Two of my sons have podcasts (no idea how they got the idea that the world needs to hear their opinions) and one of those podcasts is about movies and recently the movie-podcast-having son told a story about a young man who watched Lawrence of Arabia on his cell phone.
Because Lawrence of Arabia was obviously meant to be watched on a screen slightly smaller than a postcard.
At this point we could do what every generation has done when observing the hijinks of the following generation; decide they’re goofy and do goofy stuff and right now I’m thinking of my dad’s generation, who ran into German machine gun fire to save the world and how they viewed my generation, who thought hot pink overalls worn with platform shoes and a paisley shirt looked awesome and if that seems like a weirdly specific example: yeah, I wore that.
In public.
But to get back to that kid watching Lawrence of Arabia on his cell phone and what that means to the rest of us; the kid’s dad is in the movie business and thought it was great that his son watched Lawrence of Arabia on a cell phone because he considered it an indication of how movies would be watched in the future, which is a really good thing for Hollywood.
And it’s a really good thing for Hollywood because if movies are going to be watched on cell phone screens six-by-three inches, that means there’s no need to get a thousand camels and a thousand guys to ride them and gather them in the Jordan desert and say:
“OK, we need all you guys to charge across this valley while we film it and, by the way, try not to run over Peter O’Toole because he’s going to lead the charge and isn’t all that great at riding a camel and might fall off and it’s really going to fuck up the New York premiere if Peter O’Toole gets trampled to death by camels before we hold it.”
BTW: Peter O’Toole did fall off his camel during one of the charges, but his camel came back and stood over him while the charge went by, which means that camel was smarter and more sympathetic to the plight of others than 50% of the candidates currently running for president.
And I know all that because after hearing the story about the kid and his cell phone, I thought, “Man, Lawrence of Arabia was a great movie and I haven’t seen it in 30 years” so I went to the library and checked it out and the DVD also had a documentary about how it was made so I watched that too.
One of the many great things about Lawrence of Arabia is they really did the things you see on screen – like a get a train and derail it – because they didn’t have CGI yet, but now they do which is why the kid’s father was excited:
“Hey, if people are going to watch the crap we make on cell phones, we don’t need to sweat the details and worry about traveling to Morocco to film people walking across sand dunes or spend a shit ton of money getting the costumes right or get up in the middle of the night to film a desert sunrise or any of the other stuff that won’t show up on screens about the size of a pack of cigarettes.”
(OK, so far I’ve written 554 words…wait, now it’s 558…and haven’t talked about today’s topic, but don’t worry, I’m about to.)
During the Lawrence of Arabia documentary, Omar Sharif revealed that the people who made the movie didn’t want him to come to the New York premiere because they wanted all the attention on their new star Peter O’Toole. Because Omar was an Egyptian actor nobody in the USA ever heard of, they didn’t think the women of America would get all that excited about Omar Sharif.
One more time: They didn’t think American women would get all that excited about Omar Sharif.
Fortunately for the women of America and everywhere else, Peter O’Toole was a cool dude and said if Omar isn’t invited to the New York premiere I’m not coming either. A story which made me think just how wrong supposedly knowledgeable people can be and here’s another:
I also recently watched a Netflix documentary about Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks told a story about a Hollywood Executive seeing some early scenes from The Producers and insisting Gene Wilder was all wrong for the part and what they really needed was a “leading man.”
Which means the Hollywood Executive had absolutely no clue what that character needed to be like: Leo Bloom had to be introverted and frightened and easily bullied by Zero Mostel’s character and Gene Wilder was perfect for it.
Mel Brooks, being smarter than the average bear (especially if the bear has no experience dealing with moronic Hollywood Executives) told the Hollywood Executive he was 100% right and he’d get right on replacing Gene Wilder, but just kept filming with Gene and the next time the Hollywood Executive brought it up, Mel said he just couldn’t find the right guy and in the meantime had already shot 50% of the movie with Gene Wilder and it would cost a lot of money to reshoot those scenes.
So Gene Wilder stayed in the movie and The Producers became a comedy classic despite a Hollywood Executive’s best efforts to ruin it.
