"Downhill"

While we have seen a number of movies so far in 2020, today we took in our first movie that is an actual 2020 release.  The movie is "Downhill" directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rush and starring Julie Louis-Dreyfuss and Will Ferrell.  With these stars you might expect to be seeing a goofy comedy, but this movie, while it has some moments of humor in it, is no comedy.

Billie and Pete are on an Austrian ski vacation with their two sons.  While dining at an outdoor lodge at the resort, an avalanche occurs.  Billie grabs on to their two sons and prepares for the worst.  Pete grabs his cell phone and runs away.  The moment passes, everyone is okay, physically, but the relationship between Pete and his family is changed dramatically and, perhaps, irrevocably.  While the mountain scenery is fairly spectacular, watching how this all plays out is the stuff of a serious stage play.

It is odd to see actors like Louis-Dreyfuss and Ferrell depart from their well established personas and take on roles like this, and they both pull it off.  Louis-Dreyfus is especially good in her role.  Actors sometime get typecast, Ferrell, especially, but it's enjoyable to see them stretch themselves out in roles such as these and carry them off.

Like a lot of movies that get released in January and February, this one will probably be pretty much forgotten as the year rolls along.  Today was the last day that it will be at our local multiplex, and it will probably now be difficult to find until it gets released to the streaming services and DVD shelves.  Too bad.

Both Marilyn and I liked it, and The Grandstander gives it Two and One-Half Stars.

"Girl Can't Help It" by Max Allan Collins

Back in the early 1980's, the rock band Hot Rod & The Pistons, out of Galena, Illinois, were the hottest things on the the western Illinois/eastern Iowa rock and roll circuit, and they even became a one hit wonder nationally with a cover version of "The Girl Can't Help It", which was the title song from a 1956 movie that starred Jayne Mansfield. As it usually happens, the band broke up, one member passed away, and for the most part, the guys got on with their lives.  However, it is now 2020, and Hot Rod & The Pistons are about to be inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and, yes, there really is such an institution.  Their induction into the Hall is marred when one of the members dies suddenly of an apparent heart attack, and a few months later, just as a reconstituted version of the The Pistons is about to embark on a summer reunion tour, another member commits suicide.

This is the premise for "Girl Can't Help It", the second in a new series by one of my favorite mystery/thriller/detective authors, Max Allan Collins, that features Krista Larson, the 29 year old Chief of Police of Galena, Illinois, the "youngest female police chief in the United States."  The reader, of course, knows that the former bandmates were actually murdered.  The motive for the killings is known early on, but the identity of  the murderer is not, and that makes for nifty little whodunit for Krista - and the reader - to solve.

Author Collins, 72, is a native of Iowa and has played in rock bands for most of his life.  He actually IS a member of the Iowa Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!  As such, he brings to this novel a bunch of delightful kitschy pop cultural references to the American rock & roll scene from the 1950's through the 1980's, when The Pistons were the darling of the Iowa rock scene.  He also wonderfully evokes the tourist town of Galena.  I have never been there, of course, but I have been in many other similar places in my life, and I can perfectly  picture the restaurants, parks, bars, and touristy junk stores of the town that he describes.

To assist her in solving the crime, if indeed there really has been a crime committed, Krista enlists the aide of her father, Keith, a widowed and retired police detective.  As we learned in the first novel of the series, Krista lives in and now owns the house in which she grew up, but she has invited her father to move back in with her when she worried that he was experiencing depression over the recent death of his wife and her mother.  As was the case in the first book, Keith, who had some ties to Hot Rod & The Pistons back in the day,  is  enlisted by Krista on  pro bono basis to help her and the Galena PD get to the bottom of things.

It is apparent that while Collins calls these books "Krista Larson Mysteries", it is really going to be a "Krista and Keith" series of books.  Personally, I would like to see more of Krista and less of Keith, but this won't stop me from reading future novels in the series.  And as a humorous sidebar, Collins touches upon the somewhat delicate issues of how a daughter, who is just getting involved in a romantic relationship, has to deal with her widowed Dad who is now dipping his toes into the dating/relationship waters once again himself.  With both of them living in the same house, no less!

