Unmade Black Projects

The following black experience-related film and stage projects proposed by black entertainers were mentioned in the press but so far they have not been made:

1. Spike Lee (director)--A biopic about the 1938 boxing rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling; A film adaptation of Porgy and Bess.

2. Barry Jenkins (director)--A biopic about the choreographer Alvin Ailey.

3. Jon Batiste (musician/composer)--A Broadway musical based on the life of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

4. Alicia Keys (singer/pianist)--A biopic about the biracial piano prodigy Philippa Schuyler, whose father was the Harlem Renaissance writer and critic George Schuyler.

5. Jesse L. Martin (actor)--A biopic about the R & B singer Marvin Gaye.

I Enjoy Watching Movies On DVD

I recently heard on a radio news broadcast that the retailer Best Buy was discontinuing the sale of DVDs because more and more people are watching movies via streaming services rather than on DVDs.

My introduction to streaming came about when my upstairs neighbors, Harry and Lilia, would invite me to their apartment numerous times for dinner, conversation, and the use of their laptop computers.

Harry or Lilia, while sitting on the living room couch, remote in hand, would skim through the menu offerings on Netflix, reading the plot summaries before deciding on what to watch.

From what I could see, streaming doesn't offer the kinds of features found on a DVD like audio commentaries, scene selection, behind-the-scenes mini-docs, blooper clips, trailers, etc. (Good reasons not to buy bootleg copies because they lack these important features.)

Being old school, I prefer to have the physical disc in hand. As the novelist Larry Duplechan points out in his memoir/film history book, Movies That Made Me Gay (Team Angelica Publishing, 2023, paperback), the DVD is a good backup because "you can't trust streaming services to keep your favorite old movies posted."

Remake "The Cotton Club" Movie

Prior to seeing Francis Ford Coppola's film, The Cotton Club in 1984, I had interviewed several people who had either worked at the nightclub or knew someone who did. The interviews were for a syndicated article I was writing about the upcoming movie.

Like the film critic Rex Reed, in his Guide to Movies on TV & Video, 1992-1993 Edition (Warner Books, 1992), I had heard a lot about this "Harlem bastion of glamour, sequins, and jazz that characterized the Roaring Twenties in New York night life."

So when I went to see the film I was full of excitement and high expectations. For the first time I would be seeing the fabled night spot on the big screen, and see an exploration of the lives and working conditions of the black performers who worked there in a Jim Crow environment, in, of all places, Harlem.

And, like Reed, I was disappointed. "[W]here," he asked, "is the Cotton Club? Somewhere on the cutting-room floor."

The movie was more focused on the white gangsters who owned the place than it was on the black performers who were its backbone. This was a missed opportunity to explore the racial and socio-economic aspects of the period. Instead of watching this movie, "You [will] learn more about the Cotton Club," wrote Reed, "and the people who made it famous just by listening to old records by Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, and Ethel Waters." Amen.

In the hands of Spike Lee, Kasi Lemmons, Barry Jenkins, Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, or another capable black director the movie would have been more riveting, more incisive, and more thoughtful. It certainly would have been more black-centered.

If there is one movie that deserves a remake, The Cotton Club is it.

Note: I wrote a similar blog post in February 2015.

The 1984 article I wrote was published in this blog as "Exotic Negroes at the Cotton Club " on February 12, 2013.

Biopics Are Not The Gospel

When one watches a movie based on true events, one should keep in mind that the movie is not a documentary and that the filmmakers for dramatic reasons fictionalize and change details about what really happened.

A case in point would be 2020's One Night in Miami, an otherwise well-done, riveting movie directed by the Oscar-winning actress Regina King.

The movie takes place in February 1964 when Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) comes to Miami to vie for the heavyweight championship against his rival Sonny Liston.

Following Ali's victory in the ring, he, the singer Sam Cooke, the firebrand orator Malcolm X, and the football player Jim Brown hole up in a motel room where they share their innermost thoughts, experiences, and aspirations. No one knows for sure what was actually said that night. Kemp Powers, the screenwriter, can only conjecture about what may have occurred, relying on his imagination.

Jim Brown, who recently passed away, was the last surviving participant in that motel gathering and would have known how close Powers came to accurately depicting that night. However, a couple of facts were not accurately presented.

For instance, when Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali are by themselves, Brown expresses to Ali his reluctance to admit to the others that he is giving up his football career to pursue movie acting. What's missing in that scene is Ali telling Brown to relax since he himself appeared in the movie Requiem for a Heavyweight two years prior.

