Comments on Bright Lights After Dark: Bright Lights 64 now live

I read the "Did Aids perform Nensha?" article yest...

2009-05-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

I read the "Did Aids perform Nensha?" article yesterday twice while sitting at my desk. Then I xeroxed it and placed copies of it, anonymously, around my office, and in the employee restroom. It is one of the most fascinating pieces of film writing I have read in long time. Good shit. Real good shit. I don't know if there is a longer version of that piece, but if there is I want to read it. And whatever else the writer has written on the subject.

Great issue. Nothing else I can say.

2009-05-02T11:48:00.000-07:00

Great issue.

Nothing else I can say.

Just finished the Betty Hutton profile in issue 64...

2009-05-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Just finished the Betty Hutton profile in issue 64. Alan Vanneman writes: "Why anyone thought Fred and Betty would go together is anyone's guess, but they did." To my understanding, actually, the pairing of Astaire and Hutton reflects typical old Hollywood contract loan-outs when one studio is desperate and the other can get a goodie in exchange. In this case, let's remember, Paramount's Hutton was the loan-out to a desperate MGM, needing to replace Garland in Annie Get Your Gun. A part of the loan-out agreement was that Paramount would get Astaire for a Hutton film. Yes, Loesser’s songs were tailored to Hutton’s comic
antics but not to Astaire’s sophistication, resulting in clashing styles of the two leads.
In 1950, Paramount was itself desperate concerning Hutton. The studio had difficulty finding vehicles for her. Billy Wilder’s
Sunset Boulevard (1950) wickedly alluded to the studio’s problem in a dialogue sequence in which
a screenwriter pitches a baseball story to a Paramount producer who counters with the words:
"Of course, we're always looking for a Betty Hutton. Do you see it as a Betty Hutton?"