Podcasts about Budd Schulberg

This episode looks at On the Waterfront, the celebrated 1954 American film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. The film stars Marlon Brando as the ex-prize fighter turned New Jersey longshoreman Terry Malloy. Malloy struggles to stand up to mob-affiliated union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) after Malloy is lured into setting up a fellow dockworker whom Friendly has murdered to prevent him from testifying before the Waterfront Crime Commission about violence and corruption at the docks. The pressure on Malloy rises as he falls in love with Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint), the murdered dockworker's sister, and as Edie, along with local priest Father Pete Barry (Karl Malden), urge Malloy to do the right thing. Malloy ultimately testifies against Friendly and challenges Friendly's leadership at great personal risk. While the film is about a courageous fight against a corrupt power structure and injustice, it is also influenced by director Elia Kazan's own controversial decision to act as an informant against fellow directors, writers, and actors during the McCarthy-era Red Scare.Timestamps:0:00     Introduction2:20      Corruption on the docks9:18       Boxing: I could have been a contender17:07     The priest on the waterfront23:44    Testifying before waterfront crime commission32:10     Informants34:48    Elia Kazan and the House Un-American Activities Committee47:04    The film's relevance today48:39    Some people who stood up to HUAC50:40   Separating the art and the artistFurther reading:Demeri, Michelle J., “The ‘Watchdog' Agency: Fighting Organized Crime on the Waterfront in New York and New Jersey,” 38 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 257 (2012)Murphy, Sean, “An Underworld Syndicate': Malcolm Johnson's ' On the Waterfront' Articles,” The Pulitzer Prizes Archive (1948)Navasky, Victor S., Naming Names (Viking Press 1980)Rebello, Stephen, A City Full of Hawks: On the Waterfront Seventy Years Later—Still the Great American Contender (Rowman & Littlefield 2024)Pjevach, Julia, Note, “A Comparative Look at the Response to Organized Crime in the Ports of New York-New Jersey and Vancouver,” 6 Cardozo Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 283 (2022)Smith, Wendy, “The Director Who Named Names,” The American Scholar (Dec. 10, 2014)                  Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.htmlYou can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.comYou can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilmYou can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

Hinter den Kulissen einer Filmproduktionsfirma sollen der gestandene Autor Halliday und der Debütant Shep gemeinsam ein Drehbuch schreiben. Die Arbeit kommt nur schleppend voran, da beide sie aus völlig unterschiedlichen Motiven angenommen haben. Halliday ist bereits am Ende seiner Kräfte, doch er braucht das Geld für das Drehbuch, um seinen letzten großen Roman fertigstellen zu können. Als er jedoch gegen seinen Willen zu einer Reise an die Drehorte des Films überredet wird, beginnt sein persönlicher, vom Alkohol getriebener, Absturz. Ein satirisch-tragischer Blick hinter die Kulissen der Traumfabrik Hollywood. Nach dem Roman von Oscar-Preisträger Budd Schulberg. Mit: Wolfgang Büttner, Walter Andreas Schwarz, Kurt Haars, Käte Jaenicke u. v. a. Bearbeitung & Regie: Karl Ebert hr/SDR 1956 | ca. 82 Min. (Audio verfügbar bis 25.04.2026)

#realconversations #gardenstatefilmfestival #actors#njfilmacademy #director #producer CONVERSATIONS WITH CALVIN WE THE SPECIESMeet DIANE RAVER: Founder, Garden State Film Festival; Exec.Dir, NJ Film Academy;https://www.youtube.com/c/ConversationswithCalvinWetheSpecIEs432 Interviews/Videos  8100 SUBSCRIBERSGLOBAL Reach. Earth Life. Amazing People.  PLEASE SUBSCRIBE **DIANE RAVER; Founder, Garden State Film Festival; Exec. Dir,NJ Film Academy; LIVE from Monmouth CountyYouTube:BIO: Diane Raver, a proud Sea Girt, NJ native, discoveredher passion for cinema early in life, inspired by countless visits to her localmovie house in Manasquan the Algonquin. With a distinguished career as aproducer and director, she made history in 1987 by becoming the first womanpresident of a TV commercial production company in New York City, founding TheMadison Group. In 2002, Diane co-founded The Garden State Film Festival,(GSFF) which has evolved into an internationally celebrated event held annuallyin Asbury Park. The GSFF attracts over 20,000 global attendees yearly and hashosted a roster of illustrious celebrities, including Bruce Springsteen, GlennClose, Robert Pastorelli, Christopher Lloyd, Ed Asner, Armand Assante, FrankVincent, Paul Sorvino, Budd Schulberg, Kurtwood Smith, James Gandolfini,Celeste Holm, and Clarence Clemons.Diane's contributions to the film industry have beenrecognized with numerous accolades, including the prestigious Alice Guy BlachéAward, the New Jersey Moviemakers Network Award for Excellence, and theAlgonquin Arts Leadership & Legacy Award. She holds a B.S. degree fromThomas Jefferson University, and her commitment to supporting New Jerseyfilmmakers and community initiatives has earned her widespread recognition.Diane is the widow of the award-winning Director/CameramanM. Carroll Raver, Jr. She is not only a proud stepmother to his four childrenfrom previous marriages but also the mother of their three children together.As a pioneer in the film industry and an unwavering advocate for New Jerseyfilmmakers, Diane Raver continues to leave a profound impact on both theentertainment world and her community.**LINKS:  gsff.orgLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-raver-b229365/New Jersey Film Academy: https://www.njfilmacademy.org/New Jersey Production Guide: https://www.njproductionguide.org/** WE ARE ALSO ON AUDIOAUDIO “Conversations with Calvin; WE       the SpecIEs”ANCHOR https://lnkd.in/g4jcUPqSPOTIFY https://lnkd.in/ghuMFeCAPPLE PODCASTSBREAKER https://lnkd.in/g62StzJGOOGLE PODCASTS https://lnkd.in/gpd3XfMPOCKET CASTS https://pca.st/bmjmzaitRADIO PUBLIC https://lnkd.in/gxueFZw

Aaaaaaand we're back. Episode 1 of season 14 of the Dana Gould Hour Podcast. Has anything of interest happened since the last episode? Don't think so. Certainly not here in Los Angeles, or America. Okay. Great. Let's get at it!  Drew Friedman is here. Drew Friedman is one of the premiere illustrators and cartoonists in America. You know his work from The New York Observer, the New Yorker, his books, Warts And All, Old Jewish Comedians, More Old Jewish Comedians, Still More Old Jewish Comedians, Too Soon, Drew Friedman's Sideshow Freaks, Heroes Of The Comics, More Heroes Of The Comics, the list goes on and on. In 1987 I discovered his book Any Similarity to Persons Living Or Dead is Purely Coincidental and it quite literally redefined my sense of humor. It is hard to articulate the impact the book had on me. No kidding. Drew has a new book out called Schtick Figures, portraits of people important to Drew. And me. People he refers to as The Cool, The Comical and The Crazy. Portraits of people like Gilbert Gottfried, #2 and #3 as only Drew can draw them. Drew is also the subject of a new documentary that's about to be released entitled The Vermeer Of The Borscht Belt, Drew Friedman is here.  Kurt Sayenga is a writer, director and producer. We first met when Kurt ran the series Eli Roth's History Of Horror. Kurt now has a series on Shudder called Horror's Greatest. Season #2 just dropped, with guests like Davi Dastmalchian, Joe Hill, Jonah Ray, Alex Winter, Mick Garris, yours truly and many, many more. Kurt's here to talk about the show and the topics covered this season as it continues to explore our fascination with all things cinematically horrific.  Cinematically horrific. If you want to examine the realistically horrific, True Tales From Weirdsville takes a deep dive into the 1957 classic A Face In Crowd, starring Andy Griffith, written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan. It tells the cautionary tale of what happens when a corrupt, amoral grifter gains a position of power and influence in America. It was made in 1957 and it was a FREAKISHLY predictive film.  https://www.DanaGould.com

Learn how Herb Allen Jr built his fortune and created Allen & Co to be Hollywood's premier merchant bank. Sources Books: "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life" by Alice Schroeder "Hollywood Vault: Film Libraries before Home Video" by Eric Hoyt "Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood" by Bernard F. Dick "Steven Spielberg: A Biography" by Joseph McBride Articles: "Inside The Private World of Allen & Co." by Carol J. Loomis "All Those Allens Back a Broadway Hit" by Robert J. Col "Has Allen got a deal for you!" by Cary Reich "Herbert Allen and his merry dealsters" by Dyan Machan "Herbert A. Allen Institutional Investor Profile 1987" "When Herb Allen Talks, Star Makers Listen" by Alan Citron "Allen Puts No Stock in Wall Street Sages" by Charles Paikert "Allen & Co. Connects Hollywood with Wall Street" by Randall Smith "Inside The Annual Summer Camp For Billionaires in Sun Valley, Idaho" by Jim Dobson "Show About Mother-In-Law Making Stark a Millionaire" by Hal Boyle "Funny Girl Premieres As Movie" by Vincent Canby "Who is Running The Columbia Pictures Show?" by Jack Egan "Media-Mogul Madness" by Richard Turner "Happy Ending" by Dan Dorfman "Columbia Puts Puttnam in His Place" by Peg Tyre and Jeannette Walls "In Hollywood she walks the other way" by John Hallowell "How Are Things in Panicsville?" by Budd Schulberg "Behind the Silence at Columbia Pictures- No Moguls, No Minions, Just Profits" by Chris Welles "Stars Fell on Mismaloya" by Richard Oulahan "My Battles with Barbra and Jon" by Frank Pierson "Hollywood's Wall Street Connection" by Lucian K. Truscott IV "Financial Gossip" by Jesse Bogue "Sun Valley Daze" by Nikki Finks "A Look at Future of Show Biz" by Charles Schreger "Ray Stark—Hollywood's Deft Deal-Maker" by Philip K. Scheuer "Investigating the Gulf of Streisand Incident" by Joyce Haber "Paul Gallico's Best Seller Headed for Stage and Screen" by Louella Parsons "Movie Discs Get a Big New Boost" by Dick Williams "The Man Who Scored in Coca-Columbia" by Shawn Tully "Entertainment: New Gold in the Hollywood Hills" - Time Magazine (1966) "Show Business: Boston to Hollywood" - Time Magazine (1956) "Orchestrating Columbia's Forward March" by Joyce Haber "Tinsel returns to Columbia Studio" - Los Angeles AP (1975) "Alan J. Hirschfield Story of a Movie Mogul" by Shirley Dodson Cobb "Kerkorian to Seek 20% of Columbia" by Robert J. Cole "Coke Expected to Acquire Columbia Pictures" by Thomas C. Hayes "Schmoozing All the way to the Bank" by Leah Nathans Spiro "State of the Arb" by Jason Zweig "King of the Sports Deal" by David Whitford "A Major Studio Player" by Michael Cieply "Meeting of Moguls, if Not of Minds" by David D. Kirkpatrick "Cashing In on Old Friends in High Places" by Barry Rehfeld "Media Executives Lose their Edge" by Mark Landler

Ali and Foreman continue to train for their upcoming title fight and the great writers of the day document the progress.  Across the Atlantic, Don King and Hank Schwartz oversee the preparations for the title fight and sweetens the deal by announcing the music festival. On the plane to the mother land, Ali instantly recognizes the significance of this moment. Upon arrival, he instantly wins over the people of Zaire, pitting them against Foreman automatically. When Foreman arrives, an unwitting faux pas seals his fate as the villain.    LITERARY REFERENCES “The Greatest, My Own Story” by Muhammad Ali (autobiography) “The Rumble in the Jungle” by Lewis Erenberg “Ali: A Life” by Jonathan Eig “The Fight” by Norman Mailer “Shadow Box” by George Plimpton  “Ringside: A Treasury of Boxing Reportage” by Budd Schulberg  “Ego: the Life” article by Norman Mailer (Life magazine Cover Story, March 19, 1971)   FILM & VIDEO REFERENCES “When We Were Kings” (documentary, 1996) directed by Leon Gast (available on streaming) “Soul Power” (documentary, 2008) directed by Jeffrey Kusama–Hinte (available on streaming) Richard Nixon resignation speech (CBS News, Aug 8, 1974) (available on YouTube)  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Front Row Classics is taking a look at one of the most daring, satirical films to ever come out of Hollywood. Brandon is joined, once again, by author & film historian Chris Yogerst. Chris recently penned "The Warner Brothers" for the University Press of Kentucky. A Face in the Crowd is a signature Warner film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. The movie features topics relating to politics & media that are still scarily relevant today. Brandon and Chris discuss those topics as well as the powerhouse performance of Andy Griffith as Lonesome Rhodes. The hosts also praise the performances of Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Anthony Franciosa and Lee Remick.  