Another scene gets the chronology wrong about when Sam Cooke wrote and recorded "A Change is Gonna Come."  Malcolm goes to the record player and plays Bob Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind" and asks Cooke why he hadn't written a song that was as socially and politically relevant. That confrontation, according to the movie, causes Cooke to write "A Change is Gonna Come." Actually, Cooke recorded the song less than a month before the motel gathering in Miami.

Peter Guralnick, Cooke's biographer, in an essay in the companion booklet to the 30-song CD Sam Cooke: Portrait of a Legend, 1951-1964 (2003), relates that after hearing the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary's hit recording of "Blowin' in the Wind," he told his friend and song publishing partner J.W. Alexander, "Alec, I got to write something. Here's a white boy [Bob Dylan] writing a song like this...." (Guralnick calls "A Change is Gonna Come" Cooke's magnum opus.)

If one were to examine One Night in Miami closely, there are no doubt other inaccuracies. But, hey, that's Hollywood. You can still enjoy the movie. Just don't accept everything you're seeing and hearing as the gospel.

A Biopic About An 18th-Century Black Violinist In France

As soon as I read in The New Yorker (March 13, 2023) that a biopic called Chevalier, about an 18th-century black violinist and composer, was slated for release in April, I wasted no time going to my bookshelves.

The book I took down is my go-to reference on blacks in the classical music world, the late Raoul Abdul's Blacks in Classical Music, published in 1977 by Dodd, Mead & Company. (Abdul was the music critic at the New York Amsterdam News.)

I turned to the chapter on Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799). He was born on the Caribbean island of Guadalupe to an African mother and the French governor of the island. (The movie synopsis described the father as a plantation owner.)

After reading the chapter, I could see why the director, Stephen Williams, chose this historical figure, played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., to make a movie about. Saint-Georges had a larger than life persona during his lifetime. He was a brilliant violinist who, wrote Abdul, "acquired a mastery of that instrument comparable to the best of his day." Saint-Georges also was "an outstanding swordsman, a brilliant conversationalist, and altogether the darling of French society."

Will people out of curiosity see Chevalier in large enough numbers to make it a hit? Who knows? Judging by the comments left on the movie's trailer page, there is a lot of interest in seeing it. And maybe that interest will encourage concert halls around the world to showcase his music.

The Film Actresses Directed By Dorothy Arzner

I wrote a review of Directed by Dorothy Arzner by Judith Mayne (Indiana University Press, 1994) that originally appeared in a monthly book review column that I wrote for the Manhattan Spirit, a weekly New York newspaper. The book, a biography of Dorothy Arzner, the pioneer lesbian film director (1900-1979), was published in the paper's January 12, 1996 issue. (I subsequently published it as a blog post in this blog on October 9, 2010).

Because of space limitations and the fact that the column consisted of three book reviews, I wasn't able to point out at the time that Arzner directed films that starred Clara Bow, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, and Katharine Hepburn.

I neglected to make the correction in the blog post. If the review ever gets republished in a print publication, like a book, I will make sure to include that important information.

In the meantime, I hope to persuade a cinema art house in New York like Film Forum to screen a retrospective of Dorothy Arzner's films. Among her films I would like to see are Christopher Strong (RKO, 1933), starring Katharine Hepburn and Craig's Wife (Columbia, 1936), starring Rosalind Russell.

Netflix Saves An Iconic Manhattan Movie House

The Paris Theatre, the last single-screen movie house in Manhattan, recently closed its doors. For a long time I'd thought about seeing a movie there but never got around to doing it. When the theatre closed, I thought my opportunity to visit was forever gone. Then I read in Time Out New York magazine (December 11-24, 2019, Issue 1177), that Netflix came to the Paris Theatre's rescue by signing a long-term lease.

Netflix, reported Time Out, will use the Paris Theatre "to stage screenings and special events." And since the Academy Awards only allows films that have had a theatrical release to be nominated for an Oscar, Netflix films will have a ready-made venue.

Now if we could just convince Netflix to take over the long-vacant Metro Cinema, located on Broadway and 99th Street, at one time a venue for art-house films. The Upper West Side was once the home to many movie houses. Now there are none. Bringing back the Metro Cinema would be a wonderful thing.

And while we're at it, maybe Netflix can also revive the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, which was located near Lincoln Center. It closed down about two years ago.

