Thursday Thirteen #394

 My Letterboxd list. Letterboxd is the online database that helps me keep track of my movie viewing. It's like Goodreads, but for movies. My 2024 stats have been compiled, and here they are.

1. Barbara Stanwyck is the actor/actress I spent the most time with in 2024. I saw 7 of her films. Three were with my movie group. She's the fave of our moderator, Will.

2. Elizabeth Taylor was second with six films. When I was a kid, I thought she was a gaudy, silly woman. Always on magazine covers, wearing big rocks and loud caftans and battling with Burton. In recent years I've come to admire her as an actress. This year I saw two of the six on the big screen -- National Velvet at the TCM Film Festival and Suddenly, Last Summer at Chicago's Music Box.

3. I saw five Jimmy Stewart films. Really the number is higher. I logged It's a Wonderful Life once but I saw at least parts of it three or four times over the holidays. On the other end of the spectrum is Rope. It's a very twisty Hitchcock movie loosely based on Leopold and Loeb. Shocking company to find George Bailey in!

4. Next up is Sinatra. His movie career was in three distinct parts. He got his start in formulaic MGM musicals and while he was a surprisingly good dancer, the movies were lightweight at best. Then he won an Oscar for a dramatic role in From Here to Eternity and it ushered in a decade of very good performances. Finally he became the leader of The Rat Pack and made a handful of yucky films with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. This year I saw four of his best movies, made during that "sweet spot" period, and enjoyed them all thoroughly.

5. Gloria Grahame is a new discovery for me. You may know her as Violet, the blonde bad girl of Bedford Falls, in It's a Wonderful Life. This year I saw her in four movies, two which were new to me. She's a very sympathetic presence even though her movies are rather dark.

6. I saw four Robert Redford movies. Ah, Bob. Loved him since high school. I am glad that TCM is giving him props as an actor. Like Liz Taylor, I think his physical beauty distracted critics from his performances in real time.

7. Alfred Hitchcock is the director whose work I saw the most. I especially enjoyed seeing him remake one of his own films. He first did The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934 and then revisited it twenty years later. I was fascinated to see what he changed, and what he kept.

8. I saw five Frank Capra movies. He's much beloved for It's a Wonderful Life and Meet John Doe. Frankly sentimental, ultimately optimistic films about America. I saw some his earlier and lesser known pictures this past year and I'm sorry to say his oeuvre is not completely top drawer. I'm not throwing shade. No one's work is always 100% successful. I was just surprised by how barely memorable some of them were.

9. The cinematographer whose work I saw most was Joseph Walker. We film nerds keep track of everything! Mr. Walker a very long career, beginning as an electrician in silents and was considered a trailblazer in talkies.

10. I rewatched Jailhouse Rock three times. Once on the big screen at the TCM Film Festival. I maintain that Elvis in the old cellblock dancing to the "Jailhouse Rock" is as iconic an image as Julie Andrews spinning around at the beginning of Sound of Music.

11. I rewatched Laura twice. Once with my movie group. I enjoy Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker so very much.

12. I rewatched the 1949 version of Little Women twice. I know film buffs will say this is the weakest version of the Louisa Mae Alcott classic and I understand that. It's just that it's the first version I ever saw and so I have a very warm spot in my heart for it.

13. The 2024 movie that I liked the best was The Fall Guy. Yeah, it was a silly action flick. But Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt have such tremendous chemistry!

Please join us for THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.

 

An appreciation of imperfection

Like most Americans, I've been thinking a lot about Jimmy Carter. He was my first Presidential vote, and it was a privilege. He was a serious, patriotic and deeply religious man. He lived that old Methodist maxim: Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, all the times you can, for all the people you can, as long as you can.

He built homes, swinging the hammer himself, for Habitat for Humanity. He helped eliminate Guinea worm disease. He was born 100 years ago, but remained so relevant he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize early in 2002. He never shied away from speaking his mind. While he made himself available to every subsequent President -- including Trump -- they each felt the sting of his criticism. That didn't stop him from standing with Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in condemning Trump's January 6 "Day of Love", calling it "a national tragedy."

Jimmy Carter was so inherently good and decent that his example could be intimidating. That's why I don't view what I am about to say here as a criticism.

He could be remarkably petty. Jimmy Carter couldn't stand Ted Kennedy. It was, on the President's side, immediate and personal. Like every President from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, Carter initially grappled with how to "handle" the senior Senator from MA. But where the others found a way forward, even forging a legislative relationship with him, Carter did not. Would not. Could not. 

He insisted Ted Kennedy's opposition to him was personal. It was not. Kennedy thought Carter was both legislatively naive and too moderate, squandering an opportunity to move America to the left after Nixon and Watergate. Kennedy wasn't wrong about that, and it was a political -- not personal -- assessment.

Jimmy Carter just didn't like Ted Kennedy. He thought his achievements -- especially in the environment and education -- were dismissed by Kennedy, and it hurt. That's fair. He was resentful that Kennedy gave him no credit for breaking the mold of "Southern governor" set by George Wallace and Huey Long. That's also fair. Most of all, it galled him that Kennedy's destiny was "scripted," that the youngest brother's life was charmed and "easy." That is so incredibly unfair.

It's always shocked me that Jimmy Carter, the soul of empathy and charity, viewed Kennedy's life that way. Since the Kennedys were the original Kardashians, I refuse to believe Carter wasn't aware of this litany of tragedy and pain.

Age 9: His oldest sister, Rosemary, was incapacitated by a lobotomy and he never saw her again.* As an adult, he referred to it as when she was "disappeared" and poignantly recalled that as a little boy, he was afraid he'd be "disappeared," too.

Age 12: His oldest brother, Joe, was killed in WWII, blown apart in a mid-air explosion. No remains were recovered. Just one month later, his brother-in-law, Billy Cavendish, was killed by Nazi sniper.

Age 14: His sister, Kathleen (Billy's widow), died in plane crash.

Age 31: His brother was assassinated in Dallas.

Age 36: His brother was assassinated in Los Angeles. This left him patriarch and surrogate father to 13 children, in addition to his own 3.

Age 41: His 12-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer and lost a leg.

That brings us to 1973, when Carter and Kennedy were working together. How could a man as compassionate as Carter view such a life as "easy?" Yet Carter never backed away from his assessment. In fact, in 2010, a year after Kennedy's death, he mentioned on-camera to CBS' Lesley Stahl that Ted Kennedy had been expelled from college. Really? That is so beneath Jimmy Carter's dignity.

Yet I find it very comforting. I am far from perfect. I try to live a life that honors my faith, but I often fall short. So Jimmy Carter's life is an example to me yet again. Being imperfect is no excuse to not try to do better. Being imperfect does not mean I can't succeed.

Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, all the times you can, for all the people you can, as long as you can.

That was you, Mr. President. Thank you for your example. May you rest in the peace you so richly deserved.

*To clarify, he never saw her again during his father's' lifetime. None of the family defied old Joe's edict, not even the President of the United States. While nothing was officially announced, photos reveal Ted Kennedy (as well as Eunice, Rose and John, Jr.) began visiting Rosemary often in the 1980s, 40 years after her lobotomy. Rosemary outlived him.