Like I said earlier, the murderer is not revealed as the crimes are committed, but it is apparent that it is someone that everyone, not only in the band, but in Galena, too, knows.  I figured it out about about halfway through the book, but that doesn't lessen the fun of reading how Krista and Keith resolve the matter.  Also, while I figured out the WHO, I had no clue as to what the eventual denouement would be, and it was both surprising and satisfying.  All I will say is that the lesson of how sins of the past can come back to haunt you is the very effective moral of "Girl Can't Help It."

I give it Three Stars on The Grandstander's reliable Four Star scale.  I will anxiously await the next Krista Larson adventure, as I also await the release, later this Spring, of Collins' "Do No Harm", a new Nate Heller mystery wherein relentless Private Eye Heller tackles the Sam Sheppard case.

And if this post piques your interest in the previous Krista Larson story, "Girl Most Likely", I will refer you to this:

http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2019/04/girl-most-likely-by-max-allen-collins.html

The Kirbys, Father and Son

Okay, this is going to be one of those esoteric and weird posts that will probably be of no interest to anyone but me, but here goes.....

I was on a kick last week of watching old episodes of "Columbo."  Watched all six episodes of Season Four, which ran in the 1974-75 television year.  I always enjoyed "Columbo", and it was fun watching people like Robert Conrad, Robert Vaughn, and George Hamilton overact and smugly look down upon the rumpled Lt. Columbo, right up until Peter Falk slaps the handcuffs on them.  Also, nothing like those mid-seventies fashions - tight bell bottom slacks and rayon shirts with fly-away collars, not to mention big hair on the ladies - to give you a laugh or two.

Bruno Kirby

"B. Kirby Jr."

1949-2006

Anyway, an episode called "By Dawn's Early Light" featured a very young Bruno Kirby as a teenaged military cadet.  You remember him, right?  He portrayed young Peter Clemenza in "Godfather - Part II" in 1975, when he was billed as "B. Kirby Jr.", as he was in this particular Columbo episode.  He appeared in a couple of Billy Crystal's 1980's comedies, "City Slickers" and "When Harry Met Sally" when he was billed as "Bruno Kirby." At other points in his career, he was sometimes billed as "Bruno Kirby Jr."  From 1971 through 2006 he amassed 69 credits on television and in the movies. He was a most familiar face in those years, right up until his death from leukemia in 2006 at the way too young age of 57.  So it was no surprise when he jumped right off the screen in this bit part in the Columbo episode.  (In fact, seeing actors in bit parts in shows like this who later went on to big things is one of the fun parts of watching them.)

Also appearing in "By Dawn's Early Light" as Sgt. George Kramer, one of the plainclothes cops tailing after Lt. Columbo, was actor Bruce Kirby.

Bruce Kirby

1928 - ____

Bruce Kirby was and is - he's still with us and will turn 92 in 2020 - one of those character actors that you have seen a million times on television and in movies over the years.  IMDB lists 143 acting credits for him stretching from 1955 through 2006.  They included regular supporting roles on shows such as Car 54, Where Are You?, Kojak, and L.A. Law.  He appeared in nine separate episodes of Columbo.  Look him up in IMDB, and you will see the names of dozens of television shows, some long forgotten, some memorable, in which he appeared.

Well, it turns out that he is the father of Bruno Kirby, the "Senior" to Bruno's "Junior."  He was born in 1928 as Bruno Quidaciolu, and became "Bruce Kirby" when he went into the acting biz.  Fun Fact: In Rob Reiner's 1986 movie "Stand By Me", he played a character named "Mr. Quidaciolu."  In one of the Columbo episodes that I watched, his Sgt. Kramer had a fairly large speaking part, and if you might not have seen a physical resemblance between father and son, you could definitely hear a vocal and speech pattern in Bruce's voice that were definitely passed on to his son, Bruno.