Watching Movies Inside A Train Station

Here's an interesting bit of New York cinema history that I recently learned about via an electronic message that appeared on a curbside Link NYC kiosk: In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, there was a movie theatre inside the world-famous Grand Central Terminal.

Numerous questions came to mind upon learning this: who operated the theatre?; where in the terminal was it located?; how many people did it seat?; was it ornate?; did the train noises disturb moviegoers?; were the moviegoers mostly commuters?; etc., etc., etc. I would love to have those questions answered.

No doubt it, like other theatres, was a single-screen venue; no multiplexes back then.

Who knew that Grand Central Terminal was large enough to house a movie theatre?

More Movie Theatres Are Needed In Upper Manhattan

Sad to say, I never got the chance to see any movies at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on the Upper West Side of Manhattan or the Sunshine Cinema farther downtown. Both theatres closed permanently about ten days apart in January of this year.

Since there is a dearth of movie theatres, especially on the Upper West Side and Harlem, maybe someone will decide to re-open the Metro Cinema on Broadway at 99th Street and the Victoria 5 Theatre on 125th Street. Both of those theatres have stood vacant for several years.

In fact, there are more film crews shooting on the streets of the Upper West Side and Harlem than there are theatres in which to show those movies. With the exception of the AMC Magic Johnson Theatres in Harlem, this part of town,unfortunately, has largely become a movie theatre desert.

A Book On The Making of "Thelma & Louise"

I enjoy reading books that take the reader behind the scenes of classic Hollywood movies, especially movies I have seen and thoroughly enjoyed. So far I have read books on the making of Network, Rebel Without a Cause, Psycho, and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Now, according to Entertainment Weekly magazine (July 7, 2017), a book about the making of the 1991 classic Thelma & Louise has been published. The book, by Becky Aikman, is called Off the Cliff. Anyone who has seen the movie knows the significance of the title. Unfortunately, the title and the front cover photograph are spoilers.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading it.

A Movie Studio Grows In The South Bronx

On December 27, 2012, I posted on this blog an unpublished letter-to-the-editor that I wrote in July 1977 in which I suggested that the abandoned buildings in the South Bronx be torn down and replaced by "a huge television and motion picture sound stage."

Forty years later, that sound stage in the South Bronx has come into existence and is called Silvercup Studios North.

My suggestion was way ahead of its time.

No Black Press Quoted About August Wilson's "Fences"

In the Sunday New York Times (December 4,2016) there was a large pull out section advertising Denzel Washington's new film Fences, based on August Wilson's play, that is due for release on Christmas Day. The section carried blurbs by film critics from the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and other publications. But none from an African-American publication. This omission tells me that Paramount Pictures doesn't think that the black press matters even on a project about the black experience by a black playwright and a black director (Denzel Washington).

Spike Lee's Malcolm X Biopic

For more than a year, Spike Lee's $35 million, three-hour epic movie on Malcolm X has spawned one controversy after another.

At the heart of the turmoil are three issues that trouble many in the African-American community, including black cultural nationalists and intellectuals who worry about the commercialization of Malcolm's name and likeness; Lee's film style, which some are afraid will "trash" the slain leader, and Lee's personal vision of what Malcolm stood for.

Since Malcolm X's assassination in February 1965, he has grown into a larger-than-life figure within the African-American community. Thus, many blacks already uneasy about Hollywood's history of stereotyping blacks and Lee's reputation for creating what one critic described as "cardboard Negroes" have rushed to the barricades to protect the image of one of the most revered heroes in black America.

Hollywood recognized the commercial potential of the Malcolm X story long before Spike Lee came on the scene. It was in 1967 when producer Marvin Worth bought the screen rights to The Autobiography of Malcolm X (co-written with Alex Haley, who later wrote Roots).

Worth, now Lee's co-producer on the film, commissioned James (The Fire Next Time) Baldwin to write the script, which was eventually published as One Day When I Was Lost, a complex retelling of the autobiography, using voice overs while shifting back and forth in time.

Other writers who labored on the project without success over the next two decades include Arnold Perl, who completed the Baldwin script, and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights David Mamet and Charles Fuller. (Lee rewrote the Baldwin-Perl script.)

Norman Jewison, who was to direct the Fuller script, backed out in 1990 because he said, Malcolm--whose personality consisted of many layers and whose outlook on the world changed several times--was "an enigma" to him. Jewison knew Lee wanted to direct the picture and encouraged him to do so.

