(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Work was sluggish - so I revised my novel and flirted with potential trips. Currently looking at Canadian excursions - it's for July and August, so I don't want to go where it is hot.

Kriplau sent me a catalogue, which while tempting, I'm not a huge yoga enthusiast. It bores me. Also I can't physically do most of it, never could.

Oh well, like I said previously, it's not like I'm not going anywhere. I'm visiting my brother, his wife, my niece and my Mother upstate and in Mass in about two-three weeks.

**

Killing John Wayne

Took another brief detour to dump a ton of information about the atomic bomb testing in the US and Russia from roughly 1950-1961 or thereabouts. And all the thyroid cancer cases that popped up in St. George Utah around that period of time. In children, no less. Plus all the gastrointestinal cancer cases, leukemia, and various others - that up until that point had been relatively rare and unknown.

Add to that Dick Powell who directed the film is diagnosed with throat cancer, which spreads in 1962. Allyson originally thinks smoking is the cause, but later she blames the movie.

They really go into detail about the atomic bomb testing. At one point they test the effect of a hydrogen bomb on towns and people, by setting up mannikens in a town, outside of the fake people, everything else is real. And nothing is left standing after the bomb. (You'd think Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have gotten this across or even the bombing of Dresden, but alas no.) When the cancer cases pop up, along with all the protests - it's actually the protests and politicians that shut it down above ground - they go below ground and test. Because they did studies and discovered the radiation doesn't affect anyone or pollute the air or soil if tested below ground in various caverns and crevices. (And we wonder why we have earthquakes and natural disasters.) They considered testing the bombs in space - but an act was passed between Russia and the US to prevent that.
(Basically to keep those pesky military scientists from destroying the universe or attracting an alien race to eliminate us before we hurt anyone with our stupidity.) Russia is slightly more stupid than the US and tests a massive hydrogen bomb somewhere in Siberia, which was so huge it blew out the glass in buildings up to 200,000 miles away.

Finally they pass a bunch of laws to stop the testing. Because of all the cancer cases and protests. If you are wondering why cancer is so prevalent in the US, and elsewhere? That's why. France and Europe and China were also testing bombs. And not necessarily implementing safeguards.

After listening to this, I'm beginning to think Cancer is a disease created by humans trying to play God. Ego and hubris are going to kill us one of these days.

Then the book detours again into people's Hollywood Careers. Hayward got an Academy Award for I Want to Live, so The Congueor didn't hurt her. The only one it kind of bit in the butt (outside of Hughes) careerwise was Wayne - who was front and center - and he didn't look like the all American ideal, because of the makeup. Dick Powell - went into television, after doing a lot of lackluster war films (which while mediocre were better than the Conqueror.) RKO sputtered and died after a bit. Huges went insane and bought every copy of the film imaginable no matter the price. He didn't want it in the public domain at all. So it was pretty much unavailable because of Hughes.

It's not clear why. He could have done it out of guilt or embarrassment. But the general consensus is that he did it - to keep the film all to himself. Basically out of selfishness. (Although he probably did us all a favor.) He loved the film, and watched it incessantly. He would retreat to a room in his mansion and sit around naked, urinating in bottles, and muttering to himself. He became increasingly paranoid. And reclusive as a result.

Hughes also hired starlets (women actresses) to service him. They thought they'd become stars or get roles. But they were basically there just for him. He did this while married to Jean Peters, possibly the only woman he ever loved, assuming he was capable of such a thing.

Sounds like a 1950s/60s version of Trump, doesn't he? Have money, be an asshole.



Still in a reading slump. I decided to pick up the sequel to River Enchanted, entitled a Fire Burns Below, I think. I keep forgetting the title. The first book ended kind of abruptly, so I wanted to see what happened to the characters.

I need a good book to read. The sort that you can't wait to pick up.

Comments

[mtbc]

For what it's worth, the nuclear test site at Mercury, NV, can still be visited, if one applies in advance for security checking, there are the remains of test houses and such, it's a good tour. Though somewhere like Niagara Falls, ON, seems a much better destination for your plans partly because it's so much more accessible without a car.

Now I'm reminded of the TV show Wonderfalls, I found that cute and entertaining. (Though set in the US, the filming looks to me to be on the Canadian side of the falls.)

[shadowkat]

Nevada is a bit too hot to visit in the summer - also a nuclear test site? No, hard pass. ;-)

Although appears Niagra is hot too to visit in the summer.

[kerk_hiraeth]

I loved the unaired pilot; never really worked as a series for me. I think I would have preferred a movie version. Only got to see the episodic version the once, but having got a copy of the pilot I rewatch that on average a couple of times a month.

kerk

[mtbc]

Interesting difference you note, I hadn't been aware of the unaired variant.

[iddewes]

DON’T go to the Okanagan Valley in Canada if you don’t want to go where it’s hot! Toronto apparently gets pretty hot and humid in the summer too. Probably best in Vancouver or the mountains.

[shadowkat]

Oh, thanks. Maybe the summer isn't best to travel to Niagra and Toronto?

I honestly don't know if I can do much of a vacation this year anyhow.

[cactuswatcher]

The only one it kind of bit in the butt (outside of Hughes) careerwise was Wayne

It really didn't hurt him either. Granted no one was going to cast him outside his normal range again, which may have limited his peak income in the late 1950s, but no one doubted his ability to sell tickets to Westerns.

I've heard the story about Hughes buying up all the copies of The Conqueror, too. But I'm almost positive I saw it on local TV in the mid 1960s about the same time as most other movies of that vintage (We had two stations in St Louis that showed every movie they could get their hands on, one on Saturday night, the other on Sunday afternoon.) Maybe Hughes relented, decided to make a buck and let some distributors get copies.

[shadowkat]

It took Huges a while to obtain every copy out there - I don't think he got them all until the late 1960s. So you most likely did see it in the early-mid 60s? Can't remember the exact date.

Wayne made the decision never to take a role that he didn't fit again, and used to joke about it. Outside of being reamed for being miscast. He survived. Partly because the Searchers came out around the same time, and well...

[kerk_hiraeth]

I saw it when I was a teenager here in the UK.

Mostly I remember the Omar Sharif version though; used to get it confused and kept thinking Susan Hayward was in that one. :-)

Did get to see Mongol (at the DCA in Dundee, which was supposed to be the first in a series telling the Mongol history of their most famous national figure.

Very much puts the Hollywood versions of his story deep in the shadows.

kerk

[shadowkat]

Genghis Khan has had multiple movies made about him. The Conqueror is the version with John Wayne, not sure if Hughes was able to get hold of all of the foreign versions of the film.