One of the touchstone traits of manliness is that the true man is what he seems.  There is no deceit about him: no hidden agendas, no artificial props, no “image” or “cover” designed to suit the public’s imagined wants and hide the actual man’s real character.  It is undeniable that such an uncalculated manliness often offends: in its lack of political correctness and its plainspoken confidence.  “Why does he always think he is so right?  Hasn’t he read the latest opinion poll?”  We used to call this manly virtue integrity: literally, of being whole and undivided, of being the same throughout.  What you see is what you get.  Integrity enables another virtue: frankness or candor, that is, saying what you believe and is on your mind without dissimulation or contrivance.  For this reason one of the Founding Fathers’ most lauded virtues was candor.  After all, these great men proclaimed their Independence by submitting facts to a “candid world.”  This virtue of integrity, which now goes by the opaque moniker “transparency,” was better understood in the age of the Western hero.  The characters played by John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and, for that matter, Ronald Reagan, did not say much.  But what they said they meant, and they would back up what they said with their very lives.

But we do not live in the age of the Western.  Those of us in our thirties and forties grew up in the age of the action hero.  The action hero is the figure who does not do the merely human things well but performs superhuman deeds that defy the imagination.  He does not simply draw a gun faster than another man.  Instead, he races through explosions on a motorcycle and dives out of planes without a parachute and yet invariably emerges from the ruins unscathed.  Of course, the action hero has half a dozen stunt doubles and computer graphics and millions invested in the movie to pull it all off.  But it’s all worth it: for the illusion, for the moment of suspended disbelief.  When you meet the actual man who plays the part, though, you find him pretty underwhelming.  (more…)

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…)

Into my eye line he walks, like Gary Cooper … or Sidney Poitier … onto the dusty main street of High Noon!

And in America it is, indeed, approaching High Noon.

Colonel Allen West.

My awareness of him is a little over 48 hours old … but, when a situation such as ours in America has been growing to homicidally insane levels for over thirty-six years – ever since the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision – the cry for a great leader has been rising out of our guts day and night.

Viewing Col. West’s sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, then his lecture on tactics, operations and strategy in Afghanistan and, finally, his relaxed and witty appearance on Fox’s Red Eye?

What ‘s not to shout “hallelujah” about?!

A few of the most important video clips were linked in Dave Reaboi’s introductory column about Col West in BIG PEACE. (more…)

Before we begin…

Perhaps it’s genetic and, because I’m Irish-American, I’m sounding like Joseph McCarthy when he railed against Communism with his Un-American Activities Committee. Plus, with a name like Moriarty, given that’s the “handle” for the major villain in the World of Sherlock Holmes, I’m doubly cursed.

My sometimes awkward efforts to trace the growth of communism in the American performing arts does not have the substantive weight of an historical scholar, but it does have my over-forty years of personal experience behind it.

In an almost childlike way but with plenty of time to ponder my past in film and theater, I offer up a truth that, for me, has only been glimpsed in depth by Glenn Beck. (more…)

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…)

Dear Reader,

Do you have a little time to sit back and examine a classic movie that will absolutely shock you when seen through the prism of now? This is not my typical short article or essay. This is my own argument that what occurs in the 1941 picture “Meet John Doe” is exactly what has come to pass in America today with the Democratic Congress and their Presidential puppet. All the players and plays are clearly represented here and I was lucky enough to find the entire movie available on YouTube in small 7-10 minute scenes. I have selected only the scenes that I feel you must watch. But please, by all means, Netflix this movie before someone bans it.

“Meet John Doe” was released in 1941, written by Robert Riskin and based upon a treatment titled “The Life and Death of John Doe,” written by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell.  The film was directed by Frank Capra. The plot of the movie clearly shows how a media conspiracy could get a President elected and use him to “turn out the lights on freedom.” The similarity between the movie’s plot and today’s political situation is surreal. Add in the fact that Gary Cooper’s “John Doe” is modeled after Jesus Christ and you’ll be even more chilled at how a power hungry, ruthless political party figures out how to use a fake version of Him for their own gain. The claim by liberals that this is the practice of the religious right will be shattered once you’ve watched all the clips posted here. (more…)

For some strange reason, the image of Gary Cooper on that famous Solidarity poster popped into my head today. So I Googled it and was surprised to see that today is in fact the twentieth anniversary of the elections, and the successful Solidarity candidacy in those elections, that the poster promoted. The poster is doubly iconic, both because of its historical significance and because the image of Cooper from 1952’s “High Noon” was already iconic when the poster was produced. If you haven’t seen “High Noon,” by the way, go see it. Right now. And shame on you.

This being that anniversary, it’s a good day to recollect how much passion, honor, and gritty philosophy went into those old Westerns, how much they can still teach us today, and how much good the American Western has done not just for America, but for the world: the image of Cooper walking alone down that dusty black and white street is a reminder that sometimes when you do good, you have to do it alone. (more…)

The sun is sinking in the west
The cattle go down to the stream
The redwing settles in her nest
It’s time for a cowboy to dream….

Exquisitely crafted, but never ostentatious. Pleasantly mellow, but never lazy. Thematically rich, but never preachy. Respectful of tradition, but never stolid. Deeply compassionate, but never descending into schmaltz. Five decades ago, a group of men now long-dead (and, it must be said, one smokin’-hot woman, still-living) followed an aged veteran director into the Arizona desert to make a humble, heartfelt western based firmly on quintessentially American notions of courage, decency, and good humor. The result of their collaboration, Rio Bravo (1959), remains one of the great visceral pleasures of cinema.

Howard Hawks’ masterpiece stemmed from his disgust with the joyless anti-heroics of uptight, melodramatic westerns like Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952) and Delmer Daves’ 3:10 to Yuma (1957) — dark “message movies” that seemed to revel in smugly depicting small-town Americans as cynics and cowards. The man behind such classics as Scarface (1932), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), To Have and Have Not (1944), Red River (1948), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) was in his early sixties in 1958, his career winding down after decades of constant production. He had interned for Famous Players-Lasky way back in 1916, and directed his first features in the mid-1920s. Thirty years later he was old and tired, and his last film, Land of the Pharaohs (1955), had been a disheartening flop. Since then, the previously prolific director hadn’t helmed a picture in three years, an unheard-of period of self-exile for a man who had cranked out movies regularly for decades. But the brazen slap across the face that High Noon had given America’s western mythology had bothered him. “I made Rio Bravo,” he later told an interviewer, “because I didn’t like High Noon. Neither did Duke. I didn’t think a good town marshal was going to run around town like a chicken with his head cut off asking everyone to help. And who saves him? His Quaker wife. That isn’t my idea of a good western.” (more…)

My original plan was to do a top five list of today’s actors under thirty-five with more personality than the ShamWow! guy, but you can only tap your chin so long.

To try and explain away the fact that the true movie star is fast becoming extinct, a few apologists over the years have tossed out the excuse that there’s no way today’s celebrities, er, uhm, actors can compete with their historical counterparts because color, unlike black and white, makes them too human and thus brings them down to earth. It would be foolish to completely dismiss that idea, but not as foolish as raising it before, oh, say, a lack of presence, talent, and most of all, class. Of course, if you’re determined to hold that position you must also believe that putting Ashton and the Jessica-of-the-day in a good noir film would change everything. (more…)