What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there (Walter Cronkite)
It’s the Montmartre district of Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century. Sophistication and elegance are setting Parisian fashion. Historians referred to it as France’s Golden Years. The year is 1869, and tonight is the opening of Paris’ first Music Hall, the glamorous Folies Bergere Theatre.
Dancing and drinking were only the beginning for patrons who frequented the Folies Theatre in Paris. The Folies became the center of world attention as an entertainment spot for fostering new, upcoming stars. Variety acts and talented young artisans from around the world, names like Maurice Chevalier, Will Rogers, Josephine Baker, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Colette, and Fernandel all made their claim to fame under the glittering marquee of the Folies.
I should probably keep this to myself, but at midnight, GMT, Haggis season is on until January 25. Just surf on by Haggis Hunt. The Grand Prize is a two night stay at the Gleneagles in Scotland. Since most of us statesiders can't afford to just pop over for a couple of nights, the under prizes not yet announced are usually fantastic.
The rules are simple.
1. Stop while on your way to somewhere else. 2. Look at the webcams. 3. If you see a Haggis, click on the "I Saw A Haggis" link. 4. If you haven't played before, register once. 5. Make frequent trips since every click goes into the hat. 6. A drawing from all entries after January 25 will determine winners.
There are three kinds of Haggii you might spot: The slender female of the species; The Great Golden Haggis; and the standard breed.
Even if you don't play, a one time stop is fun just to read the Haggisclopedia.
It has occured to me that it has been awhile since I did a "This Day In History". For the most part this day was not really, really exciting: Magellen made it to the Pacific, A NASA satellite flew by Mars, there was a bad fire that killed a whole lot of people and Truman Capote threw a party to honor Katherine Graham and celebrate the success of In Cold Blood.
Now the "Black and White Ball" has gone down in social history as one of the best events ever. Apparently If you were a SOMEBODY who knew a whole lot of other SOMEBODIES, then you got an invite. It was a sentence to Siberia or Outer Darkness to not be included. Capote apparently threw as much effort into it as he would have a small novel and spent most of the summer writing and rewriting the guest list while dangling the possibility of an invitation in front of friends and enemies. Should you be fascinated by all this hobnobbing of the great and near great enjoying the privileges of wealth and notoriety, there is an excerpt of a nice bit of gossipy fluff written by George Plimpton with quotes by all sorts of Truman's friends and whatever they were.
If you look at my "About Me", there is a mention that one of my favorite books is the beloved by many, To Kill A Mocking bird by Harper Lee. If you saw the recent movie "Capote" with the Academy Award winning performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Capote, then you found out about his lifelong friendship with Harper Lee. He based the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms on her. He in turn was the inspiration for the character Dill, in Lee's 1960 bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner.
After a long career producing some of the most fascinating material ever written, Capote trailed off into a multi-year, self destructive round of drugs and alcohol often making very witty appearances on TV talk shows often under the influence of one or both of these addictions that eventually caused his death in 1984. My one and only encounter with Capote was in 1978 viewing him all alone in a nook of the bar of the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, slumped drunkenly over a glass. As always when you see someone with such an addiction, all you can think is "What A Waste" and then go read everything he wrote so that you can remember what was great about the man.
"He mistook the rich who liked publicity for the ruling class, and made himself far too much at home among them, only to find that he was to them no more than an amusing pet who would be dispensed with, as he was when he published lurid gossip about them."
I have been a major fan of British films and television for as long as I can remember. The logo for J Arthur Rank productions of the man hitting a huge gong was familiar even to those who never went to any of the movies, and we will not go into all the jokes with punch lines about "another rank production".
The first time I can remember seeing the gong and J. Arthur Rank Presents was for a delightful movie that I still enjoy: "I Know Where I'm Going". It was made in 1947 so I must have first seen it on early television. It starred a young Wendy Hiller at the beginning of a long list of starring roles that lasted until her retirement in 1992 and final closure with her death in 2003 at the age of 90. During a 60 year career, she was one of the great "Dames" of British film and theater, succeeded now by the likes of Dames Diana Rigg, Judi Dench, and Helen Mirren. Hiller won her Best supporting Oscar for another wonderful movie, 1958's Separate Tables.
"I Know Where I'm Going" is boy-meets-girl, but done in a unique way — as a suspense drama as beautifully performed as it is written and directed. Hiller portrays a materialistic young woman who believes that money is the basis for a happy life. Unusual for the time, this early Rank production was true ensemble casting. Even the location and minor village characters play a part when she is stranded on the Isle of Mull by a storm while on her way to The Hebrides to marry an elderly and wealthy industrialist. The storm maroons her for eight days in the company of a naval officer and other residents of the Isle, and for the first time in her life she begins to live with her heart as well as her head. This simple story line is developed with considerable imagination, wit and affection into a pleasant romantic experience.
Practically all of "I Know Where I'm Going" unfolds on the rugged Isle of Mull. So you get wonderful Scottish scenery to go with a delightful movie. The film just oozes atmosphere with the sound of whining wind and the crashing of angry waves on the rocky coast. Much of the song and conversation at a party is carried on in Scots Gaelic, and though unintelligible to most moviegoers, it doesn't detract from the movie because it contributes to the flavor of the place and people.
J. Arthur Rank -- later Lord Rank -- was the most important of an early small fraternity of British film moguls in the 30s and 40s, particularly in terms of the careers that he fostered. By the end of the '30s, he had an interest in key centers of film production, distribution, and exhibition, and in less than a decade, his empire -- known as the Rank Organisation -- controlled half of the theaters in England, and the majority of the production facilities. Much more important than his business achievements, however, were the films whose production he fostered. Rank owned Gaumont British studios, the home to Alfred Hitchcock in the years prior to his departure for America where he made his best British films -- more directly, Rank was responsible for organizing Independent Producers, the production company through which Laurence Olivier and David Lean among many others made some of their most important movies.
So if you see the J Arthur Rank logo on an early black and white film, it is probably worthwhile to stop and watch the gong show.
