San Francisco Herald Then I realized I wasn’t knowledgeable So instead of an intelligent, enough to do it (hey, who am I – Mick comprehensive comparison of the two April 2019 LaSalle?). movies – a dull, half-assed comparison of the two movies. Actually, not even SanFranciscoHerald.Net Then I realized that “Midnight Cowboy” that. won Best Picture that year, so “Easy “Serving Nob Hill and Beyond.” Rider” wasn’t the only new Hollywood “Easy Rider” was directed by Dennis movie being recognized. Hopper and was written by Hopper, XXXXXXXXXX Peter Fonda, and Terry Southern. It Then I realized that the old Hollywood starred Dennis Hopper as a hippie biker The Society Page audience members were probably in late 1960s America. Substance abuse applauding the middle-aged celluloid and strange behavior later caused By Gene Mahoney veteran Gig Young as representing them, Hopper to be blackballed by Hollywood. as opposed to the movie he was in. Russian Hill Upholstery &Décor is still His comeback came in 1986 as the sociopathic villain in David Lynch’s located in Nob Hill, not Russian Hill. Then I realized there was probably no “Blue Velvet.” Before his death in 2010 reason to write this column. But here it is XXXXXXXXXX he became an outspoken conservative in anyway. Hollywood, which is a lot more radical nd On April 7, 1970, at the 42 Academy than anything he did in “Easy Rider.” Awards, Gig Young won Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Peter Fonda played Hopper’s sidekick. “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”. This was about as good as it got for him. When his name was announced at the Jack Nicholson played a guy they Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los befriend along the way. After wallowing Angeles, the older audience members – around in Roger Corman’s B-movies for old Hollywood – enthusiastically a decade, this is the film that put him on applauded. Their nominee had won. The the map. He went on to star in a slew of nominee representing the younger new critically acclaimed performances. Hollywood – Jack Nicholson for his performance in “Easy Rider” – hadn’t. “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”, directed by Sidney Pollack, takes place Now at this point I had planned on at the dawn of the Great Depression, at a comparing the two movies, dance hall in Los Angeles. demonstrating that the now almost forgotten “They Shoot Horses, Don’t The hall is hosting a dance marathon, They?” was the real new Hollywood which have since been outlawed. They movie of the late sixties/early seventies, were contests where people would dance not the classic “Easy Rider.” for weeks with only occasional ten minute breaks, with a cash prize for the Then I realized that if I was going to My friend mentioned that he had seen couple that could withstand the torture to write a comparison of the two movies, I “Easy Rider” on television recently and the end. would have to watch “Easy Rider” again. wasn’t impressed by it, and didn’t want Here’s the new Hollywood aspect of the I can’t remember the last time I saw it, to view it again. But we did go to the movie: but I do recall being disappointed library and check out the other movie. watching it. It was like reading “On the We both hadn’t seen it since the Released in 1969, it pretty much Road” by Jack Kerouac. Something that seventies, but were still very impressed qualifies to be included with the was groundbreaking, but not that great. with it. recession-plagued 1970s fascination with the depression-plagued 1930s, as demonstrated in new Hollywood films living on Long Island. Eugene Puzo, untold stories would be more interesting like “The Day of the Locust” and Mario’s son, had moved into the house than almost all the ones featured about “Chinatown.” across the street from mine. One day he fellow performers in movies, television, was mowing his lawn and briefly looked radio, and stage. It stars Jane Fonda, who was a up at me. I waved to him and he ignored controversial political radical – more so me. Luckily, the anecdotes in the book each than her brother Peter, and Michael run about two paragraphs and flow into Sarrazin, who lost the lead role to Jon Actually, I guess that wasn’t a very one another, so it’s entertaining enough. Voight in “Midnight Cowboy.” interesting story. Though the book would probably be twice as entertaining if it was half as As for old Hollywood: You know who has an interesting long. “Godfather” story? Gianni Russo, a real- “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” was