A NICE TRIBUTE

 

“Thank you, Cagney & Lacey.”

Those were the first words spoken by Helen Mirren to an international TV audience at the Emmy Awards in 2001. The brilliant actress spoke those words as she held aloft the statuette she had just won for Outstanding Lead Actress (Prime Suspect).

That evening of Ms. Mirren’s win was a decade after the series featuring Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly as two New York cops had completed its run on CBS. Yet, Ms. Mirren remembered.

Twenty-five years later, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is also saying “thank you, Cagney & Lacey” this time by hosting a tribute evening October 7 at the Billy Wilder Theater on the famed Westwood campus in California.

The archivists at that University will screen two episodes and then be joined by Sharon Gless and me on stage for a little dialogue about how it all came to be. Tyne Daly, who has a last minute “gig” shooting in New York City, will join us on tape.

The episodes that will be shown are from the seasons of 1984 and 1985; both are Emmy Award winners: “Heat” directed by Karen Arthur, and “The Gimp” directed by Sharron Miller.

Some of the C&L alumni will be in that audience: writers Georgia Jeffries and Kathyrn Ford as well as Ron Ramin who composed  the music for most of the series’ episodes. The UCLA thing is nice; the fact that there are periodic rumblings in Hollywood about a remake of the series is … oh, so much better.

And I still get a kick … after all these years (nearly 50) … when the NY Times crossword puzzle contains a Cagney & Lacey clue … something that still happens over a half dozen times a year. And has there been a television season in the last four decades where one or more of the new crop of cop shows does not make a Cagney & Lacey reference in dialogue? I don’t think so.

The photos I get of beloved pets named after my dynamic duo brings a smile, and lately I have been watching, with admiration, the multiple collages of video highlight material edited by various fans from The Cagney & Lacey Appreciation Group on Facebook. That has only been topped for me by a video presentation added on the same site, just last week, underscored with an original song that is a tribute to the producer of the show (guess who?). You think it is easy to get Rosenzweig and Cagney & Lacey into a lyric? Ask Ms. Katy Milne, a fan who brought a smile to this old guy’s countenance with her musical tribute.

There are television series that have won more than the 14 Emmy Awards Cagney & Lacey achieved (although no other CBS drama has managed to do that before or since) and there are shows that have been rated higher. None, however, has had more impact or become more a part of the language than Cagney & Lacey. None.

An industry “joke” I always liked, evoked that very essence of “impact.” It was more than the female lead shows that came after my series. It goes to the fundamental way that Cagney & Lacey altered the television business.  

The “joke” goes that before Cagney & Lacey, a producer selling a new idea to a network for a series featuring a private detective, would conclude the pitch by leaning into the buyer with a conspiratorial look around the room before imparting the essential difference … the hook… that would set this private eye apart from all others:

“He’s blind.”

The self-satisfied producer would hardly be able to contain his glee at this “reveal.”

After Cagney & Lacey, the Network exec might well nod, acknowledging his understanding of the gimmick’s virtue, but then ask, “…Okay, but does he have a dog? Is he married? Is he an alcoholic? What is his home life like?”

That was the difference. The change-over from plot and action- driven melodramas to strong characters and their relationships with one another and how their work would impact their families. That is what Cagney & Lacey changed; that is what will be celebrated at UCLA on October 7.

You would not be able to surmise any of this from perusing Prime Video on your home television screen. Odd, in that Prime Video has a vested interest in the success of Cagney & Lacey because Prime Video is owned by Amazon, and Amazon owns MGM and its library which includes Cagney & Lacey. Yet, turn on Amazon Prime and, assuming you can find any of the 125 episodes or five films that were made with that title, you will read in the show’s description a vanilla-like understatement that Cagney & Lacey was “nominated for a Golden Globe.” That’s it. No mention of the 14 Emmys won by the show (plus innumerable nominations), no mention of the Golden Globe that was actually won (not simply a nomination), and no mention of any of the other national and international salutes.

Do I sound disappointed? It does roil my sensibilities. It is, in fact, hard for me to understand why Amazon has not even tried to spruce up the look of the show with fresh prints … it has, after all, been 40 years. And they own it! Perhaps they are not NYT crossword fans, or pet lovers, and are unaware of the tributes by decades-long fans.

