Two Period Pieces
12/02/2013
Rock Around the Clock
This is a completely negligible movie, apart from a couple of musical performances. There's Bill Haley and his Comets performing the title song, of course, as well as a couple of other tunes. Even better are the two performances by The Platters, and best of all their performance of "The Great Pretender," a song I remember from sometime in childhood or early adolescence. Since I was only seven years old when the movie came out, I suppose my memory must be of hearing it as an oldie on the radio. But maybe not.
The plot is thin, the acting ranges from bad to passable. It involves the discovery of rock and roll by an impresario, with help from its real-life booster, Alan Freed. It's the sort of thing that gives people a pretty weird idea of what the 1950s were like, with its teenagers speaking some Hollywood version of hipster slang that was probably never heard in real life. But as a product of its times it's sort of interesting.
Have you ever noticed how good the guitar solo in "Rock Around the Clock" is?
Ocean's Eleven
Frank Sinatra's music will live forever, or at least until people can no longer comprehend the musical vocabulary of 20th century popular song. And I think he was a good actor in some movies. But portraits of '50s sophistication like this one have for the most part already grown stale. I found it only mildly entertaining. Sinatra, as ex-commando Danny Ocean, recruits eleven of his former compatriots to rob five Las Vegas casinos. But the witty repartee falls flat, the Vegas glitz just seems sort of thin and sad, and--maybe I'm jaded by contemporary action-intrigue movies, but there's really not much in the way of suspense or excitement. Like Rock Around the Clock, it seemed interesting to me only as an artifact of what its creators thought sophistication looked like. And maybe it did look like that, though surely the actuality was a little more impressive. Or maybe not in Las Vegas.
The heist takes place on New Year's Eve, and so the preliminaries occur during the Christmas season. And one aspect of the sophistication that unfortunately probably was correctly portrayed was the hollowed-out secular "holiday" season, with stylized foil trees, snowflakes, etc. the only indication of its presence. That tendency has been with us for a long time.
There's not any very memorable music, either, in spite of having Nelson Riddle in charge. I enjoyed the 2001 remake with George Clooney more, which is a bit surprising for me.
"Rock Around the Clock" gained fame the year before as the music over the opening credits for the movie Blackboard Jungle. I still remember how jarring, and exciting, it was to hear it. In my old memory, the music was very loud and started as the screen was still black. Anyway, a totally new experience.
Posted by: Marianne | 12/03/2013 at 01:04 PM
I had read that while looking around for information about the movie and the song, and now I want to see Blackboard Jungle. I seem to vaguely remember that it was some sort of sensation. About "juvenile delinquents" or something? The term seems a little quaint now.
I also seem to remember seeing the Rock Around the Clock movie, yet that seems unlikely, since I was only 7 in 1955. Maybe it came around later. But did that happen with movies back then? Didn't they get their run in theaters and then disappear?
Posted by: Mac | 12/03/2013 at 01:17 PM
There were always re-releases of very successful films, like Cinderella, which Wikipedia says was "originally released in theaters on February 15, 1950, followed by theatrical re-releases in 1957, 1965, 1973, 1981, and 1987." Gone with the Wind is another one that I remember was re-released periodically.
Wikipedia says that Rock Around the Clock was one of the major box office successes of 1956, so maybe it was re-released again a few years later.
Posted by: Marianne | 12/03/2013 at 02:03 PM
Yeah, I do remember that happening periodically with a few really major movies, but wouldn't have expected RATC to be one of them. Maybe it was. It's not completely inconceivable that I saw it in 1956, but seems unlikely.
I first saw Gone With the Wind in Atlanta ca. 1965. Must have been some kind of Civil War centennial thing. Then later along came the VCR....
Posted by: Mac | 12/03/2013 at 02:24 PM
What about the laser disk?
Posted by: Robert Gotcher | 12/03/2013 at 02:34 PM
Oh, were you a victim? :-)
Seriously, I thought they were around the same time or a bit later than video cassettes.
Posted by: Mac | 12/03/2013 at 02:54 PM
No. I'm a luddite. I don't get technology until it has been around at least five years. Then I get the old version.
I bought my first mac in 1988, which was technically less than 5 years after it was introduced.
I still don't carry a cell phone.
Although I have learned to play youtube videos on my wife's.
Posted by: Robert Gotcher | 12/03/2013 at 04:42 PM
I gave in on the cell phone some time ago. I can't really be a Luddite because I work in technology, but I try. I'm around people who think an iPhone 3 is laughably behind the times (latest is 5), so having a plain phone really makes them wonder.
Posted by: Mac | 12/03/2013 at 05:34 PM
I really liked the Clooney remake of Ocean's 11, but I'd quite like to see the original.