For their Politics-related "Suggestion Box", Madeline, Emilio, and Julian invite social media professional and film lover Maggie Hill to a conversation about Elia Kazan's 'A Face In The Crowd', a film from 1957 whose observations about television, mass persuasion, and political ambition seem more relevant today than ever.  Emilio starts the discussion with how the filmmakers' personal and professional experiences with the Hollywood blacklist most likely influenced this cynical look at American institutions.  Madeline notes how the film's central figure Lonesome Rhodes is wildly different than the wholesome persona the actor who plays him, Andy Griffith, would eventually cultivate on his beloved eponymous TV show.  Julian sees the ripples of this film in several other films about fame and personal connection.  Maggie sees the film's female lead Marcia and her ambition as the skeleton key to a deeper understanding of the film.  These, and many other observations, ground a discussion about 'A Face In The Crowd' and its place among the more interesting and enduring films to emerge from the 1950s Hollywood.          Maggie Hill is a writer/director/producer whose thoughtful content about media can be found on the socials: @themaggiehillIf you enjoy our podcast, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice.  This really helps us find new listeners and grow!Follow us on IG and TikTok: @sleeplesscinematicpodSend us an email at sleeplesscinematicpod@gmail.comOn Letterboxd? Follow Julian at julian_barthold and Madeline at patronessofcats

“If you make it trend, you make it true” is a terrifyingly real quote across the cover of Renée DiResta's book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. Renée DiResta studies the many ways that people attempt to manipulate or target others online, similar to what Ryan talks about in his first book, Trust Me, I'm Lying. In this episode, Renée and Ryan talk about the shift from traditional journalism ethics to the new realm of social media influence, the psychological impact of online engagement, and the societal consequences of misinformation. Renée DiResta is a technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory and has briefed world leaders, advised Congress, the State Department, and a myriad of organizations on how online manipulation can take different forms. Renée's book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, is all about the virtual rumor mill and how niche propagandists can shape public opinion.She was also featured in Netflix's documentary, The Social Dilemma which came out in 2020. You can follow Renée on X @noUpside, or check out her website reneediresta.com

On this Big Bout Podcast replay I present my convorsation with Hollywood and Sport Legend Budd Schulberg . Budd was of the Mad Men Age of magazines film and early tv . Had shared 80  years of memories. We discuss films like The Harder They Fall with Humphrey Bogart and A Face In The Crowd fighters like Jack Dempsey (who became a close friend) Max Baer and more . 

HOTEL BOHEMIA IS DESIGNED TO LEAD YOU TO A DESTINATION CONSTRUCTED WITH THE HOPE OF EXAMINING THE HOLY PAST, THE PUZZLING PRESENT AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF OUR IMPENDING FORTUNES.THIS PROGRAM IS DEDICATED WITH LOVE TO THOSE WHO INSPIRED THE ARCHITECTURE OF THIS HOTEL BOHEMIA PREVIEW:MEL BLANC, PHIL OCHS, ANDY DEVINE, SAM LAY, EUGENE O'NEILL, ROBERT RYAN, NICK GRAVENITES, BEN WEBSTER, DAVID MAMET, AL PACINO, LEON FUCHS, CHUBBY CHECKER,  BUDD SCHULBERG , ROD STEIGER, MARLON BRANDO, ELIA KAZAN, AL JOLSON, MURRAY 'THE K" KAUFMAN, TRACEY DEY, THE ROCK, JOHN BELUSHI, DON RICKLES, FRANK SINATRA, JOHNNY CARSON, JEFF LYNNE, RODNEY DANGERFIELD, DIANA KRALL, EDWARD R. MURROW, ROBERT THOM, ED BEGLEY,  SYLVESTER STALLONE AND BILL MESNIK.

Raconteurs et raconteuses, bienvenue dans La Machine à écrire, le podcast de celles et ceux qui créent des histoires.   Réalisatrice, scénariste, comédienne, écrivaine, musicienne et même trapéziste, nous avons le privilège et l'honneur d'accueillir Coline Serreau. Avec Trois Hommes et couffin, ses remakes et ses suites, Romuald et Juliette, La Crise, La Belle Verte, Chaos, Saint-Jacques La Mecque, ses documentaires et ses pièces de théâtre, l'invitée de cet épisode fait partie du patrimoine culturel de plusieurs générations. Avec elle, nous abordons ses débuts, son expérience de scénariste, ses films, ses spectacles, ses œuvres à venir et à travers tout cela, sa manière de voir et de raconter la société.     Alors... 

A Star Is Born is a 1954 American musical drama film directed by George Cukor, written by Moss Hart, and starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Hart's screenplay is an adaptation of the original 1937 film, based on the original screenplay by Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, and from the same story by William A. Wellman and Carson, with uncredited input from six additional writers—David O. Selznick, Ben Hecht, Ring Lardner Jr., John Lee Mahin, Budd Schulberg and Adela Rogers St. Johns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Star_Is_Born_(1954_film)

Dana and Tom discuss the last of their month of Best Picture winners with one of the great Crime Dramas in American Cinema with On the Waterfront (1954): directed by Elia Kazan, written by Budd Schulberg, starring Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger, and Lee J. Cobb. Plot Summary: Dockworker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) had been an up-and-coming boxer until ordered to throw a fight by powerful local mob boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). Terry, now working for Friendly, helps set up another longshoreman, Joey Doyle, who is talking to the Waterfront Crime Commissioner. Not knowing that he was helping Friendly in Joey's murder, Terry's conscience is disturbed, and he starts questioning his involvement. Circumstances place Terry around Joey's sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint) and a romance develops. This relationship, together with the advice and support of streetwise priest Father Barry (Karl Malden), pushes Terry to decide his path. Does he stand up to Friendly and turn his back on Friendly's right-hand man, Terry's brother Charley (Rod Steiger), risking his own life and safety, or does Terry "follow the code" and remain silent? You can now follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok (@gmoatpodcast) or find our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081916827044 (Greatest Movie of All-Time Podcast). For more on the episode, go to: https://www.ronnyduncanstudios.com/post/on-the-waterfront-1954 (https://www.ronnyduncanstudios.com/post/on-the-waterfront-1954) For the entire list so far, go to: https://www.ronnyduncanstudios.com/post/greatest-movie-of-all-time-list (https://www.ronnyduncanstudios.com/post/greatest-movie-of-all-time-list)

Taking a break from their usual era of movies, Mike brings us the 1957 forgotten gem, Elia Kazan film, A Face in the Crowd. Listen in as Mike and Trevor discuss plots, themes and issues featured in this movie that are still relevant today. Also the most obnoxious laugh of all time and it's not Trevor or Mike's.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 474, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Barcelona 1: (Hello, I'm Jay Leno) In this year, Barcelona hosted the Olympics and I became the permanent host of "The Tonight Show". 1992. 2: On Sundays, in front of the Gothic Cathedral, people perform the Sardana, one of these. Dance. 3: A statue of this explorer points to the sea from atop a 167' column near Barcelona's harbor. Christopher Columbus. 4: The women of Barcelona's Carrer Avinyo inspired this cubist's "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon". Pablo Picasso. 5: Once suppressed under Franco, this native language is again widely used in Barcelona. Catalan/Catalonian. Round 2. Category: Thriller 1: This author's techno-thriller "Rainbow Six" focuses on John Clark, also a hero in "Clear and Present Danger". Tom Clancy. 2: This author made a University of Virginia law professor the protagonist of his 2002 novel "The Summons". (John) Grisham. 3: You were born to identify this author of "The Bourne Identity". (Robert) Ludlum. 4: "The Numa Files" are paperback spin-offs of this writer's novels featuring Dirk Pitt. Clive Cussler. 5: "The Attorney" Paul Madriani appears in several legal thrillers by this lawyer-turned-author. Steve Martini. Round 3. Category: About "Face" 1: Cosmetic surgery to pull the skin back and up to remove wrinkles. facelift. 2: The worth of a stamp or coin stated on it. face value. 3: Maintaining one's reputation. saving/keeping face. 4: To deal with a pressing problem directly, or the name of a 1980 TV game show similar to "Name That Tune". Face the Music. 5: Andy Griffith starred as a bumpkin turned TV star in this 1957 movie drama penned by Budd Schulberg. A Face in the Crowd. Round 4. Category: Rx Marks The Spot 1: The stimulant methylphenidate, used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is known by this trade name. Ritalin. 2: "Oxy" for short, this painkiller has been widely abused in poor rural areas in the U.S.. Oxycontin. 3: Also known as Alprazolam, you could say it is an "X" factor in anti-anxiety drugs. Xanax. 4: A compound of this lightest metal is used to treat bipolar disorder. lithium. 5: "Triazolam Days" just didn't sound quite right; maybe that's why the sleeping drug is known as this. Halcion. Round 5. Category: Parents Are People Too 1: Also a home for hummingbirds, it becomes "empty" when the last child leaves home. Nest. 2: It's what a lonely dad may want to be to you, or the name of the one on the left(President Clinton's dog). Buddy. 3: At least this restriction dad put on you isn't a dusk-to-dawn one, as in Warri, Nigeria. Curfew. 4: If you get one of these in your nose or navel, parents may let out the same kind of "shriek". Piercing. 5: This term for a right that divorcing parents may fight over comes from Latin for "guardian". Custody. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

In the fifteenth episode of Season 6 (Heists, Cons, & Grifters) Kyle is joined by a panel of guests, fellow podcaster Ben Thelen, script supervisor Katy Baldwin, and screenwriter David Gutierrez, to discuss Elia Kazan's prescient take on the evolving con-artist populism of mass media, cult of personality, and transcribed politics that is A Face in the Crowd (1957).

Neste primeiro episódio exclusivo de dicas, nossos ouvintes são brindados com quatro recomendações deliciosas. Nosso convidado Fred Almeida, do Podcast Filmes Clássicos, falou a respeito de "Uma loura por um milhão", de Billy Wilder. Juliana Varella trouxe "Trumbo", de Jay Roach. Henrique Pires falou do livro "O que faz Sammy correr?", de Budd Schulberg. E Hugo Harris falou do ótimo "O jogador", de Robert Altman. Aproveitem. ------------------------------------------------- Entre em contato com o Cinefilia & Companhia, e deixe seus comentários, elogios e opiniões sobre os filmes tratados. E-mail: cinefilia.companhia@gmail.com Instagram: @cinefiliaecompanhia YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN5rLEZLWrqNclWE1KshDVg ------------------------------------------------- Pauta: Henrique Pires, Hugo Harris e Juliana Varella Apresentação: Hugo Harris Convidado especial: Fred Almeida Edição do episódio: Henrique Pires Artes gráficas: Joe Borges Trilha de aberturas: JF Borges Coordenação de Comunicação: Juliana Varella Coordenação de Edição e Artes: Henrique Pires Coordenação Geral: Hugo Harris

Book Vs Movie: “A Face in the Crowd” The Budd Schulberg Short Story Vs the Elia Kazan Classic Film Every once in a while we come across a story that was created decades ago and has themes that transcend time. This is the case with 1957's A Face in the Crowd which talks about class distinctions in America, the power of the media, what it takes to relate to the “common man” and how power corrupts. (Whoa--this one really stands the test of time!)  The original story, Your Arkansas Traveler, was featured in a collection from Some Faces in the Crowd by Budd Schulberg and published in 1953. It tells the story of an Arkansas drifter, Lonesome Rhodes (LR,) who rises to fame on regional radio with his country, “aw shucks” style and eventually becomes an egomaniac as a national TV star. Oh, and he has political clout as well! In the story, he is discovered by radio producer Marcia Jeffries who at first is charmed by LR and his plain-spoken ways. Eventually, she realizes he is a dangerous narcissist and works to stop him from having too much power. LR in the meantime has a wife he needs to get rid of, a teenage bride to keep him company, and a rabid audience that hangs as his every word. In the end, he dies before he can wreak too much havoc.  Schulberg wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront and trusted director Elia Kazan to tell his story. The 1957 film stars Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Lee Remick, and Walter Matthau and while the film received mixed reviews at the time (the New York Times thought Andy Griffith overshadowed everyone in the film)--it is now considered a prescient classic. So, between the short story and the movie--which did we prefer?  In this ep the Margos discuss: The original short story by Budd Schulberg Behind the scenes of the movie fleming    Why it was considered controversial at the time  Starring: Andy Griffith (Lonesome Rhodes,) Patricia Neal (Marcia Jeffries,) Anthony Franciosa (Joey DePalma,) Walter Matthau (Mel Miller,) Lee Remick (Betty Lou Fleckum,) and Percy Waram as General Haynesworth.) Clips used: Marcia meets LR A Face in the Crowd trailer LR and Marcia argue over his marriage “Mama Guitar” & baton scene LR breaks character on the air Walter Matthau's last scene “Vitajex” commercial/music by Tom Glazer Book Vs Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts .  Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie  Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/ Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.com Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Brought to you by Audible.com You can sign up for a FREE 30-day trial here http://www.audible.com/?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.com Margo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/  Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine 

