Our Man in Vienna

Larry and Orson

We Americans who strive for elegance are invariably cowed by our British lingual non-compatriots.

The most beautiful British voice and delivery belong to Laurence Olivier. He is matched by our Orson.

The most beautiful American voice and delivery belong to Orson Welles. Orson proved that America English can be just as melodic and mellifluous as its British counterpart. Thank you Orson

 

Male Deities and Love Goddesses

A Male Deity or a Love Goddess should die young. We don’t want a Deity or a Goddess to age. When they age the cease to

be Divine. We don’t want them to marry, and God forbid that they should have children who would be anything but Divine! The last thing we want to do is shatter their Divinity by the intrusion of reality. They must cater to our fantasy. They should be worshipped from afar. Male Deities and Love Goddesses cannot be worshipped at close range.

Dying young means being young for all eternity

 

 

 

Dean the Drop-out of Drop-outs

He had the good luck of dying at the age of twenty-four. He personified the drop-out, who was too sensitive and uncompromising to cope with life, but he didn’t have much time to drop out. Life did him the favor of removing him from the scene. That is the most commendable way of being defeated. It is true that he did his part in exiting by recklessly speeding in his sports car.

Dean didn’t have the bad luck of surviving his accident with scars like Monty Clift, who went on to decline and die at the age of forty-five. Fate was even more unkind to Dean’s precursor Brando. His magnificent physique hit the skids along with his fiery rebellious mien.

Yes, Dean was lucky; he didn’t have to do the job himself like Marilyn. He died at the peak of his career with no bald spot or streaks of grey in his hair – and no paunch.

The option for an artist seems to be between longevity and becoming immortal.

Dean’s age for eternity, will always be twenty-four. Dying young is the best way of being done in by life.

 

Looking for the John

Marlon Brando approached Darry Zanuck concerning The Egyptian. But when things were set, Marlon was on the set and asked for the toilet. He may have headed for the john and found it, he kept on walking until the set was far behind him. And he never returned.

He must have sensed that the film would be costume jewelry, which it turned out to be.

Zanuck was steaming and threatened to draw and quarter him, so Marlon relented and starred with Jean Simmons in the equally trite Desirée. His Napoleon was all swagger and fit in well to the mediocre proceedings.

Marlon’s One-Eyed Jacks, which he directed, was an okay western, but it was nothing to rave about.

In Mutiny on the Bounty Marlon directed director Carol Reed, who threw in the towel. Then he directed Lewis Milestone who lasted the film out. The result was in the celluloid pulp-fiction category.

Marlon’s search for the toilet at least saved him once.

 

 

to be continued . . .

– Herbert Kuhner