Here is a clip from one of my favorite movies, directed by John Cromwell and Nicholas Ray. "The Racket" along with other Robert Ryan movies was the inspiration for my web series "Weekend Pussy Hunt".

This movie works on almost every level. It has a good story, great dialogue, brilliant direction and what I look for most of all in movies- wonderful interaction between rich personalities portrayed by distinct charismatic actors.


The Racket stars Robert Ryan and Robert Mitchum and they play wonderfully against each other. Mitchum is usually an underplayed character. He has such a strong natural presence that he doesn't really need to act much, although he fills these scenes with subtle amusing expressions that contrast and color Ryan's more active character. Robert Ryan is a methodical thinking actor who adds inventive quirks, expressions and actions to his own natural charisma. These distinct nuances make his best characters positively gripping - and ominous. Watch all the things Ryan does with his tongue-even with his mouth closed!

I'm gonna guess that none of these actors' touches that make the movie come to life have anything to do with the script - even though it's an excellent script. The directors may have helped the actors bring out their best, but at least they didn't hinder their performances as some other directors had. (I always wonder how anyone can make a boring movie with charismatic actors, but it's happened often.)

My favorite part of this sequence is the way Ryan violates a poor apple that he is munching. He turns a simple and innocent prop into an instrument of filth and horror.

This whole clip is full of ideas and is the opposite of stock generic acting. The rest of the movie is too.


*** The movie credits John Cromwell as director, but Nicholas Ray did a lot of reshooting.

Kali dragged me to this movie on the weekend and I'm glad she did.

This is an actual "no-filler" movie. It's funny from beginning to end! I didn't spot a single executive theory in it.

The writing is funny (both plot and dialogue), the acting is funny and the direction is funny. Even the music is funny. And it's really clever. It's absolutely full of inventive custom touches in the actions, editing, actors' expressions and gestures. I couldn't believe it.

Seriously, whoever wrote the dialogue is a genius. This is real writing with skill, observation and a point of view.

The lead actor, Michael Jai White is perfect. He plays it straight but in a very funny way and has lots of other talents besides acting - which the producers are smart enough to show off to us.

It's eerie. I got all nostalgic for the 70s - which I hated living through. This felt even more like the 70s than the actual 70s and made fun of all the right stuff.

It also bravely brought back ethnic humor - which has been banned by white liberals for decades. It gets away with stuff no one else could today, making fun of white people, blacks and Asians all - oh and it's sexist too. In short, it's honest and made for real life humans - not focus groups and pseudo-psychologists.

Violence, some grossness but not for the sake of making you sick. It even makes fun or orphans which I didn't think anyone could do. The most amazing thing is that it breaks open a pile of modern taboos, and does it in a completely upbeat happy way.

I'm so used to modern entertainment going straight for the ugliest feelings possible, but I have to say this really lifted my spirits. I hope it makes a pot of money and wakes up Hollywood. I wish cartoons were allowed to be this inventive and whimsical. I'm super jealous.
But it does have some funny animation by my friends at 6 Point Harness.

Not for kids, unfortunately. Go see it and tell me what you think. Support non-filler entertainment! We're gonna go see it again and bring all our curmudgeonly pals.

Just about every book on popular arts feels the need to justify itself by tracing its roots back to the Lascaux caves.
Thankfully this book keeps the section short and actually makes a good point: that communication is more naturally a visual art, and that written communication is artificial, using arbitrary symbols to represent images and actions.

Film, and cartoons even more so can and should use the much more natural visual form of getting their ideas across. Words - or writing is just a supplemental tool (one of many) to aid the visual process. Pictures are first - and those who can make pictures directly are the masters of the medium - not those who can describe pictures third hand through clumsy symbols called words.

This book on live-action screen writing has more in common with how I think cartoons should be written, than what actual cartoon writers believe or practice.


I love old movies. Old live action movies. I collect 'em on video and watch TCM. I'm no expert on live action. I've had one day's experience in it - maybe I'll tell you about it one day.

But I've noticed how specialized so many jobs in L/A are and in particular - the writing. You sometimes see 4 or 5 credits for writing a movie. One for original novel, if it's based on something already written in another medium. One for "scenario", one for "treatment", one for "screenplay", even one for "dialogue".

I've always wondered about these specialists and who they were so I went to a local second-hand bookstore to see if there was a book on the process of writing classic movies (1920s-1950s).


I couldn't find a book written in that period or even by a writer from the period, so I settled for the one above - written in the 70s - when movies were no longer very cinematic. I didn't hold out much hope for it, until I read the forward while in the store.


The first thing that impressed me was the writer's style. It was crisp and to the point. This alone is an extreme rarity among writers. I love to read, but hardly ever can find a book that flat out gives you what you buy the book for.

I have a modern book about Teddy Roosevelt that is sheer torture to read. It opens every new scene by describing the direction of the wind at that very moment, the atmospheric pressure, the shape of the moon and the feel of the grass between Teddy's toes - and how many bunions he has. It judges all decisions made at the turn of the century by modern ethics. The book is 3 times longer than a book about who Teddy was and what he did needs to be. It's not about him. It's about the writer trying to be fancy, trendy and modern.

There are also too many writers who hide vague thoughts behind florid pose, needless descriptions and all kinds of filler you have to sift through to get to the meat.

To me clarity is probably the number one talent that any creative person needs if he wants to set himself above the mass of other pretenders or even more talented people who just can't make a point.

It's the difference between musicians who can't play a melody without burying it under a muddy or meandering arrangement and say ...the Beatles. The difference between Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand. I'll get back to that in another post. The difference between Bob Jaques' crisp and precisely focused animation timing and Shamus Culhane's evenly spaced actions that make the characters look like they are underwater. The difference between a strong line of action and clear silhouette and a cluttered ambiguous pose. The difference between a Looney Tune and a Terrytoon.

Clarity gives you more control over what you want your audience to understand or feel. Mushiness leaves the message to the viewer or listener's interpretation - if he even bothers to finish paying attention to the mushy message.

Anyway, this book is so clearly written that you know exactly what the writer wants to convey in every sentence and he doesn't waste time trying to impress you with fancy writing flourishes.

I might agree or disagree with something he believes, but his points are so clear that it doesn't even bother me when I do disagree.

What's really surprising to me though, beyond the clarity of his information is how similar live action thinking is to good cartoons when it comes to "writing".


Most modern cartoon writers - the ones that can't draw, believe - or at least pretend to - that they are following live action principles of script writing and this justifies them keeping the artists away from the process until a script is written and every visual element is crassly described by non-visual brains. This book demonstrates that cartoon writers absolutely aren't influenced by the live action process of creation.

Classic screenwriters - according to the book - evolved a common sense approach to writing for visual storytelling that is really similar to the way old cartoons were written - and to the way Spumco cartoons are written.

I will post more of his book paragraph by paragraph and give my comments.