From his Wikipedia page:
Growing up, Douglas sold snacks to mill workers to earn enough to buy milk and bread to help his family. Later, he delivered newspapers and during his youth worked at more than forty different jobs before getting a job acting....
Douglas' acting talents were noticed at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, which gave him a special scholarship. One of his classmates was Betty Joan Perske (later to become better known as Lauren Bacall)... Bacall wrote that she "had a wild crush on Kirk"... During their time together, she learned that he had no money, and that he once spent the night in jail since he had no place to sleep. She once gave him her uncle's old coat to keep warm: "I thought he must be frozen in the winter... He was thrilled and grateful."...
What a face! What a presence! Here's a list of all his movies, many of which I have not seen. So I'll just say I loved him in "Lust for Life" and "Paths of Glory." (And though I have the DVD, I've never watched "Spartacus.")
Posts
105 comments:
A blessed man. Huzzah for Kirk Douglas!
Out of the Past is good.
Jesus Christ, you've never watched Spartacus.
But his acting style must have been a bit hard on his teeth.
How could you avoid Spartacus?? It was always played during Easter on CBS. It was nearly as big "Wizard of Oz".
I'm Spartacus!
Despite the fact that Kubrick directed it, Spartacus is really a pretty typical 50s blockbuster, but it's better than the rest mostly because of Douglas' performance.
And I don't care how many times it's been spoofed, the "I'm Spartacus!" scene is still very moving.
Kirk Douglas was the only Hollywood actor who could play some roles. He emanated a determined male courage in face of bad situations. Try The Vikings.
He is an honorary Jewish, Scots-Irish. He alone broke the McCarthyite ban on Dalton Trumbaugh when no one else had the guts to stand up to the John Birchers.
Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?
I have also never watched Sparticus!
Dalton Trumbaugh when no one else had the guts to stand up to the John Birchers.
Dalton Trumbo was a doctrinaire Stalinist. In September 1939 He published an anti-war novel called Johnny Got His Gun, the same month Nazi German and the Soviet Union were together destroying and partitioning the newly resurrected Polish nation-sate. Very convenient for Stalin's empire-building efforts in Europe. Twenty-two months later Trumbo withdrew his novel from publication, coinciding exactly with the invasion of the USSR by Axis forces in June 1941. Very convenient for Stalin's empire-preservation efforts in Europe. Johnny Got His Gun reappeared in bookstores in 1946. Very convenient for Stalin's empire-building efforts in Europe.
Spartacus is simple-minded filmmaking written to push emotional buttons. A movie based on the actual history of the Third Servile War would be emotionally confusing.
Trying to think of the others of that generation still around... Jerry Lewis is "only" 90.
The Vikings had a powerful effect on boys growing up in the 50s. It was the archetypal boys-in-the-50s movie. We were thrilled, enthralled, completely entranced by it. The dancing-on-the-oars scene, the banquet scene, Ernest Borgnine jumping into the wolf pit, sword aloft and shouting "Oooooo-dinnn!, the hawk pecking out Kirk's eye, the battle scene at the castle with Kirk jumping across the moat to grab the axes thrown into the drawbridge -- Zowie!
We all wanted to be Vikings! What fun and adventure! VIKINGS. WERE. SO. COOL!
And Janet Leigh as Morgana ... mmmm, boy. Her extraordinary breasts, holy smokes! Yes, we were old enough to appreciate them.
We all wanted to be the Kirk Douglas character, even though he was sort of the bad guy. Tony Curtis, meh.
"In Harm's Way" is one of my favorite WW II movies. Highly recommended!
Seven Days in May
And let's not forget that great cultural moment when Brooke Shields interviewed Kirk Douglas.
200 Oldest Living Screen Stars of Note
July 27, 2015
http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2015/7/27/200-oldest-living-screen-stars-of-note.html
Quaestor:
Totally agree about Trumbo. You said it all, no need for me to say anything. And, yes, Spartacus was awful. Liberal tripe only nominally about the Third Servile. The acting is unbelievably bad, over-the-top, scenery-chewing, hammy -- Olivier and Ustinov should have been horsewhipped for their performances.
