Algiers: Hedy Lamarr and Her First Hollywood Movie

 

 

 

Algiers (1938)

Directed by John Cromwell

United Artists, 99 minutes, not-rated.

★★★★

 

In the next few weeks I will be featuring films involving Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) because I co-lead a women’s history group reading a biography of her. Lamarr was an inventor and one of the most intriguing starlets of the early days of sound movies. She was born in Austria as Hedwig Eva Marie Kiesler, won a beauty contest when was 12, and at 18, married Friedrich Mandel who was 33. She made five films in Europe, including Ekstase (Ecstasy) in 1933, which was notorious. The 18-year Hedwig Mandel briefly appeared fully nude and a scene of her in the throes of passion is believed to be the first film depiction of a female orgasm.

 

Her marriage to Mandel was the first of six (and six divorces). Friedrich made two big mistakes, he expected her to be a dutiful traditional wife and thought she was an airhead. As Mandel drifted into fascism, Hedwig listened to sensitive political conversations she took with her when she fled to London in 1937. (She was half Jewish.) Samuel Goldwyn of MGM took her to Hollywood, changed her name to Hedy Lamarr, and began the legend that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She gets my vote, though Hedy once considered surgery to make her breasts larger.

 

Algiers was her first Hollywood film. It was directed by John Cromwell and written by John Howard Lawson, who later gained infamy as one of the 1947 Hollywood Ten indicted for Contempt of Congress for refusing to rat on anyone accused of communism during the second Red Scare. Algiers might remind you quite a bit of Casablanca, which took Hollywood by storm five years later. Ironically, the role of Ilsa was written with Lamarr in mind, but went to Ingrid Bergman because Lamarr was under contract to MGM, which refused to loan her to Warner Brothers. Casablanca, though, borrowed heavily from the script to Algiers. Ironically, the main villain/lover boy of Algiers, Pepé le Moko (Charles Boyer) was the model for the Warner Brothers cartoon skunk Pepé LePew. (How’s that for revenge!)

 

Le Moko is a French jewel thief hiding out in Algiers. France sends an inspector to find out why Algerian law enforcement hasn’t caught him. As detective/informer Slimane (Joseph Calleia) explains, everyone knows where Pepé is, but he cannot be captured as long as he’s living in the Casbah section of Algiers. The French send twelve men into the Casbah and find out what Slimane means. It is a warren of narrow streets, connecting rooms and rooftops, tunnels, and informants that’s similar to searching for a straight pieces in a giant hamster habitrail. Plus, Pepé is a popular man in the Casbah. He’s like an old-fashioned ward boss whose henchmen keep order. Pepé and his exotic-looking lover Ines (Sigrid Gurie) know everyone and they protect him, though he has rivals.

 

The Casbah, though, is confining; Pepé is only safe as long as he doesn’t leave it. Enter Gaby (Lamarr), who bedazzles Pepé with her beauty, memories of Paris, and glittering jewelry that his gang wonders why he hasn’t pilfered. Gaby is engaged to the obese Giraux (Robert Grieg), who is filthy rich. It’s never clear if Gaby is bait or if she is attracted to Pepé, but if Lamarr was faking it, she fooled me! He’s also depressed when outside-the-Casbah enemies lure his friend Pierrot (ex-Our Gang star John Morey Downs) into a trap.

 

Algiers is dated and both script and direction could be much tighter. Casablanca is a superior film and there’s a reason why its director Michael Curtiz is considered a legend and John Cromwell is largely forgotten. Still, it’s incredible to see how little Hedy Lamarr needed to do to fill screen eyes. By the way, no one in Algiers ever says, “Take me to the Casbah.” That was Pepé LePew!

 

Lamarr is a Hollywood legend who remains one of the most beautiful in movie history. She was also difficult; only one of her marriages lasted longer than four years. Yet, she was a genius inventor when off the set. The Navy never used the invention of a guided torpedo she and avantgarde composer George Antheil developed, but their spread spectrum theory made the following possible: Bluetooth, GPS, wireless communication, and Wi-fi. No wonder there’s a Lamarr-class starship in Star Trek.

