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BOOK REVIEW: “The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers” (University Press of Kentucky, 2008) by Mark T. Conard

Dimitris Passas

Conard stresses that despite the presentation of several hard-to-grasp in their entirety philosophical concepts, the book is accessible to everyone and no former knowledge of the history of Western thought is required in order to comprehend the essays. Nevertheless, many readers, as I realized by reading some online reviews about the book, seem to think that there are some parts where the scholarly aspect is overtly heavy-handed and that was the reason why their ratings were mediocre. I was fortunate enough to be familiar with the majority of philosophers mentioned in the essays as my post-graduate studies were on philosophy, so I am not the most fitting individual to judge whether or not The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers is a widely accessible collection. Throughout the pages, one comes across the ideas and concepts conceived by some of the most renowned intellectuals that marked philosophical thought such as Aristotle, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard, and the proponents of Existentialism, and numerous others whose influence on the discipline of philosophy is colossal and unanimously acknowledged. The authors of each essay are prudent enough to present their arguments simply and concisely and even obscure notions such as the Heideggerian “Dasein” are treated in such a way that a layman can understand their use in the specific context.

The Coen brothers’ oeuvre consists of more than 25 films and in the majority of them they are also screenwriters. Their debut took place in 1984 with the release of the iconic neo-noir Blood Simple, a film that adopted some of the most recognizable classic noir tropes combined with a touch of irony and dark humor that made it easier to stand apart from its predecessors. From then on, the duo has written and directed films of any genre and in their filmography, we come across gangster films, comedies, modern westerns, and most importantly some of the most shining examples of the neo-noir movement that helped to define and evolve the, relatively new, genre. The majority of essays featured in this collection analyze the Coens’ work from the perspective of the distinction between the two types of noir (classic and neo) and the reader obtains a comprehensive idea regarding the nuances between them. In the second essay of the first part, titled “The Human Comedy Perpetuates Itself: Nihilism and Comedy in Coen Neo-Noir”, Thomas S. Hibbs examines the effects of nihilism and pessimism in Coens’ films, employing Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on the subject in order to make clear his point that the fictional characters living and acting in imaginary settings in the brothers’ movies essentially inhabit an absurd universe, that is a world “divested of value, a world without hierarchies of meaning, a world of stark individual freedom”. The lack of any inherent purpose in the world had been one of the fundamental teachings of the Existentialists, a school of thought that underlined the desperation of a man who has lost any fixed point that would allow him to view life from a brighter perspective. Camus defines the absurd as “the divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints, my nostalgia for unity, this fragmented universe and the contradiction that binds them together”.

While Nietzsche agrees with the Existentialists concerning the essential meaninglessness of the world, he is not advocating hopelessness and he doesn’t lament this fact as he sees it as an opportunity for the spirit to become empowered and for the man to acquire his own identity through the sheer power of his will. If we backtrack for a while, and re-examine the noir pictures of the 1940s and 1950s, we will realize that they embrace a pessimistic worldview as the characters, and especially the protagonist/hero, are bound to submit to the universal truths that will eventually crush him as an individual. In neo-noirs though, there is hope for the new type of hero who will implement his will, through the use of wits or force, to disengage himself from a dire predicament. Thus, he becomes an “active nihilist”, the type of new man who will be at the forefront of what Nietzsche calls the “transvaluation of values” and will construct his identity all by himself in a process that is personal as well as aesthetic. Hibbs summarizes the development of noir in time and the emergence of significant differences as follows: “Neo-noir’s greatest departure from classic noir consists in a turn to aristocratic nihilism. The most resourceful of these characters are in control of the noir plot, using their cunning and artistry to ensnare others”. The new human identity is aesthetically assembled through the endorsement of style.

