Drag Race

The 1982 Oscar race is the first one I can remember.  Not only were 3 of the Best Picture nominees films that I’d seen (a first for my then 12-year-old self), but other films I’d been allowed to see—Annie, TRON, Poltergeist—were in the running in some of the smaller categories, too.  Only years later would I catch some of the other highly-acclaimed nominees like Missing, The Verdict, Sophie's Choice or Das Boot. 

But that year, it was all about Gandhi and Tootsie and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, a poster of which hung on my bedroom wall, another first (previously it had all been sports legends and super heroes but never movies).  These were the 3 top nominated films—with 11, 10, and 9 nods respectively—and the anticipation was high to see who would emerge the winner in the end.

But what I do remember about the race in the build-up to the nominations—and eventually the ceremony itself—was the talk about the gender-bending that year, for not only was Dustin Hoffman’s masquerade as a woman in the mix, but so was Julie Andrews (whom I only knew as Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp) as a woman playing a man playing a woman in Victor Victoria and John Lithgow (a supporting actor nominee) as a transsexual in The World According to Garp.  In the end, none of them would win, but it was the first time I remember the Academy Awards acting as a springboard for conversation that intersected with the cultural zeitgeist.

Looking back, it seems almost a miracle that a movie almost exclusively about Muslims, Hindus and the tyranny of white imperialism was even made, let alone go on to sweep with 8 wins.  But few people talk about Gandhi now, except for the role it played in catapulting Ben Kingsley (the Best Actor winner) into our consciousness.  E.T. is still adored, though Spielberg’s career has expanded well beyond the summer blockbuster wunderkind which was his reputation (not without a bit of condescension) 35 years ago.

But Tootsie has taken on a new, burnished reputation as one of the Great American Comedies, even elevated to #2 of all-time by the American Film Institute in 2002 (behind only Some Like It Hot, another guys-in-gals-clothing romp).  But to these eyes, time has not been kind to Sydney Pollack’s film and while it still has some very funny moments, it’s not without the acrid aftertaste of its regressive, even toxic, views on sex and gender.  This is especially true when compared to Blake Edwards’s Victor Victoria, which is just as funny but also far more compassionate, generous, and forward-thinking.

Tootsie is about Michael Dorsey, a New York actor who’s earned a well-deserved reputation as a prima donna, but whose vanity is rooted in his adherence to the “craft” of acting, which he uses as an excuse to be insulting, unyielding, and a royal pain-in-the-ass.  This renders him unemployable and the only way he can get a job is to impersonate a woman at an audition, which lands him a gig on a daytime soap opera, Southwest General.

Victoria Grant is also hard on her luck.  A classically-trained singer in 1930s Paris, she is destitute and desperate and can only find work by taking on the guise of Count Victor Grazinski, a gay Polish aristocrat and female impersonator.  In both films, the only other people complicit in these actors’ secrets are their roommates (Bill Murray and Oscar-nominee Robert Preston, respectively).  And both find their love lives and worldviews altered from the experience.

Tootsie is on the surface an exercise in empathy.  Michael has to experience firsthand the indignities of harassment at work, the condescension of the piggish male director (Dabney Coleman), the misogyny of playing roles that only perpetuate stereotypes, and the countless everyday challenges (hailing a cab, buying endless accessories) that women face.  In this sense, the film actually works fairly well.  The problem is the film isn’t satisfied with him as a low-level actress who gets to walk a mile in another’s high heels.  For the movie’s purposes, “Dorothy Michaels” has to become a feminist icon.  She talks back to the director, changes her lines on the show without permission, and is never really reprimanded or punished like any woman would be in such a sexist environment.  Instead, she’s indulged and rewarded, with a fervid fan base and photo shoots for the covers of Woman’s Day and Ms.  It’s a fantasy of male privilege—a world where the women are brow-beaten or complacent and where it takes a guy to come to the rescue and role model real feminism, even if he has to dress up as a gal to do it.

What’s worse is that there’s no evidence that Michael has learned anything from his parallel life to inform his “real” one.  His treatment of his friend and pseudo-lover Sandy (a delightful, Oscar-nominated Teri Garr) is atrocious, he makes sexual advances to his co-worker Julie (Supporting Actress winner Jessica Lange) as both a man and a woman, and when he finally “outs” himself as a dude, he still feels entitled to approach Julie on the pretense that they were “good friends” the entire time she was confiding in him while he was lying to her.  And she falls for it!  Another male privilege fantasy.  While perhaps slightly more enlightened when wearing a girdle, Michael hasn’t really changed.  He still gets his way through coercion and egoism but we’re supposed to believe that he’ll somehow be different than Julie’s malignant previous boyfriend.  Lange’s portrayal only scratches the surface of how damaged Julie is, but she’s clearly co-dependent and he’s a narcissist who, lip service aside, is still lacking in any real self-awareness. 

