunk. And that was how Jimmy Breslin remained one of America's great writers.

Soon after, superagent Sue Mengers recommended her client Gene Hackman and he was signed. Friedkin said that Hackman had trouble getting to the right pissed-off level so it was necessary to insult and prod him on the set, pissing him off for real. And there were other great revelations which you'll hear when that DVD or Blu Ray comes out, assuming that's where the video will wind up. (Oh — Freidkin also said that they tried to get Hackman there for the screening but he's retired from acting and "doesn't want to look back.")

Like everyone else in the audience, I had a great time…and why not? A great movie in a great theater. On the way home I was thinking, "They don't make 'em like that anymore…but after The French Connection became a huge box office sensation, they sure tried making a lot of 'em like that without a lot of success."

Author and film historian Bill Warren died this morning following a long, painful illness. He was 73 and he had been suffering from a ghastly array of infections that even a squadron of doctors had been unable to identify. I visited him in the nursing home several times and it just got worse and worse to the point where this past Sunday, he was unable to speak but he waved for me to leave him alone. I was not offended. I understood that he just didn't want visitors to see him like that.

Bill was born in North Bend, Oregon and grew up in Gardiner, Oregon. At an early age, he became fascinated by science-fiction and movies, particularly after seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still. He read avidly and contributed by mail to the legendary Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, which influenced a vast number of folks who became filmmakers, authors and artists. In 1966, he and his wife Beverly moved to Los Angeles where he worked as an assistant for a time to the magazine's editor, Forrest J Ackerman. I met Bill at Ackerman's famous home, The Ackermansion (the first one) sometime around late '66 or early '67. Bill was, by the way, no relation to that magazine's publisher, James Warren.

Bill wrote for the magazine and for countless publications about film, especially movies of a science-fiction or horror nature. At some point, he began compiling data for a wonderful book he would finally publish in 1982 called Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties. It's the best history of such films and it's been reprinted and updated several times since. The latest edition, which came out earlier this year, can be ordered here. (If the price seems steep, take a look at the page count and you'll understand.)

His other books include Set Visits: Interviews with 32 Horror and Science Fiction Filmmakers and The Evil Dead Companion. He wrote for hundreds of different publications, including several stints as a film critic and his contributions to Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, plus scripts for Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. I'm not sure anyone could compile a complete list of his work but everything I know of was done with great passion for film and fantasy, and a fierce quest for accuracy. He was also very active in the local science-fiction community and at conventions…and I really don't know how to wrap this up.

Oh, wait. Yes, I do. I have to write about his wonderful, wonderful wife Beverly, who always took such good care of him — and vice-versa. You can see her faintly in the photo atop this obit. The last few weeks, I've watched her tend to his needs night and day, doing every single thing you'd want someone to do for you if you were in his position…except maybe go home and get some sleep. Bill used to complain to me from time to time that he never made a lot of money writing about science-fiction movies and I don't know about that. I do know he was a very fortunate man to have someone as precious as her in his life. I'm so sorry that life had to end when it did.

• Trump's latest excuses all sound like, "Hey, I must be fabulously rich if I'm able to grope so many women who don't want me touching them!"

Jonathan Chait on why Obamacare has been as successful as it has been, which is not to say it's been as successful as it could be. Here's a section that strikes me as getting to the meat of the problem. After noting that the two parties could work together to make it a better, more efficient system, he says…

Republicans, and Democrats can't compromise on health care for the same reason they can't compromise on taxes: They have diametric goals. On taxes, Republicans want to shift the burden from the rich to the poor, while Democrats want the opposite. A similar dynamic exists in health care. Republicans want to restore the ability of healthy and wealthy people to buy cheap plans that don't cross-subsidize the sick and the poor — the very features of the insurance system that Obamacare was designed to stop. Since Republican ideas for improving the health-care system all involve shifting costs from the rich and healthy to the poor and sick, there's just no way to blend them together with the goals Democrats have in mind.

