#griff barnett

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Criss Cross (1949) Robert Siodmak

December 10th 2023

[gatutor]

Olivia de Havilland-Griff Barnett "La vida íntima de Julia Norris" (To each his own) 1946, de Mitchell Leisen.

[kwebtv]

The Rescue of Dr. Beanes - ABC - June 21, 1955

A presentation of "The Cavalcade of America"

Historical Drama

Running Time: 30 minutes

Stars:

Donald Murphy as Francis Scott Key

Paula Raymond as Polly Key

Byron Palmer as Ferdinand Durang

Anthony Eustrel as Alexander Cochrane

Griff Barnett as Dr William Beanes

Barry Bernard as George Cockburn

Jonathan Hale as James Madison

Sam Flint as Nicholson

Christopher Dark as Richard West

Robin Hughes as British Colonel

Philip Tonge as Robert Ross

Clark Howat as John Stuart Skinner

Richard Reeves as British Sergeant

The story of how Francis Scott Key came to write the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry" which became "The Star Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States of America.

[mariocki]

Scandal Sheet (1952)

"You wanted to be a big man, Mark. This will make you famous beyond your most ambitious dreams. Great story? I've waited all my life for a story like this."

"Well, you've got it, Charlie. But you're not going to write it."

[michigandrifter]

The Duel At Silver Creek 1952

[ozu-teapot]

Scandal Sheet | Phil Karlson | 1952

Griff Barnett, John Derek, Donna Reed, Broderick Crawford

[dweemeister]

To Each His Own (1946)

When Olivia de Havilland passed away at 104 years of age last July, she was one of the last-surviving major stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The Golden Age mostly corresponds to the Hollywood Studio System in place at the time. In that system, studios contracted actors, directors, screenwriters, composers, costume designers, cinematographers, and more – sometimes loaning their personnel out to other studios. Before making To Each His Own, de Havilland sued her previous employer, Warner Bros., for unlawfully suspending her after she rejected a role as well as adding six months to her contract because of the suspension. De Havilland won her court case and the De Havilland Law remains in Californian law books today. But a furious Jack Warner retaliated, conspiring with other Hollywood executives to blacklist De Havilland by calling the actress “difficult” to work with.

For three years de Havilland went without work in Hollywood. During that time, she busied herself with productions of Lux Radio Theatre, volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen, and entertained American troops in the Pacific theater as part of a USO tour. Nevertheless, as one of the best-regarded actresses in Hollywood even before Warner’s blacklisting attempts, she was too good an actress for producers not to be interested in her services. In 1945, after signing a two-film deal with Paramount, de Havilland began work on a star vehicle for her, the melodrama To Each His Own. De Havilland enjoyed the screenplay by Charles Barckett (1939’s Ninotchka, 1950’s Sunset Boulevard) and Jacques Th��ry (primarily a novelist; 1942’s Joan of Paris), but believed it could be improved with revisions and a director she had confidence in. Her first choice for director was Mitchell Leisen, who guided de Havilland to an Academy Award nomination in the romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Leisen reluctantly agreed to take up the project but, as de Havilland started developing her character as the production progressed, he knew he had a worthwhile production on his hands. He was right, and so were de Havilland’s instincts – To Each His Own may not distinguish itself technically, but the acting and revised screenplay elevate this melodrama.

Somewhere in London, a middle-aged American woman named Josephine “Jody” Norris (de Havilland) is walking the city’s blacked-out streets (as mandated by the government) on New Year’s Eve. It is World War II, and Jody volunteers herself some nights to be a fire warden. On this holiday evening, only she and Lord Desham (Roland Culver) are in the office. After some persuasion from Desham, the two head out for tea. While at tea, Jody learns a Gregory Piersen is arriving in London on a late train. Immediately, she leaves teatime with Lord Desham and dashes to the train station. There, in flashback, we learn that Jody was the daughter of her pharmacist father (Griff Barnett) in a small town named Piersen Falls. During World War I, a dashing U.S. Army Air Service fighter pilot Bart Cosgrove (John Lund in one of two roles) visits for a bond rally. Unexpectedly, and without anyone suspecting a thing, they fall in love. After hearing Bart has perished overseas, and a pregnant Jody decides to have and raise their child. She attempts to choreograph her own pregnancy, delivery, and first days of motherhood by making it appear as if she has “adopted” her own baby – all to avoid local scandal. An unfortunate twist of fate means that she will have to surrender her son, Gregory (nicknamed “Griggsy”), and watch him grow without the knowledge of his true parents.

