Elizabeth, I really liked your snow photos today! You can feel the Winter in those pics, just through the texture of the snow and the way it envelops everything, like the old house. In one of the photos there is a walkway or bridge that I think I've seen before, maybe from one of your parks.
Well, I am glad as always to see your photographs. I take it that they were shot sometime in the past (?), because in your comments you are lamenting the lack of current snow. So, I wish you more snow so that you can take more snow pictures..... :):)
I hope you are able to find time for your real life during your working hours and days. Man, it must have been a shock for you to have such a change all of a sudden. I hope you are hanging in there, and as always I urge you to keep your mind focused on your artistry - your music, your photography, your filmmaking. They are separate arts, but all one entity as far as your life path is concerned.
Please keep posting. Don't let anything stop you or get you down. If you stick to your guns you will prevail, and I remind you once again of Your Name that was projected repeatedly for several weeks, less than six months ago, on the giant L.A. Live video screen, as part of Your Film.
Your Name, Your Film. Huge video screen over Staples Center.
Stay focused, 2019 is early yet. ////
This evening I gave The Falcon the night off, and went with another Clifton Webb movie I had reserved at the Libe. We've seen quite a few Webbs by now, almost enough for a Bogey-like mini marathon. The picture was called "Woman's World" (1954), and in it's own way it was kind of unique, or at least unusual, because of the script and subject matter. I guess you could call it an "issues" film, based on current events of the time, and the title gives away a little bit of what the issue was, in this case, the role of a middle class wife in a modernizing American society of the mid-1950s.
Clifton Webb is this time the owner and CEO of an independent automobile manufacturing company. This is pre-General Motors domination, so you still had companies like Studebaker, etc. Webb's company makes expensive, streamlined cars with a futuristic look. He is very successful, though his long time general manager has just passed away. So, he invites his top three regional managers to New York on the premise of a vacation getaway with The Boss, but in reality he will be scrutinizing each of them before choosing one man to become his new general manager. Each man must bring his wife, as wives were evaluated too. In the corporate scheme of things, a wife must fit a certain image in relation to her up-and-coming husband. She must know etiquette, how to entertain at parties, and how to dress for any occasion. She must know what to say and what not to say in polite company.
But it's all a sham, as the older sister of Clifton Webb lets these wives know. The wives only want marital happiness. They are tuned in to their hearts (well, two of them are). They really don't care if their husbands get the Big Promotion or not, and in fact they are rooting against it because it will mean that his job will become his entire life.
So this was quite a message to be delivering in a 1954 script, not anti-corporate America exactly, but certainly a denouncement of corporate ladder climbing ambition being more important than love and marriage.
While big chief Webb is hosting dinner parties and slyly evaluating the three men on his list (Van Heflin, Cornell Wilde and Fred McMurray), he is even more interested in the women, but not for the reason you might think.
One wife, Van Heflin's woman Arlene Dahl, spends the entire time in New York trying to impress Clifton Webb with her "assets". The other wives (Lauren Bacall and June Allyson) are less "forward" and more traditional. Allyson is her usual goofy self, and Bacall is tall, elegant and standoffish as always, but she warms up to the situation. She and Allyson become friends because neither one wants her husband to get the general manager job, because of the stress it entails, and more importantly, because the Company will become more important than the wife and family.
The third wife, statuesque Arlene Dahl, does not care about any of this. She has no children, only cares about her husband as a vehicle, so she tries to seduce Clifton Webb in order to secure Van Heflin the job. The actress Dahl, well suited for the part, portrays this type of bimbo to a tee.
I must leave the plot details here for the time being, while you see the film for yourself.
It's really a woman's lib picture, for it's time, because it shows how these wives (two of them), with their knowledge of the heart and what really matters in life (love and family) are ahead of their husbands, who are already successful in their careers but are still being drawn in by meaningless ambition, when they already have all the material success they will ever need. The wives know what is best, both for their husbands and for their marriages. One husband is on the beam from the start. He will not compromise his life for his job. One wife, as noted, is going the other way. All she cares about is status and materialism. She tries to seduce her way to the top, by fronting for her low-key hubby, but Clifton Webb sees through her, and finally he must make his choice for the new GM of his company.
As I say, it is an unusual story for Hollywood, in that it does not feature much major drama or conflict. The story is all about the pressure that was put on couples in this situation. My own parents faced a similar dilemma in that Dad was expected to attend all the Hollywood functions and parties when he became an executive, and Mom was expected to be The Wife At The Party. And Mom really hated it.
When I was little, I was aware of the difficulty this presented in my parents' marriage. Neither one of my folks could stand the phoneyness of some aspects of Hollywood Show Business, but my Dad went ahead with his ambition because he loved his career, and Hollywood also had it's good aspects and people. But "Woman's World" was about the female perspective in corporate America of the postwar era, and my Mom did not like being a Hollywood wife, and by 1970, she didn't have to be one any longer.
Ambition, based on status and material aspirations, is a naive prospect. That is what "Woman's World" is all about. Though these wives are not the fully liberated women of today, there is something to be said for the film's message of Love and Family First. A message that the women know in their heart because it is the most obvious and important thing.
It has always been my message, too.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment