A young Dorothy Dandridge appeared
in a handful of Soundies musicals

I’m often asked to participate in documentaries for television and DVD, and normally I don’t agree unless I know the producer’s work. I said yes to the folks from Liberation Entertainment who approached me to appear in a new PBS special about Soundies because Michael Feinstein was involved, and that was my “seal of approval.” I’m happy to report that the show, hosted by Michael, will be airing throughout March on PBS, and it’s a lot of fun to watch. (Here in L.A. it will run March 3 at 7 pm, March 7 at 8:00 and 11:30 pm on KCET. In New York City it will air on WNET March 8 at 8:00 p.m. For more information, go to www.soundiestv.com)

If you don’t know what Soundies are, you should definitely make a point of seeing this show. These three-minute musical shorts were designed to play in a “visual juke box” that enjoyed a vogue of popularity in the early-to-mid 1940s. (I recently watched a Universal B-movie musical from 1944 called Hat Check Honey in which an entire number with Harry Owens and his Royal Hawaiians is played on a Panoram machine.) They enjoyed a revival in the 1980s when film buffs realized they were the direct precursor to music videos and began pulling them off the shelves for use on television and video.

Even the great comedy team of Smith and Dale made a Soundie

I first became acquainted with Soundies many years ago when I started collecting 16mm films. These mini-musicals were readily available very inexpensively, as thousands of prints had been struck during the 1940s. The trick was finding the good ones, which required slogging through an awful lot of dross. It took no genius to snap up anything with Cab Calloway, Spike Jones, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, The Mills Brothers, Gene Krupa, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, or Nat “King” Cole, and locating decent prints of those gems was difficult...but there were other less obvious gems to be unearthed, if one only had the patience. (A standout for oddity is a short featuring a knockabout comedy act called Lowe, Hite and Stanley: one guy who’s very short, one who’s very tall...and the other guy.) Another bonus was discovering nascent stars in the cast: Alan Ladd, Cyd Charisse, Ricardo Montalban, Dorothy Dandridge, Doris Day, Marilyn Maxwell, Yvonne De Carlo, and Gale Storm, to name just a few.

Original prints of these shorts were printed in reverse, because the system of mirrors that rear-projected them on a ground-glass screen required that optical trick. For years I held up mirrors to try to read the opening credits on my prints; imagine the thrill when I produced my first story about Soundies for Entertainment Tonight and discovered that my video editor could “flip” the image!

But whenever I'd buy a reel of "miscellaneous" Soundies
this is what I'd wind up with

I was lucky enough to be in touch with the late songwriter Sam Coslow in the 1970s when I was writing an article about Soundies for my magazine Film Fan Monthly. He was one of the original partners in the Soundies operation, and not only arranged for dozens of acts to appear on camera but wrote original songs as well. Years later I was put in contact with a woman who worked for the Mills Novelty Company in Chicago, manufacturers of the Panoram machines that played these shorts, and she shared her memories with me. I later put that material to good use in an updated article for my Movie Crazy newsletter.

The people who created the Soundies PBS special did their homework well, calling on Mark Cantor, the preeminent collector and archivist of jazz on film, musicians Wynton Marsalis and George Duke, and locating a number of performers who appeared in Soundies, including Kay Starr, Les Paul, Irving Fields, and Ginny Mancini, who was one of Mel Torme’s Mel-Tones. I can’t judge my own involvement with the show but I can tell you that even as someone who’s seen an awful lot of this material I thought the show was fresh and entertaining. I hope it leads to more digging in the vaults.

_____________

CULTURAL AMNESIA

Does anyone out there remember Frankie Laine? I do, and I’m not in my 80s or 90s. He was a pretty big star in his day, with twenty gold records and sales of more than one hundred million discs to his credit. I grew up listening to “Mule Train,” "That Lucky Old Sun," “Jezebel,” “That’s My Desire” and his other durable hits. (My best friend was inordinately fond of “The Cry of the Wild Goose.”)

The obituaries I read following his recent death at the age of 93—buried deep in the newspapers and trade magazines while Anna Nicole Smith was on the front page—were respectable enough, but showed the kind of amnesia (or is it ignorance?) that characterizes today’s entertainment journalism.

The write-ups mentioned that he sang the theme for the hit television series “Rawhide” and performed the title song for Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.

