#746) With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain (1938)

#746) With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain (1938)

Directed by Herbert Kline and Henri Cartier-Bresson

Class of 2017

Well, here’s another subject I am not qualified at all to discuss: The Spanish Civil War. As always, this post can only offer an oversimplified account of the Spanish Civil War through the lens of this movie, and I encourage anyone interested in these events to do further research.

Thanks as always to Benjamin Wilson for tracking down this obscure NFR title, which can be viewed online at the Spanish Civil War Virtual Museum.

The Plot: In 1936, the Second Spanish Republic was threatened by an attempted coup from the right-leaning Nationalist faction, leading to the Spanish Civil War. Although the Nationalists were gaining traction thanks to the rise of Fascism in Europe, the Republic maintained control of Spain’s major cities (for the time being) and received support from several other countries through a group of international brigades and battalions. One brigade which included 2800 American volunteer fighters was known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who fought for the Republic in seven battles through 1937 and 1938. The early days of this brigade were filmed by Herbert Kline and Henri Cartier-Bresson and screened in America as a fundraiser to bring our wounded soldiers home.

Why It Matters: The NFR offers no superlatives about this film, with the write-up solely consisting of its historical backdrop, plus a shoutout to NYU’s Tamiment Library and the Abraham Lincoln Brigades Archive.

But Does It Really?: A “historically significant” yes on this one. I knew nothing about the Spanish Civil War going into my viewing, and I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about it, albeit from the point of view of American volunteers and not, ya know, the Spanish citizens fighting for their own country’s future. “With the Abraham Lincoln…” paints a unique picture of America supporting another country in an oft-overlooked war, and simultaneously serves as a precursor of sorts to the strong-armed propaganda the US would start cranking out once we entered WWII. I’m glad the NFR found a place for “With the Abraham Lincoln…” on the list, and equally glad that it can be easily viewed online.

Everybody Gets One: Like many other Americans in the 1930s, writer Herbert Kline was concerned about the ongoing rise of Fascism in Europe, traveling to Spain to volunteer his support. While working at an English language radio station in Madrid, Kline was approached by photographer Geza Karpathi about making a movie about the war for the New York based Frontier Films. Neither man had any prior filmmaking experience, but still managed to create 1937’s “Heart of Spain”. For his next film “Return to Life”, Kline teamed up with Henri Cartier-Bresson, a celebrated photographer known for capturing candid moments of his world travels. While working on “Return to Life” the two were commissioned by Frontier Film and the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy to film a short about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Kline and Cartier-Bresson traveled throughout Spain with the Brigade in the summer and fall of 1937, while simultaneously working on “Return to Life”. Kline said in later interviews that while he and Cartier-Bresson co-directed their films, he focused more on the writing while Cartier-Bresson had the overall creative vision.

Seriously Oscars?: No Oscar love for this movie, though Herbert Kline would eventually receive a nomination for his 1975 documentary “The Challenge…A Tribute to Modern Art” (his 1971 documentary “Walls of Fire” also received an Oscar nomination, though it was the producers and not Kline who were nominated).

