"Ninotchka" (1939)

During our long drive to and from Massachusetts in September, Linda and I whiled away many hours listening to a podcast called "Talking Pictures".  This pod is hosted by TCM's Ben Mankiewicz and in each episode he interviews people connected with movies and the motion picture industry.  We listened to great interviews of people like Mel Brooks, Henry Winkler, Carol Burnett, Jane Lynch, Bill Hadar, Bill Murray, and even Charles Barkley (!!).  It's a great podcast, and if you like movies, I highly recommend it, but that's not why I'm here today.  During those interviews, Brooks, Burnett, Lynch, and Murray all referenced the movie "Ninotchka" as having a great and profound influence on them and their love of movies and in their careers in the movie business.

So, we resolved then that we had to see it, and last night, we watched it via Amazon Prime Video.

"Ninotchka" was made in 1939, directed by Ernst Lubitsch with a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, and it starred, and this was the big deal at the time, Greta Garbo.   Garbo was a star of the silent screen, and was known for her dramatic roles and her enigmatic persona.  So her doing a comedy for MGM was a very big deal at the time.  So much so, that studio promoted the film with the tagline "Garbo laughs".

The story takes place in Paris in 1939 where three bumbling apparatchiks from Soviet Russia are there to sell crown jewels seized by the government during the Revolution, the proceeds of said sale are to be used to buy tractors for Russian farmers.  The problem is that these three guys have succumbed to the pleasures of Paris life and the capitalistic system, and have been living it up at a luxury Parisian hotel.  In order to bring them in line,  the Party sends a no-nonsense operative to Paris to finish the job. That person is Nina Invanova Yakushova, played by Garbo, and she plays the stone faced Communist Party official to the hilt.  According to some things I've read on line in research for this post, including some contemporary reviews, it was almost a self-parody of herself.  Example:

Garbo (as Ninotchka):  Must you flirt?

Melvyn Douglas:  Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural.

Garbo: Suppress it!

Of course, things get off track when Melvyn Douglas, who plays a Count who's attached himself to an exiled Russian noblewoman, who is the rightful owner of the jewels, falls hard for Garbo, whom he calls Ninotchka, she resists, then she falls for him.  Comic hijinks ensue.

The movie is filled with terrific comic lines and touches (the "Lubitsch Touch"), some great satirical pokes at both the Soviet Union and capitalism, and some sexuality that is understated just enough to get by the Hollywood's Production Code taboos in place at the time, as exemplified by the French maid cigarette girls at the hotel that make several appearances a few times in the film.  "Comrades, you must have been smoking a lot" says Nina when she sees them.

There are other great scenes:

• When Garbo finally laughs while lunching at a cafe
• Garbo drinking champagne for the first time
• When a drunk Garbo lines up for a make believe firing squad while Douglas pops a champagne bottle
• Just about all of Garbo's austere dialog and persona before she gives in to her feelings towards Douglas.

While this movie is now eighty-six years old, I found it to be not at all dated.  It could be made today with very little change in dialog and still be funny and sharply satirical.  Of course, today, who could possibly replace Garbo?

There is one joke in the movie that references Hitler and Germany that jarred you a bit because it made you realize what else was going on the world at the time.  The movie was released in 1939, and one year later, Paris and France was occupied by Nazi Germany.   By then, it was not the wonderful place depicted in the movie.

"Ninotchka" was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Picture, Actress for Garbo, and Screenplay for Wilder and Brackett, but it was steamrolled by "Gone With The Wind" for all awards that year.

We really liked the movie, and I give it  Four Grandstander Stars.

Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas

Before the"firing squad"

Garbo Laughs!

Some Random Thoughts

 The World Series

The Toronto Blue Jays bounced back from what had to have been a gut wrenching loss in that 18 inning Game Three by winning Games Four and Five in Los Angeles,  thus taking a 3-2 lead in the Series, which could end tonight in Toronto.  This Series has proven to be notable in a couple of regards.  One, is the remarkable performance of Shohei Ohtani.  Another is that remarkable eighteen inning game on Sunday night. And the third is the performance of 22 year old rookie Jays pitchers Trey Yesavage.

If you've followed the Series, you know the story.  He pitched for four different teams in the Blue Jays minor league system this season (Rookie, A, AA, and AAA), arrived in Toronto late in the season and has now started more post-season games than regular season games.  In Game Five, he went seven innings, gave up one run, no walks, and struck out 12 batters.

