The Dark Arena: An Anecdote about the Writing Life

Throwback Thursday*

Nearing the finish of Mario Puzo's The Dark Arena, an early novel written before his fame. He must have been dealing with his own inner demons here, after going through the war. Was Puzo (the character) Mosca? The book is dedicated, "for Erika." Written in 1953. He was writing for almost two decades before producing his mega-blockbuster The Godfather. Years of discipline and development, unseen in the womb of dark struggle, where the writer is formed: The Arena. Only the best gladiators will survive... the rest are washed away and forgotten. We remember not their names. "The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all."
April 20, 1998

I wrote this journal entry upon completion of my short story Unremembered History of the World and as I neared the end of Puzo's book, which I was reading at the time. In my youth I remember vividly the reading of his compelling blockbuster The Godfather. One evening I couldn't put it down, and when my mom got up in the morning I’d been lying on the couch reading all night.

The power of good books is revealed in this anecdote which I remember from a Puzo interview years ago. He had been a struggling writer for years, but with the success of The Godfather he suddenly had more wealth than he could have ever dreamed of. For a year he did everything money could buy, went everywhere, exhausted himself in his pursuits. At the end of it all, he was bored by everything... except his books. Reading, he said, was the one thing that he never tired of.

I would concur.

* * * 

* During my first year of blogging (2007-2008) I would riff on passages from my 30 years of journal writing. This blog post was published 2 January 2008.

Related Link: Unremembered Histories: Six Stories with a Supernatural Twist

How Tall Is Your Favorite Celebrity?

Every once in a while I get curious about the height of someone I'm writing about. If you ask Google you'll usually find it in a second. While writing about President James Madison a few years ago I learned that he was only 5 ft 4 inches as opposed to George Washington's six feet, which feels strange because I always envisioned the General and first president to be much taller, didn't you?

It's fairly well-known that Michael J. Fox is relatively short for a guy, and when I looked him up it was 5 ft. 4 inches like President Madison. (Trivia: I shook hands with what must have been Fox's stunt double at a trade show in Vegas, 1991.) By way of contrast, Denzel Washington is 6' 1, and when standing ramrod straight Clint Eastwood is 6 ft. 3 inches tall.

These thoughts came to mind because I was looking at a photo of Marlon Brando with Louie Kemp and Bill Graham in Kemp's book Dylan & Me, and I was surprised to see Brando as the shortest of the three. On the silver screen everyone probably appears bigger than life to some extent, but to find Brando to be a hair under 5 ft. 9 surprised me.

Recall to mind his commanding portrayal of Vito Corleone in The Godfather. In every scene he is luminous and imposing, magnetic to the point that audiences can hardly look away. Brando exudes a mix of qualities--authoritative, regal and mesmerizing--while simultaneously intimate. Note how his quiet demeanor and rasplike voice draws you near in the openng scene, which tells the whole story while revealing the many facets of this man. (Trivia: While in high school I stayed up all night reading Mario Puzo's powerful epic because I couldn't put it down.)

 

Who are your favorite celebs? Here's a site that will give you a glimpse of his or her height:   https://www.celebheights.com/

While you're at it, you can also discover their net worth @ https://www.celebritynetworth.com/

Where Have I Seen That Face Before? Sterling Hayden: Actor, Author, Sailor

Jack Hayden, 1953 publicity shot.

This past month when I read Mario Puzo's The Godfather for the first time in 50 years it quite naturally stirred in me a desire to re-visit the blockbuster film that followed, especially since it's considered one of the greatest films of all time. Like all great films with memorable lines, this one itself has become a classic, "We'll make an offer he can't refuse."

Marlon Brando's performance as Don Vito Corleone is perfection. Brando so embodies the essence of the Don, and steals every scene just by his being there in character.

But there are also many other memorable scenes. Of those that come to mind the first is that little surprise that Director Jack Woltz finds in his bed the day after he refuses to accept Don Corleone's proposal.

