Naturally Native, Allegiance, RCA SelectaVision Player

No talent Dora Hall album found

“NATURALLY NATIVE”  MOVIE EXPLORES RACISM

Jennifer Wynne was the co-director on this movie featuring an all Native American cast and financed by the Pequot Tribal Nation.  Ms. Wynne spoke to our Road Scholar group earlier this month at the LA Downtown Hotel.

The movie is the story of three native women who struggle establish a cosmetic business and are frustrated by racism and sexism.  The characters also challenge the stereotypes prevailing for Native American alcoholism and casinos.

The conflict between those who were raised Christian and those who are more traditional is also a theme in this worthwhile movie available on DVD.

DORA HALL ALBUM FOUND IN SUBURBS

A cousin had this LP from the infamous Dora Hall, a no talent with a rich husband who did a TV special for syndication in 1963 that I saw on KCOP/13.  She dabbled in several venues but country probably worked best since you don’t have to be Rene Fleming to pull it off.  She sounds like Lucille Ball in “Mame.”

“ALLEGIANCE” THEME OF RACISM RELEVANT NOW

EDINA—From coast to coast today audiences in movie theaters saw a Fathom January 2016 performance of “Allegiance,” based in part on actor George Takei’s real life experience as a child in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II.  The women in the internment camp in “Allegiance” found a way to unify in resistance with letter writing to Washington officials objecting to the racism. 

The showing here was lightly attended but those that saw it in LA and San Francisco must have enjoyed a few communal moments.  (Takei appears in the 1960 war movie ‘Hell to Eternity” which is a sympathetic look at the plight of Japanese Americans during the war.)

RCA SELECTAVISION VIDEO DISC FAILED PRODUCT

A suburban relative was an earlier adaptor of home movie equipment in the early 1980s when he and his wife purchased an RCA SelectaVision player.  I inherited it this weekend and find that the power source is dysfunctional so it won’t play the large floppy discs.  

This is America’s only attempt to invent a TV connected movie viewing device and was a total bust; worse than the Sony Betamax.  The RCA product is a reworking of the phonograph with a magnetic cartridge, needle and grooved vinyl records. 

I am sure that this analog rendering of movies is no improvement over VHS.  Next month I will give it away.

The RCA system fell victim to poor planning, conflicts within RCA, and technical difficulties that stalled production of the system for 17 years until 1981, by which time it was already made obsolete by laser videodiscs.

LOS ANGELES FEB. 2017

Norma Talmage House

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” LOVE, THAT’S WHAT

HOLLYWOOD, USA — Marvin Gaye’s hit song could serve as an anthem for the multitude who gathered Saturday (Feb. 4) at the Hollywood Pantages Theater for “Motown the Musical” in a communal cross generational outpouring of emotion during the week of hell from the twisted mind of a maniac in Washington, DC.

You could feel it in the gorgeous art deco auditorium as we clasped hands and gently swayed and sang “Reach Out and Touch” someone and make this a better world.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time; Los Angeles is America and I was happy to be among it’s assembled multitude on that beautiful day. 

REMEMBERING GOLDEN ERA MOVIES

CULVER CITY — From the alley I could get a shot inside MGM’s Sound Stage 15 where the “Wizard of Oz” was filmed in 1939 and also “A Day at the Races” with the Marx Brothers.  An entire race track was constructed for the later in this sound stage.  In this darken building are old movie sets, but photos aren’t allowed.  In a similar alley, Gene Kelly in Navy blue denims drew approving glances from ladies on the lot in a scene from “Anchors Aweigh,” an MGM musical.

MGM STARS REMEMBED

CULVER CITY — The MGM studios has been reduced to a mere 500 acres by Japanese electronics giant Sony.  Much television is recorded here.  We rubber necked ourselves through sound stages for “Wheel of Fortune” and “The Goldbergs.” 

 We also spent time in the sound recording studio which is named for Barbra Streisand.  Bungalows on the old MGM lot have been named for famous stars.  One of these bungalows appears in the 1945 MGM musical “Abbott and Costello in Hollywood.”

LOS ANGELES — Thanks to Road Scholar tour guide John Daugherty for taking us to the downtown Fine Arts Building, a prime example of Gothic architecture. We also toured the Art Deco Union Station which is featured in several movies (below).

POVERTY ROW STARS ON BOULEVARD

Dave O’Brien was stoned on pot in “Reefer Madness” and was the Dead End Kids social worker in “Spooks Run Wild.”  Their stars are on Hollywood Boulevard.

POVERTY, WEALTHY CONTRASTS

LOS ANGELES — This strange door was donated by a wealthy arts patron to the city for the plaza near the Forum performing arts center.  Nearby, the homeless sleep in the streets.  Psychologist Dr. Stuart Perlman illuminated the humanity and pain of the homeless in his paintings that can be seen in City Hall. 

You can see Perlman’s paintings when you go to the conference room in the Los Angeles City Hall.  

WHERE RACIAL HATRED LEADS

Now is the teachable moment about race relations in America so see the exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles for critical discussions on the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans 1942-45.  In Little Tokyo.

SANTA MONICA TOUR

Norma Talmadge’s Santa Monica house also was home to Brian Aherne, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott together and David Niven and Merle Oberon together.  Talmadge, a silent era star, was married to United Artist chief Joseph Schenk.

Japanese American barracks, WW2, Wyoming

Fine Arts Bldg., downtown LA