 

Rob Weir

 

Berenice Abbott: Flaneur for Modernism?

 

 

 

Man Ray photo of Berenice Abbott 1925

Berenice Abbott’s Modern Lens

Clark Museum of Art

Through October 5, 2023

 

When you think of Depression Era photographers, the names that pop to mind include Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke White, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, and Imogene Cunningham. Berenice Abbott? Maybe not so much.

 

Abbott (1898-1991) doesn’t seem to fit in the same august company and that’s just as she wished it. She did secure a commission with the Federal Art Project in 1935, but she was much was much better known for her New York City shots, her fondness for architecture, moody compositions that border on surrealism, and portraits of offbeat personalities such as herself. She was a closeted lesbian, but rumors flew. Her work was also a bit too surrealist–she once worked as an assistant to Man Ray–and too far on the modernist scale to echo the 1930s documentary styles, though she always thought of herself as a documentarian. Above all, she didn’t like to manipulate photos for effect and took a scientific approach to her shots. In that vein, she did science shots for M.I. T. for a while. She also championed the work and was influenced by Eugéne Atget (1857-1927) whose empty Parisien streets were deliberately ambiguous and invited viewers to write their own narratives. Atget was also a flaneur, a street wanderer whose detached view of city life matched her own views.

 

The Clark Museum of Art  in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has a selection of Abbott’s works in its Eugene V. Thaw Gallery for Works on Paper. It is well worth seeing, though I have a word of caution. Most of the shots on display are from the 1920s and early 1930s and are quite small. If you click on any of the images below you will get larger images, but the blown up images on the screen are much bigger than what’s hanging on the wall. I’m not certain why they have displayed them so small, as I have seen the same images elsewhere in 8 x 10 images that were reprinted around 1960. (Perhaps the Clark doesn’t hold the rights to do the same.) In many cases this is lamentable as she, as did Atget, liked to fill the frame. Still, her 1937 show “Changing New York” is sampled. It was Abbott’s first solo exhibition and it alone made her a flaneur for the modernist movement.

 

Anarchist Alexander Berkman 

 

Sylvia Beach, 1926

Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1930

Rag Merchant 1929

 

Old Penn Station (demolished in 1960s)

 

Second and Third El Lines, 1932

 

Flatiron Building 1938

New York at Night, 1932

Rob Weir

 

Labor Day Blues

 

Subscribers to this blog will notice that I’m late with the Friday edition. That’s because I get depressed as Labor Day rolls around.

 

Since 1882, Labor Day has traditionally been a holiday to honor the American labor movement. May Day is often celebrated in other lands, but its association with democratic socialism didn’t play well in the U.S. where too many people think socialism is a synonym for communism.*

 

Labor Day’s end-of-summer date was first chosen for its closeness to the birthday of Uriah Stephens, the founder of the Knights of Labor. Don’t believe the nonsense that the first celebration was organized by New York City’s Central Labor Union; that mistake gets repeated because many people confused  Mathew Maguire with P. J. McGuire. Matthew was a socialist and P(eter) J. was a mover and shaker in the American Federation of Labor, which was for skilled workers which came to oppose the all-inclusive Knights of Labor. In addition, several cities had protest parades before the September 5, 1882, New York event often cited as the first Labor Day parade.  

 

I wrote three books on the Knights, but that’s not why I’m depressed. By academic training, I am a labor historian. I used to teach the history of the American labor movement, but by the end of the 1980s, it was fair to ask: “What movement?” I eventually began to call myself a historian of the working class, but that begs another question: “Who you calling working class?”

 

I categorically honor brave union members toiling to make things better for their comrades. The problem is that they aren’t enough followers and there is no strong federation of unions to make a political dent. Today the largest federation is the AFL-CIO with about 15 million total members across 60 unions. That’s deceptive, though, as it counts retired members. Moreover, an AFL-CIO political endorsement is about as useful as a lawn sign. It is a bureaucratic paper tiger ignored by constituent members. A whopping sixty percent of Teamsters voted for Trump in 2024, as did a majority of steelworkers, longshoremen, and fire fighters–a pattern that repeats in most unions that are male-dominated.

