Tag: Dick Shawn

Old Movies Just Don’t Play Anymore. Or Do They?

Old Movies Don’t Play Anymore

Among all the enormous disparities in the world today between the Baby Boomer generation and this new configuration of alphabets, the differences are from here to Mars.

Probably further since we actually got to Mars, at least Rover did.

New generations seem totally apathetic to anything that happened beyond ten years ago. Nostalgia is a word with which they have cultivated no relationship, nor do they care to.

To young people the eighties are considered ancient times and there is no interest in anything that preceded boy bands.

I am saddened by the fact that young people today show such a lack of interest in classic movies.  I suppose it was inevitable looking at mid-20th-century cinema through a 21st-century lens.

When I was a kid there was a man in Detroit who had a show on each afternoon called Bill Kennedy at the Movies.

Most of the movies were made from the time talkies came in to the late fifties. These were mostly black and white and featured stars like Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Bette Davis, James Cagney,  Jimmy Stewart, Joan Crawford and the big stars of that era.

Despite the fact I was very young I adored these movies. And movie stars. Actors were managed then and we knew nothing about their personal lives until much later in the sixties. That contributed greatly to the glamour and mystery of Hollywood. And unlike today, ignorance was bliss when stars said little.

The sight of Errol Flynn swinging on a tree rope to a branch, extending his hand and saying, “Welcome to Sherwood,” was a line I couldn’t get enough of.

Because the movie was made eight years before I was born meant nothing to me. I didn’t see it as outdated or archaic, I just saw a great movie.

The James Cagney gangster flicks, John Wayne cowboy movies, screwball comedies, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, anything with Cary Grant, remain loved by so many.

Although movies remain a showcase of human behavior, it is truly a fact they are dated.

Yet although times and scenery may change people don’t. The love, crime and family stories endure.

They are a portrait of what the U.S.A. was like before television, freeways and malls.

A window into small town innocence in America featuring Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, or Jane Powell. Neighborhoods where one needn’t lock their front door and Sunday picnics in the park were the best way a family could spend a day.

One movie, The Male Animal with Henry Fonda showed college life in America at a Midwest university where football games and bonfires were all part of the experience. Based totally on U of M or Ohio State is my guess.

What is amazing to me is watching the way cities like New York have changed.

If you watch Barefoot in the Park or Breakfast at Tiffany’s you get a picture of how wonderful New York was in her heyday. And a bit of sadness as well.

The quiet and peaceful vibe of rural, urban and family life literally jumps through the screen and reminds us of the uncluttered and slow moving pace of our lives then.

Yet today, kids are bored by these movies. A good story doesn’t seem to be enough to capture the attention of young people who have been raised with IMAX and AI.

They have little interest in historical classics like Gone With The Wind, despite its incredible story and acting.

I recently asked my grandsons to watch The Producers with me. The original and in my opinion best one, with Dick Shawn, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. They were quite skeptical about my rave reviews, but they went along for the ride. I also suspect it’s because my daughter ensured them it was indeed one of the funniest films ever.

When my children were young I exposed them to great comedy, like The Producers, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and just really funny movies. I like to believe it’s why they have great senses of humor today.

So yes, my grandchildren enjoyed the Zero and Gene version very much. Despite its dated demeanor they laughed and got every joke. Seriously, Springtime for Hitler? Genius never fades.

A great motion picture moves at its own pace. Kids today live in a fast-paced world.

There are video games, technology, Virtual Reality and space travel. You Tube has changed the watch interval considerably from two hours to seeing ten shows in that time.

I personally find it a bit disheartening that so few young people today appreciate how glorious it is to simply lose oneself in Casablanca, The Godfather, Citizen Kane or It’s A Wonderful Life.

The list of great movies is endless and I devour them all.

But the world moves at lightning speed and kids aren’t about to stop and watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington when they’re in the middle of a game on their Virtual Reality headset.

As a kid we watched old movies at home, or went to a neighborhood theatre in Detroit called The Mercury that featured murals of the cosmos on the walls that glowed in the dark. And we loved every minute. Movies were a great way to escape into other worlds, interesting places and intriguing stories.

I guess when the world sped up the need for old movies slowed down. Yet historic preservation of old movies also preserves a view into the past. How the world changed and yet in many ways has stayed the same. Watching Spartacus lead a revolt is a whole lot better than reading about it in a history book.

But you must go with the flow. So I watch my old movies and You Tube. I admit to still feeling a tinge of sadness when watching an old movie and catch a glimpse of the Brooklyn Dodgers playing in Dodger Stadium in Brooklyn. Those were the good old days with an emphasis on good! But as long as we can still visit classic Hollywood on the screen, these memories will remain.  