He should have been keelhauled for what he did to Natalie Wood.
On the other hand, being Norwegian born and raised, the mere thought of "The Vikings" make me shudder.
Here is a good column by David Wolpe in today's LA Times: Sharing biblical stories and 100 years of life lessons with Kirk Douglas
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-wolpe-kirk-douglas-at-100-20161207-story.html
The Vikings would be racially divisive today. All the Norwegian brutes have Trump's blonde hair style, grown long. The civilized English have the short brunette hair and good manners. There is nothing new under the sun.
Wow. So will Kirk outlive Cher?
OMG his wife is still alive. What's a guy have to do to be a widower!
The Viking is a 50's potboiler with production values out the wahzoo. Based on a novel by Edison Marshall, the plot borrows elements from the 12th century skaldic poem Krákumál (The Lay of Kraka). The best performance by far in that film was turned in by Ernest Borgnine in the role of Ragnar, the sire of two half-brothers — Einar (Kirk Douglas) his acknowledged heir, and Eric (Tony Curtis), a slave whose relationship to Ragnar and Einar is unknown to all but Egbert (James Donald), a scheming Saxon thane.
Definitely see The Vikings, it's not what I'd call an epic, nor is it historically accurate, but there are scenes in that film that are just breathtakingly beautiful. Also some aspects of Medieval Norse material culture are portrayed with scholarly accuracy. For example, in one scene — almost a throw-away actually — Eric is building a small Viking boat for Egbert. The materials and methods Eric uses are exactly correct according to all research on the subject. The costumes are a very mixed bag however. The arms and armor are good (no horned helmets are seen), but some outfits are just ridiculous. The Viking costumes are way too hairy, (Evidence from the Osaberg ship burial shows that the Vikings wore woolen textiles, often beautifully embroidered.) the slave miniskirt with cross-garters worn by Tony Curtis is a bad joke, and Janet Leigh's gowns were designed purely for sex appeal.
The highly successful pairing of Douglas and Curtis in The Vikings must have influenced Kubrick to cast them in his Spartacus, which makes me wonder if Trumbo included Antoninus in his first draft of the screenplay, since the character serves little purpose except to titillate the bisexual cravings of bad guy Laurence Olivier, who introduces himself incorrectly as Marcus Lucinius Crassus, and to teach the rebel slaves some bad poetry.
These people are good actors (even Hajji Baba in The Defiant Ones and Sweet Smell of Success), but they are Americans and could not possibly be anything else (except maybe Douglas).
I'm not Lazlo but I AM SPARTACUS...
(and i have never worked at goldman sacks so i guess i won't be getting a good position in the trump cabinet)...
Happy Birthday, Mr. Douglas! I'M SPARTACUS!
Alec Baldwin's impersonation is a wonderful homage to the man. Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee
I'm not Lazlo but I AM SPARTACUS...
You're not Lazlo, GWash, but keep trying. I imagine you won't be getting a post in Trump's cabinet for other reasons besides your resumé.
Forgive me, Hagar, but I'm missing the reference "Hajji Baba". Is that a backlot soubriquet for Tony Curtis?
On the other hand, being Norwegian born and raised, the mere thought of "The Vikings" make me shudder.
I worked one summer on a farm overlooking the fjord where they shot some of the boat scenes. A lot of locals worked as extras. They told me that when the movie came out most of them saw the film at a local premiere. They all broke out laughing at one point - they could see the local ferry sailing in the background of one of the Viking ship scenes.
Kirk must of enjoyed his time in Norway, he came back in the 1965 to star in "The Heroes of Telemark".
Lonely Are the Brave.
Lonely Are the Brave.
A phenomenal artist!
"Janet Leigh's gowns were designed purely for sex appeal."
Historical accuracy be damned!
Hats or rather horns off to The Vikings and a toast to mead (without the final "e"). Did Kirk really dance on the oars protruding from the side of the Viking ship and climb the ladder of "rungs" (hatchets) embedded in the main castle gate, or was that just CGI?
Paths of Glory, my all-time favorite movie, each scene a stand-alone gem. "Colonel Dax, you're a disappointment to me. You've spoiled the keenness of your mind by wallowing in sentimentality."