Also starring in To Each His Own are Mary Anderson as Corinne Piersen, Phillip Terry as Alex Piersen, Bill Goodwin as Mac Tilton, Virginia Welles as Liz Lorimer, and a sassy Victoria Horne as Nurse Daisy Gingras.

Released in the spring of 1946, one can imagine how audiences might have viscerally reacted to the film’s setting. Through the Second World War, American audiences flocked to a greater proportion of patriotic movies intended to rally morale, propaganda, and war movies that became less sanitized as the war itself dragged on. Films concerning civilian self-sacrifice during this period typically downplayed said self-sacrifice for nationalism. To Each His Own embeds themes of wartime sacrifice into its subtext, even if the film does not directly link Jody’s decades-long personal sacrifice to the Allied effort in World War II. That Brackett and Théry allow Jody to be an imperfect, morally challenged protagonist is a development not often seen in melodramas where a mother gives up their child (a subcategory within the subgenre; see 1931’s The Sin of Madelon Claudet and 1939’s The Old Maid). In the film’s final act, we see Jody skirting the boundaries of what would be the right thing to do. While taking care of a young Gregory (his adopted parents, sympathetic to her plight, allow her babysitting privileges), she wants to do what is best for her son, but sometimes this might rub up against the parental rights of Gregory’s adopted parents.

In Jody, the viewer intuits her desire for love and the unbearable separation – in extraordinary circumstances – of mother and son. For the parents among the audience members who saw To Each His Own during its theatrical run, similar emotions must have coursed over them for most of the film. Permanent and temporary separations from loved ones can wreak havoc on a person’s psychology. Brackett and Théry’s screenplay is sensitive to this trauma and resolve it in a way as touching as the Motion Picture Production Code (the self-censoring guidelines enforced upon major American studio movies from 1934-1968) would allow. The Production Code Administration (PCA), which enforced the Code, frowned upon the fact that Gregory was an illegitimate child born out of wedlock and requested wholesale changes to the film’s resolution of its-child separation.

While negotiating with the PCA, Brackett succeeded in arguing that the film’s ending was the only sensible conclusion for To Each His Own. Despite winning the argument, Brackett made concessions in order to keep his ending, including having several characters treat Jody’s affair as sinful in scenes leading up to and just after Gregory’s birth. Not that the compromises compromise the film too much. Given cultural norms in the early twentieth century, the amount of screentime concerning Jody’s potential shame if her secret was revealed feels appropriate. The intentions from the PCA might have been to moralize, but To Each His Own does not overcompensate for its lead character’s supposed immorality. And if the film’s preserved ending may not satisfy persnickety viewers too focused on narrative probability, it is at the very least a poignant and deserved conclusion.

Over the course of the story’s three decades, Olivia de Havilland must transform from a naïve young adult reveling in her attractiveness to men to a hardened, middle-aged spinster who has all but put her past behind her. While de Havilland utilized different perfumes to evoke Jody’s mentality for progressing time periods, makeup supervisor Wally Westmore (1953’s The War of the Worlds, 1958’s Vertigo) and costume designer Edith Head (1950’s All About Eve, 1973’s The Sting) and their teams subtly guide the viewer to realize Jody’s character growth even before she utters a word. Harsher lighting over the passing time periods also assists in making de Havilland look older. In time, Jody – once a somewhat sheltered, but flirtatious assistant in her father’s drugstore – loses her playfulness and vivaciousness, but retains an insecurity over social tact. That insecurity is evident when she encounters an adult Gregory, who appears to have no recollection of who he once called “Aunt Jody”. The viewer sees the simultaneous hope, fearfulness, and suppressed agony on her face when adult Gregory is not looking her direction. Everything de Havilland has done up to this point in her performance – her witticisms and pointed requests, wordless joy and sorrow – suffuses the final half-hour with Jody’s regrets and desire to be the mother she never could be. All of Jody’s frailties and inner strength pour through in the end and we, the viewers, feel every hint of embarrassment, fortitude, desire, and self-doubt. This is a masterclass leading performance from Olivia de Havilland, who would deliver an even better performance on the horizon.