Although few, if  any black activists would disagree with Jewison's belief that the film needed to be made, there was uncertainty about Lee being the perfect candidate to depict Malcolm Little's transformation from a small-time hoodlum to Malcolm X, the charismatic leader of the black masses.

In an open letter to Spike Lee, a group of  activists calling themselves the United Front to Preserve the Legacy of Malcolm X and the Cultural Revolution expressed their "distress about how he planned to capture Malcolm on film." Using his previous films as the basis for their concern, writer-professor Amiri Baraka and his cohorts fear that Malcolm X would be a "caricature of black people's lives."

While one critic sees Lee's work as a mixture of realism and cartoon, with breaks in the action for a dance, a comedy scene, or an on-camera rant by one of the characters, Lee views his work as a way to develop a new use of cinema.

"I always felt it was a waste of time doin' the same [expletive] again and again." He wants his detractors to keep in mind that Malcolm X is "not a PBS documentary. This is a Hollywood movie. It's educational--and it's entertainment at the same time."

When Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones during the black arts movement in the 1960s) called Malcolm X "Mr. Lee's exploitation film," without having seen the finished product, other black writers and activists saw his attitude as a fit of jealousy. Baraka is "no longer getting the kind of attention he used to get," says Village Voice writer Greg Tate, and "he can't stand it. He seems to hate any young person who is successful."

Noted writer Ishmael Reed also sides with Lee's determination to tell Malcolm's story his way: "If Baraka doesn't like Spike's films, he should make his own."

Another of the activists' concerns is the commercialization of Malcolm. All across America, young and old alike are sporting Malcolm X baseball caps, T-shirts, and jackets.

Writer Yusef Salaam, a Harlem activist, sees the Malcolm X merchandise as an attempt by Lee and others "to cosmetize Malcolm's image and revolutionary example," thereby making him more acceptable to the black middle class and white America.

Thulani Davis, who wrote the libretto for X, an opera based on Malcolm's life, sees it as an "inevitable" phenomenon. "If you have an impact on the culture, you're going to be processed and marketed."

For Davis, the main consideration is that a black artist has control of the film. That goal was uppermost in Lee's mind when he became interested in bringing Malcolm to the big screen.In 1987, he wrote in his journal: "It would be a monster [big success] if Denzel Washington and I could have control over the project."

Although Lee does not want to shoulder all of the blame for the proliferation of Malcolm wear and other items (he was the first to wear the X cap), he does see the trend as "the first step" toward re-educating black youth.

At a time when many young blacks equate getting good grades and speaking standard English as "acting white," the film, explains Lee will show Malcolm "striving to better himself, to educate himself, to talk correctly, to stop swearing, and to stop other people from swearing."

Lee says his film shows "the total evolution of what made [Malcolm];we see the three or four different people he was along the way. People tend to have one view of Malcolm," referring to Malcolm's eye-for-an-eye, hate-whitey stance just before he journeyed to Mecca, the spirtitual center of Islam in Saudi Arabia, after which he embraced the idea of international brotherhood and racial harmony.

"But he had many different voices over his life; he turned completely around several times in his life,"Lee says . The film, which Lee calls "an act of love" from a longtime admirer, lets the audience decide which of the Malcolms they side with.

Denzel Washington, who portrays Malcolm and was picked for the role when Norman Jewison signed on as director, echoes Lee: "Some who knew Malcolm want to put him on a pedestal. We want kids to see how Malcolm was able to turn his life around, to see that Malcolm's solutions changed as he changed."

Lee says that the film and the Malcolm X legacy are "more than about wearing a hat" with an X on it, it is about addressing all of the problems that "have taken over the people--AIDS, crack, cigarettes, alcohol."

If Spike Lee is truly one of the most influential people in show business (he is on Entertainment Weekly's Power 101 list this year), perhaps Malcolm X will guide us toward becoming a kinder, gentler, more tolerant, and just society a lot sooner.


This article was originally written for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and was published in November 1992.

A Gay Gossip Columnist

One book I plan to read for the second time is Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip by Val Holley (McFarland & Co., 2003).

Connolly, a columnist for the Hollywood Reporter in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, was a political conservative and a staunch anti-Communist. He was also a gay man.

It's been a few years since I last read the book but I vaguely recall the author depicting Connolly as closeted and homophobic towards other gay men, especially those in Hollywood who were in the public eye like actor Rock Hudson and director George Cukor. Those traits would not be too far off the mark for a gay man living and working during those extremely closeted and homophobic times.