Like I said, this is just one of those things that I find interesting and intriguing.

To Absent Friends - Dan Radakovich

Dan Radakovich

1935-2020

"Bad Rad"

The death of someone so closely associated with the Super Bowl Steelers of the 1970's is always worth noting, so today we bid a melancholy happy trails to Dan Radakovich, a defensive and offensive line coach with Chuck Noll's Steelers for the first two of those four Super Bowl triumphs.  Radakovich died yesterday at the age of 84.

"Bad Rad" was also an integral part of the establishment of the football program at Robert Morris University, serving as Joe Walton's defensive guru for the initial years of that program.  He is a member of the RMU Sports Hall of Fame.

No one defines the definition of a football coaching "lifer" than did Radakovich.  In addition to his time with the Steelers and Robert Morris, his career included coaching stints at Penn State (where he played), the University of Cincinnati, Colorado, North Carolina State, and in the NFL with the 49'ers, Rams, Broncos, Vikings, Jets, and Browns, as well as stint with the London Monarchs in the World League of American Football.  

RIP Dan "Bad Rad" Radakovich.

To Absent Friends - Robert Conrad

Robert Conrad

1935-2020

The Departure Lounge has been filling up so rapidly of late that I am having a difficult time keeping up with those notables who are leaving us.

Today we note the passing last week of actor Robert Conrad at the age of 84.  Conrad racked up 80 acting credits in his career, mostly in television. His last credit came in 2002 in some forgettable movie called "Dead Above Ground."  He starred in a number of television series of consequence such as "77 Sunset Strip", "Hawaiian Eye", and "Ba Ba Black Sheep", but he is most notable, to me anyway, for the role of James West in a very good television show called "The Wild Wild West."

In the show, which ran for 104 episodes from 1965-69,  Jim West was a James Bond-type US government agent who fought off all sorts of weird and mysterious villains in the 1880's using all sorts of high-tech, for the late 19th century, gadgets and gewgaws, assisted by his sidekick and master of disguises, Atremus Gordon, played with hammy gusto by Ross Martin.  It was a fun show, and one thing was almost always certain: there would be at least one scene within each show where ultimate tough guy West/Conrad would be shown without his shirt on.  I think this usually happened in everything that Conrad did.

After the acting gigs dried up for him, Conrad cashed in on his tough guy persona by doing all those "I dare you to knock this off" Eveready battery commercials. 

IMDB also notes that in 1974, Conrad appeared in an episode of "Columbo" titled An Exercise in Fatality.  At some point today, I am going to check through some of my Columbo DVD box sets to see if I have that one.  If I do, I plan on watching it today.  I'm betting that Conrad and his chiseled torso will appear shirtless at least once in the episode.

RIP Robert Conrad.

To Absent Friends - Roger Kahn, Orson Bean

Roger Kahn

1927 -2020

The passing of Roger Kahn at the age of 92 needs to be noted for the simple reason that he wrote what is generally acknowledged as the single greatest sports book of all time:

Kahn was a long time New York sports writer who as a very young man had the good fortune of being assigned to the Brooklyn Dodgers beat by his paper, the New York Herald Tribune in the first half of the decade of the 1950's, and thus was exposed to one of the most storied teams ever, those Dodgers of Robinson, Reese, Campanella, Hodges, Snider, Furillo, Erskine, and so on and so forth.  "The Boys of Summer", published in 1972,  was part the story of Kahn's own youth growing up in New York in the 1930's and 1940's, part the story of actually covering this team, and here is the best part, the story of Kahn revisiting these storied heroes in the late '60s and early '70s to see what they were currently doing as older men.  (Actually, at the time, I recall that publicity for the book talked about Kahn revisiting them as "old men", but since they were actually guys who were then in their forties, I prefer to use the term "older" men.)