What I came to learn from my niece, Jill, is that Yesavage graduated from Boyertown High School in 2022 with her daughter, Cale, and played on the same Boyertown American Legion and high school teams with her son, Gavin.

The Boyertown Bears, circa 2019:

Top row, fifth from left, wearing number 6, is a 16 year old Trey Yesavage, now a genuine World Series hero.  If you watched Trey pitch in this post-season, you can see that he has experienced a significant growth spurt  since 2019. (My great-nephew Gavin is also in this photo, but without having the permission of either he or his mother, I am not going to identify him here.)

Baseball Royalty and the Other Kind of Royalty

On Pardon the Interuption last night, both Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon expressed how thrilling and awe-full it was to see Sandy Koufax - SANDY KOUFAX!!!! - sitting in the stands at Dodger Stadium watching the World Series games this week, and I couldn't agree more.  Koufax will turn 90 in December, and he looks at least fifteen years younger than that.  It is also true that it has been fifty-nine years since he last pitched in a major league game, so most people watching have never seen him play, and cannot possibly have any idea just how Capital G Great he was.  Much has been made that Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw, a sure fire first ballot Hall of Famer is retiring this year (and didn't he go out on a great note by retiring one batter with the bases loaded in that extra inning game on Sunday?).  Kershaw was a great pitcher, no doubt, but, and trust me on this, kids, he couldn't hold Sandy Koufax's spikes when it came to greatness on the mound.  So, yes, when you see a shot like this on your TV screen, it really is thrilling to old guys like The Grandstander.

And while Sandy Koufax represents baseball royalty, we were also treated to a screen shot of these two during Game Four:

Yep, that is Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, taking in the ol' ball game.  I have seen several posts on social media in the days since then of people, mostly Dodgers fans and hide-bound traditionalists expressing their outrage of Sandy Koufax being forced to sit in the second row behind a second string British Royal.  To those folks I say this:  If your life is such that THIS is what gets you "outraged", then you have a lousy sense of what is important in life.

Steelers Lose Second in a Row

The Steelers laid a colossal egg this past Sunday night in losing their second game in a row, this time to the Green Bay Packers.  In these last two losses, the Steelers defense, which is the highest paid such unit in the NFL, has surrendered sixty-eight (68) points.  They are now 4-3, still in first place in the AFC North, and improbably, still have a legit shot at winning that division, only because that division has shown itself to be incredibly mediocre this season.

This week they face the surprisingly good Indianapolis Colts, who are 7-1 and have the highest scoring offense in the League thus far.  The possibility of the Steelers getting boat-raced on their home field on Sunday is a very real one.

Let's just say that things aren't looking good for the Steelers at this point in this season.

"Only Murders In The Building"

Last night Linda and I finished watching Season 5 of "Only Murders In The Building", a series that we have enjoyed throughout its five season run, but I have to be honest in saying that perhaps they pushed the envelope a bit too far in producing this fifth season.  Has the show jumped the shark?  Maybe not, but we didn't find ourselves compelled to watch the show this season as we have in the past.  A couple of weeks went by between our watching some of the episodes.  This tends to take some of the excitement out of watching as you, or at least me, tend to forget just what happened last episode, and just what is the crime that the crew is investigating right now?

Still, the show did have its moments, and the chemistry among the three stars remains kind of charming, so, yes, we will be watching when Season 6, which will be set in London, debuts next year.

Only Two and One-Half Grandstander Stars for Season 5 of OMITB.

That Epic Game 3, and Some Thoughts on Baseball Broadcasting

At some point late Monday night, or perhaps it was early Tuesday morning, I made the following post on Facebook:

Were you like me? did you stay up until three o'clock in the morning to watch all 18 innings of that 6-5 Dodgers win over the Blue Jays?  It was truly an epic game, and I couldn't tear myself away from it, no matter how tired I was.  (Thank God for being retired!)

I always love looking at box scores of marathon games like this.  Ernie Clement and Tommy Edman were both 1-for-8.  Edman had at least two chances in extras to end the game for the Dodgers, which would have been fitting, because he had earlier made two tremendous defensive plays in the game that prevented Toronto from scoring and winning the game.  Teoscar Hernandez was 4-for-8 with a home run and an RBI.  There were nineteen pitchers used.

We all know, though, what the true highlight of that box score was:  Shohei Ohtani with a 4-for-4 night and five walks, four of them intentional, two home runs and 3 RBI. He was on base an almost incomprehensible nine times.

