Robert J. Avrech is a screenwriter and producer in Hollywood. Among his best-known films is the thriller, "Body Double,” directed by Brian DePalma. His script for the modern Hasidic tale, "A Stranger Among Us," directed by Sidney Lumet, was an official selection of the Cannes film festival. Robert won the Emmy award for his adaptation of the young adult classic, "The Devil's Arithmetic" starring Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy. Robert was also nominated for The Humanitas Award for "Within These Walls" starring Ellen Burstyn and Laura Dern. Robert also writes an award winning blog, Seraphic Secret.
Robert J. Avrech
TCM’s Shadows of Russia: We Are All Comrades
by Robert J. Avrech
“Comrade Karen?”
My wife gazes at me, and she’s like, “Huh?”
“Since I’m watching all these Russian themed movies I feel the need to get in character.”
“Robert…”
“Comrade Robert, if you please.”
My poor wife heaves a weary sigh.
“Comrade Robert, how long will this lunacy continue?”
“Counter-revolutionary! Saboteur! Trotskyite!”
Comrade Karen sternly points to the stairs, and I make my way to a Zhivago-like exile in the living room for the next few hours.
Oh, the sacrifices I make for my comrades at Big Hollywood.
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TCM’s Shadows of Russia: The Lighter Side of Revolution
by Robert J. Avrech“I feel a little reactionary,” deadpans Hedy Lamarr in Comrade X, 1940.
On their improbable wedding night, anti-Communist reporter—remember them?—Clark Gable gives Bolshevik Hedy Lamarr a luscious, Adrian designed silk nightgown. Unlike Travis Banton, Adrian was concerned with silhouette and in this exquisitely bias-cut negligee—Gable just happens to have it in his suitcase—Hedy Lamarr’s figure is highlighted to a spectacular effect.
Long live the products of decadent American capitalism.
Capitalist Clark Gable puts Communist Hedy Lamarr in touch with her feminine side in Comrade X, 1940.
Hedy, playing a variation of Greta Garbo’s Ninotchka, is a humorless Soviet scold more concerned with industrial production than with her own femininity, which translates into her humanity.
TCM’s Shadows of Russia series, organized and programmed by my favorite film blogger Self-Styled Siren and The New York Posts’s fine film critic Lou Lumenick, kicks into a refreshing mode—after the shallow and dopey Reds—as we view the lighter side of the Russian revolution.
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Turner Classic Movies Presents: Shadows of Russia
by Robert J. AvrechThis month TCM is running a fascinating series, Shadows of Russia, a history of Russia and the Soviet Union as seen through Hollywood’s lens. If you care about movies and politics, you should check out these movies.
The idea for this series originated with the fine film blogger Self-Styled Siren and the New York Post’s Lou Lumenick. Self-Styled Siren explains how it came about here.
Marlene Dietrich, The Scarlett Empress, 1934.
First up, Josef von Sternberg’s—real name Jonas Sternberg—The Scarlett Empress, 1934, starring Marlene Dietrich as Catherine The Great. Catherine was born to an obscure noblemen of the tiny and dirt poor realm of Anhalt-Zerbst. She was brilliant, precocious and, ah, not too attractive.
Hollywood being Hollywood—thank heavens—rewrites and recasts history in a big way. Marlene Dietrich first appears as an innocent young girl, all blond ringlets—very Shirley Temple. It’s great seeing Dietrich do a virgin: she pouts and poses, melding innocence and nymphomania. (more…)
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The Ten Best Movies (I Screened) in 2009, Part II
by Robert J. Avrech
Continuing from last week, here’s my list of the Ten Best Classic Hollywood Movies I screened during the past year. I realize that this list seems a bit, er, obscure and maybe even esoteric, but in truth, every film is hugely entertaining and suitable for most everyone.
It is sad that so few contemporary movie lovers are familiar with classic Hollywood movies in general and silent films in particular. Imagine if the history of music was suddenly swept clean of the work by Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach.
