Everyone should watch “Friendly Persuasion” [Film History]

In the course of writing a chapter surveying the portrayal of women in Civil War films (for a book called Blue And Gray In Black And White And Color) I’ve had the fascinating opportunity to watch two films I had never seen – one brilliant, one awful. Funny how that goes.

Friendly persuasion

 

The brilliant one is so good I may add it to my film list for next year’s History of Screenwriting III (from 1950-1980) because of how well done it is and because it was written by Michael Wilson, one of the lesser known, blacklisted writers of the era though he also wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Place in the Sun and Planet of the Apes (not a bad CV for a screenwriter).

In fact, the Wilson film that I loved didn’t even have his name – or the name of any screenwriter – or the Screenplay By credit on the opening credits at all. Because the studio wouldn’t put out a film by a blacklisted writer, director William Wyler wanted to put his brother’s name on the film – but the WGA said no. And Wilson didn’t want to use a pseudonym, so the film has no screenwriting credit. What it does have, that was built into the structure by the author of the novel on which it is based, Jessamyn West, is a wonderful chance for all the major and minor characters to do the most dramatic thing of all – to choose how to behave when the world’s activity doesn’t match your personal beliefs.

The film (and novel) is Friendly Persuasion, about an Indiana Quaker family in the path of Morgan’s Raiders during the Civil War. The mother is the local Quaker minister, her husband supports her to the best of his ability (though he’d like to buy an organ for their home because he doesn’t understand why music is wrong), and her son (played by Anthony Perkins in an Oscar nominated role) is the one who struggles with whether or not to pick up a guy and fight the Confederates as they have begun burning the barns on their friends’ local farms. It’s such a beautiful piece of drama because every character has to make a decision – and a tough one – about what they believe in – and then live with the consequences of that decision. While the opening of the film was a bit slow (as films from the 1950s tended to be – they gave you time to know the ‘world’ of the film that was about to be overturned by the events of the story) it all culminated beautifully.

On the other hand, for this research, I also watched a 1971 gothic horror film (also written by a formerly blacklisted writer, Albert Maltz) and also based on a novel (written by Thomas P. Cullinan) called The Beguiled. A lousier, more annoying piece of claptrap I have never watched. I wanted to turn it off several times but since I was studying how Civil War women were portrayed in films, I couldn’t, since the story is of a wounded Union soldier being cared for by the residents of a Southern girls boarding school. I get that gothic plus horror doesn’t equal true – and yet, horror is all the more horrific if it is based in some, small reality. This film is nothing more than a collection of sex kittens clamoring to lose their virginity to this representative of the enemy, the guy who was shooting at their loved ones yesterday is not my idea of the perfect man and yet these women fall into awful displays of coquettishness which I could never bring myself to believe.

I’ve read that Sofia Coppola is writing a remake. Part of me considers seeing it in hopes that she will find the reality that will make the story more palatable – but the other part of me never wants to wallow in that stupidity again. Despite how nice Clint Eastwood looked with his shirt off in those days, watching 12 year old girls try to have sex with him was far too icky for me. Then, again, perhaps that’s what classified the film as a horror film in the first place?

So if you want to take my advice, never rent The Beguiled but do make time in your viewing life for Friendly Persuasion.

From the Index… The C’s – “Why The Monkees Matter”

Wonder what and who I mentioned in “Why The Monkees Matter”? Check out these index entries!