Style is another aspect that differentiates the two types of noir and refers both to that conerning the characters of the stories and the actual form that the film obtains under the guidance of the director(s). All neo-noir films share the inclination to be too self-conscious in terms of their visual style in a way that prompts the audience to discern a comical side even in the grimmest of stories. Hibbs writes that “in neo-noir, the accentuation of hopelessness and the overtly self-conscious deployment of the artistic technique make the turn to dark comedy nearly inevitable”. Style becomes the actual subject of the film and the audience is invited to the artifice, to get in on the “joke”. Furthermore, as far as the characters are concerned, the acquisition of a personal style is something as essential as breathing to form a coherent sense of identity. In his article, “What Kind of Man Are You? The Coen Brothers and Existentialist Role Playing”, Richard Gaughran writes that “many Coen characters adopt a style, an aggregate of gestures, principally in order to define themselves, to create an identity”. There are more than a few examples of Coens’ protagonists to clarify that theory: “The Dude” Lebowski, Jerry Lundegaard, Everett McGill, the characters in Miller’s Crossing, and even more. Whether it is about the use of the correct hat in Miller’s Crossing, a hat which is inextricably linked with power within the story’s universe, Everett McGill’s obsession with his hair and a specific pomade, or Lebowski’s bohemian exterior, the endorsement of such peculiarities is more than crucial for these characters. In Paul Schrader’s words, it is within the confines of the absurd universe that “the style becomes paramount; it is all that separates one from meaninglessness”. If pre-fixed values are non-existent as nihilism claims, then it is the duty of the individual to build his own style and identity.

The Coens are also famous for their use of setting, and the choice of the right terrain for a modern noir to take place. They avoid big cities and as a rule, they go for small towns in the American countryside, with a clear preference for Texas, and they usually opt for a Western-like wilderness which reflects the cruelty of the stories. Gaughran underscores: “The setting becomes a character at least as important as any of the human characters”, while Paul Schrader, the acclaimed American screenwriter of films such as Taxi Driver and the man who adapted Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel The Last Temptation of Christ into a screenplay, argues, in his essay on film noir that the prominence of setting leads to a fatalistic, hopeless mood as the individual is always subject to its whims and caprices, rendering him a kind of a pawn in a game which he doesn’t understand: “Characters act freely, but they do so within an uncaring, hostile environment, that is, within the realm of the absurd”. The tyranny of the environment that surrounds the character amplifies his existential angst and often leads him to fateful decisions. Take, for example, the Fargo locale. It is a canvas of pure whiteness, so much that some define this movie as “film blanc” (“white movie”), that swallows the protagonist, the meek swindler Jerry Lundegaard who sees his life unravel after he decides to kidnap his own wife in order to get the bulky ransom from his father-in-law. Minnesota and North Dakota offered the best of backdrops for the Coens’ bleak story, one of the best neo-noirs of all time.

But there are also examples of movies such as No Country for Old Men, a film in which the brothers omitted the irony and the dashes of dark humor in favor of a more “serious” approach to the story, that merges the Western setting with the noir plotting. This movie lacks what is termed as “meta-irony”, one of the chief characteristics of the brothers’ earlier movies that refers to the “level of detachment, a sense that their movies were meant to be taken as just stories, that you should not take them too seriously”. “It was the first film created by the Coens that is based on a novel, one of Cormac McCarthy’s most popular works, and “it is and is not a classic western”. In one of the last essays of the collection, Richard Gilmore’s “No Country for Old Men: The Coens’ Tragic Western”, the author, in an attempt to correct an impression acquired by few regarding the importance of the character of Anton Chigurh, argues that this film, and the novel, revives the motifs that were first introduced in the Ancient Greek Tragedy. Chigurh is the embodiment of evil, “a walking abbatoir (…) he is like a modern version of the traditional figure of Death with his scythe”. Nevertheless, the focus is elsewhere. He supports this statement by writing that “what is of interest to McCarthy and the Coens is rather what happens when a good, but flawed, man encounters this force of nature in human guise”. This type of character arc is truly reminiscent of several tragedies where the tragic hero falls victim to his own hubris and gets punished despite, or exactly because, of his flaws and virtues. Llewelyn Moss is the modern tragic hero, a taciturn westerner who stumbles upon the scene of a massive shooting, the result of a drug deal gone wrong, and collects the bag of money that lies there.