Other notes

  • The XV International Brigade was one of many organized to fight for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, uniquely consisting primarily of English-speaking volunteers from America, England, and Canada. One dominantly American battalion within the brigade was the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, and the name went on to become the widely accepted nickname for the entire brigade.
  • In addition to the footage shot by Kline and Cartier-Bresson, “With the Abraham Lincoln…” includes newsreel footage shot by Jacques Lemare and Robert Capa, the latter also serving as the production’s still photographer.
  • For those of you with no interest in wartime propaganda, please accept footage of the soldiers using shower equipment supplied by the French Steel Workers Union, complete with rear nudity!
  • I appreciate that this movie identifies many of the soldiers featured on screen, typically flashing their name, city, and occupation on a corresponding intertitle. Points deducted, however, for not identifying the one Asian soldier in this whole movie. Come on, you gave him a close-up!
  • Among those who visit the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in this film is Congressman John T. Bernard, one of only a handful of US House Representatives to vote against the various Neutrality Acts passed by Congress in the 1930s to stay out of any European conflicts (acts that this movie deems “shameful”). Note to Congressman Bernard: If you’re going to support anti-fascist movements, lose the Hitler mustache.
  • Despite being a film commissioned by the American Medical Bureau, the AMB only gets one shout-out about halfway through the movie for the ambulances they provided to our overseas soldiers. I don’t know how much input the AMB had on this film, but they did not get enough bang for their buck.
  • One sequence that often gets singled out in articles and essays about the film is when our wounded soldiers gather to watch a local game of soccer (Er…football). It’s a nice bit of levity after all this uber-patriotism and shots of war.
  • Of the soldier idents, my favorite is Maurice Nickenburg from Brooklyn, described as being “active in the theater”. Is it just me or does that sound like a euphemism?
  • A special section towards the end celebrates Robert Raven, a veteran of the Lincoln Brigade who lost his sight during a battle. His name receives the boldest text possible, and he is hailed as “[o]ne of the greatest American heroes of modern times”.
  • “With the Abraham Lincoln…” concludes with the hard sell urging viewers to donate to the cause, stating that $125 can bring one wounded American soldier home. That’s about $2700 in today’s money; a tall order for a nation that was still recovering from the Great Depression. In my research I couldn’t find a single write-up confirming if this film helped raise money or not.

Legacy

  • The good news: the Spanish Civil War ended in April 1939. The bad news: the Nationalists won, with their fascist reign lasting through the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1975. Shortly after Franco’s death, Spain transitioned to a constitutional monarchy, which gave their king (Juan Carlos I) less authority than he had prior to the Spanish Civil War. Spain continues to have a constitutional monarchy, and as of this writing, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
  • The Abraham Lincoln Brigade went by several names during its short tenure, owing to its conflation with other brigades as they faced growing casualties. The last known surviving member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was Delmer Berg, who also served in the US Army during WWII, and died in 2016 at age 100.
  • Both Herbert Kline and Henri Cartier-Bresson continued making films along the lines of “With the Abraham Lincoln…”; documentary shorts and features that supported anti-fascism and/or highlighted underrepresented cultures. Kline died in 1999 at 89 years old, Cartier-Bresson in 2004 at 95.
  • “With the Abraham Lincoln…” was not released theatrically in the traditional sense, but rather 16 mm prints were screened in union halls and other meeting spots for pro-Republic groups in America. The film fell into obscurity in the ensuing decades (even the filmmakers forgot they had made it) and was considered lost until one of these 16 mm prints was discovered at the Veterans of the Lincoln Brigade office in 2010 by film scholar Juan Salas.

The National Recording Registry: 25 in ’25!

This image is from Billboard’s coverage of the 2025 NRR picks.

In the middle of what was a very hectic day at my office job, I was handed a life preserver in the form of a National Recording Registry press release. Today, the good ol’ NRR announced the Class of 2025, bringing their total to 675 recordings. Here in chronological order are this year’s inductees:

  • “Aloha ‘Oe” – Hawaiian Quintette (1913) (single)
  • “Sweet Georgia Brown” – Brother Bones & His Shadows (1949) (single)
  • “Happy Trails” – Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (1952) (single)
  • Radio Broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series – Chuck Thompson (1960)
  • Harry Urata Field Recordings (1960-1980)        
  • “Hello Dummy!”– Don Rickles (1968) (album)
  • “Chicago Transit Authority” – Chicago (1969) (album)
  • “Bitches Brew” – Miles Davis (1970) (album)
  • “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’” – Charley Pride (1971) (single)
  • “I Am Woman” – Helen Reddy (1972) (single)
  • “El Rey” – Vicente Fernandez (1973) (single)
  • “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” – Elton John (1973) (album)
  • “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” – Freddy Fender (1975) (single)
  • “I’ve Got the Music in Me” – Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker (1975) (album)
  • “The Kӧln Concert” – Keith Jarrett (1975) (album)
  • “Fly Like an Eagle” – Steve Miller Band (1976) (album)
  • Nimrod Workman Collection (1973-1994)
  • “Tracy Chapman” – Tracy Chapman (1988) (album)
  • “My Life” – Mary J. Blige (1994) (album)
  • Microsoft Windows Reboot Chime – Brian Eno (1995)
  • “My Heart Will Go On” – Celine Dion (1997) (single)
  • “Our American Journey” – Chanticleer (2002) (album)
  • “Back to Black” – Amy Winehouse (2006) (album)
  • “Minecraft: Volume Alpha” – Daniel Rosenfeld (2011) (album)
  • “Hamilton” – Original Broadway Cast Album (2015) (album)  

