Saturday, February 18, 2017

Whatever Happened To Randoph Scott?

In 1974 the Statler Brothers asked in song, “Whatever happened to Randolph Scott?”

That was their way of addressing the decline in the in morality and quality of the movie industry.

The first five verses and the final verses of the song are as follows:

 “Everybody knows when you go to the show
You can't take the kids along

You've gotta read the paper and know the code
Of G, PG and R and X

You gotta know what the movie's about
Before you even go

Tex Ritter's gone and Disney's dead
The screen is filled with sex.

Whatever happened to Randolph Scott
Ridin' the range alone?“
'
.
.

“Whatever happened to all of these                                                                                                   
Has happened to the industry”


For over a year and a half the old WatchDog was confined to a hospital bed.  During that period, I passed a lot of time watching movies that were filmed from the early 1930’s through 2016.

My observation is that in the ‘30’s, ‘40’s, ‘50’s movie makers depended on quality writing, good directing, and very talented actors and actresses to produce entertaining films.  It is amazing how many of those early performers and it wasn’t limited to the stars, could dance, sing, and actually act.

At some point, probably in the early ‘60’s, the industry began to morph into the anti-American, anti-Military, anti-Capitalism, anti-Religion, Ultraliberal, Pornographic industry that it is today.

 Hollywood will tell you that they are not pornographic, but what else can you call full nudity and simulated(?) sex.  They place this crap in PG13 and R rated movies.  Can anyone explain the difference between Hollywood porn and XXX porn?

The truth is that Hollywood currently, has very little talent at any level and without Special Effects , nudity, and raw sex, Hollywood would be out of business.

The television industry isn’t much better.

Sports are generally very good.

But there are few prime time shows that are both entertaining and decent family fair.

Even the news is bad on the major television networks.  They tend to filter the news so badly that distort facts and events until it nothing but propaganda.

FOX News reports are far more accurate than the others, but they spend far too much time on commentary/discussion and too little time reporting.

For those of you that are fortunate enough to get ‘One America News (OANN)’; you have access to excellent unfiltered news with only two commentary programs per day.  And they make it clear just what is and is not commentary.

The MA14 rating in TV is just as bad as the PG13 rating in movies.

When TV writers run out of ideas or ratings begin to slip, shows often resort to adding sex and some programs, like “Two and a half men” are all sex from beginning to end.

A prime example of a show running out of good writing was the “The Good Wife”.  For two or three season’s it was a good entertaining program.  Then they hit a wall and added an abundance of sex at which point a more accurate title would have been “Just Another Slut”.

One notable exception in television movies is the Hall Mark channel.   They have an abundance of quality actresses and actors, quality stories that don’t have to rely on sex or special effects to be entertaining.

In answer to the Statler Brothers question “Whatever happened to Randolph Scott?”

Talent  was replaced with nudity, sex, and special effects.

Note: For those too young to know-Randolph Scott was a very talented actor in drama, light comedy, and best known for Western’s.


Comments are invited!
Send feedback to:   WatchDog

8 comments:

KellyG said...

Very good blog.

We only watch a few regularly scheduled TV shows.

We do like "Blue Bloods" and also watch Hall-Mark.

I will look for OANN!

Bud Brown said...

wow!

I'm only 35 and never heard of Randolph Scott.

Makes me wish that I had been born 50 years earlier.

MIMI12 said...

hey, the movie people tell us that they are only reflecting real life. But I’ve checked around and have yet to find anyone that invites a few let alone millions of people to watch them have sex

Bud Brown said...

I’m 83 and can still remember the great ones; Olivia de Havilland, Myrna Loy, and Katharine Hepburn to name a few of the great ladies of film.

Then we had the John and Lionel Barrymore, Robert Mitchel, and Cary Grant to name some of the men.

If we had stars of that caliber, I would still be going to the cinema.

MIMI/FL said...

You could have included POTTY MOUTH.

It seem as though they have quota for the number of times they have to use the F*** word in a single sentence. But it is probably because they are unable to create meaningful dialog.

BUD Brown III said...

Did not know my grandpa was going to write.

I should have signed as Bud Brown III

Megan234 said...

Yesterday I was watching a PG13 movie.

It contained a solid 15 minutes of two naked people having sex.
Why is that NOT rated XXX?

I think you are correct--NO TALENT WRITERS--NO TALENT ACTORS.

ALAN-S said...

It’s not just Hollywood, it’s also TV!

Having said that, the only talent in film making these days are the computer people that produce the special effects and some musicians.