As befits a libertarian, Clint Eastwood is admirably suited to look at both sides of a controversial question.

Dirty Harry could be both a hearty conservative slap to the Warren Court and also the only thing between democracy and a group of vigilante fascist cops.

“J. Edgar,” released today, is no different.

But to gauge Eastwood’s achievement in examining a controversial figure, virtues as well as warts and all, one should look at previous cinematic portrayals of the FBI director. In “Chaplin,” Hoover is depicted as a prissy anti-communist who does not forget the silent film star slighting him back in the twenties. His decades-long vengeance is complete when Chaplin gives him the sword to fell the actor with, courtesy of Charlie’s peccadilloes.

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The Hollywood star system: Rest in Peace.

Nowadays, when I trawl through Blockbuster aisles, I find films with major stars that never saw the dark light of a theater. I’ve never even heard of some films. And I wonder about the parallel between society and film. History may be defined as the intersection of amazing events with amazing people. Will Mallory make the climb up the cliffs of Navarone? People created history by their choices, hesitations, fears, desires, whimsy, obsessions and visions.  Will the Colonel give in to Saito’s brutality? Great films, anchored by magnetic personalities, cast wide nets across our consciousness. Will Lawrence survive the Devil’s Anvil?

“Epic,”film producer Frank McCarthy (“Patton”) once told me, “is defined as a man who changes himself, his community and his world.”  In short, all the great character arcs in a movie script have driven the creation of events and epics which, in turn, are pushpins in World History. A noted script consultant, Chris Vogler,  distilled and explained the work of Joseph Campbell, an expert on tribal storytelling and myth. Vogler explains the hero’s journey through the Ordinary World, the Call to Adventure, the Refusal of the Call, Mentor, Threshold, Tests by Allies and Enemies, Approach, Ordeal, Reward and The Road Back. (more…)

2am PST – Hollywood Without Make-Up (1966) – In this special, Ken Murray hosts his own behind-the-scenes home movies of some of Hollywood’s greatest stars. Cast: Ken Murray BW-50 mins, TV-G

Not a movie this time, but a delightful 1966 television special hosted by Ken Murray and starring his own home movies that date back to Hollywood’s silent-era when the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks wiled away their weekends at San Simeon, the estate owned by William Randolph Hearst and his wife mistress Marion Davies. The same estate Orson Welles somewhat recreated for his character in “Citizen Kane” who was modeled after Hearst. (more…)