Other notes

  • As always, there’s an official playlist for the Class of 2025, courtesy of DIMA, the Digital Media Association.  Available wherever you listen to government curated playlists.
  • This is an okay roster of inductees. While there are no recordings I feel are undeserving of recognition, there are also none that I feel were long overdue either. To be fair, none of these are personal favorites of mine, so I don’t have any big emotional attachment to any of these recordings. As far as cultural significance, most of the albums are on here to represent the artists, not necessarily the songs. That being said, it’s nice seeing the likes of Helen Reddy, Tracy Chapman, and Amy Winehouse making the cut.
  • According to the NRR press release, “Chicago Transit Authority” received the most nominations from the public for this year’s roster, with “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “My Life” also ranking high among the 2600 nominated recordings. Even more reason to keep submitting your nominations: Your voice matters!
  • By my count, 11 of this year’s inductees hail in part or in full from the 1970s, easily making that the most represented decade in this class (second place is the 1990s with four). There’s nothing wrong with having this much ‘70s culture on one list, but doesn’t that seem a bit lopsided? On a related note: the NRR’s write-up on Charley Pride mentions his country music success occurring “[l]ong before Beyonce and others broke the presumed color line of country music”. We get it NRR; Charley Pride’s on here because of “Cowboy Carter”.
  • Among the artists this year who are also represented on the National Film Registry are Roy Rogers, Don Rickles, Elton John, and Celine Dion. I’m sure there’s more, especially among the talented creatives that worked behind the scenes of these recordings, but like I said, I had a long day at work so I’m not up to doing my usual amount of research.
  • Yes, you read that correctly: There is a collection of folk songs from Virginia singer and activist Nimrod Workman. As best I can tell, that is his real name. Fun Fact: The name Nimrod comes from the Bible, and didn’t catch on as an insult until around the time Mr. Workman was an adult.
  • Yes, you read that correctly, too: the Microsoft Windows Reboot Chime is on a list of important American recordings. I don’t know who lobbied for that one, but I salute you. The Windows Chime is to the NRR what “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” is to the NFR: the pick that seems like a random non-entity at first but ultimately expands the definition of a what should be on the Registry.
  • Today on “Dear God I’m Old”: music from “Minecraft” and “Hamilton” have been preserved by the Library of Congress. “Hamilton” is just barely hitting its decade mark for eligibility, but I’ll allow it because that show really was a big deal at the time. Take that, “Rent”!
  • And finally, a shoutout to Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress. I don’t talk about Carla a lot on this blog, but she is ultimately the one person deciding which films I am devoting my posts to, and the recordings I briefly touch on once a year. As much as I feel the U.S. government deserves to be criticized for some of its most recent decisions, I can’t turn my back on a subsection that has devoted literal centuries to preserving our art and culture. Please send your good thoughts to Carla and all other government employees who are out there helping champion the diverse voices and viewpoints that truly make America great.

Happy Listening,

Tony

The NFR Class of 1997: MMMBop

November 17th 1997: In the Library of Congress’ recently refurbished Thomas Jefferson Building, Librarian of Congress Dr. James Billington reveals the latest 25 films to join the National Film Registry, bringing the total to 225 movies. 28 years later, yours truly has finished watching all 25 from this class, which means it’s time for a recap. Here is the NFR Class of 1997, along with a blurb from each of my corresponding write-ups.

