Category: Movies

P.T. Barnum Brings “The Swedish Nightingale” to New York

Swedish Nightengale On September 1, 1850, Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind — “The Swedish Nightingale” — arrived in New York City from Liverpool, creating a sensation. Showman P.T. Barnum negotiated to bring Lind to the states. His idea paid off, as the tour ended up netting him nearly half of a million dollars.

Barnum offered Lind a high price for the 150-date tour of the U.S. and Canada, an offer he increased after her first shows immediately made the tour a success. Lind agreed to the tour partly because the deal also required certain payments to charities. Her charm won over audiences, and it also helped bring opera to a wider U.S. audience.

This scene from 1934’s The Mighty Barnum captures Barnum negotiating for Jenny Lind as he hears her sing. The film stars Wallace Beery as P.T. Barnum and Virginia Bruce as Jenny Lind.

In the scene above, Virginia Bruce as Jenny Lind sings the Irish song “Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms.” Unfortunately, the real Jenny Lind lived in the very early years of recording and no known recordings of her voice survive. But there are several things named after her, including streets in Arkansas, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

Lind did live on after her triumphant American tour. She spent most of the rest of her life in England with her husband and three children. She stopped doing opera, but she performed concerts until 1883. Starting in 1882, she became a professor of singing at the Royal College of Music. She died in 1887, and as she had done in her lifetime, she left much of her money to charity.

Photo: via public domain.

What is your favorite P.T. Barnum character? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Thurgood Marshall’s 1967 Appointment to the Supreme Court

    Justice Thurgood Marshall On August 30, 1967, the United States Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall for the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 69-11. Thus, after almost 200 years, the country had its first African-American Supreme Court Justice. It would be even longer until the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, joined the Court in 1981.

    Marshall, of course, made history in a number of ways. While on the Court, he sided with the rights of the oppressed, becoming a fighter for equal treatment of all Americans while leading on such issues as his opposition to the death penalty.

    The following newsreel footage covers President Lyndon B. Johnson’s nomination of Marshall to the Court.

    This short video captures some images and a few short interview excerpts from Senators involved in the nomination process. Early on, you may see New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy next to Marshall, and Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy speaks about the nomination.

    Marshall’s fight for equal rights went back long before President Johnson nominated him to the Supreme Court. After becoming chief counsel at the NAACP at the young age of 32, he oversaw many important cases. He also won 29 cases before the Supreme Court, including the landmark 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, where the Court struck down “separate but equal” school segregation.

    By all accounts, Marshall also was a decent man and fun to be around, as he often regaled his colleagues with stories of his experiences. I have been reading Gilbert King’s Devil in the Grove, which recounts a fascinating period where Marshall was involved in a case helping defend four black men accused of a 1949 crime in Florida.

    In the following video, Mike Wallace interviews Thurgood Marshall on 60 Minutes. The video is undated, but the conversation and the reference to “President Eisenhower” (and apparently to his 1956 re-election) place it within several years after Brown. I like Marshall’s response to the question about who he voted for, as well as Wallace’s promotion of the game Jotto at the end. Check it out.

    A few years back, I caught the HBO one-man show Thurgood, where Laurence Fishburne portrayed the legendary lawyer and jurist. Fishburne does a very good job of capturing various sides of Marshall and his long career, and it is worth tracking down. Here is the trailer.

    Thurgood Marshall remains one of the giants of American history. Although I did not learn about him while I was in grade school or probably even high school, every school child should learn about his life.

    Photo: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

    What is your favorite story about Thurgood Marshall? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    What if Nicolas Cage Were Everywhere?

    Movieclips has put together a video imagining if Nicolas Cage were to appear in many movies. And, since they label it “Volume 1,” we probably can expect even more in the future. Check out the funny Nicolas Cage Gets Around Vol 1 – Parody Nicolas Cage Mashup (2013).

    What is your favorite part of the Nick Cage mashup? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Coolest Thing About the Opening of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

    James Carter Po Lazarus

    The excellent Coen Brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) opens with a scene of prisoners in the old South working on a road and singing the work song “Po’ Lazarus.” Unlike many of the other songs on the T-Bone Burnett produced soundtrack, though, “Po’ Lazarus” was not recorded specifically for the film.

    Recording of “Po’ Lazarus”

    The recording of “Po’ Lazarus” was one of the many recordings made by Alan Lomax and his father John Lomax. The two men visited the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1959 and recorded prisoner James Carter leading a group of other prisoners in the song.

