Thursday night, CNN aired (with Magnolia Pictures and
IronBound Films) the documentary “Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie”,
directed by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller (writer), and Jeremy Newberger.
I could play word games with the title: “Le beau evocateur, la belle evocateuse,” just
like, in the Reagan-esque late 80s, “le beau arbitrageur, la belle arbitrageuse”.
The film is a biography of the controversial, and probably
sociopathic conservative talk show host Morton Downey Jr, (wiki particularly the run of his trash TV show “The Morton Downey, Jr. Show” from
1987-1989, eventually syndicated from a local New York-New Jersey show on WWOR-TV,
broadcast from a studio in Secaucus, NJ.
I was living in Dallas at the time, then moved back to
Arlington VA in 1988, and don’t recall the show. I didn’t have cable at the time. I often
listed to talk radio in my car, where people would call in for “problems”. Talk show hosts could be hard on personal responsibility,
but not really crass.
But Downey’s show got a lot of attention in the days before modern
reality TV.
Downey, born in 1932, would die of lung cancer in early 2001
(before 9/11) and is often shown smoking. Despite some natural good looks, his
demeanor and appearance often got oafish.
Downey got sued a few times, for defamation, and was once
accused of attacking a gay guest on the show.
He also claimed to be attacked by neo-Nazis at an airport, where the
attackers tried to shave his head.
The official Facebook is here. CNN’s site is here CNN’s caption says “He drove us into our
national ditch”. The film is enhanced by some animation work.
Picture (mine, not from film): New Jersey turnpike near Secaucus, traffic stopped.
Picture (mine, not from film): New Jersey turnpike near Secaucus, traffic stopped.
No comments:
Post a Comment