susanj-10

I like a lot of things about this film, and there are some things that make me roll my eyes, but the plot of this is but one small slice from a fantastic novel, blown completely out of proportion to serve as a "bad girl" vehicle for Bette Davis.

When I think of what a properly-written script taken from the real plot of this novel, with the author's ideas and observations left intact, would have done in the hands of John Huston, and these, and other, actors, I could weep. There isn't anything in this vale of tears society that makes me despair more than wasted potential or flaunted opportunity, so I cringe every time I see this film, even though it is not a bad film!

The Smothers Brothers were haunted by the censors -- revisionist history is a dangerous thing, children. Do your research with primary sources. It's convenient for many to forget how dire those times were (unless, of course, they LIKED it that way), people blacklisted for opposing the war in Viet Nam on even the mildest basis (ask Eartha Kitt), FBI monitoring of everyone from John Lennon to Groucho Marx...Bill Paley and CBS were masters of censorship and dead thinking...the only reasons the Smothers Brothers lasted as long as they did was because they brought in money, they gave an edge to a prehistoric network that subsisted on Hee Haw and the Beverly Hillbillies. But Washington made its ugly voice heard, and that was that. If the times have changed, I'll be dipped if I can see it. The only reason All In The Family and Maude took off on that network is because of the almighty dollar -- the viewers made their voices heard, and viewer voices translate into dollars. The public has the responsibility and the power to change even the mightiest morons...don't forget that.

Also, never forget, the Nazis only lost ONE war!