And of course, you have the added problem that some people just hate the idea of something Obama did succeeding after they fearlessly predicted/pledged nothing would. They yearn to stop it, no matter what that does to human lives. But even as things are, a lot more people have health insurance now than did before and the costs are less than they would have been without it…or the still-non-existent Republican alternative.

First thing this A.M., I made a sweep of sites that told what was up with Hurricane Matthew. It was great to see that damage in Miami (or anywhere) has been less than had been feared. But one of those links led me to a political site where the proprietor was saying, "See? We told you the government was exaggerating the danger from this storm to hype the concept of Global Warming!" It took me a couple of reads to decide this was not a parody.

Leave aside the fact that the storm has caused destruction and may still cause more…and while you're at it, leave aside the fact that it wouldn't really sell the idea of Climate Change if a storm underperformed. Just consider the idea that the National Weather Service deals in probabilities, not certainties, and has to err on the side of caution. Better that they tell you to evacuate when it isn't necessary than they don't when it is.

Also, a lot of folks don't understand the concept of probabilities. Many moons ago when I jokingly flirted with a job as a TV Weatherguy, a real TV Weatherguy told me, "One of the downsides of this profession is that if you predict an 80% chance or rain or even a 60% chance of rain, people who don't get rained-on will call up and accuse you of incompetence or lying."

He said 50% seemed to be the tipping point. If you said there was 50% chance of rain, people understood it was a maybe thing. It you said 60%, it was taken as if you'd said it was an absolute certainty and you could bet your life on it. They also seemed to assume your forecast was for the block they lived on, not for the entire city.

Anyway, happy to see it may not be as bad as it could have been, at least in some places. It's still a pretty ugly, powerful beast.

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Not much on the political front this morning. There are all sorts of wild guesses out there as to what will happen in Sunday's debate. They call them predictions but in this case, they're really wild guesses. I can sure imagine the Trump forces debating whether this is the time to go relentlessly negative and nasty…or on the other hand, is it when they need to show the candidate's human, reasonable side? And no, I don't think he has one but if he just tones it down a bit and doesn't get too incoherent, we'll hear how presidential and human he really is. He'll probably try to do both at the same time.

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Lately, I've had to call Technical Support lines for a number of technical things in my life. Almost always after a call, I find myself in one of those robotic surveys, being asked if the representative was courteous, if I would recommend their company to others, etc. I'm limited to certain responses and often, none of them apply.

On a recent matter involving Time-Warner Cable, most of the questions were on the order of "Did our representative resolve the matter to your satisfaction?" and none of the answers I was allowed to give reflected what I would have said, which was either…

• I don't know yet. The problem comes and goes and I have to wait and see if it happens again in three days or —
• No, it still isn't working right but that doesn't seem to be the fault of the employee you're asking me to evaluate.

The reps I talk to all seem to be courteous and well-schooled in their areas but that doesn't mean they have the power to solve any problem or to keep it solved. Two nights ago, the correct answer to the question, "Did our representative resolve the matter to your satisfaction?" would have been, "No, I seem to need a new modem and since he's in another time zone, he set up a service appointment for someone to bring one over and install it." But the only options available to me were "Yes" or one worded so as to suggest that the guy on the phone hadn't done his job.

And none of the questions I'm asked deal with my biggest problem, which is how to get through the complicated phone system. That's the one which likes to keep you on hold for a long time then hang up on you or which is confusing with regard to getting to the right division. They never ask me for my opinion on that.

With some companies (not just Time-Warner Cable), it feels like the survey is configured not to ask questions but to plant the notion that if you're satisfied, it's because they're a great company and if you aren't, it's the failure of the employee to whom your call was routed. And since that employee is usually polite and good at what they do, you don't want to give them a negative rating. The end result is that my completed survey indicates a more pleasant, satisfying experience than I actually had. I wonder how much of that is deliberate.

