Day: July 14, 2022

I need to upgrade my summer wardrobe…yeah, Club Monaco has the right idea…shorts, sneakers, baseball cap and a generic dork shirt. Why didn’t I think of this combo myself?

Only seven weeks left of summer because that’s when Telluride ‘22 kicks off. The official poster popped today:

Ernest Borgnine passed almost exactly ten years ago. He did a lot of interviews and told a lot of stories later in life, and one that I never forgot involved a verbal confrontation with a group of Italian guys in some quiet New York City neighborhood. (Or possibly in Boston or Rhode Island or Newark, New Jersey…some northeastern city with a significant Italian population.)

It happened a few weeks after the August ’53 opening of From Here to Eternity, in which Borgnine achieved a big career breakthrough for his performance as “Fatso” Judson, a sadistic Army stockade sergeant whose racist brutality leads to the death of Frank Sinatra‘s Pvt. Maggio.

Borgnine had just walked out of a bar or was hailing a cab, and four or five guys walked up and one of them said “you’re him, right?” Borgnine copped to being the guy who played Fatso, and the guy said, “So what’d you kill Frank Sinatra for?”

Borgnine tried a standard rational response — “I didn’t kill him, I played a guy who killed him, I’m an actor and so is Sinatra,” etc. But the under-educated Italian guys weren’t having it — “yeah but why’d you kill him?” They’d apparently decided that Borgnine/Judson, who’d called Sinatra a “wop” two or three times in Eternity, was a symbol for all the racist bullies they’d known all their lives, all the guys who’d picked on Italians or denigrated them with slurs.

Borgnine gradually realized that there was no avoiding fisticuffs, so he offered to take them on one at a time if that’s how it had to be. One of the Italian guys said something to another in Italian, and Borgnine, born in Hamden, Connecticut to Italian-immigrant parents, answered back in the same tongue. The air of hostility immediately ceased.

For several years I’ve tried to find a video clip of Borgnine telling this story, and I’ve never had any luck.

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This is a weird detour but when I think of passengers falling out of airplanes, I think of three scenes: (a) Eddie Albert‘s Cadet Hughes falling out of a B-17 at 10,000 feet in Bombardier (’43), (b) Gert Frobe‘s portly Auric Goldfinger getting sucked out of a small window in a private airborne jet in Goldfinger (’64) and (c) Ed Nelson‘s Major Alexander, a 747 co-pilot, getting sucked through a smashed cockpit window in Airport 75.

Frobe’s Goldfinger scene was played for laughs, and if you ask me so was Nelson’s in Airport 1975. But Albert’s death scene was shocking and chilling.

34 years ago this same ghastly fate happened to Aloha Airlines senior stewardess Clarabelle “C.B.” Lansing. Through maintenance dereliction a tear in the fuselage was ignored and the roof above the first-class section of an Oahu-bound flight #243 was ripped off by wind velocity, and Lansing was sucked out. Her body was never recovered.

Yesterday morning I happened to watch a cartoonish video about Aloha Flight #243, produced by the “Be Amazed” YouTube channel — a brand apparently aimed at children. The animated images of the crew and passengers aren’t just primitive but wildly insensitive. Consider the below illustration of Lansing’s misfortune.

I’m not a scolder as a rule, but imagine if Lansing had a close family relative or a friend and they came upon this video.

Yesterday afternoon Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister and Sasha Urban reported that TMZ’s 7.9.22 report about Armie Hammer is true — he is indeed working at a certain hotel resort in the Cayman Islands (i.e., Morritts Resort), and reportedly focusing on selling timeshares.

Excerpt: “A source tells Variety that Hammer is indeed working selling timeshares at a hotel in the Caymans, and that all other reports suggesting otherwise are inaccurate. ‘He is working at the resort and selling timeshares. He is working at a cubicle,” [the source] explains. “The reality is he’s totally broke, and is trying to fill the days and earn money to support his family.”

Armie’s salesman hair is too short. He looks better with longer, wavier hair and the bushy beard.

Update: Vanity Fair‘s Julie Miller has reported that at the height of Hammer’s career meltdown, which apparently had something to do with a substance issue, Robert Downey, Jr. stepped in a like a big brother and paid for Hammer’s nearly six-month rehab stay.

A friend was a tad skeptical about the trailer for Maria Schrader‘s She Said (Universal, 11.18), which popped this morning. Actually two friends were, but this film is going to sail through.

“No, no…this is good,” I replied. “I can feel it. It has discipline, tension…first-rate acting from Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan and, as Weinstein employee Zelda Perkins, Samantha Morton. A well-honed screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Nicholas Britell‘s music is a little overbearing** but this is Spotlight again.”

This is a Best Picture contender — no question, no doubt. If Spotlight can get there, this can too.

The victims weren’t children being molested by priests and some who were invited to Harvey’s first-class hotel rooms had to be at least wary of what might happen, but this is one of those social justice, social portraiture flicks that can’t miss, at least as far as a Best Picture nomination is concerned.

“Apparently Harvey isn’t played by anyone. Well, he is, but not as a speaking character with a puss. There’s a clip of a big fat guy we see from the rear, but we don’t see his face. We hear Harvey’s voice on a speakerphone during a conference call, but his voice isn’t deep or punchy enough.”

A guy who’s allegedly caught a research screening:

“Better than a TV movie. Not sure about Best Picture, but Samantha Morton and Carey Mulligan are the MVPs. Very intelligently made and well-directed. They smartly show the effect of the abuse. Victims go back to the hotel rooms, reenact what happened in the bed and shower, but with their clothes on. It’s very Spotlight, maybe too much so. It also has a fantastic ending. We never get to see Weinstein’s face, only see his back and hear his voice.”

Pic is produced by Plan B’s Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner.

Lenkiewicz’s screenplay is based on Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s “She Said.”

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