Cactus Flower  148

Cagney, Jimmy  73-74, 115  

Cambridge, Godfrey  70-71

Cantrell, Laura  149

“Captain Crocodile”  75, 89-90, 116

Captain Kangaroo  89-90

Captain Nice  51

“The Card Carrying Red Shoes”  39, 79, 91, 115, 132

Carlin, George  38

Caruso, Dee  20, 29, 46-47, 60-61, 70, 72-73, 75, 77-79, 89, 90, 98, 108, 112-114, 117, 126

“The Case of the Missing Monkee”  75, 89, 115

Cassidy, David  128, 130-131, 151

Cavell, Stanley  44

CBS  32, 34, 90-91, 130

CBS Sunday Morning  130-131, 144

“Ceiling In My Room”  129

Chadwick, Bill and John  34

Chan, Charlie  75

“The Chaperone”  38, 87, 110-112, 126

Charlie’s Angels  104

Charley’s Aunt  87, 111-112

Charon, Irwin  80

Chavez, Cesar  71

Cherry, Stanley Z.  111

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882  75

Circus Boy  17, 88, 104-105, 121, 127

Civil Rights Act of 1964  36, 69

Civil Rights Movement  67, 69-71, 81, 146

Clark, Dick  19

Cobain, Kurt  152

Comedy Is Hard!  128

Conried, Hans  21, 35, 39, 100

Cosby, Bill  68, 71

Count of Monte Cristo, The  121

counterculture  26, 29, 32, 38, 40, 46, 49

Crawford, Stanley  99

“Cuddly Toy”  92

Cyrano de Bergerac  113

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch —  Buy your Copy today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

  

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Remember the Writers from An Interview with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author of “Why The Monkees Matter” on the Zilch Podcast [Audio]

A clip of an interview with Dr. Rosanne Welch, author of “Why The Monkees Matter” from Zilch: A Monkee’s Podcast: Episode 48.

Listen to this clip

Zilch48

Listen to the complete Zilch Podcast: Episode 48


Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

 

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

 

Introduction from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1:00)

1960's TV Censorship and The Monkees with Dr. Rosanne Welch

 

“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…  

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

I’m going to talk a little about the process of creating the book and going to publication. This is the book and it was really funny the things I learned along the way. The people who work at the publishing company must be all in their twenties which is a lovely beautiful thing. When they searched for a picture to put on the front cover and they sent me the picture to approve, they sent me a picture with 3 of the members of the band in it. They cut out Peter Tork and I had to send back a thing and they clearly Googled images that they wanted and found a cute image and they didn’t know the difference. At one point the bad was only three members. He did quit at some point and they must have thought that was normal and so I had to call back and say “You’ll cut out one quarter of the people who will purchase this by insulting them by not putting it in” so they found another picture that included all of them. So I thought that was pretty funny. And the whole thing actually began because I am on the editorial board for Written By Magazine and I like to write about people I’d like to meet. So I met Russell T Davies from Doctor Who by interviewing him for Written By Magazine and I wanted to meet Micky Dolenz because when I was a kid I had a crush on him.


Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

 

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition


About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Quotes from “Why The Monkees Matter” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 24 in a series

** Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today **

Quotes from

The long-haired weirdo references lead to a connection with the emerging drug scene when long-hair became the visual clue to a joke involving guest star Frank Zappa in the Teaser of “Monkees Blow Their Minds” (written by Meyerson). Zappa appeared costumed as Mike and Mike appeared costumed as Zappa and they interviewed each other after Zappa called The Monkees “this wonderful television program that has done so much for you young people out there.” 

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch —  Buy your Copy today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

  

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

From The Research Vault: Micky and Peter on Nightwatch, 1986 [Video]

Considering the current tour is being mounted by Micky and Peter it’s interesting to watch this 1986 interview the two of them had with Charlie Rose when he was hosting Nightwatch.  They attempt to analyze the success of the 20th reunion tour – it’s obvious that even they were still in shock at how much they are loved. Micky continues to credit the quality of the writing – as Charlie Rose says, in the way a television producer would speak.  

Rose also asks how it feels ‘at their ages’ (in their mid 40s for gosh sakes) to be on stage in front of so many adoring fans. 🙂 

Micky peter nightwatch

It’s charming to hear them discuss “What happens next?” when no one knew Good Times was in the future. It’s also great to hear an interviewer who actually researched them before forming his questions.  When he asks Peter why he quit, Peter admits he was too tied to the idea of an organic rock band – which is very reminiscent of Peter’s recent comments in the “The Monkees: Our Life in 15 Songs”  when he said one of the reasons the Good Times album works is that it “also comes down to the ethos that a pop-rock group needs to write all its own material has faded enormously.” 

