Artists and Their Marching Orders

My old Communist girlfriend was an exotically beautiful actress whose parents had emigrated from Russia and settled in New York City. Nola went to Party meetings and kept up with the correct way to think and behave by reading The Daily Worker. This was back in the fifties. In those days, the bulldog edition of the next morning’s Times, Tribune, News, Mirror and even the Worker would appear at the news stand on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Forty Second Street shortly before midnight. Actors, anxious to read tomorrows review of the latest Broadway play would be waiting there, along with entertainers curious to see if they’d made it into Walter Winchell in the Mirror or Ed Sullivan in the News.

Beautiful Nola was anxious to read the review of the new Off-Broadway show she’d just opened in. The Times and Trib would be covering it but Nola wanted to see what The Daily Worker had to say. Her face fell when she read it. The play was a socially relevant drama, of course, about the struggles of the Negro. She had chosen a dazzling white suit for her wardrobe. The critic said that this was unconscious racism on her part. She had, in fact, picked the suit because it made her boobs look good.  (more…)

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Tags: big hollywood, Moscow, new york, orson bean, Propaganda
Posted Sep 21st 2009 at 5:03 am in Art, Culture, Politics | 22985864 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/obean/2009/09/21/artists-and-their-marching-orders/Artists+and+Their+Marching+Orders2009-09-21+12%3A03%3A49Orson+Bean

Movies We Like: ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ (1959)

There was a time when an “adult film” meant a movie by, for and about adults, not a tawdry tale of some tatted-up, dead-eyed 19-year old with daddy issues numbly coupling in front of a video camera for the gratification of leering, backward-hatted frat boys and twitchy loners with DSL.  They don’t make many truly adult films anymore – to see what you are missing, a good place to start is 50 years ago with 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder. 

Let’s start with the cast:  James Stewart.  George C. Scott.  Lee Remick.  Eve Arden.  Ben Gazzara.  Even Big Hollywood’s own Orson Bean in a supporting part as a doctor who plays a key role in the story.  If you love movies, you only needed to get to the word “George” before you were adding it to your NetFlix queue. (more…)

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Tags: Anatomy of a Murder, Arthur O’Connor, Ben Gazzara, Duke Ellington, Eve Arden
Posted Sep 16th 2009 at 11:51 am in Classic Hollywood, Law, Reviews | 22518661 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/09/16/movies-we-like-anatomy-of-a-murder-1959/Movies+We+Like%3A+%27Anatomy+of+a+Murder%27+%281959%292009-09-16+18%3A51%3A19Kurt+Schlichter

The Suffering of Abu Zubaydah

The Los Angeles Times tries hard to present different viewpoints on its Op-Ed page. But last week, they hit a new low with a column by a lawyer named Joseph Margulies, pleading for mercy on behalf of one of the three terrorists America has water-boarded since 9/11: Abu Zubaydah. Here’s some of what the column said: “Partly as a result of injuries he suffered while he was fighting the communists in Afghanistan, partly as a result of how those injuries were exacerbated by the CIA and partly as a result of his extended isolation, Abu Zubaydah’s mental grasp is slipping away.

“Today, he suffers blinding headaches and has permanent brain damaage. He has an excruciating sensitivity to sounds, hearing what others do not. The slightest noise drives him nearly insane. In the last two years alone, he has experienced about 200 seizures.

“But physical pain is a passing thing. The enduring torment is the taunting reminder that darkness encroaches. Already he cannot picture his mother’s face or recall his father’s name. Gradually his past, like his future, eludes him.” (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, Abu Zubaydah, gitmo, Joseph Margulies, Los Angeles Times
Posted May 5th 2009 at 1:26 pm in Featured Story, Military, Politics | 1266623 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/obean/2009/05/05/the-suffering-of-abu-zubaydah/The+Suffering+of+Abu+Zubaydah2009-05-05+20%3A26%3A01Orson+Bean

Big Hollywood Crew Joins Tea Party Protest

I’ve just come back from the Orange County Tea Party where Big Hollywood contributors Gary Graham, Orson Bean and I addressed the crowd.  It was a breathtaking experience with upwards of 2,000 people in attendance who were, much to the media’s disappointment, civil and and well behaved. This was the ultimate middle-class-Costco-shopper protest…not the work of wealthy millionaires like scaredy-cat Nancy Pelosi would like you to think.  There were no scary skeleton costumes, no Subcomandante Marcos banana-republic-revolutionary vibe, just a diverse crowd of everyday Americans, Democrats and Republicans, gathered to push back an arrogant and increasingly oppressive government.

