Mickey Rooney and The Human Comedy

 

    

                  

 

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, the diminutive Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He is best remembered for playing teenager Andy Hardy in an extremely popular series of films, and for the MGM musicals where he was paired with MGM’s other great teen star, Judy Garland. In these light comedies and musicals Rooney, who had been in show business since early childhood, demonstrated that he was an extremely talented performer and musician. A good example can be seen in Strike Up the Bandwhere Rooney appeared as a leader of a teen age band hoping to make it big. His “Drummer Boy” number where he plays both the drums, and a xylophone is truly iconic. Click on this link or see the video below. 

Perhaps his greatest role came in 1943 when he starred in a film adaptation of William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy, a wartime drama that depicted life on the home front in a small California town. Saroyan had originally written a screenplay for a film that he planned to direct himself, but when the studio complained that the film would be way too long, Saroyan walked out and published his work as a novel which became hugely successful right before the studio completed its version. It is a great and moving read.

The film version based on Saroyan’s script and directed by veteran director Clarence Brown was also a huge hit in wartime USA. The story revolves around a family headed by a recently widowed mother played by Fay Bainter, one of Hollywood’s standard mothers, who has four children. The eldest son, played by Van Johnson, has been drafted into the army and awaits assignment overseas. Donna Reed, a budding young star, plays the daughter on the verge of womanhood. There is even a four-year-old son, what used to be known as a caboose baby, who gets some good scenes. Although Mickey Rooney was 22 years old at the time, his looks and small stature allowed him to play the fourteen-year-old son.

Although everyone in the fine cast is featured in various vignettes, Rooney is the star, and he gives a magnificent performance. He plays Homer Macaulay, a teenager whose father has recently died, and whose elder brother is in the army. At 14 he must somehow become the man in the family. He takes a part-time job as a messenger for a local telegraph company to help his mother with the bills. It turns out to be a life changing experience.  The office manager, played by James Craig, becomes a mentor, as does the elderly, alcoholic telegraph operator played by Frank Morgan, a veteran character actor who had played the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz.

Telegrams are largely a thing of the past but delivering them during the war could be difficult. Apparently, the War Department used telegrams to notify families of the death of their sons. In one memorable scene, Homer has to deliver such a message to an illiterate Mexican mother who asks him to read the dreaded message. It is an extremely moving scene, and Rooney does a great job. It’s no wonder that he received a nomination for Best Actor.

Although largely forgotten today, The Human Comedy is one of the great films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Like the book, it is a beautiful and moving story with a memorable if idealized depiction of small-town life during the war years. 

By the end of the war, Rooney was too old to play teenagers and had to make the transition to grown up roles. His looks and stature made it impossible to play traditional leading men, but he still possessed great dramatic ability.  Two of my favorites from the post-war era are the 1949 Quicksand, and the 1953 Drive a Crooked Road.

In Quicksand Rooney plays an automobile mechanic working in a large garage who falls for a sexy cashier in a nearby diner. He asks her for a date and when she accepts, he has to come up with some dough since he is broke until payday. He decides to borrow some from the garage cash register and replace it on payday. Unfortunately, he is found out and must struggle to replace the money. His attempts only get him deeper and deeper into trouble. The film’s title is appropriate. The film also features Jeanne Cagney, James Cagney’s sister, and Peter Lorre.

Drive a Crooked Road, follows a similar pattern. Once again Rooney is a garage mechanic but, in this film, he also drives race cars in local races. He plays a lonely young man who can only dream of driving at Indianapolis or Le Mans. One day a beautiful young woman walks into the garage and singles out the unlikely Rooney to work on her car. It turns out that she is part of a gang of bank robbers who need a skilled driver to drive the getaway car for their next job. Sure enough, he falls for her and the dream of big money with tragic results. 

Quicksand and Drive a Crooked Road are low budget “B” movies, but Rooney gave “A” performances in both. Although he would never again reach the fame and fortune of his Hollywood heyday, he continued to work in movies, TV, Broadway, and touring companies almost until his death in 2014 at the age of 94. 

 

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Pardon Me

A recent headline in my local newspaper exclaimed in large bold letters, ‘A terrible mistake’. The quote was from Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal concerning the pardon granted by former President Biden to a Connecticut man convicted of conspiracy to commit the murders of a woman and her young son who were scheduled to appear as witnesses in a murder trial back in 1999. 

Blumenthal attributed Biden’s mistake to an “oversight” but did not explain how such an oversight could have occurred? How could the name of this convicted criminal, as well as the names of a dozen other convicted Connecticut drug dealers mentioned in a related article, have come to Biden’s attention in the first place?  Who pleaded their cause? Who wanted them pardoned? Most of them had long criminal histories that included illegal firearm possession.

What reason could President Biden have had for pardoning these criminals? Perhaps he did not even know who he was pardoning and just signed the document placed before him. But in that case, who was responsible for the terrible mistake?  I suppose we will never know.

It is different in the case of the pardons meted out to Biden’s own family in the last minutes of his Presidency. Actually, these family members have so far never been accused or convicted of anything. The President took the unprecedented step of pardoning them for anything they may have done wrong since 2014.