And while we’re on the subject…
Mel Brooks also told a story about making a deal with Columbia to produce Young Frankenstein, but said it was a parody of old horror movies and would be made in Black & White. The Columbia executives freaked out because they didn’t think anybody would watch a Black & White movie in 1974 and said it was a deal-breaker.
So Mel said go ahead and break it and took Young Frankenstein to 20th Century Fox.
By being incredibly wrong about people’s willingness to watch a Black & White movie as long as it’s a great Black & White movie, Columbia screwed themselves out of a film that cost $2.78 million to make and grossed $86.2 million, so do the math (subtract the cost from the gross and carry the stupidity multiplied by the arrogance) and it turns out Columbia lost a lot of money by being wrong.
The Experts Speak
These examples of people who thought they knew what they were talking about, but turned out to be incredibly mistaken, made me think of the 1984 book The Experts Speak which I happen to own because it’s a great reminder that critics are often wrong, like the Decca Recording Company executive who said:
“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out.”
And said it in 1962 when his company decided they didn’t want to sign the Beatles.
Just to prove being incredibly wrong was a popular activity on both sides of the Atlantic, right before they toured American in 1964, the president of Capitol Records – the Beatles American distributor – said:
“We don’t think they’ll do anything in this market.”
Fortunately for the purposes of this essay, the arrogance and stupidity doesn’t stop there:
In 1954 the manager of the Grand Ol’ Opry told a performer: “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.” The performer was Elvis Presley.
After firing a musician from the Decca label in 1956 a company executive called the fired musician the “biggest no-talent I ever worked with.” The musician was Buddy Holly.
In 1963 the new manager of a rock group said, “The singer will have to go.” The rock group was The Rolling Stones and the singer was Mick Jagger.
How about movies?
In 1959 a Universal Pictures executive doubled down on bad decisions and dismissed two actors at the same time; one got dismissed because he had “no talent” and the second actor got dismissed because – among other flaws – he talked “too slow.” The actors were Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood.
Another actor was told she better “learn secretarial work or get married.” The actor was Marilyn Monroe.
Yet another actor was turned down for a role because he “doesn’t have the presidential look.” The actor was Ronald Reagan. (OK, so they got one right.)
In 1936 a MGM movie executive said “no Civil War movie ever made a nickel.” He was advising against making Gone with the Wind.”
In 1939 a New Yorker critic called a movie a “stinkeroo” and the movie he thought stunk and showed no imagination or ingenuity was The Wizard of Oz.
A movie critic called a film unexciting and said the only way it could have been exciting was through visual imagination and special effects, but unfortunately “both are unexceptional.” The movie was Star Wars.
By now you’re probably getting my drift and to speed things up, at one point or another, some critic said:
William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickenson, William Faulkner, Henry James, James Joyce, Herman Melville, George Orwell, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Rudyard Kipling couldn’t write.
And…
Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt Van Rijn, Pierre August Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec were lousy artists.
Today’s Lesson…And It’s a Good One
As I was digging through The Experts Speak for titanically dicked-up evaluations of other people’s talent, I noticed I never heard of most of the people doing the criticizing and that’s because – for the most part – they were people who couldn’t sing, act, write or paint confidently criticizing people who could.
So remember that next time some internet troll gets snarky about someone else’s efforts, including your own.
Never let fear of criticism keep you from doing what you want to do and once you do it, don’t let the critics tell you that what you did stunk because a lot of critics have been incredibly wrong about a lot of stuff. (I’m no stranger to being wrong myself and if you’re considering a career in politics, you’re nuts if you don’t run for office because you’re afraid I’ll draw a cartoon about you.)
I’m going to leave you with a sportswriter’s appraisal of a rookie ballplayer:
“I don’t like the way he stands at the plate. He bends his front knee inward and moves his foot just before he takes a swing. That’s exactly what I do before I drive a golf ball and knowing what happens to the golf balls I drive, I don’t believe this kid will hit half a singer midget’s weight in a bathing suit.”
Now here’s the ballplayer he was talking about:
Typically on target!
WTH is “… half a singer midget’s weight in a bathing suit.” ???
Loved the Gene Wilder doc.