Well, it’s the same with classic Hollywood movies. (more…)
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The Ten Best Movies (I Screened) in 2009: Part I
by Robert J. AvrechHere’s my annual list of the Ten Best Movies I Screened in 2009.
I did not see more than a handful of contemporary releases that came close to the smart pacing, narrative sophistication and honest passion of these older films.
Though I will give a strong nod to 500 Days of Summer and Funny People, two fine films. Both are beautifully written, carefully structured and oh what a relief, they vigorously espouse what can only be described as (mostly) conservative values, a welcome relief in this post-modern age where nihilism passes for, ahem, cutting edge entertainment.
But I roll with classic Hollywood, silent movies and films from Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Keep in mind that most of the movies on my list were produced on modest budgets, never intended as studio blockbusters.
I’m not claiming that any of these movies are classics like The Crowd or Seven Samurai. I am saying that these ten films are grand entertainment from Hollywood’s great dream factory and well worth seeking out. (more…)
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Brittany Murphy: To Remember
by Robert J. AvrechIn 1999, a few weeks before The Devil’s Arithmetic went into production, I met with stars Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy, and Mimi Rogers in Dustin Hoffman’s Brentwood office. Dustin and Mimi had rescued my script from development hell—a seven year limbo—and were serving as Executive Producers. Mimi was doing double duty as actress and producer.
The Devil’s Arithmetic is a Holocaust time travel drama based on the best selling book by Jane Yolen.
Brittany Murphy, left, and Kirsten Dunst in The Devil’s Arithmetic, 1999.
The script called for authentic Jewish characters and settings.
To aid the two young actresses I brought Offspring #3 to the meeting, a knowledgeable and adorable eleven year old yeshiva student.
Offspring #3’s job was to coach the actresses in, well, being Jewish. Offspring #3 taught the actresses a few Jewish songs, and helped their Hebrew pronunciations.
I watched as Kirsten and Brittany soaked up Offspring #3’s essence. (more…)
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Authentically Gish, Garbo, Tiger, Obama, and Uh-Huh, Palin
by Robert J. Avrech
Lilian Gish, Broken Blossoms, 1919, a genuine Hollywood star.
Americans admire excellence and authenticity.
The rise of the Hollywood movie star was built on powerful performances that projected the idea of authentic emotions. Film audiences experienced a magical connection—often, deeply intimate—with scores of charismatic actors.
Lillian Gish’s heartbreaking performance as the abused daughter in Broken Blossoms (1919) cemented the image of a sensitive and vulnerable child/woman. It did not matter that Gish was, in fact, rigid and hard-headed. The huge shadows on the silver screen settled the matter in the public’s mind. (more…)
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Lupe Velez: When Shame, Abortion and Suicide Collide
by Robert J. Avrech
Lupe Velez, The Mexican Spitfire.
The lives of Hollywood stars are frequently tragic and messy tales of absent fathers, cruelly ambitious mothers, and madly dysfunctional families.
Mexican-American actress, Lupe Velez (July 18, 1908 – December 13, 1944) “The Mexican Spitfire” was a beautiful, passionate, emotionally unstable woman best known for a series of 1930’s B movies in which she plays a delightfully scatter-brained character who speaks broken English mixed with streams of rapid fire Spanish.
Her first feature-length film was in the Douglas Fairbanks blockbuster, The Gaucho (1927), where she plays a high spirited Spanish dancing girl. Velez performed in a further eighteen films before settling into comedy—she had a Carol Lombard vibe, a flair for screwball situations, but her accent limited her appeal—most notably in the seven “Mexican Spitfire” series of films (1939-1943). (more…)
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One Shot. One Kill. One Beautiful Sharpshooter
by Robert J. Avrech
This is not Yael, our beautiful Israeli sharpshooter. Security forbids us from posting her real name or image. But you get the idea, right?
“How long did it take you to qualify as a sharpshooter in the IDF?”
“Not too long. I had a natural aptitude with the rifle. I started out at 15 meters, then moved up to 30, 50, 100, 400 then all the way up to,” she hesitates, “classified meters.”
