Rubio vs. Christie: From Here to Calamity?

A few weeks ago, in a skit on the latest GOP Presidential primary debate, Saturday Night Live used cast members Bobby Moynihan and Pete Davidson as stand-ins for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. This weekend, we learned how wrong these two choices were. Unfortunately, the ideal actors were dead: Ernest Borgnine and Frank Sinatra.

Christie’s treatment of the pre-programmed Rubio recalled nothing so much as the (offscreen) flogging administered by Borgnine’s brutal stockade Sgt. Fatso Judson to Sinatra’s scrappy but undersized Angelo Maggio in the 1953 film classic From Here to Eternity. 

As Rubio repeated three (it felt like 10) times his contention that Barack Obama was trying to make America like other countries, Christie couldn’t help reveling, with a Fatso-like sadism, over “the memorized 25-second speech”—and supporters of his rival couldn’t help wincing at what they had just witnessed. 

Their agony was as palpable as the one shown by Montgomery Clift’s Robert E. Lee Prewitt as he listened to his dying Army buddy bewail the whupping he’d just received: “Yesterday it was bad. He hit me, he hit me, he hit me. I had to get out, Prew, I had to get out…”

The stockade, we learn from the adaptation of James Jones’ novel of American servicemen just before Pearl Harbor, is the roughest of places, a Darwinian pen that prisoner newbies enter at their own peril—sort of like this year’s GOP primary season. 

Rubio’s introduction to the next stage in the Presidential campaign via Christie starkly illuminated another such dark place.

Like Maggio, however, Rubio should have seen it coming. Fatso had warned the rebellious Maggio long before, “Guys like you end up in the stockade sooner or later. Some day you’ll walk in. I’ll be waiting. I’ll show you a couple of things.” 

Christie had served notice on Rubio, with his pre-debate verbal thrust at “the boy in the bubble,” to expect similarly rough treatment.

Even before that, Rubio and his handlers should have anticipated what could happen if he emerged, as he had started to do after the Iowa caucus, as the alternative to the odious Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. 

Channel-surfing last night, I came across Rachel Maddow pointing to a column by Erik Eisele on Rubio’s short but unfruitful encounter with the editorial board of the Conway Daily Sun, with one unbelievably prescient passage:

“We had roughly 20 minutes with him [Rubio] on Monday, and in that time he talked about ISIS, the economy, his political record and his background. But it was like watching a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points. He said a lot, but at the same time said nothing. It was like someone wound him up, pointed him towards the doors and pushed play. If there was a human side to the senator, a soul, it didn’t come across through.”

That piece appeared six weeks ago—more than enough time for his campaign manager and staff to prep the candidate about his propensity for canned responses. 

In fact, as Ezra Klein explained in a piece for Vox, strategists for other GOP candidates had already figured out that he was “a stump speech attached to a pretty face,” lacking experience or even substantial accomplishments.

Fatso acknowledged, with half admiration, that his latest prisoner was a “tough monkey.” Christie was a good deal more condescending. Rubio, he said, was a “nice guy,” but not equipped for the Presidency. 

Time in the Senate certainly hadn’t equipped the Floridian for his GOP rivals, all of whom swarmed over his stunned body on debate night to deliver pile-on blows.

Maggio bled to death in the dark, all too conscious of what had happened to him. Amazingly, though, in his first 48 hours after the brutal bout with Christie, Marco Roboto (I’m sorry, I mean Rubio) demonstrated to a worldwide audience that he had been left utterly punch-drunk.

That’s really the only way to view his initial flabbergasting contention that there was nothing wrong at all in what happened to him on Saturday night. 

“Actually, I would pay them to keep running that clip, because that’s what I believe — passionately,” Rubio told George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, adding, “We raised more money last night in the first hour of that debate than any other debate.”

Two days later, it was all a different story. By now, his campaign strategists had wrestled some sense into Rubio’s head. He told supporters that his lackluster fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary resulted from the fact that he “did not do well on Saturday night,” but that “it will never happen again.”

That’s what he says now. But as Fatso (I'm sorry, I mean Christie) told reporters after that takedown of his younger opponent: “You remember what Mike Tyson said, that great political philosopher?  Everybody’s got a plan until you get punched in the face.”

(The photo accompanying this post, showing Marco Rubio addressing the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, was taken by Gage Skidmore.)

