Genre

Monday, April 22, 2013

Davy Crockett in Paris (Reminiscence)

***

A small thing.

In the 1960s - perhaps having begun in the late 1950s - one of the most watched American t. v. shows was "The Adventures of Davy Crockett" starring the Texan Fess Parker.  My Dad, who followed the theatrical careers of a considerable number of UT graduates who went on to fame and fortune in acting (from such as Walter Cronkite and Eli Wallach to such as Do-Do McQueen or "L. Q. Jones" and Katherine Grandstaff or "Kathy Grant") had at least a vague recollection of Fess Parker's career on the University of Texas stage.

(He has subsequently made a name for himself as a wine-maker, I understand.)

The t.v. show was so popular, for so long, it must have been inevitable it would eventually be the basis of a full-length feature film in movie houses.

*

In 1962 I was caught up - not to say overwhelmed - in mastering the French language well enough so that I could take full advantage of spending an academic year in Paris.

As much as anything I was learning from bits of conversation I heard "on the streets" and from old movies.  So I came to know that there was a French equivalent for the way Americans used the word "ass."  Not the animal, you know, but a rather impolite way to refer to one's bottom, backside, derriere, posterior.

And, like the American word, the French one also had enough emotional power that it could be used for rhetorical impact: very much as we might have said something like "'Brilliant cinematic art' my ass!" about some pretentious new movie.  "'Billiant' ma fesse," one could say in French with the same level of rudeness, perhaps slapping one's backside to emphasize the point.

*

So I guess it should not have suprised and amused me late in the 1961-62 academic year to see on the marquee on the Champs-Elysees film theater that specialized in bringing the latest American film epics to the starving French public, boasting about "Now Showing" the much-anticipated "The Adventures of Davy Crockett, starring Frank Parker."

And one has to admit that it just wouldn't do to have said this popular box-office smash starred someone called Ass Parker, now would it?

***