Another, and the one that triggered this blog post, was the scene in which Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) goes to meet with a man named Sollozzo, head of another mob family, and Captain McCluskey, the crooked Irish cop who previously damaged the side of Michael's face with a knuckle sandwich.

For some reason this Captain McCluskey is familiar to me, but I can't immediately place him. A line
from "Lily, Rosemarie and the Jack of Hearts" comes to mind. “I know I've seen that face somewhere,” Big Jim was thinking to himself. And I just couldn't let it go.

This is where the imdb.com is so useful. You can find and scroll through resumes of every actor, director and screenwriter, and even the minor players. McCluskey, though, is a major.

Bingo! Sterling Hayden was the gangster Johnny Clay in Stanley Kubrick's early career breakout film The Killing. Hayden played leading roles in a number of 50s films in the western and film noir categories. But his most memorable, I have to believe, was in another Kubrick cult classic: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Have you zeroed in? Hayden was General Jack Ripper. The interplay between Ripper and Peter Sellers as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake is simply too much fun. (Sellers plays three distinct roles in this film and is equally golden. And what a performance by George C. Scott.) Here's a scene that typifies the whole. Note Kubrick's camerawork.

New Jersey-born in 1916, Sterling Hayden grew up in the Northeast. At age 16 or 17 he ran away from home and went to sea, working his way up to and eventually becoming the captain of a schooner, sailing around the world several times before landing in Hollywood in 1938.

In The Killing, Hayden plays a smart criminal who has just been released from five years in prison where he's spent all this time planning the perfect crime. It's a robbery at a racehorse track. Kubrick's innovative method of telling the story would be picked up decades later by Quentin Tarantino in his film Reservoir Dogs.

Sterling Hayden's three most memorable roles for me personally:
Captain McCluskey, The Godfather
General Jack Ripper, Dr. Strangelove
Johnny Clay, The Killing

If you've not seen these films, I give all three my strongest recommendation. 

Ol’ Blue Eyes Began His Recording Career 80 Years Ago Today. And What Was Sinatra’s Real Relationship to the Mob?

Frank Sinatra. publicity still, 1943.

I was in high school in New Jersey when I first read Mario Puzo’s blockbuster The Godfather. Once I started reading it I couldn’t stop and kept reading all night. When my mother came downstairs in the morning  I was lying on the couch still reading.

“Have you been up all night?” she asked. I was in the exact same position, stretched out on my belly, as when I’d said good night.

“Yes,” I said. “I couldn’t put it down.

This past week I read The Godfather again, fifty years later. There is much that I can say about the book, including the reasons it was so compelling, but the significant thing here is that one of the characters, Johnny Fontaine, was purportedly based on the real life Frank Sinatra.

There’s no question Puzo succeeded in creating a story filled with memorable scenes. The three Godfather films are all considered classic, with the first and second at the top of many lists as best films of all time.

SPOILER ALERT

Who doesn’t remember the line, “We’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”? Or hothead Sonny’s turnpike toll booth demise? Or the manner in which Johnny Fontaine gets his big break in Hollywood? (It wasn’t a headless horseman that shook that Hollywood mogul to the core and ruined his silk sheets.) And then there was the incomparable Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone…

The book’s pacing is nearly perfect, with carefully developed scene after scene populated by vivid characters. Each story within the story is assembled so reader anticipation is stretched to its limit, with every payoff worth waiting for.

As for Johnny Fontaine, or rather, the real life Frank Sinatra, here’s how the History Channel tells his story.

Sinatra 1960. (Photo: National Archives)

Frank Sinatra was many things: A crooner who could make bobby-soxers faint, an Academy Award-winning actor, the elder statesman of the Rat Pack. At the height of his career, it was rumored that “every woman wants to have him; every man wants to be him.” But his fans and detractors weren’t the only people who wanted a piece of Old Blue Eyes: So did the FBI.

The FBI kept eyes on him for more than four decades with thousands of pages of photos, notes and quotes. He was chummy with mobsters in Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia…

* * * *
The central conflict in The Godfather has to do with the powerful “five families” in New York in which the most powerful Corleone family is being asked by another family to help in the “next big thing” which was the coming drug trade. Don Corleone’s “influence” extended to judges and politicians, which would make his family useful in the coming wave.