    That recording of “Po’ Lazarus” later appeared on Lomax’s 1960’s album Bad Man Ballads credited to James Carter and the Prisoners. The song recounts a sheriff going to arrest Lazarus.  Then, the sheriff ends up shooting “Po’ Lazarus”: “Well then they taken old Lazarus/ Yes they laid him on the commissary gallery.”

    Finding James Carter

    But that background is not even the coolest part of the story. According to The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax by Tom Piazza, the Coen Brothers movie brought a little more good will to singer James Carter.

    After the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? became a bestseller, Alan Lomax’s daughter Lomax Chairetakis and others tracked down the 76-year-old Carter living in Chicago. They gave him a substantial royalty check.  And then in February 2002 flew him, his wife, and two daughters to the Grammy Awards ceremony.  At the ceremony, the soundtrack won the album of the year for 2001.

    The New York Times noted that Carter had left home at age 13 and did time in prison for theft, a parole violation, and weapons possession.  Before his rediscovery, he barely recalled singing the song for the recording.

    James Carter passed away in November 2003, less than two years after his trip to the Grammys. The other prisoners in the recording have never been identified. But together they created an outstanding recording used in a classic film.

    What is your favorite song from O Brother, Where Art Thou? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    End-of-the-World Movies . . . Without Special Effects

    Science Fiction Without Special Effects In the last several years, there have been a number of interesting science fiction films that manage to avoid using special effects, or use very limited special effects. Maybe it is a response to the prominence of CGI, where so many movies are weighed down by images that you know just are not “real.” Maybe it is an attempt to return to using science fiction elements to actually say something besides blowing up things. In this genre, Chimesfreedom has discussed three films that we really liked: Robot & Frank (2012), Another Earth (2011), and The Man from Earth (2007). Another film that was interesting was Melancholia (2011). Two other films to add to this list are It’s a Disaster (2012) and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), both now available on DVD and Blu Ray.

    Of the two, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World has the bigger stars, featuring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley (as well as a small appearance by Martin Sheen). The film begins with Dodge (Carell) and his wife listening to the announcement that an asteroid is going to crash into earth in three weeks, resulting in his wife making a mad dash to leave her husband. Thus begins Dodge’s quest to find some company for the end of the world.

    The movie, directed by Lorene Scafaria, has some laughs and some interesting thoughts on different ways people might react to the end of the world. The film avoids going the expected route of going for an all-out fantasy comedy or for going for futuristic reality. But because the movie tries to walk a middle ground between comedy and tragedy, it seems to zig zag back and forth, making for interesting but somewhat unsettling viewing, especially as the movie becomes more serious toward the end. Still, I enjoyed the film and the fact that it aimed for something a little unusual.

    By contrast, It’s a Disaster is clearly a comedy. The film follows the interactions of several couples during a Sunday “couples brunch” as they gradually come to learn that someone has set off some dirty atomic bombs not far away and, inevitably, they are all going to die, probably within the day. But the film centers less on the morbid future and more on the relationships between the couples as they go about their afternoon finding things out about each other, occasionally taking some time to come up with ideas to figure out what they should do.

    The low-budget film directed by Todd Berger pretty much stays inside the house for most of the movie, but it makes you laugh at the characters and what you would do in the same situation. As when you watch Seeking a Friend, at some point you also will start wondering how the movie might end. If you go into the film with modest expectations, you might enjoy the comedy of manners that takes place. To reveal much more would ruin your fun. It’s a Disaster stars Julia Stiles, David Cross, Rachel Boston, Kevin M. Brennan, and Laura Adkin.

    Conclusion? Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and It’s a Disaster are two interesting minimal special effects end-of-the-world movies that are worth your time on a lazy rainy afternoon. While they are not great movies, they are somewhat unusual and might make you think a little while entertaining you. Of the two, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is more ambitious, while It’s a Disaster is a little more light-hearted take on a serious subject.

    Other Reviews Because Why Should You Listen to Me? Rotten Tomatoes has mediocre ratings for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World from both critics (56%) and audience members (54%), perhaps reflecting the unevenness of the movie. By contrast, on Rotten Tomatoes, the less ambitious but more consistent It’s a Disaster gets a decent audience rating (68%) and an even better critics rating (77%). Jason Bailey at Flavorwire sums up It’s a Disaster as an “odd, funny, invigorating little movie.”

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    What did you think of these films? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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