Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 8
story ‘‘Mother Yaws,” Williams depicts the horrible reception a woman receives
from her family, her community, and the medical world when she develops an
unattractive growth on her face. Postulating that “yaws” is a code for Kaposi’s
sarcoma, Kolin compares the woman’s ostracism to that experienced by gay men
in the 1980’s as AIDS became identified and associated with homosexuality. As
Kolin puts it, “In 'Mother Yaws’ Williams.. .offers a medical document of horrific
proportions” and very possibly the story contains the first popular literary references
to AIDS.
Our travel articles focus on highways and trains, and in “Uncovering the
Northernmost Named Trail: The Theodore Roosevelt International Highway,” Max
J. Skidmore offers a personal tour of the entitled highway, complete with anecdotal
information about the president for whom it was named. Skidmore’s mile-by-mile
guide encourages readers to hop in their cars and follow the trail from Portland
Maine to Portland, Oregon. From this tour of the TRIH, we’re “Movin’ On” to
Michael Green and Bill Thompson’s biographical tribute to Hank Snow in their
article, “I’m Movin’ On: The Wanderings and Musings of Clarence Eugene 'Hank’
Snow, the Singing Ranger.” Green and Thompson supply a comprehensive study
of one of the most prolific artists in country music.
In the world of film we include several articles commenting on the works
of two American directors and the French film critic, Andre Bazin. Two movie re
makes and one movie adaptation of a novel are also addressed. Sheri Chinen Biesen
provides a detailed account of the evolvingy//w5 noir of director/producer Howard
Hawks and his molding of the careers of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
Chinen Biesen argues that films such as To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep
- known at the time as “red meat” films because of their emphasis on cold
masculinity, violence and sexism - established thefilm noir genre prior to its alleged
1946 French origins. In his interview with Robert Downey Sr., Wheeler Winston
Dixon outlines Downey’s career as a filmmaker from his first 30 minute silent film
in 1963 through his satirical, big studio films Chafed Elbows and Putney Swope.
Dixon notes Downey’s use of “repetition humor” and his blatant non-conformity
to Hollywood standards. While the majority of film viewers are very familiar with
Downey’s son (the actor Robert Jr.), Dixon’s article provides many of us our first
look at the life and works of this “famous father.”
Bert Cardullo exposes us to the great French critic Andre Bazin in his
translations of three of Bazin’s film reviews. Cardullo chooses Ivan the Terrible^
the 1944-46 Russian classic; Niagra, the 1952 Marilyn Monroe femme fatale story
which is singularly interesting for Bazin’s (or is it Cardullo’s?) preoccupation with
Monroe’s lower back; and Scarface (the Howard Hawks directed 1932 version).
In “From Karloff to Vosloo: The Mummy Remade” J. Robert Craig
provides us with the popular culture, literary and filmic history of the horror genre.
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