In September 1977, Bing Crosby was recording his television special “Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas.” Slated for a guest appearance in the show was a rather unusual choice – Ziggy Stardust himself, Mr. David Bowie.

Bowie was scheduled to sing a duet with Crosby of “The Little Drummer Boy.”

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The pair seemed an odd fit artistically, but commercially it made sense, at least in theory. Bowie was then seeking to somewhat mainstream his career, and the producers of Crosby’s special no doubt hoped that a young, ultra-hip performer like Bowie would bring in a demographic not normally inclined to tune in to a very old-fashioned holiday special.

But Bowie balked at the choice of songs; he thought “Little Drummer Boy” was wrong for him, and asked the producers if he could do something else.  So, as The Washington Post described the scene:

Just hours before he was supposed to go before the cameras, though, a team of composers and writers frantically retooled the song. They added another melody and new lyrics as a counterpoint to all those pah-rumpa-pum-pums and called it “Peace on Earth.” Bowie liked it. More important, Bowie sang it.

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JAVIER BARDEM IS BOND 23′S VILLAIN

This is good news. Bardem is a larger-than-life presence on the screen and Bond could use some larger-than-lifeness — especially if all that larger-than-lifeness is filmed on a tripod.

GENE HACKMAN TO COME OUT OF RETIREMENT?

Somewhere around 1983, Gene Hackman became my favorite living actor and remained so until his 2004 retirement (Michael Caine now owns that spot). Last I heard, The Mighty Gene Hackman is loving life somewhere in Arizona, where at the age of 81 he paints and writes.

I’d like to– No, I want to always remember Hackman as the epitome of everyday masculinity that he portrayed so brilliantly in every film regardless of the role. I don’t want to see him old and frail. Today he might be as strong and vibrant as Robert Duvall is at the age of 80, but if he’s not I don’t want to know about it.

This is why I refuse to see “Ragtime.” I simply cannot bear the thought of The Mighty Jimmy Cagney as an old man and won’t put myself through it.

TARANTINO CASTS DON JOHNSON AS PLANTATION OWNER PIMP IN ‘DJANGO’

What a superb piece of casting. With better script choices I’m almost positive Johnson could’ve been the movie star he deserved to be. You want to see an underrated pulper that thanks to Johnson’s hangdog performance deserves a bigger audience…?

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This is the most recent installment of exclusive interviews with Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College, on his book revealing how communists, from Moscow to New York to Chicago, have long manipulated America’s liberals/progressives. Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century is based on an unprecedented volume of declassified materials from Soviet archives, FBI files, and more.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, Hollywood is celebrating its Academy Awards, a look back at great actors and actresses and films.

Kengor: For me, it’s a moment to look back at Hollywood’s worst communists, communist sympathizers, Stalinists, and duped liberals and progressives—as well as the good guys (and gals) that fit none of those categories.

Big Peace: Fair enough. This should be fun. Let’s start with communists.

Charlie Chaplin comment, “Thank God for
communism!” will make you see (him) red.

Kengor: How about the Hollywood screenwriters who liberals still insist were innocent lambs? Dalton Trumbo, Communist Party code “Dalt T;” Albert Maltz, party no. 47196; Alvah Bessie, no. 46836; John Howard Lawson, no. 47275. Or, if you turn to page 191 of my book—if you don’t have a copy yet, shame on you—you can view Arthur Miller’s party application. Miller wrote The Crucible, about how Joe McCarthy pursued “liberals” unfairly suspected of being communists—“liberals” like Miller, Trumbo, Maltz, Bessie, Lawson.

Big Peace: As you say in Dupes, Hollywood produced “quite a cast.” Let’s narrow the focus to the Academy Awards. (more…)

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Not entirely sure what the point of this is. Maybe you can figure it out.

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There’s been a dearth of Yuletide material here at Big Hollywood this month, so as The Most Wonderful Day of the Year draws nigh, let’s spend some time saluting the five men whose voices echo most strongly through the Christmas chapters of the Great American songbook.

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5. Johnny Mathis (b. 1935)

A host of other crooners fought tooth and nail for this fifth slot — Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole — but Mathis wins the day via an impressive five Christmas-themed albums, the best of which are immeasurably improved by the melodic mastery of maestro Percy Faith (1908-1976), whose inventive yet unashamedly unambiguous orchestrations make him my favorite instrumental interpreter of Christmas tunes.

The only one of our Top 5 who is still alive, Mathis made his Xmas bones by singing what is, for my money, the single most beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” ever recorded — a feat accomplished when he was just twenty-two. Fifty years on, no one has matched the infectious, jingling energy Mathis and Faith brought to “Sleigh Ride.” And despite a good showing by Andy Williams, I daresay he takes the prize for “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Winter Wonderland” as well. (more…)

Yesterday I walked into my local supermarket to find they already had a massive Christmas tree up ornamented with gift cards. Yes, it’s quickly approaching “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and that means gifts to buy, preferably before you find yourself scrambling from store to store in a panic on Christmas Eve.

With that in mind, here are five drool-worthy stocking stuffers for the cinemaphiles in your family, all of them due to be released in the next few weeks.

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1. Frank Sinatra: Concert Collection (November 2, 2010, $54.99 at Amazon)

Get hep to this, man: seven discs containing fourteen hours of TV specials and filmed concerts, with Ol’ Blue Eyes joined by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Gene Kelly, Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Denver, Bing Crosby, and of course Dino. Four of the specials have never been released, and a host of isolated TV clips are thrown in for good measure. Top it all off with a 44-page booklet chock full of rare photos and scholarly commentary, and the Chairman of the Board is truly back in all his scotch-soaked glory.