Victor Victoria, on the other hand, is about real female empowerment, as Victoria becomes aware of the choices and privileges she gets as a “man” that she wasn’t even aware of previously.  But more than that, the film embraces sexual identity and the variety of ways it expresses itself.  Sex (the act) is only seen in relationship to power in Tootsie.  But the complexity of desire and the fluidity of attraction is explored in smart, sophisticated ways in VV.  This is particularly true with the character of King Marchand (James Garner).  He’s initially attracted to Victoria before he discovers that “she” is a drag act.  But even then, his curiosity is piqued—as well as his suspicions—and they are all tied to what he as a man is traditionally drawn to.  After Victor's debut, King confronts "him" backstage.

King: I find it hard to believe that you’re a man.

Victor: Because you find me attractive as a woman?

K: Yes, as a matter of fact.

V: It happens frequently.

K: Not to me.

V: It proves the old adage, “There's a first time for everything.”

K: I don’t think so.

V: But you’re not 100% sure.

K: Practically.

V: But to a man like you, someone who believes he could never under any circumstances find another man attractive, the margin between “practically” and “for sure” is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

K: If you were a man, I’d knock your block off.

V: Then prove that you’re a man.

K: That’s a woman’s argument.

V: Your problem, Mr. Marchand, is that you’re preoccupied with stereotypes.  I think it’s as simple as you’re one kind of man.  I’m another.

K: And what kind are you?

V: One that doesn’t have to prove it—to myself or anyone.

Later, after he learns her secret and they spend the night together, King wants her to quit the show and revert back to being Victoria.  But she refuses, noting the hypocrisy of asking her to do something he would never consider doing himself.  She recognizes the power, and freedom, that has come with her new standing and is loathe to lose it.  The two then begin to see each other romantically, but since “Victor” must continue to maintain his public identity, King is put in the position of being perceived as gay, even though he knows he’s not.  In Tootsie, there are several scenes that are played for comic effect about characters being mistaken for being gay, but it never extends beyond a joke.  But VV mines this landscape for larger truths about homosexuality and society’s scrutiny, personal worth vs public perception, and ultimately accepting yourself with or without others’ validation. 

So many of the supporting characters feed and reflect this theme in different ways.  King’s moll Norma (hilarious, Oscar-nominated Lesley Ann Warren) can’t decide whether to be jealous or not as Victor slowly insinuates himself into King’s orbit.  King’s bodyguard Squash (Alex Karras) comes out to his boss as gay after he mistakes his boss for also swinging that way—a genuinely touching moment layered under a light comic affect.  And then there’s Robert Preston’s Toddy.  I certainly can’t begrudge Louis Gossett Jr.’s Supporting Actor victory that year for An Officer and a Gentleman (the first person of color to win that award).  But Preston’s performance is one of the finest in any musical ever—a queen who’s funny, catty, nosy, flirtatious, but also has the biggest heart in the film.  He’s sublime.  Of course up to this point, nobody had ever won an Oscar for playing a gay character (the first would be William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman three years later) and it’s impossible to say if Hollywood’s old-school homophobia played a part in Preston losing, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.  This was his only nomination (incredibly, he was overlooked for The Music Man 20 years earlier), and he’s perfect.

Then again, it’s hard to think of a mainstream film from the 80s that’s as gay-friendly as Victor Victoria.  Maybe having it set as a European period piece, and a musical no less, helped.  But it features a wide variety of queer characters as part of the natural fabric of the cabaret scene (and beyond) and even has a remarkable musical number that explicitly references the duality of masculine and feminine in everyone.  The fact that the central romance is hetero doesn’t relegate the LGBT themes to the margins.  They’re still unquestionably front and center and make the movie feel, even a third of a century later, very modern.  By contrast, there isn’t a single gay character in Tootsie’s NY acting community that we see.  The closest concession we get is a brief cameo by Andy Warhol.

Victor Victoria plays broader and indulges in familiar tropes of farce (especially with Edwards’s impeccable ballet of characters hiding in closets and on balconies), but it’s also far more real and human in the long run.  Tootsie has some undeniably funny moments, but it’s all in the service of reinforcing narrow sexual roles and having things revert back to comfortable normalcy.  Whatever happens to Sandy, who gets such short shrift?  That the movie forgets her (the most complex and believable woman in the film) says everything about the narrative’s priorities.  Lange may have won the Oscar, but Garr’s Sandy is the conscience of the film and gets steamrolled for her efforts.  In fact, all of the Grrl Power moments are via Hoffman and the film seems to delight In how fickle or hypocritical its female characters are.  It’s at its core a surprisingly mean movie, while VV is an open-hearted, nonjudgmental one.