Anyway, it was remarkable book that was about a lot more than baseball.  It was about fathers and sons, about prejudice and courage (the story of Jackie Robinson is, as it should be, at the heart of the book), and about how life treats all of us, sometimes not in the kindest of manners.  It has become the book to which all other sports books are compared.  For example, a great book about the 1970's Steelers, "Their Life's Work" by Gary Pomerantz from a few years ago was called in reviews "the 'Boys of Summer' of football."  Every baseball fan should read it, but so should everyone.  It is that great a book.

Kahn continued to write, and most of it is good stuff, but nothing ever compared to his masterwork, "The Boys of Summer."

Actor and raconteur Orson Bean was killed in a pedestrian accident in Los Angeles over the weekend at the age of 91.  He had a long and varied career as an actor. I last remember seeing him appear in an episode of Modern Family a few years ago.  He was an interesting guy who "dropped out" of the mainstream in his late forties or early fifties and lived a peripatetic hippie lifestyle with his family for a few years.  I most remember him for his appearances on New York based game shows and as a guest on talk shows such as the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the Merv Griffin Show.  He was always smart and amusing, and he always made it a point to tell a single stand alone joke with each appearance.  I remember one in particular, and I will tell it to you here as a tribute to Mr. Bean.

A guy brings his female parrot to a pet shop in order to have her bred with a male parrot that was housed there.  After some back-and-forth negotiations, they agree on a stud fee of $100.  They then put the female into the cage with the male and cover the cage with a towel to allow them some privacy.  Shortly thereafter, an unbelievable amount of squawking and squealing is heard and the cage starts to shake alarmingly.  The shop owner pulls the towel off of the cage only to see that the male parrot has the female pinned to the floor of the cage with one claw while he's pulling her feathers out with the other claw and yelling "For a hundred bucks I want you naked!!"

Now THAT'S a joke.

RIP Roger Kahn and Orson Bean.

"Parasite" and Other Oscars Thoughts

The surprising, or maybe not-so-surprising, sweep by the South Korean film "Parasite" at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night (in case you missed it, "Parasite" won four Oscars: Best Picture, Best International Film, and Bong Joon Ho won for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay) prompted me to finally get around to watching the movie last night.  My pal Dan Houston said that this was a movie that, more than almost any other movie he saw, stayed with him and made him think for a long time after he saw it, and I agree.  It hasn't been a full twenty-four hours since I saw it, and I most certainly am still thinking about it, and it will stay with me for some time, I'm sure.

Friend and neighbor Barbara asked me on Facebook last night "What is it about?"   A question with a lot of answers. It's about a family of con artists. It's about class distinctions in South Korean society, and the vast differences between the rich and the poor, distinctions that certainly exist in these United States as well.  It's about  desperation and longing for a better life.  It's about the cluelessness of the upper classes to the society around them.

It's about all of those things and it is told in a very interesting manner.  In the beginning, it's almost a comedy as we see a family of con artists worm their way into the household and take advantage of a wealthy family.  There are laughs to be had there, no doubt about it.  Soon however, things take a dark turn, and then an even darker turn after that.  Call it a Tarantino-esque turn of events.  Director Bong Joon Ho definitely pays an homage to Quentin Tarantino, whether intentionally or not, I don't know, as "Parasite" winds to a startling conclusion.

I don't want to give away anything else, but I will tell you that this is a movie worth seeing.  And don't let the subtitles scare you away.  Within the first five minutes, you won't even think about the fact that you are reading them. 

Do I think it was the Best Movie of the year?  No, my vote still goes to "Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood", but I am not going to say that "Parasite" was an undeserving winner, either.

Three and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

*********

Some other thoughts on the Oscars......

