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onager

(9,356 posts)
Fri Jan 31, 2014, 03:53 PM Jan 2014

This stupid movie line always cracks me up...

Movie: "Bachelor In Paradise," from 1961, with Bob Hope and Lana Turner. Showed this morning on Turner Classic Movies. (And they re-show it every few months, if you're interested.)

Stupid Movie Line: Hope arrives late for a meeting in the L.A. suburb "Paradise Hills."

He says: "Sorry, my cabdriver couldn't find Paradise. He's an atheist."

This is pretty much the usual lightweight Bob Hope fluff, but it's also a pretty sneaky little attack on the manners and mores of suburban America in 1961.

Directed by Jack Arnold, of all people. More famous for classic sci-fi movies like "Creature From The Black Lagoon," "Incredible Shrinking Man" and "It Came From Outer Space."

Los Angelenos will find this thing a real treat - they can see the San Fernando Valley suburbs still being built, in the background of many scenes. Especially in the Van Nuys/Panorama City area. Some of the houses used in the movie are still standing, and a quick Google on the movie title will point you right to them.

Obligatory Gossip/Sleaze:

Given the hypocritical morality of Hollywood in 1961, Lana Turner was lucky to be working at all. This was only 3 years after her 14-yo-daughter Cheryl Crane killed Turner's boyfriend, minor-league mobster Johnny Stompanato. (Who popped up as a character in several James Ellroy novels, for you fiction fans. He was also a character in the recent movie "Gangster Squad.) While Turner was filming "Bachelor In Paradise," her daughter was still confined to a psychiatric hospital.

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This stupid movie line always cracks me up... (Original Post) onager Jan 2014 OP
I've seen that a couple of times. Hissyspit Jan 2014 #1
He's wrong. Curmudgeoness Jan 2014 #2
Ha! Me too. I guess what surprises me... onager Feb 2014 #3
Come to think of it, you are right, Curmudgeoness Feb 2014 #4
One shining movie exception... onager Feb 2014 #5
That is one movie title that would never tempt me. Curmudgeoness Feb 2014 #6
I was the same way. onager Feb 2014 #7

onager

(9,356 posts)
3. Ha! Me too. I guess what surprises me...
Sat Feb 1, 2014, 01:52 PM
Feb 2014

...about this line in a pretty ordinary 1961 comedy - it refers to an atheist as just an ordinary person. A taxi driver.

This was 1961, when many 'Muricans only knew about 2 atheists: Ayn Rand and Madalyn Murray (O'Hair). Neither of them were very well liked, to put it mildly.

Just 1 year later, O'Hair would become "the most hated woman in America" after her Supreme Court case eliminated state-sponsored prayers in school.

Back then, atheists in popular entertainment were depicted a lot like gay people: if mentioned at all, we were supposed to be completely miserable and hateful. Our only function in popular entertainment was to provide a Valuable Life Lesson. And by the end of the story, it was always nice if we committed suicide, so all the Normal People could live happily ever after.

Come to think of it, that image of atheists is still around in at least one DU group...

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
4. Come to think of it, you are right,
Sat Feb 1, 2014, 05:11 PM
Feb 2014

atheists are almost always depicted as totally flawed human beings who are unhappy little creatures...although I cannot even think of many atheists in popular entertainment. And there is only one who is more recent who is not a complete asshole, and that is Temperance Brennan---"Bones". Although she is an odd cookie, she is not an asshole.

And it amazes me that, like gays, we are everywhere and most people know someone who is gay, and someone who is atheist, and probably don't even realize it. We are too normal when face-to-face with them for people to realize that we are "different". Or more specifically, that was are not different.

onager

(9,356 posts)
5. One shining movie exception...
Sat Feb 1, 2014, 07:49 PM
Feb 2014

"The Contender," from 2004 IIRC.

Joan Allen plays an outright atheist who is a Republican Senator. That borders on science fiction!

The great Phillip Baker Hall plays her father. Also an atheist, who says he has spent years in court, fighting to keep "superstitious nonsense" out of the public schools. (i.e., Jesus & Co.)

One of my favorite religious themed movies is "The Rapture," which certainly poses atheistic questions even though it's not about atheists specifically. Its main question seems to be - even if an omnipotent god does exist, is it worth worshipping? Hard to say any more without *SPOILERS,* and I don't want to do that because the movie has some real shocks and surprises.

Starring a pre-X Files David Duchovny and Mimi Rogers. And unfortunately filmed with such a low budget, it could only afford ONE Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
6. That is one movie title that would never tempt me.
Sat Feb 1, 2014, 07:55 PM
Feb 2014

"The Rapture"???? Without hearing it from you, I would avoid it like the plague.

One Horseman of the Apolcalypse!

onager

(9,356 posts)
7. I was the same way.
Sun Feb 2, 2014, 03:15 PM
Feb 2014

I first heard of that movie on the Atheism Usenet group...which shows how long ago it was!

A couple of people were raving about it. I thought: "The RAPTURE? WTF? Atheists?" So I watched and was impressed. The movie had a point of view I'd certainly never seen before in mainstream entertainment.

Basically it assumes all the Xian BS is true, then uses those assumptions to work right against that BS. Theological ju-jitsu!

Without giving too much away: one message is that human relationships are more beautiful and valuable than a relationship with the tyrannical, pissy Ruler Of The Universe...even if such a thing does exist. And has the power to destroy the world etc.

Then there's the hooker with the Apocalypse tattooed on her back...

Long as I'm here...another fave flick of mine, often described as atheistic, is "Wise Blood," based on Flannery O'Connor's novel. But O'Connor herself was a devout Catholic who went to Mass every day.
I've read that "Wise Blood" was her way of working out the huge differences between her Catholic beliefs and those of her Fundamentalist neighbors in Georgia.

Still, I have to love a movie that contains lines like: "I'm gonna start me a new church. The Church of Christ Without Christ. Where the blind don't see, the crippled don't walk, and what's dead stays that way!"

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