Stream the lesser known The Devil's Disciple (1959), a tongue-in-cheek take on the American Revolution through the eyes of George Bernard Shaw. Burt Lancaster is cast as a pious man of the cloth (not the Elmer-Gantryish flimflammer he'll play the following year). Laurence Olivier plays Gen. "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne.
They all broke out laughing at one point - they could see the local ferry sailing in the background of one of the Viking ship scenes.
I've been an extra in two films. In both I was skeptical of the location. Can't the director see that modern farm building in the background? Isn't it a conspicuous anachronism? And that cell tower on the horizon?, said Quaestor the know-it-all to Quaestor the rough-n-ready deputized galloper and Quaestor the British grenadier. And yet the finished films showed none of those defects that were so glaringly obvious to us $100-a-day-plus-lunch experts.
Ace in the Hole-goes well with Fake News
"The story is a biting examination of the seedy relationship between the press, the news it reports and the manner in which it reports it. The film also shows how a gullible public can be manipulated by the press"
Q '. I imagine you won't be getting a post in Trump's cabinet for other reasons besides your resumé.'
To paraphase Marx (no not that one) 'i wouldn't be part of an administration that would have me in their cabinet'...
Dalton Trumbo and Kirk Douglas had the same bithday, but Trumbo was born in 1905. Also born on December 9: Judy Dench, Donny Osmond, John Malkovich, Beau Bridges, Dick Butkus, Princess Masako of Japan, and me (hitting one of those decade marks).
Toy
Douglas and Mitchum!!!! Out of the Past:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Past
https://isohunt.to/cards/movie/2587
We've filled this commentary with tributes to Douglas's big-budget starring roles, but to really appreciate his talent we mustn't forget his down-bill appearances in the 1940's, particularly his first outing with Burt Lancaster in I Walk Alone and the greatest noir of all, Out of the Past.
Dalton Trumbo and Kirk Douglas had the same bithday, but Trumbo was born in 1905. Also born on December 9: Judy Dench, Donny Osmond, John Malkovich, Beau Bridges, Dick Butkus, Princess Masako of Japan, and me (hitting one of those decade marks).
Toy
LOL. Great minds think alike.
100. Screw Spartacus. We all want to be Kirk Douglas.
GWash wrote: To paraphase Marx (no not that one) 'i wouldn't be part of an administration that would have me in their cabinet'...
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
Forgive me, Hagar, but I'm missing the reference "Hajji Baba". Is that a backlot soubriquet for Tony Curtis?
A false memory. It was John Derek, not Tony Curtis.
OTOH, Curtis did do The Black Knight of Falworth, so he still had a lot to answer for.
One of the best Vikings ever, Kirk Douglas was. The dive from the tower, and the subsequent installation of a metal grille over the window, is one of the best nonverbal jokes in the movies of the time.
Paths of Glory was a bad movie for many of the same reasons that Full Metal Jacket was a bad movie. But there are other reasons, unique to that movie. And by "bad," I mean dreadful, fundamentally dishonest, and full of shit.
Hagar wrote: Curtis did do The Black Knight of Falworth, so he still had a lot to answer for.
How wrong you are, Hagar. Firstly the title was The Black Shield of Falworth, and it is well known that many brave and daring knights were brought up on the Flatbush Avenue.
The Lords of Flatbush? Sly Stallone and Henry "Fonzie" Winkler?
Yonder lies duh castle of my fadduh, Hagar.
Spartacus is worth seeing, it's bit hokey and historically totally wrong. And if you've seen Braveheart, Spartacus is basically the same movie but longer.
My gym is approximately 65% straight and 35% gay, which is considered pretty straight, compared to other gyms in the city. It is not a fab gym-which I like. It is a combo of Cambridge townies, well into six digit salaried professionals, and MIT and Harvard students. I could not work out at a fab gym-too much pressure to be on.
My gym has a large, gay, Asian mafia. I am not into Gay Asians because I don't think their appearance is masculine, and they tend to have a small cock-I know that isn't PC, but it is true.