Maybe? Perhaps? How about perchance … thanks to this nod from UCLA … it just may be conceivable that Amazon will deliver something to your television screen instead of leaving it out in the rain in a box too far from your front door. Possibly? Ya think? No matter what they do or don’t do, I still unabashedly say, “Thank you, Cagney & Lacey.”

https://www.facebook.com/UCLAFTVArchive/posts/pfbid0pYjodUrW6NJAB1oP3TkdTEZwuHEzHhw2RJdy4e1pkfXjMn6C4oyQGtnQAqrxnf6Bl

 

Barney Rosenzweig

The Yin and the Yang

There are moments in life that can be disquieting. Such a “moment” occurred in my living room as I watched this year’s broadcast of the annual Emmy Awards.

As a multiple Emmy Award winner myself … and now someone whose very subtitle of his latest memoir claims the mantle of “TV maven,” I felt … as I watched the proceedings … (how best to say it?) does gobsmacked resonate?

One of the evenings’ many low lights was when The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences chose to present tributes to Charlie’s Angels and Baywatch. Look, I was the producer of the better part of the premiere season of Charlie’s Angels---I liked it; I highlighted the series in each of my memoirs… but, even I know it does not deserve any kind of tribute from anything with the word Academy in its logo.

And then the hoopla and record-setting awards for Widow’s Bay … at best a C+ on any objective critical scale. Not a bad show, but truly something hovering just above mediocrity.

Furious, Landman, The Madison … not a mention in the drama category. What am I missing here? Is it possible that Florida residency has put me this out of sync with my fellow Academy members?  “Disquietude” hardly covers it … even in the most self-confident of TV analysts.

Fortunately, I found the performance by Emmy host, Mariska Hargitay, reassuring in that … here, at least, was evidence that the bar was being set so low as if to prepare the audience for the uninspired evening that would follow. In that, at least, Ms. Hargitay and her producers accomplished what they (apparently) set out to do.

Balancing this out is the other side of the spectrum of my life … the remembrance of what preceded the Emmy evening and the subsequent afterglow of the two-week recording session where I completed the audio version of my soon-to-be-released memoir, Before and After Cagney & Lacey.

It was not simply the satisfaction of beginning a task and then completing same … nor was it that I handled the assignment well … although, let me assure you (in yet another shameless pitch for any who might be interested in the audio version of my book) I certainly did that.

This elation is something more … albeit certainly related to this event. Consider the elements. What could be better? It was all me … all about me … and all for me … and for seven 5-hour recording days. Does the expression “like a pig in slop” help paint the picture?

I am not at all sure when this audio version of mine will be available. My publisher, McFarland, may well wait to see how well the printed version of the book does before making any decision regarding the marketing of this recorded edition.

Despite sort of knowing this “un-official” position taken by my publisher with respect to audio versions, I signed on with friends Deeny Kaplan and Ken Lorber to use “The Kitchen,” their award-winning Miami facility, as my recording studio.

My reasoning? It was the end of summer in Miami and “The Kitchen” was not as bustling as usual; it was a good time for me to take advantage of that and to get this done while space was readily available. Besides, at my age, one simply should not make dates in the distant future for anything of relative importance. It is the old “do not put off for tomorrow anything that may be done today.” And, at 88 years of age, that adage … coupled with “seize the day,” qualifies as front and center philosophy.

Bottom line: I went forward with my recording and I am happy to report that it was (for me, at least) a hoot.

There I was, supplies at hand: plenty of hot water with honey and ginger, throat spray, and green apples (thank you Deeny Kaplan). I still sound far from anything dulcet toned, but the flip side of that is it is authentically me, and … I believe … that my own true voice will count for something with folks who prefer their “reading” to come to them in their cars and/or by way of their ears rather than their eyes.

And here is the scoop: the book is (surprise, surprise) good, and the stories are interesting … really. Take it from me. I mean, c’mon, let’s be real. Not only did I write the thing … I just read it … ALOUD. And it works.

Ah, cynicism, eh? Should you crave more objectivity on this subject, you are just going to have to acquire a copy of the audio recording of Before and After Cagney & Lacey and judge for yourself.

I can assure even the skeptics among you. Whatever else may be said about this “production,” it is one hellofa lot better than this year’s Emmy Award broadcast.

