The Mighty Gene Hackman plays Harry Caul, a San Francisco-based surveillance expert willing to take most any job that pays well. Harry never questions his employers because he doesn’t want the answers. You give him the job and he’ll give you the tape. It’s all very simple and clean… until it isn’t.

Though he moved a couple thousand miles away, the one thing Harry can’t escape is his past. Somebody was killed once upon a time, and Harry isn’t about to allow himself to shoulder the blame. But this devout Catholic is punishing himself, probably without even realizing it. He lives alone, is alone and he’s only willing to let himself get as close to someone as his suspicions and guilt will allow — which isn’t very close at all.

Harry’s latest job seems simple enough. All he’s been asked to do is record a young couple’s conversation as they stroll through a busy park during the workday lunch hour. This is the easy part for a man known as the best in his profession. A microphone here, a microphone there, put it all together and what you have at first appears to be a rather innocuous and even dull conversation. The difficult part comes later.

It’s the client who raises Harry’s suspicions. Actually, it’s the client’s assistant Martin Stett (Harrison Ford).  Something’s off about the whole situation, but worse still, something’s familiar. Something reminds Harry of what happened in New York, and now he might be faced with only two options, both of them horrible. He can take his money, walk away and possibly allow a murder to take place, or he can do something to prevent the murder. However, that means the unthinkable — admitting he could’ve and should’ve done something in New York, which in turn means that he was in some way responsible for it. For too many years Harry’s been guarding himself against that.

Besides the superb, emotionally complicated story and an unforgettable central performance courtesy of Hackman, nothing makes the Blu-ray more worthwhile than Coppola’s decision to shoot mostly on location in 1974 San Francisco. There is nothing that will ever replicate the look of urban America during this time, where the city is just as important of a character as any of the actors. And it looks absolutely gorgeous here. The grit, the beauty, the feel and sound all come alive — especially the sound, which was mixed and edited by the legendary Walter Murch.

Other notable performances include the wonderful John Cazale as Stan — Harry’s wormy assistant; Teri Garr, who makes the most of her single scene; and Harrison Ford, who’s absolutely perfect as a looming, menacing figure who never shows all his cards. Robert Duvall is perfectly cast in a small role, and Cindy Williams will surprise you, especially in her final moments.

If you own the original DVD, all of the extras, including Coppola’s commentary, Murch’s commentary, an on-set interview with Hackman and a making-of featurette are still there. The Blu-ray also includes some brand new extras, including a charming interview conducted by Coppola with composer David Shire, whose piano score is so masterful you feel more than hear it. You’ll also find a featurette titled “Harry Caul’s San Francisco,” which is self-explanatory and a fascinating audio archive of Coppola dictating his original screenplay.

Intelligent, tense, expertly paced, and always compelling, “The Conversation” is a is a one-of-a-kind film delivered by a one-of-a-kind filmmaker at the height of his extraordinary creative powers. And when you’re done enjoying “The Conversation,” catch “Enemy of the State” (1998), which just might give us a look at where Harry Caul ended up 15 years later.

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…?

“Dead Bang,” my friends. B-movie heaven, directed by the great John Frankenheimer. Rent it tonight. You’ll thank me in the morning.

IS IT TIME FOR NETFLIX CEO REED HASTINGS TO STEP DOWN?

Anyone want to guess my answer to this question? I have never seen the goose that lays the golden egg murdered by so much stupidity and arrogance. After he steps down Hastings should then assume the permanent position of being ashamed of himself.

Dumbass.

And, wow… (though it seems alarmist):  Analyst: Netflix Will Go Bankrupt In A Year

ULTRAVIOLET TO THE RESCUE: CLOUD FORMAT DEBUTS WITH ‘HORRIBLE BOSSES’

So the whole idea here is that because movies can now be stored in some online “cloud” that makes them accessible on any mobile device, this will revive the decimated DVD sales business.

Does “the cloud” make the movies not suck as much?

Does “the cloud” make the movie stars more likable and less obnoxious?

Does “the cloud” have an option that allows you to watch “shaky-cam free”?

Cuz if not… No sale.

Also, Apple wanted no part of this and from what I’ve read that Steve Jobs fella was nobody’s fool.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

Side note: Does ScottDS find the coolest links, or what?

LIFETIME REMAKING ‘STEEL MAGNOLIAS’ WITH AN ALL-BLACK CAST

HBO PICKS UP STEVEN SODERBERGH’S LIBERACE BIOPIC STARRING MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND MATT DAMON

SANDRA BULLOCK TO PLAY CLINT EASTWOOD’S DAUGHTER?

‘PRIMER’ DIRECTOR SHANE CARRUTH PREPPING NEW FILM

COOL VIDEO: ORSON WELLES’S LAST INTERVIEW TAPED TWO HOURS BEFORE HIS DEATH

FIVE COOL MOVIE PRESIDENTS

WHY WE KEEP COMING BACK TO H.G. WELLS’S DYSTOPIAN FUTURE

‘AUSTIN POWERS’ HENCHMAN ACCUSED OF KILLING CELLMATE

‘HUGO’ ADVANCED SCREENING REVIEWS & FEATURETTE

‘LORD OF THE RINGS IN CONCERT’ COMING TO HONDA CENTER

CBS BOSS SAYS NO FRIGGIN’ WAY TO ‘JERSEY SHORE’

GANG TRIES TO KIDNAP SADDAM LOOK-ALIKE TO MAKE PORN *link fixed*

10 MOST DISGUSTING MEALS IN CINEMATIC HISTORY

25 ACTORS YOU DIDN’T KNOW APPEARED IN ‘STAR TREK’

TONY BENNETT SAW LADY GAGA NAKED

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Another debate where our genius GOP stupidly agreed to let hostile and not terribly bright MSM leftists ask them loaded questions based on the premise that your compassion can only by judged by how big you want the State to become.

You know what I miss most about being a liberal? Voting against Republicans. But the Left is evil and we’re only awful, so what are you going to do?

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CLASSIC PICK FOR THURSDAY,  OCTOBER 13

TCM:

2:00 AM  EST: Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, A (1949) — A blow to the head sends an auto mechanic back to the days of Camelot. Dir: Tay Garnett Cast:  Bing Crosby, Rhonda Fleming, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. C-107 mins, TV-G, CC.

DerBingle at his most relaxed and charming. The winning plot just rolls along at its own leisurely pace and sweeps you up in the splendid silliness of it all that pastes a 107-minute smile across your face.

First time I saw this, I was 11 years-old and every viewing since still makes me feel that way.

Here’s a preview. Believe it or not, the old man is Sir Cedric Hardwicke.

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“If you insist?”

“I dust, I dust.”"

As I mentioned before, I’m currently making my through James Cagney’s auto-biography and he tells a fascinating story about how hard Crosby worked to make it looks so easy and laid-back. Up close, Cagney says, after one of those “easy-going” performances, Crosby would walk backstage covered in sweat. Only then would the strain show.

Giants. These men were giants.

--Please send tips/suggestions/requests/complaints to jnolte@breitbart.com

The best known works in his canon were his “Six Moral Tales” cycle, six films all related in theme made between 1963 and 1972. The first film, only 23 minutes long, was simply shot in grainy black and white and looked like it was shot on a student film budget. Each successive film contains a better script, better acting, and better production value. Rohmer, at the time, was considered a part of the French “New Wave” cinema crowd, although from what I have since read, his “Moral Tales” cycle made him an outcast to some, while others say he stayed truer to the ideals of the movement than his counterparts. 