 

Let’s go a step deeper. Under 10 percent of Americans belong to a union of any sort. In 1960, nearly a third of workers (32 %) were unionized. As late as 1983, it remained 20 percent, but Ronald Reagan led the charge to decertify unions and the numbers have fallen ever since. Today’s numbers are even weaker when we break them down. Of the 9.9 percent, one third are government employees–assuming Trump hasn’t fired them all. The largest (2.2 million) are teachers’ unions, followed by trainees, and librarians. If we look to the private sector, fewer than six percent are organized and if you really want dire numbers, just 2.7 percent of individuals having anything at all to do with retail are unionized. Belonging to a union is often more pro forma than proactive. Teachers, for instance, are often legally forbidden to strike and 27 states have right-to-work laws, meaning a teacher can’t be forced to join a union and one can be fired for just about anything. Adding insult to injury, in most right-to-work states union members can be assigned to train those who might replace them.

 

Why do workers put up with this? The right-to-strike isn’t protected much anymore, so a lost job could mean financial hardship. Yet, 163 million Americans work, a number with the potential to bring most employers to their knees. That’s if, they aren’t lulled into consumerism submission by a barrage of commercials, tricked by wily ideologues, or convinced they are impotent. Note the old union banner above. Raise your hand if you work only eight hours a day, have eight to pursue what you wish, and get eight hours’ sleep. Yeah, right! That fight entails seeing one’s self as a member of the working class, but tell me the last time you even heard that term. U.S. = middle class right? Nope! Using objective economic date, 60 percent of all workers fail to meet middle-class standards.

 

No wonder Labor Day depresses me.

 

Rob Weir

 

* For the record, few American organizations were as virulently anti-communist as democratic socialists, whose idea of working-class heroes is more in the Eugene Debs/Bernie Sanders mold than Lenin or Mao.

 

 

Great Disasters: A Powerful Novel

 

 

 

Great Disasters (2025)

By Grady Chambers

Tin House/Norton, 256 pages.

★★★★

 

Have you ever hung out with a group of people throughout high school and felt so close to them that you assumed you’d be BFF? If so, you probably won’t be surprised when I assert that it usually doesn’t work out that way. That’s one meaning of Great Disasters, the debut novel of Grady Chambers, who has hitherto been known mostly as a poet. A second meaning is that alcohol abuse was a central feature of the friendship between the six boys/young men from middle school until middle age. Third, our narrator and central character, Graham Katz, has trouble maintaining connections to anyone by the time he reaches adulthood.

 

Chambers’ novel follows seven Chicago area individuals: the handsome but brash Ryan, his girlfriend Jana who is a ballet dancer, David who comes from wealth, Eduardo known as Caesar because of his love of pizza, Ben whose desire to improve the world gained the nicknames of “Club Kid” and “Greenpeace,” Neil, and Ricky. The six boys were all hockey players though one wonders how, as they were so often drunk. I don’t mean weekend binges, I mean toasted more times than they are sober. They drink in homes, at parties, at get aways, on the beaches of Lake Michigan, at hockey camp….

 

Although each will spend time away from Chicago–Ryan will serve in Afghanistan–one of the more interesting parts of Great Disasters is that the characters observe many of the nation’s disasters–9/11, Desert Storm, antiwar demonstrations, the housing bubble, recession, Trump’s election–away from the Eastern Seaboard. Insofar as Graham is concerned, Obama’s election is about the only thing that brought him joy. Put another way, in this coming of age novel, Graham has trouble doing so. He always thought that Ryan and Jana had a love that would endure forever, though he and his buddies sometimes did stupid stuff that jeopardized it. For the most part, Graham is sullen and perhaps suffers from OCD; he is the pessimist to his parents’ hopeful activism, messes up a research grant, and is bored with his post-college job. From high school on he has a string of girlfriends, none of whom are more important than drinking.