Because Don Corleone is old fashioned in his values he doesn’t see this as a good thing to be part of and withholds his support. A power game ensues. The manner in which the family ultimately disengages from its illegal New York activities—vice, gambling, etc.—and moves to Las Vegas to get into the legitimate casino business, is what this book is all about, along with the manner in which the baton of power is passed on to Michael (Al Pacino), the youngest and brightest of the Corleone boys.

The novel shows how Las Vegas began, and the manner in which Johnny Fontaine “paid back” his Godfather by bringing his L.A. friends to Vegas, which would attract fans and gamblers and action to the city that never sleeps.

So was Johnny Fontaine based on Frank Sinatra?  This Destination Hollywood story draws some pretty strong parallels. This writer at Boxing Scene adds some additional color to the story.

Q: Why didn’t we see more of Johnny Fontaine in the film? He seemed to have a much higher profile in the book.
A: Sinatra had a lot of clout in Hollywood at the time and perhaps the moguls didn’t wish to damage his cred. More people watch movies than read novels, so having him sing at Connie’s wedding was enough to generate buzz.

Here’s the link to that History Channel story about Sinatra’s alleged mob ties and the FBI.

Trivia: Who were the members of the Rat Pack?
A: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop

Here’s the Duluth News Tribune story that triggered this blog post.

Trivia: The Rat Pack used to hang out at The Sahara and eat at a classy restaurant called The House of Lords. For years I stayed at the Sahara when attending the annual SEMA Show, because it was within walking distance. The lobster bisque at the House of Lords was the best ever and I can still taste it. Yumm.

Fathers and Sons in the Movies

About three weeks ago I watched the film Five Easy Pieces for the first time in maybe twenty years. If you've seen it, you probably recall the scene in the diner in which Jack Nicholson tries to order toast, one of the most memorable restaurant scenes in film history.

While watching the film it became apparent that I had not remembered hardly anything about it, except the beautiful Chopin piece that Nicholson plays at one point in the film.

It's a film with a lot of tension, and not easy to watch. One of the areas of tension, and one of the central hubs of the film, was the fractured relationship between Nicholson and his father. As I reflected on this, I thought about other films involving fathers and sons, and the various ways father-son relationships can be a blessing or a hardship.

* * * *

My freshman year at college was a year of new experiences for sure. One of these experiences was an album by Cat Stevens called Tea for the Tillerman. Jon Brite, an artist in Scott Quad where I roomed at Ohio U freshman year, made the introduction. While listening to a portion of it recently, as I do from time to time, I noted that the music and lyrics still hold up as the classic it was.

The thought I had, however, was how targeted this album was at the time it was written. It was an album from the point of view of youth, directed toward youthful seekers whose life quest was just unfolding. No wonder Stevens went on to sell 25 million albums. The generational dissonance is most pronounced in the song "Father and Son."

* * * *

After watching Five Easy Pieces I reflected on some other films I've seen in which the relationship of father and son is either prominent or a feature close to the center of the film. Here are a few that quickly came to mind. (Those in bold have reviews.)

The Music Never Stopped 

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Godfather
Great story about a mob boss and his sons. Brando is most memorable as he kicks off the first of a trilogy.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives in a Tennessee Williams scorcher.

A River Runs Through It (A Roger Ebert review)
I have read the story at least five times and four times watched the film. Try it. Great either way.
Here's a reflection on rivers.

Legends of the Fall (Another Roger Ebert's review)

Once I started down this path some other interesting films with father-son relationships came to mind including Rain Man, The Lion King ("Remember who you are."), Back to the Future, Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade, and Field of Dreams, each special in its own way.

I woke thinking about my own father yesterday and considered assembling a few memories here. Instead, I may just start by sharing my thoughts with my brothers.

Enjoy your weekend. If your father is still alive, let him know you love him.