Ever hear of
Magic Town (1947), starring Jimmy Stewart? I hadn’t until last night when it popped up on a recent addition to my minimal Cablevision package, Movies, channel 113. It’s the story of a maverick pollster who finds a dream town that delivers the same results of coast to coast polls taken by large companies. He does his polling on the sly, he and his cohorts pretending to be insurance salesmen. He falls in love with Jane Wyman, a newspaper editor, who discovers and exposes his secret. Disaster ensues. It is the type of fare Hollywood did so well, an idealized portrayal of America. Although it's obvious everything will work out in the end, it is a solid film. Curious about two of the artists involved, I researched them at IMDb. Wyman is not included in discussions about the all-time great actresses, although she won an Oscar for
Johnny Belinda (1948), in which she played a deaf mute victim of rape. She has 111 credits listed. One is the prime time soap opera
Falcon Crest, in which she appeared in more than 200 episodes. She was Ronald Reagan’s first wife. They were married eight years, her longest of five marriages, which included two to one man. Although she would not comment on Reagan publicly, she voted for him three times. They remained friends and she attended his funeral. The director of
Magic Town was William Wellman, who was at the helm of three of my favorite films:
The Public Enemy (1931),
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and
Battleground (1949). He also did several other commercially and critically successful works among the 83 he headed, including several silents. Although nominated three times, he never won an Oscar as Best Director, which seems criminal. Perhaps this was due to his personal conduct. He was a hard-drinking hell-raiser who clashed with actors, irked by their self-importance. He was expelled from high school for throwing a stink bomb at the principal. He joined France’s famed Lafayette Escadrille as a teenager and survived being shot down in WWI. His mates referred to him as Wild Bill. He married five times and claims his last wife, with whom he had seven kids, saved his life. If Wyman and Wellman were alive today, they would have to be included in Barbara Walter's list of the most fascinating people.
A note about this new station. I notice that its close captioning censors profanity. Unfortunately, it hasn't been perfected yet. In the aforementioned film a character was named Dick. When he was mentioned, four x's appeared: XXXX.
Although the wind wasn't nearly as stiff as the radio report led me to believe, it was uncomfortably cold, as there was little sunshine, making the floating book shop a tough chore. I toughed it out for two hours. I thank the woman who bought Maya Angelou's
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now. I had a visit from Political Man, a staunch liberal in favor of government handouts, of which he takes full advantage. His Discover bill for music purchases this month is $698. He owns thousands of CDs, apparently subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer. What a country!
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Web Site:
http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
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