• The Academy spread the honors around.  In spite of "Parasite" winning the four big awards other movies got their beaks wet as well.  "1917" won three, "Once Upon A Time ..In Hollywood", "Joker", and "Ford v Ferrari" won two each, and "Little Women" and "Jojo Rabbit" took home one each, so that was nice.  The fact that "Parasite" beat out an All-Star Ballot of other really, really good movies for Best Picture is yet another tribute to it

• As always seems to happen, one heavily hyped movie gets shut out on Oscar night.  This year it was "The Irishman."  Ten nominations, Zero wins.  One has to wonder if this was about the film's artistic merits relative to the competition, or was some anti-Netfilx backlash involved in these outcomes?
• The Oscars remain an important event, and it is the one awards show that I will always watch, but I have to admit that as a television show...Meh.  Every year the Producers of the show promise that this year  it will be better, different, and more entertaining, but for the most part, it never is.
• I'm glad that it opened with that Steve Martin/Chris Rock monologue.  That was funny.  After that, I didn't miss the absence of a nominal "Host" for the show with one exception.  As I get older, more of the actors and performers on the show are unrecognizable to me.  Could a voice over announcer telling us who is coming out there, or maybe puting the names on screen as they come out be too much to ask?
• Speaking of performers, what was with the Eminem bit?  I read that when Marshall Mathers and his movie "8 Mile" won Oscars in 2003 for Best Music and Best Original Song, he was a no show at the ceremony.  So why the make-up do-over now, in 2020? His performance of "Lose Yourself" on Sunday was certainly dynamic, and the audience, except for Martin Scorsese, seemed to love it.  (The shot of the stone-faced Scorsese during this was one of the high points of the telecast!)  I liked it, but, again, why was it presented on this year's telecast?
• Tom Hanks was called upon to read a bit about the Motion Picture Academy's new museum that will open to the public later this year.  Did you notice how he ended his talk?  As he was walking away from the mic, he said "I am Spartacus."  Leave it to Tom Hanks to make an absolutely perfect tribute to Kirk Douglas, who died a few days before the ceremony.
• As for notable presenters, the only ones that stick out two days after the fact, were the bit that Maya Rudolph and Kristin Wiig did and James Cordon and Rebel Wilson 's self-deprecating one in their "Cats" costumes.
• To be sure, it was fun seeing Elton John perform, but I continue to maintain that the telecast would be improved if they didn't bother performing all five of the nominated Original Song nominees.

• Bung Jong Ho was called to the stage four times to accept the various awards that he and his film won.  As he spoke through his  interpreter, he came across to me, anyway, as an engaging and very sincere  guy, so, good for him and his successes.
• As for prediction, I went 4-4 on Sunday.  I missed on Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and Adapted Screenplay.  I hit on all of the Acting awards, but none of them - none! - were a surprise.  All went according to chalk, which certainly contributes to a less than exciting telecast.  As always, I present  a tribute to the four acting winners....

Brad Pitt, Laura Dern, Joaquin Phoenix, Renee Zellweger

As they say in the movie biz, that's a wrap until next year.

"Miss Saigon"

Show Number Four of the 2019-20 "Broadway in Pittsburgh" series arrived this week, and last night we attended "Miss Saigon."  This show debuted in London in 1989 and on Broadway in 1991.  It has been revived in recent years and is touring nationally once again.

Based on the Pucini opera "Madame Butterfly", it tells the story of life in a Vietnamese brothel, run by an incredibly sleazy character known as The Engineer, in 1975, just before the fall of Saigon that ended the war in Viet Nam.  An American Marine, Chris, visits the establishment one night and falls in love with a seventeen year old orphan girl, Kim,  just recruited off of the streets by The Engineer.  

Saigon falls, the Americans evacuate by helicopter, which is depicted by a simply breathtaking bit of stagecraft, and, alas, Kim is unable to gain access to the American embassy and leave with Chris.  

Flash forward three years to a reunified Viet Nam, Chris is back in America and happily married, although he still has nightmares about his time in Viet Nam, The Engineer has seemingly been "re-educated" by his Vietnamese captors, and Kim is working as a bar girl in Bangkok, and, oh, yes, she has a three year old son by Chris.