Other notes

  • We have something very rare with the NFR’s ’97 announcement: TV coverage! C-SPAN filmed and broadcast the Library of Congress’ press conference announcing these inductees, and the recording can be found on C-SPAN’s website. The whole thing is beautifully unpolished, but about as exciting as, well, a press conference. James Billington doesn’t even get to the list until 10 minutes in, and when he does, he rattles off the names and release dates with zero fanfare (He also gets a few names and dates wrong, at one point announcing the induction of “How the West Was Young”). I don’t know if this was the only year the NFR press conference was broadcast, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. This is also the earliest NFR announcement where I can find a corresponding article on the Library of Congress website. Ah, the early days of the internet.
  • In a nice bit of foreshadowing, one of the reporters at the NFR press conference asks about the recent acquisition by Congress of a storage facility in Culpeper, Virginia previously owned by the US Federal Reserve. This facility became the National Audiovisual Conservation Center in 2007 and contains the majority of the Library of Congress’ film, audio, and television collection.
  • The Class of 1997 seems to be one of extremes: the smaller movies are intimate, independent character studies, while the bigger movies are grand Hollywood epics, including three Best Picture Oscar winners. In its ninth year of inductees, the NFR’s 1997 selections are all movies that are worthy of recognition, but also definitely ninth round picks, waiting their turn until all the “untouchables” are inducted. Not a bad group at all, but not one of the more remarkable ones either. Regardless, in reviewing my original 25 posts, it’s nice seeing an NFR class that I endorsed across the board with few if any caveats.
  • Another rarity on the blog: an NFR movie referencing another NFR movie that was inducted in the same year. In this case, characters in “Secaucus Seven” reference the thumb-breaking scene from “The Hustler”. How retroactively meta.
  • When the Class of 1997 was announced, cult favorite “Starship Troopers” was #1 at the US box office. To date, the only future NFR movie in theaters that week was “Eve’s Bayou” (“L.A. Confidential” had just completed its run, and “Titanic” would not begin its box office domination until that December).
  • Among this year’s double-dippers: Actors James Stewart, Thelma Ritter, Russ Tamblyn, and Billy Gilbert, cinematographer Karl Struss, composer William Axt, production designer Cedric Gibbons, and visual effects artist A. Arnold Gillespie. James Stewart is one of the rare NFR artists with three entries in a single year (he passed away in July 1997, so that was no doubt on everyone’s mind during the selection process).
  • In addition to Stewart’s recent death, the pre-release cut of “The Big Sleep” received a limited theatrical release in 1997, so I’m sure that increased the film’s NFR chances. It also helped that Lauren Bacall was in the news in early 1997 when she received her first (and only) Academy Award nomination.
  • This year’s thematic double-dippers: Ensemble character studies, newsreels of tragic events from 1937, James Stewart with a significantly younger woman, treacherous river crossings, anti-fascism, stories in the Middle East, convoluted yet inconsequential murder mysteries, detectives later spoofed in “Murder by Death”, Fokker aircrafts, and pre-code nudity!
  • Favorites of my own subtitles: Nick & Nora’s Infinite Jest, Sound and Führer, Paint It Bach, Joey’s Day Out, Now, Voyeur, and OK Boomer: The Motion Picture. Not too many this round, but “Sound and Führer” is one of my all-time favorites.
  • More fun with subtitles; My alt “Rear Window” subtitle was “Peeping Jim”, which I also like. One subtitle that I cut was for the Hindenburg Footage: “Oh, The Posterity!” I thought it was funny, but it also seems in bad taste.
  • And finally, a joke I cut from my “Return of the Secaucus Seven” post. I initially had a “Title Track” section where I claimed that the film was originally called “Revenge of the Secaucus Seven”. Obviously not true, but if you know you know.

The NFR classes of 1998 and 1999 are coming up back-to-back in a few weeks, as well as movie #750! As always, thanks for reading, and given everything that’s going on these days, please, please keep taking care of each other.

Happy Viewing,

Tony

#745) The Naked Spur (1953)

#745) The Naked Spur (1953)

OR “Mutiny for a Bounty”

Directed by Anthony Mann

Written by Sam Rolfe & Harold Jack Bloom

Class of 1997

The Plot: In 1868, Howard Kemp (James Stewart) is traveling the Rocky Mountains in pursuit of wanted criminal Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan). With the help of local prospector Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell) and disgraced cavalryman Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker), Howard succeeds at capturing Ben, along with his female companion Lina Patch (Janet Leigh). Upon his capture, Ben reveals to Jesse and Roy that Howard isn’t a marshal as they originally assumed, but rather a bounty hunter determined to bring Ben in and collect a $5,000 reward. As the group treks across the mountains to turn Ben in, Ben fans the flames of everyone’s distrust for each other in the hopes of escape. The western genre heads to the Rockies in this expertly made tale of morality and greed.