Book Vs Movie: “A Face in the Crowd” The Budd Schulberg Short Story Vs the Elia Kazan Classic Film Every once in a while we come across a story that was created decades ago and has themes that transcend time. This is the case with 1957's A Face in the Crowd which talks about class distinctions in America, the power of the media, what it takes to relate to the “common man” and how power corrupts. (Whoa--this one really stands the test of time!)  The original story, Your Arkansas Traveler, was featured in a collection from Some Faces in the Crowd by Budd Schulberg and published in 1953. It tells the story of an Arkansas drifter, Lonesome Rhodes (LR,) who rises to fame on regional radio with his country, “aw shucks” style and eventually becomes an egomaniac as a national TV star. Oh, and he has political clout as well! In the story, he is discovered by radio producer Marcia Jeffries who at first is charmed by LR and his plain-spoken ways. Eventually, she realizes he is a dangerous narcissist and works to stop him from having too much power. LR in the meantime has a wife he needs to get rid of, a teenage bride to keep him company, and a rabid audience that hangs as his every word. In the end, he dies before he can wreak too much havoc.  Schulberg wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront and trusted director Elia Kazan to tell his story. The 1957 film stars Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Lee Remick, and Walter Matthau and while the film received mixed reviews at the time (the New York Times thought Andy Griffith overshadowed everyone in the film)--it is now considered a prescient classic. So, between the short story and the movie--which did we prefer?  In this ep the Margos discuss: The original short story by Budd Schulberg Behind the scenes of the movie fleming    Why it was considered controversial at the time  Starring: Andy Griffith (Lonesome Rhodes,) Patricia Neal (Marcia Jeffries,) Anthony Franciosa (Joey DePalma,) Walter Matthau (Mel Miller,) Lee Remick (Betty Lou Fleckum,) and Percy Waram as General Haynesworth.) Clips used: Marcia meets LR A Face in the Crowd trailer LR and Marcia argue over his marriage “Mama Guitar” & baton scene LR breaks character on the air Walter Matthau's last scene “Vitajex” commercial/music by Tom Glazer Book Vs Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts .  Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie  Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/ Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.com Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Brought to you by Audible.com You can sign up for a FREE 30-day trial here http://www.audible.com/?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.com Margo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/  Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine 

Budd Schulberg's 1941 novel is the classic portrait of a young man's sociopathic drive for success — and remarkably useful, argues Bradley, for understanding the motivations of politicians, tech founders and the ruthless status seeker in all of us.

DIANE RAVER, Founder, Garden State Film Festival Oct 12 2020 @GSFF www.gsff.org Diane Raver Founder Garden State Film Festival Biography In 2002 Diane Raver co-founded The Garden State Film Festival (GSFF) with actor Robert Pastorelli. In the spring of 2003 the First Annual Garden State Film Festival was held in Asbury Park, New Jersey and was a huge success hosting 3000 attendees. Since its inception, the attendance has exceeded 30,000 per event and such notable celebrities as Glenn Close, Robert Pastorelli, Frank Vincent, Paul Sorvino, Budd Schulberg, Kurtwood Smith, James Gandolfini, Celeste Holm and Clarence Clemons among others have attended. She has continued as Executive Director of the non-profit since that time. In 2014 the festival relocated to Atlantic City where it enjoys great support by local politicians and businesses and is coveted by the DOAC campaign as an international non-gaming tourist attraction. Ms. Raver was awarded the Alice Guy Blache Award in 2011 for her work in promoting filmmaking in the State of New Jersey. She garnered the New Jersey Moviemakers Network Award for Excellence in 2003 for her support to New Jersey Filmmakers in Movies and TV. She was also awarded the Mt. Ida College Distinguished Alumni Award in Spring of 2005. Ms. Raver has enjoyed a long history in the realm of film and television production. Having begun her career in New York City in 1980, she segued into television by way of sales, serving as sales representative for Eye View Films and Knightsbridge Productions, both located in New York City, where she continued to build her career for over a decade. Within a short time at Knightsbridge, she became an executive producer, overseeing international production in addition to those domestic projects sold. In 1987, she joined Cherry Mellon Ibbettson, a new production company representing an all-Australian talent list which included Peter Cherry, David Deneen, Wayne Maule, and John Ashenhurst whose projects were shot in the U.S., the UK, Japan and Australia. Later, in 1987, Ms. Raver became the first woman president of a commercial production company in New York City when she founded The Madison Group as President, Head of Sales, and Executive Producer on all commercial production. There, she built a directorial staff to a total of nine, in addition to strengthening the domestic sales organization with representatives in Dallas, Ft. Lauderdale, and Los Angeles. She also created a worldwide sales organization with representation in Hong Kong, Sydney, and Paris. Recently Ms. Raver directed her first film a short documentary about the history of the Classic Longboard Surf Contest based in Manasquan, NJ. Ms. Raver was a founding member of the Board of Directors of The Arts Coalition of Asbury Park where she spearheaded an effort to save and restore an abandoned theater and provide an arts hub in Asbury Park, NJ. Ms. Raver holds a B.S. degree from the Philadelphia University and also attended the University of Pittsburgh. She also earned an A.A. in Fine Arts from Mt. Ida College. Ms. Raver was married to the late M. Carroll Raver, Jr., an award-winning cinematographer they have three children. In addition, she is the stepmother to her husband's previous four children one of which is the award-wining actress Kim Raver (Third Watch-Kim Zambrano & “24” –Audrey Raines, Night at the Museum and Lipstick Jungle-Nico and more recently “Teddy” on Gray's Anatomy). When not reviewing film entries for her film festival, Ms. Raver enjoys yoga swimming and is a gourmet cook. She also has a love of fine art and painting, and has created a number of paintings and murals.

Many museums have emulated commercial attractions over the last generation—and now find themselves struggling back to life during the pandemic with reduced buzz, attendance, and contributions. For solutions we go to the source: a top advertising expert, Brad Brinegar, Chairman of McKinney, to help get their messaging aligned with these exceptional circumstances. He is predictably averse to thinking of museums as commercial preserves, and instead prescribes clever ways of reaching audiences, drawing on his studies in anthropology, as well as sharing wisdom about how empathy motivates consumer behavior. We cover effective advertising, including the Sherwin-Williams Emerald Paint campaign, how McKinney is going about achieving greater diversity in his sector, tv spots that went viral on the web, why art and art history can't catch a break on television, how streaming services are challenging his field, and along the way remember shared experiences at the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine, whose alumni range from Theodor Seuss Geisel to Budd Schulberg, Buck Henry, Robert Reich, and Mindy Kaling.

Many museums have emulated commercial attractions over the last generation—and now find themselves struggling back to life during the pandemic with reduced buzz, attendance, and contributions. For solutions we go to the source: a top advertising expert, Brad Brinegar, Chairman of McKinney, to help get their messaging aligned with these exceptional circumstances. He is predictably averse to thinking of museums as commercial preserves, and instead prescribes clever ways of reaching audiences, drawing on his studies in anthropology, as well as sharing wisdom about how empathy motivates consumer behavior. We cover effective advertising, including the Sherwin-Williams Emerald Paint campaign, how McKinney is going about achieving greater diversity in his sector, tv spots that went viral on the web, why art and art history can’t catch a break on television, how streaming services are challenging his field, and along the way remember shared experiences at the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth’s humor magazine, whose alumni range from Theodor Seuss Geisel to Budd Schulberg, Buck Henry, Robert Reich, and Mindy Kaling.

Filmmaker Simon O'Neill returns to discuss the astonishing career of Budd Schulberg, an author who was a member of that rare breed of storytellers that managed to conquer both the world of fiction as well as flicks. Follow Simon O'Neill on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sim_ONeill Simon O'Neill's Official Site: https://www.simononeill.org/ Follow James Hancock on Twitter: https://twitter.com/colebrax Wrong Reel Merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/wrong-reel

"On the Waterfront" 1954 is from Columbia Pictures. Director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg created this crime drama and love story starring Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy and Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle. The movie centers on corruption, extortion and racketeering on the waterfronts of New York Harbor and the growing love between Terry and Eva. The film's story is partly modeled after real people and events involved in corruption investigations. A critical and financial success the film won eight Academy Awards including Best Picture.In the cast is Lee J. Cobb as union boss Michael J. Skelly, Rod Steiger as Charley "the Gent" Malloy, Father Barry played by Karl Malden, Leif Erickson as Lead Investigator for the Crime Commission and a sizeable and talented group of actors. The outstanding music by Leonard Bernstein and cinematography from Boris Kaufman are world class. The confrontation in the car between Terry Malloy and his brother Charley Malloy is one of the greatest scenes ever captured on film.Check us out on Patreon at www.patreon.com/classicmoviereviews for even more content and bonus shows.

Actor, Comedian, Podcast Host (God Ween Evan) Will Nunziata and Kevin Scott have an awesome talk about A Face In The Crowd from 1957 Starring Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith in his big screen debut, scripted by Budd Schulberg and Directed by Elia Kazan. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kevin-scott15/support

