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There’s a wonderful reason for all this, bear with me. I’ve long been a big admirer of George Plimpton, who was the erudite editor of the Paris Review and a serious writer – a compatriot of Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer and many others, but was most-known for his participatory journalism, and the books that resulted from that. His most famous book, Paper Lion, dealt with his time at training camp with the Detroit Lions, practicing with the NFL team as quarterback, all of which led to him getting a chance to run four plays during an exhibition intersquad game – which was a total, disastrous flop. If you consider losing 35 yards a total, disastrous flop. (The book was made into a pretty good movie that starred Alan Alda as Plimpton, a very respectable look-alike. My only quibble with the otherwise terrific film is that for his four plays, the movie – to be more comically dramatic – far over-exaggerates his failure, having him backpedal into the goalpost.) But he did much more than just football. I have five of his books, including his first Out of My League (that began life as an article for Sports Illustrated magazine) when he pitched to the American League and National League all-star baseball teams. But also Open Net, for which he played goalie for the NHL’s Boston Bruins, and a book on his brief experience trying the PGA golf tour, Bogey Man. Among his many other efforts, which lead to articles, were playing basketball with the Boston Celtics, auto-racing, boxing light-heavyweight champ Archie Moore for three rounds, and (in a much safer, though still personally harrowing exploit) playing percussion in two concerts with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Berstein. Though he was, of course, at the center of all his books and articles, what made his work so wonderful is that they weren’t really about him – those tales added a fun, dramatic structure to the stories – but rather dealt into the people around him who he was “competing” with and what their lives were like as real people with egos and insecurities trying to make a career in those fields, insight into what training and practicing was really like. A few years back, there was a terrific documentary about him, called, Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself. I wrote about it here. What made the documentary so wonderful was that, unlike most similar movies, is that there is so much film footage of him in action. And much of that is thanks to a series of, I believe, six TV documentaries produced by David Wolper for ABC in the early 1970s. There was Plimpton! The Man on the Flying Trapeze – in which he trained with the circus to perform on – yes, really – the flying trapeze. As well as Plimpton! Did You Hear the One About…? where did trained to be a stand-up comic in Las Vegas, as opening act for Paul Anka. (There’s the hilarious advice I’ve always remembered Jonathan Winters giving him, telling Plimpton to peek around the curtain before coming on stage and, in a high-pitched childlike voice say, “Hi! We’re going to have some fun!”) And one – Plimpton! Shoot-Out at Rio Lobo -- where he went behind-the-scenes about making movies and got a one-line role in a John Wayne movie, Rio Lobo. (The big joke in that one is that he spends the whole film practicing his one line, “I got your warrant right here, sheriff,” pulling out a rifle – and right before filming the scene, the director Howard Hawks, changed the line, to “This here’s your warrant, mister”. After which he’s beaten up and then shot by Wayne.) But my very favorite of those TV films was one where Plimpton himself (rather than the Hollywood movie, good as it was) sort of re-created his famous Paper Lion experience. Not with Detroit, but with then-Baltimore Colts. They called it Plimpton! The Great Quarterback Sneak. Here's the trailer of the documentary, which is a nice set-up for the point of all this, which is coming. By the way, later in his life, Plimpton actually appeared in quite a lot of movies and TV shows in small, but more substantial roles, most notably Good Will Hunting, Volunteers (as Tom Hanks’ father), Steve Martin’s L.A. Story and even two episodes of ER. In fact, the iMDB lists 43 credits for him. I bring all this up (most especially the ABC documentaries) for a specific reason. And here’s the point of it all – I’ve found all six of Plimpton’s TV documentaries online. And, presuming they stay available, will be embedding each of them, over time. After all these years, they’re still a great treat. And to start things off, we have that TV documentary when Plimpton decides to run away and join the circus. But being Plimpton, he doesn’t take it easy. For while he goes around, talking to everyone and finding out about people’s lives, what got them to make a circus life and their fears and joys – he trains, not for something simple and fun, but…well, as the title says -- Plimpton! The Man on the Flying Trapeze (Contrary to what the video says, this only runs about 51 minutes.)
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So, in the midst of the tropical storm, Los Angeles got a 5.1 earthquake on Sunday afternoon.
In case you were concerned, no, there were no reports of frogs, locusts and boils, and first-born children are all okay. What might enrage Trump more than losing the 2020 election is this --
For MANY YEARS, Trump has been ranting about never winning an Emmy. It seems to absolutely gall him. Last night, Barack Obama won an Emmy Award! It was for narrating the excellent Netflix series on National Parks. If you missed LAST WEEK TONIGHT with John Oliver on Sunday, the Main Story was about live entertainment, focusing on Ticketmaster, though not limited to them. It was a pleasure to get a bit of a breather with a topic that, while important and gallingly out of control -- the phenomenally high and rising cost of buying tickets to live concerts -- was also a story where your stomach wasn't in total knots, lives weren't at stake, and the humor (of which there was plenty) fit in. Yesterday, Sen. Angus King (an Independent from Maine, though he caucuses with Democrats) made a suggestion to executives at Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO Max and Hulu, asking them to consider making their streaming services free during the holidays. The intention is that with so much free movies and entertainment, it would convince people not to go out and ultimately help lower the risk of spreading COVID-19 and keep infections down.