Why It Matters: The film’s NFR write-up is brief, but it packs in salutes to the “tense psychological complexity” of Anthony Mann’s direction, the “strong, clear story-telling” of the screenplay, and the “vivid Technicolor” cinematography by William C. Mellor.

But Does It Really?: Longtime readers know that I don’t care for westerns, but I gotta say I enjoyed “The Naked Spur”. In 90 minutes, I got an intimate character study where five well-defined personalities have their moralities tested, matched by solid performances and great visual storytelling through the direction and cinematography. While the film’s legacy isn’t as strong as other westerns on the list, “Naked Spur” still holds up well 70 years later and is respected enough among western buffs that its NFR standing is justified. If you read my post on “Winchester ‘73” – the other James Stewart/Anthony Mann western on the list – you may remember my hesitation to deem the NFR worthiness of “Winchester” until I had seen “Naked Spur”. Having now watched both, “Naked Spur” is the better movie, but just barely. Both are well-crafted westerns that are worth a viewing, with “Naked Spur” having a slight edge over “Winchester” in terms of overall quality and cultural impact. I’ll rank “Naked Spur” a “minor classic” and “Winchester” a “minor classic/stepping stone”. Both films earn their spot on the Registry, with “Winchester” setting the stage for “Naked Spur”.

Everybody Gets One: Not a lot of information out there about writers Sam Rolfe or Harold Jack Bloom, but I do want to give them a shout-out because “The Naked Spur” was their first produced screenplay! Talk about hitting a home run your first time at bat. As for their careers after “Naked Spur”, see “Legacy” below.

Wow, That’s Dated: Even one of the greatest westerns ever made has its share of misogyny towards its one female character and racism towards the Indigenous tribe encountered by the group. I’d give this movie a Redface warning, but I don’t know who any of those actors are because they’re uncredited. Womp womp.

Seriously, Oscars?: In a very competitive year at the Oscars, “The Naked Spur” managed to earn one nomination for Best Original Screenplay, losing to “Titanic” (not that one).