And to have it end with a walk-off home run by one of my favorite players, Freddie Freeman.

It was indeed a game for the ages.

********

And now please allow me to vent a bit on the subject of baseball broadcasting in general.

Like you, I have slogged through these past several weeks watching MLB post-season games on various different networks - Fox, TNT, ESPN - and I have found that the announcers broadcasting these games, both the play by play guys and the analysts, are generally terrible to the point of being almost unlistenable.  I have the volume turned way low on the TV while watching and listening.

What is the problem?  Well, the game itself has gotten so bogged down with analytics and statistics and data that it has become mind-numbing.  John Smoltz, who I had always liked on these games, has gotten to the point where it seems that all he talks about are things like release angles and whether or not this or that pitcher is throwing too high a percentage of splitters.  Oh, and let's not forget how we are constantly reminded about things like exist velo and JUST HOW HARD so-snd-so is hitting the ball, never mind that he is in a 2-for-15 slump.  Honest to God, I think that my ears started to bleed while listening to him last night in Game 4.

And all of this comes after listening to Greg Brown, Joe Block, and all of the ex-jock Pirates in the booth over the course of a 162 game season.  As we all know, no one loves talking about launch angles, exit velocities and how HARD Oneil Cruz hits the ball as he compiles his .200 batting average more than Brownie and Blockie.

Back in August, the Pirates honored their former broadcaster Lanny Frattare upon his being placed on the Media Wall of Fame in the Press Room at PNC Park.  At that time, I heard Lanny being interviewed on The Fan, and in commenting upon the state of announcing today, he said two interesting things.  One was that he would prefer doing a broadcast of a game alone, with no analyst.  You know, like Vin Scully always did.  That would be nice, I think.  Secondly, he said that broadcasts today are too cluttered with word salads involving launch angles, exit velocities, and other advanced metrics mumbo-jumbo. He may not have meant it that way, but that was one serious shot across the bow that Lanny took at the current Bucco announcers.

Thanks for listening, folks.

The World Series Begins Tonight!

 

You all have no doubt been asking the question "Grandstander, why haven't you been writing about some of the great moments of the 2025 MLB Post Season?"

Well, that's because I've been very busy watching  the 2025 MLB Post Season.  And the NFL.  And the WNBA Playoffs.  And the Penguins season started.  And the NBA.  Oh, and there was that trip to Nashville over the weekend.

You get the idea.

Before getting into the World Series, let me just comment on a couple of things from this MLB Post Season.

First, a comment on a simply amazing Game 5 of the National League Division Series, won by the Dodgers 2-1 in an epic eleven inning game.  It was scoreless through six innings, the Phillies scored in the top of the seventh, and the Dodgers tied it in the bottom of the seventh.  It then went into extra innings, and the Dodgers won when Phillies pitcher Orion Kerkering inexplicably fielded a ground ball with two outs and the bases loaded and, rather than throwing to first base to end the inning, he threw to the plate. The throw was high and to the left, the run scored, the Dodgers won, and the series was over.  As I heard one commentator, I think it was Tim Kurkjian, say that it was a case of the game moving too fast for the young pitcher Kerkering, he got caught in the moment, and just made the wrong play.  I hope that the kid doesn't let it affect him mentally as he moves forward in his career.

Me, my mind flashed back to Bob Moose's wild pitch that ended the 1972 NLCS.  If you know, you know.

Then there was Game Four, the final game of the NLCS, a game that will forever be know as The Shohei Ohtani Game.

You all know what happened.  Ohtani started the game pitching, went six scoreless innings, gave up 3 hits and struck out ten batters.  TEN STRIKE OUTS!  And he hit three home runs.  THREE HOME RUNS!.  It has been called the greatest single game that any baseball player has ever had.

Me, I have no other words for it.

In contrast the Dodgers sweep of the Phillies, the Mariners-Blue Jays series went the full seven games, and it was a Game 7 well worth its name.  Seattle held a 3-1 lead, thanks to solo home runs by Julio Rodriguez and Cal "The Big Dumper" Raleigh until George Springer hit a three run dinger that put the Jays up 4-3.  The bullpen held the lead, and Toronto secured its first trip to the World Series since 1992.

I have no strong rooting interest one way or the other in this Series.  I suppose that as the games progress I may develop such an interest, but until then, I will hope only for a competitive and exciting Series.  I'll also say that I hope that we get to see something historic from Shohei Ohtani, although I don't know how he can top that show he put on in Game 4 of the LCS.  As for a prediction, most of the "experts" out there are telling you that should the Dodgers starting pitchers continue to perform as they have thus far in the post season, they will win in the end.