 

Here's another experience that you might have had. Did you ever get together with old friends and try to rekindle old times? Maybe get drunk or high and rehash old battles and memories? Of course, come Monday morning there are jobs, spouses, kids, perhaps an interview or a report that the boss needs. Such a weekend takes place on Long Island at one of David’s homes, a phrase that tells you his life has changed dramatically. Several friends, including Ryan, have gone through AA programs. His life is still complicated, but he too is married and has kids to consider. Graham is a writer, but for all intents and purposes, he is stuck in the past.

 

This is a very good novel, though it must be said that Chambers’ release suffers from bad timing. By this I mean that though set ups and circumstances are different, it bears similarities to Fredrik Backman’s My Friends. It’s very hard to tread upon even tangentially similar themes and compete with Backman, especially given Backman’s mastery of leavening humor to offset challenging material. Chambers’ novel certainly showcases comparable comradery, but given that Graham is akin to Peter Pan, the little boy who refuses to grow up, there is a tragic tinge to Great Disasters.

 

Two small glitches. It seems like a cop out to make Graham to narrator and alleged novelist of the same story. I also think the novel could have been benefitted from losing a character or two. This is especially the case given that Neil and Caesar have thin stories, whereas Graham’s high school girlfriend Sam(antha) has a bigger role than either of them.

 

Chambers is a gifted writer who takes us inside Graham’s confused mind, but Graham is also a hard character to like at times. Great Disasters is pegged as a novel about enduring friendship, but that’s not how I read it. If anything, it’s about testosterone poisoning and the destructive power of alcoholism. It’s a powerful work, but I’d recommend you leave a gap between reading Backman and Chambers, It would be another “disaster” to miss this one.

 

Rob Weir

 

#GreatDisasters #NetGalley

The Search for Folk Art

Folk Art

 

Once upon a time folk art was dismissed as stuff made by “savage” or “uneducated” people. These days it fetches high prices at auctions and lots of rich people collect it. Truth be known, many of the latter display it as if it is rustic artifacts or as examples of how broad-minded they are.

 

Once money enters the equation, definitions begin to get hazy and the art is reduced to its value on the open market. Luckily folklorists and cultural anthropologists  are decades ahead of a curve they were once eons in back of. The same is true for museum curators. “Folk art” has replaced terms such a “primitive,” “naïve,” or “untrained.” Yet, most museums tend to display just a few pieces of American folk art and things produced abroad–especially in Africa, the Arctic, the Indian subcontinent, or Oceania–are tucked into special galleries that are more focused on ethnography than artistic achievement.

 

There are only a handful of museums in the United States devoted mostly to folk art. My favorite on the East Coast is Vermont’s Shelburne Museum. But you can find bits and pieces in lots of places if you know what to look for, though whether or not it’s folk art of handicraft is often open for debate. (Aren’t most things these days?)

 

Look for these tendencies:

 

1. Folk art is usually unique and hand-crafted. It is seldom reproduced.

 

2. It often uses unusual materials such as glass bottles, bark, barnboard, and found materials.

 

3.  Much of it has (or once had) a utilitarian purpose. Think of decoys, painted canoes, quilts, weathervanes, and whirligigs. Ditto carved canes, handmade furniture, samplers, baskets, corn brooms, and carved wooden spoons.

 

4. Folk art is usually specific to a particular community, ethnic group, tribe, or tradition. For example, “hex” signs were common among the Pennsylvania Dutch, certain fiddle styles (and carved instruments) were more common in Appalachia than elsewhere, and Amerindian art varies by tribe and region.

 

5. It’s no longer a necessity, but folk art tends to be by those with little or no training in the so-called “fine arts.” Folk artists tend to violate expectations such as perspective, relative size, and perspective even when their intent is not abstraction. This often makes it whimsical or gives it a charming child-like appearance. If, for instance, you look at a Grandma Moses painting, you’ll see what I mean.

 

6. Many folk artists were taught by others within their community. They focus more on tradition within that community than what outsiders may think of it. Think of it as either useful or as community art.

7. Know, however, that all the definitions are contentious. Will Moses, for instance, is the great grandson of Anna Mary Robertson Moses. He paints in her style. In my mind, he is a copyist not a folk artist, but many think he is. So-called “outsider art” is sometimes labeled folk art. Again, I disagree–mainly because the attempt to be different is so often a solo pursuit, the formal training of the artist often shines through, and their community credentials are fuzzy.  These, however, are my views and others disagree.