Other notes

  • “The Naked Spur” was filmed almost entirely on-location in the San Juan Mountains near Durango, Colorado. In later interviews, Anthony Mann recalled how much he enjoyed filming a western in the Rockies, feeling that setting every western in the desert was visually uninteresting and didn’t represent all that the western US has to offer landscape-wise. Additional scenes were filmed in Lone Pine, California, which has similar terrain to the Rockies, but is significantly closer to Hollywood than the actual Rockies.
  • We’re not even past the opening credits and I already love this movie’s cinematography. The film succeeds at having it both ways: great, intimate compositions of our five leads and grand panoramas of the Rockies, and all in Technicolor no less! How William Mellor didn’t get an Oscar nomination for his work here is a sin of omission. Side Note: William Mellor is the credited cinematographer on six NFR titles, including “A Place in the Sun” (for which he won an Oscar), and “Bad Day at Black Rock” (another ensemble piece co-starring Robert Ryan with a large mountain range backdrop).  
  • Jimmy Stewart is great as always in this, and I appreciate any movie where he doesn’t lean on his “Jimmy Stewart-isms”, forgoing his trademark stammering and naivete for a more discipline, stoic performance. A bit of “Horse’s Head” housekeeping: James Stewart currently has 12 films on the NFR, and with this post I have now covered all 12! There’s still a decent number of titles left in his filmography with NFR potential (“Rope”, “Harvey”, “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, etc.), so I get the feeling we’ll see Jimmy again down the road.
  • It was not until near the end of this film that I realized Millard Mitchell also played the studio boss in “Singin’ in the Rain”. It’s amazing what a grizzled beard can do. Sadly, “Naked Spur” was one of Millard Mitchell’s final film performances; he died of lung cancer within a year of the film’s release.
  • Ralph Meeker is one of those actors who I can never quite place, despite appearing in two other NFR movies, including “Kiss Me Deadly” where he plays the lead! As Roy, Meeker is fine, but I don’t remember him being this smug in his other NFR entries.
  • Robert Ryan is quickly becoming one of my favorites on the blog. Here he’s playing a character along the lines of Hannibal Lecter or Glenn Ford in “3:10 to Yuma”; the captured criminal who gets the psychological upper hand on everyone around him. Not quite the heavy he is in “Bad Day”, but still an interesting character and an engaging performance. I look forward to seeing his third and as of this writing last NFR entry: “The Wild Bunch”.
  • As the obligatory “girl” in the movie, Janet Leigh doesn’t get as much to do as her co-stars, but at least she has more to do here than she did in “Manchurian Candidate”. And despite spending the entire movie roughing it in the mountains, Lina always has perfect hair and makeup with pearly white teeth and a tight bodice. Priorities, I guess.
  • The Blackfoot tribe primarily resides in the northwestern US, and while that would make their appearance in Colorado seem inaccurate, I’ll give it a pass because they are specifically hunting down Roy. Speaking of, Roy is recently discharged from the 6th Cavalry Regiment, which was stationed in Texas at the time, so the Blackfeet aren’t the only ones in this movie who are a long way from home.
  • About halfway through the film, Howard starts opening up about his past and the woman he lost along the way, with the parlor song “Beautiful Dreamer” weaving its way through the underscore. It’s hard not to hear Jimmy Stewart crying out for a woman named Mary without thinking of his past life in Bedford Falls.
  • This character development for Howard leads to a romantic connection with Lina, which begs the question: Why was every Jimmy Stewart movie in this era about him making out with significantly younger women? Stewart was 44 when he filmed “Naked Spur”, Janet Leigh was 25. I may have to rename my trademark Michael Douglas Scale after the original culprit.
  • The film’s third act involves our group’s difficulty crossing a river. Where are the Bakhtiari when you need them?
  • As we headed into the film’s climax, I started to wonder “Why is this movie called ‘The Naked Spur’?” Outside of a dramatic close-up during the opening credits, the spurs on Howard’s boots don’t get spotlighted or mentioned. No spoilers, but a spur does figure prominently into the finale, which is all well and good, but it still doesn’t answer my question about the title. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rolfe and Bloom just threw the title together because it sounded good and called it a day.

Legacy

  • While not a runway hit upon release, “The Naked Spur” was one of MGM’s biggest moneymakers of 1953 and received its share of critical praise. Since its release, “The Naked Spur” has been reevaluated as one of the best westerns ever made and is considered one of the westerns of the early ‘50s that helped redefine the genre, focusing on the psychology of its characters rather than the lionized morality of the wild west.
  • “The Naked Spur” was the third of an eventual eight film collaborations between Anthony Mann and James Stewart, concluding with 1955’s “The Man from Laramie”. After that, Mann directed such films as “God’s Little Acre” and “El Cid” and was unceremoniously fired from “Spartacus”. Anthony Mann died of a heart attack in 1967 while filming the spy movie “A Dandy in Aspic”, with the film’s star Laurence Harvey taking over directing responsibilities to finish production.
  • Both Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom continued their writing careers for the next 30 years, eventually producing their own material as well. Sam Rolfe would go on to create two popular TV shows: the western “Have Gun, Will Travel” and the ‘60s spy drama “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”. Harold Jack Bloom also had a prolific television career, penning episodes for, among many other things, “Have Gun, Will Travel” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”.
  • One more question about the title “The Naked Spur”: Is this where “The Naked Gun” gets its name from? I can’t find anything to support my theory, but that must be it, right? Whatever, here’s a clip.

#744) Cruisin’ J-Town (1975)

#744) Cruisin’ J-Town (1975)

OR “Hiroshima mon amour”

Directed by Duane Kubo

Class of 2023

“Cruisin’ J-Town” is currently available to stream on the VC Archives website on a pay-what-you-can sliding scale. So send a few bucks their way and check out their collection!