Each of these films explores the same theme: an attached man, married or otherwise, struggles with the moral dilemma created by desire. There’s hardly any sex shown in these films, but it permeates the minds of the characters, and therefore the viewer, at the deepest levels.

All of these films are sparse, with no music or score, with incessant philosophical and subtitled dialogue. (There’s a famous line in the 1975 movie “Night Moves”, where Gene Hackman’s character says: “I saw a Rohmer movie once. It was like watching paint dry.” Maybe if you’re not paying attention to the thoughts of the characters in his movies

Most scenes are shot from only one camera position with no cuts, giving a feeling of voyeurism into the most intimate thoughts and desires of the (mostly) male characters. It’s rare to see a filmmaker so perfectly capture the male mind and ego, and in a way that’s timeless, despite the setting of Paris in the go-go mid-60s to early 70s. His are moral characters, but ones who are deeply conflicted and torn between desire, jealousy, curiosity, and ego. In the last of the films, the lead male character imagines he wears a special pendant giving him the power to immediately seduce any woman he meets, including scaring off any potential male rivals.

The men at the center of these films sometimes share their innermost thoughts with other men, and sometimes with other women. There’s also a progressive maturity evident, as the men in the earlier films are more playboys merely looking to seduce and have a good time, their dilemmas arise when they’re chasing women who have attachments to their male friends. In the later films, the men are older and are struggling with being monogamous in the face of a physical, or simply emotional, dalliance; or in some cases, merely a flirtation. 

My favorite of these films was the fifth in the cycle, called “Claire’s Knee”. The main character, Jerome, is soon to be married, but is alone visiting friends on holiday for several weeks. An old female friend entices him into a flirtation with a teenage girl named Laura, who he does indeed flirt with, but it never goes further. Instead, he becomes fascinated with her slightly-older sister, Claire, and her knee.

1992:

“Unforgiven” – Yes, yes, yes. This is a great movie. Spot on. Finally, some recognition for Clint, who by this point had been awesome for, oh, twenty some odd years — but welcome to the party, Academy.

“The Crying Game” – Oh. Okay. It’s a good movie, kind of defined by the twist. I liked the movie, but the marketing campaign — in which Miramax told us there was a big twist — was egregious and perhaps evil.

“Howard’s End” – Oh, dear Lord I hate Merchant-Ivory movies. Not my cup of tea, but right up the Academy’s collective alley. Wikipedia says it was the first film to be released by Sony Pictures Classics, so named because Sony Important and Destined to Be Remembered Forever Films sounded too presumptuous.

“A Few Good Men” – Really loved this back then, the dialogue, the speech, and Tom Cruise’s performance. And while I still enjoy it, it’s not as good as I thought it was.

“Scent of a Woman” – Ugh, are you serious, Academy? Obviously I’m not the first to point this out, but this was the turning point for Pacino, when he decided to start sentences in his normal, gravelly voice and then to SHOUT THE REST OF THE SENTENCE LIKE THIS. It’s really annoying but he was RE-WARDED! WITH AN OSCAR!

What Should Have Been Nominated:

“Glengarry Glen Ross” – Pacino didn’t do that as much in this adaptation of Mamet’s play. He did the short. Bursts. Of. Inflection. But without as much shouting. And when he did raise his voice, it seemed to fit the material. As in his response to Ed Harris’s query, “What does that mean?”

“It MEANS, Dave, you haven’t had a good one IN A MONTH. None of my BUSINESS. You wanna PUSH ME. To ANSWER YOU.” He’s great, Harris is great, Spacey’s at his weaseliest, Alec Baldwin’s at his slimiest, and Lemmon’s at his vulnerablest. Great. Movie.

“Reservoir Dogs” – Oh, dear Lord, I love Quentin Tarantino movies. Sure, there was the controversy, that he stole the plot and some shots from “City On Fire.” I will concede that he’s a total talentless loser when you produce a scene from “City On Fire” in which the characters discuss Madonna, which then leads to a discussion of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” and another scene where, oh, I don’t know, a cop posing as a criminal tells a phony story that includes the line, “I’m trying to watch ‘The Lost Boys!’”

“Malcolm X” – Seriously, I thought of this movie when George Clooney accepted an Oscar for “Syriana” and bragged about how forward thinking the Academy is.

“One False Move” – I expected greater things from Carl Franklin after this, an absorbing crime thriller starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, the latter of whom co-wrote the script. You can do it, Carl. Make another great movie. Please.

“Unforgiven” – It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got. And everything he’s ever gonna have.

The genius of Eastwood’s film is that its characters have the same misinformed awe for the outlaws and lawmen of the American west that led to the genre’s dominance. In my last column, I attributed the greatness of “The Silence of the Lambs” to its focused point of view. “Unforgiven,” on the other hand, takes multiple points of view in telling the story of several prostitutes who put a bounty on a couple of cowboys who scarred one of their friends for life because she giggled at the size of the bigger cowboy’s, um, manhood.

When William Munny (Eastwood) meets the so-called Schoefield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), the story behind the bounty has already taken on a life of its own. “Hell, they even cut her teats,” Schoefield, a legend in his own mind, tells Munny. Munny needs the bounty. A widower, he struggles to run a hog farm with his kids. He enlists the aid of his old running buddy, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), and in doing so further exaggerates the extent of the damage done to the prostitute.

Ned and Munny were bad boys. Outlaws. Cold blooded killers. And so was Little Bill (Gene Hackman), the gun control crazy Sheriff of Big Whiskey, the town where the cowboys cut up the woman. Little Bill makes quick work of English Bob (Richard Harris), the first bounty hunter to show up in Big Whiskey, and steals English Bob’s biographer, a scared little weasel named Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) to boot.

Little Bill eviscerates Beauchamp’s work, pointing out that his writing is filled with inaccuracies. Like a man nicknamed “Two Guns” didn’t carry two guns at all, but was simply well-endowed. And he died for it. It’s ironic, then, that the inciting incident was spurred by a man who was not so lucky to be well-endowed. His buddy, who did no cutting, but held the woman down, tries to give the victim a peace offering, but the other women won’t have it. It’s very obvious that they don’t speak for the victim; she appears touched by the gesture, but says nothing.

The movie asks if a man, more to the point, a killer, can change and can he outrun his past? Yes, and no. Ned freezes after firing a shot that maims the more sympathetic cowboy, leaving Munny to finish him off. But Ned quits, and heads home, only to be caught by Little Bill’s posse. As they torture him, The Schoefield Kid confirms our suspicions: he’s a liar and a fraud, a normal person who is desperate to have the reputation of a killer. He goes through with the murder, but it takes a toll on his soul. Finally, he reasons, “They had it coming,” to which Munny replies, “We all got it comin’ kid.”

It all leads to a confrontation between Little Bill and Munny, during which Munny takes out half of Big Whiskey. Only one man can survive and, for the time being, outrun his past.

As often as not, you can expect to fork over $20-$40 at the theater expecting to laugh, cry, and be entertained. . .