Only prominent in the bookends of the film, Roland Culver (1943’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1945’s Dead of Night) provides a charismatic turn as Lord Desham. Culver may not express too much emotionally – those British men and their stiff upper lips are sentimentalists inside, right? – but he has a curious authoritative charm that permeates each scene. Here is a fellow who has garnered a lot of wisdom and a droll wit over his years, but he would rather listen than soliloquize. To Each His Own’s conclusion is not nearly as impactful without Culver as Desham. Unfortunately, one can’t sing the same praises for John Lund in his dual role. In both roles, Lund just seems too stiff and his dialogue delivery sounds too forced at times. This can be somewhat attributed to Lund’s discomfiture in playing a dual role and the brown hair rinse over his naturally blonde hair.

Olivia de Havilland’s return to the silver screen was well-received by audiences and across the film industry. She would not make another film with Warner Bros. until after Jack Warner’s retirement in 1973 (but the less said about 1978’s The Swarm, the better). A career resurgence would follow To Each His Own – this time, she was making movies on her own terms. The precedent established by the Californian state court in De Havilland v. Warner Bros. Pictures continues to protect actors and actresses from contractual exploitation from movie studios and grants them greater creative freedom (and, as of 2009, the precedent now applies to the music recording industry).

The appeal of To Each His Own extended overseas, most notably in a Bollywood remake entitled Aradhana (1969), starring Sharmila Tagore, Rajesh Khanna, and Sujit Kumar. By this point in the review, I’m guessing you, the reader, are a bit fatigued with all the Olivia de Havilland worship. Yet, her importance to the success of To Each His Own is too critical to the film itself and her importance to Hollywood’s history cannot be understated. As good as the costume design, lighting, and supporting performances might be and as emotional as the script is, none of it works without its central star.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[killadelphia]

I listened to a ton of music this year and I wanted to try and make a definitive list of my favorites, so here are the albums and EPs I loved from 2021

EPS

1. Militarie Gun - All Roads Lead To The Gun, All Roads Lead To The Gun II

2. Beach Bunny- blame game

3. Tierra Whack - R&B, Pop

4. Burial, Blackdown - Shock Power of Love EP

5. Tkay Maidza - Last Year Was Weird, Vol 3

6. Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

7. Sorry - Twixtustwain

8. Meet Me @ The Altar - Model Citizen

9. Move - Freedom Dreams

10. Action News - Failed State

11. Pinkshift - Saccharine

12. Hey, ILY! - Internet Breath

13. Bruce Lee Band - Division in the Heartland EP

14. Bone Cutter - Bone Cutter

15. Poppy - Eat

16. Spill Tab - Bonnie

17. GEL - Violent Closure

18. Sainte- Local MVP

19. Alice Longyu Gao - High Dragon and Universes

20. SOUL GLO - Dis***** Vol 1, Dis****** Vol, 2

21. Frances Forever - paranoia party

22. No Longer At Ease - No Longer At Ease

23. UNIQU3 - Heartbeats

24. Mikau & ps.you’redead- razor x blade

25. Francis of Delirium - Wading

26. Boyish - We’re all gonna die, but here’s my contribution

27. Blair - Tears to Grow

28. Arm’s Length - Everything Nice

29. Fresh - The Summer I Got Good At Guitar

30. Elliot Lee - Queen Of Nothing

31. ELIO - Can You Hear Me Now?

ALBUMS

1. girl in red - if I could make it go quiet

2. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR

3. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever

4. Pinkpantheress - to hell with it

5. Turnstile - Glow On

6. Tyler, The Creator - Call Me If You Get Lost

7. MARINA - Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land

8. Jeff Rosenstock - SKA DREAM

9. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg

10. Sleaford Mods- Spare Ribs

11. Jazmine Sullivan -heaux tales

12. Ashnikko- DEMIDEVIL

13. Doja Cat - Planet Her

14. Illuminati hotties - Let Me Do One More

15. Amyl and The Sniffers - Comfort To Me

16. UPSAHL - Lady Jesus

17. Pom Pom Squad - Death Of A Cheerleader

18. WILLOW - lately I feel EVERYTHING

19. Section H8 - Welcome to the Nightmare

20. slowthai - TYRON

21. Claud- Supermonster

22. Colleen Green - Cool

23. Dave - We’re All Alone In This Together

24. The Marias - CINEMA

25. Shame- Drunk Tank Pink

26. Noga Erez - KIDS

27. BIA - FOR CERTAIN(deluxe)

28. Jorja Smith - Be Right Back

29. Goat Girl - On All Fours

30. Danny L Harle - Harlecore

31. Fiddlehead - Between The Richness

32. Rid of Me - Traveling

33. J. Cole - The Off-Season

34. Aya - im hole

35. Squid - Bright Green Field

36. Baby Queen - The Yearbook

37. Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time

38. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails over the Country Club