What they didn’t say was that he became so closely identified with Western theme songs—from such popular films as Gunfight at O.K. Corral and 3:10 to Yuma and eight seasons’ worth of “Rawhide”—that hearing his familiar voice during the opening credits of Blazing Saddles gave that film one of its first big laughs in 1974. He even got to perform that theme on the Academy Awards broadcast in 1975 because, although it was a parody, it was nominated for an Oscar as Best Song!

Am I the only one who knows or remembers this? I can’t imagine so, but media coverage of show business—especially show-business history—has hit an all-time low. I even heard one so-called pundit refer to Anna Nicole Smith as a movie star!

Sometimes I feel as if friends and colleagues of mine who chronicle film history and performers who keep the flame of the great American songbook burning brightly are taking on the task assigned to the lamas of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon: chronicling and protecting our popular culture so that some day, when a curious young person expresses interest, there will be some place to turn to.

Frankie Laine is not irrelevant just because he’s no longer at the top of the pop charts, and he shouldn’t be forgotten.

(Incidentally, he recorded several terrific albums of Western tunes, Hell Bent for Leather, Deuces Wild, and Call of the Wild, in the early 1960s with vigorous orchestrations by someone whose name still carries considerable weight in the music world: John Williams—known in those days as Johnny.)

The same issue of Daily Variety that carried Laine’s obit had a story about Viacom putting Famous Music Corp. up for sale. While mentioning that the company was formed in 1928 by Famous Players-Lasky to publish songs from Paramount Pictures’ talking pictures, and alluding to its catalog of 125,000 copyrights, it cited among them songs by Shakira, Daniel Powter, Eminem, and Modest Mouse.

Uh-huh.

Rodgers and Hart wrote "Isn't It Romantic" for this classic musical 75 years ago...and it's still being performed today

Not Rodgers and Hart, Frank Loesser, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, or Victor Young. Their songs have lasted as much as seventy-five years and are still earning substantial income for Famous Music and the songwriters’ estates.

In fact, Famous is famous in the movie industry for placing songs from its catalog in contemporary Paramount films; here is one tangible instance of corporate synergy at work. Almost any time a romantic melody is required in a Paramount feature, you’ll hear Rodgers and Hart’s “Isn’t It Romantic?,” written in 1932 for Love Me Tonight. Just in the last two years it turned up in Last Holiday with Queen Latifah and How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days with Kate Hudson.

Ray Evans (the prolific lyricist who passed away February 15th at the age of 92) once told me how grateful he was to Famous for keeping the songs he and Jay Livingston wrote so active. They were house tunesmiths at Paramount for ten years and won three Academy Awards along the way, for “Buttons and Bows,” “Mona Lisa,” and “Que Sera, Sera.” Those and other Livingston & Evans songs are still making money—and entertaining listeners. (“Mona Lisa” even turned up in a Paramount feature called The Godfather.)

But I guess I’m living in the past. They can’t hold a candle to Modest Mouse.

A pleasant interlude during Awards Season is the Publicists Guild Luncheon, which took place on February 7 this year, and while there are plenty of people there who may not have a sense of history or loyalty, some do. My ET colleague and pal Bonnie Tiegel received this year’s Press Award, an indication of how she is regarded by the people she works with on a daily basis.

One of this year’s honorees, Alan Nierob, started in the mail room at Rogers & Cowan and admitted it’s the only place he’s ever worked. Although he handles many A-list stars, he made a point of singling out his first client, Victoria Principal, who is still with him—and was present to cheer him on that day.

In the same vein, George Lucas flew down to Los Angeles for the day to present a lifetime achievement award to Sid Ganis. Although he is currently serving a second term as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has been a top marketing and production executive for many years, Sid started out as a publicist, and still wears that title proudly. (He and his wife Nancy Hult also produced one of the best films of 2006, Akeelah and the Bee.)

When I first met Sid he was at LucasFilm, where he spent six years during its first flush of success in the 1970s and 80s. His former boss tried to enumerate Sid’s qualities as a colleague and a p.r. man but finally summed it up by saying, “Sid is one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

Sid’s gracious and good-humored acceptance speech revealed why he is so well-respected. Like anyone in the movie industry he has taken his share of hard knocks, but he chooses to remain upbeat and never succumbs to cynicism. Sid Ganis is living proof that you don’t have to be an egomaniac or a corporate boob to succeed in Hollywood. I only hope more people follow his example.

By the way, Sid has a strong sense of history and continuity in show business...but now he can justly claim that he’s helped make history, too.