I have really oversimplified the plot line here, but let me assure you that seeing this show was an incredibly powerful experience.  A large and incredibly talented cast (as they always are in the Broadway Series) and very moving and emotional songs and performances.   This is one that will stay with you for awhile after seeing it.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

I know that when this show first toured, we saw it in Pittsburgh.  This would have been in 1992 or 1993.  However, in spite of how I just said that it was show that "will stay with you", my only memory of seeing it back than was the scene with the helicopter.  As I watched this show unfold last night, I had absolutely no memory of its storyline.  Funny how that is.  Perhaps an almost thirty years younger Grandstander just wasn't emotionally equipped to handle a tale as complex as "Miss Saigon" back then.  Maybe I've grown up a bit over the years.

Four shows into this season, here are my rankings of the shows thus far:

1. A Bronx Tale
2. Miss Saigon
3. Jesus Christ Superstar
4. Mean Girls 

It's Oscar Time!!

I needn't tell you that this coming Sunday night is that annual night when Hollywood congratulates and pats itself on the back - Academy Awards Night.  For all the self-congratulatory b.s. that takes place on that night, it is still the "Granddaddy of All Awards Shows", and it is the one such show that I will watch from beginning to end.

As I have done in past years, I will offer you my predictions for the winners in eight categories. The number in the parenthesis is the number of the nominees in the category that I have actually seen.  Actually, all of the various awards shows leading up to the Oscars (Golden Globes, SAG, PGA, DGA) serve as indicators of how the Academy will vote.  It makes predicting these rather simple (sometimes), and it often leads to a dull and predictable Oscar show, but what the hell. You never know when a Jack Palance will do one armed push-ups on stage, or whether or not Warren Beatty will open the wrong envelope, so you gotta watch anyway.

Here goes....

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (2) - I'm calling this for Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, as this will be a way to honor him if they don't award him the Director Oscar (as has happened to him twice in the past).  Dark horses in this one: Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns for 1917 and Rain Johnson for Knives Out.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY (4) - Greta Gerwig for Little Women.  A way to make up for snubbing her for a Best Director nomination.

DIRECTOR (4) - I think this comes down to either Tarantino or Sam Mendes for 1917.  Mendes has won all the significant awards leading up to this point, but I think that Hollywood will honor a movie that is, essentially, about Hollywood itself and give one of their favorites his first Oscar in this category, so I'm calling this one for Quentin Tarantino.

SUPPORTING ACTOR (5) - In a category that is loaded with Oscar winners (Hanks, Hopkins, Pacino, and Pesci), Brad Pitt, who has won as a Producer, gets his first Acting Oscar for Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS (1) - Thus is the category that I am least qualified to judge, so I am only going by what the previous awards' tea leaves spell out: Laura Dern wins for Marriage Story.

ACTOR (3) - This one seems to be a slam dunk for Joaquin Phoenix for Joker.  He played a loathsome character in a loathsome movie (at least to me), but he played it extremely well, so his victory seems inexorable.

ACTRESS (2) - I have to say that I would love to see my favorite young actress Saoirse Ronan win for Little Women, but I cannot deny that Renee Zellweger's portrayal of Judy Garland in Judy is fully deserving of the Oscar that she will win on Sunday night.

PICTURE (6 of the nine nominees) - The movie Joker received the most overall nominations this year with eleven, and I have to say that I just can't see it.  I found it to be an ugly and grim movie, but, as my pal Bill Montrose used to say, what the hell do I know?  My Number One and Two favorite movies of the year were Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood and Little Women, and I would be delighted if either of those movies took home the Best Picture Award.  However, every indicator seems to say that 1917 will take home the grand prize this year, so that is my prediction as well.  It's not my choice, but it will not be an undeserving winner, either.

So there you go.  As always, watch, but don't bet.