39. Deb Never - Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

40. Boys Noize - +/-

41. Home Is Where - I Became Birds

42. Planet 1999- Devotion (deluxe)

43. Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure

44. The Chisel - Retaliation

45. Scowl - How Flowers Grow

46. Pet Symmetry - Future Suits

47. Chubby and the Gang - The Mutt’s Nuts

48. Pretty Sick - Come Down

49. Mogwai - as the love continues

50. Griff - One Foot In Front Of The Other

51. Viagra Boys - Welfare Jazz

52. One Step Closer - This Place You Know

53. Hayley Williams - FLOWERS for VASES/ descansos

54. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

55. Crumb - Ice Melt

56. Inhaler - It Won’t Always Be Like This

57. Radiohead - KID A MNESIA

58. Death Cab For Cutie - The Photo Album (Deluxe Edition)

59. Sugababes - One Touch (20 year anniversary edition)

60. Amy Winehouse - At The BBC

[honeyjets]

All the bands I saw at Primavera Sound

Yasmin Williams

Amyl and the Sniffers

Khruangbin

Griff

Cazzu

Tarta Relena

Big Thief

Metronomy

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Charli XCX

Mdou Moctar

Tyler, the Creator

Sampa the Great

Hurray for the Riff Raff

Tops 

Brittany Howard

Courtney Barnett

Stella Donnelly

Lorde

The Strokes

M.I.A.

Genesis Owusu ^

Angel Bat Dawid

Paranoid 1966

La Zowi

Shellac

The Weather Station

Celeste

Pantocrator * ~

Sky Ferreria

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

LaBlackie

Tame Impala

Angèle

Mura Masa

Viagra Boys

* Pictured

~ The Best

^ Honorable mention

[jakobdodson]

2021 in Music

Here is a note about the music I listened to in 2021. I hope you enjoy it!

Favorite Albums of 2021

Promises - Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra

I could cheese it up and try to articulate something about how Promises can imbue wonder into the ordinary and blah blah blah... but I like the way this review from Paste puts it: 

“Promises is the kind of album that can rearrange the molecules in the room.”

Word.

I remember studying for the LSAT one Saturday morning earlier this year and deciding to put this one on. I thought it was boring. “Mmm... nice background music!”, or so I thought.

By Movement 6, I had a thousand yard stare and onset existential crisis.

How often do I give my full attention to really listening? (and not just to music...) How often is it taken from me? 

Pretty rare, in my experience. For better or for worse.

Anyway, shoutout to this one for inflicting irreparable damage to my LSAT score!

Favorite Songs:

Movement 6

Movement 7

Movement 8

I Don’t Live Here Anymore - The War On Drugs

Sometimes something finds you at the right moment; a relationship, a nice view, the peanut butter bacon burger at Fat Guys...

I spun this one over and over and over and I think its because it found me at a good time? Musically, lyrically... it really moved me.

“Feel the storm coming on Feel the darkness at your gate Live the loneliness of life Keep on moving at your pace Ain't the sky just shades of gray Until you seen it from the other side? Oh, if loving you is the same It's only some occasional rain”

Just shades of gray, indeed.

Favorite Songs:

Harmonia’s Dream

Change

I Don’t Live Here Anymore (feat. Lucius)

Occasional Rain

_______________________________________________________________________

Runners up

Ignorance - The Weather Station

Talk Memory - BADBADNOTGOOD

My Morning Jacket - My Morning Jacket

Music For Psychedelic Therapy - Jon Hopkins

An Overview on Phenomenal Nature - Cassandra Jenkins

Far In - Helado Negro

Day/Night - Parcels

Liked It

Sympathetic Magic - Typhoon

Two Saviors - Buck Meek

Good Woman - The Staves

A Billion Little Lights - Wild Pink

L.W. - King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

CARNAGE - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

As the Love Continues - Mogwai

Yol - Altin Gün

The Pet Parade - Fruit Bats

Collections From The Whiteout - Ben Howard

Green to Gold - The Antlers

G_d’s Pee AT STATES END - Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Head of Roses - Flock of Dimes