 

Barney Rosenzweig 

Rally Round the Flag, Girls

 A while ago I had decided to write a piece about women. Not necessarily all women, but a few of the women in my life. I wanted to send a shout out to the editor of my soon-to-be released book, to the two fictional characters and the two women who played them that made up so large a part of my entire persona; to the changes in sexist attitudes I have witnessed and those (me, being ever the optimist) not yet seen.

I thought about including the factoid of the surge in the number of women at colleges as opposed to the reality of my days as an undergrad. I wanted to quote a song by the Four Aces from the 1950s about it being a “Woman’s World” --- lyrics which, not surprisingly, clearly state it was anything but that kind of universe. (Would you believe that in my freshman class at the University of Southern California the ratio of men to women was eight to one? And that this year’s class at USC … indeed at almost every university in the country … has more women than men?)

I wanted to write about that. I wanted to acknowledge the accomplishments of women, the struggles. How, for example, a dear friend, a most successful lung specialist, who … back in the sixties as a top student in the medical school of the University of Washington in St. Louis … wanted to be a surgeon. She was more than qualified, but the medical establishment of that time did not look favorably on giving “girls” that kind of power position.

Today, my very excellent primary care physician is female as are many, if not most, of the doctors I encounter in any given year. I do not view them as “women doctors” but rather as gifted physicians who happen to be women … just as we always said about Cagney & Lacey … “two women who happen to be cops.”

In the piece I was going to write, I would mention that most of the people I have “met” and interacted with at McFarland, my publishing house, seem to be primarily female. Good for them (and, coincidentally, for me).

In that article I imagined there would be (surprise, surprise) references to my memoir … Before and After Cagney & Lacey … in so many ways a tribute to my three (count em … three) wives, my mother, my daughters, the actors who starred in the most successful works of my career: Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly, Jane Seymour, and Kellie Martin. Even a shoutout about my brief tenure on Charlie’s Angels.

The last touches on this second memoir have finally been accomplished … requiring me to read the book … yet again … checking for every error of typography, spelling, punctuation, or fact. Extensive, tedious, creative, technical work.

I refer to “my” work on this final author’s process. The fact is that it would never have gotten done nearly as well … and certainly not in such a timely fashion … were it not for the dedication of two women --- my friend, lawyer, and (now) editor, Debra Weiss Goodstone and her technologically adroit daughter, Marissa Goodstone.

There was, oh so much more to be contemplated and written about, when life … as it so often does … got in the way. Dolly Parton died. I did not know Ms. Parton personally, but our paths crossed more than once. The TV version of her song and motion picture hit, 9 to 5 was a surprise success on the ABC network in the early 80s that all but obliterated the debut of Cagney & Lacey. Dolly dealt us a devastating blow but one could only admire the talent and the power of that show biz wiz.

I had barely processed that fact … the flags flying at half-mast all over the country, the tributes on every TV outlet … when the newsflash of the death … at age 92 … of Gloria Steinem came to the fore.

I nearly wrote, “my friend, Gloria Steinem” but that would have been less than accurate.

“Barney only calls me when he needs something,” Ms. Steinem was known to have said.

That was truer than I would have liked it to be. I felt close to her … grateful. Not as a friend, or even a colleague, but rather as a comrade in arms.

I took up her cause with my work … specifically with Cagney & Lacey but continuing with Christy, and The Trials of Rosie O’Neill. In turn, Gloria took up my cause … when I needed her most … in the earliest days … as she featured Cagney & Lacey on the cover of Ms. with the headline: The Show That Asks The Question: Can Women Be Buddies Under Pressure. It was the first time anything from show business had graced those prestigious pages.

Gloria paraded me all over Washington, D.C., attempting I suppose, to prove that men also can be buddies under pressure. Ms. Steinem was quoted on the cover of TV Guide saying she believed Cagney & Lacey was “… the best show on television.”

“Barney only calls me when he needs something.” What can I say? Back in the day, I needed all the help I could get. I do like to think that back in the 1980s I did my share for the women’s movement but there is no question that thanks to Gloria Steinem I got ample payback. She changed my life and the lives of many others as well … she changed all of us really, whether we acknowledge it or not.

It was (naturally, of course) a woman … Barbara Corday, then a young writer I was dating back in the 1970s (who I later married, and then even later divorced), who raised my consciousness enough so that I was able to visualize Cagney & Lacey in the first place. She used to say, “Barney’s not a feminist but he gets it.”