. . . only to find yourself trapped in a widescreen, 3D, surround sound, stadium-seated liberal indoctrination chamber.

With TV, you can dedicate months and years to becoming a dedicated fan of a series. . .

. . . only to suddenly start getting lectured on what creeps you and your family are by dint of your politics/religion/gender/race/fill-in-the-blank.

Closing in on two years patrolling the mean streets, Big Hollywood already has dozens of posts that document these lies, cheap shots, and propaganda in grim detail. Amidst the cultural carnage conservatives step ever more gingerly, sifting through the rubble for scraps worth investing in.

One way most of us navigate this minefield is by discerning which actors — big, well-known, picture-opening actors — are worth trusting on name alone. No one has a perfect record, but the best gain our confidence by routinely choosing projects that hew to some modicum of quality, decency, and fair play. You may not agree with the underlying message or political slant of their movies, but that’s not the point — it’s completely possible for conservatives to love great liberal movies and vice versa. Rather, these actors convince us over the course of their careers that they aren’t likely to sucker punch their fans, or to embarrass their country, profession, or family by allowing politics and prejudices to tarnish their public reputations and filmed entertainments.

Often, as famous as they are, we know little about their lives off the screen, as it should be. Largely free from the constant scandal that runs through Tinseltown like a river of raw sewage, their usually leftist personal politics matter little. It’s their class, humility, humanity, and self-deprecating humor — along with their choice of projects in which to display them — that count.

How many such actors are out there, living and working today? People whose name on a marquee or DVD cover not only doesn’t raise your hackles, but palpably makes you relax, secure in the knowledge that — with their name attached — you are unlikely to be ideologically jumped and browbeaten in exchange for giving them some of your precious time and money? Actors that you may not agree with, but whom you nevertheless trust, both with your money and your cinematic hopes and dreams?

Here’s my own highly subjective Top 5, from youngest to oldest:

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Denzel Washington (b. 1954)

Our modern Brando, the guy who can infuse every role with the gravitas of Shakespeare. He’s also, by far, our most versatile A-list thespian, playing military men, slaves, detectives, convicts, lawyers, loving fathers, gangster kingpins, and angels with equal force, panache, and believability. Time and again his performances address hot-button debates without alienating half of his audience with shallow, dehumanizing propaganda. Conservatives, liberals, white, black, young, old, Christian, Muslim — by turns he’s done right by all of them.

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Jeff Bridges (b. 1949)

He could so easily have been the spoiled brat 90210 son of a semi-famous actor, but in project after project he’s refused to sell out to the ego-driven temptations of stardom. An actor who doesn’t put on the pose so many do of never watching his own movies or caring overmuch about them, and a liberal who is laid back and worldly enough to not shove his deeply-felt personal politics down his audience’s collective throat. Bridges has memorably played everything from a hippie slacker to a small-town Texas teenager to an sinister comic book mogul to a sensitive alien to a washed-up country music star to the President of the United States, without me ever thinking that he was acting for only his side of the political aisle at my side’s expense.

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Morgan Freeman (b. 1937)

Dignity is the word that pops into mind. What actor is better at taking lazy parts that in lesser hands almost always end up as crude, politically correct Hollywood stereotypes — pimps, chauffeurs, slaves, and “magic minority wise man” characters among them — and imbuing them with contradictions, surprises, and thus humanity? And how many are then capable of running off to play God, or the President of the United States, or the benevolent head of a large corporation without missing a step? Freeman’s the kind of guy who is capable of being outspoken against the Iraq War even as he plays a key role in The Dark Knight.

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Robert Duvall (b. 1931)

Bob Duvall played the hapless Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H, the napalm-sniffing, village-incinerating Lt. Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, and the tormented and abusive career marine/father in The Great Santini. So why don’t we condemn him as a habitual slimer of our military as we would with so many others? Because this lifelong Republican, Christian and (like Freeman) veteran isn’t holding them (or through them, us) up for ridicule, he’s playing characters who harbor traits that are heroic and noble as well as outrageous and crude. They’re flawed human beings, not cardboard caricatures or straw men, and that’s what we come to the theater to see.

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Clint Eastwood (b. 1930)

I’ve grown increasingly leery about Eastwood as a director, but I still trust him implicitly as an actor. Over a long and storied career, his roles have represented what, when boiled down, is the only thing we really ask of Hollywood: to let characters on screen that filmmakers disagree with politically do right by their own standards even as the filmmakers criticize them using their own. From role to role Clint’s veered left and he’s veered right, but you never get the feeling that he’s taking cheap shots against anyone — in his next film he’s just as likely to be sympathetically portraying someone on the other side of the political/cultural divide. Directing a few Paul Haggis scripts isn’t yet enough to make me give up on the guy who played The Man With No Name, Dirty Harry Callahan, Josey Wales, Philo Beddoe, Sgt. Highway, Will Munny, and so many others.

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Twenty years ago, there would have been names like Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster, and many, many others in the running. Alas, to various degrees, based on the projects they’ve chosen combined with the mouthing off they’ve done off-screen, they’ve all lost my trust.

Let me know your own Top 5 in the comments below. Remember, they have to be living, working actors (Sean Connery and Gene Hackman are for all intents and purposes retired).

About that oft forgotten and abandoned piece of real estate called Indiana?!

It’s shot in a landscape-portrait, documentary style that memorializes a smaller than small town high school, basketball team?!

A movie suspended in a repeatedly evangelical universe that counts prayer as the major source of miracles?!

That set of profoundly un-Hollywood ideas had me thanking God for them as I watched ‘Hoosiers’ today.

Hadn’t I seen it before?

Well, portions of it.

That, however, was when I was merely on my way to one of the great fast-tracks for losers, full-blown alcoholism.

At that time, I was in too much of a hurry to contemplate even the possibility of being a loser.

The ultimate message of ‘Hoosiers,’ delivered with fully committed reverence from all involved, declares that losers, when joined in teamwork with fellow losers, can help make each other winners.

Of course, that is the underlying message of Alcoholics Anonymous: let go let God … and He will find you your “team”!

That initially preposterous premise has been miraculously affirmed in my life and those of countless other fellow boozers.

My life can be roughly sketched as a trip from being the haunted character played by Gene Hackman to that fall down bum of a drunk so irresistibly embodied by the late, one-of-a-kind, legendary child of the Sixties, Dennis Hopper.

My passionate commitment to having “range” as an actor spilled over into my life and … well, I was never one to live by half measures.

There’s a conundrum posed by Hoosiers, a mystical challenge that echoes in repeated contradictions!

One never gives up on human beings, even though they defy every ounce of your good advice.

Every human being, including those slaughtered in the womb by abortion, are Ordinary Miracles.

The Liberal opposition to capital punishment is based on that … but these PEDS, Progressive Enlightened Despots, still want abortion.

Abortion is the ultimately homicidal pedophilia!

Recently I learned that many people don’t acknowledge their own contradictions about life.

Progressives, like their favorite President Barack Obama, trot out their sympathy for criminals and Gaza terrorists and butcher their own infants with legalized abortion while they do it.

Then again, they haven’t had the mysterious privilege of having attended regular meetings with a bunch of fellow alcoholics.

The ravages of multiple heart by-pass surgery make my voice now sound like I still drink.

I haven’t had a drink for over six years.

