Finally Watched Trumbo

If this is the role Bryan Cranston got instead of Lex Luthor in Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice than that's okay with me. I love period piece movies based in old time Hollywood, but as with all biopics and most blacklisting subjects I have to watch it with a grain of salt.

The moment I saw Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) I let out a groan, because someone always has to be the traitor to the cause in dramatizations. What makes it worse is how they frame it in a deceptive way. Of the four times Edward G. Robinson was called to testify in front of HUAC, it was his fourth time by 1952 that he gave in and named the ten who were already blacklisted so he could clear the air of being a Communist himself. Trumbo had already done his eleven month sentence in 1950. He was only confirming what was already known, not giving new information to light. He wasn't a Communist just because he fundraised with people who were against Fascism. Just as with Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield, Robinson had to clear the air and prove he wasn't in league with anti-American organizations. It's up to you to decide how dirty was Robinson here.

As for the movie itself, forget the complexities. Shit they'll show you how feeble it is if you refuse to martyr and snitch instead. This leads me to the point of how much was Eddy G. a snitch? The transcripts that were reenacted verbatim in the movie are sure framed in a way to set him up as one to the audiences eyes and any made up personal conversation written between him and Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) there after has to be framed to make you root for Trumbo and pity or have contempt for Robinson. A shameful, missed opportunity there. All so Trumbo can be the bigger man in the end when he makes his last speech in front of The Writer's Guild, while Robinson is oddly enough in the audience. Does that imply the two made up in the end. Why else would Eddy be there than for dramatic license?

It does look bad on Edward G. that he just confirmed names already known and then denounced his former ties to organizations that supposedly supported a totalitarian regime. The true definition of a snitch is someone whose implicit in crimes and dealings with whoever they rat out vs. what John Wayne does and that's target employers and colleagues he wouldn't have hung out with or do fundraising with anyway. When you're Eddy G. and you see the reality of all your colleagues going to jail, jobs drying up, dying, families disintegrating, other friends turning on them, demonized, hounded, and some that comes your way, you might just decide you don't have it in you to be Trumbo and martyr or take the high horse. Not to save your ass or your collections of paintings, but perhaps to protect your family and ability to work, which is more important than your job or public persona in the end. Nope that can't be it can it? Be sure you got a loyal family to risk it all like Trumbo.

I suppose it could be worse, you could be director Buddy Ross (Roger Bart) who disavows Trumbo then comes crawling back to him to fix his screenplay anonymously because his last pictures were crap.

In contrast, John Wayne (David James Elliott) doesn't seem so bad for wanting lenience with denouncers of Communism, while the villainous Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) is hellbent on destroying lives with her power of the press whether the the target's remorseful or not. Then of course you got your Otto Preminger's (Christian Berkel) and Kirk Douglas's (Dean O'Gorman) who risk there career for the greater good of giving Trumbo his due.

There's of course some dissent among the family, but they stick it out and from Trumbo's friend and fellow blacklisted screenwriter Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.) a composite character who wants to sue the House of American Activities and dies for his bad habits, while Trumbo would rather win through perseverance and prove to them that they need his services when they vilify them.

Ultimately Frank King (John Goodman) proves to be the neutral party in all this as the foul mouth boss of King Brothers Productions who hires Trumbo and Hird for doctoring and writing screenplays for gaudy B movies. It's pretty cool that he sticks to his convictions of being in it for the money and pussy and refuses to be pushed around by investigators. Louis B. Mayer (Richard Portnow) surprisingly isn't thrown under the bus as much as I thought he would be, casting couch assertions or no, they're said from a power hungry gossip columnist who calls him an antisemitic slur. Here is the closest we get to complexity even though you end up hating Hopper for her blatant racism than you do Mayer for his alleged sleaziness against women.

