'ऑल अबाउट इव्ह', १९५०...How to Walk Around with an Erection for Three Days?

Sam Staggs, 'All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-The-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made!',  2000:

"...Bette Davis: “The unholy mess of my own life—another divorce, my permanent need for love, my aloneness. Margo Channing was a woman I understood thoroughly. I had hard work to remember I was playing a part.”

Gary Merrill: “Before long we were walking about holding hands, going to the movies.… From simple compassion, my feelings shifted to uncontrollable lust.”

Bette Davis: “The last place I expected to find love was on a movie set.”

Celeste Holm: “It was not a very pretty relationship; they laughed at other people. Bette and Gary formed a kind of cabal, like two kids who had learned to spell a dirty word.”

Bette Davis: “There was one bitch in the cast—Celeste Holm.”

Gary Merrill: “Would Miss Davis like coffee? A cigarette? A sandwich? Someone murdered?”

Bette Davis: “I sensed in Gary my last chance at love and marriage. I wanted these as desperately as ever. I had been an actress first and a woman second.”

Gary Merrill: “I walked around with an erection for three days.”

Bette Davis: “I started falling in love with him when I observed how he could relax in bed all day long for two solid weeks.”

Zsa Zsa Gabor: “There was one bed on the set and every time we came back after lunch, it was obvious that Gary and Bette had been using it during the break.”

Bette Davis: “That bed was for a scene in All About Eve but it was so comfortable that, between shots, the whole cast stretched out on it. Most of us would lie there for a few moments then pop up for cigarettes or something. Not Gary. He just lay there, completely at ease, until his scenes were called.”

Gary Merrill: “We only played two love scenes before I said, ‘Will you marry me?’”

Bette Davis: “I had fused the two men completely—Bill Sampson and Gary Merrill. Margo Channing and Bill Sampson were perfectly matched. I was breaking every one of my rules. I always swore I’d never marry an actor.”..."

 Joseph L. Mankiewicz यांचा 'ऑल अबाउट इव्ह', १९५० हा माझा अतिशय आवडता सिनेमा आहे, त्याच्या बद्दल काही माहित नसताना सुद्धा मला तो त्या अनेक कारणांमुळे आवडला होता- दिग्दर्शन, अभिनय, फोटोग्राफी, एडिटिंग ... सगळ्यात वर  त्याचा चटपटीतपणा , कथानकाचा वेग ....आणि त्याचा understated eroticism .. सेट वर उदा. काय चालले होते (I walked around with an erection for three days... There was one bed on the set and every time we came back after lunch, it was obvious that Gary and Bette had been using it during the break.) त्याचे प्रतिबिंब सिनेमात पडले आहे... 

 Bette Davis as Margo Channing, Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson

रेडिओ राजकन्या... Indira Devi of Kapurthala: Cinema, War, Driving Ambulances, BBC

 "Maharajkumari Indira Devi (a.k.a. Princess Indee), born in 1912, was the daughter of Maharaja Paramjit Singh and Maharani Brinda of Kapurthala. By all accounts a spirited, intelligent young woman, she left India for Britain in her early 20s to become a movie star. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, and worked briefly in the movies, narrating a few films.

After the outbreak of WWII, this feisty young princess successfully passed the St. John Ambulance examination and drove ambulances during air raids! She eventually joined the BBC in 1942, and hosted several series of radio broadcasts in Hindustani for Indian forces stationed in the Middle East. She also became famous for hosting ‘The Debate Continues’- a weekly broadcast to India. For this programme, she reported from the House of Commons, where she was the only woman in the entire press gallery!

Popularly known as the ‘Radio Princess’, she continued to work for the BBC till 1968. She passed away in 1979, in Ibiza, Spain.” 

 

 Picture- dated c. mid 1930s

 

courtesy: Tanveer Kinsey Studios and Mapin Publishing

 

She surely knew Balraj Sahni & his wife…George Orwell knew her well as documented below:

 

"...In other programme series, Orwell drew on members of the expatriate Far Eastern community living in Britain. These included Mulk Raj Anand, who read many of Orwell's broadcasts on the air. Other Indian novelists and essayists, Cedric Dover, Ahmed Ali, Prem Chand, and Narayan Menon among them, represented the "class that the [BBC's] literary broadcasts were aimed at." They discussed subjects like "Race Mixture and World Peace," "The Problems of Cultural Expression," and "The Federal Idea," with the intention of bringing "East and West a little nearer together." Many of the speakers invited by Orwell were women, including Princess Indira of Capurthala and fellow intellectuals such as Inez Holden and Rebecca West..."