The scars of the booze and cigarettes on my voice I now wear with pride.

You can actually hear it in the voice quality of a number of exceptional actors and actresses.

 Yup, they’re either heavy drinkers … or have been.

My favorite ex in the world of wine and whiskey is Elaine Stritch.

I adore that woman!

NO ONE could sing ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ with the torn genius of Elaine Stritch!

Ethel Merman could possibly get close.

The difference between Stritch and Merman, the better singer, was the profoundly piercing acting genius Elaine has that Merman could never approach.

Check this out to see what self-flagellating but excruciatingly hilarious pain exists in Elaine’s Unsurpassable Public Rendition of Ladies Who Lunch:

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There she is!

After hearing it, replay it to hear her voice on the word “laugh” when she says “everybody laugh” … or “hat” when she says “does anyone … still wear … a hat?”

There’s the kind of tragic insight you’d expect watching the star of Euripides’ Medea!

Or the terrified look on her face when she says, following one of her pain-soaked rages, “I’ll drink to that!”

Does that tell us anything about the infinite and painfully earned wisdom of Elaine Stritch?

And when she hollers, “DIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”!!

Only surpassed by the drunken and desperately belligerent but heart-stopping noise of “Riiise! Riiise! Riiiiiise! … NINE OF THEM!

My favorite Shakespearean actor, William Hutt of Canada, performed King Lear and, upon dealing with the death of his beloved daughter, Cordelia, did much the same thing with the seemingly infinite repetitions of the word “never … never … never … “

In Stephen Sondheim’s COMPANY, Elaine Stritch was a veritable, standing, desert dry martini itself singing to her own demise!!

A female King Lear!!

Every syllable, sound and silence is such nakedly sublime self-loathing … “One For Mahler!”

For the fashionable prejudices against Mahler – shared I think by Sondheim himself – shared by more than those who can look down on The Ladies Who Lunch, read this.

When an audience is faced with such TRUTH!!!!!!

Here that applause???!!!!

That audience had heard from a Divinity only reached when you’ve passed through Hell!

What inspiration does it come from?

Infinite knowledge of the problems of addiction … and work, work, work … just agonizingly hard, excruciating work!

—–

That particular recording nightmare may have occurred because of … perhaps … one too many?!

Everyone in the studio – from Sondheim to the Conductor and many of the musicians – had heard Elaine AT HER BEST!

They and she were not going to settle for anything less.

The rewards are dripping from one of the most complete five minutes of music and theater I will have EVER seen in my 69 years — for I had seen Sondheim’s Company live and … well … my own, incomparably bitter and alcoholic mother was all over that stage.

Little did I know at that time I would surrender to the same addiction.

Elaine and I met on a Law and Order episode, during which she asked me, “Michael, what is the most erotic thing in the world?”

I quoted Kissinger and said, “Power?”

“No”, she said.

“Talent!”

In that respect, Elaine Stritch is still one of the most erotically dramatic stars I have or will ever have seen.

I don’t fall in love again when I view her Ladies Who Lunch performance.

I drop into awe!!

An aging theater GODDESS … “IN ONE” as they say … ALL BY HERSELF!!

It’s not just the naked power of her voice but the shamelessly nude honesty of its unforced and unpremeditated pianissimos … and its pauses … its bold and merciless silence.

And of course, the mesmerizing, hypnotic rhythms of Sondheim’s accompaniment, all underpinning the suspense over what Elaine Stritch’s Joanne can come up with next?!

It is, I think, Sondheim at his greatest and no one could serve that genius as unstintingly as Elaine Stritch did with Ladies Who Lunch.

Elaine and I are both from Detroit, Michigan … and, as Lily Tomlin once said, “I left Detroit when I found out where I was!”

Why?

Detroit, when Elaine and I lived in it, was just the biggest Hoosier-like small town in the world!

I’m 69 now and she’s 84 … and we haven’t seen each other for years.

But then again, I’ll never see Dennis Hopper … ever again!

Unless, of course, we’re actually allowed to meet on “the other side!”

Dennis and I worked together in a film called Reborn so this little tribute to him came too late.

God willing, Elaine, like hopefully Sidney Poitier as well, can sense my gratitude to God for having had the privilege to have worked with both of them and to have known them both as friends, if only for a short while.

As for Dennis Hopper, we both only had one brief scene together which went with unexpected simplicity and ease within only a few takes.

Other, much bigger stars have actually pushed the envelope of self-indulgence to vastly higher levels than Dennis did with me.

The only inconvenience he ever caused me was a late night impulse to hear his favorite rock musicians at about 3 a.m.

We were shooting Reborn in Galveston, Texas and the motel we were all housed in had paper-thin walls.

I and my wife Anne sat bolt upright in bed!

I finally got up amidst all the noise and went into the hall, knocked on Dennis’ door.

He opened it and immediately began his apologies, “Hey, man, I’m sorry, man … really sorry but I just had to hear my music, ya know? And when ya gotta hear yer music, ya know …. “

“Right, Dennis,” I said, “But could you turn it down, please … low enough so we can sleep?”

“Yeah, sure, man … sorry, no problem!”

Dennis was never a major problem for me during the brief time we worked together.

As for Elaine, the last time we spoke, she knew I’d begun drinking and she had finally overcome her own addiction and … well … I got the firm suggestions I deserved.

I didn’t really listen, of course.

Alcoholism is a dark tunnel only the addict would understand. Its initial welcome is heaven itself.

The exit from the tunnel, if there is one, is filled with the hell of many cold turkeys and pitch black despair about everything.

Only God, as far as I’m concerned, can get us out of it.

If you don’t believe in God?

You’ll die from the addiction to alcohol.

The saving grace, however, is that you learn how eternally blissful an addiction to God can be.

If you don’t believe me, check this out!

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It started with the fan letters — fifteen hundred per week. Then came the mobs rushing gates at movie premieres and personal appearances — screaming, fainting, tearing at his clothes, all demanding time, autographs, kisses, and more. Soon, even walking down the street incognito or taking his family out to dinner became perilous endeavors.

“The whole damn thing took over,” said his then-wife, the Academy-Award nominated actress Diane Cilento. “He really didn’t know who he was. People would call over to him things like, ‘Hey, Bondy, where’re you off to next?’ or ‘See any Soviet agents lately?’ It became impossible to have any sort of life. . . .It got madder and madder with each film.”

Every time it looked as if matters couldn’t get any worse, they did. In Tokyo (where they greeted him with screams of  “Bondo!”) Connery was using a bathroom urinal when he heard a quiet click. Startled, he glanced up to see a Japanese photographer peeking around his shoulder with a Nikon. On another occasion, after graciously signing his name for an elderly lady at the airport, she reacted with a look of horror. “No, no!” she said, “I wanted James Bond.” Director Terence Young, who was with Connery, remembers that “Sean sort of crumpled. It suddenly occurred to him that he was no longer a human being, he was a symbol.”

For a painfully private and unassuming family man like Connery, this insane superstardom — Bond-age, you might call it — was intolerable. And so even as Goldfinger was smashing box-office records across the world, the actor responsible for playing the hero was counting down the days until his contract expired.