By doing this, Llewelyn sets off a mechanism that will propel the plot of the story forward and seal his fate, as an experienced contract serial killer, Chigurh is charged with the task of retrieving the money. Llewelyn commits hubris as he oversteps his personal limits, paying no heed to the ancient Greek commandment “Know thyself”, and what follows is a journey of pain that concludes with his murder at the end of the movie. As Gilmore summarizes “his experience is a Greek tragedy in miniature”. Apart from that, there is something else that binds No Country for Old Men with tragedy and that is the element of fatalism, which is the belief that “you are what you do and that what you have done cannot be undone (…) that what you do, what you have decided, will have its natural consequences in the world, and there is no avoiding or evading these consequences”. In the Coens’ fictional universe, each action we take leads inevitably to a certain result and this is a reality that man has to face and accept in order to develop and grow. The voiceovers, where Sheriff Ed Tom Bell ponders on the human condition, further emphasize the above point and it is after the finale of the movie that we witness the inescapable progress of a predetermined story. The movie was a huge critical as well as commercial success, but perhaps Gilmore is right in stressing the misinterpretation, which partially stems from Javier Bardem’s stellar performance, that wants the character of Chigurh to be at the epicenter of the story.

Despite their embracement of a nihilistic worldview, the Coen brothers can be rightfully labeled as comic filmmakers mainly because of the levity by which they treat their characters: “Many of the absurd characters are entertaining and likable and even some of the Coens’ nihilistic destroyers are attractive for their defiant energy”. As it happens in several more recent productions, the villain, or the “evil antihero”, is portrayed as more interesting and alluring than the “good guys”, thus subverting the audiences’ expectations as “they mock properly human longing for justice, truth, and love”. Other characters, such as the “Dude” Lebowski choose to shrug off the seriousness and gravity of the existential void by living lightly and taking it easy, offering many instances of heartfelt laughter to the viewer: “His way of life affirms the equal significance or insignificance of all human endeavors”. “The Dude” is a hilarious protagonist and Big Lebowski is one of the most entertaining Coen brothers picture. In this review, I tried to present some of the most important points in my favorite essays, and the choice is strictly subjective. There are more mentally challenging essays involving prominent thinkers such as Heidegger Kierkegaard and others. The collection apparently covers all tastes. If you are into Coens’ cinema and also have a flair for the work of grand philosophers, then The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers is a must-read. I would also advise checking out the totality of the “Philosophy of Popular Culture” series as you will surely find some subjects that will entice you to promptly begin reading. This was one of the most informative and enlightening reads that I’ve had in a long time and I strongly recommend it.

Larry Ceplair The Hollywood Motion Picture blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later (review)

Kevin Brianton, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Larry Ceplair has dedicated his academic life to writing about the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC) investigations of Hollywood. Over the past decades, his contribution to understanding Hollywood’s blacklist has been unequaled. His seminal work The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 19301960, co-written with Stephen Englund, is still the standard starting point for the topic, even though it was released nearly 40 years ago. Aside from this foundation text, he has produced many books and papers on the issue.

Ceplair argues that this new book is necessary: “Given the axial changes in the entertainment/media industries (huge enterprises adroitly staying several steps ahead of regulation and control), the admonition to be “woke,” and the “cancel culture,” the time seemed propitious for a book that offered some new thoughts on the motion picture blacklist: its origins, its extent, its duration, its impact, and its future prospects.”(ix). Despite this statement, the book is not a comprehensive reflection of the blacklist in a contemporary context. It is a collection of papers from various dates over the past two decades – some previously published and some new.

Full Review at Film & History 53.2 (Winter 2023), 64 -66.

Scott Eyman Charlie Chaplin vs America: When Art, Sex and Politics Collided Simon & Schuster, 2023

Kevin Brianton, Senior Adjunct Research Fellow, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Scott Eyman is a prolific and highly successful writer of Hollywood history. He has written biographies of John Wayne, Louis B. Mayer, Cecil B. DeMille, and other Hollywood identities. He combines popular appeal with some extensive primary research. In his latest book, Eyman sets himself the task of writing a social, political, and cultural history of the banishment of Charlie Chaplin from the United States. Of course, as Eyman points out, Chaplin was never formally expelled from the country. The Attorney General used a deeply suspect piece of legal trickery to rescind a re-entry permit in 1952. It is doubtful that it could have even worked if Chaplin had just returned to the United States. Chaplin never lived in the United States again and only visited once. Eyman stated that he wanted to focus on “the process by which Chaplin segued from the status of beloved icon to despised ingrate.” (362)

