 Welcome to Cell, the Oored Mirror. I'm your hostess, Betty St. LaVeau. On this show, we talk a bit about film history, film definitions, and then we talk about a couple of movies. Today, at the beginning, I've got a couple of lists for us to have some fun with. One involves a list of directors that I adore, and the other list involves what I call, you see one actor, get the other actor. The B-list actor list versus the A-actor list. So let's start off with our director's list first. This list is extremely personal and I'm not really objective about it. You will probably know some of these directors, and you probably like them maybe also. So let's start off. Federico Fellini, Italian film director who directed the sublime Ladoce Vita and Eight and a Half, Brian De Palma, who did Cary as well as The Fury, and we're gonna check out that movie sometime on the show. John Schlesinger, who directed the movie that we're going to watch today, Day of the Locust, Catherine Bigelow, Point Break, and The Hurt Locker. Ida Lupina, a well-respected actress of the 40s, 50s, and 60s was also an acclaimed director. Ron Howard, our OPI from Andy Griffith Show, Ridley Scott, who did Blade Runner, Tony Scott, his brother, who did Days of Thunder with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, that's the movie they fell in love with, fell in love with each other on. Joel Schumacher, Werner Herzog, who directed Klaus Kinski in several movies, and he made the excellent Aguayr Wrath of God, which I think we have studied on the show. Joseph von Sternberg, who created Marlena Dietrich, or helped to, Akira Kurosawa, who directed the movie Ran, a very famous Japanese director, Rob Reiner, our meathead from all in the family, Douglas Cirque, who did what they called women's pictures in the 50s, one of which is written on the wind that we will watch sometime on the show. Walter Wagner, Marlon Brando, of course, and Roman Polanski, God help me. Okay, so some of these directors, we've seen some of their movies and others we have not, but if you've remembered some of the names or wrote them down, check out their movies. They are fantastic. Okay, so now we're gonna do our B list, get the A list, actor list, and this is one of my favorite lists in the whole world. I usually expand on it. Some of them you might have already heard already, so let's get this started. Robert Redford, get William Atherton, Emma Stone, get Karen Black, David Thulis, get David Warner, Madonna, get Marilyn Monroe, Kelly Washington, get Theresa Wright, Matthew McConaughey, get Paul Newman, Matthew McConaughey, get Steven Boyd. I sort of think that Michael Masden, Sean Penn and Chris Penn, the brothers are all interchangeable. I kind of threw them in there, even though they are like one of a kind, but if you kind of trade it, Michael could do the job, I think that Chris can do. Benedict Cumberbatch, get Donald Sutherland, Benedict Cumberbatch, get Malcolm McDowell, James Franco, get James Dean, Michael Parks, get James Dean, Christopher, pardon me, Leo DiCaprio, get James Dean, get Leo DiCaprio, they're both excellent actors. Chamming Tatum, get Rock Hudson, Dustin Hoffman, get Al Pacino, Emma Stone, get Sharon Stone, and Emma Stone, get Emily Blunt, even though I love Sharon Stone, Emma Stone, the actors who are older than her do really, I think could do the job that she does. Vincent Izzarase, get Vincent Spano, Vincent Spano, get Michael Pear, Michael Pear, get Eric Roberts. I think Eric Roberts is the template for some of these fine actors here. Richard Gallico, get Skeet Ultrich, Luke Perry, get Richard Gallico, Jason Priestley, get Richard Gallico, and Scott Bio, get John Stamos, Chaz Palmentieri, get John Casaventis, and Nick Stahl, please get Devin Sawak, who I think can do a better job. Okay, so you might agree with this list and you might not, but sometimes the B actor list, those actors work hard too, but it's almost as if they couldn't get the A actor, so they sell for the B actor, so I like to have fun with that list. Okay, so today is part four, and it's our last part of City of Angels. It's the last part because I realized not only could I keep on doing the show about movies about LA, made in LA, the list is not only long, but we would also start talking about the history of Los Angeles, which I'd like to do, I'd like to keep this show strictly for a soloid history, not so much where most of our movies in this country come out of. So for our semi-last movie today, it is Nathaniel West's Haunting Day of the Locust, directed by John Schlesinger, a British director who not only did Midnight Cowboy, his first movie was Darling, which garnered Julie Christie back in 1963 or 64, her first Oscar nomination, and she won the Oscar for Best Actress that year. So even though Mr. Schlesinger is an Englishman, his movies, he always knocks them out of the park. And sort of being an outsider himself, as most filmmakers are, his movies center on the outsiders in life. So with Day of the Locust, this book