I try not to let others get on my nerves at the gym. I take deep breaths and my chakras tend to be in alignment. But the Gay Asian Mafia are starting to get on my gay nerves. I think I am a little unnerved because there are just so many of them, like flies, buzzing around. Some of them are Sauna Iguana's and all of them, seriously, wear the Canada Goose jackets, and the really expensive ones, not the cheapy $1,000 coats. And they all have the fucking accessories-Aviator Hat, Gloves, Scarves, Snow pants...in the city. I would never want to wear a jacket that everyone else is wearing, but it is weird, the coats are everywhere.
Oh and one of the gay asian's grindr profile says he will not do blacks unless they have received "a masters or higher from an Ivy"...seriously. She is actually the best looking too, but major Asian tude.
Gay Asians
tits
Paths of Glory draws on the numerous mutinies that occurred in the French Army following the disastrous Nivelle Offensive of April 1917. Where the film shows it true colors is the falsehood of the accused mutineers being selected and tried by lot. Whereas incidents of mutiny and desertion may have exceeded 500 hundred thousand, the French army convicted only a small minority, most sentenced to hard labor and 43 actually executed, these having turned their weapons on fellow Frenchmen.
There was something Homeric and basic about Kirk Douglas. I haven't seen Ulysses, The Vikings, or Spartacus in years, but I can still see him in those roles. He was to sandals what John Wayne was to saddles......Anyone can live to a hundred, but it takes a real lust for life to live to a hundred after a major stroke.
I love the music from Spartacus, the play, by Aram Khachaturian....divine
tits
Titus returns with his off-topic non sequiturs. At least we haven't been regaled with a narrative about his bowel habits... not yet anyway.
Trad guy,
What did mccarthy have to do with trumbo?
Or anyone else in Hollywood?
John Henry
I read his autobiography/memoir, The Ragman's Son. More as-told-by than ghostwritten. Fascinating guy. Spent his life with a chip on his shoulder. Very self-depracating (without shame) about his 'service' in WW2. He said that Burgess Meredith (of all people) would steal his girlfriends when they were both working Broadway.
It's a ballet, Titus. But call it a "play" if you insist.
Or anyone else in Hollywood?
Good point, John Henry.
Everybody recognizes the name Joseph McCarthy, and everybody is supposed to hate him. (There's a fake news take here.) But nobody can name a member of the HUAAC without peeking.
Lewis,
Never read rag man's son.
Last year I am Spartacus by douglad popped up on mu Kindle unlimited account. Very good reaf about the movie. Written by Douglas (or a ghost)
I recommend
John Henry
This is one of those old-timey actors?
The Bad and the Beautiful. Whatta film ! Whatta guy !
Roughcoat said...
Paths of Glory was a bad movie for many of the same reasons that Full Metal Jacket was a bad movie. But there are other reasons, unique to that movie. And by "bad," I mean dreadful, fundamentally dishonest, and full of shit.
12/9/16, 1:55 PM
I enjoyed both, though the latter at least certainly had the appearance of "letting down the side," and would value your criticisms.
Ace In The Hole has been mentioned. Excellent movie but hard to watch.
Excellent movie but hard to watch.
It was meant to be painful.
Ann, here are some movies Kirk Douglas made I'm sure you would enjoy.
Two from the fifties are ACE IN A HOLE and THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.
The charcters Kirk plays in both are real SOBS, the hallmark of the type he excelled at. ACE has Billy Wilder as writer and director. EVERYTHING falls into place. Plot and dialogue are excellent.
The BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL was directed by Vincent Minelli and has a superb cast, Lana Turner, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahme and Gilbert Roland. The theme song, "Love Is For The Very Young" (David Raksin) is a jazz standard and even though you may not think you know it, I know you've heard it's haunting melody many, many times. Andre Previn recorded the perfect version on his best selling jazz album "Like Young". The film is a "Hollywood Picture", Douglas playing a Selznik type character.
ANYTHING that pairs Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster is worth watching. My favorite is SEVEN DAYS IN MAY. There are some great stories associated with the film's production, but I'll leave that to you to research (if you're interested).
A later film Kirk made with Brian DePalma, THE FURY was terrifying. For good measure, John Cassavetes costars as a really evil CIA operative who kidnaps psychics to use their unusal powers as weapons. You know that one isn't going to end well for everyone involved.