Chaplin’s exile has already been well covered in a biography by David Robinson in 1985. Charles Maland also looked at the reputational impacts in his book on Chaplin’s star image in 1989. Still, these books are more than 30 years old, and we can now look at Chaplin’s exile through the lens of resurgent popular conservatism, so it is time to revisit the issues involved. Eyman opens with a biographical sketch of the life and work of Chaplin during the silent period and the 1930s. It is a fascinating start to the book, particularly the details about his relationship with his mother and brother. He laces the account with anecdotes demonstrating his extensive research. However, given the book’s stated focus, the section has an aimless quality. For example, an extended discussion is made of an exchange of letters between Chaplin and his leading lady, Edna Purviance. It is a thought-provoking glimpse into Chaplin’s private life. After some time, Eyman then dips into Chaplin’s political life, such as the visit of the labor organizer and communist politician William Z. Foster, which drew the attention of the Bureau of Investigation, the predecessor of the FBI. However, the book then meanders on to other topics, such as how Chaplin and David Raksin worked on the musical score for Modem Times. This material is always interesting, but the book’s focus is often lost.

For full review see:

Brianton, Kevin.  Film & History; Cleveland, OK Vol. 53, Iss. 2,  (Winter 2023): 67-69.

The Dark Interval: Film noir, Iconography and Affect (review)

PADRAIC KILLEEN, 2022, New York, Bloomsbury, pp. 271, $162.00 (cloth)

Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Kevin Brianton, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Film noir is characterized by its dark and pessimistic atmosphere, typically depicting crime, corruption, and moral ambiguity. In The Dark Interval: Film Noir, Iconography and Affect,Padraic Killeen begins his book by arguing against a strict definition for film noir and for a passion towards the genre. It is a promising start. Killeen argues that ‘noir cinema has produced some of our culture’s most riveting images of the human in strange intervals of stillness, detachment and suspended time.’ Killeen hopes to draw these ideas out further by employing the work of various philosophers, critics, and thinkers across a wide range of disciplines. Killeen is careful to separate, “The protagonists of noir are people who lapse into crime, collapse into love, fall from grace, lose their way, lose their minds.” He wants to focus, however, on a ‘temporal lapse, [or] a lapse into a time that seems outside of time’. (p.8)

For full review see

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01439685.2023.2232151

The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells

SARAH CHURCHWELL, 2022

London, Head of Zeus pp. 453, illus., $40.00 (cloth), $18.99 (paper)

Book review by Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Kevin Brianton, La Trobe University

One of the most immediate reactions to the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021 was complete bewilderment. People were at a loss to know where such violence came from or what it meant. America had a long tradition of transferring political power through elections without conflict or rancour. Some commentators considered Adolph Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 as a point of comparison. In her outstanding book. The Wrath to Come: Gone With the Wind and the Lies America Tells, the cultural and political historian Sarah Churchwell looks for reasons far closer to home.

Full review:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01439685.2023.2232152

A Cosmic Coincidence: It’s A Wonderful Life and A Matter of Life and Death

Kevin Brianton, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University, Melbourne Australia

George Bailey learns the value of life in It’s A Wonderful life (1946.) Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.

In 1946, both the British and American people keenly felt the impact of death. In Britain, an estimated 384,000 soldiers were killed in combat during the Second World War, and 70,000 civilians died mainly due to German bombing raids during the Blitz. The United States had suffered more than 400,000 casualties across Asia and Europe. It is, therefore, unremarkable then that the cinema of the period responded to the possibility of life after death. Two movies attempted to bring the afterlife into focus, and both were released in 1946. Although different filmmakers made the films on opposite sides of the Atlantic, they share several similarities. The first film was the British film A Matter of Life and Death, and the second was It’s a Wonderful Life from Hollywood. Many observers have noted their similarities.[1]

The American film opens with people praying for a man named George Bailey, who is played by James Stewart. Bailey is a good man and widely respected in his community of Bedford Falls. Bailey appears to have met some severe problems and is contemplating suicide. The prayers come from all parts of the town and move out into space. A Senior Angel, Joseph, sends a Guardian Angel – Second Class, Clarence, to help save his soul. Clarence glimpses into Bailey’s life during the film’s first part of the film. Bailey begins as a young man dissatisfied with the slow pace of the small town in which he lives. George’s father tells him that it is a great honor to help people own houses and move on with their lives. Despite his best efforts, George is thwarted in his quest to travel the world at every turn. He is compelled to take over his father’s small-town bank and save it during a crisis. We look at his life which becomes a series of disappointments, and finally, the bank to which he had dedicated his life appears close to collapsing. The road to his suicide attempt is a tortured descent through a small-town purgatory. This America echoes Billy Wilder’s view in Double Indemnity that the nation was a land of “shattered hopes and twisted dreams.”  

At the end of his tether, Bailey looks down from a bridge to a fast-flowing river, contemplating suicide. The river appears to be fiercely cold, as there are dark snow drifts on the banks of the river. It is a picture of suicidal gloom. Clarence moves beside him and jumps into the river ahead. Bailey is immediately shaken from his suicidal thoughts and jumps into the frozen river to save him. Yet director Frank Capra finds hope in this despair. Once George had rescued Clarence, he was shown by the angel how different his community would be without him. Bedford Falls becomes Pottersville, named after a rival banker, and descends into a living hell. Pottersville is swarming with bars, strip clubs, casinos, and pawn shops. Cops, traffic, lights, noise, and strangers fill the streets. It has a violent and ugly edge. George appears to have been an angel saving the town’s soul. The experience makes George realize his life’s value and how much he has impacted those around him. The message woven into the movie is the importance of kindness, compassion, and community. It says one individual can make a significant difference in the world, no matter how humble they appear. Hope exists in the bleakest moments. Another clear message is that following society’s moral rules will reward you in the afterlife. It is a simple reinterpretation of the message of Christian salvation.

A Matter of Life and Death explores the afterlife. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.

The film’s opening of the cosmos is astonishingly similar to a British film, A Matter of Life and Death, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was released in 1946 as well. Both films begin with a cosmic perspective, showing stars and galaxies in space. While in It’s a Wonderful Life, prayers float up to the heavens. In the British film, the opening show is of the universe, which seems to overwhelm the relatively minor conflict of the Second World War. The camera appears to move down from the heavens to earth and eventually to a single stricken bomber returning to base in the United Kingdom. The pilot Peter Carter talks to a wireless operator, June, and tells her he is finished because he does not have a parachute. Peter Carter, played by David Niven, miraculously survives a plane crash. He finds himself on the English beach, which he assumes is heaven. He falls in love with the operator but must fight for his right to stay alive on earth in a cosmic trial to live his life with her.

In both films, a character from another world guides the main character. In It’s a Wonderful Life, the guardian angel Clarence is sent to help George Bailey during a crisis. In contrast, A Matter of Life and Death sends Conductor 71 to guide RAF pilot Peter Carter in a different situation. The main character’s life is also altered by a physical supernatural intervention in both films. Even in small details, the films have strong similarities. At the end of A Matter of Life and Death, a book on chess is returned to Peter Carter; while Clarence leaves a signed copy of Tom Sawyer for George Bailey, saying he has earned his full angel’s wings.

The critical difference is that It’s A Wonderful Life depicts a benign system of angels who want to help the individual when they reach breaking point. It is fair to ask why they did not intervene earlier when Bailey prayed for help. In A Matter of Life and Death’s afterlife, a more hard-hearted legalistic, and cold-blooded bureaucracy processes people indifferently. Due to a mistake made by the administration, Peter Carter must face a trial for his life. He is granted a long life with June.

Their galactic vision allows these films to explore themes such as our place in the universe and the possibility of a greater cosmic order than we can comprehend. It explores the idea of fate, free will, and individual responsibility. Both films’ opening sequences establish these themes visually and thematically. Given the similarities, it is extraordinary that both films were made in the same year in different countries and could not have possibly influenced each other.

Even so, A Matter of Life and Death was possibly influenced by one film. Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). Robert Montgomery plays boxer Joe Pendleton, who dies in a plane crash on his way to a championship match. Compared to Peter Carter in A Matter of Life and Death, Joe Pendleton was not meant to die and was brought to heaven too soon by an overeager angel. Claude Rains plays the angel’s boss, Mr. Jordan, who sends Joe back to earth in a body. Evelyn Keyes plays Bette Logan, an idealistic young woman with whom he falls in love.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan was clearly an influence on A Matter of Life and Death. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.