Israeli soldiers are famously and appropriately tight-lipped regarding training and operational details.
Yael—not her real name—is an unbelievably beautiful young Israeli woman. Her moca skin—flawless, like dark glass—testifies to a Bukharin father and Yemenite mother, a genetic mix I strongly recommend. She looks like the American supermodel Tyra Banks, only slimmer, more beautiful — and far more lethal.
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Patsy Ruth Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald: Politically Incorrect in Hollywood
by Robert J. Avrech
Actress and author Patsy Ruth Miller.
In 1924 while shooting a film in New York, actress Patsy Ruth Miller (1904-1995) developed a close friendship with author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Frequently, Fitzgerald and Patsy Ruth would go out for dinner while Zelda remained home pleading fatigue. Patsy Ruth eventually realized that Zelda’s fatigue was acute alcoholism.
Observes Patsy Ruth:
It didn’t seem to me that Scott drank more than most of the men I knew. He seemed intoxicated on words, and sometimes we would sit, our after-dinner coffee growing cold, while Scott tried to make me see some fine point of writing, or understand why an emotion had been ill or well portrayed. But often I had the feeling that he was unsure of himself as a writer, that he was afraid of that one day he’d have nothing left to say, and I also had the impression that Zelda did little to build his confidence, even sometimes, in a perverse way, seemed to enjoy his battle with self-doubt.
Fitzgerald’s agonies of self-doubt are common among writers. The fear of having nothing left to say will, inevitably, be paralyzing. And a non-supportive spouse can act as a fatal poison to a vulnerable writer. Most witnesses observe that Fitzgerald was an alcoholic by the time he attended Princeton. There is no doubt that by the time he landed in Hollywood he was a hopeless drunk. It’s a measure of how common was alcoholism in early Hollywood that Patsy Ruth didn’t think Fitzgerald’s intake was all that unusual. (more…)
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How to Kill a Terrorist
by Robert J. Avrech
Meet Larry, my buddy from Bensonhurst. Okay, so it’s not Larry. For reasons of security his identity cannot be compromised. But take my word for it, Larry looks exactly like William Powell in The Thin Man. Or not.
Shabbat in the Israeli town of Efrat is a deeply spiritual experience.
The sun falls, gently folding itself into the surrounding hills and valleys. The same Judean hills where Jews have lived, worked and fought since Biblical times.
The unearthly light makes a final golden splash.
My wife Karen and I are visiting Karen’s brother David, his wife Elana, and their four children, residents of Efrat.
Attending Sabbath services in an Efrat synagogue, out of the corner of my eye, I spot “Larry.”
Security requires that I do not use his real name.
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Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part III
by Robert J. Avrech
Esther Ralston at the height of her fame, 1920’s.
To read Part I of this series, please click here.
To read Part II, please click here.
Broke, with her second marriage in shambles and blacklisted by studio boss L.B. Mayer—Esther wouldn’t trade amorous favors for movie roles—Esther Ralston flees to New York in 1939 to find work and rebuild her shattered career.
Esther, in her slim but resonant 1985 memoir, Some Day We’ll Laugh, tells us that she was forced to leave her daughter Mary behind in California with her mother.
Working in Summer Stock and radio, Esther meets a young entertainment columnist named Ted Lloyd. Everywhere she plays, Ted is in the audience. With characteristic understatement Esther notes that Lloyd “seemed to follow me.” (more…)
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My Extremely Cute Chinese Communist Spy
by Robert J. Avrech
This is not a picture of yours truly with My Chinese Spy. It’s star-struck me with the great Chinese actress Gong Li on location in China. I confess, I use any excuse to publish this photo.
American Journalism Goes Dark—Voluntarily
Journalism died in America when Barack Hussein Obama was running for President.
The dinosaur media gleefully surrendered to the cult of personality—standard for leftist politics—and since then normally skeptical journalists have turned into nothing less than a collective Pravda for the Obama White House.
It’s not hard to fathom the reasons for this herd-like behavior. Elite journalists and editors recognize in Obama a kindred spirit, a hard left, big government ideologue who is adept at mouthing—endlessly, tediously and vacuously—all the politically correct rhetoric.