Music - Benny Sings

MAYBE WERE THE VISITORS - Page McConnell

Bright Green Field - Squid

Cicada Waves - Ben Seretan

Fire In Little Africa - Fire In Little Africa

Long Lost - Lord Huron

Butterfly 3000 - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Quietly Blowing It - Hiss Golden Messenger

Home Video - Lucy Dacus

I Know I’m Funny haha - Faye Webster

The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers - Valerie June

SOUR - Olivia Rodrigo

Jubilee - Japanese Breakfast

BLONDIE - Nick Midnight

Gold-Digger Sound - Leon Bridges

One Foot In Front Of The Other - Griff

The Ballad of Dood & Juanita - Sturgill Simpson

Lost Futures - Marisa Anderson & William Tyler

Local Valley - José González

Big Bend (An Original Soundtrack for Public Television) - Explosions In The Sky

Year Of The Spider - Shannon & The Clams

Music Of The Spheres - Coldplay

Donda - Kanye West

Projector - Geese

Valentine - Snail Mail

Pressure Machine - The Killers

Infinite Granite - Deafheaven

Tethers - Minor Moon

An Evening With Silk Sonic - Silk Sonic

30 - Adele

Things Take Time, Take Time - Courtney Barnett

How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? - Big Red Machine

Cerulean - Nashville Ambient Ensemble

Meh

For the first time - Black Country, New Road

Little Oblivions - Julien Baker

New Long Leg - Dry Cleaning

Sketchy - Tune Yards

Ice Melt - Crumb

Star-Crossed - Kacey Musgraves

Sob Rock - John Mayer

Afrique Victime - Mdou Moctar

Audio Drag for Ego Slobs - Gustaf

Certified Lover Boy - Drake

Queens of the Summer Hotel - Aimee Mann

Dark in Here - The Mountain Goats

Haven’t listened yet...

Silver Dream - Moon Taxi

Strawberry Mansion - Langhorne Slim

Medicine at Midnight - Foo Fighters

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - New Fragility

As Days Get Dark - Arab Strap

When You See Yourself - Kings of Leon

Reincarnation - BONZIE

The Million Masks of God - Manchester Orchestra

Convocations - Sufjan Stevens

Daddy’s Home - St. Vincent

Changephobia - Rostam

Blue Weekend - Wolf Alice

CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST - Tyler, The Creator

Alem - Altin Gun

Peace Or Love - Kings Of Convenience

Elsewhere - Hammock

Trespass on Foot - Kiran Leonard

Petunia - Tonstartssbandht

Raise the Roof - Robert Plant & Allison Kraus

Which Way to Be Happy - Penelope Isles

Henki - Richard Dawson & Circle

Long Lost - Lord Huron

Not from 2021 (Albums that weren’t released this year, yet finally clicked for me):

Naturally - J.J. Cale

American Stars ‘N Bars - Neil Young

Youth Pastoral - Ben Seretan

Aja - Steely Dan

The Royal Scam - Steely Dan

Exile On Main Street - The Rolling Stones

Look-Ka Py Py - The Meters

Capacity - Big Thief

UFOF - Big Thief

Departure Songs - Hammock

Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow - Hammock

Live Vol. 1 - Parcels

Wildflowers - Tom Petty

Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town - Emmylou Harris

Wrecking Ball - Emmylou Harris 

Concerts Attended in 2021:

Jon Fullbright & Patty Griffin - Woody Guthrie Folk Festival - Guthrie, OK - 7/16/21

Phish - Walmart AMP - Rogers, AR - 7/28/21

Links to past lists:

10 Albums that changed my life, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

_________________________________________________

Happy Listening!

