The Friday Afternoon Club, a review.

Griffin Dunne's The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir is often funny, sometimes sad, and always interesting. I enjoyed it. Dunne has been around Hollywood celebrities his whole life, and he's been involved in the movie business for over 40 years as an actor, producer and director. He played Jack in An American Werewolf in London (1981). He wasn't the werewolf. That was his character's friend David, played by David Naughton. Jack was the werewolf's first victim. I was in high school when the movie came out, and I liked it a lot. It was a cheeky, fun horror movie. And the special effects were impressive for that period. As a kid who came from a West Virginia family of modest means, I liked the idea of backpacking across Europe with a friend.

Poltergeist came out the next year. That was another big movie that appealed to the teen crowd when I was in high school. Dominique Dunne played the older daughter, Dana. Sadly, Dominique was murdered by her boyfriend a few months after the movie was released. She was 22.

Dominick Dunne was the father of Griffin and Dominique. Back in the late '80s and throughout the '90s, he often talked about high profile murder cases in L.A. on TV chat shows. He also wrote a few successful novels as well as books and articles about Hollywood murders. Before his writing career, he was a Hollywood producer. One of the films he produced was The Boys in the Band. Dominick Dunne always triggered my gaydar when I saw him on TV, and as it turned out, he was primarily attracted to men. Although, when he finally came out late in life, he described himself as bi.

Griffin reveals in his book that his father had a relationship with Frederick Combs, the actor who played Larry, while The Boys in the Band was being made. And he had a relationship that lasted years with one of Dominique's male friends. Dominick was terrified people would discover his connection to this man during the trial of his daughter's killer because he was sure the defense lawyer would have used the information to paint him as a pervert and suggest to the jury that Dominique was part of a sleazy Hollywood family without morals. This was the 1980s, so I don't think Dominick was just being paranoid.

Even though Griffin was strongly attracted to girls since the start of puberty, as a teenager in the 1970s, he wondered if he had inherited his father's attraction to men. So one day when his father was out of town, Griffin went to his father's house and experimented with his father's boyfriend, a man whom closeted Dominick referred to as his valet. Although Griffin was not repulsed by the experience and was able to perform, when it was over, the "valet" told him he was definitely not gay.

As a long-time Star Wars fan, I was surprised and delighted to learn that Griffin and Carrie Fisher were best friends. They were, in fact, roommates when Carrie landed the part of Princess Leia. They lived in an upscale New York apartment paid for by Carrie's mother Debbie Reynolds.

John Dunne, the highly regarded journalist and writer, was Dominick Dunne's brother and Griffin's uncle. John's wife was the hugely successful and extremely talented writer Joan Didion.

I'm sure Griffin would freely admit that his writing talent doesn't come anywhere close to that of his aunt's, but his book is well worth the time, nevertheless.

Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969)

Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) was one of those literary films that received high marks from critics, but it didn't draw in the crowds. However, it was directed by James Ivory and produced by his partner Ismail Merchant, and I loved A Room with a View and Maurice was important to many LGBTQ people in the 1980s. It was groundbreaking. So I was interested in their latest project. And the film starred Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. I loved both of them, so that was another reason to watch.

The film was another period piece for Merchant and Ivory, but it switched from Edwardian England to 1930s Kansas City. Mr. and Mrs. Bridge are a conservative upper middle class couple with three children, Ruth, Carolyn and Douglas. They live in a comfortable home in the country club district, and they have a live-in maid. The film is based on two novels by Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969). I first read the novels about 20 years ago, and I revisited them last week. The film is a fairly faithful adaptation, but the novels are darker, and the social commentary has a sharper edge.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Bridge are commendable in many ways. They love their children and each other, and they are concerned with decency and fairness. But they're stuck in a bubble in terms of time and social class. Changing attitudes and mores confuse them and sometimes frustrate them, and they have a hard time understanding people who live outside their neighborhood. Their inability to adapt and open themselves up to knew ways of seeing and experiencing the world limits their capacity for intimacy with their children, their friends and even each other. They're always so proper and conventional.

