PLAGUE DIARY 13: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

Three Daring Daughters (1948)
 God save us from ‘The Morgans’ — this frightfully endearing family could give The Von Trapps a run for their money. But the travesty of this movie is the theme song, which -- are you ready -- is called — ‘The Dickey-Bird Song.’ Apparently, it was a huge hit.  (And —in case you haven’t noticed —the song’s title is subtextually simultaneously suggestive of a certain portion of the male anatomy on the one hand, and of a certain area of the female anatomy on the other.) If ‘Dickey-Bird’ doesn’t kill you, then Jane Powell will.  I had mixed her up with Eleanor Powell (of Broadway Melody fame) but that would make her too old to be an agonisingly syrupy ingenue in 1948, and then I realised to my dismay, they were two different people. Do not ever go near a movie with Jane Powell in it.  IMDB says "In 1957 her career in films ended, as she had outgrown her innocent girl-next-door image.” I think the public was just weary of her fierce, numbing, good will. Three Daring Daughters is even worse than The Brain that Wouldn’t Die; because it's too bad to be camp.There is an IMDB review of the movie — from someone who must be so old that even grumpy Trump might grant him a Coronavirus ventilator: "It amazes me that so many people cannot see that the past is different from our debased and decadent present…We would be much better off in a world of this music and these people ….a whole lot better than one in which Saw XXX has an audience.” Well, I would trade one moment of watching someone ponder whether to cut off their own ear than put up with this tedious disingenuous pile of crap. So, the movie is basically The Parent Trap  -- three girls want to get their divorced parents back together, all because Jeannette MacDonald refuses to tell them anything bad about her ex-husband, their father, because she doesn’t want to hurt them. You never find out what their damned father did that was so damned awful anyway, and he never ever appears in the movie. But I have a sneaky suspicion his sin was liking sex, because no one in this film seems possibly capable of ever having it. I mean Jose Iturbi? Jose Iturbi as a love interest? Are you nuts? Yes he has a charming accent. But so did Ricky Ricardo, who also happened to be actually sexy.  So why am I so upset about this  movie? ’ Because like most ‘light-hearted entertainment — it’s not the least bit entertaining. Comedy is dark, and mean, and angry, so how can something be funny if there’s no anger in it? The only funny moment in the film is when Edward Arnold has an inkling Jane Powell feels a song coming on, and  yells “Get away from that piano!” I have written comedies that entertained people, but they were not ‘light-hearted entertainment.' I wrote Drag Queens on Trial about AIDS. A big New York producer was interested in it but said ‘I want to keep the jokes, but sorry New York City is just tired of all the AIDS stuff.” (He was talking about Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, one of the most vile plays ever written, written by a man who hated sex before AIDS came along, a man who decided to make his whole career off an epidemic). Is Netflix funding this whole Coronavirus thing? Is this garbage what people want?  During this time of crisis, when people are ‘dying like flies’? But I have news for you, people are always dying like flies. And if the only way you can deal with it is to watch crap like this, then you have serious problems, buster. What can I say to redeem this film? I know. Jeannette MacDonald’s hat. She wears it basically for the last third of the film, which means  somebody must have known how fabulous that hat was.  How shall I describe Jeannette MacDonald’s feathered hat? Well it’s not a lot of hat, it’s a kind of soft fur ring that surrounds her upper cranium in a semi-circle, and sticking out of the side are two giant feathers which appear to be growing out of her head.  But I believe the costume designer ‘Irene,’ in her wisdom, just knew that the end of the film was so tedious that she wanted to take our minds off of it. Is self-isolation driving people to movies like this? No, please, please use this time creatively instead.  For instance, discover what is fatally wrong with your damn lousy life, and maybe do something about it. I’ve already decided that I don’t need sex as much as I thought I did (I can’t believe I said that).  But I'll probably continue on in similar fashion, because it’s not the sex that drives me out at night. It’s the danger, the strangers, and yes I’ll say it, the lack of intimacy. I am a person who likes social situations where I can be alone. I like to go to parties, and get drunk, and entertain whoever will laugh at my lousy witticisms. I like to go to bars and chat up the bartender — not the guys. I like to direct plays because I get to pretend that I am deeply scarily intimate with the actors — until the rehearsal period is over -- at which point I never have to see them again! And yes, I love promiscuous sex, because I don’t have to actually love that person any more than the specific physical act allows. Why am I telling you all this irredeemable junk about myself? Because in my own personal demented brain-that-won’t-die I imagine that’s what art is, or should be. Take that in your Dickey-Bird, Jane Powell.