For years, some of the best TV shows were written by (and sometimes produced) by the husband-and-wife team of Irma and Austin "Rocky" Kalish. Here's a very partial list of series for which they wrote one or more episodes — and usually a lot more than one: The Bob Cummings Show, Gidget, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, That Girl, F Troop, He and She, The Flying Nun, Family Affair, My Three Sons, Maude, All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, Good Times, Too Close for Comfort, The Facts of Life, Gilligan's Island and just about everything else I watched in the sixties and seventies.

Okay, I'm exaggerating a little. It seemed like they wrote everything because I was very aware of every time their names appeared in the credits. Why? Because I knew them. Rocky and Irma were the first TV writers I ever met.

They lived a block away from us when I was growing up and I occasionally played with their son Bruce, who has since written no small number of TV shows himself. I don't recall asking his parents much about their profession when my age was single digits, even though I'd already decided to make it my profession. But just the fact that I'd met human beings who wrote for TV made me acutely aware that there were such people and that made it seem more possible to become one. Later when I did, our paths crossed several times and they were gracious and funny.

Rocky especially was everything you'd want an older comedy writer to be — funny and full of great stories. He died in his sleep early Wednesday morning and as Bruce wrote on Facebook, "He squeezed every bit of life he had out of his 95 years here on this planet." Gonna miss you, Rocky. You did what you did real good and it was always a pleasure to be around you, starting back around the time I was eight.

Here's the obit posted right where an obit on Rocky Kalish belongs: In the Hollywood Reporter.

What you should see if you click below is the musical finale to NBC's 60th Anniversary Special in 1986. Actually, I've embedded the entire special and if you want to watch it, you should be able to easily figure out to watch it…but I've placed a bookmark which should make the video below start at the point where you'll just see the last three or so minutes. (If the player starts at the beginning of the show, move the slider down to 2:23:25 to see the closing tune.)

Like all of these, the stars aren't singing; just mouthing the words to a prerecorded track by studio singers. Also, like all of these, it's frustrating how many people were there but the cameras never got a good shot of them. The most interesting thing you'll probably see here is that they have Johnny Carson, Steve Allen and Jack Paar together in the same studio. I wonder if this was the only time that ever happened.

I also wonder: There have been a number of these group numbers with a network gathering its past stars. Who do we think was rightfully in all three networks' group shots? Who do you see in this one who was also in the ABC one I featured here the other day?

• Gary Johnson is unable to name one world leader or describe where Syria is. Also says he doesn't know where you can find a Starbucks.

Much of my mind is on Hurricane Matthew, which is predicted to do much damage to the Eastern coast of the U.S., starting in Florida and working its way north. I feel sorry for the folks who have to live with all that uncertainty and danger and maybe displacement in the coming days. When you see all the money that is wasted in this country on silly, often petty matters, you wonder if there isn't some way to use some of that to be better prepared for incidents like this. Hope everyone and everything comes through it all right.

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I said here the other day that when my parents dragged me to a Lakers game in 1960 — which they did using much the same technique the Symbionese Liberation Army used to enlist Patty Hearst — the team was all white. John Neumann writes, "The Lakers left Minneapolis and arrived in L.A. with at least one man of color, future Hall-of-Famer Elgin Baylor. Granted, Minnesota wasn't the most diverse state, but I'd hate to have you think it was so lily-white the basketball team had to move." Point taken. I don't remember any black guys on the court that night but it was long ago…and my mind was in Bedrock anyway.

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The New York Times poll aggregator Upshot currently says Hillary Clinton is pretty likely to win states totaling 263 electoral votes — and that's without awarding her Wisconsin, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa or a few other states where she's currently leading in at least some of the major polls. All the major pollsters have her between 2 and 15 (!) points ahead in Wisconsin so its ten electoral votes would put her over the top even if she loses Ohio (possible) and Florida (unlikely) and North Carolina (unlikely).

Trump must know this so logic would tell us he's going to try something big in Sunday's debate — something that could possibly turn things around. Then again, logic would have told us he wouldn't have done most of the things he did in the first debate, including being so unprepared. So who can say what he's going to try? A few choruses of "Darktown Strutters Ball" wouldn't surprise me.