Mrs. Bridge is far more likable than her husband. She is aware that her knowledge of the world is limited, and she does have empathy for others. But she has allowed her husband and her way of life to box her in. Her first name is India, and she wonders if her parents were thinking of another sort of girl when they gave her that name, someone more sophisticated and daring. At first it did look like Mrs. Bridge was going to be an independent woman. She was nearly 30 before getting married. However, when she settled down with Mr. Bridge she made it her goal in life to do exactly what was expected of the wife of a prominent Kansas City lawyer.

Throughout the 1920 and '30s, she focused on her children. The house was taken care of by her maid, and the yard was tended to by a gardener that came once a week. Douglas gave her the most trouble when he was a boy. She would tell him how things were done, and he would always demand to know why. Mrs. Bridge usually didn't have an answer. These episodes were often funny. For instance, when guests were in the house, guest towels were put out in the bathrooms. But no one used the fancy guest towels, not even the guests. When they had guests, everyone used tissues to dry their hands, even the guests. But one time, Douglas used one of the guest towels, and when Mrs. Bridge saw one of her fancy towels had been soiled, she scolded the boy. But he told her the practice of hanging towels no one used seemed silly to him. Mrs. Bridge realized her son had a point, so she didn't know how to argue with him. She just insisted he follow "the rules." When Douglas reached a certain age, she said it was time he start wearing a fedora like his father. Douglas resisted at first, but then he agreed to go to a men's shop and buy a hat. But then he started wearing it everywhere. He even played basketball with it on. And he pushed it up onto the back of his head, and he got a big slogan button that said, "Let's get acquainted" and pinned it the side of the hat. Mrs. Bridge was exasperated.

When the kids got older, Mrs. Bridge was lost. She had very little to do. The house was taken care of by the maid. The children didn't need her anymore. In fact, they found her annoying and silly. And Mr. Bridge worked long hours. Several of her female friends were in the same boat. So the novels had a feminist element. One of Mrs. Bridge's closest friends was so frustrated by the constraints put upon her as the wife of a banker, she committed suicide.

The first novel, Mrs. Bridge, ends just as the film ends. Mrs. Bridge heads out on a snowy morning to do a little shopping. She climbs into the Lincoln that was a gift from her husband some years before, a car that she refused to part with even when Mr. Bridge offered to buy her a new one. And she gets stuck when the car stalls when she's backing out of the garage. The garage doors pin her in. In the film, we're told Mr. Bridge eventually comes home and rescues his wife. But in the book, Mr. Bridge has died of a heart attack. Mrs. Bridge is alone. She has failed to adapt and change with the times. She doesn't know how to live on her own. So there she is by herself, stuck in the past.

In the film, Mr. Bridge comes off as introverted and a bit stuffy. But in the books, Mr. Bridge is a racist who has little empathy for anyone outside of his class who struggles with life. In Mr. Bridge's mind, he has worked hard for everything he has, and sees no reason why others can't do the same. He has a strong distaste for Jewish people. He misses an investment opportunity because the man giving the investment advise to his friends is a Jewish man, so Mr. Bridge is sure he's a social climber who doesn't know what he's talking about. He resents it when he learns the nephew of their maid plans to attend Harvard. And when a Black girl attempts to join Carolyn's sorority, Mr. Bridge insists the girl is a troublemaker who should "know her place." When Mrs. Bridge is deeply disturbed by a photo of a lynching she sees in a magazine, she takes the photo to Mr. Bridge and asks why anyone would do such a thing. Mr. Bridge has the nerve to blame the violence on the victim. He says he has been to the South, and all the White people there were very nice to him, so he's sure the Black man must have done something to provoke his attackers. We learn that a White man in Mr. Bridge's social circle, a senator who is running to be governor, once borrowed 500 dollars from Mr. Bridge and has never paid it back. At the time, that was a huge sum of money. Mr. Bridge resents the man and thinks poorly of him, but he doesn't judge other White men by what this one man did to him. However, when the maid asks for an advance on her salary, Mr. Bridge refuses and claims this is an example of how Black people often feel entitled to what they haven't earned and how they're irresponsible with money. Sometimes, you just want to shake the shit out of him. But when his prejudice is pointed out to him, he deflects. He insists he is right.