Of course, every KIRK DOUGLAS fan loves THE VIKINGS, ULYSSES, PATHS TO GLORY, GUNFIGHT AT OK CORRAL, LONLEY ARE THE BRAVE (Kirk's favorite) but he made some unusual pictures that are worth viewing.
I'll list them and let others comment.
They are:
STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET with Kim Novak
THE HOOK a WW2 flick about prejudice
THE ARRANGEMENT with Faye Dunaway and directed by Elia Kazan
Those last three were all box office disappointments, but well made.
Here's wishing Mr. Douglas well on his 100th year. I hope he's surronded by friends and loved ones and still has his most cherished memories.
By the way, a few others still alive from his era are Doris Day and Olivia de Havilland.
Douglas and Day starred together in YOUNG MAN WIT A HORN, a very good movie.
McCarthy made use of any American Communist Party association from the 1930s as a career ending black marks for idealist fools. But that only came came after our Ally Stalin had lowered an iron curtain in Eastern Europe, to which HST responded with aide to fight them in Greece, the Berlin Airlift, and especially after the Rosenbergs stole our A-Bomb secrets, not to mention the Korean War and prisoner brainwashing tricks.
But McCarthy used a claim to secret knowledge that nearly all Americans in the State Department and the Military were were Communist agents too, and he had a secret list, to blackmail everybody. Truman was accused and Eisenhower was on his list too.
That show of intimidation force ramped up Hoover and some southern politicians to start a permanent Investigation campaign resembling the Spanish Inquisition using the same tactic.
If the politicians could have gotten the A-Bomb genie back into the bottle, that would have been worth it. But that clearly became a joke as Stalin did the H-Bomb first.
Jesus, tradguy, can you blabber. What's wrong with persecuting communists? I would have shot them all* and then they needn't have feared unemployment. I daresay some other schmuck could have written you some screenplays.
Or hanged, hanging is fine for communists.
Looking at the list of films brought me to this list which has people out of order.
Ann, a funny video on youtube...Frank Gorshin on the Dean Martin Show imagining Batman and Robin portrayed by Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.
Paul Newman and Robert Redford were great as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But, I think it would have been a real hoot if Lancaster and Douglas had played those iconic roles.
Ah, what might have been.
I just remembered a very interesting Kirk Douglas movie with an all star cast, THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER. It was really good fun. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Pure entertainment.
Love Kirk Douglas, great actor, Hollywood legend for generations, a man who willed himself to be great. Ragman's Son is a beautiful book, fantastic stories. He has incredible drive, stamina, ego and mania for perfection, and he is the first to admit he drove directors crazy with his demands and his attitude. In his hilarious book Just Tell Me When To Cry, Richard Fleischer has many hysterical tales of Kirk's hijinks on set of The Vikings and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Fleischer tells the story of running into Kirk a few years after they last worked together and Kirk hails him: "Hey Fleischer, you're the only director to survive making two pictures with me!" Then Fleischer writes that Kirk was right- You don't make a picture with Kirk, you survive making a picture with Kirk... Nevertheless, Fleischer expressed immense admiration for Douglas' talent, guts, love and enthusiasm for making movies, and abundance of Star Quality.
Sometimes when explaining the societal changes i have observed during my lifetime, I juxtapose Kirk Douglas with Leonardo Dicaprio and John Wayne to Keanu Reeves. People usually just stare at me for a second. then look away and change the subject. I'm not sure what that means.
It's probably not good.
Being declared an enemy of the people for being suspected as a wrong thinker was serious business in the 1950s where I lived. A suspected friend of communist was almost as bad being a N..... Lover.
Well some had courage to stand up to that. So standing up to McCarthy tactics was small potatoes. The John Birchers were as mean as the KKK but twice as stupid and all mentally ill.
I like Douglas' acting, especially "Bad and the Beautiful" and "Story of Three Loves," one of my favorites. (It's three stories and he is in one of them)
However, I heard him interviewed on he radio driving home. He sure sounds like an old commie. He was talking about how wonderful the script was of the movie "Trumbo." That was a piece of commie crap.
