Hollywood

The cast and producer of Crazy Rich Asians were present at the screening I attended and said a few words to kick us off. At this point the film — the first with an Asian-American principal cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993 — had been number one in America for three weeks, so they talked about a ‘cultural shift’ and how this was ‘as much a movement as a movie’. I confess, a lump came to my throat along with a tear to my eye, which is odd, given I’m usually such a hard-hearted old trout. It’s now difficult to know what to say next, but the safest thing has to be: while I’m pleased the film exists, and we should all be pleased this film exists, it is still only an average romcom.

Ocean’s 8 is the all-female spin-off of the all-male Ocean’s trilogy and it’s a sop, with a third act that drags like nothing on earth. But its success — it earned an estimated $41.5 million during its opening weekend, which is better than any of the male versions — shows the market isn’t that bothered by content, which is equality of a kind. Women can now make dull formulaic franchise films too! Hurrah! We’ve arrived! And we can do this rubbish for ourselves now! The film is a straight-up-and-down remake, where the gender swap may, in fact, be the best idea, possibly because it’s the only idea. (The Ghostbusters remake did it first anyhow.) It does not subvert the heist-caper genre in any way but instead follows the formula slavishly.

Lucky bastard. Such are the words that come constantly to mind while you’re reading Clancy Sigal’s two volumes of posthumously published autobiography. Blacklisted as a (self-confessedly lousy) actor for refusing to name names in the McCarthy era, working as the agent for the likes of Peter Lorre, Rod Steiger and — sigh — Barbara Stanwyck in 1950s Hollywood and freelancing on Fleet Street in countercultural London (including reviewing films for The Spectator), Sigal was at the centre of every piece of action going. Should Black Sunset and The London Lover ever be gathered into a single volume (perhaps taking Sigal’s earlier memoir, Going Away, along for the ride), ‘Been there, done that’ would make a good catch-all title.

There’s nothing that screams 2018 feminism more than a bunch of celebrities holding hands on a red carpet. This year’s Cannes festival is the latest opportunity in a long string of awards ceremonies for the rich and famous to gain some brownie points. If there were an awards ceremony for the most right-on awards ceremony (please no one take me up on that), Cannes might well win. This year’s tote bags contained a flier emblazoned with #NeRienLaisserPasser (or, roughly, don’t let anything happen). ‘Let’s not ruin the party’ it said in French, warning attendees to watch their behaviour.

Fire up YouTube on the iPad, tap in ‘tap’, then wave goodbye to the rest of your day: clip after clippety-clip of the best and brightest stars rattling out impossible rhythms: Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling; Fayard and Harold Nicholas taking the stairs one split jump at a time; Gene Kelly singing (and dancing) in the rain. The American actor, writer and entertainer Clarke Peters (anything from The Wire to Five Guys Named Moe) was never dragged to tap-dancing classes as a boy in the late 1950s — ‘it was more ballet and jazz by then’ — but he remembers ‘trying to pick up moves from the films. I think I do what I do because of Gene Kelly. He wasn’t a great tap dancer but I loved his athleticism, his style.

Reading the lip-smacking reports of the latest troubled celebrity relationships  (Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux definitely high and dry, Cheryl Cole and Liam Payne allegedly on the rocks) I couldn’t help musing that stars - and more specifically, the place they occupy in our mass psychological landscape - have very much changed since the first mass-market celebrities emerged. The film stars of the fledgling Hollywood truly were worshipped as higher beings; a tribe of Pathan Indians opened fire on a cinema when they were denied entry to a Greta Garbo film while women committed suicide when Valentino died. Their marriages were regarded as heavenly unions; their romantic sunderings as tragedies.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is plainly wonderful, and stars Annette Bening, who is plainly wonderful, as Gloria Grahame, a one-time Hollywood movie star who in later life hits on hard times — ‘a big name in black and white. Not doing too well in colour,’ comments her landlady at one point — and embarks on a romance with a young English actor who is 30 years her junior. It is based on a true memoir. It is a love story, told tenderly, bravely, smartly, movingly. And believably. Older women, it seems, can be interesting, complicated, vital, attractive and sexual. Who knew? (But don’t spread the word, or they’ll all want to be like that, and won’t take the shitty bit-parts any more.

Being, as ever, years late to the party, my wife and I were only midway through season one of House of Cards when news emerged that star Kevin Spacey might or might not have drunkenly groped then-14-year-old actor Anthony Rapp in 1986. This presented us with a dilemma: continue to watch and marvel at Spacey’s bravura to-the-house performance, and possibly legitimise what he might have done (he now claims to be too drunk to remember) or consign the show to the e-recycle bin and watch Strictly instead? We didn’t have to think for too long. Possibly because we aren’t the parents of Anthony Rapp, and possibly because Strictly just isn’t the same without Bruce. We are now midway through season two – no spoilers, please.

‘On air, I could be the most glamorous, gorgeous, tall, black-haired female… Whatever I wanted to be, I could be… That was the thrilling part to me,’ said Lurene Tuttle, talking about her career as a star of American radio in its heyday from the 1930s to the 1950s. She was known as ‘the Woman of a Thousand Voices’ because of her talent for voicing any part, from child to OAP, glamour puss to gangster moll, hard-nosed executive to soft-hearted minion. On Saturday we heard her in full flow on Radio 4 Extra in an episode of Suspense, brought out of the archive from June 1949 for the three-hour special celebrating The Golden Age of American Radio. It was terrifying.