Mel Brooks and the IDF The Greatest Jewish Weapons

Recent media would lead one to believe a Jewish man by the name of Oppenheimer created the most powerful weapon in the universe.

Okay, it was good or maybe not so good, but Jews have always had the most powerful weapon necessary to ensure their survival. A sense of humor.

Every family has an Uncle Saul who believes if he could get out of the family room and onto a stage in Las Vegas he’d surpass Shecky Green by miles. He always has the latest jokes, a comment about Aunt Rose’s brisket and he hides the afikomen so well no one has ever found it until the house was sold and the new owners remodeled.

It wasn’t important if you were laughing with Uncle Saul or at him, the point is there was laughter.

This has sustained the Jews and always will.

Just add the IDF to the equation and no one can defeat us.

In the Bible it is written that the army who carries the Ark of the Covenant before it is invincible.

I believe that along with the pieces of the Ten Commandments locked inside it, there is also Myron Cohen’s best Jew jokes from the Ed Sullivan years.

Now in a time of great pain and suffering for Jewish people and the risk of destruction coming from all continents on earth, is it possible to find humor in anything?

Can we laugh at the atrocities committed by Hamas who is now a big favorite with Jew haters all over the world?

Can we laugh at the fact our Jewish children are no longer safe in colleges and universities across this country?

Can laughter sustain us when we realize the country we have loved and supported our whole lives is now as welcoming to Jews as Nazi Germany?

Or the fact that one day soon we might all face a modern day Anatevka of our own?

So I suppose the question that has been on my mind is: “So where is Mel Brooks when we need him?” Is there a modern comedian today who can fill his shoes or even wants to?

Who has the guts to take on a Hitler, a Haman, a Hamas or a Torquemada?

Who is proud enough of being a Jew that they would sacrifice the ridicule from their antisemitic friends to stand up and make us laugh? Sadly some of these antisemites are actually Jewish.

World War II had weapons and even at the end one of mass destruction.

Nothing in history has been as great a weapon against the mustached lunatic than Springtime for Hitler. Dancing girls in Swastika formation marching and singing, every Jew laughed until he cried. And the tears were cathartic. Even now as we are trying to heal from these latest attacks on our people, we must not be afraid to laugh. Laugh so hard we cry and the crying cleanses us.

When Mel Brooks took an enemy down, he did it without mercy and he was our greatest general.

We need Mel now. We need him to take down Hamas and allow us to laugh at their insanity and evil.

Laughter and the IDF are the weapons that will ensure the Jewish people survive this latest horror and continue to prosper as a people.

Some may say it’s too soon, but is it ever?  If laughter is one our greatest weapons, why would we hesitate to use its force against this new and imminent threat to our people.

I’m sure Mel would do a piece on the Hamas leader hold up in a five-star hotel in Qatar complaining about the room service not having any bacon for his cheeseburger. Perhaps he might have him flirting with the server and trying to convince her to join him for a costume party where he dresses up as Amal Clooney. Maybe Mel would have him posing in women’s clothing as a closet gay man playing with Barbie dolls and dressing them in Burqa bikinis while he tries on bras.

Or maybe he would have to move to a much larger hotel room to hide and store all the food and supplies he is stealing from the Gazans Israel is flying in to them.

I’m sure he would look like Dick Shawn in blue Jeans, a Campbell soup can around his neck and a flower behind his ear.

As ridiculous and stupid as any evil maniac should be portrayed, Mel could do this like no one else. I can’t even try to imagine how funny it would be. He could make us laugh at this monster and reduce him down to the size of a cockroach small enough to step on. And that is the point.

Jewish people must never get caught up in this new mentality that making fun of and with people is wrong. That laughing at ourselves is not a great way to deal with our flaws and that although the world is against us, laughter will still serve as our greatest weapon against evil.

It is the ideal way to point out the stupidity, horror and savagery of the malevolent among us and cut them down to size.

Evil has no sense of humor. Once someone exorcises jollity from their spirit, they align themselves with idealogues and maniacs that take existence and their own craziness too seriously. They can’t condone humor and only live to serve their own evil agendas.

Jewish people need laughter as well as the IDF. We need our comedians, even our Uncle Sauls who can put a bagel on his nose and sing a chorus of Hava Nagila without dropping it.

Humor is a gift meant to be opened when all else fails to work to keep us going. It’s the way Jews have survived the ages and will again.

I pray Mel Brooks comes to our rescue and if he is not able to do so, we must pray our new hilarious Jewish comics, and there are many out there, will be able to carry on. I’m certain Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David are up to the task and could fill Mel’s shoes.

And believe me those are some pretty giant shoes to fill.