(from '"Talking to India": George Orwell's Work at the BBC, 1941-1.943' by Jutta Paczulla)

अभ्यासातील फ्लोरा का अंतिम परीक्षेतली ?...Flora and the Zephyrs

जी. ए. कुलकर्णी : "... ऑर्फियसने उत्कंठेने वाद्य हातात घेतले व स्वर निर्माण करण्यास सुरवात केली... त्यावेळी हातांतील कंकणांचा आवाज करत, आंतरसालीसारख्या कोवळ्या पावलांनी सूर्यप्रकाश सरकवत एक सौन्दर्यवती युवती आली, आणि निर्भर आनंदाने तिने ओंजळभर फुले उचलली..." 

(पृष्ठ ५, 'ऑर्फियस', 'पिंगळावेळ', १९७७)

Flora आणि  Zephyrs दोन्ही रोमन/ ग्रीक देव. Zephyrs म्हणजे पश्चिम-पवन (मरुत) आणि फ्लोरा (the goddess of the flowering of plants), त्याची पत्नी. 

हे चित्र आहे (Copyright The Hopkins Collection 2021) जॉन वॉटरहाऊस यांनी १८९८ साली काढलेले. त्या बद्दल मिळालेली माहिती अशी:

"Flora and the Zephyrs takes its subject from Ovid's Fasti, which is a verse chronicle of the Roman calendar, and which incorporates the mythologies and historical legends of Rome where they can he associated with specific times of the year. Waterhouse's painting shows the moment when Zephyr first set eyes upon and fell in love with Flora, as she gathered flowers in the fields with her maidens and children.  He flies down to her, accompanied by his winged companions, and captures her by casting a garland of white flowers around her."

पण या चित्रातील फ्लोरा पेक्षा जॉन वॉटरहाऊस यांनी वरील चित्राच्या तयारीकरता काढलेली फ्लोरा (study of Flora) मला खूप जास्त आवडली. 

किती मानवी वाटते, तिच्या चेहऱ्यावर दिसणारी चिंता अगदी परिचयाची. 

 

समुद्र केवळ निरीक्षक आहे...Ulysses and the Sirens, Joseph Conrad and G A Kulkarni

Joseph Conrad

"All the tempestuous passions of mankind's young days, the love of loot and the love of glory, the love of adventure and the love of danger, with the great love of the unknown and vast dreams of dominion and power, have passed like images reflected from a mirror, leaving no record upon the mysterious face of the sea. Impenetrable and heartless, the sea has given nothing of itself to the suitors for its precarious favors."

-from ‘The Mirror of the Sea’

 

जी ए कुलकर्णी :

"... समुद्राचा अवजड करडा पडदा स्थिर आहे. त्याच्यात आपली प्रतिबिंबे आहेत म्हणून आपण अस्तित्वात आहो  असे निःशंकपणे खडकांना वाटते. व  ते अलिप्तपणे उभे आहेत.

        समुद्र केवळ निरीक्षक आहे..."

('अस्तिस्तोत्र', १९७१, 'सांजशकुन', १९७५,२०१५)

 

'Ulysses and the Sirens', 1909 by H.J. Draper

Ecological Tableau at Yalta, February 1945

 "...Before leaving Vorontsov Palace for the plenary session at Livadia that afternoon, Winston and Sarah took a walk down to the terrace for a better look at the sea in the winter sun. The day was mild, and the sun warmed the terrace so nicely that Sarah was able to leave her coat behind. She was beginning to regret having spent her precious clothing ration coupons on thermal layers to wear under her uniform. The temperature here was a welcome change from perpetually shivering in the damp cold and fog that enveloped RAF Medmenham, which left Sarah suffering from painful chilblains on her feet. On their walk they encountered three of the top British military representatives from the army and the RAF—Alan Brooke, Harold Alexander, and Peter Portal—who had just returned from the meeting of the combined chiefs of staff at the Koreiz Villa. The three officers decided to join them.

As the party of five stood along the edge of the terrace, looking down at the water, they noticed a remarkable sight. In the slick, oily-looking gray water below, a slaughter was underway. A school of fish directly beneath them was being assailed on two fronts: a great pod of porpoises was attacking from the sea, while a flock of hundreds of seagulls assaulted from the air. For the predators, it was a feast.

Sarah watched the carnage, expecting the fish to swim away and save themselves. But as the feasting continued, the fish schooled closer together. Over and over again, the porpoises attacked like U-boats targeting a shipping convoy, while the formation of circling gulls dive-bombed from on high.

Still, the fish huddled in tight formation, safety in numbers their only protection. They were willing to sacrifice many to protect the school as a whole.

The slaughter went on and on; the porpoises’ and gulls’ appetites seemed insatiable. Sarah stared in horror and fascination. To her dismay, the military chiefs failed to share her incredulity. Portal was daydreaming about what a lovely day it would be for a sail, while Brooke, who was the vice president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, stood admiring the gulls, as well as the ducks, loons, and cormorants that had joined the action.

