Posted on 10/25/2004 8:42:53 AM PDT by FatLoser
Excellent article. Thanks for posting it.
What’s the deal with Naked City? I understand it has been tied up a lawsuit, or court ruling for forty years, and nobody will show the reruns. It's a shame, because that has to be one of the best series ever.
Once I was in Frankfurt, Germany on business and saw "The Naked City" on an English channel station there. Good episode. Raw gritty. It was about a mobster who is fighting in court for custody of his son. He corrupts the boy's teacher, a lonely old man, with a beautiful young girl as literally a gift-wrapped present. It ends in ruin for all.
The thing about the 60's that characterized the time, that people forget was its prosperity, its security, its wealth. It was a time when the developed economies soared past 1929 levels with nothing but blue sky in sight. Government had tons of money to spend and thought they could do anything. The salaries of unionized blue collar workers approached those of college graduates. It was a world so rich and secure that young people believed that things like aggression, competition, deferred gratification, the values of conflict over limited resources, were as archaic as duelling and courtly romance. People thought they could "drop out" of the beaten path to "find themselves" and drop back in whenever they liked. Since there is plenty for everyone, we can all smoke dope, play frisbee, and be friends.
Check on Amazon. "Naked City" is being released on DVD.
Look about 20 years farther back. We were duped by the liberal rhetoric of the New Deal. In the 60's the people who grew up on it came into power and we bagan to see the consequences of what we'd done.
Really? It's all very quite simple - women were granted the right to vote in 1920. While a small percentage are producers, the vast majority are either looking to men or government for support.
In a way, we're lucky WWII was fought only 20 years after franchisement. 20 more years and WWII would have been like VN - imagine the cries for reconciliation that the Gs & Js were only seeking additional 'living room'...
Don't sell 50's culture short. We focus on the 60's so we reduce 50's music to the precursors of the 60's. We focus on Chuck Berry and Elvis. But the big stars of the 50's were Sinatra, Patti Paige, Nat King Cole, Vic Damone, Nina Simone, Tony Bennett. The classic jazz of Stan Getz, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Brubeck, and Monk. All those great ballads. Music that more than stands up today (who remembers Herman's Hermits or the Dave Clark 5 ?). Norah Jones and Diana Krall are the musical daughters of Eartha Kitt and Peggy Lee.
As I argued in a subsequent post, the seemingly effortless security and prosperity of the 60's created a cultural feeling that struggle had been removed from human existence. There is no need for conflict or competition because there is plenty for everyone. We can all smoke dope and screw and play frisbee and drop out to find ourselves. The counterculture (i.e., the diffusion of bohemian values through college educated youth in the 60's and everyone else in the 70's) was the product of this.
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