Blake Edwards holds two unique records in Oscar history.  No director has had his films earn as many nominations (33 total) without ever earning a Best Director nod himself.  His only career nomination was for VV’s screenplay, and while he did lose (to Missing), he would earn an Honorary Oscar from the Academy before passing away in 2010.  The other Oscar record is that no director’s films earned more nominations for Best Song than his: 8 total, all with the assistance of Henry Mancini, his longtime collaborator.  Mancini won 4 Oscars, all for Edwards movies—2 for Best Score (Breakfast at Tiffany’s and VV) and 2 for Best Song (“Moon River” from Breakfast and the title tune from The Days of Wine and Roses).

Sydney Pollack lost Best Director that year to Richard Attenborough, but would go on to win it three years later for Out of Africa.  Still, the best thing about Tootsie is his acting, as Michael’s long-suffering agent, George.  He’s amazing and incredibly funny and if I had to choose Pollack’s filmography as director or as actor (which includes fantastic turns in Michael Clayton, Eyes Wide Shut, and Husbands and Wives), I would pick the latter.  His one scene in Death Becomes Her is a masterclass in comedy and funnier than the rest of the movie combined.  He died in 2008.

Some other trivia odds & ends about the 1982 Oscars:

·       Jessica Lange became the second person in history to receive a Lead and Supporting nomination in the same year for different films (the first being Fay Bainter over 40 years earlier).  She was up for the lead in Frances and this double-whammy no doubt had some bearing on her winning for Tootsie, the only Oscar that film would get.

·       Charles Durning, who played Jessica Lange’s dad (and Dorothy Michaels’s suitor) in Tootsie was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor that year, but for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a title which included a word that went over my head in 6^th grade.

·       This year’s sequel to Blade Runner reminds us that Ridley Scott's original quite famously lost both of its nominations back in 1982, most notoriously for Visual Effects to E.T. (for more thoughts on the Spielberg film, check out my blog post here).

·       In 1982, Das Boot became the first foreign language film to earn six Oscar nominations, and its director Wolfgang Petersen still holds an Academy record himself: Director whose films have earned the most nominations (15 total) without winning anything at all.

·       Mickey Rooney received an Honorary Oscar at that year’s ceremony, making him the only person in Academy history to win both a Juvenile Oscar (a miniature statuette they gave to young performers for a short time) and a full-size one.

Since this blog also covers postage stamps in the movies, both Tootsie and Victor Victoria have items worth mentioning.  Southwest General’s producer (Doris Belack) says that the show is getting 2000 letters a week thanks to Dorothy (whose character's name is Emily Kimberly), and we see a shot of some of these letters, which feature real-life stamps including the floral Love stamp (Scott #1951) and the fire pumper stamp (#1908), both issued in 1981.  As for VV, there are no stamps visible, but the Parisian set was built on a soundstage, including this storefront for “Timbres Poste” (French for postage stamps).

As for the cards from my collection, the Henry Manicini stamp (which includes Victor Victoria in the titles listed, if you look close enough) is Scott #3839.  Audrey Hepburn is #3786 while the two Tiffany stamps are #3757 and #4165.  The Han Solo stamp is #4143l and while Tootsie wasn’t nominated for Best Makeup (only the second year of that category’s existence), I did include a Makeup stamp (#3772e) from the American Filmmaking series.  The "Things to Come" stamp is from the UK, released as part of a science fiction set in 1995.

A Force to be Beckoned With

Growing up in San Diego, it was summer’s annual pilgrimage—waking up before dawn and piling in the car so we could arrive in Anaheim by the time the gates opened.  This was back in the time when you literally could do everything in one day, the era of “Mission to Mars”, the People Mover, Bear Country, and the E-ticket ride.  It was the "Happiest Place on Earth" and always represented not just one childhood siren song, but the whole Disney catalog we'd collected on LPs.  By the time I went to Disneyland for Grad Night (a tradition for SoCal high schools), all three Star Wars films had been released and the new ride at the Magic Kingdom was the motion simulator, Star Tours.  Little could I possibly know (or imagine) that 25 years later, I would be a fixture in the park myself, a minuscule part of these two pop culture legacies.

If you Google me, always one of the first things to pop up is my IMDB profile which includes one single acting credit: Rebel Pilot on Star Tours, The Adventures Continue (2011).  I’ve talked about my life on Skywalker Ranch before on this blog, and while many different highlights stand out (some of which I can talk about, some I can’t), that film credit is the one thing about me that the internet will likely remember the longest.  Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars, so here are some thoughts on that day I spent on the green screen stages of “Kerner Optical” (ILM) in downtown San Rafael and the first time I saw the final product, many years later.