I got it all right. It was because of her that I got my head sufficiently above water to even know who Gloria Steinem was, and what it was Ms. Steinem was trying to accomplish. Ms. Corday also once paraphrased my pal, Oscar winner Lee Grant, by saying “I’ve been married to a feminist and a chauvinist. Neither took out the garbage.”

Win some/lose some.

Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly walked at the front of the march with Gloria Steinem when she led the million women march in Washington. It was a thrill to be there with them, the fabulous Carole King, and the multitude who all supported the cause.

I am pretty much on the sidelines now … but I think of Gloria every time I vote. That is not a reference to Hillary or Kamala, although both certainly got my enthusiastic support. What I refer to are those multiple ballots I get by email every so often from the various corporations in which I hold shares, asking me to vote YEA, NAY, or ABSTAIN for a collection of potential members of corporate boards.

I think of Gloria Steinem as I open those ballots and abstain from voting for any of the male would be board members, only giving an affirmative nod to those candidates whose forenames indicate they are female. The logic of this is that these women are not part of some “old boys” network and that they must be rather extraordinary to reach the point of consideration for a Board position as a female.

Gloria was right about me only calling when I wanted something, but it was always something I knew her to believe in as well.

So, while this 88-year-old guy’s marching days through city streets may be in the past, I do recall Gloria Steinem’s admonition to never have the ear (or in this case eye) of a group of people without telling them what you want them to do. Here it comes.

March on!

 

Barney Rosenzweig

SHELLEY ON STEROIDS … PLUS

The Bride could have just as easily been called The Channel, for if you try to imagine combining Christine Cagney as a 1930s wannabe, add a reincarnated Emma Stone-like caricature of a female Mary Shelley creature shown through the prism of Hollywood film noir along with Frankenstein’s monster (with a tip of the top hat to Peter Boyle in the Mel Brook’s film Young Frankenstein), then add Fred Astaire … but have him played by the award-winning dramatic actor, Jake Gyllenhaal from Brokeback Mountain … then you have … well, wait a minute … then you must also add Mary Shelley herself getting into the head of the actress who, for her work in Hamnet won the 2026 Oscar for Best Performance, and then … finally, you just may have channeled Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first movie as a director in over five years.

It is good. It is also weird … but in a good way. To begin with Jessie Buckley is a sure nominee again and, only because Emma Stone has recently visited this territory on her way to an Oscar for Poor Things, is there a chance for some other actress at the Academy Awards in 2027. As if her outlandish performance as Frankenstein’s bride itself was not enough, Ms. Buckley has the added element of playing Frankenstein’s author, Mary Shelley. Two roles in one flick? Over the years the Academy is often a sucker for that.

Christian Bale as the monster is, as almost always, S-O-L-I-D. And who knew, Jake Gyllenhaal, the director’s brother, could sing and dance? To round out the family affair, Peter Sarsgaard, the director’s husband, plays a police detective/mentor to Penelope Cruz who adds cache to her role as an aspiring detective. Lest it go unsaid, the overall look of the movie is top-drawer … assuming one’s top drawer is replete with messy underwear.

The screenplay is chaotic to say the least. An arch villain is set up … fleshed out in a key scene … and then? He just flat out disappears from the narrative sans explanation. Is Ms. Gyllenhaal thinking sequel? Too soon? Ya think?

There is a lot of other stuff that just sort of happens out of nowhere, but in this case, I found myself going with the flow. I mean, why be picky when clearly someone is working so hard to show me a good time?

The feminist material is on the money. Annette Bening is a wonderful choice as the scientist who helps the monster find his bride, especially in contrast to her sleepwalking through Dutton Ranch, but it is the outlandish, unrestricted performance by the fantastic Jessie Buckley that dominates the two plus hours of this HBO presentation.

See it, but prepare yourself in advance for an eclectic, often goofy … while politically correct, motion picture. You want different? This movie offers that up ... in spades!

Something more serious than monster noir comes in the form of a new series on HULU entitled Furious. It is an excellent police procedural with female leads aplenty so … as some might observe … it is right up my street.

Elizabeth Meriwether, who did such an impressive job with her series, Dying For Sex, created and produced this series which when fully released will have eight episodes in its first season.

A female serial killer stalked by a former NYPD detective … a woman now working for the FBI with troubles aplenty of her own … as I indicated … my kind of show … when it is done right, and this is about as “right” as it gets.