The start date of this immunity, 2014, is very important. It was in that year that then Vice-President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, became involved in the affairs of Ukraine. At that time Biden openly bragged that he had forced the government of Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating corruption. At the same time, Biden’s son Hunter enjoyed a lucrative position of the board of a Ukrainian energy company that was the focus of the corruption investigation. In pardoning his family and his son, Biden effectively pardoned himself for any wrongdoing over the past ten years.

The pardon given to Hunter Biden late last year is somewhat different. Hunter had actually been convicted of tax evasion and a violation of Federal gun control laws. While he was still running for re-election, Joe Biden said that he would not pardon his son, but when a plea deal fell through, he had no choice. At the time progressive commentators gushed that even though the President lied, he was motivated by love of his son. Who can blame such a loving father? Who would not do the same? 

Nevertheless, it appears to me that the pardon had more to do with fear than with love. I suspect that ever since their meddling in the Ukraine back in 2014, the son had something potentially damaging on his father. Hunter’s pardon was not just for his recent convictions but went all the way back to 2014.

 I have been poring through Miranda Devine’s recent book, “The Big Guy,” about Joe Biden and his son Hunter. On many occasions Hunter claimed that over the past ten years he had worked very hard for his family. He was not going to take the fall. 

Reading Miranda Devine’s book, it is not hard to imagine that the relationships in the Biden family were not always loving especially when Hunter was addicted to crack, sex, and porn. Devine writes that at the time Hunter dropped the now famous lap-top off at the repair shop, his “life was at rock bottom. His crack addiction was out of control, and he had been bouncing between cheap motels filming himself having threesomes with hookers.”

“He was in a rage with his family. His relationship with his widowed sister-in-law Hallie had grown toxic. He accused her of cheating, and she had banned him from seeing her children until he sought rehab. He accused his father of siding with her and was on the outs even with Uncle Jim. [98]…”

He seemed to have little regard for his father and stepmom Jill. Perhaps it was the crack addiction, but Miranda Devine quotes the following words from Hunter about Jill and Joe.

“And you do know the drunkest I’ve ever been is still smarter than you could ever even comprehend and you’re a shit grammar teacher that wouldn’t survive one class in a ivy graduate program.

“So go fuck yourself Jill let’s all agree I don’t like you anymore than you like me.”

He also complained to his uncle that he had been to drug rehab seven times, but his father “literally has never come to one never actually called me while in rehab.” [109].

 

In his famous little political treatise, The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance diplomat and political observer, devoted a whole section to whether it is better to be loved or feared. For a number of reasons he concluded that for anyone in power it was better to be feared than to be loved. Hunter was a loose cannon to be feared and had to be pardoned.

 

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Predictions 2025

                                             

January is the time of year when many pundits like to make predictions for the upcoming year. Shortly after I started the Weekly Bystander, I realized that it was foolish to make predictions. Most predictions are either just wishful thinking, or simply a call for the continuation of the current trend. 

Nevertheless, I would like to do some wishful thinking of my own for 2025. Today, I listened as President Trump's spelled out an ambitious agenda in his inaugural address. As he spoke I thought about the harsh realities that would face him in the next four years.

Trump seems remarkably fit and hearty for someone his age. Still, as time goes by it will be more and more apparent that he is a lame duck who cannot succeed himself. He has surrounded himself with a group of ambitious young people who inevitably will begin to jockey for party leadership.

He has the slimmest of margins in Congress where he cannot even count on unanimity in his own party. Democrats in Congress will obviously be even more obstructionist than ever. I believe that it will be very difficult to advance his domestic agenda through Congress. Like his Democrat predecessors he will have to govern by executive order and administrative action.

Even if his appointees to high office are approved by the Senate, they will be impeded and obstructed by a Federal bureaucracy that is more than 90% Democratic. This bureaucracy is relatively secure in their jobs. Elon Musk will not be able to treat them as if they were Tesla employees.

However, President Trump will have a freer hand in foreign affairs. It is interesting that in his remarks today he said that he wants to be remembered as a man of peace. One of the reasons I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 was his stated concern about the danger of nuclear war. I cannot find the exact source but I recall that when he was asked about the greatest issue facing the country, he put the threat of nuclear war at the top of the list. I do not recall whether any other candidate expressed a similar concern. Certainly, his first administration saw four years of relative peace in the world.

Of all the failures of the Biden administration, the greatest has been the failure of the outgoing President to appear as a champion of peace. For example, not only did his actions provoke the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also, they quashed a peace agreement reached by the warring parties early in the war.

Internationally, however, Trump has a freer hand. In his upcoming State of the Union address he could present himself as a champion of world peace and claim that his primary goal in the coming years will be to lessen tension all over the globe. 

Over a hundred years ago, World War I, a conflict sparked by the assassination of a leader in central Europe, eventually led to the slaughter of millions. Many even think that the aftermath of WWI led to the rise of totalitarian states with their horrible persecutions of their own people, and ultimately to the devastation of the Second World War.

There are many trouble spots in the world where a similar spark could ignite a nuclear exchange that would have unthinkable consequences for the whole world. The President could make the lessening of tensions his major issue in the coming year. Here are some examples.