was written by Nathaniel West back, I want to say, in 37, because he died in 1940 at the age of 37. He wrote two major works, Ms. Lonely Hearts, the one we're seeing today, and a couple of Miss Elenia writings. So I was going to reread the book when I was going to discuss the movie, but I decided I just want to reread the book this weekend just for pleasure, okay? The book is a series of vignettes, as is the movie, but the movie vignettes tie each other in very well. So this is the gist of the plot of this beautiful movie is this. It's about the outsiders in LA. And the wonderful player, we saw the film was about the studio, the studio heads and the people who run it. In the Sublime Starsborne, the one with Frederick March and Janet Gaynor, we saw how you're in and then you're out and then you're in again, okay? So it's about the losers and winners. This particular movie deals with the people who are on the outside trying to get in. They'll try to get in no matter what, okay? So Wim Atherton plays a nice innocent Yale boy, and I really love Todd Hackett. He's a great character, a tragic character, but he's a great character. He moves to LA to work as a set designer. And Chris Pinestad is actually in one of the first, second or third scene where the writers are walking in on the studio lot and they're just amazed at where they're working. They're so happy to be there, but they're getting paid for not doing any work. Basically, they're turning in stuff, but no one needs it yet. To quote John Hillerman who plays their boss, it's better than being on relief. So there's Robert Pine, Wim Atherton, a whole bunch of writer guys, and they're trying to break in. The way that Wim Atherton breaks into the system is that Claude used to sit there. Claude is the studio head. He was a Yale man like Wim Atherton's Todd Hackett. And so he gets Claude's ear and then he is put in charge of creating the set for a movie that's set during the Napoleonic era. Okay, he resides our young Yale man at the San Bernardu. At the San Bernardu seems like your ordinary Hollywood inn and it is not. A bigoted dwarf played by the brilliant Billy Barty lives there. Karen Black and her father, played by Burgess Meredith, also live there and they are quite a father and daughter unit. And then in another room lives Jackie Haley who he played at Worsash and Watchman. He's been a child star since way back. He lives with his mother, Geraldine Page, in another room and she's obviously a stage mother and he's a child star. So you have a lot of intertwining stories that are involved with one another in this movie. Donald Sutherland actually has taught billing. He plays a man, believe it or not, called Homer Simpson. Now I know a lot of you are gonna start laughing but I think Matt Groenig probably did read this book. I'm wondering if he got the name from Homer, from Nathaniel West's character there. Everyone's worlds collide. Both Swenson plays this cowboy guy who's sort of in and out of work. Pepe Sarazzo plays a cockfighter friend of his. This movie is a very scary movie. I really wouldn't want anyone. Under the age of 16 to watch it, I think that after one leaves home you can understand a little bit better. The fact that Todd is an Easterner and moves out west, which is not the east, it's a different culture, but then he moves to California which is his own culture and then he moves to Hollywood which is also its own culture is shocking to him. And this isn't so much a corny coming of age story but it's definitely a movie about illusions being towered and torn along the wayside. Now reading about Mr. Nathaniel West, he's a very interesting individual. He was born in New York City. He was born at Daniel Weinstein. He forged his signature or some documents to enter Tufts University. Once he entered Tufts, I don't think he went to a lot of classes but he ended up getting kicked out and then he forged another signature from a relative of his and he entered, I wish I could remember that college, but it was another, it was an Ivy League college. He ended up not getting kicked out there but he dropped out and he started to write and he had a, I think a lonely himself, he himself had a lonely hearts column. He wrote for newspapers and then he got a, I think, and then he got a job writing out in Hollywood. He ended up marrying Eileen McKinney who was the inspiration for the movie My Sister Eileen, the book My Sister Eileen. He and his wife were on their way to go out to their honeymoon out west where they, I think, died the day after their wedding and he was buried and her ashes were cremated with him. Oh, they were actually coming out east to see the premiere of the show on Broadway about her. So in his very short life, this man had a big life. He lived a lot, he was a Scorpio, Libra Scorpio, October 17th he was born and for a lot of Libra Scorpions, they become friends of mine. They all have a biting, ironic wit. Sometimes it's harsh and sometimes it's not but when you read Mr. Nathaniel West's books, you