Week that Was

A Fast Talker Stops

On December 30, 1993 a man whose name virtually defined the fast-talking Hollywood agent passed away in Los Angeles. Irving Paul "Swifty" Lazar represented movie stars and book authors in a career that took him from Hollywood's Golden Age through the creation of the modern blockbuster in the '70s and '80s. Gene Kelley, Lauren Bacall, Truman Capote, Cher, Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov and Sharon Stone, among many others, were all represented at one time by Lazar, and his memorable sobriquet was bequeathed him by none other than Humphrey Bogart after Lazar put together three deals for the actor in the same day. A 1983 Time Magazine profile captured his work day like this: "All day long, he stays on the telephone, shouting at friend and foe, eating nothing but a small salad. His annual phone bill is roughly $20,000. A Swiss hotel once refused to put him up because on an earlier visit his calls had swamped their switchboard. To impress visitors, he shamelessly buzzes his secretary with orders to 'Get me Dore,' or 'Get me Cole.'" Lazar was most recently remembered in Peter Morgan's play Frost/Nixon, where he is shown putting together the deal that brought the former president and the talk show host together.

Garbo Walks

At the end of the 1941, as America was mobilizing for war, MGM released Two-Faced Woman, George Cukor's romantic romp with Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo. With European markets closed due to the Nazi occupation, MGM was trying to reinvent Garbo for American audiences. But in trying to turn the mysterious Garbo into a sex kitten, MGM incurred the wrath of both critics and censors. The Legion of Decency came down hard on the film for its "immoral and un-Christian attitude toward marriage and its obligations." And critics dismissed the film as absurd vehicle for Garbo's talents. Bruised from the critics and the studios' machinations, Garbo retreated, planning to keep out of films until the war ended. But in the end, her hiatus turned into an exile, as the Swedish beauty decided to give up acting altogether. But rather than diminish her aura, Garbo's retirement only added to her mysterious allure, as people would wander the streets of New York City hoping to catch sight the Hollywood legend.

Fox-y Lady

On January 1, 1980, Sherry Lansing became the first female president of a motion picture studio. Her ascension to the executive suite at Twentieth Century Fox was both controversial and surprising at the time. "Ex-Model Becomes Head of Fox," Lansing remembers the New York Times greeting her appointment. Lansing had worked briefly as an actress - as well as a schoolteacher in the Watts neighborhood of L.A. - but more to the point were her years as story editor and V.P. of Creative Affairs at MGM, where she was involved with such pictures as The China Syndrome and Kramer vs. Kramer. Her time at Fox was short — three years — and encompassed only two bona fide hits: Porky's and The Verdict, and she left the job to produce films with partner Stanley Jaffe. But after several hits as a producer, including Fatal Attraction, she became an executive again by becoming chairman of the motion picture group at Paramount, where she stayed for a lengthy twelve-year run that included hits like Braveheart, Forrest Gump, and, co-financing with Fox, which distributed domestically, Titanic. She is now actively involved in charity work and started The Sherry Lansing Foundation which funds and raises awareness for cancer research.

Dialing for Dollars

Long before there was HBO, video-on-demand or pay-per-view, there was Phonevision. On January 2, 1951, 300 families in Chicago were selected by Zenith to receive a new television subscription system dubbed Phonevision. Equipped with a converter box and a dedicated phone line, households were allowed to view (somewhat recent) films, like the 1945 Robert Young romance The Enchanted Cottage, for the hefty price of $1. The founders hoped to turn television into cinema's best friend by transforming the new technology into a viable revenue source for Hollywood films. But few families called up to buy films. And others household figured out how to pirate the signal. In the end, Zenith abandoned their Chicago experiment. And while the citizens of Chicago would have to wait over 30 years to get cable television, the Phonevision system provided a daring model of how entertainment could be delivered.

A Miracle Happens

With Knocked Up, Juno, and the Cannes Palme' d'Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and Two Days, 2007 was the year of the cinematic unplanned pregnancy. And while all of these films quite nimbly maneuver around a topic still fraught with social and political discord, perhaps the most graceful - and devious - choreography around the pregnancy issue occurred 64 years ago this week when Preston Sturges's The Miracle of Morgan's Creek premiered. On January 5, 1944, Sturges's slapstick comedy was finally released after being held up for over a year by the notorious Hayes Code, which, back in the day, governed "the morality" of the movies. Set stateside during World War 2, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek tells the story of a small-town girl who does her bit to send the troops off to war by dancing with them and giving them a kiss on the cheek at the local USO dancehall. However, after one such evening of boogie-woogie and lemonade, she wakes up with little memory of the evening before& #0133; and learns that she's pregnant. Complications ensue. The word "pregnant," however, is never uttered in the film as Sturges uses fast pacing, slapstick humor and a genuine sweetness to satirize not only conception but also bigamy, suicide, and many other sensitive topics.