I would love to see a documentary film  made about the life and times of Mike Connolly. It would give us a behind-the-scenes look at gay Hollywood back then, warts and all, told from many different points of view, gay and straight.

Movies Around The Clock

In New York City, there are various establishments that are open 24 hours: supermarkets, laundromats, gas stations, newsstands, drugstore chains like Rite Aid, to name a few. But there are no 24-hour theatres. There are a couple of theatres in the city that have midnight screenings during the weekends, but that is not the same as having 24-hour screenings.

Some people may think that in this age of the Internet, DVD/Blu-ray disc players, cable and satellite TV that a 24-hour movie theatre is unnecessary. I disagree. There are times when at 2 AM cabin fever strikes and you need  to get out of the house. What better way to escape cabin fever than to catch a flick at the admittedly ungodly hour of 2 AM or 3 AM alongside other similarly afflicted patrons.

Showing movies (classic and contemporary along with short films) around the clock would help the bottom lines of many theatres as well as give movie lovers an opportunity to make new friends among fellow cinephiles, especially in the wee hours of the morning, thereby sparking cinema-related (and other) conversations.

That brings me to a photo I saw in an issue of the Christian Science Monitor Weekly magazine (December 22, 2014) showing a movie theatre in a Moscow suburb with several rows of beds. Beside each bed was a nightstand on top of which was a small lamp. This theatre, noted the caption, "replaced standard seats with bedroom furniture, including 17 double beds," all of which were supplied by the furniture retailer IKEA. An American movie theatre with such amenities might lure a lot of people to post-post-midnight screenings.

This 24-hour movie theatre idea is worth a try. And who knows, it might catch on nationwide.

Movies Alfresco Are Not For Me

This summer all around New York there will be movie screenings in the city's parks and on rooftops. Many of these events will be free (including the popcorn).

But I doubt that I will be an attendee. They would remind me too much of the drive-in theatres I went to when I was a child in Southern California. Watching a movie on a big screen under the stars never appealed to me. I've always preferred going to what Variety, the entertainment trade publication, has called hardtop theatres, with their plush seats, air conditioning, movie posters, and the smell of hot buttered popcorn and hot dogs.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the smell of grass, the chirping of birds, and the occasional gust of wind. But not while I'm trying to enjoy a movie.They would only serve as distractions.

A Hollywood Romance Story

On the table in front of the Harlem Children's Zone's Baby College on Seventh Avenue were several books, all offered for free. A sign in the window cautioned passersby to limit themselves to one book.
I chose Audrey and Bill: A Romantic Biography of Audrey Hepburn and William Holden by Edward Z. Epstein, a celebrity biographer. To my surprise it was an "Advance Uncorrected Proof" for a book published last month (April). I seldom come upon free books published that recently.

Hepburn and Holden's short-lived romance, which began when they co-starred in Billy Wilder's Sabrina, should be fascinating reading.

The Movies Taught Me How To Read Roman Numerals

When I was in high school, we didn't cover roman numerals all that thoroughly and so I didn't feel the need to learn any more about them. What got me interested in deciphering roman numerals were the movies. I always wanted to know the year a film was released and didn't always have a copy of TV Guide handy. I noticed that at the bottom of the screen below the film's title, was the release date in roman numerals. I got out an old math book and brushed up on the roman numeral section so I could read them fast in the few seconds they appeared on screen.  If the numerals read MCMXLVI, I knew the film had been released in 1946. Now I can even read the cornerstone dates on buildings.

Is There No Need To Quote Black Film Critics?

The print ads for Selma and Chris Rock's Top Five have several blurbs from film critics giving these movies high praise. Unfortunately, none of the blurbs are from critics in the black press. Does that mean that Paramount Pictures, the distributor, thinks the black media has nothing worthwhile to say about films that are from the black experience?

Don Cheadle Is Miles Ahead On His Miles Davis Film

Now that actor Don Cheadle has gotten his Miles Davis biopic, Miles Ahead,* before the cameras, maybe he should consider doing a biopic of Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's openly gay friend and collaborator. (Strayhorn wrote among other well-known tunes, Take the A Train.)There was supposed to be a film version of  Lush Life, David Hadju's biography of Strayhorn, but nothing came of it. It would be wonderful if a film about Strayhorn would be made. Such a film would remove him from Ellington's shadow.


*Note: See Alan Light's article, "Middle-Aged Man Without a Horn," in the New York Times Arts & Leisure section (September 14, 2014). It is about Don Cheadle's making of the Miles Davis biopic.