Firing Line With William F. Buckley: The Hippie Generation (1968)

Source:The New Democrat

I find this whole show very interesting if for no other reason and there might not be any other reason why I find this episode of Firing Line interesting, but the contrast on it. You have Bill Buckley who was as Anglo-Saxon and preppie and perhaps even square as an American can get, interviewing hippies and an expert I guess on Hippies. Why Buckley would let Jack Kerouac go out on his show drunk, I have no idea other than maybe to make fun of the man and make him look like a joke.

The hippie movement was a reaction to the 1950s and every other conservative establishment decades before it. What the Hippies said was that there were multiple ways for Americans to live their lives and be productive people and good Americans. That they didn’t have to live the lives of the parents and grandparents. The Baby Boomers who probably made up most of the Hippies were giving this message and living their life differently. That they didn’t have to live the lives of their parents and could live the way that they wanted to and still be good productive people.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Run For Doom (1963) Starring John Gavin & Diana Dors

Source:The New Democrat

I think Run For Doom is Alfred Hitchcock at his best because you see the full-scale of what he wanted to give his audience. A suspense/thriller involving people who were not saints or angels and not devils either, but real people who tend to be somewhere in between. With clever writing and a lot of humor and the female lead being a goddess. A gorgeous sexy women who is also very adorable and yet very clever and witty. Which is Diane Dors at her best, Jayne Mansfield who was also on this series and several other women who appeared on this series.

Run For Doom is about a nightclub singer with a bad history of marriages and relationships where the men in her life do not survive the relationship. And she walks away with a lot of money from the experiences. Diana Dors plays Nikki Carroll the nightclub singer and she’s performing one night and is introduced to a young doctor. Dr. Don Reed played by John Gavin and they naturally hit it off. Reed being a doctor is probably Nikki’s main interest him, but he’s a young doctor who doesn’t have a lot of money yet.

Dr. Reed has an ailing very wealthy father and his relationship with Nikki goes well enough for him to want to marry Nikki. Reed has gotten several warnings about Nikki’s history with men and her dead husbands and is warned not to pursue her. But I guess he’s blinded by his love for a women who doesn’t love him and decided to propose and marry her anyway. Reed’s father dies after finding out that his son is going to marry Nikki and now Reed is a very wealthy man. And naturally Nikki looses personal interest in Reed and looks to get out of the marriage.

Nikki has something that she can blackmail her husband on. Dr. Reed accidentally killed someone on their honeymoon by pushing a man over the cruise boat that they were on. And they didn’t bother to report the incident. Nikki tells the doctor to give her his money or she’ll report the killing to the police. Nikki also has a long-term on and off again boyfriend who wants her back. And knows what she is up to with her husband and decides to step in to get a piece of the action. And they have a physical struggle that leads to him strangling her and thinking he killed her.

To be honest with you, Diana Dors was the main reason why I’m so interested in this show. But it is a very entertaining and at times a pretty funny show as well. With Diana playing a women that is so cunning personally and bright and yet she looks too sweet and cute to hurt, let alone kill anyone. And yet she has a history of dead boyfriends and husbands. But in this marriage she is the one who doesn’t survive the affair.

Queen Latifah: Jaclyn Smith Ageless Beauty

Source:The Daily Press

The title says it all about one of the best overall looking women of all time. Here’s a women whose going to be 70 in October, 70 years old. A gorgeous and still baby-faced adorable red-head who if anything is actually sexier now than she was in the late 1970s when she became a star on Charlie’s Angels. Her and Raquel Welch, they seem to refuse to age. As Raquel has put it several times, looking good is her job. That is what she does and has all the motivation to look good and take care of herself, because it is how she makes her living as a businesswomen and someone with her own fashion business now. I believe Jaclyn Smith is in the same category. That looking good and fashion is her business. And the best way I think she believes she can promote that is looking as good as she possibly can herself.