Quote of the Day (George F. Will, on Sinatra, ‘The Greatest Singer of American Songs’)

“Frank Sinatra should be celebrated for his craftsmanship. Of geniuses, we have, it seems, a steady stream. Actual craftsmen are rarer and more useful because they are exemplary for anyone with a craft, be it surgery or carpentry. Sinatra was many things, some of them — libertine, bully, gangster groupie — regrettable. But he unquestionably was the greatest singer of American songs.”— George F. Will, “The Frank Sinatra We Remember,” The Washington Post, Dec. 9, 2015

Today is the 100^th birthday of Frank Sinatra, baby. Forget it at your own risk.

One who seems to have done so, at least according to a good number of true believers, is columnist George F. Will, who came in for considerable flack from aficionados who perceived a slight of the Chairman of the Board in that sentence about “regrettable” failings.

Let’s grant right now that Will could have made more of Sinatra’s fierce opposition, early in his career, to racism, at a point when such a stance could have posed grave risks for his career, or of the singer’s legendary generosity, manifested publicly and privately (he came to the aid of a number of entertainers experiencing severe financial difficulties, including Woody Herman, Duke Ellington and Lee J. Cobb).

But—there’s really no way to get around it—Sinatra was a bully, someone who could not only turn on people close to him for years, but also capitalize on friendships with Mafia figures to order beatings of people who rubbed him the wrong way, including comic Jackie Mason and author Dominick Dunne.

Every one of us who has ever suffered or fought off a bully can never forget it. And when professional muscle is enlisted to do the bullying—well, I don’t see how you can look the other way, do you?

So, let’s grant that, too. We are still left with the Wills assertion--that Ol' Blue Eyes was "the greatest singer of American songs"--which makes so many people defend Sinatra no matter what, while making others regard the singer as an infinitely fascinating mass of contradictions.

You can certainly count me among the latter group. As I searched for past posts of mine about Sinatra, I was surprised to discover that the number of times I’ve written about him has probably only been exceeded by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Bruce Springsteen and Steven Sondheim. Considering how I regarded him when I was a teenager in the '70s--a hopelessly square representative of everything the older generation stood for--that's quite a turnaround--and, of course, a tribute to his extraordinary talent.

For what it’s worth, below are links to my considerations of different aspects of his career and life:

*From Here to Eternity: The Godfather-propagated legend of how Sinatra landed his Oscar-winning, comeback role of Maggio—and what was the more likely, prosaic truth.

*Guys and Dolls: Why the singer hated, hated, hated that movie’s co-star, Marlon Brando.

*Carousel: Why Sinatra felt such an affinity with "Soliloquy," the epic centerpiece of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical—and why he walked away from the role of Billy Bigelow onscreen.

*Billie Holiday: How the example of “Lady Day” (whose 100^th birthday was also celebrated this year) proved crucial in Sinatra’s mid-career decision to refashion himself from youthful crooner to world-weary interpreter of song.

One last thing. You'll notice that to accompany this post, I haven't chosen one of his jaunty, "I've Got the World on a String"-style images, but one showing an infinitely more vulnerable side. This comes from another film for which he was Oscar-nominated, The Man With the Golden Arm, about a drug addict. 

The author of this post from the blog "More Stars Than in the Heavens" got it right in noting, "There’s real desperation in every second of his screentime here – the kind that, frankly, no actor can learn." It's the same type of desperation and pathos he mined in "saloon songs" such as "One More for My Baby (and One More for the Road)". 

This Day in Film History (Burt Lancaster, 'Modernist Movie Hunk,' Born)

November 2, 1913—Burt Lancaster, who used his athleticism to get his foot in the movie industry, then his intelligence and drive to build a versatile, Oscar-winning multi-decade career, was born into an Irish Protestant household in the East Harlem section of New York City. Yet, though he sometimes appeared in films with a Big Apple setting, he never exuded the aura of a “New York actor” the way that James Cagney, John Garfield or Marlon Brando did, nor did he follow any modish acting tradition. He was simply, in the words of Time movie critic Richard Corliss, “the first modernist movie hunk.”

Like Cary Grant, Lancaster was a circus acrobat before becoming an actor, and a beefcake physique was his primary asset when his film career began in his thirties. Perhaps that particular athletic skill gave the two men the ability to land on their feet even after taking a major risk: seeking roles without the backing of a major studio.

