Terry Teachout's Pops: The Life of Louis Armstrong

I've mentioned Terry Teachout's blog About Last Night in this space on a few occasions. I read it every day and if you're interested in books, music, theater, and art, you should too. I've also read two of his books, his excellent biography of H.L. Mencken, The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken, and his collection of essays, The Terry Teachout Reader. Over the years I've gotten dozens of good ideas from Terry. For instance, I would never have discovered Edwin O'Connor's The Edge of Sadness, a book I love, if not for Terry mentioning it on his blog. In fact, I've read so many excellent books, discovered so much great music, and enjoyed so many plays and exhibits in NYC based on his suggestions that I feel eternally indebted to him. He's the best critic going, period. Terry just put the finishing touches on his forthcoming biography of Louis Armstrong, Pops: The Life of Louis Armstrong, due out in the fall, and he answers the question Why do we need another book about Satchmo? on his blog this morning. It's a fabulous post. Go take a look and start making About Last Night part of your daily routine.

You've noticed I've just discovered how to embed music into my blog. I gave you a couple of great weather-related songs the past few mornings (scroll down). Yesterday morning I was actually looking to embed Louis Armstrong's "Potato Head Blues," my favorite Armstrong recording, but apparently no one has the full version available for embedding - I could get only 30 second snatches of it. So I embedded Jo Stafford's "The Things We Did Last Summer" instead. Then later in the day, I watched "Manhattan," Woody Allen's 1979 homage to the city with the all-Gershwin soundtrack. I enjoyed the movie when it first came out but I found it extremely self-indulgent this time around. Self-awarely self-indulgent: Woody Allen appears to realize he's a megalomaniac. Anyhow, near the end of the movie the Allen character talks into a tape-recorder about what makes life worth-living, and he begins to list off the things he loves most in life - Willie Mays, Cezanne's still lifes, the second movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, and a few other things. And one of the things he mentions is Louis Armstrong's "Potato Head Blues". Say what you want about Allen, he has terrific taste in music. In fact, some of his movies are worthwhile only for their soundtracks. Listen below to one of the greatest jazz recordings ever.


[audio:2-05 Potato Head Blues.mp3]

The Things We Did Last Summer

Much warmer this morning. The thermometer read 32 when I got up, a 31 degree warm up from yesterday at the same time. Still, we remain in the dregs of winter and with no end in sight. Since I don't feel like blogging much today, I'll leave you with a little more Jo Stafford to help get you through. To say I love Jo Stafford's music is a bit of an understatement right now - I've been listening to her non-stop for weeks. I'll post more about her later but for now, enjoy this version of "The Things We Did Last Summer", music by Jule Styne, words be Sammy Cahn. A perfect version of a terrific song:


[audio:15-The-Things-We-Did-Last-Summer.mp3]

1 degree...

...according to our outdoor thermometer this morning. In honor of the weather everywhere:

The Rural Juror, etc.

I'd never watched 30 Rock until a few weeks ago. After hearing a few good things about it I started watching it from the beginning, on my computer via Netflix. I'm about half way through season one and it's terrific - very funny stuff. I didn't think they could make funny shows anymore on network television. The whole "Rural Juror" gag is hilarious - I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Perhaps because I can't say it myself. I've always had trouble putting r's and l's together, for instance the word "scholarly" - can't do it unless I talk real slow. Anyhow, if you haven't seen "The Rural Juror" episode and plan to you don't want to watch the below video. If you have seen it and enjoyed it, enjoy again:

Jack's Back?

I mentioned awhile back that 24 had jumped the shark last season. Always implausible, it nonetheless had been riveting television for many years and served the useful purpose of reminding Americans that there are people out there who want to kill us. But last season descended into pure ridiculousness, what with a man cutting off his own arm (in silence no less, while Jack Bauer stood on the other side of the door), Russians smuggling nuclear weapons into the country and then threatening to go to war with us (!) because, after Jack secured the bombs, one of them went missing and it had all the Russian defense secrets encoded on it's internal computer chip (idiots). Then there were Jacks' dad and geeky brother being involved with the terrorists, some shady Chinese, a comatose Audrey, and other various and sundry howlers. The whole season was a mess and I looked forward not at all to the coming season. I figured I'd give it a shot for a few episodes but if it hadn't improved would drop it and never look back. It's very rare for a television show that's jumped to jump back.

I've watched the first three hours of this season and am so far pleased. It really got going in the third hour when (spoiler alerts!!!) Jack (along with old faithfuls Bill Buchanan and Chloe O'Brian) helps Tony Almeida escape from the FBI - Tony hasn't turned terrorist after all, he's under "deep cover" trying to find out who has infiltrated our government. The plot is quite intriguing and I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next. One quibble: did they have to use the execrable Janine Garofalo as the FBI's version of Chloe? Who knows though, she might be perfect for the part: maybe we're supposed to hate her. At any rate, my wife and I got a kick out of "the battle of the Chloes" with the real Chloe breaking into the FBI's computer system and the other, no doubt lesser Chloe, trying to keep her out. Being 24, you know our girl will always win out. We love Chloe.