I am sorry I cannot get as worked up about Widow’s Bay on Apple TV. Matthew Rhys is good in this series, but the horror genre is just not my bag. Try to soften it by making a “horror-comedy”? I dunno, I think that might be possible … maybe even what Maggie Gyllenhaal would call The Bride. That was outrageous enough to be good. Widow’s Bay just sorta isn’t.

To sum up. Furious is about as close as you can get to must-see TV, The Bride is a hoot, and Widow’s Bay is none-of-the-above.

OMG, somehow Rooster missed out on my piece about shows with an animal in the title, and then (my bad) it got all but forgotten here. No more. It is a very cute show ... not great, but (almost) great enough. Steve Carell is spot on as the leading man, the remainder of the ensemble is very good, and the show is properly light-hearted. It is not going to change television history … it is probably going to be as easily forgotten by the folks at the Emmy awards as it was here, but that is not fair. Sometimes life just isn’t.

Rooster means well, I liked it, but I did not LOVE it, and … worst of all … I sorta forgot it after I sat through the 10 episodes on HBO. But don’t let me discourage you; try it. Cute premise. You could do worse ... Widow’s Bay for instance.

           

 

Barney Rosenzweig

THREE BAGS FULL

If you want to be charmed … even, quite possibly against your will … then you might be just the candidate for The Sheep Detectives. For me it was not an easy sell; I am not a Hugh Jackman fan (FYI, he’s in it); nor am I particularly into talking animals of any kind (although, if ewes will forgive me, I am partial to lamb chops).

Puns and prejudice aside, the movie’s opening is objectively slow and particularly low-key with practically nothing more going on than a Hugh Jackman monologue. Somehow, I hung in. The jokes began to play. The characters became more believable … even, I dare say, interesting … and soon …

​​​SPOILER ALERT

​BE CAREFUL BEFORE CONTINUING ON

 

… the Hugh Jackman character dies. So, for me, the picture started to work and by the end I was … well … if not totally captivated, then at the very least, somewhat charmed. I willrecommend this motion picture if you are ready for a G-rated sort of evening and/or could use some cleansing after the angst from The Bear (Hulu) or the gore from The Boys (Amazon Prime). This film could do for sheep what the now 30-year-oldBabe did for pigs … although, candidly, I remain more than a little partial to bacon.

You may stream The Sheep Detectives on Amazon Prime or purchase it on Apple TV. 

As to other shows with animals on the marquee, season five of The Bear surpasses even my own high expectations. The season opener, directed … as are most … by Christopher Storer, is a real tour de force for this filmmaker who found a way to make this oft-times claustrophobic series unusually cinematic. The cast, as you have undoubtedly heard, is simply terrific. This FXseries is most certainly must watch TV … with this final (5th) season, arguably, the best of the bunch.

House of the Dragon completes this week’s trilogy of entertainment featuring an animal in the title. Like Game of Thrones before it, this HBO series has its origins in A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin; both are lush-looking and extravagantly expensive.

I returned to this franchise reluctantly, primarily because of the betrayal I felt as an audience member to the short shrift given the all-important conclusion of Game of Thrones by the show’s creators, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. It was as if they were in a rush to run off to their new career opportunities rather than honor the show that got them there and it did not sit at all well with this heretofore loyal viewer.

Having been a devoted fan of those 73 episodes over an eight-year span, that bitter aftertaste no doubt accounts for why I am so late in the game returning to Westeros and the 26 of the eventual 34 episodes of House of the Dragon currently streaming on HBO.

The resemblance between Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon does not take long to wane. The cast of this latest version (a prequel beginning 175 years before Weiss and Benioff arrived at the Seven Kingdoms) is not as compelling as its predecessor … understandable since Game of Thrones, by virtue of getting there first, pretty much had its pick of every top actor in the United Kingdom with the result being that House of theDragon had to settle for the leftovers, which … by the way … are still an impressive group.

The drop off in the writing in this newer show is noticeable, mostly in the way the storytelling (especially the opener of season one) was structured. D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, despite their much-criticized mismanagement of the ending of Game of Thrones, would never have allowed the kind of clunky beginning that almost had me turning off House of the Dragonmid-episode #1. 