I'll follow that party line and say the Dodgers win it in six games.

Nashville Cats, and Seeing The Great Messi

Sometime early this past summer, I made the random comment that since the greatest soccer player in the world, Lionel Messi of Argentina, was now playing in America for Inter Miami FC of Major League Soccer, that it would be cool to actually see him play in person.  However, at the point, Miami had already visited Columbus, the closest MLS city to Pittsburgh, so that was pretty much that.

Well, my birthday rolled around in September, and Linda presented me with my gift:  a  Lionel Messi Inter Miami jersey. Then she gave me an envelope containing the rest of my gift.  She had made plane and hotel reservations for a trip to Nashville that included tickets to the MLS match between Inter Miami and Nashville FC this past Saturday.  She had also purchased tickets to see a touring Broadway musical, "The Outsiders", for Friday afternoon at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.  And she bought a Messi jersey for herself as well.

So there we were this past Saturday at Geodis Park, a soccer only stadium in Nashville to be a part of a sellout crowd (30,000+) and getting to see the greatest player in the world. 

And did he ever deliver.

Our seats were fantastic.  Seven rows up from the pitch, and with a perfect view of the goal which turned out to be the goal that Miami would be attacking in the second half.  If we were looking at a football field, our seats would have been on the 20 yard line or so.

The game itself was terrific.  Nashville led 2-1 at the half, and yes, the Miami goal was scored by Messi.  The second half was all Miami, who ended up winning 5-2, and the best part was that Messi scored three goals, including one on a penalty kick right in front of us and assisted on the other two.  Six of the seven total goals were scored at our end of the field right in front of us.  If I tried to write up a script for what I wanted to see that night, I couldn't have come up with a better one.

HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS of the game showing all seven goals, including Messi's hat trick.  Here also are some photos that we took with our phones that night.

The soccer game was the main purpose of our trip, and, as I said, it could not have been scripted more perfectly.  It will go down as one of the best sports spectating experiences of my life, but the rest of our Nashville Adventure was pretty cool, too.  

We stayed, not in the heart of Nashville, where all the tourists go and the honky tonks are, but in an area called 12 South.   It is an area of about six blocks on 12th Street, south of downtown Nashville (hence, the name), consisting of fancy coffee shops, some bars and restaurants, and some upscale retail clothiers.  You want a pair of $350 jeans, this is where you'd go.  For you Pittsburghers out there, think of it as an upscale Shadyside.  Our hotel, The Gilmore, was right in the center of 12 South, and it suited us perfectly.  The area was very busy.  Lots of people, lots of tourists.  We found a cool bar called the Bottle Cap to eat and watch sports on TV, and a fancy linen tablecloth restaurant called Urban Grub for our special "birthday dinner", and a couple of cool breakfast places.

The courtyard at The Gilmore

One of those neat breakfast places

On Friday morning, we ventured into downtown Nasheville for brunch and the 1:00 performance of "The Outsiders", but before the show, we did walk along several blocks of Broadway, and "experienced" Nashville. At 11:00 on a Friday morning, the place was jumping.  Party buses all over the place, live music coming out of every doorway that you passed, and people, masses of people, everywhere.   And when we left the theater after the show and UBERed back to our hotel, the number of people had increased exponentially.  We can only imagine what it is like at night when, we understand, you sometimes have to wait two hours just to get inside a place.   It was quite the experience.

Some street scenes.

Brunch before we hit Broadway!

"Make good trouble."

The Grand Ol' Opry

Day drinkin' and music at Garth Brooks' place.

Only in Nashville, I suppose

One stop for Miss Hockey!

I must also note that seeing "The Outsiders" was also one terrific experience.  The show won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical, during it's original Broadway run, and you can see why.  Set in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1967, it is about kids on both ends of the social spectrum  co-existing, or actually NOT co-existing.  The Greasers and the Soshes in this show could be compared to the Sharks and Jets in "West Side Story", so it is a familiar dramatic theme, but the staging in this one was really a marvel to behold.  The show in based upon the novel of the same name by S.E. Hinton, which, I understand, is the best selling young adult novel of all time.

Both the show and the theater, the Tennessee Center for the Performing Arts get Four Stars from The Grandstander.