The seventh “Bonus Disc” sounds like the perfect thing to have playing in the background while you are decorating your tree: a “Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank” color TV special. (more…)

Both films are listed together because they belong together, one fitting snugly against the other, offering a seamless double-feature capable of brightening your whole world for a few hours, and maybe a little longer if you can avoid leaving the house after they’re over.

Going My Way  won seven well-deserved Oscars including best picture, actor (Bing Crosby), supporting actor (a sweet and crusty Barry Fitzgerald), director (Leo McCarey), screenplay, and song (Swingin’ On a Star). The story is a gentle and moving one about Father Chuck O’Malley (Crosby), a seemingly low-key, even lazy priest who’s really a fixer for the diocese with an uncanny ability to effortlessly maneuver everyone into under-estimating him.

At first this includes the elderly Father Fitzgibbon (Fitzgerald), who’s no longer able to efficiently run his parish and thisclose to losing a crumbling church to bankruptcy. The heart of  Going My Way is the complicated road both men walk until they finally reach a warm and rich friendship.  

Holiday Inn isn’t just one of the all-time great Christmas films, it’s also one of the all-time great movie musicals. With an astonishingly good score, even for Irving Berlin, and the perfect star combination of the affable Bing Crosby and perfectionist Fred Astaire, Holiday Inn conjures up the simplest of concepts to craft a compulsively watchable holiday delight.  

The plot sets up with head-whipping speed when Jim Hardy (Bing) breaks the bad news to his friend and partner Ted Hanover (Fred) that he’s breaking up their successful act so he can marry part three of their song and dance trio, Lila Dixon (a superbly caustic Virginia Dale). Jim’s plan is to whisk Lila away from the grind of the show-biz rat race and retire to Connecticut where life as a leisurely and lazy gentleman farmer awaits.

As he does with most everything in life, Jim takes the news rather well when Lila changes her mind. More in love with show business than any man, Lila announces that she’s fallen for Ted … and so with little more than a “Sorry, old man. No hard feelings,” Jim flicks his wrist, forgives them both, and heads off to the country where another harsh dose of reality awaits.

Using a very funny montage, veteran musical director Mark Sandrich (he directed five of the ten immortal Astaire-Rogers musicals) crushes every naive notion Jim had that farming’s anything other than damn hard work, which leaves the retired singer in quite the pickle: he owns a farm with an overdue mortgage, but he’s too lazy to work it.  (more…)

Bob Hope plays The Lemon Drop Kid, so named because of an affinity for a certain kind of candy. The Kid grifts his way through life bottom feeding in the rackets as a racetrack tout steering suckers to this bet or that in order to keep the odds profitable for the house. After he mistakenly convinces a gangster’s gal to change her bet from a winner to a loser, he’s thisclose to being on the wrong end of a gangland killing when he manages to fast talk Da’ Boss into a little time to come up with the $10,000.

It’s Christmastime in New York City and the Kid hatches a scheme to cash in on holiday sentiment through the cynical deployment of an unwitting cast of colorful characters dressed as Santa Claus and filled with goodwill hoping to collect money for an “old dame” retirement home that will never open after the Kid embezzles every penny to save his own skin and a little extra for himself.  Along the way he lights up his old flame Marilyn Maxwell and coins a standard with the definitive version of “Silver Bells.”

Based on a Damon Runyon story, The Lemon Drop Kid naturally offers up a host of those ever-fascinating Runyonesque characters personified here by greats such as William Frawley, Jane Darwell, Lloyd Nolan, Tor Johnson and many others.  (more…)

Some movies are just plain old comfort food and our returning to them again and again has little to do with any actual cinematic merit. Maybe there’s a simplicity of story that just makes for a great escape or maybe there’s a time machine quality that helps to transport us back for a couple of hours to when life seemed simpler. And with that I ask…

Who doesn’t remember watching White Christmas as a kid? Every year on some winter weekend afternoon on some local UHF channel you couldn’t help but stop and be dazzled by the big bright holiday colors and Bing Crosby’s warm comforting voice. Director Michael Curtiz’s sequel/remake to the wonderful Holiday Inn really is a kind of Christmas Porn and we should all be big enough to acknowledge that it just isn’t a very good movie.

I know, I know, it’s a classic, a perennial. But it’s also long, slow, talky and, well, sorry … kinda dull in spots. Long spots.

Then why do we love it, why do we hunker down annually and lose ourselves in the slow predictability of it all? Because when you’re feeling Christmassy, the sets, costumes, and oh-gawd-yes, the Vista-Vision, works the senses like mainlined eggnog. And of course, there’s Irving Berlin’s unforgettable score, the stunning Rosemary Clooney, the impossibly leggy Vera-Ellen, the energetic Danny Kaye, and the unique pleasure of watching the ease with which Crosby — Mr. Christmas himself — does everything.  (more…)

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“You’re a little flat too…”  Brother, they don’t make ‘em like Crosby anymore.

So many big name stars, singers and sports legends have visited Washington over the years, the city is often referred to as “Hollywood on the Potomac.”  So, that’s the title of my new book (available now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Borders) featuring over 200 photographs and stories that detail the fascination between Hollywood stars and Washington power-players — from Presidents Truman through Obama. 

Here’s an excerpt: (more…)