FRANKLY FRANGO

REMEMBER WHEN . . .

by John Frango

4-20-00

Remember when sanctimonious politicians--to curry favor with the voters and pacify the clergy--banned motion pictures on Sundays in many cities in this country--because movies were "anti-American and anti-Christ." Remember when the ignoble and virulent anti-Semite Joe Kennedy said "The Jews ruin everything they touch. Look how they've wrecked Hollywood." Remember when the frenetic Walter Winchell (who was left back twice and quit school in the sixth grade) turned gossip into gospel. And he was my hero. Remember when Winchell defended the venal and viperous Joe McCarthy and the power and influence of the columnist in the flamboyant fedora was finished. And so was my respect for him. Remember when the exotic Josephine Baker said she was ignored at Sherman Billingsley's popular Stork Club simply because she was Black--and the incident became a cause celebre. Remember when the gifted Hazel Scott was denied the right to play at Convention Hall because she was Black. Remember when John F. Kennedy observed, "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their faces." Remember when Benny Goodman--the King of Swing--had the kids jitterbugging in the aisles at the Paramount Theatre in New York City in 1938 and educators called it "barbaric." Remember what the remarkably classy and gifted Eric Sevareid said of Harry Truman: "He reminded people what a man in that office ought to be like. It's character, just character. He stands like a rock in memory now." Remember when the philosopher Walter Benjamin noted that newspapers--in their egocentric opinions--could "alter the past, unmake what had really happened and make real what had never happened." Remember when Calvin Coolidge said "The only solution for unemployment is work." Remember when the wit Dorothy Parker was told Coolidge was dead and responded: "How can you tell?" Remember when the master of malapropisms, the irrepressible Sam Goldwyn, told his screen-scribes: "Anyone of my writers who sees a psychiatrist--needs his head examined." And "I got two words for that idea: im-possible." Remember when the gifted clarinetist Artie Shaw wrote his first book--"The Trouble With Cinderella"--and eventually got married and divorced five times; among his wives were the luscious Lana Turner and Kathleen Winsor, author of "Forever Amber"--which was made into a dreadful movie. Remember when good-guy killer Alan Ladd tells the virtuous Veronica Lake--she with the peek-a-boo hairdo--in the taut "This Gun For Hire"--"A guy like me. A girl like you. It'll never work." Remember when Pope Pius XII negotiated the Reich Concordant in 1933 forbidding Germany's 23 million Catholics to oppose Adolph Hitler's political insanity, especially against hapless, innocent Jews. Remember when Neville Chamberlain visited with the shamelessly treacherous Hitler in Munich in 1939 and returned to England and told the world--"Peace in our time." Remember when the kids of the ghetto in New York City made stick-ball an art. Remember when some of the finest hand-ball players in the world were in New York, many of them Jews. Remember when Charles Lindberg visited Germany as a guest of the infamous Hitler and spoke glowingly of the Fuhrer in particular and the Nazi party in general, causing Franklin D. Roosevelt to characterize the American aviator as a "traitor." Remember Tony Curtis' chilling performance as the ass-kissing, obsequious publicist in "Sweet Smell of Success"--and Curtis is described as "a cookie full of arsenic." Remember when Paul Fix of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. taught John Wayne the Duke's signature, sloping walk that was to be imitated by every comic in the business. Fix appeared as an extraordinary character actor in hundreds of films during more than half-a-century. Remember when Elisha Cook, Jr. played the quintessential coward in the four-star production of the "Maltese Falcon" in 1940. Cook, like Fix, appeared in literally hundreds of films and may still be working today. Remember Christo's where the brilliant Stephen Sondheim loved the steaks--said to be the best in New York City. Remember when the Dionne quintuplets were born in Ontario, Canada, in 1934, and the "Quints" were savagely exploited by their avaricious parents. Remember Horn and Hardart where five nickels could buy you a lunch. Remember the Paramount Theatre where bobby-soxers swooned and fainted in the aisles listening to Frank Sinatra sing "This Love Of Mine." Remember when the ubiquitous publicist George Evans had ambulances outside the Paramount Theatre ready to take bobbysoxers who fainted to nearby hospitals during Sinatra's swinging-singing Paramount performances. The peripatetic Evans died at the age of 42--and was beloved by Sinatra. Remember the Diamond Horseshoe and ,Tack Dempsey's bistro. Remember when New York City had ten daily newspapers. Remember the halcyon heyday of the famous Radio City Music Hall and those high-kicking lovely, leggy ladies. Remember when the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers were all in or around New York. Remember when Lou Gehrig said "I'm the luckiest man on the face of the earth" and 50,000 fans in Yankee Stadium wept. Remember when the elegant George Sanders played Simon Templer--The Saint--and then left the world a vituperative anti-life letter a few days before his death. But who could ever forget his performance as the supercilious Broadway critic in the magnificent 1950 film "All About Eve." Remember the ineffable Jimmy Durante, the original movie manager of Joe Palooka. Remember the first soft drink singing commercial: "Pepsi Cola hits the spot. . . 12 full ounces, that's a lot." And the brand took off. Remember when the movie industry made millions with B-movies, westerns, and chapters. Remember when the Hollywood icon Joan Crawford in the bittersweet "Humoresque" asks John Garfield, a tenement-struggling but gifted violinist, if he ever goes to concerts. Garfield says very few because "When they're bad, I'm bored. And when they're good, I'm jealous." Remember when the Nazi Max Schmeling was knocked-out in the first round in a rematch with Joe Louis and the folks in Harlem and Black neighborhoods throughout the county celebrated for two days without incident. Remember when Crawford never talked to her arch-rival Bette Davis off the set during the filming of the magnificently avaricious "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" Both stars gave stunning performances and Crawford won a New York Critics Award. Remember when a young man was shocked and humbled to learn how little he knew when he thought there was so much he comprehended.