Thursday, February 7, 1974: Blog Mirror: "Blazing Saddles" Premieres

February 7, 1974: "Blazing Saddles" Premieres

I love that movie.

Mel Brook's great comedic spoof Western movies remains one of the all-time greats. It could not be made today.

Grenada became independent.

Prime Minister Edward Heath called for a dissolution of Parliament and new elections due to the governments' inability to resolve a coal miner's strike.

Coal mining had once been a major industry in the UK but was on its decline by the 1970s. The labor victory would be short lived as the Thatcher government of the 80s began to close coal mines down in a direction that indicated the industry was clearly done for, something she could do because of the nationalization of mines.  The trend had been going on since World War Two in any event.

Eight coal fired power plants remain in operation in the UK, all of which are slated to be closed this year. Six underground mines remain in operation, and two open pit mines. Mining communities have not been able to adjust to the change, something which should concern Wyoming.

The Nixon Administration entered into an agreement to revise the 1903 Panama Canal Treaty.

Moro rebels killed 25 civilians on a raid on Pikit, Mindanao.

The Laju Incident in Singapore ended as the combined terrorist attackers from the Japanese Red Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine released hostages in exchange for safe passage to the Middle East.

Supposedly the small Japanese Red Army disbanded in 2001, but Japanese authorities maintain a successor organization was founded, and Japanese police have continued to maintain that known members of the group should be arrested.  The PFLP still exists.  Both groups were/are Communist in nature.

Related threads:

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

Friday, October 29, 1943. Fatal joke.

German actor and comedian Robert Stampa (stage name Dorsay) age 39, was executed for  "ongoing activity hostile to the Reich and serious undermining of the German defense effort".  

Stampa had never been comfortable with the Nazis but had, like many Germans, tried to accommodate himself to them, even joining hte Nazi Party.  He was expelled from the party in 1933 for failure to pay dues and didn't rejoin.  He started losing film roles in 1939 due to his failure to cooperate with the party.  He was drafted in 1943 and was a serviceman on lease at the time of his telling the fatal joke.

He had been overheard joking about the government and had described, in a private letter, the ongoing German war effort as "idiotic", which in fact, it was.  More accurately, his letter stated, "When will this idiocy finally end?"

His execution demonstrated that by this point in the war, which had seen the increased repression of the Jews, repression was now turning in on the German people as well.  To be executed for a joke was fairly phenomenal.

As part of that idiotic effort, the U-282 was sunk by the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic.

Gotthard Heinrici

The Red Army attacked the German 4th Army between Orsha and Vitebsk, but in doing so encountered forces commanded by Gen. Gotthard Heinrici, a master defensive tactician, and they failed to break through.

Heinrici was the eccentric son of a Lutheran minister.  Indeed, a devout Lutheran as well, he was informed during the war that his best interest lay in discontinuing going to services, which he ignored. He refused to join the Nazi Party. His uniform was notably shabby, and he continued to wear a coat that he had acquired during World War One.

His wife was half Jewish.

Not a very personal man, he remains somewhat of a mystery.  He ignored scorched early orders, but atrocities were committed, as with almost all Germany command, in his ares of operations.  He died in 1971 and was buried with full military honors.

The British 13th Corps captured Cantalupo.

A couple of interesting things from Sarah Sundin:

Today in World War II History—October 29, 1943: Maj. Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force band records “St. Louis Blues March.” US War Production Board somewhat relaxes prohibition on use of aluminum.

Glenn Miller had a big impact on American military music, second only, in fact, to John Philip Sousa. 

The St. Louis Blues was penned by legendary bluesman W. C. Handy.  It's actually a very sad song, like many blues pieces, but with a very flowing nature which made it suitable for adaptation to other styles.  Its lyrics are:

I hate to see that evening sun go down

I hate to see that evening sun go down

Cause my baby, he's gone left this town

Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today

If I'm feelin' tomorrow like I feel today

I'll pack my truck and make my give-a-way

St. Louis woman with her diamond ring

Pulls that man around by her, if it wasn't for her and her

That man I love would have gone nowhere, nowhere

I got the St. Louis blues, blues as I can be

That man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea

Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me

I love my baby like a school boy loves his pie

Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint 'n rye

I love my man till the day I die

The tune was first published in 1914, and then made famous by the Bessie Smith edition released in 1925.  Handy was inspired to write the song after meeting a distraught woman on the street in St. Louis, who said to him, regarding her husband's absence; "Ma man's got a heart like a rock cast in de sea" which became a line in the song.

Handy in 1941.