Unlike Grant, however, who frequently acted in comedies (and often, improbably enough with his Cockney background, in the sophisticated, drawing-room kind), Lancaster tilted heavily toward drama. In addition to his job in a circus, he had also worked as a refrigerator repairman, engineer in a meatpacking plant, firefighter, salesman, and singing waiter. That varied background fed his hunger to distinguish himself, but it also probably gave him the confidence to believe he could act believably in any role once he set his mind to it.

The actor would need that self-assurance after he first secured attention as a doomed boxer in the 1946 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Killers.” He could have traded on his raw physicality, with eventual diminishing returns, the way that Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have done recently. But he prized the kind of range that would assure endurance. 

While Grant essentially worked as a free agent, choosing from whichever part came his way, Lancaster took the extraordinary step of developing his own projects. So, in 1948, linking up with agent Harold Hecht, he became one of the first actors to become an independent producer. Together with James Hill, they would create some of the most popular or critically acclaimed films of the Fifties: Come Back, Little Sheba, Sweet Smell of Success, and Marty (the last not starring him, but nevertheless winning Best Picture). These movies would also serve as a launching pad for a wider career that resulted in Oscar nominations for From Here to Eternity, Birdman of Alcatraz, Atlantic City, and Elmer Gantry (the last, as a corrupt minister, giving him his victory in the Best Actor category).

While blessed with all the glamour of an old-fashioned studio star (as late as the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, critic Kenneth Turan remembered, the “spectacularly fit 58-year-old actor” made a dramatic appearance just before an interview with a preluncheon dive off the rocks into the Mediterranean, in full view of a hotel restaurant), Lancaster seemed ideally positioned to capitalize on film noir, a movie genre that sprang from the grimness of postwar America. He could certainly be cast credibly as a romantic lead. But those “great white Chiclets flashing” (critic Pauline Kael’s words) could alternately be used to grin, or nearly to devour, as in his deeply chilling portrait of a Walter Winchell-like columnist in Sweet Smell of Success.

That, in a way, gave him a crucial advantage in a fierce competition among an entire generation of actors—friend and frequent costar Kirk Douglas, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Paul Newman. All of them wanted the same kind of anti-hero roles becoming increasingly common in the postwar era. Especially the last four of these were associated with method acting. Lancaster for much of his career was heavily opposed to “The Method.” What he could not bring to a scene by dredging up from his own pit of emotions, he would summon through massive rehearsing and discussions with directors. That preparation could translate into interference with directors, but also a passion that to make the best product, as well as growing daring in choice of roles (e.g., even playing an Italian aristocrat in Luchino Visconsi's 1963 The Leopard).

Athleticism allowed Lancaster to project, in different degrees, energy, strength, and a sense of command. But his gaze radiated intensity--frequently related to love, but many times to cruelty. You can feel that ice-cold sense in Sweet Smell of Success. Lancaster had initially resisted director Alexander Mackendrick's suggestion that he wear glasses. Just what a mistake that was can be seen onscreen, where the spectacles transform the magnificent physical specimen that was Lancaster into what Vanity Fair contributor Sam Kashner termed a "tense, bespectacled ghoul" with the possibility of latent violence. Kashner's article from 13 years ago, on the making of this cult film, mentions that Orson Welles had been co-screenwriter Ernest Lehman's initial choice to play the role of J.J. Hunsecker, but it is hard to see how the former enfant terrible of Hollywood--already experiencing terrible weight problems--could have conveyed the sense of coiled menace brought by Lancaster.

Ironically, while disdaining The Method for much of his career, Lancaster succeeded by bringing the entire range of his own complicated personality to the screen. A man who played a multitude of parts, he contained multitudes himself. Generous, idealistic and deeply committed to causes (he was one of the early advocates for AIDS victims), he could also convey threat. "People were frightened of Burt," recalled partner Hill, "and he never did anything to make people unfrightened of him.” Lancaster was not above lifting the small Hecht into the air and threatening to throw him out the window. The father of five children, an actor who played the title role in the 1970s mini-series Moses the Lawgiver, he was also an atheist and compulsive womanizer who had trouble adhering to the commandment about not committing adultery.

(The image accompanying this post was, of course, the famous beach love scene between Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in his first Oscar-nominated role, From Here to Eternity, used in that film’s trailer.)