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Jews and Guns
by Robert J. Avrech
An Ethiopian Jewish woman soldier takes aim. Both men and women serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. Thus, there is a weapon in almost every Israeli home.
Before our son Ariel Chaim ZT”L passed away, age twenty-two, in 2003, we spent a good deal of time discussing the Second Amendment, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Ariel was amazed that so many American Jews—overwhelmingly liberal and secular—aligned themselves with the advocates of gun control, in reality a movement to banish the private ownership of guns by lawful citizens.
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Afghanistan: Obama’s Setup and Payoff
by Robert J. AvrechSkillfully written screenplays are frequently structured around a series of setups and payoffs.
The most rudimentary example is, of course, the pistol in the desk drawer: revealed in Act I, and then in Act II, the gun is used to kill someone.
For an intensive workshop in cinematic setups and payoffs you should screen the Back to the Future series, where setup and payoff are elevated to an entirely new level.
It’s kind of fascinating, watching Obama construct the setup for his Afghanistan policy. He follows a familiar dramatic structure:
1. Anguished self-reflection, all quite public in order to display nobility of character. (more…)
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Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part II
by Robert J. Avrech
Esther Ralston at the height of her fame, mid-twenties.
To read Part I of this series, please click here.
Blessed with a lovely, melodic voice, it’s something of a puzzle why Paramount dropped Esther Ralston’s option in 1929. Esther was a rising star who, between 1924 and 1929, starred or co-starred in twenty-five films. She would seem a natural for talkies.
But the mystery is soon cleared up as Esther explains:
Since I had only a year to go on my Paramount contract, the studio sent me a new contract with a talkie clause to sign. Knowing I had been brought up in the theater before going into pictures, George decided I should ask for a hundred thousand dollars to sign this talkie clause. He sent me alone to talk to Mr. Lasky and Mr. Zukor. They were courteous as always, but explained that the new talkie panic had them worried and they didn’t feel they should have to increase my salary until they were sure I would be adequate in talkies.
Once again, the destructive Svengali-Trilby relationship asserts itself as the guiding principle of Esther and George. (more…)
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Dore Gold: The Rise of Nuclear Iran
by Robert J. AvrechSeveral days ago, I was invited by One Jerusalem, to attend a private briefing by Dore Gold, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N., whose important new book, The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West, has just been published.
There were about fifteen of us—bloggers mostly, including my good friend, the brilliant blogger, Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric—gathered in the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Ambassador Dore Gold
Ambassador Gold, looking like a sleepy walrus, spoke in measured, diplomatic tones. But he was fiercely passionate and profoundly knowledgeable about Iranian history, culture, and diplomacy, past and present.
Point by point, Gold emphasized his main thesis: (more…)
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Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me?
by Robert J. Avrech
Esther Ralston, at the height of her Hollywood stardom in the 1920’s.
They called her: The American Venus.
She lived in a Hollywood mansion with a staff of servants. Her chauffeur drove a limited edition limousine. But she ended her days in an upscale trailer park in Ventura, California.
One of the enduring mysteries—for yours truly—are the scores of Hollywood starlets, innocent young women, who are attracted to bad men: drunks, gamblers, liars, tinsel town sociopaths.
Esther Ralston is a prime example of an early Hollywood star who showed great promise as an actress—she played drama and comedy with equal craft—but three ill-considered marriages effectively derailed Ralston’s career and drained away her considerable fortune. (more…)
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Honoring September 11th: Not a Tragedy
by Robert J. Avrech
Offspring#2 steps into our bedroom and says:
“Do you know what’s going on in New York?”
My wife Karen and I look at each other, baffled.
“Better turn on the TV,” says Offspring#2.
Black smoke is rising from one of the Twin Towers. A newscaster tells us that a passenger jet airliner has hit the World Trade Center.
Ariel, our son, senses that something is happening. He tears himself away from his Talmud study and steps into our bedroom, gazes at the TV screen.
