I wish I could get a clip from the movie The Last Hurrah in which the James Curley style Mayor of Boston blackmails the Boston Brahmin WASP banker into supporting housing for the poor by getting his idiot yachtsman son all excited about being honorary fire chief, taking a blackmail photo of him looking ridiculous in a fire helmet. We're a long way past that sense of dignity and decorum in our ruling class. Now we've got sonny boy grown to senectitude as president, few members of the traditional Republican ruling class holding out for the dignity and seriousness of the office. And it was TV that created him and talk-radio, his idiot side-kick. And there's Trump jr and Kushner as the next generation.
Update: I did, finally track down this still from the movie, O. Z. Whitehead playing the Trump role, from back when the rich kept their idiot sons as far from the public eye as possible instead of in the presidency. Spencer Tracy as the wiley Mayor Skeffington.
Update: I did, finally track down this still from the movie, O. Z. Whitehead playing the Trump role, from back when the rich kept their idiot sons as far from the public eye as possible instead of in the presidency. Spencer Tracy as the wiley Mayor Skeffington.
Says the guy who wrote about how Spencer Tracy was a shit actor.
ReplyDeleteThat was a pretty crappy movie, just that that scene managed to anticipate a Trump, only not one as president. The still is kind of a spooky anticipation of Trump in the fire truck with Pence standing next to him. Only Pence is no Mayor Skeffington.
DeleteI'm surprised you didn't know it was a John Ford movie. I did put it in to give you a chance to say something stupid.
Now, try really hard to say something stupid and maybe I'll give you a fire helmet and horn to blow, too, jr.
Oh, and Spencer Tracey was a crappy actor. If he ever had any talent, he pissed and drank it away in Hollywood.
DeleteIt must have been interesting for Katharine Hepburn to see those scenes, the lover of her youth with the lover of her later middle age, together. I wonder if that's why Ford put Whitehead in the role, though he was one of Ford's stable of actors Whitehead sensibly distanced himself from Hollywood when he realized it was a dead end.
Whitehead was a lot better looking than Tracy, but ol' Kate had massive daddy issues.
Delete