Jake

[citizenscreen]

Banned and Blacklisted: Elia Kazan's PINKY (1949)

Banned and Blacklisted: Elia Kazan’s PINKY (1949)

There were at least five movies in production in 1949 that dealt with racial issues. Of those producer Darryl F. Zanuck‘s Pinky generated the most buzz. Throughout his storied career, Zanuck proved that he was as adept at crowd pleasing entertainment as he was at message pictures. He had by that point produced such classics as Mervyn LeRoy’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), John Ford’s T…

[letterboxd-loggd]

Two of a Kind (1951) Henry Levin

November 20th 2021

[neareport]

NEA District Fair announces 2022 entertainment lineup

NEA District Fair announces 2022 entertainment lineup

Monday, September 26: 7:00                 REWIND BAND ARKANSAS Richard, Randy, Darrell and Bob make up the four-piece band REWIND playing their mix of classic country and rockabilly. Rewind Tuesday, September 27: 7:00 Griff the Drifter Nine-year old Griffin Evans, “Griff the Drifter”, is a fourth grader at Trumann Elementary School. He got his nickname from his good friend, John Barnett.…

[michigandrifter]

Sierra 1950

[cameracourt]

It’s another Top Ten Tuesday, now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

Way back in November, a TTT topic was all about “characters who would make great leaders of _______”. From brainstorming about that list, I came up with a group of characters who would be more helpful in outdoorsy, adventurous situations. SO, it morphed into this week’s freebie choice: 10 characters who would make great leaders of a camping trip!

From real-life experience, I know you want camping family/friends who are dependable, capable, and able to handle unexpected things. This group would be excellent because of their skills and general knowledge of their respective environments. Some would be helpful in an emergency, others reliable for their survival skills and general adventurous natures.

10 Characters Who Would Make Great Leaders of a Camping Trip

1. Tyler Hawk from Count Me In by Mikal Dawn

I mean, he leads his own ADVENTURE expedition company in the pacific northwest. Paragliding or rafting, anyone?

2. Benny Citrone of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police from A Lesson in Love and Murder by Rachel McMillan

Hello, a Mountie who explores the northern territories? AND has a poetic side!?

3. Jesse Bird from The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn by Lori Benton & 4. Sion Morgan from A Moonbow Night by Laura Frantz

Wilderness and frontier survivors. They can track, hunt, and provide with the best of them.

5. Sadie Boden from No Way Up by Mary Connealy

Her rock climbing skills alone would be handy!

6. Griffin McCray from Cold Shot by Dani Pettrey & 7. Ford Brayden from The Road to Paradise by Karen Barnett

Griff, a park-ranger-turned-detective, is more than capable of handling anything that comes his way. And Ford— well, his park ranger knowledge of the wilderness, foliage, and axe-wielding skills make him capable, too!

8. & 9. Brothers Pete AND Sam Brooks from Rescue Me by Susan May Warren

Many leading characters from this series would work on this list. But these two….. between their search-and-rescue skills and their general hilarious banter (when they’re not at odds with each other), they would both be assets to a team!

10. Paul Rustin from Reclaimed by Jennifer Rodewald & 11. Reese Mitchell from A Twist of Faith by Pepper Basham

I couldn’t make this list without at least a couple good ‘ole country boys! Paul fits that persona, and more. Reese, well, his skill set begins with fire-starting and doesn’t end there! 😉

  Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Characters Who Would Make Great Leaders of a Camping Trip It’s another Top Ten Tuesday, now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! Way back in November, a TTT topic was all about "characters who would make great leaders of _______".

[dweemeister]

Pinky (1949)

Hollywood’s plodding shift to featuring films starring and/or made by non-white people has produced stories and perspectives that have never graced cinemas before. Some of the American films that have stirred me are rooted in racial identity. The 1934 and 1959 adaptations of Imitation of Life are two such examples, and both tackle a subject that has not been addressed in Hollywood for decades – a black person passing as white and the conflicts of identity that inspires. Both versions of Imitation of Life are blessed with heartbreaking acting and ideas rarely uttered or depicted in film history. But I can imagine some viewers dismissing both films without attempting to engage them – the two adaptations have a black female lead that assumes certain “mammy” stereotypes and the 1959 version’s passing daughter character is mixed-race but is not black.

Released by 20th Century Fox, Elia Kazan’s Pinky (based on the novel Quality by Cid Ricketts Sumner) casts Jeanne Crain, a white actress, as the titular character: a fair-skinned black granddaughter who passes as white. It is without question that Crain’s casting undermines Pinky’s wonderful and nuanced message. Fox’s chief executive, Darryl F. Zanuck, and the Breen Office (which enforced the Hays Code) noted that because the title character loves a white man, the film – if it chose a black actress to play Pinky – could face an intense public backlash from "a number of sections of [the United States].” All but twelve states had anti-miscegenation laws in their books in 1949. Compromises were struck between Zanuck and the Production Office. Fox could make the film and keep the interracial romance (the screenplay was written in consultation with NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White) only if a white actress played Pinky. With Crain’s casting, the production moved forward, despite director Elia Kazan’s opposition to Crain’s selection.