RIDING THE WHIRLWIND

After an eventful month I barely know where to begin recounting my various adventures and encounters. Every year I host one or two events for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and while I always have a good time, this year was exceptionally interesting.

Sacha Baron Cohen, au naturel, at the Los Angeles
Film Critics Association awards dinner last month

On a Friday afternoon in January, I moderated a panel with Sacha Baron Cohen, his producer Jay Roach, and writers Anthony Hines and Peter Baynham, following a screening of Borat to a packed house at the Lobero Theater. I wish I could show you a photo or two from that event, but Baron Cohen had forbidden any photography or recording (except for his own three-camera video crew that documented the event).

I don’t resent this, because I sense that he is walking a tightrope right now, happy about his enormous success here in the States but wary of the problems that fame carries with it. For one thing, his TV shows and recent film have depended upon his ability to fool people into believing him in his various guises (Borat, Ali G, Bruno). If he becomes a household face out of makeup it will become difficult—if not impossible—to function as he has so far. (In response to an audience question that day he explained that when interviewing world figures for Da Ali G Show if a person either sensed or knew that it was a put-on, he would cancel the shoot.)

In the same vein, he doesn’t want to reveal too much about himself. This made interviewing him on stage something of a challenge. To my surprise, he was more than willing to discuss the process of filming Borat, and described in some detail several sequences that were shot but cut from the film, even adopting Borat’s now-familiar voice in the process. But when I asked how he developed such an abiding interest in American society and culture, he clammed up.

I tried one more time, asking if he’d grown up exposed to American movies, TV shows and pop music. Instead of responding he said, brightly, “Why don’t we take questions from the audience?”

Knowing when to retreat gracefully, I called on a man who asked an interesting if somewhat lengthy question. When we all turned to Baron Cohen to hear his answer his face went blank for a moment. He apologized and confessed that his mind had drifted and he hadn’t heard what the man asked. I said, “He wanted to know if you’d grown up exposed to American movies, TV shows, and pop music.”

I got my laugh, and he didn’t mind. We continued to parry that way throughout the session, aided and abetted by interesting stories from producer Roach (who talked about the strategies they had to use to protect Baron Cohen from being detained, and possibly deported, while making the film) and the two very savvy writers.

At the end of the panel a throng of people approached the stage and to everyone’s surprise, Baron Cohen hopped off the edge and plunked himself in the midst of his fans, signing autographs and chatting with his public. Go figure!

Backstage at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival: Will Smith is clearly enjoying himself with wife Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Gardner (the man he portrays in The Pursuit of Happyness) and Tom Cruise

The following night I hosted the festival’s gala tribute to Will Smith at the historic Arlington Theater on State Street. I looked forward to this evening because I know very little about Smith, and had never interviewed him before. We spent almost two hours on stage, discussing his career and watching film clips selected by producer-director Paul Fagen.

I came away enormously impressed. We all know how likable Smith is, in or out of character, but I didn’t appreciate how focused he has always been on achieving his goals, without sacrificing his abiding belief in leading a decent life. One story struck me as emblematic: when he was twelve years old he started writing rap lyrics in a notebook; they were filled with four-letter words. While he was at school one day his grandmother (a school principal) read its contents and wrote him a note in the back of the book. I am paraphrasing, but the gist of it was this: “Dear Willard, You will find that intelligent people don’t need to use such words to express themselves... so be the intelligent person we all know you to be.” Smith took this advice to heart, and I suspect his parents and grandmother set many other solid examples for him to follow that he’s never forgotten or forsaken. His wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, seems perfectly in sync.

At the end of the evening, Smith’s friend Tom Cruise appeared on stage to make a presentation of the festival’s Modern Master Award. Several thousand people cheered, photographers flashed away as two of the world’s most popular movie stars beamed—and tugged me into the shots. I’ve never shared the stage with so much star-power.

__________

Guilllermo Del Toro sports his new
USC School of Cinematic Arts cap

The spring semester of my weekly class at USC got off to a great start with a screening of Pan’s Labyrinth and a conversation with its colorful creator, Guillermo Del Toro. I normally don’t have time to watch movies more than once, but I welcomed the opportunity to see this film a second time on a big screen, and I’m so glad I did. Our conversation after the screening made me appreciate the film all the more, as Del Toro talked about his influences (classic fairy tales in particular), his methodology (he is forever sketching in a notepad, often storing away ideas for years), his ability to get the most out of a tight budget (assigning the simplest digital-effects shots to students and beginners, for instance, saving up the world-class effects artists for the more challenging scenes), and his attention to detail (each main character in Pan’s Labyrinth has a signature sound: for the girl it’s the rustle of silk; for the captain, it’s the squeak of leather; and for the faun, it’s the creaking of wood).

