Most of us believe History starts when we are born/Rush Limbaugh
I know it’s like most conventional wisdom, a nugget of truth in a glittering generality.
Turner Classic Movies is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, and I have been bombarded by requests to join TCM Backlot, a fan club where members pay to join.
The benefit for joining is the opportunity to be a “guest programer”, but it has it’s perils and I’d like to cite an example.
Recently one of the new “programs”, made comments on His Girl Friday (1940), a farce staring Roslyn Russell, Cary Grant, and a whole host of what used to be called character actors.
It all goes wrong quickly, when this program starts spouting the usual cant, about “strong women’s roles…”
Well, Charlie, it just ain’t so I’ve seen that movie and enjoyed it, but it’s not about a strong willed woman, it’s about a “sob sister”, here’s the 411/
In the late thirties and forties it was the heyday of the print media, and just about every newspaper in America had women reporters, mostly writing, “the society column” or news, but occasionally a full fledged columnist, regardless of their skill level, they were known in the trade as Sob Sisters, because they specialized in “woman’s issues”, what ever that means.
So you see, in the movie His Girl Friday, Roslyn Russell is portraying a talented writer, who happens to be a woman, and yes a man in this movie reduces “this strong woman to tears.”
Fans if you are going to introduce a movie on national television, it might be best if you knew something about the time in which the movie is set, about what we used to call “the tenor of the times”.
“Here endeth the lesson”
Sean Connery, The Untouchables.
P.S. His Girl Friday, is a remake of an earlier The Front Page (1937)
John MaGuirk writes and produces GeekOfTheWeek Podcast heard each Tuesday on PodOmatic channel sideshoj.podomatic.com
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