On a sweltering day in the Deep South, Pinky Johnson (Crain) has returned to her impoverished rural hometown, hoping to see her grandmother Dicey (Ethel Waters) one final time before returning to the North. Dicey raised Pinky through her childhood and teenage years, with no mentions of allusions to biological or foster parents. Dicey is heartbroken to hear her granddaughter has downplayed her blackness during her time at nursing school, but is happy to learn that Pinky has graduated. To complicate matters, Pinky also tells of her love of a white doctor, Thomas Adams (William Lundigan), to whom she has revealed nothing of her black ancestry to. In addition, while attempting to collect her grandmother’s debts while in town, Pinky is involved in an incident with a Dr. Canady (Kenny Washington) and his significant other, Roselia (Nina Mae McKinney). The police arrive at the scene and apprehend all three. After being fortunately released from custody with just a warning – black people have been killed for far less by American police – Dicey learns that her elderly white neighbor, Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore), is dying and needs a nurse. Pinky, remembering how Miss Em was cruel and disparaging to her during her childhood, decides to extend her stay.

Also appearing in this film are the town’s doctor Joe McGill (Griff Barnett) and the gossiping Melba Wooley (Evelyn Varden, whose character is lacking a moral compass). Juanita Moore has a cameo as a nurse.

From the opening shots of Pinky, it almost feels as if it was shot on location somewhere in the Southern United States. Early in the film, there is an uncut tracking shot clocking in at almost ninety seconds as Pinky walks from the front of Dicey’s shack to the low cast iron gates of Miss Em’s slave-built estate. The sets, almost entirely constructed on a soundstage, are deep enough so that the audience cannot pinpoint the soundstage’s back wall. The foliage looms over dirt roads and buildings – the canopies, blowing in the wind, are never seen. Kazan, in retrospect, criticized his own film for not including the dirt and grime that need not be manufactured with location shooting. But these fabrications – thanks to cinematographer Joseph MacDonald (1958’s The Young Lions, 1966’s The Sand Pebbles) and art directors J. Russell Spencer (1936’s Modern Times, 1946’s Dragonwyck) and Lyle R. Wheeler (1939’s Gone with the Wind, 1956’s The King and I) – still evoke the small-town South. One can feel the humid heat permeating through the night, amid Spanish moss and the racial inequality built into public spaces and homes*. For those who do not live in such places, small dots on a regional map, the scenery envelops the viewer, allowing them to further understand the cultural disorientation of any visitor to Pinky’s hometown.

Though the film is a drama, Kazan borrows horror elements to frame the setting and highlight the racial tension that pervades this Southern town. Expressionist lighting overhangs shots of foggy forests, a graveyard, tight roads, and derelict/near-derelict buildings. During the night, these surrounding appear as if taken from a disturbing lucid dream. The lurking dangers are embodied through the racist and sexist characters that Pinky encounters. With this marriage of setting and supporting cast of flawed characters, Pinky could be classified as a Southern Gothic tale – a subgenre that uses the grotesque to comment on the American South’s culture. Kazan’s filmmaking here awakens the audience to Pinky’s inner turmoil over her racial identity and belonging. Freed from worrying about racial prejudice in the North due to her passing, she is terrified about what it means to be a black woman in the place of her childhood. Miss Em’s cousin, Melba, perhaps exemplifies the white residents’ racial animosity when she meets Pinky for the first time. What she says is a statement of curiosity, an expression of Southern gentility, and a veiled threat all at once: “I heard you were light, but I had no idea. Why, you’re practically white.”

Does Pinky still feel like she belongs to this poor village? That question, among others, has an answer. She must first navigate this racism, for the first time, as an adult. By film’s end and despite all outward appearances of success, it is unclear if Pinky is satisfied with the answer she has uncovered.