Oh, and I have also done in event years, let me stir up some memories by looking back at past Oscar winners in ten year intervals (Best Picture, Actor, Actress)

2009

The Hurt Locker

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

1999

American Beauty

Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

Hillary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

1989

Driving Miss Daisy

Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot

Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy

1979

Kramer vs. Kramer

Dustin Hoffman, Kramer v. Kramer

Sally Field, Norma Rae

1969

Midnight Cowboy

John Wayne, True Grit

Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brody

1959

Ben-Hur

Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur

Simone Signoret, Room At The Top

1949

All the King's Men

Broderick Crawford, All The King's Men

Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress

1939

Gone With the Wind

Robert Donat, Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Vivian Leigh, Gone With the Wind

1929

The Broadway Melody

Warner Baxter, The Cisco Kid

Mary Pickford, Coquette

To Absent Friends - Kirk Douglas

Actor Kirk Douglas died yesterday at the age of 103, and if anyone can be said to have had a good run, it was Kirk Douglas.  As the Associated Press obituary put it, his life spanned almost the entire history of the motion picture business.  His profile in IMDB lists 95 acting credits for Douglas, the first one dating back to 1946.  He was a three time Academy Award nominee, but never a winner, although he was given a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1996.

I will only cite two of my favorite of Douglas' movies for this piece. 

In Billy Wilder's 1951 "Ace in the Hole", Douglas played a reporter for a second rate newspaper who created what we would today call a "media circus" with tragic results when a man was trapped in a mine in a small backwater western town.  Many film historians cite Douglas' role in this movie as a classic case of when the Oscars "got it wrong" by not even nominating Douglas for this great performance.

In "Seven Days in May" (1964; directed by John Frankenheimer), Douglas played a high ranking military officer who became aware of a military coup to overthrow the President that was being plotted by megalomaniac Army General Burt Lancaster.  Douglas was torn between loyalty to his friend, or loyalty to the US Constitution.  He was terrific in this one, as were Lancaster and Frederic March.

There are dozens of other great movies that comprise the legacy of Kirk Douglas - "Spartacus", "Gunfight at the OK Corral", "Lust for Life", and "Paths of Glory" to name only a few.  However, one of Douglas greatest achievements was his willingness to stand up to the demagoguery that was McCarthyism and the shameful "Hollywood Black List" that it produced when he brought writer Dalton Trumbo out of the shadows of the blacklist, enlisted him to write the screenplay for "Spartacus" and gave Trumbo full on-screen credit for his work on that movie.  Not an easy thing for a then young actor to have done in that day, and Douglas deserves credit for doing that, as much as for any performance he ever gave.

RIP Kirk Douglas.

Now THIS is what a Movie Star

should look like!

Chiefs Win!

When the Chiefs took possession of the ball deep in their own territory with about eight minutes remaining in the game and trailing San Francisco 20-10, Joe Buck made the comment "Well, the Chiefs have the 49'ers right where they want them", referring to how the Chiefs had come back from double digit deficits in their prior two playoff wins.  It was a throwaway line for a cheap chuckle, but it seems that everybody's favorite play-by-play guy Buck was rather prescient, as the Chiefs proceeded to score a TD, force a three and out by San Francisco, score another TD, force the Niners to turn it over on downs, and then score another TD.  Presto change, a 10-20 deficit was now a 31-20 lead for Kansas City.  All in the space of about five or six minutes of game time.  It was pretty amazing as you watched it unfold.

In case you missed it, my Grandstander prediction post on Saturday ended with these words: 

"Oh, yeah, the Chiefs to win it in a high scoring affair.  An MVP for Mahomes, and good Guy Andy Reid finally gets a win in the Big One."

I believe I had that!

Some other quick comments.....

Mahomes was not as sharp and spectacular as we have become used to seeing.  He was off target early, and he did throw two interceptions, but then there were those final eight minutes.  It reminded me of John Facenda's line about the Steelers in the Super Bowl IV highlight film.  Allow me to paraphrase.....(imagine Facenda's Voice-of-God tones with NFL Films music playing in background) "Patrick Mahomes wasn't always great.  He was only great when he had to be."

