Commentary on Censorship, and "Liberal Hollywood" doesn't quite go far enough

Rating: 9/10 (19 March 2006)

I think GN&GL would be a great double feature to share with friends. here's what i'm thinking of showing at a movie party and why.
GN&GL CBS News. set in the early 50s. Begins in 1958.
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) 1957. Story of a ruthless columnist character. Similar stark black and white cinematography, set in NYC.
====
GN&GL Commie-baiting, McCarthyism, it's effects on the arts and society, and the courage it takes to combat and overcome it.
CRADLE WILL ROCK (1997) Commie-baiting, HUAC, it's effects on the arts and society, and the courage it takes to combat and overcome it.
====
GN&GL "jazz" score, excellent performance by Dianne Reeves.
SHADOWS (1959) John Cassavetes exploration of anti-Black racism during the Beat era. noted for its "jazz" score, and "jazz" themes of individuality, the repressive limitations of society, state and the entertainment industry, and the pursuit of freedom. Set in NYC.
====
GN&GL Murrow, who made his mark as a reporter during WWII on "This is London". heavily criticized the collusion of network media, advertising.
IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER (1955) Dark MGM musical. Even though it's a musical, it incorporates some stark commentary on what happened to a lot of soldiers coming back from WWII -- nobody wanted them after a while, and nobody cared. One former soldier finds a career in advertising for a soap company, which sponsors a banal proto-reality show, exemplifying what Murrow referred to in his speech as "evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live".
====
GN&GL Conservative/repressive/paranoid/suffocating climate of the 1950s. Corrupt conservative bullies pretending to be blameless martyrs. Liberace on "Person to Person", 'nuff said.
FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002) Douglas Sirk homage/sendup of the conservative/repressive/paranoid/suffocating climate of the 1950s, set in a supposedly "liberal" New England state. Centers on race relations and gays who are forced into the closet using conventional marriage as a cover-up. Will also make a fine double feature with BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN when it comes out on DVD.
====
GN&GL The attempted silencing effects of conservatism and witchhunting.
SCANDALIZE MY NAME: STORIES FROM THE BLACKLIST (1999) Effects of the Red Scare/conservative witchhunt on Black performers of the 50s who were active in Civil Rights and opening up the entertainment industry to nonwhites.
====
GN&GL Conservative bully grandstanding for votes will always be shown up for the transparent tactics and lies they are.
A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) The woozy search for nonexistent subversives in our midst turns even our most brilliant into insane paranoid schizophrenics.
====
GN&GL Dianne Reeves sings "I've Got My Eyes on You", by Cole Porter
Broadway MELODY OF 1940 (1940)Ffor one reason and one reason only: "I've Got My Eyes on You". OK, two reasons: the number is performed twice, once by Fred Astaire solo, and in the final, big production number which also includes the legendary "Begin the Beguine" mirror sequence. The final rendition is performed by Eleanor Powell, Fred Astaire, and George Murphy, who has already been mentioned on these pages as a "friendly witness" to HUAC and notorious conservative ass hole, becoming Republican CA state senator in the 60s, at the same time that that dumb dead f' Ronald Reagan was also governor. the musical number is fantastic, and I happily, ironically admit that out of all of Eleanor Powell's male dance partners, George Murphy is my favorite.
Eleanor Powell would today be targeted as a major, very outspoken "religious progressive" btw, in favor of human rights, as well as civil rights. she got death threats from conservatives in the mid-50s for having Black people as regulars on her local Los Angeles religious TV show, "Faith of our Children". So in that light, "I've Got My Eyes on You" a fun act to watch.
====
I love classic Hollywood and the classic entertainment world in general; it's never dull. GN&GL was fantastic, particularly it's overt commentary on our current state of complacency, wealth, comfort and general intellectual laziness.
But I might have ranked it a 10 had it gone into one of the most hated and reviled passions of the 50s and 60s. Allusions were made to Edward R. Murrow's swipes at segregation, exploitation of migrant workers, apartheid |and| J Edgar Hoover", but those could have been more rigorously interrogated, given the reality of the Civil Rights movement (particularly Brown vs Board of Education (1954), which began in earnest the dismantling of legalized segregation).
The inclusion of Mrs. Annie Moss' testimony, IMO, was intended as a substitute for interrogation of the anti-communist's focus on the African American struggle for parity in the US.
And yet, the bright whites and rich blacks of Good Night and Good Luck make it easy on the eyes, and the superb casting of Dianne Reeves as as the moral commentary of the 1950s Columbia Broadcasting System rate it a 9/10 in my book.