As you might imagine, the public reaction to this was very positive. And I think it's a very nice idea. In fact, on the surface it's a wonderful idea. I also think that once you get past the razor thin surface it is pretty meaningless. For starters, I sense that most people who are traveling for the holidays or going out to holiday parties are not doing so because there's nothing to watch on TV. I also sense, too, that not only do most households already likely subscribe to at least one of those services (Disney Plus alone has 86 million subscribers, which I assume are largely households), but the number of homes that don't subscribe to just one service AND would stay in if they got a temporary free subscription is small enough to not make a dent in health conditions. Further, consider -- Can you imagine someone calling the parents and saying, "Mom, I won't be coming home for Christmas like we discussed because I got a free subscription to Hulu." Even more to the point -- and this is the Big Logic Problem in this -- if everyone in the country was to get free holiday subscriptions to these services...then you wouldn't have to stay home to use them, but you could keep your travel plans, fly home to your family, and know that you could watch your free streaming movies from there! (Besides, if a person is so irresponsible to travel during a raging pandemic in the first place, staying inside for any reason, let alone because you could watch movies, is not likely a high priority.) As for people who weren't planning to travel, but did expect to go to parties or socialize with friends, this streaming service offer has almost no impact on that either. After all, it presupposes that people will stay at home inside to watch movies 16 hours a day. Every day. For at least a week. You have to assume (have to) that after a while, anyone -- but especially people who were irresponsible enough to plan to go to parties and socialize -- wouldn't, at some point, get tired of watching TV all the time and want to get out, and go do what they were planning to before. Go to holiday parties. Or socialize. And even if they stay inside, watching movies for 16 hours a day, all the time, but just decide they need to get out once -- go to one holiday party, not half a dozen, just one, or get together with friends for one night -- That is All It Takes to Get Infected. Once. Further, people who were planning to get together with friends for the holidays but now have streaming movies to watch will be under absolutely no obligation to watch them alone. It is not unreasonable to think that people who wanted to socialize with their friends might now say, "Hey, we were planning on watching Hamilton. Want to come over and watch together? We can make a potluck party of it!" Would there be some people who won't travel and stay at home watching their holiday streaming offer? Or not go to Christmas parties or socialize with friends, and just watch their free streaming services? Absolutely. But those are the people who most probably weren't planning to travel, go to parties or socialize...anyway! So, all that this would conceivably impact are the few households who don't already subscribe to a streaming service AND would cancel their irresponsible travel plans and irresponsible party plans and irresponsible social plans -- which they know at this point are irresponsible and don't care -- AND stay at home to watch streaming movies alone AND watch them for 16 hours a day, every day, for a week...because without having these streaming services they feel there is nothing else to watch on TV. The idea that Sen. King suggested is an extremely nice one. It is a nice one as a "thank you" gift to a nation that has been through a hellish year. Businesses are under no obligation to thank the public, of course -- Senate Republicans finally agreeing to pass the $3.4 trillion relief and stimulus package that House Democrats passed back in May would be a really cool and much better "thank you" -- but yes, it would be nice. But it would have pretty much next to zero impact on the pandemic. If people do want to help out and have an impact on not spreading the coronavirus, my own suggestion is to wear a face mask for a few weeks. And if you really want to do your civic good, don't go to parties. And if you do go, stay six feet apart. And wear a face mask. That, or watch Hamilton alone with your family 56 times. And yes, I know that there are some people who will do that... https://t.co/nAeBWPG9ln A couple months back, I wrote here about the f/X mini-series, Fosse/Verdon about the marriage between Broadway star Gwen Verdon and director Bob Fosse. The series ended a week or so ago, but something has continued to nag me about the ending -- actually, even more than the ending, really the final crawl, most of all, where text rolled up the screen to wrap up the story -- so I thought I'm jump in and address it. For those who saw the series, it might be of interest. For those who didn't...well, at least jump to the video at the end. Overall, I liked the series quite a lot. It was don't thoughtfully, intelligently and with understated craft, and often even artistry. I also enjoyed the final episode, and a few things very well done in it,. But (here is the long rant)…FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I can’t understand why – in the final crawl, with the text explaining Gwen Verson's final years after Fosse had died – they left it like the legendary Verdon's life was empty, an older actress out-of-work, and basically just an adjunct to Fosse’s career, mentioning only a single credit after he died -- and that as “artistic director” on a musical that was a tribute to his work, and then she moved in with her daughter and died -- when in reality she went to Hollywood, after fighting it for years, co-starred in two big hit Cocoon movies directed by Ron Howard, had a recurring guest-star role on a big hit TV series Magnum P.I. playing Tom Selleck’s mother and had about two dozen movie and TV credits. ALL of which they left out. (In fact, that sense of "emptiness" in the final crawl was even compounded by her last scene which was meeting with her agent where she's told she didn’t get a job, and then about how the struggling actor she’d been living with and left her a couple years earlier -- because of her emotional ties to Fosse -- had himself gotten work, gotten married, and even now has two kids, emphasizing what a full