BEFORE: I'm working a long shift today at the theater - it's thesis presentation weekend for the film students. There will be about five hours of screening, followed by a party in the lobby that might go on for an hour or two, and then the clean-up. I may get home early on Sunday morning, so this post may be late in delivery. And then I'll probably be too exhausted to start on my Sunday movie, so I'll have to squeeze that one in on Sunday afternoon, and pull a double shift on movie-watching. Whatever I have to do to stay on track, because I can't be late with my Mother's Day movies, now, can I?
George W. Bush carries over again from "The Queen of Versailles".
THE PLOT: A look at the life, work and political activism of one of the most successful television producers of all time, Norman Lear.
AFTER: Yeah, it's 2 am on Sunday and I'm finally getting a chance to write something about this documentary, then I think it will be bedtime. Just four docs left in the DocBlock before I move back to fiction films in early May. I recorded this doc about Norman Lear from PBS, where it ran as part of their "American Masters" series - but something strange happened, there are 8 or 9 actors who are listed on IMDB as being in this doc, but I didn't see them - I even fast-forwarded through the whole film a second time to see if maybe I just missed them. Nope, they're not there, but based on who they are, I'm thinking that PBS may have done some editing, and cut out about 3 or 4 minutes of footage that was there to promote those weird "live" remade versions of "All in the Family", "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life" that aired on network TV a few years back. Anyway, those actors (Todd Bridges, Kim Fields, Charlotte Rae et. al.) were simply NOT in the version PBS aired, so I've removed them from my cast list below.
Now, when this doc was first released, Norman Lear was a spry 93 years old - but he's now reached the century mark (born July 27, 1922) and I hope I'm not jinxing him by watching this doc during his big 100th year. Norman Lear was born in New Haven CT, but his family was living in Chelsea, MA when his father went to jail for selling fake bonds. Lear went to high school in Brooklyn, NY but then attended Emerson College in Boston. He dropped out in 1942 to join the U.S. Army Air Forces. He served on a bomber in the Mediterranean, and when he talked about bombing Germany you can tell he kind of regrets it. Hey, maybe he dropped bombs on Dresden, when Kurt Vonnegut was there, wouldn't that be kind of weird?
Of course, the movie skips ahead to the important stuff - being the producer of "All in the Family" a sitcom that was so controversial in themes of race and bigotry that it was preceded with a content warning when it first aired. "Sanford and Son" was another production of his that was all about race - and then came the spin-offs, "Maude", "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times", all shot before live studio audiences and touching on the controversial issues of the day, like equal rights and abortion.
I didn't know that Lear basically retired from television in the 1980's, partly to create an organization to counter-act the Christian right-wing group called Moral Majority, which was working in the political arena to influence the U.S. government, even though we're SUPPOSED to have a distinct separation between church and state. The M.M. believed that their religion was better than all the others (don't they all?) but they used their money and influence to promote the Christian agenda over all others, including Judaism and Islam. Lear only dabbled in TV production for many years, but came back strong in 2017 with a Hispanic reboot of his old show "One Day at a Time". I guess I didn't have a copy of this doc back last year when I watched "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It", but I think Lear was featured prominently in that one, too, because Ms. Moreno appeared in that reboot.
Of course, Lear worked with all sorts of people during his almost 70-year career in TV. In the 1950's he worked on shows featuring Martha Raye and Tennessee Ernie Ford, then hooked up with Martin and Lewis for a while, then made a Western called "The Deputy" starring Henry Fonda and produced two features starring Dick Van Dyke ("Divorce American Style" and "Cold Turkey") before he revolutionized the sit-com format in the 1970's and devoted his life to social change through comedy. Not bad for a Jewish kid from Connecticut.
Mel Brooks shows up here, too - and he does that bit about Jewish people singing "Dancing in the Dark" and starting too high, which might be funny if I hadn't seen him do this same routine in at least THREE other documentaries...jeez, get some new material.
I'd write more but my brain is fried - I've got to hit the sack and then start fresh tomorrow morning, or more likely, afternoon.
Also starring Norman Lear (last seen in "The Super Bob Einstein Movie"), Carl Reiner (ditto), Rob Reiner (ditto), John Amos (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Mel Brooks (last seen in "Mel Brooks: Unwrapped"), George Clooney (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Ben Lear, Kate Lear, Lyn Davis Lear, Bill Moyers (last seen in "Running With Beto"), Amy Poehler (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Phil Rosenthal, Russell Simmons, Jon Stewart (last seen in "Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time"), Bud Yorkin.
with archive footage of Judd Apatow, Bea Arthur (also last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Rue McClanahan (ditto), Hermione Baddeley, Adrienne Barbeau, Bob Barker, Paul Benedict (last seen in "Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Dean Martin (ditto), Dinah Shore (ditto), Frank Sinatra (ditto), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Citizen Ashe"), Father Coughlin, Phil Donahue (last seen in "Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists"), Lena Dunham (last heard in "My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea"), Jerry Falwell (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Sally Field (last seen in "Eye for an Eye"), Tennessee Ernie Ford, Marla Gibbs (last seen in "Please Stand By"), George Gobel, Bryant Gumbel (last seen in "Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool"), Sherman Hemsley, Bob Hope (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), Robin Williams (ditto), Louise Lasser (last seen in "Adrienne"), Frances Lear, Jerry Lewis (last seen in "Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown"), Bill Macy, Bob Newhart (also last seen in "The Super Bob Einstein Movie"), Richard Nixon (also last seen in "Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time"), Carroll O'Connor (last seen in "Sammy Davis: I've Gotta Be Me"), Isabel Sanford (ditto), Jean Stapleton (ditto), Sally Struthers (ditto), Esther Rolle, Jimmie Walker, Mike Wallace (last seen in "Where's My Roy Cohn?").
RATING: 6 out of 10 Emmy awards
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