Second chances and the afterlife are common themes between these two films. In both, characters make decisions that influence their fates in the celestial realm. Joe Pendleton’s chance to return to life and Mr. Jordan’s role as an angel overseeing the transition of souls are central to Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Both films blend fantasy elements with comedy and romance. Not to mention that the first step to heaven is a type of airport. While dealing with serious themes such as life, death, and love, they use humor to create a light-hearted and whimsical atmosphere. Characters in both films navigate between the mortal world and the afterlife, highlighting the importance of human links and the desire for a second chance.[2]

The central difference is that Here Comes Mr. Jordan picked up audience concerns about an approaching war, while A Matter of Life and Death and It’s A Wonderful Life addressed people who were well aware of the carnage.

[1] “A Matter of Life and Death Deserves a Place on Your Holiday Watch-list Alongside It’s A Wonderful Life,” 2018, accessed December 18,, https://www.tor.com/2018/12/19/a-matter-of-life-and-death-deserves-a-place-on-your-holiday-watch-list-alongside-its-a-wonderful-life/.

[2] A similar view is in: “Criterion Review: Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” 2016, https://cine-vue.com/2016/06/criterion-review-here-comes-mr-jordan.html.

‘We’ll Have No More Grapes of Wrath:’ The Origins, Rise and Impact of a Dubious Cinematic Anecdote

Kevin Brianton,

Grapes of Wrath was a controversial film on its release, and the controversy grew after the Second World War.

Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.com.

Kevin Brianton, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University

Eric Johnston, President of the Motion Picture Association of America, supposedly remarked ‘we’ll have no more Grapes of Wrath’ in response to an investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Activities into communism in the American film industry in 1947. Many film historians have employed the quotation as evidence that the investigation had created strict controls that led to fewer politically and socially motivated films in the United States in the 1950s. It has also linked Johnston to the highly conservative Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. However, the quotation was based on a suspect source and was possibly derived from material said or written by other people. Johnston may well have made this comment, but if so, the context of the comment has been ignored. A more nuanced interpretation is needed to assess Johnston’s views and actions.

Text of the full article is available at:

Kevin Brianton, “‘We’ll Have No More Grapes of Wrath:’ The Origins, Rise and Impact of a Dubious Cinematic Anecdote,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television  (2023),https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2023.2193043, https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2023.2193043.

Did Mary Pickford say putting sound into film “was like putting rouge on the Venus de Milo?”

Mary Pickford in her silent heyday. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.

Kevin Brianton, Senior Adjunct Research Fellow, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

When sound was introduced to American cinema, the celebrated actor and film producer Mary Pickford was reported by the Los Angeles Times as saying it was like “putting rouge on the Venus de Milo.”[1] The quote appears to be a strong condemnation of new technology, and it has been linked to Pickford ever since. However, it seems unlikely that she ever said such a thing. Pickford was the most celebrated actor of the silent period and was commonly called “America’s sweetheart.” She was also a powerful force in Hollywood and her comments carried some weight.

If she did say it, Pickford was repeating word for word what director Albert Parker said in 1926 in an entirely different context. Parker was the director of the Douglas Fairbanks vehicle, The Black Pirate (1926). In a publicity interview for The New York Times Parker declared: “that to some persons the making of pictures in natural colors was like putting lip rouge on Venus de Milo.”[2] Parker was against such sentiments, pointing out that Fairbanks had immersed himself in the study of Technicolor processes. The article details the lengths that Fairbanks went to in ensuring that the color process worked and improved the film.

He spoke about the care taken with the new technology. “The color must never dominate the narrative. We have tried to get a sort of satin gloss on the scenes and have consistently avoided striving for prismatic effects. There is nothing violent. We realize that color is violent and for that reason we restrained it.”

Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were married at the time of the interview, and it seems more than likely Pickford was fully aware of the comment. Her own quote in 1934 is confusing. Lipstick is usually a bright color, and it makes little sense to apply the allusion to sound. Mary Pickford was quoted while speaking as a guest of honor at the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents. A separate account that appeared in The New York Times did not record the quote. It has also not been possible to find another account from any of the journalists that attended.

Even so, Pickford did not fully endorse talking pictures. She said that she would be “bitterly disappointed if Charlie Chaplin speaks in his next picture.” As it happened, Chaplin did not speak Modern Times (1936). Pickford and Chaplin were part owners of United Artists, which distributed the film.

Pickford would not return to silent cinema. She did declare there would be a minimum of dialogue in her next film. She talked about the story underpinning the film. She believed that the story was the most important element. “I have never seen good acting save a poor story, but I have seen a good story save poor acting.” Overall, she believed that talking pictures were “tiring and provincial.” These pressures were “losing the world’s market.”