There isn’t a better women that could have coined Ageless Beauty, or could have had that term named for her better than Jaclyn Smith. She’s been in Hollywood , the entertainment business and fashion industry, for over forty years now. Before I was born I’m sure, which makes me feel a little younger and yet she still looks 10-15, maybe even twenty years younger than she actually is. Here’s a women who was born at the end of World War II which was seventy years ago and she looks better today than probably most women young enough to be her daughter. And I’m sure many women young enough to be her granddaughter as well. She’s the definition of ageless beauty and 10-15 years from now will probably still be modeling her own products, because she’ll be able to give people personal experience that they work.

This is going to sound corny, but so what, because it’s so true. You’re as young as you feel and age really is only a number. I’ve seen men and women in their late thirties and early forties who are going gray already. Men that young, going bald who look 10-15 years older than they actually are. From either drinking and smoking too much, or both, perhaps using harder drugs, not eating right, not exercising, not managing stress, etc. And I’ve seen men women who actually are as old in years as younger people, who look as old as they actually are, who look as young as the younger people who’ve aged too fast. And why is that, because time machines haven’t been invented yet. The younger looking healthier looking people like Jackie Smith, take care of themselves. They enjoy life while actually taking care of themselves. Instead of seeing how hard they can live before they die.

Lionsgate: Video: Goodnight and Good Luck (2005)

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

If I had to rate Goodnight and Good Luck on a scale of 1-10 with ten being the highest, I would give it a 9-9.5. And I saw the movie again a couple of nights ago in preparation for this blog. The only reason I wouldn’t give it a ten, is because it was a ninety-minute movie about one of the most important times during the Cold War between America and Russia and their allies on both sides. This movie should’ve been at least two-hours if not three and they would’ve been able to cover so many more aspects about the McCarthyism in the 1950s.

If you are familiar with the 1950s in America and the so-called red scare about communism and Communists in America, then you are also familiar with U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy and the Army McCarthy hearings that supposedly investigated supposed Communists inside of the U.S. Government. A complete fishing trip inside of an empty bathtub, because Chairman McCarthy and his team didn’t have much if anything to go on. Other than guilt by association. Senator McCarthy saw this as his ticket to the White House after President Dwight Eisenhower.

Edward R. Murrow the anchor and managing editor of CBS News’s See it Now, the CBS nightly newscast before the CBS Evening News, knew what communism was and who were the actual Communists. Because he covered World War II in Europe. And didn’t believe that Americans who weren’t Communists should be stuck with the label of Communists. And he and Fred Friendly and their team at See it Now, without having the backing of CBS News and the broader CBS network, decided to go after McCarthyism and expose Joe McCarthy for what he was. Which was a political opportunist and a right-wing fascist. Who saw Americans who didn’t look at the world the way he did as Un-American.

Murrow and Friendly expose Joe McCarthy for what he really was by going after him the way any good news organization would. By using the truth against McCarthy. Using his own words and documents against the Senator. And with Murrow doing a nightly editorial after their reporting on the McCarthy hearings about dangerous fascism and guilt by association is. And George Clooney who plays Fred Friendly and David Strathairn who plays Ed Murrow, do a great job of showing who the real Friendly and Murrow and the See it Now crew take down Senator Joe McCarthy.

Coyote Ugly 2000: Tyra Banks Dancing on The Bar

Source:The New Democrat

I believe this was the first scene in Coyote Ugly where the bar was open. And Violet played by Piper Perabo walks in for her tryout or audition and sees the women on the bar in action. And she comes from somewhat of a culturally conservative background, which is one of the reasons why she goes to New York and sees these gorgeous sexy women. And Tyra Banks perhaps being the best looking of these women dancing on the bar. And I’m not saying that Tyra is a great actress, I would argue that she’s not and fairly limited as an actress, but this scene wasn’t so much acting. But sexy women especially Tyra dancing on the bar and she looked as great and did as well as any professional Coyote dancer I believe at the real Coyote bar. And watching her dancing in those tight leather jeans and boots and it is the first scene where you get to see the bar in action, you knew you were watching one hell of a good sexy movie.