Episode seventy-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Trouble” by Elvis Presley, his induction into the army, and his mother’s death. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “When” by the Kalin Twins. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/—-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and David Ritz tells Leiber and Stoller’s side of the story well. There are many, many books about Elvis Presley out there, but the one I’m using as my major resource for information on him, and which has guided my views as to the kind of person he was, is Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick, generally considered the best biography of him.  The Colonel by Alanna Nash is a little more tabloidy than those two, but is the only full-length biography I know of of Colonel Tom Parker. This box set contains all the recordings, including outtakes, for Elvis’ 1950s films, while this one contains just the finished versions of every record he made in the fifties. And King Creole itself is well worth watching. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript   As 1957 turned into 1958, Elvis’ personal life was going badly wrong, even as he was still the biggest star in the world. In particular, his relationships with everyone involved in his career — everyone except the Colonel, of course — were getting weakened. In September, Scotty Moore and Bill Black had written to Elvis, resigning from his band — they’d been put on a salary, rather than a split of the money, and then Elvis’ concert schedule had been cut back so much that they’d only played fourteen shows so far all year. They were getting into debt while Elvis was earning millions, but worse than that, they felt that the Colonel was controlling access to Elvis so much that they couldn’t even talk to him. DJ Fontana wouldn’t sign the letter — he’d joined the group later than the others, and so he’d not lost his position in the way that the others had. But the other two were gone. Elvis offered them a fifty dollar raise, but Scotty said that on top of that he would need a ten thousand dollar bonus just to clear his debts — and while Elvis was considering that, a newspaper interview with Moore and Black appeared, in which they talked about Elvis having broken his promise to them that when he earned more, they would earn more. Elvis was incensed, and decided that he didn’t need them anyway. He could replace them easily. And for one show, he did just that. He played the fair at his old home town of Tupelo, Mississippi, with DJ and the Jordanaires, and with two new musicians. On guitar was Hank Garland, a great country session musician who was best known for his hit “Sugarfoot Rag”: [Excerpt: Hank Garland, “Sugarfoot Rag”] Garland would continue to play with Elvis on recordings and occasional stage performances until 1961, when he was injured in an accident and became unable to perform. On bass, meanwhile, was Chuck Wigington, a friend of DJ’s who, like DJ, had been a regular performer in the Louisiana Hayride band, and who had also played for many years with Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys: [Excerpt: Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys, “Screwball”] Wigington actually didn’t have a contract for the show, and he wasn’t even a full-time musician at the time — he had to take a leave of absence from his job working in a bank in order to play the gig. Meanwhile, Scotty and Bill were off on their own playing the Dallas State Fair. But Elvis found that performing live without Scotty and Bill was just not the same, even though Garland and Wigington were perfectly fine musicians, and he decided to offer Scotty and Bill their old jobs back — sort of. They’d be getting paid a per diem whether or not they were performing, which was something, but after the next recording sessions Bill never again recorded with Elvis — he was replaced in the studio by Bob Moore. Scotty remained a regular in Elvis’ studio band too, but only on rhythm guitar — Hank Garland was going to be the lead player on Elvis’ records from now on. The new arrangement required a lot of compromise on both sides, but it meant that Moore and Black were on a better financial footing, and Elvis could remain comfortable on stage, but it was now very clear that the Colonel, at least, saw Black and Moore as replaceable, and neither of them were necessary for Elvis to continue making hit records. His relationship with the two men who had come up with him had now permanently changed — and that was going to be the case with a lot of other relationships as well. In particular, the Colonel was starting to think that Leiber and Stoller should be got rid of. The two of them were dangerous as far as the Colonel was concerned. Elvis respected them, they weren’t under the Colonel’s control, they didn’t even *like* the Colonel, and they had careers that didn’t rely on their association with Elvis. But they were also people who were able to generate hits for Elvis, and they were currently working for RCA, so while that was the case he would put them to use. But they were loose cannons. Now, before we go further, I should point out that what I’m about to describe is *one* way that Leiber and Stoller have explained what happened. In various different tellings, they’ve told events in different orders, and described things slightly differently. This is, to the best of my understanding, the most likely series of events, but I could be wrong. Leiber and Stoller had a complex attitude towards their work with Elvis. They liked Elvis himself, a lot, and they admired and respected his work ethic in the studio, and shared his taste in blues music. But at the same time, they didn’t consider the work they were doing with Elvis to be real art, in the way that they considered their R&B records to be. It was easy money — anything Elvis recorded was guaranteed to sell in massive amounts, so they didn’t have to try too hard to write anything particularly good for him, but they didn’t like the Colonel, and they were already, after a couple of films, getting bored with the routine nature of writing for Elvis’ films. I’m going to paraphrase a quote from Jerry Leiber here, because I don’t want to get this podcast moved into the adults-only section on Apple Podcasts, and the Leiber quote is quite full of expletives, but the gist of it is that they believed that if they were given proper artistic freedom with Elvis they could have made history, but that the people in his management team only wanted money. Every film needed just a few songs to plug into gaps, and they were usually the same type of songs to go in the same type of gaps. They were bored. And they actually had a plan for a project that would stretch them all creatively. Leiber vaguely knew the film producer Charles Feldman, who had produced On The Waterfront and The Seven-Year Itch, and Feldman had come to Leiber with a proposition. He’d recently acquired the rights to the novel A Walk on the Wild Side, set in New Orleans, and he thought that it would be perfect for Elvis. He’d have the script written by Budd Schulberg, and have Elia Kazan direct — the same team that had made On The Waterfront. Elvis would be working with people who had made Marlon Brando, one of his idols, a star. Leiber and Stoller would write the songs, and given that Kazan was known as an actors’ director, the chances were that the film could take Elvis to the next level in film stardom — he could become another Sinatra, someone who was equally respected as an actor and as a singer. Leiber took the proposal to Jean Aberbach, who was one of the heads of Hill and Range, the music publishing company that handled all the songs that Elvis performed. Aberbach listened to the proposal, called the Colonel to relay the idea, and then said “If you ever try to interfere with the business or artistic workings of the process known as Elvis Presley, if you ever start thinking in this direction again, you will never work for us again.” So they resigned themselves to just churning out the same stuff for Elvis’ films. Although, while they were soured on the process, the next film would be more interesting: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “King Creole”] “King Creole” was the first of Elvis’ films to be based on a book — though “Loving You” had been based on a short story that had appeared in a magazine. “A Stone For Danny Fisher” was one of Harold Robbins’ early novels, and was about a boxer in New York who accepts a bribe from criminals to lose a fight, but then wins the fight anyway, goes on the run, but encounters the criminals who bribed him two years later. It’s the kind of basic plot that has made perfectly good films in the past — like the Bruce Willis sequence in Pulp Fiction, for example. But while it’s a fairly decent plot, it is… not the plot of “King Creole”. Hal Wallis had bought the rights to the book in the hope of making it a vehicle for James Dean, before Dean’s death. When it was reworked as a Presley vehicle, obviously it was changed to be about a singer rather than a boxer, and so the whole main plotline about throwing a fight was dropped, and then the setting was changed to New Orleans… and truth be told, the resulting film seems to have more than a hint of “Walk on the Wild Side” about it, with both being set in New Orleans’ underworld, and both having a strained relationship between a father and a son as a main theme. Oddly, Leiber and Stoller have never mentioned these similarities, even though it seems very likely to me that someone involved in the Elvis organisation took their idea and used it without credit. They’ve both, though, talked about how dull they found working on the film’s soundtrack — and even though they were currently Elvis’ favourite writers, and producing his sessions, they ended up writing only three of the eleven songs for the film. “King Creole” is, in fact, a rather good film. It has a good cast, including Walter Matthau, and it was directed by Michael Curtiz, who was one of those directors of the time who could turn his hand to anything and make good films in a huge variety of genres. He’d directed, among many, many, many other films, “White Christmas”, the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, and “Casablanca”. However, Leiber and Stoller’s writing for the film was more or less on autopilot, and they produced songs like “Steadfast, Loyal, and True”, which is widely regarded as the very worst song they ever wrote: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Steadfast, Loyal, and True”] That said, there is an important point that should be made about the songs Elvis recorded for his films generally, and which applies to that song specifically. Many of the songs Elvis would record for his films in later years are generally regarded as being terrible, terrible songs, and with good reason. Songs like “There’s No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car”, “Yoga is as Yoga Does”, “Queenie Wahini’s Papaya”, or “Ito Eats” have few if any merits. But in part that’s because they are not intended to work as songs divorced from their context in the film. They’re part of the storytelling, not songs that were ever intended to be listened to as songs on their own. But still, Leiber and Stoller could undoubtedly have come up with something better than “Steadfast, Loyal, and True”, had they not been working with the attitude of “that’ll do, it’s good enough”. Indeed, the most artistically interesting song on the soundtrack is one that was not written by Leiber and Stoller at all, a jazz song sung as a duet with Kitty White, “Crawfish”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley and Kitty White, “Crawfish”] While other songwriters were turning out things like that, Leiber and Stoller were putting in a minimal amount of effort, despite their previous wish to try to be more artistically adventurous with their work with Elvis. They still, however, managed to write one song that would become known as a classic, even if they mostly did it as a joke: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Trouble”] That song combines two different elements of Leiber and Stoller’s writing we’ve looked at previously. The first is their obsession with that stop-time blues riff, which had first turned up in Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” back in 1954: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, “Hoochie Coochie Man”] Leiber and Stoller had latched on to that riff, as we saw when we talked about “Riot in Cell Block #9” back in the episode on “The Wallflower”. They would consistently use it as a signifier of the blues — they used the same riff not only in “Riot in Cell Block #9” and “Trouble”, but also “I’m A Woman” for Peggy Lee and “Santa Claus is Back in Town” for Elvis, and slight variations of it in “Framed” by the Robins and “Alligator Wine” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, among many others. It’s clearly a riff that they loved — so much so that they pretty much single-handedly made it into something people will now think of as a generic indicator of the blues rather than, as it was originally, a riff that was used on one specific song — but it’s also a riff they could fall back on when they were just phoning in a song. The other aspect of their songwriting that “Trouble” shows is their habit of writing songs as jokes and then giving them to singers as serious songs. They’d done this before with Elvis, when they’d written “Love Me” as a parody of a particular kind of ballad, and he’d then sung it entirely straight. Leiber compared “Trouble” to another song they’d written as a joke, “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots”: [Excerpt: The Cheers, “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots”] Leiber later said of “Trouble”, comparing it to that song, “the only people who are going to take them seriously are Hell’s Angels and Elvis Presley. I suppose there was a bit of contempt on our part.” He went on to say “There’s something laughable there. I mean, if you get Memphis Slim or John Lee Hooker singing it, it sounds right, but Elvis did not sound right to us. “ Either way, Elvis performs the song with enough ferocity that it sounded right to a lot of other people: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Trouble” 2] He thought well enough of the song that when, a decade later, he recorded what became known as his comeback special, that was the first song in the show. And while Leiber clearly thought that Elvis didn’t really sound like he was trouble in that song, you only have to compare, for example, the French cover version of it by Johnny Hallyday — the man often referred to as the French Elvis — to see how much less intense the vocal could have been: [Excerpt: Johnny Hallyday, “La Bagarre”] But some time after the King Creole sessions, the Colonel had the chance to separate Elvis from Leiber and Stoller for good. Elvis wanted them at all of his sessions, but Jerry Leiber got pneumonia and was unable to travel to a session. The Colonel kept insisting, and eventually Leiber asked Stoller what he should do, and Stoller said to tell him to do something to himself using words that you can’t use without being bumped into the adult section of the podcast directories. I assume from looking at the dates that this was for a session in June 1958 which Chet Atkins produced. From this point on, Leiber and Stoller would never work in the studio with Elvis again, and nor would they ever again be commissioned to write a song for him. They soon lost their jobs at RCA, which left them to concentrate on their work with R&B artists like the Clovers, the Coasters, and the Drifters. Their active collaboration with Elvis — a collaboration that would define all of them in the eyes of the public — had lasted only ten months, from April 1957 through February 1958. But Elvis kept an eye on their careers. He took note of songs they wrote for LaVern Baker: [Excerpt: LaVern Baker, “Saved”] The Clovers: [Excerpt: The Clovers, “Bossa Nova Baby”] The Coasters: [Excerpt: The Coasters, “Little Egypt”] and more, and would record many more of their songs. He’d just never again have them write a song specifically for him. Not that this mattered in the short term for Leiber and Stoller, as that June 1958 session was Elvis’ last one for a couple of years. Because Colonel Parker had forced Elvis into the Army. At the time, and for many years afterwards, the US military still drafted every man in his early twenties for two years, and so of course Elvis was going to be drafted, but both the Army and Elvis assumed he’d be able to join Special Services, which would mean he’d be able to continue his career, so long as he performed a few free concerts for the military. But Colonel Parker had other ideas. He didn’t want his boy going around doing free shows all over the place and devaluing his product, and he also thought that Elvis was getting too big for his boots. Getting him sent away to Germany to spend two years scrubbing latrines and driving tanks, and away from all the industry people who might fill his head with ideas, sounded like an excellent plan. And not only that, but if he didn’t give RCA much of a backlog to release while he was away, RCA would realise how much they needed the Colonel. So the Colonel leaked to the press that Elvis was going to get special treatment, and got a series of stories planted saying how awful it was that they were going to treat Elvis with kid gloves, so that he could then indignantly deny that Elvis would do anything other than his duty. For the next two years, the only recordings Elvis would make would be private ones, of himself and his army friends playing and singing during their down time: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Earth Angel”] But there was still one final person in the Colonel’s way, and fate took care of that: [Excerpt: Gladys Presley, “Home Sweet Home”] Elvis’ mother had been unwell for some time — and the descriptions of her illness sound an awful lot like the descriptions of Elvis’ own final illness a couple of decades later. Recent reports have suggested that Elvis may have had hereditary autoimmune problems — and that would seem to make a lot of sense given everything we know about him. Given that, it seems likely that his mother also had those problems. It also won’t have helped that she was on a series of fad diets, and taking diet pills, in order to lose weight, as the Colonel kept pressuring her to look thinner in photos with Elvis. Whatever the cause, she ended up hospitalised with hepatitis, which seemed to come from nowhere. Elvis was given compassionate leave to visit her in hospital, where she had the pink Cadillac that Elvis had bought her parked outside the window, so she could see it. When she died on August 14, aged forty-six, Elvis was distraught. There are descriptions in biographies of him that go into detail about his reactions. I won’t share those, because reading about them, even more than sixty years later, after everyone involved is dead, feels prurient to me, like an intrusion on something we’re not meant to see or even really to comprehend. Suffice it to say that his mother’s death was almost certainly the greatest trauma, by far, that Elvis ever experienced. At the funeral, Elvis got the Blackwood Brothers — Gladys’ favourite gospel quartet — to sing “Precious Memories”: [Excerpt: The Blackwood Brothers, “Precious Memories”] Gladys’ death, even more than his induction into the army, was the real end of the first phase of Elvis’ life and career. From that point on, while he always cared about his father, he had nobody in his life who he could trust utterly. And even more importantly, Colonel Parker now had nobody standing in his way. Gladys had never really liked or trusted Colonel Parker, but Vernon Presley saw him as somebody with whom he could do business, and as the only person around his son who really understood business. The Colonel had little but contempt for Vernon Presley, but knew how to keep him happy. While Elvis was in the Army, of course Scotty and Bill had to find other work. Scotty became a record producer, producing the record “Tragedy” for Thomas Wayne, whose full name was Thomas Wayne Perkins, and who was the brother of Johnny Cash’s guitarist Luther Perkins: [Excerpt: Thomas Wayne, “Tragedy”] That went to number five on the pop charts, and after that Scotty took a job working for Sam Phillips, and when Elvis got out of the Army and Scotty rejoined him, he continued working for Phillips for a number of years. Bill Black, meanwhile, formed Bill Black’s Combo, who had a number of instrumental hits over the next few years: [Excerpt: Bill Black’s Combo, “Hearts of Stone”] Unlike Scotty, Bill never worked with Elvis again after Elvis joined the army, and he concentrated on his own career. Bill Black’s Combo had eight top forty hits, and were popular enough that they became the opening act for the Beatles’ first US tour. Unfortunately, by that point, Black himself was too ill to tour, and he had to send the group out without him. He died in 1965, aged thirty-nine, from a brain tumour. As Elvis entered the Army, a combination of deliberate effort on the Colonel’s part and awful events had meant that every possible person who could give Elvis advice about his career, everyone who might tell him to trust his own artistic instincts, or who might push him in new directions, was either permanently removed from his life or distanced from him enough that they could have no further influence on him. From now on, the Colonel was in charge.    