Tommy Connery was born in 1930 on the wrong side of the tracks of Edinburgh, Scotland, arriving just in time to grow up amidst the poverty of the Great Depression (his crib was a dresser drawer). At age eight he was already finding whatever odd jobs he could to help support Mom, Dad, and a younger brother: delivering milk and newspapers, working for the local butcher. By fourteen he was working three different jobs.

What little spare time he had was spent bodybuilding, and he soon transformed himself into a formidable, well-muscled bruiser. “There was nothing of the long-haired poet about schoolboy Connery,” recalls one of his classmates. “He was big, and he was as hard as nails in an easygoing way, and anyone at school who messed him about got a thick ear and a black eye.” After opening up a can of whoop-ass on a gang of local bullies one day, kids on the street started respectfully calling him “Big Tam.” Later “Shane” became an alternate moniker, inspired by the 1953 film. According to one version of the story, years of neighborhood use eventually corrupted Shane into Sean, and thus Tommy Connery’s reputation for toughness earned him the name that would one day adorn theater marquees around the world.

From early on, Sean found himself looking for some way to escape the claustrophobic slums of postwar Edinburgh, where generations of lower-class workers slaved away in quiet toil only to have sons and grandsons repeat the whole business ad infinitum. At sixteen he abandoned school and joined the Merchant Navy (a pair of tattoos stenciled on his right forearm — “Mum and Dad” and “Scotland Forever” — gave him the requisite Popeye look), but a year later he was mustered out on medical grounds from an ulcer. He spent the rest of his teens bumming around town as an “odd-job man”: steelworker, road worker, coal delivery man, cement-mixer, lifeguard, artist’s model, newspaper press-room worker, and bouncer at the local Big Band dance hall.

It was while serving as a polisher of tables and coffins that a co-worker introduced him to stagehand work at King’s Theater, and the exposure gave Connery the acting bug. When he and a friend later went to London to compete in the Mr. Universe contest on a lark (Connery says he placed third in the tall men’s class, others insist he didn’t make the cut), his ears perked up when someone mentioned that the touring show for South Pacific was on the lookout for burly actors who could sing. Connery crashed the audition, won a job, and was soon traveling all around the British Isles performing six evenings a week as a grunt in the chorus.

Mingling with professional actors for the first time prompted the high-school dropout to begin educating himself with Ibsen, Proust, Tolstoy, Stanislavski, and Thomas Wolfe. At a party he met another young actor named Maurice Micklewhite, and soon the two blue-collar thespians were commiserating about their troublesome accents (a Scottish brogue in Connery’s case, a Cockney twang for Micklewhite). This new pal would eventually change his name too, inspired by a 1954 Bogart movie poster, and thereafter Sean Connery and Michael Caine would remain lifelong friends.

Connery’s athletic prowess was such that, after a soccer match between the cast of South Pacific and a local team, he was offered a professional contract with Manchester United. After thinking over his options, however, he turned it down, choosing instead to keep hammering away at the frustrating but ultimately fulfilling acting game. “One of my more intelligent moves,” Connery later quipped.

A lucky break came when Jack Palance suddenly pulled out of a BBC production of Requiem for a Heavyweight, causing the director to take a wild chance on a physically imposing but still largely untested Scotsman. Connery put in countless hours of practice learning his lines and molding a serviceable American accent, and when the play appeared on TV reviews were good. In the wake of this success, Twentieth-Century Fox’s British office signed the twenty-seven-year-old to a studio contract. which Connery would later say was akin to “walking through a swamp in a bad dream.” Over a period of years Fox didn’t use him in a single project, choosing instead to occasionally loan him out to other studios for a quick buck.

Terence Young, who would direct three early Bond films (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball), remembers working with the young Connery on an early movie shoot. “He came to me and said in that very Scots accent of his, ‘Sir, am I going to be a success in this?’” Touched by this display of hopeful innocence, and impressed by his raw if unfinished talent, the director leveled with the struggling actor: “No — but keep on swimming. Just keep at it, and I’ll make it up to you.”

And that’s exactly what Connery did, acting in whatever films Fox loaned him out for. One day, on the set of Another Time, Another Place (1958) co-starring Lana Turner, her notorious hoodlum boyfriend Johnny Stompanato stormed the set and began waving a gun at the Scotsman, threatening to pump Connery full of holes if he should touch the legendary beauty. In an instant the Big Tam of old roared to life, leaping out of his chair like a panther, twisting the gun away, and sending the gangster flying with a wallop to his nose. Still later Connery would star in the one high-point of his Fox contract: Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959), a performance made possible by a timely loan-out of the actor to Disney. The film was the usual Magic Kingdom success (Connery’s rendition of “Pretty Irish Girl” was even released on the radio as a single), and ultimately it would become an instrumental stepping stone to Bond.

Throughout the Fifties various parties had optioned the rights to James Bond, but all of those efforts resulted in nothing more than a single, mediocre 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale. It wasn’t until the early Sixties that a pair of aging, on-the-rocks movie producers named Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman made the whole thing work. Crucially, after negotiating the rights, they hired Terence Young as their director. Soon after getting the gig, Young attended a play in England and noticed that one of the muscular figures up on stage looked familiar. It was that kid — Sean what’s-his-name — who had so impressed him years earlier. Remembering his old promise to give him a boost someday, the wheels started turning: could this fellow possibly handle the Bond assignment?

He mentioned Connery to Broccoli, who did his own research by taking his wife to see a reissue screening of Darby O’Gill. When she began panting over the actor’s raw sex appeal, the producer’s interest was piqued. One meeting later and Connery had the job. “He bounced across the street like he was Superman,” marveled Broccoli about their first encounter. “He moved like a cat. That did it for us. Harry and I both said, ‘This is the guy.’”

“We’d never seen a surer guy,” Saltzman added. “Or a more arrogant sonofabitch!” Connery later explained that he deliberately gave off that impression during their initial confrontation. “My strength as an actor, I think, is that I’ve stayed close to the core of myself, which has something to do with a voice, a music, a tune that’s very much tied up with my background experience.” That voice, that music, harkens back to the mean streets of the Edinburgh slums, when a muscled kid named Big Tam once faced down gangsters and gained the respect of the neighborhood.

The execs at United Artists weren’t convinced by Broccoli and Saltzman’s enthusiasm, cabling them back from America with a curt request to “See if you can do better.” But the minds of the two producing partners were all made up. “Put a bit of veneer on that tough Scottish hide,” Broccoli promised, “and you’ve got Fleming’s Bond instead of all the mincing poofs we had apply for the job.”

The “bit of veneer” was provided by director Young, a man of fine tastes and manners who took Big Tam under his wing and taught him how to act sophisticated. Young decked Connery out in the finest clothes from Savile Row using his own tailor, and continually coached the actor in the nuances of creating a polished performance (“Sean, do keep your mouth shut while chewing your food!” “Tone down that bloody Scottish brogue!”). Soon Connery was looking and acting the part, to the point where movie critic Pauline Kael would gush that, “Connery looks absolutely confident in himself as a man. Women want to meet him and men want to be him. I don’t know any man since Cary Grant that men have wanted to be so much.”

Although the transformation sent the movie’s producers over the moon, the character’s creator took a bit more convincing. “I don’t think [Ian Fleming] approved of me terribly,” Connery later said. “But he did have casting rights over the film, so I guess he must have come round to the idea.” Fleming initially dismissed Connery as “that laborer playing Bond,” but once the first few films were successful he changed his tune, going so far as to adopt Connery’s Scottish background for the Bond of the books.