Posted by: Louise | 12/03/2013 at 06:57 PM
I recorded it from TCM but I'm sure it's not hard to find. The plot of the remake by the way only shares the basic concept (as far as I can remember).
Posted by: Mac | 12/03/2013 at 07:36 PM
I saw GWTW when I was a Senior in high school and it was re-released--so 1967-8. We actually went from school as a field trip. Problem was, the teachers hadn't realized how long it was and when 3 p.m. came around, the movie still had an hour to go. Being seniors, we had our cars, so we got to stay.
I thought I saw on here at some point that you had a smartphone.
AMDG
Posted by: janet | 12/03/2013 at 08:07 PM
I'm almost certain I was still in high school when I saw GWTW, which means it couldn't have been earlier than spring of 1966. It must have stayed around for a whole.
I have a hand-me-down iPhone3 that doesn't work as a phone. I don't really use it very much.
Posted by: Mac | 12/03/2013 at 10:29 PM
It is difficult to believe ordinary adolescents ever danced with that degree of athleticism. The coats and ties are agreeably quaint (and indicative).
Posted by: Art Deco | 12/03/2013 at 11:39 PM
Blackboard Jungle was about the tribulations of a teacher (played by Glen Ford) in a disorderly high school in one or another borough in New York.
Posted by: Art Deco | 12/03/2013 at 11:41 PM
Art, re: dancing with athleticism. You haven't seen my kids, then. They are swing dance fanatics--and very athletic about it.
Posted by: Robert Gotcher | 12/04/2013 at 07:52 AM
I remember our family seeing both Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments on rerelease in the mid-to-late 60's. Not on a double-feature, of course. :-)
Posted by: Rob G | 12/04/2013 at 08:49 AM
To this day I have managed not to see Ben Hur, and I don't think I've ever seen Ten Commandments all the way through.
I certainly never saw dancing of that level of athleticism at any dance I went to starting at the age of 12 or so, a bit later than this. As the term "swing dancing" implies, it really was of a slightly earlier period, the time of swing as a jazz style, and I think faded away in the '50s. I don't recall seeing anyone on American Bandstand in the late '50s-early '60s dancing this way.
Posted by: Mac | 12/04/2013 at 09:19 AM
They dance like that at all those little Catholic colleges, I think. There's a lot of athletic swing dancing at the wedding receptions of my friends' children. Once, Becca's partner at TAC inadvertently socked her right in the nose.
Of course, it's been a long time since I saw RATC, so maybe there's more there than I remember.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 12/04/2013 at 09:29 AM
They dance like that at Notre Dame, too. At least in the crowd my two current Domers hang with.
My son recently organized a Ceili Dance in a big tent on one of the quads.
Posted by: Robert Gotcher | 12/04/2013 at 10:23 AM
It's kinda funny that the dance that was way too risque in its day is now the restrained alternative.
Posted by: Mac | 12/04/2013 at 10:49 AM
Ha. True.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 12/04/2013 at 11:09 AM
Ben Hur is actually pretty darn good, The Ten Commandments less so, but still worth a watch.
I've never seen GWTW. Prior to my interest in the CW it just wasn't a movie I cared much to see. Since then I've been putting off the film until I read the book, which I haven't gotten to yet (maybe in 2014, which also might be the Year of Shelby Foote's 'Civil War').
Speaking of books, Mark Helprin's latest, In Sunlight and In Shadow, is outstanding, one of the best new novels I've read in a long time.
Posted by: Rob G | 12/04/2013 at 11:39 AM
I would rate GWTW with Ten Commandments and other spectacles: to be seen because of its importance in film history, not because you're actually going to enjoy it that much. A lot of people do, but I'm not one of them. I mean, it is good in many ways, but just not especially my cup of tea. A lot of people are undoubtedly offended by the romanticizing of the old South. I'm pretty definitely never going to read the book.
Helprin has been on my list for a long time but apart from having checked A Winter's Tale out of the library once and reading about three pages before I had to take it back, he hasn't made it to the top.
Posted by: Mac | 12/04/2013 at 01:24 PM
I watched GWTW for the first time this year. I wasn't very impressed; it's very long, and I began to lose interest along the way.
Rob G, thanks for that recommendation of Helprin's latest. I noticed that it had been published, and was thinking about it.
Do you think you can read Shelby Foote in one year? I've spread it out over 4 years -- I'm just about finished Vol.2. It's great.
Posted by: Craig | 12/04/2013 at 01:49 PM
I would like to read Foote, unlike GWTW. But I think it's fairly likely that the clock will run out before I get to it. Churchill's History of the English-speaking Peoples (4 volumes) is probably ahead of it.
Posted by: Mac | 12/04/2013 at 02:11 PM
"Do you think you can read Shelby Foote in one year?"
Good point, esp. since I want to read 'Albion's Seed' first, and that isn't exactly a pamphlet!