We were only given the sketchiest of outlines: we were in a hangar and we were welcoming back the patrons of the ride, who miraculously survived their thrilling adventure.  Because there were no corrective lenses “A Long Time Ago”, I had to hide my glasses inside my glove take after take, so I could only barely make out the camera as we all collectively whooped and hollered and applauded.  As is often reported, there’s a lot of down time on the set, so after multiple turns at that scene, we wore Hefty trash bag bibs while eating at the craft service tables (all our costumes were original artifacts from the first SW trilogy—see the Return of the Jedi still below).  Then there was lots of hangar B-roll footage: “I want you to walk from here across to there, but not in this area, because that’s where a big spaceship will be”, etc.  I also remember there was an actor from the prequels there (one of Padme’s guards) who had some lines to intro the ride, which we watched being filmed from the wings.  I asked if I could get a SAG card from my stint that day (I had no lines, so the answer was No) and then went back to my regular job the next day.

Years later, and just a few months after the ride opened, I left Lucasfilm.  And while the ride sounded cool (with its multiple randomizing elements, which made every experience a unique one), it hardly was convenient or practical to travel hundreds of miles to see myself for a whole 15 seconds.  But I’d hear from friends once in a while—none of whom had known I was on the new Star Tours but who could clearly pick me out among my rebel band.  I was intrigued but since the ride was in 3D, all the cel phone renditions that popped up on YouTube relegated me to a blur.  And that was part of my past anyway. Even when my mom asked to be taken to Disneyland one last time before leaving California for good, there were a lot of things I knew she wanted to do more (and with the randomizing element, there was no guarantee the herky-jerky ride which she wouldn’t enjoy would even pay off with an appearance from her son).

But then I heard there was going to be an expansion of Disneyland, which would include a huge new Star Wars section.  Would they move the ride?  It is just a flight simulator, easy to relocate.  Would it be closed for a while?  Would the now-expanding universe of new Star Wars films mean the need for constant revisions and updates?  I couldn’t be sure, but I knew I would feel like an idiot if I never saw myself on this thing.  The idea of going down seemed absurd since I had just been there recently (because a campus that big required me pushing her around in a wheelchair, Mom and I were able to go on everything she wanted).  But just around this time last year, I decided to drive down and go.

It only took two turns standing in line to see the module with me in it.  It’s a fun ride, cleverly done and entertaining.  No sign of any of the B-roll footage they shot; all the hangar footage on view as patrons wait in line is now much more CG-oriented.  No sign of Padme’s aide (C-3PO now took over hosting duties).  But sure enough, I was there in what one might call muted exuberance, welcoming myself home.  And the one module I'm in has my favorite music cue ("The Asteroid Field") from the entire series.  I found a single YouTube that shows all the original variations, so now I’m visible for the idly curious: my module (a hybrid of Eps 2 & 6) starts at timecode 19:51; I appear at 21:15.

And like I suspected, they had added a new module that included scenes from Episode 7: The Force Awakens.  Like George before it, the Mouse has the itch it can’t not scratch, this impulse to update, revise, and rebrand.  That’s particularly true of the park where I had so many childhood memories. I remember Nemo’s submarine ride when it was an homage to Jules Verne, Tarzan’s treehouse when it belonged to the Swiss Family Robinson, the Pirates ride before it was polluted by the movie’s score and uncanny valley Johnny Depp.  The reason I went in the spring was so I could ride the Haunted Mansion when it wasn’t taken over by The Nightmare Before Christmas (much as I love that film).  The one time I was on a ride that broke down and we all had to walk through it to exit outside, it was the now-long-gone miniaturization ride "Adventures thru Inner Space" which was in the same spot where Star Tours is now.

Another ride that’s no longer around is America Sings, this strange musical revue of early traditional American music, all performed by animatronic animal characters.  As it happens, most of those characters are now on Splash Mountain, in some ways an even stranger ride since it references a movie, The Song of the South (1946), that I’d wager few Disney visitors younger than I have ever seen.  There’s a perverse form of denial in the Mouse House about that controversial film since there’s no song you’ll hear more often in Disneyland than "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" (it is everywhere), but you won’t find the movie in their gift shops or the title referenced at all.  But it is a great ride and when I was on it, I had an epiphany: I’ll wager that Splash Mountain will be rebranded as a Zootopia variation at some point, since the rabbit and fox are already principal characters.  Plus, it's a safer, fresher property. Disney has little patience for the forgettable, so the regrettable seems even more likely to be casually swept away.

