Old Vs. New Hollywood

If you read this blog on a regular basis, if such a person exists, thank you for reading, but one will notice a theme. I didn't start out to make this blog with any persistent themes, but I myself have noticed one emerging. Maybe this happens to everyone once they start getting old, but it seems impossible not to notice that the past was better. Sure, it wasn't perfect, and I don't mean to whitewash everything, but you must admit it was just BETTER. Today's topic is about something way before my time, but seems worth noting because I don't know how much people are talking about this.

I submit to you that the Hollywood of "yesterday", or, the classic Hollywood, is much better and more interesting of the Hollywood of today. Not to say there weren't scandals, because there were as many controversies and scandals back then as there are today, but the actresses had a certain beauty, talent, class and glamor that is largely missing today. Perhaps it is a certain intangible quality. They supported the war effort and many of them visited the troops in World War II on USO tours.










I figured the above could prove my point far better than words. They being: Veronica Lake, Jane Russell, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, Ella Raines, Lana Turner, Julie Adams, Gloria Grahame, and Gene Tierney, from top to bottom. These are only a few examples and a few pictures. There were many more. But a lot of these were "femme fatales" from the film noir era. In those movies, life was tough and these women had to survive. They had to be tough too, just as tough as the city and the men in the city, but they always retained their vast feminine side as well.
I didn't include Marilyn Monroe (or any that followed in her wake such as Mamie Van Doren, Diana Dors or the underrated Jayne Mansfield) because I feel she already represents a popular idea of the women of Hollywood past. I felt I should concentrate elsewhere.
Male actors didn't have to, for the most part, have the model-perfect good looks of Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, they just had to have the talent or fit a certain character perfectly. Take Edward G. Robinson with his ubiquitous cigar, forever cast in gangster roles, or Vincent Price, who played many types of roles but is primarily known for his horror interpretations. It is doubtful the sole criteria for these men becoming movie stars were their looks. I know the movie industry has always been superficial -- in many ways it HAS to be, because it is trading in images, after all -- but it has never seemed as soullessly so as it is today, compared with yesterday.
So while today we have actors and actresses bashing Bush and the war, and promoting the liberal views they have the time and money to pursue, all the while adopting a cadre of multi-racial children from other countries while spurning their own, not to mention Angelina Jolie making out with her brother or whatever, and the rehab sagas of the starlets, and Paris Hilton and her pornography...just think about the way it used to be for a second...or do you honestly prefer THIS...?