h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A little Youtube glimpse into history here: the presentation of a couple of Academy Awards in 1958. I love video: it's a time machine with a built-in lie detector. You can catch these people doing shifty things, and thinking nobody will ever wise up. Little did they know...

Here, you can witness Bob Hope telling an inordinate number of very bad, often tasteless jokes, particularly about the USSR. Cold War humour, who needs it? In addition to mocking the Soviets, Hope takes equally unappealing potshots at television, then the movie industry's most feared rival. With material like that, Bob, we know why we watched TV - and why the Oscars were such a big yawn. Notice how Hope's eyes shift around - he reminds me of the Vice President of that time (Nixon). Was that look born of the distrustful mood of the era?

But the worst moment comes AFTER all the bad wisecracks. It's when the insanely grinning Cheerful Fairy, Miss Doris Day, and the as-ever hangdog Clark Gable show up and award the Oscar for writing an adapted screenplay to...wait for it...

Pierre Boulle, for adapting his own 'Bridge on the River Kwai'.

Now, this was why I hunted down the video. I didn't know who picked up Boulle's award. Ah, here comes Kim Novak, doing things with her dress she should have done in the ladies' room. She manages to blurt out something about how she and others were 'proud of' this fine film (as they should have been, but why must she mention her boss Harry Cohn? Considering the rumours about the producer, female stars, and casting couches, it's really bad taste), and then she teeters off on her high heels, apparently relieved to get out of there.

They couldn't have let Boulle accept the award. It might have become obvious that he didn't speak English. And it might have dawned on even their despised TV audience that Pierre Boulle hadn't adapted his own superb novel to the screen.

But then, nobody wanted to admit that Carl Foreman was one of the two who'd done it. Both of them had been blacklisted. Carl Foreman was a Commie (he'd actually belonged to the CPUSA for about 10 years.) Carl Foreman was hiding in the UK.

The Brits gave him a CBE. Good for them.

Want to see this short video, now that you know the subtext? Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wX-rBzh_u8

The lingering question is: just how clueless WAS Doris Day? Ah, que sera, sera.

He must have been a really accomplished commie to get a title like Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Heck, even Kim Philby only had an OBE!

Whilst the black list of American commies is to be regretted on one level, I can only be grateful to the idiots who listed Sam Wanamaker, resulting in the magnificent Shakespeare Globe and Sam Wanamaker Indoor theatre on the banks of the Thames.

Yep. The US's loss was the UK's gain.

Let's not forget his delightful daughter Zoë

No one could.