Anti-Duke

I was talking to my mother a few days ago lamenting that I feel like I am creating gaps in movie education by my dislike of westerns and war movies. My mom suggested a few westerns that I might like including Big Country (with my beloved Gregory Peck), Shane (with Alan Ladd who I also like), and Stagecoach with John Wayne. I have an intense dislike of John Wayne. I don't think that he was that great of actor and it seems like most of his success was due to his friendship with John Houston. With that I mind the first western I decided to watch was High Noon with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. And I decided to read a little about it on Wikipedia and apparently John Wayne (and Howard Hawks) hated it and thought it was Unamerican (in fact Howard Hawks claimed that he made Rio Bravo in response to High Noon) because Will spends time asking for help defending the town (and it sounds like Hawks didn't like that the only one to help Will was his Quaker wife, so maybe Hawks hated Quakers?). And ironically, the Soviet Union didn't like High Noon either because the focus was too much on the individual.  The screenwriter (Carl Foreman who also wrote one of the few war movies I enjoy : The Guns of Navarone) was blacklisted and left the country. John Wayne was involved in getting Carl Foreman blacklisted and claimed he had no regrets about it (Foreman refused to name names at a House Unamerican Activities Committee hearing). So now I feel like I have an additional reason to not like John Wayne.

Don't Tell Rachel

When I was driving to the Olney Theater on less traveled and winding country road, I got a little nostalgic for Vermont.  There was just something about the historic little towns that dotted the road that reminded me of Vermont.  And then I realized I kind of miss living in Vermont with Rachel, Trey, Ellis, and Maddox. 

Theater Talk

I am super behind on my blog posts and I don't have great excuses other than I didn't write them (and I'm sure anyone who reads this blog is super disappointed that I took sooo long).  Any way, a few weeks ago I went to the Olney Theater to see "The 39 Steps" which was an adaptation of the Hitchcock movie/Buchan book.  It wasn't on the main stage but in the lab theater so the theater and stage were smaller which meant the stage design was nontraditional.  There were slats in the floor of the stage so set pieces (like a window or ladders) could be pushed on and off the stage.  The cast was just 4 people with the main character (a wronged man on the run), a woman (who played the 3 women characters), and 2 "clowns" who played the remaining characters (including a Scottish innkeeper couple, shady spies, and vaudeville performers).  The clowns added quite a bit of levity to play, which was probably helped (well, it helped me personally) that one looked like the love child of Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall.  I liked it, but not as much as Hitchcock's version.  And then the following Friday, I took off a few hours from work to go see 1776 (in the last few days of its run) at Ford's Theater.  And it was pretty much incredible.  The theater alone is beautiful with the flags draping the box where Lincoln was assassinated.  There is a museum about Lincoln in the basement (with a focus on his second-term) and one of the most moving displays was all the living former presidents reading the Gettysburg address (so while I may not agree with their specific political beliefs, I can appreciate their oratory skills, even George W. Bush).   And the show was fantastic.  Due to watching the film version every year on the Fourth for many years, I know the words to almost all the songs, which the exception of my two least favorites: Mama Look Sharp and Molasses to Rum. Actually, since we usually watch it on DVD/VHS, it has probably been quite a while since I have listened to those two songs.  But in the stage version, I actually liked Mama Look Sharp (it made me cry) because the staging of this scene created such an atmosphere of intimacy. However, I am unmoved about Molasses to Rum (still creepy!).  The only draw-back to the show was there were eighth grades in the five rows in front of me.  They weren't too talkative but they did stand up for no apparent reason a couple of times.  And at least one did not read his program because he thought intermission was the end (which made no sense plot-wise, Jefferson hadn't even written the Declaration yet).  Having the eighth graders (and their chaperones who were older than me) there, once again reiterated that I am living in the wrong decade or at least the wrong country.  I made sure to dress up to go to the theater but the kids had on short and t-shirts and kept their hats on (and I saw a chaperone wearing what looked like work-out clothes).  I understand that they were probably walking around during the day, but I remember for my eighth grade trip to DC, our group went back to the hotel and changed before we went to see a show (and it was not at Ford's Theater).  Of course, I still enjoyed the whole experience, I only wish that my mother and my sisters could have gone with me.  There are a couple plays over the summer that I am hoping to see including Double Indemnity, Little Shop of Horrors, and something at the Kennedy Center (possibly The Addams Family) and War Horse at the Kennedy Center when it starts in the fall!