 

Here's a sampling of this summer’s folk art finds. I excluded the Shelburne Museum because its collection is too rich!

 

From the Fennimore Museum (Cooperstown NY)

 

 

Congo, ritual mask

Quilts and painted figure

 

 

Two labor-themed paintings by Ralph Fassanella

 

St. Johnsbury, VT Athenaeum 

 

Russell Grisley painting of Horace Fairbanks on barn boards

 

 

The Argument T.W. Woods (note proportions) 

 

Tribal Art Oceania Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC

 

   

First Nations Art Ottawa, Canada

 

 

 

 

        

Sewer art, Holyoke

Another Moving Work from Fredrik Backman

 

 

 

My Friends   (2025)

By Fredrik Backman

Atria Books, 434 pages

★★★★★

 

Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human. The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don't think that teenagers are the best humans are adults. Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.

 

If you read these words to me before I read them and asked me who wrote them, I would guess Fredrik Backman. There are very few writers with a grasp of human nature, a youthful spirit, and a sense of humor, who can match Backman. He also deftly skirts the borders of sentimentality before exiting to make profound points.

 

Backman is best known for A Man Called Ove, a novel that should be on your reading list. If you saw the lame English remake movie (or even the vastly superior Swedish original), trust me; you have to read Backman to appreciate him.

 

My Friends is his tenth novel and a welcome break from his Beartown novels. They too are fine, but might not be your forte if you’re not into ice hockey. My Friends looks at teenagers, present and past. As Backman writes, “It's strange, the things you remember from your childhood, perhaps what you forget is even stranger. When you think about summers growing up, it feels like the sun was always shining, there's never any wind or rain in nostalgia.” How true, how true!

 

The novel opens with a crime that’s not a crime. Louisa is on the cusp of her 18^th birthday, is mourning the death of her orphanage pal Fish, and is on the run from the latest foster home in which she was placed. On her birthday she will be considered an independent adult. She wanders into an art auction in hope of scoring free food. Imagine her surprise when hanging on the wall is the painting of the postcard that is her most-prized possession: “The One of the Sea.” Louisa is moved to fury by the pretentious and ignorant remarks made by potential buyers, sneaks behind the ropes, and begins to spray paint a row of skulls–not on the painting, but on the blank wall beside it. Very few “see” the skulls the artist painted on the canvas. Louisa also knows,  “It isn’t a painting of the sea. Only a damn adult would think that.” Only her quickness and a leap into a culvert prevent her arrest. There, she meets a disheveled man whose POV is remarkably like hers. Another adult shows up and hands the painting to him.

 

He is J.Cat, a famous artist, who painted “The One of the Sea” when he was 14. He has just sold all that he owns to  buy it back. He says to his accomplice, “She’s one of us,” and hands Louisa the painting. She is shocked and tries to give it back because she is homeless. J. Cat is dying, though. Louisa lurks around his burial service. When the second man startles her, she accidentally spray paints him, which is how she formally meets Ted, J.Cat’s live-in caretaker for several years. He too needs a new home as the apartment was one of the things the artist sold.

 

My Friends is a multi-layered and laugh-out-loud funny novel, but its core is a summer 25 years earlier when the artist hung out with three other poor kids the summer each was 14: Ted, Joar, and a girl nicknamed Ali (for her willingness to fight). Each considered that summer the peak experience of their lives, though it was filled with trauma and all the crap that goes with being 14. What they do? They left their homes daily, yelled “HERE!,” sprinted to the pier, dove into the ocean, and yelled “HERE!” again when they surfaced. They snuck into movies, shoplifted food and drink, rode stolen bicycles, insulted each other, and loved each other dearly. Ted was the smallest and the “good” kid of the bunch.

