Did you ever see any of her movies? Even for an eight-year old American, they were insufferable. She was the US's girl next door and apple pie with a clarion pop singing voice. She did, however, advocate for Rock Hudson when he was dying of AIDS, at a time when the gay plague was unmentionable and anyone who had it unthinkable, in several daring, brave displays of public support.
I might have seen one of her movies...I don't know...I saw a lot of B-movies at matinees in one of the 3 local "picture-houses" (later called cinemas in imitation of the French, when they should have been and still should be called kinemas)as Celts are pronounced Kelts as in Greek Keltoi...but I digress, having a Butterfly Mind.
The Gay Plague was not unmentionable to gay men. Indeed, I came to the late conclusion that my sexual preference was for men (provided they had beards) just as that particular plague was rumoured in New York and San Francisco. We talked about it gulpily while sucking each others' cocks. I avoided it principally because I had the Protestant Horrors about Sodomy. (Anal Penetration is, in my opinion, an unimaginative form of homosexual activity.)
I forgot to close a bracket in the foregoing comment. Please forgive me.
Apart from Cardboard Blockbusters such as The Blue Lagoon, The Robe, The Vikings and The Ten Commandments (plus Presley's rather good King Creole, I have little recollection of 'movies' before I saw True Cinema on a trip from Belfast to London around 1960 : Bergman's Virgin Spring. My attitude to Kinema changed utterly thenceforth, and led to other life-changing kinematic experiences such as Tarkovsky's towering Stalker and Resnais' soul-eviscerating Mouchette. More recently, some British and Irish films which have 'carried on the torch' first lit by Ibsen, Strindberg, O'Casey, O'Neill and Miller.
It is a tragedy that Kinema became mass entertainment - due to the historical accident of a group of immigrant and money-savvy Jews flocking to and 'making good' in perpetually-sunny, hence inexpensive Hollywood. They ended up ruling the world in fashion, prudish/prurient morality, and bad taste. The world is still reeling from the consequences. Donald Trump is the ultimate Hollywood-American creation. After him - who knows ?
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Did you ever see any of her movies? Even for an eight-year old American, they were insufferable. She was the US's girl next door and apple pie with a clarion pop singing voice. She did, however, advocate for Rock Hudson when he was dying of AIDS, at a time when the gay plague was unmentionable and anyone who had it unthinkable, in several daring, brave displays of public support.
I might have seen one of her movies...I don't know...I saw a lot of B-movies at matinees in one of the 3 local "picture-houses" (later called cinemas in imitation of the French, when they should have been and still should be called kinemas)as Celts are pronounced Kelts as in Greek Keltoi...but I digress, having a Butterfly Mind.
The Gay Plague was not unmentionable to gay men. Indeed, I came to the late conclusion that my sexual preference was for men (provided they had beards) just as that particular plague was rumoured in New York and San Francisco. We talked about it gulpily while sucking each others' cocks. I avoided it principally because I had the Protestant Horrors about Sodomy. (Anal Penetration is, in my opinion, an unimaginative form of homosexual activity.)
I forgot to close a bracket in the foregoing comment. Please forgive me.
Apart from Cardboard Blockbusters such as The Blue Lagoon, The Robe, The Vikings and The Ten Commandments (plus Presley's rather good King Creole, I have little recollection of 'movies' before I saw True Cinema on a trip from Belfast to London around 1960 : Bergman's Virgin Spring. My attitude to Kinema changed utterly thenceforth, and led to other life-changing kinematic experiences such as Tarkovsky's towering Stalker and Resnais' soul-eviscerating Mouchette. More recently, some British and Irish films which have 'carried on the torch' first lit by Ibsen, Strindberg, O'Casey, O'Neill and Miller.
It is a tragedy that Kinema became mass entertainment - due to the historical accident of a group of immigrant and money-savvy Jews flocking to and 'making good' in perpetually-sunny, hence inexpensive Hollywood. They ended up ruling the world in fashion, prudish/prurient morality, and bad taste. The world is still reeling from the consequences. Donald Trump is the ultimate Hollywood-American creation. After him - who knows ?
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