Once again, I hung in and … not unlike Yellowstone, or any other TV soap opera … House of the Dragon began to weave its spell, overcoming the clumsy replacement of key actors mid-stream, without so much as an optical morph from the younger to the slightly older. 

I had other “issues” with the new creative team, but … in the final analysis it did not matter much. That is the nature of these “family” dramas. No matter how far-fetched the atmosphere, or how high or low the dragon might fly, ultimately, like The Pitt, Dynasty, Dallas, or any number of their forebearers in day-time soaps before them, these series all come down to family drama. Add that to the medium’s ability to draw us in, to bring us …over time … to care about a leading character(s) in such theatrics, and you have the essential difference between the on-going television series and the stand-alone motion picture.

Adding a sheep, a bear, or a dragon to the title may or may not be a factor depending on the audience. Me? I find it sometimes helpful for these notes to have a theme. Accuracy is also important, and there was a mistake in my last piece concerning actor Stephen Macht for which I must apologize. 

I wrote that, among other things, he co-starred with Sharon Gless in the TV mini-series, Centennial. My bad. It was TheImmigrants, produced by Bob Cinader for NBC, which had Macht and Gless working together for the first time rather than, as I wrote, John Wilder’s adaptation of the James Michener epicin which Gless starred with the likes of Robert Conrad, Richard Chamberlain, Raymond Burr, Barbara Carrera, Richard Crenna, Timothy Dalton, Andy Griffith, Mark Harmon, Gregory Harrison, David Janssen, Alex Karras, Brian Keith, Sally Kellerman, Donald Pleasence, Lynn Redgrave, Robert Vaughn and Dennis Weaver. I am told cattle, horses, sheep, bison, and beavers were also featured which, happily or not, gets this piece back on theme. I thought it pertinent to point that out.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

THE GUEST STAR

I am at that time of life where my wife oft inquires if I am certain I do not want some kind of memorial service or a celebration of “the life of” kind of party. Each time I reiterate my one desire … the only thing I want. That one thing is for her to do all she can … short of an outright purchase … to see to it that my obituary appears in the New York Times. That’s it. It is the only memoriam I want. That is how highly I regard that publication.

I was famous enough thirty years ago to have my obit in the Times be all but an absolute certainty. Now, past my prime … professionally as well as personally … that publication’s interest might well be in doubt.

When I write how I cherish responses to my Notes From A Warm Island as if they were reviews from that revered New York publication, now you might have a fuller appreciation of just how important your comments are to me.

Still, as much as I love to read those responses, my “policy” is to not respond but rather to file. True, occasionally, I break my own rule, but it is rare when I do so. Today features a major exception. I am compelled to do even more that simply respond because of an email from an old friend, actor Stephen Macht.

More than a friend or an actor, Mr. Macht was the star of my pilot for ABC’s, American Dream about which much is written in my forthcoming tome, Before and After Cagney & Lacey; for multiple seasons he was Christine Cagney’s serious boyfriend, he also played Sharon’s leading man in James Michener’s Centennial, written and produced by John Wilder, and he was the male lead in the San Francisco production of the play A Round Heeled Woman, starring Sharon and based on the best-selling novel by Jane Juska. You might also remember him as the Harvard ethics professor who in the TV series, Suits, gave such a tough time to the leading man (played by Stephen’s son, Gabriel Macht). In his spare time, Stephen studied to become a Rabbi, subsequently presiding over the marriage of Torrie Rosenzweig, the youngest of my three daughters, to her husband of over 10 years, John Coldiron.

Stephen is also a reader of these Notes From a Warm Island who wrote me about my article on the movie, The Way We Were, wherein I referenced my own remembrances of the McCarthy era which was the backbone of the Arthur Laurents’ screenplay of that fabulous film. Here is what Stephen Macht wrote, unedited, exactly as he sent it to me:

My Father Warned Me About McCarthy

I was eight years old.

My father stood in front of our black-and-white television and pointed at the screen.

On it was Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Without taking his eyes off him, he said quietly,

“Stevie… never let a man like that gain power.”

I didn’t ask why.

I didn’t understand what he meant.

I simply knew…

my father was afraid.

Years later I learned why.

My father had been one of the young lawyers who joined Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Working for the National Labor Relations Board, he believed that the rule of law rested upon something fragile:

Facts.

Evidence.

Due process.