Our last full day in Nashville was spent visiting with pal David Cicotello, who motored over from his home in Murfreesboro, TN to spend an afternoon with us.  A splendid time was had by all.

Two final comments on our trip.

One, our room at our hotel did not have a telephone in it.  How's that for a shifting paradigm?

Two, this is the first time we ever took a trip where our transportation was totally dependent on ride-sharing, UBER in our case.  In all we took six rides with UBER: to and from the airport, to and from the soccer game, and to and from downtown Nashville.  Our total costs were $186.73.  I don't believe that we could have rented a car and paid for parking over the four days we were there for less than that.  Also, after visiting downtown Nashville, that is just about the last place that I would want to be driving.

I will close with this toast to Linda and thank her for just about the most wonderful birthday gift ever!

 

To Absent Friends - Diane Keaton

 

Diane Keaton

1946-2025

Sometimes the death of a prominent person, be it an athlete, show biz personality, or politician, makes you just feel really bad, even though you never actually knew the person yourself.  Such is the case with how I've felt ever since I heard the news of the death of Diane Keaton yesterday at the age of 79.

In looking at her filmography on IMDB, I can deduce that my first memory of seeing Diane Keaton would have been in the 1970 comedy movie "Lovers and Other Strangers".  She also became better known for appearing in the Woody Allen comedies "Play It Again, Sam" (1972) and "Sleeper" (1973).  What I didn't realize until I read her obituaries today was that Keaton got her first big break in 1968 when she played Allen's female lead in the Broadway stage production of "Play It Again, Sam". She won a Tony Award for her performance in that play.

At about the same time as when she was making those two comedies, Keaton landed the role of a lifetime when she was tapped to play Kay Adams, Michael Corleone's girlfriend and wife in "The Godfather" in 1972.  This put her over the top as an actress able to play anything and not just comedy roles.  It assured her of screen immortality.  She went on to play the same role in the two Godfather sequels.

There followed six more movies with Allen, including the role for which she will probably be most remembered, Kay Adams Corleone notwithstanding, that of Annie Hall in Allen's 1977 masterpiece of the same name.  "Annie Hall" won the Oscar for Best Picture, Allen for director and screenwriter, and, of course, the Best Actress Oscar for Keaton.

By the time she made her final movie with Allen, "Manhattan Murder Mystery" in 1993, and the "Godfather Part III" in 1990, Keaton was in her forties, a time when Hollywood usually spits out actresses who have attained such an "advanced" age, but Diane Keaton's career took another turn.

It started with such movies as "Baby Boom" (1987) and continued with roles in such movies as the "Father of the Bride" movies with Steve Martin, "Something's Gotta Give" (2003) with Jack Nicholson, and two really terrific holiday movies, "The Family Stone" (2005) and "Love The Coopers" (2015).  There were plenty of other movies, of course.  She has 74 acting credits in IMDB.  She was nominated for Oscars four times, and she has won two Golden Globe Awards.  In the late 1960's, before Broadway and the movies came rolling, she also made TV appearances in Mannix, The F.B.I., Night Gallery, and Love, American Style.  (I also had a memory of her doing a TV commercial for some product in which she wore a track suit, I was able to find in HERE.  It's from 1970.)

It was in this latter period of her career that I really became a fan of Diane Keaton.  She was playing leading roles, age appropriate roles, and I found her to be every bit as charming, attractive, and a terrific actress as she got older as she was in her "Annie Hall" days.

The tributes that have flooded social media in the last twenty-four hours have been incredible.  It seems that she was a genuinely good person, as charming and lovable in real life as she was on screen.

I will miss Diane Keaton, but people like her will always be with us with the legacies that they leave behind.  I probably own at least ten DVD's of movies in which she starred.  Think I'll start with "Play It Again, Sam" and "Annie Hall" and then move on to "The Godfather".  

Some photos to make you remember Diane Keaton.

I mentioned tributes from her contemporaries. This one was posted on Facebook by frequent co-star, Steve Martin.  

Steve Martin 

3h · 

This playbill is from a 1964 college production of Carousel. Diane “Hall” (Keaton) is the lead; I’m a stage hand.

As Annie Hall. Great role that caused a revolution of sorts in women's fashion, The Annie Hall Look.

With Woody Allen

"Lah-dee-dah, lah-de-dah"

Memorable scenes from "The Godfather".

"That's a true story, Kay."

That memorable final scene.

With Jack Nicholson in "Something's Gotta Give".

Fare well, Diane Keaton, and RIP.