Handy outlived Miller, dying in 1958 at age 84, and was still an active musician during this time frame. He was so influential that he was sometimes called "the father of the blues", although nobody can really properly have that title, the blues having its roots in polyrhythmic African music.

From a Jane Curtin Interview with People on Saturday Night Live.

So we sat around the TV, and I had that sort of anticipatory, open-mouth grin that people have when they’re waiting for something to happen, that they know is going to be really great. And ... it never happened. It wasn’t funny. Not one thing was funny. There was not one utterance of a laugh or a giggle.

At least she realized it. Saturday Night Live has been mostly unfunny its entire run. It's mostly National Lampoon snark.

Thursday, January 25, 1973. Endings and Beginnings.

A state funeral was held in Washington, D.C. for Lyndon B. Johnson.

An off Broadway production, National Lampoon: Lemmings featured John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guess.  Belushi was praised for his performance by the New York Times while the Times described Chevy Chase's performance as "piddling".  

Chevy Chase is not funny.

Dunday, December 24, 1972. Bombing hiatus.

The United States halted aerial bombing of North Vietnam for 36 hours, commencing at 0800 local time.

The bombing campaign, Operation Linebacker II, had commenced only on December 18, 1972.  The bombing campaign was designed to force a North Vietnamese return to the Paris negotiating table, which had just recently seen talks break down.

Bob Hope gave his last Holiday's show in Vietnam.

I would have been nine years old at the time, but I can recall the Christmas bombing hiatus, as well as its commencement several days prior.

Saturday, December 9, 1922. Ulster governments, Polish presidents, American comedians, French trains.

The office of the Governor of Northern Ireland was created.  The office assumed the role previously held by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the prior 750 years.  The charge of the office was to "do and execute in due manner as respects Northern Ireland all things which by virtue of the Act and our said Letters Patent of 27 April 1921 or otherwise belonged to the office of Lord Lieutenant at the time of the passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922."

This office would only exist until July 18, 1973.

Gabriel Józef Narutowicz a hydroelectric engineering and politician was chosen to be the first President of Poland.  He'd serve for five days after assuming office on December 11, as he was assassinated on December 16. 

John Elroy Sanford, better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was born in St. Louis.

Foxx in 1966.

Foxx came up with a raunchy nightclub act before being cast in Sanford and Son in 1972, which propelled him into national fame. He was legitimately great in the role in which he portrayed an aged (beyond his actual years) father to a son who co-owned a junkyard with him.  The series had a predominate African American cast and dealt with the themes of the time, running until 1977.  A hugely popular series, it is still well remembered, and oddly its name is recalled in the Wyoming restaurant chain name "Sanfords".

The Calais-Mediterranée Express luxury train resumed service on its entire route in France.

Saturday, September 16, 1972. Premier of the Bob Newhart Show.

Cast of The Bob Newhart Show.

The Bob Newhart Show premiered on CBS.  One of the great sitcoms of the 1970s, it would run only until 1978.

I'm actually fairly surprised, as I well recall the show and would have thought that it premiered a little later than 1972.  Having said that it has always, in my memory, seemed very early and mid 1970s, not late 1970s.  My family watched it regularly.

The show was set in Chicago at a time just after the television Rural Purge which would feature a lot of television comedies set in mid-sized Midwestern cities. WKRP In Cincinnati, for example, was set, obviously, in Cincinnati. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was set in Minneapolis.

Earlier that same week, on September 14, the nostalgic The Waltons commenced airing.  While fondly remembered, I never liked it.  I really dislike Spencer's Mountain, which is based on the same source material.

We didn't watch The Waltons, but even back then I had the feeling I ought to like it.  I never did and never have.  It always, even in the 1970s, had the feel of a show filmed in the 1970s, with the look of the 1970s, trying to be about the 1930s.  It ran until 1981.  Additionally, the set and the fact that it was tapped made it impossible to suspend awareness that you were, in fact, watching it in the 1970s.

The show was unusual in that it had a rural setting at a time in which most television shows did not.  It was also unusual in that it presented a very clean, romanticized, look at the Great Depression, something that was well within living memory of many of the viewers.  In this fashion, it contrasted with the earlier Spencer's Mountain, which was centered on desperation.   Both were based on the work of Earl Hamner Jr. who had grown up in Depression era Virginia.  Hamner died in 2016 at the age of 92.

FBI Associate Director W. Mark Felt reviewed a draft of Bob Woodward's news story on Watergate by telephone and confirmed an anonymous tip that money from Maurice Stans had been used to finance the break in of the Watergate Hotel.  Felt did so undercover, using the odd and somewhat perverted cover name Deep Throat.