Episode seventy-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Trouble” by Elvis Presley, his induction into the army, and his mother’s death. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “When” by the Kalin Twins. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/—-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and David Ritz tells Leiber and Stoller’s side of the story well. There are many, many books about Elvis Presley out there, but the one I’m using as my major resource for information on him, and which has guided my views as to the kind of person he was, is Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick, generally considered the best biography of him.  The Colonel by Alanna Nash is a little more tabloidy than those two, but is the only full-length biography I know of of Colonel Tom Parker. This box set contains all the recordings, including outtakes, for Elvis’ 1950s films, while this one contains just the finished versions of every record he made in the fifties. And King Creole itself is well worth watching. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript   As 1957 turned into 1958, Elvis’ personal life was going badly wrong, even as he was still the biggest star in the world. In particular, his relationships with everyone involved in his career — everyone except the Colonel, of course — were getting weakened. In September, Scotty Moore and Bill Black had written to Elvis, resigning from his band — they’d been put on a salary, rather than a split of the money, and then Elvis’ concert schedule had been cut back so much that they’d only played fourteen shows so far all year. They were getting into debt while Elvis was earning millions, but worse than that, they felt that the Colonel was controlling access to Elvis so much that they couldn’t even talk to him. DJ Fontana wouldn’t sign the letter — he’d joined the group later than the others, and so he’d not lost his position in the way that the others had. But the other two were gone. Elvis offered them a fifty dollar raise, but Scotty said that on top of that he would need a ten thousand dollar bonus just to clear his debts — and while Elvis was considering that, a newspaper interview with Moore and Black appeared, in which they talked about Elvis having broken his promise to them that when he earned more, they would earn more. Elvis was incensed, and decided that he didn’t need them anyway. He could replace them easily. And for one show, he did just that. He played the fair at his old home town of Tupelo, Mississippi, with DJ and the Jordanaires, and with two new musicians. On guitar was Hank Garland, a great country session musician who was best known for his hit “Sugarfoot Rag”: [Excerpt: Hank Garland, “Sugarfoot Rag”] Garland would continue to play with Elvis on recordings and occasional stage performances until 1961, when he was injured in an accident and became unable to perform. On bass, meanwhile, was Chuck Wigington, a friend of DJ’s who, like DJ, had been a regular performer in the Louisiana Hayride band, and who had also played for many years with Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys: [Excerpt: Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys, “Screwball”] Wigington actually didn’t have a contract for the show, and he wasn’t even a full-time musician at the time — he had to take a leave of absence from his job working in a bank in order to play the gig. Meanwhile, Scotty and Bill were off on their own playing the Dallas State Fair. But Elvis found that performing live without Scotty and Bill was just not the same, even though Garland and Wigington were perfectly fine musicians, and he decided to offer Scotty and Bill their old jobs back — sort of. They’d be getting paid a per diem whether or not they were performing, which was something, but after the next recording sessions Bill never again recorded with Elvis — he was replaced in the studio by Bob Moore. Scotty remained a regular in Elvis’ studio band too, but only on rhythm guitar — Hank Garland was going to be the lead player on Elvis’ records from now on. The new arrangement required a lot of compromise on both sides, but it meant that Moore and Black were on a better financial footing, and Elvis could remain comfortable on stage, but it was now very clear that the Colonel, at least, saw Black and Moore as replaceable, and neither of them were necessary for Elvis to continue making hit records. His relationship with the two men who had come up with him had now permanently changed — and that was going to be the case with a lot of other relationships as well. In particular, the Colonel was starting to think that Leiber and Stoller should be got rid of. The two of them were dangerous as far as the Colonel was concerned. Elvis respected them, they weren’t under the Colonel’s control, they didn’t even *like* the Colonel, and they had careers that didn’t rely on their association with Elvis. But they were also people who were able to generate hits for Elvis, and they were currently working for RCA, so while that was the case he would put them to use. But they were loose cannons. Now, before we go further, I should point out that what I’m about to describe is *one* way that Leiber and Stoller have explained what happened. In various different tellings, they’ve told events in different orders, and described things slightly differently. This is, to the best of my understanding, the most likely series of events, but I could be wrong. Leiber and Stoller had a complex attitude towards their work with Elvis. They liked Elvis himself, a lot, and they admired and respected his work ethic in the studio, and shared his taste in blues music. But at the same time, they didn’t consider the work they were doing with Elvis to be real art, in the way that they considered their R&B records to be. It was easy money — anything Elvis recorded was guaranteed to sell in massive amounts, so they didn’t have to try too hard to write anything particularly good for him, but they didn’t like the Colonel, and they were already, after a couple of films, getting bored with the routine nature of writing for Elvis’ films. I’m going to paraphrase a quote from Jerry Leiber here, because I don’t want to get this podcast moved into the adults-only section on Apple Podcasts, and the Leiber quote is quite full of expletives, but the gist of it is that they believed that if they were given proper artistic freedom with Elvis they could have made history, but that the people in his management team only wanted money. Every film needed just a few songs to plug into gaps, and they were usually the same type of songs to go in the same type of gaps. They were bored. And they actually had a plan for a project that would stretch them all creatively. Leiber vaguely knew the film producer Charles Feldman, who had produced On The Waterfront and The Seven-Year Itch, and Feldman had come to Leiber with a proposition. He’d recently acquired the rights to the novel A Walk on the Wild Side, set in New Orleans, and he thought that it would be perfect for Elvis. He’d have the script written by Budd Schulberg, and have Elia Kazan direct — the same team that had made On The Waterfront. Elvis would be working with people who had made Marlon Brando, one of his idols, a star. Leiber and Stoller would write the songs, and given that Kazan was known as an actors’ director, the chances were that the film could take Elvis to the next level in film stardom — he could become another Sinatra, someone who was equally respected as an actor and as a singer. Leiber took the proposal to Jean Aberbach, who was one of the heads of Hill and Range, the music publishing company that handled all the songs that Elvis performed. Aberbach listened to the proposal, called the Colonel to relay the idea, and then said “If you ever try to interfere with the business or artistic workings of the process known as Elvis Presley, if you ever start thinking in this direction again, you will never work for us again.” So they resigned themselves to just churning out the same stuff for Elvis’ films. Although, while they were soured on the process, the next film would be more interesting: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “King Creole”] “King Creole” was the first of Elvis’ films to be based on a book — though “Loving You” had been based on a short story that had appeared in a magazine. “A Stone For Danny Fisher” was one of Harold Robbins’ early novels, and was about a boxer in New York who accepts a bribe from criminals to lose a fight, but then wins the fight anyway, goes on the run, but encounters the criminals who bribed him two years later. It’s the kind of basic plot that has made perfectly good films in the past — like the Bruce Willis sequence in Pulp Fiction, for example. But while it’s a fairly decent plot, it is… not the plot of “King Creole”. Hal Wallis had bought the rights to the book in the hope of making it a vehicle for James Dean, before Dean’s death. When it was reworked as a Presley vehicle, obviously it was changed to be about a singer rather than a boxer, and so the whole main plotline about throwing a fight was dropped, and then the setting was changed to New Orleans… and truth be told, the resulting film seems to have more than a hint of “Walk on the Wild Side” about it, with both being set in New Orleans’ underworld, and both having a strained relationship between a father and a son as a main theme. Oddly, Leiber and Stoller have never mentioned these similarities, even though it seems very likely to me that someone involved in the Elvis organisation took their idea and used it without credit. They’ve both, though, talked about how dull they found working on the film’s soundtrack — and even though they were currently Elvis’ favourite writers, and producing his sessions, they ended up writing only three of the eleven songs for the film. “King Creole” is, in fact, a rather good film. It has a good cast, including Walter Matthau, and it was directed by Michael Curtiz, who was one of those directors of the time who could turn his hand to anything and make good films in a huge variety of genres. He’d directed, among many, many, many other films, “White Christmas”, the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, and “Casablanca”. However, Leiber and Stoller’s writing for the film was more or less on autopilot, and they produced songs like “Steadfast, Loyal, and True”, which is widely regarded as the very worst song they ever wrote: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Steadfast, Loyal, and True”] That said, there is an important point that should be made about the songs Elvis recorded for his films generally, and which applies to that song specifically. Many of the songs Elvis would record for his films in later years are generally regarded as being terrible, terrible songs, and with good reason. Songs like “There’s No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car”, “Yoga is as Yoga Does”, “Queenie Wahini’s Papaya”, or “Ito Eats” have few if any merits. But in part that’s because they are not intended to work as songs divorced from their context in the film. They’re part of the storytelling, not songs that were ever intended to be listened to as songs on their own. But still, Leiber and Stoller could undoubtedly have come up with something better than “Steadfast, Loyal, and True”, had they not been working with the attitude of “that’ll do, it’s good enough”. Indeed, the most artistically interesting song on the soundtrack is one that was not written by Leiber and Stoller at all, a jazz song sung as a duet with Kitty White, “Crawfish”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley and Kitty White, “Crawfish”] While other songwriters were turning out things like that, Leiber and Stoller were putting in a minimal amount of effort, despite their previous wish to try to be more artistically adventurous with their work with Elvis. They still, however, managed to write one song that would become known as a classic, even if they mostly did it as a joke: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Trouble”] That song combines two different elements of Leiber and Stoller’s writing we’ve looked at previously. The first is their obsession with that stop-time blues riff, which had first turned up in Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” back in 1954: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, “Hoochie Coochie Man”] Leiber and Stoller had latched on to that riff, as we saw when we talked about “Riot in Cell Block #9” back in the episode on “The Wallflower”. They would consistently use it as a signifier of the blues — they used the same riff not only in “Riot in Cell Block #9” and “Trouble”, but also “I’m A Woman” for Peggy Lee and “Santa Claus is Back in Town” for Elvis, and slight variations of it in “Framed” by the Robins and “Alligator Wine” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, among many others. It’s clearly a riff that they loved — so much so that they pretty much single-handedly made it into something people will now think of as a generic indicator of the blues rather than, as it was originally, a riff that was used on one specific song — but it’s also a riff they could fall back on when they were just phoning in a song. The other aspect of their songwriting that “Trouble” shows is their habit of writing songs as jokes and then giving them to singers as serious songs. They’d done this before with Elvis, when they’d written “Love Me” as a parody of a particular kind of ballad, and he’d then sung it entirely straight. Leiber compared “Trouble” to another song they’d written as a joke, “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots”: [Excerpt: The Cheers, “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots”] Leiber later said of “Trouble”, comparing it to that song, “the only people who are going to take them seriously are Hell’s Angels and Elvis Presley. I suppose there was a bit of contempt on our part.” He went on to say “There’s something laughable there. I mean, if you get Memphis Slim or John Lee Hooker singing it, it sounds right, but Elvis did not sound right to us. “ Either way, Elvis performs the song with enough ferocity that it sounded right to a lot of other people: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Trouble” 2] He thought well enough of the song that when, a decade later, he recorded what became known as his comeback special, that was the first song in the show. And while Leiber clearly thought that Elvis didn’t really sound like he was trouble in that song, you only have to compare, for example, the French cover version of it by Johnny Hallyday — the man often referred to as the French Elvis — to see how much less intense the vocal could have been: [Excerpt: Johnny Hallyday, “La Bagarre”] But some time after the King Creole sessions, the Colonel had the chance to separate Elvis from Leiber and Stoller for good. Elvis wanted them at all of his sessions, but Jerry Leiber got pneumonia and was unable to travel to a session. The Colonel kept insisting, and eventually Leiber asked Stoller what he should do, and Stoller said to tell him to do something to himself using words that you can’t use without being bumped into the adult section of the podcast directories. I assume from looking at the dates that this was for a session in June 1958 which Chet Atkins produced. From this point on, Leiber and Stoller would never work in the studio with Elvis again, and nor would they ever again be commissioned to write a song for him. They soon lost their jobs at RCA, which left them to concentrate on their work with R&B artists like the Clovers, the Coasters, and the Drifters. Their active collaboration with Elvis — a collaboration that would define all of them in the eyes of the public — had lasted only ten months, from April 1957 through February 1958. But Elvis kept an eye on their careers. He took note of songs they wrote for LaVern Baker: [Excerpt: LaVern Baker, “Saved”] The Clovers: [Excerpt: The Clovers, “Bossa Nova Baby”] The Coasters: [Excerpt: The Coasters, “Little Egypt”] and more, and would record many more of their songs. He’d just never again have them write a song specifically for him. Not that this mattered in the short term for Leiber and Stoller, as that June 1958 session was Elvis’ last one for a couple of years. Because Colonel Parker had forced Elvis into the Army. At the time, and for many years afterwards, the US military still drafted every man in his early twenties for two years, and so of course Elvis was going to be drafted, but both the Army and Elvis assumed he’d be able to join Special Services, which would mean he’d be able to continue his career, so long as he performed a few free concerts for the military. But Colonel Parker had other ideas. He didn’t want his boy going around doing free shows all over the place and devaluing his product, and he also thought that Elvis was getting too big for his boots. Getting him sent away to Germany to spend two years scrubbing latrines and driving tanks, and away from all the industry people who might fill his head with ideas, sounded like an excellent plan. And not only that, but if he didn’t give RCA much of a backlog to release while he was away, RCA would realise how much they needed the Colonel. So the Colonel leaked to the press that Elvis was going to get special treatment, and got a series of stories planted saying how awful it was that they were going to treat Elvis with kid gloves, so that he could then indignantly deny that Elvis would do anything other than his duty. For the next two years, the only recordings Elvis would make would be private ones, of himself and his army friends playing and singing during their down time: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Earth Angel”] But there was still one final person in the Colonel’s way, and fate took care of that: [Excerpt: Gladys Presley, “Home Sweet Home”] Elvis’ mother had been unwell for some time — and the descriptions of her illness sound an awful lot like the descriptions of Elvis’ own final illness a couple of decades later. Recent reports have suggested that Elvis may have had hereditary autoimmune problems — and that would seem to make a lot of sense given everything we know about him. Given that, it seems likely that his mother also had those problems. It also won’t have helped that she was on a series of fad diets, and taking diet pills, in order to lose weight, as the Colonel kept pressuring her to look thinner in photos with Elvis. Whatever the cause, she ended up hospitalised with hepatitis, which seemed to come from nowhere. Elvis was given compassionate leave to visit her in hospital, where she had the pink Cadillac that Elvis had bought her parked outside the window, so she could see it. When she died on August 14, aged forty-six, Elvis was distraught. There are descriptions in biographies of him that go into detail about his reactions. I won’t share those, because reading about them, even more than sixty years later, after everyone involved is dead, feels prurient to me, like an intrusion on something we’re not meant to see or even really to comprehend. Suffice it to say that his mother’s death was almost certainly the greatest trauma, by far, that Elvis ever experienced. At the funeral, Elvis got the Blackwood Brothers — Gladys’ favourite gospel quartet — to sing “Precious Memories”: [Excerpt: The Blackwood Brothers, “Precious Memories”] Gladys’ death, even more than his induction into the army, was the real end of the first phase of Elvis’ life and career. From that point on, while he always cared about his father, he had nobody in his life who he could trust utterly. And even more importantly, Colonel Parker now had nobody standing in his way. Gladys had never really liked or trusted Colonel Parker, but Vernon Presley saw him as somebody with whom he could do business, and as the only person around his son who really understood business. The Colonel had little but contempt for Vernon Presley, but knew how to keep him happy. While Elvis was in the Army, of course Scotty and Bill had to find other work. Scotty became a record producer, producing the record “Tragedy” for Thomas Wayne, whose full name was Thomas Wayne Perkins, and who was the brother of Johnny Cash’s guitarist Luther Perkins: [Excerpt: Thomas Wayne, “Tragedy”] That went to number five on the pop charts, and after that Scotty took a job working for Sam Phillips, and when Elvis got out of the Army and Scotty rejoined him, he continued working for Phillips for a number of years. Bill Black, meanwhile, formed Bill Black’s Combo, who had a number of instrumental hits over the next few years: [Excerpt: Bill Black’s Combo, “Hearts of Stone”] Unlike Scotty, Bill never worked with Elvis again after Elvis joined the army, and he concentrated on his own career. Bill Black’s Combo had eight top forty hits, and were popular enough that they became the opening act for the Beatles’ first US tour. Unfortunately, by that point, Black himself was too ill to tour, and he had to send the group out without him. He died in 1965, aged thirty-nine, from a brain tumour. As Elvis entered the Army, a combination of deliberate effort on the Colonel’s part and awful events had meant that every possible person who could give Elvis advice about his career, everyone who might tell him to trust his own artistic instincts, or who might push him in new directions, was either permanently removed from his life or distanced from him enough that they could have no further influence on him. From now on, the Colonel was in charge.    