He understood that when accusation replaces proof, when intimidation replaces persuasion, when fear replaces judgment, democracy begins to lose its footing.

An eight-year-old cannot understand constitutional law.

But a child can recognize moral seriousness.

The warning entered me…

long before its meaning did.

Decades passed.

I was cast as John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada.

Every night I searched for the man beneath Miller’s words.

Not a symbol.

Not a martyr.

A man struggling to remain truthful when fear had become more powerful than truth itself.

Then one evening, after a performance, I walked out the stage door.

An elderly gentleman wearing a bowler hat was waiting for me.

His wife gently touched his arm.

“Don’t do this,” she whispered.

He stepped toward me anyway.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He said nothing.

Slowly…

he rolled up his sleeve.

Tattooed on his arm were the faded numbers from Auschwitz.

For a long moment neither of us spoke.

Then he looked directly into my eyes.

“You played Proctor as a Jew.”

I began to weep.

He had read me.

Then he asked quietly,

“Did you know they sold Jews for two golden candlesticks?”

I didn’t understand.

He was speaking about one seemingly insignificant exchange in The Crucible.

Proctor tells Reverend Hale:

“Since we built the church there were pewter candlesticks upon the altar… But Parris came, and for twenty week he preached nothin’ but golden candlesticks until he had them.”

Most audiences hear a complaint about a minister’s vanity.

That survivor heard something else.

He had lived in a world where human beings themselves had become less valuable than things.

Where people could be numbered.

Reduced.

Exchanged.

He wasn’t telling me how to play Proctor.

He was telling me that I had unknowingly told his story.

And suddenly…

I understood why.

Not because I had consciously set out to play Proctor as a Jew.

I hadn’t.

I had played him through the moral imagination my father had planted in me when I was eight years old.

Long before I understood his warning…

I had absorbed it.

My father recognized the pattern.

Arthur Miller gave that pattern dramatic form.

A survivor of Auschwitz recognized it in my performance.

Only then…

did I recognize it in myself.

Years have passed since that evening at Stratford.

Yet every so often, as I watch the public life of our country, shadows race across my mind.

Not because history repeats itself.

It never does.

But because it sometimes rhymes in ways that make the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

I hear echoes.

Not the same voices.

Not the same faces.

The same temptations.

The same seduction of certainty over evidence.

The same willingness to divide the world into the righteous and the condemned.

The same temptation to mistake accusation for proof.

The same pressure to mistake loyalty for truth.

I do not mean that history has returned.

It hasn’t.

Every age is different.

Every leader is different.

Every crisis is different.

What returns are the moral questions.

The names change.

The century changes.

The human heart changes far less.

And in those moments, I find myself back in two places at once.

An eight-year-old boy watching his father point at a flickering black-and-white television…

and a grown man standing outside the Stratford Shakespeare Festival while an Auschwitz survivor quietly rolls up his sleeve.

The years collapse.

The warning and the recognition become one.

That is why I still shiver.

Not because I believe history is repeating itself.

But because I know how easily the human heart forgets what it has already learned.

My father saw one such moment.

Arthur Miller gave it dramatic form.

A survivor recognized it in me.

And whenever those old shadows pass across our common life, I cannot help but remember my father’s finger pointing at the television…

and wonder whether we will recognize the warning—

even as history has already begun to shout the question.

Who are we?

It has taken me a lifetime to understand that my father was not merely warning me about one man.

He was teaching me how to recognize a pattern.

He was teaching me that the health of a democracy depends not only upon the character of its leaders, but upon the moral vigilance of its citizens.

Some truths enter us before we possess the words to understand them.

They wait.

Sometimes for years.

Sometimes for a lifetime.

Then one day…

someone who has suffered enough to recognize them…

reads us.

And suddenly the child, the father, the actor, Arthur Miller, and the survivor become part of the same completed action.

That is why I shiver to this day.

Not because my father was right.

Not because the survivor praised my performance.

But because, in one unforgettable moment outside a theater in Stratford, I realized that my father had not merely warned me.

He had formed me.

Stephen Macht

Odd Indeed

As I have gotten older … and even more curmudgeonly than I was when I was in my middle years … (a hard thing for those who knew me then to imagine, but it is true nonetheless) … my attendance at events … even something as simple as going out to the movies … has diminished greatly.