Sarah turned to Brooke, shaking him out of his reverie. “Surely,” she exclaimed, the fish were “idiotic not to disperse.”

Brooke quickly dismissed the idea. “Not at all,” he said. “It is much better they should stick together.”

Hearing Brooke’s comment, Winston immediately piped up. He agreed with Sarah entirely. It would be much better for each fish to take the offensive to preserve its own life than to allow the group to decide for it that it was just one dispensable fish whose life was worth no less or no more than its neighbor’s. Brooke, he scoffed, had allowed his “usual cool dispassionate judgment” to become “badly prejudiced” because of his affinity for the feathered species.

Sarah and Winston soon headed back to the house to find the car that would take them to Livadia, leaving Brooke to admire his birds, but Sarah’s mind lingered over the disturbing scene.

Earlier, Sarah had looked to the lines on a person’s palm to divine the future. Perhaps now she had been given a genuine sign. The growing ideological divide over Europe’s fate—whether the continent would be shaped by the Soviets’ vision for collective action or the West’s commitment to self-determination—had been starkly mirrored in that grisly ecological tableau..."

('The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War' by Catherine Grace Katz, 2020)

 A school of bluefin trevally working a school of anchovies which may compact into a spherical bait ball if they are sufficiently threatened

courtesy: Bruno de Giusti

Will 'Sex-Strike' Work in Future?

The Atlantic, November 13 2018:
"Both young people and adults are having less sex than ever before. In the space of a generation, sex has gone from something most high-school students have experienced to something most haven’t. The average adult used to have sex 62 times a year; now, that number is 54.
Research continues to show that a healthy sex life is linked to a happy life, and having a partner is a stronger predictor than ever of happiness. Why, then, in this modern era, is sex on the decline?"

David Masciotra:

"....Love and sexuality are the most exhilarating elements of life. But Fromm writes that to truly experience and exercise love, one must “begin by practicing discipline, concentration and patience throughout every phase of life.”
No wonder so many Americans find love boring."

LAWRENCE A. TRITLE, ‘A NEW HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR‘, 1946/2010:

“...In the spring of 411, and amid the struggles of the Four Hundred and Five Thousand, Aristophanes produced one of the best - known comedies ever written, Lysistrata. Often regarded as his third ‘peace’ play, Lysistrata is dominated by women – in fact the women of Greece, who have come together to demand that their men end the war and make peace. To accomplish this goal, the women unite and swear to abstain from sex with their husbands until they agree to stop the violence and bring peace to Greece. This comic vehicle creates some hilarious scenes that were surely as amusing to Aristophanes’ audience as to modern readers...

...Aristophanes builds into it all kinds of jokes and situations to entertain and make the audience laugh; he is, after all, writing comedy and hoping to win the prize. So there are jokes about how women love to drink and how sex - crazed they are, views that many men in the audience pretty much shared. Early in the play, for example, Lysistrata raises the idea of a sex strike to stop the war, and one of her Athenian friends responds, ‘I couldn’t. No. Let the war go on’, a sentiment echoed quickly by another ( Lys . 129 – 30). Lampito’s support for the plan, however, overcomes initial resistance and Lysistrata proceeds with her plan. In doing all this, Aristophanes also mentions the long absences of the men fighting in various places and throws in jokes about how women responded to this with sex toys and drink ( Lys . 102 – 10). It should not be thought that masturbation is a modern invention, and in fact scenes on Greek pottery earlier in the fifth century depict women using the dildos that Aristophanes jokes about...”

Louisa Peacock wrote on March 26 2014 in The Telegraph, UK:

“A group of Ukrainian women have set up a Facebook page – currently with over 1,700 likes – and created T-shirts with the slogan 'не дай русскому', meaning 'don't give it to a Russian', as a means of protest.

The sex boycott echoes a larger embargo against Russian consumer goods, which encourages Ukrainians not to buy Russian products.

The concept of a sex strike is over 2,000 years old, when Greeks first performed Lysistrata, a comedy about Greek women withholding sex from their husbands and lovers unless they stopped the Peloponnesian War...”

A scene from Greek comedy Lysistrata, where the eponymous character rallies her fellow women to go on a sex strike from their husbands, until they agree to end the Peloponnesian War

But even if such a threat works today, it surely won't work tomorrow.

Clive Cookson wrote in FT on February 14 2016:

“...Scientists have warned that rapid strides in the development of artificial intelligence and robotics threatens the prospect of mass unemployment, affecting everyone from drivers to sex workers... Prof Vardi said it would be hard to think of any jobs that would not be vulnerable to robotics and AI — even sex workers. “Are you going to bet against sex robots?” he asked. “I’m not.”...”

Steven Spielberg's 'Minority Report', 2002

courtesy: DreamWorks Picture