Posted by: Rob G | 12/04/2013 at 04:02 PM
Mac, you would probably get more out of Foote than I do simply because (I imagine) your knowledge of the relevant geography is better than mine. My one major complaint about the book is the scarcity of maps. I do consult maps as I go, but sometimes it's inconvenient to do so, and I end up swimming in a soup of place names without a clear idea of where I am.
A few years ago I was able to buy Churchill's 6-volume WWII history for about $10. Haven't cracked it yet. Anybody tried it?
Posted by: Craig | 12/05/2013 at 02:21 PM
Not necessarily. I know where the states and major cities of the South are, but that's about it. I always get completely lost in descriptions of battles etc.
Posted by: Mac | 12/05/2013 at 02:27 PM
I mean, not just involving the South, but anywhere. I'm sort of a spatial idiot or something....
Posted by: Mac | 12/05/2013 at 02:29 PM
The other problem for me is keeping track of the names of people: there were a lot of people fighting the Civil War! Foote will often tell you not only who was commanding a particular army, but who his immediate subordinates were, and then he expects you to remember. A 'Who's Who' would be a good companion volume to keep at hand if you ever get around to reading him.
It takes a special kind of mind -- a retentive one -- to gain lasting value from reading history.
Posted by: Craig | 12/05/2013 at 04:11 PM
Maybe that's why I don't read it very much. It interests me a lot, but if it's very detailed I get impatient and lose track.
Posted by: Mac | 12/05/2013 at 07:47 PM
"It interests me a lot, but if it's very detailed I get impatient and lose track."
Ditto. I'm generally happy with the general outlines of a history or biography unless it's a subject/person I have a special interest in. As much as I love Dostoevsky, for instance, I don't think I'd ever read Frank's 5-vol. biography, and instead purchased the one-vol. abridged version (which is still quite a doorstop).
This past summer I picked up the Time-Life illustrated Foote, a thing I didn't even know existed until I saw it in the used bookstore where I bought it. It's got maps, pics, diagrams, etc.
Posted by: Rob G | 12/06/2013 at 05:39 AM
Lucky you! I didn't know that existed either.
Posted by: Craig | 12/06/2013 at 09:28 AM
Yes, that sounds great, reluctant though I might be to buy something with Time-Life's imprint. Someone else obviously saw the lack.
Posted by: Mac | 12/06/2013 at 11:11 AM
It's surprising how international that notion of "sophistication" is (or was), and the attendant nostalgia for a time that never was. I've been working on a translation about a Belgian performance artist that harks back to it, and of course there's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1mDICrGlkI
(apologies if I've linked to it before).
Posted by: Paul | 12/07/2013 at 07:02 AM
No, you haven't linked to it before, or at least if you did I've forgotten.
It is surprising, and also how U.S.-centric. One of the amusing things about this sort of nostalgia is that the time being hearkened back to was considered pretty decadent in its day. The intellectuals have been denouncing popular culture for the past 100 years, at least, and generally with good reason. Watching the original Ocean's Eleven sort of helps dispel that notion that the 1950s, or at least its entertainment, represented some sort of acme of moral good sense. Its fundamental sensibility is not night-and-day different from that of the contemporary remake.
Posted by: Mac | 12/07/2013 at 11:35 AM
Two big bookend hits for that decade were Father of the Bride (1950) and Some Like It Hot (1959).
Hard to believe only nine years separated them. A sea change.
Posted by: Marianne | 12/07/2013 at 02:41 PM
I've never seen Father of the Bride but I concur about Some Like It Hot. There was a remake of the former about 20 years ago, which probably "updated" it appropriately. I shudder to think what would be done with a contemporary remake of the latter.
I'm frequently struck by how much things changed over a roughly ten year period. Ten years seem very little now, but from the vantage point of the mid or late '60s, the '50s seemed like another world. Jimi Hendrix's first performances in the style that made him famous were not much more than ten years after Rock Around the Clock. Those *were* vastly different worlds in a lot of ways. But there's nothing like the same difference between 2013 and 2003 or for that matter 1993.
Posted by: Mac | 12/07/2013 at 09:14 PM
The line "This is what we in Luleå call a James Brown Moment" made me smile.
Posted by: Paul | 12/10/2013 at 07:16 PM
I missed that. I think I got interrupted. Guess I need to watch it again.
Posted by: Mac | 12/10/2013 at 09:56 PM
Ewwww! I just followed those Youtube links and made the mistake of reading the comments! I'm tempted to despair of the human race :/
Posted by: Louise | 12/11/2013 at 01:02 AM
I didn't notice the comments. But experience has taught me to beware of reading the comments on any web site that has a massive audience.
Posted by: Mac | 12/11/2013 at 01:27 PM
I agree. But I was not thinking properly!
Posted by: Louise | 12/11/2013 at 02:21 PM