The one thing that made this Disneyland trip most unusual for me was that there was no urgency about lines or access or getting the most bang for my buck.  I had one mission, which I accomplished early, so the rest was active but oddly relaxing.  Some old favorites I revisited, but there was plenty of new stuff to discover: California Adventure is more serene, less congested.  The truly psychedelic Winnie-the-Pooh ride is audacious and bizarre, and the Monster’s Inc. and Little Mermaid rides are in the spirit of the old school Fantasyland storybook rides.  Cars-land is more entertaining than either of the actual movies.  I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed Toon Town as a kid (Who Framed Roger Rabbit? opened the same year as my grad night), but I did find this extraordinary little tidbit.  This is the mailbox outside Goofy's house.  Do you see the manila envelope?  Here's a close-up, upside down.

 

I love this inside joke.  The postmark date--July 17, 1955--was the date that the original park opened, back when Uncle Walt was alive.  And while we know a stork (voiced by one Sterling Holloway, a Disney regular) delivered the famous baby elephant in Dumbo, Roger Rabbit reminds us that in Toon Town, storks also deliver the mail.

 

Had any visitor even noticed that postmark before?  It’s the most incidental of grace notes.  But that’s what’s always been most amazing about the park: its meticulous attention-to-detail, embedding Easter eggs and hidden references everywhere—things you might never notice but whose cumulative impact is undeniable.  But I’ll admit it: it’s weird to be a childless single adult at the park.  It’s saturated In the cult of family and franchising and nostalgia and while it’s all impressive (almost to the point of overwhelming), I really have a hard time imagining myself ever going back.  I’ve seen everything there is to see, in some cases many times over.  Things will change, of course, but while I’ve been a lot of places across several continents, I hope to see much more out there before it’s all over.  The real world is my Tomorrowland.  And it’s even more true now than it was when I first heard the Sherman Brothers song: It is a Small World after all.  And an inviting one.

The day before I went to Disneyland, I hiked through Griffith Park and to the top of the Hollywood sign, something I’d always wanted to do.  I was in no rush, so it took a few hours of just me surrounded by nature, slowly working my way up to this gorgeous vista, a heavenly view of the City of Angels.  That hike was a bigger deal to me than what came the next day.  That was true magic. 

 

 

First, the Disney stamps.  You'll note the California Adventures card has all 5 different Mickeys (one per issue over 5 years).  Note that those postmarks are all Anaheim or Orlando (home of Disney World, which I've never visited).  To summarize:

Mickey, Donald, Goofy - Scott #3865

Bambi - #3866

Pinocchio - #3868

Mickey, Pluto - #3912

Alice in Wonderland - #3913

Snow White - #3915

Mickey, Minnie - #4025

Cinderella - #4026

Fantasia Mickey - #4192

Peter Pan - #4193

Dumbo - #4194

101 Dalmatians - #4342

Steamboat Willie - #4343

Sleeping Beauty - #4344

The two California statehood stamps are #997 and #3438.  The X-wing fighter is #4143m and the planet Neptune #5076.  Joel Chandler Harris wrote the Uncle Remus stories; his stamp (on the Splash Mountain card) is #980.  The Jack-o-Lantern is #5137.  

And at the time the Muppet stamps were released, they had a 3D show at California Adventure (though it's not there now).  The Scott #s are Jim Henson (#3944k), Kermit (#3944a), Fozzie (#3944b), Statler & Waldorf (#3944e), the Swedish Chef (#3944f), and Dr. Honeydew & Beaker (#3944h).

Like Silver

Happy Birthday to Lily Tomlin, who turns 77 today.  One of my favorite films of hers is also the best stamp film from the 70s, Robert Benton’s underrated neo-noir, The Late Show (1977).  In it, washed-up private eye Ira Wells (Art Carney) forms an unlikely alliance with new-agey flake Margo Sterling (Tomlin) after the case of her missing cat leads to blackmail, adultery and the murder of his former colleague, Harry Regan.

After an early gunfight in front of his home leads to the death of a small-time crook, Ira discovers a wallet-size album of stamps on the corpse and starts to process the clue with Margo and his lowlife tipster contact Charlie (Bill Macy). 

Margo: What’s that? Stamps?

Ira: The Whiting job

Margo: Who? Whiting? I’ve never heard of anyone named Whiting...

Ira: About 10 days ago, some place out in the valley.

Margo: Who is that?

Ira: That guy Whiting had a collection worth almost 50 grand.

Margo: Who is that? Who’s Whiting?

Ira (to Charlie): There’s a Murder One tied to it, right?

Margo: OK, don’t tell me, what do I care?

Ira: Two guys broke into a house out in the valley. They tied up Whiting and his wife and started to lift the stamps.  And then something must’ve gone wrong because they beat up Whiting and killed his wife.

Margo: Oh how disgusting, I don’t want to hear any more.

Ira: That’s what Harry was on to, right?

Charlie: How should I know? He didn’t say.

Margo: I don’t wanna hear anymore, you guys are too much!

Ira: Oh come on, Charlie, Harry knew about the stamps—what’s more, he told you about it, that’s why you knew what to look for on the bum!

