For Conservative Movie Lovers: King Vidor, Wallace Beery and ‘The Champ’ Part 4

Toward the end of the filming of The Wizard of Oz (1939), the picture’s director, Victor Fleming, was suddenly called away to salvage another production that was careening off-track at the studio, Gone with the Wind. The “Oz” portions of the movie, filmed in spectacular Technicolor, were already finished. But the “Kansas” sequences bookending the picture — including the all-important scene showing Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow” on her Depression-era farm — had yet to be shot.

The studio heads called in a oft-used master craftsman named King Vidor to handle the job, and he proceeded in a few weeks to capture on celluloid some of our culture’s most beloved images.

Who was this “King Vidor”?  If you’re a modern conservative movie lover with some smattering of knowledge about classic Hollywood, you may have heard that strange name without really knowing or caring about its import. It sounds vaguely European — perhaps even fake? — and hardly evokes the same smile of recognition as Ford, Hitchcock, Hawks, Wilder. It seems to belong more with names like Curtiz, Lubitsch, Cocteau, Kurosawa — foreign-sounding, arty-farty names, ones only a geeky film aficionado could love.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: academy awards, Akira Kurosawa, alfred hitchcock, Americanism, Ben Hur (1907)
Posted Jan 30th 2010 at 7:09 am in Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Film | 30195829 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2010/01/30/for-conservative-movie-lovers-king-vidor-wallace-beery-and-the-champ-part-4/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+King+Vidor%2C+Wallace+Beery+and+%E2%80%98The+Champ%E2%80%99+Part+42010-01-30+15%3A09%3A19Leo+Grin

What the Democrats Can Learn from the Beatles

Forty years ago this week the cover photo for the “Abbey Road” album was taken, representing the final walk of the Beatles as a rock group.

Fourteen days later, on August 22nd, they posed together for a final promotional photo shoot, which was their last appearance together at any Beatles event. Although one more album was released (”Let it Be”), “Abbey Road” was the last album recorded by the band, which was already virtually dissolved as a unit. Yet the album was a great artistic and commercial success. The “Let it Be” album was intended to be released first, but the group did not think it ready. They moved on to record “Abbey Road” and released it on September 26th and October 1st, 1969, respectively, in the UK and the US. The cover photo, fittingly designed by Paul (as he was the only member who had a passion to keep the group together; even as he finally sued to end the partnership), depicts the band’s final crossing of “Abbey Road,” toward their studio home of the prior eight years. Ironically, even bizarrely, convicted murderer and “wall of sound” creator, Phil Specter, did the final mixing in 1970 of several songs on “Let it Be,” almost as an audition. He was not aware there would be no more Beatles, although he did some work for Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: "Across the Universe", "Buddy Holly and the Crickets", "I Wanna be Your Man", "Let it Be", Abbey Road
Posted Aug 12th 2009 at 10:50 am in Culture, Politics | 20353084 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mrulle/2009/08/12/meet-the-beatles-aug-9-noon/What+the+Democrats+Can+Learn+from+the+Beatles2009-08-12+17%3A50%3A35Michael+S.+Rulle+Jr.