Episode seventy-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Trouble" by Elvis Presley, his induction into the army, and his mother's death. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "When" by the Kalin Twins. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and David Ritz tells Leiber and Stoller's side of the story well. There are many, many books about Elvis Presley out there, but the one I'm using as my major resource for information on him, and which has guided my views as to the kind of person he was, is Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick, generally considered the best biography of him.  The Colonel by Alanna Nash is a little more tabloidy than those two, but is the only full-length biography I know of of Colonel Tom Parker. This box set contains all the recordings, including outtakes, for Elvis' 1950s films, while this one contains just the finished versions of every record he made in the fifties. And King Creole itself is well worth watching. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript   As 1957 turned into 1958, Elvis' personal life was going badly wrong, even as he was still the biggest star in the world. In particular, his relationships with everyone involved in his career -- everyone except the Colonel, of course -- were getting weakened. In September, Scotty Moore and Bill Black had written to Elvis, resigning from his band -- they'd been put on a salary, rather than a split of the money, and then Elvis' concert schedule had been cut back so much that they'd only played fourteen shows so far all year. They were getting into debt while Elvis was earning millions, but worse than that, they felt that the Colonel was controlling access to Elvis so much that they couldn't even talk to him. DJ Fontana wouldn't sign the letter -- he'd joined the group later than the others, and so he'd not lost his position in the way that the others had. But the other two were gone. Elvis offered them a fifty dollar raise, but Scotty said that on top of that he would need a ten thousand dollar bonus just to clear his debts -- and while Elvis was considering that, a newspaper interview with Moore and Black appeared, in which they talked about Elvis having broken his promise to them that when he earned more, they would earn more. Elvis was incensed, and decided that he didn't need them anyway. He could replace them easily. And for one show, he did just that. He played the fair at his old home town of Tupelo, Mississippi, with DJ and the Jordanaires, and with two new musicians. On guitar was Hank Garland, a great country session musician who was best known for his hit "Sugarfoot Rag": [Excerpt: Hank Garland, "Sugarfoot Rag"] Garland would continue to play with Elvis on recordings and occasional stage performances until 1961, when he was injured in an accident and became unable to perform. On bass, meanwhile, was Chuck Wigington, a friend of DJ's who, like DJ, had been a regular performer in the Louisiana Hayride band, and who had also played for many years with Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys: [Excerpt: Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys, "Screwball"] Wigington actually didn't have a contract for the show, and he wasn't even a full-time musician at the time -- he had to take a leave of absence from his job working in a bank in order to play the gig. Meanwhile, Scotty and Bill were off on their own playing the Dallas State Fair. But Elvis found that performing live without Scotty and Bill was just not the same, even though Garland and Wigington were perfectly fine musicians, and he decided to offer Scotty and Bill their old jobs back -- sort of. They'd be getting paid a per diem whether or not they were performing, which was something, but after the next recording sessions Bill never again recorded with Elvis -- he was replaced in the studio by Bob Moore. Scotty remained a regular in Elvis' studio band too, but only on rhythm guitar -- Hank Garland was going to be the lead player on Elvis' records from now on. The new arrangement required a lot of compromise on both sides, but it meant that Moore and Black were on a better financial footing, and Elvis could remain comfortable on stage, but it was now very clear that the Colonel, at least, saw Black and Moore as replaceable, and neither of them were necessary for Elvis to continue making hit records. His relationship with the two men who had come up with him had now permanently changed -- and that was going to be the case with a lot of other relationships as well. In particular, the Colonel was starting to think that Leiber and Stoller should be got rid of. The two of them were dangerous as far as the Colonel was concerned. Elvis respected them, they weren't under the Colonel's control, they didn't even *like* the Colonel, and they had careers that didn't rely on their association with Elvis. But they were also people who were able to generate hits for Elvis, and they were currently working for RCA, so while that was the case he would put them to use. But they were loose cannons. Now, before we go further, I should point out that what I'm about to describe is *one* way that Leiber and Stoller have explained what happened. In various different tellings, they've told events in different orders, and described things slightly differently. This is, to the best of my understanding, the most likely series of events, but I could be wrong. Leiber and Stoller had a complex attitude towards their work with Elvis. They liked Elvis himself, a lot, and they admired and respected his work ethic in the studio, and shared his taste in blues music. But at the same time, they didn't consider the work they were doing with Elvis to be real art, in the way that they considered their R&B records to be. It was easy money -- anything Elvis recorded was guaranteed to sell in massive amounts, so they didn't have to try too hard to write anything particularly good for him, but they didn't like the Colonel, and they were already, after a couple of films, getting bored with the routine nature of writing for Elvis' films. I'm going to paraphrase a quote from Jerry Leiber here, because I don't want to get this podcast moved into the adults-only section on Apple Podcasts, and the Leiber quote is quite full of expletives, but the gist of it is that they believed that if they were given proper artistic freedom with Elvis they could have made history, but that the people in his management team only wanted money. Every film needed just a few songs to plug into gaps, and they were usually the same type of songs to go in the same type of gaps. They were bored. And they actually had a plan for a project that would stretch them all creatively. Leiber vaguely knew the film producer Charles Feldman, who had produced On The Waterfront and The Seven-Year Itch, and Feldman had come to Leiber with a proposition. He'd recently acquired the rights to the novel A Walk on the Wild Side, set in New Orleans, and he thought that it would be perfect for Elvis. He'd have the script written by Budd Schulberg, and have Elia Kazan direct -- the same team that had made On The Waterfront. Elvis would be working with people who had made Marlon Brando, one of his idols, a star. Leiber and Stoller would write the songs, and given that Kazan was known as an actors' director, the chances were that the film could take Elvis to the next level in film stardom -- he could become another Sinatra, someone who was equally respected as an actor and as a singer. Leiber took the proposal to Jean Aberbach, who was one of the heads of Hill and Range, the music publishing company that handled all the songs that Elvis performed. Aberbach listened to the proposal, called the Colonel to relay the idea, and then said "If you ever try to interfere with the business or artistic workings of the process known as Elvis Presley, if you ever start thinking in this direction again, you will never work for us again." So they resigned themselves to just churning out the same stuff for Elvis' films. Although, while they were soured on the process, the next film would be more interesting: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "King Creole"] "King Creole" was the first of Elvis' films to be based on a book -- though "Loving You" had been based on a short story that had appeared in a magazine. "A Stone For Danny Fisher" was one of Harold Robbins' early novels, and was about a boxer in New York who accepts a bribe from criminals to lose a fight, but then wins the fight anyway, goes on the run, but encounters the criminals who bribed him two years later. It's the kind of basic plot that has made perfectly good films in the past -- like the Bruce Willis sequence in Pulp Fiction, for example. But while it's a fairly decent plot, it is... not the plot of "King Creole". Hal Wallis had bought the rights to the book in the hope of making it a vehicle for James Dean, before Dean's death. When it was reworked as a Presley vehicle, obviously it was changed to be about a singer rather than a boxer, and so the whole main plotline about throwing a fight was dropped, and then the setting was changed to New Orleans... and truth be told, the resulting film seems to have more than a hint of "Walk on the Wild Side" about it, with both being set in New Orleans' underworld, and both having a strained relationship between a father and a son as a main theme. Oddly, Leiber and Stoller have never mentioned these similarities, even though it seems very likely to me that someone involved in the Elvis organisation took their idea and used it without credit. They've both, though, talked about how dull they found working on the film's soundtrack -- and even though they were currently Elvis' favourite writers, and producing his sessions, they ended up writing only three of the eleven songs for the film. "King Creole" is, in fact, a rather good film. It has a good cast, including Walter Matthau, and it was directed by Michael Curtiz, who was one of those directors of the time who could turn his hand to anything and make good films in a huge variety of genres. He'd directed, among many, many, many other films, "White Christmas", the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, and "Casablanca". However, Leiber and Stoller's writing for the film was more or less on autopilot, and they produced songs like "Steadfast, Loyal, and True", which is widely regarded as the very worst song they ever wrote: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Steadfast, Loyal, and True"] That said, there is an important point that should be made about the songs Elvis recorded for his films generally, and which applies to that song specifically. Many of the songs Elvis would record for his films in later years are generally regarded as being terrible, terrible songs, and with good reason. Songs like "There's No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car", "Yoga is as Yoga Does", "Queenie Wahini's Papaya", or "Ito Eats" have few if any merits. But in part that's because they are not intended to work as songs divorced from their context in the film. They're part of the storytelling, not songs that were ever intended to be listened to as songs on their own. But still, Leiber and Stoller could undoubtedly have come up with something better than "Steadfast, Loyal, and True", had they not been working with the attitude of "that'll do, it's good enough". Indeed, the most artistically interesting song on the soundtrack is one that was not written by Leiber and Stoller at all, a jazz song sung as a duet with Kitty White, "Crawfish": [Excerpt: Elvis Presley and Kitty White, "Crawfish"] While other songwriters were turning out things like that, Leiber and Stoller were putting in a minimal amount of effort, despite their previous wish to try to be more artistically adventurous with their work with Elvis. They still, however, managed to write one song that would become known as a classic, even if they mostly did it as a joke: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Trouble"] That song combines two different elements of Leiber and Stoller's writing we've looked at previously. The first is their obsession with that stop-time blues riff, which had first turned up in Muddy Waters' "Hoochie Coochie Man" back in 1954: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "Hoochie Coochie Man"] Leiber and Stoller had latched on to that riff, as we saw when we talked about "Riot in Cell Block #9" back in the episode on "The Wallflower". They would consistently use it as a signifier of the blues -- they used the same riff not only in "Riot in Cell Block #9" and "Trouble", but also "I'm A Woman" for Peggy Lee and "Santa Claus is Back in Town" for Elvis, and slight variations of it in "Framed" by the Robins and "Alligator Wine" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, among many others. It's clearly a riff that they loved -- so much so that they pretty much single-handedly made it into something people will now think of as a generic indicator of the blues rather than, as it was originally, a riff that was used on one specific song -- but it's also a riff they could fall back on when they were just phoning in a song. The other aspect of their songwriting that "Trouble" shows is their habit of writing songs as jokes and then giving them to singers as serious songs. They'd done this before with Elvis, when they'd written "Love Me" as a parody of a particular kind of ballad, and he'd then sung it entirely straight. Leiber compared “Trouble” to another song they'd written as a joke, "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots": [Excerpt: The Cheers, "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots"] Leiber later said of "Trouble", comparing it to that song, "the only people who are going to take them seriously are Hell's Angels and Elvis Presley. I suppose there was a bit of contempt on our part." He went on to say "There's something laughable there. I mean, if you get Memphis Slim or John Lee Hooker singing it, it sounds right, but Elvis did not sound right to us. " Either way, Elvis performs the song with enough ferocity that it sounded right to a lot of other people: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Trouble" 2] He thought well enough of the song that when, a decade later, he recorded what became known as his comeback special, that was the first song in the show. And while Leiber clearly thought that Elvis didn't really sound like he was trouble in that song, you only have to compare, for example, the French cover version of it by Johnny Hallyday -- the man often referred to as the French Elvis -- to see how much less intense the vocal could have been: [Excerpt: Johnny Hallyday, "La Bagarre"] But some time after the King Creole sessions, the Colonel had the chance to separate Elvis from Leiber and Stoller for good. Elvis wanted them at all of his sessions, but Jerry Leiber got pneumonia and was unable to travel to a session. The Colonel kept insisting, and eventually Leiber asked Stoller what he should do, and Stoller said to tell him to do something to himself using words that you can't use without being bumped into the adult section of the podcast directories. I assume from looking at the dates that this was for a session in June 1958 which Chet Atkins produced. From this point on, Leiber and Stoller would never work in the studio with Elvis again, and nor would they ever again be commissioned to write a song for him. They soon lost their jobs at RCA, which left them to concentrate on their work with R&B artists like the Clovers, the Coasters, and the Drifters. Their active collaboration with Elvis -- a collaboration that would define all of them in the eyes of the public -- had lasted only ten months, from April 1957 through February 1958. But Elvis kept an eye on their careers. He took note of songs they wrote for LaVern Baker: [Excerpt: LaVern Baker, "Saved"] The Clovers: [Excerpt: The Clovers, "Bossa Nova Baby"] The Coasters: [Excerpt: The Coasters, "Little Egypt"] and more, and would record many more of their songs. He'd just never again have them write a song specifically for him. Not that this mattered in the short term for Leiber and Stoller, as that June 1958 session was Elvis' last one for a couple of years. Because Colonel Parker had forced Elvis into the Army. At the time, and for many years afterwards, the US military still drafted every man in his early twenties for two years, and so of course Elvis was going to be drafted, but both the Army and Elvis assumed he'd be able to join Special Services, which would mean he'd be able to continue his career, so long as he performed a few free concerts for the military. But Colonel Parker had other ideas. He didn't want his boy going around doing free shows all over the place and devaluing his product, and he also thought that Elvis was getting too big for his boots. Getting him sent away to Germany to spend two years scrubbing latrines and driving tanks, and away from all the industry people who might fill his head with ideas, sounded like an excellent plan. And not only that, but if he didn't give RCA much of a backlog to release while he was away, RCA would realise how much they needed the Colonel. So the Colonel leaked to the press that Elvis was going to get special treatment, and got a series of stories planted saying how awful it was that they were going to treat Elvis with kid gloves, so that he could then indignantly deny that Elvis would do anything other than his duty. For the next two years, the only recordings Elvis would make would be private ones, of himself and his army friends playing and singing during their down time: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Earth Angel"] But there was still one final person in the Colonel's way, and fate took care of that: [Excerpt: Gladys Presley, "Home Sweet Home"] Elvis' mother had been unwell for some time -- and the descriptions of her illness sound an awful lot like the descriptions of Elvis' own final illness a couple of decades later. Recent reports have suggested that Elvis may have had hereditary autoimmune problems -- and that would seem to make a lot of sense given everything we know about him. Given that, it seems likely that his mother also had those problems. It also won't have helped that she was on a series of fad diets, and taking diet pills, in order to lose weight, as the Colonel kept pressuring her to look thinner in photos with Elvis. Whatever the cause, she ended up hospitalised with hepatitis, which seemed to come from nowhere. Elvis was given compassionate leave to visit her in hospital, where she had the pink Cadillac that Elvis had bought her parked outside the window, so she could see it. When she died on August 14, aged forty-six, Elvis was distraught. There are descriptions in biographies of him that go into detail about his reactions. I won't share those, because reading about them, even more than sixty years later, after everyone involved is dead, feels prurient to me, like an intrusion on something we're not meant to see or even really to comprehend. Suffice it to say that his mother's death was almost certainly the greatest trauma, by far, that Elvis ever experienced. At the funeral, Elvis got the Blackwood Brothers -- Gladys' favourite gospel quartet -- to sing "Precious Memories": [Excerpt: The Blackwood Brothers, "Precious Memories"] Gladys' death, even more than his induction into the army, was the real end of the first phase of Elvis' life and career. From that point on, while he always cared about his father, he had nobody in his life who he could trust utterly. And even more importantly, Colonel Parker now had nobody standing in his way. Gladys had never really liked or trusted Colonel Parker, but Vernon Presley saw him as somebody with whom he could do business, and as the only person around his son who really understood business. The Colonel had little but contempt for Vernon Presley, but knew how to keep him happy. While Elvis was in the Army, of course Scotty and Bill had to find other work. Scotty became a record producer, producing the record "Tragedy" for Thomas Wayne, whose full name was Thomas Wayne Perkins, and who was the brother of Johnny Cash's guitarist Luther Perkins: [Excerpt: Thomas Wayne, "Tragedy"] That went to number five on the pop charts, and after that Scotty took a job working for Sam Phillips, and when Elvis got out of the Army and Scotty rejoined him, he continued working for Phillips for a number of years. Bill Black, meanwhile, formed Bill Black's Combo, who had a number of instrumental hits over the next few years: [Excerpt: Bill Black's Combo, "Hearts of Stone"] Unlike Scotty, Bill never worked with Elvis again after Elvis joined the army, and he concentrated on his own career. Bill Black's Combo had eight top forty hits, and were popular enough that they became the opening act for the Beatles' first US tour. Unfortunately, by that point, Black himself was too ill to tour, and he had to send the group out without him. He died in 1965, aged thirty-nine, from a brain tumour. As Elvis entered the Army, a combination of deliberate effort on the Colonel's part and awful events had meant that every possible person who could give Elvis advice about his career, everyone who might tell him to trust his own artistic instincts, or who might push him in new directions, was either permanently removed from his life or distanced from him enough that they could have no further influence on him. From now on, the Colonel was in charge.    