There have been many little tells and indicators that he's going to hammer her on her hubby's sexual escapades and her "enabling" of him. I'm wondering if that isn't a red herring so she'll prepare comebacks for that and not for something else he has in mind. He must know that bringing up Monica and other women never really hurt Bill politically, let alone made people dislike his wife. Also, it's ancient history insofar as much of the country is concerned.

Moreover, it's just asking to have people bring up Donald's own marital infidelities and problems. As Joe Conason reminds us, it's not like Trump or his surrogates Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich don't have anything to be ashamed of in the relationship department.

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Hey, which TV host do you think makes more money? Jimmy Fallon or Dr. Phil? You may be surprised.

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Lastly for now: People keep writing to ask me if I'm going to be at this comic convention or that comic convention. Quick answer: I have none planned between now and WonderCon, which is in Anaheim March 31-April 2. On the second day of the con, I will be hosting a panel with Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Howard the Duck and a guy who'll be passing out free mint-condition copies from the first printing of Action Comics #1 in 1938. Put it on your calendar now.

Are you all familiar with Linda Eder? If not, you should know this lady and her amazing voice. Here she is singing one of Barbra Streisand's big numbers and — dare I say it? — singing it even better than Barbra…

Like most of you, I couldn't sit through the entire Vice-Presidential Debate. My impression was that it was an irrelevant quarrel between two men, neither of whom is qualified to hold the office of President of the United States. If I absolutely had to pick the one I'd want to see there, it would of course be Kaine because Pence isn't fit to be a hall monitor at a middle school. I wonder how many people know how fervent his anti-gay views are…and how illogical.

Still, of the two, I thought he came off better. A lot of people seem to feel that way this morning, though most admit he lied his ass off when he denied that he and Trump said many things that there's video of them denying. I haven't looked yet but I'll bet the Clinton campaign had a video edited by daybreak showing Pence saying, "Trump never said this," followed by a clip of Trump saying just that — over and over.

I don't know if in the long run that will hurt the Trump-Pence ticket. My working assumption is that nothing that happens in a vice-presidential debate makes a lot of difference unless (maybe!) the veep candidate looks so inept that his or her selection reflects badly on the presidential candidate's judgment. Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle did but I don't think even Quayle's inept performance cost the ticket any ground. And if Palin cost McCain any votes, it was with her overall campaigning, not with what she did in the debate where she probably exceeded expectations…which she managed by not showing up drunk, puking on the moderator's pants and falling off the stage.

The polls look better and better for Hillary Clinton, though we certainly have enough time for another roller coaster dip or two before they count the ballots. The most encouraging thing for her I've read in days is this article by Harry Enten, noting how Trump is faring worse with white voters than Mitt Romney did. That's important since white voters are about all Trump has going for him in this election. A group shot of all his black supporters will have about as many bodies as The Fifth Dimension.

In any case, my view of the debate last night is not unlike that of Daniel Larison, who thought Pence fared better but who was appalled to learn that both tickets have pretty much the same plan for Syria.

And as far as I know, there's never been a case where someone who was running on one presidential ticket endorsed another presidential ticket. But it looks like Gary Johnson's running mate is more or less doing that.

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In other news: Yes, yes. Of course I know Ed McMahon was a regular on ABC back when Johnny Carson was hosting Who Do You Trust? I just thought they were setting the bar pretty low for who they'd consider an ABC star. As my pal Stu Shostak wrote me, Ed probably showed up at the taping because they had free drinks.

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One of the many permutations of HBO I receive is running several episodes of The Larry Sanders Show. I own DVDs of the entire series and could watch them at any time…but somehow, I got sucked into watching them as they're airing. I forgot what a fine, well-written show that was…and well-acted. Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor were especially wonderful.

