I saw a couple of posts by The SB tonight on Facebook. The first "likes" by her that have come up in probably ten days or so, maybe even longer. I would be addressing this comment directly to her, but as far as I know she hasn't read this blog in about the same amount of time. Anyway, SB, if you are out there, one post was via your friend and client Anna, talking about hearing music compositions in her dreams, and the other was a series of pictures of two children by an Italian photographer, entitled "The Runaways". Good photos, too. :)
I won't try to guess if you are back or not. If you are, I will figure it out. I hope all is well, which is always the most important thing.
Tonight I watched an excellent movie called "Storm Center" (1956) starring Bette Davis. I had never heard of it before, and only discovered it because of a Library search for "Brian Keith". But man was it good! It is the story of a small town librarian (Davis) who is at the center of a Communist scare. She is the "Storm Center" of the title. This film was made at the height of the Cold War/"Red Scare" era in the 1950s. In the town library, there is a recently acquired book called "The Communist Dream". Davis is paid a visit by an old friend from the town council, and he informs her that the Mayor and several other local politicians have been alerted to the book by townspeople who are outraged to have seen it in the library. Her councilman friend asks her to attend a meeting, which she does, and at that point the council asks her to remove the Communist book from the library. She, being a woman of principle, argues against the removal of any book, but by the end of the meeting, she agrees to remove it, because she has been lobbying for a Children's Wing for her library and it is the town council who can allot or refuse the funds for that project.
But later that night, she remembers her principles, and she takes the book back to the library and places it back on the shelf. The plot, and it's sub-themes, begin to build from there.
Now, if you know me, it's pretty easy to see why I love this movie to begin with : It's central location is a Library! (yay!) And the library in question is an old one, with dark wood furnishings, book stacks and walls. Old fashioned glass reading lamps over every table. I would love to know where it was filmed, if it was a real Libe or just a set. I will do some Googling. But I also loved this movie because of it's intelligence. One thing about the 1950s : even though, on the one hand, it seems like we were at the height of Right Wing Paranoia over nukes and the fear of Soviet dominance (not to mention McCarthyism and HUAC), on the other hand we also had a highly literate and intelligent artistic culture. Can you imagine a movie about a small town librarian being made today?
Well, maybe you could, a movie coming out of some Art House production or another. But this was Hollywood, and Bette Davis - the greatest actress of them all - and other big name supporting players like Kim Hunter and Brian Keith. And it wasn't just this one movie, there were dozens and dozens. In fact, in the 1950s, it's more difficult to find A Stupid Movie than An Intelligent One. To put that another way, in the 1950s it was more difficult to find a movie that was specifically made for Stupid People, and it was much easier to find movies made for Intelligent People. There were no CGI Spectacles in those days, nor movies of blunt vulgarity. No movies with car chases and explosions.
So anyhow, you can see why I loved "Storm Center", an obscure film I did not even know about until a few days ago. Man - Hollywood used to be so great - the greatest. And it still does turn out great films occasionally. But things were geared differently in the Golden Age, more toward artistry and intelligence. There is a whole sub-theme in "Storm Center" involving a few children who are regular patrons of the library, and their friendship with Bette Davis' librarian. One child in particular is a bookworm (like myself), but in his case his love of books (and his friendship with the librarian) puts him in conflict with his Dad, who is a blue collar working stiff, an ex-jock who is entirely without culture, and therefore cannot relate to his son's inward intellectual pursuits, his Need To Read. In a neat touch, the boy's mother is a pianist with a fondness for Chopin, which also seems to irritate her husband.
A conflict is set up involving this boy which leads to the climax of the movie, a very disturbing climax indeed. But thank God for the greatness of Bette Davis, and - small tirade - thank God yet again for the extreme greatness of Golden Age screenwriters, who can fill a 90 minute movie (85 in this case!) with enough drama and story and undercurrents to make it feel like an epic.
"Storm Center" gets Five Stars from me. And on top of that, it's in black and white. :)
Another small tirade : I think we owe it to the people of that generation, to the Artists and general public (even the paranoid ones), not to indulge in Pursuits Of Stupidity. These are the people who went through The Depression and World War Two (by far the worst thing that has ever happened), and when it was over they tried to make an intelligent examination of it all, through movies, books, and the new invention of television.
So, all I ask is - don't watch Dumb Stuff. Don't listen to blowhard political commentators. Don't watch "The News". Don't participate in the dumbing down of this great country.
Read a book instead! (and go to the library.....) :)
That's all for tonight. I am kinda blowing my mind on my latest book by Michael Salla, whom I have accused of being a disinformationist in the past. But in his second book regarding the Secret Space Program, he is delving into some really unique research, stuff I've heard from no other writer, involving the RAND Corporation, and Santa Monica Airport, and Douglas Aircraft and.......San Diego Naval Air Station and China Lake too. I will be writing more in the near future about those facilities. But Salla is also writing about Leslie Stevens, the creator of "The Outer Limits", and his influence on Gene Roddenberry, leading up to the creation of "Star Trek"!
Just the fact that he is connecting all of this previously unreported (but relevant to me) stuff, is quite impressive.
Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow. :)
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