Hello!

Over at The Passionate Movegoer for June 13 Joe Baltake has a pretty thorough article about actors replacing actors in movies, for a dizzying variety of reasons. I thought he was going to stick with a few examples, starting with Madeline Kahn on the Lucille Ball Mame. But Baltake’s account outlines a great many instances of radical actor replacments, familiar and un-. Some movies affected were All That Jazz, The Goodbye Girl, The Untouchables, Romeo + Juliet, The King & I, Love Story, Claudine, A League of Their Own and The Apartment. Recommended.

New disc news! Criterion just hit us with some nice upcoming titles for September: Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev, Assayas’ Cold Water, Sidney Poitier and the late Ruby Dee in A Raisin in the Sun, Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage and Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey. That last comedy with Carole Lombard has to be one of the funniest movies ever; it’s also high time that I took on the Bergman movie. I think my marriage can stand it.

And our joy know no bounds, as they say, for this last blurb. We’re happy to learn, through a Brad Norman Twitter Link forwarded by Joe Dante, that the city of West Hollywood is going to restore the giant statue of Jay Ward’s Rocky and Bullwinkle and put it up on public display again (not sure where exactly). I’d volunteer my front yard, but the neighbors would complain and I’m not in West Hollywood in the first place.

Friend Allan Peach immediately recalled that in 1970, a billboard for the movie Myra Breckinridge went up across the street from the statue on Sunset Blvd., with Raquel Welch holding a pose similar to Bullwinkle’s. Jay Ward’s inspired response was to outfit Bullwinkle with a matching American-flag get-up. My preference for Bullwinkle’s attire is his classic no-sleeves collegiate ‘Wotsamatta U.’ sweatshirt.

And Gary Teetzel intercepted this message, reportedly from some Trump advisors with thick accents:

“Eez much vorse than Confederate monuments!  Must not honor Moose and Squirrel!  Make Pottsylvania Great Again!”

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson