Path: ...!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!2.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Evelyn C. Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom Subject: MT VOID, 05/10/24 -- Vol. 42, No. 45, Whole Number 2327 Date: Sun, 12 May 2024 11:34:20 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 280 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Sun, 12 May 2024 17:34:21 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="5e0366522ded799e0bbccfd25d13563b"; logging-data="2949923"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1//STuoL1if+0fmEl6wuQIZ" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:QsMsP4thmNoG8kqRUMd9PsqGIBU= Content-Language: en-US Bytes: 14066 THE MT VOID 05/10/24 -- Vol. 42, No. 45, Whole Number 2327 Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net Sending Address: evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com All material is the opinion of the author and is copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted. All comments sent or posted will be assumed authorized for inclusion unless otherwise noted. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to eleeper@optonline.net The latest issue is at . An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at . Topics: Mini Reviews, Part 24 (I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE, KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT, A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN) (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper) Rather, the Documentary (film review by Art Stadlin) Ancestors and Descendants (letter of comment by Paul Dormer) This Week's Reading (RICHARD III: HIS LIFE & CHARACTER, REVIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper) =================================================================== TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 24 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper) This is the twenty-fourth batch of mini-reviews, all relating to men finding themselves in women's roles. (Note that the review of KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT is a reprint of Evelyn's review from 04/05/24.) I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE (1949): I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE came out a few years after the war, when the bombed-out European setting could be used for a comedy. (In general, most wartime comedies were set in the States, or well behind enemy lines, e.g., London.) Cary Grant is inexplicably a French army officer, though he retains his Mid-Atlantic accent. (The film is based on a true story, although the "male war bride" in reality was a Belgian resistance fighter.) Most of the film has the typical boy-meets-girl, boy-hates-girl- and-girl-hates-boy, and then boy-and-girl-realize-they-love-each- other structure, with only the last part dealing with the (supposedly) amusing aspects of having the bride be in the American military and the groom be the non-citizen. (Note: Catherine's line about Grant being "an octopus with hands" got recycled in another Howard Hawks film (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD) as "Well, you had moments of kind of making like an octopus. I never saw so so many hands in all my life".) I am also reviewing here KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT and A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN. Note that all three are basically about how difficult it is for a man to be treated like a woman even when people know he is a man, and how we are supposed to sympathize with him. Contrast this with TOOTSIE, where a man is being treated like a woman because people think he is a woman. In TOOTSIE you sympathize with Hoffman, but also with all the women who are treated the way he is. In I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE, KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT, and A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN, there is no suggestion that there is anything wrong with treating women the way they are treated in those films. [-ecl] Released theatrically 26 August 1949. Film Credits: What others are saying: KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT (1964): I just watched KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT, and a painful experience it was too. It was the first film with a female President of the United States, but it was just as patronizing as you might expect, and with an ending that meets all one's expectations for a film like this made in 1960. Everyone seems totally clueless about having a "First Gentleman" instead of a "First Lady": the bedroom assigned to him was more feminine that anything outside of a farce, he is left to wander around the White House rather than being taken around to familiarize himself with it, and people still treat the President as if she's still a housewife. From the post-Hillary, post-Chastain era, this looks totally ludicrous. Actually, it probably looked fairly ludicrous even then. Polly Bergen is at times at least somewhat Presidential, though not consistently. Fred MacMurray is totally at a loss as "First Gentleman", even though Bergen must have had a long career in politics before she became President. And the Secret Service seems not just inept, but positively derelict in duty. (Yes, this was made before the Kennedy assassination, but even so the Secret Service would not have let the First Gentleman get in a car alone with a clearly unbalanced foreign dictator, or visit an ex-girlfriend alone without explicit instructions from him.) [-ecl] Released theatrically 21 August 1964. Film Credits: What others are saying: A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN (1973): A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN stars Marcello Mastroianni as the title character and Catherine Deneuve as his wife in this marginally science fictional story. When Mastroianni starts feeling sick and developing a pot belly, he goes to the doctor, who explains that the reason is that Mastroianni is pregnant. This is because of, the doctor says, all the artificial foods we have been eating. The question of how conception actually happened is not addressed, nor that of where the fetus is developing, nor that of how delivery will happen, so clearly there is a lot of fodder for the IMDb "Goofs" section. What is addressed is the social aspect of all this, especially as more men around the world report pregnancies. One of a group of women discussing this says that her husband would get an abortion, and another adds, "And there would be no jail [for him or the doctor] either." A maternity fashion house starts a line of "paternity" clothes, advertised just as patronizingly as their maternity clothes are. A man who is given stereotypical gay characteristics says he specifically wanted to meet Mastroianni, and then asks if he feels that this is turning Mastroianni into a female. Well, okay, this is a film of its time, and the attitudes it reflects are those of its time. Just watch it in a double feature with I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE and get a double dose. [-ecl] Released theatrically 20 September 1973 (France). Film Credits: What others are saying: =================================================================== TOPIC: Rather, the Documentary (film review by Art Stadlin) Last night we watched RATHER, the Dan Rather documentary now playing on Netflix. It was better than I expected and definitely worth watching for anyone who harbors an interest in the history of TV journalism or TV history in general. Where to start... I suppose this documentary on the life of Dan Rather might also double as his eulogy, with "Courage" engraved on his tombstone. Of course he's still going strong, even at 92. Snippets from his daughter, grandson, and several other notables in the industry all sing his praises. A patriotic man... A man with deep religious faith... A proud 4th-generation Texan... His critics, mostly on the right-wing of politics, branded Dan as a liberal. And in those days, when Americans got their nightly TV news from only three sources, the TV press garnered significant influence. Dan's in-your-face style, unafraid to ask the difficult questions, was not well received by those in power who had lots to hide. This documentary covers it all, the lows and misses as well as his journalistic triumphs. In the category of documentaries, this was a good one. Fast paced, lots of actual photos and video all the way back to Dan's start as a sportscaster on a Texas radio station. As Dan tells it, sportscasting taught him how to ad-lib, to fill the dead air. He would need that skill later as he covered so many live events, like the drama in Dallas involving the assignation of JFK. From Dan's reporting in the war zones, to his seat in the CBS anchor chair, to his on-air role at 60-Minutes, he pushed to get the facts and bring the truth forward, without regard to whose feathers were ruffled. Honest and hard-hitting journalism was his passion. And then things went off the rails with the reporting of Presidential candidate G.W. Bush's military service. As that unfolded, Dan himself became the news. And he parted ways with CBS, after an on-air apology for getting the story wrong. ========== REMAINDER OF ARTICLE TRUNCATED ==========