For those of us who wish Connery could have played Bond all the way up to the present day, the way his participation in the series ended was unfortunate. Compared to what Broccoli and Saltzman were making, Connery’s share of the burgeoning 007 pie was small, with only a fixed salary and a bit of profit participation to offset all the hell that Bond’s fame was playing with his life. Meanwhile, his image was being used on all manner of merchandise (toys, cars, aftershave — hundreds of products in all) without him getting so much as a cent for it:

I was paying 98% tax. I was making all this money and making movies and I had nothing. . . . Basically I’m a private person, and the Bond producers wouldn’t let me be that. I’d work six days a week, all day, with much of the work physical, then have to spend every free moment answering stupid questions like, “Do you like to beat people up? Slap women around?”

As the character’s popularity reached insane levels with the release of Goldfinger, Terence Young (slated to direct Bond’s next adventure, Thunderball) sensed Connery’s dismay with his stardom, and advised the producers that they would be wise to take the actor on as a full partner. “He’s a Scotsman,” Young argued. “He likes the sound of gold coins clinking together. He likes that lovely soft rustle of paper. He’ll stay with you if he’s a partner, but not if you use him as a hired employee.” Broccoli and Saltzman rejected the idea out of hand. In their opinion, Connery was getting more than enough for his trouble, and could be replaced fairly easily if needed. “All I ever did to Sean Connery,” Broccoli later said, “was make him an international star and a very, very wealthy man.”

Insulted by their stinginess and tired of the demands put on his time and life, Connery would grudgingly finish out his contract with Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967), then after a one-film hiatus commit to a final movie, Diamonds Are Forever (1971), so that he could donate his million-dollar paycheck to charity. But even as he appreciated what 007 did for his career, he left the fold with bitter feelings towards the two producers who, in his judgment, got filthy rich while he did most of the heavy lifting. “I’ve been screwed by more people than a hooker,” he said in disgust at the end of his run with the Broccoli outfit. “Bond’s been good to me, but I’ve done my bit. I’m out.”

And except for thumbing his nose at his erstwhile employers with the non-Broccoli-produced Never Say Never Again (1982), he’s stayed out. Like another veteran actor, Gene Hackman, Connery retired almost a decade ago and hasn’t looked back. He now spends his days enjoying “golf, food and drink,” that first item being a passion developed in 1964 while training for Bond’s epic match against The Man With The Midas Touch in Goldfinger.

Decades after his own stint, Connery was asked whether he had any advice to offer the then-new Bond, Timothy Dalton. His answer was only half-joking: “I hope he has a good lawyer.”

Next week in For Conservative Movie Lovers, a look at (and a listen to) the iconic music of Goldfinger.

Previous posts in the series “Ian Fleming, Sean Connery, and Goldfinger”

Part 1 | Part 2

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

Sean Connery: Neither Shaken nor Stirred by Andrew Yule. (Also published as Sean Connery: From 007 to Hollywood Icon.) The world is chock-full of Sean Connery biographies, even though he’s kept pretty mum about his personal life in the decades since he gave up being Bond. I found this one to stand out above the rest by virtue of its anecdotes fueled by superior research and original interviews.

Sean Connery singing “Pretty Irish Girl” in Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959). This great live-action movie is of a kind that Disney gave up making long ago. Judge for yourself whether Cubby Broccoli’s wife was right when she thought that ol’ Big Tam displayed here the requisite sex appeal for his future role as James Bond.

Barbara Walters vs. Sean Connery! Watch Walters ambush Connery in typical leftist sneak-attack fashion, pitting her practiced feminist high dudgeon against his relaxed masculinity. Will he crack under the withering disapproval of this liberal-news-network Lady Macbeth? Or will he end up, in typical Bond fashion, “Neither Shaken Nor Stirred”?

Sean Connery — AFI Award Tribute. A nice 2006 career-capping speech from a class act.

Born in 1916 in Brooklyn, Gleason was no stranger to tragedy. His sickly brother died when he was three, and his mother died when he was nineteen. But it was his father vanishing that gouged the biggest hole in his soul. “I was about nine when one day my pop didn’t come home,” Gleason said in later years. “A few days before, my mom and he had a violent argument and he took every picture out of the house that had him in it. That should have been the tip-off, but I was too young to know.”

The sudden loss sent both him and his mother into an emotional tailspin. “On Christmas Eve, Mom and I went to midnight mass at Our Lady of Lourdes church. I prayed that Pop was still alive — and that he would come back to us. I was scared to death.” But all the prayers came to naught, and his dad’s disappearance haunted him for the rest of his life:

If he had only dropped by once to say hello. Surely, he must have seen me on TV. Everybody else in the country did. I never was angry about Pop leaving us. I figured there must be something between him and Mom that I didn’t know about. He always was OK with me. He had a great sense of humor, that I do remember.

If he had just dropped by once. Just once.

Gleason’s school years were rebellious, but performing in an eighth-grade play changed his life. At one point a microphone tipped over and the school principal ran out to set it aright. Almost without thinking Gleason looked out at the audience, pointed at the departing principal with his thumb in classic Ralph Kramden fashion, and quipped, “That’s the first thing you have ever done for this school.” It brought the house down, and on the way home his Mom gave him his first review: “You were good — but too damn fresh.” At that moment he knew he wanted — needed — to be on stage.

He began emceeing local auto shows, and by age twelve was frequenting billiard halls and developing into a competent pool shark, a skill that would lend authenticity to his Academy Award nominated performance in The Hustler decades later. After his Mother died he went to downtown New York and began seeking out gigs at bars and nightclubs, and quickly he realized that he was far funnier drunk than sober. Alcohol would become a crutch, a salve, and a joy for the rest of his life.

Through dogged perseverance he clawed his way up to Broadway shows, and eventually caught the attention of Jack Warner, head of the Warner Brothers movie studio, who signed him to a Hollywood contract. Bit parts in movies followed, but it was the budding medium of television that really sent his career into high gear. A series of increasingly successful shows led him to his career triumph, The Honeymooners:

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The now-legendary program was a perfect storm of talent and genius. Various lines from that show and others — “And away we go!”, “How sweet it is!”, “Do you wanna go to the moon?”, “POW! Right in the kisser!”, “Baby, you’re the greatest.” — all became a part of the national vernacular. Gleason became known as a fun-loving carpe diem celebrity and a comedian nonpareil. But by the Seventies, his glory days were long behind him.

Then one day he got a script in the mail from Hal Needham.

The part as written was small and fairly nondescript, but Needham promised he could improvise — every word if need be. Gleason, an improv master who disdained following scripts, was intrigued. Here was a rare, late-career chance to build a character from the ground up, just like in the old days. Just about any other screenwriter/director would have balked at letting an actor toss out the screenplay, but Needham figured that “You’re messin’ with perfection when you try to tell Jackie Gleason how to be funny.”

The movie’s other big star agreed. Since both actors lived in Florida, Burt Reynolds paid his elder a visit. When he asked the old master how he thought the sheriff should be played, Gleason replied with an emphatic, “I see him as talking filthy!” According to Reynolds, he then “did an impression of a Southern sheriff that caused me to fall down laughing. Overly polite to women, Jackie explained, those sheriffs would get the man and say, ‘Look, you sumbitch, what the f*** you think you’re doin’?”