All in all a decent film, but I'm not happy with how they handled Edward G. Robinson. I guess he had to be the much needed traitor to liberals because Elia Kazan doesn't work thematically and has been played out. Eddy's story is much more complex than Trumbo's assertions that he just wanted to continue to be Beverly Hills bourgeois collecting painting from dead guys or Robinson's point about him being a public face while Trumbo can hide under screen writing. Disappointing and simplistic when you consider the actors who got hounded to death like John Garfield or were never allowed to work again like Lee Grant. The film does try to address that point at the end, but it really doesn't get into the meat of the whole controversy than vague allusions and speeches.

As much as I'm on Trumbo's side for free speech and freedom of affiliation and I hate snitches, as I've said, I don't care for how they frame Robinson as a turncoat who lost his way doing things he wouldn't normally do. It's not really snitching if the crime is on public record and had been dealt with. Political ideals only get you so far until your personal and working life is fucked beyond repair than to play the friendly witness. How many readers out there have to eat shit everyday from a boss who abuses power, but talks a big game of worker's rights? I'm not saying that Robinson is theoretically in the right, nor do I condemn him.*

Notes:

* Maybe I'm biased because I own more Robinson films than any other actor besides James Cagney and Fred Astaire, but John Garfield's my number three favorite actor after James Cagney and George Raft so you know I take the HUAC blacklisting personally as an great injustice. On another note: I also have to point out that while I can't stand John Wayne and Ronald Reagan anyway, that doesn't stop me from enjoying a Walt Disney production or a Robert Taylor movie who are also in league with HUAC or named names because they believed in what they thought was the patriotic thing to do.

This movie was a must for my dad who loved (maybe that's the wrong word, impressed?) by Bryan Cranston's turn on Breaking Bad.

Dalton Trumbo writes in the bath as do I. He had a better system, a board propped on both sides of the tub to place his typewriter on. I used to prop my mini laptop on a food tray on my dry belly, didn't want to press my luck so I've taken to typing on my notes feature on my 1st gen. Kindle. Much like a typewriter, it's not good for going back and fixing mistakes. I'd say they need to make a handheld word processor, but that's what stupid touch screen smart phones and tablets are for and I say bah.

The movie Dalton Trumbo gets his first credit on since the blacklist is Otto Preminger's Exodus. My mother saw it when she was young and talked about a lot and she finally begged my brother to buy it for her for Christmas last year and he did. It's one of the last films she got to see before passing away this year.

Joe Beck, And Other Tangents Vaguely Relating To Him

As I mentioned last post, I found an Esther Phillips (yes a grown up Little Esther of Johnny Otis Show fame) album in the Jazz dollar bin at the Record Show and saw the name Joe Beck on guitar. Who is this Joe Beck and is he comparable to Jeff? Went through my head. Having picked out many albums with my limit of fifteen dollars, I opted not to take a chance, nor could I also fill in my Jeff collection at higher ($5 prices) either so there's that. I went home and didn't think much of it with what was going on in my personal life. I decided to go to Youtube with whatever discography info I could dig up. Having been more obscure than Jeff, Joe has some interesting credits, but he's usually lost in the shuffle of other credited musicians on any given album he appears on. A small taste of his credits, often times on just a few select tracks, listing only artists I've heard of include, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, the last studio album of Duke Ellington with Teresa Brewer (which I can't find anywhere), Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years album, James Brown and Al Kooper. According to other sources he also worked with Louis Armstrong, Buddy Rich and Woody Herman, but I can't find what tracks. Another named I noticed was Tony Scott who I know because he does a beautiful rendition of Jefferson Airplane's Today. Hopefully if I track their collaboration down it will prove a better saxophone compliment then what Dave Sanborn provides further down.

As it is, unfortunately, Beck's music is harder to track down because post-Bop and Jazz-Fusion is a niche interest among connoisseurs. Neither genres are the type of Jazz I would want to subject myself to unless it's played by Jeff Beck because I'm a jerk. With that in mind, I still decided to listen to two tracks off Joe Beck's second solo album Beck, 1975.