Basil and Hayley are joined by first-time guest, Rich Lau, to discuss the short story, "Your Arkansas Traveler," written by Budd Schulberg, and its cinematic adaptation, "A Face In The Crowd,"... The Fancy Film Fellows discuss film from every era in a variety of formats. Be Warned! You might learn more than you'd care to know...

American Splendor scene #30 (1:37:31 to 1:41:08) — As the credits roll (on the film and the podcast), Josh & Dean reflect on all things Pekar/American Splendor. What should the film’s post-credit sequence have been? What would an American Splendor TV show look like? (Dino keeps coming back to Louis C.K.) A tribute to DC/Vertigo/Paradox Press, as well as editor Jonathan Vankin. Other notable movies with the word “American” in the title. The next movies from each of the film’s actors. Who would you want to write, direct, and star in the movie of your life? Thoughts on Harvey's death and the film’s conclusion. A somber way to end the season. Thanks for listening! SHOUT-OUTs to Doug Allen, R. Crumb. Greg Budgett, Gary Dumm, Gary Leib, Jason Gerstein, Joe Sacco, Gerry Shamray, Frank Stack, Joe Zabel, Bernt Capra, Vince Waldron, DC's Big Book of... series, Sandman, Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman, the comics' "British Invasion," Paradox Press, Andy Helfer, A History of Violence, Karen Berger, Hollywood Bob, Alden Ehrenreich (Han Solo), Harrison Ford, Seinfeld, Alan Alda, Alan Moore, HBO's Watchmen TV show, Pamela Adlon's Better Things, the U.S. State Dept. Speaker/Specialist program, Jerry Lewis, Woody Allen, France, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Deadpool, Chester Brown, the "Who is Harvey Pekar" scene, the Alamo Drafthouse, Chris Smith, Tom Cruise, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, Bret Easton Ellis, Pierce Brosnan, Ted Hope, Good Machine, Josh Hutcherson (Robin), The Hunger Games, M*A*S*H, Hawkeye Pierce, Radar O'Reilly, Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round," Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Ryan O’Neal, Seth Rogan, Paddy Cheyefsky, Budd Schulberg, Network, The Hospital, George C. Scott, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, Sergio Leone, the Russian Turkish Baths, John Ritter, the Fonz, Captain Kirk, Jason Wright, Doug Latino, Evan Wilson, Jen Ferguson, Sari Wilson, and all you listeners. --- This episode is sponsored by · The Colin and Samir Podcast: The Colin and Samir Podcast hosted by LA - based friends and filmmakers Colin and Samir takes a look into what it’s like to make creativity your career. https://open.spotify.com/show/5QaSbbv2eD4SFrlFR6IyY7?si=Dj3roVoJTZmOime94xhjng --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/scenebyscene/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/scenebyscene/support

After ringing in this new podcast by reviewing Olympus Has Fallen, this week we’re talking about a movie that’s a little less, well, dumb. A Face In The Crowd saw legendary director Elia Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg teaming up once again after the success of On The Waterfront. As we discuss, A Face In The Crowd […] The post The Pick: A Face In The Crowd appeared first on Mildly Pleased.

The Stoics were not unacquainted with awful people. They saw tyrants. They saw cheats. They saw toxic egomaniacs and insatiable ambitions. And what was their reaction to most of these people?Aside from a general wariness and a desire not to be corrupted by them, mostly the Stoics pitied these types. Certainly this is how Marcus Aurelius wrote about someone like Alexander the Great. He almost seemed sad for him. Like, dude, how did you think this was going to end? Did you think conquering the world was going to make you happy? Did you actually think that fame and glory would fill that hole in your soul?There is a wonderful encapsulation of this attitude in the 1941 novel What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg (who, if his later novels are any indication, was familiar with Marcus’s writing). In Sammy, the screenwriter Kit questions the anger and animus directed at Sammy Glick, a hopelessly ambitious producer who constantly hurts and betrays everyone he works with in the pursuit of his goals. Speaking of how they might react to someone with polio, she says:“We’re sorry for him because a germ he didn’t have anything to do with got inside him and twisted him out of shape. Maybe we ought to feel the same way about guys with twisted egos.” Which is a remarkably wise and philosophical attitude. Egomaniacs don’t make it easy for us to pity them. Neither do tyrants or cheats. Especially when their success comes at our expense. But the truth is, they can’t help themselves. And it’s not any fun to be them. Not at all. P.S. Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday is $.99 on Amazon right now for a very limited time. If you want to check it out, or give it as a gift, it’ll never be cheaper than that.And along with the Amazon discount, you can get $6 off our Ego Is The Enemy medallion with the code “EGOCOIN” AND $10 off Ego Is The Enemy print with the code “EGOPRINT” at checkout in the Daily Stoic store.