Get “Good Times” directly from Amazon.com


Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

Order Your Copy Now!

Previously in Out of Research Vault:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:54)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Adapt 14 charlie chocolate

 

Transcript:

What I love about using Patricia Neal, is that she leads us into Roald Dahl, because she’s married to him. Most people, not everybody knows she was married to Roald Dahl, who gave us — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Which some people did read as children or perhaps they didn’t read it, they instead saw — from the book — Willy Wonka. And noticed how that changed. It’s “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”. The movie is “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” We’ve entirely changed the focus of who’s the important character in this book and — if you saw this as a child, — you will remember that we fell in love with Gene Wilder. This book — who’s read this book? Not a soft fuzzy little children’s book at all, because that’s not what Roald Dahl did. At the time this movie was made, the early 70’s, that’s what we’re looking for. Nice families. Good kids. Everything is safe. It’s all going to be fine in the end.

About this talk

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

From the Index… The B’s – “Why The Monkees Matter”

Wonder what and who I mentioned in “Why The Monkees Matter”? Check out these index entries!

Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, The  13

Bacon, Kevin  130, 151

Ballantine, Carl  21

Balmuth, Bernard  98

Barnes, Ken  69

Batman  7, 90, 116

Baywatch  22

Beach Blanket Bingo  15, 21

Beach Boys, The  14, 146

Beatles, The  3, 7, 23, 32, 34, 46, 83-84, 101, 121, 123, 125, 135, 146, 149, 151, 154

Beatty, Warren  17

Bechdel, Alison  65

Bechdel Test  65-66

Beck, Vincent  78-79

Bellah, Ross  105

Ben Casey  97, 131

Ben Stiller Show, The  153-154

Benet, Stephen Vincent  29-30

Bennett, Phillip  105

Bennett, Tony  156

Benny, Jack  121

Bergman, Andrew  91

Bergman, Ingrid  148

Beverly Hillbillies, The  116

Beverly Hills, 90210  13, 22

Bewitched  7-8, 45, 104, 148

Big  38, 53

Big Bang Theory, The  54, 69, 109-110

Big Time Rush  142

Bikini Beach  94

Birds, The Bees and the Monkees, The  130, 132

Blackboard Jungle  13

Blauner, Steve  96, 146

Blazing Saddles  91

Blue Bloods  119

Blue Moo  133

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice  27

Bob Newhart Show, The  96

Bogart, Humphrey  105

Bonnie and Clyde  17, 74

Bodroghkozy, Aniko  14

Bonanza  8, 16, 59, 107, 114, 116

Bond, Jame  46, 113, 115

Bowery Boys, The  124, 135

Bowie, David  149

Boy Meets World  120, 144-145, 155

Boyce, Tommy  27, 80, 88, 156

Boynton, Sandra  133

Brady Bunch, The  108, 131, 144, 155

Brady Bunch Movie, The  131

Brady, Marsha  108, 131

Bramley, William  21

Breaking Bad  144, 145

Brooks, Mel  91

Brothers, Dr. Joyce  61

Brown, James  69

Buckley, Tim  20, 148

Buddha  25, 33, 45, 75

Buffalo Springfield  36, 148

Bullwinkle  47

Buffy the Vampire Slayer  22

Burns, Edd “Kookie”  15-16

Burns, George  9, 11, 93, 97, 121, 123

Burns, Ronnie  11

Burnett, Carol  51  

Burstyn, Neil  117

Buzzi, Ruth  37, 80

Byrds, The  14, 34, 139, 146, 148


from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch —  Buy your Copy today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

  

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

How Did You Become A Fan Of The Monkees? from An Interview with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author of “Why The Monkees Matter” on the Zilch Podcast [Audio]

A clip of an interview with Dr. Rosanne Welch, author of “Why The Monkees Matter” from Zilch: A Monkee’s Podcast: Episode 48.