"You're Quite a Boy"

So says Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant in the opening sequence of Notorious and who would argue with her? Not Eva Marie Saint, a few years later, in North By Northwest: (Grant: "When I was a little boy, I wouldn't even let my mother undress me." Marie Saint : "Well, you're a big boy now"), nor Grace Kelly, in To Catch a Thief, as she presents Grant with some cold chicken at a picnic: ("You want a leg or a breast?"), nor Audrey Hepburn, in Charade: ("Won't you come in for a minute? I don't bite, you know, unless it's called for.") It's true that when Ralph Bellamy tells Rosalind Russell, in His Girl Friday, that he finds Grant sort of charming, she responds: "Well, he comes by it naturally - his grandfather was a snake," but that was the early Grant, the pre-war Grant, the slapstick Grant of Bringing Up Baby, the bravura comedian of Gunga Din. No woman alive would have called the "Cary Grant" character of the post-war years a snake. That Grant, as Pauline Kael wrote in her monumental essay, The Man From Dream City, was:

...a peerless creation....[w]ithout a trace of narcissism, he appears as a man women are drawn to - a worldly, sophisticated man who has become more attractive with the years....[t]he sensual lusciousness was burned off: age purified him....His acting was purified, too; it became more economical. When he was young, he had been able to do lovely fluff like "Topper" without being too elfin, or getting smirky, like Ray Milland, or becoming a brittle, too bright gentleman, like Franchot Tone. But he'd done more than his share of arch mugging - lowering his eyebrows and pulling his head back as if something funny were going on in front of him when nothing was. Now the excess energy was pared away; his performances were simple and understated and seamlessly smooth. In "Charade," he gives an amazingly calm performance; he knows how much his presence does for him and how little he needs to do. His romantic glamour, which had reached a high peak in 1939 in "Only Angels Have Wings," wasn't lost; his glamour was now a matter of his resonances from the past, and he wore it like a mantle.

The Washington Post this morning publishes this fine article by Sarah Kaufman about Grant. The article is timely in that a week ago I mentioned in passing that Humphrey Bogart was "my favorite actor this side of Cary Grant." Kaufman, who references Pauline Kael's article in her column, attempts to get to the bottom of the same thing Kael was writing about above: how critical Grant's physical grace was to his success.

It's always there, in every role, in the way he walks, the way he slips a hand into his pocket, the way he stands, with his shoulders melting just a bit toward the co-star his character is invariably secretly in love with.

Kaufman also reference's David Thompson's quote about Grant being "the best and most important film actor in the history of the cinema." Yes. She also calls His Girl Friday "one of filmdom's most perfect creations", and I couldn't agree more. Grant's portrayal of the Walter Burns character in the movie is perhaps the finest comic performance in the history of the movies. Watch the first six minutes of this video to get a taste:



Finally, here are a couple of clips from later period, once Grant had transformed himself into the suave, sophisticated icon, the man every other man wanted to be, the man every woman wanted. The first is the famous kiss scene with Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, the second Grant's conversation with Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, two of the sexiest scenes in movie history:

Groundhog Day

Sometimes you post something at just the right time. In my previous post (scroll down) I mentioned that I considered Groundhog Day one of the best movies of all time. I backed up my assertion by referencing conversations I've had about the movie with my buddy Mike and then linking to Jonah Goldberg's homage to the movie at National Review.

Then, right on cue, the New York Times earlier this week published Stanley Fish's Ten Best American Movies and he includes Groundhog Day. Fish is some sort of post-modernist literary theorist so there was some talk between Jonah and Mark Steyn on The Corner about how non-post-modernist Fish's list was. Steyn mentions Fish's inclusion of Meet Me in St. Louis, about as corny (but wonderful) a movie as can be, as perhaps some sort of joke Fish was pulling on his readers. But is Fish any different from most people who make up these lists? How often do you find movies from the past ten or twenty years on these lists? Answer: rarely. Almost all of us go back to the past when we consider the movies we love best, which is pretty fair evidence that they don't make 'em like they used to. Fish may be a post-modernist but he knows an enjoyable movie when he sees one.

So what do I think of Fish's list? Not bad. We agree on Groundhog Day. Besides that, Fish includes a lot of very good movies, some great. The Best Years of Our Lives, Sunset Blvd., Shane, Meet Me in St. Louis and Red River are all very fine movies though I certainly wouldn't put them in my own top ten.

Raging Bull I consider to be highly overrated. Certainly Scorcese's talents are fully on display here but is the movie really that enjoyable? I got much more enjoyment out of Goodfellas, Mean Streets, and Taxi Driver than Bull.

Vertigo is also a fine movie but Hitchcock probably did a dozen things better. Off the top of my head I think of The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, Foreign Correspondent, Rebecca, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and North By Northwest as being superior to Vertigo.

I've never seen A Tree Grows in Brooklyn so I can't comment on that.

That leaves Double Indemnity and here Fish is on to a real gem - I love this movie, film noir at its very best. If is not in my top ten then it is very close. Fred MacMurray is perfect and Barbara Stanwyck even more so - she is the femme fatale of all-time. What man would not follow her down to his doom? He may even know it's coming but oh what a ride. If you've never had the pleasure, see Double Indemnity. A clip from the movie of MacMurray and Stanwyck's first encounter to whet your whistle:



My own movie top ten list will be forthcoming. I know you await with bated breath.