“How many people work there?” Ariel asks.
“Thousands, tens of thousands, it’s an entire world.” (more…)
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Jessie Matthews: The Dancing Divinity Does Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs
by Robert J. Avrech
British movie star Jessie Matthews at the height of her fame.
Jessie Matthews (1907-1981) was Britain’s first and greatest international movie star.
Known as The Dancing Divinity, Matthew’s tragic and scandal-ridden life was more akin to hell on earth.
Born above a butcher shop in London’s Soho district, the seventh of eleven children, George, Jessie’s father was illiterate, a harsh and distant drunk. In contrast, Jessie’s mother, Jane, was warm and loving, but Jenny lived under the thumb of her tyrannical husband and so her unconditional love for Jessie was severely blunted by her husband’s drunken rages and frequent physical abuse.
The large cockney family rarely had enough to eat. (more…)
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27 Minutes in the Post Office: Can’t Wait for ObamaCare
by Robert J. Avrech
I have to go to the post office.
Last week, In New York, we dropped by my Aunt Ethel’s apartment in Long Beach where I saw an old family photo of my paternal grandmother, Miriam, with my father and his brother, my Uncle Chaim.
“Aunt Ethel, I never saw this photo. It’s amazing.”
“Yes, I love it.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“Robert, that’s my only copy.” (more…)
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Stars With Pluck
by Robert J. Avrech
Hedy Lamarr’s perfectly arched eyebrows emphasize her symmetrical features. Considered the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, Lamarr was also incredibly bright, co-inventing, in 1941, a “frequency-hopping device that now serves as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology.” That quote is grabbed from Wikipedia. I have absolutely no idea what it means, but darn, I’m impressed. Anyhoo. Married six times, Lamarr gained and lost several fortunes. After her career was over she was arrested on shoplifting charges.
Screening movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, I’ve noticed an interesting trend—in eyebrows.
During the early days of silent films, female stars appeared pretty normal. Which is to say, eyebrows were lightly plucked, but retained a recognizably human configuration. (more…)
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Hollywood Head Game
by Robert J. Avrech
Ava Gardner had rich lustrous hair, but in this glamor photo from the 50’s, Ava is transformed into a sensual bird of prey.
Step into an Orthodox synagogue on Shabbat, the Sabbath, and you’ll notice that married women cover their hair, donning hats, scarves, or sometimes just an elegant patch of lace. Hat variations are endless, and to yours truly, fascinating.
In Israel, you can usually pinpoint a woman’s religious and political ideology—Modern Orthodox, Right Wing Hasidic, Hippie Hasidic, Orthodox Feminist, Black Hat Orthodox, Gun Toting Settler (totally hot!)—by noting the head gear she favors.
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Hollywood Unmasked: Latin Lover is Kosher Butcher’s Son
by Robert J. AvrechRicardo Cortez (1899-1977) was a handsome and talented leading man whose image, in the silent era, was that of a hot-blooded Latin lover.
In truth, his name was Jacob Krantz, the son of a kosher butcher, born and raised in the mean streets of New York’s Lower East Side.
- Ricardo Cortez
Cortez worked as a runner on Wall Street while training to be an actor at night. Soon his good looks afforded him an opportunity to break into the young but flourishing movie business. Paramount groomed the tall and handsome Cortez by giving him bit parts, and then moving him up to more substantial roles.
One of the more interesting glimpses into Cortez’s career and character comes from a 1965 interview Cortez granted to silent film historian Kevin Brownlow, published in The Parade’s Gone By. Brownlow was seeking information regarding director D.W. Griffith. Cortez had starred in Griffith’s The Sorrows of Satan (1926).
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Reborn on the Fourth of July
by Robert J. AvrechEvery Independence Day, L.B. Mayer (1884 – 1957) would shut down production at MGM and celebrate twin holidays: America’s birth, and the birthday of L.B. Mayer.
Flags and bunting graced every building and sound stage. There was band music and rows of picnic tables groaning under the weight of food.