Charlie: Kid, I swear, he didn’t tell me anything.  (sirens)

Ira: Hear that?  That’s the cops.  They’ll be here in a coupla minutes.  Now either you start to play it on the square with me, or I’ll feed you to them.  Which considering your record...

Charlie: You wouldn’t do that.  (beat)  OK, here’s the house number.  Harry is tailing this guy Brian, looking for Margo’s cat.  Then Brian and this pal of his pull off the Whiting heist.  The next day Harry comes to see me and lays out the whole thing, wants me to check out the reward angle.  I nose around, and sure enough, Continental Insurance is offering fifteen grand for the goddamn stamps. 

Ira: You guys were gonna split it.  Just the kind of cheap grift Harry would go for.

Soon after, the trail leads Ira to fence and underworld kingpin Ron Birdwell (Eugene Roche), whom he confronts:

Ron: What’s your business?

Ira: The Whiting job.

Ron: Postage stamps, right?

Ira: That’s right!

Ron: What’s that got to do with me?

Ira: The word is it could be tied in with you....Now stamps are a specialty item.  Not just anybody can move them.  So usually when a guy pulls a heist like that, he’s got the fence lined up in front.

As it turns out, the stamps are a red herring and the plot corkscrews out in other directions and they're never mentioned again.  And the stamps we see--all US--really aren't very special.  They are (as pictured from top to bottom):

• Abraham Lincoln (1958, Scott #1113)
• Forest Conservation (1958, #1122)
• Wheels of Freedom (1960, #1162)
• Employ the Handicapped (1960, #1155)

All four examples are in blocks of four and are taken from the original plate block (which I explained in a previous post), since you see the edge portion still intact.  But that still wouldn't make them particularly valuable.  What would make them valuable is if there were a perforation error, or if the image was off-center of the cut, or if there was an ink shift in the printing of the images.  Obviously, these we see in the film were just mocked up for some production design without any real concern about philatelic details.

And like the plotting itself, those details aren't what matter.  What counts is that Carney and Tomlin’s odd couple are an inspired pairing: he’s practical but crotchety, she’s quirky and deeply empathic and their oil & water chemistry add a lot of comic fizz to what is really a meditation on aging and loneliness.  Like one of my favorite noirs, The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946), the plot is labyrinth-like but the real story is not the mystery but rather the character dynamics.  And while that film is saturated with sex, this one is grounded in melancholy as two perpetual misfits gradually find that trust and connection can appear under some of the most bizarre circumstances.  Robert Benton would go on to win an Oscar two years later for Kramer vs. Kramer, but I think this remains the best film he ever directed.  Go check it out.

My name is Sterling Hedgpeth and I’ve discussed the origin of my name, briefly, in a previous post, but it is a name I don’t encounter often—in real life or in pop culture, so whenever I see it (like Lily Tomlin’s character in The Late Show), I tend to remember it.  Of course, the greatest cinematic Sterling was Sterling Hayden who, whether in supporting or leading parts, made indelible marks in such classics as Dr. Strangelove, The Godfather, The Long Goodbye, Johnny Guitar, and The Asphalt Jungle.  He always brought an air of worn-down fatigue or coiled, violent energy to every film he did.  Definitely from the less-is-more school of Mitchum and Marvin, he died in Sausalito 30 years ago, just a few miles from where I go to work every day.  And aside from Sterling Morrison (the guitarist of the Velvet Underground), he may be my favorite Sterling to whom I’m not related.

Another great Sterling was Sterling Holloway, the indelible character actor with the gentle high-pitched voice, most famous for his contributions to the Disney canon: the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, Kaa in The Jungle Book, and four shorts as Winnie the Pooh.  And although I’ve never known anyone personally whose last name was Sterling, the movies have offered us Oscar-nominee Jan Sterling (terrific 50s actress with ice in her veins in Billy Wilder’s An Ace in the Hole) and ever-present comic actress Mindy Sterling, best known as Frau Farbissina in the Austin Powers films.  And while his work has mostly been limited to TV, Sterling K. Brown did win an Emmy for his role in The People vs. O.J. Simpson, which I may get around to catching one day.

The only Oscar-winner with my name Is Stirling (with an i) Silliphant for the screenplay of In the Heat of the Night (Jewison, 1967).  Quite bizarrely, he also wrote the screenplay for The Liberation of L.B. Jones, whose main character is named Moan Hedgepath.  That movie even came out the year I was born!  This is one of only two variations of my last name I’ve ever seen in a movie (the other being Paul Mantee’s small role in The Great Santini) and my last name has always been misspelled like these variations.  While I’ve never seen Liberation, its cast (Lee J. Cobb, Anthony Zerbe, Lola Falana, Lee Majors, Barbara Hershey, Yaphet Kotto, Chill Wills, and Roscoe Lee Browne in the title role) intrigues me no end.