Commercials.  To be honest, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention.  I liked the "Pahk the Cah" commercial for some self-parking car.  I didn't realize until I read in the paper this morning that Molly Ringwald was in the avocado commercial (need to look that one up).  It seems that MC Hammer is going to finance his entire retirement by playing the washed-up, forgotten, 15-minutes-of-fame guy in Super Bowl commercials; nice work if you can get it.

After watching Shakira bumping-and-grinding and J-Lo pole dancing, I made the following comment on Facebook:  "Next year the NFL should just hire fifty or so people from the porn film industry and let them have at it on the stage for the half-time show."  Four seconds of Janet Jackson's exposed bosom seems so long ago...and so innocent!

The Chiefs not only won the game, but they easily covered the 1.5 point spread, which gave me a winning ticket.  In football wager that I made at the Rivers Casino this football season, I finished with a record of 27-18, a winning percentage .600.  If only those wagers were for $500 or $1,000 each, instead of my usual five or ten bucks (twenty on the Super Bowl!), I'd be leaving for Hawaii tomorrow morning.  It was a fun experience making these legalized wagers throughout the season.  It certainly added to my interest in many of the games, even with my penny ante wagers.  I'll look forward to doing it again come next season, although I am under no illusions that I will be able to duplicate such successes come 2020.

Despite the travails of the Steelers this year, I cannot recall enjoying a football season quite as much as I enjoyed this one.  I will miss it now that it is over.  True, the XFL opens up this coming weekend, and I suppose that I will give it a shot, but, C'MON, MAN, I have no high expectations for that.

I will end this post as I usually end my Super Bowl wrap-up posts.....Pirates pitchers and catchers report in nine days!!

To Absent Friends - Bob Shane

Bob Shane

1934 - 2020

The Original Kingston Trio

Nick Guard, Shane, Nick Reynolds

(Guard died in 1991, Reynolds in 2008)

When my friend Dan told me about the passing of Bob Shane, 85, the last surviving member of the original Kingston Trio, he asked if this would deserve an Absent Friends post.  I was ambivalent at first, but I feel the need to do so after reading the lengthy obituary for Shane that appeared in the New York Times.  Have I even mentioned that the news obituaries in papers like the times and the Washington Post are often the most interesting reading in the papers?

Shane, along with Nick Reynolds and Nick Guard formed the original Kingston Trio in 1957 and for a period of about six or seven years, they were about as big as anybody in the world of popular music.  They had fourteen albums appear in Billboard Magazine's Top Ten, and five of them reached Number One status.

Record executives categorized them as "folk singers" although the Trio's breezy style was looked down upon but folk "purists" such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.  On the other hand, it can be said that the popularity of the Kingston Trio opened the doors and pave d the way for 1960's folk singers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.  Shane always thought that the Trio was more than just folk, anyway, and wasn't all that comfortable with being pigeonholed as pure "folk singers."

Nevertheless, they rode their successes, and like many American pop music acts, the British Invasion led by The Beatles and other groups steamrolled over them, and the original Trio was pretty much out of business by 1967.

Here's a Fun Fact That I Did Not Know:  In 1961, a song writer named Ervin Drake wrote a song for the Trio called "It Was A Very Good Year", and the Trio, with Shane as lead vocalist, sang the song as a part of their act for many years, long before a guy named Sinatra had a big hit record when he recorded the same song.

Shane, who some called the "sex symbol" of the Trio, continued to perform, and he and various iterations of the Kingston Trio were always popping up here and there.  Shane took great pride when he said that he had probably performed live before over ten million people over the course of his long career.  As well he should have.

RIP Bob Shane.

For your listening pleasure, here's Shane performing one of my favorite Kingston Trio songs, "Scotch and Soda"...