“I knew when Burt and Hal Needham the director wanted me to play that sheriff, I had to come up with something different,” Gleason said later. “The redneck sheriff had been done too often before. That’s why I drew the pencil mustache and came up with the expression ‘sumbitch.’”

There’s a perception among many critics and even fans that Buford T. Justice is a ridiculous clown of a character unworthy of the same respect Gleason gets for earlier roles like Ralph Kramden, Joe the Bartender, and Reginald Van Gleason the Third. In truth, the performance is hardly one-note, or even particularly outrageous. Far from being a hopeless doofus, Sheriff Justice starts out as a formidable adversary. His opening scene shows him (aside for the antics of his dumb son) expertly handling a bunch of kids stripping his son’s wedding car. Throughout the film he veers between the outward politeness and decorum expected of a respected officer of the law, and explosions of frustration at barely missing his wily quarry. It’s a character that has a surprisingly realistic core despite the lunacy of the stunts and the high-octane chases, just as Ralph Kramden could get caught up in the silliest situations and yet always come across as a true, emotionally resonant personality and not a cartoon.

Of course, just like with his past great characters, Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit gave audiences a host of new lines of dialogue to add to the pop-culture vernacular:

“What we’re dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the Law.”

“Put da evidence in da car.”

“I’m gonna barbecue your ass in molasses!”

“Where are you, you sumbitch!?!”

There are comic moments in this movie that have seldom been equaled, and I can still remember the thunderous explosions of laughter that erupted from 1977 audiences watching Gleason on screen. At one point, when a rival sheriff tells him that something “isn’t germane to this situation,” Gleason replies with a seething, “The goddamn Germans got nothing to do with it!” At another juncture, as a long funeral procession has temporarily halted the pursuit, Gleason reluctantly stops his car, removes his hat in a sign of respect, and growls under his breath: “If they’d cremated the sonofabitch, I’d be kickin’ that Mr. Bandit’s ass around the moon by now.”

All of these lines, great and small, were improvised by Gleason on the set, frequently accompanied by gales of laughter from the cast and crew. No expert comedy writers, no years of developing drafts — just a grandmaster bringing forty years of experience to bear on a role with no interference.

“Jackie was brilliant on his own,” Reynolds says, “For instance, it was his idea to have the toilet paper coming out of his pant-leg when he left the Bar-B-Q, which put me on the floor.” A master improviser himself, the younger actor expertly played straight man to Gleason, letting him get most of the big laughs and in the process becoming Gleason’s finest comic foil since Art Carney’s Ed Norton from The Honeymooners. “I have always prided myself on being able to make chicken salad out of chicken shit,” Reynolds says with typical self-effacement, “but Jackie can make it into cordon bleu.”

Smokey and the Bandit helped Gleason as much as Gleason helped it, but it was for all practical purposes his last hurrah. The next year, he suffered a heart attack on stage and had a triple-bypass. He kept acting for another decade, a period that included two terrible Smokey sequels. Smokey II did well (even the thoroughly awful Smokey III made a bit of money) but his other movies flopped, and his health deteriorated with them. He died in 1987, on the heels of his final role, Nothing in Common, with a young Tom Hanks.

In all probability, history will primarily remember him for two roles: Ralph Kramden (there’s even a statue of Gleason as Kramden in front of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey bus terminal) and Buford T. Justice. Of course, not everyone agrees with this assessment. In the single worst biography on Jackie Gleason (and, not coincidentally, the one most embraced by critics and fans on the left), the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author William A. Henry III provides us with an uncharitable description of the aged comedian during the period of his Smokey and the Bandit renaissance. Deriding the often-sweet Bandit as “a coarse movie,” Henry sees the sixty-year-old Gleason as

a pathetic sot. Trapped in the lifestyle and bad habits of the forties while living in a society obsessively self-absorbed with the health consciousness of the eighties, this Gleason was merely a clown, the only interesting element about him the hint of willful self-destruction in his sprees.

With a sneer, Henry goes on to reluctantly grant that, “Gleason claimed to have improvised much of his role, which is not implausible given the general state of the script, and he inspired Burt Reynolds to describe him as the greatest genius Reynolds had worked with (one must note that Olivier, Gielgud, Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman do not adorn Reynolds’ resume.)”

Yes, “one must note,” mustn’t one? This line of attack always cracks me up. Which great American actors, pray tell, have Bergman and Kurosawa adorning their resumes? And are Laurence “Clash of the Titans” Olivier and John “Arthur” Gielgud really not to be spoken of in the same breath as (to take a sampling from Reynolds’ resume) Lee Marvin, Dana Andrews, Darren McGavin, Harry Dean Stanton, Howard Keel, Ossie Davis, Melvyn Douglas, Yul Brenner, Jon Voight, Woody Allen, Gene Hackman, Lotte Lenya, Myrna Loy, Pat O’Brien, Charles Durning, David Niven, Jessica Tandy, Julie Andrews, Clint Eastwood, and Hal Holbrook?

The truth is that Jackie Gleason was a genius, Reynolds’ pride in starring alongside him is perfectly valid, and it is a truly uncharitable soul who sneers at the “lifestyle and bad habits of the forties.” At one point during the filming of Smokey and the Bandit, Gleason was well into his lunchtime cups (friends recall his usual noon repast as being “six double scotches with no ice, no soda, no water, and no food”). Suddenly there was a loud crash — Gleason had fallen backward in his chair, upending it and tumbling to the ground. Heart attack? Stroke? Reynolds and the rest of the crew rushed over. There was the fallen chair, with Gleason’s two legs sticking up in the air behind it and one arm stretched skyward like the Statue of Liberty, holding aloft a cup brimming with booze. From behind the wreckage came muffled laughter and a slurred cry of triumph: “I didn’t spill a drop!”

They called him The Great One for a reason, folks.

Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers, we dig into the production of Smokey and the Bandit, and look at how a neophyte director and a largely improvisational cast managed to create a comedy classic.

Previous posts in the series “Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and Smokey and the Bandit”:

Part 1 | Part 2

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

Jackie Gleason in Modern Drunkard magazine: One of the joys in researching Gleason was discovering this wonderful journal. Part serious effort to turn back the relentless encroachment of the nanny-state where drinking and fun are concerned, part Mad Magazine/National Lampoon laugh-fest, editor Frank Kelly Rich clearly has a blast tweaking the tender sensibilities of the humorless, life-crushing, nightmare Utopians on the Left. But under the jokes and parodies lies a serious and principled defense of basic freedoms and one’s right to engage in a healthy enjoyment and relish of life. Definitely read his excellent overview of Jackie during his prime, and also check out the hilarious “Clash of the Tightest” elimination tournament staged to determine the greatest boozer of all time. You think Gleason has a chance to take the title from the likes of Hemingway, Poe, Bukowski, Thomas, Fitzgerald, Byron, Burton, Ruth, and Bogart? Click on the link to find out.

Here’s a rare YouTube video showing Jackie Gleason coming out for Richard Nixon for President in 1968, at the very height of the hippie madness. “How sweeeet it is!”:

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There’s tons more Gleason material on YouTube — interviews, television clips, even musical numbers he composed. Grab a cocktail and happy browsing.