May 6, 1941. Firsts

Joseph Stalin became the premier of the Soviet Union, replacing Molotov.  Molotov went into second position.

1937 portrait of Stalin.

Not that it would matter, as Stalin was the head of the party, which made him the defacto head of state.

Stalin would form his first government, which would last until 1946, the following day.

Liberty Aircraft plant, Long Island, New York.  May 6, 1941.  I'm unfamiliar with this company, but it apparently lasted until 1987.

Serbs staged a rebellion in Sanski Most against the fascist government of Serbia installed by the Nazis.

The Luftwaffe commenced two nights of bombing on Greenrock, Scotland.

Today was the first flight of the XP47, which would become the legendary P47 fighter.  The plane had been developed in a mere eight months.

The P47 provides a good example of the extraordinary rapid development of aircraft in this period. At the time, the P40 was the USAAC's most significant fighter.  The P47 was different from it in every fashion, including its massive size which accommodated a massive engine.

On the same day, Igor Sikorsky set a new record for helicopter flight endurance, which still wasn't long.

Bob Hope performed his first stand up performance for troops.  He would, of course, famously do this at least throughout the Vietnam War.

Hope is either an acquired taste or one of those acts that's best set in the context of their original times.  I can recall seeing televised performances from the Vietnam War, and they're just not funny.

Vichy France reached an agreement with Germany to provide material support to the Iraqi rebels, although the government never ratified it.  It did allow the Germans to use airbases in Syria to support the Iraqi insurgency, which they would make use of.

Chevy Chase. A note.

4H Youth Conference Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

There's been some recent enquiry about the name of the golf course appearing here in recent posts, i.e, Chevy Chase.

Chevy Chase is a town in Maryland.

Chevy Chase the alleged comedian is actually named Cornelius Crane Chase and almost certainly named himself after the well known and upper crust Maryland town.

I'm not upper crust and I'm not defending Chevy Chase, Maryland, which had appalling racial discrimination practices at one time.  I'm not defending the alleged comedian Chevy Chase either, who isn't funny, but whom is rather one of those Harvard figures foisted upon the public by those who think Harvard humor is funny, which it isn't.  Indeed, after an initial introduction, he came up on Saturday Night Live which is mostly a cesspool of Harvard unfunny comedy.

Chevy Chase is, in some ways, an early example of what Adam Sandler would later become.  A signal that, if he's in it, don't watch it.  It'll be stupid, and not funny.  He's one of those people decreed to be funny by the conspiracy of social declaration which, at any one time, declares certain people to be funny, even though there's not a single living human who thinks they are.  Charlie Chaplin is one such figure, in addition to Sandler. The same thing applies, fwiw, for music.  James Taylor provides such an example. Nobody likes his music, but people pretend they do, as other people are pretending they do.

And hence, a light introduction to the two Chevy Chases.

A Twitter Tour through the Superficial Zeitgeist

I have a Twitter account that really just serves as an advertisement for this site.

I don't know that a person should feel proud of that. Twitter is really stupid.  And one thing that having a Twitter account does is expose you to the really superficial Zeitgeist of the moment. . . every day.

When I checked in this morning a big Twitter story is that Jimmy Fallon was apologizing for a Saturday Night Live appearance he did in black face a decade or so ago.  I'm not going to look that up, but Fallon is an entertainer and Saturday Night Live has been bad for decades.  Black face should have gone out before it came in, but as this apparently has been around for a really long time, blowing up about it now seems a bit late.  Perhaps it might just be better to note that Saturday Night Live should be Exhibit A in the trial of the People v. Harvard Lampoon Not Being Funny.

Indeed, if that trial were to occur, one of the primary expert witnesses would have to be a sociologist on the topic of how, at any one time, alleged comedic geniuses are such only by societal acknowledgement, as many of them are truly never funny.  Charlie Chaplin is a good example.  Not funny.  Not even once.

Chaplin.  Not funny.

In the category of funny is Kathy Griffin, who is also blowing up Twitter today for a comment she said about injecting President Trump with air.

Griffin is occasionally funny.  I didn't hear the comment but it doesn't strike me as funny.  It also doesn't strike me as something that serious people need to waste much air time on.

President Trump for his part ought to stay off of Twitter, but was on complaining that Michelle Obama had gone golfing at the same time that he, Trump, is taking flak for golfing.

I don't golf and it strikes me as boring.  I realize that not everyone feels that way.  My mother was a superb golfer when young and taught me how to golf as a child.  It didn't take.