life he went on to, while she’s out of work and alone. And then that empty final crawl that left out the reality,) It’s not just that it would have been the simplest thing to add one line to the final crawl – “Gwen did go to Hollywood, and starred in…” (which would have helped remind people that they did know her work and even saw her) – but I can’t understand WHY they didn’t but instead made the artistic choice to leave it like her last 15 years were empty and alone. It was such a good production that I liked a great deal but left me with a profoundly bad taste by omitting just one sentence of text. The only even remotely possible thing I can think of is that they had a “theme” they didn’t want to waver from, that Fosse and Verdon were so co-dependent on one another, most-specially her. Yet even that doesn’t really make sense in the end because (as valid as some of that is) too much earlier in the show contradicts that. And it’s just a guess that that’s the reason. Perhaps it was the reason, because nothing else really can explain it. But if so, how deeply irresponsible because the series was done so thoughtfully. And Fosse and Verdon's daughter was an executive producer. As was Lin-Manuel Miranda. Either of them (especially Miranda) could have said, “Hold on there! If you want my valuable name on the credits, you must add one sentence to the crawl.” (If the daughter had that monumental an ax to grind – which I seriously doubt, since Verdon moved in with her and they lived together at the end – Miranda certainly didn’t in the slightest, and is a student of Broadway history and I'm certain knows Gwen Verdon's career well.) But clearly, that was a theme they were going for. Because not only did they leave all her later work out of the crawl...and not only was her last scene being told she didn’t get a job, while her lover has gotten married and had kids -- but the whole final sequence right before that (her having to call Fosse to help her because the revival of Sweet Charity wasn’t working, and she didn’t know what to do, and he had to save it). And also, during those revival rehearsals, a sad dance scene he forces her to do against her good nature in front of the show's star, knowing it will embarrass the younger woman, that stops when she can't continue on the telling line, “If My Friends Could See Me Now.” And the scene right before that, when her lover says pointedly that everything you do is for Bob, "You can’t ever say No to Bob," and if you take the job for him, I’m leaving. All of it developing a false there that she was empty at the end and so dependent on Fosse. And the thing is, it’s one thing to say that they each were do-dependent on one another and she couldn’t say no to him. Which, from what I knew beforehand, had truth to it -- though it was co-dependent. But it’s another to say (in the last 30 minutes of an eight-part series) that she was nothing without him. Because the early episodes completely contradict that. Which is why the series was so good. “She’s nothing without Bob” wasn’t the theme of the show, just the last 30 minutes. She was a major Broadway star before meeting him. And she is the person who approved him for his first choreography job – and for his first directing job. And the series regularly showed how much he depended on her, always calling her in to help him out. In fact, they even gave her a tremendous speech in the second-to-last episode where she finally has had enough and tells him off that “you owe everything to ME.” And then the filmmakers throw all that out the window the last half-hour!! And the thing is, IF they wanted that to be the theme, however irresponsible, that she was supposedly "nothing" without him, totally dependent on him, you can still add something to the final crawl that gives that sense but is at least honest. Saying that she had some later credits doesn’t diminish that theme. It’s just a post-script. Any halfway decent writer could figure out something, even if they wanted to keep that theme, yet still honor the person they thought was important enough to make the series about!! “After Bob died, Gwen never acted on Broadway again. She had roles in some TV shows and movies, and eventually moved back to live with her daughter. She died two months later.” That keeps the false theme, but is still honest. But we know what they should have written in the crawl. Not something that disingenuous. And not something dishonest. Rather, that she had a renaissance and had some truly wonderful credits that brought her fame with a new audience. It was a very good series, with a totally inexplicable, irresponsible ending. And speaking of ending's... If you think Gwen Verdon was forgotten and without work, here is a surprise appearance by her in her last stage appearance in 1998. She did still some film and TV work after, but this is the last time she appeared on stage. It was a one-night only benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. They did a special production of Sweet Charity -- which Verdon had originally starred in 32 years earlier, in 1966 -- with about four or five different, famous actresses who'd played the role previously (like Chita Rivera, Debbie Allen and Bebe Neuwirth), each taking the part and switching throughout the night. Verdon wasn't scheduled to be in it, but staged the musical numbers. But for one scene, she surprised the audience and made an appearance -- and the ovation explodes. It's so strong, going on for 45 seconds, that one of the actors on stage, Charles Nelson Reilly, finally shouts an ad-lib over the roars to get the show moving again. So, no, as you'll see, she was most-definitely not forgotten. Other than a four-bar reprise, she doesn't sing in the scene -- Robert Goulet as a famous movie star has the song here -- but she's wonderfully funny, hiding in a closet so that the actor's girlfriend doesn't know she's there. It's the scene that immediately follows her famous number, as noted above, "If They Could See Me Now," which she very briefly reprises. Fun side note: the actress playing the girlfriend is...Marla Maples. Yes, that Marla Maples, at the time married to Trump. Anyway, here is reality: Gwen Verdon in her final stage appearance (yet with even more work still ahead on film) -- working, vibrant, and overwhelmingly remembered with wild cheers. That's an ending. |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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