Still, I think I'm going to stop watching these episodes back-to-back. They don't work as well that way, especially as I get a bit weary of how depressed and miserable almost all those folks were with their jobs and lives. So I watch one where Paula (Janeane Garofalo's character) hates what she does and then I watch one where Phil the Writer hates what he does and then I watch one where Hank's assistant Darlene hates what she does and of course Larry Sanders always hates what he does…

…and I am reminded that some shows are better when you don't binge on them so I'm going to stop. I also have the same problem with Tambor's character, hilarious though he may be, that I had with Ted Knight's on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. At some point, both Hank Kingsley and Ted Baxter became such destructive, thoughtless assholes that it's hard to accept when everyone hugs and declares that they're all family and it wouldn't be the same without ol' Hank/Ted. That won't be as much a problem if I don't watch them in concentrated doses.

I'm also enjoying the wonderful new DVD set of The Defenders more now that I've stopped trying to watch more than one in a day's time. Better to ration those out at one per week…the way they were made to be seen. Gotta run.

Tax expert David Cay Johnston explains how Donald J. Trump may have been able to get out of paying income taxes for eighteen years and even profited in other ways from the losses declared on his 1995 tax form. All legal? Apparently. But it sure won't endear him to the many people who, because they just work for a living, can't do tricks like that.

I think I understand some of Trump's appeal in terms of coming down on foreigners and terrorists and other people that scare some Americans. I think I also understand that some Americans seem to want a strong Daddy who'll protect them and won't let silly things like laws and The Constitution stop him from keeping us safe. I don't get why they think he's that guy but I think I get why they yearn for someone to be that guy.

What I can't really grasp is why they think Trump — with all his failed businesses and investors who think they were cheated and secrecy about his wealth — is a great businessman. Amazingly, there are people in this country who think he came from humble beginnings and wasn't born rich and subsidized. Somehow, they also think that any skills they think he has in the public sector would translate readily into the private. You know, "creating jobs" by hiring people to work for minimum wage in your casino is not the same thing as nursing the nation's economy in a way that would lead to job creation. And you can't handle the National Debt the same way you handle personal debt.

Just noticed someone posted this to YouTube. Back when I was doing Garfield and Friends on CBS Saturday mornings, I had this idea of having the opening titles end each week with Garfield saying a different line. I wrote hundreds of these — way more than we needed — and at each recording session, I'd have the late/great Lorenzo Music read a new batch. Since Garfield's mouth didn't move, it was easy to have the editors just drop one into the beginning of each show.

Twice, I got in trouble. One time, I had Garfield say hello to "all you lovely Nielsen families out there." Apparently, directly addressing people with ratings boxes on their sets is a no-no. It's viewed as an attempt to rig the ratings. NBC complained when I did that and the Nielsen folks wound up voiding the ratings for that morning. The Wall Street Journal wrote about it in an article I quoted here. As I pointed out, they were outraged but had somehow waited to object until the seventh time the show had run.

The other time, it was the season opener of the year when NBC dropped all its cartoon shows and went for more "teen" type shows like Saved by the Bell. Garfield started his season on CBS by saying, "Don't bother checking NBC, kids! They're not running cartoons anymore!"

This time, NBC complained the Monday morning after the first time the show was broadcast. I'm not sure why they objected since it was true, and I'm not sure why CBS ordered us to replace the line for reruns but it only ran the one time.

Anyway, someone apparently had an audio tape of it and someone else apparently laid that audio over a clip from one of our main titles and here it is…

A man who once worked as a dishwasher at the Carnegie Deli in New York says that he has put together an offer of at least $5 million bucks to buy the place which its current owner plans to close forever at the end of this year. A happy turn of events? No. He also says the owner refuses to consider any such offer. I don't get it either, people. Here's the latest.

I have yet to see anyone come up with any explicit charge of wrongdoing on the part of the Clinton Institute. Most of it is in the realm of "Well, they could have done this…" But we're sure hearing a lot about unethical and possibly illegal matters with the Trump Foundation. Rebecca Berg has the latest in a string of revelations that will probably continue right up until Election Day and beyond.