can see that irony coming through. He was so young to be so cynical. Mr. Sessinger directing this movie knocked it out of the part. He hit on the fact that the American dream, which people do visualize and project onto LA, dies a slow death if you just can't get your dream. Okay, if you can't be the star, then you're going to show up to the cemetery and wait for the star's coffin to arrive. If you cannot be the leading actress, you can be the bit player, but then you'll see your lines cut as Karen Black's character Faye Greener did or like her cowboy friend Bo Hopkins there. Sure, he's a cowboy, but once in a while, he has to be the end of the horse on a lot or put a sheet over his head and he'll still get paid the money as being an extra. This movie was an extra stream, as with Cleopatra, I would have loved to have been on the set of Cleopatra as an extra. This is another movie I would have loved to have been on the set on. So let's see if I missed anything here. This movie stars Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, who got a best Oscar nominating, best Oscar nomination, best supporting for a supporting actor. Wim Atheron, Natalie Schaefer, who played Mrs. Howe on Gilgames Island. Geraldine Page, Robert Pine, Jackie Haley. I think that's it. We hit everybody. John Hillerman, who also played, sort of has a British accent in this movie. He played a British guy on Magnum P.I. for years and years, a Tom Sulk show. He was born in Arkansas. Funnily enough, Daniel Davis, who plays the butler on the nanny, was also born in Arkansas and also knocks that British accent out of the park. So I wonder how those Archisonians can get that British accent down. Okay, so I think that this movie, because of the adult content, most movies have adult content, but this movie, most of the scenes have a hint of violence in them, which it's unfortunate. There's not really, in most movies nowadays, you'll see a big bomb explosion, and movies set in the 30s, you rarely see that type of violence, but as a matter of fact, on the set of Todd's movie there, the set caves in because it's not properly propped up yet with the scaffolding, so it's a minor disaster on the set. That's the biggest explosion that happens in this movie, but there are tiny pits and pops of violence along the way. For instance, Bill Hopkins and William Atherton, they're totally into Karen Black. They're always fighting over her, whether the cowboy throws a bottle at Todd really hard or Todd takes off in the car with Faye, there's a sense of violence over this woman. Pepper Sene, who plays Beau Hopkins' friend there, a cockfighter friend, he owns a bunch of fighting cocks. They also fight over Faye, at least twice in the movie, and there's actually a real-life cockfight. This is one of those movies that you can't remake, I think. There are laws against stuff like that now, or else they just would throw in some CGI stuff. So in almost every single scene, someone is arguing with everyone. Even the little person played by Billy Bartley, he has a foul mouth. He's a bigot. The way that he describes women's anatomy, I'm just, are you kidding me, okay? But you could actually do that in the 70s because barriers were being broken and transcended in filmmaking. Now, I'm trying to think. The Hollywood Dream in this movie goes to hell, and I'm semi-regretting that this is the last part of our city of angels, but at the same time, if we look back on all the movies that I've discussed on the show, every LA movie does have a modicum of violence to some extent, and almost every single one has a tinge of melancholia and fright. But this is the one movie where you do not see the happy ending, and a lot of our city of angels movies, there's at least some chance for redemption, especially in the stars born as Janet Gaynor is proudly claiming that she is her husband's wife even though he's dead. There's a tone of glory and redemption. In this particular movie, almost all the characters, if they don't come to a bad end, they come to a realization that their dreams are not going to be made in the city of angels. So for all of us who love the city of angels, myself included, this movie is a cautionary tale, and it is beautifully translated, beautifully done, and please check it out as soon as you can. Okay, I think that that kind of wraps it up for me today. I'm your hostess, Betty St. Leveau. I hope that you've enjoyed our four-parter here. Next week, we'll do at least one movie about LA. I would love to thank my continued support from Gender and Building over the years, quality and concrete, concrete contractors for almost about 45 years now. I'd like to thank my crew here at ORCA, who helped me break down and set up, and I would also love to thank my first film professor. She just celebrated a birthday last week. Sharon Ardella, Warfield, Paris, Oceania Claridge, who helped me eludicate and explain myself concerning my love for the silver screen. Until next time, childs, don't watch any of those bad movies. Ciao.