First, some real collusion with Russia would be a very good idea. Russia does not have to be an enemy of Europe or the United States. It would be really beneficial if Russia was brought into working relationships with Europe and the USA that would be beneficial to all.

If Russia became the primary supplier of oil and natural gas for Europe, it would have little reason to aim intermediate range nuclear missiles at its customers in Europe. It would have every reason to treat its customers well. At the same time, Russia would receive a much needed revenue stream. 

As far as the USA is concerned it would be much better for us if Russia became a wealthy modern economy rather than a backward third world nation with so much of its GDP going to support a massive military. We don’t want to drive Putin’s back to the wall either economically or militarily. If we cut a deal with Russia, we could radically rethink the need for NATO, a military force that the Europeans don’t even want to support. 

A Russian deal could include a Ukraine deal. It is imperative to bring that war to an end. Both sides have much to gain by cutting a deal that would guarantee Ukrainian independence of both NATO and Russia. 

Second, the closing of a fair trade deal with China would not only benefit both sides economically, it might also lead the Chinese government to reconsider and reduce its provocative military build-up in the South China Sea. The last thing anyone wants is some trigger happy pilot on either side buzzing a rival warship.

We no longer have to fear Communist ideology in either Russia or China. It is true that both have authoritarian governments but their leaders seem much less interested in Communism than teachers and students in American colleges and universities.

Korea would also be a good place to cut a deal on behalf of peace. A peace treaty between North and South Korea would finally bring an end to the Korean War that began in 1950. It would be a great first step in reducing the enormous military weaponry already in place on both sides of the demilitarized zone. If all it takes to get North Korea’s leader to dismantle his nuclear program is the removal of American troops from the peninsula, I think it would be worth it. We should let the Korean people decide.

Finally, there is no greater tinder box in the world than the Middle East. American troops have been stationed there for over 20 years. Impossible as it might seem, I do think that deals could be cut there that would involve both Russia and Iran. If you look at a map, you will see that both of them have much more reason to be there than we do. After all, we don’t need the region’s oil anymore.

 If he presents himself a champion of peace, President Trump can rise above petty politics and secure his reputation forever.

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Lies and Hoaxes

                  

As the Biden administration comes to its end, it is amazing that most Democrats are still unaware that their party leadership, while routinely claiming that Donald Trump is an inveterate liar, have perpetrated three major hoaxes on them and the American people over the past eight years.

Hoax #1.  Eight years ago when Donald Trump first ran for President, Democrats claimed, and some still claim, that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the election. Their complaints led to the famous Mueller investigation which found no evidence of collusion. So not only was the Democrat charge unfounded, but we also now know that the so-called Steele dossier was a hoax that originated at the highest levels of the Hillary Clinton campaign. That’s right, the same person who recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden was behind the 2016 hoax.

Hoax #2.  Four years ago in the midst of the 2020 Presidential campaign, the New York Post ran the story of the laptop abandoned at a computer repair shop by Hunter Biden, the son of Democrat contender Joe Biden. Apparently, the laptop not only contained salacious images of Hunter’s drug and porn addicted life, but also evidence of criminal business activities that could even implicate his father.  

Immediately, Democrat operatives sprang into action and drafted a letter claiming the story was a product of Russian disinformation. 51 former US intelligence officials signed the letter and effectively quashed the story. We now know they all lied and that the hoax was initiated by Anthony Blinkin, who has been Secretary of State since Biden’s election. If Blinkin and the intelligence officials could lie to us to achieve their political goals, why should anyone trust them when it comes to Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia, Israel or Iran?

Miranda Devine, who wrote the original Post story, gives a very full account of this hoax in her recent book, “The Big Guy.” Now, four years later, we know that there really was a laptop abandoned by Joe Biden’s drug and porn addicted son. The laptop contained evidence of criminal activity that eventually led to Hunter’s recent conviction on tax evasion and firearm violations. 

No wonder that President Biden was forced to pardon his son despite his repeated avowals that he would not do so. Once a judge threw out a plea bargain, it became obvious that Hunter was not going to take the fall for anything. What else could explain the extent of the pardon that excused Hunter not only for the recent convictions, but also for anything Hunter might have done as far back as 2014 when both he and his father were heavily involved in Ukrainian affairs. Hunter’s pardon eliminates any further investigations of any kind.  

Hoax #3. Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article detailing President Biden’s mental decline over the past four years, and the elaborate cover up of his incapacity by his family and close aides.  The cover up included repeated lies by Democrat politicians like Vice-President Harris, and Biden aides that the President was “sharp as a tack.”  Even after Biden’s disastrous debate performance last June, Democrats refused to accept the obvious until polls led them to insist the President withdraw from the Presidential race.  

To this day the aged President insists that if he had stayed in the race, he would have won.  Four years ago The Weekly Bystander observed that Biden was obviously suffering from the effects of old age.  Nevertheless, Democrats managed to put him in the White House by the barest of margins.  The idea of a puppet President whose strings were being pulled by others would be laughable if it hadn't had such serious consequences both at home and abroad.

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