Sony Pictures: Love Has Many Faces (1965)

Source:The New Democrat

I just love Lana Turner and Stefanie Powers. Two of the cutest hottest sexiest actress’s that Hollywood has ever produced. They both have the cutest facial expressions and mannerism’s you’ll ever see and put them together in a movie together and have them in the same scene and what else would you want to see. By the way, Ruth Roman is very beautiful and cute in this movie and I believe a very underrated actress and babe in Hollywood. And by the way, Love Has Many Faces is a very good movie. I saw it twice this week in preparation for this blog. And I’ll get into what I saw and nor just Lana, Stef and Ruth.

Love Has Many Faces is essentially about the American gigolo. Three men now working in Acapulco, Mexico which is absolutely gorgeous looking for their next meal tickets. Pete Jordan played by Cliff Robertson already has his meal ticket Kit Jordan his wife. Who should’ve been called Kitty or Kitten because she was so adorable in this movie. One of Pete’s old friends, a fellow gigolo washes up dead on an Acapulco beach. This guy also has a connection with Kit and was wearing a bracelet that she gave him. So now Pete and Kit are suspects for the Acapulco police in this murder investigation.

Carol Lambert played by Stefanie Powers is the girlfriend of the dead gigolo and comes down to Acapulco from America to find out what happened to her boyfriend. Pete not only has to worry about he and his wife as murder suspects in this investigation, but also has a rival who wants his wife. Hank Walker and old friend of his wife. And during this whole investigation and scene you have a married couple Pete and Kit Jordan who’ve been married for about a year and yet they’ve argued like they’ve been married for thirty-years. And have two or three kids together who are all in or out of college. And thinking about divorcing each other.

During this whole movie I’m wondering if Pete actually loves his rich wife or not, or did her marry her because she’s rich. They are clearly attracted to each other and share a mutual respect. But they socialize with other people and have other potential love interests. Pete has his old friend’s girlfriend Carol and Kit has Hank. Or are Pete and Kit using each other and trying to make each other jealous to perhaps try to bring them closer to each other. All this going on during a murder investigation where they are both suspects in it. And then throw in the clever writing and humor and you have a very good movie.

The Economist: German-Americans: The Silent Minority

Source:The New Democrat

I think I completely agree with this article from The Economist that I just read. Which is saying something because I don’t agree with them on everything. I tend to like their information and analysis, but tend to disagree with their solutions. They are a center-right publication after all. But as a German-American myself, as the name Erik Schneider would indicate, an asteroid sized clue there, we do tend to go unnoticed as an ethnic group in America. And I’m not sure if that is because we’ve been in America so long. The eighteen-hundreds for a lot of us, or because we’ve accomplished so much as a people who is goes unnoticed.

The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner, the highest ranking full-time member of Congress and that includes the Senate Pro Tempore and the Vice President of the United States, is a German-American and a proud one. And a distinct one, I mean you might as well paint the German flag on his face, he looks so German. And yet you wouldn’t know it unless you are familiar with the German people and German names and physical characteristics and so-forth. We’ve created so much for this country as far as technology, food, culture, public servants, Dwight Eisenhower for example. And yet we tend to go unnoticed as a people and perhaps get taken for granted.

When Nancy Pelosi became the first Speaker of the House in America back in 2007, she was mentioned as being the first female Speaker and Italian-American Speaker. But when John Boehner becomes Speaker four years later, nothing is mentioned about him being a German-American who also happens to be the Speaker. Same thing with Newt Gingrich back in 1995. Newt was mentioned as being the first Republican Speaker elected since 1953, but not for being a German-American. And again I think this goes to the success of our people that we are expected to do well and accomplish big things. And Americans just aren’t surprised when we do.