Having chickened out last night and gone to bed unaware of the election results, I was pleasantly surprised to discover this morning that the Democrats had taken back the House. Of course, Trump made his chess move immediately by firing Sessions and installing a major-league right-winger as his replacement. As I've said before, you know something is wrong when you are rooting for Jeff Sessions and when he is the lesser of all the bad guys in the equation. Trump is gonna push this thing all the way and attempt to stop the Mueller investigation. We will see if the Dems have the guts to stand up to him. I was not thrilled with Nancy Pelosi's "make nice" speech this morning. Other Democrats on MSNBC took a much tougher stance this evening on the news programs, but we will see if they actually do anything when push comes to shove, because it will come to that. Trump is not gonna go down without a fight, and his Republican Senate has shown that they do not care what crimes he has committed.
They know that their Hard Right White Man brand of politics is on the way out. Witness all the women of color who were elected, and even a Native American woman, which I thought was great.
But the staunch Repubs in the Senate who have sided with Trump are making their last stand, and they will look the other way at anything Mueller presents them with. They won't care if Trump is proven to have collaborated with Putin and the Russians to steal the Presidency. He's their guy and they are gonna go down to the mat with him, win or lose.
So it will be up to the Democrats to show some mettle, and I must say that I'm not holding my breath. Nancy Pelosi, despite being from San Francisco, is not as left wing as you might think. She is a career politician who will play the Washington game. I mean, I'm not left wing either. I am slightly to the left, and I hate all of this terminology anyway, because it reduces people to one of two things : right or left. I am really not very political, but you might say I am right down the center. Still, I despise Trump, and I am strongly in the corner of any politician who will stand up to him and kick his ass out. If it were me, I would not stop until he was in prison, because he is indeed an organised crime figure masquerading as president, and prison is exactly where he belongs. Anyhow, sorry to be cynical but as far as the Dems standing up to Trump, I will believe it when I see it. They have the House now; let's see some action. ////
I did watch a movie tonight, "The Sign Of The Cross" (1932), directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille. I am pretty sure it was my first DeMille film, so once again it was a case of "what?! You mean you've never seen this before"!, only this time it was about a director instead of s specific movie. Yeah, I can't believe that I'd never seen a Cecile B. DeMille film either, though I have seen parts of the 1956 version of "The Ten Commandments" on tv over the years. I just never watched it all the way through.
But I had searched for movies with Frederic March in the library database, after seeing his performance in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" last week, and "The Sign Of The Cross" came back. Watching it tonight, I can see why Cecil B. DeMille is synonymous with Epic. Everything about this movie was huge; the sets, the cast, the "cast of thousands" (extras filling the Roman Colosseum), and the Epic story. I will be brief cause I have already written a lot in this blog, but March stars as "Marcus Superbus", the prefect (i.e police chief) of Rome. He is under orders from Emperor Nero (the great Charles Laughton) to round up and kill all Christians in the city. As the movie opens, Nero is shown "fiddling" (actually playing a Lyre) while Rome burns. The citizens think that Nero ordered the fires himself. During his patrols March becomes acquainted with a Christian girl named Mercia. She is part of a group of underground Christians who meet in secret to further the Word of Christ. March (as "Marcus") falls in love with her, putting himself in jeopardy with Emperor Nero, and even moreso with the Empress Poppea, played by Claudette Colbert, in a very seductive role, uncharacteristic for her and so all the more surprising. There is a scene in which she takes a milk bath that is very risque, and once again we see how uninhibited Hollywood was in pre-Code times.
The Empress is in love with Marcus Superbus, and continually presses him for a tryst. He will not give in, though, because he is loyal to the Emperor and more importantly because he is in love with Mercia, who is played by an actress named Elissa Landi. In committing himself to her, - a Christian - Marcus places his life at risk.
So there you have the main plot.
The thing that strikes you about this movie is that it so well made, and filmed, and directed, and expensively budgeted, that you think that DeMille was way ahead of his time. His name became a cliche in the 70s, for excess. But judging from this one movie, the only one I have seen, he was also a masterful director. The professionalism of "The Sign Of The Cross" is evident in every technical aspect of the production, and it could be seen as a template or precursor to what would become the blockbuster productions of the modern era, and it would hold up against those films and surpass many of them.
That's how accomplished this movie is.
But the other thing is......and this is the reason you have got to see it.....is the outrageousness of some of the scenes, and especially the 25 minute finale, where DeMille stages a recreation of one of Nero's Roman Circuses at the Colosseum, replete with Gladiator battles and all kinds of lurid and deadly spectacles. There are fights between midgets and Amazonian women. There is a naked woman about to be eaten by crocodiles. There are lions attacking Christians, And there are desensitized Roman audience members lining up to watch all the carnage, feeding their faces as they enter the stadium, beset with bloodlust. DeMille shows the orgiastic response of the audience to the spectacle, exactly as it must have happened, and to see it put to film in such blatant detail is shocking, and it would still be shocking today. Remember, this is pre-Code, when Hollywood was brand new and the sound era had just come into being.
I was blown away by "The Sign Of The Cross", and not just because of it's subject matter but because of how Grand it all is. I was thinking "how could you make a movie this epic and this technically great" in 1932, and on top of that, make it so sexually risque and so graphic - yet real and non-exploitative - in the closing Roman Circus finale.
Trust me, you've never seen a movie like this one, and you've gotta see it. I was pinned to my seat, and I immediately vowed to look for more early DeMille films (not to mention the films of Claudette Colbert).
"The Sign Of The Cross" would be larger than life in any era, and still holds up today with fantastic period acting from everyone involved, and some pre-Code scenes that will suprise even the most jaded viewer, precisely because they are suggestive rather than grossly overdone, and are therefore more effective.
Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. A Must See. ////
Lastly, I must say to Elizabeth that I am very happy to see you on an airplane! I am guessing that you are off to begin another project. I figure it's gotta be that, unless your work sent you out of town, but really I think it's gotta be for a new film project, and if that is true than I am super happy for you!
That is awesome, and please post if I have got it right, because I have been rooting for you to have something new come your way so that you could Do What You Really Do, which is Art.
I hope I am right, but even if it is a job-related trip, then that will be fun too. But post if you can, just to be certain. :)
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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