L.B. Mayer, a man without a birth date
Every MGM star was expected to attend and pay homage to America-and to L.B. Mayer. For in Mayer’s mind, the two were inseparable. All complied, except Greta Garbo, a woman far too narcissistic to lavish attention on any country or person other than her own mirrored island.
Though Yiddish was his first language, L.B. Mayer delivered a rousing Fourth of July speech. Mayer could be a forceful English speaker, mixing deeply personal anecdotes—usually about his beloved mother—and soaring rhetoric about his adopted home, America.
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Troopathon 2009: My Chaplain
by Robert J. Avrech
My father is the child in the back row with eyes closed. Next to him, right, is Miriam, my grandmother. Poland, 1921.
My father, Rabbi Abraham Avrech, reached his 90th year two weeks ago. Born in Poland, he came to America with his mother and older brother Chaim, when he was 4-years old. My grandfather, Rabbi Shmuel Avrech was a shochet, ritual slaughterer and mohel, specialist in ritual circumcisions.
I come from countless generations of scholarly and pious Rabbis, thus my screenwriting career represents something of a rupture in a noble family tradition.
Sigh. (more…)
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Hollywood Good Guys: Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts
by Robert J. Avrech
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Hollywood stars Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts, with their two children Samuel, 6, and Alexander, 1, recently visited Israel.
Schreiber said his grandfather was a strong Zionist who had always begged him to go to Israel. His grandfather died before he could make that happen, so this trip resonates for him. It may also have additional meaning following his most recent role as Zus Bielski in Defiance, the Holocaust movie recounting the Bielski brothers, Jewish partisans who lived and rebelled against the Nazis from a Bellarussian forest with a band of fellow refugees.
Schreiber recalls some intensely personal history: (more…)
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Hollywood Hair: Masculine or Feminine?
by Robert J. Avrech
Mary Pickford's rich and lustrous hair was the paradigm of female beauty in early Hollywood.
I’ve been looking at portraits of Hollywood stars from the 50’s, a time when the studio system was finally collapsing, and I noticed a few things.
The quality of studio portrait photography was dismal.
The images are, for the most part, bland, with little creative inspiration. Everyone seems bored—the photographers and the stars. Hollywood once employed geniuses like George Hurrell and C.S. Bull, whose iconic photography helped mold the G-d-like images of Hollywood’s golden age.
But as the studios were shrinking in power, they drastically cut back on their still departments. And because actors were no longer under long-term contract to the studios, the technocrat executives who replaced the original passionate moguls had no stake or ability to carefully shape and control the images of their most promising thespians.
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Hollywood Unveiled: John Wayne Walks Like a Girl
by Robert J. Avrech
John Wayne walks the walk in Hondo, 1953.
It’s in the walk.
Think of Mae West, hands caressing her Rubenesque hips, head tilted, not just sauntering, but oozing forward, the exaggerated female.
Elbows cocked and angled at his hips, moving with concentrated energy, Jimmy Cagney looks like a coiled spring about to explode.
Joan Crawford, leading with her linebacker shoulders, like a tank on the battlefield, determined, dangerous, unstoppable. (more…)
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Broncho Billy: Son of a Jewish Gun
by Robert J. AvrechIn 1965, a frail old man in a wheelchair appeared in the no-budget western, The Bounty Killer. It is, for those of us who love movies—especially westerns—a deeply bittersweet moment in which the man who invented the western movie hero, takes his last bow on the silver screen.
It is Broncho Billy Anderson’s final role.
Max Aaronson, better known as Broncho Billy.
The first cowboy hero of the motion pictures was Max Aaronson, (March 21, 1880 – January 20, 1971) a middle-class Jewish kid from Little Rock, Arkansas.
Max’s father, Henry, was a dry goods salesman and his mother Esther, a mother and homemaker. The family moved to St. Louis Missouri in 1883 and here Max, a teenager, was an office clerk like his brothers Jerome, Edward, and Nathaniel. A year later, Max became a cotton-buyer, in partnership with his brother-in-law Louis Roth. But Max was restless, a dreamer—and he was stage struck. (more…)
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