The Plot: UCLA’s Duane Kubo heads over to L.A.’s Little Tokyo (aka J-Town) to document the performances of Japanese fusion jazz band Hiroshima. While “Cruisin’ J-Town” is primarily footage of Hiroshima’s performances, we also get insight from the musicians, many of whom comment on their own identity struggles amidst the rising Asian-American movement of the early ‘70s. The result is an entertaining blend of Japanese tradition and the funkiness of ‘70s jazz.

Why It Matters: The NFR write-up is mostly a rundown of the film, though they call the interviewees “articulate and interesting”, so that’s something.

But Does It Really?: Oh yeah. “Cruisin’ J-Town” covers two favorites of the NFR: diverse culture and UCLA alumni. The film is an engaging and uplifting chronicle of third-generation Japanese Americans as they take the traditions of their ancestors and create something uniquely their own. And as always, I love anything on this list that’s short and/or has a great soundtrack. Welcome to the NFR, “Cruisin’ J-Town”!

Everybody Gets One: While at UCLA, Duane Kubo co-founded Visual Communications, an organization creating and promoting the art of Asian-American and Pacific Islander filmmakers.  I’m not sure exactly when or how Kubo met up with Hiroshima, which had started performing in Little Tokyo around 1974, but like Kubo, Hiroshima founder Dan Kuramoto was heavily influenced by the political movement of the late ‘60s and the growing Asian-American movement, so I’m not surprised these two found each other.

Wow, That’s Dated: The end credits list support from the U.S. Office of Education, a government department that split into the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just a few years after this film was released. I wrote this post back in December and initially had a joke about neither of those departments existing by the time this finally got published. I hate it when I’m right.

Title Track: Either the movie takes its title from one of Hiroshima’s songs, or the song gets its name from the movie, I’m not quite sure. Hiroshima released the song in 1980, though it could have been part of their set in 1975. Either way, it’s a banger.

Seriously, Oscars?: No nominations for “Cruisin’ J-Town” from the Oscars or any other awards organization. The 1975 winner for Best Documentary Short Subject was Robin Lehman’s “The End of the Game”, a film about conserving the Afric- wait a minute, didn’t I do this one already?

Other notes

  • Yes, the band is named after the city in Japan that was almost entirely destroyed by a nuclear bomb in 1945. While at first glance the naming seems in bad taste, the group was inspired by the city’s phoenix-like rise from the ashes of WWII (Today, Hiroshima is one of the largest cities in Japan). I like the name as a bit of reclaiming by this generation of Japanese Americans. For many, Hiroshima is still synonymous with its wartime decimation, but I like that there’s a small faction of the population out there that associate the name Hiroshima with the band.
  • There’s a lovely section of the movie in which Hiroshima member June Kuramoto – Dan’s then-wife – talks about inheriting her grandmother’s koto, the Japanese instrument that she rocks throughout the film. Side note: June is the only original member of Hiroshima who was from Japan, moving to Los Angeles with her family when she was six years old. The rest of the original Hiroshima line-up were all native Angelenos. Side Side note: How can you hate any movie that features a koto solo?
  • The final performance in the movie is a jam session with Hiroshima and Daniel Valdez with Teatro Campesino at the Performing Arts Center in San Jose (Kubo’s hometown). This marks Daniel Valdez’s fourth appearance on the NFR, the first outside of his collaborations with his brother Luis.
  • I don’t have a lot of notes on this movie; I was just enjoying it so much. The film is simultaneously light and deep, light because of its focus on the music, deep because of the band’s comments regarding racial identity. At the end of the movie, Dan Kuramoto is talking with Daniel Valdez and quotes someone who said that the arts are important because they are common, regardless of race or any other manmade barrier. You can’t see it, but I’m snapping my fingers in agreement.

Legacy

  • A few years after “Cruisin’ J-Town”, Duane Kubo co-directed “Hito Hata: Raise the Banner”, which was, according to New Day Films, “the first feature length narrative film created exclusively by Asian Americans.” Kubo returned to the Bay Area in the 1980s and continues to be active in the Asian film community, most recently his work with San Jose’s J-Town FilmFest.
  • Visual Communications is still around as well. Check them out!
  • In the last half-century, Hiroshima has released 20 albums (two of which went gold) and have received two Grammy nominations. As of this writing, Hiroshima is still performing with several of the original members seen in this film!