Although he’s lost 140 pounds (“a whole person,” as he pointed out), Del Toro is still a teddy-bear of a man, full of enthusiasm and tremendously likable. As someone who tries to keep some critical distance between myself and the people who make the films I review, I make a point of not getting chummy, even when the opportunity presents itself. But Guillermo is impossible to dislike, and his candor is positively disarming. When he first visited my class and I told him I was relieved that I enjoyed his film—as well as his visit—he said, philosophically, “A movie is like a blind date; you never know how it’s going to end up. Sometimes it’s a night in bed, sometimes it’s just a cup of coffee.”

Two weeks later, thanks to UniFrance, The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Los Angeles Film and Television Office of the French Embassy, I was able to introduce my students to a world-class writer-director of an older generation: Constantin Costa-Gavras.

Last summer I hosted an AFI screening of his unforgettable Oscar-winning movie Z, followed by a conversation with Oliver Stone, who spoke about the enormous influence this 1969 political thriller had on his career. I was pleased to see that the film, which had made a big impression on me, too, held up so well.

Costa-Gavras’ latest film, The Ax (Le Couperet), was made two years ago but has yet to find an American distributor. It’s a first-rate film—original, provocative, entertaining and relevant—about a middle-aged executive whose sudden unemployment drives him to criminal extremes. Its source aterial is a novel by the clever American author Donald E. Westlake. My students, a diverse group ranging from football players to economics majors, thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a sad state of affairs when movies by such masters as Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais, and Costa-Gavras can’t reach a broad American audience any more.

Nevertheless, the filmmaker was a wonderful guest, as passionate about his work as ever at the age of 74.

But he wasn’t the oldest interviewee I encountered this past month. The Back Lot Film Festival asked me if I’d be interested in hosting a conversation with Budd Schulberg prior to a screening of A Face in the Crowd, and I didn’t hesitate a moment before saying yes. At 92, Schulberg is still sharp as a tack, and fascinating to talk to. During a half hour on stage we spoke about his boyhood as a young prince of Hollywood (his father was Paramount executive B.P. Schulberg), the response to his notorious show-business novel What Makes Sammy Run?, his collaboration with Elia Kazan on On the Waterfront and A Face in the Crowd, and two of the many people he was fortunate to know as a young man: Sergei Eisenstein, whom his father brought to Paramount in a futile attempt to find common ground between the Russian director and a Hollywood studio, and Clara Bow, his father’s greatest discovery, whom the younger Schulberg adored—and pitied, because she was so vulnerable.

We could have gone on talking all night, but a film was scheduled and I had to wrap things up. If you’ve never read Schulberg’s memoir Moving Pictures, I recommend you do.

__________

Oh yes—I also attended the Sundance Film Festival, for four days in January. Dean Robert Rosen of the UCLA School of Theater, Cinema, and Television asked me to participate in a panel about film preservation for independent filmmakers. Bob is a man on a mission, urging young directors and producers to think about protecting their films when they’re new, before problems arise. (Not surprisingly, there is a Sundance Collection at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, where pristine copies of significant films are stored.) Also on the panel were Rob Epstein, Oscar-winning director of such documentaries as Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt and The Times of Harvey Milk, which underwent restoration by UCLA some twenty years after it was made... and Phil Feiner, President and CEO of Pacific Title and Art Studio, a very savvy guy with vast experience in this field. I learned a lot just listening to my fellow panelists, and I hope at least some of the people in attendance heard the message Bob Rosen sent out.

While in Park City I naturally screened as many films as possible—nine features, to be exact. I was very lucky, as the first two movies I watched were also the best I got to see during my stay at Sundance: Andrew Wagner’s Starting Out in the Evening, with Frank Langella, Lily Taylor, and Lauren Ambrose, a beautiful character piece about an aging literary lion and a young grad student who insinuates herself into his life, and John Carney’s Once, a charming Irish musical about a busker who performs on the streets of Dublin and a woman who’s attracted to his music. I was also impressed with documentarians Chris Smith’s first fictional feature The Pool, about a boy who must make a living on his own in a small Indian city, but is mesmerized by the swimming pool behind a luxurious home in the hills overlooking the town.