There is a simple proposition at the heart of classical Christianity: if you are a good person and do good works on Earth, when you die you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven and know the full bounty of God’s unending love. But if you are a bad person on Earth, and you sin without repenting, when you die you’ll end up in Hell for all eternity. In many Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, that duality is baked into the singular notion of Karma: good intentions and good deeds will be repaid in the next life with great kindness; bad intent and bad deeds (or sin) will be repaid in the next life with great severity.The Stoics take a different approach. They don’t say that cheating or lying or murdering should be avoided out of fear of future punishments at the hands of God. Instead, they make a much more immediate and self-interested case. Seneca especially, who saw Caligula and Nero and other infamous Roman rulers up close, takes pains to point out these people are not winning. Nor are they getting off scot-free for their crimes. Actually, they’re paying for it every single day. Seneca would have liked the passage at the conclusion of the novel What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg, which renders this verdict on the empty, broken life of an immoral Hollywood studio boss:I had been waiting for justice suddenly to rise up and smite him in all its vengeance, secretly hoping to be around when Sammy got what was coming to him; only I had expected something conclusive and fatal and now I realized that what was coming to him was not a sudden pay-off but a process, a disease he had caught in the epidemic that swept over his birthplace like a plague; a cancer that was slowly eating him away, the symptoms developing and intensifying: success, loneliness, fear. Fear of all the bright young men, the newer, fresher Sammy Glicks that would spring up to harass him, to threaten him and finally overtake him.The Stoics would say don’t sin or your life will be hell. Not your next life, not your afterlife, but this life right now. Today.

Színészes évadunk záró adásában Marlon Brando ikonikus szerepével foglalkozunk. Az 1954-es On the Waterfront (A rakparton) című filmben nyújtott alakításáért életében először Oscarral jutalmazták Brandót. Mellette még hét kategóriában nyert a dokkmunkásokról szóló társadalmi dráma, köztük a legjobb film és a legjobb rendező díját is. A rakparton újabb politikai témájú történet Elia Kazan rendezőtől, akinek az amerikai kommunista párttal és a hatóságokkal folytatott viharos kapcsolata több filmjét is meghatározta. A vágy villamosa után vallomást tett a HUAC, vagyis az amerikai képviselőház kommunistaellenes bizottsága előtt, majd leforgatott két USA-barátabb filmet, köztük szintén Brandóval a Viva Zapatá!-t. Ezek után jött A rakparton, amely a szorosan összezárkózó maffia ellen vallomást tevő hétköznapi hősről szól. Marlon Brando játssza a bokszolóból lett kikötői rakodómunkást, aki egy személyben áll ki a szervezett bűnözés ellen. Mennyire feleltethető meg Elia Kazan (és a film írója, Budd Schulberg) élményeinek a történet? Milyen rendezői megoldásokat sikerül felfedeznünk immáron a harmadik Kazan-filmünkben? És mi újat tanulunk Brando színészetéről? Működik a film pátoszos befejezése? És hányszor sikerül Péternek Marlon Brandót hitelesen utánoznia? Linkek A Vakfolt podcast Facebook oldala és a Facebook-csoportunk A Vakfolt podcast a Twitteren A Vakfolt Patreon-oldala (új!) Vakfolt címke a Letterboxdon A Vakfolt az Apple podcasts oldalán A Vakfolt a Spotify-on A Vakfolt a YouTube-on A főcímzenéért köszönet az Artur zenekarnak András a Twitteren: @gaines_ Péter a Twitteren: @freevo Emailen is elértek bennünket: feedback@vakfoltpodcast.hu

Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 23: On the Waterfront (1934) Released 5 December 2018. For this episode, we watched On the Waterfront, written by Budd Schulberg (from the series of articles “Crime on the Waterfront” by Malcolm Johnson) and directed by Elia Kazan. The stars were Marlon Brando (Best Actor), Eva Marie Saint (Best Supporting Actress), Lee J Cobb, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden with music by Leonard Bernstein and cinematography by Boris Kaufman. The film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, including five acting awards and it won eight, including for its direction and screenplay. Lawyer Reviews Laws Broken In Classic Love Scenes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41agvCBlicE&t=306s Strange painting of Brando. https://bit.ly/2ADf9jf Next time we will be discussing Cimarron. If you want to watch it before listening to the next episode you can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com, or you can download it via iTunes (USA). To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, Tweet us on @bestpickpod or email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com. You can also Tweet us individually, @MrJohnDorney, @ItsJessRegan or @TomSalinsky. You should also sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n

From 2003 a conversation with the legendary IBOHF writer about his whole career as a novelist screenwriter and Fight Reporter. The man who wrote The Harder They Fall, On The Waterfront, and covered boxers from Dempsey To Lennox Lewis

Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 23: On the Waterfront (1954) Released 5 December 2018. For this episode, we watched On the Waterfront, written by Budd Schulberg (from the series of articles “Crime on the Waterfront” by Malcolm Johnson) and directed by Elia Kazan. The stars were Marlon Brando (Best Actor), Eva Marie Saint (Best Supporting Actress), Lee J Cobb, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden with music by Leonard Bernstein and cinematography by Boris Kaufman. The film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, including five acting awards and it won eight, including for its direction and screenplay. Lawyer Reviews Laws Broken In Classic Love Scenes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41agvCBlicE&t=306s Strange painting of Brando. https://bit.ly/2ADf9jf Next time we will be discussing Cimarron. If you want to watch it before listening to the next episode you can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com, or you can download it via iTunes (USA). To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, Tweet us on @bestpickpod or email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com. You can also Tweet us individually, @MrJohnDorney, @ItsJessRegan or @TomSalinsky. You should also sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n

My guest for this month is West Anthony, and he’s joined me to discuss the film he chose for me, the 1976 comedy-drama film The Front. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly. Show notes: Not sure what happened to the audio in the introduction, apologies! The Hollywood blacklist is a term for the treatment of people in the entertainment industry who refused to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee from 1947 to 1960 For a more in depth take on the blacklist, check out the latest season of the phenomenal You Must Remember This podcast WonderCon is a comic book convention that was held annually in SF until it was cruelly moved to the LA area in 2012. Yes I’m still bitter about it. West also recommends the Gabrielle de Cuir directed Thirty Years of Treason by Eric Bentley Among the people famously blacklisted were Lillian Hellman, Lionel Stander, Paul Robeson, and Zero Mostel This film was directed by blacklisted director Martin Ritt, who also directed the film from our third episode, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold I’m just not a fan of Woody Allen. He’s too painfully neurotic for me, even before I start thinking about whatever the hell happened with his daughter and step-daughter Another Woody film where he only acts is the Paul Mazursky film Scenes from a Mall I’ve been a huge fan of Fiddler on the Roof, and Zero Mostel in it, since I was a little kid Elia Kazan is one of the more interesting stories of directors and the blacklist The writer of this film, Walter Bernstein, was also blacklisted As were many of its stars, including Herschel Bernardi and Lloyd Gough So was the father of actress Julie Garfield, actor John Garfield, which may have contributed to his death from heart problems West’s reference to bodily fluids is, of course, from the excellent Dr. Strangelove Hallie Flanagan ran the Federal Theatre Project, as part of FDR’s WPA program She gave Orson Welles the money to make his Voodoo Macbeth She also gave Marc Blitzstein the money to make The Cradle Will Rock Which was remade in 1999 by Tim Robbins LBJ said in 1966 “I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon” Red Channels named 151 entertainers it claimed were communists Trumbo is a 2015 film about Hollywood Ten member Dalton Trumbo Another film about the blacklist is 1991s Guilty by Suspicion, directed by Irwin Winkler and starring Robert De Niro One of the co-writers of Guilty by Suspicion was Abraham Polonsky, who also wrote and directed Force of Evil with John Garfield, but he was so offended by what Irwin Winkler did that he had his name removed from it Guilty by Suspicion also stars Annette Bening Good Night and Good Luck by George Clooney is about McCarthyism, not the blacklist, but it’s also a great film about government overreach Panic in the Streets is a 1950 film, directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Zero Mostel Both West and I think that On the Waterfront, written by Budd Schulberg, was a justification for Kazan’s willingness to name names Lee J. Cobb was also forced to testify in front of the committee Leonard Bernstein wrote the score for On the Waterfront, and the film featured incredible performances from Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Eva Marie Saint I still haven’t seen Hail, Caesar! yet, which is a damn shame Nothing better than comparing the work of the Coen brothers to that of fellow Criterion Collection auteur Michael Bay Paranoid American films from the 70s include Three Days of the Condor, Klute, The Parallax View, and All the President’s Men Everyone who reads this needs to go subscribe to Musical Notation with West Anthony. Right now. I’ll wait It’s part of the awesome Battleship Pretension Podcast Fleet You can also follow West’s amazing show on twitter @notationpod Rent or buy the film from Amazon Rent or buy the film on iTunes

I had an amazing interview with Odie and Zola Salena Hawkins.Odie Hawkins has been given the title, “The Underground Master”, by a loyal constituency who have followed his career through his twenty four novels, short story collections, essays, television scripts, radio and film scripts. He takes pride in being the originator of the Pan-African Occult genre, as exemplified by “The Snake” and “Shackles Across Time”. He was one of the original members of the famed Watts Writers Workshop, established by Budd Schulberg, in the wake of the Watts Rebellion, 1965; and the Open Door Program, created by the Writers Guild of America, West, Inc. Louise Meriwether, John W. Bloch, Al Jenner, Robert Lewin, Harlan Ellison and Budd Schulberg, instructors. “Ghetto Sketches”, his first published novel -- on the required reading list – May 2010 - Professor Justin Gifford. University of Nevada, Reno. Department of English. Mr. Hawkins has recently published books of Socio-science fiction: Mr. Bonobo Bliss and Lady Bliss (with co-author Ralph Vernon).http://www.odiehawkins.com/index.htm Odie Hawkins show COMING SOON ON KLBP 99.1 THE LONG BEACH RADIO PROJECT.

A new series starts up where Drew and Nick offer up movies that they believe belong in the prestigious Criterion Collection. The first entry: Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg's terrifying follow-up to ON THE WATERFRONT, A FACE IN THE CROWD.

We've got a few politicians that are vying for your endorsement this week on this Election Special - Bob Roberts (BOB ROBERTS), Larry 'Lonesome' Rhodes (A FACE IN THE CROWD), and Hank Jackson (THE YEAR OF THE YAHOO).

This week, Zach learns what it means to be a bum, a contender, and quite possibly a great actor as he takes a look at On the Waterfront. ON THE WATERFRONT On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. It is based on "Crime on the Waterfront", a series of articles in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson. The series won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The stories detailed widespread corruption, extortion and racketeering on the waterfronts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. On the Waterfront received 12 Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by making a $5.00 per month recurring donation. It will help ensure Zach on Film continues far into the future! A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends about the podcast, get them to subscribe and, be sure to visit the Major Spoilers site and forums.

This week, Zach learns what it means to be a bum, a contender, and quite possibly a great actor as he takes a look at On the Waterfront. ON THE WATERFRONT On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. It is based on "Crime on the Waterfront", a series of articles in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson. The series won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The stories detailed widespread corruption, extortion and racketeering on the waterfronts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. On the Waterfront received 12 Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by making a $5.00 per month recurring donation. It will help ensure Zach on Film continues far into the future! A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends about the podcast, get them to subscribe and, be sure to visit the Major Spoilers site and forums.

TACT Artistic Director Jack Marshall discusses American Century's upcoming production of On the Waterfront by Budd Schulberg (with Stan Silverman) with director Kathleen Akerley and actors Jack Powers (Terry Malloy) and Matt Dewberry (Father Barry).File Size: 27.3 mb, Running Time: 18 minutes, 49 seconds.Before the Curtain is Raised: ON THE WATERFRONT

From a 2002 3part audio documentary made for the sporting news radio network, the real an reellife story of Primo Carnera and Max Baer. Two heavyweight champions that were part of the 1930's sports and crime scene. Their unique story told by guests Bert Sugar (Ring Mafgazine) Academy award wining screenwriter-novelist Budd Schulberg, and actor Max Baer Jr

The Founding member of the Watts Prophets talks about the creation of Budd Schulberg's Watts Writer's Workshop, the origins of rap music, the Last Poets, and the flesh of a word. Hosted by Tim Ayres, khsu.org

Working In Sports Talk Radio afforded me the chance to meet some amazing celebs. It was an honor to become aquaintences with Budd Schulberg, the screenwriter/author who created that classic Marlon Brando monologue "I could've been a contender. I could've been sombody, instead of a bum." from the 1954 film On The Waterfront. I met Budd as I covered the sport of boxing, and would frequently engage in conversations about the deacdes of fights he covered for newspapers and magazines. Being the film buff that I am, I'd also get the occasional courage to talk about his lengthy career working on so many of the seminal films of the 1950's. Here's a portion of my 2002 interview with Budd, as we discuss a few of his great films, including Humphrey Bogart's last picture, The Harder They Fall, and the cult classic view of the power of mass media pundits, A Face In the Crowd, starring Andy Griffith.