But not everything Mr. Bridge does, thinks and says is awful. For instance, an older boy once attacked Douglas, but Douglas is very proud of the fact he was able to defend himself. Mr. Bridge wants to hear the details. Douglas's attacker was the son of some people Mr. and Mrs. Bridge know. His parents insisted he was a genius and allowed him to be rude and critical of others. He waited on Douglas and pretended to read, but he concealed a rock under his book and threw it Douglas, even though Douglas had done nothing to him. Mr. Bridge realizes this boy is dangerous and instructs his son to stay away from him, and to not fight back if the boy ever attacks him again, and never turn his back on him. Douglas agrees, but doesn't understand why his father wouldn't want him to defend himself. Mrs. Bridge is confused, too, and asks Mr. Bridge to explain himself when Douglas is out of the room. Mr. Bridge points out that Douglas is a boy, and he thinks like a boy, but this other older kid is smart, and he's not to be trusted. Mr. Bridge doesn't use the term psychopath, but that's clearly what he thinks this other boy is. And sure enough, a couple of years later, the headline in the local paper proclaims the boy had killed his parents. Mr. Bridge does care for his family, and he looks out for them.

Their oldest daughter Ruth is the one who breaks out of their suburban gilded prison. As a young adult, she moves to New York and becomes an editor of a literary magazine. She befriends artists, intellectuals and bohemians, regardless of class, religion, race or ethnicity. One of her closest friends is a gay man. Mr. Bridge is horrified, and Mrs. Bridge doesn't even know what a homosexual is.

Of course, these novels are dated. The events described take place in a different era. But I was struck by how many of the themes are still relevant. A hundred years later, and we're still struggling with racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and distrust of outsiders. And we still struggle with loneliness and being stuck inside of our own heads. These novels are episodic, and nothing extremely dramatic happens, but they provide deep insight into the human condition.

Canaries In A Coal Mine

Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time is a 5 part National Geographic documentary about what happened in New Orleans 20 years ago. The storm made landfall on August 29, 2005. The next morning, it seemed there was only minimal damage. TV reporters on location told the world the city had dodged a bullet. But then the levee system failed.

The series uses archival footage and interviews of people who were in the city to reconstruct what happened. There is a special emphasis on the poor Black people who were not evacuated and left stranded for nearly a week.

Storms happen, but much of the destruction and suffering caused by Katrina was avoidable. Much of the surrounding wetlands had been seriously damaged by the oil industry. There wasn't much effort to restore that natural buffer because it would have cost money. The levee system was poorly designed and desperately needed to be reinforced, and this was well known for decades. But nothing was done because that would have cost money. The year before, the city staged an exercise to see what would happen if a major hurricane hit. They knew then that many poor, disabled and elderly citizens had no way of getting out of the city on their own. There was a proposal to use buses to pick those people up in their own neighborhoods and transport them to shelters outside the city. But that would have cost money, so the plan wasn't implemented.

There was a lot of media attention after the flooding began and thousands were stranded in the city in hot weather without drinking water and food. Many were still stuck in their houses or on their roofs surrounded by flood water. But soon the media and officials began to focus more on looting than rescue efforts. The crime rate was greatly exaggerated. There were some bad actors doing some bad stuff, to be sure, but most of the people in the stores were there to get necessary supplies. They were looking for food, water, medication, and clean clothes and shoes. The gun shots were often calls for help. Some of those stuck on their roofs fired into the air hoping this would draw rescuers to them. But very quickly the media gave outsiders the impression New Orleans had turned into a wild, lawless and dangerous place. As a result, National Guardsmen, many of whom were recent war veterans, game into the city with the attitude they were they to put down a rebellion rather than engage in a rescue mission. 20 years later, and it still seems unreal that so many were left in that horrible situation for nearly a week while the world watched on television.

New Orleans did rebuild. It's a thriving city once more. But many of those poor people whose families had lived there for generations were unable to return. There was a lot of grant money available for several years following the storm, but the rules for getting the money made it difficult for the poor to take advantage. Most of the money went to middle class and affluent families.

One elderly man at the end warned us. He said the poor Black people of New Orleans were like canaries in a coal mine. The monied interests who have taken control of our country will quickly leave the rest of us behind and label us criminals if we ever get in their way.

The docuseries is streaming on HULU.