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For Love of Ivy promo photo
Showing posts with label Doris Belack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doris Belack. Show all posts
November 3, 2021
April 12, 2017
Blackboard Jungle
Blackboard Jungle is a 1955 social commentary film about teachers in an inter-racial inner-city school, based on the novel of the same name by Evan Hunter and adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks.
It is remembered for its innovative use of rock and roll in its
soundtrack and for the unusual breakout role of a Black cast member,
future Oscar winner and star Sidney Poitier as a rebellious, yet musically talented student. It also starred,
Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, a malevolent Vic Morrow and Louis Calhern.
The film marked the rock and roll revolution by featuring Bill Haley & His Comets performing Rock Around the Clock over the film's opening credits (with a lengthy drum solo introduction, unlike the originally released single), as well as in the first scene, in an instrumental version in the middle of the film, and at the close of the movie, establishing that song as an instant hit. The record had been released the previous year, gaining only limited sales. But, popularized by its use in the film, Rock Around the Clock reached number one on the Billboard charts, and remained there for eight weeks.
In some theaters, when the film was in first release, the song was not heard at all at the beginning of the film because rock and roll was considered a bad influence. Despite this, other instances of the song were not cut.
The music led to a large teenage audience for the film, and their exuberant response to it sometimes overflowed into violence and vandalism at screenings. In this sense, the film has been seen as marking the start of a period of visible teenage rebellion in the latter half of the 20th century. In the United Kingdom the film was originally refused a cinema certificate until heavy cuts were made. When shown at a South London Cinema in Elephant and Castle in 1956 the teenage Teddy Boy audience began to riot, tearing up seats and dancing in the aisles. After that, riots took place around the country wherever the film was shown. In 2007, the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture published an article that analyzed the film's connection to crime theories and juvenile delinquency.
The film marked the rock and roll revolution by featuring Bill Haley & His Comets performing Rock Around the Clock over the film's opening credits (with a lengthy drum solo introduction, unlike the originally released single), as well as in the first scene, in an instrumental version in the middle of the film, and at the close of the movie, establishing that song as an instant hit. The record had been released the previous year, gaining only limited sales. But, popularized by its use in the film, Rock Around the Clock reached number one on the Billboard charts, and remained there for eight weeks.
In some theaters, when the film was in first release, the song was not heard at all at the beginning of the film because rock and roll was considered a bad influence. Despite this, other instances of the song were not cut.
The music led to a large teenage audience for the film, and their exuberant response to it sometimes overflowed into violence and vandalism at screenings. In this sense, the film has been seen as marking the start of a period of visible teenage rebellion in the latter half of the 20th century. In the United Kingdom the film was originally refused a cinema certificate until heavy cuts were made. When shown at a South London Cinema in Elephant and Castle in 1956 the teenage Teddy Boy audience began to riot, tearing up seats and dancing in the aisles. After that, riots took place around the country wherever the film was shown. In 2007, the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture published an article that analyzed the film's connection to crime theories and juvenile delinquency.
In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Blackboard Jungle Links:
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February 20, 2017
20,000 Vinyl LPs 80: Sidney Poitier & Doris Belack ~ Poetry of the Negro
iPhone photos by Styrous®
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, front cover detail
So, I went trotting off to my vinyl LP collection to see how I could honor him and came up with this vinyl gem, Sidney Poitier in Poetry of the Negro, which features Poitier reading poems of the American Negro. Reading with him is Doris Belack
who was an American character actress of stage, film and television.
She was born on February 26, 1926. She died on October 4, 2011. The
album was produced by her husband, Philip Rose, who died on May 31, 2011.
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, front cover
photo by Styrous®
Rose met Poitier while producing, A Raisin in the Sun, a 1959 play written by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry. Rose owned a rhythm and blues label, Glory Records, and asked Poitier to record a spoken word album, Poetry of the Negro, with liner notes written by the then unknown Hansberry.
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, front cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®
The title of Hansberry’s play is taken from a Langston Hughes poem, called “Harlem” in which the poet asks, “What happens to a dream deferred?/ does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?” In one critic’s words, Hansberry wanted “to write a social drama about blacks that was good art” (npr.org). Because the project was considered risky, investors were scarce, but idealistic record executive Philip Rose was willing to take a chance and produce the play. He knew he had an asset in the star power of his friend, Sidney Poitier, Hollywood’s first black leading man, whom he met after the actor’s phenomenal success as a young juvenile delinquent in Blackboard Jungle (1955) which featured the song, Rock Around the Clock (link below).
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover
photo by Styrous®
Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, where her father was a prominent real-estate broker and political activist who successfully challenged the segregated city’s restrictive real estate covenants. These laws denied equal housing to blacks, but Mr. Hansberry illegally moved his family to a white neighborhood and then successfully challenged the laws all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court stuck down the covenants in Hansberry v. Lee, 1943. By the early 1950s, she was writing essays and reviews for leftist journals and was one of an avant-garde circle of black intellectuals. In 1953, she married a Jewish writer and activist, Robert Nemiroff, whom she met on a picket line. At 26, disgusted with the stereotyped portrayals of blacks on stage, she wrote A Raisin in the Sun, produced in 1959. It was the first play by a black woman produced on Broadway, and Hansberry was the first black author to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, defeating fellow nominees Eugene O’Neill, Archibald MacLeish and Tennessee Williams. Hansberry, erudite and outspoken, wrote only two complete plays before her career was cut short when she died of cancer at 34.
The poets & their poems
with links to their work
with links to their work
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®
At Candle Lightin’ Time
When Malindy Sings
An Anti-Bellam Sermon
The Debt
Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe the Weary Eyes
We Wear the Mask
When Malindy Sings
An Anti-Bellam Sermon
The Debt
Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe the Weary Eyes
We Wear the Mask
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, side 1
photo by Styrous®
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP label, side 1
photo by Styrous®
M. Carl Holman
Debate of the Dark Brothers
Debate of the Dark Brothers
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, side 2
photo by Styrous®
Armand Lanusse
Epigram
Epigram
Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP lable, side 2
photo by Styrous®
Label: Glory Records – GLP-1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1969
Genre: Jazz, Non-Music, Stage & Screen
Style: Poetry, Spoken Word
Tracklist:
Side 1:
A1 The Creation 4:15
A2 Mother To Son 2:00
A3 When Melinda Sings 3:06
A4 Debate Of Dark Brothers 1:06
A5 To John Keats, Poet At Springtime 3:15
A6 At Candle Lightin' Time 2:39
A7 Yet I Do Marvel 3:01
Side 2:
B1 An Ante - Bellum Sermon 4:36
B2 Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe The Weary Eyes 4:16
B3 I, Too 00:37
B4 When You Have Forgotten Sunday 1:55
B5 The Debt 00:52
B6 Epigram 00:43
B7 We Wear The Mask 1:08
B8 Blues At Dawn 00:35
B9 Lift Every Voice 2:25
Credits:
Percussion, Piano – Specs Powell
Net links:
IMBD bio
Sidney Poitier Filmography
Bill Haley ~ Rock Around the Clock
Black History articles
Happy birthday, Sidney!
Styrous® ~ Monday, February 20, 2017
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