I still like his acting. When I was first in practice, one of my partners' daughters was dating his son, the one who OD'd.
You know, Kirk Douglas is a lefty. He always was. I don't care because it never interfered with what his greatest desire was to entertain people with first class motion pictures. And he did. Like most actors, his politics was misguided (and still is) but, with the best of intentions for humankind. He thinks socialist ideology will solve humanity's problems, but he is wrong. There is no man made solution. We can try, reach for our better angels but, we will never achieve Nirvana. This is a fallen world and remain so until the end. What we have achieved in the United States of America, our Declaration of Independence, the US Constitiution and our Bill of Rights is the closest we can come to "perfection" in this world. The founding fathers found our ideal, not Karl Marx or Lenin or Stalin or Mao or any other BS being promoted by the "snowflake" generation and the counter culture professors who filled their heads with nonsense.
I love Kirk. He's entitled to his views, no matter how flawed. He can do that in our republic. He'd never had made 100 years in a Soviet "republic". The 'ragman's son" would have ended his days in a gulag.
And Trumbo was a true believer masqurading as a "freedom fighter". And he is gone with the wind, baby.
I've also never seen Spartacus. I don't own it on DVD either -- if I did, maybe I'd watch it.
Recently watched "Trumbo" at my wife's request. Our resident anti Trump scold "Unknown" is like the lady in the flowered hat. "There's a Ruskie behind every bush!" "We are going to boycott you!" Blah blah blah. The funny thing is that if you look at the movie as a story just about the US, and leave out the fact that the Soviet Union was a horror show, and that American communists gave them the bomb, well, if you leave all of that stuff out, and just look at the story, it's Trump who is Trumbo, who stared down the nasty scolds and their complete intolerance of any point of view they disagreed with.
Unknown is Hedda.
it's Trump who is Trumbo, who stared down the nasty scolds and their complete intolerance of any point of view they disagreed with.
Gee, I thought Trumbo was just a standard communist like the rest of the Hollywood communists who dominated the early war years until Hitler invaded the USSR. Then they turned on a dime.
Shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Trumbo and his publisher decided to suspend reprinting Johnny Got His Gun until the end of the war.
I wonder why ? Why don;t you read on of the excellent books about communism in Hollywood ?
Red Star over Hollywood is good
and so is Hollywood Party.
I think both have the story of who the commissar in Hollywood was and how writers had to retract their scripts when the party line shifted.
One comment with so much nonsense
Well some had courage to stand up to that. So standing up to McCarthy tactics was small potatoes. The John Birchers were as mean as the KKK but twice as stupid and all mentally ill.
How many people did the Birchers kill? Do you even know who they were, what they believed or what they did do?
As for McCarthy: What did he do to Trumbo that you think was so bad?
What did he do to anyone for their beliefs?
His remit was to investigate government employees with security clearances for their actions, not their beliefs. We now know from the Venona files and from the opening of intelligence files in Moscow, both in the 90s, that pretty much all of McCarthy's alleged victims were guilty of passing classified info to Moscow. In many cases, very high level classified info.
Seems like investigating govt employees for violating security clearances is not a responsibility and duty of Congress.
JOhn Henry
Watch 'Champion' just for the last 10 minutes. His face contorted with insane feral rage is unforgettable.
I am Spartacus.
Happy birthday, Kirk!
That gal (I apologize to y'all golden years folks for not knowing your B&W era stuff) is uber flat chested.
I'm into an athletic, trim frame, and fake tits aren't required, even so, a little tit seems better than no tit.
Just sayin'
FMJ was a bad movie? "You grabasitc piece of amphibian shit."
McCarthy actually had almost nothing to do with Hollywood. I just went through this conversation with my wife over dinner. McCarthy was all about the "loss" of China and Dean Acheson who was SoS. McCarthy was an alcoholic and went way too far with his accusations but he was right about some people, like Harry Dexter White who was a Soviet agent.
Hollywood was mostly the focus of the HUAC and the chairman was amazingly hard to find. It was J. Parnell Thomas. I looked at ten sites before I could find the Chairman's name. Most of the articles a search finds are gushing tributes to the communists.