So here's a list of my 10 favorite characters named Sterling (first or last) in movies or TV

1. Roger Sterling (John Slattery in TV's Mad Men)
2. Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas in Out of the Past - Tourneur, 1947)
3. Nat Sterling (Denzel Washington in Courage Under Fire - Zwick, 1996)
4. Margo Sterling (Lily Tomlin in The Late Show)
5. Tony Sterling (Donald Woods in Fog Over Frisco - Dieterle, 1934)
6. Sterling (Patrick Stewart in Jeffrey - Ashley, 1995)
7. Sterling Archer (H. Ron Benjamin in TV's Archer)
8. Tim & Lionel Sterling (Ray Milland & Edmund Gwenn in The Doctor Takes a Wife - Hall, 1940)
9. Robert Sterling (Roger Moore as James Bond's alias in The Spy Who Loved Me - Gilbert, 1977)
10. Jim Sterling (Mark Sheppard in TV's Leverage)

The Marilyn Monroe & Bette Davis stamps are Scott #2967 & 4350 respectively.  John Huston is #4671 and the Cinematography stamp from the American Filmmaking series is #3772g. Bambi, Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo are #3866, 3913, & 4194 while The Jungle Book (#4345) is a stamp I used on a card which I then forgot to send in to USPS, which is why it's missing the first-day-of-issue postmark.  The Sport of the Gods stamp (#4337) was part of the Black Cinema issue and the quilled paper heart love stamp (#5036) was issued earlier this year.

Good as Gold

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I’ll admit it: Despite the waste and corruption that often go hand-and-hand with their undertaking, I am easily seduced by the Olympics.  Given that coverage (live or tape delayed) often occurs round-the-clock, the looming Summer Games in Rio de Janiero will prove to be an extraordinary temptation over the next 2 weeks, especially for this perpetual early riser.  Although I love watching the relatively obscure sports that are often broadcast in those pre-dawn hours, I’ll inevitably watch some track & field, too—races that often get front-and-center attention in the TV coverage, not only because the US always does very well in them, but because of the natural mythology around naming “The World’s Fastest Human” in the 100-meter dash.

Certainly, Track & Field has played a more prominent part in movies about the Summer Olympics than any other sport—most recently with the historical drama Race (Hopkins, 2016) about Jesse Owens in the 1936 games.  While not the first black athlete to medal in the 100m, his victory that year (exactly 80 years ago today) carried enormous symbolic weight because the games were held in Berlin under the shadow of Hitler and orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels and the propaganda arm of the Third Reich.  In defiance of the host country’s insistence that no Jewish or “Negro” athletes compete, Owens’ 4 gold medals struck a powerful blow against the dogma of racial superiority that was a driving engine of the Nazi Party.

The movie isn’t bad.  Stephan James is good in the lead role, and the story is an important one.  Predictably, the double meaning of the title is a prominent theme, since not only did Owens face systemic prejudice at Ohio State (where the movie begins), but he felt enormous pressure from the NAACP not to compete in Berlin as a gesture of protest against how African-Americans were still being oppressed in the US.  Although the horrific explicitness of that racism isn’t depicted as vividly as it was in 42, the movie follows many of the same beats as that recent (superior) Jackie Robinson film.  There’s even a scene where German runner Luz Long befriends Jesse in front of the entire stadium of Germans (and the Fuhrer) that echoes what southerner Pee Wee Reese would do with teammate Jackie in Cincinnati decades later.  Long’s scene with Owens in private after their race is perhaps the best in the film—two athletes with deep mutual respect acknowledging the role they’re each playing as propaganda tools of their governments.  But like many movies dedicated to recreating real events, the other characterizations are cookie-cutter and the final result is more of a history lesson than an emotionally engaging drama.

What’s interesting about the film, though, is that its story directly links to the two most celebrated films about the Summer Olympics: Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) and Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire (1981).  The connection with the former is obvious.  Riefenstahl (played by Black Book’s Carice van Houten) was perhaps the most prominent female film director in the world at the time and is an important character in the movie.  While commissioned by Goebbels as a tribute to the wonders of a modern Germany (we see the two of them watch rushes of her coverage), Riefenstahl went beyond that short-sighted mandate and redefined cinematic language when it came to form and athletics in ways that are now commonplace on ESPN and advertising today.  It’s still a problematic film, with the ever-present swastikas and the specter of the Holocaust around the corner, but it’s not a paean to National Socialism the way the country’s leaders might have hoped for.  Her eye transcends the politics of the piece, even if it can't divorce itself from it completely.  And she doesn’t give short shrift to Owens’ accomplishments either.  In a scene in Race where Riefenstahl asks Owens to help her shoot some pick-ups for his Gold medal Long Jump that would later be inserted into her film, they have this exchange:

Jesse: Isn’t that cheating?