life mobster who walked onto the XXXXXXXXXX Gig Young’s comeback film, and he had movie’s set in New York and got cast in the Oscar to prove it. Years later he it. A place you’ve probably never heard relocated from California to New York, of: A while back I was looking at the living across from Carnegie Hall in The film’s star, Marlon Brando, told its web site for the Association of Manhattan. director, Francis Ford Coppola, that he Alternative Newspapers, which covers didn’t want Russo in it. Russo got in those rapidly disappearing Village Voice On September 27, 1978 he married his Brando’s face and the actor changed his wannabees. One of them wasn’t fifth wife, Kim Schmidt. Three weeks mind, applauding Russo’s over-the-top published in the US or Canada, like the later their bodies were found in their performance. (Russo says he wasn’t others. Its publisher was an American residence. Apparently Gig had shot his acting like Brando thought – he was journalist, but the paper was distributed wife to death and then turned the gun on really threatening him. They stayed in Svalbard, an archipelago of Norway himself. friends after the movie finished filming.) located between that nation and the North Pole. They’ve got a “doomsday As far as new Hollywood goes, it’s hard In the movie, Russo played Carlo Rizzi, vault” there full of plant seeds from to imagine anyone giving as powerful a the brother-in-law of Sonny Corleone, almost every country in the world in case performance as Jack Nicholson in Tim played by James Caan. After Carlo beats of a global food shortage or some similar Burton’s 1989 “Batman.” up his wife (Sonny’s sister), Sonny catastrophe. avenges his family’s honor by savagely But watching Gig Young as the amoral beating Carlo in public. Another place you’ve probably never dance contest promoter yelling, “Yowza! heard of: A while back I was at a Yowza! Yowza!”, you have to wonder if Russo claims that Caan hated him, and Chinese restaurant on Taraval and saw a he wouldn’t have made such a bad Joker much of the film’s fight scene veered off poster for a place called Macau. I himself. the script (Caan throws a billy club at pointed at the poster and asked the Russo’s head, throws him over a railing, “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” won owner where Macau was, but he didn’t bites his hands, and kicks him in the nine Academy Awards, the most for a understand English very well I guess – stomach as he’s getting up on all fours, movie not nominated for Best Picture. he kept smiling, nodding, and saying, literally elevating him off the ground). “Yes! Yes! Yes!” It should have won Best Picture. “Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the According to its Wikipedia page, Macau XXXXXXXXXX Movies and the Mob,” a memoir by is a former Portuguese colony that’s Gianni Russo is out now. located in China. It’s the most densely It’s the fiftieth anniversary of Mario populated region in the world, has the XXXXXXXXXX Puzo’s novel “The Godfather,” which fourth highest life expectancy in the was later made into a movie of the same There’s a much more genteel memoir I world, and has a gaming industry seven name, which some critics have called the finally got around to reading. It’s called times that of Las Vegas. greatest film of all time. “Which Reminds Me,” by Tony Randall, Some of you may have heard of Macau, published in 1989. In honor of the anniversary, you’ve but Svalbard… forget it.### probably heard interviews with people Actually, it’s not much of a memoir, as connected to “The Godfather,” and now XXXXXXXXXX Randall acknowledges that he’s never it’s time for me to tell you my been one to discuss his private life, and remembrance of it. From LA to San Francisco, to Mexico: the only thing people know about him is Jack Hooper (1928-2014) Women, As I recall, it was the spring of 1984. I that he doesn’t smoke. Which is Figures, and Frida Kahlo, Art Ventures was 18 years old going on 19, and still understandable, but chances are his Gallery, Menlo Park, 4/16 – 5/15. was a weird form of peer-pressure and her, or several feet behind her. As if Bullies group-think, I guess. she had a terrible smell and we would be contaminated if we got too close to By Ace Backwords I was the new kid in town that year, her noxious presence. Even the girls and one of the smallest and youngest went along with it. The girls in line, in This probably surprises a lot of people in the class. So I knew I was a likely front of her and behind her, would that know me.