Yet CNN Correspondent Susan Roesgen (a reporter, not a commentator), came into the Chicago rally with a clear agenda to use code words to harass and harangue peaceful protestors:

What a pathetic display. Susan Roesgen is the devil and if she’s not fired for her mean-spirited display, CNN deserves to fall deeper than 4th place in the cable news rating.

The subtext of my speech–which we intend to post here once we have the video–was that the media is the problem because they ignore and marginalize these tea parties and those Americans who have made them such a success, and I can offer no better evidence than that video of Susan Roesgen, which I saw afterward. (more…)

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Tags: cable news ratings, CNN, Costco, dissent is patriotic, gary graham
Posted Apr 15th 2009 at 7:01 pm in Featured Story, Media Criticism, Politics | 1073505 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/04/15/bill-hollywood-crew-joins-tea-party-protest/Big+Hollywood+Crew+Joins+Tea+Party+Protest+2009-04-16+02%3A01%3A58Andrew+Breitbart

TCM Pick O’ The Day: Wednesday, February 18th

Noon PST – Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) – A small-town lawyer gets the case of a lifetime when a military man avenges an attack on his wife. Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O’Connell Dir: Otto Preminger BW-161 mins, TV-PG

Mature, very well-acted, classic courtroom drama, painstakingly directed by Otto Preminger and just as watchable a second time because knowing the outcome of a great film, even one that climaxes with a verdict, takes nothing away from well-crafted characters, top-notch dialogue, and individual scenes that become living things all on their own. (more…)

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Tags: Arthur O'Connell, George C. Scott, James Stewart, orson bean, Otto Preminger
Posted Feb 17th 2009 at 6:11 pm in Today's Pick | 5369829 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/02/17/tcm-pick-o-the-day-wednesday-february-18th/TCM+Pick+O%27+The+Day%3A+Wednesday%2C+February+18th2009-02-18+02%3A11%3A28John+Nolte

Week #2 Thanks

The big tent that is Big Hollywood got much larger this week. I can’t thank the contributors and the readers enough for the amazing work. I live for refreshing the comments on each post because of the quality of the thought going into all aspects of the site.

Commenters, please keep writing in your own names (and linking to your personal web sites/blogs), if you can. It has helped to keep up the quality.

The media highlight of the week was Rush Limbaugh reading and riffing on Andrew Klavan’s, “Why We Fight.” The most poignant and righteous post was clearly Charles Winecoff’s, “The Awakening of a Dumb (Gay) American.” The comments tell us everything we know about the truth about tolerance on the right. And the lie about tolerance on the left. I am extraordinarily proud to call Charles a patriot, an ally and a friend. (more…)

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Tags: Andrew Breitbart, Andrew Klavan, breitbart, Charles Winecoff, Dirk Benedict
Posted Jan 17th 2009 at 11:31 am in Featured Story, News, Uncategorized | 2247384 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/01/17/week-2-thanks/Week+%232+Thanks2009-01-17+19%3A31%3A04Andrew+Breitbart

Big Thanks: A Really Big Launch, A Really Big Tent, A Really Big Future

What an exhilarating week. Big Hollywood is finally up. Traffic is way better than expected.

Greg Gutfeld is posting his wondrous inanities and many pointed yet not vitriolic salvos have been launched against the intransigent Hollywood left and vital ones aimed at the right — for forfeiting culture to the opposition. Movie and television reviews and historical treatises abound, and we’re even breaking news.

John Ziegler launched a massive story where Sarah Palin unleashed on the media for treating her so unfairly. It is easily the mainstream news media story of the week. Big Hollywood is the site to go to for the inside scoop on Ziegler’s forthcoming documentary, “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected“.

Actor-singer-songwriter Joe Lima in a timely fashion came to bury Guevara, but also put usually reliable director Steven Soderbergh in his place for wasting so much studio money and movie watchers’ time with the execrable, “Che.”

(more…)

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Tags: Andrew Klavan, Ben Shapiro, big hollywood, bill whittle, Bill Willingham
Posted Jan 10th 2009 at 4:53 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment, Featured Story, Media Criticism, Politics, Reviews, Uncategorized | 1400576 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/01/10/big-thanks-a-really-big-launch-a-really-big-tent-a-really-big-future/Big+Thanks%3A+A+Really+Big+Launch%2C+A+Really+Big+Tent%2C+A+Really+Big+Future2009-01-11+00%3A53%3A59Andrew+Breitbart