In The Ragman's Son, Kubrick does not come off well. A bit of a shit heel. Douglas says that Kubrick tried to steal the writing credit for Spartacus, using the blacklist as an excuse.
Great movie. It's all about power. There are a few great scenes where the Roman's idea that power is basis of all human relations is made quite clear. It made me realize how dramatic the contrast between Roman paganism and early Christianity was.
The Ragman's Son has a few interesting ommissions. Douglas freely admits to cheating on every woman he was ever involved with -- except the woman he was married to when he wrote it when The Ragman's Son was published. Douglas mentions virtually every person he knew in Hollywood, other than Charlton Heston. Heston and Douglas must have been competing for many of the same roles in their Hollywood glory years (1955-1970), but Douglas never mentions him. I don't have the book anymore so I am going by memory. But it struck me as I read it. Where was Heston?
Fortunately, that flat chested gal had a very shallow brow. For a lot of gals, w/ less feminine facial features and hair length/style, that chest would make them indistinguishable from a man
Kirk Douglas was a leftie, but on he carried it well. On him it looked proletarian rather than like a pose.Well, he was a movie star so who even knows what's real about him. Movie stars are more persona than real.......Montgomery Clift was a fine actor, but I think Kirk Douglas would have been better in From Here To Eternity. I never could buy Clift as a boxing champion, and there was something primal about Prewitt that Clift missed and that Douglas had.
FMJ was a bad movie? "You grabasitc piece of amphibian shit."
FMJ was a bad movie? "You grabasitc piece of amphibian shit."
Lauren Bacall interview ... Hey, I did that! (as a favor for a friend who was producing the Kirk Douglas Bio, and couldn't make it to L.A. Since I've never seen the show, this was my first time watching this interview)
"I never could buy Clift as a boxing champion"
Once a high-plains-drifter-type, always a high planes drifter. Even Dirty H, wasn't quite right, IMHO.
I'm pretty sure that Janet Leigh's "Morgana" character in The Vikings is the source of the slang term "torpedoes" for a woman's breasts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0FF9JLIj1c
Is it getting warm in here? I think it is getting warm in here.
The Vikings's trailer could depict life in Dark Age Norway -- or, perhaps, everyday life in Donald Trump's America.
We watched Spartacus once at school. We also watched all of Roots.
I"m spartacus!
I"M SPARTACUS!
Blogger traditionalguy said...
Being declared an enemy of the people for being suspected as a wrong thinker was serious business in the 1950s where I lived. A suspected friend of communist was almost as bad being a N..... Lover.
Well some had courage to stand up to that. So standing up to McCarthy tactics was small potatoes. The John Birchers were as mean as the KKK but twice as stupid and all mentally ill.
12/9/16, 6:14 PM
Now that Trump has won the election, traditional guy, we don't need you anymore, and you can do yourself and everyone the very salient service of shutting the f*** up. How many innocent people did McCarthy have shot in the back of the neck or sent to the Arctic to die of scurvy?
Redheaded Southern lawyer trash. Like you, yourself, ever stood up for anyone or anything in your life that didn't pay you.
PBJ_Bullshit, Lauren Bacall is no Liv Ullmann. You're not allowed to not know who Lauren Bacall is. Fortunately we know you're tweaking and nobody gives a s*** about you anyway. Loser.
But it's good to have traditionalguy on the record as saying that racists are better in every way than anti-communists.
"Heston and Douglas must have been competing for many of the same roles in their Hollywood glory years (1955-1970), but Douglas never mentions him. I don't have the book anymore so I am going by memory. But it struck me as I read it. Where was Heston?"
Actually, there weren't competing for roles in 1955-1970 time period. During the 1955-1970 time period, Douglas was mostly acting in movies he produced or co-produced. Further, by 1965 Douglas was almost 50, and a bit of has-been in terms of leading man parts. That's why he was doing stuff like "The war wagon" and "Is Paris Burning?" Douglas offered Heston a role in the Vikings and Heston turned it down. Heston also turned down the Tony Curtis role in "Trapeze" (produced by Burt Lancaster).
Post a Comment