Red Eye:

Cactus:

I honestly couldn't stand the pure moods seventies styled saxophone played by Dave Sanborn. I apologize to any Dave Sanborn fans who read this, but it's what I hear. I would say I'm a music barbarian, but this is one of those times I'm with everybody else. I think most people hate Jazz Fusion unless it's Miles Davis. He can get away with everything for some reason. My irrelevant observations about this album is that it came out the same year Jeff Beck did Blow By Blow and of course Cactus reminded me of Beck, Bogert & Appice. Tim and Carmine formed the band Cactus prior to power trio. Annoying fact Cactus played a gig in the living room of my dad's in the early 70's. Good times were had by all.

Speaking of Jeff, he's not the only Beck who like's to pun his name or use it as a trademark. Quick let's list albums from both artists in one column by year and cut any band titled ones and obscure first names elsewhere and see which ones you can guess are by who:

Truth 1968
Beckola 1969
Nature Boy 1969
Rough And Ready 1971
Beck 1975
Blow By Blow 1975
Wired 1976
Watch The Time 1977
There & Back 1980
Flash 1985
Back to Beck 1988
J* Beck's Guitar Shop 1989
The Journey 1991
Crazy Legs 1993
Who Else! 1999
You Had It Coming 2001
J* 2003
Emotion & Commotion 2010
Get Me J* Beck 2014

Other than a couple glaring ones like Nature Boy or Crazy Legs, one has penchant for one word summations except when the other one does, the other has a penchant for short phrases except when the other does too. Both love their names, puns, common confrontational phrases, traveling & time and pairs. Maybe I'm making too big of a deal out of nothing, but there is a reason I tend to name my theoretical, homoerotica-romance novels after Jeff albums and now Joe can help a bit too, but not in an as obvious way as Jeff so there's that.

I find it interesting that in the days before the 90's either musician could simply go by Beck and it could be understood in their separate fields who it referred to. Not anymore, the days of single last names ended on these guys when I'm a Loser debuted and changed my life as far as assumed naming goes. Now Beck can be a first name too and not just a last name and nickname.

Besides the obvious similarities to both Beck's, it is interesting to point out that they're like mirrors as far as musical explorations goes. Jeff Beck as everyone who knows anything about him knows, is a Rock guitarist of psychedelic background specifically, playing Jazz Fusion. Joe Beck is a Jazz guitarist who often enough flirted with Rock of the Jazz Fusion variant, but did you know he had a psychedelic rock album?

Yes, around the same time Jeff was going solo and was shedding the psychedelic trappings of The Yardbirds with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, Joe did a psychedelic album with some appearances from Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse on 1969's Nature Boy. Prior to that he had appeared on an album with John Berberian & Rock East Ensemble with the aptly titled Middle Eastern Rock, 1968. Here's an example:

Sounds nice right? Well his psychedelic solo album Nature Boy, isn't too shabby from the little I've heard. Unfortunately there's only two tracks uploaded on Youtube. The album has never made it on to cd and it's original issue on vinyl costs about $30 and shipping on Amazon. Someday... If you disliked the previous uploads these are worth it and will change your opinion if you prefer 60's production and the genre stylings. While they're Jazz musicians, none of that background should be distracting to the interest of the music. Here are the title track and the second song, Spoon's Caress.

Not bad at all. I could listen to more.

The story of this album is cute. Basically having impressed the label as a Musician's Musician, Beck was given an $100,000 advance to record an album, but he squandered it all on partying during the month he was to complete it. He ended up doing all the of guitar, bass, and piano parts and even sang the vocals as you can hear above. The only other full-time musician was drummer Donald McDonald. Guest appearances were by trumpeter Randy Brecker, bassist Don Payne and guitarist Danny Whitten as mentioned earlier.

As a bonus I'm going to post a collaboration with Sabicas off the 1970 album Rock Encounter. Also listenable and nice blend of two genres.

I have wishlisted Middle Eastern Rock, Nature Boy and Rock Encounter. I can skip Beck. Shame too. I don't have hopes for later albums either, but I might dig for more if I can only stand 70's trends.