Listen to this clip

Zilch48

Listen to the complete Zilch Podcast: Episode 48


Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

 

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

 

Psychobabble reviews “Why The Monkees Matter”

As an author, it is both exciting and frightening to begin reading the review of a book you have spent several years of your life researching and writing. But you also appreciate when a reviewer sees both the good and the perhaps not so perfect points of your work. That’s how I feel about Mike Segretto’s coverage. He doesn’t completely agree with my feminist bent on the show, but does agree with my glass-half-empty/glass-half-full take on the way the show handled ethnicity in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. I smiled when he rated the book “a fine piece of cultural analysis” and an “atypically readable and fun one”. That was my goal all along – to make some cultural points about The Monkees and their impact while entertaining the fans who have known they mattered all these years. — Rosanne

Review: ‘Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television, and American Pop Culture’
by Mike Segretto from Psychobabble, July 17, 2016


The question of whether or not some artifact of the twentieth century still “matters” has become a trendy question among pop-culture writers. The annoying implication is that the writer’s judgment holds some sort of weight, and if it is decided that, say, The Beatles get the thumbs down, they no longer “matter”—whatever that means. Instead of asking questions, Rosanne Welch’s new book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television, and American Pop Culture makes an emphatic statement, and unlike a lot of these other “does this matter?” pieces, there is a special point behind her statement since The Monkees spent so much of their fifty-year career having critics tell them they most certainly do not matter.

As Welch points out, that attitude really began to change in the wake of Davy Jones’s death in 2012, as critical consensus started moving toward the judgment that The Monkees were actually really great. The point of Why The Monkees Matter is to articulate that judgment, and she does so by focusing exclusively on their TV show, which she notes was artistically, narratively, and politically progressive.

Welch organizes her book as a series of stand-alone topical essays. She deals with the state of the teenager on American TV prior to The Monkees arrival; how The Monkees contemporized depictions of young people by voicing anti-war, anti-consumerist philosophies (some scripted, some not); the radical inventiveness of the series’ design and writing (“The Monkees” was that rare sixties show that went out of its way to hire young writers); it’s pop-cultural legacy; etc.

Welch also deals with how women and non-American ethnicities were handled on the show. This is where “The Monkees” didn’t always live up to its Aquarian ideals, though the author cuts the series a lot of slack regarding its treatment of women. Yes, we do see an unusual number of female characters in respectable positions on the show—judges, royalty, PH.D. students, rock musicians—but some of Welch’s arguments that the series was generally feminist are weak. She contends that Davy’s weekly girlfriends weren’t sex objects because they never actually spend the night at The Monkees’ pad. Well, how many women on sixties sitcoms spent the night at a man’s pad? Zero? She suggests that Micky values intelligence more than sexuality because he describes Brenda from “99 ½ Pound Weakling” as “brilliant and intelligent” when this is clearly a joke on her stoned inarticulateness. While Welch notes the demotion of the all-female band The Westminster Abbeys to go-go dancers at the end of “Some Like It Lukewarm”, she unconvincingly suggests that other elements in the episode balance out the sexist way the writers chose to end it.

Welch is less forgiving when analyzing how non-American ethnicities are handled on “The Monkees”, focusing on how Asians, Italians, Gypsies, and Russians are stereotyped on the series. She misses a great opportunity to discuss the character of Thursday in “Monkees Marooned”, who very effectively sends up the “black native” stereotype with his eloquence, intelligence, ability to take control of situations, and hipness.

Aside from the weaknesses in these two chapters, Why The Monkees Matter is not only a fine piece of cultural analysis overall but also an atypically readable and fun one. It’s filled with historical tidbits about the series’ filming and writing and Mike, Micky, Davy, and Peter, so even if you need no convincing that The Monkees matter, you may still find much to interest you on its pages.