Mostly, I find attending a movie these days more than a little aggravating.  I readily concede, the popcorn at a commercial theatre is deceptively better than the kind I get at home … yet not so much better as to in any way compensate for those folks checking their cell phones in the dark while the picture plays.

There is also the matter of digital projection. If I am going to see a movie digitally, I might as well be comfortable at home watching on my 85” TV screen, indulging in whatever snacks whenever I want, and only occasionally having to chastise a neighbor for looking at their cell phone while … without commercial interruption … the film goes on … either on TCM, by Blu-Ray, or via the app I have on my home screen as a result of my membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

I last attended a movie theatre on that well-publicized weekend of Oppenheimer and the homage to Barbie back in 2023. I wrote about both films at the time, along with a screed about the substandard management of the Regal Cinema in Miami Beach. That theatre has since (understandably) gone out of business.

A lot has happened since that weekend: a national election, a changing of the guard in D.C., a new war in the Middle East, a national championship for the New York Knicks for the first time this century, the Ukrainians continuing to survive the Russian war machine, soccer (excuse me, football) becoming a very big deal in the U.S., a major realignment in college sports … most significantly with the Big 10 and the SEC … and antisemitism became a thing … again.  Oh yes, and Christopher Nolan made another movie … The Odyssey.

Nolan’s film is a box-office phenom. A giant among pygmies. The most talked about motion picture since the double bill of Oppenheimer and Barbie. Big … really big. Big enough to get me out of my living room, off my Island paradise, and into a movie theatre with 70 mm projection. (Note: I deliberately avoided IMAX. Not only are those theatres sold out into some distant date, but I also had no desire to endure any post-theatre neck pain caused from scanning from side to side as if I were at center court at a three-hour tennis match.)

Gables Art Cinema, in the Florida community of Coral Gables, provided exactly what I sought. Watching film, projected from reel to reel, whether 35- or 70-millimeters wide vs the digital image, has been said to be as different as listening to music on a vinyl recording as opposed to the same melody on a tape deck or CD. The presentation at the movie house in the Gables proved to be pristine.

Despite all that, I can sum up my view of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in one word: disappointment.

You can stop here if you do not want to read about the banality of the dialogue, the unevenness of the casting, the lack of anything resembling “heart,” or the soul of what should have been a great movie. This one is all flash and dash … like a marvel comic book … except, at least in those comic books, the hero has an “origin story.” That story of origin goes a long way to making the lead more interesting … relatable … even, maybe, human.

I know, I know, mostly all you have heard are wonderful things about the movie and here is this old cranky guy trying to save you money and, in the process, raining on Mr. Nolan’s parade. I must here remind you of my praise for Oppenheimer three years ago. I have no “jones” about Christopher Nolan but I do worry, if this is what he did with the money he made on his previous film, who knows what he will do with all the lucre from this enterprise?  

In my experience, I have found that some folks … and most filmmakers … benefit from being reigned in a bit by having someone to whom they must answer. Nolan demonstrates with The Odyssey that, like our current White House maven, you trust him with unchecked power at your peril.

Homer created this piece over three thousand years ago. It has stood the test of time. I am led to believe Emily Wilson’s translation of a decade ago … the first by a woman into English … is, in a word, fabulous. None other than Claire Danes (Homeland) narrates the audio version. Reason enough, right there, to participate in the narrative.

Folks, I am willing to bet neither Homer’s nor Wilson’s teenage Telemachus ever once called Odysseus “dad” ... something he does in the Nolan movie … a lot … and the film contains a plethora of relatively modern swear words from Nolan’s mundane script as well.

The costumes ring relatively “true,” the effects and action sequences are all right up there with any of your lushly produced superhero movies but beyond that one must ask … why? What’s it all about? Where is the heart? What is the meaning? Why not use a narrator to bridge the gaps and give the story some perspective? What happened to all the sex and lyricism of … if not the original … than Ms. Wilson’s translation? How was this hysteria for tickets at the box-office created, and where can I find the marketing genius responsible for all this hoopla for my own Before and After Cagney & Lacey, coming out this September 30 and now available for pre-sale at Amazon?

Enough. How best to sum this up?

As a 20^th century Trojan from the University of Southern California, let me paraphrase Laocoön, a Trojan priest, who (according to Virgil) around 700BCE, spoke to his fellow citizens in ancient Troy, saying:

“Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”

Translation: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

 

Barney Rosenzweig