She may have reflected that sound meant that English language films were more problematic on the European continent. Audiences may have enjoyed seeing films in their own language. The European film industry had also recovered from the First World War by 1934. It wasn’t sound. It was simply a more competitive environment.

The reality was Pickford had embraced sound film for more than four years in 1934. Always the innovator, Pickford arranged for a sound stage to be built at her Pickfair studios. Her film Coquette (1929) was advertised as 100 percent talking. It was a box office success, and Pickford would win the Academy Award for Best Lead Actress for her performance.

One distinct possibility is that she quoted Albert Parker’s original comments in some part of her speech, perhaps when discussing the broader issue of change in the industry. The Associated Press reporter may have ascribed Parker’s words to Pickford in error. The short article was syndicated across America in newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and The New York Daily Herald. Without access to her speech, it is impossible to say for certain, but it may have never been said.

The comment may have been originally made in connection to the Black Pirate (1926), about the use of technicolor. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.

[1] “Mary Pickford Sees Talkies as Lipstick on Milo,” Los Angeles Times March 18 1934.

[2] “Director Tells of Making Fairbanks’s New Prismatic Pirate Production,” The New York Times, March 7 1927.

Mean Moody and Magnificent: New biography of Jane Russell

Kevin Brianton, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Mean… Moody… Magnificent! Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend by Christina Rice. University Press of Kentucky, 2021.

Jane Russell was one of Hollywood’s leading pre-Marilyn Monroe sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. Russell came to prominence in her first film, the notorious The Outlaw, which tested the censorship boundaries of the Production Code. She was presented as a sultry sex siren, yet Russell’s politics were conservative, and she was a passionate Christian. The tension between her onscreen persona and her strong spiritual values is an intriguing area for study.

Her biographer Christina Rice raises some interesting questions about the actor and singer in this book. Rice appears to be interested in women who closely associated with RKO head Howard Hughes. She has also written on another actor associated with Hughes in Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel.

The full review is available at

Brianton, Kevin. “Mean… Moody… Magnificent!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend.” Film & History 52, no. 1 (2022): 67.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/862223/pdf

Ayn Rand and the Motion Picture Alliance

Kevin Brianton, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University, Melbourne, University

During the Cold War, while the studios were beginning to bring out anti-communist films, the right began to look for other targets. Not content with driving communists out of Hollywood, the right turned its attention to films with liberal messages. Ayn Rand wrote a Screen Guide for Americans in 1947 for the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals which said that free enterprise, industrialists, and the independent man shouldn’t be smeared; that failure and the collective shouldn’t be glorified; and that communist writers, directors and producers shouldn’t be hired. The alliance did not see it as a ‘forced restriction’ on Motion Picture studios, rather that each man should do ‘his own thinking’ and for the guide to be adopted as a ‘voluntary action’. Rand wrote that the guide aimed to keep the screen free from any ‘collective force or pressure.’ The irony was that this was precisely what the alliance was doing.

The real point of Rand’s pamphlet was that only a conservative vision of America should be allowed on the screen. The alliance wanted the present wave of films that attacked or criticized capitalism halted. One of the alliance’s supporters, Cecil B. DeMille was making similar speeches:

The American people know that with all its faults capitalism has given them the highest standard of living and the greatest personal freedom known in the world. The communist cannot deny that. But they can – and do – make a banker or a successful businessman their villain. They can – and do – pick out the sordid and degraded parts of all of America, leaving the audience – especially the foreign audience – to infer that all America is a vast Tobacco Road and successful people are all ‘little foxes’.

The impact of the guide has been overstated. Rand later claimed her ‘Screen Guide for Americans’ was printed in full on the front page of The New York Times drama section.[1] The claim has then been repeated by historians such as Steven J. Whitfield and then in turn by Rand scholar Robert Mayhew.[2] In reality, only a short article appeared on the screen guide with a few sentences describing its contents on page 5 of the supplement.[3] The article only took up one-third of a regular column.

[1] Barbara Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand, Anchor, USA, 1987, p. 203.

[2] Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996, p. 131. Robert Mayhew, Ayn Rand and Song of Russia: Communism and Anti-Communism in 1940s Hollywood, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md., 2005, p. 176.

[3] The New York Times, 16 November 1947