The interrogation of Pinky’s blackness truly begins when Miss Em quickly realizes the identity of the young woman tending to her bedside as a hospice nurse. Miss Em, though bedridden, attempts to reinforce her authority over Pinky – a relationship assuming Pinky’s immaturity and based on tacit racial subservience (for the latter, refer to both Imitation of Life films even as the white mother characters fully realize Louise Beavers/Juanita Moore’s humanity). No longer a child, Pinky will not tolerate Miss Em’s racial condescension. It matters not that the patient is drifting in and out of consciousness during her final hours. Miss Em will be more respectful towards Pinky in the face of this bedside manner. Perhaps she is chastened by Dicey’s friendship and the favor that Pinky need not return; perhaps she is admiring of the newfound strength in the young girl she used to berate; perhaps it is due to the drugs coursing through her body. That all or some of these factors can be interpreted as true empowers the film’s final act, as screenwriters Philip Dunne (1941’s How Green Was My Valley), Dudley Nichols (1938’s Bringing Up Baby), Jane White (no other film credits), and Kazan obfuscate any simple resolutions to the film’s sense of racial justice. Pinky validates anyone who might see the film as confirming that the harshest of souls can cool their racist predispositions, or that it is impossible to reform such persons.

Though Jeanne Crain’s casting captured the headlines, the best performances in the film are from the two Ethels. As Miss Em, Ethel Barrymore has little physical acting, so she must rely almost entirely in her verbal deliveries. Alternating between exhausted observation, acidic riposte, and resignation, Barrymore navigates these final hours of her character’s life with the requisite modulations in tone. Despite being on screen for less time than Crain and Waters, Barrymore – as Miss Em – inhabits a character with the most dynamic development, routinely stealing scenes even while confined to bed. Six years after starring and “taking a chance on love” in Cabin in the Sky (1943), the deeply religious Ethel Waters commands yet another accomplished performance in Pinky. As Dicey, she plays probably the least dynamic of the three principal characters, but Waters’ anguish and understated sense of egalitarianism is a fascinating contrast to Pinky’s drifting stoicism upon her arrival at Dicey’s shack. For the Ethels, they are playing roles analogous to those they had previously assumed. But Barrymore’s elderly curmudgeons rarely commented so directly on race; Waters’ hardened maternal figures seldom interacted with white people. Together, they form an imperfect, uneasy coexistence – a postbellum relationship grounded in necessity and deferred acceptance of the other.

Prior to Kazan’s arrival on set, John Ford (1939’s Stagecoach, 1946’s My Darling Clementine) had already directed a significant bulk of Pinky. Viewing the rushes, Darryl F. Zanuck was embarrassed by the footage Ford had shot, stating that, “Ford’s Negroes were like Aunt Jemima caricatures. I thought we [were] going to get into trouble.” Indeed, Ford was a dreadful fit, given the source material and the director’s reputation (Ford’s reputation on making introspective films about racial relations was dire, and he would not possess the basic skillset to make such a film until 1960’s Sergeant Rutledge). The cast, upon learning they were going to work with the best director in Hollywood at the time, were ecstatic the decision until it became clear his abrasive demeanor intimidated Crain and especially Waters. Zanuck quietly dismissed Ford in favor of Kazan (coming off 1947’s Gentlemen’s Agreement, which decried anti-Semitism), stating in public that Ford came down with a case of the shingles. Ford, as you have correctly guessed, never had the shingles. None of Ford’s work survives in the final print of Pinky.

Pinky was justifiably attacked by black critics for Crain’s casting over Lena Horne (who had lobbied for the role). The film, a compromise between 20th Century Fox and the Breen Office, contains mixed messages about racial integration and the nature of interracial friendship and love. The thematic confusion interferes with the film’s obvious, well-meaning intentions and the stellar performances from Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Waters. In its final form, one can only imagine how damaging Pinky may have been if John Ford remained with the production rather than Kazan. Within the artistic constraints of Hollywood studio filmmaking and the regressive perspectives of too many Americans, Pinky inspires a torrent of conflicting emotions as it struggles to form a coherent thesis. In a peculiar way, the muddled messaging is also a reflection of Pinky and mixed-race persons themselves, as they strive to understand what to make of themselves.

My rating: 6.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

* In the scene where Pinky goes to a general store late in the film, notice the racial composition of the customers and how they react to Pinky. Also, Dicey’s shack is aesthetically reminiscent to sharecropper hovels or slave living quarters.