Aug 11, 2018
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Our second Reagan/Dwan collaboration is far inferior to Tennessee's Partner, despite some fine directorial touches and characteristically brilliant open air cinematography from John Alton, but it does furnish your hosts with a textbook example of colonialist hermeneutics in action. On the surface, Cattle Queen of Montana may come across as a "progressive" film, with its anti-bigotry rhetoric and championing of Colorados' "good" (i.e. assimilationist) faction of the Blackfoot tribe; however, as with all ideological narratives, the film is working overtime to head off any genuinely liberatory ideas at the conceptual pass, not unlike the current Trudeau government of Canada or the mainstream leaders of today's Democratic Party.
The gang is grateful that the Gipper's filmography provided this one opportunity to discuss the amazing Barbara Stanwyck, perhaps the finest actor of the studio age - and a person whose politics were almost certainly more despicable than Reagan's own. Of course, since she never became commander in chief of anything outside of the Big Valley, she hurt many fewer people during the latter part of the 20th century.
Toward the end of the podcast, we discuss some #MeToo developments in the Canadian literary community that were breaking at the time of the recording (May 2018), delve into the harrowing life experiences of co-star Lance Fuller, and bring back Penny Singleton (from Swing Your Lady) in order to reassure ourselves that not all studio age Hollywood actors were fascists.
Now is a time for choosing. Choose RED TIME FOR BONZO!
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Intro Theme:
"Driving Reagan" by Gareth Hedges