 

We learn about those adventures and Louisa’s through an improbable long train journey to spread the artist’s ashes that Louisa finagles from Ted by trying to give back the painting. He has become a fearful young(ish) fuddy duddy and Louisa doesn’t have a polite bone in her body, nor does she have much worldly experience.  Surprises of all sort await readers. If some things seem unlikely, remember that Backman’s stories are shaped by other things–self-discovery, friendship, believing in each other, recovery from trauma, memory, kindness, and loyalty. Good formula and a terrific book!

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atmosphere: What a Ride!

 

 

 

 

Atmosphere (2025)

By Taylor Jenkins Reid

Penguin Random Books, 352 pages.

★★★★★

 

In sections of recent U.S. history I used to hold up my cellphone and remind students that said phones have more far computing power than NASA had when it first sent astronauts into space. That remained so throughout the space shuttle program, which ended in 2011. Erstwhile astronauts were aware that theirs was an inherently dangerous profession. In essence, one had to be willing to die to advance science.

 

Novelist Taylor Jenkins Reid wanted her ninth novel to be different from the other eight. I’m a huge fan and never felt she was repeating herself, but Reid certainly took a big detour in Atmosphere, a novel about the early days on NASA. She did all the expected background work and even lived in Houston to get a firsthand feel of how astronauts train. Novels like Orbital and Atmosphere  remind me that I have the “wrong stuff” to go into space.

 

In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to leave earth’s atmosphere. Reid mentions Ride in passing in Atmosphere, but her character Joan Goodwin is loosely based on Ride. If you can recall the 1980s, you might remember that it was a period in which NASA was caught up in social change and sought a number of “firsts,” as in first African American, first Asian, first teacher …. There over 8,000 applications for NASA’s 1977 class of recruits, just 208 were chosen, and a mere six were women. Reid’s novel follows the discrimination women faced through Goodwin’s eyes as she narrates her inner fears, her struggles with shyness, frustration, and a work/life balance.

 

Joan is a brilliant Stanford grad training to be a mission specialist. Those who might go up in the space shuttle lived semi-cloistered existences in assigned (and spartan) apartments on the NASA Mission Control campus. They could leave the campus when they had days off, a good thing in Joan’s case as her sister Barbara is an irresponsible single mom who sees Joan as someone who should be at her beck and call to babysit her 9-year-old. Joan tries her best as there is no one in the world she loves as much as her niece Frances (and vice versa).

 

Joan, a former astronomy professor, and her female colleagues compete in a macho world of “Top Guns” (as one reviewer pegged them), who think women have no place in space. The women on Joan’s team include Donna Fitzgerald, who harbors a secret, mission specialist Vanesa Ford, and Lydia Danes who can’t figure out why no one can see that she the smartest person in every room she enters. The men on the team are commander Steve Hagen, space cowboy Hank Redmond, and John “Griff” Griffin, who is an open ally for the women.

 

The narrative opens and (mostly) closes with a crisis. Joan, to the shock of some colleagues, became the first woman in space. She didn’t like it as much as she hoped, as she was sick to her stomach a lot. For the next flight she’s at Mission Control serving as CAPCOM, the voice on the ground communicating with the shuttle in flight. Call her stint, “Houston we have problems.” She must handle a crisis that’s analogous to a mash of the 1986 Challenger and the 2003 Columbia disasters, (though not entirely like either of them).  An explosion aboard leaves several astronauts dead and the shuttle so seriously damaged that NASA doubts it can survive reentry.

 

The novel has been a huge hit, understandable as it touches numerous target audiences. It’s a thriller, a work that looks at the price of ambition, a marvel, a paean to teamwork, and a lesbian love story. The latter are in the closet (though not as deeply as they wished) because in the 1980s anyone engaged in “immoral” behavior would have been dismissed NASA. Some readers have found the relationship unrealistic and/or syrupy. It does tiptoe to the edge of the latter but, in my view, backed off before it crossed the line of unbelievability. Unbeknownst to many Americans until recently, Sally Ride married a fellow astronaut, divorced him after five years, and then lived with her female lover for the last 27 years of her life.* Atmosphere doesn’t leave too many meanings of the word unexamined.

 

Rob Weir

 

*Ride died of pancreatic cancer in 2012. Before she did so, she asked her partner, a former pro tennis player, to reveal their relationship.