Leni: Cheating?

Jesse: Yeah.  I’m just saying it’s not the actual jump I made.

Leni: You did make that jump.  We all saw it.  You made history out there.  All I’m doing is making sure years from now, those people who weren’t there can see it too.  ‘Cause they’ll never forget what you did.

And she did.  And we haven’t.  Riefenstahl is one of the most complex figures in movie history, and one of my favorite documentaries is about her: The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (Muller, 1993).  In it, the film doesn’t blink at the insidious contribution she made to the Nazis’ ascendancy through her notorious film The Triumph of the Will.  But it also shows in the many decades after WWII that she was smart, resourceful, innovative, gutsy, and supremely talented.  Perhaps the best you can say about her is that she was a fervid aesthetician who lived in denial about how her gifts were exploited for evil.  Other judgments, far harsher, would be equally fair.  But this exchange in the film also brings the conversation about myth-making in an ironic full circle, because Owens’ legacy is also helped immeasurably by her film.

The connective tissue between Race and Chariots of Fire is interesting, too.  Larry Snyder (SNL’s Jason Sudekis) was Owens’ coach at Ohio State, and also on the US Track & Field team that competed against Brits Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell in the 1924 Paris games.  We even see a picture of Snyder with Charlie Paddock (played by Dennis Christopher In Chariots).  Sadly, Snyder was in a plane crash weeks before the games and never competed.  But he did go on to coach the US team in Helsinki (1952) and Rome (1960).

Abrahams, like Owens 12 years later, won the 100m (his time was 10.6 seconds; Owens, 10.3).  The film shows that he dedicated his athletic pursuits to fight the antisemitism he faced in the English establishment.  This resonates in Race because on the eve of the 100x4 relay in Berlin, the US benched its two Jewish runners out of deference to the Germans.  Owens ended up subbing in that race and there is a powerful scene where his teammates talk to him about what a victory would mean to them, watching from the sidelines.  They won, of course.  Although Chariots doesn’t depict it, Abrahams also won a medal in the 4x100 (a silver) in Paris.

I think Chariots often gets a bad rap.  It does have a bit of Masterpiece Theater stuffiness about it, but it also does address religion (Abraham’s Judaism and Liddell’s Christianity) in ways that you rarely see in mainstream movies anymore—with thoughtfulness, sincerity, and lack of piety.  Vangelis’ iconic synthesizer score manages to be anachronistic but still mines emotional depths.  It’s the only Oscar nomination Ian Holm has ever received (an oversight bordering on the criminal).  Its period details are meticulous (lacking starting blocks, the runners use small trowels to dig in footholds before the race, something we see Owens do in Race, too).  And with the recent Star Trek reboots, there’s a perverse delight in seeing Spock’s father (Ben Cross) and the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) fall in love.  Plus it was my first introduction, at 11 years old, to Scotland, and I’ll admit to thinking of Liddell training across the lush countryside when 20 years later, I hiked up to Arthur’s Seat, the mountain peak overlooking Edinburgh.  

There are also a couple of postage stamp references worth noting in Chariots.  When Abrahams is enrolled in Cambridge (somewhere I’ve also visited), we see him and future Olympian teammate Aubrey Montague signing up for various extra-curricular activities.

Harold (to Aubrey): “Rugby club, golfing society, tennis, squash club, flora and fauna!, philately—is that all?  You’re idle, man.  Idle!”

So stamp collecting was a viable academic pastime back then.  A few seconds later, we see a sign for another club: The Cinematic Club.  Given that the date is 1919, it strikes me as perhaps a little early for such a club, especially for a medium that was still associated with the lower classes at the time, not the halls of privilege.  Plus, even the most hardcore cinephile would be hard-pressed to name a notable British silent film up to that time (unlike other parts of Europe).

  

The second stamp reference comes a little later.  The film has already used Aubrey’s letters to his mother as a narrative framing device for the film.  Now, in Scotland, Sandy—a friend to the Liddells—makes a toast to the family, most of whom are returning to their missionary work in China, where Eric (Ian Charleson) was born.

Mrs. Liddell: I’m relying on you now to keep them all out of mischief.

Sandy: Oh, that I will, Mrs. L.  And if they do transgress, I’ll pop the details on a postcard and you can read all about it before you can say "Marco Polo".

Eric: Cost you a fortune in postage stamps.

Tragically, Ian Charleson and Brad Davis, who plays American Olympian Jackson Scholz, would be dead within a decade, both from AIDS.   

The Jesse Owens Olympic stamp is Scott # 2496.  He never competed in the hurdles in the Olympics, but the stamp commemorating his records set in the US, part of the Celebrate the Century series, is Scott # 3185j.