Rants about golfing, by whomever is making them, are really about something else.  Americans of both parties like to complain that the President is insensitive and lazy whenever he's seen not doing something that seems to be work. Democrats are complaining about Trump golfing as its an opportunity to complain about Trump.  Republicans complained about Obama golfing while he was President for the same reason.  

Driving by the golf course every morning I always look out upon it, but not because I like golf, but because I'm hoping the foxes will be back.

This year, it seems, Mr. and Mrs. Fox have chosen to have their brood elsewhere.  So, instead, I see that Americans are out golfing.

Well, at least that's being out, which seems to me to be okay.  The argument that we should shelter in our basements for the rest of eternity doesn't seem to me to be a sound one.  I get it, if you are in the former cow pasture that New Yorkers now call Central Park there's going to be a lot of people, as New York is crowded, and you ought to be careful and wear a mask. And that advice goes for other places as well, and I'm not saying otherwise.  

I'm just not too worked up about the golfing.

Or Griffin.

Billie Eilish is apparently worked up about body shaming which caused a lot of people to engage in virtue signaling by supporting her for being against body shaming.  

This is in some ways associated, I think, with a song (I think) in which the words "not my fault" appear" somewhere where she decries people who have judged her based on her clothing or appearance.  I'm not in that category as, perhaps to my discredit, I don't really care about Eilish at all, other than she's pretty clearly an object of fascination for being a certain sort of teenage/twentysomething idol in the same way that James Dean was, whom I also am pretty disinterested in.

What are you rebelling against? 

What have you got?

M'eh.

Eilish has been the subject of a lot of fascination because she wears bulky clothes.  In the video for her comments, song or whatever it is, she apparently strips down to a tank top in reaction to being the subject of a lot of fascination about what her wearing bulky clothing may mean.

The problem with that is that its almost guaranteed that a lot of her juvenile, and probably not so juvenile, fans will stop in to see the video not to bond with her statement, but because now they get to find out what she looks like under those threads.  It's sort of like protests here and there in which women go topless, but not nearly as extreme.  The message gets mixed.

That gets into the topic of decent clothing, of which there's an entire cul de sac on the web where people rage on that topic, some with really extreme views.  It's a tough topic to engage in, in regard to women, as standards applying to female dress change every few seconds, or so it seems.  Having said that, if you dress really oddly it tends to be the case that, no matter what you're saying, you're doing it to draw attention, in which case some of the attention will be unwelcome.  Eilish may deserve credit for slamming body shaming, but simply dressing in a less "look at how oddly I'm dressed" fashion right from the onset would probably have accomplished that more effectively.  Well, her video probably doesn't hurt. . . except to the extent juvenile males are checking into it the same way that they check into Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions.

All of which brings us back to this.  In this era of COVID 19 introspection, American culture, as reflected on Twitter, isn't looking too great.

And in the same week

Doris Day.

One of the cleanest voices in American music, she amazingly remained a fresh voice from the 40s through the 50s, a period of immense change in American music.  I always think of her signature song being the World War Two era Sentimental Journey, but perhaps more people now associate her with Que Sera Sera, which recently enjoyed an odd resurgence thanks to an incredibly creepy Samsung television ad.  Defined by her voice and her appearance, her life was somewhat more turbulent, but not the absurd extent that some entertainment personalities tend to be.

While Day's personal life was a bit dramatic, she was married four times, although during that period she was widowed once, she wouldn't compromise her image on the movie screen even thought that hurt her career in the 1960s.  She turned down the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, which in retrospect absolutely seems like the right decision.  Indeed, while few will now admit it, The Graduate now seems absurdly dated and even a parody of the values it it is supposed to both represent and lampoon, while Day's earlier films such as the The Man Who Knew Too Much seems more contemporary.

She was 97.

Tim Conway.

Tim Conway was a comic genius who came out of radio.  He rose up to national fame in McHale's Navy and had hit and miss television and movie success after that.  His real genius came through in the Carol Burnett Show in which his performances were often so funny that his colleagues could not restrain themselves from laughing during them.  Various skits from that show have gone on to be individual legends, with my favorite being the reluctant Japanese Kamikaze pilot.

In his personal life Conway was a devout, but acknowledgedly not perfect, Catholic.  Baptized and raised as a Romanian Orthodox Christian (his mother was Romanian Orthodox), he converted to Catholicism when he was introduced to it by a girlfriend.  In his career his religious values, which he held strongly, reflected themselves in that he never made use of foul language or off color humor at any point, while remaining unquestionably hugely funny.

He was 85.