Though there were no announcements I’m aware of, almost immediately I knew he had retired … because almost immediately there was a disturbance in the force. Sometime during the early eighties, Hackman replaced John Wayne as my favorite working actor and rarely did a year pass without a new Gene Hackman movie – and sometimes there were as many as two or three. So when the movies stopped coming, something just felt off. 

Has there ever been anything like the ”Hackman Chuckle?” He’s such a marvelous actor and could so easily slip his unique  persona into any kind of character he wanted – from Popeye Doyle to Lex Luthor to Little Bill to God Himself – but always the “Hackman Chuckle” came along for the ride; that quiet, understated laugh that could convey anything, from awkwardness to pure evil. I miss it … and I miss Gene Hackman. 

This exclusive clip from an interview set to air tomorrow on The Washington Times Radio Show with Melanie Morgan and John McCaslin only increased my admiration for the former United States Marine and two-time Oscar winner:

Obviously, there’s much to disagree with here, but how refreshing to hear an actor state those positions like a mature adult. No ranting, no insulting rhetoric… And during a five-decade career, I don’t ever remember him saying anything that disappointed.  Better yet, you would never know from Hackman’s work what his politics are. From “Reds” to ”Uncommon Valor,”  from noble military men to crusading left-wing lawyers…

Unless it’s releasing a confessed child rapist on the land, no one cares how movies stars vote or what their personal politics are. How they express those beliefs is what matters, and if they’re not insulting me and mine, attempting to undermine my country during a time of war, hugging mass murderers like Fidel Castro or qualifying forced sodomy as ”not rape-rape,”  go with God, or that red string around your wrist, or whatever…

Like Paul Newman and James Garner, Hackman has something that transcends politics, something too many of his current counterparts do not, and that something is called class.

Top Ten Gene Hackman Movies:

1. The French Connection (1971)
2. Unforgiven (1992)
3. Superman (1978)
4. Hoosiers (1986)
5. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
6. The Conversation (1974)
7. Scarecrow (1973)
8. Mississippi Burning (1988)
9. Crimson Tide (1995)
10. Night Moves (1975)

Top Ten Twelve Underrated Hackman Movies You Should Rent Now:

1. Twice in a Lifetime (1985)
2. Full Moon in Blue Water (1988)
3. Class Action (1991)
4. The Package (1989)
5. Bite the Bullet (1975)
6. Bat 21 (1988)
7. Another Woman (1988)
8. Narrow Margin (1990)
9. Heartbreakers (2001)
10. The Replacements (2000)
11. The Quick and the Dead (1995)
12. Target (1985)

Psychologists say that a parent’s grief over the death of a child is “the most difficult loss to endure and surely among the most difficult to integrate into one’s life” because our children are an enormous part of our legacy, and “in their deaths, a large part of our own future dies.”  The natural order of our lives has been turned upside down, bringing on an emotional chaos.

For the parents of military men and women who have died after volunteering to serve their country and walking into the face of death in the 21^st century’s war on terror, this grief and chaos has been exponentially multiplied by liberal Hollywood.  But one has to actually walk this path to understand it.  The anti-war sentiment and films that have spewed from liberal actors, producers, and directors have burdened our hearts unspeakably as they have served only to aide the greatest enemy our country has ever faced and to deface and demoralize the greatest ambassadors our country has: the men and women who wear the uniforms of the United States military.

Two years following the death in Iraq of our son, Sergeant Patrick Tainsh, age 33, my husband’s only child and namesake, Dave and I walked through the Smithsonian’s history section.  On the walls hung reminders for the reason America fights wars.  One such display read:  “The Axis Powers”:  “Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan pursued territory and power. Underlying Axis ambition were strong beliefs in racial and ethnic superiority that were used to justify wanton slaughter.  When allies joined forces to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan they did so with the resolve that the war could never end in a truce.  The battle required unconditional surrender and replacement of enemy governments.”

As I continued reading the history of that time, I came to the section regarding Hollywood and its great contributions to support the war effort, show American pride and a call for no less than victory.  One display read: “In early 1942, Hollywood released its first patriotism by building morale-boosting movies produced in close collaboration with the U.S. office of war information.  The films pitted heroic Americans against villainous Nazis and fanatical Japanese, depicting a home front united for victory.  Top Hollywood directors made motivational pictures for troops.”

With this reminder of all that had been great about Hollywood, tears of betrayal and anger flowed down my face.  Where was that Hollywood?  Where were the new true Hollywood heroes who could follow their great and brave predecessors like Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Tyrone Power, Steve McQueen, Hugh O’Brien, Sterling Hayden, Gene Hackman, Ed McMahon, Charles Durning, and others who served in the United States Marine Corps? Where were those heroes of support like Ronald Regan, Betty Grable, Jimmy Dorsey and the great Bob Hope?

Why does the 21^st century Hollywood not work to help our troops win our new wars on radical terrorism instead of dividing our nation divided and providing encouragement for the enemy to kill more allied troops and innocent Iraqis?  Instead, top producers and directors turn their backs on the very military men, women, and families that were and still are willing to voluntarily sacrifice to the death to defeat an enemy who would as soon set a bomb to their ostentatious homes or behead their loved ones.  Along with news media, liberal Hollywood has helped paint a false picture for America’s public who continually hears negative information instead of the positive strides that our military has made and continues to make.

While channel surfing one evening I caught a glimpse of Stephen King, whose books have become major Hollywood films. In speaking to a college student audience, King stated that, to write, one must be a voracious reader. He went on to add that he encouraged reading and education so the students wouldn’t end up in places like Iraq.

Again, I was devastated and angry.  King’s words reflected his ignorance regarding the many college diplomas and “through the roof” IQs of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Special Forces, and Navy Seals who are responsible for providing him and those students the very freedoms they would never want to relinquish to radical terrorists.

Our son left behind a letter whenhe died in Iraq.  He said:

I came to help people who couldn’t help their situation.  Maybe someday they will enjoy freedom as we do.  As for me, it was an honor to experience that freedom.  It was an honor to fight and die with an American flag on my shoulder.  Honor.  That’s a big word and some people don’t know what it means.  It’s not something that happens right away, it’s something that builds up inside your soul.

What would Sergeant Patrick Tainsh now say about Hollywood?  Probably this:  “They just don’t know what true honor and freedom is.  That’s why those like me and my comrades exist, because we do know, and it’s our job to try and protect even the ignorant who just don’t ‘get it.’”

Yes, the pain experienced with the death of a child is indescribable, and to have our own country’s greatest powers aide the enemy instead of supporting our troops and families adds to the greatest burden we will ever carry. But as for my family, along with our grief, we are comforted through the memory of having a true hero come from our home to serve our great country – even with its flaws. A memory we can always live with and smile about.  But the memory and pain of the betrayal by a power such as Hollywood in the 21^st century’s fight against worldwide terror is a memory that will forever remain a dark place in our hearts and in history. And maybe this history should be written on the walls of the Smithsonian to remind all how Hollywood has changed from a power to help bring pride and victory for America to a power that is helping to aide the enemy and kill our own.

Deborah Tainsh, mother of Sergeant Patrick Tainsh, February 11, 2004 Iraq